http://www.archive.org/details/rabbiandpriest goldrich rabbi and priest. a story by milton goldsmith. philadelphia: jewish publication society of america. . copyright, , by the jewish publication society of america. press of edward stern & co. philadelphia. preface. towards the end of , there arrived at the old pennsylvania railroad depot in philadelphia, several hundred russian refugees, driven from their native land by the inhuman treatment of the muscovite government. among them were many intelligent people, who had been prosperous in their native land, but who were now reduced to dire want. one couple, in particular, attracted the attention of the visitors, by their intellectual appearance and air of gentility, in marked contrast to the abject condition of many of their associates. joseph kierson was the name of the man, and the story of his sufferings aroused the sympathy of his hearers. the man and his wife were assisted by the relief committee, and in a short time were in a condition to provide for themselves. the writer had the pleasure of meeting mr. kierson a few years later, and elicited from him a complete recital of his trials and an account of the causes of the terrible persecution which compelled such large numbers of his countrymen to flee from their once happy homes. his story forms the nucleus of the novel i now present to my readers. while adhering as closely as possible to actual names, dates and events, it does not pretend to be historically accurate. in following the fortunes of mendel winenki, from boyhood to old age, it endeavors to present a series of pictures portraying the character, life, and sufferings of the misunderstood and much-maligned russian jew. in the description of russia's customs and characteristics, the barbarous cruelty of her criminal code and the nihilistic tendency of the times, the author has followed such eminent writers as wallace, foulke, stepniak, tolstoi and herzberg-fraenkel. the accounts of the riots of will be found to agree in historic details with the reports which were published at the time. with this introduction, i respectfully submit the work to the consideration of an indulgent public. milton goldsmith. philadelphia, april, . chapter i. recruits for siberia. we are in russia. on the high road from tscherkask to togarog, and not far from the latter village, there stood, in the year , a large and inhospitable-looking inn. its shingled walls, whose rough surface no paint-brush had touched for long generations, seemed decaying from sheer old age. its tiled roof was in a most dilapidated state, displaying large gaps imperfectly stuffed with straw, and serving rather to collect the rain and snow for the more thorough inundation of the rooms below than to protect them from the elements. the grounds about the house were in keeping with it in point of picturesque neglect, and were as innocent of cultivation as the building was of paint. a roughly paved path led from the highway to the tavern door. two old and sickly poplar trees cast a poor and half-hearted shade upon the parched ground, and mournfully shook their leaves over the scene of desolation. the herbage grew in isolated patches on a black and uncultivated soil. nature might have originally been friendly to the place, but generations of poverty and neglect had reduced it to a condition of wretched misery. as was this particular spot, so was the entire village. slavery had wound its chains about the inhabitants, stifling whatever energy they possessed, entailing upon them constant toil to satisfy the exorbitant demands of their task-masters. hence, even with a genial sun and a southern climate, the fields were barren, the crops poor and the people sunk in abject poverty. the dilapidated inn, or _kretschma_, was known in the vicinity by the ideal and appropriate name of "paradise"--appropriate, because in it many a sinner had been tempted and had fallen from grace. it was the popular rendezvous of the village peasants. thither the serfs living in the village of togarog and for miles around, would repair after their labors in the fields, and forget their fatigue in a dram of rank russian _vodka_. upon the barren plot of ground before the tavern, the _mir_, or communal assembly, was wont to meet, and in open session elect its elder, decide its quarrels, allot its ground to the heads of families, and frame its rude and primitive laws. in its bare and smoke-begrimed public room, the people of togarog assembled night after night, and discussed, as far as the autocratic government of the czar nicholas would allow, the political news of the day. poor souls! they enjoyed little latitude in this direction. items of information concerning the acts of the central government in st. petersburg were few and vague. the newspapers, owing to an extremely severe censorship, gave but meagre accounts of the political situation in the capital, and these were of necessity favorable to the government. now and then, however, came rambling accounts of insurrections, of acts of cruelty, of large bodies of political offenders banished to a life-long slavery in siberia. at times came the news that the czar had been inspired by providence to inaugurate some new and important reform, only to be followed by the announcement that satan had held a conference with his imperial majesty, and that the reform had fallen through. all such information was carried into togarog by word of mouth, for few of the good _moujiks_ could read the papers. woe to anyone, however, who allowed his tongue too great a license! woe to him who dared utter a suggestion that the existing laws bore heavily upon him. it was a dangerous experiment to criticise in a hostile spirit any of the abuses heaped upon the degraded people. the condition of russia was deplorable.[ ] insurrection and rebellion nourished in all parts of the empire. degraded to the lowest depths, the crushed worm turned occasionally, but free itself it could not. brave spirits arose for whom exile had no terrors. with their rude eloquence they incited their fellow-sufferers to throw off the yoke of tyranny and assert their freedom; and the morrow found them wandering toward the snow-bound confines of siberia. patriotism was not very much encouraged in russia. the proprietor of the tavern, a burly, red-faced cossack, peter basilivitch by name, was in the employ and under the protection of the governor of alexandrovsk, in which department the village of togarog lay. the rent paid by basilivitch was nominal, it is true, but he sold enormous quantities of liquor, all of which he was obliged to buy from the governor's stills; furthermore, he furnished his master with such information concerning the actions, words, and even thoughts of his patrons, as came under his observation; and as the serfs that frequented "paradise" had no suspicion of the true relation betwixt master and man, the governor was enabled to keep himself accurately informed as to the sayings and doings of his subjects. let us enter the public room, this bright sunday afternoon in the month of april, in the year . a dense crowd has assembled to-day to do honor to basilivitch's wretched liquor. the face of the host fairly gloats in anticipation of the lucrative harvest that he will glean. he rubs his hands gleefully, as he orders his servants about. "here, ivan, a pint of _vodka_, and be quick about it! alexander, you lazy dog, here comes the village elder, selaski starosta--see that he is served!" and the crowd continues to grow, until his room will scarcely seat all the guests. there are sturdy farmers, wearing their heavy coats and fur caps, in spite of the sultry weather and still warmer alcoholic beverages, and swearing and vociferating in sonorous russian. there are gossiping women, decked in their caps and many-colored finery. there are smartly-arrayed young girls, chatting merrily with the swains at their side. unruly children scamper, barefooted and bareheaded, around and under the tables. puling infants and barking dogs add their discord to the din and confusion. it is a scene one is not apt to forget. we repeat it, this is sunday; the one day when the arm of the laborer obtains a respite from the tasks imposed upon it during the week; and the serf of russia knows no diversion, can find no relaxation, but in the genial climate of a tavern. but this is no ordinary occasion. not every sunday ushers in so bountiful a supply of customers to peter basilivitch's inn as this. there must be something of unusual importance, perhaps some interesting bit of rumor from the capital, that unites the inhabitants of togarog. after the alcoholic beverages that are so freely imbibed fulfil their mission and loosen the wits and the tongues of these good _moujiks_, we may arrive at the cause. nor have we long to wait. already in the far corner of the dingy and smoke-obscured room, we hear voices in altercation; a hot, angry dispute forces itself upon our ears, and the people cease their revels to listen. "say what you will," shouted one fur-bedecked individual; "it is an outrage! we are already burdened with enough taxes. three days of the week we must work for the master of our lands, and but three days are left us for our own support; and now they want to tax us again for a war in which we have no interest." "but the czar must have the money," retorted another. "the people of poland are in a state of rebellion, and the army has already been ordered out to subdue that province." "let them tax the nobles, then," angrily cried a third. "why do they constantly bleed the poor peasant? do they want to suck the last drop of our life's blood? i tell you, we ought not submit." "how will you help yourselves?" sneeringly asked the host, who, with napkin tucked under his chin, stood near the speakers, and lost not a word of the conversation. how, indeed? silence fell over the disputants. the question had been asked, alas! how often, but the answer had not yet been forthcoming. "let us arise and organize," at length cried the first speaker, one podoloff by name, who was known as a man of great daring and more than average intelligence, and who had upon more than one occasion been unconsciously very near having himself transported to siberia. "let us organize!" he repeated. "think ye we alone are tired of this wretched existence? think ye that the peasants of radtsk and mohilev and kief are less human than ourselves, and that they are less weary of the slavery under which they drag out a miserable existence? let us assert our rights! with the proper organization, and a few good leaders, we could humble this proud nobility and bring it to our feet. there was a time when the russian peasant was a free man, with the privilege to go whither he pleased, but a word from an arrogant ruler changed it all, and we are now bound and fettered like veritable slaves." a murmur of surprise swept through the room. such an incendiary harangue was new to the serfs of that region. never before had such revolutionary doctrines been openly advanced. subdued complaints, undefined expressions of discontent, were frequent, and were as frequently repressed, but such an outspoken insult to the reigning nobility, such a fearless invitation to rebellion against the authorities, were unheard of. the village elder, a venerable and worthy man, arose and sought to check the fiery eloquence of the orator. "be silent, podoloff," he commanded. "it is not for you to speak against the existing order of things. your father and your father's father were content to live as you do, and were none the worse for it. by what right do you complain?" "by the right that every human being ought to enjoy!" retorted podoloff. "our condition is growing worse every year. last year the czar imposed a tax on account of the disturbances in poland. three months later, the governor created another tax to pay for his new palace. now there is to be still another tax, bigger than the last. no; we ought not to stand it. it has reached the limit of endurance." murmurs of approval arose from various quarters, only to be quickly suppressed by the cooler heads in the assembly. "still we have much to be thankful for," said an old cobbler, sobelefsky by name. "the nobles are very kind to us. they supply us with implements and find a market for our grain." "and for that they rob us of our money and our liberty," retorted podoloff, hotly. "ask simon schefsky there, how much he owes to our gracious governor, who last year took from him his pretty daughter, that her charms might while away his weary hours in alexandrovsk." "he is a tyrant!" shouted several women, their rough cheeks tingling at the recollection of recent indignities. the cry was taken up by many of the poor wretches present. what material there was in "paradise" for the infernal regions of siberia! in vain did selaski starosta endeavor to make himself heard. in vain did the older and more conservative among the company advise caution. the passion of an angry and enslaved people had for the moment broken its bonds, and the tumult could not be quelled by mere words. "see!" cried podoloff, emboldened by his success. he sprang upon a table and tore a paper from his pocket. "yesterday i went to kharkov to sell some cattle. i found that the people there had already organized. they have sent a petition to the czar, asking for greater liberties. here is a copy. let me read it to you," and, amid a silence as profound as the occasional bark of a dog or the wail of a child would permit, podoloff read the following: "russia, o czar, confided to thee supreme power, and thou wert to her as a god upon earth. what hast thou done? blinded by passion and ignorance, thou hast sought nothing but power! thou hast forgotten russia! thou hast consumed thy time in reviewing troops, in altering uniforms, in signing the legislative papers of ignorant charlatans. thou hast created a despicable race of censors of the press, that thou mightst sleep in peace, and never know the wants, never hear the murmurs of thy people, never listen to the voice of truth. truth! thou hast buried her. for her there is no resurrection. thou hast refused liberty. at the same time thou wast enslaved by thy passions. by thy pride and thy obstinacy thou hast exhausted russia. thou hast armed the world against her. humiliate thyself before thy brothers! bow thy haughty forehead in the dust! implore pardon! ask counsel! throw thyself in the arms of thy people. there is no other way of salvation for thee!"[ ] podoloff replaced the paper in his pocket, and looked triumphantly about him. a twofold sentiment greeted the reading of this wonderful manifesto. the younger generation were disposed to applaud it, but the older men, those who preferred to bear the evils they had rather than fly to those they knew not of, shook their fur-capped heads in doubt. "did the writers sign their names to that article?" asked the circumspect old cobbler. "not they," answered podoloff. "they valued their lives too highly. but nearly every village in the north has sent the czar a similar petition. nicholas must in the end perceive our misery, and lighten our burdens." "or make our existence doubly bitter," answered old schefsky. "it is a dangerous experiment." "the government will take no notice of it, unless it be to double your taxes," said the elder. at the word "taxes," a new storm of wailing and imprecations broke out. "i could not pay another kopeck," cried one cadaverous looking wretch. "i work myself to death, and as it is can hardly keep starvation from the door." "why don't they tax the nobles?" asked another. "they can stand it." "or the jews," cried a third, whose liberal potations of alcohol had brought him to the verge of intoxication. "let them take all they possess. a jew don't work in the fields. he has no right to wealth!" here was a topic upon which all these people were cordially agreed. "oppress the jews." there was not a dissenting voice in the room. "the czar has need of soldiers. why don't he take the sons of jews for his wars?" "we must sit and toil till our nails fall off, while the jews do nothing but grow rich." "we'll have no more of it! let the jews pay the taxes." and so the cry went on. glass after glass of _vodka_ moistened the capacious throats that had shrieked themselves hoarse, and in the cry of "down with the jews!" the other more dangerous cry of "down with the nobles!" was for the moment forgotten. it was with difficulty that the elder of the commune could make himself heard above the din. "my friends," he finally said, "i am afraid we have made bad work of it to-day. should this get to the governor's ears, i fear some of us will suffer. i hope, however, that what we have to-day heard and discussed will remain our secret. i trust all of you. i am sure there is no traitor among us who would betray our deliberations to the governor. as regards our condition, let us be patient. we have nothing serious to complain of. if the czar needs money, ours should be at his disposal. if he needs men for the army, we are his subjects and his property. whatever he does, is for the best. let us submit. as to the manifesto we have just heard, we will have none of it. other _mirs_ may do as they please, but we will remain loyal to our czar and our governor, and live our quiet, uneventful lives." these words, delivered in a simple but forcible manner by the acknowledged head of the village, did not fail of their desired effect. the rabble, realizing the danger into which its enthusiasm had hurried it, became but too anxious to appear on the side of the government. those who had been loudest in their outcry, now meekly protested against disloyalty, and podoloff suddenly found himself bereft of all friends, with the exception of three or four fearless supporters, as stanch as their leader. in vain he sought by his eloquence to regain his lost ground, but he was in a hopeless minority, and, gulping down the remaining spirits which stood before him, he prepared to leave the tavern. "continue to suffer," were his parting words. "no people is worse off than it deserves to be. but the day is not far distant when the serf shall be able to hold up his head, a free man, and that will be accomplished as soon as you all feel the humiliation of being slaves!" the meeting broke up in great disorder. sentiment appeared to be divided, but the radicals were very circumspect in their remarks, for earlier experience had taught them that, under an autocratic government like that of czar nicholas, silence was golden. the blandly smiling host, basilivitch, went from group to group, threw in a word here and a suggestion there, smiled at this man's eloquence and ridiculed that man's caution, all the while making a mental inventory of the facts he would lay before the governor on the next morning. the peasants, when they retired for the night, felt none of that pleasurable exaltation which should accompany a step towards liberty, but were oppressed by the weight of an undefined terror, as though they were on the verge of some catastrophe. footnotes: [footnote : "looking about, one saw venality in full feather, serfdom crushing people like a rock, informers lurking everywhere. no one could safely express himself in the presence of his dearest friend. there was no common bond, no general interest. fear and flattery were universal."--_tourgenieff._] [footnote : leroy-boileau.] chapter ii. master and man. a clear april morning was dawning when basilivitch saddled his horse and rode off in the direction of alexandrovsk, at which place he arrived at noon and at once repaired to the governor's residence. a crowd of idle and flashily-dressed servants, all of whom were serfs, lounged about the new and stately palace, and found exhilarating amusement in setting their ferocious dogs upon the unoffending farmers who happened to pass that way. the greater the fear evinced by the victims, the greater was the delight of the humorously inclined menials, and if perchance a dog succeeded in fixing his fangs in the garments or calf of a pedestrian their mirth found vent in ecstatic shouts of laughter. basilivitch had on more than one occasion been upon such errands as that which brought him to-day, and seemed on terms of familiarity with the liveried guardians of the palace. they obligingly called off their dogs, and at once announced the innkeeper to his excellency, general drudkoff. the governor had dined sumptuously and received his henchman graciously. stretching himself upon a sofa and lazily rolling a cigarette, he said: "well, basilivitch, what news do you bring? how fare my good subjects at togarog?" "i have bad news, your excellency," answered basilivitch. "my heart is sad at the information i have to impart. insurrection is rife in our village, and not only your excellency, but also his majesty the czar is in imminent danger." the governor sprang up from his couch, and his face became ashen white with fear. there was perhaps no man in all russia more cruel, and at the same time more cowardly, than this general drudkoff. "explain yourself," he cried, at length recovering from his terror. "what do you mean?" thereupon the loyal basilivitch began a recital of the events of the previous evening. nor did he spare exaggeration where it suited him to strive for effect. according to his version, podoloff had incited his fellow-peasants to march at once to alexandrovsk and attack his excellency in the palace. the line of march had already been formed with the arch agitator, podoloff, at the head. "i saw," said basilivitch, waxing warm as his recital progressed, "i saw that it would fare ill with your excellency if the progress of the mob was not arrested. with a handful of friends, therefore, i threw myself in front of the insurgents and commanded them to disband." "well done," cried the governor, upon whom every word made a profound impression. "what did podoloff do?" "he would have come on alone, but i overpowered him and secured him in my barn, where he spent the night in imprecations against your excellency." "you did well, basilivitch, and i shall not forget you. but who were podoloff's accomplices? you say a number of men supported him in his treasonable utterances." "yes; there were fully a dozen of them," said basilivitch, counting upon his fingers, and enumerating a number of poor innocents, whose only offence lay in the fact that basilivitch owed them some private grudge. "there were quite a number of jews in the assembly," continued the innkeeper; "and their presence seemed to cause a great deal of ill-feeling." now it happened that there was not a single jew in the tavern on that memorable sunday. the twelve israelitish families of togarog found sufficient relaxation and entertainment in their own circle, and did not in the least yearn after the boisterous and uncivil companionship of russian _moujiks_. alas! they knew but too well that taunts and insults would be their portion, if they but dared to show themselves at one of these public gatherings. moreover, the jews were in the midst of their passover, a time during which the partaking of any refreshments not prepared according to their strict ritual is sternly interdicted. be that as it may, basilivitch did not allow such simple facts to stand in his way. he had come with a very pretty and effective tale, and drew largely upon his imagination to make it dramatic. "ah, the jews again!" hissed the governor. "did they take an active part in the insurrection?" basilivitch was forced to admit that they did not. the governor appeared disappointed. "well, what matters it?" he said. "they have been a menace to us long enough. i doubt whether they have a legal right to live in this part of russia. we must investigate the matter. in the meantime, we will make an example of them. give me the names of those hebrews that were present." basilivitch's powers of improvisation failed him. in vain he endeavored to remember the names of the jews who would most likely have been implicated in such an affair, but the names had slipped his memory. "your excellency," he stammered, "i never could tax my memory with their outlandish names." "it is of no consequence," said the governor. "a jew is a jew. we will make an example of the entire tribe. and now, good basilivitch, of what do the people complain?" "it is a mere bagatelle, your excellency. they would like to imitate their betters and live a life of ease and luxury; as though a serf were created for anything but labor. they complain that they cannot lie upon a bed of roses. they want their taxes remitted and would like their children to be sent to school, to be brought up to detest honest work." "preposterous!" exclaimed the governor. "what else have they to complain of?" "they say that, while they must toil from morning till night, the jews do nothing but amass wealth; that they must provide men for the army, while the jews remain at home." "stop!" cried the governor in a fury. "is what they say concerning the jews true?" "it is, your excellency. they do not work in the fields, they have no trades, they simply buy and sell and make money." the governor paced the room in silence, an occasional vehement gesture alone giving evidence of the agitation or fear that was raging within him. finally, he stopped and stood before the obsequious basilivitch. "we will find a plan to humble the haughty race," he said. "return to togarog and keep your eyes open. make out a list of the jews in the village, and find out exactly how many boys there are in each family, and what are their ages. we will remove the brats from their parents' influence and send them to the army, where they will soon become loyal soldiers and faithful catholics. bring me the names of the _moujiks_ who supported podoloff in his rebellion. i shall send them to siberia to reflect on the uncertainty of human aspirations. now, go! here is a rouble for you. should any new symptoms of revolt show themselves, send me word at once." scarcely had the door closed upon basilivitch, before the governor rang for his secretary. "send two officers to togarog at once," he commanded. "it appears my good serfs are becoming unruly, and would like a taste of freedom. let the officers disguise themselves as peasants, and carefully observe every action of podoloff and his friends. let our faithful basilivitch also be watched. i have my suspicions concerning that fellow. he is too ready with his information." the secretary left the room to fulfil the governor's instructions, while basilivitch remounted his horse and returned to his _kretschma_, to serve, with smiling countenance and friendly mien, the men whom he had devoted to irretrievable ruin. chapter iii. a family in israel. in a remote portion of togarog, and separated from the main village by a number of wretched lanes, lay the jewish quarter. a decided improvement in the general condition of the houses which formed this suburb was plainly visible to the casual observer. the houses were, if possible, more unpretentious than those of the serfs, yet there was an air of home-like comfort about them, an impression of neatness and cleanliness prevailed, which one would seek for in vain among the semi-barbarous peasants of southern russia. to the inhabitants of these poor huts, home was everything. the ordinary occupations, the primitive diversions of the serfs, were forbidden them. shunned and decried by their gentile neighbors, the jews meekly withdrew into the seclusion of their dwellings, and allowed the wicked world to wag. their "home" was synonymous with their happiness, with their existence. the shadows of evening were falling upon the quiet village. above, the stars were beginning to twinkle in the calmness of an april sky, and brighter and brighter shone the candles in the houses of the jews, inviting the wayfarer to the cheer of a hospitable board. it is the jewish sabbath eve, the divine day of rest. the hardships and worry of daily toil are succeeded by a peaceful and joyous repose. the trials and humiliations of a week of care are followed by a day of peace and security. the poor, despised hebrew, who, during the past week, has been hunted and persecuted, bound by the chain of intolerance and scourged by the whip of fanaticism; who, in fair weather and foul, has wandered from place to place with his pack, stinting, starving himself, that he may provide bread for his wife and little ones, has returned for the sabbath eve, to find, in the presence and in the smiles of his dear ones, an ample compensation for the care and anxiety he has been compelled to endure. at the end of the street, and not far from the last house in the settlement, stands the house of prayer. thither the population of the jewish quarter wends its way. men arrayed in their best attire, and followed by troops of children, who from earliest infancy have been taught to acknowledge the efficacy of prayer, enter the synagogue. it is a poor, modest-looking enclosure. a number of tallow candles illumine its recesses. the _oron-hakodesh_, or ark containing the holy pentateuch, a shabbily-covered pulpit, or _almemor_, and a few rough praying-desks for the men, are all that relieve the emptiness of the room. around one side there runs a gallery, in which the women sit during divine service. in spite of its humble plainness, the place beams with cheerfulness; it bears the impress of holiness. gradually the benches fill. all of the men, and many of the boys who form the population of the quarter, are present. reb mordecai winenki, the reader, begins the service. prayers of sincere gratitude are sent on high. the worshippers greet the sabbath as a lover greets his long-awaited bride--with joy, with smiles, with loving fervor. the service is at an end and the happy participants return to their homes. beautiful is the legend of the sabbath eve. when a man leaves the synagogue for his home, an angel of good and an angel of evil accompany him. if he finds the table spread in his house, the sabbath lamps lighted, and his wife and children in festive attire, ready to bless the holy day of rest, then the good angel says: "may the next sabbath and all thy sabbaths be like this. peace unto this dwelling!" and the angel of evil is forced to say, "amen." no one, indeed, would, before entering one of these poor, unpainted huts expect to find the cheerful and brilliant interior that greets his eyes. let us enter one of the houses, that of reb mordecai winenki. the table is covered with a snow-white cloth. the utensils are clean and bright. the board is spread with tempting viands. an antique brass lamp, polished like a mirror, hangs from the ceiling, and the flame from its six arms sheds a soft light upon the table beneath. a number of silver candlesticks among the dishes add to the illumination. on this evening, mordecai returned from the synagogue with his son mendel, a lad of thirteen, and his brother-in-law, hirsch bensef, a resident of kief. mordecai was a thin, pale-faced, brown-bearded man of forty or thereabouts, with shoulders stooping as though under a weight of care; perhaps, though, it was from the sedentary life he led, teaching unruly children the elements of hebrew and religion. he had resided in togarog for fourteen years, ever since he had married leah, the daughter of reb bensef of kief. his wife's brother was a man of different stamp. he was a few years younger than mordecai. his step was firm, his head erect, his beard jet black, and his intellect, though not above the superstitious fancies of his time and race, was, for all ordinary transactions, especially those of trade, eminently clear and powerful. he was, as we shall see, one of the wealthiest jewish merchants in kief, and therefore quite a power in the community of that place. leah met the men at the door. "good _shabbes_, my dear husband; good _shabbes_, brother," said the woman, cheerfully, her matronly face all aglow with pride and pleasure. "you must be famished from your long trip, brother." "yes, i am very hungry. i have tasted nothing since i left kharkov, at five o'clock this morning." "how kind of you to come all that distance to our boy's _bar-mitzvah!_ he can never be sufficiently grateful." "he is my god-child," said the man, affectionately stroking his nephew's head. "i take great pride in him. it has pleased the lord to deny me children, and the deprivation is hard to bear. sister, let me take mendel with me. i am rich and can give him all he can desire. he shall study talmud and become a great and famous rabbi, of whom all the world will one day speak in praise. you have still another boy, while my home is dreary for want of a child's presence. what say you?" but the mother had, long before the conclusion of this appeal, clasped the boy to her bosom, while the tears of love forced themselves through her lashes at the bare suggestion of parting from her first-born. "god forbid," she cried, "that he should ever leave me; my precious boy." and she embraced him again and again. meanwhile, the husband had crossed the room to where a little fellow, scarcely six years of age, lay upon a sofa. "well, jacob, my boy; how do you feel?" he asked, gently. "a little better, father," murmured the child. "my arm and ear still pain me, but not so much as yesterday." the boy sat up and attempted to smile, but sank back with a groan. "poor child, poor child," said the father, soothingly, "have patience. in a few days you will be about again." "is uncle here? i want to see uncle," cried the boy. hirsch bensef obeyed the call, and, going to the sufferer, kissed his burning brow. "why, jacob; how is this?" he said. "i did not know that you were sick. what is the trouble, my lad?" the child turned his face to the wall and shuddered. reb mordecai shook his head mournfully, while a tear he sought to repress ran down his furrowed cheek. "it is the old story," he said. "prejudice and fanaticism, hatred and ignorance." and while the sabbath meal waited, the father told his tale in a simple, unaffected manner, and the uncle listened with clenched hands and threatening glances. the day following the events in the _kretschma_, little jacob had wandered, in company with some christian playmates, through the village, and seeing the door of a barn wide open, his childish curiosity got the better of his discretion, and he peeped in. a brindled cow, with a pretty calf scarcely three days old, attracted his attention, and for some minutes he gazed upon the pair in silent ecstasy. then, knowing that he was on forbidden ground, he retraced his steps and endeavored to reach the lane where he had left his companions. the master of the farm, however, having witnessed the intrusion from a neighboring window, did not lose the opportunity to vent his anger against the whole tribe of inquisitive jews. on the following day the cow ran dry. in vain did the calf seek nourishment at the maternal breast; there was nothing to satisfy its cravings. the farmer, slow as he was in matters of general importance, was far from slow in tracing the melancholy occurrence to its supposed source. "that accursed jew has bewitched my cow," was his first thought, and his second was to find the author of the deed and mete out punishment to him. throughout the whole of russia, and even in parts of civilized germany, jews are accused of all manner of sorcery. the _cabala_ is the principal religious authority of the lower classes among the russian jews, and this may perhaps inspire such a preposterous notion. the jews, themselves, frequently believe that some one of their own number is in possession of supernatural secrets which give him wonderful and awful powers. many were the tortures which these poor people were doomed to endure for their supposed influence over nature's laws. it was an easy matter to find little jacob. his hours at the _cheder_ (school) were over. he was sure to be playing upon the streets, and his capture was quickly effected. seizing the innocent little fellow by the arm, the irate peasant lifted him off his feet, and dragged him by sheer force into the barn, where he confronted the malefactor with his victim. "so, you thought you could bewitch my cow," he hissed. "but i saw you, jew, and, by our holy czar, i swear that, unless you repair the damage, i shall feed your carcass to the dogs." poor jacob was too terrified to understand of what crime he had been accused. he looked piteously at his tormentor, and burst into tears. "well?" cried the peasant, impatiently; "will you take off the spell, or shall i call my dog?" the child, knowing that such threats were not made in vain, endeavored to plead his innocence, but the bellowing of the hungry calf outweighed the sobbing of the boy, and with an angry oath jacob was struck to the ground, and a ferocious bull-dog, but little more brutal than his master, was set upon the helpless little fellow. "please, mr. farmer, don't kill me," he pleaded, groaning in pain. "will you cure my cow?" demanded the peasant. "i'll try to; i'll do my best," sobbed the boy, whose pain made him diplomatic at last. the dog was called off, and the child, after promising to restore the cow to her former condition, was turned out into the lane, where his mother found him an hour later, unconscious, his body lacerated, one arm broken, and a portion of his right ear torn off. when reb mordecai concluded his sad narration, all about him were in tears. "just god!" exclaimed the uncle; "hast thou indeed deserted thy people, that thou canst allow such indignities? how long, o lord! must we endure these torments?" "nay, brother," sobbed the poor mother, while she caressed her ailing boy; "what god does is for the best. it is not for us to peer into his inscrutable actions. but come, mordecai, banish your sorrows. this is _shabbes_, a day of joy and peace. come, the table is spread." father and mother placed their hands upon the heads of their children, and pronounced the solemn blessing:--"may god let you become like ephraim and manasseh!" and the family took their places at the table. then mordecai made _kiddush_, which consisted in blessing the wine, without which no jewish sabbath is complete, and having pronounced _motzi_, a similar prayer over the bread, he dipped the latter in salt, and passed a small piece to each of the participants. it is a ceremony which no pious jew ever neglects. in spite of the recent affliction, the meal was a merry one. the poorest israelite will deny himself even the necessaries of life during the six working-days, that he may live well on the sabbath. reb mordecai was a poor man. he had a small income, derived from teaching the talmud to the children in the vicinity, from transcribing the holy scrolls, and from sundry bits of work for which he was fitted by his intellectual attainments. he was the most influential jew in the settlement and not even the fanatical serfs of the village could find a complaint to make against his character or person. the theme of conversation was naturally the family festival, which would take place upon the morrow. mendel having attained his thirteenth year and acquired due proficiency in the difficult studies of the jewish law, would become _bar-mitzvah_; in other words, he would take upon himself the responsibility of a man before god and the world, and acknowledge his readiness to act and suffer for the maintenance of the belief in _adonai echod_--the only god. mendel, under his father's tuition, had made rapid strides. he was the wonder of every male inhabitant of the community. his knowledge of the scriptures was simply phenomenal, and his philosophical reasoning puzzled and astonished his friends. "he will be a great rabbi some day," they prophesied. hirsch bensef had journeyed all the way from kief to take part in the family festival. there were some privileges which not even the wealthy jews of russia could purchase, and among them was the right to travel in a public conveyance. hirsch was obliged to journey as best he could. a kindly disposed wagoner had permitted him to ride part of the way, but the greater portion of the distance he was compelled to walk. still, at any cost, he had determined not to miss so important an event as his nephew's _bar-mitzvah_. the bread having been broken, the supper was proceeded with. the fish was succulent and the cake delicious. a lofty and religious sabbath sentiment enhanced the charm of the whole meal. then a prayer of thanks was offered, the dishes were cleared away and the family settled themselves at ease, to discuss the topics most dear to them. "you make a great mistake, sister," said bensef, "if you allow mendel to waste his time in this village. the boy is much too bright for his surroundings." "don't begin that subject again," said the mother, determinedly; "for i positively will not hear of his leaving. the parting would kill me." "but," continued her brother, "have you ever asked yourself what his future will be in this wretched neighborhood? shall he waste his precious years helping his father teach _cheder_? shall he earn a few paltry kopecks in making _tzitzith_ (fringes for the praying scarfs) for the _jehudim_ in the village? or, shall he cobble shoes or peddle from place to place with a bundle upon his back, which are the only two occupations open to the despised race?" "alas!" sighed the mother, "what you say may be true. but what would you propose for the boy?" "let him go with me to kief. there are nearly fifteen thousand of our co-religionists in that city; and, while their lot is not an enviable one, it is decidedly better than vegetating in a village. our celebrated rabbi jeiteles is getting old and we will soon need a successor. it is an honorable position and one which our little mendel will some day be able to fill. would you not like living in a big city, my boy?" mendel hovered between filial affection and a desire to see the big world. it was difficult to decide. "i should like to remain with father and mother--and jacob," he stammered, "and yet----" "and yet," continued his uncle, "you would love to come to kief, where everything is grand and brilliant, where the stores and booths are fairly alive with light and beauty, where the soldiers parade every day in gorgeous uniforms. ah, my boy, there is life for you!" "but how much of that life may the jews enjoy?" asked mordecai. "are they not restricted in their privileges and deprived of every possibility of rising in station? is their lot any happier than ours in this village, where, at all events, we are not troubled with the envy which the sight of so much luxury must bring with it?" "it will not always be so," said bensef, confidently. "with each year we may expect reforms, and where will they strike first if not in the cities? nicholas already has plans under consideration, whereby the condition of the serfs may be bettered." "how will that benefit our race?" "how? i will tell you. the serf persecutes the jew because he is himself persecuted by the nobility. there is no real animosity between the peasant and his jewish neighbors. our wretched state is the outgrowth of a petty tyranny, in which the serf desires to imitate his superiors. let the people once enjoy freedom and they will cease to persecute the hebrews, without whom they cannot exist." "absurd ideas," interrupted the teacher. "our degradation proceeds not from the people, but from those in authority. our lot will not improve until the messiah comes with sword in hand, to deliver us from our enemies. remember the proverb: 'the heavens are far, but further the czar.'" "but about mendel?" asked bensef, suddenly reverting to his original topic, for in spite of his hopeful theories, he did not feel sanguine that he would live to see their realization. "the matter is not pressing," said the father. "we can think it over, and decide before you return to kief." "no, no!" cried leah; "mendel must not leave us. promise to remain, my child!" but the boy was now delighted with the idea of accompanying his uncle. he asked a thousand questions concerning the wonderful town of kief, which suddenly became the goal of all his hopes and ambitions. bensef took the boy upon his lap and told him all about the great city, which had once been the capital of russia. mendel listened and sighed. his eyes beamed with pleasurable anticipation. before going to bed, he threw his arms about his mother's neck. "mother," he whispered; "let me go to kief. i want to become great." leah held him in a convulsive embrace, but said nothing. the morrow was saturday--sabbath morning. the little synagogue was crowded with an expectant throng. it was long since there had been a _bar-mitzvah_ in togarog, and israelites came from all the villages in the vicinity to witness the happy event. happy seemed the men, arrayed in their white _tallesim_ (praying scarfs)--happy at the thought of another member being added to their ranks. happy appeared the mothers in the reflection that their sons, too, would some day be admitted to the holy rite. when mendel finally mounted the _almemor_ (pulpit), and began his _bar'chu eth adonai_, the audience scarcely breathed. like a finished scholar did mendel recite his _sidrah_, that portion of the _torah_ or law which was appropriate to the day. this was followed by the _drosha_, a well-committed speech, expressive of gratitude to his parents and teachers, and full of beautiful promises of a future that should be pleasant in the eyes of the lord. the words fell from his lips as though inspired. it was a proud moment for the boy's parents. their tears mingled with their smiles. forgotten were hardships and persecutions. god still held happiness in reserve for his chosen people. when the boy concluded his exercises, kisses and congratulations were showered upon him by his admiring friends. "hirsch bensef is right," said mordecai to his wife. "mendel ought to go to some large city. he has wonderful talents. he may become a great rabbi. who can tell?" "we shall see; we shall see!" replied his wife, with a look of mingled pleasure and pain. but she did not say her husband was in the wrong. in the afternoon the entire congregation visited reb mordecai, so that the little house scarcely held all the people. the men came with their long _caftans_, the women with their black silk robes, their prettiest wigs, and strings of pearls; and one and all brought presents, tokens of their esteem. naturally, mendel was the centre of attraction. his present, past and future were discussed. a brilliant career was predicted for him, and he was held up as a model to his juniors. little jacob was also the recipient of attentions from young and old. his mishap, though painful, was not an exceptional case. similar ones occurred almost weekly in the surrounding country. what mattered it? his arm would be stiff and his ear mutilated to the end of his days; but he was only a jew--doomed to live and suffer for his belief in the one god. it was a sad consolation they gave him, but it was the best they had to offer. the poor children, christian as well as jew, came from miles around to receive alms, which were generously given. then refreshments were served, followed by speeches and jests; and so the afternoon and evening wore merrily away, and night--a dark and dismal night--followed the happy day. chapter iv. a night of terror. the guests had retired to their homes. the children had been blessed and sent to bed. the parents throughout the quarter, having discussed the one topic of the day, mendel's _bar-mitzvah_, had extinguished their candles and sought their pillows, preparatory to again venturing forth into a cold and inhospitable world in search of their meagre subsistence. in the village, too, the serfs had retired, the brawling in "paradise" had gradually ceased, and silent night had cast her mantle of sleep over togarog. a dim rumbling of wagons, a clattering of horses' hoofs, a murmur of men's voices fell upon the air. nearer and nearer came the sounds and the soldiers that produced them, until the village was reached. with as little noise as possible, the company crept through the narrow streets until they came to the inn of our friend basilivitch, who evidently expected them, for he hastily opened the door and bade the martial band enter. there was a whispered consultation between the host and the leader of the soldiers. basilivitch put on his cap and guided the captain through the village. carefully the two scanned the houses, and now and then basilivitch drew a cross upon one of the doors with a piece of red chalk. they then directed their footsteps to the jewish quarter, where they repeated their tactics, and finally rejoined their companions in "paradise." here the soldiers were given their instructions, and silently and stealthily, lest they might arouse the village and invite resistance, they crept forth in twos, to the huts marked with the mystic sign of the cross. the house of podoloff was the first they reached. cautiously one of the soldiers knocked at the door. "who's there?" cried a voice, inside. "friends! open at once!" was the enticing answer. podoloff hastily attired himself, and, cautiously opening the door, he peeped through the crevice. at the sight of the soldiers, he instinctively divined danger, and tried to bar the entrance. too late! one of the soldiers had already thrust the muzzle of his gun into the opening, while the other forced his way into the room. "utter a single cry," he said, "and you are a corpse." resistance was useless. podoloff, in spite of his pleading, was seized and his hands bound behind him. then, while one man held guard over the captive's wife and children, the other ransacked the house, rummaging through filthy and worm-eaten closets, and exploring dirty coffers, into which had been thrust a wretched assortment of rags--the garb of slavery. every scrap of paper was captured and jealously guarded. during this time, the greatest silence was preserved. other arrests were to be made, and it was imperative upon the men to take every precaution not to arouse the intended victims prematurely. "forward, march!" commanded one of the soldiers; and poor podoloff, without even daring to bid his wife farewell, was forced into the street and carried, rather than led, to basilivitch's hostlery. nine others were captured in a similar manner; nine poor wretches, doomed to life-long misery in the copper mines of siberia, many of them having not the slightest idea of the nature of their offence. basilivitch had placed the governor of alexandrovsk under eternal obligations by his patriotic devotion. of the number captured, there were three who had seconded podoloff during the discussion at the inn, the previous sunday afternoon. the remainder were to be exiled, because the governor, on basilivitch's recommendation, deemed them dangerous. a good day's work, basilivitch! you have done the nation a signal service, and have rid yourself of six persons from whom you had at various times borrowed money, and who had of late become troublesome in their dunning. they will not trouble you from the siberian mines. the prisoners were thrown into two carts, which had been brought for that purpose, and a detachment of soldiers accompanied them without delay to alexandrovsk. there they were put into prison for a month, until it pleased the governor to take notice of them. then followed the mere mockery of a trial, during which the prisoners were not permitted to utter a word in self-defence, and as a fitting end to this travesty of justice, the ten unfortunates were launched upon their weary foot-journey to the frozen north, destined to live and die beyond the reach, beyond the sympathy of mankind. let us retrace our steps and accompany the governor's soldiers through the jewish quarter. the refinement of cruelty demanded from the jews a greater sacrifice than from the catholics. the malefactors must be punished through their little ones. in pursuance of a decree of the mighty czar, passed some years before, the governors of the various provinces were authorized to visit the jewish homes, and to remove from them all male children that had reached the age of five years.[ ] there was a twofold object in this course. firstly, the humane czar desired to accustom these babes to the rigorous soldier life of russia, to transform the weakly scions of an oriental race into strong and hardy russians; and, secondly, it was deemed a blessing to humanity to tear the jewish children from their homes, parents and religion, and to bring them up in the only saving catholic faith. far, far from all that was dear to them, in a strange locality, among hostile people, exposed to unutterable hardships and rigorous discipline, these unfortunate beings dragged out their wretched existence. fully half of their number died of exposure, wearing away their poor lives in a vain longing for home and friends, while the remainder survived, only to forget their kind and kin, and to furnish the raw material for future nihilists. many jewish communities had already suffered from this heartless decree, and those who had been spared its terrors, anticipated them as they would some dreaded scourge, some deadly pestilence. that the jews of togarog and the surrounding villages had escaped its influences, was due less to the humane sentiments of the governor than to his natural indolence. but now his ire was aroused. the jews should feel his power. the detachment of soldiers having seen their russian prisoners safely on the road to oblivion, now directed their attention to the jewish quarter. mordecai winenki's house stood not far from the head of the street. no need to knock for admittance. a jew was not allowed to lock his door, the better to give his sociable neighbors an opportunity of molesting him. two of the soldiers entered, and groped their way through the darkness. the master of the house heard their footsteps, and timidly called out: "who's there?" "quick, jew, give us a light!" was the sole reply. shaking like a leaf, poor mordecai struck a light, and the candle cast its rays upon the fierce-looking cossacks in the apartment. a cry escaped the man's lips, but it was quickly stifled by the rough hand of one of the soldiers. "if you make the least noise i will strangle you. now show me where your boys sleep!" "oh, god! they will take my mendel for a recruit," cried the poor father. "silence, you viper! well, why don't you move? we want to know where your boys are sleeping!" mordecai, convinced of the futility of resistance, shuffled across the floor in his bare feet, and opened the door of an adjoining room. there, in the innocence of youth, lay mendel, dreaming, perhaps, of his recent triumphs. an unpitying hand landed the boy upon the floor. paralyzed with fear, he could not speak, but gazed pleadingly from his father to the soldiers. his uncle bensef, who had shared his bed, now endeavored to interfere, but a blow from the stalwart cossack sent him to the opposite corner of the room. quickly they inspected the boy, taking a mental note of his height and appearance, and, barely giving him time to put on his clothing, hurried him into the arms of the soldiers waiting without. "you have another son! where is he?" demanded one of the soldiers of the half-paralyzed mordecai. "no! no!" he sobbed; "i have no more!" "you lie, jew! show us the other boy!" and without further ceremony, they broke into the third room, where jacob lay in the arms of his terrified mother. in vain the boy shrieked at the sight of the fierce-looking visitors. in vain the mother pleaded: "he is sick and helpless. spare him. he is but a baby. leave him with me!" there was no pity in the breasts of the hardened soldiers. neither tears nor entreaties won them over. the more the sorrowing parents implored, the louder were the oaths, the fiercer the blows of the barbarous cossacks. jacob, followed by his weeping parents, was carried half-dressed into the street. similar scenes were enacted in every house in which there were male children. of the twelve jewish homes in togarog, but two were spared. the children, in most cases scantily dressed, were hurried to basilivitch's hostlery, where wagons were in waiting to take them to alexandrovsk for the governor's inspection. mournful was the train that followed the little band through the village. shrieks and lamentations, prayers and imprecations resounded, until the brutal guards, wearied by the incessant clamor, finally drove the frenzied people back and set out upon their homeward journey. the little ones sat cowering in the wagons, afraid to weep, scarcely daring to breathe. taken from home when they most needed their parents' care and love, what would become of these poor waifs? what would the future have in store for them? general drudkoff could now sleep in peace; the insurrection in togarog was quelled. its ringleaders were on the way to siberia, and its abettors, the jews (according to basilivitch), had been rendered harmless. footnotes: [footnote : this decree was repealed by alexander ii.] chapter v. the journey to kharkov. the wagons, with their helpless freight, reached alexandrovsk shortly after daybreak. their first stupor having passed, the children conversed with each other in whispers and tried in their own poor way to console one another. jacob, whose mutilated ear and broken arm had not been improved by the rough treatment he had experienced, wept bitterly at first, until the savage voice of a soldier bade him be quiet. then the child made a spartan-like endeavor to forget his pain and fell asleep upon his brother's breast. it was nine o'clock on sunday morning when they arrived at the governor's palace. the devout and religious general drudkoff usually declined to transact any business on that day; but this was an important matter of state, a question threatening perhaps the very existence of the empire, and a departure from ordinary rules was allowable. the waifs were brought into the ante-chamber, and obliged to pass muster before his excellency, who read them a lesson upon their future career and duties. after those whose hasty abduction had made it impossible to dress, had been provided with odds and ends of clothing, the rags cast off by the children of the governor's serfs, and which his excellency declared were much too good for jews, the lads were again placed upon rickety carts, and, while the governor proceeded to his religious services at the _kiosk_, they were escorted under a strong guard to the military headquarters at kharkov. long and tedious was the journey. at noon a village was reached, and the travellers were furnished with a meal consisting of pork and bread. half-famished by his long fast, one of the boys had already bitten into his portion, but stern religion interfered. "do not eat it," whispered mendel; "it is _trefa!_" (unclean). the lads gazed wistfully at the tempting morsels, but touch them they dared not. "why don't you eat?" roughly asked one of the soldiers, whose duty it was to walk by the side of the wagon and guard against a possible escape. "it is forbidden," answered mendel, who, being the oldest of the little group, took upon himself the duties of spokesman. "it is unclean." "if it is good enough for us, it is good enough for a jew. here, eat this quickly!" and he endeavored to force a large piece of the dreaded meat between the teeth of one of the lads. "if they wont eat, let them starve," said another of the guards, who was attracted by the noise. "why do you trouble yourself about them?" "you are right," answered the first; "let them starve." and their fast continued. the smiling fields through which they rode, the sunny sky above them, the merry birds warbling in the bushes, had no attraction for the ill-fated boys. the world was but a vast desert, an unfriendly wilderness to them. but mendel's mind, sharpened by misfortune, was not dormant. a thought of escape had already presented itself to his active brain. "if jacob and i could only manage to run away and reach our uncle in kief," he mused. presently he plucked up courage and asked the guard: "will you please tell me what you are going to do with us?" "you will find out when you get to kharkov," was the ungracious rejoinder. to kharkov! the information was welcome indeed. not that mendel had ever been in that place, but he recollected hearing his uncle say that he had come through kharkov on his way from kief. it must be on the direct route to the latter city. o god! if he could but escape! a dark, stormy night found the travellers in the miserable little village of poltarack. the weary horses were unharnessed and the soldiers looked about for comfortable quarters for the night. they found refuge in a dilapidated structure, the only inn of which the place could boast. the children were led to a barn, where a bountiful supply of straw served them as a bed. a piece of bread and a glass of rank brandy formed their evening meal, and hunger left them no desire to investigate whether the humble repast was _kosher_ (clean) or not. the footsteps of the guards had scarcely died away in the distance, before mendel sprang to the door and endeavored to open it. it was securely locked and the boy turned disconsolate to his companions. it was the hour when, at home, their fathers would send them lovingly to bed, when their mothers would tuck them comfortably under the covers and kiss them good-night; and here they lay, clad in tatters, numb with cold, pinched with hunger; pictures of misery and woe. heart-rending were the sighs, bitter the complaints, in which the poor lads gave utterance to their feelings. "come, boys!" at length cried mendel, "it wont do to grieve. let us bear up as bravely as possible. they will take us to kharkov and leave us at military headquarters. perhaps we can escape. if we are kept together it will be difficult, but if they separate us, it will perhaps be easy to give the soldiers in charge the slip. if you get away, do not at once go back home or you will be recaptured. go on until you come to a jewish settlement, where you will be cared for. jacob, you must try to stay with me, whatever may happen." long and earnest was the conversation between the boys, all of whom, in spite of their tender years, realized their perilous position. then mendel arose and recited the old and familiar hebrew evening prayers and the little gathering made the responses; then, weary and homesick, the boys cried themselves to sleep. at break of day, the cossacks pounded at the barn-door, and the boys, after breakfasting on dry bread, again set out upon their tedious journey. the soldiers who had accompanied the wagons, were replaced by others; the new men were in a better humor and more graciously inclined than those of the preceding day. they even condescended to jest with the young recruits and to civilly answer their many questions. from their replies, mendel gleaned that the commander at kharkov would distribute them among the various military camps throughout the province, where constant hard labor, a stern discipline and a not too humane treatment would eventually toughen their physical fibre and wean them from the cherished religion of their youth. the weather was unfriendly, the sky was overcast, and the boys, shivering with cold and apprehension, at length made their entry into kharkov. the commander of the garrison, a grim-visaged, bearded warrior, received them, heard the story of their capture from one of the guards, amused himself by pulling the boys' ears and administering sundry blows. he then divided them into twos, to be escorted to the various barracks about the district. mendel and jacob were permitted to go together, not because the commander yielded to a feeling of humanity, but because they happened to be standing together, and it really did not matter to the russian authorities how the new recruits were distributed. a soldier was placed in charge of each couple, and, like cattle to the slaughter, the boys were led through the town. weary and silent, yet filled with wonder and surprise, mendel and jacob preceded their guard through the gay and animated streets of kharkov. it was a new life that opened to their vision. with childish curiosity they gazed at every booth, looked fondly into every gaily decorated shop and glanced timidly at the many uniformed officers who hurried to and fro. for a moment, their desolate homes, their sorrowing parents, their unpromising future were forgotten in the excitement of the scenes about them, and it required at times the rough command and brutal push of the soldier behind them to recall them to the misery of the moment. this soldier, a fine-looking, sturdy fellow, appeared as much interested in the animated scene as were his captives. years had passed since he had last visited kharkov, his native town. much had changed during that period. a conflagration had destroyed the central portion of the city and imposing stone edifices had in many streets replaced the former crazy structures. now and then an old building or hoary landmark would recall pleasant memories of early youth. the fountain in the centre of the square was eloquent with reminders of by-gone joys, of hasty interviews, of stolen kisses; and our brave warrior strode along with a bland smile of contentment upon his bronzed countenance. suddenly, a man brushed past him. the two looked at each other for a moment, as if in doubt, and then with a simultaneous shout of recognition, they shook each other heartily by the hand. "cantorwitch!" cried the soldier. "by all the saints, this is rare good luck! how have you been?" "very well, friend polatschek. but you are the last man i should have looked for in kharkov. how well your service agrees with you." the two friends stood and talked of all that had befallen them since their separation. not until the calendar of gossip had been exhausted did cantorwitch finally ask: "but what brings you to kharkov, my boy? i thought you were on the southern frontier." "so i was; so i was," rejoined the other. "i have been sent up with two jewish recruits. holy madonna! what has become of them?" mendel and jacob had disappeared, without even saying, "by your leave!" in vain the friends peered into the various shops along the street, into every open door-way, behind every box and barrel. in vain they inquired of every soldier who passed. no one had seen the runaways. poor polatschek, after listening to the consolations of his friend and fortifying himself with a quart of spirits, returned to headquarters, to spend the following ninety days under arrest for gross negligence while on duty. chapter vi. two unfortunates. to mendel, cantorwitch seemed a special messenger sent by a benign providence. he waited for a moment until he perceived the two friends in earnest conversation, and seizing his brother by the arm, he took advantage of an approaching crowd of sight-seers to get away from the gossiping soldier. the boys ran down the nearest street as fast as their feeble limbs would carry them. not until they had reached the limits of the town did they pause for breath, and jacob, thoroughly exhausted, sank to the ground. "thank god, we are free!" said mendel, jubilantly. but jacob began to weep, crying, "oh, i'm so tired and hungry!" "do not cry; it is of no use. we will find our way to kief, and there uncle will take care of us." "i do not think i can go much farther, mendel." "but you must. if we remain here we shall be captured and put into prison. let us go as far as we possibly can. perhaps we can find a village on the road where the _jehudim_ (jews) will shelter us until you become stronger. come, jacob." the child struggled to his feet and the brothers set out upon their journey through an unknown country. the sun, the cheerful king of day, had peeped through the april rifts and sent his bright rays upon the smiling landscape. gradually the clouds dissolved under the genial influence and a friendly sky cheered the fugitives on their way. the merry chirping of the birds, the buzzing of the insects, the blossoming fruit trees along the route, betokened the advent of spring. mendel gulped down a great lump in his throat and stifled a sob, as he thought of his distant home. how happy, how joyful, had this season been, when, after the termination of the bible studies at the _cheder_, their father had taken them for a long walk through the fields and in his own crude way had spoken of the beauties of nature and of the wisdom and beneficence of the creator. then, all was peace and contentment; and now, what a dreary contrast! mendel dashed the gathering tears from his eyes--it would not do to let jacob see him cry--and resolutely taking his little brother by the hand, walked on more rapidly. there was a tedious journey in prospect; god only knew when and where it would end. on they walked through bramble and marsh, over stones and fallen boughs, preferring the newly-ploughed fields to the public road, for fear of detection; trembling with fear at the sight of a human being, lest it might be a soldier charged with their recapture. on they struggled until night hid the road from their view and darkness arrested further progress. a ruined and deserted shed afforded them shelter, a stone did service as a pillow, and, embracing each other, the lads lay down to sleep. the dawn found the wanderers astir, and after a hasty ablution at a neighboring brook and a recital of their morning prayers, they bravely started out upon their cheerless journey. the day had dawned brightly, but before long threatening clouds obscured the sun. the wind veered to the north and howled dismally. sadly and silently the boys trudged onward, buffeting the wind and stifling their growing hunger. "mendel," finally sobbed jacob, "i am so hungry. if i only had a piece of bread i would feel much stronger." "let us walk faster," replied the other. "perhaps we will reach some village." manfully they pushed onward for another hour, mendel endeavoring to entertain his brother by relating stories he had heard when a child. jacob stopped again, exhausted. "it is no use, mendel," he cried. "i am too hungry to walk any further." "courage, brother," answered mendel, cheerfully. "see, there are houses ahead of us. we can surely find something to eat." the waifs dragged their way to a weather-beaten hut and knocked at the door. a mild-visaged woman responded and surveyed the travel-stained children with something like compassion. "we are hungry," pleaded mendel. "please give us a bite of food." "who are you and where do you come from?" queried the woman. "we are trying to reach kief, where we have friends," answered mendel. "please do not let us starve on the road." "jews, eh?" asked the woman, suspiciously. "well, no matter; you don't look any too happy. come in and warm yourselves." the boys were soon sitting before a roaring kitchen-fire, while the woman busied herself with providing them with a meal. tempting, indeed, did it appear to the famished lads; but could they eat it? was it prepared according to the jewish ritual? it was a momentous question to mendel, and only his little brother's pinched and miserable countenance could have induced him to violate the law which to his conception was as sacred as life itself. while mendel debated, jacob solved the knotty problem by attacking the savory dishes before him, and his brother reluctantly followed his example. "it may be a sin, but god will forgive us," was his mental reflection as he greedily swallowed the food. the woman looked on in admiration at the huge appetites of the lads. she plied them with questions, to which she received vague replies, and finally contented herself with the thought that these were perhaps wayward children who had run away from home and were now penitently trying to find their way back. after the boys were rested, they thanked their kind hostess and set out again upon their wanderings with no other compass than blind chance, but avoiding the highways for fear of being captured by the soldiers. on they went for hours, mendel supporting his complaining brother and whispering words of hope and courage. by noon the sky had become darker, the storm more threatening. the wind blew in furious gusts over the dismal country, and an occasional rumbling of distant thunder filled the weary lads with dread. the road they had chosen was absolutely deserted. it lay through a bleak, scarcely habitable prairie, a landscape common enough in that part of russia; and stones and brambles did much to retard their progress. there was not a place of shelter in sight. the outlook was sufficiently unpromising to dismay the most resolute. jacob sat down upon a stone and began to weep. "i can go no further," he sobbed. "i am tired and sick." "but you must come," pleaded his brother. "see what a storm is gathering. if we remain here we shall be drenched. we must find shelter." "go alone, brother," said the little one. "i'll stay here." there was a sudden flash of lightning, which illumined jacob's bandaged face, pale with fear and fatigue. the trembling boys looked at each other and jacob began to cry. "come, jacob," murmured mendel, helping his brother to rise. "we shall die if we stay here. may god protect us." again the waifs plodded on, mendel supporting his brother and endeavoring to protect him from the cruel wind. darker grew the sky. large drops of rain began to fall and with a startling peal of thunder the tempest broke in its fury. the pitiless wind sweeping through the land from the bleak northern steppes brought cold and desolation in its train. the poor children were drenched to the skin. they clung to each other and painfully made their way across the miry fields to the highway, the ancient road of the tartar khans. at last jacob succumbed to the awful strain and sank to the ground. "let me die," moaned the child. "oh, dear brother; you must live! we will find our way back to togarog to papa and mamma. how they would grieve if i came back alone." the child shook his head mutely to this appeal, but rise he could not. mendel was in despair. a bright flash lit up the landscape and showed the dim outlines of huts not many rods away. "god be thanked!" cried mendel, fervently. "see, jacob, there are houses. the village is near. there we can get food and shelter. come, lean on me and we will be there in a few minutes." "no, go alone; i am too weak." "i will carry you," cried mendel. "oh, i can do it; i am strong enough." he attempted to lift the child from the ground, but he had overrated his strength and gave up his task in despair. what was he to do? he could not leave him in the road to perish. if he could but reach the village and summon help. they would not refuse assistance to a dying child, even if he were a jew. "jacob," he said, encouragingly, "i am going for help. don't be afraid; keep up your courage and strength until i come back. the rain will soon stop. good-by. i shall not be long." kissing his scarcely conscious brother, the heroic boy bounded in the direction of the village. though the thunder still rolled and the lightning still flashed, the rain soon ceased and the clouds began to show cheerful patches of blue. mendel was gone some five minutes when a covered _droshka_ drove up the road as rapidly as the muddy ground would allow. the driver, amply protected by furs, seemed proof against both wind and water, yet he cursed in good round russian at the inclemency of the weather. suddenly, a brilliant flash lighted up the road, and he saw a lad near the wheels. with an oath, the driver reined in the frightened horses and jumped to the ground. "what is it, ivan? has anything happened?" asked a lady, from the carriage window. "please your excellency, a little boy lying in the road, half-dead." "bring him here," commanded the lady, and the child was lifted into the carriage and placed on the seat before them. "what a pretty lad," said the lady, who was no less important a person than the countess drentell, of lubny, to her companion. "the poor child must be badly hurt." "perhaps a little brandy would strengthen him," suggested the practical coachman, who knew the value of the remedy. the cordial revived him, and, opening his eyes, he murmured: "wait for me, mendel; i will go along." "drive on, ivan, as quickly as possible; we must get the little fellow some dry clothes," said the countess. yielding to the luxury of shelter and to the effect of the brandy, jacob sank into a sweet sleep. mendel had in the meantime reached the village and knocked at the first house. a _moujik_ emerged and eyed him suspiciously. "what do you want?" he asked, gruffly. "we have been caught in the storm and my brother is out on the road, dying. please help me bring him here." "you are a jew, are you not?" asked the man, savagely, as he recognized by the boy's jargon that he was a member of the proscribed race. "yes, sir," answered mendel, timidly. "then go about your business; i wont put myself out for a jew!" saying which, he shut the door in the boy's face. sadly mendel wandered on until he met a kindly disposed woman, who directed him to the jewish quarter. "at the house of prayer there is always someone to be found," thought mendel, and thither he bent his steps. half-a-dozen men at once surrounded him and listened to his harrowing story; half-a-dozen hearts beat in sympathy with his distress. one of the number soon spread the dismal tidings; the entire congregation, headed by mendel, hastened to where the child had been left. as they came to the highway, a _droshka_ passed them at full speed; they fell back to the right and left to make room for the galloping horses and in a moment the carriage had disappeared. when they reached the spot pointed out by mendel they saw the impress of a child's form in the yielding ground, and a tattered little cap which was jacob's; but the child was gone. "the soldiers have recaptured him!" gasped mendel, with a groan of anguish. "oh, my poor brother; god help you!" and sank unconscious into the friendly arms of his new acquaintances. chapter vii. a russian nobleman. after an hour's sojourn in "the imperial crown," the best inn of poltava, countess drentell continued her journey towards her country-seat at lubny, where the carriage arrived just before nightfall. with the creaking of the wheels upon the gravel path leading to the house, jacob awoke and gazed sleepily about him. "see, tekla; he is awake!" cried the countess. "poor child!" the carriage stopped; ivan opened the door and assisted the ladies to alight. "carry the little one into the house and take him to the kitchen to dry," commanded the countess. "what a surprise he will be to loris and how he will enjoy having a playmate!" another servant appeared at the door to assist the countess. "your excellency," he whispered, "the count arrived the day before yesterday. he was furious at finding you absent." louise bit her lip and her face became pale. then she shrugged her pretty shoulders and broke into a careless laugh. "oh, well, dimitri will forgive me when i tell him how sorry i am," she thought to herself, as she tripped up the stone steps into the house. in the brilliantly lighted hall she was met by her husband, count dimitri drentell, and she clasped her arms around his neck in a transport of conjugal affection. "so you have come back, my dear, from those horrid barracks!" she cried. "i am so glad! but why didn't you send word you were coming, that i might have been at home to meet you? but it is just like you to keep the matter a perfect secret and give me no chance to prepare for your reception." the count's brow contracted. before he had an opportunity to reply, his wife continued: "indeed, i'm glad you've come. if i had known that i was marrying a son of mars who would be away in the army for eight months of the year, i doubt whether i should have left my happy tiflis." the countess paused for want of breath. "the czar places duty to country higher than domestic comfort," answered her husband, curtly. "but how could you leave your home and your child for so long a time? it is now three days since i arrived here, expecting to be lovingly received by you and little loris; but you had gone away, no one knew whither, leaving loris in charge of an ignorant woman, who has been sadly neglecting the child." "poor fellow," laughed the countess, in mock grief. "i suppose he will be happy to see his mamma again. but, my dear, you must not scold me for having gone away. it was so dull at home without you, so lonesome, that i could bear it no longer, and i took a trip to valki, to visit the abbess of the convent there." the cloud upon the count's face darkened. "i have repeatedly told you that i do not approve of your excursions into the country," he answered, gloomily; "and i am especially opposed to your locking yourself up in a convent. you pay no heed to my requests, nor do you seem to realize the dangers you incur in travelling about in that manner." "then let us live in our town house. i am too dull here, all alone," answered the countess, nestling closer to her husband and kissing him. "it was at your desire that i bought this place, immediately after our marriage. you were enchanted with it and said it reminded you of your caucasian country. now you are already tired of it." "i would not be if you were here to share its delights with me," she answered, coquettishly. "but, alone!--b-r-r! it is too vast, too immense! i shall never feel at home in it." louise gave her graceful head a mournful shake and looked dismally at her husband. suddenly she cried: "where is loris? what have they done with my boy?" "it is time you inquired," said her husband, reproachfully. "i doubt if he remembers you." louise broke into a merry laugh. "not know his mamma? indeed! we shall see!" going to a table, she rang a bell, which was immediately answered by a liveried servant. "bring me my loris," she cried. "he has already been put to bed," answered the man. "bring him, anyhow. i have not seen him for almost nine days." the man disappeared, and shortly after a nurse entered, bearing in her arms a bright little fellow scarcely four years of age. loris, the tyrant of the house, who was fast being spoiled by the alternate indulgence and neglect of his capricious mother, struggled violently with his nurse, who had just aroused him from his first sleep. louise threw herself upon the child in an excess of maternal devotion. she fairly covered him with kisses. "how has my loris been? my poor boy! will he forgive his mamma for having deserted him?" the boy resented this outburst of love by sundry kicks and screams. "the child is cross and sleepy," said the count; "let minka put him to bed." "wait a moment," exclaimed the countess, in childish glee. "i have brought him a present. loris, my pet, how would you like a little boy to play with? a real live boy?" loris ceased his struggles and became interested. "i want a pony to play with! i don't want a boy," he cried, peevishly. "what folly have you been guilty of now?" asked dimitri, with some misgivings, for he had had frequent proofs of his wife's impulsive extravagance. "you shall see, my dear." louise rang for ivan. when he appeared, she asked: "what have you done with the boy we found?" "he is in the kitchen and has just eaten his supper," answered the servant. "bring him up at once." while ivan went to fetch jacob, the countess related, with many embellishments and exaggerations, and with frequent appeals to her maid tekla for corroboration, how she had found the boy on the road, how she had saved his life, and, finally, how she had decided to bring him home as a little playmate for her darling loris. before she had finished her story jacob himself appeared upon the scene, the personification of abject misery. his features were still besmeared with the dirt of the highway, his clothes were in a wretched condition, and his bandaged arm and lacerated face did not improve his general appearance. louise laughed heartily when this apparition entered the door. "is he not a beauty?" she exclaimed. the count was too much surprised to speak. after a pause, during which poor jacob looked pleadingly from one to the other, dimitri asked: "in all seriousness, louise, why did you introduce that being into our house?" "he is not as bad as he looks," answered the countess. "wait till he is washed and dressed, and you will agree that he is a handsome fellow." the count crossed the room and looked at the boy. "what is your name?" he asked, gruffly. "jacob winenki," answered the child, timidly. "a jew!" ejaculated the count. "by our holy madonna, that is just what i needed to make me completely happy--the companionship of an accursed jew!" jacob instinctively divined that he was not welcome, and began to cry. "please, i want my mamma!" "stop your whimpering, you cur!" shouted the enraged count. but jacob's tears would not be checked so abruptly. "please don't send me back to the soldiers," he pleaded, in his miserable jargon. "i don't want to go with the soldiers." at this juncture loris joined in the cry. "i don't want him. i want a pony to play with." "here, ivan," commanded the excited count, "take this brat out into the barn, and keep him secure until i ask for him. we will investigate his case after supper. minka, take loris to bed at once." then turning to his wife, who actually trembled before his infuriated glance, he said: "louise, you have done some very silly things since i married you, but this is the most absurd. you know my aversion to jews, and here you bring a dirty jew out of the streets to become a playmate of our loris!" "i could not leave the poor child to die in the road," pouted louise, who, in addition to being extremely frivolous, was very tender-hearted. "if i had found a sick dog, i should have aided him." "i would rather it had been a dog than a jew." "how could i know it was a jew?" "by his looks; by his language," answered the exasperated man. "he was insensible, and could not speak," retorted louise; "and his appearance no worse than that of other dirty children. tell me, dimitri," she added, throwing her arms about her husband's waist, in a childish endeavor to appease his wrath; "tell me why you have such an animosity towards the jews?" the count impressively rolled up his sleeve and displayed a scar about two inches in length upon his forearm. "see, louise," he said, gloomily; "that is some of their accursed work. have i not cause to detest them? they are spiteful, vengeful, implacable." louise lovingly kissed the scarred arm. "poor dimitri," she murmured; "how it must have pained. tell me how it happened." "there is no need to go into details," answered the count, abruptly. "but if ever i acquire the power, i shall make a jew smart for every drop of blood that flowed from the wound. come, supper must be ready. we will not spoil our appetites by speaking of the despicable race." count drentell wisely refrained from telling his wife the cause of his scar. it was not for a wife's ear to hear the tale. eight years before, he, with a number of young officers of the army stationed at pinsk, while in search of a little pleasurable excitement, had raided the jewish quarter and terrorized the helpless inhabitants. after having broken every window, the party, inflamed by wine and enthusiasm, entered the house of haim kusel, demolished the furniture, helped themselves to articles of value that chanced to be exposed, and having caught a glimpse of haim's pretty daughter, drentell, the leader of the band, attempted to embrace her. the jew, who had offered no resistance while his hard-earned possessions were being destroyed, was driven to frenzy by the insult to his daughter. seizing a knife he drove the party from the house, but not until he had wounded several of the wretches, among whom was drentell. kusel had saved his daughter's honor, but he well knew that he had forfeited his life if he remained in the village. packing up the few household articles that yet remained, he and his daughter fled from pinsk to find protection with friends in a distant town. at midnight, the officers, now reinforced by a number of sympathizing comrades, returned, and furious at the escape of their victim, burned his dwelling to the ground. drentell never forgot his ignominious repulse nor the wound he received at the hands of haim kusel. his own offence counted as naught, so blunted was his moral sense. to inflict misery upon a jew was at all times considered meritorious, but for a jew to so far forget himself as to assault an officer of the czar, was a crime for which the whole race would one day be held accountable. while the count and countess are at supper, we may find time to examine into their past and become better acquainted with the worthy couple, into whose company the events of this story will occasionally lead us. dimitri was the only son of paul drentell, the renowned banker of st. petersburg, who had been raised to the nobility as a reward for having negotiated a loan for the government. paul had been sordid and avaricious; his vast wealth was wrung from the necessities of the unfortunates otho were obliged to borrow from him or succumb to financial disaster. had he been a jew, his greed, his miserly ways, his usuries, would have been stigmatized as jewish traits, but being a devout catholic he was spoken of as "drentell, the financier." the nobility of russia counts many such upstarts among its representatives. it boasts of a peculiar historical development. the hereditary element plays an unimportant part in matters of state. exposed to the tyranny of the muscovite autocrats, they hailed with joy the elevation of the romanoff family to the throne. the condition of the nobles was thenceforth bettered, their political influence increased. under peter the great, however, there came a change. to noble birth, this czar showed a most humiliating indifference, and the nobles saw with horror the accession to their ranks of the lowest order of men. the condition of the aristocracy, old and new, was not, however, one of unmixed happiness. the nobles were transformed into mere servants of the czar, and heavily did their bondage weigh upon them. after the death of the great prince, they experienced varied changes. catherine converted the surroundings of her court into a ludicrous imitation of the elegant and refined french _régime_. parisian fashions and the french language were adopted by the nobility. it was a pleasure-seeking, pomp-loving aristocracy that surrounded the powerful empress. but her capricious and violent son overturned this order of things and again reduced the nobility to a condition of dependence and even degradation, from which it had not yet recovered in the days of nicholas i. for these reasons the nobility of russia is not characterized by the proud bearing and firm demeanor which are the attributes of the aristocracy of western europe. a _parvenu_, who has, by an act of slavish submission, won the emperor's favor, may be ennobled, and he thenceforth holds his head as high as the greatest. no one of these is regarded as more important than his neighbor. dumouriez, having casually spoken to nicholas of one of the considerable personages at court, received the reply: "you must learn, sir, that the only considerable person here is the one to whom i am speaking, and that only as long as i am speaking to him."[ ] hence, we rarely find a russian noble who is proud of his ancestry or of his ancient name. it is wealth and power, momentary distinction and royal favor that make him of worth. when, therefore, paul drentell, because of his valuable services in raising a loan which enabled russia to engage in war with one of her less powerful neighbors, was elevated to the nobility, it caused no surprise, and the banker at once began a life of pomp and extravagance which he thought suited to his new station. his wealth was fabulous, and was for the greater part invested in large estates, comprising confiscated lands, formerly the property of less fortunate nobles, who, deprived of their rank, were now atoning for their sins in the frozen north. his possessions included about twenty thousand male serfs; consequently, more than forty thousand souls. dimitri, upon his father's elevation, was sent to the army, where he distinguished himself in nocturnal debauches and adventures such as we have related, and where, thanks to his father's influence, he shortly rose to the rank of lieutenant. about five years before the beginning of this story, paul drentell died and his vast estates, as well as his title of count, descended to dimitri, who now found himself one of the richest men in the empire. he was, moreover, a personal friend of the young czarewitch, alexander, in whose regiment he served. to such a man, a notable future was open: great honors as governor of a province or exile to siberia as a dangerous power. one of the features of public life in russia is the comparative ease with which either of these distinctions may be obtained. count drentell was haughty and arrogant, caring for naught but his own personal advantage, consulting only his own tastes and pleasures. he was a stern officer to his soldiers, a cruel taskmaster to the serfs he had inherited, and a bitter foe of the jews whom he had offended. very different was his wife, louise. a georgian by birth, her beauty and ingenuousness had won her great popularity at the court of st. petersburg, to which she had been introduced by the governor of tiflis. she was neither tall nor short, possessed a wealth of raven black hair, perfect teeth, lustrous black eyes, a smile that would inspire poets and a voice that was all music and melody. when count drentell carried her off in the face of a hundred admirers, he was considered lucky indeed. dimitri never confessed, even to himself, that he regretted his hasty choice. louise was as capricious as she was beautiful, as unlettered as she was charming, as superstitious as she was fascinating. all that she did was done on impulse. she loved her husband on impulse, she deserted her child for weeks at a time on impulse, she succored the poor or neglected them on impulse. her army of servants set her commands at defiance, for they knew them to be the outgrowth of momentary caprice. fortunately for the domestic happiness of the couple, the count was with his command at st. petersburg during two-thirds of the year, while his wife enjoyed herself as best she might on his magnificent estate at lubny. brought up among the highlands of tiflis, louise possessed all of the unreasoning bigotry characteristic of the people inhabiting that region. she was religious to the very depths of superstition, and she chose lubny for a dwelling-place, less for its resemblance to the sunny hills of her native province than for its proximity to several large catholic cloisters for both monks and nuns, whence she hoped to receive that religious nourishment which her southern and impetuous nature craved. it was while returning from an expedition to the furthest of these nunneries, in which she frequently immured herself for weeks at a time, that she found jacob upon the road. the count, who, with the companions of his youth, had lost what little religious sentiment he may have once possessed, regarded this trait in his wife with great disfavor; but neither threats nor prayers effected a change, and he finally allowed her to follow her own inclinations. while the union was not one of the happiest, there were fewer altercations than might have been reasonably expected from the thoroughly opposite natures of man and wife. louise, with all her faults, was a loving wife, and when her husband's temper was ruffled, her smiles and caresses, her appealing looks and tender glances, won him back to serenity. the supper, therefore, was not as gloomy as the stormy introduction indicated. both had much to tell each other, for a great deal had occurred during their eight months' separation, and it was late when they left the table. footnotes: [footnote : wallace's "russia."] chapter viii. an unwilling convert to christianity. on the following morning the count bethought himself of the jewish lad, and the reflection that he had harbored one of the despised people on his estates for an entire night, rekindled his anger against the whole race. he rang for ivan and strode impatiently up and down his well-furnished library until the coachman appeared. "tell the countess that i await her here, and then bring me the boy you found on the road!" both louise and jacob made their appearance shortly after. jacob had been washed and his hair combed, and not even the count could deny that he was a lad of uncommon beauty. "what is your name?" interrogated the count, with the air of a grand inquisitor. "jacob winenki." "where do you live?" "in the jew lane," answered the child, slowly. "but where? in what town?" jacob hung his head. he did not know. "how did you come here?" was the next query. then jacob related, with childish hesitancy, how the soldiers stole him and his brother from home and took them to a big city, and how he and mendel ran away and were caught in a storm. further information he could not give, having no recollection of anything that happened from the time of his lying upon the highway until he found himself in the _droshka_ with the ladies. "you say that the soldiers came to your house and took you and your brother away?" asked the count. "yes, sir." "what did they want with you?" "one of them said he would make _goyim_ (gentiles) of us," answered the boy, in his native jargon. "i see," said count drentell, as the truth dawned upon him; "you were taken to become recruits. so you escaped!" "please, sir, mendel and i ran away. we wanted to go home to father and mother." "were there more boys with you?" "yes, sir." "did they run away, too?" "i don't know." "there is not much information to be obtained from the child," said drentell, angrily. then pointing to the boy's face and arm, he asked: "did that happen to you on the road?" "oh, no; that happened at home," answered jacob, tearfully; and he related the story of the cow and the farmer, the details of which were too deeply impressed upon his memory to be soon forgotten. louise understood the jargon of the boy but imperfectly, still her sympathetic nature comprehended that the boy had been seriously hurt, and she asked her husband to repeat the story of his injuries. "poor fellow," she exclaimed, wiping away a tear. "how cruelly he has been treated!" "i suppose it served him right," answered the count, rudely. "who knows what he had been guilty of. one never knows whether a jew is lying or telling the truth." in spite of his doubts upon the subject, drentell examined the boy's arm. it was evident that the bone had been broken, and that the fracture had been imperfectly set. after a short inspection, he hazarded an opinion that the boy would have a stiff arm all his life. "it was almost well," sobbed jacob, "but the soldiers pulled me about so that it is now much worse." "poor boy," sighed the countess, "how dreadful it must be! can we do nothing for him?" "in the name of st. nicholas, louise, cease this sentimental whimpering," retorted her husband, losing patience. "but think of a stiff arm through life, and his ear almost torn off! it is terrible to carry such mutilations to the grave." "it does not matter much," answered the count, "he is a jew." "true, i had forgotten that. it does make a great difference, does it not?" and the impulsive little woman dried her eyes and smilingly forgot her compassion. "what will you do with him?" she asked, after a pause. "i don't know. the wisest plan would be to deliver him up to military headquarters. he was taken from home to be a recruit, and having escaped from the czar's soldiers, i would be derelict in my duty if i did not at once send him back." at the word "soldiers," jacob, who had caught but a few stray words of the conversation, began to howl and shriek. "no, don't send me back to the soldiers," he pleaded. "they will kill me! please don't send me back!" "stop your crying," thundered the count, stopping his ears with his hands to keep out the disagreeable sounds, "or i will call the soldiers at once." this terrible threat had the desired effect, and jacob, gulping down his grief, remained quiet save for an occasional sob that would not be repressed. "listen, dimitri," said the countess. "i found the boy insensible in the storm. he is sick and weak. of what service can a child like that be among the soldiers? under rough treatment he would die in a week. even though he be a jew, there is no use in sacrificing his life uselessly." "but we can't keep him here," urged the count. "there is no need of his remaining at lubny. the principal motive in taking jewish children from their homes is to make christians of them. that can certainly be better accomplished at a cloister than in camp. send the boy to the convent at poltava; they will baptize him and make a good catholic of him, and we will gain our reward in heaven for having led one erring soul to the saviour." and the religious woman crossed herself devoutly. while his wife argued, drentell appeared lost in thought. suddenly his face became illumined by a fiendish light, and he rubbed his hands in evident satisfaction. "louise," he said, at length, "those are the first sensible words i have heard you utter since we were married. your idea is a capital one!" "i am glad you think so," she replied, wisely refraining from commenting upon her husband's doubtful compliment. "the abbess at valki told me only the day before yesterday, that for every soul brought into the holy church, a christian's happiness would be increased tenfold in paradise." "fanatical absurdities," cried the count, who was as free from religious sentiment as his wife was devout. "if i consent to have the child brought up in a convent, i am not actuated by any considerations of future reward or punishment. i don't believe in such antiquated dogmas. but to the convent he shall go, and when they have taught him to forget his origin and his religion, when they have educated him into a fanatical, jew-hating priest, then will i use him to wreak upon his own race that vengeance which i have sworn never to forego." louise shuddered at her husband's vehement gestures and passionate words. his eyes rolled wildly, his whole body seemed swayed by uncontrollable rage. little jacob, although he understood nothing of the count's words, recoiled instinctively and hid his face in his hands. drentell gradually regained his composure, and after walking up and down the room for a few moments, in apparent meditation, he rang the bell. a servant entered. "take the boy back to the barn, and keep him there until i ask for him again," he commanded. "then harness up at once and send for _batushka_ alexei, the abbot of the convent at poltava. tell his reverence that i desire to see him as soon as possible on matters pertaining to the holy church." the servant disappeared, taking jacob with him, and the count and countess were left alone to discuss their plans. it was almost night when the vehicle containing the abbot rolled up to the villa, and the _batushka_ (priest) was announced. he was a powerfully built man, displaying a physique of which a roman gladiator might have been proud. his grizzled beard reached down to his waist, and his flowing black robes gave him the appearance of a dervish. alexei enjoyed the reputation of being very devout, and the cloister of which he was the head was known as the most thoroughly religious in the empire. to this man the future of the jewish lad was to be entrusted. when the holy man entered the library, both the count and his wife crossed themselves reverently. "your excellency has sent for me," said alexei, slowly. "yes, _batushka_," answered the count. "we wish to place in your pious care a young jewish boy who, having escaped from his parents' roof, and having much to fear from the anger of his people, desires to seek present safety and ultimate salvation of his soul in the bosom of our holy church. i at once thought of you, as i believe that under your tuition the lad will be instructed in all that is essential to the perfect christian." "your excellency does me too much honor," said the priest, meekly. "with the grace of our lord christ, i shall do my utmost to bring this lamb into the fold." "the boy is feverish and his mind wanders," continued the count. "if you interrogate him, he will tell you that he received certain injuries--a broken arm and a mutilated ear--from the christians. i happen to be conversant with the facts of the case and know that he was injured by members of his own family, in their impotent frenzy to keep him from seeking the solace of the only saving church. i desire you to remember three things, _batushka_: firstly, that this boy must be taught to forget absolutely that he belongs to that accursed people; secondly, the idea must be firmly implanted in his mind that he has been mutilated by the jews; and thirdly, he must be taught to despise and detest the hebrew race with all the hatred of which his soul is capable. do you understand me?" "i do, your excellency. you desire the boy to so far forget his former associations, that he will belong heart and soul to the church of christ; and as a further precaution that he may never harbor a desire to return to the religion of his fathers, you desire us to impress him with an implacable hatred, a thirst for revenge against his race, for wrongs they have inflicted upon him." the count looked at the priest significantly; they had understood one another. "you will find the boy docile," continued drentell, "and unless he belies the characteristics of his people, you will find him quick and intelligent. employ that intelligence for the good of our holy faith and to the prejudice of the jewish race. give him every advantage, every inducement to advance, and shape his career so that in him the church will find a faithful supporter and an earnest champion." "and the jews an enemy before whom the stoutest of their number shall quail," continued the priest. "so shall it be, your excellency." "i shall expect to receive occasional reports of his progress. let him be taught to respect me as his benefactor, and once a year i desire him to spend a week or two with me, in order that by wise counsels and salutary advice, i may assist the holy church in her noble work. remember, too," and here the count's features assumed a threatening look, "that this act of to-day is done by the authority of his majesty the czar, who will hold you accountable for the strict observance of all you have promised." the priest bowed his head humbly. "i reverence the church, your excellency," he answered, "but above all i owe allegiance to its spiritual head, the czar." all preliminaries having been arranged, jacob was sent for. the priest, who not unnaturally expected to see a young man, was greatly surprised at the appearance of this puny child. he concealed his astonishment as well as possible, merely observing: "i presume, your excellency, this is my future pupil." "it is, and may he prove worthy of his eminent teacher." "come, my boy," said the priest, taking the mystified jacob by the hand; "say good-by to your benefactors." but jacob, upon whom the sombre-robed, grim-visaged stranger did not make a favorable impression, broke from his hold and took refuge in the skirts of the countess, as the most compassionate of the company. "don't let them take me away," he sobbed. "let me remain with you." "be a good boy and he will take you home to your papa and mamma," said the countess, with the best intentions in the world. "will he take me to mendel?" asked the boy. "yes, he is going there now and will take you to all your friends." the child wiped away his tears and a smile rippled over his face. he put his hand confidingly into that of the priest, and said: "come, i will go with you." the priest, in spite of his fanaticism, took the poor jew in his arms and kissed him tenderly. then setting him again upon his feet, he whispered: "i shall take him to a kind and loving mother, one from whose embrace he will not care to flee--the holy mother of god." jacob entered the wagon with his new acquaintance, and in the belief that he was going direct to the home of his parents, he fell asleep. when he awoke, he found himself borne by strong arms into the convent, whose doors closed upon him, separating him forever from his home and his religion. chapter ix. a miraculous cure. let us return to mendel. the unconscious boy was carried to the village by the sympathizing israelites of poltava. when he recovered his senses he found himself safely sheltered in the house of reb sholem, the _parnas_ (president of the congregation). it was a pleasure to find kind sympathy, a warm room and a substantial meal, after the hardships of the last few days; but the constant recollection of jacob's disappearance, the reproaches which mendel heaped upon himself for having deserted his brother, left him no peace of mind. the jews of poltava displayed their practical sympathy by dividing into groups and scouring the village and the surrounding country, in hopes of finding some clue to the whereabouts of the boy. he might even now be wandering through the fields. night, however, found them all gathered at reb sholem's house, sorrowful and disheartened, as not a trace of the missing lad had been discovered. mendel retired in a state of fever and tossed restlessly about on his bed during the entire night. he was moved by but one desire--to get to his uncle at kief as quickly as possible. in the morning he informed his host of his plans. a carrier of the village, who drove his team to within a few versts of kief, was induced, upon the payment of an exorbitant sum, to take the boy as a passenger, and at dawn next morning they started upon their slow and tedious journey, followed by the good wishes of the jewish community. it was an all-day trip to kief. over stone and stubble, through ditch and mire moved the lumbering, springless vehicle, and mendel, who quitted poltava with an incipient fever, arrived at his destination in a state of utter exhaustion. the carrier set him down at the outskirts of the town. it was as much as his position was worth to have harbored a jew--a fugitive from the military at that--and slowly and painfully mendel found his way through the strange city, to the jewish quarter. every soldier that crossed his path inspired him with terror; it might be some one charged with his recapture. not until he reached his destination did he deem himself safe. to the south-east of the city, stretched along the dnieper, lay the jewish settlement of almost fifteen thousand souls. the most dismal, unhealthy portion of the town had in days gone by been selected as its location. the decree of the _mir_ had fixed its limits in the days of peter the great, and its boundaries could not be extended, no matter how rapidly the population might increase, no matter how great a lack of room, of air, of light there might be for future generations. the houses were, therefore, built as closely together as possible, without regard to comfort or sanitary needs. to each was added new rooms, as the necessities of the inhabiting family demanded, and these additions hung like excrescences from all sides of the ugly huts, like toadstools to decaying logs. every inch of ground was precious to the ever-increasing settlement. it was a labyrinth of narrow, dirty streets, of unpainted, unattractive, dilapidated houses, a lasting monument of hatred and persecution, of bigotry and prejudice. mendel gasped for a breath of fresh air, and, feeling himself grow faint, he hurried onward and inquired the way to hirsch bensef's house. a plain, unpretentious structure was pointed out and mendel knocked at the door. hirsch himself opened the door. for a moment he stood undecided, scarcely recognizing in the form before him, his chubby nephew of a week ago. then he opened his arms and drew the little fellow to his breast. "is it indeed you, mendel?" he cried. "_sholem alechem!_ (peace be with you!) god be praised that he has brought you to us!" and he led the boy into the room and closed the door. "miriam," he called to his wife, who was engaged in her household duties in an adjoining room; "quick, here is our boy, our mendel. i knew he would come." mendel was lovingly embraced by his cheerful-looking aunt, whom he had never seen, but whom he loved from that moment. "what ails you, my boy? you look ill; your head is burning," said miriam, anxiously. "yes, aunt; i fear i shall be sick," answered mendel, faintly. "nonsense; we will take care of that," replied hirsch. "but where is jacob?" mendel burst into tears, the first he had shed since his enforced departure from home. in as few words as possible he told his story, accompanied by the sobs and exclamations of his hearers. in conclusion, he added: "either jacob wandered away in his delirium and is perhaps dead in some deserted place, or else the soldiers have recaptured him and have taken him back to kharkov." "rather he be dead than among the inhuman cossacks at the barracks," returned his uncle. "god in his mercy does all things for the best!" "the poor boy must be starving," said miriam, and she set the table with the best the house afforded, but mendel could touch nothing. "it looks tempting, but i cannot eat," he said. "i have no appetite." the poor fellow stretched himself on a large sofa, where he lay so quiet, so utterly exhausted, that hirsch and his wife looked at each other anxiously and gravely shook their heads. a casual stranger would not have judged from the unpretentious exterior of bensef's house, that its proprietor was in possession of considerable means, that every room was furnished in taste and even luxury, that works of oriental art were hidden in its recesses. persecuted during generations by the jealous and covetous nations surrounding them, the jews learned to conceal their wealth beneath the mask of poverty. robbers, in the guise of uniformed soldiery and decorated officers of the czar, stalked in broad daylight to relieve the despised hebrew of his superfluous wealth, and thus it happened that the poorest hut was often the depository of gold and silver, of artistic utensils, which were worthy of the table of the czar himself. nor was this fact entirely unknown to the surrounding christians. not unfrequently were persecutions the outcome of the absurd idea that every jewish hovel was the abode of riches, and that every hut where misery held court, where starving children cried for bread, was a mine of untold wealth. the condition of the race has changed in some of the more civilized countries, but in russia these barbarous notions still prevail. hirsch bensef, by untiring energy and perseverance as a dealer in curios and works of art, had become one of the wealthiest and most influential men in the community. he was _parnas_ of the great congregation of kief, and was respected, not only by his co-religionists, but also by the nobles with whom he transacted the greater portion of his business. his wife, who had in her youth been styled the "beautiful miriam," even now, after twelve years of married life, was still a handsome woman. her dark eyes shone with the same bewitching fire; her beautiful hair had, in accordance with the orthodox jewish custom, fallen under the shears on the day of her marriage, but the silken band and string of pearls that henceforth decked her brow did not detract from her oriental beauty. hirsch was proud of her and he would have been completely happy if god had vouchsafed her a son. like hannah, she prayed night and morning to the heavenly throne. such was the family in whose bosom mendel had found a refuge. after a while, the boy asked for a glass of water, which he swallowed eagerly. then he asked: "when did you leave togarog, uncle; and how are father and mother?" bensef sighed at the recollection of the sad parting and tearfully related the events of that memorable night. "after the soldiers had carried you off," he said, "the little band that followed you to the confines of the village, returned sorrowful to their homes. i need not tell you of our misery. it appeared as though god had turned his face from his chosen people. we spent the night in prayer and lamentations. in every house the inhabitants put on mourning, for whatever might befall the children, to their parents they were irretrievably lost." "poor papa! poor mamma!" murmured mendel, wiping away a tear. "on the following morning," continued bensef; "all the male _jehudim_ went to alexandrovsk and implored an audience of the governor. he sent us word that he would hold no conference with jews and threatened us all with siberia if we did not at once return home. what could we do? i bade your parents farewell, and after promising to do all in my power to find and succor you and jacob, i left them and returned home, where i arrived yesterday. thank god that you, at least, are safe from harm." mendel nestled closer to his uncle, who affectionately stroked his fevered brow. "oh! why does god send us such sufferings?" moaned the boy. "be patient, my child. it is through suffering that we will in the end attain happiness. when afflictions bear most heavily upon us, then will the messiah come!" this hope was ever the anchor which preserved the chosen people when the storms of misfortune threatened to destroy them. the belief in the eventual coming of a redeemer who would lead them to independence, and for whose approach trials, misery and persecution were but a necessary preparation, has been the great secret of israel's strength and endurance. during the evening, a number of bensef's intimate friends visited the house and were told mendel's history. the news of his arrival soon spread through the community, awakening everywhere the liveliest sympathy. many parents had been bereft of their children in the self-same way and still mourned the absence of their first-born, whom the cruel decree of nicholas had condemned to the rigors of some military outpost. mendel became the hero of kief, while he lay tossing in bed, a prey to high fever. in spite of the care that was lavished upon him, he steadily grew worse. fear, hunger, exposure and self-reproach had been too much for his youthful frame. for several days miriam administered her humble house-remedies, but they were powerless to relieve his sufferings. the hot tea which he was made to drink, only served to augment the fever. on the fifth day, mendel was decidedly in a dangerous condition. he was delirious. the doctors in the jewish community were consulted, but were powerless to effect a cure. bensef and his wife were in despair. "what shall we do?" said miriam, sadly. "we cannot let the boy die." "die?" cried hirsch, becoming pale at the thought. "oh, god, do not take the boy! he has wound himself about my heart. oh, god, let him live!" "come, husband, praying is of little avail," answered his practical wife; "we must have a _feldsher_" (doctor). "a _feldsher_ in the jewish community? why, miriam, are you out of your mind? have you forgotten how, when rabbi jeiteles was lying at the point of death, no amount of persuasion could induce a doctor to come into the quarter. 'let the jews die,' they answered to our entreaties; 'there will still be too many of them!'" miriam sighed. she remembered it well. "what persuasion would not do, money may accomplish," she said, after a pause. "hirsch, that boy must not die. he must live to be a credit to us and a comfort to our old age. you have money--what gentile ever resisted it?" "i will do what i can," said the man, gloomily. "but even though i could bring one to the house, what good can he do. it is merely an experiment with the best of them. they will take our money, make a few magical incantations, prescribe a useless drug, and leave their patient to the mercy of fate." hirsch bensef was right. at the time of which we speak, medicine could scarcely be classed among the sciences in russia, and if we accept the statement of modern travellers, the situation is not much improved at the present day. the scientific doctor of russia was the _feldsher_ or army surgeon, whose sole schooling was obtained among the soldiery and whose knowledge did not extend beyond dressing wounds and giving an occasional dose of physic. upon being called to the bedside of a patient, he adopted an air of profound learning, asked a number of unimportant questions, prescribed an herb or drug of doubtful efficacy, and charged an exorbitant fee. the patient usually refused to take the medicine and recovered. it sometimes happened that he took the prescribed dose and perhaps recovered, too. on a level with the _feldsher_ and much preferred by the peasantry, stood the _snakharka_, a woman, half witch, half quack, who was regarded by the _moujiks_ with the greatest veneration. by means of herbs and charms, she could accomplish any cure short of restoring life to a corpse. "the _snakharka_ and the _feldsher_ represent two very different periods in the history of medical science--the magical and the scientific. the russian peasantry have still many conceptions which belong to the former. the majority of them are now quite willing, under ordinary circumstances, to use the scientific means of healing, but as soon as a violent epidemic breaks out and scientific means prove unequal to the occasion, the old faith revives and recourse is had to magical rites and incantations."[ ] neither of these systems was regarded favorably by the hebrews. the _feldshers_ were, by right of their superior knowledge, an arrogant class; and it was suspected that on more than one occasion they had hastened the death of a jew under treatment, instead of relieving him. the israelites were equally suspicious of the _snakharkas_; not because they were intellectually above the superstitions of their times, but because the incantations and spells were invariably pronounced in the name of the virgin mary, and no jew could be reasonably expected to recover under such treatment. what was to be done for poor mendel? hirsch, assisted by suggestions from his wife, cogitated long and earnestly. suddenly miriam found a solution of the difficulty. "why not send to rabbi eleazer at tchernigof?" hirsch gazed at his wife in silent admiration. "to the _bal-shem_?" he asked. "why not? when chune benefski's little boy was so sick that they thought he was already dead, a parchment blessed by the _bal-shem_ brought him back to life. is mendel less to you than your own son would be?" "god forbid," said hirsch; then added, reflectively: "but to-day is thursday. it will take a day and a half to reach tchernigof, and the messenger will arrive there just before _shabbes_. he cannot start on his return until saturday evening, and by the time he got back mendel would be cold in death. no; it is too far!" "_shaute!_" (nonsense!) ejaculated his wife, who was now warmed up to the subject. "do you imagine the _bal-shem_ cannot cure at a distance as well as though he were at the patient's bedside? lose no time. god did not deliver mendel out of the hands of the soldiers to let him die in our house." one of the most fantastic notions of cabalistic teaching was that certain persons, possessing a clue to the mysterious powers of nature, were enabled to control its laws, to heal the sick, to compel even the almighty to do their behests. such a man, such a miracle worker, was called a _bal-shem_. that a _bal-shem_ should thrive and grow fat is a matter of course, for consultations were often paid for in gold. to the wonder-working rabbi travelled all those who had a petition to bring to the throne of god--the old and decrepit who desired to defraud the grave of a few miserable years; the unfortunate who wished to improve his condition; the oppressed who yearned for relief from a tyrannical taskmaster; the father who prayed for a husband for his fast aging daughter; the sick, the halt, the maim, the malcontent, the egotist--all sought the aid, the mediation of the holy man. he refused no one his assistance, declined no one's proffered gifts. it was finally decided to send to the _bal-shem_ to effect mendel's cure. but time was pressing, mendel was growing visibly worse and tchernigof was a long way off! hirsch rose to go in search of a messenger. "whom will you send?" asked his wife, accompanying him to the door. "the beadle, itzig maier, of course," rang back hirsch's answer, as he strode rapidly down the street. let us accompany him to itzig maier's house, situated in the poorest quarter of kief. in a narrow lane stood a low, dingy, wooden hut, whose boards were rotting with age. the little windows were covered for the most part with greased paper in lieu of the panes that had years ago been destroyed, and scarcely admitted a stray beam of sunlight into the room. the door, which was partially sunken into the earth, suggesting the entrance to a cave, opened into the one room of the house, which served at once as kitchen and dormitory. it was damp, foul and unhealthy, scarcely a fit dwelling-place for the emaciated cat, which sat lazily at the entrance. the floor was innocent of boards or tiles, and was wet after a shower and dry during a drought. the walls were bare of plaster. it was a stronghold of poverty. misery had left her impress upon everything within that wretched enclosure. yet here it was that itzig maier, his wife, and five children lived and after a fashion thrived. in one respect he was more fortunate than most of his neighbors; his hut possessed the advantage of housing but one family, whereas many places, not a whit more spacious or commodious, furnished a dwelling to three or four. the persecutions which limited the jewish quarter to certain defined boundaries, the intolerance which prohibited the jews from possessing or cultivating land, or from acquiring any trade or profession, were to blame for this wretchedness. a brief review of the past career of our new acquaintance, itzig maier, will give us a picture of the unfortunate destiny of thousands of russian jews. itzig had studied talmud until he had attained his eighteenth year. but lacking originality he lapsed into a mere automaton. his eighteenth year found him a sallow-visaged, slovenly lad, ignorant of all else but the holy law. his anxious and loving parents began to think seriously of his future. almost nineteen years of age and not yet married! it was preposterous! a _schadchen_ (match-maker) was brought into requisition and a wife obtained for the young man. what mattered it that she was a mere child, unlettered and unfit for the solemn duties of wife and mother? what mattered it that the young people had never met before and had no inclination for each other? "it is not good for man to be alone," said the parents, and the prospective bride and bridegroom were simply not consulted. the girl's straggling curls succumbed to the shears; a band of silk, the insignia of married life, was placed over her brow, and the fate of two inexperienced children was irrevocably fixed; they were henceforth man and wife. both parents of itzig maier died shortly after the nuptials and the young man inherited a small sum of money, the meagre earnings of years, and the miserable hut which had for generations served as the family homestead. for a brief period the couple lived carelessly and contentedly; but, alas! the little store of wealth gradually decreased. itzig's fingers, unskilled in manual labor, could not add to it nor prevent its melting away. he knew nothing but law and talmud and his chances for advancement were meagre, indeed. after the last rouble had been spent, itzig sought refuge in the great synagogue, where as beadle he executed any little duties for which the services of a pious man were required--sat up with the sick, prayed for the dead, trimmed the lamps and swept the floor of the house of worship; in return for which he thankfully accepted the gifts of the charitably inclined. his wife, when she was not occupied with the care of her rapidly growing family, cheerfully assisted in swelling the family fund by peddling vegetables and fruit from door to door. oh, the misery of such an existence! slowly and drearily day followed day and time itself moved with leaden soles. there were many such families, many such hovels in kief; for although thrift and economy, prudence and good management are pre-eminently jewish qualities, yet they are not infrequently absent and their place usurped by neglect with its attendant misery. in spite of privations, however, life still possessed a charm for itzig maier. at times the wedding of a wealthy jew, or the funeral of some eminent man, demanded his services and for a week or more money would be plentiful and happiness reign supreme. hirsch bensef entered the hut and found jentele, maier's wife, perspiring over the hearth which occupied one corner of the room. she was preparing a meal of boiled potatoes. a sick child was tossing restlessly in an improvised cradle, which in order to save room was suspended from a hook in the smoke-begrimed ceiling. several children were squalling in the lane before the house. "_sholem alechem_," said the woman, as she saw the stranger stoop and enter the door-way, and wiping her hands upon her greasy gown, she offered hirsch a chair. "where is your husband?" asked hirsch, gasping for breath, for the heat and the malodorous atmosphere were stifling. "where should he be but in the synagogue?" said jentele, as she went to rock the cradle, for the child had begun to cry and fret at the sight of the stranger. "is the child sick?" asked bensef, advancing to the cradle and observing the poor half-starved creature struggling and whining for relief. "yes, it is sick. god knows whether it will recover. it is dying of hunger and thirst and i have no money to buy it medicines or nourishment." "does your husband earn nothing?" "very little. there have been no funerals and no weddings for several months." "can you not earn anything?" "how can i? i must cook for my little ones and watch my ailing child." "are your children of no service to you?" "my oldest girl, beile, is but seven years old. she does all she can to help me, but it is not much," answered jentele, irritably. hirsch sighed heavily and drawing out his purse, he placed a gold coin in the woman's hand. "here, take this," he said, "and provide for the child." he thought of mendel at home and tears almost blinded him. "carry the boy out into the air; this atmosphere is enough to kill a healthy person. well, god be with you!" and hirsch hurriedly left the the house. he found the man he was seeking at the synagogue. poverty and privation, hunger and care, had undertaken the duties of time and had converted this person into a decrepit ruin while yet in the prime of life. without unnecessary delay, for great was the need of haste, hirsch unfolded his plans, and itzig, in consideration of a sum of money, consented to undertake the journey at once. the money, destined as a gift to the _bal-shem_, was securely strapped about his waist, and arrangements were made with a _moujik_, who was going part of the way, to carry itzig on his wagon. "get there as soon as possible, and by all means before _shabbes_!" were bensef's parting words. in the meantime not a little sympathy was manifested for the unfortunate lad. bensef's house was crowded during the entire day. every visitor brought a slight token of love--a cake, a cup of jelly, a leg of a chicken; but mendel could eat nothing and the good things remained untouched. there was no lack of advice as to the boy's treatment. everyone had a recipe or a drug to offer, all of which miriam wisely refused to administer. there was at one time quite a serious dispute in the room adjoining the sick-chamber. hinka kierson, a stout, red-faced matron, asserted that cold applications were most efficacious in fevers of this nature, while chune benefski, whose son had had a similar attack, and who was therefore qualified to speak upon the subject, insisted that cold applications meant instant death, and that nothing could relieve the boy but a hot bath. miriam quieted the disputants by promising to try both remedies. to her credit be it said, she applied neither, but pinned her entire faith upon the coming remedy of the _bal-shem_. friday noon came but it brought no improvement. he continued delirious and his mind dwelt upon his recent trials, at one moment struggling against unseen enemies and the next calling piteously upon his brother jacob. hirsch and miriam could witness his suffering no longer, but went to their own room and gave free vent to the tears which would not be repressed. "oh, if the answer from the rabbi were but here," sighed miriam. "itzig will have just arrived in tchernigof," said her husband, despondingly. "we can expect no answer until monday morning." "and must we sit helpless in the meantime?" sobbed miriam, through her tears. the door opened and a woman living in the neighborhood entered to inquire after the patient. "see, miriam," she said, "when i was feverish last year after my confinement, a _snakharka_ gave me this bark with which to make a tea. i used a part of it and you remember how quickly i recovered. here is all i have left. try it on your boy; it can't hurt him and with god's help it will cure him." yes, miriam remembered how ill her neighbor had been and how rapid had been her convalescence. she took the bark and examined it curiously, made the tea and administered a portion without any visible effect. "continue to give it to him regularly until it is all gone," said the neighbor, and she went home to prepare for the sabbath. miriam, too, had her house to put in order and to prepare the table for the following day; but for the first time the gold and silver utensils, the snow-white linen--the luxurious essentials of the sabbath table--failed to give her pleasure. what did all her wealth avail her if mendel must die! her husband sat apathetically at the boy's bedside, watching his flushed face and listening to his delirious raving. the end seemed near. the boy asked for drink and miriam gave him more of the tea. five o'clock sounded from the tower of a near-by church and hirsch arose to dress for the house of prayer. _shabbes_ must not be neglected, happen what may. suddenly there was an unusual commotion in the narrow lane in which stood bensef's house. the door was hastily thrown open and in rushed itzig, the messenger to tchernigof, followed by a dozen excited, gesticulating friends. bensef ran to meet them, but when he saw his messenger already returned his countenance fell. "for god's sake, what is the matter? why are you not in tchernigof?" he said. "i was," retorted itzig, "but i have come back. here," he continued, opening a bag about his neck and carefully drawing therefrom a small piece of parchment covered with hieroglyphics, "put this under the boy's tongue and he will recover!" "but what is this paper?" asked hirsch, suspiciously. "it is from the _bal-shem_. don't ask so many questions, but do as i tell you! put it under the boy's tongue before the sabbath or it will be of no avail!" hirsch looked from itzig to the ever-increasing crowd that was peering in through the open door. then he gazed at the parchment. it was about two inches square and covered with mystic signs which none understood, but the power of which none doubted. in the margin was written in hebrew, "in the name of the lord--rabbi eleazer." there was no time for idle curiosity. hirsch ran into the patient's presence with the precious talisman and placed it under the boy's tongue. "there, my child," he whispered; "the _bal-shem_ sends you this. by to-morrow you will be cured." the boy, whose fever appeared already broken, opened his eyes and, looking gratefully at hirsch, answered: "yes, dear uncle, i shall soon be well," and fell into a deep sleep. hirsch closed the door softly and went out to his friends. the excitement was intense and the crowd was steadily growing, for the news had spread that itzig maier had been to tchernigof and back in less than two days. "tell us about it, itzig," they clamored. "how is it possible that you could do it?" but itzig waved them back and not until hirsch bensef came out from the sick chamber did he deign to speak. then his tongue became loosened, and to the awe and amazement of his listeners he related his wonderful adventures. he told them that, having left the wagon half-way to tchernigof, he had walked the rest of the distance, reaching his destination that very morning at eleven o'clock. the holy man, being advised by mysterious power of his expected arrival, awaited him at the door and said: "itzig, thou hast come about a sick boy at kief." the _bal-shem_ then gave him a parchment already written, and told him to return home at once and apply the remedy before _shabbes_, otherwise the spell would lose its efficacy. "then," continued the messenger, "i said, 'rabbi, this is friday noon; it takes almost a day and a half to reach kief. how can i get there by _shabbes_?' then he answered, 'thinkest thou that i possess the power to cure a dying man and not to send thee home before the sabbath? begin thy journey at once and on foot and thou shalt be in kief before night.' then i gave him the present i had brought and started out upon my homeward journey. i appeared to fly. it seemed as though i was suspended in the air, and trees, fields and villages passed me in rapid succession. this continued until about a half hour ago, when i suddenly found myself before kief and at once hastened here with the parchment." this incredible story produced different effects upon the auditors present. "it is wonderful," said one. "the _bal-shem_ knows the mysteries of god." "i don't believe a word of it," shouted another; "such things are impossible." "but we have proof of it before us," cried a third. "itzig could not have returned by natural means." then a number of the men related similar occurrences for which they could vouch, or which had taken place in the experience of their parents, and the gathering broke up into little groups, each gesticulating, relating or explaining. the excitement was indescribable. bensef laid his hand upon itzig's shoulder and led him aside. "look at me, itzig," he commanded. "i want to know the truth. is what you have just related exactly true." "to be sure it is. if you doubt it, go to the _bal-shem_ and ask him yourself." "do you swear by----" then checking himself, hirsch muttered: "we will see. if the boy recovers, i will believe you." when itzig arrived at the synagogue that evening, he was the cynosure of all eyes, and it is safe to say that there was not in kief a jewish household in which the wonderful story was not repeated and commented upon. mendel recovered with marvellous rapidity. whether his improvement was due to the peruvian bark which the kind-hearted neighbor had brought, or to the power of the cabalistic writing, or to the psychological influence of faith in the _bal-shem's_ power, it is not for us to decide, but certain it is that rabbi eleazer received full credit for the cure and his already great reputation spread through russia. the fact that itzig, whose poverty had been notorious, now occasionally indulged in expenditures requiring the outlay of considerable money, caused a rumor to spread that the worthy messenger had gone no further than the village of navrack, where he himself prepared the parchment and then returned with the wonderful story of his trip through the air and with his fortune augmented to the extent of bensef's present to the rabbi. envious people were not wanting who gave ear to this unkind rumor and even helped to spread it. but the fact that mendel had been snatched from the jaws of death was sufficient vindication for itzig, who for a long time enjoyed great honors at kief. footnotes: [footnote : wallace, p. .] chapter x. mendel thinks for himself. mendel's fondness for study determined his future career. nowhere were there such opportunities for learning the talmud as in kief. its numerous synagogues, its eminent rabbis, its large hebrew population, made it the centre of judaism in southern russia. in its schools some of the most learned rabbis of the empire had studied. throughout the whole of russia there were, at the time of which we speak, but few universities, and these scarcely deserved to rank above second-rate colleges. education was within the reach of very few. at the present day, "the merchants do not even possess the rudiments of an education. many of them can neither read nor write and are forced to keep their accounts in their memory, or by means of ingenious hieroglyphics, intelligible only to their inventors. others can decipher the calendar and the lives of the saints, and can sign their name with tolerable facility. they can make the simpler arithmetical calculations with the help of a little calculating machine, called _stchety_."[ ] in the days of nicholas it was infinitely worse. learning of any kind was considered detrimental to the state; schools were practically unknown. "the most stringent regulations were made concerning tutors and governesses. it was forbidden to send young men to study in western colleges and every obstacle was thrown in the way of foreign travel and residence. philosophy could not be taught in the universities."[ ] contrast with this enforced lethargy the intellectual activity that we meet with everywhere in jewish quarters. no settlement in which we find a _minyan_ (ten men necessary for divine worship), but there we will also find a _cheder_, a school in which the bible and the talmud are taught. indeed, study is the first duty of the jew; it is the quintessence of his religion. the unravelling of god's word has been from time immemorial regarded as the greatest need, the most ennobling occupation of man--a work commanded by god. the talmud teems with precepts concerning this all-important subject. "study by day and by night, for it is written: 'thou shalt meditate therein day and night.'" "the study of the law may be compared to a huge heap that is to be cleared away. the foolish man will say: 'it is impossible for me to remove this immense pile, i will not attempt it.' but the wise man says: 'i will remove a little to-day, and more to-morrow, and thus in time i shall have removed it all.' it is the same in studying the law."[ ] it was to this incessant study of the scriptures that israel owed its patience, its courage, its fortitude during centuries of persecution. it was this constant delving for truth which produced that bright, acute jewish mind, which in days of fanaticism and intolerance, protected the despised people from stupefying mental decay. it was this incessant yearning after the word of god, which moulded the moral and religious life of the jews and preserved them from the fanatical excesses of the surrounding peoples. that this study often degenerated into a mere useless cramming of unintelligible ideas is easily understood, and its effects were in many cases the reverse of ennobling. at the age of five, the jewish lad was sent to _cheder_ and his young years devoted to the study of the bible. every other occupation of mind and body was interdicted, the very plays of happy childhood were abolished. the pentateuch must henceforth form the sole mental nourishment of the boy. later on he is led through the labyrinth of talmudic lore, to wander through the dark and dreary catacombs of the past, analyze the mouldering corpses of a by-gone philosophy, drink into his very blood the wisdom, superstitions, morality and prejudices of preceding ages. he must digest problems which the greatest minds have failed to solve. either the pupil is spurred on to preternatural acuteness and becomes a credit to his parents and his teachers, or he succumbs entirely to the benumbing influence of an over-wrought intellect and is rendered unfit for the great physical struggle for existence. what is the talmud, this sacred literature of israel? it is a collection of discussions and comments of biblical subjects, by generations of rabbis and teachers who devoted their time and intellects to an analysis of the scriptures. it is a curious store-house of literary gems, at times carefully, at times carelessly compiled by writers living in different lands and different ages; a museum of curiosities, into which are thrown in strange confusion beautiful legends, historical facts, metaphysical discussions, sanitary regulations and records of scientific research. in it are preserved the wise decisions, stirring sermons and religious maxims of israel's philosophers. although a huge work, consisting of twelve folios, it bears no resemblance to a single literary production. on first acquaintance it appears a wilderness, a meaningless tangle of heterogeneous ideas, of scientific absurdities, of hair-splitting arguments, of profound aphorisms, of ancient traditions, of falsehood and of truth. it is a work of broadest humanity, of most fanatical bigotry. it is not surprising, therefore, that the talmud contains a great number of trivial subjects, which it treats with great seriousness. it contains, for example, dissertations upon sorcery and witchcraft as well as powerful religious precepts, and presents along-side of its wise and charitable maxims many utterances of an opposite nature. "for these faults the whole talmud had often been held responsible, as a work of trifles, as a source of trickery, without taking into consideration that it is not the work of a single author. over six centuries are crystallized in the talmud with animated distinctness. it is, therefore, no wonder if in this work, sublime and mean, serious and ridiculous, jewish and heathen elements, the altar and the ashes are found in motley mixture."[ ] to the _jeschiva_, or talmud school, mendel was immediately sent after his phenomenal recovery. the great rabbi jeiteles himself became the lad's instructor. let us accompany mendel on this beautiful autumn day to his school. the house of rabbi jeiteles was hemmed in on three sides by decaying and overcrowded dwellings, facing on the fourth a narrow, neglected lane. there was nothing in its appearance to attract a passer-by. the interior, however, was neatly and tastefully, if not luxuriously, furnished. on entering, one found himself in a comfortably arranged reception-room. on the eastern wall there hung a _misrach_, a scriptural picture bearing the inscription, "from the rising of the sun to its setting shall the name of the lord be praised." prints of biblical subjects adorned the remaining walls, the sabbath lamp hung from the ceiling and thrift and comfort seemed to be thoroughly at home. rebecca, the rabbi's wife, a pleasant-faced, mild-tempered little woman, was busy arranging the table for the evening meal. there is not much to be said about her and absolutely nothing against her. to a profound admiration for her husband's ability, she added charity and benevolence and shared with him the respect of the congregation. it had pleased the lord to deprive her of her three sons and the mother's love and devotion was now lavished upon her sole remaining child, her daughter recha. "my sons would be a great comfort to me," she often sighed, and then added, with resignation: "the lord's will be done." to the right of the entrance lay the staircase leading to the bed-rooms on the second floor, and to the left a door opened into the school-rooms, a recent addition to the dwelling, and in which the rabbi's fifty-odd pupils were daily instructed in their important studies. in the first of these rooms, the elementary department, sat the younger boys, whose spiritual and mental welfare were entrusted to an assistant, a young pedagogue, who did not believe in sparing the rod at the expense of the child, but, mindful of the unmerciful whippings he had received in his youth, endeavored on his part to inculcate the precepts of the pentateuch by means of sound thrashings. the progress of his pupils was not phenomenal, but their training was eminently useful in aiding them to bear the blows and trials which the gentile world had in store for them. the rabbi occasionally looked in upon the class and added his instructions to those of the assistant, who in the presence of his superior concealed his rod and assumed an air of unspeakable tenderness and loving solicitude towards his charges. the second school-room was for the more advanced pupils, who had for the most part passed their _bar-mitzvah_ and now revelled in the mystic lore of the talmud. on rough wooden desks, whose surfaces had been engraved by unskilled hands, huge folios lay open. at the upper end of the room sat the rabbi, on whose head the frosts of sixty winters had left their traces. his snow-white beard covered his breast and his hair hung in silver locks over his temples. his pale and finely-cut features stamped him as a man of education and refinement. the venerable patriarch had for more than thirty years filled the position of chief rabbi of kief, and his reputation as a talmudist and a man of great mental acumen was not confined to his native town. the rattan which the rabbi held in his hand, the better to guide his pupils, was never used for corporal punishment, for a glance or a whispered admonition from the beloved teacher was more potent than were blows from another. at his side sat his little daughter recha, scarcely nine years of age, whose features gave promise of great oriental beauty. her dark eyes and darker hair, her rosy lips and merry smile, formed a veritable symphony of childish loveliness. recha deemed it a great favor to be allowed in the room with her father during school-hours, and as her presence exercised a refining influence over the boys, each one of whom loved the girl in his own juvenile way, the rabbi offered no objections. the boys were being instructed in a difficult passage of the talmud. following the movements of the rabbi's head and body they recited their appropriate lines. like a mighty _crescendo_ swelled the chorus, for the greater the pupil's zeal the louder rose his voice, and ever and anon they were inspired to quicker time, to greater enthusiasm, until the lesson came to an end. alas, poor boys! taken from the cheerful sunlight to pass the days of happy boyhood in wading through heaps of useless learning, tutored in a philosophy which demands age and experience for its perfect comprehension; of what use can all this talmud delving be to you, when once life summons you to more practical duties? and yet how much better this training, confusing and bewildering though it be, than the absolute ignorance, the unchecked illiteracy of the russian christians. rabbi jeiteles interrupted his class to amplify upon the passage just read. he had been a great traveller in his youth, had wandered through austria and germany, and had picked up disconnected scraps of worldly information, to which, in a measure, his superiority in kief was due. there were envious calumniators who did not hesitate to assert that the rabbi was a _meshumed_ (a renegade), that his mind had become polluted with ideas and thoughts at variance with judaism, that he had in his possession--_o mirabile dictu!_--a copy of the mendelssohnian translation of the pentateuch, against which a ban had been hurled. these were but rumors, however, and the better class of hebrews paid no attention to them. the passage under consideration was the beautiful legend concerning the necessity of understanding the law, and the rabbi undertook to elucidate its somewhat difficult construction. according to the wise scribes of the talmud, each soul after death enters into the presence of its maker, and is asked to give a reason for not having studied the _torah_. if poverty is offered as an excuse, he is reminded of hillel, who though poor deprived himself of life's comforts that he might enjoy god's word. if the burdens and cares of wealth are advanced in palliation, he is reminded of eleazer, who abandoned his lands and possessions to seek the consolation of knowledge. if a man pleads temptations and weakness to excuse a life of evil, he is told of joseph's constancy. in short, it is incumbent on all to understand god's commandments and to obey them, for "the beginning of wisdom is the fear of the lord." silence reigned in the class-room, while the rabbi, in explanation of his subject, related incidents that had occurred to him during his eventful career. the interest was intense, numerous questions were asked and graciously answered, and the _mishna_ was again taken up. at length the lesson came to an end and the school was dismissed. the pupils, glad to be released from their duties, bade their teacher good-by and tripped out into the inviting sunlight. mendel alone remained. "well, my boy, what is it?" asked the rabbi, as mendel gazed wistfully at him. "rabbi, are you going out for your walk?" he asked, timidly. "yes," answered the other, surprised at the question. "may i accompany you? i have so much to ask of you." the rabbi gladly acquiesced. although mendel had been but six months under his tuition, he had already become his favorite pupil. his quick perception and wonderful originality of thought attracted the teacher. the teacher and pupil walked through the miserable streets of the quarter until they reached the open fields. here the rabbi stopped and drew a long breath. "how different this is," he said, "from the contaminated air one breathes in the narrow lanes of our quarter." "you have travelled much, rabbi," said the boy. "tell me, are the jews treated as cruelly all over the world as they are in russia?" "unfortunately they are, in some other countries. why do you ask?" "because i think--rabbi, are we not ourselves to blame for our wretched existence?" jeiteles looked at the boy in surprise. "that is a very grave question for a boy of your age," he said. "what gave you such an idea?" "i have been thinking very much of late that if we were more like other people we might be made to suffer less." "god forbid that we should become like them," answered the rabbi, hastily. "israel's greatest calamities have been caused by aping the fashions of other nations. our only salvation lies in clinging to our customs and faith. do not attempt to judge your elders until you are more conversant with your own religion. obey the law and do not trouble yourself concerning the religious observances of your people." the boy took the rebuke meekly and the two walked on in silent meditation. after a pause, mendel again took up the conversation. "in to-day's lesson," he said, "we learned that the fear of god is the beginning of wisdom; that study is god's special command. a wise rabbi furthermore said upon this subject: 'he gains wisdom who is willing to receive from all sources.' am i right?" "you have quoted correctly. go on!" "is there any passage in the talmud which forbids the learning of a foreign language or the reading of a book not written in hebrew?" the rabbi gazed thoughtfully upon the ground but could not recollect such a passage. "last week," continued mendel, "while in the city, i saw a book in russian characters. i bought it and took it home to study. my uncle tore the book from my hands and threw it into the fire, all the time bewailing that anything so impure had been brought into the house. then i was obliged to run to the house of worship and pray until sunset for forgiveness. was there anything so very wrong in trying to learn something beside the talmud?" the worthy rabbi was sorely puzzled for a reply. his knowledge of the world had long ago opened his eyes to the narrow-minded bigotry which swayed the russian jewish people in their prejudices against anything foreign. he, too, deplored the fact that intellects so bright and alert should be content to linger in these musty catacombs. full well he knew that the constant searching for hidden meanings in the scriptures was the direct cause of many of the superstitions which had crept into judaism. he, too, had in his youth yearned for more extended knowledge than that derived from the talmud's folios, and had in secret studied the russian and german languages at the risk of being discovered and branded as a heretic. he understood the boy's craving and sympathized with him; but could he conscientiously advise him to brave the opposition and prejudices of his people and pursue that knowledge to which he aspired? "well, rabbi," said the boy, eagerly, "you do not answer. have i violated any law by asking such a question?" rabbi jeiteles wiping his perspiring brow with a large red handkerchief, sat down upon a moss-grown log and bade the boy sit at his side. "my dear mendel," he began, "you are scarcely old or experienced enough to comprehend the gravity of your question. it is important for israel the world over to remain unpolluted by the influence of gentile customs. the messiah will surely come, nor can his arrival be far off, and a new kingdom, a united power will reward us for our past sufferings and present faith. were israel to become tainted with foreign ideas, she would in each country develop different propensities, learn different languages and her religion would become contaminated by all that is most obnoxious in other faiths. it is to preserve the unity of israel, the similarity of thought, the purity of our religion, that we look with horror upon any foreign learning. now, compare our mental condition with that of the russian _moujiks_, or even nobles. what do they know? what have they studied? very little, indeed! they know nothing of the great deeds of the past that are revealed to us through the scriptures; they cannot enjoy the grand and majestic philosophy of our god-inspired rabbis. brought up in utter ignorance, their life may be likened to a desert, barren of all that pleases the eye and elevates the mind." "but," interrupted the boy, "might we not hold on to our own, even while we are learning from the gentiles? our language, for example, is, as i have heard you say, a terrible jargon. we have forgotten much of our hebrew and use many strange words instead. we have but to open our mouths to be recognized at once as jews and to be treated with contempt. if we were but to learn the russian language, it might save us from many a cruel humiliation and the hebrew tongue might still be preserved in our own circle." "you mistake, my boy; our humiliations do not proceed from any one fact, such as jargon or customs, but from a variety of circumstances combined, principal among which are envy of our domestic happiness, fanaticism because of our rejection of the christian religion, and a cruel prejudice which has been handed down through generations from father to son. no amount of learning on our side can change this. persecutions will continue, the gentiles will never learn that the jew is made of flesh and blood and has sentiments and feelings the same as they. our right to humane treatment will not be recognized any more than at present, and harder, unspeakably harder, will be the sting and pain of our degradation, if by deep study we rise mentally above our sphere. the ignorant man suffers less than the person with elevated susceptibilities. learning, therefore, while it would not improve our treatment at the hands of the gentiles, would but serve to make us the more discontented with our own unfortunate condition." the rabbi was right; he spoke from bitter experience, and mendel slipped his hand into that of his teacher and gazed thoughtfully before him. "a great head," muttered the old man, looking fondly at the boy. "if his energies are directed into the proper channels, he will become a shining light in israel." "come, mendel, let us go home," he said aloud, and they started silently for the town, both too much engrossed in thought to speak. only once, mendel asked: "rabbi, you are not offended by my questions?" and the rabbi replied: "no, my boy. on the contrary, i am glad that you are beginning to think for yourself. the world is but a group of thinkers and the best heads among them are usually leaders. this has been an agreeable walk to me. let us repeat it soon." "nothing would give me greater pleasure," cried mendel, with undisguised delight. "and if you will be so kind, i should like to hear all about your travels." the rabbi promised, and, having reached the jewish quarter, pupil and teacher parted for their respective homes. footnotes: [footnote : wallace, p. .] [footnote : foulke, "slav or saxon," p. .] [footnote : rabbi chonan.] [footnote : "graetz's history of the jews," vol. , p. .] chapter xi. the return of the renegade. it was just a week since mendel and the rabbi had walked out together. hirsch bensef rushed with gigantic strides up the street leading to his house, and long before he reached his door he shouted, at the top of his voice: "miriam! miriam! i have news for you!" miriam had recovered her health, and was in the kitchen preparing meat for the following day. this was a most important operation, requiring the housewife's undivided attention. according to a mosaic command blood was sacrificed upon the altar of the temple, but was strictly forbidden as an article of diet. the animal is slaughtered in a manner which will drain off the greatest amount of the life-giving fluid, and great importance is attached to the processes for extracting every particle of blood from the meat which is brought upon the jewish table. a thorough rubbing with salt and an hour's immersion in water are necessary to its preparation. scientists who acknowledge that the blood is the general vehicle for conveying the parasites and germs of disease, recognize in this command of moses a valuable sanitary measure, worthy of universal imitation. miriam heard her husband's distant call and, with her hands full of salt, she ran to the door. hirsch entered, completely out of breath. "who do you think has arrived?" he gasped. "how should i know?" "guess." "i might guess from now until the coming of _meschiach_ and still not be right." "pesach harretzki, your cousin and old admirer." miriam sank into a chair and a smile rippled over her pretty features. "pesach harretzki here? when did he arrive?" "to-day. this morning. itzig maier, who knows all the news in town, has just told me. he has come back from america to visit his old parents and take them with him across the ocean." "has he changed much?" asked miriam. "no doubt of it! itzig says he is without a beard and looks more like a _goy_ (gentile) than like one of our own people. i suppose he has lost what religion he once possessed, which by the way was not much." "you will invite him to call on us, of course." hirsch looked askance at his wife and frowned. "i don't know," he answered, reflectively; "we shall see." hirsch bensef, the _parnas_ of the chief congregation, and whose reputation for piety overtopped that of any other man of the community, might well pause before inviting the new arrival to his house. pesach harretzki was one of those perverse lads that one meets occasionally in a hebrew community, who, feeling the wild impulse of youth in every vein, throws over the holy traditions of his forefathers and follows rather the promptings of his own heart than that happiness which can only be found in a firm adherence to the law and its precepts. unrestrained by his parents' anxious pleadings, bound by no will save that of momentary caprice, he overstepped the boundary which separates the pious jew from his profane surroundings and thereby forfeited the respect and good-will of the entire community. the young man had never been guilty of actual wrong-doing, but had in a thousand petty ways displayed his utter disregard of the customs that were so dear to the hearts of his co-religionists. the sabbath found him strolling through the city instead of attending divine service at the synagogue. of the talmud he knew very little, having preferred to play with his gentile friends to wasting his hours in the _cheder_. he had been known to eat _trefa_ at the house of a _goy_, and with a fastidiousness that was without parallel in the annals of kief, he had shaved off all of his beard, leaving only a jaunty little mustache. so it happened that his name became a terror to all pious israelites. there was but one attraction in judaism which still fascinated pesach, and that was his charming cousin miriam. she alone possessed the power of bringing him back when he had strayed too far from the fold and her bright eyes often recalled him to a sense of duty. he loved the girl, and had she shown him any encouragement he might still have reformed the evil of his ways. but even had miriam favored his advances, her father, one of the most pious men of kief, would have dispelled all hope of an alliance between the two. old reb kohn, after endeavoring in vain to bring the reprobate to his senses, finally forbade him the house. shortly after, the betrothal of miriam kohn with the learned and wealthy hirsch bensef was announced. pesach became despondent and put the finishing touch to his ungodly career by becoming intoxicated with beer on the passover. in consequence of this and former misdeeds, he was ostracized from good jewish society, and finding himself shunned by his former associates he departed from kief to seek his fortune in a foreign land. after wandering about germany for a year or two, picking up a precarious living and a varied experience, he set sail for america, where he arrived without a penny. fortune smiled upon the poor man at last. he drifted into an inland city, americanized his name to philip harris, and succeeded, through honesty, thrift and perseverance, in building up a large business and accumulating a respectable fortune. it was only after success had been assured that he communicated with his parents in russia, and in spite of his past record great was the rejoicing when the first letter was received. he whom his friends had mourned as dead was alive and thriving; he had moreover become rich and respected and had been the means of establishing a jewish synagogue in the land of his adoption. the last two facts, coupled with the munificent gifts which he sent to the synagogue in kief and to his parents, were sufficient to lift the ban which had so long rested upon his name and to re-establish him in the good graces of the community. pesach, the _meshumed_, continued these contributions to the synagogue and to his parents, and the jews of kief, having forgotten his former escapades, referred to him thenceforth as "pesach the generous." he had now returned after an absence of twelve years, and the whole settlement was in a state of pardonable excitement. "is he still a jew? has he remained true to the old faith?" was asked on every side. it being friday, the sabbath eve, the synagogue was crowded and curiosity to see the stranger was at its height. the men frequently looked up from their prayer-books, and the women from their seats in the gallery craned their necks to get a view of the sunburnt, closely-shaven american. yes, he had changed; no one would have recognized him. of all the pious men that filled the house of worship, he was the only one who was without a beard. it was against the jewish custom to allow a razor to touch the beard, and had not philip's benevolence paved the way it is doubtful whether his presence would have been tolerated within those sacred precincts. in all other respects, however, he bore himself like a devout israelite. he stood by the side of his father, earnestly scanning the pages of his prayer-book, the greater part of whose contents were still familiar to him. his beardless face was in a measure atoned for. what a throng of visitors there was that evening at harretzkis house! the little room could scarcely hold them all. among them was rabbi jeiteles, who shook the suave and smiling stranger by the hand, congratulated him upon his appearance and asked him a hundred questions about his travels. indeed, it seemed as though the worthy rabbi intended to monopolize his company for the rest of the evening. then came hirsch bensef and his charming wife, the latter trembling and blushing in recollection of the days when she and her cousin pesach loved each other in secret. philip recognized her immediately. "why this is my dear cousin miriam," he said. "how well you look! you seem scarcely a day older than when i left you. is this your husband? happy man! how i used to envy you your good fortune? but that is all over now!" and he turned with a sigh to meet other friends. he recollected every man and woman in kief; moreover, he had a kind word and pretty compliment for each and the worthy people returned home more than ever impressed with the true excellence of pesach harretzki. "what a _medina_ (country) america must be to make such a finished product of the ungodly youth that kief turned out of doors twelve years ago!" such was bensef's remark to his wife, as they wended their way homeward. on the sabbath morn the capacity of the synagogue was again tested to the utmost. those who had not yet seen philip hastened to avail themselves of this opportunity. the man from america had become the greatest curiosity in the province. and to him, the great traveller, every incident, however trivial, served to recall a vision of the past. the devout men about him, wearing the fringed _tallis_, the venerable rabbi at the _almemor_, the ark with the same musty hangings, the pentateuch scrolls with the same faded covers which they bore in the years gone by, all appealed mightily to his heart and a tear forced itself unchecked through his lashes. philip would have been unable to explain to himself the cause of his emotion. the past had not been particularly pleasant; there was nothing to regret. perhaps some psychologist can account for that sweet and melancholy sentiment which the recollection of a dim and half-forgotten past brings in its train. it was delightful to philip to find himself once more in the presence of all that had been dear to him. his mind reviewed the many vicissitudes he had undergone, the many changes he had witnessed, and he fervently thanked the god of israel that he was permitted to revisit the scenes of his childhood, and that the people who had rejected him in his youth now received him with open arms. after prayers the _hazan_ (reader), assisted by the rabbi, opened the holy ark and took therefrom one of the scrolls. to philip, as a stranger, was accorded the honor of being one of those called up to say the blessing over the _torah_ (law). he touched the parchment with the fringes of his _tallis_, kissed them to signify his reverence for the holy words, and began with "_bar'chu eth adonai_." "he knows his _brocha_ yet, he is still a good jew!" was the mental comment of the congregation. then followed rabbi jeiteles in a short but pithy address, in which he laid great stress upon the fact that jehovah never allows his lambs to stray far from the fold, and that charity and benevolence cover a multitude of sins. he incidentally announced the fact that harretzki had offered the synagogue new hangings for the ark, covers for the scrolls and an entirely new metal roof for the _schul_ (synagogue) in place of the present one, which was sadly out of repair. such generosity was unparalleled. in spite of the sanctity of the place, expressions of approval were loud and emphatic. for a time the services were interrupted and general congratulations took the place of the prayers. philip's popularity was now assured. all opposition vanished and the american became a lion indeed. bensef no longer hesitated as to the propriety of inviting the stranger to his house. as _parnas_ he must be the first to do him honor and after the services were at an end the invitation was extended and accepted. it was a pleasant assemblage that gathered at bensef's house. philip, his father and mother, rabbi jeiteles, haim goldheim (a banker and intimate friend of the host), and several other patriarchal gentlemen, pillars of the congregation, were of the company. miriam was an excellent provider and on this occasion she fairly outdid herself. "perhaps," thought bensef, "there still lingers in her breast a spark of affection for the man who is now so greatly honored." but, no! miriam loved her husband dearly, and if she was attentive to her cousin it was but the courtesy due to a man who had been so far and seen so much. mendel, too, was at the table and could not take his eyes from the handsome stranger whose praises every mouth proclaimed. the boy regarded him as a superior being. tales of adventure, stories of travel, were the topics of conversation during the evening. after the dessert the talk took a more serious turn. the liberty enjoyed by the jews in america was a fruitful theme for discussion and many were the questions asked by the interested group. that israelites were politically and socially placed upon the same footing with their christian neighbors was a source of gratification, but that some religious observances were in many cases neglected or totally abolished, appeared to these pious listeners as very reprehensible. "you see," said philip, in explanation, "where a number of jewish families reside in one place it is still possible to obey the dietary laws, but in inland towns, where the number of israelite families is limited, it becomes an impossibility to observe them. nor do they deem it necessary that all the ceremonies that time has collected around the jewish religion should be strictly observed. those israelites who soonest adopt the customs of their new country soonest enjoy the benefits which a free and liberty-loving nation offers." hirsch bensef shook his head, doubtingly. "then you mean to imply that it becomes necessary to abolish those usages in which one's heart and soul are wrapped!" he said. "not at all," answered the american. "there are thousands of jews in america as observant of the ordinances as the most pious in kief. yet it seems to me that a jew can remain a jew even if he neglect some of those ceremonials which have very little to do with judaism pure and simple. some are remnants of an oriental symbolism, others comparatively recent additions to the creed, which ought to give way before civilization. what possible harm can it do you or your religion if you shave your beard or abandon your jargon for the language of the people among whom you live?" "it would make us undistinguishable from the _goyim_," answered bensef. "the sooner such a distinction falls the better," said philip. "you may recollect reading in history that in the time of peter the great the russian nobility wore beards and the czar's efforts to make them shave their faces provoked more animosity than did all the massacres of ivan the terrible. now a nobleman would sooner go to prison than wear a beard." "we never read history," interposed the childish treble of mendel. "if we did we should know more about the great world." "that is indeed a misfortune," said philip, sadly. "every effort to develop the jewish mind is checked, not by the gentiles, but by the jews themselves. had i been allowed full liberty to study what and how i pleased, i should never have been guilty of the excesses which drove me from home. a knowledge of the history of the world, an insight into modern science, will teach us why and wherefore all our laws were given and how we can best obey, not the letter but the spirit of god's commands." the faces of the little group fell visibly. this was rank heresy. god forbid that it should ever take root in israel. mendel alone appeared satisfied. he was absorbed in all the stranger had to say. this new doctrine was a revelation to him. but philip did not observe the impression he had created. he had warmed up to his subject and pursued it mercilessly. "the israelites in america," he continued, "are free and respected. they enjoy equal rights with the citizens of other religious beliefs. they are at liberty to go wherever they please and to live as they desire, and are often chosen to positions of honor and responsibility. such distinctions are only obtained, however, after one has become a citizen, and citizenship means adherence to the laws of the land and assimilation with its inhabitants. it was not long before i discovered, through constant friction with intelligent people about me, the absurdity of many of my ideas and prejudices. the more i associated with my fellow-men the more difficult i found it to retain the superstitions of by-gone days." "but in giving up what you call superstition," said the rabbi, "are you not giving up a portion of your religion as well?" "by no means," said philip, eagerly. "if rabbi jeiteles will pardon my speaking upon a subject concerning which he is better instructed and which he is better qualified to expound than myself, i will endeavor to tell why. you well know that until after the destruction of the second temple the jews had no talmud. they then obeyed the laws of god in all their simplicity and as they understood them, and not one of you will assert that they were not good and pious jews. then came the writers of the talmud with their explanations and commentaries, and the laws of moses acquired a new meaning. stress was laid upon words instead of upon ideas, upon conventionalities instead of upon the true spirit of god's word. after five centuries of talmudists had exhausted all possible explanations of the scriptures, the study of the law eventually paved the way for the invention of the _cabala_. a new bible was constructed. the pious were no longer content with a rational observance of the mosaic command, but a hidden meaning must be found for every word and in many cases for the individual letters of the pentateuch. the six hundred and thirteen precepts of moses were so altered, so tortured to fit new constructions, that the great prophet would experience difficulty in recognizing any one of his beautiful laws from the rubbish under which it now lies buried. new laws and ceremonies, new beliefs and, worse than all, new superstitions were thrust upon the people already weakened by mental fatigue caused by their incessant delving into the mysteries of the talmud. the free will of the people was suppressed. instead of giving the healthy imagination and pure reason full power to act, the teachers of the _cabala_ arrogated to themselves the power to decide what to do and how to do it, and as a result the jewish observances, as they exist to-day in pious communities, are bound up in arbitrary rules and superstitious absurdities which are as unlike the primitive and rational religion of israel as night is to day." this bold utterance produced a profound sensation in bensef's little dining-room. murmurs of disapproval and of indignation frequently interrupted the speaker, and long before he had finished, several of his listeners had sprung up and were pacing the room in great excitement. never before had any one dared so to trample upon the time-honored beliefs of israel. for infinitely less had the ban been hurled against hundreds of offenders and the renegades placed beyond the pale of judaism. the rabbi alone preserved his composure. mendel lost not a word of the discussion. he sat motionless, with staring eyes and wide open mouth, as though the stranger's eloquence had changed him into stone. "no, this is too much!" at length stammered hirsch bensef. "such a condemnation of our holy religion is blasphemy. rabbi, can you sit by and remain silent?" the rabbi moved uneasily upon his chair, but said nothing. philip continued: "that your rabbi should be of one mind with you is natural, but that does not in any way impair the force of what i have said. you will all admit that you place more weight upon your ceremonials than upon your faith. you deem it more important to preserve a certain position of the feet, a proper intonation of the voice during prayers than to fully understand the prayer itself, and in spite of your pretended belief in the greatness and goodness of god, you belittle him by the thought that an omission of a single ceremony, the eating of meat and milk together, the tearing of a _tzitzith_ (fringe) will offend him, or that a certain number of _mitzvoth_ (good acts) will propitiate him. do you understand now what i mean when i say that superstition is not religion?" "but," returned goldheim, "the _shulkan-aruch_ commands us to do certain things in certain ways. is it not our duty as god-fearing jews to obey the laws that have his sanction?" "undoubtedly! if you were certain that this book contained his express commands it would be incumbent upon you to observe them, only, however, after having sought to understand their meaning. but you know, or ought to know, that the book was written by a man like yourselves, who was as liable to err as you are. many of these commands were excellent at the time in which they were given, but change of circumstances has made them absurd." "what is godly at one time cannot become ungodly at another," said bensef, with determined obstinacy. "no; but what is beautiful and appropriate in one land may become the reverse in a different country, or at another period. let us take an example: it is an oriental custom to wear one's hat or turban as a mark of respect. in palestine such a usage is proper and the man who keeps his head covered before his fellow-men certainly should keep it covered before god. in america, however, i am considered ill-bred if i keep my hat on when i am conversing with the humblest of my associates; should i therefore keep it on when i am addressing my god? thus, many of your religious observances take their origin outside of religion and are appropriate only to the country in which they were conceived." "but to appear before god bareheaded is surely a sin!" stammered hirsch bensef, who would gladly have ended the conversation then and there. "not a sin, simply a novelty," answered philip. "but our proverb says: 'novelty brings calamity.'" "proverbs do not always speak the truth," replied the american. then after a pause he continued, reflectively: "there is another class of ceremonials which find their origin in one or the other of the commands of moses, and which through the eagerness of the people to observe them for fear of divine wrath, have been given an importance out of all proportion to their original significance. for instance, moses, for reasons purely humane, prohibited the cooking of a kid in its mother's milk, wisely teaching that what nature intended for the preservation of the animal should not be employed for its destruction. this law has been so distorted that the eating of meat and milk together was prohibited, and the severity of the resulting dietary laws makes it necessary to have two sets of dishes--one for meat, the other for all food prepared with milk. and so in a thousand cases the original intention of the command is lost in the mass of foreign matter that has been added to it." philip paused and, toying with his massive watch-chain, tried hard not to see the indignant glances that threatened to consume him. bensef arose from his chair in sheer desperation. "what would you have us do?" he asked, angrily. "desert the ceremonies of our forefathers and surrender to the ungodly?" "not by any means," was the quiet rejoinder. "worship god as your conscience dictates, continue in your ancient fashion if it makes you happy, but be tolerant towards him who, feeling himself mentally and spiritually above superstition, seeks to emancipate himself from its bonds and to follow the dictates of his own good common-sense." with these concluding words, philip arose and prepared to leave. the remaining guests also arose from their chairs and looked at each other in blank dismay. rabbi jeiteles stepped to the american and placed his hand upon his shoulder. "my dear pesach," he began, "what you have just said sounds strange and very dangerous to these good people. to me it was nothing new, for during my early travels i heard such discussions again and again. your arguments may or may not be correct. we will not discuss the matter. one thing you must not forget, however: the jews in russia and elsewhere are despised and rejected; they are degraded to the very scum of the earth. social standing, pursuit of knowledge, means of amusement, everything is taken from them. what is left? only the consolation which their sacred religion brings. the observance of the thousand ceremonials which you decry, is to them not only a religious necessity, a god-pleasing work; it is more, it is a source of domestic happiness, a means of genuine enjoyment, a comfort and a solace. whether these observances are needed or are superfluous in a free country like america i shall not presume to say, but in russia they are a moral and a physical necessity. you have spoken to-night as no man has ever spoken before in kief. were the congregation to hear of it, you would again find yourself an outcast from your native town, shunned and despised by all that now look upon you as a model of benevolence and piety. for your own sake, therefore, as well as for the peace of mind of those among whom your words might act as a firebrand, we hope that you will speak no more upon this subject and we on our part promise to keep our own counsel." philip readily consented and with his aged parents he left for his home, at the other end of the quarter. the friends bade each other a hasty good-night, and not another word was spoken concerning the discussion. "uncle," said mendel, as he was about to retire, "is not harretzki a very wise man?" "my boy," replied his uncle; "our rabbis say, 'much speech--much folly.'" chapter xii. forbidden books. philip remained in kief about two weeks, during which time he was hospitably entertained by the leaders of the jewish community. there was some difficulty in obtaining a passport for his parents, for, anxious as the russians are to expel the jews, by a remarkable contrariety of human nature they throw every obstacle in the way of a jew who endeavors to emigrate. mendel never missed an opportunity of passing harretzki's house. it had a strange fascination for him, and if he but saw the american at the window and exchanged greetings with him, the boy returned home with a happy heart. once--it was the day before philip's departure--mendel again passed the wretched abode in which the stranger dwelt. the door was open and philip was busied with preparations for his coming voyage. mendel gazed wistfully for some minutes and finally mustered up courage to enter and ask: "can i be of any service to you, sir?" philip, who had taken a decided fancy to the boy, said, kindly: "yes; you may assist me. here are my books. pack them into this chest." with a reverence amounting almost to awe, mendel took up the books one by one and arranged them as philip directed. now and then he opened a volume and endeavored to peer into the wondrous mysteries it contained, but the characters were new to him; they were neither hebrew nor russian, and the boy sighed as he piled the books upon each other. philip observed him with growing interest. "are you fond of books?" he asked, at length. "oh, yes. if i could but study," answered the boy, eagerly, and big tears welled up into his eyes. "and why can't you?" "because i have no books but our old hebrew folios, and if i had they would be taken from me." "continue to study the books you have," said philip, "you will find much to learn from them." "but there are so many things to know that are not in our books. how i should like to be as wise as you are." philip smiled, sorrowfully. "i know very little," he answered. "i am not regarded as a particularly well-educated person in my country. what good would learning do you in kief?" "it would make me happy," answered the boy. "no, child; it would make you miserable by filling your little head with ideas which would bring down upon you the anathemas of your dearest friends." there was a pause, during which mendel worked industriously. suddenly he said: "might i ask a favor, sir?" "certainly, my boy; i shall be happy if i can grant it." "let me take one of your books to keep in remembrance of you?" "you cannot read them; they are written in german and english." "that does not matter. their presence would remind me of you. besides i might learn to read them." "but if a strange book is found in your possession it will be taken from you." "i will conceal it." philip reflected a moment; then carefully selecting two books, he presented them to the overjoyed boy. "remember," he said, "that ignorance is frequently bliss. a rabbi once said: 'beware of the conceit of learning.' it is often well to say, 'i don't know.'" then the american spoke of the difficulties he had experienced in acquiring an education, how he had worked at a trade by day and gone to school during the evening. mendel had a thousand questions to ask, which philip answered graciously; but the packing having come to an end, and mendel having exhausted his inquiries and finding no further excuse to remain, the two bade each other an affectionate farewell. mendel ran home with his sacred treasures carefully concealed under his blouse, and with great solicitude he locked them up in an old closet which served as his wardrobe. the following morning philip and his parents were escorted to the limits of the city by the influential jews of kief, and the travellers started upon their long voyage to america. during the next few weeks mendel was at his talmudic studies in the _jeschiva_ as usual, but there was a decided change in his manner--a certain listlessness, a lack of interest, which were so apparent that rabbi jeiteles could not but observe them. "i fear that the boy has been studying too hard," he said to his wife one day. "we must induce him to take more exercise." after the close of the lesson, the teacher said: "come, mendel; it is quite a while since we have walked together. let us go into the fields." mendel, who adored his preceptor, was well pleased to have an opportunity of relieving his heart of its burden, and gladly accepted the invitation. for a while the two strolled in silence. the air was balmy and nature was in her most radiant dress. "tell me," at length began the rabbi; "tell me why you appear so dejected?" "you will reproach me if i confess the cause," answered the boy, tearfully. "you should know me better," answered the rabbi. "you ought to be aware that i am interested in your welfare." "well, then," sobbed mendel, no longer able to repress his feelings, "i am unhappy because of my ignorance. i wish to become wise." "and then?" asked the rabbi. the boy opened his eyes to their full extent. he did not comprehend the question. "after you have acquired great wisdom, what then?" repeated the rabbi. "then i shall be happy and content." the rabbi stopped and pointed to a dilapidated bridge which crossed the dnieper at a place to which their walk had led them. sadly he called his pupil's attention to a sign which hung at the entrance of the structure and which bore the following legend: "toll--for a horse, kopecks; for a hog, kopecks; for a jew, kopecks." "read that," he said; "and see how futile must be the efforts of wisdom in a country whose rulers issue such decrees." "perhaps you are right," said the boy, sorrowfully; "and yet i feel that god has not given me my intellect to keep it in ignorance and superstition. it must expand. look, rabbi, at this river. they have dammed it to keep its waters back; but further down, the stream leaps over the obstruction and forces its way onward. its confinement makes it but sparkle the more after it has once acquired its freedom. is not the mind of man like this river? can you confine it and prevent its onward course?" the rabbi gazed with looks of mingled astonishment and admiration upon the boy at his side. the boy continued: "i would become wise like you and pesach harretzki. i would acquire the art of reading other works besides our ancient folios. rabbi, will you teach me?" "has harretzki been putting these new ideas into your head?" asked the old man. "no; they were there before he came. you yourself have often told me: 'study rather to fill your mind than your coffers.' i have some of harretzki's books, however, and at night when i cannot sleep i take them out of my closet and look at them. but they are not in hebrew and i cannot read them. rabbi, i beg of you to teach me." rabbi jeiteles was in a quandary. he hated the bigotry and narrow-mindedness which forbade the study of any subject but the time-honored talmud. he himself had been as anxious as was mendel to strive after other knowledge. on the other hand, he bore in mind the prejudice which the jews entertained against foreign learning, and he clearly foresaw the many difficulties which mendel must encounter if his desire became known. "well, rabbi, you do not answer," said the boy, inquiringly. "bring me your books to-morrow and i will decide." mendel seized the preceptor's hand and kissed it rapturously. "thanks," he murmured. teacher and pupil turned their steps homeward, the one perplexed, the other overjoyed. the sun had not fully risen on the morrow, when mendel, with his precious books carefully concealed, sought the rabbi's presence, and the two withdrew into an inner room, beyond the reach of prying intruders. the teacher glanced at the titles. they were mendelssohn's "phædon," and ludwig philippson's "the development of the religious idea," both written in german. mendel did not take his eyes from his teacher; he could scarcely master his impatience. "well, rabbi," he asked, "of what do they speak?" "of things beyond your comprehension," replied the teacher. "the writers of both these books were good and pious jews, who, because of their learning, were branded and ostracized by many of their co-religionists. their only sin lay in the use of classical german. you must know that many hundreds of years ago, our ancestors lived in germany, and, mingling with men of other creeds, learned the language of their time. by and by, persecutions arose and gradually the jews were driven into closer quarters and narrower communities. many emigrated to poland and russia, carrying with them their foreign language, which was little changed except by the addition of hebrew--and, in this country, of a few russian words--so that what was once a language became a semi-sacred jargon in which the translations of our holy books were read. when mendelssohn began to write in the ordinary german, he was thought to be ashamed of his fathers' speech and to have abandoned it for that of their oppressors. pause before you choose a path which may estrange you from all you love best." "did these men accomplish no good by their writings?" "much good, my son; but through much travail." the more the teacher talked, the more gloomy the picture he drew, the greater became the enthusiasm of the pupil, the firmer his determination to emulate the example of the men of whom he now heard for the first time. the rabbi at last consented to instruct the boy in the elements of the russian and german languages. while the old man did not for a moment close his eyes to the perils which his pupil invited by his pursuit of knowledge; while he did not conceal from himself the fact that his own position would be endangered if the nature of his teachings was suspected, he was happy in the thought of having before him a youthful mind, brave to seek truth. rabbi jeiteles was a learned man; his youth had been spent in travel. he had seen much and read more, and even in the bigoted community in which he lived he kept abreast of the knowledge of the times. the first lesson was mastered then and there. it was a hard and tedious task and progress was necessarily slow, but mendel possessed two great essentials to progress, indomitable perseverance and an active intellect, and his teacher displayed the painstaking care and patience with which love for his pupil inspired him. day by day, mendel added to his store of knowledge. he was still the most industrious talmud scholar of the college; his remarkable aptitude and zeal for the studies of his fathers was in nowise diminished; but when the hours at the _jeschiva_ were at an end, instead of returning to his uncle's home, or of spending his time upon the streets with his boisterous playmates, he would walk with rabbi jeiteles in the fields, or remain closeted with him, pursuing his investigations in new fields of knowledge. nor were his labors at an end when he had retired to his bed-room. in the still hours of the night, when every noise was hushed and he deemed himself safe from intrusion, he would rise, silently open his closet for his carefully concealed volume and creep back to bed. then, by the aid of secretly purloined candle ends, he would read hour after hour, and often the dawn found him still at his books. chapter xiii. persecutions in togarog. the flight of time brings us to the year --the epoch of the crimean war. ever since the days when bonaparte was driven from burning moscow, there was a popular belief that the russian soldiery was superior to that of the western nations. the emperor nicholas was a thorough soldier as well as a tyrant, possessing an enormous and well-equipped army, which he deemed invincible. this boasted superiority was now to be tested. for years the russians had been groaning under heavy taxes. during this period they had been finding fault with their central government in a mild, siberia-fearing manner. to keep them from brooding on their oppressed condition, visions of glory and conquest were to be opened to them by a foreign war. as the patriotic enthusiasm and military fervor increased, the praises of nicholas were sounded throughout the vast dominion. "the coming war was regarded by many as a kind of crusade, and the most exaggerated expectations were entertained of its results. the old eastern question was at last to be solved in accordance with russian ideals, and nicholas was about to realize catherine's grand scheme of driving the turks out of europe. that the enemy could prevent the accomplishment of these schemes was regarded as impossible. 'we have only to throw our hats at them,' became a favorite expression."[ ] the greater portion of the army was concentrated at the southern extremity of russia, for it was here that the fleets of the allied powers would be encountered. like devastating swarms of locusts the semi-barbarous warriors descended upon the fertile fields, destroying all that lay in their path. great was the misery of the peasantry in that section of the empire; greater still the hardships endured by the jews, who were despoiled of their possessions and driven from their homes. in the village of togarog the jewish quarter was exactly as we last saw it--poverty-stricken and dilapidated. nothing appeared to be changed in it except the miserable inhabitants. the governor of alexandrovsk continued to persecute the jews with relentless ferocity, and the kidnapping of their children was followed by other acts almost as cruel. if a jew was suspected of possessing money, he was forced by the gentle persuasion of the governor's men to disgorge. broken in fortune and in spirits, the israelites were indeed in a pitiable plight. mordecai winenki was reduced to dire want. deprived of the means of livelihood by the removal of his former pupils, despoiled of his meagre savings, the reward of years of toil, there was no occupation open to him but to peddle, the meagre income from which, added to the earnings of his wife by knitting and sewing for the neighboring peasantry, gave them a scanty subsistence. for six days of each week they toiled patiently, saving and scraping to provide for the holy sabbath, the celebration of which alone compensated for days of misfortune and privation. on the sabbath all work was laid aside; the dreary room blazed with the lights of many candles; white, unsullied linen adorned the table; a substantial meal was served, and joy returned to the oppressed and weary hearts. then the father and mother spoke lovingly of the dear ones whom a cruel despotism had torn from them, and a prayer of thanks was sent to the god of israel that one of the boys, at least, was alive and well; for mendel since his arrival in kief had regularly corresponded with his parents, and his progress and welfare were in a measure a compensation for the trials they had endured. of jacob they had never discovered a trace, and they had long since believed him dead. it was the sabbath eve. mordecai and his wife were seated in their humble little room, happy for the time being, in spite of their deplorable condition. a sudden noise in the street interrupted their conversation. the narrow jewish quarter became animated, and a company of russian soldiers, led by the elder of the village and followed by a group of ragged urchins, marched with martial tread through the crooked lane. "soldiers!" cried mordecai and his wife, in one breath. "god help us, they will quarter them on us!" it was the advance guard of the great army that had entered togarog. before mordecai and his wife could recover from their fright, the door opened and half a dozen soldiers entered the room. "give us something to eat!" cried one of the men, boisterously, as he relieved himself of his gun and knapsack. his example was followed by his comrades. "we are hungry," said another of the men. "we have had nothing to eat since five o'clock this morning. get us our supper!" "we have nothing to give you," replied mordecai, trembling. "why do you come to us?" "not from choice, i can tell you," said a soldier, angrily. "lots were cast and we were unlucky enough to be sent here. as we are here, however, let us make the best of it and see what your larder contains." "bah!" said another, as mordecai did not move; "you can't expect these people to wait upon us! we must help ourselves," and suiting the action to the word, he strode to the cupboard and pulled it open. the harvest was more plentiful than they had anticipated. cooking, like all other work, being forbidden on the sabbath, provisions sufficient for the holy day were prepared on friday, and stood temptingly upon the shelves. in a twinkling the succulent viands were placed upon the table and quickly devoured by the half-famished soldiers. the repast, however, failed to satisfy the hunger of these sturdy warriors. "come," cried one of them, "what else have you to eat?" "nothing," answered mordecai, sullenly. "you lie, jew. tell us where we may find something to eat." "you have just eaten all there was in the house," said mordecai, gulping down a rising lump in his throat, as he thought of the fast he would have to endure on the morrow. "then give us money that we may buy our own food!" shouted one of the soldiers. "i have no money; it is all gone, all gone," said the poor man, sadly. "ha! ha! ha! that is a good joke!" retorted the soldier, while his companions laughed immoderately. "a jew without money! i'll wager there is gold and silver in every closet. i know you jews; you are sly dogs." "look for yourselves," cried mordecai, driven to desperation. "you are welcome to all the gold and silver you can find." the soldiers took him at his word and began to ransack the house, while mordecai and leah, paralyzed with fear, great beads of perspiration starting from their foreheads, sat idly by and watched the work of destruction. not an article of furniture was left entire in the wild search for treasure, which, according to popular belief, every jew was supposed to possess. finding nothing, they bestowed a few resounding curses upon the inmates of the house, and in sheer desperation wended their way to the village inn and sought the solace of basilivitch's vodka. poor mordecai! poor leah! for hours they sat just as the soldiers had left them, great tears streaming down their pale and haggard faces, viewing the destruction of their few earthly possessions, the loss of all they could still call their own. they knew not what course to pursue, whether to remain or to flee. the unexpected blow appeared to have robbed them of their faculties; all power of reflection seemed to have left them, and trembling and groaning they remained where they were, in fearful expectancy of what might follow. towards midnight the soldiers returned. the liberal potations in which they had indulged had washed away the last semblance of humanity. food and money had been the motives of their previous excesses, but on their return, hunger and cupidity had made way for lust. mordecai's wife became the object of their insults, and in the resistance which she and her husband offered, both were beaten unmercifully. finally, the soldiers, overpowered by the close quarters and by the fumes of the wretched liquor they had imbibed, dropped off, one by one, into a drunken sleep. "let us take what we can, leah," said the wretched man, after assuring himself that the soldiers were all fast asleep, "and let us flee." "we dare carry nothing--we dare not even travel, for this is the sabbath," answered leah, sadly. poor jews! in the midst of sorrow, as in the midst of joy, the behests of their holy religion are never forgotten. "yes, we may travel," replied mordecai. "it is a matter of more importance than life and death, and the talmud authorizes the desecration of the sabbath in time of great danger." "then let us go at once," whispered leah. hand in hand they left the miserable hut, the place they had for so many years called home, and wandered out into the world, without a prospect to cheer them on their desolate way. footnotes: [footnote : wallace.] chapter xiv. a happy passover. it is the eve of the passover feast, the birthday of israel's nationality. all is bustle and excitement in the jewish quarter of kief. kitchen utensils and furniture have been removed from the houses and are piled up in the streets. dust rises in clouds, water flows in torrents through the muddy gutters. children, banished from the vacant rooms, are romping and playing, shouting and crying in the lanes. feather beds and blankets, clothing and linen are being aired. within the houses scourers and scrubbers are cleaning, dusting and white-washing. the great national house-cleaning is in progress. from closet and cupboard, dishes and cooking utensils are brought out for their eight days' service. to-morrow is _pesach_ (passover). an entire nation await with passionate longing the arrival of this festival and accord it a hospitable welcome. the man of wealth lavishly displays on this day his gold and silver, his finely wrought utensils and crystal dishes. the poor man has labored day and night to save enough to give the guest a worthy reception. the stranger and the homeless are made welcome at every table, that they, too, may enjoy, free from care and sorrow, the advent of the _pesach_. what yearning, what hopes, what anticipations usher in this feast of feasts! winter, with its manifold hardships, is past. nature awakes from her frigid lethargy, and the balmy air gives promise of renewed life and happiness. the preparations are at length complete. every nook and corner is scrupulously clean; all _chometz_ (leaven) has been banished from the house; even the children have carefully emptied their pockets of stray crumbs. the round and tempting _matzoth_ (passover bread) have been baked--the guest is at the door! in the dining-room of hirsch bensef sat a goodly circle of friends at the _seder_ (services conducted on the eve of passover). the lamps shone brightly, and the lights in the silver candelabra threw their sheen upon the sumptuously set table, with its white embroidered cloth and its artistic dishes and goblets. at the head of the table stood a sofa covered with rich hangings and soft pillows, a veritable throne, upon which sat the king of the family, clad in snow-white attire. in the midst of richly-robed guests, surrounded by an almost oriental luxury, the master of the house had donned his shroud. it is a custom akin to that of the ancient egyptians, who brought the mummies of their ancestors to the festive board, that in the excess of carnal enjoyment they might not forget the grim reaper, death. upon the table stood a plate of _mitzvoth_ (a thicker kind of _matzoth_ prepared specially for the _seder_), covered with a napkin, and upon this were placed a number of tiny silver dishes containing an egg, horseradish, the bone of a lamb, lettuce and a mixture of raisins and spices--all symbolical of ancient rites. before each guest there stood a silver wine cup, to be refilled three times in the course of the evening. in the centre of the table stood the goblet of wine for _elijahu hanovi_ (the prophet elijah), the hero of a thousand legends, and the fondly expected forerunner of the redemption of israel and the coming of the messiah. by each plate was a copy of _hagada_, the order of service for the evening. it is a book of facts and fancies, containing a recital of israel's trials in egypt; of its deliverance from the house of bondage; of its wanderings in the desert, and the sayings of israel's wise men--a mixture of bible stories, myths and prayers. contentment, peace and joy were plainly written upon the faces of the participants. the terrors of persecution were forgotten in the recollection of the miraculous deliverance of the jews from their egyptian task-masters. reb hirsch bensef having pronounced a short blessing over the wine, pointed solemnly to the plate of unleavened bread before him. "see," he said, "this is the bread your fathers ate in _mizraim_. he that hungers let him partake of it, he that is in need let him eat and be satisfied." as though in response to the hospitable invitation, there came a soft rap at the door. mendel opened it and the bright light revealed a man and a woman, whose haggard faces and tattered garments presented the very picture of misery. "father! mother!" mendel cried, joyfully. "god be praised!" and he threw himself into the arms of his father. with a single impulse the entire company arose and welcomed the unexpected guests. mordecai and his wife had travelled on foot from togarog to kief, and, after terrible hardships, had arrived in time for the passover. great was the pleasure at their unlooked-for appearance, and as they hastened to tell the story of their sorrows and wanderings, sincere was the joy at their providential escape and the safe termination of their journey. all israel is one family, and had the wanderers been in nowise related to bensef, their reception would have been equally cordial and sincere. a short time sufficed to remove the last traces of their terrible journey and to clothe them in the best that the wardrobe of their hosts afforded. two more plates were set, two more goblets of wine were served and the ceremonies were continued. so excited was mendel over the arrival of his parents that he could scarcely compose himself sufficiently to follow the _seder_ and ask the conventional question concerning the significance of the _pesach_ festival. in reply, the head of the house recited from his _hagada_ how the lord punished pharaoh for his obduracy, how the children of israel were eventually led from captivity, how the red sea was divided that the chosen people might traverse its bed while the egyptian perished miserably, and how the lord conducted his people safely through the wilderness to the promised land. then followed praise and thanksgiving, the _hagadas_ were pushed aside and feasting followed, continuing far into the night. the woes and adventures of mordecai and his wife elicited the hearty sympathy of their hearers, and the enjoyment of the evening was greatly enhanced by the knowledge that the dear ones were, for the present at least, safe from persecution. the quiet dignity which had distinguished mendel since he had become a student vanished. he became a child again, embracing and caressing his parents, weeping at their sorrows, laughing over their deliverance, and asking a thousand questions without waiting for replies. it was decided that for the present the fugitives should remain with bensef as his guests. at the conclusion of the meal, the _hagadas_ were again taken up, and to the prayers of thanksgiving was added a prayer for the welfare of that little soul that was lost to israel, the missing child jacob. chapter xv. two loving hearts. the crimean war had reached its disastrous conclusion. russia had suffered ignominious defeat, the allies were successful in the black sea, and the despised turks had shown a bold front along the danube. it was evident that the military organization was as corrupt as the civil administration, that fraud and dishonesty were prevalent and neutralized the bravery of the troops. "another year of war and the whole of southern russia will be ruined," so wrote a patriot of . under this great humiliation, the people suddenly awoke from their lethargy. the system of nicholas had been put to the test and found wanting. the government believed that it could accomplish everything by its own inherent wisdom and superiority, and had shown itself wofully incompetent. dissatisfaction was deep and widespread. philippics and satires appeared, and reforms were so boldly demanded that the czar could not close his ears to the universal clamor. in the midst of disasters abroad and dissatisfaction at home, nicholas died, and was succeeded by his son, a man of very different type. the new monarch was well aware of the existing abuses, many of which had been carefully concealed from nicholas by his obsequious counsellors. as heir-apparent he had held aloof from public affairs, and was therefore free from pledges of any kind; yet, while he allowed popular ideas and aspirations to find free utterance, he did not commit himself to any definite policy. to alexander, the russians, jew and gentile, now looked for relief. there were many abuses to correct and oppressive laws to repeal, and the public heart beat high with hope at the prospect of reforms. he repealed the laws limiting the number of students at each university; he reduced the excessive fees for passports; he moderated the rigorous censorship of the press, and, in fact, the czar's acts justified the hopes of his subjects. hundreds of new journals sprang into existence. he introduced reforms into the civil and military administrations, and, best of all, he created the _semstvos_ or town assemblies of the people. to the jews, alexander was particularly gracious. he removed many of the restrictions imposed by his predecessor. the stringent laws limiting the number of marriages in a community were moderated. in some few instances their quarters were enlarged, and an order was issued restoring to their parents all children that had been forcibly taken from them during the reign of the old czar. what rejoicing was there in israel! how many families, separated by the inhuman decrees of nicholas, were now reunited! every home was gladdened either by the restoration of some beloved son, or in sympathy with the general rejoicing. one family in kief waited in vain, however, for the return of a missing child. it was hoped by mordecai that under the general amnesty jacob, if indeed he were still living, would be allowed to return; but there were no tidings of him, and the conviction that he had met his death was strengthened. a new and promising era opened for the oppressed and persecuted hebrews. it appeared as if their patient resignation under adverse circumstances would eventually be rewarded by the concession of equal rights with their fellow-men. to be sure, all persecution did not cease. the badge of disgrace was still worn by every male jew, the owning of land and the following of many trades was still forbidden. the jew was still the object of derision throughout the empire; he was still judged by a severer code of justice than were his gentile neighbors; the entire race was still held responsible for the crime of the individual. but active hostilities ceased and the hebrews rejoiced thereat. mendel continued his studies, and in the course of a few years his fame spread from _jeschiva_ to _jeschiva_, from congregation to congregation. by the time that he was twenty-one years of age, he had published a book in hebrew, which, while it respected the religious sentiment of his people, paved the way for assimilating the modern knowledge. the work created a profound impression. the chief synagogues of moscow and of warsaw invited him to take up his residence with them. his reply was that as his parents resided in kief, he preferred to remain there. there was another attraction in kief more powerful than that exercised by his parents, more potent to keep the young philosopher in the city of his adoption. mendel was in love. his heart, schooled in the wisdom of many nations, had surrendered unconditionally to the charm of recha, the beautiful dark-eyed daughter of rabbi jeiteles. recha was rapidly nearing her seventeenth year and each month, nay each day, added to her charms. like most girls of her ancient race, she was well developed for her years, and her symmetrical figure, lustrous eyes and raven tresses presented a picture of oriental beauty, whose peer did not exist among the slavonic types that lived and loved round about her. so at least thought mendel, and so thought a score of enamored youths beside. recha's beauty was by no means her chief attraction. the graces of her mind and heart were in keeping with her lovely exterior. from her father she had acquired learning, wit and wisdom, and from her mother charm of manner and gentle ways. the student's affection for the girl into whose society he was daily thrown, exercised great influence in holding him to the path of duty. to become worthy of such a treasure was his one desire. all that was best and brightest in his soul was aroused when he thought of recha. it was she that inspired him, and his mind appeared more active when he thought of her. she was the beacon that guided his steps through the difficult paths of learning. nor was his love unrequited. young, handsome, intelligent beyond the generality of jewish youth, mendel was to recha the embodiment of all that was good and noble. no word of love had ever passed mendel's lips, and yet there was a sympathetic understanding between them; they found a paradise in each other's society. recha had not a few admirers. go where she would, she found herself surrounded by willing slaves, who at the slightest encouragement would have thrown themselves at her feet. in vain were _schadchens_ employed by many of the wealthy and influential jewish residents in kief to seek the hand of jeiteles' lovely daughter in marriage. but recha had neither eyes nor ears for any of them. one evening mendel entered the rabbi's house in unusual haste, his face wearing an expression of mingled doubt and hope. the rabbi and his wife were absent. recha observing his perturbation, asked eagerly: "has anything happened?" "here, recha, read this letter." recha read the missive which mendel handed to her. it was a flattering invitation from the congregation of odessa. "our rabbi is old and infirm," stated the letter, "and desires a staff in his declining years. your reputation as a scholar has reached our people and we would consider it an honor to have you with us." as recha read, she turned deadly pale and the paper almost fell from her hands. "what will you do?" she faltered at length, while the great tears stood in her eyes. mendel's heart throbbed with wild delight as he saw her evident emotion, and her eyes fell under his ardent gaze. seizing her hand, he asked, in a low voice: "what would you have me do?" recha gazed fondly into mendel's eyes, and said: "i should be very unhappy if you left home. what would my father do without you? think of the void it would create in the lives of your parents and of your uncle. what would the congregation do without you, whom they already regard as an oracle? stay with us in kief." "god bless you, my dear," replied the young man, fervently. "i will remain; i shall never leave this place unless you go with me as my wife." it was simple and unromantic. the lovers, happy and contented, sat side by side, discussing their roseate future, and when the rabbi and his wife returned, the young folks advanced to meet them. "rabbi," said the student, bravely, "recha has promised to be my wife." "_mazal tov_," ejaculated both jeiteles and his wife. "may the lord of israel bless you." the messenger from odessa was dismissed with a negative reply. there was a merry gathering the following saturday afternoon to congratulate the betrothed couple. sincere were the wishes for their future happiness that were showered upon them. it is a characteristic of israelites the world over to feel a lively interest in whatever befalls their co-religionists, high or low. "despised and rejected" by their gentile neighbors, they sought for consolation and found it in the society of their own kin, and thus arose this sympathy, this love for one another which has so strongly cemented the hearts of the jews. "clannish" has been hurled at them as a term of reproach. so are the frightened sheep clannish when they huddle together in the shelterless field, for protection against the blasts of the pitiless storm. the interval between the betrothal and the wedding is usually short, and the happy day that made mendel and recha man and wife was not long in coming. "i have a request to make," said the student to the rabbi, a few days before the all-important event took place. "name it, my son," replied the rabbi. "i do not wish recha to have her hair cut off. her tresses are her crowning beauty, and it would grieve me to the heart to see her shorn of them." the rabbi shrugged his shoulders and uttered a short ejaculation of surprise. "a breach of so old a custom," said he, "will be looked upon by the whole congregation as impiety." "i know," replied mendel, "but in this instance, i must brave their displeasure." "but," said the rabbi, still hesitating, "if--god forbid--your wife should meet with any misfortune, it would be attributed to the anger of god at this innovation." "i must do what i think is right," replied mendel, "and if the example of recha induces others to disobey an offensive and obnoxious injunction, the people will be the gainers." after much deliberation, the rabbi and his wife at last consented. not so easily, however, were the rest of the congregation reconciled. we will anticipate a little to remark that there was no calamity in the course of mendel's conjugal experience, which could be traced to recha's luxuriant hair. great were the preparations with which the happy day was ushered in. the closely veiled bride, supported by her mother and aunt, was conducted into the room in a shower of barley, and was led to the supremely happy groom, who, arrayed in cap and gown and wearing a praying scarf, stood ready to receive her. seven times the maiden encircled her future husband and then took her position at his side, after which the father of the _kalle_ (bride) began the important services. holding a goblet of wine in his right hand, he invoked god's blessing with the tenderness of a loving father and the solemnity of a priest. short and impressive was the chanted prayer. the couple sipped the wine, the ring was placed on the bride's finger, the words uttered, a glass broken into fragments under the heel of the groom, prayers were recited by the rabbi, and the religious ceremony was at an end. then followed the congratulations of the friends, the good-natured pushing of the assembled guests in their eagerness to kiss the bride or shake the radiant groom by the hand. a bounteous feast closed the festivities. mendel and recha were bound to each other by indissoluble ties. the newly wedded pair took up their residence with rabbi jeiteles, whose advanced age incapacitated him at times from attending to the onerous duties of his office. mendel was ever at his side as a helper, until he grew into the office. despite the honors showered upon him he remained the modest, unassuming, amiable young man, whom flattery could not affect nor pleasure lure from the course of strict duty. when at the end of a year recha presented him with a little girl-baby, which they called kathinka, he was the happiest man on the face of the earth. chapter xvi. the cholera and its victims. a new danger threatened our friends. scarcely had the fanatical russian given the jews a brief respite from persecution, when nature seized the rod and wielded it with relentless hand, smiting jew and gentile, the pious and the ungodly, with equal severity. the cholera had broken out in central russia and its devastations were terrible beyond description. the country from kief to odessa was as one vast charnel-house. as has always been the case during epidemics, the jews suffered less from the ravages of the disease than did their gentile neighbors. the strict dietary laws which excluded everything not absolutely fresh and clean, the frequent ablutions which the religious rites demanded of the jews and their freedom from all enervating excesses, bore excellent results in a diminished mortality. nevertheless, many a victim was hurried to an untimely grave, many a family sat in sackcloth and ashes for a departed member. amid the general consternation caused by the rapid spread of the plague, the _feldshers_ were unceremoniously relegated to the background. their surgery was practically useless and their drugs proved powerless to stay the disease. the _snakharkas_, on the other hand, prospered greatly. superstition flourished; prayers, sacrifices, incantations, magical rites, exorcisms, were invoked to allay the evil. the _moujiks_ called frantically upon the saints for assistance, and then deliberately frustrated any relief these might have afforded by committing frightful excesses. many a saint fell into temporary disfavor by his apparent indifference to the sufferings of his devotees. the priests invented new ceremonials and each village had its own peculiar method of appeasing divine wrath. in kief, the disease had taken a particularly virulent form. the filthy dnieper, contaminated by the reeking sewerage of the city, was in a great measure to blame for the rapid spread of the disorder, but to have advanced such a theory would have been useless; the ignorant inhabitants ascribed the scourge to any source but the true one. at one time the _feldshers_ were accused of having propagated the plague for their own pecuniary benefit, and the excited populace threw a number of doctors out of the windows of a hospital and otherwise maltreated the poor practitioners who fell into their clutches. in kanief, the inhabitants, crazed with fear at the progress of the plague, adopted an original and ingenious method to check it. at midnight, according to a preconcerted plan, all the maidens of the village met on the outskirts of the place and formed in picturesque procession. at the head marched a girl bearing an icon of the madonna, gaudily painted and bedecked with jewels. behind her came her companions, dragging a rope to which was attached a plow. in this order they made the circuit of the village, and it was confidently believed that the cholera would disappear within the magical circle thus described.[ ] many and equally ingenious were the devices employed in kief by the ignorant peasants. a wonder-working icon was brought from st. petersburg, where, according to tradition, it had performed many miracles. yet the plague continued, fed by the ignorance and intemperance of the people. surrounded by such dense superstition, it is not strange that the jews, too, should resort to absurd rites to rid themselves of the dreaded guest. the poorer classes, living in the lower portions of the quarter, were the chief sufferers. there, where a dozen half-starved wretches were crowded into one small room, the plague was at its height. a hundred souls had already succumbed and the list of victims was growing daily. alas! the misery of the stricken families! deprived of medical attendance, of drugs, of fresh air, there appeared little hope for the denizens of the infected district. the busiest man during these troublous times was itzig maier, the beadle, whose acquaintance we have already made as the messenger sent by bensef to the _bal-shem_ at tchernigof. the condition of itzig and his family had not improved since we last saw him. the little fortune which, if gossip spoke truly, he had acquired by his adroit manoeuvring at that time, had been dissipated; his family had grown larger and was a constant drain upon his meagre resources, while his income appeared to diminish as his expenses increased. besides, itzig had a daughter who was now of a marriageable age, and he was obliged to toil and save to provide a dowry. beile was unattractive and uninteresting, and itzig did not conceal from himself the fact that without a dowry it might prove difficult to bring her under the _chuppe_. of late itzig had had little time to think of his family. in the house and in the hovel, wherever the cholera had knocked for admittance, there was itzig maier, performing his duties with an unfailing regularity--preparing the shrouds, attiring the dead and comforting the mourners--all unmindful that he might be the next victim. his services were in constant demand and money was actually pouring in upon him. the first to visit, aid and counsel the stricken community was rabbi jeiteles, whose unselfish devotion to duty led him from house to house, administering simple remedies to the suffering, closing the eyes of the dead and consoling the grieving survivors. he knew no fear, no hesitation. to his wife's anxious words of warning he had but one reply, "we are all in god's hands." earnestly he went about his work, conscious of his danger, yet putting all thought of self aside until he, too, fell a victim to the dread destroyer. one day, while performing the last sad rites over a dead child, he was stricken, and before he could be removed to his home he had breathed his last. great was the grief in the jewish community in kief. from one end of the quarter to the other the inhabitants mourned for thirty days, bewailing the death of their beloved rabbi, as though each household had lost a revered parent. the plague continued its ravages, and the people in their wild terror resorted to the _bal-shem_ for amulets and talismans. on every door could be read the inscription, "not at home." but the cholera would not be put off by so flimsy a device and entered unbidden. even the death of a grave-digger did not stay the dread disease, although it had been prophesied that such an event would end the trouble. the cabalistic books were ransacked for charms and mystic signs with which to resist the power of the conqueror, but all in vain. one morning itzig ran as fast as his shuffling legs would bear him, up the dirty lane that led to his abode, and fell rather than walked into the low door that led into his hut. his wife was engaged in washing a baby--the seventh--and beile, an ill-favored, sallow-complexioned girl, sat at the window sewing. "jentele," cried itzig, sinking into a chair, "god has been good to us!" "have you just found that out?" asked his wife, petulantly. "what is the matter? have you come into a fortune?" "beile, leave the room," said itzig. "why, father?" "leave the room! i want to talk to your mother." beile put away her work and walked out into the lane. "rejoice with me, jentele," said the delighted husband, as he rubbed his shrivelled hands. "beile is a _kalle_; she will marry to-morrow." "has anybody fallen in love with her?" asked the mother. "no; but she will marry all the same." "well, speak out, man! you kill one with suspense." "do you know reb bensef, our _parnas_?" "yes; but what has he to do with our beile?" "reb bensef being very much distressed by the death of rabbi jeiteles, went to tchernigof to ask counsel of the _bal-shem_ and has just returned." "well, what did the wise man advise?" asked jentele, burning with impatience, while her partially washed baby lay kicking in her arms. "listen, i am coming to that," answered itzig, with provoking slowness. "he said that if a poor man would marry an equally poor girl, under a _chuppe_ erected in the cemetery between two newly made graves, god's anger would be appeased and the scourge would end. to-day bensef sought me out. 'itzig,' he said, 'you have a daughter. i know a husband for her. i will give an outfit to both bride and groom and provide them with money to last a year, if you will consent to their marrying in the cemetery.' what do you think of it?" "who is the young man?" queried jentele, her face expressing neither pleasure nor pain. "you know the _jeschiva_ student, kahn?" "he is poor, very poor, indeed." "what is that to us? reb bensef will provide clothing and money for a whole year." "and when that is all gone?" queried his wife, resuming operations upon the baby. "then god will provide. did we have more when we married?" "it is an opportunity of a life-time," mused jentele, looking at her parched and yellow better-half. "do as you think best." armed with the support of his wife and without consulting his daughter, whose voice in a matter of such minor importance seemed to him unnecessary, itzig hastened to bensef's house and expressed his consent to the arrangement. together the worthies went to the synagogue, where the unsuspecting kahn was engaged in prayer. a few words sufficed to explain the situation. kahn looked timidly at bensef, then upon the ground; finally, he shrugged his shoulders and signified his readiness to be led to the altar. it mattered not to him what disposition they made of him. he was poor and without prospects and could never hope to support a wife by his own exertions. the way was now made easy. besides, in thus sacrificing himself for the extinction of the plague he was doing a _mitzva_ (a good deed) in the sight of the lord. to refuse was out of the question. the young man was led in triumph to itzig's house and introduced to his future wife, who heard of the arrangement for the first time and evinced neither pleasure nor dissatisfaction. the betrothal was duly announced and hasty preparations made for the coming ceremony, since delay meant new victims to the plague. mendel strove with all his eloquence to prevent the carrying out of this monstrous purpose. every fibre within him revolted at such folly, and he hurried from house to house, entreating the most influential members of the congregation to aid him in opposing it. but the scourge spoke more eloquently than did the young rabbi--the people listened to him but shook their heads. many who doubted the efficacy of the plan, lacked the moral courage to oppose an act which met with the approval of the greater portion of the community. "every means should be employed to prevent the disease from doing further mischief," argued some. "we have vainly tried everything else, let us try this. god may at last listen to our prayers." "the _bal-shem_ has commanded it; it is sure to prove successful," said others. after a day spent in earnest but ineffectual arguments, mendel saw that his endeavors in this direction were futile, and concluding that further interference would be useless, he sorrowfully wended his way homeward. the sun shone fiercely on the morrow upon a desolate landscape. all nature appeared to be under the ban of the plague. the leaves upon the trees were sere and withered, the brooks were dry and the birds had long since hushed their melody. the highways were deserted, save where at intervals a solemn funeral train carried the dead to a final resting-place. a strange procession wended its way to the jewish cemetery. it was not a funeral, although from the tears and lamentations of those who took part in it, it might have been mistaken for one. young and old, men and women, all in whom superstition still dwelt, followed the cortege to the field of death and accompanied the bride and bridegroom to the improvised altar. thanks to the generosity of bensef, beile was richly attired, and the groom in spite of his poverty was neatly clad. they walked hand in hand, happy in the consciousness that they were performing a service to humanity. as the grotesque train entered the burial-ground the lamentations became louder at the sight of the scores of newly-made graves. the bride and groom lost their happy look, for a stern and terrible reality confronted them. the _chuppe_ had been erected between two freshly-dug graves. the people ceased their wailing and became as silent as the awful place in which they stood. mendel, who had been requested to tie the solemn knot, had refused to do so and had absented himself. the ceremony was, therefore, performed by the rabbi of another congregation, who hurried through the short service with almost eager haste. jentele kissed the weeping bride, itzig embraced his son-in-law. suddenly the father tottered and with a moan fell to the ground. his face became livid, his eyes sank in their sockets, his blue lips frothed, and his whole body shook with agony. "the cholera! the cholera!" shouted those nearest him, and while many fled for their lives, a dozen willing hands lifted up the prostrate beadle and endeavored by every means in their power to restore him to consciousness. in vain were all their ministrations, in vain their prayers and exhortations. for a short while itzig suffered intense agony, then his shrunken form became rigid, his head fell back, his homely and shrivelled features relaxed into a hideous grin, and the unfortunate beadle travelled the way of the hundreds he had in his time borne to this very spot.[ ] footnotes: [footnote : wallace, p. .] chapter xvii. common-sense vs. superstition. in spite of the sacrifice, in spite of the fanaticism of the gentiles and the equally great superstition of the jews, the plague continued with unabated violence. but few families in kief had been spared a visit from the dread reaper. on the sabbath following the events just narrated, the israelites went to their places of worship as usual, and ardent prayers for deliverance ascended to the almighty. mendel, notwithstanding his youth, officiated in the place of the departed rabbi jeiteles, and on this occasion he formally entered upon the duties of his honorable office. sermons, as we understand them, were not in vogue among the russian jews, and lectures in the synagogue on topics unconnected with religion or morality had not been dreamed of. jeiteles would at times discourse upon some knotty point in the _torah_, and on the more important holidays expound the meaning of certain ceremonials. when mendel ascended the pulpit, the stricken congregation, with hushed and eager expectation, awaited his words. mendel began by alluding to the sad demise of the beloved rabbi. he spoke of his great heart, of his benevolence and wisdom, and as his powerful and sympathetic voice rang through the vast synagogue, few were the eyes that were not suffused with tears. "friends," he continued, "in an epidemic such as is at present raging in our midst, our thoughts are naturally directed to _adonai_, and we implore his mercy. if such a misfortune tends to turn our prayers heavenward, to arouse our humanity towards our suffering fellow-men, then indeed the evil may become a blessing in disguise. but if you lay the blame of your misfortunes to god alone, and believe that he inflicts his creatures with disease because he is angry with the world, you degrade the lord into an angry, revengeful being of human type, instead of the grand and supreme _adonai echod_ whom our forefathers worshipped. "the many absurd observances of which you have been guilty, and which culminated in the marriage at the cemetery, are blasphemous. i will tell you why. if god has really sent this trouble, it is done for a wise purpose, and god will know when to remove the infliction without such barbaric ceremonies to propitiate him. if, on the other hand, your own negligence of the laws of health is to blame, then absurd rites, even though sanctioned by a wonder-working rabbi of some distant city, are of no avail; but the only effective way to terminate the trouble is to investigate our way of living, and to correct whatever we find prejudicial to our well-being." that this new and hitherto unheard-of doctrine should cause a profound sensation was but natural. a murmur through the audience showed plainly that sentiment was divided upon the subject. mendel, disregarding the interruption, continued. in clear and concise terms he pointed out the historical fact that throughout all the epidemics of the past, israel, by the perfection of her sanitary laws, enjoyed almost an immunity from disease. he hurriedly enumerated the many excellent mosaic laws concerning diet and cleanliness, and endeavored to show that the ablest physicians of modern times could not improve upon these commands. then he spoke of the recent discoveries by the german doctors, and the promulgation of the new theory that contagious diseases were due to the existence of germs which could only be exterminated by certain well-defined means, prominent among which was cleanliness. while he spoke his audience hung breathlessly upon his words, and, as they gazed upon the inspired countenance of the young man, they felt that he expounded the truth, and they believed in him. "and now, my friends," continued mendel, "let us drop superstition and substitute common-sense. let us show our gentile neighbors that we can combat this epidemic with intelligence. in the first place, let us determine upon some well-defined plan. let us organize. with unity of purpose much can be accomplished. the greatest danger of the disease lies in its contagious nature. our first duty, therefore, is to isolate those who are sick. in this way the spreading of the plague may be checked. there is nothing new in this plan. moses commanded that all persons suffering with infectious diseases should be placed outside of the camp of israel. that you have not already resorted to this means shows rather a kind heart than a quick wit. "you have doubtless observed that those living upon the swampy ground near the river mourn a greater number of departed than those dwelling further inland. that locality must, therefore, exercise a prejudicial influence upon the health of the people. it is here that the poor and destitute live. let us care for them. let the more wealthy and more fortunate families take into their houses those to whom providence has been less bountiful. you whose daily business takes you to the hovels of the poor, know how wretched and filthy they are, how even the healthy can scarcely bear the foulness of their atmosphere. how great must be the power of such pest-holes to extend the plague when once it finds a foothold there! let us tear down those hovels. there are enough rich men among you to build new and better houses. you have heard that many have become ill through drinking the water from the wells. water you must drink; but a german doctor tells us that heat will kill the germs of disease. let us, therefore, boil all the water we drink and diminish the tendency to sickness in that way. finally, it is necessary to avoid all excesses, to live temperately, to observe strict cleanliness. thus you may cheat the plague of a great number of victims. god sends the good, my friends, but we bring the evil upon ourselves. this evening i shall be pleased to see at my house all those who are willing to devote their time and money to the great cause, and we will there discuss the ways and means of driving out the cholera, and thus avenging the death of our beloved and regretted rabbi jeiteles." such enthusiasm as greeted the speaker when he descended from the pulpit had never been known in the synagogue. his manner as well as his words, his beauty and imposing presence as well as his profound and magnetic intellect, had carried the hearts of his auditors. the men clasped him warmly by the hand and promised their co-operation, and the women in the gallery gave vent to their approval in a no less hearty manner. when the sabbath service came to a close, the only sentiment among the members of the congregation was in favor of immediate action. the news of the sermon spread rapidly through the community, and the other congregations became interested and promised their support. the young rabbi still lived with his mother-in-law, and a large company assembled at the house to carry out the plans suggested by him that morning. the meeting included all the wealthy and influential men of the quarter, and they entered into the spirit of the new ideas with as much enthusiasm as they had displayed in the superstitious observances of a few days before. those willing to take an active part in the great hygienic work were divided by mendel into committees, one of which was to undertake the arduous work of isolation and of providing willing and capable nurses to wait upon the sick; another to superintend the disinfection or removal of the wretched hovels in the lower portion of the jewish quarter; a third to visit the families into which the scourge had already forced an entrance, and inculcate such lessons of cleanliness as would materially lessen the chances of further contagion. mendel placed himself at the head of all these bodies, so that he might the better direct their actions. he then explained to them in detail the various theories that had been advanced throughout the civilized world as to the cause of the cholera and the methods employed in western countries to combat the disease. he had read much and his powerful memory had retained all that was useful and important, and he spoke with such decision that all those pious men, among whom any delving outside of the sacred limits of the talmud was strictly prohibited, now listened, in open-mouthed wonder, to the instruction of their youthful sage without once demanding whence he had obtained his knowledge. it sufficed them to know that they now possessed a tangible weapon with which to fight their dreaded enemy, and they were ready to follow their leader wherever he chose to conduct them. the great work was begun without delay. before undertaking it, however, it was necessary to obtain the governor's consent to the improvements, and to mendel fell the task of calling upon the mighty man at his palace. when alexander ii. ascended his father's throne, his first important act was to appoint new governors of the various provinces, for it was a notorious fact that the heads of these departments were as a rule totally unfit to direct the affairs with which they were entrusted. he replaced the old and corrupt governors by young and vigorous men, heartily in accord with his ideas of reform. general pomeroff, a friend and stanch admirer of the emperor while he was still czarewitch, was selected to govern the influential province of kief. pomeroff was a strikingly handsome man, progressive in his views, humane in the treatment of his subordinates, quick to perceive merit where it existed and anxious to assist in any work which promised to redound to the credit of his province. with this man mendel sought an interview. it was with difficulty that he gained admittance to the presence of the august ruler, into whose sanctum no jew had yet entered, but after a long delay he succeeded in meeting the governor face to face. "your excellency," said mendel, in a quiet and dignified manner, speaking in perfect russian, "i come to seek your assistance in a matter of great importance to a large class of your subjects." the governor, surprised as much by the purity of language as by the temerity of the jew, looked at the young man, scrutinizingly, for some moments. "what do you wish?" he asked, at length. "make your application short, for i have much to do." mendel unfolded his views briefly to the astonished governor. he expressed his desire to rid the jewish quarter as far as practicable from the effects of the plague. "the cholera has almost run its course," he said, "and while our efforts might have been impotent to check its ravages during its early course, they may serve to prevent its further spread and to diminish the number of its victims. we are amply provided with willing hands and with the necessary money, but we desire your excellency's sanction, and your permission to remove those hovels from our quarter which are dangerous to the general health of its inhabitants." governor pomeroff had arisen and was striding up and down his apartment. when mendel concluded, he stopped and held out his hand. "give me your hand," he said; "you are a man after my own heart. go on with your work, and i will give instructions that no one shall interfere with you. if you need assistance, call upon me and i will do what i can for you." "i thank your excellency," replied mendel, overjoyed, "but your good-will is all we ask. the cholera is a frightful evil, and if we succeed in lessening its ravages we shall be well repaid for our trouble." "i expect you to come and report to me from time to time," said the governor, so far forgetting his dignity as to accompany the jew to the door. mendel bowed and left the apartment. in the ante-room, a number of servants had collected, and no sooner did the young man appear than they began to banter and annoy him. it was perfectly legitimate for the serfs to derive as much amusement from the jews as possible. "here comes the jew," cried one, "and by the holy st. peter he is still alive." "well, jew," said another, seizing mendel by the beard; "by what charms did you force your way into the governor's presence? impudence is a great characteristic of your race." at that moment the door opened and governor pomeroff appeared at the threshold. he severely rebuked the astonished servants for their rude behavior, apologized to mendel for the indignities he had been obliged to endure, and sent a guard with him to conduct him to his home. the rabbi returned to his people with a light and happy heart. he had been more than successful, for he had gained a friend in the governor, and his mind lost itself in visions of the good this powerful ally would enable him to effect. footnotes: [footnote : herzberg-fraenkel's "polnische juden" cites a similar incident.] chapter xviii. the governor's project. great were the energy and zeal which the hebrew community of kief displayed in carrying out the plans of their young rabbi. mendel himself led them on with an ardor that knew no abatement. he visited the most dangerous pest-holes, helped to move the sick, brought relief and consolation to the suffering and bereaved, while ever at his side was his wife, recha. her devotion to the cause was only second to the love she bore her husband. undaunted by the awful fate that had befallen her father, she followed mendel into the thickest of the danger and like a ministering angel brought comfort and relief. their example was contagious. young and old, male and female, vied with one another in doing good and in mitigating suffering. the superstitious dread with which they had formerly regarded the disease had disappeared and with it much of the danger which fear or an over-wrought imagination causes. a large building was secured and fitted up as a hospital. thither the sick were conveyed and there kept in strict quarantine. it was not difficult to find nurses among those who had already had the disease, when told that they need not fear its recurrence. many of the miserable dwellings of the poor were demolished and the ground cleansed and fumigated, their former inhabitants in the meanwhile finding ample accommodations in the synagogues or in the houses of the wealthy. there was not a family of well-to-do jews that did not harbor a number of those who were thus summarily deprived of shelter. every well which might have become contaminated was filled up with earth and stone, and strict injunctions were issued to use no water that had not been thoroughly boiled. the schools were temporarily closed to avoid the danger of infection, exercise in the fields was recommended, and so well were all these regulations observed that at the end of six weeks the jewish quarter was practically free from the disease, while the grim monster still raged among the families of the less prudent gentiles. then the work of reconstructing what had been demolished was taken up. thanks to the offerings of hirsch bensef and his friends, money was not lacking and willing hands were found to supply the necessary manual labor. where wretched huts and unpainted hovels had offended the eye, unpretentious but clean and comfortable dwellings now were seen. the lower portion of the town had been entirely remodelled and vied in point of neatness with the more aristocratic quarter. as home after home was completed, the former inmates took possession and great was the rejoicing. it was impossible, however, to do away with all the poor hovels that abounded in the jewish quarter: such an undertaking would have required a vast amount of money and years of labor. it was only where the need was most pressing that the work of regeneration was carried on. the sad fact soon forced itself on mendel that the portion of kief allotted to the jews was entirely inadequate for the fifteen thousand inhabitants who were condemned to dwell there. so overcrowded were some of the houses that it seemed a miracle that the death-rate had not been even greater; yet there seemed to be no remedy for the evil. the limits had been fixed by the government and against its decree who dared appeal? by _rosh-hashana_ (new year's) there was not a single case of cholera in the jewish quarter. one morning, several days after the new year festival, mendel sat in his snug parlor with his wife and her mother, speaking hopefully of the coming time. "how happy we would be," said recha, "if father were alive to see all the good that has been accomplished. his only ambition was to improve the mental and physical condition of our people. he would have taken the greatest interest in your undertaking, and would have been the most zealous of your helpers." mendel sighed. "i feel, recha," he said, "that all this work was inspired by his death. had it not been for the grief it caused me, i doubt whether i should have felt it my duty to open the eyes of our good people, but might have allowed them to continue in their accustomed way. troubles, dear recha, are frequently blessings in disguise, and under the rod of affliction we may recognize the loving hand of god. our hearts groan under the heavy blows of misfortune, but in the end we will find ourselves the stronger, the better, the more perfect for the tribulations we have undergone." recha felt the truth of her husband's words and dried her eyes. "i look into the year just begun with great hopes," continued mendel. "among our own people the greatest harmony prevails. the sorrows we have suffered in common have served to knit our souls more closely together, and the little quarrels and petty jealousies that formerly agitated our community have ceased. all is bright and beautiful without. the emperor purposes to introduce various reforms and the governor is favorably disposed towards us. let us trust that those who have suffered losses through the merciless hand of death may find some consolation in the greater happiness and prosperity of the community." mendel was interrupted by a knock at the door, and recha upon opening it gave admittance to a soldier, whose uniform proclaimed him one of the governor's body guard. "i seek mendel winenki," said the man, with military precision. recha became pale as death; a terrible suspicion flashed through her mind. mendel, too, was ill at ease. "what do you want of me?" he asked. "his excellency, the governor, has instructed me to conduct you into his presence," answered the soldier. "for what purpose?" asked the rabbi, anxiously. "i do not know. i am simply to take you with me." the greatest consternation prevailed among the little group. for a jew to be summoned before the governor betokened no good. "you would arrest my husband!" cried recha, placing herself between the soldier and the rabbi. "he has done no wrong. you shall not take him!" "calm yourself, recha," said the rabbi, gently. "there is no need of borrowing trouble. the soldier has not intimated that i am to be punished. the governor was at one time very friendly to me; perhaps it is upon a friendly matter that he now wishes to see me." kissing his wife and mother-in-law and bidding them be of good cheer, mendel accompanied the guide to the governor's residence. it was a long walk through a number of densely populated streets to the animated _podol_, or business centre. hundreds of shops lined the streets, but they were empty and deserted. the cholera had deprived them of their customers and in many cases of their proprietors. business was practically suspended during the continuance of the plague. on leaving the _podol_, the road led up a steep incline to the petcherskoi. this was the official portion of the town. here stood the vast petcherskoi convent, a mass of old buildings, formerly a fine specimen of byzantine architecture, but now gradually yielding to the ravages of time. here, too, were the barracks, and the martial tread of the exercising regiments rang out clearly in the september air. beyond the barracks, and by its high position commanding a fine view of the city, stood the governor's palace, an imposing pile of russian architecture, which, when kief was still the capital of the empire, was the scene of regal festivities and despotic cruelty. the ante-room of the governor was filled with a motley crowd of petitioners. there were deputations from the provincial towns, haughty noblemen attired in lace coats and bedecked with badges, officers, soldiers and _gendarmes_ in gorgeous uniforms. mendel's courage sank when he saw the formidable group before him. "remain here," commanded the guard who had accompanied him, "and i will announce your presence to his excellency." a moment later he returned and, to the surprise of the waiting petitioners, beckoned mendel to follow him into the private cabinet. that a jew should be shown such favor was scarcely calculated to put the rest in a good humor, and loud murmurs of discontent arose from all parts of the room. if mendel had any fears of the reception which awaited him, they were at once dispelled by the governor's cordial greeting: "well, rabbi," he exclaimed, smilingly, extending his hand, "i have waited in vain for you to bring me the promised tidings and have sent for you in sheer despair. why did you not come to see me?" "your excellency," replied mendel, "i have been busy day and night, but had i thought that you took an interest in our work i would have hastened to inform you of our progress. thank god, the result has exceeded our fondest expectations." "i have heard of it," replied pomeroff. "it has been the subject of a hundred discussions at court and at the exchanges, and there is nought but praise for the man who was the first to fight the cholera here in russia with the weapons science has furnished mankind." mendel blushed and said, modestly: "that man is a jew, your excellency. it is not usual for one of our race to be the recipient of compliments at the hands of the gentiles." the governor's brow darkened and he remained silent for a moment. finally he replied: "such praise would be more plentiful if all jews were like you." "they are, your excellency," answered mendel, warmly. "oh, if you but knew how brave, how noble a heart beats beneath the rough exterior of the jew; if you but knew how passionately he yearns for an opportunity to show himself in his true character, you would pity him more and judge him less harshly." "it is upon that very topic that i wish to converse with you," said the governor, motioning mendel to a seat, while he threw himself upon a comfortable lounge. lighting a cigarette, he settled himself for a long conversation, apparently unmindful of the dignitaries who awaited an audience without. "i would give the jew an opportunity to become not only a useful but a respected citizen." "your excellency is too good," said mendel, joyously, as bright visions of emancipation flashed through his brain. "i am told that you have great influence with your people," continued the governor. "am i correctly informed?" "i am too young to influence them, but i believe i have their esteem and respect." "they, at all events, place confidence in you," answered pomeroff. "now listen to me patiently. i have always been a friend of the hebrews. as a boy, i associated with jews of my own age and found them congenial companions. when i had arrived at the age of manhood i awoke one day to find myself in grave financial difficulties. there is no need of going into details. suffice it to say that in my dilemma i went to one of the companions of my youth, a jew, who had in the meantime acquired a fortune, and appealed to his generosity. my confidence was not misplaced and his timely aid saved my reputation and my honor. i am therefore favorably disposed toward your people and would help them if it were in my power to do so." "your excellency can do much," exclaimed mendel. "let me finish what i have to say before you indulge in vain hopes," answered the governor. "let us discuss the situation fearlessly and without prejudice and try to find the root of the difficulty. why are your people despised? firstly, because they are not christians and the gentile can never forget that it was your race that was directly responsible for the death of our saviour; secondly, were the gentile to forget it, the religious and social observances of your race are so thoroughly at variance with his own that he does not understand you and therefore looks down upon you. under usual conditions, however, the jew and the non-jew live side by side in peace and harmony. it is only in time of unusual religious or political excitement that race prejudice comes into play and then the hebrews suffer. were your people to adopt the christian religion and change their oriental customs for our own, race prejudice and persecution would cease, they would be placed socially upon a footing of equality with the gentiles and the entire human race would be benefited thereby. do i make my meaning clear?" "i do not quite grasp it," answered mendel. "briefly, then, my idea is this: you have great influence over your co-religionists. use that influence to their lasting advantage. persuade them to accept the christian faith. induce them to be baptized and with that solemn rite will end the unnumbered persecutions, the untold misery which has unfortunately been the lot of israel. his majesty alexander is most graciously disposed towards reform. now, at the beginning of his career, he is eager to accept any innovation which will reflect renown upon his rule. he has already considered plans for freeing the serfs and would gladly include in that emancipation the three million jews that reside in the empire. i speak with his august authority when i say that as soon as the jews embrace the holy catholic faith not only will their troubles end, but they will find themselves raised to an enviable condition and the fittest among them will fill positions of rank and honor." mendel had arisen and with a pitying smile waited for the governor to conclude his remarks. "your excellency does me too much honor," he said, quietly. "the man was never born, nor will he ever be, who can wean the jews from their faith. your excellency would find it easier to turn the waters of the dnieper into the arctic ocean than to change the handful of jews in kief into christians." "but there are many who have already deserted the ranks of israel," said the governor. "there are some renegades, it is true, but they do not in reality desert the faith of their people. they merely seek to escape some of the observances with which they are not in accord. such people do not become christians--they remain jews to the end of their days." "but, consider," said the governor, earnestly, for he had set his heart upon this project. "at present you are despised and hated. you are forced to vegetate, rather than live, within the narrow confines of an uninviting and unhealthy quarter. your natural capabilities are dwarfed. your property and even your lives are at the mercy of the ignorant people that surround you. an acknowledgment of the faith that already counts many millions of adherents, a mere profession of belief in the great saviour who came from heaven to save mankind, will change all this and you will at once enter into a life of peace and honor and social equality with the noblest of the land. is it not worth considering?" "no, your excellency," answered mendel, boldly. "as i have already told you, it is impossible." "your reasons, rabbi," said the governor, with a shade of irritation in his voice. "will not the new avenues for pleasure and happiness compensate for your ancient ceremonials and superstitions? the theatre, the lecture, the school will be opened to you. we will bid you enter and partake of all those delights which are in store for the best of us. is that no inducement?" mendel sighed deeply, as he answered: "your excellency invites me to speak and i will do so frankly, even at the risk of incurring your displeasure. think you that the prejudice which the christian has felt against the jew for over eighteen centuries can be eradicated in a moment by the apostasy of our race? the russian nobility, accustomed to regard the hebrews as accursed in the sight of god, as a nation of usurers and ungodly fanatics, is not in a fit condition of mind to forego its prejudices and welcome these same jews as equals. the lower classes of russians who have at the the mother's breast imbibed hatred and contempt for the despised and helpless jew, who have from time immemorial considered the jews as their just and legitimate prey, will scarcely condescend to offer the rejected race the hand of brotherly love simply because the governor or even the emperor commands it. it has been tried, your excellency, at various times; notably in spain. terrified by threats of torture on the one hand or seduced by promises of great reward on the other, many an israelite accepted the catholic faith. alas! how bitterly was the error regretted. instead of being admitted to that fellowship with which the gentiles had tempted them, greater humiliations, greater persecutions followed, until the horrors of the inquisition chamber and death at the stake were welcomed by the poor wretches as a relief from mental torment still more terrible." so they talked, the mighty ruler and the humble rabbi, while those in the ante-room waited impatiently for an audience. finally the governor arose. "i will not exact a definite answer at present," he said. "discuss the matter with your friends and come to see me again in the course of a week or two. perhaps you will then think better of it." mendel shook his head. "in a few days we shall have _yom-kipur_, our day of atonement," he said. "if you would know how tenaciously the israelites cling to their faith and to their god, visit the synagogue on that day; behold them in fasting and prayer, renewing their covenant with the lord and relying upon his divine protection and assistance. you will find it an impressive sight, one that will speak more eloquently than my weak words." "i may come," answered the governor, half in jest and half in earnest, while mendel bowed himself out through the crowd of angry people in the waiting-room. we shall not attempt to analyze the thoughts of the young rabbi, as he retraced his steps towards his dwelling. on his arrival there, he found his wife and her mother greatly alarmed as to his safety. the strange and sudden summons and his long absence had aroused terrible fears in recha's breast that he had been thrown into prison by the governor, and her eyes were red with weeping. it was with a bounding heart, therefore, that she heard her husband's step on the threshold, and with a joyous cry she rushed to embrace him. "god be praised, my mendel has returned," she exclaimed, and smiling through her tears she led him into the house. chapter xix. yom-kipur. it is _yom-kipur_, the day of atonement. long before nightfall the shops and booths of the israelites are closed. the merchant has silenced his cravings for gain, the pedler and the wanderer have returned to their families, travelling leagues upon leagues to reach home in time for the holy day. the beggar has cast aside his rags and attired himself in a manner more befitting the solemn occasion. the god-fearing man has closed his heart to all but pious thoughts, and, yielding to the holy influence, even the impious cannot but think of god and of a future beyond the grave. the holy night is approaching. a river of light streams through the arched windows of the houses of prayer, flooding the streets and penetrating into the hearts of the inhabitants. young and old slowly wend their way to the synagogues, there to bow down before the lord who delivered their ancestors from egyptian bondage and who on this day will sit in judgment upon their actions; will grant them mercy or pronounce their doom; will inscribe them in the book of life or in that of eternal death. the women are robed in white, the men wear shrouds over their black _caftans_ and carry huge prayer-books. at the door of the lord's house, and before entering its sacred precincts, they ask pardon of each other for any sins or shortcomings, for the envy, the malice, the calumny of which they may have been guilty. "forgive me whatever wrong i may have done thee!" the phrase is repeated from man to man, for none may enter the holy temple unless he be at peace with mankind. let us enter the synagogue. hundreds of candles fill the sacred hall with their light and the whitened walls and ceiling appear to glow with glory. rows of men in ghastly attire, constant reminder of the inevitable end of mundane greatness, stand with covered heads and with their faces turned towards the orient, fervently praying. screened by the lattice-work of the galleries are the women, who, with their treble voices, augment the solemn chant that vibrates on the air. repentance, fear, self-reproach have blanched the cheeks and dimmed the eyes of the devotees. fervent and sincere are the prayers that rise to the throne of god; contrite and remorseful are the blows with which the men beat their breasts and with which they seek to chasten their sin-encrusted hearts. fearfully and tearfully they make the sorrowful avowal: "we have sinned!" down into the depths of his soul does each one search to render to himself and to god a truthful account of the deeds and thoughts that lie hidden there. and above the din, the voice of the reader is heard, beseeching forgiveness for the repentant congregation, pleading for the grace of the lord and asking to be enrolled in the book of life and happiness. it is a solemn, heart-stirring spectacle, moving the soul of the sinner with a mighty force. an observer, who for the first time attends the _yom-kipur_ services, can arrive at but one verdict concerning the beauty of the religion which has instituted this holy day. the heathen is impressed with the fact that in doing wrong he has offended a god whom, by means of sacrifice, he seeks to propitiate. the christian proclaims that he sins by compulsion in consequence of the original fall of adam, and, as he is not a free agent in the matter of right or wrong, he can expect grace only through the mediation of his saviour. the jew recognizes the fact that he is entirely free to sin or to remain pure, and that, having erred, he can only hope for forgiveness by acknowledging his error, by purifying himself from all that is vile and by a sincere resolution to do better. mere faith has never played the important part in the jewish religion that is assigned it in that of the gentiles. the israelite believes that if he has done wrong and sincerely repents and by his subsequent actions seeks to repair the injury, divine forgiveness will not be withheld; but the dogma that belief independent of good deeds purifies the heart has never found favor in his eyes. the worshippers stayed until a late hour, and many of them remained in the synagogue all night. early dawn found the congregation again at its post, as devout, as fervent as before. the candles were burning low in their sockets, casting a fitful glare upon the pale faces of the worshippers, reminding them of the flight of time, of the brevity of life, of the inevitable moment when repentance will come too late, when the account of one's good and evil deeds will be closed. the synagogue was filled to overflowing with fasting men and women. not a morsel of food, not a drop of water was permitted to pass their lips for twenty-four hours. "as the body can abstain from food," said the wise rabbis, "so shall the soul abstain from sin." the terrible plague that had left its sad impress upon the community greatly increased the solemnity of the occasion. to the expressions of repentance were added the prayers of gratitude of those who had escaped its fatal breath and the lamentations of those whose hearts still smarted under recent bereavement. it was rabbi mendel's custom to combine instruction with devotion whenever an occasion presented itself, and to do this in such homely logic as his congregation could easily comprehend, taking especial pains to impress them with the spirit of the rites they observed. being a great favorite with them, they listened attentively to his melodious voice and persuasive arguments, and found themselves the better for his teaching. on the day of atonement he had hardly begun to speak when his attention was attracted by a stranger who had entered and quietly taken a seat in the rear of the synagogue. with the exception of mendel not one of the assembled worshippers recognized the unpretentious looking man. it was governor pomeroff who had come in response to his invitation. mendel's face flushed with emotion when he saw the governor enter the synagogue. after that he paid no further attention to his distinguished guest, but took up the thread of his discourse. he spoke of the effect of sin upon our earthly life and upon our possible existence after death, expounded the doctrine of punishment in the hereafter as given in the _midrash_, and spoke of the infinite mercy of the father in heaven. "not in idle protestations," he said, "lies the road to forgiveness, but in a thorough avowal of sins committed and in a sincere determination to avoid the iniquities of the past." mendel's inspired words fell upon eager ears and contrite hearts. after the sermon the _hazan_ again intoned the prayers, assisted by the fervent responses of the congregation. the governor remained a long time an interested observer of the impressive scene, until the lateness of the hour admonished him of other duties, and he left as unceremoniously as he had come. "the rabbi is right," he murmured, as he wended his way out of the deserted quarter; "it will be a herculean task to alienate the jews from their faith and bring them into the fold of the russian church; but i shall not yet abandon my project!" the people prayed and fasted until the stars shone out in heaven and the _shofar_ (ram's horn) blast announced the death of the solemn day. then, with cheerful hearts and smiling faces they returned to their dwellings, purified in spirit, cleansed and purged of the dross that had defiled their souls, more thoroughly in unison with the lord, who, though the sins of his people be as scarlet, will make them white as snow. rabbi mendel was not surprised next morning when a message came from the governor, requesting his immediate presence at the palace. the summons did not create the consternation which had been caused by the unceremonious call of a few days before. on the contrary, recha felt proud of the distinction accorded her husband in being thus made the confidant of the mighty ruler of kief. she had implicit faith in her husband's ability to hold his ground even in the governor's august presence. "have you thought over our recent conversation?" asked pomeroff, as soon as mendel entered. "yes, your excellency." "and to what conclusion have you come?" "simply to thank your excellency for your kind interest in our behalf and to express the conviction that the israelites of kief would rather endure a thousand persecutions than abandon a jot of their holy faith." "have you laid the matter before the people?" queried the governor. "i have not, your excellency. it would have been worse than useless. you have doubtless observed how thoroughly sincere the jews were in their devotions on _yom-kipur_ day: such men die for their religion, they do not abandon it. if your excellency can assist us in obtaining greater liberty of action, if you can gain for our children admittance into the schools of the empire and open for us the various avenues of trade from which we have hitherto been shut out, we will hail you as our benefactor; but if we can only buy freedom and honors at the cost of our ancient and revered religion, we will be content to follow the example of our ancestors and suffer." a long discussion followed, in which mendel proved that the jews, in spite of persecution, were really happier than the unlettered and uncultured russians and morally far superior to them. finally the governor arose. "your hand, rabbi," he said, heartily, "you have carried the day. i shall not revert to the subject of baptism again." "i hope your excellency will not renounce the desire to befriend us," answered mendel. "there is such a large field for improvement in our community. i wish you could see the crowded condition of our streets, the wretched abodes of our poor. if you knew the secret persecutions which the petty officers of the crown visit upon us, outrages which never reach the ears of the higher authorities, your excellency would be surprised that our moral and physical condition is no worse." "poor jews," said the governor, sadly. "o, sir," continued mendel, earnestly; "visit the jewish quarter! investigate the official abuses on every hand. extend the limits of our homes. remove the antiquated restrictions that enslave our daily actions. give the jew an opportunity to develop his great capabilities and he will become a desirable citizen and a stanch patriot." the kind-hearted governor was visibly affected by mendel's words. "i will reflect upon what you have said," he replied. "you are a brave champion and your people should feel proud of you." governor pomeroff, who recognized the young rabbi's cleverness and learning, was loath to let him depart. long after they had exhausted the topic that first engaged them, he detained him, conversing upon every conceivable subject, and listening with pleasure to the original thoughts and eloquent words of the young man. at length mendel arose and prepared to leave. "your excellency must pardon me," he said, "but my poor wife will be in despair at my late return and i must hasten to reassure her." "go," answered the governor; "but come again to-morrow or the day after. i have much to talk over with you." as mendel bowed himself out, pomeroff muttered to himself: "strange man! he thinks more of allaying the anxiety of his wife than of currying favor with his ruler. he is right; such a people as he represents cannot be forced into baptism. they place their moral law and their ancient faith above temporal advantage." as mendel had anticipated, recha was a prey to the liveliest fears at the protracted absence of her husband. it seemed incredible to her that the busy governor should have kept him so long. with mendel, however, smiles and contentment returned. that evening the rabbi called hirsch bensef and the elders of the congregation into his house and told them all about the governor and his schemes. great was the surprise of these worthy men and unanimous their approval of mendel's course in the matter. "i believe," said the rabbi, in conclusion, "that we have gained a friend in the governor, and i see rising above the horizon a new era of security and prosperity for israel." "god grant it," cried the listeners, fervently. chapter xx. needed reforms. if governor pomeroff abandoned his original plan of christianizing the jews, he did not relinquish his friendship for mendel. the rabbi was frequently summoned to appear before him, professedly for the purpose of giving an account of this or that good work which he had undertaken, but in reality to entertain the governor by his brilliant conversation. so frequent had these visits become that the guards about the palace were no longer surprised at the strange companionship and the term "jew," with which they were wont to designate mendel, gave place to the more respectful appellation of "the rabbi." as mendel became better acquainted with his powerful friend, his appreciation of his noble qualities steadily increased and they became warmly attached to each other. "would that all the jews were like you," pomeroff occasionally remarked, to which mendel would reply: "how fortunate would be our lot if all christians possessed your nobility of character." then came the glorious year , the year in which russia freed millions of serfs and removed the shackles of slavery from a debased people. while much praise should be accorded to the liberality and humanity of alexander, the main cause of the emancipation act was the unprofitableness of serf labor. public opinion, too, had demanded the change. what "uncle tom's cabin" accomplished in this country gogol's "dead souls" and tourgenieff's "recollections of a sportsman" did for the russian slaves. the disasters of the crimean war were attributed to the corrupt condition of all classes, caused, it was claimed, by this pernicious institution of serfdom. by the edict of , in the same year in which our own struggle for the emancipation of our southern slaves began, the peasants were made free and were granted the right to purchase the lands occupied by them at the time. "enfranchisement was effected in russia in a manner far more skilful than in our own country, where it was accomplished through the terrible agency of a civil war. yet the russian people have been, perhaps, less satisfied with its results. since then the serfs have been compelled to work harder than ever to pay for the land they had always cultivated and regarded as their own. the complete ignorance of the _moujiks_ has laid them open to greater vices than serfdom possessed and drunkenness has greatly increased since the emancipation."[ ] at the time of which we speak, however, there was nought but rejoicing in russia. freedom had unfurled her banner, and the sanguine prophets foresaw in the near future a complete cessation of despotism and a constitutional government such as the people had demanded since the beginning of nicholas' reign in . amidst the general joy, the governor of kief found an opportunity for materially improving the condition of the jews of his province. mendel would have been less than human had he not endeavored to turn this condition of affairs and pomeroff's friendship to practical account. for himself he desired nothing. when the governor, in order to have him constantly at his side, tendered him an honorable office in the palace, mendel gently but firmly declined the proffered honor. all his energies were directed towards ameliorating the lot of his co-religionists. he one day induced the governor to stroll with him through the jewish quarter, and with tact and eloquence called his attention to the crowded condition of the houses and streets, explaining how difficult it was to preserve health where the hygienic laws were of necessity utterly disregarded. he showed how the streets, at first ample for all requirements, had in the course of years become overcrowded; how hut had been built against hut and story erected upon story, until the lack of room deprived many a dwelling of light and air. he led the surprised governor through the squalid lanes near the river and demonstrated how difficult it would be to master an epidemic when once it had taken root there, and how the welfare of the entire town of kief depended upon the sanitary condition of each of its parts. with the financial acumen of his race, he appealed to the economic aspect of the case, demonstrated how many houses, large and small, were standing idle in the city proper, bringing neither rent to their owners nor taxes to the province, and depicted the benefits that would be gained by granting the jews the privilege of occupying such dwellings. the governor, who had never before visited the haunts of poverty, felt a positive repugnance to the system, or rather lack of system, that could countenance such a condition of affairs. he hurried away from the uninviting neighborhood, and, having again reached a spot where the air was fit to breathe, he promised to exert his influence with the czar to have the boundaries of the jewish quarter extended. nobly did he keep his word. he journeyed to st. petersburg and sought an audience with alexander. what happened at the interview the jews of kief never discovered, but the result was extremely gratifying. at the end of a fortnight there came a ukase extending indefinitely the limits of the jewish quarters of all large cities, granting permission to all jewish merchants who had been established in some branch of trade for twenty-five years or over, and to all rabbis and teachers, to reside in the city proper, in such streets as they might select, and permitting merchants of ten years' standing to dwell on certain streets carefully specified in the proclamation. it also made it lawful for jews and christians to live in the same building, a privilege hitherto withheld. many were the jews who availed themselves of their new privileges. bensef was among the first. his house, since the arrival of mendel's parents, had been too small for comfort and the wealthy man desired a dwelling befitting his means. haim goldheim, the banker, found that there was not enough room in his house for the works of art it contained. he took a house in the fashionable vladimir quarter, where, to the intense disgust of the aristocrats, he established himself in princely magnificence. a hundred families, at least, followed the example thus set, leaving the crowded streets, in order to breathe the purer air of the more select quarters of kief. to their credit be it said, however, few went far from their old homes; the synagogue still formed the rallying centre of their community. about it revolved their daily thoughts and actions and the greatest recommendation a new home could have was that it was near the _schul_. upon mendel, who had brought about this change, the greatest honors were showered. his congregation almost worshipped him. there were envious detractors, however, who contended that it did not behoove a jew to become so intimate with a _goy_, and a governor at that. they claimed that the rabbi labored only to promote his own private ends; but, as these malcontents were among the first to seize the opportunity of bettering their condition, mendel could afford to shrug his shoulders and smile at their insinuations. the principal class to benefit by the new order of things were the poor, who now found abundant room and greedily availed themselves of it. to them mendel was a saviour in the practical sense of the word, and many a grateful woman whose hovel had been exchanged for a more commodious dwelling would kiss the rabbi's hand as he passed through the quarter on his errands of mercy. but the young rabbi's zeal did not end here. he convinced the governor that the taxes exacted from the jews were not only excessive, but disproportionate, and, as a result, they were lowered to a level with those paid by the gentiles. hitherto the jews had been forbidden to cultivate land on their own account. mendel, in presenting this subject to the governor, laid stress upon the fact that vast tracts were lying fallow for want of agriculturists, and that the crown was thereby losing much revenue which could easily be raised by a judicious distribution of these fields among the thrifty and industrious hebrews. pomeroff saw the justice of the argument and a proclamation resulted, removing the restrictions placed upon the cultivation of land by the jews. the jews of kief and the surrounding provinces felt that a day of prosperity and happiness had dawned for them. in a measure they enjoyed the same liberty and privileges as did the lower classes of russians. they were free to come and go, to live where they pleased and to engage in a score of occupations which had hitherto been forbidden, and mendel was justly honored as the author of these changes. his fame spread at home and was heralded abroad. during his frequent visits to the governor he came in contact with many of the great and brilliant men of the empire. dignitaries who at first met the jew with a feeling of repugnance gradually yielded to the charm of his personal influence and vied with each other in honoring him, and through him judaism was honored and respected. his character, his benevolence, his patriotism and his great mental gifts did more to convince those gentiles of what the jew could be than the keenest arguments could have done. a great general one day asked him: "why are you so different from the jews one usually meets?" "your excellency is in error," mendel replied. "i am not unlike my fellow-men. in disposition and feeling i am the same, but i have had an opportunity for mental improvement of which most of my brethren have been deprived. give them the privilege of attending your universities, open to them the avenues of knowledge and you will create for russia an intellectual element which will eventually place her in the front ranks of the nations." the general shrugged his shoulders and smiled. the idea seemed preposterous. "you have certainly an exalted opinion of your co-religionists," he said. "i have, your excellency, and it is borne out by history. your excellency has doubtless read of the intellectual supremacy of spain when the jews were in the ascendant." his excellency had not read of it. in fighting but not in reading lay his strength and, not wishing to display his ignorance, he wisely changed the subject. as might have been expected, violent objections were raised by the gentiles to the enlarged privileges granted the jews. the priests were particularly virulent in their denunciation of the new liberties conferred, in which they saw but the beginning of the gradual emancipation of the hebrews. attacks were made against them from press and from pulpit, and all of these mendel answered calmly and convincingly. his logic finally silenced the ravings of the unlettered and fanatical jew-haters and the privileges once accorded were not repealed. had mendel's zeal ended here he would have avoided much subsequent difficulty, but he was well aware that the jews had not attained to the ideal he had formed, that much ignorance, fanaticism and superstition still prevailed. he desired to imitate the example of his great prototype, moses mendelssohn, and spread the light of learning throughout the jewish world. he did not lose sight of the vastness of the undertaking, of the dangers he was incurring, or of the animosity he was inviting, for the jews of russia still regarded all learning not found in the folios of the talmud as sacrilegious and unholy. to overcome this antagonism to secular knowledge now became mendel's self-imposed task. consulting no one but his friend the governor, and armed with a letter of introduction from this powerful ally, mendel set out for st. petersburg, to visit the czar in person. it was an unheard-of experiment on the part of a jew, but mendel felt the inspiration of right and undertook his new mission fearlessly. what nothing else could accomplish was done by the governor's letter of recommendation. after a little delay he was admitted into the august presence of the czar alexander and presented his petition. alexander was not a little surprised at the temerity of a jew in thus appearing before him, but the very strangeness of the proceeding enlisted the ruler's interest in the demands of the rabbi. after a long conference, during which mendel eloquently pleaded his cause, he was dismissed with the assurance that the educational disabilities of the hebrews would be in a measure removed, and shortly after his return to kief a proclamation was issued admitting jewish youth into the russian schools upon terms of equality with the gentiles. then arose a storm of indignation among the pious israelites. those who had antagonized mendel from the first, now were furious at his attempt to force intelligence upon them. they prophesied that these were but the stepping-stones to more radical changes and stubbornly refused to yield an inch, lest the proverbial ell might be seized. "never," they cried, "shall our children be taught the wisdom of the _goyim_. the law and the talmud are sufficient for our needs. instruction in the public schools will force rabbinical studies into the background and will gradually estrange our children from the religion of their fathers. we want no new-fangled education. we are jews and we will remain jews." so hostile was the greater part of the community to the idea of extending educational facilities, that the friends of mendel, and there were many of them, advised him to make an effort to have the obnoxious privileges repealed. this mendel positively refused to do. "it is but a privilege," he answered, "and not at all obligatory. you can do as you like about sending your children to the public schools. as for myself, however, i shall never cease to uphold the necessity of education in order to obtain the rights that belong to our race." the battle thus commenced raged fiercely. hirsch bensef was one of the ablest supporters of the young rabbi. haim goldheim was another; his wealth had procured him the friendship of several aristocratic but impoverished families in the neighborhood of his new home, and he never forgot that the blessings he now enjoyed were due to mendel's past labors. the young men were all on mendel's side. they chafed under the restraint that had been put upon them and yearned for instruction in keeping with the enlarged sphere of activity now opened to them. thus a schism arose in kief. the progressive israelites siding with mendel founded a congregation of their own, leaving the more conservative to work out their salvation in their old accustomed way. it must not be supposed that mendel observed this break in the ranks of judaism without a pang. he spent many a sleepless night in planning how to avert further differences and to appease existing animosities. balzac truly says: "every great man has paid heavily for his greatness. genius waters all its work with its own tears. he who would raise himself above the average level of humanity, must prepare himself for long struggles, for trying difficulties. a great thinker is a self-devoted martyr to immortality." in spite of the anathemas of the narrow-minded, in spite of the cry that the messiah could never come as long as such sacrilege was tolerated in the household of israel, the good work went steadily forward, to the manifest advantage of the entire body of jews. footnotes: [footnote : foulke.] chapter xxi. a den of nihilists. let us open the records of kief for the year . fifteen years have elapsed since the events last narrated; fifteen years of peace and plenty, of security and prosperity for jew and gentile. what sudden change do we behold! is this the country whose future looked so hopeful in the early days of alexander's reign? is this the people who saw the golden promise of a constitutional government? alas, for the instability of human purpose! the reforms then instituted have been revoked, the men who were the leaders in these reforms have been exiled to siberia. a period of reaction has set in: despotism and nihilism meet face to face. the entire nation is in chains. russia during these troublous times presents a dreary picture. at a period when the intellectual activity of europe is at its height, she still groans under the unrestricted despotism of an autocrat. here the effects of progress that obtain elsewhere seem inverted. such advance as is made in civilization and knowledge is used to buttress imperial tyranny and the knout is wielded more cruelly than ever before. we behold liberal institutions overthrown and a whole people held in bondage worse than slavery. we hear of families torn asunder, of innocent men condemned to life-long exile in siberia, simply because they have aroused the suspicion or incurred the ill-will of those in authority. force in its most brutal form holds sway throughout the empire. what wonder then that the discontented masses writhe in their despair and seek redress! what wonder that nihilism should flourish and the service of dynamite be enlisted to accomplish what moral suasion failed to achieve! the years beginning with were disastrous for russia. they marked the decadence of those reforms which ten years before had given promise of such glorious results. in one of the most populous portions of kief, in the shadow of the petcherskoi convent, stood a large, modern house. as is the case with the generality of russian dwellings, it was tenanted by a number of families who came and went, beat their children, ill-treated their servants and transacted their daily affairs, rarely becoming acquainted with each other. it was a many-storied building, of plain exterior. the lower floor was occupied by the worthy family of pavel kodasky, a clerk in the employ of the government. his wife filled the responsible position of _concierge_ to the immense house. the third and fourth floors were the abode of families equally worthy but unimportant to our story, while the upper floors were inhabited by a vast number of students and officers who, in consideration of cheap rent and convenient proximity to the university and the barracks, had here furnished themselves with comfortable bachelors' quarters. the second floor still remains to be spoken of. it was occupied by a young officer of prepossessing appearance, who was widely known in the aristocratic circles of kief. the dark-eyed russian beauties adored him for his handsome bearing, his flashing eyes, his gallant and fearless demeanor; the gay young officers and dandies that hovered about the governor's court admired him for his reckless habits, his daring escapades and his lavish expenditure of a fortune which seemed inexhaustible. loris drentell, the young lieutenant of the seventh cossack regiment, might well be thankful to fortuna for the gifts she had lavished upon him. the reader will remember having met the young man before, when he was but a baby in his nurse's arms at the drentell villa at lubny. the promise he then gave of becoming a spoiled child was fully realized. indulged by his father and neglected by his mother, his every wish gratified as soon as expressed, enjoying unlimited freedom in the use of a vast fortune, loris developed a disposition in which indolence, recklessness and unprincipled ambition contended for the mastery. the young man was unscrupulous and vindictive and he obeyed no law save that of his own unbridled will. he was a type of a class of russian aristocrats whose social position and wealth enable them to tyrannize over their associates and dependants. reckless and fearless as loris was known to be, none suspected that this gay and pampered youth, this officer of the imperial troops, was the acknowledged head of a nihilist club. none but a chosen few knew that this apparently peaceful dwelling, with its many stories and multitudinous inhabitants, was the meeting-place of a powerful band of would-be patriots, whose mission it was to inaugurate a constitutional government by the aid of dynamite. here was the unsuspected centre from which thousands of nihilist documents were scattered to the ends of russia. here were concealed papers which if discovered would have consigned many of the greatest in russia to siberia or the scaffold, and here it was that the frightful engine of destruction--nihilism--had its cradle. so great was the caution observed by the members of the secret organization that the wary and vigilant police did not dream of its existence. loris was walking impatiently up and down his parlor, now looking at the clock, now gazing expectantly through his window up and down the street. "he is late," exclaimed the young man, anxiously. "i wonder what detains him." he began nervously to roll a cigarette, without however leaving his watch at the window. finally he smiled with satisfaction. "at last," he cried, as he perceived his belated friend turn a corner and hurry towards the house. "we shall soon have news from the governor." there was a hasty knock at the door and a tall young fellow entered, carefully locking the door behind him. "well, paulowitch, i began to feel uneasy," said loris. "what kept you so late?" "i have just arrived from pomeroff's," whispered paulowitch. "he had a very large audience and it was some time before i could gain his ear." "what was the result?" asked loris, eagerly. "he will come to-night. i told him that there would be a meeting of officers in honor of your birthday and that we would like to have him with us." "does he suspect anything?" "how should he?" "he will find out soon enough." "you are mistaken, loris, if you think he will join us. i know pomeroff too well. although he has had much to suffer from the arbitrary rulings of the czar, the recollection of former favors will not permit him to desert his emperor." "mere sentimentality," answered loris. "do you forget how the czar, in a proclamation, publicly reprimanded him for allowing the jews too many liberties, and of harboring treasonable sympathy with them? i know that pomeroff has been smarting under the insult ever since. he will be glad to have an opportunity of avenging himself." paulowitch shook his head, in doubt. "and if, after having learned our secrets, he should refuse to join us?" he asked. "if he does not affiliate with us, we must render him harmless. we dare not give him an opportunity to betray us." "but what is to prevent him from informing the police of our plans and having us all sent to siberia?" "we have foreseen such a possibility. moleska, his secretary, who has access to his desks and closets, and who is one of us, has full instructions how to act in such an emergency." "poor pomeroff," murmured paulowitch. "i am sorry for him." "nonsense!" exclaimed loris; "we need him to insure our success. while his police are prying about to discover something new, we are in constant danger of detection and can accomplish little. if, however, he declines to join us, we dare run no risk. he must be removed." "in that event, who do you suppose will take his place?" "i cannot say. but the arrest and execution or exile of the governor will cause such a disturbance in the affairs of the province that several months must elapse before order is again restored. in the meantime our association will flourish unimpeded. we will be able to scatter our pamphlets and manifestoes broadcast, and to prepare everything necessary for the final stroke, which shall rid us of the imperial tyrant and pave the way for liberty." there was a peculiar knock at the door and a man, in the garb of a student and possessing a countenance that displayed rare intellect, was admitted. the new-comer was about twenty-three years of age. in fact, martinski was one of the leaders of the order and most of its master moves were conceived by him. "well," asked loris, addressing him, "have the papers been forwarded?" "yes; both myra sergeitch and paulovna tschorgini left for st. petersburg at noon. the documents were concealed in secret compartments of their trunks. there is no danger of detection." "but if they should be found in spite of all precautions?" asked paulowitch. "bah! who will suspect two inoffensive-looking women? besides, the messages were written in cipher which no one can read. should the worst happen, however, both ladies are devoted to the cause and would rather die than betray us." "noble hearts," said paulowitch, reflectively. "a cause like ours makes heroes." "come," said loris; "it is growing late. let us take a stroll while our landlady prepares the feast for to-night." it was a large and heterogeneous assembly that partook of the cheer of loris' table that evening. there were a few army officers, some students, two or three political writers and half-a-dozen young noblemen, who, as a rule, possessed more money than brains. supper was already begun, and the expected guest, governor pomeroff, had not yet made his appearance. the suspense was great, for it was felt that much depended upon securing pomeroff as an ally. few doubted that he would join them, for he, if any one, had just cause to detest the czar, and the arrangements made to prevent disclosures would not be needed. after a long wait, during which the conspirators conversed in an undertone, the door was opened and the governor entered in company with paulowitch. he appeared surprised to find himself in so large a company, when he had expected to meet but a few intimate friends, but he greeted all cordially and sat down in the place of honor accorded him. the conversation was comparatively uninteresting during the progress of the repast. there was none of that conviviality which one is accustomed to find at a friendly banquet; each member of the circle appeared constrained and nervous in the presence of his comrades and an undefined suspicion that he had been decoyed into a trap of some kind flashed through pomeroff's brain. drinking, rather than eating, formed the chief part of the entertainment and the spirits of the party rose as the bottles were emptied. suddenly loris sprang to his feet and lifting his glass proposed the toast: "to his excellency, the governor of kief, the champion of liberty, the enemy of the autocrat at st. petersburg!" "long may he live!" shouted his associates. pomeroff sat in his chair as if thunderstruck. the suspicion which up to this moment had but faintly suggested itself had become a terrible certainty. as soon as he could master his excitement he arose. "gentlemen," he began, endeavoring to smile, "what jest is this? you are certainly in error. allow me to correct it. i drink to the health and long life of his majesty the czar!" a storm of hisses greeted this toast and pomeroff, after trying in vain to make himself heard above the din, sat down. his face was pale and his frame shook with suppressed anger. quiet was finally restored and martinski rose and addressed the meeting, speaking more directly to the governor. he rehearsed the outrages committed upon submissive russians by the czar nicholas, whose despotic government had finally driven the country into the disastrous crimean war. he spoke in terms of praise of the noble aims and ambitions of alexander during the early years of his reign, only to denounce in unmeasured terms the reaction which had destroyed the little good that had been accomplished. he depicted the cruelty and the tyranny practised by the czar upon those who had incurred his displeasure, the utter lack of educational facilities and the consequent ignorance of the masses, the rigorous censorship of the press and the arbitrary rule of the men in power. he pictured in vivid colors the cruelties of siberian exile and the sufferings of the prisoners in those distant mines, from which there was no escape but through the valley of death. "but," continued he, warming up to a genuine outburst of eloquence, "there is still a lower depth; a dungeon, a human slaughter-house rather, has recently been contrived, the horrors of which surpass anything hitherto conceived by man. it is the troubetzkoi ravelin, where convicts condemned upon the most trivial charges are confined for life; a hell for those for whom the mines of siberia are not considered severe enough. compared to this prison, the bastile of france was a palace of luxury. woe to him who is obliged to enter this frightful place: hardships, hunger, disease and insanity await him. "the convicts of siberia cry to us for help. the scurvy-stricken prisoners of the troubetzkoi ravelin appeal to us to avenge their wrongs upon the author of their misfortunes. the french destroyed their bastile. why should we not also demolish our dungeons before we ourselves are called upon to fill them. o, russia, how pitiable is your condition! 'despotism has blasted the high hopes to which the splendid awakening of the first half of the century gave birth. the living forces of later generations have been buried by the government in the siberian snows or esquimaux villages. it is worse than the plague, for that comes and goes, but the government has oppressed the country for years and will continue to do so. the plague strikes blindly but the present régime chooses its victims from the flower of the nation, taking all upon whom depend the fortune and glory of russia. it is not a political party that they crush, it is a nation of a hundred millions that they stifle. that is what the czar has done.'[ ] down with such despotism! down with its instigator, the czar!" at these concluding words, the whole party arose and, holding out their right hands in token of allegiance to their cause, they repeated the cry: "down with the czar!" for a few moments absolute silence reigned. then governor pomeroff struggled to his feet. "i fear i am out of place here," he began. "you will do me the favor to remember that i came here ignorant of your purposes. whatever cause you may have for complaint, you have taken the wrong means for correcting your grievances. rest assured, gentlemen, that i sympathize with your troubles, even though i cannot agree with your method of changing the condition of things. i promise, moreover, to forget what i have heard and beg of you to excuse me from further attendance." and bowing politely, the governor moved towards the door. "stop!" cried loris, excitedly, barring the passage and leading the governor back to his seat. "do you for a moment imagine that after having heard our deliberations and learned our secrets you will be allowed to leave here and denounce us? it is too late for you to retreat. you have cast your fortunes with us and must share our dangers and our glory." "you mistake," answered the governor, proudly. "i came to a feast, not to a conspiracy. your motive for bringing me here is not known to me, but if it is to make me a traitor to my country and my czar you do not know me. a pomeroff has never yet stooped to treason. again i say, let me go!" "governor, hear me," now said martinski, in a tone of persuasion. "we need your assistance. without your sympathy we are in constant fear of detection from your officers; with you on our side we can continue our noble work without fear of molestation. the work will go on, the glorious end will be achieved in spite of all difficulties, and our labors will only end when the czar lies buried with his ancestors. ours is not a society for wilful destruction of life or property. our aims are just. we demand a general amnesty for political offenders and a convocation of the people for the framing of a liberal constitution, and meanwhile we demand as provisional concessions freedom of the press, freedom of speech and freedom of public meetings. these are the only means by which russia can enter upon the path of peaceful and regular development. we will be content with nothing less. we will turn to dynamite, only when all else fails. governor pomeroff, will you join us in the attainment of these rights, which every civilized nation already possesses?" "no!" thundered the governor, his eyes flashing. "then i beg to call your excellency's attention to the fact that a trip to siberia or to the gallows as a condemned nihilist awaits you." the governor turned pale, but remained silent. "think not that we have rushed blindly into this danger," continued martinski. "it was necessary to have you on our side or out of the way. therefore, we brought you here this evening. we have carefully weighed our chances. having made you our confidant we dare not jeopardize our lives by allowing you your liberty. by to-morrow you would have us all in chains. we therefore offer you the alternative of joining our fraternity or of being denounced to-morrow as an enemy of the czar." "i refuse to identify myself with a band of assassins," answered pomeroff, boldly. "throughout my life i have ever striven to be on the side of right and justice, have ever protected the oppressed and assisted those who came to me for help. i have been loyal to my czar and to my country. i will not now be frightened into doing that which my nature loathes and against which every fibre of my body revolts. i defy your power and laugh at your threats. you leave me no alternative but to inform his majesty of this diabolical plot upon his life." "and you leave us no alternative but to render you harmless," replied martinski. at these words, all arose and silently surrounded the governor. pomeroff had by this time forced his way to the door which he tried to open. it was locked. pale with anger, he turned upon the nihilists. "cowards!" he hissed, "you would force me to join your fraternity. then i give you my brotherly greeting," and, drawing his pistol, he fired into the group. loris was wounded in the side, but the ball striking a rib glanced off. a dozen men threw themselves upon the governor, who defended himself with the strength of despair; but superior numbers quickly gained the mastery, and after a short struggle pomeroff lay helpless upon the floor. then one of the students took a vial of chloroform from his pocket. seizing a napkin he saturated it with the liquid and applied it to the nostrils of the prostrated man. in a few minutes the victim was insensible. "flee for your lives!" ordered martinski, "we have not a moment to lose. it is fortunate that the shot has not already brought the police down upon us. we must carry the governor at once to his palace. drentell, you will pass the night with me." under cover of a dark and cloudy night pomeroff was carried to his home, and with the assistance of his secretary, moleska, was carefully placed upon the couch in his private cabinet. footnotes: [footnote : stepniak.] chapter xxii. a modern brutus. when pomeroff awoke next morning, he rubbed his eyes sleepily and looked about him. "by st. nicholas, i have had a horrible dream," he muttered. "i must have slept on this couch all night." on attempting to rise, however, he felt a soreness in every limb and the events of the preceding night flashed through his mind. instantly his face became grave. "can it be that i have not been dreaming after all; that i was really in the lair of the nihilists? bah, it must be a mistake!" he arose with difficulty and opened the window. it was a glorious day. the birds were chirping merrily in the trees that shaded the courtyard, but though the sun was high there were no signs of the usual activity below. "it must be early," mused the governor; "no one is stirring. what!" he cried, looking at his watch, "ten o'clock! there is something wrong." he crossed the room and tried to open the door leading to the ante-chamber. it was locked. he tried a smaller door leading to the rear of the palace. it, too, was locked and resisted his efforts to open it. with a cry of anger and surprise, pomeroff exclaimed: "this is carrying the farce to extremes. so i am a prisoner in my own house! can it be that they will carry out their diabolical threats and have me tried as a suspect? nonsense! i will subvert their plans and turn the tables on them." he rang the bell violently, but there was no response. as a last resort he hurled his whole weight against the oaken door, but it remained immovable. it appeared probable to him that his enemies would carry out their threat of accusing him, and he carefully mapped out his line of defence. he would prove that he had innocently walked into a trap, set for him by a band of conspirators, who had planned to assassinate the czar, and that he had used every argument to dissuade them from their murderous project. he would prove that he had firmly refused to join their ranks, and that he had been obliged to use his pistol in his effort to escape from their midst. prove it? how? a little reflection showed him that he had no proofs whatever and that he was absolutely powerless to defend himself against any charges that they might bring. wearied with his vain exertions and furious at his helplessness, he threw himself upon the sofa. as he became calmer he began to reflect upon his situation. slowly the hours passed without affording relief. about noon pomeroff heard the key turn in the lock and an instant later the apartment was filled with officers of the _gendarmerie_. the chief of police, polatschek, was the first to break the silence. "i regret, your excellency," he said, sadly, "that i am obliged to take this step against one who has been my friend and benefactor, but the czar's orders are imperative. you will consider yourself my prisoner." "of what am i accused?" asked the governor. "you are accused of associating with nihilists and of being at the present time involved in a plot to take the czar's life." "it is false," cried pomeroff. "we will hear your defence in due time," answered polatschek. "in the meantime it becomes my unpleasant duty to search your desk and closets for nihilistic papers, which the deposition accuses you of having in your possession." pomeroff smiled bitterly. "search, gentlemen. the absence of such documents will, i hope, convince you that i am innocent of this outrageous charge." "nothing will give me greater pleasure than to see you vindicated," said the chief, politely, as he gave orders to ransack the drawers and receptacles of the governor's writing-desk. alas, poor pomeroff! almost the first roll of papers examined proved of a most damaging nature, being the rules of an association of nihilists in st. petersburg. a further search revealed plans of a dynamite mine to be laid beneath the imperial palace at the capital. in vain were all the governor's denials. never was proof of guilt more complete and convincing, and polatschek, who was almost as much unnerved by the discovery as the prisoner, reluctantly gave orders to seize and secure the unfortunate man, and pomeroff was hurried away to the house of detention, to await his trial. since the beginning of the so-called terrorist period, and the first attack upon the life of the czar, a short time before the occurrence of the above events, the trial of political offenders had been taken from the civil tribunals and transferred to the military. even counsel for the prisoner must be an army officer. the court to try governor pomeroff was hastily convened next morning. instructions concerning the judgment to be rendered were telegraphed from st. petersburg and the military judges had but to obey their imperial mandate. under such conditions the trial was a mere form. the evidence against the prisoner was positive. within an hour pomeroff, who had no opportunity of saying a word in his defence, was sentenced to death. "the secret 'council of ten' that once terrorized venice, and which, without process of law, condemned men to punishment upon secret charges, preferred by unknown accusers, often where no crime had been committed, has long been regarded as the most odious form of injustice. yet the russian system of to-day is quite as repugnant to every idea of justice. men who have never been tried, nor perhaps even accused, but who are simply suspected by the police, are often without the slightest investigation hurried into exile or death."[ ] on the following morning, governor pomeroff, the just and merciful, the friend and protector of the jews, was secretly executed in the fortress of kief. excitement was at fever heat. the governor was beloved by all. never had the province been so well governed as during his administration. among the jews whom pomeroff had especially befriended the grief was deep and sincere. rabbi mendel winenki, in an address to his congregation, fearlessly denounced a system by which an innocent man could be put to death. in the synagogues the _kaddish_ (prayer for the dead) was recited as for a beloved parent. in consequence of these demonstrations the authorities warned the jews that any further expressions of disapproval of the government's course would be severely punished. well might the jews mourn their friend and protector. with his death their bright hopes and dreams, their prospects of emancipation, were rudely dispelled. within a week of pomeroff's execution count dimitri drentell, our old acquaintance whom we left at lubny and whom the crimean war had made a general, arrived in kief as its future governor. while the majority of the inhabitants of the province were indifferent as to which creature of the imperial autocrat oppressed them, there were two classes who viewed the change with great misgivings: the jews and the band of agitators to which loris drentell, the new governor's son, belonged. the jews had learned from their co-religionists in poltava of the implacable hatred dimitri bore their race. they had for fifteen years basked in the sunshine of pomeroff's favor, but now trembled at the dismal prospect before them. the nihilists had equal cause for fear. their safety required a governor who could be controlled or hoodwinked by them. but they well knew that this man was unapproachable, that neither bribes nor threats would avail to win him over. besides, loris felt that by remaining the leader of the nihilist club he would come in conflict with his father. the elder drentell was not merely the civil governor of kief--he was also one of the generals appointed by the czar with unlimited power to punish the guilty; with the right to exile all persons whose stay he might consider prejudicial to public welfare; to imprison at discretion; to suppress or suspend any journal, and to take all measures that he might deem necessary for public safety. with a man of such vast powers, it was dangerous for even a beloved son to trifle. for the time being, therefore, the nihilists were doomed to inactivity. general drentell began his administration with a careful examination of the evidence which had caused the condemnation of his predecessor. he had a strong conviction that pomeroff was innocent, but if guilty he felt it his duty to ferret out the conspiracy and discover pomeroff's accomplices. he owed it to his own safety to purge the palace of such as might be there. with the skill of a trained detective, and with the utmost secrecy, he began the work. his first investigations were made in the palace which he was henceforth to occupy. drentell soon discovered that moleska, pomeroff's secretary, had duplicate keys to the desk and closets in the private cabinet. if pomeroff was innocent, this would explain the presence of the incriminating papers in the governor's desk. acting entirely upon this suspicion, he ordered the arrest of moleska, who, overcome by terror, confessed the entire plot. on the following day, loris was hastily summoned into the governor's presence. he found his father striding up and down the apartment, a prey to the most violent agitation. "you have sent for me, father?" said the young man. "yes; sit down," answered drentell, curtly. "have you ever read the history of rome?" loris opened his eyes wide at the unexpected question. "why do you ask?" "answer my question. have you ever read the history of rome?" "yes." "do you remember the story of brutus, whose son was engaged in a conspiracy against the republic?" loris became very pale and stammered an indistinct reply. "you do; i see it in your face! tell me how did brutus act towards his son?" "he condemned him to death," faltered loris. "right! he condemned him to death. the malefactor paid the penalty with his life." the general arose and again paced up and down the room, in a vain attempt to control his agitation. "what have these questions to do with me?" asked loris, nervously. "simply this," answered the governor, coming to a sudden stop before his son, while his eyes flashed and big blue veins stood out upon his forehead: "i have proofs that my predecessor died an innocent man. i have also the names of those nihilists who should have suffered in his stead. shall i tell you whose name is at the head? my duty is clear. i should follow the example of brutus and deliver my son into the hands of the law." loris, a thorough coward at heart, sank into a chair. "father," he stammered; "you would not condemn me to death; me, your only child?" "coward!" cried the general, looking scornfully at his son, whom terror had robbed of strength to stand. "you have the courage to plan cold-blooded murder, but when the time comes to face your own death you show yourself a miserable poltroon. fear nothing: you shall not die. i have passed a sleepless night, struggling between duty and parental affection. but were it known in st. petersburg that i had shown you mercy, i would answer for it with my life." "father!" exclaimed the young man, remorsefully, hiding his face in his hands. "don't interrupt me," said the general, savagely. "i have already requested the immediate removal of your regiment to the frontier. the turks are aggressive, and our forces in that neighborhood should be increased. by to-morrow you will receive your order to march. it is absolutely necessary that you should leave kief. of your misguided companions, moleska, who revealed the conspiracy, is already in the fortress, and the others will soon follow. for your own safety, you must leave kief before the arrests are made, or i will not answer for the consequences." "but, father, you will be lenient towards them," cried the young man. "you will not condemn them to death. remember that whatever may have been their guilt, had it not been for the death of pomeroff, you would not now be governor of kief." "for shame, loris!" cried the general, red with anger. "are you so lost to all sense of honor that you must remind me that i stepped into office over the corpse of my predecessor and my friend, murdered by my own son? do not provoke me too far! your associates have been guilty of the most grievous of crimes. they must die. besides, were they to live they would denounce you as their leader and even i could not save your life. go! arrange your affairs, avoid further intercourse with your companions. by this time to-morrow you must be on the way to the frontier while they will mount the scaffold." loris shuddered and for the first time a sentiment of humanity moved within him. "i will not go," he said, resolutely. "i have lived and plotted with them and i shall die with them." "no, loris, no," replied his father, softened. "you must depart. there is no other course. a drentell must not die a traitor's death. it would break my heart and kill your mother, who dotes upon you. it will be better not to see her before your departure. questionings and explanations are dangerous. after all this is forgotten, you may return and work out the career i had hoped for you." loris, sorrowful and conscience-stricken, kissed his father's hand and slowly left the room. on the morrow, the seventh cossack regiment received orders from st. petersburg to proceed to kothim without delay, and long before nightfall it was on the march. next morning twelve conspirators were arrested at their homes and dragged before the tribunal of judicial inquiry. their trial, like that of pomeroff, was a mockery, for their fate had already been decided. defence was useless. the incriminating papers found in the places designated by the informer moleska sealed their doom. governor drentell himself pronounced their sentence. two days afterward they were secretly executed. footnotes: [footnote : foulke.] chapter xxiii. louise's practical advice. tyranny, which for a brief period had slept, was now wide-awake and aggressively active. throughout the entire empire despotism stalked unimpeded. the recent attempt upon the czar's life had increased the vigilance of the police, and the most frightful atrocities were committed in the holy name of justice. the blood curdles with horror when reading of the indignities and the injustice visited upon the people. "when the police deem it best," says one writer,[ ] in portraying the condition of that period, "they steal noiselessly through the streets and alleys, surround a private dwelling in the dead of the night, and under some false pretence, invade every room in the house, waking the sleeping occupants. each member of the household is given in charge of a policeman, everything is turned topsy-turvy, books, papers, private letters are carefully inspected--nothing is secret. it is not necessary that the police should have any evidence for these searches. an anonymous charge, a mere suspicion is enough. houses have sometimes been inspected seven times in a single day. if anything is discovered to excite the suspicions of the police an arrest follows and the supposed culprit is sent to the house of preventive detention. there he awaits his trial for weeks and months and sometimes for years. he is brought out occasionally for examination. if he confesses nothing he is sent back to reflect. sometimes the wrong man is arrested and confined a year or two before the mistake is discovered." the solitary confinement to which prisoners were doomed in this house of detention was often fatal. the hardships to which they were subjected frequently led to consumption, insanity or suicide. the examination of prisoners and witnesses was dragged out to an interminable length. in one celebrated case it lasted four years and over seven hundred witnesses were kept in jail during that time. the prosecutor admitted that only twenty persons deserved punishment, yet there were seventy-three who died from suicide or the effects of confinement. louder and louder grew the clamor of the masses and the threats against the imperial autocrat. wholesale arrests could not quell the popular voice. a prisoner wrote from his living tomb in the troubetzkoi ravelin: "fight on till the victory is won! the more they torment me in prison, the better it is for the struggle!" governor drentell entered upon his new duties at a trying time. his existence was embittered by political strife and tumult, and by complications with which he found it difficult to cope. let us seek him in his palace, by the side of his wife, louise. when we first met louise, she was young and frivolous; now she is old and frivolous. the years have dealt gently with her, however, for she is still quite handsome and as vivacious, as capricious, as kind-hearted and as religious as when we last parted from her, twenty-seven years ago. "poor dimitri," she said, dolefully, after her husband had recounted the events of the day. "eighteen persons exiled to siberia and two sentenced to death. how hard you toil! you will kill yourself with overwork!" the general sighed. "i should think," continued louise, "that loris could be of service to you in these difficult affairs of state. why don't you recall our boy?" the general's brow clouded. "he must remain at his post for the present," he answered. "after he has achieved military glory, it will be time enough to initiate him in civil affairs." "but you need an adviser, an assistant who can take some of your work off your hands." "you are right! but who shall it be? there are so many nihilists about, that i cannot be too careful whom i take into my confidence." louise rocked herself awhile in silence. suddenly she said, impetuously: "i wish we were back in st. petersburg, or even at lubny. do you know, dimitri, our days at lubny were pleasant, after all?" "perhaps," answered drentell, sarcastically, "that accounts for your incessant desire to leave the place." "i never know when i am happy," said louise, truthfully. for some minutes she again rocked herself vigorously. it was her way of stimulating her mental faculties. suddenly she cried: "ah, if you had only brought mikail along. he might assist you." "you appear too fond of mikail's society," answered the governor, sharply; "and that is just why i left him in st. petersburg." "fool," replied louise, half in jest, half in earnest. "why, he is only my father confessor. you surely would not be jealous of a priest?" "yes, even of a priest, especially when he is as handsome and fascinating as our mikail." louise broke into a merry laugh. "then that is why you were so solicitous about placing him with the minister of war in st. petersburg. you were afraid to bring him along on my account?" "candidly, yes. in spite of his priestly robes, i fancied he was too fond of your society and you of his, and i deemed it best for my peace of mind to leave him at the capital while we came here." for a time louise's mirth appeared uncontrollable. "why, you goose!" she said, after her laughter had subsided. "mikail has never approached me but with the greatest respect. he knows that i have been his benefactress, and i am sure that, while he thinks me awfully ignorant, he respects me as he would an aged relative." "and what are your feelings towards him?" "i know what he was in the past; and, while i have unbounded admiration for his wisdom, i can never forget how he first came into our house." "then there is no danger of your falling in love with him?" "none, whatever. i am old enough to be his mother." "but his beauty--his charms?" "they do not compare with those of my dear husband," replied louise, as she twined her arms about dimitri's neck, with all the coquetry of twenty-seven years ago. there was no reason to doubt louise's sincerity, and the general felt a little ashamed of his unfounded suspicions. "have you heard from the minister since our departure from st. petersburg?" asked louise. "yes; he has written several times. he cannot sufficiently praise the keen intellect of our young priest." "he is the very man you want. have him come to kief at once. you need an assistant and mikail is bound to you by ties of gratitude and affection." the general looked sharply at his wife. he still felt doubtful as to her feeling for mikail. but louise rocked away, unconscious of her husband's penetrating glance. "perhaps it will be best to have him come," he reflected. "yes, it must be so. after having had him educated, after having given him the opportunity of becoming what he now is, it would be folly not to employ him to my own advantage. i shall write for him to-morrow." "i shall see," he said, at length. footnotes: [footnote : foulke.] chapter xxiv. a daniel come to judgment. a week later mikail arrived in kief. he appeared to be about thirty years of age, was tall of stature, well built and sturdy. his complexion was dark, his features oriental, his face oval, framed by a coal black flowing beard, which gave him an appearance at once imposing and attractive. his large black eyes shone with the lustre of intelligence. a deep and melancholy calm seemed fixed in their commanding gaze. his quiet countenance and stately form, his black clerical garments, his sedate step and thoughtful mien added to the impressive effect of his appearance. his beauty, however, was marred by two serious defects. the lower half of his right ear had been torn away and his left arm was stiff at the elbow and almost useless. we find him in earnest conversation with governor drentell and a few of the counsellors of his court. "it is to be deplored," said the governor, "that there seem to be no efficient means of quelling the popular discontent. arrest and exile do not have the desired effect. our prisons are filled to overflowing and there is scarcely a day that does not send its quota of criminals to siberia. here, in the southern part of russia, the state of affairs is particularly threatening. it is becoming alarming." "your excellency," remarked mikail, in a deep, musical voice, "the object of exile is, or ought to be, corrective rather than vindictive. but, in my opinion, it exasperates the community and increases the discontent." "but," objected one of the counsellors, "to allow discontented persons to remain unmolested will make them dangerous to the state." "undoubtedly," replied mikail, "unless we remove the cause of their discontent." "remove the cause?" interrupted drentell, surprised. "to remove the cause would mean to grant them liberty of action, to grant them a constitutional government, to acquiesce in the thousand reforms they demand." "let us not disguise from ourselves the fact that the people are entitled to all they ask," said mikail, quietly; "that the inhabitants of other countries enjoy these rights and more, too, and that they only ask for what is the prerogative of every human being--liberty and happiness. but," continued he, emphasizing the little word; "while other nations may prosper under such a rule, russia would not. her people are not ready to enjoy the rights they demand. they would look into the full glare of the mid-day sun before having accustomed their eyes to candle-light. when i spoke of removing the cause, i did not mean to abolish the cause of their discontent, but to obviate the necessity of sending people into exile." the assembly, which had at first been appalled by the priest's unpatriotic sentiments, now breathed more freely. "how would you accomplish your purpose?" asked the governor. "by directing the attention of the masses to something which will for the time divert their minds from their present projects." "it has been tried," replied the governor. "we have begun quarrels with all the countries surrounding us without accomplishing our object." "naturally enough. a war with turkey or with bulgaria is of very little interest to those living far from the scene of conflict. beyond taking a few soldiers out of the country such quarrels are productive of no good. there must be some strong excitement in which every one can take a part and feel a personal interest, and then nihilism will decline." "what do you propose?" asked the governor, whose curiosity was now thoroughly aroused. "nothing new," answered the priest, deliberately. "i have already had the honor of suggesting it to his excellency, the minister of war, who graciously commended it. _we must attack the jews_. they have enjoyed immunity long enough. for over twenty years they have lived in security, feeding upon the fat of the land, engaging in trades that are unlawful and amassing wealth which rightfully belongs to the faithful of the holy catholic church." and mikail crossed himself devoutly. the governor and his counsellors looked at each other, significantly. the priest continued: "the jews have entered every branch of trade and, worse still, have acquired lands. this is clearly against the laws of the empire which forbid a hebrew's owning land. they have crowded into our cities to the exclusion of our own people. kief now contains over twenty thousand jews, whereas i am confident that the ancient laws limit the population to less than one-half that number. they have systematically robbed and plundered the gentiles and by their wiles defrauded the poorer classes. they control the trade in intoxicants and the vast quantities drunk by the _moujiks_ pass through the hands of the jews. their wives are arrayed in satins and laces and wear the most elaborate jewelry, while our lower classes suffer poverty and misery. is it right, gentlemen, that the jews should have such advantages over the faithful? something must be done to check their dangerous progress." "your reverence evidently bears the race no great love," suggested one of the counsellors. "i have cause to hate them," answered mikail, with darkening brow and heaving bosom. "you are right, mikail," answered the governor, eagerly; "they are a despicable, blood-thirsty race." "but how will a crusade against the hebrews relieve the troubled condition of russia?" inquired another of the gentlemen. "it will divert the attention of the masses from their present sinister projects. once let them taste the blood of the jews, give pillage and carnage unrestrained license, and they will forget their chimerical schemes, and, paradoxical as it may seem, domestic order will be re-established." "you are right," said drentell, rising. "it is eminently proper that the government should give its attention to the jews and their relations with the rest of russia's inhabitants. i do not believe, however, that this agitation can be brought about in a month or even in a year. unfortunately, too many of our peasants live upon terms of friendship with them, absolutely blind to the fact that they are being preyed upon. we must open the eyes of these poor victims. we must point out to them that the jew saves money and amasses wealth, while they toil in penury; that jews fill our schools and colleges, while our people remain ignorant; that the jew, base, deceitful, and avaricious, fattens on their misery." "the _moujiks_ once aroused," resumed the priest, "and the race struggle begun, the czar may sleep in peace." "will his majesty approve our plans?" inquired one of the counsellors. "there will be no interference from st. petersburg," answered the priest. "i have already prepared the minister of war for such a course and he is thoroughly in accord with us. we have but to notify him of our intentions, and he will order a similar movement in all parts of the empire simultaneously." this course being decided on, the council broke up, the jews little dreaming of the sword that hung suspended over their heads. chapter xxv. mikail the priest. in russia, the ecclesiastical administration is entirely in the hands of the monks belonging to the "black clergy," in contradistinction to the village priests, called "white clergy." a black priest must be brought up in one of the five hundred rigorous monastic establishments of the empire. the order is under the supervision of bishops, of whom there are a great number. the black priest looks upon the parish priest as a sort of ecclesiastical half-caste, who should obey blindly, sharing all the onerous duties but none of the honors of the calling. the history of monastic life in russia does not differ materially from that in western europe. the early monks were mostly ascetics, living in colonies in a simple and primitive manner, subsisting on alms and charity. their only aims in life were the glorification of god and to live as christ commanded, in poverty, humility and self-denial. with the flight of time, this comfortless existence gave way to more luxurious customs. money, lands and serfs were given to these simple monasteries, which gradually grew into a mighty power in the land, engaging in commerce, exercising jurisdiction over large domains, and moulding the religious sentiment of the church and state. during this century, however, they grew less powerful. secularization of church lands and the liberation of the serfs reduced many of them to poverty. the monks, nevertheless, hold a position in the church vastly superior to that of the village priest, or _batushka_, as he is called. these _batushkas_ belong to a hereditary caste, the members of which have been priests for generations. they are subject to the rulings of the district bishop; their livings, their distinctive names, even their wives--for they are allowed to marry--are provided for them by their religious superior. their condition is not enviable. they are for the most part poor and ignorant, with no higher ambition than to perform the rites and ceremonies prescribed by their church. the parishioners are satisfied with very little, and the _batushkas_ have but little to give. they preach but rarely, and only after having submitted the sermon to the provincial _consistorium_. the moral influence they exercise over the people is necessarily small. it was to the "black clergy" that mikail belonged. as far back as he could remember, his home had been in a monastery and his daily associates austere monks. he was taught that the catholic faith is the only path to salvation. in so far, his education was similar to that of his brother priests, but while the jew jesus inculcated love of all men, mikail was taught to hate the jews. no occasion was permitted to pass, no opportunity neglected to instil the subtle poison into his young mind. the monks would point to his torn ear and palsied arm, and so vividly portray the tortures he had suffered, that mikail clenched his little fists, his face became flushed and his bosom heaved at the recital of his wrongs. they took delight in repeating the tale, that they might witness his childish outbursts of passion and fury. this treatment had its desired effect; the boy developed into a rabid jew-hater. as a child, mikail was but a servant in the monastery, ill-treated and ill-fed. the only joyful episodes of this period of his existence were the occasional visits to the count and countess drentell, at lubny, to whom he believed himself distantly related. they received him with every appearance of cordiality, made inquiries about his progress, allowed him to revel in the companionship of loris for a day or two, and finally sent him back to his dreary prison. as he grew up, his treatment at the hands of the poltava monks improved. the superior, alexei, discovered a keen intellect in this reserved and sullen lad. it was astonishing with what avidity he read the limited number of books which the convent bookcase contained. his desire for learning appeared insatiable, and the few kopecks which he earned in showing strangers through the chapel and running errands for the monks, were invariably spent at the book shops for some bit of precious literature. by the time he was eighteen he had mastered all the learning that alexei could impart, and the superior was by no means an illiterate or ignorant man. mikail read latin and german fluently, developed a talent for theology, and his shrewd arguments won the admiration of his fellow-priests. "he has a brilliant mind," said alexei to himself one day. "who knows, he may yet become a bishop." the russian catholic church occupies a unique position as compared with the churches of southern and western europe. she is now, as she was centuries ago, apparently oblivious of the world's advancement and impenetrable to new ideas. her ancient traditions are still cherished. the theological discussions and quarrels, the reformations and schisms, which at various times shook the roman catholic church to its centre, had no terrors for the church of russia. intellectual advancement, scientific research, inventive progress left her untouched and uninfluenced. her theology remained precisely as it was in the days of constantine and, like the self-sufficient snail, she withdrew into her shell, her convents, and allowed the world to wag as it saw fit. this apathy is easily explained. the czar, the autocratic temporal ruler, is also the spiritual head of the church. hence, she has had all her thinking done for her and has remained stationary. this trait has had its influence over the intellectual character of her priests, who are for the most part indolent and ignorant, content to believe whatever their religion requires, without question or debate. theological discussions, such as we find in protestant countries, are hardly known in russia. to the monks of his convent, mikail formed a noteworthy contrast. his mind, remarkably active for one so young, refused to accept the intricate mass of dogmas without endeavoring to analyze them and trace them back to their original sources. for years he had accepted the stories of miracles and revelations unquestioningly, but after he had begun a course of independent reading and reflection he discovered discrepancies and contradictions, which sowed the seed of grave doubts in his restive brain. he confided his doubts to alexei, his superior. this worthy gave the matter very little consideration; he shrugged his shoulders, stroked his beard, now a venerable white, and answered: "i, too, had my doubts at your age, but i got bravely over them. the miracles of which the bible speaks are undoubtedly true, for the people living in those times beheld them. that such things do not occur nowadays is no proof that they could not have happened then. our duty is to believe what our ancient writings tell us, to see that the lamps are kept burning before the icons, and that our ceremonials are observed to the letter. a priest has no right to question what is sanctioned by tradition and belief." for a time, mikail was content to accept this explanation and to keep his peace. but doubt was not so easily quieted. ever and again he would seek the solitude of his cell and ponder over the grave and perplexing questions that disturbed him. he found no solution. he had been educated in an atmosphere of bigotry and superstition, had been brought up rigorously in the belief that god himself had descended from heaven and adopted the form of man; had been daily taught that blind faith, independent of deed, would lead to salvation. these dogmas now appeared at variance with his conception of truth. harassed by doubts, tormented by superstitious fears for the safety of his soul, mikail led a wretched existence. gradually, the monotonous, inactive life of the monastery began to pall upon him. he soon found, too, that many of his brethren believed as little as he did; that others were too indolent to reflect and believed as a matter of course. the thousand ceremonials, the carelessly recited prayers, the perfunctory invocations, the prescribed signs, crosses and genuflections before the rudely painted icons, appeared to him as hollow mockeries, and soon the place seemed redolent with deceit. it was a severe struggle for the young man, and the superior, who observed the storm which was surging within the doubter's breast, did not hesitate to attribute it to the wiles of satan. "cast yourself at the feet of the saviour, o thou of little faith!" exhorted alexei. "he will help thee drive out the evil spirit! fast, pray, torture thy body if necessary, but cleanse thy soul of its doubts, purge thy heart of the unholy thoughts which the devil has planted there." mikail fasted and prayed and scourged himself until his flesh was a mass of sores. in vain the torture! the doubts would not be driven out, satan would not be exorcised. at the age of twenty-three, mikail could endure it no longer. "i must go out into the world, father," he said one day to alexei. "the convent is too small, too limited for me. i must work and toil with and for humanity. let me go into the parish for a short time. the bishop, who thinks well of me, may be able to procure me the position of _blagotchinny_.[ ] i will have an opportunity of learning the world, of succoring the needy, of aiding the sick. perhaps a life of activity will dispel the shadows which have darkened my soul." alexei was quite willing to grant this request. he was anxious, in fact, to send mikail from the cloister, for his doubts, which he took no pains to conceal, were beginning to affect the torpid intellects of the monks. a short conference was held with the bishop, and mikail obtained the coveted position. a new life of work and constant activity now opened for the young priest, but he still found what he had sought to escape, hypocrisy and deceit. the village priests with whom he came in daily contact were a pitiable set. he found among them many honest, respectable, well-meaning men, conscientiously fulfilling their humble tasks, striving hard to serve the religious needs of the community. there were, on the other hand, however, fanatics and rogues, men representing the worse elements of society. the people shunned the clergy, and held them up to ridicule. they formed a class apart, not in sympathy with the parishioners. they committed serious transgressions, were irreligious and transformed the service of god into a profitable trade. could the people respect the clergy when they learned that one priest stole money from under the pillow of a dying man at the moment he was administering the sacrament, that another was publicly dragged out of a house of ill-fame, that a third christened a dog, that a fourth while officiating at the easter service was dragged by the hair from the altar by the deacon? was it possible for the people to venerate priests who spent their time in gin shops, wrote fraudulent petitions, fought with crosses as weapons and abused each other at the altar? was it possible for them to have an exalted opinion of a god-inspired religion, when they saw everywhere about them simony, carelessness in performing religious rites, and disorder in administering the sacrament?[ ] mikail's heart turned sick. nowhere could he find that truth which he sought. even the better educated priests appeared to have given their creed no thought, no reflection. still the young priest did valuable service in the field assigned to him. through his indomitable will be corrected many of the abuses which existed in his district, and raised the parish clergy to a higher standard of efficiency and morality. so the years passed. the friendship between mikail and general drentell grew stronger as the nobleman learned to value the brilliant intellect of his _protégé_. his occasional visits to lubny continued, and the general usually profited by the clear, good sense of the young man, who displayed as thorough a knowledge of agriculture as he did of theology. mikail and loris, on the other hand, could never agree. the priest had no patience with the hare-brained, pampered young aristocrat, and occasional differences were the result. for the sake of the general's friendship, however, as well as for the preservation of his own dignity, mikail restrained his feelings. at the age of twenty, loris entered the army, and for a while the growing animosity of the two was happily checked. the bishop, greatly admiring his assistant's ability, offered him an important position in his consistorium. this mikail firmly refused. he assigned as his reason that he found congenial work among the parishioners; but in reality the priest felt in his heart that his veneration for the catholic creed was growing daily less, and that vexing doubts and difficulties had gradually crowded out the faith he had once possessed. it was at this time that general drentell's influence obtained for him a desirable position with general melikoff, the minister of war. the priest gladly accepted the honor, happy to escape from the continual hypocrisy of his clerical duties. footnotes: [footnote : a _blagotchinny_ is a parish priest who is in direct relations with the consistorium of the province, and who is supposed to exercise a strict supervision over all the parish priests of his district.] [footnote : mr. melnikof, in a secret report to grand duke constantine. wallace's "russia," p. .] chapter xxvi. a daughter of israel. rabbi mendel winenki sat in his study, reading. before him and within easy reach stood a massive table covered with books and papers. there were strewn upon it in motley confusion ancient folios and modern volumes. it was a comprehensive library which the rabbi had collected. there were works on comparative theology, on medicine, on jurisprudence and philosophy. the _shulkan-aruch_ and a treatise on buddhistic occultism stood side by side. the talmud and kant's "kritik der reinen vernunft" were placed upon the same shelf, and josephus and renan's "life of jesus" were near neighbors. time was when the jew who would have exposed a single work printed in any characters but the ancient hebrew letters would have been ostracized by his co-religionists. the rabbi remembered with a smile how carefully he had concealed the precious volumes which pesach harretzki had given him, how furtively he had carried them into his bed that he might read them undetected. how different now was the condition of things! true, the greater portion of the jews of kief still held tenaciously to their prejudices, absolutely refusing to learn anything not taught at the _cheder_. in the eyes of these people mendel was a renegade and a heretic. the only thing which prevented them from hurling the ban of excommunication against him was their recollection of the good he had accomplished. mendel's greatest achievement was the introduction of secular education. many years elapsed before his ideas took root, but with the spread of better instruction in the public schools, which were now open to jewish youth, there came a desire for greater knowledge and the difficult problem worked out its own solution. at the time of which we speak many jewish lads were pupils of the gymnasium and quite a number of them students at the university of kief. seated by the side of the rabbi, and sewing, sat his wife and his daughter, kathinka, now a girl of eighteen. many changes had occurred in the interval since we last saw our friends. mendel was now a man of about forty-five and in the full vigor of contented manhood. a wealth of coal-black hair shaded his massive forehead and a long but neatly trimmed beard set off his handsome face. recha had become stouter and more matronly, but one would scarcely take her for the mother of the blooming girl by her side. kathinka was a perfect specimen of hebrew beauty. she had inherited the commanding form of her father and the regular features of her mother. to this perfection of body she united a sweetness of disposition which made her beloved by all who knew her. women among the eastern jews, as indeed among all oriental nations, being considered intellectually inferior to their lords and masters, rarely aspire to learning. occasionally one might find an example of a well-directed and thoroughly developed mind among the daughters of israel, even though surrounded by the retarding influences of the _ghetto_. we have seen how well recha had been educated and her daughter kathinka was being brought up in the same way. she was independent in thought as well as in action, but never at the cost of maidenly sentiment. piety and purity shone in her lustrous eyes. superior to her position, she possessed the faculty of adapting herself to her surroundings. there was no pride in her breast save that which might arise from the consciousness of doing right. the poor had a commiserating friend in her and the sick a tender nurse. the children that played in the squalid lanes of the old quarter ceased their romping when she passed and lovingly kissed her hand. she desired no better lot than to do good in her own sphere, and to deserve the approbation of her own conscience. such was kathinka, a girl of many graces and sterling worth--in heart and soul a jewess. rabbi mendel looked up from his books and gazed fondly at his daughter, who, seated with the full light of the window falling upon her face, appeared the embodiment of loveliness. then turning to his wife, he asked: "recha, have you spoken to kathinka about young goldheim?" "no," replied recha; "i left it for you to tell." "briefly then, my dear," said the rabbi, addressing his daughter, who looked up from her work in surprise; "reb wolf, the _schadchen_, has been here for the third time, to induce us to give him a favorable reply for samuel goldheim. i told him that i feared my intervention would be useless." kathinka blushed deeply. "you did right, father," she answered. "but, my dear child," said the rabbi, thoughtfully; "tell me why you refuse goldheim? he is a fine-looking young man, of a rich and respected family, and will make you a good husband." kathinka arose and, crossing to her father, put her arms lovingly about his neck. "dear papa," she said, softly and caressingly, "i know you love me too well to insist upon my doing a thing which will make me unhappy for life. you have often told me how you and mamma first found one another, how heart went out to heart, so that there was scarcely any need to tell each other that you loved. that is an ideal affection, and the only one that my heart could recognize. i abhor the notion of a marriage brought about by the efforts of a third party, who has no other interest in the matter than the fee he receives for his labors. there is to me something repugnant in the idea of uniting two beings to each other for life, without consulting their inclinations or their tastes." "i agree with you, kathinka," answered the rabbi, stroking his daughter's long curls, "and it is far from my thoughts to see you united to any man you do not truly love. in former days the system of marrying through the agency of a match-maker undoubtedly possessed great advantages. it is incumbent upon every good israelite to marry, but originally the villages were sparsely settled, in many places there was a lack of marriageable men, in others the maidens were in the minority, and as facilities for travelling were limited, and often entirely absent, a _schadchen_, who made it a business to bring eligible couples together, was a great convenience. the necessity for such a mediator is constantly growing less." "but there can be no romance, no pleasant anticipation in such a union." "my dear child, israel has never had time for romance. your youth has fortunately been spared the dreadful persecutions which have from time to time been visited upon our people; but, if you can picture the constant dread of outrage and the incessant fear of persecution, which have been our portion; if you can conceive the miserable existence in wretched hovels and the weary struggle for the barest necessities of life, you will understand why the jews have had little of that spirit of chivalry and romance of which modern books give us so fascinating a picture. but tell me, kathinka," continued the rabbi, looking intently at his daughter, "is there not another reason for your refusal of samuel's hand?" kathinka became very red, and looked pleadingly at her mother. "my dear," said recha, "you had better confess all to your father. he has a right to know." still the girl remained silent. "well, my child; who has stolen your heart?" asked the rabbi, kindly. "father, i love joseph kierson," said kathinka, faintly, hiding her blushing face upon the rabbi's shoulder. "what, my former pupil?" asked the rabbi, astonished. "i must have been blind not to have observed it. and does he love you?" "i think he does," she archly answered. "but joseph is poor," returned her father. "he has nothing and has as yet no profession. he is merely a student at the university." "but he has a brilliant intellect," retorted kathinka, proudly. "i have heard you say a dozen times that he will achieve renown. it is one of your favorite maxims that a man must rise by his own exertions. joseph is destined to rise." "how long has this understanding existed?" asked mendel. "we were fond of each other as children, when he first began his lessons at _cheder_," replied the girl, earnestly; "but it was only recently that he declared his love." "he found that you were surrounded by admiring youths and feared that you might be taken from him," added her mother. "and did you promise to be his wife?" asked the rabbi. "oh, no, father. i could not do that without your consent. he did not even ask me. he simply told me that he deplored his ignorance and poverty and that it was his intention to study medicine and become a learned doctor that he might be worthy of obtaining my hand. that was all." "he could not have made it plainer. and what did you answer?" "i encouraged him in his determination and told him i would wait." "and that is why he requested me to speak to his parents and obtain their consent to his pursuing a course of study, and that is why you took such an interest in his welfare and were so pleased when i told you that he had been admitted to the university." "yes," answered kathinka, with radiant face. "do you know how long it will take before he has finished his course? he cannot expect to obtain his diploma in less than six years." "i know it," replied kathinka. "and then it will be some time before his profession will enable him to support a wife." "i know it. i will wait." "brave girl," said mendel, fondly. "you are doing right and may he prove worthy of you." "will it take so long?" asked the mother. "you will then be twenty-four years old, kathinka, and will be obliged to marry a poor man. had you not better consider before refusing goldheim? he is wealthy and quite learned." "i do not care for him," replied the girl, quietly but with decision. "you married father for love, did you not?" "yes," said mendel, replying for his wife. "she took me although i was but a poor talmud scholar without a kopeck that i could call my own. joseph will succeed. he has ambition and talent." kathinka kissed her father, affectionately. "then you are satisfied with my choice?" she asked. "yes, my dear, i am content. when reb wolf, the _schadchen_, comes for his answer we will know just what to tell him." chapter xxvii. at the rabbi's and at the governor's. joseph kierson was a fine manly fellow of twenty-two, not particularly handsome, but possessing what in kathinka's eyes outweighed mere personal appearance, a fine mind, great courage and indomitable zeal. his youth had been uneventful. his father was a hard-working butcher, who in spite of his industry found it difficult to provide food for his family of half-a-dozen. until recently joseph had assisted his father in his business, but felt an irresistible desire to achieve something higher than was possible in that humble calling. recognizing the need of skilled physicians in the jewish community, he conceived the idea of taking up the profession of medicine. we have seen that his ambition was strengthened by his desire to obtain the hand of kathinka, in whom all his hopes were centred. old jacob kierson was bitterly opposed to his son's project. his objections were in a measure selfish, for he could not reconcile himself to the thought of hiring an assistant while joseph spent his time in idleness. moreover, he belonged to the old school and sincerely abhorred all learning that savored of the gentiles. he therefore peremptorily forbade his son's entertaining such an impious purpose. in this emergency rabbi winenki's eloquence was brought into requisition. he skilfully argued away the old man's prejudices and painted in such glowing colors the possibilities of joseph's future as a physician, that kierson's scruples were gradually quieted and he gave a reluctant consent. joseph, having passed a brilliant examination and being recommended by rabbi winenki--a name that still carried great weight with it in kief--was admitted into the university. it was friday evening. without, the snow was falling hard and fast; a fierce wind, from the northern steppes, howled through the streets, and dismal was the sound of the storm. in the houses of the jews, however, there was peace and comfort. the pious hebrews, who had toiled industriously during six days of the week to provide for the seventh, had ceased from their labors, had cast aside their cares and sorrows, and rejoiced in the presence of their god. around rabbi mendel's hospitable board there was assembled a goodly company. the table was unusually attractive on this sabbath eve and the company uncommonly joyous, for it was the first family gathering since the announcement of kathinka's betrothal with the young student. there was much surprise that this bright maiden should have bestowed her affections upon the poorest of her suitors, but kathinka gazed in happy contentment at the man by her side, to whom in her heart she had erected a holy altar of love. the goblets with their sparkling contents, the snow-white linen and the dainty dishes spoke a cheery welcome to the merry guests, and the seven-armed lamp hanging from the ceiling and the silver candlesticks upon the table threw their friendly glow over the scene. happiness and pleasure, contentment and gratitude, beamed in every countenance. there were present mendel's father and mother, old and venerable but still active, hirsch bensef and his wife miriam, rabbi winenki and his wife and daughter, (recha's mother had died some time before,) and finally the happy joseph kierson with his delighted father and mother. their conversation was animated and cheerful. out in the streets the wind might blow and the snow descend; here there was naught but good cheer and comfort. the storm served, however, to recall many a dark and dreary day in the past, and, like soldiers sitting about a campfire, the men related the chief incidents of their eventful lives. there was a melancholy pleasure in recalling the trials they had experienced, contrasted with which their present security was all the more comforting. mordecai winenki related with tears in his eyes how he saved his wife's honor by a hasty flight from home, and how he arrived in kief just in time for the _pesach_ festival. "yes, it was a marvellous escape from the soldiers; _adonai_ be praised for it!" old kierson had a story of privation and suffering to relate, events which carried his hearers back to the days of nicholas, the iron czar, and they smiled to think that those days were gone, never to return. the rabbi told, for the hundredth time, of his memorable trip from togarog to kharkov; related how he and jacob had been torn from their mother's fond embrace, how they had suffered, how they finally escaped from the guard that accompanied them, and how, after enduring the misery of hunger and thirst, jacob disappeared to be seen no more. "poor jacob," sighed the bereaved mother; "nothing has been heard of him since. the poor lad must have perished under the rough treatment of the soldiers." "peace to his soul!" said the rabbi, reverently, and the company responded "amen." these bitter-sweet memories were compensated for by the great improvement which had taken place in the condition of the jews during the past twenty years. mendel related how, on arriving in kief, he found his uncle in a weather-beaten hovel, through the neglected roof of which the snow leaked in little rivulets. hirsch bensef now resided in a commodious dwelling in one of the best streets of the city. would this state of affairs continue? would governor drentell show the same leniency and magnanimity towards the hebrews as did his predecessor? the new ruler had now been in power for nearly a year, during which time there had been no hostility, no curtailing of their liberties. "god grant that our condition will not grow worse," said the rabbi. "the mental improvement of our people during these twenty years has been marvellous. if it continues at the same pace, there is no telling whither our progress will eventually lead us." thus passed the sabbath meal in pleasant conversation, during which plans were laid for future improvement. after supper, friends and relatives trooped in to congratulate the newly-betrothed couple. while this homely feast was going on at the rabbi's house, an entertainment of a different nature was in progress in the petcherskoi quarter. the governor's palace was ablaze with light. the glare of a thousand lamps shone through the windows upon the falling snow, converting icy crystals into scintillating gems. long lines of sleighs and covered carriages were drawn up before the entrance, and from them emerged richly uniformed officers and handsomely attired ladies. within, liveried lackeys relieved the guests of their furs, and ushered them into the presence of the governor and his wife, who, with smiling countenance, greeted each new arrival. it was a court ball, such as the governors of the various provinces give; miniature reproductions of the magnificent entertainments in which the imperial court at st. petersburg delights. here all was beauty and refinement. the court circle of kief was composed of officers attached to the provincial government, men who remained in the city only so long as their official duties demanded. they were accompanied by their wives and daughters, ladies who for the most part possessed every advantage of education, who had studied abroad and brought into russia the choicest of french and german fashions. there were also many young army officers, always welcome guests at these affairs, in which young ladies were apt to predominate. it is not strange, therefore, that these balls should present the most fascinating aspects of russian life, and form a charming contrast to the dark scenes of ignorance and misery which it has been our duty to depict. the ball at the governor's was given to introduce into polite russian society loris drentell, the governor's son. loris had returned after a short absence from kief. there was no need of his remaining away any longer. no one suspected that a drentell had been even remotely connected with the nihilist plot, and there were none of the conspirators left to tell of his connection with it. the trouble in turkey had subsided and there was no longer any necessity for keeping loris' regiment on the frontier. the lieutenant was, therefore, recalled and a grand ball was given in his honor. court balls in russia do not differ materially from those of other countries, and we will leave the gay cavaliers and pretty women whirling through one of strauss' waltzes, while we enter the governor's private room. general dimitri drentell and his intimate advisers had withdrawn from the festivities and had sought the seclusion of the cabinet. mikail the priest had just entered. "ah! mikail," said the governor; "you are a late caller." "the train brought me from st. petersburg but a few minutes ago, and i hastened to present myself to your excellency at once. had i known that there was a ball this evening, i should have deferred my visit until to-morrow." "make no apologies," answered drentell. "we would have been disappointed had you not come to-night. what news do you bring us from the capital?" "the best, your excellency. i spoke to his imperial majesty in person. he desires to be commended to you, and approves of your energetic measures in bringing the suspected nihilists to judgment. he counts your excellency among his stanchest supporters." the governor flushed with pleasure. bright visions of future advancement passed through his mind. "and our policy as regards the jews?" he asked. "has his sanction! in fact, any project which will divert the minds of the populace from political questions, meets with imperial favor. but the animosity towards the jews must not appear too sudden and unwarranted. convinced that they have in many cases assumed privileges not allowed them by law, and rendered themselves punishable by the statutes, the minister of war has decided to appoint a commission of inquiry, which shall investigate the following questions." the priest took an official paper from his pocket and read: "_first_--in what trades do the jews engage which are injurious to the well-being of the faithful inhabitants? "_second_--is it impracticable to put into force the ancient laws limiting the rights of the jews in the matter of buying and farming land, and in the trade in intoxicants. "_third_--how can these laws be strengthened so that they can no longer be evaded? "_fourth_--to what extent is usury practised by the jews in their dealings with the christians. "_fifth_--what is the number of public houses kept by the jews, and what is the injury resulting to christians by reason of the sale of intoxicants. "the commission is to report to the minister of war as soon as practicable," continued mikail, replacing the paper in his pocket. "i have the honor to be one of the commissioners, and as soon as we have obtained definite information upon these points--information which is sure to be damaging--we will be ready to proceed against the accursed race." "but if the reports are not damaging to the jews?" asked one of the officials. "they will be," answered the priest; "the commission has been appointed for that purpose." "then woe to the jews!" answered the official. "yes, woe to the jews!" responded the priest, and the malignant expression of his countenance boded ill to his kindred. "come! let us return to the ball room," said drentell, taking the priest by the arm. "your excellency must pardon me," answered mikail, "my clothes are travel-stained, and i am neither in a condition nor in the humor to enjoy the festivities." "but loris is here," continued the governor. mikail suppressed a grimace of displeasure. "there is no haste. i shall see him to-morrow," he answered, and bowed himself out of the room. "strange man," muttered the governor, when the door had closed upon the priest's retreating form. "i almost fear him when he is attacked by his fits of gloomy anger. poor jews! you will find drentell a different man from your soft-hearted pomeroff. ah, if mikail but knew; if he but knew!" chapter xxviii. the priest in the synagogue. mikail did not allow the grass to grow beneath his feet. stimulated by the approval of the czar as well as by his own undying hatred, he lost no time in collecting the statistics that were required for his purpose. hitherto he had been content to accept hearsay evidence in his estimate of jewish life and character; he had never knowingly come in contact with one of the race. convinced, however, that public opinion was not half severe enough, he determined to personally investigate their manner of life. for some days, therefore, he made periodical trips through the old jewish quarter, sounded the christians with whom the jews occasionally associated, and with an acute but not impartial eye, made his observations. it was saturday of the week following the events narrated in the last chapter. the snow that mantled the earth was frozen solid, and the bells tinkled merrily as the sleighs skimmed over the glistening road. a cold bracing air sent the blood surging through the veins of the pedestrians and brought the ruddy glow of health to their cheeks. the priest, bent upon new discoveries, walked rapidly in the direction of the jewish quarter. suddenly he stopped. he had almost run against a man who was hurriedly walking in the opposite direction. "what, loris! is it you?" he cried, upon recognizing his protector's son. "what are you doing in this part of the town?" "i might repeat the question," answered loris. "why is a priest roaming about these streets, when he should be counting his beads up in the petcherskoi convent?" mikail frowned. loris' sneering tone grated harshly upon him. "i owe you no explanation," he said, curtly; "but if it will give you any satisfaction to know, i am following up a subject of importance to the state." "and i," said loris, confidingly, "am following up a far more interesting subject. you should see her, mikail! such a head, such eyes, such a form! to think that i have wasted so many months abroad while kief held such a treasure!" "what do you mean?" asked the priest, dryly. "a young girl, of course. she must live about here somewhere. i saw her come up this street, but when i turned the corner she had mysteriously disappeared. i tell you, mikail, she is a beauty. i shall not rest until i find her!" "you are seeking perdition," exclaimed the priest, wrathfully. "a pretty face is satan's trap to lure a weak soul into his toils." "convent talk!" answered loris, disdainfully. "why do i stand here and speak to a priest about a woman? when you take your vows of celibacy you pretend to dislike anything that wears petticoats. but i doubt whether even you could resist the temptation of a handsome face and voluptuous form." mikail's eyes flashed. he was about to reply to loris' sneer, but, by a severe effort, he checked his rising anger, and without another word turned on his heel and walked away. "ill-natured cur!" muttered loris. "they are all alike--hypocritical fools! with all their pretended virtue, i would not like to expose the best of them to even a moderate temptation." mikail walked through a maze of lanes until he came to the street which had formed one of the boundaries of the "jews' town." he now observed, for the first time, groups of jewish men, women and children, dressed in their holiday attire, pass him and enter a large building not far away. "it is their sabbath, and they are going to their barbarous worship," thought the priest, as he crossed himself. he went further into the quarter, carefully avoiding the groups that he encountered, and finally entered the dwelling of a christian woman, who sublet rooms to jewish tenants. the information which awaited him here must have been important, for it was quite a while before he emerged into the street and retraced his steps towards the city. his path led directly past mendel's synagogue. through the window he heard the chant of the _hazan_, and he paused, reflectively. "after all," he murmured, "what harm can it do if i go in. i am in search of facts and where shall i be better able to find them than in the jews' stronghold, their synagogue?" crossing himself devoutly, he opened the door and entered. the _shamas_ (sexton), surprised to see a _gallach_ (priest) in the synagogue, stood for some moments in doubt, but finally shuffled up to the stranger and showed him a seat in the last row of benches. mikail sat down passively. for a moment he seemed dazed and stupefied. perhaps it was only the heat and the glare of the burning candles; but gradually a strange spell came over him, which he tried in vain to shake off. he could not remember ever having been in a synagogue, and yet the praying-desks, the pulpit and the ark for the holy scrolls seemed singularly familiar. he looked up. yes, there was the latticed gallery filled with women, just as he had expected to find it! the _hazan_ was intoning a prayer. between the words he interjected a number of strange trills and turns. how weird it all sounded, and yet how familiar to the wondering priest. mikail found himself almost instinctively supplying the following word before it was uttered by the reader. then the congregation arose and responded to the prayer, and mikail arose, too, and it seemed as though the words of the responses were laid upon his tongue. it was strange, very strange, and yet it was fascinating. again the congregation arose. the rabbi went to the ark at the back of the pulpit and took out one of the scrolls, covered with a red velvet cloth curiously embroidered with golden letters. mikail followed his every movement with intense interest. he scarcely breathed. "_shema israel,_" sang the rabbi; "_adonai elohenu,_" and then he paused a moment to clear his throat of something he must have inhaled. "why don't he continue," thought mikail, impatient at the momentary interruption, and then in a voice loud enough to be heard over the entire synagogue, he ended the sentence by crying: "_adonai echod!_" all turned to look at the speaker, and they whispered among themselves in surprise at hearing a monk recite the _shema_ in a _schul_. the women looked down from the gallery in amazement. mikail's face flushed. his first impulse was to flee, to get out of the accursed place, to break the spell of enchantment that bound him. with a muttered prayer he strode to the door, only to find it locked from without. it was customary to bolt the door during certain portions of the service, to prevent noise and consequent disturbance. the priest was therefore obliged to remain. obeying a natural impulse, he made the sign of the cross, set his jaws firmly, and awaited further developments. the _hazan_ opened the pentateuch and the _parnas_ of the congregation was called to the _torah_. every movement was anticipated by the priest. the parnas reverently lifted the fringes of his _tallis_, and with them touched the sacred scroll; then, kissing them, he recited the customary blessing. mikail repeated it with him. it sounded almost as familiar as his own liturgy. suddenly a reaction came over the stern and haughty priest as the services continued. a strange storm broke within his bosom; undefined recollections, visions of a once happy home, a tangled revery of fanciful memories chased each other through his excited brain. without knowing why, he felt the hot tears coursing down his cheeks, tears which not even the harsh treatment he had endured during his early years at the monastery could force from their reservoirs. one after another, seven men were called to the _torah_, and their actions and prayers were a repetition of those of the _parnas_. the monotonous reading at length came to an end, mikail heard the bolts withdrawn, and with hasty strides he cleared the passage into the street. on he sped through the city, looking neither to the right nor the left, scarcely knowing whither he went, until he finally reached the petcherskoi convent, where he had taken up his temporary quarters. without returning the greetings of the monks, apparently unconscious of his surroundings, he went straight to his cell and there gave way to a flood of passion. an hour afterwards a monk found him upon his knees before an icon, in fervent prayer. "i have been bewitched, sergeitch," he said, with his wonted calmness. "pray for me that the evil spirit may leave me." chapter xxix. loris falls in love. kathinka, well wrapped in a heavy mantle, walked briskly along the darkening street. she had gone to the extreme end of the city to succor a sick and needy widow and was now hastening homeward with a light and happy heart. the world seemed bright and cheerful to the young girl whose every desire was gratified and every wish granted. as she neared her home, she became aware of the presence of a man some yards behind her, keeping pace with her own steps. kathinka quickened her gait, but the man was evidently determined not to lose sight of her and hurried after her. the girl remembered that she had been followed by the same person some days before, and, while she attached no importance to the incident at that time, she now became frightened and glanced timidly about her. the street was deserted and there was no place of refuge in sight. with a little cry of alarm, she lifted her skirts and ran at full speed in the direction of her dwelling, but she had not proceeded far before the stranger caught up with her, and, grasping her by the arm, held her as in a vise. kathinka stopped and, with flushed and angry look, faced the stranger. "lovely creature," said the man, insinuatingly, when he had recovered his breath, "why do you flee from me? can you not see that i am anxious to speak with you?" "let me go!" cried the girl, indignantly. "you hurt me." loris, for the stranger was no other than the governor's son, released the girl's arm, but he barred her escape by placing himself directly before her. kathinka tried in vain to pass him; then, pausing, with heaving bosom, she cried: "what do you mean, sir? have you no manhood left, that you molest a defenceless woman?" "listen to me but a moment," answered loris, passionately; "and then go your way if you will. i have been following your footsteps for the last two weeks, desiring, yet fearing, to speak to you. from the day i first beheld you, i have thought of nothing else. i have sighed for you and dreamed of you. i was happy when i caught a glimpse of you and sad when you were out of my sight, sad until i saw your features again. do not now repulse me. take pity upon me." these sentences, expressed with all the passionate earnestness of which youth is capable, greatly terrified kathinka. "sir, i do not know you," she exclaimed; "and if i did i could have nothing in common with you. let me go, and if you are a gentleman, you will in future avoid troubling me." "by god, you shall not leave me without giving me some encouragement. kathinka, i love you! when you know who i am you will not treat me so cruelly." "if you were the governor himself i should have but one answer for you, and that is that you have outraged every sentiment of honor," cried the girl, with growing indignation. loris seized her hand. "no, do not despise me; hear me to the end!" he cried, passionately. "i am loris drentell, the son of your governor. i know what i am risking in loving a jewess, but i cannot help it. kathinka, you have bewitched me. i love you! do you understand me? i love you! i only ask you to think kindly of me, to see me of your own free will, and to give me the blessed hope that you will in time return my affection. do not consign me to misery!" kathinka struggled to free her hand from his grasp. overcome by terror, it was some time before she could gain strength to reply. "count drentell," she said, at length; "you have spoken the truth. i am a jewess, and any contact with me would dishonor you. moreover, i am betrothed to one of my own race, and while i feel the honor you would bestow upon me in offering me your love, i have but one reply to make: i do not wish to see you again." "don't drive me to despair, kathinka; i cannot live without your friendship, without your love. why should your betrothed stand in the way? i am rich and powerful. i can give you whatever your heart desires. you shall want for nothing, if you will only look upon me with favor." and he again seized her hand and covered it with kisses. this flattering speech filled kathinka with loathing. well she knew that it meant not love, but the basest of passions, and that a jewess could never become more than the passing fancy of count drentell. with a disdainful glance at him, she turned to go. "count drentell," she answered, calmly; "this is disgraceful. you seem to forget your position, your birth. you forget that i belong to a proscribed race." "you are right," replied the young man, bitterly; "i forgot everything but my love for you." "then try and forget that. and now, sir, enough of this farce. let me pass, or i shall call for help." loris bit his lips in vexation. "do not decide so hastily," he said. "a terrible danger threatens the jews. my father, who detests your people, is even now plotting their destruction. i may, perhaps, avert the calamity, may dissuade him from his terrible projects. will you allow me to serve you? one word of encouragement and i will be your willing slave." kathinka started. was it true that a new danger menaced her people? she could not tell. perhaps it was but an invention of the count to further his own ends. in her opinion, he was base enough for anything. "the god of israel has been our support in the past," she answered, firmly; "he will not desert us in the future. come what will, i shall not endeavor to avoid it by the loss of my self-respect. now, make way, sir; let me go." "and is this the end of all my dreams? am i to abandon all hope of ever seeing you again?" asked loris, gloomily. "count drentell," replied the girl, with a proud glance. "do not persecute me with your attentions, which are extremely distasteful to me. i trust we shall never meet again." and with a haughty sweep of her beautiful head, she passed the astonished loris and walked rapidly down the street. the young man looked after her for a moment in silence; then he stamped his foot in rage. "she refuses my attentions, the proud jewess! but i will conquer her in spite of her pride." it was not until kathinka reached home that her strong spirit gave way, and she threw herself into a chair and wept bitterly. her mother and father, surprised at such an outburst of emotion, hastened to her side, but it was some time before the girl attempted an explanation. then she told her parents of her encounter with the governor's son. the rabbi walked up and down the room in great perturbation. the affair promised no pleasant conclusion. "alas, that your beauty should have attracted the young count!" he said. "it is very unfortunate. who knows to what extremes he may go to revenge himself upon you for having refused his advances." "was there any other course for me to take?" asked kathinka. "no, my child; you acted honorably. there was nothing else for you to do." "but the calamity which the man predicted would befall israel?" said recha. "it may have been an idle threat. there is no need of borrowing trouble. misfortune has ever found the jews steadfast and ready to bear the greatest hardships for their faith. if new troubles come, we will not be found wanting. in the meantime there is nothing to do but wait." "if i should meet him again and he should again force his attentions upon me, what could i do?" sighed kathinka, nervously. "for the present do not venture out unless with me or joseph. we must inform kierson of this matter at once. he has doubtless frequent opportunities of seeing this young count and can keep his eyes on him. perhaps drentell is honorable enough to desist if he sees that his advances are repelled." kathinka shook her head, despondently. "i fear not, father. you should have seen his face and heard his words. such passion is not subdued by neglect. i am afraid that he will become our implacable enemy and that we will eventually have more to fear from his hatred than from his love." the rabbi did not reply, but his heart echoed his daughter's forebodings. chapter xxx. an unfortunate encounter. kathinka now rarely went out, and never alone. on her way to the synagogue and upon her little errands of mercy, she was invariably attended by her devoted joseph. the very danger to which the girl had been exposed served to cement their hearts more closely. for a time, nothing was seen of loris. one day, however, joseph and kathinka had just left the rabbi's house. "look," whispered kathinka, pressing joseph's arm, "he is following us." joseph turned rapidly and perceived the form of loris at some distance behind them. the count, seeing that he was observed, turned a corner and disappeared. for several months after, kathinka saw nothing more of her persecutor, and the disagreeable episode gradually faded from her memory. one bright afternoon the girl sat at her window, reading. her father was engaged in his duties at the school, and her mother had gone from home to take a bottle of wine to a sick neighbor and would probably remain away until evening. kathinka was not alone, however, for she had the companionship of her books, more congenial entertainers than were the gossiping maidens of her intimate circle. suddenly there was a knock at the door; before she could rise it was thrown open, and loris drentell stood before her. he deliberately closed the door again and placed his hat and coat upon a chair. kathinka could not utter a word, so great was her consternation. loris stood facing her for some moments in silence. "kathinka," he said, at length, "i have come at the risk of offending you, to repeat the declaration i made some time ago; to tell you that i love you. do you still bear me the ill-will that you evinced towards me then?" kathinka rose from her chair and, drawing herself up to her full height, pointed to the door. "go!" she said, "or i shall summon help." loris smiled cynically. "do not excite yourself unnecessarily," he said, coolly. "you are alone in the house. i know it, for i have been watching for some time and saw both your parents leave. it will be useless for you to call for assistance. sit down and hear me out." finding resistance useless, the girl fell back into her chair, and with a gesture of despair hid her face in her hands. "miss winenki," said loris, quietly at first, but gradually becoming more passionate in his appeal, "do not judge me harshly for taking this means of seeing you. i knew of no other way of gaining your ear. i love you sincerely, madly. for the last two months i have been vainly struggling with this feeling, have been trying to conquer my infatuation, but i am ever haunted by the vision of your beauty. do not turn from me as though i were unworthy of you. think not of me as a cold, selfish man who lives but to satisfy the desires of a moment. never had maiden so devoted a lover as i will be to you. i will grant your every wish, i will bestow upon you wealth and luxury. you shall be the envied of all the ladies of the land and i will have no other aim than to make you happy. can you still doubt me when i, who might win the proudest in the empire, now kneel at your feet and ask you to smile upon me?" loris had fallen upon his knees and had seized the girl's hand, which he lifted passionately to his lips. alone with this singular man, who seemed swayed only by his passions, kathinka was overcome by a terror which robbed her of the power of speech. she could only gaze into loris' upturned face in mute despair. drentell interpreted her silence favorably, and with a joyful cry he arose and folded the astonished girl in his arms. "you will be mine, you will not reject my love? turn your eyes upon me and make me happy with your smile. do not struggle in my embrace, but tell me that you love me." by a violent effort kathinka succeeded in freeing herself from his passionate clasp and now stood with her back to the wall. her black eyes flashed with an angry fire, as she cried: "count drentell, you have taken advantage of my helplessness to intrude upon my privacy and have acted, not as befits a gentleman, but in a manner that one would scarcely expect from the meanest of your father's serfs. let us understand one another. in spite of my repulses you still continue to assert that you love me." "to desperation," murmured the count. "were i to yield to your entreaties and accept your love, would you make me your wife? would you present me to the world as the countess drentell? answer me, sir!" loris hesitated before replying. "i would surround you with all the luxury and pomp that money could command. i would make you the happiest of women." "i demand an unequivocal reply. would you make me your wife?" insisted the girl. "before god we would be man and wife." "count drentell, would you brave the anger of your father and the opinion of the entire court and present me, the jewess, as your wife?" loris looked for a moment at the flashing eyes of the indignant girl, and then his glance sought the floor. "i do not deny," he said, at length, "that there would be grave difficulties in the way of such a step. i fear the court would never recognize a jewess as the countess drentell. but what of that? it is but an idle formality. even though the world do not know of our relationship, we will be none the less man and wife." "in other words, you would make of me your puppet, your plaything, to be fondled to-day and cast aside to-morrow! you would have me renounce my family, my betrothed, my religion, my honor and my reputation, to become the creature of your pleasures until you weary of me! vile wretch! you are a greater villain than i thought. go, and never again darken my path with your presence." loris uttered a cry of fury. he had counted upon an easy victory over the poor jewess, and he saw his wicked dreams rudely disturbed. with one bound he was by the side of kathinka and wound his arms about her. "so you think to brave me, poor fool!" he said, savagely. "you think to escape me! but i will have you yet; you shall be mine in spite of your petty scruples. if you will not come to my arms peaceably, i must use force; but come you shall!" he clasped the frail girl in both his arms, and lifting her up from the ground, he bore her towards the door. anger and despair lent kathinka tenfold strength. with a cry for help, she struggled in his embrace and by a mighty effort freed herself. again, loris, blinded by rage, seized her, and kathinka, overcome by terror, uttered a piercing cry and fainted away. at that moment the door opened and joseph kierson entered the room. he was on his way to kathinka's house and her cry of terror had lent wings to his feet. he rushed upon the count and threw him to the floor. in an instant the two men were locked in each other's grasp, the hand of each upon the other's throat. the contest was almost equal. they were both of powerful physique and equally courageous and for some minutes the battle raged with varying success. joseph was aware that upon his victory depended the honor of his betrothed and his own happiness; he believed that if the count obtained the mastery, he would not scruple to kill him outright. he exerted all his strength and freed himself from the powerful clasp of his foe. then he struck the count so violent a blow as to render him senseless. joseph paused for breath and for reflection. his first care was to restore kathinka to consciousness, and he soon had the satisfaction of bringing her back to life. with a sigh she opened her eyes and turned them in gratitude upon her preserver. then she gazed about her and, as her glance fell upon the prostrate form of the nobleman, she shuddered and stretched out her hands to joseph. the young man helped her to her feet and led her to a sofa. in a few words she related all that had occurred previous to joseph's arrival. a great difficulty now presented itself; how to dispose of the count. a glance showed kierson that he was not dead, yet it was almost half an hour before loris regained his senses and with difficulty rose to his feet. his face was badly bruised and scratched, one eye being entirely closed. kierson humanely went to his assistance, but loris, with an oath, declined the proffered aid and moved slowly to the door. "you shall hear from me again," were his parting words; "my reckoning will come later on!" passing out into the street, he entered the _droshka_ which was in waiting, and in which he had intended carrying off kathinka, and was driven to his home. the rabbi on his return was at once informed of the occurrence. while his daughter related her story, he walked up and down with clenched fists and heaving breast. he now realized, for the first time, the terrible danger which threatened his beloved child, and his indignation against the villain who had molested her found vent in vigorous language. at the same time he did not close his eyes to the fact that the rage of the baffled man would spend itself not only upon kathinka but upon the whole jewish population. "it is not likely," he said, after he had heard the end of the narrative, "that drentell will allow the matter to rest. a man who is so unscrupulous as is this young tyrant, will go to extremes to carry out his purpose or to take vengeance upon those who have thwarted him. it is for your safety i fear most, joseph, and i advise you to absent yourself from kief for some time at least, until this affair has been forgotten." "never!" cried joseph, bravely, "i have but done my duty and i will abide the consequences. to leave kief would be to abandon the promising career i have mapped out for myself; besides, kathinka may again require my assistance. i shall remain." "you incur a great risk," admonished the rabbi. "i will not seek to escape it by flight, but will remain here and meet the danger." joseph returned to his parents' roof, but in spite of his courage he felt ill at ease. his parents heard him relate his adventures, and lifted their hearts in prayer to god to avert the catastrophe which they felt would in all probability follow the encounter between their boy and the governor's son. their fears were not unfounded. at eight o'clock that evening there was a rap at the door of old kierson's dwelling, and two uniformed officers confronted the terror-stricken family. "we seek joseph kierson," said one of the soldiers. "i am he," answered the young man, with as much firmness as he could command. "i arrest you in the name of his majesty the czar," continued the officer, placing a heavy hand upon the poor lad's shoulder. "of what am i accused?" asked joseph. "i do not know. perhaps the warden of the prison can tell you." joseph was well aware that resistance would make the matter worse. kissing his weeping parents and offering them all the consolation in his power, he accompanied the officers to the prison, there to await the action of the governor. within an hour, the whole jewish community knew the events of the day, and there were lamentations throughout the quarter, for the blow that had fallen upon the young man portended disaster to them all. chapter xxxi. kierson's escape. for weeks joseph languished in prison, in total ignorance of the fate that awaited him. at first the governor was too busy to attend to the case and it afterward slipped his memory entirely. for reasons of his own, loris did not interfere. although he had instigated the arrest of the jew, he was careful not to inform his father of the true cause of the trouble. his injured eye and general appearance required some explanation and a drinking bout with some of the university students was given as the cause. for the preservation of order, however, he advocated the arrest of the offender and kierson was taken into custody. loris' course was not dictated by caprice. if his august father knew that he had sought an alliance with a daughter of the despised hebrew race, he would vent his wrath upon loris' head for compromising the honor of the noble family of drentell. the punishment usually inflicted upon students for quarrelling among themselves was light and limited to a small fine. kierson's was an aggravated offence, however. the dignity of the governor's son had suffered, and as there was no precedent the case was allowed to drag on indefinitely. loris used his influence with the authorities to keep joseph in durance. meanwhile, the israelites were not idle. convinced that kierson had done nothing but his duty, they drew up a petition to the governor, pleading for mercy. rabbi mendel himself carried the document to the palace, trusting to supplement the petition with his own eloquence. alas! the time when mendel winenki was a power in the governor's house had long since passed. there was a ruler now who knew not of the rabbi and his deeds, and mendel had not even the satisfaction of speaking to his excellency in person. he and his petition were referred to the chief of police, the official who was supposed to have the entire matter in charge. sick at heart, mendel sought that worthy functionary. he carefully read the petition, put it in his pocket and promised to look up the case and report it to the governor as soon as possible. it was poor consolation that the rabbi took to his people. their petition had accomplished nothing. it was not even possible to discover where joseph was concealed and whether he had already been sentenced or not. kathinka was heart-broken. she knew not what to do. a praiseworthy impulse to go to the palace and throw herself at the governor's feet was checked by the thought that loris might be there to delight in her humiliation and to use his power to defeat her prayer. after several weeks of suspense, the poor girl received a letter. it was in a strange handwriting and she opened it with trembling hands. she glanced hastily at the signature and with a cry allowed the missive to fall to the ground. "what is it, kathinka?" asked the rabbi, who had been sitting near-by. "read it, father; it is from drentell!" cried his daughter. the rabbi took the letter up anxiously and his eyes ran eagerly over its contents. kathinka saw the deadly pallor that spread over his countenance, watched his quivering lip and darkening brow. he read to the end, and crumpling the letter in his hand, he threw himself upon the sofa in a paroxysm of grief. the girl who had never before seen her father so affected became seriously alarmed. "what is it, father? what does he write?" she asked. "read it, my child; it is for you," sobbed the poor man. "read it and decide," and he handed the letter to his daughter, while the tears ran down his cheeks. kathinka, with varied emotions, opened out the paper and read the contents. the note was as follows: beloved kathinka:--you will justly reproach me for having remained silent so long, but do not attribute it to a waning of my affection. i love you more devotedly, more tenderly than ever. your cruelty to me at our last interview has but served to fan the flame of my passion. i have since thought only of you. i know your heart is set against me on account of the arrest of your betrothed. do not blame me for having a hand in his incarceration. the law of the land is severe, and although i exerted my influence, i was powerless to stay its hand in the matter. your friend is condemned to a life-long exile in siberia. it is a terrible fate, worse than death itself. you alone can save him from it. consent to come to me, to share my heart, to make me the happiest of men, and i myself will plead with the governor and obtain his pardon. the day that sees you at my side will restore your friend to liberty. do not deem me cruel. i would serve you if you but gave me the right to do so. i await your reply. loris. when kathinka had ceased reading, she dropped the letter and hid her burning head in her hands, while her body rocked with grief and despair. her father gazed at her in silence, with a look of intense commiseration on his face. "what can i do?" she moaned, at length. "what would joseph have me do? he would rather die a thousand deaths than owe his liberty to my degradation. father, my duty is clear! joseph is innocent of any crime and the god of israel will protect him." "god bless you, my daughter," replied the rabbi. "you have spoken well. will you answer this letter?" "no, father; i shall treat it with contempt. the writer can draw his own conclusions from my silence." it was a sad day for both the rabbi's and kierson's families. the latter, much as they loved their only son, sincerely approved of kathinka's decision. "if he must go to siberia," they sobbed; "he will go without a sin upon his soul. we are all in the hands of the almighty." old kierson thenceforth went daily to the police headquarters, endeavoring in vain to obtain information about his son. he found no one that could enlighten him as to his present condition or future fate, and he trudged homeward, feeling daily more sick at heart, more depressed in spirit. at the end of a week, kathinka received a second letter from her persecutor. it was more offensive than the first. it stated that joseph was still a prisoner; that owing to his (loris') influence the sentence had not yet been carried out. there was still time to save him from ignominious exile. he hinted, moreover, at a movement to drive the jews out of kief and promised to avert the catastrophe if kathinka yielded to his persuasions. there were passion and insult in every line. the poor girl was almost distracted with grief and mortification, the more so as it became necessary to take the entire jewish community into the secret. rabbi mendel hastily summoned a meeting of the influential men of his congregation and laid the matter before them. there was great consternation when it was learned that a new danger threatened the race, but there was not one among them who would not have suffered the cruelest persecution rather than allow the rabbi's daughter to sacrifice her honor for their salvation. it was impossible to form a plan of action, for as yet the peril that menaced them was too indefinite, but mendel exhorted them to do nothing that might throw the slightest reproach upon israel. the governor's animosity towards the jews now became manifest. the acts of intolerance were in themselves insignificant, but they were like the distant rumblings of thunder that precede the storm and were not easily mistaken by the poor hebrews. because of kierson's thrashing the ruler's son, an edict was issued expelling jewish students from the university of kief. some time after, a jew who, through mendel's influence during pomeroff's palmy days had obtained the office of under-secretary to a police magistrate, was summarily dismissed "because he was a hebrew." then followed an edict restricting the attendance of jewish children at the public schools, and expelling all children whose parents had not resided in the city for at least ten years, retaining the others only upon the payment of an exorbitant tax which none but the wealthy could afford. these and many other petty acts of intolerance caused the jews no little uneasiness. one day rabbi winenki was sitting in his study. it was raining in torrents without, and the landscape appeared deluged and desolate. the rabbi gazed out at the dismal scene and sighed regretfully as he thought of those whose occupations compelled them to remain out of doors in such miserable weather. suddenly the door was thrown open and joseph came, or rather rushed, into the room. his face was pale as death; his garments, torn and tattered, were soaked with rain. he had become thin through long confinement and every line of his features betokened abject misery. the rabbi started as though he beheld a spectre, but seeing that the young man was about to sink to the floor exhausted, he sprang to his feet and helped him to a chair. "what, joseph! god be praised! kathinka, recha, come quickly," he cried, running to the door leading to an adjoining apartment. "bring some brandy." kathinka was not long in coming, and unmindful of his appearance, with a cry of joy, she fell upon joseph's bosom and kissed him rapturously. "oh, joseph, i am so happy!" murmured the girl. "are you free, entirely free?" joseph gasped for breath. he could not speak. the rabbi hastily poured some liquor into a glass which recha had brought and held it to the young man's lips. the draught seemed to revive him. "hurry," he whispered, looking about him, anxiously; "hide me somewhere before the officers come after me." a look of disappointment passed over the rabbi's face. "then you are not acquitted?" he asked. "no! i escaped. i'll tell you all about it, but not here. they might come and find me. let us go upstairs, anywhere out of sight. send for my parents! it would be dangerous for me to visit them, but i must see them before i leave." "you are not going away again!" cried kathinka. "i must. it is death to remain here!" the rabbi supported the young man while he went to an upper floor, and leaving him to the ministrations of his wife and daughter, he despatched a messenger to the kiersons to inform them of the arrival of the unexpected guest. by the time they were all assembled, joseph had, in a measure revived and recovered his cheerful spirits. "but where have you been and what have you been doing?" asked the rabbi, after the first loving greetings had been exchanged. "i have been in a terrible place," sighed the student, shuddering at the mere recollection of his experience. "when i was taken from home i was led to the jail near the barracks, up in the petcherskoi quarter, and without a trial, without a hearing of any kind, i was thrown into a cell about five feet square. after my eyes had become accustomed to the darkness, i looked about me. in one corner i found a bed of straw with a cover as thin as paper. a broken chair and a rough wooden basin completed the furniture. the place reeked with corruption and filth, and the stench was almost unbearable. of the vile food they placed before me, i could eat nothing except the bread. it was _trefa_, but had it been prepared according to our rites, its nauseating appearance would have caused me to reject it. "there i lay for weeks, perhaps months, for i lost all reckoning of time, without knowing what was to be done with me. i almost wished they would send me to siberia, so that i might escape that foul atmosphere. if their jails are so terrible, what must be the condition of their troubetzkoi prison?" "poor boy," sobbed his father, "what a terrible experience you have had. but tell us, how did you escape?" "by the merest accident. they recently changed the warden of the prison, and the new incumbent, a kind-hearted man, at once visited the cells and inquired into the charges upon which each prisoner was detained. when he heard my story, he evinced the greatest surprise, and on investigating the matter, he came to the conclusion that i had been forgotten by the authorities, as it was not customary to detain a prisoner so long upon so slight an offence. the charge against me was simply participating in a student's quarrel, and the warden was inclined to be lenient with me. he at once made inquiries concerning my future fate, and learned that i was to be kept a prisoner until my punishment had been definitely decided upon. as there was no order to keep me in a cell, the warden allowed me to roam about the prison at will, and i made myself generally useful about the place. i tried to write to you, to inform you of my condition, but it was forbidden. to-day, the warden sent his assistant to town upon an errand, and he himself went down into one of the lower corridors to dispose of some new prisoners. he had left his keys upon his table. at last i saw liberty within reach! there was nobody about. i seized the keys, unlocked the outer gates and ran for my life. i feared i would be seen and recognized if i came directly through kief, so i ran to the outskirts of the town and came here by a roundabout road. i have walked and run for the last two hours, through mud and rain, through swamps and ditches, until my feet would support me no longer. i thought i would never get here." "and if you should be discovered?" asked the rabbi. "then i will be taken back and treated more harshly than before. i would rather die than go back to that dreary cell. it is dangerous for you to harbor me. i must leave here at once, this very night." "where will you go?" asked kathinka, who was seated at the sufferer's side, and wiped the perspiration from his fevered brow. "i do not know. anywhere! wherever i can find friends to succor me, and where i can occasionally hear from you and see you." mendel reflected a moment. "the rabbi of berditchef is my friend," he said, at length. "go to him. i will give you a letter of introduction, and he will do all in his power to assist you. it is not far from here. if you start on foot to-night you can reach the place by morning." "oh, you surely are not going to-night, and in such weather," cried the girl. "don't leave us yet, joseph; stay with us. we will conceal you." "don't make my departure harder than i can bear, kathinka. i must go--for your sake as well as for mine. i tremble even now, lest they should discover me. i will go to berditchef for the present." "and your aspirations for a physician's career--what will become of them?" asked his father. joseph sighed, and his eyes were dimmed with tears. "it will be hard to give up my plans, but i see no alternative." "don't worry, my boy," said the rabbi, consolingly. "there are more ways than one to make an honorable living. honesty, thrift and energy will enable you to succeed in any undertaking. whether you be a doctor or a cobbler, we will not think the less of you, and i am sure kathinka will love you none the less." kathinka threw her arms about her lover's neck and clung to him affectionately. joseph's face brightened. "get me something to eat," sighed the young man, "for i am famished and the way is long." a meal was hastily brought, and a substantial lunch was prepared by kathinka's hands, to cheer the wanderer upon his lonely path. night came. the storm had not abated, the wind still moaned and the rain fell in torrents. it was a wretched night for a foot-journey to berditchef, and joseph's mother and his affianced endeavored to persuade the young man to postpone his journey until morning. joseph shook his head, sorrowfully. "i would be recaptured if i waited. no, i have no time to lose; every moment is precious. think of me, my dear ones, and pray for me. when i can do so in safety, i shall return to kief; until then, god bless you all." kissing his weeping friends farewell, he wrapped himself in a stout mantle which the rabbi had procured for him, and stepped out into the inhospitable night. for a time the sorrow-stricken families wept silently; then mendel advised the kiersons to return to their home at once. "if the police follow him," he said, "they will naturally search your dwelling first. it will be unfortunate if they find you absent, and might lead to inquiries which would give them a clue to his whereabouts. as it is, you can truthfully say that he has not shown himself in your house." the old people acted upon the suggestion and reached their house not a moment too soon. they had scarcely entered before a number of officers demanded admittance and began a thorough search of the premises. satisfied by the replies of the lad's parents that he had not visited the house, they withdrew in no very amiable humor to continue their investigations at the house of the rabbi, where they were equally unsuccessful. failing to trace him in the jewish quarter, the officers returned to the fortress and reported their lack of success to the warden. this worthy was at first inclined to lose his temper, but he finally shrugged his shoulders and muttered: "let him go, poor fellow! he has been here nearly two months, and that is punishment enough for having thrashed a man, were that man the governor himself." a few days later, kathinka received two letters. the first she opened was from joseph. it announced his safe arrival in berditchef and his kind reception by the rabbi's friend, who had at once found him congenial employment. it abounded in expressions of affection and undying love. kathinka pressed it to her lips and, with an overflowing heart, thanked the almighty that her lover was safe. the second letter was from loris. it, too, was full of passionate yearning, but its flowery phrases created a feeling of intense disgust. the count, evidently ignorant of joseph's escape, ended his missive with the assurance that unless kathinka acceded to his demands, her friend would be sent to siberia on the morrow. kathinka threw the paper into the fire. chapter xxxii. an attempt upon the czar. kathinka remained unmolested for some time, not because loris had ceased to admire her, but because the young count was condemned to a twelve-months' absence from kief. this unsuspected stroke of good fortune for the girl happened in this wise: towards the end of the year , it became very evident that nihilism was spreading to an alarming extent in the army. four officers of loris' regiment were arrested on a charge of disseminating revolutionary pamphlets and were summarily exiled. another officer had assisted eight political offenders to escape and was kept in close confinement. general drentell, in consequence, declared kief, kharkov and other districts under martial law. a stormy scene took place between the governor and his son loris, in which the former, mindful of the latter's past escapades, expressed his belief that his son was implicated in the plots of his comrades, while loris indignantly denied all knowledge of the matter. "listen to me, loris!" said the general, purple with rage. "i saved your life once, at the risk of losing my own. as true as st. nicholas hears us, if ever you repeat your plottings, i shall be as inexorable as though you were the meanest of the czar's subjects." loris saw that his father was in earnest and recoiled before the wrath of the stern old soldier. he again asserted his ignorance of any conspiracy. not knowing how many more officers of the regiment were implicated, drentell decided to transfer the entire division to another district, in the hope of severing any connection which might exist between the men and the revolutionary committee. loris had to obey the order and accompany his regiment to the steppes of central russia, where he remained until the active disorders in kief a year later recalled him. nihilism was not to be rooted out by the removal of any particular set of men. it had spread its branches among all classes and conditions of society, and the number of its adherents was increasing with alarming rapidity. the martyr who unflinchingly faces death for the sake of his faith, the nihilist who exposes himself to imprisonment or death in the hope of attaining constitutional liberty, are examples of the heroic endurance of minds exalted by principle. the jew's devotion to his religion has always been most intense when intolerance and persecution were at their height. in like manner the love of liberty is developed to its greatest extent when despotism seeks to stifle it. "brightest in dungeons, liberty thou art, for there the habitation is the heart." twenty-one persons were arrested in kief, and almost as many in kharkov, and still nihilism was not stamped out. phoenix-like it arose from the ashes of its martyrs. on february the th, , just as the imperial family were about to dine, a mine was exploded beneath the winter palace, the guard-room was demolished, ten soldiers were killed and forty-five wounded; but, the divinity which sometimes hedges a king preserved the royal family from harm. excitement was intense. a commission of public safety, with authority to preserve order at any cost, was at once appointed, with general melikoff at the head. on the second day of march, during the festival, general melikoff was shot at as he alighted from his carriage. the would-be assassin was so close that the general struck him in the face, and the man was arrested. at the trial it was discovered that the malefactor was a baptized jew, by the name of wadetsky minsk. the trial excited universal interest. the culprit was asked by the judge why he had deserted his faith. "because i found it impossible to live as a jew," he replied, bitterly. "you took from me my children to send them to the army; you deprived me of the lands i had cultivated and left me penniless; you despised and degraded me, and when i had suffered until the fibres of my heart were torn, you showed me a glowing picture of the happiness that awaited me here and in heaven if i became a christian. i allowed myself to be baptized." minsk paused, and the expression of his face showed the mental anguish he was at that moment enduring. suddenly, he continued, with great vehemence: "yes, i became a christian, or rather a godless hypocrite, who had bartered away the sympathy of his co-religionists as well as his self-respect. how did you treat me after i had embraced your faith? humiliations, worse than any i had experienced as a jew, were showered upon me. i was regarded as something impure, shunned and execrated. it was too late to turn back, and in spite of your treatment, i remained a christian, i adhered to the glorious faith which teaches 'peace on earth and good-will to men.' in sheer desperation, i joined the band of unfortunates as reckless as myself, whose self-imposed mission it is to pave the way to liberty." minsk preserved a defiant demeanor throughout the trial. he made no defence, nor did he endeavor to have his punishment mitigated. his condemnation followed, as a matter of course. the scaffold found him unsubdued. "my attempt has failed," he cried, "but think not that general melikoff is safe! after me will come a second, and after him a third. melikoff must fall, and the czar will not long survive him." the fifth of march witnessed his death struggles upon the scaffold. darker and darker it grew in israel. the sun of its brief prosperity was gradually becoming obscured by heavy clouds of intolerance and fanaticism, clouds which did not display the proverbial silver lining of hope and comfort. this was a period of great activity for mikail; never before had he found such congenial employment. after making a series of one-sided investigations, in which he interrogated principally those who had real or imaginary cause for complaint against the hebrews, the priest embodied his conclusions in a book, entitled "the annihilation of the jews." unquenchable hatred breathed in every page. with a cunning hand, he subverted facts to suit his fancy. he drew a vivid picture of the great dissatisfaction existing because the hebrews were achieving success in various branches of enterprise to the exclusion of the gentiles. with peculiar logic he argued that sooner or later quarrels must ensue between the races, that if there were no jews there could be no trouble, and that they should therefore be driven out of the country. his work accused the jews of thriving almost entirely upon usury and gross dishonesty, in spite of the fact that many of the chief industries of russia were in the hands of thrifty and honorable israelites. it purposed to forbid the jews from keeping inns, on the ground that they fostered intemperance, in the face of statistics which showed drunkenness to be most prevalent in provinces where no jews are allowed to reside. it finally advised the confiscation of all property belonging to the jews and the summary expulsion of the despised race from the empire. such a book, at a time when rulers and people were alike eager for sensation, acted like a firebrand. the newspapers, knowing that the author was a member of the commission appointed by the czar to investigate the conduct of the jews and that his work would receive the imperial sanction, published extracts from its pages and commented editorially upon its arguments. mikail's conclusions were accepted, and the cry rang throughout russia, "down with the jews!" in all the land there was not a man who dared raise his voice in defence of the unfortunate people. that minsk, the would-be slayer of melikoff, had once been a jew, served to increase the outcry against the race. of the scores of nihilists who had already been executed not one was alluded to as a catholic, although that church claimed them as her own; but the newspapers added the word "jew" every time they had occasion to mention his name. there were as yet no open hostilities in russia. the great majority of laborers and _moujiks_ knew nothing of this agitation. they lived in peace with their jewish neighbors, on whom many were dependent for work and wages. for the best of reasons, they did not read the newspapers and they cared little for the vague rumors of discontent that now and then assailed their ears. occasionally there were quarrels, but these were unimportant and of rare occurrence. a dispute arose one day in the shop of a man named itikoff. a thief entered his place and having requested the proprietor to get him a certain article he rifled the money-box the moment the jew's back was turned. itikoff saw the act in a mirror, and turning suddenly he seized the man by the neck and beat him severely. the man's cries brought a crowd to the door who, seeing a fellow-gentile maltreated by a jew, at once set upon the unfortunate shopkeeper and brutally assaulted him. they then sacked his shop and threw his merchandise into the street, whence it was quickly removed by the assembled mob. a number of policemen arrived and arrested itikoff for instigating a riot. despite his pleading he was carried to jail, and only released upon the payment of a fine of two hundred roubles.[ ] such occasional incidents, while they were characteristic of russian justice, were not of a nature to foster good feeling between the jews and the gentiles. then came the event of march , . through the mighty empire flashed the awful news, "the czar has been assassinated!" for a time all other affairs were left in the background. before that dire catastrophe the petty quarrels of the races faded into insignificance. jew and gentile alike met to mourn over their ruler and looked forward with pleasant anticipation to the accession of the new czar, alexander iii., to the throne. the nihilists, satisfied with their work, rested upon their arms and waited to see if the new emperor would yield to their demands. the agitators who had conceived the crusade against the jews as a means of diverting public attention from st. petersburg had been unsuccessful and for the time being found their occupation gone. the jew-haters, drentell, mikail and others, were busy at the capital, currying favor with the new government, and the poor jews breathed more freely and enjoyed a brief respite from danger. footnotes: [footnote : see report of "russian outrages," in _london times_.] chapter xxxiii. the riots at elizabethgrad. terrible is the havoc wrought by the elements, the devastating flash, the furious wind; appalling is the destruction of the roaring flames, the all-devouring flood; but what elements can measure their forces with the fury of man, once he has torn asunder the bonds of reason and rushes madly and irresistibly onwards toward the accomplishment of his passionate desires. "gefaehrlich ist's den leu zu wecken, verderblich ist des tigers zahn; jedoch das schrecklichste der schrecken, das ist der mensch in seinem wahn." the animosity of the russians towards the jews had not ceased, it had only been held in check for a final onslaught. the unfortunate year dawned upon the hebrews. its beginning found them hopeful, and confident that for the future trouble would be averted; its close left them the victims of a cruel and relentless persecution. we would gladly spare the reader the harrowing details of this most atrocious of outbreaks, but we must follow the fortunes of our friends to the end. the meagre statements which found their way into our newspapers merely announced that riots against the jews had occurred here and there, but were of so general a nature that they failed to impress the imagination. they never evoked pictures of the terrible scenes which actually occurred: men murdered, women outraged, infants butchered--arson, pillage, slaughter and lust combined. the ceaseless workings and writings of mikail and other members of his commission, had gradually aroused the fury of the masses. their utterances were not only repeated in every _kretschma_, but were grossly exaggerated. professional agitators, who had nothing to lose and everything to gain by promoting a race quarrel, were actively at work among the people, keeping alive the flame of hatred which they had taken such pains to kindle. elizabethgrad, a large city to the south of kief, containing ten thousand jews, was their first point of attack. weeks before the event, proclamations were posted throughout the district, calling upon the inhabitants to throw off the yoke of the jews and fixing wednesday, april th, as the day for the general uprising. copies of a fictitious _ukase_, commanding that the property of the jews be confiscated and handed over to the christians, were freely circulated and universally accepted as emanating from the czar. every lying accusation which had ever been employed against the jews since the rise of christianity was unearthed and used with telling effect. the atrocious calumny that the jews required the blood of christian children for their passover rites was poured into eager ears. for a similar accusation the early christians were tortured by the romans, and in their days of prosperity they in their turn employed it against the jews. the israelites were paralyzed with terror at the fate which hung over them. the most influential of their number waited upon the governor, who after much deliberation received them. he listened with well-feigned attention, while the jews proved that they were law-abiding and that the accusations against them were unjust. he smiled pityingly when they had finished, and, reminding them that they were in god's hands, dismissed them. no further notice was taken of their appeal. on the twenty-seventh day of april came the crisis. in a _cabaret_, kept by a jew named kirsanoff, a religious dispute arose. the matter was of small importance, but it led to a scuffle by which a large crowd of idlers was attracted. the mob grew in numbers and in lawlessness, and having ejected the proprietor of the shop, they proceeded to despoil the place of its liquors. inflamed by their copious libations, the rioters were ripe for any excess. at this moment there arose a ringleader, a man whom no one knew, but who had been active for some weeks past in stirring up the neighborhood. he mounted a cask and addressed the maddened crowd: "my friends," he cried, "your time has come! on to the jewish quarter! kill, destroy, take what you can! the czar gives you their property." with a rallying shout he left the inn, the crowd following close upon his heels. "down with the jews!" arose the cry, and, as the mob increased, it was repeated by a thousand intoxicated wretches. then began a wild destruction of property. shops and warehouses were attacked and their contents carried out into the street, to be destroyed or carried away. costly linens and works of art, fine furniture and articles of apparel were served alike. what was too bulky to be stolen was carried into the street and burned. a dozen bonfires roared and blazed in the jewish quarter. the jews could no longer look passively upon this wanton destruction. hastily conferring, they placed themselves under the leadership of one of their merchants, one zoletwenski, a powerful and courageous man. armed with clubs and such rude weapons as were within their reach, they hurried to the scene and attempted to defend their own. alas! the little group was soon routed by the infuriated mob. their resistance served only to increase the anger of their assailants, who now left the shops and turned their attention to the dwellings of the hebrews. zolotwenski's house was the first to be attacked. down crashed the door and a hundred excited brutes forced their way through the house. they seized his wife, whom they found in bed sick and helpless, and choked her into insensibility. they followed his two daughters to a room in the upper story in which they had locked themselves, and with threats of vengeance worse than death they broke open the door. the poor girls threw themselves from the window to the ground below. in the meantime, the rabbi, accompanied by a number of his congregation, again hastened to the governor's palace and besought him to protect the innocent women and children. this time the appeal bore fruit. the governor promised to call out the military, and an hour afterwards a detachment of soldiers appeared upon the scene. at first they stood by, amused spectators, cheering the mob whenever it broke into a dwelling, taunting the poor women who ran hither and thither in frantic endeavors to escape the wretches who pursued them; but later in the day the temptation to join the plunderers proved irresistible, and the soldiers became active participants in the outrages which continually increased in brutality. indeed, the leaders of the soldiers soon assumed command of the mob, and, with a refinement of cruelty, incited the people to lust rather than to pillage. a number of rioters and soldiers broke into the dwelling of an old man named pelikoff. the poor fellow had carried his sixteen-year-old daughter to the attic and barricaded the door. in vain his resistance. the rusty lock yielded to the onslaught from without; twenty men precipitated themselves into the apartment, and twenty men threw themselves upon the trembling child. "kill me," cried pelikoff, "but spare my innocent daughter!" "to the devil with them both!" laughed the leader. pelikoff fought with desperation. with his bare fists he felled two of the stalwart soldiers to the ground, but he was no match against the overpowering numbers. they seized him in their arms, carried him to the roof, and hurled him over into the street below, while a dozen of the ruffians attacked the unfortunate girl. when sympathizing friends visited the house next day, they found the child dead, and pelikoff a hopeless maniac. night brought a cessation of hostilities, but not a glimmer of hope. with early dawn, the outrages recommenced. the synagogue now became the point of attack. thither many of the women and children had fled for refuge, and the mob, actuated rather by lust than by love of plunder, proceeded to demolish the building, which they set on fire. the poor women, as they fled from the burning pile, were set upon and cruelly assaulted by the rioters. all that day and the next, the hebrew quarter was at the mercy of the savages. what the ax did not crush, fire destroyed. five hundred houses and over one hundred stores and shops were ransacked; whole streets were demolished; property to the value of two million roubles was destroyed, and upwards of twenty people lost their lives while defending their possessions or their honor. thus ended the first anti-semitic riot. the plans for general drentell's vengeance, through mikail the priest, were in a fair way of being realized.[ ] chapter xxxiv. rabbi and priest meet. the enemies of the jews persisted in their attacks. ignorant greed, commercial rivalry, religious intolerance, all played their part in shaping coming events. the mobs soon had ringleaders; unscrupulous agitators who counted on the gain they could derive from a general pillage of the property of the wealthy israelites. the greatest terror reigned in kief. but for the example of a few energetic men, prominent among whom was rabbi winenki, the hebrew population would have been in despair. thousands of jews, driven out of elizabethgrad by the atrocities committed at that place, fled to kief and implored shelter of their hospitable co-religionists. they were for the greater part destitute of the commonest necessities of life. their appeal was not in vain. the charitable jews opened their houses, and there was scarcely a home that did not entertain one or more refugees. rabbi winenki hastily called a conference of his friends to devise means of assisting these unfortunates to emigrate. the project met with immediate approval, and an association was formed to aid all those who desired to find a home in distant america. general drentell heard of this benevolent undertaking, and while he was not unwilling to drive the jews out of the empire, he deemed it the duty of the israelites to consult with him before engaging in any project which would deprive the czar of his subjects. he therefore sent a communication to the rabbi, stating that he had no objection to such a committee as had been formed, provided it was created under the auspices of the government. it was customary, he said, for the ruling family to be identified with all movements of this sort, and as an evidence of good-will towards the jews, his wife, countess louise, desired to be elected honorary president of the newly-organized society. the israelites received this communication with undisguised contempt. the rabbi denounced the inconsistency of the governor, who had hitherto never denied his animosity towards the jews, but who now desired to pose as their benefactor. a resolution was adopted declining to honor the countess drentell with the office she coveted. the governor seized upon this as a pretext for the wickedest measures against the unfortunate people. the following day, placards were issued from a secret printing-press in kief, and distributed throughout the town and surrounding country, declaring that the czar had confiscated the property of the jews and had presented it to his loyal subjects. wherever the commiserating face of a madonna gazed down from her icon, there hung one of these placards, which was destined to let loose the worst passions of which man is capable. as if this were not potent enough, mikail the priest travelled in person through the province, denouncing the jews, and exhorting the orthodox russians to wreak vengeance upon them for real or fictitious crimes. on came the flood which, once started, threatened to engulf the entire jewish population of russia. on may th, the mob attacked the hebrew quarter at smielo, and thirteen men were killed, twenty wounded and sixteen hundred left without homes. it was authoritatively announced that a riot would begin in kief on sunday, the eighth of may. on weekdays the _moujiks_ were for the greater part in the fields hard at work, while on sunday they were free to take part in the plunder and destruction. the seventh was a sad day for our friends. it was the sabbath, the last that many of them would live to celebrate. the synagogues were filled to overflowing with weeping women and terror-stricken men. there was no hope, no consolation anywhere. sadly and sorrowfully the services proceeded, each worshipper praying as though his end were close at hand. not even the inspiring words of rabbi winenki could cheer them. in vain he recalled the many miraculous deliverances of their forefathers, and exhorted his hearers to place their faith in jehovah. his sermon but increased the gloom which hung over the congregation. during the afternoon a delegation, headed by mendel, proceeded to the governor's palace and begged for an interview. they were admitted into the cabinet, where governor drentell, his wife and the catholic priest mikail awaited them. mikail was sitting at a table, writing. "you wish to see me," said the governor, curtly. "what is it you want?" "your excellency," began mendel, with some hesitation, "we need scarcely remind you of the fact that we have always been loyal subjects; that we have never knowingly committed a wrong against the state, and that we have through our thrift and industry sought to add to the wealth of the country. we are now threatened with a serious calamity, one which will rob us of our hard-earned possessions and may possibly deprive us of our lives. your excellency will surely not permit this outrage to be visited upon us. it lies in your power to prevent it and we beseech you, in the name of twenty thousand of the czar's faithful subjects, who are now crowded in kief, to vouchsafe us your gracious protection." the governor listened impatiently. when mendel had finished speaking, he said: "i do not see how i can help you. the czar himself has declared your property forfeited, and i am afraid the people will insist upon their rights." "but the pretended _ukase_ confiscating our property is false!" cried mendel, with great indignation. "your excellency knows it is but an invention of a body of men who wish to enrich themselves at the cost of our people. your excellency surely cannot allow such outrages to be perpetrated!" "moderate your language, man," cried the governor, angrily, rising from his chair, "or you will find yourself outside the palace doors." "i beg your excellency's pardon," answered mendel, meekly, "if grief has made me disrespectful. in the name of my co-religionists, i desire to offer a proposition. if our property falls to the czar's subjects, it is certainly better to preserve it intact than to expose it to the savage attacks of the rioters. if your excellency permits, we will bring you the keys of our houses and submit to any measures you may see fit to take. if the _ukase_ is true, the property will revert to the state uninjured; if it is not true, your excellency will have the humanity to restore us to our rights." the governor, surprised at this unexpected and unique proposition, found himself without a reply. he glanced significantly at the priest. "what do you say, mikail?" he asked. mikail, who had been apparently absorbed in writing, but who had not lost a word of the discussion, now arose, and in his deep, sonorous voice, answered: "the _ukase_ is true, your excellency, and we have no right to render it nugatory. for twenty years the jews have enjoyed equal rights with the christians, and every endeavor has been made to assimilate them with the other inhabitants. in vain. the jews constantly abused their new liberties, and by their acts brought upon themselves the ill-will of the entire nation. they form a state within the state, governing themselves by their own code of laws, which are often antagonistic to those of the land. i need not recapitulate the acts of cruelty they have perpetrated upon defenceless christians, the wiles they have employed to defraud their creditors, or the usury for which they are notorious. i need not allude to the fact that they have driven the catholic russians from profitable fields of labor, and have appropriated to themselves every branch of trade. these acts and many others have now called forth the protests of the people, and the result is violence and robbery. it would be useless to control the mob, your excellency, for the wrongs under which they smart have driven them to desperation." while mikail was speaking, mendel gazed at him as though fascinated. he could not take his eyes from the handsome features and commanding form of the monk. he must have seen him before, he thought--but where? suddenly the priest's resemblance to his own father struck him as remarkable. ordinarily, the priest's unjust accusations would have called forth a vigorous protest from the rabbi, but now he suddenly found himself bereft of reasoning power; he could but look upon his adversary in awe and wonder. the priest turned, and by the movement exposed his mutilated ear. the lobe had been torn completely off. where could he have seen that ear before? mendel stared as though in a dream. he struggled with his memory, but it failed him; all appeared a perfect blank. then the priest, in the course of his denunciations, became more vehement than before, and made a movement with his left hand. the arm was stiff at the elbow, and the gesture appeared unnatural and restrained. still mendel looked and tried to reflect. that arm awoke a strange train of thoughts. his mind appeared sluggish to-day; he could remember nothing. suddenly the rabbi uttered a piercing cry. yes, it all came back to him now. "jacob!" he cried, advancing towards the priest. "my brother jacob arrayed against his own people!" the monk recoiled a step and looked at the jew in surprise. "is the man mad?" he asked, addressing the governor. "no; i am not mad," cried mendel, excitedly. "as true as there is a god above us, you are my brother jacob!" the priest, fully believing that the rabbi had suddenly become insane, recoiled a step and drew his garments about him. the governor glanced significantly at his wife, who had become as pale as death. the rabbi was unable to control his excitement. "jacob, my brother," he cried again; "do you not remember me, mendel? do you not remember our home in togarog? do you not recollect how we were both stolen away from home on the night of my _bar-mitzvah_; how we were taken to kharkov by the soldiers, and how we escaped and fled into the country? do you not remember how we travelled along, weary and foot-sore, until you could no longer walk, and i ran to a neighboring village for assistance? when i returned, you had disappeared. jacob, do you remember nothing?" mikail stood with his head buried in his hands, drinking in every word of the gesticulating rabbi. yes; he did remember something; indistinctly, of course, but as each event was recalled it evoked a corresponding picture in his brain. many things suddenly became clear which had been hitherto shrouded in mystery. the secret of his birth, concerning which he had so often questioned countess drentell without receiving a satisfactory reply, the indistinct recollection of strange events, and, finally, the familiarity of the ritual in the synagogue. when mendel had ceased speaking, he turned abruptly to the countess, who, pale and agitated, was standing by the side of her husband. surprise, anger, passion were portrayed in the priest's flashing eye and contracted features, and louise shrank from him as he approached her. "madam," he said, hoarsely, "what can i say in reply to this charge? you have been my protectress from childhood. tell this man that he lies, that i am not the brother of a jew." the countess' lips parted, but neither she nor the count found a reply. "see, their silence speaks for me!" cried mendel, almost joyfully. "jacob, it is true! i could not be mistaken. your image has never left me since we parted on the highway, and i recognized you at once by your resemblance to our father, and by your torn ear and crippled arm." "marks which i received at the hands of the accursed jews," cried the priest, fiercely. "not so, jacob! whoever told you that did not tell the truth. it was not the jews, but a christian, who tortured you because you were a jew." again mikail confronted the countess. "madam, i demand to know whether this man speaks the truth or not?" he exclaimed, wildly. "he does, mikail," replied louise, nervously. "for the sake of your own happiness, we endeavored to keep you in ignorance of the facts. you were a jew when we found you insensible on the road near poltava. i took you to my home, and to save you from the misery and degradation of being a jew, and also to bring a new soul into our holy church, i had you brought up in a convent as a catholic priest." "and these injuries," asked mikail, pale and trembling, "the marks of which i shall carry to the grave, were they not the work of the jews?" "of that i know nothing," answered the countess, carelessly. "this man," pointing to mendel; "can tell you more about that than i." the face of the priest became livid. "i am a jew," he cried; "i, a jew! oh god," he moaned, convulsively, "why did you send me this agony? my life has been one living falsehood, my whole existence a lie. my tongue has been taught to execrate my religion, my mind to plan the destruction of my father's people. ha! ha! ha! you are right; the jews are an accursed race, and i am accursed with them!" the priest broke into a wild laugh which sent a chill through the blood of his hearers. mendel endeavored to speak to him, to grasp his hand; but mikail looked at him with a meaningless stare, and turning, without another word, he fled like a maniac from the apartment. general drentell turned furiously upon the israelites. "go!" he cried; "leave the palace! you have done mischief enough!" mendel's strong form shook with emotion; he was weeping. he collected himself for a final appeal. "if your excellency would send us a regiment of soldiers," he said, preparing to leave; "our lives and our property might still be saved." "what care i for your property or your wretched lives?" shouted the governor, in a frenzy. "i shall not trouble my soldiers for a pack of miserable jews."[ ] the rabbi and his fellows found themselves outside of the palace walls, sad and disheartened. "friends," he said, in a broken voice, "you have been witnesses of this terrible scene. oh, god! to think that my brother, whom we mourned as dead, should have become a catholic priest and be plotting the destruction of his people." here mendel's grief overcame him and he remained silent for some moments. recovering his composure with an effort, he continued, in a subdued voice: "i have a favor to ask of you, my friends. speak to no one of this unfortunate meeting. if the news came to my father's ears it would kill him." the men promised and the little band walked silently back to their homes. footnotes: [footnote : in the description of the outrages and acts of lawlessness in this and succeeding chapters, the author has not drawn upon his imagination, but has followed as closely as possible the narration of the russian refugees on their arrival in america, and the graphic account sent by a special correspondent to the _london times_, and republished in pamphlet form in this country in .] [footnote : historical.] chapter xxxv. man's inhumanity to man. during that memorable sabbath day, hundreds of refugees came in from the surrounding villages where the outrages had already begun. they fled to kief as a place of refuge, vainly believing that a city with such important mercantile interests centred in the jewish population would be exempt from serious danger. the poor israelites feared to stir from their homes; they sat in prayer during the entire day and fasted as on the day of atonement. towards night, the door of rabbi winenki's house was suddenly thrown open, and joseph kierson, haggard and travel-stained, entered. "what are you doing here?" ejaculated both the rabbi and kathinka, in a breath. "has there been a riot in berditchef?" queried mendel. "no," answered joseph, sinking into a chair; "not yet; but i heard that there would be danger here, and i hurried back to share it with you." "unhappy man," said kathinka. "think of the peril of remaining here. if you are recognized they will take you back to prison." "i do not care," answered the young man. "i could not remain in berditchef, when i knew that you and my family were exposed to danger. my place is at your side; come what may, i will live or die with you." "you are a noble boy," exclaimed the rabbi, grasping his hand, affectionately. "kathinka, get joseph some supper; he must be hungry." "you are right, rabbi," returned joseph. "i am hungry and tired, and yet since i have seen kathinka i am supremely happy." it was a sad and fearful night. sleep was out of the question for the threatened israelites. all night long the noise of hammering could be heard; the christians were attaching little wooden crosses to their houses that they might be spared by the mob. the jews gathered their portable treasures and trinkets and conveyed them to places of safety. the morning of the eighth of may dawned; a quiet serene sunday morning, the day on which is proclaimed throughout christendom the golden rule: "love your enemies." at an early hour armed gangs appeared on the streets, wandering hither and thither, without any definite plan or object. ringleaders, however, were not long in making their appearance. as in elizabethgrad, the first act of the mob was to storm the dram-shops; it needed the inspiration of _vodki_. having broken in the doors and windows, they rolled the barrels out into the street. _vodki_ flowed in streams; the rioters waded, they bathed, they wallowed in whiskey. the women carried it away by the pailful. from shop to shop they went, becoming more hilarious, more boisterous as they proceeded. through the uproar could be heard their shouts: "the jews have lorded it over us long enough; it is our turn now! down with the jews!" they came to the inn of a man named rykelmann and here they met their first resistance. rykelmann refused to admit them. he had barricaded himself and his family behind stout doors and stood guard over his premises with a pistol. the mob besieged the place from all sides and finally succeeded in forcing an entrance in the rear. the poor proprietor was forced to accompany the rioters to his wine cellar, where they amused themselves staving in the barrels and breaking the bottles, while some of the drunken ruffians in the rooms above cut the throats of his wife and six children. it was the first blood shed in kief and it served to stimulate the appetites of the vampires. onward sped the rioters. they divided into groups, each, under a self-appointed leader, attacking a different quarter. here and there houses were burning fiercely, and to the crackling of the flames was added the piteous cries of women and children consigned to a fiery death. at this stage several companies of soldiers, headed by loris drentell, appeared upon the scene. the governor fearing that christians might suffer in the general massacre, had at length yielded to the importunities of his counsellors and sent his son with a detachment of men as a protection, not to the jews, but to the christians. loris had returned to kief shortly after the assassination of the czar. for an hour the soldiers allowed the work of destruction to go on unhindered, and then, no longer able to control their appetites, they joined the mob. the rioters came to the house of hirsch bensef. "he is the richest of them all," shouted a russian, who had once been employed by him. "his house is a regular mine of wealth. i've been in it." "down with the house!" shouted the mob. "his wealth belongs to us. show him no mercy!" they battered down the door, and regardless of the piteous pleadings of the aged man and his wife they pillaged and plundered from cellar to attic. nothing was left intact. what could not be carried away was destroyed. loris himself, stimulated by reports of the fabulous wealth which bensef was said to possess, led the charge and took an active part in the attack. when he left the house it was because he could conceal no more of the booty about his person. valuable property was scattered upon the ground by the rioters and lay in mud-bespattered heaps, to be picked up by the crowds of women and children that followed in their wake. bensef and his wife escaped assault at the hands of the ruffians by fleeing precipitately through a rear door and taking refuge in the house of a christian friend. haim goldheim's dwelling, not far from that of bensef, was next attacked. father, mother and children had fled at the approach of the rioters, but the rich furniture and works of art which the well-to-do banker had accumulated fell into the destroying hands of the mob. an hour afterwards, hungry flames devoured all that remained of the once luxurious home. at the further end of the street was the house of one david wienarski. "he, too, is rich!" shouted a russian, and the rabble attacked the place without delay. a search failed to discover the wealth they expected to find, for the poor man had buried his meagre possessions in the garden, the night before. disappointed in their search for plunder, they caught up his three-year-old child and threw it out of the window. it fell dead upon the pavement at the feet of loris and his soldiers, and the poor corpse was mercilessly thrust into the gutter, to be out of the way. still on they went! when their ardor slackened, the ringleaders harangued them and stimulated their flagging energies. "leave nothing untouched!" they shouted. "the czar has given it all to you! take what belongs to you! let not a jew escape!" there were many among the ferocious gathering who really liked the jews, who had for years lived side by side with them in peace and amity. they arose against their former friends, because the czar, in a _ukase_, desired it; and his imperial will must be fulfilled. in the heat of the turmoil, the example set them by their leaders spurred them on; and on they went, thoroughly regardless of consequences. it would be impossible to describe all the outrages of that bloody day; the pen refuses to depict the appalling scenes, the dire calamities, the nameless atrocities that were visited upon the helpless israelites. the jews performed prodigies of valor. though unarmed, many made a heroic resistance to the onslaught of the rioters. down near the dnieper stood the house of david kierson. it was one of the earliest attacked during the day, and the rioters were crazed with drink and passion. david and his son joseph, without any other weapons than their hands, kept the horde from entering their home. joseph engaged three of the rabble at one time, while his father disabled man after man, until the drunken wretches desisted and turned their attention to houses where they would find less resistance. suddenly there was a shout of terror, and the attention of the attacking party was directed towards the river. "a man overboard!" was the cry. "let him drown," answered the mob, derisively; "it is only a jew!" joseph, who was still guarding the door of his father's house, saw the struggling creature in the waves of the muddy river. in an instant he had divested himself of his coat and shoes, and, edging his way through the crowd that lined the banks, he sprang into the water. a few powerful strokes brought him to the drowning man, whom he seized by the collar of his coat and held above the surface of the water. then he swam slowly and laboriously to the shore, and, amid the silence of the spectators, he landed the man upon the banks. it was a russian he had saved; one of the ringleaders of the men who had so recently besieged his home. for a moment the crowd was hushed in admiration of the heroic deed, but it was only for a moment. "forwards, we are losing time!" shouted one of the principals, and the rioters rushed down the streets to continue their work of destruction. suddenly a priest, laboring under powerful excitement, appeared before them. his features were deadly pale and a strange fire gleamed in his eyes. "stop!" he cried; "in the name of the madonna, i command you to stop!" the mob, overawed by his aspect as well as by his words, paused in their mad career. the ringleaders fell back for a moment in surprise. "hush!" said one; "it is mikail the priest who appointed us to our posts and gave us our instructions. let us hear what he has to say." "you have been deceived," cried the priest, wildly. "stop your mad slaughter. the jews are innocent of the wrongs that have been imputed to them. do you hear me? the jews must not be persecuted! the _ukase_ giving you their property does not exist; it was but an invention!" "nonsense," answered one of the leaders; "i saw it with my own eyes. on, friends! we want the wealth of the jews; we want their blood! down with them!" mikail endeavored to bar the way. "you shall not do further harm, i tell you! hear me! in the name of the czar, i command you to halt!" the monk's incoherent sentences fell upon deaf ears. like an avalanche, the mighty mob swept down upon him, carrying him along upon the resistless tide. when joseph found his street deserted, he uttered a fervent prayer of gratitude. "we are safe for the moment, father," he said; "it will be some time before the rabble returns this way. i shall change my wet clothing, and while you guard the house, i will go to rabbi winenki's. perhaps he needs my assistance." "go, my boy," answered the old man; "and god be with you." a frightful scene had in the meantime been enacted at the rabbi's dwelling, whither many an unprotected woman and child had hastened in the belief that it would be safe from the mob. the detachment of rioters under the leadership of loris had already attacked it and the crying and pleading of the inmates could be heard above the confusion of the mob. but they pleaded in vain. had anyone but loris been in command, the house of the beloved and honored rabbi might have been spared, for his many acts of kindness had endeared him to the _moujiks_ as well as to his own people. when loris arrived before the humble dwelling, however, there was but one sentiment in his heart--revenge. too well he remembered the ignominious defeat he had experienced within those walls, and at the recollection of kathinka, the base passion which absence had not subdued broke forth again and transformed the man into a savage. there was no pity, no mercy to be expected from him. at the windows of winenki's house stood the women, their faces blanched with fear as they looked upon the blood-thirsty army without. "down with the door!" shouted loris, and a dozen ready hands shook the door upon its fastenings. suddenly the men stopped in their mad work. mikail the monk had rushed into their midst. his priestly robes were torn and covered with mud, his eyes were bloodshot, his face the picture of wild despair; his bosom heaved and his clenched hands gyrated madly in an effort to command silence. "men of kief!" he cried, hoarsely, "this bloody work must cease. in the name of the czar i command you to go to your homes and molest the jews no further! they are innocent of the charges brought against them." "ha! ha! ha!" laughed loris. "since when has mikail turned protector of the jews?" "they are innocent, i tell you!" cried the priest. "leave them in peace!" "down with the jews!" cried one of the band. "the czar has given us their property and we will have it!" "it is false!" shouted mikail. "the _ukase_ is a forgery. i myself wrote it and had it circulated. it never had the czar's sanction." "the priest is mad!" cried loris. "for three years he has incited us to enmity against the jews and now he pleads their cause. on with the work! we have much to do before night." "in the name of his majesty, i command you to cease!" yelled the priest, in a hoarse voice. "in the name of the governor of kief, i command you to go on!" shouted loris. "down with rabbi winenki and his family! down with the miserable race that killed our saviour!" the battering at the door was resumed with renewed vigor. a cry of triumph announced to the crowd that the barrier was down, and a portion of the infuriated mob rushed into the house. in vain did mikail circulate among the men, by turns commanding and pleading, to induce them to desist from their work of destruction. they looked at him askance and then at each other, significantly. but yesterday this same priest spurred them on to vengeance, filling them with passion against the people whose cause he now espoused. "he is mad," they whispered, and turning their backs upon him, they continued their excesses. loris had in the meantime entered the room in which he had kneeled to the beautiful kathinka. the rabbi with his aged father and a number of beardless youths, pupils of his school, guarded the door leading to the inner room, in which the women and girls had taken refuge. they had armed themselves with chairs and whatever happened to be within reach, and with these primitive weapons they expected to hold the enemy in check. as well endeavor to stay the flood of the mighty dnieper with a net drawn across its stream! the mob charged upon them with an impetus that could not be resisted. the rabbi, single-handed, felled two powerful _moujiks_; then he himself fell bleeding to the floor. his gray-bearded father was dealt a blow on the head from a stout cudgel, and he lay upon the ground in the agonies of death. the young men seeing that resistance but increased their peril, threw down their weapons and fled, leaving the inner room with its helpless inmates in the hands of the rioters. loris was the first to enter, and his companions were not slow in following his example. a number of maidens, crazed with horror, sprang from the windows, only to fall into the arms of the rabble without. three of the women were killed in the heroic struggle for their honor and not less than twenty suffered indignities worse than death. the rabbi's wife, recha, succeeding in escaping the vigilance of the invading party and hurried into the outer room. suddenly her eyes encountered the form of her husband lying upon the floor, bathed in blood and apparently dead. with a shriek she threw herself upon his prostrate body. when her friends attempted to move her after the danger had passed, they found that terror and grief had done their work. recha had lost her reason. on his entrance into the room, loris gazed about him, and soon singled out kathinka, standing among her friends, silently praying. with a cry of mingled joy and rage, he threw himself upon her and put his arms firmly around her. "ha! beautiful kathinka!" he said, ironically; "so we meet again. how happy you must be to see me! yes, i love you still, and you shall be mine, all mine! don't struggle, sweet one; i shall remove you to my dwelling, far from all this noise and tumult. ho, there! make room there for me and my prize!" lifting the struggling maiden in his arms, he pressed through the crowd, out into the street. there he set down his precious burden and paused to regain his breath. kathinka looked hastily about her. there were many in the crowd who had known her since her childhood, many whom her father had befriended, but they stood passively by and abstained from offering her either assistance or sympathy. then, as loris again wound his arms about her; she cried loudly for help: "come to my aid," she cried, imploringly. "do none of you know me; will none lend me a helping hand? i am kathinka, the daughter of rabbi winenki! will no one raise his arm in my defence?" there was no reply to her appeal; the rioters had no mercy for the despised jewess. of a sudden the crowd parted. thank god, there was a champion for kathinka. mikail the priest elbowed his way through the dense mass of maddened humanity and with eyes wilder and face more haggard than before, he approached the shrieking girl. with a cry of fury, he fell upon loris and endeavored to tear him from his victim. loris was for a moment too astonished to offer any resistance. "what do you want with me, priest?" he cried, angrily, when he recognized his assailant. "i am here to remind you of your honor, of your manhood; to plead with you in behalf of that poor maiden. you shall not harm a hair of her head while i have strength to defend her." "this is, indeed, wonderful!" laughed loris, mockingly. "the arch jew-hater has become the champion of innocence! go to your monastery, priest, and leave the battle-field to soldiers!" and pushing mikail contemptuously aside, he renewed his hold upon the girl, who, overpowered by her terror and despair, had become insensible. at that moment another form pushed its way through the crowd. it was joseph, who after great difficulties, had at length succeeded in reaching the spot. he, too, had heard kathinka's despairing cry, and had hastened to protect her. a rapid glance made the situation clear to him and he at once prepared to attack the governor's son. but the priest had forestalled him. with a yell of rage, mikail threw himself upon the young ruffian and the two were instantly engaged in a desperate combat. loris was inspired by passion and revenge; the priest was moved by a feeling which he could not himself analyze. the hatred which he bore loris broke out in unreasoning fury; he had heard kathinka's cry of distress, had heard her assert that she was the daughter of his own brother, and in the strange revulsion of feeling which had overcome him since yesterday, he determined to effect her release at all hazards. the men twined and twisted about each other, swayed to and fro in their endeavor to gain the mastery, while the crowd, forgetting its own passions, formed a circle about them, applauding now the one, now the other. meanwhile joseph had raised the helpless form of his betrothed from the ground and endeavored to carry her through the mob. a score of brawny arms barred the way. fear for his beloved gave the young man almost superhuman strength. seizing in his right hand a cudgel which was lying on the ground, while his left arm still supported kathinka, he hewed a passage through the ranks. eight men lay sprawling upon the ground and their companions retreated before the telling blows of joseph's club. when he found himself unembarrassed by the rioters, he lifted kathinka in both his arms and ran as fast as his feet would bear him to his father's house, which, having already been attacked, he hoped would escape a second visit. the combat between loris and mikail was short. the priest labored under a manifest disadvantage in being crippled in one arm, while loris, driven to desperation by seeing kathinka carried off, gathered all his strength and with a mighty blow hurled the monk to the ground. there was a dull crash. the priest's head had struck the pavement with such force that his skull was crushed and a crimson stream of blood gushed from his lips and nostrils, his body quivered, his maimed arm fell heavily at his side. mikail, the jew-hater, had ceased to exist. for a moment loris was dazed and conscience-stricken. to kill a priest was a serious crime. moreover, that priest had been his father's friend and favorite adviser, and loris had much to fear from parental wrath. the mischief was done, however, and bestowing upon the dead body a parting glance of ineffable hatred, he set to work to reunite his scattered band. the outrages in the jewish quarter had been duly reported to the governor, who shrugged his shoulders, rubbed his palms and smiled with secret satisfaction. "revenge is sweet," he muttered, and he placed himself at the window, where he could witness the burning of the houses. about noon the body of mikail was carried past the palace to the petcherskoi convent, and at the same time exaggerated accounts reached drentell's ears of the dangers to which his beloved son had been exposed. "it is time to put an end to the attack," thought the governor, and another detachment of soldiers was sent out to assist the first in quelling the riot and to arrest all disorderly persons found upon the streets. this order was vigorously enforced. about two thousand people were made prisoners, nearly half of them jews, arrested for protecting their lives and property. the scenes in the jewish quarter at the close of the riot, beggar description. dust and feathers filled the air, for one of the mob's chief amusements consisted in tearing open feather-beds and pillows and scattering their contents. broken furniture, dishes and stoves strewed the pavements. not a pane of glass or door was left entire. it was as though an army had invaded the place. nearly three thousand israelites were without shelter, their houses having been burned or otherwise demolished. many hundreds more were reduced to poverty, having been despoiled of everything. the destruction of human life was appalling, many corpses being recovered from the river, days after the occurrence; and the number of people who were driven to insanity by the atrocities committed will probably never be known.[ ] rabbi winenki, who had received a dangerous wound, recovered slowly. his grief at the apparently hopeless insanity of his wife and the death of his father were indescribable; they were in a slight measure mitigated by the knowledge that his daughter had been spared the barbarous fate that had befallen so many of israel's women. chapter xxxvi. what the priest had accomplished. the horrible crimes which have been described in preceding chapters were insignificant compared with those to be committed. mikail the priest, the jew-hater, was dead, but the evil of which he had been the author, lived after him. his ghost stalked through the empire, converting it into one vast charnel-house. simultaneously with the riots in kief, there were outbreaks in every town and village throughout the province. at browary, the synagogue in which the terrified people had congregated was attacked and destroyed. the mob attacked the jewesses, and assaulted many of them. three of the poor victims died and a number of others found their only escape in the river. scenes like these occurred daily throughout southern russia. whole towns and districts were ablaze with riot and violence. the story that the czar had handed jewish property over to his catholic subjects spread upon the breath of the wind, and the populace was not slow to appropriate its new possessions. the governors of the various provinces looked on with folded arms at the barbarities enacted under their eyes. occasionally the pleadings of the poor jews appeared to prevail and the military was called out; but it was not to protect the hebrews, but to prevent them from defending themselves. the riots were invariably announced for days, often weeks, beforehand, the police frequently stimulating the people to hatred and violence. the municipalities, with the consent of the provincial government, had taken every means to add to the misery of the situation. mikail's book, "the annihilation of the jews," became the bible of the fanatical masses. its sentences were distorted and exaggerated and then read to the intoxicated wretches at the village _kretschmas_. petitions were circulated in the provinces to devise means to drive the jews out of the towns in which they had no legal right to live. in other places where no such restrictions existed, petitions were sent to the authorities requesting the adoption of measures to prevent the increase of jewish residents. at kief, the day after the riot, governor drentell called an assembly of his counsellors to form a plan for expelling the jews. old documents were unearthed and a rigid scrutiny instituted to discover what were the restrictions upon the jewish population of the city. the laws enacted under the tyrannical reign of nicholas were examined and the discovery was made that nine thousand of the jews in kief had no legal right to live there. for twenty years these laws had slumbered unenforced. with a cruelty without parallel in the history of the world, drentell determined to enforce these ancient edicts and to expel all jews in excess of the legal number. the jews were accordingly notified that before august the number in excess of the lawful population would be expected to seek another domicile. wailing and lamentations broke out afresh in israel. many families did not possess the means of departing, having lost everything in the recent attacks. others did not know in what direction to turn their weary steps, for persecutions were reported all through russia and in germany as well. others again mourned at the thought of leaving behind them aged relatives, beloved friends, the graves of their cherished dead and the thousand memories that hallowed their old homes. in their extremity, the jews again petitioned the governor to temper his authority with mercy, and one of drentell's counsellors, moved by the piteous appeal, recommended leniency in dealing with the stricken race. "gentlemen," replied drentell, rising in anger; "either i or the jews must go! russia is not large enough for both. i insist upon a strict enforcement of these regulations." the governor's word prevailed. by the beginning of july, over eight thousand jews had been expelled from kief alone. it was a sultry day towards the end of june. the air was unusually oppressive, the reapers in the fields moved listlessly under the scorching sun, the leaves on the trees were motionless and the birds had ceased their warbling. the jewish quarter was quiet, almost deserted. a pall hung over the dismal homes; there were no children in the streets to stir the air with their merry voices. as men passed each other their greetings were short and formal; they scarcely stopped to bid each other good-day. the entire jewish population was in mourning. hearts were bleeding for some departed soul cut off in the midst of life by the lawless mob, or throbbing with suppressed sorrow at the enforced departure of relatives or friends for the distant shores of america. one by one a number of our old acquaintances and some of their friends entered the dwelling of rabbi winenki, glancing furtively behind them as though in fear of being watched. in the rabbi's house there was some show of festivity, although the attempt was half-hearted and conveyed an impression far from joyous. it was the long anticipated wedding day of kathinka and joseph. all their bright prospects and pleasant anticipations of a professional life at home were at an end. their one desire was to be married before seeking a new existence in america. the guests spoke in subdued voices, as though fearful of exciting the animosity of their gentile neighbors. rabbi mendel, who had but recently risen from a bed of pain, was wan and pale; his tall and stately form had shrunk, his massive head was bowed, his raven locks had become gray. quietly and without ostentation, the good man performed the ceremony according to the jewish rites. the ring was given, the glass broken, the blessings pronounced, and the couple stood hand in hand to receive the congratulations of their assembled friends. smiles and merry laughter gave way to tears and sobs. it was a touching spectacle! the young couple were to remain in kief until the following sunday, and then, with two thousand other unfortunates, to leave the place in which they had lived and loved, prospered and suffered. on the sabbath, the synagogue was crowded; for many of the worshippers it would be the last service they would attend in their native land. tearful and heartfelt were the prayers that ascended to jehovah's throne. the service for the dead was as impressive as scalding tears and broken hearts could make it. mendel ascended the pulpit, that place from which he had so often instructed his people in wisdom and godliness, and with streaming eyes bid the wanderers farewell. he spoke briefly but impressively, concluding by giving them much good advice as to their conduct in their new homes in america. "lead irreproachable lives," he said. "and remember one thing more: stoop not to deceit or to crime. in america, as in russia, every evil act of the individual jew will rebound upon the entire race. if the gentile sins, he alone bears the brunt of the punishment. if a jew transgresses the law of the land, his religion is heralded to the world and the wrong he has committed brings odium upon the entire household of israel. it has been so in the past, it will continue so for generations to come. does not this admonish you to avoid evil, to make your conduct exemplary, and to be models of virtue and righteousness?" while the rabbi was speaking, it seemed as though an angel of comfort and hope had entered the holy place. tears were dried and the unfortunates whose destiny was hurrying them far from all that earth held dear, no longer dreaded the approaching journey. the rest of that memorable sabbath was spent in bidding farewell to friends and relatives. there was grief in every household. we have seen how mordecai winenki perished, a victim of the infuriated mob. his wife, leah, died a short time afterward, broken-hearted at the separation from her life-long companion. hirsch bensef and his wife declared they were too old to brave the rigors of a journey to america, and, though broken in spirit as well as in fortune, they preferred to remain in kief. the rabbi would have gladly accompanied his daughter to the new world, but devotion to duty bound him to his old home. the kiersons accompanied their son and his bride upon their long voyage. the refugees who left kief consisted chiefly of the poorer classes, who, being without means, were assisted by their more fortunate co-religionists to emigrate. there were many sturdy young people among the group, who, like joseph kierson and his wife, hoped for better opportunities than were possible in their own intolerant land. the wealthier classes, those who still had important mercantile interests in russia, as a rule, remained at home, in expectation of a speedy end of the persecutions. on the next day a sad and sorrowful procession moved slowly out of kief. they were accompanied part of the way by grieving friends, and trudged bravely along on foot to brody, on the austrian frontier, where they arrived after many days, foot-sore and weary. a pitiful state of affairs confronted them here. nearly six thousand refugees from russian villages had assembled in brody and were in a completely helpless state. huddled in cellars, stowed away in sheds, in boxes, under lumber, lay the unfortunate people, many of whom but a few weeks before had been rich and prosperous. the travellers from kief did what they could to mitigate the horrible condition of these wretches, but the trouble was of such magnitude that they could do little to relieve it. on to hamburg went our friends, on foot, in wagons, or by rail, as their means warranted; on to hamburg, there to take ship for the haven of their hopes, the free and hospitable shores of america. footnotes: [footnote : for the corroboration of these facts, see the account of the _london times_ special correspondent; also, mr. evarts' speech delivered in chickering hall, new york, in march, .] chapter xxxvii. the land of the free. a letter from kathinka kierson to her father: july , . dear father:--we grieved and rejoiced on the receipt of your last letter: grieved that the jews of russia are still smarting under the lash of persecution, that outbreaks of intolerance still continue; and we rejoice to learn that dear mother has almost entirely recovered her reason. we trust that her cure will be permanent, and that the evening of your life will be as happy as you so richly deserve. it is truly as you so often said: "sorrow is essential in bringing out the best there is in man." as a severe storm in nature purifies the elements and the earth, reviving the plants, clarifying the air, causing the sun to shine more gloriously, so, too, do the storms which beset the soul and wring from it its groans and sighs, purify the spiritual man and place him nearer to the throne of his maker. i cannot but thank the lord, when i contrast our present position with what would have been our lot had we remained in kief. i know we have been favored by a kind providence above many of our fellow-refugees, and we do not forget to thank god for his blessings. after the trials we experienced on coming to america, the desperate struggle with poverty, the difficulties joseph experienced in securing work, the drifting from city to city in hopes of bettering our condition, and the reverses which almost drove us to despair, the sun of prosperity is at length beginning to shine for us. our experience is but another illustration of the adage, that "opportunities come to him who seeks them." it is now nearly a year since a combination of circumstances brought us to chicago. i have already written how joseph obtained employment in a large furniture factory, and by indomitable energy and close attention to business, worked his way up from a simple laborer to be the overseer of the entire works. i now have more good news for you, news which your kind heart will be glad to hear. about six months ago we met an old gentleman, named pesach harretzki, or, as he calls himself, philip harris. he is a large manufacturer of cloth, and had business transactions with the factory in which joseph was employed. when he heard that my husband was from kief, he evinced the liveliest interest and eagerly inquired after the welfare of a man whom he remembered as a boy of fourteen, one mendel winenki. when joseph told him that he had married the daughter of rabbi winenki, mr. harris could scarcely restrain his impatience until he saw me. he called at our home that same evening and whiled away the time with anecdotes of you, dear father. he told us how ambitious you were to study, and that he gave you the first german books you ever possessed. he said that his conscience frequently smote him when he thought of the terrible risk to which he had exposed you in giving you those books. altogether, he is a most agreeable man, and, having known you as a boy, he naturally took a paternal interest in me. one day he made joseph a tempting offer to take a position in his factory. he was getting old, he said, and needed a young assistant upon whom he could rely. joseph at once accepted and entered mr. harris' employ. my husband has a wonderful mind. i would not tell him so to his face, for fear of making him vain, but he is undoubtedly a genius. he had been in his new position scarcely a month before he had so revolutionized and improved upon the hitherto neglected establishment that the business of the house increased materially. yesterday, mr. harris offered to take him into partnership with him, and, as he is getting old and is very wealthy, the probabilities are that he will eventually retire and leave the business entirely in joseph's hands. we are, therefore, on the high road to prosperity. and now, dear father, we have but one desire, namely, to have you with us. leave your onerous duties in kief, take passage in a good vessel for mother and yourself, and spend the remainder of your life with us in contentment and peace. you need not pass your time in idleness. there are many of our countrymen here and your talents will be appreciated in america as well as in kief. joseph unites with me in hoping that you will not decline our invitation. it will interest you to learn that david kierson and his wife are prominent members of the hebrew colony at vineland, new jersey, founded by a number of benevolent jews of philadelphia. they are prospering and happy. both the children are well and send their kisses to you and mother. little mordecai (we call him morris, as it sounds more american) is a very bright little fellow, with more questions in an hour than i can answer in a day. will he ever resemble his grandfather? chapter xxxviii. letter from rabbi mendel winenki to his daughter: kief, august , . i cannot attempt, my dear children, to describe the feelings of joy and gratitude with which i read your letter. god be praised for his love and goodness. i will write to pesach harretzki at once. whatever i am or have been i owe to the inspiration of those two books he gave me. i am sorry to disappoint you, my dear ones, by not accepting your invitation to come to america. i have a great and holy duty to perform in my native land. the misery here is acute, active persecution still continues, the poverty of our people increases every day, and with such misfortunes they would fast fall into mental and moral stupor were there not some one constantly with them to cheer and instruct them. my mission, while difficult, is a glorious one. i have not an idle moment. i must visit the sick, console the bereaved, assist the poor, instruct the ignorant and sympathize with the unfortunate. by my own example i must seek to inculcate such moral lessons as will tend to elevate them above the condition into which their misfortunes might degrade them. to desert my post at such a time would be cowardly. moreover, your mother, while sufficiently well to resume her household duties, is still suffering, is often melancholy and requires constant attention. in the company of her old friends and associates she may entirely recover, but removed to a strange land, among a strange people, she might suffer a relapse. no, believe me, my children, i am happier here than i could be in america. over a thousand of our towns-people will emigrate this week. under the new laws, which deprive us of every right and liberty, these unfortunates find it impossible to live at home and are bound for the promising land of america. should any of them find their way to your city, receive them cordially, for "all israel is one family." in your prosperity forget not those who are less fortunate than you, and give praise to the lord for the blessings he has bestowed upon you. http://www.archive.org/details/ghettocomedies zanguoft +-----------------------------------------------------------+ | transcriber's note: | | | | inconsistent hyphenation and inconsistant spelling in the | | original document have been preserved. this document | | contains yiddish and other dialects. | | | | obvious typographical errors have been corrected. for | | a complete list, please see the end of this document. | | | +-----------------------------------------------------------+ ghetto comedies by israel zangwill * * * * * new s. novels. the expensive miss du cane. by s. macnaughtan. 'to resist the charm of hetty du cane one must be singularly hard to please.'--_spectator._ the lost word. by evelyn underhill. 'she writes vigorously and well, with a clear sense of the beauty of language and a notable power of description.'--_times._ the country house. by john galsworthy. 'it deserves the widest measure of success as a careful study of modern life and an interesting piece of fiction, presented with remarkable literary ability.'--_daily telegraph._ memoirs of a person of quality. by ashton hilliers. 'such a recruit as mr. hilliers is welcome to the ranks of novelists.... he has absorbed the spirit of the times with remarkable ability. mr. hilliers has a fine literary future before him, and we are glad to give his maiden effort a cordial greeting.'--_athenæum._ paul. by e.f. benson. 'a genuinely fine novel; a story marked by powerful workmanship and glowing with the breath of life.'--_daily telegraph._ the swimmers. by e.s. rorison. 'full of crisp dialogue and bright descriptive passages.'--_athenæum._ the trail together. by h.h. bashford. 'very interesting, very well constructed, and admirably written; altogether an excellent piece of work.'--_daily telegraph._ fools rush in. by mary gaunt and j.r. essex. 'a live story, full of the stir and stress of existence on the fringe of civilization, very vividly and interestingly written.'--_sketch._ joseph vance. by william de morgan. 'humorous, thoughtful, pathetic, and thoroughly entertaining.... fresh, original, and unusually clever.'--_athenæum._ moonface, and other stories. by jack london. 'jack london at his best.'--_standard._ love's trilogy. by peter nansen. 'humour the author possesses, and tenderness. sensibility he has, and shrewd sense. the tale "god's peace" shows that he has a soul.'--_evening standard._ london william heinemann, , bedford street. * * * * * [illustration: at last i said "good morning."] ghetto comedies by israel zangwill author of 'the grey wig,' 'dreamers of the ghetto,' 'the master,' 'children of the ghetto,' 'ghetto tragedies,' etc. with illustrations by j.h. amschewitz [illustration] london william heinemann copyright by william heinemann, to my old friend m.d. eder note simultaneously with the publication of these 'ghetto comedies' a fresh edition of my 'ghetto tragedies' is issued, with the original title restored. in the old definition a comedy could be distinguished from a tragedy by its happy ending. dante's hell and purgatory could thus appertain to a 'comedy.' this is a crude conception of the distinction between tragedy and comedy, which i have ventured to disregard, particularly in the last of these otherwise unassuming stories. i.z. shottermill, _april, ._ contents page the model of sorrows anglicization the jewish trinity the sabbath question in sudminster the red mark the bearer of burdens the luftmensch the tug of love the yiddish 'hamlet' the converts holy wedlock elijah's goblet the hirelings samooborona list of illustrations at last i said 'good morning' _frontispiece_ _to face page_ 'i work on--on _shabbos_' 'you compare my wife to a kangaroo!' the jews scattered before him like dogs the model of sorrows the model of sorrows chapter i how i found the model i cannot pretend that my ambition to paint the man of sorrows had any religious inspiration, though i fear my dear old dad at the parsonage at first took it as a sign of awakening grace. and yet, as an artist, i have always been loath to draw a line between the spiritual and the beautiful; for i have ever held that the beautiful has in it the same infinite element as forms the essence of religion. but i cannot explain very intelligibly what i mean, for my brush is the only instrument through which i can speak. and if i am here paradoxically proposing to use my pen to explain what my brush failed to make clear, it is because the criticism with which my picture of the man of sorrows has been assailed drives me to this attempt at verbal elucidation. my picture, let us suppose, is half-articulate; perhaps my pen can manage to say the other half, especially as this other half mainly consists of things told me and things seen. and in the first place, let me explain that the conception of the picture which now hangs in its gilded frame is far from the conception with which i started--was, in fact, the ultimate stage of an evolution--for i began with nothing deeper in my mind than to image a realistic christ, the christ who sat in the synagogue of jerusalem, or walked about the shores of galilee. as a painter in love with the modern, it seemed to me that, despite the innumerable representations of him by the masters of all nations, few, if any, had sought their inspiration in reality. each nation had unconsciously given him its own national type, and though there was a subtle truth in this, for what each nation worshipped was truly the god made over again in its own highest image, this was not the truth after which i was seeking. i started by rejecting the blonde, beardless type which da vinci and others have imposed upon the world, for christ, to begin with, must be a jew. and even when, in the course of my researches for a jewish model, i became aware that there were blonde types, too, these seemed to me essentially teutonic. a characteristic of the oriental face, as i figured it, was a sombre majesty, as of the rabbis of rembrandt, the very antithesis of the ruddy gods of walhalla. the characteristic jewish face must suggest more of the arab than of the goth. i do not know if the lay reader understands how momentous to the artist is his model, how dependent he is on the accident of finding his creation already anticipated, or at least shadowed forth, in nature. to me, as a realist, it was particularly necessary to find in nature the original, without which no artist can ever produce those subtle _nuances_ which give the full sense of life. after which, if i say, that my aim is not to copy, but to interpret and transfigure, i suppose i shall again seem to be self-contradictory. but that, again, must be put down to my fumbling pen-strokes. perhaps i ought to have gone to palestine in search of the ideal model, but then my father's failing health kept me within a brief railway run of the parsonage. besides, i understood that the dispersion of the jews everywhere made it possible to find jewish types anywhere, and especially in london, to which flowed all the streams of the exile. but long days of hunting in the jewish quarter left me despairing. i could find types of all the apostles, but never of the master. running down one week-end to brighton to recuperate, i joined the church parade on the lawns. it was a sunny morning in early november, and i admired the three great even stretches of grass, sea, and sky, making up a picture that was unspoiled even by the stuccoed boarding-houses. the parasols fluttered amid the vast crowd of promenaders like a swarm of brilliant butterflies. i noted with amusement that the church parade was guarded by beadles from the intrusion of the ill-dressed, and the spectacle of over-dressed jews paradoxically partaking in it reminded me of the object of my search. in vain my eye roved among these; their figures were strangely lacking in the dignity and beauty which i had found among the poorest. suddenly i came upon a sight that made my heart leap. there, squatting oddly enough on the pavement-curb of a street opposite the lawns, sat a frowsy, gaberdined jew. vividly set between the tiny green cockle-shell hat on his head and the long uncombed black beard was the face of my desire. the head was bowed towards the earth; it did not even turn towards the gay crowd, as if the mere spectacle was beadle-barred. i was about to accost this strange creature who sat there so immovably, when a venerable royal academician who resides at hove came towards me with hearty hand outstretched, and bore me along in the stream of his conversation and geniality. i looked back yearningly; it was as if the academy was dragging me away from true art. 'i think, if you don't mind, i'll get that old chap's address,' i said. he looked back and shook his head in laughing reproof. 'another study in dirt and ugliness! oh, you youngsters!' my heart grew hot against his smug satisfaction with his own conventional patterns and prettinesses. 'behind that ugliness and dirt i see the christ,' i retorted. 'i certainly did not see him in the church parade.' 'have you gone on the religious lay now?' he asked, with a burst of his bluff laughter. 'no, but i'm going,' i said, and turned back. i stood, pretending to watch the gay parasols, but furtively studying my jew. yes, in that odd figure, so strangely seated on the pavement, i had chanced on the very features, the haunting sadness and mystery of which i had been so long in quest. i wondered at the simplicity with which he was able to maintain a pose so essentially undignified. i told myself i beheld the east squatted broodingly as on a divan, while the west paraded with parasol and prayer-book. i wondered that the beadles were unobservant of him. were they content with his abstention from the holy ground of the church parade, and the less sacred seats on the promenade without, or would they, if their eyes drew towards him, move him on from further profaning those frigidly respectable windows and stuccoed portals? at last i said: 'good-morning.' and he rose hurriedly and began to move away uncomplainingly, as one used to being hounded from everywhere. '_guten morgen_,' i said in german, with a happy inspiration, for in my futile search in london i had found that a corrupt german called yiddish usually proved a means of communication. he paused, as if reassured. '_gut' morgen_,' he murmured; and then i saw that his stature was kingly, like that of the sons of anak, and his manner a strange blend of majesty and humility. 'pardon me,' i went on, in my scrupulously worst german, 'may i ask you a question?' he made a curious movement of acquiescence, compounded of a shrug and a slight uplifting of his palms. 'are you in need of work?' 'and why do you wish to know?' he replied, answering, as i had already found was the jewish way, one question by another. 'i thought i could find you some,' i said. 'have you scrolls of the law for me to write?' he replied incredulously. 'you are not even a jew.' 'still, there may be something,' i replied. 'let us walk along.' i felt that the beadle's eye was at last drawn to us both, and i hurried my model down a side-street. i noticed he hobbled as if footsore. he did not understand what i wanted, but he understood a pound a week, for he was starving, and when i said he must leave brighton for london, he replied, awe-struck: 'it is the finger of god.' for in london were his wife and children. his name was israel quarriar, his country russia. the picture was begun on monday morning. israel quarriar's presence dignified the studio. it was thrilling and stimulating to see his noble figure and tragic face, the head drooped humbly, the beard like a prophet's. 'it is the finger of god,' i, too, murmured, and fell to work, exalted. i worked, for the most part, in rapt silence--perhaps the model's silence was contagious--but gradually through the days i grew to communion with his shy soul, and piecemeal i learnt his sufferings. i give his story, so far as i can, in his own words, which i often paused to take down, when they were characteristic. chapter ii the model's story i came here because russia had grown intolerable to me. all my life, and during the lives of my parents, we quarriars had been innkeepers, and thereby earned our bread. but russia took away our livelihood for herself, and created a monopoly. thus we were left destitute. so what could i do with a large family? of london and america i had long heard as places where they have compassion on foreigners. they are not countries like russia, where truth exists not. secondly, my children also worried me greatly. they are females, all the five, and a female in russia, however beautiful, good and clever she be, if she have no dowry, has to accept any offer of marriage, however uncongenial the man may be. these things conspired to drive me from russia. so i turned everything into money, and realized three hundred and fifty roubles. people had told me that the whole journey to london should cost us two hundred roubles, so i concluded i should have one hundred and fifty roubles with which to begin life in the new country. it was very bitter to me to leave my fatherland, but as the moujik says: 'necessity brings everything.' so we parted from our friends with many tears: little had we thought we should be so broken up in our old age. but what else could i do in such a wretched country? as the moujik says: 'if the goat doesn't want to go to market it is compelled to go.' so i started for london. we travelled to isota on the austrian frontier. as we sat at the railway-station there, wondering how we were going to smuggle ourselves across the frontier, in came a benevolent-looking jew with a long venerable beard, two very long ear-locks, and a girdle round his waist, washed his hands ostentatiously at the station tap, prayed aloud the _asher yotzer_ with great fervour, and on finishing his prayer looked everyone expectantly in the eyes, and all responded 'amen.' then he drew up his coat-sleeve with great deliberation, extended his hand, gave me an effusive '_shalom aleichem_' and asked me how it went with me. soon he began to talk about the frontier. said he: 'as you see me, an _ish kosher_ (a ritually correct man), i will do you a kindness, not for money, but for the sake of the _mitzvah_ (good deed).' i began to smell a rat, and thought to myself, how comes it that you know i want the frontier? your kindness is suspicious, for, as the moujik says: 'the devil has guests.' but if we need the thief, we cut him down even from the gallows. such a necessary rascal proved elzas kazelia. i asked him how much he wanted to smuggle me across. he answered thus: 'i see that you are a clever respectable man, so look upon my beard and ear-locks, and you will understand that you will receive fair treatment from me. i want to earn a _mitzvah_ (good deed) and a little money thereby.' then he cautioned me not to leave the station and go out into the street, because in the street were to be found jews without beards, who would inform on me and give me up to the police. 'the world does not contain a sea of kazelias,' said he. (would that it did not contain even that one!) then he continued: 'shake out your money on the table, and we will see how much you have, and i will change it for you.' 'oh,' said i, 'i want first to find out the rate of exchange.' when kazelia heard this, he gave a great spring and shrieked '_hoi, hoi!_ on account of jews like you, the _messhiach_ (messiah) can't come, and the redemption of israel is delayed. if you go out into the street, you will find a jew without a beard, who will charge you more, and even take all your money away. i swear to you, as i should wish to see messhiach ben david, that i want to earn no money. i only desire your good, and so to lay up a little _mitzvah_ in heaven.' thereupon i changed my money with him. afterwards i found that he had swindled me to the extent of fifteen roubles. elzas kazelia is like to the russian forest robber, who waylays even the peasant. we began to talk further about the frontier. he wanted eighty roubles, and swore by his _kosher yiddishkeit_ (ritually pure judaism) that the affair would cost him seventy-five. thereupon i became sorely troubled, because i had understood it would only cost us twenty roubles for all of us, and so i told him. said he: 'if you seek others with short beards, they will take twice as much from you.' but i went out into the street to seek a second murderer. the second promised to do it cheaper, said that kazelia was a robber, and promised to meet me at the railway station. immediately i left, elzas kazelia, the _kosher_ jew, went to the police, and informed them that i and my family were running away from russia, and were going to london; and we were at once arrested, and thrown bag and baggage into a filthy cell, lighted only by an iron grating in the door. no food or drink was allowed us, as though we were the greatest criminals. such is russian humanity, to starve innocent people. the little provender we had in a bag scarcely kept us from fainting with hunger. on the second day kazelia sent two jews with beards. suddenly i heard the door unlock, and they appeared saying: 'we have come to do you a favour, but not for nothing. if your life and the lives of your family are dear to you, we advise you to give the police seventy roubles, and we want ten roubles for our kindness, and you must employ kazelia to take you over the frontier for eighty roubles, otherwise the police will not be bribed. if you refuse, you are lost.' well, how could i answer? how could one give away the last kopeck and arrive penniless in a strange land? every rouble taken from us was like a piece of our life. so my people and i began to weep and to beg for pity. 'have compassion,' we cried. answered they: 'in a frontier town compassion dwells not. give money. that will bring compassion.' and they slammed the door, and we were locked in once more. tears and cries helped nothing. my children wept agonizedly. oh, truth, truth! russia, russia! how scurvily you handle the guiltless! for an enlightened land to be thus! 'father, father,' the children said, 'give away everything so that we die not in this cell of fear and hunger.' but even had i wished, i could do nothing from behind barred doors. our shouting was useless. at last i attracted a warder who was watching in the corridor. 'bring me a jew,' i cried; 'i wish to tell him of our plight.' and he answered: 'hold your peace if you don't want your teeth knocked out. recognise that you are a prisoner. you know well what is required of you.' yes, i thought, my money or my life. on the third day our sufferings became almost insupportable, and the russian cold seized on our bodies, and our strength began to fail. we looked upon the cell as our tomb, and on kazelia as the angel of death. here, it seemed, we were to die of hunger. we lost hope of seeing the sun. for well we know russia. who seeks truth finds death more easily. as the russian proverb says, 'if you want to know truth, you will know death.' at length the warder seemed to take pity on our cries, and brought again the two jews. 'for the last time we tell you. give us money, and we will do you a kindness. we have been seized with compassion for your family.' so i said no more, but gave them all they asked, and elzas kazelia came and said to me rebukingly: 'it is a characteristic of the jew never to part with his money unless chastised.' i said to elzas kazelia: 'i thought you were an honourable, pious jew. how could you treat a poor family so?' he answered me: 'an honourable, pious jew must also make a little money.' thereupon he conducted us from the prison, and sent for a conveyance. no sooner had we seated ourselves than he demanded six roubles. well, what could i do? i had fallen among thieves, and must part with my money. we drove to a small room, and remained there two hours, for which we had to pay three roubles, as the preparations for our crossing were apparently incomplete. when we finally got to the frontier--in this case a shallow river--they warned us not even to sneeze, for if the soldiers heard we should be shot without more ado. i had to strip in order to wade through the water, and several men carried over my family. my two bundles, with all my belongings, consisting of clothes and household treasures, remained, however, on the russian side. suddenly a wild disorder arose. 'the soldiers! the soldiers! hide! hide! in the bushes! in the bushes!' when all was still again--though no soldiers became visible--the men went back for the baggage, but brought back only one bundle. the other, worth over a hundred roubles, had disappeared. wailing helped nothing. kazelia said: 'hold your peace. here, too, dangers lurk.' i understood the game, but felt completely helpless in his hands. he drove us to his house, and our remaining bundle was deposited there. later, when i walked into the town, i went to the rabbi and complained. said he: 'what can i do with such murderers? you must reconcile yourself to the loss.' i went back to my family at kazelia's house, and he cautioned me against going into the street. on my way i had met a man who said he would charge twenty-eight roubles each for our journey to london. so kazelia was evidently afraid i might yet fall into honester hands. then we began to talk with him of london, for it is better to deal with the devil you know than the devil you don't know. said he: 'it will cost you thirty-three roubles each.' i said: 'i have had an offer of twenty-eight roubles, but you i will give thirty.' '_hoi, hoi!_' shrieked he. 'on a jew a lesson is lost. it is just as at the frontier: you wouldn't give eighty roubles, and it cost you double. you want the same again. one daren't do a jew a favour.' so i held my peace, and accepted his terms. but i saw i should be twenty-five roubles short of what was required to finish the journey. said kazelia: 'i can do you a favour: i can borrow twenty-five roubles on your luggage at the railway, and when you get to london you can repay.' and he took the bundle, and conveyed it to the railway. what he did there i know not. he came back, and told me he had done me a turn. (this time it seemed a good one.) he then took envelopes, and placed in each the amount i was to pay at each stage of the journey. so at last we took train and rode off. and at each place i paid the dues from its particular envelope. the children were offered food by our fellow-passengers, though they could only take it when it was _kosher_, and this enabled us to keep our pride. there was one kind jewess from lemberg with a heart of gold and delicious rings of sausages. when we arrived at leipsic they told me the amount was twelve marks short. so we missed our train, not knowing what to do, as i had now no money whatever but what was in the envelopes. the officials ordered us from the station. so we went out and walked about leipsic; we attracted the suspicion of the police, and they wanted to arrest us. but we pleaded our innocence, and they let us go. so we retired into a narrow dark street, and sat down by a blank wall, and told each other not to murmur. we sat together through the whole rainy night, the rain mingling with our tears. when day broke i thought of a plan. i took twelve marks from the envelope containing the ship's money, and ran back to the station, and took tickets to rotterdam, and so got to the end of our overland journey. when we got to the ship, they led us all into a shed like cattle. one of the kazelia conspirators--for his arm reaches over europe--called us into his office, and said: 'how much money have you?' i shook out the money from the envelopes on the table. said he: 'the amount is twelve marks short.' he had had advices, he said, from kazelia that i would bring a certain amount, and i didn't have it. 'here you can stay to-night. to-morrow you go back.' so he played on my ignorance, for i was paying at every stage in excess of the legal fares. but i knew not what powers he had. every official was a possible disaster. we hardly lived till the day. then i began to beg him to take my _tallis_ and _tephillin_ (praying-shawl and phylacteries) for the twelve marks. said he: 'i have no use for them; you _must_ go back.' with difficulty i got his permission to go out into the town, and i took my _tallis_ and _tephillin_, and went into a _shool_ (synagogue), and i begged someone to buy them. but a good man came up, and would not permit the sale. he took out twelve marks and gave them to me. i begged him to give me his address that i might be able to repay him. said he: 'i desire neither thanks nor money.' thus was i able to replace the amount lacking. we embarked without a bit of bread or a farthing in money. we arrived in london at nine o'clock in the morning, penniless and without luggage, whereas i had calculated to have at least one hundred and fifty roubles and my household stuff. i had a friend's address, and we all went to look for him, but found that he had left london for america. we walked about all day till eight o'clock at night. the children could scarcely drag along from hunger and weariness. at last we sat down on the steps of a house in wellclose square. i looked about, and saw a building which i took to be a _shool_ (synagogue), as there were hebrew posters stuck outside. i approached it. an old jew with a long grey beard came to meet me, and began to speak with me. i understood soon what sort of a person he was, and turned away. this _meshummad_ (converted jew) persisted, tempting me sorely with offers of food and drink for the family, and further help. i said: 'i want nothing of you, nor do i desire your acquaintance.' 'i went back to my family. the children sat crying for food. they attracted the attention of a man, baruch zezangski ( , ship alley), and he went away, returning with bread and fish. when the children saw this, they rejoiced exceedingly, and seized the man's hand to kiss it. meanwhile darkness fell, and there was nowhere to pass the night. so i begged the man to find me a lodging for the night. he led us to a cellar in ship alley. it was pitch black. they say there is a hell. this may or may not be, but more of a hell than the night we passed in this cellar one does not require. every vile thing in the world seemed to have taken up its abode therein. we sat the whole night sweeping the vermin from us. after a year of horror--as it seemed--came the dawn. in the morning entered the landlord, and demanded a shilling. i had not a farthing, but i had a leather bag which i gave him for the night's lodging. i begged him to let me a room in the house. so he let me a small back room upstairs, the size of a table, at three and sixpence a week. he relied on our collecting his rent from the kind-hearted. we entered the empty room with joy, and sat down on the floor. we remained the whole day without bread. the children managed to get a crust now and again from other lodgers, but all day long they cried for food, and at night they cried because they had nothing to sleep on. i asked our landlord if he knew of any work we could do. he said he would see what could be done. next day he went out, and returned with a heap of linen to be washed. the family set to work at once, but i am sure my wife washed the things less with water than with tears. oh, kazelia! we washed the whole week, the landlord each day bringing bread and washing. at the end of the week he said: 'you have worked out your rent, and have nothing to pay.' i should think not indeed! my eldest daughter was fortunate enough to get a place at a tailor's for four shillings a week, and the others sought washing and scrubbing. so each day we had bread, and at the end of the week rent. bread and water alone formed our sustenance. but we were very grateful all the same. when the holidays came on, my daughter fell out of work. i heard a word 'slack.' i inquired, 'what is the meaning of the word "slack"?' then my daughter told me that it means _schlecht_ (bad). there is nothing to be earned. now, what should i do? i had no means of living. the children cried for bread and something to sleep on. still we lived somehow till _rosh hashanah_ (new year), hoping it would indeed be a new year. it was _erev yomtov_ (the day before the holiday), and no washing was to be had. we struggled as before death. the landlord of the house came in. he said to me: 'aren't you ashamed? can't you see your children have scarcely strength to live? why have you not compassion on your little ones? go to the charity board. there you will receive help.' believe me, i would rather have died. but the little ones were starving, and their cries wrung me. so i went to a charity board. i said, weeping: 'my children are perishing for a morsel of bread. i can no longer look upon their sufferings.' and the board answered: 'after _yomtov_ we will send you back to russia.' 'but meanwhile,' i answered, 'the children want food.' whereupon one of the board struck a bell, and in came a stalwart angel of death, who seized me by the arm so that it ached all day, and thrust me through the door. i went out, my eyes blinded with tears, so that i could not see where i went. it was long before i found my way back to ship alley. my wife and daughters already thought i had drowned myself for trouble. such was our plight the eve of the day of atonement, and not a morsel of bread to 'take in' the fast with! but just at the worst a woman from next door came in, and engaged one of my daughters to look after a little child during the fast (while she was in the synagogue) at a wage of tenpence, paid in advance. with joy we expended it all on bread, and then we prayed that the day of atonement should endure long, so that we could fast long, and have no need to buy food; for as the moujik says, 'if one had no mouth, one could wear a golden coat.' i went to the jews' free school, which was turned into a synagogue, and passed the whole day in tearful supplication. when i came home at night my wife sat and wept. i asked her why she wept. she answered: 'why have you led me to such a land, where even prayer costs money--at least, for women? the whole day i went from one _shool_ to another, but they would not let me in. at last i went to the _shool_ of the "sons of the soul," where pray the pious jews, with beards and ear-locks, and even there i was not allowed in. the heathen policeman begged for me, and said to them: "shame on you not to let the poor woman in." the _gabbai_ (treasurer) answered: "if one hasn't money, one sits at home."' and my wife said to him, weeping: 'my tears be on your head,' and went home, and remained home the whole day weeping. with a woman _yom kippur_ is a wonder-working day. she thought that her prayers might be heard, that god would consider her plight if she wept out her heart to him in the _shool_. but she was frustrated, and this was perhaps the greatest blow of all to her. moreover, she was oppressed by her own brethren, and this was indeed bitter. if it had been the gentile, she would have consoled herself with the thought, 'we are in exile.' when the fast was over, we had nothing but a little bread left to break our fast on, or to prepare for the next day's fast. nevertheless we sorrowfully slept. but the wretched day came again, and the elder children went out into the street to seek _parnosoh_ (employment), and found scrubbing, that brought in nine-pence. we bought bread, and continued to live further. likewise we obtained three shillings worth of washing to do, and were as rich as rothschild. when _succoth_ (tabernacles) came, again no money, no bread, and i went about the streets the whole day to seek for work. when i was asked what handicraftsman i was, of course i had to say i had no trade, for, foolishly enough, among the jews in my part of russia a trade is held in contempt, and when they wish to hold one up to scorn, they say to him: 'anybody can see you are a descendant of a handicraftsman.' i could write holy scrolls, indeed, and keep an inn, but what availed these accomplishments? as i found i could obtain no work, i went into the _shool_ of the 'sons of the soul.' i seated myself next a man, and we began to speak. i told him of my plight. said he: 'i will give you advice. call on our rabbi. he is a very fine man.' i did so. as i entered, he sat in company with another man, holding his _lulov_ and _esrog_ (palm and citron). 'what do you want?' i couldn't answer him, my heart was so oppressed, but suddenly my tears gushed forth. it seemed to me help was at hand. i felt assured of sympathy, if of nothing else. i told him we were perishing for want of bread, and asked him to give me advice. he answered nothing. he turned to the man, and spoke concerning the tabernacle and the citron. he took no further notice of me, but left me standing. so i understood he was no better than elzas kazelia. and this is a rabbi! as i saw i might as well have talked to the wall, i left the room without a word from him. as the moujik would say: 'sad and bitter is the poor man's lot. it is better to lie in the dark tomb and not to see the sunlit world than to be a poor man and be compelled to beg for money.' i came home, where my family was waiting patiently for my return with bread. i said: 'good _yomtov_,' weeping, for they looked scarcely alive, having been without a morsel of food that day. so we tried to sleep, but hunger would not permit it, but demanded his due. 'hunger, you old fool, why don't you let us sleep?' but he refused to be talked over. so we passed the night. when day came the little children began to cry: 'father, let us go. we will beg bread in the streets. we die of hunger. don't hold us back.' when the mother heard them speak of begging in the streets, she swooned, whereupon arose a great clamour among the children. when at length we brought her to, she reproached us bitterly for restoring her to life. 'i would rather have died than hear you speak of begging in the streets--rather see my children die of hunger before my eyes.' this speech of the mother caused them to forget their hunger, and they sat and wept together. on hearing the weeping, a man from next door, gershon katcol, came in to see what was the matter. he looked around, and his heart went out to us. so he went away, and returned speedily with bread and fish and tea and sugar, and went away again, returning with five shillings. he said: 'this i lend you.' later he came back with a man, nathan beck, who inquired into our story, and took away the three little ones to stay with him. afterwards, when i called to see them in his house in st. george's road, they hid themselves from me, being afraid i should want them to return to endure again the pangs of hunger. it was bitter to think that a stranger should have the care of my children, and that they should shun me as one shuns a forest-robber. after _yomtov_ i went to grunbach, the shipping agent, to see whether my luggage had arrived, as i had understood from kazelia that it would get here in a month's time. i showed my pawn-ticket, and inquired concerning it. said he: 'your luggage won't come to london, only to rotterdam. if you like, i will write a letter to inquire if it is at rotterdam, and how much money is due to redeem it.' i told him i had borrowed twenty-five roubles on it. whereupon he calculated that it would cost me £ s., including freight to redeem it. but i told him to write and ask. some days later a letter came from rotterdam stating the cost at eighty-three roubles (£ s.), irrespective of freight dues. when i heard this, i was astounded, and i immediately wrote to kazelia: 'why do you behave like a forest-robber, giving me only twenty-five roubles where you got eighty-three?' answered he: 'shame on you to write such a letter! haven't you been in my house, and seen what an honourable jew i am? shame on you! to such men as you one can't do a favour. do you think there are a sea of kazelias in the world? you are all thick-headed. you can't read a letter. i only took fifty-four roubles on the luggage; i had to recoup myself because i lost money through sending you to london. i calculated my loss, and only took what was due to me.' i showed the letter to grunbach, and he wrote again to rotterdam, and they answered that they knew nothing of a kazelia. i must pay the £ s. if i wanted my bundle. well, what was to be done? the weather grew colder. hunger we had become inured to. but how could we pass the winter nights on the bare boards? i wrote again to kazelia, but received no answer whatever. day and night i went about asking advice concerning the luggage. nobody could help me. and as i stood thus in the middle of the sea, word came to me of a _landsmann_ (countryman) i had once helped to escape from the russian army, in the days when i was happy and had still my inn. they said he had a great business in jewellery on a great highroad in front of the sea in a great town called brighton. so i started off at once to talk to him--two days' journey, they said--for i knew he would help; and if not he, who? i would come to him as his sabbath guest; he would surely fall upon my neck. the first night i slept in a barn with another tramp, who pointed me the way; but because i stopped to earn sixpence by chopping wood, lo! when sabbath came i was still twelve miles away, and durst not profane the sabbath by walking. so i lingered that friday night in a village, thanking god i had at least the money for a bed, though it was sinful even to touch my money. and all next day, i know not why, the street-boys called me a _goy_ (heathen) and a fox--'goy-fox, goy-fox!'--and they let off fireworks in my face. so i had to wander in the woods around, keeping within the sabbath radius, and when the three stars appeared in the sky i started for brighton. but so footsore was i, i came there only at midnight, and could not search. and i sat down on a bench; it was very cold, but i was so tired. but the policeman came and drove me away--he was god's messenger, for i should perchance have died--and a drunken female with a painted face told him to let me be, and gave me a shilling. how could i refuse? i slept again in a bed. and on the sunday morning i started out, and walked all down in front of the sea; but my heart grew sick, for i saw the shops were shut. at last i saw a jewellery shop and my _landsmann's_ name over it. it sparkled with gold and diamonds, and little bills were spread over it--'great sale! great sale!' then i went joyfully to the door, but lo! it was bolted. so i knocked and knocked, and at last a woman came from above, and told me he lived in that road in hove, where i found indeed my redeemer, but not my _landsmann_. it was a great house, with steps up and steps down. i went down to a great door, and there came out a beautiful heathen female with a shining white cap on her head and a shining white apron, and she drove me away. 'goy-fox was yesterday,' she shouted with wrath and slammed the door on my heart; and i sat down on the pavement without, and i became a pillar of salt, all frozen tears. but when i looked up, i saw the angel of the lord. chapter iii the picture evolves such was my model's simple narrative, the homely realism of which appealed to me on my most imaginative side, for through all its sordid details stood revealed to me the tragedy of the wandering jew. was it heine or another who said 'the people of christ is the christ of peoples'? at any rate, such was the idea that began to take possession of me as i painted away at the sorrow-haunted face of my much-tried model--to paint, not the christ that i had started out to paint, but the christ incarnated in a race, suffering--and who knew that he did not suffer over again?--in its passion. yes, israel quarriar could still be my model, but after another conception altogether. it was an idea that called for no change in what i had already done. for i had worked mainly upon the head, and now that i purposed to clothe the figure in its native gaberdine, there would be little to re-draw. and so i fell to work with renewed intensity, feeling even safer now that i was painting and interpreting a real thing than when i was trying to reconstruct retrospectively the sacred figure that had walked in galilee. and no sooner had i fallen to work on this new conception than i found everywhere how old it was. it appeared even to have scriptural warrant, for from a brief report of a historical-theological lecture by a protestant german professor i gleaned that many of the passages in the prophets which had been interpreted as pointing to a coming messiah, really applied to israel, the people. israel it was whom isaiah, in that famous fifty-third chapter, had described as 'despised and rejected of men: a man of sorrows.' israel it was who bore the sins of the world. 'he was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter.' yes, israel was the man of sorrows. and in this view the german professor, i found, was only re-echoing rabbinic opinion. my model proved a mine of lore upon this as upon so many other points. even the jewish expectation of the messiah, he had never shared, he said--that the _messhiach_ would come riding upon a white ass. israel would be redeemed by itself, though his neighbours would have called the sentiment 'epicurean.' 'whoever saves me is my _messhiach_,' he declared suddenly, and plucked at my hand to kiss it. 'now, you shock _me_,' i said, pushing him away. 'no, no,' he said; 'i agree with the word of the moujik: "the good people _are_ god."' 'then i suppose you are what is called a zionist,' i said. 'yes,' he replied; 'now that you have saved me, i see that god works only through men. as for the _messhiach_ on the white ass, they do not really believe it, but they won't let another believe otherwise. for my own part, when i say the prayer, "blessed be thou who restorest the dead to life," i always mean it of _you_.' such oriental hyperbolic gratitude would have satisfied the greediest benefactor, and was infinitely in excess of what he owed me. he seemed unconscious that he was doing work, journeying punctually long miles to my studio in any and every weather. it is true that i early helped him to redeem his household gods, but could i do less for a man who had still no bed to sleep in? my recovery of the rotterdam bundle served to unveil further complications. the agents at the east end charged him three shillings and sixpence per letter, and conducted the business with a fine legal delay. but it was not till kazelia was eulogized by one of these gentry as a very fine man that both the model and i grew suspicious that the long chain of roguery reached even unto london, and that the confederates on this side were playing for time, so that the option should expire, and the railway sell the unredeemed luggage, which they would doubtless buy in cheap, making another profit. ultimately quarriar told me his second daughter--for the eldest was blind of one eye--was prepared to journey alone to rotterdam, as the safest way of redeeming the goods. admiring her pluck, i added her fare to the expenses. one fine morning israel appeared, transfigured with happiness. 'when does man rejoice most?' he cried. 'when he loses and finds again.' 'ah, then you have got your bedding at last,' i cried, now accustomed to his methods of expression. 'i hope you slept well.' 'we could not sleep for blessing you,' he replied unexpectedly. 'as the psalmist says, "all my bones praise the lord!"' not that the matter had gone smoothly even now. the kazelia gang at rotterdam denied all knowledge of the luggage, sent the girl to the railway, where the dues had now mounted to £ s. again the cup was dashed from her lips, for i had only given her £ . but she went to the rabbi, and offered if he supplied the balance to repledge the sabbath silver candlesticks that were the one family heirloom in the bundle, and therewith repay him instantly. while she was pleading with him, in came a noble jew, paid the balance, lodged her and fed her, and saw her safely on board with the long-lost treasures. chapter iv i become a sorter as the weeks went by, my satisfaction with the progress i was making was largely tempered by the knowledge that after the completion of my picture my model would be thrown again on the pavement, and several times i fancied i detected him gazing at it sadly as if watching its advancing stages with a sort of hopeless fear. my anxiety about him and his family grew from day to day, but i could not see any possible way of helping him. he was touchingly faithful, anxious to please, and uncomplaining either of cold or hunger. once i gave him a few shillings to purchase a second-hand pair of top-boots, which were necessary for the picture, and these he was able to procure in the ghetto sunday market for a minute sum, and he conscientiously returned me the balance--about two-thirds. i happened to have sold an english landscape to sir asher aaronsberg, the famous philanthropist and picture-buyer of middleton, then up in town in connection with his parliamentary duties, and knowing how indefatigably he was in touch with the london jewish charities, i inquired whether some committee could not do anything to assist quarriar. sir asher was not very encouraging. the man knew no trade. however, if he would make application on the form enclosed and answer the questions, he would see what could be done. i saw that the details were duly filled in--the ages and sex of his five children, etc. but the committee came to the conclusion that the only thing they could do was to repatriate the man. 'return to russia!' cried israel in horror. occasionally i inquired if any plan for the future had occurred to him. but he never raised the subject of his difficulties of his own accord, and his very silence, born, as it seemed to me, of the majestic dignity of the man, was infinitely pathetic. now and again came a fitful gleam of light. his second daughter would be given a week's work for a few shillings by his landlord, a working master-tailor in a small way, from whom he now rented two tiny rooms on the top floor. but that was only when there was an extra spasm of activity. his half-blind daughter would do a little washing, and the landlord would allow her the use of the backyard. at last one day i found he had an idea, and an idea, moreover, that was carefully worked out in all its details. the scheme was certainly a novel and surprising one to me, but it showed how the art of forcing a livelihood amid impossible circumstances had been cultivated among these people, forced for centuries to exist under impossible conditions. briefly his scheme was this. in the innumerable tailors' workshops of his district great piles of cuttings of every kind and quality of cloth accumulated, and for the purchase of these cuttings a certain competition existed among a class of people, known as piece-sorters. the sale of these cuttings by weight and for cash brought the master-tailors a pleasant little revenue, which was the more prized as it was a sort of perquisite. the masters were able to command payment for their cuttings in advance, and the sorter would call to collect them week by week as they accumulated, till the amount he had advanced was exhausted. quarriar would set up as a piece-sorter, and thus be able to employ his daughters too. the whole family would find occupation in sorting out their purchases, and each quality and size would be readily saleable as raw material, to be woven again into the cheaper woollen materials. through the recommendation of his countrymen, there were several tailors who had readily agreed to give him the preference. his own landlord in particular had promised to befriend him, and even now was allowing his cuttings to accumulate at some inconvenience, since he might have had ready money for them. moreover, his friends had introduced him to a very respectable and honest sorter, who would take him into partnership, teach him, and allow his daughters to partake in the sorting, if he could put down twenty pounds! his friends would jointly advance him eight on the security of his silver candlesticks, if only he could raise the other twelve. this promising scheme took an incubus off my mind, and i hastened, somewhat revengefully, to acquaint the professional philanthropist, who had been so barren of ideas, with my intention to set up quarriar as a piece-sorter. 'ah,' sir asher replied, unmoved. 'then you had better employ my man conn; he does a good deal of this sort of work for me. he will find quarriar a partner and professor.' 'but quarriar has already found a partner.' i explained the scheme. 'the partner will cheat him. twenty pounds is ridiculous. five pounds is quite enough. take my advice, and let it all go through conn. if i wanted my portrait painted, you wouldn't advise me to go to an amateur. by the way, here are the five pounds, but please don't tell conn i gave them. i don't believe the money'll do any good, and conn will lose his respect for me.' my interest in piece-sorting--an occupation i had never even heard of before--had grown abnormally, and i had gone into the figures and quantities--so many hundredweights, purchased at fifteen shillings, sorted into lots, and sold at various prices--with as thorough-going an eagerness as if my own livelihood were to depend upon it. i confess i was now rather bewildered by so serious a difference of estimate as to the cost of a partnership, but i was inclined to set down sir asher's scepticism to that pessimism which is the penalty of professional philanthropy. on the other hand, i felt that whether the partnership was to cost five pounds or twenty, quarriar's future would be safer from kazelias under the auspices of sir asher and his conn. so i handed the latter the five pounds, and bade him find quarriar a guide, philosopher, and partner. with the advent of conn, all my troubles began, and the picture passed into its third and last stage. i soon elicited that quarriar and his friends were rather sorry conn had been introduced into the matter. he was alleged to favour some people at the expense of others, and to be not at all popular among the people amid whom he worked. and altogether it was abundantly clear that quarriar would rather have gone on with the scheme in his own way without official interference. later, sir asher wrote to me direct that the partner put forward by the quarriar faction was a shady customer; conn had selected his own man, but even so there was little hope quarriar's future would be thus provided for. there seemed, moreover, a note of suspicion of quarriar sounding underneath, but i found comfort in the reflection that to sir asher my model was nothing more than the usual applicant for assistance, whereas to me who had lived for months in daily contact with him he was something infinitely more human. spring was now nearing; i finished my picture early in march--after four months' strenuous labour--shook hands with my model, and received his blessing. i was somewhat put out at learning that conn had not yet given him the five pounds necessary to start him, as i had been hoping he might begin his new calling immediately the sittings ended. i gave him a small present to help tide over the time of waiting. but that tragic face on my own canvas remained to haunt me, to ask the question of his future, and few days elapsed ere i found myself starting out to visit him at his home. he lived near ratcliffe highway, a district which i found had none of that boisterous marine romance with which i had associated it. the house was a narrow building of at least the sixteenth century, with the number marked up in chalk on the rusty little door. i happened to have stumbled on the jewish passover. quarriar was called down, evidently astonished and unprepared for my appearance at his humble abode, but he expressed pleasure, and led me up the narrow, steep stairway, whose ceiling almost touched my head as i climbed up after him. on the first floor the landlord, in festal raiment, intercepted us, introduced himself in english (which he spoke with pretentious inaccuracy), and, barring my further ascent, took possession of me, and led the way to his best parlour, as if it were entirely unbecoming for his tenant to receive a gentleman in his attic. he was a strapping young fellow, full of acuteness and vigour--a marked contrast to quarriar's drooping, dignified figure standing silently near by, and radiating poverty and suffering all the more in the little old panelled room, elegant with a big carved walnut cabinet, and gay with chromos and stuffed birds. effusively the master-tailor painted himself as the champion of the poor fellow, and protested against this outside partnership that was being imposed on him by the notorious conn. he himself, though he could scarcely afford it, was keeping his cuttings for him, in spite of tempting offers from other quarters, even of a shilling a sack. but of course he didn't see why an outsider foisted upon him by a philanthropic factotum should benefit by this goodness of his. he discoursed to me in moved terms of the sorrows and privations of his tenants in their two tiny rooms upstairs. and all the while quarriar preserved his attitude of drooping dignity, saying no syllable except under special appeal. the landlord produced a goblet of rum and shrub for the benefit of the high-born visitor, and we all clinked glasses, the young master-tailor beaming at me unctuously as he set down his glass. 'i love company,' he cried, with no apparent consciousness of impudent familiarity. i returned, however, to my central interest in life--the piece-sorting. it occurred to me afterwards that possibly i ought not to have insisted on such a secular subject on a jewish holiday, but, after all, the landlord had broached it, and both men now entered most cordially into the discussion. the landlord started repeating his lament--what a pity it would be if quarriar were really forced to accept conn's partner--when quarriar timidly blurted out that he had already signed the deed of partnership, though he had not yet received the promised capital from conn, nor spoken over matters with the partner provided. the landlord seemed astonished and angry at learning this, pricking up his ears curiously at the word 'signed,' and giving quarriar a look of horror. 'signed!' he cried in yiddish. '_what_ hast thou signed?' at this point the landlord's wife joined us in the parlour, with a pretty child in her arms and another shy one clinging to her skirts, completing the picture of felicity and prosperity, and throwing into greater shadow the attic to which i shortly afterwards climbed my way up the steep, airless stairs. i was hardly prepared for the depressing spectacle that awaited me at their summit. it was not so much the shabby, fusty rooms, devoid of everything save a couple of mattresses, a rickety wooden table, a chair or two, and a heap of passover cakes, as the unloveliness of the three women who stood there, awkward and flushing before their important visitor. the wife-and-mother was dwarfed and black-wigged, the daughters were squat, with tallow-coloured round faces, vaguely suggestive of caucasian peasants, while the sightless eye of the elder lent a final touch of ugliness. how little my academic friends know me who imagine i am allured by the ugly! it is only that sometimes i see through it a beauty that they are blind to. but here i confess i saw nothing but the ghastly misery and squalor, and i was oppressed almost to sickness as much by the scene as by the atmosphere. 'may i open a window?' i could not help inquiring. the genial landlord, who had followed in my footsteps, rushed to anticipate me, and when i could breathe more freely, i found something of the tragedy that had been swallowed in the sordidness. my eye fell again on the figure of my host standing in his drooping majesty, the droop being now necessary to avoid striking the ceiling with his kingly head. surely a pretty wife and graceful daughters would have detracted from the splendour of the tragedy. israel stood there, surrounded by all that was mean, yet losing nothing of his regal dignity--indeed the man of sorrows. * * * * * ere i left i suddenly remembered to ask after the three younger children. they were still with their kind benefactor, the father told me. 'i suppose you will resume possession of them when you make your fortune by the piece-sorting?' i said. 'god grant it,' he replied. 'my bowels yearn for that day.' against my intention i slipped into his hand the final seven pounds i was prepared to pay. 'if your partnership scheme fails, try again alone,' i said. his blessings pursued me down the steep staircase. his womankind remained shy and dumb. when i got home i found a telegram from the parsonage. my father was dangerously ill. i left everything and hastened to help nurse him. my picture was not sent in to any exhibition--i could not let it go without seeing it again, without a last touch or two. when, some months later, i returned to town, my first thought--inspired by the sight of my picture--was how quarriar was faring. i left the studio and telephoned to sir asher aaronsberg at the london office of his great middleton business. 'that!' his contempt penetrated even through the wires. 'smashed up long ago. just as i expected.' and the sneer of the professional philanthropist vibrated triumphantly. i was much upset, but ere i could recover my composure sir asher was cut off. in the evening i received a note saying quarriar was a rogue, who had to flee from russia for illicit sale of spirits. he had only two, at most three, elderly daughters; the three younger girls were a myth. for a moment i was staggered; then all my faith in israel returned. those three children a figment of the imagination! impossible! why, i remembered countless little anecdotes about these very children, told me with the most evident fatherly pride. he had even repeated the quaint remarks the youngest had made on her return home from her first morning at the english school. impossible that these things could have been invented on the spur of the moment. no; i could not possibly doubt the genuineness of my model's spontaneous talk, especially as in those days he had had no reason for expecting anything from me, and he had most certainly not demanded anything. and then i remembered that tragic passage describing how these three little ones, sheltered and fed by a kindly soul, hid themselves when their father came to see them, fearing to be reclaimed by him to hunger and cold. if quarriar could invent such things, he was indeed a poet, for in the whole literature of starvation i could recall no better touch. i went to sir asher. he said that quarriar, challenged by conn to produce these children, had refused to do so, or to answer any further questions. i found myself approving of his conduct. 'a man ought not to be insulted by such absurd charges,' i said. sir asher merely smiled and took up his usual unshakable position behind his impregnable wall of official distrust and pessimism. i wrote to quarriar to call on me without delay. he came immediately, his head bowed, his features care-worn and full of infinite suffering. yes, it was true; the piece-sorting had failed. for a few weeks all had gone well. he had bought cuttings himself, had given the partner thrust upon him by conn various sums for the same purpose. they had worked together, sorting in a cellar rented for the purpose, of which his partner kept the key. so smoothly had things gone that he had felt encouraged to invest even the reserve seven pounds i had given him, but when the cellar was full of their common stock, and his own suspicions had been lulled by the regular division of the profits--seventeen shillings per week for each--one morning, on arriving at the cellar to start the day's work, he found the place locked, and when he called at the partner's house for an explanation, the man laughed in his face. everything in the cellar now belonged to him, he claimed, insisting that quarriar had eaten up the original capital and his share of the profits besides. 'besides, it never _was_ your money,' was the rogue's ultimate argument. 'why shouldn't _i_ profit, too, by the christian's simplicity?' conn blindly believed his own man, for the transactions had not been recorded in writing, and it was only a case of quarriar's word against the partner's. it was the latter who in his venomous craft had told conn the younger children did not exist. but, thank heaven! his quiver was not empty of them. he had blissfully taken them home when prosperity began, but now that he was again face to face with starvation, they had returned to his hospitable countryman, nathan beck. 'you are sure you could absolutely produce the little ones?' he looked grieved at my distrusting him. my faith in his probity was, he said with dignity, the one thing he valued in this world. i dismissed him with a little to tide him over the next week, thoroughly determined that the man's good name should be cleared. the crocodile partner must disgorge, and the eyes of my benevolent friend and of conn must be finally opened to the injustice they had unwittingly sanctioned. again i wrote to my friend. as usual, sir asher replied kindly and without a trace of impatience. would i get some intelligible written statement from quarriar as to what had taken place? so, at my request, quarriar sent me a statement in quaint english--probably the landlord's--alleging specifically that the partner had detained goods and money belonging to quarriar to the amount of £ s. d., and had assaulted him into the bargain. when the partner was threatened with police-court proceedings, he had defied quarriar with the remark that mr. conn would bear out his honesty. quarriar could give as references, to show that _he_ was an honest man and had made a true statement as to the number of his children, seven russians (named) who would attest that the partner provided by conn was well known as a swindler. though he was starving, quarriar refused to have anything further to say to conn. quarriar further referred to his landlord, who would willingly testify to his honesty. but being afraid of conn, and not inclined to commit himself in writing, the landlord would give his version verbally. against this statement my philanthropic friend had to set another as made by the partner. quarriar, according to this, had received the five pounds direct from conn, and had handed over niggardly sums to the partner for the purchase of goods, to wit, two separate sums of one pound each (of which he returned to quarriar thirty-three shillings from sales), while quarriar only gave him as his share of the profits for the whole of the five weeks the sum of seventeen shillings, instead of the minimum of ten shillings each week that had been arranged. the partner insisted further that he had never handled any money (of which quarriar had always retained full control), and that all the goods in the cellar at the time of the quarrel were only of the value of ten shillings, to which he was entitled, as quarriar still owed him thirty-three shillings. moreover, he was willing to repeat in quarriar's presence the lies the latter had tried to persuade him to tell. as to the children, he challenged quarriar to produce them. in vain i attempted to grapple with these conflicting documents. my head was in a whirl. it seemed to me that no judicial bench, however eminent, could, from the bare materials presented, probe to the bottom of this matter. the arithmetic of both parties was hopelessly beyond me. the names of the witnesses introduced showed that there must be two camps, and that certainly quarriar was solidly encamped amid his advisers. the whole business was taking on a most painful complexion, and i was torn by conflicting emotions and swayed alternately by suspicion and confidence. how sift the false from the true amid all this tangled mass? and yet mere curiosity would not leave me content to go to my grave not knowing whether my model was apostle or ananias. i, too, must then become a rag-sorter, dabbling amid dirty fragments. was there a black rag, and was there a white, or were both rags parti-coloured? to take only the one point of the children, it would seem a very simple matter to determine whether a man has five daughters or two; and yet the more i looked into it, the more i saw the complexity. even if three little girls were produced for my inspection, it was utterly impossible for me to tell whether they really were the model's. nor was it open to me to repeat the device of solomon and have them hacked in two to see whose heart would be moved. and then, if israel's story was false here, what of the rest? was kazelia also a myth? did the second daughter ever go to hamburg? was the landlord's detaining me in the parlour a ruse to gain time for the attics to be emptied of any comforts? where were the silver candlesticks? these and other questions surged up torturingly. but i remembered the footsore figure on the brighton pavement; i remembered the months he had practically lived with me, the countless conversations, and as the man of sorrows rose reproachful before me from my own canvas, with his noble bowed head, my faith in his dignity and probity returned unbroken. i called on sir asher--i had to go to the house of commons to find him--and his practical mind quickly suggested the best course in the circumstances. he appointed a date for all parties--himself, myself, conn, the two partners, and any witnesses they might care to bring--to appear at his office. but, above all, quarriar must bring the three children with him. on getting back to my studio, i found quarriar waiting for me. he was come to pour out his heart to me, and to complain that all sorts of underhand inquiries were being directed against him, so that he scarcely dared to draw breath, so thick was the air with treachery. he was afraid that his very friends, who were anxious not to offend conn and sir asher, might turn against him. even his landlord had threatened to kick him out, as he had been unable to pay his rent the last week or two. i told him he might expect a letter asking him to attend at sir asher's office, that i should be there, and he should have an opportunity of facing his swindling partner. he welcomed it joyfully, and enthusiastically promised to obey the call and bring the children. i emptied my purse into his hand--there were three or four pounds--and he promised me that quite apart from the old tangle, he could now as an expert set up as a piece-sorter himself. and so his kingly figure passed out of my sight. the next document sent me in this _cause célèbre_ was a letter from conn to announce that he had made all arrangements for the great meeting. 'sir asher's private room in his office will be placed at the disposal of the inquiry. the original application form filled up by quarriar clearly condemns him. the partner will be there, and i have arranged for quarriar's landlord to appear if you think it necessary. i may add that i have very good reason to believe that quarriar does not mean to appear. i fancy he is trying to wriggle out of the appointment.' i at once wrote a short note to quarriar reminding him of the absolute necessity of appearing with the children, who should be even kept away from school. i reproduce the exact reply: 'dear sir, 'referring to your welcome letter, i gratify you very much for the trouble you have taken for me. but i'm sorry to tell you that i refuse to go before the committee according you arranged to, as i received a letter without any name threatening me that i should not dare to call for the committee to tell the truth for i will be put into mischief and trouble. it is stated also that the same gentleman does not require the truth. he helps only those he likes to. so i will not call and wish you my dear gentleman not to trouble to come. therefore if you wish to assist me in somehow is very good and i will certainly gratify you and if not i will have to do without it, and will have to trust the almighty. so kindly do not trouble about it as i do not wish to enter a risk, i remain your humble and grateful servant, 'israel quarriar. 'p.s.--last wednesday a man called on my landlord and asked him some secrets about me, and told him at last that i shall have to state according i will be commanded to and not as i wish. i enclose you herewith the same letter i received, it is written in jewish. please not to show it to anyone but to tear it at once as i would not trust it to any other one. i would certainly call at the office and follow your advice. but my life is dearer. so you should not trouble to come. i fear already i gratify you for kind help till now, in the future you may do as you wish.' chapter v last stage of all this letter seemed decisive. i did not trouble mr. conn to english the yiddish epistle. my imagination saw too clearly quarriar himself dictating its luridly romantic phraseology. such counter-plots, coils, treasons, and stratagems in so simple a matter! how quarriar could even think them plausible i could not at first imagine; and with my anger was mingled a flush of resentment at his low estimate of my intellect. after-reflection instructed me that he wrote as a russian to whom apparently nothing mediæval was strange. but at the moment i had only the sense of outrage and trickery. all these months i had been fed upon lies. day after day i had been swathed with them as with feathers. i had so pledged my reputation as a reader of character that he would appear with his three younger children, bear every test, and be triumphantly vindicated. and in that moment of hot anger and wounded pride i had almost slashed through my canvas and mutilated beyond redemption that kingly head. but it looked at me sadly with its sweet majesty, and i stayed my hand, almost persuaded to have faith in it still. i began multiplying excuses for quarriar, figuring him as misled by his neighbours, more skilled than he in playing upon philanthropic heart-strings; he had been told, doubtless, that two daughters made no impression upon the flinty heart of bureaucratic charity, that in order to soften it one must 'increase and multiply.' he had got himself into a network of falsehood from which, though his better nature recoiled, he had been unable to disentangle himself. but then i remembered how even in russia he had pursued an illegal calling, how he had helped a friend to evade military service, and again i took up my knife. but the face preserved its reproachful dignity, seemed almost to turn the other cheek. illegal calling! no; it was the law that was illegal--the cruel, impossible law, that in taking away all means of livelihood had contorted the jew's conscience. it was the country that was illegal--the cruel country whose frontiers could only be crossed by bribery and deceit--the country that had made him cunning like all weak creatures in the struggle for survival. and so, gradually softer thoughts came to me, and less unmingled feelings. i could not doubt the general accuracy of his melancholy wanderings between russia and rotterdam, between london and brighton. and were he spotless as the dove, that only made surer the blackness of kazelia and the partner--his brethren in israel and in the exile. * * * * * and so the new man of sorrows shaped himself to my vision. and, taking my brush, i added a touch here and a touch there till there came into that face of sorrows a look of craft and guile. and as i stood back from my work, i was startled to see how nearly i had come to a photographic representation of my model; for those lines of guile had indeed been there, though i had eliminated them in my confident misrepresentation. now that i had exaggerated them, i had idealized, so to speak, in the reverse direction. and the more i pondered upon this new face, the more i saw that this return to a truer homeliness and a more real realism did but enable me to achieve a subtler beauty. for surely here at last was the true tragedy of the people of christ--to have persisted sublimely, and to be as sordidly perverted; to be king and knave in one; to survive for two thousand years the loss of a fatherland and the pressure of persecution, only to wear on its soul the yellow badge which had defaced its garments. for to suffer two thousand years for an idea is a privilege that has been accorded only to israel--'the soldier of god.' that were no tragedy, but an heroic epic, even as the prophet isaiah had prefigured. the true tragedy, the saddest sorrow, lay in the martyrdom of an israel _unworthy of his sufferings_. and this was the israel--the high tragedian in the comedy sock--that i tried humbly to typify in my man of sorrows. anglicization anglicization 'english, all english, that's my dream.' cecil rhodes. i even in his provincial days at sudminster solomon cohen had distinguished himself by his anglican mispronunciation of hebrew and his insistence on a minister who spoke english and looked like a christian clergyman; and he had set a precedent in the congregation by docking the 'e' of his patronymic. there are many ways of concealing from the briton your shame in being related through a pedigree of three thousand years to aaron, the high priest of israel, and cohn is one of the simplest and most effective. once, taken to task by a pietist, solomon defended himself by the quibble that hebrew has no vowels. but even this would not account for the whittling away of his 'solomon.' 's. cohn' was the insignium over his clothing establishment. not that he was anxious to deny his jewishness--was not the shop closed on saturdays?--he was merely anxious not to obtrude it. 'when we are in england, we are in england,' he would say, with his talmudic sing-song. s. cohn was indeed a personage in the seaport of sudminster, and his name had been printed on voting papers, and, what is more, he had at last become a town councillor. really the citizens liked his stanch adherence to his ancient faith, evidenced so tangibly by his sabbath shutters: even the christian clothiers bore him goodwill, not suspecting that s. cohn's saturday losses were more than counterbalanced by the general impression that a man who sacrificed business to religion would deal more fairly by you than his fellows. and his person, too, had the rotundity which the ratepayer demands. but twin with his town councillor's pride was his pride in being _gabbai_ (treasurer) of the little synagogue tucked away in a back street: in which for four generations prayer had ebbed and flowed as regularly as the tides of the sea, with whose careless rovers the worshippers did such lucrative business. the synagogue, not the sea, was the poetry of these eager traffickers: here they wore phylacteries and waved palm-branches and did other picturesque things, which in their utter ignorance of catholic or other ritual they deemed unintelligible to the heathen and a barrier from mankind. very imposing was solomon cohn in his official pew under the reading platform, for there is nothing which so enhances a man's dignity in the synagogue as the consideration of his christian townsmen. that is one of the earliest stages of anglicization. ii mrs. cohn was a pale image of mr. cohn, seeing things through his gold spectacles, and walking humbly in the shadow of his greatness. she had dutifully borne him many children, and sat on the ground for such as died. her figure refused the jewess's tradition of opulency, and remained slender as though repressed. her work was manifold and unceasing, for besides her domestic and shop-womanly duties she was necessarily a philanthropist, fettered with jewish charities as the _gabbai's_ wife, tangled with christian charities as the consort of the town councillor. in speech she was literally his echo, catching up his mistakes, indeed, admonished by him of her slips in speaking the councillor's english. he had had the start of her by five years, for she had been brought from poland to marry him, through the good offices of a friend of hers who saw in her little dowry the nucleus of a thriving shop in a thriving port. and from this initial inferiority she never recovered--five milestones behind on the road of anglicization! it was enough to keep down a more assertive personality than poor hannah's. the mere danger of slipping back unconsciously to the banned yiddish put a curb upon her tongue. her large, dark eyes had a dog-like look, and they were set pathetically in a sallow face that suggested ill-health, yet immense staying power. that s. cohn was a bit of a bully can scarcely be denied. it is difficult to combine the offices of _gabbai_ and town councillor without a self-satisfaction that may easily degenerate into dissatisfaction with others. least endurable was s. cohn in his religious rigidity, and he could never understand that pietistic exercises in which he found pleasure did not inevitably produce ecstasy in his son and heir. and when simon was discovered reading 'the pirates of pechili,' dexterously concealed in his prayer-book, the boy received a strapping that made his mother wince. simon's breakfast lay only at the end of a long volume of prayers; and, having ascertained by careful experiment the minimum of time his father would accept for the gabbling of these empty oriental sounds, he had fallen back on penny numbers to while away the hungry minutes. the quartering and burning of these tales in an avenging fireplace was not the least of the reasons why the whipped youth wept, and it needed several pieces of cake, maternally smuggled into his maw while the father's back was turned, to choke his sobs. iii with the daughters--and there were three before the son and heir--there was less of religious friction, since women have not the pious privileges and burdens of the sterner sex. when the eldest, deborah, was married, her husband received, by way of compensation, the goodwill of the sudminster business, while s. cohn migrated to the metropolis, in the ambition of making 's. cohn's trouserings' a household word. he did, indeed, achieve considerable fame in the holloway road. gradually he came to live away from his business, and in the most fashionable street of highbury. but he was never to recover his exalted posts. the london parish had older inhabitants, the local synagogue richer members. the cry for anglicization was common property. from pioneer, s. cohn found himself outmoded. the minister, indeed, was only too english--and especially his wife. one would almost have thought from their deportment that they considered themselves the superiors instead of the slaves of the congregation. s. cohn had been accustomed to a series of clergymen, who must needs be taught painfully to parrot 'our sovereign lady queen victoria, the prince of wales, the princess of wales, and all the royal family'--the indispensable atom of english in the service--so that he, the expert, had held his breath while they groped and stumbled along the precipitous pass. now the whilom _gabbai_ and town councillor found himself almost patronized--as a poor provincial--by this mincing, genteel clerical couple. he retorted by animadverting upon the preacher's heterodoxy. an urban unconcern met the profound views so often impressed on simon with a strap. 'we are not in poland now,' said the preacher, shrugging his shoulders. 'in poland!' s. cohn's blood boiled. to be twitted with poland, after decades of anglicization! he, who employed a host of anglo-saxon clerks, counter-jumpers, and packers! 'and where did _your_ father come from?' he retorted hotly. he had almost a mind to change his synagogue, but there was no other within such easy walking distance--an important sabbatic consideration--and besides, the others were reported to be even worse. dread rumours came of a younger generation that craved almost openly for organs in the synagogue and women's voices in the choir, nay, of even more flagitious spirits--devotional dynamitards--whose dream was a service all english, that could be understood instead of chanted! dark mutterings against the ancient rabbis were in the very air of these wealthier quarters of london. 'oh, shameless ignorance of the new age,' s. cohn was wont to complain, 'that does not know the limits of anglicization!' iv that simon should enter his father's business was as inevitable as that the business should prosper in spite of simon. his career had been settled ere his father became aware that highbury aspired even to law and medicine, and the idea that simon's education was finished was not lightly to be dislodged. simon's education consisted of the knowledge conveyed in seaport schools for the sons of tradesmen, while a long course of penny dreadfuls had given him a peculiar and extensive acquaintance with the ways of the world. carefully curtained away in a secret compartment, lay his elementary hebrew lore. it did not enter into his conception of the perfect englishman. ah, how he rejoiced in this wider horizon of london, so thickly starred with music-halls, billiard-rooms, and restaurants! 'we are emancipated now,' was his cry: 'we have too much intellect to keep all those old laws;' and he swallowed the forbidden oyster in a fine spiritual glow, which somehow or other would not extend to bacon. that stuck more in his throat, and so was only taken in self-defence, to avoid the suspicions of a convivial company. as he sat at his father's side in the synagogue--a demure son of the covenant--this young englishman lurked beneath his praying-shawl, even as beneath his prayer-book had lurked 'the pirates of pechili.' in this hidden life mrs. s. cohn was not an aider or abettor, except in so far as frequent gifts from her own pocket-money might be considered the equivalent of the surreptitious cake of childhood. she would have shared in her husband's horror had she seen simon banqueting on unrighteousness, and her apoplexy would have been original, not derivative. for her, indeed, london had proved narrowing rather than widening. she became part of a parish instead of part of a town, and of a ghetto in a parish at that! the vast background of london was practically a mirage--the london suburb was farther from london than the provincial town. no longer did the currents of civic life tingle through her; she sank entirely to family affairs, excluded even from the ladies' committee. her lord's life, too, shrank, though his business extended--the which, uneasily suspected, did but increase his irritability. he had now the pomp and pose of his late offices minus any visible reason: a sir oracle without a shrine, an abdomen without authority. even the two new sons-in-law whom his ability to clothe them had soon procured in london, listened impatiently, once they had safely passed under the canopy and were ensconced in plush parlours of their own. home and shop became his only realm, and his autocratic tendencies grew the stronger by compression. he read 'the largest circulation,' and his wife became an echo of its opinions. these opinions, never nebulous, became sharp as illuminated sky-signs when the boer war began. 'the impertinent rascals!' cried s. cohn furiously. 'they have invaded our territory.' 'is it possible?' ejaculated mrs. cohn. 'this comes of our kindness to them after majuba!' v a darkness began to overhang the destinies of britain. three defeats in one week! 'it is humiliating,' said s. cohn, clenching his fist. 'it makes a miserable christmas,' said mrs. cohn gloomily. although her spouse still set his face against the christmas pudding which had invaded so many anglo-jewish homes, the festival, with its shop-window flamboyance, entered far more vividly into his consciousness than the jewish holidays, which produced no impression on the life of the streets. the darkness grew denser. young men began to enlist for the front: the city formed a new regiment of imperial volunteers. s. cohn gave his foreign houses large orders for khaki trouserings. he sent out several parcels of clothing to the seat of war, and had the same duly recorded in his favourite christian newspaper, whence it was copied into his favourite jewish weekly, which was, if possible, still more chauvinist, and had a full-page portrait of sir asher aaronsberg, m.p. for middleton, who was equipping a local corps at his own expense. gradually s. cohn became aware that the military fever of which he read in both his organs was infecting his clothing emporium--that his own counter-jumpers were in heats of adventurous resolve. the military microbes must have lain thick in the khaki they handled. at any rate, s. cohn, always quick to catch the contagion of the correct thing, announced that he would present a bonus to all who went out to fight for their country, and that he would keep their places open for their return. the saturday this patriotic offer was recorded in his newspaper--'on inquiry at s. cohn's, the great clothing purveyor of the holloway road, our representative was informed that no less than five of the young men were taking advantage of their employer's enthusiasm for england and the empire'--the already puffed-up solomon had the honour of being called to read in the law, and first as befitted the sons of aaron. it was a man restored almost to his provincial pride who recited the ancient benediction; 'blessed art thou, o lord our god, who hast chosen us from among all peoples and given to us his law.' but there was a drop of vinegar in the cup. 'and why wasn't simon in synagogue?' he inquired of his wife, as she came down the gallery stairs to meet her lord in the lobby, where the congregants loitered to chat. 'do i know?' murmured mrs. cohn, flushing beneath her veil. 'when i left the house he said he was coming on.' 'he didn't know you were to be "called up."' 'it isn't that, hannah,' he grumbled. 'think of the beautiful war-sermon he missed. in these dark days we should be thinking of our country, not of our pleasures.' and he drew her angrily without, where the brightly-dressed worshippers, lingeringly exchanging eulogiums on the 'rule britannia' sermon, made an oriental splotch of colour on the wintry pavement. vi at lunch the reprobate appeared, looking downcast. 'where have you been?' thundered s. cohn, who, never growing older, imagined simon likewise stationary. 'i went out for a walk--it was a fine morning.' 'and where did you go?' 'oh, don't bother!' 'but i shall bother. where did you go?' he grew sullen. 'it doesn't matter--they won't have me.' 'who won't have you?' 'the war office.' 'thank god!' broke from mrs. cohn. 'eh?' mr. cohn looked blankly from one to the other. 'it is nothing--he went to see the enlisting and all that. your soup is getting cold.' but s. cohn had taken off his gold spectacles and was polishing them with his serviette--always a sign of a stormy meal. 'it seems to me something has been going on behind my back,' he said, looking from mother to son. 'well, i didn't want to annoy you with simon's madcap ideas,' hannah murmured. 'but it's all over now, thank god!' 'oh, he'd better know,' said simon sulkily, 'especially as i am not going to be choked off. it's all stuff what the doctor says. i'm as strong as a horse. and, what's more, i'm one of the few applicants who can ride one.' 'hannah, will you explain to me what this _meshuggas_ (madness) is?' cried s. cohn, lapsing into a non-anglicism. 'i've got to go to the front, just like other young men!' 'what!' shrieked s. cohn. 'enlist! you, that i brought up as a gentleman!' 'it's gentlemen that's going--the city imperial volunteers!' 'the volunteers! but that's my own clerks.' 'no; there are gentlemen among them. read your paper.' 'but not rich jews.' 'oh, yes. i saw several chaps from bayswater.' 'we jews of this favoured country,' put in hannah eagerly, 'grateful to the noble people who have given us every right, every liberty, must----' s. cohn was taken aback by this half-unconscious quotation from the war-sermon of the morning. 'yes, we must subscribe and all that,' he interrupted. 'we must fight,' said simon. 'you fight!' his father laughed half-hysterically. 'why, you'd shoot yourself with your own gun!' he had not been so upset since the day the minister had disregarded his erudition. 'oh, would i, though?' and simon pursed his lips and nodded meaningly. 'as sure as to-day is the holy sabbath. and you'd be stuck on your own bayonet, like an obstinate pig.' simon got up and left the table and the room. hannah kept back her tears before the servant. 'there!' she said. 'and now he's turned sulky and won't eat.' 'didn't i say an obstinate pig? he's always been like that from a baby. but his stomach always surrenders.' he resumed his meal with a wronged air, keeping his spectacles on the table, for frequent nervous polishing. of a sudden the door reopened and a soldier presented himself--gun on shoulder. for a moment s. cohn, devoid of his glasses, stared without recognition. wild hereditary tremors ran through him, born of the russian persecution, and he had a vague nightmare sense of the _chappers_, the jewish man-gatherers who collected the tribute of young jews for the little father. but as simon began to loom through the red fog, 'a gun on the sabbath!' he cried. it was as if the bullet had gone through all his conceptions of life and of simon. hannah snatched at the side-issue. 'i read in josephus--simon's prize for hebrew, you know--that the jews fought against the romans on sabbath.' 'yes; but they fought for themselves--for our holy temple.' 'but it's for ourselves now,' said simon. 'didn't you always say we are english?' s. cohn opened his mouth in angry retort. then he discovered he had no retort, only anger. and this made him angrier, and his mouth remained open, quite terrifyingly for poor mrs. cohn. 'what is the use of arguing with him?' she said imploringly. 'the war office has been sensible enough to refuse him.' 'we shall see,' said simon. 'i am going to peg away at 'em again, and if i don't get into the mounted infantry, i'm a dutchman--and of the boer variety.' he seemed any kind of man save a jew to the puzzled father. 'hannah, you must have known of this--these clothes,' s. cohn spluttered. 'they don't cost anything,' she murmured. 'the child amuses himself. he will never really be called out.' 'if he is, i'll stop his supplies.' 'oh,' said simon airily, 'the government will attend to that.' 'indeed!' and s. cohn's face grew black. 'but remember--you may go, but you shall never come back.' 'oh, solomon! how can you utter such an awful omen?' simon laughed. 'don't bother, mother. he's bound to take me back. isn't it in the papers that he promised?' s. cohn went from black to green. vii simon got his way. the authorities reconsidered their decision. but the father would not reconsider his. ignorant of his boy's graceless existence, he fumed at the first fine thing in the boy's life. 'tis a wise father that knows his own child. mere emulation of his christian comrades, and the fun of the thing, had long ago induced the lad to add volunteering to his other dissipations. but, once in it, the love of arms seized him, and when the call for serious fighters came, some new passion that surprised even himself leapt to his breast--the first call upon an idealism, choked, rather than fed, by a misunderstood judaism. anglicization had done its work; from his schooldays he had felt himself a descendant, not of judas maccabæus, but of nelson and wellington; and now that his brethren were being mowed down by a kopje-guarded foe, his whole soul rose in venomous sympathy. and, mixed with this genuine instinct of devotion to the great cause of country, were stirrings of anticipated adventure, gorgeous visions of charges, forlorn hopes, picked-up shells, redoubts stormed; heritages of 'the pirates of pechili,' and all the military romances that his prayer-book had masked. he looked every inch an anglo-saxon, in his khaki uniform and his great slouch hat, with his bayonet and his bandolier. the night before he sailed for south africa there was a service in st. paul's cathedral, for which each volunteer had two tickets. simon sent his to his father. 'the lord mayor will attend in state. i dare say you'll like to see the show,' he wrote flippantly. 'he'll become a christian next,' said s. cohn, tearing the cards in twain. later, mrs. cohn pieced them together. it was the last chance of seeing her boy. viii unfortunately the cathedral service fell on a friday night, when s. cohn, the emporium closed, was wont to absorb the sabbath peace. he would sit, after high tea, of which cold fried fish was the prime ingredient, dozing over the jewish weekly. he still approved platonically of its bellicose sentiments. this january night, the sabbath arriving early in the afternoon, he was snoring before seven, and mrs. cohn slipped out, risking his wrath. her religion forced her to make the long journey on foot; but, hurrying, she arrived at st. paul's before the doors were opened. and throughout the long walk was a morbid sense of one wasted ticket. she almost stopped at a friend's house to offer the exciting spectacle, but dread of a religious rebuff carried her past. with christians she was not intimate enough to invite companionship. besides, would not everybody ask why she was going without her husband? she inquired for the door mentioned on her ticket, and soon found herself one of a crowd of parents on the steps. a very genteel crowd, she noted with pleasure. her boy would be in good company. the scraps of conversation she caught dealt with a world of alien things--how little she was anglicized, she thought, after all those years! and when she was borne forward into the cathedral, her heart beat with a sense of dim, remote glories. to have lived so long in london and never to have entered here! she was awed and soothed by the solemn vistas, the perspectives of pillars and arches, the great nave, the white robes of the choir vaguely stirring a sense of angels, the overarching dome, defined by a fiery rim, but otherwise suggesting dim, skyey space. suddenly she realized that she was sitting among the men. but it did not seem to matter. the building kept one's thoughts religious. around the waiting congregation, the human sea outside the cathedral rumoured, and whenever the door was opened to admit some dignitary the roar of cheering was heard like a salvo saluting his entry. the lord mayor and the aldermen passed along the aisle, preceded by mace-bearers; and mingled with this dazzle of gilded grandeur and robes, was a regretful memory of the days when, as a town councillor's consort, she had at least touched the hem of this unknown historic english life. the skirl of bagpipes shrilled from without--that exotic, half-barbarous sound now coming intimately into her life. and then, a little later, the wild cheers swept into the cathedral like a furious wind, and the thrill of the marching soldiers passed into the air, and the congregation jumped up on the chairs and craned towards the right aisle to stare at the khaki couples. how she looked for simon! the volunteers filed on, filed on--beardless youths mostly, a few with a touch of thought in the face, many with the honest nullity of the clerk and the shopman, some with the prizefighter's jaw, but every face set and serious. ah! at last, there was her simon--manlier, handsomer than them all! but he did not see her: he marched on stiffly; he was already sucked up into this strange life. her heart grew heavy. but it lightened again when the organ pealed out. the newspapers the next day found fault with the plain music, with the responses all in monotone, but to her it was divine. only the words of the opening hymn, which she read in the 'form of prayer,' discomforted her: 'fight the good fight with all thy might, christ is thy strength and christ thy right' but the bulk of the liturgy surprised her, so strangely like was it to the jewish. the ninety-first psalm! did they, then, pray the jewish prayers in christian churches? 'for he shall give his angels charge over thee: to keep thee in all thy ways.' ah! how she prayed that for simon! as the ecclesiastical voice droned on, unintelligibly, inaudibly, in echoing, vaulted space, she studied the hymns and verses, with their insistent old testament savour, culminating in the farewell blessing: 'the lord bless you and keep you. the lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you. the lord lift up the light of his countenance upon you and give you peace.' how often she had heard it in hebrew from the priests as they blessed the other tribes! her husband himself had chanted it, with uplifted palms and curiously grouped fingers. but never before had she felt its beauty: she had never even understood its words till she read the english of them in the gilt-edged prayer-book that marked rising wealth. surely there had been some monstrous mistake in conceiving the two creeds as at daggers drawn, and though she only pretended to kneel with the others, she felt her knees sinking in surrender to the larger life around her. as the volunteers filed out and the cheers came in, she wormed her way nearer to the aisle, scrambling even over backs of chairs in the general mellay. this time simon saw her. he stretched out his martial arm and blew her a kiss. oh, delicious tears, full of heartbreak and exaltation! this was their farewell. she passed out into the roaring crowd, with a fantastic dream-sense of a night-sky and a great stone building, dark with age and solemnity, and unreal figures perched on railings and points of vantage, and hurrahing hordes that fused themselves with the procession and became part of its marching. she yearned forwards to vague glories, aware of a poor past. she ran with the crowd. how they cheered her boy! _her_ boy! she saw him carried off on the shoulders of christian citizens. yes; he was a hero. she was the mother of a hero. ix the first news she got from him was posted at st. vincent. he wrote to her alone, with a jocose hope that his father would be satisfied with his sufferings on the voyage. not only had the sea been rough, but he had suffered diabolically from the inoculation against enteric fever, which, even after he had got his sea-legs, kept him to his berth and gave him a 'day of atonement' thirst. 'ah!' growled s. cohn; 'he sees what a fool he's been, and he'll take the next boat back.' 'but that would be desertion.' 'well, he didn't mind deserting the business.' mr. cohn's bewilderment increased with every letter. the boy was sleeping in sodden trenches, sometimes without blankets; and instead of grumbling at that, his one grievance was that the regiment was not getting to the front. heat and frost, hurricane and dust-storm--nothing came amiss. and he described himself as stronger than ever, and poured scorn on the medical wiseacre who had tried to refuse him. 'all the same,' sighed hannah, 'i do hope they will just be used to guard the lines of communication.' she was full of war-knowledge acquired with painful eagerness, prattled of basuto ponies and mauser bullets, pontoons and pom-poms, knew the exact position of the armies, and marked her war-map with coloured pins. simon, too, had developed quite a literary talent under the pressure of so much vivid new life, and from his cheery letters she learned much that was not in the papers, especially in those tense days when the c.i.v.'s did at last get to the front--and remained there: tales of horses mercifully shot, and sheep mercilessly poisoned, and oxen dropping dead as they dragged the convoys; tales of muddle and accident, tales of british soldiers slain by their own protective cannon as they lay behind ant-heaps facing the enemy, and british officers culled under the very eyes of the polo-match; tales of hospital and camp, of shirts turned sable and putties worn to rags, and all the hidden miseries of uncleanliness and insanitation that underlie the glories of war. there were tales, too, of quarter-rations; but these she did not read to her husband, lest the mention of 'bully-beef' should remind him of how his son must be eating forbidden food. once, even, two fat pigs were captured at a hungry moment for the battalion. but there came a day when s. cohn seized those letters and read them first. he began to speak of his boy at the war--nay, to read the letters to enthralled groups in the synagogue lobby--groups that swallowed without reproach the _tripha_ meat cooked in simon's mess-tin. it was like being _gabbai_ over again. moreover, simon's view of the boer was so strictly orthodox as to give almost religious satisfaction to the proud parent. 'a canting hypocrite, a psalm-singer and devil-dodger, he has no civilization worth the name, and his customs are filthy. since the great trek he has acquired, from long intercourse with his kaffir slaves, many of the native's savage traits. in short, a born liar, credulous and barbarous, crassly ignorant and inconceivably stubborn.' 'crassly ignorant and inconceivably stubborn,' repeated s. cohn, pausing impressively. 'haven't i always said that? the boy only bears out what i knew without going there. but hear further! "is it to be wondered at that the boer farmer, hidden in the vast undulations of the endless veldt, with his wife, his children and his slaves, should lose all sense of proportion, ignorant of the outside world, his sole knowledge filtering through jo-burgh?"' as s. cohn made another dramatic pause, it was suddenly borne in on his wife with a stab of insight that he was reading a description of himself--nay, of herself, of her whole race, hidden in the great world, awaiting some vague future of glory that never came. the important voice of her husband broke again upon her reflections: '"he has held many nights of supplication to his fetish, and is still unconvinced that his god of battles is asleep."' the reader chuckled, and a broad smile overspread the synagogue lobby. '"they are brave--oh, yes, but it is not what we mean by it--they are good fighters, because they have dutch blood at the back of them, and a profound contempt for us. their whole life has been spent on the open veldt (we are always fighting them on somebody's farm, who knows every inch of the ground), and they never risk anything except in the trap sort of manoeuvres. the brave rush of our tommies is unknown to them, and their slim nature would only see the idiocy of walking into a death-trap, cool as in a play. were there ever two races less alike?"' wound up the youthful philosopher in his tent. '"i really do not see how they are to live together after the war."' 'that's easy enough,' s. cohn had already commented to his wife as oracularly as if she did not read the same morning paper. 'intermarriage! in a generation or two there will be one fine anglo-african race. that's the solution--mark my words. and you can tell the boy as much--only don't say i told you to write to him.' 'father says i'm to tell you intermarriage is the solution,' mrs. cohn wrote obediently. 'he really is getting much softer towards you.' 'tell father that's nonsense,' simon wrote back. 'the worst individuals we have to deal with come from a boer mother and an english father, deposited here by the first transvaal war.' s. cohn snorted angrily at the message. 'that was because there were two governments--he forgets there will be only one united empire now.' he was not appeased till private cohn was promoted, and sent home a thrilling adventure, which the proud reader was persuaded by the lobby to forward to the communal organ. the organ asked for a photograph to boot. then s. cohn felt not only _gabbai_, but town councillor again. this wonderful letter, of which s. cohn distributed printed copies to the staff of the emporium with a bean-feast air, ran: 'we go out every day--i am speaking of my own squadron--each officer taking his turn with twenty to fifty men, and sweep round the farms a few miles out; and we seldom come back without seeing boers hanging round on the chance of a snipe at our flanks, or waiting to put up a trap if we go too far. the local commando fell on our cattle-guard the other day--a hundred and fifty to our twenty-five--and we suffered; it was a horrible bit of country. there was a young chap, winstay--rather a pal of mine--he had a narrow squeak, knocked over by a shot in his breast. i managed to get him safe back to camp--heaven knows how!--and they made me a lance-corporal, and the beggar says i saved his life; but it was really through carrying a fat letter from his sister--not even his sweetheart. we chaff him at missing such a romantic chance. he got off with a flesh wound, but there is a great blot of red ink on the letter. you may imagine we were not anxious to let our comrades go unavenged. my superiors being sick or otherwise occupied, i was allowed to make a night-march with thirty-five men on a farm nine miles away--just to get square. it was a nasty piece of work, as we were within a few miles of the boer laager, three hundred strong. there was moonlight, too--it was like a dream, that strange, silent ride, with only the stumble of a horse breaking the regular thud of the hoofs. we surrounded the farm in absolute silence, dismounting some thousand yards away, and fixing bayonets. i told the men i wanted no shots--that would have brought down the commando--but cold steel and silence. we crept up and swept the farm--it was weird, but, alas! they were out on the loot. the men were furious, but we live in hopes.' the end was a trifle disappointing, but s. cohn, too, lived in hopes--of some monstrous and memorable butchery. even his wife had got used to the firing-line, now that neither shot nor shell could harm her boy. 'for he shall give his angels charge over thee.' she had come to think her secret daily repetition of the ninety-first psalm talismanic. when simon sent home the box which had held the chocolates presented by the queen, a boer bullet, and other curios, s. cohn displayed them in his window, and the crowd and the business they brought him put him more and more in sympathy with simon and the empire. in conversation he deprecated the non-militarism of the jew: 'if i were only a younger man myself, sir....' the night mafeking was relieved, the emporium was decorated with bunting from roof to basement, and a great illuminated window revealed nothing but stacks of khaki trouserings. so that, although the good man still sulked over simon to his wife, she was not deceived; and, the time drawing nigh for simon's return, she began to look happily forward to a truly reunited family. in her wildest anxiety it never occurred to her that it was her husband who would die. yet this is what the irony of fate brought to pass. in the unending campaign which death wages with life, s. cohn was slain, and simon returned unscratched from the war to recite the _kaddish_ in his memory. x simon came back bronzed and a man. the shock of finding his father buried had supplied the last transforming touch; and, somewhat to his mother's surprise, he settled down contentedly to the business he had inherited. and now that he had practically unlimited money to spend, he did not seem to be spending it, but to be keeping better hours than when dodging his father's eye. his only absences from home he accounted for as visits to winstay, his pal of the campaign, with whom he had got chummier than ever since the affair of the cattle-guard. winstay, he said, was of good english family, with an old house in harrow--fortunately on the london and north western railway, so that he could easily get a breath of country air on saturday and sunday afternoons. he seemed to have forgotten (although the emporium was still closed on saturdays) that riding was forbidden, and his mother did not remind him of it. the life that had been risked for the larger cause, she vaguely felt as enfranchised from the limitations of the smaller. nearly two months after simon's return, a special military service was held at the great synagogue on the feast of _chanukah_--the commemoration of the heroic days of judas maccabæus--and the jewish c.i.v.'s were among the soldiers invited. mrs. cohn, too, got a ticket for the imposing ceremony which was fixed for a sunday afternoon. as they sat at the midday meal on the exciting day, mrs. cohn said suddenly: 'guess who paid me a visit yesterday.' 'goodness knows,' said simon. 'mr. sugarman.' and she smiled nervously. 'sugarman?' repeated simon blankly. 'the--the--er--the matrimonial agent.' 'what impudence! before your year of mourning is up!' mrs. cohn's sallow face became one flame. 'not me! you!' she blurted. 'me! well, of all the cheek!' and simon's flush matched his mother's. 'oh, it's not so unreasonable,' she murmured deprecatingly. 'i suppose he thought you would be looking for a wife before long; and naturally,' she added, her voice growing bolder, 'i should like to see you settled before i follow your father. after all, you are no ordinary match. sugarman says there isn't a girl in bayswater, even, who would refuse you.' 'the very reason for refusing them,' cried simon hotly. 'what a ghastly idea, that your wife would just as soon have married any other fellow with the same income!' mrs. cohn cowered under his scorn, yet felt vaguely exalted by it, as by the organ in st. paul's, and strange tears of shame came to complicate her emotions further. she remembered how she had been exported from poland to marry the unseen s. cohn. ah! how this new young generation was snapping asunder the ancient coils! how the new and diviner sap ran in its veins! 'i shall only marry a girl i love, mother. and it's not likely to be one of these jewish girls, i tell you frankly.' she trembled. 'one of which jewish girls?' she faltered. 'oh, any sort. they don't appeal to me.' her face grew sallower. 'i am glad your father isn't alive to hear that,' she breathed. 'but father said intermarriage is the solution,' retorted simon. mrs. cohn was struck dumb. 'he was thinking how to make the boers english,' she said at last. 'and didn't he say the jews must be english, too?' 'aren't there plenty of jewish girls who are english?' she murmured miserably. 'you mean, who don't care a pin about the old customs? then where's the difference?' retorted simon. the meal finished in uncomfortable silence, and simon went off to don his khaki regimentals and join in the synagogue parade. mrs. cohn's heart was heavy as she dressed for the same spectacle. her brain was busy piecing it all together. yes, she understood it all now--those sedulous saturday and sunday afternoons at harrow. she lived at harrow, then, this christian, this grateful sister of the rescued winstay: it was she who had steadied his life; hers were those 'fat letters,' faintly aromatic. it must be very wonderful, this strange passion, luring her son from his people with its forbidden glamour. how highbury would be scandalized, robbed of so eligible a bridegroom! the sons-in-law she had enriched would reproach her for the shame imported into the family--they who had cleaved to the faith! and--more formidable than all the rest--she heard the tongue of her cast-off seaport, to whose reverence or disesteem she still instinctively referred all her triumphs and failures. yet, on the other hand, surged her hero-son's scorn at the union by contract consecrated by the generations! but surely a compromise could be found. he should have love--this strange english thing--but could he not find a jewess? ah, happy inspiration! he should marry a quite poor jewess--he had money enough, thank heaven! that would show him he was not making a match, that he was truly in love. but this strange girl at harrow--he would never be happy with her! no, no; there were limits to anglicization. xi it was not till she was seated in the ancient synagogue, relieved from the squeeze of entry in the wake of soldiers and the exhilaration of hearing 'see the conquering hero comes' pealing, she knew not whence, that she woke to the full strangeness of it all, and to the consciousness that she was actually sitting among the men--just as in st. paul's. and what men! everywhere the scarlet and grey of uniforms, the glister of gold lace--the familiar decorous lines of devout top-hats broken by glittering helmets, bear-skins, white nodding plumes, busbies, red caps a-cock, glengarries, all the colour of the british army, mixed with the feathered jauntiness of the colonies and the khaki sombreros of the c.i.v.'s! coldstream guards, scots guards, dragoon guards, lancers, hussars, artillery, engineers, king's royal rifles, all the corps that had for the first time come clearly into her consciousness in her tardy absorption into english realities, jews seemed to be among them all. and without conscription--oh, what would poor solomon have thought of that? the great synagogue itself struck a note of modern english gaiety, as of an hotel dining-room, freshly gilded, divested of its historic mellowness, the electric light replacing the ancient candles and flooding the winter afternoon with white resplendence. the pulpit--yes, the pulpit--was swathed in the union jack; and looking towards the box of the _parnass_ and _gabbai_, she saw it was occupied by officers with gold sashes. somebody whispered that he with the medalled breast was a christian knight and commander of the bath--'a great honour for the synagogue!' what! were christians coming to jewish services, even as she had gone to christian? why, here was actually a white cross on an officer's sleeve. and before these alien eyes, the cantor, intoning his hebrew chant on the steps of the ark, lit the great many-branched _chanukah_ candlestick. truly, the world was changing under her eyes. and when the chief rabbi went toward the ark in his turn, she saw that he wore a strange scarlet and white gown (military, too, she imagined in her ignorance), and--oh, even rarer sight!--he was followed by a helmeted soldier, who drew the curtain revealing the ornate scrolls of the law. and amid it all a sound broke forth that sent a sweetness through her blood. an organ! an organ in the synagogue! ah! here indeed was anglicization. it was thin and reedy even to _her_ ears, compared with that divine resonance in st. paul's: a tinkling apology, timidly disconnected from the congregational singing, and hovering meekly on the borders of the service--she read afterwards that it was only a harmonium--yet it brought a strange exaltation, and there was an uplifting even to tears in the glittering uniforms and nodding plumes. simon's eyes met his mother's, and a flash of the old childish love passed between them. there was a sermon--the text taken with dual appropriateness from the book of maccabees. fully one in ten of the jewish volunteers, said the preacher, had gone forth to drive out the bold invader of the queen's dominions. their beloved country had no more devoted citizens than the children of israel who had settled under her flag. they had been gratified, but not surprised, to see in the jewish press the names of more than seven hundred jews serving queen and country. many more had gone unrecorded, so that they had proportionally contributed more soldiers--from colonel to bugler-boy--than their mere numbers would warrant. so at one in spirit and ideals were the englishman and the jew whose scriptures he had imbibed, that it was no accident that the anglophobes of europe were also anti-semites. and then the congregation rose, while the preacher behind the folds of the union jack read out the names of the jews who had died for england in the far-off veldt. every head was bent as the names rose on the hushed air of the synagogue. it went on and on, this list, reeking with each bloody historic field, recalling every regiment, british or colonial; on and on in the reverent silence, till a black pall seemed to descend, inch by inch, overspreading the synagogue. she had never dreamed so many of her brethren had died out there. ah! surely they were knit now, these races: their friendship sealed in blood! as the soldiers filed out of synagogue, she squeezed towards simon and seized his hand for an instant, whispering passionately: 'my lamb, marry her--we are all english alike.' nor did she ever know that she had said these words in yiddish! xii now came an enchanting season of confidences; the mother, caught up in the glow of this strange love, learning to see the girl through the boy's eyes, though the only aid to his eloquence was the photograph of a plump little blonde with bewitching dimples. the time was not ripe yet for bringing lucy and her together, he explained. in fact, he hadn't actually proposed. his mother understood he was waiting for the year of mourning to be up. 'but how will you be married?' she once asked. 'oh, there's the registrar,' he said carelessly. 'but can't you make her a proselyte?' she ventured timidly. he coloured. 'it would be absurd to suddenly start talking religion to her.' 'but she knows you're a jew.' 'oh, i dare say. i never hid it from her brother, so why shouldn't she know? but her father's a bit of a crank, so i rather avoid the subject.' 'a crank? about jews?' 'well, old winstay has got it into his noddle that the jews are responsible for the war--and that they leave the fighting to the english. it's rather sickening: even in south africa we are not treated as we should be, considering----' her dark eye lost its pathetic humility. 'but how can he say that, when you yourself--when you saved his----' 'well, i suppose just because he knows i _was_ fighting, he doesn't think of me as a jew. it's a bit illogical, i know.' and he smiled ruefully. 'but, then, logic is not the old boy's strong point.' 'he seemed such a nice old man,' said mrs. cohn, as she recalled the photograph of the white-haired cherub writing with a quill at a property desk. 'oh, off his hobby-horse he's a dear old boy. that's why i don't help him into the saddle.' 'but how can he be ignorant that we've sent seven hundred at least to the war?' she persisted. 'why, the paper had all their photographs!' 'what paper?' said simon, laughing. 'do you suppose he reads the jewish what's-a-name, like you? why, he's never heard of it!' 'then you ought to show him a copy.' 'oh, mother!' and he laughed again. 'that would only prove to him there are too many jews everywhere.' a cloud began to spread over mrs. cohn's hard-won content. but apparently it only shadowed her own horizon. simon was as happily full of his lucy as ever. nevertheless, there came a sunday evening when simon returned from harrow earlier than his wont, and hannah's dog-like eye noted that the cloud had at last reached his brow. 'you have had a quarrel?' she cried. 'only with the old boy.' 'but what about?' 'the old driveller has just joined some league of londoners for the suppression of the immigrant alien.' 'but you should have told him we all agree there should be decentralization,' said mrs. cohn, quoting her favourite jewish organ. 'it isn't that--it's the old fellow's vanity that's hurt. you see, he composed the "appeal to the briton," and gloated over it so conceitedly that i couldn't help pointing out the horrible contradictions.' 'but lucy----' his mother began anxiously. 'lucy's a brick. i don't know what my life would have been without the little darling. but listen, mother.' and he drew out a portentous prospectus. 'they say aliens should not be admitted unless they produce a certificate of industrial capacity, and in the same breath they accuse them of taking the work away from the british workman. now this isn't a jewish question, and i didn't raise it as such--just a piece of muddle--and even as an englishman i can't see how we can exclude outlanders here after fighting for the outland----' 'but lucy----' his mother interrupted. his vehement self-assertion passed into an affectionate smile. 'lucy was dimpling all over her face. she knows the old boy's vanity. of course she couldn't side with me openly.' 'but what will happen? will you go there again?' the cloud returned to his brow. 'oh, well, we'll see.' a letter from lucy saved him the trouble of deciding the point. 'dear silly old sim,' it ran, 'father has been going on dreadfully, so you had better wait a few sundays till he has cooled down. after all, you yourself admit there is a grievance of congestion and high rents in the east end. and it is only natural--isn't it?--that after shedding our blood and treasure for the empire we should not be in a mood to see our country overrun by dirty aliens.' 'dirty!' muttered simon, as he read. 'has she seen the christian slums--flower and dean street?' and his handsome oriental brow grew duskier with anger. it did not clear till he came to: 'let us meet at the crystal palace next saturday, dear quarrelsome person. three o'clock, in the pompeian room. i _have_ got an aunt at sydenham, and i _can_ go in to tea after the concert and hear all about the missionary work in the south sea islands.' xiii ensued a new phase in the relation of simon and lucy. once they had met in freedom, neither felt inclined to revert to the restricted courtship of the drawing-room. even though their chat was merely of books and music and pictures, it was delicious to make their own atmosphere, untroubled by the flippancy of the brother or the earnestness of the father. in the presence of lucy's artistic knowledge simon was at once abashed and stimulated. she moved in a delicate world of symphonies and silver-point drawings of whose very existence he had been unaware, and reverence quickened the sense of romance which their secret meetings had already enhanced. once or twice he spoke of resuming his visits to harrow, but the longer he delayed the more difficult the conciliatory visit grew. 'father is now deeper in the league than ever,' she told him. 'he has joined the committee, and the prospectus has gone forth in all its glorious self-contradiction.' 'but, considering i am the son of an alien, and i have fought for----' 'there, there! quarrelsome person,' she interrupted laughingly. 'no, no, no, you had better not come till you can forget your remote genealogy. you see, even now father doesn't quite realize you are a jew. he thinks you have a strain of jewish blood, but are in every other respect a decent christian body.' 'christian!' cried simon in horror. 'why not? you fought side by side with my brother; you ate ham with us.' simon blushed hotly. 'but, lucy, you don't think religion is ham?' 'what, then? merely shem?' she laughed. simon laughed too. how clever she was! 'but you know i never could believe in the trinity and all that. and, what's more, i don't believe you do yourself.' 'it isn't exactly what one believes. i was baptized into the church of england--i feel myself a member. really, sim, you are a dreadfully argumentative and quarrelsome person.' 'i'll never quarrel with you, lucy,' he said half entreatingly; for somehow he felt a shiver of cold at the word 'baptized,' as though himself plunged into the font. in this wise did both glide away from any deep issue or decision till the summer itself glided away. mrs. cohn, anxiously following the courtship through sim's love-smitten eyes, her suggestion that the girl be brought to see her received with equal postponement, began to fret for the great thing to come to pass. one cannot be always heroically stiffened to receive the cavalry of communal criticism. waiting weakens the backbone. but she concealed from her boy these flaccid relapses. 'you said you'd bring her to see me when she returned from the seaside,' she ventured to remind him. 'so i did; but now her father is dragging her away to scotland.' 'you ought to get married the moment she gets back.' 'i can't expect her to rush things--with her father to square. still, you are not wrong, mother. it's high time we came to a definite understanding between ourselves at least.' 'what!' gasped mrs. cohn. 'aren't you engaged?' 'oh, in a way, of course. but we've never said so in so many words.' for fear this should be the 'english' way, mrs. cohn forbore to remark that the definiteness of the sugarman method was not without compensations. she merely applauded simon's more sensible mood. but mrs. cohn was fated to a further season of fret. day after day the 'fat letters' arrived with the scottish postmark and the faint perfume that always stirred her own wistful sense of lost romance--something far-off and delicious, with the sweetness of roses and the salt of tears. and still the lover, floating in his golden mist, vouchsafed her no definite news. one night she found him restive beyond his wont. she knew the reason. for two days there had been no scented letter, and she saw how he started at every creak of the garden-gate, as he waited for the last post. when at length a step was heard crunching on the gravel, he rushed from the room, and mrs. cohn heard the hall-door open. her ear, disappointed of the rat-tat, morbidly followed every sound; but it seemed a long time before her boy's returning footstep reached her. the strange, slow drag of it worked upon her nerves, and her heart grew sick with premonition. he held out the letter towards her. his face was white. 'she cannot marry me, because i am a jew,' he said tonelessly. 'cannot marry you!' she whispered huskily. 'oh, but this must not be! i will go to the father; i will explain! you saved his son--he owes you his daughter.' he waved her hopelessly back to her seat--for she had started up. 'it isn't the father, it's herself. now that i won't let her drift any longer, she can't bring herself to it. she's honest, anyway, my little lucy. she won't fall back on the old jew-baiter.' 'but how dare she--how dare she think herself above you!' her dog-like eyes were blazing yet once again. 'why are you jews surprised?' he said bitterly. 'you've held yourself aloof from the others long enough, god knows. yet you wonder they've got their prejudices, too.' and, suddenly laying his head on the table, he broke into sobs--sobs that tore at his mother's heart, that were charged with memories of his ancient tears, of the days of paternal wrath and the rending of 'the pirates of pechili.' and, again, as in the days when his boyish treasures were changed to ashes, she stole towards him, with an involuntary furtive look to see if s. cohn's back was turned, and laid her hands upon his heaving shoulders. but he shook her off! 'why didn't a boer bullet strike me down?' then with a swift pang of remorse he raised his contorted face and drew hers close against it--their love the one thing saved from anglicization. the jewish trinity the jewish trinity i with the christian mayoress of middleton to take in to dinner at sir asher aaronsberg's, leopold barstein as a jewish native of that thriving british centre, should have felt proud and happy. but barstein was young and a sculptor, fresh from the paris schools and salon triumphs. he had long parted company with jews and judaism, and to his ardent irreverence even the christian glories of middleton seemed unspeakably parochial. in paris he had danced at night on the boule miche out of sheer joy of life, and joined in choruses over midnight bocks; and london itself now seemed drab and joyless, though many a gay circle welcomed the wit and high spirits and even the physical graces of this fortunate young man who seemed to shed a blonde radiance all around him. the factories of middleton, which had manufactured sir asher aaronsberg, ex-m.p., and nearly all his wealthy guests, were to his artistic eye an outrage upon a beautiful planet, and he was still in that crude phase of juvenile revolt in which one speaks one's thoughts of the mess humanity has made of its world. but, unfortunately, the mayoress of middleton was deafish, so that he could not even shock her with his epigrams. it was extremely disconcerting to have his bland blasphemies met with an equally bland smile. on his other hand sat mrs. samuels, the buxom and highly charitable relict of 'the people's clothier,' whose ugly pictorial posters had overshadowed barstein's youth. little wonder that the artist's glance frequently wandered across the great shining table towards a girl who, if they had not been so plaguily intent on honouring his fame, might have now been replacing the mayoress at his side. true, the girl was merely a jewess, and he disliked the breed. but mabel aaronsberg was unexpected. she had a statuesque purity of outline and complexion; seemed, indeed, worthy of being a creation of his own. how the tedious old manufacturer could have produced this marmoreal prodigy provided a problem for the sculptor, as he almost silently ate his way through the long and exquisite menu. not that sir asher himself was unpicturesque. indeed, he was the very picture of the bluff and burly briton, white-bearded like father christmas. but he did not seem to lead to yonder vision of poetry and purity. lady aaronsberg, who might have supplied the missing link, was dead--before even arriving at ladyship, alas!--and when she was alive barstein had not enjoyed the privilege of moving in these high municipal circles. this he owed entirely to his foreign fame, and to his invitation by the corporation to help in the organization of a local art exhibition. 'i do admire sir asher,' the mayoress broke in suddenly upon his reflections; 'he seems to me exactly like your patriarchs.' a palestinian patriarch was the last person sir asher, with his hovering lackeys, would have recalled to the sculptor, who, in so far as the patriarchs ever crossed his mind, conceived them as resembling rembrandt's rabbis. but he replied blandly: 'our patriarchs were polygamists.' 'exactly,' assented the deaf mayoress. barstein, disconcerted, yearned to repeat his statement in a shout, but neither the pitch nor the proposition seemed suitable to the dinner-table. the mayoress added ecstatically: 'you can imagine him sitting at the door of his tent, talking with the angels.' this time barstein did shout, but with laughter. all eyes turned a bit enviously in his direction. 'you're having all the fun down there,' called out sir asher benevolently; and the bluff briton--even to the northerly burr--was so vividly stamped upon barstein's mind that he wondered the more that the mayoress could see him as anything but the prosy, provincial, whilom member of parliament he so transparently was. 'a mere literary illusion,' he thought. 'she has read the bible, and now reads sir asher into it. as well see a saxon pirate or a norman jongleur in a modern londoner.' as if to confirm barstein's vision of the bluff and burly briton, sir asher was soon heard over the clatter of conversation protesting vehemently against the views of tom fuller, the degenerate son of a tory squire. 'give ireland home rule?' he was crying passionately. 'oh, my dear mr. fuller, it would be the beginning of the end of our empire!' 'but the irish have as much right to govern themselves as we have!' the young englishman maintained. 'they would not so much govern themselves as misgovern the protestant minority,' cried sir asher, becoming almost epigrammatic in his excitement. 'home rule simply means the triumph of roman catholicism.' it occurred to the cynical barstein that even the defeat of roman catholicism meant no victory for judaism, but he stayed his tongue with a salted almond. let the briton make the running. this the young gentleman proceeded to do at a great pace. 'then how about home rule for india? there's no catholic majority there!' 'give up india!' sir asher opened horrified eyes. this heresy was new to him. 'give up the brightest jewel in the british crown! and let the russian bear come and swallow it up! no, no! a thousand times no!' sir asher even gestured with his fork in his patriotic fervour, forgetting he was not on the platform. 'so i imagine the patriarchs to have talked!' said the mayoress, admiringly observing his animation. whereat the sculptor laughed once more. he was amused, too, at the completeness with which the lion of judah had endued himself with the skin of the british lion. to a cosmopolitan artist this bourgeois patriotism was peculiarly irritating. but soon his eyes wandered again towards miss aaronsberg, and he forgot trivialities. ii the end of the meal was punctuated, not by the rising of the ladies, but by the host's assumption of a black cap, which popped up from his coat-tail pocket. with his head thus orientally equipped for prayer, sir asher suddenly changed into a rembrandtesque figure, his white beard hiding the society shirtfront; and as he began intoning the grace in hebrew, the startled barstein felt that the mayoress had at least a superficial justification. there came to him a touch of new and artistic interest in this prosy, provincial ex-m.p., who, environed by powdered footmen, sat at the end of his glittering dinner-table uttering the language of the ancient prophets; and he respected at least the sturdiness with which miss aaronsberg's father wore his faith, like a phylactery, on his forehead. it said much for his character that these fellow-citizens of his had once elected him as their member, despite his unpopular creed and race, and were now willing to sit at his table under this tedious benediction. sir asher did not even let them off with the shorter form of grace invented by a wise rabbi for these difficult occasions, yet so far as was visible it was only the jewish guests--comically distinguished by serviettes shamefacedly dabbed on their heads--who fidgeted under the pious torrent. these were no doubt fearful of boring the christians whose precious society the jew enjoyed on a parlous tenure. in the host's son julius a superadded intellectual impatience was traceable. he had brought back from oxford a contempt for his father's creed which was patent to every jew save sir asher. barstein, observing all this uneasiness, became curiously angry with his fellow-jews, despite that he had scrupulously forborne to cover his own head with his serviette; a racial pride he had not known latent in him surged up through all his cosmopolitanism, and he maliciously trusted that the brave sir asher would pray his longest. he himself had been a tolerable hebraist in his forcedly pious boyhood, and though he had neither prayed nor heard any hebrew prayers for many a year, his new artistic interest led him to listen to the grace, and to disentangle the meaning from the obscuring layers of verbal association and from the peculiar chant enlivened by occasional snatches of melody with which it was intoned. how he had hated this grace as a boy--this pious task-work that almost spoilt the anticipation of meals! but to-night, after so long an interval, he could look at it without prejudice, and with artistic aloofness render to himself a true impression of its spiritual value. '_we thank thee, o lord our god, because thou didst give as an heritage unto our fathers a desirable, good, and ample land, and because thou didst bring us forth, o lord our god, from the land of egypt, and didst deliver us from the house of bondage----_' barstein heard no more for the moment; the paradox of this retrospective gratitude was too absorbing. what! sir asher was thankful because over three thousand years ago his ancestors had obtained--not without hard fighting for it--a land which had already been lost again for eighteen centuries. what a marvellous long memory for a race to have! delivered from the house of bondage, forsooth! sir asher, himself--and here a musing smile crossed the artist's lips--had never even known a house of bondage, unless, indeed, the house of commons (from which he had been delivered by the radical reaction) might be so regarded, and his own house was, as he was fond of saying, liberty hall. but that the russian jew should still rejoice in the redemption from egypt! o miracle of pious patience! o sublime that grazed the ridiculous! but sir asher was still praying on: '_have mercy, o lord our god, upon israel thy people, upon jerusalem thy city, upon zion the abiding place of thy glory, upon the kingdom of the house of david, thine anointed...._' barstein lost himself in a fresh reverie. here was indeed the palestinian patriarch. not with the corporation of middleton, nor the lobbies of westminster, not with his colossal business, not even with the glories of the british empire, was sir asher's true heart. he had but caught phrases from the environment. to his deepest self he was not even a briton. '_have mercy, o lord, upon israel thy people._' despite all his outward pomp and prosperity, he felt himself one of that dispersed and maltreated band of brothers who had for eighteen centuries resisted alike the storm of persecution and the sunshine of tolerance, and whose one consolation in the long exile was the dream of zion. the artist in barstein began to thrill. what more fascinating than to catch sight of the dreamer beneath the manufacturer, the hebrew visionary behind the english m.p.! this palatial dwelling-place with its liveried lackeys was, then, no fort of philistinism in which an artist must needs asphyxiate, but a very citadel of the spirit. a new respect for his host began to steal upon him. involuntarily he sought the face of the daughter; the secret of her beauty was, after all, not so mysterious. old asher had a soul, and 'the soul is form and doth the body make.' unconscious of the effect he was producing on the sensitive artist, the rembrandtesque figure prayed on: '_and rebuild jerusalem, the holy city, speedily and in our days...._' it was the climax of the romance that had so strangely stolen over the british dinner-table. rebuild jerusalem to-day! did jews really conceive it as a contemporary possibility? barstein went hot and cold. the idea was absolutely novel to him; evidently as a boy he had not understood his own prayers or his own people. all his imagination was inflamed. he conjured up a zion built up by such virile hands as sir asher's, and peopled by such beautiful mothers as his daughter: the great empire that would spring from the unity and liberty of a race which even under dispersion and oppression was one of the most potent peoples on the planet. and thus, when the ladies at last rose, he was in so deep a reverie that he almost forgot to rise too, and when he did rise, he accompanied the ladies outside the door. it was only miss aaronsberg's tactful 'don't you want to smoke?' that saved him. 'almost as long a grace as the dinner!' tom fuller murmured to him as he returned to the table. 'do the jews say that after every meal?' 'they're supposed to,' barstein replied, a little jarred as he picked up a cigar. 'no wonder they beat the christians,' observed the young radical, who evidently took original views. 'so much time for digestion would enable any race to survive in this age of quick lunches. in america, now they should rule the roast. literally,' he added, with a laugh. 'it's a beautiful grace,' said barstein rebukingly. 'the glamour of zion thrown over the prose of diet.' 'you're not a jew?' said tom, with a sudden suspicion. 'yes, i am,' the artist replied with a dignity that surprised himself. 'i should never have taken you for one!' said tom ingenuously. despite himself, barstein felt a thrill of satisfaction. 'but why?' he asked himself instantly. 'to feel complimented at not being taken for a jew--what does it mean? is there a core of anti-semitism in my nature? has our race reached self-contempt?' 'i beg your pardon,' tom went on. 'i didn't mean to be irreverent. i appreciate the picturesqueness of it all--hearing the very language of the bible, and all that. and i do sympathize with your desire for jewish home rule.' 'my desire?' murmured the artist, taken aback. sir asher here interrupted them by pressing his ' port upon both, and directing the artist's attention in particular to the pictures that hung around the stately dining-room. there was a gainsborough, a reynolds, a landseer. he drew barstein round the walls. 'i am very fond of the english school,' he said. his cap was back in his coat-tail, and he had become again the bluff and burly briton. 'you don't patronize the italians at all?' asked the artist. 'no,' said sir asher. he lowered his voice. 'between you and i,' said he--it was his main fault of grammar--'in italian art one is never safe from the madonna, not to mention her son.' it was a fresh reminder of the palestinian patriarch. sir asher never discussed theology except with those who agreed with him. nor did he ever, whether in private or in public, breathe an unfriendly word against his christian fellow-citizens. all were sons of the same father, as he would frequently say from the platform. but in his heart of hearts he cherished a contempt, softened by stupefaction, for the arithmetical incapacity of trinitarians. christianity under any other aspect did not exist for him. it was a blunder impossible to a race with a genius for calculation. 'how can three be one?' he would demand witheringly of his cronies. the question was in his eye now as he summed up italian art to the sculptor, and a faint smile twitching about his lips invited his fellow-jew to share with him his feeling of spiritual and intellectual superiority to the poor blind christians at his table, as well as to christendom generally. but the artist refused to come up on the pedestal. 'surely the madonna was a very beautiful conception,' he said. sir asher looked startled. 'ah yes, you are an artist,' he remembered. 'you think only of the beautiful outside. but how can there be three-in-one or one-in-three?' barstein did not reply, and sir asher added in a low scornful tone: 'neither confounding the persons, nor dividing the substance.' iii a sudden commission recalled barstein to town before he could even pay his after-dinner call. but the seed sown in his soul that evening was not to be stifled. this seed was nothing less than the idea of a national revival of his people. he hunted up his old prayer-books, and made many discoveries as his modern consciousness depolarized page upon page that had never in boyhood been anything to him but a series of syllables to be gabbled off as rapidly as possible, when their meaning was not still further overlaid by being sung slowly to a tune. 'i might as well have turned a prayer-wheel,' he said regretfully, as he perceived with what iron tenacity the race beaten down by the roman empire and by every power that had reigned since, had preserved its aspiration for its old territory. and this mystery of race and blood, this beauty of unforgetting aspiration, was all physically incarnate in mabel aaronsberg. he did not move one inch out of his way to see her, because he saw her all day long. she appeared all over his studio in countless designs in clay. but from this image of the beauty of the race, his deepening insight drove him to interpret the tragedy also, and he sought out from the slums and small synagogues of the east end strange forlorn figures, with ragged curls and wistful eyes. it was from one of these figures that he learnt to his astonishment that the dream of zion, whereof he imagined himself the sole dreamer, was shared by myriads, and had even materialized into a national movement. he joined the movement, and it led him into strange conventicles. he was put on a committee which met in a little back-room, and which at first treated him and his arguments with deference, soon with familiarity, and occasionally with contempt. hucksters and cigar-makers held forth much more eloquently on their ideals than he could, with far greater command of talmudic quotation, while their knowledge of how to run their local organization was naturally superior. but throughout all the mean surroundings, the petty wrangles, and the grotesque jealousies that tarnished the movement he retained his inner exaltation. he had at last found himself and found his art. he fell to work upon a great michel-angelesque figure of the awakening genius of his people, blowing the trumpet of resurrection. it was sent for exhibition to a zionist congress, where it caused a furore, and where the artist met other artists who had long been working under the very inspiration which was so novel to him, and whose work was all around him in plaque and picture, in bust and book, and even postcard. some of them were setting out for palestine to start a school of arts and crafts. barstein began to think of joining them. meantime the bohemian circles which he had adorned with his gaiety and good-fellowship had been wondering what had become of him. his new work in the exhibitions supplied a sort of answer, and the few who chanced to meet him reported dolefully that he was a changed man. gone was the light-hearted and light-footed dancer of the paris pavement. silent the licentious wit of the neo-pagan. this was a new being with brooding brow and pained eyes that lit up only when they beheld his dream. never had bohemia known such a transformation. iv but a change came over the spirit of the dream. before he could seriously plan out his journey to palestine, he met mabel aaronsberg in the flesh. she was staying in town for the season in charge of an aunt, and the meeting occurred in one of the galleries of the newer art, in front of mabel's own self in marble. she praised the psyche without in the least recognising herself, and barstein, albeit disconcerted, could not but admit how far his statue was from the breathing beauty of the original. after this the jewish borderland of bohemia, where writers and painters are courted, began to see barstein again. but, unfortunately, this was not mabel's circle, and barstein was reduced to getting himself invited to that jewish bayswater, his loathing for which had not been overcome even by his new-found nationalism. here, amid hundreds of talking and dancing shadows, with which some shadowy self of his own danced and talked, he occasionally had a magic hour of reality--with mabel. one could not be real and not talk of the national dream. mabel, who took most of her opinions from her brother julius, was frankly puzzled, though her marmoreal gift of beautiful silence saved her lover from premature shocks. she had, indeed, scarcely heard of such things. zionism was something in the east end. nobody in her class ever mentioned it. but, then, barstein was a sculptor and strange, and, besides, he did not look at all like a jew, so it didn't sound so horrible in his mouth. his lithe figure stood out almost anglo-saxon amid the crowds of hulking undersized young men, and though his manners were not so good as a christian's--she never forgot his blunder at her father's dinner-party--still, he looked up to one with almost a christian's adoration, instead of sizing one up with an oriental's calculation. these other london jews thought her provincial, she knew, whereas barstein had one day informed her she was universal. julius, too, had admired barstein's sculpture, the modern note in which had been hailed by the oxford elect. but what most fascinated mabel was the constant eulogy of her lover's work in the christian papers; and when at last the formal proposal came, it found her fearful only of her father's disapproval. 'he's so orthodox,' she murmured, as they sat in a rose-garlanded niche at a great jewish charity ball, lapped around by waltz-music and the sweetness of love confessed. 'well, i'm not so wicked as i was,' he smiled. 'but you smoke on the sabbath, leo--you told me.' 'and you told me your brother julius does the same.' 'yes, but father doesn't know. if julius wants to smoke on friday evening, he always goes to his own room.' 'and i shan't smoke in your father's.' 'no--but you'll tell him. you're so outspoken.' 'well, i won't tell him--unless he asks me.' she looked sad. 'he won't ask you--he'll never get as far.' he smiled confidently. 'you're not very encouraging, dear; what's the matter with me?' 'everything. you're an artist, with all sorts of queer notions. and you're not so'--she blushed and hesitated--'not so rich----' he pressed her fingers. 'yes, i am; i'm the richest man here.' a little delighted laugh broke from her lips, though they went on: 'but you told me your profits are small--marble is so dear.' 'so is celibacy. i shall economize dreadfully by marrying.' she pouted; his flippancy seemed inadequate to the situation, and he seemed scarcely to realize that she was an heiress. but he continued to laugh away her fears. she was so beautiful and he was so strong--what could stand between them? certainly not the palestinian patriarch with whose inmost psychology he had, fortunately, become in such cordial sympathy. but mabel's pessimism was not to be banished even by the supper champagne. they had secured a little table for two, and were recklessly absorbed in themselves. 'at the worst, we can elope to palestine,' he said at last, gaily serious. mabel shuddered. 'live entirely among jews!' she cried. the radiance died suddenly out of his face; it was as if she had thrust the knife she was wielding through his heart. her silent reception of his nationalist rhapsodies he had always taken for agreement. nor might mabel have undeceived him had his ideas remained platonic. their irruption into the world of practical politics, into her own life, was, however, another pair of shoes. since barstein had brought zionism to her consciousness, she had noted that distinguished christians were quite sympathetic, but this was the one subject on which christian opinion failed to impress mabel. 'zionism's all very well for christians--they're in no danger of having to go to palestine,' she had reflected shrewdly. 'and why couldn't you live entirely among jews?' barstein asked slowly. mabel drew a great breath, as if throwing off a suffocating weight. 'one couldn't breathe,' she explained. 'aren't you living among jews now?' 'don't look so glum, silly. you don't want jews as background as well as foreground. a great ghetto!' and again she shuddered instinctively. 'every other people is background as well as foreground. and you don't call france a ghetto or italy a ghetto?' there was anti-semitism, he felt--unconscious anti-semitism--behind mabel's instinctive repugnance to an aggregation of jews. and he knew that her instinct would be shared by every jew in that festive aggregation around him. his heart sank. never--even in those east end back-rooms where the pitiful disproportion of his consumptive-looking collaborators to their great task was sometimes borne in dismally upon him--had he felt so black a despair as in this brilliant supper-room, surrounded by all that was strong and strenuous in the race--lawyers and soldiers, and men of affairs, whose united forces and finances could achieve almost anything they set their heart upon. 'jews can't live off one another,' mabel explained with an air of philosophy. barstein did not reply. he was asking himself with an artist's analytical curiosity whence came this suicidal anti-semitism. was it the self-contempt natural to a race that had not the strength to build and fend for itself? no, alas! it did not even spring from so comparatively noble a source. it was merely a part of their general imitation of their neighbours--jews, reflecting everything, had reflected even the dislike for the jew; only since the individual could not dislike himself, he applied the dislike to the race. and this unconscious assumption of the prevailing point of view was quickened by the fact that the jewish firstcomers were always aware of an existence on sufferance, with their slowly-won privileges jeopardized if too many other jews came in their wake. he consulted his own pre-zionist psychology. 'yes,' he decided. 'every jew who moves into our country, our city, our watering-place, our street even, seems to us an invader or an interloper. he draws attention to us, he accentuates our difference from the normal, he increases the chance of the renewal of _rishus_ (malice). and so we become anti-semites ourselves. but by what a comical confusion of logic is it that we carry over the objection to jewish aggregation even to an aggregation in palestine, in our own land! or is it only too logical? is it that the rise of a jewish autonomous power would be a standing reminder to our fellow-citizens that we others are not so radically british or german or french or american as we have vaunted ourselves? are we afraid of being packed off to palestine and is the fulfilment of the dream of eighteen centuries our deadliest dread?' the thought forced from him a sardonic smile. 'and i feared you were like king henry--never going to smile again.' mabel smiled back in relief. 'we're such a ridiculous people,' he answered, his smile fading into sombreness. 'neither fish, flesh, fowl, nor good red herring.' 'well, finish your good white fowl,' laughed mabel. she had felt her hold over him slipping, and her own apprehensions now vanished in the effort to banish his gloom. but she had only started him on a new tack. 'fowl!' he cried grimly. '_kosher_, of course, but with bits of fried _wurst_ to ape the scraps of bacon. and presently we shall be having water ices to simulate cream. we can't even preserve our dietary individuality. truly said feuerbach, "der mensch ist was er isst." in palestine we shall at least dare to be true to our own gullets.' he laughed bitterly. 'you're not very romantic,' mabel pouted. indeed, this barstein, whose mere ideal could so interrupt the rhapsodies due to her admissions of affection, was distinctly unsatisfactory. she touched his hand furtively under the tablecloth. 'after all, she is very young,' he thought, thrilling. and youth was plastic--he, the sculptor, could surely mould her. besides, was she not sir asher's daughter? she must surely have inherited some of his love for palestine and his people. it was this philistine set that had spoiled her. julius, too, that young oxford prig--he reflected illogically--had no doubt been a baleful influence. 'shall i give you some almond-pudding?' he replied tenderly. mabel laughed uneasily. 'i ask for romance, and you offer me almond-pudding. oh, i _should_ like to go to a jewish party where there wasn't almond-pudding!' 'you shall--in palestine,' he laughed back. she pouted again. 'all roads lead to palestine.' 'they do,' he said seriously. 'without palestine our past is a shipwreck and our future a quicksand.' she looked frightened again. 'but what should we do there? we can't pray all day long.' 'of course not,' he said eagerly. 'there's the new generation to train for its glorious future. i shall teach in the arts and crafts school. _bezalel_, it's called; isn't that a beautiful name? it's from bezalel, the first man mentioned in the bible as filled with divine wisdom and understanding in all manner of workmanship.' she shook her head. 'you'll be excommunicated. the palestine rabbis always excommunicate everything and everybody.' he laughed. 'what do you know about palestine?' 'more than you think. father gets endless letters from there with pressed flowers and citrons, and olive-wood boxes and paper-knives--a perennial shower. the letters are generally in the most killing english. and he won't let me laugh at them because he has a vague feeling that even palestine spelling and grammar are holy.' barstein laughed again. 'we'll send all the rabbis to jericho.' she smiled, but retorted: 'that's where they'll send you, you maker of graven images. why, your very profession is forbidden.' 'i'll corner 'em with this very bezalel text. the cutting of stones is just one of the arts which god says he had inspired bezalel with. besides, you forget my statue at the bâle congress.' 'bâle isn't palestine. there's nothing but superstition and squalor, and i'm sorry to say father's always bolstering it all up with his cheques.' 'bravo, sir asher! unconsciously he has been bolstering up the eventual renaissance. your father and his kind have kept the seed alive; we shall bring it to blossom.' his prophetic assurance cast a fresh shade of apprehension over her marmoreal brow. but her face lightened with a sudden thought. 'well, perhaps, after all, we shan't need to elope.' 'i never thought for a moment we should,' he answered as cheerfully. 'but, all the same, we can spend our honeymoon in palestine.' 'oh, i don't mind that,' said mabel. 'lots of christians do that. there was a cook's party went out from middleton for last easter.' the lover was too pleased with her acquiescence in the palestinian honeymoon to analyse the terms in which it was given. he looked into her eyes, and saw there the _shechinah_--the divine glory that once rested on zion. v it was in this happier mood that barstein ran down to middleton to plead his suit verbally with sir asher aaronsberg. mabel had feared to commit their fates to a letter, whether from herself or her lover. a plump negative would be so difficult to fight against. a personal interview permitted one to sound the ground, to break the thing delicately, to reason, to explain, to charm away objections. it was clearly the man's duty to face the music. not that barstein expected anything but the music of the wedding march. he was glad that his original contempt for sir asher had been exchanged for sincere respect, and that the bluff briton was a mere veneer. it was to the palestinian patriarch that he would pour out his hopes and his dreams. alas! he found only the bluff briton, and a briton no longer genially, but bluntly, bluff. 'it is perfectly impossible.' barstein, bewildered, pleaded for enlightenment. was he not pious enough, or not rich enough, too artistic or too low-born? or did sir asher consider his past life improper or his future behaviour dubious? let sir asher say. but sir asher would not say. 'i am not bound to give my reasons. we are all proud of your work--it confers honour on our community. the mayor alluded to it only yesterday.' he spoke in his best platform manner. 'but to receive you into my family--that is another matter.' and all the talk advanced things no further. 'it would be an entirely unsuitable match.' sir asher caressed his long beard with an air of finality. with a lover's impatience, barstein had made the mistake of seeking sir asher in his counting-house, where the municipal magnate sat among his solidities. the mahogany furniture, the iron safes, the ledgers, the silent obsequious clerks and attendants through whom barstein had had to penetrate, the factory buildings stretching around, with their sense of throbbing machinery and disciplined workers, all gave the burly briton a background against which visions and emotions seemed as unreal as ghosts under gaslight. the artist felt all this solid life closing round him like the walls of a torture-chamber, squeezing out his confidence, his aspirations, his very life. 'then you prefer to break your daughter's heart!' he cried desperately. 'break my daughter's heart!' echoed sir asher in amaze. it was apparently a new aspect to him. 'you don't suppose she won't suffer dreadfully?' barstein went on, perceiving his advantage. 'break her heart!' repeated sir asher, startled out of his discreet reticence. 'i'd sooner break her heart than see her married to a zionist!' this time it was the sculptor's turn to gasp. 'to a what?' he cried. 'to a zionist. you don't mean to deny you're a zionist?' said sir asher sternly. barstein gazed at him in silence. 'come, come,' said sir asher. 'you don't suppose i don't read the jewish papers? i know all about your goings-on.' the artist found his tongue. 'but--but,' he stammered, 'you yearn for zion too.' 'naturally. but i don't presume to force the hand of providence.' 'how can any of us force providence to do anything it doesn't want to? surely it is through human agency that providence always works. god helps those who help themselves.' 'spare me your blasphemies. perhaps you think you are the messiah.' 'i can be an atom of him. the whole jewish people is its own messiah--god working through it.' 'take care, young man; you'll be talking trinity next. and with these heathen notions you expect to marry my daughter! you must excuse me if i wish to hear no further.' his hand began to wander towards the row of electric bells on his desk. 'then how do you suppose we shall ever get to palestine?' inquired the irritated artist. sir asher raised his eyes to the ceiling. 'in god's good time,' he said. 'and when will that be?' 'when we are either too good or too bad for our present sphere. to-day we are too neutral. besides, there will be signs enough.' 'what signs?' 'read your bible. mount zion will be split by an earthquake, as the prophet----' barstein interrupted him with an impatient gesture. 'but why can't we go to jerusalem and wait for the earthquake there?' he asked. 'because we have a mission to the nations. we must live dispersed. we have to preach the unity of god.' 'i have never heard you preach it. you lowered your voice when you denounced the trinity to me, lest the christians should hear.' 'we have to preach silently, by our example. merely by keeping our own religion we convert the world.' 'but who keeps it? dispersion among sunday-keeping peoples makes our very sabbath an economic impossibility.' 'i have not found it so,' said sir asher crushingly. 'indeed, the growth of the saturday half-holiday since my young days is a remarkable instance of judaizing.' 'so we have to remain dispersed to promote the week-end holiday?' 'to teach international truth,' sir asher corrected sharply; 'not narrow tribalism.' 'but we don't remain dispersed. five millions are herded in the russian pale to begin with.' 'the providence of god has long been scattering them to new york.' 'yes, four hundred thousand in one square mile. a pretty scattering!' sir asher flushed angrily. 'but they go to the argentine too. i heard of a colony even in paraguay.' 'where they are preaching the unity to the indians.' 'i do not discuss religion with a mocker. we are in exile by god's decree--we must suffer.' 'suffer!' the artist's glance wandered cynically round the snug solidities of sir asher's exile, but he forbore to be personal. 'then if we _must_ suffer, why did you subscribe so much to the fund for the russian jews?' sir asher looked mollified at barstein's acquaintance with his generosity. 'that i might suffer with them,' he replied, with a touch of humour. 'then you _are_ a jewish patriot,' retorted barstein. the bluff british face grew clouded again. 'heaven forbid. i only know of british patriots. you talk treason to your country, young man.' 'treason--i!' the young man laughed bitterly. 'it is you zionists that will undermine all the rights we have so painfully won in the west.' 'oh, then you're not really a british patriot,' barstein began. 'i will beg you to remember, sir, that i equipped a corps of volunteers for the transvaal.' 'i dare say. but a corps of volunteers for zion--that is blasphemy, narrow tribalism.' 'zion's soil is holy; we want no volunteers there: we want saints and teachers. and what would your volunteers do in zion? fight the sultan with his million soldiers? they couldn't even live in palestine as men of peace. there is neither coal nor iron--hence no manufactures. agriculture? it's largely stones and swamps. not to mention it's too hot for jews to work in the fields. they'd all starve. you've no right to play recklessly with human lives. besides, even if palestine were as fertile as england, jews could never live off one another. and think how they'd quarrel!' sir asher ended almost good-humouredly. his array of arguments seemed to him a row of steam-hammers. 'we can live off one another as easily as any other people. as for quarrelling, weren't you in parliament? party government makes quarrel the very basis of the constitution.' sir asher flushed again. a long lifetime of laying down the law had ill prepared him for repartee. 'a pretty mess we should make of government!' he sneered. 'why? we have given ministers to every cabinet in the world.' 'yes--we're all right as long as we're under others. sir asher was recovering his serenity. 'all right so long as we're under others!' gasped the artist. 'do you realize what you're saying, sir asher? the boers against whom you equipped volunteers fought frenziedly for three years not to be under others! and we--the thought of jewish autonomy makes us foam at the mouth. the idea of independence makes us turn in the graves we call our fatherlands.' sir asher dismissed the subject with a podsnappian wave of the hand. 'this is all a waste of breath. fortunately the acquisition of palestine is impossible.' 'then why do you pray for it--"speedily and in our days"?' sir asher glared at the bold questioner. 'that seems a worse waste of breath,' added barstein drily. 'i said you were a mocker,' said sir asher severely. 'it is a divine event i pray for--not the creation of a ghetto.' 'a ghetto!' barstein groaned in sheer hopelessness. 'yes, you're an anti-semite too--like your daughter, like your son, like all of us. we're all anti-semites.' 'i an anti-semite! ho! ho! ho!' sir asher's anger broke down in sheer amusement. 'i have made every allowance for your excitement,' he said, recovering his magisterial note. 'i was once in love myself. but when it comes to calling _me_ an anti-semite, it is obvious you are not in a fit state to continue this interview. indeed, i no longer wonder that you think yourself the messiah.' 'even if i do, our tradition only makes the messiah a man; somebody some day will have to win your belief. but what i said was that god acts through man.' 'ah yes,' said sir asher good-humouredly. 'three-in-one and one-in-three.' 'and why not?' said barstein with a flash of angry intuition. 'aren't you a trinity yourself?' 'me?' sir asher was now quite sure of the sculptor's derangement. 'yes--the briton, the jew, and the anti-semite--three-in-one and one-in-three.' sir asher touched one of the electric bells with a jerk. he was quite alarmed. barstein turned white with rage at his dismissal. never would he marry into these triune tribes. 'and it's the same in every land where we're emancipated, as it is called,' he went on furiously. 'the jew's a patriot everywhere, and a jew everywhere and an anti-semite everywhere. passionate hungarians, and true-born italians, eagle-waving americans, and loyal frenchmen, imperial germans, and double dutchmen, we are dispersed to preach the unity, and what we illustrate is the jewish trinity. a delicious irony! three-in-one and one-in-three.' he laughed; to sir asher his laugh sounded maniacal. the old gentleman was relieved to see his stalwart doorkeeper enter. barstein turned scornfully on his heel. 'neither confounding the persons nor dividing the substance,' he ended grimly. the sabbath question in sudminster the sabbath question in sudminster i there was a storm in sudminster, not on the waters which washed its leading jews their living, but in the breasts of these same marine storekeepers. for a competitor had appeared in their hive of industry--an alien immigrant, without roots or even relatives at sudminster. and simeon samuels was equipped not only with capital and enterprise--the showy plate-glass front of his shop revealed an enticing miscellany--but with blasphemy and bravado. for he did not close on friday eve, and he opened on saturday morning as usual. the rumour did not get round all sudminster the first friday night, but by the sabbath morning the synagogue hummed with it. it set a clammy horror in the breasts of the congregants, distracted their prayers, gave an unreal tone to the cantor's roulades, brought a tremor of insecurity into the very foundations of their universe. for nearly three generations a congregation had been established in sudminster--like every jewish congregation, a camp in not friendly country--struggling at every sacrifice to keep the holy day despite the supplementary burden of sunday closing, and the god of their fathers had not left unperformed his part of the contract. for 'the harvests' of profit were abundant, and if 'the latter and the former rain' of their unchanging supplication were mere dried metaphors to a people divorced from palestine and the soil for eighteen centuries, the wine and the oil came in casks, and the corn in cakes. the poor were few and well provided for; even the mortgage on the synagogue was paid off. and now this epicurean was come to trouble the snug security, to break the long chain of sabbath observance which stretched from sinai. what wonder if some of the worshippers, especially such as had passed his blatant shop-window on their return from synagogue on friday evening, were literally surprised that the earth had not opened beneath him as it had opened beneath korah. 'even the man who gathered sticks on the sabbath was stoned to death,' whispered the squat solomon barzinsky to the lanky ephraim mendel, marine-dealers both. 'alas! that would not be permitted in this heathen country,' sighed ephraim mendel, hitching his praying-shawl more over his left shoulder. 'but at least his windows should be stoned.' solomon barzinsky smiled, with a gleeful imagining of the shattering of the shameless plate-glass. 'yes, and that wax-dummy of a sailor should be hung as an atonement for his--holy, holy, holy is the lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory.' the last phrase solomon suddenly shouted in hebrew, in antiphonal response to the cantor, and he rose three times on his toes, bowing his head piously. 'no wonder he can offer gold lace for the price of silver,' he concluded bitterly. 'he sells shoddy new reach-me-downs as pawned old clo,' complained lazarus levy, who had taken over s. cohn's business, together with his daughter deborah, 'and he charges the sudminster donkey-heads more than the price we ask for 'em as new.' talk of the devil----! at this point simeon samuels stalked into the synagogue, late but serene. had the real horned asmodeus walked in, the agitation could not have been greater. the first appearance in synagogue of a new settler was an event in itself; but that this sabbath-breaker should appear at all was startling to a primitive community. escorted by the obsequious and unruffled beadle to the seat he seemed already to have engaged--that high-priced seat facing the presidential pew that had remained vacant since the death of tevele the pawnbroker--simeon samuels wrapped himself reverently in his praying-shawl, and became absorbed in the service. his glossy high hat bespoke an immaculate orthodoxy, his long black beard had a rabbinic religiousness, his devotion was a rebuke to his gossiping neighbours. a wave of uneasiness passed over the synagogue. had he been the victim of a jealous libel? even those whose own eyes had seen him behind his counter when he should have been consecrating the sabbath-wine at his supper-table, wondered if they had been the dupe of some hallucination. when, in accordance with hospitable etiquette, the new-comer was summoned canorously to the reading of the law--'shall stand simeon, the son of nehemiah'--and he arose and solemnly mounted the central platform, his familiarity with the due obeisances and osculations and benedictions seemed a withering reply to the libel. when he descended, and the _parnass_ proffered his presidential hand in pious congratulation upon the holy privilege, all the congregants who found themselves upon his line of return shot forth their arms with remorseful eagerness, and thus was simeon samuels switched on to the brotherhood of sudminsterian israel. yet as his now trusting co-religionists passed his shop on their homeward walk--and many a pair of legs went considerably out of its way to do so--their eyes became again saucers of horror and amaze. the broad plate-glass glittered nakedly, unveiled by a single shutter; the waxen dummy of the sailor hitched devil-may-care breeches; the gold lace, ticketed with layers of erased figures, boasted brazenly of its cheapness; the procession of customers came and went, and the pavement, splashed with sunshine, remained imperturbably, perturbingly acquiescent. ii on the sunday night solomon barzinsky and ephraim mendel in pious black velvet caps, and their stout spouses in gold chains and diamond earrings, found themselves playing solo whist in the _parnass's_ parlour, and their religious grievance weighed upon the game. the _parnass_, though at heart as outraged as they by the new departure, felt it always incumbent upon him to display his presidential impartiality and his dry humour. his authority, mainly based on his being the only retired shopkeeper in the community, was greatly strengthened by his slow manner of taking snuff at a crisis. 'my dear mendel,' observed the wizened senior, flicking away the spilth with a blue handkerchief, 'simeon samuels has already paid his annual subscription--and you haven't!' 'my money is good,' mendel replied, reddening. 'no wonder he can pay so quickly!' said solomon barzinsky, shuffling the cards savagely. 'how he makes his money is not the question,' said the _parnass_ weightily. 'he has paid it, and therefore if i were to expel him, as you suggest, he might go to law.' 'law!' retorted solomon. 'can't we prove he has broken the law of moses?' 'and suppose?' said the _parnass_, picking up his cards placidly. 'do we want to wash our dirty _talysim_ (praying-shawls) in public?' 'he is right, solomon,' said mrs. barzinsky. 'we should become a laughing-stock among the heathen.' 'i don't believe he'd drag us to the christian courts,' the little man persisted. 'i pass.' the rubber continued cheerlessly. 'a man who keeps his shop open on sabbath is capable of anything,' said the lanky mendel, gloomily sweeping in his winnings. the _parnass_ took snuff judicially. 'besides, he may have a christian partner who keeps all the saturday profits,' he suggested. 'that would be just as forbidden,' said barzinsky, as he dealt the cards. 'but your cousin david,' his wife reminded him, 'sells his groceries to a christian at passover.' 'that is permitted. it would not be reasonable to destroy hundreds of pounds of leaven. but sabbath partnerships are not permitted.' 'perhaps the question has never been raised,' said the _parnass_. 'i am enough of a _lamdan_ (pundit) to answer it,' retorted barzinsky. 'i prefer going to a specialist,' rejoined the _parnass_. barzinsky threw down his cards. 'you can go to the devil!' he cried. 'for shame, solomon!' said his wife. 'don't disturb the game.' 'to gehenna with the game! the shame is on a _parnass_ to talk like an _epikouros_ (epicurean).' the _parnass_ blew his nose elaborately. 'it stands in the talmud: "for vain swearing noxious beasts came into the world." and if----' 'it stands in the psalmist,' barzinsky interrupted: '"the law of thy mouth is better to me than thousands of gold and silver."' 'it stands in the perek,' the _parnass_ rejoined severely, 'that the wise man does not break in upon the speech of his fellow.' 'it stands in the shulchan aruch,' barzinsky shrieked, 'that for the sanctification of the sabbath----' 'it stands in the talmud,' interposed mendel, with unwonted animation in his long figure, 'that one must not even offer a nut to allure customers. from light to heavy, therefore, it may be deduced that----' a still small voice broke in upon the storm. 'but simeon samuels hasn't a christian partner,' said mrs. mendel. there was an embarrassed pause. 'he has only his wife to help him,' she went on. 'i know, because i went to the shop friday morning on pretence of asking for a cuckoo-clock.' 'but a marine-dealer doesn't sell clocks,' put in the _parnass's_ wife timidly. it was her first contribution to the conversation, for she was overpowered by her husband's greatness. 'don't be silly, hannah!' said the _parnass_. 'that was just why mrs. mendel asked for it.' 'yes, but unfortunately simeon samuels did have one,' mrs. mendel confessed; 'and i couldn't get out of buying it.' there was a general laugh. 'cut-throat competition, i call it,' snarled solomon barzinsky, recovering from his merriment. 'but _you_ don't sell clocks,' said the _parnass_. 'that's just it; he gets hold of our customers on pretence of selling them something else. the talmudical prohibition cited by mendel applies to that too.' 'so i wasn't so silly,' put in the _parnass's_ wife, feeling vaguely vindicated. 'well, you saw his wife,' said the _parnass_ to mendel's wife, disregarding his own. 'more than i've done, for she wasn't in synagogue. perhaps _she_ is the christian partner.' his suggestion brought a new and holier horror over the card-table. 'no, no,' replied mrs. mendel reassuringly. 'i caught sight of her frying fish in the kitchen.' this proof of her jewishness passed unquestioned, and the new-born horror subsided. 'but in spite of the fish,' said mr. mendel, 'she served in the shop while he was at synagogue.' 'yes,' hissed barzinsky; 'and in spite of the synagogue _he_ served in the shop. a greater mockery was never known!' 'not at all, not at all,' said the _parnass_ judicially. 'if a man breaks one commandment, that's no reason he should break two.' 'but he does break two,' solomon thundered, smiting the green cloth with his fist; 'for he steals my custom by opening when i'm closed.' 'take care--you will break my plates,' said the _parnass_. 'take a sandwich.' 'thank you--you've taken away my appetite.' 'i'm sorry--but the sandwiches would have done the same. i really can't expel a respectable seat-holder before i know that he is truly a sinner in israel. as it is written, "thou shalt inquire and make search and ask diligently." he may have only opened this once by way of a send-off. every dog is allowed one bite.' 'at that rate, it would be permitted to eat a ham-sandwich--just for once,' said solomon scathingly. 'don't say _i_ called you a dog,' the _parnass_ laughed. 'a mezaire!' announced the hostess hurriedly. 'after all, it's the almighty's business, not ours.' 'no, it's our business,' solomon insisted. 'yes,' agreed the _parnass_ drily; 'it _is_ your business.' iii the week went by, with no lull in the storm, though the plate-glass window was unshaken by the gusts. it maintained its flaunting seductiveness, assisted, people observed, by simeon samuels' habit of lounging at his shop-door and sucking in the hesitating spectator. and it did not shutter itself on the sabbath that succeeded. the horror was tinged with consternation. the strange apathy of the pavement and the sky, the remissness of the volcanic fires and the celestial thunderbolts in face of this staring profanity, lent the cosmos an air almost of accessory after the fact. never had the congregation seen heaven so openly defied, and the consequences did not at all correspond with their deep if undefined forebodings. it is true a horse and carriage dashed into peleg, the pawnbroker's, window down the street, frightened, peleg maintained, by the oilskins fluttering outside simeon samuels' shop; but as the suffering was entirely limited to the nerves of mrs. peleg, who was pious, and to the innocent nose of the horse, this catastrophe was not quite what was expected. solomon barzinsky made himself the spokesman of the general dissatisfaction, and his remarks to the minister after the sabbath service almost insinuated that the reverend gentleman had connived at a breach of contract. the rev. elkan gabriel quoted scripture. 'the lord is merciful and long-suffering, and will not at once awaken all his wrath.' 'but meantime the sinner makes a pretty penny!' quoth solomon, unappeased. 'saturday is pay-day, and the heathen haven't patience to wait till the three stars are out and our shops can open. it is your duty, mr. gabriel, to put a stop to this profanation.' the minister hummed and ha'd. he was middle-aged, and shabby, with a german diploma and accent and a large family. it was the first time in his five years of office that one of his congregants had suggested such authoritativeness on his part. elected by their vote, he was treated as their servant, his duties rigidly prescribed, his religious ideas curbed and corrected by theirs. what wonder if he could not suddenly rise to dictatorship? even at home mrs. gabriel was a congregation in herself. but as the week went by he found barzinsky was not the only man to egg him on to prophetic denunciation; the congregation at large treated him as responsible for the scandal, and if the seven marine-dealers were the bitterest, the pawnbrokers and the linen-drapers were none the less outraged. 'it is a profanation of the name,' they said unanimously, 'and such a bad example to our poor!' 'he would not listen to me,' the poor minister would protest. 'you had much better talk to him yourself.' 'me!' the button-holer would ejaculate. 'i would not lower myself. he'd think i was jealous of his success.' simeon samuels seemed, indeed, a formidable person to tackle. bland and aloof, he pursued his own affairs, meeting the congregation only in synagogue, and then more bland and aloof than ever. at last the minister received a presidential command to preach upon the subject forthwith. 'but there's no text suitable just yet,' he pleaded. 'we are still in genesis.' 'bah!' replied the _parnass_ impatiently, 'any text can be twisted to point any moral. you must preach next sabbath.' 'but we are reading the _sedrah_ (weekly portion) about joseph. how are you going to work sabbath-keeping into that?' 'it is not my profession. i am a mere man-of-the-earth. but what's the use of a preacher if he can't make any text mean something else?' 'well, of course, every text usually does,' said the preacher defensively. 'there is the hidden meaning and the plain meaning. but joseph is merely historical narrative. the sabbath, although mentioned in genesis, chapter two, wasn't even formally ordained yet.' 'and what about potiphar's wife?' 'that's the seventh commandment, not the fourth.' 'thank you for the information. do you mean to say you can't jump from one commandment to another?' 'oh, well----' the minister meditated. iv 'and joseph was a goodly person, and well favoured. and it came to pass that his master's wife cast her eyes upon joseph....' the congregation looked startled. really this was not a text which they wished their pastor to enlarge upon. there were things in the bible that should be left in the obscurity of the hebrew, especially when one's womenkind were within earshot. uneasily their eyes lifted towards the bonnets behind the balcony-grating. 'but joseph refused.' solomon barzinsky coughed. peleg the pawnbroker blew his nose like a protesting trumpet. the congregation's eyes returned from the balcony and converged upon the _parnass_. he was taking snuff as usual. 'my brethren,' began the preacher impressively, 'temptation comes to us all----' a sniff of indignant repudiation proceeded from many nostrils. a blush overspread many cheeks. 'but not always in the shape it came to joseph. in this congregation, where, by the blessing of the almighty, we are free from almost every form of wrong-doing, there is yet one temptation which has power to touch us--the temptation of unholy profit, the seduction of sabbath-breaking.' a great sigh of dual relief went up to the balcony, and simeon samuels became now the focus of every eye. his face was turned towards the preacher, wearing its wonted synagogue expression of reverential dignity. 'oh, my brethren, that it could always be said of us: "and joseph refused"!' a genial warmth came back to every breast. ah, now the cosmos was righting itself; heaven was speaking through the mouth of its minister. the rev. elkan gabriel expanded under this warmth which radiated back to him. his stature grew, his eloquence poured forth, polysyllabic. as he ended, the congregation burst into a heartfelt '_yosher koach_' ('may thy strength increase!'). the minister descended the ark-steps, and stalked back solemnly to his seat. as he passed simeon samuels, that gentleman whipped out his hand and grasped the man of god's, and his neighbours testified that there was a look of contrite exaltation upon his goodly features. v the sabbath came round again, but, alas! it brought no balm to the congregation; rather, was it a day of unrest. the plate-glass window still flashed in iniquitous effrontery; still the ungodly proprietor allured the stream of custom. 'he does not even refuse to take money,' solomon barzinsky exclaimed to peleg the pawnbroker, as they passed the blasphemous window on their way from the friday-evening service. 'why, what would be the good of keeping open if you didn't take money?' naïvely inquired peleg. '_behemah_ (animal)!' replied solomon impatiently. 'don't you know it's forbidden to touch money on the sabbath?' 'of course, i know that. but if you open your shop----!' 'all the same, you might compromise. you might give the customers the things they need, as it is written, "open thy hand to the needy!" but they could pay on saturday night.' 'and if they didn't pay? if they drank their money away?' said the pawnbroker. 'true, but why couldn't they pay in advance?' 'how in advance?' 'they could deposit a sum of money with you, and draw against it.' 'not with me!' peleg made a grimace. 'all very well for your line, but in mine i should have to deposit a sum of money with _them_. i don't suppose they'd bring their pledges on friday night, and wait till saturday night for the money. besides, how could one remember? one would have to profane the sabbath by writing!' 'write! heaven forbid!' ejaculated solomon barzinsky. 'but you could have a system of marking the amounts against their names in your register. a pin could be stuck in to represent a pound, or a stamp stuck on to indicate a crown. there are lots of ways. one could always give one's self a device,' he concluded in yiddish. 'but it is written in job, "he disappointeth the devices of the crafty, so that their hands cannot perform their enterprise." have a little of job's patience, and trust the lord to confound the sinner. we shall yet see simeon samuels in the bankruptcy court.' 'i hope not, the rogue! i'd like to see him ruined!' 'that's what i mean. leave him to the lord.' 'the lord is too long-suffering,' said solomon. 'ah, our _parnass_ has caught us up. good _shabbos_ (sabbath), _parnass_. this is a fine scandal for a god-fearing congregation. i congratulate you.' 'is he open again?' gasped the _parnass_, hurled from his judicial calm. 'is my eye open?' witheringly retorted barzinsky. 'a fat lot of good your preacher does.' 'it was you who would elect him instead of rochinsky,' the _parnass_ reminded him. barzinsky was taken aback. 'well, we don't want foreigners, do we?' he murmured. 'and you caught an englishman in simeon samuels,' chuckled the _parnass_, in whose breast the defeat of his candidate had never ceased to rankle. 'not he. an englishman plays fair,' retorted barzinsky. he seriously considered himself a briton, regarding his naturalization papers as retrospective. 'we are just passing the reverend gabriel's house,' he went on. 'let us wait a moment; he'll come along, and we'll give him a piece of our minds.' 'i can't keep my family waiting for _kiddush'_ (home service), said peleg. 'come home, father; i'm hungry,' put in peleg junior, who with various barzinsky boys had been trailing in the parental wake. 'silence, impudent face!' snapped barzinsky. 'if i was your father----ah, here comes the minister. good _shabbos_ (sabbath), mr. gabriel. i congratulate you on the effect of your last sermon.' an exultant light leapt into the minister's eye. 'is he shut?' 'is your mouth shut?' solomon replied scathingly. 'i doubt if he'll even come to _shool_ (synagogue) to-morrow.' the ministerial mouth remained open in a fishy gasp, but no words came from it. 'i'm afraid you'll have to use stronger language, mr. gabriel,' said the _parnass_ soothingly. 'but if he is not there to hear it.' 'oh, don't listen to barzinsky. he'll be there right enough. just give it to him hot!' 'your sermon was too general,' added peleg, who had lingered, though his son had not. 'you might have meant any of us.' 'but we must not shame our brother in public,' urged the minister. 'it is written in the talmud that he who does so has no share in the world to come.' 'well, you shamed us all,' retorted barzinsky. 'a stranger would imagine we were a congregation of sabbath-breakers.' 'but there wasn't any stranger,' said the minister. 'there was simeon samuels,' the _parnass_ reminded him. 'perhaps your sermon against sabbath-breaking made him fancy he was just one of a crowd, and that you have therefore only hardened him----' 'but you told me to preach against sabbath-breaking,' said the poor minister. 'against the sabbath-breaker,' corrected the _parnass_. 'you didn't single him out,' added barzinsky; 'you didn't even make it clear that joseph wasn't myself.' 'i said joseph was a goodly person and well-favoured,' retorted the goaded minister. the _parnass_ took snuff, and his sneeze sounded like a guffaw. 'well, well,' he said more kindly, 'you must try again to-morrow.' 'i didn't undertake to preach every saturday,' grumbled the minister, growing bolder. 'as long as simeon samuels keeps open, you can't shut,' said solomon angrily. 'it's a duel between you,' added peleg. 'and simeon actually comes into to-morrow's _sedrah_' (portion), barzinsky remembered exultantly. '"and took from them simeon, and bound him before their eyes." there's your very text. you'll pick out simeon from among us, and bind him to keep the sabbath.' 'or you can say satan has taken simeon and bound him,' added the _parnass_. 'you have a choice--yourself or satan.' 'perhaps you had better preach yourself, then,' said the minister sullenly. 'i still can't see what that text has to do with sabbath-breaking.' 'it has as much to do with sabbath-breaking as potiphar's wife,' shrieked solomon barzinsky. vi '"and jacob their father said unto them, me have ye bereaved. joseph is not, and simeon is not, and ye will take benjamin."' as the word 'simeon' came hissing from the preacher's lips, a veritable thrill passed through the synagogue. even simeon samuels seemed shaken, for he readjusted his praying-shawl with a nervous movement. 'my brethren, these words of israel, the great forefather of our tribes, are still ringing in our ears. to-day more than ever is israel crying. joseph is not--our holy land is lost. simeon is not--our holy temple is razed to the ground. one thing only is left us--one blessing with which the almighty father has blessed us--our holy sabbath. and ye will take benjamin.' the pathos of his accents melted every heart. tears rolled down many a feminine cheek. simeon samuels was seen to blow his nose softly. thus successfully launched, the rev. elkan gabriel proceeded to draw a tender picture of the love between israel and his benjamin, sabbath--the one consolation of his exile, and he skilfully worked in the subsequent verse: 'if mischief befall him by the way on which ye go, then shall ye bring down my grey hairs with sorrow to the grave.' yes, it would be the destruction of israel, he urged, if the sabbath decayed. woe to those sons of israel who dared to endanger benjamin. 'from reuben and _simeon_ down to gad and asher, his life shall be required at their hands.' oh, it was a red-hot-cannon-ball-firing sermon, and solomon barzinsky could not resist leaning across and whispering to the _parnass_: 'wasn't i right in refusing to vote for rochinsky?' this reminder of his candidate's defeat was wormwood to the _parnass_, spoiling all his satisfaction in the sermon. he rebuked the talker with a noisy '_shaa_' (silence). the congregation shrank delicately from looking at the sinner; it would be too painful to watch his wriggles. his neighbours stared pointedly every other way. thus, the only record of his deportment under fire came from yankele, the poor glazier's boy, who said that he kept looking from face to face, as if to mark the effect on the congregation, stroking his beard placidly the while. but as to his behaviour after the guns were still, there was no dubiety, for everybody saw him approach the _parnass_ in the exodus from synagogue, and many heard him say in hearty accents: 'i really must congratulate you, mr. president, on your selection of your minister.' vii 'you touched his heart so,' shrieked solomon barzinsky an hour later to the reverend elkan gabriel, 'that he went straight from _shool_ (synagogue) to his shop.' solomon had rushed out the first thing after breakfast, risking the digestion of his sabbath fish, to call upon the unsuccessful minister. 'that is not my fault,' said the preacher, crestfallen. 'yes, it is--if you had only stuck to _my_ text. but no! you must set yourself up over all our heads.' 'you told me to get in simeon, and i obeyed.' 'yes, you got him in. but what did you call him? the holy temple! a fine thing, upon my soul!' 'it was only an--an--analogy,' stammered the poor minister. 'an apology! oh, so you apologized to him, too! better and better.' 'no, no, i mean a comparison.' 'a comparison! you never compared me to the holy temple. and i'm solomon--solomon who built it.' 'solomon was wise,' murmured the minister. 'oh, and i'm silly. if i were you, mr. gabriel, i'd remember my place and who i owed it to. but for me, rochinsky would have stood in your shoes----' 'rochinsky is lucky.' 'oh, indeed! so this is your gratitude. very well. either simeon samuels shuts up shop or you do. that's final. don't forget you were only elected for three years.' and the little man flung out. the _parnass_, meeting his minister later in the street, took a similar view. 'you really must preach again next sabbath,' he said. 'the congregation is terribly wrought up. there may even be a riot. if simeon samuels keeps open next sabbath, i can't answer that they won't go and break his windows.' 'then _they_ will break the sabbath.' 'oh, they may wait till the sabbath is out.' 'they'll be too busy opening their own shops.' 'don't argue. you _must_ preach his shop shut.' 'very well,' said the reverend gabriel sullenly. 'that's right. a man with a family must rise to great occasions. do you think i'd be where i am now if i hadn't had the courage to buy a bankrupt stock that i didn't see my way to paying for? it's a fight between you and simeon samuels.' 'may his name be blotted out!' impatiently cried the minister in the hebrew imprecation. 'no, no,' replied the _parnass_, smiling. 'his name must not be blotted out--it must be mentioned, and--unmistakably.' 'it is against the talmud. to shame a man is equivalent to murder,' the minister persisted. 'yet it is written in leviticus: "thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy neighbour, and not suffer sin upon him."' and the _parnass_ took a triumphant pinch. viii '_simeon_ and levi are brethren ... into their assembly be not thou united: in their self-will they digged down a wall.' the _parnass_ applauded mentally. the text, from jacob's blessing, was ingeniously expurgated to meet the case. the wall, he perceived at once, was the sabbath--the jews' one last protection against the outer world, the one last dyke against the waves of heathendom. nor did his complacency diminish when his intuition proved correct, and the preacher thundered against the self-will--ay, and the self-seeking--that undermined israel's last fortification. what did they seek under the wall? did they think their delving spades would come upon a hidden store of gold, upon an ancient treasure-chest? nay, it was a coffin they would strike--a coffin of dead bones and living serpents. a cold wave of horror traversed the synagogue; a little shriek came from the gallery. 'i don't think i ever enjoyed a sermon so much,' said the pawnbroker to the _parnass_. 'oh, he's improving,' said the _parnass_, still swollen with satisfaction. but as that worthy elder emerged from the synagogue, placidly snuffing himself, he found an excited gentleman waiting him in the lobby. it was lazarus levy, whom his wife deborah, daughter of s. cohn (now of highbury), was vainly endeavouring to pacify. 'either that reverend gabriel goes, mr. _parnass_, or i resign my membership.' 'what is it, mr. levy--what is the matter?' 'everybody knows i've been a good jew all my life, and though saturday is so good for the clothing business, i've striven with all my might to do my duty by the almighty.' 'of course, of course; everybody knows that.' 'and yet to-day i'm pointed out as a sinner in israel; i'm coupled with that simeon samuels. simeon and levy are brothers in their iniquity--with their assembly be not united. a pretty libel, indeed!' the _parnass's_ complacency collapsed like an air-ball at a pin-prick. 'oh, nonsense, everybody knows he couldn't mean you.' 'i don't know so much. there are always people ready to think one has just been discovered keeping a back-door open or something. i shouldn't be at all surprised to get a letter from my father-in-law in london--you know how pious old cohn is! as for simeon, he kept looking at me as if i _was_ his long-lost brother. ah, there comes our precious minister.... look here, mr. gabriel, i'll have the law on you. simeon's no brother of mine----' the sudden appearance of simeon through the other swing-door cut the speaker short. 'good _shabbos_,' said the shameless sinner. 'ah, mr. gabriel, that was a very fine sermon.' he stroked his beard. 'i quite agree with you. to dig down a public wall is indefensible. nobody has the right to make more than a private hole in it, where it blocks out his own prospect. so please do not bracket me with mr. levy again. good _shabbos_!' and, waving his hand pleasantly, he left them to their consternation. ix 'what an impudent face!' said the _gabbai_ (treasurer), who witnessed the episode. 'and our minister says i'm that man's brother! exclaimed mr. levy. 'hush! enough!' said the _parnass_, with a tactful inspiration. 'you shall read the _haphtorah_ (prophetic section) next _shabbos_.' 'and mr. gabriel must explain he didn't mean me,' he stipulated, mollified by the magnificent _mitzvah_ (pious privilege). 'you always try to drive a hard bargain,' grumbled the _parnass_. 'that's a question for mr. gabriel.' the reverend gentleman had a happy thought. 'wait till we come to the text: "wherefore levi hath no part nor inheritance with his brethren."' 'you're a gentleman, mr. gabriel,' ejaculated s. cohn's son-in-law, clutching at his hand. 'and if he doesn't close to-day after your splendid sermon,' added the _gabbai_, 'you must call and talk to him face to face.' the minister made a wry face. 'but that's not in my duties.' 'pardon me, mr. gabriel,' put in the _parnass_, 'you have to call upon the afflicted and the bereaved. and simeon samuels is spiritually afflicted, and has lost his sabbath.' 'but he doesn't want comforting.' 'well, solomon barzinsky does,' said the _parnass_. 'go to him instead, then, for i'm past soothing him. choose!' 'i'll go to simeon samuels,' said the preacher gloomily. x 'it is most kind of you to call,' said simeon samuels as he wheeled the parlour armchair towards his reverend guest. 'my wife will be so sorry to have missed you. we have both been looking forward so much to your visit.' 'you knew i was coming?' said the minister, a whit startled. 'i naturally expected a pastoral visit sooner or later.' 'i'm afraid it is later,' murmured the minister, subsiding into the chair. 'better late than never,' cried simeon samuels heartily, as he produced a bottle from the sideboard. 'do you take it with hot water?' 'thank you--not at all. i am only staying a moment.' 'ah!' he stroked his beard. 'you are busy?' 'terribly busy,' said the rev. elkan gabriel. 'even on sunday?' 'rather! it's my day for secretarial work, as there's no school.' 'poor mr. gabriel. i at least have sunday to myself. but you have to work saturday and sunday too. it's really too bad.' 'eh,' said the minister blankly. 'oh, of course i know you _must_ work on the sabbath.' '_i_ work on--on _shabbos_!' the minister flushed to the temples. 'oh, i'm not blaming you. one must live. in an ideal world of course you'd preach and pray and sing and recite the law for nothing so that heaven might perhaps overlook your hard labour, but as things are you must take your wages.' [illustration: "i work on--on _shabbos_!"] the minister had risen agitatedly. 'i earn my wages for the rest of my work--the sabbath work i throw in,' he said hotly. 'oh come, mr. gabriel, that quibble is not worthy of you. but far be it from me to judge a fellow-man.' 'far be it indeed!' the attempted turning of his sabre-point gave him vigour for the lunge. 'you--you whose shop stands brazenly open every saturday!' 'my dear mr. gabriel, i couldn't break the fourth commandment.' 'what!' 'would you have me break the fourth commandment?' 'i do not understand.' 'and yet you hold a rabbinic diploma, i am told. does not the fourth commandment run: "six days shalt thou labour and do all thy work"? if i were to close on saturday i should only be working five days a week, since in this heathen country sunday closing is compulsory.' 'but you don't keep the other half of the commandment,' said the bewildered minister. '"and on the seventh is the sabbath."' 'yes, i do--after my six days the seventh is my sabbath. i only sinned once, if you will have it so, the first time i shifted the sabbath to sunday, since when my sabbath has arrived regularly on sundays.' 'but you did sin once!' said the minister, catching at that straw. 'granted, but as to get right again would now make a second sin, it seems more pious to let things be. not that i really admit the first sin, for let me ask you, sir, which is nearer to the spirit of the commandment--to work six days and keep a day of rest--merely changing the day once in one's whole lifetime--or to work five days and keep two days of rest?' the minister, taken aback, knew not how to meet this novel defence. he had come heavily armed against all the usual arguments as to the necessity of earning one's bread. he was prepared to prove that even from a material point of view you really gained more in the long run, as it is written in the conclusion-of-sabbath service: 'blessed shalt thou be in the city, and blessed shalt thou be in the field.' simeon samuels pursued his advantage. 'my co-religionists in sudminster seem to have put all the stress upon the resting half of the commandment, forgetting the working half of it. i do my best to meet their views--as you say, one should not dig down a wall--by attending their sabbath service on a day most inconvenient to me. but no sacrifice is too great to achieve prayerful communion with one's brethren.' 'but if your views were to prevail there would be an end of judaism!' the minister burst forth. 'then heaven forbid they should prevail!' said simeon samuels fervently. 'it is your duty to put the opposition doctrine as strongly as possible from the pulpit.' then, as the minister rose in angry obfuscation, 'you are sure you won't have some whisky?' he added. 'no, i will take nothing from a house of sin. and if you show yourself next sabbath i will preach at you again.' 'so that is your idea of religion--to drive me from the synagogue. you are more likely to drive away the rest of the congregation, sick of always hearing the same sermon. as for me, you forget how i enjoy your eloquence, devoted though it is to the destruction of judaism.' 'me!' the minister became ungrammatical in his indignation. 'yes, you. to mix up religion with the almanac. people who find that your sabbath wall shuts them out of all public life and all professions, just go outside it altogether, and think themselves outside the gates of judaism. if my father--peace be upon him--hadn't had your narrow notions, i should have gone to the bar instead of being condemned to shop-keeping.' 'you are a very good devil's advocate now,' retorted the minister. simeon samuels stroked his beard. 'thank you. and i congratulate _your_ client.' 'you are an _epikouros_ (epicurean), and i am wasting my time.' 'and mine too.' the minister strode into the shop. at the street-door he turned. 'then you persist in setting a bad example?' 'a bad example! to whom? to your godly congregation? considering every other shop in the town is open on _shabbos_, one more or less can't upset them.' 'when it is the only jewish shop! are you aware, sir, that every other jew in sudminster closes rigorously on the sabbath?' 'i ascertained that before i settled here,' said simeon samuels quietly. xi the report of the pastor's collapse produced an emergency meeting of the leading sheep. the mid-day dinner-hour was chosen as the slackest. a babble of suggestions filled the _parnass's_ parlour. solomon barzinsky kept sternly repeating his _delenda est carthago_: 'he must be expelled from the congregation.' 'he should be expelled from the town altogether,' said mendel. 'as it is written: "and remove satan from before and behind us."' 'since when have we owned sudminster?' sneered the _parnass_. 'you might as well talk of expelling the mayor and the corporation.' 'i didn't mean by act of parliament,' said mendel. 'we could make his life a torture.' 'and meantime he makes yours a torture. no, no, the only way is to appeal to his soul----' 'may it be an atonement for us all!' interrupted peleg the pawnbroker. 'we must beg him not to destroy religion,' repeated the _parnass_. 'i thought mr. gabriel had done that,' said the _gabbai_. 'he is only a minister. he has no worldly tact.' 'then, why don't _you_ go?' said solomon barzinsky. 'i have too much worldly tact. the president's visit might seem like an appeal to authority. it would set up his bristles. besides, there wouldn't be me left to appeal to. the congregation must keep some trump up its sleeve. no, a mere plain member must go, a simple brother in israel, to talk to him, heart to heart. you, barzinsky, are the very man.' 'no, no, i'm not such a simple brother as all that. i'm in the same line, and he might take it for trade jealousy.' 'then peleg must go.' 'no, no, i'm not worthy to be the _sheliach tzibbur_!' (envoy of the congregation). the _parnass_ reassured him as to his merits. 'the congregation could not have a worthier envoy.' 'but i can't leave my business.' 'you, with your fine grown-up daughters!' cried barzinsky. 'don't beshrew them--i will go at once.' 'and these gentlemen must await you here,' said the president, tapping his snuffbox incongruously at the 'here,' 'in order to continue the sitting if you fail.' 'i can't wait more than a quarter of an hour,' grumbled various voices in various keys. peleg departed nervously, upborne by the congregational esteem. he returned without even his own. instead he carried a bulky barometer. 'you must buy this for the synagogue, gentlemen,' he said. 'it will do to hang in the lobby.' the _parnass_ was the only one left in command of his breath. 'buy a barometer!' he gasped. 'well, it isn't any good to _me_,' retorted peleg angrily. 'then why did you buy it?' cried the _gabbai_. 'it was the cheapest article i could get off with.' 'but you didn't go to buy,' said the _parnass_. 'i know that--but you come into the shop--naturally he takes you for a customer--he looks so dignified; he strokes his beard--you can't look a fool, you must----' 'be one,' snapped the _parnass_. 'and then you come to us to share the expenses!' 'well, what do i want with a barometer?' 'it'll do to tell you there's a storm when the chimney-pots are blowing down,' suggested the _parnass_ crushingly. 'put it in your window--you'll make a profit out of it,' said mendel. 'not while simeon samuels is selling them cheaper, as with his sabbath profits he can well afford to do!' 'oh, he said he'd stick to his sabbath profit, did he?' inquired the _parnass_. 'we never touched on that,' said peleg miserably. 'i couldn't manage to work the sabbath into the conversation.' 'this is terrible.' barzinsky's fist smote the table. 'i'll go--let him suspect my motives or not. the almighty knows they are pure.' 'bravo! well spoken!' there was a burst of applause. several marine-dealers shot out their hands and grasped barzinsky's in admiration. 'do not await me, gentlemen,' he said importantly. 'go in peace.' xii 'good afternoon, mr. samuels,' said solomon barzinsky. 'good afternoon, sir. what can i do for you?' 'you--you don't know me? i am a fellow-jew.' 'that's as plain as the nose on your face.' 'you don't remember me from _shool_? mr. barzinsky! i had the rolling-up of the scroll the time you had the elevation of it.' 'ah, indeed. at these solemn moments i scarcely notice people. but i am very glad to find you patronizing my humble establishment.' 'i don't want a barometer,' said solomon hurriedly. 'that is fortunate, as i have just sold my last. but in the way of waterproofs, we have a new pattern, very seasonable.' 'no, no; i didn't come for a waterproof.' 'these oilskins----' 'i didn't come to buy anything.' 'ah, you wish to sell me something.' 'not that either. the fact is, i've come to beg of you, as one jew to another----' 'a _schnorrer_!' interrupted simeon samuels. 'oh, lord, i ought to have recognised you by that synagogue beginning.' 'me, a _schnorrer_!' the little man swelled skywards. 'me, solomon barzinsky, whose shop stood in sudminster twenty years before you poked your nose in----' 'i beg your pardon. there! you see i'm a beggar, too.' and simeon samuels laughed mirthlessly. 'well, you've come to beg of me.' and his fingers caressed his patriarchal beard. 'i don't come on my own account only,' barzinsky stammered. 'i understand. you want a contribution to the passover cake fund. my time is precious, so is yours. what is the _parnass_ giving?' 'i'm not begging for money. i represent the congregation.' 'dear me, why didn't you come to the point quicker? the congregation wishes to beg my acceptance of office. well, it's very good of you all, especially as i'm such a recent addition. but i really feel a diffidence. you see, my views of the sabbath clash with those of the congregation.' 'they do!' cried barzinsky, leaping at his opportunity. 'yes, i am for a much stricter observance than appears general here. scarcely one of you carries his handkerchief tied round his loins like my poor old father, peace be upon him! you all carry the burden of it impiously in a pocket.' 'i never noticed _your_ handkerchief round your waist!' cried the bewildered barzinsky. 'perhaps not; i never had a cold; it remained furled.' simeon samuels' superb insolence twitched barzinsky's mouth agape. 'but you keep your shop open!' he cried at last. 'that would be still another point of clashing,' admitted simeon samuels blandly. 'altogether, you will see the inadvisability of my accepting office.' 'office!' echoed barzinsky, meeting the other's ironic fence with crude thwacks. 'do you think a god-fearing congregation would offer office to a sabbath-breaker?' 'ah, so that was at the back of it. i suspected something underhand in your offer. i was to be given office, was i, on condition of closing my shop on saturday? no, mr. barzinsky. go back and tell those who sent you that simeon samuels scorns stipulations, and that when you offer to make him _parnass_ unconditionally he may consider your offer, but not till then. good-bye. you must jog along with your present apology for a _parnass_.' 'you--you elisha ben abuyai!' and, consoled only by the aptness of his reference to the atheist of the talmud, barzinsky rushed off to tell the _parnass_ how simeon samuels had insulted them both. xiii the _parnass_, however, was not to be drawn yet. he must keep himself in reserve, he still insisted. but perhaps, he admitted, simeon samuels resented mere private members or committeemen. let the _gabbai_ go. accordingly the pompous treasurer of the synagogue strode into the notorious shop on the sabbath itself, catching simeon samuels red-handed. but nothing could be suaver than that gentleman's 'good _shabbos_. what can i do for you?' 'you can shut up your shop,' said the _gabbai_ brusquely. 'and how shall i pay your bill, then?' 'i'd rather give you a seat and all the honours for nothing than see this desecration.' 'you must have a goodly surplus, then.' 'we have enough.' 'that's strange. you're the first _gabbai_ i ever knew who was satisfied with his balance-sheet. is it your excellent management, i wonder, or have you endowments?' 'that's not for me to say. i mean we have five or six hundred pounds in legacies.' 'indeed! soundly invested, i hope?' 'first-class. english railway debentures.' 'i see. trustee stock.' simeon samuels stroked his beard. 'and so your whole congregation works on the sabbath. a pretty confession!' 'what do you mean?' 'runs railway trains, lights engine-fires, keeps porters and signal-men toiling, and pockets the profits!' 'who does?' 'you, sir, in particular, as the financial representative of the congregation. how can any jew hold industrial shares in a heathen country without being a partner in a sabbath business--ay, and opening on the day of atonement itself? and it is you who have the audacity to complain of me! i, at least, do my own dirty work, not hide myself behind stocks and shares. good _shabbos_ to you, mr. _gabbai_, and kindly mind your own business in future--your locomotives and your sidings and your stinking tunnels.' xiv the _parnass_ could no longer delay the diplomatic encounter. 'twas vain to accuse the others of tactlessness, and shirk the exhibition of his own tact. he exhibited it most convincingly by not informing the others that he was about to put it to a trial. hence he refrained from improving a synagogue opportunity, but sneaked one week-day towards the shop. he lingered without, waiting to be invited within. thus all appearance of his coming to rebuke would be removed. his mission should pop up from a casual conversation. he peeped into the window, passed and repassed. simeon samuels, aware of a fly hovering on the purlieus of his web, issued from its centre, as the _parnass_ turned his back on the shop and gazed musingly at the sky. 'looks threatening for rain, sir,' observed simeon samuels, addressing the back. 'our waterproofs---- bless my soul, but it surely isn't our _parnass_!' 'yes, i'm just strolling about. i seem to have stumbled on your establishment.' 'lucky for me.' 'and a pleasure for me. i never knew you had such a nice display.' 'won't you come inside, and see the stock?' 'thank you, i must really get back home. and besides, as you say, it is threatening for rain.' 'i'll lend you a waterproof, or even sell you one cheap. come in, sir--come in. pray honour me.' congratulating himself on catching the spider, the fly followed him within. a quarter of an hour passed, in which he must buzz about the stock. it seemed vastly difficult to veer round to the sabbath through the web of conversation the spider wove round him. simeon samuels' conception of a marine-dealer's stock startled him by its comprehensiveness, and when he was asked to admire an indian shawl, he couldn't help inquiring what it was doing there. 'well,' explained simeon samuels, 'occasionally a captain or first mate will come back to england, home, and beauty, and will have neglected to buy foreign presents for his womenkind. i then remind him of the weakness of womenkind for such trophies of their menfolks' travel.' 'excellent. i won't tell your competitors.' 'oh, those cattle!' simeon snapped his fingers. 'if they stole my idea, they'd not be able to carry it out. it's not easy to cajole a captain.' 'no, you're indeed a honeyed rascal,' thought the _parnass_. 'i also do a brisk business in chutney,' went on simeon. 'it's a thing women are especially fond of having brought back to them from india. and yet it's the last thing their menkind think of till i remind them of it on their return.' '_i_ certainly brought back none,' said the _parnass_, smiling in spite of himself. 'you have been in india?' 'i have,' replied the _parnass_, with a happy inspiration, 'and i brought back to my wife something more stimulating than chutney.' 'indeed?' 'yes, the story of the beni-israel, the black jews, who, surrounded by all those millions of hindoos, still keep their sabbath.' 'ah, poor niggers. then you've been half round the world.' '_all_ round the world, for i went there and back by different routes. and it was most touching, wherever i went, to find everywhere a colony of jews, and everywhere the holy sabbath kept sacred.' 'but on different days, of course,' said simeon samuels. 'eh? not at all! on the same day.' 'on the same day! how could that be? the day changes with every move east or west. when it's day here, it's night in australia.' darkness began to cloud the presidential brow. 'don't you try to make black white!' he said angrily. 'it's you that are trying to make white black,' retorted simeon samuels. 'perhaps you don't know that i hail from australia, and that by working on saturday i escape profaning my native australian sabbath, while you, who have been all round the world, and have either lost or gained a day, according as you travelled east or west, are desecrating your original sabbath either by working on friday or smoking on sunday.' the _parnass_ felt his head going round--he didn't know whether east or west. he tried to clear it by a pinch of snuff, which he in vain strove to make judicial. 'oh, and so, and so--atchew!--and so you're the saint and i'm the sinner!' he cried sarcastically. 'no, i don't profess to be a saint,' replied simeon samuels somewhat unexpectedly. 'but i do think the saturday was meant for palestine, not for the lands of the exile, where another day of rest rules. when you were in india you probably noted that the mohammedans keep friday. a poor jew in the bazaar is robbed of his hindoo customers on friday, of his jews on saturday, and his christians on sunday.' 'the fourth commandment is eternal!' said the _parnass_ with obstinate sublimity. 'but the fifth says, "that thy days may be long in the land which the lord thy god giveth thee." i believe this reward belongs to all the first five commandments--not only to the fifth--else an orphan would have no chance of long life. keep the sabbath in the land that the lord giveth thee; not in england, which isn't thine.' 'oho!' retorted the _parnass_. 'then at that rate in england you needn't honour your father and mother.' 'not if you haven't got them!' rejoined simeon samuels. 'and if you haven't got a land, you can't keep its sabbath. perhaps you think we can keep the jubilee also without a country.' 'the sabbath is eternal,' repeated the _parnass_ doggedly. 'it has nothing to do with countries. before we got to the promised land we kept the sabbath in the wilderness.' 'yes, and god sent a double dose of manna on the friday. do you mean to say he sends us here a double dose of profit?' 'he doesn't let us starve. we prospered well enough before you brought your wretched example----' 'then my wretched example cannot lead the congregation away. i am glad of it. you do them much more harm by your way of sabbath-breaking.' 'my way!' 'yes, my dear old father--peace be upon him!--would have been scandalized to see the burden you carry on the sabbath.' 'what burden do i carry?' 'your snuff-box!' the _parnass_ almost dropped it. 'that little thing!' 'i call it a cumbrous, not to say tasteless thing. but before the almighty there is no great and no small. one who stands in such a high place in the synagogue must be especially mindful, and every unnecessary burden----' 'but snuff is necessary for me--i can't do without it.' 'other presidents have done without it. as it is written in jeremiah: "and the wild asses did stand in the high places; they snuffed up the wind."' the _parnass_ flushed like a beetroot. 'i'll teach you to know _your_ place, sir.' he turned his back on the scoffer, and strode towards the door. 'but if you'd care for a smaller snuff-box,' said simeon samuels, 'i have an artistic assortment.' xv at the next meeting of the synagogue council a notice of motion stood upon the agenda in the name of the _parnass_ himself: 'that this council views with the greatest reprobation the breach of the fourth commandment committed weekly by a member of the congregation, and calls upon him either to resign his seat, with the burial and other rights appertaining thereto, or to close his business on the sabbath.' when the resolution came up mr. solomon barzinsky moved as an amendment that weekly be altered into 'twice a week,' since the member kept open on friday night as well as saturday. the _parnass_ refused to accept the amendment. there was only one sabbath a week, though it had two periods. 'and the evening and the morning were one day.' mr. peleg supported the amendment. they must not leave mr. simeon samuels a loophole of escape. it was also, he said, the duty of the council to buy a barometer the rogue had foisted upon him. after an animated discussion, mainly about the barometer, the president accepted the amendment, but produced a great impression by altering 'twice a week' into 'bi-weekly.' a mr. john straumann, however, who prided himself on his style, and had even changed his name to john because jacob grated on his delicate ear, refused to be impressed. committed _bi_-weekly _by_ a member sounded almost jocose, he argued. 'buy! buy!' it sounded like a butcher's cry. mr. enoch, the _kosher_ butcher, rose amid excitement, and asked if he had come there to be insulted! 'sit down! sit down!' said the _parnass_ roughly. 'it's no matter how the resolution sounds. it will be in writing.' 'then why not add,' sarcastically persisted the stylist, '"committed _bi_-weekly _by_ a member _by buying_ and selling."' 'order, order!' said the _parnass_ angrily. 'those who are in favour of the resolution! carried.' '_by_ a majority,' sneered the stylist, subsiding. 'mr. secretary'--the president turned to the poor reverend-of-all-work--'you need not record this verbal discussion in the minutes.' '_by_ request,' said the stylist, reviving. 'but what's the use of the resolution if you don't mention the member's name?' suddenly inquired ephraim mendel, stretching his long, languid limbs. 'but there's only one sabbath-breaker,' replied the _parnass_. 'to-day, yes, but to-morrow there might be two.' 'it could hardly be to-morrow,' said the stylist. 'for that happens to be a monday.' barzinsky bashed the table. 'mr. president, are we here for business or are we not?' 'you may be here for business--i am here for religion,' retorted straumann the stylist. 'you--you snub-nosed monkey, what do you mean?' 'order, order, gentlemen,' said the _parnass_. 'i will not order,' said solomon barzinsky excitedly. 'i did not come here to be insulted.' 'insulted!' quoth straumann. 'it's you that must apologize, you illiterate icthyosaurus! i appeal to the president.' 'you have both insulted _me_,' was that worthy's ruling. 'i give the word to mr. mendel.' 'but----' from both the combatants simultaneously. 'order, order!' from a dozen throats. 'i said simeon samuels' name must be put in,' mendel repeated. 'you should have said so before--the resolution is carried now,' said the president. 'and a fat lot of good it will do,' said peleg. 'gentlemen, if you knew him as well as i, if you had my barometer to read him by, you'd see that the only remedy is to put him in _cherem_' (excommunication). 'if he can't get buried it _is_ a kind of _cherem_,' said the _gabbai_. 'assuredly,' added the _parnass_. 'he will be frightened to think that if he dies suddenly----' 'and he is sure to take a sudden death,' put in barzinsky with unction. 'he will not be buried among jews,' wound up the _parnass_. 'hear, hear!' a murmur of satisfaction ran round the table. all felt that simeon samuels was cornered at last. it was resolved that the resolution be sent to him. xvi 'mr. simeon samuels requests me to say that he presents his compliments to the secretary of the sudminster hebrew congregation, and begs to acknowledge the receipt of the council's resolution. in reply i am to state that mr. samuels regrets that his views on the sabbath question should differ from those of his fellow-worshippers, but he has not attempted to impress his views on the majority, and he regrets that in a free country like england they should have imported the tyranny of the lands of persecution from which they came. fortunately such procedure is illegal. by the act of charles i. the sabbath is defined as the sunday, and as a british subject mr. samuels takes his stand upon the british constitution. mr. samuels has done his best to compromise with the congregation by attending the sabbath service on the day most convenient to the majority. in regard to the veiled threat of the refusal of burial rights, mr. samuels desires me to say that he has no intention of dying in sudminster, but merely of getting his living there. in any case, under his will, his body is to be deported to jerusalem, where he has already acquired a burying-place.' 'next year in jerusalem!' cried barzinsky fervently, when this was read to the next meeting. 'order, order,' said the _parnass_. 'i don't believe in his jerusalem grave. they won't admit his dead body.' 'he relies on smuggling in alive,' said barzinsky gloomily, 'as soon as he has made his pile.' 'that won't be very long at this rate,' added ephraim mendel. 'the sooner the better,' said the _gabbai_ impatiently. 'let him go to jericho.' there was a burst of laughter, to the _gabbai's_ great astonishment. 'order, order, gentlemen,' said the _parnass_. 'don't you see from this insolent letter how right i was? the rascal threatens to drag us to the christian courts, that's clear. all that about jerusalem is only dust thrown into our eyes.' 'grave-dust,' murmured straumann. 'order! he is a dangerous customer.' 'shopkeeper,' corrected straumann. the _parnass_ glared, but took snuff silently. 'i don't wonder he laughed at us,' said straumann, encouraged. '_bi_-weekly _by_ a member. ha! ha! ha!' 'mr. president!' barzinsky screamed. 'will you throw that laughing hyena out, or shall i?' straumann froze to a statue of dignity. 'let any animalcule try it on,' said he. 'shut up, you children, i'll chuck you both out,' said ephraim mendel in conciliatory tones. 'the point is--what's to be done now, mr. president?' 'nothing--till the end of the year. when he offers his new subscription we refuse to take it. that can't be illegal.' 'we ought all to go to him in a friendly deputation,' said straumann. 'these formal resolutions "buy! buy!" put his back up. we'll go to him as brothers--all israel are brethren, and blood is thicker than water.' 'chutney is thicker than blood,' put in the _parnass_ mysteriously. 'he'll simply try to palm off his stock on the deputation.' ephraim mendel and solomon barzinsky jumped up simultaneously. 'what a good idea,' said ephraim. 'there you have hit it!' said solomon. their simultaneous popping-up had an air of finality--like the long and the short of it! 'you mean?' said the _parnass_, befogged in his turn. 'i mean,' said barzinsky, 'we could buy up his stock, me and the other marine-dealers between us, and he could clear out!' 'if he sold it reasonably,' added mendel. 'even unreasonably you must make a sacrifice for the sabbath,' said the _parnass_. 'besides, divided among the lot of you, the loss would be little.' 'and you can buy in my barometer with the rest,' added peleg. 'we could call a meeting of marine-dealers,' said barzinsky, disregarding him. 'we could say to them we must sacrifice ourselves for our religion.' 'tell that to the marine-dealers!' murmured straumann. 'and that we must buy out the sabbath-breaker at any cost.' 'buy! buy!' said straumann. 'if you'd only thought of that sort of "buy! buy!" at the first!' 'order, order!' said the _parnass_. 'it would be more in order,' said straumann, 'to appoint an executive sub-committee to deal with the question. i'm sick of it. and surely we as a synagogue council can't be in order in ordering some of our members to buy out another.' 'hear, hear!' his suggestion found general approval. it took a long discussion, however, before the synagogue decided to wash its hands of responsibility, and give over to a sub-committee of three the task of ridding sudminster of its plague-spot by any means that commended itself to them. solomon barzinsky, ephraim mendel, and peleg the pawnbroker were elected to constitute this council of three. xvii the glad news spread through the sudminster congregation that simeon samuels had at last been bought out--at a terrible loss to the martyred marine-dealers who had had to load themselves with chutney and other unheard-of and unsaleable stock. but they would get back their losses, it was felt, by the removal of his rivalry. carts were drawn up before the dismantled plate-glass window carrying off its criminal contents, and simeon samuels stood stroking his beard amid the ruins. then the shop closed; the shutters that should have honoured the sabbath now depressed the tuesday. simeon samuels was seen to get into the london train. the demon that troubled their sanctity had been exorcised. a great peace reigned in every heart, almost like the sabbath peace coming into the middle of the week. 'if they had only taken my advice earlier,' said solomon barzinsky to his wife, as he rolled his forkful of beef in the chutney. 'you can write to your father, deborah,' said lazarus levy, 'that we no longer need the superior reach-me-downs.' on the wednesday strange new rumours began to circulate, and those who hastened to confirm them stood dumbfounded before great posters on all the shutters: closed for re-stocking the old-fashioned stock of this business having been sold off to the trade, simeon samuels is taking the opportunity to lay in the best and most up-to-date london and continental goods for his customers. _bargains and novelties in every department._ re-open saturday next xviii a hurried emergency meeting of the executive sub-committee was called. 'he has swindled us,' said solomon barzinsky. 'this paper signed by him merely undertakes to shut up his shop. and he will plead he meant for a day or two.' 'and he agreed to leave the town,' wailed peleg, 'but he meant to buy goods.' 'well, we can have the law of him,' said mendel. 'we paid him compensation for disturbance.' 'and can't he claim he _was_ disturbed?' shrieked barzinsky. 'his whole stock turned upside down!' 'let him claim!' said mendel. 'there is such a thing as obtaining money under false pretences.' 'and such a thing as becoming the laughing-stock of the heathen,' said peleg. 'we must grin and bear it ourselves.' 'it's all very well for you to grin,' said solomon tartly. '_we've_ got to bear it. you didn't take over any of his old rubbish.' 'didn't i, indeed? what about the barometer?' 'confound your barometer!' cried ephraim mendel. 'i'll have the law of him; i've made up my mind.' 'well, you'll have to bear the cost, then,' said peleg. 'it's none of my business.' 'yes, it is,' shouted mendel. 'as a member of the sub-committee you can't dissociate yourselves from us.' 'a nice idea that--i'm to be dragged into your law-suits!' 'hush, leave off these squabbles!' said solomon barzinsky. 'the law is slow, and not even sure. the time has come for desperate measures. we must root out the plague-spot with our own hands.' 'hear, hear,' said the rest of the sub-committee. xix on the succeeding sabbath simeon samuels was not the only figure in the synagogue absorbed in devotion. solomon barzinsky, ephraim mendel, and peleg the pawnbroker were all rapt in equal piety, while the rest of the congregation was shaken with dreadful gossip about them. their shops were open, too, it would seem. immediately after the service the _parnass_ arrested solomon barzinsky's exit, and asked him if the rumour were true. 'perfectly true,' replied solomon placidly. 'the executive sub-committee passed the resolution to----' 'to break the sabbath!' interrupted the _parnass_. 'we had already sacrificed our money; there was nothing left but to sacrifice our deepest feelings----' 'but what for?' 'why, to destroy his advantage, of course. five-sixths of his sabbath profits depend on the marine-dealers closing, and when he sees he's breaking the sabbath in vain----' 'rubbish! you are asked to stop a congregational infection, and you----' 'vaccinate ourselves with the same stuff, to make sure the attack shall be light.' 'it's a hair of the dog that bit us,' said mendel, who, with peleg, had lingered to back up barzinsky. 'of the mad dog!' exclaimed the _parnass_. 'and you're all raging mad.' 'it's the only sane way,' urged peleg. 'when he sees his rivals open----' 'you!' the president turned on him. 'you are not even a marine-dealer. why are you open?' 'how could i dissociate myself from the rest of the sub-committee?' inquired peleg with righteous indignation. 'you are a set of sinners in israel!' cried the _parnass_, forgetting even to take snuff. 'this will split up the congregation.' 'the congregation through its council gave the committee full power to deal with the matter,' said barzinsky with dignity. 'but then the other marine-dealers will open as well as the committee!' 'i trust not,' replied barzinsky fervently. 'two of us are enough to cut down his takings.' 'but the whole lot of you would be still more efficacious. oh, this is the destruction of our congregation, the death of our religion!' 'no, no, no,' said solomon soothingly. 'you are mistaken. we are most careful not to touch money. we are going to trust our customers, and keep our accounts without pen or ink. we have invented a most ingenious system, which gives us far more work than writing, but we have determined to spare ourselves no trouble to keep the sabbath from unnecessary desecration.' 'and once the customers don't pay up, your system will break down. no, no; i shall write to the chief rabbi.' 'we will explain our motives,' said mendel. 'your motives need no explanation. this scandal must cease.' 'and who are you to give orders?' shrieked solomon barzinsky. 'you're not speaking to a _schnorrer_, mind you. my banking account is every bit as big as yours. for two pins i start an opposition _shool_.' 'a sunday _shool_!' said the _parnass_ sarcastically. 'and why not? it would be better than sitting playing solo on sundays. we are not in palestine now.' 'oh, simeon samuels has been talking to you, has he?' 'i don't need simeon samuels' wisdom. i'm an englishman myself.' xx the desperate measures of the sub-committee were successful. the other marine-dealers hastened to associate themselves with the plan of campaign, and simeon samuels soon departed in search of a more pious seaport. but, alas! homoeopathy was only half-vindicated. for the remedy proved worse than the disease, and the cutting-out of the original plague-spot left the other marine-stores still infected. the epidemic spread from them till it had overtaken half the shops of the congregation. some had it in a mild form--only one shutter open, or a back door not closed--but in many it came out over the whole shop-window. the one bright spot in the story of the sudminster sabbath is that the congregation of which the present esteemed _parnass_ is solomon barzinsky, esq., j.p., managed to avert the threatened split, and that while in so many other orthodox synagogues the poor minister preaches on the sabbath to empty benches, the sudminster congregation still remains at the happy point of compromise acutely discovered by simeon samuels: of listening reverentially every saturday morning to the unchanging principles of its minister-elect, the while its shops are engaged in supplying the wants of christendom. the red mark the red mark the curious episode in the london ghetto the other winter, while the epidemic of small-pox was raging, escaped the attention of the reporters, though in the world of the board-schools it is a vivid memory. but even the teachers and the committees, the inspectors and the board members, have remained ignorant of the part little bloomah beckenstein played in it. to explain how she came to be outside the school-gates instead of inside them, we must go back a little and explain her situation both outside and inside her school. bloomah was probably '_blume_,' which is german for a flower, but she had always been spelt 'bloomah' in the school register, for even board-school teachers are not necessarily familiar with foreign languages. they might have been forgiven for not connecting bloomah with blooms, for she was a sad-faced child, and even in her tenth year showed deep, dark circles round her eyes. but they were beautiful eyes, large, brown, and soft, shining with love and obedience. mrs. beckenstein, however, found neither of these qualities in her youngest born, who seemed to her entirely sucked up by the school. 'in my days,' she would grumble, 'it used to be god almighty first, your parents next, and school last. now it's all a red mark first, your parents and god almighty nowhere.' the red mark was the symbol of punctuality, set opposite the child's name in the register. to gain it, she must be in her place at nine o'clock to the stroke. a moment after nine, and only the black mark was attainable. twenty to ten, and the duck's egg of the absent was sorrowfully inscribed by the recording angel, who in bloomah's case was a pale pupil-teacher with eyeglasses. but it was the banner which loomed largest on the school horizon, intensifying bloomah's anxiety and her mother's grievance. 'i don't see nothing,' mrs. beckenstein iterated; 'no prize, no medal--nothing but a red mark and a banner.' the banner was indeed a novelty. it had not unfurled itself in mrs. beckenstein's young days, nor even in the young days of bloomah's married brothers and sisters. as the worthy matron would say: 'there's been jack beckenstein, there's been joey beckenstein, there's been briny beckenstein, there's been benjy beckenstein, there's been ada beckenstein, there's been becky beckenstein, god bless their hearts! and they all grew up scholards and prize-winners and a credit to their queen and their religion without this _meshuggas_ (madness) of a banner.' vaguely mrs. beckenstein connected the degenerate innovation with the invasion of the school by 'furriners'--all these hordes of russian, polish, and roumanian jews flying from persecution, who were sweeping away the good old english families, of which she considered the beckensteins a shining example. what did english people want with banners and such-like gewgaws? the banner was a class trophy of regularity and punctuality. it might be said metaphorically to be made of red marks; and, indeed, its ground-hue was purple. the class that had scored the highest weekly average of red marks enjoyed its emblazoned splendours for the next week. it hung by a cord on the classroom wall, amid the dull, drab maps--a glorious sight with its oaken frame and its rich-coloured design in silk. life moved to a chivalrous music, lessons went more easily, in presence of its proud pomp: 'twas like marching to a band instead of painfully plodding. and the desire to keep it became a passion to the winners; the little girls strained every nerve never to be late or absent; but, alas! some mischance would occur to one or other, and it passed, in its purple and gold, to some strenuous and luckier class in another section of the building, turning to a funeral-banner as it disappeared dismally through the door of the cold and empty room. woe to the late-comer who imperilled the banner. the black mark on the register was a snowflake compared with the black frown on all those childish foreheads. as for the absentee, the scowls that would meet her return not improbably operated to prolong her absence. only once had bloomah's class won the trophy, and that was largely through a yellow fog which hit the other classes worse. for bloomah was the black sheep that spoilt the chances of the fold--the black sheep with the black marks. perhaps those great rings round her eyes were the black marks incarnate, so morbidly did the poor child grieve over her sins of omission. yet these sins of omission were virtues of commission elsewhere; for if bloomah's desk was vacant, it was only because bloomah was slaving at something that her mother considered more important. 'the beckenstein family first, the workshop second, and school nowhere,' bloomah might have retorted on her mother. at home she was the girl-of-all-work. in the living-rooms she did cooking and washing and sweeping; in the shop above, whenever a hand fell sick or work fell heavy, she was utilized to make buttonholes, school hours or no school hours. bloomah was likewise the errand-girl of the establishment, and the portress of goods to and from s. cohn's emporium in holloway, and the watch-dog when mrs. beckenstein went shopping or pleasuring. 'lock up the house!' the latter would cry, when bloomah tearfully pleaded for that course. 'my things are much too valuable to be locked up. but i know you'd rather lose my jewellery than your precious banner.' when mrs. beckenstein had new grandchildren--and they came frequently--bloomah would be summoned in hot haste to the new scene of service. curt post-cards came on these occasions, thus conceived: 'dear mother, 'a son. send bloomah. 'briny.' sometimes these messages were mournfully inverted: 'dear mother, 'poor little rachie is gone. send bloomah to your heart-broken 'becky.' occasionally the post-card went the other way: 'dear becky, 'send back bloomah. 'your loving mother.' the care of her elder brother daniel was also part of bloomah's burden; and in the evenings she had to keep an eye on his street sports and comrades, for since he had shocked his parents by dumping down a new pair of boots on the table, he could not be trusted without supervision. not that he had stolen the boots--far worse! beguiled by a card cunningly printed in hebrew, he had attended the evening classes of the _meshummodim_, those converted jews who try to bribe their brethren from the faith, and who are the bugbear and execration of the ghetto. daniel was thereafter looked upon at home as a lamb who had escaped from the lions' den, and must be the object of their vengeful pursuit, while on bloomah devolved the duties of shepherd and sheep-dog. it was in the midst of all these diverse duties that bloomah tried to go to school by day, and do her home lessons by night. she did not murmur against her mother, though she often pleaded. she recognised that the poor woman was similarly distracted between domestic duties and turns at the machines upstairs. only it was hard for the child to dovetail the two halves of her life. at night she must sit up as late as her elders, poring over her school books, and in the morning it was a fierce rush to get through her share of the housework in time for the red mark. in mrs. beckenstein's language: 'don't eat, don't sleep, boil nor bake, stew nor roast, nor fry, nor nothing.' her case was even worse than her mother imagined, for sometimes it was ten minutes to nine before bloomah could sit down to her own breakfast, and then the steaming cup of tea served by her mother was a terrible hindrance; and if that good woman's head was turned, bloomah would sneak towards the improvised sink--which consisted of two dirty buckets, the one holding the clean water being recognisable by the tin pot standing on its covering-board--where she would pour half her tea into the one bucket and fill up from the other. when this stratagem was impossible, she almost scalded herself in her gulpy haste. then how she snatched up her satchel and ran through rain, or snow, or fog, or scorching sunshine! yet often she lost her breath without gaining her mark, and as she cowered tearfully under the angry eyes of the classroom, a stab at her heart was added to the stitch in her side. it made her classmates only the angrier that, despite all her unpunctuality, she kept a high position in the class, even if she could never quite attain prize-rank. but there came a week when bloomah's family remained astonishingly quiet and self-sufficient, and it looked as if the banner might once again adorn the dry, scholastic room and throw a halo of romance round the blackboard. then a curious calamity befell. a girl who had left the school for another at the end of the previous week, returned on the thursday, explaining that her parents had decided to keep her in the old school. an indignant heart-cry broke through all the discipline: 'teacher, don't have her!' from bloomah burst the peremptory command: 'go back, sarah!' for the unlucky children felt that her interval would now be reckoned one of absence. and they were right. sarah reduced the gross attendance by six, and the banner was lost. yet to have been so near incited them to a fresh spurt. again the tantalizing thursday was reached before their hopes were dashed. this time the break-down was even crueller, for every pinafored pupil, not excluding bloomah, was in her place, red-marked. upon this saintly company burst suddenly bloomah's mother, who, ignoring the teacher, and pointing her finger dramatically at her daughter, cried: 'bloomah beckenstein, go home!' bloomah's face became one large red mark, at which all the other girls' eyes were directed. tears of humiliation and distress dripped down her cheeks over the dark rings. if she were thus hauled off ere she had received two hours of secular instruction, her attendance would be cancelled. the class was all in confusion. 'fold arms!' cried the teacher sharply, and the girls sat up rigidly. bloomah obeyed instinctively with the rest. 'bloomah beckenstein, do you want me to pull you out by your plait?' 'mrs. beckenstein, really you mustn't come here like that!' said the teacher in her most ladylike accents. 'tell bloomah that,' answered mrs. beckenstein, unimpressed. 'she's come here by runnin' away from home. there's nobody but her to see to things, for we are all broken in our bones from dancin' at a weddin' last night, and comin' home at four in the mornin', and pourin' cats and dogs. if you go to our house, please, teacher, you'll see my benjy in bed; he's given up his day's work; he must have his sleep; he earns three pounds a week as head cutter at s. cohn's--he can afford to be in bed, thank god! so now, then, bloomah beckenstein! don't they teach you here: "honour thy father and thy mother"?' poor bloomah rose, feeling vaguely that fathers and mothers should not dishonour their children. with hanging head she moved to the door, and burst into a passion of tears as soon as she got outside. after, if not in consequence of, this behaviour, mrs. beckenstein broke her leg, and lay for weeks with the limb cased in plaster-of-paris. that finished the chances of the banner for a long time. between nursing and house management bloomah could scarcely ever put in an attendance. so heavily did her twin troubles weigh upon the sensitive child day and night that she walked almost with a limp, and dreamed of her name in the register with ominous rows of black ciphers; they stretched on and on to infinity--in vain did she turn page after page in the hope of a red mark; the little black eggs became larger and larger, till at last horrid horned insects began to creep from them and scramble all over her, and she woke with creeping flesh. sometimes she lay swathed and choking in the coils of a black banner. and, to add to these worries, the school board officer hovered and buzzed around, threatening summonses. but at last she was able to escape to her beloved school. the expected scowl of the room was changed to a sigh of relief; extremes meet, and her absence had been so prolonged that reproach was turned to welcome. bloomah remorsefully redoubled her exertions. the hope of the banner flamed anew in every breast. but the other classes were no less keen; a fifth standard, in particular, kept the banner for a full month, grimly holding it against all comers, came they ever so regularly and punctually. suddenly a new and melancholy factor entered into the competition. an epidemic of small-pox broke out in the east end, with its haphazard effects upon the varying classes. red marks, and black marks, medals and prizes, all was luck and lottery. the pride of the fifth standard was laid low; one of its girls was attacked, two others were kept at home through parental panic. a disturbing insecurity as of an earthquake vibrated through the school. in bloomah's class alone--as if inspired by her martial determination--the ranks stood firm, unwavering. the epidemic spread. the ghetto began to talk of special psalms in the little synagogues. in this crisis which the epidemic produced the banner seemed drifting steadily towards bloomah and her mates. they started monday morning with all hands on deck, so to speak; they sailed round tuesday and wednesday without a black mark in the school-log. the thursday on which they had so often split was passed under full canvas, and if they could only get through friday the trophy was theirs. and friday was the easiest day of all, inasmuch as, in view of the incoming sabbath, it finished earlier. school did not break up between the two attendances; there was a mere dinner-interval in the playground at midday. nobody could get away, and whoever scored the first mark was sure of the second. bloomah was up before dawn on the fateful winter morning; she could run no risks of being late. she polished off all her house-work, wondering anxiously if any of her classmates would oversleep herself, yet at heart confident that all were as eager as she. still there was always that troublesome small-pox----! she breathed a prayer that god would keep all the little girls and send them the banner. as she sat at breakfast the postman brought a post-card for her mother. bloomah's heart was in her mouth when mrs. beckenstein clucked her tongue in reading it. she felt sure that the epidemic had invaded one of those numerous family hearths. her mother handed her the card silently. 'dear mother, 'i am rakked with neuraljia. send bloomah to fry the fish. 'becky.' bloomah turned white; this was scarcely less tragic. 'poor becky!' said her heedless parent. 'there's time after school,' she faltered. 'what!' shrieked mrs. beckenstein. 'and not give the fish time to get cold! it's that red mark again--sooner than lose it you'd see your own sister eat hot fish. be off at once to her, you unnatural brat, or i'll bang the frying-pan about your head. that'll give you a red mark--yes, and a black mark, too! my poor becky never persecuted me with banners, and she's twice the scholard you are.' 'why, she can't spell "neuralgia,"' said bloomah resentfully. 'and who wants to spell a thing like that? it's bad enough to feel it. wait till you have babies and neuralgy of your own, and you'll see how you'll spell.' 'she can't spell "racked" either,' put in daniel. his mother turned on him witheringly. 'she didn't go to school with the _meshummodim_.' bloomah suddenly picked up her satchel. 'what's your books for? you don't fry fish with books.' mrs. beckenstein wrested it away from her, and dashed it on the floor. the pencil-case rolled one way, the thimble another. 'but i can get to school for the afternoon attendance.' 'madness! with your sister in agony? have you no feelings? don't let me see your brazen face before the sabbath!' bloomah crept out broken-hearted. on the way to becky's her feet turned of themselves by long habit down the miry street in which the red-brick school-building rose in dreary importance. the sight of the great iron gate and the hurrying children caused her a throb of guilt. for a moment she stood wrestling with the temptation to enter. it was but for the moment. she might rise to the heresy of _hot_ fried fish in lieu of cold, but becky's sabbath altogether devoid of fried fish was a thought too sacrilegious for her childish brain. from her earliest babyhood chunks of cold fried fish had been part of her conception of the day of rest. visions and odours of her mother frying plaice and soles--at worst, cod or mackerel--were inwoven with her most sacred memories of the coming sabbath; it is probable she thought friday was short for frying-day. with a sob she turned back, hurrying as if to escape the tug of temptation. 'bloomah! where are you off to?' it was the alarmed cry of a classmate. bloomah took to her heels, her face a fiery mass of shame and grief. towards midday becky's fish, nicely browned and sprigged with parsley, stood cooling on the great blue willow-pattern dish, and becky's neuralgia abated, perhaps from the mental relief of the spectacle. when the clock struck twelve, bloomah was allowed to scamper off to school in the desperate hope of saving the afternoon attendance. the london sky was of lead, and the london pavement of mud, but her heart was aglow with hope. as she reached the familiar street a certain strangeness in its aspect struck her. people stood at the doors gossiping and excited, as though no sabbath pots were a-cooking; straggling groups possessed the roadway, impeding her advance, and as she got nearer to the school the crowd thickened, the roadway became impassable, a gesticulating mob blocked the iron gate. poor bloomah paused in her breathless career ready to cry at this malicious fate fighting against her, and for the first time allowing herself time to speculate on what was up. all around her she became aware of weeping and wailing and shrieking and wringing of hands. the throng was chiefly composed of russian and roumanian women of the latest immigration, as she could tell by the pious wigs hiding their tresses. those in the front were pressed against the bars of the locked gate, shrieking through them, shaking them with passion. although bloomah's knowledge of yiddish was slight--as became a scion of an old english family--she could make out their elemental ejaculations. 'you murderers!' 'give me my rachel!' 'they are destroying our daughters as pharaoh destroyed our sons.' 'give me back my children, and i'll go back to russia.' 'they are worse than the russians, the poisoners!' 'o god of abraham, how shall i live without my leah?' on the other side of the bars the children--released for the dinner-interval--were clamouring equally, shouting, weeping, trying to get to their mothers. some howled, with their sleeves rolled up, to exhibit the upper arm. 'see,' the women cried, 'the red marks! oh, the poisoners!' a light began to break upon bloomah's brain. evidently the school board had suddenly sent down compulsory vaccinators. 'i won't die,' moaned a plump golden-haired girl. 'i'm too young to die yet.' 'my little lamb is dying!' a woman near bloomah, with auburn wisps showing under her black wig, wrung her hands. 'i hear her talk--always, always about the red mark. now they have given it her. she is poisoned--my little apple.' 'your little carrot is all right,' said bloomah testily. 'they've only vaccinated her.' the woman caught at the only word she understood. 'vaccinate, vaccinate!' she repeated. then, relapsing into jargon and raising her hands heavenward: 'a sudden death upon them all!' bloomah turned despairingly in search of a wigless woman. one stood at her elbow. 'can't you explain to her that the doctors mean no harm?' bloomah asked. 'oh, don't they, indeed? just you read this!' she flourished a handbill, english on one side, yiddish on the other. bloomah read the english version, not without agitation: 'mothers, look after your little ones! the school tyrants are plotting to inject filthy vaccine into their innocent veins. keep them away rather than let them be poisoned to enrich the doctors.' there followed statistics to appal even bloomah. what wonder if the refugees from lands of persecution--lands in which anything might happen--believed they had fallen from the frying-pan into the fire; if the rumour that executioners with instruments had entered the school-buildings had run like wildfire through the quarter, enflaming oriental imagination to semi-madness. while bloomah was reading, a head-shawled woman fainted, and the din and frenzy grew. 'but i was vaccinated when a baby, and i'm all right,' murmured bloomah, half to reassure herself. 'my arm! i'm poisoned!' and another pupil flew frantically towards the gate. the women outside replied with a dull roar of rage, and hurled themselves furiously against the lock. a window on the playground was raised with a sharp snap, and the head-mistress appeared, shouting alternately at the children and the parents; but she was neither heard nor understood, and a polish crone shook an answering fist. 'you old maid--childless, pitiless!' shrill whistles sounded and resounded from every side, and soon a posse of eight policemen were battling with the besiegers, trying to push themselves between them and the gate. a fat and genial officer worked his way past bloomah, his truncheon ready for action. 'don't hurt the poor women,' bloomah pleaded. 'they think their children are being poisoned.' 'i know, missie. what can you do with such greenhorns? why don't they stop in their own country? i've just been vaccinated myself, and it's no joke to get my arm knocked about like this!' 'then show them the red marks, and that will quiet them.' the policeman laughed. a sleeveless policeman! it would destroy all the dignity and prestige of the force. 'then i'll show them mine,' said bloomah resolutely. 'mine are old and not very showy, but perhaps they'll do. lift me up, please--i mean on your unvaccinated arm.' overcome by her earnestness the policeman hoisted her on his burly shoulder. the apparent arrest made a diversion; all eyes turned towards her. 'you _narronim_!' (fools), she shrieked, desperately mustering her scraps of yiddish. 'your children are safe. ich bin vaccinated. look!' she rolled up her sleeve. 'der policeman ist vaccinated. look--if i tap him he winces. see!' 'hold on, missie!' the policeman grimaced. 'the king ist vaccinated,' went on bloomah, 'and the queen, and the prince of wales, yes, even the teachers themselves. there are no devils inside there. this paper'--she held up the bill--'is lies and falsehood.' she tore it into fragments. 'no; it is true as the law of moses,' retorted a man in the mob. 'as the law of moses!' echoed the women hoarsely. bloomah had an inspiration. 'the law of moses! pooh! don't you know this is written by the _meshummodim_?' the crowd looked blank, fell silent. if, indeed, the handbill was written by apostates, what could it hold but satan's lies? bloomah profited by her moment of triumph. 'go home, you _narronim_!' she cried pityingly from her perch. and then, veering round towards the children behind the bars: 'shut up, you squalling sillies!' she cried. 'as for you, golda benjamin, i'm ashamed of you--a girl of your age! put your sleeve down, cry-baby!' bloomah would have carried the day had not her harangue distracted the police from observing another party of rioters--women, assisted by husbands hastily summoned from stall and barrow, who were battering at a side gate. and at this very instant they burst it open, and with a great cry poured into the playground, screaming and searching for their progeny. the police darted round to the new battlefield, expecting an attack upon doors and windows, and bloomah was hastily set down in the seething throng and carried with it in the wake of the police, who could not prevent it flooding through the broken side gate. the large playground became a pandemonium of parents, children, police, and teachers all shouting and gesticulating. but there was no riot. the law could not prevent mothers and fathers from snatching their offspring to their bosoms and making off overjoyed. the children who had not the luck to be kidnapped escaped of themselves, some panic-stricken, some merely mischievous, and in a few minutes the school was empty. * * * * * the school management committee sat formally to consider this unprecedented episode. it was decided to cancel the attendance for the day. red marks, black marks--all fell into equality; the very ciphers were reduced to their native nothingness. the school-week was made to end on the thursday. next monday morning saw bloomah at her desk, happiest of a radiant sisterhood. on the wall shone the banner. the bearer of burdens the bearer of burdens i when her fanny did at last marry, natalya--as everybody called the old clo'-woman--was not over-pleased at the bargain. natalya had imagined beforehand that for a matronly daughter of twenty-three, almost past the marrying age, any wedding would be a profitable transaction. but when a husband actually presented himself, all the old dealer's critical maternity was set a-bristle. henry elkman, she insisted, had not a true jewish air. there was in the very cut of his clothes a subtle suggestion of going to the races. it was futile of fanny to insist that henry had never gone to the races, that his duties as bookkeeper of s. cohn's clothing emporium prevented him from going to the races, and that the cut of his clothes was intended to give tone to his own establishment. 'ah, yes, he does not take _thee_ to the races,' she insisted in yiddish. 'but all these young men with check suits and flowers in their buttonholes bet and gamble and go to the bad, and their wives and children fall back on their old mothers for support.' 'i shall not fall back on thee,' fanny retorted angrily. 'and on whom else? a pretty daughter! would you fall back on a stranger? or perhaps you are thinking of the board of guardians!' and a shudder of humiliation traversed her meagre frame. for at sixty she was already meagre, had already the appearance of the venerable grandmother she was now to become, save that her hair, being only a pious wig, remained rigidly young and black. life had always gone hard with her. since her husband's death, when fanny was a child, she had scraped together a scanty livelihood by selling odds and ends for a mite more than she gave for them. at the back doors of villas she haggled with miserly mistresses, gentlewoman and old-clo' woman linked by their common love of a bargain. natalya would sniff contemptuously at the muddle of ancient finery on the floor and spurn it with her foot. 'how can i sell that?' she would inquire. 'last time i gave you too much--i lost by you.' and having wrung the price down to the lowest penny, she would pay it in clanking silver and copper from a grimy leather bag she wore hidden in her bosom; then, cramming the goods hastily into the maw of her sack, she would stagger joyously away. the men's garments she would modestly sell to a second-hand shop, but the women's she cleaned and turned and transmogrified and sold in petticoat lane of a sunday morning; scavenger, earth-worm, and alchemist, she was a humble agent in the great economic process by which cast-off clothes renew their youth and freshness, and having set in their original sphere rise endlessly on other social horizons. of english she had, when she began, only enough to bargain with; but in one year of forced intercourse with english folk after her husband's death she learnt more than in her quarter of a century of residence in the spitalfields ghetto. fanny's function had been to keep house and prepare the evening meal, but the old clo'-woman's objection to her marriage was not selfish. she was quite ready to light her own fire and broil her own bloater after the day's tramp. fanny had, indeed, offered to have her live in the elegant two-roomed cottage near king's cross which henry was furnishing. she could sleep in a convertible bureau in the parlour. but the old woman's independent spirit and her mistrust of her son-in-law made her prefer the humble ghetto garret. against all reasoning, she continued to feel something antipathetic in henry's clothes and even in his occupation--perhaps it was really the subconscious antagonism of the old clo' and the new, subtly symbolic of the old generation and the smart new world springing up to tread it down. henry himself was secretly pleased at her refusal. in the first ardours of courtship he had consented to swallow even the polish crone who had strangely mothered his buxom british fanny, but for his own part he had a responsive horror of old clo'; felt himself of the great english world of fashion and taste, intimately linked with the burly britons whose girths he recorded from his high stool at his glass-environed desk, and in touch even with the _lion comique_, the details of whose cheap but stylish evening dress he entered with a proud flourish. ii the years went by, and it looked as if the old woman's instinct were awry. henry did not go to the races, nor did fanny have to fall back on her mother-in-law for the maintenance of herself and her two children, becky and joseph. on the contrary, she doubled her position in the social scale by taking a four-roomed house in the holloway road. its proximity to the clothing emporium enabled henry to come home for lunch. but, alas! fanny was not allowed many years of enjoyment of these grandeurs and comforts. the one-roomed grave took her, leaving the four-roomed house incredibly large and empty. even natalya's ghetto garret, which fanny had not shared for seven years, seemed cold and vacant to the poor mother. a new loneliness fell upon her, not mitigated by ever rarer visits to her grandchildren. devoid of the link of her daughter, the house seemed immeasurably aloof from her in the social scale. henry was frigid and the little ones went with marked reluctance to this stern, forbidding old woman who questioned them as to their prayers and smelt of red-herrings. she ceased to go to the house. and then at last all her smouldering distrust of henry elkman found overwhelming justification. before the year of mourning was up, before he was entitled to cease saying the _kaddish_ (funeral hymn) for her darling fanny, the wretch, she heard, was married again. and married--villainy upon villainy, horror upon horror--to a christian girl, a heathen abomination. natalya was wrestling with her over-full sack when she got the news from a gossiping lady client, and she was boring holes for the passage of string to tie up its mouth. she turned the knife viciously, as if it were in henry elkman's heart. she did not know the details of the piquant, tender courtship between him and the pretty assistant at the great drapery store that neighboured the holloway clothing emporium, any more than she understood the gradual process which had sapped henry's instinct of racial isolation, or how he had passed from admiration of british ways into entire abandonment of jewish. she was spared, too, the knowledge that latterly her own fanny had slid with him into the facile paths of impiety; that they had ridden for a breath of country air on sabbath afternoons. they had been considerate enough to hide that from her. to the old clo'-woman's crude mind, henry elkman existed as a monster of ready-made wickedness, and she believed even that he had been married in church and baptized, despite that her informant tried to console her with the assurance that the knot had been tied in a registrar's office. 'may he be cursed with the boils of pharaoh!' she cried in her picturesque jargon. 'may his fine clothes fall from his flesh and his flesh from his bones! may my fanny's outraged soul plead against him at the judgment bar! and she--this heathen female--may her death be sudden!' and she drew the ends of the string tightly together, as though round the female's neck. 'hush, you old witch!' cried the gossip, revolted; 'and what would become of your own grandchildren?' 'they cannot be worse off than they are now, with a heathen in the house. all their judaism will become corrupted. she may even baptize them. oh, father in heaven!' the thought weighed upon her. she pictured the innocent becky and joseph kissing crucifixes. at the best there would be no _kosher_ food in the house any more. how could this stranger understand the mysteries of purging meat, of separating meat-plates from butter-plates? at last she could bear the weight no longer. she took the elkman house in her rounds, and, bent under her sack, knocked at the familiar door. it was lunch-time, and unfamiliar culinary smells seemed wafted along the passage. her morbid imagination scented bacon. the orthodox amulet on the doorpost did not comfort her; it had been left there, forgotten, a mute symbol of the jewish past. a pleasant young woman with blue eyes and fresh-coloured cheeks opened the door. the blood surged to natalya's eyes, so that she could hardly see. 'old clo',' she said mechanically. 'no, thank you,' replied the young woman. her voice was sweet, but it sounded to natalya like the voice of lilith, stealer of new-born children. her rosy cheek seemed smeared with seductive paint. in the background glistened the dual crockery of the erst pious kitchen which the new-comer profaned. and between natalya and it, between natalya and her grandchildren, this alien girlish figure seemed to stand barrier-wise. she could not cross the threshold without explanations. 'is mr. elkman at home?' she asked. 'you know the name!' said the young woman, a little surprised. 'yes, i have been here a good deal.' the old woman's sardonic accent was lost on the listener. 'i am sorry there is nothing this time,' she replied. 'not even a pair of old shoes?' 'no.' 'but the dead woman's----? are you, then, standing in them?' the words were so fierce and unexpected, the crone's eyes blazed so weirdly, that the new wife recoiled with a little shriek. 'henry!' she cried. fork in hand, he darted in from the living-room, but came to a sudden standstill. 'what do you want here?' he muttered. 'fanny's shoes!' she cried. 'who is it?' his wife's eyes demanded. 'a half-witted creature we deal with out of charity,' he gestured back. and he put her inside the room-door, whispering, 'let me get rid of her.' 'so, that's your painted poppet,' hissed his mother-in-law in yiddish. 'painted?' he said angrily. 'madge painted? she's just as natural as a rosy apple. she's a country girl, and her mother was a lady.' 'her mother? perhaps! but she? you see a glossy high hat marked sixteen and sixpence, and you think it's new. but i know what it's come from--a battered thing that has rolled in the gutter. ah, how she could have bewitched you, when there are so many honest jewesses without husbands! 'i am sorry she doesn't please you; but, after all, it's my business, and not yours.' 'not mine? after i gave you my fanny, and she slaved for you and bore you children?' 'it's just for her children that i had to marry.' 'what? you had to marry a christian for the sake of fanny's children? oh, god forgive you!' 'we are not in poland now,' he said sulkily. 'ah, i always said you were a sinner in israel. my fanny has been taken for your sins. a black death on your bones.' 'if you don't leave off cursing, i shall call a policeman.' 'oh, lock me up, lock me up--instead of your shame. let the whole world know that.' 'go away, then. you have no right to come here and frighten madge--my wife. she is in delicate health, as it is.' 'may she be an atonement for all of us! i have the right to come here as much as i please.' 'you have no right.' 'i have a right to the children. my blood is in their veins.' 'you have no right. the children are their father's.' 'yes, their father's in heaven,' and she raised her hand like an ancient prophetess, while the other supported her bag over her shoulder. 'the children are the children of israel, and they must carry forward the yoke of the law.' 'and what do you propose?' he said, with a scornful sniff. 'give me the children. i will elevate them in the fear of the lord. you go your own godless way, free of burdens--you and your christian poppet. you no longer belong to us. give me the children, and i'll go away.' he looked at her quizzingly. 'you have been drinking, my good mother-in-law.' 'ay, the waters of affliction. give me the children.' 'but they won't go with you. they love their step-mother.' 'love that painted jade? they, with jewish blood warm in their veins, with the memory of their mother warm in their hearts? impossible!' he opened the door gently. 'becky! joe! no, don't you come, madge, darling. it's all right. the old lady wants to say "good-day" to the children.' the two children tripped into the passage, with napkins tied round their chins, their mouths greasy, but the rest of their persons unfamiliarly speckless and tidy. they stood still at the sight of their grandmother, so stern and frowning. henry shut the door carefully. 'my lambs!' natalya cried, in her sweetest but harsh tones, 'won't you come and kiss me?' becky, a mature person of seven, advanced courageously and surrendered her cheek to her grandmother. 'how are you, granny?' she said ceremoniously. 'and joseph?' said natalya, not replying. 'my heart and my crown, will he not come?' the four-and-a-half year old joseph stood dubiously, with his fist in his mouth. 'bring him to me, becky. tell him i want you and him to come and live with me.' becky shrugged her precocious shoulders. 'he may. i won't,' she said laconically. 'oh, becky!' said the grandmother. 'do you want to stay here and torture your poor mother?' becky stared. 'she's dead,' she said. 'yes, but her soul lives and watches over you. come, joseph, apple of my eye, come with me.' she beckoned enticingly, but the little boy, imagining the invitation was to enter her bag and be literally carried away therein, set up a terrific howl. thereupon the pretty young woman emerged hastily, and the child, with a great sob of love and confidence, ran to her and nestled in her arms. 'mamma, mamma,' he cried. henry looked at the old woman with a triumphant smile. natalya went hot and cold. it was not only that little joseph had gone to this creature. it was not even that he had accepted her maternity. it was this word 'mamma' that stung. the word summed up all the blasphemous foreignness of the new domesticity. 'mamma' was redolent of cold christian houses in whose doorways the old clo'-woman sometimes heard it. fanny had been 'mother'--the dear, homely, jewish 'mother.' this 'mamma,' taught to the orphans, was like the haughty parade of christian elegance across her grave. 'when _mamma's_ shoes are to be sold, don't forget me,' natalya hissed. 'i'll give you the best price in the market.' henry shuddered, but replied, half pushing her outside: 'certainly, certainly. good-afternoon.' 'i'll buy them at your own price--ah, i see them coming, coming into my bag.' the door closed on her grotesque sibylline intensity, and henry clasped his wife tremblingly to his bosom and pressed a long kiss upon her fragrant cherry lips. later on he explained that the crazy old clo'-woman was known to the children, as to everyone in the neighbourhood, as 'granny.' iii in the bearing of her first child the second mrs. elkman died. the rosy face became a white angelic mask, the dainty figure lay in statuesque severity, and a screaming, bald-headed atom of humanity was the compensation for this silence. henry elkman was overwhelmed by grief and superstition. 'for three things women die in childbirth,' kept humming in his brain from his ancient hebrew lore. he did not remember what they were, except that one was the omission of the wife to throw into the fire the lump of dough from the sabbath bread. but these neglects could not be visited on a christian, he thought dully. the only distraction of his grief was the infant's pressing demand on his attention. it was some days before the news penetrated to the old woman. 'it is his punishment,' she said with solemn satisfaction. 'now my fanny's spirit will rest.' but she did not gloat over the decree of the god of israel as she had imagined beforehand, nor did she call for the dead woman's old clo'. she was simply content--an unrighteous universe had been set straight again like a mended watch. but she did call, without her bag, to inquire if she could be of service in this tragic crisis. 'out of my sight, you and your evil eye!' cried henry as he banged the door in her face. natalya burst into tears, torn by a chaos of emotions. so she was still to be shut out. iv the next news that leaked into natalya's wizened ear was as startling as madge's death. henry had married again. doubtless with the same pretext of the children's needs he had taken unto himself a third wife, and again without the decencies of adequate delay. and this wife was a jewess, as of yore. henry had reverted matrimonially to the fold. was it conscience, was it terror? nobody knew. but everybody knew that the third mrs. elkman was a bouncing beauty of a good orthodox stock, that she brought with her fifty pounds in cash, besides bedding and house-linen accumulated by her parents without prevision that she would marry an old hand, already provided with these household elements. the old clo'-woman's emotions were more mingled than ever. she felt vaguely that the jewish minister should not so unquestioningly have accorded the scamp the privileges of the hymeneal canopy. some lustral rite seemed necessary to purify him of his christian conjunction. and the memory of fanny was still outraged by this burying of her, so to speak, under layers of successive wives. on the other hand, the children would revert to judaism, and they would have a jewish mother, not a mamma, to care for them and to love them. the thought consoled her for being shut out of their lives, as she felt she must have been, even had henry been friendlier. this third wife had alienated her from the household, had made her kinship practically remote. she had sunk to a sort of third cousin, or a mother-in-law twice removed. the days went on, and again the elkman household occupied the gossips, and news of it--second-hand, like everything that came to her--was picked up by natalya on her rounds. henry's third wife was, it transpired, a melancholy failure. her temper was frightful, she beat her step-children, and--worst and rarest sin in the jewish housewife--she drank. henry was said to be in despair. '_nebbich_, the poor little children!' cried natalya, horrified. her brain began plotting how to interfere, but she could find no way. the weeks passed, with gathering rumours of the iniquities of the third mrs. elkman, and then at last came the thunder-clap--henry had disappeared without leaving a trace. the wicked wife and the innocent brats had the four-roomed home to themselves. the clothing emporium knew him no more. some whispered suicide, others america. benjamin beckenstein, the cutter of the emporium, who favoured the latter hypothesis reported a significant saying: 'i have lived with two angels; i can't live with a demon.' 'ah, at last he sees my fanny was an angel,' said natalya, neglecting to draw the deduction anent america, and passing over the other angel. and she embroidered the theme. how indeed could a man who had known the blessing of a sober, god-fearing wife endure a drunkard and a child-beater? 'no wonder he killed himself!' the gossips pointed out that the saying implied flight rather than suicide. 'you are right!' natalya admitted illogically. 'just what a coward and blackguard like that would do--leave the children at the mercy of the woman he couldn't face himself. how in heaven's name will they live?' 'oh, her father, the furrier, will have to look after them,' the gossips assured her. 'he gave her good money, you know, fifty pounds and the bedding. ah, trust elkman for that. he knew he wasn't leaving the children to starve.' 'i don't know so much,' said the old woman, shaking her bewigged head. what was to be done? suppose the furrier refused the burden. but henry's flight, she felt, had removed her even farther from the elkman household. if she went to spy out the land, she would now have to face the virago in possession. but no! on second thoughts it was this other woman whom henry's flight had changed to a stranger. what had the wretch to do with the children? she was a mere intruder in the house. out with her, or at least out with the children. yes, she would go boldly there and demand them. 'poor becky! poor joseph!' her heart wailed. 'you to be beaten and neglected after having known the love of a mother.' true, it would not be easy to support them. but a little more haggling, a little more tramping, a little more mending, and a little less gorging and gormandising! they would be at school during the day, so would not interfere with her rounds, and in the evening she could have them with her as she sat refurbishing the purchases of the day. ah, what a blessed release from the burden of loneliness, heavier than the heaviest sack! it was well worth the price. and then at bedtime she would say the hebrew night-prayer with them and tuck them up, just as she had once done with her fanny. but how if the woman refused to yield them up--as natalya could fancy her refusing--out of sheer temper and devilry? what if, amply subsidized by her well-to-do parent, she wished to keep the little ones by her and revenge upon them their father's desertion, or hold them hostages for his return? why, then, natalya would use cunning--ay, and force, too--she would even kidnap them. once in their grandmother's hands, the law would see to it that they did not go back to this stranger, this bibulous brute, whose rights over them were nil. it was while buying up on a sunday afternoon the sloughed vestments of a jewish family in holloway that her resolve came to a head. a cab would be necessary to carry her goods to her distant garret. what an opportunity for carrying off the children at the same time! the house was actually on her homeward route. the economy of it tickled her, made her overestimate the chances of capture. as she packed the motley, far-spreading heap into the symmetry of her sack, pressing and squeezing the clothes incredibly tighter and tighter till it seemed a magic sack that could swallow up even the holloway clothing emporium, natalya's brain revolved feverish fancy-pictures of the coming adventure. leaving the bag in the basement passage, she ran to fetch a cab. usually the hiring of the vehicle occupied natalya half an hour. she would harangue the christian cabmen on the rank, pleading her poverty, and begging to be conveyed with her goods for a ridiculous sum. at first none of them would take notice of the old jewish crone, but would read their papers in contemptuous indifference. but gradually, as they remained idly on the rank, the endless stream of persuasion would begin to percolate, and at last one would relent, half out of pity, and would end by bearing the sack gratuitously on his shoulder from the house to his cab. often there were two sacks, quite filling the interior of a four-wheeler, and then natalya would ride triumphantly beside her cabby on the box, the two already the best of friends. things went ill if natalya did not end by trading off something in the sacks against the fare--at a new profit. but to-day she was too excited to strike more than a mediocre bargain. the cumbrous sack was hoisted into the cab. natalya sprang in beside it, and in a resolute voice bade the driver draw up for a moment at the elkman home. v the unwonted phenomenon of a cab brought becky to the door ere her grandmother could jump out. she was still under ten, but prematurely developed in body as in mind. there was something unintentionally insolent in her precocity, in her habitual treatment of adults as equals; but now her face changed almost to a child's, and with a glad tearful cry of 'oh, grandmother!' she sprang into the old woman's arms. it was the compensation for little joseph's 'mamma.' tears ran down the old woman's cheeks as she hugged the strayed lamb to her breast. a petulant infantile wail came from within, but neither noted it. 'where is your step-mother, my poor angel?' natalya asked in a half whisper. becky's forehead gloomed in an ugly frown. her face became a woman's again. 'one o'clock the public-houses open on sundays,' she snorted. 'oh, my god!' cried natalya, forgetting that the circumstance was favouring her project. 'a jewish woman! you don't mean to say that she drinks in public-houses?' 'you don't suppose i would let her drink here,' said becky. 'we have nice scenes, i can tell you. the only consolation is she's better-tempered when she's quite drunk.' the infant's wail rang out more clamorously. 'hush, you little beast!' becky ejaculated, but she moved mechanically within, and her grandmother followed her. all the ancient grandeur of the sitting-room seemed overclouded with shabbiness and untidiness. to natalya everything looked and smelt like the things in her bag. and there in a stuffy cradle a baby wrinkled its red face with shrieking. becky had bent over it, and was soothing it ere its existence penetrated at all to the old woman's preoccupied brain. its pipings had been like an unheeded wail of wind round some centre of tragic experience. even when she realized the child's existence her brain groped for some seconds in search of its identity. ah, the baby whose birth had cost that painted poppet's life! so it still lived and howled in unwelcome reminder and perpetuation of that brief but shameful episode. 'grow dumb like your mother,' she murmured resentfully. what a bequest of misery henry elkman had left behind him! ah, how right she had been to suspect him from the very first! 'but where is my little joseph?' she said aloud. 'he's playing somewhere in the street.' '_ach, mein gott!_ playing, when he ought to be weeping like this child of shame. go and fetch him at once!' 'what do you want him for?' 'i am going to take you both away--out of this misery. you'd like to come and live with me--eh, my lamb?' 'rather--anything's better than this.' natalya caught her to her breast again. 'go and fetch my joseph! but quick, quick, before the public-house woman comes back!' becky flew out, and natalya sank into a chair, breathless with emotion and fatigue. the baby in the cradle beside her howled more vigorously, and automatically her foot sought the rocker, and she heard herself singing: 'sleep, little baby, sleep, thy father shall be a rabbi; thy mother shall bring thee almonds; blessings on thy little head.' as the howling diminished, she realized with a shock that she was rocking this misbegotten infant--nay, singing to it a jewish cradle-song full of inappropriate phrases. she withdrew her foot as though the rocker had grown suddenly red-hot. the yells broke out with fresh vehemence, and she angrily restored her foot to its old place. '_nu, nu_,' she cried, rocking violently, 'go to sleep.' she stole a glance at it, when it grew stiller, and saw that the teat of its feeding-bottle was out of its mouth. 'there, there--suck!' she said, readjusting it. the baby opened its eyes and shot a smile at her, a wonderful, trustful smile from great blue eyes. natalya trembled; those were the blue eyes that had supplanted the memory of fanny's dark orbs, and the lips now sucking contentedly were the cherry lips of the painted poppet. '_nebbich_; the poor, deserted little orphan,' she apologized to herself. 'and this is how the new jewish wife does her duty to her step-children. she might as well have been a christian.' then a remembrance that the christian woman had seemingly been an unimpeachable step-mother confused her thoughts further. and while she was groping among them becky returned, haling in joseph, who in his turn haled in a kite with a long tail. the boy, now a sturdy lad of seven, did not palpitate towards his grandmother with becky's eagerness. probably he felt the domestic position less. but he surrendered himself to her long hug. 'did she beat him,' she murmured soothingly, 'beat my own little joseph?' 'don't waste time, granny,' becky broke in petulantly, 'if we _are_ going.' 'no, my dear. we'll go at once.' and, releasing the boy, natalya partly undid the lower buttons of his waistcoat. 'you wear no four-corner fringes!' she exclaimed tragically. 'she neglects even to see to that. ah, it will be a good deed to carry you from this godless home.' 'but i don't want to go with you,' he said sullenly, reminded of past inquisitorial worryings about prayers. 'you little fool!' said becky. 'you _are_ going--and in that cab.' 'in that cab?' he cried joyfully. 'yes, my apple. and you will never be beaten again.' 'oh, _she_ don't hurt!' he said contemptuously. 'she hasn't even got a cane--like at school.' 'but shan't we take our things?' said becky. 'no, only the things you stand in. they shan't have any excuse for taking you back. i'll find you plenty of clothes, as good as new.' 'and little daisy?' 'oh, is it a girl? your stepmother will look after that. she can't complain of one burden.' she hustled the children into the cab, where, with the sack and herself, they made a tightly-packed quartette. 'i say, i didn't bargain for extras inside,' grumbled the cabman. 'you can't reckon these children,' said natalya, with confused legal recollections; 'they're both under seven.' the cabman started. becky stared out of the window. 'i wonder if we'll pass mrs. elkman,' she said, amused. joseph busied himself with disentangling the tails of his kite. but natalya was too absorbed to notice their indifference to her. that poor little daisy! the image of the baby swam vividly before her. what a terrible fate to be left in the hands of the public-house woman! who knew what would happen to it? what if, in her drunken fury at the absence of becky and joseph, she did it a mischief? at the best the besotted creature would not take cordially to the task of bringing it up. it was no child of hers--had not even the appeal of pure jewish blood. and there it lay, smiling, with its beautiful blue eyes. it had smiled trustfully on herself, not knowing she was to leave it to its fate. and now it was crying; she heard it crying above the rattle of the cab. but how could she charge herself with it--she, with her daily rounds to make? the other children were grown up, passed the day at school. no, it was impossible. and the child's cry went on in her imagination louder and louder. she put her head out of the window. 'turn back! turn back! i've forgotten something.' the cabman swore. 'd'ye think you've taken me by the week?' 'threepence extra. drive back.' the cab turned round, the innocent horse got a stinging flip of the whip, and set off briskly. 'what have you forgotten, grandmother?' said becky. 'it's very careless of you.' the cab stopped at the door. natalya looked round nervously, sprang out, and then uttered a cry of despair. '_ach_, we shut the door!' and the inaccessible baby took on a tenfold desirability. 'it's all right,' said becky. 'just turn the handle.' natalya obeyed and ran in. there was the baby, not crying, but sleeping peacefully. natalya snatched it up frenziedly, and hurried the fresh-squalling bundle into the cab. 'taking daisy?' cried becky. 'but she isn't yours!' natalya shut the cab-door with a silencing bang, and the vehicle turned again ghettowards. vi the fact that natalya had taken possession of the children could not be kept a secret, but the step-mother's family made no effort to regain them, and, indeed, the woman herself shortly went the way of all henry elkman's wives, though whether she, like the rest, had a successor, is unknown. the sudden change from a lone old lady to a mater-familias was not, however, so charming as natalya had imagined. the cost of putting daisy out to nurse was a terrible tax, but this was nothing compared to the tax on her temper levied by her legitimate grandchildren, who began to grumble on the first night at the poverty and pokiness of the garret, and were thenceforward never without a lament for the good old times. they had, indeed, been thoroughly spoilt by the father and the irregular ménage. the christian wife's influence had been refining but too temporary. it had been only long enough to wean joseph from the religious burdens indoctrinated by fanny, and thus to add to the grandmother's difficulties in coaxing him back to the yoke of piety. the only sweet in natalya's cup turned out to be the love of little daisy, who grew ever more beautiful, gracious, and winning. natalya had never known so lovable a child. all daisy did seemed to her perfect. for instant obedience and instant comprehension she declared her matchless. one day, when daisy was three, the child told the grandmother that in her momentary absence becky had pulled joseph's hair. 'hush! you mustn't tell tales,' natalya said reprovingly. 'becky did not pull joey's hair,' daisy corrected herself instantly. much to the disgust of becky, who wished to outgrow the ghetto, even while she unconsciously manifested its worst heritages, daisy picked up the yiddish words and phrases, which, in spite of becky's remonstrances, natalya was too old to give up. this was not the only subject of dispute between becky and the grandmother, whom she roundly accused of favouritism of daisy, and she had not reached fifteen when, with an independence otherwise praiseworthy, she set up for herself on her earnings in the fur establishment of her second step-mother's father, lodging with a family who, she said, bored her less than her grandmother. in another year or so, freed from the compulsory education of the school board, joseph joined her. and thus, by the unforeseen turns of fortune's wheel, the old-clo' woman of seventy-five was left alone with the child of seven. but this child was compensation for all she had undergone, for all the years of trudging and grubbing and patching and turning. daisy threaded her needle for her at night when her keen eyes began to fail, and while she made the old clo' into new, daisy read aloud her english story-books. natalya took an absorbing interest in these nursery tales, heard for the first time in her second childhood. 'jack the giant-killer,' 'aladdin,' 'cinderella,' they were all delightful novelties. the favourite story of both was 'little red riding-hood,' with its refrain of 'grandmother, what large eyes you've got!' that could be said with pointed fun; it seemed to be written especially for them. often daisy would look up suddenly and say: 'grandmother, what a large mouth you've got!' 'all the better to bite you with,' grandmother would reply. and then there would be hugs and kisses. but friday night was the great night, the one night of the week on which natalya could be stopped from working. only religion was strong enough to achieve that. the two sabbath candles in the copper candlesticks stood on the white tablecloth, and were lighted as soon as the welcome dusk announced the advent of the holy day, and they shed their pious illumination on her dish of fish and the ritually-twisted loaves. and after supper natalya would sing the hebrew grace at much leisurely length and with great unction. then she would tell stories of her youth in poland--comic tales mixed with tales of oppression and the memories of ancient wrong. and daisy would weep and laugh and thrill. the fusion of races had indeed made her sensitive and intelligent beyond the common, and natalya was not unjustified in planning out for her some illustrious future. but after eighteen months of this delightful life natalya's wonderful vitality began slowly to collapse. she earned less and less, and, amid her gratitude to god for having relieved her of the burden of becky and joseph, a secret fear entered her heart. would she be taken away before daisy became self-supporting? nay, would she even be able to endure the burden till the end? what made things worse was that, owing to the increase of immigrants, her landlord now exacted an extra shilling a week for rent. when daisy was asleep the old woman hung over the bed, praying for life, for strength. it was a sultry summer, making the trudge from door to door, under the ever-swelling sack, almost intolerable. and a little thing occurred to bring home cruelly to natalya the decline of all her resources, physical and financial. the children's country holiday was in the air at daisy's board school, throwing an aroma and a magic light over the droning class-room. daisy was to go, was to have a fortnight with a cottager in kent; but towards the expenses the child's parent or guardian was expected to contribute four shillings. daisy might have gone free had she pleaded absolute poverty, but that would have meant investigation. from such humiliation natalya shrank. she shrank even more from frightening the poor child by uncovering the skeleton of poverty. most of all she shrank from depriving daisy of all the rural delights on which the child's mind dwelt in fascinated anticipation. natalya did not think much of the country herself, having been born in a poor polish village, amid huts and pigs, but she would not disillusion daisy. by miles of extra trudging in the heat, and miracles of bargaining with bewildered housewives, natalya raised the four shillings, and the unconscious daisy glided off in the happy, noisy train, while on the platform natalya waved her coloured handkerchief wet with tears. that first night without the little sunshiny presence was terrible for the old-clo' woman. the last prop against decay and collapse seemed removed. but the next day a joyous postcard came from daisy, which the greengrocer downstairs read to natalya, and she was able to take up her sack again and go forth into the sweltering streets. in the second week the child wrote a letter, saying that she had found a particular friend in an old lady, very kind and rich, who took her for drives in a chaise, and asked her many questions. this old lady seemed to have taken a fancy to her from the moment she saw her playing outside the cottage. 'perhaps god has sent her to look after the child when i am gone,' thought natalya, for the task of going down and up the stairs to get this letter read made her feel as if she would never go up and down them again. beaten at last, she took to her bed. her next-room neighbour, the cobbler's wife, tended her and sent for the 'penny doctor.' but she would not have word written to daisy or her holiday cut short. on the day daisy was to come back she insisted, despite all advice and warning, in being up and dressed. she sent everybody away, and lay on her bed till she heard daisy's footsteps, then she started to her feet, and drew herself up in pretentious good health. but the sound of other footsteps, and the entry of a spectacled, silver-haired old gentlewoman with the child, spoilt her intended hug. daisy's new friend had passed from her memory, and she stared pathetically at the strange lady and the sunburnt child. 'oh, grandmother, what great eyes you've got!' and daisy ran laughingly towards her. the usual repartee was wanting. 'and the room is not tidied up,' natalya said reproachfully, and began dusting a chair for the visitor. but the old lady waved it aside. 'i have come to thank you for all you have done for my grandchild.' '_your_ grandchild?' natalya fell back on the bed. 'yes. i have had inquiries made--it is quite certain. daisy was even called after me. i am glad of that, at least.' her voice faltered. natalya sat as bolt upright as years of bending under sacks would allow. 'and you have come to take her from me!' she shrieked. already daisy's new ruddiness seemed to her the sign of life that belonged elsewhere. 'no, no, do not be alarmed. i have suffered enough from my selfishness. it was my bad temper drove my daughter from me.' she bowed her silver head till her form seemed as bent as natalya's. 'what can i do to repair--to atone? will you not come and live with me in the country, and let me care for you? i am not rich, but i can offer you every comfort.' natalya shook her head. 'i am a jewess. i could not eat with you.' 'that's just what _i_ told her, grandmother,' added daisy eagerly. 'then the child must remain with you at my expense,' said the old lady. 'but if she likes the country so----' murmured natalya. 'i like you better, grandmother.' and daisy laid her ruddied cheek to the withered cheek, which grew wet with ecstasy. 'she calls _you_ "grandmother," not me,' said the old gentlewoman with a sob. 'yes, and i wished her mother dead. god forgive me!' natalya burst into a passion of tears and rocked to and fro, holding daisy tightly to her faintly pulsing heart. 'what did you say?' daisy's grandmother flamed and blazed with her ancient anger. 'you wished my madge dead?' natalya nodded her head. her arms unloosed their hold of daisy. 'dead, dead, dead,' she repeated in a strange, crooning voice. gradually a vacant look crept over her face, and she fell back again on the bed. she looked suddenly very old, despite her glossy black wig. 'she is ill!' daisy shrieked. the cobbler's wife ran in and helped to put her back between the sheets, and described volubly her obstinacy in leaving her bed. natalya lived till near noon of the next day, and daisy's real grandmother was with her still at the end, side by side with the jewish death-watcher. about eleven in the morning natalya said: 'light the candles, daisy, the sabbath is coming in.' daisy spread a white tablecloth on the old wooden table, placed the copper candlesticks upon it, drew it to the bedside, and lighted the candles. they burned with curious unreality in the full august sunshine. a holy peace overspread the old-clo' woman's face. her dried-up lips mumbled the hebrew prayer, welcoming the sabbath eve. gradually they grew rigid in death. 'daisy,' said her grandmother, 'say the text i taught you.' '"come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden,"' sobbed the child obediently, '"and i will give you rest."' the luftmensch the luftmensch i leopold barstein, the sculptor, was sitting in his lonesome studio, brooding blackly over his dead illusions, when the postman brought him a letter in a large, straggling, unknown hand. it began 'angel of god!' he laughed bitterly. 'just when i am at my most diabolical!' he did not at first read the letter, divining in it one of the many begging-letters which were the aftermath of his east-end zionist period. but he turned over the page to see the name of the orientally effusive scribe. it was 'nehemiah silvermann, dentist and restaurateur.' his laughter changed to a more genial note; his sense of humour was still saving. the figure of the restaurateur-dentist sprang to his imagination in marble on a pedestal. in one hand the figure held a cornucopia, in the other a pair of pincers. he read the letter. ' a, the minories, e. 'angel of god, 'i have the honour now to ask your very kind humane merciful cordial nobility to assist me by your clement philanthropical liberal relief in my very hard troublesome sorrows and worries, on which i suffer violently. i lost all my fortune, and i am ruined by russia. i am here at present without means and dental practice, and my restaurant is impeded with lack of a few frivolous pounds. i do not know really what to do in my actual very disgraceful mischief. i heard the people saying your propitious magnanimous beneficent charities are everywhere exceedingly well renowned and considerably gracious. thus i solicit and supplicate your good very kind genteel clement humanity by my very humble quite instant request to support me by your merciful aid, and please to respond me as soon as possible according to your generous very philanthropy in my urgent extreme immense difficulty. 'your obedient servant respectfully, 'nehemiah silvermann, '_dentist and restaurateur._' such a flood of language carried away the last remnants of barstein's melancholia; he saw his imagined statue showering adjectives from its cornucopia. 'it is the cry of a dictionary in distress!' he murmured, re-reading the letter with unction. it pleased his humour to reply in the baldest language. he asked for details of silvermann's circumstances and sorrows. had he applied to the russo-jewish fund, which existed to help such refugees from persecution? did he know jacobs, the dentist of the neighbouring mansel place? jacobs had been one of barstein's fellow-councillors in zionism, a pragmatic inexhaustible debater in the small back room, and the voluble little man now loomed suddenly large as a possible authority upon his brother-dentist. by return of post a second eruption descended upon the studio from the 'dictionary in distress.' ' a, the minories, e. 'most honourable and angelical mr. leopold barstein, 'i have the honour now to thank you for your kind answer of my letter. i did not succeed here by my vital experience in the last of ten years. i got my livelihood a certain time by my dental practice so long there was not a hard violent competition, then i had never any efficacious relief, protection, then i have no relation, then we and the time are changeable too, then without money is impossible to perform any matter, if i had at present in my grieved desperate position £ for my restaurant, then i were rescued. i do not earn anything, and i must despond at last, i perish here, in russia i was ruined, please to aid me in your merciful humanity by something, if i had £ i could start off from here to go somewhere to look for my daily bread, and if i had £ so i shall go to jerusalem because i am convinced by my bitter and sour troubles and shocking tribulations here is nothing to do any more for me. i have not been in the russo-jewish fund and do not know it where it is, and if it is in the jewish shelter of leman street so i have no protection, no introduction, no recommendation for it. poverty has very seldom a few clement humane good people and little friends. the people say jacobs the dentist of mansel place is not a good man, and so it is i tried it for he makes the impossible competition. i ask your good genteel cordial nobility according to the universal good reputation of your gracious goodness to reply me quick by some help now. 'your obedient servant respectfully, 'nehemiah silvermann, '_dentist and restaurateur._' this letter threw a new but not reassuring light upon the situation. instead of being a victim of the russian troubles, a recent refugee from massacre and robbery, nehemiah had already existed in london for ten years, and although he might originally have been ruined by russia, he had survived his ruin by a decade. his ideas of his future seemed as hazy as his past. four pounds would be a very present help; he could continue his london career. with fifteen pounds he was ready to start off anywhither. with thirty pounds he would end all his troubles in jerusalem. such nebulousness appeared to necessitate a personal visit, and the next day, finding himself in bad form, barstein angrily bashed in a clay visage, clapped on his hat, and repaired to the minories. but he looked in vain for either a dentist or a restaurant at no. a. it appeared a humble corner residence, trying to edge itself into the important street. at last, after wandering uncertainly up and down, he knocked at the shabby door. a frowsy woman with long earrings opened it staring, and said that the silvermanns occupied two rooms on her second floor. 'what!' cried barstein. 'is he married?' 'i should hope so,' replied the landlady severely. 'he has eleven children at least.' barstein mounted the narrow carpetless stairs, and was received by mrs. silvermann and her brood with much consternation and ceremony. the family filled the whole front room and overflowed into the back, which appeared to be a sort of kitchen, for mrs. silvermann had rushed thence with tucked-up sleeves, and sounds of frying still proceeded from it. but mr. silvermann was not at home, the small, faded, bewigged creature told him apologetically. barstein looked curiously round the room, half expecting indications of dentistry or dining. but he saw only a minimum of broken-down furniture, bottomless cane chairs, a wooden table and a cracked mirror, a hanging shelf heaped with ragged books, and a standing cupboard which obviously turned into a bedstead at night for half the family. but of a dentist's chair there was not even the ruins. his eyes wandered over the broken-backed books--some were indeed 'dictionaries in distress.' he noted a russo-german and a german-english. then the sounds of frying penetrated more keenly to his brain. 'you are the cook of the restaurant?' he inquired. 'restaurant!' echoed the woman resentfully. 'have i not enough cooking to do for my own family? and where shall i find money to keep a restaurant?' 'your husband said----' murmured barstein, as in guilty confusion. a squalling from the overflow offspring in the kitchen drew off the mother for a moment, leaving him surrounded by an open-eyed juvenile mob. from the rear he heard smacks, loud whispers and whimperings. then the poor woman reappeared, bearing what seemed a scrubbing-board. she placed it over one of the caneless chairs, and begged his excellency to be seated. it was a half holiday at the school, she complained, otherwise her family would be less numerous. 'where does your husband do his dentistry?' barstein inquired, seating himself cautiously upon the board. 'do i know?' said his wife. 'he goes out, he comes in.' at this moment, to barstein's great satisfaction, he did come in. 'holy angel!' he cried, rushing at the hem of barstein's coat, and kissing it reverently. he was a gaunt, melancholy figure, elongated to over six feet, and still further exaggerated by a rusty top-hat of the tallest possible chimneypot, and a threadbare frockcoat of the longest possible tails. at his advent his wife, vastly relieved, shepherded her flock into the kitchen and closed the door, leaving barstein alone with the long man, who seemed, as he stood gazing at his visitor, positively soaring heavenwards with rapture. but barstein inquired brutally: 'where do you do your dentistry?' 'never mind me,' replied nehemiah ecstatically. 'let me look on you!' and a more passionate worship came into his tranced gaze. but barstein, feeling duped, replied sternly: 'where do you do your dentistry?' the question seemed to take some moments penetrating through nehemiah's rapt brain, but at last he replied pathetically: 'and where shall i find achers? in russia i had my living of it. here i have no friends.' the homeliness of his vocabulary amused barstein. evidently the dictionary _was_ his fount of inspiration. without it niagara was reduced to a trickle. he seemed indeed quite shy of speech, preferring to gaze with large liquid eyes. 'but you _have_ managed to live here for ten years,' barstein pointed out. 'you see how merciful god is!' nehemiah rejoined eagerly. 'never once has he deserted me and my children.' 'but what have you done?' inquired barstein. the first shade of reproach came into nehemiah's eyes. 'ask sooner what the almighty has done,' he said. barstein felt rebuked. one does not like to lose one's character as a holy angel. 'but your restaurant?' he said. 'where is that?' 'that is here.' 'here!' echoed barstein, staring round again. 'where else? here is a wide opening for a _kosher_ restaurant. there are hundreds and hundreds of greeners lodging all around--poor young men with only a bed or a corner of a room to sleep on. they know not where to go to eat, and my wife, god be thanked, is a knowing cook.' 'oh, then, your restaurant is only an idea.' 'naturally--a counsel that i have given myself.' 'but have you enough plates and dishes and tablecloths? can you afford to buy the food, and to risk it's not being eaten?' nehemiah raised his hands to heaven. 'not being eaten! with a family like mine!' barstein laughed in spite of himself. and he was softened by noting how sensitive and artistic were nehemiah's outspread hands--they might well have wielded the forceps. 'yes, i dare say that is what will happen,' he said. 'how can you keep a restaurant up two pairs of stairs where no passer-by will ever see it?' as he spoke, however, he remembered staying in an hotel in sicily which consisted entirely of one upper room. perhaps in the ghetto sicilian fashions were paralleled. 'i do not fly so high as a restaurant in once,' nehemiah explained. 'but here is this great empty room. what am i to do with it? at night of course most of us sleep on it, but by daylight it is a waste. also i receive several hebrew and yiddish papers a week from my friends in russia and america, and one of which i even buy here. when i have read them these likewise are a waste. therefore have i given myself a counsel, if i would make here a reading-room they should come in the evenings, many young men who have only a bed or a room-corner to go to, and when once they have learnt to come here it will then be easy to make them to eat and drink. first i will give to them only coffee and cigarettes, but afterwards shall my wife cook them all the _delicatessen_ of poland. when our custom will become too large we shall take over bergman's great fashionable restaurant in the whitechapel road. he has already given me the option thereof; it is only two hundred pounds. and if your gentility----' 'but i cannot afford two hundred pounds,' interrupted barstein, alarmed. 'no, no, it is the almighty who will afford that,' said nehemiah reassuringly. 'from you i ask nothing.' 'in that case,' replied barstein drily, 'i must say i consider it an excellent plan. your idea of building up from small foundations is most sensible--some of the young men may even have toothache--but i do not see where you need me--unless to supply a few papers.' 'did i not say you were from heaven?' nehemiah's eyes shone again. 'but i do not require the papers. it is enough for me that your holy feet have stood in my homestead. i thought you might send money. but to come with your own feet! now i shall be able to tell i have spoken with him face to face!' barstein was touched. 'i think you will need a larger table for the reading-room,' he said. the tall figure shook its tall hat. 'it is only gas that i need for my operations.' 'gas!' repeated barstein, astonished. 'then you propose to continue your dentistry too.' 'it is for the restaurant i need the gas,' elucidated nehemiah. 'unless there shall be a cheerful shining here the young men will not come. but the penny gas is all i need.' 'well, if it costs only a penny----' began barstein. 'a penny in the slot,' corrected nehemiah. 'but then there is the meter and the cost of the burners.' he calculated that four pounds would convert the room into a salon of light that would attract all the homeless moths of the neighbourhood. so this was the four-pound solution, barstein reflected with his first sense of solid foothold. after all nehemiah had sustained his surprise visit fairly well--he was obviously no croesus--and if four pounds would not only save this swarming family but radiate cheer to the whole neighbourhood-- he sprung open the sovereign-purse that hung on his watch-chain. it contained only three pounds ten. he rummaged his pockets for silver, finding only eight shillings. 'i'm afraid i haven't quite got it!' he murmured. 'as if i couldn't trust you!' cried nehemiah reproachfully, and as he lifted his long coat-tails to trouser-pocket the money, barstein saw that he had no waistcoat. ii about six months later, when barstein had utterly forgotten the episode, he received another letter whose phraseology instantly recalled everything. '_to the most honourable competent authentical illustrious authority and universal celebrious dignity of the very famous sculptor._ ' a, the minories, e. 'dear sir, 'i have the honour and pleasure now to render the real and sincere gratitude of my very much obliged thanks for your grand gracious clement sympathical propitious merciful liberal compassionable cordial nobility of your real humane generous benevolent genuine very kind magnanimous philanthropy, which afforded to me a great redemption of my very lamentable desperate necessitous need, wherein i am at present very poor indeed in my total ruination by the cruel cynical russia, therein is every day a daily tyrannous massacre and assassinate, here is nothing to do any more for me previously, i shall rather go to bursia than to russia. i received from your dear kind amiable amicable goodness recently £ the same was for me a momental recreateing aid in my actual very indigent paltry miserable calamitous situation wherein i gain now nothing and i only perish here. even i cannot earn here my daily bread by my perfect scientifick knowledge of diverse languages, i know the philological neology and archaiology, the best way is for me to go to another country to wit, to bursia or turkey. thus, i solicit and supplicate your charitable generosity by my very humble and instant request to make me go away from here as soon as possible according to your humane kind merciful clemency. 'your obedient servant respectfully, 'nehemiah silvermann, '_dentist and professor of languages_.' so an academy of languages had evolved from the gas, not a restaurant. anyhow the dictionary was in distress again. emigration appeared now the only salvation. but where in the world was bursia? possibly persia was meant. but why persia? wherein lay the attraction of that exotic land, and whatever would mrs. silvermann and her overflowing progeny do in persia? nehemiah's original suggestion of jerusalem had been much more intelligible. perhaps it persisted still under the head of turkey. not least characteristic barstein found nehemiah's tenacious gloating over his ancient ruin at the hands of russia. for some days the sculptor went about weighed down by nehemiah's misfortunes, and the necessity of finding time to journey to the minories. but he had an absorbing piece of work, and before he could tear himself away from it a still more urgent shower of words fell upon him. ' a, the minories, e. 'i have the honour now,' the new letter ran, 'to inquire about my decided and expecting departure. i must sue by my quite humble and very instant entreaty your noble genteel cordial humanity in my very hard troublous and bitter and sour vexations and tribulations to effect for my poor position at least a private anonymous prompt collection as soon as possible according to your clement magnanimous charitable mercy of £ if not £ among your very estimable and respectfully good friends, in good order to go in another country even bursia to get my livelihood by my dental practice or by my other scientifick and philological knowledge. the great competition is here in anything very vigorous. i have here no dental employment, no dental practice, no relations, no relief, no gain, no earning, no introduction, no protection, no recommendation, no money, no good friends, no good connecting acquaintance, in russia i am ruined and i perish here, i am already desperate and despond entirely. i do not know what to do and what shall i do, do now in my actual urgent, extreme immense need. i am told by good many people, that the board of guardians is very seldom to rescue by aid the people, but very often is to find only faults, and vices and to make them guilty. i have nothing to do there, and in the russian jewish fund i found once sir asher aaronsberg and he is not to me sympathical. i supply and solicit considerably your kind humane clement mercy to answer me as soon as possible quick according to your very gracious mercy. 'your obedient servant respectfully, 'nehemiah silvermann, '_dentist and professor of languages._' as soon as the light failed in his studio, barstein summoned a hansom and sped to the minories. iii nehemiah's voice bade him walk in, and turning the door-handle he saw the top-hatted figure sprawled in solitary gloom along a caneless chair, reading a newspaper by the twinkle of a rushlight. nehemiah sprang up with a bark of joy, making his gigantic shadow bow to the visitor. from chimney-pot to coat-tail he stretched unchanged, and the same celestial rapture illumined his gaunt visage. but barstein drew back his own coat-tail from the attempted kiss. 'where is the gas?' he asked drily. 'alas, the company removed the meter.' 'but the gas-brackets?' 'what else had we to eat?' said nehemiah simply. barstein in sudden suspicion raised his eyes to the ceiling. but a fragment of gaspipe certainly came through it. he could not, however, recall whether the pipe had been there before or not. 'so the young men would not come?' he said. 'oh yes, they came, and they read, and they ate. only they did not pay.' 'you should have made it a rule--cash down.' again a fine shade of rebuke and astonishment crossed his lean and melancholy visage. 'and could i oppress a brother-in-israel? where had those young men to turn but to me?' again barstein felt his angelic reputation imperilled. he hastened to change the conversation. 'and why do you want to go to bursia?' he said. 'why shall i want to go to bursia?' nehemiah replied. 'you said so.' barstein showed him the letter. 'ah, i said i shall sooner go to bursia than to russia. always sir asher aaronsberg speaks of sending us back to russia.' 'he would,' said barstein grimly. 'but where is bursia?' nehemiah shrugged his shoulders. 'shall i know? my little rebeccah was drawing a map thereof; she won a prize of five pounds with which we lived two months. a genial child is my rebeccah.' 'ah, then, the almighty did send you something.' 'and do i not trust him?' said nehemiah fervently. 'otherwise, burdened down as i am with a multitude of children----' 'you made your own burden,' barstein could not help pointing out. again that look of pain, as if nehemiah had caught sight of feet of clay beneath barstein's shining boots. '"be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth,"' nehemiah quoted in hebrew. 'is not that the very first commandment in the bible?' 'well, then, you want to go to turkey,' said the sculptor evasively. 'i suppose you mean palestine?' 'no, turkey. it is to turkey we zionists should ought to go, there to work for palestine. are not many of the sultan's own officials jews? if we can make of _them_ hot-hearted zionists----' it was an arresting conception, and barstein found himself sitting on the table to discuss it. the reverence with which nehemiah listened to his views was touching and disconcerting. barstein felt humbled by the celestial figure he cut in nehemiah's mental mirror. yet he could not suspect the man of a glozing tongue, for of the leaders of zionism nehemiah spoke with, if possible, greater veneration, with an awe trembling on tears. his elongated figure grew even gaunter, his lean visage unearthlier, as he unfolded his plan for the conquest of palestine, and barstein's original impression of his simple sincerity was repeated and re-enforced. presently, however, it occurred to barstein that nehemiah himself would have scant opportunity of influential contact with ottoman officials, and that the real question at issue was, how nehemiah, his wife, and his 'at least eleven children,' were to be supported in turkey. he mentioned the point. nehemiah waved it away. 'and cannot the almighty support us in turkey as well as in england?' he asked. 'yes, even in bursia itself the guardian of israel is not sleepy.' it was then that the word 'luftmensch' flew into barstein's mind. nehemiah was not an earth-man in gross contact with solidities. he was an air-man, floating on facile wings through the æther. true, he spoke of troublesome tribulations, but these were mainly dictionary distresses, felt most keenly in the rhapsody of literary composition. at worst they were mere clouds on the blue. they had nothing in common with the fogs which frequently veiled heaven from his own vision. never for a moment had nehemiah failed to remember the blue, never had he lost his radiant outlook. his very pessimism was merely optimism in disguise, since it was only a personal pessimism to be remedied by 'a few frivolous pounds,' by a new crumb from the hand of providence, not that impersonal despair of the scheme of things which gave the thinker such black moments. how had nehemiah lived during those first ten years in england? who should say? but he had had the wild daring to uproot himself from his childhood's home and adventure himself upon an unknown shore, and there, by hook or crook, for better or for worse, through vicissitudes innumerable and crises beyond calculation, ever on the perilous verge of nothingness, he had scraped through the days and the weeks and the years, fearlessly contributing perhaps more important items to posterity than the dead stones, which were all he, the sculptor, bade fair to leave behind him. welcoming each new child with feasting and psalmody, never for a moment had nehemiah lost his robustious faith in life, his belief in god, man, or himself. yes, even deeper than his own self-respect was his respect for others. an impenetrable idealist, he lived surrounded by a radiant humanity, by men become as gods. with no conscious hyperbole did he address one as 'angel.' intellect and goodness were his pole-stars. and what airy courage in his mundane affairs, what invincible resilience! he had once been a dentist, and he still considered himself one. before he owned a tablecloth he deemed himself the proprietor of a restaurant. he enjoyed alike the pleasures of anticipation and of memory, and having nothing, glided ever buoyantly between two gilded horizons. the superficial might call him shiftless, but more profoundly envisaged, was he not rather an education in the art of living? did he not incarnate the great jewish gospel of the improvident lilies? 'you shall not go to bursia,' said barstein in a burst of artistic fervour. 'thirteen people cannot possibly get there for fifteen pounds or even twenty-five pounds, and for such a sum you could start a small business here.' nehemiah stared at him. 'god's messenger!' was all he could gasp. then the tall melancholy man raised his eyes to heaven, and uttered a hebrew voluntary in which references to the ram whose horns were caught in the thicket to save isaac's life were distinctly audible. barstein waited patiently till the pious lips were at rest. 'but what business do you think you----?' he began. 'shall i presume dictation to the angel?' asked nehemiah with wet shining eyes. 'i am thinking that perhaps we might find something in which your children could help you. how old is the eldest?' 'i will ask my wife. salome!' he cried. the dismal creature trotted in. 'how old is moshelé?' he asked. 'and don't you remember he was twelve last tabernacles?' nehemiah threw up his long arms. 'merciful heaven! he must soon begin to learn his _parshah_ (confirmation portion). what will it be? where is my _chumash_ (pentateuch)?' mrs. silvermann drew it down from the row of ragged books, and nehemiah, fluttering the pages and bending over the rushlight, became lost to the problem of his future. barstein addressed himself to the wife. 'what business do you think your husband could set up here?' 'is he not a dentist?' she inquired in reply. barstein turned to the busy peering flutterer. 'would you like to be a dentist again?' 'ah, but how shall i find achers?' 'you put up a sign,' said barstein. 'one of those cases of teeth. i daresay the landlady will permit you to put it up by the front door, especially if you take an extra room. i will buy you the instruments, furnish the room attractively. you will put in your newspapers--why, people will be glad to come as to a reading-room!' he added smiling. nehemiah addressed his wife. 'did i not say he was a genteel archangel?' he cried ecstatically. iv barstein was sitting outside a café in rome sipping vermouth with rozenoffski, the russo-jewish pianist, and schneemann the galician-jewish painter, when he next heard from nehemiah. he was anxiously expecting an important letter, which he had instructed his studio-assistant to bring to him instantly. so when the man appeared, he seized with avidity upon the envelope in his hand. but the scrawling superscription at once dispelled his hope, and recalled the forgotten _luftmensch_. he threw the letter impatiently on the table. 'oh, you may read it,' his friends protested, misunderstanding. 'i can guess what it is,' he said grumpily. here, in this classical atmosphere, in this southern sunshine, he felt out of sympathy with the gaunt godly nehemiah, who had doubtless lapsed again into his truly troublesome tribulations. not a penny more for the ne'er-do-well! let his providence look after him! 'is she beautiful?' quizzed schneemann. barstein roared with laughter. his irate mood was broken up. nehemiah as a petticoated romance was too tickling. 'you shall read the letter,' he said. schneemann protested comically. 'no, no, that would be ungentlemanly--you read to us what the angel says.' 'it is i that am the angel,' barstein laughed, as he tore open the letter. he read it aloud, breaking down in almost hysterical laughter at each eruption of adjectives from 'the dictionary in distress.' rozenoffski and schneemann rolled in similar spasms of mirth, and the italians at the neighbouring tables, though entirely ignorant of the motive of the merriment, caught the contagion, and rocked and shrieked with the mad foreigners. ' a, the minories, e. 'right honourable angelical mr. leopold barstein, 'i have now the honour to again solicit your genteel genuine sympathical humane philanthropic kind cordial nobility to oblige me at present by your merciful loan of gracious second and propitious favourable aidance in my actually poor indigent position in which i have no earn by my dental practice likewise no help, also no protection, no recommendation, no employment, and then the competition is here very violent. i was ruined by russia, and i have nothing for the celebration of our jewish new year. consequentially upon your merciful archangelical donative i was able to make my livelihood by my dental practice even very difficult, but still i had my vital subsistence by it till up now, but not further for the little while, in consequence of it my circumstances are now in the urgent extreme immense need. thus i implore your competent, well famous good-hearted liberal magnanimous benevolent generosity to respond me in your beneficent relief as soon as possible, according to your kind grand clemence of your good ingenuous genteel humanity. i wish you a happy new year. 'your obedient servant respectfully, 'nehemiah silvermann, '_dentist and professor of languages_.' but when the reading was finished, schneemann's comment was unexpected. '_rosh hashanah_ so near?' he said. a rush of ghetto memories swamped the three artists as they tried to work out the date of the jewish new year, that solemn period of earthly trumpets and celestial judgments. 'why, it must be to-day!' cried rozenoffski suddenly. the trio looked at one another with rueful humour. why, the ghetto could not even realize such indifference to the heavenly tribunals so busily decreeing their life-or-death sentences! barstein raised his glass. 'here's a happy new year, anyhow!' he said. the three men clinked glasses. rozenoffski drew out a hundred-lire note. 'send that to the poor devil,' he said. 'oho!' laughed schneemann. 'you still believe "charity delivers from death!" well, i must be saved too!' and he threw down another hundred-lire note. to the acutely analytical barstein it seemed as if an old superstitious thrill lay behind schneemann's laughter as behind rozenoffski's donation. 'you will only make the _luftmensch_ believe still more obstinately in his providence,' he said, as he gathered up the new year gifts. 'again will he declare that he has been accorded a good writing and a good sealing by the heavenly tribunal!' 'well, hasn't he?' laughed schneemann. 'perhaps he has,' said rozenoffski musingly. '_qui sa?_' the tug of love the tug of love when elias goldenberg, belcovitch's head cutter, betrothed himself to fanny fersht, the prettiest of the machinists, the ghetto blessed the match, always excepting sugarman the _shadchan_ (whom love matches shocked), and goldenberg's relatives (who considered fanny flighty and fond of finery). 'that fanny of yours was cut out for a rich man's wife,' insisted goldenberg's aunt, shaking her pious wig. 'he who marries fanny _is_ rich,' retorted elias. '"pawn your hide, but get a bride,"' quoted the old lady savagely. as for the slighted marriage-broker, he remonstrated almost like a relative. 'but i didn't want a negotiated marriage,' elias protested. 'a love marriage i could also have arranged for you,' replied sugarman indignantly. but elias was quite content with his own arrangement, for fanny's glance was melting and her touch transporting. to deck that soft warm hand with an engagement-ring, a month's wages had not seemed disproportionate, and fanny flashed the diamond bewitchingly. it lit up the gloomy workshop with its signal of felicity. even belcovitch, bent over his press-iron, sometimes omitted to rebuke fanny's badinage. the course of true love seemed to run straight to the canopy--fanny had already worked the bridegroom's praying shawl--when suddenly a storm broke. at first the cloud was no bigger than a man's hand--in fact, it was a man's hand. elias espied it groping for fanny's in the dim space between the two machines. as fanny's fingers fluttered towards it, her other hand still guiding the cloth under the throbbing needle, elias felt the needle stabbing his heart up and down, through and through. the very finger that held his costly ring lay in this alien paw gratis. the shameless minx! ah, his relatives were right. he snapped the scissors savagely like a dragon's jaw. 'fanny, what dost thou?' he gasped in yiddish. fanny's face flamed; her guilty fingers flew back. 'i thought thou wast on the other side,' she breathed. elias snorted incredulously. as soon as sugarman heard of the breaking of the engagement he flew to elias, his blue bandanna streaming from his coat-tail. 'if you had come to me,' he crowed, 'i should have found you a more reliable article. however, heaven has given you a second helping. a well-built wage-earner like you can look as high as a greengrocer's daughter even.' 'i never wish to look upon a woman again,' elias groaned. '_schtuss!_' said the great marriage-broker. 'three days after the fast of atonement comes the feast of tabernacles. the almighty, blessed be he, who created both light and darkness, has made obedient females as well as pleasure-seeking jades.' and he blew his nose emphatically into his bandanna. 'yes; but she won't return me my ring,' elias lamented. 'what!' sugarman gasped. 'then she considers herself still engaged to you.' 'not at all. she laughs in my face.' 'and she has given you back your promise?' 'my promise--yes. the ring--no.' 'but on what ground?' 'she says i gave it to her.' sugarman clucked his tongue. 'tututu! better if we had followed our old custom, and the man had worn the engagement-ring, not the woman!' 'in the workshop,' elias went on miserably, 'she flashes it in my eyes. everybody makes mock. oh, the jezebel!' 'i should summons her!' 'it would only cost me more. is it not true i gave her the ring?' sugarman mopped his brow. his vast experience was at fault. no maiden had ever refused to return his client's ring; rather had she flung it in the wooer's false teeth. 'this comes of your love matches!' he cried sternly. 'next time there must be a proper contract.' 'next time!' repeated elias. 'why how am i to afford a new ring? fanny was ruinous in cups of chocolate and the pit of the pavilion theatre!' 'i should want my fee down!' said sugarman sharply. elias shrugged his shoulders. 'if you bring me the ring.' 'i do not get old rings but new maidens,' sugarman reminded him haughtily. 'however, as you are a customer----' and crying 'five per cent. on the greengrocer's daughter,' he hurried away ere elias had time to dissent from the bargain. donning his sealskin vest to overawe the fershts, sugarman ploughed his way up the dark staircase to their room. his attire was wasted on the family, for fanny herself opened the door. 'peace to you,' he cried. 'i have come on behalf of elias goldenberg.' 'it is useless. i will not have him.' and she was shutting the door. her misconception, wilful or not, scattered all sugarman's prepared diplomacies. 'he does not want you, he wants the ring,' he cried hastily. fanny indecorously put a finger to her nose. the diamond glittered mockingly on it. then she turned away giggling. 'but look at this photograph!' panted sugarman desperately through the closing door. surprise and curiosity brought her eyes back. she stared at the sheepish features of a frock-coated stranger. 'four pounds a week all the year round, head cutter at s. cohn's,' said sugarman, pursuing this advantage. 'a good old english family; benjamin beckenstein is his name, and he is dying to step into elias's shoes.' 'his feet are too large!' and she flicked the photograph floorwards with her bediamonded finger. 'but why waste the engagement-ring?' pleaded sugarman, stooping to pick up the suitor. 'what an idea! a new man, a new ring!' and fanny slammed the door. 'impudence-face! would you become a jewellery shop?' the baffled _shadchan_ shrieked through the woodwork. he returned to elias, brooding darkly. 'well?' queried elias. 'o, your love matches!' and sugarman shook them away with shuddersome palms. 'then she won't----' 'no, she won't. ah, how blessed you are to escape from that daughter of satan! the greengrocer's daughter now----' 'speak me no more matches. i risk no more rings.' 'i will get you one on the hire system.' 'a maiden?' 'guard your tongue! a ring, of course.' elias shook an obdurate head. 'no. i must have the old ring back.' 'that is impossible--unless you marry her to get it back. stay! why should i not arrange that for you?' 'leave me in peace! heaven has opened my eyes.' 'then see how economical she is!' urged sugarman. 'a maiden who sticks to a ring like that is not likely to be wasteful of your substance.' 'you have not seen her swallow "stuffed monkeys,"' said elias grimly. 'make an end! i have done with her.' 'no, you have not! you can still give yourself a counsel.' and sugarman looked a conscious sphinx. 'you may yet get back the ring.' 'how?' 'of course, i have the next disposal of it?' said sugarman. 'yes, yes. go on.' 'to-morrow in the workshop pretend to steal loving glances all day long when she's not looking. when she catches you----' 'but she won't be looking!' 'oh, yes, she will. when she catches you, you must blush.' 'but i can't blush at will,' elias protested. 'i know it is hard. well, look foolish. that will be easier for you.' 'but why shall i look foolish?' 'to make her think you are in love with her after all.' 'i should look foolish if i were.' 'precisely. that is the idea. when she leaves the workshop in the evening follow her, and as she passes the cake-shop, sigh and ask her if she will not eat a "stuffed monkey" for the sake of peace-be-upon-him times.' 'but she won't.' 'why not? she is still in love.' 'with stuffed monkeys,' said elias cynically. 'with you, too.' elias blushed quite easily. 'how do you know?' 'i offered her another man, and she slammed the door in my face!' 'you--you offered----' elias stuttered angrily. 'only to test her,' said sugarman soothingly. he continued: 'now, when she has eaten the cake and drunk a cup of chocolate, too (for one must play high with such a ring at stake), you must walk on by her side, and when you come to a dark corner, take her hand and say "my treasure" or "my angel," or whatever nonsense you modern young men babble to your maidens--with the results you see!--and while she is drinking it all in like more chocolate, her fingers in yours, give a sudden tug, and off comes the ring!' elias gazed at him in admiration. 'you are as crafty as jacob, our father.' 'heaven has not denied everybody brains,' replied sugarman modestly. 'be careful to seize the left hand.' the admiring elias followed the scheme to the letter. even the blush he had boggled at came to his cheeks punctually whenever his sheep's-eyes met fanny's. he was so surprised to find his face burning that he looked foolish into the bargain. they dallied long in the cake-shop, elias trying to summon up courage for the final feint. he would get a good grip on the ring finger. the tug-of-war should be brief. meantime the couple clinked chocolate cups, and smiled into each other's eyes. 'the good-for-nothing!' thought elias hotly. 'she will make the same eyes at the next man.' and he went on gorging her, every speculative 'stuffed monkey' increasing his nervous tension. her white teeth, biting recklessly into the cake, made him itch to slap her rosy cheek. confectionery palled at last, and fanny led the way out. elias followed, chattering with feverish gaiety. gradually he drew up even with her. they turned down the deserted fishmonger's alley, lit by one dull gas-lamp. elias's limbs began to tremble with the excitement of the critical moment. he felt like a footpad. hither and thither he peered--nobody was about. but--was he on the right side of her? 'the right is the left,' he told himself, trying to smile, but his pulses thumped, and in the tumult of heart and brain he was not sure he knew her right hand from her left. fortunately he caught the glitter of the diamond in the gloom, and instinctively his robber hand closed upon it. but as he felt the warm responsive clasp of those soft fingers, that ancient delicious thrill pierced every vein. fool that he had been to doubt that dear hand! and it was wearing his ring still--she could not part with it! o blundering male ingrate! 'my treasure! my angel!' he murmured ecstatically. the yiddish 'hamlet' the yiddish 'hamlet' i the little poet sat in the east-side café looking six feet high. melchitsedek pinchas--by dint of a five-pound note from sir asher aaronsberg in acknowledgement of the dedication to him of the poet's 'songs of zion'--had carried his genius to the great new jewry across the atlantic. he had arrived in new york only that very march, and already a crowd of votaries hung upon his lips and paid for all that entered them. again had the saying been verified that a prophet is nowhere without honour save in his own country. the play that had vainly plucked at the stage-doors of the yiddish theatres of europe had already been accepted by the leading yiddish theatre of new york. at least there were several yiddish theatres, each claiming this supreme position, but the poet felt that the production of his play at goldwater's theatre settled the question among them. 'it is the greatest play of the generation,' he told the young socialists and free-thinkers who sat around him this friday evening imbibing chocolate. 'it will be translated into every tongue.' he had passed with a characteristic bound from satisfaction with the ghetto triumph into cosmopolitan anticipations. 'see,' he added, 'my initials make m.p.--master playwright.' 'also mud pusher,' murmured from the next table ostrovsky, the socialist leader, who found himself almost deserted for the new lion. 'who is this uncombed bunco-steerer?' 'he calls himself the "sweet singer in israel,"' contemptuously replied ostrovsky's remaining parasite. 'but look here, pinchas,' interposed benjamin tuch, another of the displaced demigods, a politician with a delusion that he swayed presidential elections by his prestige in brooklyn. 'you said the other day that your initials made "messianic poet."' 'and don't they?' inquired the poet, his dantesque, if dingy, face flushing spiritedly. 'you call yourself a leader, and you don't know your a b c!' there was a laugh, and benjamin tuch scowled. 'they can't stand for everything,' he said. 'no--they can't stand for "bowery tough,"' admitted pinchas; and the table roared again, partly at the rapidity with which this linguistic genius had picked up the local slang. 'but as our pious lunatics think there are many meanings in every letter of the torah,' went on the pleased poet, 'so there are meanings innumerable in every letter of my name. if i am playwright as well as poet, was not shakespeare both also?' 'you wouldn't class yourself with a low-down barnstormer like shakespeare?' said tuch sarcastically. 'my superiority to shakespeare i leave to others to discover,' replied the poet seriously, and with unexpected modesty. 'i discovered it for myself in writing this very play; but i cannot expect the world to admit it till the play is produced.' 'how did you come to find it out yourself?' asked witberg, the young violinist, who was never sure whether he was guying the poet or sitting at his feet. 'it happened most naturally--order me another cup of chocolate, witberg. you see, when iselmann was touring with his yiddish troupe through galicia, he had the idea of acquainting the jewish masses with "hamlet," and he asked me to make the yiddish translation, as one great poet translating another--and some of those almond-cakes, witberg! well, i started on the job, and then of course the discovery was inevitable. the play, which i had not read since my youth, and then only in a mediocre hebrew version, appeared unspeakably childish in places. take, for example, the ghost--these almond-cakes are as stale as sermons; command me a cream-tart, witberg. what was i saying?' 'the ghost,' murmured a dozen voices. 'ah, yes--now, how can a ghost affect a modern audience which no longer believes in ghosts?' 'that is true.' the table was visibly stimulated, as though the chocolate had turned into champagne. the word 'modern' stirred the souls of these refugees from the old ghettos like a trumpet; unbelief, if only in ghosts, was oxygen to the prisoners of a tradition of three thousand years. the poet perceived his moment. he laid a black-nailed finger impressively on the right side of his nose. 'i translated shakespeare--yes, but into modern terms. the ghost vanished--hamlet's tragedy remained only the internal incapacity of the thinker for the lower activity of action.' the men of action pricked up their ears. 'the higher activity, you mean,' corrected ostrovsky. 'thought,' said benjamin tuch, 'has no value till it is translated into action.' 'exactly; you've got to work it up,' said colonel klopsky, who had large ranching and mining interests out west, and, with his florid personality, looked entirely out of place in these old haunts of his. '_schtuss_ (nonsense)!' said the poet disrespectfully. 'acts are only soldiers. thought is the general.' witberg demurred. 'it isn't much use _thinking_ about playing the violin, pinchas.' 'my friend,' said the poet, 'the thinker in music is the man who writes your solos. his thoughts exist whether you play them or not--and independently of your false notes. but you performers are all alike--i have no doubt the leading man who plays my hamlet will imagine his is the higher activity. but woe be to those fellows if they change a syllable!' '_your_ hamlet?' sneered ostrovsky. 'since when?' 'since i re-created him for the modern world, without tinsel and pasteboard; since i conceived him in fire and bore him in agony; since--even the cream of this tart is sour--since i carried him to and fro in my pocket, as a young kangaroo is carried in the pouch of the mother.' 'then iselmann did not produce it?' asked the heathen journalist, who haunted the east side for copy, and pronounced pinchas 'pin-cuss.' 'no, i changed his name to eselmann, the donkey-man. for i had hardly read him ten lines before he brayed out, "where is the ghost?" "the ghost?" i said. "i have laid him. he cannot walk on the modern stage." eselmann tore his hair. "but it is for the ghost i had him translated. our yiddish audiences love a ghost." "they love your acting, too," i replied witheringly. "but i am not here to consider the tastes of the mob." oh, i gave the donkey-man a piece of my mind.' 'but he didn't take the piece!' jested grunbitz, who in poland had been a _badchan_ (marriage-jester), and was now a zionist editor. 'bah! these managers are all men-of-the-earth! once, in my days of obscurity, i was made to put a besom into the piece, and it swept all my genius off the boards. ah, the donkey-men! but i am glad eselmann gave me my "hamlet" back, for before giving it to goldwater i made it even more subtle. no vulgar nonsense of fencing and poison at the end--a pure mental tragedy, for in life the soul alone counts. no--this cream is just as sour as the other--my play will be the internal tragedy of the thinker.' 'the internal tragedy of the thinker is indigestion,' laughed the ex-_badchan_; 'you'd better be more careful with the cream-tarts.' the heathen journalist broke through the laughter. 'strikes me, pin-cuss, you're giving us hamlet without the prince of denmark.' 'better than the prince of denmark without hamlet,' retorted the poet, cramming cream-tart down his throat in great ugly mouthfuls; 'that is how he is usually played. in my version the prince of denmark indeed vanishes, for hamlet is a hebrew and the prince of palestine.' 'you have made him a hebrew?' cried mieses, a pimply young poet. 'if he is to be the ideal thinker, let him belong to the nation of thinkers,' said pinchas. 'in fact, the play is virtually an autobiography.' 'and do you call it "hamlet" still?' asked the heathen journalist, producing his notebook, for he began to see his way to a sunday scoop. 'why not? true, it is virtually a new work. but shakespeare borrowed his story from an old play called "hamlet," and treated it to suit himself; why, therefore, should i not treat shakespeare as it suits _me_. the cat eats the rat, and the dog bites the cat.' he laughed his sniggering laugh. 'if i were to call it by another name, some learned fool would point out it was stolen from shakespeare, whereas at present it challenges comparison.' 'but you discovered shakespeare cannot sustain the comparison,' said benjamin tuch, winking at the company. 'only as the mediæval astrologer is inferior to the astronomer of to-day,' the poet explained with placid modesty. 'the muddle-headedness of shakespeare's ideas--which, incidentally, is the cause of the muddle of hamlet's character--has given way to the clear vision of the modern. how could shakespeare really describe the thinker? the elizabethans could not think. they were like our rabbis.' the unexpected digression into contemporary satire made the whole café laugh. gradually other atoms had drifted toward the new magnet. from the remotest corners eyes strayed and ears were pricked up. pinchas was indeed a figure of mark, with somebody else's frock-coat on his meagre person, his hair flowing like a dark cascade under a broad-brimmed dusky hat, and his sombre face aglow with genius and cocksureness. 'why should you expect thought from a rabbi?' said grunbitz. 'you don't expect truth from a tradesman. besides, only youth thinks.' 'that is well said,' approved pinchas. 'he who is ever thinking never grows old. i shall die young, like all whom the gods love. waiter, give mr. grunbitz a cup of chocolate.' 'thank you--but i don't care for any.' 'you cannot refuse--you will pain witberg,' said the poet simply. in the great city around them men jumped on and off electric cars, whizzed up and down lifts, hustled through lobbies, hulloed through telephones, tore open telegrams, dictated to clacking typists, filled life with sound and flurry, with the bustle of the markets and the chink of the eternal dollar; while here, serenely smoking and sipping, ruffled only by the breezes of argument, leisurely as the philosophers in the colonnades of athens, the talkers of the ghetto, earnest as their forefathers before the great folios of the talmud, made an oriental oasis amid the simoom whirl of the occident. and the heathen journalist who had discovered it felt, as so often before, that here alone in this arid, mushroom new york was antiquity, was restfulness, was romanticism; here was the latin quarter of the city of the goths. encouraged by the master's good humour, young mieses timidly exhibited his new verses. pinchas read the manuscript aloud to the confusion of the blushing boy. 'but it is full of genius!' he cried in genuine astonishment. 'i might have written it myself, except that it is so unequal--a mixture of diamonds and paste, like all hebrew literature.' he indicated with flawless taste the good lines, not knowing they were one and all unconscious reproductions from the english masterpieces mieses had borrowed from the library in the educational alliance. the acolytes listened respectfully, and the beardless, blotchy-faced mieses began to take importance in their eyes and to betray the importance he held in his own. 'perhaps i, too, shall write a play one day,' he said. 'my "m," too, makes "master."' 'it may be that you are destined to wear my mantle,' said pinchas graciously. mieses looked involuntarily at the ill-fitting frock-coat. pinchas rose. 'and now, mieses, you must give me a car-fare. i have to go and talk to the manager about rehearsals. one must superintend the actors one's self--these pumpkin-heads are capable of any crime, even of altering one's best phrases.' radsikoff smiled. he had sat still in his corner, this most prolific of ghetto dramatists, his big, furrowed forehead supported on his fist, a huge, odorous cigar in his mouth. 'i suppose goldwater plays "hamlet,"' he said. 'we have not discussed it yet,' said pinchas airily. radsikoff smiled again. 'oh, he'll pull through--so long as mrs. goldwater doesn't play "ophelia."' 'she play "ophelia"! she would not dream of such a thing. she is a saucy soubrette; she belongs to vaudeville.' 'all right. i have warned you.' 'you don't think there is really a danger!' pinchas was pale and shaking. 'the yiddish stage is so moral. husbands and wives, unfortunately, live and play together,' said the old dramatist drily. 'i'll drown her truly before i let her play my "ophelia,"' said the poet venomously. radsikoff shrugged his shoulders and dropped into american. 'well, it's up to you.' 'the minx!' pinchas shook his fist at the air. 'but i'll manage her. if the worst comes to the worst, i'll make love to her.' the poet's sublime confidence in his charms was too much even for his admirers. the mental juxtaposition of the seedy poet and the piquant actress in her frills and furbelows set the whole café rocking with laughter. pinchas took it as a tribute to his ingenious method of drawing the soubrette-serpent's fangs. he grinned placidly. 'and when is your play coming on?' asked radsikoff. 'after passover,' replied pinchas, beginning to button his frock-coat against the outer cold. if only to oust this 'ophelia,' he must be at the theatre instanter. 'has goldwater given you a contract?' 'i am a poet, not a lawyer,' said pinchas proudly. 'parchments are for philistines; honest men build on the word.' 'after all, it comes to the same thing--with goldwater,' said radsikoff drily. 'but he's no worse than the others; i've never yet found the contract any manager couldn't slip out of. i've never yet met the playwright that the manager couldn't dodge.' radsikoff, indeed, divided his time between devising plays and devising contracts. every experience but suggested fresh clauses. he regarded pinchas with commiseration rather than jealousy. 'i shall come to your first night,' he added. 'it will be a tribute which the audience will appreciate,' said pinchas. 'i am thinking that if i had one of these aromatic cigars i too might offer a burnt-offering unto the lord.' there was general laughter at the blasphemy, for the sabbath, with its privation of fire, had long since begun. 'try taking instead of thinking,' laughed the playwright, pushing forward his case. 'action is greater than thought.' 'no, no, no!' pinchas protested, as he fumbled for the finest cigar. 'wait till you see my play--you must all come--i will send you all boxes. then you will learn that thought is greater than action--that thought is the greatest thing in the world.' ii sucking voluptuously at radsikoff's cigar, pinchas plunged from the steam-heated, cheerful café into the raw, unlovely street, still hummocked with an ancient, uncleared snowfall. he did not take the horse-car which runs in this quarter; he was reserving the five cents for a spirituous nightcap. his journey was slow, for a side street that he had to pass through was, like nearly all the side streets of the great city, an abomination of desolation, a tempestuous sea of frozen, dirty snow, impassable by all save pedestrians, and scarcely by them. pinchas was glad of his cane; an alpenstock would not have been superfluous. but the theatre with its brilliantly-lighted lobby and flamboyant posters restored his spirits; the curtain was already up, and a packed mass filled the house from roof to floor. rebuffed by the janitors, pinchas haughtily asked for goldwater. goldwater was on the stage, and could not see him. but nothing could down the poet, whose head seemed to swell till it touched the gallery. this great theatre was his, this mighty audience his to melt and fire. 'i will await him in a box,' he said. 'there's no room,' said the usher. pinchas threw up his head. 'i am the author of "hamlet"!' the usher winced as at a blow. all his life he had heard vaguely of 'hamlet'--as a great play that was acted on broadway. and now here was the author himself! all the instinctive snobbery of the ghetto toward the grand world was excited. and yet this seedy figure conflicted painfully with his ideas of the uptown type. but perhaps all dramatists were alike. pinchas was bowed forward. in another instant the theatre was in an uproar. a man in a comfortable fauteuil had been asked to accommodate the distinguished stranger and had refused. 'i pay my dollar--what for shall i go?' 'but it is the author of "hamlet"!' 'my money is as good as his.' 'but he doesn't pay.' 'and i shall give my good seat to a _schnorrer_!' 'sh! sh!' from all parts of the house, like water livening, not killing, a flame. from every side came expostulations in yiddish and american. this was a free republic; the author of 'hamlet' was no better than anybody else. goldwater, on the stage, glared at the little poet. at last a compromise was found. a chair was placed at the back of a packed box. american boxes are constructed for publicity, not privacy, but the other dozen occupants bulked between him and the house. he could see, but he could not be seen. sullen and mortified he listened contemptuously to the play. it was, indeed, a strange farrago, this romantic drama with which the vast audience had replaced the sabbath pieties, the home-keeping ritual of the ghetto, in their swift transformation to american life. confined entirely to jewish characters, it had borrowed much from the heroes and heroines of the western world, remaining psychologically true only in its minor characters, which were conceived and rendered with wonderful realism by the gifted actors. and this naturalism was shot through with streaks of pure fantasy, so that kangaroos suddenly bounded on in a masque for the edification of a russian tyrant. but comedy and fantasy alike were subordinated to horror and tragedy: these refugees from the brutality of russia and rumania, these inheritors of the wailing melodies of a persecuted synagogue, craved morbidly for gruesomeness and gore. the 'happy endings' of broadway would have spelled bankruptcy here. players and audience made a large family party--the unfailing result of a stable stock company with the parts always cast in the same mould. and it was almost an impromptu performance. pinchas, from his proximity to the stage, could hear every word from the prompter's box, which rose in the centre of the footlights. the yiddish prompter did not wait till the players 'dried up'; it was his rôle to read the whole play ahead of them. 'then you are the woman who murdered my mother,' he would gabble. and the actor, hearing, invented immediately the fit attitude and emphasis, spinning out with elocutionary slowness and passion the raw material supplied to him. no mechanical crossing and recrossing the stage, no punctilious tuition by your stage-manager--all was inspiration and fire. but to pinchas this hearing of the play twice over--once raw and once cooked--was maddening. 'the lazy-bones!' he murmured. 'not thus shall they treat my lines. every syllable must be engraved upon their hearts, or i forbid the curtain to go up. not that it matters with this fool-dramatist's words; they are ink-vomit, not literature.' another feature of the dialogue jarred upon his literary instinct. incongruously blended with the yiddish were elementary american expressions--the first the immigrants would pick up. 'all right,' 'sure!' 'yes, sir,' 'say, how's the boss?' 'good-bye.' 'not a cent.' 'take the elevated.' 'yup.' 'nup.' 'that's one on you!' 'rubber-neck!' a continuous fusillade of such phrases stimulated and flattered the audience, pleased to find themselves on such easy terms with the new language. but to pinchas the idea of peppering his pure yiddish with such locutions was odious. the prince of palestine talking with a twang--how could he permit such an outrage upon his hebrew hamlet? hardly had the curtain fallen on the act than he darted through the iron door that led from the rear of the box to the stage, jostling the cursing carpenters, and pushed aside by the perspiring principals, on whom the curtain was rising and re-rising in a continuous roar. at last he found himself in the little bureau and dressing-room in which goldwater was angrily changing his trousers. kloot, the actor-manager's factotum, a big-nosed insolent youth, sat on the table beside the telephone, a peaked cap on his head, his legs swinging. 'son of a witch! you come and disturb all my house. what do you want?' cried goldwater. 'i want to talk to you about rehearsals.' 'i told you i would let you know when rehearsals began.' 'but you forgot to take my address.' 'as if i don't know where to find you!' kloot grinned. 'pinchas gets drinks from all the café,' he put in. 'they drink to the health of "hamlet,"' said pinchas proudly. 'all right; kloot's gotten your address. good-evening.' 'but when will it be? i must know.' 'we can't fix it to a day. there's plenty of money in this piece yet.' 'money--bah! but merit?' 'you fellows are as jealous as the devil.' 'me jealous of kangaroos! in central park you see giraffes--and tortoises too. central park has more talent than this scribbler of yours.' 'i doubt if there's a bigger peacock than here,' murmured goldwater. 'i'll write you about rehearsals,' said kloot, winking at goldwater. 'but i must know weeks ahead--i may go lecturing. the great continent calls for me. in chicago, in cincinnati----' 'go, by all means,' said goldwater. 'we can do without you.' 'do without me? a nice mess you will make of it! i must teach you how to say every line.' 'teach _me_?' goldwater could hardly believe his ears. pinchas wavered. 'i--i mean the company. i will show them the accent--the gesture. i'm a great stage-manager as well as a great poet. there shall be no more prompter.' 'indeed!' goldwater raised the eyebrow he was pencilling. 'and how are you going to get on without a prompter?' 'very simple--a month's rehearsals.' goldwater turned an apoplectic hue deeper than his rouge. kloot broke in impishly: 'it is very good of you to give us a month of your valuable time.' but goldwater was too irate for irony. 'a month!' he gasped at last. 'i could put on six melodramas in a month.' 'but "hamlet" is not a melodrama!' said pinchas, shocked. 'quite so; there is not half the scenery. it's the scenery that takes time rehearsing, not the scenes.' the poet was now as purple as the player. 'you would profane my divine work by gabbling through it with your pack of parrots!' 'here, just _you_ come off your perch!' said kloot. 'you've written the piece; we do the rest.' kloot, though only nineteen and at a few dollars a week, had a fine, careless equality not only with the whole world, but even with his employer. he was now, to his amaze, confronted by a superior. 'silence, impudent-face! you are not talking to radsikoff. i am a poet, and i demand my rights.' kloot was silent from sheer surprise. goldwater was similarly impressed. 'what rights?' he observed more mildly. 'you've had your twenty dollars. and that was too much.' 'too much! twenty dollars for the masterpiece of the twentieth century!' 'in the twenty-first century you shall have twenty-one dollars,' said kloot, recovering. 'make mock as you please,' replied the poet superbly. 'i shall be living in the fifty-first century even. poets never die--though, alas! they have to live. twenty dollars too much, indeed! it is not a dollar a century for the run of the play.' 'very well,' said goldwater grimly. 'give them back. we return your play.' this time it was the poet that was disconcerted. 'no, no, goldwater--i must not disappoint my printer. i have promised him the twenty dollars to print my hebrew "selections from nietzsche."' 'you take your manuscript and give me my money,' said goldwater implacably. 'exchange would be a robbery. i will not rob you. keep your bargain. see, here is the printer's letter.' he dragged from a tail-pocket a mass of motley manuscripts and yellow letters, and laid them beside the telephone as if to search among them. goldwater waved a repudiating hand. 'be not a fool-man, goldwater.' the poet's carneying forefinger was laid on his nose. 'i and you are the only two people in new york who serve the poetic drama--i by writing, you by producing.' goldwater still shook his head, albeit a whit appeased by the flattery. kloot replied for him: 'your manuscript shall be returned to you by the first dustcart.' pinchas disregarded the youth. 'but i am willing you shall have only a fortnight's rehearsals. i believe in you, goldwater. i have always said, "the only genius on the yiddish stage is goldwater." klostermann--bah! he produces not so badly, but act? my grandmother's hen has a better stage presence. and there is davidoff--a voice like a frog and a walk like a spider. and these charlatans i only heard of when i came to new york. but you, goldwater--your fame has blown across the atlantic, over the carpathians. i journeyed from cracow expressly to collaborate with you.' 'then why do you spoil it all?' asked the mollified manager. 'it is my anxiety that europe shall not be disappointed in you. let us talk of the cast.' 'it is so early yet.' '"the early bird catches the worm."' 'but all our worms are caught,' grinned kloot. 'we keep our talent pinned on the premises.' 'i know, i know,' said pinchas, paling. he saw mrs. goldwater tripping on saucily as ophelia. 'but we don't give all our talent to one play,' the manager reminded him. 'no, of course not,' said pinchas, with a breath of hope. 'we have to use all our people by turns. we divide our forces. with myself as hamlet you will have a cast that should satisfy any author.' 'do i not know it?' cried pinchas. 'were you but to say your lines, leaving all the others to be read by the prompter, the house would be spellbound, like moses when he saw the burning bush.' 'that being so,' said goldwater, 'you couldn't expect to have my wife in the same cast.' 'no, indeed,' said pinchas enthusiastically. 'two such tragic geniuses would confuse and distract, like the sun and the moon shining together.' goldwater coughed. 'but ophelia is really a small part,' he murmured. 'it is,' pinchas acquiesced. 'your wife's tragic powers could only be displayed in "hamlet" if, like another equally celebrated actress, she appeared as the prince of palestine himself.' 'heaven forbid my wife should so lower herself!' said goldwater. 'a decent jewish housewife cannot appear in breeches.' 'that is what makes it impossible,' assented pinchas. 'and there is no other part worthy of mrs. goldwater.' [illustration: "you compare my wife to a kangaroo!"] 'it may be she would sacrifice herself,' said the manager musingly. 'and who am i that i should ask her to sacrifice herself?' replied the poet modestly. 'fanny won't sacrifice ophelia,' kloot observed drily to his chief. 'you hear?' said goldwater, as quick as lightning. 'my wife will not sacrifice ophelia by leaving her to a minor player. she thinks only of the play. it is very noble of her.' 'but she has worked so hard,' pleaded the poet desperately, 'she needs a rest.' 'my wife never spares herself.' pinchas lost his head. 'but she might spare ophelia,' he groaned. 'what do you mean?' cried goldwater gruffly. 'my wife will honour you by playing ophelia. that is ended.' he waved the make-up brush in his hand. 'no, it is not ended,' said pinchas desperately. 'your wife is a comic actress----' 'you just admitted she was tragic----' 'it is heartbreaking to see her in tragedy,' said pinchas, burning his boats. 'she skips and jumps. rather would i give ophelia to one of your kangaroos!' 'you low-down monkey!' goldwater almost flung his brush into the poet's face. 'you compare my wife to a kangaroo! take your filthy manuscript and begone where the pepper grows.' 'well, fanny _would_ be rather funny as ophelia,' put in kloot pacifyingly. 'and to make your wife ridiculous as ophelia,' added pinchas eagerly, 'you would rob the world of your hamlet!' 'i can get plenty of hamlets. any scribbler can translate shakespeare.' 'perhaps, but who can surpass shakespeare? who can make him intelligible to the modern soul?' 'mr. goldwater,' cried the call-boy, with the patness of a reply. the irate manager bustled out, not sorry to escape with his dignity and so cheap a masterpiece. kloot was left, with swinging legs, dominating the situation. in idle curiosity and with the simplicity of perfectly bad manners, he took up the poet's papers and letters and perused them. as there were scraps of verse amid the mass, pinchas let him read on unrebuked. 'you will talk to him, kloot,' he pleaded at last. 'you will save ophelia?' the big-nosed youth looked up from his impertinent inquisition. 'rely on me, if i have to play her myself.' 'but that will be still worse,' said pinchas seriously. kloot grinned. 'how do you know? you've never seen me act?' the poet laid his finger beseechingly on his nose. 'you will not spoil my play, you will get me a maidenly ophelia? i and you are the only two men in new york who understand how to cast a play.' 'you leave it to me,' said kloot; 'i have a wife of my own.' 'what!' shrieked pinchas. 'don't be alarmed--i'll coach her. she's just the age for the part. mrs. goldwater might be her mother.' 'but can she make the audience cry?' 'you bet; a regular onion of an ophelia.' 'but i must see her rehearse, then i can decide.' 'of course.' 'and you will seek me in the café when rehearsals begin?' 'that goes without saying.' the poet looked cunning. 'but don't you say without going.' 'how can we rehearse without you? you shouldn't have worried the boss. we'll call you, even if it's the middle of the night.' the poet jumped at kloot's hand and kissed it. 'protector of poets!' he cried ecstatically. 'and you will see that they do not mutilate my play; you will not suffer a single hair of my poesy to be harmed?' 'not a hair shall be cut,' said kloot solemnly. pinchas kissed his hand again. 'ah, i and you are the only two men in new york who understand how to treat poesy.' 'sure!' kloot snatched his hand away. 'good-bye.' pinchas lingered, gathering up his papers. 'and you will see it is not adulterated with american. in zion they do not say "sure" or "lend me a nickel."' 'i guess not,' said kloot. 'good-bye.' 'all the same, you might lend me a nickel for car-fare.' kloot thought his departure cheap at five cents. he handed it over. the poet went. an instant afterwards the door reopened and his head reappeared, the nose adorned with a pleading forefinger. 'you promise me all this?' 'haven't i promised?' 'but swear to me.' 'will you go--if i swear?' 'yup,' said pinchas, airing his american. 'and you won't come back till rehearsals begin?' 'nup.' 'then i swear--on my father's and mother's life!' pinchas departed gleefully, not knowing that kloot was an orphan. iii on the very verge of passover, pinchas, lying in bed at noon with a cigarette in his mouth, was reading his morning paper by candle-light; for he tenanted one of those innumerable dark rooms which should make new york the photographer's paradise. the yellow glow illumined his prophetic and unshaven countenance, agitated by grimaces and sniffs, as he critically perused the paragraphs whose hebrew letters served as the channel for the mongrel yiddish and american dialect, in which 'congressman,' 'sweater,' and such-like crudities of to-day had all the outer oriental robing of the old testament. suddenly a strange gurgle spluttered through the cigarette smoke. he read the announcement again. the yiddish 'hamlet' was to be the passover production at goldwater's theatre. the author was the world-renowned poet melchitsedek pinchas, and the music was by ignatz levitsky, the world-famous composer. 'world-famous composer, indeed!' cried pinchas to his garret walls. 'who ever heard of ignatz levitsky? and who wants his music? the tragedy of a thinker needs no caterwauling of violins. does goldwater imagine i have written a melodrama? at most will i permit an overture--or the cymbals shall clash as i take my call.' he leaped out of bed. even greater than his irritation at this intrusion of levitsky was his joyful indignation at the imminence of his play. the dogs! the liars! the first night was almost at hand, and no sign had been vouchsafed to him. he had been true to his promise; he had kept away from the theatre. but goldwater! but kloot! ah, the godless gambler with his parents' lives! with such ghouls hovering around the hebrew 'hamlet,' who could say how the masterpiece had been mangled? line upon line had probably been cut; nay, who knew that a whole scene had not been shorn away, perhaps to give more time for that miserable music! he flung himself into his clothes and, taking his cane, hurried off to the theatre, breathless and breakfastless. orchestral music vibrated through the lobby and almost killed his pleasure in the placards of the yiddish 'hamlet.' he gave but a moment to absorbing the great capital letters of his name; a dash at a swinging-door, and he faced a glowing, crowded stage at the end of a gloomy hall. goldwater, limelit, occupied the centre of the boards. hamlet trod the battlements of the tower of david, and gazed on the cupolas and minarets of jerusalem. with a raucous cry, half anger, half ecstasy, pinchas galloped toward the fiddling and banging orchestra. a harmless sweeper in his path was herself swept aside. but her fallen broom tripped up the runner. he fell with an echoing clamour, to which his clattering cane contributed, and clouds of dust arose and gathered where erst had stood a poet. goldwater stopped dead. 'can't you sweep quietly?' he thundered terribly through the music. ignatz levitsky tapped his baton, and the orchestra paused. 'it is i, the author!' said pinchas, struggling up through clouds like some pagan deity. hamlet's face grew as inky as his cloak. 'and what do you want?' 'what do i want?' repeated pinchas, in sheer amaze. kloot, in his peaked cap, emerged from the wings munching a sandwich. 'sure, there's shakespeare!' he said. 'i've just been round to the café to find you. got this sandwich there.' 'but this--this isn't the first rehearsal,' stammered pinchas, a jot appeased. 'the first dress-rehearsal,' kloot replied reassuringly. 'we don't trouble authors with the rough work. they stroll in and put on the polish. won't you come on the stage?' unable to repress a grin of happiness, pinchas stumbled through the dim parterre, barking his shins at almost every step. arrived at the orchestra, he found himself confronted by a chasm. he wheeled to the left, to where the stage-box, shrouded in brown holland, loomed ghostly. 'no,' said kloot, 'that door's got stuck. you must come round by the stage-door.' pinchas retraced his footsteps, barking the smooth remainder of his shins. he allowed himself a palpitating pause before the lobby posters. his blood chilled. not only was ignatz levitsky starred in equal type, but another name stood out larger than either: _ophelia_ .. .. .. _fanny goldwater._ his wrath reflaming, he hurried round to the stage-door. he pushed it open, but a gruff voice inquired his business, and a burly figure blocked his way. 'i am the author,' he said with quiet dignity. 'authors ain't admitted,' was the simple reply. 'but goldwater awaits me,' the poet protested. 'i guess not. mr. kloot's orders. can't have authors monkeying around here.' as he spoke goldwater's voice rose from the neighbouring stage in an operatic melody, and reduced pinchas's brain to chaos. a despairing sense of strange plots and treasons swept over him. he ran back to the lobby. the doors had been bolted. he beat against them with his cane and his fists and his toes till a tall policeman persuaded him that home was better than a martyr's cell. life remained an unintelligible nightmare for poor pinchas till the first night--and the third act--of the yiddish 'hamlet.' he had reconciled himself to his extrusion from rehearsals. 'they fear i fire ophelia,' he told the café. but a final blow awaited him. no ticket reached him for the première; the boxes he had promised the café did not materialize, and the necessity of avoiding that haunt of the invited cost him several meals. but that he himself should be refused when he tried to pass in 'on his face'--that authors should be admitted neither at the stage door nor at the public door--this had not occurred to him as within the possibilities of even theatrical humanity. 'pigs! pigs! pigs!' he shrieked into the box office. 'you and goldwater and kloot! pigs! pigs! pigs! i have indeed cast my pearls before swine. but i will not be beholden to them--i will buy a ticket.' 'we're sold out,' said the box-office man, adding recklessly: 'get a move on you; other people want to buy seats.' 'you can't keep me out! it's conspiracy!' he darted within, but was hustled as rapidly without. he ran back to the stage-door, and hurled himself against the burly figure. he rebounded from it into the side-walk, and the stage-door closed upon his humiliation. he was left cursing in choice hebrew. it was like the maledictions in deuteronomy, only brought up to date by dynamite explosions and automobile accidents. wearying of the waste of an extensive vocabulary upon a blank door, pinchas returned to the front. the lobby was deserted save for a few strangers; his play had begun. and he--he, the god who moved all this machinery--he, whose divine fire was warming all that great house, must pace out here in the cold and dark, not even permitted to loiter in the corridors! but for the rumblings of applause that reached him he could hardly have endured the situation. suddenly an idea struck him. he hied to the nearest drug-store, and entering the telephone cabinet rang up goldwater. 'hello, there!' came the voice of kloot. 'who are you?' pinchas had a vivid vision of the big-nosed youth, in his peaked cap, sitting on the table by the telephone, swinging his legs; but he replied craftily, in a disguised voice: 'you, goldwater?' 'no; goldwater's on the stage.' pinchas groaned. but at that very instant goldwater's voice returned to the bureau, ejaculating complacently: 'they're loving it, kloot; they're swallowing it like ice-cream soda.' pinchas tingled with pleasure, but all kloot replied was: 'you're wanted on the 'phone.' 'hello!' called goldwater. 'hello!' replied pinchas in his natural voice. 'may a sudden death smite you! may the curtain fall on a gibbering epileptic!' 'can't hear!' said goldwater. 'speak plainer.' 'i _will_ speak plainer, swine-head! never shall a work of mine defile itself in your dirty dollar-factory. i spit on you!' he spat viciously into the telephone disk. 'your father was a _meshummad_ (apostate), and your mother----' but goldwater had cut off the connection. pinchas finished for his own satisfaction: 'an irish fire-woman.' 'that was worth ten cents,' he muttered, as he strode out into the night. and patrolling the front of the theatre again, or leaning on his cane as on a sword, he was warmed by the thought that his venom had pierced through all the actor-manager's defences. at last a change came over the nightmare. striding from the envied, illuminated within appeared the heathen journalist, note-book in hand. at sight of the author he shied. 'must skedaddle, pin-cuss,' he said apologetically, 'if we're to get anything into to-morrow's paper. your people are so durned slow--nearly eleven, and only two acts over. you'll have to brisk 'em up a bit. good-bye.' he shook the poet's hand and was off. with an inspiration pinchas gave chase. he caught the journalist just boarding a car. 'got your theatre ticket?' he panted. 'what for?' 'give it me.' the journalist fumbled in his waistcoat pocket, and threw him a crumpled fragment. 'what in thunder----' he began. and then, to pinchas's relief, the car removed the querist. for the moment the poet was feeling only the indignity of the position, and the heathen journalist as trumpeter of his wrongs and avenger of the muses had not occurred to him. he smoothed out the magic scrap, and was inside the suffocating, close-packed theatre before the disconcerted janitor could meet the new situation. pinchas found the vacated journalistic chair in the stage-box; he was installed therein before the managerial minions arrived on ejection bent. 'this is _my_ house!' screamed pinchas. 'i stay here! let me be--swine, serpents, behemoth!' 'sh!' came in a shower from every quarter. 'sit down there! turn him out!' the curtain was going up; pinchas was saved. but only for more gruesome torture. the third act began. hamlet collogued with the queen. the poet pricked up his ears. whose language was this? certainly not shakespeare's or his superior's. angels and ministers of grace defend him! this was only the illiterate jargon of the hack playwright, with its peppering of the phrases of hester street. 'you have too many dead flies on you,' hamlet's mother told him. 'you'll get left.' but the nightmare thickened. hamlet and his mother opened their mouths and sang. their songs were light and gay, and held encore verses to reward the enthusiastic. the actors, like the audience, were leisurely; here midnight and the closure were not synonymous. when there were no more encore verses, ignatz levitsky would turn to the audience and bow in acknowledgment of the compliment. pinchas's eyes were orbs straining at their sockets; froth gathered on his lips. mrs. goldwater bounded on, fantastically mad, her songs set to comic airs. the great house received her in the same comic spirit. instead of rue and rosemary she carried a rustling green _lulov_--the palm-branch of the feast of tabernacles--and shook it piously toward every corner of the compass. at each shake the audience rolled about in spasms of merriment. a moment later a white gliding figure, moving to the measure of the cake-walk, keyed up the laughter to hysteria. it was the ghost appearing to frighten ophelia. his sepulchral bass notes mingled with her terror-stricken soprano. this was the last straw. the ghost--the ghost that he had laid forever, the ghost that made melodrama of this tragedy of the thinker--was risen again, and cake-walking! unperceived in the general convulsion and cachinnation, pinchas leaped to his feet, and, seeing scarlet, bounded through the iron door and made for the stage. but a hand was extended in the nick of time--the hand he had kissed--and pinchas was drawn back by the collar. 'you don't take your call yet,' said the unruffled kloot. 'let me go! i must speak to the people. they must learn the truth. they think _me_, melchitsedek pinchas, guilty of this _tohu-bohu_! my sun will set. i shall be laughed at from the hudson to the jordan.' 'hush! hush! you are interrupting the poesy.' 'who has drawn and quartered my play? speak!' 'i've only arranged it for the stage,' said kloot, unabashed. 'you!' gasped the poet. 'you said i and you are the only two men who understand how to treat poesy.' 'you understand push-carts, not poesy!' hissed the poet. 'you conspire to keep me out of the theatre--i will summons you!' 'we had to keep all authors out. suppose shakespeare had turned up and complained of _you_.' 'shakespeare would have been only too grateful.' 'hush! the boss is going on.' from the opposite wing hamlet was indeed advancing. pinchas made a wild plunge forward, but kloot's grasp on his collar was still carefully firm. 'who's mutilating the poesy now?' kloot frowned angrily from under his peaked cap. 'you'll spoil the scene.' 'peace, liar! you promised me your wife for ophelia!' kloot's frown relaxed into a smile. 'sure! the first wife i get you shall have.' pinchas gnashed his teeth. goldwater's voice rose in a joyous roulade. 'i think you owe me a car-fare,' said kloot soothingly. pinchas waved the rejoinder aside with his cane. 'why does _hamlet_ sing?' he demanded fiercely. 'because it's passover,' said kloot. 'you are a "greener" in new york, otherwise you would know that it is a tradition to have musical plays on passover. our audiences wouldn't stand for any other. you're such an unreasonable cuss! why else did we take your "hamlet" for a passover play?' 'but "hamlet" isn't a musical play.' 'yes, it is! how about ophelia's songs? that was what decided us. of course they needed eking out.' 'but "hamlet" is a tragedy!' gasped pinchas. 'sure!' said kloot cheerfully. 'they all die at the end. our audiences would go away miserable if they didn't. you wait till they're dead, then you shall take your call.' 'take my call, for _your_ play!' 'there's quite a lot of your lines left, if you listen carefully. only you don't understand stage technique. oh, i'm not grumbling; we're quite satisfied. the idea of adapting "hamlet" for the yiddish stage is yours, and it's worth every cent we paid.' a storm of applause gave point to the speaker's words, and removed the last partition between the poet's great mind and momentary madness. what! here was that ape of a goldwater positively wallowing in admiration, while he, the mighty poet, had been cast into outer darkness and his work mocked and crucified! he put forth all his might, like samson amid the philistines, and leaving his coat-collar in kloot's hand, he plunged into the circle of light. goldwater's amazed face turned to meet him. 'cutter of lines!' the poet's cane slashed across hamlet's right cheek near the right eye. 'perverter of poesy!' it slashed across the left cheek near the left eye. the prince of palestine received each swish with a yell of pain and fear, and the ever-ready kloot dropped the curtain on the tragic scene. such hubbub and hullabaloo as rose on both sides of the curtain! yet in the end the poet escaped scot-free. goldwater was a coward, kloot a sage. the same prudence that had led kloot to exclude authors, saved him from magnifying their importance by police squabbles. besides, a clever lawyer might prove the exclusion illegal. what was done was done. the dignity of the hero of a hundred dramas was best served by private beefsteaks and a rumoured version, irrefutable save in a court of law. it was bad enough that the heathen journalist should supply so graphic a picture of the midnight melodrama, coloured even more highly than goldwater's eyes. kloot had been glad that the journalist had left before the episode; but when he saw the account he wished the scribe had stayed. 'he won't play hamlet with that pair of shiners,' pinchas prophesied early the next morning to the supping café. radsikoff beamed and refilled pinchas's glass with champagne. he had carried out his promise of assisting at the première, and was now paying for the poet's supper. 'you're the first playwright goldwater hasn't managed to dodge,' he chuckled. 'ah!' said the poet meditatively. 'action is greater than thought. action is the greatest thing in the world.' the converts the converts i as he sat on his hard stool in the whitewashed workshop on the bowery, clumsily pasting the flamboyant portrait on the boxes of the 'yvonne rupert cigar,' he wondered dully--after the first flush of joy at getting a job after weeks of hunger--at the strange fate that had again brought him into connection, however remote, with stageland. for even to elkan mandle, with his ghetto purview, yvonne rupert's fame, both as a 'parisian' star and the queen of american advertisers, had penetrated. ever since she had summoned a jewish florist for not paying her for the hundred and eleven bouquets with which a single week's engagement in vaudeville had enabled her to supply him, the journals had continued to paragraph her amusing, self-puffing adventures. not that there was much similarity between the new york star and his little actress of the humble yiddish theatre in london, save for that aureole of fluffy hair, which belonged rather to the genus than the individual. but as the great yvonne's highly-coloured charms went on repeating themselves from every box-cover he manipulated (at seventy-five cents a hundred), the face of his own gittel grew more and more vivid, till at last the whole splendid, shameful past began to rise up from its desolate tomb. he even lived through that prologue in the ghetto garret, when, as benevolent master-tailor receiving the highest class work from s. cohn's in the holloway road, he was called upstairs to assist the penniless polish immigrants. there she sat, the witching she-devil, perched on the rickety table just contributed to the home, a piquant, dark-eyed, yet golden-haired, mite of eleven, calm and comparatively spruce amid the wailing litter of parents and children. 'settle this among yourselves,' she seemed to be saying. 'when the chairs are here i will sit on _them_; when the table is laid i will draw to; when the pious philanthropist provides the fire i will purr on the hearth.' ah, _he_ had come forward as the pious philanthropist--pious enough then, heaven knew. why had satan thrown such lures in the way of the reputable employer, the treasurer of 'the gates of mercy' synagogue, with children of his own, and the best wife in the world? did he not pray every day to be delivered from the _satan mekatrig_? had he not meant it for the best when he took her into his workshop? it was only when, at the age of sixteen, gittel goldstein left the whirring machine-room for the more lucrative and laurelled position of heroine of goldwater's london yiddish theatre that he had discovered how this whimsical, coquettish creature had insinuated herself into his very being. ah, madness, madness! that flight with her to america with all his savings, that desertion of his wife and children! but what delicious delirium that one year in new york, prodigal, reckless, ere, with the disappearance of his funds, she, too, disappeared. and now, here he was--after nigh seven apathetic years, in which the need of getting a living was the only spur to living on--glad to take a woman's place when female labour struck for five cents more a hundred. the old bitter tears came up to his eyes, blurring the cheerless scene, the shabby men and unlovely women with their red paste-pots, the medley of bare and coloured boxes, the long shelf of twine-balls. and as he wept, the vain salt drops moistened the pictures of yvonne rupert. ii she became an obsession, this franco-american singer and dancer, as he sat pasting and pasting, caressing her pictured face with sticky fingers. there were brief intervals of freedom from her image when he was 'edging' and 'backing,' or when he was lining the boxes with the plain paper; but yvonne came twice on every box--once in large on the inside, once in small on the outside, with a gummed projection to be stuck down after the cigars were in. he fell to recalling what he had read of her--the convent education that had kept her chaste and distinguished beneath all her stage deviltry, the long lenten fasts she endured (as brought to light by the fishmonger's bill she disputed in open court), the crucifix concealed upon her otherwise not too reticent person, the adorable french accent with which she enraptured the dudes, the palatial private car in which she traversed the states, with its little chapel giving on the bathroom; the swashbuckling marquis de st. roquière, who had crossed the channel after her, and the maid he had once kidnapped in mistake for the mistress; the diamond necklace presented by the rajah of singapuri, stolen at a soirée in san francisco, and found afterwards as single stones in a low 'hock-shop' in new orleans. and despite all this glitter of imposing images a subconscious thought was forcing itself more and more clearly to the surface of his mind. that aureole of golden hair, those piquant dark eyes! the yvonne the cheap illustrated papers had made him familiar with had lacked this revelation of colour! but no, the idea was insane! this scintillating celebrity his lost gittel! bah! misery had made him childish. goldwater had, indeed, blossomed out since the days of his hired hall in spitalfields, but his fame remained exclusively yiddish and east-side. but gittel! how could that obscure rush-light of the london ghetto theatre have blazed into the star of paris and new york? this lent-keeping demoiselle the little polish jewess who had munched passover cake at his table in the far-off happy days! this gilded idol the impecunious gittel he had caressed! 'you ever seen this yvonne rupert?' he inquired of his neighbour, a pock-marked, spectacled young woman, who, as record-breaker of the establishment, had refused to join the strike of the mere hundred-and-fifty a day. the young woman swiftly drew a knife from the wooden pail beside her, and deftly scraped at a rough hinge as she replied: 'no, but i guess she's the actress who gets all the flowers, and won't pay for 'em.' he saw she had mixed up the two lawsuits, but the description seemed to hit off his gittel to the life. yes, gittel had always got all the flowers of life, and dodged paying. ah, she had always been diabolically clever, unscrupulously ambitious! who could put bounds to her achievement? she had used him and thrown him away--without a word, without a regret. she had washed her hands of him as light-heartedly as he washed his of the dirty, sticky day's paste. what other 'pious philanthropist' had she found to replace him? whither had she fled? why not to paris that her theatric gifts might receive training? this chic, this witchery, with which reputation credited her--had not gittel possessed it all? had not her heroines enchanted the ghetto? oh, but this was a wild day-dream, insubstantial as the smoke-wreaths of the yvonne rupert cigar! iii but the obsession persisted. in his miserable attic off hester street--that recalled the attic he had found her in, though it was many stories nearer the sky--he warmed himself with gittel's image, smiling, light-darting, voluptuous. night and sleep surrendered him to grotesque combinations--gittel goldstein smoking cigarettes in a bath-room, yvonne rupert playing yiddish heroines in a little chapel. in the clear morning these absurdities were forgotten in the realized absurdity of the initial identification. but a forenoon at the pasting-desk brought back the haunting thought. at noon he morbidly expended his lunch-dime on an 'yvonne rupert' cigar, and smoked it with a semi-insane feeling that he was repossessing his gittel. certainly it was delicious. he wandered into the box-making room, where the man who tended the witty nail-driving machine was seated on a stack of mexican cedar-wood, eating from a package of sausage and scrapple that sent sobering whiffs to the reckless smoker. 'you ever seen this yvonne rupert?' he asked wistfully. 'might as well ask if i'd smoked her cigar!' grumbled the nailer through his mouthfuls. 'but there's a gallery at webster and dixie's.' 'su-er!' 'i guess i'll go some day, just for curiosity.' but the great yvonne, he found, was flaming in her provincial orbit. so he must needs wait. meantime, on a saturday night, with a dirty two-dollar bill in his pocket, and jingling some odd cents, he lounged into the restaurant where the young russian bloods assembled who wrote for the yiddish labour papers, and 'knew it all.' he would draw them out about yvonne rupert. he established himself near a table at which long-haired, long-fingered freethinkers were drinking chocolate and discussing lassalle. 'ah, but the way he jumped on a table when only a schoolboy to protest against the master's injustice to one of his schoolfellows! how the divine fire flamed in him!' they talked on, these clamorous sceptics, amplifying the lassalle legend, broidering it with messianic myths, with the same fantastic oriental invention that had illuminated the plain pentateuch with imaginative vignettes, and transfiguring the dry abstractions of socialism with the same passionate personalization. he listened impatiently. he had never been caught by socialism, even at his hungriest. he had once been an employer himself, and his point of view survived. they talked of the woman through whom lassalle had met his death. one of them had seen her on the american stage--a bouncing burlesque actress. 'like yvonne rupert?' he ventured to interpose. 'yvonne rupert?' they laughed. 'ah, if yvonne had only had such a snap!' cried melchitsedek pinchas. 'to have jilted lassalle and been died for! what an advertisement!' 'it would have been on the bill,' agreed the table. he asked if they thought yvonne rupert clever. 'off the stage! there's nothing to her on,' said pinchas. the table roared as if this were a good joke. 'i dare say she would play my ophelia as well as mrs. goldwater,' pinchas added zestfully. 'they say she has a yiddish accent,' elkan ventured again. the table roared louder. 'i have heard of yiddish-deutsch,' cried pinchas, 'never of yiddish-français!' elkan mandle was frozen. by his disappointment he knew that he had been hoping to meet gittel again--that his resentment was dead. iv but the hope would not die. he studied the theatrical announcements, and when yvonne rupert once again flashed upon new york he set out to see her. but it struck him that the remote seat he could afford--for it would not do to spend a week's wage on the mere chance--would be too far off for precise identification, especially as she would probably be theatrically transmogrified. no, a wiser as well as a more economical plan would be to meet her at the stage-door, as he used to meet gittel. he would hang about till she came. it was a long ride to the variety theatre, and, the weather being sloppy, there was not even standing-room in the car, every foot of which, as it plunged and heaved ship-like through the watery night, was a suffocating jam of human beings, wedged on the seats, or clinging tightly to the overhead straps, or swarming like stuck flies on the fore and hind platforms, the squeeze and smell intensified by the shovings and writhings of damp passengers getting in and out, or by the desperate wriggling of the poor patient collector of fares boring his way through the very thick of the soldered mass. elkan alighted with a headache, glad even of the cold rain that sprinkled his forehead. the shining carriages at the door of the theatre filled him for once with a bitter revolt. but he dared not insinuate himself among the white-wrapped, scented women and elegant cloaked men, though he itched to enter the portico and study the pictures of yvonne rupert, of which he caught a glimpse. he found his way instead to the stage-door, and took up a position that afforded him a complete view of the comers and goers, if only partial shelter from the rain. but the leaden hours passed without her, with endless fevers of expectation, heats followed by chills. the performers came and went, mostly on foot, and strange nondescript men and women passed too through the jealously-guarded door. he was drenched to the skin with accumulated drippings ere a smart brougham drove up, a smart groom opened an umbrella, and a smart--an unimaginably smart--gittel goldstein alighted. yes, the incredible was true! beneath that coquettish veil, under the aureole of hair, gleamed the piquant eyes he had kissed so often. he remained petrified an instant, dazed and staring. she passed through the door the groom held open. the doorkeeper, from his pigeon-hole, handed her some letters. yes, he knew every trick of the shoulders, every turn of the neck. she stood surveying the envelopes. as the groom let the door swing back and turned away, he rushed forward and pushed it open again. 'gittel!' he cried chokingly. 'gittel!' she turned with a quick jerk of the head, and in her flushed, startled face he read consciousness if not recognition. the reek of her old cherry-blossom smote from her costlier garments, kindling a thousand passionate memories. 'knowest thou me not?' he cried in yiddish. in a flash her face, doubly veiled, was a haughty stare. 'who is zis person?' she asked the doorkeeper in her charming french-english. he reverted to english. 'i am elkan, your own elkan!' ah, the jostle of sweet and bitter memories. so near, so near again! the same warm seductive witch. he strove to take her daintily-gloved hand. she shrank back shudderingly and thrust open the door that led to the dressing-rooms beside the stage. 'ze man is mad, lunatic!' and she disappeared with that delicious shrug of the shoulders that had captivated the states. insensate fury overcame him. what! this creature who owed all this glory to his dragging her away from the london ghetto theatre, this heartless, brazen minx who had been glad to nestle in his arms, was to mock him like this, was to elude him again! he made a dash after her; the doorkeeper darted from his little room, but was hurled aside in a swift, mad tussle, and elkan, after a blind, blood-red instant, found himself blinking and dripping in the centre of the stage, facing a great roaring audience, tier upon tier. then he became aware of a pair of eccentric comedians whose scene he had interrupted, and who had not sufficient presence of mind to work him into it, so that the audience which had laughed at his headlong entrance now laughed the louder over its own mistake. but its delightful moment of sensational suspense was brief. in a twinkling the doorkeeper's vengeful hands were on the intruder's collar. 'i want yvonne rupert!' shrieked elkan struggling. 'she is mine--mine! she loved me once!' a vaster wave of laughter swept back to him as he was hauled off, to be handed over to a policeman on a charge of brawling and assaulting the doorkeeper. v as he lay in his cell he chewed the cud of revenge. yes, let them take him before the magistrate; it was not he that was afraid of justice. he would expose her, the false catholic, the she-cat! a pretty convert! another man would have preferred to blackmail her, he told himself with righteous indignation, especially in such straits of poverty. but he--the thought had scarcely crossed his mind. he had not even thought of her helping him, only of the joy of meeting her again. in the chill morning, after a sleepless night, he had a panic-stricken sense of his insignificance under the crushing weight of law and order. all the strength born of bitterness oozed out as he stood before the magistrate rigidly and heard the charge preferred. he had a despairing vision of yvonne rupert, mocking, inaccessible, even before he was asked his occupation. 'in a cigar-box factory,' he replied curtly. 'ah, you make cigar-boxes?' 'no, not exactly. i paste.' 'paste what?' he hesitated. 'pictures of yvonne rupert on the boxes.' 'ah! then it is the "yvonne rupert" cigar?' 'yes.' he had divined the court's complacent misinterpretation ere he saw its smile; the facile theory that brooding so much over her fascinating picture had unhinged his brain. from that moment a hardness came over his heart. he shut his lips grimly. what was the use of talking? whatever he said would be discredited on this impish theory. and, even without it, how incredible his story, how irrelevant to the charge of assaulting the doorkeeper! 'i was drunk,' was all he would say. he was committed for trial, and, having no one to bail him out, lingered in a common cell with other reprobates till the van brought him to the law court, and he came up to justice in an elevator under the rebuking folds of the stars and stripes. a fortnight's more confinement was all that was meted out to him, but he had already had time enough to reflect that he had given yvonne rupert one of the best advertisements of her life. it would have enhanced the prisoner's bitterness had he known, as the knowing world outside knew, that he was a poor devil in yvonne rupert's pay, and that new york was chuckling over the original and ingenious dodge by which she had again asserted her sovereignty as an advertiser--delicious, immense! vi short as his term of imprisonment was it coincided, much to his own surprise, with the jewish penitential period, and the day of atonement came in the middle. a wealthy jewish philanthropist had organized a prison prayer-service, and elkan eagerly grasped at the break in the monotony. several of the prisoners who posed as jews with this same motive were detected and reprimanded; but elkan felt, with the new grim sense of humour that meditation on yvonne rupert and the world she fooled was developing in him, that he was as little of a jew as any of them. this elopement to america had meant a violent break with his whole religious past. not once had he seen the inside of an american synagogue. gittel had had no use for synagogues. he entered the improvised prayer-room with this ironic sense of coming back to judaism by the christian prison door. but the service shook him terribly. he forgot even to be amused by the one successful impostor who had landed himself in an unforeseen deprivation of rations during the whole fast day. the passionate outcries of the old-fashioned _chazan_, the solemn peals and tremolo notes of the cornet, which had once been merely æsthetic effects to the reputable master-cutter, were now surcharged with doom and chastisement. the very sight of the hebrew books and scrolls touched a thousand memories of home and innocence. ah, god, how he had sinned! 'forgive us now, pardon us now, atone for us now!' he cried, smiting his breast and rocking to and fro. his poor deserted wife and children! how terrible for haigitcha to wake up one morning and find him gone! as terrible as for him to wake up one morning and find gittel gone. ah, god had indeed paid him in kind! eye for eye, tooth for tooth. the philanthropist himself preached the sermon. god could never forgive sins till the sinner had first straightened out the human wrongs. ah, true, true! if he could only find his family again. if he could try by love and immeasurable devotion to atone for the past. then again life would have a meaning and an aim. poor, poor haigitcha! how he would weep over her and cherish her. and his children! they must be grown up. yankely must be quite a young man. yes, he would be seventeen by now. and rachel, that pretty, clinging cherub! in all those years he had not dared to let his thoughts pause upon them. his past lay like a misty dream behind those thousand leagues of ocean. but now it started up in all the colours of daylight, warm, appealing. yes, he would go back to his dear ones who must still crave his love and guidance; he would plead and be forgiven, and end his days piously at the sacred hearth of duty. 'forgive us now, pardon us now, atone for us now!' if only he could get back to old england. he appealed to the philanthropist, and lied amid all his contrition. it was desperation at the severance from his wife and children that had driven him to drink, lust of gold that had spurred him across the atlantic. now a wiser and sadder man, he would be content with a modicum and the wife of his bosom. vii he arrived at last, with a few charity coins in his pocket, in the familiar spitalfields alley, guarded by the three iron posts over which he remembered his yankely leaping. his heart was full of tears and memories. ah, there was the butcher's shop still underneath the old apartment, with the tin labels stuck in the _kosher_ meat, and there was gideon, the fat, genial butcher, flourishing his great carving-knife as of yore, though without that ancient smile of brotherly recognition. gideon's frigidity chilled him; it was an inauspicious omen, a symptom of things altered, irrevocable. 'does mrs. mandle still live here?' he asked with a horrible heart-sinking. 'yes, first floor,' said gideon, staring. ah, how his heart leapt up again! haigitcha, his dear haigitcha! he went up the ever-open dusty staircase jostling against a spruce, handsome young fellow who was hurrying down. he looked back with a sudden conviction that it was his son. his heart swelled with pride and affection; but ere he could cry 'yankely' the young fellow was gone. he heard the whirr of machines. yes, she had kept on the workshop, the wonderful creature, though crippled by his loss and the want of capital. doubtless s. cohn's kind-hearted firm had helped her to tide over the crisis. ah, what a blackguard he had been! and she had brought up the children unaided. dear haigitcha! what madness had driven him from her side? but he would make amends--yes, he would make amends. he would slip again into his own niche, take up the old burdens and the old delights--perhaps even be again treasurer of 'the gates of mercy.' he knocked at the door. haigitcha herself opened it. he wanted to cry her name, but the word stuck in his throat. for this was not his haigitcha; this was a new creature, cold, stern, tragic, prematurely aged, framed in the sombre shadows of the staircase. and in her eyes was neither rapture nor remembrance. 'what is it?' she asked. 'i am elkan; don't you know me?' she stared with a little gasp, and a heaving of the flat breasts. then she said icily: 'and what do you want?' 'i am come back,' he muttered hoarsely in yiddish. 'and where is gittel?' she answered in the same idiom. the needles of the whirring machines seemed piercing through his brain. so london knew that gittel had been the companion of his flight! he hung his head. 'i was only with her one year,' he whispered. 'then go back to thy dung-heap!' she shut the door. he thrust his foot in desperately ere it banged to. 'haigitcha!' he shrieked. 'let me come in. forgive me, forgive me!' it was a tug-of-war. he forced open the door; he had a vision of surprised 'hands' stopping their machines, of a beautiful, startled girl holding the ends of a half-laid tablecloth--his rachel, oh, his rachel! 'open the window, one of you!' panted haigitcha, her shoulders still straining against the door. 'call a policeman--the man is drunk!' he staggered back, his pressure relaxed, the door slammed. this repetition of his 'yvonne rupert' experience sobered him effectually. what right, indeed, had he to force himself upon this woman, upon these children, to whom he was dead? so might a suicide hope to win back his place in the old life. life had gone on without him--had no need of him. ah, what a punishment god had prepared for him! closed doors to the past, closed doors everywhere. and this terrible sense of exclusion had not now the same palliative of righteous resentment. with yvonne rupert, the splendid-flaming, vicious ingrate, he had felt himself the sinned against. but before this wife-widow, this dutiful, hard-working, tragic creature, he had nothing but self-contempt. he tottered downstairs. how should he even get his bread--he whose ill-fame was doubtless the gossip of the ghetto? if he could only get hold of gideon's carving-knife! viii but he did not commit suicide, nor did he starve. there is always one last refuge for the failures of the ghetto, and elkan's easy experience with the jewish philanthropist had prepared the way for dealings with the christian. to-day the rev. moses elkan, 'the converted jew,' preaches eloquently to his blind brethren who never come to hear him. for he has 'found the light.' exeter hall's exposition of the jewish prophecies has opened his eyes, and though his foes have been those of his own household, yet, remembering the terrible text, 'he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me,' he has taken up his cross and followed after christ alone. and even if the good souls for whose thousands of pounds he is the annual interest should discover his true past--through this tale-bearer or another--is there not but the more joy over the sinner that repenteth? duties neglected, deadly sins trailing in the actual world their unchangeable irreversible consequences--all this is irrelevant. he has 'found the light.' and so, while haigitcha walks in darkness, yvonne prays in her chapel and elkan preaches in his church. holy wedlock holy wedlock i when schneemann, the artist, returned from rome to his native village in galicia, he found it humming with gossip concerning his paternal grandmother, universally known as the _bube_ yenta. it would seem that the giddy old thing hobbled home from synagogue conversing with yossel mandelstein, the hunchback, and sometimes even offered the unshapely septuagenarian her snuffbox as he passed the door of her cottage. more than one village censor managed to acquaint the artist with the flirtation ere he had found energy to walk the muddy mile to her dwelling. even his own mother came out strongly in disapproval of the ancient dame; perhaps the remembrance of how fanatically her mother-in-law had disapproved of her married head for not being shrouded in a pious wig lent zest to her tongue. the artist controlled his facial muscles, having learnt tolerance and bohemianism in the eternal city. 'old blood will have its way,' he said blandly. 'yes, old blood's way is sometimes worse than young blood's,' said frau schneemann, unsmiling. 'you must not forget that yossel is still a bachelor.' 'yes, and therefore a sinner in israel--i remember,' quoth the artist with a twinkle. how all this would amuse his bachelor friends, leopold barstein and rozenoffski the pianist! 'make not mock. 'tis high time you, too, should lead a maiden under the canopy.' 'i am so shy--there are few so forward as grandmother.' 'heaven be thanked!' said his mother fervently. 'when i refused to cover my tresses she spoke as if i were a brazen epicurean, but i had rather have died than carry on so shamelessly with a man to whom i was not betrothed.' 'perhaps they _are_ betrothed.' '_we_ betrothed to yossel! may his name be blotted out!' 'why, what is wrong with yossel? moses mendelssohn himself had a hump.' 'who speaks of humps? have you forgotten we are of rabbinic family?' her son had quite forgotten it, as he had forgotten so much of this naïve life to which he was paying a holiday visit. 'ah yes,' he murmured. 'but yossel is pious--surely?' a vision of the psalm-droners and prayer-shriekers in the little synagogue, among whom the hunchback had been conspicuous, surged up vividly. 'he may shake himself from dawn-service to night-service, he will never shake off his father, the innkeeper,' said frau schneemann hotly. 'if i were in your grandmother's place i would be weaving my shroud, not thinking of young men.' 'but she's thinking of old men, you said.' 'compared with her he is young--she is eighty-four, he is only seventy-five.' 'well, they won't be married long,' he laughed. frau schneemann laid her hand on his mouth. 'heaven forbid the omen,' she cried. ''tis bringing a _bilbul_ (scandal) upon a respectable family.' 'i will go and talk to her,' he said gravely. 'indeed, i ought to have gone to see her days ago.' and as he trudged to the other end of the village towards the cottage where the lively old lady lived in self-sufficient solitude, he was full of the contrast between his mother's mental world and his own. people live in their own minds, and not in streets or fields, he philosophized. ii through her diamond-paned window he saw the wrinkled, white-capped old creature spinning peacefully at the rustic chimney-corner, a pure cloistral crone. it seemed profane to connect such a figure with flirtation--this was surely the very virgin of senility. what a fine picture she made too! why had he never thought of painting her? yes, such a picture of 'the spinster' would be distinctly interesting. and he would put in the _kesubah_, the marriage certificate that hung over the mantelpiece, in ironical reminder of her days of bloom. he unlatched the door--he had never been used to knock at grannie's door, and the childish instinct came back to him. '_guten abend_,' he said. she adjusted a pair of horn spectacles, and peered at him. '_guten abend_,' she murmured. 'you don't remember me--vroomkely.' he used the old childish diminutive of abraham, though he had almost forgotten he owned the name in full. 'vroomkely,' she gasped, almost overturning her wheel as she sprang to hug him in her skinny arms. he had a painful sense that she had shrunk back almost to childish dimensions. her hands seemed trembling as much with decay as with emotion. she hastened to produce from the well-known cupboard home-made _kuchen_ and other dainties of his youth, with no sense of the tragedy that lay in his no longer being tempted by them. 'and how goes your trade?' she said. 'they say you have never been slack. they must build many houses in rome.' her notion that he was a house-painter he hardly cared to contradict, especially as picture-painting was contrary to the mosaic dispensation. 'oh, i haven't been only in rome,' he said evasively. 'i have been in many lands.' fire came into her eyes, and flashed through the big spectacles. 'you have been to palestine?' she cried. 'no, only as far as egypt. why?' 'i thought you might have brought me a clod of palestine earth to put in my grave.' the fire died out of her spectacles, she sighed, and took a consolatory pinch of snuff. 'don't talk of graves--you will live to be a hundred and more,' he cried. but he was thinking how ridiculous gossip was. it spared neither age nor sexlessness, not even this shrivelled ancient who was meditating on her latter end. suddenly he became aware of a shadow darkening the doorway. at the same instant the fire leapt back into his grandmother's glasses. instinctively, almost before he turned his head, he knew it was the hero of the romance. yossel mandelstein looked even less of a hero than the artist had remembered. there had been something wistful and pathetic in the hunchback's expression, some hint of inner eager fire, but this--if he had not merely imagined it--seemed to have died of age and hopelessness. he used crutches, too, to help himself along with, so that he seemed less the hunchback of yore than the conventional contortion of time, and but for the familiar earlocks pendent on either side of the fur cap, but for the great hooked nose and the small chin hidden in the big beard, the artist might have doubted if this was indeed the yossel he had sometimes mocked at in the crude cruelty of boyhood. yossel, propped on his crutches, was pulling out a mouldering black-covered book from under his greasy caftan. 'i have brought you back your _chovoth halvovoth_,' he said. in the vivid presence of the actual romance the artist could not suppress the smile he had kept back at the mere shadowy recital. in rome he himself had not infrequently called on young ladies by way of returning books to them. it was true that the books he returned were not hebrew treatises, but he smiled again to think that the name of yossel's volume signified 'the duties of the heart.' the _bube_ yenta received the book with thanks, and a moment of embarrassment ensued, only slightly mitigated by the offer of the snuffbox. yossel took a pinch, but his eyes seemed roving in amaze, less over the stranger than over the bespread table, as though he might unaccountably have overlooked some sacred festival. that two are company and three none seemed at this point a proverb to be heeded, and without waiting to renew the hero's acquaintance, the artist escaped from the idyllic cottage. let the lover profit by the pastry for which he himself was too old. so the gossips spoke the truth, he thought, his amusement not unblended with a touch of his mother's indignation. surely, if his grandmother wished to cultivate a grand passion, she might have chosen a more sightly object of devotion. not that there was much to be said for yossel's taste either. when after seventy-five years of celibacy the fascinations of the other sex began to tell upon him, he might at least have succumbed to a less matriarchal form of femininity. but perhaps his grandmother had fascinations of another order. perhaps she had money. he put the question to his mother. 'certainly she has money,' said his mother vindictively. 'she has thousands of _gulden_ in her stocking. twenty years ago she could have had her pick of a dozen well-to-do widowers, yet now that she has one foot in the grave, madness has entered her soul, and she has cast her eye upon this pauper.' 'but i thought his father left him his inn,' said the artist. 'his inn--yes. his sense--no. yossel ruined himself long ago paying too much attention to the talmud instead of his business. he was always a _schlemihl_.' 'but can one pay too much attention to the talmud? that is a strange saying for a rabbi's daughter.' 'king solomon tells us there is a time for everything,' returned the rabbi's daughter. 'yossel neglected what the wise king said, and so now he comes trying to wheedle your poor grandmother out of her money. if he wanted to marry, why didn't he marry before eighteen, as the talmud prescribes?' 'he seems to do everything at the wrong time,' laughed her son. 'do you suppose, by the way, that king solomon made all his thousand marriages before he was eighteen?' 'make not mock of holy things,' replied his mother angrily. the monetary explanation of the romance, he found, was the popular one in the village. it did not, however, exculpate the grandame from the charge of forwardness, since if she wished to contract another marriage it could have been arranged legitimately by the _shadchan_, and then the poor marriage-broker, who got little enough to do in this god-forsaken village, might have made a few _gulden_ out of it. beneath all his artistic perception of the humours of the thing, schneemann found himself prosaically sharing the general disapprobation of the marriage. really, when one came to think of it, it was ridiculous that he should have a new grandfather thrust upon him. and such a grandfather! perhaps the _bube_ was, indeed, losing her reason. or was it he himself who was losing his reason, taking seriously this parochial scandal, and believing that because a doddering hunchback of seventy-five had borrowed an ethical treatise from an octogenarian a marriage must be on the tapis? yet, on more than one occasion, he came upon circumstances which seemed to justify the popular supposition. there could be no doubt, for example, that when at the conclusion of the synagogue service the feminine stream from the women's gallery poured out to mingle with the issuing males, these two atoms drifted together with unnatural celerity. it appeared to be established beyond question that on the preceding feast of tabernacles the _bube_ had lent and practically abandoned to the hunchback's use the ritual palm-branch he was too poor to afford. of course this might only have been gratitude, inasmuch as a fortnight earlier on the solemn new year day when, by an untimely decree, the grandmother lay ill abed, yossel had obtained possession of the _shofar_, and leaving the synagogue had gone to blow it to her. he had blown the holy horn--with due regard to the proprieties--in the downstairs room of her cottage so that she above had heard it, and having heard it could breakfast. it was a performance that charity reasonably required for a disabled fellow-creature, and yet what medieval knight had found a more delicate way of trumpeting his mistress's charms? besides, how had yossel known that the heroine was ill? his eye must have roved over the women's gallery, and disentangled her absence even from the huddled mass of weeping and swaying womanhood. one day came the crowning item of evidence. the grandmother had actually asked the village postman to oblige her by delivering a brown parcel at yossel's lodgings. the postman was not a child of the covenant, but yossel's landlady was, and within an hour all jewry knew that yenta had sent yossel a phylacteries-bag--the very symbol of love offered by a maiden to her bridegroom. could shameless passion further go? iii the artist, at least, determined it should go no further. he put on his hat, and went to find yossel mandelstein. but yossel was not to be found so easily, and the artist's resolution strengthened with each false scent. yossel was ultimately run to earth, or rather to heaven, in the _beth hamedrash_, where he was shaking himself studiously over a babylonian folio, in company with a motley assemblage of youths and greybeards equally careless of the demands of life. the dusky home of holy learning seemed an awkward place in which to broach the subject of love. in a whisper he besought the oscillating student to come outside. yossel started up in agitation. 'ah, your grandmother is dying,' he divined, with what seemed a lover's inaccuracy. 'i will come and pray at once.' 'no, no, she is not dying,' said schneemann hastily, adding in a grim murmur, 'unless of love.' 'oh, then, it is not about your grandmother?' 'no--that is to say, yes.' it seemed more difficult than ever to plunge into the delicate subject. to refer plumply to the courtship would, especially if it were not true, compromise his grandmother and, incidentally, her family. yet, on the other hand, he longed to know what lay behind all this philandering, which in any case _had_ been compromising her, and he felt it his duty as his grandmother's protector and the representative of the family to ask yossel straight out whether his intentions were honourable. he remembered scenes in novels and plays in which undesirable suitors were tackled by champions of convention--scenes in which they were even bought off and started in new lands. would not yossel go to a new land, and how much would he want over and above his fare? he led the way without. 'you have lived here all your life, yossel, have you not?' he said, when they were in the village street. 'where else shall a man live?' answered yossel. 'but have you never had any curiosity to see other parts? would you not like to go and see vienna?' a little gleam passed over yossel's dingy face. 'no, not vienna--it is an unholy place--but prague! prague where there is a great rabbi and the old, old underground synagogue that god has preserved throughout the generations.' 'well, why not go and see it?' suggested the artist. yossel stared. 'is it for that you tore me away from my talmud?' 'n--no, not exactly for that,' stammered schneemann. 'only seeing you glued to it gave me the idea what a pity it was that you should not travel and sit at the feet of great rabbis?' 'but how shall i travel to them? my crutches cannot walk so far as prague.' 'oh, i'd lend you the money to ride,' said the artist lightly. 'but i could never repay it.' 'you can repay me in heaven. you can give me a little bit of your _gan iden_' (paradise). yossel shook his head. 'and after i had the fare, how should i live? here i make a few _gulden_ by writing letters for people to their relatives in america; in prague everybody is very learned; they don't need a scribe. besides, if i cannot die in palestine i might as well die where i was born.' 'but why can't you die in palestine?' cried the artist with a new burst of hope. 'you _shall_ die in palestine, i promise you.' the gleam in yossel's face became a great flame of joy. 'i shall die in palestine?' he asked ecstatically. 'as sure as i live! i will pay your fare the whole way, second-class.' for a moment the dazzling sunshine continued on yossel's face, then a cloud began to pass across it. 'but how can i take your money? i am not a _schnorrer_.' schneemann did not find the question easy to answer. the more so as yossel's eagerness to go and die in palestine seemed to show that there was no reason for packing him off. however, he told himself that one must make assurance doubly sure and that, even if it was all empty gossip, still he had stumbled upon a way of making an old man happy. 'there is no reason why you should take my money,' he said with an artistic inspiration, 'but there is every reason why i should buy to myself the _mitzvah_ (good deed) of sending you to jerusalem. you see, i have so few good deeds to my credit.' 'so i have heard,' replied yossel placidly. 'a very wicked life it is said you lead at rome.' 'most true,' said the artist cheerfully. 'it is said also that you break the second commandment by making representations of things that are on sea and land.' 'i would the critics admitted as much,' murmured the artist. 'your grandmother does not understand. she thinks you paint houses--which is not forbidden. but i don't undeceive her--it would pain her too much.' the lover-like sentiment brought back the artist's alarm. 'when will you be ready to start?' he said. yossel pondered. 'but to die in palestine one must live in palestine,' he said. 'i cannot be certain that god would take my soul the moment i set foot on the holy soil.' the artist reflected a moment, but scarcely felt rich enough to guarantee that yossel should live in palestine, especially if he were an unconscionably long time a-dying. a happy thought came to him. 'but there is the _chalukah_,' he reminded yossel. 'but that is charity.' 'no--it is not charity, it is a sort of university endowment. it is just to support such old students as you that these sums are sent from all the world over. the prayers and studies of our old men in jerusalem are a redemption to all israel. and yours would be to me in particular.' 'true, true,' said yossel eagerly; 'and life is very cheap there, i have always heard.' 'then it is a bargain,' slipped unwarily from the artist's tongue. but yossel replied simply: 'may the blessings of the eternal be upon you for ever and for ever, and by the merit of my prayers in jerusalem may your sins be forgiven.' the artist was moved. surely, he thought, struggling between tears and laughter, no undesirable lover had ever thus been got rid of by the head of the family. not to speak of an undesirable grandfather. iv the news that yossel was leaving the village bound for the holy land, produced a sensation which quite obscured his former notoriety as an aspirant to wedlock. indeed, those who discussed the new situation most avidly forgot how convinced they had been that marriage and not death was the hunchback's goal. how yossel had found money for the great adventure was not the least interesting ingredient in the cup of gossip. it was even whispered that the grandmother herself had been tapped. her skittish advances had been taken seriously by yossel. he had boldly proposed to lead her under the canopy, but at this point, it was said, the old lady had drawn back--she who had led him so far was not to be thus led. women are changeable, it is known, and even when they are old they do not change. but yossel had stood up for his rights; he had demanded compensation. and his fare to palestine was a concession for his injured affections. it was not many days before the artist met persons who had actually overheard the bargaining between the _bube_ and the hunchback. meantime yossel's departure was drawing nigh, and all those who had relatives in palestine besieged him from miles around, plying him with messages, benedictions, and even packages for their kinsfolk. and conversely, there was scarcely a jewish inhabitant who had not begged for clods of palestine earth or bottles of jordan water. so great indeed were the demands that their supply would have constituted a distinct invasion of the sovereign rights of the sultan, and dried up the jordan. with his grandmother's future thus off his mind, the artist had settled down to making a picture of the ruined castle which he commanded from his bedroom window. but when the through ticket for jerusalem came from the agent at vienna, and he had brazenly endured yossel's blessings for the same, his artistic instinct demanded to see how the _bube_ was taking her hero's desertion. as he lifted the latch he heard her voice giving orders, and the door opened, not on the peaceful scene he expected of the spinster at her ingle nook, but of a bustling and apparently rejuvenated old lady supervising a packing menial. the greatest shock of all was that this menial proved to be yossel himself squatted on the floor, his crutches beside him. almost as in guilty confusion the hunchback hastily closed the sheet containing a huddle of articles, and tied it into a bundle before the artist's chaotic sense of its contents could change into clarity. but instantly a flash of explanation came to him. 'aha, grandmother,' he said, 'i see you too are sending presents to palestine.' the grandmother took snuff uneasily. 'yes, it is going to the land of israel,' she said. as the artist lifted his eyes from the two amorphous heaps on the floor--yossel and his bundle--he became aware of a blank in the familiar interior. 'why, where is the spinning-wheel?' he cried. 'i have given it to the widow rubenstein--i shall spin no more.' 'and i thought of painting you as a spinster!' he murmured dolefully. then a white patch in the darkened wood over the mantelpiece caught his eye. 'why, your marriage certificate is gone too!' 'yes, i have taken it down.' 'to give to the widow rubenstein?' 'what an idea!' said his grandmother seriously. 'it is in the bundle.' 'you are sending it away to palestine?' the grandmother fumbled with her spectacles, and removing them with trembling fingers blinked downwards at the bundle. yossel snatched up his crutches, and propped himself manfully upon them. 'your grandmother goes with me,' he explained decisively. 'what!' the artist gasped. the grandmother's eyes met his unflinchingly; they had drawn fire from yossel's. 'and why should i not go to palestine too?' she said. 'but you are so old!' 'the more reason i should make haste if i am to be luckier than moses our master.' she readjusted her spectacles firmly. 'but the journey is so hard.' 'yossel has wisdom; he will find the way while alive as easily as others will roll thither after death.' 'you'll be dead before you get there,' said the artist brutally. 'ah, no! god will not let me die before i touch the holy soil!' 'you, too, want to die in palestine?' cried the amazed artist. 'and where else shall a daughter of israel desire to die? ah, i forgot--your mother was an epicurean with godless tresses; she did not bring you up in the true love of our land. but every day for seventy years and more have i prayed the prayer that my eyes should behold the return of the divine glory to zion. that mercy i no longer expect in my own days, inasmuch as the sultan hardens his heart and will not give us back our land, not though moses our master appears to him every night, and beats him with his rod. but at least my eyes shall behold the land of israel.' 'amen!' said yossel, still propped assertively on his crutches. the grandson turned upon the interrupter. 'but you can't take her _with_ you?' 'why not?' said yossel calmly. schneemann found himself expatiating upon the responsibility of looking after such an old woman; it seemed too absurd to talk of the scandal. that was left for the grandmother to emphasize. 'would you have me arrive alone in palestine?' she interposed impatiently. 'think of the talk it would make in jerusalem! and should i even be permitted to land? they say the sultan's soldiers stand at the landing-place like the angels at the gates of paradise with swords that turn every way. but yossel is cunning in the customs of the heathen; he will explain to the soldiers that he is an austrian subject, and that i am his _frau_.' 'what! pass you off as his _frau_!' 'who speaks of passing off? he could say i was his sister, as abraham our father said of sarah. but that was a sin in the sight of heaven, and therefore as our sages explain----' 'it is simpler to be married,' yossel interrupted. 'married!' echoed the artist angrily. 'the witnesses are coming to my lodging this afternoon,' yossel continued calmly. 'dovidel and yitzkoly from the _beth hamedrash_.' 'they think they are only coming to a farewell glass of brandy,' chuckled the grandmother. 'but they will find themselves at a secret wedding.' 'and to-morrow we shall depart publicly for trieste,' yossel wound up calmly. 'but this is too absurd!' the artist broke in. 'i forbid this marriage!' a violent expression of amazement overspread the ancient dame's face, and the tone of the far-away years came into her voice. 'silence, vroomkely, or i'll smack your face. do you forget you are talking to your grandmother?' 'i think mr. mandelstein forgets it,' the artist retorted, turning upon the heroic hunchback. 'do you mean to say you are going to marry my grandmother?' 'and why not?' asked yossel. 'is there a greater lover of god in all galicia?' 'hush, yossel, i am a great sinner.' but her old face was radiant. she turned to her grandson. 'don't be angry with yossel--all the fault is mine. he did not ask me to go with him to palestine; it was i that asked _him_.' 'do you mean that you asked him to marry you?' 'it is the same thing. there is no other way. how different would it have been had there been any other woman here who wanted to die in palestine! but the women nowadays have no fear of heaven; they wear their hair unshorn--they----' 'yes, yes. so you asked yossel to marry you.' 'asked? prayed, as one prays upon atonement day. for two years i prayed to him, but he always refused.' 'then why----?' began the artist. 'yossel is so proud. it is his only sin.' 'oh, yenta!' protested yossel flushing, 'i am a very sinful man.' 'yes, but your sin is all in a lump,' the _bube_ replied. 'your iniquity is like your ugliness--some people have it scattered all over, but you have it all heaped up. and the heap is called pride.' 'never mind his pride,' put in the artist impatiently. 'why did he not go on refusing you?' 'i am coming to that. only you were always so impatient, vroomkely. when i was cutting you a piece of _kuchen_, you would snatch greedily at the crumbs as they fell. you see yossel is not made of the same clay as you and i. by an oversight the almighty sent an angel into the world instead of a man, but seeing his mistake at the last moment, the all-high broke his wings short and left him a hunchback. but when yossel's father made a match for him with leah, the rich corn-factor's daughter, the silly girl, when she was introduced to the bridegroom, could see only the hump, and scandalously refused to carry out the contract. and yossel is so proud that ever since that day he curled himself up into his hump, and nursed a hatred for all women.' 'how can you say that, yenta?' yossel broke in again. 'why else did you refuse my money?' the _bube_ retorted. 'twice, ten, twenty times i asked him to go to palestine with me. but obstinate as a pig he keeps grunting "i can't--i've got no money." sooner than i should pay his fare he'd have seen us both die here.' the artist collapsed upon the bundle; astonishment, anger, and self-ridicule made an emotion too strong to stand under. so this was all his machiavellian scheming had achieved--to bring about the very marriage it was meant to avert! he had dug a pit and fallen into it himself. all this would indeed amuse rozenoffski and leopold barstein. he laughed bitterly. 'nay, it was no laughing matter,' said the _bube_ indignantly. 'for i know well how yossel longed to go with me to die in jerusalem. and at last the all-high sent him the fare, and he was able to come to me and invite me to go with him.' here the artist became aware that yossel's eyes and lips were signalling silence to him. as if, forsooth, one published one's good deeds! he had yet to learn on whose behalf the hunchback was signalling. 'so! you came into a fortune?' he asked yossel gravely. yossel looked the picture of misery. the _bube_ unconsciously cut through the situation. 'a wicked man gave it to him,' she explained, 'to pray away his sins in jerusalem.' 'indeed!' murmured the artist. 'anyone you know?' 'heaven has spared her the pain of knowing him,' ambiguously interpolated her anxious protector. 'i don't even know his name,' added the _bube_. 'yossel keeps it hidden.' 'one must not shame a fellow-man,' yossel urged. 'the sin of that is equal to the sin of shedding blood.' the grandmother nodded her head approvingly. 'it is enough that the all-high knows his name. but for such an epicurean much praying will be necessary. it will be a long work. and your first prayer, yossel, must be that you shall not die very soon, else the labourer will not be worthy of his hire.' yossel took her yellow withered hand as in a lover's clasp. 'be at peace, yenta! he will be redeemed if only by _your_ merits. are we not one?' elijah's goblet elijah's goblet i aaron ben amram removed from the great ritual dish the roasted shankbone of lamb (symbolic residuum of the paschal sacrifice) and the roasted egg (representative of the ancient festival-offering in the temple), and while his wife and children held up the dish, which now contained only the bitter herbs and unleavened cakes, he recited the chaldaic prelude to the _seder_--the long domestic ceremonial of the passover evening. 'this is the bread of affliction which our fathers ate in the land of egypt. let all who are hungry come in and eat; let all who require come in and celebrate the passover. this year here, next year in the land of israel! this year slaves, next year sons of freedom!' but the polish physician showed nothing of the slave. white-bearded, clad in a long white robe and a white skullcap, and throned on white pillows, he made rather a royal figure, indeed for this night of nights conceived of himself as 'king' and his wife as 'queen.' but 'queen' golda, despite her silk gown and flowery cap, did not share her consort's majestic mood, still less the rosy happiness of the children who sat round this fascinating board. her heart was full of a whispering fear that not all the brave melodies of the father nor all the quaint family choruses could drown. all very well for the little ones to be unconscious of the hovering shadow, but how could her husband have forgotten the horrors of the blood accusation in the very year he had led her under the canopy? and surely he knew as well as she that the dreadful legend was gathering again, that the slowly-growing jew-hatred had reached a point at which it must find expression, that the _pritzim_ (nobles) in their great houses, and the peasants behind their high palings, alike sulked under the burden of debts. indeed, had not the passover market hummed with the old, old story of a lost christian child? not murdered yet, thank god, nor even a corpse. but still, if a boy _should_ be found with signs of violence upon him at this season of the paschal sacrifice, when the greek church brooded on the crucifixion! o god of abraham, guard us from these fiends unchained! but the first part of the elaborate ritual, pleasantly punctuated with cups of raisin wine, passed peacefully by, and the evening meal, mercifully set in the middle, was reached, to the children's vast content. they made wry, humorous mouths, each jest endeared by annual repetition, over the horseradish that typified the bitterness of the egyptian bondage, and ecstatic grimaces over the soft, sweet mixture of almonds, raisins, apples, and cinnamon, vaguely suggestive of the bondsmen's mortar; they relished the eggs sliced into salt water, and then--the symbols all duly swallowed--settled down with more prosaic satisfaction to the merely edible meats and fishes, though even to these the special passover plates and dishes and the purified knives and forks lent a new relish. by this time golda was sufficiently cheered up to meditate her annual theft of the _afkuman_, that segment of passover cake under aaron's pillow, morsels of which, distributed to each as the final food to be tasted that night, replaced the final mouthful of the paschal lamb in the ancient palestinian meal. ii but elijah's goblet stood in the centre of the table untasted. every time the ritual cup-drinking came round, the children had glanced at the great silver goblet placed for the prophet of redemption. alas! the brimming raisin wine remained ever at the same level. they found consolation in the thought that the great moment was still to come--the moment of the third cup, when, mother throwing open the door, father would rise, holding the goblet on high, and sonorously salute an unseen visitor. true, in other years, though they had almost heard the rush of wings, the great shining cup had remained full, and when it was replaced on the white cloth, a vague resentment as at a spurned hospitality had stirred in each youthful breast. but many reasons could be found to exculpate elijah--not omitting their own sins--and now, when ben amram nodded to his wife to open the door, expectation stood on tip-toe, credulous as ever, and the young hearts beat tattoo. but the mother's heart was palpitating with another emotion. a faint clamour in the polish quarter at the back, as she replaced the samovar in the kitchen, had recalled all her alarms, and she merely threw open the door of the room. but ben amram was not absent-minded enough to be beguiled by her air of obedient alacrity. besides, he could see the shut street-door through the strip of passage. he gestured towards it. now she feigned laziness. 'oh, never mind.' 'david, open the street-door.' the eldest boy sprang up joyously. it would have been too bad of mother to keep elijah on the doorstep. 'no, no, david!' golda stopped him. 'it is too heavy; he could not undo the bolts and bars.' 'you have barred it?' ben amram asked. 'and why not? in this season you know how the heathen go mad like street-dogs.' 'pooh! they will not bite us.' 'but, aaron! you heard about the lost christian child!' 'i have saved many a christian child, golda.' 'they will not remember that.' 'but i must remember the ritual.' and he made a movement. 'no, no, aaron! listen!' the shrill noises seemed to have veered round towards the front of the house. he shrugged his shoulders. 'i hear only the goats bleating.' she clung to him as he made for the door. 'for the sake of our children!' 'do not be so childish yourself, my crown!' 'but i am not childish. hark!' he smiled calmly. 'the door must be opened.' her fears lent her scepticism. 'it is you that are childish. you know no prophet of redemption will come through the door.' he caressed his venerable beard. 'who knows?' 'i know. it is a destroyer, not a redeemer of israel, who will come. listen! ah, god of abraham! do you not hear?' unmistakably the howl of a riotous mob was approaching, mingled with the reedy strains of an accordion. 'down with the _zhits_! death to the dirty jews!' 'god in heaven!' she released her husband, and ran towards the children with a gesture as of seeking to gather them all in her arms. then, hearing the bolts shot back, she turned with a scream. 'are you mad, aaron?' but he, holding her back with his gaze, threw wide the door with his left hand, while his right upheld elijah's goblet, and over the ululation of the unseen mob and the shrill spasms of music rose his hebrew welcome to the visitor: '_baruch habaa!_' hardly had the greeting left his lips when a wild flying figure in a rich furred coat dashed round the corner and almost into his arms, half-spilling the wine. 'in god's name, reb aaron!' panted the refugee, and fell half-dead across the threshold. the physician dragged him hastily within, and slammed the door, just as two moujiks--drunken leaders of the chase--lurched past. the mother, who had sprung forward at the sound of the fall, frenziedly shot the bolts, and in another instant the hue and cry tore past the house and dwindled in the distance. ben amram raised the white bloody face, and put elijah's goblet to the lips. the strange visitor drained it to the dregs, the clustered children looking on dazedly. as the head fell back, it caught the light from the festive candles of the passover board. the face was bare of hair; even the side curls were gone. 'maimon the _meshummad_!' cried the mother, shuddering back. 'you have saved the apostate.' 'did i not say the door must be opened?' replied ben amram gently. then a smile of humour twitched his lips, and he smoothed his white beard. 'maimon is the only jew abroad to-night, and how were the poor drunken peasants to know he was baptized?' despite their thrill of horror at the traitor, david and his brothers and sisters were secretly pleased to see elijah's goblet empty at last. iii next morning the passover liturgy rang jubilantly through the vast, crowded synagogue. no violence had been reported, despite the passage of a noisy mob. the ghetto, then, was not to be laid waste with fire and sword, and the worshippers within the moss-grown, turreted quadrangle drew free breath, and sent it out in great shouts of rhythmic prayer, as they swayed in their fringed shawls, with quivering hands of supplication. the ark of the law at one end of the great building, overbrooded by the ten commandments and the perpetual light, stood open to mark a supreme moment of devotion. ben amram had been given the honour of uncurtaining the shrine, and its richly clad scrolls of all sizes, with their silver bells and pointers, stood revealed in solemn splendour. through the ornate grating of their gallery the gaily-clad women looked down on the rocking figures, while the grace-notes of the cantor on his central daïs, and the harmoniously interjected 'poms' of his male ministrants flew up to their ears, as though they were indeed angels on high. suddenly, over the blended passion of cantor and congregation, an ominous sound broke from without--the complex clatter of cavalry, the curt ring of military orders. the swaying figures turned suddenly as under another wind, the women's eyes grew astare and ablaze with terror. the great doors flew open, and--oh, awful, incredible sight--a squadron of cossacks rode slowly in, two abreast, with a heavy thud of hoofs on the sacred floor, and a rattle of ponderous sabres. their black conical caps and long beards, their great side-buttoned coats, and pockets stuffed with protrusive cartridges, their prancing horses, their leaded knouts, struck a blood-curdling discord amid the prayerful, white-wrapped figures. the rumble of worship ceased, the cantor, suddenly isolated, was heard soaring ecstatically; then he, too, turned his head uneasily and his roulade died in his throat. 'halt!' the officer cried. the moving column froze. its bristling length stretched from the central platform, blocking the aisle, and the courtyard echoed with the clanging hoofs of its rear, which backed into the school and the poor-house. the _shamash_ (beadle) was seen to front the flamboyant invaders. 'why does your excellency intrude upon our prayers to god?' the congregation felt its dignity return. who would have suspected red judah of such courage--such apt speech? why, the very rabbi was petrified; the elders of the _kahal_ stood dumb. ben amram himself, their spokesman to the government, whose praying-shawl was embroidered with a silver band, and whose coat was satin, remained immovable between the pillars of the ark, staring stonily at the brave beadle. 'first of all, for the boy's blood!' the words rang out with military precision, and the speaker's horse pawed clangorously, as if impatient for the charge. the men grew death-pale, the women wrung their hands. '_ai, vai!_' they moaned. 'woe! woe!' 'what boy? what blood?' said the _shamash_, undaunted. 'don't palter, you rascal! you know well that a christian child has disappeared.' the aged rabbi, stimulated by the _shamash_, uplifted a quavering voice. 'the child will be found of a surety--if, indeed, it is lost,' he added with bitter sarcasm. 'and surely your excellency cannot require the boy's blood at our hands ere your excellency knows it is indeed spilt.' 'you misunderstand me, old dog--or rather you pretend to, old fox. the boy's blood is here--it is kept in this very synagogue--and i have come for it.' the _shamash_ laughed explosively. 'oh, excellency!' the synagogue, hysterically tense, caught the contagion of glad relief. it rang with strange laughter. 'there is no blood in this synagogue, excellency,' said the rabbi, his eyes a-twinkle, 'save what runs in living veins.' 'we shall see. produce that bottle beneath the ark.' 'that!' the _shamash_ grinned--almost indecorously. 'that is the consecration wine--red as my beard,' quoth he. 'ha! ha! the red consecration wine!' repeated the synagogue in a happy buzz, and from the women's gallery came the same glad murmur of mutual explanation. 'we shall see,' repeated the officer, with iron imperturbability, and the happy hum died into a cold heart-faintness, fraught with an almost incredulous apprehension of some devilish treachery, some mock discovery that would give the ghetto over to the frenzies of fanatical creditors, nay, to the vengeance of the law. the officer's voice rose again. 'let no one leave the synagogue--man, woman, or child. kill anyone who attempts to escape.' the screams of fainting women answered him from above, but impassively he urged his horse along the aisle that led to the ark; its noisy hoofs trampled over every heart. springing from his saddle he opened the little cupboard beneath the scrolls, and drew out a bottle, hideously red. 'consecration wine, eh?' he said grimly. 'what else, excellency?' stoutly replied the _shamash_, who had followed him. a savage laugh broke from the officer's lips. 'drink me a mouthful!' as the _shamash_ took the bottle, with a fearless shrug of the shoulders, every eye strained painfully towards him, save in the women's gallery, where many covered their faces with their hands. every breath was held. keeping the same amused incredulous face, red judah gulped down a draught. but as the liquid met his palate a horrible distortion overcame his smile, his hands flew heavenwards. dropping the bottle, and with a hoarse cry, 'mercy, o god!' he fell before the ark, foaming at the mouth. the red fluid spread in a vivid pool. 'hear, o israel!' a raucous cry of horror rose from all around, and was echoed more shrilly from above. almighty father! the jew-haters had worked their fiendish trick. now the men were become as the women, shrieking, wringing their hands, crying, '_ai, vai!_' '_gewalt!_' the rabbi shook as with palsy. 'satan! satan!' chattered through his teeth. but ben amram had moved at last, and was stooping over the scarlet stain. 'a soldier should know blood, excellency!' the physician said quietly. the officer's face relaxed into a faint smile. 'a soldier knows wine too,' he said, sniffing. and, indeed, the spicy reek of the consecration wine was bewildering the nearer bystanders. 'your excellency frightened poor judah into a fit,' said the physician, raising the beadle's head by its long red beard. his excellency shrugged his shoulders, sprang to his saddle, and cried a retreat. the cossacks, unable to turn in the aisle, backed cumbrously with a manifold thudding and rearing and clanking, but ere the congregation had finished rubbing their eyes, the last conical hat and leaded knout had vanished, and only the tarry reek of their boots was left in proof of their actual passage. a deep silence hung for a moment like a heavy cloud, then it broke in a torrent of ejaculations. but ben amram's voice rang through the din. 'brethren!' he rose from wiping the frothing lips of the stricken creature, and his face had the fiery gloom of a seer's, and the din died under his uplifted palm. 'brethren, the lord hath saved us!' 'blessed be the name of the lord for ever and ever!' the rabbi began the phrase, and the congregation caught it up in thunder. 'but hearken how. last night at the _seder_, as i opened the door for elijah, there entered maimon the _meshummad_! 'twas he quaffed elijah's cup!' there was a rumble of imprecations. 'a pretty elijah!' cried the rabbi. 'nay, but god sends the prophet of redemption in strange guise,' the physician said. 'listen! maimon was pursued by a drunken mob, ignorant he was a deserter from our camp. when he found how i had saved him and dressed his bleeding face, when he saw the spread passover table, his child-soul came back to him, and in a burst of tears he confessed the diabolical plot against our community, hatched through his instrumentality by some desperate debtors; how, having raised the cry of a lost child, they were to have its blood found beneath our holy ark as in some mystic atonement. and while you all lolled joyously at the _seder_ table, a bottle of blood lay here instead of the consecration wine, like a bomb waiting to burst and destroy us all.' a shudder of awe traversed the synagogue. 'but the guardian of israel, who permits us to sleep on passover night without night-prayer, neither slumbers nor sleeps. maimon had bribed the _shamash_ to let him enter the synagogue and replace the consecration wine.' 'red judah!' it was like the growl of ten thousand tigers. some even precipitated themselves upon the writhing wretch. 'back! back!' cried ben amram. 'the almighty has smitten him.' '"vengeance is mine, saith the lord,"' quoted the rabbi solemnly. 'hallelujah!' shouted a frenzied female voice, and 'hallelujah!' the men responded in thunder. 'red judah had no true belief in the god of israel,' the physician went on. 'may he be an atonement for us all!' interrupted the cantor. 'amen!' growled the congregation. 'for a hundred roubles and the promise of personal immunity red judah allowed maimon the _meshummad_ to change the bottles while all israel sat at the seder. it was because the mob saw the _meshummad_ stealing out of the synagogue that they fell upon him for a pious jew. behold, brethren, how the almighty weaves his threads together. after the repentant sinner had confessed all to me, and explained how the cossacks were to be sent to catch all the community assembled helpless in synagogue, i deemed it best merely to get the bottles changed back again. the false bottle contained only bullock's blood, but it would have sufficed to madden the multitude. since it is i who have the blessed privilege of supplying the consecration wine it was easy enough to give maimon another bottle, and armed with this he roused the _shamash_ in the dawn, pretending he had now obtained true human blood. a rouble easily procured him the keys again, and when he brought me back the bullock's blood, i awaited the sequel in peace.' 'praise ye the lord, for he is good,' sang the cantor, carried away. 'for his mercy endureth for ever,' replied the congregation instinctively. 'i did not foresee the _shamash_ would put himself so brazenly forward to hide his guilt, or that he would be asked to drink. but when the _epikouros_ (atheist) put the bottle to his lips, expecting to taste blood, and found instead good red wine, doubtless he felt at once that the god of israel was truly in heaven, that he had wrought a miracle and changed the blood back to wine.' 'and such a miracle god wrought verily,' cried the rabbi, grasping the physician's hand, while the synagogue resounded with cries of 'may thy strength increase,' and the gallery heaved frantically with blessings and congratulations. 'what wonder,' the physician wound up, as he bent again over the ghastly head, with its pious ringlets writhing like red snakes, 'that he fell stricken by dread of the almighty's wrath!' and while men were bearing the convulsive form without, the cantor began to recite the grace after redemption. and then the happy hymns rolled out, and the choristers cried 'pom!' and a breath of jubilant hope passed through the synagogue. the mighty hand and the outstretched arm which had redeemed israel from the egyptian bondage were still hovering over them, nor would the prophet elijah for ever delay to announce the ultimate messiah. the hirelings the hirelings i crowded as was the steamer with cultured americans invading europe, few knew that rozenoffski was on board, or even that rozenoffski was a pianist. the name, casually seen on the passengers' list, conveyed nothing but a strong russian and a vaguer semitic flavour, and the mere outward man, despite a leonine head, was of insignificant port and somewhat shuffling gait, and drew scarcely a second glance. he would not have had it otherwise, he told himself, as he paced the almost deserted deck after dinner--it was a blessing to escape from the perpetual adulation of music-sick matrons and schoolgirls--but every wounded fibre in him was yearning for consolation after his american failure. not that his fellow-passengers were aware of his failure; he had not put himself to the vulgar tests. his american expedition had followed the lines recommended to him by friendly connoisseurs--to come before the great public, if at all, only after being launched by great hostesses at small parties; to which end he had provided himself with unimpeachable introductions to unexceptionable ladies from irresistible personalities--a german grand duke, a bulgarian ambassador, countesses, both french and italian, and even a belgian princess. but to his boundless amazement--for he had always heard that americans were wax before titles--not one of the social leaders had been of the faintest assistance to him, not even the owner of the chicago palace, to whom he had been recommended by the belgian princess. he had penetrated through one or two esoteric doors, only to find himself outside them again. not once had he been asked to play. it was some weeks before it even dawned upon the minor prophet of european music-rooms that he was being shut out, still longer before it permeated to his brain that he had been shut out as a jew! those barbarous americans, so far behind europe after all! had they not even discovered that art levels all ranks and races? poor bourgeois money-mongers with their mushroom civilization. it was not even as if he were really a jew. did they imagine he wore phylacteries or earlocks, or what? his few childish years in the russian pale--what were they to the long years of european art and european culture? and even if in rome or paris he had foregathered with jews like schneemann or leopold barstein, it was to the artist in them he had gravitated, not the jew. did these yankee ignoramuses suppose he did not share their aversion from the gaberdine or the three brass balls? oh the narrow-souled anti-semites! the deck-steward stacked the chairs, piled up the forgotten rugs and novels, tidying the deck for the night, but still the embittered musician tramped to and fro under the silent stars. only from the smoking-room where the amateur auctioneer was still hilariously selling the numbers for a sweepstake, came sounds in discord with the solemnity of sky and sea, and the artist was newly jarred at this vulgar gaiety flung in the face of the spacious and starry mystery of the night. and these jocose, heavy-jowled, smoke-soused gamblers were the americans whose drawing-rooms he would contaminate! he recalled the only party to which he had been asked--'to meet the bright lights'--and which to his amazement turned out to be a quasi-public entertainment with the guests seated in rows in a hall, and himself--with the other bright lights--planted on a platform and made to perform without a fee. the mean vulgarians! but perhaps it was better they had left him untainted with their dollars--better, comparatively poor though he was, that america should have meant pure loss to him. he had at least kept the spiritual satisfaction of despising the despiser, the dignity of righteous resentment, the artist's pride in the profitless. and this riot of ugliness and diamonds and third-rate celebrities was the fashionable society to which, forsooth, the jew could not be permitted access! the aroma of an expensive cigar wafted towards him, and the face between whose prominent teeth it was stuck loomed vividly in the glare of an electric light. rozenoffski recognised those teeth. he had seen countless pictures and caricatures of them, for did they not almost hold the globe in their grip? this, then was the notorious multi-millionaire, 'the napoleon in dollars,' as a wit had summed him up; and the first sight of andrew p. wilhammer almost consoled the player for his poverty. who, even for an imperial income, would bear the burden of those grotesque teeth, protruding like a sample of wares in a dentist's showcase? but as the teeth came nearer and the great rubicund face bore down upon him, the prominence of the notorious incisors affected him less than their carnivorous capacity--he felt himself almost swallowed up by this monstrous beast of prey, so admirably equated to our small day of large things, to that environment in which he, poor degenerate artist, was but a little singing-bird. the long-forgotten word _rishus_ came suddenly into his mind--was not the man's anti-semitism as obtruded as his teeth?--_rishus_, that wicked malice, which to a persecuted people had become almost a synonym for christianity. he had left the thought behind him, as he had left the hebrew word, while he went sailing up into the rosy ether of success, and _rishus_ had sunk into the mere panic-word of the ghetto's stunted brood, shrinking and quivering before phantasms, sinuously gliding through a misunderstood world, if it was not, indeed, rather a word conveniently cloaking from themselves a multitude of their own sins. but now, as incarnated in this millionaire mammoth, the shadowy word took on a sudden solidity, to which his teeth gave the necessary tearing and rending significance. yes, in very sooth--he remembered it suddenly--was it not this man's wife on whom he had built his main hopes? was she not the leader of musical america, to whom the belgian princess had given him the scented and crested note of introduction which was to open to him all doors and all ears? was it not in her marvellous marble music-room--one of the boasts of chicago--that he had mentally seen himself enthroned as the lord of the feast? and instead of these olympian visions, lo! a typewritten note to clench his fist over--a note from a secretary regretting that the state of mrs. wilhammer's health forbade the pleasure of receiving a maestro with such credentials. _rishus--rishus_ indubitable! ii turning with morbid interest to look after the retreating millionaire, he found him in converse with a feminine figure at the open door of a deck-cabin. could this be the great she, the arbitress of art? he moved nearer. why, this was but a girl--nay, unless his instinct was at fault, a jewish girl--a glorious young jewess, of that radiant red-haired type which the russian pale occasionally flowered with. what was she doing with this christian colossus? he tried vainly to see her left hand; the mere possibility that she might be mrs. wilhammer shocked his semitic instinct. wilhammer disappeared within--the relation was obviously intimate--but the girl still stood at the door, a brooding magical figure. almost a sense of brotherhood moved him to speak to her, but he conquered the abnormal and incorrect impulse, contenting himself to walk past her with a side-glance, while at the end of the deck-promenade, instead of returning on his footsteps, he even arched his path round to the windy side. after some minutes of buffeting he returned chilled to his prior pacing ground. she was still there, but had moved under the same electric light which had illuminated wilhammer's face, and she was reading a letter. as his walk carried him past her, he was startled to see tears rolling down those radiant cheeks. a slight exclamation came involuntarily from him; the girl, even more startled to be caught thus, relaxed her grip of the letter--a puff of wind hastened to whirl it aloft. rozenoffski grasped at it desperately, but it eluded him, and then descending sailed sternwards. he gave chase, stumbling over belated chairs and deck-quoits, but at last it was safe in his clutch, and as he handed it to the agitated owner whom he found at his elbow, he noted with a thrill that the characters were cursive hebrew. 'how can i zank you, sir!' her teutonic-touched american gave him the courage to reply gallantly in german: 'by letting me help you more seriously.' '_ach, mein herr_'--she jumped responsively into german--'it was for joy i was crying, not sorrow.' as her american was germanic, so was her german like the yiddish of his remote youth, and this, adding to the sweetness of her voice, dissolved the musician's heart within his breast. he noted now with satisfaction that her fingers were bare of rings. 'then i am rejoiced too,' he ventured to reply. she smiled pathetically, and began to walk back towards her cabin. 'with us jews,' she said, 'tears and laughter are very close.' 'us jews!' he winced a little. it was so long since he had been thus classed to his face by a stranger. but perhaps he had misinterpreted her phrase; it was her way of referring to _her_ race, not necessarily to _his_. 'it is a beautiful night,' he murmured uneasily. but he only opened wider the flood-gates of race-feeling. 'yes,' she replied simply, 'and such a heaven of stars is beginning to arise over the night of israel. is it not wonderful--the transformation of our people? when i left russia as a girl--so young,' she interpolated with a sad smile, 'that i had not even been married--i left a priest-ridden, paralysed people, a cringing, cowering, contorted people--i shall never forget the panic in our synagogue when a troop of cossacks rode in with a bogus blood-accusation. now it is a people alive with ideas and volitions; the young generation dreams noble dreams, and, what is stranger, dies to execute them. our _bund_ is the soul of the russian revolution; our self-defence bands are bringing back the days of judas maccabæus. in the olden times of massacre our people fled to the synagogues to pray; now they march to the fight like men.' they had arrived at her door, and she ended suddenly. the musician, fascinated, feared she was about to fade away within. 'but jews can't fight!' he cried, half-incredulous, half to arrest her. 'not fight!' she held up the hebrew letter. 'they have scouts, ambulance corps, orderlies, surgeons, everything--my cousin david ben amram, who is little more than a boy, was told off to defend a large three-story house inhabited by the families of factory-labourers who were at work when the _pogrom_ broke out. the poor frenzied women and children had barricaded themselves within at the first rumour, and hidden themselves in cellars and attics. my cousin had to climb to their defence over the neighbouring tiles and through a window in the roof. soon the house was besieged by police, troops, and hooligans in devilish league. with his one browning revolver david held them all at bay, firing from every window of the house in turn, so as to give the besiegers an impression of a large defensive force. at last his cartridges were exhausted--to procure cartridges is the greatest difficulty of our self-defence corps--they began battering in the big front-door. david, seeing further resistance was useless, calmly drew back the bolts, to the mob's amaze, and, as it poured in, he cried: 'back! back! they have bombs!' and rushed into the street, as if to escape the explosion. the others followed wildly, and in the panic david ran down a dark alley, and disappeared in search of a new post of defence. though the door stood open, and the cowering inhabitants were at their mercy, the assailants, afraid to enter, remained for over an hour at a safe distance firing at the house, till it was riddled with bullets. they counted nearly two hundred the next day, embedded in the walls or strewn about the rooms. and not a thing had been stolen--not a hooligan had dared enter. but david is only a type of the young generation--there are hundreds of davids equally ready to take the field against goliath. and shall i not rejoice, shall i not exult even unto tears?' her eyes glowed, and the musician was kindled to equal fire. it seemed to him less a girl who was speaking than truth and purity and some dead muse of his own. 'the pale that i left,' she went on, 'was truly a prison. but now--now it will be the forging-place of a regenerated people! oh, i am counting the days till i can be back!' 'you are going back to russia!' he gasped. he had the sensation of cold steel passing through his heart. the _pogroms_, which had been as remote to him as the squabbles of savages in central africa, became suddenly vivid and near. and even vivider and nearer that greater danger--the heroic cousin david! 'how can i live away from russia at such a moment?' she answered quietly. 'who or what needs me in america?' 'but to be massacred!' he cried incoherently. she smiled radiantly. 'to live and die with my own people.' the fire in his veins seemed upleaping in a sublime jet; he was like to crying, 'thy people shall be my people,' but all he found himself saying was, 'you must not, you must not; what can a girl like you do?' a bell rang sharply from the cabin. 'i must go to my mistress. _gute nacht, mein herr!_' his flame sank to sudden ashes. only mrs. wilhammer's hireling! iii the wind freshened towards the middle of the night, and rozenoffski, rocking in his berth, cursed his encounter with the red-haired romanticist who had stirred up such a pother in his brain that he had not been able to fall asleep while the water was still calm. not that he suffered physically from the sea; he was merely afraid of it. the shuddering and groaning of the ship found an echo in his soul. he could not shake off the conviction that he was doomed to drown. at intervals, during the tedious night, he found forgetfulness in translating into sound his sense of the mystic, masterless waste in which the continents swim like islands, but music was soon swallowed up in terror. 'no,' he sighed, with a touch of self-mockery. 'when i am safe on shore again, i shall weave my symphony of the sea.' sleep came at last, but only to perturb him with a jewish joan of arc who--turned admiral--recaptured zion from her battleship, to the sound of psalms droned by his dead grandfather. and, though he did not see her the next day, and was, indeed, rather glad not to meet a lady's maid in the unromantic daylight, the restlessness she had engendered remained, replacing the settled bitterness which was all he had brought back from america. in the afternoon this restlessness drove him to the piano in the deserted dining-hall, and his fever sought to work itself off in a fury of practice. but the inner turbulence persisted, and the new thoughts clung round the old music. he was playing schumann's _fantasiestücke_, but through the stormy passion of _in der nacht_ he saw the red hair of the heroic jewess, and into the wistful, questioning _warum_ insinuated itself not the world-question, but the jewish question--the sad, unending jewish question--surging up again and again in every part of the globe, as schumann's theme in every part of the piano--the same haunting musical figure, never the same notes exactly, yet essentially always the same, the wistful, questioning _warum_. why all this ceaseless sorrow, this footsore wandering, this rootless life, this eternal curse? suddenly he became aware that he was no longer alone--forms were seated at the tables on the fixed dining-chairs, though there was no meal but his music; and as he played on, with swift side-peeps, other fellow-passengers entered into his consciousness, some standing about, others hovering on the stairs, and still others stealing in on reverent tip-toe and taking favourable seats. his breast filled with bitter satisfaction. so they had to come, the arrogant americans; they had to swarm like rats to the pied piper. he could draw them at will, the haughty heathen--draw them by the magic of his finger-touch on pieces of ivory. lo, they were coming, more and more of them! through the corner of his eye he espied the figures drifting in from the corridors, peering in spellbound at the doors. with a great crash on the keys, he shook off his morbid mood, and plunged into scarlatti's sonata in a, his fingers frolicking all over the board, bent on a dominating exhibition of technique. as he stopped, there was a storm of hand-clapping. rozenoffski gave a masterly start of surprise, and turned his leonine head in dazed bewilderment. was he not then alone? '_gott im himmel!_' he murmured, and, furiously banging down the piano-lid, stalked from these presumptuous mortals who had jarred the artist's soliloquy. but the next afternoon found him again at the public piano, devoting all the magic of his genius to charming a contemptible christendom. he gave them beethoven and bach, paradies and tschaikowski, unrolled to them the vast treasures of his art and memory. and very soon, lo! the christian rats were pattering back again, only more wisely and cautiously. they came crawling from every part of the ship's compass. newcomers were warned whisperingly to keep from applause. in vain. an enraptured greenhorn shouted 'encore!' the musician awoke from his trance, stared dreamily at the philistines; then, as the presence of listeners registered itself upon his expressive countenance, he rose again--but this time as more in sorrow than in anger--and stalked sublimely up the swarming stairs. it became a tradition to post guards at the doors to warn all comers as to the habits of the great unknown, who could only beat his music out if he imagined himself unheard. scouts watched his afternoon advance upon the piano in an empty hall, and the word was passed to the little army of music-lovers. silently the rats gathered, scurrying in on noiseless paws, stealing into the chairs, swarming about the doorways, pricking up their ears in the corridors. and through the awful hush rose the master's silvery notes in rapturous self-oblivion till the day began to wane, and the stewards to appear with the tea-cups. and the larger his audience grew, the fiercer grew his resentment against this complacent christendom which took so much from the jew and gave so little. 'shylocks!' he would mutter between his clenched teeth as he played--'shylocks all!' iv with no less punctuality did rozenoffski pace the silent deck each night in the hope of again meeting the red-haired jewess. he had soon recovered from her menial office; indeed, the paradox of her position in so anti-semitic a household quickened his interest in her. he wondered if she ever listened to his playing, or had realized that she had entertained an angel unawares. but three nights passed without glimpse of her. nor was her mistress more visible. the wilhammers kept royally to themselves in their palatial suite, though the husband sometimes deigned to parade his fangs in the smoking-room, where with the luck of the rich he won heavily in the pools. it was not till the penultimate night of the voyage that rozenoffski caught his second glimpse of his red-haired muse. he had started his nocturnal pacing much earlier than usual, for the inevitable concert on behalf of marine charities had sucked the loungers from their steamer-chairs. he had himself, of course, been approached by the programme-organizer, a bouncing actress from 'frisco, with an irresistible air, but he had defeated her hopelessly with the mysterious sarcasm: 'to meet the bright lights?' and his reward was to have the deck and the heavens almost to himself, and presently to find the stars outgleamed by a girl's hair. yes, there she was, gazing pensively forth from the cabin window. he guessed the mistress was out for once--presumably at the concert. his heart beat faster as he came to a standstill, yet the reminder that she was a lady's maid brought an involuntary note of condescension into his voice. 'i hope mrs. wilhammer hasn't been keeping you too imprisoned?' he said. she smiled faintly. 'not so close as neptune has kept her.' 'ill?' he said, with a shade of malicious satisfaction. 'it is curious and even consoling to see the limitations of croesus,' she replied. 'but she is lucky--she just recovered in time.' 'in time for what?' 'can't you hear?' indeed, the shrill notes of an amateur soprano had been rending the air throughout, but they had scarcely penetrated through his exaltation. he now shuddered. 'do you mean it is she singing?' the girl laughed outright. 'she sing! no, no, she is a sensitive receiver. she receives; she gives out nothing. she exploits her soul as her husband exploits the globe. there isn't a sensation or an emotion she denies herself--unless it is painful. it was to escape the concert that she has left her couch--and sought refuge in a friend's cabin. you see, here sound travels straight from the dining-hall, and a false note, she says, gives her nerve-ache.' 'then she can't return till the close of the concert,' he said eagerly. 'won't you come outside and walk a bit under this beautiful moon?' she came out without a word, with the simplicity of a comrade. 'yes, it is a beautiful night,' she said, 'and very soon i shall be in russia.' 'but is mrs. wilhammer going to russia, then?' he asked, with a sudden thought, wondering that it had never occurred to him before. 'of course not! i only joined her for this voyage. i have to work my passage, you see, and providence, on the eve of sailing, robbed mrs. wilhammer of her maid.' 'oh!' he murmured in relief. his red-haired muse was going back to her social pedestal. 'but you must have found it humiliating,' he said. 'humiliating?' she laughed cheerfully. 'why more than manicuring her?' the muse shivered again on the pedestal. 'manicuring?' he echoed in dismay. 'sure!' she laughed in american. 'when, after a course of starvation and medicine at berne university, i found i had to get a new degree for america....' 'you are a doctor?' he interrupted. 'and, therefore, peculiarly serviceable as a ship-maid.' she smiled again, and her smile in the moonlight reminded him of a rippling passage of chopin. prosaic enough, however, was what she went on to tell him of her struggle for life by day and for learning by night. 'of course, i could only attend the night medical school. i lived by lining cloaks with fur; my bed was the corner of a room inhabited by a whole family. a would-be graduate could not be seen with bundles; for fetching and carrying the work my good landlady extorted twenty cents to the dollar. when the fur season was slack i cooked in a restaurant, worked a typewriter, became a "hello girl"--at a telephone, you know--reported murder cases--anything, everything.' 'manicuring,' he recalled tenderly. 'manicuring,' she repeated smilingly. 'and you ask me if it is humiliating to wait upon an artistic sea-sick lady!' 'artistic!' he sneered. his heart was full of pity and indignation. 'as surely as sea-sick!' she rejoined laughingly. 'why are you prejudiced against her?' he flushed. 'prej-prejudiced?' he stammered. 'why should i be prejudiced? from all i hear it's she that's prejudiced. it's a wonder she took a jewess into her service.' 'where's the wonder? don't the southerners have negro servants?' she asked quietly. his flush deepened. 'you compare jews to negroes!' 'i apologize to the negroes. the blacks have at least liberia. there is a black president, a black parliament. we have nothing, nothing!' 'we!' again that ambiguous plural. but he still instinctively evaded co-classification. 'nothing?' he retorted. 'i should have said everything. every gift of genius that nature can shower from her cornucopia.' 'jewish geniuses!' her voice had a stinging inflection. 'don't talk to me of our geniuses; it is they that have betrayed us. every other people has its great men; but our great men--they belong to every other people. the world absorbs our sap, and damns us for our putrid remains. our best must pipe alien tunes and dance to the measures of the heathen. they build and paint; they write and legislate. but never a song of israel do they fashion, nor a picture of israel, nor a law of israel, nor a temple of israel. bah! what are they but hirelings?' again the passion of her patriotism uplifted and enkindled him. yes, it was true. he, too, was but a hireling. but he would become a master; he would go back--back to the ghetto, and this noble jewess should be his mate. thank god he had kept himself free for her. but ere he could pour out his soul, the bouncing san franciscan actress appeared suddenly at his elbow, risking a last desperate assault, discharging a pathetic tale of a comedian with a cold. rozenoffski repelled the attack savagely, but before he could exhaust the enemy's volubility his red-haired companion had given him a friendly nod and smile, and retreated into her shrine of duty. v he spent a sleepless but happy night, planning out their future together; her redemption from her hireling status, their joint work for their people. he was no longer afraid of the sea. he was afraid of nothing--not even of the _pogroms_ that awaited them in russia. russia itself became dear to him again--the beautiful land of his boyhood, whose birds and whispering leaves and waters had made his earliest music. but dearer than all resurged his jewish memories. when he went almost mechanically to the piano on the last afternoon, all these slumbering forces wakened in him found vent in a rhapsody of synagogue melody to which he abandoned himself, for once forgetting his audience. when gradually he became aware of the incongruity, it did but intensify his inspiration. let the heathen rats wallow in hebrew music! but soon all self-consciousness passed away again, drowned in his deeper self. it was a strange fantasia that poured itself through his obedient fingers; it held the wistful chants of ancient ritual, the festival roulades and plaintive yearnings of melodious cantors, the sing-song augmentation of talmud-students oscillating in airless study-houses, the long, melancholy drone of psalm-singers in darkening sabbath twilights, the rustle of palm-branches and sobbings of penitence, the long-drawn notes of the ram's horn pealing through the terrible days, the passionate proclamation of the unity, storming the gates of heaven. and fused with these merely physical memories, there flowed into the music the peace of sabbath evenings and shining candles, the love and wonder of childhood's faith, the fantasy of rabbinic legend, the weirdness of penitential prayers in raw winter dawns, the holy joy of the promised zion, when god would wipe away the tears from all faces. there were tears to be wiped from his own face when he ended, and he wiped them brazenly, unresentful of the frenzied approval of the audience, which now let itself go, out of stored-up gratitude, and because this must be the last performance. all his vanity, his artistic posing, was swallowed up in utter sincerity. he did not shut the piano; he sat brooding a moment or two in tender reverie. suddenly he perceived his red-haired muse at his side. ah, she had discovered him at last, knew him simultaneously for the genius and the patriot, was come to pour out her soul at his feet. but why was she mute? why was she tendering this scented letter? was it because she could not trust herself to speak before the crowd? he tore open the delicate envelope. _himmel!_ what was this? would the maestro honour mrs. wilhammer by taking tea in her cabin? he stared dazedly at the girl, who remained respectful and silent. 'did you not hear what i was playing?' he murmured. 'oh yes--a synagogue medley,' she replied quietly. 'they publish it on the east side, _nicht wahr_?' 'east side?' he was outraged. 'i know nothing of east side.' her absolute unconsciousness of his spiritual tumult, her stolidity before this spectacle of his triumphant genius, her matter-of-fact acceptance of his racial affinity, her refusal to be impressed by the heroism of a hebrew pianoforte solo, all she said and did not say, jarred upon his quivering nerves, chilled his high emotion. 'will you say i shall have much pleasure?' he added coldly. the red-haired maid nodded and was gone. rozenoffski went mechanically to his cabin, scarcely seeing the worshippers he plodded through; presently he became aware that he was changing his linen, brushing his best frock-coat, thrilling with pleasurable excitement. anon he was tapping at the well-known door. a voice--of another sweetness--cried 'come!' and instantly he had the sensation that his touch on the handle had launched upon him, as by some elaborate electric contrivance, a tall and beautiful american, a rustling tea-gown, a shimmer of rings, a reek of patchouli, and a flood of compliment. 'so delightful of you to come--i know you men of genius are _farouches_--it was awfully insolent of me, i know, but you have forgiven me, haven't you?' 'the pleasure is mine, gracious lady,' he murmured in german. '_ach_, so you are a german,' she replied in the same tongue. 'i thought no american or englishman could have so much divine fire. you see, _mein herr_, i do not even know your name--only your genius. every afternoon i have lain here, lapped in your music, but i might never have had the courage to thank you had you not played that marvellous thing just now--such delicious heartbreak, such adorable gaiety, and now and then the thunder of the gods! i'm afraid you'll think me very ignorant--it wasn't grieg, was it?' he looked uncomfortable. 'nothing so good, i fear--a mere impromptu of my own.' 'your own!' she clapped her jewelled hands in girlish delight. 'oh, where can i get it?' 'east side,' some mocking demon tried to reply; but he crushed her down, and replied uneasily: 'you can't get it. it just came to me this afternoon. it came--and it has gone.' 'what a pity!' but she was visibly impressed by this fecundity and riotous extravagance of genius. 'i do hope you will try to remember it.' 'impossible--it was just a mood.' 'and to think of all the other moods i seem to have missed! why have i not heard you in america?' he grew red. 'i--i haven't been playing there,' he murmured. 'you see, i'm not much known outside a few european circles.' then, summoning up all his courage, he threw down his name 'rozenoffski' like a bomb, and the red of his cheeks changed to the pallor of apprehension. but no explosion followed, save of enthusiasm. evidently, the episode so lurid to his own memory, had left no impress on hers. 'oh, but america _must_ know you, herr rozenoffski. you must promise me to come back in the fall, give me the glory of launching you.' and, seeing the cloud on his face, she cried: 'you must, you must, you must!' clapping her hands at each 'must.' he hesitated, distracted between rapture and anxiety lest she should remember. 'you have never heard of me, of course,' she persisted humbly; 'but positively everybody has played at my house in chicago.' '_ach so!_' he muttered. had he perhaps misinterpreted and magnified the attitude of these americans? was it possible that mrs. wilhammer had really been too ill to see him? she looked frail and feverish behind all her brilliant beauty. or had she not even seen his letter? had her secretary presumed to guard her from semitic invaders? or was she deliberately choosing to forget and forgive his jewishness? in any case, best let sleeping dogs lie. he was being sought; it would be the silliest of social blunders to recall that he had already been rejected. 'it is years since chicago had a real musical sensation,' pleaded the temptress. 'i'm afraid my engagements will not permit me to return this autumn,' he replied tactfully. 'do you take sugar?' she retorted unexpectedly; then, as she handed him his cup, she smiled archly into his eyes. 'you can't shake me off, you know; i shall follow you about europe--to all your concerts.' when he left her--after inscribing his autograph, his permanent munich address, and the earliest possible date for his chicago concert, in a dainty diary brought in by her red-haired maid--his whole being was swelling, expanding. he had burst the coils of this narrow tribalism that had suddenly retwined itself round him; he had got back again from the fusty conventicles and the sunless ghettos--back to spacious salons and radiant hostesses and the great free life of art. he drew deep breaths of sea-air as he paced the deck, strewn so thickly with pleasant passengers to whom he felt drawn in a renewed sense of the human brotherhood. _rishus_, forsooth! samooborona samooborona i milovka was to be the next place reddened on the map of holy russia. the news of the projected jewish massacre in this little polish town travelled to the _samooborona_ (self-defence) headquarters in southern russia through the indiscretion of a village pope who had had a drop of blood too much. it appeared that milovka, though remote from the great centres of disturbance, had begun to seethe with political activity, and even to publish a newspaper, so that it was necessary to show by a first-class massacre that true russian men were still loyal to god and the czar. milovka lay off the _pogrom_ route, and had not of itself caught the contagion; careful injection of the virus was necessary. moreover, the town was two-thirds jewish, and consequently harder to fever with the lust of jewish blood. but in revenge the _pogrom_ would be easier; the jewish quarter formed a practically separate town; no asking of _dvorniks_ (janitors) to point out the jewish apartments, no arming one's self with photographs of the victims; one had but to run amuck among these low wooden houses, the humblest of which doubtless oozed with inexhaustible subterranean wealth. david ben amram was hurriedly despatched to milovka to organize a local self-defence corps. he carried as many pistols as could be stowed away in a violin-case, which, with a music-roll holding cartridges, was an obtrusive feature of his luggage. the winter was just beginning, but mildly. the sun shone over the broad plains, and as david's train carried him towards milovka, his heart swelled with thoughts of the maccabean deeds to be wrought there by a regenerated young israel. but the journey was long. towards the end he got into conversation with an old russian peasant who, so far from sharing in the general political effervescence, made a long lament over the good old days of serfdom. 'then, one had not to think--one ate and drank. now, it is all toil and trouble.' 'but you were whipped at your lord's pleasure,' david reminded him. 'he was a nobleman,' retorted the peasant with dignity. david fell silent. the jew, too, had grown to kiss the rod. but it was not even a nobleman's rod; any moujik, any hooligan, could wield it. but, thank heaven, this breed of jew was passing away--killed by the _pogroms_. it was their one virtue. at the station he hired a ramshackle droshky, and told his jewish driver to take him to the best inn. seated astride the old-fashioned bench of the vehicle, and grasping his violin-case like a loving musician, as they jolted over the rough roads, he broached the subject of the jewish massacres. '_bê!_' commented the driver, shrugging his shoulders. 'we are in _goluth_ (exile)!' he spoke with resignation, but not with apprehension, and david perceived at once that milovka would not be easy to arouse. as every man thought every other man mortal, so milovka regarded the massacres as a terrible reality--for other towns. it was no longer even shocked; kishineff had been a horror almost beyond belief, but jew-massacres had since become part of the natural order, which babes were born into. ii the landlord shook his head. 'all our rooms are full.' david, still hugging his violin-case, looked at the dirty, mustard-smeared tablecloth on the long table, and at the host's brats playing on the floor. if this was the best, what in heaven's name awaited him elsewhere? 'for how long?' he asked. the landlord shrugged his shoulders like the driver. 'am i the all-knowing?' he wore a black velvet cap, but not with the apex that would have professed piety. its square cut indicated to the younger generation that he was a man of the world, in touch with the times; to the old its material and hue afforded sufficient guarantee of ritual orthodoxy. he was a true host, the friend of all who eat and drink. 'but how many rooms have you?' inquired david. 'and how many shall i have but one?' protested the landlord. 'only one room!' david turned upon the driver. 'and you said this was the best inn! i suppose it's your brother-in-law's.' 'and what do i make out of it, if it is?' answered the driver. 'you see he can't take you.' 'then why did you bring me?' 'because there is no room anywhere else either.' 'what!' david stared. 'law of moses!' corroborated the landlord good-humouredly, 'you've just come at the recruiting. the young men have flocked here from all the neighbouring villages to draw their numbers. there are heathen peasants in all the jewish inns--eating _kosher_,' he added with a chuckle. david frowned. but he reflected instantly that if this was so, the _pogrom_ would probably be postponed till the christian conscripts had been packed off to their regiments or the lucky ones back to their villages. he would have time, therefore, to organize his jewish corps. yes, he reflected in grim amusement, russia and he would be recruiting simultaneously. still, where was he to sleep? 'you can have the _lezhanka_,' said the host, following his thoughts. david looked ruefully at the high stove. well, there were worse beds in winter than the top of a stove. and perhaps to bestow himself and his violin in such very public quarters would be the safest way of diverting police attention. 'conspirators, please copy,' he thought, with a smile. anyhow, he was very tired. he could refresh himself here; the day was yet young; time enough to find a better lodging. 'bring in the luggage,' he said resignedly. 'tea?' said the host, hovering over the samovar. 'haven't you a drop of vodka?' the landlord held up hands of horror. '_monopolka?_' (monopoly), he cried. 'haven't they left any jewish licenses?' asked david. 'not unless one mixed holy water with the vodka, like the baptized benjamin,' said the landlord with grim humour. he added hastily: 'but his inn is even fuller than mine, four beds in the room.' it appeared that the dinner was already over, and david could obtain nothing but half-warmed remains. however, hunger and hope gave sauce to the miserable meal, and he profited by the absence of custom to pump the landlord anent the leading citizens. 'but you will not get violin lessons from any of them,' his host warned him. 'tinowitz the corn-factor has daughters who are said to read christian story-books, but is it likely he will risk their falling in love with a young man whose hair and clothes are cut like a christian's? not that i share his prejudices, of course. i have seen the great world, and understand that it is possible to carry a handkerchief on the sabbath and still be a good man.' 'i haven't come to give lessons in music,' said david bluntly, 'but in shooting.' 'shooting?' the landlord stared. 'aren't you a jew, then, sir? i beg your pardon.' his voice had suddenly taken on the same ring as when he addressed the _poritz_ (polish nobleman). his oleaginous familiarity was gone. '_salachti!_' (i have forgiven), said david in hebrew, and laughed at the man's bemused visage. 'don't you think, considering what has been happening, it is high time the jews of milovka learned to shoot?' the landlord looked involuntarily round the room for a possible spy. 'guard your tongue!' he murmured, terror-stricken. david laughed on. 'you, my friend, shall be my first pupil.' 'god forbid! and i must beg you to find other lodgings.' david smiled grimly at this first response to his mission. 'i dare say i shall find another stove,' he said cheerfully--at which the landlord, who had never in his life taken such a decisive step, began to think he had gone too far. 'you will take the advice of a man who knows the world,' he said in a tone of compromise, 'and throw all those crazy notions into the river where you cast your sins at new year. a young, fine-looking man like you! why, i can find you a _shidduch_ (marriage) that will keep you in clover the rest of your life.' 'ha! ha! ha! how do you know i'm not married?' 'married men don't go shooting so lightheartedly. come, let me take you in hand; my commission is a very small percentage of the dowry.' 'ah, so you're a regular _shadchan_' (marriage-broker). 'and how else should i live? do you think i get fat on this inn? but people stay here from all towns around; i get to know a great circle of marriageable parties. i can show you a much larger stock than the ordinary _shadchan_.' 'but i am so _link_' (irreligious). '_nu!_ let your ear-locks grow--the dowry grows with them.' mine host had quite recovered his greasy familiarity. 'i can't wait for my locks to grow,' said david, with a sudden thought. 'but if you care to introduce me to tinowitz, you will not fail to profit by it, if the thing turns out well.' the landlord rubbed his hands. 'now you speak like a sage.' iii tinowitz read the landlord's hebrew note, and surveyed the suitor disapprovingly. and disapproval did not improve his face--a face in whose grotesque features david read a possible explanation of his surplus stock of daughters. 'i cannot say i am very taken with you,' the corn-factor said. 'nor is it possible to give you my youngest daughter. i have other plans. even the eldest----' david waved his hand. 'i told my landlord as much. am i a talmud-sage that i should thus aspire? forgive and forget my _chutzpah_ (impudence)!' 'but the eldest--perhaps--with a smaller dowry----' 'to tell the truth, _panie_ tinowitz, it was the landlord who turned my head with false hopes. i came here not to promote marriages, but to prevent funerals!' the corn-factor gasped, 'funerals!' 'a _pogrom_ is threatened----' 'open not your mouth to satan!' reprimanded tinowitz, growing livid. 'if you prefer silence and slaughter----' said david, with a shrug. 'it is impossible--here!' 'and why not here, as well as in the six hundred and thirty-eight other towns?' 'in those towns there must have been bad blood; here jew and russian live together like brothers.' 'cain and abel were brothers. there were many peaceful years while cain tilled the ground and abel pastured his sheep.' the biblical reference was more convincing to tinowitz than a wilderness of arguments. 'then, what do you propose?' came from his white lips. 'to form a branch of the _samooborona_. you must first summon a meeting of householders.' 'what for?' 'for a general committee--and for the expenses.' 'but how can we hold a meeting? the police----' 'there's the synagogue.' 'profane the synagogue!' 'did not the jews always fly to the synagogue when there was danger?' 'yes, but to pray.' 'we will pray by pistol.' 'guard your tongue!' 'guard your daughters.' 'the uppermost will guard them.' 'the uppermost guards them through me, as he feeds them through you. for the last time i ask you, will you or will you not summon me a meeting of householders?' 'you rush like a wild horse. i thank heaven you will _not_ be my son-in-law.' tinowitz ended by demanding time to think it over. david was to call the next day. when, after a sleepless night on the stove, he betook himself to the corn-factor's house, he found it barred and shuttered. the neighbours reported that tinowitz had gone off on sudden business, taking his wife and daughters with him for a little jaunt. iv the flight of tinowitz brought two compensations, however. david was promoted from the stove to the bedroom. for the lodger he replaced had likewise departed hurriedly, and when it transpired that the landlord had betrothed this young man to the second of the tinowitz girls, david divined that the corn-factor had made sure of a son-in-law. his other compensation was to find in the remaining bed a strapping young jew named ezekiel leven, who had come up from an outlying village for the military lottery, and who proved to be a carl after his own heart. half the night the young heroes planned the deeds of derringdo they might do for their people. ezekiel leven was indeed an ideal lieutenant, for he belonged to one of the rare farming colonies, and was already handy with his gun. he had even some kinsfolk in milovka, and by their aid the rabbi and a few householders were hurriedly prevailed upon to assemble in the bedroom on a business declared important. ezekiel himself must, unfortunately, be away at the drawing, but he promised to hasten back to the meeting. each member strolled in casually, ordered a glass of tea, and drifted upstairs. the landlord, uneasily sniffing peril and profit, and dismally apprehending pistol lessons, left the inn to his wife, and stole up likewise to the fateful bedroom. here, after protesting fearfully that they would ruin him by this conspirative meeting, he added that he was not out of sympathy with the times, and volunteered to stand sentinel. accordingly, he was posted at the ragged window-curtain, where, with excess of caution, he signalled whenever he saw a christian, in uniform or no. at every signal david's oratory ceased as suddenly as if it had been turned off at the main, and the gaberdined figures, distributed over the two beds and the one chair, gripped one another nervously. but david was used to oratory under difficulties. he lived on the same terms with the police as the most desperate criminals, and a foreigner who should have witnessed the secret meetings at which tactics were discussed, arms distributed, scouts despatched, and night-watches posted, would have imagined him engaged in a rebellion instead of in an attempt to strengthen the forces of law and order. he had come to milovka, he explained, to warn them that the black hundreds were soon to be loosed upon the jewish quarter. but no longer must the jew go like a lamb to the shambles. too long, when smitten, had he turned the other cheek, only to get it smitten too. they must defend themselves. he was there to form a branch of the _samooborona_. browning revolvers must be purchased. the wood-choppers must be organized as a column of axe-bearers. there would be needed also an ambulance corps, with bandages, dressings, etc. the shudder at the first mention of the _pogrom_ was not so violent as that which followed the mention of bandages. each man felt warm blood trickling down his limbs. to what end, then, had he escaped the conscription? the landlord at the window wiped the cold beads off his brow, and was surprised to find his hand not scarlet. 'brethren,' koski the timber-merchant burst out, 'this is a haman in disguise. to hold firearms is the surest way of provoking----' 'i don't say _you_ shall hold firearms!' david interrupted. 'it is your young men who must defend the town. but the _kahal_ (congregation) must pay the expenses--say, ten thousand roubles to start with.' 'ten thousand roubles for a few pistols!' cried mendel the horse-dealer. 'it is a swindle.' david flushed. 'we have to buy three pistols for every one we get safely into the town. but one revolver may save ten thousand roubles of property, not to mention your life.' 'it will end our lives, not save them!' persisted the timber-merchant. 'this is a plot to destroy us!' a growl of assent burst from the others. 'my friends,' said david quietly. 'a plot to destroy you has already been hatched; the question is, are you going to be destroyed like rats or like men?' 'pooh!' said the horse-dealer. 'this is not the first time we have been threatened, if not with death, at least with extra taxes; but we have always sent _shtadlonim_ (ambassadors). we will make a collection, and the president of the _kahal_ shall go at once to the governor, and present it to him'--here mendel winked--'to enable him to take measures against the _pogrom_.' 'the governor is in the plot,' said david. 'he can be bought out,' said the timber-merchant. '_pogroms_ are more profitable than presents,' rejoined david drily. 'let us rather prepare bombs.' a fresh shudder traversed the beds and the chairs, and agitated the window-curtain. 'bombs! presents!' burst forth the old rabbi. 'these are godless instruments. we are in the hands of the holy one--blessed be he! the _shomer_ (guardian) of israel neither slumbereth nor sleepeth.' 'neither does the _shochet_ (slaughterer) of israel,' said david savagely. 'hush! epicurean!' came from every quarter at this grim jest; for the _shomer_ and the _shochet_ are the official twain of ritual butchery. the landlord, seeing how the tide was turning, added, 'brazen _marshallik_ (buffoon)!' 'i will appoint a day of fasting and prayer,' concluded the rabbi solemnly. a breath of reassurance wafted through the room. 'and i, rabbi,' said gütels the grocer, 'will supply the synagogue with candles to equal in length the graves of all your predecessors.' 'may thy strength increase, gütels!' came the universal gratitude, and the landlord at the window-curtain drew a great sigh of relief. 'still, gentlemen,' he said, 'if i may intrude my humble opinion--reb mendel's advice is also good. god is, of course, our only protection. but there can be no harm in getting, _lehavdil_ (not to compare them), the governor's protection too.' 'true, true.' and the faces grew still cheerier. 'in god's name, wake up!' david burst forth. 'in _samooborona_ lies your only salvation. give the money to us, not to the governor. we can meet and practise in your talmud-torah hall!' 'the holy hall of study!' gasped the rabbi. 'given over to unlawful meetings!' 'the hooligans will meet there, if you don't,' said david grimly. 'don't you see it is the safest place for us? the police associate it only with learned weaklings.' 'hush, haman!' said the timber-merchant, and rose to go. david's voice changed to passion; memories of things he had seen came over him as in a red mist: an old man scalped with a sharp ladle; a white-hot poker driven through a woman's eye; a baby's skull ground under a true russian's heel. 'bourgeois!' he thundered, 'i will save you despite yourselves.' the landlord signalled in a frenzy, but david continued recklessly, 'will you never learn manli----' they flung themselves upon him in a panic, and held him hand-gagged and struggling upon the bed. suddenly a new figure burst into the room. there was a blood-freezing instant in which all gave themselves up for lost. their grip on david relaxed. then the mist cleared, and they saw it was only ezekiel leven. 'blessed art thou who comest!' cried david, jumping to his feet. 'you and i, ezekiel, will save milovka.' 'alas!' ezekiel groaned. 'i drew a low number--i go to fight for russia.' v fifteen thousand roubles were soon collected for the governor, but even before they were presented to him the rabbi, in mortal terror of that firebrand of a david, had rushed to inquire whether self-defence was legal, and might the talmud-torah hall be legitimately used for drilling. sharp came an order that jews found with firearms or in conclave for non-religious purposes should be summarily shot. and so, when the _shtadlonim_ arrived with the fifteen thousand roubles, the governor was able to point out severely that if a _pogrom_ did occur they would have only themselves to blame. the jews of milovka had begun to carry pistols like revolutionaries; they planned illegal assemblies in halls; was it to be wondered at if the league of true russians grew restive? however, he would do his best with these inadequate roubles to have extra precautions taken, but let them root out the evil weeds that had sprung up in their midst, else even his authority might be overborne by the righteous indignation of the loyal children of the little father. tremblingly the ambassadors crept back with their empty money-bags. poor david now found it impossible to get anybody to a meeting. his landlord had forbidden any more gatherings in the inn, and his original audience would have called as a deputation upon david to beg him to withdraw from the town, but that might have been considered a conspirative meeting. so one of the ambassadors was sent to inform the landlord instead. 'don't you think i've already ordered him off my premises?' 'but he is still here!' 'alas! he threatens to shoot me--or anybody who _massers_ (informs),' said the poor landlord. the ambassador shivered. 'as if i would betray a brother-in-israel!' added the landlord reproachfully. 'no, no--of course not,' said the ambassador. 'these fellows are best left alone; they wear fuses under their waistcoats instead of _tsitsith_ (ritual fringes). let us hope, however, a sudden death may rid us of him.' 'amen,' said the landlord fervently. not that david had any reason for clinging to so squalid a hostel. but his blood was up, and he took a malicious pleasure in inflicting his perilous presence upon his prudential host. reduced now to buttonholing individuals, he consoled himself with the thought that the population was best tackled by units. one fool or coward was enough to infect or betray a whole gathering. still intent on the sinews of war, he sallied out after breakfast, and approached erbstein the banker. erbstein held up his hands. 'but i've just given a thousand roubles to guard us from a _pogrom_!' 'that was for the governor. give me only a hundred for self-defence.' the banker puffed tranquilly at his big cigar. 'but our rights are bound to come in the end. we can only get them gradually. full rights now are nonsense--impossible. it is bad tactics to ask for what you cannot get. only in common with russia can our emancipation----' 'i am not talking of our rights, but of our lives.' david grew impatient. being a banker, erbstein never listened, though he invariably replied. his success in finance had made him an authority upon religion and politics. 'trust the octobrists,' he said cheerily. 'i'd rather trust our revolvers.' the banker's cigar fell from his mouth. 'an anarchist! like my nephew simon!' david began to realize the limitations of the financial intellect. he saw that to get ideas into bankers' brains is even more difficult than to get cheques from their pockets. still, there was that promising scapegrace simon! he hurried out on his scent, and ran him to earth in a cosy house near the town gate. simon practised law, it appeared, and his surname was rubensky. the young barrister, informed of his uncle's accusation of anarchism, laughed contemptuously. 'bourgeois! every idea that makes no money he calls anarchy. as a matter of fact, i'm the exact opposite of an anarchist: i'm a socialist. i belong to the p.p.s. we're not even revolutionary like the s.r.'s.' 'i'm afraid i'm a great ignoramus,' said david. 'i don't even know what all these letters stand for.' simon rubensky looked pityingly as at a bourgeois. 's.r.'s are the silly social revolutionists; i belong to the polish party of socialism.' 'ah!' said david, with an air of comprehension. 'and i belong to the jewish party of self-defence! i hope you'll join it too.' the young lawyer shook his head. 'a separate jewish party! no, no! that would be putting back the clock of history. the non-isolation of the jew is an unconditional historic necessity. our emancipation must be worked out in common with russia's.' 'oh, then you agree with your uncle!' 'with that bourgeois! never! but we are poles of the mosaic faith--jewish poles, not polish jews.' 'the hooligans are murdering both impartially.' 'and the intellectuals equally,' rejoined simon. 'but the intellectuals will triumph over the reactionaries,' said david passionately, 'and then both will trample on the jews. didn't the hungarian jews join kossuth? and yet after hungary's freedom was won----' simon's wife and sister here entered the room, and he introduced david smilingly as a ghetto reactionary. the young women--sober-clad students from a swiss university--opened wide shocked eyes. 'so young, too!' simon's wife murmured wonderingly. 'would you have me stand by and see our people murdered?' 'certainly,' she said, 'rather than see the _zeitgeist_ set back. the unconditional historic necessity will carry us on of itself towards a better social state.' 'there you go with your marx and your hegel!' cried simon's sister. 'i object to your historic materialism. with fichte, i assert----' 'she is an s.r.,' simon interrupted her to explain. 'ah,' said david. 'not a p.p.s. like you and your wife.' 'simon, did you tell him i was a p.p.s.?' inquired his wife indignantly. 'no, no, of course not. a ghetto reactionary does not understand modern politics. my wife is an s.d., i regret to say.' 'but i have heard of social democrats!' said david triumphantly. simon's sister sniffed. 'of course! because they are a bourgeois party--risking nothing, waiting passively till the revolution drops into their hands.' 'the name of bourgeois would be better applied to those who include the landed peasants among their forces,' said simon's wife angrily. 'if i might venture to suggest,' said david soothingly, 'all these differences would be immaterial if you joined the _samooborona_. i could make excellent use of you ladies in the ambulance department.' 'outrageous!' cried simon angrily. 'our place is shoulder to shoulder with our fellow-poles.' simon's sister intervened gently. perhaps the mention of ambulances had awakened sympathy in her s.r. soul. 'you ought to look among your own party,' she said. 'my party?' 'the ghetto reactionaries--zionists, territorialists, itoists, or whatever they call themselves nowadays.' 'are there any here?' cried david eagerly. 'one heard of nothing else,' cried simon bitterly. 'fortunately, when the police found they weren't really emigrating to zion or uganda, the meetings were stopped.' david eagerly took down names. simon particularly recommended two young men, grodsky and lerkoff, who had at least the grace of socialism. but grodsky, david found, had his own panacea. 'only the s.s.'s,' he said, 'can save israel.' 'what are s.s.'s?' david asked. 'socialistes sionistes.' 'but can't there be socialism outside zion?' 'of course. we have evolved from zionism. the unconditional historic necessity is for a land, but not for a particular land. our minsk members already call themselves s.t.'s--socialist territorialists.' 'but while awaiting your territory, there are the hooligans,' david reminded him. 'simon rubensky thought you would be a good man for the self-defence corps.' 'join rubensky! a p.p.s.! never will i associate with a bourgeois like that!' 'he isn't joining.' the s.s. hesitated. 'i must consult my fellow-members. i must write to headquarters.' 'letters do not travel very quickly or safely nowadays.' 'but party discipline is everything,' urged grodsky. david left him, and hunted up lerkoff, who proved to be a doctor. 'i want to get together a _samooborona_ branch,' he explained. 'herr grodsky has half promised----' 'that bourgeois!' cried lerkoff in disgust. 'we can have nothing to do with traitors like that!' 'why are they traitors?' david asked. 'all territorialists are traitors. we poali zion must jealously guard the sacred flame of socialism and nationality, since only in palestine can our social problem be solved.' 'why only in palestine?' inquired david mildly. the p.z. glared. 'palestine is an unconditional historic necessity. the attempt to form a jewish state elsewhere can only result in failure and disappointment. do you not see how the folk-instinct leads them to palestine? no less than four thousand have gone there this year.' 'and a hundred and fifty thousand to america. how about that folk-instinct?' 'oh, these are the mere bourgeois. i see you are an americanist assimilator.' 'i am no more an a.a. than i am a z.z.,' said david tartly, adding with a smile, 'if there is such a thing as a z.z.' 'would to heaven there were not!' said lerkoff fervently. 'it is these miserable zioni-zionists, with their incapacity for political concepts, who----' milovka, amid all its medievalism, possessed a few incongruous telephones, and one of these now started ringing violently in dr. lerkoff's study. 'ah!' he exclaimed, 'talk of the devil. there is a man who combines all the worst qualities of the z.z.'s and the mizrachi. he also imagines he has a throat disease due to swallowing flecks of the furs he deals in.' after which harangue he collogued amiably with his patient, and said he would come instantly. 'hasn't he the disease, then?' asked david. 'he has no disease except too much vanity and too much money.' 'while you cure him of the first, i should like to try my hand at the second,' said david laughingly. 'oh, i'll introduce you, if you let me off.' 'you i don't ask for money, but your medical services would be invaluable. milovka is in danger.' 'milovka to the deuce!' cried lerkoff. 'our future lies not in russia.' 'i talk of our present. do let me appoint you army surgeon.' 'next year--in jerusalem!' replied the doctor airily. vi lerkoff asked david to wait in another room while he saw herr cantberg professionally. there was an ark with scrolls of the law in the room, betiding a piety and a purse beyond the normal. presently lerkoff reappeared chuckling. 'he knows all about you, you infamous rascal,' he said. 'you have told him?' '_he_ told _me_; he always knows everything. you are a baptized police spy, posing as a p.p.s. i suppose he's heard of your visit to herr rubensky.' 'but i shall undeceive him!' 'not if you want his money. such a blow to his vanity would cost you dear. go in; i did not tell him _you_ were the young man he was telling me of. i must fly.' the p. z shook david's hand. 'don't forget he's the bourgeois type of zionist; his object is not to create the future, but to resurrect the dead past.' 'and mine is to keep alive the living present. won't you----?' but the doctor was gone. the mizrachi z.z. proved unexpectedly small in stature and owl-like in expression; but his 'be seated, sir--be seated; what can i do for you?' had the grand manner. it evoked a resentful chord in david. 'it is something i propose to do for you,' he said bluntly. 'milovka is in danger.' 'it is, indeed,' said the m.z.z. 'when men like dr. lerkoff (in whose company i was sorry to see you) command a hearing, it is in deadly danger. an excellent physician, but you know the talmudical saying: "hell awaits even the best of physicians." and he calls himself a zionist! bah! he's more dangerous than that young renegade spy who dubs himself p.p.s.' 'but he seems very zealous for zion,' said david uneasily. herr cantberg shook his head dolefully. 'he'd introduce vaccination and serum-insertions instead of the grand old laws. as if any human arrangement could equal the wisdom of sinai! and he actually scoffs at the restoration of the sacrifices!' 'but do you propose to restore them?' david was astonished. the owl's eyes shone. 'what have we sacrificed ourselves for, all these centuries, if not for the sacrifices? what has sanctified and illumined the long night of our exile except a vision of the high priest in his jewelled breastplate officiating again at the altar of our holy temple? now at last the vision begins to take shape, the hope of israel begins to shine again. like a rosy cloud, like a crescent moon, like a star in the desert, like a lighthouse over lonely seas----' the telephone impolitely interrupted him. his fine frenzy disregarded the ringing, but it jangled his metaphors. 'but, alas! our people do not see clearly!' he broke off. 'false prophets, colossally vain--may their names be blotted out!--confuse the foolish crowd. but the wheat is being sifted from the chaff, the fine flour from the bran, the edible herbs from the evil weeds, and soon my people will see again that only i----' the telephone insisted on a hearing. having refused to buy furs at the price it demanded, he resumed: 'territorialist traitors mislead the masses, but in so far as they may bring relief to our unhappy people, i wish them godspeed.' 'but what relief can they bring?' put in david impatiently. 'without self-defence----' 'most true. they will but kill off a few hundred people with fever and famine on some savage shore. but let them; it will all be to the glory of zionism----' 'how so?' david asked, amazed. 'it will show that the godless ideals of materialists can never be realized, that only in its old home can israel again be a nation. then will come the moment for me to arise----' 'but the english came from denmark. and they're nation enough!' the owl blinked angrily. 'we are the chosen people--no historic parallel applies to us. as the dove returned to the ark, as the swallow returns to the lands of the spring, as the tide returns to the sands, as the stars----' 'yes, yes, i know,' said david; 'but where is there room in palestine for the russian jews?' 'where was there room in the temple for the millions who came up at passover?' retorted herr cantberg crushingly. the telephone here interposed, offering the furs cheaper. 'a godless bundist!' the owl explained between the deals. 'a bundist!' david pricked up his ears. from the bravest revolutionary party in russia he could surely cull a recruit or two. 'who is he?' the owl tried to look noble, producing only a twinkle of cunning. 'oh, i can't betray him; after all, he's a brother-in-israel. not that he behaves as such, opposing our candidate for the duma! three hundred and thirteen roubles,' he told the telephone sternly. 'not a kopeck more. eh? what? he's rung off, the blood-sucker!' he rang him up again. david made a note of the number. 'but what have you zionists to do with the parliament in russia?' he inquired of the owl. but the owl was haggling with the telephone. 'three hundred and fifteen! what! do you want to skin _me_, like your martins and sables?' 'you are busy,' interposed david, fretting at the waste of his day. 'i shall take the liberty of calling again.' a telephone-book soon betrayed the bundist's shop, and david hurried off to enlist him. the shopkeeper proved, however, so corpulent and bovine that david's heart sank. but he began bluntly: 'i know you're a bundist.' 'a what?' said the fur-dealer. david smiled. 'oh, you needn't pretend with me; i'm a fighter myself.' he let a revolver peep out of his hip-pocket. 'help! _gewalt!_' cried the fur-dealer. a beardless youth came running out of the back room. david laughed. 'herr cantberg told me that you were a bundist,' he explained to the shopkeeper. 'and i came to meet a kindred spirit. but i was warned herr cantberg is always wrong. good-morning.' 'stop!' cried the youth. 'go in, reb yitzchok; let me deal with this fire-eater.' and as the corpulent man retired with an improbable alacrity, he continued gravely: 'this time herr cantberg was not more than a hundred versts from the truth.' david smiled. '_you_ are the bundist.' 'hush! here i am the son-in-law. i study talmud and eat _kest_ (free food). what news from warsaw?' 'i want both you and your father-in-law,' said david evasively--'his money and your muscles.' 'he gives no money to the cause, save unwillingly what i squeeze out of cantberg.' the youth permitted himself his first smile. 'when he deals with that bourgeois at the telephone, i always egg him on to stand out for more and more, and my profit is half the extra roubles we extort. but as for myself, my life, of course, is at the disposal of headquarters.' david was moved by this refreshing simplicity. he felt a little embarrassment in explaining that headquarters to him meant _samooborona_, not bund. the youth's countenance changed completely. 'defend the jews!' he cried contemptuously. 'what have we to do with the jewish bourgeoisie?' 'the bund is exclusively jewish, is it not?' 'merely because we found the rest of the revolutionary body too clumsy for words. it was always getting caught, its printing-presses exhumed, its leaders buried. so we split off, the better to help our fellow-working-men. but we are a labour party, not a jewish party. we have the whole russian revolution on our shoulders; how can we throw away our lives for the capitalists of the milovka ghetto? then there are the elections at hand--i have to work for the left. ah, here come some of our bourgeois; ask _them_, if you like. i will keep my father-in-law out of the shop.' two men in close confabulation strolled in, a third disconnected, but on their heels. with five jews the concourse soon became a congress. one of the couple turned out to be a progressive pole. he mistook david for a zionist, and denounced him for a foreigner. 'we of the p.p.p.,' he said, 'will peacefully acquire equal rights with our fellow-poles--nay, we shall be allowed to become poles ourselves. but you zionists are less citizens than strangers, and if you were logical, you would all----' 'where's your own logic?' interrupted the disconnected man. 'why don't you join the p.p.n. at once?' the progressive pole frowned. 'the nationalists! they are anti-semites. i'd as soon join the league of true russian men.' 'and do you trust the p.p.p.?' his companion asked him. 'i tell you, nathan, that only in the progressive democratic party, with its belief in the equality of all nationalities----' 'if you want a party free from anti-semites,' david intervened desperately, 'you must join the _samoo_----' 'i fear you will get no recruits here,' interrupted the bundist, not unkindly. he added with a sneer: 'these gentlemen of the p.p.p. and the p.p.n. and the p.p.d. are all good poles.' 'good poles!' echoed david no less bitterly. 'and the poles voted _en bloc_ to keep every jewish candidate out of the duma.' 'even so we must be better poles than they,' sublimely replied the member of the p.p.p. 'we are joining even the clerical parties of the right for the good of our country. and now that the party of national concentration----' 'go to the labour parties,' advised the p.d. 'there you may perchance find sturdy young men with the necessary ghetto taint.' of the four great labour parties, he proceeded to recommend the p.s.d. as the most promising for david's purposes. 'not the bolshewiki faction,' he added, 'but the menshewiki. recruits might also be found in the proletariat or the p.p.s.----' 'no, i've tried the p.p.s.,' said david. 'but at any rate, gentlemen, since you must all see that the defence of our own lives is no undesirable object, a little contribution to our funds----' a violent chorus of protest broke out. it was scarcely credible that only four men were speaking. all explained elaborately that they had their own party funds, and what a tax it was to run their candidates for the duma, not to mention their party organ. 'you see,' said the bundist, 'your only chance lies with the men of no party, who have only their own bourgeois pleasures.' 'are there such?' asked david eagerly. a universal laugh greeted this inquiry. 'alas, too many!' everybody told him. 'our people are such individualists.' 'but where are these individualists?' cried david desperately. as if in answer, the bovine proprietor, encouraged by the laughter, crept in again. 'you still here!' he murmured to david, taken aback. 'yes, but if you'll give me a subscription for jewish self-defence----' 'jewish emancipation!' cried the fur-dealer. 'why didn't you say so at first?' he put his hand in his pocket. 'that's _my_ party--or rather the national group in it, the anti-zionist faction.' the stern bundist laughed. 'no, he doesn't mean he's a j.e. even of the other faction.' his father-in-law took his hand out of his pocket. david cast a rebuking glance at the bundist. 'why did you interfere? perhaps my way may prove the shortest to jewish emancipation.' his hearers smiled a superior smile, and the fur-dealer shook his head. 'i belong also to the promotion of education party--i am for peaceful methods,' he announced. 'so i perceived,' said david drily. to be rid of him, the bundist gave him the address of a man who kept aloof from polish politics--a bourgeois cousin of his, belchevski by name, who might just as well be killed off in the _samooborona_. but even belchevski turned out to be a territorialist. david imprudently told him he had seen his fellow-territorialist grodsky, who had half promised---- 'associate with a brainless, bumptious platform-screamer!' he screamed. 'he's worse than the hysterical zionists. it is a territory we need, not socialism.' 'i agree. but even more do we need self-defence.' 'the only self-defence is to leave russia for a land of our own.' 'five and a quarter million of us? why, if two ships--one from libau for the north, and one from odessa for the south--sailed away every week, each bearing two thousand passengers, it would take over a quarter of a century. and by that time a new generation of us would have grown up.' the territorialist looked uneasy. 'besides,' david continued, 'what new country could receive us at the rate of two hundred thousand a year? it would be a cemetery, not a country.' the territorialist smiled disdainfully. 'why didn't you say at first you were a bourgeois? the unconditional historic necessity which has created the i.t.o. may drive at what pace it will; enough that as soon as our autonomous land is ready to receive us, i intend to be in the first shipload.' 'have you this land, then?' 'not yet. we've only had time to draw up the constitution. no socialism as that idiot grodsky imagines. but democracy. hereditary privileges will be abol----' 'but what land _is_ there?' 'surely there are virgin lands.' 'even the virgin lands are betrothed!' said david. 'and if there was one still without a lord and master, it would probably be a very ugly and sickly virgin. and, anyhow, it will be a long wooing. so in the meantime let me teach you to fire a pistol.' 'with all my heart--but merely to shoot wild beasts.' 'that is all i am asking for,' said david grimly. encouraged by this semi-success, david boldly called upon a tea-merchant quite unknown to him, and asked for a subscription to buy revolvers. the tea-merchant, who was a small stout man, with a black cap of dubious cut, protested vehemently against such materialistic measures. let them put their trust in _cultur_! to talk hebrew--therein lay israel's real salvation. let little children once again lisp in the language of isaiah and hosea--that was true zionism. 'then don't you want the holy land?' asked the astonished david. 'merely as a centre of _cultur_. merely as a university where herbert spencer may be studied in the tongue of the psalmist. all the rest is bourgeois zionism. political zionism? economic zionism? pah! mere tawdry imitations of heathen politics!' 'then you agree with the chovevi zionists!' 'not at all. zion is less a place than a state of mind. we want culture--not agriculture; we want the evolutionary efflorescence of israel's inner personality----' david fled, only to stumble upon a nationalist who declared that zionism was a caricature of true nationalism, and territorialism a cheap philanthropic substitute for it. 'then why not join in the self-defence of our nation?' david asked. 'i will--when we are on our own soil. your corps is a mere mockery of the military concept.' david found no more comfort in his interview with the member of the l.a.e.r., who was convinced that only in the league for the advancement of equal rights lay the jew's true security. it was the one party whose success was sure, the only one based upon an unconditional historic necessity. david's morning was not, however, to pass without the discovery of a man of no party. and, strangely enough, he owed his find to the headache these innumerable parties caused him. for, going into a chemist's shop for a powder, he was served by a red-bearded jew whose genial face emboldened him to solicit a stock of bandages and antiseptics--in view of a possible _pogrom_. 'but the _pogroms_ are over,' cried the chemist. 'they were but the expiring agonies of the old order. the reign of love is at hand, the brotherhood of man is beginning, and all races and creeds will henceforth live at peace under the new religion of science.' david's headache rose again triumphant over the powder. even a partisan would be easier to convince than this sort of seer. 'why, a _pogrom_ is planned for milovka!' 'impossible! europe would not permit it. america would prohibit it. did you not see the protest even in the australian parliament? look on your calendar; we have reached the twentieth century, even according to the christian calculation.' david returned hopelessly to his inn. here he saw a burly jew warming himself at the great stove. before even ordering dinner, he made a last desperate attempt to save his morning. 'me join a jewish self-defence!' the burly jew laughed loud and heartily. 'why, i'm a true believer!' 'a _meshummad_!' david gasped. modern as he was, the hereditary horror at the baptized apostate overcame him. 'yes--_i_'m safe enough,' the convert laughed. 'i've taken the cold-water cure. besides, i'm the censor of milovka!' 'eh?' david looked like a trapped animal. the censor smiled on. 'don't scowl at me like the other pious zanies. after all, you're an enlightened young man--a violinist, they tell me; you can't take your judaism any more seriously than i take my baptism. come--have a glass of vodka.' 'then, you won't inform?' david breathed. 'not unless you publish seditious yiddish. keep your pistols out of print. if my own skin is safe, that doesn't mean i'm made of stone like these tartar devils. landlord, the vodka. we'll drink confusion to them.' 'i--i have none,' stammered the landlord. 'i haven't the right.' 'there are no rights in russia,' said the censor good-humouredly. the landlord furtively produced a big bottle. 'but the idea of asking _me_ to join the self-defence!' chuckled the burly jew. 'you might as well ask me to play the violin!' he added with a wink. david felt this was the first really sympathetic hearer he had met that morning. vii the vodka and a good three-course dinner (_plotki_ for fish, _lockschen_ for soup, and _zrazy_ for joint) brought david new courage, and again he sallied out to recruit. this time he sought the market-place--a badly-paved square, bordered with small houses and congested with stalls and a grey, kaftaned crowd, amid which gleamed the blue blouses of the ungodly younger generation. he had hitherto addressed himself to the classes--he would hear the voice of the people. on every side the voice babbled of the duma--babbled happily, as though the word was a new religious charm or a witch's incantation. crude political conversations broke out amid all the business of the mart. he had only to listen to know how he would be answered: a blacksmith buying a new hammer stayed to argue with the vendor. 'we must put our trust in the constitutional democrats.' 'and why in the cadets? give me the democrats.' 'nay, we must put our trust only in the czar.' (this came from the rabbi's wife, who was cheapening fish at the next stall.) 'for shame, _rebbitzin_! put not your trust in princes.' the bystanders hushed down the text-quoter--a fuzzy-headed butcher-boy. 'miserable monarchists!' he sneered. 'we jews will have no peace till the republicans----' 'a republic without socialism!' interrupted a girl with a laundry basket. 'what good's that? wait till the n.s.'s----' 'the d.r.'s are the only----' interrupted a phylactery-pedlar. 'and who but the labour group promises equal rights to all nationalities?' interrupted a girl in spectacles. 'trust the _trudowaja_----' 'to the devil with the labour parties!' said an old-clo' man. 'look how the bundists have betrayed us. first they were bone of our bone; now it is they who by their recklessness provoke the _pogroms_.' the blacksmith brought his hammer down upon the stall. 'there is only one party to trust, and that's the c.d.'s,' he repeated. 'bourgeois!' simultaneously hissed the republican youth and the socialist lass. 'my children!' it was the bland voice of moses the _shamash_ (beadle). 'violence leads to naught. even the viborg manifesto was a mistake. as a member of the party of peaceful regeneration----' 'peaceful regeneration?' shouted the blacksmith. 'a jew ally himself with the reactionary right, with the----!' a cossack galloped recklessly among the serried stalls. the jews scattered before him like dogs. the member of the p.p.r. crawled under a barrow. even the blacksmith froze up. david drew the moral when the cossack had disappeared. 'peaceful regeneration!' he cried. 'there will be no regeneration for you till you have the courage to leave russian politics alone and to fight for yourselves.' 'ah, you're a maximalist,' said the beadle. 'no, i am only a minimalist. i merely want the minimum--that we save our own lives.' it was asking too little. the poor russian jews, like the rich russian jews, were largely occupied in saving the world, or, at least, holy russia. crushed by such an excess of christianity, david wandered round the market-place, looking into the bordering houses. in one of the darkest and dingiest sat a cobbler tapping at shoes, surrounded by sprawling children. 'peace be to you,' called david. 'peace have i always,' rejoined the cobbler cheerily. david looked at the happy dirty children; he had seen their like torn limb from limb. 'but have you thought of the danger of a _pogrom_?' he said. 'i have heard whispers of it,' said the cobbler. 'but we _chassidim_ have no fear. our wonder-rabbi, who has power over all the spheres, will utter a word, and----' [illustration: the jews scattered before him like dogs.] 'a _tsaddik_ (wonder-rabbi) was killed in the last _pogrom_,' said david brutally. 'you must join a self-defence band.' the cobbler ceased to tap. 'what! go for a soldier! when the _rebbe_ caused me to draw a high number!' 'our soldiering is not for russia, but to save us from russia. we must all join together!' 'me join the _misnagdim!_' cried the cobbler in horror. 'never will i join with those who deny the master-of-the-name.' david sighed. suddenly he perceived a stalwart jew lounging at a neighbouring door. he moved towards him, and broached the subject afresh. the lounger shook his head. 'you may persuade that foolish _chassid_,' said he, 'but you cannot expect the rest of us to join with these heretics, these godless, dancing dervishes, who are capable even of saying the afternoon prayer in the evening!' in the next house lived a _maskil_ (intellectual), who looked up from his hebrew newspaper to ask how he could be associated with a squad of young ignoramuses. his neighbour was a karaite, drifted here from another community. the karaite pointed out that self-defence was unnecessary in his case, as his sect was scarcely regarded by the authorities as jewish. there were other motley jews living round the market-place--a lithuanian, who refused to co-operate with the polish 'sweet-tooths,' and who was in turn stigmatized by a pole as 'peel-barley,' in scarification of his reputedly stingy diet. a man from odessa dismissed them both as 'cross-heads.' it was impossible to unite such mutually superior elements. again weary and heart-sick, he returned towards the inn. viii but his way was blocked by a turbulent stream of jewish boys pouring out of the primary school. they seemed to range in years between eight and twelve, but even the youngest face wore a stamp of age, and though the air vibrated with the multiplex chatter which accompanies the exodus of cramped and muted pupils, the normal elements of joyousness, of horse-play, of individual freakishness, were absent. it was a common agitation that loosed all these little tongues and set all these little ears listening to the passionate harangues of ringleaders. instead of hurrying home, the schoolboys lingered in knots round their favourite orators. a premature gravity furrowed all the childish foreheads. with one of these orators david dimly felt familiar, and after listening for a few minutes to the lad's tirade against the 'autocracy of the school director' and the 'bureaucratic methods of the inspector,' it dawned upon him that the little demagogue was his own landlord's son. 'hullo, kalman!' he cried in surprise. 'hullo, comrade!' replied the boy graciously. 'so you're a revolutionary, eh?' said david, smiling. 'all my class belongs to the junior bund,' replied the boy gravely. 'then you're not so peaceful as papa!' the lad's aplomb and dignity deserted him. he blushed furiously, and hung his head in shame of his moderate parent. 'never mind, comrade kalman,' said another boy, slapping his shoulder consolingly. 'we've all got some shady relative or another.' a shrill burst of applause relieved the painful situation. turning his head, david found all the childish eyes converged upon a single figure, a bulging-headed lad who had sprung into a sudden position of eminence--upon an egg-box. he was clothed in the blue blouse of radicalism and irreligion, and the faint down upon his upper lip suggested that he must be nearing fifteen. 'comrades!' he was crying. 'in my youth i myself was head boy at this school of yours, but even in those old days there was the same brutal autocracy. your only remedy is a general strike. you must join the syndical anarchists.' more shrill cheers greeted this fiery counsel. the members of the junior bund waved their satchels frenziedly. only the landlord's son stood mute and frowning. 'you don't agree with him,' said david. 'no,' answered the little bundist gravely. 'i follow comrade berl. but this fellow is popular because he was expelled from the warsaw gymnasium as a suspect.' 'you must strike!' repeated the juvenile agitator. 'a strike is the only way of impressing the proletarian psychology. you must all swear to attend school no more till your demands are granted.' 'we swear!' came from all sides in a childish treble. but the frown on the brow of the landlord's son grew darker. 'it is well, comrades,' said the orator. 'your success will be a lesson to your elders, too. only by applying the marxian philosophy of history can we upset the bourgeois _weltanschauung_.' the landlord's son reached the roof of the egg-box with one angry bound and stood beside the agitator. 'marx is an old fogey!' he shouted. 'what's the good of a passive strike? let us make a demonstration against the director; let us----' 'who told you that?' sneered the orator. 'comrade berl or comrade schmerl?' the boy missed the sarcasm of the rhyme. 'you know schmerl's a mere milk-blooded "attainer,"' he said angrily. 'believe me,' was the soothing reply, 'even beyond the five freedoms the boycott is a better "attainer" than the bomb.' 'traitor! bourgeois!' and a third boy jumped upon the egg-box. he had red hair and flaming eyes. 'if russia is to be saved,' he shrieked, 'it will be neither by the fivefold formula of freedom nor by the fourfold suffrage, but by the integralists, who alone maintain the purity of the social revolutionary programme, as it was before the party degenerated into maximalists and mini----' here the egg-box collapsed under the weight of the three orators, and they sprawled in equal ignominy. but the storm was now launched. a score of the schoolboys burst into passionate abstract discussion. the unity necessary to the school strike was shattered into fragments. david ploughed his way sadly through the mimetic mob of youngsters, who were yet not all apes and parrots, he reflected. just as jewry had always had its boy rabbis, its infant phenomenons of the pulpit, prodigies of eloquence and holy learning, so it now had its precocious politicians and its premature sociologists. he was tempted for a moment to try his recruiting spells upon the juvenile integralist, whose red hair reminded him of his girl cousin's, but it seemed cruel to add to the lad's risks. besides, had not the boy already proclaimed--like his seniors--that russia, not jewry, was to be saved? it was an hour of no custom when he got back to the inn, so that he was scarcely surprised to find host and hostess alike invisible. he sat down, and began to write a melancholy report to headquarters, but a mysterious and persistent knocking prevented any concentration upon his task. presently he threw down his pen, and went to find out what was the matter. the noises drew him downwards. the landlord, alarmed at the footsteps, blew out his light. 'it's only i,' said david. the landlord relit the candle. david saw a cellar strewn with iron bars, instruments, boxes, and a confused heap of stones. 'ah, hiding the vodka,' said david, with a smile. 'no, we are widening and fortifying the cellar--also provisioning the loft.' '_samooborona?_' said david. 'precisely--and a far more effective form than yours, my young hot-head.' 'perhaps you are right,' said david wearily. he went back to his report. he was glad to think that the little bundist had an extra chance. after all, he had achieved something, he would save some lives. perhaps he would end by preaching the landlord's way--passive _samooborona_ was better than none. ix but the report refused to write itself. it was too dismal to confess he had not collected a kopeck or one recruit. he picked up a greasy fragment of a russian newspaper, and read with a grim smile that the octobrists had excluded jews from their meetings. that reminded him of erbstein the banker, who had bidden him put his trust in them. would the banker be more susceptible now, under this disillusionment? alas! the question was, _could_ a banker be disillusioned? to be disillusioned is to admit having been mistaken, and bankers, like popes, were infallible. david bethought himself instead of the owlish mizrachi, his visit to whom had been left unfinished. he threw down his pen, and repaired again to the house with the ark and the telephone. but as he reached cantberg's door it opened suddenly, and a young man shot out. 'never, father!' he was shrieking--'never do i enter this house again.' and he banged the door upon the owl, and rushed into david's arms. 'i beg your pardon,' he said. 'it is my fault,' murmured david politely. 'i was just going to see your father.' 'you'll find him in a fiendish temper. he cannot argue without losing it.' 'i hope you've not had a serious difference.' 'he's such a bigoted zionist--he cannot understand that zionism is _ein überwundener standpunkt_.' 'i know.' 'ah!' said the young man eagerly. 'then you can understand how i have suffered since i evolved from zionism.' 'what are you now, if i may ask?' 'the only thing that a self-respecting jew can be--a sejmist, of course!' 'a jewish party?' asked david eagerly. after all the enthusiasm for russian politics and world politics he was now pleased with even this loquacious form of self-defence. 'come and have a glass of tea; i will tell you all about it,' said the young man, soothed by the prospect of airing his theories. 'we will go to friedman's inn--the university club, we call it, because the intellectuals generally drink there.' 'with pleasure,' said david, sniffing the chance of recruits. 'but before we talk of your party i want to ask whether you can join me in a branch of the _samooborona_.' the young man's face grew overclouded. 'our party cannot join any other,' he said. 'but mine isn't a party--a corps.' 'not a party?' 'no.' 'but you have a committee?' 'yes--but only----' 'and branches?' 'naturally, but simply----' 'and a party-chest?' 'the money is only----' 'and conferences?' 'of course, but merely----' 'and you read referats----' 'not unless----' 'surely you are a party!' 'i tell you no. i want all parties.' 'i am sorry. but i'm too busy just now to consider anything else. our party-day falls next week, and there's infinite work to be done.' 'work!' cried david desperately. 'what work?' 'there will be many great speeches. i myself shall not speak beyond an hour, but that is merely impromptu in the debate. our referat-speakers need at least two hours apiece. we did not get through our last session till five in the morning. and there were scenes, i tell you!' 'but what is there to discuss?' 'what is there to discuss?' the sejmist looked pityingly at david. 'the great question of the duma elections, for one thing. to boycott or not to boycott. and if not, which candidates shall we support? then there is the question of jewish autonomy in the russian parliament--that is our great principle. moreover, as a comparatively new party, we have yet to thresh out our relations to all the existing parties. with which shall we form _blocs_ in the elections? while most are dangerous to the best interests of the jewish people and opposed to the evolution of historic necessity, with some we may be able to co-operate here and there, where our work intersects.' 'what work?' david insisted again. 'doesn't our name tell you? we are the _vozrozhdenie_--the resurrectionists--our work is an unconditional historic necessity springing from the evolution of----!' the door of the inn arrested the sejmist's harangue. as he pushed it open, a babel of other voices made continuance impossible. the noise came entirely from a party of four, huddled in a cloud of cigarette-smoke near the stove. in one of the four david recognised the tea-merchant of the morning, but the tea-merchant seemed to have no recollection of david. he was still expatiating upon the individuality of israel, which, it appeared, was an essence independent of place and time. he nodded, however, to the young sejmist, observing ironically: 'behold, the dreamer cometh!' 'i a dreamer, forsooth!' the young man was vexed to be derided before his new acquaintance. 'it is you _achad-haamists_ who must wake up.' the tea-merchant smiled with a superior air. 'the vozrozhdenie would do well to study achad-haam's philosophy. then they would understand that their strivings are bound to lead to self-constriction, not self-expression. you were saying that, too, weren't you, witsky?' witsky, who was a young lawyer, demurred. 'what i said was,' he explained to the sejmist, 'that in your search for territorial-proletariat practice you sejmists have altogether lost the theory. conversely the s.s.'s have sacrificed territorial practice to their territorial theory. in our party alone do you find the synthesis of the practical and the ideal. it alone----' 'may i ask whom you speak for?' intervened david. 'the newest jewish social democratic artisan party of russia!' replied witsky proudly. 'are you the newest?' inquired david drily. 'and the best. if we desire palestine as the scene of our social regeneration, it is because the unconditional historic necessity----' the sejmist interrupted sadly: 'i see that our conference will have to decide against relations with you.' 'pooh! the s.d.a.'s will only be the stronger for isolation. have we not of ourselves severed our relations with the d.k.'s? in the evolution of the forces of the people----' 'it is not right, witsky, that you should mislead a stranger,' put in his sallow, spectacled neighbour. 'or perhaps you misconceive the genetic moments of your own programme. what evolution is clearly leading to is a jewish autonomous party in parliament.' 'but we also say----' began the other two. the sallow, spectacled man waved them down wearily. 'who but the p.n.d.'s are the synthesis of the historic necessities? we subsume the conservative elements of the spojnia narodowa national league and of the party of real politics with the reform elements of the democratic league and the progressive democrats. consequently----' 'but the true polish party----' began witsky. 'the _kolo polskie_ (polish ring) is half anti-semitic,' began the sejmist. the three were talking at once. through the chaos a thin piping voice penetrated clearly. it came from the fourth member of the group--a clean-shaven ugly man, who had hitherto remained silently smoking. 'as a philosophic critic who sympathizes with all parties,' he said, 'allow me to tell you, friend witsky, that your programme needs unification: it starts as economic, and then becomes dualistic--first inductive, then deductive.' '_moj panie drogi_ (my dear sir),' intervened david, 'if you sympathize with all parties, you will join a corps for the defence of them all.' 'you forget the philosophic critic equally disagrees with all parties.' david lost his temper at last. 'gentlemen,' he shouted ironically, 'one may sit and make smoke-rings till the messiah comes, but i assure you there is only one unconditional historic necessity, and that is _samooborona_.' and without drinking his tea--which, indeed, the resurrectionist had forgotten to order--he dashed into the street. x he was but a youth, driven into action by hellish injustice. he had hitherto taken scant notice of all these parties that had sprung up for the confusion of his people--these hybrid, kaleidoscopic combinations of russian and jewish politics--but as he fled from the philosophers through the now darkening streets, his every nerve quivering, it seemed to him as if the alphabet had only to be thrown about like dice to give always the name of some party or other. he had a nightmare vision of bristling sects and pullulating factions, each with its councils, federations, funds, conferences, party-days, agenda, referats, press-organs, each differentiating itself with meticulous subtlety from all the other parties, each defining with casuistic minuteness its relation to every contemporary problem, each equipped with inexhaustible polyglot orators speechifying through tumultuous nights. well, it could not be helped. in the terrible nebulous welter in which his people found themselves, it was not unnatural that each man should grope towards his separate ray of light. the russian, too, was equally bewildered, and perhaps all this profusion of theories came in both from the same lack of tangibilities. both peoples possessed nothing. perhaps, indeed, the ultimate salvation of the jews lay in identifying themselves with russia. but then, who could tell that the patriots who welcomed them to-day as co-workers would not reject them when the cause was won? perhaps there was no hope outside preserving their own fullest identity. poor bewildered russian jew, caught in the bewilderments both of the russian and the jew, and tangled up inextricably in the double confusion of interlacing coils! the parties, then, were perhaps inevitable; he must make his account with them. how if he formed a secret _samooborona_ committee, composed equally of representatives of all parties? but, then, how could he be sure of knowing them all? he might offend one by omitting or miscalling it; they formed and re-formed like clouds on the blue. a new party, too, might spring up overnight. he might give deadly affront by ignoring this jonah's gourd. even as he thus mused, there came to him the voices of two young men, the one advocating a p.p.l.--a new party of popular liberty--the other insisting that the new _volksgruppe_ of all anti-zionist parties was an unconditional historic necessity. he groaned. it seemed to him as he stumbled blindly through the ill-paved alleys that a plague of doctors of philosophy had broken out over the pale, doctrinaires spinning pure logic from their vitals, and fighting bitterly against the slightest deviation from the pattern of their webs. but the call upon israel was for action. was it, he wondered with a flash of sympathy, that israel was too great for action; too sophisticated a people for so primitive and savage a function; too set in the moulds of an ancient scholastic civilization, so that, even when action was attempted, it was turned and frozen into philosophy? or was it rather that eighteen centuries of poring over the talmud had unfitted them for action, not merely because the habit of applying the whole brain-force to religious minutiæ led to a similar intellectualization of contemporary problems--of the vast new material suddenly opened up to their sharpened brains--but also because many of these religious problems related only to the time when israel and his temple flourished in palestine? the academic leisure and scrupulous discrimination that might be harmlessly devoted to the dead past had been imported into the burning present--into things that mattered for life or death. yes, the new generation chopped the logic of zionism or socialism, as the old argued over the ritual of burnt-offerings whose smoke had not risen since the year of the christian era, or over the decisions of babylonian _geonim_, no stone of whose city remained standing. the men of to-day had merely substituted for the world of the past the world of the future, and so there had arisen logically-perfect structures of zionism without zion, jewish socialism without a jewish social order, labour parties without votes or parliaments. the habit of actualities had been lost; what need of them when concepts provided as much intellectual stimulus? would israel never return to reality, never find solid ground under foot, never look eye to eye upon life? but as the last patch of sunset faded out of the strip of wintry sky, david suddenly felt infinitely weary of reality; a great yearning came over him for that very unreality, that very 'dead past' in which pious jewry still lived its happiest hours. oh, to forget the parties, the jangle of politics and philosophies, the _tohu-bohu_ of his unhappy day! he must bathe his soul in an hour's peace; he would go back like a child to the familiar study-house of his youth, to the _beth hamedrash_ where the greybeards pored over the great worm-eaten folios, and the youths rocked in their expository incantations. there lay the magic world of fantasy and legend that had been his people's true home, that had kept them sane and cheerful through eighteen centuries of tragedy--a watertight world into which no drop of outer reality could ever trickle. there lay zion and the jordan, the temple and the angels; there the patriarchs yet hovered protectively over their people. perhaps the milovka study-house boasted even cabbalists starving themselves into celestial visions and graduating for the divine kiss. how infinitely restful after the milovka market-place! no more, for that day at least, would he prate of self-defence and the horrible modern. he asked the way to the _beth hamedrash_. how fraternally the sages and the youths would greet him! they would inquire in the immemorial formula, 'what town comest thou from?' and when he told them, they would ask concerning its rabbi and what news there was. and 'news,' david remembered with a tearful smile, meant 'new interpretations of texts.' yes, this was all the 'news' that ever ruffled that peaceful world. man lived only for the holy law; the world had been created merely that the law might be studied; new lights upon its words and letters were the only things that could matter to a sensible soul. time and again he had raged against the artificiality of this quietist cosmos, accusing it of his people's paralysis, but to-night every fibre of him yearned for this respite from the harsh reality. he rummaged his memory for 'news'--for theological ingeniosities, textual wire-drawings that might have escaped the lore of milovka; and as one who draws nigh to a great haven, he opened the door of the _beth hamedrash_, and, murmuring 'peace be to you,' dropped upon a bench before an open folio whose commentaries and super-commentaries twined themselves lovingly in infinite convolutions round its holy text. immediately he was surrounded by a buzzing crowd of youths and ancients. 'which party are you of?' they clamoured eagerly. xi the _pogrom_ arrived. but it arrived in a new form for which even david was unprepared. perhaps in consequence of the rabbi's warning to the governor, self-defence was made ridiculous. no machiavellian paraphernalia of _agents provocateurs_, no hooligans with false grey beards, masquerading as jewish rioters or blasphemers. artillery was calmly brought up against the jewish quarter, as though milovka were an enemy's town. as the shells began to burst over the close-packed houses, david felt grimly that an economic providence had saved him from wasting his time in training pistoliers. the white-faced landlord, wringing his hands and saying his _vidui_ (death-bed confession), offered him and his violin-case a place in the cellar, but he preferred to climb to the roof, from which with the aid of a small glass, he had a clear view of the cordon drawn round the doomed quarter. a ricocheting cannon-ball crashed through the chimney-pots at his side, but he did not budge. his eyes were glued upon a figure he had espied amid the cannon. it was ezekiel leven, his whilom lieutenant, with whom he had dreamed of maccabean deeds. the new conscript, in the uniform of an artilleryman, was carefully taking sight with a gatling gun. 'poor ezekiel!' david cried. 'yours is the most humorous fate of all! but have you forgotten there is still one form of _samooborona_ left?' and with an ironic laugh he turned his pistol upon himself. the great guns boomed on hour after hour. when the bombardment was over, the peace of the devil lay over the ghetto of milovka. silent were all the fiery orators of all the letters of the alphabet; silent the polish patriots and the lovers of zion and the lovers of mankind; silent the bourgeois and the philosophers, the timber-merchants and the horse-dealers, the bankers and the bundists; silent the socialists and the democrats; silent even the burly censor, and the careless karaite and the cheerful _chassid_; silent the landlord and his revolutionary infant in their fortified cellar; silent the rabbi in his study, and the crowds in the market-place. the same unconditional historic necessity had overtaken them all. the end billing and sons, ltd., printers, guildford. * * * * * +-----------------------------------------------------------+ | typographical errors corrected in text: | | | | page : shillngs replaced with shillings | | page : 'we're under other' replaced with | | 'we're under others' | | page : 'i really must congratulate yon' replaced with | | 'i really must congratulate you' | | page : 'he must be expelled the congregation' | | replaced with | | 'he must be expelled from the congregation' | | page : haled replaced with hauled | | page : demnark replaced with denmark | | page : 'he lounged inte' replaced with | | 'he lounged into' | | page : rachael replaced with rachel | | page : danegrous replaced with dangerous | | page : arrangmement replaced with arrangement | | page : 'allowed to becomes poles' replaced with | | 'allowed to become poles' | | page : truimphant replaced with triumphant | | page : themseves replaced with themselves | | | +-----------------------------------------------------------+ [illustration: mr. louis mintz what comes to work by us.] potash & perlmutter their copartnership ventures and adventures by montague glass illustrated grosset & dunlap publishers :: new york copyright, , by the curtis publishing company copyright, , by howard e. altemus copyrighted , by doubleday, page & company. the country life press, garden city, n. y. potash & perlmutter chapter i "no, siree, sir," abe potash exclaimed as he drew a check to the order of his attorney for a hundred and fifty dollars, "i would positively go it alone from now on till i die, noblestone. i got my stomach full with pincus vesell already, and if andrew carnegie would come to me and tell me he wants to go with me as partners together in the cloak and suit business, i would say 'no,' so sick and tired of partners i am." for the twentieth time he examined the dissolution agreement which had ended the firm of vesell & potash, and then he sighed heavily and placed the document in his breast pocket. "cost me enough, noblestone, i could assure you," he said. "a hundred and fifty ain't much, potash, for a big lawyer like feldman," noblestone commented. abe flipped his fingers in a gesture of deprecation. "that is the least, noblestone," he rejoined. "first and last i bet you i am out five thousand dollars on vesell. that feller got an idee that there ain't nothing to the cloak and suit business but auction pinochle and taking out-of-town customers to the theayter. hard work is something which he don't know nothing about at all. he should of been in the brokering business." "the brokering business ain't such a cinch neither," noblestone retorted with some show of indignation. "a feller what's in the brokering business has got his troubles, too, potash. here i've been trying to find an opening for a bright young feller with five thousand dollars cash, y'understand, and also there ain't a better designer in the business, y'understand, and i couldn't do a thing with the proposition. always everybody turns me down. either they got a partner already or they're like yourself, potash, they just got through with a partner which done 'em up good." "if you think pincus vesell done me up good, noblestone," potash said, "you are mistaken. i got better judgment as to let a lowlife like him get into me, noblestone. i lost money by him, y'understand, but at the same time he didn't make nothing neither. vesell is one of them fellers what you hear about which is nobody's enemy but his own." "the way he talks to me, potash," noblestone replied, "he ain't such friends to you neither." "he hates me worser as poison," abe declared fervently, "but that ain't neither here nor there, noblestone. i'm content he should be my enemy. he's the kind of feller what if we would part friends, he would come back every week and touch me for five dollars yet. the feller ain't got no money and he ain't got no judgment neither." "but here is a young feller which he got lots of common sense and five thousand dollars cash," noblestone went on. "only one thing which he ain't got." abe nodded. "i seen lots of them fellers in my time, noblestone," he said. "everything about 'em is all right excepting one thing and that's always a killer." "well, this one thing ain't a killer at all," noblestone rejoined, "he knows the cloak and suit business from a to z, and he's a first-class a number one feller for the inside, potash, but he ain't no salesman." "so long as he's good on the inside, noblestone," abe said, "it don't do no harm if he ain't a salesman, because there's lots of fellers in the cloak and suit business which calls themselves drummers, y'understand every week regular they turn in an expense account as big as a doctor's bill already, and not only they ain't salesmen, noblestone, but they don't know enough about the inside work to get a job as assistant shipping clerk." "well, harry federmann ain't that kind, potash," noblestone went on. "he's been a cutter and a designer and everything you could think of in the cloak and suit business. also the feller's got good backing. he's married to old man zudrowsky's daughter and certainly them people would give him a whole lot of help." "what people do you mean?" abe asked. "zudrowsky & cohen," noblestone answered. "do you know 'em, potash?" abe laughed raucously. "do i know 'em?" he said. "a question! them people got a reputation among the trade which you wouldn't believe at all. yes, noblestone, if i would take it another partner, y'understand, i would as lief get a feller what's got the backing of a couple of them cut-throats up in sing sing, so much do i think of zudrowsky & cohen." "all i got to say to that, potash, is that you don't know them people, otherwise you wouldn't talk that way." "maybe i don't know 'em as good as some concerns know 'em, noblestone, but that's because i was pretty lucky. leon sammet tells me he wouldn't trust 'em with the wrapping paper on a c. o. d. shipment of two dollars." noblestone rose to his feet and assumed an attitude of what he believed to be injured dignity. "i hear enough from you, potash," he said, "and some day you will be sorry you talk that way about a concern like zudrowsky & cohen. if you couldn't say nothing good about 'em, you should shut up your mouth." "i could say one thing good about 'em, noblestone," abe retorted, as the business broker opened the store door. "they ain't ashamed of a couple of good old-time names like zudrowsky & cohen." this was an allusion to the circumstance that philip noblestone had once been pesach edelstein, and the resounding bang with which the broker closed the door behind him, was gratifying evidence to abe that his parting shot had found its target. "well, noblestone," zudrowsky cried, as the broker entered the show-room of zudrowsky & cohen, "what did he say?" "he says he wouldn't consider it at all," noblestone answered. "he ain't in no condition to talk about it anyway, because he feels too sore about his old partner, pincus vesell. that feller done him up to the tune of ten thousand dollars." in noblestone's scheme of ethics, to multiply a fact by two was to speak the truth unadorned. "s'enough, noblestone," zudrowsky cried. "if potash lost so much money as all that, i wouldn't consider him at all. one thing you got to remember, noblestone. me, i am putting up five thousand dollars for harry federmann, and what that feller don't know about business, noblestone, you could take it from me, would make even _you_ a millionaire, if you would only got it in your head." noblestone felt keenly the doubtfulness of zudrowsky's compliment, but for a lack of a suitable rejoinder he contented himself by nodding gravely. "so i wouldn't want him to tie up with a feller like potash, what gets done up so easy for ten thousand dollars," zudrowsky went on. "what i would like, noblestone, is that harry should go as partners together with some decent, respectable feller which got it good experience in the cloak business and wouldn't be careless with my five thousand dollars. i needn't to tell you, noblestone, if i would let harry get his hands on it, i might as well kiss myself good-by with that five thousand dollars." noblestone waggled his head from side to side and made inarticulate expressions of sympathy through his nose. "how could you marry off your daughter to a _schafskopf_ like federmann?" he asked. "it was a love match, noblestone," zudrowsky explained. "she falls in love with him, and he falls in love with her. so naturally he ain't no business man, y'understand, because you know as well as i do, noblestone, a business man ain't got no time to fool away on such nonsense." "sure, i know," noblestone agreed. "but what makes federmann so dumb? he's been in the cloak and suit business all his life, ain't he?" "what's that got to do with it?" zudrowsky exclaimed. "cohen and me got these here fixtures for fifteen years already, and you could more expect them tables and racks they should know the cloak and suit business as harry federmann. they ain't neither of 'em got no brains, noblestone, and that's what i want you to get for harry,--some young feller with brains, even though he ain't worth much money." "believe me, mr. zudrowsky," noblestone replied. "it ain't such an easy matter these times to find a young feller with brains what ain't got no money, mr. zudrowsky, and such young fellers don't need no partners neither. and, anyhow, mr. zudrowsky, what is five thousand dollars for an inducement to a business man? when i would go around and tell my clients i got a young feller with five thousand dollars what wants to go in the cloak and suit business, they laugh at me. in the cloak and suit business five thousand dollars goes no ways." "five thousand ain't much if you are going to open up as a new beginner, noblestone," zudrowsky replied, "but if you got a going concern, y'understand, five thousand dollars is always five thousand dollars. there's lots of business men what is short of money all the time, noblestone. couldn't you find it maybe a young feller which is already established in business, y'understand, and what needs _doch_ a little money?" noblestone slapped his thigh. "i got it!" he said. "i'll go around and see sam feder of the kosciusko bank." half an hour later noblestone sat in the first vice-president's office at the kosciusko bank, and requested that executive officer to favor him with the names of a few good business men, who would appreciate a partner with five thousand dollars. "i'll tell you the truth, noblestone," mr. feder said, "we turn down so many people here every day, that it's a pretty hard thing for me to remember any particular name. most of 'em is good for nothing, either for your purpose or for ours, noblestone. the idee they got about business is that they should sell goods at any price. in figuring the cost of the output, they reckon labor, so much; material, so much; and they don't take no account of rent, light, power, insurance and so forth. the consequence is, they lose money all the time; and they put their competitors in bad too, because they make 'em meet their fool prices. the whole trade is cut up by them fellers and sooner as recommend one for a partner for your client, i'd advise him to take his money and play the ponies with it." at this juncture a boy entered and handed mr. feder a card. "tell him to come right in," feder said, and then he turned to noblestone. "you got to excuse me for a few minutes, noblestone, and i'll see you just as soon as i get through." as noblestone left the first vice-president's office, he encountered feder's visitor, who wore an air of furtive apprehension characteristic of a man making his initial visit to a pawn shop. noblestone waited on the bench outside for perhaps ten minutes, when mr. feder's visitor emerged, a trifle red in the face. "that's my terms, mr. perlmutter," feder said. "well, if i would got to accept such a proposition like that, mr. feder," the visitor declared, "i would sooner bust up first. that's all i got to say." he jammed his hat down on his head and made for the door. "now, mr. noblestone, i am ready for you," feder cried, but his summons fell on deaf ears, for noblestone was in quick pursuit of the vanishing perlmutter. noblestone overtook him at the corner and touched his elbow. "how do you do, mr. perlmutter!" he exclaimed. perlmutter stopped short and wheeled around. "huh?" he said. "this is mr. sol perlmutter, ain't it?" noblestone asked. "no, it ain't," perlmutter replied. "my name is morris perlmutter, and the pair of real gold eye-glasses which you just picked up and would let me have as a bargain for fifty cents, ain't no use to me neither." "i ain't picked up no eye-glasses," noblestone said. "no?" morris perlmutter rejoined. "well, i don't want to buy no blue white diamond ring neither, y'understand, so if it's all the same to you i got business to attend to." "so do i," noblestone went on, "and this is what it is. also my name is there too." he showed morris a card, which read as follows: ______________________________________________________ | | | telephone connection real estate & insurance | | in all its branches | | | | philip noblestone | | business broker | | | | g e t a | | p a r t n e r | | | | east houston street new york | |______________________________________________________| "don't discount them good accounts, mr. perlmutter," he added, "it ain't necessary." "who told you i want to discount some accounts?" morris asked. "if i see a feller in a dentist's chair," noblestone answered, "i don't need to be told he's got the toothache already." after this morris was easily persuaded to accept noblestone's invitation to drink a cup of coffee, and they retired immediately to a neighboring bakery and lunch room. "yes, mr. noblestone," morris said, consulting the card. "i give you right about feder. that feller is worser as a dentist. he's a bloodsucker. fifteen hundred dollars gilt-edged accounts i offer him as security for twelve hundred, and when i get through with paying dewitt c. feinholtz, his son-in-law, what is the bank's lawyer, there wouldn't be enough left from that twelve hundred dollars to pay off my operators." "that's the way it is when a feller's short of money," noblestone said. "now, if you would got it a partner with backing, y'understand, you wouldn't never got to be short again." with this introductory sentence, noblestone launched out upon a series of persuasive arguments, which only ended when morris perlmutter had promised to lunch with zudrowsky, harry federmann and noblestone at wasserbauer's café and restaurant the following afternoon at one o'clock. for the remainder of the day, philip noblestone interviewed as much of the cloak and suit trade as he could cover, with respect to morris perlmutter's antecedents, and the result was entirely satisfactory. he ascertained that morris had worked his way up from shipping clerk, through the various grades, until he had reached the comparative eminence of head cutter, and his only failing was that he had embarked in business with less capital than experience. at first he had met with moderate success, but a dull season in the cloak trade had temporarily embarrassed him, and the consensus of opinion among his competitors was that he had a growing business but was over-extended. thus when noblestone repaired to the office of zudrowsky & cohen at closing time that afternoon, he fairly outdid himself extolling morris perlmutter's merits, and he presented so high colored a picture that zudrowsky deprecated the business broker's enthusiasm. "say, looky here, noblestone," he said, "enough's enough. all i want is a partner for my son-in-law which would got common sense and a little judgment. that's all. i don't expect no miracles, y'understand, and the way i understand it from you, this feller morris perlmutter is got a business head like andrew carnegie already and a shape like john drew." "i never mentioned his name because i don't know that feller at all," noblestone protested. "but perlmutter is a fine business man, mr. zudrowsky, and he's a swell dresser, too." "a feller what goes to a bank looking for accommodations," zudrowsky replied, "naturally don't put on his oldest clothes, y'understand, but anyhow, noblestone, if you would be around here at half past twelve to-morrow, i will see that harry gets here too, and we will go down to wasserbauer's and meet the feller." it was precisely one o'clock the following day when morris perlmutter seated himself at a table in the rear of wasserbauer's café and restaurant. "yes, sir, right away!" louis, the waiter, cried, as he deposited a plate of dill pickles on the adjoining table, at which sat a stout middle-aged person with a napkin tucked in his neck. "_koenigsberger klops_ is good to-day, mr. potash," louis announced. "pushing the stickers, louis, ain't it?" the man at the next table said. "you couldn't get me to eat no chopped meat which customers left on their plates last week already. i never believe in buying seconds, louis. give me a piece of roast beef, well done, and a baked potato." "right away, mr. potash," louis said, as he passed on to perlmutter's table. "now, sir, what could i do for you?" "me, i am waiting here for somebody," morris replied. "bring me a glass of water and we will give our order later." "right away!" said louis, and hustled off to fill abe potash's order, whereat abe selected a dill pickle to beguile the tedium of waiting. he grasped it firmly between his thumb and finger, and neatly bisected it with his teeth. simultaneously the pickle squirted, and about a quarter of a pint of the acid juice struck morris perlmutter in the right eye. "excuse _me_," abe cried. "excuse me." "s'all right," morris replied. "i seen what you was doing and i should of ordered an umbrella instead of a glass of water already." abe laughed uproariously. "dill pickles is uncertain like paris fashions," he commented. "you could never tell what they would do next." "i bet yer," morris replied. "last year people was buying silks like they was crazy, y'understand, and this year you would think silks was poison. a buyer wouldn't touch 'em at all, and that's the way it goes." abe rose with the napkin tucked in his neck, and carrying the dish of dill pickles with him, he sat down at morris' table, to which louis brought the roast beef a moment later. "i seen you was in the cloak and suit business as soon as i looked at you," abe said. "i guess i'll eat here till your friends come." "go ahead," morris replied. "it's already quarter past one, and if them fellers don't come soon, i'm going to eat, too." "what's the use waiting?" abe said. "eat anyhow. this roast beef is fine. try some of it on me." "why should i stick you for my lunch?" morris rejoined. "i see them suckers ain't going to show up at all, so i guess i'll take a sandwich and a cup of coffee." he motioned to louis. "right away!" louis cried. "yes, sir, we got some nice _koenigsberger klops_ to-day _mit kartoffel kloes_." "what d'ye take this gentleman for, anyway, louis?" abe asked. "a garbage can? give him a nice slice of roast beef well done and a baked potato. also bring two cups of coffee and give it the checks to me." by a quarter to two abe and morris had passed from business matters to family affairs, and after they had exchanged cigars and the conversation had reached a stage where morris had just accepted an invitation to dine at abe's house, noblestone and zudrowsky entered, with harry federmann bringing up in the rear. harry was evidently in disfavor, and his weak, blond face wore the crestfallen look of a whipped child, for he had been so occupied with his billing and cooing up town, that he had forgotten his business engagement. "hallo, mr. perlmutter," noblestone cried, and then he caught sight of morris' companion and the remains of their generous meal. "i thought you was going to take lunch with us." "do i got to starve, mr. who's-this--i lost your card--just because i was fool enough to take up your proposition yesterday? i should of known better in the first place." "but this here young feller, mr. federmann, got detained uptown," zudrowsky explained. "his wife got took suddenly sick." "why, she may have to have an operation," noblestone said in a sudden burst of imaginative enthusiasm. "you should tell your troubles to a doctor," abe said, rising from the table. "and besides, noblestone, mr. perlmutter don't want no partner just now." "but," perlmutter began, "but, mr. potash----" "that is to say," abe interrupted, "he don't want a partner with no business experience. me, i got business experience, as you know, mr. noblestone, and so we fixed it up we would go as partners together, provided after we look each other up everything is all right." he looked inquiringly at perlmutter, who nodded in reply. "and if everything _is_ all right," perlmutter said, "we will start up next week." "under the firm name," abe added, "of potash & perlmutter." chapter ii in less than ten days the new firm of potash & perlmutter were doing business in abe potash's old quarters on white street with the addition of the loft on the second floor. abe had occupied the grade floor of an old-fashioned building, and agreeable to morris' suggestion the manufacturing and cutting departments were transferred to the second floor, leaving abe's old quarters for show-room, office and shipping purposes. it was further arranged that abe's share of the copartnership work should be the selling end and that morris should take charge of the manufacturing. both partners supervised the accounting and credit department with the competent assistance of miss r. cohen, who had served the firm of vesell & potash in the same capacity. for more than a year morris acted as designer, and with one or two unfortunate exceptions, the styles he originated had been entirely satisfactory to potash & perlmutter's growing trade. the one or two unfortunate exceptions, however, had been a source of some loss to the firm. first, there were the tourists' coats which cost potash & perlmutter one thousand dollars; then came the purple directoires; total, two thousand dollars charged off to profit and loss on the firm's books. "no, mawruss," abe said, when his partner spoke of a new model, which he termed the long branch coatee, "i don't like that name. anyhow, mawruss, i got it in my mind we should hire a designer. while i figure it that you don't cost us nothing extra, mawruss, a couple of stickers like them tourists and that directoire model puts us in the hole two thousand dollars. on the other hand, mawruss, if we get a good designer, mawruss, all we pay him is two thousand a year and we're through." "i know, abe," morris replied, "but designers can turn out stickers, too." "sure, they can, mawruss," abe went on, "but they got a job to look out for, mawruss, while you are one of the bosses here, whether you turn out stickers or not. no, mawruss, i got enough of stickers already. i'm going to look out for a good, live designer, a smart young feller like louis grossman, what works for sammet brothers. i bet you they done an increased business of twenty per cent. with that young feller's designs. i met ike gotthelf, buyer for horowitz & finkelbein, and he tells me he gave sammet brothers a two-thousand-dollar order a couple of weeks ago, including a hundred and twenty-two garments of that new-style they got out, which they call the arverne sacque, one of louis grossman's new models." "is that so?" said morris. "well, you know what i would do if i was you, abe? i'd see louis grossman and offer him ten dollars a week more than sammet brothers pays him, and the first thing you know he'd be working for us and not for sammet brothers." "you got a great head, mawruss," abe rejoined ironically. "you got the same idee all of a sudden what i think about a week ago already. i seen louis grossman yesterday, and offered him fifteen, not ten." "and what did he say?" "he says he's working by sammet brothers under a contract, mawruss, what don't expire for a year yet, and they're holding up a quarter of his wages under the contract, which he is to forfeit if he don't work it out." "don't you believe it, abe," morris broke in. "he's standing out for more money." "is he?" said abe with some heat. "well, i seen the contract, mawruss, so either i'm a liar or not, mawruss, ain't it?" here they were interrupted by the entrance of a customer, ike herzog, of the bon ton credit outfitting company. "ah, mr. herzog!" abe cried, rising to his feet and extending both hands in greeting. "glad to see you. ain't it a fine weather?" mr. herzog grunted in reply. "potash," he said, "when i give you that order last week, i don't know whether i didn't buy a big lot of your style fifty-nine-ten, ain't it?" "yes, you did," said abe. "well," said herzog, "i want to cancel that part of the order." "cancel it!" abe cried. "why, what's the matter with them garments? ain't the samples made up right?" "sure, they're made up right," said herzog, "only i seen something what i like better. it's about the same style, only more attractive. i mean sammet brothers' style forty-one-fifty--their new arverne sacque." "mr. herzog!" abe cried. herzog raised a protesting palm. "now, potash," he said, "you know whatever i buy in staples you get the preference; but when anybody's got a specialty like that arverne sacque, what's the use of talking?" he shook hands cordially. "i'll be around to see you in about a week," he said, and the next moment the door closed behind him. "well, mawruss, that settles it," said abe, putting on his hat. "when we lose a good customer like ike herzog, i gets busy right away." "where are you going, abe?" morris asked. abe struggled into his overcoat and seized his umbrella. "round to sammet brothers," he replied. "i'm going to get that young feller away from them if i got to pay 'em a thousand dollars to boot." leon sammet, head of the copartnership of sammet brothers, sat in the firm's sample room and puffed gloomily at a wheeling stogy. his brother, barney sammet, stood beside him reading aloud from a letter which he held in his hand. "'gents,'" he said, "'your shipment of the fourteenth instant to hand, and in reply will say we ain't satisfied with nothing but style forty-one-fifty. our miss kenny is a perfect thirty-six, and she can't breathe in them empires style , in sizes , or . what is the matter with you, anyway? we are returning them via eagle dispatch. we are yours truly, the boston store, horowitz & finkelbein, proprietors.'" "yes, barney," leon commented, "that's a designer for you, that louis grossman. his arverne sacques is all right, barney, but the rest is nix. he's a one garment man. tell miss aaronstamm to bring in her book. i want to send them boston store people a letter." a moment later miss aaronstamm entered, and sat down at a sample table. "write to the boston store," leon sammet said. "'horowitz & finkelbein, proprietors, gents'--got that? 'we received your favor of the eighteenth instant, and in reply would say we don't accept no styles what you return.' got that? 'if your miss kenny can't breathe in them garments that ain't our fault. they wasn't made to breathe in; they was made to sell. you say she is a perfect thirty-six. how do we know that? we ain't never measured her, and we don't believe you have, neither. anyway, we ain't taking back no goods what we sold once. yours truly.' that's all, miss aaronstamm. i guess that'll fix 'em. what, barney?" barney nodded gloomily. "i tell you, barney," leon went on, "i wish i never seen that louis grossman. he certainly got into us good and proper." "i don't know, leon," said barney. "that arverne sacque was a record seller." "arverne sacque!" leon cried. "that's all everybody says. we can't make a million dollars out of one garment alone, barney. we can't even make expenses. i'm afraid we'll go in the hole over ten thousand dollars if we don't get rid of him." "but we can't get rid of him," said barney. "we got a contract with him." "don't i know it?" said leon, sadly. "ain't i paid henry d. feldman a hundred dollars for drawing it up? he's got us, barney. louis grossman's got us and no mistake. well, i got to go up to the cutting-room and see what he's doing now, barney. he can spoil more piece-goods in an hour than i can buy in a week." he rose wearily to his feet and was half-way to the stairs in the rear of the store when abe potash entered. "hallo, leon!" abe called. "don't be in a rush. i want to talk to you." leon returned to the show-room and shook hands limply with abe. it was a competitor's, not a customer's, shake. "well, abe," he said, "how's business?" "if we got a good designer like you got, leon," abe replied, "we would----" "a good designer!" barney broke in. "why----" his involuntary disclaimer ended almost where it began with a furtive, though painful, kick from his elder brother. "a good designer, abe," leon went on hastily, "is a big asset, and louis grossman is a first-class a number one designer. we done a tremendous spring business through louis. i suppose you heard about our style forty-one-fifty?" abe nodded. "them arverne sacques," he said. "yes, i heard about it from everybody i meet. he must be a gold-mine, that louis grossman." "he is," leon continued. "our other styles, too, he turns out wonderful. our empire models what he designs for us, abe, i assure you is also making a tremendous sensation. you ought to see the letter we got this morning from horowitz & finkelbein." barney blew his nose with a loud snort. "i guess i'll go upstairs, and see what the boys is doing in the cutting-room, leon," he said, and made a hasty exit. "not that louis grossman ain't a good cutting-room foreman, too, abe," said leon, "but we're just getting in some new piece-goods and barney wants to check 'em off. but i ain't asked you yet what we can do for you? a recommendation, maybe? our credit files is open to you, abe." abe pushed his hat back from his forehead and mopped his brow. then he sat down and lit a cigar. "leon," he commenced, "what's the use of making a lot of talk about it. i'm going to talk to you man to man, leon, and no monkey-business about it nor nothing. i'm going to be plain and straightforward, leon, and tell it to you right from the start what i want. i don't believe in no beating bushes around, leon, and when i say a thing i mean it. i got to talk right out, leon. that's the kind of man i am." "all right, abe," leon said. "don't spring it on me too sudden, though." "well," abe continued, "it's this way." he gave one last puff at his cigar. "leon," he said, "how much will you take for louis grossman?" "take!" leon shouted. "take! why, abe----" he stopped suddenly, and, recovering his composure just in the nick of time, remained silent. "i know, leon, he's a valuable man," abe said earnestly, "but i'm willing to be fair, leon. of course i ain't a hog, and i don't think you are." "no, i ain't," leon replied quite calmly; "i ain't a hog, and so i say i wouldn't take nothing for him, abe, because, abe, if i told you what i _would_ take for him, abe, then, maybe, you might have reason for calling me a hog." "oh, no, i wouldn't, leon," abe protested. "i told you i know he's a valuable man, so i want you should name a price." "_i_ should name a price!" leon cried. "why, abe, i'm surprised at you. if i go to a man to sell something what i like to get rid of it, and he don't want, then i name the price. but if a man comes to me to buy something what i want to keep, and what he's got to have, abe, then _he_ names the price. ain't it?" abe looked critically at the end of his smoldering cigar. "well, leon," he said at length, "if i must name a price, i suppose i must. now i know you will think me crazy, leon, but i want to get a good designer bad, leon, and so i say"--here he paused to note the effect--"_five hundred dollars_." leon held out his hand. "i guess you got to excuse me, abe," he said. "i'd like it first rate to stay here and visit with you all morning but i got work to do, and so i hope you'll excuse me." "seven hundred and fifty," abe said. "fifteen hundred dollars," leon replied quite firmly. for twenty minutes abe's figure rose and leon's fell until they finally met at ten hundred thirty-three, thirty-three. "he's worth it, abe, believe me," said leon, as they shook hands on the bargain. "and now let's fix it up right away." half an hour later, abe, louis grossman and leon sammet entered the spacious law offices of henry d. feldman, who bears the same advisory relation to the cloak and suit trade as judge gary did to the steel and iron business. the drawing of the necessary papers occupied the better part of the day and it was not until three o'clock in the afternoon that the transaction was complete. by its terms sammet brothers in consideration of $ , . paid by potash & perlmutter, released louis grossman from his contract, and louis entered into a new agreement with potash & perlmutter at an advance of a thousand a year over the compensation paid him by sammet brothers. in addition he was to receive from potash & perlmutter five per cent. of the profits of their business, payable weekly, the arrangement to be in force for one year, during which time neither employer nor employee could be rid one of the other save by mutual consent. "it comes high, mawruss," abe said to his partner, after he had returned to the store, "but i guess louis's worth it." "i hope so," morris replied. "now we can make up some of them arverne sacques." "no, mawruss," abe replied, "i'm sorry to say we can't, because, by the agreement what henry d. feldman drew up, sammet brothers has the sole right to make up and sell the arverne sacques; but i seen to it, mawruss, that we got the right to make up and sell every other garment what louis grossman originated for them this season." he smiled triumphantly at his partner. "and," he concluded, "he's coming to work monday morning." at the end of three disillusionizing weeks abe potash and morris perlmutter sat in the show-room of their place of business. abe's hat was tilted over his eyes and he whistled a tuneless air. morris was biting his nails. "well, mawruss," abe said at length, "when we're stuck we're stuck; ain't it? what's the use of sitting here like a couple of mummies; ain't it?" morris ceased biting his nails. "yes, abe," he said, "ten hundred and thirty-three, thirty-three for a designer what couldn't design paper-bags for a delicatessen store. i believe he must have took lessons in designing from a correspondence school." "believe me, mawruss, he learned it by telephone," abe replied. "but cussing him out won't do no good, mawruss. the thing to do now is to get busy and turn out some garments what we can sell. them masquerade costumes what he gets up you couldn't sell to a five-and-ten-cent store." "all right," morris said. "let's have another designer and leave louis to do the cutting." "_another_ designer!" abe exclaimed. "no, mawruss, you're a good enough designer for me. i always said it, mawruss, you're a first-class a number one designer." thus encouraged, morris once more took up the work of the firm's designing, and he labored with the energy of despair, for the season was far spent. at length he evolved four models that made abe's eyes fairly bulge. "that's snappy stuff, mawruss," he said, as he examined the completed samples one morning. "i bet yer they sell like hot cakes." abe's prophecy more than justified itself, and in ten days they were completely swamped with orders. abe and morris went around wearing smiles that only relaxed when they remembered louis grossman and his hide-bound agreement, under which he drew five per cent. of the firm's profits and sixty dollars a week. "anyhow, mawruss, we'll get some return from louis grossman," abe said. "i advertised in the daily cloak and suit record yesterday them four styles of yours as the four best sellers of the season, originated by the creator of the arverne sacque. ike herzog was in the first thing this morning and bought two big lots of each one of the models. ike's a great admirer of louis grossman, mawruss. i bet yer when sammet brothers saw that ad they went crazy; ain't it?" "but," morris protested, "why should louis grossman get the credit for my work?" "because, mawruss, you know them arverne sacques is the best sellers put out in the cloak and suit business this year," abe replied. "and besides, mawruss, we may be suckers, but that ain't no reason why sammet brothers should know it." "don't worry, abe," said morris; "they know they stuck us good and plenty when they released louis grossman." "do they?" abe rejoined. "well, they don't know it unless you told 'em. louis grossman won't tell 'em and i didn't tell 'em when i met leon and barney at lunch to-day." "what did you tell 'em!" morris asked, somewhat alarmed. "i told 'em, mawruss, that the season is comparatively young yet, but we already made from ten to twenty per cent. more sales by our new designer. i told leon them new styles what louis grossman got up for us is selling so big we can't put 'em out fast enough." "and what did leon say?" morris asked. "he didn't say nothing," abe replied, "but he looked like his best customer had busted up on him. then i showed him the order what we got from ike herzog, and he started in right away to call barney down for going home early the day before. i tell you, mawruss, he was all broke up." "i know, abe," morris commented, "that's all right, too, but, all the same, we ain't got much of a laugh on them two boys, so long as louis grossman loafs away upstairs drawing sixty dollars a week and five per cent. of the profits." "well," abe replied, "what are you going to do about it? henry d. feldman drew up the contract, and you know, mawruss, contracts what henry d. feldman makes nobody can break." "can't they?" morris cried. "well, if henry d. feldman made it can't henry d. feldman break it? what good is the lawyer, anyhow, what can't get us out of the contract what he fixed up himself?" abe pondered over the situation for five minutes. "you're right, mawruss," he said at length; "i'll go and see henry d. feldman the first thing to-morrow morning." the next morning leon sammet sat at his roll-top desk in his private office, while barney went over the morning mail. "hallo," barney cried, "here's a check from horowitz & finkelbein for the full amount of their bill, leon. i guess they thought better of that return shipment they made of them bum garments that louis grossman designed. they ain't made no deduction on account of it." "bum garments, nothing," leon commented. "them garments was all right, barney. i guess we didn't know how to treat louis grossman when he worked by us. look at the big success he's making by potash & perlmutter. i bet yer they're five thousand ahead on the season's sales already. we thought they was suckers when they paid us ten thirty-three, thirty-three for him, but i guess the shoe pinches on the other foot, barney. i wish we had him back, that's all. them four new designs what he made for potash & perlmutter is tremendous successes. what did he done for us, barney? one garment, the arverne sacque, and i bet yer them four styles will put the arverne sacque clean out of business." "well, leon," said barney, "you traded him off so smart, why don't you get him back? why don't you see him, leon?" "i _did_ see him," said leon. "i called at his house last night." "and what did he say?" barney asked. "he said he's under contract, as you know, with potash & perlmutter, and that if we can get him out of it he's only too glad to come back to us. but henry d. feldman drew up that contract, barney, and you know as well as i do, barney, that what henry d. feldman draws up is drawn up for keeps, ain't it?" "there's loopholes in every contract, leon," said barney, "and a smart lawyer like henry d. feldman can find 'em out quick enough. why don't you go right round and see henry d. feldman? maybe he can fix it so as to get louis back here." leon shut down his roll-top desk and seized his hat. "that's a good idea, barney," he said. "i guess i'll take your advice." it is not so much to know the law, ran henry d. feldman's motto, paraphrasing a famous dictum of judge sharswood, as to look, act and talk as though you knew it. to this end mr. feldman seldom employed a word of one syllable, if it had a synonym of three or four syllables, and such phrases as _res gestæ_, _scienter_, and _lex fori delicti_ were the very life of his conversation with clients. "the information which you now disclose, mr. sammet," he said, after leon had made known his predicament, "is all _obiter dicta_." leon blushed. he imagined this to be somewhat harsh criticism of the innocent statement that he thought potash & perlmutter could be bluffed into releasing louis grossman. "_imprimis_," mr. feldman went on, "i have not been consulted by mr. grossman about what he desires done in the matter, but, speaking _ex cathedra_, i am of the opinion that some method might be devised for rescinding the contract." "you mean we can get potash & perlmutter to release him?" "precisely," said mr. feldman, "and in a very elementary and efficacious fashion." "well, i ain't prepared to pay so much money at once," said leon. now, when it came to money matters, henry d. feldman's language could be colloquial to the point of slang. "what's biting you now?" he said. "i ain't going to charge you too much. leave it to me, and if i deliver the goods it will cost you two hundred and fifty dollars." leon sighed heavily, but he intended getting louis back at all costs, not, however, to exceed ten thirty-three, thirty-three. "well, i ain't kicking none if you can manage it," he replied. "tell us how to go about it." straightway mr. feldman unfolded a scheme which, stripped of its technical phraseology, was simplicity itself. he rightly conjectured that the most burdensome feature of the contract, so far as potash & perlmutter were concerned, was the five per cent. share of the profits that fell to louis grossman each week. he therefore suggested that louis approach abe potash and request that, instead of five per cent. of the profits, he be paid a definite sum each week, for the cloak and suit business has its dull spells between seasons, when profits occasionally turn to losses. thus louis could advance as a reason that he would feel safer if he be paid, say, twenty dollars a week the year round in lieu of his uncertain share of the profits. "abe potash will jump at that," leon commented. "i anticipate that he will," mr. feldman went on, "and then, after he has paid mr. grossman the first week's installment it will constitute a rescission of the old contract and a substitution of a new one, which will be a contract of hiring from week to week. at the conclusion of the first week their contractual relations can be severed at the option of either party." "but i don't want them to do nothing like that," leon said. "i just want louis to quit his job with potash & perlmutter and come and work by us." "look a-here, sammet," feldman broke in impatiently. "i can't waste a whole morning talking to a boob that don't understand the english language. you're wise to the part about louis grossman asking for twenty dollars a week steady, instead of his share of the proceeds, ain't you?" leon nodded. "then if potash falls for it," feldman concluded, "as soon as grossman gets the first twenty out of him he can throw up his job on the spot. see?" leon nodded again. "then clear out of this," said feldman and pushed a button on his desk to inform the office-boy that he was ready for the next client. as leon passed through the outer office he encountered ike herzog of the bon ton credit outfitting company, who was solacing himself with the daily cloak and suit record in the interval of his waiting. "good morning, mr. herzog," leon exclaimed. "so you got your troubles, too." "i ain't got no troubles, leon," ike herzog said, "but i got to use a lawyer in my business once in awhile. just now i'm enlarging my place, and i got contracts to make and new people to hire. i hope _you_ ain't got no law suits nor nothing." "law suits ain't in my line, mr. herzog," leon said. "once in awhile i change my working people, too. that's why i come here." "sometimes you change 'em for the worse, leon," herzog commented, indicating abe potash's effective ad with a stubby forefinger. "you certainly made a mistake when you got rid of louis grossman. he's turning out some elegant stuff for potash & perlmutter." leon nodded gloomily. "well, we all make mistakes, mr. herzog," he said, "and that's why we got to come here." "that's so," herzog agreed, as leon opened the door. "i hope i ain't making no mistake in what _i'm_ going to do." "i hope not," leon said as he passed out. "good morning." ike herzog's interview with henry d. feldman was short and very much to his satisfaction, for when he emerged from feldman's sanctum, to find abe potash waiting without, he could not forbear a broad smile. abe nodded perfunctorily and a moment later was closeted with the oracle. "mr. feldman," he said, "i come to ask you an advice, and as i'm pretty busy this morning, do me the favor and leave out all them _caveat emptors_." "sure thing," feldman replied. "tell me all about it." "well, then, mr. feldman," said abe, "i want to get rid of louis grossman." mr. feldman almost jumped out of his chair. "i want to fire louis grossman," abe repeated. "you remember that you drew me up a burglar-proof contract between him and us a few weeks ago, and now i want you to be the burglar and bust it up for me." feldman touched the button on his desk. "bring me the draft of the contract between potash & perlmutter and louis grossman that i dictated last month," he said to the boy who answered. in a few minutes the boy returned with a large envelope. he was instructed never to come back empty-handed when asked to bring anything, and, in this instance the envelope held six sheets of folded legal cap, some of which contained the score of a pinochle game, played after office hours on saturday afternoon between the managing clerk and the process-server. feldman put the envelope in his pocket and retired to a remote corner of the room. there he examined the contents of the envelope and, knitting his brows into an impressive frown, he took from the well-stocked shelves that lined the walls book after book of digests and reports. occasionally he made notes on the back of the envelope, and after the space of half an hour he returned to his chair and prepared to deliver himself of a weighty opinion. "in the first place," he said, "this man grossman ain't incompetent in his work, is he?" "incompetent!" abe exclaimed. "oh, no, he ain't incompetent. he's competent enough to sue us for five thousand dollars after we fire him, if that's what you mean." "then i take it that you don't want to discharge him for incompetence and risk a law suit," mr. feldman went on. "now, before we go on, how much does his share of your profits amount to each week?" "about thirty dollars in the busy season," abe replied. "then here's your scheme," said feldman. "you go to grossman and say: 'look a-here, grossman, this business of figuring out profits each week is a troublesome piece of bookkeeping. suppose we call your share of the profits forty dollars a week and let it go at that.' d'ye suppose grossman would take it?" "would a cat eat liver?" said abe. "well, then," feldman now concluded, "after grossman accepts the offer, and you pay him the first installment of forty dollars you're substituting a new weekly contract in place of the old yearly one, and you can fire grossman just as soon as you have a mind to." "but suppose he sues me, anyhow?" said abe. "if he does," feldman replied. "i won't charge you a cent; otherwise it'll be two hundred and fifty dollars." he touched the bell in token of dismissal. "this fellow, grossman, is certainly a big money-maker," he said to himself, after abe had gone, "_for me_." the following saturday abe sat in the show-room making up the weekly payroll, and with his own hand he drew a check to the order of louis grossman for forty dollars. "mawruss," he said, "do me the favor and go upstairs to louis grossman. you know what to say to him." "why should _i_ go, abe?" morris said. "you know the whole plan. you saw feldman." "but it don't look well for me," abe rejoined. "do me the favor and go yourself." morris shrugged his shoulders and departed, while abe turned to the pages of the daily cloak and suit record to bridge over the anxious period of morris' absence. the first item that struck his eye appeared under the heading, "alterations and improvements." "the bon ton credit outfitting company, isaac herzog, proprietor," it read, "is about to open a manufacturing department, and will, on and after june , do all its own manufacturing and alterations in the enlarged store premises, nos. , and second avenue." abe laid down the paper with a sigh. "there's where we lose another good customer," he said as morris returned. a wide grin was spread over morris' face. "well, mawruss?" abe asked. "yes, abe," morris replied. "ten hundred and thirty-three, thirty-three you paid for him. and now you must pay him forty dollars a week. _i_ ain't so generous, abe, believe me. i settled with him for twenty-seven-fifty." "well, mawruss, it's only for one week," abe protested. "i know," said morris, "but why should _he_ get the benefit of it?" "did you have much of a time getting him to take it?" abe asked. "it was like this," morris explained. "i told him what you said about a lump sum in place of profits and asked him to name his price, and the first thing he says was twenty-seven-fifty." "and you let him have it for that?" abe cried. "you're a business man, mawruss, i must say. i bet yer he would have took twenty-five." he tore up the check for forty dollars and drew a new one for twenty-seven-fifty. "here, mawruss," he said, "take it up to him like a good feller." it was precisely noon when morris delivered the check to louis grossman, and it was one o'clock when louis went out to lunch. three o'clock struck before abe first noted his absence. "ain't that feller come back from his dinner yet, mawruss?" he asked. "no," morris replied. "i wonder what can be keeping him. he generally takes half an hour for his dinner." at this juncture the telephone bell rang in the rear of the store and abe answered it. "hello," he said; "yes, this is potash & perlmutter. oh, hello, leon, what can we do for you?" "i want to speak to louis grossman. can you call him to the 'phone?" leon said. "louis ain't in," abe said. "do you want to leave a message for him?" "well," leon hesitated, "the fact is--we had an appointment with him for two o'clock over here, and he ain't showed up yet." "appointment with louis!" abe said. "why, what should you have an appointment with louis for, leon?" "well," leon stammered, "i--now--got to see him--now--about them arverne sacques." "oh!" abe said. "i understand. well, he went to lunch about twelve o'clock, and he ain't come back yet. is there anything what we can do for you, leon?" but sammet had hung up the receiver without waiting for further conversation. at four o'clock the telephone rang again, and once more abe answered it. "hello," he said. "yes, this is potash & perlmutter. oh! hello, leon! what can we do for you _now_?" "abe," leon said, "louis ain't showed up yet. has he showed up at your place yet?" "no, he ain't, leon," abe replied. "you seem mighty anxious to see him. why, what for should i try to prevent him speaking to you? he ain't here, i tell you. all right, leon; then i'm a liar." he hung up the receiver with a bang, and an hour later when morris and he locked up the place, louis' absence remained a complete mystery to his employers. on monday morning abe and morris opened the store at seven-thirty, and while morris examined the mail, abe took up the daily cloak and suit record and scanned the business-trouble column. there were no failures of personal or firm interest to abe, so he passed on to the new-business column. the first item caused him to gasp, and he almost swallowed the butt of his cigar. it read: a partnership has this day been formed between isaac herzog and louis grossman, to carry on the business of the bon ton credit outfitting company, under the same firm name. it is understood that mr. grossman will have charge of the designing and manufacturing end of the concern. he handed the paper over to morris and lit a fresh cigar. "another sucker for louis grossman," he said, "and i bet yer henry d. feldman drew up the copartnership papers." chapter iii when mr. siegmund lowenstein, proprietor of the o'gorman-henderson dry-goods company of galveston, texas, entered potash & perlmutter's show-room, he expected to give only a small order. mr. lowenstein usually transacted his business with abe potash, who was rather conservative in matters of credit extension, more especially since mr. lowenstein was reputed to play auction pinochle with poor judgment and for high stakes. therefore, mr. lowenstein intended to buy a few staples, specialties of potash & perlmutter, and to reserve the balance of his spring orders for other dealers who entertained more liberal credit notions than did abe potash. much to his gratification, however, he was greeted by morris perlmutter. "ah, mr. perlmutter," he said; "glad to see you. is mr. potash in?" "he's home, sick, to-day," morris replied. mr. lowenstein clucked sympathetically. "you don't say so," he murmured. "that's too bad. what seems to be the trouble?" "he's been feeling mean all the winter," morris replied. "the doctor says he needs a rest." "that's always the way with them hard-working fellers," mr. lowenstein went on. "i'm feeling pretty sick myself, i assure you, mr. perlmutter. i've been working early and late in my store. we never put in such a season before, and we done a phenomenal holiday business. we took stock last week and we're quite cleaned out. i bet you we ain't got stuck a single garment in any line--cloaks, suits, clothing or furs." "i'm glad to hear it," morris said. "and we expect this season will be a crackerjack, too," he continued. "i had to give a few emergency orders to jobbers down south before i left galveston, we had such an early rush of spring trade." "is that so?" morris commented. "i wish we could say the same in new york." "you don't tell me!" mr. lowenstein rejoined. "why, i was over by garfunkel and levy just now, and mr. levy says he is almost too busy. i looked over their line and i may place an order with them, although they ain't got too good an assortment, mr. perlmutter." "far be it from me to knock a competitor's line, mr. lowenstein," morris commented, "but i honestly think they get their designers off of ellis island." "well," mr. lowenstein conceded, "of course i don't say they got so good an assortment what you have, mr. perlmutter, but they got a liberal credit policy." "why, what's the matter with _our_ credit policy?" morris asked. "nothing," mr. lowenstein replied. "only a merchant like me, what wants to enlarge his business, needs a little better terms than thirty days. ain't it? i'm improving my departments all the time, and i got to buy more fixtures, lay in a better stock and even build a new wing to my store building. all this costs money, mr. perlmutter, as you know, and contractors must be paid strictly for cash. under the circumstances, i need ready money, and, naturally, the house what gives me the most generous credit gets my biggest order." "excuse me for a moment," morris broke in, "i think i hear the telephone." he walked to the rear of the store, where the telephone bell had been trilling impatiently. "hello," he said, taking the receiver off the hook. "hello," said a voice from the other end of the line. "is this potash & perlmutter?" "it is," said morris. "well, this is garfunkel & levy," the voice went on. "we understand mr. lowenstein, of galveston, is in your store. will you please and call him to the 'phone for a minute?" "this ain't no public pay station," morris cried. "and besides, mr. lowenstein just left here." he banged the receiver onto the hook and returned at once to the front of the store. "now, mr. lowenstein," he said, "what can i do for you?" and two hours later mr. lowenstein left the store with the duplicate of a twenty-four-hundred-dollar order in his pocket, deliveries to commence within five days; terms, ninety days net. "well, abe," morris said the next day as his partner, abe potash, entered the show-room, "how are you feeling to-day?" "mean, mawruss," abe replied. "i feel mean. the doctor says i need a rest. he says i got to go away to the country or i will maybe break down." "is _that_ so?" said morris, deeply concerned. "well, then, you'd better go right away, before you get real serious sick. why not fix it so you can go away to-morrow yet?" "to-morrow!" abe exclaimed. "it don't go so quick as all that, mawruss. you can't believe everything the doctors tell you. i ain't exactly dead yet, mawruss. i'm like the feller what everybody says is going to fail, mawruss. they give him till after christmas to bust up, and then he does a fine holiday trade, and the first thing you know, mawruss, he's buying real estate. no, mawruss, i feel pretty mean, i admit, but i think a good two-thousand-dollar order would put me all right again, and so long as we wouldn't have no more trouble with designers, mawruss, i guess i would _stay_ right too." "well, if that's the case," said morris, beaming all over, "i guess i can fix you up. siegmund lowenstein, of galveston, was in here yesterday, and i sold him a twenty-four-hundred-dollar order, including them forty-twenty-two's, and you know as well as i do, abe, them forty-twenty-two's is stickers. we got 'em in stock now over two months, ever since abe magnus, of nashville, turned 'em back on us." abe's reception of the news was somewhat disappointing to morris. he showed no elation, but selected a slightly-damaged cigar from the k. to o. first and second credit customers' box, and lit it deliberately before replying. "how much was that last order he give us, mawruss?" he asked. "four hundred dollars," morris replied. "and what terms?" abe continued. "five off, thirty days." "and what terms did _you_ quote him yesterday?" asked abe inexorably. "ninety days, net," morris murmured. abe puffed vigorously at his cigar, and there was a long and significant silence. "i should think, abe," morris said at length, "the doctor wouldn't let you smoke cigars if you was nearly breaking down." "so long as you sell twenty-four hundred dollars at ninety days to a crook and a gambler like siegmund lowenstein, mawruss," abe replied, "one cigar more or less won't hurt me. if i can stand a piece of news like that, mawruss, i guess i can stand anything. why didn't you give him thirty days' dating, too, mawruss?" at once morris plunged into a long account of the circumstances attending the giving of mr. lowenstein's order, including the telephone message from garfunkel & levy, and at its conclusion abe grew somewhat mollified. "well, mawruss," he said, "we took the order and i suppose we got to ship it. when you deal with a gambler like lowenstein you got to take a gambler's chance. anyhow, i ain't going to worry about it, mawruss. next week i'm going away for a fortnight." "where are you going, abe?" morris asked. "to dotyville, pennsylvania," abe replied. "we leave next saturday. in the meantime i ain't going to worry, mawruss." "that's right, abe," said morris. "sure it's right," abe rejoined. "i'm going to leave _you_ to do the worrying, and in the meantime i guess i'll look after getting out them forty-twenty-two's. them forty-twenty-two's--them plum-color empires was _your_ idee, mawruss. you said they'd make a hit with the southern trade, mawruss, and i hope they do, mawruss, for, if they don't, there ain't much chance of our getting paid for them." a week later abe potash and his wife left for dotyville, pennsylvania, and two days afterward morris received the following letter: doty's union house, dotyville, pennsylvania. _dear morris:_ how is things in the store? we got here the day before yesterday and i have got enough already. it is a dead town. the food what they give us reminds me when pincus vesell & me was partners together as new beginners and i was making southern trips by dollar and a half a day houses american plan. the man doty what keeps the hotel also runs the general store also. he says a fellow by the name of levy used to run it but he couldnt make it go; he made a failure of it. i tried to sell him a few garments but he claims to be overstocked at present and i believe him. i seen some styles what he tries to get rid of it what me & pincus vesell made up in small lots way before the spanish war already. it is a dead town. me and rosie leave tonight for pittsburg and we are going to stay with rosies brother in law hyman margolius. write us how things is going in the store to the outlet auction house hyman margolius prop & north potter ave pittsburg pa. you should see that miss cohen billed them s on date we packed them as goldman the shipping clerk forgot to give them to arrow dispatch when they called. that ain't our fault morris. write and tell me how things is going in the store and dont forget to tell miss cohen about the bill to s. lowenstein as above yours truly a. potash. p. s. how is things in the store? during the first three days of abe potash's vacation he had traveled by local train one hundred and twenty miles to dotyville, and unpacked and packed two trunks under the shrill and captious supervision of mrs. potash. then followed a tiresome journey to pittsburgh with two changes of cars, and finally, on the morning of the fourth day, at seven-thirty sharp, he accompanied hyman margolius to the latter's place of business. there he took off his coat and helped hyman and his staff of assistants to pile up and mark for auction a large consignment of clothing. after this, he called off the lot numbers while hyman checked them in a first draft of a printed catalogue, and at one o'clock, with hands and face all grimy from contact with the ill-dyed satinets of which the clothing was manufactured, he partook of a substantial luncheon at bleistift's restaurant and lunch-room. "well, abe," hyman said, "how do you like the auction business so far as you gone yet?" "it's a good, live business, hymie," abe replied; "but, the way it works out, it ain't always on the square. a fellow what wants to do his creditors buys goods in new york, we'll say, for his business in--galveston, we'll say, and then when he gets the goods he don't even bother to unpack 'em, hymie, but ships 'em right away to you. and you examine 'em, and if they're all o. k., why, you send him a check for about half what it costs to manufacture 'em. then he pockets the check, hymie, and ten days later busts up on the poor sucker what sold him the goods in new york at ninety days. ain't that right, hymie?" "why, that's the funniest thing you ever seen!" hyman exclaimed. "what's the funniest thing i ever seen, hymie?" "you talking about galveston, for instance." abe turned pale and choked on a piece of _rosbraten_. "what d'ye mean?" he gasped. "why," said hyman, "i just received a consignment of garments from a feller called lowenstein in galveston. he wrote me he was overstocked." "overstocked?" abe cried. "overstocked? what color was them garments?" "why, they was a kind of plum color," said hyman. abe put his hand to his throat and eased his collar. "and did you send him a check for 'em yet?" he croaked. "not yet," said hyman. abe grabbed him by the collar. "come!" he said. "come quick by a lawyer!" "what for?" hyman asked. "you're pulling that coat all out of shape yet." "i'll buy you another one," abe cried. "them plum-color garments is mine, and i want to get 'em back." hyman paid the bill, and on their way down the street they passed a telegraph office. "wait," abe cried, "i must send mawruss a wire." he entered and seized a telegraph form, which he addressed to potash & perlmutter. "don't ship no more goods to lowenstein, morris. will explain by letter to-night," he wrote. "now, hymie," he said after he had paid for the dispatch, "we go by your lawyer." five minutes later they were closeted with max marcus, senior member of the firm of marcus, weinschenck & grab, and a lodge brother of hymie margolius. max made a specialty of amputation cases. he was accustomed to cashing missing arms and legs at a thousand dollars apiece for the victims of rolling-mill and railway accidents, and when the sympathetic jury brought in their generous verdict max paid the expert witnesses and pocketed the net proceeds. these rarely fell below five thousand dollars. "sit down, hymie. glad to see you, mr. potash," max said, stroking a small gray mustache with a five-carat diamond ring. "what can i do for _you_?" "i got some goods belonging to mr. potash what a fellow called lowenstein in galveston, texas, shipped me," said hymie, "and mr. potash wants to get 'em back." "replevin, hey?" max said. "that's a little out of my line, but i guess i can fix you up." he rang for a stenographer. "take this down," he said to her, and turned to abe potash. "now, tell us the facts." abe recounted the tale mr. lowenstein had related to morris perlmutter, by which lowenstein made it appear that he was completely out of stock. next, hyman margolius produced siegmund lowenstein's letter which declared that lowenstein was disposing of the empire cloaks because he was overstocked. "s'enough," max declared. "tell, mr. weinschenck to work it up into an affidavit," he continued to the stenographer, "and bring us in a jurat." a moment later she returned with a sheet of legal cap, on the top of which was typewritten: "sworn to before me this first day of april, ." "sign opposite the brace," said max, pushing the paper at abe, and abe scrawled his name where indicated. "now, hold up your right hand," said max, and abe obeyed. "do you solemnly swear that the affidavit subscribed by you is true?" max went on. "what affidavit?" abe asked. "why, the one weinschenck is going to draw when he comes back from lunch, of course," max replied. "sure it's true," said abe. "all right," max concluded briskly. "now give me a check for fifty dollars for my fees, five dollars for a surety company bond, and five dollars sheriff's fees, and i'll get out a replevin order on the strength of that affidavit in half an hour, and have a deputy around to the store at three o'clock to transfer the goods from hymie to you." "sixty dollars is pretty high for a little thing like that, ain't it, max?" said hymie. "high?" max cried indignantly. "high? why, if you wasn't a lodge brother of mine, hymie, i wouldn't have stirred a hand for less than a hundred." thus rebuked, abe paid over the sixty dollars, and hymie and he went back to the store. precisely at three a deputy sheriff entered the front door and flashed a gold badge as big as a dinner-plate. his stay was brief, and in five minutes he had relieved abe of all his spare cigars and departed, leaving only a certified copy of the replevin order and a strong smell of whisky to signalize the transfer of the empire gowns from hymie to abe. hardly had he banged the door behind him when a messenger boy entered and handed a telegram to abe. "ain't shipped no goods but the 's," it read. "have wired lowenstein to return the s. morris." "fine! fine!" abe exclaimed. he tipped the boy a dime and was about to acquaint hyman with the good news, when another messenger boy entered and delivered a second telegram to abe. it read as follows: "lowenstein wires he insists on delivery entire order complete, otherwise he will sue. what shall i wire him? morris." abe seized his hat and dashed down the street to the telegraph office. "gimme a blank," he said to the operator, who handed him a whole padful. for the next twenty minutes abe scribbled and tore up by turns until he finally evolved a satisfactory missive. this he handed to the operator, who read it with a broad grin and passed it back at once. "wot d'ye take me for?" he said. "a bum? dere's ladies in de main office." abe glared at the operator and began again. "here," he said to the operator after another quarter of an hour of scribbling and tearing up, "send this." it was in the following form: _don't send no more goods to lowenstein " " " " wires " nobody_ "fourteen words," the operator said. "fifty-four cents." "what's that?" abe cried. "what yer trying to do? make money on me? that ain't no fourteen words. that's _nine_ words." "it is, hey?" the operator rejoined. "quit yer kiddin'. dat's fourteen words. ditto marks don't go, see?" "you're a fresh young feller," said abe, paying over fifty-four cents, "and i got a good mind to report you to the head office." the operator laughed raucously. "g'wan!" he said. "beat it, or i'll sick de cops onter yer. it's agin the law to cuss in pittsburgh, even by telegraft." when abe returned to the outlet auction house's store hyman was busy stacking up the plum-color gowns in piles convenient for shipping. "well, abe," he said, "i thought you was here for a vacation. you're doing some pretty tall hustling for a sick man, i must say." "i'll tell you the truth, hymie," abe replied, "i ain't got no time to be sick. it ain't half-past three yet, and i guess i'll take a couple of them garments and see what i can do with the jobbing and retail trade in this here town." "don't you think you'd better take it easy for a while, abe?" hyman suggested. "i am taking it easy," said abe. "so long as i ain't working i'm resting, ain't it, hymie? and you know as well as i do, hymie, selling goods never was work to me. it's a pleasure, hymie, i assure you." he placed two of the plum-colored empire gowns under his arm, and thrusting his hat firmly on the back of his head made straight for the dry-goods district. two hours later he returned, wearing a broad smile that threatened to engulf his stubby black mustache between his nose and his chin. "hymie," he said, "i'm sorry i got to disturb that nice pile you made of them garments. i'll get right to work myself and assort the sizes." "why, what's the trouble now, abe?" hyman asked. "i disposed of 'em, hymie," abe replied. "two hundred to hamburg and weiss. three hundred to the capitol credit outfitting company, and five hundred to feinroth and pearl." "hold on there, abe!" hymie exclaimed. "you only got six hundred, and you sold a thousand garments." "i know, hymie," said abe, "but i'm going home to-morrow, and i got a month in which to ship the balance." "going home?" hyman cried. "sure," said abe. "i had a good long vacation, and now i got to get down to business." one morning, two weeks later, abe sat with his feet cocked up on his desk in the show-room of potash & perlmutter's spacious cloak and suit establishment. between his teeth he held a fine pittsburgh cheroot at an angle of about ninety-five degrees to his protruding under-lip, and he perused with relish the business-trouble column of the daily cloak and suit record. "now, what do you think of that?" he exclaimed. "what do i think of what, abe?" morris inquired. for answer abe thrust the paper toward his partner with one hand, and indicated a scare headline with the other. "fraudulent bankruptcy in galveston," it read. "a petition in bankruptcy was filed yesterday against siegmund lowenstein, doing business as the o'gorman-henderson dry-goods company, in galveston, texas. when the federal receiver took charge of the bankrupt's premises they were apparently swept clean of stock and fixtures. it is understood that lowenstein has fled to matamoros, mexico, where his wife preceded him some two weeks ago. the liabilities are estimated at fifty thousand dollars, and the only asset is the store building, which is valued at ten thousand dollars and is subject to mortgages aggregating about the same amount. the majority of the creditors are in new york city and boston." morris returned the paper to his partner without comment. "you see, mawruss," said abe, as he lit a fresh cheroot. "sometimes it pays to be sick. ain't it?" chapter iv "never no more, mawruss," said abe potash to his partner as they sat in the show-room of their spacious cloak and suit establishment one week after abe's return from pittsburgh. "never no more, mawruss, because it ain't good policy. this is strictly a wholesale business, and if once we sell a friend _one_ garment that friend brings a friend, and that friend brings also a friend, and the first thing you know, mawruss, we are doing a big retail business at a net loss of fifty cents a garment." "but this ain't a friend, abe," morris protested. "it's my wife's servant-girl. she seen one of them samples, style forty-twenty-two, them plum-color empires what i took it home to show m. garfunkel on my way down yesterday, and now she's crazy to have one. if she don't get one my minnie is afraid she'll leave." "all right," abe said, "let her leave. if my rosie can cook herself and wash herself, mawruss, i guess it won't hurt your minnie. let her try doing her own work for a while, mawruss. i guess it'll do her good." "but, anyhow, abe, i told the girl to come down this morning and i'd give her one for two dollars, and i guess she'll be here most any time now." "well, mawruss," said abe, "this once is all right, but never no more. we ain't doing a cloak and suit business for the servant-girl trade." further discussion was prevented by the entrance of the retail customer herself. morris jumped quickly to his feet and conducted her to the rear of the store, while abe silently sought refuge in the cutting-room upstairs. "what size do you think you wear, lina?" morris asked. "big," lina replied. "fat." "yes, i know," morris said, "but what size?" "very fat," lina replied. she was a lithuanian and her generous figure had never known the refining influence of a corset until she had landed at ellis island two years before. "that's the biggest i got, lina," morris said, producing the largest-size garment in stock. "maybe if you try it on over your dress you'll get some idea of whether it's big enough." lina struggled feet first into the gown, which buttoned down the back, and for five minutes morris labored with clenched teeth to fasten it for her. "that's a fine fit," he said, as he concluded his task. he led her toward the mirror in the front of the show-room just as m. garfunkel entered the store door. "hallo, mawruss," he cried. "what's this? a new cloak model you got?" [illustration: what's this? a new cloak model you got?] morris blushed, while lina and m. garfunkel both made a critical examination of the garment's eccentric fit. "why, that's one of them forty-twenty-two's what i ordered a lot of this morning, mawruss. ain't it?" morris gazed ruefully at the plum-color gown and nodded. "then don't ship that order till you hear from me," m. garfunkel said. "i guess i got to hustle right along." "don't be in a hurry, mr. garfunkel," morris cried. "you ain't come in the store just to tell me that, have you?" "yes, i have," said garfunkel, his eye still glued to lina's bulging figure. "that's all what i come for. i'll write you this afternoon." he slammed the door behind him and morris turned to the unbuttoning of the half-smothered lina. "that'll be two dollars for _you_, lina," he said, "and i guess it'll be about four hundred for us." at seven the next morning, when abe came down the street from the subway, a bareheaded girl sat on the short flight of steps leading to potash & perlmutter's store door. as abe approached, the girl rose and nodded, whereat abe scowled. "if a job you want it," he said, "you should go round to the back door and wait till the foreman comes." "me no want job," she said. "me _coosin_." "cousin!" abe cried. "whose cousin?" "lina's coosin," said the girl. she held out her hand and, opening it, disclosed a two-dollar bill all damp and wrinkled. "me want dress like lina." "what!" abe cried. "so soon already!" "lina got nice red dress. she show it me last night," the girl said. "me got one, too." she smiled affably, and for the first time abe noticed the smooth, fair hair, the oval face and the slender, girlish figure that seemed made for an empire gown. then, of course, there was the two-dollar bill and its promise of a cash sale, which always makes a strong appeal to a credit-harried mind like abe's. "oh, well," he said with a sigh, leading the way to the rack of empire gowns in the rear of the store, "if i must i suppose i must." he selected the smallest gown in stock and handed it to her. "if you can get into that by your own self you can have it for two dollars," he said, pocketing the crumpled bill. "i don't button up nothing for nobody." he gathered up the mail from the letter-box and carried it to the show-room. there was a generous pile of correspondence, and the very first letter that came to his hand bore the legend, "the paris. cloaks, suits and millinery. m. garfunkel, prop." abe mumbled to himself as he tore it open. "i bet yer he claims a shortage in delivery, when we ain't even shipped him the goods yet," he said, and commenced to read the letter; "i bet yer he----" he froze into horrified silence as his protruding eyes took in the import of m. garfunkel's note. then he jumped from his chair and ran into the store, where the new retail customer was primping in front of the mirror. "out," he yelled, "out of my store." she turned from the fascinating picture in the looking-glass to behold the enraged abe brandishing the letter like a missile, and with one terrified shriek she made for the door and dashed wildly toward the corner. morris was smoking an after-breakfast cigar as he strolled leisurely from the subway, and when he turned into white street abe was still standing on the doorstep. "what's the matter?" morris asked. "matter!" abe cried. "matter! _nothing's_ the matter. everything's fine and dandy. just look at that letter, mawruss. that's all." morris took the proffered note and opened it at once. "gents," it read. "your mr. perlmutter sold us them plum-color empires this morning, and he said they was all the thing on fifth avenue. now, gents, we sell to the first avenue trade, like what was in your store this afternoon when our mr. garfunkel called, and our mr. garfunkel seen enough already. please cancel the order. your mr. perlmutter will understand. truly yours, the paris. m. garfunkel, prop." m. garfunkel lived in a stylish apartment on one hundred and eighteenth street. his family consisted of himself, mrs. garfunkel, three children and a lithuanian maid named anna, and it was a source of wonder to the neighbors that a girl so slight in frame could perform the menial duties of so large a household. she cooked, washed and sewed for the entire family with such cheerfulness and application that mrs. garfunkel deemed her a treasure and left to her discretion almost every domestic detail. thus anna always rose at six and immediately awakened mr. garfunkel, for m. garfunkel's breakfast was an immovable feast, scheduled for half-past six. but on the morning after he had purchased the plum-color gowns from potash & perlmutter it was nearly eight before he awoke, and when he entered the dining-room, instead of the two fried eggs, the sausage and the coffee which usually greeted him, there were spread on the table only the evening papers, a brimming ash-tray and a torn envelope bearing the score of last night's pinochle game. he was about to return to the bedroom and report anna's disappearance when a key rattled in the hall door and anna herself entered. her cheeks were flushed and her hair was blown about her face in unbecoming disorder. nevertheless, she smiled the triumphant smile of the well-dressed. "me late," she said, but garfunkel forgot all about his lost breakfast hour when he beheld the plum-color empire. "why," he gasped, "that's one of them forty-twenty-two's i ordered yesterday." anna lifted both her arms the better to display the gown's perfection, and garfunkel examined it with the eye of an expert. "let's see the back," he said. "that looks great on you, anna." he spun her round and round in his anxiety to view the gown from all angles. "i must have been crazy to cancel that order," he went on. "where did you get it, anna?" "me buy from potash & perlmutter," she said. "my coosin lina works by mr. perlmutter. she gets one yesterday for two dollar. me see it last night and like it. so me get up five o'clock this morning and go downtown and buy one for two dollar, too." m. garfunkel made a rapid mental calculation, while anna left to prepare the belated breakfast. he estimated that anna had paid a little less for her retail purchase than the price potash & perlmutter had quoted to him for hundred lots. "they're worth it, too," he said to himself. "potash & perlmutter is a couple of pretty soft suckers, to be selling goods below cost to servant-girls. i always thought abe potash was a pretty hard nut, but i guess i'll be able to do business with 'em, after all." at half-past ten m. garfunkel entered the store of potash & perlmutter and greeted abe with a smile that blended apology, friendliness and ingratiation in what m. garfunkel deemed to be just the right proportions. abe glared in response. "well, abe," m. garfunkel cried, "ain't it a fine weather?" "is it?" abe replied. "i don't worry about the kind of weather it is when i gets cancelations, mr. garfunkel. what for you cancel that order, mr. garfunkel?" m. garfunkel raised a protesting palm. "now, abe," he said, "if you was to go into a house what you bought goods off of and seen a garment you just hear is all the rage on fifth avenue being tried on by a cow----" "a cow!" abe said. "i want to tell you something, mr. garfunkel. that lady what you see trying on them empires was mawruss' girl what works by his wife, and while she ain't no lillian russell nor nothing like that, y'understand, if you think you should get out of taking them goods by calling her a cow you are mistaken." the qualities of ingratiation and friendliness departed from m. garfunkel's smile, leaving it wholly apologetic. "well, abe, as a matter of fact," he said, "i ain't canceled that order altogether _absolutely_, y'understand. maybe if you make inducements i might reconsider it." "inducements!" abe cried. "inducements is nix. them gowns costs us three dollars apiece, and we give 'em to you for three-ten. if we make any inducements we land in the poorhouse. ain't it?" "oh, the price is all right," m. garfunkel protested, "but the terms is too strict. i can't buy _all_ my goods at ten days. sammet brothers gives me a line at sixty and ninety days, and so i do most of my business with them. now if i could get the same terms by _you_, abe, i should consider your line ahead of sammet brothers'." "excuse _me_," abe interrupted. "i think i hear the telephone ringing." he walked to the rear of the store, where the telephone bell was jingling. "miss cohen," he said to the bookkeeper as he passed the office, "answer the 'phone. i'm going upstairs to speak to mr. perlmutter." he proceeded to the cutting-room, where morris was superintending the unpacking of piece-goods. "mawruss," he said, "m. garfunkel is downstairs, and he says he will reconsider the cancelation and give it us a big order if we let him have better terms. what d'ye say, mawruss?" morris remained silent for a minute. "take a chance, abe," he said at length. "he can't bust up on us by the first bill. can he?" "no," abe agreed hesitatingly, "but he _might_, mawruss?" "sure he might," said morris, "but if we don't take no chances, abe, we might as well go out of the cloak and suit business. sell him all he wants, abe." "i'll sell him all he can pay for, mawruss," said abe, "and i guess that ain't over a thousand dollars." he returned to the first floor, where m. garfunkel eagerly awaited him, and produced a box of the firm's k. to m. first and second credit customers' cigars. "have a smoke, mr. garfunkel," he said. m. garfunkel selected a cigar with care and sat down. "well, abe," he said, "that was a long talk you had over the telephone." "sure it was," abe replied. "the cashier of the kosciusko bank on grand street rang me up. he discounts some of our accounts what we sell responsible people, and he asks me that in future i get regular statements from all my customers--those that i want to discount their accounts in particular." m. garfunkel nodded slowly. "statements--you shall have it, abe," he said, "but i may as well tell you that it's foolish to discount bills what you sell _me_. i sometimes discount them myself. i'll send you a statement, anyhow. now let's look at your line, abe. i wasted enough time already." for the next hour m. garfunkel pawed over potash & perlmutter's stock, and when he finally took leave of abe he had negotiated an order of a thousand dollars; terms, sixty days net. the statement of m. garfunkel's financial condition, which arrived the following day, more than satisfied morris perlmutter and, had it not been quite so glowing in character, it might even have satisfied abe potash. "i don't know, mawruss," he said; "some things looks too good to be true, mawruss, and i guess this is one of them." "always you must worry, abe," morris rejoined. "if vanderbilt and astor was partners together in the cloak and suit business, and you sold 'em a couple of hundred dollars' goods, abe, you'd worry yourself sick till you got a check. i bet yer garfunkel discounts his bill already." morris' prophecy proved to be true, for at the end of four weeks m. garfunkel called at potash & perlmutter's store and paid his sixty-day account with the usual discount of ten per cent. moreover, he gave them another order for two thousand dollars' worth of goods at the same terms. in this instance, however, full fifty-nine days elapsed without word from m. garfunkel, and on the morning of the sixtieth day abe entered the store bearing every appearance of anxiety. "well, abe," morris cried, "what's the matter now? you look like you was worried." "i bet yer i'm worried, mawruss," abe replied. "well, what's the use of worrying?" he rejoined. "m. garfunkel's account ain't due till to-day." "always m. garfunkel!" abe cried. "m. garfunkel don't worry me much, mawruss. i'd like to see a check from him, too, mawruss, but i ain't wasting no time on him. my rosie is sick." "sick!" morris exclaimed. "that's too bad, abe. what seems to be the trouble?" "she got the rheumatism in her shoulder," abe replied, "and she tries to get a girl by intelligent offices to help her out, but it ain't no use. it breaks her all up to get a girl, mawruss. fifteen years already she cooks herself and washes herself, and now she's got to get a girl, mawruss, but she can't get one." morris clucked sympathetically. "maybe that girl of yours, mawruss," abe went on as though making an innocent suggestion, "what we sell the forty-twenty-two to, maybe she got a sister or a cousin maybe, what wants a job, mawruss." "i'll telephone my minnie right away," morris said, and as he turned to do so m. garfunkel entered. abe and morris rushed forward to greet him. each seized a hand and, patting him on the back, escorted him to the show-room. "first thing," m. garfunkel said, "here is a check for the current bill." "no hurry," abe and morris exclaimed, with what the musical critics call splendid attack. "now that that's out of the way," m. garfunkel went on, "i want to give you another order. only thing is, mawruss, you know as well as i do that in the installment cloak and suit business a feller needs a lot of capital. ain't it?" morris nodded. "and if he buys goods only for cash or thirty or sixty days, abe," m. garfunkel continued, "he sometimes gets pretty cramped for money, because his own customers takes a long time to pay up. ain't it?" abe nodded, too. "well, then," m. garfunkel concluded, "i'll give you boys a fine order, but this time it's got to be ninety days." abe puffed hard on his cigar, and morris loosened his collar, which had become suddenly tight. "i always paid prompt my bills. ain't it?" m. garfunkel asked. "sure, mr. garfunkel," abe replied. "_that_ you did do it. but ninety days is three months, and ourselves we got to pay our bills in thirty days." "however," morris broke in, "that is neither there nor here. a good customer is a good customer, abe, and so _i'm_ agreeable." this put the proposition squarely up to abe, and he found it a difficult matter to refuse credit to a customer whose check for two thousand dollars was even then reposing in abe's waistcoat pocket. "all right," abe said. "go ahead and pick out your goods." for two solid hours m. garfunkel went over potash & perlmutter's line and, selecting hundred lots of their choicest styles, bought a three-thousand-dollar order. "we ain't got but half of them styles in stock," said morris, "but we can make 'em up right away." "then, them goods what you got in stock, mawruss," said garfunkel, "i must have prompt by to-morrow, and the others in ten days." "that's all right," morris replied, and when m. garfunkel left the store abe and morris immediately set about the assorting of the ordered stock. "look a-here, mawruss," abe said, "i thought you was going to see about that girl for my rosie." "why, so i was, abe," morris replied; "i'll attend to it right away." he went to the telephone and rang up his wife, and five minutes later returned to the front of the store. "ain't that the funniest thing, abe," he said. "my minnie speaks to the girl, and the girl says she got a cousin what's just going to quit her job, abe. she'll be the very girl for your rosie." "i don't know, mawruss," abe replied. "my rosie is a particular woman. she don't want no girl what's got fired for being dirty or something like that, mawruss. we first want to get a report on her and find out what she gets fired for." "you're right, abe," morris said. "i'll find out from lina to-night." once more they fell to their task of assorting and packing the major part of garfunkel's order, and by six o'clock over fifteen hundred dollars' worth of goods was ready for delivery. "we'll ship them to-morrow," abe said, as they commenced to lock up for the night, "and don't forget about that girl, mawruss." on his way downtown the next morning abe met leon sammet, senior member of the firm of sammet brothers. between abe and leon existed the nominal truce of competition, which in the cloak and suit trade implies that while they cheerfully exchanged credit information from their office files they maintained a constant guerilla warfare for the capture of each other's customers. now, m. garfunkel had been a particularly strong customer of sammet brothers, and since abe assumed that m. garfunkel had dropped sammet brothers in favor of potash & perlmutter his manner toward leon was bland and apologetic. "well, leon," he said, "how's business?" leon's face wrinkled into a smile. "it could be better, of course, abe," he said, "but we done a tremendous spring trade, anyhow, even though we ain't got no more that sucker louis grossman working for us. we shipped a couple of three-thousand-dollar orders last week. one of 'em to strauss, kahn & baum, of fresno." these were old customers of potash & perlmutter, and abe winced. "they was old customers of ours, leon," he said, "but they done such a cheap class of trade we couldn't cut our line enough to please 'em." "is that so?" leon rejoined. "maybe m. garfunkel was an old customer of yours, too, abe." "m. garfunkel?" abe cried. "was m. garfunkel the other?" "he certainly was," leon boasted. "we shipped him three thousand dollars. one of our best customers, abe. always pays to the day." for the remainder of the subway journey abe was quite unresponsive to leon's jibes, a condition which leon attributed to chagrin, and as they parted at canal street leon could not forbear a final gloat. "i suppose, abe, m. garfunkel does too cheap a class of trade to suit you, also. ain't it?" he said. abe made no reply, and as he walked south toward white street max lapidus, of lapidus & elenbogen, another and a smaller competitor, bumped into him. "hallo, abe," max said. "what's that leon sammet was saying just now about m. garfunkel?" "oh, m. garfunkel is a good customer of his," abe replied cautiously; "so he claims." "don't you believe it," said max. "m. garfunkel told me himself he used to do some business with sammet brothers, but he don't do it no more. we done a big business with m. garfunkel ourselves." "so?" abe commented. "we sold him a couple of thousand dollars at ninety days last week," lapidus went on. "he's elegant pay, abe. we sold him a good-size order every couple of months this season, and he pays prompt to the day. once he discounted his bill." "is that so?" abe said, as they reached the front of potash & perlmutter's store. "glad to hear m. garfunkel is so busy. good-morning, max." morris perlmutter met him at the door. "hallo, abe," he cried. "what's the matter? you look pale. is rosie worse?" abe shook his head. "mawruss," he said, "did you ship them goods to m. garfunkel yet?" "they'll be out in ten minutes," morris replied. "hold 'em for a while till i telephone over to klinger & klein," abe said. "what you looking for, abe?" morris asked. "more information? you know as well as i do, abe, that klinger & klein is so conservative they wouldn't sell andrew carnegie unless they got a certified check in advance." "that's all right, mawruss," abe rejoined. "maybe they wouldn't sell andrew carnegie, but if i ain't mistaken they _did_ sell m. garfunkel. everybody sold him, even lapidus & elenbogen. so i guess i'll telephone 'em." "well, wait a bit, abe," morris cried. "my minnie's girl lina is here with her cousin. i brought 'em down this morning so you could talk to her yourself." "all right," abe replied. "tell 'em to come into the show-room." a moment later lina and her cousin anna entered the show-room. both were arrayed in potash & perlmutter's style forty-twenty-two, but while lina wore a green hat approximating the hue of early spring foliage, anna's head-covering was yellow with just a few crimson-lake roses--about eight large ones--on the side. "close the window, mawruss," said abe. "there's so much noise coming from outside i can't hear myself think." "the window is closed, abe," morris replied. "it's your imagination." "well, then, which one is which, mawruss?" abe asked. "the roses is anna," morris said. "anna, you want to work by mr. potash's lady?" "sure she does," abe broke in. "only i want to ask you a few questions before i hire you. who did you work by before, anna?" anna hung her head and simpered. "mister m. garfunkel," she murmured. "is that so?" morris exclaimed. "why, he's a good customer of ours." "don't butt in, mawruss," abe said. "and what did you leave him for, anna?" "me don't leave _them_," anna replied. "mrs. garfunkel is fine lady. mister garfunkel, too. they leave _me_. they goin' away next month, out to the country." "moving out to the country, hey?" said abe. he was outwardly calm, but his eyes glittered. "what country?" anna turned to her cousin lina and spoke a few words of lithuanian. "she say she don't remember," lina explained, "but she say is something sounds like '_canned_ goods'." "_canned_ goods?" morris murmured. abe bit the ends of his mustache for a moment, and then he leaped to his feet. "_canada!_" he yelled, and lina nodded vigorously. he darted out of the show-room and ran to the telephone. in ten minutes he returned, his face bathed in perspiration. "anna," he croaked, "you come to work by me. yes? how much you get by that--that m. garfunkel?" "twenty dollars a month," anna replied. "all right, we'll pay you twenty-two," he said. "you're cheap at the price. so i expect you this evening." he turned to his partner after the girls had gone. "mawruss," he said, "put them goods for m. garfunkel back in stock. i rung up klinger & klein and they sold him four thousand. i also rung up the perfection cloak and suit company--also four thousand; margolius & fried--two thousand; levy, martin & co.--three thousand, and so on. the way i figure it, he must of bought a hundred thousand dollars' worth of goods, all in the last few days, and all at ninety days net. he couldn't get a quarter of the goods in that first avenue building of his, mawruss, so where is the rest? auction houses, mawruss, north, south, east and west, and i bet yer he got the advance checks for each consignment deposited in montreal right now. i bet yer he didn't even unpack the cases before he reshipped. tell miss cohen to come in and bring her book." when miss cohen took her seat abe rose and cleared his throat for an epistle worthy of the occasion. "the paris. m. garfunkel, proprietor," he said. "gents: owing to circumstances which has arose----no. wait a bit." he cleared his throat more vigorously. "the paris. m. garfunkel, proprietor," he said. "gents: owing to the fact that the _u_-nited states bankruptcy laws don't go nowheres except in the _u_-nited states, we are obliged to cancel the order what you give us. thanking you for past favors and hoping to do a strictly-cash business with you in the future, we are truly yours, potash & perlmutter." miss cohen shut her book and arose. "wait a bit, miss cohen. i ain't through yet," abe said. he tilted backward and forward on his toes for a moment. "p. s.," he concluded. "we hope you'll like it in canada." chapter v "things goes pretty smooth for us lately, mawruss," abe potash remarked, shortly after m. garfunkel's failure. "i guess we are due for a _schlag_ somewheres, ain't it?" "always you got to kick," morris cried. "if you would only listen to what _i_ got to say oncet in a while, abe, things would always go smooth." abe emitted a raucous laugh. "sure, i know," he said, "like this here tenement house proposition you was talking to me about, mawruss. you ain't content we should have our troubles in the cloak and suit business, mawruss, you got to go outside yet and find 'em. you got to go into the real estate business too." "real-estaters ain't got no such trouble like _we_ got it, abe," morris retorted. "there ain't no seasons in real estate, abe. a tenement house this year is like a tenement house last year, abe, also the year before. they ain't wearing stripes in tenement houses one year, abe, and solid colors the next. all you do when you got a tenement house, abe, is to go round and collect the rents, and when you got a customer for it you don't have to draw no report on him. spot cash, he pays it, abe, or else you get a mortgage as security." "you talk like scheuer blumenkrohn, mawruss, when he comes round here last year and wants to swap it two lots in ozone grove, long island, for a couple of hundred misses' reefers," abe replied. "when i speculate, mawruss, i take a hand at auction pinochle." "this ain't no speculation, abe," said morris. "this is an investment. i seen the house, abe, six stories and basement stores, and you couldn't get another tenant into it with a shoehorn. it brings in a fine income, abe." "well, if that's the case, mawruss," abe rejoined, "why does harris rabin want to sell it? houses ain't like cloaks and suits, mawruss, you admit it yourself. we sell goods because we don't get no income by keepin' 'em. if we have our store full with cloaks, mawruss, and they brought in a good income while they was in here, mawruss, i wouldn't want to sell 'em, mawruss; i'd want to keep 'em." "sure," morris replied. "but if the income was only four hundred and fifty dollars a month, and next month you got a daughter what was getting married to alec goldwasser, drummer for klinger & klein, and you got to give alec a couple of thousand dollars with her, but you don't have no ready cash, _then_, abe, you'd sell them cloaks, and so that's why harris rabin wants to sell the house." "i want to tell you something, mawruss," abe replied. "harris rabin could sell a phonograft to a deef-and-dummy. he could sell moving pictures to a home for the blind, mawruss. he could also sell anything he wanted to anybody, mawruss, for you know as well as i do, mawruss, harris rabin is a first-class, a-number-one salesman. and so, if he wants to sell his house so cheap there's lots of real-estaters what know a bargain in houses when they see it. we don't, mawruss. we ain't real-estaters. we're in the cloak and suit business, and why should harris rabin be looking for us to buy his house?" "he ain't looking for us, abe," morris went on. "that's just the point. i was by harris rabin's house last night, and i seen no less than three real-estaters there. they all want that house, abe, and if they want it, why shouldn't we? ike magnus makes harris an offer of forty-eight thousand five hundred while i was sitting there already, but harris wants forty-nine for it. i bet yer, abe, we could get it for forty-eight seven-fifty--three thousand cash above the mortgages." "i suppose, mawruss, you got three thousand lying loose around your pants' pocket. what?" "three thousand to a firm like us is nothing, abe. i bet yer i could go in and see feder of the kosciusko bank and get it for the asking. we ain't so poor, abe, but what we can buy a bargain when we see it." abe shrugged his shoulders. "well, mawruss, if i got to hear about harris rabin's house for the rest of my life, all right. i'm agreeable, mawruss; only, don't ask me to go to no lawyers' offices nor nothing, mawruss. there's enough to do in the store, mawruss, without both of us loafing around lawyers' offices." a more grudging acquiescence than this would have satisfied morris, and, without pausing for a cigar, he put on his hat and made straight for harris rabin's place of business. the equinox clothing company of which harris rabin was president, board of directors and sole stockholder, occupied the third loft of a building on walker street. there was no elevator, and as morris walked upstairs he encountered ike magnus at the first landing. "hallo, mawruss!" ike cried. "are you buying clothing now? i thought you was in the cloak and suit business." "whatever business i'm in, ike," morris replied, "i'm in my own business, ike; and what is somebody else's business ain't my business, ike. that's the way i feel about it." he plodded slowly up the next flight, and there stood samuel michaelson, another real-estate operator. "ah, mr. perlmutter!" samuel exclaimed. "you get around to see the clothing trade once in a while, too. ain't it?" "i get around to see all sorts of trade, mr. michaelson," morris rejoined. "i got to get around and hustle to make a living, mr. michaelson, because, mr. michaelson, i can't make no living by loafing around street corners and buildings, mr. michaelson." "don't mention it," said mr. michaelson as morris started up the last flight. when he entered the equinox clothing company's office the clang of the bell drowned out the last words of marks henochstein's sentence. mr. henochstein, another member of the real-estate fraternity, was in intimate conference with harris rabin. "i think we got him going," he was saying. "my wife seen mrs. perlmutter at a _kaffeeklatsch_ yesterday, and she told her i made you an offer of forty-eight four-fifty for the house. last night when he came around to your place i told him the house ain't no bargain for any one what ain't a real-estater, y'understand, and he gets quite mad about it. also, i watched him when ike magnus tells you he would give forty-eight five for it, and he turned pale. if he----" at this juncture the doorbell rang and morris entered. "no, sir_ee_, sir," harris rabin bawled. "forty-nine thousand is my figure, and that ain't forty-eight nine ninety-nine neither." here he recognized morris perlmutter with an elaborate start and extended his hand in greeting. "hallo, mawruss," he said. "them real-estaters pester the life out of a feller. 'tain't no use your hanging around here, henochstein," he called in sterner tones. "when i make up my mind i make up my mind, and that's all there is to it." henochstein turned in crestfallen silence and passed slowly out of the room. "them sharks ain't satisfied that you're giving away a house, mawruss," harris went on. "they want it you should let 'em have coupons and trading stamps with it." "how much did he offer you?" morris asked. "forty-eight five-fifty," harris rabin replied. "that feller's got a nerve like a horse." "oh, i don't know," morris murmured. "forty-eight five-fifty is a good price for the house, harris." "is it?" harris cried. "well, maybe you think so, but you ain't such a _gri_terion." morris was visibly offended at so harsh a rejoinder. "i know i ain't, harris," he said. "if i was i wouldn't be here, harris. i come here like a friend, not like one of them--them--fellers what you talk about. if it wasn't that my minnie is such a friend to your daughter miriam i shouldn't bother myself; but, knowing alec goldwasser as i do, and being a friend of yours always up to now, harris, i come to you and say i will give you forty-eight six hundred for the house, and that is my last word." harris rabin laughed aloud. "jokes you are making it, mawruss," he said. "a joke is a joke, but when a feller got all the trouble what i got it, as you know, mawruss, he got a hard time seeing a joke, mawruss." "that ain't no joke, harris," morris replied. "that's an offer, and i can sit right down now and make a memorandum if you want it, and pay you fifty dollars as a binder." "i'll tell you what i'll do, mawruss," harris said. "you raised henochstein fifty dollars, so i'll come down fifty dollars, and that'll be forty-eight thousand nine hundred and fifty." he grew suddenly excited and grabbed morris by the arm. "don't let's waste no time about it," he cried. "what's the use of memorandums? we go right away by henry d. feldman and fix up the contract." "hold on." morris said with a stare that blended frigidity and surprise in just the right proportions. "i ain't said nothing about forty-eight nine-fifty. what i said was forty-eight six." "you don't mean that, mawruss," harris replied. "you mean forty-eight _nine_." morris saw that the psychological moment had arrived. "look-y here, now, harris," he said. "forty-eight six from forty-eight nine is three hundred. ain't it?" harris nodded. "then," morris announced, "we'll split the difference and make it forty-eight seven-fifty." for one thoughtful moment harris remained silent, and then he clapped his hand into that of morris. "done!" he cried. twenty days elapsed, during which potash & perlmutter took title to harris rabin's house and paid the balance of the purchase price, moieties of which found their way into the pockets of magnus, michaelson and henochstein. at length, the first of the month arrived and abe and morris left the store early so that they might collect the rents of their real property. "_i_ seen the house, abe, and _you_ seen the house," morris said as they turned the corner of the crowded east side street on which their property fronted, "but you can't tell nothing from looking at a property, abe. when you get the rents, abe, _that's_ when you find it out that you got a fine property, abe." he led the way up the front stoop of the tenement and knocked at the first door on the left-hand side. there was no response. "they must be out. ain't it?" abe suggested. morris faced about and knocked on the opposite door, with a similar lack of response. "i guess they go out to work and lock up their rooms," morris explained. "we should have came here after seven o'clock." they walked to the end of the hall and knocked on the door of one of the two rear apartments. "come!" said a female voice. morris opened the door and they entered. "we've come for the rent," he said. "him and me is the new landlords." the tenant excused herself while she retired to one of the inner rooms and explored her person for the money. then she handed morris ten greasy one-dollar bills. "what's this?" morris cried. "i thought the rear rooms were fourteen dollars a month. i saw the receipts made out last month." the tenant grinned fiendishly. "sure you did," she replied. "we've been getting all kinds of receipts. oncet we got a receipt for eighteen dollars, when dere was some vacancies in de house, but one of de syndicate says he'd get some more of dem 'professional' tenants, because it didn't look so good to a feller what comes snooping around for to _buy_ the house, to see such high rents." "syndicate?" abe murmured. "professional tenants?" "sure," the tenant replied. "dere was four to de syndicate. magnus was one. sumpin about a hen was de other, and den dere was dis here rabin and a guy called michaelson." "and what is this about professional tenants?" morris croaked. "oh, dere was twenty-four families in de house, includin' de housekeeper," the tenant replied. "eighteen of 'em was professionals, and when de syndicate sold youse de house de professionals moved up to a house on fourt' street what de syndicate owns." abe pulled his hat over his eyes and thrust his hands into his trousers' pockets. "s'enough, lady," he said; "i heard enough already." he turned to morris. "yes, mawruss," he said bitterly. "you're right. there ain't no seasons in real estate nor in suckers neither, mawruss. you can catch 'em every day in the year, mawruss. i'm going home, but if you need an express wagon to carry away them rents, mawruss, there's a livery stable around the corner." it was at least a week before abe could bring himself to address his partner, save in the gruffest monosyllables; but an unusual rush of spring customers brought about a reconciliation, and abe and morris forgot their real-estate venture in the reception of out-of-town trade. in the conduct of their business morris devoted himself to manufacturing and shipping the goods, while abe attended to the selling end. twice a year abe made a long trip to the west or south, with shorter trips down east between times, and he never tired of reminding his partner how overworked he, abe, was. "i got my hands full, mawruss," he said, after he had greeted half a dozen western customers; "i got enough to do here, mawruss, without running around the country. we ought to do what other houses does, mawruss. we ought to get a good salesman. we got three thousand dollars to throw away on real estate, mawruss; why don't we make an investment like sammet brothers made it? why don't we invest in a crackerjack, a-number-one salesman?" "i ain't stopping you, abe," morris replied. "why don't we? klinger & klein has a good boy, alec goldwasser. he done a big trade for 'em, abe, and they don't pay him much, neither." "alec goldwasser!" abe cried. "i'm surprised to hear you, mawruss, you should talk that way. we paid alec goldwasser enough already, mawruss. we paid him that two thousand dollars what he got with miriam rabin." morris looked guilty. "ain't i told you yet, abe?" he said. "i thought i told you." "you ain't told me nothing," said abe. "why, alec goldwasser and miriam rabin ain't engaged no longer. the way my minnie tells me, rabin says he don't want his daughter should marry a man without a business of his own, so the match is off." "well, mawruss," abe commented, "you can't make me feel bad by telling me _that_. but anyhow, i don't see no medals on alec goldwasser as a salesman, neither. he ain't such a salesman what we want it, mawruss." "all right," morris replied. "it's you what goes on the road, not me, and you meet all the drummers. suggest somebody yourself." abe pondered for a moment. "there's louis mintz," he said finally. "he works by sammet brothers. he's a high-priced man, mawruss, but he's worth it." "sure he's worth it," morris rejoined, "and he knows it, too. i bet yer he's making five thousand a year by sammet brothers." "i know it," said abe, "but his contract expires in a month from now, and it ain't no cinch to work for sammet brothers, neither, mawruss. i bet yer louis' got throat trouble, talking into a customer them garments what leon sammet makes up, and louis' pretty well liked in the trade, too, mawruss." "well, why don't you see him, abe?" "i'll tell you the truth, mawruss," abe replied. "i _did_ see him. i offered him all what sammet brothers gives him, and i told him we make a better line for the price, but it ain't no use. louis says a salesman's got to work hard anyhow, so he may as well work a little harder, and he says, too, it spoils a man's trade when he makes changes." here a customer entered the store and abe was busy for more than half an hour. at the end of that time the customer departed and morris returned to the show-room. "abe," he said, "i got an idea." abe looked up. "more real estate?" he asked. "not more real estate, abe," morris corrected, "but the _same_ real estate. when we're stuck we're stuck, abe, ain't it?" abe nodded. "so i got an idea," morris went on, "that we go to louis and tell him we give him the same money what sammet brothers give him, only we give him a bonus." "a bonus!" abe cried. "how much of a bonus?" "a _big_ bonus, abe," morris replied. "we'll give him the house." abe remained silent. "it'll look big, anyhow," morris continued. "look big!" abe exclaimed. "it is big. it's three thousand dollars." "well, you can't reckon stickers by what they cost," morris explained. "it's what they'll sell for." "you're right, mawruss," abe commented bitterly. "and that house wouldn't sell for confederate money. i'll see louis mintz to-night." abe saw louis that very evening, and they met by appointment at the store ten days later. in the meantime louis had inspected the house, and when he entered potash & perlmutter's show-room his face wore none too cheerful an expression. "well, louis," abe cried, "you come to tell us it's all right. ain't it?" louis shook his head. "abe," he said, "the old saying is you should never look at a horse's teeth what somebody gives you, but that house is pretty near vacant." "what of it?" abe asked. "it's a fine house, ain't it?" "sure, it's a fine house," louis agreed. "but what good is a fine house if you can't rent it? you can't eat it, can you?" "no," morris replied, "but you can sell it." "well," louis admitted, "selling houses ain't in my line? maybe if i knew enough about it i could sell it." "but there's real-estaters what knows all about selling a house," morris began. "you bet there is," abe interrupted savagely. "and you could get a real-estater to sell it for you," morris concluded with malevolent glance at his partner. louis consulted a list of the tenants which he had made. "i'll think it over," he said, "and let you know to-morrow." the next day he greeted abe and morris more cordially. "i thought it over, abe," he said, "and i guess it'll be all right." "fine!" abe cried. "let's go down and see henry d. feldman right away." just as a congenital dislocation of the hipbone suggests the name of doctor lorenz, so the slightest dislocation of the cloak and suit business immediately calls for henry d. feldman. no cloak and suit bankruptcy would be complete without his name as attorney, either for the petitioning creditors or the bankrupt, and no action for breach of contract of employment on the part of a designer or a salesman could successfully go to the jury unless henry d. feldman wept crocodile tears over the summing up of the plaintiff's case. in the art of drawing agreements relative to the cloak and suit trade in all its phases of buying, selling, employing or renting, he was a virtuoso, and his income was that of six supreme court judges rolled into one. for the rest, he was of impressive, clean-shaven appearance, and he was of the opinion that a liberal sprinkling of latin phrases rendered his conversation more pleasing to his clients. louis and abe were ushered into his office only after half an hour's waiting at the end of a line of six clients, and they wasted no time in stating their business. "mr. feldman," abe murmured, "this is mr. louis mintz what comes to work by us as a salesman." "mr. mintz," mr. feldman said, "you are to be congratulated. potash & perlmutter have a reputation in the trade _nulli secundum_, and it is generally admitted that the goods they produce are _summa cum laude_." "we make fall and winter goods, too," abe explained. "all kinds of garments, mr. feldman. i don't want to give louis no wrong impression. he's got to handle lightweights as well as heavyweights, too." mr. feldman stared blankly at abe and then continued: "no doubt you have quite settled on the terms." "we've talked it all over," said louis, "and this is what it is." he then specified the salary and commission to be paid, and engaged mr. feldman to draw the deed for the tenement house. "and how long is this contract to last?" feldman asked. "for five years," abe replied. "five years nothing," said louis. "i wouldn't work for no one on a five years' contract. one year is what i want it." "one year!" abe cried. "why, louis, that ain't no way to talk. in one year you'd just about get well enough acquainted with our trade--of course, i'm only _talking_, y'understand--to cop it out for some other house what would pay you a couple of hundred more. no, louis, i think it ought to be for five years." "of course, if you think i'm the kind what takes a job to cop out the firm's trade, abe," louis commenced, "why----" "i'm only saying for the sake of argument," abe hastened to explain. "i'll tell you what i'll do, louis: i'll make it two years, and at the end of that time if you want to quit you can do it; only, you should agree not to work as salesman for no other house for the space of one year afterward or you can go on working for us for one year afterward. how's that?" "i think that's eminently fair," mr. feldman broke in hurriedly. "you can't refuse those terms, mr. mintz. mr. potash will sign for his partner, i apprehend, and then mr. perlmutter will be bound under the principle of _qui fecit per alium fecit per se_." no one could stand up against such a flood of latin, and louis nodded. "all right," he said. "let her go that way." mr. feldman immediately rang for a stenographer. "come back to-morrow at four o'clock," he said. "i shall send a clerk with the deed to be signed by mrs. potash and mrs. perlmutter to-night." the next afternoon, at half an hour after the appointed time, the contract was executed and the deed delivered to louis mintz, and on the first of the following month louis entered upon his new employment. louis' first season with his new employers was fraught with good results for potash & perlmutter, who reaped large profits from louis' salesmanship; but for louis it had been somewhat disappointing. "i never see nothing like it," he complained to abe. "that tenement house is like a summer hotel--people coming and going all the time; and every time a tenant moves yet i got to pay for painting and repapering the rooms. you certainly stuck me good on that house." "stuck you!" abe cried. "we didn't stuck you, louis. we just give you the house as a bonus. if it don't rent well, louis, you ought to sell it." "don't i know i ought to sell it?" louis cried; "but who's going to buy it? real-estater after real-estater comes to look at it, and it all amounts to nix. they wouldn't take the house for the mortgages." for nearly a year and a half louis and abe repeated this conversation every time louis came back from the road, and on the days when louis paid interest on mortgages and premiums on fire insurance he grew positively tearful. "why don't you pay me what i am short from paying carrying charges on that property?" louis asked one day. "and i'll give you the house back." abe laughed. "you should make that proposition to the feller what sold us the house," abe said jocularly. "any one what sold that house once, abe," louis rejoined, "don't want it back again." at length, when louis was absent on a business trip some three months before the expiration of his contract, abe approached morris in the show-room and mooted the subject of taking back the house. "that house is a sticker, mawruss," he said, "and we certainly shouldn't let louis suffer by it. the boy done well by us, and we don't want to lose him." "well, abe," morris replied, "the way i look at it, we should wait till his time is pretty near up. maybe he will renew the contract without our taking back the house, abe; but if the worst comes to the worst, abe, we give him what he spent on the house and take it back, _providing_ he renews the contract for a couple of years. ain't it?" abe nodded doubtfully. "maybe you're right, mawruss," he said; "but the boy done good for us, mawruss. we made it a big profit by him this year already, and i don't want him to think that we ain't doing the right thing by him." "since when was you so soft-hearted, abe?" morris asked satirically; and when louis came back from the road, a week later, no mention was made of the house until louis himself broached the topic. "look'y here, abe," louis said, "what are you going to do for me about that house? counting the rent i collected and the money i laid out for carrying charges, i'm in the hole eight hundred and fifty dollars already." "do for you, louis!" morris replied. "why, what can we do for you? why don't you fix it up like this, louis? why don't you make one last campaign among the real-estaters, and then if you don't succeed maybe we can do something." "that's right, louis," abe said. "just try it and see what comes of it." then abe handed louis a cigar and dismissed the subject, which never again arose until louis was on his final trip. "ain't it funny, mawruss," abe said, the morning of louis' expected return--"ain't it funny he ain't mentioned that house to us since we spoke to him the last time he was home?" "i know it," morris replied, "but you needn't worry, abe. it says in the contract that louis can't take a job as salesman with any other house till one year is up, and the boy can't afford to stay loafing around for a whole year." abe nodded, and as he turned to look up the contract in the safe the store door opened and louis himself entered. "hallo, louis," abe cried. "glad to see you, louis. another good trip?" louis nodded, and they all passed into the show-room. "well, you're going to make many more of them for us before you're through, louis," abe said. louis grunted, and abe and morris exchanged disquieting glances. "you know, louis," morris said in the dulcet accents of the sucking dove, "your contract is up next week, and abe and me was talking about it the other day, louis, and about the house, too, and we says we should do something about that house, louis, and so we'll make another contract for about, say, three years, and we'll fix it up about the house when we all sign the contract, louis. we meant to take back the house all the time, louis. we was only kidding you along, louis," he continued. "so you was only kidding me along when you told me to see them real-estaters, hey?" louis demanded. "sure," abe and morris replied. "then you was the ones what got kidded," louis said, "for the last time i was in town i took your advice. do you know a feller called michaelson? and two other fellers by the name of henochstein and magnus?" abe nodded. "well, them three fellers took that house off of my hands and paid me six hundred dollars to boot, over and above the seven hundred and fifty i sunk in it." abe and morris puffed vigorously at their cigars. "and what's more," louis went on, "they introduced me to harris rabin, of the equinox clothing company. i guess you know him, too, don't you?" morris admitted sullenly that he did. "he's got a daughter, miss miriam rabin," louis concluded. "her and me is going to announce our engagement in next sunday's herald." he paused and watched morris and abe, to see the news sink in. "and as soon as we're married," he said, "back to the road for mine, but not with potash & perlmutter." "i guess you're mistaken, louis," abe cried. "i guess you got a contract with us what will stop you going on the road for another year yet." "back up, abe," louis said. "that there contract says i can't work as a _salesman_ for any other house for a year. but rabin and me is going as partners together in the cloak and suit business, and if there's anything in that contract about me not selling cloaks as my own boss i'll eat it." abe went to the safe for the contract. at last he found it, and after reading it over he handed it to morris. "_you_ eat it, mawruss," he said. "louis is right." chapter vi "after all, mawruss," abe declared as he glanced over the columns of the daily cloak and suit record, "after all a feller feels more satisfied when he could see the customers himself and find out just exactly how they do business, y'understand. maybe the way we lost louis mintz wasn't such a bad thing anyhow, mawruss. i bet yer if louis would of been selling goods for us, mawruss, we would of been in that cohen & schondorf business too. me, i am different, mawruss. so soon as i went in that store, mawruss, i could see that them fellers was in bad. i'm very funny that way, mawruss." "you shouldn't throw no bouquets at yourself because you got a little luck, abe," morris commented. "some people calls it luck, mawruss, but i call it judgment, y'understand." "sure, i know," morris continued, "but how about hymie kotzen, abe? always you said it that feller got lots of judgment, abe." "a feller could got so much judgment as andrew carnegie," abe retorted, "and oncet in a while he could play in hard luck too. yes, mawruss, hymie kotzen is certainly playing in hard luck." "is he?" morris perlmutter replied. "well, he don't look it when i seen him in the harlem winter garden last night, abe. him and mrs. kotzen was eating a family porterhouse between 'em with tchampanyer wine yet." "well, mawruss," abe said, "he needs it tchampanyer wine, mawruss. last month i seen it he gets stung two thousand by cohen & schondorf, and to-day he's chief mourner by the ready pay store, barnet fischman proprietor. barney stuck him for fifteen hundred, mawruss, so i guess he needs it tchampanyer wine to cheer him up." "well, maybe he needs it diamonds to cheer him up, also, abe," morris added. "that feller got diamonds on him, abe, like 'lectric lights on the front of a moving-picture show." "diamonds never harmed nobody's credit, mawruss," abe rejoined. "you can get your money out of diamonds most any time, mawruss. i see by the papers diamonds increase in price thirty per cent. in six months already. yes, mawruss, diamonds goes up every day." "and so does the feller what wears 'em, abe," morris went on. "in fact, the way that hymie kotzen does business i shouldn't be surprised if he goes up any day, too. andrew carnegie couldn't stand it the failures what that feller gets into, abe." "that's just hard luck, mawruss," abe replied; "and if he wears it diamonds, mawruss, he paid for 'em himself, mawruss, and he's got a right to wear 'em. so far what i hear it, mawruss, he never stuck nobody for a cent." "oh, hymie ain't no crook, abe," morris admitted, "but i ain't got no use for a feller wearing diamonds. diamonds looks good on women, abe, and maybe also on a hotel-clerk or a feller what runs a restaurant, abe, but a business man ain't got no right wearing diamonds." "of course, mawruss, people's got their likes and dislikes," abe said; "but all the same i seen it many a decent, respectable feller with a good business, abe, what wants a little accommodation at his bank. but he gets turned down just because he goes around looking like a slob; while a feller what can't pay his own laundry bill, mawruss, has no trouble getting a thousand dollars because the second vice-president is buffaloed already by a stovepipe hat, a prince albert coat and a four-carat stone with a flaw in it." "well, a four-carat stone wouldn't affect me none, abe," morris said, "and believe me, abe, hymie kotzen's diamonds don't worry me none, neither. all i'm troubling about now is that i got an appetite like a horse, so i guess i'll go to lunch." abe jumped to his feet. "give me a chance oncet in a while, mawruss," he protested. "every day comes half-past twelve you got to go to your lunch. ain't i got no stomach, neither, mawruss?" "oh, go ahead if you want to," morris grumbled, "only don't stay all day, abe. remember there's other people wants to eat, too, abe." "i guess the shoe pinches on the other foot now, mawruss," abe retorted as he put on his hat. "when i get through eating i'll be back." he walked across the street to wasserbauer's café and restaurant and seated himself at his favorite table. "well, mr. potash," louis, the waiter, cried, dusting off the tablecloth with a red-and-white towel, "some nice _metzelsuppe_ to-day, huh?" "no, louis," abe replied as he took a dill pickle from a dishful on the table, "i guess i won't have no soup to-day. give me some _gedämpftes kalbfleisch mit kartoffelklösse_." "right away quick, mr. potash," said louis, starting to hurry away. "ain't i nobody here, louis?" cried a bass voice at the table behind abe. "do i sit here all day?" "ex-cuse me, mr. kotzen," louis exclaimed. "some nice roast chicken to-day, mr. kotzen?" "i'll tell you what i want it, louis, not you me," mr. kotzen grunted. "if i want to eat it roast chicken i'll say so. if i don't i won't." "sure, sure," louis cried, rubbing his hands in a perfect frenzy of apology. "gimme a _schweizerkäse_ sandwich and a cup of coffee," mr. kotzen concluded, "and if you don't think you can bring it back here in half an hour, louis, let me know, that's all, and i'll ask wasserbauer if he can help you out." abe had started on his second dill pickle, and he held it in his hand as he turned around in his chair. "hallo, hymie," he said; "ain't you feeling good to-day?" "oh, hallo, abe," kotzen cried, glancing over; "why don't you come over and sit at my table?" "i guess i will," abe replied. he rose to his feet with his napkin tucked into his collar and, carrying the dish of dill pickles with him, he moved over to kotzen's table. "what's the matter, hymie?" abe asked. "you ain't sick, are you?" "that depends what you call it sick, abe," hymie replied. "i don't got to see no doctor exactly, abe, if that's what you mean. but that sam feder by the kosciusko bank, i was over to see him just now, and i bet you he makes me sick." "i thought you always got along pretty good with sam, hymie," abe mumbled through a mouthful of dill pickle. "so i do," said hymie; "but he heard it something about this here ready pay store and how i'm in it for fifteen hundred, and also this cohen & schondorf sticks me also, and he's getting anxious. so, either he wants me i should give him over a couple of accounts, or either i should take up some of my paper. well, you know feder, abe. he don't want nothing but a number one concerns, and then he got the bank's lawyer what is his son-in-law, de witt c. feinholz, that he should draw up the papers; and so it goes. i got it bills receivable due the first of the month, five thousand dollars from such people like heller, blumenkrohn & co., of cincinnati, and the emporium, duluth, all gilt-edge accounts, abe, and why should i lose it twenty per cent. on them, ain't it?" "sure," abe murmured. "well, that's what i told feder," hymie went on. "if i got to take up a couple of thousand dollars i'll do it. but running a big plant like i got it, abe, naturally it makes me a little short." "naturally," abe agreed. he scented what was coming. "but anyhow, i says to feder, i got it lots of friends in the trade, and i ain't exactly broke yet, neither, abe." he lifted his swiss-cheese sandwich in his left hand, holding out the third finger the better to display a five-carat stone, while abe devoted himself to his veal. "of course, abe," hymie continued, "on the first of the month--that's only two weeks already--things will be running easy for me." he looked at abe for encouragement, but abe's facial expression was completely hidden by veal stew, fragments of which were clinging to his eyebrows. "but, naturally, i'm at present a little short," hymie croaked, "and so i thought maybe you could help me out with, say a thousand dollars till the first of the month, say." abe laid down his knife and fork and massaged his face with his napkin. "for my part, hymie," he said, "you should have it in a minute. i know it you are good as gold, and if you say that you will pay on the first of the month a u-nited states bond ain't no better." he paused impressively and laid a hand on hymie's knee. "only, hymie," he concluded, "i got it a partner. ain't it? and you know mawruss perlmutter, hymie. he's a pretty hard customer, hymie, and if i was to draw you the firm's check for a thousand, hymie, that feller would have a receiver by the court to-morrow morning already. he's a holy terror, hymie, believe me." hymie sipped gloomily at his coffee. "but mawruss perlmutter was always a pretty good friend of mine, abe," he said. "why shouldn't he be willing to give it me if you are agreeable? ain't it? and, anyhow, abe, it can't do no harm to ask him." "well, hymie, he's over at the store now," abe replied. "go ahead and ask him." "i know it what he'd say if i ask him, abe. he'd tell me i should see you; but you say i should see him, and then i'm up in the air. ain't it?" abe treated himself to a final rubdown with the napkin and scrambled to his feet. "all right, hymie," he said. "if you want me i should ask him i'll ask him." "remember, abe," hymie said as abe turned away, "only till the first, so sure what i'm sitting here. i'll ring you up in a quarter of an hour." when abe entered the firm's show-room five minutes later he found morris consuming the last of some crullers and coffee brought in from a near-by bakery by jake, the shipping clerk. "well, abe, maybe you think that's a joke you should keep me here a couple of hours already," morris said. "many a time i got to say that to you already, mawruss," abe rejoined. "but, anyhow, i didn't eat it so much, mawruss. it was hymie kotzen what keeps me." "hymie kotzen!" morris cried. "what for should he keep you, abe? blows you to some tchampanyer wine, maybe?" "tchampanyer he ain't drinking it to-day, mawruss, i bet yer," abe replied. "he wants to lend it from us a thousand dollars." morris laughed raucously. "what a chance!" he said. "till the first of the month, mawruss," abe continued, "and i thought maybe we would let him have it." morris ceased laughing and glared at abe. "tchampanyer you must have been drinking it, abe," he commented. "why shouldn't we let him have it, mawruss?" abe demanded. "hymie's a good feller, mawruss, and a smart business man, too." "is he?" morris yelled. "well, he ain't smart enough to keep out of failures like barney fischman's and cohen & schondorf's, abe, but he's too smart to lend it us a thousand dollars, supposing we was short for a couple of days. no, abe, i heard it enough about hymie kotzen already. i wouldn't positively not lend him nothing, abe, and that's flat." to end the discussion effectually he went to the cutting-room upstairs and remained there when hymie rang up. "it ain't no use, hymie," abe said. "mawruss wouldn't think of it. we're short ourselves. you've no idee what trouble we got it with some of our collections." "but, abe," hymie protested, "i got to have the money. i promised feder i would give it him this afternoon." abe remained silent. "i tell you what i'll do, abe," hymie insisted; "i'll come around and see you." "it won't be no use, hymie," abe said, but central was his only auditor, for hymie had hung up the receiver. indeed, abe had hardly returned to the show-room before hymie entered the store door. "where's mawruss?" he asked. "up in the cutting-room," abe replied. "good!" hymie cried. "now look'y here, abe, i got a proposition to make it to you." he tugged at the diamond ring on the third finger of his left hand and laid it on a sample-table. then from his shirt-bosom he unscrewed a miniature locomotive headlight, which he deposited beside the ring. "see them stones, abe?" he continued. "they costed it me one thousand three hundred dollars during the panic already, and to-day i wouldn't take two thousand for 'em. now, abe, you sit right down and write me out a check for a thousand dollars, and so help me i should never stir out of this here office, abe, if i ain't on the spot with a thousand dollars in hand two weeks from to-day, abe, you can keep them stones, settings and all." abe's eyes fairly bulged out of his head as he looked at the blazing diamonds. "but, hymie," he exclaimed, "i don't want your diamonds. if i had it the money myself, hymie, believe me, you are welcome to it like you was my own brother." "i know all about that, abe," hymie replied, "but you ain't mawruss, and if you got such a regard for me what you claim you have, abe, go upstairs and ask mawruss perlmutter will he do it me the favor and let me have that thousand dollars with the stones as security." without further parley abe turned and left the show-room. "mawruss," he called from the foot of the stairs, "come down here once. i want to show you something." in the meantime hymie pulled down the shades and turned on the electric lights. then he took a swatch of black velveteen from his pocket and arranged it over the sample-table with the two gems in its folds. "hymie kotzen is inside the show-room," abe explained when morris appeared in answer to his summons. "well, what have i got to do with hymie kotzen?" morris demanded. "come inside and speak to him, mawruss," abe rejoined. "he won't eat you." "maybe you think i'm scared to turn him down, abe?" morris concluded as he led the way to the show-room. "well, i'll show you different." "hallo, mawruss," hymie cried. "what's the good word?" morris grunted an inarticulate greeting. "what you got all the shades down for, abe?" he asked. "don't touch 'em," hymie said. "just you have a look at this sample-table first." hymie seized morris by the arm and turned him around until he faced the velveteen. "ain't them peaches, mawruss?" he asked. morris stared at the diamonds, almost hypnotized by their brilliancy. "them stones belong to you, mawruss," hymie went on, "if i don't pay you inside of two weeks the thousand dollars what you're going to lend me." "we ain't going to lend you no thousand dollars, hymie," morris said at last, "because we ain't got it to lend. we need it in our own business, hymie, and, besides, you got the wrong idee. we ain't no pawnbrokers, hymie; we are in the cloak and suit business." "hymie knows it all about that, mawruss," abe broke in, "and he shows he ain't no crook, neither. if he's willing to trust you with them diamonds, mawruss, we should be willing to trust him with a thousand dollars. ain't it?" "he could trust me with the diamonds, abe, because i ain't got no use for diamonds," morris replied. "if anyone gives me diamonds that i should take care of it into the safe they go. i ain't a person what sticks diamonds all over myself, abe, and i don't buy no tchampanyer wine one day and come around trying to lend it from people a thousand dollars the next day, abe." "it was my wife's birthday," hymie explained; "and if i got to spend it my last cent, mawruss, i always buy tchampanyer on my wife's birthday." "all right, hymie," morris retorted; "if you think it so much of your wife, lend it from her a thousand dollars." "make an end, make an end," abe cried; "i hear it enough already. put them diamonds in the safe and we give hymie a check for a thousand dollars." morris shrugged his shoulders. "all right, abe," he said. "do what you please, but remember what i tell it you now. i don't know nothing about diamonds and i don't care nothing about diamonds, and if it should be that we got to keep it the diamonds i don't want nothing to do with them. all i want it is my share of the thousand dollars." he turned on his heel and banged the show-room door behind him, while abe pulled up the shades and hymie turned off the lights. "that's a fine crank for you, abe," hymie exclaimed. abe said nothing, but sat down and wrote out a check for a thousand dollars. "i hope them diamonds is worth it," he murmured, handing the check to hymie. "if they ain't," hymie replied as he made for the door, "i'll eat 'em, abe, and i ain't got too good a di-gestion, neither." at intervals of fifteen minutes during the remainder of the afternoon morris visited the safe and inspected the diamonds until abe was moved to criticise his partner's behavior. "them diamonds ain't going to run away, mawruss." "maybe they will, abe," morris replied, "if we leave the safe open and people comes in and out all the time." "so far, nobody ain't took nothing out of that safe, mawruss," abe retorted; "but if you want to lock the safe i'm agreeable." "what for should we lock the safe?" morris asked. "we are all the time getting things out of it what we need. ain't it? a better idee i got it, abe, is that you should put on the ring and i will wear the pin, or you wear the pin and i will put on the ring." "no, siree, mawruss," abe replied. "if i put it on a big pin like that and i got to take it off again in a week's time might i would catch a cold on my chest, maybe. besides, i ain't built for diamonds, mawruss. so, you wear 'em both, mawruss." morris forced a hollow laugh. "me wear 'em, abe!" he exclaimed. "no, siree, abe, i'm not the kind what wears diamonds. i leave that to sports like hymie kotzen." nevertheless, he placed the ring on the third finger of his left hand, with the stone turned in, and carefully wrapping up the pin in tissue-paper he placed it in his waistcoat pocket. the next day was wednesday, and he screwed the pin into his shirt-front underneath a four-in-hand scarf. on thursday he wore the ring with the stone exposed, and on friday he discarded the four-in-hand scarf for a bow tie and shamelessly flaunted both ring and pin. "mawruss," abe commented on saturday, "must you stick out your little finger when you smoke it a cigar?" "habits what i was born with, abe," morris replied. "i can't help it none." "maybe you was born with a diamond ring on your little finger. what?" abe jeered. morris glared at his partner. "if you think that i enjoy it wearing that ring, abe," he declared, "you are much mistaken. you got us to take these here diamonds, abe, and if they got stole on us, abe, we are not only out the thousand dollars, but we would also got to pay it so much more as hymie kotzen would sue us for in the courts. i got to wear this here ring, abe, and that's all there is to it." he walked away to the rear of the store with the air of a martyr, while abe gazed after him in silent admiration. two weeks sped quickly by, during which morris safeguarded the diamonds with the utmost zest and enjoyment, and at length the settling day arrived. morris was superintending the unpacking of piece goods in the cutting-room when abe darted upstairs. "mawruss," he hissed, "hymie kotzen is downstairs." by a feat of legerdemain that a conjurer might have envied, morris transferred the pin and ring to his waistcoat pocket and followed abe to the show-room. "well, hymie," morris cried, "we thought you would be prompt on the day. ain't it?" hymie smiled a sickly smirk in which there was as little mirth as there was friendliness. "you got another think coming," hymie replied. "what d'ye mean?" morris exclaimed. "i'm up against it, boys," hymie explained. "i expected to get it a check for two thousand from heller, blumenkrohn this morning." "and didn't it come?" abe asked. "sure it come," hymie replied, "but it was only sixteen hundred and twenty dollars. they claim it three hundred and eighty dollars for shortage in delivery, so i returned 'em the check." "you returned 'em the check, hymie?" morris cried. "and we got to wait for our thousand dollars because you made it a shortage in delivery." "i didn't make no shortage in delivery," hymie declared. "well, hymie," abe broke in, "you say it yourself heller, blumenkrohn is gilt-edge, a number one people. they ain't going to claim no shortage if there wasn't none, hymie." "i guess you don't know louis blumenkrohn, abe," hymie retorted. "he claims it shortage before he unpacks the goods already." "well, what has that got to do with us, hymie?" morris burst out. "you see how it is, boys," hymie explained; "so i got to ask it you a couple of weeks' extension." "a couple of weeks' extension is nix, hymie," abe said, and morris nodded his head in approval. "either you give it us the thousand, hymie," was morris' ultimatum, "or either we keep the diamonds, and that's all there is to it." "now, mawruss," hymie protested, "you ain't going to shut down on me like that! make it two weeks more and i'll give you a hundred dollars bonus and interest at six per cent." abe shook his head. "no, hymie," he said firmly, "we ain't no loan sharks. if you got to get that thousand dollars to-day you will manage it somehow. so that's the way it stands. we keep open here till six o'clock, hymie, and the diamonds will be waiting for you as soon so you bring us the thousand dollars. that's all." there was a note of finality in abe's tones that made hymie put on his hat and leave without another word. "yes, abe," morris commented as the door closed behind hymie, "so liberal you must be with my money. ain't i told you from the very start that feller is a lowlife? tchampanyer he must drink it on his wife's birthday, abe, and also he got to wear it diamonds, abe, when he ain't got enough money to pay his laundry bill yet." "i ain't worrying, mawruss," abe replied. "he ain't going to let us keep them diamonds for a thousand dollars, mawruss. they're worth a whole lot more as that, mawruss." "i don't know how much they're worth, abe," morris grunted, putting on his hat, "but one thing i do know; i'm going across the street to get a shave; and then i'm going right down to sig pollak on maiden lane, abe, and i'll find out just how much they are worth." a moment later he descended the basement steps into the barber-shop under wasserbauer's café and restaurant. "hallo, mawruss," a voice cried from the proprietor's chair. "ain't it a hot weather?" it was sam feder, vice-president of the kosciusko bank, who spoke. he was midway in the divided enjoyment of a shampoo and a large black cigar, while an electric fan oscillated over his head. "i bet yer it's hot, mr. feder," morris agreed, taking off his coat. "why don't you take your vest off, too, mawruss?" sam feder suggested. "that's a good idee," morris replied, peeling off his waistcoat. he hung it next to his coat and relapsed with a sigh into the nearest vacant chair. "just once around, phil," he said to the barber, and closed his eyes for a short nap. when he woke up ten minutes later phil was spraying him with witch-hazel while the proprietor stood idly in front of the mirror and curled his flowing black mustache. "don't take it so particular, phil," morris enjoined. "i ain't got it all day to sit here in this chair." "all right, mr. perlmutter, all right," phil cried, and in less than three minutes, powdered, oiled and combed, morris climbed out of the chair. his coat was in waiting, held by a diminutive italian brushboy, but morris waved his hand impatiently. "my vest," he demanded. "i don't put my coat on under my vest." the brushboy turned to the vacant row of hooks. "no gotta da vest," he said. "what!" morris gasped. "you didn't have no vest on, did you, mr. perlmutter?" the proprietor asked. "sure i had a vest," morris cried. "where is it?" on the wall hung a sign which advised customers to check their clothing with the cashier or no responsibility would be assumed by the management, and it was to this notice that the proprietor pointed before answering. "i guess somebody must have pinched it," he replied nonchalantly. it was not until two hours after the disappearance of his waistcoat that morris returned to the store. in the meantime he had been to police headquarters and had inserted an advertisement in three daily newspapers. moreover he had consulted a lawyer, the eminent henry d. feldman, and had received no consolation either on the score of the barber's liability to potash & perlmutter or of his own liability to kotzen. "well, mawruss," abe said, "how much are them diamonds worth?" then he looked up and for the first time saw his partner's haggard face. "holy smokes!" he cried. "they're winder-glass." morris shook his head. "i wish they was," he croaked. "you wish they was!" abe repeated in accents of amazement. "what d'ye mean?" "somebody pinched 'em on me," morris replied. "what!" abe shouted. "s-sh," morris hissed as the door opened. it was hymie kotzen who entered. "well, boys," he cried, "every cloud is silver-plated. ain't it? no sooner did i get back to my store than i get a letter from henry d. feldman that cohen & schondorf want to settle for forty cents cash. on the head of that, mind you, in comes rudolph heller from cincinnati, and when i tell him about the check what they sent it me he fixes it up on the spot." he beamed at abe and morris. "so, bring out them diamonds, boys," he concluded, "and we'll settle up c. o. d." he pulled a roll of bills from his pocket and toyed with them, but neither abe nor morris stirred. "what's the hurry, hymie?" abe asked feebly. "what's the hurry, abe!" hymie repeated. "well, ain't that a fine question for you to ask it of me! don't sit there like a dummy, abe. get the diamonds and we'll fix it up." "but wouldn't to-morrow do as well?" morris asked. hymie sat back and eyed morris suspiciously. "what are you trying to do, mawruss?" he asked. "make jokes with me?" "i ain't making no jokes, hymie," morris replied. "the fact is, hymie, we got it the diamonds, now--in our--now--safety-deposit box, and it ain't convenient to get at it now." "oh, it ain't, ain't it?" hymie cried. "well, it's got to be convenient; so, abe, you get a move on you and go down to them safety-deposit vaults and fetch them." "let mawruss fetch 'em," abe replied wearily. "the safety deposit is his idee, hymie, not mine." hymie turned to morris. "go ahead, mawruss," he said, "you fetch 'em." "i was only stringing you, hymie," morris croaked. "we ain't got 'em in no safety-deposit vault at all." "that settles it," hymie cried, jumping to his feet and jamming his hat down with both hands. "where you going, hymie?" abe called after him. "for a policeman," hymie said. "i want them diamonds and i'm going to have 'em, too." morris ran to the store door and grabbed hymie by the coattails. "wait a minute," he yelled. "hymie, i'm surprised at you that you should act that way." hymie stopped short. "i ain't acting, mawruss," he said. "it's you what's acting. all i want it is you should give me my ring and pin, and i am satisfied to pay you the thousand dollars." they returned to the show-room and once more sat down. "i'll tell you the truth, hymie," morris said at last. "i loaned them diamonds to somebody, and that's the way it is." "you loaned 'em to somebody!" hymie cried, jumping once more to his feet. "my diamonds you loaned it, mawruss? well, all i got to say is either you get them diamonds back right away, or either i will call a policeman and make you arrested." "make me arrested, then, hymie," morris replied resignedly, "because the feller what i loaned them diamonds to won't return 'em for two weeks anyhow." hymie sat down again. "for two weeks, hey?" he said. he passed his handkerchief over his face and looked at abe. "that's a fine, nervy partner what you got it, abe, i must say," he commented. "well, hymie," abe replied, "so long as you can't get them diamonds back for two weeks keep the thousand dollars for two weeks and we won't charge you no interest nor nothing." "no, siree," hymie said; "either i pay you the thousand now, abe, or i don't pay it you for three months, and no interest nor nothing." abe looked at morris, who nodded his head slowly. "what do we care, abe," he said, "two weeks or three months is no difference now, ain't it?" "i'm agreeable, then, hymie," abe declared. "all right," hymie said eagerly; "put it down in writing and sign it, and i am satisfied you should keep the diamonds three months." abe sat down at his desk and scratched away for five minutes. "here it is, hymie," he said at last. "hyman kotzen and potash & perlmutter agrees it that one thousand dollars what he lent it off of them should not be returned for three months from date, no interest nor nothing. and also, that potash & perlmutter should not give up the diamonds, neither. potash & perlmutter." "that's all right," hymie said. he folded the paper into his pocketbook and turned to morris. "also it is understood, mawruss, you shouldn't lend them diamonds to nobody else," he concluded, and a minute later the store door closed behind him. after he had gone there was an ominous silence which abe was the first to break. "well, mawruss," he said, "ain't that a fine mess you got us into it? must you wore it them diamonds, mawruss? why couldn't you leave 'em in the safe?" morris made no answer. "or if you had to lose 'em, mawruss," abe went on, "why didn't you done it the day we loaned hymie the money? then we could of stopped our check by the bank. now we can do nothing." "i didn't lose the diamonds, abe," morris protested. "i left 'em in my vest in the barber-shop and somebody took it the vest." "well, ain't you got no suspicions, mawruss?" abe asked. "think, mawruss, who was it took the vest?" morris raised his head and was about to reply when the store door opened and sam feder, vice-president of the kosciusko bank, entered bearing a brown paper parcel under his arm. a personal visit from so well-known a financier covered abe with embarrassment, and he jumped to his feet and rushed out of the show-room with both arms outstretched. "mr. feder," he exclaimed, "ain't this indeed a pleasure? come inside, mr. feder. come inside into our show-room." he brought out a seat for the vice-president and dusted it carefully. "i ain't come to see you, abe," mr. feder said; "i come to see that partner of yours." he untied the string that bound the brown paper parcel and pulled out its contents. "why!" morris gasped. "that's my vest." "sure it is," mr. feder replied, "and it just fits me, mawruss. in fact, it fits me so good that when i went to the barber-shop in a two-piece suit this morning, mawruss, i come away with a three-piece suit and a souvenir besides." "a souvenir!" abe cried. "what for a souvenir?" mr. feder put his hand in his trousers pocket and tumbled the missing ring and pin on to a baize-covered sample table. "that was the souvenir, abe," he said. "in fact, two souvenirs." morris and abe stared at the diamonds, too stunned for utterance. "you're a fine feller, mawruss," mr. feder continued, "to be carrying around valuable stones like them in your vest pocket. why, i showed them stones to a feller what was in my office an hour ago and he says they must be worth pretty near five hundred dollars." he paused and looked at morris. "and he was a pretty good judge of diamonds, too," he continued. "who was the feller, mr. feder?" abe asked. "i guess you know, abe," mr. feder replied. "his name is hymie kotzen." chapter vii "max fried, of the a la mode store, was in here a few minutes since, mawruss," said abe potash, to his partner, morris perlmutter, after the latter had returned from lunch one busy august day, "and bought a couple of hundred of them long trouvilles. he also wanted something to ask it of us as a favor, mawruss." "sixty days is long enough, abe," said morris, on the principle of "once bitten, twice shy." "for a man what runs a little store like the a la mode on main street, buffalo, abe, max don't buy too few goods, neither. ain't it?" "don't jump always for conclusions, mawruss," abe broke in. "this ain't no credit matter what he asks it of us. his wife got a sister what they wanted to make from her a teacher, mawruss, but she ain't got the head. so, max thinks we could maybe use her for a model. her name is miss kreitmann and she's a perfect thirty-six, max says, only a little fat." "and then, when she tries on a garment for a customer," morris rejoined, "the customer goes around telling everybody that we cut our stuff too skimpy. ain't it? no, abe, we got along so far good with the models what we got, and i guess we can keep it up. besides, if max is so anxious to get her a job, why don't he take her on himself, abe?" "because she lives here in new york with her mother," abe explained; "and what chance has a girl got in buffalo, anyway? that's what max says, and he also told it me that she got a very fine personality, and if we think it over maybe he gives us an introduction to philip hahn, of the flower city credit outfitting company. that's a million-dollar concern, mawruss. i bet yer they're rated j to k, first credit, and philip hahn's wife is miss kreitmann's mother's sister. leon sammet will go crazy if he hears that we sell them people." "that's all right, abe," said morris. "we ain't doing business to spite our competitors; we're doing it to please our customers so that they'll buy goods from us and maybe they'll go crazy, too, when they see her face, abe." "max fried says she is a good-looker. nothing extraordinary, y'understand, but good, snappy stuff and up to date." "you talk like she was a garment, abe," said morris. "well, you wouldn't buy no garment, mawruss, just because some one told you it was good. would you? so, max says he would bring her around this afternoon, and if we liked her hahn would stop in and see us later in the day. he says hahn picks out never less than a couple of hundred of one style, and also hahn is a liberal buyer, mawruss." "of course, abe," morris commenced, "if we're doing this to oblige philip hahn----" "we're doing it to oblige philip hahn and max fried both, mawruss," abe broke in. "max says he ain't got a minute's peace since miss kreitmann is old enough to get married." "so!" morris cried. "a matrimonial agency we're running, abe. is that the idea?" "the idea is that she should have the opportunity of meeting by us a business man, mawruss, what can give her a good home and a good living, too. max says he is pretty near broke, buying transportation from buffalo to new york, mawruss, so as he can bust up love matches between miss kreitmann and some good-looking retail salesman, mawruss, what can dance the waltz a number one and couldn't pay rent for light housekeeping on chrystie street." "well, abe," morris agreed, with a sigh of resignation, "if we got to hire her as a condition that philip hahn gives us a couple of good orders a season, abe, i'm agreeable." "naturally," abe replied, and carefully selecting a slightly-damaged cigar from the m to p first and second credit customers' box, he fell to assorting the sample line against philip hahn's coming that afternoon. his task was hardly begun, however, when the store door opened to admit max fried and his sister-in-law. abe immediately ceased his sample-assorting and walked forward to greet them. "hello, max," he said. max stopped short, and by the simple process of thrusting out his waist-line assumed a dignity befitting the ceremony of introduction. "mr. potash," he said severely, "this is miss gussie kreitmann, my wife's sister, what i talked to you about." abe grinned shyly. "all right," he said, and shook hands with miss kreitmann, who returned his grin with a dazzling smile. "mr. fried tells me you like to come to work by us as a model. ain't it?" abe continued in the accents of the sucking dove. "so, i guess you'd better go over to miss cohen, the bookkeeper, and she'll show you where to put your hat and coat." "oh, i ain't in no hurry," miss kreitmann replied. "to-morrow morning will do." "sure, sure," abe murmured. he was somewhat shocked by miss kreitmann's appearance, for while max fried's reservation, "only a little fat," had given him some warning, he was hardly prepared to employ so pronounced an amazon as miss kreitmann. true, her features, though large, were quite regular, and she had fine black eyes and the luxurious hair that goes with them; but as abe gazed at the convex lines of her generous figure he could not help wondering what his partner would say when he saw her. as a matter of fact, at that precise moment morris was taking in the entire situation from behind a convenient rack of raincoats, and was mentally designing a new line of samples to be called the p & p system. he figured that he would launch it with a good, live ad in the daily cloak and suit record, to be headed: let 'em _all_ come. we can fit _everybody_. _large_ sizes a specialty. "do you think you will like it here?" abe hazarded. "oh, sure," max replied for his sister-in-law. "this ain't the first time she works in a cloak and suit house. she helps me out in the store whenever she comes to buffalo. in fact, she knows part of your line already, abe, and the rest she learns pretty quick." "you won't find me slow, mr. potash," miss kreitmann broke in. "maybe i ain't such a good model except for large sizes, but i learned to sell cloaks by my brother-in-law and by my uncle, philip hahn, before i could talk already. what i want to do now is to meet the trade that comes into the store." "that's what you're going to do," abe said. "i will introduce you to everybody." the thought that this would be, perhaps, the only way to get rid of her lent fervor to his words, and max shook him warmly by the hand. "i'm much obliged," he said. "me and philip hahn will be in sure in a couple of hours, and gussie comes to work to-morrow morning." once more abe proffered his hand to his new model, and a moment later the door slammed behind them. "so, that's the party, is it?" said morris, emerging from his hiding-place. "what's she looking for a job by us for, abe? she could make it twice as much by a circus sideshow or a dime museum." "philip hahn will be here in a couple of hours, mawruss," abe replied, avoiding the thrust. "i guess he's going to buy a big bill of goods, mawruss." "i hope so, abe, because it needs quite a few big bills to offset the damage a model like this here miss kreitmann can do. in fact, abe," he concluded, "i'd be just as well satisfied if miss kreitmann could give us the orders, and we could get philip hahn to come to work by us as a model. i ain't never seen him, abe, but i think he's got a better shape for the line." a singular devotion to duty marked every action of emanuel gubin, shipping clerk in the wholesale cloak and suit establishment of potash & perlmutter. that is to say, it had marked every action until the commencement of miss kreitmann's incumbency. in the very hour that emanuel first observed the luster of her fine black eyes his heart gave one bound and never more regained its normal gait. as for miss kreitmann, she saw only a shipping clerk, collarless, coatless and with all the grime of his calling upon him. two weeks elapsed, however, and one evening, on lenox avenue, she encountered emanuel, freed from the chrysalis of his employment, a natty, lavender-trousered butterfly of fashion. thereafter she called him mannie, and during business hours she flashed upon him those same black eyes with results disastrous to the shipping end of potash & perlmutter's business. packages intended for the afternoon delivery of a local express company arrived in florida two weeks later, while the irate buyer of a jersey city store, who impatiently awaited an emergency shipment of ten heavy winter garments, received instead half a hundred gossamer wraps designed for the sub-tropical weather of palm beach. "i don't know what's come over that fellow, mawruss," abe said at last. "formerly he was a crackerjack--never made no mistakes nor nothing; and now i dassen't trust him at all, mawruss. everything we ship i got to look after it myself, mawruss. we might as well have no shipping clerk at all." "you're right, abe," morris replied. "he gets carelesser every day. and why, abe? because of that miss kreitmann. she breaks us all up, abe. i bet yer if that feller gubin has took her to the theayter once, abe, he took her fifty times already. he spends every cent he makes on her, and the first thing you know, abe, we'll be missing a couple of pieces of silk from the cutting-room. ain't it?" "he ain't no thief, mawruss," said abe, "and, besides, you can't blame a young feller if he gets stuck on a nice girl like miss kreitmann, mawruss. she's a smart girl, mawruss. mendel immerglick, of immerglick & frank, was in here yesterday, mawruss, and she showed him the line, mawruss, and believe me, mawruss, immerglick says to me i couldn't have done it better myself." "huh!" morris snorted. "a young feller like immerglick, what buys it of us a couple of hundred dollars at a time, she falls all over herself to please him, abe. and why? because immerglick's got a fine _mus_tache and is a swell dresser and he ain't married. but you take it a good customer like adolph rothstein, abe, and what does she do? at first she was all smiles to him, because adolph is a good-looking feller. but then she hears him telling me a hard-luck story about his wife's operation and how his eldest boy sammie is now seven already and ain't never been sick in his life, and last month he gets the whooping cough and all six of adolph's boys gets it one after the other. then, abe, she treats adolph like a dawg, abe, and the first thing you know he looks at his watch and says he got an appointment and he'll be back. but he don't come back at all, abe, and this noontime i seen leon sammet and adolph in wasserbauer's restaurant. they was eating the regular dinner _with chicken_, abe, and i seen leon pay for it." abe received his partner's harangue in silence. his eyes gazed vacantly at the store door, which had just opened to admit the letter-carrier. "suppose we do lose a couple of hundred dollars trade," he said at length; "one customer like philip hahn will make it up ten times, mawruss." "well, you'll lose him, too, abe, if you don't look out," said morris, who had concluded the reading of a typewritten letter with a scrawled postscript. "just see what he writes us." he handed over the missive, which read as follows: messrs. potash & perlmutter. _gents:_ we are requested by mrs. kreitmann of your city to ask about a young fellow what works for you by the name of emanuel gubin. has he any future, and what is his prospects? by doing so you will greatly oblige truly yours, the flower city credit outfitting co. dic. ph/k p. s. i don't like such monkey business. i thought you knew it. i don't want no salesman. what is the matter with you anyway? philip hahn. abe folded up the letter, and his mouth became a straight line of determination under his stubby mustache. "i guess i fix that young feller," he cried, seizing a pen. he wrote: flower city credit outfitting company. _gents:_ your favor of the th inst. received and contents noted and in reply would say the young fellow what you inquire about ain't got no future with us and the prospects is he gets fired on saturday. we trust this is satisfactory. truly yours, potash & perlmutter. on saturday afternoon morris perlmutter was putting on his hat and coat preparatory to going home. he had just fired mannie gubin with a relish and satisfaction second only to what would have been his sensations if the operation had been directed toward miss kreitmann. as he was about to leave the show-room abe entered. "oh, mawruss," abe cried, "you ought to see miss kreitmann. she's all broke up about mannie gubin, and she's crying something terrible." "is she?" morris said, peering over his partner's shoulder at the grief-stricken model, who was giving vent to her emotions in the far corner of the salesroom. "well, abe, you tell her to come away from them light goods and cry over the blue satinets. they don't spot so bad." miss gussie kreitmann evidently knew how to conceal a secret sorrow, for outwardly she remained unchanged. she continued to scowl at those of her employers' customers who were men of family, and beamed upon the unmarried trade with all the partiality she had displayed during mannie gubin's tenure of employment. indeed, her amiability toward the bachelors was if anything intensified, especially in the case of mendel immerglick. many times he had settled lunch checks in two figures, for miss kreitmann's appetite was in proportion to her size. moreover, a prominent broadway florist was threatening mendel with suit for flowers supplied miss kreitmann at his request. nor were there lacking other signs, such as the brilliancy of mendel's cravats and the careful manicuring of his nails, to indicate that he was paying court to miss kreitmann. "i think, abe," morris said finally, "we're due for an inquiry from the flower city company about immerglick & frank." "i hope not, mawruss," abe replied. "i never liked them people, mawruss. in fact, last week mendel immerglick struck me for new terms--ninety instead of sixty days--and he wanted to give me a couple of thousand dollar order. i turned him down cold, mawruss. people what throw such a bluff like mendel immerglick don't give me no confidence, mawruss. i'm willing to sell him up to five hundred at sixty days, but that's all." "oh, i don't know, abe," morris protested. "a couple of bright boys like mendel immerglick and louis frank can work up a nice business after a while." "can they?" abe rejoined. "well, more likely they work up a nice line of credit, mawruss, and then, little by little, they make it a big failure, mawruss. a feller what curls his mustache like mendel immerglick ain't no stranger to auction houses, mawruss. i bet yer he's got it all figured out right now where he can get advance checks on consignments." "i think you do the feller an injury, abe," said morris. "i think he means well, and besides, abe, business people is getting so conservative that there ain't no more money in failures." "i guess there's enough for mendel immerglick," abe said, and dismissed the subject. two weeks later the anticipated letter arrived in the following form: messrs. potash & perlmutter. _gents:_ mrs. kreitmann of your city requests us to ask you about one of your customers by the name of mr. mendel immerglick, of immerglick & frank. we drew a report on him by both commercial agencies and are fairly well satisfied, but would be obliged if you should make inquiries amongst the trade for us and greatly oblige yours truly, the flower city credit outfitting co. dic. ph/k p. s. i hear it this fellow is a good bright young fellow. i will be in n. y. next month and expect to lay in my spring goods. philip hahn. "well, mawruss," abe said, as he finished reading the letter, "i'm sorry to get this letter. i don't know what i could tell it him about this fellow immerglick. now, if it was a responsible concern like henry feigenbaum, of the h. f. cloak company, it would be different." "henry feigenbaum!" morris exclaimed. "why, he's only got one eye." "i know it, mawruss," abe replied, "but he's got six stores, and they're all making out good. but, anyhow, mawruss, i ain't going to do nothing in a hurry. i'll make good inquiries before i answer him." "what's the use of making inquiries?" morris protested. "tell him it's all right. i got enough of this miss kreitmann already, abe. she's killed enough trade for us." "what!" abe cried. "tell him it's all right, when for all i know mendel immerglick is headed straight for the bankruptcy courts, mawruss. you must be crazy, mawruss. ain't hahn said he's coming down next month to buy his spring goods? what you want to do, mawruss? throw three to five thousand dollars in the street, mawruss?" "you talk foolishness, abe," morris rejoined. "once a man gets married, his wife's family has got to stand for him. suppose he does bust up; would that be our fault, abe? then philip hahn sets him up in business again, and the first thing you know, abe, we got two customers instead of one. and i bet yer we could get philip hahn to guarantee the account yet." "them theories what you got, mawruss, sounds good, but maybe he busts up _before_ they get married, and then, mawruss, we lose philip hahn's business and max fried's business, and we are also out a sterling silver engagement present for miss kreitmann. ain't it?" he put on his hat and coat and lit a cigar. "i guess, mawruss, i'll go right now," he concluded, "and see what i can find out about him." in three hours he returned and entered the show-room. "well, abe," morris cried, "what did you find out? is it all right?" abe carefully selected a fresh cigar and shook his head solemnly. "nix, mawruss," he said. "mendel immerglick is nix for a nice girl like miss kreitmann." he took paper out of his waistcoat pocket for the purpose of refreshing his memory. "first, i seen moe klein, of klinger & klein," he went on. "moe says he seen mendel immerglick, in the back of wasserbauer's café, playing auction pinochle with a couple of loafer salesmen at three o'clock in the afternoon, and while moe was standing there already them two low-lives set immerglick back three times on four hundred hands at a dollar a hundred, _double double_." "and what was moe doing there?" morris asked. "i wasn't making no investigation of moe, mawruss," abe replied. "believe me, i got enough to do to find out about immerglick. also, moe tells me that immerglick comes into their place and wants to buy off them three thousand dollars at ninety days." "and did they sell him?" morris asked. "did they _sell_ him?" abe cried. "if you was to meet a burglar coming into the store at midnight with a jimmy and a dark lantern, mawruss, i suppose you'd volunteer to give him the combination of the safe. what? no, mawruss, they didn't sell him. such customers is for suckers like sammet brothers, mawruss. leon sammet says they sold him three thousand at four months. also, elenbogen sold him a big bill, same terms, mawruss. but big houses like wechsel, baum & miller and frederick stettermann won't sell him at any terms, mawruss." "if everybody was so conservative like wechsel, baum & miller," said morris, "the retailers might as well go out of business." "wait a bit, mawruss," abe replied. "that ain't all. louis frank's wife is a sister to the traders' and merchants' outlet, of louisville--you know that thief, marks leshinsky; and louis frank's uncle, mawruss, is elkan frank & company, them big swindlers, them auctioneers, out in chicago." abe sat down and dipped his pen in the inkwell with such force that the spotless surface of morris' shirt, which he had donned that morning, assumed a polkadot pattern. it was, therefore, some minutes before abe could devote himself to his task in silence. finally, he evolved the following: the flower city credit outfitting co. _gents_: your favor of the th inst. received and contents noted, and in reply would say our mr. potash seen the trade extensively and we are sorry to say it in the strictest confidence that we ain't got no confidence in the party you name. you should on no consideration do anything in the matter as all accounts are very bad. we will tell your mr. hahn the particulars when he is next in our city. yours truly, potash & perlmutter. "it ain't no more than he deserves, mawruss," abe commented after morris had read the letter. "no," morris admitted, "but after the way miss kreitmann got that feller gubin in the hole and the way she treated adolph rothstein, abe, it ain't no more than she deserves, neither." for several days afterward miss kreitmann went about her work with nothing but scowls for potash & perlmutter's customers, married and unmarried alike. "the thing goes too far, abe," morris protested. "she kills our entire trade. hahn or no hahn, abe, i say we should fire her." abe shook his head. "it ain't necessary, mawruss," he replied. "what d'ye mean?" "the girl gets desperate, mawruss. she fires herself. she told me this morning she don't see no future here, so she's going to leave at the end of the week. she says she will maybe take up trained nursing. she hears it that there are lots of openings for a young woman that way." morris sat down and fairly beamed with satisfaction. "that's the best piece of news i hear it in a long time, abe," he said. "now we can do maybe some business." "maybe we can," abe admitted. "but not with philip hahn." "why not?" morris cried. "we done our best by him. ain't we? through him we lost it a good customer, and we got to let go a good shipping clerk." "not a _good_ shipping clerk, mawruss," abe corrected. "well, he was a good one till miss kreitmann comes." abe made no reply. he took refuge in the columns of the daily cloak and suit record and perused the business troubles items. "was it our fault that immerglick is n. g., abe?" morris went on. "is it----" "ho-ly smokes!" abe broke in. "what d'ye think of that?" "what do i think of what?" morris asked. "immerglick & frank," abe read aloud. "a petition in bankruptcy was this day filed against immerglick & frank, doing business as the 'vienna store.' this firm has been a heavy purchaser throughout the trade during the past two months, but when the receiver took possession there remained only a small stock of goods. the receiver has retained counsel and will examine louis frank under section a of the bankruptcy act. it is understood that mendel immerglick, the senior partner, sailed for hamburg last week on the kaiserin luisa victoria and intends to remain in germany for an indefinite time." abe laid down the paper with a sigh of relief. "if that don't make us solid with philip hahn, mawruss," he said, "nothing will." miss kreitmann left at the end of the week, and abe and morris wasted no time in vain regrets over her departure, but proceeded at once to assort and make up a new line of samples for philip hahn's inspection. for three days they jumped every time a customer entered the store, and abe wore a genial smile of such fixity that his face fairly ached. at length, on the thursday following miss kreitmann's resignation, while abe was flicking an imaginary grain of dust from the spotless array of samples, the store door burst open and a short, stout person entered. abe looked up and, emitting an exclamation, rushed forward with both arms extended in hearty greeting. "_mis_ter hahn," he cried, "how _do_ you do?" the newcomer drew himself up haughtily, and his small mustache seemed to shed sparks of indignation. abe stopped short in hurt astonishment. "is th-there a-anything the matter?" he faltered. "is there anything the matter!" mr. hahn roared. "is there anything the matter! that's a fine question for _you_ to ask." "w-w-why?" abe stuttered. "ain't everything all right?" mr. hahn, with an effort that bulged every vein in his bald forehead, subsided into comparative calm. "mr. potash," he said, "i bought from you six bills of goods in the last few months. ain't it?" abe nodded. "and i never claimed no shortages and never made no kicks nor nothing, but always paid up prompt on the day like a gentleman. ain't it?" abe nodded again. "and this is what i get for it," mr. hahn went on bitterly. "my own niece on my wife's side, i put her in your care. i ask you to take it an interest in her. you promise me you will do your best. you tell me and max fried you will look after her"--he hesitated, almost overcome by emotion--"like a father. you said that when i bought the second bill. and what happens? the only chance she gets to make a decent match, you write me the feller ain't no good. naturally, i think you got some sense, and so i busts the affair up." "well," abe said, "i did write you he wasn't no good, and he wasn't no good, neither. ain't he just made it a failure?" mr. hahn grew once more infuriated. "a failure!" he yelled. "i should say he did make a failure. _what_ a failure he made! fool! donkey! the man got away with a hundred thousand dollars and is living like a prince in the old country. and poor gussie, she loved him, too! she cries night and day." he stopped to wipe a sympathetic tear. "she cries pretty easy," abe said. "she cried when we fired mannie gubin, too." hahn bristled again. "you insult me. what?" he cried. "you try to get funny with me. hey? all right. i fix you. so far what i can help it, never no more do you sell me or max or anybody what is friends of ours a button. not a button! y'understand?" he wheeled about and the next moment the store door banged with cannon-like percussion. morris came from behind a rack of raincoats and tiptoed toward abe. "well, abe," he said, "you put your foot in it that time." abe mopped the perspiration from his brow and bit the end off a cigar. "we done business before we had philip hahn for a customer, mawruss," he said, "and i guess we'll do it again. ain't it?" * * * * * six months later abe was scanning the columns of the daily cloak and suit record while morris examined the morning mail. "yes, mawruss," he said at length. "some people get only what they deserve. i always said it, some day philip hahn will be sorry he treated us the way he did. i bet yer he's sorry now." "so far what i hear, abe," morris replied, "he ain't told us nor nobody else that he's sorry. in fact, i seen him coming out of sammet brothers' yesterday, and he looked at me like he would treat us worser already, if he could. what makes you think he's sorry, abe?" "well," abe went on, "if he _ain't_ sorry he _ought_ to be." he handed the daily cloak and suit record to morris and indicated the new business column with his thumb. "rochester, n. y.," it read. "philip hahn, doing business here as the flower city credit outfitting company, announces that he has taken into partnership emanuel gubin, who recently married mr. hahn's niece. the business will be conducted under the old firm style." morris handed back the paper with a smile. "i seen leon sammet on the subway this morning and he told me all about it," he commented. "he says gubin eloped with her." abe shook his head. "you got it wrong, mawruss. you must be mistaken," he concluded. "_she_ eloped with gubin." chapter viii "you carry a fine stock, mr. sheitlis," abe potash exclaimed as he glanced around the well-filled shelves of the suffolk credit outfitting company. "that ain't all the stock i carry," mr. sheitlis, the proprietor, exclaimed. "i got also another stock which i am anxious to dispose of it, mr. potash, and you could help me out, maybe." abe smiled with such forced amiability that his mustache was completely engulfed between his nose and his lower lip. "i ain't buying no cloaks, mr. sheitlis," he said. "i'm selling 'em." "not a stock from cloaks, mr. potash," mr. sheitlis explained; "but a stock from gold and silver." "i ain't in the jewelry business, neither," abe said. "that ain't the stock what i mean," mr. sheitlis cried. "wait a bit and i'll show you." he went to the safe in his private office and returned with a crisp parchment-paper certificate bearing in gilt characters the legend, texas-nevada gold and silver mining corporation. "this is what i mean it," he said; "stock from stock exchanges. i paid one dollar a share for this hundred shares." abe took the certificate and gazed at it earnestly with unseeing eyes. mr. sheitlis had just purchased a liberal order of cloaks and suits from potash & perlmutter, and it was, therefore, a difficult matter for abe to turn down this stock proposition without offending a good customer. "well, mr. sheitlis," he commenced, "me and mawruss perlmutter we do business under a copartnership agreement, and it says we ain't supposed to buy no stocks from stock exchanges, and----" "i ain't asking you to buy it," mr. sheitlis broke in. "i only want you to do me something for a favor. you belong in new york where all them stock brokers is, so i want you should be so kind and take this here stock to one of them stock brokers and see what i can get for it. maybe i could get a profit for it, and then, of course, i should pay you something for your trouble." "pay me something!" abe exclaimed in accents of relief. "why, mr. sheitlis, what an idea! me and mawruss would be only too glad, mr. sheitlis, to try and sell it for you, and the more we get it for the stock the gladder we would be for your sake. i wouldn't take a penny for selling it if you should make a million out of it." "a million i won't make it," mr. sheitlis replied, dismissing the subject. "i'll be satisfied if i get ten dollars for it." he walked toward the front door of his store with abe. "what is the indications for spring business in the wholesale trade, mr. potash," he asked blandly. abe shook his head. "it should be good, maybe," he replied; "only, you can't tell nothing about it. silks is the trouble." "silks?" mr. sheitlis rejoined. "why, silks makes goods sell high, mr. potash. ain't it? certainly, i admit it you got to pay more for silk piece goods as for cotton piece goods, but you take the same per cent. profit on the price of the silk as on the price of the cotton, and so you make more in the end. ain't it?" "if silk piece goods is low or middling, mr. sheitlis," abe replied sadly, "there is a good deal in what you say. but silk is high this year, mr. sheitlis, so high you wouldn't believe me if i tell you we got to pay twicet as much this year as three years ago already." mr. sheitlis clucked sympathetically. "and if we charge the retailer twicet as much for a garment next year what he pays three years ago already, mr. sheitlis," abe went on, "we won't do no business. ain't it? so we got to cut our profits, and that's the way it goes in the cloak and suit business. you don't know where you are at no more than when you got stocks from stock exchanges." "well, mr. potash," sheitlis replied encouragingly, "next season is next season, but now is this season, and from the prices what you quoted it me, mr. potash, you ain't going to the poorhouse just yet a while." "i only hope it that you make more profit on the stock than we make it on the order you just give us," abe rejoined as he shook his customer's hand in token of farewell. "good-by, mr. sheitlis, and as soon as i get back in new york i'll let you know all about it." two days after abe's return to new york he sat in potash & perlmutter's show-room, going over next year's models as published in the daily cloak and suit record. his partner, morris perlmutter, puffed disconsolately at a cigar which a competitor had given him in exchange for credit information. "them cigars what klinger & klein hands out," he said to his partner, "has asbestos wrappers and excelsior fillers, i bet yer. i'd as lief smoke a kerosene lamp." "you got your worries, mawruss," abe replied. "just look at them next year's models, mawruss, and a little thing like cigars wouldn't trouble you at all. silk, soutache and buttons they got it, mawruss. i guess pretty soon them paris people will be getting out garments trimmed with solitaire diamonds." morris seized the paper and examined the half-tone cuts with a critical eye. "you're right, abe," he said. "we'll have our troubles next season, but we take our profit on silk goods, abe, the same as we do on cotton goods." abe was about to retort when a wave of recollection came over him, and he clutched wildly at his breast pocket. "ho-ly smokes!" he cried. "i forgot all about it." "forgot all about what?" morris asked. "b. sheitlis, of the suffolk credit outfitting company," abe replied. "he give me a stock in pittsburg last week, and i forgot all about it." "a stock!" morris exclaimed. "what for a stock?" "a stock from the stock exchange," abe replied; "a stock from gold and silver mines. he wanted me i should do it a favor for him and see a stock broker here and sell it for him." "well, that's pretty easy," morris rejoined. "there's lots of stock brokers in new york, abe. there's pretty near as many stock brokers as there is suckers, abe." "maybe there is, mawruss," abe replied, "but i don't know any of them." "no?" morris said. "well, sol klinger, of klinger & klein, could tell you, i guess. i seen him in the subway this morning, and he was pretty near having a fit over the financial page of the sun. i asked him if he seen a failure there, and he says no, but steel has went up to seventy, maybe it was eighty. so i says to him he should let andrew carnegie worry about that, and he says if he would of bought it at forty he would have been in thirty thousand dollars already." "who?" abe asked. "andrew carnegie?" "no," morris said; "sol klinger. so i says to him i could get all the excitement i wanted out of auction pinochle and he says----" "s'enough, mawruss," abe broke in. "i heard enough already. i'll ring him up and ask him the name of the broker what does his business." he went to the telephone in the back of the store and returned a moment later and put on his hat and coat. "i rung up sol, mawruss," he said, "and sol tells me that a good broker is gunst & baumer. they got a branch office over hill, arkwright & thompson, the auctioneers, mawruss. he says a young feller by the name milton fiedler is manager, and if he can't sell that stock, mawruss, sol says nobody can. so i guess i'll go right over and see him while i got it in my mind." milton fiedler had served an arduous apprenticeship before he attained the position of branch manager for gunst & baumer in the dry-goods district. during the thirty odd years of his life he had been in turn stockboy, clothing salesman, bookmaker's clerk, faro dealer, poolroom cashier and, finally, bucketshop proprietor. when the police closed him up he sought employment with gunst & baumer, whose exchange affiliations precluded any suspicion of bucketing, but who, nevertheless, did a thriving business in curb securities of the cat-and-dog variety, and it was in this particular branch of the science of investment and speculation that milton excelled. despite his expert knowledge, however, he was slightly stumped, as the vernacular has it, when abe potash produced b. sheitlis' stock, for in all his bucketshop and curb experience he had never even heard of the texas-nevada gold and silver mining corporation. "this is one of those smaller mines, mr. potash," he explained, "which sometimes get to be phenomenal profit-makers. of course, i can't tell you offhand what the value of the stock is, but i'll make inquiries at once. the inside market at present is very strong, as you know." abe nodded, as he thought was expected of him, although "inside" and "outside" markets were all one to him. "and curb securities naturally feel the influence of the bullish sentiment," fiedler continued. "it isn't the business of a broker to try to influence a customer's choice, but i'd like you to step outside"--they were in the manager's private office--"and look at the quotation board for a moment. interstate copper is remarkably active this morning." he led abe into an adjoining room where a tall youth was taking green cardboard numbers from a girdle which he wore, and sticking them on the quotation board. "hello!" fiedler exclaimed as the youth affixed a new number. "interstate copper has advanced a whole point since two days ago. it's now two and an eighth." simultaneously, a young man in the back of the room exclaimed aloud in woeful profanity. "what's the matter with him?" abe asked. "they play 'em both ways--a-hem!" fiedler corrected himself in time. "occasionally we have a customer who sells short of the market, and then, of course, if the market goes up he gets stung--er--he sustains a loss." here the door opened and sol klinger entered. his bulging eyes fell on the quotation board, and at once his face spread into a broad smile. "hello, sol!" abe cried. "you look like you sold a big bill of goods." "i hope i look better than that, abe," sol replied. "i make it more on that interstate copper in two days what i could make it on ten big bills of goods. that's a great property, abe." "i think mr. klinger will have reason to congratulate himself still more by to-morrow, mr. potash," fiedler broke in. "interstate copper is a stock with an immediate future." "you bet," sol agreed. "i'm going to hold on to mine. it'll go up to five inside of a week." the young man from the rear of the room took the two rows of chairs at a jump. "fiedler," he said, "i'm going to cover right away. buy me a thousand interstate at the market." sol nudged abe, and after the young man and fiedler had disappeared into the latter's private office sol imparted in hoarse whispers to abe that the young man was reported to have information from the ground-floor crowd about interstate copper. "well, if that's so," abe replied, "why does he lose money on it?" "because," sol explained, "he's got an idee that if you act just contrariwise to the inside information what you get it, why then you come out right." abe shook his head hopelessly. "pinochle, i understand it," he said, "and skat a little also. but this here stocks from stock exchanges is worser than chest what they play it in coffee-houses." "you don't need to understand it, abe," sol replied. "all you do is to buy a thousand interstate copper to-day or to-morrow at any price up to two and a half, abe, and i give you a guarantee that you make twenty-five hundred dollars by next week." when abe returned to his place of business that day he had developed a typical case of stock-gambling fever, with which he proceeded to inoculate morris as soon as the latter came back from lunch. abe at once recounted all his experiences of the morning and dwelt particularly on the phenomenal rise of interstate copper. "sol says he guarantees that we double our money in a week," he concluded. "did he say he would put it in writing?" morris asked. abe glared at morris for an instant. "do you think i am making jokes?" he rejoined. "he don't got to put it in writing, mawruss. it's as plain as the nose on your face. we pay twenty-five hundred dollars for a thousand shares at two and a half to-day, and next week it goes up to five and we sell it and make it twenty-five hundred dollars. ain't it?" "who do we sell it to?" morris asked. abe pondered for a moment, then his face brightened up. "why, to the stock exchange, certainly," he replied. "_must_ they buy it from us, abe?" morris inquired. "sure they must, mawruss," abe said. "ain't sol klinger always selling his stocks to them people?" "well, sol klinger got his customers, abe, and we got ours," morris replied doubtfully. "maybe them people would buy it from sol and wouldn't buy it from us." for the rest of the afternoon morris plied abe with questions about the technicalities of the stock market until abe took refuge in flight and went home at half-past five. the next morning morris resumed his quiz until abe's replies grew personal in character. "what's the use of trying to explain something to nobody what don't understand nothing?" he exclaimed. "maybe i don't understand it," morris admitted, "but also you don't understand it, too, maybe. ain't it?" "i understand this much, mawruss," abe cried--"i understand, mawruss, that if sol klinger tells me he guarantees it i make twenty-five hundred dollars, and this here milton fiedler, too, he also says it, and a young feller actually with my own eyes i see it buys this stock because he's got information from inside people, why shouldn't _we_ buy it and make money on it? ain't it?" morris was about to reply when the letter carrier entered with the morning mail. abe took the bundle of envelopes, and on the top of the pile was a missive from gunst & baumer. abe tore open the envelope and looked at the letter hurriedly. "you see, mawruss," he cried, "already it goes up a sixteenth." he handed the letter to morris. it read as follows: _gentlemen:_ for your information we beg to advise you that interstate copper advanced a sixteenth at the close of the market yesterday. should you desire us to execute a buying order in these securities, we urge you to let us know before ten o'clock to-morrow morning, as we believe that a sharp advance will follow the opening of the market. truly yours, gunst & baumer, milton fiedler, mgr. "well," abe said, "what do you think, mawruss?" "think!" morris cried. "why, i think that he ain't said nothing to us about them gold and silver stocks of b. sheitlis', abe, so i guess he ain't sold 'em yet. if he can't sell a stock from gold and silver already, abe, what show do we stand with a stock from copper?" "that sheitlis stock is only a small item, mawruss." "well, maybe it is," morris admitted, "but just you ring up and ask him. then, if we find that he sold that gold and silver stock we take a chance on the copper." abe hastened to the telephone in the rear of the store. "listen, abe," morris called after him, "tell him it should be no dating or discount, strictly net cash." in less than a minute, abe was conversing with fiedler. "mr. fiedler!" he said. "hello, mr. fiedler! is this you? yes. well, me and mawruss is about decided to buy a thousand of them stocks what you showed me down at your store--at your office yesterday, only, mawruss says, why should we buy them goods--them stocks if you ain't sold that other stocks already. first, he says, you should sell them stocks from gold and silver, mr. fiedler, and then we buy them copper ones." mr. fiedler, at the other end of the 'phone, hesitated before replying. the texas-nevada gold and silver mining corporation was a paper mine that had long since faded from the memory of every bucketshop manager he knew, and its stock was worth absolutely nothing. yet gunst & baumer, as the promoters of interstate copper, would clear at least two thousand dollars by the sale of the stock to abe and morris; hence, fiedler took a gambler's chance. "why, mr. potash," he said, "a boy is already on the way to your store with a check for that very stock. i sold it for three hundred dollars and i sent you a check for two hundred and seventy-five dollars. twenty-five dollars is our usual charge for selling a hundred shares of stock that ain't quoted on the curb." "much obliged, mr. fiedler," abe said. "i'll be down there with a check for twenty-five hundred." "all right," mr. fiedler replied. "i'll go ahead and buy the stock for your account." "well," abe said, "don't do that until i come down. i got to fix it up with my partner first, mr. fiedler, and just as soon as i can get there i'll bring you the check." twenty minutes after abe had rung off a messenger arrived with a check for two hundred and seventy-five dollars, and morris included it in the morning deposits which he was about to send over to the kosciusko bank. "while you're doing that, mawruss," abe said, "you might as well draw a check for twenty-five hundred dollars for that stock." morris grunted. "that's going to bring down our balance a whole lot, abe," he said. "only for a week, mawruss," abe corrected, "and then we'll sell it again." "whose order do i write it to, abe?" morris inquired. "i forgot to ask that," abe replied. "gunst & baumer?" morris asked. "they ain't the owners of it, mawruss," said abe. "they're only the brokers." "maybe sol klinger is selling it to the stock-exchange people and they're selling it to us," morris suggested. "sol klinger ain't going to sell his. he's going to hang on to it. maybe it's this young feller what i see there, mawruss, only i don't know his name." "well, then, i'll make it out to potash & perlmutter, and you can indorse it when you get there," said morris. at this juncture a customer entered, and abe took him into the show-room, while morris wrote out the check. for almost an hour and a half abe displayed the firm's line, from which the customer selected a generous order, and when at last abe was free to go down to gunst & baumer's it was nearly twelve o'clock. he put on his hat and coat, and jumped on a passing car, and it was not until he had traveled two blocks that he remembered the check. he ran all the way back to the store and, tearing the check out of the checkbook where morris had left it, he dashed out again and once more boarded a broadway car. in front of gunst & baumer's offices he leaped wildly from the car to the street, and, escaping an imminent fire engine and a hosecart, he ran into the doorway and took the stairs three at a jump. on the second floor of the building was hill, arkwright & thompson's salesroom, where a trade sale was in progress, and the throng of buyers collected there overflowed onto the landing, but abe elbowed his way through the crowd and made the last flight in two seconds. "is mr. fiedler in?" he gasped as he burst into the manager's office of gunst & baumer's suite. "mr. fiedler went out to lunch," the office-boy replied. "he says you should sit down and wait, and he'll be back in ten minutes." but abe was too nervous for sitting down, and the thought of the customers' room with its quotation board only agitated him the more. "i guess i'll go downstairs to hill, arkwright & thompson's," he said, "and give a look around. i'll be back in ten minutes." he descended the stairs leisurely and again elbowed his way through the crowd into the salesroom of hill, arkwright & thompson. mr. arkwright was on the rostrum, and as abe entered he was announcing the next lot. "look at them carefully, gentlemen," he said. "an opportunity like this seldom arises. they are all fresh goods, woven this season for next season's business--foulard silks of exceptionally good design and quality." at the word silks abe started and made at once for the tables on which the goods were piled. he examined them critically, and as he did so his mind reverted to the half-tone cuts in the daily cloak and suit record. here was a rare chance to lay in a stock of piece goods that might not recur for several years, certainly not before next season had passed. "it's to close an estate, gentlemen," mr. arkwright continued. "the proprietor of the mills died recently, and his executors have decided to wind up the business. all these silk foulards will be offered as one lot. what is the bid?" immediately competition became fast and furious, and abe entered into it with a zest and excitement that completely eclipsed all thought of stock exchanges or copper shares. the bids rose by leaps and bounds, and when, half an hour later, abe emerged from the fray his collar was melted to the consistency of a pocket handkerchief, but the light of victory shone through his perspiration. he was the purchaser of the entire lot, and by token of his ownership he indorsed the twenty-five-hundred-dollar check to the order of hill, arkwright & thompson. the glow of battle continued with abe until he reached the show-room of his own place of business at two o'clock. "well, abe," morris cried, "did you buy the stock?" "huh?" abe exclaimed, and then, for the first time since he saw the silk foulards, he remembered interstate copper. "i was to wasserbauer's restaurant for lunch," morris continued, "and in the café i seen that thing what the baseball comes out of it, abe." "the tickler," abe croaked. "that's it," morris went on. "also, sol klinger was looking at it, and he told me interstate copper was up to three already." abe sat down in a chair and passed his hand over his forehead. "that's the one time when you give it us good advice, abe," said morris. "sol says we may make it three thousand dollars yet." abe nodded. he licked his dry lips and essayed to speak, but the words of confession would not come. "it was a lucky day for us, abe, when you seen b. sheitlis," morris continued. "of course, i ain't saying it was all luck, abe, because it wasn't. if you hadn't seen the opportunity, abe, and practically made me go into it, i wouldn't of done nothing, abe." abe nodded again. if the guilt he felt inwardly had expressed itself in his face there would have been no need of confession. at length he braced himself to tell it all; but just as he cleared his throat by way of prelude morris was summoned to the cutting-room and remained there until closing-time. thus, when abe went home his secret remained locked up within his breast, nor did he find it a comfortable burden, for when he looked at the quotations of curb securities in the evening paper he found that interstate copper had closed at four and a half, after a total day's business of sixty thousand shares. the next morning abe reached his store more than two hours after his usual hour. he had rolled on his pillow all night, and it was almost day before he could sleep. "why, abe," morris cried when he saw him, "you look sick. what's the matter?" "i feel mean, mawruss," abe replied. "i guess i eat something what disagrees with me." ordinarily, morris would have made rejoinder to the effect that when a man reached abe's age he ought to know enough to take care of his stomach; but morris had devoted himself to the financial column of a morning newspaper on his way downtown, and his feelings toward his partner were mollified in proportion. "that's too bad, abe," he said. "why don't you see a doctor?" abe shook his head and was about to reply when the telephone bell rang. "that's sol klinger," morris exclaimed. "he said he would let me know at ten o'clock what this interstate copper opened at." he darted for the telephone in the rear of the store, and when he returned his face was wreathed in smiles. "it has come up to five already," he cried. "we make it twenty-five hundred dollars." while morris was talking over the 'phone abe had been trying to bring his courage to the sticking point, and the confession was on the very tip of his tongue when the news which morris brought forced it back again. he rose wearily to his feet. "i guess you think we're getting rich quick, mawruss," he said, and repaired to the bookkeeper's desk in the firm's private office. for the next two hours and a half he dodged about, with one eye on morris and the other on the rear entrance to the store. he expected the silk to arrive at any moment, and he knew that when it did the jig would be up. it was with a sigh of relief that he saw morris go out to lunch at half-past twelve, and almost immediately afterward hill, arkwright & thompson's truckman arrived with the goods. abe superintended the disposal of the packing cases in the cutting-room, and he was engaged in opening them when miss cohen, the bookkeeper, entered. "mr. potash," she said, "mr. perlmutter wants to see you in the show-room." "did he come back from lunch so soon?" abe asked. "he came in right after he went out," she replied. "i guess he must be sick. he looks sick." abe turned pale. "i guess he found it out," he said to himself as he descended the stairs and made for the show-room. when he entered he found morris seated in a chair with the first edition of an evening paper clutched in his hand. "what's the matter, mawruss?" abe said. morris gulped once or twice and made a feeble attempt to brandish the paper. "matter?" he croaked. "nothing's the matter. only, we are out twenty-five hundred dollars. that's all." "no, we ain't, mawruss," abe protested. "what we are out in one way we make in another." morris sought to control himself, but his pent-up emotions gave themselves vent. "we do, hey?" he roared. "well, maybe you think because i took your fool advice this oncet that i'll do it again?" he grew red in the face. "gambler!" he yelled. "fool! you shed my blood! what? you want to ruin me! hey?" abe had expected a tirade, but nothing half as violent as this. "mawruss," he said soothingly, "don't take it so particular." he might as well have tried to stem niagara with a shovel. "ain't the cloak and suit business good enough for you?" morris went on. "must you go throwing away money on stocks from stock exchanges?" abe scratched his head. these rhetorical questions hardly fitted the situation, especially the one about throwing away money. "look-y here, mawruss," he said, "if you think you scare me by this theayter acting you're mistaken. just calm yourself, mawruss, and tell me what you heard it. i ain't heard nothing." for answer morris handed him the evening paper. "sensational failure in wall street," was the red-letter legend on the front page. with bulging eyes abe took in the import of the leaded type which disclosed the news that gunst & baumer, promoters of interstate copper, having boosted its price to five, were overwhelmed by a flood of profit-taking. to support their stock gunst & baumer were obliged to buy in all the interstate offered at five, and when at length their resources gave out they announced their suspension. interstate immediately collapsed and sold down in less than a quarter of an hour from five bid, five and a thirty-second asked, to a quarter bid, three-eighths asked. abe handed back the paper to morris and lit a cigar. "for a man what has just played his partner for a sucker, abe," morris said, "you take it nice and quiet." abe puffed slowly before replying. "after all, mawruss," he said, "i was right." "you was right?" morris exclaimed. "what d'ye mean?" "i mean, mawruss," abe went on, "i figured it out right. i says to myself when i got that check for twenty-five hundred dollars: if i buy this here stock from stock exchanges and we make money mawruss will go pretty near crazy. he'll want to buy it the whole stock exchange full from stocks, and in the end it will bust us. on the other hand, mawruss, i figured it out that if we bought this here stock and lose money on it, then mawruss'll go crazy also, and want to murder me or something." he paused and puffed again at his cigar. "so, mawruss," he concluded, "i went down to gunst & baumer's building, mawruss; but instead of going to gunst & baumer, mawruss, i went one flight lower down to hill, arkwright & thompson's, mawruss, and i didn't buy it interstate copper, mawruss, but i bought it instead silk foulards, mawruss--seventy-five hundred dollars' worth for twenty-five hundred dollars, and it's laying right now up in the cutting-room." he leaned back in his chair and triumphantly surveyed his partner, who had collapsed into a crushed and perspiring heap. "so, mawruss," he said, "i am a gambler. hey? i shed your blood? what? i ruin you with my fool advice? ain't it?" morris raised a protesting hand. "abe," he murmured huskily, "i done you an injury. it's me what's the fool. i was carried away by b. sheitlis' making his money so easy." abe jumped to his feet. "ho-ly smokes!" he cried and dashed out of the show-room to the telephone in the rear of the store. he returned a moment later with his cigar at a rakish angle to his jutting lower lip. "it's all right, mawruss," he said. "i rung up the kosciusko bank and the two-hundred-and-seventy-five-dollar check went through all right." "sure it did," morris replied, his drooping spirits once more revived. "i deposited it at eleven o'clock yesterday morning. i don't take no chances on getting stuck, abe, and i only hope you didn't get stuck on them foulards, neither." abe grinned broadly. "you needn't worry about that, mawruss," he replied. "stocks from stock exchanges maybe i don't know it, mawruss; but stocks from silk foulards i do know it, mawruss, and don't you forget it." chapter ix "sol klinger must think he ain't taking chances enough in these here stocks, mawruss," abe potash remarked a week after the slump in interstate copper. "he got to hire a drummer by the name walsh yet. that feller's idee of entertaining a customer is to go into wasserbauer's and to drink all the schnapps in stock. i bet yer when walsh gets through, he don't know which is the customer and which is the bartender already." "you got to treat a customer right, abe," morris commented, "because nowadays we are up against some stiff competition. you take this here new concern, abe, the small drygoods company of walla walla, washington, abe, and klinger & klein ain't lost no time. sol tells me this morning that them small people start in with a hundred thousand capital all paid in. sol says also their buyer james burke which they send it east comes from the same place in the old country as this here frank walsh, and i guess we got to hustle if we want to get his trade, ain't it?" "because a customer is a _landsmann_ of _mine_, mawruss," abe replied, "ain't no reason why i shall sell him goods, mawruss. if i could sell all my _landsleute_ what is in the cloak and suit business, mawruss, we would be doing a million-dollar business a month, ain't it?" at this juncture morris drew on his imagination. "i hear it also, abe," he hinted darkly, "that this here james bourke, what the small drygoods company sends east, is related by marriage to this here walsh's wife." "wives' relations is nix, mawruss," abe replied. "i got enough with wives' relations. when me and my rosie gets married her mother was old man smolinski's a widow. he made an honest failure of it in the customer peddler business in eighteen eighty-five, and the lodge money was pretty near gone when i got into the family. then my wife's mother gives my wife's brother, scheuer smolinski, ten dollars to go out and buy some schnapps for the wedding, and that's the last we see of _him_, mawruss. but rosie and me gets married, anyhow, and takes the old lady to live with us, and the first thing you know, mawruss, she gets sick on us and dies, with a professor and two trained nurses at my expense, and that's the way it goes, mawruss." he rose to his feet and helped himself to a cigar from the l to n first and second credit customers' box. "no, mawruss," he concluded, "if you can't sell a man goods on their merits, mawruss, you'll never get him to take them because your wife is related by marriage to his wife. ain't it? we got a good line, mawruss, and we stand a show to sell our goods without no theayters nor dinners nor nothing." morris shrugged his shoulders. "all right, abe," he said, "you can do what you like about it, but i already bought it two tickets for saturday night." "of course, if you _like_ to go to shows, mawruss," abe declared as he rose to his feet, "i can't stop you. only one thing i got to say it, mawruss--if you think you should charge that up to the firm's expense account, all i got to say is you're mistaken, that's all." abe strode out of the show-room before a retort could formulate itself, so morris struggled into his overcoat instead and made for the store door. as he reached it his eye fell on the clock over wasserbauer's café on the other side of the street. the hands pointed to two o'clock, and he broke into a run, for the southwestern flyer which bore the person of james burke was due at the grand central station at two-ten. fifteen minutes later morris darted out of the subway exit at forty-second street and imminently avoided being run down by a hansom. indeed, the vehicle came to a halt so suddenly that the horse reared on its haunches, while a flood of profanity from the driver testified to the nearness of morris' escape. far from being grateful, however, morris paused on the curb and was about to retaliate in kind when one of the two male occupants of the hansom leaned forward and poked a derisive finger at him. "what's the hurry, morris?" said the passenger. morris looked up and gasped, for in that fleeting moment he recognized his tormentor. it was frank walsh, and although morris saw only the features of his competitor it needed no sherlock holmes to deduce that frank's fellow-passenger was none other than james burke, buyer for the small drygoods company. two hours later he returned to the store, for he had seized the opportunity of visiting some of the firm's retail trade while uptown, and when he came in he found abe sorting a pile of misses' reefers. "well, mawruss," abe cried, "you look worried." "i bet you i'm worried, abe," he said. "you and your wife's relations done it. two thousand dollars thrown away in the street. i got to the grand central station just in time to get there too late, abe. this here walsh was ahead of me already, and he took burke away in a hansom. when i come out of the subway they pretty near run over me, abe." "a competitor will do anything, mawruss," abe said sympathetically. "but don't you worry. there's just as big fish swimming in the sea as what they sell by fish markets, mawruss. bigger even. we ain't going to fail yet a while just because we lose the small drygoods company for a customer." "we ain't lost 'em yet, abe," morris rejoined, and without taking off his coat he repaired to wasserbauer's restaurant and café for a belated lunch. as he entered he encountered frank walsh, who had been congratulating himself at the bar. "hello, morris," he cried. "i cut you out, didn't i?" "you cut me out?" morris replied stiffly. "i don't know what you mean." "of course you don't," walsh broke in heartily. "i suppose you was hustling to the grand central station just because you wanted to watch the engines. well, i won't crow over you, morris. better luck next time!" his words fell on unheeding ears, for morris was busily engaged in looking around him. he sought features that might possibly belong to james burke, but frank seemed to be the only representative of the emerald isle present, and morris proceeded to the restaurant in the rear. "i suppose he turned him over to klinger," he said to himself, while from the vantage of his table he saw frank walsh buy cigars and pass out into the street in company with another drummer _not_ of irish extraction. he finished his lunch without appetite, and when he reëntered the store abe walked forward to greet him. "well, mawruss," he said, "i seen sol klinger coming down the street a few minutes ago, so i kinder naturally just stood out on the sidewalk till he comes past, mawruss. i saw he ain't looking any too pleased, so i asked him what's the trouble; and he says, nothing, only that frank walsh, what they got it for a drummer, eats 'em up with expenses. so i says, how so? and he says, this here walsh has a customer by the name of burke come to town, and the first thing you know, he spends it three dollars for a cab for burke, and five dollars for lunch for burke, and also ten dollars for two tickets for a show for burke, before this here burke is in town two hours already. klinger looked pretty sore about it, mawruss." "what show is he taking burke to?" morris asked. "it ain't a show exactly," abe replied hastily; "it's a prize-fight." "a fight!" morris cried. "that's an idea, ain't it?--to take a customer to a fight." "i know it, mawruss," abe rejoined, "but you got to remember that the customer's name is also burke. what for a show did you buy it tickets for?" morris blushed. "travvy-ayter," he murmured. "travvy-ayter!" abe replied. "why, that's an opera, ain't it?" morris nodded. he had intended to combine business with pleasure by taking burke to hear tetrazzini. "well, you got your idees, too, mawruss," abe continued; "and i don't know that they're much better as this here walsh's idees." "ain't they, abe?" morris replied. "well, maybe they ain't, abe. but just because i got a loafer for a customer ain't no reason why i should be a loafer myself, abe." "must you take a customer to a show, mawruss?" abe rejoined. "is there a law compelling it, mawruss?" morris shrugged his shoulders. "anyhow, abe," he said, "i don't see that _you_ got any kick coming, because i'm going to give them tickets to you and rosie, abe, and youse two can take in the show." "and where are you going, mawruss?" "me?" morris replied. "i'm going to a prize-fighting, abe. i don't give up so easy as all that." on his way home that night morris consulted an evening paper, and when he turned to the sporting page he found the upper halves of seven columns effaced by a huge illustration executed in the best style of jig, the sporting cartoonist. in the left-hand corner crouched slogger atkins, the english lightweight, while opposite to him in the right-hand corner stood young kilrain, poised in an attitude of defense. underneath was the legend, "the contestants in tomorrow night's battle." by reference to jig's column morris ascertained that the scene of the fight would be at the polygon club's new arena in the vicinity of harlem bridge, and at half past eight saturday night he alighted from a third avenue l train at one hundred and twenty-ninth street and followed the crowd that poured over the bridge. it was nine o'clock before morris gained admission to the huge frame structure that housed the arena of the polygon club. having just paid five dollars as a condition precedent to membership in good standing, he took his seat amid a dense fog of tobacco smoke and peered around him for frank walsh and his customer. at length he discerned walsh's stalwart figure at the right hand of a veritable giant, whose square jaw and tip-tilted nose would have proclaimed the customer, even though walsh had not assiduously plied him with cigars and engaged him continually in animated conversation. they were seated well down toward the ring, while morris found a place directly opposite them and watched their every movement. when they laughed morris scowled, and once when the big man slapped his thigh in uproarious appreciation of one of walsh's stories morris fairly turned green with envy. morris watched with a jaundiced eye the manner in which frank walsh radiated good humor. not only did walsh hand out cigars to the big man, but also he proffered them to the person who sat next to him on the other side. this man morris recognized as the drummer who had been in wasserbauer's with frank on the previous day. "letting him in on it, too," morris said to himself. "what show do i stand?" the first of the preliminary bouts began. the combatants were announced as pig flanagan and tom evans, the welsh coal-miner. it seemed to morris that he had seen evans somewhere before, but as this was his initiation into the realms of pugilism he concluded that it was merely a chance resemblance and dismissed the matter from his mind. the opening bout more than realized morris' conception of the sport's brutality, for pig flanagan was what the _cognoscenti_ call a good bleeder, and during the first second of the fight he fulfilled his reputation at the instance of a light tap from his opponent's left. there are some people who cannot stand the sight of blood; morris was one of them, and the drummer on frank walsh's right was another. both he and morris turned pale, but the big man on walsh's left roared his approbation. "eat him up!" he bellowed, and at every fresh hemorrhage from mr. flanagan he rocked and swayed in an ecstasy of enjoyment. for three crimson rounds pig flanagan and tom evans continued their contest, but even a good bleeder must run dry eventually, and in the first half of the fourth round pig took the count. by this time the arena was swimming in morris' nauseated vision, while, as for the drummer on frank's right, he closed his eyes and wiped a clammy perspiration from his forehead. the club meeting proceeded, however, despite the stomachs of its weaker members, and the next bout commenced with a rush. it was advertised in advance by morris' neighboring seatholders as a scientific contest, but in pugilism, as in surgery, science is often gory. in this instance a scientific white man hit a colored savant squarely on the nose, with the inevitable sanguinary result, and as though by a prearranged signal morris and the drummer on walsh's right started for the door. in vain did walsh seize his neighbor by the coat-tail. the latter shook himself loose, and he and morris reached the sidewalk together. "t'phooie!" said the drummer. "that's an amusement for five dollars." morris wiped his face and gasped like a landed fish. at length he recovered his composure. "i seen you sitting next to walsh," he said. the drummer nodded. "he didn't want me to go," he replied. "he said we come together and we should go together, but i told him i would wait for him till it was over. him and that other fellow seem to enjoy it." "some people has got funny idees of a good time," morris commented. "_that's_ an idee for a loafer," said the drummer. "for my part i like it more refined." "i believe you," morris replied. "might you would come and take a cup of coffee with me, maybe?" he indicated a bathbrick dairy restaurant on the opposite side of the street. "much obliged," the drummer replied, "but i got to go out of town to-morrow, and coffee keeps me awake. i think i'll wait here for about half an hour, and if walsh and his friends don't come out by then i guess i'll go home." morris hesitated. a sense of duty demanded that he stay and see the matter through, since his newly-made acquaintance with the _tertium quid_ of walsh's little party might lead to an introduction to the big man, and for the rest morris trusted to his own salesmanship. but the drummer settled the matter for him. "on second thought," he said, "i guess i won't wait. why should i bother with a couple like them? if you're going downtown on the l i'll go with you." together they walked to the manhattan terminal of the third avenue road and discussed the features of the disgusting spectacle they had just witnessed. in going over its details they found sufficient conversation to cover the journey to one hundred and sixteenth street, where morris alighted. when he descended to the street it occurred to him for the first time that he had omitted to learn both the name and line of business of his new-found friend. in the meantime frank walsh and his companion watched the white scientist and the colored savant conclude their exhibition and cheered themselves hoarse over the _pièce de résistance_ which followed immediately. at length slogger atkins disposed of young kilrain with a well-directed punch in the solar plexus, and walsh and his companion rose to go. "what become of yer friend?" the big man asked. "he had to go out, jim," frank replied. "he couldn't stand the sight of the blood." "is that so?" the big man commented. "it beats all, the queer ideas some people has." "well, mawruss," abe cried as he greeted his partner on monday morning, "how did it went?" "how did what went?" morris asked. "the prize-fighting." morris shook his head. "not for all the cloak and suit trade on the pacific slope," he said finally, "would i go to one of them things again. first, a fat eyetalian by the name flanagan fights with a young feller, tom evans, the welsh coal-miner, and you never seen nothing like it, abe, outside a slaughter-house." "flanagan don't seem much like an eyetalian, mawruss," abe commented. "i know it," morris replied; "but that wouldn't surprise you much if you could seen the one what they call tom evans, the welsh coal-miner." "why not?" abe asked. "well, you remember hyman feinsilver, what worked by us as a shipping clerk while jake was sick?" "sure i do," abe replied. "comes from very decent, respectable people in the old country. his father was a rabbi." "don't make no difference about his father, abe," morris went on. "that tom evans, the welsh coal-miner, is hyman feinsilver what worked by us, and the way he treated that poor eyetalian young feller was a shame for the people. it makes me sick to think of it." "don't think of it, then," abe replied, "because it won't do you no good, mawruss. i seen sol klinger in the subway this morning, and he says that last saturday morning already james burke was in their place and picked out enough goods to stock the biggest suit department in the country. sol says burke went to philadelphia yesterday to meet sidney small, the president of the concern, and they're coming over to klinger & klein's this morning and close the deal." morris sat down and lit a cigar. "yes, abe, that's the way it goes," he said bitterly. "you sit here and tell me a long story about your wife's relations, and the first thing you know, abe, i miss the train and frank walsh takes away my trade. what do i care about your wife's relations, abe?" "that's what i told you, mawruss. wife's relations don't do nobody no good," abe replied. "jokes!" morris exclaimed as he moved off to the rear of the store. "jokes he is making it, and two thousand dollars thrown into the street." for the rest of the morning morris sulked in the cutting-room upstairs, while abe busied himself in assorting his samples for a forthcoming new england trip. at twelve o'clock a customer came in, and when he left at half-past twelve abe escorted him to the store door and lingered there a few minutes to get a breath of fresh air. as he was about to reënter the store he discerned the corpulent figure of frank walsh making his way down the opposite sidewalk toward wasserbauer's café. with him were two other men, one of them about as big as frank himself, the other a slight, dark person. abe darted to the rear of the store. "mawruss," he called, "come quick! here is this walsh feller with small and burke." morris took the first few stairs at a leap, and had his partner not caught him he would have landed in a heap at the bottom of the flight. they covered the distance from the stairway to the store door so rapidly that when they reached the sidewalk frank and his customers had not yet arrived in front of wasserbauer's. "the little feller," morris hissed, "is the same one what was up to the fighting. i guess he's a drummer." "him?" abe replied. "he ain't no drummer, mawruss. he's jacob berkowitz, what used to run the up-to-date store in seattle. i sold him goods when me and pincus vesell was partners together, way before the spanish war already. who's the other feller?" at that moment the subject of abe's inquiry looked across the street and for the first time noticed abe and morris standing on the sidewalk. he stopped short and stared at abe until his bulging eyes caught the sign above the store. for one brief moment he hesitated and then he leaped from the curb to the gutter and plunged across the roadway, with jacob berkowitz and frank walsh in close pursuit. he seized abe by both hands and shook them up and down. "abe potash!" he cried. "so sure as you live." "that's right," abe admitted; "that's my name." "you don't remember me, abe?" he went on. "i remember mr. berkowitz here," abe said, smiling at the smaller man. "i used to sell him goods oncet when he ran the up-to-date store in seattle. ain't that so, mr. berkowitz?" the smaller man nodded in an embarrassed fashion, while frank walsh grew red and white by turns and looked first at abe and then at the others in blank amazement. "but," abe went on, "you got to excuse me, mister--mister----" "small," said the larger man, whereat morris fairly staggered. "mister small," abe continued. "you got to excuse me. i don't remember your name. won't you come inside?" "hold on!" frank walsh cried. "these gentlemen are going to lunch with _me_." small turned and fixed walsh with a glare. "i am going to do what i please, mr. walsh," he said coldly. "if i want to go to lunch i go to lunch; if i don't that's something else again." "oh, i've got lots of time," walsh explained. "i was just reminding you, that's all. wasserbauer's got a few good specialties on his bill-of-fare that don't improve with waiting." "all right," mr. small said. "if that's the case go ahead and have your lunch. i won't detain you none." he put his hand on abe's shoulder, and the little procession passed into the store with abe and mr. small in the van, while frank walsh constituted a solitary rear-guard. he sat disconsolately on a pile of piece goods as the four others went into the show-room. "sit down, mr. small," abe said genially. "mr. berkowitz, take that easy chair." then morris produced the "gilt-edged" cigars from the safe, and they all lit up. "first thing, mr. small," abe went on, "i should like to know where i seen you before. of course, i know you're running a big business in walla walla, washington, and certainly, too, i know your _face_." "sure you know my face, abe," mr. small replied. "but my _name_ ain't familiar. the last time you seen my face, abe, was some twenty years since." "twenty years is a long time," abe commented. "i seen lots of trade in twenty years." "trade you seen it, yes," mr. small said, "but i wasn't trade." he paused and looked straight at abe. "think, abe," he said. "when did you seen me last?" abe gazed at him earnestly and then shook his head. "i give it up," he said. "well, abe," mr. small murmured, "the last time you seen me i went out to buy ten dollars' worth of schnapps." "what!" abe cried. "but that afternoon there was a sure-thing mare going to start over to guttenberg just as i happened to be passing butch thompson's old place, and i no more than got the ten dollars down than she blew up in the stretch. so i boarded a freight over to west thirtieth street and fetched up in walla walla, washington." "look a-here!" abe gasped. "you ain't scheuer smolinski, are you?" mr. small nodded. "that's me," he said. "i'm scheuer smolinski or sidney small, whichever you like. when me and jake berkowitz started this here small drygoods company we decided that smolinski and berkowitz was too big a mouthful for the pacific slope, so we slipped the 'inski' and the 'owitz.' scheuer small and jacob burke didn't sound so well, neither. ain't it? so, since there ain't no harm in it, we just changed our front names, too, and me and him is sidney small and james burke." abe sat back in his chair too stunned for words, while morris pondered bitterly on the events of saturday night. then the prize was well within his grasp, for even at that late hour he could have persuaded mr. burke to reconsider his decision and to bring mr. small over to see potash & perlmutter's line first. but now it was too late, morris reflected, for mr. small had visited klinger & klein's establishment and had no doubt given the order. "say, my friends," frank walsh cried, poking his head in the door, "far from me to be buttin' in, but whenever you're ready for lunch just let me know." mr. small jumped to his feet. "i'll let you know," he said--"i'll let you know right now. half an hour since already i told mr. klinger i would make up my mind this afternoon about giving him the order for them goods what mr. burke picked out. well, you go back and tell him i made up my mind already, sooner than i expected. i ain't going to give him the order at all." walsh's red face grew purple. at first he gurgled incoherently, but finally recovered sufficiently to enunciate; and for ten minutes he denounced mr. small and mr. burke, their conduct and antecedents. it was a splendid exhibition of profane invective, and when he concluded he was almost breathless. "yah!" he jeered, "five-dollar tickets for a prize-fight for the likes of youse!" he fixed morris and mr. burke with a final glare. "pearls before swine!" he bellowed, and banged the show-room door behind him. mr. burke looked at morris. "that's a lowlife for you," he said. "a respectable concern should have a salesman like him! ain't it a shame and a disgrace?" morris nodded. "he takes me to a place where nothing but loafers is," mr. burke continued, "and for two hours i got to sit and hear him and his friend there, that big feller--i guess you seen him, mr. perlmutter--he told me he keeps a beer saloon--another lowlife--for two hours i got to listen to them loafers cussing together, and then he gets mad that i don't enjoy myself yet." mr. small shrugged his shoulders. "let's forget all about it," he said. "come, abe, i want to look over your line, and you and me will do business right away." abe and morris spent the next two hours displaying their line, while mr. small and mr. burke selected hundred lots of every style. finally, abe and mr. small retired to the office to fill out the order, leaving morris to replace the samples. he worked with a will and whistled a cheerful melody by way of accompaniment. "mister perlmutter," james burke interrupted, "that tune what you are whistling it, ain't that the drinking song from travvy-ater already?" morris ceased his whistling. "that's right," he replied. "i thought it was," mr. burke said. "i was going to see that opera last saturday night if that lowlife walsh wouldn't have took me to the prize-fight." he paused and helped himself to a fresh cigar from the "gilt-edged" box. "for anybody else but a loafer," he concluded, "prize-fighting is nix. opera, mr. perlmutter, that's an amusement for a gentleman." morris nodded a vigorous acquiescence. he had nearly concluded his task when abe and his new-found brother-in-law returned. "well, gentlemen," mr. small announced, "we figured it up and it comes to twenty-five hundred dollars. that ain't bad for a starter." "you bet," abe agreed fervently. mr. burke smiled. "you got a good line, mr. potash," he said. "ever so much better than klinger & klein's." "that's what they have," mr. small agreed. "but it don't make no difference, anyhow. i'd give them the order if the line wasn't _near_ so good." he put his arm around abe's shoulder. "it stands in the talmud, an old saying, but a true one," he said--"'blood is redder than water.'" chapter x the small drygoods company's order was the forerunner of a busy season that taxed the energies of not only abe and morris but of their entire business staff as well, and when the hot weather set in, morris could not help noticing the fagged-out appearance of miss cohen the bookkeeper. "we should give that girl a vacation, abe," he said. "she worked hard and we ought to show her a little consideration." "i know, mawruss," abe replied; "but she ain't the only person what works hard around here, mawruss. i work hard, too, mawruss, but i ain't getting no vacation. that's a new _idee_ what you got, mawruss." "everybody gives it their bookkeeper a vacation, abe," morris protested. "do they?" abe rejoined. "well, if bookkeepers gets vacations, mawruss, where are we going to stop? first thing you know, mawruss, we'll be giving cutters vacations, and operators vacations, and before we get through we got our workroom half empty yet and paying for full time already. if she wants a vacation for two weeks i ain't got no objections, mawruss, only we don't pay her no wages while she's gone." "you can't do that, abe," morris said. "that would be laying her off, abe; that wouldn't be no vacation." "but we got to have somebody here to keep our books while she's away, mawruss," abe cried. "we got to make it a living, mawruss. we can't shut down just because miss cohen gets a vacation. and so it stands, mawruss, we got to pay miss cohen wages for doing _nothing_, mawruss, and also we got to pay it wages to somebody else for doing something what miss cohen should be doing when she ain't, ain't it?" "sure, we got to get a substitute for her while she's away," morris agreed; "but i guess it won't break us." "all right, mawruss," abe replied; "if i got to hear it all summer about this here vacation business i'm satisfied. i got enough to do in the store without worrying about that, mawruss. only one thing i got to say it, mawruss: we got to have a bookkeeper to take her place while she's away, and you got to attend to _that_, mawruss. that's all i got to say." morris nodded and hastened to break the good news to miss cohen, who for the remainder of the week divided her time between potash & perlmutter's accounts and a dozen multicolored railroad folders. "look at that, mawruss," abe said as he gazed through the glass paneling of the show-room toward the bookkeeper's desk. "that girl ain't done it a stroke of work since we told her she could go already. what are we running here, anyway: a cloak and suit business or a cut-rate ticket office?" "don't you worry about _her_, abe," morris replied. "she's got her cashbook and daybook posted and she also got it a substitute. he's coming this afternoon." "_he's_ coming?" abe said. "so she got it a young _feller_, mawruss?" "well, abe," morris replied, "what harm is there in that? he's a decent, respectable young feller by the name tuchman, what works as bookkeeper by the kosciusko bank. they give him a two weeks' vacation and he comes to work by us, abe." "that's a fine way to spend a vacation, mawruss," abe commented. "why don't he go up to tannersville or so?" "because he's got to help his father out nights in his cigar store what he keeps it on avenue b," morris answered. "his father is max tuchman's brother. you know max tuchman, drummer for lapidus & elenbogen?" "sure i know him--a loud-mouth feller, mawruss; got a whole lot to say for himself. a sport and a gambler, too," abe said. "he'd sooner play auction pinochle than eat, mawruss. i bet you he turns in an expense account like he was on a honeymoon every trip. the last time i seen this here max tuchman was up in duluth. he was riding in a buggy with the lady buyer from moe gerschel's cloak department." "well, i suppose he sold her a big bill of goods, too, abe, ain't it?" morris rejoined. "he's an up-to-date feller, abe. if anybody wants to sell goods to lady buyers they got to be up-to-date, ain't it? and so far what i hear it nobody told it me you made such a big success with lady buyers, neither, abe." abe shrugged his shoulders. "that ain't here nor there, mawruss," he grunted. "the thing is this: if this young feller by the name of tuchman does miss cohen's work as good as miss cohen does it i'm satisfied." there was no need for apprehension on that score, however, for when the substitute bookkeeper arrived he proved to be an accurate and industrious young fellow, and despite miss cohen's absence the work of potash & perlmutter's office proceeded with orderly dispatch. "that's a fine young feller, mawruss," abe commented as he and his partner sat in the firm's show-room on the second day of miss cohen's vacation. "who's this you're talking about?" morris asked. "this here bookkeeper," abe replied. "what's his first name, now, mawruss?" "ralph," morris said. "ralph!" abe cried. "that's a name i couldn't remember it in a million years, mawruss." "why not, abe?" morris replied. "ralph ain't no harder than moe or jake, abe. for my part, i ain't got no trouble in remembering that name; and anyhow, abe, why should an up-to-date family like the tuchmans give their boys such back-number names like jake or moe?" "jacob and moses was decent, respectable people in the old country, mawruss," abe corrected solemnly. "i know it, abe," morris rejoined; "but that was long since many years ago already. _now_ is another time entirely in new york city; and anyhow, with such names what we got it in our books, abe, you shouldn't have no trouble remembering ralph." "sure not," abe agreed, dismissing the subject. "so, i'll call him ike. for two weeks he wouldn't mind it." morris shrugged. "for my part, you can call him andrew carnegie," he said; "only, let's not stand here talking about it all day, abe. i see by the paper this morning that marcus bramson, from syracuse, is at the prince william hotel, abe, and you says you was going up to see him. that's your style, abe: an old-fashion feller like marcus bramson. if you couldn't sell _him_ a bill of goods, abe, you couldn't sell _nobody_. he ain't no lady buyer, abe." abe glared indignantly at his partner. "well, mawruss," he said, "if you ain't satisfied with the way what i sell goods you know what you can do. i'll do the inside work and you can go out on the road. it's a dawg's life, mawruss, any way you look at it; and maybe, mawruss, you would have a good time taking buggy rides with lady buyers. for my part, mawruss, i got something better to do with my time." he seized his hat, still glaring at morris, who remained quite unmoved by his partner's indignation. "i heard it what you tell me now several times before already, abe," he said; "and if you want it that max tuchman or klinger & klein or some of them other fellers should cop out a good customer of ours like marcus bramson, abe, maybe you'll hang around here a little longer." abe retorted by banging the show-room door behind him, and as he disappeared into the street morris indulged in a broad, triumphant grin. when abe returned an hour later he found morris going over the monthly statements with ralph tuchman. morris looked up as abe entered. "what's the matter, abe?" he cried. "you look worried." "worried!" abe replied. "i ain't worried, mawruss." "did you seen marcus bramson?" morris asked. "sure i seen him," said abe; "he's coming down here at half-past three o'clock this afternoon. you needn't trouble yourself about _him_, mawruss." abe hung up his hat, while morris and ralph tuchman once more fell to the work of comparing the statements. "look a-here, mawruss," abe said at length: "who d'ye think i seen it up at the prince william hotel?" "i ain't no mind reader, abe," morris replied. "who _did_ you seen it?" "miss atkinson, cloak buyer for the emporium, duluth," abe replied. "that's moe gerschel's store." morris stopped comparing the statements, while ralph tuchman continued his writing. "she's just come in from the west, mawruss," abe went on. "she ain't registered yet when i was going out, and she won't be in the arrival of buyers till to-morrow morning." "did you speak to her?" morris asked. "sure i spoke to her," abe said. "i says good-morning, and she recognized me right away. i asked after moe, and she says he's well; and i says if she comes down here for fall goods; and she says she ain't going to talk no business for a couple of days, as it's a long time already since she was in new york and she wants to look around her. then i says it's a fine weather for driving just now." he paused for a moment and looked at morris. "yes," morris said, "and what did she say?" "she says sure it is," abe continued, "only, she says she got thrown out of a wagon last fall, and so she's kind of sour on horses. she says nowadays she don't go out except in oitermobiles." "oitermobiles!" morris exclaimed, and ralph tuchman, whose protruding ears, sharp-pointed nose and gold spectacles did not belie his inquisitive disposition, ceased writing to listen more closely to abe's story. "that's what she said, mawruss," abe replied; "and so i says for my part, i liked it better oitermobiles as horses." "why, abe," morris cried, "you ain't never rode in an oitermobile in all your life." "sure not, mawruss, i'm lucky if i get to a funeral oncet in a while. ike," he broke off suddenly, "you better get them statements mailed." ralph tuchman rose sadly and repaired to the office. "that's a smart young feller, mawruss," abe commented, "and while you can't tell much about a feller from his face, mawruss, i never seen them long ears on anyone that minded his own business, y'understand? and besides, i ain't taking no chances on his uncle max tuchman getting advance information about this here moe gerschel's buyer." morris nodded. "maybe you're right, abe," he murmured. "you was telling me what this miss abrahamson said, abe." "miss atkinson, mawruss," abe corrected, "_not_ abrahamson." "well, what did she say?" morris asked. "so she asks me if i ever went it oitermobiling," abe went on, "and i says sure i did, and right away quick i seen it what she means; and i says how about going this afternoon; and she says she's agreeable. so i says, mawruss, all right, i says, we'll mix business with pleasure, i says. i told her we'll go in an oitermobile to the bronix already, and when we come back to the store at about, say, five o'clock we'll look over the line. then after that we'll go to dinner, and after dinner we go to theayter. how's that, mawruss?" "i heard it worse idees than that, abe," morris replied; "because if you get this here miss aaronson down here in the store, naturally, she thinks if she gives us the order she gets better treatment at the dinner and at the theayter afterward." "that's the way i figured it out, mawruss," abe agreed; "and also, i says to myself, mawruss will enjoy it a good oitermobile ride." "_me!_" morris cried. "what have i got to do with this here oitermobile ride, abe?" "what have _you_ got to do with it, mawruss?" abe repeated. "why, mawruss, i'm surprised to hear you, you should talk that way. you got everything to do with it. i'm a back number, mawruss; i don't know nothing about selling goods to lady buyers, ain't it? you say it yourself, a feller has got to be up-to-date to sell goods to lady buyers. so, naturally, you being the up-to-date member of this concern, you got to take miss atkinson out in the oitermobile." "but, abe," morris protested, "i ain't never rode in an oitermobile, and there wouldn't be no pleasure in it for me, abe. why don't _you_ go, abe? you say it yourself you lead it a dawg's life on the road. now, here's a chance for you to enjoy yourself, abe, and _you_ should go. besides, abe, you got commercial travelers' accident insurance, and i ain't." "the oitermobile ain't coming till half-past one, mawruss," abe replied; "between now and then you could get it a _hundred_ policies of accident insurance. no, mawruss, this here lady-buyer business is up to you. i got a pointer from sol klinger to ring up a concern on forty-sixth street, which i done so, and fifteen dollars it costed me. that oitermobile is coming here for you at half-past one, and after that all you got to do is to go up to the prince william hotel and ask for miss atkinson." "but, abe," morris protested, "i don't even know this here miss isaacson." "_not_ isaacson," abe repeated; "atkinson. you'd better write that name down, mawruss, before you forget it." "never mind, abe," morris rejoined. "i don't need to write down things to remember 'em. i don't have to call a young feller out of his name just because my memory is bad, abe. the name i'll remember good enough when it comes right down _to_ it. only, why should i go out oitermobiling riding with this miss atkinson, abe? i'm the inside partner, ain't it? and you're the outside man. do you know what i think, abe? i think you're scared to ride in an oitermobile." "me scared!" abe cried. "why should i be scared, mawruss? a little thing like a broken leg or a broken arm, mawruss, don't scare me. i ain't going because it ain't my business to go. it's your idee, this lady-buyer business, and if you don't want to go we'll charge the fifteen dollars what i paid out to profit and loss and call the whole thing off." he rose to his feet, thrust out his waist-line and made a dignified exit by way of closing the discussion. a moment later, however, he returned with less dignity than haste. "mawruss," he hissed, "that young feller--that--that--now, ike--is telephoning." "well," morris replied, "one telephone message ain't going to put us into bankruptcy, abe." "bankruptcy, nothing!" abe exclaimed. "he's telephoning to his uncle max tuchman." morris jumped to his feet, and on the tips of their toes they darted to the rear of the store. "all right, uncle max," they heard ralph tuchman say. "i'll see you to-night. good-by." abe and morris exchanged significant glances, while ralph slunk guiltily away to miss cohen's desk. "let's fire him on the spot," abe said. morris shook his head. "what good will _that_ do, abe?" morris replied. "we ain't certain that he told max tuchman nothing, abe. for all you and me know, max may of rung _him_ up about something quite different already." "i believe it, mawruss," abe said ironically. "but, anyhow, i'm going to ring up that oitermobile concern on forty-sixth street and tell 'em to send it around here at twelve o'clock. then you can go up there to the hotel, and if that miss atkinson ain't had her lunch yet buy it for her, mawruss, for so sure as you stand there i bet yer that young feller, ike, has rung up this here max tuchman and told him all about us going up there to take her out in an oitermobile. i bet yer max will get the biggest oitermobile he can find up there right away, and he's going to steal her away from us, sure, if we don't hustle." "dreams you got it, abe," morris said. "how should this here young feller, ralph tuchman, know that miss aaronson was a customer of his uncle max tuchman, abe?" abe looked at morris more in sorrow than in anger. "mawruss," he said, "do me the favor once and write that name down. a-t at, k-i-n kin, s-o-n son, atkinson--_not_ aaronson." "that's what i said--atkinson--abe," morris protested; "and if you're so scared we're going to lose her, abe, go ahead and 'phone. we got to sell goods to lady buyers _some time_, abe, and we may as well make the break _now_." abe waited to hear no more, but hastened to the 'phone, and when he returned a few minutes later he found that morris had gone to the barber shop across the street. twenty minutes afterward a sixty-horsepower machine arrived at the store door just as morris came up the steps of the barber shop underneath wasserbauer's café and restaurant. he almost bumped into philip plotkin, of kleinberg & plotkin, who was licking the refractory wrapper of a wheeling stogy, with one eye fixed on the automobile in front of his competitors' store. "hallo, mawruss," philip cried. "pretty high-toned customers you must got it when they come down to the store in oitermobiles, ain't it?" morris flashed his gold fillings in a smile of triumphant superiority. "that ain't no customer's oitermobile, philip," he said. "that's for _us_ an oitermobile, what we take it out our customers riding in." "why don't you take it out credit men from commission houses riding, mawruss?" philip rejoined as morris stepped from the curb to cross the street. this was an allusion to the well-known circumstance that with credit men a customer's automobile-riding inspires as much confidence as his betting on the horse races, and when morris climbed into the tonneau he paid little attention to abe's instructions, so busy was he glancing around him for prying credit men. at length, with a final jar and jerk the machine sprang forward, and for the rest of the journey morris' mind was emptied of every other apprehension save that engendered of passing trucks or street cars. finally, the machine drew up in front of the prince william and morris scrambled out, trembling in every limb. he made at once for the clerk's desk. "please send this to miss isaacson," he said, handing out a firm card. the clerk consulted an index and shook his head. "no miss isaacson registered here," he said. "oh, sure not," morris cried, smiling apologetically. "i mean miss aaronson." once more the clerk pawed over his card index. "you've got the wrong hotel," he declared. "i don't see any miss aaronson here, either." morris scratched his head. he mentally passed in review jacobson, abrahamson, and every other biblical proper name combined with the suffix "son," but rejected them all. "the lady what i want to see it is buyer for a department store in duluth, what arrived here this morning," morris explained. "let me see," the clerk mused; "buyer, hey? what was she a buyer of?" "cloaks and suits," morris answered. "suits, hey?" the clerk commented. "let me see--buyer of suits. was that the lady that was expecting somebody with an automobile?" morris nodded emphatically. "well, that party called for her and they left here about ten minutes ago," the clerk replied. "what!" morris gasped. "maybe it was five minutes ago," the clerk continued. "a gentleman with a red tie and a fine diamond pin. his name was tucker or tuckerton or----" "tuchman," morris cried. "that's right," said the clerk; "he was a----" but morris turned on his heel and darted wildly toward the entrance. "say!" he cried, hailing the carriage agent, "did you seen it a lady and a gent in an oitermobile leave here five minutes ago?" "ladies and gents leave here in automobiles on an average of every three minutes," said the carriage agent. "sure, i know," morris continued, "but the gent wore it a red tie with a big diamond." "red tie with a big diamond," the carriage agent repeated. "oh, yeh--i remember now. the lady wanted to know where they was going, and the red necktie says up to the heatherbloom inn and something about getting back to his store afterward." morris nodded vigorously. "so i guess they went up to the heatherbloom inn," the carriage agent said. once more morris darted away without waiting to thank his informant, and again he climbed into the tonneau of the machine. "do you know where the heatherbloom inn is?" he asked the chauffeur. "what you tryin' to do?" the chauffeur commented. "kid me?" "i ain't trying to do _nothing_," morris explained. "i ask it you a simple question: do you know where the heatherbloom inn is?" "say! do you know where baxter street is?" the chauffeur asked, and then without waiting for an answer he opened the throttle and they glided around the corner into fifth avenue. it was barely half-past twelve and the tide of fashionable traffic had not yet set in. hence the motor car made good progress, nor was it until fiftieth street was reached that a block of traffic caused them to halt. an automobile had collided with a delivery wagon, and a wordy contest was waging between the driver of the wagon, the chauffeur, one of the occupants of the automobile and a traffic-squad policeman. "you don't know your business," a loud voice proclaimed, addressing the policeman. "if you did you wouldn't be sitting up there like a dummy already. this here driver run into _us_. we didn't run into him." it was the male occupant of the automobile that spoke, and in vain did his fair companion clutch at the tails of the linen duster that he wore; he was in the full tide of eloquence and thoroughly enjoying himself. the mounted policeman maintained his composure--the calm of a volcano before its eruption, the ominous lull that precedes the tornado. "and furthermore," continued the passenger, throwing out his chest, whereon sparkled a large diamond enfolded in crimson silk--"and furthermore, i'll see to it that them superiors of yours down below hears of it." the mounted policeman jumped nimbly from his horse, and as morris rose in the tonneau of his automobile he saw max tuchman being jerked bodily to the street, while his fair companion shrieked hysterically. morris opened the door and sprang out. with unusual energy he wormed his way through the crowd that surrounded the policeman and approached the side of the automobile. "lady, lady," he cried, "i don't remember your name, but i'm a friend of max tuchman here, and i'll get you out of this here crowd in a minute." he opened the door opposite to the side out of which tuchman had made his enforced exit, and offered his hand to max's trembling companion. the lady hesitated a brief moment. any port in a storm, she argued to herself, and a moment later she was seated beside morris in the latter's car, which was moving up the avenue at a good twenty-mile gait. the chauffeur took advantage of the traffic policeman's professional engagement with max tuchman, and it was not until the next mounted officer hove into view that he brought his car down to its lawful gait. "if you're a friend of mr. tuchman's," said the lady at length, "why didn't you go with him to the police station and bail him out?" morris grinned. "i guess you'll know when i tell it you that my name is mr. perlmutter," he announced, "of potash & perlmutter." the lady turned around and glanced uneasily at morris. "is that so?" she said. "well, i'm pleased to meet you, mr. perlmutter." "so, naturally, i don't feel so bad as i might about it," morris went on. "naturally?" the lady commented. she looked about her apprehensively. "perhaps we'd better go back to the prince william. don't you think so?" "why, you was going up to the heatherbloom inn with max tuchman, wasn't you?" morris said. "how did you find _that_ out?" she asked. "a small-size bird told it me," morris replied jocularly. "but, anyhow, no jokes nor nothing, why shouldn't we go up and have lunch at the heatherbloom inn? and then you can come down and look at our line, anyhow." "well," said the lady, "if you can show me those suits as well as mr. tuchman could, i suppose it really won't make any difference." "i can show 'em to you _better_ than mr. tuchman could," morris said; "and now so long as you are content to come downtown we won't talk business no more till we get there." they had an excellent lunch at the heatherbloom inn, and many a hearty laugh from the lady testified to her appreciation of morris' naïve conversation. the hour passed pleasantly for morris, too, since the lady's unaffected simplicity set him entirely at his ease. to be sure, she was neither young nor handsome, but she had all the charm that self-reliance and ability give to a woman. "a good, smart, business head she's got it," morris said to himself, "and i wish i could remember that name." had he not feared that his companion might think it strange, he would have asked her name outright. once he called her miss aaronson, but the look of amazement with which she favored him effectually discouraged him from further experiment in that direction. thenceforth he called her "lady," a title which made her smile and seemed to keep her in excellent humor. at length they concluded their meal--quite a modest repast and comparatively reasonable in price--and as they rose to leave morris looked toward the door and gasped involuntarily. he could hardly believe his senses, for there blocking the entrance stood a familiar bearded figure. it was marcus bramson--the conservative, back-number marcus bramson--and against him leaned a tall, stout person not quite as young as her clothes and wearing a large picture hat. obviously this was not mrs. bramson, and the blush with which marcus bramson recognized morris only confirmed the latter's suspicions. mr. bramson murmured a few words to the youthfully-dressed person at his side, and she glared venomously at morris, who precipitately followed his companion to the automobile. five minutes afterward he was chatting with the lady as they sped along riverside drive. "duluth must be a fine town," he suggested. "it is indeed," the lady agreed. "i have some relatives living there." "that should make it pleasant for you, lady," morris went on, and thereafter the conversation touched on relatives, whereupon morris favored his companion with a few intimate details of his family life that caused her to laugh until she was completely out of breath. to be sure, morris could see nothing remarkably humorous about it himself, and when one or two anecdotes intended to be pathetic were received with tears of mirth rather than sympathy he felt somewhat annoyed. nevertheless, he hid his chagrin, and it was not long before the familiar sign of wasserbauer's café and restaurant warned morris that they had reached their destination. he assisted his companion to alight and ushered her into the show-room. "just a minute, lady," he said, "and i'll bring mr. potash here." "but," the lady protested, "i thought mr. lapidus was the gentleman who had charge of it." "_that's_ all right," morris said, "you just wait and i'll bring mr. potash here." he took the stairs to the cutting-room three at a jump. "abe," he cried, "miss aaronson is downstairs." abe's face, which wore a worried frown, grew darker still as he regarded his partner malevolently. "what's the matter with you, mawruss?" he said. "can't you remember a simple name like atkinson?" "atkinson!" morris cried. "that's it--_atkinson_. i've been trying to remember it that name for four hours already. but, anyhow, she's downstairs, abe." abe rose from his task and made at once for the stairs, with morris following at his heels. in four strides he had reached the show-room, but no sooner had he crossed the threshold than he started back violently, thereby knocking the breath out of morris, who was nearly precipitated to the floor. "morris," he hissed, "who is that there lady?" "why," morris answered, "that's miss aaronson--i mean atkinson--ain't it?" "atkinson!" abe yelled. "that ain't miss atkinson." "then who _is_ she?" morris asked. "who _is_ she?" abe repeated. "that's a fine question for you to ask _me_. you take a lady for a fifteen-dollar oitermobile ride, and spend it as much more for lunch in her, _and you don't even know her name_!" a cold perspiration broke out on morris and he fairly staggered into the show-room. "lady," he croaked, "do me a favor and tell me what is your name, please." the lady laughed. "well, mr. perlmutter," she said, "i'm sure this is most extraordinary. of course, there is such a thing as combining business and pleasure; but, as i told mr. tuchman when he insisted on taking me up to the heatherbloom inn, the board of trustees control the placing of the orders. i have only a perfunctory duty to perform when i examine the finished clothing." "board of trustees!" morris exclaimed. "yes, the board of trustees of the home for female orphans of veterans, at oceanhurst, long island. i am the superintendent--miss taylor--and i had an appointment at lapidus & elenbogen's to inspect a thousand blue-serge suits. lapidus & elenbogen were the successful bidders, you know. and there was really no reason for mr. tuchman's hospitality, since i had nothing whatever to do with their receiving the contract, nor could i possibly influence the placing of any future orders." morris nodded slowly. "so you ain't miss atkinson, then, lady?" he said. the lady laughed again. "i'm very sorry if i'm the innocent recipient under false pretenses of a lunch and an automobile ride," she said, rising. "and you'll excuse me if i must hurry away to keep my appointment at lapidus & elenbogen's? i have to catch a train back to oceanhurst at five o'clock, too." she held out her hand and morris took it sheepishly. "i hope you'll forgive me," she said. "i can't blame _you_, lady," morris replied as they went toward the front door. "it ain't _your_ fault, lady." he held the door open for her. "and as for that max tuchman," he said, "i hope they send him up for life." abe stood in the show-room doorway as morris returned from the front of the store and fixed his partner with a terrible glare. "yes, mawruss," he said, "you're a fine piece of work, i must say." morris shrugged his shoulders and sat down. "that's what comes of not minding your own business," he retorted. "i'm the inside, abe, and you're the outside, and it's your business to look after the out-of-town trade. i told you i don't know nothing about this here lady-buyer business. you ordered the oitermobile. i ain't got nothing to do with it, and, anyhow, i don't want to hear no more about it." a pulse was beating in abe's cheeks as he paced up and down before replying. "_you_ don't want to hear no more about it, mawruss, i know," he said; "but _i_ want to hear about it. i got a _right_ to hear about it, mawruss. i got a right to hear it how a man could make such a fool out of himself. tell me, mawruss, what name did you ask it for when you went to the clerk at the prince william hotel?" morris jumped to his feet. "lillian russell!" he roared, and banged the show-room door behind him. for the remainder of the day morris and abe avoided each other, and it was not until the next morning that morris ventured to address his partner. "did you get it any word from marcus bramson?" he asked. "i ain't seen nor heard nothing," abe replied. "i can't understand it, mawruss; the man promised me, mind you, he would be here sure. maybe you seen him up to the hotel, mawruss?" "i seen him," morris replied, "but not at the hotel, abe. i seen him up at that heatherbloom inn, abe--with a lady." "with a lady?" abe cried. "are you sure it was a lady, mawruss? maybe she was a relation." "relations you don't take it to expensive places like the heatherbloom inn, abe," morris replied. "and, anyhow, this wasn't no relation, abe; this was a lady. why should a man blush for a relation, ain't it?" "did he blush?" abe asked; but the question remained unanswered, for as morris was about to reply the store door opened and marcus bramson entered. "ah, mr. bramson," abe cried, "ain't it a beautiful weather?" he seized the newcomer by the hand and shook it up and down. mr. bramson received the greeting solemnly. "abe," he said, "i am a man of my word, ain't it? and so i come here to buy goods; but, all the same, i tell you the truth: i was pretty near going to lapidus & elenbogen's." "lapidus & elenbogen's!" abe cried. "why so?" at this juncture morris appeared at the show-room door and beamed at mr. bramson, who looked straight over his head in cold indifference; whereupon morris found some business to attend to in the rear of the store. "that's what i said," mr. bramson replied, "lapidus & elenbogen's; and you would of deserved it." "mr. bramson," abe protested, "did i ever done you something that you should talk that way?" "_me_ you never done nothing to, abe," said mr. bramson, "but to treat a lady what _is_ a lady, abe, like a dawg, abe, i must say it i'm surprised. "_i_ never treated no lady like a dawg, mr. bramson," abe replied. "you must be mistaken." "well, maybe it wasn't you, abe," mr. bramson went on; "but if it wasn't you it was your partner there, that mawruss perlmutter. yesterday i seen him up to the heatherbloom inn, abe, and i assure you, abe, i was never before in my life in such a high-price place--coffee and cake, abe, believe me, one dollar and a quarter." he paused to let the information sink in. "but what could i do?" he asked. "i was walking through the side entrance of the prince william hotel yesterday, abe, just on my way down to see you, when i seen it a lady sitting on a bench, looking like she would like to cry only for shame for the people. well, abe, i looked again, abe, and would you believe it, abe, it was miss atkinson, what used to work for me as saleswoman and got a job by the golden rule store, elmira, as assistant buyer, and is now buyer by moe gerschel, the emporium, duluth." abe nodded; he knew what was coming. "so, naturally, i asks her what it is the matter with her, and she says potash & perlmutter had an appointment to take her out in an oitermobile at two o'clock, and here it was three o'clock already and they ain't showed up yet. potash & perlmutter is friends of mine, miss atkinson, i says, and i'm sure something must have happened, or otherwise they would not of failed to be here. so i says for her to ring you up, abe, and find out. but she says she would see you first in--she wouldn't ring you up for all the oitermobiles in new york. so i says, well, i says, if you don't want to ring 'em up _i'll_ ring 'em up; and she says i should mind my own business. so then i says, if _you_ wouldn't ring 'em up and _i_ wouldn't ring 'em up i'll do _this_ for you, miss atkinson: you and me will go for an oitermobile ride, i says, and we'll have just so good a time as if potash & perlmutter was paying for it. and so we did, abe. i took miss atkinson up to the heatherbloom inn, and it costed me thirty dollars, abe, including a cigar, which i wouldn't charge you nothing for." "charge _me_ nothing!" abe cried. "of course you wouldn't charge me nothing. you wouldn't charge me nothing, mr. bramson, because i wouldn't _pay_ you nothing. i didn't ask you to take miss atkinson out in an oitermobile." "i know you didn't, abe," mr. bramson replied firmly, "but either you will pay for it or i will go over to lapidus & elenbogen's and _they_ will pay for it. they'll be only too glad to pay for it, abe, because i bet yer miss atkinson she give 'em a pretty big order already, abe." abe frowned and then shrugged. "all right," he said; "if i must i must. so come on now, mr. bramson, and look over the line." in the meantime morris had repaired to the bookkeeper's desk and was looking over the daybook with an unseeing eye. his mind was occupied with bitter reflections when ralph tuchman interrupted him. "mr. perlmutter," he said, "i'm going to leave." "going to leave?" morris cried. "what for?" "well, in the first place, i don't like it to be called out of my name," he continued. "mr. potash calls me ike, and my name is ralph. if a man's name is ralph, mr. perlmutter, he naturally don't like it to be called ike." "i know it," morris agreed, "but some people ain't got a good memory for names, ralph. even myself i forget it names, too, oncet in a while, occasionally." "but that ain't all, mr. perlmutter," ralph went on. "yesterday, while you was out, mr. potash accuses me something terrible." "accuse you?" morris said. "what does he accuse you for?" "he accuse me that i ring up my uncle max tuchman and tell him about a miss atkinson at the prince william hotel," ralph continued. "i didn't do it, mr. perlmutter; believe me. uncle max rung me up, and i was going to tell you and mr. potash what he rung me up for if you didn't looked at me like i was a pickpocket when i was coming away from the 'phone yesterday." "i didn't look at you like a pickpocket, ralph," morris said. "what did your uncle max ring you up for?" "why, he wanted me to tell you that so long as you was so kind and gives me this here vacation job i should do you a good turn, too. he says that miss atkinson tells him yesterday she was going out oitermobile riding with you, and so he says i should tell you not to go to any expense by miss atkinson, on account that she already bought her fall line from uncle max when he was in duluth three weeks ago already; and that she is now in new york strictly on her vacation only, and _not_ to buy goods." morris nodded slowly. "well, ralph," he said, "you're a good, smart boy, and i want you to stay until miss cohen comes back and maybe we'll raise you a couple of dollars a week till then." he bit the end off a heatherbloom inn cigar. "when a man gets played it good for a sucker like we was," he mused, "a couple of dollars more or less won't harm him none." "that's what my uncle max says when he seen you up at the heatherbloom inn yesterday," ralph commented. "_he_ seen me up at the heatherbloom inn!" morris cried. "how should he seen me up at the heatherbloom inn? i thought he was made it arrested." "sure he was made it arrested," ralph said. "but he fixed it up all right at the station-house, and the sergeant lets him out. so he goes up to the heatherbloom inn because when he went right back to the hotel to see after that miss taylor the carriage agent tells him a feller chases him up in an oitermobile to the heatherbloom inn. but when uncle max gets up there you look like you was having such a good time already he hates to interrupt you, so he goes back to the store again." morris puffed violently at his cigar. "that's a fine piece of work," he said, "that max tuchman is." ralph nodded. "sure he is," he replied. "uncle max is an up-to-date feller." chapter xi "the trouble is with us, mawruss," abe potash declared one afternoon in september, "that we ain't in an up-to-date neighborhood. we should get it a loft in one of them buildings up in seventeenth, eighteenth or nineteenth street, mawruss. all the trade is up in that neighborhood." "i ain't got such a good head for figures like you got it, abe," morris perlmutter replied, "and so i am content we should stay where we are. we done it always a fair business here, abe. ain't it?" "sure, i know," abe went on, "but the way it is with out-of-town buyers, mawruss, they goes where the crowd is, and they ain't going to be bothered to come way downtown for us, mawruss." "well, how about klinger & klein, lapidus & elenbogen, and all them people, abe?" morris asked. "ain't them out-of-town buyers going to buy goods off of them neither?" "klinger & klein already hire it a fine loft on nineteenth street," abe interposed. "well, abe," morris rejoined, "klinger & klein, like a whole lot of people what i know, acts like monkeys, abe. they see somebody doing something and they got to do it too." "if we could do the business what klinger & klein done it, mawruss, i am willing i should act like a monkey." "another thing, abe," morris went on, "klinger & klein sends their work out by contractors. we got it operators and machines, abe, and you can't have a show-room, cutting-room and machines all in one loft. ain't it?" "well, then we get it two lofts, mawruss, and then we could put our workrooms upstairs and our show-room and offices downstairs." "and double our expenses, too, abe," morris added. "no, abe, i don't want to work for no landlord all my life." "but i seen marks henochstein yesterday, mawruss, and he told it me klinger & klein ain't paying half the rent what they pay down here. so, if we could get it two floors we wouldn't increase our expenses, mawruss, and could do it maybe twicet the business." "marks henochstein is a real-estater, abe," morris replied, "and when a real-estater tells you something, you got to make allowances fifty per cent. for facts." "i know," abe cried; "but we don't have to hire no loft what we don't want to, mawruss. henochstein can't compel you to pay twicet as much what we're paying now. ain't it? so what is the harm if we should maybe ask him to find a couple of lofts for us? ain't it?" "all right, abe," morris concluded, "if i must go crazy listening to you talking about it i sooner move first. so go ahead and do what you like." "well, the fact is," said abe, "i told marks henochstein he should find it a couple lofts for us this morning, mawruss, agreeing strictly that we should not pay him nothing, as he gets a commission from the landlord already." morris received this admission with a scowl. "for a feller what's got such a nerve like you got it, abe," he declared, "i am surprised you should make it such a poor salesman." "when a man's got it a back-number partner, mawruss, his hands is full inside and outside the store, and so naturally he loses it a few customers oncet in a while," abe replied. "but, somebody's got to have nerve in a business, mawruss, and if i waited for you to make suggestions we would never get nowhere." morris searched his mind for an appropriate rejoinder, and had just formulated a particularly bitter jibe when the store door opened to admit two shabbily-dressed females. "here, you," abe called, "operators goes around the alley." the elder of the two females drew herself up haughtily. "operators!" she said with a scornful rising inflection. "finishers, also," abe continued. "this here door is for customers." "you don't know me, potash," she retorted. "might you don't know this lady neither, maybe?" she indicated her companion, who turned a mournful gaze upon the astonished abe. "but we know you, potash," she went on. "we know you already when you didn't have it so much money what you got now." her companion nodded sadly. "so, potash," she concluded, "your own wife's people is operators and finishers; what?" abe looked at morris, who stood grinning broadly in the show-room doorway. "give me an introduction once, abe," morris said. "he don't have to give us no introduction," the elder female exclaimed. "me, i am mrs. sarah mashkowitz, and this here lady is my sister, mrs. blooma sheikman, _geborn_ smolinski." "that ain't my fault that you got them names," abe said. "i see it now that you're my wife's father's brother's daughter, ain't it? so if you're going to make a touch, make it. i got business to attend to." "we ain't going to make no touch, potash," mrs. mashkowitz declared. "we would rather die first." "all right," abe replied heartlessly. "die if you got to. you can't make me mad." mrs. mashkowitz ignored abe's repartee. "we don't ask nothing for ourselves, potash," she said, "but we got it a sister, your wife's own cousin, miriam smolinski. she wants to get married." "i'm agreeable," abe murmured, "and i'm sure my rosie ain't got no objections neither." mrs. sheikman favored him with a look of contempt. "what chance has a poor girl got it to get married?" she asked. "when she ain't got a dollar in the world," mrs. mashkowitz added. "and her own relatives from her own blood is millionaires already." "if you mean me," abe replied, "i ain't no millionaire, i can assure you. far from it." "plenty of money you got it, potash," mrs. mashkowitz said. "five hundred dollars to you is to me like ten cents." "he don't think no more of five hundred dollars than you do of your life, lady," morris broke in with a raucous laugh. "do me the favor, mawruss," abe cried, "and tend to your own business." "sure," morris replied, as he turned to go. "i thought i was helping you out, abe, that's all." he repaired to the rear of the store, while abe piloted his two visitors into the show-room. "now what is it you want from me?" he asked. "not a penny she got it," mrs. mashkowitz declared, breaking into tears. "and she got a fine young feller what is willing to marry her and wants it only five hundred dollars." "only five hundred dollars," mrs. sheikman moaned. "only five hundred dollars. _ai vai!_" "five hundred dollars!" abe exclaimed. "if you think you should cry till you get five hundred dollars out of me, you got a long wet spell ahead of you. that's all i got to say." "might he would take two hundred and fifty dollars, maybe," mrs. sheikman suggested hopefully through her tears. "don't let him do no favors on my account," abe said; "because, if it was two hundred and fifty buttons it wouldn't make no difference to me." "a fine young feller," mrs. mashkowitz sobbed. "he got six machines and two hundred dollars saved up and wants to go into the cloak and suit contracting business." "only a hundred dollars if the poor girl had it," mrs. sheikman burst forth again; "maybe he would be satisfied." "s'enough!" abe roared. "i heard enough already." he banged a sample table with his fist and mrs. sheikman jumped in her seat. "that's a heart what you got it," she said bitterly, "like haman." "haman was a pretty good feller already compared to me," abe declared; "and also i got business to attend to." "come, sarah," mrs. sheikman cried. "what's the use talking to a bloodsucker like him!" "wait!" mrs. mashkowitz pleaded; "i want to ask him one thing more. if miriam got it this young feller for a husband, might you would give him some of your work, maybe?" "bloodsuckers don't give no work to nobody," abe replied firmly. "and also will you get out of my store, or will you be put out?" he turned on his heel without waiting for an answer and joined morris in the rear of the store. ten minutes later he was approached by jake, the shipping-clerk. "mr. potash," jake said, "them two ladies in the show-room wants to know if you would maybe give that party they was talking about a recommendation to the president of the kosciusko bank?" "tell 'em," abe said, "i'll give 'em a recommendation to a policeman if they don't get right out of here. the only way what a feller should deal with a nervy proposition like that, mawruss, is to squash it in the bud." in matters pertaining to real estate marks henochstein held himself to be a virtuoso. "if anyone can put it through, i can," was his motto, and he tackled the job of procuring an uptown loft for potash & perlmutter with the utmost confidence. "in the first place," he said when he called the next day, "you boys has got too much room." "boys!" morris exclaimed. "since when did we go to school together, henochstein?" "anyhow, you got too much room, ain't yer?" henochstein continued, his confidence somewhat diminished by the rebuff. "you could get your workrooms and show-rooms all on one floor, and besides----" morris raised his hand like a traffic policeman halting an obstreperous truckman. "s'enough, henochstein," he said. "s'enough about that. we ain't giving you no pointers in the real-estate business, and we don't want no suggestions about the cloak and suit business neither. we asked it you to get us two lofts on seventeenth, eighteenth or nineteenth street, the same size as here and for the same what we pay it here rent. if you can't do it let us know, that's all, and we get somebody else to do it. y'understand?" "oh, i can do it all right." "sure he can do it," abe said encouragingly. "and i'll bring you a list as big as the telephone directory to-morrow," henochstein added as he went out. "but all the same, boys--i mean mr. perlmutter--i don't think you need it all that space." "that's a fresh real-estater for you, abe," morris said after henochstein left. "wants to tell it us our business and calls us boys yet, like we was friends from the old country already." "oh, i don't know, mawruss," abe replied. "he means it good, i guess; and anyway, mawruss, we give so much of our work out by contractors, we might as well give the whole thing out and be done with it. we might as well have one loft with the cutting-room in the back and a rack for piece goods. then the whole front we could fit it up as an office and show-room yet, and we would have no noise of the machines and no more trouble with garment-makers' unions nor nothing. i think it's a good idee sending out all the work." "them contractors makes enough already on what we give them, abe," morris replied. "i bet yer satinstein buys real estate on what he makes from us, abe, and ginsburg & kaplan also." "well, the fact is, mawruss," abe went on, "i ain't at all satisfied with the way what satinstein treats us, mawruss, nor ginsburg & kaplan neither. i got an idee, mawruss: we should give all our work to a decent, respectable young feller what is going to marry a cousin of my wife, by the name miriam smolinski." morris looked long and hard at abe before replying. "so, abe," he said, "you squashed it in the bud!" "well, them two women goes right up and sees my rosie yesterday, mawruss," abe admitted; "and so my rosie thinks it wouldn't do us no harm that we should maybe give the young feller a show." "is your wife rosie running this business, abe, or are we?" morris asked. "it ain't a question what rosie thinks, mawruss," abe explained; "it's what i think, too. i think we should give the young feller a show. he's a decent, respectable young feller, mawruss." "how do i know that, abe?" morris replied. "i ain't never seen him, abe; i don't even know his name." "what difference does that make it, mawruss?" said abe. "i ain't never seen him neither, mawruss, and i don't know his name, too; but he could make up our line just as good, whether his name was thomassheffsky or murphy. also, what good would it do us if we did see him first? i'm sure, mawruss, we ain't giving out our work to satinstein because he's a good-looking feller, and ginsburg & kaplan ain't no john drews neither, so far what i hear it, mawruss." "that ain't the idee, abe," morris broke in; "the idee is that we got to give up doing our work in our own shop and send it out by a contractor just starting in as a new beginner already--a young feller what you don't know and i don't know, abe--and all this we got to do just because you want it, abe. me, i am nothing here, abe, and you are everything. you are the dawg and i am the tail. you are the oitermobile and i am the smell, and that's the way it goes." "who says that, mawruss?" abe interposed. "i didn't say it." "you didn't say it, abe," morris went on, "but you think it just the same, and i'm going to show you differencely. i am content that we move, abe, only we ain't going to move unless we can find it two lofts for the same rent what we pay it here. and we ain't going to have less room than we got it here neither, abe, because if we move we're going to do our own business just the same like we do it here, and that's flat." for the remainder of the day abe avoided any reference to their impending removal, and it was not until henochstein entered the show-room the following morning that the discussion was renewed. "well, boys," he said in greeting, "i got it a fine loft for you on nineteenth street with twicet as much floor space what you got here." "a loft!" morris cried. "a loft," henochstein repeated. "one loft?" morris asked. "that's what i said," henochstein replied, "one loft with twicet as much floor space, and it's got light on all----" morris waved his hand for silence. "abe," he said, "this here henochstein is a friend of yours; ain't it?" abe nodded sulkily. "well, take him out of here," morris advised, "before i kick him out." he banged the show-room door behind him and repaired to wasserbauer's café and restaurant across the street to await henochstein's departure. "mawruss is right," abe declared. "you was told distinctively we wanted it two lofts, not one, and here you come back with a one-loft proposition." henochstein rose to leave. "if you think it you could get two up-to-date lofts on seventeenth, eighteenth or nineteenth street, abe, for what you pay it here in this dinky place," he said, "you got another think coming." he opened the show-room door. "and also, abe," he concluded, "if i got it a partner what made it a slave of me, like perlmutter does you, i'd go it alone, that's all i got to say." after henochstein left, abe was a prey to bitter reflections, which were only interrupted by his partner's return to the show-room a quarter of an hour later. "well, abe," morris cried, "you got your turn at this here moving business; let me try a hand at it once." "go ahead, mawruss," abe said wearily. "you always get your own way, anyhow. you say i am the dawg, mawruss, and you are the tail, but i guess you got it the wrong way round. i guess the tail is on the other foot." morris shrugged. "that's something what is past already, abe," he replied. "i was just talking to wasserbauer, and he says he got it a friend what is a sort of a real-estater, a smart young feller by the name sam slotkin. he says if slotkin couldn't find it us a couple of lofts, nobody couldn't." "i'm satisfied, mawruss," abe said. "if slotkin can get us lofts we move, otherwise we stay here. so far we made it always a living here, mawruss, and i guess we ain't going to lose all our customers even if we don't move; and that's all there is to it." mr. sam slotkin was doubtless his own ideal of a well-dressed man. all the contestants in a chess tournament could have played on his clothes at one time, and the ox-blood stripes on his shirt exactly matched the color of his necktie and socks. he had concluded his interview with morris on the morning following henochstein's fiasco, before abe's arrival at the office, and he was just leaving as abe came in. "who's that, mawruss?" abe asked, staring after the departing figure. "that's sam slotkin," morris replied. "he looks like a bright young feller." "i bet yer he looks bright," abe commented. "he looks so bright in them vaudeville clothes that it almost gives me eye-strain. i suppose he says he can get us the lofts." "sure," morris answered; "he says he can fix us up all right." "i hope so," abe said skeptically, and at once repaired to the office. it was the tail-end of a busy season and abe and morris found no time to renew the topic of their forthcoming removal until two days later when sam slotkin again interviewed morris. the result was communicated to abe by morris after slotkin's departure. "he says, abe, that he thinks he's got the very place for us," morris said. "he thinks he got it, mawruss," abe exclaimed. "well, we can't rip out our store here on the strength of a think, mawruss. when will he know if he's got it?" "to-morrow morning," morris replied, and went upstairs to the workroom, where the humming of many machines testified to the last rush of the season's work. abe joined him there a few minutes later. "believe me, mawruss," he said, "i'll be glad when this here order for the fashion store is out." "it takes a week yet, goldman tells me," morris replied, "and i guess we might have to work nights if they don't make it a hurry-up." "well, we're pretty late with that fashion store delivery as it is, mawruss," abe replied. "it wouldn't hurt none if we did work nights, mawruss. we ought to get that order out by the day after to-morrow yet." "you speak to 'em, abe," morris retorted, indicating the working force by a wave of his hand. "what have i got to do with it?" abe asked. "you're the inside man, mawruss." "to my sorrow, abe," said morris, "and if you was the inside man you would know it that if i told 'em they was working on a rush order they'd strike for more money already." "and yet, mawruss, you ain't in favor of giving out our work by contractors," abe cried as he walked away. the next morning sam slotkin was waiting in the show-room before abe or morris arrived. when they entered he advanced to meet them with a confident smile. "i got it the very thing what you want, mr. perlmutter," he said. "a fine loft on nineteenth street." "a loft!" abe exclaimed. "a fine loft," slotkin corrected. "how big a loft?" morris asked. "well, it is maybe twicet as big as this here," slotkin replied. "you could get into it all your machines and have a cutting-room and show-room and office besides." "that sounds pretty good, abe," morris commented. "don't you think so, abe?" abe pulled off his coat with such force that he ripped the sleeve-lining. "what are you doing," he demanded, "making jokes with me?" "and it's only twenty dollars more a month as you're paying here," slotkin concluded. "twenty dollars a month won't make us or break us, abe," morris said. "it won't, hey?" abe roared. "well, that don't make no difference, mawruss. you said you wanted it two lofts, and we got to have it two lofts. how do you think we're going to sell goods and keep our books, mawruss, if we have all them machines kicking up a racket on the same floor?" "well, abe, might we could send our work out by contractors, maybe," morris answered with all the vivacity of a man suggesting a new and brilliant idea. abe stared at his partner for a minute. "what's the matter with you, morris, anyway?" he asked at length. "first you say it we must have two lofts and keep our work in our own shop, and now you turn right around again." "i got to talking it over with minnie last night," morris replied, "and she thinks maybe if we give our work out by contractors we wouldn't need it to stay down so late, and then i wouldn't keep the dinner waiting an hour or so every other night. we lose it two good girls already by it in six months." "who is running this business, mawruss?" abe roared. "minnie or us?" sam slotkin listened with a slightly bored air. "gentlemen, gentlemen," he said, "what's the use of it you make all this disturbance? the loft is light on all four sides, with two elevators. also, it is already big enough for----" "what are you butting in for?" abe shouted. "what business is it of yours, anyhow?" "i am the broker," sam slotkin replied with simple dignity. "and also you're going to take that loft. otherwise i lose it three hundred dollars' commission, and besides----" "my partner is right," morris interrupted. "you ain't got no business to say what we will or will not do. if we want to take it we will take it, otherwise not." "don't worry," sam slotkin cried, "you will take it all right and i'll be back this afternoon for an answer." he put on his hat and left without another word, while abe and morris looked at each other in blank amazement. "that's a real-estater for you," abe said. "henochstein's got it pretty good nerve, mawruss, but this feller acts so independent like a doctor or a lawyer." morris nodded and started to hang up his hat and coat, but even as his hand was poised half-way to the hook it became paralyzed. simultaneously abe looked up from the column of the daily cloak and suit record and miss cohen, the bookkeeper, stopped writing; for the hum of sewing machines, which was as much a part of their weekday lives as the beating of their own hearts, had suddenly ceased. abe and morris took the stairs leading to the upper floor three at a jump, and arrived breathlessly in the workroom just as fifty-odd employees were putting on their coats preparatory to leaving. "what's the matter?" abe gasped. "strike," goldman, the foreman, replied. "a strike!" morris cried. "what for a strike?" goldman shrugged his shoulders. "comes a walking delegate by the opposite side of the street and makes with his hands motions," he explained. "so they goes out on strike." few of the striking operators could speak english, but those that did nodded their corroboration. "for what you strike?" morris asked them. "moost strike," one of them replied. "ven varking delegate say moost strike, ve moost strike." sadly abe and morris watched their employees leave the building, and then they repaired to the show-room. "there goes two thousand dollars, mawruss," abe said. "for so sure as you live, mawruss, if we don't make that delivery to the fashion store inside of a week we get a cancelation by the next day's mail; ain't it?" morris nodded gloomily, and they both remained silent for a few minutes. "mawruss," abe said at last, "where is that loft what slotkin gives us?" "what do you want to know for?" "i'm going right up to have a look at it," abe replied. "i'm sick and tired of this here strike business." morris heaved a great sigh. "i believe you, abe," he said. "the way i feel it now we will sell for junk every machine what we got." forthwith abe boarded a car for uptown, and when he returned two hours later he found goldman discussing ways and means with morris in the show-room. "well, abe," morris cried, "what for a loft you seen it?" abe hung up his hat deliberately. "i tell you the truth, mawruss," he said, turning around, "the loft ain't bad. it's a good-looking loft, mawruss, only it's certain sure we couldn't have no machines in that loft." "_ai vai!_" goldman exclaimed, rocking to and fro in his chair and striking his head with his clenched fist. "_nu_ goldman?" morris asked. "what's the trouble with you?" "troubles enough he got it, mawruss," abe said, as he watched goldman's evolutions of woe. "if we do away with our machines he loses his job; ain't it?" sympathy seemed only to intensify goldman's distress. "better than that he should make me dizzy at my stomach to watch him, abe," morris said. "i got a suggestion." goldman ceased rocking and looked up. "i got a suggestion, abe," morris went on, "that we sell it our machines on long terms of credit to goldman, and he should go into the contracting business; ain't it?" "_ai vai!_" goldman cried again, and commenced to rock anew. "stop it, goldman," abe yelled. "what's the trouble now?" "what show does a feller got it what starts as a new beginner in cloak contracting already?" goldman wailed. "well," abe replied, "you could get our work." morris seized on this as a happy compromise between his own advocacy of ginsburg & kaplan and the rival claims of abe's wife's relations. "sure," he agreed. "we will give him the work what we give now to satinstein and ginsburg & kaplan." goldman's face spread into a thousand wrinkles of joy. "you save my life!" he exclaimed. "only he got to agree by a lawyer he should make it up our work a whole lot cheaper as they did," morris concluded. goldman nodded vigorously. "sure, sure," he said. "and also he got to help us call off this here strike," abe added. "i do my bestest," goldman replied. "only we got to see it the varking delegate first and fix it up with him." "who is this walking delegate, anyhow?" morris asked. goldman scratched his head to aid his memory. "i remember it now," he said at last. "it's a feller by the name sam slotkin." when abe and morris recovered from the shock of goldman's disclosure they vied with each other in the strength of their resolutions not to move into sam slotkin's loft. "i wouldn't pay it not one cent blackmail neither," abe declared, "not if they kept it up the strike for a year." "better as we should let that sucker do us, abe," morris declared, "i would go out of the business first; ain't it?" abe nodded and, after a few more defiant sentiments, they went upstairs with goldman to estimate the amount of work undone on the fashion store order. "them fashion people was always good customers of ours, too, mawruss," abe commented, "and we couldn't send the work out by contractors in this shape. it would ruin the whole job." morris nodded sadly. "if we could only get them devils of operators to finish up," he said, "they could strike till they was blue in the face yet." "but i wouldn't pay one cent to that sucker, slotkin, mawruss," abe added. "sure not," morris agreed. "might you wouldn't have to pay him nothing, maybe," goldman suggested. "what d'ye mean?" abe cried. "might if you would take it the loft he would call off the strike," said goldman. "that's so, mawruss," abe murmured, as though this phase of the matter had just occurred to him for the first time. "maybe goldman is right, abe," morris replied. "maybe if we took it the loft slotkin would call off the strike." "after all, mawruss," abe said, "the loft ain't a bad loft, mawruss. if it wasn't such a good loft, mawruss, i would say it no, mawruss, we shouldn't take the loft; but the loft is a first-class a number one loft." "s'enough, abe," morris replied. "you don't have to tell it me a hundred times already. i ain't disputing it's a good loft; and so if slotkin calls off the strike we take the loft." at this juncture the store door opened and slotkin himself entered. "good afternoon, gents," he said. morris and abe greeted him with a scowl. "i suppose you come for an answer about that loft, huh?" morris snorted. slotkin stared at abe indignantly. "excuse me, mr. perlmutter," he said, "i ain't here as broker. i'll see you later about that already. i come here now as varking delegate." "sure, i know," abe replied. "when you call it a strike on us this morning, that ain't got nothing to do with our taking the loft. we believe that, slotkin; so go ahead and tell us something else." "it makes me no difference whether you believe it or you don't believe it, mr. potash," slotkin went on. "all i got to say is that you signed it an agreement with the union; ain't it?" "sure, we signed it," said abe, "and we kept it, too. we pay 'em always union prices and we keep it union hours." "prices and hours is all right," slotkin said, "but in the agreement stands it you should give 'em a proper place to work in it." "well," morris cried, "ain't it a proper place here to work in it?" slotkin shook his head. "as varking delegate i seen it already. i seen it your shop where your operators work," he commenced, "and----" "why, you ain't never been inside our shop," goldman cried. "i seen it from the outside--from the street already--and as varking delegate it is my duty to call on you a strike," slotkin concluded. "what's the matter with the workroom?" abe asked. "well, the neighborhood ain't right," slotkin explained. "it's a narrow street already. it should be on a wider street like nineteenth street." he paused to note the effect and morris grunted involuntarily. "also," slotkin continued, "it needs it light on four sides, and two elevators." "and i suppose if we hire it such a loft, slotkin," abe broke in, "you will call off the strike." "sure i will call it off the strike," he declared. "it would be my duty as varking delegate. i moost call it off the strike." "all right, then," abe said; "call off the strike. we made up our mind we will take the loft." "you mean you will take such a loft what the union agreement calls for and which i just described it to you," slotkin corrected in his quality of walking delegate. "that's what we mean," abe replied. "why, then, that loft what i called to your attention, as broker, this morning would be exactly what you would need it!" slotkin exclaimed, in the hearty tones of a conscientious man, glad that for once the performance of his official duty redounded to clean-handed personal profit. "sure," abe grunted. "then, as broker, i tell it you that the leases is ready down at henry d. feldman's office," slotkin replied, "and as soon as they are signed the strike is off." a week later the fashion store's order was finished, packed and shipped; and on the same day that goldman, the foreman, dismissed the hands he went down to henry d. feldman's office. there he signed an agreement with potash & perlmutter to make up all their garments in the contracting shop which he proposed to open the first of the following month. "where are you going to have it your shop, goldman?" morris asked, after they had returned from feldman's. "that i couldn't tell it you just yet," goldman replied. "we ain't quite decided yet." "we!" abe cried excitedly. "who's we?" "well, i expect to get it a partner with a couple of hundred dollars," goldman said; "but, anyhow, mr. potash, i get some cards printed next week and i send you one." "all right," abe replied. "only let me give it you a piece of advice, goldman: if you get it a partner, don't make no mistake and have some feller what wants to run you and the business and everybody else, goldman." the thrust went home and morris stared fiercely at his partner. "and you should see it also that his wife ain't got no relations, goldman," he added, "otherwise he'll want you to share the profits of the business with them." goldman nodded. "oh, i got a good, smart feller picked out, and his wife's relations will be all right, too," he said, as he started to leave. "but, anyhow, mr. perlmutter, i let you know next week." about ten days afterward, while morris and abe were in the throes of packing, prior to the removal of their business, the letter-carrier entered with a batch of mail, and morris immediately took it into the show-room. "here, abe," he said, as he glanced at the first envelope, "this is for you." then he proceeded to go through the remainder of the pile. "holy smokes!" he cried, as he opened the next envelope. "what's the matter?" abe asked. "is it a failure?" he had read his own letter and held it between trembling fingers as he inquired. "look at this," morris said, handing him a card. it was a fragment of cheap pasteboard and bore the following legend: philip goldman sam slotkin goldman & slotkin cloak and suit contractors sponging and examining pike street new york abe read the card and handed it back in silence. "well, abe," morris cried, "that's a fine piece of business. we not only got to take it the loft what slotkin picks out for us, but we also got to give slotkin our work also." abe shrugged his shoulders in an indifferent manner. "you always got to run things your way, mawruss," he said. "if you let me do it my way, mawruss, we wouldn't of had no strike nor trouble nor nothing, and it would of been the same in the end." "what d'ye mean?" morris exclaimed. "look at this here," abe replied, handing him the letter. it was printed in script on heavily-coated paper and read as follows: mrs. sarah mashkowitz & mrs. blooma sheikman sisters of the bride request the honor of your co. at the marriage of their sister miss miriam smolinski to sam slotkin on sunday oct at p m sharp new riga hall allen street bride's residence care of rothman's corset store madison ave n y city ladies and gents wardrobe check c chapter xii "yes, mawruss," abe potash said to his partner as they stood together and surveyed the wild disorder of their business premises, "one removal is worser as a fire." "sure it is," morris perlmutter agreed. "a fire you can insure it, abe, but a removal is a risk what you got to take yourself; and you're bound to make it a loss." "not if you got a little system, mawruss," abe went on. "the trouble with us is, mawruss, we ain't got no system. in less than three weeks already we got to move into the loft on nineteenth street, mawruss, and we ain't even made up our minds about the fixtures yet." "the fixtures!" morris cried. "for why should we make up our minds about the fixtures, abe?" "we need to have fixtures, mawruss, ain't it?" "what's the matter with the fixtures what we got it here, abe?" morris asked. "them ain't fixtures what we got it here, mawruss," abe replied. "junk is what we got it here, mawruss, not fixtures. if we was to move them bum-looking racks and tables up to nineteenth street, mawruss, it would be like an insult to our customers." "would it?" morris replied. "well, we ain't asking 'em to buy the fixtures, abe; we only sell 'em the garments. anyhow, if our customers was so touchy, abe, they would of been insulted long since ago. for we got them fixtures six years already, and before we had 'em yet, abe, pincus vesell bought 'em, way before the spanish war, from kupferman & daiches, and then kupferman & daiches----" "s'enough, mawruss," abe protested. "i ain't asked you you should tell me the family history of them fixtures, mawruss. i know it as well as you do, mawruss, them fixtures is old-established back numbers, and i wouldn't have 'em in the store even if we was going to stay here yet." "you wouldn't have 'em in the store," morris broke in; "but how about me? ain't i nobody here, abe? i think i got something to say, too, abe. so i made up my mind we're going to keep them fixtures and move 'em up to the new store. we done it always a good business with them fixtures, abe." "yes, mawruss, and we also lose it a good customer by 'em, too," abe rejoined. "you know as well as i do that after one-eye feigenbaum, of the h. f. cloak company, run into that big rack over by the door and busted his nose we couldn't sell him no more goods." "was it the rack's fault that henry feigenbaum only got one eye, abe?" morris cried. "anyhow, abe, when a feller got a nose like henry feigenbaum, abe, he's liable to knock it against most any thing, abe; so you couldn't blame it on the fixtures." "i don't know who was to blame, mawruss," abe said, "but i do know that he buys it always a big bill of goods from h. rifkin, what's got that loft on the next floor above where we took it on nineteenth street, and rifkin does a big business by him. i bet yer feigenbaum's account is easy worth two thousand a year net to rifkin, mawruss." "maybe it is and maybe it ain't, abe," morris rejoined, "but that ain't here nor there. instead you should be estimating rifkin's profits, abe, you should better be going up to nineteenth street and see if them people gets through painting and cleaning up. i got it my hands full down here." abe reached for his hat. "i bet yer you got your hands full, mawruss," he grumbled. "the way it looks, now, mawruss, you got our sample lines so mixed up it'll be out of date before you get it sorted out again." "all right," morris retorted, "we'll get out a new one. we don't care nothing about the expenses, abe. if the old fixtures ain't good enough our sample line ain't good enough, neither. ain't it? what do we care about money, abe?" he paused to emphasize the irony. "no, abe," he concluded, "don't you worry about them samples, nor them fixtures, neither. you got worry enough if you tend to your own business, abe. i'll see that them samples gets up to nineteenth street in good shape." abe shrugged his shoulders and made for the door. "and them fixtures also, abe," morris shouted after him. the loft building on nineteenth street into which potash & perlmutter proposed to move was an imposing fifteen-story structure. burnished metal signs of its occupants flanked its wide doorway, and the entrance hall gleamed with gold leaf and plaster porphyry, while the uniform of each elevator attendant would have graced the high admiral of a south american navy. so impressed was abe with the magnificence of his surroundings that he forgot to call his floor when he entered one of the elevators, and instead of alighting at the fifth story he was carried up to the sixth floor before the car stopped. seven or eight men stepped out with him and passed through the door of h. rifkin's loft, while abe sought the stairs leading to the floor below. he walked to the westerly end of the hall, only to find that the staircase was at the extreme easterly end, and as he retraced his footsteps a young man whom he recognized as a clerk in the office of henry d. feldman, the prominent cloak and suit attorney, was pasting a large sheet of paper on h. rifkin's door. it bore the following legend: closed by order of the federal receiver henry d. feldman attorney for petitioning creditors abe stopped short and shook the sticky hand of the bill-poster. "how d'ye do, mr. feinstein?" he said. "ah, good morning, mr. potash," feinstein cried in his employer's best tone and manner. "what's the matter? is rifkin in trouble?" "oh, no," feinstein replied ironically. "rifkin ain't in trouble; his creditors is in trouble, mr. potash. the federal textile company, ten thousand four hundred and eighty-two dollars; miller, field & simpson, three thousand dollars; the kosciusko bank, two thousand and fifty." abe whistled his astonishment. "i always thought he done it such a fine business," he commented. "sure he done it a fine business," the law clerk said. "i should say he did done it a fine business. if he got away with a cent he got away with fifty thousand dollars." "don't nobody know where he skipped to?" "only his wife," feinstein replied, "and she left home yesterday. some says she went to canada and some says to mexico; but they mostly goes to brooklyn, and who in blazes could find her there?" abe nodded solemnly. "but come inside and give a look around," feinstein said hospitably. "maybe there's something you would like to buy at the receiver's sale next week." abe handed feinstein a cigar, and together they went into rifkin's loft. "he's got some fine fixtures, ain't it?" abe said as he gazed upon the mahogany and plate-glass furnishings of rifkin's office. "sure he has," feinstein replied nonchalantly, scratching a parlor match on the veneered shelf under the cashier's window. the first attempt missed fire, and again he drew a match across the lower part of the partition, leaving a great scar on its polished surface. "ain't you afraid you spoil them fixtures?" abe asked. "they wouldn't bring nothing at the receiver's sale, anyhow," feinstein replied, "even though they are pretty near new." "they must have cost him a pretty big sum, ain't it?" abe said. "they didn't cost him a cent," feinstein answered, "because he ain't paid a cent for 'em. flaum & bingler sold 'em to him, and they're one of the petitioning creditors. twenty-one hundred dollars they got stung for, and they ain't got no chattel mortgage nor nothing. look at them racks there and all them mirrors and tables! good enough for a saloon. i bet yer them green baize doors, what he put inside the regular door, is worth pretty near a hundred dollars." abe nodded again. "and i bet the whole shooting-match don't fetch five hundred dollars at the receiver's sale," feinstein said. "why, i'd give that much for it myself," abe cried. feinstein puffed away at his cigar for a minute. "do you honestly mean you'd like to buy them fixtures?" he said at last. "sure i'd like to buy them," abe replied. "when is the receiver's sale going to be?" "next week, right after the order of adjudication is signed. but that won't do you no good. the dealers would bid 'em up on you, and you wouldn't stand no show at all. what you want to do is to buy 'em from the receiver at private sale." "so?" abe commented. "well, how would i go about that?" feinstein pulled his hat over his eyes and, resting his cigar on the top of rifkin's desk with the lighted end next to the wood, he drew abe toward the rear of the office. "leave that to me," he said mysteriously. "of course, you couldn't expect to get them fixtures much under six hundred dollars at private sale, because it's got to be done under the direction of the court; but for fifty dollars i could undertake to let you in on 'em for, say, five hundred and seventy-five dollars. how's that?" abe puffed at his cigar before replying. "i got to see it my partner first," he said. "that's all right, too," feinstein rejoined; "but there was one dealer in here this morning already. as soon as the rest of 'em get on to this here failure they'll be buzzing around them fixtures like flies in a meat market, and maybe i won't be able to put it through for you at all." "i tell you what i'll do," abe said. "i'll go right down to the store and i'll be back here at two o'clock." "you've got to hustle if you want them fixtures," he said. "i bet yer i got to hustle," abe said, his eyes fixed on the marred surface of the desk, "for if you're going to smoke many more cigars around here them fixtures won't be no more good to nobody." "that don't harm 'em none," feinstein replied. "a cabinetmaker could fix that up with a piece of putty and some shellac so as you wouldn't know it from new." "but if i buy it them fixtures," abe concluded, as he turned toward the door, "i'd as lief have 'em without putty, if it's all the same to you." "sure," feinstein replied, and no sooner had abe disappeared into the hall than he drew a morning paper from his pocket and settled down to his duties as keeper for the federal receiver by selecting the most comfortable chair in the room and cocking up his feet against the side of rifkin's desk. "well, abe," morris cried as his partner entered the store half an hour later, "i give you right." "you give me right?" abe repeated. "what d'ye mean?" "about them fixtures," morris explained. "i give you right. them fixtures is nothing but junk, and we got to get some new ones." "sure we got to get some new ones, mawruss," abe agreed, "and i seen it the very thing what we want up at h. rifkin's place." "h. rifkin's place," morris exclaimed. "that's what i said," abe replied. "i got an idee, mawruss, we should buy them fixtures what h. rifkin got." "is that so?" morris retorted. "well, why should we buy it fixtures what h. rifkin throws out?" "he don't throw 'em out, mawruss," abe said. "he ain't got no more use for 'em, mawruss. he busted up this morning." "you can't make me feel bad by telling me that, abe," morris rejoined. "a sucker what takes from us a good customer like henry feigenbaum should of busted up long since already. but that ain't the point, abe. if we're going to get it fixtures, we don't want no second-hand articles." "they ain't no second-hand articles, mawruss," abe explained. "they're pretty near brand-new, and i got a particular reason why we should buy them fixtures, mawruss." he paused for some expression of curiosity from his partner, but mawruss merely pursed his lips and looked bored. "yes, mawruss," abe went on, "i got it a particular reason why we should buy them fixtures, mawruss. you see, this here rifkin got it the loft right upstairs one flight from us, mawruss, and naturally he's got it lots of out-of-town trade what don't know he's busted yet, mawruss." "no?" morris vouchsafed. "so these here out-of-town customers comes up to see rifkin. they gets in the elevator and they says 'sixth,' see? and the elevator man thinks they says 'fifth,' and he lets 'em off at our floor because there ain't nobody on the sixth floor. well, mawruss, we leave our store door open, and the customer sees rifkin's fixtures inside, so he walks in and thinks he's in rifkin's place. before he finds out he ain't, mawruss, we sell him a bill of goods ourselves." morris stared at abe in silent contempt. "of course, mawruss," abe went on, "i'm only saying they might do this, y'understand, and certainly it would only be for the first week or so what we are there, ain't it? but if we should only get it one or two customers that way, mawruss, them fixtures would pay for themselves." "dreams you got it, abe," morris cried. "you think them customers would be blind, abe? ain't they got eyes in their head? since when would they mistake a back number like you for an up-to-date feller like rifkin, abe?" "maybe i am a back number, mawruss," abe replied, "but i know a bargain when i see it. them fixtures is practically this season's goods already. why, h. rifkin ain't even paid for them yet." "there ain't no seasons in fixtures, abe," morris replied, "and besides, a feller like rifkin could have it fixtures for ten years without paying for 'em. he could get 'em on the installment plan and give back a chattel mortgage, abe. you couldn't tell me nothing about fixtures, abe, because i know all about it." "you don't seem to know much about it this morning when i spoke to you, mawruss," abe retorted. "sure not," morris said, "but i learned it a whole lot since. i got to thinking it over after you left. so i rings up a feller by the name flachsman, what is corresponding secretary in the district grand lodge of the independent order mattai aaron, which i belong it. this here flachsman got a fixture business over on west broadway." abe nodded. he lit a fresh cigar to sustain himself against impending bad news. "and this here flachsman comes around here half an hour ago and shows me pictures from fixtures, abe; and he got it such elegant fixtures like a bank or a saloon, which he could put it in for us for two thousand dollars." "two thousand dollars!" abe cried. "well, twenty-two fifty," morris amended. "comes to about the same with cash discount. flachsman tells me he seen the kind of loft we got and knows it also the measurements; so i think to myself what's the use waiting. abe wants it we should buy the fixtures, and we ain't got no time to lose. so i signed the contract." abe sat down heavily in the nearest chair and pushed his hat back from his forehead. "yes, mawruss," he said bitterly, "that's the way it goes when a feller's got a partner what is changeable like paris fashions. you are all plain one minute, and the next you are all soutache and buttons. this morning you wouldn't buy no fixtures, not if you could get 'em for nix, and a couple hours later you throw it away two thousand dollars in the streets." morris glared indignantly at his partner. "you are the changeable one, abe," he cried, "not me. this morning old fixtures to you is junk. ain't it? you got to have new fixtures and that's all there is to it. but now, abe, new fixtures is poison to you, and you got to have second-hand fixtures. what's the matter with you, anyway, abe?" "i told it you a dozen times already, mawruss," abe replied, "them ain't no exactly second-hand fixtures what rifkin got it. them fixtures is like new--fine mahogany partitions and plated glass." "that's what we bought it, abe," morris said, "fine mahogany partitions with plated glass. if you wouldn't jump so much over me, i would of told you about it." abe shrugged despairingly. "go ahead," he said. "i ain't jumping over you." "well, in the first place, abe," morris went on, "there's a couple of swinging doors inside the hall door." "just like rifkin's," abe interrupted. "better as rifkin's," morris exclaimed. "them doors is covered with goods, abe, and holes in each door with glass into it." "sure, i know," abe replied. "rifkin's doors got green cashmere onto 'em like a pool table." "only new, not second-hand," morris added. "then, when you get through them doors, on the left side is the office with mahogany partitions and plated glass, with a hole into it like a bank already." "sure! the same what i seen it up at rifkin's, mawruss," abe broke in again. morris drew himself up and scowled at abe. "how many times should i tell it you, abe," he cried, "them fixtures what flachsman sells it us is new, and not like rifkin's." "go ahead, mawruss," abe replied. "let's hear it." "over the hole is a sign, cashier," morris continued. abe was about to nod again, but at a warning glance from morris he thought better of it. "but i told it flachsman we ain't got no cashier, only a bookkeeper," morris said, "and so he says he could put it bookkeeper over the hole. inside the office is two desks, one for you and me, and a high one for the bookkeeper behind the hole. on the right-hand side as you go inside them pool-table doors is another mahogany partition, and back of that is the cutting-room already. then you walk right straight ahead, and between them two partitions is like a hall-way, what leads to the front of the loft, and there is the show-room with showcases, racks and tables like what i got it a list here." "and the whole business will cost it us two thousand dollars, mawruss," abe commented. "two thousand two hundred and fifty," morris said. "well, all i got to say is we would get it the positively same identical thing by h. rifkin's place for six hundred dollars," abe concluded. he rose to his feet and took off his hat and coat. "what did you say this here feller flachsman was in the district lodge of the i. o. m. a., mawruss?" he inquired. "corresponding secretary," morris replied. "what for you ask, abe?" "oh, nothing," abe replied as he turned away. "only, i was wondering what he would soak us for them fixtures, mawruss, if he would of been grand master." ten days afterward the receiver in bankruptcy sold rifkin's stock and fixtures at auction, and when abe and morris took possession of their new business premises on the first of the following month the topic of h. rifkin's failure had ceased to be of interest to the cloak and suit trade. morris alone harped upon it. "well, abe," he said for the twentieth time, gazing proudly around him, "what's the matter with them fixtures what we got it? huh? ain't them fixtures got h. rifkin skinned to death?" abe shook his head solemnly. "mind you, mawruss," he began, "i ain't saying them fixtures what we got it ain't good fixtures, y'understand; but they ain't one, two, six with h. rifkin's fixtures." "that's what you say, abe," morris retorted, "but flachsman says different. i seen him at the lodge last night, and he tells me them fixtures what h. rifkin got it was second quality, abe. flachsman says they wouldn't of stood being took down and put up again. he says he wouldn't sell them fixtures as second-hand to an east broadway concern, without being afraid for a comeback." "flachsman don't know what he's talking about," abe declared hotly. "them fixtures was a number one. i never seen nothing like 'em before or since." "bluffs you are making it, abe," morris replied. "you seen them fixtures for ten minutes, maybe, abe, and in such a short time you couldn't tell nothing at all about 'em." "couldn't i, mawruss?" abe said. "well, them fixtures was the kind what you wouldn't forget it if you seen 'em for only five minutes. i bet yer i would know them anywhere, mawruss, if i seen them again, and what we got it here from flachsman is a weak imitation, mawruss. that's all." at this juncture a customer entered, and for half an hour morris busied himself displaying the line. in the meantime abe went out to lunch, and when he entered the building on his return a familiar, bulky figure preceded him into the doorway. "hallo!" abe cried, and the bulky figure stopped and turned around. "hallo yourself!" he said. "you don't know me, mr. feigenbaum," abe went on. "why, how d'ye do, mr. potash?" feigenbaum exclaimed. "what brings you way uptown here?" "we m----" abe commenced--"that is to say, i come up here to see a party. i bet yer we're going to the same place, mr. feigenbaum." "maybe," mr. feigenbaum grunted. "sixth floor, hey?" abe cried jocularly, slapping mr. feigenbaum on the shoulder. mr. feigenbaum's right eye assumed the glassy stare which was permanent in his left. "what business is that from yours, potash?" he asked. "excuse me, mr. feigenbaum," abe said with less jocularity, "i didn't mean it no harm." together they entered the elevator, and abe created a diversion by handing mr. feigenbaum a large, black cigar with a wide red-and-gold band on it. while feigenbaum was murmuring his thanks the elevator man stopped the car at the fifth floor. "here we are!" abe cried, and hustled out of the elevator ahead of mr. feigenbaum. he opened the outer door of potash & perlmutter's loft with such rapidity that there was no time for feigenbaum to decipher the sign on its ground-glass panel, and the next moment they stood before the green-baize swinging doors. "after you, mr. feigenbaum," abe said. he followed his late customer up the passageway between the mahogany partitions, into the show-room. "take a chair, mr. feigenbaum," abe cried, dragging forward a comfortable, padded seat, into which feigenbaum sank with a sigh. "i wish we could get it furniture like this up in bridgetown," feigenbaum said. "a one-horse place like bridgetown you can't get nothing there. everything you got to come to new york for. we are dead ones in bridgetown. we don't know nothing and we don't learn nothing." "that's right, mr. feigenbaum," abe said. "you got to come to new york to get the latest wrinkles about everything." with one comprehensive motion he drew forward a chair for himself and waved a warning to morris, who ducked behind a rack of cloaks in the rear of the show-room. "you make yourself to home here, potash, i must say," feigenbaum observed. abe grunted inarticulately and handed a match to feigenbaum, who lit his cigar, a fine imported one, and blew out great clouds of smoke with every evidence of appreciative enjoyment. "where's rifkin?" he inquired between puffs. abe shook his head and smiled. "you got to ask me something easier than that, mr. feigenbaum," he murmured. "what d'ye mean?" feigenbaum cried, jumping to his feet. "ain't you heard it yet?" abe asked. "i ain't heard nothing," feigenbaum exclaimed. "then sit down and i'll tell you all about it," abe said. feigenbaum sat down again. "you mean to tell me you ain't heard it nothing about rifkin?" abe went on. "do me the favor, potash, and spit it out," feigenbaum broke in impatiently. "well, rifkin run away," abe announced. "run away!" "that's what i said," abe went on. "he made it a big failure and skipped to the old country." "you don't tell me!" feigenbaum said. "why, i used to buy it all my goods from rifkin." abe leaned forward and placed his hand on feigenbaum's knees. "i know it," he murmured, "and oncet you used to buy it all your goods from us, mr. feigenbaum. i assure you, mr. feigenbaum, i don't want to make no bluffs nor nothing, but believe me, the line of garments what we carry and the line of garments what h. rifkin carried, there ain't no comparison. merchandise what h. rifkin got in his place as leaders already, i wouldn't give 'em junk room." mr. feigenbaum nodded. "well, the fixtures what you was carrying at one time, potash, i wouldn't give 'em junk room neither," feigenbaum declared. "you're lucky i didn't sue you in the courts yet for busting my nose against that high rack of yours. i ain't never recovered from that accident what i had in your place, potash. i got it catarrh yet, i assure you." "accidents could happen with the best regulations, mr. feigenbaum," abe cried, "and you see that here we got it a fine new line of fixtures." "not so good as what rifkin carried," feigenbaum said. "rifkin carried fine fixtures, mr. feigenbaum," abe admitted, "but not so fine as what we got. we got it everything up to date. you couldn't bump your nose here, not if you was to get down on your hands and knees and try." "i wouldn't do it," mr. feigenbaum said solemnly. "sure not," abe agreed. "but come and look around our loft. we just moved in here, and everything we got it is new--fixtures and garments as well." "i guess you must excuse me. i ain't got much time to spare," mr. feigenbaum declared. "i got to get along and buy my stuff." abe sprang to his feet. "buy it here!" he cried. he seized feigenbaum by the arm and propelled him over to the sample line of skirts, behind which morris cowered. "look at them goods," abe said. "one or two of them styles would be leaders for h. rifkin. for us, all them different styles is our ordinary line." in turn, he displayed the rest of the firm's line and exercised his faculties of persuasion, argument and flattery to such good purpose that in less than an hour feigenbaum had bought three thousand dollars' worth of garments, deliveries to be made within ten days. "and now, mr. feigenbaum," abe said, "i want you to look around our place. mawruss is in the office, and he would be delighted, i know, to see you." he conducted his rediscovered customer to the office, where morris was seated at the roll-top mahogany desk. "ah, mr. feigenbaum," morris cried, effusively seizing the newcomer by both hands, "ain't it a pleasure to see you again! take a seat." he thrust feigenbaum into the revolving chair that he had just vacated, and took the box of gilt-edge customers' cigars out of the safe. "throw away that butt and take a fresh cigar," he exclaimed, handing feigenbaum a satiny invincible with the broad band of the best havana maker on it. feigenbaum received it with a smile, for he was now completely thawed out. "you got a fine place here, mawruss," he said. "fixtures and everything a number one, just like rifkin's." "better as rifkin's," morris declared. "well, maybe it is better in quality," feigenbaum admitted; "but, i mean, in arrangement and color it is just the same. why, when i come in here with abe, an hour ago, i assure you i thought i was in rifkin's old place. in fact, i could almost swear this desk is the same desk what rifkin had it." he rose to his feet and passed his hand over the top of the desk with the touch of a connoisseur. "no," he said at last. "it ain't the same as rifkin's. rifkin's desk was a fine piece of costa rica mahogany without a flaw. i used to be in the furniture business oncet, you know, mawruss, and so i can tell." abe flashed a triumphant grin on morris, who frowned in reply. "but ain't this here desk that--now--what-yer-call-it mahogany, too, mr. feigenbaum?" morris asked. "well, it's costa rica mahogany, all right," feigenbaum said, "but it's got a flaw into it." "a flaw?" morris and abe exclaimed with one voice. [illustration: look at them goods.] "sure," mr. feigenbaum continued. "it looks to me like somebody laid a cigar on to it and burned a hole there. then some cabinetmaker fixed it up yet with colored putty and shellac. nobody would notice nothing except an expert like me, though." feigenbaum looked at morris' glum countenance with secret enjoyment, but when he turned to abe he was startled into an exclamation, for abe's face was ashen and large beads of perspiration stood out on his forehead. "what's the matter, abe?" feigenbaum cried. "are you sick?" "my stummick," abe murmured. "i'll be all right in a minute!" feigenbaum took his hat and coat preparatory to leaving. "well, boys," he said genially, "you got to excuse me. i must be moving on." "wait just a minute," abe said. "i want you to look at something." he led feigenbaum out of the office and down the passageway between the mahogany partitions. in front of the little cashier's window abe stopped and pointed to the shelf and panel beneath. "mr. feigenbaum," he said in shaking tones, "do you see something down there?" mr. feigenbaum examined the woodwork closely. "yes, abe," he answered. "i see it that some loafer has been striking matches on it, but it's been all fixed up so that you wouldn't notice nothing." "s'enough," abe cried. "i'm much obliged to you." in silence abe and morris ushered mr. feigenbaum to the outer door, and as soon as it closed behind him the two partners faced each other. "what difference does it make, abe?" morris said. "a little hole and a little scratch don't amount to nothing." abe gulped once or twice before he could enunciate. "it don't amount to nothing, mawruss," he croaked. "oh, no, it don't amount to nothing, but sixteen hundred and fifty dollars." "what d'ye mean?" morris exclaimed. "i mean this," abe thundered: "i mean, we paid twenty-two hundred and fifty dollars for what we could of bought for six hundred dollars. them fixtures what we bought it from flachsman, he bought it from rifkin's bankruptcy sale. i mean that these here fixtures are the positively same identical fixtures what i seen it upstairs in h. rifkin's loft." it was now morris' turn to change color, and his face assumed a sickly hue of green. "how do you know that?" he gasped. "because i was in rifkin's old place when that lowlife feinstein, what works for henry d. feldman, had charge of it after the failure; and i seen feinstein strike them matches and put his seegar on the top from the desk." he led the way back to the office and once more examined the flaw in the mahogany. "yes, mawruss," he said, "two thousand two hundred and fifty dollars we got to pay it for this here junk. twenty-two hundred and fifty dollars, mawruss, you throw it into the street for damaged, second-hand stuff what ain't worth two hundred." "why, you say it yourself you wanted to pay six hundred for it, abe," morris protested, "and you said it was first-class, a number one fixtures." "me, mawruss!" abe exclaimed. "i'm surprised to hear you should talk that way, mawruss. i knew all the time that them fixtures was bum stuff. i only wanted to buy 'em because i thought that they would bring us some of rifkin's old customers, mawruss, and i was right." "you're always right, abe," morris retorted. "maybe you was right when you said feinstein made them marks, abe, and maybe you wasn't. feinstein ain't the only one what scratches matches and smokes seegars, abe. you smoke, too, abe." "all right, mawruss," abe said. "i scratched them matches and burnt that hole, if you think so; but just the same, mawruss, if i did or if i didn't, ike flachsman done us, anyhow." "how d'ye know that, abe?" morris blurted out. "i don't believe them fixtures is rifkin's fixtures at all, and i don't believe that flachsman bought 'em at rifkin's sale. what's more, abe, i'm going to get feinstein on the 'phone right away and find out who did buy 'em." he went to the telephone immediately and rang up henry d. feldman's office. "hallo, mr. feinstein," he said, after the connection had been made. "this is mawruss perlmutter, of potash & perlmutter. you know them fixtures what h. rifkin had it?" "i sure do," feinstein replied. "well, who bought it them fixtures at the receiver's sale?" "i got to look it up," feinstein said. "hold the wire for a minute." a moment later he returned to the 'phone. "hallo, mr. perlmutter," he said. "they sold for three hundred dollars to a dealer by the name isaac flachsman." chapter xiii "say, looky here, abe," morris cried one rainy march morning, "we got to get some more insurance." "what do you mean, insurance?" abe asked. "we got enough insurance, mawruss. them rifkin fixtures ain't so valuable as all that, mawruss, and even if we wouldn't already got it for twenty thousand dollars insurance, mawruss, the building is anyhow fireproof. in a fireproof building you don't got to have so much insurance." "is that so?" morris replied. "well, pinkel brothers' building where they got it a loft is fireproof, and they got it also oitermatic sprinklers, abe, and they somehow get burned out anyhow." "you couldn't prove to me nothing by pinkel brothers, mawruss," abe rejoined. "them people has already got a hundred operators and we ain't got one, mawruss, and every operator smokes yet a cigarettel, and you know what them cigarettels is, mawruss. they practically smokes themselves. so, if an operator throws one of them cigarettels in a bin from clippings, mawruss, that cigarettel would burn up them clippings certain sure. for my part, i wouldn't have a cigarettel in the place; and so, mawruss, we wouldn't have no fire, neither." "i know, abe," morris protested; "but the loft upstairs is vacant and the loft downstairs is vacant, and everybody ain't so grouchy about cigarettels like you are, abe. might one of them lofts would be taken by a feller what is already a cigarettel fiend, abe. and fires can start by other causes, too; and then where would we be with our twenty thousand insurance and all them piece goods what we got it?" "but the building is fireproof, mawruss." "sure i know," morris replied; "fireproof buildings is like them gilt-edge, a number one concerns what you sell goods to for ten years, maybe, and then all of a sudden when you don't expect it one of 'em busts up on you. and that's the way it is with fireproof buildings, abe. they're fireproof so long as nobody has a fire in 'em." abe shrugged his shoulders and lit a fresh cigar. "all right, mawruss," abe said; "i'm satisfied. if you want to get some more insurance, go ahead. i got worry enough i should bother my head about trifles. a little money for insurance we can afford to spend it, mawruss, so long as we practically throw it in the streets otherwise." "otherwise?" morris repeated. "what do you mean we throw it away otherwise, abe?" "i mean that new style thirty-twenty-eight what you showed it me this morning, mawruss," abe replied. "for a popular-price line, mawruss, them new capes has got enough buttons and soutache on to 'em to sell for twenty dollars already instead of twelve-fifty." "that's where you talk without knowing nothing what you say, abe," morris replied. "that garment what you seen it is the winder sample what i made it up for louis feinholz's uptown store. louis give me a big order while you was in boston last week, a special line of capes what i got up for him to retail at eighteen-fifty. but he also wanted me to make up for him a winder sample, just one garment to hang in the winder what would look like them special capes, abe, y'understand, something like a diamond looks like a rhinestone. then, when a lady sees that cape in the winder, she wants to buy one just like it, so she goes into louis' store and they show her one just like it, only three inches shorter, a yard less goods into it, about half the soutache on to it and a dozen buttons short, abe; because that winder garment what we make for louis costs us ourselves twenty-five dollars, and louis retails the garment what he sells that lady for eighteen-fifty. and that's the way it goes." "that's a fine crook, that louis feinholz," abe cried virtuously. "i wonder that you would sell people like that goods at all, mawruss. that feller ain't no good, mawruss. i seen him go back three times on four hundred hands up at max geigerman's house last week, a dollar a hundred double-double. he's a gambler, too." "well, abe," morris answered, "a feller what runs a chance on auction pinochle ain't near the gambler like a feller what is willing to run a chance on his business burning out and don't carry no insurance, abe." "who is willing to run a chance, mawruss?" abe cried. "just to show you i ain't willing to run a chance i will go right down to j. blaustein and take out a ten-thousand-dollar policy, mawruss." morris colored slightly. "why should we give it blaustein all our business, abe?" he said. "that feller must got it a thousand customers to rudy feinholz's one." "whose one?" abe asked. "rudy feinholz's," said morris. "i thought i told it you that louis feinholz's nephew got an insurance business on lenox avenue, and i promised louis i would give the young feller a show." "you promised you would give him a show, mawruss?" abe repeated. "you promised louis you would give that kid nephew of his what used to run louis' books a show?" "that's what i said, abe," morris answered. "well, all i can say, mawruss," abe declared as he put on his hat, "is that i wouldn't insure it a pinch of snuff by that feller, mawruss. so if you take out any policies from him you can pay for 'em yourself, mawruss, because i won't." he favored morris with a final glare and banged the door behind him. two hours later when abe reëntered the show-room his face was flushed with triumph and he smoked one of j. blaustein's imported cigars. "you see, mawruss," he said, flourishing a folded policy, "when you deal with fellers like blaustein it goes quick. i got it here a ten-thousand-dollar insurance by a first-class, a number one company." morris seized the policy and spread it out on the table. for ten minutes he examined it closely and then handed it back in silence. "well, mawruss," abe inquired anxiously, "ain't that policy all right?" morris shook his head. "in the first place, abe," he said, "why should we insure it a loft on nineteenth street, new york, in the manchester, sheffield and lincolnshire insurance company, of manchester, england? are we english or are we american, abe?" this was a poser, and abe remained silent. "and then again, abe," morris went on, "supposing we should--maybe, i am only saying--have a fire, abe, then we must got to go all the way to manchester, england, already to collect our money. ain't it?" abe stared at his feet and made no reply, while morris again examined the folded policy. "just listen here to these here names of the people what run the company, abe," he said. "chairman, the rutt honn earl of warrington." abe looked up suddenly. "what kind of chinese talk is that, mawruss?" he said. "rutt honn?" "that's no chinese talk, abe," morris replied. "that's printed right here on the policy. that rutt honn earl of warrington is president of the board of directors, abe; and supposing we should maybe for example have a fire, abe, what show would we stand it with this here rutt honn earl of warrington?" abe grabbed the policy, which bore on its reverse side the list of directors headed by the name of that distinguished statesman and cabinet minister, the rt. hon. earl of warrington. "j. blaustein would fix it for us," abe replied. "j. blaustein," morris jeered. "i suppose, abe, him and the rutt honn earl of warrington drinks coffee together every afternoon when j. blaustein makes a trip to manchester, england. ain't it? no, abe, you are up against a poor proposition, and i hope you ain't paid for that policy, abe." "j. blaustein ain't in no hurry," abe said. "we never pay him inside of sixty days, anyway." "well, we ain't going to pay him for that policy inside of sixty days or six hundred and sixty days, neither, abe. we're going to fire that policy back on him, abe, because i got it here a policy for ten thousand dollars which rudy feinholz just brought it me, abe, and we are insured in a good american company, abe, the farmers and ranchers' insurance company, of arizona." abe shrugged his shoulders. "why should we insure it a stock of cloaks and suits by farmers and ranchers, mawruss?" he asked. "ain't it better we should insure our goods by farmers and ranchers as by somebody what we don't know what he does for a living, like the rutt honn earl of warrington?" morris retorted. "but when it comes right down to it, mawruss," abe said, "how are we better off, supposing we got to go all the way to arizona to collect our money?" "that's what i told it young feinholz," morris replied, "and he says supposing we should, so to speak, have a fire, he guarantees it we would collect our money every cent of it right here in new york. and anyhow, abe, any objections what you got to this here farmers and ranchers' policy wouldn't be no use anyhow." "no?" abe said. "why not?" "because i just sent it rudy feinholz a check for the premium," morris said, and walked out of the show-room before abe could enunciate all the profanity that rose to his lips. louis feinholz's order was shipped the following week, and with it went the cape for his show window. abe himself superintended the packing, for business was dull in the firm's show-room. a particularly warm march had given way to a frigid, rainy april, and now that the promise of an early spring had failed of fulfillment cancelations were coming in thick and fast. hence, abe took rather a pessimistic view of things. "i bet yer feinholz will have yet some kicks about them goods, mawruss," he said. "when i come down feinholz's street this morning, mawruss, it looked like johnstown after the flood. i bet yer feinholz ain't making enough in that store just now to pay electric-light bills." "i don't know about that, abe," said morris. "louis carries a mighty attractive line in his winders. them small fifth avenue stores ain't got nothing on him when it comes to the line of sample garments he carries in his show winders, abe." "sure i know," abe rejoined; "but he ain't got nothing on one of them piker stores when it comes right down to the stock he carries on the inside, mawruss. yes, mawruss, when i sell goods to a feller like feinholz, mawruss, i'm afraid for my life until i get my money." "well, you needn't be afraid for feinholz, abe," said morris, "because, in the first place, the feller has got a fine rating; and then again, he couldn't fire them goods back on us because, for the price, there ain't a better-made line in the country." "i hope you're right, mawruss," abe replied as he rang the bell for the freight elevator. "it would be a fine comeback if he should return them goods on us after we give his nephew the insurance we did." again he pressed the elevator bell. "what's the matter with that elevator, mawruss?" he said. "it takes a year to get a package on to the sidewalk." "that's on account of somebody moves in downstairs, abe," morris answered. "kaskel schwartz, what used to be foreman for pinkel brothers, him and moe feigel goes as partners together in skirts." "is that so?" abe said, jamming his thumb on the elevator bell. "i hope he don't got the cigarettel habit." at length the elevator arrived, and jake, the shipping clerk, carried out the brown paper parcels comprising feinholz's shipment. "if that's the last i seen of them garments," abe said as he returned to the show-room, "i'm a lucky man." "always you're beefing about something happening what ain't going to happen, abe," morris retorted. "just a few minutes since you hoped kaskel schwartz ain't going to be careless about cigarettels, and now you're imagining things about feinholz sending back the goods." "never mind, mawruss," abe replied; "in two days' time i shall breathe easier yet." for the rest of the day it rained in a steady, tropical downpour, and when abe came downtown the next morning the weather had moderated only slightly. "yes, mawruss," he said as he entered, "that's a fine weather for a cloak business, mawruss; and i bet yer, mawruss, if we was making cravenettes and umbrellas yet we would be having a long dry spell." he heaved a great sigh and approached the bookkeeper's desk, where morris had laid the morning mail. "did you hear from those suckers out in kansas city what made the kick about them london smokes, mawruss?" he asked. "sure i did," morris replied; "they says they decided to keep the goods." "i guess it left off raining in kansas city," abe commented. "them suckers only made that kick because they thought they couldn't sell nothing in wet weather. any other kicks, mawruss?" "yes," morris replied shortly. abe looked up. "louis feinholz!" he gasped. morris nodded and handed abe a letter. it read as follows: the longchamps l. feinholz, proprietor "everything for madame...." new york, april st, gents: your shipment of this date arrived and we must say we are surprised at the goods which you sent us. they are in no respect up to sample which we keep pending a settlement of any differences which we might have in respects to this matter. yours truly, l. feinholz. dic lf to rc "what does that sucker mean, mawruss?" abe asked. "we ain't sent him no sample of them capes, mawruss. we made 'em up according to his instructions, mawruss. ain't it?" morris nodded solemnly and again abe read the letter. this time he dashed the note to the floor and grew purple with rage. "why," he choked, "that sucker must mean it the winder sample." again morris nodded solemnly. "but a ten-year-old child could tell that them garments ain't like that winder sample, mawruss," abe went on. "sure i know," morris replied sadly, "and a district court judge could tell it, too. also, a jury by the city court could tell it, abe; and also, i rung up henry d. feldman and asked him if he could take a case for us against louis feinholz, and feldman says that feinholz is such an old client that he couldn't do it. and that's the way it goes." "but them capes was never intended to be the same like that sample, mawruss," abe cried. "that's what i told louis feinholz when i rung him up after i spoke to feldman, and feinholz says he got the goods and he got the sample, and that's all he knows about it. then i asked him if he didn't say it distinctly we should make up a first-class, expensive winder sample and ship it along with the order, and he says he don't remember it and that i should show him a writing." "ain't you got it a writing?" abe asked. "i ain't got no writing about the winder sample, abe," morris replied. "i only got it a writing about the order." "but ain't you got no witnesses, mawruss?" abe asked. "witnesses i got it plenty, abe," morris answered. "and so has feinholz got it witnesses. what's the use witnesses when all feinholz has got to do is to get henry d. feldman to make theayter acting over that sample? for you know as well as i do, abe, anyone would see that them garments is _doch_, anyway, a cheap imitation of that winder sample, abe." at this juncture jake, the shipping clerk, entered. "mr. potash," he said, "here comes margulies' harlem express with them packages what we shipped it the longchamps store yesterday. should i take 'em in?" abe jumped to his feet. "did margulies bring 'em up?" he asked. "he had 'em just now on the elevator," jake replied. "wait, i go with you," abe said. together they walked rapidly toward the freight elevator, which opened into the cutting-room, but before they reached the door a shrill outcry rose from the floor below. the east side slogan of woe, "oi gewalt," blended with women's shrieks, and at length came the cry: "fie-urr! fie-urr!" simultaneously miss cohen, the bookkeeper, lifted up her voice in strident despair while a great cloud of black smoke puffed from the elevator shaft, and the next moment abe, morris, jake and the half-dozen cutters were pushing their way downstairs, elbowed by a frenzied mob of operators, male and female. when they arrived at the ground floor the engines were clanging around the corner, and abe and morris ran across the street to the opposite sidewalk. suddenly an inarticulate cry escaped abe and he sank onto a convenient dry-goods box. "what's the trouble, abe?" morris asked. "are you sick?" "the policies!" abe croaked, and closed his eyes. when he opened them a minute later his partner grinned at him reassuringly. "i got 'em in my breast pocket, abe," morris said. "as soon as i seen the smoke i grabbed 'em, and i locked up the safe with the books inside." abe revived immediately. "that reminds me, mawruss," he said as he took a cigar from his waistcoat pocket: "what become of miss cohen?" twenty minutes later the fire was extinguished, and abe and morris returned to their loft. the first person to greet them was miss cohen, and, aside from a slight careening of her pompadour, she seemed none the worse for her dangerous experience. "mr. potash," she said in businesslike tones, "the longchamps store just rung up and says about them garments what they returned that it was all a mistake, and that they was all right and you should reship 'em right away." the show-room was flooded with sunlight and a mild spring breeze had almost dissipated the acrid smell of smoke. "what did i tell you, mawruss?" abe said. "feinholz is like them suckers in kansas city. he was scared he couldn't sell them capes in wet weather, and now it's cleared up fine he wants 'em bad, mawruss. i'll go and see what happened to 'em." he hustled off toward the rear of the loft while morris turned to miss cohen. "well, miss cohen," he said, "how did you make out by the fire just now?" miss cohen blushed and patted her pompadour. "oh, mr. perlmutter," she said, "i was scared stiff, and mr. margulies, the expressman, pretty near carried me up to the roof and we stays there till the fireman says we should come down." "and where's margulies?" morris asked. "he's gone back to the cutting-room," miss cohen replied. "when he seen the smoke coming up he shuts quick the iron door on the freight elevator and everything's all right in the cutting-room, only a little water by the elevator shaft." "and how about the packages from feinholz?" morris continued. but before miss cohen could reply abe burst into the show-room with a broad grin on his face. "that's a good joke on feinholz, mawruss," he said. "all the fire was in the elevator shaft and them garments what he returned it us is nothing but ashes." "but, abe," morris began, when the telephone bell trilled impatiently. abe took up the receiver. "hallo!" he said. "yes, this is potash. oh, hallo, feinholz!" "say, potash," feinholz said at the other end of the wire, "we got the store full of people here. couldn't you send up them capes right away?" abe put his hand over the mouthpiece of the 'phone. "it's feinholz," he said to morris. "he wants them capes right away. what shall i tell him?" "tell him nothing," morris cried. "the first thing you know you will say something to that feller, and he sues us yet for damages because we didn't deliver the goods." abe hesitated for a minute. "you talk to him," he said at length. morris seized the receiver from his partner. "hallo, feinholz," he yelled. "we don't want nothing to say to you at all. we are through with you. that's all. good-by." he hung up the receiver and turned to abe. "when i deal with a crook like feinholz," he said, "i'm afraid for my life." ten minutes later he went out to lunch and when he returned he brandished the early edition of an evening paper. "what you think it says here, abe?" he cried. "it says the fire downstairs was caused by an operator throwing a cigarettel in the clipping bin. ain't that a quincidence, abe?" "i bet yer that's a quincidence," abe replied. "a couple more of them quincidences, mawruss, and we got to pay double for our insurance. i only wish we would be finished collecting on our policies for this here quincidence, mawruss." morris shrugged his shoulders and was about to make a reassuring answer when the door opened and two men entered. one of them was samuel feder, vice-president of the kosciusko bank, and the other was louis feinholz, proprietor of the longchamps store. "well, abe," feder cried, "what's this i hear about the fire?" "come into the office, mr. feder," abe cried, while morris greeted feinholz. "morris will be through soon." "say, mawruss," feinholz said. "what's the matter with you boys? here i got to come downtown about them capes, and my whole store's full of people. why didn't you ship them capes back to me like i told you?" "look a-here, feinholz," morris exclaimed in tones sufficiently loud for feder to overhear, "what d'ye take us for, anyhow? greenhorns? do you think you can write us a dirty letter like that and then come down and get them capes just for the asking?" "ain't you getting touchy all of a sudden, mawruss?" feinholz cried excitedly. "you had no business to deliver them goods in such rotten weather. you know as well as i do that i couldn't use them goods till fine weather sets in, and now i want 'em, and i want 'em bad." "is that so?" morris replied. "why, i thought them garments was no good, feinholz. i thought them capes wasn't up to sample." "what are you talking about?" feinholz shouted. "them goods was all right and the sample's all right, too. all i want now is you should ship 'em right away. i can sell the lot this afternoon if you only get 'em up to my store in time." morris waved his hand deprecatingly. "s'enough, feinholz," he said; "you got as much show of getting them goods as though you never ordered 'em." "why not?" feinholz cried. "because them goods got burned up on our freight elevator this morning," morris replied. "what!" feinholz gasped. "that's what i said," morris concluded; "and if you excuse me i got some business to attend to." feinholz turned and almost staggered from the store, while morris joined his partner and sam feder in the firm's office. feder had overheard the entire conversation and greeted morris with a smile. "well, mawruss," he said, "it serves that sucker right. a feller what confesses right up and down that the goods was all right and then he fires them back at you just because the weather was rotten ought to be sued yet." "what do we care?" abe replied. "we got 'em insured, and so long as we get our money out of 'em we would rather not be bothered with him." "did you have any other damages, boys?" feder asked, with a solicitude engendered of a ten-thousand-dollar accommodation to potash & perlmutter's debit on the books of the kosciusko bank. "otherwise, everything is o. k.," morris replied cheerfully. together they conducted feder on a tour of their premises and, after he was quite reassured, they presented him with a good cigar and ushered him into the elevator. "i guess you put your foot in it with feinholz, mawruss," abe said after feder had departed. "how can we go to that kid nephew of his now and ask him to adjust the loss, mawruss?" morris arched his eyebrows and stared at his partner. "what's the matter with you, anyway, abe?" he asked. "ain't j. blaustein good enough for you? ain't j. blaustein always done it our insurance business up to now all o. k., abe? and now that we got it our very first fire, why should you want to throw blaustein down?" abe put on his hat thoroughly abashed. "i thought we got to get rudy feinholz to adjust it the loss," he said. "otherwise, i wouldn't of suggested it. but, anyway, i will go right down to blaustein and see what he says." morris jumped to his feet. "wait," he said; "i'll go with you." half an hour afterward abe and morris were seated in j. blaustein's office on pine street, recounting the details of the fire. "how many garments was there?" blaustein asked. "forty-eight, and we figured it up the loss at twelve-fifty apiece," morris explained. "that's what we billed 'em to feinholz for." blaustein frowned. "but look a-here, perlmutter," he said: "them insurance companies won't pay you what you were going to sell them garments for. they'll only pay you what they cost to make up. they'll figure it: so much cloth--say, fifty dollars; so much trimmings--say, forty dollars; so much labor--say, thirty dollars; and that's the way it goes." "but how could we prove that to the company, mr. blaustein?" abe protested. "there ain't enough left of them garments to show even what color they was." blaustein rose to his feet. "well, gentlemen," he said, "we'll discuss that later. the first thing we must do is to go up and see young feinholz. that farmers and ranchers' insurance company is a pretty close corporation. louis feinholz's brother out in arizona is the president, and they got such a board of directors that if they printed the names on the back of the policy it would look like the roster of an east side free-burial society. also, this here rudy feinholz what acted as your broker is also general agent, adjuster and office manager for the metropolitan district; and, taking it by and large, youse gentlemen is lucky you come to me instead of him to adjust this loss." rudy feinholz's insurance business occupied what had once been the front parlor of a high-stoop brown-stone residence. similarly the basement dining-room had been converted into a delicatessen store, and the smoked meats, pickles, cheese and spices with which it was stocked provided rather a strange atmosphere for the metropolitan agency of the farmers and ranchers' insurance company. moreover, the italian barber who rented the quondam back parlor was given to practicing on the mandolin; and when abe, morris and j. blaustein entered the metropolitan agency a very imperfect rendition of santa lucia came through the partition and made conversation difficult for the metropolitan agent. "what d'ye say if we all go round to the longchamps," he said, "and talk things over." "i'm agreeable," morris said, looking at his partner. "sure thing," blaustein replied. "that delicatessen store smell is so thick around here that i'm getting ptomaine poisoning." "but," abe protested, "maybe louis feinholz don't want us round there. we ain't on the best of terms with louis." "that's all right," rudy feinholz said. "i arranged with him to bring you round there. uncle louis is a heavy stockholder in the farmers and ranchers', and----" "s'enough!" morris cried. "i hear enough about the family history of this here farmers and ranchers. it wouldn't make no difference to me if your mother was the vice-president and your sister the secretary. all i want is we should settle this thing up." "well, come along, then," rudy cried, and the two brokers and their clients repaired to feinholz's store. abe and morris entered not without trepidation, but louis received them with unaffected amiability. "well, mawruss," he said, "that's too bad you got a fire in your place." "we can stand it," morris replied. "we was insured." feinholz rejoined: "yes, you was insured by your loft, but you wasn't insured by your freight elevator." "but by the rules of the fire insurance exchange," blaustein interrupted, "when a policy reads----" "what do we care about the fire insurance exchange?" feinholz broke in. "the farmers and ranchers' ain't members of the fire insurance exchange. we got a license to do business from the superintendent of insurance, and we don't give a cent for the fire insurance exchange. we insured it the loft, and the goods was burnt in the freight elevator." abe jumped to his feet. "do you mean," he cried, "that you ain't going to pay us nothing for our fire?" "that's what i mean," feinholz declared. morris turned to abe. "come, abe," he said, "we'll take feder's advice." "feder's advice?" feinholz repeated. "you mean that feller what i seen it in your store this morning?" "that's what i mean," morris replied. "feder says to us we should take it his lawyers, mcmaster, peddle & crane, and he would see to it that they wouldn't charge us much." feinholz smiled. "but the farmers and ranchers' insurance company got also a good lawyer," he said triumphantly. "maybe they have," morris admitted, "but we ain't got nothing to do with the farmers and ranchers' insurance company now. we take it feder's lawyers and sue you, feinholz. feder hears it all what you got to say, and he is willing to go on the stand and swear that you says that the goods was all right and the sample was all right. i guess when a banker and a gentleman like feder swears something you could get all the henry d. feldmans in the world and it wouldn't make no difference." feinholz passed his hand over his forehead and breathed hard. "maybe we could settle the matter, rudy," he said to his nephew, "if the other companies what they are insured by would contribute their share." "the other companies," morris announced, "is got nothing to do with it. you fired them goods back at us, and that's the reason why they got damaged. so, we wouldn't ask for a cent from the other companies." "then it is positively all off," cried feinholz as one of his saleswomen entered. she held a familiar garment in her hand, and in the dim light of feinholz's private office the buttons and soutache with which the cape was adorned sparkled like burnished gold. "mr. feinholz," she said, "a lady saw this on one of the racks and she wants to know how much it costs." morris eyed the cape for one hesitating moment, and then he sprang to his feet and snatched it from the astonished saleswoman. "you tell the customer," he said, "that this here cape ain't for sale." he rolled it into a tight bundle and thrust it under his coat. "now, feinholz," he declared calmly, "i got you just where i want you. feder is willing to go on the stand and swear that you said them goods was up to sample, and this here is the sample. any feller what knows anything about the cloak and suit trade could tell in a minute that these here samples costed twenty-five dollars to make up. forty-eight times twenty-five is twelve hundred dollars, and so sure as you are sitting there, feinholz, abe and me will commence suit against you for twelve hundred dollars the first thing to-morrow morning, unless we get it a certified check from the farmers and ranchers' insurance company for six hundred dollars, which is the price what you agreed to pay us for the garments." a moment later blaustein and abe followed him to the sidewalk. "well, blaustein," morris asked as they walked to the elevated railroad, on their way home, "what do you think of it all? huh?" "i think it's a good bluff you are making," blaustein replied, "but it may work. so, if you come right down to my office i'll fix up your proof of loss and send it up to him this afternoon." the next morning abe and morris reached their loft a good hour ahead of the letter-carrier, and when he entered they both made a grab for the mail which he handed them. morris won out, and as he shuffled the letters with the deftness of long pinochle experience he emitted a cry. "what is it?" abe asked. for answer morris tore open a long yellow envelope and flicked it up and down between his thumb and finger until a small piece of paper fluttered to the carpet. abe swooped down on it immediately and ran to the office, hugging it to his breast. it was a certified check for six hundred dollars. "well, abe," morris said as he filled out a deposit slip of the kosciusko bank, "there's one feller comes out of this deal pretty lucky, all considering." "who's that, mawruss?" abe asked. "the rutt honn earl of warrington," morris replied. chapter xiv abe potash entered the firm's private office one morning in mid-september and deliberately removed his hat and coat. as he did so he emitted groans calculated to melt the heart of the most hardened medical practitioner, but morris perlmutter remained entirely unmoved. "well, abe," he said, "you've been making a hog of yourself again. ain't it? sol klinger says he seen you over to the harlem winter garden, and i suppose you bought it such a fine supper you couldn't sleep a wink all night. what?" abe started to draw himself up to his full five feet three, but lumbago brooks no hauteur, and he subsided into the nearest chair with a low, expressive "oo-ee!" "that's a heart you got it, mawruss," he declared bitterly, "like a stone. i drunk it nothing but lithia water and some dry toast, which them suckers got the nerve to charge me fifty cents for." "well, why don't you seen it a doctor, abe?" morris said. "you could monkey with yourself a whole lifetime, abe, and it would never do you no good; whilst if you seen it a doctor, abe, he gives you a little pinch of powder, y'understand, and in five minutes you are a well man." abe sighed heavily. "it don't go so quick, mawruss," he replied. "i seen a doctor this morning and he says i am full from rheumatism. i dassen't do nothing, mawruss, i dassen't touch coffee or schnapps. i dassen't eat no meat but lamb chops and chicken." "i tasted worser things already as lamb chops and chicken, abe," morris retorted. "and the worstest thing of all, mawruss," abe concluded, "the doctor says he wouldn't be responsible for my life already if i go out on the road." "what?" morris exclaimed. in less than two weeks abe was due to leave on his western trip, and for the past few days morris had been in the throes of preparing the sample line. "this is a fine time for you to get sick, abe," he cried. "could i help it, mawruss?" abe protested. "you talk like i got the rheumatism to spite you, mawruss. believe me, mawruss, i ain't so stuck on staying in the store here with you, mawruss. i could prefer it a million times to be out on the road." he rose to his feet with another hollow groan. "but, anyway, mawruss, it won't help matters none if we sit around here all the morning. we got to get it somebody to sell our line, because even if, to hear you talk, the goods do sell themselves when _i_ go out with them, mawruss, we couldn't take no chances on some kid salesman. we got to get it a first-class a number one feller what wouldn't fool away his time." "well, why don't you put it an ad in the daily cloak and suit record, abe?" morris asked. "i put it in last night already," abe replied, "and i bet yer we get it a million answers by the first mail this afternoon." for the remainder of the morning morris busied himself with the sample line, while abe moved slowly about the show-room, well within the hearing of his partner, and moaned piteously at frequent intervals. every half-hour he cleared his throat with a rasping noise and, when he had secured morris' attention, ostentatiously swallowed a large gelatine capsule and rolled his eyes upward in what he conceived to be an expression of acute agony. at length morris could stand it no longer. "what are we running here, anyway, abe?" he asked. "a cloak and suit business or a hospital? if you are such a sick man, abe, why don't you go home?" "must i got to get your permission to be sick, mawruss?" abe asked. "couldn't i take it maybe a bit of medicine oncet in a while if i want to, mawruss?" he snorted indignantly, but further discussion was prevented by the entrance of the letter-carrier, and immediately abe and morris forgot their differences in an examination of the numerous letters that were the fruit of the advertisement. "don't let's waste no time over fellers we don't know nothing about, abe," morris suggested as he tossed one envelope into the waste-paper basket. "here's a feller called rutherford b. h. horowitz, what says he used to be a suit-buyer in indianapolis. ever hear of him, abe?" "we don't want no fellers what used to be buyers, mawruss," abe retorted. "what we want is fellers what is cloak and suit salesmen. ain't it?" "well, here's a feller by the name arthur katzen, abe," morris went on. "did y'ever hear of him, abe?" "sure i know him, mawruss," abe replied. "you know him, too, mawruss. that's a feller by the name osher katzenelenbogen, what used to work for us as buttonhole-maker when we was new beginners already. two years ago, i met that feller in the yates house and i says to him: 'hallo,' i says, 'ain't you osher katzenelenbogen?' and he says: 'excuse me,' he says, 'you got the advantage from me,' he says. 'my name is arthur katzen,' he says; and i assure you, mawruss, the business that feller was doing, mawruss, was the sole topic what everybody was talking about." morris waved his hand deprecatingly. "i seen lots of them topics in my time already, abe," he commented. "topics what went up with red fire already and come down like sticks. that's the way it goes in this business, abe. a feller gets a little streak of luck, and everybody goes to work and pats him on the back and tells him he's a great salesman." "but mind you, mawruss, arthur katzen was a good salesman then and is a good salesman to-day yet. the only trouble with him is that he's a gambler, mawruss. that feller would sooner play auction pinochle than eat, and that's the reason why he could never hold it a job." "why shouldn't he hold a job, abe?" morris asked. "if i would have a crackerjack drummer, for my part he could play the whole book of hoyle, from _klabbias_ to _stuss_, and it wouldn't affect me none so long as he sold the goods." "maybe you're right, mawruss," abe admitted. "but when a feller fools away his time at auction pinochle his business is bound to suffer." "well, then, here's a feller answers by the name mozart rabiner," morris continued. "did y'ever hear of him, abe?" "if you mean moe rabiner, mawruss," abe replied. "i never knew his name was mozart before, mawruss, but there was a feller by the name moe rabiner what used to work for sammet brothers, mawruss, and that feller could make the pianner fairly talk, mawruss. if he could only get a lady buyer up against a pianner, mawruss, he could sell her every time." morris tore up mozart's application. "so long as a feller fools away his time, abe," he said, "it don't make no difference either he plays auction pinochle or either he plays the pianner. ain't it?" he opened another envelope and scanned the enclosed missive. "this sounds good to me, abe," he said, and handed the letter to his partner. it read as follows: prospect ave., september / . messrs potash & perlmutter, _gents_:--seeing your ad in to days record and in reply would beg to state am a first class, womans outer garment salesman selling only to the high class trade. was for three years with one of the largest concerns in the trade traveling to the coast and making tooson, denver, shyenne and butte, selling the best houses in frisco, portland, seattle, los angles, fresno &c &c &c. _am all for business and can give a references._ at present am unnattached but expect quick action as am neggotiating with one of the largest speciality houses in the trade. _ask no favors of nobody but results will show._ yours truly marks pasinsky. "by jimminy!" abe cried after he had finished reading the letter. "that's the feller we want to hire it, mawruss. let's write him to call." it would hardly be violating marks pasinsky's confidence to disclose that he held himself to be a forceful man. he never spoke save in italics, and when he shook hands with anyone the recipient of the honor felt it for the rest of the day. abe watched morris undergo the ordeal and plunged his hands in his trousers' pockets. "and this is mr. potash," pasinsky cried, releasing his grip on morris and extending his hand toward abe. "how d'ye do?" abe said without removing his hands. "i think i seen you oncet before already in mandleberger brothers & co., in chicago." "i presume you did," marks pasinsky replied. "ed mandleberger and me married cousins. that is to say, my wife's mother's sister is a sister-in-law to a brother of ed mandleberger's wife's mother." "huh, huh," abe murmured. "do you know simon kuhner, buyer for their cloak department?" marks pasinsky sat down and fixed abe with an incredulous smile. "a question!" he exclaimed. "do i know him? every afternoon, when i am in chicago, simon and me drinks coffee together." abe and morris looked at each other with glances of mixed wonder and delight. "i'll tell you another feller i'm intimate with, too," he said. "do you know charles i. fichter, cloak buyer for gardner, baum & miller, in seattle?" abe nodded. he had been vainly trying to sell fichter a bill of goods since . "well, charlie and me was delegates to the national grand lodge of the independent order mattai aaron, and i nominated charlie for grand scribe. the way it come about was this, if you'd care to hear about it." "that's all right," morris interrupted. "we take your word for it. the point is, could you sell it him a big bill of goods, maybe?" marks pasinsky leaned back in his chair and laughed uproariously. "why, mr. perlmutter," he said, all out of breath from his mirth, "that feller is actually putting his job in danger because he's holding off in his fall buying until i get to seattle. fichter wouldn't buy not a dollar's worth of goods from nobody else but me, not if you was to make him a present of them for nothing." he gave many more instances of his friendship with cloak and suit buyers. for example, it appeared that he knew rudolph rosenwater, buyer for feigenson & schiffer, of san francisco, to the extent of an anecdote containing a long, intimate dialogue wherein rosenwater commenced all his speeches with: "well, markie." "and so i says to him," pasinsky concluded, "'rudie, you are all right,' i says, 'but you can't con me.'" he looked from abe to morris and beamed with satisfaction. they were in a condition of partial hypnotism, which became complete after pasinsky had concluded a ten-minutes' discourse on cloak and suit affairs. he spoke with a fluency and emphasis that left abe and morris literally gasping like landed fish, although, to be sure, the manner of his discourse far outshone the matter. but his auditors were much too dazed to be critical. they were cognizant of only one circumstance: if this huge personage with his wonderful magnetism and address couldn't sell goods, nobody could. pasinsky rose to his feet. he was six feet in height, and weighed over two hundred pounds. "well, gentlemen," he said, towering over his proposed employers, "think it over and see if you want me. i'll be back at noon." "hold on a minute," abe cried. "you ain't told us nothing about who you worked for last. what were all them references you was telling us about?" pasinsky regarded abe with a smile of amusement. "i'll tell you, mr. potash, it's like this," he explained. "of course you want to know who i worked for and all about it." abe nodded. "but the way i feel about it," marks pasinsky went on, "is that if you advance my expenses for two weeks, understand me, and i go out with your sample line, understand me, if you don't owe me a thousand dollars commissions at the end of that time, then i don't want to work for you at all." morris' jaw dropped and he wiped beads of perspiration from his forehead. "but who did you sell goods for?" abe insisted. marks pasinsky bent down and placed his hand on abe's shoulder. "b. gans," he whispered. "let me in on this, too, abe," morris exclaimed. "he says he worked for b. gans," abe replied. "that's an a number one concern, abe," morris said. "a _a_ number one," pasinsky corrected. "b. gans ain't got a garment in his entire line that retails for less than a hundred dollars." "well, we ain't so tony as all that," morris commented. "we got it one or two garments, mr. pasinsky--just one or two, y'understand--which retails for ninety-nine dollars and ninety-eight cents, y'understand. so, naturally, you couldn't expect to sell the same class of trade for us as you sold it for b. gans." "naturally," pasinsky agreed loftily, "but when a salesman is a salesman, mr. perlmutter, he ain't content to sell a line of goods which sells themselves, so to speak, like b. gans' line. he wants to handle such a line like you got it, mr. perlmutter, which is got to be pushed and pushed good and plenty. if i wouldn't handle an inferior line oncet in a while, mr. perlmutter, i would quick get out of practice." morris snorted. "if our line don't suit you, mr. pasinsky," he began, when abe interrupted with a wave of his hand. "pasinsky is right, mawruss," he said. "you always got it an idee you made up a line of goods what pratically sold themselves, and i always told you differencely. you wouldn't mind it if i went around to see b. gans, mr. pasinsky." pasinsky stared superciliously at abe. "go as far as you like," he said. "gans wouldn't tell you nothing but good of me. but if i would work for you one week, mr. potash, you would know that with me recommendations is nix and results everything." he blew his nose like a challenge and clapped his silk hat on his flowing black curls. then he bowed to morris, and the next moment the elevator door clanged behind him. b. gans guided himself by the maxim: "in business you couldn't trust nobody to do nothing," and albeit he employed over a hundred workmen he gave practical demonstrations of their duties to all of them. thus, on the last of the month he made out statements in the office, and when the shipping department was busy he helped tie up packages. occasionally he would be found wielding a pressing iron, and when abe potash entered to inquire about pasinsky's qualifications b. gans had just smashed his thumb in the process of showing a shipping clerk precisely how a packing-case ought to be nailed. "what's the matter, gans?" abe asked. "couldn't you afford it to hire shipping clerks no more?" "i want to tell you something, potash," gans replied. "jay vanderbilt ain't got money enough to hire it a good shipping clerk, because for the simple reason there ain't no good shipping clerks. a shipping clerk ain't no good, otherwise he wouldn't be a shipping clerk." "how about drummers?" abe asked. "i ain't come to ask you about shipping clerks, gans; i come to ask you about a drummer." "what should you ask me about drummers for, potash?" gans replied. "you know as well as i do what drummers is, potash. drummers is bluffs. i wouldn't give a pinch of snuff for the best drummers living. the way drummers figure it out nowadays, potash, there ain't no more money in commissions. all the money is in the expense account." abe laughed. "i guess you got a tale of woe to tell about designers and models, too, gans," he said; "but with me, gans, so long as a salesman could sell goods i don't take it so particular when it comes right down to the expense account." "oh, if they sell goods, potash," gans agreed, "then that's something else again. but the way business is to-day, potash, salesmen don't sell goods no more. former times a salesman wasn't considered a salesman unless he could sell a customer goods what the customer didn't want; but nowadays it don't make no difference what kind of salesman you hire it, potash, the goods is got to sell themselves, otherwise the salesman can't do no business. ain't it?" "but take a salesman like marks pasinsky, for instance," abe said. "there's a feller what can sell goods. ain't it?" b. gans looked up sharply. "did marks pasinsky send you here?" he asked. "well, he give you as a reference," abe replied. "all right," b. gans continued. "you tell marks pasinsky from me that i says he's a good salesman and that why he left me was by mutual consent." "sure," abe said, "but i wanted to ask you more about pasinsky. you see, pasinsky wants to come to work by us as salesman, and i want to find out a few things about him first." "well, i'm just telling you, ain't i?" gans replied. "i said marks pasinsky was a good salesman and the reason why he left me was by mutual consent; and you tell pasinsky that that's what i said it, and if you'll excuse me i got business to attend to." he turned away and fairly ran toward the rear of the loft, while abe, now thoroughly mystified, returned to his place of business. "well, abe," morris cried as his partner entered. "what for a reference did you get it from b. gans?" "the reference is all right, mawruss," abe replied. "b. gans says that pasinsky is a good salesman and that the reason he left was by mutual consent." "mutual consent?" morris exclaimed. "what kind of reasons is that for firing a feller?" "gans didn't fire him, mawruss," abe said. "he left by mutual consent." "i know, abe," morris rejoined, "but when a feller quits by mutual consent you know as well as i do, abe, what that means. it means that if i should say to jake, the shipping clerk, 'jake, you are a rotten shipping clerk and i don't want you no more, and if you don't get right out of here i will kick you out,' and then jake says to me, 'in that case you could take your dirty job and give it to some poor sucker what wants it more as i do,' then jake quits by mutual consent. ain't it?" abe stared indignantly at his partner. "i'm surprised to hear you you should talk that way, mawruss, about a decent, respectable young feller what works so hard like jake does," he said. "that only goes to show what a judge you are. if you couldn't tell it a good shipping clerk when you see one, how should you know anything about salesmen? b. gans says that pasinsky is a good salesman, mawruss, and you can do what you like about it; i'm going to hire him, mawruss, when he comes back here." "go ahead, abe," morris retorted. "only, if things shouldn't turn out o. k. you shouldn't blame me. that's all." "i wouldn't blame you, mawruss," abe said. "all i would blame you is if you wouldn't have our sample line in good shape by next week, because i want pasinsky to leave here by monday sure." "don't you worry about them samples, abe," morris cried. "them samples is good enough to sell themselves; and the way i figure it out, they got to sell themselves, abe, because i don't believe pasinsky could sell nothing to nobody." "you don't believe nothing, mawruss," abe concluded as he made for the cutting-room; "you're a regular amethyst." "with a feller like kuhner," marks pasinsky declared on the following monday, "you couldn't be a cheap skate, mr. potash." "i always sold it kuhner, too," abe replied; "but i never spent it so much as three hundred dollars in one week in chicago." "sure, i know," pasinsky agreed, "but how much did you sell kuhner? a thousand or two thousand at the outside. with me, mr. potash, i wouldn't bother myself to stop off in chicago at all if i couldn't land at least a five-thousand-dollar order from simon kuhner, of mandleberger brothers & co., and we will say four thousand with chester prosnauer, of the arcade mercantile company." it lacked half an hour of marks pasinsky's train-time, and, in addition, abe had grown a little weary of his parting instructions to his newly-hired salesman. indeed, the interview had lasted all the forenoon, and it would have been difficult to decide who was doing the instructing. "s'enough," abe cried. "let's make an end. i'll speak to my partner about it, and if he says it's all right i'm agreeable." he repaired to the cutting-room, where morris chafed at the delay in pasinsky's departure. "ain't that feller gone yet, abe?" he asked. "i'm just giving him a few last advices," abe replied. "well, i hope you're more successful as i was, abe," morris rejoined. "that feller's got so much to say for himself i couldn't get a word in sideways." abe nodded. "he's a good talker," he said, "only he's too ambitious, mawruss." "he shouldn't get ambitious around me, abe," morris retorted, "because i wouldn't stand for it. what's he getting ambitious with you about?" "well, he wants it three hundred dollars for expenses one week in chicago already," abe answered. "what!" morris cried. "he says he got to do some tall entertaining, mawruss," abe went on, "because he expects to sell simon kuhner a five-thousand-dollars bill of goods, and the arcade mercantile company also five thousand." "say, looky here, abe: i want to tell you something," morris broke in. "of course, this ain't my affair nor nothing, because you got the rheumatism and it's your funeral. also, i am only a partner here, y'understand, and what i says goes for nix. but the way it looks to me now, abe, if this here pasinsky sells all the goods he talks about, abe, we will got to have four times more capital as we are working with now. and if he spends it three hundred dollars in every town he makes we wouldn't have no capital left at all. and that's the way it goes." he turned and strode angrily away, while abe went back to the show-room. "well, pasinsky," he said, "i decided i would take a chance and advance you the three hundred; but you got to do the business, pasinsky, otherwise it is all off." pasinsky nodded and tucked away the yellowbacks which abe gave him. "all you've got to do, mr. potash, is to fill the orders," he said, extending his hand to abe, "and i will do the rest. and now good-by and good luck to you." he squeezed abe's hand until it was completely numb, and with a parting nod to miss cohen, the bookkeeper, he started on his journey for the west. "you would thought, mawruss," abe said afterward, "that he was staying home and that it was me what goes away on the trip." "i wish you was, abe," morris replied fervently. "i ain't got no confidence in that feller at all." "i wouldn't knock the feller until i seen what he could do, mawruss," abe said. "he promised me we should hear from him so soon as he gets there." four days later the expected mail arrived. abe received the letter from the carrier and burst it open with his thumb. then he drew forth the contents of the envelope and shook the folded sheet, but no order slip fell out. he sighed heavily and perused the letter, which read as follows: chicago, ill., sep. ' . mess potash & perlmutter _gents_:--arrived here this a m and things look very promising. am informed by everybody that business is good on the coast and prospects of big orders also very promising. sales have been slow here on a/c weather is very hot. miss schimpfer asst buyer millinary dept mandleberger bros & co says things look very promising and expects to do a big fall business. was two hours late getting in to chicago on a/c freight wreck and missed seeing kuhner his sister's daughter gets married and kuhner goes to the wedding. will see kuhner to morrow a m and let you know results. have appointment with chester prosnauer to morrow a m and things look very promising there. will write you to morrow. regards to mr. perlmutter. hoping things is all right in the store, i am, marks pasinsky. abe finished reading the letter and handed it in silence to morris, who examined it closely. "that's a very promising letter, abe," he said. "i'd like to know what that feller done all day in chicago. i bet yer that assistant millinery buyer eats a good lunch on us, abe, if she didn't also see it a theayter on us, too. what does he think he's selling, anyway, abe, millinery or cloaks?" "give the feller a show, mawruss," abe replied. "he ain't been in chicago forty-eight hours yet. we'll wait till we get it another letter from him, mawruss, before we start to kick." another day elapsed, but no further epistle came from marks pasinsky, and when the last mail arrived without any word from chicago morris grew worried. "not even a weather report, abe," he said. "if he couldn't sell no goods, abe, at least he could write us a letter." "maybe he's too busy, mawruss," abe suggested. "busy taking assistant millinery buyers to lunch, abe," morris replied. "the way that feller acts, abe, he ain't no stranger to auction pinochle, neither, i bet yer." abe put on his hat and coat preparatory to going home. "what's the use knocking him yet a while, mawruss?" he said. "a different tune you will sing it when we get a couple of orders from him to-morrow morning." but the next forenoon's mail was barren of result, and when abe went out to lunch that day he had little appetite for his food. accordingly he sought an enameled-brick dairy restaurant, and he was midway in the consumption of a bowl of milk toast when leon sammet, senior partner of sammet brothers, entered. "well, abe," he said, "do you got to diet, too?" "_gott sei dank_, it ain't so bad as all that, leon," abe replied. "no, leon, i ain't going to die just yet a while, although that's a terrible sickness, the rheumatism. the doctor says i could only eat it certain things like chicken and chops and milk toast." "well, you wouldn't starve, anyhow," leon commented. "no, i wouldn't starve," abe admitted, "but i also couldn't go out on the road, neither. the doctor wouldn't let me, so we got to hire a feller to take care of our western trade. i guess he's a pretty good salesman, too. his name is marks pasinsky. do you know him?" "sure i know him," leon sammet replied. "he used to work by b. gans, and he's a very close friend of a feller what used to work for us by the name mozart rabiner." "you mean that musical feller?" abe said. "that's the one," leon answered. "i bet yer he was musical. that feller got the artistic temperature all right, abe. he didn't give a damn how much of our money he spent it. every town he makes he got to have a pianner sent up to the hotel. costs us every time three dollars for the pianner and five dollars for trucking. we got it a decent salesman now, abe. we hired him a couple of weeks since." "what's his name?" abe asked. "arthur katzen," leon sammet replied. "he had a big week last week in buffalo, erie, cleveland and detroit. he's in chicago this week." "is that so?" abe commented. "he turned us in a fine order to-day," leon continued, "from simon kuhner, of mandleberger brothers & co." "what?" abe gasped. "sure," sammet went on, "and the funny thing about it is that kuhner never bought our line before, and i guess he wouldn't of bought it now, but this here arthur katzen, abe, he is sure a wonder. that feller actually booked a five-thousand-dollar order from sample garments which didn't belong to our line at all. they're some samples which i understand kuhner had made up already." "that's something what i never heard it before," abe exclaimed. "me neither," leon said; "but kuhner gives him the privilege to send us the garments here, and we are to make up sample garments of our own so soon as we can copy the styles; and after we ship our samples and kuhner's samples back to kuhner, kuhner sends us a confirmation. we expect kuhner will ship us his samples to-morrow." abe rose wearily from his seat. "well, leon," he concluded, "you certainly got it more luck with your salesman as we got it with ours. so far he ain't sent us a single, solitary order." he passed down the aisle to the cashier's desk and had almost reached the door when a restraining hand plucked at his coat tails. "hallo, abe!" a voice cried. it was sol klinger, whose manner of eating crullers and coffee received and merited the unfavorable attention of everybody seated at his table. "sit down and have a cup of coffee." "i had it my lunch already," abe replied. "sit down and have a cup of coffee, anyhow," sol klinger coaxed. "i wouldn't have no coffee," abe said as he took the vacant chair next to sol. "i'll have a cup of chocolate. to a man in my conditions, sol, coffee is poison already." "why, what's the matter, abe?" sol asked. "i'm a sick feller, sol," abe went on. "the rheumatism i got it all over my body. i assure you i couldn't go out on the road this fall. i had to hire it a salesman." "is that so?" sol klinger replied. "well, we had to hire it a new salesman, too--a young feller by the name moe rabiner. do you know him?" "i heard about him already," abe said. "how is he doing?" "well, in buffalo, last week, he ain't done hardly nothing," said sol; "but he's in chicago this week and he done a little better. he sent us a nice order this morning, i bet yer. four thousand dollars from the arcade mercantile company." abe was swallowing a huge mouthful of cocoa, and when sol vouchsafed this last piece of information the cocoa found its way to abe's pharynx, whence it was violently ejected into the face of a mild-mannered errand-boy sitting opposite. the errand-boy wiped his face while sol slapped abe on the back. "what's the matter, abe?" sol asked solicitously. "do you got bronchitis, too, as well as rheumatism?" "go ahead, sol," abe gasped. "tell me about this here order." "there ain't much to tell, abe," sol went on, "except that this here rabiner does something i never heard about before in all my experience in the cloak and suit business." "no?" abe croaked. "what was that?" "why, this here rabiner gets an order from prosnauer, of the arcade mercantile company, for garments what we ain't got in our line at all," sol klinger explained; "and prosnauer furnishes us the sample garments, which we are to return to him just so soon as we can copy them, and then----" "s'enough," abe cried. "i heard enough, sol. don't rub it in." "why, what do you mean, abe?" sol asked. "i mean i got it a salesman in chicago, sol," abe went on, "what ain't sent us so much as a smell of an order. i guess there's only one thing for me to do, sol, and that's to go myself to chicago and see what he's up to." sol looked shocked. "don't you do it, abe," he said. "klein got a brother-in-law what got the rheumatism like you got it, abe, and the feller insisted on going to boston. the railroad trip finished him, i bet yer." "did he die?" abe asked. "well, no, he didn't die exactly," klinger replied; "but on the train the rheumatism went to his head, and that poor, sick young feller took a whole theayter troupe into the café car and blows 'em to tchampanyer wine yet. two hundred dollars it costed him." "that's all right, sol," abe replied. "i could stand it if it stood me in three hundred dollars, so long as i could stop marks pasinsky making another town." he rose to his feet with surprising alacrity for a rheumatic patient, and returned to his office, where no communication had been received from marks pasinsky. "that settles it, mawruss," abe said as he jammed his hat farther down on his head. "where are you going now?" morris asked. "i'm going home to pack my grip," abe announced, "and i'll get that six o'clock train to chicago, sure." "but, abe," morris protested, "i thought the doctor says if you went out on the road he wouldn't be responsible for you." "i know he did," abe concluded as he passed out, "but who will be responsible for marks pasinsky, mawruss?" when abe reached chicago the following afternoon he repaired at once to the hotel at which marks pasinsky was staying. "mr. pasinsky ain't in his room. what?" he said to the clerk. "mr. pasinsky went out about one o'clock and hasn't been back since," the clerk replied as he handed abe over to a bell-boy. fifteen minutes later abe descended from his room with the marks of travel almost effaced, and again inquired for marks pasinsky. "he ain't been back since, mr. potash," said the clerk. "he didn't go out with nobody. no?" abe asked. "i think he went out with a short, dark gentleman," the clerk answered. abe pondered for a moment. simon kuhner stood full six feet tall and was a decided blond, while chester prosnauer, whom he knew by sight only, was as large as marks pasinsky himself. "who could that be, i wonder?" abe murmured. "it was a gentleman staying over at the altringham," the clerk said. "then it couldn't be them," abe concluded. "if pasinsky comes back you should please tell him to wait. i will be back here at six, sure." he made immediately for the business premises of mandleberger brothers & co., where he found simon kuhner hard at work in his office. "hallo, abe!" kuhner cried as abe entered. "they told me you was a fit subject for crutches when i asked for you the other day." "who told you?" abe said without further preface. "marks pasinsky?" "marks pasinsky?" kuhner repeated. "why, no. he didn't mention your name, abe. do you know marks pasinsky, too?" "do i know him, too?" abe almost shrieked. "a question! ain't he selling goods for me?" "is he?" kuhner said. "is he!" abe cried. "why, you don't mean to tell me that feller ain't been in here yet?" "sure he was in here," kuhner replied, "but he didn't say nothing about selling goods for you. in fact, he got a fine order from me, abe, for a concern which i never done business with before. people by the name sammet brothers. what's the matter, abe? are you sick?" abe gurgled once or twice and clutched at his collar. "did you got the samples here what he shows you?" he managed to gasp. "why, abe, what's troubling you?" kuhner said. "a sick man like you shouldn't be attending to business at all." "never mind me," abe cried. "what about them samples, kuhner?" "he left some samples with me, and i was to ship 'em to sammet brothers." "did you ship 'em yet?" abe exclaimed. "why, what's the matter, abe?" kuhner commenced soothingly. "the matter is," abe shouted, "them samples is my samples, and there's some monkey business here." "monkey business!" kuhner said. "what sort of monkey business?" "i don't know," abe replied, "but i'm going to find out right away. promise me you wouldn't ship them samples till i come back." "sure i will promise you, abe," kuhner declared. "when will you be back?" "to-morrow morning some time," abe concluded as he rose to leave. "i got to see a lawyer and make this here feller pasinsky arrested." "don't do nothing rash, abe," kuhner advised. "i won't do nothing rash," abe promised. "i'll kill him, that's what i'll do." he took the stairs three at a jump and fairly ran to the dry-goods store of the arcade mercantile company. "mr. prosnauer," he cried as he burst into prosnauer's office in the cloak department, "my name is mr. potash, of potash & perlmutter, from new york. did you seen it my salesman, marks pasinsky?" "sit down, mr. potash," prosnauer said, "and don't excite yourself." "i ain't exciting myself," abe exclaimed. "i don't got to excite myself, mr. prosnauer. i am excited enough already when i think to myself that that lowlife pasinsky takes my samples out of my store and comes here with my money and gets an order from you for four thousand dollars for klinger & klein." "not so fast, mr. potash," prosnauer began. "i've known marks pasinsky for a number of years. he and i play auction pinochle together every saturday night when he is in chicago, and----" "auction pinochle!" abe interrupted, throwing up his hands. "_das fehlt nur noch_!" "as i was saying, mr. potash," prosnauer went on with a withering glance at abe, "those samples are outside, and pasinsky has asked me to ship them to klinger & klein, and----" "ship 'em!" abe cried. "you shouldn't ship nothing. them samples belongs to me." "how do i know that?" prosnauer asked. "is your name engraved on 'em?" "all right," abe cried, jumping to his feet. "all right, mr. prosnauer. if you are going to make jokes with me i got nothing to say, but i give you warning that you should do absolutely nothing with them samples till i send a sheriff round for them." "now you're making threats," said prosnauer. "with people like marks pasinsky," abe retorted as he paused at the door, "i don't got to make no threats. i know who i am dealing with, mr. prosnauer, and so, instead i should make threats i go right away and see a lawyer, and he will deliver the goods. that's all i got to say." "hold on there, mr. potash," prosnauer cried. "it ain't necessary for you to see a lawyer. prove to me that you own the samples and you can have 'em." abe hesitated. "well," he said, "if you would hold it them samples till to-morrow noon, mr. prosnauer, i'll give you all the proofs you want." "very well," prosnauer said, "i'll hold them. when will you be back?" "before twelve to-morrow," abe replied. "believe me, mr. prosnauer, i ain't so stuck on paying lawyers. if i can settle this thing up nice and friendly i would do so." they shook hands, and abe retraced his steps to the hotel, where he again inquired for marks pasinsky. "he hasn't come back yet, mr. potash," the clerk said, and abe retired to the writing-room and smoked a cigar by way of a sedative. from six o'clock that evening until midnight he smoked so many sedative cigars and made so many fruitless inquiries at the desk for marks pasinsky, that his own nerves as well as the night clerk's were completely shattered. before abe retired he paid a farewell visit to the desk, and both he and the clerk gave vent to their emotions in a great deal of spirited profanity. there was no rest for abe that night, and when at length he fell asleep it was almost daylight. he awoke at nine and, dressing himself fireman fashion, he hurried to the desk. "what time did marks pasinsky come in?" he asked the clerk. "why, mr. pasinsky didn't come in at all," the clerk replied. abe pushed his hat back from his forehead. "say, young feller," he said, "do you got the gall to tell me that marks pasinsky ain't come back since he went over to the altringham with that short, dark feller yesterday afternoon?" "call me a liar, why don't you?" the clerk retorted. "you're a fresh young feller!" abe exclaimed. "couldn't you answer a civil question?" "ah, don't be worrying me with your troubles!" the clerk snarled. "go over to the altringham yourself, if you think i'm stringing you." abe turned without another word and hustled over to the altringham. "do you know a feller by the name marks pasinsky?" he asked the clerk. "is he a guest of the house?" the clerk said. "he's a big feller with a stovepipe hat and curly hair," abe replied, "and he came in here yesterday afternoon with a short, dark feller what is stopping here. this here pasinsky is stopping where i am, but he ain't showed up all night, and i guess he's stayed here with that short, dark feller." the clerk touched a bell. "front," he said, "show this gentleman up to eighty-nine." "eighty-nine?" abe cried. "who's up in eighty-nine?" [illustration: you're a fresh young feller!] "tall, curly-haired gentleman came in here yesterday afternoon with a short, dark gentleman name of katzen and----" abe clapped his hand to his forehead. "arthur katzen!" he cried. the clerk nodded. "short, dark feller," abe murmured as he followed the bell-boy. "why didn't i think of arthur katzen before?" he entered the elevator, feeling as though he were walking in his sleep; nor did the jolt with which he was shot up to the eighth floor awaken him. his conductor led him down the corridor and was about to knock at room eighty-nine when abe seized him by the arm. "hold on," abe whispered. "the door is open." they tiptoed up to the half-open door and, holding himself well within the shadow of the corridor, abe peeped in. it was ten o'clock of a sunny fall day, but the dark shades of room eighty-nine were drawn and the electric lights were blazing away as though it were still midnight. beneath the lights was a small, oblong table at which sat three men, and in front of each of them stood a small pile of chips. marks pasinsky was dealing. "a-ah, katzen, you ruined that hand," marks pasinsky said as he flipped out the cards three at a time. "why didn't you lead it out the ace of _schüppe_ right at the start? what did you expect to do with it? eat it?" katzen nodded sleepily. "the way i feel now, pasinsky, i could eat most anything," he retorted. "i could eat a round trip, if i had a cup of coffee with it, so hungry i am. let's have some supper." "supper!" pasinsky cried. "what do you want supper for? the game is young yet." "shall i tell you something?" the third hand--a stranger to abe--said. "you both played that hand like _strohschneiders_. pasinsky sits there with two nines of trump in his hand and don't lead 'em through me. you could have beat me by a million very easy." he waved his hand with the palm outward and flapped his four fingers derisively. "you call yourself a pinochle player!" he jeered, and fell to twisting his huge red mustache with his fingers. abe nodded an involuntary approval, and then as silently as they had arrived he and the bell-boy retreated toward the elevator shaft. "dem guys is card fiends all right," the bell-boy commented. "dey started in at five o'clock last night." as they waited for the elevator the strains of a piano came from the floor below. "what's that?" abe exclaimed. "dat's anudder member of de gang," the bell-boy replied. "dat's mr. rabiner. he quit a big loser about one o'clock dis mornin'." abe handed his informant a dime. "take me to his room," he said. the bell-boy led the way to the seventh floor and conducted abe to the door of rabiner's room. "dat's a pretty said spiel dat guy is tearin' off," he commented. "it makes me tink of a dago funeral." abe nodded. he knocked at the door, and liszt's transcription of the _liebestod_ ceased immediately. "well?" mozart rabiner cried and, for answer, abe opened the door. "hallo, moe!" he said. "you don't know me. what? i'm abe potash." "oh, hello, potash!" rabiner said, rising from the piano stool. "that's some pretty mournful music you was giving us, moe," abe went on. "sounds like business was poor already. ain't you working no more?" "i am and i ain't," mozart replied. "i'm supposed to be selling goods for klinger & klein, but since i only sold it one bill in two weeks i ain't got much hopes that i'll get enough more money out of 'em to move me out of town." "what do you make next, moe?" abe asked. "st. paul and minneapolis," mozart replied. abe handed him a large cigar and, lighting the mate to it, puffed away complacently. "that was a pretty good order you got it from prosnauer which sol klinger tells me about," he said. mozart nodded sadly. "looky here, moe," abe went on, "how much money do you need to move you?" mozart lifted his eyebrows and shrugged hopelessly. "more as you would lend me, potash," he said. "so what's the use talking about it?" "well, i was going to say," abe continued, "if it was something what you might call within reason, moe, i might advance it if----" "if what?" moe inquired. "if you would tell me the insides of just how you got it that order from prosnauer." mozart gave a deprecatory wave of his right hand. "you don't got to bribe me to tell you that, potash," he said, "because i ain't got no concern in that order no longer. i give up my commission there to a feller by the name ignatz kresnick." "a white-faced feller with a big red mustache?" abe asked. "that's him," mozart replied. "the luck that feller kresnick got it is something you wouldn't believe at all. he could fall down a sewer manhole and come up in a dress suit and a clean shave already. he cleans me out last night two hundred dollars and the commission on that prosnauer order." "but you didn't get that order in the first place, moe," abe said. "marks pasinsky got the order." "sure, i know," mozart replied, "but he got set back a couple of four hundred hands last tuesday night with katzen and me in the game, and the way he settles up his losing is that katzen and me should take his commissions on a couple of orders which he says he is going to get from simon kuhner, of mandleberger brothers & co., and chester prosnauer, of the arcade mercantile company. sure enough, he gets the orders from both of 'em the very next morning. that's the kind of salesman he is." "but why didn't pasinsky send us along the orders, moe," abe protested, "and we could fix up about the commissions later? why should he sent it the orders to klinger & klein and sammet brothers?" "well, you see, business was poor with me and i wanted to make good, being as this was my first trip with the concern; so, as a favor to me pasinsky turns over the whole order to me," mozart explained; "and then, when katzen sees that, he wants the other order sent to his concern, too." "but this was pasinsky's first trip by us, also," abe cried. "i know it," mozart said, "but pasinsky says that he didn't care, because a good salesman like him could always find it an opening somewhere, and anyway he wasn't stuck on working for a piker concern like yours." abe rose with his eyes ablaze. "that settles it," he said, jamming his hat on his head. "i'm going for a policeman. i'll teach that sucker to steal my orders!" he bounced out of the room and, as he rang for the elevator, isolde's lament once more issued from beneath. mozart rabiner's fingers: _mild und leise wie er lächelt wie das auge hold er öffnet_ while from the floor above came the full, round tones of the salesman, marks pasinsky. "sixty queens," he said. abe ran out of the hotel lobby straight into the arms of a short, stout person. "excuse me," abe exclaimed. "i'll excuse you, potash," said the short, stout person, "but i wouldn't run like that if i got it the rheumatism so bad." abe looked at the speaker and gasped. it was b. gans. "what are you doing in chicago, potash?" gans asked. "you should ask me that," abe snorted indignantly. "if it wouldn't be for you i wouldn't never got to leave new york." "what do you mean?" gans asked. "i mean you gives me a good reference for this feller marks pasinsky," abe shouted. "and even now i am on my way out for a policeman to make this here pasinsky arrested." b. gans whistled. he surrendered to a bell-boy the small valise he carried and clutched abe's arm. "i wouldn't do that," he said. "come inside the café and tell me all about it." abe shook himself free. "why shouldn't i make him arrested?" he insisted. "he's a thief. he stole my samples." "well, he stole my samples, too, oncet," b. gans replied. "come inside the café and i'll give you a little sad story what i got, too." a moment later they were seated at a marble-top table. "yes, abe," b. gans went on after they had given the order, "marks pasinsky stole my samples, too. let's hear your story first." straightway abe unfolded to b. gans the tale of marks pasinsky's adventure with mozart rabiner and arthur katzen, and also told him how the orders based on potash & perlmutter's sample line had found their way into the respective establishments of sammet brothers and klinger & klein. "well, by jimminy!" b. gans commented, "that's just the story i got to tell it you. this feller does the selfsame funny business with my samples. he gets orders from a couple of big concerns in st. louis and then he gambles them away to a feller called levy. so what do i do, potash? he goes to work and has 'em both arrested, and then them two fellers turns around and fixes up a story and the first thing you know the police judge lets 'em go. well, potash, them two fellers goes down to new york and hires a lawyer, by the name henry d. feldman, and sue me in the courts yet that i made them false arrested. cost me a thousand dollars to settle it, and i also got to agree that if anybody inquires about pasinsky i should say only that he is a good salesman--which is the truth, potash, because he is a good salesman--and that the reason he left me is by mutual consent, y'understand?" abe nodded. "that's a fine piece of work, that marks pasinsky," he commented. "i wish i had never seen him already. what shall i do, gans? i am in a fine mess." "no, you ain't yet," b. gans replied. "prosnauer and kuhner knows me, potash, and i am willing, as long as i got you into this, i will get you out of it. i will go with you myself, potash, and i think i got influence enough in the trade that i could easy get them to give you back them samples." "i know you can," abe said enthusiastically, "and if you would put it to 'em strong enough i think we could swing back to us them orders from sammet brothers and klinger & klein." "that i will do for you, also," b. gans agreed. "but now, potash, i got troubles ahead of me, too." "how's that?" abe inquired, much interested. "i got it a lowlife what i hired for a salesman, also," he replied, "and three weeks ago that feller left my place with my samples and i ain't heard a word from him since. if i got to search every gamblinghouse in chicago i will find that loafer; and when i do find him, potash, i will crack his neck for him." "i wouldn't do nothing rash, gans," abe advised. "what for a looking feller is this salesman of yours?" "he's a tall, white-faced loafer with a big red mustache," gans replied, "and his name is ignatz kresnick." abe jumped to his feet. "come with me," he cried. together they took the elevator to the eighth floor and, as ignatz kresnick dealt the cards for the five-hundredth time in that game, all unconscious of his fast-approaching nemesis, mozart rabiner played the concluding measures of the _liebestod_ softly, slowly, like a benediction: _ertrinken-- versinken-- unbewusst-- höchste lust._ chapter xv "who do you think i seen it in hammersmith's just now, mawruss?" abe potash shouted as he burst into the show-room one saturday afternoon in april. "i ain't deaf, abe," morris replied. "who did you seen it?" "j. edward kleebaum from minneapolis," abe answered. morris shrugged. "what d'ye want _me_ to do, abe?" he asked. abe ignored the question. "he promised he would come in at two o'clock and look over the line," he announced triumphantly. "plenty crooks looked over our line already, abe," morris commented, "and so far as i'm concerned, they could look over it all they want to, abe, so long as they shouldn't buy nothing from us." "what d'ye mean? crooks?" abe cried. "the way kleebaum talks he would give us an order for a thousand dollars goods, maybe, mawruss. he ain't no crook." "ain't he?" morris replied. "what's the reason he ain't, abe? the way i look at it, abe, when a feller makes it a dirty failure like that feller made it in milwaukee, abe, and then goes to cleveland, abe, and opens up as the bon march, abe, and does another bust up, abe, and then he goes to----" "s'enough, mawruss," abe interrupted. "them things is from old times already. to-day is something else again. that feller done a tremendous business last spring, mawruss, and this season everybody is falling over themselves to sell him goods." "looky here, abe," morris broke in, "you think the feller ain't a crook, and you're entitled to think all you want to, abe, but i seen it sol klinger yesterday, and what d'ye think he told me?" "i don't know what he told you, mawruss," abe replied, "but it wouldn't be the first time, mawruss, that a feller tells lies about a concern that he couldn't sell goods to, mawruss. it's the old story of the dawg and the grapes." morris looked hurt. "i'm surprised you should call a decent, respectable feller like sol klinger a dawg, abe," he said. "that feller has always been a good friend of ours, abe, and even if he wouldn't be, abe, that ain't no way to talk about a concern what does a business like klinger & klein." "don't make no speeches, mawruss," abe retorted. "go ahead and tell me what sol klinger told it you about j. edward kleebaum." "why, sol klinger says that he hears it on good authority, abe, that that lowlife got it two oitermobiles, abe. what d'ye think for a crook like that?" "so far what i hear it, mawruss, it ain't such a terrible crime that a feller should got it two oitermobiles. in that case, mawruss, andrew carnegie would be a murderer yet. i bet yer he got already _fifty_ oitermobiles." "s'all right, abe," morris cried. "andrew carnegie ain't looking to buy off us goods, abe, and even so, abe, he never made it a couple of failures like kleebaum, abe." "well, mawruss, is that all you got against him that he owns an oitermobile? maybe he plays golluf, too, mawruss." "golluf i don't know nothing about, abe," morris replied, "but auction pinochle he does play it, abe. sol klinger says that out in minneapolis kleebaum hangs out with a bunch of loafers what considers a dollar a hundred chicken feed already." abe rose to his feet. "let me tell you something, mawruss," he said. "i got over them old fashioned idees that a feller shouldn't spend the money he makes in the way what he wants to. if kleebaum wants to buy oitermobiles, that's his business, not mine, mawruss, and for my part, mawruss, if that feller was to come in here and buy from us a thousand dollars goods, mawruss, i am in favor we should sell him." "you could do what you please, abe," morris declared as he put on his hat. "only one thing i beg of you, abe, don't never put it up to me, abe, that i was in favor of the feller from the start." "sure not, mawruss," abe replied, "because you wouldn't never let me forget it. where are you going now, mawruss?" "i told you yesterday where i was going, abe," morris said impatiently. "me and minnie is going out to johnsonhurst to see her cousin moe fixman." "moe fixman," abe repeated. "ain't that the same fixman what was partners together with max gudekunst?" morris nodded. "well, you want to keep your hand on your pocketbook, mawruss," abe went on, "because i hear it on good authority that feller ain't above selling the milk from his baby's bottle." morris paused with his hand on the door knob. "that's the first i hear about it, abe," he said. "certainly, when a feller gets together a little money, y'understand, always there is somebody what knocks him, abe. who told you all this about fixman, abe?" "a feller by the name sol klinger, mawruss," abe replied, "and if you don't believe me you could----" but morris cut off further comment by banging the door behind him and abe turned to his task of preparing the sample line for his prospective customer's inspection. a half an hour later j. edward kleebaum entered the show-room and extended his hand to abe. "hallo, potash," he said. "you got to excuse me i'm a little late on account i had to look at a machine up on fiftieth street." "that's a sample i suppose, ain't it?" abe said. "no," kleebaum replied, "it's one of their stock machines, a pfingst, nineteen-nine model." "pfingst!" abe exclaimed, "that's a new one on me. certainly, i believe a feller should buy the machines what suits his purpose, but with mawruss and me, when we was running our own shop we bought nothing but standard makes like keeler and silcox and them other machines." at this juncture kleebaum broke into a hearty laugh. "this machine is all right for what i would want it," he said. "in fact, i got it right down in front of the door now. it's a nineteen-nine pfingst, six cylinder roadster up to date and runs like a chronometer already." "oh, an oitermobile!" abe cried. "excuse me, mr. kleebaum. oitermobiles ain't in my line, mr. kleebaum. i'm satisfied i should know something about the cloak and suit business, mr. kleebaum. now, here is a garment which me and mawruss don't consider one of our leaders at all, mr. kleebaum. but i bet yer that if another concern as us would put out a garment like that, mr. kleebaum, they would make such a holler about it that you would think nobody else knows how to make garments but them." "when a feller's got the goods, potash," kleebaum replied, as he lit one of abe's "gilt-edged" cigars, "he's got a right to holler. now you take this here pfingst car. it is made by the pfingst manufacturing company, a millionaire concern, and them people advertise it to beat the band. and why shouldn't they advertise it? them people got a car there which it is a wonder, potash. how they could sell a car like that for twenty-five hundred dollars i don't know. the body alone must cost them people a couple of thousand dollars." "that's always the way, mr. kleebaum," abe broke in hurriedly. "now, you take this here garment, mr. kleebaum, people would say, 'how is it possible that potash & perlmutter could turn out a garment like this for eighteen dollars?' and certainly, mr. kleebaum, i don't say we lose money on it, y'understand, only we got----" "but this here car, potash, has selective transmission, shaft drive and----" "say, lookyhere, kleebaum," abe cried, "am i trying to sell you some cloaks or are you trying to sell me an oitermobile? because if you are, i'm sorry i got to tell you i ain't in the market for an oitermobile just at present. on the other hand, mr. kleebaum, i got a line of garments here which it is a pleasure for me to show you, even if you wouldn't buy so much as a button." "go ahead, potash," kleebaum said, "and we'll talk about the car after you get through." for over two hours abe displayed the firm's sample line and his efforts were at last rewarded by a generous order from kleebaum. "that makes in all twenty-one hundred dollars' worth of goods," kleebaum announced, "and if you think you could stand the pressure, potash, i could smoke another cigar on you already." "excuse me, mr. kleebaum!" abe cried, producing another of his best cigars. "much obliged," kleebaum mumbled as he lit up. "and now, abe, after business comes with me pleasure. what d'ye say to a little spin uptown in this here pfingst car which i got it waiting for me downstairs." abe waved his hand with the palm out. "you could go as far as you like, mr. kleebaum," he replied, "but when it comes to oitermobiles, mr. kleebaum, you got to excuse me. i ain't never rode in one of them things yet, and i guess you couldn't learn it an old dawg he should study new tricks. ain't it?" "d'ye mean to tell me you ain't never rode in an oitermobile yet?" kleebaum exclaimed. "you got it right," abe said, "and what's more i ain't never going to neither." "what you trying to give me?" kleebaum asked. "you mean to say if i would ask you you should come riding with me now, you would turn me down?" "i bet yer i would," abe declared. "an up-to-date feller like you, kleebaum, is different already from an old-timer like me. i got a wife, kleebaum, and also i don't carry a whole lot of insurance neither, y'understand." "come off, potash!" kleebaum cried. "i rode myself in oitermobiles already millions of times and i ain't never been hurted yet." "some people's got all the luck, kleebaum," abe replied. "with me i bet yer if i would ride in an oitermobile once, y'understand, the least that would happen to me is i should break my neck." "how could you break your neck in a brand new car like that pfingst car downstairs?" kleebaum insisted. "never mind," abe answered, "if things is going to turn out that way, mr. kleebaum, you could break your neck in a baby carriage yet." "well, don't get mad about it, potash," kleebaum said. "me, i don't get mad so easy," abe declared. "wouldn't you come downstairs to hammersmith's and take a cup coffee or something?" together they descended to the sidewalk where they were saluted by a tremendous chugging from the pfingst roadster. "say, my friend," the demonstrating chauffeur cried as he caught sight of kleebaum, "what d'ye think i'm running anyway? a taxicab?" "you shouldn't get fresh, young feller," kleebaum retorted, "unless you would want to lose your job." "aw, quit your stalling," the chauffeur protested. "is this the guy you was telling me about?" kleebaum frowned and contorted one side of his face with electrical rapidity. "say, my friend," the chauffeur replied entirely unmoved, "them gestures don't go down with me. is this the guy you was telling the boss you would jolly into buying a car, because----" kleebaum turned to abe and elaborately assumed an expression of amiable deprecation. "that's a salesman for you," he exclaimed. abe surveyed kleebaum with a puzzled stare. "say, lookyhere, kleebaum," he said, "if you thought you would get me to buy an oitermobile by giving me this here order, kleebaum, i'm satisfied you should cancel it. because again i got to tell it you, kleebaum, i ain't in the market for oitermobiles just yet awhile." kleebaum clapped abe on the shoulder. "the feller don't know what he's talking about, potash," he declared. "he's thinking of somebody quite different as you. that order stands, potash, and now if you will excuse me joining you in that cup coffee, potash, i got to say good-by." he wrung abe's hand in farewell and jumped into the seat beside the chauffeur while abe stood on the sidewalk and watched them disappear down the street. "i bet yer that order stands," he mused. "it stands in my store until i get a couple of good reports on that feller." "what a house that feller fixman got it, abe," morris perlmutter exclaimed on monday morning. "a regular palace, and mind you, abe, he don't pay ten dollars more a month as i do up in a hundred and eighteenth street. and what a difference there is in the yard, abe. me, i look out on a bunch of fire escapes, while fixman got a fine garden with trees and flowers pretty near as good as a cemetery." "well, why don't you move to johnsonhurst, too, mawruss," abe potash said. "it's an elegant neighborhood, mawruss. me and rosie was over to johnsonhurst one day last summer and it took us three hours to get out there and three hours to get back. six cigars i busted in my vest pockets at the bridge yet and rosie pretty near fainted in the crowd. yes, mawruss, it's an elegant neighborhood, i bet yer." "that was on sunday and the summer time, abe, but fixman says if he leaves his house at seven o'clock, he is in his office at a quarter to eight." "i believe it, mawruss," abe commented ironically. "that feller fixman never got downtown in his life before nine o'clock. he shouldn't tell me nothing like that, mawruss, because i know fixman since way before the spanish war already, and that feller was always a big bluff, y'understand. sol klinger tells me he's got also an oitermobile." "sol klinger could talk all he wants, abe," morris replied. "fixman told it me that if he had the money what klinger sinks in one stock already, abe, he could run a dozen oitermobiles. sure, fixman's got an oitermobile. with the money that feller makes, abe, he's got a right to got on oitermobile. klinger should be careful what he tells about people, abe. the feller will get himself into serious trouble some day. he's all the time knocking somebody. ain't it?" "is that so?" abe said. "i thought klinger was such a good friend to us, mawruss. also, mawruss, you say yourself on saturday that a feller what's got an oitermobile is a crook yet." "me!" morris cried indignantly. "i never said no such thing, abe. always you got to twist around what i say, abe. what i told you was----" "s'all right, mawruss," abe said. "i'll take your word for it. what i want to talk to you about now is this here j. edward kleebaum. he gives us an order for twenty-one hundred dollars, mawruss." "good!" morris exclaimed. "good?" abe repeated with a rising inflection. "say, mawruss, what's the matter with you to-day, anyway?" "nothing's the matter with _me_, abe. what d'ye mean?" "i mean that on saturday you wouldn't sell kleebaum not a dollar's worth of goods, mawruss, and even myself i was only willing we should go a thousand dollars on the feller, and now to-day when i tell it you he gives us an order for twenty-one hundred dollars, mawruss, you say, 'good'." "sure, i say, 'good'," morris replied. "why not? just because a sucker like sol klinger knocks a feller, abe, that ain't saying the feller's n. g. furthermore, abe, suppose a feller does run a couple of oitermobiles, y'understand, abe, does that say he's going to bust up right away? that's an idee what a back number like klinger got it, abe, but with me i think differently. there's worser things as oitermobiles to ride in, abe, believe me. fixman takes out his wife and minnie and me on saturday afternoon, and we had a fine time. we went pretty near to boston, i bet yer." "to boston!" abe exclaimed. "well, we seen the boston boats going out, and a fine view of the city college also, and a gas factory and north beach, too. everything went off beautiful, abe, and i assure you minnie and me we come home feeling fine. i tell you, abe, a feller has got to ride in one of them things to appreciate 'em." "s'all right, mawruss," abe cried. "i take your word for it. what i am worrying about now, mawruss, is this here kleebaum." "kleebaum is a number one, abe," morris said. "i was talking to fixman about him and fixman says that there ain't a better judge of an oitermobile between chicago and the pacific coast." "say, lookyhere, mawruss," abe asked, "are we in the cloak and suit business or are we in the oitermobile business? kleebaum buys from us cloaks, not oitermobiles. and while i ain't got such good judgment when it comes to oitermobiles, i think i know something about the cloak and suit business, and i got an idea that feller is out to do us." "why, abe, you don't know the feller at all," morris protested. "why don't you make some investigations about the feller, abe?" "investigations is nix, mawruss," abe replied impatiently. "when a feller is a crook, mawruss, he could fool everybody, mawruss. he could fix things so the merchantile agencies would only find out good things about him, and he buffaloes credit men so that to hear 'em talk you would think he was a millionaire already. no, mawruss, when you are dealing with a crook, investigations is nix. you got to depend on your own judgment." "but, abe," morris cried, "you got a wrong idee about that feller. fixman tells me kleebaum does a fine business in minneapolis. he has an elegant trade there and he's got a system of oitermobile delivery which fixman says is great. he's got three light runabouts fixed up with removable tonneaus, thirty horse-power, two cylinder engines and----" at this juncture abe rose to his feet and hurried indignantly toward the cutting-room, where morris joined him five minutes later. "say, abe," he said, "while me and minnie was out with fixman on saturday i got a fine idee for an oitermobile wrap." abe turned and fixed his partner with a terrible glare. "tell it to kleebaum," he roared. "i did," morris said genially, "and he thought it would make a big hit in the trade." "why, when did you seen it, kleebaum?" abe asked. "this morning on my way over to lenox avenue. i met sol klinger and as him and me was buying papers near the subway station, comes a big oitermobile by the curb and kleebaum is sitting with another feller in the front seat, what they call a chauffeur, and kleebaum says, 'get in and i'll take you down town,' so we get in and i bet yer we come downtown in fifteen minutes." "ain't klinger scared to ride in one of them things, mawruss?" abe asked. "scared, abe? why should the feller be scared? not only he wasn't scared yet, abe, but he took up kleebaum's offer for a ride down to coney island yet. kleebaum said they'd be back by ten o'clock and so klinger asks me to telephone over to klein that he would be a little late this morning." "that's a fine way for a feller to neglect his business, mawruss," abe commented. morris nodded without enthusiasm. "by the way, abe," he said, "me and minnie about decided we would rent the house next door to fixman's down in johnsonhurst, so i guess we will go down there again this afternoon at three o'clock." "at three o'clock!" abe cried. "say, lookyhere, mawruss, what do you think this here is anyway? a bank?" "must i ask _you_, abe, if i want to leave early oncet in awhile?" "oncet in awhile is all right, mawruss, but when a feller does it every day that's something else again." "when did i done it every day, abe?" morris demanded. "saturday is the first time i leave here early in a year already, while pretty near every afternoon, abe, you got an excuse you should see a customer up in broadway and twenty-ninth street." "shall i tell you something, mawruss," abe cried suddenly. "you are going for an oitermobile ride with j. edward kleebaum." morris flushed vividly. "supposing i am, abe," he replied. "ain't kleebaum a customer from ours? and how could i turn down a customer, abe?" "_maybe_ he's a customer, mawruss, but i wouldn't be certain of it because you could go oitermobile riding with him if you want to, mawruss, but me, i am going to do something different. i am going to look that feller up, mawruss, and i bet yer when i get through, mawruss, we would sooner be selling goods to some of them cut-throats up in sing sing already." at three o'clock minnie entered swathed in veils and a huge fur coat. "well, abe," she said, "did you hear the latest? we are going to move to johnsonhurst." "i wish you joy," abe grunted. "we got a swell place down there," she went on. "five bedrooms, a parlor and a library with a great big kitchen and a garage." "a what?" abe cried. "a place what you put oitermobiles into it," morris explained. "is that so?" abe said as he jammed his hat on with both hands. "well, that don't do no harm, mawruss, because you could also use it for a dawg house." he slammed the door behind him and five minutes later he entered the business premises of klinger & klein. there he found the senior member of the firm busy over the sample line. "hallo, sol!" he cried. "i just seen it mr. brady, credit man for the manhattan mills, and he says he come across you riding in an oitermobile near coney island at nine o'clock this morning already. he says he always thought you and klein was pretty steady people, but i says nowadays you couldn't never tell nothing about nobody. 'because a feller is a talmudist already, mr. brady,' i says, 'that don't say he ain't blowing in his money on the horse races yet.'" klinger turned pale. "ain't that a fine thing," he exclaimed, "that a feller with a responsible position like brady should be fooling away his time at coney island in business hours." abe laughed and clapped sol klinger on the back. "as a matter of fact, sol," he said, "i ain't seen brady in a month, y'understand, but supposing brady _should_ come across you in an oitermobile down at coney island at nine o'clock in the morning, y'understand. i bet yer he would call for a new statement from you and klein the very next day, sol, and make you swear to it on a truck load of bibles already. a feller shouldn't take no chances, sol." "i was in good company anyhow, abe," sol declared. "i was with j. edward kleebaum, but i suppose mawruss perlmutter told it you. ain't it?" "sure, he did," abe said, "and he also told it me last week that you says j. edward kleebaum was a crook because he runs a couple of oitermobiles out in minneapolis." "i made a mistake about kleebaum, abe," klinger interrupted. "i changed my mind about him." "that's all right, sol," abe said, "but if kleebaum was a crook last week, sol, and a gentleman this week, what i would like to know is, what he will be next week, because i got for twenty-one hundred dollars an order from that feller and i got to ship it next week. so if you got any information about kleebaum, sol, you would be doing me a favor if you would let me know all about it." "all i know about him is this, abe," klinger replied. "we drew on him two reports and both of 'em gives him fifty to seventy-five thousand credit good. he's engaged to be married to miss julia pfingst, who is joseph pfingst's a daughter." "joseph pfingst," abe repeated. "i don't know as i ever hear that name before." "it used to be pfingst & gusthaler," klinger went on, "in the rubber goods business on wooster street. first they made it raincoats, and then they went into rubber boots, and just naturally they got into bicycle tires, and then comes the oitermobile craze, and gusthaler dies, and so pfingst sells oitermobile tires, and now he's in the oitermobile business." "certainly, he got there gradually," abe commented. "maybe he did, abe," klinger said, "but he also got pretty near a million dollars, and you know as well as i do, abe, a feller what's a millionaire already don't got to marry off his daughter to a crook, y'understand. no, abe, i changed my mind about that feller. i think kleebaum's a pretty decent feller, and ourselves we sold him goods for twenty-five hundred dollars." abe puffed hard on his cigar for a moment. "couldn't you get from the old man a guarantee of the account maybe?" he asked. "i sent klein around there this morning, abe," klinger answered, "and pfingst says if kleebaum is good enough to marry his daughter, he's good enough for us to sell goods to, and certainly, abe, you couldn't blame the old man neither." abe nodded, and a moment later he rose to leave. "you shouldn't look so worried about it, abe," sol klinger said. "everybody is selling that feller this year." "well, mawruss," abe cried on tuesday morning, "i got to confess that i ain't learned nothing new about that feller kleebaum. everybody what i seen it speaks very highly of him, mawruss, and the way i figure it, he bought goods for fifty thousand dollars in the last four days. klinger & klein sold him, sammet brothers sold him, and even lapidus & elenbogen ain't left out. i couldn't understand it at all." "couldn't you?" morris retorted. "well, i could, abe. that feller is increasing his business, abe, because he's got good backing, y'understand. he's engaged to be married to julie pfingst and her father joseph pfingst is a millionaire." "sure, i know, mawruss, i seen lots of them millionaires in my time already. millionaires which everyone thinks is millionaires until the first meeting of creditors, and then, mawruss, they make a composition for twenty cents cash and thirty cents notes at three, six and nine months. multi-millionaires sometimes pay twenty-five cents cash, but otherwise the notes is the same like millionaires, three, six and nine months, and you could wrap up dill pickles in 'em for all the good they'll do you." "what are you talking nonsense, abe? this feller, pfingst, is a millionaire. he's got a big oitermobile business and sells ten cars a week at twenty-five hundred dollars apiece. here it is only tuesday, abe, and that feller sold two oitermobiles already." "did you count 'em, mawruss?" abe asked. "sure, i counted 'em," morris replied. he looked boldly into abe's eyes as he spoke. "one of 'em he sold to sol klinger and the other he sold to me." if morris anticipated making a sensation he was not disappointed. for ten minutes abe struggled to sort out a few enunciable oaths from the mass of profanity that surged through his brain and at length he succeeded. "i always thought you was crazy, mawruss," he said after the first paroxysm had exhausted itself, "and now i know it." "why am i crazy?" morris asked. "when a feller lives out in johnsonhurst you must practically got to have an oitermobile, otherwise you are a dead one. and anyhow, abe, couldn't i spend my money the way i want to?" "sure, you could," abe said. "but you didn't spend it the way _you_ wanted to, mawruss. kleebaum got you to buy the oitermobile. ain't it?" "suppose he did, abe? kleebaum is a customer of ours. ain't it? and he got me also a special price on the car. twenty-one hundred dollars he will get me the car for, abe, and fixman looked over the car and he says it's a great piece of work, abe. he ain't got the slightest idee what i am paying for the car and he says it is well worth twenty-five hundred dollars." abe shrugged his shoulders. "all right, mawruss," he said. "it's your funeral. go ahead and buy the oitermobile; only i tell you right now, mawruss, you are sinking twenty-one hundred dollars cash." "not cash, abe," morris corrected. "pfingst is willing to take a six months' note provided it is indorsed by potash & perlmutter." it seemed hardly possible to morris that more poignant emotion could be displayed than in abe's first reception of his news, but this last suggestion almost finished abe. for fifteen minutes he fought off apoplexy and then the storm burst. "say, lookyhere, abe," morris protested at the first lull, "you'll make yourself sick." but abe paused only to regain his breath, and it was at least five minutes more before his vocabulary became exhausted. then he sat down in a chair and mopped his brow, while morris hastened off to the cutting-room from whence he was recalled a minute later by a shout from abe. "by jimminy, mawruss!" he cried slapping his knee. "i got an idee. go ahead and buy your oitermobile from pfingst and i will agree that potash & perlmutter should endorse the note, y'understand, only one thing besides. pfingst has got to guarantee to us kleebaum's account of twenty-one hundred dollars." "i'm afraid he wouldn't do it, abe," morris said. "all right, then i wouldn't do it neither," abe declared. "but anyhow, mawruss, it wouldn't do no harm to ask him. ain't it? where is this here feller pfingst?" "at fiftieth street and broadway," morris said. "well, lookyhere, mawruss," abe announced jumping to his feet, "i'm going right away and fill out one of them guarantees what henry d. feldman fixes up for us, and also i will write out a note at six months for twenty-one hundred dollars and indorse it with the firm's name. then if he wants to you could exchange the note for the guarantee, mawruss, and we could ship the goods right away." morris shook his head doubtfully, while abe went into the firm's private office. he returned five minutes afterward flourishing the guarantee. it read as follows: in consideration of one dollar and other good and valuable considerations i do hereby agree to pay to potash & perlmutter twenty-one hundred dollars ($ ) being the amount of a purchase made by j. edward kleebaum from them, if he fails to pay said twenty-one hundred dollars ($ ) on may st, . i hereby waive notice of kleebaum's default and potash & perlmutter shall not be required to exhaust their remedy against the said kleebaum before recourse is had to me. if a petition in bankruptcy be filed by or against said kleebaum in consideration aforesaid i promise to pay to potash & perlmutter on demand the said sum of twenty-one hundred dollars. "if he signs that, mawruss," abe said, "you are safe in giving him the note." morris put on his hat and lit a cigar. "i will do this thing to satisfy you, abe," he said, "but i tell you right now, abe, it ain't necessary, because kleebaum is as good as gold, y'understand, and if you don't want to ship him the goods you don't have to." abe grinned ironically. "how could you talk like that, mawruss, when the feller is doing you a favor by selling you that oitermobile for twenty-one hundred dollars!" he said. "and besides, mawruss, if we ship him the goods and he does bust up on us, pfingst is got to pay the twenty-one hundred dollars, and he couldn't make no claims for shortages or extra discounts neither." "the idee is all right, abe," morris replied as he opened the show-room door, "if the feller would sign it, which i don't think he would." with this ultimatum he hastened uptown to pfingst's warerooms, where he assured the automobile dealer that unless the guarantee was signed, there would be no sale of the car, for he flatly declined to pay cash and pfingst refused to accept the purchaser's note without potash & perlmutter's indorsement. after a lengthy discussion pfingst receded from his position and signed the guarantee, whereupon morris surrendered the note and returned to his place of business. on april st potash & perlmutter shipped kleebaum's order, and one week later morris moved out to johnsonhurst. five days after his migration to that garden spot of greater new york he entered the firm's show-room at a quarter past ten. "we got blocked at flatbush avenue this morning," he said to abe, "and----" but abe was paying no attention to his partner's excuses. instead he thrust a morning paper at morris and with a trembling forefinger indicated the following scarehead: rich girl weds own chauffeur pfingst family shocked by julia's elopement pair reported in south heiress was about to wed wealthy merchant before flight occurred "what d'ye think of that, mawruss," abe cried. morris read the story carefully before replying. "that's a hard blow to kleebaum and old man pfingst, abe," he said. "i bet yer," abe replied, "but it ain't near the hard blow it's going to be to a couple of concerns what you and me know, mawruss. klinger told me only yesterday that kleebaum would get twenty thousand with that girl, mawruss, and i guess he needed it, mawruss. moe rabiner says that they got weather like january already out in minnesota, and every retail dry-goods concern is kicking that they ain't seen a dollar's worth of business this spring." "but kleebaum's got a tremendous following in minneapolis, abe," morris said. "he's got an oitermobile delivery system." "don't pull that on me again, mawruss," abe broke in. "women ain't buying summer garments in cold weather just for the pleasure of seeing the goods delivered in an oitermobile, which reminds me, mawruss: did pfingst deliver you his oitermobile yet?" morris blushed. "it was delivered yesterday, abe," he replied. "but the fact is, abe, i kinder changed my mind about that oitermobile. with oitermobiles i am a new beginner already, so i figure it out this way. why should i go to work and try experiments with a high price car like that pfingst car? ain't it? now, you take a feller like fixman who is already an expert, y'understand, and that's something else again. fixman tried out the car last night, abe, and he thinks it's an elegant car. so i made an arrangement with him that he should pay me fifteen hundred dollars cash and i would swap the pfingst car for a model, appalachian runabout. that's a fine oitermobile, abe, that appalachian runabout. in the first place, it's got a detachable tonneau and holds just as many people as the pfingst car already, only it ain't so complicated. instead of a six cylinder engine, abe, it's only got a two cylinder engine." "two is enough for a start, mawruss," abe commented. "sure," morris agreed, "and then again instead of a double chain drive its only got a single chain drive, y'understand." abe nodded. to him planetary and selective transmission were even as conic sections. "also it's got dry battery ignition, abe," morris concluded triumphantly, "instead of one of them--now--magneto arrangements, which i ain't got no confidence in at all." abe nodded again. "i never had no confidence in dagoes neither," he said. "fellers which couldn't speak the english language properly, y'understand, is bound to do you sooner or later." "so fixman and me goes around last night to see a feller what lives out in johnsonhurst by the name eleazer levy which fixman got it for a lawyer, and we drew a bill of sale then and there, abe, and fixman give me a check for fifteen hundred dollars on the kosciusko bank." "was it certified?" abe asked. "well, it _wasn't_," morris replied, "but i stopped off at the kosciusko bank this morning and----" "you done right, mawruss," abe interrupted. "the first thing you know fixman would claim that the oitermobile ain't the same shade of red like the sample, mawruss, and stops the check." "fixman ain't that kind, abe," morris retorted. "the only reason i certified the check was that i happened to be in the neighborhood of the bank, because when you are at the bridge, abe, all you got to do is to take a third avenue car up park row to the bowery and transfer to grand street. then you ride over ten blocks and get out at clinton street, y'understand, and walk four blocks over. so long as it's so convenient, abe, i just stopped in and got it certified." "a little journey like that i would think convenient, too, if i would got to travel to johnsonhurst every day, mawruss," abe commented, "and anyhow, mawruss, in a swap one of the fellers is always got an idee he's stuck." "well, it ain't me, abe," morris protested, "and just to show you, abe, me and minnie wants you and rosie you should come out and take dinner with us on sunday, and afterwards we could go out for a ride in the runabout." "_gott soll hüten_," abe replied piously. "what d'ye mean!" morris cried. "you wouldn't come out and have dinner with us?" "sure, we will come to dinner, mawruss," abe said, "but if we want to go for a ride, mawruss, a trolley car is good enough for rosie and me." nevertheless the following sunday found abe and rosie snugly enclosed in the detachable tonneau of the appalachian runabout, while morris sat at the tiller with minnie by his side and negotiated the easy grades of rural long island at the decent speed of ten miles an hour. "ain't it wonderful," abe exclaimed, "what changes comes about in a couple of years already! former times when a lodge brother died, i used to think the ride out to cypress hills was a pleasure already, mawruss, but when i think how rotten the roads was and what poor accommodations them carriages was compared to this, mawruss, i'm surprised that i could have enjoyed myself at all. this here oitermobile riding is something what you would call really comfortable, mawruss." but abe's observations were ill-timed, for hardly had he finished speaking when the runabout slowed down to the accompaniment of loud explosions in the muffler. rosie's shrieks mingled with abe's exclamations, and when at length the car came to a stand-still and the explosions ceased abe scrambled down and helped out the half-fainting rosie. "any car is liable to do that," morris explained as minnie searched for a bottle of liquid restorative. "i could fix it in five minutes." at length minnie found the bottle in the tire box, which contained, instead of a tire, two dozen sandwiches, eight cold frankfurters, some dill pickles and a _ringkuchen_, for they did not contemplate returning to johnsonhurst until long past supper time. morris' estimate of the repair job's duration proved slightly inaccurate. he messed around with his tool bag and explored the carburetter again and again until two hours had elapsed without result. during this period only a few motor cars had passed, for the road was not a popular automobile thoroughfare. at length a large red car bore down on them, and as it came within a hundred yards it slowed down and came to a stop beside the appalachian runabout. "well, well," cried a familiar voice, "if this ain't the whole firm of potash & perlmutter." abe looked up. "hallo, kleebaum," he exclaimed, "i thought you was home in minneapolis. what are you doing in new york?" "this ain't new york by about forty miles," kleebaum replied. he was seated at the side of a square-jawed professional chauffeur who eyed with ill-concealed mirth morris' very unprofessional handling of automobile tools. "lemme look at it," the chauffeur said, as he climbed from his seat. he gave a hasty glance at the dry battery ignition and laughed uproariously. "you'se guys will stay here till christmas if you expect to get that car into running condition," he said. "the only thing for you'se to do is to let me give you a tow into jamaica. they'll fix you up at the garage there." "i'm much obliged to you," morris replied. "don't mention it," the chauffeur went on. "i won't charge you unreasonable. ten dollars is my figure." "what!" abe and morris cried with one voice. "why, you wouldn't charge these gentlemen nothing," kleebaum said with a violent wink. "they're friends of mine." "i know they was friends of yours," the chauffeur replied, "and that's why i made it ten dollars. anyone else i'd say twenty." for almost half an hour abe and morris haggled with the chauffeur. they were vigorously supported by kleebaum, who punctuated his scathing condemnation of the chauffeur's greed with a series of surreptitious winks which encouraged the latter to remain firm in his demand. finally morris peeled off two five-dollar bills and an hour later the appalachian runabout was ignominiously hauled into a jamaica garage. the chauffeur alighted from his car and drew the proprietor of the garage aside into his private office. "billy," he said in a hoarse whisper, "this here baby carriage is got the oldest brand of dry battery ignition and one of the wires has come loose from the binding screw. it'll take about a minute and a half to fix." the proprietor nodded and passed over a dollar bill. then he sprang out onto the floor of the garage. "ryan," he bellowed to his foreman, "get the big jack, and tell schwartz to start up the motor lathe." then he turned to abe and mawruss. "this here'll be a two hours' job, gents," he said, "and i advise you to get your supper at the hotel acrosst the street." "but how much is it going to cost us?" morris asked. for five minutes the proprietor figured on the back of an envelope. "fifteen dollars and twenty-two cents," he said, and abe and morris staggered to the street, followed by their wives. twenty minutes later kleebaum and the chauffeur drew up in front of a road house. "your blow," the chauffeur cried. kleebaum nodded. "come across with that five first," he said, and after the transfer had been made they disappeared into the sabbatical entrance. "well, mawruss," abe exclaimed when morris entered the show-room at ten o'clock the next morning. "what did i told you last week! wasn't i right?" "i know you told me that one party to a swap was practically bound to get stuck, abe," morris admitted, "but with an oitermobile----" "again oitermobile!" abe cried. "you got oitermobile on the brain, mawruss. whenever i open my mouth, mawruss, you got an idee i'm going to talk about oitermobiles. this is something else again. didn't you get a morning paper, mawruss?" morris shrugged. "when a feller lives out in a place called johnsonhurst, abe," he replied sadly, "he is lucky if he could get a cup of coffee before he leaves the house. our range is busted." "something else is busted, too, mawruss," abe said as he handed the morning paper to morris. the page which contained the "business troubles" column was folded at the following news item: j. edward kleebaum, minneapolis, minn. the wonder cloak and suit store, j. edward kleebaum, proprietor, was closed up by the sheriff under an execution in favor of joseph pfingst, who recovered a judgment yesterday in the supreme court for $ , money loaned. kleebaum is supposed to be in new york trying to make some arrangements with his creditors. later in the day a petition in bankruptcy was filed against him by kugler, jacobi and henck representing the following new york creditors:--klinger & klein, $ ; sammet brothers, $ ; lapidus & elenbogen, $ . morris handed the paper back to his partner. "well, abe," he said, "what are we going to do about it?" "we already done it, mawruss," abe replied. "i sent down pfingst's guarantee to henry d. feldman at nine o'clock already, and i told him he shouldn't wait, but if pfingst wouldn't pay up to-day yet to sue him in the courts." morris shrugged his shoulders. "we shouldn't be in such a hurry, abe," he said. "pfingst treated us right, and why shouldn't we give him a chance to make good?" "because he don't deserve it, mawruss," abe rejoined as he started off for the show-room. "if he would of took better care of his daughter she wouldn't of run off with this here chauffeur, and kleebaum wouldn't got to fail. also, mawruss, you shouldn't talk that way neither, because if it wouldn't be for pfingst you wouldn't got stuck with that oitermobile which we rode in it yesterday." "well, i ain't out much on it, abe." "what d'ye mean you ain't out much on it?" abe exclaimed. "it stands you in six hundred dollars, ain't it?" "sure, i know," morris replied, "but this morning i come downtown with the feller what rents us the house out in johnsonhurst and you never seen a feller so crazy about oitermobiles in all your life, abe." "except you, mawruss," abe broke in. "me, i ain't so crazy about 'em no longer," morris declared. "so i fixed it up with this feller that he should take the appalachian runabout off my hands for four hundred dollars and he should also give me a cancelation of the lease which we got of his house. furthermore, abe, he pays our moving expenses back to a hundred and eighteenth street." abe sat down in the nearest chair. "so you're going to move back to a hundred and eighteenth street, mawruss," he exclaimed. "why, what's the matter with johnsonhurst, mawruss? i thought you told it me johnsonhurst was such a fine place." "so it is, abe," morris admitted. "the air is great out there, abe, but at the same time, abe, the air ain't so rotten on a hundred and eighteenth street neither, y'understand, and the train service is a whole lot better." "you're right, mawruss," abe said, "and with all these oitermobile rides and things you waste too much time already. a feller should always consider business ahead of pleasure." morris looked at his bruised and oil stained hands. "oitermobile riding!" he cried. "that's a pleasure, abe. believe me i'd as lief work in a rolling mill." chapter xvi morris perlmutter's front parlor represented an eclectic taste, and the fine arts had been liberally patronized in its decoration. on the wall hung various subjects in oil, including still life, landscapes, marine scenes and figures, all of which had been billed to morris by a fourteenth street dealer as: / dozen assorted oil paintings @ $ $ / dozen shadow boxes for paintings @ ___ $ but it was not at the oil paintings that b. rashkin gazed. his eyes sought instead the framed and glazed certificate of membership of morris perlmutter in harmony lodge , independent order mattai aaron. "them very people hold the mortgage, mr. perlmutter," rashkin said, "and with the influence what you got it in the order, why----" "lookyhere, rashkin," perlmutter interrupted, "you're a real estater, and if you don't get up at eight o'clock then you get up at nine, and it's all the same; but me, i am in the cloak business, and i got to get downtown at seven o'clock, and so i'm going to tell you again what i told it you before. go and see abe to-morrow, and put this proposition up to him like it was something you never told me nothing about, y'understand? then if he makes the suggestion to me, rashkin, i would say all right. because if it should be me what would make the suggestion to him, y'understand, he wouldn't have nothing to do with it. and even if he should consent to go into it, and if we lost money on the deal, rashkin, i wouldn't never hear the end of it." rashkin nodded and seized his hat. "all right," he said, "i will do what you say, mr. perlmutter. but with them three lots it's like this: they're owned by----" morris yawned with a noise like a performing sea lion. "tell it to potash to-morrow, rashkin," he said, and led the way to the hall door. accordingly the next morning rashkin entered the salesroom of potash & perlmutter, where abe was scanning the "arrival of buyers" column in the daily cloak and suit record. "good morning, mr. potash," b. rashkin said. "ain't it a fine weather?" "oh, good morning," abe cried. "you don't know my face, do you?" rashkin said. "i know your face," abe said, "but your name ain't familiar. i guess i seen you in seattle, ain't it?" b. rashkin nodded. he had never been farther west than jersey city heights. "well, how is things in seattle, mister--er----" "rashkin," b. rashkin supplied. "rashkin?" abe went on, and then he paused, but not for an answer. "rashkin--why, i don't know no one from that name in seattle." "no?" rashkin replied. "well, the fact is, mr. potash, i ain't come to see you about seattle. i come to see you about three lots up in two hundred and sixty-fourth street." the urbane smile faded at once from abe's face and gave place to a dark scowl. "oh!" he exclaimed, "a real estater. i ain't got no time to fool away with real estaters." "this ain't fooling away your time, mr. potash," rashkin said. "let me explain the proposition to you." without waiting for permission he at once divulged the object of his visit, while abe listened with the bored air of an unemployed leading man at a professional matinée. "yes, mr. potash," b. rashkin concluded, after half an hour's conversation, "i seen it bargains in my time, but these here lots is the biggest bargains yet." "vacant lots ain't never bargains, rashkin," abe commented. "what's the use from vacant lots, anyway? a feller what's got vacant lots is like i would say i am in the cloak business if i only get it an empty store with nothing in it." abe glanced proudly around him at the well-stocked racks, where the new season's goods were neatly arranged for prospective buyers. "but the real-estate business ain't like the cloak business, mr. potash," b. rashkin said. "real estate!" abe interrupted. "vacant lots ain't no real estate, rashkin. vacant lots is just imitation real estate. you couldn't say you got it real estate when you only got vacant lots, no more as a feller what buys a gold setting could say he's got it a diamond ring." "diamonds is something else again," said b. rashkin. "i ain't no judge of diamonds, mr. potash, but about real estate, mr. potash, i ain't no fool neither, y'understand, and these here three lots what i talk to you about is the only three vacant lots in the neighborhood." "might you think that's a recommendation, maybe, rashkin," abe replied, "but i don't. you come around here to try to sell it me a couple of lots, and you got to admit yourself they're stickers." "they ain't stickers, mr. potash," b. rashkin protested. "no?" abe said. "what's the reason they ain't stickers, rashkin? if they ain't stickers why ain't somebody built on 'em?" "you don't understand," b. rashkin explained. "them lots is an estate that was in litigation, and it's only just been settled up; so that they couldn't sell 'em no matter who would want to buy 'em. now i got 'em to entertain an offer of eighty-three thirty-three apiece, or twenty-five thousand for the three lots, all cash above a blanket mortgage of ten thousand dollars held by the independent order mattai aaron. i seen it also milton m. sugarman, the attorney for the i. o. m. a., and he tells me that they would probably be agreeable to make a building loan on them lots of twenty-five thousand on each thirty-seven six front." "that don't interest me none neither," abe replied, "because i ain't in the building business, rashkin; i am in the cloak and suit business." "sure, i know," said rashkin; "but this is an opportunity which it wouldn't occur again oncet in twenty years." "don't limit yourself, rashkin," abe retorted. "make it fifty years. it's all the same to me, because i wouldn't touch it, rashkin." "but, mr. potash," rashkin broke in, "if your partner, mr. perlmutter, would be agreeable, wouldn' you consider it?" "what's the use asking me hypocritical questions, rashkin?" abe replied. "mawruss would no more touch it as i would. you don't know what a crank i got it for a partner, rashkin. if i would just hint that i wanted to buy real estate, y'understand, that feller would go all up in the air. and even if he would buy it with me yet, and we should lose maybe a little money, i would never hear the end of it. that's the way it goes with a feller like mawruss perlmutter, rashkin." b. rashkin put on his hat and rose sadly. "well, mr. potash," he concluded, "all i can say is you lost a splendid opportunity. why, if i could only get it a feller to take over one of them thirty-seven six parcels, i would buy the other one myself and put up a fine building there?" "i'm sure i ain't stopping you, rashkin," abe said. "go ahead and build, and i wish you all the luck you could want; and if you should get somebody else to take the other one and a half lots, i wish him the same and many of 'em. also, rashkin, if i was a real estater i would be glad to fool away my time with you, rashkin, but being as i am in the cloak business i--you ain't going, rashkin, are you?" rashkin answered by banging the door behind him and abe repaired to the cutting-room, where morris perlmutter was superintending the reception and disposal of piece goods. "who was that salesman you was talking to a while ago, abe?" he asked innocently. "that wasn't no salesman, mawruss; that was a loafer," abe replied. "a loafer!" morris said. "he didn't look like a loafer, abe. he looked like a real estater." "well, mawruss," said abe, "to me a real estater looks like a loafer, especially, mawruss, when he comes around with a bum proposition like he got it." "what for a proposition was it, abe?" morris asked. "ask me!" abe exclaimed. "that real estater gives me a long story about some vacant lots, and an estate, and the independent order mattai aaron, and a lot more stuff what i don't believe the feller understands about himself." "but there you was talking to that real estater pretty near an hour, abe, and you couldn't even tell it me what he wants at all," morris protested. "to tell you the truth, mawruss," abe replied, "i ain't interested in what real estaters says. real estaters, insurance canvassers and book agents, mawruss, is all the same to me. they go in by one ear and come out by the other." "why, for all you know, abe, the feller would have maybe some big bargains." "if you are looking for bargains like that feller got it, mawruss," abe retorted, "you could find plenty of 'em by green-goods men. if you give me my choice between gold bricks and vacant lots, mawruss, i would say gold bricks." morris turned away impatiently. "what do you know about real estate, abe?" he cried. "not much, mawruss," abe admitted, "but i know one thing about gold bricks, mawruss: you don't got to pay no taxes on 'em." that evening b. rashkin again presented himself at the one hundred and eighteenth street residence of morris perlmutter, and with him came isaac pinsky, of the firm of pinsky & gubin, architects. mr. pinsky had a roll of blue-prints under his arm and a strong line of convincing argument at the tip of his tongue, and the combination proved too much for morris. before rashkin and pinsky left that evening, morris had undertaken to purchase a plot thirty-seven feet six inches by one hundred feet, adjacent to a similar plot to be purchased by rashkin. moreover, he and rashkin engaged themselves to erect two houses, one on each lot, from the plans and specifications that pinsky held under his arm. each house was to be identical with the other in design, construction and material, and an appointment was then and there made for noon the next day at the office of henry d. feldman, attorney at law, for the purpose of more formally consummating the deal. thus, when morris entered the show-room the next morning it became his duty to break the news to his partner, and he approached abe with a now-for-it air. "well, abe," he said, "you was wrong." "sure, i was, mawruss," abe replied amiably. "with you i am always wrong. what's the matter now?" "you was wrong about that feller rashkin," morris explained. "he was up to my house last night, and put the same proposition up to me what he told it you yesterday, and the way i figure it, abe, we would make money on the deal." "i ain't so good on figures what you are, mawruss," abe replied. "all i can figure is i got enough to do to attend to my own business, mawruss, without going into the building business." "but we wouldn't got to go into the building business, abe," morris protested. "all we got to do is to put down eight thousand dollars for the lot. then the i. o. m. a. makes us a building loan of twenty-five thousand dollars. rashkin's got plans and specifications drawn by pinsky & gubin, a first-class, a number one archy-teck concern, for which he wouldn't charge us nothing, and then, abe----" he paused to fix abe's attention before finishing his explanation. "and then, abe," he continued, "we hire my minnie's brother, ferdy, what knows the building business from a to z, to build it the house for us. all we would got to do is to put up the four thousand apiece, abe, and when the house is finished rashkin says we could sell it like a flash." "i never sold a flash, mawruss," abe said; "and, anyhow, mawruss, while i ain't saying nothing about your minnie's family, y'understand, if i would got to go into a deal with a horse-thief like ferdy rothschild, y'understand, i would take my money first and deposit it for safety with some of them fellers up in sing sing. such a show i should have of getting it back, mawruss." "lookyhere, abe," morris said, "before you would make some cracks about my minnie's family, how about your rosie's brother, the one what----" "s'all right, mawruss," abe broke in. "i ain't saying my wife's brother is so much, neither. this is the way i feel about a feller's wife's brother: if he got a little money then he treats you like a dawg, mawruss, and if he's broke, y'understand, then your wife gives him all your cigars and ties, and if you should happen to have the same size neck, mawruss, then all your life you are buying collars and shirts for two. no, mawruss, i ain't got no confidence in anybody's wife's brother, especially, mawruss, if a feller should make it a dirty failure like ferdy rothschild did and then takes all the money and blows it in on the horse-races." "that's from old times already," morris protested. "to-day he's a decent, hard-working feller, abe, and for two years he's been working for the rheingold building and construction company. what he don't know about putting up tenement houses, abe, ain't worth knowing." "and what i don't know about putting up tenement houses, mawruss," abe said, "would fill one of them carnegie libraries, mawruss; and also, furthermore, mawruss, i don't want to know nothing about it, neither. and also, mawruss, if you should stand there and talk to me all day it wouldn't make no difference. if you want to build tenement houses, mawruss, you got my permission; but you could leave me out. i got my own troubles with cloaks." morris rose. "all right, abe," he said. "i give you your chance, abe, and you wouldn't take it." "what d'ye mean, mawruss?" abe asked. "i mean, abe, that i will go into this alone by myself, and only one thing i beg of you, abe: don't come to me in six months' time and claim that i wouldn't let you in on a good thing. i have done my best." the air of simple dignity with which morris delivered his ultimatum was marred to some extent by a raucous laugh from abe. "don't do me no favors, mawruss," he jeered. "all i got to say is that if i was you, mawruss, i would get this here archy-teck and b. rashkin, and also your brother-in-law, ferdy, together, and i would make 'em an offer of settlement for, say, three thousand dollars, mawruss. because the way i figure it out, this thing would stand you in as much money as that and a whole lot of worry, too." "you shouldn't be so generous with your advice, abe," morris retorted. "oh, i don't charge you nothing for it, mawruss," abe said, as he turned to the "arrival of buyers" column, and, for lack of appropriate rejoinder, morris snorted indignantly and banged the show-room door behind him. for the remainder of the afternoon abe's face wore a malicious grin. it was there when morris left to keep his appointment at henry d. feldman's office, and when he returned four hours later the malice, if anything, had intensified. "well, mawruss," abe cried, "i suppose you fixed it all up?" "it don't go so quick, abe," morris replied. his manner was as cheerful as only that of a man who has struggled hard to repress a fit of violent profanity can be--for the meeting at henry d. feldman's office had been fraught with many nerve-racking incidents. _imprimis_, there had been feldman's retainer, a generous one, and then had come the discussion of the building-loan agreement with milton m. sugarman, attorney for the i. o. m. a. feldman assured morris that it was customary for the borrower to pay the fees of the attorney for the lender, incidental to drawing and recording the necessary papers, and morris had also learned that the high premiums of insurance for the building to be erected would come out of his pocket. moreover, he had seen b. rashkin credited with commissions for bringing about morris' purchase of the lot, and for the first time he had ascertained that he also owed b. rashkin two hundred and fifty dollars commission for procuring a building loan from the i. o. m. a. so far he reckoned that his investment exceeded b. rashkin's by a thousand dollars, and when he considered that b. rashkin would be his own superintendent of construction, while he, morris, would be obliged to hire ferdy rothschild, at a compensation of seven hundred and fifty dollars, to perform that same office for him, abe's advice appeared too sound to be pleasant. "no, abe," he said, "it don't go so quick. i got another appointment for next week." abe grunted. "all i got to say, mawruss," he commented, "you shouldn't forget you are a partner in a cloak and suit business." "don't worry," morris replied; "you wouldn't let me forget that, abe." he strode off toward the cutting-room and once more abe resumed his fixed grin. it must be confessed that through the entire six months of his building operations morris maintained a stoic calm that effectually hid the storm raging within his breast. all the annoyances incidental to building a house were heaped on morris, and both he and rashkin, equally, suffered petty blackmail at the hands of the attorney and the architect for the building-loan mortgagee. in the meantime abe's grin gained in breadth and malice, and on more than one occasion morris had foregone the pleasure of assaulting his partner only by the exercise of remarkable self-control. "do me the favor, abe," he said at length, "and let me in on this joke." "it ain't no joke, mawruss," abe replied. "i thought you found that out already." "if you mean the house, abe," morris answered, "all i got to say is that, if there should be any joke about it, abe, the joke is on you, for that house is pretty near finished." "i'm glad to hear it, mawruss," abe said. "i suppose ferdy rothschild did it a good job on the house." "sure, he did," morris said. "he didn't get no rake-offs from material men or nothing, mawruss. what?" abe asked. "rake-offs!" morris cried. "what d'ye mean by that?" "i mean i seen it gussarow, the glass man, on the subway last night, mawruss," abe explained, "and he says that for every pane of glass what went into your house, mawruss, ferdy rothschild gets his rake-off." "well, what do i care?" morris retorted. "if gussarow could stand it, abe, i can." "gussarow can stand it all right, mawruss," abe said reassuringly. "all he's got to do is to put it on the bill." "well, if he put it on my bill, abe," morris replied, "he also put it on rashkin's bill, because him and me bought the same building material all the way through, and i wouldn't pay no bills till i saw that rashkin don't get charged less as i do." this was conclusive, and abe's grin relaxed for several inches, nor did it resume its normal width until some days later when morris began to negotiate for his permanent mortgage loan. once morris remonstrated with him for his levity. "must you go around looking like a crazy idiot, abe?" "i must got to laugh, mawruss," abe protested, "when i seen it sam feder, of the kosciusko bank, this morning, and he tells it me you got a permanent mortgage from the i. o. m. a. he says milton m. sugarman told him you got it ahead of rashkin, because you got influence as a lodge brother of sugarman." "sure, i did," morris admitted. "and then, mawruss," abe went on, "rashkin hears that the i. o. m. a. is going to make you a permanent loan, so he goes to see sugarman too." "that's right," morris agreed. "and he says to sugarman that so long as sugarman is got to search the title to your house he wouldn't have to search the title to rashkin's house, because both houses stands on the same piece of property. so he makes a proposition that if sugarman would charge him only a hundred dollars he would put in an application by the i. o. m. a. for a permanent loan. otherwise he would get it from a life-insurance company." morris nodded ironically. "and sugarman says he would do it, i suppose," he broke in. "no, abe, sugarman ain't built that way. it costs me five hundred dollars for that loan, abe." "i know it did, mawruss," abe said, "and feder says that sugarman told him he charges you five hundred dollars, and so he don't want to be a hog, mawruss, and, therefore, he closes with rashkin for a hundred and fifty." morris' jaw dropped and he stared at abe. "furthermore, mawruss," abe went on, "rashkin comes in to see feder the other day and tells feder he would be glad to make a quick turn. and he tells feder that house stands him in eight thousand dollars cash and he would be glad to sell it for forty-four five, all cash above the new first mortgage of thirty-three thousand." morris nodded. "but, abe," he croaked, "how could he do that? reckoning all the mortgages and everything, and what i invested and paid out for building material over and above the building loan, that house stands me in just eleven thousand two hundred and fifty dollars cash. if i would come out even on that house i got to sell it for forty-five seven-fifty, and i reckoned on forty-seven thousand as a fair price for the house." "sure, you did," abe said cheerfully. "and how that feller, rashkin, could claim that his house stands him in eight thousand dollars cash is more as i could understand, abe," morris said. "because while i know it i spent for commissions and for ferdy rothschild a couple thousand more as rashkin, abe, our building material cost the same, abe." "sure it did--on the bills, mawruss," abe replied; "but gussarow says that of course he don't know nothing about the other material men, but when he sends the bill to you he also sends the same bill to rashkin, and when you send him a check for your bill, ferdy rothschild gets five per cent. also rashkin sends gussarow a check for his bill with five per cent. discount, and ferdy rothschild _schmiers_ rashkin a twenty-dollar note, and that's the way it goes." morris sat down in the nearest chair and blinked helplessly at abe. "what do you think for a couple of crooks like that, abe?" he croaked. "what do i think, mawruss?" abe repeated. "i think that one of 'em is a brother-in-law, mawruss, and the other is a real estater, mawruss, and that's a bad combination." "but i could make 'em arrested, abe?" morris declared, "and, by jimminy, i will do it, too." abe shrugged. "you couldn't do that, mawruss," he said, "because in the first place, mawruss, your minnie wouldn't stand for it; and in the second place, them two fellers would fix up a fine story between 'em and the judge would let 'em go. and then, mawruss, they would turn around and go to work and sue you for false arresting; and the first thing you know, mawruss, it would stand you in a couple of thousand dollars more." morris nodded sadly. "i believe you're right, abe," he murmured. "sure, i'm right, mawruss," abe said; "and also, mawruss, while i wouldn't want to say nothing to make you feel worse already, i got to say, mawruss, that if you would believe i was right six months ago yet, you wouldn't got to believe i was right now." morris nodded again. he was thoroughly crushed, and he looked so appealingly at his partner that abe was unable to withhold his comfort and advice. "lookyhere, mawruss," he said, "a feller's got to make a mistake sometimes. ain't it? and if he didn't get stuck for a couple of thousand dollars oncet in a while he wouldn't know the value of his money. ain't it? but as this thing stands now, mawruss, i got an idee you ain't stuck so bad as what you think." "no?" morris said. "why ain't i, abe?" "well, mawruss, i'll tell you," abe began, with no clear conception of how he would finish. "you know me, mawruss; i ain't a feller what's got a whole lot to say for myself, but i ain't got such bad judgment, neither, mawruss." "i seen fellers with worser judgment as you, abe," morris said. abe could not forbear a stare of astonishment at this grudging admission. "at last you got to admit it, mawruss," he cried; "but anyhow, mawruss, go ahead and finish up this here permanent-mortgage-loan business, and then, mawruss, i will do all i can to help you out." morris rose to his feet. "well, abe," he began in shaking tones, "i must got to say that i----" "lookyhere, mawruss," abe broke in savagely, "ain't we fooled away enough time here this morning? just because you got your troubles with this here building, mawruss, ain't no reason why we shouldn't attend to business, mawruss." he handed morris a black cigar, and as they started for the cutting-room they gave vent to their pent-up emotions in great clouds of comforting smoke. the next fortnight was fraught with so many disagreeable experiences for morris that he appeared to age visibly, and once more abe was moved to express his sympathy. "you shouldn't take on so, mawruss," he said, the morning after the permanent loan was closed. "the first thing you know, mawruss, you will be getting a nervous break-up, already." "i bet yer i would get a nervous break-up, abe," morris agreed. "if you would be me, abe, you would get a nervous break-up, too. in the first place, abe, i got to pay them suckers--them archy-tecks, pinsky & gubin, a hundred dollars before they would give it me their final certificate, and then, abe, i got to _schmier_ it a feller in the tenement-house department another hundred dollars. and then, abe, i told it them other two crooks what i thought of 'em, abe, and you ought to hear the way that horse-thief talks back to me, already." "horse-thief!" abe said. "which one, mawruss?" "that ferdy rothschild, abe," morris continued. "so sure as i stand here, abe, if that feller wouldn't be my wife's brother, i would make for him a couple blue eyes he wouldn't forgot so quick." "with a feller like that, mawruss," abe said, "you shouldn't bother yourself at all. if you make a lowlife bum a couple blue eyes, he will make you also a couple blue eyes, maybe, and that's all there is to it, mawruss. but when you make it a crook like ferdy rothschild a couple blue eyes, then that's something else again. such a _schwindler_ like him, mawruss, would turn right around and sue you in the courts yet for damages, and the first thing you know you are stuck for a couple thousand dollars." "well, i am through with him, anyhow," morris replied, "so we wouldn't talk no more about him. a dirty dawg like him, abe, ain't worth a--a----" he was searching his mind for a sufficiently trivial standard of comparison when abe interrupted him. "i thought you wasn't going to talk about him, mawruss," he said; "and, anyhow, mawruss, what's the use talking about things what is past already? what we got to do now, mawruss, is to sell that house." "i know it, abe," morris replied ruefully, "but how are we going to sell that house with b. rashkin going around offering to sell the identical same house for forty-four five? if i would be lucky enough to get forty-five seven-fifty for mine, abe, i would still be out several hundred dollars." "you talk foolish, mawruss; you would get forty-seven thousand, sure, for that house." "would i?" morris cried. "how would i do that?" "leave that to me," abe replied. he put on his hat and coat. "where are you going, abe?" morris asked. abe waggled his head solemnly. "you shouldn't ask me, mawruss," he said. "i got an idee." it was a quarter to twelve when abe left the loft building on nineteenth street, and he repaired immediately to the real-estate salesroom on vesey street, where auction sales of real estate are held at noon daily. to this center of real-estate activity comes every real-estate broker of the east side, together with his brothers from harlem and the bronx, and abe felt reasonably sure that b. rashkin would be on hand. indeed, he had hardly entered the salesroom when he descried b. rashkin standing on the outskirts of a little throng that surrounded the rostrum of a popular auctioneer. "now, gentlemen," said the auctioneer, "what am i offered for this six-story, four-family house. remember, gentlemen, it is practically new and stands on a lot forty by a hundred." "forty thousand," said a voice at abe's elbow. "come, gentlemen," the auctioneer cried, "we ain't making you a present of this house, exactly. do i hear forty-one? thank you, sir. at forty-one--at forty-one--at----" abe sidled up to b. rashkin and in firm tones he made the next bid. "forty-one five," he said. "forty-one five," the auctioneer repeated, and b. rashkin turned to look at the bidder. he started visibly as he recognized abe, who bowed coldly. "why, hallo, mr. potash," rashkin exclaimed. "i didn't know you was in the market for property." "why not?" abe said. "well, on account you got a partner who----" "you don't got to rub it in, mr. rashkin," abe interrupted. "if my partner did know a good thing when he seen it, mr. rashkin, i don't need to be reminded of it." "a good thing!" rashkin said in puzzled accents. "why, i ain't----" he stopped in time and forced himself to smile amiably. "yes, mr. rashkin," abe went on, as he imperceptibly edged away from the crowd. "would you believe it, that feller tells me this morning he's got already a fine offer for the house?" "you don't tell me," rashkin said as they approached one of the salesroom doors. he too was edging away from the crowd and congratulated himself that abe had made no further bid. "i'm glad he should get it. for _mein_ part, mr. potash, i would be glad to sell my house, too." here he made a rapid mental calculation and arrived approximately at the price that would yield morris a profit. "i had myself an offer of forty-six seven-fifty for my house, mr. potash," he hazarded. abe was ostentatiously surprised. "so!" he said, with an elaborate assumption of recovering his composure. "yes, mr. potash," rashkin went on. he was beginning to feel that the figure was too low. "that's the offer i received and i wouldn't take a cent less than forty-eight." "let me see," abe mused, as they paused in front of a bakery and lunchroom a few doors down the street. "you got a first mortgage thirty-three thousand dollars, and that would give you a pretty big equity there, mr. rashkin." "wouldn't you come inside and take maybe a cup of coffee, mr. potash?" rashkin suggested. "i shouldn't mind if i will," abe said; and they entered the bakery together. "would you want all cash above the mortgage, mr. rashkin?" "just now, mr. potash," rashkin replied, "i want a little something to eat. give me a piece of _stollen_ and a cup of coffee." "milk separate?" the waitress asked. b. rashkin nodded haughtily and then turned to abe. "what will you have, mr. potash?" he asked. "give me also a cup of coffee and a tongue sandwich," he announced to the waitress. "white or rye bread?" said the waitress. "rye bread," abe replied. "we ain't got no rye bread; i could give you a roll sandwich," she declared solemnly. "all right, give me a roll tongue sandwich," abe concluded, and once more addressed b. rashkin. "of course you would take back a second mortgage, mr. rashkin," he said. "well, i might take two or three thousand dollars, a purchase-money mortgage, but no more," rashkin replied, as the waitress returned empty-handed. "rolls is all out," she said. "i'll have to give you white bread." "all right," abe replied. "did you say swiss cheese or store cheese?" she inquired mildly. "tongue!" abe and b. rashkin roared with one voice. "well, don't get mad about it," the waitress cried, as she whisked away toward the coffee urns. "i'll tell you the truth, mr. potash," b. rashkin continued. "i give that house to a number of real estaters, already, and i'm considering a good offer from a feller what ferdy rothschild brings me. the feller makes me a fine offer, mr. potash, only he wants me to take back a second mortgage of five thousand dollars; and i told ferdy rothschild if he could get his customer to make it all cash above a second mortgage of three thousand dollars i would consider it. ferdy says he expects his customer in to see him this afternoon, already, and he will let me know before i go home to-night." in this rare instance b. rashkin was undergoing the novel experience of speaking the truth only slightly modified, for that very morning ferdy rothschild had produced a purchaser who was willing to pay forty-six thousand dollars for rashkin's house. this deal the purchaser proposed to consummate by taking the property subject to a first mortgage of thirty-three thousand dollars, by executing a second mortgage of seven thousand dollars, and by paying the six thousand balance of the purchase price in cash. b. rashkin had told ferdy that if the customer would agree to pay eight thousand five hundred dollars in cash and to reduce the second mortgage proportionately, the deal would be closed; and ferdy had promised to let him know during the afternoon. "lookyhere, rashkin," abe said at length, "what's the use beating bushes around? you know as well as i do that me and my partner don't get along well together, and i would like to teach that sucker a lesson that he shouldn't monkey no more with real estate, y'understand. i'll tell you right now, rashkin, i would be willing to lose maybe a couple hundred dollars if i could get that house from you and sell it to the feller what makes the offer to mawruss perlmutter." "you and perlmutter must be pretty good friends together," rashkin commented. "but, anyhow, i am perfectly willing to help you all i can, because when a feller practically calls you a bloodsucker and a horse-thief, mr. potash, naturally you don't feel too friendly toward him. but one thing i _got_ to say, mr. potash, and that is i couldn't sell my house for a penny less than forty-eight thousand dollars." abe put down his cup of coffee and stared at rashkin. "that's a lot of money, mr. rashkin," abe said, "and that would mean pretty near twelve thousand cash." b. rashkin nodded calmly and abe pondered for a moment. "well, rashkin," abe said, "i am willing i should spend some money, y'understand, and so i would make you this offer: would you give me an option on the house at forty-eight thousand for two weeks, supposing i paid you, we will say, two hundred dollars?" rashkin shook his head. "we will say then two hundred and fifty dollars," abe said; but rashkin declined. immediately they commenced to bargain vigorously, and at intervals of five minutes each modified his price for the option, until half an hour had expired, when they met at four hundred dollars. "all right," b. rashkin cried, "let us go and see milton m. sugarman and draw up the option." "i am agreeable," abe said; "any lawyer could draw it up, so far as i am concerned." they rose from the table without leaving the customary nickel for the waitress and, as they passed out of the door, she glared after them and indignantly adjusted her pompadour with both hands. "pipe them two high-livers," she hissed to the waitress at the next table. "i knew them guys was going to pass me up as soon as i laid me eyes on 'em." she heaved a tremendous sigh. "y'orter heard the roar they put up about a tongue sandwich," she said. "ain't it funny, kitty, how tightwads is always fussy about their feed?" when abe returned to his place of business a couple of hours later, he found morris adding up figures on the back of an envelope. "well, abe," morris cried, "what's new about the house?" "i'll tell you what's new, mawruss," abe replied. "just add four hundred dollars to them figures on that envelope, and you'll find out what that house costs you up to date." "what do you mean?" "never mind what i mean, mawruss," abe said. "i'll tell you later what i mean. the thing is now, mawruss, i got to know one thing and i got to know it quick. where could i find this here lowlife brother-in-law of yours?" "let me see," said morris. "it's already two o'clock, so i guess, abe, you would be liable to get him in the back room of wasserbauer's café. him and a feller by the name feinson and that lowlife rabiner plays there auction pinochle together." "but ain't he got no office, mawruss?" abe asked. "sure, he's got an office," morris replied. "he's got it desk-room with a couple of real estaters on liberty street, abe. look him up in the telephone book. he's got a phone put in too, abe, with my money, i bet yer." abe consulted the telephone book and again put on his hat. "where are you going now, abe?" morris asked. "i'm going down to ferdy rothschild's office," abe replied. "but you wouldn't find him in, abe," morris protested. "i hope not," abe replied; and for the second time that day he left his place of business and boarded a downtown l train. ferdy rothschild's office was tucked away in an obscure corner of a small office building on liberty street, and as abe plodded wearily up three flights of stairs he overtook a short, stout gentleman headed in the same direction. "a feller what's got his office on the top floor of a back-number building like this," said the exhausted traveler, "should keep it airships for his customers." "i bet yer," abe gasped, as they reached the landing together, and then in silence they both walked side by side to the office of ferdy rothschild. abe opened the door and motioned his companion to enter first, whereat the stranger nodded politely and walked into the office. "is mr. rothschild in?" he said to the office-boy, who was the sole occupant of the room. "mr. rothschild, now, telephoned," the boy replied, "and he says, now, that if a guy comes in by the name of marks to tell him he should wait." "did he say he would be right in?" mr. marks asked. "no," the boy answered, "but he'll be in soon, all right." "how do you know that?" abe asked. "because, now, i heard him tell the other boys that he wouldn't set no longer time limit," the boy replied; "but he says he'd play four more deals and then he'd quit. see?" mr. marks looked at abe and broke into a laugh. "that's a fine lowlife for you," he said. "that feller tells me i should be here at three o'clock sharp and he fools away my time like this." abe nodded. "what could you expect from a feller like that?" abe commenced, and then broke off suddenly--"but excuse me. he may be a friend of yours." "_gott soll hüten_," mr. marks replied piously. "all i got to do with him is that he brings me a proposition i should buy a piece of property which he got it to sell." "that's a funny thing," abe said. "i came here myself about a piece of property what i just bought, and i understand he tried to sell the property for the feller what i bought it from." abe took the option from his breast pocket and opened it on his knee, while mr. marks glanced at it furtively, not unnoticed by abe, who aided his companion's inspection by spreading out the paper until its contents were plainly visible. "why!" mr. marks cried. "why, that is the house what this here rothschild said he would sell it me." abe looked up sharply. "you don't say so?" he said. "how could he sell you that house when i got this here option on it this morning for forty-eight thousand dollars?" "forty-eight thousand dollars!" mr. marks exclaimed. "why, he says i could buy it for forty-six thousand dollars." abe laughed with forced politeness. "well, if you could of got it for forty-six thousand you should of took it," he said. "i want forty-nine thousand for it." it was now mr. marks' turn to laugh. "you couldn't get forty-nine thousand for that house," he said, "if the window-panes was diamonds already." "no?" abe retorted. "well, then, i'll keep it, mister----" "marks," suggested mr. marks. "marks," abe went on. "i'll keep it, mr. marks, until i can get it, so sure as my name is abe potash." "of potash & perlmutter?" mr. marks asked. "that's my name," abe said. "why, then, your partner owns yet the house next door!" mr. marks cried. "that ain't no news to me, mr. marks," abe said. "in fact, he built that house, mr. marks, and i got so tired hearing about the way that house rents and how much money he is going to get out of it that i bought the place next door myself." "but ain't that a funny thing that one partner should build a house and the other partner shouldn't have nothing to do with it?" mr. marks commented. "we was partners in cloaks, mr. marks, not in houses," abe explained. "and i had my chance to go in with him and i was a big fool i didn't took it." mr. marks rose to his feet. "well, all i can say is," he rejoined, "if i got it a partner and we was to consider a proposition of building, mr. potash, we would go it together, not separate." "yes, mr. marks," abe agreed, "if you had it a partner, mr. marks, that would be something else again, but the partner what _i_ got it, mr. marks, you got no idee what an independent feller that is. i can assure you, mr. marks, that feller don't let me know nothing what he is doing outside of our business. for all i would know, he might of sold his house already." "you don't mean to say that his house is on the market, do you?" marks said sharply. "i don't mean to say nothing," abe replied, as he started to leave. "all i mean to say is that i am tired of waiting for that lowlife rothschild, and i must get back to my store." "wait a bit; i'll go downstairs with you," marks broke in. as they walked down to the elevated road they exchanged further confidences, by which it appeared that mr. marks was in the furniture business on third avenue, and that he lived on lenox avenue near one hundred and sixteenth street. "why, you are practically a neighbor of mawruss perlmutter," abe cried. "is that so?" mr. marks said, as they reached the elevated railway. "yes," abe went on, "he lives on a hundred and eighteenth street and lenox avenue." "you don't say so?" mr. marks replied. "well, mr. potash, i guess i got to leave you here." they shook hands, and after abe had proceeded half-way up the steps to the station platform he paused to observe mr. marks penciling an address in his memorandum book. when he again entered his show-room morris had just hung up the telephone receiver. "yes, abe," he said, "you've gone and stuck your feet in it all right." "what d'ye mean?" abe asked. "ferdy rothschild just rung me up," morris explained, "and he says you went down to his office while he was out, and you seen it there a feller what he was going to sell rashkin's house to, and you went and broke up the deal, and that he will sue you yet in the courts." "let him sue us," abe said. "all he knows about is what the office-boy tells him. i didn't break up no deal, because there wasn't no deal to bust up, mawruss." "why not?" morris asked. "because if the deal was to sell rashkin's house," abe explained, "rothschild ain't in it at all, because i myself is the only person what could sell that house." he drew the option from his breast pocket and handed it to morris, who read it over carefully. "well, abe," morris commented, "that's only throwing away good money with bad, because you couldn't do nothing with that house in two weeks or in two years, neither." "i know it," abe said confidently, "but so long as i got an option on that house nobody else couldn't do nothing with it, neither. and so long as rashkin ain't able to undersell you, mawruss, you got a chance to get rid of your house and to come out even, mawruss. my advice to you is, mawruss, that you should get a hustle on you and sell that house for the best price you could. for so sure as i sit here, after this option expires, and rashkin is again offering his house at forty-five thousand, you would be positively stuck." "i bet yer i would be stuck, abe," morris agreed. "but i ain't going to let no grass grow on me, abe. i will put in an ad. in every paper in new york this afternoon, and i'll keep it up till i sell the house." "maybe that wouldn't be necessary, mawruss," abe said, with a twinkle in his eye. "what d'ye mean?" morris asked. whereupon, abe unfolded at great length his adventures of the day, beginning with his meeting b. rashkin at the real-estate exchange, and concluding with mr. marks' penciled memorandum of morris' address. "and now, mawruss," abe concluded, "you seen the position what i took it, and when that feller marks calls at your house to-night you should be careful and not make no cracks. remember, mawruss, you got to tell him that as a partner i am a crank and a regular highbinder. also, mawruss, you got to tell him that if i wasn't held by a copartnership agreement i would do you for your shirt, y'understand?" morris nodded. "i know you should, abe," he said. "what!" abe roared. "i mean i know i should," morris explained; "i know i should tell this here marks what you say." abe grew calm immediately, but he left further tactics to morris' discretion; and when mr. marks called at the latter's house that evening morris showed that he possessed that discretion to a degree hardly equaled by his partner. "yes, mr. marks," he said, after he had seated his visitor in the easiest chair in the front parlor and had supplied him with a good cigar, "it is true that i got it a house and that the house is on the market for sale." he paused and nodded sadly. "but i also got it a partner, mr. marks, and no doubt you heard already what a cutthroat that feller is. i assure you, mr. marks, that feller goes to work and gets an option on the house next door which you know is identical the same like my house is. yes, mr. marks, he gets an option on that house for forty-seven thousand five hundred dollars from the feller what owns it, when he knows i am already negotiating to sell my house for forty-seven seven-fifty." this willful misstatement of the amount of the option produced the desired result. "did you seen it the option?" marks asked cautiously. "well, no, i ain't seen it, but i heard it on good authority, mr. marks," he said, and allowed himself two bars' rest, as the musicians say, for the phrase to sink in. "yes, mr. marks, on good authority i heard it that potash pays five hundred dollars for a two-weeks' option at forty-seven thousand five hundred dollars." "forty-seven thousand five hundred dollars?" marks said with a rising inflection. "forty-seven thousand five hundred," morris replied blandly, "and i guess he got a pretty cheap house, too." "well, i ain't got the same opinion what you got," marks retorted. "i got an opinion, mr. perlmutter, that your partner pays a thousand dollars too much for his house." "is that so?" morris replied, and then and there began a three-hours' session which terminated when they struck a bargain at forty-seven thousand dollars. ten minutes later marks left with a written memorandum of the terms of sale on his person while morris pocketed a similar memorandum and fifty dollars earnest money. the next morning an executory contract of sale was signed in henry d. feldman's office, and precisely two weeks later mr. marks took title to morris' property which, after deducting all expenditures, netted its builder a profit of almost two thousand dollars. this sum morris deposited to the credit of the firm account of potash & perlmutter, and hardly had the certified check been dispatched to the kosciusko bank when the door opened and rashkin and ferdy rothschild burst into the show-room. "bloodsucker!" rashkin cried, shaking his fist under abe's nose. "what for you didn't take up your option?" abe stepped back hurriedly and put a sample table between himself and b. rashkin. "must i take it up the option?" he said calmly. "couldn't i let you keep it the four hundred dollars if i wanted to?" rashkin looked at ferdy rothschild. "that's a fine murderer for you. what?" he exclaimed. "him, i ain't surprised about," ferdy rothschild replied, "but when a feller should do his own wife's brother out of a commission of four hundred and sixty-five dollars, rashkin, what a heart he must have it. like a piece of steel." "don't talk that way, ferdy," morris commented, without emotion. "you make me feel bad. i got lots of consideration for you, ferdy, after the way you treated me already. yes, ferdy, i think a whole lot of you, ferdy. you could come to me with your tongue hanging out from hunger yet, and i wouldn't lift a little finger." ferdy turned and appealed to b. rashkin. "ain't them fine words to hear from my own brother-in-law?" he said. "nobody compels you to stay here and listen to 'em, rothschild," abe interrupted. "and, anyhow, rothschild, you could make it more money if instead you stayed here you would go downtown to henry d. feldman's office and sue this here rashkin in the courts for your commission. i was telling feldman all about it this morning, and he says you got it a good case." "rothschild," rashkin cried pleadingly, "where are you going?" "you shouldn't talk to me," rothschild answered. "potash is right. i brought this here marks to you and he was ready and willing to purchase at your terms, and so, therefore, you owe me a commission of four hundred and sixty-five dollars." the next moment he banged the door behind him and five minutes later he was followed by b. rashkin, who had filled that short space of time with an exhaustive and profane denunciation of potash & perlmutter, individually and as copartners. five days afterward morris examined the list of real-estate conveyances in the morning paper, after the fashion of the reformed race-track gambler who occasionally consults the past performances of the day's entries. he handed the paper to abe and pointed his finger to the following item: th st. east . x . ; baruch rashkin to the royal piccadilly realty co. (mtg $ , ), $ . "that's only a fake," abe said. "i seen in the paper yesterday that rashkin incorporated the royal piccadilly realty company with his wife, goldie rashkin, as president; and i guess he done it because he got scared that rothschild would get a judgment against him. and so he transfers the house to the corporation." "but if he does that, abe," morris cried gleefully, "ferdy rothschild would never collect on that judgment, because that house is all the property rashkin's got." "i hope you don't feel bad about it, mawruss," abe said. "i bet yer i feel terrible, abe," morris said ironically. "but why did rashkin call it the royal piccadilly realty company, abe?" "for the sake of old times yet," abe answered. "i hear it from sol klinger that before rashkin busted up in the waist business he used to make up a garment called the royal piccadilly." "is that so?" morris commented. "i never heard he busted up in the waist business, abe. why couldn't he make a go of it, abe?" "well, mawruss, it was the same trouble with him like with some other people, i know," abe replied significantly. "he was a good manufacturer but a poor salesman; and you know as well as i do, mawruss, any fool could make up an article, mawruss, but it takes a feller with judgment to sell it." chapter xvii "did the sponger send up them doctors yet?" said morris with a far-away look in his bloodshot eyes, as he entered his place of business at half past seven one morning in march. "doctors?" abe repeated. "what are you talking about--doctors?" morris snapped his fingers impatiently. "doctors! hear me talk!" he cried. "i meant kerseys." "listen here, mawruss," abe suggested. "what's the use you monkeying with business to-day? why don't you go home?" "me, i don't take things so particular, abe," morris replied. "time enough when i got to go home, then i will go home." "you could do what you please, mawruss," abe declared. "we ain't so busy now that you couldn't be spared, y'understand. with spring weather like we got it now, mawruss, we could better sell arctic overshoes and raincoats as try to get rid of our line already. i tell you the truth, mawruss, i ain't seen business so _schlecht_ since way before the spanish war already." "we could always find _something_ to do, abe," said morris. "why don't you tell miss cohen to get out them statements which you was talking about?" "that's a good idee, mawruss," abe agreed. "half the time we don't know where we are at at all. big concerns get out what they call a balancing sheet every day yet, and we are lucky if we do it oncet a year already. how long do you think it would take her to finish 'em up, mawruss?" the far-away look returned to morris' eyes as he replied. "i am waiting for a telephone every minute, abe," he said. abe stared indignantly at his partner, then he took a cigar out of his waistcoat pocket and handed it to morris. "go and sit down and smoke this, mawruss," he said. "leon sammet gives it to me in the subway this morning, and if it's anything like them souvenirs which he hands it out to his customers, it'll make you forget your troubles, mawruss. the last time i smoked one, i couldn't remember nothing for a week." morris carefully cut off the end of abe's gift with a penknife, but when he struck a match the telephone bell rang sharply. immediately he threw the cigar and the lighted match to the floor and dashed wildly to the firm's office. "do you got to burn the place up yet?" abe cried, and after he had extinguished the match with his foot, he followed his partner to the office in time to view morris' coat tails disappearing into the elevator. for two minutes he stood still and shook his head slowly. "miss cohen," he said at length, "get out them statements which i told it you yesterday, and so soon you got the drawing account finished, let me have it. i don't think mr. perlmutter will be back to-day, so you would have lots of time to do it in." it was almost two o'clock before miss cohen handed abe the statement of the firm's drawing account, and abe thrust it into his breast pocket. "i'm going out for a bite, miss cohen," he said. "if anybody wants me, i am over at hammersmith's and you could send jake across for me." he sighed heavily as he raised his umbrella and plunged out into a heavy march downpour. it had been raining steadily for about a week to the complete discouragement of garment buyers, and hammersmith's rear café sheltered a proportionately gloomy assemblage of cloak and suit manufacturers. abe glanced around him when he entered and selected a table at which sat sol klinger, who was scowling at a portion of salisbury steak. "hallo, sol," abe cried. "what's the trouble. ain't the oitermobile running again?" "do me the favor, abe," sol replied, "and cut out them so called alleged jokes." he turned toward a waiter who was dusting off the tablecloth in front of abe. "max," he said, stabbing at the steak with a fork held at arm's length and leaning back in his chair as though to avoid contagion. "what d'ye call this here mess anyway?" the waiter examined the dish critically and nodded his head. "sally's-bury steak, mr. klinger," he murmured. "very nice to-day." "is that so?" sol klinger rejoined. "well, lookyhere max, if i would got it a dawg which i wanted to get rid of bad, y'understand, i would feed him that mess. but me, i ain't ready to die just yet awhile, y'understand, even though business _is_ rotten, so you could take that thing back to the cook and bring me a slice of roast beef; and if you think i got all day to sit here, max, and fool away my time----" "right away, mr. klinger, right away," max cried as he hurried off the offending dish, and once more sol subsided into a melancholy silence. "don't take it so hard, sol," abe said. "we got bad weather like this _schon_ lots of times yet, and none of us busted up. ain't it?" "the weather is nix, abe," sol replied. "if it's wet to-day then it's fine to-morrow, and if a concern ain't buying goods now--all right. they'll buy 'em later on. ain't it? _but_, abe, the partner which you got it to-day, abe, that's the same partner which you got it to-morrow, and that sucker klein, abe, he eats me up with expenses. what that feller does with his money, abe, i don't know." "maybe he buys oitermobiles, sol," abe suggested. "supposing i did buy last spring an oitermobile, abe," sol retorted. "that is the least. i bet yer that feller klein spends enough on taxicab rides for customers, and also one or two of 'em which she ain't customers, as he could buy a _dozen_ oitermobiles already. no, abe, that ain't the point. the first year klein and me goes as partners together, he overdraws me two hundred and fifty dollars. _schon gut._ if the feller is a little extravagent, y'understand, he's got to make it up next year." sol paused to investigate the roast beef which max had brought, and being apparently satisfied, he proceeded with his narrative. "next year, abe," he continued, "klein not only ain't made up the two hundred and fifty, abe, but he gets into me three hundred dollars more. well, business is good, y'understand, and so i don't kick and that's where i am a great big fool, abe, because every year since then, abe, that sucker goes on and on, until to-day our balance sheet shows i got five thousand more invested in the business as klein got it. and if i would tell him we are no longer equal partners, abe, he would go right down to henry d. feldman, and to-morrow morning there would be a receiver in the store." sol plunged his fork into the slice of roast beef as though it were klein himself, and he hacked at it so viciously that the gravy flew in every direction. "max," he roared, clapping his handkerchief to his face, "what the devil you are bringing me here--soup?" it was at least five minutes before sol had exhausted his stock of profanity, and when at length the tablecloth was changed and abe had ministered to the front of his coat with a napkin dipped in water, sol ceased to upbraid the waiter and resumed his tirade against his partner. "yes, abe," he said, "you are in luck. you got a partner, y'understand, which he is a decent respectable feller. i bet yer mawruss would no more dream of overdrawing you, than he would fly in the air." "wait till they gets to be popular, sol," abe replied. "you could take it from me, sol, mawruss would be the first one to buy one of them airyplanes, just the same like he bought that oitermobile yet." "that's all right," sol said. "mawruss is a good live partner. he sees people round him--good, decent, respectable people, mind you--is buying oitermobiles, abe, and so he thinks he could buy one, too. there ain't no harm in that, abe, so long as he keeps inside his drawing account, but so soon as one partner starts to take more as the other money out of the business, abe, then there is right away trouble. but certainly, abe, mawruss wouldn't do nothing like that." "sure not," abe replied, "because in the first place, sol, he knows i wouldn't stand for it, and in the second place, mawruss ain't out to do me, y'understand. i will say for mawruss this, sol. of course a partner is a partner, sol, and the best of partners behaves like cut-throats at times, but mawruss was always white with me, sol, and certainly i think a whole lot of that feller. just to show you, sol, i got miss cohen to fix it up for us a statement of our drawing account which i got it right here in my breast pocket, and i ain't even looked at it at all, so sure i am that everything is all o. k." "i bet yer you overdrew _him_ yet," sol observed. "me, i ain't such a big spender, sol," abe replied as he unfolded the statement. "i don't even got to look at the statement, because i know we drew just the same amount. yes,--here it is sol. me, i drew six thousand two hundred dollars, and mawruss drew--six thousand two hundred and----. _well, what do you think for a sucker like that?_" "why, what's the matter, abe?" sol cried. abe's face had grown white and his eyes glittered with anger. "that's a loafer for you!" he went on. "that feller actually pocketed fifty-two dollars of my money." "fifty-two dollars?" sol repeated. "what are you making such a fuss about fifty-two dollars for?" "with you i suppose fifty-two dollars is nothing, sol?" abe retorted. "i suppose you could pick up fifty-two dollars in the streets, sol. what? wait till i see that robber to-morrow. i'll fix him. actually, i thought that feller was above such things, sol." "don't excite yourself, abe," sol began. "i ain't excited, sol," abe replied. "i ain't a bit excited. all i would do is i will go back to the store and draw a check for fifty-two dollars. i wouldn't let that beat get ahead of me not for one cent, sol. if i would sit down with my eyes closed for five minutes, sol, that loafer would do me for my shirt. i must be on the job all the time, sol, otherwise that feller would have me on the streets yet." for a quarter of an hour longer abe reviled morris, until sol was moved to protest. "if i thought that way about my partner, abe," he said, "i'd go right down and see feldman and have a dissolution yet." "that's what i will do, sol," abe declared. "why should i tie myself up any longer with a cutthroat like that? i tell you what we'll do, sol. we'll go over to the store and see what else miss cohen found it out. i bet you he rings in a whole lot of items on me with the petty cash while i was away on the road." together they left hammersmith's and repaired at once to potash & perlmutter's place of business. as they entered the show-room miss cohen emerged from her office with a sheet of paper in her hand. "mr. potash," she said, "when you were in chicago last fall you drew on the firm for a hundred dollars, and by mistake i credited it to you on your expense account. it ought to have been charged on your drawing account. so that makes your total drawing account sixty-three hundred dollars." abe stopped short and looked at sol. "what was that you said, miss cohen?" he asked. "i said that i made a mistake in that statement, and you're overdrawn on mr. perlmutter forty-eight dollars," miss cohen concluded. "then hurry up quick, miss cohen," abe cried, "and draw a check in my personal check book on the kosciusko bank to potash & perlmutter for forty-eight dollars and see that it's deposited the first thing to-morrow morning." he handed sol a cigar. "yes, sol," he said, "if mawruss would find it out that i am overdrawn on him forty-eight dollars, he would abuse me like a pickpocket. that feller never gives me credit for being square at all, sol. i would be afraid for my life if he would get on to that forty-eight dollars. why, the very first thing you know, sol, he would be going around telling everybody i was a crook and a cutthroat. that's the kind of feller mawruss is, sol. i could treat him always like a gentleman, sol, and if the smallest little thing happens to us, 'sucker' is the least what he calls me." at this juncture the green baize doors leading into the hall burst open and morris himself leaped into the show-room. his necktie was perched rakishly underneath his right ear, and his collar was of the moisture and consistency of a used wash rag. his clothes were dripping, for he carried no umbrella, and his hair hung in damp strands over his forehead. nevertheless he was grinning broadly, as without a word he ran up to abe and seized his hand. for two minutes morris shook it up and down and then he collapsed into the nearest chair. "well, mawruss," abe cried, "what's the matter? couldn't you say nothing? what did you come downtown again for? you should have stayed uptown with minnie." "s'all right, abe," morris gasped. "s'all over, too. the doctor says instead i should be making a nuisance of myself uptown, i would be better off in the store here. he was there before i could get home." "who was there?" abe asked. "the doctor?" "_not_ the doctor," morris went on. "the boy was there. minnie is doing fine. the doctor said everything would be all right." "that's good. that's good," abe murmured. "y'oughter seen him, abe. he weighed ten pounds," morris continued. "i bet yer he could holler, too,--like an auctioneer already. minnie says also i shouldn't forget to tell you what we agreed upon." "what we agreed upon?" abe repeated. "why we ain't agreed upon nothing, so far what i hear, mawruss. what d'ye mean--what we agreed upon?" "not _you_ and me, abe," morris cried. "_her_ and me. we agreed that if it was a boy we'd call him abraham p. perlmutter already." he slapped abe on the back and laughed uproariously, while abe looked guilty and blushed a deep crimson. "abraham potash perlmutter," morris reiterated. "that's one fine name, sol." it was now sol's turn to take morris' hand and he squeezed it hard. "i congradulate you for the boy and for the name both," he said. once more abe seized his partner's hand and shook it rhythmically up and down as though it were a patent exerciser. "mawruss," he said, "this is certainly something which i didn't expect at all, and all i could say is that i got to tell you you would never be sorry for it. just a few minutes since in hammersmith's i was telling sol i got a partner which it is a credit and an honor for a feller to know he could always trust such a partner to do what is right and square and also, mawruss, i----miss cohen," he broke off suddenly, "you should draw right away another check in my personal book for a hundred dollars." "to whose order?" miss cohen asked. abe cleared his throat and blinked away a slight moisture before replying. "make it to the order of abraham p. perlmutter," he said, "and we will deposit it in a savings bank, mawruss, and when he comes twenty-one years old, mawruss, we will draw it out with anything else what you put in there for him, mawruss, and we will deposit it in our own bank to the credit of _potash, perlmutter & son_." sol klinger's face spread into an amiable grin. "you could put me down ten dollars on that savings bank account, too, boys," he said as he reached for his hat. "i've got to be going now." "don't forget you should tell klein it's a boy," morris called to him. "i wouldn't forget," sol replied. "klein'll be glad to hear it. you know, mawruss, klein ain't such a grouch as most people think he is. in fact, taking him all around, klein is a pretty decent feller." as he turned to leave, his eye met abe's, and both of them smiled guiltily. "after all, abe," sol concluded, "it ain't what partners says about each other, abe, but how they _acts_ which counts. ain't it?" abe nodded emphatically. "an old saying but a true one," morris declared. "actions talk louder as words." the end. transcriber's notes several spelling and punctuation inconsistencies appear in the original of this text. punctuation has been changed when required for correct syntax. inconsistent spelling has been retained in direct speech for pronunciation purposes and in quoted written material, but has been changed as noted below. page changed "good-bye" to "good-by" page changed "recission" to "rescission" page changed "lownstein" to "lowenstein" page changed "dassent" to "dassen't" page changed "kreitman" to "kreitmann" page changed "theeayter" to "theayter" page changed "neighborhod" to "neighborhood" page changed "fernstein" to "feinstein" page changed "cigarrettel" to "cigarettel" pages , , changed "aint" to "ain't" page changed "cancellation" to "cancelation" page changed "raskin" to "rashkin" (twice) page changed "practicaly" to "practically" page changed "sugarmen" to "sugarman" page changed "cutthroats" to "cut-throats" produced from scanned images of public domain material from the google print project.) jewish children translated from the yiddish of "shalom aleichem" by hannah berman new york alfred · a · knopf mcmxxii copyright, , by alfred a. knopf, inc. _published january, _ _set up and printed by the vail-ballou co., binghamton, n. y. paper furnished by w. f. etherington & co., new york, n. y. bound by the h. wolff estate, new york, n. y._ manufactured in the united states of america contents a page from the "song of songs" passover in a village. an idyll elijah the prophet getzel a lost "l'ag beomer" murderers three little heads greens for "_shevuous_" another page from the "song of songs" a pity for the living the tabernacle the dead citron isshur the beadle boaz the teacher the spinning-top esther the pocket-knife on the fiddle this night a page from the "song of songs" busie is a name; it is the short for esther-liba: libusa: busie. she is a year older than i, perhaps two years. and both of us together are no more than twenty years old. now, if you please, sit down and think it out for yourself. how old am i, and how old is she? but, it is no matter. i will rather tell you her history in a few words. my older brother, benny, lived in a village. he had a mill. he could shoot with a gun, ride on a horse, and swim like a devil. one summer he was bathing in the river, and was drowned. of him they said the proverb had been invented: "all good swimmers are drowned." he left after him the mill, two horses, a young widow, and one child. the mill was neglected; the horses were sold; the young widow married again, and went away, somewhere, far; and the child was brought to us. the child was busie. * * * that my father loves busie as if she were his own child; and that my mother frets over her as if she were an only daughter, is readily understood. they look upon her as their comfort in their great sorrow. and i? why is it that when i come from "_cheder_," and do not find busie i cannot eat? and when busie comes in, there shines a light in every corner. when busie talks to me, i drop my eyes. and when she laughs at me i weep. and when she.... * * * i waited long for the dear good feast of passover. i would be free then. i would play with busie in nuts, run about in the open, go down the hill to the river, and show her the ducks in the water. when i tell her, she does not believe me. she laughs. she never believes me. that is, she says nothing, but she laughs. and i hate to be laughed at. she does not believe that i can climb to the highest tree, if i like. she does not believe that i can shoot, if i have anything to shoot with. when the passover comes--the dear good passover--and we can go out into the free, open air, away from my father and mother, i shall show her such tricks that she will go wild. * * * the dear good passover has come. they dress us both in kingly clothes. everything we wear shines and sparkles and glitters. i look at busie, and i think of the "song of songs" that i learnt for the passover, verse by verse: "behold, thou art fair, my love; behold, thou art fair; thou hast doves' eyes within thy locks; thy hair is as a flock of goats, that appear from mount gilead. "thy teeth are like a flock of sheep that are even shorn, which come up from the washing; whereof every one bear twins, and none is barren among them. "thy lips are like a thread of scarlet, and thy speech is comely; thy temples are like a piece of pomegranate within thy locks." tell me, please, why is it that when one looks at busie one is reminded of the "song of songs"? and when one reads the "song of songs," busie rises to one's mind? * * * a beautiful passover eve, bright and warm. "shall we go?" asks busie. and i am all afire. my mother does not spare the nuts. she fills our pockets. but she makes us promise that we will not crack a single one before the "_seder_." we may play with them as much as we like. we run off. the nuts rattle as we go. it is beautiful and fine out of doors. the sun is already high in the heavens, and is looking down on the other side of the town. everything is broad and comfortable and soft and free, around and about. in places, on the hill the other side of the synagogue, one sees a little blade of grass, fresh and green and living. screaming and fluttering their wings, there fly past us, over our heads, a swarm of young swallows. and again i am reminded of the "song of songs" i learnt at school: "the flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land." i feel curiously light. i imagine i have wings, and can rise up and fly away. * * * a curious noise comes from the town, a roaring, a rushing, a tumult. in a moment the face of the world is changed for me. our farm is a courtyard, our house is a palace. i am a prince, busie a princess. the logs of wood that lie at our door are the cedars and firs of the "song of songs." the cat that is warming herself in the sun near the door is a roe, or a young hart; and the hill on the other side of the synagogue is the mountain of lebanon. the women and the girls who are washing and scrubbing and making everything clean for the passover are the daughters of jerusalem. everything, everything is from the "song of songs." i walk about with my hands in my pockets. the nuts shake and rattle. busie walks beside me, step by step. i cannot go slowly. i am carried along. i want to fly, to soar through the air like an eagle. i let myself go. busie follows me. i jump from one log of wood to the other. busie jumps after me. i am up; she is up. i am down; she is down. who will tire first? "how long is this to last?" asks busie. and i answer her in the words of the "song of songs": "'until the day break, and the shadows flee away.' ba! ba! ba! you are tired, and i am not." * * * i am glad that busie does not know what i know. and i am sorry for her. my heart aches for her. i imagine she is sorrowful. that is her nature. she is glad and joyous, and suddenly she sits down in a corner and weeps silently. my mother comforts her, and my father showers kisses on her. but, it is useless. busie weeps until she is exhausted. for whom? for her father who died so young? or for her mother who married again and went off without a good-bye? ah, her mother! when one speaks of her mother to her, she turns all colours. she does not believe in her mother. she does not say an unkind word of her, but she does not believe in her. of that i am sure. i cannot bear to see busie weeping. i sit down beside her, and try to distract her thoughts from herself. * * * i keep my hands in my pockets, rattle my nuts, and say to her: "guess what i can do if i like." "what can you do?" "if i like, all your nuts will belong to me." "will you win them off me?" "we shall not even begin to play." "then you will take them from me?" "no, they will come to me of themselves." she lifts her beautiful blue eyes to me--her beautiful, blue, "song of songs" eyes. i say to her: "you think i am jesting. little fool, i know certain magic words." she opens her eyes still wider. i feel big. i explain myself to her, like a great man, a hero: "we boys know everything. there is a boy at school. sheika the blind one, we call him. he is blind of one eye. he knows everything in the world, even '_kaballa_.' do you know what '_kaballa_' is?" "no. how am i to know?" i am in the seventh heaven because i can give her a lecture on "_kaballa_." "'_kaballa_,' little fool, is a thing that is useful. by means of '_kaballa_' i can make myself invisible to you, whilst i can see you. by means of '_kaballa_' i can draw wine from a stone, and gold from a wall. by means of '_kaballa_' i can manage that we two shall rise up into the clouds, and even higher than the clouds." * * * to rise up in the air with busie, by means of "_kaballa_," into the clouds, and higher than the clouds, and fly with her far, far over the ocean--that was one of my best dreams. there, on the other side of the ocean, live the dwarfs who are descended from the giants of king david's time. the dwarfs who are, in reality, good-natured folks. they live on sweets and the milk of almonds, and play all day on little flutes, and dance all together in a ring, romping about. they are afraid of nothing, and are fond of strangers. when a man comes to them from our world, they give him plenty to eat and drink, dress him in the finest garments, and load him with gold and silver ornaments. before he leaves, they fill his pockets with diamonds and rubies which are to be found in their streets like mud in ours. "like mud in the streets? well!" said busie to me when i had told her all about the dwarfs. "do you not believe it?" "do you believe it?" "why not?" "where did you hear it?" "where? at school." "ah! at school." the sun sank lower and lower, tinting the sky with red gold. the gold was reflected in busie's eyes. they were bathed in gold. * * * i want very much to surprise busie with sheika's tricks which i can imitate by means of "_kaballa_." but they do not surprise her. on the contrary, i think they amuse her. why else does she show me her pearl-white teeth? i am a little annoyed, and i say to her: "maybe you do not believe me?" busie laughs. "maybe you think i am boasting? or that i am inventing lies out of my own head?" busie laughs louder. oh, in that case, i must show her. i know how. i say to her: "the thing is that you do not know what '_kaballa_' means. if you knew what '_kaballa_' was you would not laugh. by means of '_kaballa_,' if i like, i can bring your mother here. yes, yes! and if you beg hard of me, i will bring her this very night, riding on a stick." all at once she stops laughing. a cloud settles on her beautiful face. and i imagine that the sun has disappeared. no more sun, no more day! i am afraid i went a little too far. i had no right to pain her--to speak of her mother. i am sorry for the whole thing. i must wipe it out. i must ask her forgiveness. i creep close to her. she turns away from me. i try to take her hand. i wish to say to her in the words of the "song of songs": "'return, return, o shulamite!' busie!" suddenly a voice called from the house: "shemak! shemak!" i am shemak. my mother is calling me to go to the synagogue with father. * * * to go to the synagogue with one's father on the passover eve--is there in the world a greater pleasure than that? what is it worth to be dressed in new clothes from head to foot, and to show off before one's friends? then the prayers themselves--the first festival evening prayer and blessing. ah, how many luxuries has the good god prepared for his jewish children. "shemak! shemak!" my mother has no time. "i am coming. i am coming in a minute. i only want to say a word to busie--no more than a word." i confess to busie that i told her lies. one cannot make people fly by means of "_kaballa_." one may fly one's self. and i will show her, after the festival, how i can fly. i will rise from this same spot on the logs, before her eyes, and in a moment reach the other side of the clouds. from there, i will turn a little to the right. you see, there all things end, and one comes upon the shore of the frozen ocean. * * * busie listens attentively. the sun is sending down its last rays, and kissing the earth. "what is the frozen sea?" asks busie. "you don't know what the frozen sea is? it is a sea whose waters are thick as liver and salt as brine. no ships can ride on it. when people fall into it, they can never get out again." busie looks at me with big eyes. "why should you go there?" "am i going, little fool? i fly over it like an eagle. in a few minutes i shall be over the dry land and at the twelve mountains that spit fire. at the twelfth hill, at the very top, i shall come down and walk seven miles, until i come to a thick forest. i shall go in and out of the trees, until i come to a little stream. i shall swim across the water, and count seven times seven. a little old man with a long beard appears before me, and says to me: 'what is your request?' i answer: 'bring me the queen's daughter.'" "what queen's daughter?" asks busie. and i imagine she is frightened. "the queen's daughter is the princess who was snatched away from under the wedding canopy and bewitched, and put into a palace of crystal seven years ago." "what has that to do with you?" "what do you mean by asking what it has to do with me? i must go and set her free." "you must set her free?" "who else?" "you need not fly so far. take my advice, you need not." * * * busie takes hold of my hand, and i feel her little white hand is cold. i look into her eyes, and i see in them the reflection of the red gold sun that is bidding farewell to the day--the first, bright, warm passover day. the day dies by degrees. the sun goes out like a candle. the noises of the day are hushed. there is hardly a living soul in the street. in the little windows shine the lights of the festival candles that have just been lit. a curious, a holy stillness wraps us round, busie and myself. we feel that our lives are fast merging in the solemn stillness of the festive evening. "shemak! shemak!" * * * my mother calls me for the third time to go with my father to the synagogue. do i not know myself that i must go to prayers? i will sit here another minute--one minute, no more. busie hears my mother calling me. she tears her hand from mine, gets up, and drives me off. "shemak, you are called--you. go, go! it is time. go, go!" i get up to go. the day is dead. the sun is extinguished. its gold beams have turned to blood. a little wind blows--a soft, cold wind. busie tells me to go. i throw a last glance at her. she is not the same busie. in my eyes she is different, on this bewitching evening. the enchanted princess runs in my head. but busie does not leave me time to think. she drives me off. i go. i turn round to look at the enchanted princess who is completely merged into the beautiful passover evening. i stand like one bewitched. she points to me to go. and i imagine i hear her saying to me, in the words of the "song of songs": "make haste, my beloved, and be thou like to a roe or to a young hart upon the mountains of spices." passover in a village an idyll let winds blow. let storms rage. let the world turn upside down. the old oak, which has been standing since the creation of the world, and whose roots reach to god-knows-where--what does he care for winds? what are storms to him? the old tree is not a symbol--it is a living being, a man whose name is nachman veribivker of veribivka. he is a tall jew, broad-shouldered, a giant. the townspeople are envious of his strength, and make fun of him. "peace be unto you. how is a jew in health?" nachman knows he is being made fun of. he bends his shoulders so as to look more jewish. but, it is useless. he is too big. nachman has lived in the village a long time. "our 'lachman,'" the peasants call him. they look upon him as a good man, with brains. they like to have a chat with him. they follow his advice. "what are we to do about bread?" "lachman" has an almanack, and he knows whether bread will be cheap or dear this year. he goes to the town, and so knows what is doing in the world. it would be hard to imagine veribivka without nachman. not only was his father, feitel, born in veribivka, but his grandfather, arya. he was a clever jew, and a wit. he used to say that the village was called veribivka because arya veribivker lived in it, because, before veribivka was veribivka, he, arya veribivker was already arya veribivker. that's what his grandfather used to say. the jews of those times! and do you think arya veribivker said this for no reason? arya was not an ordinary man who made jokes without reason. he meant that the catastrophes of his day were jewish tragedies. at that time they already talked of driving the jews out of villages. and not only talked but drove them out. all the jews were driven out, excepting arya veribivker. it may be that even the governor of the district could do nothing, because arya veribivker proved that according to the law, he could not be driven out. the jews of those times! * * * certainly, if one has inherited such a privilege, and is independent, one can laugh at the whole world. what did our nachman veribivker care about uprisings, the limitations of the pale, of circulars? what did nachman care about the wicked gentile kuratchka and the papers that he brought from the court? kuratchka was a short peasant with short fingers. he wore a smock and high boots, and a silver chain and a watch like a gentleman. he was a clerk of the court. and he read all the papers which abused and vilified the jews. personally, kuratchka was not a bad sort. he was a neighbour of nachman and pretended to be a friend. when kuratchka had the toothache, nachman gave him a lotion. when kuratchka's wife was brought to bed of a child, nachman's wife nursed her. but for some time, the devil knows why, kuratchka had been reading the anti-semitic papers, and he was an altered man. "esau began to speak in him." he was always bringing home news of new governors, new circulars from the minister, and new edicts against jews. each time, nachman's heart was torn. but, he did not let the gentile know of it. he listened to him with a smile, and held out the palm of his hand, as if to say, "when hair grows here." let governors change. let ministers write circulars. what concern is it of nachman veribivker of veribivka? nachman lived comfortably. that is, not as comfortably as his grandfather arya had lived. those were different times. one might almost say that the whole of veribivka belonged to arya. he had the inn, the store, a mill, a granary. he made money with spoons and plates, as they say. but, that was long ago. today, all these things are gone. no more inn; no more store; no more granary. the question is why, in that case, does nachman live in the village? where then should he live? in the earth? just let him sell his house, and he will be nachman veribivker no more. he will be a dependent, a stranger. as it is, he has at least a corner of his own, a house to live in, and a garden. his wife and daughters cultivate the garden. and if the lord helps them, they have greens for the summer, and potatoes for the whole winter, until long after the passover. but, one cannot live on potatoes alone. it is said that one wants bread with potatoes. and when there's no bread, a jew takes his stick, and goes through the village in search of business. he never comes home empty-handed. what the lord destines, he buys--some old iron, a bundle of rags, an old sack, or else a hide. the hide is stretched and dried, and is taken to the town, to abraham-elijah the tanner. and on all these one either earns or loses money. abraham-elijah the tanner, a man with a bluish nose and fingers as black as ink, laughs at nachman, because he is so coarsened through living with gentiles that he even speaks like them. * * * yes, coarsened. nachman feels it himself. he grows coarser each year. oh, if his grandfather reb arya--peace be unto him!--could see his grandson. he had been a practical man, but had also been a scholar. he knew whole passages of the psalms and the prayers off by heart. the jews of those times! and what does he, nachman, know? he can only just say his prayers. it's well he knows that much. his children will know even less. when he looks at his children, how they grow to the ceiling, broad and tall like himself, and can neither read nor write, his heart grows heavy. more than all, his heart aches for his youngest child, who is called feitel, after his father. he was a clever child, this feitel. he was smaller in build, more refined, more jewish than the others. and he had brains. he was shown the hebrew alphabet once, in a prayer-book, and he never again confused one letter with the other. such a fine child to grow up in a village amongst calves and pigs! he plays with kuratchka's son, fedoka. he rides on the one stick with him. they both chase the one cat. they both dig the same hole. they do together everything children can do. nachman is sorry to see his child playing with the gentile child. it withers him, as if he were a tree that had been stricken by lightning. * * * fedoka is a smart little boy. he has a pleasant face and a dimpled chin, and flaxen hair. he loves feitel, and feitel does not dislike him. all the winter each child slept on his father's stove. they went to the window and longed for one another. they seldom met. but now the long angry winter is over. the black earth throws off her cold white mantle. the sun shines; and the wind blows. a little blade of grass peeps out. at the foot of the hill the little river murmurs. the calf inhales the soft air through distended nostrils. the cock closes one eye, and is lost in meditation. everything around and about has come to life again. everything rejoices. it is the passover eve. neither feitel nor fedoka can be kept indoors. they rush out into god's world which has opened up for them both. they take each other's hands, and fly down the hill that smiles at them--"come here, children!" they leap towards the sun that greets them and calls them: "come, children!" when they are tired of running, they sit down on god's earth that knows no jew and no gentile, but whispers invitingly: "children, come to me, to me." * * * they have much to tell each other, not having met throughout the whole winter. feitel boasts that he knows the whole hebrew alphabet. fedoka boasts that he has a whip. feitel boasts that it is the eve of passover. they have "_matzos_" for the whole festival and wine. "do you remember, fedoka, i gave you a '_matzo_' last year?" "'_matzo_,'" repeats fedoka. a smile overspreads his pleasant face. it seems he remembers the taste of the "_matzo_." "would you like to have some '_matzo_' now, fresh '_matzo_'?" is it necessary to ask such a question? "then come with me," says feitel, pointing up the hill which smiled to them invitingly. they climbed the hill. they gazed at the warm sun through their fingers. they threw themselves on the damp earth which smelled so fresh. feitel drew out from under his blouse a whole fresh, white "_matzo_," covered with holes on both sides. fedoka licked his fingers in advance. feitel broke the "_matzo_" in halves, and gave one half to his friend. "what do you say to the '_matzo_,' fedoka?" what could fedoka say when his mouth was stuffed with "_matzo_" that crackled between his teeth, and melted under his tongue like snow? one minute, and there was no more "_matzo_." "all gone?" fedoka threw his grey eyes at feitel's blouse as a cat looks at butter. "want more?" asked feitel, looking at fedoka through his sharp black eyes. what a question! "then wait a while," said feitel. "next year you'll get more." they both laughed at the joke. and without a word, as if they had already arranged it, they threw themselves on the ground, and rolled down the hill like balls, quickly, quickly downwards. * * * at the bottom of the hill they stood up, and looked at the murmuring river that ran away to the left. they turned to the right, going further and further over the broad fields that were not yet green in all places, but showed signs of being green soon--that did not yet smell of grass, but would smell of grass soon. they walked and walked in silence bewitched by the loveliness of the earth, under the bright, smiling sun. they did not walk, but swam. they did not swim, but flew. they flew like birds that sweep in the soft air of the lovely world which the lord has created for all living things. hush! they are at the windmill which belongs to the village elder. once it belonged to nachman veribivker. now it belongs to the village elder whose name is opanas--a cunning gentile with one ear-ring, who owns a "_samovar_." opanas is a rich epicurean. along with the mill he has a store--the same store which once belonged to nachman veribivker. he took both the mill and the store from the jew by cunning. the mill went round in its season, but this day it was still. there was no wind. a curious passover eve without winds. that the mill was not working was so much the better for feitel and fedoka. they could see the mill itself. and there was much to see in the mill. but to them the mill was not so interesting as the sails, and the wheel which turns them whichever way the wind blows. they sat down near the mill, and talked. it was one of those conversations which have no beginning and no end. feitel told stories of the town to which his father had once taken him. he was at the fair. he saw shops. not a single shop as in veribivka, but a lot of shops. and in the evening his father took him to the synagogue. his father had "_yahrzeit_" after his father. "that means after my grandfather," explained feitel. "do you understand, or do you not?" fedoka might have understood, but he was not listening. he interrupted with a story that had nothing to do with what feitel was talking about. he told feitel that last year he saw a bird's nest in a high tree. he tried to reach it, but could not. he tried to knock it down with a stick, but could not. he threw stones at the nest, until he brought down two tiny, bleeding fledglings. "you killed them?" asked feitel, fearfully, and made a wry face. "little ones," replied fedoka. "but, they were dead?" "without feathers, yellow beaks, little fat bellies." "but killed, but killed!" * * * it was rather late when feitel and fedoka saw by the sun in the heavens that it was time to go home. feitel had forgotten that it was the passover eve. he remembered then that his mother had to wash him, and dress him in his new trousers. he jumped up and flew home, fedoka after him. they both flew home, gladly and joyfully. and in order that one should not be home before the other, they held hands, flying like arrows from bows. when they got to the village, this was the scene which confronted them:-- nachman veribivker's house was surrounded by peasants, men and women, boys and girls. the clerk, kuratchka, and opanas the village elder and his wife, and the magistrate and the policeman--all were there, talking and shouting together. nachman and his wife were in the middle of the crowd, arguing and waving their hands. nachman was bent low and was wiping the perspiration from his face with both hands. by his side stood his older children, gloomy and downcast. suddenly, the whole picture changed. some one pointed to the two children. the whole crowd, including the village elder and the magistrate, the policeman and the clerk, stood still, like petrified. only nachman looked at the people, straightened out his back, and laughed. his wife threw out her hands and began to weep. the village elder and the clerk and the magistrate and their wives pounced on the children. "where were you, you so-and-so?" "where were we? we were down by the mill." * * * the two friends, feitel as well as fedoka, got punished without knowing why. feitel's father flogged him with his cap. "a boy should know." what should a boy know? out of pity his mother took him from his father's hands. she gave him a few smacks on her own account, and at once washed him and dressed him in his new trousers--the only new garment he had for the passover. she sighed. why? afterwards, he heard his father saying to his mother: "may the lord help us to get over this festival in peace. the passover ought to have gone before it came." feitel could not understand why the passover should have gone before it came. he worried himself about this. he did not understand why his father had flogged him, and his mother smacked him. he did not understand what sort of a passover eve it was this day in the world. * * * if feitel's jewish brains could not solve the problems, certainly fedoka's peasant brains could not. first of all his mother took hold of him by the flaxen hair, and pulled it. then she gave him a few good smacks in the face. these he accepted like a philosopher. he was used to them. and he heard his mother talking with the peasants. they told curious tales of a child that the jews of the town had enticed on the passover eve, hidden in a cellar a day and a night, and were about to make away with, when his cries were heard by passers-by. they rescued him. he had marks on his body--four marks, placed like a cross. a cunning peasant-woman with a red face told this tale. and the other women shook their shawl-covered heads, and crossed themselves. fedoka could not understand why the women looked at him when they were talking. and what had the tale to do with him and feitel? why had his mother pulled his flaxen hair and boxed his ears? he did not care about these. he was used to them. he only wanted to know why he had had such a good share that day. * * * "well?" feitel heard his father remark to his mother immediately after the festival. his face was shining as if the greatest good fortune had befallen him. "well? you fretted yourself to death. you were afraid. a woman remains a woman. our passover and their easter have gone, and nothing." "thank god," replied his mother. and feitel could not understand what his mother had feared. and why were they glad that the passover was gone? would it not have been better if the passover had been longer and longer? feitel met fedoka outside the door. he could not contain himself, but told him everything--how they had prayed, and how they had eaten. oh, how they had eaten! he told him how nice all the passover dishes were, and how sweet the wine. fedoka listened attentively, and cast his eyes on feitel's blouse. he was still thinking of "_matzo_." suddenly there was a scream, and a cry in a high-pitched soprano: "fedoka, fedoka!" it was his mother calling him in for supper. but fedoka did not hurry. he thought she would not pull his hair now. first of all, he had not been at the mill. secondly, it was after the passover. after the passover there was no need to be afraid of the jews. he stretched himself on the grass, on his stomach, propping up his white head with his hands. opposite him lay feitel, his black head propped up by his hands. the sky is blue. the sun is warm. the little wind fans one and plays with one's hair. the little calf stands close by. the cock is also near, with his wives. the two heads, the black and the white, are close together. the children talk and talk and talk, and cannot finish talking. * * * nachman veribivker is not at home. early in the morning he took his stick, and let himself go over the village, in search of business. he stopped at every farm, bade the gentiles good-morning, calling each one by name, and talked with them on every subject in the world. but he avoided all reference to the passover incident, and never even hinted at his fears of the passover. before going away, he said: "perhaps, friend, you have something you would like to sell?" "nothing, 'lachman,' nothing." "old iron, rags, an old sack, or a hide?" "do not be offended, 'lachman,' there is nothing. bad times!" "bad times? you drank everything, maybe. such a festival!" "who drank? what drank? bad times." the gentile sighed. nachman also sighed. they talked of different things. nachman would not have the other know that he came only on business. he left that gentile, and went to another, to a third, until he came upon something. he would not return home empty-handed. nachman veribivker, loaded and perspiring, tramped home, thinking only of one problem--how much he was going to gain or lose that day. he has forgotten the passover eve incident. he has forgotten the fears of the passover. the clerk, kuratchka, and his governors and circulars have gone clean out of the jew's head. let winds blow. let storms rage. let the world turn upside down. the old oak which has been standing since the creation of the world, and whose roots reach to god-knows-where--what does he care for winds? what are storms to him? elijah the prophet it is not good to be an only son, to be fretted over by father and mother--to be the only one left out of seven. don't stand here. don't go there. don't drink that. don't eat the other. cover up your throat. hide your hands. ah, it is not good--not good at all to be an only son, and a rich man's son into the bargain. my father is a money changer. he goes about amongst the shopkeepers with a bag of money, changing copper for silver, and silver for copper. that is why his fingers are always black, and his nails broken. he works very hard. each day, when he comes home, he is tired and broken down. "i have no feet," he complains to mother. "i have no feet, not even the sign of a foot." no feet? it may be. but for that again he has a fine business. that's what the people say. and they envy us that we have a good business. mother is satisfied. so am i. "we shall have a passover this year, may all the children of israel have the like, father in heaven!" that's what my mother said, thanking god for the good passover. and i also was thankful. but shall we ever live to see it--this same passover? passover has come at last--the dear sweet passover. i was dressed as befitted the son of a man of wealth--like a young prince. but what was the consequence? i was not allowed to play, or run about, lest i caught cold. i must not play with poor children. i was a wealthy man's boy. such nice clothes, and i had no one to show off before. i had a pocketful of nuts, and no one to play with. it is not good to be an only child, and fretted over--the only one left out of seven, and a wealthy man's son into the bargain. my father put on his best clothes, and went off to the synagogue. said my mother to me: "do you know what? lie down and have a sleep. you will then be able to sit up at the '_seder_' and ask the 'four questions'!" was i mad? would i go asleep before the "_seder_"? "remember, you must not sleep at the '_seder_.' if you do, elijah the prophet will come with a bag on his shoulders. on the two first nights of passover, elijah the prophet goes about looking for those who have fallen asleep at the '_seder_,' and takes them away in his bag." ... ha! ha! will i fall asleep at the "_seder_"? i? not even if it were to last the whole night through, or even to broad daylight. "what happened last year, mother?" "last year you fell asleep, soon after the first blessing." "why did elijah the prophet not come then with his bag?" "then you were very small, now you are big. tonight you must ask father the 'four questions.' tonight you must say with father--'slaves were we.' tonight, you must eat with us fish and soup and '_matzo_'-balls. hush, here is father, back from the synagogue." "good '_yom-tov_'!" "good '_yom-tov_'!" thank god, father made the blessing over wine. i, too. father drank the cup full of wine. so did i, a cup full, to the very dregs. "see, to the dregs," said mother to father. to me she said: "a full cup of wine! you will drop off to sleep." ha! ha! will i fall asleep? not even if we are to sit up all the night, or even to broad daylight. "well," said my father, "how are you going to ask the 'four questions'? how will you recite '_haggadah_'? how will you sing with me--'slaves were we'?" my mother never took her eyes off me. she smiled and said: "you will fall asleep--fast asleep." "oh, mother, mother, if you had eighteen heads, you would surely fall asleep, if some one sat opposite you, and sang in your ears: 'fall asleep, fall asleep'!" of course i fell asleep. i fell asleep, and dreamt that my father was already saying: "pour out thy wrath." my mother herself got up from the table, and went to open the door to welcome elijah the prophet. it would be a fine thing if elijah the prophet did come, as my mother had said, with a bag on his shoulders, and if he said to me: "come, boy." and who else would be to blame for this but my mother, with her "fall asleep, fall asleep." and as i was thinking these thoughts, i heard the creaking of the door. my father stood up and cried: "blessed art thou who comest in the name of the eternal." i looked towards the door. yes, it was he. he came in so slowly and so softly that one scarcely heard him. he was a handsome man, elijah the prophet--an old man with a long grizzled beard reaching to his knees. his face was yellow and wrinkled, but it was handsome and kindly without end. and his eyes! oh, what eyes! kind, soft, joyous, loving, faithful eyes. he was bent in two, and leaned on a big, big stick. he had a bag on his shoulders. and silently, softly, he came straight to me. "now, little boy, get into my bag, and come." so said to me the old man, but in a kind voice, and softly and sweetly. i asked him: "where to?" and he replied: "you will see later." i did not want to go, and he said to me again: "come." and i began to argue with him. "how can i go with you when i am a wealthy man's son?" said he to me: "and as a wealthy man's son, of what great value are you?" said i: "i am the only child of my father and mother." said he: "to me you are not an only child!" said i: "i am fretted over. if they find that i am gone, they will not get over it, they will die, especially my mother." he looked at me, the old man did, very kindly, and he said to me, softly and sweetly as before: "if you do not want to die, then come with me. say good-bye to your father and mother, and come." "but, how can i come when i am an only child, the only one left alive out of seven?" then he said to me more sternly: "for the last time, little boy. choose one of the two. either you say good-bye to your father and mother, and come with me, or you remain here, but fast asleep for ever and ever." having said these words, he stepped back from me a little, and was turning to the door. what was to be done? to go with the old man, god-knows-where, and get lost, would mean the death of my father and mother. i am an only child, the only one left alive out of seven. to remain here, and fall asleep for ever and ever--that would mean that i myself must die.... i stretched out my hand to him, and with tears in my eyes i said: "elijah the prophet, dear, kind, loving, darling elijah, give me one minute to think." he turned towards me his handsome, yellow, wrinkled old face with its grizzled beard reaching to his knees, and looked at me with his beautiful, kind, loving, faithful eyes, and he said to me with a smile: "i will give you one minute to decide, my child--but, no more than one minute." * * * i ask you. "what should i have decided to do in that one minute, so as to save myself from going with the old man, and also to save myself from falling asleep for ever? well, who can guess?" getzel "sit down, and i will tell you a story about nuts." "about nuts? about nuts?" "about nuts." "now? war-time?" "just because it's war-time. because your heart is heavy, i want to distract your thoughts from the war. in any case, when you crack a nut, you find a kernel." * * * his name was getzel, but they called him goyetzel. whoever had god in his heart made fun of getzel, ridiculed him. he was considered a bit of a fool. amongst us schoolboys he was looked upon as a young man. he was a clumsily built fellow, had extremely coarse hands, and thick lips. he had a voice that seemed to come from an empty barrel. he wore wide trousers and big top-boots, like a bear. his head was as big as a kneading trough. this head of his, "_reb_" yankel used to say, was stuffed with hay or feathers. the "_rebbe_" frequently reminded getzel of his great size and awkwardness. "goyetzel," "coarse being," "bullock's skin," and other such nicknames were bestowed on him by the teacher. and he never seemed to care a rap about them. he hid in a corner, puffed out his cheeks, and bleated like a calf. you must know that getzel was fond of eating. food was dearer to him than anything else. he was a mere stomach. the master called him a glutton, but getzel didn't care about that either. the minute he saw food, he thrust it into his mouth, and chewed and chewed vigorously. he had sent to him, to the "_cheder_," the best of everything. this great clumsy fool was, along with everything else, his wealthy mother's darling--her only child. and she took the greatest care of him. day and night, she stuffed him like a goose, and was always wailing that her child ate nothing. "he ought to have the evil eye averted from him," our teacher used to say, behind getzel's back, of course. "to the devil with his mother," the teacher's wife used to add, in such a voice, and making such a grimace over her words that it was impossible to keep from laughing. "in polosya they keep such children in swaddling clothes. may he suffer instead of my old bones!" "may i live longer than his head," the teacher put in, after her, and pulled getzel's cap down over his ears. the whole "_cheder_" laughed. getzel sat silent. he was sulky, but kept silent. it was hard to get him into a temper. but, when he did get into a temper, he was terrible. even an angry bear could not be fiercer than he. he used to dance with passion, and bite his own big hands with his strong white teeth. if he gave one a blow, one felt it--one enjoyed it. this the boys knew very well. they had tasted his blows, and they were terribly afraid of him. they did not want to have anything to do with him. you know that jewish children have a lot of respect for beatings. and in order to protect themselves against getzel, all the ten boys had to keep united--ten against one. and that was how it came about that there were two parties at "_reb_" yankel's "_cheder_." on the one side, all the pupils; on the other, getzel. the boys kept their wits about them; getzel his fists. the boys worked at their lessons; getzel ate continually. * * * it came to pass that on a holiday the boys got together to play nuts. playing nuts is a game like any other, neither better than tops, nor worse than cards. the game is played in various ways. there are "holes" and "bank" and "caps." but every game finishes up in the same way. one boy loses, another wins. and, as always, he who wins is a clever fellow, a smart fellow, a good fellow. and he who loses is a good-for-nothing, a fool and a ne'er-do-well; just as it happens in the big cities, at the clubs, where people sit playing cards night and day. the ten boys got together in the "_cheder_" to play nuts. they turned over a bench, placed a row of nuts on the floor, and began rolling other nuts downwards. whoever knocked the most nuts out of the row won the whole lot. suddenly the door opened, and getzel came in, his pockets loaded with nuts, as usual. "welcome art thou--a jew!" cried one of the boys. "if you speak of the messiah," put in a second. "_vive_ haman!" cried a third. "and rashi says, 'the devil brought him here.'" cried a fourth. "what are you playing? bank? then i'll play too," said getzel, to which he got an immediate reply: "no, with a little cap." "why not?" "just for that." "then i won't let you play." he didn't hesitate a moment, but scattered the nuts about the floor with his bear's paws. the boys got angry. the cheek of the rascal! "boys, why don't you do something?" asked one. "what shall we do?" asked a second. "lets break his bones for him," suggested a third. "all right. try it on," cried getzel. he turned up his sleeves, ready for work. and there took place a battle, a fight between the two parties. on the one side was the whole "_cheder_," on the other getzel. ten is not one. it was true they felt what getzel's fists tasted like. bruises and marks around the eyes were the portion of the ten. but for that, again, they gave him a good taste of the world with their sharp nails and their teeth, and every other thing they could. from the front and from the back and from all sides, he got blows and kicks and pulls and thumps and bites and scratches. well, ten is not one. they overcame him. getzel had to get himself off, disappear. and now begins the real story of the nuts. * * * after he left the "_cheder_," bruised and scratched and torn and bleeding, getzel stood thinking for a while. he clapped his hands on his pockets, and there was heard the rattling of nuts. "you don't want to play nuts with me, then may the angel of death play with you. i want you for ten thousand sacrifices. i can manage. we two will play by ourselves." that was what getzel said to himself. the next minute he was off like the wind. he stopped in the middle of the road to say aloud, as if there was some one with him: "where to? where, for instance, shall we go, getzel?" and at once he answered himself: "there, far outside the town, on the other side of the mill. there we shall be alone, the two of us. no one will disturb us. let any one attempt to disturb us, and we will break bones, and make an end." talking with himself, getzel felt that he was not alone. he was not one but two; and he felt as strong as two. let the boys dare to come near him, and he would break them to atoms. he would reduce them to a dust-heap. he enjoyed listening to his own words, and did not stop talking to himself, as if he really had some one beside him. "listen to me. how far are we going to go?" he asked himself. and he answered himself almost in a strange voice: "well, it all depends on you." "perhaps we ought to sit down here and play nuts. well? what do you say, getzel?" "it's all the same to me." getzel sat down on the ground, far beyond the town, behind the mill, took out the nuts, counted them, divided them in two equal parts, put one lot in his right-hand pocket, and the other in his left. he took off his cap, and threw into it a few nuts from his right-hand pocket. he said to himself: "they imagine i can't get on without them. listen, getzel, what game are we playing?" "i don't know. whatever game you like." "then let us play 'odd or even.'" "i'm quite willing." he shook his cap. "now, guess. odd or even? well, speak out," he said to himself. he dug his elbow into his own ribs, and said to himself: "even." "even did you say? who'll thrash you? you have lost. hand over three nuts." he took three nuts from his left-hand pocket, and put them into the right. again he shook the cap, and again he asked: "odd or even this time?" "odd." "did you say odd? may you suffer for ever! hand them over here. you have lost four nuts." he changed four nuts from his left-hand pocket to the right, shook the cap and said again: "well, maybe you'll guess right now. odd or even?" "even." "even did you say? may your bones rot! you rascal, hand out here five nuts." "isn't it enough that i lose. why do you curse me?" "whose fault is it that you are a fool and that you guess as a blind man guesses a hole? well, say again--odd or even? this time you must be right." "even." "even? may you live long! hand out seven nuts, you fool, and guess again. odd or even?" "even." "again even. may you be my father! good-for-nothing, hand over five more nuts, and guess again. maybe you will guess right for once. odd or even? why are you silent--eh?" "i have no more nuts." "it's a lie, you have!" "as i am a jew, i haven't." "just look in your pocket, like this." "there isn't even a sign of one." "none? lost all the nuts? well, what good has it done you? aren't you a fool?" "enough! you have won all my nuts, and now you torment me." "it's good, it's all right. you wanted to win all my nuts, and i have won yours." goyetzel was well satisfied that getzel had lost, whilst he, goyetzel had won. he felt it was doing him good to win. he felt equal to winning all the nuts in the whole world. "where are they now, the '_cheder_' boys? i would have got my own back from them. i would not have left them the smallest nut, not even for a cure. they would have died here on the ground in front of me." getzel grew angry, fierce. he closed his fists, clenched his teeth, and spoke to himself, just as if there was some one beside him. "well, try now. now that i am not by myself. now that there are two of us. well, getzel, why are you sitting there like a bridegroom? let's play nuts another little while." "nuts? where have i nuts? didn't i tell you i haven't a single one?" "ah, i forgot that you have no more nuts. do you know what i would advise you, getzel?" "for instance?" "have you any money?" "i have. well, what of that?" "buy nuts from me." "what do you mean by saying i should buy nuts off you?" "fool! don't you know what buying means? give me money, and i'll give you nuts. eh?" "well, i agree to that." he took from his purse a silver coin, bargained about the price, counted a score of nuts from the right-hand pocket to the left, and the play began all over again. an experienced card-player, the story goes, half an hour before his death called his son--also a gambler--to his bedside, and said to him: "my child, i am going from this world. we shall never meet again. i know you play cards. you have my nature. you may play as much as you like, only take care not to play yourself out." these words are almost a law. there is nothing worse in the world than playing yourself out. experienced people say it deprives a man even of his last shirt. it drives a man to desperate acts. and one cannot hope to rise at the resurrection after that. so people say. and so it happened with our young man. he worked so long, shaking his cap, "odd or even," taking from one pocket and putting into the other, until his left-hand pocket hadn't a single nut in it. "well, why don't you play?" "i have nothing to play with." "again you have no nuts, good-for-nothing!" "you say i am a good-for-nothing. and i say you are a cheat." "if you call me a cheat again, i will give you a clout in the jaw." "let the lord put it into your head." getzel sat quiet for a few minutes, scraping the ground with his fingers, digging a hole, and muttering a song under his breath. then he said: "dirty thing, let us play nuts." "where have i nuts?" "haven't you money? i will sell you another ten." "money? where have i money?" "no money and no nuts? oh, i can't stand it. ha! ha! ha!" the laugh echoed over the whole field, and re-echoed in the distant wood. getzel was convulsed with laughter. "what are you laughing at, you goyetzel you?" he asked himself. and he answered himself in a different voice: "i am laughing at you, good-for-nothing. isn't it enough that you lost all my nuts on me? why did you want to go and lose my money as well? such a lot of money. you fool of fools! oh, i can't get over it. ha! ha! ha!" "you yourself brought me to it. you wicked one of wicked ones! you scamp! you rascal!" "fool of the night! if i were to tell you to cut off your nose, must you do it? you idiot! you animal with the horse's face, you! ha! ha! ha!" "be quiet, at any rate, you goyetzel, you. and let me not see your forbidding countenance." and he turned away from himself, sat sulky for a few minutes, scraping the earth with his fingers. he covered the hole he had made, as he sang a little song under his breath. "do you know what i will tell you, getzel?" he said to himself a few minutes later. "let us forgive one another. let us be friends. the lord helped me. it was my luck to win so many nuts--may no evil eye harm them! why should we not enjoy ourselves? let's crack a few nuts. i should think they are not bad! well, what do you say, getzel?" "yes, i also think they ought not to be bad," he answered himself. he thrust a nut into his mouth, a second, a third. each time, he banged his teeth with his fists. the nut was cracked. he took out a fat kernel, cleaned it round, threw it back in his mouth, and chewed it pleasurably with his strong white teeth. he crunched them as a horse crunches oats. he said to himself: "would you also like the kernel of a nut, getzel? speak out. do not be ashamed." "why not?" that was how he answered himself. he stretched out his left hand, but only smacked it with his right. "will you have a plague?" "let it be a plague." "then have two." and he did not cease from cracking the nuts, and crunching them like a horse. it was not enough that he sat eating and gave none to the other, but he said to him: "listen, getzel, to what i will ask you. how, for example, do you feel while i am eating and you are only looking on?" "how do i feel? may you have such a year!" "ah, i see you've got a temper. here is a kernel for you." and getzel's right hand gave the left a kernel. the right turned upside down. the left hand smacked the right. the left hand smacked the right cheek. then the right hand smacked the left cheek twice. the left hand caught hold of the right lapel of his coat, and the right hand at once tore off the left lapel, from top to bottom. the left hand pulled the right earlock. the right hand gave the left ear a terrible bang. "let go of my earlock, getzel. take my advice, and let go of my earlock!" "a plague!" "then you'll have no earlock, getzel." "then you, goyetzel, will have no ear." "oh!" "oh! oh!" * * * epilogue for several minutes our getzel rolled on the ground. now he lay right side up, and now he lay left side up. he held his pocketful of nuts with both hands.... one minute goyetzel was victorious. the next it was getzel, until he got up from the ground covered with dirt, like a pig. he was torn to pieces, had a bleeding ear, and a torn earlock. he took all the nuts from his pocket, and threw them into the mud of the river, far away, behind the mill. he muttered angrily: "that's right. it's a good deed." "neither you--nor me." a lost "l'ag beomer" our teacher, "_reb_" nissel the small one--so called on account of his size--allowed himself to be led by the nose by his assistants. whatever they wanted they got. when the first assistant said the children were to be sent home early that day, he sent them home early. the second assistant said that the boys would turn the world upside down, and ought to be kept at school, and he kept them at school. he could never decide anything for himself. that was why his assistants controlled the school, and not he. at other schools the assistants teach the children to wash their hands and say the blessing. at our school, the assistants would not do this for us, nor fetch us our meals, nor take us to school on their shoulders. no, they liked to go for our meals. they ate them themselves on the road. we did not dare to tell the master of this. the assistants kept us in fear and trembling. if a boy whispered a word of their doings to the teacher, he would be flogged, his skin would be cut. once, a daring boy told the master something; and the assistant beat him so terribly that he was laid up in bed for months. he warned the boys never to tell the master anything, no matter what the assistants did. this period of our schooldays might be called the tyranny of the assistants. * * * and it came to pass that we were under the yoke of the assistants. one year, we had a cold "_l'ag beomer_." it was a cold, wet may, such as we sometimes had in our town, mazapevka. the sun barely showed itself. a sharp wind blew, brought us clouds, tore open our coats, and threw us off our feet. it was not pleasant out of doors. just then the assistants took it into their heads to take us for a walk outside the town, so that we might play at wars, with swords and pop-guns and bows and arrows. it is an old custom amongst jewish children, to become war-like on the "_l'ag beomer_." they arm themselves from head to foot with wooden swords, pop-guns and bows and arrows. they take food with them, and go off to wage war. jewish children who are the whole year round closed up in small "_chedorim_," oppressed by fears of the master, and trembling under the whips of the assistants, when "_l'ag beomer_" comes round, and they may go out into the open, armed from head to foot, imagine that they are giants who can overcome the strongest foe and reduce the world to ruins. all at once they grow brave. they step forward eagerly, singing songs that are a curious mixture of yiddish and russian. "one, two, three, four! jewish children learn the '_torah_,' believe in miracles, are not afraid. hear, o israel! nothing matters. we are not afraid of any one, excepting god." and we carried out the old custom. we took down our swords of last year from the attic, and we made bows from the hoops of old wine barrels. pop-guns the assistants provided us with, for money, of course--fine guns with which one could shoot flies if they only stood still long enough. in a word, we had all the jewish weapons to frighten tiny infants to death. and we provided ourselves with food in good earnest, each boy as much as the lord had blessed him with, and his mother would give him, out of her generosity. we arrived at "_cheder_" armed from head to foot, and our pockets bulging out with good things--rolls, cakes, boiled eggs, goose-fat, cherry-wine, fruit, fowls, livers, tea and sugar, and preserves and jam, and also many "_groschens_" in money. each boy tried to show off by bringing the best and the largest quantity. and we wished to please the assistants. they praised us, and said we were very good boys. they took our food and put it into their bags. they placed us in rows, like soldiers, and commanded us. "jewish children, take hands, and march across the bridge, straight for mezritzer fields. there you will meet the sea-cats, and do battle with them." "hurrah for the sea-cats!" we shouted in one voice. we took hands and went forward, like giants, strong and courageous. * * * we called the free school boys sea-cats because they were short little children in the a b c class. they appeared to us "_chumash_" boys like flies, ants. we imagined that with one blow--phew! we would make an end of them. we were certain that when they saw us, how we were armed from head to foot with swords and bows and arrows and pop-guns, they would surely fly away. it was no trifle to encounter such giants. you play with "_chumash_" boys, warriors with long legs! we had never fought the sea-cats before. but we had every reason to believe, we were convinced, we would conquer these squirrels with a glance, destroy them, make an end of them. along with giving them a good licking, we would take spoil from them, that is to say, their food, and let them go hungry. we were so full of our own courage, and so enthusiastic about the brave deeds we were going to do that we pushed each other forward, clapped each other on the shoulder. then, too, the assistants urged us forward. "why do you crawl like insects?" they asked us. they themselves stopped frequently, opened the bags, and tasted our food and cherry-wine, which they praised highly. "excellent cherry-wine," they said, passing round the bottles, and letting the liquid gurgle down their throats. "splendid liquor. the best i ever tasted." that was what the assistants said. they actually licked their fingers. they remained in the distance, but indicated with their hands that we must go forward, forward. we went on and on, over the wide mezritzer field, though the wind blew stronger and stronger. the sky grew black with clouds, and a cold, thick rain beat into our faces. our hands were blue with the cold. our boots squelched in the mud. we had long given up singing songs. we were tired and hungry, very hungry. we decided to sit down and rest, and have something to eat. "where are the assistants? where is the food--where is it?" the boys began to murmur against the assistants. "it is a dirty trick to take all our food from us, and our cherry-wine and our few '_groschens_,' and to leave us here in the desert, cold and hungry. may the devil take them!" "may a bad end come to the assistants!" "may the cholera strike down all the assistants in the world!" "may they be the sacrifices for our tiniest nails!" "hush. let there be silence. here come our foes, our enemies." "little squirrels with big sticks." "the sea-cats--the sea-cats!" "hurrah for the sea-cats!" the moment we saw them, we rushed towards them, like fierce starving wolves. we were ready to tear them to pieces. but there happened to us a misfortune, a great misfortune which no one could possibly have foreseen. if it is not destined, neither wisdom nor strength nor smartness are of any avail. listen to what can happen. * * * the sea-cats, though they were small, short little squirrels, were evidently no fools. before going to do battle on the broad mezritzer field, they had prepared themselves well at home, gone through their drill. afterwards, they fed up. they also took with them warm clothing and rubber goloshes. they were armed from head to foot no worse than we were, with swords and pop-guns and bows and arrows. they would not wait until we had taken the offensive. they attacked us first, and began to break our bones. and how, do you think? from all sides at once, and so suddenly that we had no time to look about us. before we realized it, they were upon us. they were not alone, but had their assistants to urge them on and encourage them. "pay out the '_chumash_' boys. beat them, the boys with the long legs." naturally we were not silent either. we stood up against the squirrels, like giants, beat them with our swords, aimed our arrows at them, and shot at them with our pop-guns. but, alas! our swords were dull as wood; and before we could set our bows, they had thrashed us. i say nothing of the guns. what can you do with a pop-gun if the foe will not wait until you have taken aim at him? they rushed forward and knocked the guns out of our hands. what could we do? we had to throw away our weapons, our swords and pop-guns and bows and arrows, and fight as the lord has ordained. that is to say, we fought with our fists. but we were hungry and tired and cold, and fought without a plan, because our assistants had remained behind. they let us fight whilst they ate our food and drank our cherry-wine--the devil take them! and they, the little squirrels, well-fed and well-clad, had crept upon us from three sides at once, each moment growing stronger and stronger. they rained down on us blows and thumps and digs. the same blows that we had reckoned on giving them they gave us. and their assistants went in front of them, and never ceased from urging them on. "pay back the '_chumash_' boys. beat them, beat them, the boys with the long legs." who was the first to turn his back on the enemy? it would be hard to say. i only know we ran quickly, helter-skelter, back home, back to mazapevka. and they, the little squirrels--may they burn!--ran after us, shouting and yelling and laughing at us, right on top of us. "hurrah! '_chumash_' boys! hurrah! big boys!" * * * we arrived home exhausted, ragged, bruised, beaten. and we giants imagined that our parents would pity us, give us cakes because of the blows we got. but it turned out we were mistaken. no one thought of us. we thanked god we were so fortunate as to escape without beatings from our parents for our torn clothes and twisted boots. but next morning we got a good whipping from our teacher, nissel the small one, for the bruises we had on our foreheads and the blue marks around our eyes. it is shameful to tell it--we were each whipped in the true style. this was a mere addition, as if we had not had enough. we were not sorry for anything but that the assistants gave us another share. when a father or a mother beats one, it is out of kindness. when a teacher beats one it is because he is a teacher. and what is his rod for, anyway? but the assistants! our curses upon them! as if it were not enough that they had eaten all our food, and drunk our cherry-wine--may they suffer for it, father of the universe!--as if it were not enough that they had left us to fight alone, in the middle of the field, but when they were whipping us they held our feet, so that we might not kick either. * * * and that was how our holiday ended up. it was a dark, dreary, lost "_l'ag beomer_." murderers "is he still snoring?" "and how snoring!" "may he perish!" "wake him up. wake him up." "leib-dreib-obderick!" "get up, my little bird." "open your little eyes." i barely managed to open my eyes, raise my head, and look about me. i saw a whole crowd of rascals, my school-fellows. the window was open, and along with their sparkling eyes i saw the first rays of the bright, warm early morning sun. i looked about me, on all sides. "just see how he looks." "like a sinner." "did you not recognize us?" "have you forgotten that it is '_l'ag beomer_' today?" the words darted through all my limbs like a flash of lightning. i was carried out of bed by them. in the twinkling of an eye, i was dressed. i went in search of my mother, who was busy with the breakfast and the younger children. "mother, today is '_l'ag beomer_.'" "a good '_yom-tov_' to you. what do you want?" "i want something for the party." "what am i to give you? my troubles? or my aches?" so said my mother to me. nevertheless, she was ready to give me something towards the party. we bargained about it. i wanted a lot. she would only give a little. i wanted two eggs. said she: "a suffering in the bones!" i began to grow angry. she gave me two smacks. i began to cry. she gave me an apple to quieten me. i wanted an orange. said she: "greedy boy, what will you want next?" and my friends on the other side of the window were kicking up a row. "will you ever come out, or not?" "leib-dreib-obderick!" "the day is flying!" "quicker! quicker!" "like the wind." after much arguing, i got round my mother. i snatched up my breakfast and my share of the party, and flew out of the house, fresh, lively, joyful, to my waiting comrades. all together we flew down the hill to the "_cheder_." * * * the "_cheder_" was full of noise and tumult and shouting that reached to the sky. a score of throats shouted at the one time. the table was covered with delicacies. we had never had such a party as we were going to have that "_l'ag beomer_." we had wine and brandy, for which we had to thank berrel yossel, the wine-merchant's son. he had brought a bottle of brandy and two bottles of wine made by yossel himself. his father had given him the brandy, but the wine he had taken himself. "what do you mean by saying he took it himself?" "don't you understand, peasant's head? he took it from the shelf when no one was looking." "gracious me! that means he stole?" "fool of the night! well, what then?" "what do you mean? then he is a thief?" "for the sake of the party, fool." "is it a good deed to steal for that?" "certainly. what do you say to the wise one of the 'four questions'?" "where is it written?" "he wants us to tell him where it is written?" "tell him it is written in the book of jests." "in the chapter called 'and he took.'" "beginning with the words 'bim-bom.'" "ha! ha! ha!" "hush, children, mazeppa comes." all at once there was silence. we were sitting around the table quiet as lambs, like angels, golden children who could not count two, and whose souls were innocent. * * * mazeppa was the teacher's name. that is to say, his real name was baruch-moshe. he had come to our town from mazapevka not long before, and the people called him the mazapevkar. we boys shortened his name to mazeppa. and when pupils crown their teacher with such a lovely name, he must be worthy of it. let me introduce him. he is small, thin, dried-up, hideously ugly. he hasn't even the signs of a moustache or beard or eyebrows. not because he shaved. god forbid, but simply because they would not grow. but for that again he had a pair of lips and a nose. oh, what a nose! it was curved like a ram's horn. and he had a voice like a bull. he growled like a lion. where did such a creature get such a terrible roar? and where did he get so much strength? when he took hold of you by the hand with his cold, bony fingers, you saw the next world. when he boxed your ears, you felt the smart for three days on end. he hated arguing. for the least thing, guilty or not guilty, he had one sentence: "lie down." "'_rebbe_,' yossel-yakov-yossels thumped me." "lie down." "'_rebbe_,' it's a lie. he first kicked me in the side." "lie down." "'_rebbe_,' chayim-berrel lippes put out his tongue at me." "lie down." "'_rebbe_,' it's a lie of lies. he made a noise at me." "lie down." and you had to lie down. nothing would avail you. even elya the red one, who is already "_bar-mitzvah_," and is engaged to be married, and wears a silver watch--do you think he is never flogged? oh yes! and how? elya says he will be avenged for the floggings he gets. some day or other he will pay back the "_rebbe_" in such a way that his children's children will remember it. that's what elya says after each flogging. and we echo his words. "amen! may it be so! from your mouth into god's ears!" * * * we said our prayers with the teacher, as usual. (he never let us pray by ourselves because he thought we might skip more than half the prayers.) mazeppa said to us in his lion's roar: "now, children, wash your hands and sit down to the party. after grace i will let you go for a walk." we used to hold our "_l'ag beomer_" party outside the town, in the open air, on the bare earth, under god's sky. we used to throw crumbs of bread to the birds. let them also know that it is "_l'ag beomer_" in the world. but one does not argue with mazeppa. when he told one to sit down, one sat down, lest he might tell one to lie down. "eat in peace," he said to us, after we had pronounced the blessing. "come and eat with us," we replied out of politeness. "eat in health," he said. "i do not wish to eat yet. but, if you like, i will make a blessing over the wine. what have you in that bottle? brandy?" he asked, and stretched out his long, dried-up hand with its bony fingers to the bottle of brandy. he poured out a glassful, tasted it, and made such a grimace that we must have been stronger than iron to control ourselves from exploding with laughter. "whose is this terrible thing?" he asked, taking another drop. "it's not a bad brandy." he filled a third glass and drank our health. "long life to you, children. may god grant that we be alive next year, and--and.... haven't you anything to bite? well, in honour of '_l'ag beomer_' i will wash my hands and eat with you." what is wrong with our teacher? he's not the same mazeppa. he is in good humour, and talkative. his cheeks are shining; his nose is red; and his eyes are sparkling. he eats and laughs and points to the bottle of wine. "what sort of wine have you there? passover wine?" (he tasted it and pursed up his lips.) "p-s-ss! the best wine in the world." (he drank more.) "it's a long time since i tasted such wine." (to yossel the wine-merchant's son, with a laugh.) "the devil take your father's cellar. i saw there barrels upon barrels. and of the finest raisins. ha! ha! to your health, children. may the lord help you to be honest, pious jews, and may you--may you open the second bottle. take glasses and drink to long life. may god grant that--that----" (he licked his lips. his eyes were closing.) "all good to the children of israel." * * * having eaten and said grace, mazeppa turned to us, his tongue failing him as he spoke: "then we have carried out the duty of eating together on '_l'ag beomer_.' well, and what next, eh?" "now we will go for the walk." "for the walk, eh? excellent. where do we go?" "to the black forest." "ha? to the black forest? excellent. i go with you. it is good to walk in a forest, very healthy, because a forest.... well, i will explain to you what a forest is." we went off with our teacher, beyond the town. we were not altogether comfortable having him with us. but, shah! the teacher walked in the middle, waving his hands and explaining to us what a forest was. "the nature of the forest, you must know, is as the lord has created it. it is full of trees. on the trees are branches; and the branches are covered with leaves that give out a pleasant, pungent odour." as he spoke, he sniffed the air that was not yet either pleasant or pungent. "well, why are you silent?" he asked. "say something nice. sing a song. well, i was also a boy once, and mischievous like you. i also had a teacher. ha! ha!" that mazeppa had once been a mischievous boy and had had a teacher we could not believe. it was curious. mazeppa playful? we exchanged glances, and giggled softly. we tried to imagine mazeppa playful and having a teacher. and did his teacher also----? we were afraid to think of such a thing. but elya stopped to ask a question: "'_rebbe_,' did your teacher also flog you as you flog us?" "what? and what sort of floggings? ha! ha!" we looked at the teacher and at each other. we understood one another. we laughed with him, until we were far from the town, in the broad fields, close to the forest. * * * the fields were beautiful--a garden of eden. green, fragrant grass, white boughs, yellow flowers, green flies, and above us the blue sky that stretched away endlessly. facing us was the forest in holiday attire. in the trees the birds hopped, twittering, from branch to branch. they were welcoming us on the dear day of "_l'ag beomer_." we sought shelter from the burning rays of the sun under a thick tree. we sat down on the ground in a row, the "_rebbe_" in the middle. he was worn out. he threw himself on the ground, full-length, his face upwards. his eyes were closing. he could hardly manage to speak. "you are dear, golden children.... jewish children.... saints.... i love you, and you love me.... oh yes, you l-love me?" "like a pain in the eyes," replied elya. "well, i know you l-love me," went on the teacher. "may the lord love you as we do," said elya. we were frightened, and whispered to elya: "the lord be with you!" "fools!" he said with a laugh. "what are you afraid of? don't you see he is drunk?" "what?" queried the teacher, one of whose eyes was already closed. "what are you saying? saints? of course.... the guardian of israel. hal! hal! hal! rrrssss!" and our teacher fell fast asleep. the snores burst from his nose like the blasts from a ram's horn, sounding far into the forest. we sat around him, and our hearts grew heavy. is this our teacher? is this he whose glances we fear? is this mazeppa? * * * "children," said elya to us, "why are we sitting like lumps of stone? let us think of a punishment for mazeppa." a great fear fell upon us. "fools, what are you afraid of?" he went on. "he is now like a dead body, a corpse." we trembled still more. elya went on: "now we may do with him what we like. he flogged us the whole winter, as if we were sheep. let us take revenge of him this once, at least." "what would you do to him?" "nothing. i will only frighten him." "how will you frighten him?" "you shall soon see." and he got up from the ground. he went over to the teacher, took off his leather strap and said to us: "see, we will fasten him to the tree with his own belt in such a way that he will not be able to free himself. then one of us will go over to him and shout in his ear: "'_rebbe_,' murderers!" "what will happen?" "nothing. we will run away, and he will shout, 'hear, o israel!'" "how long will he shout?" "until he gets used to it." without another word, elya tied the "_rebbe_" to the tree by the hands. we stood looking on, and a shudder passed over our bodies. is this our teacher? is this he whose glances we fear? is this mazeppa? "why do you stand there like clay images?" said elya to us. "the lord has performed a miracle. mazeppa has fallen into our hands. let us dance for joy." we took hands and danced around the sleeping mazeppa like savages. we danced and leaped and sang like lunatics. we stopped. elya bent over the sleeping teacher and shouted into his ear in a voice to waken the dead: "help, '_rebbe_'! murderers! murderers! murderers!" * * * we flew off together, like arrows from bows. we were afraid to stop a moment. we were even afraid to look around us. a great dread fell upon us, even upon elya, although he never ceased from shouting at us: "donkeys, fools, animals! why do you run?" "why do you run?" "when you run i run too." we got into the town full of excitement, and still shouting: "murderers! murderers!" when the people saw us running, they ran after us. seeing them running another crowd ran after them. "why are you running?" "how are we to know? others run, and we run too." after some time, one of our boys stopped. and seeing him, we also stopped, but still shouted: "murderers! murderers! murderers!" "where? where? where?" "there, in the black forest, murderers beset us. they bound our teacher to a tree, and god knows if he is still alive." * * * if you envy us because we are free, because we do not go to "_cheder_" (the "_rebbe_" is lying ill), it is for nothing--for nothing. no one knows whom the shoe pinches--no one. no one knows who the real murderers are. we rarely see one another. when we meet, the first words are: "how is the teacher?" (he is no more mazeppa.) and when we pray, we ask god to save the teacher. we weep in silence: "oh, father of the universe! father of the universe!" and elya? don't ask about him. may the devil take him--that same elya! * * * epilogue when the "_rebbe_" recovered (he was ill six weeks, in the height of fever, and babbled constantly of murderers) and we went back to "_cheder_," we hardly recognized him, so greatly had he changed. what had become of his lion's roar? he had put away his strap, and there was no more "lie down," and no more mazeppa. on his face there was to be seen a gentle melancholy. a feeling of regret stole into our hearts. and mazeppa suddenly grew dear to us, dear to our souls. oh, if he had only scolded us! but it was as if nothing had happened. suddenly, he stopped us in the middle of the lesson, and asked us to tell him again the story of that "_l'ag beomer_" day, and of the murderers in the forest. we did not hesitate, but told him again and again the story we knew off by heart--how murderers had come upon us in the forest, how they fell upon him, tied him to the tree, and were going to kill him with a knife, and how we rushed excitedly into the town, and by our shouting and clamours saved him. the "_rebbe_" listened to us with closed eyes. then he sighed, and asked us suddenly: "are you quite sure they were murderers?" "what else were they?" "perhaps bandits?" and the teacher's eyes sought the distance. and we imagined that a curiously cunning smile was hovering around his thick lips. three little heads if my pen were an artist's brush, or at the very least a photographic camera, i would create for you, my friend, a picture, for a present in honour of "_shevuous_," of a rare group of three pretty little heads, of three poor naked, barefoot jewish children. all three little heads are black, and have curly hair. the eyes are big and shiny and burning. they gaze out in wonder, and seem to be always asking of the world the one question: wherefore? you look at them, and marvel at them, and feel guilty towards them, just as if you were really responsible for them--for the existence of three little superfluous mortals in the world. the three pretty little heads are of two brothers and a little sister, abramtzig, moshetzig, and dvairke. they were brought up by their father in the true russian style, petted and spoiled. their father was peisa the box-maker. and if he had not been afraid of his wife, pessa, and if he had not been such a terribly poor man, he would have changed his jewish name of peisa into the russian name of petya. but, since he was a little afraid of his wife, pessa, and since he was extremely poor--may it remain far from us!--he kept to his own name of peisa the box-maker, until the good time comes, when everything will be different, as bebel says, as karl marx says, and as all the good and wise people say--when everything, everything will be different. but until the good and happy time comes, one must get up at the dawn of day, and work far into the night, cutting out pieces of cardboard and pasting boxes and covers of books. peisa the box-maker stands at his work all day long. he sings as he works, old and new songs, jewish and non-jewish, mostly gay-sorrowful songs, in a gay-sorrowful voice. "will you ever give up singing those gentile songs? such a man! and how he loves the gentiles. since we have come to this big town, he has almost become a gentile." all three children, abramtzig, moshetzig, and dvairke, were born and brought up in the same place--between the wall and the stove. they always saw before them the same people and the same things: the gay father who cut cardboards, pasted boxes, and sang songs, and the careworn, hollow-cheeked mother who cooked and baked, and rushed about, and was never finished her work. they were always at work, both of them--the mother at the stove, and the father at the cardboards. what were all the boxes for? who wanted so many boxes? is the whole world full of boxes? that was what the three little heads wanted to know. and they waited until their father had a great pile of boxes ready, when he would take them on his head and in his arms--thousands of them--to the market. he came back without the boxes, but with money for the mother, and with cakes and buns for the children. he was a good father--such a good father. he was gold. the mother was also gold, but she was cross. one got a smack from her sometimes, a dig in the ribs, or a twist of an ear. she does not like to have the house untidy. she does not allow the children to play "fathers and mothers." she forbids abramtzig to pick up the pieces of cardboard that have fallen to the floor, and moshetzig to steal the paste from his father, and dvairke to make bread of sand and water. the mother expects her children to sit still and keep quiet. it seems she does not know that young heads will think, and young souls are eager and restless. they want to go. where? out of doors, to the light. to the window--to the window. * * * there was only one window, and all three heads were stuck against it. what did they see out of it? a wall. a high, big, grey, wet wall. it was always and ever wet, even in summer. does the sun ever come here? surely the sun comes here sometimes, that is to say, not the sun itself, but its reflection. then there is a holiday. the three beautiful heads press against the little window. they look upwards, very high, and see a narrow blue stripe, like a long blue ribbon. "do you see, children?" says abramtzig. he knows. he goes to "_cheder_." he is learning "_kometz aleph_." the "_cheder_" is not far away, in the next house, that is to say, in the next room. ah, what stories abramtzig tells about the "_cheder_"! he tells how he saw with his own eyes--may he see all that is good!--a big building, with windows from top to bottom. abramtzig swears that he saw--may he see all that is good!--a chimney--a high chimney from which there came out smoke. abramtzig tells that he saw with his own eyes--may he see all that is good!--a machine that sewed without hands. abramtzig tells that he saw with his own eyes--may he see all that is good!--a car that went along without horses. and many more wonderful things abramtzig tells from the "_cheder_." and he swears, just as his mother swears--that he may see all that is good. and moshetzig and dvairke listen to him and sigh. they envy abramtzig because he knows everything--everything. for instance, abramtzig knows that a tree grows. it is true he never saw a tree growing. there are no trees in the street--none. but he knows--he heard it at "_cheder_"--that fruit grows on a tree, for which reason one makes the blessing--"who hast created the fruit of the tree." abramtzig knows--what does he not know?--that potatoes and cucumbers and onions and garlic grow on the ground. and that's why one says the blessing over them--"who hast created the fruit of the ground." abramtzig knows everything. only he does not know how and by what means things grow, because, like the other children, he never saw them. there is no field in their street, no garden, no tree, no grass--nothing--nothing. there are big buildings in their street, grey walls and high chimneys that belch out smoke. each building has a lot of windows, thousands and thousands of windows, and machines that go without hands. and in the streets there are cars that go without horses. and beyond these, nothing--nothing. even a little bird is seldom seen here. sometimes an odd sparrow strays in--grey as the grey walls. he picks, picks at the stones. he spreads out his wings and flies away. fowls? the children sometimes see the quarter of one with a long, pale leg. how many legs has a fowl? "four, just like a horse," explains abramtzig. and surely he knows everything. sometimes their mother brings home from the market a little head with glassy eyes that are covered with a white film. "it's dead," says abramtzig, and all three children look at each other out of great black eyes; and they sigh. born and brought up in the big city, in the huge building, in the congestion, loneliness and poverty, not one of the three children ever saw a living creature, neither a fowl, nor a cow, nor any other animal, excepting the cat. they have a cat of their own--a big, live cat, as grey as the high damp grey wall. the cat is their only play-toy. they play with it for hours on end. they put a shawl on her, call her "the wedding guest," and laugh and laugh without an end. when their mother sees them, she presents them--one with a smack, a second with a dig in the ribs, and the third with a twist of the ear. the children go off to their hiding-place behind the stove. the eldest, abramtzig, tells a story, and the other two, moshetzig and dvairke, listen to him. he says their mother is right. they ought not to play with the cat, because a cat is a wicked animal. abramtzig knows everything. there is nothing in the world that he does not know. * * * abramtzig knows everything. he knows there is a land far away called america. in america they have a lot of relatives and friends. in that same america the jews are well-off and happy--may no evil eye rest on them! next year, if god wills it, they will go off to america--when they get tickets. without tickets no one can go to america, because there is a sea. and on the sea there is a storm that shakes one to the very soul. abramtzig knows everything. he even knows what goes on in the other world. for instance, he knows that in the other world there is a garden of eden, for jews, of course. in the garden of eden there are trees with the finest fruits, and rivers of oil. diamonds and rubies are to be found there in the streets. stoop down and pick them up and fill your pockets. and there good jews study the holy law day and night, and enjoy the holiness. that is what abramtzig tells. and moshetzig's and dvairke's eyes are burning. they envy their brother because he knows everything. he knows everything, even to what goes on in the heavens. abramtzig swears that twice a year, on the nights of "_hashono rabo_" and "_shevuous_," the sky opens. it is true he himself never saw the sky opening, because there is no sky near them. but his comrades saw it. they swore--may they see all that is good!--and they would not swear to a lie. how can one swear to a lie? it's a pity they have no sky in their street, only a long, narrow blue stripe, like a long, narrow blue ribbon. what can one see in such a tiny scrap of sky, beyond a few stars and the reflection of the moon? in order to prove to his little sister and brother that the sky opens, abramtzig goes over to his mother, and pulls her by the skirt. "mother, is it true that in the very middle of '_shevuous_' night the sky opens?" "i will open your head for you." when he got no satisfaction from his mother, abramtzig waited for his father, who had gone off to the market with a treasure of boxes. "children, guess what present father will bring us from the market," said abramtzig. and the children tried to guess what their father would bring them from the market. they counted on their fingers everything that was in the market--everything that an eye could see, and a heart desire--cakes and buns and sweets. but no one guessed aright. and i am afraid you will not guess aright either. peisa the box-maker brought from the market this time neither cakes, nor buns nor sweets. he brought the children grass--curious, long, sweet-smelling grass. and all three children gathered around their father. "father, what is it--that?" "it is grass." "what is grass?" "it is a bunch of greens for '_shevuous_.' jews need grass for '_shevuous_.'" "where do they get it, father?" "where do they get it? h'm! they buy it. they buy it in the market," said their father. and he strewed the green, sweet-smelling grass over the freshly-swept floor. and he was delighted; it was green and smelt sweet. he said to the mother gaily, as is his way: "pessa, good '_yom-tov_' to you!" "good luck! a new thing! the young devils will now have something to make a mess with," replied the mother, crossly, as is her way. and she gave one of the children a smack, the second a dig in the ribs, and the third a twist of the ear. she is never satisfied, always cross, and always sour, exactly the opposite of father. the three pretty heads looked at the mother, and at the father, and at one another. the moment their parents turned away, they threw themselves on the floor, and put their faces to the sweet-smelling grass. they kissed it--the green grass that jews need for "_shevuous_" and which is sold at the market. everything is to be found at the market, even greens. the father buys everything. jews want everything, even greens--even greens. greens for "shevuous" on the eve of "_shevuous_," i induced my mother--peace be unto her!--to let me go off outside the town, by myself, to gather greens for the festival. and my mother let me go off alone to gather the greens for the festival. may she have a bright paradise for that! a real pleasure is a pleasure that one enjoys by one's self, without a companion, and without a single argument. i was alone, free as a bird, in the big cultivated field. above me was the whole of the blue cap called "the sky." for me alone shone the beautiful queen of the day, the sun. for my sake there came together, here in the big field, all the singers and warblers and dancers. for my sake there was spread before me the row of tall sunflowers, and the delicate growths were scattered all over the field by a benevolent nature. no one bothered me. no one prevented me from doing what i liked. no one saw me but god. and i could do what i liked. if i liked i might sing. if i liked i might shout and scream at the top of my voice. if i liked i might make a horn with my hands, and blow out a melody. if i liked i might roll on the green grass just as i was, curling myself up like a hedgehog. who was there to give me orders? and whom would i pay heed to? i was free--i was free. the day was so warm, the sun so beautiful, the sky so clear, the field so green, the grass so fresh, my heart so gay, and my soul so joyful that i forgot completely i was a stranger in the field and had merely come out to cut green boughs for "_shevuous_." i imagined i was a prince, and the whole field that my eyes rested on, and everything in the field, and even the blue sky above it--all were mine. i owned everything, and could do what i liked with it--i, and no one else. and like an overlord who had complete control of everything, i longed to show my power, my strength, my authority--all that i could and would do. * * * first of all i was displeased with the tall giants with the yellow hats--the sunflowers. suddenly they appeared to me as my enemies. and all the other plants with and without stalks, the beans and beanstalks, were enemies too. they were the philistines that had settled on my ground. who had sent for them? and those thick green plants lying on the ground, with huge green heads--the cabbages, what are they doing here? they will only get drunk and bring a misfortune upon me. let them go into the earth. i do not want them. angry thoughts and fierce instincts awoke within me. a curious feeling of vengefulness took possession of me. i began to avenge myself of my enemies. and what a vengeance it was! i had with me all the tools i would need for cutting the green boughs for the festival--pocket-knife with two blades, and a sword--a wooden sword, but a sharp one. this sword had remained with me after "_l'ag beomer_." and although i had carried it with me when i had gone with my comrades to do battle outside the town, yet i could swear to you, though you may believe me without an oath, that the sword had not spilled one drop of blood. it was one of those weapons that are carried about in times of peace. there was not a sign of war. it was quiet and peaceful around and about. i carried the sword because i wanted to. for the sake of peace, one must have in readiness swords and guns and rifles and cannon, horses and soldiers. may they never be needed for ill, as my mother used to say when she was making preserves. * * * it is the same all the world over. in a war, one aims first at the leaders, the officers. it is better still if one can hit the general. after that the soldiers fall like chaff, in any event. therefore you will not be surprised to hear that, first of all, i fell upon goliath the philistine. i gave him a good blow on the head with my sword, and a few good blows from the back. and the wicked one was stretched at my feet, full length. after that i knocked over a good many more wicked ones. i pulled the stalks out of the ground, and threw them to the devil. the short, fat green enemies i attacked in a different manner. wherever i could, i took the green heads off. the others i trampled down with my feet. i made a heap of ashes of them. during a battle, when the blood is hot, and one is carried away by excitement, one cuts down everything that is at hand, right and left. when one is spilling blood, one loses one's self, one does not know where one is in the world. at such a time, one does not honour old age. one does not care about weak women. one has no pity for little children. blood is simply poured out like water.... when i was cutting down the enemy, i felt a hatred and a malice i had never experienced before, immediately after i had delivered the first blow. the more i killed the more excited i became. i urged myself to go on. i was so beside myself, so enflamed, so ecstatic that i smashed up, and destroyed everything before me. i cut about me on all sides. most of all the "little ones" suffered at my hands--the young peas in the fat little pods, the tiny cucumbers that were just showing above ground. these excited me by their silence and their coldness. and i gave them such a share that they would never forget me. i knocked off heads, tore open bellies, shattered to atoms, beat, murdered, killed. may i know of evil as little as i know how i came to be so wicked. innocent potatoes, poor things, that lay deep in the earth, i dug out, just to show them that there was no hiding from me. little onions and green garlic i tore up by the roots. radishes flew about me like hail. and may the lord punish me if i even tasted a single bite of anything. i remembered the law in the bible forbidding it. and jews do not plunder. every minute, when an evil spirit came and tempted me to taste a little onion or a young garlic, the words of the bible came into my mind.... but i did not cease from beating, breaking, wounding, and killing and cutting to pieces, old and young, poor and rich, big and little, without the least mercy.... on the contrary, i imagined i heard their wails and groans and cries for mercy, and i was not moved. it was remarkable that i who could not bear to see a fowl slaughtered, or a cat beaten, or a dog insulted, or a horse whipped--i should be such a tyrant, such a murderer.... "vengeance," i shouted without ceasing, "vengeance. i will have my revenge of you for all the jewish blood that was spilled. i will repay you for jerusalem, for the jews of spain and portugal, and for the jews of morocco. also for the jews who fell in the past, and those who are falling today. and for the scrolls of the law that were torn, and for the ... oh! oh! oh! help! help! who has me by the ear?" two good thumps and two good smacks in the face at the one time sobered me on the instant. i saw before me a man who, i could have sworn, was okhrim, the gardener. * * * okhrim the gardener had for years cultivated fields outside the town. he rented a piece of ground, made a garden of it, and planted in it melons and pumpkins, and onions and garlic and radishes and other vegetables. he made a good living in this way. how did i know okhrim? he used to deal with us. that is to say, he used to borrow money off my mother every passover eve, and about "_succoth_" time, he used to begin to pay it back by degrees. these payments used to be entered on the inside cover of my mother's prayer-book. there was a separate page for okhrim, and a separate account. it was headed in big writing, "okhrim's account." under these words came the entries: "a '_rouble_' from okhrim. another 'rouble' from okhrim. two 'roubles' from okhrim. half a '_rouble_' from okhrim. a sack of potatoes from okhrim," and so on.... and though my mother was not rich--a widow with children, who lived by money-lending--she took no interest from okhrim. he used to repay us in garden-produce, sometimes more, sometimes less. we never quarrelled with him. if the harvest was good, he filled our cellar with potatoes and cucumbers to last us all the winter. and if the harvest was bad, he used to come and plead with my mother: "do not be offended, mrs. abraham, the harvest is bad." my mother forgave him, and told him not to be greedy next year. "you may trust me, mrs. abraham, you may trust me," okhrim replied. and he kept his word. he brought us the first pickings of onions and garlic. we had new potatoes and green cucumbers before the rich folks. i heard our neighbours say, more than once, that the widow was not so badly off as she said. "see, they bring her the best of everything." of course, i at once told my mother what i had heard, and she poured out a few curses on our neighbours. "salt in their eyes, and stones in their hearts! whoever begrudges me what i have, let him have nothing. i wish them to be in my position next year." naturally, i at once told my neighbours what my mother had wished them; and, of course, for these words they were enraged against her. they called her by a name i was ashamed to hear.... naturally i was angry, and at once told my mother of it. my mother gave me two smacks and told me to give up carrying "'_purim_' presents" from one to the other. the smacks pained, and the words "'_purim_' presents" gnawed at my brain. i could not understand why she said "'_purim_' presents." i used to rejoice when i saw okhrim from the distance, in his high boots and his thick, white, warm, woollen pellisse which he wore winter and summer. when i saw him, i knew he was bringing us a sackful of garden produce. and i flew into the kitchen to tell my mother the news that okhrim was coming. * * * i must confess that there was a sort of secret love between okhrim and myself--a sort of sympathy that could not be expressed in words. we rarely spoke to one another. firstly, because i did not understand his language, that is to say, i understood his but he did not understand mine. secondly, i was shy. how could i talk to such a big okhrim? i had to ask my mother to be our interpreter. "mother, ask him why he does not bring me some grapes." "where is he going to get them? there are no grapes growing in a vegetable garden." "why are there no grapes in a vegetable garden?" "because vine trees do not grow with vegetables." "why do vine trees not grow with vegetables?" "why--why--why? you are a fool," cried my mother, and gave me a smack in the face. "mrs. abraham, do not beat the child," said okhrim, defending me. that is the sort of gentile okhrim was. and it was in his hands i found myself that day when i waged war against the vegetables. this is what i believe took place: when okhrim came up and saw his garden in ruins, he could not at once understand what had happened. when he saw me swinging my sword about me on all sides, he ought to have realized i was a terrible being, an evil spirit, a demon, and crossed himself several times. but when he saw that it was a jewish boy who was fighting so vigorously, and with a wooden sword, he took hold of me by the ear with so much force that i collapsed, fell to the ground, and screamed in a voice unlike my own: "oh! oh! oh! who is pulling me by the ear?" it was only after okhrim had given me a few good thumps and several resounding smacks that we encountered each other's eyes and recognized one another. we were both so astonished that we were speechless. "mrs. abraham's boy!" cried okhrim, and he crossed himself. he began to realize the ruin i had brought on his garden. he scrutinized each bed and examined each little stick. he was so overcome that the tears filled his eyes. he stood facing me, his hands folded, and he asked me only one solitary question: "why have you done this to me?" it was only then that i realized the mischief i had done, and whom i had done it to. i was so amazed at myself that i could only repeat: "why? why?" "come," said okhrim, and took me by the hand. i was bowed to the earth with fear. i imagined he was going to make an end of me. but okhrim did not touch me. he only held me so tightly by the hand that my eyes began to bulge from my head. he brought me home to my mother, told her everything, and left me entirely in her hands. * * * need i tell you what i got from my mother? need i describe for you her anger, and her fright, and how she wrung her hands when okhrim told her in detail all that had taken place in his garden, and of all the damage i had done to his vegetables? okhrim took his stick and showed my mother how i had destroyed everything on all sides, how i had smashed and broken, and trampled down everything with my feet, pulled the little potatoes out of the ground, and torn the tops off the little onions and the garlic that were just showing above the earth. "and why? and wherefore? why, mrs. abraham--why?" okhrim could say no more. the sobs stuck in his throat and choked him. i must tell you the real truth, children. i would rather okhrim with the strong arms had beaten me, than have got what i did from my mother, before "_shevuous_," and what the teacher gave me after "_shevuous_." ... and the shame of it all. i was reminded of it all the year round by the boys at "_cheder_." they gave me a nickname--"the gardener." i was yossel "the gardener." this nickname stuck to me almost until the day i was married. that is how i went to gather greens for "_shevuous_." another page from "the song of songs" "quicker, busie, quicker!" i said to her the day before the "_shevuous_." i took her by the hand, and we went quickly up the hill. "the day will not stand still, little fool. and we have to climb such a high hill. after the hill we have another stream. over the stream there are some boards--a little bridge. the stream flows, the frogs croak, and the boards shake and tremble. on the other side of the bridge, over there is the real garden of eden--over there begins my real property." "your property?" "i mean the levada--a big field that stretches away and away, without a beginning and without an end. it is covered with a green mantle, sprinkled with yellow flowers, and nailed down with little red nails. it gives out a delicious odour. the most fragrant spices in the world are there. i have trees there beyond the counting, tall many-branched trees. i have a little hill there that i sit on when i like. or else, by pronouncing the holy name, i can rise up and fly away like an eagle, across the clouds, over fields and woods, over seas and deserts until i come to the other side of the mountain of darkness." "and from there," puts in busie, "you walk seven miles until you come to a little stream." "no. to a thick wood. first i go in and out of the trees, and after that i come to the little stream." "you swim across the water, and count seven times seven." "and there appears before me a little old man with a long beard." "he asks you: 'what is your desire?'" "i say to him: 'bring me the queen's daughter.'" busie takes her hand from mine, and runs down the hill. i run after her. "busie, why are you running off?" busie does not answer. she is vexed. she likes the story i told her excepting the part about the queen's daughter. * * * you have not forgotten who busie is? i told you once. but if you have forgotten, i will tell you again. i had an older brother, benny. he was drowned. he left after him a water-mill, a young widow, two horses, and a little child. the mill was neglected; the horses were sold; the widow married again, and went away, somewhere far; and the child was brought to us. this child was busie. ha! ha! ha! everybody thinks that busie and i are sister and brother. she calls my mother "mother," and my father "father." and we two live together like sister and brother, and love one another, like sister and brother. like sister and brother? then why is busie ashamed before me? it happened once that we two were left alone in the house--we two by ourselves in the whole house. it was evening, towards nightfall. my father had gone to the synagogue to recite the mourners' prayer after my dead brother benny, and my mother had gone out to buy matches. busie and i crept into a corner, and i told her stories. busie likes me to tell her stories--fine stories of "_cheder_," or from the "arabian nights." she crept close to me, and put her hand into mine. "tell me something, shemak, tell me." softly fell the night around us. the shadows crept slowly up the walls, paused on the floor, and stole all around. we could hardly, hardly see one another's face. i felt her hand trembling. i heard her little heart beating. i saw her eyes shining in the dark. suddenly she drew her hand from mine. "what is it, busie?" "we must not." "what must we not?" "hold each other's hands." "why not? who told you that?" "i know it myself." "are we strangers? are we not sister and brother?" "oh, if we were sister and brother," cried busie. and i imagined i heard in her voice the words from the "song of songs," "o that thou wert as my brother." it is always so. when i speak of busie, i always think of the "song of songs." * * * where was i? i was telling you of the eve of the "_shevuous_." well, we ran down hill, busie in front, i after her. she is angry with me because of the queen's daughter. she likes all my stories excepting the one about the queen's daughter. but busie's anger need not worry one. it does not last long, no longer than it takes to tell of it. she is again looking up at me with her great, bright, thoughtful eyes. she tosses back her hair and says to me: "shemak, oh, shemak! just look! what a sky! you do not see what is going on all around us." "i see, little fool. why should i not see? i see a sky. i feel a warm breeze blowing. i hear the birds piping and twittering as they fly over our heads. it is our sky, and our breeze. the little birds are ours too--everything is ours, ours, ours. give me your hand, busie." no, she will not give me her hand. she is ashamed. why is busie ashamed before me? why does she grow red? "there," says busie to me--"over there, on the other side of the bridge." and i imagine she is repeating the words of the shulamite in the "song of songs." "come, my beloved, let us go forth into the field; let us lodge in the villages. "let us get up early to the vineyards; let us see if the vine flourish, whether the tender grape appear, and the pomegranates bud forth." and we are at the little bridge. * * * the stream flows; the frogs croak; the boards of the little bridge are shaking. busie is afraid. "ah, busie, you are a---- why are you afraid, little fool? hold on to me. or, let us take hold of one another, you of me, and i of you. see? that's right--that's right." no more little bridge. we still cling to one another, as we walk along. we are alone in this garden of eden. busie holds me tightly, very tightly. she is silent, but i imagine she is talking to me in the words from the "song of songs": "my beloved is mine, and i am his." the levada is big. it stretches away without a beginning and without an end. it is covered with a green mantle, sprinkled with yellow flowers, and nailed down with red nails. it gives out a delicious odour--the most fragrant spices in the world are there. we walked along, embraced--we two alone in the garden of eden. "shemak," says busie to me, looking straight into my eyes, and nestling still closer to me, "when shall we start gathering the green boughs for the '_shevuous_'?" "the day is long enough, little fool," i say to her. i am on fire. i do not know where to look first, whether at the blue sky, or the green fields, or over there, at the end of the world, where the sky has become one with the earth. or shall i look at busie's shining face--into her large beautiful eyes that are to me deep as the heavens and dreamy as the night? her eyes are always dreamy. a deep sorrow lies hidden within them. they are veiled by a shade of melancholy. i know her sorrow. i am acquainted with the cause of her melancholy. she has a great grief in her heart. she is pained because her mother married a stranger, and went away from her for ever and ever, as if she had been nothing to her. in my home her mother's name must not be mentioned. it is as if busie had never had a mother. my mother is her mother, and my father is her father. they love her as if she were their own child. they fret over her, and give her everything that her heart desires. there is nothing too dear for busie. she wanted to go with me to gather green boughs for the festival decorations (i told her to ask it), and my father said to my mother: "what do you think?" he looked over his silver spectacles, and stroked the silver white hair of his beard. and there went on an argument between my father and mother about our going off outside the town to gather green boughs for the "_shevuous_." father: "what do you say?" mother: "what do you say?" father: "shall we let them go?" mother: "why should we not let them go?" father: "do i say we should not?" mother: "what then are you saying?" father: "i am saying that we should let them go." mother: "why should they not go?" and so forth. i know what is worrying them. about twenty times my mother warned me, my father repeating the words after her, that there is a bridge to be crossed, and under the little bridge there is a water--a stream, a stream, a stream. * * * we, busie and i, have long forgotten the little bridge and the river, the stream. we are going across the broad free levada, under the blue, open sky. we run across the green field, fall and roll about on the sweet-smelling grass. we get up, fall again, and roll about again, and yet again. we have not yet gathered a single green leaf for the festival decorations. i take busie over the length and breadth of the levada. i show off before her with my property. "do you see those trees? do you see this sand? do you see that little hill?" "are they all yours?" asks busie. her eyes are laughing. i am annoyed because she laughs at me. she always laughs at me. i get sulky and turn away from her for a moment. seeing that i am sulky, she goes in front of me, looks into my eyes, takes my hand, and says to me: "shemak!" my sulks are gone and all is forgotten. i take her hand and lead her to my hill, there where i sit always, every summer. if i like i sit down, and if i like i rise up with the help of the lord, by pronouncing his holy name. and i fly off like an eagle, above the clouds, over fields and woods, over seas and deserts. * * * we sit on the hill, busie and i. (we have not yet gathered a single green leaf for the festival.) we tell stories. that is to say, i tell stories, and she listens. i tell her what will happen at some far, far off time. when i am a man and she is a woman we will get married. we will both rise up, by pronouncing the holy name, and travel the whole world. first we will go to all the countries that alexander the great was in. then we will run over to the land of israel. we will go to the hills of spices, fill our pockets with locust-beans, figs, dates, and olives, and fly off further and still further. and everywhere we will play a different sort of trick, for no one will see us. "will no one see us?" asks busie, catching hold of my hand. "no one--no one. we shall see every one, but no one will see us." "in that case, i have something to ask you." "a request?" "a little request." but i know her little request--to fly off to where her mother is, and play a little trick on her step-father. "why not?" i say to her. "with the greatest of pleasure. you may leave it to me, little fool. i can do something which they will not forget in a hurry." "not them, him alone," pleads busie. but i do not give in so readily. when i get into a temper it is dangerous. why should i forgive her for what she has done to busie, the cheeky woman? the idea of marrying another man and going off with him, the devil knows where, leaving her child behind, and never even writing a letter! did any one ever hear of such a wrong? * * * i excited myself for nothing. i was as sorry as if dogs were gnawing at me, but it was too late. busie had covered her face with her two hands. was she crying? i could have torn myself to pieces. what good had it done me to open her wound by speaking of her mother? in my own heart i called myself every bad name i could think of: "horse, beast, ox, cat, good-for-nothing, long-tongue." i drew closer to busie, and took hold of her hand. i was about to say to her, the words of the "song of songs": "let me see thy countenance, let me hear thy voice." suddenly--how do my father and mother come here? * * * my father's silver spectacles shine from the distance. the silver strands of his hair and beard are spread out on the breeze. my mother is waving her shawl at us. we two, busie and i, remain sitting. we are like paralysed. what are my parents doing here? they had come to see what we were doing. they were afraid some accident had befallen us--god forbid! who could tell? a little bridge, a water, a stream, a stream, a stream! curious father and mother. "and where are your green boughs?" "what green boughs?" "the green boughs that you went to gather for the '_shevuous_' decorations." busie and i exchanged glances. i understood her looks. i imagined i heard her saying to me, in the words of the "song of songs": "'o that thou wert as my brother!'.... why are you not my brother?" * * * "well, i expect we shall get some greenery for '_shevuous_' somehow," says my father with a smile. and the silver strands of his silver-white beard glisten like rays of light in the golden red of the sun. "thank god the children are well, and that no ill has befallen them." "praised be the lord!" replies my mother to him, wiping her moist red face with the ends of her shawl. and they are both glad. they seem to grow broader than long with delight. curious, curious father and mother! a pity for the living "if you were a good boy, you would help us to scrape the horse-radish until we are ready with the fish for the holy festival." that was what my mother said to me on the eve of "_shevuous_," about mid-day. she was helping the cook to prepare the fish for the supper. the fishes were still alive and wriggling. when they were put into a clay basin and covered with water they were still struggling. more than any of the others there struggled a little carp with a broad back, and a round head and red eyes. it seemed that the little carp had a strong desire to get back into the river. it struggled hard. it leaped out of the basin, flapped its tail, and splashed the water right into my face. "little boy, save me! little boy, save me!" i wiped my face, and betook myself to the task of scraping the horse-radish for the supper. i thought within myself, "poor little fish. i can do nothing for you. they will soon take you in hand. you will be scaled and ripped open, cut into pieces, put in a pot, salted and peppered, placed on the fire, and boiled and simmered, and simmered, and simmered." "it's a pity," i said to my mother. "it's a pity for the living." "of whom is it a pity?" "it's a pity of the little fishes." "who told you that?" "the teacher." "the teacher?" she exchanged glances with the cook who was helping her, and they both laughed aloud. "you are a fool, and your teacher a still greater fool. ha! ha! scrape the horse-radish, scrape away." that i was a fool i knew. my mother told me that frequently, and my brothers and my sisters too. but that my teacher was a greater fool than i--that was news to me. * * * i have a comrade, pinalle, the "_shochet's_" son. i was at his house one day, and i saw how a little girl carried a fowl, a huge cock, its legs tied with a string. my comrade's father, the "_shochet_," was asleep, and the little girl sat at the door and waited. the cock, a fine strong bird, tried to get out of the girl's arms. he drove his strong feet into her, pecked at her hand, let out from his throat a loud "cock-a-doodle-doo!" protested as much as he could. but the girl was no weakling either. she thrust the head of the rooster under her arm and dug her elbows into him, saying: "be still, you wretch!" and he obeyed and remained silent. when the "_shochet_" woke up, he washed his hands and took out his knife. he motioned to have the bird handed to him. i imagined that the cock changed colour. he must have thought that he was going to be freed to race back to his hens, to the corn and the water. but it was not so. the "_shochet_" turned him round, caught him between his knees, thrust back his head with one hand, with the other plucked out a few little feathers, pronounced a blessing--heck! the knife was drawn across his throat. he was cast away. i thought he would fall to pieces. "pinalle, your father is a heathen," i said to my comrade. "why is he a heathen?" "he has in him no pity for the living." "i did not know you were so clever," said my comrade, and he pulled a long nose right into my face. * * * our cook is blind of one eye. she is called "fruma with the little eye." she is a girl without a heart. she once beat the cat with nettles for having run away with a little liver from the board. afterwards, when she counted the fowls and the livers, it turned out that she had made a mistake. she had thought there were seven fowls, and, of course, seven little livers, and there were only six. and if there were only six fowls there could be only six little livers. marvellous! she had accused the cat wrongly. you might imagine that fruma was sorry and apologized to the cat. but it appeared she forgot all about it. and the cat, too, forgot all about it. a few hours later she was lying on the stove, licking herself as if nothing had happened. it's not for nothing that people say: "a cat's brains!" but i did not forget. no, i did not forget. i said to the cook: "you beat the cat for nothing. you had a sin for no reason. it was a pity for the living. the lord will punish you." "will you go away, or else i'll give it you across the face with the towel." that is what "fruma with the little eye" said to me. and she added: "lord almighty! wherever in the world do such children come from?" * * * it was all about a dog that had been scalded with boiling water by the same "fruma with the little eye." ah, how much pain it caused the dog. it squealed, howled and barked with all its might, filling the world with noise. the whole town came together at the sound of his howling, and laughed, and laughed. all the dogs in the town barked out of sympathy, each from his own kennel, and each after his own fashion. one might think that they had been asked to bark. afterwards, when the scalded dog had finished howling, he moaned and muttered and licked his sores, and growled softly. my heart melted within me. i went over to him and was going to fondle him. "here, sirko!" the dog, seeing my raised hand, jumped up as if he had been scalded again, took his tail between his legs and ran away--away. "shah! sirko!" i said trying to soothe him with soft words. "why do you run away like that, fool? am i doing you any harm?" a dog is a dog. his tongue is dumb. he knows nothing of pity for the living. my father saw me running after the dog and he pounced down on me. "go into '_cheder_,' dog-beater." then i was the dog-beater. * * * it was all about two little birds--two tiny little birds that two boys, one big and one small, had killed. when the two little birds dropped from the tree they were still alive. their feathers were ruffled. they fluttered their wings, and trembled in every limb. "get up, you hedgehog," said the big boy to the small boy. and they took the little birds in their hands and beat their heads against the tree-trunk, until they died. i could not contain myself, but ran over to the two boys. "what are you doing here?" i asked. "what's that to do with you?" they demanded in russian. "what harm is it?" they asked calmly. "they are no more than birds, ordinary little birds." "and if they are only birds? have you no pity for the living--no mercy for the little birds?" the boys looked curiously at one another, and as if they had already made up their minds in advance to do it, they at once fell upon me. when i came home, my torn jacket told the story, and my father gave me the good beating i deserved. "ragged fool!" cried my mother. i forgave her for the "ragged fool," but why did she also beat me? * * * why was i beaten? does not our teacher himself tell us that all creatures are dear to the lord? even a fly on the wall must not be hurt, he says, out of pity for the living. even a spider, that is an evil spirit, must not be killed either, he tells us emphatically. "if the spider deserved to die, then the lord himself would slay him." then comes the question: very well, if that is so, then why do the people slaughter cows and calves and sheep and fowls every day of the week? and not only cows and other animals and fowls, but do not men slaughter one another? at the time when we had the "_pogrom_," did not men throw down little children from the tops of houses? did they not kill our neighbours' little girl? her name was peralle. and how did they kill her? ah, how i loved that little girl. and how that little girl loved me! "uncle bebebe," she used to call me. (my name is velvalle.) and she used to pull me by the nose with her small, thin, sweet little fingers. because of her, because of peralle, every one calls me "uncle bebebe." "here comes uncle bebebe, and he will take you in hand." * * * peralle was a sickly child. that is to say, in the ordinary way she was all right, but she could not walk, neither walk nor stand, only sit. they used to carry her into the open and put her sitting in the sand, right in the sun. she loved the sun, loved it terribly. i used to carry her about. she used to clasp me around the neck with her small, thin, sweet little fingers, and nestle her whole body close to me --closer and closer. she would put her head on my shoulder. "i love uncle bebebe." our neighbour krenni says she cannot forget uncle bebebe to this day. when she sees me, she says she is again reminded of her peralle. my mother is angry with her for weeping. "we must not weep," says my mother. "we must not sin. we must forget--forget." that is what my mother says. she interrupts krenni in the middle and drives me off. "if you don't get into our eyes, we won't remember that which we must not." ha! ha! how is it possible to forget? when i think of that little girl the tears come into my eyes of their own accord--of their own accord. "see, he weeps again, the wise one," cries "fruma with the little eye" to my mother. my mother gives me a quick glance and laughs aloud. "the horse-radish has gone into your eyes. the devil take you. it's a hard piece of horse-radish. i forgot to tell him to close his eyes. woe is me! here is my apron. wipe your eyes, foolish boy. and your nose, too, wipe at the same time your nose, your nose." the tabernacle there are people who have never been taught anything, and know everything, have never been anywhere, and understand everything, have never given a moment's thought to anything, and comprehend everything. "blessed hands" is the name bestowed on these fortunate beings. the world envies, honours and respects them. there was such a man in our town, kassrillevka. they called him moshe-for-once, because, whatever he heard or saw or made, he exclaimed: "it is such-and-such a thing for once." a new cantor in the synagogue--he is a cantor for once. some one is carrying a turkey for the passover--it is a turkey for once. "there will be a fine frost tomorrow." "a fine frost for once." "there were blows exchanged at the meeting." "good blows for once." "oh, jews, i am a poor man." "a poor man for once." and so of everything. moshe was a---- i cannot tell you what moshe was. he was a jew, but what he lived by it would be hard to say. he lived as many thousands of jews live in kassrillevka--tens of thousands. he hovered around the overlord. that is, not the overlord himself, but the gentlefolks that were with the overlord. and not around the gentlefolks themselves, but around the jews that hovered around the gentlefolks who were with the overlord. and if he made a living--that was another story. moshe-for-once was a man who hated to boast of his good fortune, or to bemoan his ill-fortune. he was always jolly. his cheeks were always red. one end of his moustache was longer than the other. his hat was always on one side of his head; and his eyes were always smiling and kindly. he never had any time, but was always ready to walk ten miles to do any one a favour. that's the sort of a man moshe-for-once was. * * * there wasn't a thing in the world moshe-for-once could not make--a house, or a clock, or a machine, a lamp, a spinning-top, a tap, a mirror, a cage, and what not. true, no one could point to the houses, the clocks, or the machines that came from his hands; but every one was satisfied moshe could make them. every one said that if need be, moshe could turn the world upside down. the misfortune was that he had no tools. i mean the contrary. that was his good fortune. through this, the world was not turned upside down. that is, the world remained a world. that moshe was not torn to pieces was a miracle. when a lock went wrong they came to moshe. when the clock stopped, or the tap of the "_samovar_" went out of order, or there appeared in a house blackbeetles, or bugs, or other filthy creatures, it was always moshe who was consulted. or when a fox came and choked the fowls, whose advice was asked? it was always and ever moshe-for-once. true, the broken lock was thrown away, the clock had to be sent to a watchmaker, and the "_samovar_" to the copper-smith. the blackbeetles, and bugs and other filthy things were not at all frightened of moshe. and the fox went on doing what a fox ought to do. but moshe-for-once still remained the same moshe-for-once he had been. after all, he had blessed hands; and no doubt he had something in him. a world cannot be mad. in proof of this--why do the people not come to you or me with their broken locks, or broken clocks, or for advice how to get rid of foxes, or blackbeetles and bugs and other filthy things? all the people in the world are not the same. and it appears that talent is rare. * * * we became very near neighbours with this moshe-for-once. we lived in the same house with him, under the one roof. i say became, because, before that, we lived in our own house. the wheels of fortune suddenly turned round for us. times grew bad. we did not wish to be a burden to any one. we sold our house, paid our debts, and moved into hershke mamtzes' house. it was an old ruin, without a garden, without a yard, without a paling, without a body, and without life. "well, it's a hut," said my mother, pretending to be merry. but i saw tears in her eyes. "do not sin," said my father, who was black as the earth. "thank god for this." why for "this," i do not know. perhaps because we were not living on the street? i would rather have lived on the street than in this house, with strange boys and girls whom i did not know, nor wish to know, with their yellow hair, and their running noses, with their thin legs and fat bellies. when they walked they waddled like ducks. they did nothing but eat, and when any one else was eating, they stared right into his mouth. i was very angry with the lord for having taken our house from us. i was not sorry for the house as for the tabernacle we had there. it stood from year to year. it had a roof that could be raised and lowered, and a beautiful carved ceiling of green and yellow boards, made into squares with a "shield of david" in the middle. true, kind friends told us to hope on, for we should one day buy the house back, or the lord would help us to build another, and a better, and a bigger and a handsomer house than the one we had had to sell. but all this was cold comfort to us. i heard the same sort of words when i broke my tin watch, accidentally, of course, into fragments. my mother smacked me, and my father wiped my eyes, and promised to buy me a better, and bigger and handsomer watch than the one i broke. but the more my father praised the watch he was going to buy for me, the more i cried for the other, the old watch. when my father was not looking, my mother wept silently for the old house. and my father sighed and groaned. a black cloud settled on his face, and his big white forehead was covered with wrinkles. i thought it was very wrong of the father of the universe to have taken our house from us. * * * "i ask you--may your health increase!--what are we going to do with the tabernacle?" asked my mother of my father some time before the feast of tabernacles. "you probably mean to ask what are we going to do without a tabernacle?" replied my father, attempting to jest. i saw that he was distressed. he turned away to one side, so that we might not see his face, which was covered with a thick black cloud. my mother blew her nose to swallow her tears. and i, looking at them.... suddenly my father turned to us with a lively expression on his face. "hush! we have here a neighbour called moshe." "moshe-for-once?" asked my mother. and i do not know whether she was making fun or was in earnest. it seemed she was in earnest, for, half an hour later, the three were going about the house, father, moshe, and hershke mamtzes, our landlord, looking for a spot on which to erect a tabernacle. * * * hershke mamtzes' house was all right. it had only one fault. it stood on the street, and had not a scrap of yard. it looked as if it had been lost in the middle of the road. somebody was walking along and lost a house, without a yard, without a roof, the door on the other side of the street, like a coat with the waist in front and the buttons underneath. if you talk to hershke, he will bore you to death about his house. he will tell you how he came by it, how they wanted to take it from him, and how he fought for it, until it remained with him. "where do you intend to erect the tabernacle, '_reb_' moshe?" asked father of moshe-for-once. and moshe-for-once, his hat on the back of his head, was lost in thought, as if he were a great architect formulating a big plan. he pointed with his hand from here to there, and from there to here. he tried to make us understand that if the house were not standing in the middle of the street, and if it had had a yard, we would have had two walls ready made, and he could have built us a tabernacle in a day. why do i say in a day? in an hour. but since the house had no yard, and we needed four walls, the tabernacle would take a little longer to build. but for that again, we would have a tabernacle for once. the main thing was to get the material. "there will be materials. have you the tools?" asked hershke. "the tools will be found. have you the timber?" asked moshe. "there is timber. have you the nails?" asked hershke. "nails can be got. have you the fir-boughs?" asked moshe. "somehow, you are a little too so-so today," said hershke. "a little too what?" asked moshe. they looked each other straight in the eyes, and both burst out laughing. * * * when hershke mamtzes brought the first few boards and beams, moshe said that, please god, it would be a tabernacle for once. i wondered how he was going to make a tabernacle out of the few boards and beams. i begged of my mother to let me stand by whilst moshe was working. and moshe not only let me stand by him, but even let me be his assistant. i was to hand him what he wanted, and hold things for him. of course this put me into the seventh heaven of delight. was it a trifle to help build the tabernacle? i was of great assistance to moshe. i moved my lips when he hammered; went for meals when he went; shouted at the other children not to hinder us; handed moshe the hammer when he wanted the chisel, and the pincers when he wanted a nail. any other man would have thrown the hammer or pincers at my head for such help, but moshe-for-once had no temper. no one had ever had the privilege of seeing him angry. "anger is a sinful thing. it does as little good as any sin." and because i was greatly absorbed in the work, i did not notice how and by what miracle the tabernacle came into being. "come and see the tabernacle we have built," i said to father, and dragged him out of the house by the tails of his coat. my father was delighted with our work. he looked at moshe with a smile, and said, pointing to me: "had you at any rate a little help from him?" "it was a help, for once," replied moshe, looking up at the roof of the tabernacle with anxious eyes. "if only our hershke brings us the fir-boughs, it will be a tabernacle for once." hershke mamtzes worried us about the fir-boughs. he put off going for them from day to day. the day before the festival he went off and brought back a cart-load of thin sticks, a sort of weeds, such as grow on the banks of the river. and we began to cover the tabernacle. that is to say, moshe did the work, and i helped him by driving off the goats which had gathered around the fir-boughs, as if they were something worth while. i do not know what taste they found in the bitter green stalks. because the house stood alone, in the middle of the street, there was no getting rid of the goats. if you drove one off another came up. the second was only just got rid of, when the first sprang up again. i drove them off with sticks. "get out of this. are you here again, foolish goats? get off." the devil knows how they found out we had green fir-boughs. it seems they told one another, because there gathered around us all the goats of the town. and i, all alone, had to do battle with them. the lord helped us, and we had all the fir-boughs on the roof. the goats remained standing around us like fools. they looked up with foolish eyes, and stupidly chewed the cud. i had my revenge of them, and i said to them: "why don't you take the fir-boughs now, foolish goats?" they must have understood me, for they began to go off, one by one, in search of something to eat. and we began to decorate the tabernacle from the inside. first of all, we strewed the floor with sand; then we hung on the walls all the wadded quilts belonging to the neighbours. where there was no wadded quilt, there hung a shawl, and where there was no shawl, there was a sheet or a table-cloth. then we brought out all the chairs and tables, the candle-sticks and candles, the plates and knives and forks and spoons. and each of the three women of the house made the blessing over her own candles for the feast of tabernacles. * * * my mother--peace be unto her!--was a woman who loved to weep. the days of mourning were her days of rejoicing. and since we had lost our own house, her eyes were not dry for a single minute. my father, though he was also fretted, did not like this. he told her to fear the lord, and not sin. there were worse circumstances than ours, thank god. but now, in the tabernacle, when she was blessing the festival candles, she could cover her face with her hands and weep in silence without any one knowing it. but i was not to be fooled. i could see her shoulders heaving, and the tears trickling through her thin white fingers. and i even knew what she was weeping for.... it was well for her that father was getting ready to go to synagogue, putting on his sabbath coat that was tattered, but was still made of silk, and his plaited silk girdle. he thrust his hands into his girdle, and said to me, sighing deeply: "come, let us go. it is time we went to synagogue to pray." i took the prayer-books, and we went off. mother remained at home to pray. i knew what she would do--weep. she might weep as much as she liked, for she would be alone. and it was so. when we came back, and entered the tabernacle, and father started to make the blessing over the wine, i looked into her eyes, and they were red, and had swollen lids. her nose was shining. nevertheless, she was to me beautiful as rachel or abigail, or the queen of sheba, or queen esther. looking at her, i was reminded of all our beautiful jewish women with whom i had just become acquainted at "_cheder_." and looking at my mother, with her lovely face that looked lovelier above the lovely silk shawl she wore, with her large, beautiful, careworn eyes, my heart was filled with pain that such lovely eyes should be tear-stained always--that such lovely white hands should have to bake and cook. and i was angry with the lord because he did not give us a lot of money. and i prayed to the lord to destine me to find a treasure of gold and diamonds and brilliants. or let the messiah come, and we would go back to the land of israel, where we should all be happy. this was what i thought. and my imagination carried me far, far away, to my golden dreams that i would not exchange for all the money in the world. and the beautiful festival prayers, sung by my father in his softest and most melodious voice, rang in my ears. "thou hast chosen us above all peoples, us hast thou chosen of all the nations." is it a trifle to be god's chosen people? to be god's only child? my heart was glad for the happy chosen people. and i imagined i was a prince. yes, a prince. and the tabernacle was a palace. the divine holiness rested on it. my mother was the beautiful daughter of jerusalem, the queen of sheba. and on the morrow we would make the blessing over the most beautiful fruit in the world--the citron. ah, who could compare with me? who could compare with me? * * * after father, moshe-for-once pronounced the blessing over the wine. it was not the same blessing as my father's--but, really not. after him, the landlord, hershke mamtzes pronounced the blessing over the wine. he was a commonplace man, and it was a commonplace blessing. we went to wash our hands, and we pronounced the blessing over the bread. and each of the three women brought out the food for her family--fine, fresh, seasoned, pleasant, fragrant fish. and each family sat around its own table. there were many dishes; a lot of people had soup; a lot of mouths were eating. a little wind blew into the tabernacle, through the frail thin walls, and the thin roof of fir-boughs. the candles spluttered. every one was eating heartily the delicious festival supper. and i imagined it was not a tabernacle but a palace--a great, big, brilliantly lit-up palace. and we jews, the chosen people, the princes, were sitting in the palace and enjoying the pleasures of life. "it is well for you, little jews," thought i. "no one is so well-off as you. no one else is privileged to sit in such a beautiful palace, covered with green fir-boughs, strewn with yellow sand, decorated with the most beautiful tapestries in the world, on the tables the finest suppers, and real festival fish which is the daintiest of all dainties. and who speaks of----" suddenly, crash! the whole roof and the fir-boughs are on our heads. one wall after the other is falling in. a goat fell from on high, right on top of us. it suddenly grew pitch dark. all the candles were extinguished. all the tables were over-turned. and we all, with the suppers and the crockery and the goat, were stretched out on the sand. the moon shone, and the stars peeped out, and the goat jumped up, frightened, and stood on its thin legs, stock-still, while it stared at us with foolish eyes. it soon marched off, like an insolent creature, over the tables and chairs, and over our heads, bleating "meh-eh-eh-eh!" the candles were extinguished; the crockery smashed; the supper in the sand; and we were all frightened to death. the women were shrieking, the children crying. it was a destruction of everything--a real destruction. * * * "you built a fine tabernacle," said hershke mamtzes to us in such a voice, as if we had had from him for building the tabernacle goodness knows how much money. "it was a fine tabernacle, when one goat could overthrow it." "it was a tabernacle for once," replied moshe-for-once. he stood like one beaten, looking upwards, to see whence the destruction had come. "it was a tabernacle for once." "yes, a tabernacle for once," repeated hershke mamtzes, in a voice full of deadly venom. and every one echoed his words, all in one voice: "a tabernacle for once." the dead citron my name is leib. when i am called up to read the portion of the law it is by the name of yehudah-leib. at home, i sign myself lyef moishevitch. amongst the germans i am known as herr leon. here in england, i am mr. leon. when i was a child i was called leibel. at "_cheder_" i was lieb-dreib-obderick. you must know that at our "_cheder_" every boy has a nickname. for instance--"mottel-kappotel," "meyer-dreyer," "mendel-fendel," "chayim-clayim," "itzig-shpitzig," "berel-tzap." did you ever hear such rhymes? that itzig rhymes with shpitzig, and mendel with fendel, and chayim with clayim is correct. but what has berel to do with tzap, or how does leib rhyme with obderick? i did not like my nickname. and i fought about it. i got blows and thumps and smacks and whacks and pinches and kicks from all sides. i was black and blue. because i was the smallest in the "_cheder_"--the smallest and the weakest and the poorest, no one defended me. on the contrary, the two rich boys tortured me. one got on top of me, and the other pulled me by the ear. whilst the third--a poor boy--sang a song to tease me-- "just so! just so! give it to him. punch him. bang him. his little limbs, his little limbs. just so! just so! at such times i lay quiet as a kitten. and when they let me go i went into a corner and wept silently. i wiped my eyes, went back to my comrades, and was all right again. just a word--whenever you meet the name leibel in this story, you will know it refers to me. i am soft as down, short and fat. in reality, i am not so fat as i look. on the contrary, i am rather bony, but i wear thick, wadded little trousers, a thick, wadded vest, and a thick wadded coat. you see my mother wants me to be warm. she is afraid i might catch cold, god forbid! and she wraps me in cotton-wool from head to foot. she believes that cotton-wool is very good to wrap a boy in, but must not be used for making balls. i provided all the boys with cotton-wool i pulled it out of my trousers and coat until she caught me. she beat me, and whacked me, and thumped me and pinched me. but leibel went on doing what he liked--distributing cotton-wool. my face is red, my cheeks rather blue, and my nose always running. "such a nose!" cries my mother. "if he had no nose, he would be all right. he would have nothing to freeze in the cold weather." i often try to picture to myself what would happen if i had no nose at all. if people had no noses, what would they look like? then the question is--? but i was going to tell you the story of a dead citron, and i have wandered off to goodness knows where. i will break off in the middle of what i was saying, and go back to the story of the dead citron. * * * my father, moshe-yankel, has been a clerk at an insurance company's office for many years. he gets five and a half "_roubles_" a week. he is waiting for a rise in wages. he says that if he gets his rise this year, please god, he will buy a citron. but my mother, basse-beila, has no faith in this. she says the barracks will fall down before father will get a rise. one day, shortly before the new year, leibel overheard the following conversation between his father and his mother. he: "though the world turn upside down, i must have a citron this year!" she: "the world will not turn upside down, and you will have no citron." he: "that's what you say. but supposing i have already been promised something towards a citron?" she: "it will have to be written into the books of jests. in the month called after the town of kreminitz a miracle happened--a bear died in the forest. but what then? if i do not believe it, i shall not be a great heretic either." he: "you may believe or not. i tell you that this feast of tabernacles, we shall have a citron of our own." she: "amen! may it be so! from your mouth into god's ears!" "amen, amen," repeated leibel in his heart. and he pictured to himself his father coming into the synagogue, like a respectable householder, with his own citron and his own palm-branch. and though moshe-yankel is only a clerk, still when the men walk around the ark with their palms and their citrons, he will follow them with his palm and citron. and leibel's heart was full of joy. when he came to "_cheder_," he at once told every one that this year his father would have his own palm and citron. but no one believed him. "what do you say to his father?" asked the young scamps of one another. "such a man--such a beggar amongst beggars desires to have a citron of his own. he must imagine it is a lemon, or a '_groschen_' apple." that was what the young scamps said. and they gave leibel a few good smacks and thumps, and punches and digs and pushes. and leibel began to believe that his father was a beggar amongst beggars. and a beggar must have no desires. but how great was his surprise when he came home and found "_reb_" henzel sitting at the table, in his napoleonic cap, facing his father. in front of them stood a box full of citrons, the beautiful perfume of which reached the furthest corners of the house. * * * the cap which "_reb_" henzel wore was the sort of cap worn in the time of napoleon the first. over there in france, these caps were long out of fashion. but in our village there was still one to be found--only one, and it belonged to "_reb_" henzel. the cap was long and narrow. it had a slit and a button in front, and at the back two tassels. i always wanted these tassels. if the cap had fallen into my hands for two minutes--only two, the tassels would have been mine. "_reb_" henzel had spread out his whole stock-in-trade. he took up a citron with his two fingers, and gave it to father to examine. "take this citron, '_reb_' moshe-yankel. you will enjoy it." "a good one?" asked my father, examining the citron on all sides, as one might examine a diamond. his hands trembled with joy. "and what a good one," replied "_reb_" henzel, and the tassels of his cap shook with his laughter. moshe-yankel played with the citron, smelled it, and could not take his eyes off it. he called over his wife to him, and showed her, with a happy smile, the citron, as if he were showing her a precious jewel, a priceless gem, a rare antique, or an only child--a dear one. basse-beila drew near, and put out her hand slowly to take hold of the citron. but she did not get it. "be careful with your hands. a sniff if you like." basse-beila was satisfied with a sniff of the citron. i was not even allowed to sniff it. i was not allowed to go too near it, or even to look at it. "he is here, too," said my mother. "only let him go near it, and he will at once bite the top off the citron." "the lord forbid!" cried my father. "the lord preserve us!" echoed "_reb_" henzel. and the tassels shook again. he gave father some cotton-wool into which he might nest the citron. the beautiful perfume spread into every corner of the house. the citron was wrapped up as carefully as if it had been a diamond, or a precious gem. and it was placed in a beautiful round, carved, painted and decorated wooden sugar box. the sugar was taken out, and the citron was put in instead, like a beloved guest. "welcome art thou, '_reb_' citron! into the box--into the box!" the box was carefully closed, and placed in the glass cupboard. the door was closed over on it, and good-bye! "i am afraid the heathen"--that was meant for me--"will open the door, take out the citron, and bite its top off," said my mother. she took me by the hand, and drew me away from the cupboard. like a cat that has smelt butter, and jumps down from a height for it, straightens her back, goes round and round, rubbing herself against everything, looks into everybody's eyes, and licks herself--in like manner did leibel, poor thing, go round and round the cupboard. he gazed in through the glass door, smiled at the box containing the citron, until his mother saw him, and said to his father that the young scamp wanted to get hold of the citron to bite off its top. "to '_cheder_,' you blackguard! may you never be thought of, you scamp!" leibel bent his head, lowered his eyes, and went off to "_cheder_." * * * the few words his mother had said to his father about his biting off the top of the citron burned themselves into leibel's heart, and ate into his bones like a deadly poison. the top of the citron buried itself in leibel's brain. it did not leave his thoughts for a moment. it entered his dreams at night, worried him, and almost dragged him by the hand. "you do not recognize me, foolish boy? it is i--the top of the citron." leibel turned round on the other side, groaned, and went to sleep. it worried him again. "get up, fool. go and open the cupboard, take out the citron, and bite me off. you will enjoy yourself." leibel got up in the morning, washed his hands, and began to say his prayers. he took his breakfast, and was going off to "_cheder_." passing by, he glanced in the direction of the glass cupboard. through the glass door, he saw the box containing the citron. and he imagined the box was winking at him. "over here, over here, little boy." leibel marched straight out of the house. one morning, when leibel got up, he found himself alone in the house. his father had gone off to business, his mother had gone to the market. the servant was busy in the kitchen. "every one is gone. there isn't a soul in the house," thought leibel. passing by, he again looked inside the glass cupboard. he saw the sugar box that held the citron. it seemed to be beckoning to him. "over here, over here, little boy." leibel opened the glass door softly and carefully, and took out the box--the beautiful, round, carved, decorated wooden box, and raised the lid. before he had time to lift out the citron, the fragrance of it filled his nostrils--the pungent, heavenly odour. before he had time to turn around, the citron was in his hand, and the top of it in his eyes. "do you want to enjoy yourself? do you want to know the taste of paradise? take and bite me off. do not be afraid, little fool. no one will know of it. not a son of adam will see you. no bird will tell on you." * * * you want to know what happened? you want to know whether i bit the top off the citron, or held myself back from doing it? i should like to know what you would have done in my place--if you had been told ten times not to dare to bite the top off the citron? would you not have wanted to know what it tasted like? would you not also have thought of the plan--to bite it off, and stick it on again with spittle? you may believe me or not--that is your affair--but i do not know myself how it happened. before the citron was rightly in my hands, the top of it was between my teeth. * * * the day before the festival, father came home a little earlier from his work, to untie the palm-branch. he had put it away very carefully in a corner, warning leibel not to attempt to go near it. but it was useless warning him. leibel had his own troubles. the top of the citron haunted him. why had he wanted to bite it off? what good had it done him to taste it when it was bitter as gall? it was for nothing he had spoiled the citron, and rendered it unfit for use. that the citron could not now be used, leibel knew very well. then what had he done this for? why had he spoiled this beautiful creation, bitten off its head, and taken its life? why? why? he dreamt of the citron that night. it haunted him, and asked him: "why have you done this thing to me? why did you bite off my head? i am now useless--useless." leibel turned over on the other side, groaned, and fell asleep again. but he was again questioned by the citron. "murderer, what have you against me? what had my head done to you?" * * * the first day of the feast of tabernacles arrived. after a frosty night, the sun rose and covered the earth with a delayed warmth, like that of a step-mother. that morning moshe-yankel got up earlier than usual to learn off by heart the festival prayers, reciting them in the beautiful festival melody. that day also basse-beila was very busy cooking the fish and the other festival dishes. that day also zalmen the carpenter came to our tabernacle to make a blessing over the citron and palm before any one else, so that he might be able to drink tea with milk and enjoy the festival. "zalmen wants the palm and the citron," said my mother to my father. "open the cupboard, and take out the box, but carefully," said my father. he himself stood on a chair and took down from the top shelf the palm, and brought it to the tabernacle to the carpenter. "here, make the blessing," he said. "but be careful, in heaven's name be careful!" our neighbour zalmen was a giant of a man--may no evil eye harm him! he had two hands each finger of which might knock down three such leibels as i. his hands were always sticky, and his nails red from glue. and when he drew one of these nails across a piece of wood, there was a mark that might have been made with a sharp piece of iron. in honour of the festival, zalmen had put on a clean shirt and a new coat. he had scrubbed his hands in the bath, with soap and sand, but had not succeeded in making them clean. they were still sticky and the nails still red with glue. into these hands fell the dainty citron. it was not for nothing moshe-yankel was excited when zalmen gave the citron a good squeeze and the palm a good shake. "be careful, be careful," he cried. "now turn the citron head downwards, and make the blessing. carefully, carefully. for heaven's sake, be careful!" suddenly moshe-yankel threw himself forward, and cried out, "oh!" the cry brought his wife, basse-beila, running into the tabernacle. "what is it, moshe-yankel? god be with you!" "coarse blackguard! man of the earth!" he shouted at the carpenter, and was ready to kill him. "how could you be such a coarse blackguard? such a man of the earth? is a citron an ax? or is it a saw? or a bore? a citron is neither an ax nor a saw nor a bore. you have cut my throat without a knife. you have spoiled my citron. here is the top of it--here, see! coarse blackguard! man of the earth!" we were all paralysed on the instant. zalmen was like a dead man. he could not understand how this misfortune had happened to him. how had the top come off the citron? surely he had held it very lightly, only just with the tips of his fingers? it was a misfortune--a terrible misfortune. basse-beila was pale as death. she wrung her hands and moaned. "when a man is unfortunate, he may as well bury himself alive and fresh and well, right in the earth." and leibel? leibel did not know whether he should dance with joy because the lord had performed a miracle for him, released him from all the trouble he had got himself into, or whether he should cry for his father's agony and his mother's tears, or whether he should kiss zalmen's thick hands with the sticky fingers and the red nails, because he was his redeemer, his good angel.... leibel looked at his father's face and his mother's tears, the carpenter's hands, and at the citron that lay on the table, yellow as wax, without a head, without a spark of life, a dead thing, a corpse. "a dead citron," said my father, in a broken voice. "a dead citron," repeated my mother, the tears gushing from her eyes. "a dead citron," echoed the carpenter, looking at his hands. he seemed to be saying to himself: "there's a pair of hands for you! may they wither!" "a dead citron," said leibel, in a joyful voice. but he caught himself up, fearing his tones might proclaim that he, leibel, was the murderer, the slaughterer of the citron. isshur the beadle when i think of isshur the beadle, i am reminded of alexander the great, napoleon bonaparte, and other such giants of history. isshur was not a nobody. he led the whole congregation, the whole town by the nose. he had the whole town in his hand. he was a man who served everybody and commanded everybody; a man who was under everybody, but feared nobody. he had a cross look, terrifying eyebrows, a beard of brass, a powerful fist, and a long stick. isshur was a name to conjure with. who made isshur what he was? ask me an easier question. there are types of whom it can be said they are cast, fixed. they never move out of their place. as you see them the first time, so are they always. it seems they always were as they are, and will ever remain the same. when i was a child, i could not tear myself away from isshur. i was always puzzling out the one question--what was isshur like before he was isshur? that is to say, before he got those terrifying eyebrows, and the big hooked nose that was always filled with snuff, and the big brass beard that started by being thick and heavy, and ended up in a few, long straggling, terrifying hairs. how did he look when he was a child, ran about barefoot, went to "_cheder_," and was beaten by his teacher? and what was isshur like when his mother was carrying him about in her arms, when she suckled him, wiped his nose for him, and said: "isshur, my sweet boy. my beautiful boy. may i suffer instead of your little bones?" these were the questions that puzzled me when i was a child, and could not tear myself away from isshur. "go home, wretches. may the devil take your father and mother." and isshur would not even allow any one to think of him. surely, i was only one boy, yet isshur called me wretches. you must know that isshur hated to have any one staring at him. isshur hated little children. he could not bear them. "children," he said, "are naturally bad. they are scamps and contradictory creatures. children are goats that leap into strange gardens. children are dogs that snap at one's coat-tails. children are pigs that crawl on the table. children should be taught manners. they ought to be made to tremble, as with the ague." and we did tremble as if we had the ague. why were we afraid, you ask. well, would you not be afraid if you were taken by the ear, dragged to the door, and beaten over the neck and shoulders? "go home, wretches. may the devil take your father and mother." you will tell your mother on him? well, try it. you want to know what will happen? i will tell you. you will go home and show your mother your torn ear. your mother will pounce on your father. "you see how the tyrant has torn the ear of your child--your only son." your father will take you by the hand to the synagogue, and straight over to isshur the beadle, as if to say to him: "here, see what you have done to my only son. you have almost torn off his ear." and isshur will reply to my father's unspoken words: "go in health with your wretches." you hear? even an only son is also wretches. and what can father do? push his hat on one side, and go home. mother will ask him: "well?" and he will reply: "i gave it to him, the wicked one, the haman! what more could i do to him?" it is not at all nice that a father should tell such a big lie. but what is one to do when one is under the yoke of a beadle? * * * one might say that the whole town is under isshur's yoke. he does what he likes. if he does not want to heat the synagogue in the middle of winter, you may burst arguing with him. he will heed you no more than last year's snow. if isshur wants prayers to start early in the morning, you will be too late whenever you come. if isshur does not want you to read the portion of the law for eighteen weeks on end, you may stare at him from today till tomorrow, or cough until you burst. he will neither see nor hear you. it is the same with your praying-shawl, or your prayer-book, or with your citron, or the willow-twigs. isshur will bring them to you when he likes, not when you like. he says that householders are plentiful as dogs, but there is only one beadle--may no evil eye harm him! the congregation is so big, one might go mad. and isshur was proud and haughty. he reduced every one to the level of the earth. the most respectable householder often got it hot from him. "it is better for you not to start with me," he said. "i have no time to talk to you. there are a lot of you, and i am only one--may no evil eye harm me!" and nobody began with him. they were glad that he did not begin with them. naturally, no one would dream of asking isshur what became of the money donated to the synagogue, or of the money he got for the candles, and the money thrown into the collection boxes. nor did they ask him any other questions relating to the management of the synagogue. he was the master of the whole concern. and whom was he to give an account to? the people were glad if he left them alone, and that he did not throw the keys into their faces. "here, keep this place going yourselves. provide it with wood and water, candles and matches. the towels must be kept clean. a slate has to be put on the roof frequently, and the walls and ceiling have to be whitewashed. the stands have to be repaired, and the books bought. and what about the '_chanukali_' lamp? and what of the palm-branch and the citron? and where is this, and where is that?" and though every one knew that all the things he mentioned not only did not mean an outlay of money, but were, on the contrary, a source of income, yet no one dared interfere. all these belonged to the beadle. they were his means of livelihood. "the fine salary i get from you! one's head might grow hard on it. it's only enough for the water for the porridge," said isshur. and the people were silent. the people were silent, though they knew very well that "_reb_" isshur was saving money. they knew very well he had plenty of money. it was possible he even lent out money on interest, in secret, on good securities, of course. he had a little house of his own, and a garden, and a cow. and he drank a good glassful of brandy every day. in the winter he wore the best fur coat. his wife always wore good boots without holes. she made herself a new cloak not long ago, out of the public money. "may she suffer through it for our blood, father in heaven!" that's what the villagers muttered softly through their teeth, so that the beadle might not hear them. when he approached, they broke off and spoke of something else. they blinked their eyes, breathed hard, and took from the beadle a pinch of snuff with their two fingers. "excuse me." this "excuse me" was a nasty "excuse me." it was meant to be flattering, to convey the sense of--"excuse me, your snuff is surely good." and, "excuse me, give me a pinch of snuff, and go in peace." isshur understood the compliment, and also the hint. he knew the people loved him like sore eyes. he knew the people wished to take away his office from him as surely as they wished to live. but he heeded them as little as haman heeds the "_purim_" rattles. he had them in his fists, and he knew what to do. * * * he who wants to find favour with everybody will find favour with nobody. and if one has to bow down, let it be to the head, not to the feet. isshur understood these two wise sayings. he sought the favour of the leaders of the community. he did everything they told him to, lay under their feet, and flew on any errand on which they sent him. and he flattered them until it made one sick. there is no need to say anything of what went on at the elections. then isshur never rested. whoever has not seen isshur at such a time has seen nothing. covered with perspiration, his hat pushed back on his head, isshur kneaded the thick mud with his high boots, and with his big stick. he flew from one committee-man to another, worked, plotted, planned, told lies, and carried on intrigues and intrigues without an end. isshur was always first-class at carrying on intrigues. he could have brought together a wall and a wall. he could make mischief in such a way that every person in the town should be enraged with everybody else, quarrel and abuse his neighbour, and almost come to blows. and he was innocent of everything. you must know that isshur had the town very cleverly. he thought within himself: "argue, quarrel, abuse one another, my friends, and you will forget all about the doings of isshur the beadle." that they should forget his doings was an important matter to isshur, because, of late, the people had begun to talk to him, and to demand from him an account of the money he had taken for the synagogue. and who had done this? the young people--the young wretches he had always hated and tortured. they say that children become men, and men become children. many generations have grown up, become men, and gone hence. the youngsters became greybeards. the little wretches became self-supporting young men. the young men got married and became householders. the householders became old men, and still isshur was isshur. but all at once there grew up a generation that was young, fresh, curious--a generation which was called heathens, insolent, fearless, devils, wretches. the lord help and preserve one from them. "how does isshur come to be an overlord? he is only a beadle. he ought to serve us, and not we him. how long more will this old isshur with the long legs and big stick rule over us? the account. where is the account? we must have the account." this was the demand of the new generation that was made up entirely of heathens, insolent ones, fearless ones, devils and wretches. they shouted in the yard of the synagogue at the top of their voices. isshur pretended to be deaf, and not to hear anything. afterwards, he began to drive them out of the yard. he extinguished the candles in the synagogue, locked the door, and threw out the boys. then he tried to turn against them the anger of the householders of the village. he told them of all their misdeeds--that they mocked at old people, and ridiculed the committee-men. in proof of his assertions, he showed the men a piece of paper that one of the boys had lost. on it was written a little poem. who would have thought it? a foolish poem, and yet what excitement it caused in the village--what a revolution. oh! oh! it would have been better if isshur had not found it, or having found it, had not shown it to the committee-men. it would have been far better for him. it may be said that this song was the beginning of isshur's end. the foolish committee-men, instead of swallowing down the poem, and saying no more about it, injured themselves by discussing it. they carried it about from one to the other so long, until the people learnt it off by heart. some one sang it to an old melody. and it spread everywhere. workmen sang it at their work; cooks in their kitchens; young girls sitting on the doorsteps; mothers sang their babies to sleep with it. the most foolish song has a lot of power in it. when the throat is singing the head is thinking. and it thinks so long until it arrives at a conclusion. thoughts whirl and whirl and fret one so long, until something results. and when one's imagination is enkindled, a story is sure to grow out of it. the story that grew out of this song was fine and brief. you may listen to it. it may come in useful to you some day. * * * the heathens, insolent ones, fearless ones, devils and wretches burrowed so long, and worked so hard to overthrow isshur, that they succeeded in arriving at a certain road. early one morning they climbed into the attic of the synagogue. there they found the whole treasure--a pile of candles, several "_poods_" of wax, a score of new "_tallissim_," a bundle of prayer-books of different sorts that had never been used. it may be that to you these things would not have been of great value, but to a beadle they were worth a great deal. this treasure was taken down from the attic very ceremoniously. i will let you imagine the picture for yourself. on the one hand, isshur with the big nose, terrifying eyebrows, and the beard of brass that started thick and heavy, and finished up with a few thin terrifying hairs. on the other hand, the young heathens, insolent ones, fearless ones, devils and wretches dragging out his treasure. but you need not imagine isshur lost himself. he was not of the people that lose themselves for the least thing. he stood looking on, pretending to be puzzling himself with the question of how these things came to be in the attic of the synagogue. early next morning, the following announcement was written in chalk on the door of the synagogue:-- "memorial candles are sold here at wholesale price." next day there was a different inscription. on the third day still another one. isshur had something to do. every morning he rubbed out with a wet rag the inscriptions that covered the whole of the door of the synagogue. every sabbath morning, on their desks the congregants found bundles of letters, in which the youngsters accused the beadle and his bought-over committee-men of many things. isshur had a hard time of it. he got the committee-men to issue a proclamation in big letters, on parchment. "hear all! as there have arisen in our midst a band of hooligans, scamps, good-for-nothings who are making false accusations against the most respected householders of the village, therefore we, the leaders of the community, warn these false accusers openly that we most strongly condemn their falsehoods, and if we catch any of them, we will punish him with all the severities of the law." of course, the boys at once tore down this proclamation. a second was hung in its place. the boys did not hesitate to hang up a proclamation of their own in its stead. and the men found on their desks fresh letters of accusation against the beadle and the committee-men. in a word, it was a period when the people did nothing else but write. the committee-men wrote proclamations, and the boys, the scamps, wrote letters. this went on until the days of mourning arrived--the time of the elections. and there began a struggle between the two factions. on the one side there was isshur and his patrons, the committee-men; and on the other side, the youngsters, the heathens, the scamps, and their candidates. each faction tried to attract the most followers by every means in its power. one faction tried impassioned words, enflamed speeches; the other, soft words, roast ducks, dainties, and liberal promises. and just think who won? you will never guess. it was we young scamps who won. and we selected our own committee-men from amongst ourselves--young men with short coats, poor men, beggars. it is a shame to tell it, but we chose working men--ordinary working men. * * * i am afraid you are anxious for my story to come to an end. you want to know how long it is going to last? or would you rather i told you how our new committee-men made up their accounts with the old beadle? do you want to hear how the poor old beadle was dragged through the whole village by the youngsters, with shouting and singing? the boys carried in front of the procession the whole treasure of candles, wax, "_tallissim_" and prayer-books which they had found in the attic of the synagogue. no, i don't think you will expect me to tell you of these happenings. take revenge of our enemy--bathe in his blood, so to speak? no! we could not do that. i shall tell you the end in a few words. last new year i was at home, back again in the village of my birth. a lot, a lot of water had flown by since the time i have just told you of. still, i found the synagogue on the same spot. and it had the same ark of the law, the same curtains, the same reader's-desk, and the same hanging candlesticks. but the people were different; they were greatly changed. it was almost impossible to recognize them. the old people of my day were all gone. no doubt there were a good many more stones and inscriptions in the holy place. the young folks had grown grey. the committee-men were new. the cantor was new. there was a new beadle, and new melodies, and new customs. everything was new, and new, and new. one day--it was "_hoshana rabba_"--the cantor sang with his choir, and the people kept beating their willow-twigs against the desks in front of them. (it seems this custom has remained unchanged.) and i noticed from the distance a very old man, white-haired, doubled-up, with a big nose, and terrifying eyebrows, and a beard that started thick and heavy, but finished up with a few straggling, terrifying hairs. i was attracted to this old man. i went over to him, and put out my hand. "peace be unto you!" i said. "i think you are '_reb_' isshur the beadle?" "the beadle? what beadle? i am not the beadle this long time. i am a bare willow-twig this long time. heh! heh!" that is what the old man said to me in a tremulous voice. and he pointed to the bare willow-twigs at his feet. a bitter smile played around his grizzled beard that started thick and heavy, but finished off with a few straggling, terrifying hairs. boaz the teacher that which i felt on the first day my mother took me by the hand to "_cheder_" must be what a little chicken feels, after one has made the sacrificial blessing over her and is taking her to be slaughtered. the little chicken struggles and flutters her wings. she understands nothing, but feels she is not going to have a good time, but something different.... it was not for nothing my mother comforted me, and told me a good angel would throw me down a "_groschen_" from the ceiling. it was not for nothing she gave me a whole apple and kissed me on the brow. it was not for nothing she asked boaz to deal tenderly with me--just a little more tenderly because "the child has only recovered from the measles." so said my mother, pointing to me, as if she were placing in boaz's hands a rare vessel of crystal which, with one touch, would be a vessel no more--god forbid! my mother went home happy and satisfied, and "the child that had only recovered from the measles," remained behind, alone. he cried a little, but soon wiped his eyes, and was introduced to the holiness of the "_torah_" and a knowledge of the ways of the world. he waited for the good angel to throw him the "_groschen_" from the ceiling. oh, that good angel--that good angel! it would have been better if my mother had never mentioned his name, because when boaz came over, took hold of me with his dry, bony hand and thrust me into a chair at the table, i was almost faint, and i raised my head to the ceiling. i got a good portion from boaz for this. he pulled me by the ear and shouted: "devil, what are you looking at?" of course, "the child that had only recovered from the measles" began to wail. it was then he had his first good taste of the teacher's floggings. "a little boy must not look where it is forbidden. a little boy must not bleat like a calf." * * * boaz's system of teaching was founded on one thing--whippings. why whippings? he explained the reason by bringing forward the case of the horse. why does a horse go? because it is afraid. what is it afraid of? whippings. and it is the same with a child. a child must be afraid. he must fear god and his teacher, and his father and his mother, a sin and a bad thought. and in order that a child should be really afraid, he must be laid down, in true style, and given a score or so lashes. there is nothing better in the world than the rod. may the whip live long! so says boaz. he takes the strap slowly in his hands, without haste, examines it on all sides as one examines a citron. then he betakes himself to his work in good earnest, cheerfully singing a song by way of accompaniment. wonder of wonders! boaz never counts the strokes, and never makes a mistake. boaz flogs, and is never angry. boaz is not a bad tempered man. he is only angry when a boy will not let himself be whipped, tries to tear himself free, or kicks out his legs. then it is different. at such times boaz's eyes are bloodshot, and he flogs without counting and without singing his little song. a little boy must be still while his teacher flogs him. a little boy must have manners, even when he is being flogged. boaz is also angry if a boy laughs when he is being whipped. (there are children who laugh when they are beaten. people say this is a disease.) to boaz laughing is a danger to the soul. boaz has never laughed as long as he is alive. and he hates to see any one else laughing. one might easily have promised the greatest reward to the person who could swear he once saw boaz laughing. boaz is not a man for laughter. his face is not made for it. if boaz laughed, he would surely look more terrible than another man crying. (there are such faces in the world.) and really, what sort of a thing is laughter? it is only idlers who laugh, empty-headed gools, good-for-nothings, devil-may-care sort of people. those who have to work for a living, or carry on their shoulders the burden of a knowledge of the holy law and of the ways of the world, have no time to laugh. boaz never has time. he is either teaching or whipping. that is to say, he teaches while he whips, and whips while he teaches. it would be hard to divide these two--to say where teaching ended and whipping began. and you must know that boaz never whipped us for nothing. there was always a reason for it. it was either for not learning our lessons, for not wanting to pray well, for not obeying our fathers and mothers, for not looking in, and for not looking out, for just looking, for praying too quickly, for praying too slowly, for speaking too loudly, for speaking too softly, for a torn coat, a lost button, a pull or a push, for dirty hands, a soiled book, for being greedy, for running, for playing--and so on, and so on, without an end. one might say we were whipped for every sin that a human being can commit. we were whipped for the sake of the next world as well as this world. we were whipped on the eve of every sabbath, every feast and every fast. we were told that if we had not earned the whippings yet, we would earn them soon, please god. and boaz gave us all the whippings we ought to have had from our friends and relatives. they gave the pleasant task in to his hands. then we got whippings of which the teacher said: "you surely know yourself what they are for." and whippings just for nothing. "let me see how a little boy lets himself be whipped." in a word, it was whippings, rods, leathers, fears and tears. these prevailed at that time, in our foolish little world, without a single solution to the problems they brought into being, without a single remedy for the evils, without a single ray of hope that we would ever free ourselves from the fiendish system under which we lived. and the good angel of whom my mother spoke? where was he--that good angel? * * * i must confess there were times when i doubted the existence of this good angel. too early a spark of doubt entered my heart. too early i began to think that perhaps my mother had fooled me. too early i became acquainted with the emotion of hatred. too early, too early, i began to hate my teacher boaz. and how could one help hating him? how, i ask you, could one help hating a teacher who does not allow you to lift your head? that you may not do--this you may not say. don't stand here. don't go there. don't talk to so-and-so. how can one help hating a man who has not in him a germ of pity, who rejoices in another's pains, bathes in other's tears, and washes himself in other's blood? can there be a more shameful word than flogging? and what can be more disgraceful than to strip anybody stark naked and put him in a corner? but even this was not enough for boaz. he required you to undress yourself, to pull your own little shirt over your own head, and to stretch yourself face downwards. the rest boaz managed. and not only did boaz flog the boys himself, but his assistants helped him--his lieutenants, as he called them, naturally under his direction, lest they might not deliver the full number of strokes. "a little less learning and a little more flogging," was his rule. he explained the wisdom of his system in this way: "too much learning dulls a boy, and a whipping too many does not hurt. because, what a boy learns goes straight to his head, and his senses are quickened and his brains loaded. with the floggings it is the exact opposite. before the effects of the flogging reach the brain the blood is purified, and by this means the brain is cleared. well, do you understand?" and boaz never ceased from purifying our blood, and clearing our brain. and woe unto us! we did not believe any more in the good angel that looked down upon us from above. we realized that it was only a fairy-tale, an invented story by which we were fooled into going to boaz's "_cheder_." and we began to sigh and groan because of our sufferings under boaz. and we also began to make plans, to talk and argue how to free ourselves from our galling slavery. * * * in the melancholy moments between daylight and darkness, when the fiery red sun is about to bid farewell to the cold earth for the night--in these melancholy moments, when the happy daylight is departing, and on its heels is treading silently the still night, with its lonely secrets--in these melancholy moments, when the shadows are climbing on the walls growing broader and longer--in these melancholy moments between the afternoon and the evening prayers, when the teacher is at the synagogue, and his wife is milking the goat or washing the crockery, or making the "_borsht_"--then we youngsters came together at "_cheder_," beside the stove. we sat on the floor, our legs curled up under us, like innocent lambs. and there in the evening darkness, we talked of our terrible titus, our angel of death, boaz. the bigger boys, who had been at "_cheder_" some time, told us the most awful tales of boaz. they swore by all the oaths they could think of that boaz had flogged more than one boy to death, that he had already driven three women into their graves, and that he had buried his one and only son. we heard such wild tales that our hair stood on end. the older boys talked, and the younger listened--listened with all their senses on the alert. black eyes gleamed in the darkness. young hearts palpitated. and we decided that boaz had no soul. he was a man without a soul. and such a man is compared to an animal, to an evil spirit that it is a righteous act to get rid of. thousands of plans, foolish, childish plans, were formed in our childish brains. we hoped to rid ourselves of our angel of death, as we called boaz. foolish children! these foolish plans buried themselves deep in each little heart that cried out to the lord to perform a miracle. we asked that either the books should be burnt, or the strap he whipped us with taken to the devil, or--or.... no one wished to speak of the last alternative. they were afraid to bring it to their lips. and the evil spirit worked in their hearts. the young fancies were enkindled, and the boys were carried away by golden dreams. they dreamed of freedom, of running down hill, of wading barefoot in the river, playing horses, jumping over the logs. they were good, sweet, foolish dreams that were not destined to be realized. there was heard a familiar cough, a familiar footfall. and our hearts were frozen. all our limbs were paralysed, deadened. we sat down at the table and started our lessons with as much enthusiasm as if we were starting for the gallows. we were reading aloud, but still our lips muttered: "father in heaven, will there never come an end to this tyrant, this pharaoh, this haman, this gog-magog? or will there ever come a time when we shall be rid of this hard, hopeless, dark tyranny? no, never, never!" that is the conclusion we arrived at, poor innocent, foolish children! * * * "children, do you want to hear of a good plan that will rid us of our gog-magog?" that was what one of the boys asked us on one of those melancholy moments already described. his name was velvel leib aryas. he was a young heathen. when he was speaking his eyes gleamed in the darkness like those of a wolf. and the whole school of boys crowded around velvel to hear the plan by which we might get rid of our gog-magog. velvel began his explanation by giving us a lecture--how impossible it was to stand boaz any longer, how the ashmodai was bathing in our blood, how he regarded us as dogs--worse than dogs, because when a dog is beaten with a stick it may, at any rate, howl. and we may not do that either. and so on, and so on. after this velvel said to us: "listen, children, to what i will ask you. i am going to ask you something." "ask it," we all cried in one voice. "what is the law in a case where, for example, one of us suddenly becomes ill?" "it is not good," we replied. "no, i don't mean that. i mean something else. i mean, if one of us is ill does he go to '_cheder_,' or does he stay at home?" "of course he stays at home," we all answered together. "well, what is the law if two of us get ill?" "two remain at home." "well, and if three get ill?" velvel went on asking us, and we went on answering him. "three stay at home." "what would happen if, for example, we all took ill?" "we should all stay at home." "then let a sickness come upon us all," he cried joyfully. we replied angrily: "the lord forbid! are you mad, or have you lost your reason?" "i am not mad, and i have not lost my reason. only you are fools, yes. do i mean that we are to be really ill? i mean that we are to pretend to be ill, so that we shall not have to go to '_cheder_.' do you understand me now?" when velvel had explained his plan to us, we began to understand it, and to like it. and we began to ask ourselves what sort of an illness we should suffer from. one suggested toothache, another headache, a third stomach-ache, a fourth worms. but we decided that it was not going to be toothache, nor headache, nor stomach-ache, nor worms. what then? we must all together complain of pains in our feet, because the doctor could decide whether we really suffered from any of the other illnesses or not. but if we told him we had pains in our feet, and were unable to move them, he could do nothing. "remember, children, you are not to get out of bed tomorrow morning. and so that we may all be certain that not one of us will come to '_cheder_' tomorrow, let us promise one another, take an oath." so said our comrade velvel. and we gave each other our promise, and took an oath that we would not be at "_cheder_" next morning. we went home from "_cheder_" that evening lively, joyful, and singing. we felt like giants who knew how to overcome the enemy and win the battle. the spinning-top more than any of the boys at "_cheder_," more than any boy of the town, and more than any person in the world, i loved my friend, benny "_polkovoi_." the feeling i had for him was a peculiar combination of love, devotion, and fear. i loved him because he was handsomer, cleverer and smarter than any other boy. he was kind and faithful to me. he took my part, fought for me, and pulled the ears of those boys who annoyed me. and i was afraid of him because he was big and quarrelsome. he could beat whom he liked, and when he liked. he was the biggest, oldest, and wealthiest boy in the "_cheder_." his father, mayer "_polkovoi_," though he was only a regimental tailor, was nevertheless a rich man, and played an important part in public affairs. he had a fine house, a seat in the synagogue beside the ark. at the passover, his "_matzo_" was baked first. at the feast of tabernacles his citron was the best. on the sabbath he always had a poor man to meals. he gave away large sums of money in charity. and he himself went to the house of another to lend him money as a favour. he engaged the best teachers for his children. in a word, mayer "_polkovoi_" tried to refine himself--to be a man amongst men. he wanted to get his name inscribed in the books of the best society, but did not succeed. in our town, mazapevka, it was not easy to get into the best society. we did not forget readily a man's antecedents. a tailor may try to refine himself for twenty years in succession, but he will still remain a tailor to us. i do not think there is a soap in the world that will wash out this stain. how much do you think mayer "_polkovoi_" would have given to have us blot out the name bestowed upon him, "_polkovoi_"? his misfortune was that his family was a thousand times worse than his name. just imagine! in his passport he was called mayor mofsovitch heifer. it is a remarkable thing. may mayer's great-great-grandfather have a bright paradise! he also must have been a tailor. when it came to giving himself a family name, he could not find a better one than heifer. he might have called himself thimble, lining, buttonhole, bigpatch, longfigure. these are not family names either, it is true, but they are in some way connected with tailoring. but heifer? what did he like in the name of heifer? you may ask why not goat? are there not people in the world called goat? you may say what you like, heifer and goat are equally nice. still, they are not the same. a heifer is not a goat. but we will return to my friend benny. * * * benny was a nice boy, with yellow tousled hair, white puffed-out cheeks, scattered teeth, and peculiar red, bulging, fishy eyes. these red, fishy eyes were always smiling and roguish. he had a turned-up nose. his whole face had an expression of impudence. nevertheless, i liked his face, and we became friends the first hour we met. we met for the first time at "_cheder_," at the teachers' table. when my mother took me to "_cheder_," the teacher was sitting at his table with the boys, teaching them the book of genesis. he was a man with thick eyebrows and a pointed cap. he made no fuss of me. he asked me no questions, neither did he take my measurements, but said to me-- "get over there, on that bench, between those two boys." i got on the bench, between the boys, and was already a pupil. there was no talk between my mother and the teacher. they had made all arrangements beforehand. "remember to learn as you ought," said my mother from the doorway. she turned to look at me again, lovingly, joyfully. i understood her look very well. she was pleased that i was sitting with nice children, and learning the "_torah_." and she was pained because she had to part with me. i must confess i felt much happier than my mother. i was amongst a crowd of new friends--may no evil eye harm them! they looked at me, and i looked at them. but the teacher did not let us idle for long. he shook himself, and shouted aloud the lesson we had to repeat after him at the top of our voices. "now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field." boys who sit so close together, though they shake and shout aloud, cannot help getting to know one another, or exchange a few words. and so it was. benny "_polkovoi_," who sat crushing me, pinched my leg, and looked into my eyes. he went on shaking himself, and shouting out the lesson with the teacher and the other boys. but he threw his own words into the middle of the sentence we were translating. "and adam knew (here are buttons for you) eve his wife. (give me a locust-bean and i will give you a pull of my cigarette.)" i felt a warm hand in mine, and i had some smooth buttons. i confess i did not want the buttons, and i had no locust-beans, neither did i smoke cigarettes. but i liked the idea of the thing. and i replied in the same tones in which the lesson was being recited: "and she conceived and bare cain. (who told you i have locust-beans?)" that is how we conversed the whole time, until the teacher suspected that though i shook myself to and fro, my mind was far from the lesson. he suddenly put me through an examination. "listen, you, whatever your name is, you surely know whose son cain was, and the name of his brother?" this question was as strange to me as if he had asked me when there would be a fair in the sky, or how to make cream-cheese from snow, so that they should not melt. in reality my mind was elsewhere, i don't know where. "why do you look at me so?" asked the teacher. "don't you hear me? i want you to tell me the name of the first man, and the story of cain and his brother abel." the boys were smiling, smothering their laughter. i did not know why. "fool, say you do not know, because we have not learnt it," whispered benny in my ear, digging me with his elbow. i repeated his words, like a parrot. and the "_cheder_" was filled with loud laughter. "what are they laughing at?" i asked myself. i looked at them, and at the teacher. all were rolling with laughter. and, at that moment, i counted the buttons from one hand into the other. there were exactly half a dozen. "well, little boy, show me your hands. what are you doing with them?" and the teacher bent down and looked under the table. you are clever boys, and you will understand yourselves what i had from the teacher, for the buttons, on my first day at "_cheder_." * * * whippings heal up; shame is forgotten. benny and i became good friends. we were one soul. this is how it came about:-- next morning i arrived at "_cheder_" with my bible in one hand and my dinner in the other. the boys were excited, jolly. why? the teacher was not there. what had happened? he had gone off to a circumcision with his wife. that is to say, not with her, god forbid! a teacher never walks with his wife. the teacher walks before, and his wife after him. "let us make a bet," cried a boy with a blue nose. his name was hosea hessel. "how much shall we bet?" asked another boy, koppel bunnas. he had a torn sleeve out of which peeped the point of a dirty elbow. "a quarter of the locust-beans." "let it be a quarter of the locust-beans. what for? let us hear." "i say he will not stand more than twenty-five." "and i say thirty-six." "thirty-six. we shall soon see. boys, take hold of him." this was the order of hosea hessel, of the blue nose. and several boys took hold of me, all together, turned me over on the bench, face upwards. two sat on my legs, two on my arms, and one held my head, so that i should not be able to wriggle. and another placed his left forefinger and thumb at my nose. (it seemed he was left-handed.) he curled up his finger and thumb, closed his eye, and began to fillip me on the nose. and how, do you think? each time i saw my father in the other world. murderers, slaughterers! what had they against my nose? what had it done to them? whom had it bothered? what had they seen on it--a nose like all noses. "boys, count," commanded hosea hessel. "one, two, three--" but suddenly.... nearly always, since ever the world began, when a misfortune happens to a man--when robbers surround him in a wood, bind his hands, sharpen their knives, tell him to say his prayers, and are about to finish him off, there comes a woodman with a bell. the robbers run away, and the man lifts his hands on high and praises the lord for his deliverance. it was just like that with me and my nose. i don't remember whether it was at the fifth or sixth blow that the door opened, and benny "_polkovoi_" came in. the boys freed me at once, and remained standing like blocks of wood. benny took them in hand, one by one. he caught each boy by the ear, twisted it round, and said: "well, now you will know what it means to meddle with a widow's boy." from that day the boys did not touch either me or my nose. they were afraid to begin with the widow's boy whom benny had taken under his wing, into his guardianship, under his protection. * * * "the widow's boy"--- i had no other name at "_cheder_." this was because my mother was a widow. she supported herself by her own work. she had a little shop in which were, for the most part, so far as i can remember, chalk and locust-beans--the two things that sell best in mazapevka. chalk is wanted for white-washing the houses, and locust-beans are a luxury. they are sweet, and they are light in weight, and they are cheap. schoolboys spend on them all the money they get for breakfast and dinner. and the shopkeepers make a good profit out of them. i could never understand why my mother was always complaining that she could hardly make enough to pay the rent and my school-fees. why school-fees? what about the other things a human being needs, food and clothes and boots, for example? she thought of nothing but the school-fees. "when the lord punished me," she wailed, "and took my husband from me--and such a husband!--and left me all alone, i want my son to be a scholar, at any rate." what do you say to that? do you think she did not come frequently to the "_cheder_" to find out how i was getting on? i say nothing of the prayers she took good care i should recite every morning. she was always lecturing me to be even half as good as my father--peace be unto him! and whenever she looked at me, she said i was exactly like him--may i have longer years than he! and her eyes grew moist. her face grew curiously careworn, and had a mournful expression. i hope he will forgive me, i mean my father, from the other world, but i could not understand what sort of a man he had been. from what my mother told of him, he was always either praying or studying. had he never been drawn, like me, out into the open, on summer mornings, when the sun was not burning yet, but was just beginning to show in the sky, marching rapidly onwards, a fiery angel, in a fiery chariot, drawn by fiery horses, into whose brilliant, burning, guinea-gold faces it was impossible to look? i ask you what taste have the week-day prayers on such a morning? what sort of a pleasure is it to sit and read in a stuffy room, when the golden sun is burning, and the air is hot as an iron frying-pan? at such a time, you are tempted to run down the hill, to the river--the beautiful river that is covered with a green slime. a peculiar odour, as of a warm bath, comes from the distance. you want to undress and jump into the warm water. under the trees it is cool and the mud is soft and slippery. and the curious insects that live at the bottom of the river whirl around and about before your eyes. and curious, long-legged flies slip and slide on the surface of the water. at such a time one desires to swim over to the other side--over to where the green flags grow, their yellow and white stalks shimmering in the sun. a green, fresh fern looks up at you, and you go after it, plash-plash into the water, hands down, and feet up, so that people might think you were swimming. i ask you again, what pleasure is it to sit in a little room on a summer's evening, when the great dome of the sky is dropping over the other side of the town, lighting up the spire of the church, the shingle roofs of the baths, and the big windows of the synagogue. and on the other side of the town, on the common, the goats are bleating, and the lambs are frisking, the dust rising to the heavens, the frogs croaking. there is a tearing and a shrieking and a tumult as at a regular fair. who thinks of praying at such a time? but if you talk to my mother, she will tell you that her husband--peace be unto him!--did not succumb to temptations. he was a different sort of a man. what sort of a man he was i do not know--asking his pardon. i only know that my mother annoys me very much. she reminds me every minute that i had a father; and throws it into my teeth that she has to pay my school-fees for me. for this she asks only two things of me--that i should learn diligently, and say my prayers willingly. * * * it could not be said that the widow's boy did not learn well. he was not in any way behind his comrades. but i cannot guarantee that he said his prayers willingly. all children are alike. and he was as mischievous as any other boy. he, like the rest, was fond of running away and playing, though there is not much to be said of the play of jewish children. they tie a paper bag to a cat's tail so that she may run through the house like mad, smashing everything in her way. they lock the women's portion of the synagogue from the outside on friday nights, so that the women may have to be rescued. they nail the teacher's shoes to the floor, or seal his beard to the table with wax when he is asleep. but oh, how many thrashings do they get when their tricks are found out! it may be gathered that everything must have an originator, a commander, a head, a leader who shows the way. our leader, our commander was benny "_polkovoi_." from him all things originated; and on our heads were the consequences. benny, of the fat face and red, fishy eyes, always managed to escape scot free from the scrapes. he was always innocent as a dove. whatever tricks or mischief we did, we always got the idea from benny. who taught us to smoke cigarettes in secret, letting the smoke out through our nostrils? benny. who told us to slide on the ice, in winter, with the peasant-boys? benny. who taught us to gamble with buttons--to play "odd or even," and lose our breakfasts and dinners? benny. he was up to every trick, and taught us them all. he won our last "_groschens_" from us. and when it came to anything, benny had disappeared. playing was to us the finest thing in the world. and for playing we got the severest thrashings from our teacher. he said he would tear out of us the desire to play. "play in my house? you will play with the angel of death," said the teacher. and he used to empty our pockets of everything, and thrash us most liberally. but there was one week of the year when we were allowed to play. why do i say allowed? it was a righteous thing to play then. and that week was the week of "chanukah." and we played with spinning-tops. * * * it is true that the games of cards--bridge and whist, for example--which are played at "_chanukah_" nowadays have more sense in them than the old game of spinning-tops. but when the play is for money, it makes no difference what it is. i once saw two peasant-boys beating one another's heads against the wall. when i asked them why they were doing this, if they were out of their minds, they told me to go my road. they were playing a game, for money, which of them would get tired the soonest of having his head banged on the wall. the game of spinning-tops that have four corners, each marked with a letter of the alphabet, and are like dice, is very exciting. one can lose one's soul playing it. it is not so much the loss of the money as the annoyance of losing. why should the other win? why should the top fall on the letter g for him, and on the n for you? i suppose you know what the four letters stand for? n means no use. h means half. b means bad. and g means good. the top is a sort of lottery. whoever is fortunate wins. take, for example, benny "_polkovoi_." no matter how often he spins the top, it always falls on the letter g. the boys said it was curious how benny won. they kept putting down their money. he took on their bets. what did he care? he was a rich boy. "g again. it's curious," they cried, and again opened their purses and staked their money. benny whirled the top. it spun round and round, and wobbled from side to side, like a drunkard, and fell down. "g," said benny. "g, g. again g. it's extraordinary," said the boys, scratching their heads and again opening their purses. the game grew more exciting. the players grew hot, staked their money, crushed one another, and dug one another in the ribs to get nearer the table, and called each other peculiar names--"black tom-cat! creased cap! split coat!" and the like. they did not see the teacher standing behind them, in his woollen cap and coat, and carrying his "_tallis_" and "_tephilin_" under his arm. he was going to the synagogue to say his prayers, and seeing the crowd of excited boys, he drew near to watch the play. this day he does not interfere. it is "_chanukah_." we are free for eight days on end, and may play as much as we like. but we must not fight, nor pull one another by the nose. the teacher's wife took her sickly child in her arms, and stood at her husband's shoulder, watching the boys risk their money, and how benny took on all the bets. benny was excited, burning, aflame, ablaze. he twirled the top. it spun round and round, wobbled and fell down. "g all over again. it's a regular pantomime." benny showed us his smartness and his quick-wittedness so long, until our pockets were empty. he thrust his hands in his pockets, as if challenging us--"well, who wants more?" we all went home. we carried away with us the heartache and the shame of our losses. when we got home, we had to tell lies to account for the loss of the money we had been given in honour of "_chanukah_." one boy confessed he had spent his on locust-beans. another said the money had been stolen out of his pocket the previous night. a third came home crying. he said he had bought himself a pocket-knife. well, why was he crying? he had lost the knife on his way home. i told my mother a fine story--a regular "arabian nights" tale, and got out of her a second "_chanukah_" present of ten "_groschens_." i ran off with them to benny, played for five minutes, lost to him, and flew back home, and told my mother another tale. in a word, brains were at work and heads were busy inventing lies. lies flew about like chaff in the wind. and all our "_chanukah_" money went into benny's pockets, and was lost to us for ever. one of the boys became so absorbed in the play that he was not satisfied to lose only his "_chanukah_" money, but went on gambling through the whole eight days of the festival. and that boy was no other than myself, "the widow's son." * * * you must not ask where the widow's boy got the money to play with. the great gamblers of the world who have lost and won fortunes, estates and inheritances--they will know and understand. woe is me! may the hour never be known on which the evil spirit of gambling takes hold of one! there is nothing too hard for him. he breaks into houses, gets through iron walls, and does the most terrible thing imaginable. it's a name to conjure with--the spirit of gambling. first of all, i began to make money by selling everything i possessed, one thing after the other, my pocket-knife, my purse, and all my buttons. i had a box that opened and closed, and some wheels of an old clock--good brass wheels that shone like the sun when they were polished. i sold them all at any price, flew off, and lost all my money to benny. i always left him with a heart full of wounds and the bitterest annoyance, and greatly excited. i was not angry with benny. god forbid! what had i against him? how was he to blame if he always won at play? if the top fell on the g for me, he said, i should win. if it falls on the g for him, then he wins. and he is quite right. no, i am only sorry for myself, for having run through so much money--my mother's hard-earned "_groschens_," and for having made away with all my things. i was left almost naked. i even sold my little prayer-book. o that prayer-book, that prayer-book! when i think of it, my heart aches, and my face burns with shame. it was an ornament, not a book. my mother bought it of pethachiah the pedlar, on the anniversary of my father's death. and it was a book of books--a good one, a real good one, thick, and full of everything. it had every prayer one could mention, the "song of songs," the ethics of the fathers, and the psalms, and the "_haggadah_," and all the prayers of the whole year round. then the print and the binding, and the gold lettering. it was full of everything, i tell you. each time pethachiah the pedlar came round with his cut moustache that made his careworn face appear as if it was smiling--each time he came round and opened his pack outside the synagogue door, i could not take my eyes off that prayer-book. "what would you say, little boy?" asked pethachiah, as if he did not know that i had my eyes on the prayer-book, and had had it in my hands seventeen times, each time asking the price of it. "nothing," i replied. "just so!" and i left him, so as not to be tempted. "ah, mother, you should see the fine thing pethachiah the pedlar has." "what sort of a thing?" asked my mother. "a little prayer-book. if i had such a prayer-book, i would--i don't know myself what i would do." "haven't you got a prayer-book? and where is your father's prayer-book?" "you can't compare them. this is an ornament, and my book is only a book." "an ornament?" repeated my mother. "are there then more prayers in an ornamental book, or do the prayers sound better?" well, how can you explain an ornament to your mother--a really fine book with red covers, and blue edges, and a green back? "come," said my mother to me, one evening, taking me by the hand. "come with me to the synagogue. tomorrow is the anniversary of your father's death. we will bring candles to be lit for him, and at the same time we will see what sort of a prayer-book it is that pethachiah has." i knew beforehand that on the anniversary of the death of my father, i could get from my mother anything i asked for, even to the little plate from heaven, as the saying is. and my heart beat with joy. when we got to the synagogue, we found pethachiah with his pack still unopened. you must know pethachiah was a man who never hurried. he knew very well he was the only man at the fair. his customers would never leave him. before he opened his pack and spread out his goods, it took a year. i trembled, i shook. i could hardly stand on my feet. and he did not care. it was as if we were not talking to him at all. "let me see what sort of a prayer-book it is you have," said my mother. pethachiah had plenty of time. the river was not on fire. slowly, without haste, he opened his pack, and spread out his wares--big bibles, little prayer-books for men, and for women, big psalm books and little, and books for all possible occasions, without an end. then there were books of tales from the "_talmud_," tales of the "_bal-shem-tov_," books of sermons, and books of devotion. i imagined he would never run short. he was a well, a fountain. at last he came to the little books, and handed out the one i wanted. "is this all?" asked my mother. "such a little one." "this little one is dearer than a big one," answered pethachiah. "and how much do you want for the little squirrel?--god forgive me for calling it by that name." "you call a prayer-book a squirrel?" asked pethachiah. he took the book slowly out of her hand; and my heart was torn. "well, say. how much is it?" asked my mother. but pethachiah had plenty of time. he answered her in a sing-song: "how much is the little prayer-book? it will cost you--it will cost you--i am afraid it is not for your purse." my mother cursed her enemies, that they might have black, hideous dreams, and asked him to say how much. pethachiah stated the price. my mother did not answer him. she turned towards the door, took my hand, and said to me: "come, let us go. we have nothing to do here. don't you know that '_reb_' pethachiah is a man who charges famine prices?" i followed my mother to the door. and though my heart was heavy, i still hoped the lord would pity us, and pethachiah would call us back. but pethachiah was not that sort of a man. he knew we should turn back of our own accord. and so it was. my mother turned round, and asked him to talk like a man. pethachiah did not stir. he looked at the ceiling. and his pale face shone. we went off, and returned once again. "a curious jew, pethachiah," said my mother to me afterwards. "may my enemies have the plague if i would have bought the prayer-book from him. it is at a famine price. as i live, it is a sin. the money could have gone for your school-fees. but it's useless. for the sake of tomorrow, the anniversary of your father's death--peace be unto him!--i have bought you the prayer-book, as a favour. and now, my son, you must do me a favour in return. promise me that you will say your prayers faithfully every day." whether i really prayed as faithfully as i had promised, or not, i will not tell you. but i loved the little book as my life. you may understand that i slept with it, though, as you know, it is forbidden. the whole "_cheder_" envied me the little book. i minded it as if it were the apple of my eye. and now, this "_chanukah_"--woe unto me!--i carried it off with my own hands to moshe the carpenter's boy, who had long had his eye on it. and i had to beg of him, for an hour on end, before he bought it. i almost gave it away for nothing--the little prayer-book. my heart faints and my face burns with shame. sold! and to what end? for whose sake? for benny's sake, that he might win off me another few "_kopeks_." but how is benny to blame if he wins at play? "that's what a spinning-top is for," explained benny, putting into his purse my last few "_groschens_." "if things went with you as they are going with me, then you would be winning. but i am lucky, and i win." and benny's cheeks glowed. it is bright and warm in the house. a silver "_chanukah_" lamp is burning the best oil. everything is fine. from the kitchen comes a delicious odour of freshly melted goose-fat. "we are having fritters tonight," benny told me in the doorway. my heart was weak with hunger. i flew home in my torn sheep-skin. my mother had come in from her shop. her hands were red and swollen with the cold. she was frozen through and through, and was warming herself at the stove. seeing me, her face lit up with pleasure. "from the synagogue?" she asked. "from the synagogue," was my lying answer. "have you said the evening prayer?" "i have said the evening prayer," was my second lie to her. "warm yourself, my son. you will say the blessing over the '_chanukah_' lights. it is the last night of '_chanukah_' tonight, thank god!" * * * if a man had only troubles to bear, without a scrap of pleasure, he would never get over them, but would surely take his own life. i am referring to my mother, the widow, poor thing, who worked day and night, froze, never had enough to eat, and never slept enough for my sake. why should she not have a little pleasure too? every person puts his own meaning into the word "pleasure." to my mother there was no greater pleasure in the world than hearing me recite the blessings on sabbaths and festivals. at the passover i carried out the "_seder_" for her, and at "_chanukah_" i made the blessing over the lights. was the blessing over wine or beer? had we for the passover fritters or fresh "_matzo_"? what were the "_chanukah_" lights--a silver, eight-branched lamp with olive oil, or candles stuck in pieces of potato? believe me, the pleasure has nothing to do with wine or fritters, or a silver lamp. the main thing is the blessing itself. to see my mother's face when i was praying, how it shone and glowed with pleasure was enough. no words are necessary, no detailed description, to prove that this was unalloyed happiness to her, real pleasure. i bent over the potatoes, and recited the blessing in a sing-song voice. she repeated the blessing after me, word for word, in the same sing-song. she looked into my eyes, and moved her lips. i knew she was thinking at the time: "it is he--he in every detail. may the child have longer years!" and i felt i deserved to be cut to pieces like the potatoes. surely, i had deceived my mother, and for such a base cause. i had betrayed her from head to foot. the candles in the potatoes--my "_chanukah_" lights--flickered and flickered until they went out. and my mother said to me: "wash your hands. we are having potatoes and goose-fat for supper. in honour of '_chanukah_,' i bought a little measure of goose-fat--fresh, beautiful fat." i washed myself with pleasure, and we sat down to supper. "it is a custom amongst some people to have fritters for supper on the last night of '_chanukah_,'" said my mother, sighing. and there arose to my mind benny's fritters, and benny's spinning-top that had cost me all i possessed in the world. i had a sharp pain at my heart. more than all, i regretted the little prayer-book. but, of what use were regrets? it was all over and done with. even in my sleep i had uneasy thoughts. i heard my mother's groans. i heard her bed creaking, and i imagined that it was my mother groaning. out of doors, the wind was blowing, rattling the windows, tearing at the roof, whistling down the chimney, sighing loudly. a cricket had come to our house a long time before. it was now chirping from the wall, "tchireree! tchireree!" and my mother did not cease from sighing and groaning. and each sigh and each groan echoed itself in my heart. i only just managed to control myself. i was on the point of jumping out of bed, falling at my mother's feet, kissing her hands, and confessing to her all my sins. i did not do this. i covered myself with all the bed-clothes, so that i might not hear my mother sighing and groaning and her bed creaking. my eyes closed. the wind howled, and the cricket chirped, "tchireree! tchireree! tchireree! tchireree!" and there spun around before my eyes a man like a top--a man i seemed to know. i could have sworn it was the teacher in his pointed cap. he was spinning on one foot, round, and round, and round. his cap sparkled, his eyes glistened, and his earlocks flew about. no, it was not the teacher. it was a spinning-top--a curious, living top with a pointed cap and earlocks. by degrees the teacher-top, or the top-teacher ceased from spinning round. and in its place stood pharaoh, the king of egypt whose story we had learnt a week ago. pharaoh, king of egypt, stood naked before me. he had only just come out of the river. he had my little prayer-book in his hand. i could not make out how that wicked king, who had bathed in jewish blood, came to have my prayer-book. and i saw seven cows, lean and starved, mere skin and bones, with big horns and long ears. they came to me one after the other. they opened their mouths and tried to swallow me. suddenly, there appeared my friend benny. he took hold of their long ears, and twisted them round. some one was crying softly, sobbing, wailing, howling, and chirping. a man stood near me. he was not a human being. he said to me softly: "tell me, son, on which day do you recite the mourner's prayer for me?" i understood that this was my father of whom my mother had told me so many good things. i wanted to tell him the day on which i must say the mourner's prayer for him, but i had forgotten it. i fretted myself. i rubbed my forehead, and tried to remind myself of the day, but i could not. did you ever hear the like? i forgot the day of the anniversary of my father's death. listen, jewish children, can you not tell me when the day is? why are you silent? help! help! help! * * * "god be with you! why are shouting? why do you shriek? what is the matter with you? may the lord preserve you!" you will understand it was my mother who was speaking to me. she held my head. i could feel her trembling and shaking. the lowered lamp gave out no light, but an oppressive stench. i saw my mother's shadow dancing on the wall. the points of the kerchief she wore on her head were like two horns. her eyes gleamed horribly in the darkness. "when do i say the mourner's prayer, mother? tell me, when do i say the mourner's prayer?" "god be with you! the anniversary of your father's death was not long ago. you have had a bad dream. spit out three times. tfu! tfu! tfu! may it be for a good sign! amen! amen! amen!" * * * children, i grew up, and benny grew up. he became a young man with a yellowish beard and a round belly. he wears a gold chain across it. it seems he is a rich man. we met in the train. i recognized him by his fishy, bulging eyes and his scattered teeth. we had not met for a long time. we kissed one another and talked of the good old times, the dear good days of our childhood, and the foolish things we did then. "do you remember, benny, that '_chanukah_' when you won everything with the spinning top? the g always fell for you." i looked at benny. he was convulsed with laughter. he held his sides. he was rolling over. he was actually choking with laughter. "god be with you, benny! why this sudden burst of laughter, benny?" "oh!" he cried, "oh! go away with your spinning-top! that was a good top. it was a real top. it was a pudding made only of suet. it was a stew of nothing but raisins." "what sort of a top was it, benny? tell me quicker." "it was a top that had all around it, on all the corners only the one letter, g." esther i am not going to tell you a story of "_cheder_" or of the teacher, or of the teacher's wife. i have told you enough about them. perhaps you will allow me, this time, in honour of the feast of "_purim_," to tell you a story of the teacher's daughter, esther. * * * if the esther of the bible was as beautiful a creature as the esther of my story, then it is no wonder she found favour in the eyes of king ahasuerus. the esther of whom i am going to tell you was loved by everybody, everybody, even by me and by my older brother mottel, although he was "_bar-mitzvah_" long ago, and they were making up a match for him, and he was wearing a watch and chain this good while. (if i am not mistaken, he had already started to grow a beard at the time i speak of.) and that my brother mottel loves esther, i am positive. he thinks i do not know that his going to "_cheder_" every sabbath to read with the teacher is a mere pretext, a yesterday's day! the teacher snores loudly. the teacher's wife stands on the doorstep talking with the women. we boys play around the room, and mottel and esther are staring--she at him, and he at her. it sometimes happens that we boys play at "blind-man's-buff." do you know what "blind-man's-buff" is? well, then i will tell you. you take a boy, bandage his eyes with a handkerchief, place him in the middle of the floor, and all the boys fly round him crying: "blindman, blindman, catch me!" mottel and esther also play at "blind-man's-buff" with us. they like the game because, when they are playing it, they can chase one another--she him, and he her. and i have many more proofs i could give you that--but i am not that sort. i once caught them holding hands, he hers, and she his. and it was not on the sabbath either, but on a week-day. it was towards evening, between the afternoon and the evening prayers. he was pretending to go to the synagogue. he strayed into "_cheder_." "where is the teacher?" "the teacher is not here." and he went and gave her his hand, esther, that is. i saw them. he withdrew his hand and gave me a "_groschen_" to tell no one. i asked two, and he gave me two. i asked three, and he gave me three. what do you think--if i had asked four, or five, or six, would he not have given them? but i am not that sort. another time, too, something happened. but enough of this. i will rather tell you the real story--the one i promised you. * * * as i told you, my brother mottel is grown up. he does not go to "_cheder_" any more, nor does he wish to learn anything at home. for this, my father calls him "man of clay." he has no other name for him. my mother does not like it. what sort of a habit is it to call a young man, almost a bridegroom, a man of clay? my father says he is nothing else but a man of clay. they quarrel about it. i do not know what other parents do, but my parents are always quarrelling. day and night they are quarrelling. if i were to tell you how my father and mother quarrel, you would split your sides laughing. but i am not that sort. in a word, my brother mottel does not go to "_cheder_" any more. nevertheless, he does not forget to send the teacher a "_purim_" present. having been a pupil of his he sends him a nice poem in hebrew, illuminated with a "shield of david," and two paper "_roubles_." with whom does he send this "_purim_" present? with me, of course. my brother says to me, "here, hand the teacher this "_purim_" present. when you come back, i will give you ten '_groschens_.'" ten "_groschens_" is money. but what then? i want the money now. my brother said i was a heathen. said i: "it may be i am a heathen. i will not argue about it. but i want to see the money," said i. who do you think won? he gave me the ten "_groschens_," and handed me the teacher's "_purim_" present in a sealed envelope. when i was going off, he thrust into my hand a second envelope and said to me, in a quick whisper: "and this you will give to esther." "to esther?" "to esther." any one else in my place would have asked twice as much for this. but i am not that sort. * * * "father of the universe," thought i, when i was going off with the "_purim_" present, "what can my brother have written to the teacher's daughter? i must have a peep--only just a peep. i will not take a bite out of it. i will only look at it." and i opened esther's letter and read a whole "book of esther." i will repeat what was there, word for word. "from mordecai to esther, "and there was a man, a young man in shushan--our village. his name was mordecai and he loved a maiden called esther. and the maiden was beautiful, charming. and the maiden found favour in his eyes. the maiden told this to no one because mottel had asked her not to. every day mottel passes her house to catch a glimpse of esther. and when the time comes for esther to get married, mottel will go with her under the wedding canopy." * * * what do you say to my brother--how he translated the "book of esther"? i should like to hear what the teacher will say to such a translation. but how comes the cat over the water? hush! there's a way, as i am a jew! i will change the letters, give the teacher's poem to esther, and esther's letter to the teacher. let him rejoice. afterwards, if there's a fine to do, will i be to blame? don't all people make mistakes sometimes? does it not happen that even the postmaster of our village himself forgets to give up letters? no such thing will ever happen to me. i am not that sort. * * * "good '_yom-tov_,' teacher," i cried the moment i rushed into "_cheder_," in such an excited voice that he jumped. "my brother mottel has sent you a '_purim_' present, and he wishes you to live to next year." and i gave the teacher esther's letter. he opened it, read it, thought a while, looked at it again, turned it about on all sides, as if in search of something. "search, search," i said to myself, "and you will find something." the teacher put on his silver spectacles, read the letter, and did not even make a grimace. he only sighed--no more. later he said to me: "wait. i will write a few lines." and he took the pen and ink and started to write a few lines. meanwhile, i turned around in the "_cheder_." the teacher's wife gave me a little cake. and when no one was looking, i put into esther's hand the poem and the money intended for her father. she reddened, went into a corner, and opened the envelope slowly. her face burnt like fire, and her eyes blazed dangerously. "she doesn't seem to be satisfied with the '_purim_' present," i thought. i took from the teacher the few lines he had written. "good '_yom-tov_' to you, teacher," i cried in the same excited voice as when i had come in. "may you live to next year." and i was gone. when i was on the other side of the door, esther ran after me. her eyes were red with weeping. "here," she said angrily, "give this to your brother!" on the way home i first opened the teacher's letter. he was more important. this is what was written in it. "my dear and faithful pupil, mordecai n. "i thank you many times for your '_purim_' present that you have sent me. last year and the year before, you sent me a real '_purim_' present. but this year you sent me a new translation of the 'book of esther.' i thank you for it. but i must tell you, mottel, that your rendering does not please me at all. firstly, the city of shushan cannot be called 'our village.' then i should like to know where it says that mordecai was a young man? and why do you call him mottel? which mottel? and where does it say he loved a maiden? the word referring to mordecai and esther means 'brought up.' and your saying 'he will go with her under the wedding canopy' is just idiotic nonsense. the phrase you quote refers to ahasuerus, not to mordecai. then again, it is nowhere mentioned in the 'book of esther' that ahasuerus went with esther under the wedding canopy. does it need brains to turn a passage upside down? every passage must have sense in it. last year, and the year before, you sent me something different. this year you sent your teacher a translation of the 'book of esther,' and a distorted translation into the bargain. well, perhaps it should be so. anyhow, i am sending you back your translation, and may the lord send you a good year, according to the wishes of your teacher." * * * well, that's what you call a slap in the face. it serves my brother right. i should think he will never write such a "book of esther" again. having got through the teacher's letter, i must see what the teacher's daughter writes. on opening the envelope, the two paper "_roubles_" fell out. what the devil does this mean? i read the letter--only a few lines. "mottel, i thank you for the two '_roubles_.' you may take them back. i never expected such a '_purim_' present from you. i want no presents from you, and certainly no charity." ha! ha! what do you say to that? she does not want charity. a nice story, as i am a jewish child! well, what's to be done next? any one else in my place would surely have torn up the two letters and put the money in his pocket. but i am not that sort. i did a better thing than that. you will hear what. i argued with myself after this fashion: when all is said and done, i got paid by my brother mottel for the journey. then what do i want him for now? i went and gave the two letters to my father. i wanted to hear what he would say to them. he would understand the translation better than the teacher, though he is a father, and the teacher is a teacher. * * * what happened? after my father had read the two letters and the translation, he took hold of my brother mottel and demanded an explanation of him. do not ask me any more. you want to know the end--what happened to esther, the teacher's daughter, and to my brother mottel? what could have happened? esther got married to a widower. oh, how she cried. i was at the wedding. why she cried so much i do not know. it seemed that her heart told her she would not live long with her husband. and so it was. she lived with him only one-half year, and died. i do not know what she died of. i do not know. no one knows. her father and mother do not know either. it was said she took poison--just went and poisoned herself. "but it's a lie. enemies have invented that lie," said her mother, the teacher's wife. i heard her myself. and my brother mottel? oh, he married before esther was even betrothed. he went to live with his father-in-law. but he soon returned, and alone. what had happened? he wanted to divorce his wife. said my father to him: "you are a man of clay." my mother would not have this. they quarrelled. it was lively. but it was useless. he divorced his wife and married another woman. he now has two children--a boy and a girl. the boy is called herzl, after dr. herzl, and the girl is called esther. my father wanted her to be named gittel, and my mother was dying for her to be called leah, after her mother. there arose a quarrel between my father and mother. they quarrelled a whole day and a whole night. they decided the child should be named leah-gittel, after their two mothers. afterwards my father decided he would not have leah-gittel. "what is the sense of it? why should her mother's name go first?" my brother mottel came in from the synagogue and said he had named the child esther. said my father to him: "man of clay, where did you get the name esther from?" mottel replied: "have you forgotten it will soon be '_purim_'?" well, what have you to say now? it's all over. my father never calls mottel "man of clay" since then. but both of them--my mother and my father--exchanged glances and were silent. what the silence and the exchange of glances meant i do not know. perhaps you can tell me? the pocket-knife listen, children, and i will tell you a story about a little knife--not an invented story, but a true one, that happened to myself. i never wished for anything in the world so much as for a pocket-knife. it should be my own, and should lie in my pocket, and i should be able to take it out whenever i wished, to cut whatever i liked. let my friends know. i had just begun to go to school, under yossel dardaki, and i already had a knife, that is, what was almost a knife. i made it myself. i tore a goose-quill out of a feather brush, cut off one end, and flattened out the other. i pretended it was a knife and would cut. "what sort of a feather is that? what the devil does it mean? why do you carry a feather about with you?" asked my father--a sickly jew, with a yellow, wrinkled face. he had a fit of coughing. "here are feathers for you--playtoys! tkeh-heh-heh-heh!" "what do you care if the child plays?" asked my mother of him. she was a short-built woman and wore a silk scarf on her head. "let my enemies eat out their hearts!" later, when i was learning the bible and the commentaries, i very nearly had a real knife, also of my own making. i found a bit of steel belonging to my mother's crinoline, and i set it very cleverly into a piece of wood. i sharpened the steel beautifully on a stone, and naturally cut all my fingers to pieces. "see, just see, how he has bled himself, that son of yours," said my father. he took hold of my hands in such a way that the very bones cracked. "he's a fine fellow! heh-heh-heh!" "oh, may the thunder strike me!" cried my mother. she took the little knife from me, and threw it into the fire. she took no notice of my crying. "now it will come to an end. woe is me!" i soon got another knife, but in reality, a little knife. it had a thick, round, wooden handle, like a barrel, and a curved blade which opened as well as closed. you want to know how i came by it? i saved up the money from what i got for my breakfasts, and i bought the knife for seven "_groschens_" from solomon, and i owed him three more "_groschens_." oh, how i loved it, how i loved it. i came home from school black and blue, hungry and sleepy, and with my ears well boxed. (you see, i had just started learning the "_gemarra_" with mottel, the "angel of death." "if an ox gore a cow" i learnt. and if an ox gores a cow, then i must get beaten.) and the first thing i did was to take out my pocket-knife from under the black cupboard. (it lay there the whole day, because i dared not take it to school with me; and at home no one must know that i have a knife.) i stroked it, i cut a piece of paper with it, split a straw in halves, and then cut up my bread into little cubes which i stuck on the tip of the blade, and afterwards put into my mouth. later, before going to bed, i cleaned the knife, and scrubbed it, and polished it. i took the sharpening stone, which i found in the hayloft, spit on it, and in silence began to work, sharpening the little knife, sharpening, sharpening. my father, his little round cap on his head, sat over a book. he coughed and read, read and coughed. my mother was in the kitchen making bread. i did not cease from sharpening my knife, and sharpening it. suddenly my father woke up, as from a deep sleep. "who is making that hissing noise? who is working? what are you doing, you young scamp?" he stood beside me, and bent over my sharpening-stone. he caught hold of my ear. a fit of coughing choked him. "ah! ah! ah! little knives! heh-heh-heh!" said my father, and he took the knife and the sharpening-stone from me. "such a scamp! why the devil can't he take a book into his hand? tkeh-heh-heh!" i began to cry. my father improved the situation by a few slaps. my mother ran in from the kitchen, her sleeves turned up, and she began to shout: "shah! shah! what's the matter here? why do you beat him? god be with you! what have you against the child? woe is me!" "little knives," said my father, ending up with a cough. "a tiny child. such a devil. tkeh-heh-heh! why the devil can't he take a book into his hand? he's already a youth of eight years.... i will give you pocket-knives--you good-for-nothing, you. in the middle of everything, pocket-knives. thek-heh-heh!" but what had he against my little knife? how had it sinned in his eyes? why was he so angry? i remember that my father was nearly always ailing--always pale and hollow-cheeked, and always angry with the whole world. for the least thing he flared up and would tear me to pieces. it was fortunate my mother defended me. she took me out of his hands. and that pocket-knife of mine was thrown away somewhere. for eight days on end i looked and looked for it, but could not find it. i mourned deeply for that curved knife--the good knife. how dark and embittered was my soul at school when i remembered that i would come home with a swollen face, with red, torn ears from the hands of mottel, the "angel of death," because an ox gored a cow, and i would have no one to turn to for comfort. i was lonely without the curved knife--lonely as an orphan. no one saw the tears i shed in silence, in my bed, at night, after i had come back from "_cheder_." in silence, i cried my eyes out. in the morning i was again at "_cheder_," and again i repeated: "if an ox gore a cow," and again i felt the blows of mottel, the "angel of death"; again my father was angry, coughed, and swore at me. i had not a free moment. i did not see a smiling face. there was not a single little smile for me anywhere, not a single one. i had nobody. i was alone--all alone in the whole world. * * * a year went by, and perhaps a year and a half. i was beginning to forget the curved knife. it seems i was destined to waste all the years of my childhood because of pocket-knives. a new knife was created--to my misfortune--a brand new knife, a beauty, a splendid one. as i live, it was a fine knife. it had two blades, fine, steel ones, sharp as razors, and a white bone handle, and brass ends, and copper rivets. i tell you, it was a beauty, a real good pocket-knife. how came to me such a fine knife, that was never meant for such as i? that is a whole story--a sad, but interesting story. listen to me attentively. what value in my eyes had the german jew who lodged with us--the contractor, herr hertz hertzenhertz, when he spoke yiddish, went about without a cap, had no beard or earlocks, and had his coat-tails cut off? i ask you how i could have helped laughing into his face, when that jewish-gentile, or gentilish-jew talked to me in yiddish, but in a curious yiddish with a lot of a's in it. "well, dear boy, which portion of the law will be read this week?" "ha! ha! ha!" i burst out laughing and hid my face in my hands. "say, say, my dear child, what portion of the law will be read this week?" "ha! ha! ha! balak," i burst out with a laugh, and ran away. but that was only in the beginning, before i knew him. afterwards, when i knew herr hertz hertzenhertz better (he lived at our house for over a year) i loved him so well that i did not care if he said no prayers, and ate his food without saying the blessings. nevertheless, i did not understand how he existed, and why the lord allowed him to remain in the world. why was he not choked at table? and why did the hair not fall out of his uncovered head? i had heard from my teacher, mottel, the "angel of death," from his own mouth, that this german jew was only a spirit. that is to say, a jew was turned into a german; and later on he might turn into a wolf, a cow, a horse, or maybe a duck. a duck? "ha! ha! ha! a fine story," thought i. but i was genuinely sorry for the german. nevertheless, i did not understand why my father, who was a very orthodox jew, should pay the german jew so much respect, as also did the other jews who used to come into our house. "peace be unto you, reb hertzenhertz! blessed art thou who comest, reb hertz hertzenhertz!" i once ventured to ask my father why this was so, but he thrust me to one side and said: "go away. it is not your business. why do you get under our feet? who the devil wants you? why the devil can't you take a book into your hands? heh-heh-heh-heh!" again a book? lord of the world, i also want to see; i also want to hear what people are saying. i went into the parlour, hid myself in a corner, and heard everything the men talked about. herr hertz hertzenhertz laughed aloud, and smoked thick black cigars that had a very strong smell. suddenly my father came over to me, and gave me a smack. "are you here again, you idler and good-for-nothing? what will become of you, you dunce? what will become of you? heh-heh-heh-heh!" it was no use. my father drove me out. i took a book into my hands, but i did not want to read it. what was i to do? i went about the house, from one room to the other, until i came to the nicest room of all--the room in which slept herr hertz hertzenhertz. ah, how beautiful and bright it was! the lamps were lit, and the mirror shone. on the table was a big, beautiful silver inkstand, and beautiful pens, also little ornaments--men, and animals, and flowers, and bones and stones, and a little knife! ah, what a beautiful knife! what if i had such a knife? what fine things i would make with it. how happy i should be. well, i must try it. is it sharp? ah, it cuts a hair. it slices up a hair. oh, oh, oh, what a knife! one moment i held the knife in my hand. i looked about me on all sides, and slipped it into my pocket. my hands trembled. my heart was beating so loudly that i could hear it saying, "tick, tick, tick!" i heard some one coming. it was he--herr hertz hertzenhertz. ah, what was i to do? the knife might remain in my pocket. i could put it back later on. meanwhile, i must get out of the room, run away, away, far. i could eat no supper that night. my mother felt my head. my father threw angry glances at me, and told me to go to bed. sleep? could i close my eyes? i was like dead. what was i to do with the little knife? how was i going to put it back again? * * * "come over here, my little ornament," said my father to me next day. "did you see the little pocket-knife anywhere?" of course i was very much frightened. it seemed to me that he knew--that everybody knew. i was almost, almost crying out: "the pocket-knife? here it is." but something came into my throat, and would not let me utter a sound for a minute or so. in a shaking voice i replied: "where? what pocket-knife?" "where? what knife?" my father mocked at me. "what knife? the golden knife. our guest's knife, you good-for-nothing, you! you dunce, you! tkeh-heh-heh!" "what do you want of the child?" put in my mother. "the child knows nothing of anything, and he worries him about the knife, the knife." "the knife--the knife! how can he not know about it?" cried my father angrily. "all the morning he hears me shouting--the knife! the knife! the knife! the house is turned upside down for the knife, and he asks 'where? what knife?' go away. go and wash yourself, you good-for-nothing, you. you dunce, dunce! tkeh-heh-heh!" i thank thee, lord of the universe, that they did not search me. but what was i to do next? the knife had to be hidden somewhere, in a safe place. where was i to hide it? ah! in the attic. i took the knife quickly from my pocket, and stuck it into my top-boot. i ate, and i did not know what i was eating. i was choking. "why are you in such a hurry? what the devil ...?" asked my father. "i am hurrying off to school," i answered, and grew red as fire. "a scholar, all of a sudden. what do you say to such a saint?" he muttered, and glared at me. i barely managed to finish my breakfast, and say grace. "well, why are you not off to '_cheder_,' my saint?" asked my father. "why do you hunt him so?" asked my mother. "let the child sit a minute." i was in the attic. deep, deep in a hole lay the beautiful knife. it lay there in silence. "what are you doing in the attic?" called out my father. "you good-for-nothing! you street-boy! tkeh-heh-heh-heh!" "i am looking for something," i answered. i nearly fell down with fright. "something? what is the something? what sort of a thing is that something?" "a--a bo--ok. an--an old '_ge--gemar--ra_.'" "what? a '_gemarra_'? in the attic? ah, you scamp you! come down at once. come down. you'll get it from me. you street-boy! you dog-beater! you rascal! tkeh-heh-heh-heh!" i was not so much afraid of my father's anger as that the pocket-knife might be found. who could tell? perhaps some one would go up to the attic to hang out clothes to dry, or to paint the rafters? the knife must be taken down from there, and hidden in a better place. i went about in fear and trembling. every glance at my father told me that he knew, and that now, now he was going to talk to me of the guest's knife. i had a place for it--a grand place. i would bury it in the ground, in a hole near the wall. i would put some straw on the spot to mark it. the moment i came from "_cheder_" i ran out into the yard. i took the knife carefully from my pocket, but had no time to look at it, when my father called out: "where are you at all? why don't you go and say your prayers? you swine-herd you! you are a water-carrier! tkeh-heh-heh!" but whatever my father said to me, and as much as the teacher beat me, it was all rubbish to me when i came home, and had the pleasure of seeing my one and only dear friend--my little knife. the pleasure was, alas! mixed with pain, and embittered by fear--by great fear. * * * it is the summer time. the sun is setting. the air grows somewhat cooler. the grass emits a sweet odour. the frogs croak, and the thick clouds fly by, without rain, across the moon. they wish to swallow her up. the silvery white moon hides herself every minute, and shows herself again. it seemed to me that she was flying and flying, but was still on the same spot. my father sat down on the grass, in a long mantle. he had one hand in the bosom of his coat, and with the other he smoothed down the grass. he looked up at the star-spangled sky, and coughed and coughed. his face was like death, silvery white. he was sitting on the exact spot where the little knife was hidden. he knew nothing of what was in the earth under him. ah, if he only knew! what, for instance, would he say, and what would happen to me? "aha!" thought i within myself, "you threw away my knife with the curved blade, and now i have a nicer and a better one. you are sitting on it, and you know nothing. oh, father, father!" "why do you stare at me like a tom-cat?" asked my father. "why do you sit with folded arms like a self-satisfied old man? can you not find something to do? have you said the night prayer? may the devil not take you, scamp! may an evil end not come upon you! tkeh-heh-heh!" when he says may the devil _not_ take you, and may an evil end _not_ come upon you, then he is not angry. on the contrary, it is a sign that he is in a good humour. and, surely, how could one help being in a good humour on such a wonderfully beautiful night, when every one is drawn out of doors into the street, under the soft, fresh, brilliant sky? every one is now out of doors--my father, my mother, and the younger children who are looking for little stones and playing in the sand. herr hertz hertzenhertz was going about in the yard, without a hat, smoking a cigar, and singing a german song. he looked at me, and laughed. probably he was laughing because my father was driving me away. but i laughed at them all. soon they would be going to bed, and i would go out into the yard (i slept in the open, before the door, because of the great heat), and i would rejoice in, and play with my knife. the house is asleep. it is silent around and about. cautiously i get up; i am on all fours, like a cat; and i steal out into the yard. the night is silent. the air is fresh and pure. slowly i creep over to the spot where the little knife lies buried. i take it out carefully, and look at it by the light of the moon. it shines and glitters, like guinea-gold, like a diamond. i lift up my eyes, and i see that the moon is looking straight down on my knife. why is she looking at it so? i turn round. she looks after me. maybe she knows whose knife it is, and where i got it? got it? stole it! for the first time since the knife came into my hands has this terrible word entered my thoughts. stolen? then i am, in short, a thief, a common thief? in the holy law, in the ten commandments, are written, in big letters: "thou shalt not steal." thou shalt not steal. and i have stolen. what will they do to me in hell for that? woe is me! they will cut off my hand--the hand that stole. they will whip me with iron rods. they will roast and burn me in a hot oven. i will glow for ever and ever. the knife must be given back. the knife must be put back in its place. one must not hold a stolen knife. tomorrow i will put it back. that was what i decided. and i put the knife into my bosom. i imagined it was burning, scorching me. no, it must be hidden again, buried in the earth till tomorrow. the moon still looked down on me. what was she looking at? the moon saw. she was a witness. i crept back to the house, to my sleeping-place. i lay down again, but could not sleep. i tossed about from side to side, but could not fall asleep. it was already day when i dozed off. i dreamt of a moon, i dreamt of iron rods, and i dreamt of little knives. i got up very early, said my prayers with pleasure, with delight, ate my breakfast while standing on one foot, and marched off to "_cheder_." "why are you in such a hurry for '_cheder_'?" cried my father to me. "what is driving you? you will not lose your knowledge if you go a little later. you will have time enough for mischief. you scamp! you epicurean! you heathen! tkeh-heh-heh-heh!" * * * "why so late? just look at this." the teacher stopped me, and pointed with his finger at my comrade, berrel the red one, who was standing in the corner with his head down. "do you see, bandit? you must know that from this day his name is not berrel the red one, as he was called. he is now called a fine name. his name is now berrel the thief. shout it out, children. berrel the thief! berrel the thief!" the teacher drew out the words, and put a little tune into them. the pupils repeated them after him, like a chorus. "berrel the thief--berrel the thief!" i was petrified. a cold wave passed over my body. i did not know what it all meant. "why are you silent, you heathen, you?" cried the teacher, and gave me an unexpected smack in the face. "why are you silent, you heathen? don't you hear the others singing? join in with them, and help them. berrel the thief--berrel the thief!" my limbs trembled. my teeth rattled. but, i helped the others to shout aloud "berrel the thief! berrel the thief!" "louder, heathen," prompted the teacher. "in a stronger voice--stronger." and i, along with the rest of the choir, sang out in a variety of voices, "berrel the thief--berrel the thief!" "sh--sh--sh--a--a--ah!" cried the teacher, banging the table with his open hand. "hush! now we will betake ourselves to pronouncing judgment." he spoke in a sing-song voice. "ah, well, berrel thief, come over here, my child. quicker, a little quicker. tell me, my boy, what your name is." this also was said in a sing-song. "berrel." "what else?" "berrel--berrel the thief." "that's right, my dear child. now you are a good boy. may your strength increase, and may you grow stronger in every limb!" (still in the same sing-song.) "take off your clothes. that's right. but can't you do it quicker? i beg of you, be quick about it. that's right, little berrel, my child." berrel stood before us as naked as when he was born. not a drop of blood showed in his body. he did not move a limb. his eyes were lowered. he was as dead as a corpse. the teacher called out one of the older scholars, still speaking in the same sing-song voice: "well, now, hirschalle, come out from behind the table, over here to me. quicker. just so. and now tell us the story from beginning to end--how our berrel became a thief. listen, boys, pay attention." and hirschalle began to tell the story. berrel had got the little collecting box of "reb" mayer the "wonder-worker," into which his mother threw a "_kopek_," sometimes two, every friday, before lighting the sabbath candles. berrel had fixed his eyes on that box, on which there hung a little lock. by means of a straw gummed at the end, he had managed to extract the "_kopeks_" from the box, one by one. his mother, slatte, the hoarse one, suspecting something wrong, opened the box, and found in it one of the straws tipped with gum. she beat her son berrel. and after the whipping she had prevailed on the teacher to give him, he confessed that for a whole year--a round year, he had been extracting the "_kopeks_," one by one, and that, every sunday, he had bought himself two little cakes, some locust beans, and--and so forth, and so forth. "now, boys, pronounce judgment on him. you know how to do it. this is not the first time. let each give his verdict, and say what must be done to a boy who steals '_kopeks_' from a charity-box, by means of a straw." the teacher put his head to one side. he closed his eyes, and turned his right ear to hirschalle. hirschalle answered at the top of his voice: "a thief who steals '_kopeks_' from a charity-box should be flogged until the blood spurts from him." "moshalle, what is to be done to a thief who steals '_kopeks_' from a charity-box?" "a thief," replied moshalle, in a wailing voice, "a thief who steals '_kopeks_' from a charity-box should be stretched out. two boys should be put on his head, two on his feet, and two should flog him with pickled rods." "topalle tutteratu, what is to be done to a thief who steals '_kopeks_' from a charity-box?" kopalle kuckaraku, a boy who could not pronounce the letters k and g, wiped his face, and gave his verdict in a squeaking voice. "a boy who steals 'topets' from the charity-bots should be punished lite this. every boy should do over to him, and shout into his face, three times, thief, thief, thief." the whole school laughed. the master put his thumb on his wind-pipe, like a cantor, and called out to me, as if i were a bridegroom being called up, at the synagogue, to read the portion of the law for the week: "tell me, now, my dear little boy, what would you say should be done to a thief who steals '_kopeks_' from a charity-box." i tried to reply, but my tongue would not obey me. i shivered as with ague. something was in my throat, choking me. a cold sweat broke out all over my body. there was a whistling in my ears. i saw before me, not the teacher, nor the naked berrel the thief, nor my comrades. i saw before me only knives--pocket-knives without an end, white, open knives that had many blades. and there, beside the door, hung the moon. she looked at me, and smiled, like a human being. my head was going round. the whole room--the table and the books, the boys and the moon that hung beside the door, and the little knives--all were whirling round. i felt as if my two feet were chopped off. another moment, and i might have fallen down, but i controlled myself with all my strength, and i did not fall. in the evening, i came home, and felt that my face was burning. my cheeks were on fire, and in my ears was a hissing noise. i heard some one speaking to me, but what they said i do not know. my father was saying something, and seemed to be angry. he wanted to beat me. my mother intervened. she spread out her apron, as a clucking hen spreads out her wing to defend her chickens from injury. i heard nothing, and did not want to hear. i only wanted the darkness to fall sooner, so that i might make an end of the little knife. what was i to do with it? confess everything, and give it up? then i would suffer the same punishment as berrel. throw it carelessly somewhere? but i may be caught? throw it away, and no more, so long as i am rid of it? where was i to throw it in order that it might not be found by anybody? on the roof? the noise would be heard. in the garden? it might be found. ah, i know! i have a plan, i'll throw it into the water. a good plan, as i live. i'll throw it into the well that is in our own yard. this plan pleased me so much that i did not wish to dwell on it longer. i took up the knife, and ran off straight to the well. it seemed to me that i was carrying in my hand not a knife but something repulsive--a filthy little creature of which i must rid myself at once. but, still i was sorry. it was such a fine little knife. for a moment, i stood thinking, and it seemed to me that i was holding in my hand a living thing. my heart ached for it. surely, surely, it has cost me so much heartache. it is a pity for the living. i summoned all my courage, and let it out suddenly from my fingers. plash! the water bubbled up for a moment. nothing more was heard, and my knife was gone. i stood a moment at the well and listened. i heard nothing. thank god, i was rid of it. my heart was faint, and full of longing. surely, it was a fine knife--such a knife! * * * i went back to bed, and saw that the moon was still looking down at me. and it seemed to me she had seen everything i had done. from the distance a voice seemed to be saying to me: "but, you are a thief all the same. catch him, beat him. he is a thief, a thief." i stole back into the house, and into my own bed. i dreamt that i ran, swept through the air. i flew with my little knife in my hand. and the moon looked at me and said: "catch him, beat him. he is a thief--a thief." * * * a long, long sleep, and a heavy, a very heavy dream. a fire burnt within me. my head was buzzing. everything i saw was red as blood. burning rods of fire cut into my flesh. i was swimming in blood. around me wriggled snakes and serpents. they had their mouths open, ready to swallow me. right into my ears some one was blowing a trumpet. and, some one was standing over me, and shouting, keeping time with the trumpet: "whip him, whip him, whip him. he is a thie--ef." and i myself shouted: "oh, oh, take the moon away from me. give her up the little knife. what have you against poor berrel? he is not guilty. it is i who am a thief--a thief." beyond that, i remember nothing. * * * i opened one eye, then the other. where was i? on a bed, i think. ah, is that you, mother, mother? she does not hear me. mother, mother, mo--o--other! what is this? i imagine i am shouting aloud. shah! i listen. she is weeping silently. i also see my father, with his yellow, sickly face. he is sitting near me, an open book in his hand. he reads, and sighs, and coughs and groans. it seems that i am dead already. dead?... all at once, i feel that it is growing brighter before my eyes. everything is growing lighter, too. my head and my limbs are lighter. there is a ringing in my ear, and in my other ear. tschinna! i sneezed. akhstchu! "good health! may your days be lengthened! may your years be prolonged! it is a good sign. blessed art thou, o lord!" "sneezed in reality? blessed be the most high!" "let us call at once mintze the butcher's wife. she knows how to avert the evil eye." "the doctor ought to be called--the doctor." "the doctor? what for? that is nonsense. the most high is the best doctor. blessed be the lord, and praised be his name!" "go asunder, people. separate a bit. it is terribly hot. in the name of god, go away." "ah, yes. i told you that you have to cover him with wax. well, who is right?" "praise be the lord, and blessed be his holy name! ah, god! god! blessed be the lord! and praised be his holy name!" they fluttered about me. they looked at me. each one came and felt my head. they prayed over me, and buzzed around me. they licked my forehead, and spat out, by way of a charm. they poured hot soup down my throat, and filled my mouth with spoonfuls of preserves. every one flew around me. they cared for me as if i were the apple of their eye. they fed me with broths and tiny chickens, as if i were an infant. they did not leave me alone. my mother sat by me always, and told me over and over again the whole story of how they had lifted me up from the ground, almost dead, and how i had been lying for two weeks on end, burning like a fire, croaking like a frog, and muttering something about whippings and little knives. they already imagined i was dead, when suddenly i sneezed seven times. i had practically come to life again. "now we see what a great god we have, blessed be he, and praised be his name!" that was how my mother ended up, the tears springing to her eyes. "now we can see that when we call to him he listens to our sinful requests and our guilty tears. we shed a lot, a lot of tears, your father and i, until the lord had pity on us.... we nearly, nearly lost our child through our sinfulness. may we suffer in your stead! and through what? through a boy who was a thief, a certain berrel whom the teacher flogged at '_cheder_,' almost until he bled. when you came home from '_cheder_' you were more dead than alive. may your mother suffer instead of you! the teacher is a tyrant, a murderer. the lord will punish him for it--the lord of the universe. no, my child, if the lord lets us live, when you get well, we will send you to another teacher, not to such a tyrant as is the 'angel of death,'--may his name be blotted out for ever!" these words made a terrible impression on me. i threw my arms around my mother, and kissed her. "dear, dear mother." and my father came over to me softly. he put his cold, white hand on my forehead, and said to me kindly, without a trace of anger: "oh, how you frightened us, you heathen you! tkeh-heh-heh-heh!" also the jewish german, or the german jew, herr hertz hertzenhertz, his cigar between his teeth, bent down and touched my cheek, with his clean-shaven chin. he said to me in german: "good! good! be well--be well!" * * * a few weeks after i got out of bed, my father said to me: "well, my son, now go to '_cheder_,' and never think of little knives again, or other such nonsense. it is time you began to be a bit of a man. if it please god, you will be '_bar-mitzvah_' in three years--may you live to a hundred and twenty. tkeh-heh-heh!" with such sweet words did my father send me off to "_cheder_," to my new teacher, "_reb_" chayim kotter. it was the first time that i had heard such good kind words from my father. and i forgot, in a moment, all his harshness, and all his abuse, and all his blows. it was as if they had never existed in the world. if i were not ashamed, i would have thrown my arms about his neck, and kissed him. but how can one kiss a father? ha! ha! ha! my mother gave me a whole apple and three "_groschens_" to take to "_cheder_," and the german gave me a few "_kopeks_." he pinched my cheek, and said in his language: "best boy, good, good!" i took my "_gemarra_" under my arm, kissed the "_mezuzah_," and went off to "_cheder_" like one newly born, with a clean heart, and fresh, pious thoughts. the sun looked down, and greeted me with its warm rays. the little breeze stole in under one of my earlocks. the birds twittered--tif--tif--tif--tif! i was lifted up. i was borne on the breeze. i wanted to run, jump, dance. oh, how good it is--how sweet to be alive and to be honest, when one is not a thief and not a liar. i pressed my "_gemarra_" tightly to my breast, and still tighter. i ran to "_cheder_" with pleasure, with joy. and i swore by my "_gemarra_" that i would never, never touch what belonged to another--never, never steal, and never, never deny anything again. i would always be honest, for ever and ever honest. on the fiddle children, i will now play for you a little tune on the fiddle. i imagine there is nothing better and finer in the world than to be able to play on the fiddle. what? perhaps it is not so? i don't know how it is with you. but i know that since i first reached the age of understanding, my heart longed for a fiddle. i loved as my life any musician whatever--no matter what instrument he played. if there was a wedding anywhere in the town, i was the first to run forward and welcome the musicians. i loved to steal over to the bass, and draw my fingers across one of the strings--boom! and i flew away. boom! and i flew away. for this same "boom" i once got it hot from berel bass. berel bass--a cross jew with a flattened out nose, and a sharp glance--pretended not to see me stealing over to the bass. and when i stretched out my hand to the thick string, he caught hold of me by the ear and dragged me, respectfully, to the door: "here, scamp, kiss the '_mezuzah_.'" but this was not of much consequence to me. it did not make me go a single step from the musicians. i loved them all, from sheika the little fiddler with his beautiful black beard and his thin white hands, to getza the drummer with his beautiful hump, and, if you will forgive me for mentioning it, the big bald patches behind his ears. not once, but many times did i lie hidden under a bench, listening to the musicians playing, though i was frequently found and sent home. and from there, from under the bench, i could see how sheika's thin little fingers danced about over the strings; and i listened to the sweet sounds which he drew so cleverly out of the little fiddle. afterwards i used to go about in a state of great inward excitement for many days on end. and sheika and his little fiddle stood before my eyes always. at night i saw him in my dreams; and in the daytime i saw him in reality; and he never left my imagination. when no one was looking i used to imagine that i was sheika, the little fiddler. i used to curve my left arm and move my fingers, and draw out my right hand, as if i were drawing the bow across the strings. at the same time i threw my head to one side, closing my eyes a little--just as sheika did, not a hair different. my "_rebbe_," nota-leib, once caught me doing this. it happened in the middle of a lesson. i was moving my arms about, throwing my head to one side, and blinking my eyes, and he gave me a sound box on the ears. "what a scamp can do! we are teaching him his lessons, and he makes faces and catches flies!" * * * i promised myself that, even if the world turned upside down, i must have a little fiddle, let it cost me what it would. but what was i to make a fiddle out of? of cedar wood, of course. but it's easy to talk of cedar wood. how was i to come by it when, as everybody knows, the cedar tree grows only in palestine? but what does the lord do for me? he goes and puts a certain thought in my head. in our house there was an old sofa. this sofa was left us, as a legacy, by our grandfather "_reb_" anshel. and my two uncles fought over this sofa with my father--peace be unto him! my uncle benny argued that since he was my grandfather's oldest son, the sofa belonged to him; and my uncle sender argued that he was the youngest son, and that the sofa belonged to him. and my father--peace be unto him!--argued that although he was no more than a son-in-law to my grandfather, and had no personal claim on the sofa, still, since his wife, my mother, that is, was the only daughter of "_reb_" anshel, the sofa belonged, by right, to her. but all this happened long ago. and as the sofa has remained in our house, this was a proof that it was our sofa. and our two aunts interfered, my aunt etka, and my aunt zlatka. they began to invent scandals and to carry tales from one house to another. it was sofa and sofa, and nothing else but sofa! the town rocked, all because of the sofa. however, to make a long story short, the sofa remained our sofa. this same sofa was an ordinary wooden sofa covered with a thin veneer. this veneer had come unloosened in many places and was split up. it had now a number of small mounds. and the upper layer of the veneer which had come unloosened was of the real cedar wood--the wood of which fiddles are made. at least, that is what i was told at school. the sofa had one fault, and this fault was, in reality, a good quality. for instance, when one sat on it one could not get up off it again because it stood a little on the slant. one side was higher than the other, and in the middle there was a hole. and the good thing about our sofa was that no one wanted to sit on it, and it was put away in a corner, to one side, in compulsory retirement. it was on this sofa that i had cast my eyes, to make a fiddle out of the cedar wood veneer. a bow i had already provided myself with, long ago. i had a comrade, shimalle yudel, the car-owner's son. he promised me a few hairs from the tail of his father's horse. and resin to smear the bow with i had myself. i hated to depend on miracles. i got the resin from another friend of mine, mayer-lippa, sarah's son, for a bit of steel from my mother's old crinoline which had been knocking about in the attic. out of this piece of steel, mayer lippa afterwards made himself a little knife. it is true when i saw the knife i wanted him to change back again with me. but he would not have it. he began to shout: "a clever fellow that! what do you say to him! i worked hard for three whole nights. i sharpened and sharpened and cut all my fingers sharpening, and now he comes and wants me to change back again with him!" "just look at him!" i cried. "well then, it won't be! a great bargain for you--a little bit of steel! isn't there enough steel knocking about in our attic? there will be enough for our children, and our children's children even." anyway, i had everything that was necessary. and there only remained one thing for me to do--to scale off the cedar wood from the sofa. for this work i selected a very good time, when my mother was in the shop, and my father had gone to lie down and have a nap after dinner. i hid myself in a corner and, with a big nail, i betook myself to my work in good earnest. my father heard, in his sleep, how some one was scraping something. at first he thought there were mice in the house, and he began to make a noise from his bedroom to drive them off--"kush! kush!" i was like dead.... my father turned over on the other side and when i heard him snoring again, i went back to my work. suddenly i looked about me. my father was standing and staring at me with curious eyes. it appeared that he could not, on any account, understand what was going on--what i was doing. then, when he saw the spoiled and torn sofa, he realized what i had done. he pulled me out of the corner by the ear and beat me so much that i fainted away and had to be revived. i actually had to have cold water thrown over me to bring me to life again. "the lord be with you! what have you done to the child?" my mother wailed, the tears starting to her eyes. "your beautiful son! he will drive me into my grave, while i am still living," said my father, who was white as chalk. he put his hand to his heart and was attacked by a fit of coughing which lasted several minutes. "why should you eat your heart out like this?" my mother asked him. "as it is you are a sickly man. just look at the face you've got. may my enemies have as healthy a year!" * * * my desire to play the fiddle grew with me. the older i grew, the stronger became my desire. and, as if out of spite, i was destined to hear music every day of the week. right in the middle of the road, halfway between my home and the school, stood a little house covered with earth. and from that house came forth various sweet sounds. but most often than all the playing of a fiddle could be heard. in that house there lived a musician whose name was naphtali "_bezborodka_,"--a jew who wore a short jacket, curled-up earlocks, and a starched collar. he had a fine-sized nose. it looked as if it had been stuck on his face. he had thick lips and black teeth. his face was pock-pitted, and had not on it even signs of a beard. that is why he was called "_bezborodka_," the beardless one. he had a wife who was like a machine. the people called her "mother eve." of children he had about a dozen and a half. they were ragged, half-naked, and bare-footed. and each child, from the biggest to the smallest, played on a musical instrument. one played the fiddle, another the 'cello, another the double-bass, another the trumpet, another the "_ballalaika_," another the drum, and another the cymbals. and amongst them there were some who could whistle the longest melody with their lips, or between their teeth. others could play tunes on little glasses, or little pots, or bits of wood. and some made music with their faces. they were demons, evil spirits--nothing else. i made the acquaintance of this family quite by accident. one day, as i was standing outside the window of their house, listening to them playing, one of the children, pinna the flautist, a youth of about fifteen, in bare feet, caught sight of me through the window. he came out to me and asked me if i liked his playing. "i only wish," said i, "that i may play as well as you in ten years' time." "can't you manage it?" he asked of me. and he told me that for two and a half '_roubles_' a month, his father would teach me how to play. but if i liked he himself, the son, that is, would teach me. "which instrument would you like to learn to play?" he asked. "on the fiddle?" "on the fiddle." "on the fiddle?" he repeated. "can you pay two and a half '_roubles_' a month? or are you as unfortunate as i am?" "so far as that goes, i can manage it," i said. "but what then? neither my father nor my mother, nor my teacher must know that i am learning to play the fiddle." "the lord keep us from telling it!" he cried. "whose business is it to drum the news through the town? maybe you have on you a cigar end, or a cigarette? no? you don't smoke? then lend me a '_kopek_' and i will buy cigarettes for myself. but you must tell no one, because my father must not know that i smoke. and if my mother finds that i have money, she will take it from me and buy rolls for supper. come into the house. what are we standing here for?" * * * with great fear, with a palpitating heart and trembling limbs, i crossed the threshold of the house that was to me a little garden of eden. my friend pinna introduced me to his father. "shalom--nahum veviks--a rich man's boy. he wants to learn to play the fiddle." naphtali "_bezborodka_" twirled his earlocks, straightened his collar, buttoned up his coat, and started a long conversation with me, all about music and musical instruments in general and the fiddle in particular. he gave me to understand that the fiddle was the best and most beautiful of all instruments. there was none older and none more wonderful in the world than the fiddle. to prove this to me, he went on to tell me that the fiddle was always the leading instrument of any orchestra, and not the trumpet or the flute. and this was simply because the fiddle was the mother of all musical instruments. and so it came about that naphtali "_bezborodka_" gave me a whole lecture on music. whilst he was speaking he gesticulated with his hands and moved his nose, and i stood staring right into his mouth. i looked at his black teeth and swallowed, yes, positively swallowed, every word that he said. "the fiddle, you must understand," went on naphtali "_bezborodka_" to me, and evidently satisfied with the lecture he was giving me, "the fiddle, you must understand, is an instrument that is older than all other instruments. the first man in the world to play on the fiddle was jubal-cain, or methuselah, i don't exactly remember which. you will know that better than i, for, to be sure, you are learning bible history at school. the second fiddler in the world was king david. another great fiddler--the third greatest in the world--was paganini. he also was a jew. all the best fiddlers in the world were jews. for instance there was '_stempenyu_,' and there was '_pedotchur_.' of myself i say nothing. people tell me that i do not play the fiddle badly. but how can i come up to paganini? they say that paganini sold his soul to the ashmodai for a fiddle. paganini hated to play before great people like kings and popes, although they covered him with gold. he would much rather play at wayside inns for poor folks, or in villages. or else he would play in the forest for wild beasts and fowls of the air. what a fiddler paganini was!... "eh, boys, to your places! to your instruments!" that was the order which naphtali "_bezborodka_" gave to his regiment of children, all of whom came together in one minute. each one took up an instrument. naphtali himself stood up, beat his baton on the table, threw a sharp glance on every separate child and on all at once; and they began to play a concert on every sort of instrument with so much force that i was almost knocked off my feet. each child tried to make more noise than the other. but above all, i was nearly deafened by the noise that one boy made, a little fellow who was called hemalle. he was a dry little boy with a wet little nose, and dirty bare little feet. hemalle played a curiously made instrument. it was a sort of sack which, when you blew it up, let out a mad screech--a peculiar sound like a yell of a cat after you have trodden on its tail. hemalle beat time with his little bare foot. and all the while he kept looking at me out of his roguish little eyes, and winking to me as if he would say: "well, isn't it so? i blow well--don't i?" but it was naphtali himself who worked the hardest of all. along with playing the fiddle, he led the orchestra, waved his hands about, shifted his feet, and moved his nose, and his eyes and his whole body. and if some one made a mistake--god forbid! he ground his teeth and shouted in anger: "forte, devil, forte! fortissimo! time, wretch, time! one, two, three! one, two, three!" * * * having arranged with naphtali "_bezborodka_" that he should give me three lessons a week, of an hour and a half each day, for two "_roubles_" a month, i again and yet again begged of him that he would keep my visits a secret of secrets; for if he did not, i would be lost forever. he promised me faithfully that not even a bird would hear of my coming and going. "we are the sort of people," he said to me, proudly, fixing his collar in place, "we are the sort of people who never have any money. but you will find more honour and justice in our house than in the house of the richest man. maybe you have a few '_groschens_' about you?" i took out a "_rouble_" and gave it to him. naphtali took it in the manner of a professor, with his two fingers. he called over "mother eve," turned away his eyes, and said to her: "here! buy something to eat." "mother eve" took the "_rouble_" from him, but with both hands and all her fingers, examined it on all sides, and asked her husband: "what shall i buy?" "what you like," he answered, pretending not to care. "buy a few rolls, two or three salt herring, and some dried sausage. and don't forget an onion, vinegar and oil. well, and a glass of brandy, say--" when all these things were brought home and placed upon the table, the family fell upon them with as much appetite as if they had just ended a long fast. i was actually tempted by an evil spirit; and when they asked me to take my place at the table i could not refuse. i do not remember when i enjoyed a meal as much as i enjoyed the one at the musician's house that day. after they had eaten everything, naphtali winked to the children that they should take their instruments in their hands. and he treated me, all over again to a piece--"his own composition." this "composition" was played with so much excitement and force that my ears were deafened and my brain was stupefied. i left the house intoxicated by naphtali "_bezborodka's_" "composition." the whole day at school, the teacher and the boys and the books were whirling round and round in front of my eyes. and my ears were ringing with the echoes of naphtali's "composition." at night i dreamt that i saw paganini riding on the ashmodai, and that he banged me over the head with his fiddle. i awoke with a scream, and a headache, and i began to pour out words as from a sack. what i said i do not know. but my older sister, pessel, told me afterwards that i talked in heat, and that there was no connection between any two words i uttered. i repeated some fantastic names--"composition." "paganini," etc.... and there was another thing my sister told me. during the time i was lying delirious, several messages were sent from naphtali the musician to know how i was. there came some barefoot boy who made many inquiries about me. he was driven off, and was told never to dare to come near the house again.... "what was the musician's boy doing here?" asked my sister. and she tormented me with questions. she wanted me to tell her. but i kept repeating the same words: "i do not know. as i live, i do not know. how am i to know?" "what does it look like?" asked my mother. "you are already a young man, a grown-up man--may no evil eye harm you! they will be soon looking for a bride for you, and you go about with fine friends, barefoot young musicians. what business have you with musicians? what was naphtali the musician's boy doing here?" "what naphtali?" i asked, pretending not to understand. "what musician?" "just look at him--the saint!" put in my father. "he knows nothing about anything. poor thing! his soul is innocent before the lord! when i was your age i was already long betrothed. and he is still playing with strange boys. dress yourself, and go off to school. and if you meet hershel the tax-collector, and he asks you what was the matter with you, you are to tell him that you had the ague. do you hear what i am saying to you? the ague!" i could not for the life of me understand what business hershel the tax-collector had with me. and for what reason was i to tell him i had been suffering from the ague?... it was only a few weeks later that this riddle was solved for me. * * * hershel the tax-collector was so called because he, and his grandfather before him, had collected the taxes of the town. it was the privilege of their family. he was a young man with a round little belly, and a red little beard, and moist little eyes, and he had a broad white forehead, a sure sign that he was a man of brains. and he had the reputation in our town of being a fine, young man, a modern, and a scholar. he had a sound knowledge of the bible, and was a writer of distinction. that is to say, he had a beautiful hand. they say that his manuscripts were carried around and shown in the whole world. and along with these qualities, he had money, and he had one little daughter--an only child, a girl with red hair and moist eyes. she and her father, hershel the tax-collector, were as like as two drops of water. her name was esther, but she was called by the nickname of "plesteril." she was nervous and genteel. she was as frightened of us, schoolboys, as of the angel of death, because we used to torment her. we used to tease her and sing little songs about her: "estheril." "plesteril!" "why have you no little sister?" well, after all, what is there in these words? nothing, of course. nevertheless, whenever "plesteril" heard them, she used to cover up her ears, run home crying, and hide herself away in the farthest of far corners. and, for several days, she was afraid to go out in the street. but that was once on a time, when she was still a child. now she is a young woman, and is counted amongst the grown-ups. her hair was tied up in a red plait, and she was dressed like a bride, in the latest fashions. my mother had a high opinion of her. she could never praise her enough, and called her "a quiet dove." sometimes, on the sabbath esther came into our house, to see my sister pessel. and when she saw me, she grew redder than ever, and dropped her eyes. at the same time, my sister pessel would call me over to ask me something, and also to look into my eyes as she looked into esther's. and it came to pass that, on a certain day, there came into my school my father and hershel the tax-collector. and after them came shalom-shachno the matchmaker--a jew who had six fingers, and a curly black beard, and who was terribly poor. seeing such visitors, our teacher, "_reb_" zorach, pulled on his long coat, and put his hat on his head. and because of his great excitement, one of his earlocks got twisted up behind his ear. his hat got creased; and more than half of his little round cap was left sticking out at the back of his head, from under his hat; and one of his cheeks began to blaze. one could see that something extraordinary was going to happen. of late, "_reb_" shalom-shachno the matchmaker had started coming into the school a little too often. he always called the teacher outside, where they stood talking together for some minutes, whispering and getting excited. the matchmaker gesticulated with his hands, and shrugged his shoulders. he always finished up with a sigh, and said: "well, it's the same story again. if it is destined it will probably take place. how can we know anything--how?" when the visitors came in, our teacher, "_reb_" zorach, did not know what to do, or where he was to seat them. he took hold of the kitchen stool on which his wife salted the meat, and first of all spun round and round with it several times, and went up and down the whole length of the room. after this, he barely managed to place the stool on the floor when he sat down on it himself. but he at once jumped up again, greatly confused; and he caught hold of the back pocket of his long coat, just as if he had lost a purse of money. "here is a stool. sit down," he said to his visitors. "it's all right! sit down, sit down," said my father to him. "we have come in to you, '_reb_' zorach, only for a minute. this gentleman wants to examine my son--to see what he knows of the bible." and my father pointed to hershel the tax-collector. "oh, by all means! why not?" answered the teacher, "_reb_" zorach. he took up a little bible, and handed it to hershel the tax-collector. the expression on his face was as if he were saying: "here it is for you, and do what you like." hershel the tax-collector took the bible in his hand like a man who knows thoroughly what he is doing. he twisted his little head to one side, closed one eye, turned and turned the pages, and gave me to read the first chapter of the "song of songs." "is it the 'song of songs'?" asked my teacher, with a faint smile, as if he would say: "could you find nothing more difficult?" "the 'song of songs,'" replied hershel the tax-collector. "the 'song of songs' is not as easy as you imagine. one must undehstand the 'song of songs.'" (hershel could not pronounce the letter r but said h.) "certainly," put in shalom-shachno, with a little laugh. the teacher gave me a wink. i went over to the table, shook myself to and fro for a minute, and began to chant the "song of songs" to a beautiful melody, first introducing this commentary on it:-- "the 'song of songs'--a song above all songs! all other songs have been sung by prophets, but this 'song' has been sung by a prophet who was the son of a prophet. all other songs have been sung by men of wisdom, but this 'song' has been sung by a man of wisdom who was the son of a man of wisdom. all other songs have been sung by kings, but this 'song' has been sung by a king who was the son of a king." whilst i was singing, i glanced quickly at my audience. and on each face i could see a different expression. on my father's face i could see pride and pleasure. on my teacher's face were fear and anxiety, lest, god forbid! i should make a mistake, or commit errors in reading. his lips, in silence, repeated every word after me. hershel the tax-collector sat with his head a little to one side, the ends of his yellow beard in his mouth, one little eye closed, the other staring up at the ceiling. he was listening with the air of a great, great judge. "_reb_" shalom-shachno the matchmaker never took his eyes off hershel for a single minute. he sat with half his body leaning forward, shaking himself to and fro, as i did. and he could not restrain himself from interrupting me many times by an exclamation, a little laugh and a cough, all in one breath, as he waved his double-jointed finger in the air. "when people say that he knows--then he knows!" a few days after this, plates were broken, and in a fortunate hour, i was betrothed to hershel the tax-collector's only daughter, plesteril. * * * it sometimes happens that a man grows in one day more than anybody else grows in ten years. when i was betrothed, i, all at once, began to feel that i was a "grown-up." surely i was the same as before, and yet i was not the same. from my smallest comrade to my teacher "_reb_" zorach, everybody now began to look upon me with more respect. after all, i was a bridegroom-elect, and had a watch. and my father also gave up shouting at me. of smacks there is no need to say anything. how could any one take hold of a bridegroom-elect who had a gold watch, and smack his face for him? it would be a disgrace before the whole world, and a shame for one's own self. it is true that it once happened that a bridegroom-elect named eli was flogged at our school, because he had been caught sliding on the ice with the gentile boys of the town. but for that again, the whole town made a fine business of the flogging afterwards. when the scandal reached the ears of eli's betrothed, she cried so much until the marriage contract was sent back to the bridegroom-elect, to eli, that is. and through grief and shame, he would have thrown himself into the river, but that the water was frozen.... nearly as bad a misfortune happened to me. but it was not because i got a flogging, and not because i went sliding on the ice. it was because of a fiddle. and here is the story for you:-- at our wine-shop we had a frequent visitor, tchitchick, the bandmaster, whom we used to call "mr. sergeant." he was a tall, powerful man with a big round beard and terrifying eyebrows. and he talked a curiously mixed-up jargon composed of several languages. when he talked, he moved his eyebrows up and down. when he lowered his eyebrows, his face was black as night. when he raised them up, his face was bright as day. and this was because, under these same thick eyebrows he had a pair of kindly, smiling light blue eyes. he wore a uniform with gilt buttons, and that is why he was called at our place "mr. sergeant." he was a very frequent visitor at our wine-shop. not because he was a drunkard. god forbid! but for the simple reason that my father was very clever at making from raisins "the best and finest hungarian wine." tchitchick used to love this wine. he never ceased from praising it. he used to put his big, terrifying hand on my father's shoulder, and say to him: "mr. cellarer, you have the best hungarian wine. there isn't such wine in buda pesth, by god!" with me tchitchick was always on the most intimate terms. he praised me for learning such a lot at school. he often examined me to see if i knew who adam was. and who was isaac? and who was joseph? "yousef?" i asked him, in yiddish. "do you mean yousef the saint?" "joseph," he repeated. "yousef," i corrected him, once again. "with us it's joseph. with you it's youdsef," he said to me, and pinched my cheek. "joseph, youdsef, youdsef, dsodsepf--what does it matter? it is all the same." "ha! ha! ha!" i buried my face in my hands, and laughed heartily. but from the day i became a bridegroom-elect, tchitchick gave up playing with me as if i were a clown; and he began to talk to me as if i were his equal. he told me stories of the regiment and of musicians. "mr. sergeant" had a tremendous lot of talk in him. but no one else excepting myself had the time to listen to him. on one occasion he began to talk to me of playing. and i asked him: "on which instrument does 'mr. sergeant' play?" "on all instruments," he answered, and raised his eyebrows at me. "on the fiddle, also?" i asked him. and all at once he took on, in my imagination, the face of an angel. "come over to me some day," he said, "and i will play for you." "when can i come to you mr. sargeant, if not on the sabbath day?" i asked. "but i can only come on condition that no-one knows anything about it." "can you promise that?" "as i serve god," he exclaimed, and lifted his eyebrows at me. tchitchick lived far out of town. in a little white house that had tidy windows and painted shutters. leading up to it, there was a big green garden from out of which peeked proudly a number of tall, yellow sunflowers. as if they were something important. they bent their heads a little to one side and shook themselves to and fro. it seemed to me that they were calling out to me, "come over here to us, boy." "there is grass here. there is freedom here. there is light here. it is fresh here. it is warm here. it is pleasant here." and after the stench and heat and dust of the town, and after the overcrowding and the noise and the tumult of the school, one was indeed glad to get here because there is grass here. it is fresh here. it is bright here. it is warm here. it is pleasant here. one longs to run, leap shout and sing. or else one wants suddenly to throw oneself on the bear earth. to bury one's face in the green sweet smelling grass. but alas, this is not for you jewish children. yellow sunflowers, green leaves, fresh air, pure earth or a clear day. do not be offended jewish children. but all these have not grown up out of your rubbish. i was met by a big, shaggy-haired dog with red, fiery eyes. he fell upon me with so much fierceness that the soul almost dropped out of my body. it was fortunate that he was tied up with a rope. on hearing my screams, tchitchick flew out without his jacket and began ordering the dog to be silent. and he was silent. afterwards, tchitchick took hold of my hand, led me straight to the black dog and told me not to be afraid. he would not harm me. "just try and pat him on the back," said tchitchick to me. and without waiting, took hold of my hand and drew it all over the dog's skin. at the same time calling him many curious names and speaking kind words to him. the black villain lowered his head, wagged his tail and licked himself with his tongue. he threw at me a glance of contempt. as if he would say, "it's lucky for you that my master is standing beside you. otherwise you would have gone from here without a hand." i got over my terror of the dog. i entered the house with mr. sargeant and i was struck dumb with astonishment. all the walls were covered with guns. from top to bottom. and on the floor lay a skin with the head of a lion or a leopard. it had terribly sharp teeth. but the lion was half an evil. after all, it was dead. but the guns. the guns! i did not even care about the fresh plums and the apples which the master of the house offered me out of his own garden. my eyes did not cease leaping from one wall to the other.... but later on, when tchitchick took a little fiddle out of a red drawer--a beautiful, round little fiddle, with a curious little belly, let his big spreading beard droop over it, and held it with his big strong hands, and drew the bow across the strings a few times, backwards and forwards, i forgot, in the blinking of an eye, the black dog and the terrible lion, and the loaded guns. i only saw before me tchitchick's spreading beard and his black, lowered eyebrows. i only saw a round little fiddle with a curious little belly, and fingers which danced over the strings so rapidly that no human brain could answer the questions which arose to my mind: "where does one get so many fingers?" presently, tchitchick and his spreading beard, vanished, along with his thick eyebrows and his wonderful fingers. and i saw nothing at all before me. i only heard a singing, a groaning, a weeping, a sobbing, a talking, and a growling. they were extraordinary, peculiar sounds that i heard, the like of which i had never heard before, in all my life. sounds sweet as honey, and smooth as oil were pouring themselves right into my heart, without ceasing. and my soul went off somewhere far from the little house, into another world, into a garden of eden which was nothing else but beautiful sounds--which was one mass of singing, from beginning to end.... "do you want some tea?" asked tchitchick of me, putting down the little fiddle, and slapping me on the shoulder. i felt as if i had fallen down from the seventh heaven on to the earth. from that day i visited tchitchick regularly every sabbath afternoon, to hear him playing the fiddle. i went straight to the house. i was afraid of no one; and i even became such good friends with the black dog that, when he saw me, he wagged his tail, and wanted to fall upon me to lick my hands. i would not let him do this. "let us rather be good friends from the distance." at home not even a bird knew where i spent the sabbath afternoons. i was a bridegroom-elect, after all. and no one would have known of my visits to tchitchick to this day, if a new misfortune had not befallen me--a great misfortune, of which i will now tell you. * * * surely it is no one's affair if a jewish young man goes for a walk on the sabbath afternoon a little beyond the town? have people really got nothing better to do than to think of others and look after them to see where they are going? but of what use are such questions as these? it lies in our nature, in the jewish nature, i mean, to look well after every one else, to criticize others and advise them. for example, a jew will go over to his neighbour, at prayers, and straighten out the "frontispiece" of his phylacteries. or he will stop his neighbour, who is running with the greatest haste and excitement, to tell him that the leg of his trouser is turned up. or he will point his finger at his neighbour, so that the other shall not know what is amiss with him, whether it is his nose, or his beard, or what the deuce is wrong with him. or a jew will take a thing out of his neighbour's hand, when the other is struggling to open it, and will say to him: "you don't know how. let me." or should he see his neighbour building a house, he will come over to look for a fault in it. he says he believes the ceiling is too high, the rooms are too small, or the windows are awkwardly large. and there seems nothing else left the builder to do but scatter the house to pieces, and start it all over again.... we jews have been distinguished by this habit of interfering from time immemorial--from the very first day on which the world was created. and you and i between us will never alter the world full of jews. it is not our duty to even attempt it.... after this long introduction, it will be easy for you to understand how ephraim log-of-wood--a jew who was a black stranger to me, and who did not care a button for any of us--should poke his nose into my affairs. he sniffed and smelled my tracks, and found out where i went on sabbath afternoons, and got me into trouble. he swore that he himself saw me eating forbidden food at the house of "mr. sergeant," and that i was smoking a cigarette on the sabbath. "may i see myself enjoying all that is good!" he cried. "if it is not as i say, may i never get to the place where i am going," he said. "and if i am uttering the least word of falsehood, may my mouth be twisted to one side, and may my two eyes drop out of my head," he added. "amen! may it be so," i cried. and i caught from my father another smack in the face. i must not be insolent, he told me.... but i imagine i am rushing along too quickly with my story. i am giving you the soup before the fish. i was forgetting entirely to tell you who ephraim log-of-wood was, and what he was, and how the incident happened. at the end of the town, on the other side of the bridge, there lived a jew named ephraim log-of-wood. why was he called log-of-wood? because he had once dealt in timber. and today he is not dealing in timber because something happened to him. he said it was libel, a false accusation. people found at his place a strange log of wood with a strange name branded on it. and he had a fine lot of trouble after that. he had a case, and he had appeals, and he had to send petitions. he just managed to escape from being put into prison. from that time, he threw away all trading, and betook himself to looking after public matters. he pushed himself into all institutions, the tax-collecting, and the work done at the house of learning. generally speaking, he was not so well off. he was often put to shame publicly. but as time went on, he insinuated himself into everybody's bones. he gave people to understand that "he knew where a door was opening." and in the course of time, ephraim became a useful person, a person it was hard to do without. that is how a worm manages to crawl into an apple. he makes himself comfortable, makes a soft bed for himself, makes himself a home, and in time becomes the real master of the house. in person, ephraim was a tiny little man. he had short little legs, and small little hands, and red little cheeks, and a quick walk which was a sort of a little dance. and he tossed his little head about. his speech was rapid, and his voice squeaky. and he laughed with a curious little laugh which sounded like the rattling of dried peas. i could not bear to look at him, i don't know why. every sabbath afternoon, when i was going to tchitchick's, i used to meet ephraim on the bridge, walking along, in a black, patched cloak, the sleeves of which hung loosely over his shoulders. his hands were folded in front of him, and he was singing in his thin little voice. and the ends of his long cloak kept dangling at his heels. "a good sabbath," i said to him. "a good sabbath," he replied. "and where is a boy going?" "just for a walk," i said. "for a walk? all alone?" he asked. and he looked straight into my eyes with such a little smile that it was hard to guess what he meant by it--whether he thought that it was very brave of me to be walking all alone or not. was it, in his opinion, a wise thing to do, or a foolish? * * * on one occasion, when i was going to tchitchick's house, i noticed that ephraim log-of-wood was looking at me very curiously. i stopped on the bridge and gazed into the water. ephraim also stopped on the bridge, and he also gazed into the water. i started to go back. he followed me. i turned round again, to go forward, and he also turned round in the same direction. a few minutes later, he was lost to me. when i was sitting at tchitchick's table, drinking tea, we heard the black dog barking loudly at some one, and tearing at his rope. we looked out of the window, and i imagined i saw a low-sized, black figure with short little legs, running, running. then it disappeared from view. from his manner of running, i could have sworn the little creature was ephraim log-of-wood. and thus it came to pass-- i came home late that sabbath evening. it was already after the "_havdalah_." my face was burning. and i found ephraim log-of-wood sitting at the table. he was talking very rapidly, and was laughing with his curious little laugh. when he saw me, he was silent. he started drumming on the table with his short little fingers. opposite him sat my father. his face was death-like. he was pulling at his beard, tearing out the hairs one by one. this was a sure sign that he was in a temper. "where have you come from?" my father asked of me and looked at ephraim. "where am i to come from?" said i. "how do i know where you are to come from?" said he. "you tell me where you have come from. you know better than i." "from the house of learning," said i. "and where were you the whole day?" said he. "where could i be?" said i. "how do i know?" said he. "you tell me. you know better than i." "at the house of learning," said i. "what were you doing at the house of learning?" said he. "what should i be doing at the house of learning?" said i. "do i know what you could be doing there?" said he. "i was learning," said i. "what were you learning?" said he. "what should i learn?" said i. "do i know what you should learn?" said he. "i was learning '_gemarra_' were you learning?" said he. "what '_gemarra_' should i learn?" said i. "do i know what '_gemarra_' you should learn?" said he. "i learnt the '_gemarra_', '_shabos_'," said i. at this ephraim log-of-wood burst out laughing in his rattling little laugh. and it seemed that my father could bear no more. he jumped up from his seat and delivered me two resounding fiery boxes on the ears. stars flew before my eyes. my mother heard my shouts from the other room. she flew into us with a scream. "nahum! the lord be with you! what are you doing? a young man--a bridegroom-elect! just before his wedding! bethink yourself! if her father gets to know of this--god forbid!" * * * my mother was right. the girl's father got to know the whole story. ephraim log-of-wood went off himself and told it to him. and in this way ephraim had his revenge of hershel the tax-collector; for the two had always been at the point of sticking knives into one another. * * * next day i got back the marriage-contract and the presents which had been given to the bride-elect. and i was no longer a bridegroom-elect. this grieved my father so deeply that he fell into a very serious illness. he was bedridden for a long time. he would not let me come near him. he refused to look into my face. all my mother's tears and arguments and explanations and her defence of me were of no use at all. "the disgrace," said my father, "the disgrace of it is worse than anything else." "may it turn out to be a real, true sacrifice for us all," said my mother to him. "the lord will have to send us another bride-elect. what can we do? shall we take our own lives? perhaps it is not his destiny to marry this girl." amongst those who came to visit my father in his illness was tchitchick the bandmaster. when my father saw him, he took off his little round cap, sat up in his bed, stretched out his hand to him, looked straight into his eyes and said: "oh, 'mr. sergeant!' 'mr. sergeant!'" he could not utter another sound, because he was smothered by his tears and his cough.... this was the first time in my life that i saw my father crying. his tears gripped hold of my heart, and chilled me to the very soul. i stood and looked out of the window, swallowing my tears in silence. at that moment, i was heartily sorry for all the mischief i had done. i cried within myself, from the very depths of my heart, beating my breast: "i have sinned." and within myself, i vowed solemnly to myself that i would never, never anger my father again, and never, never cause him any pain. no more fiddle! this night "to my dear son, "i send you--'_roubles_,' and beg of you, my dear son, to do me the favour, and come home for the passover festival. it is a disgrace to me in my old age. we have one son, an only child, and we are not worthy to see him. your mother also asks me to beg of you to be sure to come home for the passover. and you must know that busie is to be congratulated. she is now betrothed. and if the lord wills it, she is going to be married on the sabbath after the feast of weeks. "from me, "your father." this is the letter my father wrote to me. for the first time a sharp letter--for the first time in all those years since we had parted. and we had parted from one another, father and i, in silence, without quarrelling. i had acted in opposition to his wishes. i would not go his road, but my own road. i went abroad to study. at first my father was angry. he said he would never forgive me. later, he began to send me money. "i send you--'_roubles_,'" he used to write, "and your mother sends you her heartiest greetings." short, dry letters he wrote me. and my replies to him were also short and dry: "i have received your letter with the--'_roubles_.' i thank you, and i send my mother my heartiest greetings." cold, terribly cold were our letters to one another. who had time to realize where i found myself in the world of dreams in which i lived? but now my father's letter woke me up. not so much his complaint that it was a shame i should have left him alone in his old age--that it was a disgrace for him that his only son should be away from him. i will confess it that this did not move me so much. neither did my mother's pleadings with me that i should have pity on her and come home for the passover festival. nothing took such a strong hold of me as the last few lines of my father's letter. "and you must know that busie is to be congratulated." busie! the same busie who has no equal anywhere on earth, excepting in the "song of songs"--the same busie who is bound up with my life, whose childhood is interwoven closely with my childhood--the same busie who always was to me the bewitched queen's daughter of all my wonderful fairy tales--the most wonderful princess of my golden dreams--this same busie is now betrothed, is going to be married on the sabbath after the feast of weeks? is it true that she is going to be married, and not to me, but to some one else? * * * who is busie--what is she? oh, do you not know who busie is? have you forgotten? then i will tell you her biography all over again, briefly, and in the very same words i used when telling it you once on a time, years ago. i had an older brother, benny. he was drowned. he left after him a water-mill, a young widow, two horses, and one child. the mill was neglected; the horses were sold; the young widow married again and went away somewhere, far; and the child was brought home to our house. that child was busie. and busie was beautiful as the lovely shulamite of the "song of songs." whenever i saw busie i thought of the shulamite of the "song of songs." and whenever i read the "song of songs" busie's image came up and stood before me. her name is the short for esther-liba: libusa: busie. she grew up together with me. she called my father "father," and my mother "mother." everybody thought that we were sister and brother. and we grew up together as if we were sister and brother. and we loved one another as if we were sister and brother. like a sister and a brother we played together, and we hid in a corner--we two; and i used to tell her the fairy tales i learnt at school--the tales which were told me by my comrade sheika, who knew everything, even "_kaballa_." i told her that by means of "_kaballa_," i could do wonderful tricks--draw wine from a stone, and gold from a wall. by means of "_kaballa_," i told her, i could manage that we two should rise up into the clouds, and even higher than the clouds. oh, how she loved to hear me tell my stories! there was only one story which busie did not like me to tell--the story of the queen's daughter, the princess who had been bewitched, carried off from under the wedding canopy, and put into a palace of crystal for seven years. and i said that i was flying off to set her free.... busie loved to hear every tale excepting that one about the bewitched queen's daughter whom i was flying off to set free. "you need not fly so far. take my advice, you need not." this is what busie said to me, fixing on my face her beautiful blue "song of songs" eyes. that is who and what busie is. and now my father writes me that i must congratulate busie. she is betrothed, and will be married on the sabbath after the feast of weeks. she is some one's bride--some one else's, not mine! i sat down and wrote a letter to my father, in answer to his. "to my honoured and dear father, "i have received your letter with the--'_roubles_.' in a few days, as soon as i am ready, i will go home, in time for the first days of the passover festival--or perhaps for the latter days. but i will surely come home. i send my heartiest greetings to my mother. and to busie i send my congratulations. i wish her joy and happiness. "from me, "your son." it was a lie. i had nothing to get ready; nor was there any need for me to wait a few days. the same day on which i received my father's letter and answered it, i got on the train and flew home. i arrived home exactly on the day before the festival, on a warm, bright passover eve. i found the village exactly as i had left it, once on a time, years ago. it was not changed by a single hair. not a detail of it was different. it was the same village. the people were the same. the passover eve was the same, with all its noise and hurry and flurry and bustle. and out of doors it was also the same passover eve as when i had been at home, years ago. there was only one thing missing--the "song of songs." no; nothing of the "song of songs" existed any longer. it was not now as it had been, once on a time, years ago. our yard was not any more king solomon's vineyard, of the "song of songs." the wood and the logs and the boards that lay scattered around the house were no longer the cedars and the fir trees. the cat that was stretched out before the door, warming herself in the sun, was no more a young hart, or a roe, such as one comes upon in the "song of songs." the hill on the other side of the synagogue was no more the mountain of lebanon. it was no more one of the mountains of spices.... the young women and girls who were standing out of doors, washing and scrubbing and making everything clean for the passover--they were not any more the daughters of jerusalem of whom mention is made in the "song of songs." ... what has become of my "song of songs" world that was, at one time, so fresh and clear and bright--the world that was as fragrant as though filled with spices? * * * i found my home exactly as i had left it, years before. it was not altered by a hair. it was not different in the least detail. my father, too, was the same. only his silvery-white beard had become a little more silvery. his broad white wrinkled forehead was now a little more wrinkled. this was probably because of his cares.... and my mother was the same as when i saw her last. only her ruddy cheeks were now slightly sallow. and i imagined she had grown smaller, shorter and thinner. perhaps i only imagined this because she was now slightly bent. and her eyes were slightly enflamed, and had little puffy bags under them, as if they were swollen. was it from weeping, perhaps?... for what reason had my mother been weeping? for whom? was it for me, her only son who had acted in opposition to his father's wishes? was it because i would not go the same road as my father, but took my own road, and went off to study, and did not come home for such a long time?... or did my mother weep for busie, because she was getting married on the sabbath after the feast of weeks? ah, busie! she was not changed by so much as a hair. she was not different in the least detail. she had only grown up--grown up and also grown more beautiful than she had been, more lovely. she had grown up exactly as she had promised to grow, tall and slender, and ripe, and full of grace. her eyes were the same blue "song of songs" eyes, but more thoughtful than in the olden times. they were more thoughtful and more dreamy, more careworn and more beautiful "song of songs" eyes than ever. and the smile on her lips was friendly, loving, homely and affectionate. she was quiet as a dove--quiet as a virgin. when i looked at the busie of today, i was reminded of the busie of the past. i recalled to mind busie in her new little holiday frock which my mother had made for her, at that time, for the passover. i remembered the new little shoes which my father had bought for her, at that time, for the passover. and when i remembered the busie of the past, there came back to me, without an effort on my part, all over again, phrase by phrase, and chapter by chapter, the long-forgotten "song of songs." "thou hast doves' eyes within thy locks: thy hair is as a flock of goats, that appear from mount gilead. "thy teeth are like a flock of sheep that are even shorn, which come up from the washing: whereof every one bear twins, and none is barren among them. "thy lips are like a thread of scarlet, and thy speech is comely: thy temples are like a piece of pomegranate within thy locks." i look at busie, and once again everything is as in the "song of songs," just as it was in the past, once on a time, years before. * * * "busie, am i to congratulate you?" she does not hear me. but why does she lower her eyes? and why have her cheeks turned scarlet? no, i must bid her joy--i must! "i congratulate you, busie." "may you live in happiness," she replies. and that is all. i could ask her nothing. and to talk with her? there was nowhere where i might do that. my father would not let me talk with her. my mother hindered me. our relatives prevented it. the rest of the family, the friends, neighbours and acquaintances who flocked into the house to welcome me, one coming and one going--they would not let me talk with busie either. they all stood around me. they all examined me, as if i were a bear, or a curious creature from another world. everybody wanted to see and hear me--to know how i was getting on, and what i was doing. they had not seen me for such a long time. "tell us something new. what have you seen? what have you heard?" and i told them the news--all that i had seen and all that i had heard. at the same time i was looking at busie. i was searching for her eyes. and i met her eyes--her big, deep, careworn, thoughtful, beautiful blue "song of songs" eyes. but her eyes were dumb, and she herself was dumb. her eyes told me nothing--nothing at all. and there arose to my memory the words i had learnt in the past, the "song of songs" sentence by sentence-- "a garden inclosed is my sister, my spouse: a spring shut up, a fountain sealed." * * * and a storm arose within my brain, and a fire began to burn within my heart. this terrible fire did not rage against anybody, only against myself--against myself and against my dreams of the past--the foolish, boyish, golden dreams for the sake of which i had left my father and my mother. because of those dreams i had forgotten busie. because of them i had sacrificed a great, great part of my life; and because of them, and through them i had lost my happiness--lost it, lost it for ever! lost it for ever? no, it cannot be--it cannot be! have i not come back--have i not returned in good time?... if only i could manage to talk with busie, all alone with her! if only i could get to say a few words to her. but how could i speak with her, all alone, the few words i longed to speak, when everybody was present--when the people were all crowding around me? they were all examining me as if i were a bear, or a curious creature from another world. everybody wanted to see and hear me--to know how i was getting on, and what i was doing. they had not seen me for such a long time! more intently than any one else was my father listening to me. he had a holy book open in front of him, as always. his broad forehead was wrinkled up, as always. he was looking at me from over his silver spectacles, and was stroking the silver strands of his silvery-white beard, as always. and i imagined that he was looking at me with other eyes than he used to look. no, it was not the same look as always. he was reproaching me. i felt that my father was offended with me. i had acted contrary to his wishes. i had refused to go his road, and had taken a road of my own choosing.... my mother, too, was standing close behind me. she came out of the kitchen. she left all her work, the preparations for the passover, and she was listening to me with tears in her eyes. though her face was still smiling, she wiped her eyes in secret with the corners of her apron. she was listening to me attentively. she was staring right into my mouth; and she was swallowing, yes, swallowing every word that i said. and busie also stood over against me. her hands were folded on her bosom. and she was listening to me just as the others were. along with them, she was staring right into my mouth. i looked at busie. i tried to read what was in her eyes; but i could read nothing there, nothing at all, nothing at all. "tell more. why have you grown silent?" my father asked me. "leave him alone. did you ever see the like?" put in my mother hastily. "the child is tired. the child is hungry, and he goes on saying to him: 'tell! tell! tell! and tell!'" * * * the people began to go away by degrees. and we found ourselves alone, my father and my mother, busie and i. my mother went off to the kitchen. in a few minutes she came back, carrying in her hand a beautiful passover plate--a plate i knew well. it was surrounded by a design of big green fig leaves. "perhaps you would like something to eat, shemak? it is a long time to wait until the '_seder_.'" that is what my mother said to me, and with so much affection, so much loyalty and so much passionate devotion. and busie got up, and with silent footfalls, brought me a knife and fork--the well-known passover knife and fork. everything was familiar to me. nothing was changed, nor different by a hair. it was the same plate with the big green fig leaves; the same knife and fork with the white bone handles. the same delicious odour of melted goose-fat came in to me from the kitchen; and the fresh passover cake had the same garden-of-eden taste. nothing was changed by a hair. nothing was different in the least detail. only, in the olden times, we ate together on the passover eve, busie and i, off the same plate. i remember that we ate off the same beautiful passover plate that was surrounded by a design of big green fig leaves. and, at that time, my mother gave us nuts. i remember how she filled our pockets with nuts. and, at that time, we took hold of one another's hands, busie and i. and i remember that we let ourselves go, in the open. we flew like eagles. i ran; she ran after me. i leaped over the logs of wood; she leaped after me. i was up; she was up. i was down; she was down. "shemak! how long are we going to run, shemak?" so said busie to me. and i answered her in the words of the "song of songs": "until the day break, and the shadows flee away." * * * this was once on a time, years ago. now busie is grown up. she is big. and i also am grown up. i also am big. busie is betrothed. she is betrothed to some one--to some one else, and not to me.... and i want to be alone with busie. i want to speak a few words with her. i want to hear her voice. i want to say to her, in the words of the "song of songs": "let me see thy countenance, let me hear thy voice." and i imagine that her eyes are answering my unspoken words, also in the words of the "song of songs." "come, my beloved, let us go forth into the fields; let us lodge in the villages. "let us get up early to the vineyards; let us see if the vine flourish, whether the tender grape appear, and the pomegranates bud forth: there will i give thee my loves." i snatched a glimpse through the window to see what was going on out of doors. ah, how lovely it was! how beautiful! how fragrant of the passover! how like the "song of songs"! it was a sin to be indoors. soon the day would be at an end. lower and lower sank the sun, painting the sky the colour of guinea-gold. the gold was reflected in busie's eyes. they were bathed in gold. soon, soon, the day would be dead. and i would have no time to say a single word to busie. the whole day was spent in talking idly with my father and my mother, my relatives and friends, telling them of all that i had heard, and all that i had seen. i jumped up, and went over to the window. i looked out of it. as i was passing her, i said quickly to busie: "perhaps we should go out for a while? it is so long since i was at home. i want to see everything. i want to have a look at the village." * * * can you tell me what was the matter with busie? her cheeks were at once enflamed. they burned with a great fire. she was as red as the sun that was going down in the west. she threw a glance at my father. i imagined she wanted to hear what my father would say. and my father looked at my mother, over his silver spectacles. he stroked the silver strands of his silvery-white beard, and said casually, to no one in particular: "the sun is setting. it's time to put on our festival garments, and to go into the synagogue to pray. it is time to light the festival candles. what do you say?" no! it seemed that i was not going to get the chance of saying anything to busie that day. we went off to change our garments. my mother had finished her work. she had put on her new silk passover gown. her white hands gleamed. no one has such beautiful white hands as my mother. soon she will make the blessing over the festival candles. she will cover her eyes with her snow-white hands and weep silently, as she used to do once on a time, years ago. the last lingering rays of the setting sun will play on her beautiful, transparent white hands. no one has such beautiful, white transparent hands as my mother. but what is the matter with busie? the light has gone out of her face just as it is going out of the sun that is slowly setting in the west, and as it is going out of the day that is slowly dying. but she is beautiful, and graceful as never before. and there is a deep sadness in her beautiful blue "song of songs" eyes. they are very thoughtful, are busie's eyes. what is busie thinking of now? of the loving guest for whom she had waited, and who had come flying home so unexpectedly, after a long, long absence from home?... or is she thinking of her mother, who married again, and went off somewhere far, and who forgot that she had a daughter whose name was busie?... or is busie now thinking of her betrothed, her affianced husband whom, probably, my father and mother were compelling her to marry against her own inclinations?... or is she thinking of her marriage that is going to take place on the sabbath after the feast of weeks, to a man she does not know, and does not understand? who is he, and what is he?... or, perhaps, on the contrary, i am mistaken? perhaps she is counting the days from the passover to the feast of weeks, until the sabbath after the feast of weeks, because the man she is going to marry on that day is her chosen, her dearest, her beloved? he will lead her under the wedding canopy. to him she will give all her heart, and all her love. and to me? alas! woe is me! to me she is no more than a sister. she always was to me a sister, and always will be.... and i imagine that she is looking at me with pity and with regret, and that she is saying to me, as she said to me, once on a time, years ago, in the words of the "song of songs:" "o that thou wert as my brother." "why are you not my brother?" what answer can i make her to these unspoken words? i know what i should like to say to her. only let me get the chance to say a few words to her, no more than a few. no! i shall not be able to speak a single word with busie this day--nor even half a word. now she is rising from her chair. she is going with light, soft footfalls to the cupboard. she is getting the candles ready for my mother, fixing them into the silver candlesticks. how well i know these silver candlesticks! they played a big part in my golden, boyish dreams of the bewitched queen's daughter whom i was going to rescue from the palace of crystal. the golden dreams, and the silver candlesticks, and the sabbath candles, and my mother's beautiful, white transparent hands, and busie's beautiful blue "song of songs" eyes, and the last rays of the sun that is going down in the west--are they not all one and the same, bound together and interwoven for ever?... "ta!" exclaimed my father, looking out of the window, and winking to me that it was high time to change and go into the synagogue to pray. and we changed our garments, my father and i, and we went into the synagogue to say our prayers. * * * our synagogue, our old, old synagogue was not changed either, not by so much as a hair. not a single detail was different. only the walls had become a little blacker; the reader's desk was older; the curtain before the holy ark had drooped lower; and the holy ark itself had lost its polish, its newness. once on a time, our synagogue had appeared in my eyes like a small copy of king solomon's temple. now the small temple was leaning slightly to one side. ah, what has become of the brilliance, and the holy splendour of our little old synagogue? where now are the angels which used to flutter about, under the carved wings of the holy ark on friday evenings, when we were reciting the prayers in welcome of the sabbath, and on festival evenings when we were reciting the beautiful festival prayers? and the members of the congregation were also very little changed. they were only grown a little older. black beards were now grey. straight shoulders were stooped a little. the satin holiday coats that i knew so well were more threadbare, shabbier. white threads were to be seen in them and yellow stripes. melech the cantor sang as beautifully as in the olden times, years ago. only today his voice is a little husky, and a new tone is to be heard in the old prayers he is chanting. he weeps rather than sings the words. he mourns rather than prays. and our rabbi? the old rabbi? he has not changed at all. he was like the fallen snow when i saw him last, and today is like the fallen snow. he is different only in one trifling respect. his hands are trembling. and the rest of his body is also trembling, from old age, i should imagine. asreal the beadle--a jew who had never had the least sign of a beard--would have been exactly the same man as once on a time, years before, if it were not for his teeth. he has lost every single tooth he possessed; and with his fallen-in cheeks, he now looks much more like a woman than a man. but for all that, he can still bang on the desk with his open hand. true, it is not the same bang as once on a time. years ago, one was almost deafened by the noise of asreal's hand coming down on the desk. today, it is not like that at all. it seems that he has not any longer the strength he used to have. he was once a giant of a man. once on a time, years ago, i was happy in the little old synagogue; i remember that i felt happy without an end--without a limit! here, in the little synagogue, years ago, my childish soul swept about with the angels i imagined were flying around the carved wings of the holy ark. here, in the little synagogue, once on a time, with my father and all the other jews, i prayed earnestly. and it gave me great pleasure, great satisfaction. * * * and now, here i am again in the same old synagogue, praying with the same old congregation, just as once on a time, years ago. i hear the same cantor singing the same melodies as before. and i am praying along with the congregation. but my thoughts are far from the prayers. i keep turning over the pages of my prayer-book idly, one page after the other. and--i am not to blame for it--i come upon the pages on which are printed the "song of songs." and i read: "behold, thou art fair, my love; behold, thou are fair; thou hast dove's eyes within thy locks." i should like to pray with the congregation, as they are praying, and as i used to pray, once on a time. but the words will not rise to my lips. i turn over the pages of my prayer-book, one after the other, and--i am not to blame for it--again i turn up the "song of songs," at the fifth chapter. "i am come into my garden, my sister, my spouse." and again: "i have gathered my myrrh with my spice; i have eaten my honeycomb with my honey; i have drunk my wine with my milk." but what am i talking about? what am i saying? the garden is not mine. i shall not gather any myrrh, nor smell any spices. i shall eat no honey, and drink no wine. the garden is not my garden. busie is not my betrothed. busie is betrothed to some one else--to some one else, and not to me.... and there rages within me a hellish fire. not against busie. not against anybody at all. no; only against myself alone. surely! how could i have stayed away from busie for such a long time? how could i have allowed it--that busie should be taken away from me, and given to some one else? had she not written many letters to me, often, and given me to understand that she hoped to see me shortly?... had i not myself promised to come home, and then put off going, from one festival to another, so many times until, at last, busie gave up writing to me? * * * "good '_yom-tov_'! this is my son!" that was how my father introduced me to the men of the congregation at the synagogue, after prayers. they examined me on all sides. they greeted me with, "peace be unto you!" and accepted my greeting, in return, "unto you be peace!" as if it were no more than their due. "this is my son...." "that is your son? here is a 'peace be unto you!'" in my father's words, "this is my son," there were many shades of feeling, many meanings--joy, and happiness, and reproach. one might interpret the words as one liked. one might argue that he meant to say: "what do you think? this is really my _son_." or one might argue that he meant to say: "just imagine it--_this_ is my son!" i could feel for my father. he was deeply hurt. i had opposed his wishes. i had not gone his road, but had taken a road of my own. and i had caused him to grow old before his time. no; he had not forgiven me yet. he did not tell me this. but his manner saved him the trouble of explaining himself. i felt that he had not forgiven me yet. his eyes told me everything. they looked at me reproachfully from over his silver-rimmed spectacles, right into my heart. his soft sigh told me that he had not forgiven me yet--the sigh which tore itself, from time to time, out of his weak old breast.... we walked home from the synagogue together, in silence. we got home later than any one else. the night had already spread her wings over the heavens. her shadow was slowly lowering itself over the earth. a silent, warm, holy passover night it was--a night full of secrets and mysteries, full of wonder and beauty. the holiness of this night could be felt in the air. it descended slowly from the dark blue sky.... the stars whispered together in the mysterious voices of the night. and on all sides of us, from the little jewish houses came the words of the "_haggadah_": "we went forth from egypt on this night." with hasty, hasty steps i went towards home, on this night. and my father barely managed to keep up with me. he followed after me like a shadow. "why are you flying?" he asked of me, scarcely managing to catch his breath. ah, father, father! do you not know that i have been compared with "a roe or a young hart upon the mountains of spices"?... the time is long for me, father, too long. the way is long for me, father, too long. when busie is betrothed to some one--to some one else and not to me, the hours and the roads are too long for me.... i am compared with "a roe or a young hart upon the mountains of spices." that is what i wanted to say to my father, in the words of the "song of songs." i did not feel the ground under my feet. i went towards home with hasty, hasty steps, on this night. my father barely managed to keep up with me. he followed after me like a shadow. * * * with the same "good '_yom-tov_'" which we had said on coming in from the synagogue on such a night as this, years ago, we entered the house on this night, my father and i. with the same "good '_yom-tov_,' good year," with which my mother and busie used to welcome us, on such a night as this, once on a time, years ago, they again welcomed us on this night, my father and me. my mother, the queen of the evening, was dressed in her royal robes of silk; and the queen's daughter, busie, was dressed in her snow-white frock. they made the same picture which they had made, once on a time, years ago. they were not altered by as much as a hair. they were not different in a single detail. as it had been years ago, so it was now. on this night, the house was full of grace. a peculiar beauty--a holy, festive, majestic loveliness descended upon our house. a holy, festive glamour hung about our house on this night. the white table-cloth was like driven snow. and everything which was on the table gleamed and glistened. my mother's festival candles shone out of the silver candlesticks. the passover wine greeted us from out the sparkling bottles. ah, how pure, how simple the passover cakes looked, peeping innocently from under their beautiful cover! how sweetly the horse-radish smiled to me! and how pleasant was the "mortar"--the mixture of crushed nuts and apples and wine which symbolized the mortar out of which the israelites made bricks in egypt, when they were slaves! and even the dish of salt-water was good to look upon. proudly and haughtily stood the throne on which my father, the king of the night, was going to recline. a glory shone forth from my mother's countenance, such as i always saw shining forth from it on such a night. and the queen's daughter, busie, was entirely, from her head to her heels, as if she really belonged to the "song of songs." no! what am i saying? she was the "song of songs" itself. the only pity was that the king's son was put sitting so far away from the queen's daughter. i remember that they once sat at the passover ceremony in a different position. they were together, once on a time, years ago. one beside the other they sat.... i remember that the king's son asked his father "the four questions." and i remember that the queen's daughter stole from his majesty the "_afikomen_"--the pieces of passover cake he had hidden away to make the special blessing over. and i? what had i done then? how much did we laugh at that time! i remember that, once on a time, years ago, when the "_seder_" was ended, the queen had taken off her royal garment of silk, and the king had taken off his white robes, and we two, busie and i, sat together in a corner playing with the nuts which my mother had given us. and there, in the corner, i told busie a story--one of the fairy tales i had learnt at school from my comrade sheika, who knew everything in the world. it was the story of the beautiful queen's daughter who had been taken from under the wedding canopy, bewitched, and put into a palace of crystal for seven years on end, and who was waiting for some one to raise himself up into the air by pronouncing the holy name, flying above the clouds, across hills, and over valleys, over rivers, and across deserts, to release her, to set her free. * * * but all this happened once on a time, years ago. now the queen's daughter is grown up. she is big. and the king's son is grown up. he is big. and we two are seated in such a way, so pitilessly, that we cannot even see one another. imagine it to yourself! on the right of his majesty sat the king's son. on the left of her majesty sat the queen's daughter!... and we recited the "_haggadah_," my father and i, at the top of our voices, as once on a time, years ago, page after page, and in the same sing-song as of old. and my mother and busie repeated the words after us, softly, page after page, until we came to the "song of songs." i recited the "song of songs" together with my father, as once on a time, years ago, in the same melody as of old, passage after passage. and my mother and busie repeated the words after us, softly, passage after passage, until the king of the night, tired out, after the long passover ceremony, and somewhat dulled by the four cups of raisin wine, began to doze off by degrees. he nodded for a few minutes, woke up, and went on singing the "song of songs." he began in a loud voice: "many waters cannot quench love.".... and i caught him up, in the same strain: "neither can floods drown it." the recital grew softer and softer with us both, as the night wore on, until at last his majesty fell asleep in real earnest. the queen touched him on the sleeve of his white robe. she woke him with a sweet, affectionate gentleness, and told him he should go to bed. in the meantime, busie and i got the chance of saying a few words to one another. i got up from my place and went over close beside her. and we stood opposite one another for the first time, closely, on this night. i pointed out to her how rarely beautiful the night was. "on such a night," i said to her, "it is good to go walking." she understood me, and answered me, with a half-smile by asking: "on such a night?" ... and i imagined that she was laughing at me. that was how she used to laugh at me, once on a time, years ago.... i was annoyed. i said to her: "busie, we have something to say to one another--we have much to talk about." "much to talk about?" she replied, echoing my words. and again i imagined that she was laughing at me.... i put in quickly: "perhaps i am mistaken? maybe i have nothing at all to say to you now?" these words were uttered with so much bitterness that busie ceased from smiling, and her face grew serious. "tomorrow," she said to me, "tomorrow we will talk." ... and my eyes grew bright. everything about me was bright and good and joyful. tomorrow! tomorrow we will talk! tomorrow! tomorrow!... i went over nearer to her. i smelt the fragrance of her hair, the fragrance of her clothes--the same familiar fragrance of her. and there came up to my mind the words of the "song of songs": "thy lips, o my spouse, drop as the honeycomb: honey and milk are under thy tongue; and the smell of thy garments is like the smell of lebanon." ... and all our speech this night was the same--without words. we spoke together with our eyes--with our eyes. * * * "busie, good-night," i said to her softly. it was hard for me to go away from her. the one god in heaven knew the truth--how hard it was. "good-night," busie made answer. she did not stir from the spot. she looked at me, deeply perplexed, out of her beautiful blue "song of songs" eyes. i said "good-night" to her again. and she again said "good-night" to me. my mother came in and led me off to bed. when we were in my room, my mother smoothed out for me, with her beautiful, snow-white hands, the white cover of my bed. and her lips murmured: "sleep well, my child, sleep well." into these few words she poured a whole ocean of tender love--the love which had been pent up in her breast the long time i had been away from her. i was ready to fall down before her, and kiss her beautiful white hands. "good-night," i murmured softly to her. and i was left alone--all alone, on this night. * * * i was all alone on this night--all alone on this silent, soft, warm, early spring night. i opened my window and looked out into the open, at the dark blue night sky, and at the shimmering stars that were like brilliants. and i asked myself: "is it then true? is it then true?... "is it then true that i have lost my happiness--lost my happiness for ever? "is it then true that with my own hands i took and burnt my wonderful dream-palace, and let go from me the divine queen's daughter whom i had myself bewitched, once on a time, years ago? is it then so? is it so? maybe it is not so? perhaps i have come in time? 'i am come into my garden, my sister, my spouse.'" ... i sat at the open window for a long time on this night. and i exchanged whispered secrets with the silent, soft, warm early spring night that was full--strangely full--of secrets and mysteries.... on this night, i made a discovery-- that i loved busie with that holy, burning love which is so wonderfully described in our "song of songs." big fiery letters seemed to carve themselves out before my eyes. they formed themselves into the words which i had only just recited, my father and i--the words of the "song of songs." i read the carved words, letter by letter. "love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave: the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame." on this night, i sat down at my open window, and i asked of the night which was full of secrets and mysteries, that she should tell me this secret: "is it true that i have lost busie for ever? is it then true?" ... but she is silent--this night of secrets and mysteries. and the secret must remain a secret for me--until the morrow. "tomorrow," busie had said to me, "we will talk." ah! tomorrow we will talk!... only let the night go by--only let it vanish, this night! this night! this night! the end * * * * * _new borzoi novels_ _spring, _ wanderers _knut hamsun_ men of affairs _roland pertwee_ the fair rewards _thomas beer_ i walked in arden _jack crawford_ guest the one-eyed _gunnar gunnarsson_ the garden party _katherine mansfield_ the longest journey _e. m. forster_ the soul of a child _edwin björkman_ cytherea _joseph hergesheimer_ explorers of the dawn _mazo de la roche_ the white kami _edward alden jewell_ proofreaders children of the ghetto a study of a peculiar people by i. zangwill author of "the master," "the king of schnorrers" "dreamers of the ghetto," "without prejudice," etc. preface to the third edition. the issue of a one-volume edition gives me the opportunity of thanking the public and the critics for their kindly reception of this chart of a _terra incognita_, and of restoring the original sub-title, which is a reply to some criticisms upon its artistic form. the book is intended as a study, through typical figures, of a race whose persistence is the most remarkable fact in the history of the world, the faith and morals of which it has so largely moulded. at the request of numerous readers i have reluctantly added a glossary of 'yiddish' words and phrases, based on one supplied to the american edition by another hand. i have omitted only those words which occur but once and are then explained in the text; and to each word i have added an indication of the language from which it was drawn. this may please those who share mr. andrew lang's and miss rosa dartle's desire for information. it will be seen that most of these despised words are pure hebrew; a language which never died off the lips of men, and which is the medium in which books are written all the world over even unto this day. i.z. london, march, . contents. book i. the children of the ghetto. proem i. the bread of affliction ii. the sweater iii. malka iv. the redemption of the son and the daughter v. the pauper alien vi. "reb" shemuel vii. the neo-hebrew poet viii. esther and her children ix. dutch debby x. a silent family xi. the purim ball xii. the sons of the covenant xiii. sugarman's barmitzvah party xiv. the hope of the family xv. the holy land league xvi. the courtship of shosshi shmendrik xvii. the hyams's honeymoon xviii. the hebrew's friday night xix. with the strikers xx. the hope extinct xxi. the jargon players xxii. "for auld lang syne, my dear" xxiii. the dead monkey xxiv. the shadow of religion xxv. seder night book ii. the grandchildren of the ghetto. i. the christmas dinner ii. raphael leon iii. "the flag of judah" iv. the troubles of an editor v. a woman's growth vi. comedy or tragedy? vii. what the years brought viii. the ends of a generation ix. the "flag" flutters x. esther defies the universe xi. going home xii. a sheaf of sequels xiii. the dead monkey again xiv. sidney settles down xv. from soul to soul xvi. love's temptation xvii. the prodigal son xviii. hopes and dreams proem. not here in our london ghetto the gates and gaberdines of the olden ghetto of the eternal city; yet no lack of signs external by which one may know it, and those who dwell therein. its narrow streets have no specialty of architecture; its dirt is not picturesque. it is no longer the stage for the high-buskined tragedy of massacre and martyrdom; only for the obscurer, deeper tragedy that evolves from the pressure of its own inward forces, and the long-drawn-out tragi-comedy of sordid and shifty poverty. natheless, this london ghetto of ours is a region where, amid uncleanness and squalor, the rose of romance blows yet a little longer in the raw air of english reality; a world which hides beneath its stony and unlovely surface an inner world of dreams, fantastic and poetic as the mirage of the orient where they were woven, of superstitions grotesque as the cathedral gargoyles of the dark ages in which they had birth. and over all lie tenderly some streaks of celestial light shining from the face of the great lawgiver. the folk who compose our pictures are children of the ghetto; their faults are bred of its hovering miasma of persecution, their virtues straitened and intensified by the narrowness of its horizon. and they who have won their way beyond its boundaries must still play their parts in tragedies and comedies--tragedies of spiritual struggle, comedies of material ambition--which are the aftermath of its centuries of dominance, the sequel of that long cruel night in jewry which coincides with the christian era. if they are not the children, they are at least the grandchildren of the ghetto. the particular ghetto that is the dark background upon which our pictures will be cast, is of voluntary formation. people who have been living in a ghetto for a couple of centuries, are not able to step outside merely because the gates are thrown down, nor to efface the brands on their souls by putting off the yellow badges. the isolation imposed from without will have come to seem the law of their being. but a minority will pass, by units, into the larger, freer, stranger life amid the execrations of an ever-dwindling majority. for better or for worse, or for both, the ghetto will be gradually abandoned, till at last it becomes only a swarming place for the poor and the ignorant, huddling together for social warmth. such people are their own ghetto gates; when they migrate they carry them across the sea to lands where they are not. into the heart of east london there poured from russia, from poland, from germany, from holland, streams of jewish exiles, refugees, settlers, few as well-to-do as the jew of the proverb, but all rich in their cheerfulness, their industry, and their cleverness. the majority bore with them nothing but their phylacteries and praying shawls, and a good-natured contempt for christians and christianity. for the jew has rarely been embittered by persecution. he knows that he is in _goluth_, in exile, and that the days of the messiah are not yet, and he looks upon the persecutor merely as the stupid instrument of an all-wise providence. so that these poor jews were rich in all the virtues, devout yet tolerant, and strong in their reliance on faith, hope, and more especially charity. in the early days of the nineteenth century, all israel were brethren. even the pioneer colony of wealthy sephardim--descendants of the spanish crypto-jews who had reached england _via_ holland--had modified its boycott of the poor ashkenazic immigrants, now they were become an overwhelming majority. there was a superior stratum of anglo-german jews who had had time to get on, but all the ashkenazic tribes lived very much like a happy family, the poor not stand-offish towards the rich, but anxious to afford them opportunities for well-doing. the _schnorrer_ felt no false shame in his begging. he knew it was the rich man's duty to give him unleavened bread at passover, and coals in the winter, and odd half-crowns at all seasons; and he regarded himself as the jacob's ladder by which the rich man mounted to paradise. but, like all genuine philanthropists, he did not look for gratitude. he felt that virtue was its own reward, especially when he sat in sabbath vesture at the head of his table on friday nights, and thanked god in an operatic aria for the white cotton table-cloth and the fried sprats. he sought personal interviews with the most majestic magnates, and had humorous repartees for their lumbering censure. as for the rich, they gave charity unscrupulously--in the same oriental, unscientific, informal spirit in which the _dayanim_, those cadis of the east end, administered justice. the _takif_, or man of substance, was as accustomed to the palm of the mendicant outside the great synagogue as to the rattling pyx within. they lived in bury street, and prescott street, and finsbury--these aristocrats of the ghetto--in mansions that are now but congeries of "apartments." few relations had they with belgravia, but many with petticoat lane and the great _shool_, the stately old synagogue which has always been illuminated by candles and still refuses all modern light. the spanish jews had a more ancient _snoga_, but it was within a stone's throw of the "duke's place" edifice. decorum was not a feature of synagogue worship in those days, nor was the almighty yet conceived as the holder of formal receptions once a week. worshippers did not pray with bated breath, as if afraid that the deity would overhear them. they were at ease in zion. they passed the snuff-boxes and remarks about the weather. the opportunities of skipping afforded by a too exuberant liturgy promoted conversation, and even stocks were discussed in the terrible _longueurs_ induced by the meaningless ministerial repetition of prayers already said by the congregation, or by the official recitations of catalogues of purchased benedictions. sometimes, of course, this announcement of the offertory was interesting, especially when there was sensational competition. the great people bade in guineas for the privilege of rolling up the scroll of the law or drawing the curtain of the ark, or saying a particular _kaddish_ if they were mourners, and then thrills of reverence went round the congregation. the social hierarchy was to some extent graduated by synagogal contributions, and whoever could afford only a little offering had it announced as a "gift"--a vague term which might equally be the covering of a reticent munificence. very few persons, "called up" to the reading of the law, escaped at the cost they had intended, for one is easily led on by an insinuative official incapable of taking low views of the donor's generosity and a little deaf. the moment prior to the declaration of the amount was quite exciting for the audience. on sabbaths and festivals the authorities could not write down these sums, for writing is work and work is forbidden; even to write them in the book and volume of their brain would have been to charge their memories with an illegitimate if not an impossible burden. parchment books on a peculiar system with holes in the pages and laces to go through the holes solved the problem of bookkeeping without pen and ink. it is possible that many of the worshippers were tempted to give beyond their means for fear of losing the esteem of the _shammos_ or beadle, a potent personage only next in influence to the president whose overcoat he obsequiously removed on the greater man's annual visit to the synagogue. the beadle's eye was all over the _shool_ at once, and he could settle an altercation about seats without missing a single response. his automatic amens resounded magnificently through the synagogue, at once a stimulus and a rebuke. it was probably as a concession to him that poor men, who were neither seat-holders nor wearers of chimney-pot hats, were penned within an iron enclosure near the door of the building and ranged on backless benches, and it says much for the authority of the _shammos_ that not even the _schnorrer_ contested it. prayers were shouted rapidly by the congregation, and elaborately sung by the _chazan_. the minister was _vox et praeterea nihil_. he was the only musical instrument permitted, and on him devolved the whole onus of making the service attractive. he succeeded. he was helped by the sociability of the gathering--for the synagogue was virtually a jewish club, the focus of the sectarian life. hard times and bitter had some of the fathers of the ghetto, but they ate their dry bread with the salt of humor, loved their wives, and praised god for his mercies. unwitting of the genealogies that would be found for them by their prosperous grandchildren, old clo' men plied their trade in ambitious content. they were meek and timorous outside the ghetto, walking warily for fear of the christian. sufferance was still the badge of all their tribe. yet that there were jews who held their heads high, let the following legend tell: few men could shuffle along more inoffensively or cry "old clo'" with a meeker twitter than sleepy sol. the old man crawled one day, bowed with humility and clo'-bag, into a military mews and uttered his tremulous chirp. to him came one of the hostlers with insolent beetling brow. "any gold lace?" faltered sleepy sol. "get out!" roared the hostler. "i'll give you de best prices," pleaded sleepy sol. "get out!" repeated the hostler and hustled the old man into the street. "if i catch you 'ere again, i'll break your neck." sleepy sol loved his neck, but the profit on gold lace torn from old uniforms was high. next week he crept into the mews again, trusting to meet another hostler. "clo'! clo'!" he chirped faintly. alas! the brawny bully was to the fore again and recognized him. "you dirty old jew," he cried. "take that, and that! the next time i sees you, you'll go 'ome on a shutter." the old man took that, and that, and went on his way. the next day he came again. "clo'! clo'!" he whimpered. "what!" said the ruffian, his coarse cheeks flooded with angry blood. "ev yer forgotten what i promised yer?" he seized sleepy sol by the scruff of the neck. "i say, why can't you leave the old man alone?" the hostler stared at the protester, whose presence he had not noticed in the pleasurable excitement of the moment. it was a jewish young man, indifferently attired in a pepper-and-salt suit. the muscular hostler measured him scornfully with his eye. "what's to do with you?" he said, with studied contempt. "nothing," admitted the intruder. "and what harm is he doing you?" "that's my bizness," answered the hostler, and tightened his clutch of sleepy sol's nape. "well, you'd better not mind it," answered the young man calmly. "let go."' the hostler's thick lips emitted a disdainful laugh. "let go, d'you hear?" repeated the young man. "i'll let go at your nose," said the hostler, clenching his knobby fist. "very well," said the young man. "then i'll pull yours." "oho!" said the hostler, his scowl growing fiercer. "yer means bizness, does yer?" with that he sent sleepy sol staggering along the road and rolled up his shirt-sleeves. his coat was already off. the young man did not remove his; he quietly assumed the defensive. the hostler sparred up to him with grim earnestness, and launched a terrible blow at his most characteristic feature. the young man blandly put it on one side, and planted a return blow on the hostler's ear. enraged, his opponent sprang upon him. the young jew paralyzed him by putting his left hand negligently into his pocket. with his remaining hand he closed the hostler's right eye, and sent the flesh about it into mourning. then he carelessly tapped a little blood from the hostler's nose, gave him a few thumps on the chest as if to test the strength of his lungs, and laid him sprawling in the courtyard. a brother hostler ran out from the stables and gave a cry of astonishment. "you'd better wipe his face," said the young man curtly. the newcomer hurried back towards the stables. "vait a moment," said sleepy sol "i can sell you a sponge sheap; i've got a beauty in my bag." there were plenty of sponges about, but the newcomer bought the second-hand sponge. "do you want any more?" the young man affably inquired of his prostrate adversary. the hostler gave a groan. he was shamed before a friend whom he had early convinced of his fistic superiority. "no, i reckon he don't," said his friend, with a knowing grin at the conqueror. "then i will wish you a good day," said the young man. "come along, father." "yes, ma son-in-law," said sleepy sol. "do you know who that was, joe?" said his friend, as he sponged away the blood. joe shook his head. "that was dutch sam," said his friend in an awe-struck whisper. all joe's body vibrated with surprise and respect. dutch sam was the champion bruiser of his time; in private life an eminent dandy and a prime favorite of his majesty george iv., and sleepy sol had a beautiful daughter and was perhaps prepossessing himself when washed for the sabbath. "dutch sam!" joe repeated. "dutch sam! why, we've got his picter hanging up inside, only he's naked to the waist." "well, strike me lucky! what a fool i was not to rekkernize 'im!" his battered face brightened up. "no wonder he licked me!" except for the comparative infrequency of the more bestial types of men and women, judaea has always been a cosmos in little, and its prize-fighters and scientists, its philosophers and "fences," its gymnasts and money-lenders, its scholars and stockbrokers, its musicians, chess-players, poets, comic singers, lunatics, saints, publicans, politicians, warriors, poltroons, mathematicians, actors, foreign correspondents, have always been in the first rank. _nihil alienum a se judaeus putat_. joe and his friend fell to recalling dutch sam's great feats. each out-vied the other in admiration for the supreme pugilist. next day sleepy sol came rampaging down the courtyard. he walked at the rate of five miles to the hour, and despite the weight of his bag his head pointed to the zenith. "clo'!" he shrieked. "clo'!" joe the hostler came out. his head was bandaged, and in his hand was gold lace. it was something even to do business with a hero's father-in-law. but it is given to few men to marry their daughters to champion boxers: and as dutch sam was not a don quixote, the average peddler or huckster never enjoyed the luxury of prancing gait and cock-a-hoop business cry. the primitive fathers of the ghetto might have borne themselves more jauntily had they foreseen that they were to be the ancestors of mayors and aldermen descended from castilian hidalgos and polish kings, and that an unborn historian would conclude that the ghetto of their day was peopled by princes in disguise. they would have been as surprised to learn who they were as to be informed that they were orthodox. the great reform split did not occur till well on towards the middle of the century, and the jews of those days were unable to conceive that a man could be a jew without eating _kosher_ meat, and they would have looked upon the modern distinctions between racial and religious jews as the sophistries of the convert or the missionary. if their religious life converged to the great _shool_, their social life focussed on petticoat lane, a long, narrow thoroughfare which, as late as strype's day, was lined with beautiful trees: vastly more pleasant they must have been than the faded barrows and beggars of after days. the lane--such was its affectionate sobriquet--was the stronghold of hard-shell judaism, the alsatia of "infidelity" into which no missionary dared set foot, especially no apostate-apostle. even in modern days the new-fangled jewish minister of the fashionable suburb, rigged out, like the christian clergyman, has been mistaken for such a _meshumad_, and pelted with gratuitous vegetables and eleemosynary eggs. the lane was always the great market-place, and every insalubrious street and alley abutting on it was covered with the overflowings of its commerce and its mud. wentworth street and goulston street were the chief branches, and in festival times the latter was a pandemonium of caged poultry, clucking and quacking and cackling and screaming. fowls and geese and ducks were bought alive, and taken to have their throats cut for a fee by the official slaughterer. at purim a gaiety, as of the roman carnival, enlivened the swampy wentworth street, and brought a smile into the unwashed face of the pavement. the confectioners' shops, crammed with "stuffed monkeys" and "bolas," were besieged by hilarious crowds of handsome girls and their young men, fat women and their children, all washing down the luscious spicy compounds with cups of chocolate; temporarily erected swinging cradles bore a vociferous many-colored burden to the skies; cardboard noses, grotesque in their departure from truth, abounded. the purim _spiel_ or purim play never took root in england, nor was haman ever burnt in the streets, but _shalachmonos_, or gifts of the season, passed between friend and friend, and masquerading parties burst into neighbors' houses. but the lane was lively enough on the ordinary friday and sunday. the famous sunday fair was an event of metropolitan importance, and thither came buyers of every sect. the friday fair was more local, and confined mainly to edibles. the ante-festival fairs combined something of the other two, for jews desired to sport new hats and clothes for the holidays as well as to eat extra luxuries, and took the opportunity of a well-marked epoch to invest in new everythings from oil-cloth to cups and saucers. especially was this so at passover, when for a week the poorest jew must use a supplementary set of crockery and kitchen utensils. a babel of sound, audible for several streets around, denoted market day in petticoat lane, and the pavements were blocked by serried crowds going both ways at once. it was only gradually that the community was anglicized. under the sway of centrifugal impulses, the wealthier members began to form new colonies, moulting their old feathers and replacing them by finer, and flying ever further from the centre. men of organizing ability founded unrivalled philanthropic and educational institutions on british lines; millionaires fought for political emancipation; brokers brazenly foisted themselves on 'change; ministers gave sermons in bad english; an english journal was started; very slowly, the conventional anglican tradition was established; and on that human palimpsest which has borne the inscriptions of all languages and all epochs, was writ large the sign-manual of england. judaea prostrated itself before the dagon of its hereditary foe, the philistine, and respectability crept on to freeze the blood of the orient with its frigid finger, and to blur the vivid tints of the east into the uniform gray of english middle-class life. in the period within which our story moves, only vestiges of the old gaiety and brotherhood remained; the full _al fresco_ flavor was evaporated. and to-day they are alt dead--the _takeefim_ with big hearts and bigger purses, and the humorous _schnorrers_, who accepted their gold, and the cheerful pious peddlers who rose from one extreme to the other, building up fabulous fortunes in marvellous ways. the young mothers, who suckled their babes in the sun, have passed out of the sunshine; yea, and the babes, too, have gone down with gray heads to the dust. dead are the fair fat women, with tender hearts, who waddled benignantly through life, ever ready to shed the sympathetic tear, best of wives, and cooks, and mothers; dead are the bald, ruddy old men, who ambled about in faded carpet slippers, and passed the snuff-box of peace: dead are the stout-hearted youths who sailed away to tom tiddler's ground; and dead are the buxom maidens they led under the wedding canopy when they returned. even the great dr. sequira, pompous in white stockings, physician extraordinary to the prince regent of portugal, lies vanquished by his life-long adversary and the baal shem himself, king of cabalists, could command no countervailing miracle. where are the little girls in white pinafores with pink sashes who brightened the ghetto on high days and holidays? where is the beauteous betsy of the victoria ballet? and where the jocund synagogue dignitary who led off the cotillon with her at the annual rejoicing of the law? worms have long since picked the great financier's brain, the embroidered waistcoats of the bucks have passed even beyond the stage of adorning sweeps on may day, and dutch sam's fist is bonier than ever. the same mould covers them all--those who donated guineas and those who donated "gifts," the rogues and the hypocrites, and the wedding-drolls, the observant and the lax, the purse-proud and the lowly, the coarse and the genteel, the wonderful chapmen and the luckless _schlemihls_, rabbi and _dayan_ and _shochet_, the scribes who wrote the sacred scroll and the cantors who trolled it off mellifluous tongues, and the betting-men who never listened to it; the grimy russians of the capotes and the earlocks, and the blue-blooded dons, "the gentlemen of the mahamad," who ruffled it with swords and knee-breeches in the best christian society. those who kneaded the toothsome "bolas" lie with those who ate them; and the marriage-brokers repose with those they mated. the olives and the cucumbers grow green and fat as of yore, but their lovers are mixed with a soil that is barren of them. the restless, bustling crowds that jostled laughingly in rag fair are at rest in the "house of life;" the pageant of their strenuous generation is vanished as a dream. they died with the declaration of god's unity on their stiffening lips, and the certainty of resurrection in their pulseless hearts, and a faded hebrew inscription on a tomb, or an unread entry on a synagogue brass is their only record. and yet, perhaps, their generation is not all dust. perchance, here and there, some decrepit centenarian rubs his purblind eyes with the ointment of memory, and sees these pictures of the past, hallowed by the consecration of time, and finds his shrivelled cheek wet with the pathos sanctifying the joys that have been. book i. children of the ghetto. chapter i. the bread of affliction. a dead and gone wag called the street "fashion street," and most of the people who live in it do not even see the joke. if it could exchange names with "rotten row," both places would be more appropriately designated. it is a dull, squalid, narrow thoroughfare in the east end of london, connecting spitalfields with whitechapel, and branching off in blind alleys. in the days when little esther ansell trudged its unclean pavements, its extremities were within earshot of the blasphemies from some of the vilest quarters and filthiest rookeries in the capital of the civilized world. some of these clotted spiders'-webs have since been swept away by the besom of the social reformer, and the spiders have scurried off into darker crannies. there were the conventional touches about the london street-picture, as esther ansell sped through the freezing mist of the december evening, with a pitcher in her hand, looking in her oriental coloring like a miniature of rebecca going to the well. a female street-singer, with a trail of infants of dubious maternity, troubled the air with a piercing melody; a pair of slatterns with arms a-kimbo reviled each other's relatives; a drunkard lurched along, babbling amiably; an organ-grinder, blue-nosed as his monkey, set some ragged children jigging under the watery rays of a street-lamp. esther drew her little plaid shawl tightly around her, and ran on without heeding these familiar details, her chilled feet absorbing the damp of the murky pavement through the worn soles of her cumbrous boots. they were masculine boots, kicked off by some intoxicated tramp and picked up by esther's father. moses ansell had a habit of lighting on windfalls, due, perhaps, to his meek manner of walking with bent head, as though literally bowed beneath the yoke of the captivity. providence rewarded him for his humility by occasional treasure-trove. esther had received a pair of new boots from her school a week before, and the substitution, of the tramp's foot-gear for her own resulted in a net profit of half-a-crown, and kept esther's little brothers and sisters in bread for a week. at school, under her teacher's eye, esther was very unobtrusive about the feet for the next fortnight, but as the fear of being found out died away, even her rather morbid conscience condoned the deception in view of the stomachic gain. they gave away bread and milk at the school, too, but esther and her brothers and sisters never took either, for fear of being thought in want of them. the superiority of a class-mate is hard to bear, and a high-spirited child will not easily acknowledge starvation in presence of a roomful of purse-proud urchins, some of them able to spend a farthing a day on pure luxuries. moses ansell would have been grieved had he known his children were refusing the bread he could not give them. trade was slack in the sweating dens, and moses, who had always lived from hand to mouth, had latterly held less than ever between the one and the other. he had applied for help to the jewish board of guardians, but red-tape rarely unwinds as quickly as hunger coils itself; moreover, moses was an old offender in poverty at the court of charity. but there was one species of alms which moses could not be denied, and the existence of which esther could not conceal from him as she concealed that of the eleemosynary breakfasts at the school. for it was known to all men that soup and bread were to be had for the asking thrice a week at the institution in fashion street, and in the ansell household the opening of the soup-kitchen was looked forward to as the dawn of a golden age, when it would be impossible to pass more than one day without bread. the vaguely-remembered smell of the soup threw a poetic fragrance over the coming winter. every year since esther's mother had died, the child had been sent to fetch home the provender, for moses, who was the only other available member of the family, was always busy praying when he had nothing better to do. and so to-night esther fared to the kitchen, with her red pitcher, passing in her childish eagerness numerous women shuffling along on the same errand, and bearing uncouth tin cans supplied by the institution. an individualistic instinct of cleanliness made esther prefer the family pitcher. to-day this liberty of choice has been taken away, and the regulation can, numbered and stamped, serves as a soup-ticket. there was quite a crowd of applicants outside the stable-like doors of the kitchen when esther arrived, a few with well-lined stomachs, perhaps, but the majority famished and shivering. the feminine element swamped the rest, but there were about a dozen men and a few children among the group, most of the men scarce taller than the children--strange, stunted, swarthy, hairy creatures, with muddy complexions illumined by black, twinkling eyes. a few were of imposing stature, wearing coarse, dusty felt hats or peaked caps, with shaggy beards or faded scarfs around their throats. here and there, too, was a woman of comely face and figure, but for the most part it was a collection of crones, prematurely aged, with weird, wan, old-world features, slip-shod and draggle-tailed, their heads bare, or covered with dingy shawls in lieu of bonnets--red shawls, gray shawls, brick-dust shawls, mud-colored shawls. yet there was an indefinable touch of romance and pathos about the tawdriness and witch-like ugliness, and an underlying identity about the crowd of polish, russian, german, dutch jewesses, mutually apathetic, and pressing forwards. some of them had infants at their bare breasts, who drowsed quietly with intervals of ululation. the women devoid of shawls had nothing around their necks to protect them from the cold, the dusky throats were exposed, and sometimes even the first hooks and eyes of the bodice were unnecessarily undone. the majority wore cheap earrings and black wigs with preternaturally polished hair; where there was no wig, the hair was touzled. at half-past five the stable-doors were thrown open, and the crowd pressed through a long, narrow white-washed stone corridor into a barn-like compartment, with a white-washed ceiling traversed by wooden beams. within this compartment, and leaving but a narrow, circumscribing border, was a sort of cattle-pen, into which the paupers crushed, awaiting amid discomfort and universal jabber the divine moment. the single jet of gas-light depending from the ceiling flared upon the strange simian faces, and touched them into a grotesque picturesqueness that would have delighted doré. they felt hungry, these picturesque people; their near and dear ones were hungering at home. voluptuously savoring in imagination the operation of the soup, they forgot its operation as a dole in aid of wages; were unconscious of the grave economical possibilities of pauperization and the rest, and quite willing to swallow their independence with the soup. even esther, who had read much, and was sensitive, accepted unquestioningly the theory of the universe that was held by most people about her, that human beings were distinguished from animals in having to toil terribly for a meagre crust, but that their lot was lightened by the existence of a small and semi-divine class called _takeefim_, or rich people, who gave away what they didn't want. how these rich people came to be, esther did not inquire; they were as much a part of the constitution of things as clouds and horses. the semi-celestial variety was rarely to be met with. it lived far away from the ghetto, and a small family of it was said to occupy a whole house. representatives of it, clad in rustling silks or impressive broad-cloth, and radiating an indefinable aroma of superhumanity, sometimes came to the school, preceded by the beaming head mistress; and then all the little girls rose and curtseyed, and the best of them, passing as average members of the class, astonished the semi-divine persons by their intimate acquaintance with the topography of the pyrenees and the disagreements of saul and david, the intercourse of the two species ending in effusive smiles and general satisfaction. but the dullest of the girls was alive to the comedy, and had a good-humored contempt for the unworldliness of the semi-divine persons who spoke to them as if they were not going to recommence squabbling, and pulling one another's hair, and copying one another's sums, and stealing one another's needles, the moment the semi-celestial backs were turned. to-night, semi-divine persons were to be seen in a galaxy of splendor, for in the reserved standing-places, behind the white deal counter, was gathered a group of philanthropists. the room was an odd-shaped polygon, partially lined with eight boilers, whose great wooden lids were raised by pulleys and balanced by red-painted iron balls. in the corner stood the cooking-engine. cooks in white caps and blouses stirred the steaming soup with long wooden paddles. a tradesman besought the attention of the jewish reporters to the improved boiler he had manufactured, and the superintendent adjured the newspaper men not to omit his name; while amid the soberly-clad clergymen flitted, like gorgeous humming-birds through a flock of crows, the marriageable daughters of an east-end minister. when a sufficient number of semi-divinities was gathered together, the president addressed the meeting at considerable length, striving to impress upon the clergymen and other philanthropists present that charity was a virtue, and appealing to the bible, the koran, and even the vedas, for confirmation of his proposition. early in his speech the sliding door that separated the cattle-pen from the kitchen proper had to be closed, because the jostling crowd jabbered so much and inconsiderate infants squalled, and there did not seem to be any general desire to hear the president's ethical views. they were a low material lot, who thought only of their bellies, and did but chatter the louder when the speech was shut out. they had overflowed their barriers by this time, and were surging cruelly to and fro, and esther had to keep her elbows close to her sides lest her arms should be dislocated. outside the stable doors a shifting array of boys and girls hovered hungrily and curiously. when the president had finished, the rabbinate was invited to address the philanthropists, which it did at not less length, eloquently seconding the proposition that charity was a virtue. then the door was slid back, and the first two paupers were admitted, the rest of the crowd being courageously kept at bay by the superintendent. the head cook filled a couple of plates with soup, dipping a great pewter pot into the cauldron. the rabbinate then uplifted its eyes heavenwards, and said the grace: "blessed art thou, o lord, king of the universe, according to whose word all things exist." it then tasted a spoonful of the soup, as did also the president and several of the visitors, the passage of the fluid along the palate invariably evoking approving ecstatic smiles; and indeed, there was more body in it this opening night than there would be later, when, in due course, the bulk of the meat would take its legitimate place among the pickings of office. the sight of the delighted deglutition of the semi-divine persons made esther's mouth water as she struggled for breathing space on the outskirts of paradise. the impatience which fretted her was almost allayed by visions of stout-hearted solomon and gentle rachel and whimpering little sarah and ikey, all gulping down the delicious draught. even the more stoical father and grandmother were a little in her thoughts. the ansells had eaten nothing but a slice of dry bread each in the morning. here before her, in the land of goshen, flowing with soup, was piled up a heap of halves of loaves, while endless other loaves were ranged along the shelves as for a giant's table. esther looked ravenously at the four-square tower built of edible bricks, shivering as the biting air sought out her back through a sudden interstice in the heaving mass. the draught reminded her more keenly of her little ones huddled together in the fireless garret at home. ah! what a happy night was in store. she must not let them devour the two loaves to-night; that would be criminal extravagance. no, one would suffice for the banquet, the other must be carefully put by. "to-morrow is also a day," as the old grandmother used to say in her quaint jargon. but the banquet was not to be spread as fast as esther's fancy could fly; the doors must be shut again, other semi-divine and wholly divine persons (in white ties) must move and second (with eloquence and length) votes of thanks to the president, the rabbinate, and all other available recipients; a french visitor must express his admiration of english charity. but at last the turn of the gnawing stomachs came. the motley crowd, still babbling, made a slow, forward movement, squeezing painfully through the narrow aperture, and shivering a plate glass window pane at the side of the cattle-pen in the crush; the semi-divine persons rubbed their hands and smiled genially; ingenious paupers tried to dodge round to the cauldrons by the semi-divine entrance; the tropical humming-birds fluttered among the crows; there was a splashing of ladles and a gurgling of cascades of soup into the cans, and a hubbub of voices; a toothless, white-haired, blear-eyed hag lamented in excellent english that soup was refused her, owing to her case not having yet been investigated, and her tears moistened the one loaf she received. in like hard case a russian threw himself on the stones and howled. but at last esther was running through the mist, warmed by the pitcher which she hugged to her bosom, and suppressing the blind impulse to pinch the pair of loaves tied up in her pinafore. she almost flew up the dark flight of stairs to the attic in royal street. little sarah was sobbing querulously. esther, conscious of being an angel of deliverance, tried to take the last two steps at once, tripped and tumbled ignominiously against the garret-door, which flew back and let her fall into the room with a crash. the pitcher shivered into fragments under her aching little bosom, the odorous soup spread itself in an irregular pool over the boards, and flowed under the two beds and dripped down the crevices into the room beneath. esther burst into tears; her frock was wet and greased, her hands were cut and bleeding. little sarah checked her sobs at the disaster. moses ansell was not yet returned from evening service, but the withered old grandmother, whose wizened face loomed through the gloom of the cold, unlit garret, sat up on the bed and cursed her angrily for a _schlemihl_. a sense of injustice made esther cry more bitterly. she had never broken anything for years past. ikey, an eerie-looking dot of four and a half years, tottered towards her (all the ansells had learnt to see in the dark), and nestling his curly head against her wet bodice, murmured: "neva mind, estie, i lat oo teep in my new bed." the consolation of sleeping in that imaginary new bed to the possession of which ikey was always looking forward was apparently adequate; for esther got up from the floor and untied the loaves from her pinafore. a reckless spirit of defiance possessed her, as of a gambler who throws good money after bad. they should have a mad revelry to-night--the two loaves should be eaten at once. one (minus a hunk for father's supper) would hardly satisfy six voracious appetites. solomon and rachel, irrepressibly excited by the sight of the bread, rushed at it greedily, snatched a loaf from esther's hand, and tore off a crust each with their fingers. "heathen," cried the old grandmother. "washing and benediction." solomon was used to being called a "heathen" by the _bube_. he put on his cap and went grudgingly to the bucket of water that stood in a corner of the room, and tipped a drop over his fingers. it is to be feared that neither the quantity of water nor the area of hand covered reached even the minimum enjoined by rabbinical law. he murmured something intended for hebrew during the operation, and was beginning to mutter the devout little sentence which precedes the eating of bread when rachel, who as a female was less driven to the lavatory ceremony, and had thus got ahead of him, paused in her ravenous mastication and made a wry face. solomon took a huge bite at his crust, then he uttered an inarticulate "pooh," and spat out his mouthful. there was no salt in the bread. chapter ii. the sweater. the catastrophe was not complete. there were some long thin fibres of pale boiled meat, whose juices had gone to enrich the soup, lying about the floor or adhering to the fragments of the pitcher. solomon, who was a curly-headed chap of infinite resource, discovered them, and it had just been decided to neutralize the insipidity of the bread by the far-away flavor of the meat, when a peremptory knocking was heard at the door, and a dazzling vision of beauty bounded into the room. "'ere! what are you doin', leavin' things leak through our ceiling?" becky belcovitch was a buxom, bouncing girl, with cherry cheeks that looked exotic in a land of pale faces. she wore a mass of black crisp ringlets aggressively suggestive of singeing and curl-papers. she was the belle of royal street in her spare time, and womanly triumphs dogged even her working hours. she was sixteen years old, and devoted her youth and beauty to buttonholes. in the east end, where a spade is a spade, a buttonhole is a buttonhole, and not a primrose or a pansy. there are two kinds of buttonhole--the coarse for slop goods and the fine for gentlemanly wear. becky concentrated herself on superior buttonholes, which are worked with fine twist. she stitched them in her father's workshop, which was more comfortable than a stranger's, and better fitted for evading the factory acts. to-night she was radiant in silk and jewelry, and her pert snub nose had the insolence of felicity which agamemnon deprecated. seeing her, you would have as soon connected her with esoteric buddhism as with buttonholes. the _bube_ explained the situation in voluble yiddish, and made esther wince again under the impassioned invective on her clumsiness. the old beldame expended enough oriental metaphor on the accident to fit up a minor poet. if the family died of starvation, their blood would be upon their granddaughter's head. "well, why don't you wipe it up, stupid?" said becky. "'ow would you like to pay for pesach's new coat? it just dripped past his shoulder." "i'm so sorry, becky," said esther, striving hard to master the tremor in her voice. and drawing a house-cloth from a mysterious recess, she went on her knees in a practical prayer for pardon. becky snorted and went back to her sister's engagement-party. for this was the secret of her gorgeous vesture, of her glittering earrings, and her massive brooch, as it was the secret of the transformation of the belcovitch workshop (and living room) into a hall of dazzling light. four separate gaunt bare arms of iron gas-pipe lifted hymeneal torches. the labels from reels of cotton, pasted above the mantelpiece as indexes of work done, alone betrayed the past and future of the room. at a long narrow table, covered with a white table-cloth spread with rum, gin, biscuits and fruit, and decorated with two wax candles in tall, brass candlesticks, stood or sat a group of swarthy, neatly-dressed poles, most of them in high hats. a few women wearing wigs, silk dresses, and gold chains wound round half-washed necks, stood about outside the inner circle. a stooping black-bearded blear-eyed man in a long threadbare coat and a black skull cap, on either side of which hung a corkscrew curl, sat abstractedly eating the almonds and raisins, in the central place of honor which befits a _maggid_. before him were pens and ink and a roll of parchment. this was the engagement contract. the damages of breach of promise were assessed in advance and without respect of sex. whichever side repented of the bargain undertook to pay ten pounds by way of compensation for the broken pledge. as a nation, israel is practical and free from cant. romance and moonshine are beautiful things, but behind the glittering veil are always the stern realities of things and the weaknesses of human nature. the high contracting parties were signing the document as becky returned. the bridegroom, who halted a little on one leg, was a tall sallow man named pesach weingott. he was a boot-maker, who could expound the talmud and play the fiddle, but was unable to earn a living. he was marrying fanny belcovitch because his parents-in-law would give him free board and lodging for a year, and because he liked her. fanny was a plump, pulpy girl, not in the prime of youth. her complexion was fair and her manner lymphatic, and if she was not so well-favored as her sister, she was more amiable and pleasant. she could sing sweetly in yiddish and in english, and had once been a pantomime fairy at ten shillings a week, and had even flourished a cutlass as a midshipman. but she had long since given up the stage, to become her father's right hand woman in the workshop. she made coats from morning till midnight at a big machine with a massive treadle, and had pains in her chest even before she fell in love with pesach weingott. there was a hubbub of congratulation (_mazzoltov, mazzoltov_, good luck), and a palsy of handshaking, when the contract was signed. remarks, grave and facetious, flew about in yiddish, with phrases of polish and russian thrown in for auld lang syne, and cups and jugs were broken in reminder of the transiency of things mortal. the belcovitches had been saving up their already broken crockery for the occasion. the hope was expressed that mr. and mrs. belcovitch would live to see "rejoicings" on their other daughter, and to see their daughters' daughters under the _chuppah_, or wedding-canopy. becky's hardened cheek blushed under the oppressive jocularity. everybody spoke yiddish habitually at no. royal street, except the younger generation, and that spoke it to the elder. "i always said, no girl of mine should marry a dutchman." it was a dominant thought of mr. belcovitch's, and it rose spontaneously to his lips at this joyful moment. next to a christian, a dutch jew stood lowest in the gradation of potential sons-in-law. spanish jews, earliest arrivals by way of holland, after the restoration, are a class apart, and look down on the later imported _ashkenazim_, embracing both poles and dutchmen in their impartial contempt. but this does not prevent the pole and the dutchman from despising each other. to a dutch or russian jew, the "pullack," or polish jew, is a poor creature; and scarce anything can exceed the complacency with which the "pullack" looks down upon the "litvok" or lithuanian, the degraded being whose shibboleth is literally sibboleth, and who says "ee" where rightly constituted persons say "oo." to mimic the mincing pronunciation of the "litvok" affords the "pullack" a sense of superiority almost equalling that possessed by the english jew, whose mispronunciation of the holy tongue is his title to rank far above all foreign varieties. yet a vein of brotherhood runs beneath all these feelings of mutual superiority; like the cliqueism which draws together old clo' dealers, though each gives fifty per cent, more than any other dealer in the trade. the dutch foregather in a district called "the dutch tenters;" they eat voraciously, and almost monopolize the ice-cream, hot pea, diamond-cutting, cucumber, herring, and cigar trades. they are not so cute as the russians. their women are distinguished from other women by the flaccidity of their bodices; some wear small woollen caps and sabots. when esther read in her school-books that the note of the dutch character was cleanliness, she wondered. she looked in vain for the scrupulously scoured floors and the shining caps and faces. only in the matter of tobacco-smoke did the dutch people she knew live up to the geographical "readers." german jews gravitate to polish and russian; and french jews mostly stay in france. _ici on ne parle pas français_, is the only lingual certainty in the london ghetto, which is a cosmopolitan quarter. "i always said no girl of mine should marry a dutchman." mr. belcovitch spoke as if at the close of a long career devoted to avoiding dutch alliances, forgetting that not even one of his daughters was yet secure. "nor any girl of mine," said mrs. belcovitch, as if starting a separate proposition. "i would not trust a dutchman with my medicine-bottle, much less with my alte or my becky. dutchmen were not behind the door when the almighty gave out noses, and their deceitfulness is in proportion to their noses." the company murmured assent, and one gentleman, with a rather large organ, concealed it in a red cotton handkerchief, trumpeting uneasily. "the holy one, blessed be he, has given them larger noses than us," said the _maggid_, "because they have to talk through them so much." a guffaw greeted this sally. the _maggid's_ wit was relished even when not coming from the pulpit. to the outsider this disparagement of the dutch nose might have seemed a case of pot calling kettle black. the _maggid_ poured himself out a glass of rum, under cover of the laughter, and murmuring "life to you." in hebrew, gulped it down, and added, "they oughtn't to call it the dutch tongue, but the dutch nose." "yes, i always wonder how they can understand one another," said mrs. belcovitch, "with their _chatuchayacatigewesepoopa_." she laughed heartily over her onomatopoetic addition to the yiddish vocabulary, screwing up her nose to give it due effect. she was a small sickly-looking woman, with black eyes, and shrivelled skin, and the wig without which no virtuous wife is complete. for a married woman must sacrifice her tresses on the altar of home, lest she snare other men with such sensuous baits. as a rule, she enters into the spirit of the self-denying ordinance so enthusiastically as to become hideous hastily in every other respect. it is forgotten that a husband is also a man. mrs. belcovitch's head was not completely shaven and shorn, for a lower stratum of an unmatched shade of brown peeped out in front of the _shaitel_, not even coinciding as to the route of the central parting. meantime pesach weingott and alte (fanny) belcovitch held each other's hand, guiltily conscious of batavian corpuscles in the young man's blood. pesach had a dutch uncle, but as he had never talked like him alte alone knew. alte wasn't her real name, by the way, and alte was the last person in the world to know what it was. she was the belcovitches' first successful child; the others all died before she was born. driven frantic by a fate crueller than barrenness, the belcovitches consulted an old polish rabbi, who told them they displayed too much fond solicitude for their children, provoking heaven thereby; in future, they were to let no one but themselves know their next child's name, and never to whisper it till the child was safely married. in such wise, heaven would not be incessantly reminded of the existence of their dear one, and would not go out of its way to castigate them. the ruse succeeded, and alte was anxiously waiting to change both her names under the _chuppah_, and to gratify her life-long curiosity on the subject. meantime, her mother had been calling her "alte," or "old 'un," which sounded endearing to the child, but grated on the woman arriving ever nearer to the years of discretion. occasionally, mrs. belcovitch succumbed to the prevailing tendency, and called her "fanny," just as she sometimes thought of herself as mrs. belcovitch, though her name was kosminski. when alte first went to school in london, the head mistress said, "what's your name?" the little "old 'un" had not sufficient english to understand the question, but she remembered that the head mistress had made the same sounds to the preceding applicant, and, where some little girls would have put their pinafores to their eyes and cried, fanny showed herself full of resource. as the last little girl, though patently awe-struck, had come off with flying colors, merely by whimpering "fanny belcovitch," alte imitated these sounds as well as she was able. "fanny belcovitch, did you say?" said the head mistress, pausing with arrested pen. alte nodded her flaxen poll vigorously. "fanny belcovitch," she repeated, getting the syllables better on a second hearing. the head mistress turned to an assistant. "isn't it astonishing how names repeat themselves? two girls, one after the other, both with exactly the same name." they were used to coincidences in the school, where, by reason of the tribal relationship of the pupils, there was a great run on some half-a-dozen names. mr. kosminski took several years to understand that alte had disowned him. when it dawned upon him he was not angry, and acquiesced in his fate. it was the only domestic detail in which he had allowed himself to be led by his children. like his wife, chayah, he was gradually persuaded into the belief that he was a born belcovitch, or at least that belcovitch was kosminski translated into english. blissfully unconscious of the dutch taint in pesach weingott, bear belcovitch bustled about in reckless hospitality. he felt that engagements were not every-day events, and that even if his whole half-sovereign's worth of festive provision was swallowed up, he would not mind much. he wore a high hat, a well-preserved black coat, with a cutaway waistcoat, showing a quantity of glazed shirtfront and a massive watch chain. they were his sabbath clothes, and, like the sabbath they honored, were of immemorial antiquity. the shirt served him for seven sabbaths, or a week of sabbaths, being carefully folded after each. his boots had the sabbath polish. the hat was the one he bought when he first set up as a _baal habaas_ or respectable pillar of the synagogue; for even in the smallest _chevra_ the high hat comes next in sanctity to the scroll of the law, and he who does not wear it may never hope to attain to congregational dignities. the gloss on that hat was wonderful, considering it had been out unprotected in all winds and weathers. not that mr. belcovitch did not possess an umbrella. he had two,--one of fine new silk, the other a medley of broken ribs and cotton rags. becky had given him the first to prevent the family disgrace of the spectacle of his promenades with the second. but he would not carry the new one on week-days because it was too good. and on sabbaths it is a sin to carry any umbrella. so becky's self-sacrifice was vain, and her umbrella stood in the corner, a standing gratification to the proud possessor. kosminski had had a hard fight for his substance, and was not given to waste. he was a tall, harsh-looking man of fifty, with grizzled hair, to whom life meant work, and work meant money, and money meant savings. in parliamentary blue-books, english newspapers, and the berner street socialistic club, he was called a "sweater," and the comic papers pictured him with a protuberant paunch and a greasy smile, but he had not the remotest idea that he was other than a god-fearing, industrious, and even philanthropic citizen. the measure that had been dealt to him he did but deal to others. he saw no reason why immigrant paupers should not live on a crown a week while he taught them how to handle a press-iron or work a sewing machine. they were much better off than in poland. he would have been glad of such an income himself in those terrible first days of english life when he saw his wife and his two babes starving before his eyes, and was only precluded from investing a casual twopence in poison by ignorance of the english name for anything deadly. and what did he live on now? the fowl, the pint of haricot beans, and the haddocks which chayah purchased for the sabbath overlapped into the middle of next week, a quarter of a pound of coffee lasted the whole week, the grounds being decocted till every grain of virtue was extracted. black bread and potatoes and pickled herrings made up the bulk of the every-day diet no, no one could accuse bear belcovitch of fattening on the entrails of his employees. the furniture was of the simplest and shabbiest,--no aesthetic instinct urged the kosminskis to overpass the bare necessities of existence, except in dress. the only concessions to art were a crudely-colored _mizrach_ on the east wall, to indicate the direction towards which the jew should pray, and the mantelpiece mirror which was bordered with yellow scalloped paper (to save the gilt) and ornamented at each corner with paper roses that bloomed afresh every passover. and yet bear belcovitch had lived in much better style in poland, possessing a brass wash-hand basin, a copper saucepan, silver spoons, a silver consecration beaker, and a cupboard with glass doors, and he frequently adverted to their fond memories. but he brought nothing away except his bedding, and that was pawned in germany on the route. when he arrived in london he had with him three groschen and a family. "what do you think, pesach," said becky, as soon as she could get at her prospective brother-in-law through the barriers of congratulatory countrymen. "the stuff that came through there"--she pointed to the discolored fragment of ceiling--"was soup. that silly little esther spilt all she got from the kitchen." "_achi-nebbich_, poor little thing," cried mrs. kosminski, who was in a tender mood, "very likely it hungers them sore upstairs. the father is out of work." "knowest thou what, mother," put in fanny. "suppose we give them our soup. aunt leah has just fetched it for us. have we not a special supper to-night?" "but father?" murmured the little woman dubiously. "oh, he won't notice it. i don't think he knows the soup kitchen opens to-night. let me, mother." and fanny, letting pesach's hand go, slipped out to the room that served as a kitchen, and bore the still-steaming pot upstairs. pesach, who had pursued her, followed with some hunks of bread and a piece of lighted candle, which, while intended only to illumine the journey, came in handy at the terminus. and the festive company grinned and winked when the pair disappeared, and made jocular quotations from the old testament and the rabbis. but the lovers did not kiss when they came out of the garret of the ansells; their eyes were wet, and they went softly downstairs hand in hand, feeling linked by a deeper love than before. thus did providence hand over the soup the belcovitches took from old habit to a more necessitous quarter, and demonstrate in double sense that charity never faileth. nor was this the only mulct which providence exacted from the happy father, for later on a townsman of his appeared on the scene in a long capote, and with a grimy woe-begone expression. he was a "greener" of the greenest order, having landed at the docks only a few hours ago, bringing over with him a great deal of luggage in the shape of faith in god, and in the auriferous character of london pavements. on arriving in england, he gave a casual glance at the metropolis and demanded to be directed to a synagogue wherein to shake himself after the journey. his devotions over, he tracked out mr. kosminski, whose address on a much-creased bit of paper had been his talisman of hope during the voyage. in his native town, where the jews groaned beneath divers and sore oppressions, the fame of kosminski, the pioneer, the croesus, was a legend. mr. kosminski was prepared for these contingencies. he went to his bedroom, dragged out a heavy wooden chest from under the bed, unlocked it and plunged his hand into a large dirty linen bag, full of coins. the instinct of generosity which was upon him made him count out forty-eight of them. he bore them to the "greener" in over-brimming palms and the foreigner, unconscious how much he owed to the felicitous coincidence of his visit with fanny's betrothal, saw fortune visibly within his grasp. he went out, his heart bursting with gratitude, his pocket with four dozen farthings. they took him in and gave him hot soup at a poor jews' shelter, whither his townsman had directed him. kosminski returned to the banqueting room, thrilling from head to foot with the approval of his conscience. he patted becky's curly head and said: "well, becky, when shall we be dancing at your wedding?" becky shook her curls. her young men could not have a poorer opinion of one another than becky had of them all. their homage pleased her, though it did not raise them in her esteem. lovers grew like blackberries--only more so; for they were an evergreen stock. or, as her mother put it in her coarse, peasant manner. _chasanim_ were as plentiful as the street-dogs. becky's beaux sat on the stairs before she was up and became early risers in their love for her, each anxious to be the first to bid their penelope of the buttonholes good morrow. it was said that kosminski's success as a "sweater" was due to his beauteous becky, the flower of sartorial youth gravitating to the work-room of this east london laban. what they admired in becky was that there was so much of her. still it was not enough to go round, and though becky might keep nine lovers in hand without fear of being set down as a flirt, a larger number of tailors would have been less consistent with prospective monogamy. "i'm not going to throw myself away like fanny," said she confidentially to pesach weingott in the course of the evening. he smiled apologetically. "fanny always had low views," continued becky. "but i always said i would marry a gentleman." "and i dare say," answered pesach, stung into the retort, "fanny could marry a gentlemen, too, if she wanted." becky's idea of a gentleman was a clerk or a school-master, who had no manual labor except scribbling or flogging. in her matrimonial views becky was typical. she despised the status of her parents and looked to marry out of it. they for their part could not understand the desire to be other than themselves. "i don't say fanny couldn't," she admitted. "all i say is, nobody could call this a luck-match." "ah, thou hast me too many flies in thy nose," reprovingly interposed mrs. belcovitch, who had just crawled up. "thou art too high-class." becky tossed her head. "i've got a new dolman," she said, turning to one of her young men who was present by special grace. "you should see me in it. i look noble." "yes," said mrs. belcovitch proudly. "it shines in the sun." "is it like the one bessie sugarman's got?" inquired the young man. "bessie sugarman!" echoed becky scornfully. "she gets all her things from the tallyman. she pretends to be so grand, but all her jewelry is paid for at so much a week." "so long as it is paid for," said fanny, catching the words and turning a happy face on her sister. "not so jealous, alte," said her mother. "when i shall win on the lottery, i will buy thee also a dolman." almost all the company speculated on the hamburg lottery, which, whether they were speaking yiddish or english, they invariably accentuated on the last syllable. when an inhabitant of the ghetto won even his money back, the news circulated like wild-fire, and there was a rush to the agents for tickets. the chances of sudden wealth floated like dazzling will o' the wisps on the horizon, illumining the gray perspectives of the future. the lottery took the poor ticket-holders out of themselves, and gave them an interest in life apart from machine-cotton, lasts or tobacco-leaf. the english laborer, who has been forbidden state lotteries, relieves the monotony of existence by an extremely indirect interest in the achievements of a special breed of horses. "_nu_, pesach, another glass of rum," said mr. belcovitch genially to his future son-in-law and boarder. "yes, i will," said pesach. "after all, this is the first time i've got engaged." the rum was of mr. belcovitch's own manufacture; its ingredients were unknown, but the fame of it travelled on currents of air to the remotest parts of the house. even the inhabitants of the garrets sniffed and thought of turpentine. pesach swallowed the concoction, murmuring "to life" afresh. his throat felt like the funnel of a steamer, and there were tears in his eyes when he put down the glass. "ah, that was good," he murmured. "not like thy english drinks, eh?" said mr. belcovitch. "england!" snorted pesach in royal disdain. "what a country! daddle-doo is a language and ginger-beer a liquor." "daddle doo" was pesach's way of saying "that'll do." it was one of the first english idioms he picked up, and its puerility made him facetious. it seemed to smack of the nursery; when a nation expressed its soul thus, the existence of a beverage like ginger-beer could occasion no further surprise. "you shan't have anything stronger than ginger-beer when we're married," said fanny laughingly. "i am not going to have any drinking.'" "but i'll get drunk on ginger-beer," pesach laughed back. "you can't," fanny said, shaking her large fond smile to and fro. "by my health, not." "ha! ha! ha! can't even get _shikkur_ on it. what a liquor!" in the first anglo-jewish circles with which pesach had scraped acquaintance, ginger-beer was the prevalent drink; and, generalizing almost as hastily as if he were going to write a book on the country, he concluded that it was the national beverage. he had long since discovered his mistake, but the drift of the discussion reminded becky of a chance for an arrow. "on the day when you sit for joy, pesach," she said slily. "i shall send you a valentine." pesach colored up and those in the secret laughed; the reference was to another of pesach's early ideas. some mischievous gossip had heard him arguing with another greener outside a stationer's shop blazing with comic valentines. the two foreigners were extremely puzzled to understand what these monstrosities portended; pesach, however, laid it down that the microcephalous gentlemen with tremendous legs, and the ladies five-sixths head and one-sixth skirt, were representations of the english peasants who lived in the little villages up country. "when i sit for joy," retorted pesach, "it will not be the season for valentines." "won't it though!" cried becky, shaking her frizzly black curls. "you'll be a pair of comic 'uns." "all right, becky," said alte good-humoredly. "your turn'll come, and then we shall have the laugh of you." "never," said becky. "what do i want with a man?" the arm of the specially invited young man was round her as she spoke. "don't make _schnecks_," said fanny. "it's not affectation. i mean it. what's the good of the men who visit father? there isn't a gentleman among them." "ah, wait till i win on the lottery," said the special young man. "then, vy not take another eighth of a ticket?" inquired sugarman the _shadchan_, who seemed to spring from the other end of the room. he was one of the greatest talmudists in london--a lean, hungry-looking man, sharp of feature and acute of intellect. "look at mrs. robinson--i've just won her over twenty pounds, and she only gave me two pounds for myself. i call it a _cherpah_--a shame." "yes, but you stole another two pounds," said becky. "how do you know?" said sugarman startled. becky winked and shook her head sapiently. "never _you_ mind." the published list of the winning numbers was so complex in construction that sugarman had ample opportunities of bewildering his clients. "i von't sell you no more tickets," said sugarman with righteous indignation. "a fat lot i care," said becky, tossing her curls. "thou carest for nothing," said mrs. belcovitch, seizing the opportunity for maternal admonition. "thou hast not even brought me my medicine to-night. thou wilt find, it on the chest of drawers in the bedroom." becky shook herself impatiently. "i will go," said the special young man. "no, it is not beautiful that a young man shall go into my bedroom in my absence," said mrs. belcovitch blushing. becky left the room. "thou knowest," said mrs. belcovitch, addressing herself to the special young man, "i suffer greatly from my legs. one is a thick one, and one a thin one." the young man sighed sympathetically. "whence comes it?" he asked. "do i know? i was born so. my poor lambkin (this was the way mrs. belcovitch always referred to her dead mother) had well-matched legs. if i had aristotle's head i might be able to find out why my legs are inferior. and so one goes about." the reverence for aristotle enshrined in yiddish idiom is probably due to his being taken by the vulgar for a jew. at any rate the theory that aristotle's philosophy was jewish was advanced by the mediaeval poet, jehuda halevi, and sustained by maimonides. the legend runs that when alexander went to palestine, aristotle was in his train. at jerusalem the philosopher had sight of king solomon's manuscripts, and he forthwith edited them and put his name to them. but it is noteworthy that the story was only accepted by those jewish scholars who adopted the aristotelian philosophy, those who rejected it declaring that aristotle in his last testament had admitted the inferiority of his writings to the mosaic, and had asked that his works should be destroyed. when becky returned with the medicine, mrs. belcovitch mentioned that it was extremely nasty, and offered the young man a taste, whereat he rejoiced inwardly, knowing he had found favor in the sight of the parent. mrs. belcovitch paid a penny a week to her doctor, in sickness or health, so that there was a loss on being well. becky used to fill up the bottles with water to save herself the trouble of going to fetch the medicine, but as mrs. belcovitch did not know this it made no difference. "thou livest too much indoors," said mr. sugarman, in yiddish. "shall i march about in this weather? black and slippery, and the angel going a-hunting?" "ah!" said mr. sugarman, relapsing proudly into the vernacular, "ve english valk about in all vedders." meanwhile moses ansell had returned from evening service and sat down, unquestioningly, by the light of an unexpected candle to his expected supper of bread and soup, blessing god for both gifts. the rest of the family had supped. esther had put the two youngest children to bed (rachel had arrived at years of independent undressing), and she and solomon were doing home-lessons in copy-books, the candle saving them from a caning on the morrow. she held her pen clumsily, for several of her fingers were swathed in bloody rags tied with cobweb. the grandmother dozed in her chair. everything was quiet and peaceful, though the atmosphere was chilly. moses ate his supper with a great smacking of the lips and an equivalent enjoyment. when it was over he sighed deeply, and thanked god in a prayer lasting ten minutes, and delivered in a rapid, sing-song manner. he then inquired of solomon whether he had said his evening prayer. solomon looked out of the corner of his eyes at his _bube_, and, seeing she was asleep on the bed, said he had, and kicked esther significantly but hurtfully under the table. "then you had better say your night-prayer." there was no getting out of that; so solomon finished his sum, writing the figures of the answer rather faint, in case he should discover from another boy next morning that they were wrong; then producing a hebrew prayer-book from his inky cotton satchel, he made a mumbling sound, with occasional enthusiastic bursts of audible coherence, for a length of time proportioned to the number of pages. then he went to bed. after that, esther put her grandmother to bed and curled herself up at her side. she lay awake a long time, listening to the quaint sounds emitted by her father in his study of rashi's commentary on the book of job, the measured drone blending not disagreeably with the far-away sounds of pesach weingott's fiddle. pesach's fiddle played the accompaniment to many other people's thoughts. the respectable master-tailor sat behind his glazed shirt-front beating time with his foot. his little sickly-looking wife stood by his side, nodding her bewigged head joyously. to both the music brought the same recollection--a polish market-place. belcovitch, or rather kosminski, was the only surviving son of a widow. it was curious, and suggestive of some grim law of heredity, that his parents' elder children had died off as rapidly as his own, and that his life had been preserved by some such expedient as alte's. only, in his case the rabbi consulted had advised his father to go into the woods and call his new-born son by the name of the first animal that he saw. this was why the future sweater was named bear. to the death of his brothers and sisters, bear owed his exemption from military service. he grew up to be a stalwart, well-set-up young baker, a loss to the russian army. bear went out in the market-place one fine day and saw chayah in maiden ringlets. she was a slim, graceful little thing, with nothing obviously odd about the legs, and was buying onions. her back was towards him, but in another moment she turned her head and bear's. as he caught the sparkle of her eye, he felt that without her life were worse than the conscription. without delay, he made inquiries about the fair young vision, and finding its respectability unimpeachable, he sent a _shadchan_ to propose to her, and they were affianced: chayah's father undertaking to give a dowry of two hundred gulden. unfortunately, he died suddenly in the attempt to amass them, and chayah was left an orphan. the two hundred gulden were nowhere to be found. tears rained down both chayah's cheeks, on the one side for the loss of her father, on the other for the prospective loss of a husband. the rabbi was full of tender sympathy. he bade bear come to the dead man's chamber. the venerable white-bearded corpse lay on the bed, swathed in shroud, and _talith_ or praying-shawl. "bear," he said, "thou knowest that i saved thy life." "nay," said bear, "indeed, i know not that." "yea, of a surety," said the rabbi. "thy mother hath not told thee, but all thy brothers and sisters perished, and, lo! thou alone art preserved! it was i that called thee a beast." bear bowed his head in grateful silence. "bear," said the rabbi, "thou didst contract to wed this dead man's daughter, and he did contract to pay over to thee two hundred gulden.'' "truth." replied bear. "bear," said the rabbi, "there are no two hundred gulden." a shadow flitted across bear's face, but he said nothing. "bear," said the rabbi again, "there are not two gulden." bear did not move. "bear," said the rabbi, "leave thou my side, and go over to the other side of the bed, facing me." so bear left his side and went over to the other side of the bed facing him. "bear," said the rabbi, "give me thy right hand." the rabbi stretched his own right hand across the bed, but bear kept his obstinately behind his back. "bear," repeated the rabbi, in tones of more penetrating solemnity, "give me thy right hand." "nay," replied bear, sullenly. "wherefore should i give thee my right hand?" "because," said the rabbi, and his tones trembled, and it seemed to him that the dead man's face grew sterner. "because i wish thee to swear across the body of chayah's father that thou wilt marry her." "nay, that i will not," said bear. "will not?" repeated the rabbi, his lips growing white with pity. "nay, i will not take any oaths," said bear, hotly. "i love the maiden, and i will keep what i have promised. but, by my father's soul, i will take no oaths!" "bear," said the rabbi in a choking voice, "give me thy hand. nay, not to swear by, but to grip. long shalt thou live, and the most high shall prepare thy seat in gan iden." so the old man and the young clasped hands across the corpse, and the simple old rabbi perceived a smile flickering over the face of chayah's father. perhaps it was only a sudden glint of sunshine. the wedding-day drew nigh, but lo! chayah was again dissolved in tears. "what ails thee?" said her brother naphtali. "i cannot follow the custom of the maidens," wept chayah. "thou knowest we are blood-poor, and i have not the wherewithal to buy my bear a _talith_ for his wedding-day; nay, not even to make him a _talith_-bag. and when our father (the memory of the righteous for a blessing) was alive, i had dreamed of making my _chosan_ a beautiful velvet satchel lined with silk, and i would have embroidered his initials thereon in gold, and sewn him beautiful white corpse-clothes. perchance he will rely upon me for his wedding _talith_, and we shall be shamed in the sight of the congregation." "nay, dry thine eyes, my sister," said naphtali. "thou knowest that my leah presented me with a costly _talith_ when i led her under the canopy. wherefore, do thou take my praying-shawl and lend it to bear for the wedding-day, so that decency may be preserved in the sight of the congregation. the young man has a great heart, and he will understand." so chayah, blushing prettily, lent bear naphtali's delicate _talith_, and beauty and the beast made a rare couple under the wedding canopy. chayah wore the gold medallion and the three rows of pearls which her lover had sent her the day before. and when the rabbi had finished blessing husband and wife, naphtali spake the bridegroom privily, and said: "pass me my _talith_ back." but bear answered: "nay, nay; the _talith_ is in my keeping, and there it shall remain." "but it is my _talith_," protested naphtali in an angry whisper. "i only lent it to chayah to lend it thee." "it concerns me not." bear returned in a decisive whisper. "the _talith_ is my due and i shall keep it. what! have i not lost enough by marrying thy sister? did not thy father, peace be upon him, promise me two hundred gulden with her?" naphtali retired discomfited. but he made up his mind not to go without some compensation. he resolved that during the progress of the wedding procession conducting the bridegroom to the chamber of the bride, he would be the man to snatch off bear's new hat. let the rest of the riotous escort essay to snatch whatever other article of the bridegroom's attire they would, the hat was the easiest to dislodge, and he, naphtali, would straightway reimburse himself partially with that. but the instant the procession formed itself, behold the shifty bridegroom forthwith removed his hat, and held it tightly under his arm. a storm of protestations burst forth at his daring departure from hymeneal tradition. "nay, nay, put it on," arose from every mouth. but bear closed his and marched mutely on. "heathen," cried the rabbi. "put on your hat." the attempt to enforce the religious sanction failed too. bear had spent several gulden upon his head-gear, and could not see the joke. he plodded towards his blushing chayah through a tempest of disapprobation. throughout life bear belcovitch retained the contrariety of character that marked his matrimonial beginnings. he hated to part with money; he put off paying bills to the last moment, and he would even beseech his "hands" to wait a day or two longer for their wages. he liked to feel that he had all that money in his possession. yet "at home," in poland, he had always lent money to the officers and gentry, when they ran temporarily short at cards. they would knock him up in the middle of the night to obtain the means of going on with the game. and in england he never refused to become surety for a loan when any of his poor friends begged the favor of him. these loans ran from three to five pounds, but whatever the amount, they were very rarely paid. the loan offices came down upon him for the money. he paid it without a murmur, shaking his head compassionately over the poor ne'er do wells, and perhaps not without a compensating consciousness of superior practicality. only, if the borrower had neglected to treat him to a glass of rum to clench his signing as surety, the shake of bear's head would become more reproachful than sympathetic, and he would mutter bitterly: "five pounds and not even a drink for the money." the jewelry he generously lavished on his womankind was in essence a mere channel of investment for his savings, avoiding the risks of a banking-account and aggregating his wealth in a portable shape, in obedience to an instinct generated by centuries of insecurity. the interest on the sums thus invested was the gratification of the other oriental instinct for gaudiness. chapter iii. malka. the sunday fair, so long associated with petticoat lane, is dying hard, and is still vigorous; its glories were in full swing on the dull, gray morning when moses ansell took his way through the ghetto. it was near eleven o'clock, and the throng was thickening momently. the vendors cried their wares in stentorian tones, and the babble of the buyers was like the confused roar of a stormy sea. the dead walls and hoardings were placarded with bills from which the life of the inhabitants could be constructed. many were in yiddish, the most hopelessly corrupt and hybrid jargon ever evolved. even when the language was english the letters were hebrew. whitechapel, public meeting, board school, sermon, police, and other modern banalities, glared at the passer-by in the sacred guise of the tongue associated with miracles and prophecies, palm-trees and cedars and seraphs, lions and shepherds and harpists. moses stopped to read these hybrid posters--he had nothing better to do--as he slouched along. he did not care to remember that dinner was due in two hours. he turned aimlessly into wentworth street, and studied a placard that hung in a bootmaker's window. this was the announcement it made in jargon: riveters, clickers, lasters, finishers, wanted. baruch emanuel, cobbler. makes and repairs boots. every bit as cheaply as mordecai schwartz, of goulston street. mordecai schwartz was written in the biggest and blackest of hebrew letters, and quite dominated the little shop-window. baruch emanuel was visibly conscious of his inferiority, to his powerful rival, though moses had never heard of mordecai schwartz before. he entered the shop and said in hebrew "peace be to you." baruch emanuel, hammering a sole, answered in hebrew: "peace be to you." moses dropped into yiddish. "i am looking for work. peradventure have you something for me?" "what can you do?" "i have been a riveter." "i cannot engage any more riveters." moses looked disappointed. "i have also been a clicker," he said. "i have all the clickers i can afford," baruch answered. moses's gloom deepened. "two years ago i worked as a finisher." baruch shook his head silently. he was annoyed at the man's persistence. there was only the laster resource left. "and before that i was a laster for a week," moses answered. "i don't want any!" cried baruch, losing his temper. "but in your window it stands that you do," protested moses feebly. "i don't care what stands in my window," said baruch hotly. "have you not head enough to see that that is all bunkum? unfortunately i work single-handed, but it looks good and it isn't lies. naturally i want riveters and clickers and lasters and finishers. then i could set up a big establishment and gouge out mordecai schwartz's eyes. but the most high denies me assistants, and i am content to want." moses understood that attitude towards the nature of things. he went out and wandered down another narrow dirty street in search of mordecai schwartz, whose address baruch emanuel had so obligingly given him. he thought of the _maggid's_ sermon on the day before. the _maggid_ had explained a verse of habakkuk in quite an original way which gave an entirely new color to a passage in deuteronomy. moses experienced acute pleasure in musing upon it, and went past mordecai's shop without going in, and was only awakened from his day-dream by the brazen clanging of a bell it was the bell of the great ghetto school, summoning its pupils from the reeking courts and alleys, from the garrets and the cellars, calling them to come and be anglicized. and they came in a great straggling procession recruited from every lane and by-way, big children and little children, boys in blackening corduroy, and girls in washed-out cotton; tidy children and ragged children; children in great shapeless boots gaping at the toes; sickly children, and sturdy children, and diseased children; bright-eyed children and hollow-eyed children; quaint sallow foreign-looking children, and fresh-colored english-looking children; with great pumpkin heads, with oval heads, with pear-shaped heads; with old men's faces, with cherubs' faces, with monkeys' faces; cold and famished children, and warm and well-fed children; children conning their lessons and children romping carelessly; the demure and the anaemic; the boisterous and the blackguardly, the insolent, the idiotic, the vicious, the intelligent, the exemplary, the dull--spawn of all countries--all hastening at the inexorable clang of the big school-bell to be ground in the same great, blind, inexorable governmental machine. here, too, was a miniature fair, the path being lined by itinerant temptations. there was brisk traffic in toffy, and gray peas and monkey-nuts, and the crowd was swollen by anxious parents seeing tiny or truant offspring safe within the school-gates. the women were bare-headed or be-shawled, with infants at their breasts and little ones toddling at their sides, the men were greasy, and musty, and squalid. here a bright earnest little girl held her vagrant big brother by the hand, not to let go till she had seen him in the bosom of his class-mates. there a sullen wild-eyed mite in petticoats was being dragged along, screaming, towards distasteful durance. it was a drab picture--the bleak, leaden sky above, the sloppy, miry stones below, the frowsy mothers and fathers, the motley children. "monkey-nuts! monkey-nuts!" croaked a wizened old woman. "oppea! oppea!" droned a doddering old dutchman. he bore a great can of hot peas in one hand and a lighthouse-looking pepper-pot in the other. some of the children swallowed the dainties hastily out of miniature basins, others carried them within in paper packets for surreptitious munching. "call that a ay-puth?" a small boy would say. "not enough!" the old man would exclaim in surprise. "here you are, then!" and he would give the peas another sprinkling from the pepper-pot. moses ansell's progeny were not in the picture. the younger children were at home, the elder had gone to school an hour before to run about and get warm in the spacious playgrounds. a slice of bread each and the wish-wash of a thrice-brewed pennyworth of tea had been their morning meal, and there was no prospect of dinner. the thought of them made moses's heart heavy again; he forgot the _maggid's_ explanation of the verse in habakkuk, and he retraced his steps towards mordecai schwartz's shop. but like his humbler rival, mordecai had no use for the many-sided moses; he was "full up" with swarthy "hands," though, as there were rumors of strikes in the air, he prudently took note of moses's address. after this rebuff, moses shuffled hopelessly about for more than an hour; the dinner-hour was getting desperately near; already children passed him, carrying the sunday dinners from the bakeries, and there were wafts of vague poetry in the atmosphere. moses felt he could not face his own children. at last he nerved himself to an audacious resolution, and elbowed his way blusterously towards the ruins, lest he might break down if his courage had time to cool. "the ruins" was a great stony square, partly bordered by houses, and only picturesque on sundays when it became a branch of the all-ramifying fair. moses could have bought anything there from elastic braces to green parrots in gilt cages. that is to say if he had had money. at present he had nothing in his pocket except holes. what he might be able to do on his way back was another matter; for it was malka that moses ansell was going to see. she was the cousin of his deceased wife, and lived in zachariah square. moses had not been there for a month, for malka was a wealthy twig of the family tree, to be approached with awe and trembling. she kept a second-hand clothes store in houndsditch, a supplementary stall in the halfpenny exchange, and a barrow on the "ruins" of a sunday; and she had set up ephraim, her newly-acquired son-in-law, in the same line of business in the same district. like most things she dealt in, her son-in-law was second-hand, having lost his first wife four years ago in poland. but he was only twenty-two, and a second-hand son-in-law of twenty-two is superior to many brand new ones. the two domestic establishments were a few minutes away from the shops, facing each other diagonally across the square. they were small, three-roomed houses, without basements, the ground floor window in each being filled up with a black gauze blind (an invariable index of gentility) which allowed the occupants to see all that was passing outside, but confronted gazers with their own rejections. passers-by postured at these mirrors, twisting moustaches perkily, or giving coquettish pats to bonnets, unwitting of the grinning inhabitants. most of the doors were ajar, wintry as the air was: for the zachariah squareites lived a good deal on the door-step. in the summer, the housewives sat outside on chairs and gossiped and knitted, as if the sea foamed at their feel, and wrinkled good-humored old men played nap on tea-trays. some of the doors were blocked below with sliding barriers of wood, a sure token of infants inside given to straying. more obvious tokens of child-life were the swings nailed to the lintels of a few doors, in which, despite the cold, toothless babes swayed like monkeys on a branch. but the square, with its broad area of quadrangular pavement, was an ideal playing-ground for children, since other animals came not within its precincts, except an inquisitive dog or a local cat. solomon ansell knew no greater privilege than to accompany his father to these fashionable quarters and whip his humming-top across the ample spaces, the while moses transacted his business with malka. last time the business was psalm-saying. milly had been brought to bed of a son, but it was doubtful if she would survive, despite the charms hung upon the bedpost to counteract the nefarious designs of lilith, the wicked first wife of adam, and of the not-good ones who hover about women in childbirth. so moses was sent for, post-haste, to intercede with the almighty. his piety, it was felt, would command attention. for an average of three hundred and sixty-two days a year moses was a miserable worm, a nonentity, but on the other three, when death threatened to visit malka or her little clan, moses became a personage of prime importance, and was summoned at all hours of the day and night to wrestle with the angel azrael. when the angel had retired, worsted, after a match sometimes protracted into days, moses relapsed into his primitive insignificance, and was dismissed with a mouthful of rum and a shilling. it never seemed to him an unfair equivalent, for nobody could make less demand on the universe than moses. give him two solid meals and three solid services a day, and he was satisfied, and he craved more for spiritual snacks between meals than for physical. the last crisis had been brief, and there was so little danger that, when milly's child was circumcised, moses had not even been bidden to the feast, though his piety would have made him the ideal _sandek_ or god-father. he did not resent this, knowing himself dust--and that anything but gold-dust. moses had hardly emerged from the little arched passage which led to the square, when sounds of strife fell upon his ears. two stout women chatting amicably at their doors, had suddenly developed a dispute. in zachariah square, when you wanted to get to the bottom of a quarrel, the cue was not "find the woman," but find the child. the high-spirited bantlings had a way of pummelling one another in fistic duels, and of calling in their respective mothers when they got the worse of it--which is cowardly, but human. the mother of the beaten belligerent would then threaten to wring the "year," or to twist the nose of the victorious party--sometimes she did it. in either case, the other mother would intervene, and then the two bantlings would retire into the background and leave their mothers to take up the duel while they resumed their interrupted game. of such sort was the squabble betwixt mrs. isaacs and mrs. jacobs. mrs. isaacs pointed out with superfluous vehemence that her poor lamb had been mangled beyond recognition. mrs. jacobs, _per contra_, asseverated with superfluous gesture that it was _her_ poor lamb who had received irreparable injury. these statements were not in mutual contradiction, but mrs. isaacs and mrs. jacobs were, and so the point at issue was gradually absorbed in more personal recriminations. "by my life, and by my fanny's life, i'll leave my seal on the first child of yours that comes across my way! there!" thus mrs. isaacs. "lay a linger on a hair of a child of mine, and, by my husband's life, i'll summons you; i'll have the law on you." thus mrs. jacobs; to the gratification of the resident populace. mrs. isaacs and mrs. jacobs rarely quarrelled with each other, uniting rather in opposition to the rest of the square. they were english, quite english, their grandfather having been born in dresden; and they gave themselves airs in consequence, and called their _kinder_ "children," which annoyed those neighbors who found a larger admixture of yiddish necessary for conversation. these very _kinder_, again, attained considerable importance among their school-fellows by refusing to pronounce the guttural "ch" of the hebrew otherwise than as an english "k." "summons me, indeed," laughed back mrs. isaacs. "a fat lot i'd care for that. you'd jolly soon expose your character to the magistrate. everybody knows what _you_ are." "your mother!" retorted mrs. jacobs mechanically; the elliptical method of expression being greatly in vogue for conversation of a loud character. quick as lightning came the parrying stroke. "yah! and what was your father, i should like to know?" mrs. isaacs had no sooner made this inquiry than she became conscious of an environment of suppressed laughter; mrs. jacobs awoke to the situation a second later, and the two women stood suddenly dumbfounded, petrified, with arms akimbo, staring at each other. the wise, if apocryphal, ecclesiasticus, sagely and pithily remarked, many centuries before modern civilization was invented: jest not with a rude man lest thy ancestors be disgraced. to this day the oriental methods of insult have survived in the ghetto. the dead past is never allowed to bury its dead; the genealogical dust-heap is always liable to be raked up, and even innocuous ancestors may be traduced to the third and fourth generation. now it so happened that mrs. isaacs and mrs. jacobs were sisters. and when it dawned upon them into what dilemma their automatic methods of carte and tierce had inveigled them, they were frozen with confusion. they retired crestfallen to their respective parlors, and sported their oaks. the resources of repartee were dried up for the moment. relatives are unduly handicapped in these verbal duels; especially relatives with the same mother and father. presently mrs. isaacs reappeared. she had thought of something she ought to have said. she went up to her sister's closed door, and shouted into the key-hole: "none of my children ever had bandy-legs!" almost immediately the window of the front bedroom was flung up, and mrs. jacobs leant out of it waving what looked like an immense streamer. "aha," she observed, dangling it tantalizingly up and down. "morry antique!" the dress fluttered in the breeze. mrs. jacobs caressed the stuff between her thumb and forefinger. "aw-aw-aw-aw-aw-awl silk," she announced with a long ecstatic quaver. mrs. isaacs stood paralyzed by the brilliancy of the repartee. mrs. jacobs withdrew the moiré antique and exhibited a mauve gown. "aw-aw-aw-aw-aw-awl silk." the mauve fluttered for a triumphant instant, the next a puce and amber dress floated on the breeze. "aw-aw-aw-aw-aw-awl silk." mrs. jacobs's fingers smoothed it lovingly, then it was drawn within to be instantly replaced by a green dress. mrs. jacobs passed the skirt slowly through her fingers. "aw-aw-aw-aw-aw-awl silk!" she quavered mockingly. by this time mrs. isaacs's face was the color of the latest flag of victory. "the tallyman!" she tried to retort, but the words stuck in her throat. fortunately just then she caught sight of her poor lamb playing with the other poor lamb. she dashed at her offspring, boxed its ears and crying, "you little blackguard, if i ever catch you playing with blackguards again, i'll wring your neck for you," she hustled the infant into the house and slammed the door viciously behind her. moses had welcomed this every-day scene, for it put off a few moments his encounter with the formidable malka. as she had not appeared at door or window, he concluded she was in a bad temper or out of london; neither alternative was pleasant. he knocked at the door of milly's house where her mother was generally to be found, and an elderly char-woman opened it. there were some bottles of spirit, standing on a wooden side-table covered with a colored cloth, and some unopened biscuit bags. at these familiar premonitory signs of a festival, moses felt tempted to beat a retreat. he could not think for the moment what was up, but whatever it was he had no doubt the well-to-do persons would supply him with ice. the char-woman, with brow darkened by soot and gloom, told him that milly was upstairs, but that her mother had gone across to her own house with the clothes-brush. moses's face fell. when his wife was alive, she had been a link of connection between "the family" and himself, her cousin having generously employed her as a char-woman. so moses knew the import of the clothes-brush. malka was very particular about her appearance and loved to be externally speckless, but somehow or other she had no clothes-brush at home. this deficiency did not matter ordinarily, for she practically lived at milly's. but when she had words with milly or her husband, she retired to her own house to sulk or _schmull_, as they called it. the carrying away of the clothes-brush was, thus, a sign that she considered the breach serious and hostilities likely to be protracted. sometimes a whole week would go by without the two houses ceasing to stare sullenly across at each other, the situation in milly's camp being aggravated by the lack of a clothes-brush. in such moments of irritation, milly's husband was apt to declare that his mother-in-law had abundance of clothes-brushes, for, he pertinently asked, how did she manage during her frequent business tours in the country? he gave it as his conviction that malka merely took the clothes-brush away to afford herself a handle for returning. but then ephraim phillips was a graceless young fellow, the death of whose first wife was probably a judgment on his levity, and everybody except his second mother-in-law knew that he had a book of tickets for the oxbridge music hall, and went there on friday nights. still, in spite of these facts, experience did show that whenever milly's camp had outsulked malka's, the old woman's surrender was always veiled under the formula of: "oh milly, i've brought you over your clothes-brush. i just noticed it, and thought you might be wanting it." after this, conversation was comparatively easy. moses hardly cared to face malka in such a crisis of the clothes-brush. he turned away despairingly, and was going back through the small archway which led to the ruins and the outside world, when a grating voice startled his ear. "well, méshe, whither fliest thou? has my milly forbidden thee to see me?" he looked back. malka was standing at her house-door. he retraced his steps. "n-n-o," he murmured. "i thought you still out with your stall." that was where she should have been, at any rate, till half an hour ago. she did not care to tell herself, much less moses, that she had been waiting at home for the envoy of peace from the filial camp summoning her to the ceremony of the redemption of her grandson. "well, now thou seest me," she said, speaking yiddish for his behoof, "thou lookest not outwardly anxious to know how it goes with me." "how goes it with you?" "as well as an old woman has a right to expect. the most high is good!" malka was in her most amiable mood, to emphasize to outsiders the injustice of her kin in quarrelling with her. she was a tall woman of fifty, with a tanned equine gypsy face surmounted by a black wig, and decorated laterally by great gold earrings. great black eyes blazed beneath great black eyebrows, and the skin between them was capable of wrinkling itself black with wrath. a gold chain was wound thrice round her neck, and looped up within her black silk bodice. there were numerous rings on her fingers, and she perpetually smelt of peppermint. "_nu_, stand not chattering there," she went on. "come in. dost thou wish me to catch my death of cold?" moses slouched timidly within, his head bowed as if in dread of knocking against the top of the door. the room was a perfect fac-simile of milly's parlor at the other end of the diagonal, save that instead of the festive bottles and paper bags on the small side-table, there was a cheerless clothes-brush. like milly's, the room contained a round table, a chest of drawers with decanters on the top, and a high mantelpiece decorated with pendant green fringes, fastened by big-headed brass nails. here cheap china dogs, that had had more than their day squatted amid lustres with crystal drops. before the fire was a lofty steel guard, which, useful enough in milly's household, had survived its function in malka's, where no one was ever likely to tumble into the grate. in a corner of the room a little staircase began to go upstairs. there was oilcloth on the floor. in zachariah square anybody could go into anybody else's house and feel at home. there was no visible difference between one and another. moses sat down awkwardly on a chair and refused a peppermint. in the end he accepted an apple, blessed god for creating the fruit of the tree, and made a ravenous bite at it. "i must take peppermints," malka explained. "it's for the spasms." "but you said you were well," murmured moses. "and suppose? if i did not take peppermint i should have the spasms. my poor sister rosina, peace be upon him, who died of typhoid, suffered greatly from the spasms. it's in the family. she would have died of asthma if she had lived long enough. _nu_, how goes it with thee?" she went on, suddenly remembering that moses, too, had a right to be ill. at bottom, malka felt a real respect for moses, though he did not know it. it dated from the day he cut a chip of mahogany out of her best round table. he had finished cutting his nails, and wanted a morsel of wood to burn with them in witness of his fulfilment of the pious custom. malka raged, but in her inmost heart there was admiration for such unscrupulous sanctity. "i have been out of work for three weeks," moses answered, omitting to expound the state of his health in view of more urgent matters. "unlucky fool! what my silly cousin gittel, peace be upon him, could see to marry in thee, i know not." moses could not enlighten her. he might have informed her that _olov hasholom_, "peace be upon him," was an absurdity when applied to a woman, but then he used the pious phrase himself, although aware of its grammatical shortcomings. "i told her thou wouldst never be able to keep her, poor lamb," malka went on. "but she was always an obstinate pig. and she kept her head high up, too, as if she had five pounds a week! never would let her children earn money like other people's children. but thou oughtest not to be so obstinate. thou shouldst have more sense, méshe; _thou_ belongest not to my family. why can't solomon go out with matches?" "gittel's soul would not like it." "but the living have bodies! thou rather seest thy children starve than work. there's esther,--an idle, lazy brat, always reading story-books; why doesn't she sell flowers or pull out bastings in the evening?" "esther and solomon have their lessons to do." "lessons!" snorted malka. "what's the good of lessons? it's english, not judaism, they teach them in that godless school. _i_ could never read or write anything but hebrew in all my life; but god be thanked, i have thriven without it. all they teach them in the school is english nonsense. the teachers are a pack of heathens, who eat forbidden things, but the good yiddishkeit goes to the wall. i'm ashamed of thee, méshe: thou dost not even send thy boys to a hebrew class in the evening." "i have no money, and they must do their english lessons. else, perhaps, their clothes will be stopped. besides, i teach them myself every _shabbos_ afternoon and sunday. solomon translates into yiddish the whole pentateuch with rashi." "yes, he may know _térah_" said malka, not to be baffled. "but he'll never know _gemorah_ or _mishnayis_." malka herself knew very little of these abstruse subjects beyond their names, and the fact that they were studied out of minutely-printed folios by men of extreme sanctity. "he knows a little _gemorah_, too," said moses. "i can't teach him at home because i haven't got a _gemorah_,--it's so expensive, as you know. but he went with me to the _beth-medrash_, when the _maggid_ was studying it with a class free of charge, and we learnt the whole of the _tractate niddah_. solomon understands very well all about the divorce laws, and he could adjudicate on the duties of women to their husbands." "ah, but he'll never know _cabbulah_," said malka, driven to her last citadel. "but then no one in england can study _cabbulah_ since the days of rabbi falk (the memory of the righteous for a blessing) any more than a born englishman can learn talmud. there's something in the air that prevents it. in my town there was a rabbi who could do _cabbulah_; he could call abraham our father from the grave. but in this pig-eating country no one can be holy enough for the name, blessed be it, to grant him the privilege. i don't believe the _shochetim_ kill the animals properly; the statutes are violated; even pious people eat _tripha_ cheese and butter. i don't say thou dost, méshe, but thou lettest thy children." "well, your own butter is not _kosher_," said moses, nettled. "my butter? what does it matter about my butter? i never set up for a purist. i don't come of a family of rabbonim. i'm only a business woman. it's the _froom_ people that i complain of; the people who ought to set an example, and are lowering the standard of _froomkeit_. i caught a beadle's wife the other day washing her meat and butter plates in the same bowl of water. in time they will be frying steaks in butter, and they will end by eating _tripha_ meat out of butter plates, and the judgment of god will come. but what is become of thine apple? thou hast not gorged it already?" moses nervously pointed to his trousers pocket, bulged out by the mutilated globe. after his first ravenous bite moses had bethought himself of his responsibilities. "it's for the _kinder_," he explained. "_nu_, the _kinder_!" snorted malka disdainfully. "and what will they give thee for it? verily, not a thank you. in my young days we trembled before the father and the mother, and my mother, peace be upon him, _potched_ my face after i was a married woman. i shall never forget that slap--it nearly made me adhere to the wall. but now-a-days our children sit on our heads. i gave my milly all she has in the world--a house, a shop, a husband, and my best bed-linen. and now when i want her to call the child yosef, after my first husband, peace be on him, her own father, she would out of sheer vexatiousness, call it yechezkel." malka's voice became more strident than ever. she had been anxious to make a species of vicarious reparation to her first husband, and the failure of milly to acquiesce in the arrangement was a source of real vexation. moses could think of nothing better to say than to inquire how her present husband was. "he overworks himself," malka replied, shaking her head. "the misfortune is that he thinks himself a good man of business, and he is always starting new enterprises without consulting me. if he would only take my advice more!" moses shook his head in sympathetic deprecation of michael birnbaum's wilfulness. "is he at home?" he asked. "no, but i expect him back from the country every minute. i believe they have invited him for the _pidyun haben_ to-day." "oh, is that to-day?" "of course. didst thou not know?" "no, no one told me." "thine own sense should have told thee. is it not the thirty-first day since the birth? but of course he won't accept when he knows that my own daughter has driven me out of her house." "you say not!" exclaimed moses in horror. "i do say," said malka, unconsciously taking up the clothes-brush and thumping with it on the table to emphasize the outrage. "i told her that when yechezkel cried so much, it would be better to look for the pin than to dose the child for gripes. 'i dressed it myself, mother,' says she. 'thou art an obstinate cat's head. milly,' says i. 'i say there _is_ a pin.' 'and i know better,' says she. 'how canst thou know better than i?' says i. 'why, i was a mother before thou wast born.' so i unrolled the child's flannel, and sure enough underneath it just over the stomach i found--" "the pin," concluded moses, shaking his head gravely. "no, not exactly. but a red mark where the pin had been pricking the poor little thing." "and what did milly say then?" said moses in sympathetic triumph. "milly said it was a flea-bite! and i said, 'gott in himmel, milly, dost thou want to swear my eyes away? my enemies shall have such a flea-bite.' and because red rivkah was in the room, milly said i was shedding her blood in public, and she began to cry as if i had committed a crime against her in looking after her child. and i rushed out, leaving the two babies howling together. that was a week ago." "and how is the child?" "how should i know? i am only the grandmother, i only supplied the bed-linen it was born on." "but is it recovered from the circumcision?" "oh, yes, all our family have good healing flesh. it's a fine, child, _imbeshreer_. it's got my eyes and nose. it's a rare handsome baby, _imbeshreer_. only it won't be its mother's fault if the almighty takes it not back again. milly has picked up so many ignorant lane women who come in and blight the child, by admiring it aloud, not even saying _imbeshreer_. and then there's an old witch, a beggar-woman that ephraim, my son-in-law, used to give a shilling a week to. now he only gives her ninepence. she asked him 'why?' and he said, 'i'm married now. i can't afford more.' 'what!' she shrieked, 'you got married on my money!' and one friday when the nurse had baby downstairs, the old beggar-woman knocked for her weekly allowance, and she opened the door, and she saw the child, and she looked at it with her evil eye! i hope to heaven nothing will come of it." "i will pray for yechezkel," said moses. "pray for milly also, while thou art about it, that she may remember what is owing to a mother before the earth covers me. i don't know what's coming over children. look at my leah. she _will_ marry that sam levine, though he belongs to a lax english family, and i suspect his mother was a proselyte. she can't fry fish any way. i don't say anything against sam, but still i do think my leah might have told me before falling in love with him. and yet see how i treat them! my michael made a _missheberach_ for them in synagogue the sabbath after the engagement; not a common eighteen-penny benediction, but a guinea one, with half-crown blessings thrown in for his parents and the congregation, and a gift of five shillings to the minister. that was of course in our own _chevrah_, not reckoning the guinea my michael _shnodared_ at duke's plaizer _shool_. you know we always keep two seats at duke's plaizer as well." duke's plaizer was the current distortion of duke's place. "what magnanimity," said moses overawed. "i like to do everything with decorum," said malka. "no one can say i have ever acted otherwise than as a fine person. i dare say thou couldst do with a few shillings thyself now." moses hung his head still lower. "you see my mother is so poorly," he stammered. "she is a very old woman, and without anything to eat she may not live long." "they ought to take her into the aged widows' home. i'm sure i gave her _my_ votes." "god shall bless you for it. but people say i was lucky enough to get my benjamin into the orphan asylum, and that i ought not to have brought her from poland. they say we grow enough poor old widows here." "people say quite right--at least she would have starved in, a yiddishë country, not in a land of heathens." "but she was lonely and miserable out there, exposed to all the malice of the christians. and i was earning a pound a week. tailoring was a good trade then. the few roubles i used to send her did not always reach her." "thou hadst no right to send her anything, nor to send for her. mothers are not everything. thou didst marry my cousin gittel, peace be upon him, and it was thy duty to support _her_ and her children. thy mother took the bread out of the mouth of gittel, and but for her my poor cousin might have been alive to-day. believe me it was no _mitzvah_." _mitzvah_ is a "portmanteau-word." it means a commandment and a good deed, the two conceptions being regarded as interchangeable. "nay, thou errest there," answered moses. "'gittel was not a phoenix which alone ate not of the tree of knowledge and lives for ever. women have no need to live as long as men, for they have not so many _mitzvahs_ to perform as men; and inasmuch as"--here his tones involuntarily assumed the argumentative sing-song--"their souls profit by all the _mitzvahs_ performed by their husbands and children, gittel will profit by the _mitzvah_ i did in bringing over my mother, so that even if she did die through it, she will not be the loser thereby. it stands in the verse that _man_ shall do the _mitzvahs_ and live by them. to live is a _mitzvah_, but it is plainly one of those _mitzvahs_ that have to be done at a definite time, from which species women, by reason of their household duties, are exempt; wherefore i would deduce by another circuit that it is not so incumbent upon women to live as upon men. nevertheless, if god had willed it, she would have been still alive. the holy one, blessed be he, will provide for the little ones he has sent into the world. he fed elijah the prophet by ravens, and he will never send me a black sabbath." "oh, you are a saint, méshe," said malka, so impressed that she admitted him to the equality of the second person plural. "if everybody knew as much _térah_ as you, the messiah would soon be here. here are five shillings. for five shillings you can get a basket of lemons in the orange market in duke's place, and if you sell them in the lane at a halfpenny each, you will make a good profit. put aside five shillings of your takings and get another basket, and so you will be able to live till the tailoring picks up a bit." moses listened as if he had never heard of the elementary principles of barter. "may the name, blessed be it, bless you, and may you see rejoicings on your children's children." so moses went away and bought dinner, treating his family to some _beuglich_, or circular twisted rolls, in his joy. but on the morrow he repaired to the market, thinking on the way of the ethical distinction between "duties of the heart" and "duties of the limbs," as expounded in choice hebrew by rabbenu bachja, and he laid out the remnant in lemons. then he stationed himself in petticoat lane, crying, in his imperfect english, "lemans, verra good lemans, two a penny each, two a penny each!" chapter iv. the redemption of the son and the daughter. malka did not have long to wait for her liege lord. he was a fresh-colored young man of thirty, rather good-looking, with side whiskers, keen, eager glance, and an air of perpetually doing business. though a native of germany, he spoke english as well as many lane jews, whose comparative impiety was a certificate of british birth. michael birnbaum was a great man in the local little synagogue if only one of the crowd at "duke's plaizer." he had been successively _gabbai_ and _parnass_, or treasurer and president, and had presented the plush curtain, with its mystical decoration of intersecting triangles, woven in silk, that hung before the ark in which the scrolls of the law were kept. he was the very antithesis of moses ansell. his energy was restless. from hawking he had risen to a profitable traffic in gold lace and brummagem jewelry, with a large _clientèle_ all over the country, before he was twenty. he touched nothing which he did not profit by; and when he married, at twenty-three, a woman nearly twice his age, the transaction was not without the usual percentage. very soon his line was diamonds,--real diamonds. he carried, a pocket-knife which was a combination of a corkscrew, a pair of scissors, a file, a pair of tweezers, a toothpick, and half a dozen other things, and which seemed an epitome of his character. his temperament was lively, and, like ephraim phillips, he liked music-halls. fortunately, malka was too conscious of her charms to dream of jealousy. michael smacked her soundly on the mouth with his lips and said: "well, mother!" he called her mother, not because he had any children, but because she had, and it seemed a pity to multiply domestic nomenclature. "well, my little one," said malka, hugging him fondly. "have you made a good journey this time?" "no, trade is so dull. people won't put their hands in their pockets. and here?" "people won't take their hands out of their pockets, lazy dogs! everybody is striking,--jews with them. unheard-of things! the bootmakers, the capmakers, the furriers! and now they say the tailors are going to strike; more fools, too, when the trade is so slack. what with one thing and another (let me put your cravat straight, my little love), it's just the people who can't afford to buy new clothes that are hard up, so that they can't afford to buy second-hand clothes either. if the almighty is not good to us, we shall come to the board of guardians ourselves." "not quite so bad as that, mother," laughed michael, twirling the massive diamond ring on his finger. "how's baby? is it ready to be redeemed?" "which baby?" said malka, with well-affected agnosticism. "phew!" whistled michael. "what's up now, mother?" "nothing, my pet, nothing." "well, i'm going across. come along, mother. oh, wait a minute. i want to brush this mud off my trousers. is the clothes-brush here?" "yes, dearest one," said the unsuspecting malka. michael winked imperceptibly, flicked his trousers, and without further parley ran across the diagonal to milly's house. five minutes afterwards a deputation, consisting of a char-woman, waited upon malka and said: "missus says will you please come over, as baby is a-cryin' for its grandma." "ah, that must be another pin," said malka, with a gleam of triumph at her victory. but she did not budge. at the end of five minutes she rose solemnly, adjusted her wig and her dress in the mirror, put on her bonnet, brushed away a non-existent speck of dust from her left sleeve, put a peppermint in her mouth, and crossed the square, carrying the clothes-brush in her hand. milly's door was half open, but she knocked at it and said to the char-woman: "is mrs. phillips in?" "yes, mum, the company's all upstairs." "oh, then i will go up and return her this myself." malka went straight through the little crowd of guests to milly, who was sitting on a sofa with ezekiel, quiet as a lamb and as good as gold, in her arms. "milly, my dear," she said. "i have come to bring you back your clothes-brush. thank you so much for the loan of it." "you know you're welcome, mother," said milly, with unintentionally dual significance. the two ladies embraced. ephraim phillips, a sallow-looking, close-cropped pole, also kissed his mother-in-law, and the gold chain that rested on malka's bosom heaved with the expansion of domestic pride. malka thanked god she was not a mother of barren or celibate children, which is only one degree better than personal unfruitfulness, and testifies scarce less to the celestial curse. "is that pin-mark gone away yet, milly, from the precious little thing?" said malka, taking ezekiel in her arms and disregarding the transformation of face which in babies precedes a storm. "yes, it was a mere flea-bite," said milly incautiously, adding hurriedly, "i always go through his flannels and things most carefully to see there are no more pins lurking about." "that is right! pins are like fleas--you never know where they get to," said malka in an insidious spirit of compromise. "where is leah?" "she is in the back yard frying the last of the fish. don't you smell it?" "it will hardly have time to get cold." "well, but i did a dishful myself last night. she is only preparing a reserve in case the attack be too deadly." "and where is the _cohen_?" "oh, we have asked old hyams across the ruins. we expect him round every minute." at this point the indications of ezekiel's facial barometer were fulfilled, and a tempest of weeping shook him. "_na_! go then! go to the mother," said malka angrily. "all my children are alike. it's getting late. hadn't you better send across again for old hyams?" "there's no hurry, mother," said michael birnbaum soothingly. "we must wait for sam." "and who's sam?" cried malka unappeased. "sam is leah's _chosan_," replied michael ingenuously. "clever!" sneered malka. "but my grandson is not going to wait for the son of a proselyte. why doesn't he come?" "he'll be here in one minute." "how do you know?" "we came up in the same train. he got in at middlesborough. he's just gone home to see his folks, and get a wash and a brush-up. considering he's coming up to town merely for the sake of the family ceremony, i think it would be very rude to commence without him. it's no joke, a long railway journey this weather. my feet were nearly frozen despite the foot-warmer." "my poor lambkin," said malka, melting. and she patted his side whiskers. sam levine arrived almost immediately, and leah, fishfork in hand, flew out of the back-yard kitchen to greet him. though a member of the tribe of levi, he was anything but ecclesiastical in appearance, rather a representative of muscular judaism. he had a pink and white complexion, and a tawny moustache, and bubbled over with energy and animal spirits. he could give most men thirty in a hundred in billiards, and fifty in anecdote. he was an advanced radical in politics, and had a high opinion of the intelligence of his party. he paid leah lip-fealty on his entry. "what a pity it's sunday!" was leah's first remark when the kissing was done. "no going to the play," said sam ruefully, catching her meaning. they always celebrated his return from a commercial round by going to the theatre--the-etter they pronounced it. they went to the pit of the west end houses rather than patronize the local dress circles for the same money. there were two strata of ghetto girls, those who strolled in the strand on sabbath, and those who strolled in the whitechapel road. leah was of the upper stratum. she was a tall lovely brunette, exuberant of voice and figure, with coarse red hands. she doted on ice-cream in the summer, and hot chocolate in the winter, but her love of the theatre was a perennial passion. both sam and she had good ears, and were always first in the field with the latest comic opera tunes. leah's healthy vitality was prodigious. there was a legend in the lane of such a maiden having been chosen by a coronet; leah was satisfied with sam, who was just her match. on the heels of sam came several other guests, notably mrs. jacobs (wife of "reb" shemuel), with her pretty daughter, hannah. mr. hyams, the _cohen_, came last--the priest whose functions had so curiously dwindled since the times of the temples. to be called first to the reading of the law, to bless his brethren with symbolic spreadings of palms and fingers in a mystic incantation delivered, standing shoeless before the ark of the covenant at festival seasons, to redeem the mother's first-born son when neither parent was of priestly lineage--these privileges combined with a disability to be with or near the dead, differentiated his religious position from that of the levite or the israelite. mendel hyams was not puffed up about his tribal superiority, though if tradition were to be trusted, his direct descent from aaron, the high priest, gave him a longer genealogy than queen victoria's. he was a meek sexagenarian, with a threadbare black coat and a child-like smile. all the pride of the family seemed to be monopolized by his daughter miriam, a girl whose very nose heaven had fashioned scornful. miriam had accompanied him out of contemptuous curiosity. she wore a stylish feather in her hat, and a boa round her throat, and earned thirty shillings a week, all told, as a school teacher. (esther ansell was in her class just now.) probably her toilette had made old hyams unpunctual. his arrival was the signal for the commencement of the proceedings, and the men hastened to assume their head-gear. ephraim phillips cautiously took the swaddled-up infant from the bosom of milly where it was suckling and presented it to old hyams. fortunately ezekiel had already had a repletion of milk, and was drowsy and manifested very little interest in the whole transaction. "this my first-born son," said ephraim in hebrew as he handed ezekiel over--"is the first-born of his mother, and the holy one, blessed be he, hath given command to redeem him, as it is said, and those that are to be redeemed of them from a month old, shalt thou redeem according to thine estimation for the money of five shekels after the shekel of the sanctuary, the shekel being twenty gerahs; and it is said, 'sanctify unto me all the first-born, whatsoever openeth the womb among the children of israel, both of man and of beast; it is mine.'" ephraim phillips then placed fifteen shillings in silver before old hyams, who thereupon inquired in chaldaic: "which wouldst thou rather--give me thy first-born son, the first-born of his mother, or redeem him for five selaim, which thou art bound to give according to the law?" ephraim replied in chaldaic: "i am desirous rather to redeem my son, and here thou hast the value of his redemption, which i am bound to give according to the law." thereupon hyams took the money tendered, and gave back the child to his father, who blessed god for his sanctifying commandments, and thanked him for his mercies; after which the old _cohen_ held the fifteen shillings over the head of the infant, saying: "this instead of that, this in exchange for that, this in remission of that. may this child enter into life, into the law, and into the fear of heaven. may it be god's will that even as he has been admitted to redemption, so may he enter into the law, the nuptial canopy and into good deeds. amen." then, placing his hand in benediction upon the child's head, the priestly layman added: "god make thee as ephraim and manasseh. the lord bless thee and keep thee. the lord make his face to shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee. the lord turn his face to thee and grant thee peace. the lord is thy guardian; the lord is thy shade upon thy right hand. for length of days and years of life and peace shall they add to thee. the lord shall guard thee from all evil. he shall guard thy soul." "amen," answered the company, and then there was a buzz of secular talk, general rapture being expressed at the stolidness of ezekiel's demeanor. cups of tea were passed round by the lovely leah, and the secrets of the paper bags were brought to light. ephraim phillips talked horses with sam levine, and old hyams quarrelled with malka over the disposal of the fifteen shillings. knowing that hyams was poor, malka refused to take back the money retendered by him under pretence of a gift to the child. the _cohen_, however, was a proud man, and under the eye of miriam a firm one. ultimately it was agreed the money should be expended on a _missheberach_, for the infant's welfare and the synagogue's. birds of a feather flock together, and miriam forgathered with hannah jacobs, who also had a stylish feather in her hat, and was the most congenial of the company. mrs. jacobs was left to discourse of the ailments of childhood and the iniquities of servants with mrs. phillips. reb shemuel's wife, commonly known as the rebbitzin, was a tall woman with a bony nose and shrivelled cheeks, whereon the paths of the blood-vessels were scrawled in red. the same bones were visible beneath the plumper padding of hannah's face. mrs. jacobs had escaped the temptation to fatness, which is the besetting peril of the jewish matron. if hannah could escape her mother's inclination to angularity she would be a pretty woman. she dressed with taste, which is half the battle, and for the present she was only nineteen. "do you think it's a good match?" said miriam hyams, indicating sam levine with a movement of the eyebrow. a swift, scornful look flitted across hannah's face. "among the jews," she said, "every match is a grand _shidduch_ before the marriage; after, we hear another tale." "there is a good deal in that," admitted miriam, thoughtfully. "the girl's family cries up the capture shamelessly. i remember when clara emanuel was engaged, her brother jack told me it was a splendid _shidduch_. afterwards i found he was a widower of fifty-five with three children." "but that engagement went off," said hannah. "i know," said miriam. "i'm only saying i can't fancy myself doing anything of the kind." "what! breaking off an engagement?" said hannah, with a cynical little twinkle about her eye. "no, taking a man like that," replied miriam. "i wouldn't look at a man over thirty-five, or with less than two hundred and fifty a year." "you'll never marry a teacher, then," hannah remarked. "teacher!" miriam hyams repeated, with a look of disgust. "how can one be respectable on three pounds a week? i must have a man in a good position." she tossed her piquant nose and looked almost handsome. she was five years older than hannah, and it seemed an enigma why men did not rush to lay five pounds a week at her daintily shod feet. "i'd rather marry a man with two pounds a week if i loved him," said hannah in a low tone. "not in this century," said miriam, shaking her head incredulously. "we don't believe in that nonsense now-a-days. there was alice green,--she used to talk like that,--now look at her, riding about in a gig side by side with a bald monkey." "alice green's mother," interrupted malka, pricking up her ears, "married a son of mendel weinstein by his third wife, dinah, who had ten pounds left her by her uncle shloumi." "no, dinah was mendel's second wife," corrected mrs. jacobs, cutting short a remark of mrs. phillips's in favor of the new interest. "dinah was mendel's third wife," repeated malka, her tanned cheeks reddening. "i know it because my simon, god bless him, was breeched the same month." simon was malka's eldest, now a magistrate in melbourne. "his third wife was kitty green, daughter of the yellow melammed," persisted the rebbitzin. "i know it for a fact, because kitty's sister annie was engaged for a week to my brother-in-law nathaniel." "his first wife," put in malka's husband, with the air of arbitrating between the two, "was shmool the publican's eldest daughter." "shmool the publican's daughter," said malka, stirred to fresh indignation, "married hyam robins, the grandson of old benjamin, who kept the cutlery shop at the corner of little eden alley, there where the pickled cucumber store stands now." "it was shmool's sister that married hyam robins, wasn't it, mother?" asked milly, incautiously. "certainly not," thundered malka. "i knew old benjamin well, and he sent me a pair of chintz curtains when i married your father." "poor old benjamin! how long has he been dead?" mused reb shemuel's wife. "he died the year i was confined with my leah----" "stop! stop!" interrupted sam levine boisterously. "there's leah getting as red as fire for fear you'll blab out her age." "don't be a fool, sam," said leah, blushing violently, and looking the lovelier for it. the attention of the entire company was now concentrated upon the question at issue, whatever it might be. malka fixed her audience with her piercing eye, and said in a tone that scarce brooked contradiction: "hyam robins couldn't have married shmool's sister because shmool's sister was already the wife of abraham the fishmonger." "yes, but shmool had two sisters," said mrs. jacobs, audaciously asserting her position as the rival genealogist. "nothing of the kind," replied malka warmly. "i'm quite sure," persisted mrs. jacobs. "there was phoeby and there was harriet." "nothing of the kind," repeated malka. "shmool had three sisters. only two were in the deaf and dumb home." "why, that, wasn't shmool at all," milly forgot herself so far as to say, "that was block the baker." "of course!" said malka in her most acid tone. "my _kinder_ always know better than me." there was a moment of painful silence. malka's eye mechanically sought the clothes-brush. then ezekiel sneezed. it was a convulsive "atichoo," and agitated the infant to its most intimate flannel-roll. "for thy salvation do i hope, o lord," murmured malka, piously, adding triumphantly aloud, "there! the _kind_ has sneezed to the truth of it. i knew i was right." the sneeze of an innocent child silences everybody who is not a blasphemer. in the general satisfaction at the unexpected solution of the situation, no one even pointed out that the actual statement to which ezekiel had borne testimony, was an assertion of the superior knowledge of malka's children. shortly afterwards the company trooped downstairs to partake of high tea, which in the ghetto need not include anything more fleshly than fish. fish was, indeed, the staple of the meal. fried fish, and such fried fish! only a great poet could sing the praises of the national dish, and the golden age of hebrew poetry is over. strange that gebirol should have lived and died without the opportunity of the theme, and that the great jehuda halevi himself should have had to devote his genius merely to singing the glories of jerusalem. "israel is among the other nations," he sang, "as the heart among the limbs." even so is the fried fish of judaea to the fried fish of christendom and heathendom. with the audacity of true culinary genius, jewish fried fish is always served cold. the skin is a beautiful brown, the substance firm and succulent. the very bones thereof are full of marrow, yea and charged with memories of the happy past. fried fish binds anglo-judaea more than all the lip-professions of unity. its savor is early known of youth, and the divine flavor, endeared by a thousand childish recollections, entwined with the most sacred associations, draws back the hoary sinner into the paths of piety. it is on fried fish, mayhap, that the jewish matron grows fat. in the days of the messiah, when the saints shall feed off the leviathan; and the sea serpent shall be dished up for the last time, and the world and the silly season shall come to an end, in those days it is probable that the saints will prefer their leviathan fried. not that any physical frying will be necessary, for in those happy times (for whose coming every faithful israelite prays three times a day), the leviathan will have what taste the eater will. possibly a few highly respectable saints, who were fashionable in their day and contrived to live in kensington without infection of paganism, will take their leviathan in conventional courses, and beginning with _hors d'oeuvres_ may _will_ him everything by turns and nothing long; making him soup and sweets, joint and _entrée_, and even ices and coffee, for in the millennium the harassing prohibition which bars cream after meat will fall through. but, however this be, it is beyond question that the bulk of the faithful will mentally fry him, and though the christian saints, who shall be privileged to wait at table, hand them plate after plate, fried fish shall be all the fare. one suspects that hebrews gained the taste in the desert of sinai, for the manna that fell there was not monotonous to the palate as the sciolist supposes, but likewise mutable under volition. it were incredible that moses, who gave so many imperishable things to his people, did not also give them the knowledge of fried fish, so that they might obey his behest, and rejoice, before the lord. nay, was it not because, while the manna fell, there could be no lack of fish to fry, that they lingered forty years in a dreary wilderness? other delicious things there are in jewish cookery--_lockschen_, which are the apotheosis of vermicelli, _ferfel_, which are _lockschen_ in an atomic state, and _creplich_, which are triangular meat-pasties, and _kuggol_, to which pudding has a far-away resemblance; and there is even _gefüllte fisch_, which is stuffed fish without bones--but fried fish reigns above all in cold, unquestioned sovereignty. no other people possesses the recipe. as a poet of the commencement of the century sings: the christians are ninnies, they can't fry dutch plaice, believe me, they can't tell a carp from a dace. it was while discussing a deliciously brown oblong of the dutch plaice of the ballad that samuel levine appeared to be struck by an idea. he threw down his knife and fork and exclaimed in hebrew. "_shemah beni_!" every one looked at him. "hear, my son!" he repeated in comic horror. then relapsing into english, he explained. "i've forgotten to give leah a present from her _chosan_." "a-h-h!" everybody gave a sigh of deep interest; leah, whom the exigencies of service had removed from his side to the head of the table, half-rose from her seat in excitement. now, whether samuel levine had really forgotten, or whether he had chosen the most effective moment will never be known; certain it is that the semitic instinct for drama was gratified within him as he drew a little folded white paper out of his waistcoat pocket, amid the keen expectation of the company. "this," said he, tapping the paper as if he were a conjurer, "was purchased by me yesterday morning for my little girl. i said to myself, says i, look here, old man, you've got to go up to town for a day in honor of ezekiel phillips, and your poor girl, who had looked forward to your staying away till passover, will want some compensation for her disappointment at seeing you earlier. so i thinks to myself, thinks i, now what is there that leah would like? it must be something appropriate, of course, and it mustn't be of any value, because i can't afford it. it's a ruinous business getting engaged; the worst bit of business i ever did in all my born days." here sam winked facetiously at the company. "and i thought and thought of what was the cheapest thing i could get out of it with, and lo and behold i suddenly thought of a ring." so saying, sam, still with the same dramatic air, unwrapped the thick gold ring and held it up so that the huge diamond in it sparkled in the sight of all. a long "o--h--h" went round the company, the majority instantaneously pricing it mentally, and wondering at what reduction sam had acquired it from a brother commercial. for that no jew ever pays full retail price for jewelry is regarded as axiomatic. even the engagement ring is not required to be first-hand--or should it be first-finger?--so long as it is solid; which perhaps accounts for the superiority of the jewish marriage-rate. leah rose entirely to her feet, the light of the diamond reflected in her eager eyes. she leant across the table, stretching out a finger to receive her lover's gift. sam put the ring near her finger, then drew it away teasingly. "them as asks shan't have," he said, in high good humor. "you're too greedy. look at the number of rings you've got already." the fun of the situation diffused itself along the table. "give it me," laughed miriam hyams, stretching out her finger. "i'll say 'ta' so nicely." "no," he said, "you've been naughty; i'm going to give it to the little girl who has sat quiet all the time. miss hannah jacobs, rise to receive your prize." hannah, who was sitting two places to the left of him, smiled quietly, but went on carving her fish. sam, growing quite boisterous under the appreciation of a visibly amused audience, leaned towards her, captured her right hand, and forcibly adjusted the ring on the second finger, exclaiming in hebrew, with mock solemnity, "behold, thou art consecrated unto me by this ring according to the law of moses and israel." it was the formal marriage speech he had learnt up for his approaching marriage. the company roared with laughter, and pleasure and enjoyment of the fun made leah's lovely, smiling cheeks flush to a livelier crimson. badinage flew about from one end of the table to the other: burlesque congratulations were showered on the couple, flowing over even unto mrs. jacobs, who appeared to enjoy the episode as much as if her daughter were really off her hands. the little incident added the last touch of high spirits to the company and extorted all their latent humor. samuel excelled himself in vivacious repartee, and responded comically to the toast of his health as drunk in coffee. suddenly, amid the hubbub of chaff and laughter and the clatter of cutlery, a still small voice made itself heard. it same from old hyams, who had been sitting quietly with brow corrugated under his black velvet _koppel_. "mr. levine," he said, in low grave tones, "i have been thinking, and i am afraid that what you have done is serious." the earnestness of his tones arrested the attention of the company. the laughter ceased. "what do you mean?" said samuel. he understood the yiddish which old hyams almost invariably used, though he did not speak it himself. contrariwise, old hyams understood much more english than he spoke. "you have married hannah jacobs." there was a painful silence, dim recollections surging in everybody's brain. "married hannah jacobs!" repeated samuel incredulously. "yes," affirmed old hyams. "what you have done constitutes a marriage according to jewish law. you have pledged yourself to her in the presence of two witnesses." there was another tense silence. samuel broke it with a boisterous laugh. "no, no, old fellow," he said; "you don't have me like that!" the tension was relaxed. everybody joined in the laugh with a feeling of indescribable relief. facetious old hyams had gone near scoring one. hannah smilingly plucked off the glittering bauble from her finger and slid it on to leah's. hyams alone remained grave. "laugh away!" he said. "you will soon find i am right. such is our law." "may be," said samuel, constrained to seriousness despite himself. "but you forget that i am already engaged to leah." "i do not forget it," replied hyams, "but it has nothing to do with the case. you are both single, or rather you _were_ both single, for now you are man and wife." leah, who had been sitting pale and agitated, burst into tears. hannah's face was drawn and white. her mother looked the least alarmed of the company. "droll person!" cried malka, addressing sam angrily in jargon. "what hast thou done?" "don't let us all go mad," said samuel, bewildered. "how can a piece of fun, a joke, be a valid marriage?" "the law takes no account of jokes," said old hyams solemnly. "then why didn't you stop me?" asked sam, exasperated. "it was all done in a moment. i laughed myself; i had no time to think." sam brought his fist down on the table with a bang. "well, i'll never believe this! if this is judaism----!" "hush!" said malka angrily. "these are your english jews, who make mock of holy things. i always said the son of a proselyte was----" "look here, mother," put in michael soothingly. "don't let us make a fuss before we know the truth. send for some one who is likely to know." he played agitatedly with his complex pocket-knife. "yes, hannah's father, reb shemuel is just the man," cried milly phillips. "i told you my husband was gone to manchester for a day or two," mrs. jacobs reminded her. "there's the _maggid_ of the sons of the covenant," said one of the company. "i'll go and fetch him." the stooping, black-bearded _maggid_ was brought. when he arrived, it was evident from his look that he knew all and brought confirmation of their worst fears. he explained the law at great length, and cited precedent upon precedent. when he ceased, leah's sobs alone broke the silence. samuel's face was white. the merry gathering had been turned to a wedding party. "you rogue!" burst forth malka at last. "you planned all this--you thought my leah didn't have enough money, and that reb shemuel will heap you up gold in the hands. but you don't take me in like this." "may this piece of bread choke me if i had the slightest iota of intention!" cried samuel passionately, for the thought of what leah might think was like fire in his veins. he turned appealingly to the _maggid_; "but there must be some way out of this, surely there must be some way out. i know you _maggidim_ can split hairs. can't you make one of your clever distinctions even when there's more than a trifle concerned?" there was a savage impatience about the bridegroom which boded ill for the law. "of course there's a way out," said the _maggid_ calmly. "only one way, but a very broad and simple one." "what's that?" everybody asked breathlessly. "he must give her _gett_!" "of course!" shouted sam in a voice of thunder. "i divorce her at once." he guffawed hysterically: "what a pack of fools we are! good old jewish law!" leah's sobs ceased. everybody except mrs. jacobs was smiling once more. half a dozen, hands grasped the _maggid's_; half a dozen others thumped him on the back. he was pushed into a chair. they gave him a glass of brandy, they heaped a plate with fried fish. verily the _maggid_, who was in truth sore ahungered, was in luck's way. he blessed providence and the jewish marriage law. "but you had better not reckon that a divorce," he warned them between two mouthfuls. "you had better go to reb shemuel, the maiden's father, and let him arrange the _gett_ beyond reach of cavil." "but reb shemuel is away," said mrs. jacobs. "and i must go away, too, by the first train to-morrow," said sam. "however, there's no hurry. i'll arrange to run up to town again in a fortnight or so, and then reb shemuel shall see that we are properly untied. you don't mind being my wife for a fortnight, i hope, miss jacobs?" asked sam, winking gleefully at leah. she smiled back at him and they laughed together over the danger they had just escaped. hannah laughed too, in contemptuous amusement at the rigidity of jewish law. "i'll tell you what, sam, can't you come back for next saturday week?" said leah. "why?" asked sam. "what's on?" "the purim ball at the club. as you've got to come back to give hannah _gett_, you might as well come in time to take me to the ball." "right you are," said sam cheerfully. leah clapped her hands. "oh that will be jolly," she said. "and we'll take hannah with us," she added as an afterthought. "is that by way of compensation for losing my husband?" hannah asked with a smile. leah gave a happy laugh, and turned the new ring on her finger in delighted contemplation. "all's well that ends well," said sam. "through this joke leah will be the belle of the purim ball. i think i deserve another piece of plaice, leah, for that compliment. as for you, mr. maggid, you're a saint and a talmud sage!" the _maggid's_ face was brightened by a smile. he intoned the grace with unction when the meal ended, and everybody joined in heartily at the specifically vocal portions. then the _maggid_ left, and the cards were brought out. it is inadvisable to play cards _before_ fried fish, because it is well known that you may lose, and losing may ruffle your temper, and you may call your partner an ass, or your partner may call you an ass. to-night the greatest good humor prevailed, though several pounds changed hands. they played loo, "klobbiyos," napoleon, vingt-et-un, and especially brag. solo whist had not yet come in to drive everything else out. old hyams did not _spiel_, because he could not afford to, and hannah jacobs because she did not care to. these and a few other guests left early. but the family party stayed late. on a warm green table, under a cheerful gas light, with brandy and whiskey and sweets and fruit to hand, with no trains or busses to catch, what wonder if the light-hearted assembly played far into the new day? meanwhile the redeemed son slept peacefully in his crib with his legs curled up, and his little fists clenched beneath the coverlet. chapter v. the pauper alien. moses ansell married mainly because all men are mortal. he knew he would die and he wanted an heir. not to inherit anything, but to say _kaddish_ for him. _kaddish_ is the most beautiful and wonderful mourning prayer ever written. rigidly excluding all references to death and grief, it exhausts itself in supreme glorification of the eternal and in supplication for peace upon the house of israel. but its significance has been gradually transformed; human nature, driven away with a pitchfork, has avenged itself by regarding the prayer as a mass, not without purgatorial efficacy, and so the jew is reluctant to die without leaving some one qualified to say _kaddish_ after him every day for a year, and then one day a year. that is one reason why sons are of such domestic importance. moses had only a mother in the world when he married gittel silverstein, and he hoped to restore the balance of male relatives by this reckless measure. the result was six children, three girls and three _kaddishim_. in gittel, moses found a tireless helpmate. during her lifetime the family always lived in two rooms, for she had various ways of supplementing the household income. when in london she chared for her cousin malka at a shilling a day. likewise she sewed underlinen and stitched slips of fur into caps in the privacy of home and midnight. for all mrs. ansell's industry, the family had been a typical group of wandering jews, straying from town to town in search of better things. the congregation they left (every town which could muster the minimum of ten men for worship boasted its _kehillah_) invariably paid their fare to the next congregation, glad to get rid of them so cheaply, and the new _kehillah_ jumped at the opportunity of gratifying their restless migratory instinct and sent them to a newer. thus were they tossed about on the battledores of philanthropy, often reverting to their starting-point, to the disgust of the charitable committees. yet moses always made loyal efforts to find work. his versatility was marvellous. there was nothing he could not do badly. he had been glazier, synagogue beadle, picture-frame manufacturer, cantor, peddler, shoemaker in all branches, coat-seller, official executioner of fowls and cattle, hebrew teacher, fruiterer, circumciser, professional corpse-watcher, and now he was a tailor out of work. unquestionably malka was right in considering moses a _schlemihl_ in comparison with many a fellow-immigrant, who brought indefatigable hand and subtle brain to the struggle for existence, and discarded the prop of charity as soon as he could, and sometimes earlier. it was as a hawker that he believed himself most gifted, and he never lost the conviction that if he could only get a fair start, he had in him the makings of a millionaire. yet there was scarcely anything cheap with which he had not tramped the country, so that when poor benjamin, who profited by his mother's death to get into the orphan asylum, was asked to write a piece of composition on "the methods of travelling," he excited the hilarity of the class-room by writing that there were numerous ways of travelling, for you could travel with sponge, lemons, rhubarb, old clothes, jewelry, and so on, for a page of a copy book. benjamin was a brilliant boy, yet he never shook off some of the misleading associations engendered by the parental jargon. for mrs. ansell had diversified her corrupt german by streaks of incorrect english, being of a much more energetic and ambitious temperament than the conservative moses, who dropped nearly all his burden of english into her grave. for benjamin, "to travel" meant to wander about selling goods, and when in his books he read of african travellers, he took it for granted that they were but exploiting the dark continent for small profits and quick returns. and who knows? perhaps of the two species, it was the old jewish peddlers who suffered the more and made the less profit on the average. for the despised three-hatted scarecrow of christian caricature, who shambled along snuffling "old clo'," had a strenuous inner life, which might possibly have vied in intensity, elevation, and even sense of humor, with that of the best of the jeerers on the highway. to moses, "travelling" meant straying forlornly in strange towns and villages, given over to the worship of an alien deity and ever ready to avenge his crucifixion; in a land of whose tongue he knew scarce more than the saracen damsel married by legend to à becket's father. it meant praying brazenly in crowded railway trains, winding the phylacteries sevenfold round his left arm and crowning his forehead with a huge leather bump of righteousness, to the bewilderment or irritation of unsympathetic fellow-passengers. it meant living chiefly on dry bread and drinking black tea out of his own cup, with meat and fish and the good things of life utterly banned by the traditional law, even if he were flush. it meant carrying the red rag of an obnoxious personality through a land of bulls. it meant passing months away from wife and children, in a solitude only occasionally alleviated by a sabbath spent in a synagogue town. it meant putting up at low public houses and common lodging houses, where rowdy disciples of the prince of peace often sent him bleeding to bed, or shamelessly despoiled him of his merchandise, or bullied and blustered him out of his fair price, knowing he dared not resent. it meant being chaffed and gibed at in language of which he only understood that it was cruel, though certain trite facetiae grew intelligible to him by repetition. thus once, when he had been interrogated as to the locality of moses when the light went out, he replied in yiddish that the light could not go out, for "it stands in the verse, that round the head of moses, our teacher, the great law-giver, was a perpetual halo." an old german happened to be smoking at the bar of the public house when the peddler gave his acute answer; he laughed heartily, slapped the jew on the back and translated the repartee to the convivial crew. for once intellect told, and the rough drinkers, with a pang of shame, vied with one another in pressing bitter beer upon the temperate semite. but, as a rule, moses ansell drank the cup of affliction instead of hospitality and bore his share to the full, without the remotest intention of being heroic, in the long agony of his race, doomed to be a byword and a mockery amongst the heathen. assuredly, to die for a religion is easier than to live for it. yet moses never complained nor lost faith. to be spat upon was the very condition of existence of the modern jew, deprived of palestine and his temple, a footsore mendicant, buffeted and reviled, yet the dearer to the lord god who had chosen him from the nations. bullies might break moses's head in this world, but in the next he would sit on a gold chair in paradise among the saints and sing exegetical acrostics to all eternity. it was some dim perception of these things that made esther forgive her father when the ansells waited weeks and weeks for a postal order and landlords were threatening to bundle them out neck and crop, and her mother's hands were worn to the bone slaving for her little ones. things improved a little just before the mother died, for they had settled down in london and moses earned eighteen shillings a week as a machinist and presser, and no longer roamed the country. but the interval of happiness was brief. the grandmother, imported from poland, did not take kindly to her son's wife, whom she found wanting in the minutiae of ceremonial piety and godless enough to wear her own hair. there had been, indeed, a note of scepticism, of defiance, in esther's mother, a hankering after the customs of the heathen, which her grandmother divined instinctively and resented for the sake of her son and the post-mundane existence of her grandchildren. mrs. ansell's scepticism based itself upon the uncleanliness which was so generally next to godliness in the pious circles round them, and she had been heard to express contempt for the learned and venerable israelite, who, being accosted by an acquaintance when the shadows of eve were beginning to usher in the day of atonement, exclaimed: "for heaven's sake, don't stop me--i missed my bath last year." mrs. ansell bathed her children from head to foot once a month, and even profanely washed them on the sabbath, and had other strange, uncanny notions. she professed not to see the value to god, man or beast of the learned rabbonim, who sat shaking themselves all day in the _beth hamidrash_, and said they would be better occupied in supporting their families, a view which, though mere surface blasphemy on the part of the good woman and primarily intended as a hint to moses to study less and work longer, did not fail to excite lively passages of arms between the two women. but death ended these bickerings and the _bube_, who had frequently reproached her son for bringing her into such an atheistic country, was left a drag the more upon the family deprived at once of a mother and a bread-winner. old mrs. ansell was unfit: for anything save grumbling, and so the headship naturally devolved upon esther, whom her mother's death left a woman getting on for eight. the commencement of her reign coincided with a sad bisection of territory. shocking as it may be to better regulated minds, these seven people lived in one room. moses and the two boys slept in one bed and the grandmother and the three girls in another. esther had to sleep with her head on a supplementary pillow at the foot of the bed. but there can be much love in a little room. the room was not, however, so very little, for it was of ungainly sprawling structure, pushing out an odd limb that might have been cut off with a curtain. the walls nodded fixedly to one another so that the ceiling was only half the size of the floor. the furniture comprised but the commonest necessities. this attic of the ansells was nearer heaven than most earthly dwelling places, for there were four tall flights of stairs to mount before you got to it. no. royal street had been in its time one of the great mansions of the ghetto; pillars of the synagogue had quaffed _kosher_ wine in its spacious reception rooms and its corridors had echoed with the gossip of portly dames in stiff brocades. it was stoutly built and its balusters were of carved oak. but now the threshold of the great street door, which was never closed, was encrusted with black mud, and a musty odor permanently clung to the wide staircase and blent subtly with far-away reminiscences of mr. belcovitch's festive turpentine. the ansells had numerous housemates, for no. royal street was a jewish colony in itself and the resident population was periodically swollen by the "hands" of the belcovitches and by the "sons of the covenant," who came to worship at their synagogue on the ground floor. what with sugarman the _shadchan_, on the first floor, mrs. simons and dutch debby on the second, the belcovitches on the third, and the ansells and gabriel hamburg, the great scholar, on the fourth, the door-posts twinkled with _mezuzahs_--cases or cylinders containing sacred script with the word _shaddai_ (almighty) peering out of a little glass eye at the centre. even dutch debby, abandoned wretch as she was, had this protection against evil spirits (so it has come to be regarded) on her lintel, though she probably never touched the eye with her finger to kiss the place of contact after the manner of the faithful. thus was no. royal street close packed with the stuff of human life, homespun and drab enough, but not altogether profitless, may be, to turn over and examine. so close packed was it that there was scarce breathing space. it was only at immemorial intervals that our pauper alien made a pun, but one day he flashed upon the world the pregnant remark that england was well named, for to the jew it was verily the enge-land, which in german signifies the country without elbow room. moses ansell chuckled softly and beatifically when he emitted the remark that surprised all who knew him. but then it was the rejoicing of the law and the sons of the covenant had treated him to rum and currant cake. he often thought of his witticism afterwards, and it always lightened his unwashed face with a happy smile. the recollection usually caught him when he was praying. for four years after mrs. ansell's charity funeral the ansells, though far from happy, had no history to speak of. benjamin accompanied solomon to _shool_ morning and evening to say _kaddish_ for their mother till he passed into the orphan asylum and out of the lives of his relatives. solomon and rachel and esther went to the great school and isaac to the infant school, while the tiny sarah, whose birth had cost mrs. ansell's life, crawled and climbed about in the garret, the grandmother coming in negatively useful as a safeguard against fire on the days when the grate was not empty. the _rube's_ own conception of her function as a safeguard against fire was quite other. moses was out all day working or looking for work, or praying or listening to _drashes_, by the _maggid_ or other great preachers. such charities as brightened and warmed the ghetto moses usually came in for. bread, meat and coal tickets, god-sends from the society for restoring the soul, made odd days memorable. blankets were not so easy to get as in the days of poor gittel's confinements. what little cooking there was to do was done by esther before or after school; she and her children usually took their mid-day meal with them in the shape of bread, occasionally made ambrosial by treacle the ansells had more fast days than the jewish calendar, which is saying a good deal. providence, however, generally stepped in before the larder had been bare twenty-four hours. as the fast days of the jewish calendar did not necessarily fall upon the ansell fast days, they were an additional tax on moses and his mother. yet neither ever wavered in the scrupulous observance of them, not a crumb of bread nor a drop of water passing their lips. in the keen search for facts detrimental to the ghetto it is surprising that no political economist has hitherto exposed the abundant fasts with which israel has been endowed, and which obviously operate as a dole in aid of wages. so does the lenten period of the "three weeks," when meat is prohibited in memory of the shattered temples. the ansells kept the "three weeks" pretty well all the year round. on rare occasions they purchased pickled dutch herrings or brought home pennyworths of pea soup or of baked potatoes and rice from a neighboring cook shop. for festival days, if malka had subsidized them with a half-sovereign, esther sometimes compounded _tzimmus_, a dainty blend of carrots, pudding and potatoes. she was prepared to write an essay on _tzimmus_ as a gastronomic ideal. there were other pleasing polish combinations which were baked for twopence by the local bakers. _tabechas_, or stuffed entrails, and liver, lights or milt were good substitutes for meat. a favorite soup was _borsch_, which was made with beet-root, fat taking the place of the more fashionable cream. the national dish was seldom their lot; when fried fish came it was usually from the larder of mrs. simons, a motherly old widow, who lived in the second floor front, and presided over the confinements of all the women and the sicknesses of all the children in the neighborhood. her married daughter dinah was providentially suckling a black-eyed boy when mrs. ansell died, so mrs. simons converted her into a foster mother of little sarah, regarding herself ever afterwards as under special responsibilities toward the infant, whom she occasionally took to live with her for a week, and for whom she saw heaven encouraging a future alliance with the black-eyed foster brother. life would have been gloomier still in the ansell garret if mrs. simons had not been created to bless and sustain. even old garments somehow arrived from mrs. simons to eke out the corduroys and the print gowns which were the gift of the school. there were few pleasanter events in the ansell household than the falling ill of one of the children, for not only did this mean a supply of broth, port wine and other incredible luxuries from the charity doctor (of which all could taste), but it brought in its train the assiduous attendance of mrs. simons. to see the kindly brown face bending over it with smiling eyes of jet, to feel the soft, cool hand pressed to its forehead, was worth a fever to a motherless infant. mrs. simons was a busy woman and a poor withal, and the ansells were a reticent pack, not given to expressing either their love or their hunger to outsiders; so altogether the children did not see so much of mrs. simons or her bounties as they would have liked. nevertheless, in a grave crisis she was always to be counted upon. "i tell thee what, méshe," said old mrs. ansell often, "that woman wants to marry thee. a blind man could see it." "she cannot want it, mother," moses would reply with infinite respect. "what art thou saying? a wholly fine young man like thee," said his mother, fondling his side ringlets, "and one so _froom_ too, and with such worldly wisdom. but thou must not have her, méshe." "what kind of idea thou stuffest into my head! i tell thee she would not have me if i sent to ask." "talk not thyself thereinto. who wouldn't like to catch hold of thy cloak to go to heaven by? but mrs. simons is too much of an englishwoman for me. your last wife had english ideas and made mock of pious men and god's judgment took her. what says the prayer-book? for three things a woman dies in childbirth, for not separating the dough, for not lighting the sabbath lamps and for not--" "how often have i told thee she did do all these things!" interrupted moses. "dost thou contradict the prayer-book?" said the _bube_ angrily. "it would have been different if thou hadst let me pick a woman for thee. but this time thou wilt honor thy mother more. it must be a respectable, virtuous maiden, with the fear of heaven--not an old woman like mrs. simons, but one who can bear me robust grandchildren. the grandchildren thou hast given me are sickly, and they fear not the most high. ah! why did'st thou drag me to this impious country? could'st thou not let me die in peace? thy girls think more of english story books and lessons than of _yiddishkeit_, and the boys run out under the naked sky with bare heads and are loth to wash their hands before meals, and they do not come home in the dinner hour for fear they should have to say the afternoon prayer. laugh at me, moses, as thou wilt, but, old as i am, i have eyes, and not two blotches of clay, in my sockets. thou seest not how thy family is going to destruction. oh, the abominations!" thus warned and put on his mettle, moses would keep a keen look-out on his hopeful family for the next day, and the seed which the grandmother had sown came up in black and blue bruises or, the family anatomy, especially on that portion of it which belonged to solomon. for moses's crumbling trousers were buckled with a stout strap, and solomon was a young rogue who did his best to dodge the almighty, and had never heard of lowell's warning, you've gut to git up airly, ef you want to take in god. even if he had heard of it, he would probably have retorted that he usually got up early enough to take in his father, who was the more immediately terrible of the two. nevertheless, solomon learned many lessons at his father's knee, or rather, across it. in earlier days solomon had had a number of confidential transactions with his father's god, making bargains with him according to his childish sense of equity. if, for instance, god would ensure his doing his sums correctly, so that he should be neither caned nor "kept in," he would say his morning prayers without skipping the aggravating _longë verachum_, which bulked so largely on mondays and thursdays; otherwise he could not be bothered. by the terms of the contract solomon threw all the initiative on the deity, and whenever the deity undertook his share of the contract, solomon honorably fulfilled his. thus was his faith in providence never shaken like that of some boys, who expect the deity to follow their lead. still, by declining to praise his maker at extraordinary length, except in acknowledgment of services rendered, solomon gave early evidence of his failure to inherit his father's business incapacity. on days when things at the school went well, no one gabbled through the weary prayer-book more conscientiously than he; he said all the things in large type and all the funny little bits in small type, and even some passages without vowels. nay, he included the very preface, and was lured on and coaxed on and enticed by his father to recite the appendices, which shot up one after the other on the devotional horizon like the endless-seeming terraces of a deceptive ascent; just another little bit, and now that little bit, and just that last bit, and one more very last little bit. it was like the infinite inclusiveness of a chinese sphere, or the farewell performances of a distinguished singer. for the rest, solomon was a _chine-ponim_, or droll, having that inextinguishable sense of humor which has made the saints of the jewish church human, has lit up dry technical talmudic, discussions with flashes of freakish fun, with pun and jest and merry quibble, and has helped the race to survive (_pace_ dr. wallace) by dint of a humorous acquiescence in the inevitable. his _chine_ helped solomon to survive synagogue, where the only drop of sweetness was in the beaker of wine for the sanctification service. solomon was always in the van of the brave boys who volunteered to take part in the ceremonial quaffing of it. decidedly. solomon was not spiritual, he would not even kiss a hebrew pentateuch that he had dropped, unless his father was looking, and but for the personal supervision of the _bube_ the dirty white fringes of his "four-corners" might have got tangled and irredeemably invalidated for all he cared. in the direst need of the ansells solomon held his curly head high among his school-fellows, and never lacked personal possessions, though they were not negotiable at the pawnbroker's. he had a peep-show, made out of an old cocoa box, and representing the sortie from plevna, a permit to view being obtainable for a fragment of slate pencil. for two pins he would let you look a whole minute. he also had bags of brass buttons, marbles, both commoners and alleys; nibs, beer bottle labels and cherry "hogs," besides bottles of liquorice water, vendible either by the sip or the teaspoonful, and he dealt in "assy-tassy," which consisted of little packets of acetic acid blent with brown sugar. the character of his stock varied according to the time of year, for nature and belgravia are less stable in their seasons than the jewish schoolboy, to whom buttons in march are as inconceivable as snow-balling in july. on purim solomon always had nuts to gamble with, just as if he had been a banker's son, and on the day of atonement he was never without a little tin fusee box filled with savings of snuff. this, when the fast racked them most sorely, he would pass round among the old men with a grand manner. they would take a pinch and say, "may thy strength increase," and blow their delighted noses with great colored handkerchiefs, and solomon would feel about fifty and sniff a few grains himself with the air of an aged connoisseur. he took little interest in the subtle disquisitions of the rabbis, which added their burden to his cross of secular learning. he wrestled but perfunctorily with the theses of the bible commentators, for moses ansell was so absorbed in translating and enjoying the intellectual tangles, that solomon had scarce more to do than to play the part of chorus. he was fortunate in that his father could not afford to send him to a _chedar_, an insanitary institution that made jacob a dull boy by cutting off his play-time and his oxygen, and delivering him over to the leathery mercies of an unintelligently learned zealot, scrupulously unclean. the literature and history solomon really cared for was not of the jews. it was the history of daredevil dick and his congeners whose surprising adventures, second-hand, in ink-stained sheets, were bartered to him for buttons, which shows the advantages of not having a soul above such. these deeds of derring-do (usually starting in a __school-room period in which teachers were thankfully accepted as created by providence for the sport of schoolboys) solomon conned at all hours, concealing them under his locker when he was supposed to be studying the irish question from an atlas, and even hiding them between the leaves of his dog-eared prayer-book for use during the morning service. the only harm they did him was that inflicted through the medium of the educational rod, when his surreptitious readings were discovered and his treasures thrown to the flames amid tears copious enough to extinguish them. chapter vi. "reb" shemuel. "the torah is greater than the priesthood and than royalty, seeing that royalty demands thirty qualifications, the priesthood twenty-four, while the torah is acquired by forty-eight. and these are they: by audible study; by distinct pronunciation; by understanding and discernment of the heart; by awe, reverence, meekness, cheerfulness; by ministering to the sages; by attaching oneself to colleagues; by discussion with disciples; _by_ sedateness; by knowledge of the scripture and of the mishnah; by moderation in business, in intercourse with the world, in pleasure, in sleep, in conversation, in laughter; by long suffering; by a good heart; by faith in the wise; by resignation under chastisement; by recognizing one's place, rejoicing in one's portion, putting a fence to one's words, claiming no merit for oneself; by being beloved, loving the all-present, loving mankind, loving just courses, rectitude and reproof; by keeping oneself far from honors, not boasting of one's learning, nor delighting in giving decisions; by bearing the yoke with one's fellow, judging him favorably and leading him to truth and peace; by being composed in one's study; by asking and answering, hearing and adding thereto (by one's own reflection), by learning with the object of teaching and learning with the object of practising, by making one's master wiser, fixing attention upon his discourse, and reporting a thing in the name of him who said it. so thou hast learnt. whosoever reports a thing in the name of him that said it brings deliverance into the world, as it is said--and esther told the king in the name of mordecai."--(_ethics of the fathers_, singer's translation.) moses ansell only occasionally worshipped at the synagogue of "the sons of the covenant," for it was too near to make attendance a _mitzvah_, pleasing in the sight of heaven. it was like having the prayer-quorum brought to you, instead of your going to it. the pious jew must speed to _shool_ to show his eagerness and return slowly, as with reluctant feet, lest satan draw the attention of the holy one to the laches of his chosen people. it was not easy to express these varying emotions on a few nights of stairs, and so moses went farther afield, in subtle minutiae like this moses was _facile princeps_, being as wellhausen puts it of the _virtuosi_ of religion. if he put on his right stocking (or rather foot lappet, for he did not wear stockings) first, he made amends by putting on the left boot first, and if he had lace-up boots, then the boot put on second would have a compensatory precedence in the lacing. thus was the divine principle of justice symbolized even in these small matters. moses was a great man in several of the more distant _chevras_, among which he distributed the privilege of his presence. it was only when by accident the times of service did not coincide that moses favored the "sons of the covenant," putting in an appearance either at the commencement or the fag end, for he was not above praying odd bits of the service twice over, and even sometimes prefaced or supplemented his synagogal performances by solo renditions of the entire ritual of a hundred pages at home. the morning services began at six in summer and seven in winter, so that the workingman might start his long day's work fortified. at the close of the service at the beth hamidrash a few mornings after the redemption of ezekiel, solomon went up to reb shemuel, who in return for the privilege of blessing the boy gave him a halfpenny. solomon passed it on to his father, whom he accompanied. "well, how goes it, reb méshe?" said reb shemuel with his cheery smile, noticing moses loitering. he called him "reb" out of courtesy and in acknowledgment of his piety. the real "reb" was a fine figure of a man, with matter, if not piety, enough for two moses ansells. reb was a popular corruption of "rav" or rabbi. "bad," replied moses. "i haven't had any machining to do for a month. work is very slack at this time of year. but god is good." "can't you sell something?" said reb shemuel, thoughtfully caressing his long, gray-streaked black beard. "i have sold lemons, but the four or five shillings i made went in bread for the children and in rent. money runs through the fingers somehow, with a family of five and a frosty winter. when the lemons were gone i stood where i started." the rabbi sighed sympathetically and slipped half-a-crown into moses's palm. then he hurried out. his boy, levi, stayed behind a moment to finish a transaction involving the barter of a pea-shooter for some of solomon's buttons. levi was two years older than solomon, and was further removed from him by going to a "middle class school." his manner towards solomon was of a corresponding condescension. but it took a great deal to overawe solomon, who, with the national humor, possessed the national _chutzpah_, which is variously translated enterprise, audacity, brazen impudence and cheek. "i say, levi," he said, "we've got no school to-day. won't you come round this morning and play i-spy-i in our street? there are some splendid corners for hiding, and they are putting up new buildings all round with lovely hoardings, and they're knocking down a pickle warehouse, and while you are hiding in the rubbish you sometimes pick up scrumptious bits of pickled walnut. oh, golly, ain't they prime!'" levi turned up his nose. "we've got plenty of whole walnuts at home," he said. solomon felt snubbed. he became aware that this tall boy had smart black clothes, which would not be improved by rubbing against his own greasy corduroys. "oh, well," he said, "i can get lots of boys, and girls, too." "say," said levi, turning back a little. "that little girl your father brought upstairs here on the rejoicing of the law, that was your sister, wasn't it?" "esther, d'ye mean?" "how should i know? a little, dark girl, with a print dress, rather pretty--not a bit like you." "yes, that's our esther--she's in the sixth standard and only eleven." "we don't have standards in our school!" said levi contemptuously. "will your sister join in the i-spy-i?" "no, she can't run," replied solomon, half apologetically. "she only likes to read. she reads all my 'boys of england' and things, and now she's got hold of a little brown book she keeps all to herself. i like reading, too, but i do it in school or in _shool_, where there's nothing better to do." "has she got a holiday to-day, too?" "yes," said solomon. "but my school's open," said levi enviously, and solomon lost the feeling of inferiority, and felt avenged. "come, then, solomon," said his father, who had reached the door. the two converted part of the half-crown into french loaves and carried them home to form an unexpected breakfast. meantime reb shemuel, whose full name was the reverend samuel jacobs, also proceeded to breakfast. his house lay near the _shool_, and was approached by an avenue of mendicants. he arrived in his shirt-sleeves. "quick, simcha, give me my new coat. it is very cold this morning." "you've given away your coat again!" shrieked his wife, who, though her name meant "rejoicing," was more often upbraiding. "yes, it was only an old one, simcha," said the rabbi deprecatingly. he took off his high hat and replaced it by a little black cap which he carried in his tail pocket. "you'll ruin me, shemuel!" moaned simcha, wringing her hands. "you'd give away the shirt off your skin to a pack of good-for-nothing _schnorrers_." "yes, if they had only their skin in the world. why not?" said the old rabbi, a pacific gleam in his large gazelle-like eyes. "perhaps my coat may have the honor to cover elijah the prophet." "elijah the prophet!" snorted simcha. "elijah has sense enough to stay in heaven and not go wandering about shivering in the fog and frost of this god-accursed country." the old rabbi answered, "atschew!" "for thy salvation do i hope, o lord," murmured simcha piously in hebrew, adding excitedly in english, "ah, you'll kill yourself, shemuel." she rushed upstairs and returned with another coat and a new terror. "here, you fool, you've been and done a fine thing this time! all your silver was in the coat you've given away!" "was it?" said reb shemuel, startled. then the tranquil look returned to his brown eyes. "no, i took it all out before i gave away the coat." "god be thanked!" said simcha fervently in yiddish. "where is it? i want a few shillings for grocery." "i gave it away before, i tell you!" simcha groaned and fell into her chair with a crash that rattled the tray and shook the cups. "here's the end of the week coming," she sobbed, "and i shall have no fish for _shabbos_." "do not blaspheme!" said reb shemuel, tugging a little angrily at his venerable beard. "the holy one, blessed be he, will provide for our _shabbos_" simcha made a sceptical mouth, knowing that it was she and nobody else whose economies would provide for the due celebration of the sabbath. only by a constant course of vigilance, mendacity and petty peculation at her husband's expense could she manage to support the family of four comfortably on his pretty considerable salary. reb shemuel went and kissed her on the sceptical mouth, because in another instant she would have him at her mercy. he washed his hands and durst not speak between that and the first bite. he was an official of heterogeneous duties--he preached and taught and lectured. he married people and divorced them. he released bachelors from the duty of marrying their deceased brothers' wives. he superintended a slaughtering department, licensed men as competent killers, examined the sharpness of their knives that the victims might be put to as little pain as possible, and inspected dead cattle in the shambles to see if they were perfectly sound and free from pulmonary disease. but his greatest function was _paskening_, or answering inquiries ranging from the simplest to the most complicated problems of ceremonial ethics and civil law. he had added a volume of _shaaloth-u-tshuvoth_, or "questions and answers" to the colossal casuistic literature of his race. his aid was also invoked as a _shadchan_, though he forgot to take his commissions and lacked the restless zeal for the mating of mankind which animated sugarman, the professional match-maker. in fine, he was a witty old fellow and everybody loved him. he and his wife spoke english with a strong foreign accent; in their more intimate causeries they dropped into yiddish. the rebbitzin poured out the rabbi's coffee and whitened it with milk drawn direct from the cow into her own jug. the butter and cheese were equally _kosher_, coming straight from hebrew hollanders and having passed through none but jewish vessels. as the reb sat himself down at the head of the table hannah entered the room. "good morning, father," she said, kissing him. "what have you got your new coat on for? any weddings to-day?" "no, my dear," said reb shemuel, "marriages are falling off. there hasn't even been an engagement since belcovitch's eldest daughter betrothed herself to pesach weingott." "oh, these jewish young men!" said the rebbitzin. "look at my hannah--as pretty a girl as you could meet in the whole lane--and yet here she is wasting her youth." hannah bit her lip, instead of her bread and butter, for she felt she had brought the talk on herself. she had heard the same grumblings from her mother for two years. mrs. jacobs's maternal anxiety had begun when her daughter was seventeen. "when _i_ was seventeen," she went on, "i was a married woman. now-a-days the girls don't begin to get a _chosan_ till they're twenty." "we are not living in poland," the reb reminded her. "what's that to do with it? it's the jewish young men who want to marry gold." "why blame them? a jewish young man can marry several pieces of gold, but since rabbenu gershom he can only marry one woman," said the reb, laughing feebly and forcing his humor for his daughter's sake. "one woman is more than thou canst support," said the rebbitzin, irritated into yiddish, "giving away the flesh from off thy children's bones. if thou hadst been a proper father thou wouldst have saved thy money for hannah's dowry, instead of wasting it on a parcel of vagabond _schnorrers_. even so i can give her a good stock of bedding and under-linen. it's a reproach and a shame that thou hast not yet found her a husband. thou canst find husbands quick enough for other men's daughters!" "i found a husband for thy father's daughter," said the reb, with a roguish gleam in his brown eyes. "don't throw that up to me! i could have got plenty better. and my daughter wouldn't have known the shame of finding nobody to marry her. in poland at least the youths would have flocked to marry her because she was a rabbi's daughter, and they'd think it an honor to be a son-in-law of a son of the law. but in this godless country! why in my village the chief rabbi's daughter, who was so ugly as to make one spit out, carried off the finest man in the district." "but thou, my simcha, hadst no need to be connected with rabbonim!" "oh, yes; make mockery of me." "i mean it. thou art as a lily of sharon." "wilt thou have another cup of coffee, shemuel?" "yes, my life. wait but a little and thou shalt see our hannah under the _chuppah_." "hast thou any one in thine eye?" the reb nodded his head mysteriously and winked the eye, as if nudging the person in it. "who is it, father?" said levi. "i do hope it's a real swell who talks english properly." "and mind you make yourself agreeable to him, hannah," said the rebbitzin. "you spoil all the matches i've tried to make for you by your stupid, stiff manner." "look here, mother!" cried hannah, pushing aside her cup violently. "am i going to have my breakfast in peace? i don't want to be married at all. i don't want any of your jewish men coming round to examine me as if! were a horse, and wanting to know how much money you'll give them as a set-off. let me be! let me be single! it's my business, not yours." the rebbitzin bent eyes of angry reproach on the reb. "what did i tell thee, shemuel? she's _meshugga_--quite mad! healthy and fresh and mad!" "yes, you'll drive me mad," said hannah savagely. "let me be! i'm too old now to get a _chosan_, so let me be as i am. i can always earn my own living." "thou seest, shemuel?" said simcha. "thou seest my sorrows? thou seest how impious our children wax in this godless country." "let her be, simcha, let her be," said the reb. "she is young yet. if she hasn't any inclination thereto--!" "and what is _her_ inclination? a pretty thing, forsooth! is she going to make her mother a laughing-stock! are mrs. jewell and mrs. abrahams to dandle grandchildren in my face, to gouge out my eyes with them! it isn't that she can't get young men. only she is so high-blown. one would think she had a father who earned five hundred a year, instead of a man who scrambles half his salary among dirty _schnorrers_." "talk not like an _epicurean_," said the reb. "what are we all but _schnorrers_, dependent on the charity of the holy one, blessed be he? what! have we made ourselves? rather fall prostrate and thank him that his bounties to us are so great that they include the privilege of giving charity to others." "but we work for our living!" said the rebbitzin. "i wear my knees away scrubbing." external evidence pointed rather to the defrication of the nose. "but, mother," said hannah. "you know we have a servant to do the rough work." "yes, servants!" said the rebbitzin, contemptuously. "if you don't stand over them as the egyptian taskmasters over our forefathers, they don't do a stroke of work except breaking the crockery. i'd much rather sweep a room myself than see a _shiksah_ pottering about for an hour and end by leaving all the dust on the window-ledges and the corners of the mantelpiece. as for beds, i don't believe _shiksahs_ ever shake them! if i had my way i'd wring all their necks." "what's the use of always complaining?" said hannah, impatiently. "you know we must keep a _shiksah_ to attend to the _shabbos_ fire. the women or the little boys you pick up in the street are so unsatisfactory. when you call in a little barefoot street arab and ask him to poke the fire, he looks at you as if you must be an imbecile not to be able to do it yourself. and then you can't always get hold of one." the sabbath fire was one of the great difficulties of the ghetto. the rabbis had modified the biblical prohibition against having any fire whatever, and allowed it to be kindled by non-jews. poor women, frequently irish, and known as _shabbos-goyahs_ or _fire-goyahs_, acted as stokers to the ghetto at twopence a hearth. no jew ever touched a match or a candle or burnt a piece of paper, or even opened a letter. the _goyah_, which is literally heathen female, did everything required on the sabbath. his grandmother once called solomon ansell a sabbath-female merely for fingering the shovel when there was nothing in the grate. the reb liked his fire. when it sank on the sabbath he could not give orders to the _shiksah_ to replenish it, but he would rub his hands and remark casually (in her hearing), "ah, how cold it is!" "yes," he said now, "i always freeze on _shabbos_ when thou hast dismissed thy _shiksah_. thou makest me catch one cold a month." "_i_ make thee catch cold!" said the rebbitzin. "when thou comest through the air of winter in thy shirt-sleeves! thou'lt fall back upon me for poultices and mustard plasters. and then thou expectest me to have enough money to pay a _shiksah_ into the bargain! if i have any more of thy _schnorrers_ coming here i shall bundle them out neck and crop." this was the moment selected by fate and melchitsedek pinchas for the latter's entry. chapter vii. the neo-hebrew poet. he came through the open street door, knocked perfunctorily at the door of the room, opened it and then kissed the _mezuzah_ outside the door. then he advanced, snatched the rebbitzin's hand away from the handle of the coffee-pot and kissed it with equal devotion. he then seized upon hannah's hand and pressed his grimy lips to that, murmuring in german: "thou lookest so charming this morning, like the roses of carmel." next he bent down and pressed his lips to the reb's coat-tail. finally he said: "good morning, sir," to levi, who replied very affably, "good morning, mr. pinchas," "peace be unto you, pinchas," said the reb. "i did not see you in _shool_ this morning, though it was the new moon." "no, i went to the great _shool_," said pinchas in german. "if you do not see me at your place you may be sure i'm somewhere else. any one who has lived so long as i in the land of israel cannot bear to pray without a quorum. in the holy land i used to learn for an hour in the _shool_ every morning before the service began. but i am not here to talk about myself. i come to ask you to do me the honor to accept a copy of my new volume of poems: _metatoron's flames_. is it not a beautiful title? when enoch was taken up to heaven while yet alive, he was converted to flames of fire and became metatoron, the great spirit of the cabalah. so am i rapt up into the heaven of lyrical poetry and i become all fire and flame and light." the poet was a slim, dark little man, with long, matted black hair. his face was hatchet-shaped and not unlike an aztec's. the eyes were informed by an eager brilliance. he had a heap of little paper-covered books in one hand and an extinct cigar in the other. he placed the books upon the breakfast table. "at last," he said. "see, i have got it printed--the great work which this ignorant english judaism has left to moulder while it pays its stupid reverends thousands a year for wearing white ties." "and who paid for it now, mr. pinchas?" said the rebbitzin. "who? wh-o-o?" stammered melchitsedek. "who but myself?" "but you say you are blood-poor." "true as the law of moses! but i have written articles for the jargon papers. they jump at me--there is not a man on the staff of them all who has the pen of a ready writer. i can't get any money out of them, my dear rebbitzin, else i shouldn't be without breakfast this morning, but the proprietor of the largest of them is also a printer, and he has printed my little book in return. but i don't think i shall fill my stomach with the sales. oh! the holy one, blessed be he, bless you, rebbitzin, of course i'll take a cup of coffee; i don't know any one else who makes coffee with such a sweet savor; it would do for a spice offering when the almighty restores us our temple. you are a happy mortal, rabbi. you will permit that i seat myself at the table?" without awaiting permission he pushed a chair between levi and hannah and sat down; then he got up again and washed his hands and helped himself to a spare egg. "here is your copy, reb shemuel," he went on after an interval. "you see it is dedicated generally: "'to the pillars of english judaism.' "they are a set of donkey-heads, but one must give them a chance of rising to higher things. it is true that not one of them understands hebrew, not even the chief rabbi, to whom courtesy made me send a copy. perhaps he will be able to read my poems with a dictionary; he certainly can't write hebrew without two grammatical blunders to every word. no, no, don't defend him, reb shemuel, because you're under him. he ought to be under you--only he expresses his ignorance in english and the fools think to talk nonsense in good english is to be qualified for the rabbinate." the remark touched the rabbi in a tender place. it was the one worry of his life, the consciousness that persons in high quarters disapproved of him as a force impeding the anglicization of the ghetto. he knew his shortcomings, but could never quite comprehend the importance of becoming english. he had a latent feeling that judaism had flourished before england was invented, and so the poet's remark was secretly pleasing to him. "you know very well," went on pinchas, "that i and you are the only two persons in london who can write correct holy language." "no, no." said the rabbi, deprecatingly. "yes, yes," said pinchas, emphatically. "you can write quite as well as i. but just cast your eye now on the especial dedication which i have written to you in my own autograph. 'to the light of his generation, the great gaon, whose excellency reaches to the ends of the earth, from whose lips all the people of the lord seek knowledge, the never-failing well, the mighty eagle soars to heaven on the wings of understanding, to rav shemuel, may whose light never be dimmed, and in whose day may the redeemer come unto zion.' there, take it, honor me by taking it. it is the homage of the man of genius to the man of learning, the humble offering of the one hebrew scholar in england to the other." "thank you," said the old rabbi, much moved. "it is too handsome of you, and i shall read it at once and treasure it amongst my dearest books, for you know well that i consider that you have the truest poetic gift of any son of israel since jehuda halevi." "i have! i know it! i feel it! it burns me. the sorrow of our race keeps me awake at night--the national hopes tingle like electricity through me--i bedew my couch with tears in the darkness"--pinchas paused to take another slice of bread and butter. "it is then that my poems are born. the words burst into music in my head and i sing like isaiah the restoration of our land, and become the poet patriot of my people. but these english! they care only to make money and to stuff it down the throats of gorging reverends. my scholarship, my poetry, my divine dreams--what are these to a besotted, brutal congregation of men-of-the-earth? i sent buckledorf, the rich banker, a copy of my little book, with a special dedication written in my own autograph in german, so that he might understand it. and what did he send me? a beggarly five shillings? five shillings to the one poet in whom the heavenly fire lives! how can the heavenly fire live on five shillings? i had almost a mind to send it back. and then there was gideon, the member of parliament. i made one of the poems an acrostic on his name, so that he might be handed down to posterity. there, that's the one. no, the one on the page you were just looking at. yes, that's it, beginning: "'great leader of our israel's host, i sing thy high heroic deeds, divinely gifted learned man.' "i wrote his dedication in english, for he understands neither hebrew nor german, the miserable, purse-proud, vanity-eaten man-of-the-earth." "why, didn't he give you anything at all?" said the reb. "worse! he sent me back the book. but i'll be revenged on him. i'll take the acrostic out of the next edition and let him rot in oblivion. i have been all over the world to every great city where jews congregate. in russia, in turkey, in germany, in roumania, in greece, in morocco, in palestine. everywhere the greatest rabbis have leaped like harts on the mountains with joy at my coming. they have fed and clothed me like a prince. i have preached at the synagogues, and everywhere people have said it was like the wilna gaon come again. from the neighboring villages for miles and miles the pious have come to be blessed by me. look at my testimonials from all the greatest saints and savants. but in england--in england alone--what is my welcome? do they say: 'welcome, melchitsedek pinchas, welcome as the bridegroom to the bride when the long day is done and the feast is o'er; welcome to you, with the torch of your genius, with the burden of your learning that is rich with the whole wealth of hebrew literature in all ages and countries. here we have no great and wise men. our chief rabbi is an idiot. come thou and be our chief rabbi?' do they say this? no! they greet me with scorn, coldness, slander. as for the rev. elkan benjamin, who makes such a fuss of himself because he sends a wealthy congregation to sleep with his sermons, i'll expose him as sure as there's a guardian of israel. i'll let the world know about his four mistresses." "nonsense! guard yourself against the evil tongue," said the reb. "how do you know he has?" "it's the law of moses," said the little poet. "true as i stand here. you ask jacob hermann. it was he who told me about it. jacob hermann said to me one day: 'that benjamin has a mistress for every fringe of his four-corners.' and how many is that, eh? i do not know why he should be allowed to slander me and i not be allowed to tell the truth about him. one day i will shoot him. you know he said that when i first came to london i joined the _meshumadim_ in palestine place." "well, he had at least some foundation for that," said reb shemuel. "foundation! do you call that foundation--because i lived there for a week, hunting out their customs and their ways of ensnaring the souls of our brethren, so that i might write about them one day? have i not already told you not a morsel of their food passed my lips and that the money which i had to take so as not to excite suspicion i distributed in charity among the poor jews? why not? from pigs we take bristles." "still, you must remember that if you had not been such a saint and such a great poet, i might myself have believed that you sold your soul for money to escape starvation. i know how these devils set their baits for the helpless immigrant, offering bread in return for a lip-conversion. they are grown so cunning now--they print their hellish appeals in hebrew, knowing we reverence the holy tongue." "yes, the ordinary man-of-the-earth believes everything that's in hebrew. that was the mistake of the apostles--to write in greek. but then they, too, were such men-of-the earth." "i wonder who writes such good hebrew for the missionaries," said reb shemuel. "i wonder," gurgled pinchas, deep in his coffee. "but, father," asked hannah, "don't you believe any jew ever really believes in christianity?" "how is it possible?" answered reb shemuel. "a jew who has the law from sinai, the law that will never be changed, to whom god has given a sensible religion and common-sense, how can such a person believe in the farrago of nonsense that makes up the worship of the christians! no jew has ever apostatized except to fill his purse or his stomach or to avoid persecution. 'getting grace' they call it in english; but with poor jews it is always grace after meals. look at the crypto-jews, the marranos, who for centuries lived a double life, outwardly christians, but handing down secretly from generation to generation the faith, the traditions, the observances of judaism." "yes, no jew was ever fool enough to turn christian unless he was a clever man," said the poet paradoxically. "have you not, my sweet, innocent young lady, heard the story of the two jews in burgos cathedral?" "no, what is it?" said levi, eagerly. "well, pass my cup up to your highly superior mother who is waiting to fill it with coffee. your eminent father knows the story--i can see by the twinkle in his learned eye." "yes, that story has a beard," said the reb. "two spanish jews," said the poet, addressing himself deferentially to levi, "who had got grace were waiting to be baptized at burgos cathedral. there was a great throng of catholics and a special cardinal was coming to conduct the ceremony, for their conversion was a great triumph. but the cardinal was late and the jews fumed and fretted at the delay. the shadows of evening were falling on vault and transept. at last one turned to the other and said, 'knowest them what, moses? if the holy father does not arrive soon, we shall be too late to say _mincha_." levi laughed heartily; the reference to the jewish afternoon prayer went home to him. "that story sums up in a nutshell the whole history of the great movement for the conversion of the jews. we dip ourselves in baptismal water and wipe ourselves with a _talith_. we are not a race to be lured out of the fixed feelings of countless centuries by the empty spirituality of a religion in which, as i soon found out when i lived among the soul-dealers, its very professors no longer believe. we are too fond of solid things," said the poet, upon whom a good breakfast was beginning to produce a soothing materialistic effect. "do you know that anecdote about the two jews in the transvaal?" pinchas went on. "that's a real _chine_." "i don't think i know that _maaseh_," said reb shemuel. "oh, the two jews had made a _trek_ and were travelling onwards exploring unknown country. one night they were sitting by their campfire playing cards when suddenly one threw up his cards, tore his hair and beat his breast in terrible agony. 'what's the matter?' cried the other. 'woe, woe,' said the first. 'to-day was the day of atonement! and we have eaten and gone on as usual.' 'oh, don't take on so,' said his friend. 'after all, heaven will take into consideration that we lost count of the jewish calendar and didn't mean to be so wicked. and we can make up for it by fasting to-morrow.' "'oh, no! not for me,' said the first. 'to-day was the day of atonement.'" all laughed, the reb appreciating most keenly the sly dig at his race. he had a kindly sense of human frailty. jews are very fond of telling stories against themselves--for their sense of humor is too strong not to be aware of their own foibles--but they tell them with closed doors, and resent them from the outside. they chastise themselves because they love themselves, as members of the same family insult one another. the secret is, that insiders understand the limitations of the criticism, which outsiders are apt to take in bulk. no race in the world possesses a richer anecdotal lore than the jews--such pawky, even blasphemous humor, not understandable of the heathen, and to a suspicious mind pinchas's overflowing cornucopia of such would have suggested a prior period of continental wandering from town to town, like the _minnesingers_ of the middle ages, repaying the hospitality of his jewish entertainers with a budget of good stories and gossip from the scenes of his pilgrimages. "do you know the story?" he went on, encouraged by simcha's smiling face, "of the old reb and the _havdolah_? his wife left town for a few days and when she returned the reb took out a bottle of wine, poured some into the consecration cup and began to recite the blessing. 'what art thou doing?' demanded his wife in amaze.' i am making _havdolah_,' replied the reb. 'but it is not the conclusion of a festival to-night,' she said. 'oh, yes, it is,' he answered. 'my festival's over. you've come back.'" the reb laughed so much over this story that simcha's brow grew as the solid egyptian darkness, and pinchas perceived he had made a mistake. "but listen to the end," he said with a creditable impromptu. "the wife said--'no, you're mistaken. your festival's only beginning. you get no supper. it's the commencement of the day of atonement.'" simcha's brow cleared and the reb laughed heartily. "but i don't seethe point, father," said levi. "point! listen, my son. first of all he was to have a day of atonement, beginning with no supper, for his sin of rudeness to his faithful wife. secondly, dost thou not know that with us the day of atonement is called a festival, because we rejoice at the creator's goodness in giving us the privilege of fasting? that's it, pinchas, isn't it?" "yes, that's the point of the story, and i think the rebbitzin had the best of it, eh?" "rebbitzins always have the last word," said the reb. "but did i tell you the story of the woman who asked me a question the other day? she brought me a fowl in the morning and said that in cutting open the gizzard she had found a rusty pin which the fowl must have swallowed. she wanted to know whether the fowl might be eaten. it was a very difficult point, for how could you tell whether the pin had in any way contributed to the fowl's death? i searched the _shass_ and a heap of _shaalotku-tshuvos_. i went and consulted the _maggid_ and sugarman the _shadchan_ and mr. karlkammer, and at last we decided that the fowl was _tripha_ and could not be eaten. so the same evening i sent for the woman, and when i told her of our decision she burst into tears and wrung her hands. 'do not grieve so,' i said, taking compassion upon her, 'i will buy thee another fowl.' but she wept on, uncomforted. 'o woe! woe!' she cried. 'we ate it all up yesterday.'" pinchas was convulsed with laughter. recovering himself, he lit his half-smoked cigar without asking leave. "i thought it would turn out differently," he said. "like that story of the peacock. a man had one presented to him, and as this is such rare diet he went to the reb to ask if it was _kosher_. the rabbi said 'no' and confiscated the peacock. later on the man heard that the rabbi had given a banquet at which his peacock was the crowning dish. he went to his rabbi and reproached him. '_i_ may eat it,' replied the rabbi, 'because my father considers it permitted and we may always go by what some eminent son of the law decides. but you unfortunately came to _me_ for an opinion, and the permissibility of peacock is a point on which i have always disagreed with my father.'" hannah seemed to find peculiar enjoyment in the story. "anyhow," concluded pinchas, "you have a more pious flock than the rabbi of my native place, who, one day, announced to his congregation that he was going to resign. startled, they sent to him a delegate, who asked, in the name of the congregation, why he was leaving them. 'because,' answered the rabbi, 'this is the first question any one has ever asked me!'" "tell mr. pinchas your repartee about the donkey," said hannah, smiling. "oh, no, it's not worth while," said the reb. "thou art always so backward with thine own," cried the rebbitzin warmly. "last purim an impudent of face sent my husband a donkey made of sugar. my husband had a rabbi baked in gingerbread and sent it in exchange to the donor, with the inscription 'a rabbi sends a rabbi.'" reb shemuel laughed heartily, hearing this afresh at the lips of his wife. but pinchas was bent double like a convulsive note of interrogation. the clock on the mantelshelf began to strike nine. levi jumped to his feet. "i shall be late for school!" he cried, making for the door. "stop! stop!" shouted his father. "thou hast not yet said grace." "oh, yes, i have, father. while you were all telling stories i was _benshing_ quietly to myself." "is saul also among the prophets, is levi also among the story-tellers?" murmured pinchas to himself. aloud he said: "the child speaks truth; i saw his lips moving." levi gave the poet a grateful look, snatched up his satchel and ran off to no. royal street. pinchas followed him soon, inwardly upbraiding reb shemuel for meanness. he had only as yet had his breakfast for his book. perhaps it was simcha's presence that was to blame. she was the reb's right hand and he did not care to let her know what his left was doing. he retired to his study when pinchas departed, and the rebbitzin clattered about with a besom. the study was a large square room lined with book-shelves and hung with portraits of the great continental rabbis. the books were bibliographical monsters to which the family bibles of the christian are mere pocket-books. they were all printed purely with the consonants, the vowels being divined grammatically or known by heart. in each there was an island of text in a sea of commentary, itself lost in an ocean of super-commentary that was bordered by a continent of super-super-commentary. reb shemuel knew many of these immense folios--with all their tortuous windings of argument and anecdote--much as the child knows the village it was born in, the crooked by-ways and the field paths. such and such a rabbi gave such and such an opinion on such and such a line from the bottom of such and such a page--his memory of it was a visual picture. and just as the child does not connect its native village with the broader world without, does not trace its streets and turnings till they lead to the great towns, does not inquire as to its origins and its history, does not view it in relation to other villages, to the country, to the continent, to the world, but loves it for itself and in itself, so reb shemuel regarded and reverenced and loved these gigantic pages with their serried battalions of varied type. they were facts--absolute as the globe itself--regions of wisdom, perfect and self-sufficing. a little obscure here and there, perhaps, and in need of amplification or explication for inferior intellects--a half-finished manuscript commentary on one of the super-commentaries, to be called "the garden of lilies," was lying open on reb shemuel's own desk--but yet the only true encyclopaedia of things terrestrial and divine. and, indeed, they were wonderful books. it was as difficult to say what was not in them as what was. through them the old rabbi held communion with his god whom he loved with all his heart and soul and thought of as a genial father, watching tenderly over his froward children and chastising them because he loved them. generations of saints and scholars linked reb shemuel with the marvels of sinai. the infinite network of ceremonial never hampered his soul; it was his joyous privilege to obey his father in all things and like the king who offered to reward the man who invented a new pleasure, he was ready to embrace the sage who could deduce a new commandment. he rose at four every morning to study, and snatched every odd moment he could during the day. rabbi meir, that ancient ethical teacher, wrote: "whosoever labors in the torah for its own sake, the whole world is indebted to him; he is called friend, beloved, a lover of the all-present, a lover of mankind; it clothes him in meekness and reverence; it fits him to become just, pious, upright and faithful; he becomes modest, long-suffering and forgiving of insult." reb shemuel would have been scandalized if any one had applied these words to him. at about eleven o'clock hannah came into the room, an open letter in her hand. "father," she said, "i have just had a letter from samuel levine." "your husband?" he said, looking up with a smile. "my husband," she replied, with a fainter smile. "and what does he say?" "it isn't a very serious letter; he only wants to reassure me that he is coming back by sunday week to be divorced." "all right; tell him it shall be done at cost price," he said, with the foreign accent that made him somehow seem more lovable to his daughter when he spoke english. "he shall only be charged for the scribe." "he'll take that for granted," hannah replied. "fathers are expected to do these little things for their own children. but how much nicer it would be if you could give me the _gett_ yourself." "i would marry you with pleasure," said reb shemuel, "but divorce is another matter. the _din_ has too much regard for a father's feelings to allow that." "and you really think i am sam levine's wife?" "how many times shall i tell you? some authorities do take the _intention_ into account, but the letter of the law is clearly against you. it is far safer to be formally divorced." "then if he were to die--" "save us and grant us peace," interrupted the reb in horror. "i should be his widow." "yes, i suppose you would. but what _narrischkeit_! why should he die? it isn't as if you were really married to him," said the reb, his eye twinkling. "but isn't it all absurd, father?" "do not talk so," said reb shemuel, resuming his gravity. "is it absurd that you should be scorched if you play with fire?" hannah did not reply to the question. "you never told me how you got on at manchester," she said. "did you settle the dispute satisfactorily?" "oh, yes," said the reb; "but it was very difficult. both parties were so envenomed, and it seems that the feud has been going on in the congregation ever since the day of atonement, when the minister refused to blow the _shofar_ three minutes too early, as the president requested. the treasurer sided with the minister, and there has almost been a split." "the sounding of the new year trumpet seems often to be the signal for war," said hannah, sarcastically. "it is so," said the reb, sadly. "and how did you repair the breach?" "just by laughing at both sides. they would have turned a deaf ear to reasoning. i told them that midrash about jacob's journey to laban." "what is that?" "oh, it's an amplification of the biblical narrative. the verse in genesis says that he lighted on the place, and he put up there for the night because the sun had set, and he took of the stones of the place and he made them into pillows. but later on it says that he rose up in the morning and he took _the_ stone which he had put as his pillows. now what is the explanation?" reb shemuel's tone became momently more sing-song: "in the night the stones quarrelled for the honor of supporting the patriarch's head, and so by a miracle they were turned into one stone to satisfy them all. 'now you remember that when jacob arose in the morning he said: 'how fearful is this place; this is none other than the house of god.' so i said to the wranglers: 'why did jacob say that? he said it because his rest had been so disturbed by the quarrelling stones that it reminded him of the house of god--the synagogue.' i pointed out how much better it would be if they ceased their quarrellings and became one stone. and so i made peace again in the _kehillah_." "till next year," said hannah, laughing. "but, father, i have often wondered why they allow the ram's horn in the service. i thought all musical instruments were forbidden." "it is not a musical instrument--in practice," said the reb, with evasive facetiousness. and, indeed, the performers were nearly always incompetent, marring the solemnity of great moments by asthmatic wheezings and thin far-away tootlings. "but it would be if we had trained trumpeters," persisted hannah, smiling. "if you really want the explanation, it is that since the fall of the second temple we have dropped out of our worship all musical instruments connected with the old temple worship, especially such as have become associated with christianity. but the ram's horn on the new year is an institution older than the temple, and specially enjoined in the bible." "but surely there is something spiritualizing about an organ." for reply the reb pinched her ear. "ah, you are a sad _epikouros_" he said, half seriously. "if you loved god you would not want an organ to take your thoughts to heaven." he released her ear and took up his pen, humming with unction a synagogue air full of joyous flourishes. hannah turned to go, then turned back. "father," she said nervously, blushing a little, "who was that you said you had in your eye?" "oh, nobody in particular," said the reb, equally embarrassed and avoiding meeting her eye, as if to conceal the person in his. "but you must have meant something by it," she said gravely. "you know i'm not going to be married off to please other people." the reb wriggled uncomfortably in his chair. "it was only a thought--an idea. if it does not come to you, too, it shall be nothing. i didn't mean anything serious--really, my dear, i didn't. to tell you the truth," he finished suddenly with a frank, heavenly smile, "the person i had mainly in my eye when i spoke was your mother." this time his eye met hers, and they smiled at each other with the consciousness of the humors of the situation. the rebbitzin's broom was heard banging viciously in the passage. hannah bent down and kissed the ample forehead beneath the black skull-cap. "mr. levine also writes insisting that i must go to the purim ball with him and leah," she said, glancing at the letter. "a husband's wishes must be obeyed," answered the reb. "no, i will treat him as if he were really my husband," retorted hannah. "i will have my own way: i shan't go." the door was thrown open suddenly. "oh yes thou wilt," said the rebbitzin. "thou art not going to bury thyself alive." chapter viii. esther and her children. esther ansell did not welcome levi jacobs warmly. she had just cleared away the breakfast things and was looking forward to a glorious day's reading, and the advent of a visitor did not gratify her. and yet levi jacobs was a good-looking boy with brown hair and eyes, a dark glowing complexion and ruddy lips--a sort of reduced masculine edition of hannah. "i've come to play i-spy-i, solomon," he said when he entered "my, don't you live high up!" "i thought you had to go to school," solomon observed with a stare. "ours isn't a board school," levi explained. "you might introduce a fellow to your sister." "garn! you know esther right enough," said solomon and began to whistle carelessly. "how are you, esther?" said levi awkwardly. "i'm very well, thank you," said esther, looking up from a little brown-covered book and looking down at it again. she was crouching on the fender trying to get some warmth at the little fire extracted from reb shemuel's half-crown. december continued gray; the room was dim and a spurt of flame played on her pale earnest face. it was a face that never lost a certain ardency of color even at its palest: the hair was dark and abundant, the eyes were large and thoughtful, the nose slightly aquiline and the whole cast of the features betrayed the polish origin. the forehead was rather low. esther had nice teeth which accident had preserved white. it was an arrestive rather than a beautiful face, though charming enough when she smiled. if the grace and candor of childhood could have been disengaged from the face, it would have been easier to say whether it was absolutely pretty. it came nearer being so on sabbaths and holidays when scholastic supervision was removed and the hair was free to fall loosely about the shoulders instead of being screwed up into the pendulous plait so dear to the educational eye. esther could have earned a penny quite easily by sacrificing her tresses and going about with close-cropped head like a boy, for her teacher never failed thus to reward the shorn, but in the darkest hours of hunger she held on to her hair as her mother had done before her. the prospects of esther's post-nuptial wig were not brilliant. she was not tall for a girl who is getting on for twelve; but some little girls shoot up suddenly and there was considerable room for hope. sarah and isaac were romping noisily about and under the beds; rachel was at the table, knitting a scarf for solomon; the grandmother pored over a bulky enchiridion for pious women, written in jargon. moses was out in search of work. no one took any notice of the visitor. "what's that you're reading?" he asked esther politely. "oh nothing," said esther with a start, closing the book as if fearful he might want to look over her shoulder. "i don't see the fun of reading books out of school," said levi. "oh, but we don't read school books," said solomon defensively. "i don't care. it's stupid." "at that rate you could never read books when you're grown up," said esther contemptuously. "no, of course not," admitted levi. "otherwise where would be the fun of being grown up? after i leave school i don't intend to open a book." "no? perhaps you'll open a shop," said solomon. "what will you do when it rains?" asked esther crushingly. "i shall smoke," replied levi loftily. "yes, but suppose it's _shabbos_," swiftly rejoined esther. levi was nonplussed. "well, it can't rain all day and there are only fifty-two _shabbosim_ in the year," he said lamely. "a man can always do something." "i think there's more pleasure in reading than in doing something," remarked esther. "yes, you're a girl," levi reminded her, "and girls are expected to stay indoors. look at my sister hannah. she reads, too. but a man can be out doing what he pleases, eh, solomon?" "yes, of course we've got the best of it," said solomon. "the prayer-book shows that. don't i say every morning 'blessed art thou, o lord our god, who hast not made me a woman'?" "i don't know whether you do say it. you certainly have got to," said esther witheringly. "'sh," said solomon, winking in the direction of the grandmother. "it doesn't matter," said esther calmly. "she can't understand what i'm saying." "i don't know," said solomon dubiously. "she sometimes catches more than you bargain for." "and then, _you_ catch more than you bargain for," said rachel, looking up roguishly from her knitting. solomon stuck his tongue in his cheek and grimaced. isaac came behind levi and gave his coat a pull and toddled off with a yell of delight. "be quiet, ikey!" cried esther. "if you don't behave better i shan't sleep in your new bed." "oh yeth, you mutht, ethty," lisped ikey, his elfish face growing grave. he went about depressed for some seconds. "kids are a beastly nuisance," said levi, "don't you think so, esther?" "oh no, not always," said the little girl. "besides we were all kids once." "that's what i complain of," said levi. "we ought to be all born grown-up." "but that's impossible!" put in rachel. "it isn't impossible at all," said esther. "look at adam and eve!" levi looked at esther gratefully instead. he felt nearer to her and thought of persuading her into playing kiss-in-the-ring. but he found it difficult to back out of his undertaking to play i-spy-i with solomon; and in the end he had to leave esther to her book. she had little in common with her brother solomon, least of all humor and animal spirits. even before the responsibilities of headship had come upon her she was a preternaturally thoughtful little girl who had strange intuitions about things and was doomed to work out her own salvation as a metaphysician. when she asked her mother who made god, a slap in the face demonstrated to her the limits of human inquiry. the natural instinct of the child over-rode the long travail of the race to conceive an abstract deity, and esther pictured god as a mammoth cloud. in early years esther imagined that the "body" that was buried when a person died was the corpse decapitated and she often puzzled herself to think what was done with the isolated head. when her mother was being tied up in grave-clothes, esther hovered about with a real thirst for knowledge while the thoughts of all the other children were sensuously concentrated on the funeral and the glory of seeing a vehicle drive away from their own door. esther was also disappointed at not seeing her mother's soul fly up to heaven though she watched vigilantly at the death-bed for the ascent of the long yellow hook-shaped thing. the genesis of this conception of the soul was probably to be sought in the pictorial representations of ghosts in the story-papers brought home by her eldest brother benjamin. strange shadowy conceptions of things more corporeal floated up from her solitary reading. theatres she came across often, and a theatre was a kind of babel plain or vanity fair in which performers and spectators were promiscuously mingled and wherein the richer folk clad in evening dress sat in thin deal boxes--the cases in spitalfields market being esther's main association with boxes. one of her day-dreams of the future was going to the theatre in a night-gown and being accommodated with an orange-box. little rectification of such distorted views of life was to be expected from moses ansell, who went down to his grave without seeing even a circus, and had no interest in art apart from the "police news" and his "mizrach" and the synagogue decorations. even when esther's sceptical instinct drove her to inquire of her father how people knew that moses got the law on mount sinai, he could only repeat in horror that the books of moses said so, and could never be brought to see that his arguments travelled on roundabouts. she sometimes regretted that her brilliant brother benjamin had been swallowed up by the orphan asylum, for she imagined she could have discussed many a knotty point with him. solomon was both flippant and incompetent. but in spite of her theoretical latitudinarianism, in practice she was pious to the point of fanaticism and could scarce conceive the depths of degradation of which she heard vague horror-struck talk. there were jews about--grown-up men and women, not insane--who struck lucifer matches on the sabbath and housewives who carelessly mixed their butter-plates with their meat-plates even when they did not actually eat butter with meat. esther promised herself that, please god, she would never do anything so wicked when she grew up. she at least would never fail to light the sabbath candles nor to _kasher_ the meat. never was child more alive to the beauty of duty, more open to the appeal of virtue, self-control, abnegation. she fasted till two o'clock on the great white fast when she was seven years old and accomplished the perfect feat at nine. when she read a simple little story in a prize-book, inculcating the homely moralities at which the cynic sneers, her eyes filled with tears and her breast with unselfish and dutiful determinations. she had something of the temperament of the stoic, fortified by that spiritual pride which does not look for equal goodness in others; and though she disapproved of solomon's dodgings of duty, she did not sneak or preach, even gave him surreptitious crusts of bread before he had said his prayers, especially on saturdays and festivals when the praying took place in _shool_ and was liable to be prolonged till mid-day. esther often went to synagogue and sat in the ladies' compartment. the drone of the "sons of the covenant" downstairs was part of her consciousness of home, like the musty smell of the stairs, or becky's young men through whom she had to plough her way when she went for the morning milk, or the odors of mr. belcovitch's rum or the whirr of his machines, or the bent, snuffy personality of the hebrew scholar in the adjoining garret, or the dread of dutch debby's dog that was ultimately transformed to friendly expectation. esther led a double life, just as she spoke two tongues. the knowledge that she was a jewish child, whose people had had a special history, was always at the back of her consciousness; sometimes it was brought to the front by the scoffing rhymes of christian children, who informed her that they had stuck a piece of pork upon a fork and given it to a member of her race. but far more vividly did she realize that she was an english girl; far keener than her pride in judas maccabaeus was her pride in nelson and wellington; she rejoiced to find that her ancestors had always beaten the french from the days of cressy and poictiers to the days of waterloo, that alfred the great was the wisest of kings, and that englishmen dominated the world and had planted colonies in every corner of it, that the english language was the noblest in the world and men speaking it had invented railway trains, steamships, telegraphs, and everything worth inventing. esther absorbed these ideas from the school reading books. the experience of a month will overlay the hereditary bequest of a century. and yet, beneath all, the prepared plate remains most sensitive to the old impressions. sarah and isaac had developed as distinct individualities as was possible in the time at their disposal. isaac was just five and sarah--who had never known her mother--just four. the thoughts of both ran strongly in the direction of sensuous enjoyment, and they preferred baked potatoes, especially potatoes touched with gravy, to all the joys of the kindergarten. isaac's ambition ran in the direction of eider-down beds such as he had once felt at malka's and moses soothed him by the horizon-like prospect of such a new bed. places of honor had already been conceded by the generous little chap to his father and brother. heaven alone knows how he had come to conceive their common bed as his own peculiar property in which the other three resided at night on sufferance. he could not even plead it was his by right of birth in it. but isaac was not after all wholly given over to worldly thoughts, for an intellectual problem often occupied his thoughts and led him to slap little sarah's arms. he had been born on the th of december while sarah had been born a year later on the d. "it ain't, it can't be," he would say. "your birfday can't be afore mine." "'tis, esty thays so," sarah would reply. "esty's a liar," isaac responded imperturbably. "ask _tatah_." "_tatah_ dunno. ain't i five?" "yeth." "and ain't you four?" "yeth." "and ain't i older than you?" "courth." "and wasn't i born afore you?" "yeth, ikey." "then 'ow can your birfday come afore mine?" "'cos it doth." "stoopid!" "it doth, arx esty," sarah would insist. "than't teep in my new bed," ikey would threaten. "thall if i like." "than't!" here sarah would generally break down in tears and isaac with premature economic instinct, feeling it wicked to waste a cry, would proceed to justify it by hitting her. thereupon little sarah would hit him back and develop a terrible howl. "hi, woe is unto me," she would wail in jargon, throwing herself on the ground in a corner and rocking herself to and fro like her far-away ancestresses remembering zion by the waters of babylon. little sarah's lamentations never ceased till she had been avenged by a higher hand. there were several great powers but esther was the most trusty instrument of reprisal. if esther was out little sarah's sobs ceased speedily, for she, too, felt the folly of fruitless tears. though she nursed in her breast the sense of injury, she would even resume her amicable romps with isaac. but the moment the step of the avenger was heard on the stairs, little sarah would betake herself to the corner and howl with the pain of isaac's pummellings. she had a strong love of abstract justice and felt that if the wrongdoer were to go unpunished, there was no security for the constitution of things. to-day's holiday did not pass without an outbreak of this sort. it occurred about tea-time. perhaps the infants were fractious because there was no tea. esther had to economize her resources and a repast at seven would serve for both tea and supper. among the poor, combination meals are as common as combination beds and chests. esther had quieted sarah by slapping isaac, but as this made isaac howl the gain was dubious. she had to put a fresh piece of coal on the fire and sing to them while their shadows contorted themselves grotesquely on the beds and then upwards along the sloping walls, terminating with twisted necks on the ceiling. esther usually sang melancholy things in minor keys. they seemed most attuned to the dim straggling room. there was a song her mother used to sing. it was taken from a _purim-spiel_, itself based upon a midrash, one of the endless legends with which the people of one book have broidered it, amplifying every minute detail with all the exuberance of oriental imagination and justifying their fancies with all the ingenuity of a race of lawyers. after his brethren sold joseph to the midianite merchants, the lad escaped from the caravan and wandered foot-sore and hungry to bethlehem, to the grave of his mother, rachel. and he threw himself upon the ground and wept aloud and sang to a heart-breaking melody in yiddish. und hei weh ist mir, wie schlecht ist doch mir, ich bin vertrieben geworen junger held voon dir. whereof the english runs: alas! woe is me! how wretched to be driven away and banished, yet so young, from thee. thereupon the voice of his beloved mother rachel was heard from the grave, comforting him and bidding him be of good cheer, for that his future should be great and glorious. esther could not sing this without the tears trickling down her cheeks. was it that she thought of her own dead mother and applied the lines to herself? isaac's ill-humor scarcely ever survived the anodyne of these mournful cadences. there was another melodious wail which alte belcovitch had brought from poland. the chorus ran: man nemt awek die chasanim voon die callohs hi, hi, did-a-rid-a-ree! they tear away their lovers from the maidens, hi, hi, did-a-rid-a-ree! the air mingled the melancholy of polish music with the sadness of jewish and the words hinted of god knew what. "old unhappy far-off things and battles long ago." and so over all the songs and stories was the trail of tragedy, under all the heart-ache of a hunted race. there are few more plaintive chants in the world than the recitation of the psalms by the "sons of the covenant" on sabbath afternoons amid the gathering shadows of twilight. esther often stood in the passage to hear it, morbidly fascinated, tears of pensive pleasure in her eyes. even the little jargon story-book which moses ansell read out that night to his _kinder_, after tea-supper, by the light of the one candle, was prefaced with a note of pathos. "these stories have we gathered together from the gemorah and the midrash, wonderful stories, and we have translated the beautiful stories, using the hebrew alphabet so that every one, little or big, shall be able to read them, and shall know that there is a god in the world who forsaketh not his people israel and who even for us will likewise work miracles and wonders and will send us the righteous redeemer speedily in our days, amen." of this same messiah the children heard endless tales. oriental fancy had been exhausted in picturing him for the consolation of exiled and suffering israel. before his days there would be a wicked messiah of the house of joseph; later, a king with one ear deaf to hear good but acute to hear evil; there would be a scar on his forehead, one of his hands would be an inch long and the other three miles, apparently a subtle symbol of the persecutor. the jargon story-book among its "stories, wonderful stories," had also extracts from the famous romance, or diary, of eldad the danite, who professed to have discovered the lost ten tribes. eldad's book appeared towards the end of the ninth century and became the arabian nights of the jews, and it had filtered down through the ages into the ansell garret, in common with many other tales from the rich storehouse of mediaeval folk-lore in the diffusion of which the wandering few has played so great a part. sometimes moses read to his charmed hearers the description of heaven and hell by immanuel, the friend and contemporary of dante, sometimes a jargon version of robinson crusoe. to-night he chose eldad's account of the tribe of moses dwelling beyond the wonderful river, sambatyon, which never flows on the sabbath. "there is also the tribe of moses, our just master, which is called the tribe that flees, because it fled from idol worship and clung to the fear of god. a river flows round their land for a distance of four days' journey on every side. they dwell in beautiful houses provided with handsome towers, which they have built themselves. there is nothing unclean among them, neither in the case of birds, venison nor domesticated animals; there are no wild animals, no flies, no foxes, no vermin, no serpents, no dogs, and in general, nothing which does harm; they have only sheep and cattle, which bear twice a year. they sow and reap; there are all sorts of gardens, with all kinds of fruits and cereals, viz.: beans, melons, gourds, onions, garlic, wheat and barley, and the seed grows a hundred fold. they have faith; they know the law, the mishnah, the talmud and the agadah; but their talmud is in hebrew. they introduce their sayings in the name of the fathers, the wise men, who heard them from the mouth of joshua, who himself heard them from the mouth of god. they have no knowledge of the tanaim (doctors of the mishnah) and amoraim (doctors of the talmud), who flourished during the time of the second temple, which was, of course, not known to these tribes. they speak only hebrew, and are very strict as regards the use of wine made by others than themselves, as well as the rules of slaughtering animals; in this respect the law of moses is much more rigorous than that of the tribes. they do not swear by the name of god, for fear that their breath may leave them, and they become angry with those who swear; they reprimand them, saying, 'woe, ye poor, why do you swear with the mention of the name of god upon your lips? use your mouth for eating bread and drinking water. do you not know that for the sin of swearing your children die young?' and in this way they exhort every one to serve god with fear and integrity of heart. therefore, the children of moses, the servant of god, live long, to the age of or years. no child, be it son or daughter, dies during the lifetime of its parent, but they reach a third and a fourth generation, and see grandchildren and great-grandchildren with their offspring. they do all field work themselves, having no male or female servants; there are also merchants among them. they do not close their houses at night, for there is no thief nor any wicked man among them. thus a little lad might go for days with his flock without fear of robbers, demons or danger of any other kind; they are, indeed, all holy and clean. these levites busy themselves with the law and with the commandments, and they still live in the holiness of our master, moses; therefore, god has given them all this good. moreover, they see nobody and nobody sees them, except the four tribes who dwell on the other side of the rivers of cush; they see them, and speak to them, but the river sambatyon is between them, as it is said: 'that thou mayest say to prisoners, go forth' (isaiah xlix., ). they have plenty of gold and silver; they sow flax and cultivate the crimson worm, and make beautiful garments. their number is double or four times the number that went out from egypt. "the river sambatyon is yards broad--'about as far as a bowshot' (gen. xxi., ), full of sand and stones, but without water; the stones make a great noise like the waves of the sea and a stormy wind, so that in the night the noise is heard at a distance of half a day's journey. there are sources of water which collect themselves in one pool, out of which they water the fields. there are fish in it, and all kinds of clean birds fly round it. and this river of stone and sand rolls during the six working days and rests on the sabbath day. as soon as the sabbath begins fire surrounds the river and the flames remain till the next evening, when the sabbath ends. thus no human being can reach the river for a distance of half a mile on either side; the fire consumes all that grows there. the four tribes, dan, naphtali, gad and asher, stand on the borders of the river. when shearing their flocks here, for the land is flat and clean without any thorns, if the children of moses see them gathered together on the border they shout, saying, 'brethren, tribes of jeshurun, show us your camels, dogs and asses,' and they make their remarks about the length of the camel's neck and the shortness of the tail. then they greet one another and go their way." when this was done, solomon called for hell. he liked to hear about the punishment of the sinners; it gave a zest to life. moses hardly needed a book to tell them about hell. it had no secrets for him. the old testament has no reference to a future existence, but the poor jew has no more been able to live without the hope of hell than the poor christian. when the wicked man has waxed fat and kicked the righteous skinny man, shall the two lie down in the same dust and the game be over? perish the thought! one of the hells was that in which the sinner was condemned to do over and over again the sins he had done in life. "why, that must be jolly!" said solomon. "no, that is frightful," maintained moses ansell. he spoke yiddish, the children english. "of course, it is," said esther. "just fancy, solomon, having to eat toffy all day." "it's better than eating nothing all day," replied solomon. "but to eat it every day for ever and ever!" said moses. "there's no rest for the wicked." "what! not even on the sabbath?" said esther. "oh, yes: of course, then. like the river sambatyon, even the flames of hell rest on _shabbos_." "haven't they got no fire-_goyas_?"; inquired ikey, and everybody laughed. "_shabbos_ is a holiday in hell," moses explained to the little one. "so thou seest the result of thy making out sabbath too early on saturday night, thou sendest the poor souls back to their tortures before the proper time." moses never lost an opportunity of enforcing the claims of the ceremonial law. esther had a vivid picture flashed upon her of poor, yellow hook-shaped souls floating sullenly back towards the flames. solomon's chief respect for his father sprang from the halo of military service encircling moses ever since it leaked out through the lips of the _bube_, that he had been a conscript in russia and been brutally treated by the sergeant. but moses could not be got to speak of his exploits. solomon pressed him to do so, especially when his father gave symptoms of inviting him to the study of rashi's commentary. to-night moses brought out a hebrew tome, and said, "come, solomon. enough of stories. we must learn a little." "to-day is a holiday," grumbled solomon. "it is never a holiday for the study of the law." "only this once, father; let's play draughts." moses weakly yielded. draughts was his sole relaxation and when solomon acquired a draught board by barter his father taught him the game. moses played the polish variety, in which the men are like english kings that leap backwards and forwards and the kings shoot diagonally across like bishops at chess. solomon could not withstand these gigantic grasshoppers, whose stopping places he could never anticipate. moses won every game to-night and was full of glee and told the _kinder_ another story. it was about the emperor nicholas and is not to be found in the official histories of russia. "nicholas, was a wicked king, who oppressed the jews and made their lives sore and bitter. and one day he made it known to the jews that if a million roubles were not raised for him in a month's time they should be driven from their homes. then the jews prayed unto god and besought him to help them for the merits of the forefathers, but no help came. then they tried to bribe the officials, but the officials pocketed their gold and the emperor still demanded his tax. then they went to the great masters of cabalah, who, by pondering day and night on the name and its transmutations, had won the control of all things, and they said, 'can ye do naught for us?' then the masters of cabalah took counsel together and at midnight they called up the spirits of abraham our father, and isaac and jacob, and elijah the prophet, who wept to hear of their children's sorrows. and abraham our father, and isaac and jacob, and elijah the prophet took the bed whereon nicholas the emperor slept and transported it to a wild place. and they took nicholas the emperor out of his warm bed and whipped him soundly so that he yelled for mercy. then they asked: 'wilt thou rescind the edict against the jews?' and he said 'i will.' but in the morning nicholas the emperor woke up and called for the chief of the bed-chamber and said, 'how darest thou allow my bed to be carried out in the middle of the night into the forest?' and the chief of the bed-chamber grew pale and said that the emperor's guards had watched all night outside the door, neither was there space for the bed to pass out. and nicholas the emperor, thinking he had dreamed, let the man go unhung. but the next night lo! the bed was transported again to the wild place and abraham our father, and isaac and jacob, and elijah the prophet drubbed him doubly and again he promised to remit the tax. so in the morning the chief of the bed-chamber was hanged and at night the guards were doubled. but the bed sailed away to the wild place and nicholas the emperor was trebly whipped. then nicholas the emperor annulled the edict and the jews rejoiced and fell at the knees of the masters of cabalah." "but why can't they save the jews altogether?" queried esther. "oh," said moses mysteriously. "cabalah is a great force and must not be abused. the holy name must not be made common. moreover one might lose one's life." "could the masters make men?" inquired esther, who had recently come across frankenstein. "certainly," said moses. "and what is more, it stands written that reb chanina and reb osheya fashioned a fine fat calf on friday and enjoyed it on the sabbath." "oh, father!" said solomon, piteously, "don't you know cabalah?" chapter ix. dutch debby. a year before we got to know esther ansell she got to know dutch debby and it changed her life. dutch debby was a tall sallow ungainly girl who lived in the wee back room on the second floor behind mrs. simons and supported herself and her dog by needle-work. nobody ever came to see her, for it was whispered that her parents had cast her out when she presented them with an illegitimate grandchild. the baby was fortunate enough to die, but she still continued to incur suspicion by keeping a dog, which is an un-jewish trait. bobby often squatted on the stairs guarding her door and, as it was very dark on the staircase, esther suffered great agonies lest she should tread on his tail and provoke reprisals. her anxiety led her to do so one afternoon and bobby's teeth just penetrated through her stocking. the clamor brought out dutch debby, who took the girl into her room and soothed her. esther had often wondered what uncanny mysteries lay behind that dark dog-guarded door and she was rather more afraid of debby than of bobby. but that afternoon saw the beginning of a friendship which added one to the many factors which were moulding the future woman. for debby turned out a very mild bogie, indeed, with a good english vocabulary and a stock of old _london journals_, more precious to esther than mines of ind. debby kept them under the bed, which, as the size of the bed all but coincided with the area of the room, was a wise arrangement. and on the long summer evenings and the sunday afternoons when her little ones needed no looking after and were traipsing about playing "whoop!" and pussy-cat in the street downstairs, esther slipped into the wee back room, where the treasures lay, and there, by the open window, overlooking the dingy back yard and the slanting perspectives of sun-decked red tiles where cats prowled and dingy sparrows hopped, in an atmosphere laden with whiffs from a neighboring dairyman's stables, esther lost herself in wild tales of passion and romance. she frequently read them aloud for the benefit of the sallow-faced needle-woman, who had found romance square so sadly with the realities of her own existence. and so all a summer afternoon, dutch debby and esther would be rapt away to a world of brave men and fair women, a world of fine linen and purple, of champagne and wickedness and cigarettes, a world where nobody worked or washed shirts or was hungry or had holes in boots, a world utterly ignorant of judaism and the heinousness of eating meat with butter. not that esther for her part correlated her conception of this world with facts. she never realized that it was an actually possible world--never indeed asked herself whether it existed outside print or not. she never thought of it in that way at all, any more than it ever occurred to her that people once spoke the hebrew she learned to read and translate. "bobby" was often present at these readings, but he kept his thoughts to himself, sitting on his hind legs with his delightfully ugly nose tilted up inquiringly at esther. for the best of all this new friendship was that bobby was not jealous. he was only a sorry dun-colored mongrel to outsiders, but esther learned to see him almost through dutch debby's eyes. and she could run up the stairs freely, knowing that if she trod on his tail now, he would take it as a mark of _camaraderie_. "i used to pay a penny a week for the _london journal_," said debby early in their acquaintanceship, "till one day i discovered i had a dreadful bad memory." "and what was the good of that?" said esther. "why, it was worth shillings and shillings to me. you see i used to save up all the back numbers of the _london journal_ because of the answers to correspondents, telling you how to do your hair and trim your nails and give yourself a nice complexion. i used to bother my head about that sort of thing in those days, dear; and one day i happened to get reading a story in a back number only about a year old and i found i was just as interested as if i had never read it before and i hadn't the slightest remembrance of it. after that i left off buying the _journal_ and took to reading my big heap of back numbers. i get through them once every two years." debby interrupted herself with a fit of coughing, for lengthy monologue is inadvisable for persons who bend over needle-work in dark back rooms. recovering herself, she added, "and then i start afresh. you couldn't do that, could you?" "no," admitted esther, with a painful feeling of inferiority. "i remember all i've ever read." "ah, you will grow up a clever woman!" said debby, patting her hair. "oh, do you think so?" said esther, her dark eyes lighting up with pleasure. "oh yes, you're always first in your class, ain't you?" "is that what you judge by, debby?" said esther, disappointed. "the other girls are so stupid and take no thought for anything but their hats and their frocks. they would rather play gobs or shuttlecock or hopscotch than read about the 'forty thieves.' they don't mind being kept a whole year in one class but i--oh, i feel so mad at getting on so slow. i could easily learn the standard work in three months. i want to know everything--so that i can grow up to be a teacher at our school." "and does your teacher know everything?" "oh yes! she knows the meaning of every word and all about foreign countries." "and would you like to be a teacher?" "if i could only be clever enough!" sighed esther. "but then you see the teachers at our school are real ladies and they dress, oh, so beautifully! with fur tippets and six-button gloves. i could never afford it, for even when i was earning five shillings a week i should have to give most of it to father and the children." "but if you're very good--i dare say some of the great ladies like the rothschilds will buy you nice clothes. i have heard they are very good to clever children." "no, then the other teachers would know i was getting charity! and they would mock at me. i heard miss hyams make fun of a teacher because she wore the same dress as last winter. i don't think i should like to be a teacher after all, though it is nice to be able to stand with your back to the fire in the winter. the girls would know--'" esther stopped and blushed. "would know what, dear?" "well, they would know father," said esther in low tones. "they would see him selling things in the lane and they wouldn't do what i told them." "nonsense, esther. i believe most of the teachers' fathers are just as bad--i mean as poor. look at miss hyams's own father." "oh debby! i do hope that's true. besides when i was earning five shillings a week, i could buy father a new coat, couldn't i? and then there would be no need for him to stand in the lane with lemons or 'four-corner fringes,' would there?" "no, dear. you shall be a teacher, i prophesy, and who knows? some day you may be head mistress!" esther laughed a startled little laugh of delight, with a suspicion of a sob in it. "what! me! me go round and make all the teachers do their work. oh, wouldn't i catch them gossiping! i know their tricks!" "you seem to look after your teacher well. do you ever call her over the coals for gossiping?" inquired dutch debby, amused. "no, no," protested esther quite seriously. "i like to hear them gossiping. when my teacher and miss davis, who's in the next room, and a few other teachers get together, i learn--oh such a lot!--from their conversation." "then they do teach you after all," laughed debby. "yes, but it's not on the time table," said esther, shaking her little head sapiently. "it's mostly about young men. did you ever have a young man, debby?" "don't--don't ask such questions, child!" debby bent over her needle-work. "why not?" persisted esther. "if i only had a young man when i grew up, i should be proud of him. yes, you're trying to turn your head away. i'm sure you had. was he nice like lord eversmonde or captain andrew sinclair? why you're crying, debby!" "don't be a little fool, esther! a tiny fly has just flown into my eye--poor little thing! he hurts me and does himself no good." "let me see, debby," said esther. "perhaps i shall be in time to save him." "no, don't trouble." "don't be so cruel, debby. you're as bad as solomon, who pulls off flies' wings to see if they can fly without them." "he's dead now. go on with 'lady ann's rival;' we've been wasting the whole afternoon talking. take my advice, esther, and don't stuff your head with ideas about young men. you're too young. now, dear, i'm ready. go on." "where was i? oh yes. 'lord eversmonde folded the fair young form to his manly bosom and pressed kiss after kiss upon her ripe young lips, which responded passionately to his own. at last she recovered herself and cried reproachfully, oh sigismund, why do you persist in coming here, when the duke forbids it?' oh, do you know, debby, father said the other day i oughtn't to come here?" "oh no, you must," cried debby impulsively. "i couldn't part with you now." "father says people say you are not good," said esther candidly. debby breathed painfully. "well!" she whispered. "but i said people were liars. you _are_ good!" "oh, esther, esther!" sobbed debby, kissing the earnest little face with a vehemence that surprised the child. "i think father only said that," esther went on, "because he fancies i neglect sarah and isaac when he's at _shool_ and they quarrel so about their birthdays when they're together. but they don't slap one another hard. i'll tell you what! suppose i bring sarah down here!" "well, but won't she cry and be miserable here, if you read, and with no isaac to play with?" "oh no," said esther confidently. "she'll keep bobby company." bobby took kindly to little sarah also. he knew no other dogs and in such circumstances a sensible animal falls back on human beings. he had first met debby herself quite casually and the two lonely beings took to each other. before that meeting dutch debby was subject to wild temptations. once she half starved herself and put aside ninepence a week for almost three months and purchased one-eighth of a lottery ticket from sugarman the _shadchan_, who recognized her existence for the occasion. the fortune did not come off. debby saw less and less of esther as the months crept on again towards winter, for the little girl feared her hostess might feel constrained to offer her food, and the children required more soothing. esther would say very little about her home life, though debby got to know a great deal about her school-mates and her teacher. one summer evening after esther had passed into the hands of miss miriam hyams she came to dutch debby with a grave face and said: "oh, debby. miss hyams is not a heroine." "no?" said debby, amused. "you were so charmed with her at first." "yes, she is very pretty and her hats are lovely. but she is not a heroine." "why, what's happened?" "you know what lovely weather it's been all day?" "yes." "well, this morning all in the middle of the scripture lesson, she said to us, 'what a pity, girls, we've got to stay cooped up here this bright weather'--you know she chats to us so nicely--'in some schools they have half-holidays on wednesday afternoons in the summer. wouldn't it be nice if we could have them and be out in the sunshine in victoria park?' 'hoo, yes, teacher, wouldn't that be jolly?' we all cried. then teacher said: 'well, why not ask the head mistress for a holiday this afternoon? you're the highest standard in the school--i dare say if you ask for it, the whole school will get a holiday. who will be spokes-woman?' then all the girls said i must be because i was the first girl in the class and sounded all my h's, and when the head mistress came into the room i up and curtseyed and asked her if we could have a holiday this afternoon on account of the beautiful sunshine. then the head mistress put on her eye-glasses and her face grew black and the sunshine seemed to go out of the room. and she said 'what! after all the holidays we have here, a month at new year and a fortnight at passover, and all the fast-days! i am surprised that you girls should be so lazy and idle and ask for more. why don't you take example by your teacher? look at miss hyams." we all looked at miss hyams, but she was looking for some papers in her desk. 'look how miss hyams works!' said the head mistress. '_she_ never grumbles, _she_ never asks for a holiday!' we all looked again at miss hyams, but she hadn't yet found the papers. there was an awful silence; you could have heard a pin drop. there wasn't a single cough or rustle of a dress. then the head mistress turned to me and she said: 'and you, esther ansell, whom i always thought so highly of, i'm surprised at your being the ringleader in such a disgraceful request. you ought to know better. i shall bear it in mind, esther ansell.' with that she sailed out, stiff and straight as a poker, and the door closed behind her with a bang." "well, and what did miss hyams say then?" asked debby, deeply interested. "she said: 'selina green, and what did moses do when the children of israel grumbled for water?' she just went on with the scripture lesson, as if nothing had happened." "i should tell the head mistress who sent me on," cried debby indignantly. "oh, no," said esther shaking her head. "that would be mean. it's a matter for her own conscience. oh, but i do wish," she concluded, "we had had a holiday. it would have been so lovely out in the park." victoria park was _the_ park to the ghetto. a couple of miles off, far enough to make a visit to it an excursion, it was a perpetual blessing to the ghetto. on rare sunday afternoons the ansell family minus the _bube_ toiled there and back _en masse_, moses carrying isaac and sarah by turns upon his shoulder. esther loved the park in all weathers, but best of all in the summer, when the great lake was bright and busy with boats, and the birds twittered in the leafy trees and the lobelias and calceolarias were woven into wonderful patterns by the gardeners. then she would throw herself down on the thick grass and look up in mystic rapture at the brooding blue sky and forget to read the book she had brought with her, while the other children chased one another about in savage delight. only once on a saturday afternoon when her father was not with them, did she get dutch debby to break through her retired habits and accompany them, and then it was not summer but late autumn. there was an indefinable melancholy about the sere landscape. russet refuse strewed the paths and the gaunt trees waved fleshless arms in the breeze. the november haze rose from the moist ground and dulled the blue of heaven with smoky clouds amid which the sun, a red sailless boat, floated at anchor among golden and crimson furrows and glimmering far-dotted fleeces. the small lake was slimy, reflecting the trees on its borders as a network of dirty branches. a solitary swan ruffled its plumes and elongated its throat, doubled in quivering outlines beneath the muddy surface. all at once the splash of oars was heard and the sluggish waters were stirred by the passage of a boat in which a heroic young man was rowing a no less heroic young woman. dutch debby burst into tears and went home. after that she fell back entirely on bobby and esther and the _london journal_ and never even saved up nine shillings again. chapter x. a silent family. sugarman the _shadchan_ arrived one evening a few days before purim at the tiny two-storied house in which esther's teacher lived, with little nehemiah tucked under his arm. nehemiah wore shoes and short red socks. the rest of his legs was bare. sugarman always carried him so as to demonstrate this fact. sugarman himself was rigged out in a handsome manner, and the day not being holy, his blue bandanna peeped out from his left coat-tail, instead of being tied round his trouser band. "good morning, marm," he said cheerfully. "good morning, sugarman," said mrs. hyams. she was a little careworn old woman of sixty with white hair. had she been more pious her hair would never have turned gray. but miriam had long since put her veto on her mother's black wig. mrs. hyams was a meek, weak person and submitted in silence to the outrage on her deepest instincts. old hyams was stronger, but not strong enough. he, too, was a silent person. "p'raps you're surprised," said sugarman, "to get a call from me in my sealskin vest-coat. but de fact is, marm, i put it on to call on a lady. i only dropped in here on my vay." "won't you take a chair?" said mrs. hyams. she spoke english painfully and slowly, having been schooled by miriam. "no, i'm not tired. but i vill put nechemyah down on one, if you permit. dere! sit still or i _potch_ you! p'raps you could lend me your corkscrew." "with pleasure," said mrs. hyams. "i dank you. you see my boy, ebenezer, is _barmitzvah_ next _shabbos_ a veek, and i may not be passing again. you vill come?" "i don't know," said mrs. hyams hesitatingly. she was not certain whether miriam considered sugarman on their visiting list. "don't say dat, i expect to open dirteen bottles of lemonade! you must come, you and mr. hyams and the whole family." "thank you. i will tell miriam and daniel and my husband." "dat's right. nechemyah, don't dance on de good lady's chair. did you hear, mrs. hyams, of mrs. jonas's luck?" "no." "i won her eleven pounds on the lotter_ee_." "how nice," said mrs. hyams, a little fluttered. "i would let you have half a ticket for two pounds." "i haven't the money." "vell, dirty-six shillings! dere! i have to pay dat myself." "i would if i could, but i can't." "but you can have an eighth for nine shillings." mrs. hyams shook her head hopelessly. "how is your son daniel?" sugarman asked. "pretty well, thank you. how is your wife?" "tank gawd!" "and your bessie?" "tank gawd! is your daniel in?" "yes." "tank gawd! i mean, can i see him?" "it won't do any good." "no, not dat," said sugarman. "i should like to ask him to de confirmation myself." "daniel!" called mrs. hyams. he came from the back yard in rolled-up shirt-sleeves, soap-suds drying on his arms. he was a pleasant-faced, flaxen-haired young fellow, the junior of miriam by eighteen months. there was will in the lower part of the face and tenderness in the eyes. "good morning, sir," said sugarman. "my ebenezer is _barmitzvah_ next _shabbos_ week; vill you do me the honor to drop in wid your moder and fader after _shool_?" daniel crimsoned suddenly. he had "no" on his lips, but suppressed it and ultimately articulated it in some polite periphrasis. his mother noticed the crimson. on a blonde face it tells. "don't say dat," said sugarman. "i expect to open dirteen bottles of lemonade. i have lent your good moder's corkscrew." "i shall be pleased to send ebenezer a little present, but i can't come, i really can't. you must excuse me." daniel turned away. "vell," said sugarman, anxious to assure him he bore no malice. "if you send a present i reckon it de same as if you come." "that's all right," said daniel with strained heartiness. sugarman tucked nehemiah under his arm but lingered on the threshold. he did not know how to broach the subject. but the inspiration came. "do you know i have summonsed morris kerlinski?" "no," said daniel. "what for?" "he owes me dirty shillings. i found him a very fine maiden, but, now he is married, he says it was only worth a suvran. he offered it me but i vouldn't take it. a poor man he vas, too, and got ten pun from a marriage portion society." "is it worth while bringing a scandal on the community for the sake of ten shillings? it will be in all the papers, and _shadchan_ will be spelt shatcan, shodkin, shatkin, chodcan, shotgun, and goodness knows what else." "yes, but it isn't ten shillings," said sugarman. "it's dirty shillings." "but you say he offered you a sovereign." "so he did. he arranged for two pun ten. i took the suvran--but not in full payment." "you ought to settle it before the beth-din," said daniel vehemently, "or get some jew to arbitrate. you make the jews a laughing-stock. it is true all marriages depend on money," he added bitterly, "only it is the fashion of police court reporters to pretend the custom is limited to the jews." "vell, i did go to reb shemuel," said sugarman "i dought he'd be the very man to arbitrate." "why?" asked daniel. "vy? hasn't he been a _shadchan_ himself? from who else shall we look for sympaty?" "i see," said daniel smiling a little. "and apparently you got none." "no," said sugarman, growing wroth at the recollection. "he said ve are not in poland." "quite true." "yes, but i gave him an answer he didn't like," said sugarman. "i said, and ven ve are not in poland mustn't ve keep _none_ of our religion?" his tone changed from indignation to insinuation. "vy vill you not let me get _you_ a vife, mr. hyams? i have several extra fine maidens in my eye. come now, don't look so angry. how much commission vill you give me if i find you a maiden vid a hundred pound?" "the maiden!" thundered daniel. then it dawned upon him that he had said a humorous thing and he laughed. there was merriment as well as mysticism in daniel's blue eyes. but sugarman went away, down-hearted. love is blind, and even marriage-brokers may be myopic. most people not concerned knew that daniel hyams was "sweet on" sugarman's bessie. and it was so. daniel loved bessie, and bessie loved daniel. only bessie did not speak because she was a woman and daniel did not speak because he was a man. they were a quiet family--the hyamses. they all bore their crosses in a silence unbroken even at home. miriam herself, the least reticent, did not give the impression that she could not have husbands for the winking. her demands were so high--that was all. daniel was proud of her and her position and her cleverness and was confident she would marry as well as she dressed. he did not expect her to contribute towards the expenses of the household--though she did--for he felt he had broad shoulders. he bore his father and mother on those shoulders, semi-invalids both. in the bold bad years of shameless poverty, hyams had been a wandering metropolitan glazier, but this open degradation became intolerable as miriam's prospects improved. it was partly for her sake that daniel ultimately supported his parents in idleness and refrained from speaking to bessie. for he was only an employé in a fancy-goods warehouse, and on forty-five shillings a week you cannot keep up two respectable establishments. bessie was a bonnie girl and could not in the nature of things be long uncaught. there was a certain night on which daniel did not sleep--hardly a white night as our french neighbors say; a tear-stained night rather. in the morning he was resolved to deny himself bessie. peace would be his instead. if it did not come immediately he knew it was on the way. for once before he had struggled and been so rewarded. that was in his eighteenth year when he awoke to the glories of free thought, and knew himself a victim to the moloch of the sabbath, to which fathers sacrifice their children. the proprietor of the fancy goods was a jew, and moreover closed on saturdays. but for this anachronism of keeping saturday holy when you had sunday also to laze on, daniel felt a hundred higher careers would have been open to him. later, when free thought waned (it was after daniel had met bessie), although he never returned to his father's narrowness, he found the abhorred sabbath sanctifying his life. it made life a conscious voluntary sacrifice to an ideal, and the reward was a touch of consecration once a week. daniel could not have described these things, nor did he speak of them, which was a pity. once and once only in the ferment of free thought he had uncorked his soul, and it had run over with much froth, and thenceforward old mendel hyams and beenah, his wife, opposed more furrowed foreheads to a world too strong for them. if daniel had taken back his words and told them he was happier for the ruin they had made of his prospects, their gait might not have been so listless. but he was a silent man. "you will go to sugarman's, mother," he said now. "you and father. don't mind that i'm not going. i have another appointment for the afternoon." it was a superfluous lie for so silent a man. "he doesn't like to be seen with us," beenah hyams thought. but she was silent. "he has never forgiven my putting him to the fancy goods," thought mendel hyams when told. but he was silent. it was of no good discussing it with his wife. those two had rather halved their joys than their sorrows. they had been married forty years and had never had an intimate moment. their marriage had been a matter of contract. forty years ago, in poland, mendel hyams had awoke one morning to find a face he had never seen before on the pillow beside his. not even on the wedding-day had he been allowed a glimpse of his bride's countenance. that was the custom of the country and the time. beenah bore her husband four children, of whom the elder two died; but the marriage did not beget affection, often the inverse offspring of such unions. beenah was a dutiful housewife and mendel hyams supported her faithfully so long as his children would let him. love never flew out of the window for he was never in the house. they did not talk to each other much. beenah did the housework unaided by the sprig of a servant who was engaged to satisfy the neighbors. in his enforced idleness mendel fell back on his religion, almost a profession in itself. they were a silent couple. at sixty there is not much chance of a forty year old silence being broken on this side of the grave. so far as his personal happiness was concerned, mendel had only one hope left in the world--to die in jerusalem. his feeling for jerusalem was unique. all the hunted jew in him combined with all the battered man to transfigure zion with the splendor of sacred dreams and girdle it with the rainbows that are builded of bitter tears. and with it all a dread that if he were buried elsewhere, when the last trump sounded he would have to roll under the earth and under the sea to jerusalem, the rendezvous of resurrection. every year at the passover table he gave his hope voice: "next year in jerusalem." in her deepest soul miriam echoed this wish of his. she felt she could like him better at a distance. beenah hyams had only one hope left in the world--to die. chapter xi. the purim ball. sam levine duly returned for the purim ball. malka was away and so it was safe to arrive on the sabbath. sam and leah called for hannah in a cab, for the pavements were unfavorable to dancing shoes, and the three drove to the "club," which was not a sixth of a mile off. "the club" was the people's palace of the ghetto; but that it did not reach the bed-rock of the inhabitants was sufficiently evident from the fact that its language was english. the very lowest stratum was of secondary formation--the children of immigrants--while the highest touched the lower middle-class, on the mere fringes of the ghetto. it was a happy place where young men and maidens met on equal terms and similar subscriptions, where billiards and flirtations and concerts and laughter and gay gossip were always on, and lemonade and cakes never off; a heaven where marriages were made, books borrowed and newspapers read. muscular judaism was well to the fore at "the club," and entertainments were frequent. the middle classes of the community, overflowing with artistic instinct, supplied a phenomenal number of reciters, vocalists and instrumentalists ready to oblige, and the greatest favorites of the london footlights were pleased to come down, partly because they found such keenly appreciative audiences, and partly because they were so much mixed up with the race, both professionally and socially. there were serious lectures now and again, but few of the members took them seriously; they came to the club not to improve their minds but to relax them. the club was a blessing without disguise to the daughters of judah, and certainly kept their brothers from harm. the ball-room, with its decorations of evergreens and winter blossoms, was a gay sight. most of the dancers were in evening dress, and it would have been impossible to tell the ball from a belgravian gathering, except by the preponderance of youth and beauty. where could you match such a bevy of brunettes, where find such blondes? they were anything but lymphatic, these oriental blondes, if their eyes did not sparkle so intoxicatingly as those of the darker majority. the young men had carefully curled moustaches and ringlets oiled like the assyrian bull, and figure-six noses, and studs glittering on their creamy shirt-fronts. how they did it on their wages was one of the many miracles of jewish history. for socially and even in most cases financially they were only on the level of the christian artisan. these young men in dress-coats were epitomes of one aspect of jewish history. not in every respect improvements on the "sons of the covenant," though; replacing the primitive manners and the piety of the foreign jew by a veneer of cheap culture and a laxity of ceremonial observance. it was a merry party, almost like a family gathering, not merely because most of the dancers knew one another, but because "all israel are brothers"--and sisters. they danced very buoyantly, not boisterously; the square dances symmetrically executed, every performer knowing his part; the waltzing full of rhythmic grace. when the music was popular they accompanied it on their voices. after supper their heels grew lighter, and the laughter and gossip louder, but never beyond the bounds of decorum. a few dutch dancers tried to introduce the more gymnastic methods in vogue in their own clubs, where the kangaroo is dancing master, but the sentiment of the floor was against them. hannah danced little, a voluntary wallflower, for she looked radiant in tussore silk, and there was an air of refinement about the slight, pretty girl that attracted the beaux of the club. but she only gave a duty dance to sam, and a waltz to daniel hyams, who had been brought by his sister, though he did not boast a swallow-tail to match her flowing draperies. hannah caught a rather unamiable glance from pretty bessie sugarman, whom poor daniel was trying hard not to see in the crush. "is your sister engaged yet?" hannah asked, for want of something to say. "you would know it if she was," said daniel, looking so troubled that hannah reproached herself for the meaningless remark. "how well she dances!" she made haste to say. "not better than you," said daniel, gallantly. "i see compliments are among the fancy goods you deal in. do you reverse?" she added, as they came to an awkward corner. "yes--but not my compliments," he said smiling. "miriam taught me." "she makes me think of miriam dancing by the red sea," she said, laughing at the incongruous idea. "she played a timbrel, though, didn't she?" he asked. "i confess i don't quite know what a timbrel is." "a sort of tambourine, i suppose," said hannah merrily, "and she sang because the children of israel were saved." they both laughed heartily, but when the waltz was over they returned to their individual gloom. towards supper-time, in the middle of a square dance, sam suddenly noticing hannah's solitude, brought her a tall bronzed gentlemanly young man in a frock coat, mumbled an introduction and rushed back to the arms of the exacting leah. "excuse me, i am not dancing to-night," hannah said coldly in reply to the stranger's demand for her programme. "well, i'm not half sorry," he said, with a frank smile. "i had to ask you, you know. but i should feel quite out of place bumping such a lot of swells." there was something unusual about the words and the manner which impressed hannah agreeably, in spite of herself. her face relaxed a little as she said: "why, haven't you been to one of these affairs before?" "oh yes, six or seven years ago, but the place seems quite altered. they've rebuilt it, haven't they? very few of us sported dress-coats here in the days before i went to the cape. i only came back the other day and somebody gave me a ticket and so i've looked in for auld lang syne." an unsympathetic hearer would have detected a note of condescension in the last sentence. hannah detected it, for the announcement that the young man had returned from the cape froze all her nascent sympathy. she was turned to ice again. hannah knew him well--the young man from the cape. he was a higher and more disagreeable development of the young man in the dress-coat. he had put south african money in his purse--whether honestly or not, no one inquired--the fact remained he had put it in his purse. sometimes the law confiscated it, pretending he had purchased diamonds illegally, or what not, but then the young man did _not_ return from the cape. but, to do him justice, the secret of his success was less dishonesty than the opportunities for initiative energy in unexploited districts. besides, not having to keep up appearances, he descended to menial occupations and toiled so long and terribly that he would probably have made just as much money at home, if he had had the courage. be this as it may, there the money was, and, armed with it, the young man set sail literally for england, home and beauty, resuming his cast-off gentility with several extra layers of superciliousness. pretty jewesses, pranked in their prettiest clothes, hastened, metaphorically speaking, to the port to welcome the wanderer; for they knew it was from among them he would make his pick. there were several varieties of him--marked by financial ciphers--but whether he married in his old station or higher up the scale, he was always faithful to the sectarian tradition of the race, and this less from religious motives than from hereditary instinct. like the young man in the dress-coat, he held the christian girl to be cold of heart, and unsprightly of temperament. he laid it down that all yiddishë girls possessed that warmth and _chic_ which, among christians, were the birthright of a few actresses and music-hall artistes--themselves, probably, jewesses! and on things theatrical this young man spoke as one having authority. perhaps, though he was scarce conscious of it, at the bottom of his repulsion was the certainty that the christian girl could not fry fish. she might be delightful for flirtation of all degrees, but had not been formed to make him permanently happy. such was the conception which hannah had formed for herself of the young man from the cape. this latest specimen of the genus was prepossessing into the bargain. there was no denying he was well built, with a shapely head and a lovely moustache. good looks alone were vouchers for insolence and conceit, but, backed by the aforesaid purse--! she turned her head away and stared at the evolutions of the "lancers" with much interest. "they've got some pretty girls in that set," he observed admiringly. evidently the young man did not intend to go away. hannah felt very annoyed. "yes," she said, sharply, "which would you like?" "i shouldn't care to make invidious distinctions," he replied with a little laugh. "odious prig!" thought hannah. "he actually doesn't see i'm sitting on him!" aloud she said, "no? but you can't marry them all." "why should i marry any?" he asked in the same light tone, though there was a shade of surprise in it. "haven't you come back to england to get a wife? most young men do, when they don't have one exported to them in africa." he laughed with genuine enjoyment and strove to catch the answering gleam in her eyes, but she kept them averted. they were standing with their backs to the wall and he could only see the profile and note the graceful poise of the head upon the warm-colored neck that stood out against the white bodice. the frank ring of his laughter mixed with the merry jingle of the fifth figure-- "well, i'm afraid i'm going to be an exception," he said. "you think nobody good enough, perhaps," she could not help saying. "oh! why should you think that?" "perhaps you're married already." "oh no, i'm not," he said earnestly. "you're not, either, are you?" "me?" she asked; then, with a barely perceptible pause, she said, "of course i am." the thought of posing as the married woman she theoretically was, flashed upon her suddenly and appealed irresistibly to her sense of fun. the recollection that the nature of the ring on her finger was concealed by her glove afforded her supplementary amusement. "oh!" was all he said. "i didn't catch your name exactly." "i didn't catch yours," she replied evasively. "david brandon," he said readily. "it's a pretty name," she said, turning smilingly to him. the infinite possibilities of making fun of him latent in the joke quite warmed her towards him. "how unfortunate for me i have destroyed my chance of getting it." it was the first time she had smiled, and he liked the play of light round the curves of her mouth, amid the shadows of the soft dark skin, in the black depths of the eyes. "how unfortunate for me!" he said, smiling in return. "oh yes, of course!" she said with a little toss of her head. "there is no danger in saying that now." "i wouldn't care if there was." "it is easy to smooth down the serpent when the fangs are drawn," she laughed back. "what an extraordinary comparison!" he exclaimed. "but where are all the people going? it isn't all over, i hope." "why, what do you want to stay for? you're not dancing." "that is the reason. unless i dance with you." "and then you would want to go?" she flashed with mock resentment. "i see you're too sharp for me," he said lugubriously. "roughing it among the boers makes a fellow a bit dull in compliments." "dull indeed!" said hannah, drawing herself up with great seriousness. "i think you're more complimentary than you have a right to be to a married woman." his face fell. "oh, i didn't mean anything," he said apologetically. "so i thought," retorted hannah. the poor fellow grew more red and confused than ever. hannah felt quite sympathetic with him now, so pleased was she at the humiliated condition to which she had brought the young man from the cape. "well, i'll say good-bye," he said awkwardly. "i suppose i mustn't ask to take you down to supper. i dare say your husband will want that privilege." "i dare say," replied hannah smiling. "although husbands do not always appreciate their privileges." "i shall be glad if yours doesn't," he burst forth. "thank you for your good wishes for my domestic happiness," she said severely. "oh, why will you misconstrue everything i say?" he pleaded. "you must think me an awful _schlemihl_, putting my foot into it so often. anyhow i hope i shall meet you again somewhere." "the world is very small," she reminded him. "i wish i knew your husband," he said ruefully. "why?" said hannah, innocently. "because i could call on him," he replied, smiling. "well, you do know him," she could not help saying. "do i? who is it? i don't think i do," he exclaimed. "well, considering he introduced you to me!" "sam!" cried david startled. "yes." "but--" said david, half incredulously, half in surprise. he certainly had never credited sam with the wisdom to select or the merit to deserve a wife like this. "but what?" asked hannah with charming _naïveté_. "he said--i--i--at least i think he said--i--i--understood that he introduced me to miss solomon, as his intended wife." solomon was the name of malka's first husband, and so of leah. "quite right," said hannah simply. "then--what--how?" he stammered. "she _was_ his intended wife," explained hannah as if she were telling the most natural thing in the world. "before he married me, you know." "i--i beg your pardon if i seemed to doubt you. i really thought you were joking." "why, what made you think so?" "well," he blurted out. "he didn't mention he was married, and seeing him dancing with her the whole time--" "i suppose he thinks he owes her some attention," said hannah indifferently. "by way of compensation probably. i shouldn't be at all surprised if he takes her down to supper instead of me." "there he is, struggling towards the buffet. yes, he has her on his arm." "you speak as if she were his phylacteries," said hannah, smiling. "it would be a pity to disturb them. so, if you like, you can have me on your arm, as you put it." the young man's face lit up with pleasure, the keener that it was unexpected. "i am very glad to have such phylacteries on my arm, as you put it," he responded. "i fancy i should be a good deal _froomer_ if my phylacteries were like that." "what, aren't you _frooms_?" she said, as they joined the hungry procession in which she noted bessie sugarman on the arm of daniel hyams. "no, i'm a regular wrong'un," he replied. "as for phylacteries, i almost forget how to lay them." "that _is_ bad," she admitted, though he could not ascertain her own point of view from the tone. "well, everybody else is just as bad," he said cheerfully. "all the old piety seems to be breaking down. it's purim, but how many of us have been to hear the--the what do you call it?--the _megillah_ read? there is actually a minister here to-night bare-headed. and how many of us are going to wash our hands before supper or _bensh_ afterwards, i should like to know. why, it's as much as can be expected if the food's _kosher_, and there's no ham sandwiches on the dishes. lord! how my old dad, god rest his soul, would have been horrified by such a party as this!" "yes, it's wonderful how ashamed jews are of their religion outside a synagogue!" said hannah musingly. "_my_ father, if he were here, would put on his hat after supper and _bensh_, though there wasn't another man in the room to follow his example." "and i should admire him for it," said david, earnestly, "though i admit i shouldn't follow his example myself. i suppose he's one of the old school." "he is reb shemuel," said hannah, with dignity. "oh, indeed!" he exclaimed, not without surprise, "i know him well. he used to bless me when i was a boy, and it used to cost him a halfpenny a time. such a jolly fellow!" "i'm so glad you think so," said hannah flushing with pleasure. "of course i do. does he still have all those _greeners_ coming to ask him questions?" "oh, yes. their piety is just the same as ever." "they're poor," observed david. "it's always those poorest in worldly goods who are richest in religion." "well, isn't that a compensation?" returned hannah, with a little sigh. "but from my father's point of view, the truth is rather that those who have most pecuniary difficulties have most religious difficulties." "ah, i suppose they come to your father as much to solve the first as the second." "father is very good," she said simply. they had by this time obtained something to eat, and for a minute or so the dialogue became merely dietary. "do you know," he said in the course of the meal, "i feel i ought not to have told you what a wicked person i am? i put my foot into it there, too." "no, why?" "because you are reb shemuel's daughter." "oh, what nonsense! i like to hear people speak their minds. besides, you mustn't fancy i'm as _froom_ as my father." "i don't fancy that. not quite," he laughed. "i know there's some blessed old law or other by which women haven't got the same chance of distinguishing themselves that way as men. i have a vague recollection of saying a prayer thanking god for not having made me a woman." "ah, that must have been a long time ago," she said slyly. "yes, when i was a boy," he admitted. then the oddity of the premature thanksgiving struck them both and they laughed. "you've got a different form provided for you, haven't you?" he said. "yes, i have to thank god for having made me according to his will." "you don't seem satisfied for all that," he said, struck by something in the way she said it. "how can a woman be satisfied?" she asked, looking up frankly. "she has no voice in her destinies. she must shut her eyes and open her mouth and swallow what it pleases god to send her." "all right, shut your eyes," he said, and putting his hand over them he gave her a titbit and restored the conversation to a more flippant level. "you mustn't do that," she said. "suppose my husband were to see you." "oh, bother!" he said. "i don't know why it is, but i don't seem to realize you're a married woman." "am i playing the part so badly as all that?" "is it a part?" he cried eagerly. she shook her head. his face fell again. she could hardly fail to note the change. "no, it's a stern reality," she said. "i wish it wasn't." it seemed a bold confession, but it was easy to understand. sam had been an old school-fellow of his, and david had not thought highly of him. he was silent a moment. "are you not happy?" he said gently. "not in my marriage." "sam must be a regular brute!" he cried indignantly. "he doesn't know how to treat you. he ought to have his head punched the way he's going on with that fat thing in red." "oh, don't run her down," said hannah, struggling to repress her emotions, which were not purely of laughter. "she's my dearest friend." "they always are," said david oracularly. "but how came you to marry him?" "accident," she said indifferently. "accident!" he repeated, open-eyed. "ah, well, it doesn't matter," said hannah, meditatively conveying a spoonful of trifle to her mouth. "i shall be divorced from him to-morrow. be careful! you nearly broke that plate." david stared at her, open-mouthed. "going to be divorced from him to-morrow?" "yes, is there anything odd about it?" "oh," he said, after staring at her impassive face for a full minute. "now i'm sure you've been making fun of me all along." "my dear mr. brandon, why will you persist in making me out a liar?" he was forced to apologize again and became such a model of perplexity and embarrassment that hannah's gravity broke down at last and her merry peal of laughter mingled with the clatter of plates and the hubbub of voices. "i must take pity on you and enlighten you," she said, "but promise me it shall go no further. it's only our own little circle that knows about it and i don't want to be the laughing-stock of the lane." "of course i will promise," he said eagerly. she kept his curiosity on the _qui vive_ to amuse herself a little longer, but ended by telling him all, amid frequent exclamations of surprise. "well, i never!" he said when it was over. "fancy a religion in which only two per cent. of the people who profess it have ever heard of its laws. i suppose we're so mixed up with the english, that it never occurs to us we've got marriage laws of our own--like the scotch. anyhow i'm real glad and i congratulate you." "on what?" "on not being really married to sam." "well, you're a nice friend of his, i must say. i don't congratulate myself, i can tell you." "you don't?" he said in a disappointed tone. she shook her head silently. "why not?" he inquired anxiously. "well, to tell the truth, this forced marriage was my only chance of getting a husband who wasn't pious. don't look so puzzled. i wasn't shocked at your wickedness--you mustn't be at mine. you know there's such a lot of religion in our house that i thought if i ever did get married i'd like a change." "ha! ha! ha! so you're as the rest of us. well, it's plucky of you to admit it." "don't see it. my living doesn't depend on religion, thank heaven. father's a saint, i know, but he swallows everything he sees in his books just as he swallows everything mother and i put before him in his plate--and in spite of it all--" she was about to mention levi's shortcomings but checked herself in time. she had no right to unveil anybody's soul but her own and she didn't know why she was doing that. "but you don't mean to say your father would forbid you to marry a man you cared for, just because he wasn't _froom_?" "i'm sure he would." "but that would be cruel." "he wouldn't think so. he'd think he was saving my soul, and you must remember he can't imagine any one who has been taught to see its beauty not loving the yoke of the law. he's the best father in the world--but when religion's concerned, the best-hearted of mankind are liable to become hard as stone. you don't know my father as i do. but apart from that, i wouldn't marry a man, myself, who might hurt my father's position. i should have to keep a _kosher_ house or look how people would talk!" "and wouldn't you if you had your own way?" "i don't know what i would do. it's so impossible, the idea of my having my own way. i think i should probably go in for a change, i'm so tired--so tired of this eternal ceremony. always washing up plates and dishes. i dare say it's all for our good, but i _am_ so tired." "oh, i don't see much difficulty about _koshers_. i always eat _kosher_ meat myself when i can get it, providing it's not so beastly tough as it has a knack of being. of course it's absurd to expect a man to go without meat when he's travelling up country, just because it hasn't been killed with a knife instead of a pole-axe. besides, don't we know well enough that the folks who are most particular about those sort of things don't mind swindling and setting their houses on fire and all manner of abominations? i wouldn't be a christian for the world, but i should like to see a little more common-sense introduced into our religion; it ought to be more up to date. if ever i marry, i should like my wife to be a girl who wouldn't want to keep anything but the higher parts of judaism. not out of laziness, mind you, but out of conviction." david stopped suddenly, surprised at his own sentiments, which he learned for the first time. however vaguely they might have been simmering in his brain, he could not honestly accuse himself of having ever bestowed any reflection on "the higher parts of judaism" or even on the religious convictions apart from the racial aspects of his future wife. could it be that hannah's earnestness was infecting him? "oh, then you _would_ marry a jewess!" said hannah. "oh, of course," he said in astonishment. then as he looked at her pretty, earnest face the amusing recollection that she _was_ married already came over him with a sort of shock, not wholly comical. there was a minute of silence, each pursuing a separate train of thought. then david wound up, as if there had been no break, with an elliptical, "wouldn't you?" hannah shrugged her shoulders and elevated her eyebrows in a gesture that lacked her usual grace. "not if i had only to please myself," she added. "oh, come! don't say that," he said anxiously. "i don't believe mixed marriages are a success. really, i don't. besides, look at the scandal!" again she shrugged her shoulders, defiantly this time. "i don't suppose i shall ever get married," she said. "i never could marry a man father would approve of, so that a christian would be no worse than an educated jew." david did not quite grasp the sentence; he was trying to, when sam and leah passed them. sam winked in a friendly if not very refined manner. "i see you two are getting on all right." he said. "good gracious!" said hannah, starting up with a blush. "everybody's going back. they _will_ think us greedy. what a pair of fools we are to have got into such serious conversation at a ball." "was it serious?" said david with a retrospective air. "well, i never enjoyed a conversation so much in my life." "you mean the supper," hannah said lightly. "well, both. it's your fault that we don't behave more appropriately." "how do you mean?" "you won't dance." "do you want to?" "rather." "i thought you were afraid of all the swells." "supper has given me courage." "oh, very well if you want to, that's to say if you really can waltz." "try me, only you must allow for my being out of practice. i didn't get many dances at the cape, i can tell you." "the cape!" hannah heard the words without making her usual grimace. she put her hand lightly on his shoulder, he encircled her waist with his arm and they surrendered themselves to the intoxication of the slow, voluptuous music. chapter xii. the sons of the covenant. the "sons of the covenant" sent no representatives to the club balls, wotting neither of waltzes nor of dress-coats, and preferring death to the embrace of a strange dancing woman. they were the congregation of which mr. belcovitch was president and their synagogue was the ground floor of no. royal street--two large rooms knocked into one, and the rear partitioned off for the use of the bewigged, heavy-jawed women who might not sit with the men lest they should fascinate their thoughts away from things spiritual. its furniture was bare benches, a raised platform with a reading desk in the centre and a wooden curtained ark at the end containing two parchment scrolls of the law, each with a silver pointer and silver bells and pomegranates. the scrolls were in manuscript, for the printing-press has never yet sullied the sanctity of the synagogue editions of the pentateuch. the room was badly ventilated and what little air there was was generally sucked up by a greedy company of wax candles, big and little, struck in brass holders. the back window gave on the yard and the contiguous cow-sheds, and "moos" mingled with the impassioned supplications of the worshippers, who came hither two and three times a day to batter the gates of heaven and to listen to sermons more exegetical than ethical. they dropped in, mostly in their work-a-day garments and grime, and rumbled and roared and chorused prayers with a zeal that shook the window-panes, and there was never lack of _minyan_--the congregational quorum of ten. in the west end, synagogues are built to eke out the income of poor _minyan-men_ or professional congregants; in the east end rooms are tricked up for prayer. this synagogue was all of luxury many of its sons could boast. it was their _salon_ and their lecture-hall. it supplied them not only with their religion but their art and letters, their politics and their public amusements. it was their home as well as the almighty's, and on occasion they were familiar and even a little vulgar with him. it was a place in which they could sit in their slippers, metaphorically that is; for though they frequently did so literally, it was by way of reverence, not ease. they enjoyed themselves in this _shool_ of theirs; they shouted and skipped and shook and sang, they wailed and moaned; they clenched their fists and thumped their breasts and they were not least happy when they were crying. there is an apocryphal anecdote of one of them being in the act of taking a pinch of snuff when the "confession" caught him unexpectedly. "we have trespassed," he wailed mechanically, as he spasmodically put the snuff in his bosom and beat his nose with his clenched fist. they prayed metaphysics, acrostics, angelology, cabalah, history, exegetics, talmudical controversies, _menus_, recipes, priestly prescriptions, the canonical books, psalms, love-poems, an undigested hotch-potch of exalted and questionable sentiments, of communal and egoistic aspirations of the highest order. it was a wonderful liturgy, as grotesque as it was beautiful--like an old cathedral in all styles of architecture, stored with shabby antiquities and side-shows and overgrown with moss and lichen--a heterogeneous blend of historical strata of all periods, in which gems of poetry and pathos and spiritual fervor glittered and pitiful records of ancient persecution lay petrified. and the method of praying these things was equally complex and uncouth, equally the bond-slave of tradition; here a rising and there a bow, now three steps backwards and now a beating of the breast, this bit for the congregation and that for the minister, variants of a page, a word, a syllable, even a vowel, ready for every possible contingency. their religious consciousness was largely a musical box--the thrill of the ram's horn, the cadenza of psalmic phrase, the jubilance of a festival "amen" and the sobriety of a work-a-day "amen," the passover melodies and the pentecost, the minor keys of atonement and the hilarious rhapsodies of rejoicing, the plain chant of the law and the more ornate intonation of the prophets--all this was known and loved and was far more important than the meaning of it all or its relation to their real lives; for page upon page was gabbled off at rates that could not be excelled by automata. but if they did not always know what they were saying they always meant it. if the service had been more intelligible it would have been less emotional and edifying. there was not a sentiment, however incomprehensible, for which they were not ready to die or to damn. "all israel are brethren," and indeed there was a strange antique clannishness about these "sons of the covenant" which in the modern world, where the ends of the ages meet, is socialism. they prayed for one another while alive, visited one another's bedsides when sick, buried one another when dead. no mercenary hands poured the yolks of eggs over their dead faces and arrayed their corpses in their praying-shawls. no hired masses were said for the sick or the troubled, for the psalm-singing services of the "sons of the covenant" were always available for petitioning the heavens, even though their brother had been arrested for buying stolen goods, and the service might be an invitation to providence to compound a felony. little charities of their own they had, too--a sabbath meal society, and a marriage portion society to buy the sticks for poor couples--and when a pauper countryman arrived from poland, one of them boarded him and another lodged him and a third taught him a trade. strange exotics in a land of prose carrying with them through the paven highways of london the odor of continental ghettos and bearing in their eyes through all the shrewdness of their glances the eternal mysticism of the orient, where god was born! hawkers and peddlers, tailors and cigar-makers, cobblers and furriers, glaziers and cap-makers--this was in sum their life. to pray much and to work long, to beg a little and to cheat a little, to eat not over-much and to "drink" scarce at all, to beget annual children by chaste wives (disallowed them half the year), and to rear them not over-well, to study the law and the prophets and to reverence the rabbinical tradition and the chaos of commentaries expounding it, to abase themselves before the "life of man" and joseph cam's "prepared table" as though the authors had presided at the foundation of the earth, to wear phylacteries and fringes, to keep the beard unshaven, and the corners of the hair uncut, to know no work on sabbath and no rest on week-day. it was a series of recurrent landmarks, ritual and historical, of intimacy with god so continuous that they were in danger of forgetting his existence as of the air they breathed. they ate unleavened bread in passover and blessed the moon and counted the days of the _omer_ till pentecost saw the synagogue dressed with flowers in celebration of an asiatic fruit harvest by a european people divorced from agriculture; they passed to the terrors and triumphs of the new year (with its domestic symbolism of apple and honey and its procession to the river) and the revelry of repentance on the great white fast, when they burned long candles and whirled fowls round their heads and attired themselves in grave-clothes and saw from their seats in synagogue the long fast-day darken slowly into dusk, while god was sealing the decrees of life and death; they passed to tabernacles when they ran up rough booths in back yards draped with their bed-sheets and covered with greenery, and bore through the streets citrons in boxes and a waving combination of myrtle, and palm and willow branches, wherewith they made a pleasant rustling in the synagogue; and thence to the rejoicing of the law when they danced and drank rum in the house of the lord and scrambled sweets for the little ones, and made a sevenfold circuit with the two scrolls, supplemented by toy flags and children's candles stuck in hollow carrots; and then on again to dedication with its celebration of the maccabaean deliverance and the miracle of the unwaning oil in the temple, and to purim with its masquerading and its execration of haman's name by the banging of little hammers; and so back to passover. and with these larger cycles, epicycles of minor fasts and feasts, multiplex, not to be overlooked, from the fast of the ninth of ab--fatal day for the race--when they sat on the ground in shrouds, and wailed for the destruction of jerusalem, to the feast of the great hosannah when they whipped away willow-leaves on the _shool_ benches in symbolism of forgiven sins, sitting up the whole of the night before in a long paroxysm of prayer mitigated by coffee and cakes; from the period in which nuts were prohibited to the period in which marriages were commended. and each day, too, had its cycles of religious duty, its comprehensive and cumbrous ritual with accretions of commentary and tradition. and every contingency of the individual life was equally provided for, and the writings that regulated all this complex ritual are a marvellous monument of the patience, piety and juristic genius of the race--and of the persecution which threw it back upon its sole treasure, the law. thus they lived and died, these sons of the covenant, half-automata, sternly disciplined by voluntary and involuntary privation, hemmed and mewed in by iron walls of form and poverty, joyfully ground under the perpetual rotary wheel of ritualism, good-humored withal and casuistic like all people whose religion stands much upon ceremony; inasmuch as a ritual law comes to count one equally with a moral, and a man is not half bad who does three-fourths of his duty. and so the stuffy room with its guttering candles and its chameleon-colored ark-curtain was the pivot of their barren lives. joy came to bear to it the offering of its thanksgiving and to vow sixpenny bits to the lord, prosperity came in a high hat to chaffer for the holy privileges, and grief came with rent garments to lament the beloved dead and glorify the name of the eternal. the poorest life is to itself the universe and all that therein is, and these humble products of a great and terrible past, strange fruits of a motley-flowering secular tree whose roots are in canaan and whose boughs overshadow the earth, were all the happier for not knowing that the fulness of life was not theirs. and the years went rolling on, and the children grew up and here and there a parent. * * * * * the elders of the synagogue were met in council. "he is greater than a prince," said the shalotten _shammos_. "if all the princes of the earth were put in one scale," said mr. belcovitch, "and our _maggid_, moses, in the other, he would outweigh them all. he is worth a hundred of the chief rabbi of england, who has been seen bareheaded." "from moses to moses there has been none like moses," said old mendel hyams, interrupting the yiddish with a hebrew quotation. "oh no," said the shalotten _shammos_, who was a great stickler for precision, being, as his nickname implied, a master of ceremonies. "i can't admit that. look at my brother nachmann." there was a general laugh at the shalotten _shammos's_ bull; the proverb dealing only with moseses. "he has the true gift," observed _froom_ karlkammer, shaking the flames of his hair pensively. "for the letters of his name have the same numerical value as those of the great moses da leon." _froom_ karlkammer was listened to with respect, for he was an honorary member of the committee, who paid for two seats in a larger congregation and only worshipped with the sons of the covenant on special occasions. the shalotten _shammos_, however, was of contradictory temperament--a born dissentient, upheld by a steady consciousness of highly superior english, the drop of bitter in belcovitch's presidential cup. he was a long thin man, who towered above the congregation, and was as tall as the bulk of them even when he was bowing his acknowledgments to his maker. "how do you make that out?" he asked karlkammer. "moses of course adds up the same as moses--but while the other part of the _maggid's_ name makes seventy-three, da leon's makes ninety-one." "ah, that's because you're ignorant of _gematriyah_," said little karlkammer, looking up contemptuously at the cantankerous giant. "you reckon all the letters on the same system, and you omit to give yourself the license of deleting the ciphers." in philology it is well known that all consonants are interchangeable and vowels don't count; in _gematriyah_ any letter may count for anything, and the total may be summed up anyhow. karlkammer was one of the curiosities of the ghetto. in a land of _froom_ men he was the _froomest_. he had the very genius of fanaticism. on the sabbath he spoke nothing but hebrew whatever the inconvenience and however numerous the misunderstandings, and if he perchance paid a visit he would not perform the "work" of lifting the knocker. of course he had his handkerchief girt round his waist to save him from carrying it, but this compromise being general was not characteristic of karlkammer any more than his habit of wearing two gigantic sets of phylacteries where average piety was content with one of moderate size. one of the walls of his room had an unpapered and unpainted scrap in mourning for the fall of jerusalem. he walked through the streets to synagogue attired in his praying-shawl and phylacteries, and knocked three times at the door of god's house when he arrived. on the day of atonement he walked in his socks, though the heavens fell, wearing his grave-clothes. on this day he remained standing in synagogue from a.m. to p.m. with his body bent at an angle of ninety degrees; it was to give him bending space that he hired two seats. on tabernacles, not having any ground whereon to erect a booth, by reason of living in an attic, he knocked a square hole in the ceiling, covered it with branches through which the free air of heaven played, and hung a quadrangle of sheets from roof to floor; he bore to synagogue the tallest _lulav_ of palm-branches that could be procured and quarrelled with a rival pietist for the last place in the floral procession, as being the lowliest and meekest man in israel--an ethical pedestal equally claimed by his rival. he insisted on bearing a corner of the biers of all the righteous dead. almost every other day was a fast-day for karlkammer, and he had a host of supplementary ceremonial observances which are not for the vulgar. compared with him moses ansell and the ordinary "sons of the covenant" were mere heathens. he was a man of prodigious distorted mental activity. he had read omnivorously amid the vast stores of hebrew literature, was a great authority on cabalah, understood astronomy, and, still more, astrology, was strong on finance, and could argue coherently on any subject outside religion. his letters to the press on specifically jewish subjects were the most hopeless, involved, incomprehensible and protracted puzzles ever penned, bristling with hebrew quotations from the most varying, the most irrelevant and the most mutually incongruous sources and peppered with the dates of birth and death of every rabbi mentioned. no one had ever been known to follow one of these argumentations to the bitter end. they were written in good english modified by a few peculiar terms used in senses unsuspected by dictionary-makers; in a beautiful hand, with the t's uncrossed, but crowned with the side-stroke, so as to avoid the appearance of the symbol of christianity, and with the dates expressed according to the hebrew calendar, for karlkammer refused to recognize the chronology of the christian. he made three copies of every letter, and each was exactly like the others in every word and every line. his bill for midnight oil must have been extraordinary, for he was a business man and had to earn his living by day. kept within the limits of sanity by a religion without apocalyptic visions, he was saved from predicting the end of the world by mystic calculations, but he used them to prove everything else and fervently believed that endless meanings were deducible from the numerical value of biblical words, that not a curl at the tail of a letter of any word in any sentence but had its supersubtle significance. the elaborate cipher with which bacon is alleged to have written shakspeare's plays was mere child's play compared with the infinite revelations which in karlkammer's belief the deity left latent in writing the old testament from genesis to malachi, and in inspiring the talmud and the holier treasures of hebrew literature. nor were these ideas of his own origination. his was an eclectic philosophy and religionism, of which all the elements were discoverable in old hebrew books: scraps of alexandrian philosophy inextricably blent with aristotelian, platonic, mystic. he kept up a copious correspondence with scholars in other countries and was universally esteemed and pitied. "we haven't come to discuss the figures of the _maggid's_ name, but of his salary." said mr. belcovitch, who prided himself on his capacity for conducting public business. "i have examined the finances," said karlkammer, "and i don't see how we can possibly put aside more for our preacher than the pound a week." "but he is not satisfied," said mr. belcovitch. "i don't see why he shouldn't be," said the shalotten _shammos_. "a pound a week is luxury for a single man." the sons of the covenant did not know that the poor consumptive _maggid_ sent half his salary to his sisters in poland to enable them to buy back their husbands from military service; also they had vague unexpressed ideas that he was not mortal, that heaven would look after his larder, that if the worst came to the worst he could fall back on cabalah and engage himself with the mysteries of food-creation. "i have a wife and family to keep on a pound a week," grumbled greenberg the _chazan_. besides being reader, greenberg blew the horn and killed cattle and circumcised male infants and educated children and discharged the functions of beadle and collector. he spent a great deal of his time in avoiding being drawn into the contending factions of the congregation and in steering equally between belcovitch and the shalotten _shammos_. the sons only gave him fifty a year for all his trouble, but they eked it out by allowing him to be on the committee, where on the question of a rise in the reader's salary he was always an ineffective minority of one. his other grievance was that for the high festivals the sons temporarily engaged a finer voiced reader and advertised him at raised prices to repay themselves out of the surplus congregation. not only had greenberg to play second fiddle on these grand occasions, but he had to iterate "pom" as a sort of musical accompaniment in the pauses of his rival's vocalization. "you can't compare yourself with the _maggid_" the shalotten _shammos_ reminded him consolingly. "there are hundreds of you in the market. there are several _morceaux_ of the service which you do not sing half so well as your predecessor; your horn-blowing cannot compete with freedman's of the fashion street _chevrah_, nor can you read the law as quickly and accurately as prochintski. i have told you over and over again you confound the air of the passover _yigdal_ with the new year ditto. and then your preliminary flourish to the confession of sin--it goes 'ei, ei, ei, ei, ei, ei, ei'" (he mimicked greenberg's melody) "whereas it should be 'oi, oi, oi, oi, oi, oi.'" "oh no," interrupted belcovitch. "all the _chazanim_ i've ever heard do it 'ei, ei, ei.'" "you are not entitled to speak on this subject, belcovitch," said the shalotten _shammos_ warmly. "you are a man-of-the-earth. i have heard every great _chazan_ in europe." "what was good enough for my father is good enough for me," retorted belcovitch. "the _shool_ he took me to at home had a beautiful _chazan_, and he always sang it 'ei, ei, ei.'" "i don't care what you heard at home. in england every _chazan_ sings 'oi, oi, oi.'" "we can't take our tune from england," said karlkammer reprovingly. "england is a polluted country by reason of the reformers whom we were compelled to excommunicate." "do you mean to say that my father was an epicurean?" asked belcovitch indignantly. "the tune was as greenberg sings it. that there are impious jews who pray bareheaded and sit in the synagogue side by side with the women has nothing to do with it." the reformers did neither of these things, but the ghetto to a man believed they did, and it would have been countenancing their blasphemies to pay a visit to their synagogues and see. it was an extraordinary example of a myth flourishing in the teeth of the facts, and as such should be useful to historians sifting "the evidence of contemporary writers." the dispute thickened; the synagogue hummed with "eis" and "ois" not in concord. "shah!" said the president at last. "make an end, make an end!" "you see he knows i'm right," murmured the shalotten _shammos_ to his circle. "and if you are!" burst forth the impeached greenberg, who had by this time thought of a retort. "and if i do sing the passover _yigdal_ instead of the new year, have i not reason, seeing i have _no bread in the house_? with my salary i have passover all the year round." the _chazan's_ sally made a good impression on his audience if not on his salary. it was felt that he had a just grievance, and the conversation was hastily shifted to the original topic. "we mustn't forget the _maggid_ draws crowds here every saturday and sunday afternoon," said mendel hyams. "suppose he goes over to a _chevrah_ that will pay him more!" "no, he won't do that," said another of the committee. "he will remember that we brought him out of poland." "yes, but we shan't have room for the audiences soon," said belcovitch. "there are so many outsiders turned away every time that i think we ought to let half the applicants enjoy the first two hours of the sermon and the other half the second two hours." "no, no, that would be cruel," said karlkammer. "he will have to give the sunday sermons at least in a larger synagogue. my own _shool_, the german, will be glad to give him facilities." "but what if they want to take him altogether at a higher salary?" said mendel. "no, i'm on the committee, i'll see to that," said karlkammer reassuringly. "then do you think we shall tell him we can't afford to give him more?" asked belcovitch. there was a murmur of assent with a fainter mingling of dissent. the motion that the _maggid's_ application be refused was put to the vote and carried by a large majority. it was the fate of the _maggid_ to be the one subject on which belcovitch and the shalotten _shammos_ agreed. they agreed as to his transcendent merits and they agreed as to the adequacy of his salary. "but he's so weakly," protested mendel hyams, who was in the minority. "he coughs blood." "he ought to go to a sunny place for a week," said belcovitch compassionately. "yes, he must certainly have that," said karlkammer. "let us add as a rider that although we cannot pay him more per week, he must have a week's holiday in the country. the shalotten _shammos_ shall write the letter to rothschild." rothschild was a magic name in the ghetto; it stood next to the almighty's as a redresser of grievances and a friend of the poor, and the shalotten _shammos_ made a large part of his income by writing letters to it. he charged twopence halfpenny per letter, for his english vocabulary was larger than any other scribe's in the ghetto, and his words were as much longer than theirs as his body. he also filled up printed application forms for soup or passover cakes, and had a most artistic sense of the proportion of orphans permissible to widows and a correct instinct for the plausible duration of sicknesses. the committee agreed _nem. con._ to the grant of a seaside holiday, and the shalotten _shammos_ with a gratified feeling of importance waived his twopence halfpenny. he drew up a letter forthwith, not of course in the name of the sons of the covenant, but in the _maggid's_ own. he took the magniloquent sentences to the _maggid_ for signature. he found the _maggid_ walking up and down royal street waiting for the verdict. the _maggid_ walked with a stoop that was almost a permanent bow, so that his long black beard reached well towards his baggy knees. his curved eagle nose was grown thinner, his long coat shinier, his look more haggard, his corkscrew earlocks were more matted, and when he spoke his voice was a tone more raucous. he wore his high hat--a tall cylinder that reminded one of a weather-beaten turret. the shalotten _shammos_ explained briefly what he had done. "may thy strength increase!" said the _maggid_ in the hebrew formula of gratitude. "nay, thine is more important," replied the shalotten _shammos_ with hilarious heartiness, and he proceeded to read the letter as they walked along together, giant and doubled-up wizard. "but i haven't got a wife and six children," said the _maggid_, for whom one or two phrases stood out intelligible. "my wife is dead and i never was blessed with a _kaddish_." "it sounds better so," said the shalotten _shammos_ authoritatively. "preachers are expected to have heavy families dependent upon them. it would sound lies if i told the truth." this was an argument after the _maggid's_ own heart, but it did not quite convince him. "but they will send and make inquiries," he murmured. "then your family are in poland; you send your money over there." "that is true," said the _maggid_ feebly. "but still it likes me not." "you leave it to me," said the shalotten _shammos_ impressively. "a shamefaced man cannot learn, and a passionate man cannot teach. so said hillel. when you are in the pulpit i listen to you; when i have my pen in hand, do you listen to me. as the proverb says, if i were a rabbi the town would burn. but if you were a scribe the letter would burn. i don't pretend to be a _maggid_, don't you set up to be a letter writer." "well, but do you think it's honorable?" "hear, o israel!" cried the shalotten _shammos_, spreading out his palms impatiently. "haven't i written letters for twenty years?" the _maggid_ was silenced. he walked on brooding. "and what is this place, burnmud, i ask to go to?" he inquired. "bournemouth," corrected the other. "it is a place on the south coast where all the most aristocratic consumptives go." "but it must be very dear," said the poor _maggid_, affrighted. "dear? of course it's dear," said the shalotten _shammos_ pompously. "but shall we consider expense where your health is concerned?" the _maggid_ felt so grateful he was almost ashamed to ask whether he could eat _kosher_ there, but the shalotten _shammos_, who had the air of a tall encyclopaedia, set his soul at rest on all points. chapter xiii. sugarman's bar-mitzvah party. the day of ebenezer sugarman's _bar-mitzvah_ duly arrived. all his sins would henceforth be on his own head and everybody rejoiced. by the friday evening so many presents had arrived--four breastpins, two rings, six pocket-knives, three sets of _machzorim_ or festival prayer-books, and the like--that his father barred up the door very carefully and in the middle of the night, hearing a mouse scampering across the floor, woke up in a cold sweat and threw open the bedroom window and cried "ho! buglers!" but the "buglers" made no sign of being scared, everything was still and nothing purloined, so jonathan took a reprimand from his disturbed wife and curled himself up again in bed. sugarman did things in style and through the influence of a client the confirmation ceremony was celebrated in "duke's plaizer shool." ebenezer, who was tall and weak-eyed, with lank black hair, had a fine new black cloth suit and a beautiful silk praying-shawl with blue stripes, and a glittering watch-chain and a gold ring and a nice new prayer-book with gilt edges, and all the boys under thirteen made up their minds to grow up and be responsible for their sins as quick as possible. ebenezer walked up to the reading desk with a dauntless stride and intoned his portion of the law with no more tremor than was necessitated by the musical roulades, and then marched upstairs, as bold as brass, to his mother, who was sitting up in the gallery, and who gave him a loud smacking kiss that could be heard in the four corners of the synagogue, just as if she were a real lady. then there was the _bar-mitzvah_ breakfast, at which ebenezer delivered an english sermon and a speech, both openly written by the shalotten _shammos_, and everybody commended the boy's beautiful sentiments and the beautiful language in which they were couched. mrs. sugarman forgot all the trouble ebenezer had given her in the face of his assurances of respect and affection and she wept copiously. having only one eye she could not see what her jonathan saw, and what was spoiling his enjoyment of ebenezer's effusive gratitude to his dear parents for having trained him up in lofty principles. it was chiefly male cronies who had been invited to breakfast, and the table had been decorated with biscuits and fruit and sweets not appertaining to the meal, but provided for the refreshment of the less-favored visitors--such as mr. and mrs. hyams--who would be dropping in during the day. now, nearly every one of the guests had brought a little boy with him, each of whom stood like a page behind his father's chair. before starting on their prandial fried fish, these trencher-men took from the dainties wherewith the ornamental plates were laden and gave thereof to their offspring. now this was only right and proper, because it is the prerogative of children to "_nash_" on these occasions. but as the meal progressed, each father from time to time, while talking briskly to his neighbor, allowed his hand to stray mechanically into the plates and thence negligently backwards into the hand of his infant, who stuffed the treasure into his pockets. sugarman fidgeted about uneasily; not one surreptitious seizure escaped him, and every one pricked him like a needle. soon his soul grew punctured like a pin-cushion. the shalotten _shammos_ was among the worst offenders, and he covered his back-handed proceedings with a ceaseless flow of complimentary conversation. "excellent fish, mrs. sugarman," he said, dexterously slipping some almonds behind his chair. "what?" said mrs. sugarman, who was hard of hearing. "first-class plaice!" shouted the shalotten _shammos_, negligently conveying a bunch of raisins. "so they ought to be," said mrs. sugarman in her thin tinkling accents, "they were all alive in the pan." "ah, did they twitter?" said mr. belcovitch, pricking up his ears. "no," bessie interposed. "what do you mean?" "at home in my town," said mr. belcovitch impressively, "a fish made a noise in the pan one friday." "well? and suppose?" said the shalotten _shammos_, passing a fig to the rear, "the oil frizzles." "nothing of the kind," said belcovitch angrily, "a real living noise. the woman snatched it out of the pan and ran with it to the rabbi. but he did not know what to do. fortunately there was staying with him for the sabbath a travelling saint from the far city of ridnik, a _chasid_, very skilful in plagues and purifications, and able to make clean a creeping thing by a hundred and fifty reasons. he directed the woman to wrap the fish in a shroud and give it honorable burial as quickly as possible. the funeral took place the same afternoon and a lot of people went in solemn procession to the woman's back garden and buried it with all seemly rites, and the knife with which it had been cut was buried in the same grave, having been defiled by contact with the demon. one man said it should be burned, but that was absurd because the demon would be only too glad to find itself in its native element, but to prevent satan from rebuking the woman any more its mouth was stopped with furnace ashes. there was no time to obtain palestine earth, which would have completely crushed the demon." "the woman must have committed some _avirah_" said karlkammer. "a true story!" said the shalotten _shammos_, ironically. "that tale has been over warsaw this twelvemonth." "it occurred when i was a boy," affirmed belcovitch indignantly. "i remember it quite well. some people explained it favorably. others were of opinion that the soul of the fishmonger had transmigrated into the fish, an opinion borne out by the death of the fishmonger a few days before. and the rabbi is still alive to prove it--may his light continue to shine--though they write that he has lost his memory." the shalotten _shammos_ sceptically passed a pear to his son. old gabriel hamburg, the scholar, came compassionately to the raconteur's assistance. "rabbi solomon maimon," he said, "has left it on record that he witnessed a similar funeral in posen." "it was well she buried it," said karlkammer. "it was an atonement for a child, and saved its life." the shalotten _shammos_ laughed outright. "ah, laugh not," said mrs. belcovitch. "or you might laugh with blood. it isn't for my own sins that i was born with ill-matched legs." "i must laugh when i hear of god's fools burying fish anywhere but in their stomach," said the shalotten _shammos_, transporting a brazil nut to the rear, where it was quickly annexed by solomon ansell, who had sneaked in uninvited and ousted the other boy from his coign of vantage. the conversation was becoming heated; breckeloff turned the topic. "my sister has married a man who can't play cards," he said lugubriously. "how lucky for her," answered several voices. "no, it's just her black luck," he rejoined. "for he _will_ play." there was a burst of laughter and then the company remembered that breckeloff was a _badchan_ or jester. "why, your sister's husband is a splendid player," said sugarman with a flash of memory, and the company laughed afresh. "yes," said breckeloff. "but he doesn't give me the chance of losing to him now, he's got such a stuck-up _kotzon_. he belongs to duke's plaizer _shool_ and comes there very late, and when you ask him his birthplace he forgets he was a _pullack_ and says becomes from 'behind berlin.'" these strokes of true satire occasioned more merriment and were worth a biscuit to solomon ansell _vice_ the son of the shalotten _shammos_. among the inoffensive guests were old gabriel hamburg, the scholar, and young joseph strelitski, the student, who sat together. on the left of the somewhat seedy strelitski pretty bessie in blue silk presided over the coffee-pot. nobody knew whence bessie had stolen her good looks: probably some remote ancestress! bessie was in every way the most agreeable member of the family, inheriting some of her father's brains, but wisely going for the rest of herself to that remote ancestress. gabriel hamburg and joseph strelitski had both had relations with no. royal street for some time, yet they had hardly exchanged a word and their meeting at this breakfast table found them as great strangers as though they had never seen each other. strelitski came because he boarded with the sugarmans, and hamburg came because he sometimes consulted jonathan sugarman about a talmudical passage. sugarman was charged with the oral traditions of a chain of rabbis, like an actor who knows all the "business" elaborated by his predecessors, and even a scientific scholar like hamburg found him occasionally and fortuitously illuminating. even so karlkammer's red hair was a pillar of fire in the trackless wilderness of hebrew literature. gabriel hamburg was a mighty savant who endured all things for the love of knowledge and the sake of six men in europe who followed his work and profited by its results. verily, fit audience though few. but such is the fate of great scholars whose readers are sown throughout the lands more sparsely than monarchs. one by one hamburg grappled with the countless problems of jewish literary history, settling dates and authors, disintegrating the books of the bible into their constituent parts, now inserting a gap of centuries between two halves of the same chapter, now flashing the light of new theories upon the development of jewish theology. he lived at royal street and the british museum, for he spent most of his time groping among the folios and manuscripts, and had no need for more than the little back bedroom, behind the ansells, stuffed with mouldy books. nobody (who was anybody) had heard of him in england, and he worked on, unencumbered by patronage or a full stomach. the ghetto, itself, knew little of him, for there were but few with whom he found intercourse satisfying. he was not "orthodox" in belief though eminently so in practice--which is all the ghetto demands--not from hypocrisy but from ancient prejudice. scholarship had not shrivelled up his humanity, for he had a genial fund of humor and a gentle play of satire and loved his neighbors for their folly and narrowmindedness. unlike spinoza, too, he did not go out of his way to inform them of his heterodox views, content to comprehend the crowd rather than be misunderstood by it. he knew that the bigger soul includes the smaller and that the smaller can never circumscribe the bigger. such money as was indispensable for the endowment of research he earned by copying texts and hunting out references for the numerous scholars and clergymen who infest the museum and prevent the general reader from having elbow room. in person he was small and bent and snuffy. superficially more intelligible, joseph strelitski was really a deeper mystery than gabriel hamburg. he was known to be a recent arrival on english soil, yet he spoke english fluently. he studied at jews' college by day and was preparing for the examinations at the london university. none of the other students knew where he lived nor a bit of his past history. there was a vague idea afloat that he was an only child whose parents had been hounded to penury and death by russian persecution, but who launched it nobody knew. his eyes were sad and earnest, a curl of raven hair fell forwards on his high brow; his clothing was shabby and darned in places by his own hand. beyond accepting the gift of education at the hands of dead men he would take no help. on several distinct occasions, the magic name, rothschild, was appealed to on his behalf by well-wishers, and through its avenue of almoners it responded with its eternal quenchless unquestioning generosity to students. but joseph strelitski always quietly sent back these bounties. he made enough to exist upon by touting for a cigar-firm in the evenings. in the streets he walked with tight-pursed lips, dreaming no one knew what. and yet there were times when his tight-pursed lips unclenched themselves and he drew in great breaths even of ghetto air with the huge contentment of one who has known suffocation. "one can breathe here," he seemed to be saying. the atmosphere, untainted by spies, venal officials, and jeering soldiery, seemed fresh and sweet. here the ground was stable, not mined in all directions; no arbitrary ukase--veritable sword of damocles--hung over the head and darkened the sunshine. in such a country, where faith was free and action untrammelled, mere living was an ecstasy when remembrance came over one, and so joseph strelitski sometimes threw back his head and breathed in liberty. the voluptuousness of the sensation cannot be known by born freemen. when joseph strelitski's father was sent to siberia, he took his nine-year old boy with him in infringement of the law which prohibits exiles from taking children above five years of age. the police authorities, however, raised no objection, and they permitted joseph to attend the public school at kansk, yeniseisk province, where the strelitski family resided. a year or so afterwards the yeniseisk authorities accorded the family permission to reside in yeniseisk, and joseph, having given proof of brilliant abilities, was placed in the yeniseisk gymnasium. for nigh three years the boy studied here, astonishing the gymnasium with his extraordinary ability, when suddenly the government authorities ordered the boy to return at once "to the place where he was born." in vain the directors of the gymnasium, won over by the poor boy's talent and enthusiasm for study, petitioned the government. the yeniseisk authorities were again ordered to expel him. no respite was granted and the thirteen-year old lad was sent to sokolk in the government of grodno at the other extreme of european russia, where he was quite alone in the world. before he was sixteen, he escaped to england, his soul branded by terrible memories, and steeled by solitude to a stern strength. at sugarman's he spoke little and then mainly with the father on scholastic points. after meals he retired quickly to his business or his sleeping-den, which was across the road. bessie loved daniel hyams, but she was a woman and strelitski's neutrality piqued her. even to-day it is possible he might not have spoken to gabriel hamburg if his other neighbor had not been bessie. gabriel hamburg was glad to talk to the youth, the outlines of whose english history were known to him. strelitski seemed to expand under the sunshine of a congenial spirit; he answered hamburg's sympathetic inquiries about his work without reluctance and even made some remarks on his own initiative. and as they spoke, an undercurrent of pensive thought was flowing in the old scholar's soul and his tones grew tenderer and tenderer. the echoes of ebenezer's effusive speech were in his ears and the artificial notes rang strangely genuine. all round him sat happy fathers of happy children, men who warmed their hands at the home-fire of life, men who lived while he was thinking. yet he, too, had had his chance far back in the dim and dusty years, his chance of love and money with it. he had let it slip away for poverty and learning, and only six men in europe cared whether he lived or died. the sense of his own loneliness smote him with a sudden aching desolation. his gaze grew humid; the face of the young student was covered with a veil of mist and seemed to shine with the radiance of an unstained soul. if he had been as other men he might have had such a son. at this moment gabriel hamburg was speaking of paragoge in hebrew grammar, but his voice faltered and in imagination he was laying hands of paternal benediction on joseph strelitski's head. swayed by an overmastering impulse he burst out at last. "an idea strikes me!" strelitski looked up in silent interrogation at the old man's agitated face. "you live by yourself. i live by myself. we are both students. why should we not live together as students, too?" a swift wave of surprise traversed strelitski's face, and his eyes grew soft. for an instant the one solitary soul visibly yearned towards the other; he hesitated. "do not think i am too old," said the great scholar, trembling all over. "i know it is the young who chum together, but still i am a student. and you shall see how lively and cheerful i will be." he forced a smile that hovered on tears. "we shall be two rackety young students, every night raising a thousand devils. _gaudeamus igitur_." he began to hum in his cracked hoarse voice the _burschen-lied_ of his early days at the berlin gymnasium. but strelitski's face had grown dusky with a gradual flush and a deepening gloom; his black eyebrows were knit and his lips set together and his eyes full of sullen ire. he suspected a snare to assist him. he shook his head. "thank you," he said slowly. "but i prefer to live alone." and he turned and spoke to the astonished bessie, and so the two strange lonely vessels that had hailed each other across the darkness drifted away and apart for ever in the waste of waters. but jonathan sugarman's eye was on more tragic episodes. gradually the plates emptied, for the guests openly followed up the more substantial elements of the repast by dessert, more devastating even than the rear manoeuvres. at last there was nothing but an aching china blank. the men looked round the table for something else to "_nash_," but everywhere was the same depressing desolation. only in the centre of the table towered in awful intact majesty the great _bar-mitzvah_ cake, like some mighty sphinx of stone surveying the ruins of empires, and the least reverent shrank before its austere gaze. but at last the shalotten _shammos_ shook off his awe and stretched out his hand leisurely towards the cake, as became the master of ceremonies. but when sugarman the _shadchan_ beheld his hand moving like a creeping flame forward, he sprang towards him, as the tigress springs when the hunter threatens her cub. and speaking no word he snatched the great cake from under the hand of the spoiler and tucked it under his arm, in the place where he carried nehemiah, and sped therewith from the room. then consternation fell upon the scene till solomon ansell, crawling on hands and knees in search of windfalls, discovered a basket of apples stored under the centre of the table, and the shalotten _shammos's_ son told his father thereof ere solomon could do more than secure a few for his brother and sisters. and the shalotten _shammos_ laughed joyously, "apples," and dived under the table, and his long form reached to the other side and beyond, and graybearded men echoed the joyous cry and scrambled on the ground like schoolboys. "_leolom tikkach_--always take," quoted the _badchan_ gleefully. when sugarman returned, radiant, he found his absence had been fatal. "piece of fool! two-eyed lump of flesh," said mrs. sugarman in a loud whisper. "flying out of the room as if thou hadst the ague." "shall i sit still like thee while our home is eaten up around us?" sugarman whispered back. "couldst thou not look to the apples? plaster image! leaden fool! see, they have emptied the basket, too." "well, dost thou expect luck and blessing to crawl into it? even five shillings' worth of _nash_ cannot last for ever. may ten ammunition wagons of black curses be discharged on thee!" replied mrs. sugarman, her one eye shooting fire. this was the last straw of insult added to injury. sugarman was exasperated beyond endurance. he forgot that he had a wider audience than his wife; he lost all control of himself, and cried aloud in a frenzy of rage, "what a pity thou hadst not a fourth uncle!" mrs. sugarman collapsed, speechless. "a greedy lot, marm," sugarman reported to mrs. hyams on the monday. "i was very glad you and your people didn't come; dere was noding left except de prospectuses of the hamburg lotter_ee_ vich i left laying all about for de guests to take. being _shabbos_ i could not give dem out." "we were sorry not to come, but neither mr. hyams nor myself felt well," said the white-haired broken-down old woman with her painfully slow enunciation. her english words rarely went beyond two syllables. "ah!" said sugarman. "but i've come to give you back your corkscrew." "why, it's broken," said mrs. hyams, as she took it. "so it is, marm," he admitted readily. "but if you taink dat i ought to pay for de damage you're mistaken. if you lend me your cat"--here he began to make the argumentative movement with his thumb, as though scooping out imaginary _kosher_ cheese with it; "if you lend me your cat to kill my rat," his tones took on the strange talmudic singsong--"and my rat instead kills your cat, then it is the fault of your cat and not the fault of my rat." poor mrs. hyams could not meet this argument. if mendel had been at home, he might have found a counter-analogy. as it was, sugarman re-tucked nehemiah under his arm and departed triumphant, almost consoled for the raid on his provisions by the thought of money saved. in the street he met the shalotten _shammos_. "blessed art thou who comest," said the giant, in hebrew; then relapsing into yiddish he cried: "i've been wanting to see you. what did you mean by telling your wife you were sorry she had not a fourth uncle?" "soorka knew what i meant," said sugarman with a little croak of victory, "i have told her the story before. when the almighty _shadchan_ was making marriages in heaven, before we were yet born, the name of my wife was coupled with my own. the spirit of her eldest uncle hearing this flew up to the angel who made the proclamation and said: 'angel! thou art making a mistake. the man of whom thou makest mention will be of a lower status than this future niece of mine.' said the angel; 'sh! it is all right. she will halt on one leg.' came then the spirit of her second uncle and said: 'angel, what blazonest thou? a niece of mine marry a man of such family?' says the angel: 'sh! it is all right. she will be blind in one eye.' came the spirit of her third uncle and said: 'angel, hast thou not erred? surely thou canst not mean to marry my future niece into such a humble family.' said the angel: 'sh! it is all right. she will be deaf in one ear.' now, do you see? if she had only had a fourth uncle, she would have been dumb into the bargain; there is only one mouth and my life would have been a happy one. before i told soorka that history she used to throw up her better breeding and finer family to me. even in public she would shed my blood. now she does not do it even in private." sugarman the _shadchan_ winked, readjusted nehemiah and went his way. chapter xiv. the hope of the family. it was a cold, bleak sunday afternoon, and the ansells were spending it as usual. little sarah was with mrs. simons, rachel had gone to victoria park with a party of school-mates, the grandmother was asleep on the bed, covered with one of her son's old coats (for there was no fire in the grate), with her pious vade mecum in her hand; esther had prepared her lessons and was reading a little brown book at dutch debby's, not being able to forget the _london journal_ sufficiently; solomon had not prepared his and was playing "rounder" in the street, isaac being permitted to "feed" the strikers, in return for a prospective occupation of his new bed; moses ansell was at _shool_, listening to a _hesped_ or funeral oration at the german synagogue, preached by reb shemuel over one of the lights of the ghetto, prematurely gone out--no other than the consumptive _maggid_, who had departed suddenly for a less fashionable place than bournemouth. "he has fallen," said the reb, "not laden with age, nor sighing for release because the grasshopper was a burden. but he who holds the keys said: 'thou hast done thy share of the work; it is not thine to complete it. it was in thy heart to serve me, from me thou shalt receive thy reward.'" and all the perspiring crowd in the black-draped hall shook with grief, and thousands of working men followed the body, weeping, to the grave, walking all the way to the great cemetery in bow. a slim, black-haired, handsome lad of about twelve, dressed in a neat black suit, with a shining white eton collar, stumbled up the dark stairs of no. royal street, with an air of unfamiliarity and disgust. at dutch debby's door he was delayed by a brief altercation with bobby. he burst open the door of the ansell apartment without knocking, though he took off his hat involuntarily as he entered then he stood still with an air of disappointment. the room seemed empty. "what dost thou want, esther?" murmured the grandmother rousing herself sleepily. the boy looked towards the bed with a start he could not make out what the grandmother was saying. it was four years since he had heard yiddish spoken, and he had almost forgotten the existence of the dialect the room, too, seemed chill and alien.--so unspeakably poverty-stricken. "oh, how are you, grandmother?" he said, going up to her and kissing her perfunctorily. "where's everybody?" "art thou benjamin?" said the grandmother, her stern, wrinkled face shadowed with surprise and doubt. benjamin guessed what she was asking and nodded. "but how richly they have dressed thee! alas, i suppose they have taken away thy judaism instead. for four whole years--is it not--thou hast been with english folk. woe! woe! if thy father had married a pious woman, she would have been living still and thou wouldst have been able to live happily in our midst instead of being exiled among strangers, who feed thy body and starve thy soul. if thy father had left me in poland, i should have died happy and my old eyes would never have seen the sorrow. unbutton thy waistcoat, let me see if thou wearest the 'four-corners' at least." of this harangue, poured forth at the rate natural to thoughts running ever in the same groove, benjamin understood but a word here and there. for four years he had read and read and read english books, absorbed himself in english composition, heard nothing but english spoken about him. nay, he had even deliberately put the jargon out of his mind at the commencement as something degrading and humiliating. now it struck vague notes of old outgrown associations but called up no definite images. "where's esther?" he said. "esther," grumbled the grandmother, catching the name. "esther is with dutch debby. she's always with her. dutch debby pretends to love her like a mother--and why? because she wants to _be_ her mother. she aims at marrying my moses. but not for us. this time we shall marry the woman i select. no person like that who knows as much about judaism as the cow of sunday, nor like mrs. simons, who coddles our little sarah because she thinks my moses will have her. it's plain as the eye in her head what she wants. but the widow finkelstein is the woman we're going to marry. she is a true jewess, shuts up her shop the moment _shabbos_ comes in, not works right into the sabbath like so many, and goes to _shool_ even on friday nights. look how she brought up her avromkely, who intoned the whole portion of the law and the prophets in _shool_ before he was six years old. besides she has money and has cast eyes upon him." the boy, seeing conversation was hopeless, murmured something inarticulate and ran down the stairs to find some traces of the intelligible members of his family. happily bobby, remembering their former altercation, and determining to have the last word, barred benjamin's path with such pertinacity that esther came out to quiet him and leapt into her brother's arms with a great cry of joy, dropping the book she held full on bobby's nose. "o benjy--is it really you? oh, i am so glad. i am so glad. i knew you would come some day. o benjy! bobby, you bad dog, this is benjy, my brother. debby, i'm going upstairs. benjamin's come back. benjamin's come back." "all right, dear," debby called out. "let me have a look at him soon. send me in bobby if you're going away." the words ended in a cough. esther hurriedly drove in bobby, and then half led, half dragged benjamin upstairs. the grandmother had fallen asleep again and was snoring peacefully. "speak low, benjy," said esther. "grandmother's asleep." "all right, esther. i don't want to wake her, i'm sure. i was up here just now, and couldn't make out a word she was jabbering." "i know. she's losing all her teeth, poor thing." "no, it, isn't that. she speaks that beastly yiddish--i made sure she'd have learned english by this time. i hope _you_ don't speak it, esther." "i must, benjy. you see father and grandmother never speak anything else at home, and only know a few words of english. but i don't let the children speak it except to them. you should hear little sarah speak english. it's beautiful. only when she cries she says 'woe is me' in yiddish. i have had to slap her for it--but that makes her cry 'woe is me' all the more. oh, how nice you look, benjy, with your white collar, just like the pictures of little lord launceston in the fourth standard reader. i wish i could show you to the girls! oh, my, what'll solomon say when he sees you! he's always wearing his corduroys away at the knees." "but where is everybody? and why is there no fire?" said benjamin impatiently. "it's beastly cold." "father hopes to get a bread, coal and meat ticket to-morrow, dear." "well, this is a pretty welcome for a fellow!" grumbled benjamin. "i'm so sorry, benjy! if i'd only known you were coming i might have borrowed some coals from mrs. belcovitch. but just stamp your feet a little if they freeze. no, do it outside the door; grandmother's asleep. why didn't you write to me you were coming?" "i didn't know. old four-eyes--that's one of our teachers--was going up to london this afternoon, and he wanted a boy to carry some parcels, and as i'm the best boy in my class he let me come. he let me run up and see you all, and i'm to meet him at london bridge station at seven o'clock. you're not much altered, esther." "ain't i?" she said, with a little pathetic smile. "ain't i bigger?" "not four years bigger. for a moment i could fancy i'd never been away. how the years slip by! i shall be _barmitzvah_ soon." "yes, and now i've got you again i've so much to say i don't know where to begin. that time father went to see you i couldn't get much out of him about you, and your own letters have been so few." "a letter costs a penny, esther. where am i to get pennies from?" "i know, dear. i know you would have liked to write. but now you shall tell me everything. have you missed us very much?" "no, i don't think so," said benjamin. "oh, not at all?" asked esther in disappointed tones. "yes, i missed _you_, esther, at first," he said, soothingly. "but there's such a lot to do and to think about. it's a new life." "and have you been happy, benjy?" "oh yes. quite. just think! regular meals, with oranges and sweets and entertainments every now and then, a bed all to yourself, good fires, a mansion with a noble staircase and hall, a field to play in, with balls and toys--" "a field!" echoed esther. "why it must be like going to greenwich every day." "oh, better than greenwich where they take you girls for a measly day's holiday once a year." "better than the crystal palace, where they take the boys?" "why, the crystal palace is quite near. we can see the fire-works every thursday night in the season." esther's eyes opened wider. "and have you been inside?" "lots of times." "do you remember the time you didn't go?" esther said softly. "a fellow doesn't forget that sort of thing," he grumbled. "i so wanted to go--i had heard such a lot about it from the boys who had been. when the day of the excursion came my _shabbos_ coat was in pawn, wasn't it?" "yes," said esther, her eyes growing humid. "i was so sorry for you, dear. you didn't want to go in your corduroy coat and let the boys know you didn't have a best coat. it was quite right, benjy." "i remember mother gave me a treat instead," said benjamin with a comic grimace. "she took me round to zachariah square and let me play there while she was scrubbing malka's floor. i think milly gave me a penny, and i remember leah let me take a couple of licks from a glass of ice cream she was eating on the ruins. it was a hot day--i shall never forget that ice cream. but fancy parents pawning a chap's only decent coat." he smoothed his well-brushed jacket complacently. "yes, but don't you remember mother took it out the very next morning before school with the money she earnt at malka's." "but what was the use of that? i put it on of course when i went to school and told the teacher i was ill the day before, just to show the boys i was telling the truth. but it was too late to take me to the palace." "ah, but it came in handy--don't you remember, benjy, how one of the great ladies died suddenly the next week!" "oh yes! yoicks! tallyho!" cried benjamin, with sudden excitement. "we went down on hired omnibuses to the cemetery ever so far into the country, six of the best boys in each class, and i was on the box seat next to the driver, and i thought of the old mail-coach days and looked out for highwaymen. we stood along the path in the cemetery and the sun was shining and the grass was so green and there were such lovely flowers on the coffin when it came past with the gentlemen crying behind it and then we had lemonade and cakes on the way back. oh, it was just beautiful! i went to two other funerals after that, but that was the one i enjoyed most. yes, that coat did come in useful after all for a day in the country." benjamin evidently did not think of his own mother's interment as a funeral. esther did and she changed the subject quickly. "well, tell me more about your place." "well, it's like going to funerals every day. it's all country all round about, with trees and flowers and birds. why, i've helped to make hay in the autumn." esther drew a sigh of ecstasy. "it's like a book," she said. "books!" he said. "we've got hundreds and hundreds, a whole library--dickens, mayne reid, george eliot, captain marryat, thackeray--i've read them all." "oh, benjy!" said esther, clasping her hands in admiration, both of the library and her brother. "i wish i were you." "well, you could be me easily enough." "how?" said esther, eagerly. "why, we have a girls' department, too. you're an orphan as much as me. you get father to enter you as a candidate." "oh, how could i, benjy?" said esther, her face falling. "what would become of solomon and ikey and little sarah?" "they've got a father, haven't they? and a grandmother?" "father can't do washing and cooking, you silly boy! and grandmother's too old." "well, i call it a beastly shame. why can't father earn a living and give out the washing? he never has a penny to bless himself with." "it isn't his fault, benjy. he tries hard. i'm sure he often grieves that he's so poor that he can't afford the railway fare to visit you on visiting days. that time he did go he only got the money by selling a work-box i had for a prize. but he often speaks about you." "well, i don't grumble at his not coming," said benjamin. "i forgive him that because you know he's not very presentable, is he, esther?" esther was silent. "oh, well, everybody knows he's poor. they don't expect father to be a gentleman." "yes, but he might look decent. does he still wear those two beastly little curls at the side of his head? oh, i did hate it when i was at school here, and he used to come to see the master about something. some of the boys had such respectable fathers, it was quite a pleasure to see them come in and overawe the teacher. mother used to be as bad, coming in with a shawl over her head." "yes, benjy, but she used to bring us in bread and butter when there had been none in the house at breakfast-time. don't you remember, benjy?" "oh, yes, i remember. we've been through some beastly bad times, haven't we, esther? all i say is you wouldn't like father coming in before all the girls in your class, would you, now?" esther blushed. "there is no occasion for him to come," she said evasively. "well, i know what i shall do!" said benjamin decisively; "i'm going to be a very rich man--" "are you, benjy?" inquired esther. "yes, of course. i'm going to write books--like dickens and those fellows. dickens made a pile of money, just by writing down plain every-day things going on around." "but you can't write!" benjamin laughed a superior laugh, "oh, can't i? what about _our own_, eh?" "what's that?" "that's our journal. i edit it. didn't i tell you about it? yes, i'm running a story through it, called 'the soldier's bride,' all about life in afghanistan." "oh, where could i get a number?" "you can't get a number. it ain't printed, stupid. it's all copied by hand, and we've only got a few copies. if you came down, you could see it." "yes, but i can't come down," said esther, with tears in her eyes. "well, never mind. you'll see it some day. well, what was i telling you? oh, yes! about my prospects. you see, i'm going in for a scholarship in a few months, and everybody says i shall get it. then, perhaps i might go to a higher school, perhaps to oxford or cambridge!" "and row in the boat-race!" said esther, flushing with excitement. "no, bother the boat-race. i'm going in for latin and greek. i've begun to learn french already. so i shall know three foreign languages." "four!" said esther, "you forget hebrew!" "oh, of course, hebrew. i don't reckon hebrew. everybody knows hebrew. hebrew's no good to any one. what i want is something that'll get me on in the world and enable me to write my books." "but dickens--did he know latin or greek?" asked esther. "no, he didn't," said benjamin proudly. "that's just where i shall have the pull of him. well, when i've got rich i shall buy father a new suit of clothes and a high hat--it _is_ so beastly cold here, esther, just feel my hands, like ice!--and i shall make him live with grandmother in a decent room, and give him an allowance so that he can study beastly big books all day long--does he still take a week to read a page? and sarah and isaac and rachel shall go to a proper boarding school, and solomon--how old will he be then?" esther looked puzzled. "oh, but suppose it takes you ten years getting famous! solomon will be nearly twenty." "it can't take me ten years. but never mind! we shall see what is to be done with solomon when the time comes. as for you--" "well, benjy," she said, for his imagination was breaking down. "i'll give you a dowry and you'll get married. see!" he concluded triumphantly. "oh, but suppose i shan't want to get married?" "nonsense--every girl wants to get married. i overheard old four-eyes say all the teachers in the girls' department were dying to marry him. i've got several sweethearts already, and i dare say you have." he looked at her quizzingly. "no, dear," she said earnestly. "there's only levi jacobs, reb shemuel's son, who's been coming round sometimes to play with solomon, and brings me almond-rock. but i don't care for him--at least not in that way. besides, he's quite above us." "_oh_, is he? wait till i write my novels!" "i wish you'd write them now. because then i should have something to read--oh!" "what's the matter?" "i've lost my book. what have i done with my little brown book?" "didn't you drop it on that beastly dog?" "oh, did i? people'll tread on it on the stairs. oh dear! i'll run down and get it. but don't call bobby beastly, please." "why not? dogs are beasts, aren't they?" esther puzzled over the retort as she flew downstairs, but could find no reply. she found the book, however, and that consoled her. "what have you got hold of?" replied benjamin, when she returned. "oh, nothing! it wouldn't interest you." "all books interest me," announced benjamin with dignity. esther reluctantly gave him the book. he turned over the pages carelessly, then his face grew serious and astonished. "esther!" he said, "how did you come by this?" "one of the girls gave it me in exchange for a stick of slate pencil. she said she got it from the missionaries--she went to their night-school for a lark and they gave her it and a pair of boots as well." "and you have been reading it?" "yes, benjy," said esther meekly. "you naughty girl! don't you know the new testament is a wicked book? look here! there's the word 'christ' on nearly every page, and the word 'jesus' on every other. and you haven't even scratched them out! oh, if any one was to catch you reading this book!" "i don't read it in school hours," said the little girl deprecatingly. "but you have no business to read it at all!" "why not?" she said doggedly. "i like it. it seems just as interesting as the old testament, and there are more miracles to the page.'' "you wicked girl!" said her brother, overwhelmed by her audacity. "surely you know that all these miracles were false?" "why were they false?" persisted esther. "because miracles left off after the old testament! there are no miracles now-a-days, are there?" "no," admitted esther. "well, then," he said triumphantly, "if miracles had gone overlapping into new testament times we might just as well expect to have them now." "but why shouldn't we have them now?" "esther, i'm surprised at you. i should like to set old four-eyes on to you. he'd soon tell you why. religion all happened in the past. god couldn't be always talking to his creatures." "i wish i'd lived in the past, when religion was happening," said esther ruefully. "but why do christians all reverence this book? i'm sure there are many more millions of them than of jews!" "of course there are, esther. good things are scarce. we are so few because we are god's chosen people." "but why do i feel good when i read what jesus said?" "because you are so bad," he answered, in a shocked tone. "here, give me the book, i'll burn it." "no, no!" said esther. "besides there's no fire." "no, hang it," he said, rubbing his hands. "well, it'll never do if you have to fall back on this sort of thing. i'll tell you what i'll do. i'll send you _our own_." "oh, will you, benjy? that is good of you," she said joyfully, and was kissing him when solomon and isaac came romping in and woke up the grandmother. "how are you, solomon?" said benjamin. "how are you, my little man," he added, patting isaac on his curly head. solomon was overawed for a moment. then he said, "hullo, benjy, have you got any spare buttons?" but isaac was utterly ignorant who the stranger could be and hung back with his finger in his mouth. "that's your brother benjamin, ikey," said solomon. "don't want no more brovers," said ikey. "oh, but i was here before you," said benjamin laughing. "does oor birfday come before mine, then?" "yes, if i remember." isaac looked tauntingly at the door. "see!" he cried to the absent sarah. then turning graciously to benjamin he said, "i thant kiss oo, but i'll lat oo teep in my new bed." "but you _must_ kiss him," said esther, and saw that he did it before she left the room to fetch little sarah from mrs. simons. when she came back solomon was letting benjamin inspect his plevna peep-show without charge and moses ansell was back, too. his eyes were red with weeping, but that was on account of the _maggid_. his nose was blue with the chill of the cemetery. "he was a great man." he was saying to the grandmother. "he could lecture for four hours together on any text and he would always manage to get back to the text before the end. such exegetics, such homiletics! he was greater than the emperor of russia. woe! woe!" "woe! woe!" echoed the grandmother. "if women were allowed to go to funerals, i would gladly have, followed him. why did he come to england? in poland he would still have been alive. and why did i come to england? woe! woe'" her head dropped back on the pillow and her sighs passed gently into snores. moses turned again to his eldest born, feeling that he was secondary in importance only to the _maggid_, and proud at heart of his genteel english appearance. "well, you'll soon be _bar-mitzvah_, benjamin." he said, with clumsy geniality blent with respect, as he patted his boy's cheeks with his discolored fingers. benjamin caught the last two words and nodded his head. "and then you'll be coming back to us. i suppose they will apprentice you to something." "what does he say, esther?" asked benjamin, impatiently. esther interpreted. "apprentice me to something!" he repeated, disgusted. "father's ideas are so beastly humble. he would like everybody to dance on him. why he'd be content to see me a cigar-maker or a presser. tell him i'm not coming home, that i'm going to win a scholarship and to go to the university." moses's eyes dilated with pride. "ah, you will become a rav," he said, and lifted up his boy's chin and looked lovingly into the handsome face. "what's that about a rav, esther?" said benjamin. "does he want me to become a rabbi--ugh! tell him i'm going to write books." "my blessed boy! a good commentary on the song of songs is much needed. perhaps you will begin by writing that." "oh, it's no use talking to him, esther. let him be. why can't he speak english?" "he can--but you'd understand even less," said esther with a sad smile. "well, all i say is it's a beastly disgrace. look at the years he's been in england--just as long as we have." then the humor of the remark dawned upon him and he laughed. "i suppose he's out of work, as usual," he added. moses's ears pricked up at the syllables "out-of-work," which to him was a single word of baneful meaning. "yes," he said in yiddish. "but if i only had a few pounds to start with i could work up a splendid business." "wait! he shall have a business," said benjamin when esther interpreted. "don't listen to him," said esther. "the board of guardians has started him again and again. but he likes to think he is a man of business." meantime isaac had been busy explaining benjamin to sarah, and pointing out the remarkable confirmation of his own views as to birthdays. this will account for esther's next remark being, "now, dears, no fighting to-day. we must celebrate benjy's return. we ought to kill a fatted calf--like the man in the bible." "what are you talking about, esther?" said benjamin suspiciously. "i'm so sorry, nothing, only foolishness," said esther. "we really must do something to make a holiday of the occasion. oh, i know; we'll have tea before you go, instead of waiting till supper-time. perhaps rachel'll be back from the park. you haven't seen her yet." "no, i can't stay," said benjy. "it'll take me three-quarters of an hour getting to the station. and you've got no fire to make tea with either." "nonsense, benjy. you seem to have forgotten everything; we've got a loaf and a penn'uth of tea in the cupboard. solomon, fetch a farthing's worth of boiling water from the widow finkelstein." at the words "widow finkelstein," the grandmother awoke and sat up. "no, i'm too tired," said solomon. "isaac can go." "no," said isaac. "let estie go." esther took a jug and went to the door. "méshe," said the grandmother. "go thou to the widow finkelstein." "but esther can go," said moses. "yes, i'm going," said esther. "méshe!" repeated the bube inexorably. "go thou to the widow finkelstein." moses went. "have you said the afternoon prayer, boys?" the old woman asked. "yes," said solomon. "while you were asleep." "oh-h-h!" said esther under her breath. and she looked reproachfully at solomon. "well, didn't you say we must make a holiday to-day?" he whispered back. chapter xv. the holy land league. "oh, these english jews!" said melchitsedek pinchas, in german. "what have they done to you now?" said guedalyah, the greengrocer, in yiddish. the two languages are relatives and often speak as they pass by. "i have presented my book to every one of them, but they have paid me scarce enough to purchase poison for them all," said the little poet scowling. the cheekbones stood out sharply beneath the tense bronzed skin. the black hair was tangled and unkempt and the beard untrimmed, the eyes darted venom. "one of them--gideon, m.p., the stockbroker, engaged me to teach his son for his _bar-mitzvah_, but the boy is so stupid! so stupid! just like his father. i have no doubt he will grow up to be a rabbi. i teach him his portion--i sing the words to him with a most beautiful voice, but he has as much ear as soul. then i write him a speech--a wonderful speech for him to make to his parents and the company at the breakfast, and in it, after he thanks them for their kindness, i make him say how, with the blessing of the almighty, he will grow up to be a good jew, and munificently support hebrew literature and learned men like his revered teacher, melchitsedek pinchas. and he shows it to his father, and his father says it is not written in good english, and that another scholar has already written him a speech. good english! gideon has as much knowledge or style as the rev. elkan benjamin of decency. ah, i will shoot them both. i know i do not speak english like a native--but what language under the sun is there i cannot write? french, german, spanish, arabic--they flow from my pen like honey from a rod. as for hebrew, you know, guedalyah, i and you are the only two men in england who can write holy language grammatically. and yet these miserable stockbrokers, men-of-the-earth, they dare to say i cannot write english, and they have given me the sack. i, who was teaching the boy true judaism and the value of hebrew literature." "what! they didn't let you finish teaching the boy his portion because you couldn't write english?" "no; they had another pretext--one of the servant girls said i wanted to kiss her--lies and falsehood. i was kissing my finger after kissing the _mezuzah_, and the stupid abomination thought i was kissing my hand to her. it sees itself that they don't kiss the _mezuzahs_ often in that house--the impious crew. and what will be now? the stupid boy will go home to breakfast in a bazaar of costly presents, and he will make the stupid speech written by the fool of an englishman, and the ladies will weep. but where will be the judaism in all this? who will vaccinate him against free-thinking as i would have done? who will infuse into him the true patriotic fervor, the love of his race, the love of zion, the land of his fathers?" "ah, you are verily a man after my own heart!" said guedalyah, the greengrocer, overswept by a wave of admiration. "why should you not come with me to my _beth-hamidrash_ to-night, to the meeting for the foundation of the holy land league? that cauliflower will be four-pence, mum." "ah, what is that?" said pinchas. "i have an idea; a score of us meet to-night to discuss it." "ah, yes! you have always ideas. you are a sage and a saint, guedalyah. the _beth-hamidrash_ which you have established is the only centre of real orthodoxy and jewish literature in london. the ideas you expound in the jewish papers for the amelioration of the lot of our poor brethren are most statesmanlike. but these donkey-head english rich people--what help can you expect from them? they do not even understand your plans. they have only sympathy with needs of the stomach." "you are right! you are right, pinchas!" said guedalyah, the greengrocer, eagerly. he was a tall, loosely-built man, with a pasty complexion capable of shining with enthusiasm. he was dressed shabbily, and in the intervals of selling cabbages projected the regeneration of judah. "that is just what is beginning to dawn upon me, pinchas," he went on. "our rich people give plenty away in charity; they have good hearts but not jewish hearts. as the verse says,--a bundle of rhubarb and two pounds of brussels sprouts and threepence halfpenny change. thank you. much obliged.--now i have bethought myself why should we not work out our own salvation? it is the poor, the oppressed, the persecuted, whose souls pant after the land of israel as the hart after the water-brooks. let us help ourselves. let us put our hands in our own pockets. with our _groschen_ let us rebuild jerusalem and our holy temple. we will collect a fund slowly but surely--from all parts of the east end and the provinces the pious will give. with the first fruits we will send out a little party of persecuted jews to palestine; and then another; and another. the movement will grow like a sliding snow-ball that becomes an avalanche." "yes, then the rich will come to you," said pinchas, intensely excited. "ah! it is a great idea, like all yours. yes, i will come, i will make a mighty speech, for my lips, like isaiah's, have been touched with the burning coal. i will inspire all hearts to start the movement at once. i will write its marseillaise this very night, bedewing my couch with a poet's tears. we shall no longer be dumb--we shall roar like the lions of lebanon. i shall be the trumpet to call the dispersed together from the four corners of the earth--yea, i shall be the messiah himself," said pinchas, rising on the wings of his own eloquence, and forgetting to puff at his cigar. "i rejoice to see you so ardent; but mention not the word messiah, for i fear some of our friends will take alarm and say that these are not messianic times, that neither elias, nor gog, king of magog, nor any of the portents have yet appeared. kidneys or regents, my child?" "stupid people! hillel said more wisely: 'if i help not myself who will help me?' do they expect the messiah to fall from heaven? who knows but i am the messiah? was i not born on the ninth of ab?" "hush, hush!" said guedalyah, the greengrocer. "let us be practical. we are not yet ready for marseillaises or messiahs. the first step is to get funds enough to send one family to palestine." "yes, yes," said pinchas, drawing vigorously at his cigar to rekindle it. "but we must look ahead. already i see it all. palestine in the hands of the jews--the holy temple rebuilt, a jewish state, a president who is equally accomplished with the sword and the pen,--the whole campaign stretches before me. i see things like napoleon, general and dictator alike." "truly we wish that," said the greengrocer cautiously. "but to-night it is only a question of a dozen men founding a collecting society." "of course, of course, that i understand. you're right--people about here say guedalyah the greengrocer is always right. i will come beforehand to supper with you to talk it over, and you shall see what i will write for the _mizpeh_ and the _arbeiter-freund_. you know all these papers jump at me--their readers are the class to which you appeal--in them will i write my burning verses and leaders advocating the cause. i shall be your tyrtaeus, your mazzini, your napoleon. how blessed that i came to england just now. i have lived in the holy land--the genius of the soil is blent with mine. i can describe its beauties as none other can. i am the very man at the very hour. and yet i will not go rashly--slow and sure--my plan is to collect small amounts from the poor to start by sending one family at a time to palestine. that is how we must do it. how does that strike you, guedalyah. you agree?" "yes, yes. that is also my opinion." "you see i am not a napoleon only in great ideas. i understand detail, though as a poet i abhor it. ah, the jew is king of the world. he alone conceives great ideas and executes them by petty means. the heathen are so stupid, so stupid! yes, you shall see at supper how practically i will draw up the scheme. and then i will show you, too, what i have written about gideon, m.p., the dog of a stockbroker--a satirical poem have i written about him, in hebrew--an acrostic, with his name for the mockery of posterity. stocks and shares have i translated into hebrew, with new words which will at once be accepted by the hebraists of the world and added to the vocabulary of modern hebrew. oh! i am terrible in satire. i sting like the hornet; witty as immanuel, but mordant as his friend dante. it will appear in the _mizpeh_ to-morrow. i will show this anglo-jewish community that i am a man to be reckoned with. i will crush it--not it me." "but they don't see the _mizpeh_ and couldn't read it if they did." "no matter. i send it abroad--i have friends, great rabbis, great scholars, everywhere, who send me their learned manuscripts, their commentaries, their ideas, for revision and improvement. let the anglo-jewish community hug itself in its stupid prosperity--but i will make it the laughing-stock of europe and asia. then some day it will find out its mistake; it will not have ministers like the rev. elkan benjamin, who keeps four mistresses, it will depose the lump of flesh who reigns over it and it will seize the hem of my coat and beseech me to be its rabbi." "we should have a more orthodox chief rabbi, certainly," admitted guedalyah. "orthodox? then and only then shall we have true judaism in london and a burst of literary splendor far exceeding that of the much overpraised spanish school, none of whom had that true lyrical gift which is like the carol of the bird in the pairing season. o why have i not the bird's privileges as well as its gift of song? why can i not pair at will? oh the stupid rabbis who forbade polygamy. verily as the verse says: the law of moses is perfect, enlightening the eyes--marriage, divorce, all is regulated with the height of wisdom. why must we adopt the stupid customs of the heathen? at present i have not even one mate--but i love--ah guedalyah! i love! the women are so beautiful. you love the women, hey?" "i love my rivkah," said guedalyah. "a penny on each ginger-beer bottle." "yes, but why haven't _i_ got a wife? eh?" demanded the little poet fiercely, his black eyes glittering. "i am a fine tall well-built good-looking man. in palestine and on the continent all the girls would go about sighing and casting sheep's eyes at me, for there the jews love poetry and literature. but here! i can go into a room with a maiden in it and she makes herself unconscious of my presence. there is reb shemuel's daughter--a fine beautiful virgin. i kiss her hand--and it is ice to my lips. ah, if i only had money! and money i should have, if these english jews were not so stupid and if they elected me chief rabbi. then i would marry--one, two, three maidens." "talk not such foolishness," said guedalyah, laughing, for he thought the poet jested. pinchas saw his enthusiasm had carried him too far, but his tongue was the most reckless of organs and often slipped into the truth. he was a real poet with an extraordinary faculty for language and a gift of unerring rhythm. he wrote after the mediaeval model--with a profusion of acrostics and double rhyming--not with the bald duplications of primitive hebrew poetry. intellectually he divined things like a woman--with marvellous rapidity, shrewdness and inaccuracy. he saw into people's souls through a dark refracting suspiciousness. the same bent of mind, the same individuality of distorted insight made him overflow with ingenious explanations of the bible and the talmud, with new views and new lights on history, philology, medicine--anything, everything. and he believed in his ideas because they were his and in himself because of his ideas. to himself his stature sometimes seemed to expand till his head touched the sun--but that was mostly after wine--and his brain retained a permanent glow from the contact. "well, peace be with you!" said pinchas. "i will leave you to your customers, who besiege you as i have been besieged by the maidens. but what you have just told me has gladdened my heart. i always had an affection for you, but now i love you like a woman. we will found this holy land league, you and i. you shall be president--i waive all claims in your favor--and i will be treasurer. hey?" "we shall see; we shall see," said guedalyah the greengrocer. "no, we cannot leave it to the mob, we must settle it beforehand. shall we say done?" he laid his finger cajolingly to the side of his nose. "we shall see," repeated guedalyah the greengrocer, impatiently. "no, say! i love you like a brother. grant me this favor and i will never ask anything of you so long as i live." "well, if the others--" began guedalyah feebly. "ah! you are a prince in israel," pinchas cried enthusiastically. "if i could only show you my heart, how it loves you." he capered off at a sprightly trot, his head haloed by huge volumes of smoke. guedalyah the greengrocer bent over a bin of potatoes. looking up suddenly he was startled to see the head fixed in the open front of the shop window. it was a narrow dark bearded face distorted with an insinuative smile. a dirty-nailed forefinger was laid on the right of the nose. "you won't forget," said the head coaxingly. "of course i won't forget," cried the greengrocer querulously. the meeting took place at ten that night at the beth hamidrash founded by guedalyah, a large unswept room rudely fitted up as a synagogue and approached by reeking staircases, unsavory as the neighborhood. on one of the black benches a shabby youth with very long hair and lank fleshless limbs shook his body violently to and fro while he vociferated the sentences of the mishnah in the traditional argumentative singsong. near the central raised platform was a group of enthusiasts, among whom froom karlkammer, with his thin ascetic body and the mass of red hair that crowned his head like the light of a pharos, was a conspicuous figure. "peace be to you, karlkammer!" said pinchas to him in hebrew. "to you be peace, pinchas!" replied karlkammer. "ah!" went on pinchas. "sweeter than honey it is to me, yea than fine honey, to talk to a man in the holy tongue. woe, the speakers are few in these latter days. i and thou, karlkammer, are the only two people who can speak the holy tongue grammatically on this isle of the sea. lo, it is a great thing we are met to do this night--i see zion laughing on her mountains and her fig-trees skipping for joy. i will be the treasurer of the fund, karlkammer--do thou vote for me, for so our society shall flourish as the green bay tree." karlkammer grunted vaguely, not having humor enough to recall the usual associations of the simile, and pinchas passed on to salute hamburg. to gabriel hamburg, pinchas was occasion for half-respectful amusement. he could not but reverence the poet's genius even while he laughed at his pretensions to omniscience, and at the daring and unscientific guesses which the poet offered as plain prose. for when in their arguments pinchas came upon jewish ground, he was in presence of a man who knew every inch of it. "blessed art thou who arrivest," he said when he perceived pinchas. then dropping into german he continued--"i did not know you would join in the rebuilding of zion." "why not?" inquired pinchas. "because you have written so many poems thereupon." "be not so foolish," said pinchas, annoyed. "did not king david fight the philistines as well as write the psalms?" "did he write the psalms?" said hamburg quietly, with a smile. "no--not so loud! of course he didn't! the psalms were written by judas maccabaeus, as i proved in the last issue of the stuttgard _zeitschrift_. but that only makes my analogy more forcible. you shall see how i will gird on sword and armor, and i shall yet see even you in the forefront of the battle. i will be treasurer, you shall vote for me, hamburg, for i and you are the only two people who know the holy tongue grammatically, and we must work shoulder to shoulder and see that the balance sheets are drawn up in the language of our fathers." in like manner did melchitsedek pinchas approach hiram lyons and simon gradkoski, the former a poverty-stricken pietist who added day by day to a furlong of crabbed manuscript, embodying a useless commentary on the first chapter of genesis; the latter the portly fancy-goods dealer in whose warehouse daniel hyams was employed. gradkoski rivalled reb shemuel in his knowledge of the exact _loci_ of talmudical remarks--page this, and line that--and secretly a tolerant latitudinarian, enjoyed the reputation of a bulwark of orthodoxy too well to give it up. gradkoski passed easily from writing an invoice to writing a learned article on hebrew astronomy. pinchas ignored joseph strelitski whose raven curl floated wildly over his forehead like a pirate's flag, though hamburg, who was rather surprised to see the taciturn young man at a meeting, strove to draw him into conversation. the man to whom pinchas ultimately attached himself was only a man in the sense of having attained his religious majority. he was a harrow boy named raphael leon, a scion of a wealthy family. the boy had manifested a strange premature interest in jewish literature and had often seen gabriel hamburg's name in learned foot-notes, and, discovering that he was in england, had just written to him. hamburg had replied; they had met that day for the first time and at the lad's own request the old scholar brought him on to this strange meeting. the boy grew to be hamburg's one link with wealthy england, and though he rarely saw leon again, the lad came in a shadowy way to take the place he had momentarily designed for joseph strelitski. to-night it was pinchas who assumed the paternal manner, but he mingled it with a subtle obsequiousness that made the shy simple lad uncomfortable, though when he came to read the poet's lofty sentiments which arrived (with an acrostic dedication) by the first post next morning, he conceived an enthusiastic admiration for the neglected genius. the rest of the "remnant" that were met to save israel looked more commonplace--a furrier, a slipper-maker, a locksmith, an ex-glazier (mendel hyams), a confectioner, a _melammed_ or hebrew teacher, a carpenter, a presser, a cigar-maker, a small shop-keeper or two, and last and least, moses ansell. they were of many birthplaces--austria, holland, poland, russia, germany, italy, spain--yet felt themselves of no country and of one. encircled by the splendors of modern babylon, their hearts turned to the east, like passion-flowers seeking the sun. palestine, jerusalem, jordan, the holy land were magic syllables to them, the sight of a coin struck in one of baron edmund's colonies filled their eyes with tears; in death they craved no higher boon than a handful of palestine earth sprinkled over their graves. but guedalyah the greengrocer was not the man to encourage idle hopes. he explained his scheme lucidly--without highfalutin. they were to rebuild judaism as the coral insect builds its reefs--not as the prayer went, "speedily and in our days." they had brought themselves up to expect more and were disappointed. some protested against peddling little measures--like pinchas they were for high, heroic deeds. joseph strelitski, student and cigar commission agent, jumped to his feet and cried passionately in german: "everywhere israel groans and travails--must we indeed wait and wait till our hearts are sick and strike never a decisive blow? it is nigh two thousand years since across the ashes of our holy temple we were driven into the exile, clanking the chains of pagan conquerors. for nigh two thousand years have we dwelt on alien soils, a mockery and a byword for the nations, hounded out from every worthy employ and persecuted for turning to the unworthy, spat upon and trodden under foot, suffusing the scroll of history with our blood and illuminating it with the lurid glare of the fires to which our martyrs have ascended gladly for the sanctification of the name. we who twenty centuries ago were a mighty nation, with a law and a constitution and a religion which have been the key-notes of the civilization of the world, we who sat in judgment by the gates of great cities, clothed in purple and fine linen, are the sport of peoples who were then roaming wild in woods and marshes clothed in the skins of the wolf and the bear. now in the east there gleams again a star of hope--why shall we not follow it? never has the chance of the restoration flamed so high as to-day. our capitalists rule the markets of europe, our generals lead armies, our great men sit in the councils of every state. we are everywhere--a thousand thousand stray rivulets of power that could be blent into a mighty ocean. palestine is one if we wish--the whole house of israel has but to speak with a mighty unanimous voice. poets will sing for us, journalists write for us, diplomatists haggle for us, millionaires pay the price for us. the sultan would restore our land to us to-morrow, did we but essay to get it. there are no obstacles--but ourselves. it is not the heathen that keeps us out of our land--it is the jews, the rich and prosperous jews--jeshurun grown fat and sleepy, dreaming the false dream of assimilation with the people of the pleasant places in which their lines have been cast. give us back our country; this alone will solve the jewish question. our paupers shall become agriculturists, and like antaeus, the genius of israel shall gain fresh strength by contact with mother earth. and for england it will help to solve the indian question--between european russia and india there will be planted a people, fierce, terrible, hating russia for her wild-beast deeds. into the exile we took with us, of all our glories, only a spark of the fire by which our temple, the abode of our great one was engirdled, and this little spark kept us alive while the towers of our enemies crumbled to dust, and this spark leaped into celestial flame and shed light upon the faces of the heroes of our race and inspired them to endure the horrors of the dance of death and the tortures of the _auto-da-fé_. let us fan the spark again till it leap up and become a pillar of flame going before us and showing us the way to jerusalem, the city of our sires. and if gold will not buy back our land we must try steel. as the national poet of israel, naphtali herz imber, has so nobly sung (here he broke into the hebrew _wacht am rhein_, of which an english version would run thus): "the watch on the jordan. i. "like the crash of the thunder which splitteth asunder the flame of the cloud, on our ears ever falling, a voice is heard calling from zion aloud: 'let your spirits' desires for the land of your sires eternally burn. from the foe to deliver our own holy river, to jordan return.' where the soft flowing stream murmurs low as in dream, there set we our watch. our watchword, 'the sword of our land and our lord'-- by the jordan then set we our watch. ii. "rest in peace, lovèd land, for we rest not, but stand, off shaken our sloth. when the boils of war rattle to shirk not the battle, we make thee our oath. as we hope for a heaven, thy chains shall be riven, thine ensign unfurled. and in pride of our race we will fearlessly face the might of the world. when our trumpet is blown, and our standard is flown, then set we our watch. our watchword, 'the sword of our land and our lord'-- by jordan then set we our watch. iii. "yea, as long as there he birds in air, fish in sea, and blood in our veins; and the lions in might. leaping down from the height, shake, roaring, their manes; and the dew nightly laves the forgotten old graves where judah's sires sleep,-- we swear, who are living, to rest not in striving, to pause not to weep. let the trumpet be blown, let the standard be flown, now set we our watch. our watchword, 'the sword of our land and our lord'-- in jordan now set we our watch." he sank upon the rude, wooden bench, exhausted, his eyes glittering, his raven hair dishevelled by the wildness of his gestures. he had said. for the rest of the evening he neither moved nor spake. the calm, good-humored tones of simon gradkoski followed like a cold shower. "we must be sensible," he said, for he enjoyed the reputation of a shrewd conciliatory man of the world as well as of a pillar of orthodoxy. "the great people will come to us, but not if we abuse them. we must flatter them up and tell them they are the descendants of the maccabees. there is much political kudos to be got out of leading such a movement--this, too, they will see. rome was not built in a day, and the temple will not be rebuilt in a year. besides, we are not soldiers now. we must recapture our land by brain, not sword. slow and sure and the blessing of god over all." after such wise simon gradkoski. but gronovitz, the hebrew teacher, crypto-atheist and overt revolutionary, who read a hebrew edition of the "pickwick papers" in synagogue on the day of atonement, was with strelitski, and a bigot whose religion made his wife and children wretched was with the cautious simon gradkoski. froom karlkammer followed, but his drift was uncertain. he apparently looked forward to miraculous interpositions. still he approved of the movement from one point of view. the more jews lived in jerusalem the more would be enabled to die there--which was the aim of a good jew's life. as for the messiah, he would come assuredly--in god's good time. thus karlkammer at enormous length with frequent intervals of unintelligibility and huge chunks of irrelevant quotation and much play of cabalistic conceptions. pinchas, who had been fuming throughout this speech, for to him karlkammer stood for the archetype of all donkeys, jumped up impatiently when karlkammer paused for breath and denounced as an interruption that gentleman's indignant continuance of his speech. the sense of the meeting was with the poet and karlkammer was silenced. pinchas was dithyrambic, sublime, with audacities which only genius can venture on. he was pungently merry over imber's pretensions to be the national poet of israel, declaring that his prosody, his vocabulary, and even his grammar were beneath contempt. he, pinchas, would write judaea a real patriotic poem, which should be sung from the slums of whitechapel to the _veldts_ of south africa, and from the _mellah_ of morocco to the _judengassen_ of germany, and should gladden the hearts and break from the mouths of the poor immigrants saluting the statue of liberty in new york harbor. when he, pinchas, walked in victoria park of a sunday afternoon and heard the band play, the sound of a cornet always seemed to him, said he, like the sound of bar cochba's trumpet calling the warriors to battle. and when it was all over and the band played "god save the queen," it sounded like the paean of victory when he marched, a conqueror, to the gates of jerusalem. wherefore he, pinchas, would be their leader. had not the providence, which concealed so many revelations in the letters of the torah, given him the name melchitsedek pinchas, whereof one initial stood for messiah and the other for palestine. yes, he would be their messiah. but money now-a-days was the sinews of war and the first step to messiahship was the keeping of the funds. the redeemer must in the first instance be the treasurer. with this anti-climax pinchas wound up, his childishness and _naïveté_ conquering his cunning. other speakers followed but in the end guedalyah the greengrocer prevailed. they appointed him president and simon gradkoski, treasurer, collecting twenty-five shillings on the spot, ten from the lad raphael leon. in vain pinchas reminded the president they would need collectors to make house to house calls; three other members were chosen to trisect the ghetto. all felt the incongruity of hanging money bags at the saddle-bow of pegasus. whereupon pinchas re-lit his cigar and muttering that they were all fool-men betook himself unceremoniously without. gabriel hamburg looked on throughout with something like a smile on his shrivelled features. once while joseph strelitski was holding forth he blew his nose violently. perhaps he had taken too large a pinch of snuff. but not a word did the great scholar speak. he would give up his last breath to promote the return (provided the hebrew manuscripts were not left behind in alien museums); but the humors of the enthusiasts were part of the great comedy in the only theatre he cared for. mendel hyams was another silent member. but he wept openly under strelitski's harangue. when the meeting adjourned, the lank unhealthy swaying creature in the corner, who had been mumbling the tractate baba kama out of courtesy, now burst out afresh in his quaint argumentative recitative. "what then does it refer to? to his stone or his knife or his burden which he has left on the highway and it injured a passer-by. how is this? if he gave up his ownership, whether according to rav or according to shemuel, it is a pit, and if he retained his ownership, if according to shemuel, who holds that all are derived from 'his pit,' then it is 'a pit,' and if according to rav, who holds that all are derived from 'his ox,' then it is 'an ox,' therefore the derivatives of 'an ox' are the same as 'an ox' itself." he had been at it all day, and he went on far into the small hours, shaking his body backwards and forwards without remission. chapter xvi. the courtship of shosshi shmendrik. meckisch was a _chasid_, which in the vernacular is a saint, but in the actual a member of the sect of the _chasidim_ whose centre is galicia. in the eighteenth century israel baal shem, "the master of the name," retired to the mountains to meditate on philosophical truths. he arrived at a creed of cheerful and even stoical acceptance of the cosmos in all its aspects and a conviction that the incense of an enjoyed pipe was grateful to the creator. but it is the inevitable misfortune of religious founders to work apocryphal miracles and to raise up an army of disciples who squeeze the teaching of their master into their own mental moulds and are ready to die for the resultant distortion. it is only by being misunderstood that a great man can have any influence upon his kind. baal shem was succeeded by an army of thaumaturgists, and the wonder-working rabbis of sadagora who are in touch with all the spirits of the air enjoy the revenue of princes and the reverence of popes. to snatch a morsel of such a rabbi's sabbath _kuggol_, or pudding, is to insure paradise, and the scramble is a scene to witness. _chasidism_ is the extreme expression of jewish optimism. the chasidim are the corybantes or salvationists of judaism. in england their idiosyncrasies are limited to noisy jubilant services in their _chevrah_, the worshippers dancing or leaning or standing or writhing or beating their heads against the wall as they will, and frisking like happy children in the presence of their father. meckisch also danced at home and sang "tiddy, riddy, roi, toi, toi, toi, ta," varied by "rom, pom, pom" and "bim, bom" in a quaint melody to express his personal satisfaction with existence. he was a weazened little widower with a deep yellow complexion, prominent cheek bones, a hook nose and a scrubby, straggling little beard. years of professional practice as a mendicant had stamped his face with an anguished suppliant conciliatory grin, which he could not now erase even after business hours. it might perhaps have yielded to soap and water but the experiment had not been tried. on his head he always wore a fur cap with lappets for his ears. across his shoulders was strung a lemon-basket filled with grimy, gritty bits of sponge which nobody ever bought. meckisch's merchandise was quite other. he dealt in sensational spectacle. as he shambled along with extreme difficulty and by the aid of a stick, his lower limbs which were crossed in odd contortions appeared half paralyzed, and, when his strange appearance had attracted attention, his legs would give way and he would find himself with his back on the pavement, where he waited to be picked up by sympathetic spectators shedding silver and copper. after an indefinite number of performances meckisch would hurry home in the darkness to dance and sing "tiddy, riddy, roi, toi, bim, bom." thus meckisch lived at peace with god and man, till one day the fatal thought came into his head that he wanted a second wife. there was no difficulty in getting one--by the aid of his friend, sugarman the __ soon the little man found his household goods increased by the possession of a fat, russian giantess. meckisch did not call in the authorities to marry him. he had a "still wedding," which cost nothing. an artificial canopy made out of a sheet and four broomsticks was erected in the chimney corner and nine male friends sanctified the ceremony by their presence. meckisch and the russian giantess fasted on their wedding morn and everything was in honorable order. but meckisch's happiness and economies were short-lived. the russian giantess turned out a tartar. she got her claws into his savings and decorated herself with paisley shawls and gold necklaces. nay more! she insisted that meckisch must give her "society" and keep open house. accordingly the bed-sitting room which they rented was turned into a _salon_ of reception, and hither one friday night came peleg shmendrik and his wife and mr. and mrs. sugarman. over the sabbath meal the current of talk divided itself into masculine and feminine freshets. the ladies discussed bonnets and the gentlemen talmud. all the three men dabbled, pettily enough, in stocks and shares, but nothing in the world would tempt them to transact any negotiation or discuss the merits of a prospectus on the sabbath, though they were all fluttered by the allurements of the sapphire mines, limited, as set forth in a whole page of advertisement in the "_jewish chronicle_, the organ naturally perused for its religious news on friday evenings. the share-list would close at noon on monday. "but when moses, our teacher, struck the rock," said peleg shmendrik, in the course of the discussion, "he was right the first time but wrong the second, because as the talmud points out, a child may be chastised when it is little, but as it grows up it should be reasoned with." "yes," said sugarman the _shadchan_, quickly; "but if his rod had not been made of sapphire he would have split that instead of the rock." "was it made of sapphire?" asked meckisch, who was rather a man-of-the-earth. "of course it was--and a very fine thing, too," answered sugarman. "do you think so?" inquired peleg shmendrik eagerly. "the sapphire is a magic stone," answered sugarman. "it improves the vision and makes peace between foes. issachar, the studious son of jacob, was represented on the breast-plate by the sapphire. do you not know that the mist-like centre of the sapphire symbolizes the cloud that enveloped sinai at the giving of the law?" "i did not know that," answered peleg shmendrik, "but i know that moses's rod was created in the twilight of the first sabbath and god did everything after that with this sceptre." "ah, but we are not all strong enough to wield moses's rod; it weighed forty seahs," said sugarman. "how many seahs do you think one could safely carry?" said meckisch. "five or six seahs--not more," said sugarman. "you see one might drop them if he attempted more and even sapphire may break--the first tables of the law were made of sapphire, and yet from a great height they fell terribly, and were shattered to pieces." "gideon, the m.p., may be said to desire a rod of moses, for his secretary told me he will take forty," said shmendrik. "hush! what are you saying!" said sugarman, "gideon is a rich man, and then he is a director." "it seems a good lot of directors," said meckisch. "good to look at. but who can tell?" said sugarman, shaking his head. "the queen of sheba probably brought sapphires to solomon, but she was not a virtuous woman." "ah, solomon!" sighed mrs. shmendrik, pricking up her ears and interrupting this talk of stocks and stones, "if he'd had a thousand daughters instead of a thousand wives, even his treasury couldn't have held out. i had only two girls, praised be he, and yet it nearly ruined me to buy them husbands. a dirty _greener_ comes over, without a shirt to his skin, and nothing else but he must have two hundred pounds in the hand. and then you've got to stick to his back to see that he doesn't take his breeches in his hand and off to america. in poland he would have been glad to get a maiden, and would have said thank you." "well, but what about your own son?" said sugarman; "why haven't you asked me to find shosshi a wife? it's a sin against the maidens of israel. he must be long past the talmudical age." "he is twenty-four," replied peleg shmendrik. "tu, tu, tu, tu, tu!" said sugarman, clacking his tongue in horror, "have you perhaps an objection to his marrying?" "save us and grant us peace!" said the father in deprecatory horror. "only shosshi is so shy. you are aware, too, he is not handsome. heaven alone knows whom he takes after." "peleg, i blush for you," said mrs. shmendrik. "what is the matter with the boy? is he deaf, dumb, blind, unprovided with legs? if shosshi is backward with the women, it is because he 'learns' so hard when he's not at work. he earns a good living by his cabinet-making and it is quite time he set up a jewish household for himself. how much will you want for finding him a _calloh_?" "hush!" said sugarman sternly, "do you forget it is the sabbath? be assured i shall not charge more than last time, unless the bride has an extra good dowry." on saturday night immediately after _havdalah_, sugarman went to mr. belcovitch, who was just about to resume work, and informed him he had the very _chosan_ for becky. "i know," he said, "becky has a lot of young men after her, but what are they but a pack of bare-backs? how much will you give for a solid man?" after much haggling belcovitch consented to give twenty pounds immediately before the marriage ceremony and another twenty at the end of twelve months. "but no pretending you haven't got it about you, when we're at the _shool_, no asking us to wait till we get home," said sugarman, "or else i withdraw my man, even from under the _chuppah_ itself. when shall i bring him for your inspection?" "oh, to-morrow afternoon, sunday, when becky will be out in the park with her young men. it's best i shall see him first!" sugarman now regarded shosshi as a married man! he rubbed his hands and went to see him. he found him in a little shed in the back yard where he did extra work at home. shosshi was busy completing little wooden articles--stools and wooden spoons and moneyboxes for sale in petticoat lane next day. he supplemented his wages that way. "good evening, shosshi," said sugarman. "good evening," murmured shosshi, sawing away. shosshi was a gawky young man with a blotched sandy face ever ready to blush deeper with the suspicion that conversations going on at a distance were all about him. his eyes were shifty and catlike; one shoulder overbalanced the other, and when he walked, he swayed loosely to and fro. sugarman was rarely remiss in the offices of piety and he was nigh murmuring the prayer at the sight of monstrosities. "blessed art thou who variest the creatures." but resisting the temptation he said aloud, "i have something to tell you." shosshi looked up suspiciously. "don't bother: i am busy," he said, and applied his plane to the leg of a stool. "but this is more important than stools. how would you like to get married?" shosshi's face became like a peony. "don't make laughter," he said. "but i mean it. you are twenty-four years old and ought to have a wife and four children by this time." "but i don't want a wife and four children," said shosshi. "no, of course not. i don't mean a widow. it is a maiden i have in my eye." "nonsense, what maiden would have me?" said shosshi, a note of eagerness mingling with the diffidence of the words. "what maiden? _gott in himmel_! a hundred. a fine, strong, healthy young man like you, who can make a good living!" shosshi put down his plane and straightened himself. there was a moment of silence. then his frame collapsed again into a limp mass. his head drooped over his left shoulder. "this is all foolishness you talk, the maidens make mock." "be not a piece of clay! i know a maiden who has you quite in affection!" the blush which had waned mantled in a full flood. shosshi stood breathless, gazing half suspiciously, half credulously at his strictly honorable mephistopheles. it was about seven o'clock and the moon was a yellow crescent in the frosty heavens. the sky was punctured with clear-cut constellations. the back yard looked poetic with its blend of shadow and moonlight. "a beautiful fine maid," said sugarman ecstatically, "with pink cheeks and black eyes and forty pounds dowry." the moon sailed smilingly along. the water was running into the cistern with a soothing, peaceful sound. shosshi consented to go and see mr. belcovitch. mr. belcovitch made no parade. everything was as usual. on the wooden table were two halves of squeezed lemons, a piece of chalk, two cracked cups and some squashed soap. he was not overwhelmed by shosshi, but admitted he was solid. his father was known to be pious, and both his sisters had married reputable men. above all, he was not a dutchman. shosshi left no. royal street, belcovitch's accepted son-in-law. esther met him on the stairs and noted the radiance on his pimply countenance. he walked with his head almost erect. shosshi was indeed very much in love and felt that all that was needed for his happiness was a sight of his future wife. but he had no time to go and see her except on sunday afternoons, and then she was always out. mrs. belcovitch, however, made amends by paying him considerable attention. the sickly-looking little woman chatted to him for hours at a time about her ailments and invited him to taste her medicine, which was a compliment mrs. belcovitch passed only to her most esteemed visitors. by and by she even wore her night-cap in his presence as a sign that he had become one of the family. under this encouragement shosshi grew confidential and imparted to his future mother-in-law the details of his mother's disabilities. but he could mention nothing which mrs. belcovitch could not cap, for she was a woman extremely catholic in her maladies. she was possessed of considerable imagination, and once when fanny selected a bonnet for her in a milliner's window, the girl had much difficulty in persuading her it was not inferior to what turned out to be the reflection of itself in a side mirror. "i'm so weak upon my legs," she would boast to shosshi. "i was born with ill-matched legs. one is a thick one and one is a thin one, and so one goes about." shosshi expressed his sympathetic admiration and the courtship proceeded apace. sometimes fanny and pesach weingott would be at home working, and they were very affable to him. he began to lose something of his shyness and his lurching gait, and he quite looked forward to his weekly visit to the belcovitches. it was the story of cymon and iphigenia over again. love improved even his powers of conversation, for when belcovitch held forth at length shosshi came in several times with "so?" and sometimes in the right place. mr. belcovitch loved his own voice and listened to it, the arrested press-iron in his hand. occasionally in the middle of one of his harangues it would occur to him that some one was talking and wasting time, and then he would say to the room, "shah! make an end, make an end," and dry up. but to shosshi he was especially polite, rarely interrupting himself when his son-in-law elect was hanging on his words. there was an intimate tender tone about these _causeries_. "i should like to drop down dead suddenly," he would say with the air of a philosopher, who had thought it all out. "i shouldn't care to lie up in bed and mess about with medicine and doctors. to make a long job of dying is so expensive." "so?" said shosshi. "don't worry, bear! i dare say the devil will seize you suddenly," interposed mrs. belcovitch drily. "it will not be the devil," said mr. belcovitch, confidently and in a confidential manner. "if i had died as a young man, shosshi, it might have been different." shosshi pricked up his ears to listen to the tale of bear's wild cubhood. "one morning," said belcovitch, "in poland, i got up at four o'clock to go to supplications for forgiveness. the air was raw and there was no sign of dawn! suddenly i noticed a black pig trotting behind me. i quickened my pace and the black pig did likewise. i broke into a run and i heard the pig's paws patting furiously upon the hard frozen ground. a cold sweat broke out all over me. i looked over my shoulder and saw the pig's eyes burning like red-hot coals in the darkness. then i knew that the not good one was after me. 'hear, o israel,' i cried. i looked up to the heavens but there was a cold mist covering the stars. faster and faster i flew and faster and faster flew the demon pig. at last the _shool_ came in sight. i made one last wild effort and fell exhausted upon the holy threshold and the pig vanished." "so?" said shosshi, with a long breath. "immediately after _shool_ i spake with the rabbi and he said 'bear, are thy _tephillin_ in order?' so i said 'yea, rabbi, they are very large and i bought them of the pious scribe, naphtali, and i look to the knots weekly.' but he said, 'i will examine them.' so i brought them to him and he opened the head-phylactery and lo! in place of the holy parchment he found bread crumbs." "hoi, hoi," said shosshi in horror, his red hands quivering. "yes," said bear mournfully, "i had worn them for ten years and moreover the leaven had denied all my passovers." belcovitch also entertained the lover with details of the internal politics of the "sons of the covenant." shosshi's affection for becky increased weekly under the stress of these intimate conversations with her family. at last his passion was rewarded, and becky, at the violent instance of her father, consented to disappoint one of her young men and stay at home to meet her future husband. she put off her consent till after dinner though, and it began to rain immediately before she gave it. the moment shosshi came into the room he divined that a change had come over the spirit of the dream. out of the corners of his eyes he caught a glimpse of an appalling beauty standing behind a sewing machine. his face fired up, his legs began to quiver, he wished the ground would open and swallow him as it did korah. "becky," said mr. belcovitch, "this is mr. shosshi shmendrik." shosshi put on a sickly grin and nodded his head affirmatively, as if to corroborate the statement, and the round felt hat he wore slid back till the broad rim rested on his ears. through a sort of mist a terribly fine maid loomed. becky stared at him haughtily and curled her lip. then she giggled. shosshi held out his huge red hand limply. becky took no notice of it. "_nu_, becky!" breathed belcovitch, in a whisper that could have been heard across the way. "how are you? all right?" said becky, very loud, as if she thought deafness was among shosshi's disadvantages. shosshi grinned reassuringly. there was another silence. shosshi wondered whether the _convenances_ would permit him to take his leave now. he did not feel comfortable at all. everything had been going so delightfully, it had been quite a pleasure to him to come to the house. but now all was changed. the course of true love never does run smooth, and the advent of this new personage into the courtship was distinctly embarrassing. the father came to the rescue. "a little rum?" he said. "yes," said shosshi. "chayah! _nu_. fetch the bottle!" mrs. belcovitch went to the chest of drawers in the corner of the room and took from the top of it a large decanter. she then produced two glasses without feet and filled them with the home-made rum, handing one to shosshi and the other to her husband. shosshi muttered a blessing over it, then he leered vacuously at the company and cried, "to life!" "to peace!" replied the older man, gulping down the spirit. shosshi was doing the same, when his eye caught becky's. he choked for five minutes, mrs. belcovitch thumping him maternally on the back. when he was comparatively recovered the sense of his disgrace rushed upon him and overwhelmed him afresh. becky was still giggling behind the sewing machine. once more shosshi felt that the burden of the conversation was upon him. he looked at his boots and not seeing anything there, looked up again and grinned encouragingly at the company as if to waive his rights. but finding the company did not respond, he blew his nose enthusiastically as a lead off to the conversation. mr. belcovitch saw his embarrassment, and, making a sign to chayah, slipped out of the room followed by his wife. shosshi was left alone with the terribly fine maid. becky stood still, humming a little air and looking up at the ceiling, as if she had forgotten shosshi's existence. with her eyes in that position it was easier for shosshi to look at her. he stole side-long glances at her, which, growing bolder and bolder, at length fused into an uninterrupted steady gaze. how fine and beautiful she was! his eyes began to glitter, a smile of approbation overspread his face. suddenly she looked down and their eyes met. shosshi's smile hurried off and gave way to a sickly sheepish look and his legs felt weak. the terribly fine maid gave a kind of snort and resumed her inspection of the ceiling. gradually shosshi found himself examining her again. verily sugarman had spoken truly of her charms. but--overwhelming thought--had not sugarman also said she loved him? shosshi knew nothing of the ways of girls, except what he had learned from the talmud. quite possibly becky was now occupied in expressing ardent affection. he shuffled towards her, his heart beating violently. he was near enough to touch her. the air she was humming throbbed in his ears. he opened his mouth to speak--becky becoming suddenly aware of his proximity fixed him with a basilisk glare--the words were frozen on his lips. for some seconds his mouth remained open, then the ridiculousness of shutting it again without speaking spurred him on to make some sound, however meaningless. he made a violent effort and there burst from his lips in hebrew: "happy are those who dwell in thy house, ever shall they praise thee, selah!" it was not a compliment to becky. shosshi's face lit up with joyous relief. by some inspiration he had started the afternoon prayer. he felt that becky would understand the pious necessity. with fervent gratitude to the almighty he continued the psalm: "happy are the people whose lot is thus, etc." then he turned his back on becky, with his face to the east wall, made three steps forwards and commenced the silent delivery of the _amidah_. usually he gabbled off the "eighteen blessings" in five minutes. to-day they were prolonged till he heard the footsteps of the returning parents. then he scurried through the relics of the service at lightning speed. when mr. and mrs. belcovitch re-entered the room they saw by his happy face that all was well and made no opposition to his instant departure. he came again the next sunday and was rejoiced to find that becky was out, though he had hoped to find her in. the courtship made great strides that afternoon, mr. and mrs. belcovitch being more amiable than ever to compensate for becky's private refusal to entertain the addresses of such a _schmuck_. there had been sharp domestic discussions during the week, and becky had only sniffed at her parents' commendations of shosshi as a "very worthy youth." she declared that it was "remission of sins merely to look at him." next sabbath mr. and mrs. belcovitch paid a formal visit to shosshi's parents to make their acquaintance, and partook of tea and cake. becky was not with them; moreover she defiantly declared she would never be at home on a sunday till shosshi was married. they circumvented her by getting him up on a weekday. the image of becky had been so often in his thoughts now that by the time he saw her the second time he was quite habituated to her appearance. he had even imagined his arm round her waist, but in practice he found he could go no further as yet than ordinary conversation. becky was sitting sewing buttonholes when shosshi arrived. everybody was there--mr. belcovitch pressing coats with hot irons; fanny shaking the room with her heavy machine; pesach weingott cutting a piece of chalk-marked cloth; mrs. belcovitch carefully pouring out tablespoonfuls of medicine. there were even some outside "hands," work being unusually plentiful, as from the manifestos of simon wolf, the labor-leader, the slop manufacturers anticipated a strike. sustained by their presence, shosshi felt a bold and gallant wooer. he determined that this time he would not go without having addressed at least one remark to the object of his affections. grinning amiably at the company generally, by way of salutation, he made straight for becky's corner. the terribly fine lady snorted at the sight of him, divining that she had been out-manoeuvred. belcovitch surveyed the situation out of the corners of his eyes, not pausing a moment in his task. "_nu_, how goes it, becky?" shosshi murmured. becky said, "all right, how are you?" "god be thanked, i have nothing to complain of," said shosshi, encouraged by the warmth of his welcome. "my eyes are rather weak, still, though much better than last year." becky made no reply, so shosshi continued: "but my mother is always a sick person. she has to swallow bucketsful of cod liver oil. she cannot be long for this world." "nonsense, nonsense," put in mrs. belcovitch, appearing suddenly behind the lovers. "my children's children shall never be any worse; it's all fancy with her, she coddles herself too much." "oh, no, she says she's much worse than you," shosshi blurted out, turning round to face his future mother-in-law. "oh, indeed!" said chayah angrily. "my enemies shall have my maladies! if your mother had my health, she would be lying in bed with it. but i go about in a sick condition. i can hardly crawl around. look at my legs--has your mother got such legs? one a thick one and one a thin one." shosshi grew scarlet; he felt he had blundered. it was the first real shadow on his courtship--perhaps the little rift within the lute. he turned back to becky for sympathy. there was no becky. she had taken advantage of the conversation to slip away. he found her again in a moment though, at the other end of the room. she was seated before a machine. he crossed the room boldly and bent over her. "don't you feel cold, working?" _br-r-r-r-r-r-h_! it was the machine turning. becky had set the treadle going madly and was pushing a piece of cloth under the needle. when she paused, shosshi said: "have you heard reb shemuel preach? he told a very amusing allegory last--" _br-r-r-r-r-r-r-h_! undaunted, shosshi recounted the amusing allegory at length, and as the noise of her machine prevented becky hearing a word she found his conversation endurable. after several more monologues, accompanied on the machine by becky, shosshi took his departure in high feather, promising to bring up specimens of his handiwork for her edification. on his next visit he arrived with his arms laden with choice morsels of carpentry. he laid them on the table for her admiration. they were odd knobs and rockers for polish cradles! the pink of becky's cheeks spread all over her face like a blot of red ink on a piece of porous paper. shosshi's face reflected the color in even more ensanguined dyes. becky rushed from the room and shosshi heard her giggling madly on the staircase. it dawned upon him that he had displayed bad taste in his selection. "what have you done to my child?" mrs. belcovitch inquired. "n-n-othing," he stammered; "i only brought her some of my work to see." "and is this what one shows to a young girl?" demanded the mother indignantly. "they are only bits of cradles," said shosshi deprecatingly. "i thought she would like to see what nice workmanly things i turned out. see how smoothly these rockers are carved! there is a thick one, and there is a thin one!" "ah! shameless droll! dost thou make mock of my legs, too?" said mrs. belcovitch. "out, impudent face, out with thee!" shosshi gathered up his specimens in his arms and fled through the door. becky was still in hilarious eruption outside. the sight of her made confusion worse confounded. the knobs and rockers rolled thunderously down the stairs; shosshi stumbled after them, picking them up on his course and wishing himself dead. all sugarman's strenuous efforts to patch up the affair failed. shosshi went about broken-hearted for several days. to have been so near the goal--and then not to arrive after all! what made failure more bitter was that he had boasted of his conquest to his acquaintances, especially to the two who kept the stalls to the right and left of him on sundays in petticoat lane. they made a butt of him as it was; he felt he could never stand between them for a whole morning now, and have attic salt put upon his wounds. he shifted his position, arranging to pay sixpence a time for the privilege of fixing himself outside widow finkelstein's shop, which stood at the corner of a street, and might be presumed to intercept two streams of pedestrians. widow finkelstein's shop was a chandler's, and she did a large business in farthing-worths of boiling water. there was thus no possible rivalry between her ware and shosshi's, which consisted of wooden candlesticks, little rocking chairs, stools, ash-trays, etc., piled up artistically on a barrow. but shosshi's luck had gone with the change of _locus_. his _clientèle_ went to the old spot but did not find him. he did not even make a hansel. at two o'clock he tied his articles to the barrow with a complicated arrangement of cords. widow finkelstein waddled out and demanded her sixpence. shosshi replied that he had not taken sixpence, that the coign was not one of vantage. widow finkelstein stood up for her rights, and even hung on to the barrow for them. there was a short, sharp argument, a simultaneous jabbering, as of a pair of monkeys. shosshi shmendrik's pimply face worked with excited expostulation, widow finkelstein's cushion-like countenance was agitated by waves of righteous indignation. suddenly shosshi darted between the shafts and made a dash off with the barrow down the side street. but widow finkelstein pressed it down with all her force, arresting the motion like a drag. incensed by the laughter of the spectators, shosshi put forth all his strength at the shafts, jerked the widow off her feet and see-sawed her sky-wards, huddled up spherically like a balloon, but clinging as grimly as ever to the defalcating barrow. then shosshi started off at a run, the carpentry rattling, and the dead weight of his living burden making his muscles ache. right to the end of the street he dragged her, pursued by a hooting crowd. then he stopped, worn out. "will you give me that sixpence, you _ganef_!" "no, i haven't got it. you'd better go back to your shop, else you'll suffer from worse thieves." it was true. widow finkelstein smote her wig in horror and hurried back to purvey treacle. but that night when she shut up the shutters, she hurried off to shosshi's address, which she had learned in the interim. his little brother opened the door and said shosshi was in the shed. he was just nailing the thicker of those rockers on to the body of a cradle. his soul was full of bitter-sweet memories. widow finkelstein suddenly appeared in the moonlight. for a moment shosshi's heart beat wildly. he thought the buxom figure was becky's. "i have come for my sixpence." ah! the words awoke him from his dream. it was only the widow finkelstein. and yet--! verily, the widow, too, was plump and agreeable; if only her errand had been pleasant, shosshi felt she might have brightened his back yard. he had been moved to his depths latterly and a new tenderness and a new boldness towards women shone in his eyes. he rose and put his head on one side and smiled amiably and said, "be not so foolish. i did not take a copper. i am a poor young man. you have plenty of money in your stocking." "how know you that?" said the widow, stretching forward her right foot meditatively and gazing at the strip of stocking revealed. "never mind!" said shosshi, shaking his head sapiently. "well, it's true," she admitted. "i have two hundred and seventeen golden sovereigns besides my shop. but for all that why should you keep my sixpence?" she asked it with the same good-humored smile. the logic of that smile was unanswerable. shosshi's mouth opened, but no sound issued from it. he did not even say the evening prayer. the moon sailed slowly across the heavens. the water flowed into the cistern with a soft soothing sound. suddenly it occurred to shosshi that the widow's waist was not very unlike that which he had engirdled imaginatively. he thought he would just try if the sensation was anything like what he had fancied. his arm strayed timidly round her black-beaded mantle. the sense of his audacity was delicious. he was wondering whether he ought to say _she-hechyoni_--the prayer over a new pleasure. but the widow finkelstein stopped his mouth with a kiss. after that shosshi forgot his pious instincts. except old mrs. ansell, sugarman was the only person scandalized. shosshi's irrepressible spirit of romance had robbed him of his commission. but meckisch danced with shosshi shmendrik at the wedding, while the _calloh_ footed it with the russian giantess. the men danced in one-half of the room, the women in the other. chapter xvii. the hyams's honeymoon. "beenah, hast thou heard aught about our daniel?" there was a note of anxiety in old hyams's voice. "naught, mendel." "thou hast not heard talk of him and sugarman's daughter?" "no, is there aught between them?" the listless old woman spoke a little eagerly. "only that a man told me that his son saw our daniel pay court to the maiden." "where?" "at the purim ball." "the man is a tool; a youth must dance with some maiden or other." miriam came in, fagged out from teaching. old hyams dropped from yiddish into english. "you are right, he must." beenah replied in her slow painful english. "would he not have told us?" mendel repeated:--"would he not have told us?" each avoided the others eye. beenah dragged herself about the room, laying miriam's tea. "mother, i wish you wouldn't scrape your feet along the floor so. it gets on my nerves and i _am_ so worn out. would he not have told you what? and who's he?" beenah looked at her husband. "i heard daniel was engaged," said old hyams jerkily. miriam started and flushed. "to whom?" she cried, in excitement. "bessie sugarman." "sugarman's daughter?" miriam's voice was pitched high. "yes." miriam's voice rose to a higher pitch. "sugarman the _shadchan's_ daughter?" "yes." miriam burst into a fit of incredulous laughter. "as if daniel would marry into a miserable family like that!" "it is as good as ours," said mendel, with white lips. his daughter looked at him astonished. "i thought your children had taught you more self-respect than that," she said quietly. "mr. sugarman is a nice person to be related to!" "at home, mrs. sugarman's family was highly respected," quavered old hyams. "we are not at home now," said miriam witheringly. "we're in england. a bad-tempered old hag!" "that is what she thinks me," thought mrs. hyams. but she said nothing. "did you not see daniel with her at the ball?" said mr. hyams, still visibly disquieted. "i'm sure i didn't notice," miriam replied petulantly. "i think you must have forgot the sugar, mother, or else the tea is viler than usual. why don't you let jane cut the bread and butter instead of lazing in the kitchen?" "jane has been washing all day in the scullery," said mrs. hyams apologetically. "h'm!" snapped miriam, her pretty face looking peevish and careworn. "jane ought to have to manage sixty-three girls whose ignorant parents let them run wild at home, and haven't the least idea of discipline. as for this chit of a sugarman, don't you know that jews always engage every fellow and girl that look at each other across the street, and make fun of them and discuss their united prospects before they are even introduced to each other." she finished her tea, changed her dress and went off to the theatre with a girl-friend. the really harassing nature of her work called for some such recreation. daniel came in a little after she had gone out, and ate his supper, which was his dinner saved for him and warmed up in the oven. mendel sat studying from an unwieldy folio which he held on his lap by the fireside and bent over. when daniel had done supper and was standing yawning and stretching himself, mendel said suddenly as if trying to bluff him: "why don't you ask your father to wish you _mazzoltov_?" "_mazzoltov_? what for?" asked daniel puzzled. "on your engagement." "my engagement!" repeated daniel, his heart thumping against his ribs. "yes--to bessie sugarman." mendel's eye, fixed scrutinizingly on his boy's face, saw it pass from white to red and from red to white. daniel caught hold of the mantel as if to steady himself. "but it is a lie!" he cried hotly. "who told you that?" "no one; a man hinted as much." "but i haven't even been in her company." "yes--at the purim ball." daniel bit his lip. "damned gossips!" he cried. "i'll never speak to the girl again." there was a tense silence for a few seconds, then old hyams said: "why not? you love her." daniel stared at him, his heart palpitating painfully. the blood in his ears throbbed mad sweet music. "you love her," mendel repeated quietly. "why do you not ask her to marry you? do you fear she would refuse?" daniel burst into semi-hysterical laughter. then seeing his father's half-reproachful, half-puzzled look he said shamefacedly: "forgive me, father, i really couldn't help it. the idea of your talking about love! the oddity of it came over me all of a heap." "why should i not talk about love?" "don't be so comically serious, father," said daniel, smiling afresh. "what's come over you? what have you to do with love? one would think you were a romantic young fool on the stage. it's all nonsense about love. i don't love anybody, least of all bessie sugarman, so don't you go worrying your old head about _my_ affairs. you get back to that musty book of yours there. i wonder if you've suddenly come across anything about love in that, and don't forget to use the reading glasses and not your ordinary spectacles, else it'll be a sheer waste of money. by the way, mother, remember to go to the eye hospital on saturday to be tested. i feel sure it's time you had a pair of specs, too." "don't i look old enough already?" thought mrs. hyams. but she said, "very well, daniel," and began to clear away his supper. "that's the best of being in the fancy," said daniel cheerfully. "there's no end of articles you can get at trade prices." he sat for half an hour turning over the evening paper, then went to bed. mr. and mrs. hyams's eyes sought each other involuntarily but they said nothing. mrs. hyams fried a piece of _wurst_ for miriam's supper and put it into the oven to keep hot, then she sat down opposite mendel to stitch on a strip of fur, which had got unripped on one of miriam's jackets. the fire burnt briskly, little flames leaped up with a crackling sound, the clock ticked quietly. beenah threaded her needle at the first attempt. "i can still see without spectacles," she thought bitterly. but she said nothing. mendel looked up furtively at her several times from his book. the meagreness of her parchment flesh, the thickening mesh of wrinkles, the snow-white hair struck him with almost novel force. but he said nothing. beenah patiently drew her needle through and through the fur, ever and anon glancing at mendel's worn spectacled face, the eyes deep in the sockets, the forehead that was bent over the folio furrowed painfully beneath the black _koppel_, the complexion sickly. a lump seemed to be rising in her throat. she bent determinedly over her sewing, then suddenly looked up again. this time their eyes met. they did not droop them; a strange subtle flash seemed to pass from soul to soul. they gazed at each other, trembling on the brink of tears. "beenah." the voice was thick with suppressed sobs. "yes, mendel." "thou hast heard?" "yes, mendel." "he says he loves her not." "so he says." "it is lies, beenah." "but wherefore should he lie?" "thou askest with thy mouth, not thy heart. thou knowest that he wishes us not to think that he remains single for our sake. all his money goes to keep up this house we live in. it is the law of moses. sawest thou not his face when i spake of sugarman's daughter?" beenah rocked herself to and fro, crying: "my poor daniel, my poor lamb! wait a little. i shall die soon. the all-high is merciful. wait a little." mendel caught miriam's jacket which was slipping to the floor and laid it aside. "it helps not to cry," said he gently, longing to cry with her. "this cannot be. he must marry the maiden whom his heart desires. is it not enough that he feels that we have crippled his life for the sake of our sabbath? he never speaks of it, but it smoulders in his veins." "wait a little!" moaned beenah, still rocking to and fro. "nay, calm thyself." he rose and passed his horny hand tenderly over her white hair. "we must not wait. consider how long daniel has waited." "yes, my poor lamb, my poor lamb!" sobbed the old woman. "if daniel marries," said the old man, striving to speak firmly, "we have not a penny to live upon. our miriam requires all her salary. already she gives us more than she can spare. she is a lady, in a great position. she must dress finely. who knows, too, but that we are in the way of a gentleman marrying her? we are not fit to mix with high people. but above all, daniel must marry and i must earn your and my living as i did when the children were young." "but what wilt thou do?" said beenah, ceasing to cry and looking up with affrighted face. "thou canst not go glaziering. think of miriam. what canst thou do, what canst thou do? thou knowest no trade!" "no, i know no trade," he said bitterly. "at home, as thou art aware, i was a stone-mason, but here i could get no work without breaking the sabbath, and my hand has forgotten its cunning. perhaps i shall get my hand back." he took hers in the meantime. it was limp and chill, though so near the fire. "have courage." he said. "there is naught i can do here that will not shame miriam. we cannot even go into an almshouse without shedding her blood. but the holy one, blessed be he, is good. i will go away." "go away!" beenah's clammy hand tightened her clasp of his. "thou wilt travel with ware in the country?" "no. if it stands written that i must break with my children, let the gap be too wide for repining. miriam will like it better. i will go to america." "to america!" beenah's heartbeat wildly. "and leave me?" a strange sense of desolation swept over her. "yes--for a little, anyhow. thou must not face the first hardships. i shall find something to do. perhaps in america there are more jewish stone-masons to get work from. god will not desert us. there i can sell ware in the streets--do as i will. at the worst i can always fall back upon glaziering. have faith, my dove." the novel word of affection thrilled beenah through and through. "i shall send thee a little money; then as soon as i can see my way dear i shall send for thee and thou shalt come out to me and we will live happily together and our children shall live happily here." but beenah burst into fresh tears. "woe! woe!" she sobbed. "how wilt thou, an old man, face the sea and the strange faces all alone? see how sorely thou art racked with rheumatism. how canst thou go glaziering? thou liest often groaning all the night. how shalt thou carry the heavy crate on thy shoulders?" "god will give me strength to do what is right." the tears were plain enough in his voice now and would not be denied. his words forced themselves out in a husky wheeze. beenah threw her arms round his neck. "no! no!" she cried hysterically. "thou shalt not go! thou shalt not leave me!" "i must go," his parched lips articulated. he could not see that the snow of her hair had drifted into her eyes and was scarce whiter than her cheeks. his spectacles were a blur of mist. "no, no," she moaned incoherently. "i shall die soon. god is merciful. wait a little, wait a little. he will kill us both soon. my poor lamb, my poor daniel! thou shalt not leave me." the old man unlaced her arms from his neck. "i must. i have heard god's word in the silence." "then i will go with thee. wherever thou goest i will go." "no, no; thou shall not face the first hardships, i will front them alone; i am strong, i am a man." "and thou hast the heart to leave me?" she looked piteously into his face, but hers was still hidden from him in the mist. but through the darkness the flash passed again. his hand groped for her waist, he drew her again towards him and put the arms he had unlaced round his neck and stooped his wet cheek to hers. the past was a void, the forty years of joint housekeeping, since the morning each had seen a strange face on the pillow, faded to a point. for fifteen years they had been drifting towards each other, drifting nearer, nearer in dual loneliness; driven together by common suffering and growing alienation from the children they had begotten in common; drifting nearer, nearer in silence, almost in unconsciousness. and now they had met. the supreme moment of their lives had come. the silence of forty years was broken. his withered lips sought hers and love flooded their souls at last. when the first delicious instants were over, mendel drew a chair to the table and wrote a letter in hebrew script and posted it and beenah picked up miriam's jacket. the crackling flames had subsided to a steady glow, the clock ticked on quietly as before, but something new and sweet and sacred had come into her life, and beenah no longer wished to die. when miriam came home, she brought a little blast of cold air into the room. beenah rose and shut the door and put out miriam's supper; she did not drag her feet now. "was it a nice play, miriam?" said beenah softly. "the usual stuff and nonsense!" said miriam peevishly. "love and all that sort of thing, as if the world never got any older." at breakfast next morning old hyams received a letter by the first post. he carefully took his spectacles off and donned his reading-glasses to read it, throwing the envelope carelessly into the fire. when he had scanned a few lines he uttered an exclamation of surprise and dropped the letter. "what's the matter, father?" said daniel, while miriam tilted her snub nose curiously. "praised be god!" was all the old man could say. "well, what is it? speak!" said beenah, with unusual animation, while a flush of excitement lit up miriam's face and made it beautiful. "my brother in america has won a thousand pounds on the lotter_ee_ and he invites me and beenah to come and live with him." "your brother in america!" repeated his children staring. "why, i didn't know you had a brother in america," added miriam. "no, while he was poor, i didn't mention him," replied mendel, with unintentional sarcasm. "but i've heard from him several times. we both came over from poland together, but the board of guardians sent him and a lot of others on to new york." "but you won't go, father!" said daniel. "why not? i should like to see my brother before i die. we were very thick as boys." "but a thousand pounds isn't so very much," miriam could not refrain from saying. old hyams had thought it boundless opulence and was now sorry he had not done his brother a better turn. "it will be enough for us all to live upon, he and beenah and me. you see his wife died and he has no children." "you don't really mean to go?" gasped daniel, unable to grasp the situation suddenly sprung upon him. "how will you get the money to travel with?" "read here!" said mendel, quietly passing him the letter. "he offers to send it." "but it's written in hebrew!" cried daniel, turning it upside down hopelessly. "you can read hebrew writing surely," said his father. "i could, years and years ago. i remember you taught me the letters. but my hebrew correspondence has been so scanty--" he broke off with a laugh and handed the letter to miriam, who surveyed it with mock comprehension. there was a look of relief in her eyes as she returned it to her father. "he might have sent something to his nephew and his niece," she said half seriously. "perhaps he will when i get to america and tell him how pretty you are," said mendel oracularly. he looked quite joyous and even ventured to pinch miriam's flushed cheek roguishly, and she submitted to the indignity without a murmur. "why _you're_ looking as pleased as punch too, mother," said daniel, in half-rueful amazement. "you seem delighted at the idea of leaving us." "i always wanted to see america," the old woman admitted with a smile. "i also shall renew an old friendship in new york." she looked meaningly at her husband, and in his eye was an answering love-light. "well, that's cool!" daniel burst forth. "but she doesn't mean it, does she, father?" "i mean it." hyams answered. "but it can't be true," persisted daniel, in ever-growing bewilderment. "i believe it's all a hoax." mendel hastily drained his coffee-cup. "a hoax!" he murmured, from behind the cup. "yes, i believe some one is having a lark with you." "nonsense!" cried mendel vehemently, as he put down his coffee-cup and picked up the letter from the table. "don't i know my own brother yankov's writing. besides, who else would know all the little things he writes about?" daniel was silenced, but lingered on after miriam had departed to her wearisome duties. "i shall write at once, accepting yankov's offer," said his father. "fortunately we took the house by the week, so you can always move out if it is too large for you and miriam. i can trust you to look after miriam, i know, daniel." daniel expostulated yet further, but mendel answered: "he is so lonely. he cannot well come over here by himself because he is half paralyzed. after all, what have i to do in england? and the mother naturally does not care to leave me. perhaps i shall get my brother to travel with me to the land of israel, and then we shall all end our days in jerusalem, which you know has always been my heart's desire." neither mentioned bessie sugarman. "why do you make so much bother?" miriam said to daniel in the evening. "it's the best thing that could have happened. who'd have dreamed at this hour of the day of coming into possession of a relative who might actually have something to leave us. it'll be a good story to tell, too." after _shool_ next morning mendel spoke to the president. "can you lend me six pounds?" he asked. belcovitch staggered. "six pounds!" he repeated, dazed. "yes. i wish to go to america with my wife. and i want you moreover to give your hand as a countryman that you will not breathe a word of this, whatever you hear. beenah and i have sold a few little trinkets which our children gave us, and we have reckoned that with six pounds more we shall be able to take steerage passages and just exist till i get work." "but six pounds is a very great sum--without sureties," said belcovitch, rubbing his time-worn workaday high hat in his agitation. "i know it is!" answered mendel, "but god is my witness that i mean to pay you. and if i die before i can do so i vow to send word to my son daniel, who will pay you the balance. you know my son daniel. his word is an oath." "but where shall i get six pounds from?" said bear helplessly. "i am only a poor tailor, and my daughter gets married soon. it is a great sum. by my honorable word, it is. i have never lent so much in my life, nor even been security for such an amount." mendel dropped his head. there was a moment of anxious silence. bear thought deeply. "i tell you what i'll do," said bear at last. "i'll lend you five if you can manage to come out with that." mendel gave a great sigh of relief. "god shall bless you," he said. he wrung the sweater's hand passionately. "i dare say we shall find another sovereign's-worth to sell." mendel clinched the borrowing by standing the lender a glass of rum, and bear felt secure against the graver shocks of doom. if the worst come to the worst now, he had still had something for his money. and so mendel and beenah sailed away over the atlantic. daniel accompanied them to liverpool, but miriam said she could not get a day's holiday--perhaps she remembered the rebuke esther ansell had drawn down on herself, and was chary of asking. at the dock in the chill dawn, mendel hyams kissed his son daniel on the forehead and said in a broken voice: "good-bye. god bless you." he dared not add and god bless your bessie, my daughter-in-law to be; but the benediction was in his heart. daniel turned away heavy-hearted, but the old man touched him on the shoulder and said in a low tremulous voice: "won't you forgive me for putting you into the fancy goods?" "father! what do you mean?" said daniel choking. "surely you are not thinking of the wild words i spoke years and years ago. i have long forgotten them." "then you will remain a good jew," said mendel, trembling all over, "even when we are far away?" "with god's help," said daniel. and then mendel turned to beenah and kissed her, weeping, and the faces of the old couple were radiant behind their tears. daniel stood on the clamorous hustling wharf, watching the ship move slowly from her moorings towards the open river, and neither he nor any one in the world but the happy pair knew that mendel and beenah were on their honeymoon. * * * * * mrs. hyams died two years after her honeymoon, and old hyams laid a lover's kiss upon her sealed eyelids. then, being absolutely alone in the world, he sold off his scanty furniture, sent the balance of the debt with a sovereign of undemanded interest to bear belcovitch, and girded up his loins for the journey to jerusalem, which had been the dream of his life. but the dream of his life had better have remained a dream mendel saw the hills of palestine and the holy jordan and mount moriah, the site of the temple, and the tombs of absalom and melchitsedek, and the gate of zion and the aqueduct built by solomon, and all that he had longed to see from boyhood. but somehow it was not _his_ jerusalem--scarce more than his london ghetto transplanted, only grown filthier and narrower and more ragged, with cripples for beggars and lepers in lieu of hawkers. the magic of his dream-city was not here. this was something prosaic, almost sordid. it made his heart sink as he thought of the sacred splendors of the zion he had imaged in his suffering soul. the rainbows builded of his bitter tears did not span the firmament of this dingy eastern city, set amid sterile hills. where were the roses and lilies, the cedars and the fountains? mount moriah was here indeed, but it bore the mosque of omar, and the temple of jehovah was but one ruined wall. the shechinah, the divine glory, had faded into cold sunshine. "who shall go up into the mount of jehovah." lo, the moslem worshipper and the christian tourist. barracks and convents stood on zion's hill. his brethren, rulers by divine right of the soil they trod, were lost in the chaos of populations--syrians, armenians, turks, copts, abyssinians, europeans--as their synagogues were lost amid the domes and minarets of the gentiles. the city was full of venerated relics of the christ his people had lived--and died--to deny, and over all flew the crescent flag of the mussulman. and so every friday, heedless of scoffing on-lookers, mendel hyams kissed the stones of the wailing place, bedewing their barrenness with tears; and every year at passover, until he was gathered to his fathers, he continued to pray: "next year--in jerusalem!" chapter xviii. the hebrew's friday night. "ah, the men-of-the-earth!" said pinchas to reb shemuel, "ignorant fanatics, how shall a movement prosper in their hands? they have not the poetic vision, their ideas are as the mole's; they wish to make messiahs out of half-pence. what inspiration for the soul is there in the sight of snuffy collectors that have the air of _schnorrers_? with karlkammer's red hair for a flag and the sound of gradkoski's nose blowing for a trumpet-peal. but i have written an acrostic against guedalyah the greengrocer, virulent as serpent's gall. he the redeemer, indeed, with his diseased potatoes and his flat ginger-beer! not thus did the great prophets and teachers in israel figure the return. let a great signal-fire be lit in israel and lo! the beacons will leap up on every mountain and tongue of flame shall call to tongue. yea, i, even i, melchitsedek pinchas, will light the fire forthwith." "nay, not to-day," said reb shemuel, with his humorous twinkle; "it is the sabbath." the rabbi was returning from synagogue and pinchas was giving him his company on the short homeward journey. at their heels trudged levi and on the other side of reb shemuel walked eliphaz chowchoski, a miserable-looking pole whom reb shemuel was taking home to supper. in those days reb shemuel was not alone in taking to his hearth "the sabbath guest"--some forlorn starveling or other--to sit at the table in like honor with the master. it was an object lesson in equality and fraternity for the children of many a well-to-do household, nor did it fail altogether in the homes of the poor. "all israel are brothers," and how better honor the sabbath than by making the lip-babble a reality? "you will speak to your daughter?" said pinchas, changing the subject abruptly. "you will tell her that what i wrote to her is not a millionth part of what i feel--that she is my sun by day and my moon and stars by night, that i must marry her at once or die, that i think of nothing in the world but her, that i can do, write, plan, nothing without her, that once she smiles on me i will write her great love-poems, greater than byron's, greater than heine's--the real song of songs, which is pinchas's--that i will make her immortal as dante made beatrice, as petrarch made laura, that i walk about wretched, bedewing the pavements with my tears, that i sleep not by night nor eat by day--you will tell her this?" he laid his finger pleadingly on his nose. "i will tell her," said reb shemuel. "you are a son-in-law to gladden the heart of any man. but i fear the maiden looks but coldly on wooers. besides you are fourteen years older than she." "then i love her twice as much as jacob loved rachel--for it is written 'seven years were but as a day in his love for her.' to me fourteen years are but as a day in my love for hannah." the rabbi laughed at the quibble and said: "you are like the man who when he was accused of being twenty years older than the maiden he desired, replied 'but when i look at her i shall become ten years younger, and when she looks at me she will become ten years older, and thus we shall be even.'" pinchas laughed enthusiastically in his turn, but replied: "surely you will plead my cause, you whose motto is the hebrew saying--'the husband help the housewife, god help the bachelor.'" "but have you the wherewithal to support her?" "shall my writings not suffice? if there are none to protect literature in england, we will go abroad--to your birthplace, reb shemuel, the cradle of great scholars." the poet spoke yet more, but in the end his excited stridulous accents fell on reb shemuel's ears as a storm without on the ears of the slippered reader by the fireside. he had dropped into a delicious reverie--tasting in advance the sabbath peace. the work of the week was over. the faithful jew could enter on his rest--the narrow, miry streets faded before the brighter image of his brain. "_come, my beloved, to meet the bride, the face of the sabbath let us welcome._" to-night his sweetheart would wear her sabbath face, putting off the mask of the shrew, which hid not from him the angel countenance. to-night he could in very truth call his wife (as the rabbi in the talmud did) "not wife, but home." to-night she would be in very truth _simcha_--rejoicing. a cheerful warmth glowed at his heart, love for all the wonderful creation dissolved him in tenderness. as he approached the door, cheerful lights gleamed on him like a heavenly smile. he invited pinchas to enter, but the poet in view of his passion thought it prudent to let others plead for him and went off with his finger to his nose in final reminder. the reb kissed the _mezuzah_ on the outside of the door and his daughter, who met him, on the inside. everything was as he had pictured it--the two tall wax candles in quaint heavy silver candlesticks, the spotless table-cloth, the dish of fried fish made picturesque with sprigs of parsley, the sabbath loaves shaped like boys' tip-cats, with a curious plait of crust from point to point and thickly sprinkled with a drift of poppy-seed, and covered with a velvet cloth embroidered with hebrew words; the flask of wine and the silver goblet. the sight was familiar yet it always struck the simple old reb anew, with a sense of special blessing. "good _shabbos_, simcha," said reb shemuel. "good _shabbos_, shemuel." said simcha. the light of love was in her eyes, and in her hair her newest comb. her sharp features shone with peace and good-will and the consciousness of having duly lit the sabbath candles and thrown the morsel of dough into the fire. shemuel kissed her, then he laid his hands upon hannah's head and murmured: "may god make thee as sarah, rebecca, rachel, and leah," and upon levi's, murmuring: "may god make thee as ephraim and manasseh." even the callous levi felt the breath of sanctity in the air and had a vague restful sense of his sabbath angel hovering about and causing him to cast two shadows on the wall while his evil angel shivered impotent on the door-step. then reb shemuel repeated three times a series of sentences commencing: "_peace be unto you, ye ministering angels_," and thereupon the wonderful picture of an ideal woman from proverbs, looking affectionately at simcha the while. "a woman of worth, whoso findeth her, her price is far above rubies. the heart of her husband trusteth in her; good and not evil will she do him all the days of her life; she riseth, while it is yet night, giveth food to her household and a task to her maidens. she putteth her own hands to the spindle; she stretcheth out her hand to the poor--strength and honor are her clothing and she looketh forth smilingly to the morrow; she openeth her mouth with wisdom and the law of kindness is on her tongue--she looketh well to the ways of her household and eateth not the bread of idleness. deceitful is favor and vain is beauty, but the woman that feareth the lord, _she_ shall be praised." then, washing his hands with the due benediction, he filled the goblet with wine, and while every one reverently stood he "made kiddish," in a traditional joyous recitative "... blessed art thou, o lord, our god! king of the universe, creator of the fruit of the vine, who doth sanctify us with his commandments and hath delight in us.... thou hast chosen and sanctified us above all peoples and with love and favor hast made us to inherit thy holy sabbath...." and all the household, and the hungry pole, answered "amen," each sipping of the cup in due gradation, then eating a special morsel of bread cut by the father and dipped in salt; after which the good wife served the fish, and cups and saucers clattered and knives and forks rattled. and after a few mouthfuls, the pole knew himself a prince in israel and felt he must forthwith make choice of a maiden to grace his royal sabbath board. soup followed the fish; it was not served direct from the saucepan but transferred by way of a large tureen; since any creeping thing that might have got into the soup would have rendered the plateful in which it appeared not legally potable, whereas if it were detected in the large tureen, its polluting powers would be dissipated by being diffused over such a large mass of fluid. for like religious reasons, another feature of the etiquette of the modern fashionable table had been anticipated by many centuries--the eaters washed their hands in a little bowl of water after their meal. the pollack was thus kept by main religious force in touch with a liquid with which he had no external sympathy. when supper was over, grace was chanted and then the _zemiroth_ was sung--songs summing up in light and jingling metre the very essence of holy joyousness--neither riotous nor ascetic--the note of spiritualized common sense which has been the key-note of historical judaism. for to feel "the delight of sabbath" is a duty and to take three meals thereon a religions obligation--the sanctification of the sensuous by a creed to which everything is holy. the sabbath is the hub of the jew's universe; to protract it is a virtue, to love it a liberal education. it cancels all mourning--even for jerusalem. the candles may gutter out at their own greasy will--unsnuffed, untended--is not sabbath its own self-sufficient light? this is the sanctified rest-day; happy the man who observes it, thinks of it over the wine-cup, feeling no pang at his heart-strings for that his purse-strings are empty, joyous, and if he must borrow god will repay the good lender, meat, wine and fish in profusion-- see no delight is deficient. let but the table be spread well, angels of god answer "amen!" so when a soul is in dolor, cometh the sweet restful sabbath, singing and joy in its footsteps, rapidly floweth sambatyon, till that, of god's love the symbol, sabbath, the holy, the peaceful, husheth its turbulent waters. * * * * * bless him, o constant companions, rock from whose stores we have eaten, eaten have we and have left, too, just as the lord hath commanded father and shepherd and feeder. his is the bread we have eaten, his is the wine we have drunken, wherefore with lips let us praise him, lord of the land of our fathers, gratefully, ceaselessly chaunting "none like jehovah is holy." * * * * * light and rejoicing to israel, sabbath, the soother of sorrows, comfort of down-trodden israel, healing the hearts that were broken! banish despair! here is hope come, what! a soul crushed! lo a stranger bringeth the balsamous sabbath. build, o rebuild thou, thy temple, fill again zion, thy city, clad with delight will we go there, other and new songs to sing there, merciful one and all-holy, praised for ever and ever. during the meal the pollack began to speak with his host about the persecution in the land whence he had come, the bright spot in his picture being the fidelity of his brethren under trial, only a minority deserting and those already tainted with epicureanism--students wishful of university distinction and such like. orthodox jews are rather surprised when men of (secular) education remain in the fold. hannah took advantage of a pause in their conversation to say in german: "i am so glad, father, thou didst not bring that man home." "what man?" said reb shemuel. "the dirty monkey-faced little man who talks so much." the reb considered. "i know none such." "pinchas she means," said her mother. "the poet!" reb shemuel looked at her gravely. this did not sound promising. "why dost thou speak so harshly of thy fellow-creatures?" he said. "the man is a scholar and a poet, such as we have too few in israel." "we have too many _schnorrers_ in israel already," retorted hannah. "sh!" whispered reb shemuel reddening and indicating his guest with a slight movement of the eye. hannah bit her lip in self-humiliation and hastened to load the lucky pole's plate with an extra piece of fish. "he has written me a letter," she went on. "he has told me so," he answered. "he loves thee with a great love." "what nonsense, shemuel!" broke in simcha, setting down her coffee-cup with work-a-day violence. "the idea of a man who has not a penny to bless himself with marrying our hannah! they would be on the board of guardians in a month." "money is not everything. wisdom and learning outweigh much. and as the midrash says: 'as a scarlet ribbon becometh a black horse, so poverty becometh the daughter of jacob.' the world stands on the torah, not on gold; as it is written: 'better is the law of thy mouth to me than thousands of gold or silver.' he is greater than i, for he studies the law for nothing like the fathers of the mishna while i am paid a salary." "methinks thou art little inferior," said simcha, "for thou retainest little enough thereof. let pinchas get nothing for himself, 'tis his affair, but, if he wants my hannah, he must get something for her. were the fathers of the mishna also fathers of families?" "certainly; is it not a command--'be fruitful and multiply'?" "and how did their families live?" "many of our sages were artisans." "aha!" snorted simcha triumphantly. "and says not the talmud," put in the pole as if he were on the family council, "'flay a carcass in the streets rather than be under an obligation'?" this with supreme unconsciousness of any personal application. "yea, and said not rabban gamliel, the son of rabbi judah the prince, 'it is commendable to join the study of the law with worldly employment'? did not moses our teacher keep sheep? "truth," replied the host. "i agree with maimonides that man should first secure a living, then prepare a residence and after that seek a wife; and that they are fools who invert the order. but pinchas works also with his pen. he writes articles in the papers. but the great thing, hannah, is that he loves the law." "h'm!" said hannah. "let him marry the law, then." "he is in a hurry," said reb shemuel with a flash of irreverent facetiousness. "and he cannot become the bridegroom of the law till _simchath torah_." all laughed. the bridegroom of the law is the temporary title of the jew who enjoys the distinction of being "called up" to the public reading of the last fragment of the pentateuch, which is got through once a year. under the encouragement of the laughter, the rabbi added: "but he will know much more of his bride than the majority of the law's bridegrooms." hannah took advantage of her father's pleasure in the effect of his jokes to show him pinchas's epistle, which he deciphered laboriously. it commenced: hebrew hebe all-fair maid, next to heaven nightly laid ah, i love you half afraid. the pole, looking a different being from the wretch who had come empty, departed invoking peace on the household; simcha went into the kitchen to superintend the removal of the crockery thither; levi slipped out to pay his respects to esther ansell, for the evening was yet young, and father and daughter were left alone. reb shemuel was already poring over a pentateuch in his friday night duty of reading the portion twice in hebrew and once in chaldaic. hannah sat opposite him, studying the kindly furrowed face, the massive head set on rounded shoulders, the shaggy eyebrows, the long whitening beard moving with the mumble of the pious lips, the brown peering eyes held close to the sacred tome, the high forehead crowned with the black skullcap. she felt a moisture gathering under her eyelids as she looked at him. "father," she said at last, in a gentle voice. "did you call me, hannah?" he asked, looking up. "yes, dear. about this man, pinchas." "yes, hannah." "i am sorry i spoke harshly of him,'' "ah, that is right, my daughter. if he is poor and ill-clad we must only honor him the more. wisdom and learning must be respected if they appear in rags. abraham entertained god's messengers though they came as weary travellers." "i know, father, it is not because of his appearance that i do not like him. if he is really a scholar and a poet, i will try to admire him as you do." "now you speak like a true daughter of israel." "but about my marrying him--you are not really in earnest?" "_he_ is." said reb shemuel, evasively. "ah, i knew you were not," she said, catching the lurking twinkle in his eye. "you know i could never marry a man like that." "your mother could," said the reb. "dear old goose," she said, leaning across to pull his beard. "you are not a bit like that--you know a thousand times more, you know you do." the old rabbi held up his hands in comic deprecation. "yes, you do," she persisted. "only you let him talk so much; you let everybody talk and bamboozle you." reb shemuel drew the hand that fondled his beard in his own, feeling the fresh warm skin with a puzzled look. "the hands are the hands of hannah," he said, "but the voice is the voice of simcha." hannah laughed merrily. "all right, dear, i won't scold you any more. i'm so glad it didn't really enter your great stupid, clever old head that i was likely to care for pinchas." "my dear daughter, pinchas wished to take you to wife, and i felt pleased. it is a union with a son of the torah, who has also the pen of a ready writer. he asked me to tell you and i did." "but you would not like me to marry any one i did not like." "god forbid! my little hannah shall marry whomever she pleases." a wave of emotion passed over the girl's face. "you don't mean that, father," she said, shaking her head. "true as the torah! why should i not?" "suppose," she said slowly, "i wanted to marry a christian?" her heart beat painfully as she put the question. reb shemuel laughed heartily. "my hannah would have made a good talmudist. of course, i don't mean it in that sense." "yes, but if i was to marry a very _link_ jew, you'd think it almost as bad." "no, no!" said the reb, shaking his head. "that's a different thing altogether; a jew is a jew, and a christian a christian." "but you can't always distinguish between them," argued hannah. "there are jews who behave as if they were christians, except, of course, they don't believe in the crucified one." still the old reb shook his head. "the worst of jews cannot put off his judaism. his unborn soul undertook the yoke of the torah at sinai." "then you really wouldn't mind if i married a _link_ jew!" he looked at her, startled, a suspicion dawning in his eyes. "i should mind," he said slowly. "but if you loved him he would become a good jew." the simple conviction of his words moved her to tears, but she kept them back. "but if he wouldn't?" "i should pray. while there is life there is hope for the sinner in israel." she fell back on her old question. "and you would really not mind whom i married?" "follow your heart, my little one," said reb shemuel. "it is a good heart and it will not lead you wrong." hannah turned away to hide the tears that could no longer be stayed. her father resumed his reading of the law. but he had got through very few verses ere he felt a soft warm arm round his neck and a wet cheek laid close to his. "father, forgive me," whispered the lips. "i am so sorry. i thought, that--that i--that you--oh father, father! i feel as if i had never known you before to-night." "what is it, my daughter?" said reb shemuel, stumbling into yiddish in his anxiety. "what hast thou done?" "i have betrothed myself," she answered, unwittingly adopting his dialect. "i have betrothed myself without telling thee or mother." "to whom?" he asked anxiously. "to a jew," she hastened to assure him, "but he is neither a talmud-sage nor pious. he is newly returned from the cape." "ah, they are a _link_ lot," muttered the reb anxiously. "where didst thou first meet him?" "at the club," she answered. "at the purim ball--the night before sam levine came round here to be divorced from me." he wrinkled his great brow. "thy mother would have thee go," he said. "thou didst not deserve i should get thee the divorce. what is his name?" "david brandon. he is not like other jewish young men; i thought he was and did him wrong and mocked at him when first he spoke to me, so that afterwards i felt tender towards him. his conversation is agreeable, for he thinks for himself, and deeming thou wouldst not hear of such a match and that there was no danger, i met him at the club several times in the evening, and--and--thou knowest the rest." she turned away her face, blushing, contrite, happy, anxious. her love-story was as simple as her telling of it. david brandon was not the shadowy prince of her maiden dreams, nor was the passion exactly as she had imagined it; it was both stronger and stranger, and the sense of secrecy and impending opposition instilled into her love a poignant sweetness. the reb stroked her hair silently. "i would not have said 'yea' so quick, father," she went on, "but david had to go to germany to take a message to the aged parents of his cape chum, who died in the gold-fields. david had promised the dying man to go personally as soon as he returned to england--i think it was a request for forgiveness and blessing--but after meeting me he delayed going, and when i learned of it i reproached him, but he said he could not tear himself away, and he would not go till i had confessed i loved him. at last i said if he would go home the moment i said it and not bother about getting me a ring or anything, but go off to germany the first thing the next morning, i would admit i loved him a little bit. thus did it occur. he went off last wednesday. oh, isn't it cruel to think, father, that he should be going with love and joy in his heart to the parents of his dead friend!" her father's head was bent. she lifted it up by the chin and looked pleadingly into the big brown eyes. "thou art not angry with me, father?" "no, hannah. but thou shouldst have told me from the first." "i always meant to, father. but i feared to grieve thee." "wherefore? the man is a jew. and thou lovest him, dost thou not?" "as my life, father." he kissed her lips. "it is enough, my hannah. with thee to love him, he will become pious. when a man has a good jewish wife like my beloved daughter, who will keep a good jewish house, he cannot be long among the sinners. the light of a true jewish home will lead his footsteps back to god." hannah pressed her face to his in silence. she could not speak. she had not strength to undeceive him further, to tell him she had no care for trivial forms. besides, in the flush of gratitude and surprise at her father's tolerance, she felt stirrings of responsive tolerance to his religion. it was not the moment to analyze her feelings or to enunciate her state of mind regarding religion. she simply let herself sink in the sweet sense of restored confidence and love, her head resting against his. presently reb shemuel put his hands on her head and murmured again: "may god make thee as sarah, rebecca, rachel and leah." then he added: "go now, my daughter, and make glad the heart of thy mother." hannah suspected a shade of satire in the words, but was not sure. * * * * * the roaring sambatyon of life was at rest in the ghetto; on thousands of squalid homes the light of sinai shone. the sabbath angels whispered words of hope and comfort to the foot-sore hawker and the aching machinist, and refreshed their parched souls with celestial anodyne and made them kings of the hour, with leisure to dream of the golden chairs that awaited them in paradise. the ghetto welcomed the bride with proud song and humble feast, and sped her parting with optimistic symbolisms of fire and wine, of spice and light and shadow. all around their neighbors sought distraction in the blazing public-houses, and their tipsy bellowings resounded through the streets and mingled with the hebrew hymns. here and there the voice of a beaten woman rose on the air. but no son of the covenant was among the revellers or the wife-beaters; the jews remained a chosen race, a peculiar people, faulty enough, but redeemed at least from the grosser vices, a little human islet won from the waters of animalism by the genius of ancient engineers. for while the genius of the greek or the roman, the egyptian or the phoenician, survives but in word and stone, the hebrew word alone was made flesh. chapter xix. with the strikers. "ignorant donkey-heads!" cried pinchas next friday morning. "him they make a rabbi and give him the right of answering questions, and he know no more of judaism," the patriotic poet paused to take a bite out of his ham-sandwich, "than a cow of sunday. i lof his daughter and i tell him so and he tells me she lof another. but i haf held him up on the point of my pen to the contempt of posterity. i haf written an acrostic on him; it is terrible. her vill i shoot." "ah, they are a bad lot, these rabbis," said simon wolf, sipping his sherry. the conversation took place in english and the two men were seated in a small private room in a public-house, awaiting the advent of the strike committee. "dey are like de rest of de community. i vash my hands of dem," said the poet, waving his cigar in a fiery crescent. "i have long since washed my hands of them," said simon wolf, though the fact was not obvious. "we can trust neither our rabbis nor our philanthropists. the rabbis engrossed in the hypocritical endeavor to galvanize the corpse of judaism into a vitality that shall last at least their own lifetime, have neither time nor thought for the great labor question. our philanthropists do but scratch the surface. they give the working-man with their right hand what they have stolen from him with the left." simon wolf was the great jewish labor leader. most of his cronies were rampant atheists, disgusted with the commercialism of the believers. they were clever young artisans from russia and poland with a smattering of education, a feverish receptiveness for all the iconoclastic ideas that were in the london air, a hatred of capitalism and strong social sympathies. they wrote vigorous jargon for the _friend of labor_ and compassed the extreme proverbial limits of impiety by "eating pork on the day of atonement." this was done partly to vindicate their religious opinions whose correctness was demonstrated by the non-appearance of thunderbolts, partly to show that nothing one way or the other was to be expected from providence or its professors. "the only way for our poor brethren to be saved from their slavery," went on simon wolf, "is for them to combine against the sweaters and to let the west-end jews go and hang themselves." "ah, dat is mine policee," said pinchas, "dat was mine policee ven i founded de holy land league. help yourselves and pinchas vill help you. you muz combine, and den i vill be de moses to lead you out of de land of bondage. _nein_, i vill be more dan moses, for he had not de gift of eloquence." "and he was the meekest man that ever lived," added wolf. "yes, he was a fool-man," said pinchas imperturbably. "i agree with goethe--_nur lumpen sind bescheiden_, only clods are modaist. i am not modaist. is the almighty modaist? i know, i feel vat i am, vat i can do." "look here, pinchas, you're a very clever fellow, i know, and i'm very glad to have you with us--but remember i have organized this movement for years, planned it out as i sat toiling in belcovitch's machine-room, written on it till i've got the cramp, spoken on it till i was hoarse, given evidence before innumerable commissions. it is i who have stirred up the east-end jews and sent the echo of their cry into parliament, and i will not be interfered with. do you hear?" "yes, i hear. vy you not listen to me? you no understand vat i mean!" "oh, i understand you well enough. you want to oust me from my position." "me? me?" repeated the poet in an injured and astonished tone. "vy midout you de movement vould crumble like a mummy in de air; be not such a fool-man. to everybody i haf said--ah, dat simon wolf he is a great man, a vair great man; he is de only man among de english jews who can save de east-end; it is he that should be member for vitechapel--not that fool-man gideon. be not such a fool-man! haf anoder glaz sherry and some more ham-sandwiches." the poet had a simple child-like delight in occasionally assuming the host. "very well, so long as i have your assurance," said the mollified labor-leader, mumbling the conclusion of the sentence into his wine-glass. "but you know how it is! after i have worked the thing for years, i don't want to see a drone come in and take the credit." "yes, _sic vos non vobis_, as the talmud says. do you know i haf proved that virgil stole all his ideas from the talmud?" "first there was black and then there was cohen--now gideon, m.p., sees he can get some advertisement out of it in the press, he wants to preside at the meetings. members of parliament are a bad lot!" "yes--but dey shall not take de credit from you. i will write and expose dem--the world shall know what humbugs dey are, how de whole wealthy west-end stood idly by with her hands in de working-men's pockets while you vere building up de great organization. you know all de jargon-papers jump at vat i write, dey sign my name in vair large type--melchitsedek pinchas--under every ting, and i am so pleased with deir homage, i do not ask for payment, for dey are vair poor. by dis time i am famous everywhere, my name has been in de evening papers, and ven i write about you to de _times_, you vill become as famous as me. and den you vill write about me--ve vill put up for vitechapel at de elections, ve vill both become membairs of parliament, i and you, eh?" "i'm afraid there's not much chance of that," sighed simon wolf. "vy not? dere are two seats. vy should you not haf de oder?" "ain't you forgetting about election expenses, pinchas?" "_nein_!" repeated the poet emphatically. "i forgets noding. ve vill start a fund." "we can't start funds for ourselves." "be not a fool-man; of course not. you for me, i for you." "you won't get much," said simon, laughing ruefully at the idea. "tink not? praps not. but _you_ vill for me. ven i am in parliament, de load vill be easier for us both. besides i vill go to de continent soon to give avay de rest of de copies of my book. i expect to make dousands of pounds by it--for dey know how to honor scholars and poets abroad. dere dey haf not stupid-head stockbrokers like gideon, m.p., ministers like the reverend elkan benjamin who keep four mistresses, and rabbis like reb shemuel vid long white beards outside and emptiness vidin who sell deir daughters." "i don't want to look so far ahead," said simon wolf. "at present, what we have to do is to carry this strike through. once we get our demands from the masters a powerful blow will have been struck for the emancipation of ten thousand working-men. they will have more money and more leisure, a little less of hell and a little more of heaven. the coming passover would, indeed, be an appropriate festival even for the most heterodox among them if we could strike oft their chains in the interim. but it seems impossible to get unity among them--a large section appears to mistrust me, though i swear to you, pinchas, i am actuated by nothing but an unselfish desire for their good. may this morsel of sandwich choke me if i have ever been swayed by anything but sympathy with their wrongs. and yet you saw that malicious pamphlet that was circulated against me in yiddish--silly, illiterate scribble." "oh, no!" said pinchas. "it was vair beautiful; sharp as de sting of de hornet. but vat can you expect? christ suffered. all great benefactors suffer. am _i_ happy? but it is only your own foolishness that you must tank if dere is dissension in de camp. de _gomorah_ says ve muz be vize, _chocham_, ve muz haf tact. see vat you haf done. you haf frighten avay de ortodox fool-men. dey are oppressed, dey sweat--but dey tink deir god make dem sweat. why you tell dem, no? vat mattairs? free dem from hunger and tirst first, den freedom from deir fool-superstitions vill come of itself. jeshurun vax fat and kick? hey? you go de wrong vay." "do you mean i'm to pretend to be _froom_," said simon wolf. "and ven? vat mattairs? you are a fool, man. to get to de goal one muz go crooked vays. ah, you have no stadesmanship. you frighten dem. you lead processions vid bands and banners on _shabbos_ to de _shools_. many who vould be glad to be delivered by you tremble for de heavenly lightning. dey go not in de procession. many go when deir head is on fire--afterwards, dey take fright and beat deir breasts. vat vill happen? de ortodox are de majority; in time dere vill come a leader who vill be, or pretend to be, ortodox as veil as socialist. den vat become of you? you are left vid von, two, tree ateists--not enough to make _minyan_. no, ve muz be _chocham_, ve muz take de men as ve find dem. god has made two classes of men--vise-men and fool-men. dere! is one vise-man to a million fool-men--and he sits on deir head and dey support him. if dese fool-men vant to go to _shool_ and to fast on _yom kippur_, vat for you make a feast of pig and shock dem, so dey not believe in your socialism? ven you vant to eat pig, you do it here, like ve do now, in private. in public, ve spit out ven ve see pig. ah, you are a fool-man. i am a stadesman, a politician. i vill be de machiavelli of de movement." "ah, pinchas, you are a devil of a chap," said wolf, laughing. "and yet you say you are the poet of patriotism and palestine." "vy not? vy should we lif here in captivity? vy we shall not have our own state--and our own president, a man who combine deep politic vid knowledge of hebrew literature and de pen of a poet. no, let us fight to get back our country--ve vill not hang our harps on the villows of babylon and veep--ve vill take our swords vid ezra and judas maccabaeus, and--" "one thing at a time, pinchas," said simon wolf. "at present, we have to consider how to distribute these food-tickets. the committee-men are late; i wonder if there has been any fighting at the centres, where they have been addressing meetings." "ah, dat is anoder point," said pinchas. "vy you no let me address meetings--not de little ones in de street, but de great ones in de hall of de club? dere my vords vould rush like de moundain dorrents, sveeping avay de corruptions. but you let all dese fool-men talk. you know, simon, i and you are de only two persons in de east-end who speak ainglish properly." "i know. but these speeches must be in yiddish." "_gewiss_. but who speak her like me and you? you muz gif me a speech to-night." "i can't; really not," said simon. "the programme's arranged. you know they're all jealous of me already. i dare not leave one out." "ah, no; do not say dat!" said pinchas, laying his finger pleadingly on the side of his nose. "i must." "you tear my heart in two. i lof you like a brother--almost like a voman. just von!" there was an appealing smile in his eye. "i cannot. i shall have a hornet's nest about my ears." "von leedle von, simon wolf!" again his finger was on his nose. "it is impossible." "you haf not considair how my yiddish shall make kindle every heart, strike tears from every eye, as moses did from de rock." "i have. i know. but what am i to do?" "jus dis leedle favor; and i vill be gradeful to you all mine life." "you know i would if i could." pinchas's finger was laid more insistently on his nose. "just dis vonce. grant me dis, and i vill nevair ask anyding of you in all my life." "no, no. don't bother, pinchas. go away now," said wolf, getting annoyed. "i have lots to do." "i vill never gif you mine ideas again!" said the poet, flashing up, and he went out and banged the door. the labor-leader settled to his papers with a sigh of relief. the relief was transient. a moment afterwards the door was slightly opened, and pinchas's head was protruded through the aperture. the poet wore his most endearing smile, the finger was laid coaxingly against the nose. "just von leedle speech, simon. tink how i lof you." "oh, well, go away. i'll see," replied wolf, laughing amid all his annoyance. the poet rushed in and kissed the hem of wolf's coat. "oh, you be a great man!" he said. then he walked out, closing the door gently. a moment afterwards, a vision of the dusky head, with the carneying smile and the finger on the nose, reappeared. "you von't forget your promise," said the head. "no, no. go to the devil. i won't forget." pinchas walked home through streets thronged with excited strikers, discussing the situation with oriental exuberance of gesture, with any one who would listen. the demands of these poor slop-hands (who could only count upon six hours out of the twenty-four for themselves, and who, by the help of their wives and little ones in finishing, might earn a pound a week) were moderate enough--hours from eight to eight, with an hour for dinner and half an hour for tea, two shillings from the government contractors for making a policeman's great-coat instead of one and ninepence halfpenny, and so on and so on. their intentions were strictly peaceful. every face was stamped with the marks of intellect and ill-health--the hue of a muddy pallor relieved by the flash of eyes and teeth. their shoulders stooped, their chests were narrow, their arms flabby. they came in their hundreds to the hall at night. it was square-shaped with a stage and galleries, for a jargon-company sometimes thrilled the ghetto with tragedy and tickled it with farce. both species were playing to-night, and in jargon to boot. in real life you always get your drama mixed, and the sock of comedy galls the buskin of tragedy. it was an episode in the pitiful tussle of hunger and greed, yet its humors were grotesque enough. full as the hall was, it was not crowded, for it was friday night and a large contingent of strikers refused to desecrate the sabbath by attending the meeting. but these were the zealots--moses ansell among them, for he, too, had struck. having been out of work already he had nothing to lose by augmenting the numerical importance of the agitation. the moderately pious argued that there was no financial business to transact and attendance could hardly come under the denomination of work. it was rather analogous to attendance at a lecture--they would simply have to listen to speeches. besides it would be but a black sabbath at home with a barren larder, and they had already been to synagogue. thus degenerates ancient piety in the stress of modern social problems. some of the men had not even changed their everyday face for their sabbath countenance by washing it. some wore collars, and shiny threadbare garments of dignified origin, others were unaffectedly poverty-stricken with dingy shirt-cuffs peeping out of frayed sleeve edges and unhealthily colored scarfs folded complexly round their necks. a minority belonged to the free-thinking party, but the majority only availed themselves of wolf's services because they were indispensable. for the moment he was the only possible leader, and they were sufficiently jesuitic to use the devil himself for good ends. though wolf would not give up a friday-night meeting--especially valuable, as permitting of the attendance of tailors who had not yet struck--pinchas's politic advice had not failed to make an impression. like so many reformers who have started with blatant atheism, he was beginning to see the insignificance of irreligious dissent as compared with the solution of the social problem, and pinchas's seed had fallen on ready soil. as a labor-leader, pure and simple, he could count upon a far larger following than as a preacher of militant impiety. he resolved to keep his atheism in the background for the future and devote himself to the enfranchisement of the body before tampering with the soul. he was too proud ever to acknowledge his indebtedness to the poet's suggestion, but he felt grateful to him all the same. "my brothers," he said in yiddish, when his turn came to speak. "it pains me much to note how disunited we are. the capitalists, the belcovitches, would rejoice if they but knew all that is going on. have we not enemies enough that we must quarrel and split up into little factions among ourselves? (hear, hear.) how can we hope to succeed unless we are thoroughly organized? it has come to my ears that there are men who insinuate things even about me and before i go on further to-night i wish to put this question to you." he paused and there was a breathless silence. the orator threw his chest forwards and gazing fearlessly at the assembly cried in a stentorian voice: _"sind sie zufrieden mit ihrer chairman?"_ (are you satisfied with your chairman?) his audacity made an impression. the discontented cowered timidly in their places. "_yes_," rolled back from the assembly, proud of its english monosyllables. "_nein_," cried a solitary voice from the topmost gallery. instantly the assembly was on its legs, eyeing the dissentient angrily. "get down! go on the platform!" mingled with cries of "order" from the chairman, who in vain summoned him on to the stage. the dissentient waved a roll of paper violently and refused to modify his standpoint. he was evidently speaking, for his jaws were making movements, which in the din and uproar could not rise above grimaces. there was a battered high hat on the back of his head, and his hair was uncombed, and his face unwashed. at last silence was restored and the tirade became audible. "cursed sweaters--capitalists--stealing men's brains--leaving us to rot and starve in darkness and filth. curse them! curse them!" the speaker's voice rose to a hysterical scream, as he rambled on. some of the men knew him and soon there flew from lip to lip, "oh, it's only _meshuggene david_." mad davy was a gifted russian university student, who had been mixed up with nihilistic conspiracies and had fled to england where the struggle to find employ for his clerical talents had addled his brain. he had a gift for chess and mechanical invention, and in the early days had saved himself from starvation by the sale of some ingenious patents to a swaggering co-religionist who owned race-horses and a music-hall, but he sank into squaring the circle and inventing perpetual motion. he lived now on the casual crumbs of indigent neighbors, for the charitable organizations had marked him "dangerous." he was a man of infinite loquacity, with an intense jealousy of simon wolf or any such uninstructed person who assumed to lead the populace, but when the assembly accorded him his hearing he forgot the occasion of his rising in a burst of passionate invective against society. when the irrelevancy of his remarks became apparent, he was rudely howled down and his neighbors pulled him into his seat, where he gibbered and mowed inaudibly. wolf continued his address. "_sind sie zufrieden mit ihrer secretary_?" this time there was no dissent. the _"yes"_ came like thunder. "_sind sie zufrieden mit ihrer treasurer_?" _yeas_ and _nays_ mingled. the question of the retention, of the functionary was put to the vote. but there was much confusion, for the east-end jew is only slowly becoming a political animal. the ayes had it, but wolf was not yet satisfied with the satisfaction of the gathering. he repeated the entire batch of questions in a new formula so as to drive them home. "_hot aner etwas zu sagen gegen mir_?" which is yiddish for "has any one anything to say against me?" "_no_!" came in a vehement roar. "_hot aner etwas zu sagen gegen dem secretary_?" "_no_!" "_hot aner etwas zu sagen gegen dem treasurer_?" "_no!"_ having thus shown his grasp of logical exhaustiveness in a manner unduly exhausting to the more intelligent, wolf consented to resume his oration. he had scored a victory, and triumph lent him added eloquence. when he ceased he left his audience in a frenzy of resolution and loyalty. in the flush of conscious power and freshly added influence, he found a niche for pinchas's oratory. "brethren in exile," said the poet in his best yiddish. pinchas spoke german which is an outlandish form of yiddish and scarce understanded of the people, so that to be intelligible he had to divest himself of sundry inflections, and to throw gender to the winds and to say "wet" for "wird" and mix hybrid hebrew and ill-pronounced english with his vocabulary. there was some cheering as pinchas tossed his dishevelled locks and addressed the gathering, for everybody to whom he had ever spoken knew that he was a wise and learned man and a great singer in israel. "brethren in exile," said the poet. "the hour has come for laying the sweaters low. singly we are sand-grains, together we are the simoom. our great teacher, moses, was the first socialist. the legislation of the old testament--the land laws, the jubilee regulations, the tender care for the poor, the subordination of the rights of property to the interests of the working-men--all this is pure socialism!" the poet paused for the cheers which came in a mighty volume. few of those present knew what socialism was, but all knew the word as a shibboleth of salvation from sweaters. socialism meant shorter hours and higher wages and was obtainable by marching with banners and brass bands--what need to inquire further? "in short," pursued the poet, "socialism is judaism and judaism is socialism, and karl marx and lassalle, the founders of socialism, were jews. judaism does not bother with the next world. it says, 'eat, drink and be satisfied and thank the lord, thy god, who brought thee out of egypt from the land of bondage.' but we have nothing to eat, we have nothing to drink, we have nothing to be satisfied with, we are still in the land of bondage." (cheers.) "my brothers, how can we keep judaism in a land where there is no socialism? we must become better jews, we must bring on socialism, for the period of socialism on earth and of peace and plenty and brotherly love is what all our prophets and great teachers meant by messiah-times." a little murmur of dissent rose here and there, but pinchas went on. "when hillel the great summed up the law to the would-be proselyte while standing on one leg, how did he express it? 'do not unto others what you would not have others do unto you.' this is socialism in a nut-shell. do not keep your riches for yourself, spread them abroad. do not fatten on the labor of the poor, but share it. do not eat the food others have earned, but earn your own. yes, brothers, the only true jews in england are the socialists. phylacteries, praying-shawls--all nonsense. work for socialism--that pleases the almighty. the messiah will be a socialist." there were mingled sounds, men asking each other dubiously, "what says he?" they began to sniff brimstone. wolf, shifting uneasily on his chair, kicked the poet's leg in reminder of his own warning. but pinchas's head was touching the stars again. mundane considerations were left behind somewhere in the depths of space below his feet. "but how is the messiah to redeem his people?" he asked. "not now-a-days by the sword but by the tongue. he will plead the cause of judaism, the cause of socialism, in parliament. he will not come with mock miracle like bar cochba or zevi. at the general election, brothers, i will stand as the candidate for whitechapel. i, a poor man, one of yourselves, will take my stand in that mighty assembly and touch the hearts of the legislators. they shall bend before my oratory as the bulrushes of the nile when the wind passes. they will make me prime minister like lord beaconsfield, only he was no true lover of his people, he was not the messiah. to hell with the rich bankers and the stockbrokers--we want them not. we will free ourselves." the extraordinary vigor of the poet's language and gestures told. only half comprehending, the majority stamped and huzzahed. pinchas swelled visibly. his slim, lithe form, five and a quarter feet high, towered over the assembly. his complexion was as burnished copper, his eyes flashed flame. "yes, brethren," he resumed. "these anglo-jewish swine trample unheeding on the pearls of poetry and scholarship, they choose for ministers men with four mistresses, for chief rabbis hypocrites who cannot even write the holy tongue grammatically, for _dayanim_ men who sell their daughters to the rich, for members of parliament stockbrokers who cannot speak english, for philanthropists greengrocers who embezzle funds. let us have nothing to do with these swine--moses our teacher forbade it. (laughter.) i will be the member for whitechapel. see, my name melchitsedek pinchas already makes m.p.--it was foreordained. if every letter of the _torah_ has its special meaning, and none was put by chance, why should the finger of heaven not have written my name thus: m.p.--melchitsedek pinchas. ah, our brother wolf speaks truth--wisdom issues from his lips. put aside your petty quarrels and unite in working for my election to parliament. thus and thus only shall you be redeemed from bondage, made from beasts of burden into men, from slaves to citizens, from false jews to true jews. thus and thus only shall you eat, drink and be satisfied, and thank me for bringing you out of the land of bondage. thus and thus only shall judaism cover the world as the waters cover the sea." the fervid peroration overbalanced the audience, and from all sides except the platform applause warmed the poet's ears. he resumed his seat, and as he did so he automatically drew out a match and a cigar, and lit the one with the other. instantly the applause dwindled, died; there was a moment of astonished silence, then a roar of execration. the bulk of the audience, as pinchas, sober, had been shrewd enough to see, was still orthodox. this public desecration of the sabbath by smoking was intolerable. how should the god of israel aid the spread of socialism and the shorter hours movement and the rise of prices a penny on a coat, if such devil's incense were borne to his nostrils? their vague admiration of pinchas changed into definite distrust. "_epikouros, epikouros, meshumad_" resounded from all sides. the poet looked wonderingly about him, failing to grasp the situation. simon wolf saw his opportunity. with an angry jerk he knocked the glowing cigar from between the poet's teeth. there was a yell of delight and approbation. wolf jumped to his feet. "brothers," he roared, "you know i am not _froom_, but i will not have anybody else's feelings trampled upon." so saying, he ground the cigar under his heel. immediately an abortive blow from the poet's puny arm swished the air. pinchas was roused, the veins on his forehead swelled, his heart thumped rapidly in his bosom. wolf shook his knobby fist laughingly at the poet, who made no further effort to use any other weapon of offence but his tongue. "hypocrite!" he shrieked. "liar! machiavelli! child of the separation! a black year on thee! an evil spirit in thy bones and in the bones of thy father and mother. thy father was a proselyte and thy mother an abomination. the curses of deuteronomy light on thee. mayest thou become covered with boils like job! and you," he added, turning on the audience, "pack of men-of-the-earth! stupid animals! how much longer will you bend your neck to the yoke of superstition while your bellies are empty? who says i shall not smoke? was tobacco known to moses our teacher? if so he would have enjoyed it on the _shabbos_. he was a wise man like me. did the rabbis know of it? no, fortunately, else they were so stupid they would have forbidden it. you are all so ignorant that you think not of these things. can any one show me where it stands that we must not smoke on _shabbos_? is not _shabbos_ a day of rest, and how can we rest if we smoke not? i believe with the baal-shem that god is more pleased when i smoke my cigar than at the prayers of all the stupid rabbis. how dare you rob me of my cigar--is that keeping _shabbos_?" he turned back to wolf, and tried to push his foot from off the cigar. there was a brief struggle. a dozen men leaped on the platform and dragged the poet away from his convulsive clasp of the labor-leader's leg. a few opponents of wolf on the platform cried, "let the man alone, give him his cigar," and thrust themselves amongst the invaders. the hall was in tumult. from the gallery the voice of mad davy resounded again: "cursed sweaters--stealing men's brains--darkness and filth--curse them! blow them up i as we blew up alexander. curse them!" pinchas was carried, shrieking hysterically, and striving to bite the arms of his bearers, through the tumultuous crowd, amid a little ineffective opposition, and deposited outside the door. wolf made another speech, sealing the impression he had made. then the poor narrow-chested pious men went home through the cold air to recite the song of solomon in their stuffy back-rooms and garrets. "behold thou art fair, my love," they intoned in a strange chant. "behold thou art fair, thou hast doves' eyes. behold thou art fair, my beloved, yea pleasant; also our couch is green. the beams of our house are cedar and our rafters are fir. for lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone; the flowers appear upon the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land. thy plants are an orchard of pomegranates, with pleasant fruits, calamus, cinnamon with all trees of frankincense; myrrh and aloe with all the chief spices; a fountain of gardens; a well of living waters and streams from lebanon. awake, o north wind and come, thou south, blow upon my garden that the spices thereof may flow out." chapter xx. the hope extinct. the strike came to an end soon after. to the delight of melchitsedek pinchas, gideon, m.p., intervened at the eleventh hour, unceremoniously elbowing simon wolf out of his central position. a compromise was arranged and jubilance and tranquillity reigned for some months, till the corruptions of competitive human nature brought back the old state of things--for employers have quite a diplomatic reverence for treaties and the brotherly love of employees breaks down under the strain of supporting families. rather to his own surprise moses ansell found himself in work at least three days a week, the other three being spent in hanging round the workshop waiting for it. it is an uncertain trade, is the manufacture of slops, which was all moses was fitted for, but if you are not at hand you may miss the "work" when it does come. it never rains but it pours, and so more luck came to the garret of no. royal street. esther won five pounds at school. it was the henry goldsmith prize, a new annual prize for general knowledge, instituted by a lady named mrs. henry goldsmith who had just joined the committee, and the semi-divine person herself--a surpassingly beautiful radiant being, like a princess in a fairy tale--personally congratulated her upon her success. the money was not available for a year, but the neighbors hastened to congratulate the family on its rise to wealth. even levi jacob's visits became more frequent, though this could scarcely be ascribed to mercenary motives. the belcovitches recognized their improved status so far as to send to borrow some salt: for the colony of no. royal street carried on an extensive system of mutual accommodation, coals, potatoes, chunks of bread, saucepans, needles, wood-choppers, all passing daily to and fro. even garments and jewelry were lent on great occasions, and when that dear old soul mrs. simons went to a wedding she was decked out in contributions from a dozen wardrobes. the ansells themselves were too proud to borrow though they were not above lending. it was early morning and moses in his big phylacteries was droning his orisons. his mother had had an attack of spasms and so he was praying at home to be at hand in case of need. everybody was up, and moses was superintending the household even while he was gabbling psalms. he never minded breaking off his intercourse with heaven to discuss domestic affairs, for he was on free and easy terms with the powers that be, and there was scarce a prayer in the liturgy which he would not interrupt to reprimand solomon for lack of absorption in the same. the exception was the _amidah_ or eighteen blessings, so-called because there are twenty-two. this section must be said standing and inaudibly and when moses was engaged upon it, a message from an earthly monarch would have extorted no reply from him. there were other sacred silences which moses would not break save of dire necessity and then only by talking hebrew; but the _amidah_ was the silence of silences. this was why the utterly unprecedented arrival of a telegraph boy did not move him. not even esther's cry of alarm when she opened the telegram had any visible effect upon him, though in reality he whispered off his prayer at a record-beating rate and duly danced three times on his toes with spasmodic celerity at the finale. "father," said esther, the never before received species of letter trembling in her hand, "we must go at once to see benjy. he is very ill." "has he written to say so?" "no, this is a telegram. i have read of such. oh! perhaps he is dead. it is always so in books. they break the news by saying the dead are still alive." her tones died away in a sob. the children clustered round her--rachel and solomon fought for the telegram in their anxiety to read it. ikey and sarah stood grave and interested. the sick grandmother sat up in bed excited. "he never showed me his 'four corners,'" she moaned. "perhaps he did not wear the fringes at all." "father, dost thou hear?" said esther, for moses ansell was fingering the russet envelope with a dazed air. "we must go to the orphanage at once." "read it! what stands in the letter?" said moses ansell. she took the telegram from the hands of solomon. "it stands, 'come up at once. your son benjamin very ill.'" "tu! tu! tu!" clucked moses. "the poor child. but how can we go up? thou canst not walk there. it will take _me_ more than three hours." his praying-shawl slid from his shoulders in his agitation. "thou must not walk, either!" cried esther excitedly. "we must get to him at once! who knows if he will be alive when we come? we must go by train from london bridge the way benjy came that sunday. oh, my poor benjy!" "give me back the paper, esther," interrupted solomon, taking it from her limp hand. "the boys have never seen a telegram." "but we cannot spare the money," urged moses helplessly. "we have just enough money to get along with to-day. solomon, go on with thy prayers; thou seizest every excuse to interrupt them. rachel, go away from him. thou art also a disturbing satan to him. i do not wonder his teacher flogged him black and blue yesterday--he is a stubborn and rebellious son who should be stoned, according to deuteronomy." "we must do without dinner," said esther impulsively. sarah sat down on the floor and howled "woe is me! woe is me!" "i didden touch 'er," cried ikey in indignant bewilderment. "'tain't ikey!" sobbed sarah. "little tharah wants 'er dinner." "thou hearest?" said moses pitifully. "how can we spare the money?" "how much is it?" asked esther. "it will be a shilling each there and back," replied moses, who from his long periods of peregrination was a connoisseur in fares. "how can we afford it when i lose a morning's work into the bargain?" "no, what talkest thou?" said esther. "thou art looking a few months ahead--thou deemest perhaps, i am already twelve. it will be only sixpence for me." moses did not disclaim the implied compliment to his rigid honesty but answered: "where is my head? of course thou goest half-price. but even so where is the eighteenpence to come from?" "but it is not eighteenpence!" ejaculated esther with a new inspiration. necessity was sharpening her wits to extraordinary acuteness. "we need not take return tickets. we can walk back." "but we cannot be so long away from the mother--both of us," said moses. "she, too, is ill. and how will the children do without thee? i will go by myself." "no, i must see benjy!" esther cried. "be not so stiff-necked, esther! besides, it stands in the letter that i am to come--they do not ask thee. who knows that the great people will not be angry if i bring thee with me? i dare say benjamin will soon be better. he cannot have been ill long." "but, quick, then, father, quick!" cried esther, yielding to the complex difficulties of the position. "go at once." "immediately, esther. wait only till i have finished my prayers. i am nearly done." "no! no!" cried esther agonized. "thou prayest so much--god will let thee off a little bit just for once. thou must go at once and ride both ways, else how shall we know what has happened? i will pawn my new prize and that will give thee money enough." "good!" said moses. "while thou art pledging the book i shall have time to finish _davening_." he hitched up his _talith_ and commenced to gabble off, "happy are they who dwell in thy house; ever shall they praise thee, selah," and was already saying, "and a redeemer shall come unto zion," by the time esther rushed out through the door with the pledge. it was a gaudily bound volume called "treasures of science," and esther knew it almost by heart, having read it twice from gilt cover to gilt cover. all the same, she would miss it sorely. the pawnbroker lived only round the corner, for like the publican he springs up wherever the conditions are favorable. he was a christian; by a curious anomaly the ghetto does not supply its own pawnbrokers, but sends them out to the provinces or the west end. perhaps the business instinct dreads the solicitation of the racial. esther's pawnbroker was a rubicund portly man. he knew the fortunes of a hundred families by the things left with him or taken back. it was on his stuffy shelves that poor benjamin's coat had lain compressed and packed away when it might have had a beautiful airing in the grounds of the crystal palace. it was from his stuffy shelves that esther's mother had redeemed it--a day after the fair--soon to be herself compressed and packed away in a pauper's coffin, awaiting in silence whatsoever redemption might be. the best coat itself had long since been sold to a ragman, for solomon, upon whose back it devolved, when benjamin was so happily translated, could never be got to keep a best coat longer than a year, and when a best coat is degraded to every-day wear its attrition is much more than six times as rapid. "good mornen, my little dear," said the rubicund man. "you're early this mornen." the apprentice had, indeed, only just taken down the shutters. "what can i do for you to-day? you look pale, my dear; what's the matter?" "i have a bran-new seven and sixpenny book," she answered hurriedly, passing it to him. he turned instinctively to the fly-leaf. "bran-new book!" he said contemptuously. "'esther ansell--for improvement!' when a book's spiled like that, what can you expect for it?" "why, it's the inscription that makes it valuable," said esther tearfully. "maybe," said the rubicund man gruffly. "but d'yer suppose i should just find a buyer named esther ansell?" do you suppose everybody in the world's named esther ansell or is capable of improvement?" "no," breathed esther dolefully. "but i shall take it out myself soon." "in this world," said the rubicund man, shaking his head sceptically, "there ain't never no knowing. well, how much d'yer want?" "i only want a shilling," said esther, "and threepence," she added as a happy thought. "all right," said the rubicund man softened. "i won't 'aggle this mornen. you look quite knocked up. here you are!" and esther darted out of the shop with the money clasped tightly in her palm. moses had folded his phylacteries with pious primness and put them away in a little bag, and he was hastily swallowing a cup of coffee. "here is the shilling," she cried. "and twopence extra for the 'bus to london bridge. quick!" she put the ticket away carefully among its companions in a discolored leather purse her father had once picked up in the street, and hurried him off. when his steps ceased on the stairs, she yearned to run after him and go with him, but ikey was clamoring for breakfast and the children had to run off to school. she remained at home herself, for the grandmother groaned heavily. when the other children had gone off she tidied up the vacant bed and smoothed the old woman's pillows. suddenly benjamin's reluctance to have his father exhibited before his new companions recurred to her; she hoped moses would not be needlessly obtrusive and felt that if she had gone with him she might have supplied tact in this direction. she reproached herself for not having made him a bit more presentable. she should have spared another halfpenny for a new collar, and seen that he was washed; but in the rush and alarm all thoughts of propriety had been submerged. then her thoughts went off at a tangent and she saw her class-room, where new things were being taught, and new marks gained. it galled her to think she was missing both. she felt so lonely in the company of her grandmother, she could have gone downstairs and cried on dutch debby's musty lap. then she strove to picture the room where benjy was lying, but her imagination lacked the data. she would not let herself think the brilliant benjamin was dead, that he would be sewn up in a shroud just like his poor mother, who had no literary talent whatever, but she wondered whether he was groaning like the grandmother. and so, half distracted, pricking up her ears at the slightest creak on the stairs, esther waited for news of her benjy. the hours dragged on and on, and the children coming home at one found dinner ready but esther still waiting. a dusty sunbeam streamed in through the garret window as though to give her hope. benjamin had been beguiled from his books into an unaccustomed game of ball in the cold march air. he had taken off his jacket and had got very hot with his unwonted exertions. a reactionary chill followed. benjamin had a slight cold, which being ignored, developed rapidly into a heavy one, still without inducing the energetic lad to ask to be put upon the sick list. was not the publishing day of _our own_ at hand? the cold became graver with the same rapidity, and almost as soon as the boy had made complaint he was in a high fever, and the official doctor declared that pneumonia had set in. in the night benjamin was delirious, and the nurse summoned the doctor, and next morning his condition was so critical that his father was telegraphed for. there was little to be done by science--all depended on the patient's constitution. alas! the four years of plenty and country breezes had not counteracted the eight and three-quarter years of privation and foul air, especially in a lad more intent on emulating dickens and thackeray than on profiting by the advantages of his situation. when moses arrived he found his boy tossing restlessly in a little bed, in a private little room away from the great dormitories. "the matron"--a sweet-faced young lady--was bending tenderly over him, and a nurse sat at the bedside. the doctor stood--waiting--at the foot of the bed. moses took his boy's hand. the matron silently stepped aside. benjamin stared at him with wide, unrecognizing eyes. "_nu_, how goes it, benjamin?" cried moses in yiddish, with mock heartiness. "thank you, old four-eyes. it's very good of you to come. i always said there mustn't be any hits at you in the paper. i always told the fellows you were a very decent chap." "what says he?" asked moses, turning to the company. "i cannot understand english." they could not understand his own question, but the matron guessed it. she tapped her forehead and shook her head for reply. benjamin closed his eyes and there was silence. presently he opened them and looked straight at his father. a deeper crimson mantled on the flushed cheek as benjamin beheld the dingy stooping being to whom he owed birth. moses wore a dirty red scarf below his untrimmed beard, his clothes were greasy, his face had not yet been washed, and--for a climax--he had not removed his hat, which other considerations than those of etiquette should have impelled him to keep out of sight. "i thought you were old four-eyes," the boy murmured in confusion--"wasn't he here just now?" "go and fetch mr. coleman," said the matron, to the nurse, half-smiling through tears at her own knowledge of the teacher's nickname and wondering what endearing term she was herself known by. "cheer up, benjamin," said his father, seeing his boy had become sensible of his presence. "thou wilt be all right soon. thou hast been much worse than this." "what does he say?" asked benjamin, turning his eyes towards the matron. "he says he is sorry to see you so bad," said the matron, at a venture. "but i shall be up soon, won't i? i can't have _our own_ delayed," whispered benjamin. "don't worry about _our own_, my poor boy," murmured the matron, pressing his forehead. moses respectfully made way for her. "what says he?" he asked. the matron repeated the words, but moses could not understand the english. old four-eyes arrived--a mild spectacled young man. he looked at the doctor, and the doctor's eye told him all. "ah, mr. coleman," said benjamin, with joyous huskiness, "you'll see that _our own_ comes out this week as usual. tell jack simmonds he must not forget to rule black lines around the page containing bruno's epitaph. bony-nose--i--i mean mr. bernstein, wrote it for us in dog-latin. isn't it a lark? thick, black lines, tell him. he was a good dog and only bit one boy in his life." "all right. i'll see to it," old four-eyes assured him with answering huskiness. "what says he?" helplessly inquired moses, addressing himself to the newcomer. "isn't it a sad case, mr. coleman?" said the matron, in a low tone. "they can't understand each other." "you ought to keep an interpreter on the premises," said the doctor, blowing his nose. coleman struggled with himself. he knew the jargon to perfection, for his parents spoke it still, but he had always posed as being ignorant of it. "tell my father to go home, and not to bother; i'm all right--only a little weak," whispered benjamin. coleman was deeply perturbed. he was wondering whether he should plead guilty to a little knowledge, when a change of expression came over the wan face on the pillow. the doctor came and felt the boy's pulse. "no, i don't want to hear that _maaseh_," cried benjamin. "tell me about the sambatyon, father, which refuses to flow on _shabbos_." he spoke yiddish, grown a child again. moses's face lit up with joy. his eldest born had returned to intelligibility. there was hope still then. a sudden burst of sunshine flooded the room. in london the sun would not break through the clouds for some hours. moses leaned over the pillow, his face working with blended emotions. me let a hot tear fall on his boy's upturned face. "hush, hush, my little benjamin, don't cry," said benjamin, and began to sing in his mothers jargon: "sleep, little father, sleep, thy father shall be a rav, thy mother shall bring little apples, blessings on thy little head," moses saw his dead gittel lulling his boy to sleep. blinded by his tears, he did not see that they were falling thick upon the little white face. "nay, dry thy tears, i tell thee, my little benjamin," said benjamin, in tones more tender and soothing, and launched into the strange wailing melody: "alas, woe is me! how wretched to be driven away and banished, yet so young, from thee." "and joseph's mother called to him from the grave: be comforted, my son, a great future shall be thine." "the end is near," old four-eyes whispered to the father in jargon. moses trembled from head to foot. "my poor lamb! my poor benjamin," he wailed. "i thought thou wouldst say _kaddish_ after me, not i for thee." then he began to recite quietly the hebrew prayers. the hat he should have removed was appropriate enough now. benjamin sat up excitedly in bed: "there's mother, esther!" he cried in english. "coming back with my coat. but what's the use of it now?" his head fell back again. presently a look of yearning came over the face so full of boyish beauty. "esther," he said. "wouldn't you like to be in the green country to-day? look how the sun shines." it shone, indeed, with deceptive warmth, bathing in gold the green country that stretched beyond, and dazzling the eyes of the dying boy. the birds twittered outside the window. "esther!" he said, wistfully, "do you think there'll be another funeral soon?". the matron burst into tears and turned away. "benjamin," cried the father, frantically, thinking the end had come, "say the _shemang_." the boy stared at him, a clearer look in his eyes. "say the _shemang_!" said moses peremptorily. the word _shemang_, the old authoritative tone, penetrated the consciousness of the dying boy. "yes, father, i was just going to," he grumbled, submissively. they repeated the last declaration of the dying israelite together. it was in hebrew. "hear, o israel, the lord our god, the lord is one." both understood that. benjamin lingered on a few more minutes, and died in a painless torpor. "he is dead," said the doctor. "blessed be the true judge," said moses. he rent his coat, and closed the staring eyes. then he went to the toilet table and turned the looking-glass to the wall, and opened the window and emptied the jug of water upon the green sunlit grass. chapter xxi. the jargon players. "no, don't stop me, pinchas," said gabriel hamburg. "i'm packing up, and i shall spend my passover in stockholm. the chief rabbi there has discovered a manuscript which i am anxious to see, and as i have saved up a little money i shall speed thither." "ah, he pays well, that boy-fool, raphael leon," said pinchas, emitting a lazy ring of smoke. "what do you mean?" cried gabriel, flushing angrily. "do you mean, perhaps, that _you_ have been getting money out of him?" "precisely. that is what i _do_ mean," said the poet naively. "what else?" "well, don't let me hear you call him a fool. he _is_ one to send you money, but then it is for others to call him so. that boy will be a great man in israel. the son of rich english jews--a harrow-boy, yet he already writes hebrew almost grammatically." pinchas was aware of this fact: had he not written to the lad (in response to a crude hebrew eulogium and a crisp bank of england note): "i and thou are the only two people in england who write the holy tongue grammatically." he replied now: "it is true; soon he will vie with me and you." the old scholar took snuff impatiently. the humors of pinchas were beginning to pall upon him. "good-bye," he said again. "no, wait, yet a little," said pinchas, buttonholing him resolutely. "i want to show you my acrostic on simon wolf; ah! i will shoot him, the miserable labor-leader, the wretch who embezzles the money of the socialist fools who trust him. aha! it will sting like juvenal, that acrostic." "i haven't time," said the gentle savant, beginning to lose his temper. "well, have i time? i have to compose a three-act comedy by to-morrow at noon. i expect i shall have to sit up all night to get it done in time." then, anxious to complete the conciliation of the old snuff-and-pepper-box, as he mentally christened him for his next acrostic, he added: "if there is anything in this manuscript that you cannot decipher or understand, a letter to me, care of reb shemuel, will always find me. somehow i have a special genius for filling up _lacunae_ in manuscripts. you remember the famous discovery that i made by rewriting the six lines torn out of the first page of that midrash i discovered in cyprus." "yes, those six lines proved it thoroughly," sneered the savant. "aha! you see!" said the poet, a gratified smile pervading his dusky features. "but i must tell you of this comedy--it will be a satirical picture (in the style of molière, only sharper) of anglo-jewish society. the rev. elkan benjamin, with his four mistresses, they will all be there, and gideon, the man-of-the-earth, m.p.,--ah, it will be terrible. if i could only get them to see it performed, they should have free passes." "no, shoot them first; it would be more merciful. but where is this comedy to be played?" asked hamburg curiously. "at the jargon theatre, the great theatre in prince's street, the only real national theatre in england. the english stage--drury lane--pooh! it is not in harmony with the people; it does not express them." hamburg could not help smiling. he knew the wretched little hall, since tragically famous for a massacre of innocents, victims to the fatal cry of fire--more deadly than fiercest flame. "but how will your audience understand it?" he asked. "aha!" said the poet, laying his finger on his nose and grinning. "they will understand. they know the corruptions of our society. all this conspiracy to crush me, to hound me out of england so that ignoramuses may prosper and hypocrites wax fat--do you think it is not the talk of the ghetto? what! shall it be the talk of berlin, of constantinople, of mogadore, of jerusalem, of paris, and here it shall not be known? besides, the leading actress will speak a prologue. ah! she is beautiful, beautiful as lilith, as the queen of sheba, as cleopatra! and how she acts! she and rachel--both jewesses! think of it! ah, we are a great people. if i could tell you the secrets of her eyes as she looks at me--but no, you are dry as dust, a creature of prose! and there will be an orchestra, too, for pesach weingott has promised to play the overture on his fiddle. how he stirs the soul! it is like david playing before saul." "yes, but it won't be javelins the people will throw," murmured hamburg, adding aloud: "i suppose you have written the music of this overture." "no, i cannot write music," said pinchas. "good heavens! you don't say so?" gasped gabriel hamburg. "let that be my last recollection of you! no! don't say another word! don't spoil it! good-bye." and he tore himself away, leaving the poet bewildered. "mad! mad!" said pinchas, tapping his brow significantly; "mad, the old snuff-and-pepper-box." he smiled at the recollection of his latest phrase. "these scholars stagnate so. they see not enough of the women. ha! i will go and see my actress." he threw out his chest, puffed out a volume of smoke, and took his way to petticoat lane. the compatriot of rachel was wrapping up a scrag of mutton. she was a butcher's daughter and did not even wield the chopper, as mrs. siddons is reputed to have flourished the domestic table-knife. she was a simple, amiable girl, who had stepped into the position of lead in the stock jargon company as a way of eking out her pocket-money, and because there was no one else who wanted the post. she was rather plain except when be-rouged and be-pencilled. the company included several tailors and tailoresses of talent, and the low comedian was a dutchman who sold herrings. they all had the gift of improvisation more developed than memory, and consequently availed themselves of the faculty that worked easier. the repertory was written by goodness knew whom, and was very extensive. it embraced all the species enumerated by polonius, including comic opera, which was not known to the danish saw-monger. there was nothing the company would not have undertaken to play or have come out of with a fair measure of success. some of the plays were on biblical subjects, but only a minority. there were also plays in rhyme, though yiddish knows not blank verse. melchitsedek accosted his interpretess and made sheep's-eyes at her. but an actress who serves in a butcher's shop is doubly accustomed to such, and being busy the girl paid no attention to the poet, though the poet was paying marked attention to her. "kiss me, thou beauteous one, the gems of whose crown are foot-lights," said the poet, when the custom ebbed for a moment. "if thou comest near me," said the actress whirling the chopper, "i'll chop thy ugly little head off." "unless thou lendest me thy lips thou shalt not play in my comedy," said pinchas angrily. "_my_ trouble!" said the leading lady, shrugging her shoulders. pinchas made several reappearances outside the open shop, with his insinuative finger on his nose and his insinuative smile on his face, but in the end went away with a flea in his ear and hunted up the actor-manager, the only person who made any money, to speak of, out of the performances. that gentleman had not yet consented to produce the play that pinchas had ready in manuscript and which had been coveted by all the great theatres in the world, but which he, pinchas, had reserved for the use of the only actor in europe. the result of this interview was that the actor-manager yielded to pinchas's solicitations, backed by frequent applications of poetic finger to poetic nose. "but," said the actor-manager, with a sudden recollection, "how about the besom?" "the besom!" repeated pinchas, nonplussed for once. "yes, thou sayest thou hast seen all the plays i have produced. hast thou not noticed that i have a besom in all my plays?" "aha! yes, i remember," said pinchas. "an old garden-besom it is," said the actor-manager. "and it is the cause of all my luck." he took up a house-broom that stood in the corner. "in comedy i sweep the floor with it--so--and the people grin; in comic-opera i beat time with it as i sing--so--and the people laugh; in farce i beat my mother-in-law with it--so--and the people roar; in tragedy i lean upon it--so--and the people thrill; in melodrama i sweep away the snow with it--so--and the people burst into tears. usually i have my plays written beforehand and the authors are aware of the besom. dost thou think," he concluded doubtfully, "that thou hast sufficient ingenuity to work in the besom now that the play is written?" pinchas put his finger to his nose and smiled reassuringly. "it shall be all besom," he said. "and when wilt thou read it to me?" "will to-morrow this time suit thee?" "as honey a bear." "good, then!" said pinchas; "i shall not fail." the door closed upon him. in another moment it reopened a bit and he thrust his grinning face through the aperture. "ten per cent. of the receipts!" he said with his cajoling digito-nasal gesture. "certainly," rejoined the actor-manager briskly. "after paying the expenses--ten per cent. of the receipts." "thou wilt not forget?" "i shall not forget." pinchas strode forth into the street and lit a new cigar in his exultation. how lucky the play was not yet written! now he would be able to make it all turn round the axis of the besom. "it shall be all besom!" his own phrase rang in his ears like voluptuous marriage bells. yes, it should, indeed, be all besom. with that besom he would sweep all his enemies--all the foul conspirators--in one clean sweep, down, down to sheol. he would sweep them along the floor with it--so--and grin; he would beat time to their yells of agony--so--and laugh; he would beat them over the heads--so--and roar; he would lean upon it in statuesque greatness--so--and thrill; he would sweep away their remains with it--so--and weep for joy of countermining and quelling the long persecution. all night he wrote the play at railway speed, like a night express--puffing out volumes of smoke as he panted along. "i dip my pen in their blood," he said from time to time, and threw back his head and laughed aloud in the silence of the small hours. pinchas had a good deal to do to explain the next day to the actor-manager where the fun came in. "thou dost not grasp all the allusions, the back-handed slaps, the hidden poniards; perhaps not," the author acknowledged. "but the great heart of the people--it will understand." the actor-manager was unconvinced, but he admitted there was a good deal of besom, and in consideration of the poet bating his terms to five per cent. of the receipts he agreed to give it a chance. the piece was billed widely in several streets under the title of "the hornet of judah," and the name of melchitsedek pinchas appeared in letters of the size stipulated by the finger on the nose. but the leading actress threw up her part at the last moment, disgusted by the poet's amorous advances; pinchas volunteered to play the part himself and, although his offer was rejected, he attired himself in skirts and streaked his complexion with red and white to replace the promoted second actress, and shaved off his beard. but in spite of this heroic sacrifice, the gods were unpropitious. they chaffed the poet in polished yiddish throughout the first two acts. there was only a sprinkling of audience (most of it paper) in the dimly-lit hall, for the fame of the great writer had not spread from berlin, mogadore, constantinople and the rest of the universe. no one could make head or tail of the piece with its incessant play of occult satire against clergymen with four mistresses, rabbis who sold their daughters, stockbrokers ignorant of hebrew and destitute of english, greengrocers blowing messianic and their own trumpets, labor-leaders embezzling funds, and the like. in vain the actor-manager swept the floor with the besom, beat time with the besom, beat his mother-in-law with the besom, leaned on the besom, swept bits of white paper with the besom. the hall, empty of its usual crowd, was fuller of derisive laughter. at last the spectators tired of laughter and the rafters re-echoed with hoots. at the end of the second act, melchitsedek pinchas addressed the audience from the stage, in his ample petticoats, his brow streaming with paint and perspiration. he spoke of the great english conspiracy and expressed his grief and astonishment at finding it had infected the entire ghetto. there was no third act. it was the poet's first--and last--appearance on any stage. chapter xxii. "for auld lang syne, my dear." the learned say that passover was a spring festival even before it was associated with the redemption from egypt, but there is not much nature to worship in the ghetto and the historical elements of the festival swamp all the others. passover still remains the most picturesque of the "three festivals" with its entire transmogrification of things culinary, its thorough taboo of leaven. the audacious archaeologist of the thirtieth century may trace back the origin of the festival to the spring cleaning, the annual revel of the english housewife, for it is now that the ghetto whitewashes itself and scrubs itself and paints itself and pranks itself and purifies its pans in a baptism of fire. now, too, the publican gets unto himself a white sheet and suspends it at his door and proclaims that he sells _kosher rum_ by permission of the chief rabbi. now the confectioner exchanges his "stuffed monkeys," and his bolas and his jam-puffs, and his cheese-cakes for unleavened "palavas," and worsted balls and almond cakes. time was when the passover dietary was restricted to fruit and meat and vegetables, but year by year the circle is expanding, and it should not be beyond the reach of ingenuity to make bread itself passoverian. it is now that the pious shopkeeper whose store is tainted with leaven sells his business to a friendly christian, buying it back at the conclusion of the festival. now the shalotten _shammos_ is busy from morning to night filling up charity-forms, artistically multiplying the poor man's children and dividing his rooms. now is holocaust made of a people's bread-crumbs, and now is the national salutation changed to "how do the _motsos_ agree with you?" half of the race growing facetious, and the other half finical over the spotted passover cakes. it was on the evening preceding the opening of passover that esther ansell set forth to purchase a shilling's worth of fish in petticoat lane, involuntarily storing up in her mind vivid impressions of the bustling scene. it is one of the compensations of poverty that it allows no time for mourning. daily duty is the poor man's nepenthe. esther and her father were the only two members of the family upon whom the death of benjamin made a deep impression. he had been so long away from home that he was the merest shadow to the rest. but moses bore the loss with resignation, his emotions discharging themselves in the daily _kaddish_. blent with his personal grief was a sorrow for the commentaries lost to hebrew literature by his boy's premature transference to paradise. esther's grief was more bitter and defiant. all the children were delicate, but it was the first time death had taken one. the meaningless tragedy of benjamin's end shook the child's soul to its depths. poor lad! how horrible to be lying cold and ghastly beneath the winter snow! what had been the use of all his long prepay rations to write great novels? the name of ansell would now become ingloriously extinct. she wondered whether _our own_ would collapse and secretly felt it must. and then what of the hopes of worldly wealth she had built on benjamin's genius? alas! the emancipation of the ansells from the yoke of poverty was clearly postponed. to her and her alone must the family now look for deliverance. well, she would take up the mantle of the dead boy, and fill it as best she might. she clenched her little hands in iron determination. moses ansell knew nothing either of her doubts or her ambitions. work was still plentiful three days a week, and he was unconscious he was not supporting his family in comparative affluence. but even with esther the incessant grind of school-life and quasi-motherhood speedily rubbed away the sharper edges of sorrow, though the custom prohibiting obvious pleasures during the year of mourning went in no danger of transgression, for poor little esther gadded neither to children's balls nor to theatres. her thoughts were full of the prospects of piscine bargains, as she pushed her way through a crowd so closely wedged, and lit up by such a flare of gas from the shops and such streamers of flame from the barrows that the cold wind of early april lost its sting. two opposing currents of heavy-laden pedestrians were endeavoring in their progress to occupy the same strip of pavement at the same moment, and the laws of space kept them blocked till they yielded to its remorseless conditions. rich and poor elbowed one another, ladies in satins and furs were jammed against wretched looking foreign women with their heads swathed in dirty handkerchiefs; rough, red-faced english betting men struggled good-humoredly with their greasy kindred from over the north sea; and a sprinkling of christian yokels surveyed the jewish hucksters and chapmen with amused superiority. for this was the night of nights, when the purchases were made for the festival, and great ladies of the west, leaving behind their daughters who played the piano and had a subscription at mudie's, came down again to the beloved lane to throw off the veneer of refinement, and plunge gloveless hands in barrels where pickled cucumbers weltered in their own "_russell_," and to pick fat juicy olives from the rich-heaped tubs. ah, me! what tragic comedy lay behind the transient happiness of these sensuous faces, laughing and munching with the shamelessness of school-girls! for to-night they need not hanker in silence after the flesh-pots of egypt. to-night they could laugh and talk over _olov hasholom_ times--"peace be upon him" times--with their old cronies, and loosen the stays of social ambition, even while they dazzled the ghetto with the splendors of their get-up and the halo of the west end whence they came. it was a scene without parallel in the history of the world--this phantasmagoria of grubs and butterflies, met together for auld lang syne in their beloved hatching-place. such violent contrasts of wealth and poverty as might be looked for in romantic gold-fields, or in unsettled countries were evolved quite naturally amid a colorless civilization by a people with an incurable talent for the picturesque. "hullo! can that be you, betsy?" some grizzled shabby old man would observe in innocent delight to mrs. arthur montmorenci; "why so it is! i never would have believed my eyes! lord, what a fine woman you've grown! and so you're little betsy who used to bring her father's coffee in a brown jug when he and i stood side by side in the lane! he used to sell slippers next to my cutlery stall for eleven years--dear, dear, how time flies to be sure." then betsy montmorenci's creamy face would grow scarlet under the gas-jets, and she would glower and draw her sables around her, and look round involuntarily, to see if any of her kensington friends were within earshot. another betsy montmorenci would feel bohemian for this occasion only, and would receive old acquaintances' greeting effusively, and pass the old phrases and by-words with a strange sense of stolen sweets; while yet a third betsy montmorenci, a finer spirit this, and worthier of the name, would cry to a betsy jacobs: "is that you, betsy, how _are_ you? how _are_ you? i'm so glad to see you. won't you come and treat me to a cup of chocolate at bonn's, just to show you haven't forgot _olov hasholom_ times?" and then, having thus thrown the responsibility of stand-offishness on the poorer betsy, the montmorenci would launch into recollections of those good old "peace be upon him" times till the grub forgot the splendors of the caterpillar in a joyous resurrection of ancient scandals. but few of the montmorencis, whatever their species, left the ghetto without pressing bits of gold into half-reluctant palms in shabby back-rooms where old friends or poor relatives mouldered. overhead, the stars burned silently, but no one looked up at them. underfoot, lay the thick, black veil of mud, which the lane never lifted, but none looked down on it. it was impossible to think of aught but humanity in the bustle and confusion, in the cram and crush, in the wedge and the jam, in the squeezing and shouting, in the hubbub and medley. such a jolly, rampant, screaming, fighting, maddening, jostling, polyglot, quarrelling, laughing broth of a vanity fair! mendicants, vendors, buyers, gossips, showmen, all swelled the roar. "here's your cakes! all _yontovdik_ (for the festival)! _yontovdik_--" "braces, best braces, all--" "_yontovdik_! only one shilling--" "it's the rav's orders, mum; all legs of mutton must be porged or my license--" "cowcumbers! cowcumbers!" "now's your chance--" "the best trousers, gentlemen. corst me as sure as i stand--" "on your own head, you old--" "_arbah kanfus_ (four fringes)! _arbah_--" "my old man's been under an operation--" "hokey pokey! _yontovdik_! hokey--" "get out of the way, can't you--" "by your life and mine, betsy--" "gord blesh you, mishter, a toisand year shall ye live." "eat the best _motsos_. only fourpence--" "the bones must go with, marm. i've cut it as lean as possible." "_charoises_ (a sweet mixture). _charoises! moroire_ (bitter herb)! _chraine_ (horseradish)! _pesachdik_ (for passover)." "come and have a glass of old tom, along o' me, sonny." "fine plaice! here y'are! hi! where's yer pluck! s'elp me--" "bob! _yontovdik! yontovdik_! only a bob!" "chuck steak and half a pound of fat." "a slap in the eye, if you--" "gord bless you. remember me to jacob." "_shaink_ (spare) _meer_ a 'apenny, missis _lieben_, missis _croin_ (dear)--" "an unnatural death on you, you--" "lord! sal, how you've altered!" "ladies, here you are--" "i give you my word, sir, the fish will be home before you." "painted in the best style, for a tanner--" "a spoonge, mister?" "i'll cut a slice of this melon for you for--" "she's dead, poor thing, peace be upon him." "_yontovdik_! three bob for one purse containing--" "the real live tattooed hindian, born in the african harchipellygo. walk up." "this way for the dwarf that will speak, dance, and sing." "tree lemons a penny. tree lemons--" "a _shtibbur_ (penny) for a poor blind man--" "_yontovdik! yontovdik! yontovdik! yontovdik!_" and in this last roar, common to so many of the mongers, the whole babel would often blend for a moment and be swallowed up, re-emerging anon in its broken multiplicity. everybody esther knew was in the crowd--she met them all sooner or later. in wentworth street, amid dead cabbage-leaves, and mud, and refuse, and orts, and offal, stood the woe-begone meckisch, offering his puny sponges, and wooing the charitable with grinning grimaces tempered by epileptic fits at judicious intervals. a few inches off, his wife in costly sealskin jacket, purchased salmon with a maida vale manner. compressed in a corner was shosshi shmendrik, his coat-tails yellow with the yolks of dissolving eggs from a bag in his pocket. he asked her frantically, if she had seen a boy whom he had hired to carry home his codfish and his fowls, and explained that his missus was busy in the shop, and had delegated to him the domestic duties. it is probable, that if mrs. shmendrik, formerly the widow finkelstein, ever received these dainties, she found her good man had purchased fish artificially inflated with air, and fowls fattened with brown paper. hearty sam abrahams, the bass chorister, whose genial countenance spread sunshine for yards around, stopped esther and gave her a penny. further, she met her teacher, miss miriam hyams, and curtseyed to her, for esther was not of those who jeeringly called "teacher" and "master" according to sex after her superiors, till the victims longed for elisha's influence over bears. later on, she was shocked to see her teacher's brother piloting bonny bessie sugarman through the thick of the ferment. crushed between two barrows, she found mrs. belcovitch and fanny, who were shopping together, attended by pesach weingott, all carrying piles of purchases. "esther, if you should see my becky in the crowd, tell her where i am," said mrs. belcovitch. "she is with one of her chosen young men. i am so feeble, i can hardly crawl around, and my becky ought to carry home the cabbages. she has well-matched legs, not one a thick one and one a thin one."' around the fishmongers the press was great. the fish-trade was almost monopolized by english jews--blonde, healthy-looking fellows, with brawny, bare arms, who were approached with dread by all but the bravest foreign jewesses. their scale of prices and politeness varied with the status of the buyer. esther, who had an observant eye and ear for such things, often found amusement standing unobtrusively by. to-night there was the usual comedy awaiting her enjoyment. a well-dressed dame came up to "uncle abe's" stall, where half a dozen lots of fishy miscellanaea were spread out. "good evening, madam. cold night but fine. that lot? well, you're an old customer and fish are cheap to-day, so i can let you have 'em for a sovereign. eighteen? well, it's hard, but--boy! take the lady's fish. thank you. good evening." "how much that?" says a neatly dressed woman, pointing to a precisely similar lot. "can't take less than nine bob. fish are dear to-day. you won't get anything cheaper in the lane, by g---- you won't. five shillings! by my life and by my children's life, they cost me more than that. so sure as i stand here and--well, come, gie's seven and six and they're yours. you can't afford more? well, 'old up your apron, old gal. i'll make it up out of the rich. by your life and mine, you've got a _metsiah_ (bargain) there!" here old mrs. shmendrik, shosshi's mother, came up, a rich paisley shawl over her head in lieu of a bonnet. lane women who went out without bonnets were on the same plane as lane men who went out without collars. one of the terrors of the english fishmongers was that they required the customer to speak english, thus fulfilling an important educative function in the community. they allowed a certain percentage of jargon-words, for they themselves took licenses in this direction, but they professed not to understand pure yiddish. "abraham, 'ow mosh for dees lot," said old mrs. shmendrik, turning over a third similar heap and feeling the fish all over. "paws off!" said abraham roughly. "look here! i know the tricks of you polakinties. i'll name you the lowest price and won't stand a farthing's bating. i'll lose by you, but you ain't, going to worry me. eight bob! there!" "avroomkely (dear little abraham) take lebbenpence!" "elevenpence! by g----," cried uncle abe, desperately tearing his hair. "i knew it!" and seizing a huge plaice by the tail he whirled it round and struck mrs. shmendrik full in the face, shouting, "take that, you old witch! sling your hook or i'll murder you." "thou dog!" shrieked mrs. shmendrik, falling back on the more copious resources of her native idiom. "a black year on thee! mayest thou swell and die! may the hand that struck me rot away! mayest thou be burned alive! thy father was a _gonof_ and thou art a _gonof_ and thy whole family are _gonovim_. may pharaoh's ten plagues--" there was little malice at the back of it all--the mere imaginative exuberance of a race whose early poetry consisted in saying things twice over. uncle abraham menacingly caught up the plaice, crying: "may i be struck dead on the spot, if you ain't gone in one second i won't answer for the consequences. now, then, clear off!" "come, avroomkely," said mrs. shmendrik, dropping suddenly from invective to insinuativeness. "take fourteenpence. _shemah, beni_! fourteen _shtibbur's_ a lot of _gelt."_ "are you a-going?" cried abraham in a terrible rage. "ten bob's my price now." "avroomkely, _noo, zoog_ (say now)! fourteenpence 'apenny. i am a poor voman. here, fifteenpence." abraham seized her by the shoulders and pushed her towards the wall, where she cursed picturesquely. esther thought it was a bad time to attempt to get her own shilling's worth--she fought her way towards another fishmonger. there was a kindly, weather-beaten old fellow with whom esther had often chaffered job-lots when fortune smiled on the ansells. him, to her joy, esther perceived--she saw a stack of gurnards on his improvised slab, and in imagination smelt herself frying them. then a great shock as of a sudden icy douche traversed her frame, her heart seemed to stand still. for when she put her hand to her pocket to get her purse, she found but a thimble and a slate-pencil and a cotton handkerchief. it was some minutes before she could or would realize the truth that the four and sevenpence halfpenny on which so much depended was gone. groceries and unleavened cakes charity had given, raisin wine had been preparing for days, but fish and meat and all the minor accessories of a well-ordered passover table--these were the prey of the pickpocket. a blank sense of desolation overcame the child, infinitely more horrible than that which she felt when she spilled the soup; the gurnards she could have touched with her finger seemed far off, inaccessible; in a moment more they and all things were blotted out by a hot rush of tears, and she was jostled as in a dream hither and thither by the double stream of crowd. nothing since the death of benjamin had given her so poignant a sense of the hollowness and uncertainty of existence. what would her father say, whose triumphant conviction that providence had provided for his passover was to be so rudely dispelled at the eleventh hour. poor moses! he had been so proud of having earned enough money to make a good _yontov_, and was more convinced than ever that given a little capital to start with he could build up a colossal business! and now she would have to go home and spoil everybody's _yontov_, and see the sour faces of her little ones round a barren _seder_ table. oh, it was terrible! and the child wept piteously, unheeded in the block, unheard amid the babel. chapter xxiii. the dead monkey. an old _maaseh_ the grandmother had told her came back to her fevered brain. in a town in russia lived an old jew who earned scarce enough to eat, and half of what he did earn was stolen from him in bribes to the officials to let him be. persecuted and spat upon, he yet trusted in his god and praised his name. and it came on towards passover and the winter was severe and the jew was nigh starving and his wife had made no preparations for the festival. and in the bitterness of her soul she derided her husband's faith and made mock of him, but he said, "have patience, my wife! our _seder_ board shall be spread as in the days of yore and as in former years." but the festival drew nearer and nearer and there was nothing in the house. and the wife taunted her husband yet further, saying, "dost thou think that elijah the prophet will call upon thee or that the messiah will come?" but he answered: "elijah the prophet walketh the earth, never having died; who knows but that he will cast an eye my way?" whereat his wife laughed outright. and the days wore on to within a few hours of passover and the larder was still empty of provender and the old jew still full of faith. now it befell that the governor of the city, a hard and cruel man, sat counting out piles of gold into packets for the payment of the salaries of the officials and at his side sat his pet monkey, and as he heaped up the pieces, so his monkey imitated him, making little packets of its own to the amusement of the governor. and when the governor could not pick up a piece easily, he moistened his forefinger, putting it to his mouth, whereupon the monkey followed suit each time; only deeming its master was devouring the gold, it swallowed a coin every time he put his finger to his lips. so that of a sudden it was taken ill and died. and one of his men said, "lo, the creature is dead. what shall we do with it?" and the governor was sorely vexed in spirit, because he could not make his accounts straight and he answered gruffly, "trouble me not! throw it into the house of the old jew down the street." so the man took the carcass and threw it with thunderous violence into the passage of the jew's house and ran off as hard as he could. and the good wife came bustling out in alarm and saw a carcass hanging over an iron bucket that stood in the passage. and she knew that it was the act of a christian and she took up the carrion to bury it when lo! a rain of gold-pieces came from the stomach ripped up by the sharp rim of the vessel. and she called to her husband. "hasten! see what elijah the prophet hath sent us." and she scurried into the market-place and bought wine and unleavened bread, and bitter herbs and all things necessary for the _seder_ table, and a little fish therewith which might be hastily cooked before the festival came in, and the old couple were happy and gave the monkey honorable burial and sang blithely of the deliverance at the red sea and filled elijah's goblet to the brim till the wine ran over upon the white cloth. esther gave a scornful little sniff as the thought of this happy dénouement flashed upon her. no miracle like that would happen to her or hers, nobody was likely to leave a dead monkey on the stairs of the garret--hardly even the "stuffed monkey" of contemporary confectionery. and then her queer little brain forgot its grief in sudden speculations as to what she would think if her four and sevenpence halfpenny came back. she had never yet doubted the existence of the unseen power; only its workings seemed so incomprehensibly indifferent to human joys and sorrows. would she believe that her father was right in holding that a special providence watched over him? the spirit of her brother solomon came upon her and she felt that she would. speculation had checked her sobs; she dried her tears in stony scepticism and, looking up, saw malka's gipsy-like face bending over her, breathing peppermint. "what weepest thou, esther?" she said not unkindly. "i did not know thou wast a gusher with the eyes." "i've lost my purse," sobbed esther, softened afresh by the sight of a friendly face. "ah, thou _schlemihl_! thou art like thy father. how much was in it?" "four and sevenpence halfpenny!" sobbed esther. "tu, tu, tu, tu, tu!" ejaculated malka in horror. "thou art the ruin of thy father." then turning to the fishmonger with whom she had just completed a purchase, she counted out thirty-five shillings into his hand. "here, esther," she said, "thou shalt carry my fish and i will give thee a shilling." a small slimy boy who stood expectant by scowled at esther as she painfully lifted the heavy basket and followed in the wake of her relative whose heart was swelling with self-approbation. fortunately zachariah square was near and esther soon received her shilling with a proportionate sense of providence. the fish was deposited at milly's house, which was brightly illuminated and seemed to poor esther a magnificent palace of light and luxury. malka's own house, diagonally across the square, was dark and gloomy. the two families being at peace, milly's house was the headquarters of the clan and the clothes-brush. everybody was home for _yomtov_. malka's husband, michael, and milly's husband, ephraim, were sitting at the table smoking big cigars and playing loo with sam levine and david brandon, who had been seduced into making a fourth. the two young husbands had but that day returned from the country, for you cannot get unleavened bread at commercial hotels, and david in spite of a stormy crossing had arrived from germany an hour earlier than he had expected, and not knowing what to do with himself had been surveying the humors of the festival fair till sam met him and dragged him round to zachariah square. it was too late to call that night on hannah to be introduced to her parents, especially as he had wired he would come the next day. there was no chance of hannah being at the club, it was too busy a night for all angels of the hearth; even to-morrow, the even of the festival, would be an awkward time for a young man to thrust his love-affairs upon a household given over to the more important matters of dietary preparation. still david could not consent to live another whole day without seeing the light of his eyes. leah, inwardly projecting an orgie of comic operas and dances, was assisting milly in the kitchen. both young women were covered with flour and oil and grease, and their coarse handsome faces were flushed, for they had been busy all day drawing fowls, stewing prunes and pippins, gutting fish, melting fat, changing the crockery and doing the thousand and one things necessitated by gratitude for the discomfiture of pharaoh at the red sea; ezekiel slumbered upstairs in his crib. "mother," said michael, pulling pensively at his whisker as he looked at his card. "this is mr. brandon, a friend of sam's. don't get up, brandon, we don't make ceremonies here. turn up yours--ah, the nine of trumps." "lucky men!" said malka with festival flippancy. "while i must hurry off my supper so as to buy the fish, and milly and leah must sweat in the kitchen, you can squat yourselves down and play cards." "yes," laughed sam, looking up and adding in hebrew, "blessed art thou, o lord, who hath not made me a woman." "now, now," said david, putting his hand jocosely across the young man's mouth. "no more hebrew. remember what happened last time. perhaps there's some mysterious significance even in that, and you'll find yourself let in for something before you know where you are." "you're not going to prevent me talking the language of my fathers," gurgled sam, bursting into a merry operatic whistle when the pressure was removed. "milly! leah!" cried malka. "come and look at my fish! such a _metsiah_! see, they're alive yet." "they _are_ beauties, mother," said leah, entering with her sleeves half tucked up, showing the finely-moulded white arms in curious juxtaposition with the coarse red hands. "o, mother, they're alive!" said milly, peering over her younger sister's shoulder. both knew by bitter experience that their mother considered herself a connoisseur in the purchase of fish. "and how much do you think i gave for them?" went on malka triumphantly. "two pounds ten," said milly. malka's eyes twinkled and she shook her head. "two pounds fifteen," said leah, with the air of hitting it now. still malka shook her head. "here, michael, what do you think i gave for all this lot?" "diamonds!" said michael. "be not a fool, michael," said malka sternly. "look here a minute." "eh? oh!" said michael looking up from his cards. "don't bother, mother. my game!" "michael!" thundered malka. "will you look at this fish? how much do you think i gave for this splendid lot? here, look at 'em, alive yet." "h'm--ha!" said michael, taking his complex corkscrew combination out of his pocket and putting it back again. "three guineas?" "three guineas!" laughed malka, in good-humored scorn. "lucky i don't let _you_ do my marketing." "yes, he'd be a nice fishy customer!" said sam levine with a guffaw. "ephraim, what think you i got this fish for? cheap now, you know?" "i don't know, mother," replied the twinkling-eyed pole obediently. "three pounds, perhaps, if you got it cheap." samuel and david duly appealed to, reduced the amount to two pounds five and two pounds respectively. then, having got everybody's attention fixed upon her, she exclaimed: "thirty shillings!" she could not resist nibbling off the five shillings. everybody drew a long breath. "tu! tu!" they ejaculated in chorus. "what a _metsiah_!" "sam," said ephraim immediately afterwards, "_you_ turned up the ace." milly and leah went back into the kitchen. it was rather too quick a relapse into the common things of life and made malka suspect the admiration was but superficial. she turned, with a spice of ill-humor, and saw esther still standing timidly behind her. her face flushed for she knew the child had overheard her in a lie. "what art thou waiting about for?" she said roughly in yiddish. "na! there's a peppermint." "i thought you might want me for something else," said esther, blushing but accepting the peppermint for ikey. "and i--i--" "well, speak up! i won't bite thee." malka continued to talk in yiddish though the child answered her in english. "i--i--nothing," said esther, turning away. "here, turn thy face round, child," said malka, putting her hand on the girl's forcibly averted head. "be not so sullen, thy mother was like that, she'd want to bite my head off if i hinted thy father was not the man for her, and then she'd _schmull_ and sulk for a week after. thank god, we have no one like that in this house. i couldn't live for a day with people with such nasty tempers. her temper worried her into the grave, though, if thy father had not brought his mother over from poland my poor cousin might have carried home my fish to-night instead of thee. poor gittel, peace be upon him! come tell me what ails thee, or thy dead mother will be cross with thee." esther turned her head and murmured: "i thought you might lend me the three and sevenpence halfpenny!" "lend thee--?" exclaimed malka. "why, how canst thou ever repay it?" "oh yes," affirmed esther earnestly. "i have lots of money in the bank." "eh! what? in the bank!" gasped malka. "yes. i won five pounds in the school and i'll pay you out of that." "thy father never told me that!" said malka. "he kept that dark. ah, he is a regular _schnorrer_!" "my father hasn't seen you since," retorted esther hotly. "if you had come round when he was sitting _shiva_ for benjamin, peace be upon him, you would have known." malka got as red as fire. moses had sent solomon round to inform the _mishpocha_ of his affliction, but at a period when the most casual acquaintance thinks it his duty to call (armed with hard boiled eggs, a pound of sugar, or an ounce of tea) on the mourners condemned to sit on the floor for a week, no representative of the "family" had made an appearance. moses took it meekly enough, but his mother insisted that such a slight from zachariah square would never have been received if he had married another woman, and esther for once agreed with her grandmother's sentiments if not with her hibernian expression of them. but that the child should now dare to twit the head of the family with bad behavior was intolerable to malka, the more so as she had no defence. "thou impudent of face!" she cried sharply. "dost thou forget whom thou talkest to?" "no," retorted esther. "you are my father's cousin--that is why you ought to have come to see him." "i am not thy father's cousin, god forbid!" cried malka. "i was thy mother's cousin, god have mercy on her, and i wonder not you drove her into the grave between the lot of you. i am no relative of any of you, thank god, and from this day forwards i wash my hands of the lot of you, you ungrateful pack! let thy father send you into the streets, with matches, not another thing will i do for thee." "ungrateful!" said esther hotly. "why, what have you ever done for us? when my poor mother was alive you made her scrub your floors and clean your windows, as if she was an irishwoman." "impudent of face!" cried malka, almost choking with rage. "what have i done for you? why--why--i--i--shameless hussy! and this is what judaism's coming to in england! this is the manners and religion they teach thee at thy school, eh? what have i--? impudent of face! at this very moment thou holdest one of my shillings in thy hand." "take it!" said esther. and threw the coin passionately to the floor, where it rolled about pleasantly for a terrible minute of human silence. the smoke-wreathed card-players looked up at last. "eh? eh? what's this, my little girl." said michael genially. "what makes you so naughty?" a hysterical fit of sobbing was the only reply. in the bitterness of that moment esther hated the whole world. "don't cry like that! don't!" said david brandon kindly. esther, her little shoulders heaving convulsively, put her hand on the latch. "what's the matter with the girl, mother?" said michael. "she's _meshugga_!" said malka. "raving mad!" her face was white and she spoke as if in self-defence. "she's such a _schlemihl_ that she lost her purse in the lane, and i found her gushing with the eyes, and i let her carry home my fish and gave her a shilling and a peppermint, and thou seest how she turns on me, thou seest." "poor little thing!" said david impulsively. "here, come here, my child."' esther refused to budge. "come here," he repeated gently. "see, i will make up the loss to you. take the pool. i've just won it, so i shan't miss it." esther sobbed louder, but she did not move. david rose, emptied the heap of silver into his palm, walked over to esther, and pushed it into her pocket. michael got up and added half a crown to it, and the other two men followed suit. then david opened the door, put her outside gently and said: "there! run away, my little dear, and be more careful of pickpockets." all this while malka had stood frozen to the stony dignity of a dingy terra-cotta statue. but ere the door could close again on the child, she darted forward and seized her by the collar of her frock. "give me that money," she cried. half hypnotized by the irate swarthy face, esther made no resistance while malka rifled her pocket less dexterously than the first operator. malka counted it out. "seventeen and sixpence," she announced in terrible tones. "how darest thou take all this money from strangers, and perfect strangers? do my children think to shame me before my own relative?" and throwing the money violently into the plate she took out a gold coin and pressed it into the bewildered child's hand. "there!" she shouted. "hold that tight! it is a sovereign. and if ever i catch thee taking money from any one in this house but thy mother's own cousin, i'll wash my hands of thee for ever. go now! go on! i can't afford any more, so it's useless waiting. good-night, and tell thy father i wish him a happy _yontov_, and i hope he'll lose no more children." she hustled the child into the square and banged the door upon her, and esther went about her mammoth marketing half-dazed, with an undercurrent of happiness, vaguely apologetic towards her father and his providence. malka stooped down, picked up the clothes-brush from under the side-table, and strode silently and diagonally across the square. there was a moment's dread silence. the thunderbolt had fallen. the festival felicity of two households trembled in the balance. michael muttered impatiently and went out on his wife's track. "he's an awful fool," said ephraim. "i should make her pay for her tantrums." the card party broke up in confusion. david brandon took his leave and strolled about aimlessly under the stars, his soul blissful with the sense of a good deed that had only superficially miscarried. his feet took him to hannah's house. all the windows were lit up. his heart began to ache at the thought that his bright, radiant girl was beyond that doorstep he had never crossed. he pictured the love-light in her eyes; for surely she was dreaming of him, as he of her. he took out his watch--the time was twenty to nine. after all, would it be so outrageous to call? he went away twice. the third time, defying the _convenances_, he knocked at the door, his heart beating almost as loudly. chapter xxiv. the shadow of religion. the little servant girl who opened the door for him looked relieved by the sight of him, for it might have been the rebbitzin returning from the lane with heaps of supplies and an accumulation of ill-humor. she showed him into the study, and in a few moments hannah hurried in with a big apron and a general flavor of the kitchen. "how dare you come to-night?" she began, but the sentence died on her lips. "how hot your face is," he said, dinting the flesh fondly with his finger, "i see my little girl is glad to have me back." "it's not that. it's the fire. i'm frying fish for _yomtov_," she said, with a happy laugh. "and yet you say you're not a good jewess," he laughed back. "you had no right to come and catch me like this," she pouted. "all greasy and dishevelled. i'm not made up to receive visitors." "call me a visitor?" he grumbled. "judging by your appearance, i should say you were always made up. why, you're perfectly radiant." then the talk became less intelligible. the first symptom of returning rationality was her inquiry-- "what sort of a journey did you have back?" "the sea was rough, but i'm a good sailor." "and the poor fellow's father and mother?" "i wrote you about them." "so you did; but only just a line." "oh, don't let us talk about the subject just now, dear, it's too painful. come, let me kiss that little woe-begone look out of your eyes. there! now, another--that was only for the right eye, this is for the left. but where's your mother?" "oh, you innocent!" she replied. "as if you hadn't watched her go out of the house!" "'pon my honor, not," he said smiling. "why should i now? am i not the accepted son-in-law of the house, you silly timid little thing? what a happy thought it was of yours to let the cat out of the bag. come, let me give you another kiss for it--oh, i really must. you deserve it, and whatever it costs me you shall be rewarded. there! now, then! where's the old man? i have to receive his blessing, i know, and i want to get it over." "it's worth having, i can tell you, so speak more respectfully," said hannah, more than half in earnest. "_you_ are the best blessing he can give me--and that's worth--well, i wouldn't venture to price it." "it's not your line, eh?" "i don't know, i have done a good deal in gems; but where _is_ the rabbi?" "up in the bedrooms, gathering the _chomutz_. you know he won't trust anybody else. he creeps under all the beds, hunting with a candle for stray crumbs, and looks in all the wardrobes and the pockets of all my dresses. luckily, i don't keep your letters there. i hope he won't set something alight--he did once. and one year--oh, it was so funny!--after he had ransacked every hole and corner of the house, imagine his horror, in the middle of passover to find a crumb of bread audaciously planted--where do you suppose? in his passover prayer-book!! but, oh!"--with a little scream--"you naughty boy! i quite forgot." she took him by the shoulders, and peered along his coat. "have you brought any crumbs with you? this room's _pesachdik_ already." he looked dubious. she pushed him towards the door. "go out and give yourself a good shaking on the door-step, or else we shall have to clean out the room all over again." "don't!" he protested. "i might shake out that." "what?" "the ring." she uttered a little pleased sigh. "oh, have you brought that?" "yes, i got it while i was away. you know i believe the reason you sent me trooping to the continent in such haste, was you wanted to ensure your engagement ring being 'made in germany.' it's had a stormy passage to england, has that ring, i suppose the advantage of buying rings in germany is that you're certain not to get paris diamonds in them, they are so intensely patriotic, the germans. that was your idea, wasn't it, hannah?" "oh, show it me! don't talk so much," she said, smiling. "no," he said, teasingly. "no more accidents for me! i'll wait to make sure--till your father and mother have taken me to their arms. rabbinical law is so full of pitfalls--i might touch your finger this or that way, and then we should be married. and then, if your parents said 'no,' after all--" "we should have to make the best of a bad job," she finished up laughingly. "all very well," he went on in his fun, "but it would be a pretty kettle of fish." "heavens!" she cried, "so it will be. they will be charred to ashes." and turning tail, she fled to the kitchen, pursued by her lover. there, dead to the surprise of the servant, david brandon fed his eyes on the fair incarnation of jewish domesticity, type of the vestal virgins of israel, ministresses at the hearth. it was a very homely kitchen; the dressers glistening with speckless utensils, and the deep red glow of the coal over which the pieces of fish sputtered and crackled in their bath of oil, filling the room with a sense of deep peace and cosy comfort. david's imagination transferred the kitchen to his future home, and he was almost dazzled by the thought of actually inhabiting such a fairyland alone with hannah. he had knocked about a great deal, not always innocently, but deep down at his heart was the instinct of well-ordered life. his past seemed joyless folly and chill emptiness. he felt his eyes growing humid as he looked at the frank-souled girl who had given herself to him. he was not humble, but for a moment he found himself wondering how he deserved the trust, and there was reverence in the touch with which he caressed her hair. in another moment the frying was complete, and the contents of the pan neatly added to the dish. then the voice of reb shemuel crying for hannah came down the kitchen stairs, and the lovers returned to the upper world. the reb had a tiny harvest of crumbs in a brown paper, and wanted hannah to stow it away safely till the morning, when, to make assurance doubly sure, a final expedition in search of leaven would be undertaken. hannah received the packet and in return presented her betrothed. reb shemuel had not of course expected him till the next morning, but he welcomed him as heartily as hannah could desire. "the most high bless you!" he said in his charming foreign accents. "may you make my hannah as good a husband as she will make you a wife." "trust me, reb shemuel," said david, grasping his great hand warmly. "hannah says you're a sinner in israel," said the reb, smiling playfully, though there was a touch of anxiety in the tones. "but i suppose you will keep a _kosher_ house." "make your mind easy, sir," said david heartily. "we must, if it's only to have the pleasure of your dining with us sometimes." the old man patted him gently on the shoulder. "ah, you will soon become a good jew," he said. "my hannah will teach you, god bless her." reb shemuel's voice was a bit husky. he bent down and kissed hannah's forehead. "i was a bit _link_ myself before i married my simcha" he added encouragingly. "no, no, not you," said david, smiling in response to the twinkle in the reb's eye. "i warrant _you_ never skipped a _mitzvah_ even as a bachelor." "oh yes, i did," replied the reb, letting the twinkle develop to a broad smile, "for when i was a bachelor i hadn't fulfilled the precept to marry, don't you see?" "is marriage a _mitzvah_, then?" inquired david, amused. "certainly. in our holy religion everything a man ought to do is a _mitzvah_, even if it is pleasant." "oh, then, even i must have laid up some good deeds," laughed david, "for i have always enjoyed myself. really, it isn't such a bad religion after all." "bad religion!" echoed reb shemuel genially. "wait till you've tried it. you've never had a proper training, that's clear. are your parents alive?" "no, they both died when i was a child," said david, becoming serious. "i thought so!" said reb shemuel. "fortunately my hannah's didn't." he smiled at the humor of the phrase and hannah took his hand and pressed it tenderly. "ah, it will be all right," said the reb with a characteristic burst of optimism. "god is good. you have a sound jewish heart at bottom, david, my son. hannah, get the _yomtovdik_ wine. we will drink, a glass for _mazzoltov_, and i hope your mother will be back in time to join in." hannah ran into the kitchen feeling happier than she had ever been in her life. she wept a little and laughed a little, and loitered a little to recover her composure and allow the two men to get to know each other a little. "how is your hannah's late husband?" inquired the reb with almost a wink, for everything combined to make him jolly as a sandboy. "i understand he is a friend of yours." "we used to be schoolboys together, that is all. though strangely enough i just spent an hour with him. he is very well," answered david smiling. "he is about to marry again." "his first love of course," said the reb. "yes, people always come back to that," said david laughing. "that's right, that's right," said the reb. "i am glad there was no unpleasantness." "unpleasantness. no, how could there be? leah knew it was only a joke. all's well that ends well, and we may perhaps all get married on the same day and risk another mix-up. ha! ha! ha!" "is it your wish to marry soon, then?" "yes; there are too many long engagements among our people. they often go off." "then i suppose you have the means?" "oh yes, i can show you my--" the old man waved his hand. "i don't want to see anything. my girl must be supported decently--that is all i ask. what do you do for a living?" "i have made a little money at the cape and now i think of going into business." "what business?" "i haven't settled." "you won't open on _shabbos_?" said the reb anxiously. david hesitated a second. in some business, saturday is the best day. still he felt that he was not quite radical enough to break the sabbath deliberately, and since he had contemplated settling down, his religion had become rather more real to him. besides he must sacrifice something for hannah's sake. "have no fear, sir," he said cheerfully. reb shemuel gripped his hand in grateful silence. "you mustn't think me quite a lost soul," pursued david after a moment of emotion. "you don't remember me, but i had lots of blessings and halfpence from you when i was a lad. i dare say i valued the latter more in those days." he smiled to hide his emotion. reb shemuel was beaming. "did you, really?" he inquired. "i don't remember you. but then i have blessed so many little children. of course you'll come to the _seder_ to-morrow evening and taste some of hannah's cookery. you're one of the family now, you know." "i shall be delighted to have the privilege of having _seder_ with you," replied david, his heart going out more and more to the fatherly old man. "what _shool_ will you be going to for passover? i can get you a seat in mine if you haven't arranged." "thank you, but i promised mr. birnbaum to come to the little synagogue of which he is president. it seems they have a scarcity of _cohenim_, and they want me to bless the congregation, i suppose." "what!" cried reb shemuel excitedly. "are you a _cohen_?" "of course i am. why, they got me to bless them in the transvaal last _yom kippur_. so you see i'm anything but a sinner in israel." he laughed--but his laugh ended abruptly. reb shemuel's face had grown white. his hands were trembling. "what is the matter? you are ill," cried david. the old man shook his head. then he struck his brow with his fist. "_ach, gott_!" he cried. "why did i not think of finding out before? but thank god i know it in time." "finding out what?" said david, fearing the old man's reason was giving way. "my daughter cannot marry you," said reb shemuel in hushed, quavering tones. "eh? what?" said david blankly. "it is impossible." "what are you talking about. reb shemuel?" "you are a _cohen_. hannah cannot marry a _cohen_." "not marry a _cohen_? why, i thought they were israel's aristocracy." "that is why. a _cohen_ cannot marry a divorced woman." the fit of trembling passed from the old reb to the young man. his heart pulsed as with the stroke of a mighty piston. without comprehending, hannah's prior misadventure gave him a horrible foreboding of critical complications. "do you mean to say i can't marry hannah?" he asked almost in a whisper. "such is the law. a woman who has had _gett_ may not marry a _cohen_." "but you surely wouldn't call hannah a divorced woman?" he cried hoarsely. "how shall i not? i gave her the divorce myself." "great god!" exclaimed david. "then sam has ruined our lives." he stood a moment in dazed horror, striving to grasp the terrible tangle. then he burst forth. "this is some of your cursed rabbinical laws, it is not judaism, it is not true judaism. god never made any such law." "hush!" said reb shemuel sternly. "it is the holy torah. it is not even the rabbis, of whom you speak like an epicurean. it is in leviticus, chapter , verse : '_neither shall they take a woman put away from her husband; for he is holy unto his god. thou shalt sanctify him, therefore; for he offereth the bread of thy god; he shall be holy unto thee, for i the lord which sanctify you am holy._'" for an instant david was overwhelmed by the quotation, for the bible was still a sacred book to him. then he cried indignantly: "but god never meant it to apply to a case like this!" "we must obey god's law," said reb shemuel. "then it is the devil's law!" shouted david, losing all control of himself. the reb's face grew dark as night. there was a moment of dread silence. "here you are, father," said hannah, returning with the wine and some glasses which she had carefully dusted. then she paused and gave a little cry, nearly losing her hold of the tray. "what's the matter? what has happened?" she asked anxiously. "take away the wine--we shall drink nobody's health to-night," cried david brutally. "my god!" said hannah, all the hue of happiness dying out of her cheeks. she threw down the tray on the table and ran to her father's arms. "what is it! oh, what is it, father?" she cried. "you haven't had a quarrel?" the old man was silent. the girl looked appealingly from one to the other. "no, it's worse than that," said david in cold, harsh tones. "you remember your marriage in fun to sam?" "yes. merciful heavens! i guess it! there was something not valid in the _gett_ after all." her anguish at the thought of losing him was so apparent that he softened a little. "no, not that," he said more gently. "but this blessed religion of ours reckons you a divorced woman, and so you can't marry me because i'm a _cohen_." "can't marry you because you're a _cohen_!" repeated hannah, dazed in her turn. "we must obey the torah," said reb shemuel again, in low, solemn tones. "it is your friend levine who has erred, not the torah." "the torah cannot visit a mere bit of fun so cruelly," protested david. "and on the innocent, too." "sacred things should not be jested with," said the old man in stern tones that yet quavered with sympathy and pity. "on his head is the sin; on his head is the responsibility." "father," cried hannah in piercing tones, "can nothing be done?" the old man shook his head sadly. the poor, pretty face was pallid with a pain too deep for tears. the shock was too sudden, too terrible. she sank helplessly into a chair. "something must be done, something shall be done," thundered david. "i will appeal to the chief rabbi." "and what can he do? can he go behind the torah?" said reb shemuel pitifully. "i won't ask him to. but if he has a grain of common sense he will see that our case is an exception, and cannot come under the law." "the law knows no exceptions," said reb shemuel gently, quoting in hebrew, "'the law of god is perfect, enlightening the eyes.' be patient, my dear children, in your affliction. it is the will of god. the lord giveth and the lord taketh away--bless ye the name of the lord." "not i!" said david harshly. "but look to hannah. she has fainted." "no, i am all right," said hannah wearily, opening the eyes she had closed. "do not make so certain, father. look at your books again. perhaps they do make an exception in such a case." the reb shook his head hopelessly. "do not expect that," he said. "believe me, my hannah, if there were a gleam of hope i would not hide it from you. be a good girl, dear, and bear your trouble like a true jewish maiden. have faith in god, my child. he doeth all things for the best. come now--rouse yourself. tell david you will always be a friend, and that your father will love him as though he were indeed his son." he moved towards her and touched her tenderly. he felt a violent spasm traversing her bosom. "i can't, father," she cried in a choking voice. "i can't. don't ask me." david leaned against the manuscript-littered table in stony silence. the stern granite faces of the old continental rabbis seemed to frown down on him from the walls and he returned the frown with interest. his heart was full of bitterness, contempt, revolt. what a pack of knavish bigots they must all have been! reb shemuel bent down and took his daughter's head in his trembling palms. the eyes were closed again, the chest heaved painfully with silent sobs. "do you love him so much, hannah?" whispered the old man. her sobs answered, growing loud at last. "but you love your religion more, my child?" he murmured anxiously. "that will bring you peace." her sobs gave him no assurance. presently the contagion of sobbing took him too. "o god! god!" he moaned. "what sin have i committed; that thou shouldst punish my child thus?" "don't blame god!" burst forth david at last. "it's your own foolish bigotry. is it not enough your daughter doesn't ask to marry a christian? be thankful, old man, for that and put away all this antiquated superstition. we're living in the nineteenth century." "and what if we are!" said reb shemuel, blazing up in turn. "the torah is eternal. thank god for your youth, and your health and strength, and do not blaspheme him because you cannot have all the desire of your heart or the inclination of your eyes." "the desire of my heart," retorted david. "do you imagine i am only thinking of my own suffering? look at your daughter--think of what you are doing to her and beware before it is too late." "is it in my hand to do or to forbear?" asked the old man, "it is the torah. am i responsible for that?" "yes," said david, out of mere revolt. then, seeking to justify himself, his face lit up with sudden inspiration. "who need ever know? the _maggid_ is dead. old hyams has gone to america. so hannah has told me. it's a thousand to one leah's people never heard of the law of leviticus. if they had, it's another thousand to one against their putting two and two together. it requires a talmudist like you to even dream of reckoning hannah as an ordinary divorced woman. if they did, it's a third thousand to one against their telling anybody. there is no need for you to perform the ceremony yourself. let her be married by some other minister--by the chief rabbi himself, and to make assurance doubly sure i'll not mention that i'm a _cohen_" the words poured forth like a torrent, overwhelming the reb for a moment. hannah leaped up with a hysterical cry of joy. "yes, yes, father. it will be all right, after all. nobody knows. oh, thank god! thank god!" there was a moment of tense silence. then the old man's voice rose slowly and painfully. "thank god!" he repeated. "do you dare mention the name even when you propose to profane it? do you ask me, your father, reb shemuel, to consent to such a profanation of the name?" "and why not?" said david angrily. "whom else has a daughter the right to ask mercy from, if not her father?" "god have mercy on me!" groaned the old reb, covering his face with his hands. "come, come!" said david impatiently. "be sensible. it's nothing unworthy of you at all. hannah was never really married, so cannot be really divorced. we only ask you to obey the spirit of the torah instead of the letter." the old man shook his head, unwavering. his cheeks were white and wet, but his expression was stern and solemn. "just think!" went on david passionately. "what am i better than another jew--than yourself for instance--that i shouldn't marry a divorced woman?" "it is the law. you are a _cohen_--a priest." "a priest, ha! ha! ha!" laughed david bitterly. "a priest--in the nineteenth century! when the temple has been destroyed these two thousand years." "it will be rebuilt, please god," said reb shemuel. "we must be ready for it." "oh yes, i'll be ready--ha! ha! ha! a priest! holy unto the lord--i a priest! ha! ha! ha! do you know what my holiness consists in? in eating _tripha_ meat, and going to _shool_ a few times a year! and i, _i_ am too holy to marry _your_ daughter. oh, it is rich!" he ended in uncontrollable mirth, slapping his knee in ghastly enjoyment. his laughter rang terrible. reb shemuel trembled from head to foot. hannah's cheek was drawn and white. she seemed overwrought beyond endurance. there followed a silence only less terrible than david's laughter. "a _cohen_," burst forth david again. "a holy _cohen_ up to date. do you know what the boys say about us priests when we're blessing you common people? they say that if you look on us once during that sacred function, you'll get blind, and if you look on us a second time you'll die. a nice reverent joke that, eh! ha! ha! ha! you're blind already, reb shemuel. beware you don't look at me again or i'll commence to bless you. ha! ha! ha!" again the terrible silence. "ah well," david resumed, his bitterness welling forth in irony. "and so the first sacrifice the priest is called upon to make is that of your daughter. but i won't, reb shemuel, mark my words; i won't, not till she offers her own throat to the knife. if she and i are parted, on you and you alone the guilt must rest. _you_ will have to perform the sacrifice." "what god wishes me to do i will do," said the old man in a broken voice. "what is it to that which our ancestors suffered for the glory of the name?" "yes, but it seems you suffer by proxy," retorted david, savagely. "my god! do you think i would not die to make hannah happy?" faltered the old man. "but god has laid the burden on her--and i can only help her to bear it. and now, sir, i must beg you to go. you do but distress my child." "what say you, hannah? do you wish me to go?" "yes--what is the use--now?" breathed hannah through white quivering lips. "my child!" said the old man pitifully, while he strained her to his breast. "all right!" said david in strange harsh tones, scarcely recognizable as his. "i see you are your father's daughter." he took his hat and turned his back upon the tragic embrace. "david!" she called his name in an agonized hoarse voice. she held her arms towards him. he did not turn round. "david!" her voice rose to a shriek. "you will not leave me?" he faced her exultant. "ah, you will come with me. you will be my wife." "no--no--not now, not now. i cannot answer you now. let me think--good-bye, dearest, good-bye." she burst out weeping. david took her in his arms and kissed her passionately. then he went out hurriedly. hannah wept on--her father holding her hand in piteous silence. "oh, it is cruel, your religion," she sobbed. "cruel, cruel!" "hannah! shemuel! where are you?" suddenly came the excited voice of simcha from the passage. "come and look at the lovely fowls i've bought--and such _metsiahs_. they're worth double. oh, what a beautiful _yomtov_ we shall have!" chapter xxv. seder night. "prosaic miles of street stretch all around, astir with restless, hurried life, and spanned by arches that with thund'rous trains resound, and throbbing wires that galvanize the land; gin palaces in tawdry splendor stand; the newsboys shriek of mangled bodies found; the last burlesque is playing in the strand-- in modern prose, all poetry seems drowned. yet in ten thousand homes this april night an ancient people celebrates its birth to freedom, with a reverential mirth, with customs quaint and many a hoary rite, waiting until, its tarnished glories bright, its god shall be the god of all the earth." to an imaginative child like esther, _seder_ night was a charmed time. the strange symbolic dishes--the bitter herbs and the sweet mixture of apples, almonds, spices and wine, the roasted bone and the lamb, the salt water and the four cups of raisin wine, the great round unleavened cakes, with their mottled surfaces, some specially thick and sacred, the special hebrew melodies and verses with their jingle of rhymes and assonances, the quaint ceremonial with its striking moments, as when the finger was dipped in the wine and the drops sprinkled over the shoulder in repudiation of the ten plagues of egypt cabalistically magnified to two hundred and fifty; all this penetrated deep into her consciousness and made the recurrence of every passover coincide with a rush of pleasant anticipations and a sense of the special privilege of being born a happy jewish child. vaguely, indeed, did she co-ordinate the celebration with the history enshrined in it or with the prospective history of her race. it was like a tale out of the fairy-books, this miraculous deliverance of her forefathers in the dim haze of antiquity; true enough but not more definitely realized on that account. and yet not easily dissoluble links were being forged with her race, which has anticipated positivism in vitalizing history by making it religion. the _matzoth_ that esther ate were not dainty--they were coarse, of the quality called "seconds," for even the unleavened bread of charity is not necessarily delicate eating--but few things melted sweeter on the palate than a segment of a _matso_ dipped in cheap raisin wine: the unconventionally of the food made life less common, more picturesque. simple ghetto children into whose existence the ceaseless round of fast and feast, of prohibited and enjoyed pleasures, of varying species of food, brought change and relief! imprisoned in the area of a few narrow streets, unlovely and sombre, muddy and ill-smelling, immured in dreary houses and surrounded with mean and depressing sights and sounds, the spirit of childhood took radiance and color from its own inner light and the alchemy of youth could still transmute its lead to gold. no little princess in the courts of fairyland could feel a fresher interest and pleasure in life than esther sitting at the _seder_ table, where her father--no longer a slave in egypt--leaned royally upon two chairs supplied with pillows as the _din_ prescribes. not even the monarch's prime minister could have had a meaner opinion of pharaoh than moses ansell in this symbolically sybaritic attitude. a live dog is better than a dead lion, as a great teacher in israel had said. how much better then a live lion than a dead dog? pharaoh, for all his purple and fine linen and his treasure cities, was at the bottom of the red sea, smitten with two hundred and fifty plagues, and even if, as tradition asserted, he had been made to live on and on to be king of nineveh, and to give ear to the warnings of jonah, prophet and whale-explorer, even so he was but dust and ashes for other sinners to cover themselves withal; but he, moses ansell, was the honored master of his household, enjoying a foretaste of the lollings of the righteous in paradise; nay, more, dispensing hospitality to the poor and the hungry. little fleas have lesser fleas, and moses ansell had never fallen so low but that, on this night of nights when the slave sits with the master on equal terms, he could manage to entertain a passover guest, usually some newly-arrived greener, or some nondescript waif and stray returned to judaism for the occasion and accepting a seat at the board in that spirit of _camaraderie_ which is one of the most delightful features of the jewish pauper. _seder_ was a ceremonial to be taken in none too solemn and sober a spirit, and there was an abundance of unreproved giggling throughout from the little ones, especially in those happy days when mother was alive and tried to steal the _afikuman_ or _matso_ specially laid aside for the final morsel, only to be surrendered to father when he promised to grant her whatever she wished. alas! it is to be feared mrs. ansell's wishes did not soar high. there was more giggling when the youngest talking son--it was poor benjamin in esther's earliest recollections--opened the ball by inquiring in a peculiarly pitched incantation and with an air of blank ignorance why this night differed from all other nights--in view of the various astonishing peculiarities of food and behavior (enumerated in detail) visible to his vision. to which moses and the _bube_ and the rest of the company (including the questioner) invariably replied in corresponding sing-song: "slaves have we been in egypt," proceeding to recount at great length, stopping for refreshment in the middle, the never-cloying tale of the great deliverance, with irrelevant digressions concerning haman and daniel and the wise men of bona berak, the whole of this most ancient of the world's extant domestic rituals terminating with an allegorical ballad like the "house that jack built," concerning a kid that was eaten by a cat, which was bitten by a dog, which was beaten by a stick, which was burned by a fire, which was quenched by some water, which was drunk by an ox, which was slaughtered by a slaughterer, who was slain by the angel of death, who was slain by the holy one, blessed be he. in wealthy houses this _hagadah_ was read from manuscripts with rich illuminations--the one development of pictorial art among the jews--but the ansells had wretchedly-printed little books containing quaint but unintentionally comic wood-cuts, pre-raphaelite in perspective and ludicrous in draughtsmanship, depicting the miracles of the redemption, moses burying the egyptian, and sundry other passages of the text. in one a king was praying in the temple to an exploding bomb intended to represent the shechinah or divine glory. in another, sarah attired in a matronly cap and a fashionable jacket and skirt, was standing behind the door of the tent, a solid detached villa on the brink of a lake, whereon ships and gondolas floated, what time abraham welcomed the three celestial messengers, unobtrusively disguised with heavy pinions. what delight as the quaking of each of the four cups of wine loomed in sight, what disappointment and mutual bantering when the cup had merely to be raised in the hand, what chaff of the greedy solomon who was careful not to throw away a drop during the digital manoeuvres when the wine must be jerked from the cup at the mention of each plague. and what a solemn moment was that when the tallest goblet was filled to the brim for the delectation of the prophet elijah and the door thrown open for his entry. could one almost hear the rustling of the prophet's spirit through the room? and what though the level of the wine subsided not a barley-corn? elijah, though there was no difficulty in his being in all parts of the world simultaneously, could hardly compass the greater miracle of emptying so many million goblets. historians have traced this custom of opening the door to the necessity of asking the world to look in and see for itself that no blood of christian child figured in the ceremonial--and for once science has illumined naïve superstition with a tragic glow more poetic still. for the london ghetto persecution had dwindled to an occasional bellowing through the keyhole, as the local rowdies heard the unaccustomed melodies trolled forth from jocund lungs and then the singers would stop for a moment, startled, and some one would say: "oh, it's only a christian rough," and take up the thread of song. and then, when the _ajikuman_ had been eaten and the last cup of wine drunk, and it was time to go to bed, what a sweet sense of sanctity and security still reigned. no need to say your prayers to-night, beseeching the guardian of israel, who neither slumbereth nor sleepeth, to watch over you and chase away the evil spirits; the angels are with you--gabriel on your right and raphael on your left, and michael behind you. all about the ghetto the light of the passover rested, transfiguring the dreary rooms and illumining the gray lives. dutch debby sat beside mrs. simons at the table of that good soul's married daughter; the same who had suckled little sarah. esther's frequent eulogiums had secured the poor lonely narrow-chested seamstress this enormous concession and privilege. bobby squatted on the mat in the passage ready to challenge elijah. at this table there were two pieces of fried fish sent to mrs. simons by esther ansell. they represented the greatest revenge of esther's life, and she felt remorseful towards malka, remembering to whose gold she owed this proud moment. she made up her mind to write her a letter of apology in her best hand. at the belcovitches' the ceremonial was long, for the master of it insisted on translating the hebrew into jargon, phrase by phrase; but no one found it tedious, especially after supper. pesach was there, hand in hand with fanny, their wedding very near now; and becky lolled royally in all her glory, aggressive of ringlet, insolently unattached, a conscious beacon of bedazzlement to the pauper _pollack_ we last met at reb shemuel's sabbath table, and there, too, was chayah, she of the ill-matched legs. be sure that malka had returned the clothes-brush, and was throned in complacent majesty at milly's table; and that sugarman the _shadchan_ forgave his monocular consort her lack of a fourth uncle; while joseph strelitski, dreamer of dreams, rich with commissions from "passover" cigars, brooded on the great exodus. nor could the shalotten _shammos_ be other than beaming, ordering the complex ceremonial with none to contradict; nor karlkammer be otherwise than in the seven hundred and seventy-seventh heaven, which, calculated by _gematriyah_, can easily be reduced to the seventh. shosshi shmendrik did not fail to explain the deliverance to the ex-widow finkelstein, nor guedalyah, the greengrocer, omit to hold his annual revel at the head of half a hundred merry "pauper-aliens." christian roughs bawled derisively in the street, especially when doors were opened for elijah; but hard words break no bones, and the ghetto was uplifted above insult. melchitsedek pinchas was the passover guest at reb shemuel's table, for the reek of his sabbath cigar had not penetrated to the old man's nostrils. it was a great night for pinchas; wrought up to fervid nationalistic aspirations by the memory of the egyptian deliverance, which he yet regarded as mythical in its details. it was a terrible night for hannah, sitting opposite to him under the fire of his poetic regard. she was pale and rigid, moving and speaking mechanically. her father glanced towards her every now and again, compassionately, but with trust that the worst was over. her mother realized the crisis much less keenly than he, not having been in the heart of the storm. she had never even seen her intended son-in-law except through the lens of a camera. she was sorry--that was all. now that hannah had broken the ice, and encouraged one young man, there was hope for the others. hannah's state of mind was divined by neither parent. love itself is blind in those tragic silences which divide souls. all night, after that agonizing scene, she did not sleep; the feverish activity of her mind rendered that impossible, and unerring instinct told her that david was awake also--that they two, amid the silence of a sleeping city, wrestled in the darkness with the same terrible problem, and were never so much at one as in this their separation. a letter came for her in the morning. it was unstamped, and had evidently been dropped into the letter-box by david's hand. it appointed an interview at ten o'clock at a corner of the ruins; of course, he could not come to the house. hannah was out: with a little basket to make some purchases. there was a cheery hum of life about the ghetto; a pleasant festival bustle; the air resounded with the raucous clucking of innumerable fowls on their way to the feather-littered, blood-stained shambles, where professional cut-throats wielded sacred knives; boys armed with little braziers of glowing coal ran about the ruins, offering halfpenny pyres for the immolation of the last crumbs of leaven. nobody paid the slightest attention to the two tragic figures whose lives turned on the brief moments of conversation snatched in the thick of the hurrying crowd. david's clouded face lightened a little as he saw hannah advancing towards him. "i knew you would come," he said, taking her hand for a moment. his palm burned, hers was cold and limp. the stress of a great tempest of emotion had driven the blood from her face and limbs, but inwardly she was on fire. as they looked each read revolt in the other's eyes. "let us walk on," he said. they moved slowly forwards. the ground was slippery and muddy under foot. the sky was gray. but the gayety of the crowds neutralized the dull squalor of the scene. "well?" he said, in a low tone. "i thought you had something to propose," she murmured. "let me carry your basket." "no, no; go on. what have you determined?" "not to give you up, hannah, while i live." "ah!" she said quietly. "i have thought it all over, too, and i shall not leave you. but our marriage by jewish law is impossible; we could not marry at any synagogue without my father's knowledge; and he would at once inform the authorities of the bar to our union." "i know, dear. but let us go to america, where no one will know. there we shall find plenty of rabbis to marry us. there is nothing to tie me to this country. i can start my business in america just as well as here. your parents, too, will think more kindly of you when you are across the seas. forgiveness is easier at a distance. what do you say, dear?" she shook her head. "why should we be married in a synagogue?" she asked. "why?" repeated he, puzzled. "yes, why?" "because we are jews." "you would use jewish forms to outwit jewish laws?" she asked quietly. "no, no. why should you put it that way? i don't doubt the bible is all right in making the laws it does. after the first heat of my anger was over, i saw the whole thing in its proper bearings. those laws about priests were only intended for the days when we had a temple, and in any case they cannot apply to a merely farcical divorce like yours. it is these old fools,--i beg your pardon,--it is these fanatical rabbis who insist on giving them a rigidity god never meant them to have, just as they still make a fuss about _kosher_ meat. in america they are less strict; besides, they will not know i am a _cohen_." "no. david," said hannah firmly. "there must be no more deceit. what need have we to seek the sanction of any rabbi? if jewish law cannot marry us without our hiding something, then i will have nothing to do with jewish law. you know my opinions: i haven't gone so deeply into religious questions as you have--" "don't be sarcastic," he interrupted. "i have always been sick to death of this eternal ceremony, this endless coil of laws winding round us and cramping our lives at every turn; and now it has become too oppressive to be borne any longer. why should we let it ruin our lives? and why, if we determine to break from it, shall we pretend to keep to it? what do you care for judaism? you eat _triphas_, you smoke on _shabbos_ when you want to--" "yes, i know, perhaps i'm wrong. but everybody does it now-a-days. when i was a boy nobody dared be seen riding in a 'bus on _shabbos_--now you meet lots. but all that is only old-fashioned judaism. there must be a god, else we shouldn't be here, and it's impossible to believe that jesus was he. a man must have some religion, and there isn't anything better. but that's neither here nor there. if you don't care for my plan," he concluded anxiously, "what's yours?" "let us be married honestly by a registrar." "any way you like, dear," he said readily, "so long as we are married--and quickly." "as quickly as you like." he seized her disengaged hand and pressed it passionately. "that's my own darling hannah. oh, if you could realize what i felt last night when you seemed to be drifting away from me." there was an interval of silence, each thinking excitedly. then david said: "but have you the courage to do this and remain in london?" "i have courage for anything. but, as you say, it might be better to travel. it will be less of a break if we break away altogether--change everything at once. it sounds contradictory, but you understand what i mean." "perfectly. it is difficult to live a new life with all the old things round you. besides, why should we give our friends the chance to cold-shoulder us? they will find all sorts of malicious reasons why we were not married in a _shool_, and if they hit on the true one they may even regard our marriage as illegal. let us go to america, as i proposed." "very well. do we go direct from london?" "no, from liverpool." "then we can be married at liverpool before sailing?" "a good idea. but when do we start?" "at once. to-night. the sooner the better." he looked at her quickly. "do you mean it?" he said. his heart beat violently as if it would burst. waves of dazzling color swam before his eyes. "i mean it," she said gravely and quietly. "do you think i could face my father and mother, knowing i was about to wound them to the heart? each day of delay would be torture to me. oh, why is religion such a curse?" she paused, overwhelmed for a moment by the emotion she had been suppressing. she resumed in the same quiet manner. "yes, we must break away at once. we have kept our last passover. we shall have to eat leavened food--it will be a decisive break. take me to liverpool, david, this very day. you are my chosen husband; i trust in you." she looked at him frankly with her dark eyes that stood out in lustrous relief against the pale skin. he gazed into those eyes, and a flash as from the inner heaven of purity pierced his soul. "thank you, dearest," he said in a voice with tears in it. they walked on silently. speech was as superfluous as it was inadequate. when they spoke again their voices were calm. the peace that comes of resolute decision was theirs at last, and each was full of the joy of daring greatly for the sake of their mutual love. petty as their departure from convention might seem to the stranger, to them it loomed as a violent breach with all the traditions of the ghetto and their past lives; they were venturing forth into untrodden paths, holding each other's hand. jostling the loquacious crowd, in the unsavory by-ways of the ghetto, in the gray chillness of a cloudy morning, hannah seemed to herself to walk in enchanted gardens, breathing the scent of love's own roses mingled with the keen salt air that blew in from the sea of liberty. a fresh, new blessed life was opening before her. the clogging vapors of the past were rolling away at last. the unreasoning instinctive rebellion, bred of ennui and brooding dissatisfaction with the conditions of her existence and the people about her, had by a curious series of accidents been hastened to its acutest development; thought had at last fermented into active resolution, and the anticipation of action flooded her soul with peace and joy, in which all recollection of outside humanity was submerged. "what time can you be ready by?" he said before they parted. "any time," she answered. "i can take nothing with me. i dare not pack anything. i suppose i can get necessaries in liverpool. i have merely my hat and cloak to put on." "but that will be enough," he said ardently. "i want but you." "i know it, dear," she answered gently. "if you were as other jewish young men i could not give up all else for you." "you shall never regret it, hannah," he said, moved to his depths, as the full extent of her sacrifice for love dawned upon him. he was a vagabond on the face of the earth, but she was tearing herself away from deep roots in the soil of home, as well as from the conventions of her circle and her sex. once again he trembled with a sense of unworthiness, a sudden anxious doubt if he were noble enough to repay her trust. mastering his emotion, he went on: "i reckon my packing and arrangements for leaving the country will take me all day at least. i must see my bankers if nobody else. i shan't take leave of anybody, that would arouse suspicion. i will be at the corner of your street with a cab at nine, and we'll catch the ten o'clock express from euston. if we missed that, we should have to wait till midnight. it will be dark; no one is likely to notice me. i will get a dressing-case for you and anything else i can think of and add it to my luggage." "very well," she said simply. they did not kiss; she gave him her hand, and, with a sudden inspiration, he slipped the ring he had brought the day before on her finger. the tears came into her eyes as she saw what he had done. they looked at each other through a mist, feeling bound beyond human intervention. "good-bye," she faltered. "good-bye," he said. "at nine." "at nine," she breathed. and hurried off without looking behind. it was a hard day, the minutes crawling reluctantly into the hours, the hours dragging themselves wearily on towards the night. it was typical april weather--squalls and sunshine in capricious succession. when it drew towards dusk she put on her best clothes for the festival, stuffing a few precious mementoes into her pockets and wearing her father's portrait next to her lover's at her breast. she hung a travelling cloak and a hat on a peg near the hall-door ready to hand as she left the house. of little use was she in the kitchen that day, but her mother was tender to her as knowing her sorrow. time after time hannah ascended to her bedroom to take a last look at the things she had grown so tired of--the little iron bed, the wardrobe, the framed lithographs, the jug and basin with their floral designs. all things seemed strangely dear now she was seeing them for the last time. hannah turned over everything--even the little curling iron, and the cardboard box full of tags and rags of ribbon and chiffon and lace and crushed artificial flowers, and the fans with broken sticks and the stays with broken ribs, and the petticoats with dingy frills and the twelve-button ball gloves with dirty fingers, and the soiled pink wraps. some of her books, especially her school-prizes, she would have liked to take with her--but that could not be. she went over the rest of the house, too, from top to bottom. it weakened her but she could not conquer the impulse of farewell, finally she wrote a letter to her parents and hid it under her looking-glass, knowing they would search her room for traces of her. she looked curiously at herself as she did so; the color had not returned to her cheeks. she knew she was pretty and always strove to look nice for the mere pleasure of the thing. all her instincts were aesthetic. now she had the air of a saint wrought up to spiritual exaltation. she was almost frightened by the vision. she had seen her face frowning, weeping, overcast with gloom, never with an expression so fateful. it seemed as if her resolution was writ large upon every feature for all to read. in the evening she accompanied her father to _shool_. she did not often go in the evening, and the thought of going only suddenly occurred to her. heaven alone knew if she would ever enter a synagogue again--the visit would be part of her systematic farewell. reb shemuel took it as a symptom of resignation to the will of god, and he laid his hand lightly on her head in silent blessing, his eyes uplifted gratefully to heaven. too late hannah felt the misconception and was remorseful. for the festival occasion reb shemuel elected to worship at the great synagogue; hannah, seated among the sparse occupants of the ladies' gallery and mechanically fingering a _machzor_, looked down for the last time on the crowded auditorium where the men sat in high hats and holiday garments. tall wax-candles twinkled everywhere, in great gilt chandeliers depending from the ceiling, in sconces stuck about the window ledges, in candelabra branching from the walls. there was an air of holy joy about the solemn old structure with its massive pillars, its small side-windows, high ornate roof, and skylights, and its gilt-lettered tablets to the memory of pious donors. the congregation gave the responses with joyous unction. some of the worshippers tempered their devotion by petty gossip and the beadle marshalled the men in low hats within the iron railings, sonorously sounding his automatic amens. but to-night hannah had no eye for the humors that were wont to awaken her scornful amusement--a real emotion possessed her, the same emotion of farewell which she had experienced in her own bedroom. her eyes wandered towards the ark, surmounted by the stone tablets of the decalogue, and the sad dark orbs filled with the brooding light of childish reminiscence. once when she was a little girl her father told her that on passover night an angel sometimes came out of the doors of the ark from among the scrolls of the law. for years she looked out for that angel, keeping her eyes patiently fixed on the curtain. at last she gave him up, concluding her vision was insufficiently purified or that he was exhibiting at other synagogues. to-night her childish fancy recurred to her--she found herself involuntarily looking towards the ark and half-expectant of the angel. she had not thought of the _seder_ service she would have to partially sit through, when she made her appointment with david in the morning, but when during the day it occurred to her, a cynical smile traversed her lips. how apposite it was! to-night would mark _her_ exodus from slavery. like her ancestors leaving egypt, she, too, would partake of a meal in haste, staff in hand ready for the journey. with what stout heart would she set forth, she, too, towards the promised land! thus had she thought some hours since, but her mood was changed now. the nearer the _seder_ approached, the more she shrank from the family ceremonial. a panic terror almost seized her now, in the synagogue, when the picture of the domestic interior flashed again before her mental vision--she felt like flying into the street, on towards her lover without ever looking behind. oh, why could david not have fixed the hour earlier, so as to spare her an ordeal so trying to the nerves? the black-stoled choir was singing sweetly, hannah banished her foolish flutter of alarm by joining in quietly, for congregational singing was regarded rather as an intrusion on the privileges of the choir and calculated to put them out in their elaborate four-part fugues unaided by an organ. "with everlasting love hast thou loved the house of israel, thy people," she sang: "a law and commandments, statutes and judgments hast thou taught us. therefore, o lord our god, when we lie down and when we rise up we will meditate on thy statutes: yea, we will rejoice in the words of thy law and in thy commandments for ever, for they are our life and the length of our days, and will meditate on them day and night. and mayest thou never take away thy love from us. blessed art thou. o lord, who lovest thy people israel." hannah scanned the english version of the hebrew in her _machzor_ as she sang. though she could translate every word, the meaning of what she sang was never completely conceived by her consciousness. the power of song over the soul depends but little on the words. now the words seem fateful, pregnant with special message. her eyes were misty when the fugues were over. again she looked towards the ark with its beautifully embroidered curtain, behind which were the precious scrolls with their silken swathes and their golden bells and shields and pomegranates. ah, if the angel would come out now! if only the dazzling vision gleamed for a moment on the white steps. oh, why did he not come and save her? save her? from what? she asked herself the question fiercely, in defiance of the still, small voice. what wrong had she ever done that she so young and gentle should be forced to make so cruel a choice between the old and the new? this was the synagogue she should have been married in; stepping gloriously and honorably under the canopy, amid the pleasant excitement of a congratulatory company. and now she was being driven to exile and the chillness of secret nuptials. no, no; she did not want to be saved in the sense of being kept in the fold: it was the creed that was culpable, not she. the service drew to an end. the choir sang the final hymn, the _chasan_ giving the last verse at great length and with many musical flourishes. "the dead will god quicken in the abundance of his loving kindness. blessed for evermore be his glorious name." there was a clattering of reading-flaps and seat-lids and the congregation poured out, amid the buzz of mutual "good _yomtovs."_ hannah rejoined her father, the sense of injury and revolt still surging in her breast. in the fresh starlit air, stepping along the wet gleaming pavements, she shook off the last influences of the synagogue; all her thoughts converged on the meeting with david, on the wild flight northwards while good jews were sleeping off the supper in celebration of their redemption; her blood coursed quickly through her veins, she was in a fever of impatience for the hour to come. and thus it was that she sat at the _seder_ table, as in a dream, with images of desperate adventure flitting in her brain. the face of her lover floated before her eyes, close, close to her own as it should have been to-night had there been justice in heaven. now and again the scene about her flashed in upon her consciousness, piercing her to the heart. when levi asked the introductory question, it set her wondering what would become of him? would manhood bring enfranchisement to him as womanhood was doing to her? what sort of life would he lead the poor reb and his wife? the omens were scarcely auspicious; but a man's charter is so much wider than a woman's; and levi might do much without paining them as she would pain them. poor father! the white hairs were predominating in his beard, she had never noticed before how old he was getting. and mother--her face was quite wrinkled. ah, well; we must all grow old. what a curious man melchitsedek pinchas was, singing so heartily the wonderful story. judaism certainly produced some curious types. a smile crossed her face as she thought of herself as his bride. at supper she strove to eat a little, knowing she would need it. in bringing some plates from the kitchen she looked at her hat and cloak, carefully hung up on the peg in the hall nearest the street door. it would take but a second to slip them on. she nodded her head towards them, as who should say "yes, we shall meet again very soon." during the meal she found herself listening to the poet's monologues delivered in his high-pitched creaking voice. melchitsedek pinchas had much to say about a certain actor-manager who had spoiled the greatest jargon-play of the century and a certain labor-leader who, out of the funds of his gulls, had subsidized the audience to stay away, and (though here the reb cut him short for hannah's sake) a certain leading lady, one of the quartette of mistresses of a certain clergyman, who had been beguiled by her paramour into joining the great english conspiracy to hound down melchitsedek pinchas,--all of whom he would shoot presently and had in the meantime enshrined like dead flies in the amber of immortal acrostics. the wind began to shake the shutters as they finished supper and presently the rain began to patter afresh against the panes. reb shemuel distributed the pieces of _afikuman_ with a happy sigh, and, lolling on his pillows and almost forgetting his family troubles in the sense of israel's blessedness, began to chant the grace like the saints in the psalm who sing aloud on their couches. the little dutch clock on the mantelpiece began to strike. hannah did not move. pale and trembling she sat riveted to her chair. one--two--three--four--five--six--seven--eight. she counted the strokes, as if to count them was the only means of telling the hour, as if her eyes had not been following the hands creeping, creeping. she had a mad hope the striking would cease with the eight and there would be still time to think. _nine_! she waited, her ear longing for the tenth stroke. if it were only ten o'clock, it would be too late. the danger would be over. she sat, mechanically watching the hands. they crept on. it was five minutes past the hour. she felt sure that david was already at the corner of the street, getting wet and a little impatient. she half rose from her chair. it was not a nice night for an elopement. she sank back into her seat. perhaps they had best wait till to-morrow night. she would go and tell david so. but then he would not mind the weather; once they had met he would bundle her into the cab and they would roll on leaving the old world irrevocably behind. she sat in a paralysis of volition; rigid on her chair, magnetized by the warm comfortable room, the old familiar furniture, the passover table--with its white table-cloth and its decanter and wine-glasses, the faces of her father and mother eloquent with the appeal of a thousand memories. the clock ticked on loudly, fiercely, like a summoning drum; the rain beat an impatient tattoo on the window-panes, the wind rattled the doors and casements. "go forth, go forth," they called, "go forth where your lover waits you, to bear you of into the new and the unknown." and the louder they called the louder reb shemuel trolled his hilarious grace: _may he who maketh peace in the high heavens, bestow peace upon us and upon all israel and say ye, amen_. the hands of the clock crept on. it was half-past nine. hannah sat lethargic, numb, unable to think, her strung-up nerves grown flaccid, her eyes full of bitter-sweet tears, her soul floating along as in a trance on the waves of a familiar melody. suddenly she became aware that the others had risen and that her father was motioning to her. instinctively she understood; rose automatically and went to the door; then a great shock of returning recollection whelmed her soul. she stood rooted to the floor. her father had filled elijah's goblet with wine and it was her annual privilege to open the door for the prophet's entry. intuitively she knew that david was pacing madly in front of the house, not daring to make known his presence, and perhaps cursing her cowardice. a chill terror seized her. she was afraid to face him--his will was strong and mighty; her fevered imagination figured it as the wash of a great ocean breaking on the doorstep threatening to sweep her off into the roaring whirlpool of doom. she threw the door of the room wide and paused as if her duty were done. "_nu, nu_," muttered reb shemuel, indicating the outer door. it was so near that he always had that opened, too. hannah tottered forwards through the few feet of hall. the cloak and hat on the peg nodded to her sardonically. a wild thrill of answering defiance shot through her: she stretched out her hands towards them. "fly, fly; it is your last chance," said the blood throbbing in her ears. but her hand dropped to her side and in that brief instant of terrible illumination, hannah saw down the whole long vista of her future life, stretching straight and unlovely between great blank walls, on, on to a solitary grave; knew that the strength had been denied her to diverge to the right or left, that for her there would be neither exodus nor redemption. strong in the conviction of her weakness she noisily threw open the street door. the face of david, sallow and ghastly, loomed upon her in the darkness. great drops of rain fell from his hat and ran down his cheeks like tears. his clothes seemed soaked with rain. "at last!" he exclaimed in a hoarse, glad whisper. "what has kept you?" "_boruch habo_! (welcome art thou who arrivest)" came the voice of reb shemuel front within, greeting the prophet. "hush!" said hannah. "listen a moment." the sing-song undulations of the old rabbi's voice mingled harshly with the wail of the wind: "_pour out thy wrath on the heathen who acknowledge thee not and upon the kingdoms which invoke not thy name, for they have devoured jacob and laid waste his temple. pour out thy indignation upon them and cause thy fierce anger to overtake them. pursue them in wrath and destroy them from under the heavens of the lord_." "quick, hannah!" whispered david. "we can't wait a moment more. put on your things. we shall miss the train." a sudden inspiration came to her. for answer she drew his ring out of her pocket and slipped it into his hand. "good-bye!" she murmured in a strange hollow voice, and slammed the street door in his face. "hannah!" his startled cry of agony and despair penetrated the woodwork, muffled to an inarticulate shriek. he rattled the door violently in unreasoning frenzy. "who's that? what's that noise?" asked the rebbitzin. "only some christian rough shouting in the street," answered hannah. it was truer than she knew. * * * * * the rain fell faster, the wind grew shriller, but the children of the ghetto basked by their firesides in faith and hope and contentment. hunted from shore to shore through the ages, they had found the national aspiration--peace--in a country where passover came, without menace of blood. in the garret of number royal street little esther ansell sat brooding, her heart full of a vague tender poetry and penetrated by the beauties of judaism, which, please god, she would always cling to; her childish vision looking forward hopefully to the larger life that the years would bring. end of book i. book ii. the grandchildren of the ghetto. chapter i. the christmas dinner. daintily embroidered napery, beautiful porcelain, queen anne silver, exotic flowers, glittering glass, soft rosy light, creamy expanses of shirt-front, elegant low-necked dresses--all the conventional accompaniments of occidental gastronomy. it was not a large party. mrs. henry goldsmith professed to collect guests on artistic principles--as she did bric-à-brac--and with an eye to general conversation. the elements of the social salad were sufficiently incongruous to-night, yet all the ingredients were jewish. for the history of the grandchildren of the ghetto, which is mainly a history of the middle-classes, is mainly a history of isolation. "the upper ten" is a literal phrase in judah, whose aristocracy just about suffices for a synagogue quorum. great majestic luminaries, each with its satellites, they swim serenely in the golden heavens. and the middle-classes look up in worship and the lower-classes in supplication. "the upper ten" have no spirit of exclusiveness; they are willing to entertain royalty, rank and the arts with a catholic hospitality that is only eastern in its magnificence, while some of them only remain jews for fear of being considered snobs by society. but the middle-class jew has been more jealous of his caste, and for caste reasons. to exchange hospitalities with the christian when you cannot eat his dinners were to get the worse of the bargain; to invite his sons to your house when they cannot marry your daughters were to solicit awkward complications. in business, in civic affairs, in politics, the jew has mixed freely with his fellow-citizens, but indiscriminate social relations only become possible through a religious decadence, which they in turn accelerate. a christian in a company of middle-class jews is like a lion in a den of daniels. they show him deference and their prophetic side. mrs. henry goldsmith was of the upper middle-classes, and her husband was the financial representative of the kensington synagogue at the united council, but her swan-like neck was still bowed beneath the yoke of north london, not to say provincial, judaism. so to-night there were none of those external indications of christmas which are so frequent at "good" jewish houses; no plum-pudding, snapdragon, mistletoe, not even a christmas tree. for mrs. henry goldsmith did not countenance these coquettings with christianity. she would have told you that the incidence of her dinner on christmas eve was merely an accident, though a lucky accident, in so far as christmas found jews perforce at leisure for social gatherings. what she was celebrating was the feast of chanukah--of the re-dedication of the temple after the pollutions of antiochus epiphanes--and the memory of the national hero, judas maccabaeus. christmas crackers would have been incompatible with the chanukah candles which the housekeeper, mary o'reilly, forced her master to light, and would have shocked that devout old dame. for mary o'reilly, as good a soul as she was a catholic, had lived all her life with jews, assisting while yet a girl in the kitchen of henry goldsmith's father, who was a pattern of ancient piety and a prop of the great synagogue. when the father died, mary, with all the other family belongings, passed into the hands of the son, who came up to london from a provincial town, and with a grateful recollection of her motherliness domiciled her in his own establishment. mary knew all the ritual laws and ceremonies far better than her new mistress, who although a native of the provincial town in which mr. henry goldsmith had established a thriving business, had received her education at a brussels boarding-school. mary knew exactly how long to keep the meat in salt and the heinousness of frying steaks in butter. she knew that the fire must not be poked on the sabbath, nor the gas lit or extinguished, and that her master must not smoke till three stars appeared in the sky. she knew when the family must fast, and when and how it must feast. she knew all the hebrew and jargon expressions which her employers studiously boycotted, and she was the only member of the household who used them habitually in her intercourse with the other members. too late the henry goldsmiths awoke to the consciousness of her tyranny which did not permit them to be irreligious even in private. in the fierce light which beats upon a provincial town with only one synagogue, they had been compelled to conform outwardly with many galling restrictions, and they had sub-consciously looked forward to emancipation in the mighty metropolis. but mary had such implicit faith in their piety, and was so zealous in the practice of her own faith, that they had not the courage to confess that they scarcely cared a pin about a good deal of that for which she was so solicitous. they hesitated to admit that they did not respect their religion (or what she thought was their religion) as much as she did hers. it would have equally lowered them in her eyes to admit that their religion was not so good as hers, besides being disrespectful to the cherished memory of her ancient master. at first they had deferred to mary's jewish prejudices out of good nature and carelessness, but every day strengthened her hold upon them; every act of obedience to the ritual law was a tacit acknowledgment of its sanctity, which made it more and more difficult to disavow its obligation. the dread of shocking mary came to dominate their lives, and the fashionable house near kensington gardens was still a veritable centre of true jewish orthodoxy, with little or nothing to make old aaron goldsmith turn in his grave. it is probable, though, that mrs. henry goldsmith would have kept a _kosher_ table, even if mary had never been born. many of their acquaintances and relatives were of an orthodox turn. a _kosher_ dinner could be eaten even by the heterodox; whereas a _tripha_ dinner choked off the orthodox. thus it came about that even the rabbinate might safely stoke its spiritual fires at mrs. henry goldsmith's. hence, too, the prevalent craving for a certain author's blood could not be gratified at mrs. henry goldsmith's chanukah dinner. besides, nobody knew where to lay hands upon edward armitage, the author in question, whose opprobrious production, _mordecai josephs_, had scandalized west end judaism. "why didn't he describe our circles?" asked the hostess, an angry fire in her beautiful eyes. "it would have, at least, corrected the picture. as it is, the public will fancy that we are all daubed with the same brush: that we have no thought in life beyond dress, money, and solo whist." "he probably painted the life he knew," said sidney graham, in defence. "then i am sorry for him," retorted mrs. goldsmith. "it's a great pity he had such detestable acquaintances. of course, he has cut himself off from the possibility of any better now." the wavering flush on her lovely face darkened with disinterested indignation, and her beautiful bosom heaved with judicial grief. "i should hope so," put in miss cissy levine, sharply. she was a pale, bent woman, with spectacles, who believed in the mission of israel, and wrote domestic novels to prove that she had no sense of humor. "no one has a right to foul his own nest. are there not plenty of subjects for the jew's pen without his attacking his own people? the calumniator of his race should be ostracized from decent society." "as according to him there is none," laughed graham, "i cannot see where the punishment comes in." "oh, he may say so in that book," said mrs. montagu samuels, an amiable, loose-thinking lady of florid complexion, who dabbled exasperatingly in her husband's philanthropic concerns from the vain idea that the wife of a committee-man is a committee-woman. "but he knows better." "yes, indeed," said mr. montagu samuels. "the rascal has only written this to make money. he knows it's all exaggeration and distortion; but anything spicy pays now-a-days." "as a west indian merchant he ought to know," murmured sidney graham to his charming cousin, adelaide leon. the girl's soft eyes twinkled, as she surveyed the serious little city magnate with his placid spouse. montagu samuels was narrow-minded and narrow-chested, and managed to be pompous on a meagre allowance of body. he was earnest and charitable (except in religious wrangles, when he was earnest and uncharitable), and knew himself a pillar of the community, an exemplar to the drones and sluggards who shirked their share of public burdens and were callous to the dazzlement of communal honors. "of course it was written for money, monty," his brother, percy saville, the stockbroker, reminded him. "what else do authors write for? it's the way they earn their living." strangers found difficulty in understanding the fraternal relation of percy saville and montagu samuels; and did not readily grasp that percy saville was an anglican version of pizer samuels, more in tune with the handsome well-dressed personality it denoted. montagu had stuck loyally to his colors, but pizer had drooped under the burden of carrying his patronymic through the theatrical and artistic circles he favored after business hours. of such is the brotherhood of israel. "the whole book's written with gall," went on percy saville, emphatically. "i suppose the man couldn't get into good jewish houses, and he's revenged himself by slandering them." "then he ought to have got into good jewish houses," said sidney. "the man has talent, nobody can deny that, and if he couldn't get into good jewish society because he didn't have money enough, isn't that proof enough his picture is true?" "i don't deny that there are people among us who make money the one open sesame to their houses," said mrs. henry goldsmith, magnanimously. "deny it, indeed? money is the open sesame to everything," rejoined sidney graham, delightedly scenting an opening for a screed. he liked to talk bomb-shells, and did not often get pillars of the community to shatter. "money manages the schools and the charities, and the synagogues, and indirectly controls the press. a small body of persons--always the same--sits on all councils, on all boards! why? because they pay the piper." "well, sir, and is not that a good reason?" asked montagu samuels. "the community is to be congratulated on having a few public-spirited men left in days when there are wealthy german jews in our midst who not only disavow judaism, but refuse to support its institutions. but, mr. graham, i would join issue with you. the men you allude to are elected not because they are rich, but because they are good men of business and most of the work to be done is financial." "exactly," said sidney graham, in sinister agreement. "i have always maintained that the united synagogue could be run as a joint-stock company for the sake of a dividend, and that there wouldn't be an atom of difference in the discussions if the councillors were directors. i do believe the pillars of the community figure the millenium as a time when every jew shall have enough to eat, a place to worship in, and a place to be buried in. their state church is simply a financial system, to which the doctrines of judaism happen to be tacked on. how many of the councillors believe in their established religion? why, the very beadles of their synagogues are prone to surreptitious shrimps and unobtrusive oysters! then take that institution for supplying _kosher_ meat. i am sure there are lots of its committee who never inquire into the necrologies of their own chops and steaks, and who regard kitchen judaism as obsolete. but, all the same, they look after the finances with almost fanatical zeal. finance fascinates them. long after judaism has ceased to exist, excellent gentlemen will be found regulating its finances." there was that smile on the faces of the graver members of the party which arises from reluctance to take a dangerous speaker seriously. sidney graham was one of those favorites of society who are allowed touchstone's license. he had just as little wish to reform, and just as much wish to abuse society as society has to be reformed and abused. he was a dark, bright-eyed young artist with a silky moustache. he had lived much in paris, where he studied impressionism and perfected his natural talent for _causerie_ and his inborn preference for the hedonistic view of life. fortunately he had plenty of money, for he was a cousin of raphael leon on the mother's side, and the remotest twigs of the leon genealogical tree bear apples of gold. his real name was abrahams, which is a shade too semitic. sidney was the black sheep of the family; good-natured to the core and artistic to the finger-tips, he was an avowed infidel in a world where avowal is the unpardonable sin. he did not even pretend to fast on the day of atonement. still sidney graham was a good deal talked of in artistic circles, his name was often in the newspapers, and so more orthodox people than mrs. henry goldsmith were not averse from having him at their table, though they would have shrunk from being seen at his. even cousin addie, who had a charming religious cast of mind, liked to be with him, though she ascribed this to family piety. for there is a wonderful solidarity about many jewish families, the richer members of which assemble loyally at one another's births, marriages, funerals, and card-parties, often to the entire exclusion of outsiders. an ordinary well-regulated family (so prolific is the stream of life), will include in its bosom ample elements for every occasion. "really, mr. graham, i think you are wrong about the _kosher_ meat," said mr. henry goldsmith. "our statistics show no falling-off in the number of bullocks killed, while there is a rise of two per cent, in the sheep slaughtered. no, judaism is in a far more healthy condition than pessimists imagine. so far from sacrificing our ancient faith we are learning to see how tuberculosis lurks in the lungs of unexamined carcasses and is communicated to the consumer. as for the members of the _shechitah_ board not eating _kosher_, look at me." the only person who looked at the host was the hostess. her look was one of approval. it could not be of aesthetic approval, like the look percy saville devoted to herself, for her husband was a cadaverous little man with prominent ears and teeth. "and if mr. graham should ever join us on the council of the united synagogue," added montagu samuels, addressing the table generally, "he will discover that there is no communal problem with which we do not loyally grapple." "no, thank you," said sidney, with a shudder. "when i visit raphael, i sometimes pick up a jewish paper and amuse myself by reading the debates of your public bodies. i understand most of your verbiage is edited away." he looked montagu samuels full in the face with audacious _naïveté_. "but there is enough left to show that our monotonous group of public men consists of narrow-minded mediocrities. the chief public work they appear to do outside finance is when public exams, fall on sabbaths or holidays, getting special dates for jewish candidates to whom these examinations are the avenues to atheism. they never see the joke. how can they? why, they take even themselves seriously." "oh, come!" said miss cissy levine indignantly. "you often see 'laughter' in the reports." "that must mean the speaker was laughing," explained sidney, "for you never see anything to make the audience laugh. i appeal to mr. montagu samuels." "it is useless discussing a subject with a man who admittedly speaks without knowledge," replied that gentleman with dignity. "well, how do you expect me to get the knowledge?" grumbled sidney. "you exclude the public from your gatherings. i suppose to prevent their rubbing shoulders with the swells, the privilege of being snubbed by whom is the reward of public service. wonderfully practical idea that--to utilize snobbery as a communal force. the united synagogue is founded on it. your community coheres through it." "there you are scarcely fair," said the hostess with a charming smile of reproof. "of course there are snobs amongst us, but is it not the same in all sects?" "emphatically not," said sidney. "if one of our swells sticks to a shred of judaism, people seem to think the god of judah should be thankful, and if he goes to synagogue once or twice a year, it is regarded as a particular condescension to the creator." "the mental attitude you caricature is not so snobbish as it seems," said raphael leon, breaking into the conversation for the first time. "the temptations to the wealthy and the honored to desert their struggling brethren are manifold, and sad experience has made our race accustomed to the loss of its brightest sons." "thanks for the compliment, fair coz," said sidney, not without a complacent cynical pleasure in the knowledge that raphael spoke truly, that he owed his own immunity from the obligations of the faith to his artistic success, and that the outside world was disposed to accord him a larger charter of morality on the same grounds. "but if you can only deny nasty facts by accounting for them, i dare say mr. armitage's book will afford you ample opportunities for explanation. or have jews the brazenness to assert it is all invention?" "no, no one would do that," said percy saville, who had just done it. "certainly there is a good deal of truth in the sketch of the ostentatious, over-dressed johnsons who, as everybody knows, are meant for the jonases." "oh, yes," said mrs. henry goldsmith. "and it is quite evident that the stockbroker who drops half his h's and all his poor acquaintances and believes in one lord, is no other than joel friedman." "and the house where people drive up in broughams for supper and solo whist after the theatre is the davises' in maida vale," said miss cissy levine. "yes, the book's true enough," began mrs. montagu samuels. she stopped suddenly, catching her husband's eye, and the color heightened on her florid cheek. "what i say is," she concluded awkwardly, "he ought to have come among us, and shown the world a picture of the cultured jews." "quite so, quite so," said the hostess. then turning to the tall thoughtful-looking young man who had hitherto contributed but one sentence to the conversation, she said, half in sly malice, half to draw him out: "now you, mr. leon, whose culture is certified by our leading university, what do you think of this latest portrait of the jew?" "i don't know, i haven't read it!" replied raphael apologetically. "no more have i," murmured the table generally. "i wouldn't touch it with a pitchfork," said miss cissy levine. "i think it's a shame they circulate it at the libraries," said mrs. montagu samuels. "i just glanced over it at mrs. hugh marston's house. it's vile. there are actually jargon words in it. such vulgarity!" "shameful!" murmured percy saville; "mr. lazarus was telling me about it. it's plain treachery and disloyalty, this putting of weapons into the hands of our enemies. of course we have our faults, but we should be told of them privately or from the pulpit." "that would be just as efficacious," said sidney admiringly. "more efficacious," said percy saville, unsuspiciously. "a preacher speaks with authority, but this penny-a-liner--" "with truth?" queried sidney. saville stopped, disgusted, and the hostess answered sidney half-coaxingly. "oh, i am sure you can't think that. the book is so one-sided. not a word about our generosity, our hospitality, our domesticity, the thousand-and-one good traits all the world allows us." "of course not; since all the world allows them, it was unnecessary," said sidney. "i wonder the chief rabbi doesn't stop it," said mrs. montagu samuels. "my dear, how can he?" inquired her husband. "he has no control over the publishing trade." "he ought to talk to the man," persisted mrs. samuels. "but we don't even know who he is," said percy saville, "probably edward armitage is only a _nom-de-plume_. you'd be surprised to learn the real names of some of the literary celebrities i meet about." "oh, if he's a jew you may be sure it isn't his real name," laughed sidney. it was characteristic of him that he never spared a shot even when himself hurt by the kick of the gun. percy colored slightly, unmollified by being in the same boat with the satirist. "i have never seen the name in the subscription lists," said the hostess with ready tact. "there is an armitage who subscribes two guineas a year to the board of guardians," said mrs. montagu samuels. "but his christian name is george." "'christian' name is distinctly good for 'george,'" murmured sidney. "there was an armitage who sent a cheque to the russian fund," said mr. henry goldsmith, "but that can't be an author--it was quite a large cheque!" "i am sure i have seen armitage among the births, marriages and deaths," said miss cissy levine. "how well-read they all are in the national literature," sidney murmured to addie. indeed the sectarian advertisements served to knit the race together, counteracting the unravelling induced by the fashionable dispersion of israel and waxing the more important as the other links--the old traditional jokes, by-words, ceremonies, card-games, prejudices and tunes, which are more important than laws and more cementatory than ideals--were disappearing before the over-zealousness of a _parvenu_ refinement that had not yet attained to self-confidence. the anglo-saxon stolidity of the west-end synagogue service, on week days entirely given over to paid praying-men, was a typical expression of the universal tendency to exchange the picturesque primitiveness of the orient for the sobrieties of fashionable civilization. when jeshurun waxed fat he did not always kick, but he yearned to approximate as much as possible to john bull without merging in him; to sink himself and yet not be absorbed, not to be and yet to be. the attempt to realize the asymptote in human mathematics was not quite successful, too near an approach to john bull generally assimilating jeshurun away. for such is the nature of jeshurun. enfranchise him, give him his own way and you make a new man of him; persecute him and he is himself again. "but if nobody has read the man's book," raphael leon ventured to interrupt at last, "is it quite fair to assume his book isn't fit to read?" the shy dark little girl he had taken down to dinner darted an appreciative glance at her neighbor. it was in accordance with raphael's usual anxiety to give the devil his due, that he should be unwilling to condemn even the writer of an anti-semitic novel unheard. but then it was an open secret in the family that raphael was mad. they did their best to hush it up, but among themselves they pitied him behind his back. even sidney considered his cousin raphael pushed a dubious virtue too far in treating people's very prejudices with the deference due to earnest reasoned opinions. "but we know enough of the book to know we are badly treated," protested the hostess. "we have always been badly treated in literature," said raphael. "we are made either angels or devils. on the one hand, lessing and george eliot, on the other, the stock dramatist and novelist with their low-comedy villain." "oh," said mrs. goldsmith, doubtfully, for she could not quite think raphael had become infected by his cousin's propensity for paradox. "do you think george eliot and lessing didn't understand the jewish character?" "they are the only writers who have ever understood it," affirmed miss cissy levine, emphatically. a little scornful smile played for a second about the mouth of the dark little girl. "stop a moment," said sidney. "i've been so busy doing justice to this delicious asparagus, that i have allowed raphael to imagine nobody here has read _mordecai josephs_. i have, and i say there is more actuality in it than in _daniel deronda_ and _nathan der weise_ put together. it is a crude production, all the same; the writer's artistic gift seems handicapped by a dead-weight of moral platitudes and highfalutin, and even mysticism. he not only presents his characters but moralizes over them--actually cares whether they are good or bad, and has yearnings after the indefinable--it is all very young. instead of being satisfied that judaea gives him characters that are interesting, he actually laments their lack of culture. still, what he has done is good enough to make one hope his artistic instinct will shake off his moral." "oh, sidney, what are you saying?" murmured addie. "it's all right, little girl. you don't understand greek." "it's not greek," put in raphael. "in greek art, beauty of soul and beauty of form are one. it's french you are talking, though the ignorant _ateliers_ where you picked it up flatter themselves it's greek." "it's greek to addie, anyhow," laughed sidney. "but that's what makes the anti-semitic chapters so unsatisfactory." "we all felt their unsatisfactoriness, if we could not analyze it so cleverly," said the hostess. "we all felt it," said mrs. montagu samuels. "yes, that's it," said sidney, blandly. "i could have forgiven the rose-color of the picture if it had been more artistically painted." "rose-color!" gasped mrs. henry goldsmith, "rose-color, indeed!" not even sidney's authority could persuade the table into that. poor rich jews! the upper middle-classes had every excuse for being angry. they knew they were excellent persons, well-educated and well-travelled, interested in charities (both jewish and christian), people's concerts, district-visiting, new novels, magazines, reading-circles, operas, symphonies, politics, volunteer regiments, show-sunday and corporation banquets; that they had sons at rugby and oxford, and daughters who played and painted and sang, and homes that were bright oases of optimism in a jaded society; that they were good liberals and tories, supplementing their duties as englishmen with a solicitude for the best interests of judaism; that they left no stone unturned to emancipate themselves from the secular thraldom of prejudice; and they felt it very hard that a little vulgar section should always be chosen by their own novelists, and their efforts to raise the tone of jewish society passed by. sidney, whose conversation always had the air of aloofness from the race, so that his own foibles often came under the lash of his sarcasm, proceeded to justify his assertion of the rose-color picture in _mordecai josephs_. he denied that modern english jews had any religion whatever; claiming that their faith consisted of forms that had to be kept up in public, but which they were too shrewd and cute to believe in or to practise in private, though every one might believe every one else did; that they looked upon due payment of their synagogue bills as discharging all their obligations to heaven; that the preachers secretly despised the old formulas, and that the rabbinate declared its intention of dying for judaism only as a way of living by it; that the body politic was dead and rotten with hypocrisy, though the augurs said it was alive and well. he admitted that the same was true of christianity. raphael reminded him that a number of jews had drifted quite openly from the traditional teaching, that thousands of well-ordered households found inspiration and spiritual satisfaction in every form of it, and that hypocrisy was too crude a word for the complex motives of those who obeyed it without inner conviction. "for instance," said he, "a gentleman said to me the other day--i was much touched by the expression--'i believe with my father's heart.'" "it is a good epigram," said sidney, impressed. "but what is to be said of a rich community which recruits its clergy from the lower classes? the method of election by competitive performance, common as it is among poor dissenters, emphasizes the subjection of the shepherd to his flock. you catch your ministers young, when they are saturated with suppressed scepticism, and bribe them with small salaries that seem affluence to the sons of poor immigrants. that the ministry is not an honorable profession may be seen from the anxiety of the minister to raise his children in the social scale by bringing them up to some other line of business." "that is true," said raphael, gravely. "our wealthy families must be induced to devote a son each to the synagogue." "i wish they would," said sidney. "at present, every second man is a lawyer. we ought to have more officers and doctors, too. i like those old jews who smote the philistines hip and thigh; it is not good for a race to run all to brain: i suppose, though, we had to develop cunning to survive at all. there was an enlightened minister whose friday evenings i used to go to when a youth--delightful talk we had there, too; you know whom i mean. well, one of his sons is a solicitor, and the other a stockbroker. the rich men he preached to helped to place his sons. he was a charming man, but imagine him preaching to them the truths in _mordecai josephs_, as mr. saville suggested." "_our_ minister lets us have it hot enough, though," said mr. henry goldsmith with a guffaw. his wife hastened to obliterate the unrefined expression. "mr. strelitski is a wonderfully eloquent young man, so quiet and reserved in society, but like an ancient prophet in the pulpit." "yes, we were very lucky to get him," said mr. henry goldsmith. the little dark girl shuddered. "what is the matter?" asked raphael softly. "i don't know. i don't like the rev. joseph strelitski. he is eloquent, but his dogmatism irritates me. i don't believe he is sincere. he doesn't like me, either." "oh, you're both wrong," he said in concern. "strelitski is a draw, i admit," said mr. montagu samuels, who was the president of a rival synagogue. "but rosenbaum is a good pull-down on the other side, eh?" mr. henry goldsmith groaned. the second minister of the kensington synagogue was the scandal of the community. he wasn't expected to preach, and he didn't practise. "i've heard of that man," said sidney laughing. "he's a bit of a gambler and a spendthrift, isn't he? why do you keep him on?" "he has a fine voice, you see," said mr. goldsmith. "that makes a rosenbaum faction at once. then he has a wife and family. that makes another." "strelitski isn't married, is he?" asked sidney. "no," said mr. goldsmith, "not yet. the congregation expects him to, though. i don't care to give him the hint myself; he is a little queer sometimes." "he owes it to his position," said miss cissy levine. "that is what we think," said mrs. henry goldsmith, with the majestic manner that suited her opulent beauty. "i wish we had him in our synagogue," said raphael. "michaels is a well-meaning worthy man, but he is dreadfully dull." "poor raphael!" said sidney. "why did you abolish the old style of minister who had to slaughter the sheep? now the minister reserves all his powers of destruction for his own flock.'" "i have given him endless hints to preach only once a month," said mr. montagu samuels dolefully. "but every saturday our hearts sink as we see him walk to the pulpit." "you see, addie, how a sense of duty makes a man criminal," said sidney. "isn't michaels the minister who defends orthodoxy in a way that makes the orthodox rage over his unconscious heresies, while the heterodox enjoy themselves by looking out for his historical and grammatical blunders!" "poor man, he works hard," said raphael, gently. "let him be." over the dessert the conversation turned by way of the rev. strelitski's marriage, to the growing willingness of the younger generation to marry out of judaism. the table discerned in inter-marriage the beginning of the end. "but why postpone the inevitable?" asked sidney calmly. "what is this mania for keeping up an effete _ism_? are we to cripple our lives for the sake of a word? it's all romantic fudge, the idea of perpetual isolation. you get into little cliques and mistaken narrow-mindedness for fidelity to an ideal. i can live for months and forget there are such beings as jews in the world. i have floated down the nile in a _dahabiya_ while you were beating your breasts in the synagogue, and the palm-trees and pelicans knew nothing of your sacrosanct chronological crisis, your annual epidemic of remorse." the table thrilled with horror, without, however, quite believing in the speaker's wickedness. addie looked troubled. "a man and wife of different religions can never know true happiness," said the hostess. "granted," retorted sidney. "but why shouldn't jews without judaism marry christians without christianity? must a jew needs have a jewess to help him break the law?" "inter-marriage must not be tolerated," said raphael. "it would hurt us less if we had a country. lacking that, we must preserve our human boundaries." "you have good phrases sometimes," admitted sidney. "but why must we preserve any boundaries? why must we exist at all as a separate people?" "to fulfil the mission of israel," said mr. montagu samuels solemnly. "ah, what is that? that is one of the things nobody ever seems able to tell me." "we are god's witnesses," said mrs. henry goldsmith, snipping off for herself a little bunch of hot-house grapes. "false witnesses, mostly then," said sidney. "a christian friend of mine, an artist, fell in love with a girl and courted her regularly at her house for four years. then he proposed; she told him to ask her father, and he then learned for the first time that the family were jewish, and his suit could not therefore be entertained. could a satirist have invented anything funnier? whatever it was jews have to bear witness to, these people had been bearing witness to so effectually that a daily visitor never heard a word of the evidence during four years. and this family is not an exception; it is a type. abroad the english jew keeps his judaism in the background, at home in the back kitchen. when he travels, his judaism is not packed up among his _impedimenta_. he never obtrudes his creed, and even his jewish newspaper is sent to him in a wrapper labelled something else. how's that for witnesses? mind you, i'm not blaming the men, being one of 'em. they may be the best fellows going, honorable, high-minded, generous--why expect them to be martyrs more than other englishmen? isn't life hard enough without inventing a new hardship? i declare there's no narrower creature in the world than your idealist; he sets up a moral standard which suits his own line of business, and rails at men of the world for not conforming to it. god's witnesses, indeed! i say nothing of those who are rather the devil's witnesses, but think of the host of jews like myself who, whether they marry christians or not, simply drop out, and whose absence of all religion escapes notice in the medley of creeds. we no more give evidence than those old spanish jews--marannos, they were called, weren't they?--who wore the christian mask for generations. practically, many of us are marannos still; i don't mean the jews who are on the stage and the press and all that, but the jews who have gone on believing. one day of atonement i amused myself by noting the pretexts on the shutters of shops that were closed in the strand. 'our annual holiday,' stock-taking day,' 'our annual bean-feast.' 'closed for repairs.'" "well, it's something if they keep the fast at all," said mr. henry goldsmith. "it shows spirituality is not dead in them." "spirituality!" sneered sidney. "sheer superstition, rather. a dread of thunderbolts. besides, fasting is a sensuous _attraction_. but for the fasting, the day of atonement would have long since died out for these men. 'our annual bean-feast'! there's witnesses for you." "we cannot help if we have false witnesses among us," said raphael leon quietly. "our mission is to spread the truth of the torah till the earth is filled with the knowledge of the lord as the waters cover the sea." "but we don't spread it." "we do. christianity and mohammedanism are offshoots of judaism; through them we have won the world from paganism and taught it that god is one with the moral law." "then we are somewhat in the position of an ancient school-master lagging superfluous in the school-room where his whilom pupils are teaching." "by no means. rather of one who stays on to protest against the false additions of his whilom pupils." "but we don't protest." "our mere existence since the dispersion is a protest," urged raphael. "when the stress of persecution lightens, we may protest more consciously. we cannot have been preserved in vain through so many centuries of horrors, through the invasions of the goths and huns, through the crusades, through the holy roman empire, through the times of torquemada. it is not for nothing that a handful of jews loom so large in the history of the world that their past is bound up with every noble human effort, every high ideal, every development of science, literature and art. the ancient faith that has united us so long must not be lost just as it is on the very eve of surviving the faiths that sprang from it, even as it has survived egypt, assyria, rome, greece and the moors. if any of us fancy we have lost it, let us keep together still. who knows but that it will be born again in us if we are only patient? race affinity is a potent force; why be in a hurry to dissipate it? the marannos you speak of were but maimed heroes, yet one day the olden flame burst through the layers of three generations of christian profession and inter-marriage, and a brilliant company of illustrious spaniards threw up their positions and sailed away in voluntary exile to serve the god of israel. we shall yet see a spiritual revival even among our brilliant english jews who have hid their face from their own flesh." the dark little girl looked up into his face with ill-suppressed wonder. "have you done preaching at me, raphael?" inquired sidney. "if so, pass me a banana." raphael smiled sadly and obeyed. "i'm afraid if i see much of raphael i shall be converted to judaism," said sidney, peeling the banana. "i had better take a hansom to the riviera at once. i intended to spend christmas there; i never dreamed i should be talking theology in london." "oh, i think christmas in london is best," said the hostess unguardedly. "oh, i don't know. give me brighton," said the host. "well, yes, i suppose brighton _is_ pleasanter," said mr. montagu samuels. "oh, but so many jews go there," said percy saville. "yes, that _is_ the drawback," said mrs. henry goldsmith. "do you know, some years ago i discovered a delightful village in devonshire, and took the household there in the summer. the very next year when i went down i found no less than two jewish families temporarily located there. of course, i have never gone there since." "yes, it's wonderful how jews scent out all the nicest places," agreed mrs. montagu samuels. "five years ago you could escape them by not going to ramsgate; now even the highlands are getting impossible." thereupon the hostess rose and the ladies retired to the drawing-room, leaving the gentlemen to discuss coffee, cigars and the paradoxes of sidney, who, tired of religion, looked to dumb show plays for the salvation of dramatic literature. there was a little milk-jug on the coffee-tray, it represented a victory over mary o'reilly. the late aaron goldsmith never took milk till six hours after meat, and it was with some trepidation that the present mr. goldsmith ordered it to be sent up one evening after dinner. he took an early opportunity of explaining apologetically to mary that some of his guests were not so pious as himself, and hospitality demanded the concession. mr. henry goldsmith did not like his coffee black. his dinner-table was hardly ever without a guest. chapter ii. raphael leon. when the gentlemen joined the ladies, raphael instinctively returned to his companion of the dinner-table. she had been singularly silent during the meal, but her manner had attracted him. over his black coffee and cigarette it struck him that she might have been unwell, and that he had been insufficiently attentive to the little duties of the table, and he hastened to ask if she had a headache. "no, no," she said, with a grateful smile. "at least not more than usual." her smile was full of pensive sweetness, which made her face beautiful. it was a face that would have been almost plain but for the soul behind. it was dark, with great earnest eyes. the profile was disappointing, the curves were not perfect, and there was a reminder of polish origin in the lower jaw and the cheek-bone. seen from the front, the face fascinated again, in the eastern glow of its coloring, in the flash of the white teeth, in the depths of the brooding eyes, in the strength of the features that yet softened to womanliest tenderness and charm when flooded by the sunshine of a smile. the figure was _petite_ and graceful, set off by a simple tight-fitting, high-necked dress of ivory silk draped with lace, with a spray of neapolitan violets at the throat. they sat in a niche of the spacious and artistically furnished drawing-room, in the soft light of the candles, talking quietly while addie played chopin. mrs. henry goldsmith's aesthetic instincts had had full play in the elaborate carelessness of the _ensemble_, and the result was a triumph, a medley of persian luxury and parisian grace, a dream of somniferous couches and arm-chairs, rich tapestry, vases, fans, engravings, books, bronzes, tiles, plaques and flowers. mr. henry goldsmith was himself a connoisseur in the arts, his own and his father's fortunes having been built up in the curio and antique business, though to old aaron goldsmith appreciation had meant strictly pricing, despite his genius for detecting false correggios and sham louis quatorze cabinets. "do you suffer from headaches?" inquired raphael solicitously. "a little. the doctor says i studied too much and worked too hard when a little girl. such is the punishment of perseverance. life isn't like the copy-books." "oh, but i wonder your parents let you over-exert yourself." a melancholy smile played about the mobile lips. "i brought myself up," she said. "you look puzzled--oh, i know! confess you think i'm miss goldsmith!" "why--are--you--not?" he stammered. "no, my name is ansell, esther ansell." "pardon me. i am so bad at remembering names in introductions. but i've just come back from oxford and it's the first time i've been to this house, and seeing you here without a cavalier when we arrived, i thought you lived here." "you thought rightly, i do live here." she laughed gently at his changing expression. "i wonder sidney never mentioned you to me," he said. "do you mean mr. graham?" she said with a slight blush. "yes, i know he visits here." "oh, he is an artist. he has eyes only for the beautiful." she spoke quickly, a little embarrassed. "you wrong him; his interests are wider than that." "do you know i am so glad you didn't pay me the obvious compliment?" she said, recovering herself. "it looked as if i were fishing for it. i'm so stupid." he looked at her blankly. "_i'm_ stupid," he said, "for i don't know what compliment i missed paying." "if you regret it i shall not think so well of you," she said. "you know i've heard all about your brilliant success at oxford." "they put all those petty little things in the jewish papers, don't they?" "i read it in the _times_," retorted esther. "you took a double first and the prize for poetry and a heap of other things, but i noticed the prize for poetry, because it is so rare to find a jew writing poetry." "prize poetry is not poetry," he reminded her. "but, considering the jewish bible contains the finest poetry in the world, i do not see why you should be surprised to find a jew trying to write some." "oh, you know what i mean," answered esther. "what is the use of talking about the old jews? we seem to be a different race now. who cares for poetry?" "our poet's scroll reaches on uninterruptedly through the middle ages. the passing phenomenon of to-day must not blind us to the real traits of our race," said raphael. "nor must we be blind to the passing phenomenon of to-day," retorted esther. "we have no ideals now." "i see sidney has been infecting you," he said gently. "no, no; i beg you will not think that," she said, flushing almost resentfully. "i have thought these things, as the scripture tells us to meditate on the law, day and night, sleeping and waking, standing up and sitting down." "you cannot have thought of them without prejudice, then," he answered, "if you say we have no ideals." "i mean, we're not responsive to great poetry--to the message of a browning for instance." "i deny it. only a small percentage of his own race is responsive. i would wager our percentage is proportionally higher. but browning's philosophy of religion is already ours, for hundreds of years every saturday night every jew has been proclaiming the view of life and providence in 'pisgah sights.'" all's lend and borrow, good, see, wants evil, joy demands sorrow, angel weds devil. "what is this but the philosophy of our formula for ushering out the sabbath and welcoming in the days of toil, accepting the holy and the profane, the light and the darkness?" "is that in the prayer-book?" said esther astonished. "yes; you see you are ignorant of our own ritual while admiring everything non-jewish. excuse me if i am frank, miss ansell, but there are many people among us who rave over italian antiquities but can see nothing poetical in judaism. they listen eagerly to dante but despise david." "i shall certainly look up the liturgy," said esther. "but that will not alter my opinion. the jew may say these fine things, but they are only a tune to him. yes, i begin to recall the passage in hebrew--i see my father making _havdolah_--the melody goes in my head like a sing-song. but i never in my life thought of the meaning. as a little girl i always got my conscious religious inspiration out of the new testament. it sounds very shocking, i know." "undoubtedly you put your finger on an evil. but there is religious edification in common prayers and ceremonies even when divorced from meaning. remember the latin prayers of the catholic poor. jews may be below judaism, but are not all men below their creed? if the race which gave the world the bible knows it least--" he stopped suddenly, for addie was playing pianissimo, and although she was his sister, he did not like to put her out. "it comes to this," said esther when chopin spoke louder, "our prayer-book needs depolarization, as wendell holmes says of the bible." "exactly," assented raphael. "and what our people need is to make acquaintance with the treasure of our own literature. why go to browning for theism, when the words of his 'rabbi ben ezra' are but a synopsis of a famous jewish argument: "'i see the whole design. i, who saw power, see now love, perfect too. perfect i call thy plan, thanks that i was a man! maker, remaker, complete, i trust what thou shalt do.' "it sounds like a bit of bachja. that there is a power outside us nobody denies; that this power works for our good and wisely, is not so hard to grant when the facts of the soul are weighed with the facts of nature. power, love, wisdom--there you have a real trinity which makes up the jewish god. and in this god we trust, incomprehensible as are his ways, unintelligible as is his essence. 'thy ways are not my ways nor thy thoughts my thoughts.' that comes into collision with no modern philosophies; we appeal to experience and make no demands upon the faculty for believing things 'because they are impossible.' and we are proud and happy in that the dread unknown god of the infinite universe has chosen our race as the medium by which to reveal his will to the world. we are sanctified to his service. history testifies that this has verily been our mission, that we have taught the world religion as truly as greece has taught beauty and science. our miraculous survival through the cataclysms of ancient and modern dynasties is a proof that our mission is not yet over." the sonata came to an end; percy saville started a comic song, playing his own accompaniment. fortunately, it was loud and rollicking. "and do you really believe that we are sanctified to god's service?" said esther, casting a melancholy glance at percy's grimaces. "can there be any doubt of it? god made choice of one race to be messengers and apostles, martyrs at need to his truth. happily, the sacred duty is ours," he said earnestly, utterly unconscious of the incongruity that struck esther so keenly. and yet, of the two, he had by far the greater gift of humor. it did not destroy his idealism, but kept it in touch with things mundane. esther's vision, though more penetrating, lacked this corrective of humor, which makes always for breadth of view. perhaps it was because she was a woman, that the trivial, sordid details of life's comedy hurt her so acutely that she could scarcely sit out the play patiently. where raphael would have admired the lute, esther was troubled by the little rifts in it. "but isn't that a narrow conception of god's revelation?" she asked. "no. why should god not teach through a great race as through a great man?" "and you really think that judaism is not dead, intellectually speaking?" "how can it die? its truths are eternal, deep in human nature and the constitution of things. ah, i wish i could get you to see with the eyes of the great rabbis and sages in israel; to look on this human life of ours, not with the pessimism of christianity, but as a holy and precious gift, to be enjoyed heartily yet spent in god's service--birth, marriage, death, all holy; good, evil, alike holy. nothing on god's earth common or purposeless. everything chanting the great song of god's praise; the morning stars singing together, as we say in the dawn service." as he spoke esther's eyes filled with strange tears. enthusiasm always infected her, and for a brief instant her sordid universe seemed to be transfigured to a sacred joyous reality, full of infinite potentialities of worthy work and noble pleasure. a thunder of applausive hands marked the end of percy saville's comic song. mr. montagu samuels was beaming at his brother's grotesque drollery. there was an interval of general conversation, followed by a round game in which raphael and esther had to take part. it was very dull, and they were glad to find themselves together again. "ah, yes," said esther, sadly, resuming the conversation as if there had been no break, "but this is a judaism of your own creation. the real judaism is a religion of pots and pans. it does not call to the soul's depths like christianity." "again, it is a question of the point of view taken. from a practical, our ceremonialism is a training in self-conquest, while it links the generations 'bound each to each by natural piety,' and unifies our atoms dispersed to the four corners of the earth as nothing else could. from a theoretical, it is but an extension of the principle i tried to show you. eating, drinking, every act of life is holy, is sanctified by some relation to heaven. we will not arbitrarily divorce some portions of life from religion, and say these are of the world, the flesh, or the devil, any more than we will save up our religion for sundays. there is no devil, no original sin, no need of salvation from it, no need of a mediator. every jew is in as direct relation with god as the chief rabbi. christianity is an historical failure--its counsels of perfection, its command to turn the other cheek--a farce. when a modern spiritual genius, a tolstoi, repeats it, all christendom laughs, as at a new freak of insanity. all practical, honorable men are jews at heart. judaism has never tampered with human dignity, nor perverted the moral consciousness. our housekeeper, a christian, once said to my sifter addie, 'i'm so glad to see you do so much charity, miss; _i_ need not, because i'm saved already.' judaism is the true 'religion of humanity.' it does not seek to make men and women angels before their time. our marriage service blesses the king of the universe, who has created 'joy and gladness, bridegroom and bride, mirth and exultation, pleasure and delight, love, brotherhood, peace and fellowship.'" "it is all very beautiful in theory," said esther. "but so is christianity, which is also not to be charged with its historical caricatures, nor with its superiority to average human nature. as for the doctrine of original sin, it is the one thing that the science of heredity has demonstrated, with a difference. but do not be alarmed, i do not call myself a christian because i see some relation between the dogmas of christianity and the truths of experience, nor even because"--here she smiled, wistfully--"i should like to believe in jesus. but you are less logical. when you said there was no devil, i felt sure i was right; that you belong to the modern schools, who get rid of all the old beliefs but cannot give up the old names. you know, as well as i do, that, take away the belief in hell, a real old-fashioned hell of fire and brimstone, even such judaism as survives would freeze to death without that genial warmth." "i know nothing of the kind," he said, "and i am in no sense a modern. i am (to adopt a phrase which is, to me, tautologous) an orthodox jew." esther smiled. "forgive my smiling," she said. "i am thinking of the orthodox jews i used to know, who used to bind their phylacteries on their arms and foreheads every morning." "i bind my phylacteries on my arm and forehead every morning," he said, simply. "what!" gasped esther. "you an oxford man!" "yes," he said, gravely. "is it so astonishing to you?" "yes, it is. you are the first educated jew i have ever met who believed in that sort of thing." "nonsense?" he said, inquiringly. "there are hundreds like me." she shook her head. "there's the rev. joseph strelitski. i suppose _he_ does, but then he's paid for it." "oh, why will you sneer at strelitski?" he said, pained. "he has a noble soul. it is to the privilege of his conversation that i owe my best understanding of judaism." "ah, i was wondering why the old arguments sounded so different, so much more convincing, from your lips," murmured esther. "now i know; because he wears a white tie. that sets up all my bristles of contradiction when he opens his mouth." "but i wear a white tie, too," said raphael, his smile broadening in sympathy with the slow response on the girl's serious face. "that's not a trade-mark," she protested. "but forgive me; i didn't know strelitski was a friend of yours. i won't say a word against him any more. his sermons really are above the average, and he strives more than the others to make judaism more spiritual." "more spiritual!" he repeated, the pained expression returning. "why, the very theory of judaism has always been the spiritualization of the material." "and the practice of judaism has always been the materialization of the spiritual," she answered. he pondered the saying thoughtfully, his face growing sadder. "you have lived among your books," esther went on. "i have lived among the brutal facts. i was born in the ghetto, and when you talk of the mission of israel, silent sardonic laughter goes through me as i think of the squalor and the misery." "god works through human suffering; his ways are large," said raphael, almost in a whisper. "and wasteful," said esther. "spare me clerical platitudes à la strelitski. i have seen so much." "and suffered much?" he asked gently. she nodded scarce perceptibly. "oh, if you only knew my life!" "tell it me," he said. his voice was soft and caressing. his frank soul seemed to pierce through all conventionalities, and to go straight to hers. "i cannot, not now," she murmured. "there is so much to tell." "tell me a little," he urged. she began to speak of her history, scarce knowing why, forgetting he was a stranger. was it racial affinity, or was it merely the spiritual affinity of souls that feel their identity through all differences of brain? "what is the use?" she said. "you, with your childhood, could never realize mine. my mother died when i was seven; my father was a russian pauper alien who rarely got work. i had an elder brother of brilliant promise. he died before he was thirteen. i had a lot of brothers and sisters and a grandmother, and we all lived, half starved, in a garret." her eyes grew humid at the recollection; she saw the spacious drawing-room and the dainty bric-à-brac through a mist. "poor child!" murmured raphael. "strelitski, by the way, lived in our street then. he sold cigars on commission and earned an honest living. sometimes i used to think that is why he never cares to meet my eye; he remembers me and knows i remember him; at other times i thought he knew that i saw through his professions of orthodoxy. but as you champion him, i suppose i must look for a more creditable reason for his inability to look me straight in the face. well, i grew up, i got on well at school, and about ten years ago i won a prize given by mrs. henry goldsmith, whose kindly interest i excited thenceforward. at thirteen i became a teacher. this had always been my aspiration: when it was granted i was more unhappy than ever. i began to realize acutely that we were terribly poor. i found it difficult to dress so as to insure the respect of my pupils and colleagues; the work was unspeakably hard and unpleasant; tiresome and hungry little girls had to be ground to suit the inspectors, and fell victims to the then prevalent competition among teachers for a high percentage of passes. i had to teach scripture history and i didn't believe in it. none of us believed in it; the talking serpent, the egyptian miracles, samson, jonah and the whale, and all that. everything about me was sordid and unlovely. i yearned for a fuller, wider life, for larger knowledge. i hungered for the sun. in short, i was intensely miserable. at home things went from bad to worse; often i was the sole bread-winner, and my few shillings a week were our only income. my brother solomon grew up, but could not get into a decent situation because he must not work on the sabbath. oh, if you knew how young lives are cramped and shipwrecked at the start by this one curse of the sabbath, you would not wish us to persevere in our isolation. it sent a mad thrill of indignation through me to find my father daily entreating the deaf heavens." he would not argue now. his eyes were misty. "go on!" he murmured. "the rest is nothing. mrs. henry goldsmith stepped in as the _dea ex machina_. she had no children, and she took it into her head to adopt me. naturally i was dazzled, though anxious about my brothers and sisters. but my father looked upon it as a godsend. without consulting me, mrs. goldsmith arranged that he and the other children should be shipped to america: she got him some work at a relative's in chicago. i suppose she was afraid of having the family permanently hanging about the terrace. at first i was grieved; but when the pain of parting was over i found myself relieved to be rid of them, especially of my father. it sounds shocking, i know, but i can confess all my vanities now, for i have learned all is vanity. i thought paradise was opening before me; i was educated by the best masters, and graduated at the london university. i travelled and saw the continent; had my fill of sunshine and beauty. i have had many happy moments, realized many childish ambitions, but happiness is as far away as ever. my old school-colleagues envy me, yet i do not know whether i would not go back without regret." "is there anything lacking in your life, then?" he asked gently. "no, i happen to be a nasty, discontented little thing, that is all," she said, with a faint smile. "look on me as a psychological paradox, or a text for the preacher." "and do the goldsmiths know of your discontent?" "heaven forbid! they have been so very kind to me. we get along very well together. i never discuss religion with them, only the services and the minister." "and your relatives?" "ah, they are all well and happy. solomon has a store in detroit. he is only nineteen and dreadfully enterprising. father is a pillar of a chicago _chevra_. he still talks yiddish. he has escaped learning american just as he escaped learning english. i buy him a queer old hebrew book sometimes with my pocket-money and he is happy. one little sister is a type-writer, and the other is just out of school and does the housework. i suppose i shall go out and see them all some day." "what became of the grandmother you mentioned?" "she had a charity funeral a year before the miracle happened. she was very weak and ill, and the charity doctor warned her that she must not fast on the day of atonement. but she wouldn't even moisten her parched lips with a drop of cold water. and so she died; exhorting my father with her last breath to beware of mrs. simons (a good-hearted widow who was very kind to us), and to marry a pious polish woman." "and did he?" "no, i am still stepmotherless. your white tie's gone wrong. it's all on one side." "it generally is," said raphael, fumbling perfunctorily at the little bow. "let me put it straight. there! and now you know all about me. i hope you are going to repay my confidences in kind." "i am afraid i cannot oblige with anything so romantic," he said smiling. "i was born of rich but honest parents, of a family settled in england for three generations, and went to harrow and oxford in due course. that is all. i saw a little of the ghetto, though, when i was a boy. i had some correspondence on hebrew literature with a great jewish scholar, gabriel hamburg (he lives in stockholm now), and one day when i was up from harrow i went to see him. by good fortune i assisted at the foundation of the holy land league, now presided over by gideon, the member for whitechapel. i was moved to tears by the enthusiasm; it was there i made the acquaintance of strelitski. he spoke as if inspired. i also met a poverty-stricken poet, melchitsedek pinchas, who afterwards sent me his work, _metatoron's flames_, to harrow. a real neglected genius. now there's the man to bear in mind when one speaks of jews and poetry. after that night i kept up a regular intercourse with the ghetto, and have been there several times lately." "but surely you don't also long to return to palestine?" "i do. why should we not have our own country?" "it would be too chaotic! fancy all the ghettos of the world amalgamating. everybody would want to be ambassador at paris, as the old joke says." "it would be a problem for the statesmen among us. dissenters, churchmen, atheists, slum savages, clodhoppers, philosophers, aristocrats--make up protestant england. it is the popular ignorance of the fact that jews are as diverse as protestants that makes such novels as we were discussing at dinner harmful." "but is the author to blame for that? he does not claim to present the whole truth but a facet. english society lionized thackeray for his pictures of it. good heavens! do jews suppose they alone are free from the snobbery, hypocrisy and vulgarity that have shadowed every society that has ever existed?" "in no work of art can the spectator be left out of account," he urged. "in a world full of smouldering prejudices a scrap of paper may start the bonfire. english society can afford to laugh where jewish society must weep. that is why our papers are always so effusively grateful for christian compliments. you see it is quite true that the author paints not the jews but bad jews, but, in the absence of paintings of good jews, bad jews are taken as identical with jews." "oh, then you agree with the others about the book?" she said in a disappointed tone. "i haven't read it; i am speaking generally. have you?" "yes." "and what did you think of it? i don't remember your expressing an opinion at table." she pondered an instant. "i thought highly of it and agreed with every word of it." she paused. he looked expectantly into the dark intense face. he saw it was charged with further speech. "till i met you," she concluded abruptly. a wave of emotion passed over his face. "you don't mean that?" he murmured. "yes, i do. you have shown me new lights." "i thought i was speaking platitudes," he said simply. "it would be nearer the truth to say you have given _me_ new lights." the little face flushed with pleasure; the dark skin shining, the eyes sparkling. esther looked quite pretty. "how is that possible?" she said. "you have read and thought twice as much as i." "then you must be indeed poorly off," he said, smiling. "but i am really glad we met. i have been asked to edit a new jewish paper, and our talk has made me see more clearly the lines on which it must be run, if it is to do any good. i am awfully indebted to you." "a new jewish paper?" she said, deeply interested. "we have so many already. what is its _raison d'être_?" "to convert you," he said smiling, but with a ring of seriousness in the words. "isn't that like a steam-hammer cracking a nut or hoti burning down his house to roast a pig? and suppose i refuse to take in the new jewish paper? will it suspend publication?" he laughed. "what's this about a new jewish paper?" said mrs. goldsmith, suddenly appearing in front of them with her large genial smile. "is that what you two have been plotting? i noticed you've laid your heads together all the evening. ah well, birds of a feather flock together. do you know my little esther took the scholarship for logic at london? i wanted her to proceed to the m.a. at once, but the doctor said she must have a rest." she laid her hand affectionately on the girl's hair. esther looked embarrassed. "and so she is still a bachelor," said raphael, smiling but evidently impressed. "yes, but not for long i hope," returned mrs. goldsmith. "come, darling, everybody's dying to hear one of your little songs." "the dying is premature," said esther. "you know i only sing for my own amusement." "sing for mine, then," pleaded raphael. "to make you laugh?" queried esther. "i know you'll laugh at the way i play the accompaniment. one's fingers have to be used to it from childhood--" her eyes finished the sentence, "and you know what mine was." the look seemed to seal their secret sympathy. she went to the piano and sang in a thin but trained soprano. the song was a ballad with a quaint air full of sadness and heartbreak. to raphael, who had never heard the psalmic wails of "the sons of the covenant" or the polish ditties of fanny belcovitch, it seemed also full of originality. he wished to lose himself in the sweet melancholy, but mrs. goldsmith, who had taken esther's seat at his side, would not let him. "her own composition--words and music," she whispered. "i wanted her to publish it, but she is so shy and retiring. who would think she was the child of a pauper emigrant, a rough jewel one has picked up and polished? if you really are going to start a new jewish paper, she might be of use to you. and then there is miss cissy levine--you have read her novels, of course? sweetly pretty! do you know, i think we are badly in want of a new paper, and you are the only man in the community who could give it us. we want educating, we poor people, we know so little of our faith and our literature." "i am so glad you feel the want of it," whispered raphael, forgetting esther in his pleasure at finding a soul yearning for the light. "intensely. i suppose it will be advanced?" raphael looked at her a moment a little bewildered. "no, it will be orthodox. it is the orthodox party that supplies the funds." a flash of light leaped into mrs. goldsmith's eyes. "i am so glad it is not as i feared." she said. "the rival party has hitherto monopolized the press, and i was afraid that like most of our young men of talent you would give it that tendency. now at last we poor orthodox will have a voice. it will be written in english?" "as far as i can," he said, smiling. "no, you know what i mean. i thought the majority of the orthodox couldn't read english and that they have their jargon papers. will you be able to get a circulation?" "there are thousands of families in the east end now among whom english is read if not written. the evening papers sell as well there as anywhere else in london." "bravo!" murmured mrs. goldsmith, clapping her hands. esther had finished her song. raphael awoke to the remembrance of her. but she did not come to him again, sitting down instead on a lounge near the piano, where sidney bantered addie with his most paradoxical persiflage. raphael looked at her. her expression was abstracted, her eyes had an inward look. he hoped her headache had not got worse. she did not look at all pretty now. she seemed a frail little creature with a sad thoughtful face and an air of being alone in the midst of a merry company. poor little thing! he felt as if he had known her for years. she seemed curiously out of harmony with all these people. he doubted even his own capacity to commune with her inmost soul. he wished he could be of service to her, could do anything for her that might lighten her gloom and turn her morbid thoughts in healthier directions. the butler brought in some claret negus. it was the break-up signal. raphael drank his negus with a pleasant sense of arming himself against the cold air. he wanted to walk home smoking his pipe, which he always carried in his overcoat. he clasped esther's hand with a cordial smile of farewell. "we shall meet again soon, i trust," he said. "i hope so," said esther; "put me down as a subscriber to that paper." "thank you," he said; "i won't forget." "what's that?" said sidney, pricking up his ears; "doubled your circulation already?" sidney put his cousin addie into a hansom, as she did not care to walk, and got in beside her. "my feet are tired," she said; "i danced a lot last night, and was out a lot this afternoon. it's all very well for raphael, who doesn't know whether he's walking on his head or his heels. here, put your collar up, raphael, not like that, it's all crumpled. haven't you got a handkerchief to put round your throat? where's that one i gave you? lend him yours, sidney." "you don't mind if _i_ catch my death of cold; i've got to go on a christmas dance when i deposit you on your doorstep," grumbled sidney. "catch! there, you duffer! it's gone into the mud. sure you won't jump in? plenty of room. addie can sit on my knee. well, ta, ta! merry christmas." raphael lit his pipe and strode off with long ungainly strides. it was a clear frosty night, and the moonlight glistened on the silent spaces of street and square. "go to bed, my dear," said mrs. goldsmith, returning to the lounge where esther still sat brooding. "you look quite worn out." left alone, mrs. goldsmith smiled pleasantly at mr. goldsmith, who, uncertain of how he had behaved himself, always waited anxiously for the verdict. he was pleased to find it was "not guilty" this time. "i think that went off very well," she said. she was looking very lovely to-night, the low bodice emphasizing the voluptuous outlines of the bust. "splendidly," he returned. he stood with his coat-tails to the fire, his coarse-grained face beaming like an extra lamp. "the people and those croquettes were a . the way mary's picked up french cookery is wonderful." "yes, especially considering she denies herself butter. but i'm not thinking of that nor of our guests." he looked at her wonderingly. "henry," she continued impressively, "how would you like to get into parliament?" "eh, parliament? me?" he stammered. "yes, why not? i've always had it in my eye." his face grew gloomy. "it is not practicable," he said, shaking the head with the prominent teeth and ears. "not practicable?" she echoed sharply. "just think of what you've achieved already, and don't tell me you're going to stop now. not practicable, indeed! why, that's the very word you used years ago in the provinces when i said you ought to be president. you said old winkelstein had been in the position too long to be ousted. and yet i felt certain your superior english would tell in the long run in such a miserable congregation of foreigners, and when winkelstein had made that delicious blunder about the 'university' of the exodus instead of the 'anniversary,' and i went about laughing over it in all the best circles, the poor man's day was over. and when we came to london, and seemed to fall again to the bottom of the ladder because our greatness was swallowed up in the vastness, didn't you despair then? didn't you tell me that we should never rise to the surface?" "it didn't seem probable, did it?" he murmured in self-defence. "of course not. that's just my point. your getting into the house of commons doesn't seem probable now. but in those days your getting merely to know m.p.'s was equally improbable. the synagogal dignities were all filled up by old hands, there was no way of getting on the council and meeting our magnates." "yes, but your solution of that difficulty won't do here. i had not much difficulty in persuading the united synagogue that a new synagogue was a crying want in kensington, but i could hardly persuade the government that a new constituency is a crying want in london." he spoke pettishly; his ambition always required rousing and was easily daunted. "no, but somebody's going to start a new something else, henry," said mrs. goldsmith with enigmatic cheerfulness. "trust in me; think of what we have done in less than a dozen years at comparatively trifling costs, thanks to that happy idea of a new synagogue--you the representative of the kensington synagogue, with a 'sir' for a colleague and a congregation that from exceptionally small beginnings has sprung up to be the most fashionable in london; likewise a member of the council of the anglo-jewish association and an honorary officer of the _shechitah_ board; i, connected with several first-class charities, on the committee of our leading school, and the acknowledged discoverer of a girl who gives promise of doing something notable in literature or music. we have a reputation for wealth, culture and hospitality, and it is quite two years since we shook off the last of the maida vale lot, who are so graphically painted in that novel of mr. armitage's. who are our guests now? take to-night's! a celebrated artist, a brilliant young oxford man, both scions of the same wealthy and well-considered family, an authoress of repute who dedicates her books (by permission) to the very first families of the community; and lastly the montagu samuels with the brother, percy saville, who both go only to the best houses. is there any other house, where the company is so exclusively jewish, that could boast of a better gathering?" "i don't say anything against the company," said her husband awkwardly, "it's better than we got in the provinces. but your company isn't your constituency. what constituency would have me?" "certainly, no ordinary constituency would have you," admitted his wife frankly. "i am thinking of whitechapel." "but gideon represents whitechapel." "certainly; as sidney graham says, he represents it very well. but he has made himself unpopular, his name has appeared in print as a guest at city banquets, where the food can't be _kosher_. he has alienated a goodly proportion of the jewish vote." "well?" said mr. goldsmith, still wonderingly. "now is the time to bid for his shoes. raphael leon is about to establish a new jewish paper. i was mistaken about that young man. you remember my telling you i had heard he was eccentric and despite his brilliant career a little touched on religious matters. i naturally supposed his case was like that of one or two other jewish young men we know and that he yearned for spirituality, and his remarks at table rather confirmed the impression. but he is worse than that--and i nearly put my foot in it--his craziness is on the score of orthodoxy! fancy that! a man who has been to harrow and oxford longing for a gaberdine and side curls! well, well, live and learn. what a sad trial for his parents!" she paused, musing. "but, rosetta, what has raphael leon to do with my getting into parliament?" "don't be stupid, henry. haven't i explained to you that leon is going to start an orthodox paper which will be circulated among your future constituents. it's extremely fortunate that we have always kept our religion. we have a widespread reputation for orthodoxy. we are friends with leon, and we can get esther to write for the paper (i could see he was rather struck by her). through this paper we can keep you and your orthodoxy constantly before the constituency. the poor people are quite fascinated by the idea of rich jews like us keeping a strictly _kosher_ table; but the image of a member of parliament with phylacteries on his forehead will simply intoxicate them." she smiled, herself, at the image; the smile that always intoxicated percy saville. "you're a wonderful woman, rosetta," said henry, smiling in response with admiring affection and making his incisors more prominent. he drew her head down to him and kissed her lips. she returned his kiss lingeringly and they had a flash of that happiness which is born of mutual fidelity and trust. "can i do anything for you, mum, afore i go to bed?" said stout old mary o'reilly, appearing at the door. mary was a privileged person, unappalled even by the butler. having no relatives, she never took a holiday and never went out except to chapel. "no, mary, thank you. the dinner was excellent. good night and merry christmas." "same to you, mum," and as the unconscious instrument of henry goldsmith's candidature turned away, the christmas bells broke merrily upon the night. the peals fell upon the ears of raphael leon, still striding along, casting a gaunt shadow on the hoar-frosted pavement, but he marked them not; upon addie sitting by her bedroom mirror thinking of sidney speeding to the christmas dance; upon esther turning restlessly on the luxurious eider-down, oppressed by panoramic pictures of the martyrdom of her race. lying between sleep and waking, especially when her brain had been excited, she had the faculty of seeing wonderful vivid visions, indistinguishable from realities. the martyrs who mounted the scaffold and the stake all had the face of raphael. "the mission of israel" buzzed through her brain. oh, the irony of history! here was another life going to be wasted on an illusory dream. the figures of raphael and her father suddenly came into grotesque juxtaposition. a bitter smile passed across her face. the christmas bells rang on, proclaiming peace in the name of him who came to bring a sword into the world. "surely," she thought, "the people of christ has been the christ of peoples." and then she sobbed meaninglessly in the darkness chapter iii. "the flag of judah." the call to edit the new jewish paper seemed to raphael the voice of providence. it came just when he was hesitating about his future, divided between the attractions of the ministry, pure hebrew scholarship and philanthropy. the idea of a paper destroyed these conflicting claims by comprehending them all. a paper would be at once a pulpit, a medium for organizing effective human service, and an incentive to serious study in the preparation of scholarly articles. the paper was to be the property of the co-operative kosher society, an association originally founded to supply unimpeachable passover cakes. it was suspected by the pious that there was a taint of heresy in the flour used by the ordinary bakers, and it was remarked that the rabbinate itself imported its _matzoth_ from abroad. successful in its first object, the co-operative kosher society extended its operations to more perennial commodities, and sought to save judaism from dubious cheese and butter, as well as to provide public baths for women in accordance with the precepts of leviticus. but these ideals were not so easy to achieve, and so gradually the idea of a paper to preach them to a godless age formed itself. the members of the society met in aaron schlesinger's back office to consider them. schlesinger was a cigar merchant, and the discussions of the society were invariably obscured by gratuitous smoke schlesinger's junior partner, lewis de haan, who also had a separate business as a surveyor, was the soul of the society, and talked a great deal. he was a stalwart old man, with a fine imagination and figure, boundless optimism, a big biceps, a long venerable white beard, a keen sense of humor, and a versatility which enabled him to turn from the price of real estate to the elucidation of a talmudical difficulty, and from the consignment of cigars to the organization of apostolic movements. among the leading spirits were our old friends, karlkammer the red-haired zealot, sugarman the _shadchan_, and guedalyah the greengrocer, together with gradkoski the scholar, fancy goods merchant and man of the world. a furniture-dealer, who was always failing, was also an important personage, while ebenezer sugarman, a young man who had once translated a romance from the dutch, acted as secretary. melchitsedek pinchas invariably turned up at the meetings and smoked schlesinger's cigars. he was not a member; he had not qualified himself by taking ten pound shares (far from fully paid up), but nobody liked to eject him, and no hint less strong than a physical would have moved the poet. all the members of the council of the co-operative kosher society spoke english volubly and more or less grammatically, but none had sufficient confidence in the others to propose one of them for editor, though it is possible that none would have shrunk from having a shot. diffidence is not a mark of the jew. the claims of ebenezer sugarman and of melchitsedek pinchas were put forth most vehemently by ebenezer and melchitsedek respectively, and their mutual accusations of incompetence enlivened mr. schlesinger's back office. "he ain't able to spell the commonest english words," said ebenezer, with a contemptuous guffaw that sounded like the croak of a raven. the young littérateur, the sumptuousness of whose _barmitzvah_-party was still a memory with his father, had lank black hair, with a long nose that supported blue spectacles. "what does he know of the holy tongue?" croaked melchitsedek witheringly, adding in a confidential whisper to the cigar merchant: "i and you, schlesinger, are the only two men in england who can write the holy tongue grammatically." the little poet was as insinutive and volcanic (by turns) as ever. his beard was, however, better trimmed and his complexion healthier, and he looked younger than ten years ago. his clothes were quite spruce. for several years he had travelled about the continent, mainly at raphael's expense. he said his ideas came better in touring and at a distance from the unappreciative english jewry. it was a pity, for with his linguistic genius his english would have been immaculate by this time. as it was, there was a considerable improvement in his writing, if not so much in his accent. "what do i know of the holy tongue!" repeated ebenezer scornfully. "hold yours!" the committee laughed, but schlesinger, who was a serious man, said, "business, gentlemen, business." "come, then! i'll challenge you to translate a page of _metatoron's flames_," said pinchas, skipping about the office like a sprightly flea. "you know no more than the reverend joseph strelitski vith his vite tie and his princely income." de haan seized the poet by the collar, swung him off his feet and tucked him up in the coal-scuttle. "yah!" croaked ebenezer. "here's a fine editor. ho! ho! ho!" "we cannot have either of them. it's the only way to keep them quiet," said the furniture-dealer who was always failing. ebenezer's face fell and his voice rose. "i don't see why i should be sacrificed to _'im_. there ain't a man in england who can write english better than me. why, everybody says so. look at the success of my book, _the old burgomaster_, the best dutch novel ever written. the _st. pancras press_ said it reminded them of lord lytton, it did indeed. i can show you the paper. i can give you one each if you like. and then it ain't as if i didn't know 'ebrew, too. even if i was in doubt about anything, i could always go to my father. you give me this paper to manage and i'll make your fortunes for you in a twelvemonth; i will as sure as i stand here." pinchas had made spluttering interruptions as frequently as he could in resistance of de haan's brawny, hairy hand which was pressed against his nose and mouth to keep him down in the coal-scuttle, but now he exploded with a force that shook off the hand like a bottle of soda water expelling its cork. "you man-of-the-earth," he cried, sitting up in the coal-scuttle. "you are not even orthodox. here, my dear gentlemen, is the very position created by heaven for me--in this disgraceful country where genius starves. here at last you have the opportunity of covering yourselves vid eternal glory. have i not given you the idea of starting this paper? and vas i not born to be a rédacteur, a editor, as you call it? into the paper i vill pour all the fires of my song--" "yes, burn it up," croaked ebenezer. "i vill lead the freethinkers and the reformers back into the fold. i vill be elijah and my vings shall be quill pens. i vill save judaism." he started up, swelling, but de haan caught him by his waistcoat and readjusted him in the coal-scuttle. "here, take another cigar, pinchas," he said, passing schlesinger's private box, as if with a twinge of remorse for his treatment of one he admired as a poet though he could not take him seriously as a man. the discussion proceeded; the furniture-dealer's counsel was followed; it was definitely decided to let the two candidates neutralize each other. "vat vill you give me, if i find you a rédacteur?" suddenly asked pinchas. "i give up my editorial seat--" "editorial coal-scuttle," growled ebenezer. "pooh! i find you a first-class rédacteur who vill not want a big salary; perhaps he vill do it for nothing. how much commission vill you give me?" "ten shillings on every pound if he does not want a big salary," said de haan instantly, "and twelve and sixpence on every pound if he does it for nothing." and pinchas, who was easily bamboozled when finance became complex, went out to find raphael. thus at the next meeting the poet produced raphael in triumph, and gradkoski, who loved a reputation for sagacity, turned a little green with disgust at his own forgetfulness. gradkoski was among those founders of the holy land league with whom raphael had kept up relations, and he could not deny that the young enthusiast was the ideal man for the post. de haan, who was busy directing the clerks to write out ten thousand wrappers for the first number, and who had never heard of raphael before, held a whispered confabulation with gradkoski and schlesinger and in a few moments raphael was rescued from obscurity and appointed to the editorship of the _flag of judah_ at a salary of nothing a year. de haan immediately conceived a vast contemptuous admiration of the man. "you von't forget me," whispered pinchas, buttonholing the editor at the first opportunity, and placing his forefinger insinuatingly alongside his nose. "you vill remember that i expect a commission on your salary." raphael smiled good-naturedly and, turning to de haan, said: "but do you think there is any hope of a circulation?" "a circulation, sir, a circulation!" repeated de haan. "why, we shall not be able to print fast enough. there are seventy-thousand orthodox jews in london alone." "and besides," added gradkoski, in a corroboration strongly like a contradiction, "we shall not have to rely on the circulation. newspapers depend on their advertisements." "do they?" said raphael, helplessly. "of course," said gradkoski with his air of worldly wisdom, "and don't you see, being a religious paper we are bound to get all the communal advertisements. why, we get the co-operative kosher society to start with." "yes, but we ain't: going to pay for that,"' said sugarman the _shadchan_. "that doesn't matter," said de haan. "it'll look well--we can fill up a whole page with it. you know what jews are--they won't ask 'is this paper wanted?' they'll balance it in their hand, as if weighing up the value of the advertisements, and ask 'does it pay?' but it _will_ pay, it must pay; with you at the head of it, mr. leon, a man whose fame and piety are known and respected wherever a _mezuzah_ adorns a door-post, a man who is in sympathy with the east end, and has the ear of the west, a man who will preach the purest judaism in the best english, with such a man at the head of it, we shall be able to ask bigger prices for advertisements than the existing jewish papers." raphael left the office in a transport of enthusiasm, full of messianic emotions. at the next meeting he announced that he was afraid he could not undertake the charge of the paper. amid universal consternation, tempered by the exultation of ebenezer, he explained that he had been thinking it over and did not see how it could be done. he said he had been carefully studying the existing communal organs, and saw that they dealt with many matters of which he knew nothing; whilst he might be competent to form the taste of the community in religious and literary matters, it appeared that the community was chiefly excited about elections and charities. "moreover," said he, "i noticed that it is expected of these papers to publish obituaries of communal celebrities, for whose biographies no adequate materials are anywhere extant. it would scarcely be decent to obtrude upon the sacred grief of the bereaved relatives with a request for particulars." "oh, that's all right," laughed de haan. "i'm sure _my_ wife would be glad to give you any information." "of course, of course," said gradkoski, soothingly. "you will get the obituaries sent in of themselves by the relatives." raphael's brow expressed surprise and incredulity. "and besides, we are not going to crack up the same people as the other papers," said de haan; "otherwise we should not supply a want. we must dole out our praise and blame quite differently, and we must be very scrupulous to give only a little praise so that it shall be valued the more." he stroked his white, beard tranquilly. "but how about meetings?" urged raphael. "i find that sometimes two take place at once. i can go to one, but i can't be at both." "oh, that will be all right," said de haan airily. "we will leave out one and people will think it is unimportant. we are bringing out a paper for our own ends, not to report the speeches of busybodies." raphael was already exhibiting a conscientiousness which must be nipped in the bud. seeing him silenced, ebenezer burst forth anxiously: "but mr. leon is right. there must be a sub-editor." "certainly there must be a sub-editor," cried pinchas eagerly. "very well, then," said de haan, struck with a sudden thought. "it is true mr. leon cannot do all the work. i know a young fellow who'll be just the very thing. he'll come for a pound a week." "but i'll come for a pound a week," said ebenezer. "yes, but you won't get it," said schlesinger impatiently. "_sha_, ebenezer," said old sugarman imperiously. de haan thereupon hunted up a young gentleman, who dwelt in his mind as "little sampson," and straightway secured him at the price named. he was a lively young bohemian born in australia, who had served an apprenticeship on the anglo-jewish press, worked his way up into the larger journalistic world without, and was now engaged in organizing a comic-opera touring company, and in drifting back again into jewish journalism. this young gentleman, who always wore long curling locks, an eye-glass and a romantic cloak which covered a multitude of shabbinesses, fully allayed raphael's fears as to the difficulties of editorship. "obituaries!" he said scornfully. "you rely on me for that! the people who are worth chronicling are sure to have lived in the back numbers of our contemporaries, and i can always hunt them up in the museum. as for the people who are not, their families will send them in, and your only trouble will be to conciliate the families of those you ignore." "but about all those meetings?" said raphael. "i'll go to some," said the sub-editor good-naturedly, "whenever they don't interfere with the rehearsals of my opera. you know of course i am bringing out a comic-opera, composed by myself, some lovely tunes in it; one goes like this: ta ra ra ta, ta dee dum dee--that'll knock 'em. well, as i was saying, i'll help you as much as i can find time for. you rely on me for that." "yes," said poor raphael with a sickly smile, "but suppose neither of us goes to some important meeting." "no harm done. god bless you, i know the styles of all our chief speakers--ahem--ha!--pauperization of the east end, ha!--i would emphatically say that this scheme--ahem!--his lordship's untiring zeal for hum!--the welfare of--and so on. ta dee dum da, ta, ra, rum dee. they always send on the agenda beforehand. that's all i want, and i'll lay you twenty to one i'll turn out as good a report as any of our rivals. you rely on me for _that_! i know exactly how debates go. at the worst i can always swop with another reporter--a prize distribution for an obituary, or a funeral for a concert." "and do you really think we two between us can fill up the paper every week?" said raphael doubtfully. little sampson broke into a shriek of laughter, dropped his eyeglass and collapsed helplessly into the coal-scuttle. the committeemen looked up from their confabulations in astonishment. "fill up the paper! ho! ho! ho!" roared little sampson, still doubled up. "evidently _you've_ never had anything to do with papers. why, the reports of london and provincial sermons alone would fill three papers a week." "yes, but how are we to get these reports, especially from the provinces?" "how? ho! ho! ho!" and for some time little sampson was physically incapable of speech. "don't you know," he gasped, "that the ministers always send up their own sermons, pages upon pages of foolscap?" "indeed?" murmured raphael. "what, haven't you noticed all jewish sermons are eloquent?". "they write that themselves?" "of course; sometimes they put 'able,' and sometimes 'learned,' but, as a rule, they prefer to be 'eloquent.' the run on that epithet is tremendous. ta dee dum da. in holiday seasons they are also very fond of 'enthralling the audience,' and of 'melting them to tears,' but this is chiefly during the ten days of repentance, or when a boy is _barmitzvah_. then, think of the people who send in accounts of the oranges they gave away to distressed widows, or of the prizes won by their children at fourth-rate schools, or of the silver pointers they present to the synagogue. whenever a reader sends a letter to an evening paper, he will want you to quote it; and, if he writes a paragraph in the obscurest leaflet, he will want you to note it as 'literary intelligence.' why, my dear fellow, your chief task will be to cut down. ta, ra, ra, ta! any jewish paper could be entirely supported by voluntary contributions--as, for the matter of that, could any newspaper in the world." he got up and shook the coal-dust languidly from his cloak. "besides, we shall all be helping you with articles," said de haan, encouragingly. "yes, we shall all be helping you," said ebenezer. "i vill give you from the pierian spring--bucketsful," said pinchas in a flush of generosity. "thank you, i shall be much obliged," said raphael, heartily, "for i don't quite see the use of a paper filled up as mr. sampson suggests." he flung his arms out and drew them in again. it was a way he had when in earnest. "then, i should like to have some foreign news. where's that to come from?" "you rely on me for _that_," said little sampson, cheerfully. "i will write at once to all the chief jewish papers in the world, french, german, dutch, italian, hebrew, and american, asking them to exchange with us. there is never any dearth of foreign news. i translate a thing from the italian _vessillo israelitico_, and the _israelitische nieuwsbode_ copies it from us; _der israelit_ then translates it into german, whence it gets into hebrew, in _hamagid_, thence into _l'univers israélite_, of paris, and thence into the _american hebrew_. when i see it in american, not having to translate it, it strikes me as fresh, and so i transfer it bodily to our columns, whence it gets translated into italian, and so the merry-go-round goes eternally on. ta dee rum day. you rely on me for your foreign news. why, i can get you foreign telegrams if you'll only allow me to stick 'trieste, december ,' or things of that sort at the top. ti, tum, tee ti." he went on humming a sprightly air, then, suddenly interrupting himself, he said, "but have you got an advertisement canvasser, mr. de haan?" "no, not yet," said de haan, turning around. the committee had resolved itself into animated groups, dotted about the office, each group marked by a smoke-drift. the clerks were still writing the ten thousand wrappers, swearing inaudibly. "well, when are you going to get him?" "oh, we shall have advertisements rolling in of themselves," said de haan, with a magnificent sweep of the arm. "and we shall all assist in that department! help yourself to another cigar, sampson." and he passed schlesinger's box. raphael and karlkammer were the only two men in the room not smoking cigars--raphael, because he preferred his pipe, and karlkammer for some more mystic reason. "we must not ignore cabalah," the zealot's voice was heard to observe. "you can't get advertisements by cabalah," drily interrupted guedalyah, the greengrocer, a practical man, as everybody knew. "no, indeed," protested sampson. "the advertisement canvasser is a more important man than the editor." ebenezer pricked up his ears. "i thought _you_ undertook to do some canvassing for your money," said de haan. "so i will, so i will; rely on me for that. i shouldn't be surprised if i get the capitalists who are backing up my opera to give you the advertisements of the tour, and i'll do all i can in my spare time. but i feel sure you'll want another man--only, you must pay him well and give him a good commission. it'll pay best in the long run to have a good man, there are so many seedy duffers about," said little sampson, drawing his faded cloak loftily around him. "you want an eloquent, persuasive man, with a gift of the gab--" "didn't i tell you so?" interrupted pinchas, putting his finger to his nose. "i vill go to the advertisers and speak burning words to them. i vill--" "garn! they'd kick you out!" croaked ebenezer. "they'll only listen to an englishman." his coarse-featured face glistened with spite. "my ebenezer has a good appearance," said old sugarman, "and his english is fine, and dat is half de battle." schlesinger, appealed to, intimated that ebenezer might try, but that they could not well spare him any percentage at the start. after much haggling, ebenezer consented to waive his commission, if the committee would consent to allow an original tale of his to appear in the paper. the stipulation having been agreed to, he capered joyously about the office and winked periodically at pinchas from behind the battery of his blue spectacles. the poet was, however, rapt in a discussion as to the best printer. the committee were for having gluck, who had done odd jobs for most of them, but pinchas launched into a narrative of how, when he edited a great organ in buda-pesth, he had effected vast economies by starting a little printing-office of his own in connection with the paper. "you vill set up a little establishment," he said. "i vill manage it for a few pounds a veek. then i vill not only print your paper, i vill get you large profits from extra printing. vith a man of great business talent at the head of it--" de haan made a threatening movement, and pinchas edged away from the proximity of the coal-scuttle. "gluck's our printer!" said de haan peremptorily. "he has hebrew type. we shall want a lot of that. we must have a lot of hebrew quotations--not spell hebrew words in english like the other papers. and the hebrew date must come before the english. the public must see at once that our principles are superior. besides, gluck's a jew, which will save us from the danger of having any of the printing done on saturdays." "but shan't we want a publisher?" asked sampson. "that's vat i say," cried pinchas. "if i set up this office, i can be your publisher too. ve must do things business-like." "nonsense, nonsense! we are our own publishers," said de haan. "our clerks will send out the invoices and the subscription copies, and an extra office-boy can sell the papers across the counter." sampson smiled in his sleeve. "all right. that will do--for the first number," he said cordially. "ta ra ra ta." "now then, mr. leon, everything is settled," said de haan, stroking his beard briskly. "i think i'll ask you to help us to draw up the posters. we shall cover all london, sir, all london." "but wouldn't that be wasting money?" said raphael. "oh, we're going to do the thing properly. i don't believe in meanness." "it'll be enough if we cover the east end," said schlesinger, drily. "quite so. the east end _is_ london as far as we're concerned," said de haan readily. raphael took the pen and the paper which de haan tendered him and wrote _the flag of judah_, the title having been fixed at their first interview. "the only orthodox paper!" dictated de haan. "largest circulation of any jewish paper in the world!" "no, how can we say that?" said raphael, pausing. "no, of course not," said de haan. "i was thinking of the subsequent posters. look out for the first number--on friday, january st. the best jewish writers! the truest jewish teachings! latest jewish news and finest jewish stories. every friday. twopence." "twopence?" echoed raphael, looking up. "i thought you wanted to appeal to the masses. i should say it must be a penny." "it _will_ be a penny," said de haan oracularly. "we have thought it all over," interposed gradkoski. "the first number will be bought up out of curiosity, whether at a penny or at twopence. the second will go almost as well, for people will be anxious to see how it compares with the first. in that number we shall announce that owing to the enormous success we have been able to reduce it to a penny; meantime we make all the extra pennies." "i see," said raphael dubiously. "we must have _chochma_" said de haan. "our sages recommend that." raphael still had his doubts, but he had also a painful sense of his lack of the "practical wisdom" recommended by the sages cited. he thought these men were probably in the right. even religion could not be pushed on the masses without business methods, and so long as they were in earnest about the doctrines to be preached, he could even feel a dim admiration for their superior shrewdness in executing a task in which he himself would have hopelessly broken down. raphael's mind was large; and larger by being conscious of its cloistral limitations. and the men were in earnest; not even their most intimate friends could call this into question. "we are going to save london," de haan put it in one of his dithyrambic moments. "orthodoxy has too long been voiceless, and yet it is five-sixths of judaea. a small minority has had all the say. we must redress the balance. we must plead the cause of the people against the few." raphael's breast throbbed with similar hopes. his messianic emotions resurged. sugarman's solicitous request that he should buy a hamburg lottery ticket scarcely penetrated his consciousness. carrying the copy of the poster, he accompanied de haan to gluck's. it was a small shop in a back street with jargon-papers and hand-bills in the window and a pervasive heavy oleaginous odor. a hand-press occupied the centre of the interior, the back of which was partitioned of and marked "private." gluck came forward, grinning welcome. he wore an unkempt beard and a dusky apron. "can you undertake to print an eight-page paper?" inquired de haan. "if i can print at all, i can print anything," responded gluck reproachfully. "how many shall you want?" "it's the orthodox paper we've been planning so long," said de haan evasively. gluck nodded his head. "there are seventy thousand orthodox jews in london alone," said de haan, with rotund enunciation. "so you see what you may have to print. it'll be worth your while to do it extra cheap." gluck agreed readily, naming a low figure. after half an hour's discussion it was reduced by ten per cent. "good-bye, then," said de haan. "so let it stand. we shall start with a thousand copies of the first number, but where we shall end, the holy one, blessed be he, alone knows. i will now leave you and the editor to talk over the rest. to-day's monday. we must have the first number out by friday week. can you do that, mr. leon?" "oh, that will be ample," said raphael, shooting out his arms. he did not remain of that opinion. never had he gone through such an awful, anxious time, not even in his preparations for the stiffest exams. he worked sixteen hours a day at the paper. the only evening he allowed himself off was when he dined with mrs. henry goldsmith and met esther. first numbers invariably take twice as long to produce as second numbers, even in the best regulated establishments. all sorts of mysterious sticks and leads, and fonts and forms, are found wanting at the eleventh hour. as a substitute for gray hair-dye there is nothing in the market to compete with the production of first numbers. but in gluck's establishment, these difficulties were multiplied by a hundred. gluck spent a great deal of time in going round the corner to get something from a brother printer. it took an enormous time to get a proof of any article out of gluck. "my men are so careful," gluck explained. "they don't like to pass anything till it's free from typos." the men must have been highly disappointed, for the proofs were invariably returned bristling with corrections and having a highly hieroglyphic appearance. then gluck would go in and slang his men. he kept them behind the partition painted "private." the fatal friday drew nearer and nearer. by thursday not a single page had been made up. still gluck pointed out that there were only eight, and the day was long. raphael had not the least idea in the world how to make up a paper, but about eleven little sampson kindly strolled into gluck's, and explained to his editor his own method of pasting the proofs on sheets of paper of the size of the pages. he even made up one page himself to a blithe vocal accompaniment. when the busy composer and acting-manager hurried off to conduct a rehearsal, raphael expressed his gratitude warmly. the hours flew; the paper evolved as by geologic stages. as the fateful day wore on, gluck was scarcely visible for a moment. raphael was left alone eating his heart out in the shop, and solacing himself with huge whiffs of smoke. at immense intervals gluck appeared from behind the partition bearing a page or a galley slip. he said his men could not be trusted to do their work unless he was present. raphael replied that he had not seen the compositors come through the shop to get their dinners, and he hoped gluck would not find it necessary to cut off their meal-times. gluck reassured him on this point; he said his men were so loyal that they preferred to bring their food with them rather than have the paper delayed. later on he casually mentioned that there was a back entrance. he would not allow raphael to talk to his workmen personally, arguing that it spoiled their discipline. by eleven o'clock at night seven pages had been pulled and corrected: but the eighth page was not forthcoming. the _flag_ had to be machined, dried, folded, and a number of copies put into wrappers and posted by three in the morning. the situation looked desperate. at a quarter to twelve, gluck explained that a column of matter already set up had been "pied" by a careless compositor. it happened to be the column containing the latest news and raphael had not even seen a proof of it. still, gluck conjured him not to trouble further: he would give his reader strict injunctions not to miss the slightest error. raphael had already seen and passed the first column of this page, let him leave it to gluck to attend to this second column; all would be well without his remaining later, and he would receive a copy of the _flag_ by the first post. the poor editor, whose head was splitting, weakly yielded; he just caught the midnight train to the west end and he went to bed feeling happy and hopeful. at seven o'clock the next morning the whole leon household was roused by a thunderous double rat-tat at the door. addie was even heard to scream. a housemaid knocked at raphael's door and pushed a telegram under it. raphael jumped out of bed and read: "third of column more matter wanted. come at once. gluck." "how can that be?" he asked himself in consternation. "if the latest news made a column when it was first set up before the accident, how can it make less now?" he dashed up to gluck's office in a hansom and put the conundrum to him. "you see we had no time to distribute the 'pie,' and we had no more type of that kind, so we had to reset it smaller," answered gluck glibly. his eyes were blood-shot, his face was haggard. the door of the private compartment stood open. "your men are not come yet, i suppose," said raphael. "no," said gluck. "they didn't go away till two, poor fellows. is that the copy?" he asked, as raphael handed him a couple of slips he had distractedly scribbled in the cab under the heading of "talmudic tales." "thank you, it's just about the size. i shall have to set it myself." "but won't we be terribly late?" said poor raphael. "we shall be out to-day," responded gluck cheerfully. "we shall be in time for the sabbath, and that's the important thing. don't you see they're half-printed already?" he indicated a huge pile of sheets. raphael examined them with beating heart. "we've only got to print 'em on the other side and the thing's done," said gluck. "where are your machines?" "there," said gluck, pointing. "that hand-press!" cried raphael, astonished. "do you mean to say you print them all with your own hand?" "why not?" said the dauntless gluck. "i shall wrap them up for the post, too." and he shut himself up with the last of the "copy." raphael having exhausted his interest in the half-paper, fell to striding about the little shop, when who should come in but pinchas, smoking a cigar of the schlesinger brand. "ah, my prince of rédacteurs," said pinchas, darting at raphael's hand and kissing it. "did i not say you vould produce the finest paper in the kingdom? but vy have i not my copy by post? you must not listen to ebenezer ven he says i must not be on the free list, the blackguard." raphael explained to the incredulous poet that ebenezer had not said anything of the kind. suddenly pinchas's eye caught sight of the sheets. he swooped down upon them like a hawk. then he uttered a shriek of grief. "vere's my poem, my great poesie?" raphael looked embarrassed. "this is only half the paper," he said evasively. "ha, then it vill appear in the other half, _hein_?" he said with hope tempered by a terrible suspicion. "n--n--o," stammered raphael timidly. "no?" shrieked pinchas. "you see--the--fact is, it wouldn't scan. your hebrew poetry is perfect, but english poetry is made rather differently and i've been too busy to correct it." "but it is exactly like lord byron's!" shrieked pinchas. "mein gott! all night i lie avake--vaiting for the post. at eight o'clock the post comes--but _the flag of judah_ she vaves not! i rush round here--and now my beautiful poem vill not appear." he seized the sheet again, then cried fiercely: "you have a tale, 'the waters of babylon,' by ebenezer the fool-boy, but my poesie have you not. _gott in himmel_!" he tore the sheet frantically across and rushed from the shop. in five minutes he reappeared. raphael was absorbed in reading the last proof. pinchas plucked timidly at his coat-tails. "you vill put it in next veek?" he said winningly. "i dare say," said raphael gently. "ah, promise me. i vill love you like a brother, i vill be grateful to you for ever and ever. i vill never ask another favor of you in all my life. ve are already like brothers--_hein_? i and you, the only two men--" "yes, yes," interrupted raphael, "it shall appear next week." "god bless you!" said pinchas, kissing raphael's coat-tails passionately and rushing without. looking up accidentally some minutes afterwards, raphael was astonished to see the poet's carneying head thrust through the half-open door with a finger laid insinuatingly on the side of the nose. the head was fixed there as if petrified, waiting to catch the editor's eye. the first number of _the flag of judah_ appeared early in the afternoon. chapter iv. the troubles of an editor. the new organ did not create a profound impression. by the rival party it was mildly derided, though many fair-minded persons were impressed by the rather unusual combination of rigid orthodoxy with a high spiritual tone and raphael's conception of judaism as outlined in his first leader, his view of it as a happy human compromise between an empty unpractical spiritualism and a choked-up over-practical formalism, avoiding the opposite extremes of its offshoots, christianity and mohammedanism, was novel to many of his readers, unaccustomed to think about their faith. dissatisfied as raphael was with the number, he felt he had fluttered some of the dove-cotes at least. several people of taste congratulated him during saturday and sunday, and it was with a continuance of messianic emotions and with agreeable anticipations that he repaired on monday morning to the little den which had been inexpensively fitted up for him above the offices of messrs. schlesinger and de haan. to his surprise he found it crammed with the committee; all gathered round little sampson, who, with flushed face and cloak tragically folded, was expostulating at the top of his voice. pinchas stood at the back in silent amusement. as raphael entered jauntily, from a dozen lips, the lowering faces turned quickly towards him. involuntarily raphael started back in alarm, then stood rooted to the threshold. there was a dread ominous silence. then the storm burst. "_du shegetz! du pasha yisroile!_" came from all quarters of the compass. to be called a graceless gentile and a sinner in israel is not pleasant to a pious jew: but all raphael's minor sensations were swallowed up in a great wonderment. "we are ruined!" moaned the furniture-dealer, who was always failing. "you have ruined us!" came the chorus from the thick, sensuous lips, and swarthy fists were shaken threateningly. sugarman's hairy paw was almost against his face. raphael turned cold, then a rush of red-hot blood flooded his veins. he put out his good right hand and smote the nearest fist aside. sugarman blenched and skipped back and the line of fists wavered. "don't be fools, gentlemen," said de haan, his keen sense of humor asserting itself. "let mr. leon sit down." raphael, still dazed, took his seat on the editorial chair. "now, what can i do for you?" he said courteously. the fists dropped at his calm. "do for us," said schlesinger drily. "you've done for the paper. it's not worth twopence." "well, bring it out at a penny at once then," laughed little sampson, reinforced by the arrival of his editor. guedalyah the greengrocer glowered at him. "i am very sorry, gentlemen, i have not been able to satisfy you," said raphael. "but in a first number one can't do much." "can't they?" said de haan. "you've done so much damage to orthodoxy that we don't know whether to go on with the paper." "you're joking," murmured raphael. "i wish i was," laughed de haan bitterly. "but you astonish me." persisted raphael. "would you be so good as to point out where i have gone wrong?" "with pleasure. or rather with pain," said de haan. each of the committee drew a tattered copy from his pocket, and followed de haan's demonstration with a murmured accompaniment of lamentation. "the paper was founded to inculcate the inspection of cheese, the better supervision of the sale of meat, the construction of ladies' baths, and all the principles of true judaism," said de haan gloomily, "and there's not one word about these things, but a great deal about spirituality and the significance of the ritual. but i will begin at the beginning. page --" "but that's advertisements," muttered raphael. "the part surest to be read! the very first line of the paper is simply shocking. it reads: "death: on the th ult., at buckley st., the rev. abraham barnett, in his fifty-fourth--" "but death is always shocking; what's wrong about that?" interposed little sampson. "wrong!" repeated de haan, witheringly. "where did you get that from? that was never sent in." "no, of course not," said the sub-editor. "but we had to have at least one advertisement of that kind; just to show we should be pleased to advertise our readers' deaths. i looked in the daily papers to see if there were any births or marriages with jewish names, but i couldn't find any, and that was the only jewish-sounding death i could see." "but the rev. abraham barnett was a _meshumad_," shrieked sugarman the _shadchan_. raphael turned pale. to have inserted an advertisement about an apostate missionary was indeed terrible. but little sampson's audacity did not desert him. "i thought the orthodox party would be pleased to hear of the death of a _meshumad_," he said suavely, screwing his eyeglass more tightly into its orbit, "on the same principle that anti-semites take in the jewish papers to hear of the death of jews." for a moment de haan was staggered. "that would be all very well," he said; "let him be an atonement for us all, but then you've gone and put 'may his soul he bound up in the bundle of life.'" it was true. the stock hebrew equivalent for r.i.p. glared from the page. "fortunately, that taking advertisement of _kosher_ trousers comes just underneath," said de haan, "and that may draw off the attention. on page you actually say in a note that rabbenu bachja's great poem on repentance should be incorporated in the ritual and might advantageously replace the obscure _piyut_ by kalir. but this is rank reform--it's worse than the papers we come to supersede." "but surely you know it is only the printing press that has stereotyped our liturgy, that for maimonides and ibn ezra, for david kimchi and joseph albo, the contents were fluid, that--" "we don't deny that," interrupted schlesinger drily. "but we can't have any more alterations now-a-days. who is there worthy to alter them? you?" "certainly not. i merely suggest." "you are playing into the hands of our enemies," said de haan, shaking his head. "we must not let our readers even imagine that the prayer-book can be tampered with. it's the thin end of the wedge. to trim our liturgy is like trimming living flesh; wherever you cut, the blood oozes. the four cubits of the _halacha_--that is what is wanted, not changes in the liturgy. once touch anything, and where are you to stop? our religion becomes a flux. our old judaism is like an old family mansion, where each generation has left a memorial and where every room is hallowed with traditions of merrymaking and mourning. we do not want our fathers' home decorated in the latest style; the next step will be removal to a new dwelling altogether. on page you refer to the second isaiah." "but i deny that there were two isaiahs." "so you do; but it is better for our readers not to hear of such impious theories. the space would be much better occupied in explaining the portion for the week. the next leaderette has a flippant tone, which has excited unfavorable comment among some of the most important members of the dalston synagogue. they object to humor in a religious paper. on page you have deliberately missed an opportunity of puffing the kosher co-operative society. indeed, there is not a word throughout about our society. but i like mr. henry goldsmith's letter on this page, though; he is a good orthodox man and he writes from a good address. it will show we are not only read in the east end. pity he's such a man-of-the-earth, though. yes, and that's good--the communication from the rev. joseph strelitski. i think he's a bit of an _epikouros_ but it looks as if the whole of the kensington synagogue was with us. i understand he is a friend of yours: it will be as well for you to continue friendly. several of us here knew him well in _olov hasholom_ times, but he is become so grand and rarely shows himself at the holy land league meetings. he can help us a lot if he will." "oh, i'm sure he will," said raphael. "that's good," said de haan, caressing his white beard. then growing gloomy again, he went on, "on page you have a little article by gabriel hamburg, a well-known _epikouros_." "oh, but he's one of the greatest scholars in europe!" broke in raphael. "i thought you'd be extra pleased to have it. he sent it to me from stockholm as a special favor." he did not mention he had secretly paid for it. "i know some of his views are heterodox, and i don't agree with half he says, but this article is perfectly harmless." "well, let it pass--very few of our readers have ever heard of him. but on the same page you have a latin quotation. i don't say there's anything wrong in that, but it smacks of reform. our readers don't understand it and it looks as if our hebrew were poor. the mishna contains texts suited for all purposes. we are in no need of roman writers. on page you speak of the reform _shool_, as if it were to be reasoned with. sir, if we mention these freethinkers at all, it must be in the strongest language. by worshipping bare-headed and by seating the sexes together they have denied judaism." "stop a minute!" interrupted raphael warmly. "who told you the reformers do this?" "who told me, indeed? why, it's common knowledge. that's how they've been going on for the last fifty years." "everybody knows it," said the committee in chorus. "has one of you ever been there?" said raphael, rising in excitement. "god forbid!" said the chorus. "well, i have, and it's a lie," said raphael. his arms whirled round to the discomfort of the committee. "you ought not to have gone there," said schlesinger severely. "besides, will you deny they have the organ in their sabbath services?" "no, i won't!" "well, then!" said de haan, triumphantly. "if they are capable of that, they are capable of any wickedness. orthodox people can have nothing to do with them." "but orthodox immigrants take their money," said raphael. "their money is _kosher_', they are _tripha_," said de haan sententiously. "page , now we get to the most dreadful thing of all!" a solemn silence fell on the room, pinchas sniggered unobtrusively. "you have a little article headed, 'talmudic tales.' why in heaven's name you couldn't have finished the column with bits of news i don't know. satan himself must have put the thought into your head. just at the end of the paper, too! for i can't reckon page , which is simply our own advertisement." "i thought it would be amusing," said raphael. "amusing! if you had simply told the tales, it might have been. but look how you introduce them! 'these amusing tales occur in the fifth chapter of baba bathra, and are related by rabbi bar bar channah. our readers will see that they are parables or allegories rather than actual facts.'" "but do you mean to say you look upon them as facts?" cried raphael, sawing the air wildly and pacing about on the toes of the committee. "surely!" said de haan, while a low growl at his blasphemous doubts ran along the lips of the committee. "was it treacherously to undermine judaism that you so eagerly offered to edit for nothing?" said the furniture-dealer who was always failing. "but listen here!" cried raphael, exasperated. "harmez, the son of lilith, a demon, saddled two mules and made them stand on opposite sides of the river doneg. he then jumped from the back of one to that of the other. he had, at the time, a cup of wine in each hand, and as he jumped, he threw the wine from each cup into the other without spilling a drop, although a hurricane was blowing at the time. when the king of demons heard that harmez had been thus showing off to mortals, he slew him. does any of you believe that?" "vould our sages (their memories for a blessing) put anything into the talmud that vasn't true?" queried sugarman. "ve know there are demons because it stands that solomon knew their language." "but then, what about this?" pursued raphael. "'i saw a frog which was as big as the district of akra hagronia. a sea-monster came and swallowed the frog, and a raven came and ate the sea-monster. the raven then went and perched on a tree' consider how strong that tree must have been. r. papa ben samuel remarks, 'had i not been present, i should not have believed it.' doesn't this appendix about ben samuel show that it was never meant to be taken seriously?" "it has some high meaning we do not understand in these degenerate times," said guedalyah the greengrocer. "it is not for our paper to weaken faith in the talmud." "hear, hear!" said de haan, while "_epikouros_" rumbled through the air, like distant thunder. "didn't i say an englishman could never master the talmud?" sugarman asked in triumph. this reminder of raphael's congenital incompetence softened their minds towards him, so that when he straightway resigned his editorship, their self-constituted spokesman besought him to remain. perhaps they remembered, too, that he was cheap. "but we must all edit the paper," said de haan enthusiastically, when peace was re-established. "we must have meetings every day and every article must he read aloud before it is printed." little sampson winked cynically, passing his hand pensively through his thick tangled locks, but raphael saw no objection to the arrangement. as before, he felt his own impracticability borne in upon him, and he decided to sacrifice himself for the cause as far as conscience permitted. excessive as it was the zeal of these men, it was after all in the true groove. his annoyance returned for a while, however, when sugarman the _shadchan_ seized the auspicious moment of restored amity to inquire insinuatingly if his sister was engaged. pinchas and little sampson went down the stairs, quivering with noiseless laughter, which became boisterous when they reached the street. pinchas was in high feather. "the fool-men!" he said, as he led the sub-editor into a public-house and regaled him on stout and sandwiches. "they believe any _narrischkeit_. i and you are the only two sensible jews in england. you vill see that my poesie goes in next week--promise me that! to your life!" here they touched glasses. "ah, it is beautiful poesie. such high tragic ideas! you vill kiss me when you read them!" he laughed in childish light-heartedness. "perhaps i write you a comic opera for your company--_hein_? already i love you like a brother. another glass stout? bring us two more, thou hebe of the hops-nectar. you have seen my comedy 'the hornet of judah'--no?--ah, she vas a great comedy, sampson. all london talked of her. she has been translated into every tongue. perhaps i play in your company. i am a great actor--_hein_? you know not my forte is voman's parts--i make myself so lovely complexion vith red paint, i fall in love vith me." he sniggered over his stout. "the rédacteur vill not redact long, _hein_?" he said presently. "he is a fool-man. if he work for nothing they think that is what he is worth. they are orthodox, he, he!" "but he is orthodox too," said little sampson. "yes," replied pinchas musingly. "it is strange. it is very strange. i cannot understand him. never in all my experience have i met another such man. there vas an italian exile i talked vith once in the island of chios, his eyes were like leon's, soft vith a shining splendor like the stars vich are the eyes of the angels of love. ah, he is a good man, and he writes sharp; he has ideas, not like an english jew at all. i could throw my arms round him sometimes. i love him like a brother." his voice softened. "another glass stout; ve vill drink to him." raphael did not find the editing by committee feasible. the friction was incessant, the waste of time monstrous. the second number cost him even more headaches than the first, and this, although the gallant gluck abandoning his single-handed emprise fortified himself with a real live compositor and had arranged for the paper to be printed by machinery. the position was intolerable. it put a touch of acid into his dulciferous mildness! just before going to press he was positively rude to pinchas. it would seem that little sampson sheltering himself behind his capitalists had refused to give the poet a commission for a comic opera, and pinchas raved at gideon, m.p., who he was sure was sampson's financial backer, and threatened to shoot him and danced maniacally about the office. "i have written an attack on the member for vitechapel," he said, growing calmer, "to hand him down to the execration of posterity, and i have brought it to the _flag_. it must go in this veek." "we have already your poem," said raphael. "i know, but i do not grudge my work, i am not like your money-making english jews." "there is no room. the paper is full." "leave out ebenezer's tale--with the blue spectacles." "there is none. it was completed in one number." "well, must you put in your leader?" "absolutely; please go away. i have this page to read." "but you can leave out some advertisements?" "i must not. we have too few as it is." the poet put his finger alongside his nose, but raphael was adamant. "do me this one favor," he pleaded. "i love you like a brother; just this one little thing. i vill never ask another favor of you all my life." "i would not put it in, even if there was room. go away," said raphael, almost roughly. the unaccustomed accents gave pinchas a salutary shock. he borrowed two shillings and left, and raphael was afraid to look up lest he should see his head wedged in the doorway. soon after gluck and his one compositor carried out the forms to be machined. little sampson, arriving with a gay air on his lips, met them at the door. on the friday, raphael sat in the editorial chair, utterly dispirited, a battered wreck. the committee had just left him. a heresy had crept into a bit of late news not inspected by them, and they declared that the paper was not worth twopence and had better be stopped. the demand for this second number was, moreover, rather poor, and each man felt his ten pound share melting away, and resolved not to pay up the half yet unpaid. it was raphael's first real experience of men--after the enchanted towers of oxford, where he had foregathered with dreamers. his pipe hung listless in his mouth; an extinct volcano. his first fit of distrust in human nature, nay, even in the purifying powers of orthodoxy, was racking him. strangely enough this wave of scepticism tossed up the thought of esther ansell, and stranger still on the top of this thought, in walked mr. henry goldsmith. raphael jumped up and welcomed his late host, whose leathery countenance shone with the polish of a sweet smile. it appeared that the communal pillar had been passing casually, and thought he'd look raphael up. "so you don't pull well together," he said, when he had elicited an outline of the situation from the editor. "no, not altogether," admitted raphael. "do you think the paper'll live?" "i can't say," said raphael, dropping limply into his chair. "even if it does. i don't know whether it will do much good if run on their lines, for although it is of great importance that we get _kosher_ food and baths. i hardly think they go about it in the right spirit. i may be wrong. they are older men than i and have seen more of actual life, and know the class we appeal to better." "no, no, you are not wrong," said mr. goldsmith vehemently. "i am myself dissatisfied with some of the committee's contributions to this second number. it is a great opportunity to save english judaism, but it is being frittered away." "i am afraid it is," said raphael, removing his empty pipe from his mouth, and staring at it blankly. mr. goldsmith brought his fist down sharp on the soft litter that covered the editorial table. "it shall not be frittered away!" he cried. "no, not if i have to buy the paper!" raphael looked up eagerly. "what do you say?" said goldsmith. "shall i buy it up and let you work it on your lines?" "i shall be very glad," said raphael, the messianic look returning to his face. "how much will they want for it?" "oh, i think they'll be glad to let you take it over. they say it's not worth twopence, and i'm sure they haven't got the funds to carry it on," replied raphael, rising. "i'll go down about it at once. the committee have just been here, and i dare say they are still in schlesinger's office." "no, no," said goldsmith, pushing him down into his seat. "it will never do if people know i'm the proprietor." "why not?" "oh, lots of reasons. i'm not a man to brag; if i want to do a good thing for judaism, there's no reason for all the world to know it. then again, from my position on all sorts of committees i shall be able to influence the communal advertisements in a way i couldn't if people knew i had any connection with the paper. so, too, i shall be able to recommend it to my wealthy friends (as no doubt it will deserve to be recommended) without my praise being discounted." "well, but then what am i to say to the committee?" "can't you say you want to buy it for yourself? they know you can afford it." raphael hesitated. "but why shouldn't i buy it for myself?" "pooh! haven't you got better use for your money?" it was true. raphael had designs more tangibly philanthropic for the five thousand pounds left him by his aunt. and he was business-like enough to see that mr. goldsmith's money might as well be utilized for the good of judaism. he was not quite easy about the little fiction that would he necessary for the transaction, but the combined assurances of mr. goldsmith and his own common sense that there was no real deception or harm involved in it, ultimately prevailed. mr. goldsmith left, promising to call again in an hour, and raphael, full of new hopes, burst upon the committee. but his first experience of bargaining was no happier than the rest of his worldly experience. when he professed his willingness to relieve them of the burden of carrying on the paper they first stared, then laughed, then shook their fists. as if they would leave him to corrupt the faith! when they understood he was willing to pay something, the value of _the flag of judah_ went up from less than twopence to more than two hundred pounds. everybody was talking about it, its reputation was made, they were going to print double next week. "but it has not cost you forty pounds yet?" said the astonished raphael. "what are you saying? look at the posters alone!" said sugarman. "but you don't look at it fairly," argued de haan, whose talmudical studies had sharpened wits already super-subtle. "whatever it has cost us, it would have cost as much more if we had had to pay our editor, and it is very unfair of you to leave that out of account." raphael was overwhelmed. "it's taking away with the left hand what you gave us with the right," added de haan, with infinite sadness. "i had thought better of you, mr. leon." "but you got a good many twopences back," murmured raphael. "it's the future profits that we're losing," explained schlesinger. in the end raphael agreed to give a hundred pounds, which made the members inwardly determine to pay up the residue on their shares at once. de haan also extorted a condition that the _flag_ should continue to be the organ of the kosher co-operative society, for at least six months, doubtless perceiving that should the paper live and thrive over that period, it would not then pay the proprietor to alter its principles. by which bargain the society secured for itself a sum of money together with an organ, gratis, for six months and, to all seeming, in perpetuity, for at bottom they knew well that raphael's heart was sound. they were all on the free list, too, and they knew he would not trouble to remove them. mr. henry goldsmith, returning, was rather annoyed at the price, but did not care to repudiate his agent. "be economical," he said. "i will get you a better office and find a proper publisher and canvasser. but cut it as close as you can." raphael's face beamed with joy. "oh, depend upon me," he said. "what is your own salary?" asked goldsmith. "nothing," said raphael. a flash passed across goldsmith's face, then he considered a moment. "i wish you would let it be a guinea," he said. "quite nominal, you know. only i like to have things in proper form. and if you ever want to go, you know, you'll give me a month's notice and," here he laughed genially, "i'll do ditto when i want to get rid of you. ha! ha! ha! is that a bargain?" raphael smiled in reply and the two men's hands met in a hearty clasp. "miss ansell will help you, i know," said goldsmith cheerily. "that girl's got it in her, i can tell you. she'll take the shine out of some of our west enders. do you know i picked her out of the gutter, so to speak?" "yes, i know," said raphael. "it was very good and discriminating of you. how is she?" "she's all right. come up and see her about doing something for you. she goes to the museum sometimes in the afternoons, but you'll always find her in on sundays, or most sundays. come up and dine with us again soon, will you? mrs. goldsmith will be so pleased." "i will," said raphael fervently. and when the door closed upon the communal pillar, he fell to striding feverishly about his little den. his trust in human nature was restored and the receding wave of scepticism bore off again the image of esther ansell. now to work for judaism! the sub-editor made his first appearance that day, carolling joyously. "sampson," said raphael abruptly, "your salary is raised by a guinea a week." the joyous song died away on little sampson's lips. his eyeglass dropped. he let himself fall backwards, impinging noiselessly upon a heap of "returns" of number one. chapter v. a woman's growth. the sloppy sunday afternoon, which was the first opportunity raphael had of profiting by mr. henry goldsmith's general invitation to call and see esther, happened to be that selected by the worthy couple for a round of formal visits. esther was left at home with a headache, little expecting pleasanter company. she hesitated about receiving raphael, but on hearing that he had come to see her rather than her patrons, she smoothed her hair, put on a prettier frock, and went down into the drawing-room, where she found him striding restlessly in bespattered boots and moist overcoat. when he became aware of her presence, he went towards her eagerly, and shook her hand with jerky awkwardness. "how are you?" he said heartily. "very well, thank you," she replied automatically. then a twinge, as of reproach at the falsehood, darted across her brow, and she added, "a trifle of the usual headache. i hope you are well." "quite, thank you," he rejoined. his face rather contradicted him. it looked thin, pale, and weary. journalism writes lines on the healthiest countenance. esther looked at him disapprovingly; she had the woman's artistic instinct if not the artist's, and raphael, with his damp overcoat, everlastingly crumpled at the collar, was not an aesthetic object. whether in her pretty moods or her plain, esther was always neat and dainty. there was a bit of ruffled lace at her throat, and the heliotrope of her gown contrasted agreeably with the dark skin of the vivid face. "do take off your overcoat and dry yourself at the fire," she said. while he was disposing of it, she poked the fire into a big cheerful blaze, seating herself opposite him in a capacious arm-chair, where the flame picked her out in bright tints upon the dusky background of the great dim room. "and how is _the flag of judah_?" she said. "still waving," he replied. "it is about that that i have come." "about that?" she said wonderingly. "oh, i see; you want to know if the one person it is written at has read it. well, make your mind easy. i have. i have read it religiously--no, i don't mean that; yes, i do; it's the appropriate word." "really?" he tried to penetrate behind the bantering tone. "yes, really. you put your side of the case eloquently and well. i look forward to friday with interest. i hope the paper is selling?" "so, so," he said. "it is uphill work. the jewish public looks on journalism as a branch of philanthropy, i fear, and sidney suggests publishing our free-list as a 'jewish directory.'" she smiled. "mr. graham is very amusing. only, he is too well aware of it. he has been here once since that dinner, and we discussed you. he says he can't understand how you came to be a cousin of his, even a second cousin. he says he is _l'homme qui rit_, and you are _l'homme qui prie_." "he has let that off on me already, supplemented by the explanation that every extensive jewish family embraces a genius and a lunatic. he admits that he is the genius. the unfortunate part for me," ended raphael, laughing, "is, that he _is_ a genius." "i saw two of his little things the other day at the impressionist exhibition in piccadilly. they are very clever and dashing." "i am told he draws ballet-girls," said raphael, moodily. "yes, he is a disciple of degas." "you don't like that style of art?" he said, a shade of concern in his voice. "i do not," said esther, emphatically. "i am a curious mixture. in art, i have discovered in myself two conflicting tastes, and neither is for the modern realism, which i yet admire in literature. i like poetic pictures, impregnated with vague romantic melancholy; and i like the white lucidity of classic statuary. i suppose the one taste is the offspring of temperament, the other of thought; for intellectually, i admire the greek ideas, and was glad to hear you correct sidney's perversion of the adjective. i wonder," she added, reflectively, "if one can worship the gods of the greeks without believing in them." "but you wouldn't make a cult of beauty?" "not if you take beauty in the narrow sense in which i should fancy your cousin uses the word; but, in a higher and broader sense, is it not the one fine thing in life which is a certainty, the one ideal which is not illusion?" "nothing is illusion," said raphael, earnestly. "at least, not in your sense. why should the creator deceive us?" "oh well, don't let us get into metaphysics. we argue from different platforms," she said. "tell me what you really came about in connection with the _flag_." "mr. goldsmith was kind enough to suggest that you might write for it." "what!" exclaimed esther, sitting upright in her arm-chair. "i? i write for an orthodox paper?" "yes, why not?" "do you mean i'm to take part in my own conversion?" "the paper is not entirely religious," he reminded her. "no, there are the advertisements." she said slily. "pardon me," he said. "we don't insert any advertisements contrary to the principles of orthodoxy. not that we are much tempted." "you advertise soap," she murmured. "oh, please! don't you go in for those cheap sarcasms." "forgive me," she said. "remember my conceptions of orthodoxy are drawn mainly from the ghetto, where cleanliness, so far from being next to godliness, is nowhere in the vicinity. but what can i do for you?" "i don't know. at present the staff, the _flag_-staff as sidney calls it, consists of myself and a sub-editor, who take it in turn to translate the only regular outside contributor's articles into english." "who's that?" "melchitsedek pinchas, the poet i told you of." "i suppose he writes in hebrew." "no, if he did the translation would be plain sailing enough. the trouble is that he will write in english. i must admit, though, he improves daily. our correspondents, too, have the same weakness for the vernacular, and i grieve to add that when they do introduce a hebrew word, they do not invariably spell it correctly." she smiled; her smile was never so fascinating as by firelight. raphael rose and paced the room nervously, flinging out his arms in uncouth fashion to emphasize his speech. "i was thinking you might introduce a secular department of some sort which would brighten up the paper. my articles are so plaguy dull." "not so dull, for religious articles," she assured him. "could you treat jewish matters from a social standpoint--gossipy sort of thing." she shook her head. "i'm afraid to trust myself to write on jewish subjects. i should be sure to tread on somebody's corns." "oh, i have it!" he cried, bringing his arms in contact with a small venetian vase which esther, with great presence of mind, just managed to catch ere it reached the ground. "no, i have it," she said, laughing. "do sit down, else nobody can answer for the consequences." she half pushed him into his chair, where he fell to warming his hands contemplatively. "well?" she said after a pause. "i thought you had an idea." "yes, yes," he said, rousing himself. "the subject we were just discussing--art." "but there is nothing jewish about art." "all noble work has its religious aspects. then there are jewish artists." "oh yes! your contemporaries do notice their exhibits, and there seem to be more of them than the world ever hears of. but if i went to a gathering for you how should i know which were jews?" "by their names, of course." "by no means of course. some artistic jews have forgotten their own names." "that's a dig at sidney." "really, i wasn't thinking of him for the moment," she said a little sharply. "however, in any case there's nothing worth doing till may, and that's some months ahead. i'll do the academy for you if you like." "thank you. won't sidney stare if you pulverize him in _the flag of judah_? some of the pictures have also jewish subjects, you know." "yes, but if i mistake not, they're invariably done by christian artists." "nearly always," he admitted pensively. "i wish we had a jewish allegorical painter to express the high conceptions of our sages." "as he would probably not know what they are,"--she murmured. then, seeing him rise as if to go, she said: "won't you have a cup of tea?" "no, don't trouble," he answered. "oh yes, do!" she pleaded. "or else i shall think you're angry with me for not asking you before." and she rang the bell. she discovered, to her amusement, that raphael took two pieces of sugar per cup, but that if they were not inserted, he did not notice their absence. over tea, too, raphael had a new idea, this time fraught with peril to the sèvres tea-pot. "why couldn't you write us a jewish serial story?" he said suddenly. "that would be a novelty in communal journalism." esther looked startled by the proposition. "how do you know i could?" she said after a silence. "i don't know," he replied. "only i fancy you could. why not?" he said encouragingly. "you don't know what you can do till you try. besides you write poetry." "the jewish public doesn't like the looking-glass," she answered him, shaking her head. "oh, you can't say that. they've only objected as yet to the distorting mirror. you're thinking of the row over that man armitage's book. now, why not write an antidote to that book? there now, there's an idea for you." "it _is_ an idea!" said esther with overt sarcasm. "you think art can be degraded into an antidote." "art is not a fetish," he urged. "what degradation is there in art teaching a noble lesson?" "ah, that is what you religious people will never understand," she said scathingly. "you want everything to preach." "everything does preach something," he retorted. "why not have the sermon good?" "i consider the original sermon _was_ good," she said defiantly. "it doesn't need an antidote." "how can you say that? surely, merely as one who was born a jewess, you wouldn't care for the sombre picture drawn by this armitage to stand as a portrait of your people." she shrugged her shoulders--the ungraceful shrug of the ghetto. "why not? it is one-sided, but it is true." "i don't deny that; probably the man was sincerely indignant at certain aspects. i am ready to allow he did not even see he was one-sided. but if _you_ see it, why not show the world the other side of the shield?" she put her hand wearily to her brow. "do not ask me," she said. "to have my work appreciated merely because the moral tickled the reader's vanity would be a mockery. the suffrages of the jewish public--i might have valued them once; now i despise them." she sank further back on the chair, pale and silent. "why, what harm have they done you?" he asked. "they are so stupid," she said, with a gesture of distaste. "that is a new charge against the jews." "look at the way they have denounced this armitage, saying his book is vulgar and wretched and written for gain, and all because it does not flatter them." "can you wonder at it? to say 'you're another' may not be criticism, but it is human nature." esther smiled sadly. "i cannot make you out at all," she said. "why? what is there strange about me?" "you say such shrewd, humorous things sometimes; i wonder how you can remain orthodox." "now i can't understand _you_," he said, puzzled. "oh well. perhaps if you could, you wouldn't be orthodox. let us remain mutual enigmas. and will you do me a favor?" "with pleasure," he said, his face lighting up. "don't mention mr. armitage's book to me again. i am sick of hearing about it." "so am i," he said, rather disappointed. "after that dinner i thought it only fair to read it, and although i detect considerable crude power in it, still i am very sorry it was ever published. the presentation of judaism is most ignorant. all the mystical yearnings of the heroine might have found as much satisfaction in the faith of her own race as they find expression in its poetry." he rose to go. "well, i am to take it for granted you will not write that antidote?" "i'm afraid it would be impossible for me to undertake it," she said more mildly than before, and pressed her hand again to her brow. "pardon me," he said in much concern. "i am too selfish. i forgot you are not well. how is your head feeling now?" "about the same, thank you," she said, forcing a grateful smile. "you may rely on me for art; yes, and music, too, if you like." "thank you," he said. "you read a great deal, don't you?" she nodded her head. "well, every week books are published of more or less direct jewish interest. i should be glad of notes about such to brighten up the paper." "for anything strictly unorthodox you may count on me. if that antidote turns up, i shall not fail to cackle over it in your columns. by the by, are you going to review the poison? excuse so many mixed metaphors," she added, with a rather forced laugh. "no, i shan't say anything about it. why give it an extra advertisement by slating it?" "slating," she repeated with a faint smile. "i see you have mastered all the slang of your profession." "ah, that's the influence of my sub-editor," he said, smiling in return. "well, good-bye." "you're forgetting your overcoat," she said, and having smoothed out that crumpled collar, she accompanied him down the wide soft-carpeted staircase into the hall with its rich bronzes and glistening statues. "how are your people in america?" he bethought himself to ask on the way down. "they are very well, thank you," she said. "i send my brother solomon _the flag of judah_. he is also, i am afraid, one of the unregenerate. you see i am doing my best to enlarge your congregation." he could not tell whether it was sarcasm or earnest. "well, good-bye," he said, holding out his hand. "thank you for your promise." "oh, that's not worth thanking me for," she said, touching his long white fingers for an instant. "look at the glory of seeing myself in print. i hope you're not annoyed with me for refusing to contribute fiction," she ended, growing suddenly remorseful at the moment of parting. "of course not. how could i be?" "couldn't your sister adelaide do you a story?" "addle?" he repeated laughing, "fancy addie writing stories! addie has no literary ability." "that's always the way with brothers. solomon says--" she paused suddenly. "i don't remember for the moment that solomon has any proverb on the subject," he said, still amused at the idea of addie as an authoress. "i was thinking of something else. good-bye. remember me to your sister, please." "certainly," he said. then he exclaimed, "oh, what a block-head i am! i forgot to remember her to you. she says she would be so pleased if you would come and have tea and a chat with her some day. i should like you and addie to know each other." "thanks, i will. i will write to her some day. good-bye, once more." he shook hands with her and fumbled at the door. "allow me!" she said, and opened it upon the gray dulness of the dripping street. "when may i hope for the honor of another visit from a real live editor?" "i don't know," he said, smiling. "i'm awfully busy, i have to read a paper on ibn ezra at jews' college to-day fortnight." "outsiders admitted?" she asked. "the lectures _are_ for outsiders," he said. "to spread the knowledge of our literature. only they won't come. have you never been to one?" she shook her head. "there!" he said. "you complain of our want of culture, and you don't even know what's going on." she tried to take the reproof with a smile, but the corners of her mouth quivered. he raised his hat and went down the steps. she followed him a little way along the terrace, with eyes growing dim with tears she could not account for. she went back to the drawing-room and threw herself into the arm-chair where he had sat, and made her headache worse by thinking of all her unhappiness. the great room was filling with dusk, and in the twilight pictures gathered and dissolved. what girlish dreams and revolts had gone to make that unfortunate book, which after endless boomerang-like returns from the publishers, had appeared, only to be denounced by jewry, ignored by its journals and scantily noticed by outside criticisms. _mordecai josephs_ had fallen almost still-born from the press; the sweet secret she had hoped to tell her patroness had turned bitter like that other secret of her dead love for sidney, in the reaction from which she had written most of her book. how fortunate at least that her love had flickered out, had proved but the ephemeral sentiment of a romantic girl for the first brilliant man she had met. sidney had fascinated her by his verbal audacities in a world of narrow conventions; he had for the moment laughed away spiritual aspirations and yearnings with a raillery that was almost like ozone to a young woman avid of martyrdom for the happiness of the world. how, indeed, could she have expected the handsome young artist to feel the magic that hovered about her talks with him, to know the thrill that lay in the formal hand-clasp, to be aware that he interpreted for her poems and pictures, and incarnated the undefined ideal of girlish day-dreams? how could he ever have had other than an intellectual thought of her; how could any man, even the religious raphael? sickly, ugly little thing that she was! she got up and looked in the glass now to see herself thus, but the shadows had gathered too thickly. she snatched up a newspaper that lay on a couch, lit it, and held it before the glass; it flared up threateningly and she beat it out, laughing hysterically and asking herself if she was mad. but she had seen the ugly little face; its expression frightened her. yes, love was not for her; she could only love a man of brilliancy and culture, and she was nothing but a petticoat lane girl, after all. its coarseness, its vulgarity underlay all her veneer. they had got into her book; everybody said so. raphael said so. how dared she write disdainfully of raphael's people? she an upstart, an outsider? she went to the library, lit the gas, got down a volume of graetz's history of the jews, which she had latterly taken to reading, and turned over its wonderful pages. then she wandered restlessly back to the great dim drawing-room and played amateurish fantasias on the melancholy polish melodies of her childhood till mr. and mrs. henry goldsmith returned. they had captured the rev. joseph strelitski and brought him back to dinner, esther would have excused herself from the meal, but mrs. goldsmith insisted the minister would think her absence intentionally discourteous. in point of fact, mrs. goldsmith, like all jewesses a born match-maker, was not disinclined to think of the popular preacher as a sort of adopted son-in-law. she did not tell herself so, but she instinctively resented the idea of esther marrying into the station of her patroness. strelitski, though his position was one of distinction for a jewish clergyman, was, like esther, of humble origin; it would be a match which she could bless from her pedestal in genuine good-will towards both parties. the fashionable minister was looking careworn and troubled. he had aged twice ten years since his outburst at the holy land league. the black curl hung disconsolately on his forehead. he sat at esther's side, but rarely looking at her, or addressing her, so that her taciturnity and scarcely-veiled dislike did not noticeably increase his gloom. he rallied now and again out of politeness to his hostess, flashing out a pregnant phrase or two. but prosperity did not seem to have brought happiness to the whilom, poor russian student, even though he had fought his way to it unaided. chapter vi. comedy or tragedy? the weeks went on and passover drew nigh. the recurrence of the feast brought no thrill to esther now. it was no longer a charmed time, with strange things to eat and drink, and a comparative plenty of them--stranger still. lack of appetite was the chief dietary want now. nobody had any best clothes to put on in a world where everything was for the best in the way of clothes. except for the speckled passover cakes, there was hardly any external symptom of the sacred festival. while the ghetto was turning itself inside out, the kensington terrace was calm in the dignity of continuous cleanliness. nor did henry goldsmith himself go prowling about the house in quest of vagrant crumbs. mary o'reilly attended to all that, and the goldsmiths had implicit confidence in her fidelity to the traditions of their faith. wherefore, the evening of the day before passover, instead of being devoted to frying fish and provisioning, was free for more secular occupations; esther, for example, had arranged to go to see the _début_ of a new hamlet with addie. addie had asked her to go, mentioned that raphael, who was taking her, had suggested that she should bring her friend. for they had become great friends, had addie and esther, ever since esther had gone to take that cup of tea, with the chat that is more essential than milk or sugar. the girls met or wrote every week. raphael, esther never met nor heard from directly. she found addie a sweet, lovable girl, full of frank simplicity and unquestioning piety. though dazzlingly beautiful, she had none of the coquetry which esther, with a touch of jealousy, had been accustomed to associate with beauty, and she had little of the petty malice of girlish gossip. esther summed her up as raphael's heart without his head. it was unfair, for addie's own head was by no means despicable. but esther was not alone in taking eccentric opinions as the touchstone of intellectual vigor. anyhow, she was distinctly happier since addie had come into her life, and she admired her as a mountain torrent might admire a crystal pool--half envying her happier temperament. the goldsmiths were just finishing dinner, when the expected ring came. to their surprise, the ringer was sidney. he was shown into the dining-room. "good evening, all," he said. "i've come as a substitute for raphael." esther grew white. "why, what has happened to him?" she asked. "nothing, i had a telegram to say he was unexpectedly detained in the city, and asking me to take addie and to call for you." esther turned from white to red. how rude of raphael! how disappointing not to meet him, after all! and did he think she could thus unceremoniously be handed over to somebody else? she was about to beg to be excused, when it struck her a refusal would look too pointed. besides, she did not fear sidney now. it would be a test of her indifference. so she murmured instead, "what can detain him?" "charity, doubtless. do you know, that after he is fagged out with upholding the _flag_ from early morning till late eve, he devotes the later eve to gratuitous tuition, lecturing and the like." "no," said esther, softened. "i knew he came home late, but i thought he had to report communal meetings." "that, too. but addie tells me he never came home at all one night last week. he was sitting up with some wretched dying pauper." "he'll kill himself," said esther, anxiously. "people are right about him. he is quite hopeless," said percy saville, the solitary guest, tapping his forehead significantly. "perhaps it is we who are hopeless," said esther, sharply. "i wish we were all as sensible," said mrs. henry goldsmith, turning on the unhappy stockbroker with her most superior air. "mr. leon always reminds me of judas maccabaeus." he shrank before the blaze of her mature beauty, the fulness of her charms revealed by her rich evening dress, her hair radiating strange, subtle perfume. his eye sought mr. goldsmith's for refuge and consolation. "that is so," said mr. goldsmith, rubbing his red chin. "he is an excellent young man." "may i trouble you to put on your things at once, miss ansell?" said sidney. "i have left addie in the carriage, and we are rather late. i believe it is usual for ladies to put on 'things,' even when in evening dress. i may mention that there is a bouquet for you in the carriage, and, however unworthy a substitute i may be for raphael, i may at least claim he would have forgotten to bring you that." esther smiled despite herself as she left the room to get her cloak. she was chagrined and disappointed, but she resolved not to inflict her ill-humor on her companions. she had long since got used to carriages, and when they arrived at the theatre, she took her seat in the box without heart-fluttering. it was an old discovery now that boxes had no connection with oranges nor stalls with costers' barrows. the house was brilliant. the orchestra was playing the overture. "i wish mr. shakspeare would write a new play," grumbled sidney. "all these revivals make him lazy. heavens! what his fees must tot up to! if i were not sustained by the presence of you two girls, i should no more survive the fifth act than most of the characters. why don't they brighten the piece up with ballet-girls?" "yes, i suppose you blessed mr. leon when you got his telegram," said esther. "what a bore it must be to you to be saddled with his duties!" "awful!" admitted sidney gravely. "besides, it interferes with my work." "work?" said addie. "you know you only work by sunlight." "yes, that's the best of my profession--in england. it gives you such opportunities of working--at other professions." "why, what do you work at?" inquired esther, laughing. "well, there's amusement, the most difficult of all things to achieve! then there's poetry. you don't know what a dab i am at rondeaux and barcarolles. and i write music, too, lovely little serenades to my lady-loves and reveries that are like dainty pastels." "all the talents!" said addie, looking at him with a fond smile. "but if you have any time to spare from the curling of your lovely silken moustache, which is entirely like a delicate pastel, will you kindly tell me what celebrities are present?" "yes, do," added esther, "i have only been to two first nights, and then i had nobody to point out the lions." "well, first of all i see a very celebrated painter in a box--a man who has improved considerably on the weak draughtsmanship displayed by nature in her human figures, and the amateurishness of her glaring sunsets." "who's that?" inquired addie and esther eagerly. "i think he calls himself sidney graham--but that of course is only a _nom de pinceau_." "oh!" said, the girls, with a reproachful smile. "do be serious!" said esther. "who is that stout gentleman with the bald head?" she peered down curiously at the stalls through her opera-glass. "what, the lion without the mane? that's tom day, the dramatic critic of a dozen papers. a terrible philistine. lucky for shakspeare he didn't flourish in elizabethan times." he rattled on till the curtain rose and the hushed audience settled down to the enjoyment of the tragedy. "this looks as if it is going to be the true hamlet," said esther, after the first act. "what do you mean by the true hamlet?" queried sidney cynically. "the hamlet for whom life is at once too big and too little," said esther. "and who was at once mad and sane," laughed sidney. "the plain truth is that shakspeare followed the old tale, and what you take for subtlety is but the blur of uncertain handling. aha! you look shocked. have i found your religion at last?" "no; my reverence for our national bard is based on reason," rejoined esther seriously. "to conceive hamlet, the typical nineteenth-century intellect, in that bustling picturesque elizabethan time was a creative feat bordering on the miraculous. and then, look at the solemn inexorable march of destiny in his tragedies, awful as its advance in the greek dramas. just as the marvels of the old fairy-tales were an instinctive prevision of the miracles of modern science, so this idea of destiny seems to me an instinctive anticipation of the formulas of modern science. what we want to-day is a dramatist who shall show us the great natural silent forces, working the weal and woe of human life through the illusions of consciousness and free will." "what you want to-night, miss ansell, is black coffee," said sidney, "and i'll tell the attendant to get you a cup, for i dragged you away from dinner before the crown and climax of the meal; i have always noticed myself that when i am interrupted in my meals, all sorts of bugbears, scientific or otherwise, take possession of my mind." he called the attendant. "esther has the most nonsensical opinions," said addie gravely. "as if people weren't responsible for their actions! do good and all shall be well with thee, is sound bible teaching and sound common sense." "yes, but isn't it the bible that says, 'the fathers have eaten a sour grape and the teeth of the children are set on edge'?" esther retorted. addie looked perplexed. "it sounds contradictory," she said honestly. "not at all, addie," said esther. "the bible is a literature, not a book. if you choose to bind tennyson and milton in one volume that doesn't make them a book. and you can't complain if you find contradictions in the text. don't you think the sour grape text the truer, mr. graham?" "don't ask me, please. i'm prejudiced against anything that appears in the bible." in his flippant way sidney spoke the truth. he had an almost physical repugnance for his fathers' ways of looking at things. "i think you're the two most wicked people in the world," exclaimed addie gravely. "we are," said sidney lightly. "i wonder you consent to sit in the same box with us. how you can find my company endurable i can never make out." addie's lovely face flushed and her lip quivered a little. "it's your friend who's the wickeder of the two," pursued sidney. "for she's in earnest and i'm not. life's too short for us to take the world's troubles on our shoulders, not to speak of the unborn millions. a little light and joy, the flush of sunset or of a lovely woman's face, a fleeting strain of melody, the scent of a rose, the flavor of old wine, the flash of a jest, and ah, yes, a cup of coffee--here's yours, miss ansell--that's the most we can hope for in life. let us start a religion with one commandment: 'enjoy thyself.'" "that religion has too many disciples already," said esther, stirring her coffee. "then why not start it if you wish to reform the world," asked sidney. "all religions survive merely by being broken. with only one commandment to break, everybody would jump at the chance. but so long as you tell people they mustn't enjoy themselves, they will, it's human nature, and you can't alter that by act of parliament or confession of faith. christ ran amuck at human nature, and human nature celebrates his birthday with pantomimes." "christ understood human nature better than the modern young man," said esther scathingly, "and the proof lies in the almost limitless impress he has left on history." "oh, that was a fluke," said sidney lightly. "his real influence is only superficial. scratch the christian and you find the pagan--spoiled." "he divined by genius what science is slowly finding out," said esther, "when he said, 'forgive them for they know not what they do'!--" sidney laughed heartily. "that seems to be your king charles's head--seeing divinations of modern science in all the old ideas. personally i honor him for discovering that the sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath. strange he should have stopped half-way to the truth!" "what is the truth?" asked addie curiously. "why, that morality was made for man, not man for morality," said sidney. "that chimera of meaningless virtue which the hebrew has brought into the world is the last monster left to slay. the hebrew view of life is too one-sided. the bible is a literature without a laugh in it. even raphael thinks the great radical of galilee carried spirituality too far." "yes, he thinks he would have been reconciled to the jewish doctors and would have understood them better," said addie, "only he died so young." "that's a good way of putting it!" said sidney admiringly. "one can see raphael is my cousin despite his religious aberrations. it opens up new historical vistas. only it is just like raphael to find excuses for everybody, and judaism in everything. i am sure he considers the devil a good jew at heart; if he admits any moral obliquity in him, he puts it down to the climate." this made esther laugh outright, even while there were tears for raphael in the laugh. sidney's intellectual fascination reasserted itself over her; there seemed something inspiring in standing with him on the free heights that left all the clogging vapors and fogs of moral problems somewhere below; where the sun shone and the clear wind blew and talk was a game of bowls with puritan ideals for ninepins. he went on amusing her till the curtain rose, with a pretended theory of mohammedology which he was working at. just as for the christian apologist the old testament was full of hints of the new, so he contended was the new testament full of foreshadowings of the koran, and he cited as a most convincing text, "in heaven, there shall be no marrying, nor giving in marriage." he professed to think that mohammedanism was the dark horse that would come to the front in the race of religions and win in the west as it had won in the east. "there's a man staring dreadfully at you, esther," said addie, when the curtain fell on the second act. "nonsense!" said esther, reluctantly returning from the realities of the play to the insipidities of actual life. "whoever it is, it must be at you." she looked affectionately at the great glorious creature at her side, tall and stately, with that winning gentleness of expression which spiritualizes the most voluptuous beauty. addie wore pale sea-green, and there were lilies of the valley at her bosom, and a diamond star in her hair. no man could admire her more than esther, who felt quite vain of her friend's beauty and happy to bask in its reflected sunshine. sidney followed her glance and his cousin's charms struck him with almost novel freshness. he was so much with addie that he always took her for granted. the semi-unconscious liking he had for her society was based on other than physical traits. he let his eyes rest upon her for a moment in half-surprised appreciation, figuring her as half-bud, half-blossom. really, if addie had not been his cousin and a jewess! she was not much of a cousin, when he came to cipher it out, but then she was a good deal of a jewess! "i'm sure it's you he's staring at," persisted addie. "don't be ridiculous," persisted esther. "which man do you mean?" "there! the fifth row of stalls, the one, two, four, seven, the seventh man from the end! he's been looking at you all through, but now he's gone in for a good long stare. there! next to that pretty girl in pink." "do you mean the young man with the dyed carnation in his buttonhole and the crimson handkerchief in his bosom?" "yes, that's the one. do you know him?" "no," said esther, lowering her eyes and looking away. but when addie informed her that the young man had renewed his attentions to the girl in pink, she levelled her opera-glass at him. then she shook her head. "there seems something familiar about his face, but i cannot for the life of me recall who it is." "the something familiar about his face is his nose," said addie laughing, "for it is emphatically jewish." "at that rate," said sidney, "nearly half the theatre would be familiar, including a goodly proportion of the critics, and hamlet and ophelia themselves. but i know the fellow." "you do? who is he?" asked the girls eagerly. "i don't know. he's one of the mashers of the _frivolity_. i'm another, and so we often meet. but we never speak as we pass by. to tell the truth, i resent him." "it's wonderful how fond jews are of the theatre," said esther, "and how they resent other jews going." "thank you," said sidney. "but as i'm not a jew the arrow glances off." "not a jew?" repeated esther in amaze. "no. not in the current sense. i always deny i'm a jew." "how do you justify that?" said addie incredulously. "because it would be a lie to say i was. it would be to produce a false impression. the conception of a jew in the mind of the average christian is a mixture of fagin, shylock, rothschild and the caricatures of the american comic papers. i am certainly not like that, and i'm not going to tell a lie and say i am. in conversation always think of your audience. it takes two to make a truth. if an honest man told an old lady he was an atheist, that would be a lie, for to her it would mean he was a dissolute reprobate. to call myself 'abrahams' would be to live a daily lie. i am not a bit like the picture called up by abrahams. graham is a far truer expression of myself." "extremely ingenious," said esther smiling. "but ought you not rather to utilize yourself for the correction of the portrait of abrahams?" sidney shrugged his shoulders. "why should i subject myself to petty martyrdom for the sake of an outworn creed and a decaying sect?" "we are not decaying," said addie indignantly. "personally you are blossoming," said sidney, with a mock bow. "but nobody can deny that our recent religious history has been a series of dissolving views. look at that young masher there, who is still ogling your fascinating friend; rather, i suspect, to the annoyance of the young lady in pink, and compare him with the old hard-shell jew. when i was a lad named abrahams, painfully training in the way i wasn't going to go, i got an insight into the lives of my ancestors. think of the people who built up the jewish prayer-book, who added line to line and precept to precept, and whose whole thought was intertwined with religion, and then look at that young fellow with the dyed carnation and the crimson silk handkerchief, who probably drives a drag to the derby, and for aught i know runs a music hall. it seems almost incredible he should come of that puritan old stock." "not at all," said esther. "if you knew more of our history, you would see it is quite normal. we were always hankering after the gods of the heathen, and we always loved magnificence; remember our temples. in every land we have produced great merchants and rulers, prime-ministers, viziers, nobles. we built castles in spain (solid ones) and palaces in venice. we have had saints and sinners, free livers and ascetics, martyrs and money-lenders. polarity, graetz calls the self-contradiction which runs through our history. i figure the jew as the eldest-born of time, touching the creation and reaching forward into the future, the true _blasé_ of the universe; the wandering jew who has been everywhere, seen everything, done everything, led everything, thought everything and suffered everything." "bravo, quite a bit of beaconsfieldian fustian," said sidney laughing, yet astonished. "one would think you were anxious to assert yourself against the ancient peerage of this mushroom realm." "it is the bare historical truth," said esther, quietly. "we are so ignorant of our own history--can we wonder at the world's ignorance of it? think of the part the jew has played--moses giving the world its morality, jesus its religion, isaiah its millennial visions, spinoza its cosmic philosophy, ricardo its political economy, karl marx and lassalle its socialism, heine its loveliest poetry, mendelssohn its most restful music, rachael its supreme acting--and then think of the stock jew of the american comic papers! there lies the real comedy, too deep for laughter." "yes, but most of the jews you mention were outcasts or apostates," retorted sidney. "there lies the real tragedy, too deep for tears. ah, heine summed it up best: 'judaism is not a religion; it is a misfortune.' but do you wonder at the intolerance of every nation towards its jews? it is a form of homage. tolerate them and they spell 'success,' and patriotism is an ineradicable prejudice. since when have you developed this extraordinary enthusiasm for jewish history? i always thought you were an anti-semite." esther blushed and meditatively sniffed at her bouquet, but fortunately the rise of the curtain relieved her of the necessity far a reply. it was only a temporary relief, however, for the quizzical young artist returned to the subject immediately the act was over. "i know you're in charge of the aesthetic department of the _flag_," he said. "i had no idea you wrote the leaders." "don't be absurd!" murmured esther. "i always told addie raphael could never write so eloquently; didn't i, addie? ah, i see you're blushing to find it fame, miss ansell." esther laughed, though a bit annoyed. "how can you suspect me of writing orthodox leaders?" she asked. "well, who else _is_ there?" urged sidney, with mock _naïveté_. "i went down there once and saw the shanty. the editorial sanctum was crowded. poor raphael was surrounded by the queerest looking set of creatures i ever clapped eyes on. there was a quaint lunatic in a check suit, describing his apocalyptic visions; a dragoman with sore eyes and a grievance against the board of guardians; a venerable son of jerusalem with a most artistic white beard, who had covered the editorial table with carved nick-nacks in olive and sandal-wood; an inventor who had squared the circle and the problem of perpetual motion, but could not support himself; a roumanian exile with a scheme for fertilizing palestine; and a wild-eyed hatchet-faced hebrew poet who told me i was a famous patron of learning, and sent me his book soon after with a hebrew inscription which i couldn't read, and a request for a cheque which i didn't write. i thought i just capped the company of oddities, when in came a sallow red-haired chap, with the extraordinary name of karlkammer, and kicked up a deuce of a shine with raphael for altering his letter. raphael mildly hinted that the letter was written in such unintelligible english that he had to grapple with it for an hour before he could reduce it to the coherence demanded of print. but it was no use; it seems raphael had made him say something heterodox he didn't mean, and he insisted on being allowed to reply to his own letter! he had brought the counter-blast with him; six sheets of foolscap with all the t's uncrossed, and insisted on signing it with his own name. i said, 'why not? set a karlkammer to answer to a karlkammer.' but raphael said it would make the paper a laughing-stock, and between the dread of that and the consciousness of having done the man a wrong, he was quite unhappy. he treats all his visitors with angelic consideration, when in another newspaper office the very office-boy would snub them. of course, nobody has a bit of consideration for him or his time or his purse." "poor raphael!" murmured esther, smiling sadly at the grotesque images conjured up by sidney's description. "i go down there now whenever i want models," concluded sidney gravely. "well, it is only right to hear what those poor people have to say," addie observed. "what is a paper for except to right wrongs?" "primitive person!" said sidney. "a paper exists to make a profit." "raphael's doesn't," retorted addie. "of course not," laughed sidney. "it never will, so long as there's a conscientious editor at the helm. raphael flatters nobody and reserves his praises for people with no control of the communal advertisements. why, it quite preys upon his mind to think that he is linked to an advertisement canvasser with a gorgeous imagination, who goes about representing to the unwary christian that the _flag_ has a circulation of fifteen hundred." "dear me!" said addie, a smile of humor lighting up her beautiful features. "yes," said sidney, "i think he salves his conscience by an extra hour's slumming in the evening. most religious folks do their moral book-keeping by double entry. probably that's why he's not here to-night." "it's too bad!" said addie, her face growing grave again. "he comes home so late and so tired that he always falls asleep over his books." "i don't wonder," laughed sidney. "look what he reads! once i found him nodding peacefully over thomas à kempis." "oh, he often reads that," said addie. "when we wake him up and tell him to go to bed, he says he wasn't sleeping, but thinking, turns over a page and falls asleep again." they all laughed. "oh, he's a famous sleeper," addie continued. "it's as difficult to get him out of bed as into it. he says himself he's an awful lounger and used to idle away whole days before he invented time-tables. now, he has every hour cut and dried--he says his salvation lies in regular hours." "addie, addie, don't tell tales out of school," said sidney. "why, what tales?" asked addie, astonished. "isn't it rather to his credit that he has conquered his bad habits?" "undoubtedly; but it dissipates the poetry in which i am sure miss ansell was enshrouding him. it shears a man of his heroic proportions, to hear he has to be dragged out of bed. these things should be kept in the family." esther stared hard at the house. her cheeks glowed as if the limelight man had turned his red rays on them. sidney chuckled mentally over his insight. addie smiled. "oh, nonsense. i'm sure esther doesn't think less of him because he keeps a time-table." "you forget your friend has what you haven't--artistic instinct. it's ugly. a man should be a man, not a railway system. if i were you, addie, i'd capture that time-table, erase lecturing and substitute 'cricketing.' raphael would never know, and every afternoon, say at p.m., he'd consult his time-table, and seeing he had to cricket, he'd take up his stumps and walk to regent's park." "yes, but he can't play cricket," said esther, laughing and glad of the opportunity. "oh, can't he?" sidney whistled. "don't insult him by telling him that. why, he was in the harrow eleven and scored his century in the match with eton; those long arms of his send the ball flying as if it were a drawing-room ornament." "oh yes," affirmed addie. "even now, cricket is his one temptation." esther was silent. her raphael seemed toppling to pieces. the silence seemed to communicate itself to her companions. addie broke it by sending sidney to smoke a cigarette in the lobby. "or else i shall feel quite too selfish," she said. "i know you're just dying to talk to some sensible people. oh, i beg your pardon, esther." the squire of dames smiled but hesitated. "yes, do go," said esther. "there's six or seven minutes more interval. this is the longest wait." "ladies' will is my law," said sidney, gallantly, and, taking a cigarette case from his cloak, which was hung on a peg at the back of a box, he strolled out. "perhaps," he said, "i shall skip some shakspeare if i meet a congenial intellectual soul to gossip with." he had scarce been gone two minutes when there came a gentle tapping at the door and, the visitor being invited to come in, the girls were astonished to behold the young gentleman with the dyed carnation and the crimson silk handkerchief. he looked at esther with an affable smile. "don't you remember me?" he said. the ring of his voice woke some far-off echo in her brain. but no recollection came to her. "i remembered you almost at once," he went on, in a half-reproachful tone, "though i didn't care about coming up while you had another fellow in the box. look at me carefully, esther." the sound of her name on the stranger's lips set all the chords of memory vibrating--she looked again at the dark oval face with the aquiline nose, the glittering eyes, the neat black moustache, the close-shaved cheeks and chin, and in a flash the past resurged and she murmured almost incredulously, "levi!" the young man got rather red. "ye-e-s!" he stammered. "allow me to present you my card." he took it out of a little ivory case and handed it to her. it read, "mr. leonard james." an amused smile flitted over esther's face, passing into one of welcome. she was not at all displeased to see him. "addie," she said. "this is mr. leonard james, a friend i used to know in my girlhood." "yes, we were boys together, as the song says," said leonard james, smiling facetiously. addie inclined her head in the stately fashion which accorded so well with her beauty and resumed her investigation of the stalls. presently she became absorbed in a tender reverie induced by the passionate waltz music and she forgot all about esther's strange visitor, whose words fell as insensibly on her ears as the ticking of a familiar clock. but to esther, leonard james's conversation was full of interest. the two ugly ducklings of the back-pond had become to all appearance swans of the ornamental water, and it was natural that they should gabble of auld lang syne and the devious routes by which they had come together again. "you see, i'm like you, esther," explained the young man. "i'm not fitted for the narrow life that suits my father and mother and my sister. they've got no ideas beyond the house, and religion, and all that sort of thing. what do you think my father wanted me to be? a minister! think of it! ha! ha! ha! me a minister! i actually did go for a couple of terms to jews' college. oh, yes, you remember! why, i was there when you were a school-teacher and got taken up by the swells. but our stroke of fortune came soon after yours. did you never hear of it? my, you must have dropped all your old acquaintances if no one ever told you that! why, father came in for a couple of thousand pounds! i thought i'd make you stare. guess who from?" "i give it up," said esther. "thank you. it was never yours to give," said leonard, laughing jovially at his wit. "old steinwein--you remember his death. it was in all the papers; the eccentric old buffer, who was touched in the upper story, and used to give so much time and money to jewish affairs, setting up lazy old rabbis in jerusalem to shake themselves over their talmuds. you remember his gifts to the poor--six shillings sevenpence each because he was seventy-nine years old and all that. well, he used to send the pater a basket of fruit every _yomtov_. but he used to do that to every rabbi, all around, and my old man had not the least idea he was the object of special regard till the old chap pegged out. ah, there's nothing like torah, after all." "you don't know what you may have lost through not becoming a minister," suggested esther slily. "ah, but i know what i've gained. do you think i could stand having my hands and feet tied with phylacteries?" asked leonard, becoming vividly metaphoric in the intensity of his repugnance to the galling bonds of orthodoxy. "now, i do as i like, go where i please, eat what i please. just fancy not being able to join fellows at supper, because you mustn't eat oysters or steak? might as well go into a monastery at once. all very well in ancient jerusalem, where everybody was rowing in the same boat. have you ever tasted pork, esther?" "no," said esther, with a faint smile. "i have," said leonard. "i don't say it to boast, but i have had it times without number. i didn't like it the first time--thought it would choke me, you know, but that soon wears off. now i breakfast off ham and eggs regularly. i go the whole hog, you see. ha! ha! ha!" "if i didn't see from your card you're not living at home, that would have apprised me of it," said esther. "of course, i couldn't live at home. why the guvnor couldn't bear to let me shave. ha! ha! ha! fancy a religion that makes you keep your hair on unless you use a depilatory. i was articled to a swell solicitor. the old man resisted a long time, but he gave in at last, and let me live near the office." "ah, then i presume you came in for some of the two thousand, despite your non-connection with torah?" "there isn't much left of it now," said leonard, laughing. "what's two thousand in seven years in london? there were over four hundred guineas swallowed up by the premium, and the fees, and all that." "well, let us hope it'll all come back in costs." "well, between you and me," said leonard, seriously, "i should be surprised if it does. you see, i haven't yet scraped through the final; they're making the beastly exam. stiffer every year. no, it isn't to that quarter i look to recoup myself for the outlay on my education." "no?" said esther. "no. fact is--between you and me--i'm going to be an actor." "oh!" said esther. "yes. i've played several times in private theatricals; you know we jews have a knack for the stage; you'd be surprised to know how many pros are jews. there's heaps of money to be made now-a-days on the boards. i'm in with lots of 'em, and ought to know. it's the only profession where you don't want any training, and these law books are as dry as the mishna the old man used to make me study. why, they say to-night's 'hamlet' was in a counting-house four years ago." "i wish you success," said esther, somewhat dubiously. "and how is your sister hannah? is she married yet?" "married! not she! she's got no money, and you know what our jewish young men are. mother wanted her to have the two thousand pounds for a dowry, but fortunately hannah had the sense to see that it's the man that's got to make his way in the world. hannah is always certain of her bread and butter, which is a good deal in these hard times. besides, she's naturally grumpy, and she doesn't go out of her way to make herself agreeable to young men. it's my belief she'll die an old maid. well, there's no accounting for tastes." "and your father and mother?" "they're all right, i believe. i shall see them to-morrow night--passover, you know. i haven't missed a single _seder_ at home," he said, with conscious virtue. "it's an awful bore, you know. i often laugh to think of the chappies' faces if they could see me leaning on a pillow and gravely asking the old man why we eat passover cakes." he laughed now to think of it. "but i never miss; they'd cut up rough, i expect, if i did." "well, that's something in your favor," murmured esther gravely. he looked at her sharply; suddenly suspecting that his auditor was not perfectly sympathetic. she smiled a little at the images passing through her mind, and leonard, taking her remark for badinage, allowed his own features to relax to their original amiability. "you're not married, either, i suppose," he remarked. "no," said esther. "i'm like your sister hannah." he shook his head sceptically. "ah, i expect you'll be looking very high," he said. "nonsense," murmured esther, playing with her bouquet. a flash passed across his face, but he went on in the same tone. "ah, don't tell me. why shouldn't you? why, you're looking perfectly charming to-night." "please, don't," said esther, "every girl looks perfectly charming when she's nicely dressed. who and what am i? nothing. let us drop the subject." "all right; but you _must_ have grand ideas, else you'd have sometimes gone to see my people as in the old days." "when did i visit your people? you used to come and see me sometimes." a shadow of a smile hovered about the tremulous lips. "believe me, i didn't consciously drop any of my old acquaintances. my life changed; my family went to america; later on i travelled. it is the currents of life, not their wills, that bear old acquaintances asunder." he seemed pleased with her sentiments and was about to say something, but she added: "the curtain's going up. hadn't you better go down to your friend? she's been looking up at us impatiently." "oh, no, don't bother about her." said leonard, reddening a little. "she--she won't mind. she's only--only an actress, you know, i have to keep in with the profession in case any opening should turn up. you never know. an actress may become a lessee at any moment. hark! the orchestra is striking up again; the scene isn't set yet. of course i'll go if you want me to!" "no, stay by all means if you want to," murmured esther. "we have a chair unoccupied." "do you expect that fellow sidney graham back?" "yes, sooner or later. but how do you know his name?" queried esther in surprise. "everybody about town knows sidney graham, the artist. why, we belong to the same club--the flamingo--though he only turns up for the great glove-fights. beastly cad, with all due respect to your friends, esther. i was introduced to him once, but he stared at me next time so haughtily that i cut him dead. do you know, ever since then i've suspected he's one of us; perhaps you can tell me, esther? i dare say he's no more sidney graham than i am." "hush!" said esther, glancing warningly towards addie, who, however, betrayed no sign of attention. "sister?" asked leonard, lowering his voice to a whisper. esther shook her head. "cousin; but mr. graham is a friend of mine as well and you mustn't talk of him like that." "ripping fine girl!" murmured leonard irrelevantly. "wonder at his taste." he took a long stare at the abstracted addie. "what do you mean?" said esther, her annoyance increasing. her old friend's tone jarred upon her. "well, i don't know what he could see in the girl he's engaged to." esther's face became white. she looked anxiously towards the unconscious addie. "you are talking nonsense," she said, in a low cautious tone. "mr. graham is too fond of his liberty to engage himself to any girl." "oho!" said leonard, with a subdued whistle. "i hope you're not sweet on him yourself." esther gave an impatient gesture of denial. she resented leonard's rapid resumption of his olden familiarity. "then take care not to be," he said. "he's engaged privately to miss hannibal, a daughter of the m.p. tom sledge, the sub-editor of the _cormorant_, told me. you know they collect items about everybody and publish them at what they call the psychological moment. graham goes to the hannibals' every saturday afternoon. they're very strict people; the father, you know, is a prominent wesleyan and she's not the sort of girl to be played with." "for heaven's sake speak more softly," said esther, though the orchestra was playing _fortissimo_ now and they had spoken so quietly all along that addie could scarcely have heard without a special effort. "it can't be true; you are repeating mere idle gossip." "why, they know everything at the _cormorant_," said leonard, indignantly. "do you suppose a man can take such a step as that without its getting known? why, i shall be chaffed--enviously--about you two to-morrow! many a thing the world little dreams of is an open secret in club smoking-rooms. generally more discreditable than graham's, which must be made public of itself sooner or later." to esther's relief, the curtain rose. addie woke up and looked round, but seeing that sidney had not returned, and that esther was still in colloquy with the invader, she gave her attention to the stage. esther could no longer bend her eye on the mimic tragedy; her eyes rested pityingly upon addie's face, and leonard's eyes rested admiringly upon esther's. thus sidney found the group, when he returned in the middle of the act, to his surprise and displeasure. he stood silently at the back of the box till the act was over. leonard james was the first to perceive him; knowing he had been telling tales about him, he felt uneasy under his supercilious gaze. he bade esther good-bye, asking and receiving permission to call upon her. when he was gone, constraint fell upon the party. sidney was moody; addie pensive, esther full of stifled wrath and anxiety. at the close of the performance sidney took down the girls' wrappings from the pegs. he helped esther courteously, then hovered over his cousin with a solicitude that brought a look of calm happiness into addie's face, and an expression of pain into esther's. as they moved slowly along the crowded corridors, he allowed addie to get a few paces in advance. it was his last opportunity of saying a word to esther alone. "if i were you, miss ansell, i would not allow that cad to presume on any acquaintance he may have." all the latent irritation in esther's breast burst into flame at the idea of sidney's constituting himself a judge. "if i had not cultivated his acquaintance i should not have had the pleasure of congratulating you on your engagement," she replied, almost in a whisper. to sidney it sounded like a shout. his color heightened; he was visibly taken aback. "what are you talking about?" he murmured automatically. "about your engagement to miss hannibal." "that blackguard told you!" he whispered angrily, half to himself. "well, what of it? i am not bound to advertise it, am i? it's my private business, isn't it? you don't expect me to hang a placard round my breast like those on concert-room chairs--'engaged'!" "certainly not," said esther. "but you might have told your friends, so as to enable them to rejoice sympathetically." "you turn your sarcasm prettily," he said mildly, "but the sympathetic rejoicing was just what i wanted to avoid. you know what a jewish engagement is, how the news spreads like wildfire from piccadilly to petticoat lane, and the whole house of israel gathers together to discuss the income and the prospects of the happy pair. i object to sympathetic rejoicing from the slums, especially as in this case it would probably be exchanged for curses. miss hannibal is a christian, and for a jew to embrace a christian is, i believe, the next worse thing to his embracing christianity, even when the jew is a pagan." his wonted flippancy rang hollow. he paused suddenly and stole a look at his companion's face, in search of a smile, but it was pale and sorrowful. the flush on his own face deepened; his features expressed internal conflict. he addressed a light word to addie in front. they were nearing the portico; it was raining outside and a cold wind blew in to meet them; he bent his head down to the delicate little face at his side, and his tones were changed. "miss ansell," he said tremulously, "if i have in any way misled you by my reticence, i beg you to believe it was unintentionally. the memory of the pleasant quarters of an hour we have spent together will always--" "good god!" said esther hoarsely, her cheeks flaming, her ears tingling. "to whom are you apologising?" he looked at her perplexed. "why have you not told addie?" she forced herself to say. in the press of the crowd, on the edge of the threshold, he stood still. dazzled as by a flash of lightning, he gazed at his cousin, her beautifully poised head, covered with its fleecy white shawl, dominating the throng. the shawl became an aureole to his misty vision. "have you told her?" he whispered with answering hoarseness. "no," said esther. "then don't tell her," he whispered eagerly. "i must. she must hear it soon. such things must ooze out sooner or later." "then let it be later. promise me this." "no good can come of concealment." "promise me, for a little while, till i give you leave." his pleading, handsome face was close to hers. she wondered how she could ever have cared for a creature so weak and pitiful. "so be it," she breathed. "miss leon's carriage," bawled the commissionaire. there was a confusion of rain-beaten umbrellas, gleaming carriage-lamps, zigzag rejections on the black pavements, and clattering omnibuses full inside. but the air was fresh. "don't go into the rain, addie," said sidney, pressing forwards anxiously. "you're doing all my work to-night. hallo! where did _you_ spring from?" it was raphael who had elicited the exclamation. he suddenly loomed upon the party, bearing a decrepit dripping umbrella. "i thought i should be in time to catch you--and to apologize," he said, turning to esther. "don't mention it," murmured esther, his unexpected appearance completing her mental agitation. "hold the umbrella over the girls, you beggar," said sidney. "oh, i beg your pardon," said raphael, poking the rim against a policeman's helmet in his anxiety to obey. "don't mention it," said addie smiling. "all right, sir," growled the policeman good-humoredly. sidney laughed heartily. "quite a general amnesty," he said. "ah! here's the carriage. why didn't you get inside it out of the rain or stand in the entrance--you're wringing wet." "i didn't think of it," said raphael. "besides, i've only been here a few minutes. the 'busses are so full when it rains i had to walk all the way from whitechapel." "you're incorrigible," grumbled sidney. "as if you couldn't have taken a hansom." "why waste money?" said raphael. they got into the carriage. "well, did you enjoy yourselves?" he asked cheerfully. "oh yes, thoroughly," said sidney. "addie wasted two pocket-handkerchiefs over ophelia; almost enough to pay for that hansom. miss ansell doated on the finger of destiny and i chopped logic and swopped cigarettes with o'donovan. i hope you enjoyed yourself equally." raphael responded with a melancholy smile. he was seated opposite esther, and ever and anon some flash of light from the street revealed clearly his sodden, almost shabby, garments and the weariness of his expression. he seemed quite out of harmony with the dainty pleasure-party, but just on that account the more in harmony with esther's old image, the heroic side of him growing only more lovable for the human alloy. she bent towards him at last and said: "i am sorry you were deprived of your evening's amusement. i hope the reason didn't add to the unpleasantness." "it was nothing," he murmured awkwardly. "a little unexpected work. one can always go to the theatre." "ah, i am afraid you overwork yourself too much. you mustn't. think of your own health." his look softened. he was in a harassed, sensitive state. the sympathy of her gentle accents, the concern upon the eager little face, seemed to flood his own soul with a self-compassion new to him. "my health doesn't matter," he faltered. there were sweet tears in his eyes, a colossal sense of gratitude at his heart. he had always meant to pity her and help her; it was sweeter to be pitied, though of course she could not help him. he had no need of help, and on second thoughts he wondered what room there was for pity. "no, no, don't talk like that," said esther. "think of your parents--and addle." chapter vii. what the years brought. the next morning esther sat in mrs. henry goldsmith's boudoir, filling up some invitation forms for her patroness, who often took advantage of her literary talent in this fashion. mrs. goldsmith herself lay back languidly upon a great easy-chair before an asbestos fire and turned over the leaves of the new number of the _acadaeum_. suddenly she uttered a little exclamation. "what is it?" said esther. "they've got a review here of that jewish novel." "have they?" said esther, glancing up eagerly. "i'd given up looking for it." "you seem very interested in it," said mrs. goldsmith, with a little surprise. "yes, i--i wanted to know what they said about it," explained esther quickly; "one hears so many worthless opinions." "well, i'm glad to see we were all right about it," said mrs. goldsmith, whose eye had been running down the column. "listen here. 'it is a disagreeable book at best; what might have been a powerful tragedy being disfigured by clumsy workmanship and sordid superfluous detail. the exaggerated unhealthy pessimism, which the very young mistake for insight, pervades the work and there are some spiteful touches of observation which seem to point to a woman's hand. some of the minor personages have the air of being sketched from life. the novel can scarcely be acceptable to the writer's circle. readers, however, in search of the unusual will find new ground broken in this immature study of jewish life.'" "there, esther, isn't that just what i've been saying in other words?" "it's hardly worth bothering about the book now," said esther in low tones, "it's such a long time ago now since it came out. i don't know what's the good of reviewing it now. these literary papers always seem so cold and cruel to unknown writers." "cruel, it isn't half what he deserves," said mrs. goldsmith, "or ought i to say she? do you think there's anything, esther, in that idea of its being a woman?" "really, dear, i'm sick to death of that book," said esther. "these reviewers always try to be very clever and to see through brick walls. what does it matter if it's a he, or a she?" "it doesn't matter, but it makes it more disgraceful, if it's a woman. a woman has no business to know the seamy side of human nature." at this instant, a domestic knocked and announced that mr. leonard james had called to see miss ansell. annoyance, surprise and relief struggled to express themselves on esther's face. "is the gentleman waiting to see me?" she said. "yes, miss, he's in the hall." esther turned to mrs. goldsmith. "it's a young man i came across unexpectedly last night at the theatre. he's the son of reb shemuel, of whom you may have heard. i haven't met him since we were boy and girl together. he asked permission to call, but i didn't expect him so soon." "oh, see him by all means, dear. he is probably anxious to talk over old times." "may i ask him up here?" "no--unless you particularly want to introduce him to me. i dare say he would rather have you to himself." there was a touch of superciliousness about her tone, which esther rather resented, although not particularly anxious for levi's social recognition. "show him into the library," she said to the servant. "i will be down in a minute." she lingered a few indifferent remarks with her companion and then went down, wondering at levi's precipitancy in renewing the acquaintance. she could not help thinking of the strangeness of life. that time yesterday she had not dreamed of levi, and now she was about to see him for the second time and seemed to know him as intimately as if they had never been parted. leonard james was pacing the carpet. his face was perturbed, though his stylishly cut clothes were composed and immaculate. a cloak was thrown loosely across his shoulders. in his right hand he held a bouquet of spring flowers, which he transferred to his left in order to shake hands with her. "good afternoon, esther," he said heartily. "by jove, you have got among tip-top people. i had no idea. fancy you ordering jeames de la pluche about. and how happy you must be among all these books! i've brought you a bouquet. there! isn't it a beauty? i got it at covent garden this morning." "it's very kind of you," murmured esther, not so pleased as she might have been, considering her love of beautiful things. "but you really ought not to waste your money like that." "what nonsense, esther! don't forget i'm not in the position my father was. i'm going to be a rich man. no, don't put it into a vase; put it in your own room where it will remind you of me. just smell those violets, they are awfully sweet and fresh. i flatter myself, it's quite as swell and tasteful as the bouquet you had last night. who gave you that. esther?" the "esther" mitigated the off-handedness of the question, but made the sentence jar doubly upon her ear. she might have brought herself to call him "levi" in exchange, but then she was not certain he would like it. "leonard" was impossible. so she forbore to call him by any name. "i think mr. graham brought it. won't you sit down?" she said indifferently. "thank you. i thought so. luck that fellow's engaged. do you know, esther. i didn't sleep all night." "no?" said esther. "you seemed quite well when i saw you." "so i was, but seeing you again, so unexpectedly, excited me. you have been whirling in my brain ever since. i hadn't thought of you for years--" "i hadn't thought of you," esther echoed frankly. "no, i suppose not," he said, a little ruefully. "but, anyhow, fate has brought us together again. i recognized you the moment i set eyes on you, for all your grand clothes and your swell bouquets. i tell you i was just struck all of a heap; of course, i knew about your luck, but i hadn't realized it. there wasn't any one in the whole theatre who looked the lady more--'pon honor; you'd have no cause to blush in the company of duchesses. in fact i know a duchess or two who don't look near so refined. i was quite surprised. do you know, if any one had told me you used to live up in a garret--" "oh, please don't recall unpleasant things," interrupted esther, petulantly, a little shudder going through her, partly at the picture he called up, partly at his grating vulgarity. her repulsion to him was growing. why had he developed so disagreeably? she had not disliked him as a boy, and he certainly had not inherited his traits of coarseness from his father, whom she still conceived as a courtly old gentleman. "oh well, if you don't like it, i won't. i see you're like me; i never think of the ghetto if i can help it. well, as i was saying, i haven't had a wink of sleep since i saw you. i lay tossing about, thinking all sorts of things, till i could stand it no longer, and i got up and dressed and walked about the streets and strayed into covent garden market, where the inspiration came upon me to get you this bouquet. for, of course, it was about you that i had been thinking." "about me?" said esther, turning pale. "yes, of course. don't make _schnecks_--you know what i mean. i can't help using the old expression when i look at you; the past seems all come back again. they were happy days, weren't they, esther, when i used to come up to see you in royal street; i think you were a little sweet on me in those days, esther, and i know i was regular mashed on you." he looked at her with a fond smile. "i dare say you were a silly boy," said esther, coloring uneasily under his gaze. "however, you needn't reproach yourself now." "reproach myself, indeed! never fear that. what i have been reproaching myself with all night is never having looked you up. somehow, do you know, i kept asking myself whether i hadn't made a fool of myself lately, and i kept thinking things might have been different if--" "nonsense, nonsense," interrupted esther with an embarrassed laugh. "you've been doing very well, learning to know the world and studying law and mixing with pleasant people." "ah, esther," he said, shaking his head, "it's very good of you to say that. i don't say i've done anything particularly foolish or out of the way. but when a man is alone, he sometimes gets a little reckless and wastes his time, and you know what it is. i've been thinking if i had some one to keep me steady, some one i could respect, it would be the best thing that could happen to me." "oh, but surely you ought to have sense enough to take care of yourself. and there is always your father. why don't you see more of him?" "don't chaff a man when you see he's in earnest. you know what i mean. it's you i am thinking of." "me? oh well, if you think my friendship can be of any use to you i shall be delighted. come and see me sometimes and tell me of your struggles." "you know i don't mean that," he said desperately. "couldn't we be more than friends? couldn't we commence again--where we left off" "how do you mean?" she murmured. "why are you so cold to me?" he burst out. "why do you make it so hard for me to speak? you know i love you, that i fell in love with you all over again last night. i never really forgot you; you were always deep down in my breast. all that i said about steadying me wasn't a lie. i felt that, too. but the real thing i feel is the need of you. i want you to care for me as i care for you. you used to, esther; you know you did." "i know nothing of the kind," said esther, "and i can't understand why a young fellow like you wants to bother his head with such ideas. you've got to make your way in the world--" "i know, i know; that's why i want you. i didn't tell you the exact truth last night, esther, but i must really earn some money soon. all that two thousand is used up, and i only get along by squeezing some money out of the old man every now and again. don't frown; he got a rise of screw three years ago and can well afford it. now that's what i said to myself last night; if i were engaged, it would be an incentive to earning something." "for a jewish young man, you are fearfully unpractical," said esther, with a forced smile. "fancy proposing to a girl without even prospects of prospects." "oh, but i _have_ got prospects. i tell you i shall make no end of money on the stage." "or no beginning," she said, finding the facetious vein easiest. "no fear. i know i've got as much talent as bob andrews (he admits it himself), and _he_ draws his thirty quid a week." "wasn't that the man who appeared at the police-court the other day for being drunk and disorderly?" "y-e-es," admitted leonard, a little disconcerted. "he is a very good fellow, but he loses his head when he's in liquor." "i wonder you can care for society of that sort," said esther. "perhaps you're right. they're not a very refined lot. i tell you what--i'd like to go on the stage, but i'm not mad on it, and if you only say the word i'll give it up. there! and i'll go on with my law studies; honor bright, i will." "i should, if i were you," she said. "yes, but i can't do it without encouragement. won't you say 'yes'? let's strike the bargain. i'll stick to law and you'll stick to me." she shook her head. "i am afraid i could not promise anything you mean. as i said before, i shall be always glad to see you. if you do well, no one will rejoice more than i." "rejoice! what's the good of that to me? i want you to care for me; i want to took forward to your being my wife." "really, i cannot take advantage of a moment of folly like this. you don't know what you're saying. you saw me last night, after many years, and in your gladness at seeing an old friend you flare up and fancy you're in love with me. why, who ever heard of such foolish haste? go back to your studies, and in a day or two you will find the flame sinking as rapidly as it leaped up." "no, no! nothing of the kind!" his voice was thicker and there was real passion in it. she grew dearer to him as the hope of her love receded. "i couldn't forget you. i care for you awfully. i realized last night that my feeling for you is quite unlike what i have ever felt towards any other girl. don't say no! don't send me away despairing. i can hardly realize that you have grown so strange and altered. surely you oughtn't to put on any side with me. remember the times we have had together." "i remember," she said gently. "but i do not want to marry any one: indeed, i don't." "then if there is no one else in your thoughts, why shouldn't it be me? there! i won't press you for an answer now. only don't say it's out of the question." "i'm afraid i must." "no, you mustn't, esther, you mustn't," he exclaimed excitedly. "think of what it means for me. you are the only jewish girl i shall ever care for; and father would be pleased if i were to marry you. you know if i wanted to marry a _shiksah_ there'd be awful rows. don't treat me as if i were some outsider with no claim upon you. i believe we should get on splendidly together, you and me. we've been through the same sort of thing in childhood, we should understand each other, and be in sympathy with each other in a way i could never be with another girl and i doubt if you could with another fellow." the words burst from him like a torrent, with excited foreign-looking gestures. esther's headache was coming on badly. "what would be the use of my deceiving you?" she said gently. "i don't think i shall ever marry. i'm sure i could never make you--or any one else--happy. won't you let me be your friend?" "friend!" he echoed bitterly. "i know what it is; i'm poor. i've got no money bags to lay at your feet. you're like all the jewish girls after all. but i only ask you to wait; i shall have plenty of money by and by. who knows what more luck my father might drop in for? there are lots of rich religious cranks. and then i'll work hard, honor bright i will." "pray be reasonable," said esther quietly. "you know you are talking at random. yesterday this time you had no idea of such a thing. to-day you are all on fire. to-morrow you will forget all about it." "never! never!" he cried. "haven't i remembered you all these years? they talk of man's faithlessness and woman's faithfulness. it seems to me, it's all the other way. women are a deceptive lot." "you know you have no right whatever to talk like that to me," said esther, her sympathy beginning to pass over into annoyance. "to-morrow you will be sorry. hadn't you better go before you give yourself--and me--more cause for regret?" "ho, you're sending me away, are you?" he said in angry surprise. "i am certainly suggesting it as the wisest course." "oh, don't give me any of your fine phrases!" he said brutally. "i see what it is--i've made a mistake. you're a stuck-up, conceited little thing. you think because you live in a grand house nobody is good enough for you. but what are you after all? a _schnorrer_--that's all. a _schnorrer_ living on the charity of strangers. if i mix with grand folks, it is as an independent man and an equal. but you, rather than marry any one who mightn't be able to give you carriages and footmen, you prefer to remain a _schnorrer_." esther was white and her lips trembled. "now i must ask you to go," she said. "all right, don't flurry yourself!" he said savagely. "you don't impress me with your airs. try them on people who don't know what you were--a _schnorrer's_ daughter. yes, your father was always a _schnorrer_ and you are his child. it's in the blood. ha! ha! ha! moses ansell's daughter! moses ansell's daughter--a peddler, who went about the country with brass jewelry and stood in the lane with lemons and _schnorred_ half-crowns of my father. you took jolly good care to ship him off to america, but 'pon my honor, you can't expect others to forget him as quickly as you. it's a rich joke, you refusing me. you're not fit for me to wipe my shoes on. my mother never cared for me to go to your garret; she said i must mix with my equals and goodness knew what disease i might pick up in the dirt; 'pon my honor the old girl was right." "she _was_ right," esther was stung into retorting. "you must mix only with your equals. please leave the room now or else i shall." his face changed. his frenzy gave way to a momentary shock of consternation as he realized what he had done. "no, no, esther. i was mad, i didn't know what i was saying. i didn't mean it. forget it." "i cannot. it was quite true," she said bitterly. "i am only a _schnorrer's_ daughter. well, are you going or must i?" he muttered something inarticulate, then seized his hat sulkily and went to the door without looking at her. "you have forgotten something," she said. he turned; her forefinger pointed to the bouquet on the table. he had a fresh access of rage at the sight of it, jerked it contemptuously to the floor with a sweep of his hat and stamped upon it. then he rushed from the room and an instant after she heard the hall door slam. she sank against the table sobbing nervously. it was her first proposal! a _schnorrer_ and the daughter of a _schnorrer_. yes, that-was what she was. and she had even repaid her benefactors with deception! what hopes could she yet cherish? in literature she was a failure; the critics gave her few gleams of encouragement, while all her acquaintances from raphael downwards would turn and rend her, should she dare declare herself. nay, she was ashamed of herself for the mischief she had wrought. no one in the world cared for her; she was quite alone. the only man in whose breast she could excite love or the semblance of it was a contemptible cad. and who was she, that she should venture to hope for love? she figured herself as an item in a catalogue; "a little, ugly, low-spirited, absolutely penniless young woman, subject to nervous headaches." her sobs were interrupted by a ghastly burst of self-mockery. yes, levi was right. she ought to think herself lucky to get him. again, she asked herself what had existence to offer her. gradually her sobs ceased; she remembered to-night would be _seder_ night, and her thoughts, so violently turned ghetto-wards, went back to that night, soon after poor benjamin's death, when she sat before the garret fire striving to picture the larger life of the future. well, this was the future. chapter viii. the ends of a generation. the same evening leonard james sat in the stalls of the colosseum music hall, sipping champagne and smoking a cheroot. he had not been to his chambers (which were only round the corner) since the hapless interview with esther, wandering about in the streets and the clubs in a spirit compounded of outraged dignity, remorse and recklessness. all men must dine; and dinner at the _flamingo club_ soothed his wounded soul and left only the recklessness, which is a sensation not lacking in agreeableness. through the rosy mists of the burgundy there began to surge up other faces than that cold pallid little face which had hovered before him all the afternoon like a tantalizing phantom; at the chartreuse stage he began to wonder what hallucination, what aberration of sense had overcome him, that he should have been stirred to his depths and distressed so hugely. warmer faces were these that swam before him, faces fuller of the joy of life. the devil take all stuck-up little saints! about eleven o'clock, when the great ballet of _venetia_ was over, leonard hurried round to the stage-door, saluted the door-keeper with a friendly smile and a sixpence, and sent in his card to miss gladys wynne, on the chance that she might have no supper engagement. miss wynne was only a humble _coryphée_, but the admirers of her talent were numerous, and leonard counted himself fortunate in that she was able to afford him the privilege of her society to-night. she came out to him in a red fur-lined cloak, for the air was keen. she was a majestic being with a florid complexion not entirely artificial, big blue eyes and teeth of that whiteness which is the practical equivalent of a sense of humor in evoking the possessor's smiles. they drove to a restaurant a few hundred yards distant, for miss wynne detested using her feet except to dance with. it was a fashionable restaurant, where the prices obligingly rose after ten, to accommodate the purses of the supper-_clientèle_. miss wynne always drank champagne, except when alone, and in politeness leonard had to imbibe more of this frothy compound. he knew he would have to pay for the day's extravagance by a week of comparative abstemiousness, but recklessness generally meant magnificence with him. they occupied a cosy little corner behind a screen, and miss wynne bubbled over with laughter like an animated champagne bottle. one or two of his acquaintances espied him and winked genially, and leonard had the satisfaction of feeling that he was not dissipating his money without purchasing enhanced reputation. he had not felt in gayer spirits for months than when, with gladys wynne on his arm and a cigarette in his mouth, he sauntered out of the brilliantly-lit restaurant into the feverish dusk of the midnight street, shot with points of fire. "hansom, sir!" "_levi_!" a great cry of anguish rent the air--leonard's cheeks burned. involuntarily he looked round. then his heart stood still. there, a few yards from him, rooted to the pavement, with stony staring face, was reb shemuel. the old man wore an unbrushed high hat and an uncouth unbuttoned overcoat. his hair and beard were quite white now, and the strong countenance lined with countless wrinkles was distorted with pain and astonishment. he looked a cross between an ancient prophet and a shabby street lunatic. the unprecedented absence of the son from the _seder_ ceremonial had filled the reb's household with the gravest alarm. nothing short of death or mortal sickness could be keeping the boy away. it was long before the reb could bring himself to commence the _hagadah_ without his son to ask the time-honored opening question; and when he did he paused every minute to listen to footsteps or the voice of the wind without. the joyous holiness of the festival was troubled, a black cloud overshadowed the shining table-cloth, at supper the food choked him. but _seder_ was over and yet no sign of the missing guest; no word of explanation. in poignant anxiety, the old man walked the three miles that lay between him and tidings of the beloved son. at his chambers he learned that their occupant had not been in all day. another thing he learned there, too; for the _mezuzah_ which he had fixed up on the door-post when his boy moved in had been taken down, and it filled his mind with a dread suspicion that levi had not been eating at the _kosher_ restaurant in hatton garden, as he had faithfully vowed to do. but even this terrible thought was swallowed up in the fear that some accident had happened to him. he haunted the house for an hour, filling up the intervals of fruitless inquiry with little random walks round the neighborhood, determined not to return home to his wife without news of their child. the restless life of the great twinkling streets was almost a novelty to him; it was rarely his perambulations in london extended outside the ghetto, and the radius of his life was proportionately narrow,--with the intensity that narrowness forces on a big soul. the streets dazzled him, he looked blinkingly hither and thither in the despairing hope of finding his boy. his lips moved in silent prayer; he raised his eyes beseechingly to the cold glittering heavens. then, all at once--as the clocks pointed to midnight--he found him. found him coming out of an unclean place, where he had violated the passover. found him--fit climax of horror--with the "strange woman" of _the proverbs_, for whom the faithful jew has a hereditary hatred. his son--his. reb shemuel's! he, the servant of the most high, the teacher of the faith to reverential thousands, had brought a son into the world to profane the name! verily his gray hairs would go down with sorrow to a speedy grave! and the sin was half his own; he had weakly abandoned his boy in the midst of a great city. for one awful instant, that seemed an eternity, the old man and the young faced each other across the chasm which divided their lives. to the son the shock was scarcely less violent than to the father. the _seder_, which the day's unwonted excitement had clean swept out of his mind, recurred to him in a flash, and by the light of it he understood the puzzle of his father's appearance. the thought of explaining rushed up only to be dismissed. the door of the restaurant had not yet ceased swinging behind him--there was too much to explain. he felt that all was over between him and his father. it was unpleasant, terrible even, for it meant the annihilation of his resources. but though he still had an almost physical fear of the old man, far more terrible even than the presence of his father was the presence of miss gladys wynne. to explain, to brazen it out, either course was equally impossible. he was not a brave man, but at that moment he felt death were preferable to allowing her to be the witness of such a scene as must ensue. his resolution was taken within a few brief seconds of the tragic rencontre. with wonderful self-possession, he nodded to the cabman who had put the question, and whose vehicle was drawn up opposite the restaurant. hastily he helped the unconscious gladys into the hansom. he was putting his foot on the step himself when reb shemuel's paralysis relaxed suddenly. outraged by this final pollution of the festival, he ran forward and laid his hand on levi's shoulder. his face was ashen, his heart thumped painfully; the hand on levi's cloak shook as with palsy. levi winced; the old awe was upon him. through a blinding whirl he saw gladys staring wonderingly at the queer-looking intruder. he gathered all his mental strength together with a mighty effort, shook off the great trembling hand and leaped into the hansom. "drive on!" came in strange guttural tones from his parched throat. the driver lashed the horse; a rough jostled the old man aside and slammed the door to; leonard mechanically threw him a coin; the hansom glided away. "who was that, leonard?" said miss wynne, curiously. "nobody; only an old jew who supplies me with cash." gladys laughed merrily--a rippling, musical laugh. she knew the sort of person. chapter ix. the flag flutters. the _flag of judah_, price one penny, largest circulation of any jewish organ, continued to flutter, defying the battle, the breeze and its communal contemporaries. at passover there had been an illusive augmentation of advertisements proclaiming the virtues of unleavened everything. with the end of the festival, most of these fell out, staying as short a time as the daffodils. raphael was in despair at the meagre attenuated appearance of the erst prosperous-looking pages. the weekly loss on the paper weighed upon his conscience. "we shall never succeed," said the sub-editor, shaking his romantic hair, "till we run it for the upper ten. these ten people can make the paper, just as they are now killing it by refusing their countenance." "but they must surely reckon with us sooner or later," said raphael. "it will he a long reckoning. i fear: you take my advice and put in more butter. it'll be _kosher_ butter, coming from us." the little bohemian laughed as heartily as his eyeglass permitted. "no; we must stick to our guns. after all, we have had some very good things lately. those articles of pinchas's are not bad either." "they're so beastly egotistical. still his theories are ingenious and far more interesting than those terribly dull long letters of henry goldsmith, which you will put in." raphael flushed a little and began to walk up and down the new and superior sanctum with his ungainly strides, puffing furiously at his pipe the appearance of the room was less bare; the floor was carpeted with old newspapers and scraps of letters. a huge picture of an atlantic liner, the gift of a steamship company, leaned cumbrously against a wall. "still, all our literary excellencies," pursued sampson, "are outweighed by our shortcomings in getting births, marriages and deaths. we are gravelled for lack of that sort of matter what is the use of your elaborate essay on the septuagint, when the public is dying to hear who's dead?" "yes, i am afraid it is so." said raphael, emitting a huge volume of smoke. "i'm sure it is so. if you would only give me a freer hand, i feel sure i could work up that column. we can at least make a better show: i would avoid the danger of discovery by shifting the scene to foreign parts. i could marry some people in born-bay and kill some in cape town, redressing the balance by bringing others into existence at cairo and cincinnati. our contemporaries would score off us in local interest, but we should take the shine out of them in cosmopolitanism." "no, no; remember that _meshumad_" said raphael, smiling. "he was real; if you had allowed me to invent a corpse, we should have been saved that _contretemps_. we have one 'death' this week fortunately, and i am sure to fish out another in the daily papers. but we haven't had a 'birth' for three weeks running; it's just ruining our reputation. everybody knows that the orthodox are a fertile lot, and it looks as if we hadn't got the support even of our own party. ta ra ra ta! now you must really let me have a 'birth.' i give you my word, nobody'll suspect it isn't genuine. come now. how's this?" he scribbled on a piece of paper and handed it to raphael, who read: "birth, on the th inst. at east stuart lane, kennington, the wife of joseph samuels of a son." "there!" said sampson proudly, "who would believe the little beggar had no existence? nobody lives in kennington, and that east stuart lane is a master-stroke. you might suspect stuart lane, but nobody would ever dream there's no such place as _east_ stuart lane. don't say the little chap must die. i begin to take quite a paternal interest in him. may i announce him? don't be too scrupulous. who'll be a penny the worse for it?" he began to chirp, with bird-like trills of melody. raphael hesitated: his moral fibre had been weakened. it is impossible to touch print and not be denied. suddenly sampson ceased to whistle and smote his head with his chubby fist. "ass that i am!" he exclaimed. "what new reasons have you discovered to think so?" said raphael. "why, we dare not create boys. we shall be found out; boys must be circumcised and some of the periphrastically styled 'initiators into the abrahamic covenant' may spot us. it was a girl that mrs. joseph samuels was guilty of." he amended the sex. raphael laughed heartily. "put it by; there's another day yet; we shall see." "very well," said sampson resignedly. "perhaps by to-morrow we shall be in luck and able to sing 'unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given.' by the way, did you see the letter complaining of our using that quotation, on the ground it was from the new testament?" "yes," said raphael smiling. "of course the man doesn't know his old testament, but i trace his misconception to his having heard handel's messiah. i wonder he doesn't find fault with the morning service for containing the lord's prayer, or with moses for saying 'thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.'" "still, that's the sort of man newspapers have to cater for," said the sub-editor. "and we don't. we have cut down our provincial notes to a column. my idea would be to make two pages of them, not cutting out any of the people's names and leaving in more of the adjectives. every man's name we mention means at least one copy sold. why can't we drag in a couple of thousand names every week?" "that would make our circulation altogether nominal," laughed raphael, not taking the suggestion seriously. little sampson was not only the mephistopheles of the office, debauching his editor's guileless mind with all the wily ways of the old journalistic hand; he was of real use in protecting raphael against the thousand and one pitfalls that make the editorial chair as perilous to the occupant as sweeney todd's; against the people who tried to get libels inserted as news or as advertisements, against the self-puffers and the axe-grinders. he also taught raphael how to commence interesting correspondence and how to close awkward. the _flag_ played a part in many violent discussions. little sampson was great in inventing communal crises, and in getting the public to believe it was excited. he also won a great victory over the other party every three weeks; raphael did not wish to have so many of these victories, but little sampson pointed out that if he did not have them, the rival newspaper would annex them. one of the earliest sensations of the _flag_ was a correspondence exposing the misdeeds of some communal officials; but in the end the very persons who made the allegations ate humble pie. evidently official pressure had been brought to bear, for red tape rampant might have been the heraldic device of jewish officialdom. in no department did jews exhibit more strikingly their marvellous powers of assimilation to their neighbors. among the discussions which rent the body politic was the question of building a huge synagogue for the poor. the _flag_ said it would only concentrate them, and its word prevailed. there were also the grave questions of english and harmoniums in the synagogue, of the confirmation of girls and their utilization in the choir. the rabbinate, whose grave difficulties in reconciling all parties to its rule, were augmented by the existence of the _flag_, pronounced it heinous to introduce english excerpts into the liturgy; if, however, they were not read from the central platform, they were legitimate; harmoniums were permissible, but only during special services; and an organization of mixed voices was allowable, but not a mixed choir; children might be confirmed, but the word "confirmation" should be avoided. poor rabbinate! the politics of the little community were extremely complex. what with rabid zealots yearning for the piety of the good old times, spiritually-minded ministers working with uncomfortable earnestness for a larger judaism, radicals dropping out, moderates clamoring for quiet, and schismatics organizing new and tiresome movements, the rabbinate could scarcely do aught else than emit sonorous platitudes and remain in office. and beneath all these surface ruffles was the steady silent drift of the new generation away from the old landmarks. the synagogue did not attract; it spoke hebrew to those whose mother-tongue was english; its appeal was made through channels which conveyed nothing to them; it was out of touch with their real lives; its liturgy prayed for the restoration of sacrifices which they did not want and for the welfare of babylonian colleges that had ceased to exist. the old generation merely believed its beliefs; if the new as much as professed them, it was only by virtue of the old home associations and the inertia of indifference. practically, it was without religion. the reform synagogue, though a centre of culture and prosperity, was cold, crude and devoid of magnetism. half a century of stagnant reform and restless dissolution had left orthodoxy still the established doxy. for, as orthodoxy evaporated in england, it was replaced by fresh streams from russia, to be evaporated and replaced in turn, england acting as an automatic distillery. thus the rabbinate still reigned, though it scarcely governed either the east end or the west. for the east end formed a federation of the smaller synagogues to oppose the dominance of the united synagogue, importing a minister of superior orthodoxy from the continent, and the _flag_ had powerful leaders on the great struggle between plutocracy and democracy, and the voice of mr. henry goldsmith was heard on behalf of whitechapel. and the west, in so far as it had spiritual aspirations, fed them on non-jewish literature and the higher thought of the age. the finer spirits, indeed, were groping for a purpose and a destiny, doubtful even, if the racial isolation they perpetuated were not an anachronism. while the community had been battling for civil and religious liberty, there had been a unifying, almost spiritualizing, influence in the sense of common injustice, and the question _cui bono_ had been postponed. drowning men do not ask if life is worth living. later, the russian persecutions came to interfere again with national introspection, sending a powerful wave of racial sympathy round the earth. in england a backwash of the wave left the asmonean society, wherein, for the first time in history, jews gathered with nothing in common save blood--artists, lawyers, writers, doctors--men who in pre-emancipation times might have become christians like heine, but who now formed an effective protest against the popular conceptions of the jew, and a valuable antidote to the disproportionate notoriety achieved by less creditable types. at the asmonean society, brilliant free-lances, each thinking himself a solitary exception to a race of bigots, met one another in mutual astonishment. raphael alienated several readers by uncompromising approval of this characteristically modern movement. another symptom of the new intensity of national brotherhood was the attempt towards amalgamating the spanish and german communities, but brotherhood broke down under the disparity of revenue, the rich spanish sect displaying once again the exclusiveness which has marked its history. amid these internal problems, the unspeakable immigrant was an added thorn. very often the victim of continental persecution was assisted on to america, but the idea that he was hurtful to native labor rankled in the minds of englishmen, and the jewish leaders were anxious to remove it, all but proving him a boon. in despair, it was sought to 'anglicize him by discourses in yiddish. with the poor alien question was connected the return to palestine. the holy land league still pinned its faith to zion, and the _flag_ was with it to the extent of preferring the ancient father-land, as the scene of agricultural experiments, to the south american soils selected by other schemes. it was generally felt that the redemption of judaism lay largely in a return to the land, after several centuries of less primitive and more degrading occupations. when south america was chosen, strelitski was the first to counsel the league to co-operate in the experiment, on the principle that half a loaf is better than no bread. but, for the orthodox the difficulties of regeneration by the spade were enhanced by the sabbatical year institute of the pentateuch, ordaining that land must lie fallow in the seventh year. it happened that this septennial holiday was just going on, and the faithful palestine farmers were starving in voluntary martyrdom. the _flag_ raised a subscription for their benefit. raphael wished to head the list with twenty pounds, but on the advice of little sampson he broke it up into a variety of small amounts, spread over several weeks, and attached to imaginary names and initials. seeing so many other readers contributing, few readers felt called upon to tax themselves. the _flag_ received the ornate thanks of a pleiad of palestine rabbis for its contribution of twenty-five guineas, two of which were from mr. henry goldsmith. gideon, the member for whitechapel, remained callous to the sufferings of his brethren in the holy land. in daily contact with so many diverse interests, raphael's mind widened as imperceptibly as the body grows. he learned the manners of many men and committees--admired the genuine goodness of some of the jewish philanthropists and the fluent oratory of all; even while he realized the pettiness of their outlook and their reluctance to face facts. they were timorous, with a dread of decisive action and definitive speech, suggesting the differential, deprecatory corporeal wrigglings of the mediaeval few. they seemed to keep strict ward over the technical privileges of the different bodies they belonged to, and in their capacity of members of the fiddle-de-dee to quarrel with themselves as members of the fiddle-de-dum, and to pass votes of condolence or congratulation twice over as members of both. but the more he saw of his race the more he marvelled at the omnipresent ability, being tempted at times to allow truth to the view that judaism was a successful sociological experiment, the moral and physical training of a chosen race whose very dietary had been religiously regulated. and even the revelations of the seamy side of human character which thrust themselves upon the most purblind of editors were blessings in disguise. the office of the _flag_ was a forcing-house for raphael; many latent thoughts developed into extraordinary maturity. a month of the _flag_ was equal to a year of experience in the outside world. and not even little sampson himself was keener to appreciate the humors of the office when no principle was involved; though what made the sub-editor roar with laughter often made the editor miserable for the day. for compensation, raphael had felicities from which little sampson was cut off; gladdened by revelations of earnestness and piety in letters that were merely bad english to the sub-editor. a thing that set them both laughing occurred on the top of their conversation about the reader who objected to quotations from the old testament. a package of four old _flags_ arrived, accompanied by a letter. this was the letter: "dear sir: "your man called upon me last night, asking for payment for four advertisements of my passover groceries. but i have changed my mind about them and do not want them; and therefore beg to return the four numbers sent me you will see i have not opened them or soiled them in any way, so please cancel the claim in your books. "yours truly, "isaac wollberg." "he evidently thinks the vouchers sent him _are_ the advertisements," screamed little sampson. "but if he is as ignorant as all that, how could he have written the letter?" asked raphael. "oh, it was probably written for him for twopence by the shalotten _shammos_, the begging-letter writer." "this is almost as funny as karlkammer!" said raphael. karlkammer had sent in a long essay on the sabbatical year question, which raphael had revised and published with karlkammer's title at the head and karlkammer's name at the foot. yet, owing to the few rearrangements and inversions of sentences, karlkammer never identified it as his own, and was perpetually calling to inquire when his article would appear. he brought with him fresh manuscripts of the article as originally written. he was not the only caller; raphael was much pestered by visitors on kindly counsel bent or stern exhortation. the sternest were those who had never yet paid their subscriptions. de haan also kept up proprietorial rights of interference. in private life raphael suffered much from pillars of the montagu samuels type, who accused him of flippancy, and no communal crisis invented by little sampson ever equalled the pother and commotion that arose when raphael incautiously allowed him to burlesque the notorious _mordecai josephs_ by comically exaggerating its exaggerations. the community took it seriously, as an attack upon the race. mr. and mrs. henry goldsmith were scandalized, and raphael had to shield little sampson by accepting the whole responsibility for its appearance. "talking of karlkammer's article, are you ever going to use up herman's scientific paper?" asked little sampson. "i'm afraid so," said raphael; "i don't know how we can get out of it. but his eternal _kosher_ meat sticks in my throat. we are jews for the love of god, not to be saved from consumption bacilli. but i won't use it to-morrow; we have miss cissy levine's tale. it's not half bad. what a pity she has the expenses of her books paid! if she had to achieve publication by merit, her style might be less slipshod." "i wish some rich jew would pay the expenses of my opera tour," said little sampson, ruefully. "my style of doing the thing would be improved. the people who are backing me up are awfully stingy, actually buying up battered old helmets for my chorus of amazons." intermittently the question of the sub-editor's departure for the provinces came up: it was only second in frequency to his "victories." about once a month the preparations for the tour were complete, and he would go about in a heyday of jubilant vocalization; then his comic prima-donna would fall ill or elope, his conductor would get drunk, his chorus would strike, and little sampson would continue to sub-edit _the flag of judah_. pinchas unceremoniously turned the handle of the door and came in. the sub-editor immediately hurried out to get a cup of tea. pinchas had fastened upon him the responsibility for the omission of an article last week, and had come to believe that he was in league with rival continental scholars to keep melchitsedek pinchas's effusions out of print, and so little sampson dared not face the angry savant. raphael, thus deserted, cowered in his chair. he did not fear death, but he feared pinchas, and had fallen into the cowardly habit of bribing him lavishly not to fill the paper. fortunately, the poet was in high feather. "don't forget the announcement that i lecture at the club on sunday. you see all the efforts of reb shemuel, of the rev. joseph strelitski, of the chief rabbi, of ebenezer vid his blue spectacles, of sampson, of all the phalanx of english men-of-the-earth, they all fail. ab, i am a great man." "i won't forget," said raphael wearily. "the announcement is already in print." "ah, i love you. you are the best man in the vorld. it is you who have championed me against those who are thirsting for my blood. and now i vill tell you joyful news. there is a maiden coming up to see you--she is asking in the publisher's office--oh such a lovely maiden!" pinchas grinned all over his face, and was like to dig his editor in the ribs. "what maiden?" "i do not know; but vai-r-r-y beaudiful. aha, i vill go. have you not been good to _me_? but vy come not beaudiful maidens to _me_?" "no, no, you needn't go," said raphael, getting red. pinchas grinned as one who knew better, and struck a match to rekindle a stump of cigar. "no, no, i go write my lecture--oh it vill be a great lecture. you vill announce it in the paper! you vill not leave it out like sampson left out my article last week." he was at the door now, with his finger alongside his nose. raphael shook himself impatiently, and the poet threw the door wide open and disappeared. for a full minute raphael dared not look towards the door for fear of seeing the poet's cajoling head framed in the opening. when he did, he was transfixed to see esther ansell's there, regarding him pensively. his heart beat painfully at the shock; the room seemed flooded with sunlight. "may i come in?" she said, smiling. chapter x. esther defies the universe. esther wore a neat black mantle, and looked taller and more womanly than usual in a pretty bonnet and a spotted veil. there was a flush of color in her cheeks, her eyes sparkled. she had walked in cold sunny weather from the british museum (where she was still supposed to be), and the wind had blown loose a little wisp of hair over the small shell-like ear. in her left hand she held a roll of manuscript. it contained her criticisms of the may exhibitions. whereby hung a tale. in the dark days that followed the scene with levi, esther's resolution had gradually formed. the position had become untenable. she could no longer remain a _schnorrer_; abusing the bounty of her benefactors into the bargain. she must leave the goldsmiths, and at once. that was imperative; the second step could be thought over when she had taken the first. and yet she postponed taking the first. once she drifted out of her present sphere, she could not answer for the future, could not be certain, for instance, that she would be able to redeem her promise to raphael to sit in judgment upon the academy and other picture galleries that bloomed in may. at any rate, once she had severed connection with the goldsmith circle, she would not care to renew it, even in the case of raphael. no, it was best to get this last duty off her shoulders, then to say farewell to him and all the other human constituents of her brief period of partial sunshine. besides, the personal delivery of the precious manuscript would afford her the opportunity of this farewell to him. with his social remissness, it was unlikely he would call soon upon the goldsmiths, and she now restricted her friendship with addie to receiving addie's visits, so as to prepare for its dissolution. addie amused her by reading extracts from sidney's letters, for the brilliant young artist had suddenly gone off to norway the morning after the _début_ of the new hamlet. esther felt that it might be as well if she stayed on to see how the drama of these two lives developed. these things she told herself in the reaction from the first impulse of instant flight. raphael put down his pipe at the sight of her and a frank smile of welcome shone upon his flushed face. "this is so kind of you!" he said; "who would have thought of seeing you here? i am so glad. i hope you are well. you look better." he was wringing her little gloved hand violently as he spoke. "i feel better, too, thank you. the air is so exhilarating. i'm glad to see you're still in the land of the living. addie has told me of your debauches of work." "addie is foolish. i never felt better. come inside. don't be afraid of walking on the papers. they're all old." "i always heard literary people were untidy," said esther smiling. "_you_ must be a regular genius." "well, you see we don't have many ladies coming here," said raphael deprecatingly, "though we have plenty of old women." "it's evident you don't. else some of them would go down on their hands and knees and never get up till this litter was tidied up a bit." "never mind that now, miss ansell. sit down, won't you? you must be tired. take the editorial chair. allow me a minute." he removed some books from it. "is that the way you sit on the books sent in for review?" she sat down. "dear me! it's quite comfortable. you men like comfort, even the most self-sacrificing. but where is your fighting-editor? it would be awkward if an aggrieved reader came in and mistook me for the editor, wouldn't it? it isn't safe for me to remain in this chair." "oh, yes it is! we've tackled our aggrieved readers for to-day," he assured her. she looked curiously round. "please pick up your pipe. it's going out. i don't mind smoke, indeed i don't. even if i did, i should be prepared to pay the penalty of bearding an editor in his den." raphael resumed his pipe gratefully. "i wonder though you don't set the place on fire," esther rattled on, "with all this mass of inflammable matter about." "it is very dry, most of it," he admitted, with a smile. "why don't you have a real fire? it must be quite cold sitting here all day. what's that great ugly picture over there?" "that steamer! it's an advertisement." "heavens! what a decoration. i should like to have the criticism of that picture. i've brought you those picture-galleries, you know; that's what i've come for." "thank you! that's very good of you. i'll send it to the printers at once." he took the roll and placed it in a pigeon-hole, without taking his eyes off her face. "why don't you throw that awful staring thing away?" she asked, contemplating the steamer with a morbid fascination, "and sweep away the old papers, and have a few little water-colors hung up and put a vase of flowers on your desk. i wish i had the control of the office for a week." "i wish you had," he said gallantly. "i can't find time to think of those things. i am sure you are brightening it up already." the little blush on her cheek deepened. compliment was unwonted with him; and indeed, he spoke as he felt. the sight of her seated so strangely and unexpectedly in his own humdrum sanctum; the imaginary picture of her beautifying it and evolving harmony out of the chaos with artistic touches of her dainty hands, filled him with pleasant, tender thoughts, such as he had scarce known before. the commonplace editorial chair seemed to have undergone consecration and poetic transformation. surely the sunshine that streamed through the dusty window would for ever rest on it henceforwards. and yet the whole thing appeared fantastic and unreal. "i hope you are speaking the truth," replied esther with a little laugh. "you need brightening, you old dry-as-dust philanthropist, sitting poring over stupid manuscripts when you ought to be in the country enjoying the sunshine." she spoke in airy accents, with an undercurrent of astonishment at her attack of high spirits on an occasion she had designed to be harrowing. "why, i haven't _looked_ at your manuscript yet," he retorted gaily, but as he spoke there flashed upon him a delectable vision of blue sea and waving pines with one fair wood-nymph flitting through the trees, luring him on from this musty cell of never-ending work to unknown ecstasies of youth and joyousness. the leafy avenues were bathed in sacred sunlight, and a low magic music thrilled through the quiet air. it was but the dream of a second--the dingy walls closed round him again, the great ugly steamer, that never went anywhere, sailed on. but the wood-nymph did not vanish; the sunbeam was still on the editorial chair, lighting up the little face with a celestial halo. and when she spoke again, it was as if the music that filled the visionary glades was a reality, too. "it's all very well your treating reproof as a jest," she said, more gravely. "can't you see that it's false economy to risk a break-down even if you use yourself purely for others? you're looking far from well. you are overtaxing human strength. come now, admit my sermon is just. remember i speak not as a pharisee, but as one who made the mistake herself--a fellow-sinner." she turned her dark eyes reproachfully upon him. "i--i--don't sleep very well," he admitted, "but otherwise i assure you i feel all right." it was the second time she had manifested concern for his health. the blood coursed deliciously in his veins; a thrill ran through his whole form. the gentle anxious face seemed to grow angelic. could she really care if his health gave way? again he felt a rash of self-pity that filled his eyes with tears. he was grateful to her for sharing his sense of the empty cheerlessness of his existence. he wondered why it had seemed so full and cheery just before. "and you used to sleep so well," said esther, slily, remembering addie's domestic revelations. "my stupid manuscript should come in useful." "oh, forgive my stupid joke!" he said remorsefully. "forgive mine!" she answered. "sleeplessness is too terrible to joke about. again i speak as one who knows." "oh, i'm sorry to hear that!" he said, his egoistic tenderness instantly transformed to compassionate solicitude. "never mind me; i am a woman and can take care of myself. why don't you go over to norway and join mr. graham?" "that's quite out of the question," he said, puffing furiously at his pipe. "i can't leave the paper." "oh, men always say that. haven't you let your pipe go out? i don't see any smoke." he started and laughed. "yes, there's no more tobacco in it." he laid it down. "no, i insist on your going on or else i shall feel uncomfortable. where's your pouch?" he felt all over his pockets. "it must be on the table." she rummaged among the mass of papers. "ha! there are your scissors'" she said scornfully, turning them up. she found the pouch in time and handed it to him. "i ought to have the management of this office for a day," she remarked again. "well, fill my pipe for me," he said, with an audacious inspiration. he felt an unreasoning impulse to touch her hand, to smooth her soft cheek with his fingers and press her eyelids down over her dancing eyes. she filled the pipe, full measure and running over; he took it by the stem, her warm gloved fingers grazing his chilly bare hand and suffusing him with a delicious thrill. "now you must crown your work," he said. "the matches are somewhere about." she hunted again, interpolating exclamations of reproof at the risk of fire. "they're safety matches, i think," he said. they proved to be wax vestas. she gave him a liquid glance of mute reproach that filled him with bliss as overbrimmingly as his pipe had been filled with bird's eye; then she struck a match, protecting the flame scientifically in the hollow of her little hand. raphael had never imagined a wax vesta could be struck so charmingly. she tip-toed to reach the bowl in his mouth, but he bent his tall form and felt her breath upon his face. the volumes of smoke curled up triumphantly, and esther's serious countenance relaxed in a smile of satisfaction. she resumed the conversation where it had been broken off by the idyllic interlude of the pipe. "but if you can't leave london, there's plenty of recreation to be had in town. i'll wager you haven't yet been to see _hamlet_ in lieu of the night you disappointed us." "disappointed myself, you mean," he said with a retrospective consciousness of folly. "no, to tell the truth, i haven't been out at all lately. life is so short." "then, why waste it?" "oh come, i can't admit i waste it," he said, with a gentle smile that filled her with a penetrating emotion. "you mustn't take such material views of life." almost in a whisper he quoted: "to him that hath the kingdom of god all things shall be added," and went on: "socialism is at least as important as shakspeare." "socialism," she repeated. "are you a socialist, then?" "of a kind," he answered. "haven't you detected the cloven hoof in my leaders? i'm not violent, you know; don't be alarmed. but i have been doing a little mild propagandism lately in the evenings; land nationalization and a few other things which would bring the world more into harmony with the law of moses." "what! do you find socialism, too, in orthodox judaism?" "it requires no seeking." "well, you're almost as bad as my father, who found every thing in the talmud. at this rate you will certainly convert me soon; or at least i shall, like m. jourdain, discover i've been orthodox all my life without knowing it." "i hope so," he said gravely. "but have you socialistic sympathies?" she hesitated. as a girl she had felt the crude socialism which is the unreasoned instinct of ambitious poverty, the individual revolt mistaking itself for hatred of the general injustice. when the higher sphere has welcomed the socialist, he sees he was but the exception to a contented class. esther had gone through the second phase and was in the throes of the third, to which only the few attain. "i used to be a red-hot socialist once," she said. "to-day i doubt whether too much stress is not laid on material conditions. high thinking is compatible with the plainest living. 'the soul is its own place and can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.' let the people who wish to build themselves lordly treasure-houses do so, if they can afford it, but let us not degrade our ideals by envying them." the conversation had drifted into seriousness. raphael's thoughts reverted to their normal intellectual cast, but he still watched with pleasure the play of her mobile features as she expounded her opinions. "ah, yes, that is a nice abstract theory," he said. "but what if the mechanism of competitive society works so that thousands don't even get the plainest living? you should just see the sights i have seen, then you would understand why for some time the improvement of the material condition of the masses must be the great problem. of course, you won't suspect me of underrating the moral and religious considerations." esther smiled almost imperceptibly. the idea of raphael, who could not see two inches before his nose, telling _her_ to examine the spectacle of human misery would have been distinctly amusing, even if her early life had been passed among the same scenes as his. it seemed a part of the irony of things and the paradox of fate that raphael, who had never known cold or hunger, should be so keenly sensitive to the sufferings of others, while she who had known both had come to regard them with philosophical tolerance. perhaps she was destined ere long to renew her acquaintance with them. well, that would test her theories at any rate. "who is taking material views of life now?" she asked. "it is by perfect obedience to the mosaic law that the kingdom of god is to be brought about on earth," he answered. "and in spirit, orthodox judaism is undoubtedly akin to socialism." his enthusiasm set him pacing the room as usual, his arms working like the sails of a windmill. esther shook her head. "well, give me shakspeare," she said. "i had rather see _hamlet_ than a world of perfect prigs." she laughed at the oddity of her own comparison and added, still smiling: "once upon a time i used to think shakspeare a fraud. but that was merely because he was an institution. it is a real treat to find one superstition that will stand analysis." "perhaps you will find the bible turn out like that," he said hopefully. "i _have_ found it. within the last few months i have read it right through again--old and new. it is full of sublime truths, noble apophthegms, endless touches of nature, and great poetry. our tiny race may well be proud of having given humanity its greatest as well as its most widely circulated books. why can't judaism take a natural view of things and an honest pride in its genuine history, instead of building its synagogues on shifting sand?" "in germany, later in america, the reconstruction of judaism has been attempted in every possible way; inspiration has been sought not only in literature, but in archaeology, and even in anthropology; it is these which have proved the shifting sand. you see your scepticism is not even original." he smiled a little, serene in the largeness of his faith. his complacency grated upon her. she jumped up. "we always seem to get into religion, you and i," she said. "i wonder why. it is certain we shall never agree. mosaism is magnificent, no doubt, but i cannot help feeling mr. graham is right when he points out its limitations. where would the art of the world be if the second commandment had been obeyed? is there any such thing as an absolute system of morality? how is it the chinese have got on all these years without religion? why should the jews claim the patent in those moral ideas which you find just as well in all the great writers of antiquity? why--?" she stopped suddenly, seeing his smile had broadened. "which of all these objections am i to answer?" he asked merrily. "some i'm sure you don't mean." "i mean all those you can't answer. so please don't try. after all, you're not a professional explainer of the universe, that i should heckle you thus." "oh, but i set up to be," he protested. "no, you don't. you haven't called me a blasphemer once. i'd better go before you become really professional. i shall be late for dinner." "what nonsense! it is only four o'clock," he pleaded, consulting an old-fashioned silver watch. "as late as that!" said esther in horrified tones. "good-bye! take care to go through my 'copy' in case any heresies have filtered into it." "your copy? did you give it me?" he inquired. "of course i did. you took it from me. where did you put it? oh, i hope you haven't mixed it up with those papers. it'll be a terrible task to find it," cried esther excitedly. "i wonder if i could have put it in the pigeon-hole for 'copy,'" he said. "yes! what luck!" esther laughed heartily. "you seem tremendously surprised to find anything in its right place." the moment of solemn parting had come, yet she found herself laughing on. perhaps she was glad to find the farewell easier than she had foreseen, it had certainly been made easier by the theological passage of arms, which brought out all her latent antagonism to the prejudiced young pietist. her hostility gave rather a scornful ring to the laugh, which ended with a suspicion of hysteria. "what a lot of stuff you've written," he said. "i shall never be able to get this into one number." "i didn't intend you should. it's to be used in instalments, if it's good enough. i did it all in advance, because i'm going away." "going away!" he cried, arresting himself in the midst of an inhalation of smoke. "where?" "i don't know," she said wearily. he looked alarm and interrogation. "i am going to leave the goldsmiths," she said. "i haven't decided exactly what to do next." "i hope you haven't quarrelled with them." "no, no, not at all. in fact they don't even know i am going. i only tell you in confidence. please don't say anything to anybody. good-bye. i may not come across you again. so this may be a last good-bye." she extended her hand; he took it mechanically. "i have no right to pry into your confidence," he said anxiously, "but you make me very uneasy." he did not let go her hand, the warm touch quickened his sympathy. he felt he could not part with her and let her drift into heaven knew what. "won't you tell me your trouble?" he went on. "i am sure it is some trouble. perhaps i can help you. i should be so glad if you would give me the opportunity." the tears struggled to her eyes, but she did not speak. they stood in silence, with their hands still clasped, feeling very near to each other, and yet still so far apart. "cannot you trust me?" he asked. "i know you are unhappy, but i had hoped you had grown cheerfuller of late. you told me so much at our first meeting, surely you might trust me yet a little farther." "i have told you enough," she said at last "i cannot any longer eat the bread of charity; i must go away and try to earn my own living." "but what will you do?" "what do other girls do? teaching, needlework, anything. remember, i'm an experienced teacher and a graduate to boot." her pathetic smile lit up the face with tremulous tenderness. "but you would be quite alone in the world," he said, solicitude vibrating in every syllable. "i am used to being quite alone in the world." the phrase threw a flash of light along the backward vista of her life with the goldsmiths, and filled his soul with pity and yearning. "but suppose you fail?" "if i fail--" she repeated, and rounded off the sentence with a shrug. it was the apathetic, indifferent shrug of moses ansell; only his was the shrug of faith in providence, hers of despair. it filled raphael's heart with deadly cold and his soul with sinister forebodings. the pathos of her position seemed to him intolerable. "no, no, this must not be!" he cried, and his hand gripped hers fiercely, as if he were afraid of her being dragged away by main force. he was terribly agitated; his whole being seemed to be undergoing profound and novel emotions. their eyes met; in one and the same instant the knowledge broke upon her that she loved him, and that if she chose to play the woman he was hers, and life a paradisian dream. the sweetness of the thought intoxicated her, thrilled her veins with fire. but the next instant she was chilled as by a gray cold fog. the realities of things came back, a whirl of self-contemptuous thoughts blent with a hopeless sense of the harshness of life. who was she to aspire to such a match? had her earlier day-dream left her no wiser than that? the _schnorrer's_ daughter setting her cap at the wealthy oxford man, forsooth! what would people say? and what would they say if they knew how she had sought him out in his busy seclusion to pitch a tale of woe and move him by his tenderness of heart to a pity he mistook momentarily for love? the image of levi came back suddenly; she quivered, reading herself through his eyes. and yet would not his crude view be right? suppress the consciousness as she would in her maiden breast, had she not been urged hither by an irresistible impulse? knowing what she felt now, she could not realize she had been ignorant of it when she set out. she was a deceitful, scheming little thing. angry with herself, she averted her gaze from the eyes that hungered for her, though they were yet unlit by self-consciousness; she loosed her hand from his, and as if the cessation of the contact restored her self-respect, some of her anger passed unreasonably towards him. "what right, have you to say it must not be?" she inquired haughtily. "do you think i can't take care of myself, that i need any one to protect me or to help me?" "no--i--i--only mean--" he stammered in infinite distress, feeling himself somehow a blundering brute. "remember i am not like the girls you are used to meet. i have known the worst that life can offer. i can stand alone, yes, and face the whole world. perhaps you don't know that i wrote _mordecai josephs_, the book you burlesqued so mercilessly!" "_you_ wrote it!" "yes, i. i am edward armitage. did those initials never strike you? i wrote it and i glory in it. though all jewry cry out 'the picture is false,' i say it is true. so now you know the truth. proclaim it to all hyde park and maida vale, tell it to all your narrow-minded friends and acquaintances, and let them turn and rend me. i can live without them or their praise. too long they have cramped my soul. now at last i am going to cut myself free. from them and from you and all your petty prejudices and interests. good-bye, for ever." she went out abruptly, leaving the room dark and raphael shaken and dumbfounded; she went down the stairs and into the keen bright air, with a fierce exultation at her heart, an intoxicating sense of freedom and defiance. it was over. she had vindicated herself to herself and to the imaginary critics. the last link that bound her to jewry was snapped; it was impossible it could ever be reforged. raphael knew her in her true colors at last. she seemed to herself a spinoza the race had cast out. the editor of _the flag of judah_ stood for some minutes as if petrified; then he turned suddenly to the litter on his table and rummaged among it feverishly. at last, as with a happy recollection, he opened a drawer. what he sought was there. he started reading _mordecai josephs_, forgetting to close the drawer. passage after passage suffused his eyes with tears; a soft magic hovered about the nervous sentences; he read her eager little soul in every line. now he understood. how blind he had been! how could he have missed seeing? esther stared at him from every page. she was the heroine of her own book; yes, and the hero, too, for he was but another side of herself translated into the masculine. the whole book was esther, the whole esther and nothing but esther, for even the satirical descriptions were but the revolt of esther's soul against mean and evil things. he turned to the great love-scene of the book, and read on and on, fascinated, without getting further than the chapter. chapter xi. going home. no need to delay longer; every need for instant flight. esther had found courage to confess her crime against the community to raphael; there was no seething of the blood to nerve her to face mrs. henry goldsmith. she retired to her room soon after dinner on the plea (which was not a pretext) of a headache. then she wrote: "dear mrs. goldsmith: "when you read this, i shall have left your house, never to return. it would be idle to attempt to explain my reasons. i could not hope to make you see through my eyes. suffice it to say that i cannot any longer endure a life of dependence, and that i feel i have abused your favor by writing that jewish novel of which you disapprove so vehemently. i never intended to keep the secret from you, after publication. i thought the book would succeed and you would be pleased; at the same time i dimly felt that you might object to certain things and ask to have them altered, and i have always wanted to write my own ideas, and not other people's. with my temperament, i see now that it was a mistake to fetter myself by obligations to anybody, but the mistake was made in my girlhood when i knew little of the world and perhaps less of myself. nevertheless, i wish you to believe, dear mrs. goldsmith, that all the blame for the unhappy situation which has arisen i put upon my own shoulders, and that i have nothing for you but the greatest affection and gratitude for all the kindnesses i have received at your hands. i beg you not to think that i make the slightest reproach against you; on the contrary, i shall always henceforth reproach myself with the thought that i have made you so poor a return for your generosity and incessant thoughtfulness. but the sphere in which you move is too high for me; i cannot assimilate with it and i return, not without gladness, to the humble sphere whence you took me. with kindest regards and best wishes, "i am, "yours ever gratefully, "esther ansell." there were tears in esther's eyes when she finished, and she was penetrated with admiration of her own generosity in so freely admitting mrs. goldsmith's and in allowing that her patron got nothing out of the bargain. she was doubtful whether the sentence about the high sphere was satirical or serious. people do not know what they mean almost as often as they do not say it. esther put the letter into an envelope and placed it on the open writing-desk she kept on her dressing-table. she then packed a few toilette essentials in a little bag, together with some american photographs of her brother and sisters in various stages of adolescence. she was determined to go back empty-handed as she came, and was reluctant to carry off the few sovereigns of pocket-money in her purse, and hunted up a little gold locket she had received, while yet a teacher, in celebration of the marriage of a communal magnate's daughter. thrown aside seven years ago, it now bade fair to be the corner-stone of the temple; she had meditated pledging it and living on the proceeds till she found work, but when she realized its puny pretensions to cozen pawnbrokers, it flashed upon her that she could always repay mrs. goldsmith the few pounds she was taking away. in a drawer there was a heap of manuscript carefully locked away; she took it and looked through it hurriedly, contemptuously. some of it was music, some poetry, the bulk prose. at last she threw it suddenly on the bright fire which good mary o'reilly had providentially provided in her room; then, as it flared up, stricken with remorse, she tried to pluck the sheets from the flames; only by scorching her fingers and raising blisters did she succeed, and then, with scornful resignation, she instantly threw them back again, warming her feverish hands merrily at the bonfire. rapidly looking through all her drawers, lest perchance in some stray manuscript she should leave her soul naked behind her, she came upon a forgotten faded rose. the faint fragrance was charged with strange memories of sidney. the handsome young artist had given it her in the earlier days of their acquaintanceship. to esther to-night it seemed to belong to a period infinitely more remote than her childhood. when the shrivelled rose had been further crumpled into a little ball and then picked to bits, it only remained to inquire where to go; what to do she could settle when there. she tried to collect her thoughts. alas! it was not so easy as collecting her luggage. for a long time she crouched on the fender and looked into the fire, seeing in it only fragmentary pictures of the last seven years--bits of scenery, great cathedral interiors arousing mysterious yearnings, petty incidents of travel, moments with sidney, drawing-room episodes, strange passionate scenes with herself as single performer, long silent watches of study and aspiration, like the souls of the burned manuscripts made visible. even that very afternoon's scene with raphael was part of the "old unhappy far-off things" that could only live henceforwards in fantastic arcades of glowing coal, out of all relation to future realities. her new-born love for raphael appeared as ancient and as arid as the girlish ambitions that had seemed on the point of blossoming when she was transplanted from the ghetto. that, too, was in the flames, and should remain there. at last she started up with a confused sense of wasted time and began to undress mechanically, trying to concentrate her thoughts the while on the problem that faced her. but they wandered back to her first night in the fine house, when a separate bedroom was a new experience and she was afraid to sleep alone, though turned fifteen. but she was more afraid of appearing a great baby, and so no one in the world ever knew what the imaginative little creature had lived down. in the middle of brushing her hair she ran to the door and locked it, from a sudden dread that she might oversleep herself and some one would come in and see the letter on the writing-desk. she had not solved the problem even by the time she got into bed; the fire opposite the foot was burning down, but there was a red glow penetrating the dimness. she had forgotten to draw the blind, and she saw the clear stars shining peacefully in the sky. she looked and looked at them and they led her thoughts away from the problem once more. she seemed to be lying in victoria park, looking up with innocent mystic rapture and restfulness at the brooding blue sky. the blood-and-thunder boys' story she had borrowed from solomon had fallen from her hand and lay unheeded on the grass. solomon was tossing a ball to rachel, which he had acquired by a colossal accumulation of buttons, and isaac and sarah were rolling and wrangling on the grass. oh, why had she deserted them? what were they doing now, without her mother-care, out and away beyond the great seas? for weeks together, the thought of them had not once crossed her mind; to-night she stretched her arms involuntarily towards her loved ones, not towards the shadowy figures of reality, scarcely less phantasmal than the dead benjamin, but towards the childish figures of the past. what happy times they had had together in the dear old garret! in her strange half-waking hallucination, her outstretched arms were clasped round little sarah. she was putting her to bed and the tiny thing was repeating after her, in broken hebrew, the children's night-prayer: "suffer me to lie down in peace, and let me rise up in peace. hear o israel, the lord our god, the lord is one," with its unauthorized appendix in baby english: "dod teep me, and mate me a dood dirl, orways." she woke to full consciousness with a start; her arms chilled, her face wet. but the problem was solved. she would go back to them, back to her true home, where loving faces waited to welcome her, where hearts were open and life was simple and the weary brain could find rest from the stress and struggle of obstinate questionings of destiny. life was so simple at bottom; it was she that was so perversely complex. she would go back to her father whose naïve devout face swam glorified upon a sea of tears; yea, and back to her father's primitive faith like a tired lost child that spies its home at last. the quaint, monotonous cadence of her father's prayers rang pathetically in her ears; and a great light, the light that raphael had shown her, seemed to blend mystically with the once meaningless sounds. yea, all things were from him who created light and darkness, good and evil; she felt her cares falling from her, her soul absorbing itself in the sense of a divine love, awful, profound, immeasurable, underlying and transcending all things, incomprehensibly satisfying the soul and justifying and explaining the universe. the infinite fret and fume of life seemed like the petulance of an infant in the presence of this restful tenderness diffused through the great spaces. how holy the stars seemed up there in the quiet sky, like so many sabbath lights shedding visible consecration and blessing! yes, she would go back to her loved ones, back from this dainty room, with its white laces and perfumed draperies, back if need be to a ghetto garret. and in the ecstasy of her abandonment of all worldly things, a great peace fell upon her soul. in the morning the nostalgia of the ghetto was still upon her, blent with a passion of martyrdom that made her yearn for a lower social depth than was really necessary. but the more human aspects of the situation were paramount in the gray chillness of a bleak may dawn. her resolution to cross the atlantic forthwith seemed a little hasty, and though she did not flinch from it, she was not sorry to remember that she had not money enough for the journey. she must perforce stay in london till she had earned it; meantime she would go back to the districts and the people she knew so well, and accustom herself again to the old ways, the old simplicities of existence. she dressed herself in her plainest apparel, though she could not help her spring bonnet being pretty. she hesitated between a hat and a bonnet, but decided that her solitary position demanded as womanly an appearance as possible. do what she would, she could not prevent herself looking exquisitely refined, and the excitement of adventure had lent that touch of color to her face which made it fascinating. about seven o'clock she left her room noiselessly and descended the stairs cautiously, holding her little black bag in her hand. "och, be the holy mother, miss esther, phwat a turn you gave me," said mary o'reilly, emerging unexpectedly from the dining-room and meeting her at the foot of the stairs. "phwat's the matther?" "i'm going out, mary," she said, her heart beating violently. "sure an' it's rale purty ye look, miss esther; but it's divil a bit the marnin' for a walk, it looks a raw kind of a day, as if the weather was sorry for bein' so bright yisterday." "oh, but i must go, mary." "ah, the saints bliss your kind heart!" said mary, catching sight of the bag. "sure, then, it's a charity irrand you're bent on. i mind me how my blissed old masther, mr. goldsmith's father, _olov hasholom_, who's gone to glory, used to walk to _shool_ in all winds and weathers; sometimes it was five o'clock of a winter's marnin' and i used to get up and make him an iligant cup of coffee before he wint to _selichoth_; he niver would take milk and sugar in it, becaz that would be atin' belike, poor dear old ginthleman. ah the holy vargin be kind to him!" "and may she be kind to you, mary," said esther. and she impulsively pressed her lips to the old woman's seamed and wrinkled cheek, to the astonishment of the guardian of judaism. virtue was its own reward, for esther profited by the moment of the loquacious creature's breathlessness to escape. she opened the hall door and passed into the silent streets, whose cold pavements seemed to reflect the bleak stony tints of the sky. for the first few minutes she walked hastily, almost at a run. then her pace slackened; she told herself there was no hurry, and she shook her head when a cabman interrogated her. the omnibuses were not running yet. when they commenced, she would take one to whitechapel. the signs of awakening labor stirred her with new emotions; the early milkman with his cans, casual artisans with their tools, a grimy sweep, a work-girl with a paper lunch-package, an apprentice whistling. great sleeping houses lined her path like gorged monsters drowsing voluptuously. the world she was leaving behind her grew alien and repulsive, her heart went out to the patient world of toil. what had she been doing all these years, amid her books and her music and her rose-leaves, aloof from realities? the first 'bus overtook her half-way and bore her back to the ghetto. * * * * * the ghetto was all astir, for it was half-past eight of a work-a-day morning. but esther had not walked a hundred yards before her breast was heavy with inauspicious emotions. the well-known street she had entered was strangely broadened. instead of the dirty picturesque houses rose an appalling series of artisans' dwellings, monotonous brick barracks, whose dead, dull prose weighed upon the spirits. but, as in revenge, other streets, unaltered, seemed incredibly narrow. was it possible it could have taken even her childish feet six strides to cross them, as she plainly remembered? and they seemed so unspeakably sordid and squalid. could she ever really have walked them with light heart, unconscious of the ugliness? did the gray atmosphere that overhung them ever lift, or was it their natural and appropriate mantle? surely the sun could never shine upon these slimy pavements, kissing them to warmth and life. great magic shops where all things were to be had; peppermints and cotton, china-faced dolls and lemons, had dwindled into the front windows of tiny private dwelling-houses; the black-wigged crones, the greasy shambling men, were uglier and greasier than she had ever conceived them. they seemed caricatures of humanity; scarecrows in battered hats or draggled skirts. but gradually, as the scene grew upon her, she perceived that in spite of the "model dwellings" builder, it was essentially unchanged. no vestige of improvement had come over wentworth street: the narrow noisy market street, where serried barrows flanked the reeking roadway exactly as of old, and where esther trod on mud and refuse and babies. babies! they were everywhere; at the breasts of unwashed women, on the knees of grandfathers smoking pipes, playing under the barrows, sprawling in the gutters and the alleys. all the babies' faces were sickly and dirty with pathetic, childish prettinesses asserting themselves against the neglect and the sallowness. one female mite in a dingy tattered frock sat in an orange-box, surveying the bustling scene with a preternaturally grave expression, and realizing literally esther's early conception of the theatre. there was a sense of blankness in the wanderer's heart, of unfamiliarity in the midst of familiarity. what had she in common with all this mean wretchedness, with this semi-barbarous breed of beings? the more she looked, the more her heart sank. there was no flaunting vice, no rowdiness, no drunkenness, only the squalor of an oriental city without its quaintness and color. she studied the posters and the shop-windows, and caught old snatches of gossip from the groups in the butchers' shops--all seemed as of yore. and yet here and there the hand of time had traced new inscriptions. for baruch emanuel the hand of time had written a new placard. it was a mixture of german, bad english and cockneyese, phonetically spelt in hebrew letters: mens solen und eelen, / lydies deeto, / kindersche deeto, / hier wird gemacht aller hant sleepers fur trebbelers zu de billigsten preissen. baruch emanuel had prospered since the days when he wanted "lasters and riveters" without being able to afford them. he no longer gratuitously advertised _mordecai schwartz_ in envious emulation, for he had several establishments and owned five two-story houses, and was treasurer of his little synagogue, and spoke of socialists as an inferior variety of atheists. not that all this bourgeoning was to be counted to leather, for baruch had developed enterprises in all directions, having all the versatility of moses ansell without his catholic capacity for failure. the hand of time had also constructed a "working-men's métropole" almost opposite baruch emanuel's shop, and papered its outside walls with moral pictorial posters, headed, "where have you been to, thomas brown?" "mike and his moke," and so on. here, single-bedded cabins could be had as low as fourpence a night. from the journals in a tobacconist's window esther gathered that the reading-public had increased, for there were importations from new york, both in jargon and in pure hebrew, and from a large poster in yiddish and english, announcing a public meeting, she learned of the existence of an off-shoot of the holy land league--"the flowers of zion society--established by east-end youths for the study of hebrew and the propagation of the jewish national idea." side by side with this, as if in ironic illustration of the other side of the life of the ghetto, was a seeming royal proclamation headed v.r., informing the public that by order of the secretary of state for war a sale of wrought-and cast-iron, zinc, canvas, tools and leather would take place at the royal arsenal, woolwich. as she wandered on, the great school-bell began to ring; involuntarily, she quickened her step and joined the chattering children's procession. she could have fancied the last ten years a dream. were they, indeed, other children, or were they not the same that jostled her when she picked her way through this very slush in her clumsy masculine boots? surely those little girls in lilac print frocks were her classmates! it was hard to realize that time's wheel had been whirling on, fashioning her to a woman; that, while she had been living and learning and seeing the manners of men and cities, the ghetto, unaffected by her experiences, had gone on in the same narrow rut. a new generation of children had arisen to suffer and sport in room of the old, and that was all. the thought overwhelmed her, gave her a new and poignant sense of brute, blind forces; she seemed to catch in this familiar scene of childhood the secret of the gray atmosphere of her spirit, it was here she had, all insensibly, absorbed those heavy vapors that formed the background of her being, a permanent sombre canvas behind all the iridescent colors of joyous emotion. _what_ had she in common with all this mean wretchedness? why, everything. this it was with which her soul had intangible affinities, not the glory of sun and sea and forest, "the palms and temples of the south." the heavy vibrations of the bell ceased; the street cleared; esther turned back and walked instinctively homewards--to royal street. her soul was full of the sense of the futility of life; yet the sight of the great shabby house could still give her a chill. outside the door a wizened old woman with a chronic sniff had established a stall for wizened old apples, but esther passed her by heedless of her stare, and ascended the two miry steps that led to the mud-carpeted passage. the apple-woman took her for a philanthropist paying a surprise visit to one of the families of the house, and resented her as a spy. she was discussing the meanness of the thing with the pickled-herring dealer next door, while esther was mounting the dark stairs with the confidence of old habit. she was making automatically for the garret, like a somnambulist, with no definite object--morbidly drawn towards the old home. the unchanging musty smells that clung to the staircase flew to greet her nostrils, and at once a host of sleeping memories started to life, besieging her and pressing upon her on every side. after a tumultuous intolerable moment a childish figure seemed to break from the gloom ahead--the figure of a little girl with a grave face and candid eyes, a dutiful, obedient shabby little girl, so anxious to please her schoolmistress, so full of craving to learn and to be good, and to be loved by god, so audaciously ambitious of becoming a teacher, and so confident of being a good jewess always. satchel in hand, the little girl sped up the stairs swiftly, despite her cumbrous, slatternly boots, and esther, holding her bag, followed her more slowly, as if she feared to contaminate her by the touch of one so weary-worldly-wise, so full of revolt and despair. all at once esther sidled timidly towards the balustrade, with an instinctive movement, holding her bag out protectingly. the figure vanished, and esther awoke to the knowledge that "bobby" was not at his post. then with a flash came the recollection of bobby's mistress--the pale, unfortunate young seamstress she had so unconscionably neglected. she wondered if she were alive or dead. a waft of sickly odors surged from below; esther felt a deadly faintness coming over her; she had walked far, and nothing had yet passed her lips since yesterday's dinner, and at this moment, too, an overwhelming terrifying feeling of loneliness pressed like an icy hand upon her heart. she felt that in another instant she must swoon, there, upon the foul landing. she sank against the door, beating passionately at the panels. it was opened from within; she had just strength enough to clutch the door-post so as not to fall. a thin, careworn woman swam uncertainly before her eyes. esther could not recognize her, but the plain iron bed, almost corresponding in area with that of the room, was as of old, and so was the little round table with a tea-pot and a cup and saucer, and half a loaf standing out amid a litter of sewing, as if the owner had been interrupted in the middle of breakfast. stay--what was that journal resting against the half-loaf as for perusal during the meal? was it not the _london journal_? again she looked, but with more confidence, at the woman's face. a wave of curiosity, of astonishment at the stylishly dressed visitor, passed over it, but in the curves of the mouth, in the movement of the eyebrows, esther renewed indescribably subtle memories. "debby!" she cried hysterically. a great flood of joy swamped her soul. she was not alone in the world, after all! dutch debby uttered a little startled scream. "i've come back, debby, i've come back," and the next moment the brilliant girl-graduate fell fainting into the seamstress's arms. chapter xii. a sheaf of sequels. within half an hour esther was smiling pallidly and drinking tea out of debby's own cup, to debby's unlimited satisfaction. debby had no spare cup, but she had a spare chair without a back, and esther was of course seated on the other. her bonnet and cloak were on the bed. "and where is bobby?" inquired the young lady visitor. debby's joyous face clouded. "bobby is dead," she said softly. "he died four years ago, come next _shevuos_." "i'm so sorry," said esther, pausing in her tea-drinking with a pang of genuine emotion. "at first i was afraid of him, but that was before i knew him." "there never beat a kinder heart on god's earth," said debby, emphatically. "he wouldn't hurt a fly." esther had often seen him snapping at flies, but she could not smile. "i buried him secretly in the back yard," debby confessed. "see! there, where the paving stone is loose." esther gratified her by looking through the little back window into the sloppy enclosure where washing hung. she noticed a cat sauntering quietly over the spot without any of the satisfaction it might have felt had it known it was walking over the grave of an hereditary enemy. "so i don't feel as if he was far away," said debby. "i can always look out and picture him squatting above the stone instead of beneath it." "but didn't you get another?" "oh, how can you talk so heartlessly?" "forgive me, dear; of course you couldn't replace him. and haven't you had any other friends?" "who would make friends with me, miss ansell?" debby asked quietly. "i shall 'make out friends' with you, debby, if you call me that," said esther, half laughing, half crying. "what was it we used to say in school? i forget, but i know we used to wet our little fingers in our mouths and jerk them abruptly toward the other party. that's what i shall have to do with you." "oh well, esther, don't be cross. but you do look such a real lady. i always said you would grow up clever, didn't i, though?" "you did, dear, you did. i can never forgive myself for not having looked you up." "oh, but you had so much to do, i have no doubt," said debby magnanimously, though she was not a little curious to hear all esther's wonderful adventures and to gather more about the reasons of the girl's mysterious return than had yet been vouchsafed her. all she had dared to ask was about the family in america. "still, it was wrong of me," said esther, in a tone that brooked no protest. "suppose you had been in want and i could have helped you?" "oh, but you know i never take any help," said debby stiffly. "i didn't know that," said esther, touched. "have you never taken soup at the kitchen?" "i wouldn't dream of such a thing. do you ever remember me going to the board of guardians? i wouldn't go there to be bullied, not if i was starving. it's only the cadgers who don't want it who get relief. but, thank god, in the worst seasons i have always been able to earn a crust and a cup of tea. you see i am only a small family," concluded debby with a sad smile, "and the less one has to do with other people the better." esther started slightly, feeling a strange new kinship with this lonely soul. "but surely you would have taken help of me," she said. debby shook her head obstinately. "well, i'm not so proud," said esther with a tremulous smile, "for see, i have come to take help of you." then the tears welled forth and debby with an impulsive movement pressed the little sobbing form against her faded bodice bristling with pin-heads. esther recovered herself in a moment and drank some more tea. "are the same people living here?" she said. "not altogether. the belcovitches have gone up in the world. they live on the first floor now." "not much of a rise that," said esther smiling, for the belcovitches had always lived on the third floor. "oh, they could have gone to a better street altogether," explained debby, "only mr. belcovitch didn't like the expense of a van." "then, sugarman the _shadchan_ must have moved, too," said esther. "he used to have the first floor." "yes, he's got the third now. you see, people get tired of living in the same place. then ebenezer, who became very famous through writing a book (so he told me), went to live by himself, so they didn't want to be so grand. the back apartment at the top of the house you used once to inhabit,"--debby put it as delicately as she could--"is vacant. the last family had the brokers in." "are the belcovitches all well? i remember fanny married and went to manchester before i left here." "oh yes, they are all well." "what? even mrs. belcovitch?" "she still takes medicine, but she seems just as strong as ever." "becky married yet?" "oh no, but she has won two breach of promise cases." "she must be getting old." "she is a fine young woman, but the young men are afraid of her now." "then they don't sit on the stairs in the morning any more?" "no, young men seem so much less romantic now-a-days," said debby, sighing. "besides there's one flight less now and half the stairs face the street door. the next flight was so private." "i suppose i shall look in and see them all," said esther, smiling. "but tell me. is mrs. simons living here still?" "no." "where, then? i should like to see her. she was so very kind to little sarah, you know. nearly all our fried fish came from her." "she is dead. she died of cancer. she suffered a great deal." "oh!" esther put her cup down and sat back with face grown white. "i am afraid to ask about any one else," she said at last. "i suppose the sons of the covenant are getting on all right; _they_ can't be dead, at least not all of them." "they have split up," said debby gravely, "into two communities. mr. belcovitch and the shalotten _shammos_ quarrelled about the sale of the _mitzvahs_ at the rejoicing of the law two years ago. as far as i could gather, the carrying of the smallest scroll of the law was knocked down to the shalotten _shammos_, for eighteenpence, but mr. belcovitch, who had gone outside a moment, said he had bought up the privilege in advance to present to daniel hyams, who was a visitor, and whose old father had just died in jerusalem. there was nearly a free fight in the _shool_. so the shalotten _shammos_ seceded with nineteen followers and their wives and set up a rival _chevrah_ round the corner. the other twenty-five still come here. the deserters tried to take greenberg the _chazan_ with them, but greenberg wanted a stipulation that they wouldn't engage an extra reader to do his work during the high festivals; he even offered to do it cheaper if they would let him do all the work, but they wouldn't consent. as a compromise, they proposed to replace him only on the day of atonement, as his voice was not agreeable enough for that. but greenberg was obstinate. now i believe there is a movement for the sons of the covenant to connect their _chevrah_ with the federation of minor synagogues, but mr. belcovitch says he won't join the federation unless the term 'minor' is omitted. he is a great politician now." "ah, i dare say he reads _the flag of judah_," said esther, laughing, though debby recounted all this history quite seriously. "do you ever see that paper?" "i never heard of it before," said debby simply. "why should i waste money on new papers when i can always forget the _london journal_ sufficiently?" perhaps mr. belcovitch buys it: i have seen him with a yiddish paper. the 'hands' say that instead of breaking off suddenly in the middle of a speech, as of old, he sometimes stops pressing for five minutes together to denounce gideon, the member for whitechapel, and to say that mr. henry goldsmith is the only possible saviour of judaism in the house of commons." "ah, then he does read _the flag of judah_! his english must have improved." "i was glad to hear him say that," added debby, when she had finished struggling with the fit of coughing brought on by too much monologue, "because i thought it must be the husband of the lady who was so good to you. i never forgot her name." esther took up the _london journal_ to hide her reddening cheeks. "oh, read some of it aloud," cried dutch debby. "it'll be like old times." esther hesitated, a little ashamed of such childish behavior. but, deciding to fall in for a moment with the poor woman's humor, and glad to change the subject, she read: "soft scents steeped the dainty conservatory in delicious drowsiness. reclining on a blue silk couch, her wonderful beauty rather revealed than concealed by the soft clinging draperies she wore, rosaline smiled bewitchingly at the poor young peer, who could not pluck up courage to utter the words of flame that were scorching his lips. the moon silvered the tropical palms, and from the brilliant ball-room were wafted the sweet penetrating strains of the 'blue danube' waltz--" dutch debby heaved a great sigh of rapture. "and you have seen such sights!" she said in awed admiration. "i have been in brilliant ball-rooms and moonlit conservatories," said esther evasively. she did not care to rob dutch debby of her ideals by explaining that high life was not all passion and palm-trees. "i am so glad," said debby affectionately. "i have often wished to myself, only a make-believe wish, you know, not a real wish, if you understand what i mean, for of course i know it's impossible. i sometimes sit at that window before going to bed and look at the moon as it silvers the swaying clothes-props, and i can easily imagine they are great tropical palms, especially when an organ is playing round the corner. sometimes the moon shines straight down on bobby's tombstone, and then i am glad. ah, now you're smiling. i know you think me a crazy old thing." "indeed, indeed, dear, i think you're the darlingest creature in the world," and esther jumped up and kissed her to hide her emotion. "but i mustn't waste your time," she said briskly. "i know you have your sewing to do. it's too long to tell you my story now; suffice it to say (as the _london journal_ says) that i am going to take a lodging in the neighborhood. oh, dear, don't make those great eyes! i want to live in the east end." "you want to live here like a princess in disguise. i see." "no you don't, you romantic old darling. i want to live here like everybody else. i'm going to earn my own living." "oh, but you can never live by yourself." "why not? now from romantic you become conventional. _you've_ lived by yourself." "oh, but i'm different," said debby, flushing. "nonsense, i'm just as good as you. but if you think it improper," here esther had a sudden idea, "come and live with me." "what, be your chaperon!" cried debby in responsive excitement; then her voice dropped again. "oh, no, how could i?" "yes, yes, you must," said esther eagerly. debby's obstinate shake of the head repelled the idea. "i couldn't leave bobby," she said. after a pause, she asked timidly: "why not stay here?" "don't be ridiculous," esther answered. then she examined the bed. "two couldn't sleep here," she said. "oh yes, they could," said debby, thoughtfully bisecting the blanket with her hand. "and the bed's quite clean or i wouldn't venture to ask you. maybe it's not so soft as you've been used to." esther pondered; she was fatigued and she had undergone too many poignant emotions already to relish the hunt for a lodging. it was really lucky this haven offered itself. "i'll stay for to-night, anyhow," she announced, while debby's face lit up as with a bonfire of joy. "to-morrow we'll discuss matters further. and now, dear, can i help you with your sewing?" "no, esther, thank you kindly. you see there's only enough for one," said debby apologetically. "to-morrow there may be more. besides you were never as clever with your needle as your pen. you always used to lose marks for needlework, and don't you remember how you herring-boned the tucks of those petticoats instead of feather-stitching them? ha, ha, ha! i have often laughed at the recollection." "oh, that was only absence of mind," said esther, tossing her head in affected indignation. "if my work isn't good enough for you, i think i'll go down and help becky with her machine." she put on her bonnet, and, not without curiosity, descended a flight, of stairs and knocked at a door which, from the steady whirr going on behind it, she judged to be that of the work-room. "art thou a man or a woman?" came in yiddish the well-remembered tones of the valetudinarian lady. "a woman!" answered esther in german. she was glad she learned german; it would be the best substitute for yiddish in her new-old life. "_herein_!" said mrs. belcovitch, with sentry-like brevity. esther turned the handle, and her surprise was not diminished when she found herself not in the work-room, but in the invalid's bedroom. she almost stumbled over the pail of fresh water, the supply of which was always kept there. a coarse bouncing full-figured young woman, with frizzly black hair, paused, with her foot on the treadle of her machine, to stare at the newcomer. mrs. belcovitch, attired in a skirt and a night-cap, stopped aghast in the act of combing out her wig, which hung over an edge of the back of a chair, that served as a barber's block. like the apple-woman, she fancied the apparition a lady philanthropist--and though she had long ceased to take charity, the old instincts leaped out under the sudden shock. "becky, quick rub my leg with liniment, the thick one," she whispered in yiddish. "it's only me, esther ansell!" cried the visitor. "what! esther!" cried mrs. belcovitch. "_gott in himmel!"_ and, throwing down the comb, she fell in excess of emotion upon esther's neck. "i have so often wanted to see you," cried the sickly-looking little woman who hadn't altered a wrinkle. "often have i said to my becky, where is little esther?--gold one sees and silver one sees, but esther sees one not. is it not so, becky? oh, how fine you look! why, i mistook you for a lady! you are married--not? ah well, you'll find wooers as thick as the street dogs. and how goes it with the father and the family in america?" "excellently," answered esther. "how are you, becky?" becky murmured something, and the two young women shook hands. esther had an olden awe of becky, and becky was now a little impressed by esther. "i suppose mr. weingott is getting a good living now in manchester?" esther remarked cheerfully to mrs. belcovitch. "no, he has a hard struggle," answered his mother-in-law, "but i have seven grandchildren, god be thanked, and i expect an eighth. if my poor lambkin had been alive now, she would have been a great-grandmother. my eldest grandchild, hertzel, has a talent for the fiddle. a gentleman is paying for his lessons, god be thanked. i suppose you have heard i won four pounds on the lotter_ee_. you see i have not tried thirty years for nothing! if i only had my health, i should have little to grumble at. yes, four pounds, and what think you i have bought with it? you shall see it inside. a cupboard with glass doors, such as we left behind in poland, and we have hung the shelves with pink paper and made loops for silver forks to rest in--it makes me feel as if i had just cut off my tresses. but then i look on my becky and i remember that--go thou inside, becky, my life! thou makest it too hard for him. give him a word while i speak with esther." becky made a grimace and shrugged her shoulders, but disappeared through the door that led to the real workshop. "a fine maid!" said the mother, her eyes following the girl with pride. "no wonder she is so hard to please. she vexes him so that he eats out his heart. he comes every morning with a bag of cakes or an orange or a fat dutch herring, and now she has moved her machine to my bedroom, where he can't follow her, the unhappy youth." "who is it now?" inquired esther in amusement. "shosshi shmendrik." "shosshi shmendrik! wasn't that the young man who married the widow finkelstein?" "yes--a very honorable and seemly youth. but she preferred her first husband," said mrs. belcovitch laughing, "and followed him only four years after shosshi's marriage. shosshi has now all her money--a very seemly and honorable youth." "but will it come to anything?" "it is already settled. becky gave in two days ago. after all, she will not always be young. the _tanaim_ will be held next sunday. perhaps you would like to come and see the betrothal contract signed. the kovna _maggid_ will be here, and there will be rum and cakes to the heart's desire. becky has shosshi in great affection; they are just suited. only she likes to tease, poor little thing. and then she is so shy. go in and see them, and the cupboard with glass doors." esther pushed open the door, and mrs. belcovitch resumed her loving manipulation of the wig. the belcovitch workshop was another of the landmarks of the past that had undergone no change, despite the cupboard with glass doors and the slight difference in the shape of the room. the paper roses still bloomed in the corners of the mirror, the cotton-labels still adorned the wall around it. the master's new umbrella still stood unopened in a corner. the "hands" were other, but then mr. belcovitch's hands were always changing. he never employed "union-men," and his hirelings never stayed with him longer than they could help. one of the present batch, a bent, middle-aged man, with a deeply-lined face, was simon wolf, long since thrown over by the labor party he had created, and fallen lower and lower till he returned to the belcovitch workshop whence he sprang. wolf, who had a wife and six children, was grateful to mr. belcovitch in a dumb, sullen way, remembering how that capitalist had figured in his red rhetoric, though it was an extra pang of martyrdom to have to listen deferentially to belcovitch's numerous political and economical fallacies. he would have preferred the curter dogmatism of earlier days. shosshi shmendrik was chatting quite gaily with becky, and held her finger-tips cavalierly in his coarse fist, without obvious objection on her part. his face was still pimply, but it had lost its painful shyness and its readiness to blush without provocation. his bearing, too, was less clumsy and uncouth. evidently, to love the widow finkelstein had been a liberal education to him. becky had broken the news of esther's arrival to her father, as was evident from the odor of turpentine emanating from the opened bottle of rum on the central table. mr. belcovitch, whose hair was gray now, but who seemed to have as much stamina as ever, held out his left hand (the right was wielding the pressing-iron) without moving another muscle. "_nu_, it gladdens me to see you are better off than of old," he said gravely in yiddish. "thank you. i am glad to see you looking so fresh and healthy," replied esther in german. "you were taken away to be educated, was it not?" "yes." "and how many tongues do you know?" "four or five," said esther, smiling. "four or five!" repeated mr. belcovitch, so impressed that he stopped pressing. "then you can aspire to be a clerk! i know several firms where they have young women now." "don't be ridiculous, father," interposed becky. "clerks aren't so grand now-a-days as they used to be. very likely she would turn up her nose at a clerkship." "i'm sure i wouldn't," said esther. "there! thou hearest!" said mr. belcovitch, with angry satisfaction. "it is thou who hast too many flies in thy nostrils. thou wouldst throw over shosshi if thou hadst thine own way. thou art the only person in the world who listens not to me. abroad my word decides great matters. three times has my name been printed in _the flag of judah_. little esther had not such a father as thou, but never did she make mock of him." "of course, everybody's better than me," said becky petulantly, as she snatched her fingers away from shosshi. "no, thou art better than the whole world," protested shosshi shmendrik, feeling for the fingers. "who spoke to thee?" demanded belcovitch, incensed. "who spoke to thee?" echoed becky. and when shosshi, with empurpled pimples, cowered before both, father and daughter felt allies again, and peace was re-established at shosshi's expense. but esther's curiosity was satisfied. she seemed to see the whole future of this domestic group: belcovitch accumulating gold-pieces and mrs. belcovitch medicine-bottles till they died, and the lucky but henpecked shosshi gathering up half the treasure on behalf of the buxom becky. refusing the glass of rum, she escaped. the dinner which debby (under protest) did not pay for, consisted of viands from the beloved old cook-shop, the potatoes and rice of childhood being supplemented by a square piece of baked meat, likewise knives and forks. esther was anxious to experience again the magic taste and savor of the once coveted delicacies. alas! the preliminary sniff failed to make her mouth water, the first bite betrayed the inferiority of the potatoes used. even so the unattainable tart of infancy mocks the moneyed but dyspeptic adult. but she concealed her disillusionment bravely. "do you know," said debby, pausing in her voluptuous scouring of the gravy-lined plate with a bit of bread, "i can hardly believe my eyes. it seems a dream that you are sitting at dinner with me. pinch me, will you?" "you have been pinched enough," said esther sadly. which shows that one can pun with a heavy heart. this is one of the things shakspeare knew and dr. johnson didn't. in the afternoon, esther went round to zachariah square. she did not meet any of the old faces as she walked through the ghetto, though a little crowd that blocked her way at one point turned out to be merely spectators of an epileptic performance by meckisch. esther turned away, in amused disgust. she wondered whether mrs. meckisch still flaunted it in satins and heavy necklaces, or whether meckisch had divorced her, or survived her, or something equally inconsiderate. hard by the old ruins (which she found "ruined" by a railway) esther was almost run over by an iron hoop driven by a boy with a long swarthy face that irresistibly recalled malka's. "is your grandmother in town?" she said at a venture. "y--e--s," said the driver wonderingly. "she is over in her own house." esther did not hasten towards it. "your name's ezekiel, isn't it?" "yes," replied the boy; and then esther was sure it was the redeemed son of whom her father had told her. "are your mother and father well?" "father's away travelling." ezekiel's tone was a little impatient, his feet shuffled uneasily, itching to chase the flying hoop. "how's your aunt--your aunt--i forget her name." "aunt leah. she's gone to liverpool." "what for?" "she lives there; she has opened a branch store of granma's business. who are you?" concluded ezekiel candidly. "you won't remember me," said esther. "tell me, your aunt is called mrs. levine, isn't she?" "oh yes, but," with a shade of contempt, "she hasn't got any children." "how many brothers and sisters have _you_ got?" said esther with a little laugh. "heaps. oh, but you won't see them if you go in; they're in school, most of 'em." "and why aren't you at school?" the redeemed son became scarlet. "i've got a bad leg," ran mechanically off his tongue. then, administering a savage thwack to his hoop, he set out in pursuit of it. "it's no good calling on mother," he yelled back, turning his head unexpectedly. "she ain't in." esther walked into the square, where the same big-headed babies were still rocking in swings suspended from the lintels, and where the same ruddy-faced septuagenarians sat smoking short pipes and playing nap on trays in the sun. from several doorways came the reek of fish frying. the houses looked ineffably petty and shabby. esther wondered how she could ever have conceived this a region of opulence; still more how she could ever have located malka and her family on the very outskirt of the semi-divine classes. but the semi-divine persons themselves had long since shrunk and dwindled. she found malka brooding over the fire; on the side-table was the clothes-brush. the great events of a crowded decade of european history had left malka's domestic interior untouched. the fall of dynasties, philosophies and religions had not shaken one china dog from its place; she had not turned a hair of her wig; the black silk bodice might have been the same; the gold chain at her bosom was. time had written a few more lines on the tan-colored equine face, but his influence had been only skin deep. everybody grows old: few people grow. malka was of the majority. it was only with difficulty that she recollected esther, and she was visibly impressed by the young lady's appearance. "it's very good of you to come and see an old woman," she said in her mixed dialect, which skipped irresponsibly from english to yiddish and back again. "it's more than my own _kinder_ do. i wonder they let you come across and see me." "i haven't been to see them yet," esther interrupted. "ah, that explains it," said malka with satisfaction. "they'd have told you, 'don't go and see the old woman, she's _meshuggah_, she ought to be in the asylum.' i bring children into the world and buy them husbands and businesses and bed-clothes, and this is my profit. the other day my milly--the impudent-face! i would have boxed her ears if she hadn't been suckling nathaniel. let her tell me again that ink isn't good for the ring-worm, and my five fingers shall leave a mark on her face worse than any of gabriel's ring-worms. but i have washed my hands of her; she can go her way and i'll go mine. i've taken an oath i'll have nothing to do with her and her children--no, not if i live a thousand years. it's all through milly's ignorance she has had such heavy losses." "what! mr. phillips's business been doing badly? i'm so sorry." "no, no! my family never does bad business. it's my milly's children. she lost two. as for my leah, god bless her, she's been more unfortunate still; i always said that old beggar-woman had the evil eye! i sent her to liverpool with her sam." "i know," murmured esther. "but she is a good daughter. i wish i had a thousand such. she writes to me every week and my little ezekiel writes back; english they learn them in that heathen school," malka interrupted herself sarcastically, "and it was i who had to learn him to begin a letter properly with 'i write you these few lines hoping to find you in good health as, thank god, it leaves me at present;' he used to begin anyhow--" she came to a stop, having tangled the thread of her discourse and bethought herself of offering esther a peppermint. but esther refused and bethought herself of inquiring after mr. birnbaum. "my michael is quite well, thank god," said malka, "though he is still pig-headed in business matters! he buys so badly, you know; gives a hundred pounds for what's not worth twenty." "but you said business was all right?" "ah, that's different. of course he sells at a good profit,--thank god. if i wanted to provoke providence i could keep my carriage like any of your grand west-end ladies. but that doesn't make him a good buyer. and the worst of it is he always thinks he has got a bargain. he won't listen to reason, at all," said malka, shaking her head dolefully. "he might be a child of mine, instead of my husband. if god didn't send him such luck and blessing, we might come to want bread, coal, and meat tickets ourselves, instead of giving them away. do you know i found out that mrs. isaacs, across the square, only speculates her guinea in the drawings to give away the tickets she wins to her poor relations, so that she gets all the credit of charity and her name in the papers, while saving the money she'd have to give to her poor relations all the same! nobody can say i give my tickets to my poor relations. you should just see how much my michael vows away at _shool_--he's been _parnass_ for the last twelve years straight off; all the members respect him so much; it isn't often you see a business man with such fear of heaven. wait! my ezekiel will be _barmitzvah_ in a few years; then you shall see what i will do for that _shool_. you shall see what an example of _yiddshkeit_ i will give to a _link_ generation. mrs. benjamin, of the ruins, purified her knives and forks for passover by sticking them between the boards of the floor. would you believe she didn't make them red hot first? i gave her a bit of my mind. she said she forgot. but not she! she's no cat's head. she's a regular christian, that's what she is. i shouldn't wonder if she becomes one like that blackguard, david brandon; i always told my milly he was not the sort of person to allow across the threshold. it was sam levine who brought him. you see what comes of having the son of a proselyte in the family! some say reb shemuel's daughter narrowly escaped being engaged to him. but that story has a beard already. i suppose it's the sight of you brings up _olov hashotom_ times. well, and how _are_ you?" she concluded abruptly, becoming suddenly conscious of imperfect courtesy. "oh, i'm very well, thank you," said esther. "ah, that's right. you're looking very well, _imbeshreer_. quite a grand lady. i always knew you'd be one some day. there was your poor mother, peace be upon him! she went and married your father, though i warned her he was a _schnorrer_ and only wanted her because she had a rich family; he'd have sent you out with matches if i hadn't stopped it. i remember saying to him, 'that little esther has aristotle's head--let her learn all she can, as sure as i stand here she will grow up to be a lady; i shall have no need to be ashamed of owning her for a cousin.' he was not so pig-headed as your mother, and you see the result." she surveyed the result with an affectionate smile, feeling genuinely proud of her share in its production. "if my ezekiel were only a few years older," she added musingly. "oh, but i am not a great lady," said esther, hastening to disclaim false pretensions to the hand of the hero of the hoop, "i've left the goldsmiths and come back to live in the east end." "what!" said malka. "left the west end!" her swarthy face grew darker; the skin about her black eyebrows was wrinkled with wrath. "are you _meshuggah_?" she asked after an awful silence. "or have you, perhaps, saved up a tidy sum of money?" esther flushed and shook her head. "there's no use coming to me. i'm not a rich woman, far from it; and i have been blessed with _kinder_ who are helpless without me. it's as i always said to your father. 'méshe,' i said, 'you're a _schnorrer_ and your children'll grow up _schnorrers_.'" esther turned white, but the dwindling of malka's semi-divinity had diminished the old woman's power of annoying her. "i want to earn my own living," she said, with a smile that was almost contemptuous. "do you call that being a _schnorrer_?" "don't argue with me. you're just like your poor mother, peace be upon him!" cried the irate old woman. "you god's fool! you were provided for in life and you have no right to come upon the family." "but isn't it _schnorring_ to be dependent on strangers?" inquired esther with bitter amusement. "don't stand there with your impudence-face!" cried malka, her eyes blazing fire. "you know as well as i do that a _schnorrer_ is a person you give sixpences to. when a rich family takes in a motherless girl like you and clothes her and feeds her, why it's mocking heaven to run away and want to earn your own living. earn your living. pooh! what living can you earn, you with your gloves? you're all by yourself in the world now; your father can't help you any more. he did enough for you when you were little, keeping you at school when you ought to have been out selling matches. you'll starve and come to me, that's what you'll do." "i may starve, but i'll never come to you," said esther, now really irritated by the truth in malka's words. what living, indeed, could she earn! she turned her back haughtily on the old woman; not without a recollection of a similar scene in her childhood. history was repeating itself on a smaller scale than seemed consistent with its dignity. when she got outside she saw milly in conversation with a young lady at the door of her little house, diagonally opposite. milly had noticed the strange visitor to her mother, for the rival camps carried on a system of espionage from behind their respective gauze blinds, and she had come to the door to catch a better glimpse of her when she left. esther was passing through zachariah square without any intention of recognizing milly. the daughter's flaccid personality was not so attractive as the mother's; besides, a visit to her might be construed into a mean revenge on the old woman. but, as if in response to a remark of milly's, the young lady turned her face to look at esther, and then esther saw that it was hannah jacobs. she felt hot and uncomfortable, and half reluctant to renew acquaintance with levi's family, but with another impulse she crossed over to the group, and went through the inevitable formulae. then, refusing milly's warm-hearted invitation to have a cup of tea, she shook hands and walked away. "wait a minute, miss ansell," said hannah. "i'll come with you." milly gave her a shilling, with a facetious grimace, and she rejoined esther. "i'm collecting money for a poor family of _greeners_ just landed," she said. "they had a few roubles, but they fell among the usual sharks at the docks, and the cabman took all the rest of their money to drive them to the lane. i left them all crying and rocking themselves to and fro in the street while i ran round to collect a little to get them a lodging." "poor things!" said esther. "ah, i can see you've been away from the jews," said hannah smiling. "in the olden days you would have said _achi-nebbich_." "should i?" said esther, smiling in return and beginning to like hannah. she had seen very little of her in those olden days, for hannah had been an adult and well-to-do as long as esther could remember; it seemed amusing now to walk side by side with her in perfect equality and apparently little younger. for hannah's appearance had not aged perceptibly, which was perhaps why esther recognized her at once. she had not become angular like her mother, nor coarse and stout like other mothers. she remained slim and graceful, with a virginal charm of expression. but the pretty face had gained in refinement; it looked earnest, almost spiritual, telling of suffering and patience, not unblent with peace. esther silently extracted half-a-crown from her purse and handed it to hannah. "i didn't mean to ask you, indeed i didn't," said hannah. "oh, i am glad you told me," said esther tremulously. the idea of _her_ giving charity, after the account of herself she had just heard, seemed ironical enough. she wished the transfer of the coin had taken place within eyeshot of malka; then dismissed the thought as unworthy. "you'll come in and have a cup of tea with us, won't you, after we've lodged the _greeners_?" said hannah. "now don't say no. it'll brighten up my father to see 'reb moshe's little girl.'" esther tacitly assented. "i heard of all of you recently," she said, when they had hurried on a little further. "i met your brother at the theatre." hannah's face lit up. "how long was that ago?" she said anxiously. "i remember exactly. it was the night before the first _seder_ night." "was he well?" "perfectly." "oh, i am so glad." she told esther of levi's strange failure to appear at the annual family festival. "my father went out to look for him. our anxiety was intolerable. he did not return until half-past one in the morning. he was in a terrible state. 'well,' we asked, 'have you seen him?' 'i have seen him,' he answered. 'he is dead.'" esther grew pallid. was this the sequel to the strange episode in mr. henry goldsmith's library? "of course he wasn't really dead," pursued hannah to esther's relief. "my father would hardly speak a word more, but we gathered he had seen him doing something very dreadful, and that henceforth levi would be dead to him. since then we dare not speak his name. please don't refer to him at tea. i went to his rooms on the sly a few days afterwards, but he had left them, and since then i haven't been able to hear anything of him. sometimes i fancy he's gone off to the cape." "more likely to the provinces with a band of strolling players. he told me he thought of throwing up the law for the boards, and i know you cannot make a beginning in london." "do you think that's it?" said hannah, looking relieved in her turn. "i feel sure that's the explanation, if he's not in london. but what in heaven's name can your father have seen him doing?" "nothing very dreadful, depend upon it," said hannah, a slight shade of bitterness crossing her wistful features. "i know he's inclined to be wild, and he should never have been allowed to get the bit between his teeth, but i dare say it was only some ceremonial crime levi was caught committing." "certainly. that would be it," said esther. "he confessed to me that he was very _link_. judging by your tone, you seem rather inclined that way yourself," she said, smiling and a little surprised. "do i? i don't know," said hannah, simply. "sometimes i think i'm very _froom_." "surely you know what you are?" persisted esther. hannah shook her head. "well, you know whether you believe in judaism or not?" "i don't know what i believe. i do everything a jewess ought to do, i suppose. and yet--oh, i don't know." esther's smile faded; she looked at her companion with fresh interest. hannah's face was full of brooding thought, and she had unconsciously come to a standstill. "i wonder whether anybody understands herself," she said reflectively. "do you?" esther flushed at the abrupt question without knowing why. "i--i don't know," she stammered. "no, i don't think anybody does, quite," hannah answered. "i feel sure i don't. and yet--yes, i do. i must be a good jewess. i must believe my life." somehow the tears came into her eyes; her face had the look of a saint. esther's eyes met hers in a strange subtle glance. then their souls were knit. they walked on rapidly. "well, i do hope you'll hear from him soon," said esther. "it's cruel of him not to write," replied hannah, knowing she meant levi; "he might easily send me a line in a disguised hand. but then, as miriam hyams always says, brothers are so selfish." "oh, how is miss hyams? i used to be in her class." "i could guess that from your still calling her miss," said hannah with a gentle smile. "why, is she married?" "no, no; i don't mean that. she still lives with her brother and his wife; he married sugarman the _shadchan's_ daughter, you know." "bessie, wasn't it?" "yes; they are a devoted couple, and i suspect miriam is a little jealous; but she seems to enjoy herself anyway. i don't think there is a piece at the theatres she can't tell you about, and she makes daniel take her to all the dances going." "is she still as pretty?" asked esther. "i know all her girls used to rave over her and throw her in the faces of girls with ugly teachers. she certainly knew how to dress." "she dresses better than ever," said hannah evasively. "that sounds ominous," observed esther, laughingly. "oh, she's good-looking enough! her nose seems to have turned up more; but perhaps that's an optical illusion; she talks so sarcastically now-a-days that i seem to see it." hannah smiled a little. "she doesn't think much of jewish young men. by the way, are you engaged yet, esther?" "what an idea!" murmured esther, blushing beneath her spotted veil. "well, you're very young," said hannah, glancing down at the smaller figure with a sweet matronly smile. "i shall never marry," esther said in low tones. "don't be ridiculous, esther! there's no happiness for a woman without it. you needn't talk like miriam hyams--at least not yet. oh yes, i know what you're thinking--" "no, i'm not," faintly protested esther "yes, you are," said hannah, smiling at the paradoxical denial. "but who'd have _me_? ah, here are the _greeners_!" and her smile softened to angelic tenderness. it was a frowzy, unsightly group that sat on the pavement, surrounded by a semi-sympathetic crowd--the father in a long grimy coat, the mother covered, as to her head, with a shawl, which also contained the baby. but the elders were naively childish and the children uncannily elderly; and something in esther's breast seemed to stir with a strange sense of kinship. the race instinct awoke to consciousness of itself. dulled by contact with cultured jews, transformed almost to repulsion by the spectacle of the coarsely prosperous, it leaped into life at the appeal of squalor and misery. in the morning the ghetto had simply chilled her; her heart had turned to it as to a haven, and the reality was dismal. now that the first ugliness had worn off, she felt her heart warming. her eyes moistened. she thrilled from head to foot with the sense of a mission--of a niche in the temple of human service which she had been predestined to fill. who could comprehend as she these stunted souls, limited in all save suffering? happiness was not for her; but service remained. penetrated by the new emotion, she seemed to herself to have found the key to hannah's holy calm. with the money now in hand, the two girls sought a lodging for the poor waifs. esther suddenly remembered the empty back garret in no. royal street, and here, after due negotiations with the pickled-herring dealer next door, the family was installed. esther's emotions at the sight of the old place were poignant; happily the bustle of installation, of laying down a couple of mattresses, of borrowing dutch debby's tea-things, and of getting ready a meal, allayed their intensity. that little figure with the masculine boots showed itself but by fits and flashes. but the strangeness of the episode formed the undercurrent of all her thoughts; it seemed to carry to a climax the irony of her initial gift to hannah. escaping from the blessings of the _greeners_, she accompanied her new friend to reb shemuel's. she was shocked to see the change in the venerable old man; he looked quite broken up. but he was chivalrous as of yore: the vein of quiet humor was still there, though his voice was charged with gentle melancholy. the rebbitzin's nose had grown sharper than ever; her soul seemed to have fed on vinegar. even in the presence of a stranger the rebbitzin could not quite conceal her dominant thought. it hardly needed a woman to divine how it fretted mrs. jacobs that hannah was an old maid; it needed a woman like esther to divine that hannah's renunciation was voluntary, though even esther could not divine her history nor understand that her mother's daily nagging was the greater because the pettier part of her martyrdom. * * * * * they all jumbled themselves into grotesque combinations, the things of to-day and the things of endless yesterdays, as esther slept in the narrow little bed next to dutch debby, who squeezed herself into the wall, pretending to revel in exuberant spaciousness. it was long before she could get to sleep. the excitement of the day had brought on her headache; she was depressed by restriking the courses of so many narrow lives; the glow of her new-found mission had already faded in the thought that she was herself a pauper, and she wished she had let the dead past lie in its halo, not peered into the crude face of reality. but at bottom she felt a subtle melancholy joy in understanding herself at last, despite hannah's scepticism; in penetrating the secret of her pessimism, in knowing herself a child of the ghetto. and yet pesach weingott played the fiddle merrily enough when she went to becky's engagement-party in her dreams, and galoped with shosshi shmendrik, disregarding the terrible eyes of the bride to be: when hannah, wearing an aureole like a bridal veil, paired off with meckisch, frothing at the mouth with soap, and mrs. belcovitch, whirling a medicine-bottle, went down the middle on a pair of huge stilts, one a thick one and one a thin one, while malka spun round like a teetotum, throwing ezekiel in long clothes through a hoop; what time moses ansell waltzed superbly with the dazzling addie leon, quite cutting out levi and miriam hyams, and raphael awkwardly twisted the widow finkelstein, to the evident delight of sugarman the _shadchan_, who had effected the introduction. it was wonderful how agile they all were, and how dexterously they avoided treading on her brother benjamin, who lay unconcernedly in the centre of the floor, taking assiduous notes in a little copy-book for incorporation in a great novel, while mrs. henry goldsmith stooped down to pat his brown hair patronizingly. esther thought it very proper of the grateful _greeners_ to go about offering the dancers rum from dutch debby's tea-kettle, and very selfish of sidney to stand in a corner, refusing to join in the dance and making cynical remarks about the whole thing for the amusement of the earnest little figure she had met on the stairs. chapter xiii. the dead monkey again. esther woke early, little refreshed. the mattress was hard, and in her restricted allowance of space she had to deny herself the luxury of tossing and turning lest she should arouse debby. to open one's eyes on a new day is not pleasant when situations have to be faced. esther felt this disagreeable duty could no longer be shirked. malka's words rang in her ears. how, indeed, could she earn a living? literature had failed her; with journalism she had no point of contact save _the flag of judah_, and that journal was out of the question. teaching--the last resort of the hopeless--alone remained. maybe even in the ghetto there were parents who wanted their children to learn the piano, and who would find esther's mediocre digital ability good enough. she might teach as of old in an elementary school. but she would not go back to her own--all the human nature in her revolted at the thought of exposing herself to the sympathy of her former colleagues. nothing was to be gained by lying sleepless in bed, gazing at the discolored wallpaper and the forlorn furniture. she slipped out gently and dressed herself, the absence of any apparatus for a bath making her heart heavier with reminders of the realities of poverty. it was not easy to avert her thoughts from her dainty bedroom of yesterday. but she succeeded; the cheerlessness of the little chamber turned her thoughts backwards to the years of girlhood, and when she had finished dressing she almost mechanically lit the fire and put the kettle to boil. her childish dexterity returned, unimpaired by disuse. when debby awoke, she awoke to a cup of tea ready for her to drink in bed--an unprecedented luxury, which she received with infinite consternation and pleasure. "why, it's like the duchesses who have lady's-maids," she said, "and read french novels before getting up." to complete the picture, her hand dived underneath the bed and extracted a _london journal_, at the risk of upsetting the tea. "but it's you who ought to be in bed, not me." "i've been a sluggard too often," laughed esther, catching the contagion of good spirits from debby's radiant delight. perhaps the capacity for simple pleasures would come back to her, too. at breakfast they discussed the situation. "i'm afraid the bed's too small," said esther, when debby kindly suggested a continuance of hospitality. "perhaps i took up too much room," said the hostess. "no, dear; you took up too little. we should have to have a wider bed and, as it is, the bed is almost as big as the room." "there's the back garret overhead! it's bigger, and it looks on the back yard just as well. i wouldn't mind moving there," said debby, "though i wouldn't let old guggenheim know that i value the view of the back yard, or else he'd raise the rent." "you forget the _greeners_ who moved in yesterday." "oh, so i do!" answered debby with a sigh. "strange," said esther, musingly, "that i should have shut myself out of my old home." the postman's knuckles rapping at the door interrupted her reflections. in royal street the poor postmen had to mount to each room separately; fortunately, the tenants got few letters. debby was intensely surprised to get one. "it isn't for me at all," she cried, at last, after a protracted examination of the envelope; "it's for you, care of me." "but that's stranger still." said esther. "nobody in the world knows my address." the mystery was not lessened by the contents. there was simply a blank sheet of paper, and when this was unfolded a half-sovereign rolled out. the postmark was houndsditch. after puzzling herself in vain, and examining at length the beautiful copy-book penmanship of the address, esther gave up the enigma. but it reminded her that it would be advisable to apprise her publishers of her departure from the old address, and to ask them to keep any chance letter till she called. she betook herself to their offices, walking. the day was bright, but esther walked in gloom, scarcely daring to think of her position. she entered the office, apathetically hopeless. the junior partner welcomed her heartily. "i suppose you've come about your account," he said. "i have been intending to send it you for some months, but we are so busy bringing out new things before the dead summer season comes on." he consulted his books. "perhaps you would rather not be bothered," he said, "with a formal statement. i have it all clearly here--the book's doing fairly well--let me write you a cheque at once!" she murmured assent, her cheeks blanching, her heart throbbing with excitement and surprise. "there you are--sixty-two pounds ten," he said. "our profits are just one hundred and twenty-five. if you'll endorse it, i'll send a clerk to the bank round the corner and get it cashed for you at once." the pen scrawled an agitated autograph that would not have been accepted at the foot of a cheque, if esther had had a banking account of her own. "but i thought you said the book was a failure," she said. "so it was," he answered cheerfully, "so it was at first. but gradually, as its nature leaked out, the demand increased. i understand from mudie's that it was greatly asked for by their jewish clients. you see, when there's a run on a three-volume book, the profits are pretty fair. i believed in it myself, or i should never have given you such good terms nor printed seven hundred and fifty copies. i shouldn't be surprised if we find ourselves able to bring it out in one-volume form in the autumn. we shall always be happy to consider any further work of yours; something on the same lines, i should recommend." the recommendation did not convey any definite meaning to her at the moment. still in a pleasant haze, she stuffed the twelve five-pound notes and the three gold-pieces into her purse, scribbled a receipt, and departed. afterwards the recommendation rang mockingly in her ears. she felt herself sterile, written out already. as for writing again on the same lines, she wondered what raphael would think if he knew of the profits she had reaped by bespattering his people. but there! raphael was a prig like the rest. it was no use worrying about _his_ opinions. affluence had come to her--that was the one important and exhilarating fact. besides, had not the hypocrites really enjoyed her book? a new wave of emotion swept over her--again she felt strong enough to defy the whole world. when she got "home," debby said, "hannah jacobs called to see you." "oh, indeed, what did she want?" "i don't know, but from something she said i believe i can guess who sent the half-sovereign." "not reb shemuel?" said esther, astonished. "no, _your_ cousin malka. it seems that she saw hannah leaving zachariah square with you, and so went to her house last night to get your address." esther did not know whether to laugh or be angry; she compromised by crying. people were not so bad, after all, nor the fates so hard to her. it was only a little april shower of tears, and soon she was smiling and running upstairs to give the half-sovereign to the _greeners_. it would have been ungracious to return it to malka, and she purchased all the luxury of doing good, including the effusive benedictions of the whole family, on terms usually obtainable only by professional almoners. then she told debby of her luck with the publishers. profound was debby's awe at the revelation that esther was able to write stories equal to those in the _london journal_. after that, debby gave up the idea of esther living or sleeping with her; she would as soon have thought of offering a share of her bed to the authoresses of the tales under it. debby suffered scarce any pang when her one-night companion transferred herself to reb shemuel's. for it was to suggest this that hannah had called. the idea was her father's; it came to him when she told him of esther's strange position. but esther said she was going to america forthwith, and she only consented on condition of being allowed to pay for her keep during her stay. the haggling was hard, but esther won. hannah gave up her room to esther, and removed her own belongings to levi's bedroom, which except at festival seasons had been unused for years, though the bed was always kept ready for him. latterly the women had had to make the bed from time to time, and air the room, when reb shemuel was at synagogue. esther sent her new address to her brothers and sisters, and made inquiries as to the prospects of educated girls in the states. in reply she learned that rachel was engaged to be married. her correspondents were too taken up with this gigantic fact to pay satisfactory attention to her inquiries. the old sense of protecting motherhood came back to esther when she learned the news. rachel was only eighteen, but at once esther felt middle-aged. it seemed of the fitness of things that she should go to america and resume her interrupted maternal duties. isaac and sarah were still little more than children, perhaps they had not yet ceased bickering about their birthdays. she knew her little ones would jump for joy, and isaac still volunteer sleeping accommodation in his new bed, even though the necessity for it had ceased. she cried when she received the cutting from the american jewish paper; under other circumstances she would have laughed. it was one of a batch headed "personals," and ran: "sam wiseberg, the handsome young drummer, of cincinnati, has become engaged to rachel ansell, the fair eighteen-year-old type-writer and daughter of moses ansell, a well-known chicago hebrew. life's sweetest blessings on the pair! the marriage will take place in the fall." esther dried her eyes and determined to be present at the ceremony. it is so grateful to the hesitant soul to be presented with a landmark. there was nothing to be gained now by arriving before the marriage; nay, her arrival just in time for it would clench the festivities. meantime she attached herself to hannah's charitable leading-strings, alternately attracted to the children of the ghetto by their misery, and repulsed by their failings. she seemed to see them now in their true perspective, correcting the vivid impressions of childhood by the insight born of wider knowledge of life. the accretion of pagan superstition was greater than she had recollected. mothers averted fever by a murmured charm and an expectoration, children in new raiment carried bits of coal or salt in their pockets to ward off the evil-eve. on the other hand, there was more resourcefulness, more pride of independence. her knowledge of moses ansell had misled her into too sweeping a generalization. and she was surprised to realize afresh how much illogical happiness flourished amid penury, ugliness and pain. after school-hours the muggy air vibrated with the joyous laughter of little children, tossing their shuttlecocks, spinning their tops, turning their skipping-ropes, dancing to barrel-organs or circling hand-in-hand in rings to the sound of the merry traditional chants of childhood. esther often purchased a pennyworth of exquisite pleasure by enriching some sad-eyed urchin. hannah (whose own scanty surplus was fortunately augmented by an anonymous west-end reform jew, who employed her as his agent) had no prepossessions to correct, no pendulum-oscillations to distract her, no sentimental illusions to sustain her. she knew the ghetto as it was; neither expected gratitude from the poor, nor feared she might "pauperize them," knowing that the poor jew never exchanges his self-respect for respect for his benefactor, but takes by way of rightful supplement to his income. she did not drive families into trickery, like ladies of the west, by being horrified to find them eating meat. if she presided at a stall at a charitable sale of clothing, she was not disheartened if articles were snatched from under her hand, nor did she refuse loans because borrowers sometimes merely used them to evade the tallyman by getting their jewelry at cash prices. she not only gave alms to the poor, but made them givers, organizing their own farthings into a powerful auxiliary of the institutions which helped them. hannah's sweet patience soothed esther, who had no natural aptitude for personal philanthropy; the primitive, ordered pieties of the reb's household helping to give her calm. though she accepted the inevitable, and had laughed in melancholy mockery at the exaggerated importance given to love by the novelists (including her cruder self), she dreaded meeting raphael leon. it was very unlikely her whereabouts would penetrate to the west; and she rarely went outside of the ghetto by day, or even walked within it in the evening. in the twilight, unless prostrated by headache, she played on hannah's disused old-fashioned grand piano. it had one cracked note which nearly always spoiled the melody; she would not have the note repaired, taking a morbid pleasure in a fantastic analogy between the instrument and herself. on friday nights after the sabbath-hymns she read _the flag of judah_. she was not surprised to find reb shemuel beginning to look askance at his favorite paper. she noted a growing tendency in it to insist mainly on the ethical side of judaism, salvation by works being contrasted with the salvation by spasm of popular christianity. once kingsley's line, "do noble things, not dream them all day long," was put forth as "judaism _versus_ christianity in a nut-shell;" and the writer added, "for so thy dreams shall become noble, too." sometimes she fancied phrases and lines of argument were aimed at her. was it the editor's way of keeping in touch with her, using his leaders as a medium of communication--a subtly sweet secret known only to him and her? was it fair to his readers? then she would remember his joke about the paper being started merely to convert her, and she would laugh. sometimes he repeated what he already said to her privately, so that she seemed to hear him talking. then she would shake her head, and say, "i love you for your blindness, but i have the terrible gift of vision." chapter xiv. sidney settles down. mrs. henry goldsmith's newest seaside resort had the artistic charm which characterized everything she selected. it was a straggling, hilly, leafy village, full of archaic relics--human as well as architectural--sloping down to a gracefully curved bay, where the blue waves broke in whispers, for on summer days a halcyon calm overhung this magic spot, and the great sea stretched away, unwrinkled, ever young. there were no neutral tones in the colors of this divine picture--the sea was sapphire, the sky amethyst. there were dark-red houses nestling amid foliage, and green-haired monsters of gray stone squatted about on the yellow sand, which was strewn with quaint shells and mimic earth-worms, cunningly wrought by the waves. half a mile to the east a blue river rippled into the bay. the white bathing tents which mrs. goldsmith had pitched stood out picturesquely, in harmonious contrast with the rich boscage that began to climb the hills in the background. mrs. goldsmith's party lived in the manse; it was pretty numerous, and gradually overflowed into the bedrooms of the neighboring cottages. mr. goldsmith only came down on saturday, returning on monday. one friday mr. percy saville, who had been staying for the week, left suddenly for london, and next day the beautiful hostess poured into her husband's projecting ears a tale that made him gnash his projecting teeth, and cut the handsome stockbroker off his visiting-list for ever. it was only an indiscreet word that the susceptible stockbroker had spoken--under the poetic influences of the scene. his bedroom came in handy, for sidney unexpectedly dropped down from norway, _via_ london, on the very friday. the poetic influences of the scene soon infected the newcomer, too. on the saturday he was lost for hours, and came up smiling, with addie on his arm. on the sunday afternoon the party went boating up the river--a picturesque medley of flannels and parasols. once landed, sidney and addie did not return for tea, prior to re-embarking. while mr. montagu samuels was gallantly handing round the sugar, they were sitting somewhere along the bank, half covered with leaves, like babes in the wood. the sunset burned behind the willows--a fiery rhapsody of crimson and orange. the gay laughter of the picnic-party just reached their ears; otherwise, an almost solemn calm prevailed--not a bird twittered, not a leaf stirred. "it'll be all over london to-morrow," said sidney in a despondent tone. "i'm afraid so," said addie, with a delicious laugh. the sweet english meadows over which her humid eyes wandered were studded with simple wild-flowers. addie vaguely felt the angels had planted such in eden. sidney could not take his eyes off his terrestrial angel clad in appropriate white. confessed love had given the last touch to her intoxicating beauty. she gratified his artistic sense almost completely. but she seemed to satisfy deeper instincts, too. as he looked into her limpid, trustful eyes, he felt he had been a weak fool. an irresistible yearning to tell her all his past and crave forgiveness swept over him. "addie," he said, "isn't it funny i should be marrying a jewish girl, after all?" he wanted to work round to it like that, to tell her of his engagement to miss hannibal at least, and how, on discovering with whom he was really in love, he had got out of it simply by writing to the wesleyan m.p. that he was a jew--a fact sufficient to disgust the disciple of dissent and the claimant champion of religious liberty. but addie only smiled at the question. "you smile," he said: "i see you do think it funny." "that's not why i am smiling." "then why are you smiling?" the lovely face piqued him; he kissed the lips quickly with a bird-like peck. "oh--i--no, you wouldn't understand." "that means _you_ don't understand. but there! i suppose when a girl is in love, she's not accountable for her expression. all the same, it is strange. you know, addie dear, i have come to the conclusion that judaism exercises a strange centrifugal and centripetal effect on its sons--sometimes it repulses them, sometimes it draws them; only it never leaves them neutral. now, here had i deliberately made up my mind not to marry a jewess." "oh! why not?" said addie, pouting. "merely because she would be a jewess. it's a fact." "and why have you broken your resolution?" she said, looking up naively into his face, so that the scent of her hair thrilled him. "i don't know." he said frankly, scarcely giving the answer to be expected. "_c'est plus fort que moi_. i've struggled hard, but i'm beaten. isn't there something of the kind in esther--in miss ansell's book? i know i've read it somewhere--and anything that's beastly subtle i always connect with her." "poor esther!" murmured addie. sidney patted her soft warm hand, and smoothed the finely-curved arm, and did not seem disposed to let the shadow of esther mar the moment, though he would ever remain grateful to her for the hint which had simultaneously opened his eyes to addie's affection for him, and to his own answering affection so imperceptibly grown up. the river glided on softly, glorified by the sunset. "it makes one believe in a dogged destiny," he grumbled, "shaping the ends of the race, and keeping it together, despite all human volition. to think that i should be doomed to fall in love, not only with a jewess but with a pious jewess! but clever men always fall in love with conventional women. i wonder what makes you so conventional, addie." addie, still smiling, pressed his hand in silence, and gazed at him in fond admiration. "ah, well, since you are so conventional, you may as well kiss me." addie's blush deepened, her eyes sparkled ere she lowered them, and subtly fascinating waves of expression passed across the lovely face. "they'll be wondering what on earth has become of us," she said. "it shall be nothing on earth--something in heaven," he answered. "kiss me, or i shall call you unconventional." she touched his cheek hurriedly with her soft lips. "a very crude and amateur kiss," he said critically. "however, after all, i have an excuse for marrying you--which all clever jews who marry conventional jewesses haven't got--you're a fine model. that is another of the many advantages of my profession. i suppose you'll be a model wife, in the ordinary sense, too. do you know, my darling, i begin to understand that i could not love you so much if you were not so religious, if you were not so curiously like a festival prayer-book, with gilt edges and a beautiful binding." "ah, i am so glad, dear, to hear you say that," said addie, with the faintest suspicion of implied past disapproval. "yes," he said musingly. "it adds the last artistic touch to your relation to me." "but you will reform!" said addie, with girlish confidence. "do you think so? i might commence by becoming a vegetarian--that would prevent me eating forbidden flesh. have i ever told you my idea that vegetarianism is the first step in a great secret conspiracy for gradually converting the world to judaism? but i'm afraid i can't be caught as easily as the gentiles, addie dear. you see, a jewish sceptic beats all others. _corruptio optimi pessima_, probably. perhaps you would like me to marry in a synagogue?" "why, of course! where else?" "heavens!" said sidney, in comic despair. "i feared it would come to that. i shall become a pillar of the synagogue when i am married, i suppose." "well, you'll have to take a seat," said addie seriously, "because otherwise you can't get buried." "gracious, what ghoulish thoughts for an embryo bride! personally, i have no objection to haunting the council of the united synagogue till they give me a decently comfortable grave. but i see what it will be! i shall be whitewashed by the jewish press, eulogized by platform orators as a shining light in israel, the brilliant impressionist painter, and all that. i shall pay my synagogue bill and never go. in short, i shall be converted to philistinism, and die in the odor of respectability. and judaism will continue to flourish. oh, addie, addie, if i had thought of all that, i should never have asked you to be my wife." "i am glad you didn't think of it," laughed addie, ingenuously. "there! you never will take me seriously!" he grumbled. "nobody ever takes me seriously--i suppose because i speak the truth. the only time you ever took me seriously in my life was a few minutes ago. so you actually think i'm going to submit to the benedictions of a rabbi." "you must," said addie. "i'll be blest if i do," he said. "of course you will," said addie, laughing merrily. "thanks--i'm glad you appreciate my joke. you perhaps fancy it's yours. however, i'm in earnest. i won't be a respectable high-hatted member of the community--not even for your sake, dear. why, i might as well go back to my ugly real name, samuel abrahams, at once." "so you might, dear," said addie boldly, and smiled into his eyes to temper her audacity. "ah, well, i think it'll be quite enough if _you_ change your name," he said, smiling back. "it's just as easy for me to change it to abrahams as to graham," she said with charming obstinacy. he contemplated her for some moments in silence, with a whimsical look on his face. then he looked up at the sky--the brilliant color harmonies were deepening into a more sober magnificence. "i'll tell you what i will do. ill join the asmoneans. there! that's a great concession to your absurd prejudices. but you must make a concession to mine. you know how i hate the jewish canvassing of engagements. let us keep ours entirely _entre nous_ a fortnight--so that the gossips shall at least get their material stale, and we shall be hardened. i wonder why you're so conventional," he said again, when she had consented without enthusiasm. "you had the advantage of esther--of miss ansell's society." "call her esther if you like; i don't mind," said addie. "i wonder esther didn't convert you," he went on musingly. "but i suppose you had raphael on your right hand, as some prayer or other says. and so you really don't know what's become of her?" "nothing beyond what i wrote to you. mrs. goldsmith discovered she had written the nasty book, and sent her packing. i have never liked to broach the subject myself to mrs. goldsmith, knowing how unpleasant it must be to her. raphael's version is that esther went away of her own accord; but i can't see what grounds he has for judging." "i would rather trust raphael's version," said sidney, with an adumbration of a wink in his left eyelid. "but didn't you look for her?" "where? if she's in london, she's swallowed up. if she's gone to another place, it's still more difficult to find her." "there's the agony column!" "if esther wanted us to know her address, what can prevent her sending it?" asked addie, with dignity. "i'd find her soon enough, if i wanted to," murmured sidney. "yes; but i'm not sure we want to. after all, she cannot be so nice as i thought. she certainly behaved very ungratefully to mrs. goldsmith. you see what becomes of wild opinions." "addie! addie!" said sidney reproachfully, "how _can_ you be so conventional?" "i'm _not_ conventional!" protested addie, provoked at last. "i always liked esther very much. even now, nothing would give me greater pleasure than to have her for a bridesmaid. but i can't help feeling she deceived us all." "stuff and nonsense!" said sidney warmly. "an author has a right to be anonymous. don't you think i'd paint anonymously if i dared? only, if i didn't put my name to my things no one would buy them. that's another of the advantages of my profession. once make your name as an artist, and you can get a colossal income by giving up art." "it was a vulgar book!" persisted addie, sticking to the point. "fiddlesticks! it was an artistic book--bungled." "oh, well!" said addie, as the tears welled from her eyes, "if you're so fond of unconventional girls, you'd better marry them." "i would," said sidney, "but for the absurd restriction against polygamy." addie got up with an indignant jerk. "you think i'm a child to be played with!" she turned her back upon him. his face changed instantly; he stood still a moment, admiring the magnificent pose. then he recaptured her reluctant hand. "don't be jealous already, addie," he said. "it's a healthy sign of affection, is a storm-cloud, but don't you think it's just a wee, tiny, weeny bit too previous?" a pressure of the hand accompanied each of the little adjectives. addie sat down again, feeling deliriously happy. she seemed to be lapped in a great drowsy ecstasy of bliss. the sunset was fading into sombre grays before sidney broke the silence; then his train of thought revealed itself. "if you're so down on esther, i wonder how you can put up with me! how is it?" addie did not hear the question. "you think i'm a very wicked, blasphemous boy," he insisted. "isn't that the thought deep down in your heart of hearts?" "i'm sure tea must be over long ago," said addie anxiously. "answer me," said sidney inexorably. "don't bother. aren't they cooeying for us?" "answer me." "i do believe that was a water-rat. look! the water is still eddying." "i'm a very wicked, blasphemous boy. isn't that the thought deep down in your heart of hearts?" "you are there, too," she breathed at last, and then sidney forgot her beauty for an instant, and lost himself in unaccustomed humility. it seemed passing wonderful to him--that he should be the deity of such a spotless shrine. could any man deserve the trust of this celestial soul? suddenly the thought that he had not told her about miss hannibal after all, gave him a chilling shock. but he rallied quickly. was it really worth while to trouble the clear depths of her spirit with his turbid past? no; wiser to inhale the odor of the rose at her bosom, sweeter to surrender himself to the intoxicating perfume of her personality, to the magic of a moment that must fade like the sunset, already grown gray. so addie never knew. chapter xv. from soul to soul. on the friday that percy saville returned to town, raphael, in a state of mental prostration modified by tobacco, was sitting in the editorial chair. he was engaged in his pleasing weekly occupation of discovering, from a comparison with the great rival organ, the deficiencies of _the flag of judah_ in the matter of news, his organization for the collection of which partook of the happy-go-lucky character of little sampson. fortunately, to-day there were no flagrant omissions, no palpable shortcomings such as had once and again thrown the office of the _flag_ into mourning when communal pillars were found dead in the opposition paper. the arrival of a visitor put an end to the invidious comparison. "ah, strelitski!" cried raphael, jumping up in glad surprise. "what an age it is since i've seen you!" he shook the black-gloved hand of the fashionable minister heartily; then his face grew rueful with a sudden recollection. "i suppose you have come to scold me for not answering the invitation to speak at the distribution of prizes to your religion class?" he said; "but i _have_ been so busy. my conscience has kept up a dull pricking on the subject, though, for ever so many weeks. you're such an epitome of all the virtues that you can't understand the sensation, and even i can't understand why one submits to this undercurrent of reproach rather than take the simple step it exhorts one to. but i suppose it's human nature." he puffed at his pipe in humorous sadness. "i suppose it is," said strelitski wearily. "but of course i'll come. you know that, my dear fellow. when my conscience was noisy, the _advocatus diaboli_ used to silence it by saying, 'oh, strelitski'll take it for granted.' you can never catch the _advocatus diaboli_ asleep," concluded raphael, laughing. "no," assented strelitski. but he did not laugh. "oh!" said raphael, his laugh ceasing suddenly and his face growing long. "perhaps the prize-distribution is over?" strelitski's expression seemed so stern that for a second it really occurred to raphael that he might have missed the great event. but before the words were well out of his mouth he remembered that it was an event that made "copy," and little sampson would have arranged with him as to the reporting thereof. "no; it's sunday week. but i didn't come to talk about my religion class at all," he said pettishly, while a shudder traversed his form. "i came to ask if you know anything about miss ansell." raphael's heart stood still, then began to beat furiously. the sound of her name always affected him incomprehensibly. he began to stammer, then took his pipe out of his mouth and said more calmly; "how should i know anything about miss ansell?" "i thought you would," said strelitski, without much disappointment in his tone. "why?" "wasn't she your art-critic?" "who told you that?" "mrs. henry goldsmith." "oh!" said raphael. "i thought she might possibly be writing for you still, and so, as i was passing, i thought i'd drop in and inquire. hasn't anything been heard of her? where is she? perhaps one could help her." "i'm sorry, i really know nothing, nothing at all," said raphael gravely. "i wish i did. is there any particular reason why you want to know?" as he spoke, a strange suspicion that was half an apprehension came into his head. he had been looking the whole time at strelitski's face with his usual unobservant gaze, just seeing it was gloomy. now, as in a sudden flash, he saw it sallow and careworn to the last degree. the eyes were almost feverish, the black curl on the brow was unkempt, and there was a streak or two of gray easily visible against the intense sable. what change had come over him? why this new-born interest in esther? raphael felt a vague unreasoning resentment rising in him, mingled with distress at strelitski's discomposure. "no; i don't know that there is any _particular_ reason why i want to know," answered his friend slowly. "she was a member of my congregation. i always had a certain interest in her, which has naturally not been diminished by her sudden departure from our midst, and by the knowledge that she was the author of that sensational novel. i think it was cruel of mrs. henry goldsmith to turn her adrift; one must allow for the effervescence of genius." "who told you mrs. henry goldsmith turned her adrift?" asked raphael hotly. "mrs. henry goldsmith," said strelitski with a slight accent of wonder. "then it's a lie!" raphael exclaimed, thrusting out his arms in intense agitation. "a mean, cowardly lie! i shall never go to see that woman again, unless it is to let her know what i think of her." "ah, then you do know something about miss ansell?" said strelitski, with growing surprise. raphael in a rage was a new experience. there were those who asserted that anger was not among his gifts. "nothing about her life since she left mrs. goldsmith; but i saw her before, and she told me it was her intention to cut herself adrift. nobody knew about her authorship of the book; nobody would have known to this day if she had not chosen to reveal it." the minister was trembling. "she cut herself adrift?" he repeated interrogatively. "but why?" "i will tell you," said raphael in low tones. "i don't think it will be betraying her confidence to say that she found her position of dependence extremely irksome; it seemed to cripple her soul. now i see what mrs. goldsmith is. i can understand better what life in her society meant for a girl like that." "and what has become of her?" asked the russian. his face was agitated, the lips were almost white. "i do not know," said raphael, almost in a whisper, his voice failing in a sudden upwelling of tumultuous feeling. the ever-whirling wheel of journalism--that modern realization of the labor of sisyphus--had carried him round without giving him even time to remember that time was flying. day had slipped into week and week into month, without his moving an inch from his groove in search of the girl whose unhappiness was yet always at the back of his thoughts. now he was shaken with astonished self-reproach at his having allowed her to drift perhaps irretrievably beyond his ken. "she is quite alone in the world, poor thing!" he said after a pause. "she must be earning her own living, somehow. by journalism, perhaps. but she prefers to live her own life. i am afraid it will be a hard one." his voice trembled again. the minister's breast, too, was laboring with emotion that checked his speech, but after a moment utterance came to him--a strange choked utterance, almost blasphemous from those clerical lips. "by god!" he gasped. "that little girl!" he turned his back upon his friend and covered his face with his hands, and raphael saw his shoulders quivering. then his own vision grew dim. conjecture, resentment, wonder, self-reproach, were lost in a new and absorbing sense of the pathos of the poor girl's position. presently the minister turned round, showing a face that made no pretence of calm. "that was bravely done," he said brokenly. "to cut herself adrift! she will not sink; strength will be given her even as she gives others strength. if i could only see her and tell her! but she never liked me; she always distrusted me. i was a hollow windbag in her eyes--a thing of shams and cant--she shuddered to look at me. was it not so? you are a friend of hers, you know what she felt." "i don't think it was you she disliked," said raphael in wondering pity. "only your office." "then, by god, she was right!" cried the russian hoarsely. "it was this--this that made me the target of her scorn." he tore off his white tie madly as he spoke, threw it on the ground, and trampled upon it. "she and i were kindred in suffering; i read it in her eyes, averted as they were at the sight of this accursed thing! you stare at me--you think i have gone mad. leon, you are not as other men. can you not guess that this damnable white tie has been choking the life and manhood out of me? but it is over now. take your pen, leon, as you are my friend, and write what i shall dictate." silenced by the stress of a great soul, half dazed by the strange, unexpected revelation, raphael seated himself, took his pen, and wrote: "we understand that the rev. joseph strelitski has resigned his position in the kensington synagogue." not till he had written it did the full force of the paragraph overwhelm his soul. "but you will not do this?" he said, looking up almost incredulously at the popular minister. "i will; the position has become impossible. leon, do you not understand? i am not what i was when i took it. i have lived, and life is change. stagnation is death. surely you can understand, for you, too, have changed. cannot i read between the lines of your leaders?" "cannot you read in them?" said raphael with a wan smile. "i have modified some opinions, it is true, and developed others; but i have disguised none." "not consciously, perhaps, but you do not speak all your thought." "perhaps i do not listen to it," said raphael, half to himself. "but you--whatever your change--you have not lost faith in primaries?" "no; not in what i consider such." "then why give up your platform, your housetop, whence you may do so much good? you are loved, venerated." strelitski placed his palms over his ears. "don't! don't!" he cried. "don't you be the _advocatus diaboli_! do you think i have not told myself all these things a thousand times? do you think i have not tried every kind of opiate? no, no, be silent if you can say nothing to strengthen me in my resolution: am i not weak enough already? promise me, give me your hand, swear to me that you will put that paragraph in the paper. saturday. sunday, monday, tuesday, wednesday, thursday--in six days i shall change a hundred times. swear to me, so that i may leave this room at peace, the long conflict ended. promise me you will insert it, though i myself should ask you to cancel it." "but--" began raphael. strelitski turned away impatiently and groaned. "my god!" he cried hoarsely. "leon, listen to me," he said, turning round suddenly. "do you realize what sort of a position you are asking me to keep? do you realize how it makes me the fief of a rabbinate that is an anachronism, the bondman of outworn forms, the slave of the _shulcan aruch_ (a book the rabbinate would not dare publish in english), the professional panegyrist of the rich? ours is a generation of whited sepulchres." he had no difficulty about utterance now; the words flowed in a torrent. "how can judaism--and it alone--escape going through the fire of modern scepticism, from which, if religion emerge at all, it will emerge without its dross? are not we jews always the first prey of new ideas, with our alert intellect, our swift receptiveness, our keen critical sense? and if we are not hypocrites, we are indifferent--which is almost worse. indifference is the only infidelity i recognize, and it is unfortunately as conservative as zeal. indifference and hypocrisy between them keep orthodoxy alive--while they kill judaism." "oh, i can't quite admit that," said raphael. "i admit that scepticism is better than stagnation, but i cannot see why orthodoxy is the antithesis to judaism purified--and your own sermons are doing something to purify it--orthodoxy--" "orthodoxy cannot be purified unless by juggling with words," interrupted strelitski vehemently. "orthodoxy is inextricably entangled with ritual observance; and ceremonial religion is of the ancient world, not the modern." "but our ceremonialism is pregnant with sublime symbolism, and its discipline is most salutary. ceremony is the casket of religion." "more often its coffin," said strelitski drily. "ceremonial religion is so apt to stiffen in a _rigor mortis_. it is too dangerous an element; it creates hypocrites and pharisees. all cast-iron laws and dogmas do. not that i share the christian sneer at jewish legalism. add the statute book to the new testament, and think of the network of laws hampering the feet of the christian. no; much of our so-called ceremonialism is merely the primitive mix-up of everything with religion in a theocracy. the mosaic code has been largely embodied in civil law, and superseded by it." "that is just the flaw of the modern world, to keep life and religion apart," protested raphael; "to have one set of principles for week-days and another for sundays; to grind the inexorable mechanism of supply and demand on pagan principles, and make it up out of the poor-box." strelitski shook his head. "we must make broad our platform, not our phylacteries. it is because i am with you in admiring the rabbis that i would undo much of their work. theirs was a wonderful statesmanship, and they built wiser than they knew; just as the patient labors of the superstitious zealots who counted every letter of the law preserved the text unimpaired for the benefit of modern scholarship. the rabbis constructed a casket, if you will, which kept the jewel safe, though at the cost of concealing its lustre. but the hour has come now to wear the jewel on our breasts before all the world. the rabbis worked for their time--we must work for ours. judaism was before the rabbis. scientific criticism shows its thoughts widening with the process of the suns--even as its god, yahweh, broadened from a local patriotic deity to the ineffable name. for judaism was worked out from within--abraham asked, 'shall not the judge of all the earth do right?'--the thunders of sinai were but the righteous indignation of the developed moral consciousness. in every age our great men have modified and developed judaism. why should it not be trimmed into concordance with the culture of the time? especially when the alternative is death. yes, death! we babble about petty minutiae of ritual while judaism is dying! we are like the crew of a sinking ship, holy-stoning the deck instead of being at the pumps. no, i must speak out; i cannot go on salving my conscience by unsigned letters to the press. away with all this anonymous apostleship!" he moved about restlessly with animated gestures as he delivered his harangue at tornado speed, speech bursting from him like some dynamic energy which had been accumulating for years, and could no longer be kept in. it was an upheaval of the whole man under the stress of pent forces. raphael was deeply moved. he scarcely knew how to act in this unique crisis. dimly he foresaw the stir and pother there would be in the community. conservative by instinct, apt to see the elements of good in attacked institutions--perhaps, too, a little timid when it came to take action in the tremendous realm of realities--he was loth to help strelitski to so decisive a step, though his whole heart went out to him in brotherly sympathy. "do not act so hastily," he pleaded. "things are not so black as you see them--you are almost as bad as miss ansell. don't think that i see them rosy: i might have done that three months ago. but don't you--don't all idealists--overlook the quieter phenomena? is orthodoxy either so inefficacious or so moribund as you fancy? is there not a steady, perhaps semi-conscious, stream of healthy life, thousands of cheerful, well-ordered households, of people neither perfect nor cultured, but more good than bad? you cannot expect saints and heroes to grow like blackberries." "yes; but look what jews set up to be--god's witnesses!" interrupted strelitski. "this mediocrity may pass in the rest of the world." "and does lack of modern lights constitute ignorance?" went on raphael, disregarding the interruption. he began walking up and down, and thrashing the air with his arms. hitherto he had remained comparatively quiet, dominated by strelitski's superior restlessness. "i cannot help thinking there is a profound lesson in the bible story of the oxen who, unguided, bore safely the ark of the covenant. intellect obscures more than it illumines." "oh, leon, leon, you'll turn catholic, soon!" said strelitski reprovingly. "not with a capital c," said raphael, laughing a little. "but i am so sick of hearing about culture, i say more than i mean. judaism is so human--that's why i like it. no abstract metaphysics, but a lovable way of living the common life, sanctified by the centuries. culture is all very well--doesn't the talmud say the world stands on the breath of the school-children?--but it has become a cant. too often it saps the moral fibre." "you have all the old jewish narrowness," said strelitski. "i'd rather have that than the new parisian narrowness--the cant of decadence. look at my cousin sidney. he talks as if the jew only introduced moral-headache into the world--in face of the corruptions of paganism which are still flagrant all over asia and africa and polynesia--the idol worship, the abominations, the disregard of human life, of truth, of justice." "but is the civilized world any better? think of the dishonesty of business, the self-seeking of public life, the infamies and hypocrisies of society, the prostitutions of soul and body! no, the jew has yet to play a part in history. supplement his hebraism by what hellenic ideals you will, but the jew's ideals must ever remain the indispensable ones," said strelitski, becoming exalted again. "without righteousness a kingdom cannot stand. the world is longing for a broad simple faith that shall look on science as its friend and reason as its inspirer. people are turning in their despair even to table-rappings and mahatmas. now, for the first time in history, is the hour of judaism. only it must enlarge itself; its platform must be all-inclusive. judaism is but a specialized form of hebraism; even if jews stick to their own special historical and ritual ceremonies, it is only hebraism--the pure spiritual kernel--that they can offer the world." "but that is quite the orthodox jewish idea on the subject," said raphael. "yes, but orthodox ideas have a way of remaining ideas," retorted strelitski. "where i am heterodox is in thinking the time has come to work them out. also in thinking that the monotheism is not the element that needs the most accentuation. the formula of the religion of the future will be a jewish formula--character, not creed. the provincial period of judaism is over though even its dark ages are still lingering on in england. it must become cosmic, universal. judaism is too timid, too apologetic, too deferential. doubtless this is the result of persecution, but it does not tend to diminish persecution. we may as well try the other attitude. it is the world the jewish preacher should address, not a kensington congregation. perhaps, when the kensington congregation sees the world is listening, it will listen, too," he said, with a touch of bitterness. "but it listens to you now," said raphael. "a pleasing illusion which has kept me too long in my false position. with all its love and reverence, do you think it forgets i am its hireling? i may perhaps have a little more prestige than the bulk of my fellows--though even that is partly due to my congregants being rich and fashionable--but at bottom everybody knows i am taken like a house--on a three years' agreement. and i dare not speak, i cannot, while i wear the badge of office; it would be disloyal; my own congregation would take alarm. the position of a minister is like that of a judicious editor--which, by the way, you are not; he is led, rather than leads. he has to feel his way, to let in light wherever he sees a chink, a cranny. but let them get another man to preach to them the echo of their own voices; there will be no lack of candidates for the salary. for my part, i am sick of this petty jesuitry; in vain i tell myself it is spiritual statesmanship like that of so many christian clergymen who are silently bringing christianity back to judaism." "but it _is_ spiritual statesmanship," asserted raphael. "perhaps. you are wiser, deeper, calmer than i. you are an englishman, i am a russian. i am all for action, action, action! in russia i should have been a nihilist, not a philosopher. i can only go by my feelings, and i feel choking. when i first came to england, before the horror of russia wore off, i used to go about breathing in deep breaths of air, exulting in the sense of freedom. now i am stifling again. do you not understand? have you never guessed it? and yet i have often said things to you that should have opened your eyes. i must escape from the house of bondage--must be master of myself, of my word and thought. oh, the world is so wide, so wide--and we are so narrow! only gradually did the web mesh itself about me. at first my fetters were flowery bands, for i believed all i taught and could teach all i believed. insensibly the flowers changed to iron chains, because i was changing as i probed deeper into life and thought, and saw my dreams of influencing english judaism fading in the harsh daylight of fact. and yet at moments the iron links would soften to flowers again. do you think there is no sweetness in adulation, in prosperity--no subtle cajolery that soothes the conscience and coaxes the soul to take its pleasure in a world of make-believe? spiritual statesmanship, forsooth!" he made a gesture of resolution. "no, the judaism of you english weighs upon my spirits. it is so parochial. everything turns on finance; the united synagogue keeps your community orthodox because it has the funds and owns the burying-grounds. truly a dismal allegory--a creed whose strength lies in its cemeteries. money is the sole avenue to distinction and to authority; it has its coarse thumb over education, worship, society. in my country--even in your own ghetto--the jews do not despise money, but at least piety and learning are the titles to position and honor. here the scholar is classed with the _schnorrer_; if an artist or an author is admired, it is for his success. you are right; it is oxen that carry your ark of the covenant--fat oxen. you admire them, leon; you are an englishman, and cannot stand outside it all. but i am stifling under this weight of moneyed mediocrity, this _régime_ of dull respectability. i want the atmosphere of ideas and ideals." he tore at his high clerical collar as though suffocating literally. raphael was too moved to defend english judaism. besides, he was used to these jeremiads now--had he not often heard them from sidney? had he not read them in esther's book? nor was it the first time he had listened to the russian's tirades, though he had lacked the key to the internal conflict that embittered them. "but how will you live?" he asked, tacitly accepting the situation. "you will not, i suppose, go over to the reform synagogue?" "that fossil, so proud of its petty reforms half a century ago that it has stood still ever since to admire them! it is a synagogue for snobs--who never go there." raphael smiled faintly. it was obvious that strelitski on the war-path did not pause to weigh his utterances. "i am glad you are not going over, anyhow. your congregation would--" "crucify me between two money-lenders?" "never mind. but how will you live?"' "how does miss ansell live? i can always travel with cigars--i know the line thoroughly." he smiled mournfully. "but probably i shall go to america--the idea has been floating in my mind for months. there judaism is grander, larger, nobler. there is room for all parties. the dead bones are not worshipped as relics. free thought has its vent-holes--it is not repressed into hypocrisy as among us. there is care for literature, for national ideals. and one deals with millions, not petty thousands. this english community, with its squabbles about rituals, its four chief rabbis all in love with one another, its stupid sephardim, its narrow-minded reformers, its fatuous self-importance, its invincible ignorance, is but an ant-hill, a negligible quantity in the future of the faith. westward the course of judaism as of empire takes its way--from the euphrates and tigris it emigrated to cordova and toledo, and the year that saw its expulsion from spain was the year of the discovery of america. _ex oriente lux_. perhaps it will return to you here by way of the occident. russia and america are the two strongholds of the race, and russia is pouring her streams into america, where they will be made free men and free thinkers. it is in america, then, that the last great battle of judaism will be fought out; amid the temples of the new world it will make its last struggle to survive. it is there that the men who have faith in its necessity must be, so that the psychical force conserved at such a cost may not radiate uselessly away. though israel has sunk low, like a tree once green and living, and has become petrified and blackened, there is stored-up sunlight in him. our racial isolation is a mere superstition unless turned to great purposes. we have done nothing _as jews_ for centuries, though our old testament has always been an arsenal of texts for the european champions of civil and religious liberty. we have been unconsciously pioneers of modern commerce, diffusers of folk-lore and what not. cannot we be a conscious force, making for nobler ends? could we not, for instance, be the link of federation among the nations, acting everywhere in favor of peace? could we not be the centre of new sociologic movements in each country, as a few american jews have been the centre of the ethical culture movement?" "you forget," said raphael, "that, wherever the old judaism has not been overlaid by the veneer of philistine civilization, we are already sociological object-lessons in good fellowship, unpretentious charity, domestic poetry, respect for learning, disrespect for respectability. our social system is a bequest from the ancient world by which the modern may yet benefit. the demerits you censure in english judaism are all departures from the old way of living. why should we not revive or strengthen that, rather than waste ourselves on impracticable novelties? and in your prognostications of the future of the jews have you not forgotten the all-important factor of palestine?" "no; i simply leave it out of count. you know how i have persuaded the holy land league to co-operate with the movements for directing the streams of the persecuted towards america. i have alleged with truth that palestine is impracticable for the moment. i have not said what i have gradually come to think--that the salvation of judaism is not in the national idea at all. that is the dream of visionaries--and young men," he added with a melancholy smile. "may we not dream nobler dreams than political independence? for, after all, political independence is only a means to an end, not an end in itself, as it might easily become, and as it appears to other nations. to be merely one among the nations--that is not, despite george eliot, so satisfactory an ideal. the restoration to palestine, or the acquisition of a national centre, may be a political solution, but it is not a spiritual idea. we must abandon it--it cannot be held consistently with our professed attachment to the countries in which our lot is cast--and we have abandoned it. we have fought and slain one another in the franco-german war, and in the war of the north and the south. your whole difficulty with your pauper immigrants arises from your effort to keep two contradictory ideals going at once. as englishmen, you may have a right to shelter the exile; but not as jews. certainly, if the nations cast us out, we could, draw together and form a nation as of yore. but persecution, expulsion, is never simultaneous; our dispersal has saved judaism, and it may yet save the world. for i prefer the dream that we are divinely dispersed to bless it, wind-sown seeds to fertilize its waste places. to be a nation without a fatherland, yet with a mother-tongue, hebrew--there is the spiritual originality, the miracle of history. such has been the real kingdom of israel in the past--we have been 'sons of the law' as other men have been sons of france, of italy, of germany. such may our fatherland continue, with 'the higher life' substituted for 'the law'--a kingdom not of space, not measured by the vulgar meteyard of an alexander, but a great spiritual republic, as devoid of material form as israel's god, and congruous with his conception of the divine. and the conquest of this kingdom needs no violent movement--if jews only practised what they preach, it would be achieved to-morrow; for all expressions of judaism, even to the lowest, have common sublimities. and this kingdom--as it has no space, so it has no limits; it must grow till all mankind, are its subjects. the brotherhood of israel will be the nucleus of the brotherhood of man." "it is magnificent," said raphael; "but it is not judaism. if the jews have the future you dream of, the future will have no jews. america is already decimating them with sunday-sabbaths and english prayer-books. your judaism is as eviscerated as the christianity i found in vogue when i was at oxford, which might be summed up: there is no god, but jesus christ is his son. george eliot was right. men are men, not pure spirit. a fatherland focusses a people. without it we are but the gypsies of religion. all over the world, at every prayer, every jew turns towards jerusalem. we must not give up the dream. the countries we live in can never be more than 'step-fatherlands' to us. why, if your visions were realized, the prophecy of genesis, already practically fulfilled, 'thou shalt spread abroad to the west and to the east, and to the north and to the south; and in thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed,' would be so remarkably consummated that we might reasonably hope to come to our own again according to the promises." "well, well," said strelitski, good-humoredly, "so long as you admit it is not within the range of practical politics now." "it is your own dream that is premature," retorted raphael; "at any rate, the cosmic part of it. you are thinking of throwing open the citizenship of your republic to the world. but to-day's task is to make its citizens by blood worthier of their privilege." "you will never do it with the old generation," said strelitski. "my hope is in the new. moses led the jews forty years through the wilderness merely to eliminate the old. give me young men, and i will move the world." "you will do nothing by attempting too much," said raphael; "you will only dissipate your strength. for my part, i shall be content to raise judaea an inch." "go on, then," said strelitski. "that will give me a barley-corn. but i've wasted too much' of your time, i fear. good-bye. remember your promise." he held out his hand. he had grown quite calm, now his decision was taken. "good-bye," said raphael, shaking it warmly. "i think i shall cable to america, 'behold, joseph the dreamer cometh.'" "dreams are our life," replied strelitski. "lessing was right--aspiration is everything." "and yet you would rob the orthodox jew of his dream of jerusalem! well, if you must go, don't go without your tie," said raphael, picking it up, and feeling a stolid, practical englishman in presence of this enthusiast. "it is dreadfully dirty, but you must wear it a little longer." "only till the new year, which is bearing down upon us," said strelitski, thrusting it into his pocket. "cost what it may, i shall no longer countenance the ritual and ceremonial of the season of repentance. good-bye again. if you should be writing to miss ansell, i should like her to know how much i owe her." "but i tell you i don't know her address," said raphael, his uneasiness reawakening. "surely you can write to her publishers?" and the door closed upon the russian dreamer, leaving the practical englishman dumbfounded at his never having thought of this simple expedient. but before he could adopt it the door was thrown open again by pinchas, who had got out of the habit of knocking through raphael being too polite to reprimand him. the poet, tottered in, dropped wearily into a chair, and buried his face in his hands, letting an extinct cigar-stump slip through his fingers on to the literature that carpeted the floor. "what is the matter?" inquired raphael in alarm. "i am miserable--vairy miserable." "has anything happened?" "nothing. but i have been thinking vat have i come to after all these years, all these vanderings. nothing! vat vill be my end? oh. i am so unhappy." "but you are better off than you ever were in your life. you no longer live amid the squalor of the ghetto; you are clean and well dressed: you yourself admit that you can afford to give charity now. that looks as if you'd come to something--not nothing." "yes," said the poet, looking up eagerly, "and i am famous through the vorld. _metatoron's flames_ vill shine eternally." his head drooped again. "i have all i vant, and you are the best man in the vorld. but i am the most miserable." "nonsense! cheer up," said raphael. "i can never cheer up any more. i vill shoot myself. i have realized the emptiness of life. fame, money, love--all is dead sea fruit." his shoulders heaved convulsively; he was sobbing. raphael stood by helpless, his respect for pinchas as a poet and for himself as a practical englishman returning. he pondered over the strange fate that had thrown him among three geniuses--a male idealist, a female pessimist, and a poet who seemed to belong to both sexes and categories. and yet there was not one of the three to whom he seemed able to be of real service. a letter brought in by the office-boy rudely snapped the thread of reflection. it contained three enclosures. the first was an epistle; the hand was the hand of mr. goldsmith, but the voice was the voice of his beautiful spouse. "dear mr. leon: "i have perceived many symptoms lately of your growing divergency from the ideas with which _the flag of judah_ was started. it is obvious that you find yourself unable to emphasize the olden features of our faith--the questions of _kosher_ meat, etc.--as forcibly as our readers desire. you no doubt cherish ideals which are neither practical nor within the grasp of the masses to whom we appeal. i fully appreciate the delicacy that makes you reluctant--in the dearth of genius and hebrew learning--to saddle me with the task of finding a substitute, but i feel it is time for me to restore your peace of mind even at the expense of my own. i have been thinking that, with your kind occasional supervision, it might be possible for mr. pinchas, of whom you have always spoken so highly, to undertake the duties of editorship, mr. sampson remaining sub-editor as before. of course i count on you to continue your purely scholarly articles, and to impress upon the two gentlemen who will now have direct relations with me my wish to remain in the background. "yours sincerely, "henry goldsmith. "p.s.--on second thoughts i beg to enclose a cheque for four guineas, which will serve instead of a formal month's notice, and will enable you to accept at once my wife's invitation, likewise enclosed herewith. your sister seconds mrs. goldsmith in the hope that you will do so. our tenancy of the manse only lasts a few weeks longer, for of course we return for the new year holidays." this was the last straw. it was not so much the dismissal that staggered him, but to be called a genius and an idealist himself--to have his own orthodoxy impugned--just at this moment, was a rough shock. "pinchas!" he said, recovering himself. pinchas would not look up. his face was still hidden in his hands. "pinchas, listen! you are appointed editor of the paper, instead of me. you are to edit the next number." pinchas's head shot up like a catapult. he bounded to his feet, then bent down again to raphael's coat-tail and kissed it passionately. "ah, my benefactor, my benefactor!" he cried, in a joyous frenzy. "now vill i give it to english judaism. she is in my power. oh, my benefactor!" "no, no," said raphael, disengaging himself. "i have nothing to do with it." "but de paper--she is yours!" said the poet, forgetting his english in his excitement. "no, i am only the editor. i have been dismissed, and you are appointed instead of me." pinchas dropped back into his chair like a lump of lead. he hung his head again and folded his arms. "then they get not me for editor," he said moodily. "nonsense, why not?" said raphael, flushing. "vat you think me?" pinchas asked indignantly. "do you think i have a stone for a heart like gideon m.p. or your english stockbrokers and rabbis? no, you shall go on being editor. they think you are not able enough, not orthodox enough--they vant me--but do not fear. i shall not accept." "but then what will become of the next number?" remonstrated raphael, touched. "i must not edit it." "vat you care? let her die!" cried pinchas, in gloomy complacency. "you have made her; vy should she survive you? it is not right another should valk in your shoes--least of all, _i_." "but i don't mind--i don't mind a bit," raphael assured him. pinchas shook his head obstinately. "if the paper dies, sampson will have nothing to live upon," raphael reminded him. "true, vairy true," said the poet, patently beginning to yield. "that alters things. ve cannot let sampson starve." "no, you see!" said raphael. "so you must keep it alive." "yes, but," said pinchas, getting up thoughtfully, "sampson is going off soon on tour vith his comic opera. he vill not need the _flag_." "oh, well, edit it till then." "be it so," said the poet resignedly. "till sampson's comic-opera tour." "till sampson's comic-opera tour," repeated raphael contentedly. chapter xvi. love's temptation. raphael walked out of the office, a free man. mountains of responsibility seemed to roll off his shoulders. his messianic emotions were conscious of no laceration at the failure of this episode of his life; they were merged in greater. what a fool he had been to waste so much time, to make no effort to find the lonely girl! surely, esther must have expected him, if only as a friend, to give some sign that he did not share in the popular execration. perchance she had already left london or the country, only to be found again by protracted knightly quest! he felt grateful to providence for setting him free for her salvation. he made at once for the publishers' and asked for her address. the junior partner knew of no such person. in vain raphael reminded him that they had published _mordecai josephs_. that was by mr. edward armitage. raphael accepted the convention, and demanded this gentleman's address instead. that, too, was refused, but all letters would be forwarded. was mr. armitage in england? all letters would be forwarded. upon that the junior partner stood, inexpugnable. raphael went out, not uncomforted. he would write to her at once. he got letter-paper at the nearest restaurant and wrote, "dear miss ansell." the rest was a blank. he had not the least idea how to renew the relationship after what seemed an eternity of silence. he stared helplessly round the mirrored walls, seeing mainly his own helpless stare. the placard "smoking not permitted till p.m.," gave him a sudden shock. he felt for his pipe, and ultimately found it stuck, half full of charred bird's eye, in his breast-pocket. he had apparently not been smoking for some hours. that completed his perturbation. he felt he had undergone too much that day to be in a fit state to write a judicious letter. he would go home and rest a bit, and write the letter--very diplomatically--in the evening. when he got home, he found to his astonishment it was friday evening, when letter-writing is of the devil. habit carried him to synagogue, where he sang the sabbath hymn, "come, my beloved, to meet the bride," with strange sweet tears and a complete indifference to its sacred allegorical signification. next afternoon he haunted the publishers' doorstep with the brilliant idea that mr. armitage sometimes crossed it. in this hope, he did _not_ write the letter; his phrases, he felt, would be better for the inspiration of that gentleman's presence. meanwhile he had ample time to mature them, to review the situation in every possible light, to figure esther under the most poetical images, to see his future alternately radiant and sombre. four long summer days of espionage only left him with a heartache, and a specialist knowledge of the sort of persons who visit publishers. a temptation to bribe the office-boy he resisted as unworthy. not only had he not written that letter, but mr. henry goldsmith's edict and mrs. henry goldsmith's invitation were still unacknowledged. on thursday morning a letter from addie indirectly reminded him both of his remissness to her hostess, and of the existence of _the flag of judah_. he remembered it was the day of going to press; a vision of the difficulties of the day flashed vividly upon his consciousness; he wondered if his ex-lieutenants were finding new ones. the smell of the machine-room was in his nostrils; it co-operated with the appeal of his good-nature to draw him to his successor's help. virtue proved its own reward. arriving at eleven o'clock, he found little sampson in great excitement, with the fountain of melody dried up on his lips.-- "thank god!" he cried. "i thought you'd come when you heard the news." "what news?" "gideon the member for whitechapel's dead. died suddenly, early this morning." "how shocking!" said raphael, growing white. "yes, isn't it?" said little sampson. "if he had died yesterday, i shouldn't have minded it so much, while to-morrow would have given us a clear week. he hasn't even been ill," he grumbled. "i've had to send pinchas to the museum in a deuce of a hurry, to find out about his early life. i'm awfully upset about it, and what makes it worse is a telegram from goldsmith, ordering a page obituary at least with black rules, besides a leader. it's simply sickening. the proofs are awful enough as it is--my blessed editor has been writing four columns of his autobiography in his most original english, and he wants to leave out all the news part to make room for 'em. in one way gideon's death is a boon; even pinchas'll see his stuff must be crowded out. it's frightful having to edit your editor. why wasn't he made sub?" "that would have been just as trying for you," said raphael with a melancholy smile. he took up a galley-proof and began to correct it. to his surprise he came upon his own paragraph about strelitski's resignation: it caused him fresh emotion. this great spiritual crisis had quite slipped his memory, so egoistic are the best of us at times. "please be careful that pinchas's autobiography does not crowd that out," he said. pinchas arrived late, when little sampson was almost in despair. "it is all right." he shouted, waving a roll of manuscript. "i have him from the cradle--the stupid stockbroker, the man-of-the-earth, who sent me back my poesie, and vould not let me teach his boy judaism. and vhile i had the inspiration i wrote the leader also in the museum--it is here--oh, vairy beautiful! listen to the first sentence. 'the angel of death has passed again over judaea; he has flown off vith our visest and our best, but the black shadow of his ving vill long rest upon the house of israel.' and the end is vordy of the beginning. he is dead: but he lives for ever enshrined in the noble tribute to his genius in _metatoron's flames_." little sampson seized the "copy" and darted with it to the composing-room, where raphael was busy giving directions. by his joyful face raphael saw the crisis was over. little sampson handed the manuscript to the foreman, then drawing a deep breath of relief, he began to hum a sprightly march. "i say, you're a nice chap!" he grumbled, cutting himself short with a staccato that was not in the music. "what have i done?" asked raphael. "done? you've got me into a nice mess. the guvnor--the new guvnor, the old guvnor, it seems--called the other day to fix things with me and pinchas. he asked me if i was satisfied to go on at the same screw. i said he might make it two pound ten. 'what, more than double?' says he. 'no, only nine shillings extra,' says i, 'and for that i'll throw in some foreign telegrams the late editor never cared for.' and then it came out that he only knew of a sovereign, and fancied i was trying it on." "oh, i'm so sorry," said raphael, in deep scarlet distress. "you must have been paying a guinea out of your own pocket!" said little sampson sharply. raphael's confusion increased. "i--i--didn't want it myself," he faltered. "you see, it was paid me just for form, and you really did the work. which reminds me i have a cheque of yours now," he ended boldly. "that'll make it right for the coming month, anyhow." he hunted out goldsmith's final cheque, and tendered it sheepishly. "oh no, i can't take it now," said little sampson. he folded his arms, and drew his cloak around him like a toga. no august sun ever divested little sampson of his cloak. "has goldsmith agreed to your terms, then?" inquired raphael timidly. "oh no, not he. but--" "then i must go on paying the difference," said raphael decisively. "i am responsible to you that you get the salary you're used to; it's my fault that things are changed, and i must pay the penalty," he crammed the cheque forcibly into the pocket of the toga. "well, if you put it in that way," said little sampson, "i won't say i couldn't do with it. but only as a loan, mind." "all right," murmured raphael. "and you'll take it back when my comic opera goes on tour. you won't back out?" "no." "give us your hand on it," said little sampson huskily. raphael gave him his hand, and little sampson swung it up and down like a baton. "hang it all! and that man calls himself a jew!" he thought. aloud he said: "when my comic opera goes on tour." they returned to the editorial den, where they found pinchas raging, a telegram in his hand. "ah, the man-of-the-earth!" he cried. "all my beautiful peroration he spoils." he crumpled up the telegram and threw it pettishly at little sampson, then greeted raphael with effusive joy and hilarity. little sampson read the telegram. it ran as follows: "last sentence of gideon leader. 'it is too early yet in this moment of grief to speculate as to his successor in the constituency. but, difficult as it will be to replace him, we may find some solace in the thought that it will not be impossible. the spirit of the illustrious dead would itself rejoice to acknowledge the special qualifications of one whose name will at once rise to every lip as that of a brother jew whose sincere piety and genuine public spirit mark him out as the one worthy substitute in the representation of a district embracing so many of our poor jewish brethren. is it too much to hope that he will be induced to stand?' goldsmith." "that's a cut above henry," murmured little sampson, who knew nearly everything, save the facts he had to supply to the public. "he wired to the wife, and it's hers. well, it saves him from writing his own puffs, anyhow. i suppose goldsmith's only the signature, not intended to be the last word on the subject. wants touching up, though; can't have 'spirit' twice within four lines. how lucky for him leon is just off the box seat! that queer beggar would never have submitted to any dictation any more than the boss would have dared show his hand so openly." while the sub-editor mused thus, a remark dropped from the editor's lips, which turned raphael whiter than the news of the death of gideon had done. "yes, and in the middle of writing i look up and see the maiden--oh, vairy beautiful! how she gives it to english judaism sharp in that book--the stupid heads,--the men-of-the-earth! i could kiss her for it, only i have never been introduced. gideon, he is there! ho! ho!" he sniggered, with purely intellectual appreciation of the pungency. "what maiden? what are you talking about?" asked raphael, his breath coming painfully. "your maiden," said pinchas, surveying him with affectionate roguishness. "the maiden that came to see you here. she was reading; i walk by and see it is about america." "at the british museum?" gasped raphael. a thousand hammers beat "fool!" upon his brain. why had he not thought of so likely a place for a _littérateur_? he rushed out of the office and into a hansom. he put his pipe out in anticipation. in seven minutes he was at the gates, just in time--heaven be thanked!--to meet her abstractedly descending the steps. his heart gave a great leap of joy. he studied the pensive little countenance for an instant before it became aware of him; its sadness shot a pang of reproach through him. then a great light, as of wonder and joy, came into the dark eyes, and glorified the pale, passionate face. but it was only a flash that faded, leaving the cheeks more pallid than before, the lips quivering. "mr. leon!" she muttered. he raised his hat, then held out a trembling hand that closed upon hers with a grip that hurt her. "i'm so glad to see you again!" he said, with unconcealed enthusiasm. "i have been meaning to write to you for days--care of your publishers. i wonder if you will ever forgive me!" "you had nothing to write to me," she said, striving to speak coldly. "oh yes, i had!" he protested. she shook her head. "our journalistic relations are over--there were no others." "oh!" he said reproachfully, feeling his heart grow chill. "surely we were friends?" she did not answer. "i wanted to write and tell you how much," he began desperately, then stammered, and ended--"how much i liked _mordecai josephs_." this time the reproachful "oh!" came from her lips. "i thought better of you," she said. "you didn't say that in _the flag of judah_; writing it privately to me wouldn't do me any good in any case." he felt miserable; from the crude standpoint of facts, there was no answer to give. he gave none. "i suppose it is all about now?" she went on, seeing him silent. "pretty well," he answered, understanding the question. then, with an indignant accent, he said, "mrs. goldsmith tells everybody she found it out; and sent you away." "i am glad she says that," she remarked enigmatically. "and, naturally, everybody detests me?" "not everybody," he began threateningly. "don't let us stand on the steps," she interrupted. "people will be looking at us." they moved slowly downwards, and into the hot, bustling streets. "why are you not at the _flag_? i thought this was your busy day." she did not add, "and so i ventured to the museum, knowing there was no chance of your turning up;" but such was the fact. "i am not the editor any longer, he replied. "not?" she almost came to a stop. "so much for my critical faculty; i could have sworn to your hand in every number." "your critical faculty equals your creative," he began. "journalism has taught you sarcasm." "no, no! please do not be so unkind. i spoke in earnestness. i have only just been dismissed." "dismissed!" she echoed incredulously. "i thought the _flag_ was your own?" he grew troubled. "i bought it--but for another. we--he--has dispensed with my services." "oh, how shameful!" the latent sympathy of her indignation cheered him again. "i am not sorry," he said. "i'm afraid i really was outgrowing its original platform." "what?" she asked, with a note of mockery in her voice. "you have left off being orthodox?" "i don't say that, it seems to me, rather, that i have come to understand i never was orthodox in the sense that the orthodox understand the word. i had never come into contact with them before. i never realized how unfair orthodox writers are to judaism. but i do not abate one word of what i have ever said or written, except, of course, on questions of scholarship, which are always open to revision." "but what is to become of me--of my conversion?" she said, with mock piteousness. "you need no conversion!" he answered passionately, abandoning without a twinge all those criteria of judaism for which he had fought with strelitski. "you are a jewess not only in blood, but in spirit. deny it as you may, you have all the jewish ideals,--they are implied in your attack on our society." she shook her head obstinately. "you read all that into me, as you read your modern thought into the old naïve books." "i read what is in you. your soul is in the right, whatever your brain says." he went on, almost to echo strelitski's words, "selfishness is the only real atheism; aspiration, unselfishness, the only real religion. in the language of our hillel, this is the text of the law; the rest is commentary. you and i are at one in believing that, despite all and after all, the world turns on righteousness, on justice"--his voice became a whisper--"on love." the old thrill went through her, as when first they met. once again the universe seemed bathed in holy joy. but she shook off the spell almost angrily. her face was definitely set towards the life of the new world. why should he disturb her anew? "ah, well, i'm glad you allow me a little goodness," she said sarcastically. "it is quite evident how you have drifted from orthodoxy. strange result of _the flag of judah_! started to convert me, it has ended by alienating you--its editor--from the true faith. oh, the irony of circumstance! but don't look so glum. it has fulfilled its mission all the same; it _has_ converted me--i will confess it to you." her face grew grave, her tones earnest "so i haven't an atom of sympathy with your broader attitude. i am full of longing for the old impossible judaism." his face took on a look of anxious solicitude. he was uncertain whether she spoke ironically or seriously. only one thing was certain--that she was slipping from him again. she seemed so complex, paradoxical, elusive--and yet growing every moment more dear and desirable. "where are you living?" he asked abruptly. "it doesn't matter where," she answered. "i sail for america in three weeks." the world seemed suddenly empty. it was hopeless, then--she was almost in his grasp, yet he could not hold her. some greater force was sweeping her into strange alien solitudes. a storm of protest raged in his heart--all he had meant to say to her rose to his lips, but he only said, "must you go?" "i must. my little sister marries. i have timed my visit so as to arrive just for the wedding--like a fairy godmother." she smiled wistfully. "then you will live with your people, i suppose?" "i suppose so. i dare say i shall become quite good again. ah, your new judaisms will never appeal like the old, with all its imperfections. they will never keep the race together through shine and shade as that did. they do but stave off the inevitable dissolution. it is beautiful--that old childlike faith in the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night, that patient waiting through the centuries for the messiah who even to you, i dare say, is a mere symbol." again the wistful look lit up her eyes. "that's what you rich people will never understand--it doesn't seem to go with dinners in seven courses, somehow." "oh, but i do understand," he protested. "it's what i told strelitski, who is all for intellect in religion. he is going to america, too," he said, with a sudden pang of jealous apprehension. "on a holiday?" "no; he is going to resign his ministry here." "what! has he got a better offer from america?" "still so cruel to him," he said reprovingly. "he is resigning for conscience' sake." "after all these years?" she queried sarcastically. "miss ansell, you wrong him! he was not happy in his position. you were right so far. but he cannot endure his shackles any longer. and it is you who have inspired him to break them." "i?" she exclaimed, startled. "yes, i told him why you had left mrs. henry goldsmith's--it seemed to act like an electrical stimulus. then and there he made me write a paragraph announcing his resignation. it will appear to-morrow." esther's eyes filled with soft light. she walked on in silence; then, noticing she had automatically walked too much in the direction of her place of concealment, she came to an abrupt stop. "we must part here," she said. "if i ever come across my old shepherd in america, i will be nicer to him. it is really quite heroic of him--you must have exaggerated my own petty sacrifice alarmingly if it really supplied him with inspiration. what is he going to do in america?" "to preach a universal judaism. he is a born idealist; his ideas have always such a magnificent sweep. years ago he wanted all the jews to return to palestine." esther smiled faintly, not at strelitski, but at raphael's calling another man an idealist. she had never yet done justice to the strain of common-sense that saved him from being a great man; he and the new strelitski were of one breed to her. "he will make jews no happier and christians no wiser," she said sceptically. "the great populations will sweep on, as little affected by the jews as this crowd by you and me. the world will not go back on itself--rather will christianity transform itself and take the credit. we are such a handful of outsiders. judaism--old or new--is a forlorn hope." "the forlorn hope will yet save the world," he answered quietly, "but it has first to be saved to the world." "be happy in your hope," she said gently. "good-bye." she held out her little hand. he had no option but to take it. "but we are not going to part like this," he said desperately. "i shall see you again before you go to america?" "no, why should you?" "because i love you," rose to his lips. but the avowal seemed too plump. he prevaricated by retorting, "why should i not?" "because i fear you," was in her heart, but nothing rose to her lips. he looked into her eyes to read an answer there, but she dropped them. he saw his opportunity. "why should i not?" he repeated. "your time is valuable," she said faintly. "i could not spend it better than with you," he answered boldly. "please don't insist," she said in distress. "but i shall; i am your friend. so far as i know, you are lonely. if you are bent upon going away, why deny me the pleasure of the society i am about to lose for ever?" "oh, how can you call it a pleasure--such poor melancholy company as i am!" "such poor melancholy company that i came expressly to seek it, for some one told me you were at the museum. such poor melancholy company that if i am robbed of it life will be a blank." he had not let go her hand; his tones were low and passionate; the heedless traffic of the sultry london street was all about them. esther trembled from head to foot; she could not look at him. there was no mistaking his meaning now; her breast was a whirl of delicious pain. but in proportion as the happiness at her beck and call dazzled her, so she recoiled from it. bent on self-effacement, attuned to the peace of despair, she almost resented the solicitation to be happy; she had suffered so much that she had grown to think suffering her natural element, out of which she could not breathe; she was almost in love with misery. and in so sad a world was there not something ignoble about happiness, a selfish aloofness from the life of humanity? and, illogically blent with this questioning, and strengthening her recoil, was an obstinate conviction that there could never be happiness for her, a being of ignominious birth, without roots in life, futile, shadowy, out of relation to the tangible solidities of ordinary existence. to offer her a warm fireside seemed to be to tempt her to be false to something--she knew not what. perhaps it was because the warm fireside was in the circle she had quitted, and her heart was yet bitter against it, finding no palliative even in the thought of a triumphant return. she did not belong to it; she was not of raphael's world. but she felt grateful to the point of tears for his incomprehensible love for a plain, penniless, low-born girl. surely, it was only his chivalry. other men had not found her attractive. sidney had not; levi only fancied himself in love. and yet beneath all her humility was a sense of being loved for the best in her, for the hidden qualities raphael alone had the insight to divine. she could never think so meanly of herself or of humanity again. he had helped and strengthened her for her lonely future; the remembrance of him would always be an inspiration, and a reminder of the nobler side of human nature. all this contradictory medley of thought and feeling occupied but a few seconds of consciousness. she answered him without any perceptible pause, lightly enough. "really, mr. leon, i don't expect _you_ to say such things. why should we be so conventional, you and i? how can your life be a blank, with judaism yet to be saved?" "who am i to save judaism? i want to save you," he said passionately. "what a descent! for heaven's sake, stick to your earlier ambition!" "no, the two are one to me. somehow you seem to stand for judaism, too. i cannot disentwine my hopes; i have come to conceive your life as an allegory of judaism, the offspring of a great and tragic past with the germs of a rich blossoming, yet wasting with an inward canker, i have grown to think of its future as somehow bound up with yours. i want to see your eyes laughing, the shadows lifted from your brow; i want to see you face life courageously, not in passionate revolt nor in passionless despair, but in faith and hope and the joy that springs from them. i want you to seek peace, not in a despairing surrender of the intellect to the faith of childhood, but in that faith intellectually justified. and while i want to help you, and to fill your life with the sunshine it needs, i want you to help me, to inspire me when i falter, to complete my life, to make me happier than i had ever dreamed. be my wife, esther. let me save you from yourself." "let me save you from yourself, raphael. is it wise to wed with the gray spirit of the ghetto that doubts itself?" and like a spirit she glided from his grasp and disappeared in the crowd. chapter xvii. the prodigal son. the new year dawned upon the ghetto, heralded by a month of special matins and the long-sustained note of the ram's horn. it was in the midst of the ten days of repentance which find their awful climax in the day of atonement that a strange letter for hannah came to startle the breakfast-table at reb shemuel's. hannah read it with growing pallor and perturbation. "what is the matter, my dear?" asked the reb, anxiously. "oh, father," she cried, "read this! bad news of levi." a spasm of pain contorted the old man's furrowed countenance. "mention not his name!" he said harshly "he is dead." "he may be by now!" hannah exclaimed agitatedly. "you were right, esther. he did join a strolling company, and now he is laid up with typhoid in the hospital in stockbridge. one of his friends writes to tell us. he must have caught it in one of those insanitary dressing-rooms we were reading about." esther trembled all over. the scene in the garret when the fatal telegram came announcing benjamin's illness had never faded from her mind. she had an instant conviction that it was all over with poor levi. "my poor lamb!" cried the rebbitzin, the coffee-cup dropping from her nerveless hand. "simcha," said reb shemuel sternly, "calm thyself; we have no son to lose. the holy one--blessed be he!--hath taken him from us. the lord giveth, and the lord taketh. blessed be the name of the lord." hannah rose. her face was white and resolute. she moved towards the door. "whither goest thou?" inquired her father in german. "i am going to my room, to put on my hat and jacket," replied hannah quietly. "whither goest thou?" repeated reb shemuel. "to stockbridge. mother, you and i must go at once." the reb sprang to his feet. his brow was dark; his eyes gleamed with anger and pain. "sit down and finish thy breakfast," he said. "how can i eat? levi is dying," said hannah, in low, firm tones. "will you come, mother, or must i go alone?" the rebbitzin began to wring her hands and weep. esther stole gently to hannah's side and pressed the poor girl's hand. "you and i will go," her clasp said. "hannah!" said reb shemuel. "what madness is this? dost thou think thy mother will obey thee rather than her husband?" "levi is dying. it is our duty to go to him." hannah's gentle face was rigid. but there was exaltation rather than defiance in the eyes. "it is not the duty of women," said reb shemuel harshly. "i will go to stockbridge. if he dies (god have mercy upon his soul!) i will see that he is buried among his own people. thou knowest women go not to funerals." he reseated himself at the table, pushing aside his scarcely touched meal, and began saying the grace. dominated by his will and by old habit, the three trembling women remained in reverential silence. "the lord will give strength to his people; the lord will bless his people with peace," concluded the old man in unfaltering accents. he rose from the table and strode to the door, stern and erect "thou wilt remain here, hannah, and thou, simcha," he said. in the passage his shoulders relaxed their stiffness, so that the long snow-white beard drooped upon his breast. the three women looked at one another. "mother," said hannah, passionately breaking the silence, "are you going to stay here while levi is dying in a strange town?" "my husband wills it," said the rebbitzin, sobbing. "levi is a sinner in israel. thy father will not see him; he will not go to him till he is dead." "oh yes, surely he will," said esther. "but be comforted. levi is young and strong. let us hope he will pull through." "no, no!" moaned the rebbitzin. "he will die, and my husband will but read the psalms at his death-bed. he will not forgive him; he will not speak to him of his mother and sister." "let _me_ go. i will give him your messages," said esther. "no, no," interrupted hannah. "what are you to him? why should you risk infection for our sakes?" "go, hannah, but secretly," said the rebbitzin in a wailing whisper. "let not thy father see thee till thou arrive; then he will not send thee back. tell levi that i--oh, my poor child, my poor lamb!" sobs overpowered her speech. "no, mother," said hannah quietly, "thou and i shall go. i will tell father we are accompanying him." she left the room, while the rebbitzin fell weeping and terrified into a chair, and esther vainly endeavored to soothe her. the reb was changing his coat when hannah knocked at the door and called "father." "speak not to me, hannah," answered the reb, roughly. "it is useless." then, as if repentant of his tone, he threw open the door, and passed his great trembling hand lovingly over her hair. "thou art a good daughter," he said tenderly. "forget that thou hast had a brother." "but how can i forget?" she answered him in his own idiom. "why should i forget? what hath he done?" he ceased to smooth her hair--his voice grew sad and stern. "he hath profaned the name. he hath lived like a heathen; he dieth like a heathen now. his blasphemy was a by-word in the congregation. i alone knew it not till last passover. he hath brought down my gray hairs in sorrow to the grave." "yes, father, i know," said hannah, more gently. "but he is not all to blame!" "thou meanest that i am not guiltless; that i should have kept him at my side?" said the reb, his voice faltering a little. "no, father, not that! levi could not always be a baby. he had to walk alone some day." "yes, and did i not teach him to walk alone?" asked the reb eagerly. "my god, thou canst not say i did not teach him thy law, day and night." he uplifted his eyes in anguished appeal. "yes, but he is not all to blame," she repeated. "thy teaching did not reach his soul; he is of another generation, the air is different, his life was cast amid conditions for which the law doth not allow." "hannah!" reb shemuel's accents became harsh and chiding again. "what sayest thou? the law of moses is eternal; it will never be changed. levi knew god's commandments, but he followed the desire of his own heart and his own eyes. if god's word were obeyed, he should have been stoned with stones. but heaven itself hath punished him; he will die, for it is ordained that whosoever is stubborn and disobedient, that soul shall surely be cut off from among his people. 'keep my commandments, that thy days may be long in the land,' god himself hath said it. is it not written: 'rejoice, o young man, in thy youth, and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth, and walk in the ways of thine heart and in the sight of thine eyes; but know thou that for all these things the lord will bring thee into judgment'? but thou, my hannah," he started caressing her hair again, "art a good jewish maiden. between levi and thee there is naught in common. his touch would profane thee. sadden not thy innocent eyes with the sight of his end. think of him as one who died in boyhood. my god! why didst thou not take him then?" he turned away, stifling a sob. "father," she put her hand on his shoulder, "we will go with thee to stockbridge--i and the mother." he faced her again, stern and rigid. "cease thy entreaties. i will go alone." "no, we will all go." "hannah," he said, his voice tremulous with pain and astonishment, "dost thou, too, set light by thy father?" "yes," she cried, and there was no answering tremor in her voice. "now thou knowest! i am not a good jewish maiden. levi and i are brother and sister. his touch profane me, forsooth!" she laughed bitterly. "thou wilt take this journey though i forbid thee?" he cried in acrid accents, still mingled with surprise. "yes; would i had taken the journey thou wouldst have forbidden ten years ago!" "what journey? thou talkest madness." "i talk truth. thou hast forgotten david brandon; i have not. ten years last passover i arranged to fly with him, to marry him, in defiance of the law and thee." a new pallor overspread the reb's countenance, already ashen. he trembled and almost fell backwards. "but thou didst not?" he whispered hoarsely. "i did not, i know not why," she said sullenly; "else thou wouldst never have seen me again. it may be i respected thy religion, although thou didst not dream what was in my mind. but thy religion shall not keep me from this journey." the reb had hidden his face in his hands. his lips were moving; was it in grateful prayer, in self-reproach, or merely in nervous trembling? hannah never knew. presently the reb's arms dropped, great tears rolled down towards the white beard. when he spoke, his tones were hushed as with awe. "this man--tell me, my daughter, thou lovest him still?" she shrugged her shoulders with a gesture of reckless despair. "what does it matter? my life is but a shadow." the reb took her to his breast, though she remained stony to his touch, and laid his wet face against her burning cheeks. "my child, my poor hannah; i thought god had sent thee peace ten years ago; that he had rewarded thee for thy obedience to his law." she drew her face away from his. "it was not his law; it was a miserable juggling with texts. thou alone interpretedst god's law thus. no one knew of the matter." he could not argue; the breast against which he held her was shaken by a tempest of grief, which swept away all save human remorse, human love. "my daughter," he sobbed, "i have ruined thy life!" after an agonized pause, he said: "tell me, hannah, is there nothing i can do to make atonement to thee?" "only one thing, father," she articulated chokingly; "forgive levi." there was a moment of solemn silence. then the reb spake. "tell thy mother to put on her things and take what she needs for the journey. perchance we may be away for days." they mingled their tears in sweet reconciliation. presently, the reb said: "go now to thy mother, and see also that the boy's room be made ready as of old. perchance god will hear my prayer, and he will yet be restored to us." a new peace fell upon hannah's soul. "my sacrifice was not in vain after all," she thought, with a throb of happiness that was almost exultation. but levi never came back. the news of his death arrived on the eve of _yom kippur_, the day of atonement, in a letter to esther who had been left in charge of the house. "he died quietly at the end," hannah wrote, "happy in the consciousness of father's forgiveness, and leaning trustfully upon his interposition with heaven; but he had delirious moments, during which he raved painfully. the poor boy was in great fear of death, moaning prayers that he might be spared till after _yom kippur_, when he would be cleansed of sin, and babbling about serpents that would twine themselves round his arm and brow, like the phylacteries he had not worn. he made father repeat his 'verse' to him over and over again, so that he might remember his name when the angel of the grave asked it; and borrowed father's phylacteries, the headpiece of which was much too large for him with his shaven crown. when he had them on, and the _talith_ round him, he grew easier, and began murmuring the death-bed prayers with father. one of them runs: 'o may my death be an atonement for all the sins, iniquities and transgressions of which i have been guilty against thee!' i trust it may be so indeed. it seems so hard for a young man full of life and high spirits to be cut down, while the wretched are left alive. your name was often on his lips. i was glad to learn he thought so much of you. 'be sure to give esther my love,' he said almost with his last breath, 'and ask her to forgive me.' i know not if you have anything to forgive, or whether this was delirium. he looks quite calm now--but oh! so worn. they have closed the eyes. the beard he shocked father so by shaving off, has sprouted scrubbily during his illness. on the dead face it seems a mockery, like the _talith_ and phylacteries that have not been removed." a phrase of leonard james vibrated in esther's ears: "if the chappies could see me!" chapter xviii. hopes and dreams. the morning of the great white fast broke bleak and gray. esther, alone in the house save for the servant, wandered from room to room in dull misery. the day before had been almost a feast-day in the ghetto--everybody providing for the morrow. esther had scarcely eaten anything. nevertheless she was fasting, and would fast for over twenty-four hours, till the night fell. she knew not why. her record was unbroken, and instinct resented a breach now. she had always fasted--even the henry goldsmiths fasted, and greater than the henry goldsmiths! q.c.'s fasted, and peers, and prize-fighters and actors. and yet esther, like many far more pious persons, did not think of her sins for a moment. she thought of everything but them--of the bereaved family in that strange provincial town; of her own family in that strange distant land. well, she would soon be with them now. her passage was booked--a steerage passage it was, not because she could not afford cabin fare, but from her morbid impulse to identify herself with poverty. the same impulse led her to choose a vessel in which a party of jewish pauper immigrants was being shipped farther west. she thought also of dutch debby, with whom she had spent the previous evening; and of raphael leon, who had sent her, _via_ the publishers, a letter which she could not trust herself to answer cruelly, and which she deemed it most prudent to leave unanswered. uncertain of her powers of resistance, she scarcely ventured outside the house for fear of his stumbling across her. happily, every day diminished the chance of her whereabouts leaking out through some unsuspected channel. about noon, her restlessness carried her into the streets. there was a festal solemnity about the air. women and children, not at synagogue, showed themselves at the doors, pranked in their best. indifferently pious young men sought relief from the ennui of the day-long service in lounging about for a breath of fresh air; some even strolled towards the strand, and turned into the national gallery, satisfied to reappear for the twilight service. on all sides came the fervent roar of prayer which indicated a synagogue or a _chevrah_, the number of places of worship having been indefinitely increased to accommodate those who made their appearance for this occasion only. everywhere friends and neighbors were asking one another how they were bearing the fast, exhibiting their white tongues and generally comparing symptoms, the physical aspects of the day of atonement more or less completely diverting attention from the spiritual. smelling-salts passed from hand to hand, and men explained to one another that, but for the deprivation of their cigars, they could endure _yom kippur_ with complacency. esther passed the ghetto school, within which free services were going on even in the playground, poor russians and poles, fanatically observant, fore-gathering with lax fishmongers and welshers; and without which hulking young men hovered uneasily, feeling too out of tune with religion to go in, too conscious of the terrors of the day to stay entirely away. from the interior came from sunrise to nightfall a throbbing thunder of supplication, now pealing in passionate outcry, now subsiding to a low rumble. the sounds of prayer that pervaded the ghetto, and burst upon her at every turn, wrought upon esther strangely; all her soul went out in sympathy with these yearning outbursts; she stopped every now and then to listen, as in those far-off days when the sons of the covenant drew her with their melancholy cadences. at last, moved by an irresistible instinct, she crossed the threshold of a large _chevrah_ she had known in her girlhood, mounted the stairs and entered the female compartment without hostile challenge. the reek of many breaths and candles nearly drove her back, but she pressed forwards towards a remembered window, through a crowd of be-wigged women, shaking their bodies fervently to and fro. this room had no connection with the men's; it was simply the room above part of theirs, and the declamations of the unseen cantor came but faintly through the flooring, though the clamor of the general masculine chorus kept the pious _au courant_ with their husbands. when weather or the whims of the more important ladies permitted, the window at the end was opened; it gave upon a little balcony, below which the men's chamber projected considerably, having been built out into the back yard. when this window was opened simultaneously with the skylight in the men's synagogue, the fervid roulades of the cantor were as audible to the women as to their masters. esther had always affected the balcony: there the air was comparatively fresh, and on fine days there was a glimpse of blue sky, and a perspective of sunny red tiles, where brown birds fluttered and cats lounged and little episodes arose to temper the tedium of endless invocation: and farther off there was a back view of a nunnery, with visions of placid black-hooded faces at windows; and from the distance came a pleasant drone of monosyllabic spelling from fresh young voices, to relieve the ear from the monotony of long stretches of meaningless mumbling. here, lost in a sweet melancholy, esther dreamed away the long gray day, only vaguely conscious of the stages of the service--morning dovetailing into afternoon service, and afternoon into evening; of the heavy-jowled woman behind her reciting a jargon-version of the atonement liturgy to a devout coterie; of the prostrations full-length on the floor, and the series of impassioned sermons; of the interminably rhyming poems, and the acrostics with their recurring burdens shouted in devotional frenzy, voice rising above voice as in emulation, with special staccato phrases flung heavenwards; of the wailing confessions of communal sin, with their accompaniment of sobs and tears and howls and grimaces and clenchings of palms and beatings of the breast. she was lapped in a great ocean of sound that broke upon her consciousness like the waves upon a beach, now with a cooing murmur, now with a majestic crash, followed by a long receding moan. she lost herself in the roar, in its barren sensuousness, while the leaden sky grew duskier and the twilight crept on, and the awful hour drew nigh when god would seal what he had written, and the annual scrolls of destiny would be closed, immutable. she saw them looming mystically through the skylight, the swaying forms below, in their white grave-clothes, oscillating weirdly backwards and forwards, bowed as by a mighty wind. suddenly there fell a vast silence; even from without no sound came to break the awful stillness. it was as if all creation paused to hear a pregnant word. "hear, o israel, the lord our god, the lord is one!" sang the cantor frenziedly. and all the ghostly congregation answered with a great cry, closing their eyes and rocking frantically to and fro: "hear, o israel, the lord our god, the lord is one!" they seemed like a great army of the sheeted dead risen to testify to the unity. the magnetic tremor that ran through the synagogue thrilled the lonely girl to the core; once again her dead self woke, her dead ancestors that would not be shaken off lived and moved in her. she was sucked up into the great wave of passionate faith, and from her lips came, in rapturous surrender to an overmastering impulse, the half-hysterical protestation: "hear, o israel, the lord our god, the lord is one!" and then in the brief instant while the congregation, with ever-ascending rhapsody, blessed god till the climax came with the sevenfold declaration, "the lord, he is god," the whole history of her strange, unhappy race flashed through her mind in a whirl of resistless emotion. she was overwhelmed by the thought of its sons in every corner of the earth proclaiming to the sombre twilight sky the belief for which its generations had lived and died--the jews of russia sobbing it forth in their pale of enclosure, the jews of morocco in their _mellah_, and of south africa in their tents by the diamond mines: the jews of the new world in great free cities, in canadian backwoods, in south american savannahs: the australian jews on the sheep-farms and the gold-fields and in the mushroom cities; the jews of asia in their reeking quarters begirt by barbarian populations. the shadow of a large mysterious destiny seemed to hang over these poor superstitious zealots, whose lives she knew so well in all their everyday prose, and to invest the unconscious shunning sons of the ghetto with something of tragic grandeur. the gray dusk palpitated with floating shapes of prophets and martyrs, scholars and sages and poets, full of a yearning love and pity, lifting hands of benediction. by what great high-roads and queer by-ways of history had they travelled hither, these wandering jews, "sated with contempt," these shrewd eager fanatics, these sensual ascetics, these human paradoxes, adaptive to every environment, energizing in every field of activity, omnipresent like sonic great natural force, indestructible and almost inconvertible, surviving--with the incurable optimism that overlay all their poetic sadness--babylon and carthage, greece and rome; involuntarily financing the crusades, outliving the inquisition, illusive of all baits, unshaken by all persecutions--at once the greatest and meanest of races? had the jew come so far only to break down at last, sinking in morasses of modern doubt, and irresistibly dragging down with him the christian and the moslem; or was he yet fated to outlast them both, in continuous testimony to a hand moulding incomprehensibly the life of humanity? would israel develop into the sacred phalanx, the nobler brotherhood that raphael leon had dreamed of, or would the race that had first proclaimed--through moses for the ancient world, through spinoza for the modern-- "one god, one law, one element," become, in the larger, wilder dream of the russian _idealist_, the main factor in "one far-off divine event to which the whole creation moves"? the roar dwindled to a solemn silence, as though in answer to her questionings. then the ram's horn shrilled--a stern long-drawn-out note, that rose at last into a mighty peal of sacred jubilation. the atonement was complete. the crowd bore esther downstairs and into the blank indifferent street. but the long exhausting fast, the fetid atmosphere, the strain upon her emotions, had overtaxed her beyond endurance. up to now the frenzy of the service had sustained her, but as she stepped across the threshold on to the pavement she staggered and fell. one of the men pouring out from the lower synagogue caught her in his arms. it was strelitski. * * * * * a group of three stood on the saloon deck of an outward-bound steamer. raphael leon was bidding farewell to the man he reverenced without discipleship, and the woman he loved without blindness. "look!" he said, pointing compassionately to the wretched throng of jewish emigrants huddling on the lower deck and scattered about the gangway amid jostling sailors and stevedores and bales and coils of rope; the men in peaked or fur caps, the women with shawls and babies, some gazing upwards with lacklustre eyes, the majority brooding, despondent, apathetic. "how could either of you have borne the sights and smells of the steerage? you are a pair of visionaries. you could not have breathed a day in that society. look!" strelitski looked at esther instead; perhaps he was thinking he could have breathed anywhere in her society--nay, breathed even more freely in the steerage than in the cabin if he had sailed away without telling raphael that he had found her. "you forget a common impulse took us into such society on the day of atonement," he answered after a moment. "you forget we are both children of the ghetto." "i can never forget that," said raphael fervently, "else esther would at this moment be lost amid the human flotsam and jetsam below, sailing away without you to protect her, without me to look forward to her return, without addie's bouquet to assure her of a sister's love." he took esther's little hand once more it lingered confidingly in his own. there was no ring of betrothal upon it, nor would be, till rachel ansell in america, and addie leon in england, should have passed under the wedding canopy, and raphael, whose breast pocket was bulging with a new meerschaum too sacred to smoke, should startle the west end with his eccentric choice, and confirm its impression of his insanity. the trio had said and resaid all they had to tell one another, all the reminders and the recommendations. they stood without speaking now, wrapped in that loving silence which is sweeter than speech. the sun, which, had been shining intermittently, flooded the serried shipping with a burst of golden light, that coaxed the turbid waves to brightness, and cheered the wan emigrants, and made little children leap joyously in their mothers' arms. the knell of parting sounded insistent. "your allegory seems turning in your favor, raphael," said esther, with a sudden memory. the pensive smile that made her face beautiful lit up the dark eyes. "what allegory is that of raphael's?" said strelitski, reflecting her smile on his graver visage. "the long one in his prize poem?" "no," said raphael, catching the contagious smile. "it is our little secret." strelitski turned suddenly to look at the emigrants. the smile faded from his quivering mouth. the last moment had come. raphael stooped down towards the gentle softly-flushing face, which was raised unhesitatingly to meet his, and their lips met in a first kiss, diviner than it is given most mortals to know--a kiss, sad and sweet, troth and parting in one: _ave et vale_--hail and farewell." "good-bye, strelitski," said raphael huskily. "success to your dreams." the idealist turned round with a start. his face was bright and resolute; the black curl streamed buoyantly on the breeze. "good-bye," he responded, with a giant's grip of the hand. "success to your hopes." raphael darted away with his long stride. the sun was still bright, but for a moment everything seemed chill and dim to esther ansell's vision. with a sudden fit of nervous foreboding she stretched out her arms towards the vanishing figure of her lover. but she saw him once again in the tender, waving his handkerchief towards the throbbing vessel that glided with its freight of hopes and dreams across the great waters towards the new world. glossary _h._ = hebrew. _g._ = german. _gk._ = greek. _r._ = russian. _s._ = spanish. _c._ = corrupt. achi-nebbich (_etymology obscure_), alas, poor thing(s). afikuman (_hebraicized gk_.), portion of a passover cake taken at the end of sedermeal (_q.v._). agadah (_h._), narrative portion of the talmud; passover-eve ritual. amidah (_h._), series of benedictions said standing. arbah kanfus (_h._) lit., four corners; a garment consisting of two shoulder straps supporting a front and back piece with fringes at each corner (numbers xv. - ). ashkenazim (_h._) german; hence, also, russian and polish jews. badchan (_h._), professional jester. bensh (?), say grace. beth din (_h._), court of judgment. beth medrash (_h._), college. bube (_g._), grandmother. cabbalah (_h._), cabbulah (_c._), lit., tradition; mystic lore. calloh (_h._), bride; _fiancée_. chazan (_h._), cantor. chevra (_h._), small congregation; a society. chine (_h._), playful humor; humorous anecdote. chocham (_h._), wise man. chomutz (_h._), leaven. chosan (_h._), bridegroom; _fiancé_. chuppah (_h._), wedding canopy. cohen (_h._), priest. dayan (_h._), rabbi who renders decisions. din (_h._), law, decision. droshes (_h._), sermons. epikouros (_h. from gk_.), heretic, scoffer; epicurean. froom (_c. g._), pious. gelt (_c.g._), money. gematriyah (_hebraicised gk._), mystic, numerical interpretation of scripture. gomorah (_h._), part of the talmud. gonof (_h._), thief. goyah (_h._), non-jewess. halacha (_h._), legal portion of the talmud. havdolah (_h._), ceremony separating conclusion of sabbath or festival from the subsequent days of toil. imbeshreer (_c.g. ohne beschreien_), without bewitching; unbeshrewn. kaddish (_h._), prayer in praise of god; specially recited by male mourners. kehillah (_h._), congregation. kind, kinder (_g._), child, children. kosher (_h._), ritually clean. kotzon (_h._), rich man. link (_g._), lit., left, _i.e._ not right; hence, lax, not pious. longë verachum (_g. and c.h._), lit., the long "and he being merciful." a long, extra prayer, said on mondays and thursdays. lulov (_h._), palm branch dressed with myrtle and willow, and used at the feast of tabernacles. maaseh (_h._), story, tale. machzor (_h._), festival prayer-book. maggid (_h._), preacher. mazzoltov (_h._), good luck, congratulations. megillah (_h._), lit., scroll. the book of esther. meshuggah, meshuggene (_h._), mad. meshumad (_h._), apostate. metsiah (_h._), lit., finding; cp. fr., _trouvaille_; bargain. mezuzah (_h._), case containing a scroll, with hebrew verses (deuteronomy vi. - , - ) affixed to every door-post. midrash (_h._), biblical exposition. mincha (_h._), afternoon prayer. minyan (_h._), quorum of ten males, over thirteen, necessary for public worship. mishpochah (_h._), family. mishna, mishnayis (_h._), collection of the oral law. misheberach (_h._), synagogal benediction. mitzvah (_h._), a commandment, _i.e._ a good deed. mizrach (_h._), east; a sacred picture hung on the east wall in the direction of jerusalem, to which the face is turned in praying. narrischkeit (_c.g._), foolishness. nasch (_c.g._), pilfer (dainties). nevirah (_h._), sin. niddali (_h._), talmudical tractate on the purification of women. nu (_r._), well. olov hasholom (_h._), peace be upon him! (loosely applied to deceased females also). omer (_h._), the seven weeks between passover and pentecost. parnass (_h._), president of the congregation. pesachdik (_h._), proper for passover. pidyun haben (_h._), redemption of the first-born son. piyut (_hebraicized gk_.), liturgical poem. pollack (_c.g._), polish jew. potch (_c.g._), slap. rashi (_h._), rabbi solomon ben isaac, whose commentary is often printed under the hebrew text of the bible. schlemihl (_h._), unlucky, awkward person. schmuck (_c.g._), lubberly person. schmull (_c.g. schmollen_), pout, sulk. schnecks (? _g. schnake_, gay nonsense), affectations. schnorrer (_c.g._), beggar. seder (_h._), passover-eve ceremony. selaim (_h._), old jewish coins. sephardim (_h._), spanish and portuguese jews. shaaloth u tshuvoth (_h._), questions and answers; casuistical treatise. shabbos (_h._), sabbath. shadchan (_h._), professional match-maker. shaitel (_c.g._), wig worn by married women. shammos (_c.h._), beadle. shass (_h. abbreviation_), the six sections of the talmud. shechitah (_h._), slaughter. shemah beni (_h._), hear, my son! = dear me! shemang (_h._), confession of the unity of god. shidduch (_h._), match. shiksah (_h._), non-jewish girl. shnodar (_h._), offer money to the synagogue. (an extraordinary instance of jewish jargon,--a compound hebrew word meaning "who vows,"--being turned into an english verb, and conjugated accordingly, in _ed_ and _ing_.) shochet (_h_), official slaughterer. shofar (_h._), trumpet of ram's horn, blown during the penitential season. shool (_c. g_.), synagogue. shulchan aruch (_h._), a sixteenth-century compilation, codifying jewish law. simchath torah (_h._), festival of the rejoicing of the law. snoga (_s._), sephardic synagogue. spiel (_g._), play. takif (_h._), rich man, swell. talith (_h._), a shawl with fringes, worn by men during prayer. tanaim (_h._), betrothal contract or ceremony. térah, torah (_h._), law of moses. tephillin (_h._), phylacteries. tripha (_h._), ritually unclean. wurst (_g._), sausage. yiddish, yiddishkeit (_c.g._), jewish, judaism. yigdal (_h._), hymn summarizing the thirteen creeds drawn up by maimonides. yom kippur (_h._), day of atonement. yom tof (_h._), lit., good day; festival. yontovdik (_hybrid h_.), pertaining to the festival. yosher-kowach (_c.h._), may your strength increase! = thank you; a formula to express gratitude--especially at the end of a reading. daniel deronda by george eliot let thy chief terror be of thine own soul: there, 'mid the throng of hurrying desires that trample on the dead to seize their spoil, lurks vengeance, footless, irresistible as exhalations laden with slow death, and o'er the fairest troop of captured joys breathes pallid pestilence. contents. book i. the spoiled child " ii. meeting streams " iii. maidens choosing " iv. gwendolen gets her choice " v. mordecai " vi. revelations " vii. the mother and the son " viii. fruit and seed daniel deronda. book i.--the spoiled child. chapter i. men can do nothing without the make-believe of a beginning. even science, the strict measurer, is obliged to start with a make-believe unit, and must fix on a point in the stars' unceasing journey when his sidereal clock shall pretend that time is at nought. his less accurate grandmother poetry has always been understood to start in the middle; but on reflection it appears that her proceeding is not very different from his; since science, too, reckons backward as well as forward, divides his unit into billions, and with his clock-finger at nought really sets off _in medias res_. no retrospect will take us to the true beginning; and whether our prologue be in heaven or on earth, it is but a fraction of that all-presupposing fact with which our story sets out. was she beautiful or not beautiful? and what was the secret of form or expression which gave the dynamic quality to her glance? was the good or the evil genius dominant in those beams? probably the evil; else why was the effect that of unrest rather than of undisturbed charm? why was the wish to look again felt as coercion and not as a longing in which the whole being consents? she who raised these questions in daniel deronda's mind was occupied in gambling: not in the open air under a southern sky, tossing coppers on a ruined wall, with rags about her limbs; but in one of those splendid resorts which the enlightenment of ages has prepared for the same species of pleasure at a heavy cost of gilt mouldings, dark-toned color and chubby nudities, all correspondingly heavy--forming a suitable condenser for human breath belonging, in great part, to the highest fashion, and not easily procurable to be breathed in elsewhere in the like proportion, at least by persons of little fashion. it was near four o'clock on a september day, so that the atmosphere was well-brewed to a visible haze. there was deep stillness, broken only by a light rattle, a light chink, a small sweeping sound, and an occasional monotone in french, such as might be expected to issue from an ingeniously constructed automaton. round two long tables were gathered two serried crowds of human beings, all save one having their faces and attention bent on the tables. the one exception was a melancholy little boy, with his knees and calves simply in their natural clothing of epidermis, but for the rest of his person in a fancy dress. he alone had his face turned toward the doorway, and fixing on it the blank gaze of a bedizened child stationed as a masquerading advertisement on the platform of an itinerant show, stood close behind a lady deeply engaged at the roulette-table. about this table fifty or sixty persons were assembled, many in the outer rows, where there was occasionally a deposit of new-comers, being mere spectators, only that one of them, usually a woman, might now and then be observed putting down a five-franc with a simpering air, just to see what the passion of gambling really was. those who were taking their pleasure at a higher strength, and were absorbed in play, showed very distant varieties of european type: livonian and spanish, graeco-italian and miscellaneous german, english aristocratic and english plebeian. here certainly was a striking admission of human equality. the white bejewelled fingers of an english countess were very near touching a bony, yellow, crab-like hand stretching a bared wrist to clutch a heap of coin--a hand easy to sort with the square, gaunt face, deep-set eyes, grizzled eyebrows, and ill-combed scanty hair which seemed a slight metamorphosis of the vulture. and where else would her ladyship have graciously consented to sit by that dry-lipped feminine figure prematurely old, withered after short bloom like her artificial flowers, holding a shabby velvet reticule before her, and occasionally putting in her mouth the point with which she pricked her card? there too, very near the fair countess, was a respectable london tradesman, blonde and soft-handed, his sleek hair scrupulously parted behind and before, conscious of circulars addressed to the nobility and gentry, whose distinguished patronage enabled him to take his holidays fashionably, and to a certain extent in their distinguished company. not his the gambler's passion that nullifies appetite, but a well-fed leisure, which, in the intervals of winning money in business and spending it showily, sees no better resource than winning money in play and spending it yet more showily--reflecting always that providence had never manifested any disapprobation of his amusement, and dispassionate enough to leave off if the sweetness of winning much and seeing others lose had turned to the sourness of losing much and seeing others win. for the vice of gambling lay in losing money at it. in his bearing there might be something of the tradesman, but in his pleasures he was fit to rank with the owners of the oldest titles. standing close to his chair was a handsome italian, calm, statuesque, reaching across him to place the first pile of napoleons from a new bagful just brought him by an envoy with a scrolled mustache. the pile was in half a minute pushed over to an old bewigged woman with eye-glasses pinching her nose. there was a slight gleam, a faint mumbling smile about the lips of the old woman; but the statuesque italian remained impassive, and--probably secure in an infallible system which placed his foot on the neck of chance--immediately prepared a new pile. so did a man with the air of an emaciated beau or worn-out libertine, who looked at life through one eye-glass, and held out his hand tremulously when he asked for change. it could surely be no severity of system, but rather some dream of white crows, or the induction that the eighth of the month was lucky, which inspired the fierce yet tottering impulsiveness of his play. but, while every single player differed markedly from every other, there was a certain uniform negativeness of expression which had the effect of a mask--as if they had all eaten of some root that for the time compelled the brains of each to the same narrow monotony of action. deronda's first thought when his eyes fell on this scene of dull, gas-poisoned absorption, was that the gambling of spanish shepherd-boys had seemed to him more enviable:--so far rousseau might be justified in maintaining that art and science had done a poor service to mankind. but suddenly he felt the moment become dramatic. his attention was arrested by a young lady who, standing at an angle not far from him, was the last to whom his eyes traveled. she was bending and speaking english to a middle-aged lady seated at play beside her: but the next instant she returned to her play, and showed the full height of a graceful figure, with a face which might possibly be looked at without admiration, but could hardly be passed with indifference. the inward debate which she raised in deronda gave to his eyes a growing expression of scrutiny, tending farther and farther away from the glow of mingled undefined sensibilities forming admiration. at one moment they followed the movements of the figure, of the arms and hands, as this problematic sylph bent forward to deposit her stake with an air of firm choice; and the next they returned to the face which, at present unaffected by beholders, was directed steadily toward the game. the sylph was a winner; and as her taper fingers, delicately gloved in pale-gray, were adjusting the coins which had been pushed toward her in order to pass them back again to the winning point, she looked round her with a survey too markedly cold and neutral not to have in it a little of that nature which we call art concealing an inward exultation. but in the course of that survey her eyes met deronda's, and instead of averting them as she would have desired to do, she was unpleasantly conscious that they were arrested--how long? the darting sense that he was measuring her and looking down on her as an inferior, that he was of different quality from the human dross around her, that he felt himself in a region outside and above her, and was examining her as a specimen of a lower order, roused a tingling resentment which stretched the moment with conflict. it did not bring the blood to her cheeks, but it sent it away from her lips. she controlled herself by the help of an inward defiance, and without other sign of emotion than this lip-paleness turned to her play. but deronda's gaze seemed to have acted as an evil eye. her stake was gone. no matter; she had been winning ever since she took to roulette with a few napoleons at command, and had a considerable reserve. she had begun to believe in her luck, others had begun to believe in it: she had visions of being followed by a _cortège_ who would worship her as a goddess of luck and watch her play as a directing augury. such things had been known of male gamblers; why should not a woman have a like supremacy? her friend and chaperon who had not wished her to play at first was beginning to approve, only administering the prudent advice to stop at the right moment and carry money back to england--advice to which gwendolen had replied that she cared for the excitement of play, not the winnings. on that supposition the present moment ought to have made the flood-tide in her eager experience of gambling. yet, when her next stake was swept away, she felt the orbits of her eyes getting hot, and the certainty she had (without looking) of that man still watching her was something like a pressure which begins to be torturing. the more reason to her why she should not flinch, but go on playing as if she were indifferent to loss or gain. her friend touched her elbow and proposed that they should quit the table. for reply gwendolen put ten louis on the same spot: she was in that mood of defiance in which the mind loses sight of any end beyond the satisfaction of enraged resistance; and with the puerile stupidity of a dominant impulse includes luck among its objects of defiance. since she was not winning strikingly, the next best thing was to lose strikingly. she controlled her muscles, and showed no tremor of mouth or hands. each time her stake was swept off she doubled it. many were now watching her, but the sole observation she was conscious of was deronda's, who, though she never looked toward him, she was sure had not moved away. such a drama takes no long while to play out: development and catastrophe can often be measured by nothing clumsier than the moment-hand. "faites votre jeu, mesdames et messieurs," said the automatic voice of destiny from between the mustache and imperial of the croupier: and gwendolen's arm was stretched to deposit her last poor heap of napoleons. "le jeu ne va plus," said destiny. and in five seconds gwendolen turned from the table, but turned resolutely with her face toward deronda and looked at him. there was a smile of irony in his eyes as their glances met; but it was at least better that he should have kept his attention fixed on her than that he disregarded her as one of an insect swarm who had no individual physiognomy. besides, in spite of his superciliousness and irony, it was difficult to believe that he did not admire her spirit as well as her person: he was young, handsome, distinguished in appearance--not one of these ridiculous and dowdy philistines who thought it incumbent on them to blight the gaming-table with a sour look of protest as they passed by it. the general conviction that we are admirable does not easily give way before a single negative; rather when any of vanity's large family, male or female, find their performance received coldly, they are apt to believe that a little more of it will win over the unaccountable dissident. in gwendolen's habits of mind it had been taken for granted that she knew what was admirable and that she herself was admired. this basis of her thinking had received a disagreeable concussion, and reeled a little, but was not easily to be overthrown. in the evening the same room was more stiflingly heated, was brilliant with gas and with the costumes of ladies who floated their trains along it or were seated on the ottomans. the nereid in sea-green robes and silver ornaments, with a pale sea-green feather fastened in silver falling backward over her green hat and light brown hair, was gwendolen harleth. she was under the wing, or rather soared by the shoulder, of the lady who had sat by her at the roulette-table; and with them was a gentleman with a white mustache and clipped hair: solid-browed, stiff and german. they were walking about or standing to chat with acquaintances, and gwendolen was much observed by the seated groups. "a striking girl--that miss harleth--unlike others." "yes, she has got herself up as a sort of serpent now--all green and silver, and winds her neck about a little more than usual." "oh, she must always be doing something extraordinary. she is that kind of girl, i fancy. do you think her pretty, mr. vandernoodt?" "very. a man might risk hanging for her--i mean a fool might." "you like a _nez retroussé_, then, and long narrow eyes?" "when they go with such an _ensemble_." "the _ensemble du serpent_?" "if you will. woman was tempted by a serpent; why not man?" "she is certainly very graceful; but she wants a tinge of color in her cheeks. it is a sort of lamia beauty she has." "on the contrary, i think her complexion one of her chief charms. it is a warm paleness; it looks thoroughly healthy. and that delicate nose with its gradual little upward curve is distracting. and then her mouth--there never was a prettier mouth, the lips curled backward so finely, eh, mackworth?" "think so? i cannot endure that sort of mouth. it looks so self-complacent, as if it knew its own beauty--the curves are too immovable. i like a mouth that trembles more." "for my part, i think her odious," said a dowager. "it is wonderful what unpleasant girls get into vogue. who are these langens? does anybody know them?" "they are quite _comme il faut_. i have dined with them several times at the _russie_. the baroness is english. miss harleth calls her cousin. the girl herself is thoroughly well-bred, and as clever as possible." "dear me! and the baron?". "a very good furniture picture." "your baroness is always at the roulette-table," said mackworth. "i fancy she has taught the girl to gamble." "oh, the old woman plays a very sober game; drops a ten-franc piece here and there. the girl is more headlong. but it is only a freak." "i hear she has lost all her winnings to-day. are they rich? who knows?" "ah, who knows? who knows that about anybody?" said mr. vandernoodt, moving off to join the langens. the remark that gwendolen wound her neck about more than usual this evening was true. but it was not that she might carry out the serpent idea more completely: it was that she watched for any chance of seeing deronda, so that she might inquire about this stranger, under whose measuring gaze she was still wincing. at last her opportunity came. "mr. vandernoodt, you know everybody," said gwendolen, not too eagerly, rather with a certain languor of utterance which she sometimes gave to her clear soprano. "who is that near the door?" "there are half a dozen near the door. do you mean that old adonis in the george the fourth wig?" "no, no; the dark-haired young man on the right with the dreadful expression." "dreadful, do you call it? i think he is an uncommonly fine fellow." "but who is he?" "he is lately come to our hotel with sir hugo mallinger." "sir hugo mallinger?" "yes. do you know him?" "no." (gwendolen colored slightly.) "he has a place near us, but he never comes to it. what did you say was the name of that gentleman near the door?" "deronda--mr. deronda." "what a delightful name! is he an englishman?" "yes. he is reported to be rather closely related to the baronet. you are interested in him?" "yes. i think he is not like young men in general." "and you don't admire young men in general?" "not in the least. i always know what they will say. i can't at all guess what this mr. deronda would say. what _does_ he say?" "nothing, chiefly. i sat with his party for a good hour last night on the terrace, and he never spoke--and was not smoking either. he looked bored." "another reason why i should like to know him. i am always bored." "i should think he would be charmed to have an introduction. shall i bring it about? will you allow it, baroness?" "why not?--since he is related to sir hugo mallinger. it is a new _rôle_ of yours, gwendolen, to be always bored," continued madame von langen, when mr. vandernoodt had moved away. "until now you have always seemed eager about something from morning till night." "that is just because i am bored to death. if i am to leave off play i must break my arm or my collar-bone. i must make something happen; unless you will go into switzerland and take me up the matterhorn." "perhaps this mr. deronda's acquaintance will do instead of the matterhorn." "perhaps." but gwendolen did not make deronda's acquaintance on this occasion. mr. vandernoodt did not succeed in bringing him up to her that evening, and when she re-entered her own room she found a letter recalling her home. chapter ii. this man contrives a secret 'twixt us two, that he may quell me with his meeting eyes like one who quells a lioness at bay. this was the letter gwendolen found on her table:, dearest child.--i have been expecting to hear from you for a week. in your last you said the langens thought of leaving leubronn and going to baden. how could you be so thoughtless as to leave me in uncertainty about your address? i am in the greatest anxiety lest this should not reach you. in any case, you were to come home at the end of september, and i must now entreat you to return as quickly as possible, for if you spent all your money it would be out of my power to send you any more, and you must not borrow of the langens, for i could not repay them. this is the sad truth, my child--i wish i could prepare you for it better--but a dreadful calamity has befallen us all. you know nothing about business and will not understand it; but grapnell & co. have failed for a million, and we are totally ruined--your aunt gascoigne as well as i, only that your uncle has his benefice, so that by putting down their carriage and getting interest for the boys, the family can go on. all the property our poor father saved for us goes to pay the liabilities. there is nothing i can call my own. it is better you should know this at once, though it rends my heart to have to tell it you. of course we cannot help thinking what a pity it was that you went away just when you did. but i shall never reproach you, my dear child; i would save you from all trouble if i could. on your way home you will have time to prepare yourself for the change you will find. we shall perhaps leave offendene at once, for we hope that mr. haynes, who wanted it before, may be ready to take it off my hands. of course we cannot go to the rectory--there is not a corner there to spare. we must get some hut or other to shelter us, and we must live on your uncle gascoigne's charity, until i see what else can be done. i shall not be able to pay the debts to the tradesmen besides the servants' wages. summon up your fortitude, my dear child; we must resign ourselves to god's will. but it is hard to resign one's self to mr. lassman's wicked recklessness, which they say was the cause of the failure. your poor sisters can only cry with me and give me no help. if you were once here, there might be a break in the cloud--i always feel it impossible that you can have been meant for poverty. if the langens wish to remain abroad, perhaps you can put yourself under some one else's care for the journey. but come as soon as you can to your afflicted and loving mamma, fanny davilow. the first effect of this letter on gwendolen was half-stupefying. the implicit confidence that her destiny must be one of luxurious ease, where any trouble that occurred would be well clad and provided for, had been stronger in her own mind than in her mamma's, being fed there by her youthful blood and that sense of superior claims which made a large part of her consciousness. it was almost as difficult for her to believe suddenly that her position had become one of poverty and of humiliating dependence, as it would have been to get into the strong current of her blooming life the chill sense that her death would really come. she stood motionless for a few minutes, then tossed off her hat and automatically looked in the glass. the coils of her smooth light-brown hair were still in order perfect enough for a ball-room; and as on other nights, gwendolen might have looked lingeringly at herself for pleasure (surely an allowable indulgence); but now she took no conscious note of her reflected beauty, and simply stared right before her as if she had been jarred by a hateful sound and was waiting for any sign of its cause. by-and-by she threw herself in the corner of the red velvet sofa, took up the letter again and read it twice deliberately, letting it at last fall on the ground, while she rested her clasped hands on her lap and sat perfectly still, shedding no tears. her impulse was to survey and resist the situation rather than to wail over it. there was no inward exclamation of "poor mamma!" her mamma had never seemed to get much enjoyment out of life, and if gwendolen had been at this moment disposed to feel pity she would have bestowed it on herself--for was she not naturally and rightfully the chief object of her mamma's anxiety too? but it was anger, it was resistance that possessed her; it was bitter vexation that she had lost her gains at roulette, whereas if her luck had continued through this one day she would have had a handsome sum to carry home, or she might have gone on playing and won enough to support them all. even now was it not possible? she had only four napoleons left in her purse, but she possessed some ornaments which she could sell: a practice so common in stylish society at german baths that there was no need to be ashamed of it; and even if she had not received her mamma's letter, she would probably have decided to get money for an etruscan necklace which she happened not to have been wearing since her arrival; nay, she might have done so with an agreeable sense that she was living with some intensity and escaping humdrum. with ten louis at her disposal and a return of her former luck, which seemed probable, what could she do better than go on playing for a few days? if her friends at home disapproved of the way in which she got the money, as they certainly would, still the money would be there. gwendolen's imagination dwelt on this course and created agreeable consequences, but not with unbroken confidence and rising certainty as it would have done if she had been touched with the gambler's mania. she had gone to the roulette-table not because of passion, but in search of it: her mind was still sanely capable of picturing balanced probabilities, and while the chance of winning allured her, the chance of losing thrust itself on her with alternate strength and made a vision from which her pride sank sensitively. for she was resolved not to tell the langens that any misfortune had befallen her family, or to make herself in any way indebted to their compassion; and if she were to part with her jewelry to any observable extent, they would interfere by inquiries and remonstrances. the course that held the least risk of intolerable annoyance was to raise money on her necklace early in the morning, tell the langens that her mother desired her immediate return without giving a reason, and take the train for brussels that evening. she had no maid with her, and the langens might make difficulties about her returning home, but her will was peremptory. instead of going to bed she made as brilliant a light as she could and began to pack, working diligently, though all the while visited by the scenes that might take place on the coming day--now by the tiresome explanations and farewells, and the whirling journey toward a changed home, now by the alternative of staying just another day and standing again at the roulette-table. but always in this latter scene there was the presence of that deronda, watching her with exasperating irony, and--the two keen experiences were inevitably revived together--beholding her again forsaken by luck. this importunate image certainly helped to sway her resolve on the side of immediate departure, and to urge her packing to the point which would make a change of mind inconvenient. it had struck twelve when she came into her room, and by the time she was assuring herself that she had left out only what was necessary, the faint dawn was stealing through the white blinds and dulling her candles. what was the use of going to bed? her cold bath was refreshment enough, and she saw that a slight trace of fatigue about the eyes only made her look the more interesting. before six o'clock she was completely equipped in her gray traveling dress even to her felt hat, for she meant to walk out as soon as she could count on seeing other ladies on their way to the springs. and happening to be seated sideways before the long strip of mirror between her two windows she turned to look at herself, leaning her elbow on the back of the chair in an attitude that might have been chosen for her portrait. it is possible to have a strong self-love without any self-satisfaction, rather with a self-discontent which is the more intense because one's own little core of egoistic sensibility is a supreme care; but gwendolen knew nothing of such inward strife. she had a _naïve_ delight in her fortunate self, which any but the harshest saintliness will have some indulgence for in a girl who had every day seen a pleasant reflection of that self in her friends' flattery as well as in the looking-glass. and even in this beginning of troubles, while for lack of anything else to do she sat gazing at her image in the growing light, her face gathered a complacency gradual as the cheerfulness of the morning. her beautiful lips curled into a more and more decided smile, till at last she took off her hat, leaned forward and kissed the cold glass which had looked so warm. how could she believe in sorrow? if it attacked her, she felt the force to crush it, to defy it, or run away from it, as she had done already. anything seemed more possible than that she could go on bearing miseries, great or small. madame von langen never went out before breakfast, so that gwendolen could safely end her early walk by taking her way homeward through the obere strasse in which was the needed shop, sure to be open after seven. at that hour any observers whom she minded would be either on their walks in the region of the springs, or would be still in their bedrooms; but certainly there was one grand hotel, the _czarina_ from which eyes might follow her up to mr. wiener's door. this was a chance to be risked: might she not be going in to buy something which had struck her fancy? this implicit falsehood passed through her mind as she remembered that the _czarina_ was deronda's hotel; but she was then already far up the obere strasse, and she walked on with her usual floating movement, every line in her figure and drapery falling in gentle curves attractive to all eyes except those which discerned in them too close a resemblance to the serpent, and objected to the revival of serpent-worship. she looked neither to the right hand nor to the left, and transacted her business in the shop with a coolness which gave little mr. wiener nothing to remark except her proud grace of manner, and the superior size and quality of the three central turquoises in the necklace she offered him. they had belonged to a chain once her father's: but she had never known her father; and the necklace was in all respects the ornament she could most conveniently part with. who supposes that it is an impossible contradiction to be superstitious and rationalizing at the same time? roulette encourages a romantic superstition as to the chances of the game, and the most prosaic rationalism as to human sentiments which stand in the way of raising needful money. gwendolen's dominant regret was that after all she had only nine louis to add to the four in her purse: these jew dealers were so unscrupulous in taking advantage of christians unfortunate at play! but she was the langens' guest in their hired apartment, and had nothing to pay there: thirteen louis would do more than take her home; even if she determined on risking three, the remaining ten would more than suffice, since she meant to travel right on, day and night. as she turned homeward, nay, entered and seated herself in the _salon_ to await her friends and breakfast, she still wavered as to her immediate departure, or rather she had concluded to tell the langens simply that she had had a letter from her mamma desiring her return, and to leave it still undecided when she should start. it was already the usual breakfast-time, and hearing some one enter as she was leaning back rather tired and hungry with her eyes shut, she rose expecting to see one or other of the langens--the words which might determine her lingering at least another day, ready-formed to pass her lips. but it was the servant bringing in a small packet for miss harleth, which had at that moment been left at the door. gwendolen took it in her hand and immediately hurried into her own room. she looked paler and more agitated than when she had first read her mamma's letter. something--she never quite knew what--revealed to her before she opened the packet that it contained the necklace she had just parted with. underneath the paper it was wrapped in a cambric handkerchief, and within this was a scrap of torn-off note-paper, on which was written with a pencil, in clear but rapid handwriting--"_a stranger who has found miss harleth's necklace returns it to her with the hope that she will not again risk the loss of it._" gwendolen reddened with the vexation of wounded pride. a large corner of the handkerchief seemed to have been recklessly torn off to get rid of a mark; but she at once believed in the first image of "the stranger" that presented itself to her mind. it was deronda; he must have seen her go into the shop; he must have gone in immediately after and repurchased the necklace. he had taken an unpardonable liberty, and had dared to place her in a thoroughly hateful position. what could she do?--not, assuredly, act on her conviction that it was he who had sent her the necklace and straightway send it back to him: that would be to face the possibility that she had been mistaken; nay, even if the "stranger" were he and no other, it would be something too gross for her to let him know that she had divined this, and to meet him again with that recognition in their minds. he knew very well that he was entangling her in helpless humiliation: it was another way of smiling at her ironically, and taking the air of a supercilious mentor. gwendolen felt the bitter tears of mortification rising and rolling down her cheeks. no one had ever before dared to treat her with irony and contempt. one thing was clear: she must carry out her resolution to quit this place at once; it was impossible for her to reappear in the public _salon_, still less stand at the gaming-table with the risk of seeing deronda. now came an importunate knock at the door: breakfast was ready. gwendolen with a passionate movement thrust necklace, cambric, scrap of paper, and all into her _nécessaire_, pressed her handkerchief against her face, and after pausing a minute or two to summon back her proud self-control, went to join her friends. such signs of tears and fatigue as were left seemed accordant enough with the account she at once gave of her having sat up to do her packing, instead of waiting for help from her friend's maid. there was much protestation, as she had expected, against her traveling alone, but she persisted in refusing any arrangements for companionship. she would be put into the ladies' compartment and go right on. she could rest exceedingly well in the train, and was afraid of nothing. in this way it happened that gwendolen never reappeared at the roulette-table, but that thursday evening left leubronn for brussels, and on saturday morning arrived at offendene, the home to which she and her family were soon to say a last good-bye. chapter iii. "let no flower of the spring pass by us; let us crown ourselves with rosebuds before they be withered."--book of wisdom. pity that offendene was not the home of miss harleth's childhood, or endeared to her by family memories! a human life, i think, should be well rooted in some spot of a native land, where it may get the love of tender kinship for the face of earth, for the labors men go forth to, for the sounds and accents that haunt it, for whatever will give that early home a familiar unmistakable difference amid the future widening of knowledge: a spot where the definiteness of early memories may be inwrought with affection, and--kindly acquaintance with all neighbors, even to the dogs and donkeys, may spread not by sentimental effort and reflection, but as a sweet habit of the blood. at five years old, mortals are not prepared to be citizens of the world, to be stimulated by abstract nouns, to soar above preference into impartiality; and that prejudice in favor of milk with which we blindly begin, is a type of the way body and soul must get nourished at least for a time. the best introduction to astronomy is to think of the nightly heavens as a little lot of stars belonging to one's own homestead. but this blessed persistence in which affection can take root had been wanting in gwendolen's life. it was only a year before her recall from leubronn that offendene had been chosen as her mamma's home, simply for its nearness to pennicote rectory, and that mrs. davilow, gwendolen, and her four half-sisters (the governess and the maid following in another vehicle) had been driven along the avenue for the first time, on a late october afternoon when the rooks were crawing loudly above them, and the yellow elm-leaves were whirling. the season suited the aspect of the old oblong red-brick house, rather too anxiously ornamented with stone at every line, not excepting the double row of narrow windows and the large square portico. the stone encouraged a greenish lichen, the brick a powdery gray, so that though the building was rigidly rectangular there was no harshness in the physiognomy which it turned to the three avenues cut east, west and south in the hundred yards' breadth of old plantation encircling the immediate grounds. one would have liked the house to have been lifted on a knoll, so as to look beyond its own little domain to the long thatched roofs of the distant villages, the church towers, the scattered homesteads, the gradual rise of surging woods, and the green breadths of undulating park which made the beautiful face of the earth in that part of wessex. but though standing thus behind a screen amid flat pastures, it had on one side a glimpse of the wider world in the lofty curves of the chalk downs, grand steadfast forms played over by the changing days. the house was but just large enough to be called a mansion, and was moderately rented, having no manor attached to it, and being rather difficult to let with its sombre furniture and faded upholstery. but inside and outside it was what no beholder could suppose to be inhabited by retired trades-people: a certainty which was worth many conveniences to tenants who not only had the taste that shrinks from new finery, but also were in that border-territory of rank where annexation is a burning topic: and to take up her abode in a house which had once sufficed for dowager countesses gave a perceptible tinge to mrs. davilow's satisfaction in having an establishment of her own. this, rather mysteriously to gwendolen, appeared suddenly possible on the death of her step-father, captain davilow, who had for the last nine years joined his family only in a brief and fitful manner, enough to reconcile them to his long absences; but she cared much more for the fact than for the explanation. all her prospects had become more agreeable in consequence. she had disliked their former way of life, roving from one foreign watering-place or parisian apartment to another, always feeling new antipathies to new suites of hired furniture, and meeting new people under conditions which made her appear of little importance; and the variation of having passed two years at a showy school, where, on all occasions of display, she had been put foremost, had only deepened her sense that so exceptional a person as herself could hardly remain in ordinary circumstances or in a social position less than advantageous. any fear of this latter evil was banished now that her mamma was to have an establishment; for on the point of birth gwendolen was quite easy. she had no notion how her maternal grandfather got the fortune inherited by his two daughters; but he had been a west indian--which seemed to exclude further question; and she knew that her father's family was so high as to take no notice of her mamma, who nevertheless preserved with much pride the miniature of a lady molly in that connection. she would probably have known much more about her father but for a little incident which happened when she was twelve years old. mrs. davilow had brought out, as she did only at wide intervals, various memorials of her first husband, and while showing his miniature to gwendolen recalled with a fervor which seemed to count on a peculiar filial sympathy, the fact that dear papa had died when his little daughter was in long clothes. gwendolen, immediately thinking of the unlovable step-father whom she had been acquainted with the greater part of her life while her frocks were short, said, "why did you marry again, mamma? it would have been nicer if you had not." mrs. davilow colored deeply, a slight convulsive movement passed over her face, and straightway shutting up the memorials she said, with a violence quite unusual in her, "you have no feeling, child!" gwendolen, who was fond of her mamma, felt hurt and ashamed, and had never since dared to ask a question about her father. this was not the only instance in which she had brought on herself the pain of some filial compunction. it was always arranged, when possible, that she should have a small bed in her mamma's room; for mrs. davilow's motherly tenderness clung chiefly to her eldest girl, who had been born in her happier time. one night under an attack of pain she found that the specific regularly placed by her bedside had been forgotten, and begged gwendolen to get out of bed and reach it for her. that healthy young lady, snug and warm as a rosy infant in her little couch, objected to step out into the cold, and lying perfectly still, grumbling a refusal. mrs. davilow went without the medicine and never reproached her daughter; but the next day gwendolen was keenly conscious of what must be in her mamma's mind, and tried to make amends by caresses which cost her no effort. having always been the pet and pride of the household, waited on by mother, sisters, governess and maids, as if she had been a princess in exile, she naturally found it difficult to think her own pleasure less important than others made it, and when it was positively thwarted felt an astonished resentment apt, in her cruder days, to vent itself in one of those passionate acts which look like a contradiction of habitual tendencies. though never even as a child thoughtlessly cruel, nay delighting to rescue drowning insects and watch their recovery, there was a disagreeable silent remembrance of her having strangled her sister's canary-bird in a final fit of exasperation at its shrill singing which had again and again jarringly interrupted her own. she had taken pains to buy a white mouse for her sister in retribution, and though inwardly excusing herself on the ground of a peculiar sensitiveness which was a mark of her general superiority, the thought of that infelonious murder had always made her wince. gwendolen's nature was not remorseless, but she liked to make her penances easy, and now that she was twenty and more, some of her native force had turned into a self-control by which she guarded herself from penitential humiliation. there was more show of fire and will in her than ever, but there was more calculation underneath it. on this day of arrival at offendene, which not even mrs. davilow had seen before--the place having been taken for her by her brother-in-law, mr. gascoigne--when all had got down from the carriage, and were standing under the porch in front of the open door, so that they could have a general view of the place and a glimpse of the stone hall and staircase hung with sombre pictures, but enlivened by a bright wood fire, no one spoke; mamma, the four sisters and the governess all looked at gwendolen, as if their feelings depended entirely on her decision. of the girls, from alice in her sixteenth year to isabel in her tenth, hardly anything could be said on a first view, but that they were girlish, and that their black dresses were getting shabby. miss merry was elderly and altogether neutral in expression. mrs. davilow's worn beauty seemed the more pathetic for the look of entire appeal which she cast at gwendolen, who was glancing round at the house, the landscape and the entrance hall with an air of rapid judgment. imagine a young race-horse in the paddock among untrimmed ponies and patient hacks. "well, dear, what do you think of the place," said mrs. davilow at last, in a gentle, deprecatory tone. "i think it is charming," said gwendolen, quickly. "a romantic place; anything delightful may happen in it; it would be a good background for anything. no one need be ashamed of living here." "there is certainly nothing common about it." "oh, it would do for fallen royalty or any sort of grand poverty. we ought properly to have been living in splendor, and have come down to this. it would have been as romantic as could be. but i thought my uncle and aunt gascoigne would be here to meet us, and my cousin anna," added gwendolen, her tone changed to sharp surprise. "we are early," said mrs. davilow, and entering the hall, she said to the housekeeper who came forward, "you expect mr. and mrs. gascoigne?" "yes, madam; they were here yesterday to give particular orders about the fires and the dinner. but as to fires, i've had 'em in all the rooms for the last week, and everything is well aired. i could wish some of the furniture paid better for all the cleaning it's had, but i _think_ you'll see the brasses have been done justice to. i _think_ when mr. and mrs. gascoigne come, they'll tell you nothing has been neglected. they'll be here at five, for certain." this satisfied gwendolen, who was not prepared to have their arrival treated with indifference; and after tripping a little way up the matted stone staircase to take a survey there, she tripped down again, and followed by all the girls looked into each of the rooms opening from the hall--the dining-room all dark oak and worn red satin damask, with a copy of snarling, worrying dogs from snyders over the side-board, and a christ breaking bread over the mantel-piece; the library with a general aspect and smell of old brown-leather; and lastly, the drawing-room, which was entered through a small antechamber crowded with venerable knick-knacks. "mamma, mamma, pray come here!" said gwendolen, mrs. davilow having followed slowly in talk with the housekeeper. "here is an organ. i will be saint cecilia: some one shall paint me as saint cecilia. jocosa (this was her name for miss merry), let down my hair. see, mamma?" she had thrown off her hat and gloves, and seated herself before the organ in an admirable pose, looking upward; while the submissive and sad jocosa took out the one comb which fastened the coil of hair, and then shook out the mass till it fell in a smooth light-brown stream far below its owner's slim waist. mrs. davilow smiled and said, "a charming picture, my dear!" not indifferent to the display of her pet, even in the presence of a housekeeper. gwendolen rose and laughed with delight. all this seemed quite to the purpose on entering a new house which was so excellent a background. "what a queer, quaint, picturesque room!" she went on, looking about her. "i like these old embroidered chairs, and the garlands on the wainscot, and the pictures that may be anything. that one with the ribs--nothing but ribs and darkness--i should think that is spanish, mamma." "oh, gwendolen!" said the small isabel, in a tone of astonishment, while she held open a hinged panel of the wainscot at the other end of the room. every one, gwendolen first, went to look. the opened panel had disclosed the picture of an upturned dead face, from which an obscure figure seemed to be fleeing with outstretched arms. "how horrible!" said mrs. davilow, with a look of mere disgust; but gwendolen shuddered silently, and isabel, a plain and altogether inconvenient child with an alarming memory, said, "you will never stay in this room by yourself, gwendolen." "how dare you open things which were meant to be shut up, you perverse little creature?" said gwendolen, in her angriest tone. then snatching the panel out of the hand of the culprit, she closed it hastily, saying, "there is a lock--where is the key? let the key be found, or else let one be made, and let nobody open it again; or rather, let the key be brought to me." at this command to everybody in general gwendolen turned with a face which was flushed in reaction from her chill shudder, and said, "let us go up to our own room, mamma." the housekeeper on searching found the key in the drawer of the cabinet close by the panel, and presently handed it to bugle, the lady's-maid, telling her significantly to give it to her royal highness. "i don't know what you mean, mrs. startin," said bugle, who had been busy up-stairs during the scene in the drawing-room, and was rather offended at this irony in a new servant. "i mean the young lady that's to command us all--and well worthy for looks and figure," replied mrs. startin in propitiation. "she'll know what key it is." "if you have laid out what we want, go and see to the others, bugle," gwendolen had said, when she and mrs. davilow entered their black and yellow bedroom, where a pretty little white couch was prepared by the side of the black and yellow catafalque known as the best bed. "i will help mamma." but her first movement was to go to the tall mirror between the windows, which reflected herself and the room completely, while her mamma sat down and also looked at the reflection. "that is a becoming glass, gwendolen; or is it the black and gold color that sets you off?" said mrs. davilow, as gwendolen stood obliquely with her three-quarter face turned toward the mirror, and her left hand brushing back the stream of hair. "i should make a tolerable st. cecilia with some white roses on my head," said gwendolen,--"only how about my nose, mamma? i think saint's noses never in the least turn up. i wish you had given me your perfectly straight nose; it would have done for any sort of character--a nose of all work. mine is only a happy nose; it would not do so well for tragedy." "oh, my dear, any nose will do to be miserable with in this world," said mrs. davilow, with a deep, weary sigh, throwing her black bonnet on the table, and resting her elbow near it. "now, mamma," said gwendolen, in a strongly remonstrant tone, turning away from the glass with an air of vexation, "don't begin to be dull here. it spoils all my pleasure, and everything may be so happy now. what have you to be gloomy about _now_?" "nothing, dear," said mrs. davilow, seeming to rouse herself, and beginning to take off her dress. "it is always enough for me to see you happy." "but you should be happy yourself," said gwendolen, still discontentedly, though going to help her mamma with caressing touches. "can nobody be happy after they are quite young? you have made me feel sometimes as if nothing were of any use. with the girls so troublesome, and jocosa so dreadfully wooden and ugly, and everything make-shift about us, and you looking so dull--what was the use of my being anything? but now you _might_ be happy." "so i shall, dear," said mrs. davilow, patting the cheek that was bending near her. "yes, but really. not with a sort of make-believe," said gwendolen, with resolute perseverance. "see what a hand and arm!--much more beautiful than mine. any one can see you were altogether more beautiful." "no, no, dear; i was always heavier. never half so charming as you are." "well, but what is the use of my being charming, if it is to end in my being dull and not minding anything? is that what marriage always comes to?" "no, child, certainly not. marriage is the only happy state for a woman, as i trust you will prove." "i will not put up with it if it is not a happy state. i am determined to be happy--at least not to go on muddling away my life as other people do, being and doing nothing remarkable. i have made up my mind not to let other people interfere with me as they have done. here is some warm water ready for you, mamma," gwendolen ended, proceeding to take off her own dress and then waiting to have her hair wound up by her mamma. there was silence for a minute or two, till mrs. davilow said, while coiling the daughter's hair, "i am sure i have never crossed you, gwendolen." "you often want me to do what i don't like." "you mean, to give alice lessons?" "yes. and i have done it because you asked me. but i don't see why i should, else. it bores me to death, she is so slow. she has no ear for music, or language, or anything else. it would be much better for her to be ignorant, mamma: it is her _rôle_, she would do it well." "that is a hard thing to say of your poor sister, gwendolen, who is so good to you, and waits on you hand and foot." "i don't see why it is hard to call things by their right names, and put them in their proper places. the hardship is for me to have to waste my time on her. now let me fasten up your hair, mamma." "we must make haste; your uncle and aunt will be here soon. for heaven's sake, don't be scornful to _them_, my dear child! or to your cousin anna, whom you will always be going out with. do promise me, gwendolen. you know, you can't expect anna to be equal to you." "i don't want her to be equal," said gwendolen, with a toss of her head and a smile, and the discussion ended there. when mr. and mrs. gascoigne and their daughter came, gwendolen, far from being scornful, behaved as prettily as possible to them. she was introducing herself anew to relatives who had not seen her since the comparatively unfinished age of sixteen, and she was anxious--no, not anxious, but resolved that they should admire her. mrs. gascoigne bore a family likeness to her sister. but she was darker and slighter, her face was unworn by grief, her movements were less languid, her expression more alert and critical as that of a rector's wife bound to exert a beneficent authority. their closest resemblance lay in a non-resistant disposition, inclined to imitation and obedience; but this, owing to the difference in their circumstances, had led them to very different issues. the younger sister had been indiscreet, or at least unfortunate in her marriages; the elder believed herself the most enviable of wives, and her pliancy had ended in her sometimes taking shapes of surprising definiteness. many of her opinions, such as those on church government and the character of archbishop laud, seemed too decided under every alteration to have been arrived at otherwise than by a wifely receptiveness. and there was much to encourage trust in her husband's authority. he had some agreeable virtues, some striking advantages, and the failings that were imputed to him all leaned toward the side of success. one of his advantages was a fine person, which perhaps was even more impressive at fifty-seven than it had been earlier in life. there were no distinctively clerical lines in the face, no tricks of starchiness or of affected ease: in his inverness cape he could not have been identified except as a gentleman with handsome dark features, a nose which began with an intention to be aquiline but suddenly became straight, and iron-gray hair. perhaps he owed this freedom from the sort of professional make-up which penetrates skin, tones and gestures and defies all drapery, to the fact that he had once been captain gaskin, having taken orders and a diphthong but shortly before his engagement to miss armyn. if any one had objected that his preparation for the clerical function was inadequate, his friends might have asked who made a better figure in it, who preached better or had more authority in his parish? he had a native gift for administration, being tolerant both of opinions and conduct, because he felt himself able to overrule them, and was free from the irritations of conscious feebleness. he smiled pleasantly at the foible of a taste which he did not share--at floriculture or antiquarianism for example, which were much in vogue among his fellow-clergyman in the diocese: for himself, he preferred following the history of a campaign, or divining from his knowledge of nesselrode's motives what would have been his conduct if our cabinet had taken a different course. mr. gascoigne's tone of thinking after some long-quieted fluctuations had become ecclesiastical rather than theological; not the modern anglican, but what he would have called sound english, free from nonsense; such as became a man who looked at a national religion by daylight, and saw it in its relation to other things. no clerical magistrate had greater weight at sessions, or less of mischievous impracticableness in relation to worldly affairs. indeed, the worst imputation thrown out against him was worldliness: it could not be proved that he forsook the less fortunate, but it was not to be denied that the friendships he cultivated were of a kind likely to be useful to the father of six sons and two daughters; and bitter observers--for in wessex, say ten years ago, there were persons whose bitterness may now seem incredible--remarked that the color of his opinions had changed in consistency with this principle of action. but cheerful, successful worldliness has a false air of being more selfish than the acrid, unsuccessful kind, whose secret history is summed up in the terrible words, "sold, but not paid for." gwendolen wondered that she had not better remembered how very fine a man her uncle was; but at the age of sixteen she was a less capable and more indifferent judge. at present it was a matter of extreme interest to her that she was to have the near countenance of a dignified male relative, and that the family life would cease to be entirely, insipidly feminine. she did not intend that her uncle should control her, but she saw at once that it would be altogether agreeable to her that he should be proud of introducing her as his niece. and there was every sign of his being likely to feel that pride. he certainly looked at her with admiration as he said, "you have outgrown anna, my dear," putting his arm tenderly round his daughter, whose shy face was a tiny copy of his own, and drawing her forward. "she is not so old as you by a year, but her growing days are certainly over. i hope you will be excellent companions." he did give a comparing glance at his daughter, but if he saw her inferiority, he might also see that anna's timid appearance and miniature figure must appeal to a different taste from that which was attracted by gwendolen, and that the girls could hardly be rivals. gwendolen at least, was aware of this, and kissed her cousin with real cordiality as well as grace, saying, "a companion is just what i want. i am so glad we are come to live here. and mamma will be much happier now she is near you, aunt." the aunt trusted indeed that it would be so, and felt it a blessing that a suitable home had been vacant in their uncle's parish. then, of course, notice had to be taken of the four other girls, whom gwendolen had always felt to be superfluous: all of a girlish average that made four units utterly unimportant, and yet from her earliest days an obtrusive influential fact in her life. she was conscious of having been much kinder to them than could have been expected. and it was evident to her that her uncle and aunt also felt it a pity there were so many girls:--what rational person could feel otherwise, except poor mamma, who never would see how alice set up her shoulders and lifted her eyebrows till she had no forehead left, how bertha and fanny whispered and tittered together about everything, or how isabel was always listening and staring and forgetting where she was, and treading on the toes of her suffering elders? "you have brothers, anna," said gwendolen, while the sisters were being noticed. "i think you are enviable there." "yes," said anna, simply. "i am very fond of them; but of course their education is a great anxiety to papa. he used to say they made me a tomboy. i really was a great romp with rex. i think you will like rex. he will come home before christmas." "i remember i used to think you rather wild and shy; but it is difficult now to imagine you a romp," said gwendolen, smiling. "of course, i am altered now; i am come out, and all that. but in reality i like to go blackberrying with edwy and lotta as well as ever. i am not very fond of going out; but i dare say i shall like it better now you will be often with me. i am not at all clever, and i never know what to say. it seems so useless to say what everybody knows, and i can think of nothing else, except what papa says." "i shall like going out with you very much," said gwendolen, well disposed toward this _naïve_ cousin. "are you fond of riding?" "yes, but we have only one shetland pony amongst us. papa says he can't afford more, besides the carriage-horses and his own nag; he has so many expenses." "i intend to have a horse and ride a great deal now," said gwendolen, in a tone of decision. "is the society pleasant in this neighborhood?" "papa says it is, very. there are the clergymen all about, you know; and the quallons, and the arrowpoints, and lord brackenshaw, and sir hugo mallinger's place, where there is nobody--that's very nice, because we make picnics there--and two or three families at wanchester: oh, and old mrs. vulcany, at nuttingwood, and--" but anna was relieved of this tax on her descriptive powers by the announcement of dinner, and gwendolen's question was soon indirectly answered by her uncle, who dwelt much on the advantages he had secured for them in getting a place like offendene. except the rent, it involved no more expense than an ordinary house at wanchester would have done. "and it is always worth while to make a little sacrifice for a good style of house," said mr. gascoigne, in his easy, pleasantly confident tone, which made the world in general seem a very manageable place of residence: "especially where there is only a lady at the head. all the best people will call upon you; and you need give no expensive dinners. of course, i have to spend a good deal in that way; it is a large item. but then i get my house for nothing. if i had to pay three hundred a year for my house i could not keep a table. my boys are too great a drain on me. you are better off than we are, in proportion; there is no great drain on you now, after your house and carriage." "i assure you, fanny, now that the children are growing up, i am obliged to cut and contrive," said mrs. gascoigne. "i am not a good manager by nature, but henry has taught me. he is wonderful for making the best of everything; he allows himself no extras, and gets his curates for nothing. it is rather hard that he has not been made a prebendary or something, as others have been, considering the friends he has made and the need there is for men of moderate opinions in all respects. if the church is to keep its position, ability and character ought to tell." "oh, my dear nancy, you forget the old story--thank heaven, there are three hundred as good as i. and ultimately, we shall have no reason to complain, i am pretty sure. there could hardly be a more thorough friend than lord brackenshaw--your landlord, you know, fanny. lady brackenshaw will call upon you. and i have spoken for gwendolen to be a member of our archery club--the brackenshaw archery club--the most select thing anywhere. that is, if she has no objection," added mr. gascoigne, looking at gwendolen with pleasant irony. "i should like it of all things," said gwendolen. "there is nothing i enjoy more than taking aim--and hitting," she ended, with a pretty nod and smile. "our anna, poor child, is too short-sighted for archery. but i consider myself a first-rate shot, and you shall practice with me. i must make you an accomplished archer before our great meeting in july. in fact, as to neighborhood, you could hardly be better placed. there are the arrowpoints--they are some of our best people. miss arrowpoint is a delightful girl--she has been presented at court. they have a magnificent place--quetcham hall--worth seeing in point of art; and their parties, to which you are sure to be invited, are the best things of the sort we have. the archdeacon is intimate there, and they have always a good kind of people staying in the house. mrs. arrowpoint is peculiar, certainly; something of a caricature, in fact; but well-meaning. and miss arrowpoint is as nice as possible. it is not all young ladies who have mothers as handsome and graceful as yours and anna's." mrs. davilow smiled faintly at this little compliment, but the husband and wife looked affectionately at each other, and gwendolen thought, "my uncle and aunt, at least, are happy: they are not dull and dismal." altogether, she felt satisfied with her prospects at offendene, as a great improvement on anything she had known. even the cheap curates, she incidentally learned, were almost always young men of family, and mr. middleton, the actual curate, was said to be quite an acquisition: it was only a pity he was so soon to leave. but there was one point which she was so anxious to gain that she could not allow the evening to pass without taking her measures toward securing it. her mamma, she knew, intended to submit entirely to her uncle's judgment with regard to expenditure; and the submission was not merely prudential, for mrs. davilow, conscious that she had always been seen under a cloud as poor dear fanny, who had made a sad blunder with her second marriage, felt a hearty satisfaction in being frankly and cordially identified with her sister's family, and in having her affairs canvassed and managed with an authority which presupposed a genuine interest. thus the question of a suitable saddle-horse, which had been sufficiently discussed with mamma, had to be referred to mr. gascoigne; and after gwendolen had played on the piano, which had been provided from wanchester, had sung to her hearers' admiration, and had induced her uncle to join her in a duet--what more softening influence than this on any uncle who would have sung finely if his time had not been too much taken up by graver matters?--she seized the opportune moment for saying, "mamma, you have not spoken to my uncle about my riding." "gwendolen desires above all things to have a horse to ride--a pretty, light, lady's horse," said mrs. davilow, looking at mr. gascoigne. "do you think we can manage it?" mr. gascoigne projected his lower lip and lifted his handsome eyebrows sarcastically at gwendolen, who had seated herself with much grace on the elbow of her mamma's chair. "we could lend her the pony sometimes," said mrs. gascoigne, watching her husband's face, and feeling quite ready to disapprove if he did. "that might be inconveniencing others, aunt, and would be no pleasure to me. i cannot endure ponies," said gwendolen. "i would rather give up some other indulgence and have a horse." (was there ever a young lady or gentleman not ready to give up an unspecified indulgence for the sake of the favorite one specified?) "she rides so well. she has had lessons, and the riding-master said she had so good a seat and hand she might be trusted with any mount," said mrs. davilow, who, even if she had not wished her darling to have the horse, would not have dared to be lukewarm in trying to get it for her. "there is the price of the horse--a good sixty with the best chance, and then his keep," said mr. gascoigne, in a tone which, though demurring, betrayed the inward presence of something that favored the demand. "there are the carriage-horses--already a heavy item. and remember what you ladies cost in toilet now." "i really wear nothing but two black dresses," said mrs. davilow, hastily. "and the younger girls, of course, require no toilet at present. besides, gwendolen will save me so much by giving her sisters lessons." here mrs. davilow's delicate cheek showed a rapid blush. "if it were not for that, i must really have a more expensive governess, and masters besides." gwendolen felt some anger with her mamma, but carefully concealed it. "that is good--that is decidedly good," said mr. gascoigne, heartily, looking at his wife. and gwendolen, who, it must be owned, was a deep young lady, suddenly moved away to the other end of the long drawing-room, and busied herself with arranging pieces of music. "the dear child has had no indulgences, no pleasures," said mrs. davilow, in a pleading undertone. "i feel the expense is rather imprudent in this first year of our settling. but she really needs the exercise--she needs cheering. and if you were to see her on horseback, it is something splendid." "it is what we could not afford for anna," said mrs. gascoigne. "but she, dear child, would ride lotta's donkey and think it good enough." (anna was absorbed in a game with isabel, who had hunted out an old back-gammon-board, and had begged to sit up an extra hour.) "certainly, a fine woman never looks better than on horseback," said mr. gascoigne. "and gwendolen has the figure for it. i don't say the thing should not be considered." "we might try it for a time, at all events. it can be given up, if necessary," said mrs. davilow. "well, i will consult lord brackenshaw's head groom. he is my _fidus achates_ in the horsey way." "thanks," said mrs. davilow, much relieved. "you are very kind." "that he always is," said mrs. gascoigne. and later that night, when she and her husband were in private, she said, "i thought you were almost too indulgent about the horse for gwendolen. she ought not to claim so much more than your own daughter would think of. especially before we see how fanny manages on her income. and you really have enough to do without taking all this trouble on yourself." "my dear nancy, one must look at things from every point of view. this girl is really worth some expense: you don't often see her equal. she ought to make a first-rate marriage, and i should not be doing my duty if i spared my trouble in helping her forward. you know yourself she has been under a disadvantage with such a father-in-law, and a second family, keeping her always in the shade. i feel for the girl, and i should like your sister and her family now to have the benefit of your having married rather a better specimen of our kind than she did." "rather better! i should think so. however, it is for me to be grateful that you will take so much on your shoulders for the sake of my sister and her children. i am sure i would not grudge anything to poor fanny. but there is one thing i have been thinking of, though you have never mentioned it." "what is that?" "the boys. i hope they will not be falling in love with gwendolen." "don't presuppose anything of the kind, my dear, and there will be no danger. rex will never be at home for long together, and warham is going to india. it is the wiser plan to take it for granted that cousins will not fall in love. if you begin with precautions, the affair will come in spite of them. one must not undertake to act for providence in these matters, which can no more be held under the hand than a brood of chickens. the boys will have nothing, and gwendolen will have nothing. they can't marry. at the worst there would only be a little crying, and you can't save boys and girls from that." mrs. gascoigne's mind was satisfied: if anything did happen, there was the comfort of feeling that her husband would know what was to be done, and would have the energy to do it. chapter iv. "_gorgibus._-- * * * je te dis que le mariage est une chose sainte et sacrée: et que c'est faire en honnêtes gens, que de débuter par là. "_madelon._--mon dieu! que si tout le monde vous ressemblait, un roman serait bientôt fini! la belle chose que ce serait, si d'abord cyrus épousait mandane, et qu'aronce de plain-pied fût marié à clélie! * * * laissez-nous faire à loisir le tissu de notre roman, et n'en pressez pas tant la conclusion." moliÈre. _les précieuses ridicules._ it would be a little hard to blame the rector of pennicote that in the course of looking at things from every point of view, he looked at gwendolen as a girl likely to make a brilliant marriage. why should he be expected to differ from his contemporaries in this matter, and wish his niece a worse end of her charming maidenhood than they would approve as the best possible? it is rather to be set down to his credit that his feelings on the subject were entirely good-natured. and in considering the relation of means to ends, it would have been mere folly to have been guided by the exceptional and idyllic--to have recommended that gwendolen should wear a gown as shabby as griselda's in order that a marquis might fall in love with her, or to have insisted that since a fair maiden was to be sought, she should keep herself out of the way. mr. gascoigne's calculations were of the kind called rational, and he did not even think of getting a too frisky horse in order that gwendolen might be threatened with an accident and be rescued by a man of property. he wished his niece well, and he meant her to be seen to advantage in the best society of the neighborhood. her uncle's intention fell in perfectly with gwendolen's own wishes. but let no one suppose that she also contemplated a brilliant marriage as the direct end of her witching the world with her grace on horseback, or with any other accomplishment. that she was to be married some time or other she would have felt obliged to admit; and that her marriage would not be of a middling kind, such as most girls were contented with, she felt quietly, unargumentatively sure. but her thoughts never dwelt on marriage as the fulfillment of her ambition; the dramas in which she imagined herself a heroine were not wrought up to that close. to be very much sued or hopelessly sighed for as a bride was indeed an indispensable and agreeable guarantee of womanly power; but to become a wife and wear all the domestic fetters of that condition, was on the whole a vexatious necessity. her observation of matrimony had inclined her to think it rather a dreary state in which a woman could not do what she liked, had more children than were desirable, was consequently dull, and became irrevocably immersed in humdrum. of course marriage was social promotion; she could not look forward to a single life; but promotions have sometimes to be taken with bitter herbs--a peerage will not quite do instead of leadership to the man who meant to lead; and this delicate-limbed sylph of twenty meant to lead. for such passions dwell in feminine breasts also. in gwendolen's, however, they dwelt among strictly feminine furniture, and had no disturbing reference to the advancement of learning or the balance of the constitution; her knowledge being such as with no sort of standing-room or length of lever could have been expected to move the world. she meant to do what was pleasant to herself in a striking manner; or rather, whatever she could do so as to strike others with admiration and get in that reflected way a more ardent sense of living, seemed pleasant to her fancy. "gwendolen will not rest without having the world at her feet," said miss merry, the meek governess: hyperbolical words which have long come to carry the most moderate meanings; for who has not heard of private persons having the world at their feet in the shape of some half-dozen items of flattering regard generally known in a genteel suburb? and words could hardly be too wide or vague to indicate the prospect that made a hazy largeness about poor gwendolen on the heights of her young self-exultation. other people allowed themselves to be made slaves of, and to have their lives blown hither and thither like empty ships in which no will was present. it was not to be so with her; she would no longer be sacrificed to creatures worth less than herself, but would make the very best of the chances that life offered her, and conquer circumstances by her exceptional cleverness. certainly, to be settled at offendene, with the notice of lady brackenshaw, the archery club, and invitations to dine with the arrowpoints, as the highest lights in her scenery, was not a position that seemed to offer remarkable chances; but gwendolen's confidence lay chiefly in herself. she felt well equipped for the mastery of life. with regard to much in her lot hitherto, she held herself rather hardly dealt with, but as to her "education," she would have admitted that it had left her under no disadvantages. in the school-room her quick mind had taken readily that strong starch of unexplained rules and disconnected facts which saves ignorance from any painful sense of limpness; and what remained of all things knowable, she was conscious of being sufficiently acquainted with through novels, plays and poems. about her french and music, the two justifying accomplishments of a young lady, she felt no ground for uneasiness; and when to all these qualifications, negative and positive, we add the spontaneous sense of capability some happy persons are born with, so that any subject they turn their attention to impresses them with their own power of forming a correct judgment on it, who can wonder if gwendolen felt ready to manage her own destiny? there were many subjects in the world--perhaps the majority--in which she felt no interest, because they were stupid; for subjects are apt to appear stupid to the young as light seems dull to the old; but she would not have felt at all helpless in relation to them if they had turned up in conversation. it must be remembered that no one had disputed her power or her general superiority. as on the arrival at offendene, so always, the first thought of those about her had been, what will gwendolen think?--if the footman trod heavily in creaking boots, or if the laundress's work was unsatisfactory, the maid said, "this will never do for miss harleth"; if the wood smoked in the bedroom fireplace, mrs. davilow, whose own weak eyes suffered much from this inconvenience, spoke apologetically of it to gwendolen. if, when they were under the stress of traveling, she did not appear at the breakfast table till every one else had finished, the only question was, how gwendolen's coffee and toast should still be of the hottest and crispest; and when she appeared with her freshly-brushed light-brown hair streaming backward and awaiting her mamma's hand to coil it up, her large brown eyes glancing bright as a wave-washed onyx from under their long lashes, it was always she herself who had to be tolerant--to beg that alice who sat waiting on her would not stick up her shoulders in that frightful manner, and that isabel, instead of pushing up to her and asking questions, would go away to miss merry. always she was the princess in exile, who in time of famine was to have her breakfast-roll made of the finest-bolted flour from the seven thin ears of wheat, and in a general decampment was to have her silver fork kept out of the baggage. how was this to be accounted for? the answer may seem to lie quite on the surface:--in her beauty, a certain unusualness about her, a decision of will which made itself felt in her graceful movements and clear unhesitating tones, so that if she came into the room on a rainy day when everybody else was flaccid and the use of things in general was not apparent to them, there seemed to be a sudden, sufficient reason for keeping up the forms of life; and even the waiters at hotels showed the more alacrity in doing away with crumbs and creases and dregs with struggling flies in them. this potent charm, added to the fact that she was the eldest daughter, toward whom her mamma had always been in an apologetic state of mind for the evils brought on her by a step-father, may seem so full a reason for gwendolen's domestic empire, that to look for any other would be to ask the reason of daylight when the sun is shining. but beware of arriving at conclusions without comparison. i remember having seen the same assiduous, apologetic attention awarded to persons who were not at all beautiful or unusual, whose firmness showed itself in no very graceful or euphonious way, and who were not eldest daughters with a tender, timid mother, compunctious at having subjected them to inconveniences. some of them were a very common sort of men. and the only point of resemblance among them all was a strong determination to have what was pleasant, with a total fearlessness in making themselves disagreeable or dangerous when they did not get it. who is so much cajoled and served with trembling by the weak females of a household as the unscrupulous male--capable, if he has not free way at home, of going and doing worse elsewhere? hence i am forced to doubt whether even without her potent charm and peculiar filial position gwendolen might not still have played the queen in exile, if only she had kept her inborn energy of egoistic desire, and her power of inspiring fear as to what she might say or do. however, she had the charm, and those who feared her were also fond of her; the fear and the fondness being perhaps both heightened by what may be called the iridescence of her character--the play of various, nay, contrary tendencies. for macbeth's rhetoric about the impossibility of being many opposite things in the same moment, referred to the clumsy necessities of action and not to the subtler possibilities of feeling. we cannot speak a loyal word and be meanly silent; we cannot kill and not kill in the same moment; but a moment is wide enough for the loyal and mean desire, for the outlash of a murderous thought and the sharp backward stroke of repentance. chapter v. "her wit values itself so highly, that to her all matter else seems weak." --_much ado about nothing._ gwendolen's reception in the neighborhood fulfilled her uncle's expectations. from brackenshaw castle to the firs at wanchester, where mr. quallon the banker kept a generous house, she was welcomed with manifest admiration, and even those ladies who did not quite like her, felt a comfort in having a new, striking girl to invite; for hostesses who entertain much must make up their parties as ministers make up their cabinets, on grounds other than personal liking. then, in order to have gwendolen as a guest, it was not necessary to ask any one who was disagreeable, for mrs. davilow always made a quiet, picturesque figure as a chaperon, and mr. gascoigne was everywhere in request for his own sake. among the houses where gwendolen was not quite liked, and yet invited, was quetcham hall. one of her first invitations was to a large dinner-party there, which made a sort of general introduction for her to the society of the neighborhood; for in a select party of thirty and of well-composed proportions as to age, few visitable families could be entirely left out. no youthful figure there was comparable to gwendolen's as she passed through the long suite of rooms adorned with light and flowers, and, visible at first as a slim figure floating along in white drapery, approached through one wide doorway after another into fuller illumination and definiteness. she had never had that sort of promenade before, and she felt exultingly that it befitted her: any one looking at her for the first time might have supposed that long galleries and lackeys had always been a matter of course in her life; while her cousin anna, who was really more familiar with these things, felt almost as much embarrassed as a rabbit suddenly deposited in that well-lit-space. "who is that with gascoigne?" said the archdeacon, neglecting a discussion of military manoeuvres on which, as a clergyman, he was naturally appealed to. and his son, on the other side of the room--a hopeful young scholar, who had already suggested some "not less elegant than ingenious," emendations of greek texts--said nearly at the same time, "by george! who is that girl with the awfully well-set head and jolly figure?" but to a mind of general benevolence, wishing everybody to look well, it was rather exasperating to see how gwendolen eclipsed others: how even the handsome miss lawe, explained to be the daughter of lady lawe, looked suddenly broad, heavy and inanimate; and how miss arrowpoint, unfortunately also dressed in white, immediately resembled a _carte-de-visite_ in which one would fancy the skirt alone to have been charged for. since miss arrowpoint was generally liked for the amiable unpretending way in which she wore her fortunes, and made a softening screen for the oddities of her mother, there seemed to be some unfitness in gwendolen's looking so much more like a person of social importance. "she is not really so handsome if you come to examine her features," said mrs. arrowpoint, later in the evening, confidentially to mrs. vulcany. "it is a certain style she has, which produces a great effect at first, but afterward she is less agreeable." in fact, gwendolen, not intending it, but intending the contrary, had offended her hostess, who, though not a splenetic or vindictive woman, had her susceptibilities. several conditions had met in the lady of quetcham which to the reasoners in that neighborhood seemed to have an essential connection with each other. it was occasionally recalled that she had been the heiress of a fortune gained by some moist or dry business in the city, in order fully to account for her having a squat figure, a harsh parrot-like voice, and a systematically high head-dress; and since these points made her externally rather ridiculous, it appeared to many only natural that she should have what are called literary tendencies. a little comparison would have shown that all these points are to be found apart; daughters of aldermen being often well-grown and well-featured, pretty women having sometimes harsh or husky voices, and the production of feeble literature being found compatible with the most diverse forms of _physique_, masculine as well as feminine. gwendolen, who had a keen sense of absurdity in others, but was kindly disposed toward any one who could make life agreeable to her, meant to win mrs. arrowpoint by giving her an interest and attention beyond what others were probably inclined to show. but self-confidence is apt to address itself to an imaginary dullness in others; as people who are well off speak in a cajoling tone to the poor, and those who are in the prime of life raise their voice and talk artificially to seniors, hastily conceiving them to be deaf and rather imbecile. gwendolen, with all her cleverness and purpose to be agreeable, could not escape that form of stupidity: it followed in her mind, unreflectingly, that because mrs. arrowpoint was ridiculous she was also likely to be wanting in penetration, and she went through her little scenes without suspicion that the various shades of her behavior were all noted. "you are fond of books as well as of music, riding, and archery, i hear," mrs. arrowpoint said, going to her for a _tete-à-tete_ in the drawing-room after dinner. "catherine will be very glad to have so sympathetic a neighbor." this little speech might have seemed the most graceful politeness, spoken in a low, melodious tone; but with a twang, fatally loud, it gave gwendolen a sense of exercising patronage when she answered, gracefully: "it is i who am fortunate. miss arrowpoint will teach me what good music is. i shall be entirely a learner. i hear that she is a thorough musician." "catherine has certainly had every advantage. we have a first-rate musician in the house now--herr klesmer; perhaps you know all his compositions. you must allow me to introduce him to you. you sing, i believe. catherine plays three instruments, but she does not sing. i hope you will let us hear you. i understand you are an accomplished singer." "oh, no!--'die kraft ist schwach, allein die lust ist gross,' as mephistopheles says." "ah, you are a student of goethe. young ladies are so advanced now. i suppose you have read everything." "no, really. i shall be so glad if you will tell me what to read. i have been looking into all the books in the library at offendene, but there is nothing readable. the leaves all stick together and smell musty. i wish i could write books to amuse myself, as you can! how delightful it must be to write books after one's own taste instead of reading other people's! home-made books must be so nice." for an instant mrs. arrowpoint's glance was a little sharper, but the perilous resemblance to satire in the last sentence took the hue of girlish simplicity when gwendolen added, "i would give anything to write a book!" "and why should you not?" said mrs. arrowpoint, encouragingly. "you have but to begin as i did. pen, ink, and paper are at everybody's command. but i will send you all i have written with pleasure." "thanks. i shall be so glad to read your writings. being acquainted with authors must give a peculiar understanding of their books: one would be able to tell then which parts were funny and which serious. i am sure i often laugh in the wrong place." here gwendolen herself became aware of danger, and added quickly, "in shakespeare, you know, and other great writers that we can never see. but i always want to know more than there is in the books." "if you are interested in any of my subjects i can lend you many extra sheets in manuscript," said mrs. arrowpoint--while gwendolen felt herself painfully in the position of the young lady who professed to like potted sprats. "these are things i dare say i shall publish eventually: several friends have urged me to do so, and one doesn't like to be obstinate. my tasso, for example--i could have made it twice the size." "i dote on tasso," said gwendolen. "well, you shall have all my papers, if you like. so many, you know, have written about tasso; but they are all wrong. as to the particular nature of his madness, and his feelings for leonora, and the real cause of his imprisonment, and the character of leonora, who, in my opinion, was a cold-hearted woman, else she would have married him in spite of her brother--they are all wrong. i differ from everybody." "how very interesting!" said gwendolen. "i like to differ from everybody. i think it is so stupid to agree. that is the worst of writing your opinions; you make people agree with you." this speech renewed a slight suspicion in mrs. arrowpoint, and again her glance became for a moment examining. but gwendolen looked very innocent, and continued with a docile air: "i know nothing of tasso except the _gerusalemme liberata_, which we read and learned by heart at school." "ah, his life is more interesting than his poetry, i have constructed the early part of his life as a sort of romance. when one thinks of his father bernardo, and so on, there is much that must be true." "imagination is often truer than fact," said gwendolen, decisively, though she could no more have explained these glib words than if they had been coptic or etruscan. "i shall be so glad to learn all about tasso--and his madness especially. i suppose poets are always a little mad." "to be sure--'the poet's eye in a fine frenzy rolling'; and somebody says of marlowe, 'for that fine madness still he did maintain, which always should possess the poet's brain.'" "but it was not always found out, was it?" said gwendolen innocently. "i suppose some of them rolled their eyes in private. mad people are often very cunning." again a shade flitted over mrs. arrowpoint's face; but the entrance of the gentlemen prevented any immediate mischief between her and this too quick young lady, who had over-acted her _naïveté_. "ah, here comes herr klesmer," said mrs. arrowpoint, rising; and presently bringing him to gwendolen, she left them to a dialogue which was agreeable on both sides, herr klesmer being a felicitous combination of the german, the sclave and the semite, with grand features, brown hair floating in artistic fashion, and brown eyes in spectacles. his english had little foreignness except its fluency; and his alarming cleverness was made less formidable just then by a certain softening air of silliness which will sometimes befall even genius in the desire of being agreeable to beauty. music was soon begun. miss arrowpoint and herr klesmer played a four-handed piece on two pianos, which convinced the company in general that it was long, and gwendolen in particular that the neutral, placid-faced miss arrowpoint had a mastery of the instrument which put her own execution out of question--though she was not discouraged as to her often-praised touch and style. after this every one became anxious to hear gwendolen sing; especially mr. arrowpoint; as was natural in a host and a perfect gentleman, of whom no one had anything to say but that he married miss cuttler and imported the best cigars; and he led her to the piano with easy politeness. herr klesmer closed the instrument in readiness for her, and smiled with pleasure at her approach; then placed himself at a distance of a few feet so that he could see her as she sang. gwendolen was not nervous; what she undertook to do she did without trembling, and singing was an enjoyment to her. her voice was a moderately powerful soprano (some one had told her it was like jenny lind's), her ear good, and she was able to keep in tune, so that her singing gave pleasure to ordinary hearers, and she had been used to unmingled applause. she had the rare advantage of looking almost prettier when she was singing than at other times, and that herr klesmer was in front of her seemed not disagreeable. her song, determined on beforehand, was a favorite aria of belini's, in which she felt quite sure of herself. "charming!" said mr. arrowpoint, who had remained near, and the word was echoed around without more insincerity than we recognize in a brotherly way as human. but herr klesmer stood like a statue--if a statue can be imagined in spectacles; at least, he was as mute as a statue. gwendolen was pressed to keep her seat and double the general pleasure, and she did not wish to refuse; but before resolving to do so, she moved a little toward herr klesmer, saying with a look of smiling appeal, "it would be too cruel to a great musician. you cannot like to hear poor amateur singing." "no, truly; but that makes nothing," said herr klesmer, suddenly speaking in an odious german fashion with staccato endings, quite unobservable in him before, and apparently depending on a change of mood, as irishmen resume their strongest brogue when they are fervid or quarrelsome. "that makes nothing. it is always acceptable to see you sing." was there ever so unexpected an assertion of superiority--at least before the late teutonic conquest? gwendolen colored deeply, but, with her usual presence of mind, did not show an ungraceful resentment by moving away immediately; and miss arrowpoint, who had been near enough to overhear (and also to observe that herr klesmer's mode of looking at gwendolen was more conspicuously admiring than was quite consistent with good taste), now with the utmost tact and kindness came close to her and said, "imagine what i have to go through with this professor! he can hardly tolerate anything we english do in music. we can only put up with his severity, and make use of it to find out the worst that can be said of us. it is a little comfort to know that; and one can bear it when every one else is admiring." "i should be very much obliged to him for telling me the worst," said gwendolen, recovering herself. "i dare say i have been extremely ill taught, in addition to having no talent--only liking for music." this was very well expressed considering that it had never entered her mind before. "yes, it is true: you have not been well taught," said herr klesmer, quietly. woman was dear to him, but music was dearer. "still, you are not quite without gifts. you sing in tune, and you have a pretty fair organ. but you produce your notes badly; and that music which you sing is beneath you. it is a form of melody which expresses a puerile state of culture--a dawdling, canting, see-saw kind of stuff--the passion and thought of people without any breadth of horizon. there is a sort of self-satisfied folly about every phrase of such melody; no cries of deep, mysterious passion--no conflict--no sense of the universal. it makes men small as they listen to it. sing now something larger. and i shall see." "oh, not now--by-and-by," said gwendolen, with a sinking of heart at the sudden width of horizon opened round her small musical performance. for a lady desiring to lead, this first encounter in her campaign was startling. but she was bent on not behaving foolishly, and miss arrowpoint helped her by saying, "yes, by-and-by. i always require half an hour to get up my courage after being criticised by herr klesmer. we will ask him to play to us now: he is bound to show us what is good music." to be quite safe on this point herr klesmer played a composition of his own, a fantasia called _freudvoll, leidvoll, gedankenvoll_--an extensive commentary on some melodic ideas not too grossly evident; and he certainly fetched as much variety and depth of passion out of the piano as that moderately responsive instrument lends itself to, having an imperious magic in his fingers that seem to send a nerve-thrill through ivory key and wooden hammer, and compel the strings to make a quivering lingering speech for him. gwendolen, in spite of her wounded egoism, had fullness of nature enough to feel the power of this playing, and it gradually turned her inward sob of mortification into an excitement which lifted her for the moment into a desperate indifference about her own doings, or at least a determination to get a superiority over them by laughing at them as if they belonged to somebody else. her eyes had become brighter, her cheeks slightly flushed, and her tongue ready for any mischievous remarks. "i wish you would sing to us again, miss harleth," said young clintock, the archdeacon's classical son, who had been so fortunate as to take her to dinner, and came up to renew conversation as soon as herr klesmer's performance was ended, "that is the style of music for me. i never can make anything of this tip-top playing. it is like a jar of leeches, where you can never tell either beginnings or endings. i could listen to your singing all day." "yes, we should be glad of something popular now--another song from you would be a relaxation," said mrs. arrowpoint, who had also come near with polite intentions. "that must be because you are in a puerile state of culture, and have no breadth of horizon. i have just learned that. i have been taught how bad my taste is, and am feeling growing pains. they are never pleasant," said gwendolen, not taking any notice of mrs. arrowpoint, and looking up with a bright smile at young clintock. mrs. arrowpoint was not insensible to this rudeness, but merely said, "well, we will not press anything disagreeably," and as there was a perceptible outburst of imprisoned conversation just then, and a movement of guests seeking each other, she remained seated where she was, and looked around her with the relief of a hostess at finding she is not needed. "i am glad you like this neighborhood," said young clintock, well-pleased with his station in front of gwendolen. "exceedingly. there seems to be a little of everything and not much of anything." "that is rather equivocal praise." "not with me. i like a little of everything; a little absurdity, for example, is very amusing. i am thankful for a few queer people; but much of them is a bore." (mrs. arrowpoint, who was hearing this dialogue, perceived quite a new tone in gwendolen's speech, and felt a revival of doubt as to her interest in tasso's madness.) "i think there should be more croquet, for one thing," said young clintock; "i am usually away, but if i were more here i should go in for a croquet club. you are one of the archers, i think. but depend upon it croquet is the game of the future. it wants writing up, though. one of our best men has written a poem on it, in four cantos;--as good as pope. i want him to publish it--you never read anything better." "i shall study croquet to-morrow. i shall take to it instead of singing." "no, no, not that; but do take to croquet. i will send you jenning's poem if you like. i have a manuscript copy." "is he a great friend of yours?" "well, rather." "oh, if he is only rather, i think i will decline. or, if you send it to me, will you promise not to catechise me upon it and ask me which part i like best? because it is not so easy to know a poem without reading it as to know a sermon without listening." "decidedly," mrs. arrowpoint thought, "this girl is double and satirical. i shall be on my guard against her." but gwendolen, nevertheless, continued to receive polite attentions from the family at quetcham, not merely because invitations have larger grounds than those of personal liking, but because the trying little scene at the piano had awakened a kindly solicitude toward her in the gentle mind of miss arrowpoint, who managed all the invitations and visits, her mother being otherwise occupied. chapter vi. "croyez-vous m'avoir humiliée pour m'avoir appris que la terre tourne autour du soleil? je vous jure que je ne m'en estime pas moins." --fontenelle: _pluralité des mondes_. that lofty criticism had caused gwendolen a new sort of pain. she would not have chosen to confess how unfortunate she thought herself in not having had miss arrowpoint's musical advantages, so as to be able to question herr klesmer's taste with the confidence of thorough knowledge; still less, to admit even to herself that miss arrowpoint each time they met raised an unwonted feeling of jealousy in her: not in the least because she was an heiress, but because it was really provoking that a girl whose appearance you could not characterize except by saying that her figure was slight and of middle stature, her features small, her eyes tolerable, and her complexion sallow, had nevertheless a certain mental superiority which could not be explained away--an exasperating thoroughness in her musical accomplishment, a fastidious discrimination in her general tastes, which made it impossible to force her admiration and kept you in awe of her standard. this insignificant-looking young lady of four-and-twenty, whom any one's eyes would have passed over negligently if she had not been miss arrowpoint, might be suspected of a secret opinion that miss harleth's acquirements were rather of a common order, and such an opinion was not made agreeable to think of by being always veiled under a perfect kindness of manner. but gwendolen did not like to dwell on facts which threw an unfavorable light on itself. the musical magus who had so suddenly widened her horizon was not always on the scene; and his being constantly backward and forward between london and quetcham soon began to be thought of as offering opportunities for converting him to a more admiring state of mind. meanwhile, in the manifest pleasure her singing gave at brackenshaw castle, the firs, and elsewhere, she recovered her equanimity, being disposed to think approval more trustworthy than objection, and not being one of the exceptional persons who have a parching thirst for a perfection undemanded by their neighbors. perhaps it would have been rash to say then that she was at all exceptional inwardly, or that the unusual in her was more than her rare grace of movement and bearing, and a certain daring which gave piquancy to a very common egoistic ambition, such as exists under many clumsy exteriors and is taken no notice of. for i suppose that the set of the head does not really determine the hunger of the inner self for supremacy: it only makes a difference sometimes as to the way in which the supremacy is held attainable, and a little also to the degree in which it can be attained; especially when the hungry one is a girl, whose passion for doing what is remarkable has an ideal limit in consistency with the highest breeding and perfect freedom from the sordid need of income. gwendolen was as inwardly rebellious against the restraints of family conditions, and as ready to look through obligations into her own fundamental want of feeling for them, as if she had been sustained by the boldest speculations; but she really had no such speculations, and would at once have marked herself off from any sort of theoretical or practically reforming women by satirizing them. she rejoiced to feel herself exceptional; but her horizon was that of the genteel romance where the heroine's soul poured out in her journal is full of vague power, originality, and general rebellion, while her life moves strictly in the sphere of fashion; and if she wanders into a swamp, the pathos lies partly, so to speak, in her having on her satin shoes. here is a restraint which nature and society have provided on the pursuit of striking adventure; so that a soul burning with a sense of what the universe is not, and ready to take all existence as fuel, is nevertheless held captive by the ordinary wirework of social forms and does nothing particular. this commonplace result was what gwendolen found herself threatened with even in the novelty of the first winter at offendene. what she was clear upon was, that she did not wish to lead the same sort of life as ordinary young ladies did; but what she was not clear upon was, how she should set about leading any other, and what were the particular acts which she would assert her freedom by doing. offendene remained a good background, if anything would happen there; but on the whole the neighborhood was in fault. beyond the effect of her beauty on a first presentation, there was not much excitement to be got out of her earliest invitations, and she came home after little sallies of satire and knowingness, such as had offended mrs. arrowpoint, to fill the intervening days with the most girlish devices. the strongest assertion she was able to make of her individual claims was to leave out alice's lessons (on the principle that alice was more likely to excel in ignorance), and to employ her with miss merry, and the maid who was understood to wait on all the ladies, in helping to arrange various dramatic costumes which gwendolen pleased herself with having in readiness for some future occasions of acting in charades or theatrical pieces, occasions which she meant to bring about by force of will or contrivance. she had never acted--only made a figure in _tableaux vivans_ at school; but she felt assured that she could act well, and having been once or twice to the théâtre français, and also heard her mamma speak of rachel, her waking dreams and cogitations as to how she would manage her destiny sometimes turned on the question whether she would become an actress like rachel, since she was more beautiful than that thin jewess. meanwhile the wet days before christmas were passed pleasantly in the preparation of costumes, greek, oriental, and composite, in which gwendolen attitudinized and speechified before a domestic audience, including even the housekeeper, who was once pressed into it that she might swell the notes of applause; but having shown herself unworthy by observing that miss harleth looked far more like a queen in her own dress than in that baggy thing with her arms all bare, she was not invited a second time. "do i look as well as rachel, mamma?" said gwendolen, one day when she had been showing herself in her greek dress to anna, and going through scraps of scenes with much tragic intention. "you have better arms than rachel," said mrs. davilow, "your arms would do for anything, gwen. but your voice is not so tragic as hers; it is not so deep." "i can make it deeper, if i like," said gwendolen, provisionally; then she added, with decision, "i think a higher voice is more tragic: it is more feminine; and the more feminine a woman is, the more tragic it seems when she does desperate actions." "there may be something in that," said mrs. davilow, languidly. "but i don't know what good there is in making one's blood creep. and if there is anything horrible to be done, i should like it to be left to the men." "oh, mamma, you are so dreadfully prosaic! as if all the great poetic criminals were not women! i think the men are poor cautious creatures." "well, dear, and you--who are afraid to be alone in the night--i don't think you would be very bold in crime, thank god." "i am not talking about reality, mamma," said gwendolen, impatiently. then her mamma being called out of the room, she turned quickly to her cousin, as if taking an opportunity, and said, "anna, do ask my uncle to let us get up some charades at the rectory. mr. middleton and warham could act with us--just for practice. mamma says it will not do to have mr. middleton consulting and rehearsing here. he is a stick, but we could give him suitable parts. do ask, or else i will." "oh, not till rex comes. he is so clever, and such a dear old thing, and he will act napoleon looking over the sea. he looks just like napoleon. rex can do anything." "i don't in the least believe in your rex, anna," said gwendolen, laughing at her. "he will turn out to be like those wretched blue and yellow water-colors of his which you hang up in your bedroom and worship." "very well, you will see," said anna. "it is not that i know what is clever, but he has got a scholarship already, and papa says he will get a fellowship, and nobody is better at games. he is cleverer than mr. middleton, and everybody but you call mr. middleton clever." "so he may be in a dark-lantern sort of way. but he _is_ a stick. if he had to say, 'perdition catch my soul, but i do love her,' he would say it in just the same tone as, 'here endeth the second lesson.'" "oh, gwendolen!" said anna, shocked at these promiscuous allusions. "and it is very unkind of you to speak so of him, for he admires you very much. i heard warham say one day to mamma, 'middleton is regularly spooney upon gwendolen.' she was very angry with him; but i know what it means. it is what they say at college for being in love." "how can i help it?" said gwendolen, rather contemptuously. "perdition catch my soul if i love _him_." "no, of course; papa, i think, would not wish it. and he is to go away soon. but it makes me sorry when you ridicule him." "what shall you do to me when i ridicule rex?" said gwendolen, wickedly. "now, gwendolen, dear, you _will not_?" said anna, her eyes filling with tears. "i could not bear it. but there really is nothing in him to ridicule. only you may find out things. for no one ever thought of laughing at mr. middleton before you. every one said he was nice-looking, and his manners perfect. i am sure i have always been frightened at him because of his learning and his square-cut coat, and his being a nephew of the bishop's, and all that. but you will not ridicule rex--promise me." anna ended with a beseeching look which touched gwendolen. "you are a dear little coz," she said, just touching the tip of anna's chin with her thumb and forefinger. "i don't ever want to do anything that will vex you. especially if rex is to make everything come off--charades and everything." and when at last rex was there, the animation he brought into the life of offendene and the rectory, and his ready partnership in gwendolen's plans, left her no inclination for any ridicule that was not of an open and flattering kind, such as he himself enjoyed. he was a fine open-hearted youth, with a handsome face strongly resembling his father's and anna's, but softer in expression than the one, and larger in scale than the other: a bright, healthy, loving nature, enjoying ordinary innocent things so much that vice had no temptation for him, and what he knew of it lay too entirely in the outer courts and little-visited chambers of his mind for him to think of it with great repulsion. vicious habits were with him "what some fellows did"--"stupid stuff" which he liked to keep aloof from. he returned anna's affection as fully as could be expected of a brother whose pleasures apart from her were more than the sum total of hers; and he had never known a stronger love. the cousins were continually together at the one house or the other--chiefly at offendene, where there was more freedom, or rather where there was a more complete sway for gwendolen; and whatever she wished became a ruling purpose for rex. the charades came off according to her plans; and also some other little scenes not contemplated by her in which her acting was more impromptu. it was at offendene that the charades and _tableaux_ were rehearsed and presented, mrs. davilow seeing no objection even to mr. middleton's being invited to share in them, now that rex too was there--especially as his services were indispensable: warham, who was studying for india with a wanchester "coach," having no time to spare, and being generally dismal under a cram of everything except the answers needed at the forthcoming examination, which might disclose the welfare of our indian empire to be somehow connected with a quotable knowledge of browne's pastorals. mr. middleton was persuaded to play various grave parts, gwendolen having flattered him on his enviable immobility of countenance; and at first a little pained and jealous at her comradeship with rex, he presently drew encouragement from the thought that this sort of cousinly familiarity excluded any serious passion. indeed, he occasionally felt that her more formal treatment of himself was such a sign of favor as to warrant his making advances before he left pennicote, though he had intended to keep his feelings in reserve until his position should be more assured. miss gwendolen, quite aware that she was adored by this unexceptionable young clergyman with pale whiskers and square-cut collar, felt nothing more on the subject than that she had no objection to being adored: she turned her eyes on him with calm mercilessness and caused him many mildly agitating hopes by seeming always to avoid dramatic contact with him--for all meanings, we know, depend on the key of interpretation. some persons might have thought beforehand that a young man of anglican leanings, having a sense of sacredness much exercised on small things as well as great, rarely laughing save from politeness, and in general regarding the mention of spades by their naked names as rather coarse, would not have seen a fitting bride for himself in a girl who was daring in ridicule, and showed none of the special grace required in the clergyman's wife; or, that a young man informed by theological reading would have reflected that he was not likely to meet the taste of a lively, restless young lady like miss harleth. but are we always obliged to explain why the facts are not what some persons thought beforehand? the apology lies on their side, who had that erroneous way of thinking. as for rex, who would possibly have been sorry for poor middleton if he had been aware of the excellent curate's inward conflict, he was too completely absorbed in a first passion to have observation for any person or thing. he did not observe gwendolen; he only felt what she said or did, and the back of his head seemed to be a good organ of information as to whether she was in the room or out. before the end of the first fortnight he was so deeply in love that it was impossible for him to think of his life except as bound up with gwendolen's. he could see no obstacles, poor boy; his own love seemed a guarantee of hers, since it was one with the unperturbed delight in her image, so that he could no more dream of her giving him pain than an egyptian could dream of snow. she sang and played to him whenever he liked, was always glad of his companionship in riding, though his borrowed steeds were often comic, was ready to join in any fun of his, and showed a right appreciation of anna. no mark of sympathy seemed absent. that because gwendolen was the most perfect creature in the world she was to make a grand match, had not occurred to him. he had no conceit--at least not more than goes to make up the necessary gum and consistence of a substantial personality: it was only that in the young bliss of loving he took gwendolen's perfection as part of that good which had seemed one with life to him, being the outcome of a happy, well-embodied nature. one incident which happened in the course of their dramatic attempts impressed rex as a sign of her unusual sensibility. it showed an aspect of her nature which could not have been preconceived by any one who, like him, had only seen her habitual fearlessness in active exercises and her high spirits in society. after a good deal of rehearsing it was resolved that a select party should be invited to offendene to witness the performances which went with so much satisfaction to the actors. anna had caused a pleasant surprise; nothing could be neater than the way in which she played her little parts; one would even have suspected her of hiding much sly observation under her simplicity. and mr. middleton answered very well by not trying to be comic. the main source of doubt and retardation had been gwendolen's desire to appear in her greek dress. no word for a charade would occur to her either waking or dreaming that suited her purpose of getting a statuesque pose in this favorite costume. to choose a motive from racine was of no use, since rex and the others could not declaim french verse, and improvised speeches would turn the scene into burlesque. besides, mr. gascoigne prohibited the acting of scenes from plays: he usually protested against the notion that an amusement which was fitting for every one else was unfitting for a clergyman; but he would not in this matter overstep the line of decorum as drawn in that part of wessex, which did not exclude his sanction of the young people's acting charades in his sister-in-law's house--a very different affair from private theatricals in the full sense of the word. everybody of course was concerned to satisfy this wish of gwendolen's, and rex proposed that they should wind up with a tableau in which the effect of her majesty would not be marred by any one's speech. this pleased her thoroughly, and the only question was the choice of the tableau. "something pleasant, children, i beseech you," said mrs. davilow; "i can't have any greek wickedness." "it is no worse than christian wickedness, mamma," said gwendolen, whose mention of rachelesque heroines had called forth that remark. "and less scandalous," said rex. "besides, one thinks of it as all gone by and done with. what do you say to briseis being led away? i would be achilles, and you would be looking round at me--after the print we have at the rectory." "that would be a good attitude for me," said gwendolen, in a tone of acceptance. but afterward she said with decision, "no. it will not do. there must be three men in proper costume, else it will be ridiculous." "i have it," said rex, after a little reflection. "hermione as the statue in winter's tale? i will be leontes, and miss merry, paulina, one on each side. our dress won't signify," he went on laughingly; "it will be more shakespearian and romantic if leontes looks like napoleon, and paulina like a modern spinster." and hermione was chosen; all agreeing that age was of no consequence, but gwendolen urged that instead of the mere tableau there should be just enough acting of the scene to introduce the striking up of the music as a signal for her to step down and advance; when leontes, instead of embracing her, was to kneel and kiss the hem of her garment, and so the curtain was to fall. the antechamber with folding doors lent itself admirably to the purpose of a stage, and the whole of the establishment, with the addition of jarrett the village carpenter, was absorbed in the preparations for an entertainment, which, considering that it was an imitation of acting, was likely to be successful, since we know from ancient fable that an imitation may have more chance of success than the original. gwendolen was not without a special exultation in the prospect of this occasion, for she knew that herr klesmer was again at quetcham, and she had taken care to include him among the invited. klesmer came. he was in one of his placid, silent moods, and sat in serene contemplation, replying to all appeals in benignant-sounding syllables more or less articulate--as taking up his cross meekly in a world overgrown with amateurs, or as careful how he moved his lion paws lest he should crush a rampant and vociferous mouse. everything indeed went off smoothly and according to expectation--all that was improvised and accidental being of a probable sort--until the incident occurred which showed gwendolen in an unforeseen phase of emotion. how it came about was at first a mystery. the tableau of hermione was doubly striking from its dissimilarity with what had gone before: it was answering perfectly, and a murmur of applause had been gradually suppressed while leontes gave his permission that paulina should exercise her utmost art and make the statue move. hermione, her arm resting on a pillar, was elevated by about six inches, which she counted on as a means of showing her pretty foot and instep, when at the given signal she should advance and descend. "music, awake her, strike!" said paulina (mrs. davilow, who, by special entreaty, had consented to take the part in a white burnous and hood). herr klesmer, who had been good-natured enough to seat himself at the piano, struck a thunderous chord--but in the same instant, and before hermione had put forth her foot, the movable panel, which was on a line with the piano, flew open on the right opposite the stage and disclosed the picture of the dead face and the fleeing figure, brought out in pale definiteness by the position of the wax-lights. everyone was startled, but all eyes in the act of turning toward the open panel were recalled by a piercing cry from gwendolen, who stood without change of attitude, but with a change of expression that was terrifying in its terror. she looked like a statue into which a soul of fear had entered: her pallid lips were parted; her eyes, usually narrowed under their long lashes, were dilated and fixed. her mother, less surprised than alarmed, rushed toward her, and rex, too, could not help going to her side. but the touch of her mother's arm had the effect of an electric charge; gwendolen fell on her knees and put her hands before her face. she was still trembling, but mute, and it seemed that she had self-consciousness enough to aim at controlling her signs of terror, for she presently allowed herself to be raised from her kneeling posture and led away, while the company were relieving their minds by explanation. "a magnificent bit of _plastik_ that!" said klesmer to miss arrowpoint. and a quick fire of undertoned question and answer went round. "was it part of the play?" "oh, no, surely not. miss harleth was too much affected. a sensitive creature!" "dear me! i was not aware that there was a painting behind that panel; were you?" "no; how should i? some eccentricity in one of the earl's family long ago, i suppose." "how very painful! pray shut it up." "was the door locked? it is very mysterious. it must be the spirits." "but there is no medium present." "how do you know that? we must conclude that there is, when such things happen." "oh, the door was not locked; it was probably the sudden vibration from the piano that sent it open." this conclusion came from mr. gascoigne, who begged miss merry if possible to get the key. but this readiness to explain the mystery was thought by mrs. vulcany unbecoming in a clergyman, and she observed in an undertone that mr. gascoigne was always a little too worldly for her taste. however, the key was produced, and the rector turned it in the lock with an emphasis rather offensively rationalizing--as who should say, "it will not start open again"--putting the key in his pocket as a security. however, gwendolen soon reappeared, showing her usual spirits, and evidently determined to ignore as far as she could the striking change she had made in the part of hermione. but when klesmer said to her, "we have to thank you for devising a perfect climax: you could not have chosen a finer bit of _plastik_," there was a flush of pleasure in her face. she liked to accept as a belief what was really no more than delicate feigning. he divined that the betrayal into a passion of fear had been mortifying to her, and wished her to understand that he took it for good acting. gwendolen cherished the idea that now he was struck with her talent as well as her beauty, and her uneasiness about his opinion was half turned to complacency. but too many were in the secret of what had been included in the rehearsals, and what had not, and no one besides klesmer took the trouble to soothe gwendolen's imagined mortification. the general sentiment was that the incident should be let drop. there had really been a medium concerned in the starting open of the panel: one who had quitted the room in haste and crept to bed in much alarm of conscience. it was the small isabel, whose intense curiosity, unsatisfied by the brief glimpse she had had of the strange picture on the day of arrival at offendene, had kept her on the watch for an opportunity of finding out where gwendolen had put the key, of stealing it from the discovered drawer when the rest of the family were out, and getting on a stool to unlock the panel. while she was indulging her thirst for knowledge in this way, a noise which she feared was an approaching footstep alarmed her: she closed the door and attempted hurriedly to lock it, but failing and not daring to linger, she withdrew the key and trusted that the panel would stick, as it seemed well inclined to do. in this confidence she had returned the key to its former place, stilling any anxiety by the thought that if the door were discovered to be unlocked nobody would know how the unlocking came about. the inconvenient isabel, like other offenders, did not foresee her own impulse to confession, a fatality which came upon her the morning after the party, when gwendolen said at the breakfast-table, "i know the door was locked before the housekeeper gave me the key, for i tried it myself afterward. some one must have been to my drawer and taken the key." it seemed to isabel that gwendolen's awful eyes had rested on her more than on the other sisters, and without any time for resolve, she said, with a trembling lip: "please forgive me, gwendolen." the forgiveness was sooner bestowed than it would have been if gwendolen had not desired to dismiss from her own and every one else's memory any case in which she had shown her susceptibility to terror. she wondered at herself in these occasional experiences, which seemed like a brief remembered madness, an unexplained exception from her normal life; and in this instance she felt a peculiar vexation that her helpless fear had shown itself, not, as usual, in solitude, but in well-lit company. her ideal was to be daring in speech and reckless in braving dangers, both moral and physical; and though her practice fell far behind her ideal, this shortcoming seemed to be due to the pettiness of circumstances, the narrow theatre which life offers to a girl of twenty, who cannot conceive herself as anything else than a lady, or as in any position which would lack the tribute of respect. she had no permanent consciousness of other fetters, or of more spiritual restraints, having always disliked whatever was presented to her under the name of religion, in the same way that some people dislike arithmetic and accounts: it had raised no other emotion in her, no alarm, no longing; so that the question whether she believed it had not occurred to her any more than it had occurred to her to inquire into the conditions of colonial property and banking, on which, as she had had many opportunities of knowing, the family fortune was dependent. all these facts about herself she would have been ready to admit, and even, more or less indirectly, to state. what she unwillingly recognized, and would have been glad for others to be unaware of, was that liability of hers to fits of spiritual dread, though this fountain of awe within her had not found its way into connection with the religion taught her or with any human relations. she was ashamed and frightened, as at what might happen again, in remembering her tremor on suddenly feeling herself alone, when, for example, she was walking without companionship and there came some rapid change in the light. solitude in any wide scene impressed her with an undefined feeling of immeasurable existence aloof from her, in the midst of which she was helplessly incapable of asserting herself. the little astronomy taught her at school used sometimes to set her imagination at work in a way that made her tremble: but always when some one joined her she recovered her indifference to the vastness in which she seemed an exile; she found again her usual world in which her will was of some avail, and the religious nomenclature belonging to this world was no more identified for her with those uneasy impressions of awe than her uncle's surplices seen out of use at the rectory. with human ears and eyes about her, she had always hitherto recovered her confidence, and felt the possibility of winning empire. to her mamma and others her fits of timidity or terror were sufficiently accounted for by her "sensitiveness" or the "excitability of her nature"; but these explanatory phrases required conciliation with much that seemed to be blank indifference or rare self-mastery. heat is a great agent and a useful word, but considered as a means of explaining the universe it requires an extensive knowledge of differences; and as a means of explaining character "sensitiveness" is in much the same predicament. but who, loving a creature like gwendolen, would not be inclined to regard every peculiarity in her as a mark of preeminence? that was what rex did. after the hermione scene he was more persuaded than ever that she must be instinct with all feeling, and not only readier to respond to a worshipful love, but able to love better than other girls. rex felt the summer on his young wings and soared happily. chapter vii. "_perigot_. as the bonny lasse passed by, _willie_. hey, ho, bonnilasse! _p_. she roode at me with glauncing eye, _w_. as clear as the crystal glasse. _p_. all as the sunny beame so bright, _w_. hey, ho, the sunnebeame! _p_. glaunceth from phoebus' face forthright, _w_. so love into thy heart did streame." --spenser: _shepard's calendar_. "the kindliest symptom, yet the most alarming crisis in the ticklish state of youth; the nourisher and destroyer of hopeful wits; * * * the servitude above freedom; the gentle mind's religion; the liberal superstition."--charles lamb. the first sign of the unimagined snow-storm was like the transparent white cloud that seems to set off the blue. anna was in the secret of rex's feeling; though for the first time in their lives he had said nothing to her about what he most thought of, and he only took it for granted that she knew it. for the first time, too, anna could not say to rex what was continually in her mind. perhaps it might have been a pain which she would have had to conceal, that he should so soon care for some one else more than for herself, if such a feeling had not been thoroughly neutralized by doubt and anxiety on his behalf. anna admired her cousin--would have said with simple sincerity, "gwendolen is always very good to me," and held it in the order of things for herself to be entirely subject to this cousin; but she looked at her with mingled fear and distrust, with a puzzled contemplation as of some wondrous and beautiful animal whose nature was a mystery, and who, for anything anna knew, might have an appetite for devouring all the small creatures that were her own particular pets. and now anna's heart was sinking under the heavy conviction which she dared not utter, that gwendolen would never care for rex. what she herself held in tenderness and reverence had constantly seemed indifferent to gwendolen, and it was easier to imagine her scorning rex than returning any tenderness of his. besides, she was always thinking of being something extraordinary. and poor rex! papa would be angry with him if he knew. and of course he was too young to be in love in that way; and she, anna had thought that it would be years and years before any thing of that sort came, and that she would be rex's housekeeper ever so long. but what a heart must that be which did not return his love! anna, in the prospect of his suffering, was beginning to dislike her too fascinating cousin. it seemed to her, as it did to rex, that the weeks had been filled with a tumultuous life evident to all observers: if he had been questioned on the subject he would have said that he had no wish to conceal what he hoped would be an engagement which he should immediately tell his father of: and yet for the first time in his life he was reserved not only about his feelings but--which was more remarkable to anna--about certain actions. she, on her side, was nervous each time her father or mother began to speak to her in private lest they should say anything about rex and gwendolen. but the elders were not in the least alive to this agitating drama, which went forward chiefly in a sort of pantomime extremely lucid in the minds thus expressing themselves, but easily missed by spectators who were running their eyes over the _guardian_ or the _clerical gazette_, and regarded the trivialities of the young ones with scarcely more interpretation than they gave to the action of lively ants. "where are you going, rex?" said anna one gray morning when her father had set off in his carriage to the sessions, mrs. gascoigne with him, and she had observed that her brother had on his antigropelos, the utmost approach he possessed to a hunting equipment. "going to see the hounds throw off at the three barns." "are you going to take gwendolen?" said anna, timidly. "she told you, did she?" "no, but i thought--does papa know you are going?" "not that i am aware of. i don't suppose he would trouble himself about the matter." "you are going to use his horse?" "he knows i do that whenever i can." "don't let gwendolen ride after the hounds, rex," said anna, whose fears gifted her with second-sight. "why not?" said rex, smiling rather provokingly. "papa and mamma and aunt davilow all wish her not to. they think it is not right for her." "why should you suppose she is going to do what is not right?" "gwendolen minds nobody sometimes," said anna getting bolder by dint of a little anger. "then she would not mind me," said rex, perversely making a joke of poor anna's anxiety. "oh rex, i cannot bear it. you will make yourself very unhappy." here anna burst into tears. "nannie, nannie, what on earth is the matter with you?" said rex, a little impatient at being kept in this way, hat on and whip in hand. "she will not care for you one bit--i know she never will!" said the poor child in a sobbing whisper. she had lost all control of herself. rex reddened and hurried away from her out of the hall door, leaving her to the miserable consciousness of having made herself disagreeable in vain. he did think of her words as he rode along; they had the unwelcomeness which all unfavorable fortune-telling has, even when laughed at; but he quickly explained them as springing from little anna's tenderness, and began to be sorry that he was obliged to come away without soothing her. every other feeling on the subject, however, was quickly merged in a resistant belief to the contrary of hers, accompanied with a new determination to prove that he was right. this sort of certainty had just enough kinship to doubt and uneasiness to hurry on a confession which an untouched security might have delayed. gwendolen was already mounted and riding up and down the avenue when rex appeared at the gate. she had provided herself against disappointment in case he did not appear in time by having the groom ready behind her, for she would not have waited beyond a reasonable time. but now the groom was dismissed, and the two rode away in delightful freedom. gwendolen was in her highest spirits, and rex thought that she had never looked so lovely before; her figure, her long white throat, and the curves of her cheek and chin were always set off to perfection by the compact simplicity of her riding dress. he could not conceive a more perfect girl; and to a youthful lover like rex it seems that the fundamental identity of the good, the true and the beautiful, is already extant and manifest in the object of his love. most observers would have held it more than equally accountable that a girl should have like impressions about rex, for in his handsome face there was nothing corresponding to the undefinable stinging quality--as it were a trace of demon ancestry--which made some beholders hesitate in their admiration of gwendolen. it was an exquisite january morning in which there was no threat of rain, but a gray sky making the calmest background for the charms of a mild winter scene--the grassy borders of the lanes, the hedgerows sprinkled with red berries and haunted with low twitterings, the purple bareness of the elms, the rich brown of the furrows. the horses' hoofs made a musical chime, accompanying their young voices. she was laughing at his equipment, for he was the reverse of a dandy, and he was enjoying her laughter; the freshness of the morning mingled with the freshness of their youth; and every sound that came from their clear throats, every glance they gave each other, was the bubbling outflow from a spring of joy. it was all morning to them, within and without. and thinking of them in these moments one is tempted to that futile sort of wishing--if only things could have been a little otherwise then, so as to have been greatly otherwise after--if only these two beautiful young creatures could have pledged themselves to each other then and there, and never through life have swerved from that pledge! for some of the goodness which rex believed in was there. goodness is a large, often a prospective word; like harvest, which at one stage when we talk of it lies all underground, with an indeterminate future; is the germ prospering in the darkness? at another, it has put forth delicate green blades, and by-and-by the trembling blossoms are ready to be dashed off by an hour of rough wind or rain. each stage has its peculiar blight, and may have the healthy life choked out of it by a particular action of the foul land which rears or neighbors it, or by damage brought from foulness afar. "anna had got it into her head that you would want to ride after the hounds this morning," said rex, whose secret associations with anna's words made this speech seem quite perilously near the most momentous of subjects. "did she?" said gwendolen, laughingly. "what a little clairvoyant she is!" "shall you?" said rex, who had not believed in her intending to do it if the elders objected, but confided in her having good reasons. "i don't know. i can't tell what i shall do till i get there. clairvoyants are often wrong: they foresee what is likely. i am not fond of what is likely: it is always dull. i do what is unlikely." "ah, there you tell me a secret. when once i knew what people in general would be likely to do, i should know you would do the opposite. so you would have come round to a likelihood of your own sort. i shall be able to calculate on you. you couldn't surprise me." "yes, i could. i should turn round and do what was likely for people in general," said gwendolen, with a musical laugh. "you see you can't escape some sort of likelihood. and contradictoriness makes the strongest likelihood of all. you must give up a plan." "no, i shall not. my plan is to do what pleases me." (here should any young lady incline to imitate gwendolen, let her consider the set of her head and neck: if the angle there had been different, the chin protrusive, and the cervical vertebrae a trifle more curved in their position, ten to one gwendolen's words would have had a jar in them for the sweet-natured rex. but everything odd in her speech was humor and pretty banter, which he was only anxious to turn toward one point.) "can you manage to feel only what pleases you?" said he. "of course not; that comes from what other people do. but if the world were pleasanter, one would only feel what was pleasant. girls' lives are so stupid: they never do what they like." "i thought that was more the case of the men. they are forced to do hard things, and are often dreadfully bored, and knocked to pieces too. and then, if we love a girl very dearly we want to do as she likes, so after all you have your own way." "i don't believe it. i never saw a married woman who had her own way." "what should you like to do?" said rex, quite guilelessly, and in real anxiety. "oh, i don't know!--go to the north pole, or ride steeple-chases, or go to be a queen in the east like lady hester stanhope," said gwendolen, flightily. her words were born on her lips, but she would have been at a loss to give an answer of deeper origin. "you don't mean you would never be married?" "no; i didn't say that. only when i married, i should not do as other women do." "you might do just as you liked if you married a man who loved you more dearly than anything else in the world," said rex, who, poor youth, was moving in themes outside the curriculum in which he had promised to win distinction. "i know one who does." "don't talk of mr. middleton, for heaven's sake," said gwendolen, hastily, a quick blush spreading over her face and neck; "that is anna's chant. i hear the hounds. let us go on." she put her chestnut to a canter, and rex had no choice but to follow her. still he felt encouraged. gwendolen was perfectly aware that her cousin was in love with her; but she had no idea that the matter was of any consequence, having never had the slightest visitation of painful love herself. she wished the small romance of rex's devotion to fill up the time of his stay at pennicote, and to avoid explanations which would bring it to an untimely end. besides, she objected, with a sort of physical repulsion, to being directly made love to. with all her imaginative delight in being adored, there was a certain fierceness of maidenhood in her. but all other thoughts were soon lost for her in the excitement of the scene at the three barns. several gentlemen of the hunt knew her, and she exchanged pleasant greetings. rex could not get another word with her. the color, the stir of the field had taken possession of gwendolen with a strength which was not due to habitual associations, for she had never yet ridden after the hounds--only said she should like to do it, and so drawn forth a prohibition; her mamma dreading the danger, and her uncle declaring that for his part he held that kind of violent exercise unseemly in a woman, and that whatever might be done in other parts of the country, no lady of good position followed the wessex hunt: no one but mrs. gadsby, the yeomanry captain's wife, who had been a kitchenmaid and still spoke like one. this last argument had some effect on gwendolen, and had kept her halting between her desire to assert her freedom and her horror of being classed with mrs. gadsby. some of the most unexceptionable women in the neighborhood occasionally went to see the hounds throw off; but it happened that none of them were present this morning to abstain from following, while mrs. gadsby, with her doubtful antecedents, grammatical and otherwise, was not visible to make following seem unbecoming. thus gwendolen felt no check on the animal stimulus that came from the stir and tongue of the hounds, the pawing of the horses, the varying voices of men, the movement hither and thither of vivid color on the background of green and gray stillness:--that utmost excitement of the coming chase which consists in feeling something like a combination of dog and horse, with the superadded thrill of social vanities and consciousness of centaur-power which belongs to humankind. rex would have felt more of the same enjoyment if he could have kept nearer to gwendolen, and not seen her constantly occupied with acquaintances, or looked at by would-be acquaintances, all on lively horses which veered about and swept the surrounding space as effectually as a revolving lever. "glad to see you here this fine morning, miss harleth," said lord brackenshaw, a middle-aged peer of aristocratic seediness in stained pink, with easy-going manners which would have made the threatened deluge seem of no consequence. "we shall have a first-rate run. a pity you didn't go with us. have you ever tried your little chestnut at a ditch? you wouldn't be afraid, eh?" "not the least in the world," said gwendolen. and that was true: she was never fearful in action and companionship. "i have often taken him at some rails and a ditch too, near--" "ah, by jove!" said his lordship, quietly, in notation that something was happening which must break off the dialogue: and as he reined off his horse, rex was bringing his sober hackney up to gwendolen's side when--the hounds gave tongue, and the whole field was in motion as if the whirl of the earth were carrying it; gwendolen along with everything else; no word of notice to rex, who without a second thought followed too. could he let gwendolen go alone? under other circumstances he would have enjoyed the run, but he was just now perturbed by the check which had been put on the impetus to utter his love, and get utterance in return, an impetus which could not at once resolve itself into a totally different sort of chase, at least with the consciousness of being on his father's gray nag, a good horse enough in his way, but of sober years and ecclesiastical habits. gwendolen on her spirited little chestnut was up with the best, and felt as secure as an immortal goddess, having, if she had thought of risk, a core of confidence that no ill luck would happen to her. but she thought of no such thing, and certainly not of any risk there might be for her cousin. if she had thought of him, it would have struck her as a droll picture that he should be gradually falling behind, and looking round in search of gates: a fine lithe youth, whose heart must be panting with all the spirit of a beagle, stuck as if under a wizard's spell on a stiff clerical hackney, would have made her laugh with a sense of fun much too strong for her to reflect on his mortification. but gwendolen was apt to think rather of those who saw her than of those whom she could not see; and rex was soon so far behind that if she had looked she would not have seen him. for i grieve to say that in the search for a gate, along a lane lately mended, primrose fell, broke his knees, and undesignedly threw rex over his head. fortunately a blacksmith's son who also followed the hounds under disadvantages, namely, on foot (a loose way of hunting which had struck some even frivolous minds as immoral), was naturally also in the rear, and happened to be within sight of rex's misfortune. he ran to give help which was greatly needed, for rex was a great deal stunned, and the complete recovery of sensation came in the form of pain. joel dagge on this occasion showed himself that most useful of personages, whose knowledge is of a kind suited to the immediate occasion: he not only knew perfectly well what was the matter with the horse, how far they were both from the nearest public-house and from pennicote rectory, and could certify to rex that his shoulder was only a bit out of joint, but also offered experienced surgical aid. "lord, sir, let me shove it in again for you! i's seen nash, the bone-setter, do it, and done it myself for our little sally twice over. it's all one and the same, shoulders is. if you'll trusten to me and tighten your mind up a bit, i'll do it for you in no time." "come then, old fellow," said rex, who could tighten his mind better than his seat in the saddle. and joel managed the operation, though not without considerable expense of pain to his patient, who turned so pitiably pale while tightening his mind, that joel remarked, "ah, sir, you aren't used to it, that's how it is. i's see lots and lots o' joints out. i see a man with his eye pushed out once--that was a rum go as ever i see. you can't have a bit o' fun wi'out such sort o' things. but it went in again. i's swallowed three teeth mysen, as sure as i'm alive. now, sirrey" (this was addressed to primrose), "come alonk--you musn't make believe as you can't." joel being clearly a low character, it is, happily, not necessary to say more of him to the refined reader, than that he helped rex to get home with as little delay as possible. there was no alternative but to get home, though all the while he was in anxiety about gwendolen, and more miserable in the thought that she, too, might have had an accident, than in the pain of his own bruises and the annoyance he was about to cause his father. he comforted himself about her by reflecting that every one would be anxious to take care of her, and that some acquaintance would be sure to conduct her home. mr. gascoigne was already at home, and was writing letters in his study, when he was interrupted by seeing poor rex come in with a face which was not the less handsome and ingratiating for being pale and a little distressed. he was secretly the favorite son, and a young portrait of the father; who, however, never treated him with any partiality--rather, with an extra rigor. mr. gascoigne having inquired of anna, knew that rex had gone with gwendolen to the meet at the three barns. "what is the matter?" he said hastily, not laying down his pen. "i'm very sorry, sir; primrose has fallen down and broken his knees." "where have you been with him?" said mr. gascoigne, with a touch of severity. he rarely gave way to temper. "to the three barns to see the hounds throw off." "and you were fool enough to follow?" "yes, sir. i didn't go at any fences, but the horse got his leg into a hole." "and you got hurt yourself, i hope, eh!" "i got my shoulder put out, but a young blacksmith put it in again for me. i'm just a little battered, that's all." "well, sit down." "i'm very sorry about the horse, sir; i knew it would be a vexation to you." "and what has become of gwendolen?" said mr. gascoigne, abruptly. rex, who did not imagine that his father had made any inquiries about him, answered at first with a blush, which was the more remarkable for his previous paleness. then he said, nervously, "i am anxious to know--i should like to go or send at once to offendene--but she rides so well, and i think she would keep up--there would most likely be many round her." "i suppose it was she who led you on, eh?" said mr. gascoigne, laying down his pen, leaning back in his chair, and looking at rex with more marked examination. "it was natural for her to want to go: she didn't intend it beforehand--she was led away by the spirit of the thing. and, of course, i went when she went." mr. gascoigne left a brief interval of silence, and then said, with quiet irony,--"but now you observe, young gentleman, that you are not furnished with a horse which will enable you to play the squire to your cousin. you must give up that amusement. you have spoiled my nag for me, and that is enough mischief for one vacation. i shall beg you to get ready to start for southampton to-morrow and join stilfox, till you go up to oxford with him. that will be good for your bruises as well as your studies." poor rex felt his heart swelling and comporting itself as if it had been no better than a girl's. "i hope you will not insist on my going immediately, sir." "do you feel too ill?" "no, not that--but--" here rex bit his lips and felt the tears starting, to his great vexation; then he rallied and tried to say more firmly, "i want to go to offendene, but i can go this evening." "i am going there myself. i can bring word about gwendolen, if that is what you want." rex broke down. he thought he discerned an intention fatal to his happiness, nay, his life. he was accustomed to believe in his father's penetration, and to expect firmness. "father, i can't go away without telling her that i love her, and knowing that she loves me." mr. gascoigne was inwardly going through some self-rebuke for not being more wary, and was now really sorry for the lad; but every consideration was subordinate to that of using the wisest tactics in the case. he had quickly made up his mind and to answer the more quietly, "my dear boy, you are too young to be taking momentous, decisive steps of that sort. this is a fancy which you have got into your head during an idle week or two: you must set to work at something and dismiss it. there is every reason against it. an engagement at your age would be totally rash and unjustifiable; and moreover, alliances between first cousins are undesirable. make up your mind to a brief disappointment. life is full of them. we have all got to be broken in; and this is a mild beginning for you." "no, not mild. i can't bear it. i shall be good for nothing. i shouldn't mind anything, if it were settled between us. i could do anything then," said rex, impetuously. "but it's of no use to pretend that i will obey you. i can't do it. if i said i would, i should be sure to break my word. i should see gwendolen again." "well, wait till to-morrow morning, that we may talk of the matter again--you will promise me that," said mr. gascoigne, quietly; and rex did not, could not refuse. the rector did not even tell his wife that he had any other reason for going to offendene that evening than his desire to ascertain that gwendolen had got home safely. he found her more than safe--elated. mr. quallon, who had won the brush, had delivered the trophy to her, and she had brought it before her, fastened on the saddle; more than that, lord brackenshaw had conducted her home, and had shown himself delighted with her spirited riding. all this was told at once to her uncle, that he might see how well justified she had been in acting against his advice; and the prudential rector did feel himself in a slight difficulty, for at that moment he was particularly sensible that it was his niece's serious interest to be well regarded by the brackenshaws, and their opinion as to her following the hounds really touched the essence of his objection. however, he was not obliged to say anything immediately, for mrs. davilow followed up gwendolen's brief triumphant phrases with, "still, i do hope you will not do it again, gwendolen. i should never have a moment's quiet. her father died by an accident, you know." here mrs. davilow had turned away from gwendolen, and looked at mr. gascoigne. "mamma, dear," said gwendolen, kissing her merrily, and passing over the question of the fears which mrs. davilow had meant to account for, "children don't take after their parents in broken legs." not one word had yet been said about rex. in fact there had been no anxiety about him at offendene. gwendolen had observed to her mamma, "oh, he must have been left far behind, and gone home in despair," and it could not be denied that this was fortunate so far as it made way for lord brackenshaw's bringing her home. but now mr. gascoigne said, with some emphasis, looking at gwendolen, "well, the exploit has ended better for you than for rex." "yes, i dare say he had to make a terrible round. you have not taught primrose to take the fences, uncle," said gwendolen, without the faintest shade of alarm in her looks and tone. "rex has had a fall," said mr. gascoigne, curtly, throwing himself into an arm-chair resting his elbows and fitting his palms and fingers together, while he closed his lips and looked at gwendolen, who said, "oh, poor fellow! he is not hurt, i hope?" with a correct look of anxiety such as elated mortals try to super-induce when their pulses are all the while quick with triumph; and mrs. davilow, in the same moment, uttered a low "good heavens! there!" mr. gascoigne went on: "he put his shoulder out, and got some bruises, i believe." here he made another little pause of observation; but gwendolen, instead of any such symptoms as pallor and silence, had only deepened the compassionateness of her brow and eyes, and said again, "oh, poor fellow! it is nothing serious, then?" and mr. gascoigne held his diagnosis complete. but he wished to make assurance doubly sure, and went on still with a purpose. "he got his arm set again rather oddly. some blacksmith--not a parishioner of mine--was on the field--a loose fish, i suppose, but handy, and set the arm for him immediately. so after all, i believe, i and primrose come off worst. the horse's knees are cut to pieces. he came down in a hole, it seems, and pitched rex over his head." gwendolen's face had allowably become contented again, since rex's arm had been reset; and now, at the descriptive suggestions in the latter part of her uncle's speech, her elated spirits made her features less unmanageable than usual; the smiles broke forth, and finally a descending scale of laughter. "you are a pretty young lady--to laugh at other people's calamities," said mr. gascoigne, with a milder sense of disapprobation than if he had not had counteracting reasons to be glad that gwendolen showed no deep feeling on the occasion. "pray forgive me, uncle. now rex is safe, it is so droll to fancy the figure he and primrose would cut--in a lane all by themselves--only a blacksmith running up. it would make a capital caricature of 'following the hounds.'" gwendolen rather valued herself on her superior freedom in laughing where others might only see matter for seriousness. indeed, the laughter became her person so well that her opinion of its gracefulness was often shared by others; and it even entered into her uncle's course of thought at this moment, that it was no wonder a boy should be fascinated by this young witch--who, however, was more mischievous than could be desired. "how can you laugh at broken bones, child?" said mrs. davilow, still under her dominant anxiety. "i wish we had never allowed you to have the horse. you will see that we were wrong," she added, looking with a grave nod at mr. gascoigne--"at least i was, to encourage her in asking for it." "yes, seriously, gwendolen," said mr. gascoigne, in a judicious tone of rational advice to a person understood to be altogether rational, "i strongly recommend you--i shall ask you to oblige me so far--not to repeat your adventure of to-day. lord brackenshaw is very kind, but i feel sure that he would concur with me in what i say. to be spoken of as 'the young lady who hunts' by way of exception, would give a tone to the language about you which i am sure you would not like. depend upon it, his lordship would not choose that lady beatrice or lady maria should hunt in this part of the country, if they were old enough to do so. when you are married, it will be different: you may do whatever your husband sanctions. but if you intend to hunt, you must marry a man who can keep horses." "i don't know why i should do anything so horrible as to marry without _that_ prospect, at least," said gwendolen, pettishly. her uncle's speech had given her annoyance, which she could not show more directly; but she felt that she was committing herself, and after moving carelessly to another part of the room, went out. "she always speaks in that way about marriage," said mrs. davilow; "but it will be different when she has seen the right person." "her heart has never been in the least touched, that you know of?" said mr. gascoigne. mrs. davilow shook her head silently. "it was only last night she said to me, 'mamma, i wonder how girls manage to fall in love. it is easy to make them do it in books. but men are too ridiculous.'" mr. gascoigne laughed a little, and made no further remark on the subject. the next morning at breakfast he said, "how are your bruises, rex?" "oh, not very mellow yet, sir; only beginning to turn a little." "you don't feel quite ready for a journey to southampton?" "not quite," answered rex, with his heart metaphorically in his mouth. "well, you can wait till to-morrow, and go to say goodbye to them at offendene." mrs. gascoigne, who now knew the whole affair, looked steadily at her coffee lest she also should begin to cry, as anna was doing already. mr. gascoigne felt that he was applying a sharp remedy to poor rex's acute attack, but he believed it to be in the end the kindest. to let him know the hopelessness of his love from gwendolen's own lips might be curative in more ways than one. "i can only be thankful that she doesn't care about him," said mrs. gascoigne, when she joined her husband in his study. "there are things in gwendolen i cannot reconcile myself to. my anna is worth two of her, with all her beauty and talent. it looks very ill in her that she will not help in the schools with anna--not even in the sunday-school. what you or i advise is of no consequence to her: and poor fannie is completely under her thumb. but i know you think better of her," mrs. gascoigne ended with a deferential hesitation. "oh, my dear, there is no harm in the girl. it is only that she has a high spirit, and it will not do to hold the reins too tight. the point is, to get her well married. she has a little too much fire in her for her present life with her mother and sisters. it is natural and right that she should be married soon--not to a poor man, but one who can give her a fitting position." presently rex, with his arm in a sling, was on his two miles' walk to offendene. he was rather puzzled by the unconditional permission to see gwendolen, but his father's real ground of action could not enter into his conjectures. if it had, he would first have thought it horribly cold-blooded, and then have disbelieved in his father's conclusions. when he got to the house, everybody was there but gwendolen. the four girls, hearing him speak in the hall, rushed out of the library, which was their school-room, and hung round him with compassionate inquiries about his arm. mrs. davilow wanted to know exactly what had happened, and where the blacksmith lived, that she might make him a present; while miss merry, who took a subdued and melancholy part in all family affairs, doubted whether it would not be giving too much encouragement to that kind of character. rex had never found the family troublesome before, but just now he wished them all away and gwendolen there, and he was too uneasy for good-natured feigning. when at last he had said, "where is gwendolen?" and mrs. davilow had told alice to go and see if her sister were come down, adding, "i sent up her breakfast this morning. she needed a long rest." rex took the shortest way out of his endurance by saying, almost impatiently, "aunt, i want to speak to gwendolen--i want to see her alone." "very well, dear; go into the drawing-room. i will send her there," said mrs. davilow, who had observed that he was fond of being with gwendolen, as was natural, but had not thought of this as having any bearing on the realities of life: it seemed merely part of the christmas holidays which were spinning themselves out. rex for his part thought that the realities of life were all hanging on this interview. he had to walk up and down the drawing-room in expectation for nearly ten minutes--ample space for all imaginative fluctuations; yet, strange to say, he was unvaryingly occupied in thinking what and how much he could do, when gwendolen had accepted him, to satisfy his father that the engagement was the most prudent thing in the world, since it inspired him with double energy for work. he was to be a lawyer, and what reason was there why he should not rise as high as eldon did? he was forced to look at life in the light of his father's mind. but when the door opened and she whose presence he was longing for entered, there came over him suddenly and mysteriously a state of tremor and distrust which he had never felt before. miss gwendolen, simple as she stood there, in her black silk, cut square about the round white pillar of her throat, a black band fastening her hair which streamed backward in smooth silky abundance, seemed more queenly than usual. perhaps it was that there was none of the latent fun and tricksiness which had always pierced in her greeting of rex. how much of this was due to her presentiment from what he had said yesterday that he was going to talk of love? how much from her desire to show regret about his accident? something of both. but the wisdom of ages has hinted that there is a side of the bed which has a malign influence if you happen to get out on it; and this accident befalls some charming persons rather frequently. perhaps it had befallen gwendolen this morning. the hastening of her toilet, the way in which bugle used the brush, the quality of the shilling serial mistakenly written for her amusement, the probabilities of the coming day, and, in short, social institutions generally, were all objectionable to her. it was not that she was out of temper, but that the world was not equal to the demands of her fine organism. however it might be, rex saw an awful majesty about her as she entered and put out her hand to him, without the least approach to a smile in eyes or mouth. the fun which had moved her in the evening had quite evaporated from the image of his accident, and the whole affair seemed stupid to her. but she said with perfect propriety, "i hope you are not much hurt, rex; i deserve that you should reproach me for your accident." "not at all," said rex, feeling the soul within him spreading itself like an attack of illness. "there is hardly any thing the matter with me. i am so glad you had the pleasure: i would willingly pay for it by a tumble, only i was sorry to break the horse's knees." gwendolen walked to the hearth and stood looking at the fire in the most inconvenient way for conversation, so that he could only get a side view of her face. "my father wants me to go to southampton for the rest of the vacation," said rex, his baritone trembling a little. "southampton! that's a stupid place to go to, isn't it?" said gwendolen, chilly. "it would be to me, because you would not be there." silence. "should you mind about me going away, gwendolen?" "of course. every one is of consequence in this dreary country," said gwendolen, curtly. the perception that poor rex wanted to be tender made her curl up and harden like a sea-anemone at the touch of a finger. "are you angry with me, gwendolen? why do you treat me in this way all at once?" said rex, flushing, and with more spirit in his voice, as if he too were capable of being angry. gwendolen looked round at him and smiled. "treat you? nonsense! i am only rather cross. why did you come so very early? you must expect to find tempers in dishabille." "be as cross with me as you like--only don't treat me with indifference," said rex, imploringly. "all the happiness of my life depends on your loving me--if only a little--better than any one else." he tried to take her hand, but she hastily eluded his grasp and moved to the other end of the hearth, facing him. "pray don't make love to me! i hate it!" she looked at him fiercely. rex turned pale and was silent, but could not take his eyes off her, and the impetus was not yet exhausted that made hers dart death at him. gwendolen herself could not have foreseen that she should feel in this way. it was all a sudden, new experience to her. the day before she had been quite aware that her cousin was in love with her; she did not mind how much, so that he said nothing about it; and if any one had asked her why she objected to love-making speeches, she would have said, laughingly, "oh i am tired of them all in the books." but now the life of passion had begun negatively in her. she felt passionately averse to this volunteered love. to rex at twenty the joy of life seemed at an end more absolutely than it can do to a man at forty. but before they had ceased to look at each other, he did speak again. "is that last word you have to say to me, gwendolen? will it always be so?" she could not help seeing his wretchedness and feeling a little regret for the old rex who had not offended her. decisively, but yet with some return of kindness, she said, "about making love? yes. but i don't dislike you for anything else." there was just a perceptible pause before he said a low "good-bye." and passed out of the room. almost immediately after, she heard the heavy hall door bang behind him. mrs. davilow, too, had heard rex's hasty departure, and presently came into the drawing-room, where she found gwendolen seated on the low couch, her face buried, and her hair falling over her figure like a garment. she was sobbing bitterly. "my child, my child, what is it?" cried the mother, who had never before seen her darling struck down in this way, and felt something of the alarmed anguish that women, feel at the sight of overpowering sorrow in a strong man; for this child had been her ruler. sitting down by her with circling arms, she pressed her cheek against gwendolen's head, and then tried to draw it upward. gwendolen gave way, and letting her head rest against her mother, cried out sobbingly, "oh, mamma, what can become of my life? there is nothing worth living for!" "why, dear?" said mrs. davilow. usually she herself had been rebuked by her daughter for involuntary signs of despair. "i shall never love anybody. i can't love people. i hate them." "the time will come, dear, the time will come." gwendolen was more and more convulsed with sobbing; but putting her arms round her mother's neck with an almost painful clinging, she said brokenly, "i can't bear any one to be very near me but you." then the mother began to sob, for this spoiled child had never shown such dependence on her before: and so they clung to each other. chapter viii. what name doth joy most borrow when life is fair? "to-morrow." what name doth best fit sorrow in young despair? "to-morrow." there was a much more lasting trouble at the rectory. rex arrived there only to throw himself on his bed in a state of apparent apathy, unbroken till the next day, when it began to be interrupted by more positive signs of illness. nothing could be said about his going to southampton: instead of that, the chief thought of his mother and anna was how to tend this patient who did not want to be well, and from being the brightest, most grateful spirit in the household, was metamorphosed into an irresponsive, dull-eyed creature who met all affectionate attempts with a murmur of "let me alone." his father looked beyond the crisis, and believed it to be the shortest way out of an unlucky affair; but he was sorry for the inevitable suffering, and went now and then to sit by him in silence for a few minutes, parting with a gentle pressure of his hand on rex's blank brow, and a "god bless you, my boy." warham and the younger children used to peep round the edge of the door to see this incredible thing of their lively brother being laid low; but fingers were immediately shaken at them to drive them back. the guardian who was always there was anna, and her little hand was allowed to rest within her brother's, though he never gave it a welcoming pressure. her soul was divided between anguish for rex and reproach of gwendolen. "perhaps it is wicked of me, but i think i never _can_ love her again," came as the recurrent burden of poor little anna's inward monody. and even mrs. gascoigne had an angry feeling toward her niece which she could not refrain from expressing (apologetically) to her husband. "i know of course it is better, and we ought to be thankful that she is not in love with the poor boy; but really. henry, i think she is hard; she has the heart of a coquette. i can not help thinking that she must have made him believe something, or the disappointment would not have taken hold of him in that way. and some blame attaches to poor fanny; she is quite blind about that girl." mr. gascoigne answered imperatively: "the less said on that point the better, nancy. i ought to have been more awake myself. as to the boy, be thankful if nothing worse ever happens to him. let the thing die out as quickly as possible; and especially with regard to gwendolen--let it be as if it had never been." the rector's dominant feeling was that there had been a great escape. gwendolen in love with rex in return would have made a much harder problem, the solution of which might have been taken out of his hands. but he had to go through some further difficulty. one fine morning rex asked for his bath, and made his toilet as usual. anna, full of excitement at this change, could do nothing but listen for his coming down, and at last hearing his step, ran to the foot of the stairs to meet him. for the first time he gave her a faint smile, but it looked so melancholy on his pale face that she could hardly help crying. "nannie!" he said gently, taking her hand and leading her slowly along with him to the drawing-room. his mother was there, and when she came to kiss him, he said: "what a plague i am!" then he sat still and looked out of the bow-window on the lawn and shrubs covered with hoar-frost, across which the sun was sending faint occasional gleams:--something like that sad smile on rex's face, anna thought. he felt as if he had had a resurrection into a new world, and did not know what to do with himself there, the old interests being left behind. anna sat near him, pretending to work, but really watching him with yearning looks. beyond the garden hedge there was a road where wagons and carts sometimes went on field-work: a railed opening was made in the hedge, because the upland with its bordering wood and clump of ash-trees against the sky was a pretty sight. presently there came along a wagon laden with timber; the horses were straining their grand muscles, and the driver having cracked his whip, ran along anxiously to guide the leader's head, fearing a swerve. rex seemed to be shaken into attention, rose and looked till the last quivering trunk of the timber had disappeared, and then walked once or twice along the room. mrs. gascoigne was no longer there, and when he came to sit down again, anna, seeing a return of speech in her brother's eyes, could not resist the impulse to bring a little stool and seat herself against his knee, looking up at him with an expression which seemed to say, "do speak to me." and he spoke. "i'll tell you what i'm thinking of, nannie. i will go to canada, or somewhere of that sort." (rex had not studied the character of our colonial possessions.) "oh, rex, not for always!" "yes, to get my bread there. i should like to build a hut, and work hard at clearing, and have everything wild about me, and a great wide quiet." "and not take me with you?" said anna, the big tears coming fast. "how could i?" "i should like it better than anything; and settlers go with their families. i would sooner go there than stay here in england. i could make the fires, and mend the clothes, and cook the food; and i could learn how to make the bread before we went. it would be nicer than anything--like playing at life over again, as we used to do when we made our tent with the drugget, and had our little plates and dishes." "father and mother would not let you go." "yes, i think they would, when i explained everything. it would save money; and papa would have more to bring up the boys with." there was further talk of the same practical kind at intervals, and it ended in rex's being obliged to consent that anna should go with him when he spoke to his father on the subject. of course it was when the rector was alone in his study. their mother would become reconciled to whatever he decided on, but mentioned to her first, the question would have distressed her. "well, my children!" said mr. gascoigne, cheerfully, as they entered. it was a comfort to see rex about again. "may we sit down with you a little, papa?" said anna. "rex has something to say." "with all my heart." it was a noticeable group that these three creatures made, each of them with a face of the same structural type--the straight brow, the nose suddenly straightened from an intention of being aquiline, the short upper lip, the short but strong and well-hung chin: there was even the same tone of complexion and set of the eye. the gray-haired father was at once massive and keen-looking; there was a perpendicular line in his brow which when he spoke with any force of interest deepened; and the habit of ruling gave him an air of reserved authoritativeness. rex would have seemed a vision of his father's youth, if it had been possible to imagine mr. gascoigne without distinct plans and without command, smitten with a heart sorrow, and having no more notion of concealment than a sick animal; and anna was a tiny copy of rex, with hair drawn back and knotted, her face following his in its changes of expression, as if they had one soul between them. "you know all about what has upset me, father," rex began, and mr. gascoigne nodded. "i am quite done up for life in this part of the world. i am sure it will be no use my going back to oxford. i couldn't do any reading. i should fail, and cause you expense for nothing. i want to have your consent to take another course, sir." mr. gascoigne nodded more slowly, the perpendicular line on his brow deepened, and anna's trembling increased. "if you would allow me a small outfit, i should like to go to the colonies and work on the land there." rex thought the vagueness of the phrase prudential; "the colonies" necessarily embracing more advantages, and being less capable of being rebutted on a single ground than any particular settlement. "oh, and with me, papa," said anna, not bearing to be left out from the proposal even temporarily. "rex would want some one to take care of him, you know--some one to keep house. and we shall never, either of us, be married. and i should cost nothing, and i should be so happy. i know it would be hard to leave you and mamma; but there are all the others to bring up, and we two should be no trouble to you any more." anna had risen from her seat, and used the feminine argument of going closer to her papa as she spoke. he did not smile, but he drew her on his knee and held her there, as if to put her gently out of the question while he spoke to rex. "you will admit that my experience gives me some power of judging for you, and that i can probably guide you in practical matters better than you can guide yourself?" rex was obliged to say, "yes, sir." "and perhaps you will admit--though i don't wish to press that point--that you are bound in duty to consider my judgment and wishes?" "i have never yet placed myself in opposition to you, sir." rex in his secret soul could not feel that he was bound not to go to the colonies, but to go to oxford again--which was the point in question. "but you will do so if you persist in setting your mind toward a rash and foolish procedure, and deafening yourself to considerations which my experience of life assures me of. you think, i suppose, that you have had a shock which has changed all your inclinations, stupefied your brains, unfitted you for anything but manual labor, and given you a dislike to society? is that what you believe?" "something like that. i shall never be up to the sort of work i must do to live in this part of the world. i have not the spirit for it. i shall never be the same again. and without any disrespect to you, father, i think a young fellow should be allowed to choose his way of life, if he does nobody any harm. there are plenty to stay at home, and those who like might be allowed to go where there are empty places." "but suppose i am convinced on good evidence--as i am--that this state of mind of yours is transient, and that if you went off as you propose, you would by-and-by repent, and feel that you had let yourself slip back from the point you have been gaining by your education till now? have you not strength of mind enough to see that you had better act on my assurance for a time, and test it? in my opinion, so far from agreeing with you that you should be free to turn yourself into a colonist and work in your shirt-sleeves with spade and hatchet--in my opinion you have no right whatever to expatriate yourself until you have honestly endeavored to turn to account the education you have received here. i say nothing of the grief to your mother and me." "i'm very sorry; but what can i do? i can't study--that's certain," said rex. "not just now, perhaps. you will have to miss a term. i have made arrangements for you--how you are to spend the next two months. but i confess i am disappointed in you, rex. i thought you had more sense than to take up such ideas--to suppose that because you have fallen into a very common trouble, such as most men have to go through, you are loosened from all bonds of duty--just as if your brain had softened and you were no longer a responsible being." what could rex say? inwardly he was in a state of rebellion, but he had no arguments to meet his father's; and while he was feeling, in spite of any thing that might be said, that he should like to go off to "the colonies" to-morrow, it lay in a deep fold of his consciousness that he ought to feel--if he had been a better fellow he would have felt--more about his old ties. this is the sort of faith we live by in our soul sicknesses. rex got up from his seat, as if he held the conference to be at an end. "you assent to my arrangement, then?" said mr. gascoigne, with that distinct resolution of tone which seems to hold one in a vise. there was a little pause before rex answered, "i'll try what i can do, sir. i can't promise." his thought was, that trying would be of no use. her father kept anna, holding her fast, though she wanted to follow rex. "oh, papa," she said, the tears coming with her words when the door had closed; "it is very hard for him. doesn't he look ill?" "yes, but he will soon be better; it will all blow over. and now, anna, be as quiet as a mouse about it all. never let it be mentioned when he is gone." "no, papa. but i would not be like gwendolen for any thing--to have people fall in love with me so. it is very dreadful." anna dared not say that she was disappointed at not being allowed to go to the colonies with rex; but that was her secret feeling, and she often afterward went inwardly over the whole affair, saying to herself, "i should have done with going out, and gloves, and crinoline, and having to talk when i am taken to dinner--and all that!" i like to mark the time, and connect the course of individual lives with the historic stream, for all classes of thinkers. this was the period when the broadening of gauge in crinolines seemed to demand an agitation for the general enlargement of churches, ball-rooms, and vehicles. but anna gascoigne's figure would only allow the size of skirt manufactured for young ladies of fourteen. chapter ix. i'll tell thee, berthold, what men's hopes are like: a silly child that, quivering with joy, would cast its little mimic fishing-line baited with loadstone for a bowl of toys in the salt ocean. eight months after the arrival of the family at offendene, that is to say in the end of the following june, a rumor was spread in the neighborhood which to many persons was matter of exciting interest. it had no reference to the results of the american war, but it was one which touched all classes within a certain circuit round wanchester: the corn-factors, the brewers, the horse-dealers, and saddlers, all held it a laudable thing, and one which was to be rejoiced in on abstract grounds, as showing the value of an aristocracy in a free country like england; the blacksmith in the hamlet of diplow felt that a good time had come round; the wives of laboring men hoped their nimble boys of ten or twelve would be taken into employ by the gentlemen in livery; and the farmers about diplow admitted, with a tincture of bitterness and reserve, that a man might now again perhaps have an easier market or exchange for a rick of old hay or a wagon-load of straw. if such were the hopes of low persons not in society, it may be easily inferred that their betters had better reasons for satisfaction, probably connected with the pleasures of life rather than its business. marriage, however, must be considered as coming under both heads; and just as when a visit of majesty is announced, the dream of knighthood or a baronetcy is to be found under various municipal nightcaps, so the news in question raised a floating indeterminate vision of marriage in several well-bred imaginations. the news was that diplow hall, sir hugo mallinger's place, which had for a couple of years turned its white window-shutters in a painfully wall-eyed manner on its fine elms and beeches, its lilied pool and grassy acres specked with deer, was being prepared for a tenant, and was for the rest of the summer and through the hunting season to be inhabited in a fitting style both as to house and stable. but not by sir hugo himself: by his nephew, mr. mallinger grandcourt, who was presumptive heir to the baronetcy, his uncle's marriage having produced nothing but girls. nor was this the only contingency with which fortune flattered young grandcourt, as he was pleasantly called; for while the chance of the baronetcy came through his father, his mother had given a baronial streak to his blood, so that if certain intervening persons slightly painted in the middle distance died, he would become a baron and peer of this realm. it is the uneven allotment of nature that the male bird alone has the tuft, but we have not yet followed the advice of hasty philosophers who would have us copy nature entirely in these matters; and if mr. mallinger grandcourt became a baronet or a peer, his wife would share the title--which in addition to his actual fortune was certainly a reason why that wife, being at present unchosen, should be thought of by more than one person with a sympathetic interest as a woman sure to be well provided for. some readers of this history will doubtless regard it as incredible that people should construct matrimonial prospects on the mere report that a bachelor of good fortune and possibilities was coming within reach, and will reject the statement as a mere outflow of gall: they will aver that neither they nor their first cousins have minds so unbridled; and that in fact this is not human nature, which would know that such speculations might turn out to be fallacious, and would therefore not entertain them. but, let it be observed, nothing is here narrated of human nature generally: the history in its present stage concerns only a few people in a corner of wessex--whose reputation, however, was unimpeached, and who, i am in the proud position of being able to state, were all on visiting terms with persons of rank. there were the arrowpoints, for example, in their beautiful place at quetcham: no one could attribute sordid views in relation to their daughter's marriage to parents who could leave her at least half a million; but having affectionate anxieties about their catherine's position (she having resolutely refused lord slogan, an unexceptionable irish peer, whose estate wanted nothing but drainage and population), they wondered, perhaps from something more than a charitable impulse, whether mr. grandcourt was good-looking, of sound constitution, virtuous, or at least reformed, and if liberal-conservative, not too liberal-conservative; and without wishing anybody to die, thought his succession to the title an event to be desired. if the arrowpoints had such ruminations, it is the less surprising that they were stimulated in mr. gascoigne, who for being a clergyman was not the less subject to the anxieties of a parent and guardian; and we have seen how both he and mrs. gascoigne might by this time have come to feel that he was overcharged with the management of young creatures who were hardly to be held in with bit or bridle, or any sort of metaphor that would stand for judicious advice. naturally, people did not tell each other all they felt and thought about young grandcourt's advent: on no subject is this openness found prudently practicable--not even on the generation of acids, or the destination of the fixed stars: for either your contemporary with a mind turned toward the same subjects may find your ideas ingenious and forestall you in applying them, or he may have other views on acids and fixed stars, and think ill of you in consequence. mr. gascoigne did not ask mr. arrowpoint if he had any trustworthy source of information about grandcourt considered as a husband for a charming girl; nor did mrs. arrowpoint observe to mrs. davilow that if the possible peer sought a wife in the neighborhood of diplow, the only reasonable expectation was that he would offer his hand to catherine, who, however, would not accept him unless he were in all respects fitted to secure her happiness. indeed, even to his wife the rector was silent as to the contemplation of any matrimonial result, from the probability that mr. grandcourt would see gwendolen at the next archery meeting; though mrs. gascoigne's mind was very likely still more active in the same direction. she had said interjectionally to her sister, "it would be a mercy, fanny, if that girl were well married!" to which mrs. davilow discerning some criticism of her darling in the fervor of that wish, had not chosen to make any audible reply, though she had said inwardly, "you will not get her to marry for your pleasure"; the mild mother becoming rather saucy when she identified herself with her daughter. to her husband mrs. gascoigne said, "i hear mr. grandcourt has got two places of his own, but he comes to diplow for the hunting. it is to be hoped he will set a good example in the neighborhood. have you heard what sort of a young man he is, henry?" mr. gascoigne had not heard; at least, if his male acquaintances had gossiped in his hearing, he was not disposed to repeat their gossip, or to give it any emphasis in his own mind. he held it futile, even if it had been becoming, to show any curiosity as to the past of a young man whose birth, wealth, and consequent leisure made many habits venial which under other circumstances would have been inexcusable. whatever grandcourt had done, he had not ruined himself; and it is well-known that in gambling, for example, whether of the business or holiday sort, a man who has the strength of mind to leave off when he has only ruined others, is a reformed character. this is an illustration merely: mr. gascoigne had not heard that grandcourt had been a gambler; and we can hardly pronounce him singular in feeling that a landed proprietor with a mixture of noble blood in his veins was not to be an object of suspicious inquiry like a reformed character who offers himself as your butler or footman. reformation, where a man can afford to do without it, can hardly be other than genuine. moreover, it was not certain on any other showing hitherto, that mr. grandcourt had needed reformation more than other young men in the ripe youth of five-and-thirty; and, at any rate, the significance of what he had been must be determined by what he actually was. mrs. davilow, too, although she would not respond to her sister's pregnant remark, could not be inwardly indifferent to an advent that might promise a brilliant lot for gwendolen. a little speculation on "what may be" comes naturally, without encouragement--comes inevitably in the form of images, when unknown persons are mentioned; and mr. grandcourt's name raised in mrs. davilow's mind first of all the picture of a handsome, accomplished, excellent young man whom she would be satisfied with as a husband for her daughter; but then came the further speculation--would gwendolen be satisfied with him? there was no knowing what would meet that girl's taste or touch her affections--it might be something else than excellence; and thus the image of the perfect suitor gave way before a fluctuating combination of qualities that might be imagined to win gwendolen's heart. in the difficulty of arriving at the particular combination which would insure that result, the mother even said to herself, "it would not signify about her being in love, if she would only accept the right person." for whatever marriage had been for herself, how could she the less desire it for her daughter? the difference her own misfortunes made was, that she never dared to dwell much to gwendolen on the desirableness of marriage, dreading an answer something like that of the future madame roland, when her gentle mother urging the acceptance of a suitor, said, "tu seras heureuse, ma chère." "oui, maman, comme toi." in relation to the problematic mr. grandcourt least of all would mrs. davilow have willingly let fall a hint of the aerial castle-building which she had the good taste to be ashamed of; for such a hint was likely enough to give an adverse poise to gwendolen's own thought, and make her detest the desirable husband beforehand. since that scene after poor rex's farewell visit, the mother had felt a new sense of peril in touching the mystery of her child's feeling, and in rashly determining what was her welfare: only she could think of welfare in no other shape than marriage. the discussion of the dress that gwendolen was to wear at the archery meeting was a relevant topic, however; and when it had been decided that as a touch of color on her white cashmere, nothing, for her complexion, was comparable to pale green--a feather which she was trying in her hat before the looking-glass having settled the question--mrs. davilow felt her ears tingle when gwendolen, suddenly throwing herself into the attitude of drawing her bow, said with a look of comic enjoyment, "how i pity all the other girls at the archery meeting--all thinking of mr. grandcourt! and they have not a shadow of a chance." mrs. davilow had not the presence of mind to answer immediately, and gwendolen turned round quickly toward her, saying, wickedly, "now you know they have not, mamma. you and my uncle and aunt--you all intend him to fall in love with me." mrs. davilow, piqued into a little stratagem, said, "oh, my, dear, that is not so certain. miss arrowpoint has charms which you have not." "i know, but they demand thought. my arrow will pierce him before he has time for thought. he will declare himself my slave--i shall send him round the world to bring me back the wedding ring of a happy woman--in the meantime all the men who are between him and the title will die of different diseases--he will come back lord grandcourt--but without the ring--and fall at my feet. i shall laugh at him--he will rise in resentment--i shall laugh more--he will call for his steed and ride to quetcham, where he will find miss arrowpoint just married to a needy musician, mrs. arrowpoint tearing her cap off, and mr. arrowpoint standing by. exit lord grandcourt, who returns to diplow, and, like m. jabot, _change de linge_." was ever any young witch like this? you thought of hiding things from her--sat upon your secret and looked innocent, and all the while she knew by the corner of your eye that it was exactly five pounds ten you were sitting on! as well turn the key to keep out the damp! it was probable that by dint of divination she already knew more than any one else did of mr. grandcourt. that idea in mrs. davilow's mind prompted the sort of question which often comes without any other apparent reason than the faculty of speech and the not knowing what to do with it. "why, what kind of a man do you imagine him to be, gwendolen?" "let me see!" said the witch, putting her forefinger to her lips, with a little frown, and then stretching out the finger with decision. "short--just above my shoulder--trying to make himself tall by turning up his mustache and keeping his beard long--a glass in his right eye to give him an air of distinction--a strong opinion about his waistcoat, but uncertain and trimming about the weather, on which he will try to draw me out. he will stare at me all the while, and the glass in his eye will cause him to make horrible faces, especially when he smiles in a flattering way. i shall cast down my eyes in consequence, and he will perceive that i am not indifferent to his attentions. i shall dream that night that i am looking at the extraordinary face of a magnified insect--and the next morning he will make an offer of his hand; the sequel as before." "that is a portrait of some one you have seen already, gwen. mr. grandcourt may be a delightful young man for what you know." "oh, yes," said gwendolen, with a high note of careless admission, taking off her best hat and turning it round on her hand contemplatively. "i wonder what sort of behavior a delightful young man would have? i know he would have hunters and racers, and a london house and two country-houses--one with battlements and another with a veranda. and i feel sure that with a little murdering he might get a title." the irony of this speech was of the doubtful sort that has some genuine belief mixed up with it. poor mrs. davilow felt uncomfortable under it. her own meanings being usually literal and in intention innocent; and she said with a distressed brow: "don't talk in that way, child, for heaven's sake! you do read such books--they give you such ideas of everything. i declare when your aunt and i were your age we knew nothing about wickedness. i think it was better so." "why did you not bring me up in that way, mamma?" said gwendolen. but immediately perceiving in the crushed look and rising sob that she had given a deep wound, she tossed down her hat and knelt at her mother's feet crying, "mamma, mamma! i was only speaking in fun. i meant nothing." "how could i, gwendolen?" said poor mrs. davilow, unable to hear the retraction, and sobbing violently while she made the effort to speak. "your will was always too strong for me--if everything else had been different." this disjoined logic was intelligible enough to the daughter. "dear mamma, i don't find fault with you--i love you," said gwendolen, really compunctious. "how can you help what i am? besides, i am very charming. come, now." here gwendolen with her handkerchief gently rubbed away her mother's tears. "really--i am contented with myself. i like myself better than i should have liked my aunt and you. how dreadfully dull you must have been!" such tender cajolery served to quiet the mother, as it had often done before after like collisions. not that the collisions had often been repeated at the same point; for in the memory of both they left an association of dread with the particular topics which had occasioned them: gwendolen dreaded the unpleasant sense of compunction toward her mother, which was the nearest approach to self-condemnation and self-distrust that she had known; and mrs. davilow's timid maternal conscience dreaded whatever had brought on the slightest hint of reproach. hence, after this little scene, the two concurred in excluding mr. grandcourt from their conversation. when mr. gascoigne once or twice referred to him, mrs. davilow feared least gwendolen should betray some of her alarming keen-sightedness about what was probably in her uncle's mind; but the fear was not justified. gwendolen knew certain differences in the characters with which she was concerned as birds know climate and weather; and for the very reason that she was determined to evade her uncle's control, she was determined not to clash with him. the good understanding between them was much fostered by their enjoyment of archery together: mr. gascoigne, as one of the best bowmen in wessex, was gratified to find the elements of like skill in his niece; and gwendolen was the more careful not to lose the shelter of his fatherly indulgence, because since the trouble with rex both mrs. gascoigne and anna had been unable to hide what she felt to be a very unreasonable alienation from her. toward anna she took some pains to behave with a regretful affectionateness; but neither of them dared to mention rex's name, and anna, to whom the thought of him was part of the air she breathed, was ill at ease with the lively cousin who had ruined his happiness. she tried dutifully to repress any sign of her changed feeling; but who in pain can imitate the glance and hand-touch of pleasure. this unfair resentment had rather a hardening effect on gwendolen, and threw her into a more defiant temper. her uncle too might be offended if she refused the next person who fell in love with her; and one day when that idea was in her mind she said, "mamma, i see now why girls are glad to be married--to escape being expected to please everybody but themselves." happily, mr. middleton was gone without having made any avowal; and notwithstanding the admiration for the handsome miss harleth, extending perhaps over thirty square miles in a part of wessex well studded with families whose numbers included several disengaged young men, each glad to seat himself by the lively girl with whom it was so easy to get on in conversation,--notwithstanding these grounds for arguing that gwendolen was likely to have other suitors more explicit than the cautious curate, the fact was not so. care has been taken not only that the trees should not sweep the stars down, but also that every man who admires a fair girl should not be enamored of her, and even that every man who is enamored should not necessarily declare himself. there are various refined shapes in which the price of corn, known to be potent cause in their relation, might, if inquired into, show why a young lady, perfect in person, accomplishments, and costume, has not the trouble of rejecting many offers; and nature's order is certainly benignant in not obliging us one and all to be desperately in love with the most admirable mortal we have ever seen. gwendolen, we know, was far from holding that supremacy in the minds of all observers. besides, it was but a poor eight months since she had come to offendene, and some inclinations become manifest slowly, like the sunward creeping of plants. in face of this fact that not one of the eligible young men already in the neighborhood had made gwendolen an offer, why should mr. grandcourt be thought of as likely to do what they had left undone? perhaps because he was thought of as still more eligible; since a great deal of what passes for likelihood in the world is simply the reflex of a wish. mr. and mrs. arrowpoint, for example, having no anxiety that miss harleth should make a brilliant marriage, had quite a different likelihood in their minds. chapter x. _ st gent._ what woman should be? sir, consult the taste of marriageable men. this planet's store in iron, cotton, wool, or chemicals-- all matter rendered to our plastic skill, is wrought in shapes responsive to demand; the market's pulse makes index high or low, by rule sublime. our daughters must be wives, and to the wives must be what men will choose; men's taste is woman's test. you mark the phrase? 'tis good, i think?--the sense well-winged and poised with t's and s's. _ nd gent._ nay, but turn it round; give us the test of taste. a fine _menu_-- is it to-day what roman epicures insisted that a gentleman must eat to earn the dignity of dining well? brackenshaw park, where the archery meeting was held, looked out from its gentle heights far over the neighboring valley to the outlying eastern downs and the broad, slow rise of cultivated country, hanging like a vast curtain toward the west. the castle which stood on the highest platform of the clustered hills, was built of rough-hewn limestone, full of lights and shadows made by the dark dust of lichens and the washings of the rain. masses of beech and fir sheltered it on the north, and spread down here and there along the green slopes like flocks seeking the water which gleamed below. the archery-ground was a carefully-kept enclosure on a bit of table-land at the farthest end of the park, protected toward the southwest by tall elms and a thick screen of hollies, which kept the gravel walk and the bit of newly-mown turf where the targets were placed in agreeable afternoon shade. the archery hall with an arcade in front showed like a white temple against the greenery on the north side. what could make a better background for the flower-groups of ladies, moving and bowing and turning their necks as it would become the leisurely lilies to do if they took to locomotion. the sounds too were very pleasant to hear, even when the military band from wanchester ceased to play: musical laughs in all the registers and a harmony of happy, friendly speeches, now rising toward mild excitement, now sinking to an agreeable murmur. no open-air amusement could be much freer from those noisy, crowding conditions which spoil most modern pleasures; no archery meeting could be more select, the number of friends accompanying the members being restricted by an award of tickets, so as to keep the maximum within the limits of convenience for the dinner and ball to be held in the castle. within the enclosure no plebeian spectators were admitted except lord brackenshaw's tenants and their families, and of these it was chiefly the feminine members who used the privilege, bringing their little boys and girls or younger brothers and sisters. the males among them relieved the insipidity of the entertainment by imaginative betting, in which the stake was "anything you like," on their favorite archers; but the young maidens, having a different principle of discrimination, were considering which of those sweetly-dressed ladies they would choose to be, if the choice were allowed them. probably the form these rural souls would most have striven for as a tabernacle, was some other than gwendolen's--one with more pink in her cheeks and hair of the most fashionable yellow; but among the male judges in the ranks immediately surrounding her there was unusual unanimity in pronouncing her the finest girl present. no wonder she enjoyed her existence on that july day. pre-eminence is sweet to those who love it, even under mediocre circumstances. perhaps it was not quite mythical that a slave has been proud to be bought first; and probably a barn-door fowl on sale, though he may not have understood himself to be called the best of a bad lot, may have a self-informed consciousness of his relative importance, and strut consoled. but for complete enjoyment the outward and the inward must concur. and that concurrence was happening to gwendolen. who can deny that bows and arrows are among the prettiest weapons in the world for feminine forms to play with? they prompt attitudes full of grace and power, where that fine concentration of energy seen in all markmanship, is freed from associations of bloodshed. the time-honored british resource of "killing something" is no longer carried on with bow and quiver; bands defending their passes against an invading nation fight under another sort of shade than a cloud of arrows; and poisoned darts are harmless survivals either in rhetoric or in regions comfortably remote. archery has no ugly smell of brimstone; breaks nobody's shins, breeds no athletic monsters; its only danger is that of failing, which for generous blood is enough to mould skilful action. and among the brackenshaw archers the prizes were all of the nobler symbolic kind; not properly to be carried off in a parcel, degrading honor into gain; but the gold arrow and the silver, the gold star and the silver, to be worn for a long time in sign of achievement and then transferred to the next who did excellently. these signs of pre-eminence had the virtue of wreaths without their inconveniences, which might have produced a melancholy effect in the heat of the ball-room. altogether the brackenshaw archery club was an institution framed with good taste, so as not to have by necessity any ridiculous incidents. and to-day all incalculable elements were in its favor. there was mild warmth, and no wind to disturb either hair or drapery or the course of the arrow; all skillful preparation had fair play, and when there was a general march to extract the arrows, the promenade of joyous young creatures in light speech and laughter, the graceful movement in common toward a common object, was a show worth looking at. here gwendolen seemed a calypso among her nymphs. it was in her attitudes and movements that every one was obliged to admit her surpassing charm. "that girl is like a high-mettled racer," said lord brackenshaw to young clintock, one of the invited spectators. "first chop! tremendously pretty too," said the elegant grecian, who had been paying her assiduous attention; "i never saw her look better." perhaps she had never looked so well. her face was beaming with young pleasure in which there was no malign rays of discontent; for being satisfied with her own chances, she felt kindly toward everybody and was satisfied with the universe. not to have the highest distinction in rank, not to be marked out as an heiress, like miss arrowpoint, gave an added triumph in eclipsing those advantages. for personal recommendation she would not have cared to change the family group accompanying her for any other: her mamma's appearance would have suited an amiable duchess; her uncle and aunt gascoigne with anna made equally gratifying figures in their way; and gwendolen was too full of joyous belief in herself to feel in the least jealous though miss arrowpoint was one of the best archeresses. even the reappearance of the formidable herr klesmer, which caused some surprise in the rest of the company, seemed only to fall in with gwendolen's inclination to be amused. short of apollo himself, what great musical _maestro_ could make a good figure at an archery meeting? there was a very satirical light in gwendolen's eyes as she looked toward the arrowpoint party on their first entrance, when the contrast between klesmer and the average group of english country people seemed at its utmost intensity in the close neighborhood of his hosts--or patrons, as mrs. arrowpoint would have liked to hear them called, that she might deny the possibility of any longer patronizing genius, its royalty being universally acknowledged. the contrast might have amused a graver personage than gwendolen. we english are a miscellaneous people, and any chance fifty of us will present many varieties of animal architecture or facial ornament; but it must be admitted that our prevailing expression is not that of a lively, impassioned race, preoccupied with the ideal and carrying the real as a mere make-weight. the strong point of the english gentleman pure is the easy style of his figure and clothing; he objects to marked ins and outs in his costume, and he also objects to looking inspired. fancy an assemblage where the men had all that ordinary stamp of the well-bred englishman, watching the entrance of herr klesmer--his mane of hair floating backward in massive inconsistency with the chimney-pot hat, which had the look of having been put on for a joke above his pronounced but well-modeled features and powerful clear-shaven mouth and chin; his tall, thin figure clad in a way which, not being strictly english, was all the worse for its apparent emphasis of intention. draped in a loose garment with a florentine _berretta_ on his head, he would have been fit to stand by the side of leonardo de vinci; but how when he presented himself in trousers which were not what english feeling demanded about the knees?--and when the fire that showed itself in his glances and the movements of his head, as he looked round him with curiosity, was turned into comedy by a hat which ruled that mankind should have well-cropped hair and a staid demeanor, such, for example, as mr. arrowsmith's, whose nullity of face and perfect tailoring might pass everywhere without ridicule? one feels why it is often better for greatness to be dead, and to have got rid of the outward man. many present knew klesmer, or knew of him; but they had only seen him on candle-light occasions when he appeared simply as a musician, and he had not yet that supreme, world-wide celebrity which makes an artist great to the most ordinary people by their knowledge of his great expensiveness. it was literally a new light for them to see him in--presented unexpectedly on this july afternoon in an exclusive society: some were inclined to laugh, others felt a little disgust at the want of judgment shown by the arrowpoints in this use of an introductory card. "what extreme guys those artistic fellows usually are!" said young clintock to gwendolen. "do look at the figure he cuts, bowing with his hand on his heart to lady brackenshaw--and mrs. arrowpoint's feather just reaching his shoulder." "you are one of the profane," said gwendolen. "you are blind to the majesty of genius. herr klesmer smites me with awe; i feel crushed in his presence; my courage all oozes from me." "ah, you understand all about his music." "no, indeed," said gwendolen, with a light laugh; "it is he who understands all about mine and thinks it pitiable." klesmer's verdict on her singing had been an easier joke to her since he had been struck by her _plastik_. "it is not addressed to the ears of the future, i suppose. i'm glad of that: it suits mine." "oh, you are very kind. but how remarkably well miss arrowpoint looks to-day! she would make quite a fine picture in that gold-colored dress." "too splendid, don't you think?" "well, perhaps a little too symbolical--too much like the figure of wealth in an allegory." this speech of gwendolen's had rather a malicious sound, but it was not really more than a bubble of fun. she did not wish miss arrowpoint or any one else to be out of the way, believing in her own good fortune even more than in her skill. the belief in both naturally grew stronger as the shooting went on, for she promised to achieve one of the best scores--a success which astonished every one in a new member; and to gwendolen's temperament one success determined another. she trod on air, and all things pleasant seemed possible. the hour was enough for her, and she was not obliged to think what she should do next to keep her life at the due pitch. "how does the scoring stand, i wonder?" said lady brackenshaw, a gracious personage who, adorned with two little girls and a boy of stout make, sat as lady paramount. her lord had come up to her in one of the intervals of shooting. "it seems to me that miss harleth is likely to win the gold arrow." "gad, i think she will, if she carries it on! she is running juliet fenn hard. it is wonderful for one in her first year. catherine is not up to her usual mark," continued his lordship, turning to the heiress's mother who sat near. "but she got the gold arrow last time. and there's a luck even in these games of skill. that's better. it gives the hinder ones a chance." "catherine will be very glad for others to win," said mrs. arrowpoint, "she is so magnanimous. it was entirely her considerateness that made us bring herr klesmer instead of canon stopley, who had expressed a wish to come. for her own pleasure, i am sure she would rather have brought the canon; but she is always thinking of others. i told her it was not quite _en règle_ to bring one so far out of our own set; but she said, 'genius itself is not _en règle_; it comes into the world to make new rules.' and one must admit that." "ay, to be sure," said lord brackenshaw, in a tone of careless dismissal, adding quickly, "for my part, i am not magnanimous; i should like to win. but, confound it! i never have the chance now. i'm getting old and idle. the young ones beat me. as old nestor says--the gods don't give us everything at one time: i was a young fellow once, and now i am getting an old and wise one. old, at any rate; which is a gift that comes to everybody if they live long enough, so it raises no jealousy." the earl smiled comfortably at his wife. "oh, my lord, people who have been neighbors twenty years must not talk to each other about age," said mrs. arrowpoint. "years, as the tuscans say, are made for the letting of houses. but where is our new neighbor? i thought mr. grandcourt was to be here to-day." "ah, by the way, so he was. the time's getting on too," said his lordship, looking at his watch. "but he only got to diplow the other day. he came to us on tuesday and said he had been a little bothered. he may have been pulled in another direction. why, gascoigne!"--the rector was just then crossing at a little distance with gwendolen on his arm, and turned in compliance with the call--"this is a little too bad; you not only beat us yourself, but you bring up your niece to beat all the archeresses." "it _is_ rather scandalous in her to get the better of elder members," said mr. gascoigne, with much inward satisfaction curling his short upper lip. "but it is not my doing, my lord. i only meant her to make a tolerable figure, without surpassing any one." "it is not my fault, either," said gwendolen, with pretty archness. "if i am to aim, i can't help hitting." "ay, ay, that may be a fatal business for some people," said lord brackenshaw, good-humoredly; then taking out his watch and looking at mrs. arrowpoint again--"the time's getting on, as you say. but grandcourt is always late. i notice in town he's always late, and he's no bowman--understands nothing about it. but i told him he must come; he would see the flower of the neighborhood here. he asked about you--had seen arrowpoint's card. i think you had not made his acquaintance in town. he has been a good deal abroad. people don't know him much." "no; we are strangers," said mrs. arrowpoint. "but that is not what might have been expected. for his uncle sir hugo mallinger and i are great friends when we meet." "i don't know; uncles and nephews are not so likely to be seen together as uncles and nieces," said his lordship, smiling toward the rector. "but just come with me one instant, gascoigne, will you? i want to speak a word about the clout-shooting." gwendolen chose to go too and be deposited in the same group with her mamma and aunt until she had to shoot again. that mr. grandcourt might after all not appear on the archery-ground, had begun to enter into gwendolen's thought as a possible deduction from the completeness of her pleasure. under all her saucy satire, provoked chiefly by her divination that her friends thought of him as a desirable match for her, she felt something very far from indifference as to the impression she would make on him. true, he was not to have the slightest power over her (for gwendolen had not considered that the desire to conquer is itself a sort of subjection); she had made up her mind that he was to be one of those complimentary and assiduously admiring men of whom even her narrow experience had shown her several with various-colored beards and various styles of bearing; and the sense that her friends would want her to think him delightful, gave her a resistant inclination to presuppose him ridiculous. but that was no reason why she could spare his presence: and even a passing prevision of trouble in case she despised and refused him, raised not the shadow of a wish that he should save her that trouble by showing no disposition to make her an offer. mr. grandcourt taking hardly any notice of her, and becoming shortly engaged to miss arrowpoint, was not a picture which flattered her imagination. hence gwendolen had been all ear to lord brackenshaw's mode of accounting for grandcourt's non-appearance; and when he did arrive, no consciousness--not even mrs. arrowpoint's or mr. gascoigne's--was more awake to the fact than hers, although she steadily avoided looking toward any point where he was likely to be. there should be no slightest shifting of angles to betray that it was of any consequence to her whether the much-talked-of mr. mallinger grandcourt presented himself or not. she became again absorbed in the shooting, and so resolutely abstained from looking round observantly that, even supposing him to have taken a conspicuous place among the spectators, it might be clear she was not aware of him. and all the while the certainty that he was there made a distinct thread in her consciousness. perhaps her shooting was the better for it: at any rate, it gained in precision, and she at last raised a delightful storm of clapping and applause by three hits running in the gold--a feat which among the brackenshaw archers had not the vulgar reward of a shilling poll-tax, but that of a special gold star to be worn on the breast. that moment was not only a happy one to herself--it was just what her mamma and her uncle would have chosen for her. there was a general falling into ranks to give her space that she might advance conspicuously to receive the gold star from the hands of lady brackenshaw; and the perfect movement of her fine form was certainly a pleasant thing to behold in the clear afternoon light when the shadows were long and still. she was the central object of that pretty picture, and every one present must gaze at her. that was enough: she herself was determined to see nobody in particular, or to turn her eyes any way except toward lady brackenshaw, but her thoughts undeniably turned in other ways. it entered a little into her pleasure that herr klesmer must be observing her at a moment when music was out of the question, and his superiority very far in the back-ground; for vanity is as ill at ease under indifference as tenderness is under a love which it cannot return; and the unconquered klesmer threw a trace of his malign power even across her pleasant consciousness that mr. grandcourt was seeing her to the utmost advantage, and was probably giving her an admiration unmixed with criticism. she did not expect to admire _him_, but that was not necessary to her peace of mind. gwendolen met lady brackenshaw's gracious smile without blushing (which only came to her when she was taken by surprise), but with a charming gladness of expression, and then bent with easy grace to have the star fixed near her shoulder. that little ceremony had been over long enough for her to have exchanged playful speeches and received congratulations as she moved among the groups who were now interesting themselves in the results of the scoring; but it happened that she stood outside examining the point of an arrow with rather an absent air when lord brackenshaw came up to her and said, "miss harleth, here is a gentleman who is not willing to wait any longer for an introduction. he has been getting mrs. davilow to send me with him. will you allow me to introduce mr. mallinger grandcourt?" book ii.--meeting streams. chapter xi. the beginning of an acquaintance whether with persons or things is to get a definite outline for our ignorance. mr. grandcourt's wish to be introduced had no suddenness for gwendolen; but when lord brackenshaw moved aside a little for the prefigured stranger to come forward and she felt herself face to face with the real man, there was a little shock which flushed her cheeks and vexatiously deepened with her consciousness of it. the shock came from the reversal of her expectations: grandcourt could hardly have been more unlike all her imaginary portraits of him. he was slightly taller than herself, and their eyes seemed to be on a level; there was not the faintest smile on his face as he looked at her, not a trace of self-consciousness or anxiety in his bearing: when he raised his hat he showed an extensive baldness surrounded with a mere fringe of reddish-blonde hair, but he also showed a perfect hand; the line of feature from brow to chin undisguised by beard was decidedly handsome, with only moderate departures from the perpendicular, and the slight whisker too was perpendicular. it was not possible for a human aspect to be freer from grimace or solicitous wrigglings: also it was perhaps not possible for a breathing man wide awake to look less animated. the correct englishman, drawing himself up from his bow into rigidity, assenting severely, and seemed to be in a state of internal drill, suggests a suppressed vivacity, and may be suspected of letting go with some violence when he is released from parade; but grandcourt's bearing had no rigidity, it inclined rather to the flaccid. his complexion had a faded fairness resembling that of an actress when bare of the artificial white and red; his long narrow gray eyes expressed nothing but indifference. attempts at description are stupid: who can all at once describe a human being? even when he is presented to us we only begin that knowledge of his appearance which must be completed by innumerable impressions under differing circumstances. we recognize the alphabet; we are not sure of the language. i am only mentioning the point that gwendolen saw by the light of a prepared contrast in the first minutes of her meeting with grandcourt: they were summed up in the words, "he is not ridiculous." but forthwith lord brackenshaw was gone, and what is called conversation had begun, the first and constant element in it being that grandcourt looked at gwendolen persistently with a slightly exploring gaze, but without change of expression, while she only occasionally looked at him with a flash of observation a little softened by coquetry. also, after her answers there was a longer or shorter pause before he spoke again. "i used to think archery was a great bore," grandcourt began. he spoke with a fine accent, but with a certain broken drawl, as of a distinguished personage with a distinguished cold on his chest. "are you converted to-day?" said gwendolen. (pause, during which she imagined various degrees and modes of opinion about herself that might be entertained by grandcourt.) "yes, since i saw you shooting. in things of this sort one generally sees people missing and simpering." "i suppose you are a first-rate shot with a rifle." (pause, during which gwendolen, having taken a rapid observation of grandcourt, made a brief graphic description of him to an indefinite hearer.) "i have left off shooting." "oh, then, you are a formidable person. people who have done things once and left them off make one feel very contemptible, as if one were using cast-off fashions. i hope you have not left off all follies, because i practice a great many." (pause, during which gwendolen made several interpretations of her own speech.) "what do you call follies?" "well, in general, i think, whatever is agreeable is called a folly. but you have not left off hunting, i hear." (pause, wherein gwendolen recalled what she had heard about grandcourt's position, and decided that he was the most aristocratic-looking man she had ever seen.) "one must do something." "and do you care about the turf?--or is that among the things you have left off?" (pause, during which gwendolen thought that a man of extremely calm, cold manners might be less disagreeable as a husband than other men, and not likely to interfere with his wife's preferences.) "i run a horse now and then; but i don't go in for the thing as some men do. are you fond of horses?" "yes, indeed; i never like my life so well as when i am on horseback, having a great gallop. i think of nothing. i only feel myself strong and happy." (pause, wherein gwendolen wondered whether grandcourt would like what she said, but assured herself that she was not going to disguise her tastes.) "do you like danger?" "i don't know. when i am on horseback i never think of danger. it seems to me that if i broke my bones i should not feel it. i should go at anything that came in my way." (pause during which gwendolen had run through a whole hunting season with two chosen hunters to ride at will.) "you would perhaps like tiger-hunting or pig-sticking. i saw some of that for a season or two in the east. everything here is poor stuff after that." "_you_ are fond of danger, then?" (pause, wherein gwendolen speculated on the probability that the men of coldest manners were the most adventurous, and felt the strength of her own insight, supposing the question had to be decided.) "one must have something or other. but one gets used to it." "i begin to think i am very fortunate, because everything is new to me: it is only that i can't get enough of it. i am not used to anything except being dull, which i should like to leave off as you have left off shooting." (pause, during which it occurred to gwendolen that a man of cold and distinguished manners might possibly be a dull companion; but on the other hand she thought that most persons were dull, that she had not observed husbands to be companions--and that after all she was not going to accept grandcourt.) "why are you dull?" "this is a dreadful neighborhood. there is nothing to be done in it. that is why i practiced my archery." (pause, during which gwendolen reflected that the life of an unmarried woman who could not go about and had no command of anything must necessarily be dull through all degrees of comparison as time went on.) "you have made yourself queen of it. i imagine you will carry the first prize." "i don't know that. i have great rivals. did you not observe how well miss arrowpoint shot?" (pause, wherein gwendolen was thinking that men had been known to choose some one else than the woman they most admired, and recalled several experiences of that kind in novels.) "miss arrowpoint. no--that is, yes." "shall we go now and hear what the scoring says? every one is going to the other end now--shall we join them? i think my uncle is looking toward me. he perhaps wants me." gwendolen found a relief for herself by thus changing the situation: not that the _tete-à-tete_ was quite disagreeable to her; but while it lasted she apparently could not get rid of the unwonted flush in her cheeks and the sense of surprise which made her feel less mistress of herself than usual. and this mr. grandcourt, who seemed to feel his own importance more than he did hers--a sort of unreasonableness few of us can tolerate--must not take for granted that he was of great moment to her, or that because others speculated on him as a desirable match she held herself altogether at his beck. how grandcourt had filled up the pauses will be more evident hereafter. "you have just missed the gold arrow, gwendolen," said mr. gascoigne. "miss juliet fenn scores eight above you." "i am very glad to hear it. i should have felt that i was making myself too disagreeable--taking the best of everything," said gwendolen, quite easily. it was impossible to be jealous of juliet fenn, a girl as middling as mid-day market in everything but her archery and plainness, in which last she was noticeable like her father: underhung and with receding brow resembling that of the more intelligent fishes. (surely, considering the importance which is given to such an accident in female offspring, marriageable men, or what the new english calls "intending bridegrooms," should look at themselves dispassionately in the glass, since their natural selection of a mate prettier than themselves is not certain to bar the effect of their own ugliness.) there was now a lively movement in the mingling groups, which carried the talk along with it. every one spoke to every one else by turns, and gwendolen, who chose to see what was going on around her now, observed that grandcourt was having klesmer presented to him by some one unknown to her--a middle-aged man, with dark, full face and fat hands, who seemed to be on the easiest terms with both, and presently led the way in joining the arrowpoints, whose acquaintance had already been made by both him and grandcourt. who this stranger was she did not care much to know; but she wished to observe what was grandcourt's manner toward others than herself. precisely the same: except that he did not look much at miss arrowpoint, but rather at klesmer, who was speaking with animation--now stretching out his long fingers horizontally, now pointing downward with his fore-finger, now folding his arms and tossing his mane, while he addressed himself first to one and then to the other, including grandcourt, who listened with an impassive face and narrow eyes, his left fore-finger in his waistcoat-pocket, and his right slightly touching his thin whisker. "i wonder which style miss arrowpoint admires most," was a thought that glanced through gwendolen's mind, while her eyes and lips gathered rather a mocking expression. but she would not indulge her sense of amusement by watching, as if she were curious, and she gave all her animation to those immediately around her, determined not to care whether mr. grandcourt came near her again or not. he did come, however, and at a moment when he could propose to conduct mrs. davilow to her carriage, "shall we meet again in the ball-room?" she said as he raised his hat at parting. the "yes" in reply had the usual slight drawl and perfect gravity. "you were wrong for once, gwendolen," said mrs. davilow, during their few minutes' drive to the castle. "in what, mamma?" "about mr. grandcourt's appearance and manners. you can't find anything ridiculous in him." "i suppose i could if i tried, but i don't want to do it," said gwendolen, rather pettishly; and her mother was afraid to say more. it was the rule on these occasions for the ladies and gentlemen to dine apart, so that the dinner might make a time of comparative ease and rest for both. indeed, the gentlemen had a set of archery stories about the epicurism of the ladies, who had somehow been reported to show a revolting masculine judgment in venison, even asking for the fat--a proof of the frightful rate at which corruption might go on in women, but for severe social restraint, and every year the amiable lord brackenshaw, who was something of a _gourmet_, mentioned byron's opinion that a woman should never be seen eating,--introducing it with a confidential--"the fact is" as if he were for the first time admitting his concurrence in that sentiment of the refined poet. in the ladies' dining-room it was evident that gwendolen was not a general favorite with her own sex: there were no beginnings of intimacy between her and other girls, and in conversation they rather noticed what she said than spoke to her in free exchange. perhaps it was that she was not much interested in them, and when left alone in their company had a sense of empty benches. mrs. vulcany once remarked that miss harleth was too fond of the gentlemen; but we know that she was not in the least fond of them--she was only fond of their homage--and women did not give her homage. the exception to this willing aloofness from her was miss arrowpoint, who often managed unostentatiously to be by her side, and talked to her with quiet friendliness. "she knows, as i do, that our friends are ready to quarrel over a husband for us," thought gwendolen, "and she is determined not to enter into the quarrel." "i think miss arrowpoint has the best manners i ever saw," said mrs. davilow, when she and gwendolen were in a dressing-room with mrs. gascoigne and anna, but at a distance where they could have their talk apart. "i wish i were like her," said gwendolen. "why? are you getting discontented with yourself, gwen?" "no; but i am discontented with things. she seems contented." "i am sure you ought to be satisfied to-day. you must have enjoyed the shooting. i saw you did." "oh, that is over now, and i don't know what will come next," said gwendolen, stretching herself with a sort of moan and throwing up her arms. they were bare now; it was the fashion to dance in the archery dress, throwing off the jacket; and the simplicity of her white cashmere with its border of pale green set off her form to the utmost. a thin line of gold round her neck, and the gold star on her breast, were her only ornaments. her smooth soft hair piled up into a grand crown made a clear line about her brow. sir joshua would have been glad to take her portrait; and he would have had an easier task than the historian at least in this, that he would not have had to represent the truth of change--only to give stability to one beautiful moment. "the dancing will come next," said mrs. davilow "you are sure to enjoy that." "i shall only dance in the quadrille. i told mr. clintock so. i shall not waltz or polk with any one." "why in the world do you say that all on a sudden?" "i can't bear having ugly people so near me." "whom do you mean by ugly people?" "oh, plenty." "mr. clintock, for example, is not ugly." mrs. davilow dared not mention grandcourt. "well, i hate woolen cloth touching me." "fancy!" said mrs. davilow to her sister who now came up from the other end of the room. "gwendolen says she will not waltz or polk." "she is rather given to whims, i think," said mrs. gascoigne, gravely. "it would be more becoming in her to behave as other young ladies do on such an occasion as this; especially when she has had the advantage of first-rate dancing lessons." "why should i dance if i don't like it, aunt? it is not in the catechism." "my _dear_!" said mrs. gascoigne, in a tone of severe check, and anna looked frightened at gwendolen's daring. but they all passed on without saying any more. apparently something had changed gwendolen's mood since the hour of exulting enjoyment in the archery-ground. but she did not look the worse under the chandeliers in the ball-room, where the soft splendor of the scene and the pleasant odors from the conservatory could not but be soothing to the temper, when accompanied with the consciousness of being preeminently sought for. hardly a dancing man but was anxious to have her for a partner, and each whom she accepted was in a state of melancholy remonstrance that she would not waltz or polk. "are you under a vow, miss harleth?"--"why are you so cruel to us all?"--"you waltzed with me in february."--"and you who waltz so perfectly!" were exclamations not without piquancy for her. the ladies who waltzed naturally thought that miss harleth only wanted to make herself particular; but her uncle when he overheard her refusal, supported her by saying, "gwendolen has usually good reasons." he thought she was certainly more distinguished in not waltzing, and he wished her to be distinguished. the archery ball was intended to be kept at the subdued pitch that suited all dignities clerical and secular; it was not an escapement for youthful high spirits, and he himself was of opinion that the fashionable dances were too much of a romp. among the remonstrant dancing men, however, mr. grandcourt was not numbered. after standing up for a quadrille with miss arrowpoint, it seemed that he meant to ask for no other partner. gwendolen observed him frequently with the arrowpoints, but he never took an opportunity of approaching her. mr. gascoigne was sometimes speaking to him; but mr. gascoigne was everywhere. it was in her mind now that she would probably after all not have the least trouble about him: perhaps he had looked at her without any particular admiration, and was too much used to everything in the world to think of her as more than one of the girls who were invited in that part of the country. of course! it was ridiculous of elders to entertain notions about what a man would do, without having seen him even through a telescope. probably he meant to marry miss arrowpoint. whatever might come, she, gwendolen, was not going to be disappointed: the affair was a joke whichever way it turned, for she had never committed herself even by a silent confidence in anything mr. grandcourt would do. still, she noticed that he did sometimes quietly and gradually change his position according to hers, so that he could see her whenever she was dancing, and if he did not admire her--so much the worse for him. this movement for the sake of being in sight of her was more direct than usual rather late in the evening, when gwendolen had accepted klesmer as a partner; and that wide-glancing personage, who saw everything and nothing by turns, said to her when they were walking, "mr. grandcourt is a man of taste. he likes to see you dancing." "perhaps he likes to look at what is against his taste," said gwendolen, with a light laugh; she was quite courageous with klesmer now. "he may be so tired of admiring that he likes disgust for variety." "those words are not suitable to your lips," said klesmer, quickly, with one of his grand frowns, while he shook his hand as if to banish the discordant sounds. "are you as critical of words as of music?" "certainly i am. i should require your words to be what your face and form are--always among the meanings of a noble music." "that is a compliment as well as a correction. i am obliged for both. but do you know i am bold enough to wish to correct _you_, and require you to understand a joke?" "one may understand jokes without liking them," said the terrible klesmer. "i have had opera books sent me full of jokes; it was just because i understood them that i did not like them. the comic people are ready to challenge a man because he looks grave. 'you don't see the witticism, sir?' 'no, sir, but i see what you meant.' then i am what we call ticketed as a fellow without _esprit_. but, in fact," said klesmer, suddenly dropping from his quick narrative to a reflective tone, with an impressive frown, "i am very sensible to wit and humor." "i am glad you tell me that," said gwendolen, not without some wickedness of intention. but klesmer's thoughts had flown off on the wings of his own statement, as their habit was, and she had the wickedness all to herself. "pray, who is that standing near the card-room door?" she went on, seeing there the same stranger with whom klesmer had been in animated talk on the archery ground. "he is a friend of yours, i think." "no, no; an amateur i have seen in town; lush, a mr. lush--too fond of meyerbeer and scribe--too fond of the mechanical-dramatic." "thanks. i wanted to know whether you thought his face and form required that his words should be among the meanings of noble music?" klesmer was conquered, and flashed at her a delightful smile which made them quite friendly until she begged to be deposited by the side of her mamma. three minutes afterward her preparations for grandcourt's indifference were all canceled. turning her head after some remark to her mother, she found that he had made his way up to her. "may i ask if you are tired of dancing, miss harleth?" he began, looking down with his former unperturbed expression. "not in the least." "will you do me the honor--the next--or another quadrille?" "i should have been very happy," said gwendolen looking at her card, "but i am engaged for the next to mr. clintock--and indeed i perceive that i am doomed for every quadrille; i have not one to dispose of." she was not sorry to punish mr. grandcourt's tardiness, yet at the same time she would have liked to dance with him. she gave him a charming smile as she looked up to deliver her answer, and he stood still looking down at her with no smile at all. "i am unfortunate in being too late," he said, after a moment's pause. "it seemed to me that you did not care for dancing," said gwendolen. "i thought it might be one of the things you had left off." "yes, but i have not begun to dance with you," said grandcourt. always there was the same pause before he took up his cue. "you make dancing a new thing, as you make archery." "is novelty always agreeable?" "no, no--not always." "then i don't know whether to feel flattered or not. when you had once danced with me there would be no more novelty in it." "on the contrary, there would probably be much more." "that is deep. i don't understand." "it is difficult to make miss harleth understand her power?" here grandcourt had turned to mrs. davilow, who, smiling gently at her daughter, said, "i think she does not generally strike people as slow to understand." "mamma," said gwendolen, in a deprecating tone, "i am adorably stupid, and want everything explained to me--when the meaning is pleasant." "if you are stupid, i admit that stupidity is adorable," returned grandcourt, after the usual pause, and without change of tone. but clearly he knew what to say. "i begin to think that my cavalier has forgotten me," gwendolen observed after a little while. "i see the quadrille is being formed." "he deserves to be renounced," said grandcourt. "i think he is very pardonable," said gwendolen. "there must have been some misunderstanding," said mrs. davilow. "mr. clintock was too anxious about the engagement to have forgotten it." but now lady brackenshaw came up and said, "miss harleth, mr. clintock has charged me to express to you his deep regret that he was obliged to leave without having the pleasure of dancing with you again. an express came from his father, the archdeacon; something important; he was to go. he was _au désespoir_." "oh, he was very good to remember the engagement under the circumstances," said gwendolen. "i am sorry he was called away." it was easy to be politely sorrowful on so felicitous an occasion. "then i can profit by mr. clintock's misfortune?" said grandcourt. "may i hope that you will let me take his place?" "i shall be very happy to dance the next quadrille with you." the appropriateness of the event seemed an augury, and as gwendolen stood up for the quadrille with grandcourt, there was a revival in her of the exultation--the sense of carrying everything before her, which she had felt earlier in the day. no man could have walked through the quadrille with more irreproachable ease than grandcourt; and the absence of all eagerness in his attention to her suited his partner's taste. she was now convinced that he meant to distinguish her, to mark his admiration of her in a noticeable way; and it began to appear probable that she would have it in her power to reject him, whence there was a pleasure in reckoning up the advantages which would make her rejection splendid, and in giving mr. grandcourt his utmost value. it was also agreeable to divine that this exclusive selection of her to dance with, from among all the unmarried ladies present, would attract observation; though she studiously avoided seeing this, and at the end of the quadrille walked away on grandcourt's arm as if she had been one of the shortest sighted instead of the longest and widest sighted of mortals. they encountered miss arrowpoint, who was standing with lady brackenshaw and a group of gentlemen. the heiress looked at gwendolen invitingly and said, "i hope you will vote with us, miss harleth, and mr. grandcourt too, though he is not an archer." gwendolen and grandcourt paused to join the group, and found that the voting turned on the project of a picnic archery meeting to be held in cardell chase, where the evening entertainment would be more poetic than a ball under chandeliers--a feast of sunset lights along the glades and through the branches and over the solemn tree-tops. gwendolen thought the scheme delightful--equal to playing robin hood and maid marian: and mr. grandcourt, when appealed to a second time, said it was a thing to be done; whereupon mr. lush, who stood behind lady brackenshaw's elbow, drew gwendolen's notice by saying with a familiar look and tone to grandcourt, "diplow would be a good place for the meeting, and more convenient: there's a fine bit between the oaks toward the north gate." impossible to look more unconscious of being addressed than grandcourt; but gwendolen took a new survey of the speaker, deciding, first, that he must be on terms of intimacy with the tenant of diplow, and, secondly, that she would never, if she could help it, let him come within a yard of her. she was subject to physical antipathies, and mr. lush's prominent eyes, fat though not clumsy figure, and strong black gray-besprinkled hair of frizzy thickness, which, with the rest of his prosperous person, was enviable to many, created one of the strongest of her antipathies. to be safe from his looking at her, she murmured to grandcourt, "i should like to continue walking." he obeyed immediately; but when they were thus away from any audience, he spoke no word for several minutes, and she, out of a half-amused, half-serious inclination for experiment, would not speak first. they turned into the large conservatory, beautifully lit up with chinese lamps. the other couples there were at a distance which would not have interfered with any dialogue, but still they walked in silence until they had reached the farther end where there was a flush of pink light, and the second wide opening into the ball-room. grandcourt, when they had half turned round, paused and said languidly, "do you like this kind of thing?" if the situation had been described to gwendolen half an hour before, she would have laughed heartily at it, and could only have imagined herself returning a playful, satirical answer. but for some mysterious reason--it was a mystery of which she had a faint wondering consciousness--she dared not be satirical: she had begun to feel a wand over her that made her afraid of offending grandcourt. "yes," she said, quietly, without considering what "kind of thing" was meant--whether the flowers, the scents, the ball in general, or this episode of walking with mr. grandcourt in particular. and they returned along the conservatory without farther interpretation. she then proposed to go and sit down in her old place, and they walked among scattered couples preparing for the waltz to the spot where mrs. davilow had been seated all the evening. as they approached it her seat was vacant, but she was coming toward it again, and, to gwendolen's shuddering annoyance, with mr. lush at her elbow. there was no avoiding the confrontation: her mamma came close to her before they had reached the seats, and, after a quiet greeting smile, said innocently, "gwendolen, dear, let me present mr. lush to you." having just made the acquaintance of this personage, as an intimate and constant companion of mr. grandcourt's, mrs. davilow imagined it altogether desirable that her daughter also should make the acquaintance. it was hardly a bow that gwendolen gave--rather, it was the slightest forward sweep of the head away from the physiognomy that inclined itself toward her, and she immediately moved toward her seat, saying, "i want to put on my burnous." no sooner had she reached it, than mr. lush was there, and had the burnous in his hand: to annoy this supercilious young lady, he would incur the offense of forestalling grandcourt; and, holding up the garment close to gwendolen, he said, "pray, permit me?" but she, wheeling away from him as if he had been a muddy hound, glided on to the ottoman, saying, "no, thank you." a man who forgave this would have much christian feeling, supposing he had intended to be agreeable to the young lady; but before he seized the burnous mr. lush had ceased to have that intention. grandcourt quietly took the drapery from him, and mr. lush, with a slight bow, moved away. "you had perhaps better put it on," said mr. grandcourt, looking down on her without change of expression. "thanks; perhaps it would be wise," said gwendolen, rising, and submitting very gracefully to take the burnous on her shoulders. after that, mr. grandcourt exchanged a few polite speeches with mrs. davilow, and, in taking leave, asked permission to call at offendene the next day. he was evidently not offended by the insult directed toward his friend. certainly gwendolen's refusal of the burnous from mr. lush was open to the interpretation that she wished to receive it from mr. grandcourt. but she, poor child, had no design in this action, and was simply following her antipathy and inclination, confiding in them as she did in the more reflective judgments into which they entered as sap into leafage. gwendolen had no sense that these men were dark enigmas to her, or that she needed any help in drawing conclusions about them--mr. grandcourt at least. the chief question was, how far his character and ways might answer her wishes; and unless she were satisfied about that, she had said to herself that she would not accept his offer. could there be a slenderer, more insignificant thread in human history than this consciousness of a girl, busy with her small inferences of the way in which she could make her life pleasant?--in a time, too, when ideas were with fresh vigor making armies of themselves, and the universal kinship was declaring itself fiercely; when women on the other side of the world would not mourn for the husbands and sons who died bravely in a common cause, and men stinted of bread on our side of the world heard of that willing loss and were patient: a time when the soul of man was walking to pulses which had for centuries been beating in him unfelt, until their full sum made a new life of terror or of joy. what in the midst of that mighty drama are girls and their blind visions? they are the yea or nay of that good for which men are enduring and fighting. in these delicate vessels is borne onward through the ages the treasure of human affections. chapter xii. "o gentlemen, the time of life is short; to spend that shortness basely were too long, if life did ride upon a dial's point, still ending at the arrival of an hour." --shakespeare: _henry iv_. on the second day after the archery meeting, mr. henleigh mallinger grandcourt was at his breakfast-table with mr. lush. everything around them was agreeable: the summer air through the open windows, at which the dogs could walk in from the old green turf on the lawn; the soft, purplish coloring of the park beyond, stretching toward a mass of bordering wood; the still life in the room, which seemed the stiller for its sober antiquated elegance, as if it kept a conscious, well-bred silence, unlike the restlessness of vulgar furniture. whether the gentlemen were agreeable to each other was less evident. mr. grandcourt had drawn his chair aside so as to face the lawn, and with his left leg over another chair, and his right elbow on the table, was smoking a large cigar, while his companion was still eating. the dogs--half-a-dozen of various kinds were moving lazily in and out, taking attitudes of brief attention--gave a vacillating preference first to one gentleman, then to the other; being dogs in such good circumstances that they could play at hunger, and liked to be served with delicacies which they declined to put in their mouths; all except fetch, the beautiful liver-colored water-spaniel, which sat with its forepaws firmly planted and its expressive brown face turned upward, watching grandcourt with unshaken constancy. he held in his lap a tiny maltese dog with a tiny silver collar and bell, and when he had a hand unused by cigar or coffee-cup, it rested on this small parcel of animal warmth. i fear that fetch was jealous, and wounded that her master gave her no word or look; at last it seemed that she could bear this neglect no longer, and she gently put her large silky paw on her master's leg. grandcourt looked at her with unchanged face for half a minute, and then took the trouble to lay down his cigar while he lifted the unimpassioned fluff close to his chin and gave it caressing pats, all the while gravely watching fetch, who, poor thing, whimpered interruptedly, as if trying to repress that sign of discontent, and at last rested her head beside the appealing paw, looking up with piteous beseeching. so, at least, a lover of dogs must have interpreted fetch, and grandcourt kept so many dogs that he was reputed to love them; at any rate, his impulse to act just in that way started from such an interpretation. but when the amusing anguish burst forth in a howling bark, grandcourt pushed fetch down without speaking, and, depositing fluff carelessly on the table (where his black nose predominated over a salt-cellar), began to look to his cigar, and found, with some annoyance against fetch as the cause, that the brute of a cigar required relighting. fetch, having begun to wail, found, like others of her sex, that it was not easy to leave off; indeed, the second howl was a louder one, and the third was like unto it. "turn out that brute, will you?" said grandcourt to lush, without raising his voice or looking at him--as if he counted on attention to the smallest sign. and lush immediately rose, lifted fetch, though she was rather heavy, and he was not fond of stooping, and carried her out, disposing of her in some way that took him a couple of minutes before he returned. he then lit a cigar, placed himself at an angle where he could see grandcourt's face without turning, and presently said, "shall you ride or drive to quetcham to-day?" "i am not going to quetcham." "you did not go yesterday." grandcourt smoked in silence for half a minute, and then said, "i suppose you sent my card and inquiries." "i went myself at four, and said you were sure to be there shortly. they would suppose some accident prevented you from fulfilling the intention. especially if you go to-day." silence for a couple of minutes. then grandcourt said, "what men are invited here with their wives?" lush drew out a note-book. "the captain and mrs. torrington come next week. then there are mr. hollis and lady flora, and the cushats and the gogoffs." "rather a ragged lot," remarked grandcourt, after a while. "why did you ask the gogoffs? when you write invitations in my name, be good enough to give me a list, instead of bringing down a giantess on me without my knowledge. she spoils the look of the room." "you invited the gogoffs yourself when you met them in paris." "what has my meeting them in paris to do with it? i told you to give me a list." grandcourt, like many others, had two remarkably different voices. hitherto we have heard him speaking in a superficial interrupted drawl suggestive chiefly of languor and _ennui_. but this last brief speech was uttered in subdued inward, yet distinct, tones, which lush had long been used to recognize as the expression of a peremptory will. "are there any other couples you would like to invite?" "yes; think of some decent people, with a daughter or two. and one of your damned musicians. but not a comic fellow." "i wonder if klesmer would consent to come to us when he leaves quetcham. nothing but first-class music will go down with miss arrowpoint." lush spoke carelessly, but he was really seizing an opportunity and fixing an observant look on grandcourt, who now for the first time, turned his eyes toward his companion, but slowly and without speaking until he had given two long luxuriant puffs, when he said, perhaps in a lower tone than ever, but with a perceptible edge of contempt, "what in the name of nonsense have i to do with miss arrowpoint and her music?" "well, something," said lush, jocosely. "you need not give yourself much trouble, perhaps. but some forms must be gone through before a man can marry a million." "very likely. but i am not going to marry a million." "that's a pity--to fling away an opportunity of this sort, and knock down your own plans." "_your_ plans, i suppose you mean." "you have some debts, you know, and things may turn out inconveniently, after all. the heirship is not _absolutely_ certain." grandcourt did not answer, and lush went on. "it really is a fine opportunity. the father and mother ask for nothing better, i can see, and the daughter's looks and manners require no allowances, any more than if she hadn't a sixpence. she is not beautiful; but equal to carrying any rank. and she is not likely to refuse such prospects as you can offer her." "perhaps not." "the father and mother would let you do anything you like with them." "but i should not like to do anything with them." here it was lush who made a little pause before speaking again, and then he said in a deep voice of remonstrance, "good god, grandcourt! after your experience, will you let a whim interfere with your comfortable settlement in life?" "spare your oratory. i know what i am going to do." "what?" lush put down his cigar and thrust his hands into his side pockets, as if he had to face something exasperating, but meant to keep his temper. "i am going to marry the other girl." "have you fallen in love?" this question carried a strong sneer. "i am going to marry her." "you have made her an offer already, then?" "no." "she is a young lady with a will of her own, i fancy. extremely well fitted to make a rumpus. she would know what she liked." "she doesn't like you," said grandcourt, with the ghost of a smile. "perfectly true," said lush, adding again in a markedly sneering tone. "however, if you and she are devoted to each other, that will be enough." grandcourt took no notice of this speech, but sipped his coffee, rose, and strolled out on the lawn, all the dogs following him. lush glanced after him a moment, then resumed his cigar and lit it, but smoked slowly, consulting his beard with inspecting eyes and fingers, till he finally stroked it with an air of having arrived at some conclusion, and said in a subdued voice, "check, old boy!" lush, being a man of some ability, had not known grandcourt for fifteen years without learning what sort of measures were useless with him, though what sort might be useful remained often dubious. in the beginning of his career he held a fellowship, and was near taking orders for the sake of a college living, but, not being fond of that prospect, accepted instead the office of traveling companion to a marquess, and afterward to young grandcourt, who had lost his father early, and who found lush so convenient that he had allowed him to become prime minister in all his more personal affairs. the habit of fifteen years had made grandcourt more and more in need of lush's handiness, and lush more and more in need of the lazy luxury to which his transactions on behalf of grandcourt made no interruption worth reckoning. i cannot say that the same lengthened habit had intensified grandcourt's want of respect for his companion since that want had been absolute from the beginning, but it had confirmed his sense that he might kick lush if he chose--only he never did choose to kick any animal, because the act of kicking is a compromising attitude, and a gentleman's dogs should be kicked for him. he only said things which might have exposed himself to be kicked if his confidant had been a man of independent spirit. but what son of a vicar who has stinted his wife and daughters of calico in order to send his male offspring to oxford, can keep an independent spirit when he is bent on dining with high discrimination, riding good horses, living generally in the most luxuriant honey-blossomed clover--and all without working? mr. lush had passed for a scholar once, and had still a sense of scholarship when he was not trying to remember much of it; but the bachelor's and other arts which soften manners are a time-honored preparation for sinecures; and lush's present comfortable provision was as good a sinecure in not requiring more than the odor of departed learning. he was not unconscious of being held kickable, but he preferred counting that estimate among the peculiarities of grandcourt's character, which made one of his incalculable moods or judgments as good as another. since in his own opinion he had never done a bad action, it did not seem necessary to consider whether he should be likely to commit one if his love of ease required it. lush's love of ease was well-satisfied at present, and if his puddings were rolled toward him in the dust, he took the inside bits and found them relishing. this morning, for example, though he had encountered more annoyance than usual, he went to his private sitting-room and played a good hour on the violoncello. chapter xiii. "philistia, be thou glad of me!" grandcourt having made up his mind to marry miss harleth, showed a power of adapting means to ends. during the next fortnight there was hardly a day on which by some arrangement or other he did not see her, or prove by emphatic attentions that she occupied his thoughts. his cousin, mrs. torrington, was now doing the honors of his house, so that mrs. davilow and gwendolen could be invited to a large party at diplow in which there were many witnesses how the host distinguished the dowerless beauty, and showed no solicitude about the heiress. the world--i mean mr. gascoigne and all the families worth speaking of within visiting distance of pennicote--felt an assurance on the subject which in the rector's mind converted itself into a resolution to do his duty by his niece and see that the settlements were adequate. indeed the wonder to him and mrs. davilow was that the offer for which so many suitable occasions presented themselves had not been already made; and in this wonder grandcourt himself was not without a share. when he had told his resolution to lush he had thought that the affair would be concluded more quickly, and to his own surprise he had repeatedly promised himself in a morning that he would to-day give gwendolen the opportunity of accepting him, and had found in the evening that the necessary formality was still unaccomplished. this remarkable fact served to heighten his determination on another day. he had never admitted to himself that gwendolen might refuse him, but--heaven help us all!--we are often unable to act on our certainties; our objection to a contrary issue (were it possible) is so strong that it rises like a spectral illusion between us and our certainty; we are rationally sure that the blind worm can not bite us mortally, but it would be so intolerable to be bitten, and the creature has a biting look--we decline to handle it. he had asked leave to have a beautiful horse of his brought for gwendolen to ride. mrs. davilow was to accompany her in the carriage, and they were to go to diplow to lunch, grandcourt conducting them. it was a fine mid-harvest time, not too warm for a noonday ride of five miles to be delightful; the poppies glowed on the borders of the fields, there was enough breeze to move gently like a social spirit among the ears of uncut corn, and to wing the shadow of a cloud across the soft gray downs; here the sheaves were standing, there the horses were straining their muscles under the last load from a wide space of stubble, but everywhere the green pasture made a broader setting for the corn-fields, and the cattle took their rest under wide branches. the road lay through a bit of country where the dairy-farms looked much as they did in the days of our forefathers--where peace and permanence seemed to find a home away from the busy change that sent the railway train flying in the distance. but the spirit of peace and permanence did not penetrate poor mrs. davilow's mind so as to overcome her habit of uneasy foreboding. gwendolen and grandcourt cantering in front of her, and then slackening their pace to a conversational walk till the carriage came up with them again, made a gratifying sight; but it served chiefly to keep up the conflict of hopes and fears about her daughter's lot. here was an irresistible opportunity for a lover to speak and put an end to all uncertainties, and mrs. davilow could only hope with trembling that gwendolen's decision would be favorable. certainly if rex's love had been repugnant to her, mr. grandcourt had the advantage of being in complete contrast with rex; and that he had produced some quite novel impression on her seemed evident in her marked abstinence from satirical observations, nay, her total silence about his characteristics, a silence which mrs. davilow did not dare to break. "is he a man she would be happy with?"--was a question that inevitably arose in the mother's mind. "well, perhaps as happy as she would be with any one else--or as most other women are"--was the answer with which she tried to quiet herself; for she could not imagine gwendolen under the influence of any feeling which would make her satisfied in what we traditionally call "mean circumstances." grandcourt's own thought was looking in the same direction: he wanted to have done with the uncertainty that belonged to his not having spoken. as to any further uncertainty--well, it was something without any reasonable basis, some quality in the air which acted as an irritant to his wishes. gwendolen enjoyed the riding, but her pleasure did not break forth in girlish unpremeditated chat and laughter as it did on that morning with rex. she spoke a little, and even laughed, but with a lightness as of a far-off echo: for her too there was some peculiar quality in the air--not, she was sure, any subjugation of her will by mr. grandcourt, and the splendid prospects he meant to offer her; for gwendolen desired every one, that dignified gentleman himself included, to understand that she was going to do just as she liked, and that they had better not calculate on her pleasing them. if she chose to take this husband, she would have him know that she was not going to renounce her freedom, or according to her favorite formula, "not going to do as other women did." grandcourt's speeches this morning were, as usual, all of that brief sort which never fails to make a conversational figure when the speaker is held important in his circle. stopping so soon, they give signs of a suppressed and formidable ability so say more, and have also the meritorious quality of allowing lengthiness to others. "how do you like criterion's paces?" he said, after they had entered the park and were slacking from a canter to a walk. "he is delightful to ride. i should like to have a leap with him, if it would not frighten mamma. there was a good wide channel we passed five minutes ago. i should like to have a gallop back and take it." "pray do. we can take it together." "no, thanks. mamma is so timid--if she saw me it might make her ill." "let me go and explain. criterion would take it without fail." "no--indeed--you are very kind--but it would alarm her too much. i dare take any leap when she is not by; but i do it and don't tell her about it." "we can let the carriage pass and then set off." "no, no, pray don't think of it any more: i spoke quite randomly," said gwendolen; she began to feel a new objection to carrying out her own proposition. "but mrs. davilow knows i shall take care of you." "yes, but she would think of you as having to take care of my broken neck." there was a considerable pause before grandcourt said, looking toward her, "i should like to have the right always to take care of you." gwendolen did not turn her eyes on him; it seemed to her a long while that she was first blushing, and then turning pale, but to grandcourt's rate of judgment she answered soon enough, with the lightest flute-tone and a careless movement of the head, "oh, i am not sure that i want to be taken care of: if i chose to risk breaking my neck, i should like to be at liberty to do it." she checked her horse as she spoke, and turned in her saddle, looking toward the advancing carriage. her eyes swept across grandcourt as she made this movement, but there was no language in them to correct the carelessness of her reply. at that very moment she was aware that she was risking something--not her neck, but the possibility of finally checking grandcourt's advances, and she did not feel contented with the possibility. "damn her!" thought grandcourt, as he too checked his horse. he was not a wordy thinker, and this explosive phrase stood for mixed impressions which eloquent interpreters might have expanded into some sentences full of an irritated sense that he was being mystified, and a determination that this girl should not make a fool of him. did she want him to throw himself at her feet and declare that he was dying for her? it was not by that gate that she could enter on the privileges he could give her. or did she expect him to write his proposals? equally a delusion. he would not make his offer in any way that could place him definitely in the position of being rejected. but as to her accepting him, she had done it already in accepting his marked attentions: and anything which happened to break them off would be understood to her disadvantage. she was merely coquetting, then? however, the carriage came up, and no further _tete-à-tete_ could well occur before their arrival at the house, where there was abundant company, to whom gwendolen, clad in riding-dress, with her hat laid aside, clad also in the repute of being chosen by mr. grandcourt, was naturally a centre of observation; and since the objectionable mr. lush was not there to look at her, this stimulus of admiring attention heightened her spirits, and dispersed, for the time, the uneasy consciousness of divided impulses which threatened her with repentance of her own acts. whether grandcourt had been offended or not there was no judging: his manners were unchanged, but gwendolen's acuteness had not gone deeper than to discern that his manners were no clue for her, and because these were unchanged she was not the less afraid of him. she had not been at diplow before except to dine; and since certain points of view from the windows and the garden were worth showing, lady flora hollis proposed after luncheon, when some of the guests had dispersed, and the sun was sloping toward four o'clock, that the remaining party should make a little exploration. here came frequent opportunities when grandcourt might have retained gwendolen apart, and have spoken to her unheard. but no! he indeed spoke to no one else, but what he said was nothing more eager or intimate than it had been in their first interview. he looked at her not less than usual; and some of her defiant spirit having come back, she looked full at him in return, not caring--rather preferring--that his eyes had no expression in them. but at last it seemed as if he entertained some contrivance. after they had nearly made the tour of the grounds, the whole party stopped by the pool to be amused with fetch's accomplishment of bringing a water lily to the bank like cowper's spaniel beau, and having been disappointed in his first attempt insisted on his trying again. here grandcourt, who stood with gwendolen outside the group, turned deliberately, and fixing his eyes on a knoll planted with american shrubs, and having a winding path up it, said languidly, "this is a bore. shall we go up there?" "oh, certainly--since we are exploring," said gwendolen. she was rather pleased, and yet afraid. the path was too narrow for him to offer his arm, and they walked up in silence. when they were on the bit of platform at the summit, grandcourt said, "there is nothing to be seen here: the thing was not worth climbing." how was it that gwendolen did not laugh? she was perfectly silent, holding up the folds of her robe like a statue, and giving a harder grasp to the handle of her whip, which she had snatched up automatically with her hat when they had first set off. "what sort of a place do you prefer?" said grandcourt. "different places are agreeable in their way. on the whole, i think, i prefer places that are open and cheerful. i am not fond of anything sombre." "your place of offendene is too sombre....". "it is, rather." "you will not remain there long, i hope." "oh, yes, i think so. mamma likes to be near her sister." silence for a short space. "it is not to be supposed that _you_ will always live there, though mrs. davilow may." "i don't know. we women can't go in search of adventures--to find out the north-west passage or the source of the nile, or to hunt tigers in the east. we must stay where we grow, or where the gardeners like to transplant us. we are brought up like the flowers, to look as pretty as we can, and be dull without complaining. that is my notion about the plants; they are often bored, and that is the reason why some of them have got poisonous. what do you think?" gwendolen had run on rather nervously, lightly whipping the rhododendron bush in front of her. "i quite agree. most things are bores," said grandcourt, his mind having been pushed into an easy current, away from its intended track. but, after a moment's pause, he continued in his broken, refined drawl, "but a woman can be married." "some women can." "you, certainly, unless you are obstinately cruel." "i am not sure that i am not both cruel and obstinate." here gwendolen suddenly turned her head and looked full at grandcourt, whose eyes she had felt to be upon her throughout their conversation. she was wondering what the effect of looking at him would be on herself rather than on him. he stood perfectly still, half a yard or more away from her; and it flashed through her mind what a sort of lotus-eater's stupor had begun in him and was taking possession of her. then he said, "are you as uncertain about yourself as you make others about you?" "i am quite uncertain about myself; i don't know how uncertain others may be." "and you wish them to understand that you don't care?" said grandcourt, with a touch of new hardness in his tone. "i did not say that," gwendolen replied, hesitatingly, and turning her eyes away whipped the rhododendron bush again. she wished she were on horseback that she might set off on a canter. it was impossible to set off running down the knoll. "you do care, then," said grandcourt, not more quickly, but with a softened drawl. "ha! my whip!" said gwendolen, in a little scream of distress. she had let it go--what could be more natural in a slight agitation?--and--but this seemed less natural in a gold-handled whip which had been left altogether to itself--it had gone with some force over the immediate shrubs, and had lodged itself in the branches of an azalea half-way down the knoll. she could run down now, laughing prettily, and grandcourt was obliged to follow; but she was beforehand with him in rescuing the whip, and continued on her way to the level ground, when she paused and looked at grandcourt with an exasperating brightness in her glance and a heightened color, as if she had carried a triumph, and these indications were still noticeable to mrs. davilow when gwendolen and grandcourt joined the rest of the party. "it is all coquetting," thought grandcourt; "the next time i beckon she will come down." it seemed to him likely that this final beckoning might happen the very next day, when there was to be a picnic archery meeting in cardell chase, according to the plan projected on the evening of the ball. even in gwendolen's mind that result was one of two likelihoods that presented themselves alternately, one of two decisions toward which she was being precipitated, as if they were two sides of a boundary-line, and she did not know on which she should fall. this subjection to a possible self, a self not to be absolutely predicted about, caused her some astonishment and terror; her favorite key of life--doing as she liked--seemed to fail her, and she could not foresee what at a given moment she might like to do. the prospect of marrying grandcourt really seemed more attractive to her than she had believed beforehand that any marriage could be: the dignities, the luxuries, the power of doing a great deal of what she liked to do, which had now come close to her, and within her choice to secure or to lose, took hold of her nature as if it had been the strong odor of what she had only imagined and longed for before. and grandcourt himself? he seemed as little of a flaw in his fortunes as a lover and husband could possibly be. gwendolen wished to mount the chariot and drive the plunging horses herself, with a spouse by her side who would fold his arms and give her his countenance without looking ridiculous. certainly, with all her perspicacity, and all the reading which seemed to her mamma dangerously instructive, her judgment was consciously a little at fault before grandcourt. he was adorably quiet and free from absurdities--he would be a husband to suit with the best appearance a woman could make. but what else was he? he had been everywhere, and seen everything. _that_ was desirable, and especially gratifying as a preamble to his supreme preference for gwendolen harleth. he did not appear to enjoy anything much. that was not necessary: and the less he had of particular tastes, or desires, the more freedom his wife was likely to have in following hers. gwendolen conceived that after marriage she would most probably be able to manage him thoroughly. how was it that he caused her unusual constraint now?--that she was less daring and playful in her talk with him than with any other admirer she had known? that absence of demonstrativeness which she was glad of, acted as a charm in more senses than one, and was slightly benumbing. grandcourt after all was formidable--a handsome lizard of a hitherto unknown species, not of the lively, darting kind. but gwendolen knew hardly anything about lizards, and ignorance gives one a large range of probabilities. this splendid specimen was probably gentle, suitable as a boudoir pet: what may not a lizard be, if you know nothing to the contrary? her acquaintance with grandcourt was such that no accomplishment suddenly revealed in him would have surprised her. and he was so little suggestive of drama, that it hardly occurred to her to think with any detail how his life of thirty-six years had been passed: in general, she imagined him always cold and dignified, not likely ever to have committed himself. he had hunted the tiger--had he ever been in love or made love? the one experience and the other seemed alike remote in gwendolen's fancy from the mr. grandcourt who had come to diplow in order apparently to make a chief epoch in her destiny--perhaps by introducing her to that state of marriage which she had resolved to make a state of greater freedom than her girlhood. and on the whole she wished to marry him; he suited her purpose; her prevailing, deliberate intention was, to accept him. but was she going to fulfill her deliberate intention? she began to be afraid of herself, and to find out a certain difficulty in doing as she liked. already her assertion of independence in evading his advances had been carried farther than was necessary, and she was thinking with some anxiety what she might do on the next occasion. seated according to her habit with her back to the horses on their drive homeward, she was completely under the observation of her mamma, who took the excitement and changefulness in the expression of her eyes, her unwonted absence of mind and total silence, as unmistakable signs that something unprecedented had occurred between her and grandcourt. mrs. davilow's uneasiness determined her to risk some speech on the subject: the gascoignes were to dine at offendene, and in what had occurred this morning there might be some reason for consulting the rector; not that she expected him anymore than herself to influence gwendolen, but that her anxious mind wanted to be disburdened. "something has happened, dear?" she began, in a tender tone of question. gwendolen looked round, and seeming to be roused to the consciousness of her physical self, took off her gloves and then her hat, that the soft breeze might blow on her head. they were in a retired bit of the road, where the long afternoon shadows from the bordering trees fell across it and no observers were within sight. her eyes continued to meet her mother's, but she did not speak. "mr. grandcourt has been saying something?--tell me, dear." the last words were uttered beseechingly. "what am i to tell you, mamma?" was the perverse answer. "i am sure something has agitated you. you ought to confide in me, gwen. you ought not to leave me in doubt and anxiety." mrs. davilow's eyes filled with tears. "mamma, dear, please don't be miserable," said gwendolen, with pettish remonstrance. "it only makes me more so. i am in doubt myself." "about mr. grandcourt's intentions?" said mrs. davilow, gathering determination from her alarms. "no; not at all," said gwendolen, with some curtness, and a pretty little toss of the head as she put on her hat again. "about whether you will accept him, then?" "precisely." "have you given him a doubtful answer?" "i have given him no answer at all." "he _has_ spoken so that you could not misunderstand him?" "as far as i would let him speak." "you expect him to persevere?" mrs. davilow put this question rather anxiously, and receiving no answer, asked another: "you don't consider that you have discouraged him?" "i dare say not." "i thought you liked him, dear," said mrs. davilow, timidly. "so i do, mamma, as liking goes. there is less to dislike about him than about most men. he is quiet and _distingué_." gwendolen so far spoke with a pouting sort of gravity; but suddenly she recovered some of her mischievousness, and her face broke into a smile as she added--"indeed he has all the qualities that would make a husband tolerable--battlement, veranda, stable, etc., no grins and no glass in his eye." "do be serious with me for a moment, dear. am i to understand that you mean to accept him?" "oh, pray, mamma, leave me to myself," said gwendolen, with a pettish distress in her voice. and mrs. davilow said no more. when they got home gwendolen declared that she would not dine. she was tired, and would come down in the evening after she had taken some rest. the probability that her uncle would hear what had passed did not trouble her. she was convinced that whatever he might say would be on the side of her accepting grandcourt, and she wished to accept him if she could. at this moment she would willingly have had weights hung on her own caprice. mr. gascoigne did hear--not gwendolen's answers repeated verbatim, but a softened generalized account of them. the mother conveyed as vaguely as the keen rector's questions would let her the impression that gwendolen was in some uncertainty about her own mind, but inclined on the whole to acceptance. the result was that the uncle felt himself called on to interfere; he did not conceive that he should do his duty in witholding direction from his niece in a momentous crisis of this kind. mrs. davilow ventured a hesitating opinion that perhaps it would be safer to say nothing--gwendolen was so sensitive (she did not like to say willful). but the rector's was a firm mind, grasping its first judgments tenaciously and acting on them promptly, whence counter-judgments were no more for him than shadows fleeting across the solid ground to which he adjusted himself. this match with grandcourt presented itself to him as a sort of public affair; perhaps there were ways in which it might even strengthen the establishment. to the rector, whose father (nobody would have suspected it, and nobody was told) had risen to be a provincial corn-dealer, aristocratic heirship resembled regal heirship in excepting its possessor from the ordinary standard of moral judgments, grandcourt, the almost certain baronet, the probable peer, was to be ranged with public personages, and was a match to be accepted on broad general grounds national and ecclesiastical. such public personages, it is true, are often in the nature of giants which an ancient community may have felt pride and safety in possessing, though, regarded privately, these born eminences must often have been inconvenient and even noisome. but of the future husband personally mr. gascoigne was disposed to think the best. gossip is a sort of smoke that comes from the dirty tobacco-pipes of those who diffuse it: it proves nothing but the bad taste of the smoker. but if grandcourt had really made any deeper or more unfortunate experiments in folly than were common in young men of high prospects, he was of an age to have finished them. all accounts can be suitably wound up when a man has not ruined himself, and the expense may be taken as an insurance against future error. this was the view of practical wisdom; with reference to higher views, repentance had a supreme moral and religious value. there was every reason to believe that a woman of well-regulated mind would be happy with grandcourt. it was no surprise to gwendolen on coming down to tea to be told that her uncle wished to see her in the dining-room. he threw aside the paper as she entered and greeted her with his usual kindness. as his wife had remarked, he always "made much" of gwendolen, and her importance had risen of late. "my dear," he said, in a fatherly way, moving a chair for her as he held her hand, "i want to speak to you on a subject which is more momentous than any other with regard to your welfare. you will guess what i mean. but i shall speak to you with perfect directness: in such matters i consider myself bound to act as your father. you have no objection, i hope?" "oh dear, no, uncle. you have always been very kind to me," said gwendolen, frankly. this evening she was willing, if it were possible, to be a little fortified against her troublesome self, and her resistant temper was in abeyance. the rector's mode of speech always conveyed a thrill of authority, as of a word of command: it seemed to take for granted that there could be no wavering in the audience, and that every one was going to be rationally obedient. "it is naturally a satisfaction to me that the prospect of a marriage for you--advantageous in the highest degree--has presented itself so early. i do not know exactly what has passed between you and mr. grandcourt, but i presume there can be little doubt, from the way in which he has distinguished you, that he desires to make you his wife." gwendolen did not speak immediately, and her uncle said with more emphasis, "have you any doubt of that yourself, my dear?" "i suppose that is what he has been thinking of. but he may have changed his mind to-morrow," said gwendolen. "why to-morrow? has he made advances which you have discouraged?" "i think he meant--he began to make advances--but i did not encourage them. i turned the conversation." "will you confide in me so far as to tell me your reasons?" "i am not sure that i had any reasons, uncle." gwendolen laughed rather artificially. "you are quite capable of reflecting, gwendolen. you are aware that this is not a trivial occasion, and it concerns your establishment for life under circumstances which may not occur again. you have a duty here both to yourself and your family. i wish to understand whether you have any ground for hesitating as to your acceptance of mr. grandcourt." "i suppose i hesitate without grounds." gwendolen spoke rather poutingly, and her uncle grew suspicious. "is he disagreeable to you personally?" "no." "have you heard anything of him which has affected you disagreeably?" the rector thought it impossible that gwendolen could have heard the gossip he had heard, but in any case he must endeavor to put all things in the right light for her. "i have heard nothing about him except that he is a great match," said gwendolen, with some sauciness; "and that affects me very agreeably." "then, my dear gwendolen, i have nothing further to say than this: you hold your fortune in your own hands--a fortune such as rarely happens to a girl in your circumstances--a fortune in fact which almost takes the question out of the range of mere personal feeling, and makes your acceptance of it a duty. if providence offers you power and position--especially when unclogged by any conditions that are repugnant to you--your course is one of responsibility, into which caprice must not enter. a man does not like to have his attachment trifled with: he may not be at once repelled--these things are matters of individual disposition. but the trifling may be carried too far. and i must point out to you that in case mr. grandcourt were repelled without your having refused him--without your having intended ultimately to refuse him, your situation would be a humiliating and painful one. i, for my part, should regard you with severe disapprobation, as the victim of nothing else than your own coquetry and folly." gwendolen became pallid as she listened to this admonitory speech. the ideas it raised had the force of sensations. her resistant courage would not help her here, because her uncle was not urging her against her own resolve; he was pressing upon her the motives of dread which she already felt; he was making her more conscious of the risks that lay within herself. she was silent, and the rector observed that he had produced some strong effect. "i mean this in kindness, my dear." his tone had softened. "i am aware of that, uncle," said gwendolen, rising and shaking her head back, as if to rouse herself out of painful passivity. "i am not foolish. i know that i must be married some time--before it is too late. and i don't see how i could do better than marry mr. grandcourt. i mean to accept him, if possible." she felt as if she were reinforcing herself by speaking with this decisiveness to her uncle. but the rector was a little startled by so bare a version of his own meaning from those young lips. he wished that in her mind his advice should be taken in an infusion of sentiments proper to a girl, and such as are presupposed in the advice of a clergyman, although he may not consider them always appropriate to be put forward. he wished his niece parks, carriages, a title--everything that would make this world a pleasant abode; but he wished her not to be cynical--to be, on the contrary, religiously dutiful, and have warm domestic affections. "my dear gwendolen," he said, rising also, and speaking with benignant gravity, "i trust that you will find in marriage a new fountain of duty and affection. marriage is the only true and satisfactory sphere of a woman, and if your marriage with mr. grandcourt should be happily decided upon, you will have, probably, an increasing power, both of rank and wealth, which may be used for the benefit of others. these considerations are something higher than romance! you are fitted by natural gifts for a position which, considering your birth and early prospects, could hardly be looked forward to as in the ordinary course of things; and i trust that you will grace it, not only by those personal gifts, but by a good and consistent life." "i hope mamma will be the happier," said gwendolen, in a more cheerful way, lifting her hands backward to her neck and moving toward the door. she wanted to waive those higher considerations. mr. gascoigne felt that he had come to a satisfactory understanding with his niece, and had furthered her happy settlement in life by furthering her engagement to grandcourt. meanwhile there was another person to whom the contemplation of that issue had been a motive for some activity, and who believed that he, too, on this particular day had done something toward bringing about a favorable decision in _his_ sense--which happened to be the reverse of the rector's. mr. lush's absence from diplow during gwendolen's visit had been due, not to any fear on his part of meeting that supercilious young lady, or of being abashed by her frank dislike, but to an engagement from which he expected important consequences. he was gone, in fact, to the wanchester station to meet a lady, accompanied by a maid and two children, whom he put into a fly, and afterward followed to the hotel of the golden keys, in that town. an impressive woman, whom many would turn to look at again in passing; her figure was slim and sufficiently tall, her face rather emaciated, so that its sculpturesque beauty was the more pronounced, her crisp hair perfectly black, and her large, anxious eyes what we call black. her dress was soberly correct, her age, perhaps, physically more advanced than the number of years would imply, but hardly less than seven-and-thirty. an uneasy-looking woman: her glance seemed to presuppose that the people and things were going to be unfavorable to her, while she was, nevertheless, ready to meet them with resolution. the children were lovely--a dark-haired girl of six or more, a fairer boy of five. when lush incautiously expressed some surprise at her having brought the children, she said, with a sharp-toned intonation, "did you suppose i should come wandering about here by myself? why should i not bring all four if i liked?" "oh, certainly," said lush, with his usual fluent _nonchalance_. he stayed an hour or so in conference with her, and rode back to diplow in a state of mind that was at once hopeful and busily anxious as to the execution of the little plan on which his hopefulness was based. grandcourt's marriage to gwendolen harleth would not, he believed, be much of a good to either of them, and it would plainly be fraught with disagreeables to himself. but now he felt confident enough to say inwardly, "i will take, nay, i will lay odds that the marriage will never happen." chapter xiv. i will not clothe myself in wreck--wear gems sawed from cramped finger-bones of women drowned; feel chilly vaporous hands of ireful ghosts clutching my necklace: trick my maiden breast with orphans' heritage. let your dead love marry its dead. gwendolen looked lovely and vigorous as a tall, newly-opened lily the next morning: there was a reaction of young energy in her, and yesterday's self-distrust seemed no more than the transient shiver on the surface of a full stream. the roving archery match in cardell chase was a delightful prospect for the sport's sake: she felt herself beforehand moving about like a wood-nymph under the beeches (in appreciative company), and the imagined scene lent a charm to further advances on the part of grandcourt--not an impassioned lyrical daphnis for the wood-nymph, certainly: but so much the better. to-day gwendolen foresaw him making slow conversational approaches to a declaration, and foresaw herself awaiting and encouraging it according to the rational conclusion which she had expressed to her uncle. when she came down to breakfast (after every one had left the table except mrs. davilow) there were letters on her plate. one of them she read with a gathering smile, and then handed it to her mamma, who, on returning it, smiled also, finding new cheerfulness in the good spirits her daughter had shown ever since waking, and said, "you don't feel inclined to go a thousand miles away?" "not exactly so far." "it was a sad omission not to have written again before this. can't you write now--before we set out this morning?" "it is not so pressing. to-morrow will do. you see they leave town to-day. i must write to dover. they will be there till monday." "shall i write for you, dear--if it teases you?" gwendolen did not speak immediately, but after sipping her coffee, answered brusquely, "oh no, let it be; i will write to-morrow." then, feeling a touch of compunction, she looked up and said with playful tenderness, "dear, old, beautiful mamma!" "old, child, truly." "please don't, mamma! i meant old for darling. you are hardly twenty-five years older than i am. when you talk in that way my life shrivels up before me." "one can have a great deal of happiness in twenty-five years, my dear." "i must lose no time in beginning," said gwendolen, merrily. "the sooner i get my palaces and coaches the better." "and a good husband who adores you, gwen," said mrs. davilow, encouragingly. gwendolen put out her lips saucily and said nothing. it was a slight drawback on her pleasure in starting that the rector was detained by magistrate's business, and would probably not be able to get to cardell chase at all that day. she cared little that mrs. gascoigne and anna chose not to go without him, but her uncle's presence would have seemed to make it a matter of course that the decision taken would be acted on. for decision in itself began to be formidable. having come close to accepting grandcourt, gwendolen felt this lot of unhoped-for fullness rounding itself too definitely. when we take to wishing a great deal for ourselves, whatever we get soon turns into mere limitation and exclusion. still there was the reassuring thought that marriage would be the gate into a larger freedom. the place of meeting was a grassy spot called green arbor, where a bit of hanging wood made a sheltering amphitheatre. it was here that the coachful of servants with provisions had to prepare the picnic meal; and the warden of the chase was to guide the roving archers so as to keep them within the due distance from this centre, and hinder them from wandering beyond the limit which had been fixed on--a curve that might be drawn through certain well-known points, such as the double oak, the whispering stones, and the high cross. the plan was to take only a preliminary stroll before luncheon, keeping the main roving expedition for the more exquisite lights of the afternoon. the muster was rapid enough to save every one from dull moments of waiting, and when the groups began to scatter themselves through the light and shadow made here by closely neighboring beeches and there by rarer oaks, one may suppose that a painter would have been glad to look on. this roving archery was far prettier than the stationary game, but success in shooting at variable marks were less favored by practice, and the hits were distributed among the volunteer archers otherwise than they would have been in target-shooting. from this cause, perhaps, as well as from the twofold distraction of being preoccupied and wishing not to betray her preoccupation, gwendolen did not greatly distinguish herself in these first experiments, unless it were by the lively grace with which she took her comparative failure. she was in white and green as on the day of the former meeting, when it made an epoch for her that she was introduced to grandcourt; he was continually by her side now, yet it would have been hard to tell from mere looks and manners that their relation to each other had at all changed since their first conversation. still there were other grounds that made most persons conclude them to be, if not engaged already, on the eve of being so. and she believed this herself. as they were all returning toward green arbor in divergent groups, not thinking at all of taking aim but merely chattering, words passed which seemed really the beginning of that end--the beginning of her acceptance. grandcourt said, "do you know how long it is since i first saw you in this dress?" "the archery meeting was on the th, and this is the th," said gwendolen, laughingly. "i am not good at calculating, but i will venture to say that it must be nearly three weeks." a little pause, and then he said, "that is a great loss of time." "that your knowing me has caused you? pray don't be uncomplimentary; i don't like it." pause again. "it is because of the gain that i feel the loss." here gwendolen herself left a pause. she was thinking, "he is really very ingenious. he never speaks stupidly." her silence was so unusual that it seemed the strongest of favorable answers, and he continued: "the gain of knowing you makes me feel the time i lose in uncertainty. do _you_ like uncertainty?" "i think i do, rather," said gwendolen, suddenly beaming on him with a playful smile. "there is more in it." grandcourt met her laughing eyes with a slow, steady look right into them, which seemed like vision in the abstract, and then said, "do you mean more torment for me?" there was something so strange to gwendolen in this moment that she was quite shaken out of her usual self-consciousness. blushing and turning away her eyes, she said, "no, that would make me sorry." grandcourt would have followed up this answer, which the change in her manner made apparently decisive of her favorable intention; but he was not in any way overcome so as to be unaware that they were now, within sight of everybody, descending the space into green arbor, and descending it at an ill-chosen point where it began to be inconveniently steep. this was a reason for offering his hand in the literal sense to help her; she took it, and they came down in silence, much observed by those already on the level--among others by mrs. arrowpoint, who happened to be standing with mrs. davilow. that lady had now made up her mind that grandcourt's merits were not such as would have induced catherine to accept him, catherine having so high a standard as to have refused lord slogan. hence she looked at the tenant of diplow with dispassionate eyes. "mr. grandcourt is not equal as a man to his uncle, sir hugo mallinger--too languid. to be sure, mr. grandcourt is a much younger man, but i shouldn't wonder if sir hugo were to outlive him, notwithstanding the difference of years. it is ill calculating on successions," concluded mrs. arrowpoint, rather too loudly. "it is indeed," said mrs. davilow, able to assent with quiet cheerfulness, for she was so well satisfied with the actual situation of affairs that her habitual melancholy in their general unsatisfactoriness was altogether in abeyance. i am not concerned to tell of the food that was eaten in that green refectory, or even to dwell on the stories of the forest scenery that spread themselves out beyond the level front of the hollow; being just now bound to tell a story of life at a stage when the blissful beauty of earth and sky entered only by narrow and oblique inlets into the consciousness, which was busy with a small social drama almost as little penetrated by a feeling of wider relations as if it had been a puppet-show. it will be understood that the food and champagne were of the best--the talk and laughter too, in the sense of belonging to the best society, where no one makes an invidious display of anything in particular, and the advantages of the world are taken with that high-bred depreciation which follows from being accustomed to them. some of the gentlemen strolled a little and indulged in a cigar, there being a sufficient interval before four o'clock--the time for beginning to rove again. among these, strange to say, was grandcourt; but not mr. lush, who seemed to be taking his pleasure quite generously to-day by making himself particularly serviceable, ordering everything for everybody, and by this activity becoming more than ever a blot on the scene to gwendolen, though he kept himself amiably aloof from her, and never even looked at her obviously. when there was a general move to prepare for starting, it appeared that the bows had all been put under the charge of lord brackenshaw's valet, and mr. lush was concerned to save ladies the trouble of fetching theirs from the carriage where they were propped. he did not intend to bring gwendolen's, but she, fearful lest he should do so, hurried to fetch it herself. the valet, seeing her approach, met her with it, and in giving it into her hand gave also a letter addressed to her. she asked no question about it, perceived at a glance that the address was in a lady's handwriting (of the delicate kind which used to be esteemed feminine before the present uncial period), and moving away with her bow in her hand, saw mr. lush coming to fetch other bows. to avoid meeting him she turned aside and walked with her back toward the stand of carriages, opening the letter. it contained these words, if miss harleth is in doubt whether she should accept mr. grandcourt, let her break from her party after they have passed the whispering stones and return to that spot. she will then hear something to decide her; but she can only hear it by keeping this letter a strict secret from every one. if she does not act according to this letter, she will repent, as the woman who writes it has repented. the secrecy miss harleth will feel herself bound in honor to guard. gwendolen felt an inward shock, but her immediate thought was, "it is come in time." it lay in her youthfulness that she was absorbed by the idea of the revelation to be made, and had not even a momentary suspicion of contrivance that could justify her in showing the letter. her mind gathered itself up at once into the resolution, that she would manage to go unobserved to the whispering stones; and thrusting the letter into her pocket she turned back to rejoin the company, with that sense of having something to conceal which to her nature had a bracing quality and helped her to be mistress of herself. it was a surprise to every one that grandcourt was not, like the other smokers, on the spot in time to set out roving with the rest. "we shall alight on him by-and-by," said lord brackenshaw; "he can't be gone far." at any rate, no man could be waited for. this apparent forgetfulness might be taken for the distraction of a lover so absorbed in thinking of the beloved object as to forget an appointment which would bring him into her actual presence. and the good-natured earl gave gwendolen a distant jocose hint to that effect, which she took with suitable quietude. but the thought in her mind was "can he too be starting away from a decision?" it was not exactly a pleasant thought to her; but it was near the truth. "starting away," however, was not the right expression for the languor of intention that came over grandcourt, like a fit of diseased numbness, when an end seemed within easy reach: to desist then, when all expectation was to the contrary, became another gratification of mere will, sublimely independent of definite motive. at that moment he had begun a second large cigar in a vague, hazy obstinacy which, if lush or any other mortal who might be insulted with impunity had interrupted by overtaking him with a request for his return, would have expressed itself by a slow removal of his cigar, to say in an undertone, "you'll be kind enough to go to the devil, will you?" but he was not interrupted, and the rovers set off without any visible depression of spirits, leaving behind only a few of the less vigorous ladies, including mrs. davilow, who preferred a quiet stroll free from obligation to keep up with others. the enjoyment of the day was soon at its highest pitch, the archery getting more spirited and the changing scenes of the forest from roofed grove to open glade growing lovelier with the lengthening shadows, and the deeply-felt but undefinable gradations of the mellowing afternoon. it was agreed that they were playing an extemporized _as you like it_; and when a pretty compliment had been turned to gwendolen about her having the part of rosalind, she felt the more compelled to be surpassing in loveliness. this was not very difficult to her, for the effect of what had happened to-day was an excitement which needed a vent--a sense of adventure rather than alarm, and a straining toward the management of her retreat, so as not to be impeded. the roving had been lasting nearly an hour before the arrival at the whispering stones, two tall conical blocks that leaned toward each other like gigantic gray-mantled figures. they were soon surveyed and passed by with the remark that they would be good ghosts on a starlit night. but a soft sunlight was on them now, and gwendolen felt daring. the stones were near a fine grove of beeches, where the archers found plenty of marks. "how far are we from green arbor now?" said gwendolen, having got in front by the side of the warden. "oh, not more than half a mile, taking along the avenue we're going to cross up there: but i shall take round a couple of miles, by the high cross." she was falling back among the rest, when suddenly they seemed all to be hurrying obliquely forward under the guidance of mr. lush, and lingering a little where she was, she perceived her opportunity of slipping away. soon she was out of sight, and without running she seemed to herself to fly along the ground and count the moments nothing till she found herself back again at the whispering stones. they turned their blank gray sides to her: what was there on the other side? if there were nothing after all? that was her only dread now--to have to turn back again in mystification; and walking round the right-hand stone without pause, she found herself in front of some one whose large dark eyes met hers at a foot's distance. in spite of expectation, she was startled and shrank bank, but in doing so she could take in the whole figure of this stranger and perceive that she was unmistakably a lady, and one who must have been exceedingly handsome. she perceived, also, that a few yards from her were two children seated on the grass. "miss harleth?" said the lady. "yes." all gwendolen's consciousness was wonder. "have you accepted mr. grandcourt?" "no." "i have promised to tell you something. and you will promise to keep my secret. however you may decide you will not tell mr. grandcourt, or any one else, that you have seen me?" "i promise." "my name is lydia glasher. mr. grandcourt ought not to marry any one but me. i left my husband and child for him nine years ago. those two children are his, and we have two others--girls--who are older. my husband is dead now, and mr. grandcourt ought to marry me. he ought to make that boy his heir." she looked at the boy as she spoke, and gwendolen's eyes followed hers. the handsome little fellow was puffing out his cheeks in trying to blow a tiny trumpet which remained dumb. his hat hung backward by a string, and his brown curls caught the sun-rays. he was a cherub. the two women's eyes met again, and gwendolen said proudly, "i will not interfere with your wishes." she looked as if she were shivering, and her lips were pale. "you are very attractive, miss harleth. but when he first knew me, i too was young. since then my life has been broken up and embittered. it is not fair that he should be happy and i miserable, and my boy thrust out of sight for another." these words were uttered with a biting accent, but with a determined abstinence from anything violent in tone or manner. gwendolen, watching mrs. glasher's face while she spoke, felt a sort of terror: it was as if some ghastly vision had come to her in a dream and said, "i am a woman's life." "have you anything more to say to me?" she asked in a low tone, but still proud and coldly. the revulsion within her was not tending to soften her. everyone seemed hateful. "nothing. you know what i wished you to know. you can inquire about me if you like. my husband was colonel glasher." "then i will go," said gwendolen, moving away with a ceremonious inclination, which was returned with equal grace. in a few minutes gwendolen was in the beech grove again but her party had gone out of sight and apparently had not sent in search of her, for all was solitude till she had reached the avenue pointed out by the warden. she determined to take this way back to green arbor, which she reached quickly; rapid movements seeming to her just now a means of suspending the thoughts which might prevent her from behaving with due calm. she had already made up her mind what step she would take. mrs. davilow was of course astonished to see gwendolen returning alone, and was not without some uneasiness which the presence of other ladies hindered her from showing. in answer to her words of surprise gwendolen said, "oh, i have been rather silly. i lingered behind to look at the whispering stones, and the rest hurried on after something, so i lost sight of them. i thought it best to come home by the short way--the avenue that the warden had told me of. i'm not sorry after all. i had had enough walking." "your party did not meet mr. grandcourt, i presume," said mrs. arrowpoint, not without intention. "no," said gwendolen, with a little flash of defiance, and a light laugh. "and we didn't see any carvings on the trees, either. where can he be? i should think he has fallen into the pool or had an apoplectic fit." with all gwendolen's resolve not to betray any agitation, she could not help it that her tone was unusually high and hard, and her mother felt sure that something unpropitious had happened. mrs. arrowpoint thought that the self-confident young lady was much piqued, and that mr. grandcourt was probably seeing reason to change his mind. "if you have no objection, mamma, i will order the carriage," said gwendolen. "i am tired. and every one will be going soon." mrs. davilow assented; but by the time the carriage was announced as ready--the horses having to be fetched from the stables on the warden's premises--the roving party reappeared, and with them mr. grandcourt. "ah, there you are!" said lord brackenshaw, going up to gwendolen, who was arranging her mamma's shawl for the drive. "we thought at first you had alighted on grandcourt and he had taken you home. lush said so. but after that we met grandcourt. however, we didn't suppose you could be in any danger. the warden said he had told you a near way back." "you are going?" said grandcourt, coming up with his usual air, as if he did not conceive that there had been any omission on his part. lord brackenshaw gave place to him and moved away. "yes, we are going," said gwendolen, looking busily at her scarf, which she was arranging across her shoulders scotch fashion. "may i call at offendene to-morrow?" "oh yes, if you like," said gwendolen, sweeping him from a distance with her eyelashes. her voice was light and sharp as the first touch of frost. mrs. davilow accepted his arm to lead her to the carriage; but while that was happening, gwendolen with incredible swiftness had got in advance of them, and had sprung into the carriage. "i got in, mamma, because i wished to be on this side," she said, apologetically. but she had avoided grandcourt's touch: he only lifted his hat and walked away--with the not unsatisfactory impression that she meant to show herself offended by his neglect. the mother and daughter drove for five minutes in silence. then gwendolen said, "i intend to join the langens at dover, mamma. i shall pack up immediately on getting home, and set off by the early train. i shall be at dover almost as soon as they are; we can let them know by telegraph." "good heavens, child! what can be your reason for saying so?" "my reason for saying it, mamma, is that i mean to do it." "but why do you mean to do it?" "i wish to go away." "is it because you are offended with mr. grandcourt's odd behavior in walking off to-day?" "it is useless to enter into such questions. i am not going in any case to marry mr. grandcourt. don't interest yourself further about it." "what can i say to your uncle, gwendolen? consider the position you place me in. you led him to believe only last night that you had made up your mind in favor of mr. grandcourt." "i am very sorry to cause you annoyance, mamma, dear, but i can't help it," said gwendolen, with still harder resistance in her tone. "whatever you or my uncle may think or do, i shall not alter my resolve, and i shall not tell my reason. i don't care what comes of it. i don't care if i never marry any one. there is nothing worth caring for. i believe all men are bad, and i hate them." "but need you set off in this way, gwendolen?" said mrs. davilow, miserable and helpless. "now mamma, don't interfere with me. if you have ever had any trouble in your own life, remember it and don't interfere with me. if i am to be miserable, let it be by my own choice." the mother was reduced to trembling silence. she began to see that the difficulty would be lessened if gwendolen went away. and she did go. the packing was all carefully done that evening, and not long after dawn the next day mrs. davilow accompanied her daughter to the railway station. the sweet dews of morning, the cows and horses looking over the hedges without any particular reason, the early travelers on foot with their bundles, seemed all very melancholy and purposeless to them both. the dingy torpor of the railway station, before the ticket could be taken, was still worse. gwendolen had certainly hardened in the last twenty-four hours: her mother's trouble evidently counted for little in her present state of mind, which did not essentially differ from the mood that makes men take to worse conduct when their belief in persons or things is upset. gwendolen's uncontrolled reading, though consisting chiefly in what are called pictures of life, had somehow not prepared her for this encounter with reality. is that surprising? it is to be believed that attendance at the _opéra bouffe_ in the present day would not leave men's minds entirely without shock, if the manners observed there with some applause were suddenly to start up in their own families. perspective, as its inventor remarked, is a beautiful thing. what horrors of damp huts, where human beings languish, may not become picturesque through aerial distance! what hymning of cancerous vices may we not languish over as sublimest art in the safe remoteness of a strange language and artificial phrase! yet we keep a repugnance to rheumatism and other painful effects when presented in our personal experience. mrs. davilow felt gwendolen's new phase of indifference keenly, and as she drove back alone, the brightening morning was sadder to her than before. mr. grandcourt called that day at offendene, but nobody was at home. chapter xv. "_festina lente_--celerity should be contempered with cunctation."--sir thomas browne. gwendolen, we have seen, passed her time abroad in the new excitement of gambling, and in imagining herself an empress of luck, having brought from her late experience a vague impression that in this confused world it signified nothing what any one did, so that they amused themselves. we have seen, too, that certain persons, mysteriously symbolized as grapnell & co., having also thought of reigning in the realm of luck, and being also bent on amusing themselves, no matter how, had brought about a painful change in her family circumstances; whence she had returned home--carrying with her, against her inclination, a necklace which she had pawned and some one else had redeemed. while she was going back to england, grandcourt was coming to find her; coming, that is, after his own manner--not in haste by express straight from diplow to leubronn, where she was understood to be; but so entirely without hurry that he was induced by the presence of some russian acquaintances to linger at baden-baden and make various appointments with them, which, however, his desire to be at leubronn ultimately caused him to break. grandcourt's passions were of the intermittent, flickering kind: never flaming out strongly. but a great deal of life goes on without strong passion: myriads of cravats are carefully tied, dinners attended, even speeches made proposing the health of august personages without the zest arising from a strong desire. and a man may make a good appearance in high social positions--may be supposed to know the classics, to have his reserves on science, a strong though repressed opinion on politics, and all the sentiments of the english gentleman, at a small expense of vital energy. also, he may be obstinate or persistent at the same low rate, and may even show sudden impulses which have a false air of daemonic strength because they seem inexplicable, though perhaps their secret lies merely in the want of regulated channels for the soul to move in--good and sufficient ducts of habit without which our nature easily turns to mere ooze and mud, and at any pressure yields nothing but a spurt or a puddle. grandcourt had not been altogether displeased by gwendolen's running away from the splendid chance he was holding out to her. the act had some piquancy for him. he liked to think that it was due to resentment of his careless behavior in cardell chase, which, when he came to consider it, did appear rather cool. to have brought her so near a tender admission, and then to have walked headlong away from further opportunities of winning the consent which he had made her understand him to be asking for, was enough to provoke a girl of spirit; and to be worth his mastering it was proper that she should have some spirit. doubtless she meant him to follow her, and it was what he meant too. but for a whole week he took no measures toward starting, and did not even inquire where miss harleth was gone. mr. lush felt a triumph that was mingled with much distrust; for grandcourt had said no word to him about her, and looked as neutral as an alligator; there was no telling what might turn up in the slowly-churning chances of his mind. still, to have put off a decision was to have made room for the waste of grandcourt's energy. the guests at diplow felt more curiosity than their host. how was it that nothing more was heard of miss harleth? was it credible that she had refused mr. grandcourt? lady flora hollis, a lively middle-aged woman, well endowed with curiosity, felt a sudden interest in making a round of calls with mrs. torrington, including the rectory, offendene, and quetcham, and thus not only got twice over, but also discussed with the arrowpoints, the information that miss harleth was gone to leubronn, with some old friends, the baron and baroness von langen; for the immediate agitation and disappointment of mrs. davilow and the gascoignes had resolved itself into a wish that gwendolen's disappearance should not be interpreted as anything eccentric or needful to be kept secret. the rector's mind, indeed, entertained the possibility that the marriage was only a little deferred, for mrs. davilow had not dared to tell him of the bitter determination with which gwendolen had spoken. and in spite of his practical ability, some of his experience had petrified into maxims and quotations. amaryllis fleeing desired that her hiding-place should be known; and that love will find out the way "over the mountain and over the wave" may be said without hyperbole in this age of steam. gwendolen, he conceived, was an amaryllis of excellent sense but coquettish daring; the question was whether she had dared too much. lady flora, coming back charged with news about miss harleth, saw no good reason why she should not try whether she could electrify mr. grandcourt by mentioning it to him at the table; and in doing so shot a few hints of a notion having got abroad that he was a disappointed adorer. grandcourt heard with quietude, but with attention; and the next day he ordered lush to bring about a decent reason for breaking up the party at diplow by the end of another week, as he meant to go yachting to the baltic or somewhere--it being impossible to stay at diplow as if he were a prisoner on parole, with a set of people whom he had never wanted. lush needed no clearer announcement that grandcourt was going to leubronn; but he might go after the manner of a creeping billiard-ball and stick on the way. what mr. lush intended was to make himself indispensable so that he might go too, and he succeeded; gwendolen's repulsion for him being a fact that only amused his patron, and made him none the less willing to have lush always at hand. this was how it happened that grandcourt arrived at the _czarina_ on the fifth day after gwendolen had left leubronn, and found there his uncle, sir hugo mallinger, with his family, including deronda. it is not necessarily a pleasure either to the reigning power or the heir presumptive when their separate affairs--a touch of gout, say, in the one, and a touch of willfulness in the other--happen to bring them to the same spot. sir hugo was an easy-tempered man, tolerant both of differences and defects; but a point of view different from his own concerning the settlement of the family estates fretted him rather more than if it had concerned church discipline or the ballot, and faults were the less venial for belonging to a person whose existence was inconvenient to him. in no case could grandcourt have been a nephew after his own heart; but as the presumptive heir to the mallinger estates he was the sign and embodiment of a chief grievance in the baronet's life--the want of a son to inherit the lands, in no portion of which had he himself more than a life-interest. for in the ill-advised settlement which his father, sir francis, had chosen to make by will, even diplow with its modicum of land had been left under the same conditions as the ancient and wide inheritance of the two toppings--diplow, where sir hugo had lived and hunted through many a season in his younger years, and where his wife and daughters ought to have been able to retire after his death. this grievance had naturally gathered emphasis as the years advanced, and lady mallinger, after having had three daughters in quick succession, had remained for eight years till now that she was over forty without producing so much as another girl; while sir hugo, almost twenty years older, was at a time of life when, notwithstanding the fashionable retardation of most things from dinners to marriages, a man's hopefulness is apt to show signs of wear, until restored by second childhood. in fact, he had begun to despair of a son, and this confirmation of grandcourt's interest in the estates certainly tended to make his image and presence the more unwelcome; but, on the other hand, it carried circumstances which disposed sir hugo to take care that the relation between them should be kept as friendly as possible. it led him to dwell on a plan which had grown up side by side with his disappointment of an heir; namely, to try and secure diplow as a future residence for lady mallinger and her daughters, and keep this pretty bit of the family inheritance for his own offspring in spite of that disappointment. such knowledge as he had of his nephew's disposition and affairs encouraged the belief that grandcourt might consent to a transaction by which he would get a good sum of ready money, as an equivalent for his prospective interest in the domain of diplow and the moderate amount of land attached to it. if, after all, the unhoped-for son should be born, the money would have been thrown away, and grandcourt would have been paid for giving up interests that had turned out good for nothing; but sir hugo set down this risk as _nil_, and of late years he had husbanded his fortune so well by the working of mines and the sale of leases that he was prepared for an outlay. here was an object that made him careful to avoid any quarrel with grandcourt. some years before, when he was making improvements at the abbey, and needed grandcourt's concurrence in his felling an obstructive mass of timber on the demesne, he had congratulated himself on finding that there was no active spite against him in his nephew's peculiar mind; and nothing had since occurred to make them hate each other more than was compatible with perfect politeness, or with any accommodation that could be strictly mutual. grandcourt, on his side, thought his uncle a superfluity and a bore, and felt that the list of things in general would be improved whenever sir hugo came to be expunged. but he had been made aware through lush, always a useful medium, of the baronet's inclinations concerning diplow, and he was gratified to have the alternative of the money in his mind: even if he had not thought it in the least likely that he would choose to accept it, his sense of power would have been flattered by his being able to refuse what sir hugo desired. the hinted transaction had told for something among the motives which had made him ask for a year's tenancy of diplow, which it had rather annoyed sir hugo to grant, because the excellent hunting in the neighborhood might decide grandcourt not to part with his chance of future possession;--a man who has two places, in one of which the hunting is less good, naturally desiring a third where it is better. also, lush had thrown out to sir hugo the probability that grandcourt would woo and win miss arrowpoint, and in that case ready money might be less of a temptation to him. hence, on this unexpected meeting at leubronn, the baronet felt much curiosity to know how things had been going on at diplow, was bent on being as civil as possible to his nephew, and looked forward to some private chat with lush. between deronda and grandcourt there was a more faintly-marked but peculiar relation, depending on circumstances which have yet to be made known. but on no side was there any sign of suppressed chagrin on the first meeting at the _table d'hôte_, an hour after grandcourt's arrival; and when the quartette of gentlemen afterward met on the terrace, without lady mallinger, they moved off together to saunter through the rooms, sir hugo saying as they entered the large _saal_, "did you play much at baden, grandcourt?" "no; i looked on and betted a little with some russians there." "had you luck?" "what did i win, lush?" "you brought away about two hundred," said lush. "you are not here for the sake of the play, then?" said sir hugo. "no; i don't care about play now. it's a confounded strain," said grandcourt, whose diamond ring and demeanor, as he moved along playing slightly with his whisker, were being a good deal stared at by rouged foreigners interested in a new milord. "the fact is, somebody should invent a mill to do amusements for you, my dear fellow," said sir hugo, "as the tartars get their praying done. but i agree with you; i never cared for play. it's monotonous--knits the brain up into meshes. and it knocks me up to watch it now. i suppose one gets poisoned with the bad air. i never stay here more than ten minutes. but where's your gambling beauty, deronda? have you seen her lately?" "she's gone," said deronda, curtly. "an uncommonly fine girl, a perfect diana," said sir hugo, turning to grandcourt again. "really worth a little straining to look at her. i saw her winning, and she took it as coolly as if she had known it all beforehand. the same day deronda happened to see her losing like wildfire, and she bore it with immense pluck. i suppose she was cleaned out, or was wise enough to stop in time. how do you know she's gone?" "oh, by the visitor-list,..." said deronda, with a scarcely perceptible shrug. "vandernoodt told me her name was harleth, and she was with the baron and baroness von langen. i saw by the list that miss harleth was no longer there." this held no further information for lush than that gwendolen had been gambling. he had already looked at the list, and ascertained that gwendolen had gone, but he had no intention of thrusting this knowledge on grandcourt before he asked for it; and he had not asked, finding it enough to believe that the object of search would turn up somewhere or other. but now grandcourt had heard what was rather piquant, and not a word about miss harleth had been missed by him. after a moment's pause he said to deronda, "do you know those people--the langens?" "i have talked with them a little since miss harleth went away. i knew nothing of them before." "where is she gone--do you know?" "she is gone home," said deronda, coldly, as if he wished to say no more. but then, from a fresh impulse, he turned to look markedly at grandcourt, and added, "but it is possible you know her. her home is not far from diplow: offendene, near winchester." deronda, turning to look straight at grandcourt, who was on his left hand, might have been a subject for those old painters who liked contrasts of temperament. there was a calm intensity of life and richness of tint in his face that on a sudden gaze from him was rather startling, and often made him seem to have spoken, so that servants and officials asked him automatically, "what did you say, sir?" when he had been quite silent. grandcourt himself felt an irritation, which he did not show except by a slight movement of the eyelids, at deronda's turning round on him when he was not asked to do more than speak. but he answered, with his usual drawl, "yes, i know her," and paused with his shoulder toward deronda, to look at the gambling. "what of her, eh?" asked sir hugo of lush, as the three moved on a little way. "she must be a new-comer at offendene. old blenny lived there after the dowager died." "a little too much of her," said lush, in a low, significant tone; not sorry to let sir hugo know the state of affairs. "why? how?" said the baronet. they all moved out of the _salon_ into an airy promenade. "he has been on the brink of marrying her," lush went on. "but i hope it's off now. she's a niece of the clergyman--gascoigne--at pennicote. her mother is a widow with a brood of daughters. this girl will have nothing, and is as dangerous as gunpowder. it would be a foolish marriage. but she has taken a freak against him, for she ran off here without notice, when he had agreed to call the next day. the fact is, he's here after her; but he was in no great hurry, and between his caprice and hers they are likely enough not to get together again. but of course he has lost his chance with the heiress." grandcourt joining them said, "what a beastly den this is!--a worse hole than baden. i shall go back to the hotel." when sir hugo and deronda were alone, the baronet began, "rather a pretty story. that girl has something in her. she must be worth running after--has _de l'imprévu_. i think her appearance on the scene has bettered my chance of getting diplow, whether the marriage comes off or not." "i should hope a marriage like that would not come off," said deronda, in a tone of disgust. "what! are you a little touched with the sublime lash?" said sir hugo, putting up his glasses to help his short sight in looking at his companion. "are you inclined to run after her?" "on the contrary," said deronda, "i should rather be inclined to run away from her." "why, you would easily cut out grandcourt. a girl with her spirit would think you the finer match of the two," said sir hugo, who often tried deronda's patience by finding a joke in impossible advice. (a difference of taste in jokes is a great strain on the affections.) "i suppose pedigree and land belong to a fine match," said deronda, coldly. "the best horse will win in spite of pedigree, my boy. you remember napoleon's _mot--je suis un ancêtre_" said sir hugo, who habitually undervalued birth, as men after dining well often agree that the good of life is distributed with wonderful equality. "i am not sure that i want to be an ancestor," said deronda. "it doesn't seem to me the rarest sort of origination." "you won't run after the pretty gambler, then?" said sir hugo, putting down his glasses. "decidedly not." this answer was perfectly truthful; nevertheless it had passed through deronda's mind that under other circumstances he should have given way to the interest this girl had raised in him, and tried to know more of her. but his history had given him a stronger bias in another direction. he felt himself in no sense free. chapter xvi. men, like planets, have both a visible and an invisible history. the astronomer threads the darkness with strict deduction, accounting so for every visible arc in the wanderer's orbit; and the narrator of human actions, if he did his work with the same completeness, would have to thread the hidden pathways of feeling and thought which lead up to every moment of action, and to those moments of intense suffering which take the quality of action--like the cry of prometheus, whose chained anguish seems a greater energy than the sea and sky he invokes and the deity he defies. deronda's circumstances, indeed, had been exceptional. one moment had been burned into his life as its chief epoch--a moment full of july sunshine and large pink roses shedding their last petals on a grassy court enclosed on three sides by a gothic cloister. imagine him in such a scene: a boy of thirteen, stretched prone on the grass where it was in shadow, his curly head propped on his arms over a book, while his tutor, also reading, sat on a camp-stool under shelter. deronda's book was sismondi's _history of the italian republics_; the lad had a passion for history, eager to know how time had been filled up since the flood, and how things were carried on in the dull periods. suddenly he let down his left arm and looked at his tutor, saying in purest boyish tones, "mr. fraser, how was it that the popes and cardinals always had so many nephews?" the tutor, an able young scotchman, who acted as sir hugo mallinger's secretary, roused rather unwillingly from his political economy, answered with the clear-cut emphatic chant which makes a truth doubly telling in scotch utterance, "their own children were called nephews." "why?" said deronda. "it was just for the propriety of the thing; because, as you know very well, priests don't marry, and the children were illegitimate." mr. fraser, thrusting out his lower lip and making his chant of the last word the more emphatic for a little impatience at being interrupted, had already turned his eyes on his book again, while deronda, as if something had stung him, started up in a sitting attitude with his back to the tutor. he had always called sir hugo mallinger his uncle, and when it once occurred to him to ask about his father and mother, the baronet had answered, "you lost your father and mother when you were quite a little one; that is why i take care of you." daniel then straining to discern something in that early twilight, had a dim sense of having been kissed very much, and surrounded by thin, cloudy, scented drapery, till his fingers caught in something hard, which hurt him, and he began to cry. every other memory he had was of the little world in which he still lived. and at that time he did not mind about learning more, for he was too fond of sir hugo to be sorry for the loss of unknown parents. life was very delightful to the lad, with an uncle who was always indulgent and cheerful--a fine man in the bright noon of life, whom daniel thought absolutely perfect, and whose place was one of the finest in england, at once historical, romantic, and home-like: a picturesque architectural outgrowth from an abbey, which had still remnants of the old monastic trunk. diplow lay in another county, and was a comparatively landless place which had come into the family from a rich lawyer on the female side who wore the perruque of the restoration; whereas the mallingers had the grant of monk's topping under henry the eighth, and ages before had held the neighboring lands of king's topping, tracing indeed their origin to a certain hugues le malingre, who came in with the conqueror--and also apparently with a sickly complexion which had been happily corrected in his descendants. two rows of these descendants, direct and collateral, females of the male line, and males of the female, looked down in the gallery over the cloisters on the nephew daniel as he walked there: men in armor with pointed beards and arched eyebrows, pinched ladies in hoops and ruffs with no face to speak of; grave-looking men in black velvet and stuffed hips, and fair, frightened women holding little boys by the hand; smiling politicians in magnificent perruques, and ladies of the prize-animal kind, with rosebud mouths and full eyelids, according to lely; then a generation whose faces were revised and embellished in the taste of kneller; and so on through refined editions of the family types in the time of reynolds and romney, till the line ended with sir hugo and his younger brother henleigh. this last had married miss grandcourt, and taken her name along with her estates, thus making a junction between two equally old families, impaling the three saracens' heads proper and three bezants of the one with the tower and falcons _argent_ of the other, and, as it happened, uniting their highest advantages in the prospects of that henleigh mallinger grandcourt who is at present more of an acquaintance to us than either sir hugo or his nephew daniel deronda. in sir hugo's youthful portrait with rolled collar and high cravat, sir thomas lawrence had done justice to the agreeable alacrity of expression and sanguine temperament still to be seen in the original, but had done something more than justice in slightly lengthening the nose, which was in reality shorter than might have been expected in a mallinger. happily the appropriate nose of the family reappeared in his younger brother, and was to be seen in all its refined regularity in his nephew mallinger grandcourt. but in the nephew daniel deronda the family faces of various types, seen on the walls of the gallery, found no reflex. still he was handsomer than any of them, and when he was thirteen might have served as model for any painter who wanted to image the most memorable of boys: you could hardly have seen his face thoroughly meeting yours without believing that human creatures had done nobly in times past, and might do more nobly in time to come. the finest childlike faces have this consecrating power, and make us shudder anew at all the grossness and basely-wrought griefs of the world, lest they should enter here and defile. but at this moment on the grass among the rose-petals, daniel deronda was making a first acquaintance with those griefs. a new idea had entered his mind, and was beginning to change the aspect of his habitual feelings as happy careless voyagers are changed with the sky suddenly threatened and the thought of danger arises. he sat perfectly still with his back to the tutor, while his face expressed rapid inward transition. the deep blush, which had come when he first started up, gradually subsided; but his features kept that indescribable look of subdued activity which often accompanies a new mental survey of familiar facts. he had not lived with other boys, and his mind showed the same blending of child's ignorance with surprising knowledge which is oftener seen in bright girls. having read shakespeare as well as a great deal of history, he could have talked with the wisdom of a bookish child about men who were born out of wedlock and were held unfortunate in consequence, being under disadvantages which required them to be a sort of heroes if they were to work themselves up to an equal standing with their legally born brothers. but he had never brought such knowledge into any association with his own lot, which had been too easy for him ever to think about it--until this moment when there had darted into his mind with the magic of quick comparison, the possibility that here was the secret of his own birth, and that the man whom he called uncle was really his father. some children, even younger than daniel, have known the first arrival of care, like an ominous irremovable guest in their tender lives, on the discovery that their parents, whom they had imagined able to buy everything, were poor and in hard money troubles. daniel felt the presence of a new guest who seemed to come with an enigmatic veiled face, and to carry dimly-conjectured, dreaded revelations. the ardor which he had given to the imaginary world in his books suddenly rushed toward his own history and spent its pictorial energy there, explaining what he knew, representing the unknown. the uncle whom he loved very dearly took the aspect of a father who held secrets about him--who had done him a wrong--yes, a wrong: and what had become of his mother, for whom he must have been taken away?--secrets about which he, daniel, could never inquire; for to speak or to be spoken to about these new thoughts seemed like falling flakes of fire to his imagination. those who have known an impassioned childhood will understand this dread of utterance about any shame connected with their parents. the impetuous advent of new images took possession of him with the force of fact for the first time told, and left him no immediate power for the reflection that he might be trembling at a fiction of his own. the terrible sense of collision between a strong rush of feeling and the dread of its betrayal, found relief at length in big slow tears, which fell without restraint until the voice of mr. fraser was heard saying: "daniel, do you see that you are sitting on the bent pages of your book?" daniel immediately moved the book without turning round, and after holding it before him for an instant, rose with it and walked away into the open grounds, where he could dry his tears unobserved. the first shock of suggestion past, he could remember that he had no certainty how things really had been, and that he had been making conjectures about his own history, as he had often made stories about pericles or columbus, just to fill up the blanks before they became famous. only there came back certain facts which had an obstinate reality, almost like the fragments of a bridge, telling you unmistakably how the arches lay. and again there came a mood in which his conjectures seemed like a doubt of religion, to be banished as an offense, and a mean prying after what he was not meant to know; for there was hardly a delicacy of feeling this lad was not capable of. but the summing-up of all his fluctuating experience at this epoch was, that a secret impression had come to him which had given him something like a new sense in relation to all the elements of his life. and the idea that others probably knew things concerning which they did not choose to mention, set up in him a premature reserve which helped to intensify his inward experience. his ears open now to words which before that july day would have passed by him unnoted; and round every trivial incident which imagination could connect with his suspicions, a newly-roused set of feelings were ready to cluster themselves. one such incident a month later wrought itself deeply into his life. daniel had not only one of those thrilling boy voices which seem to bring an idyllic heaven and earth before our eyes, but a fine musical instinct, and had early made out accompaniments for himself on the piano, while he sang from memory. since then he had had some teaching, and sir hugo, who delighted in the boy, used to ask for his music in the presence of guests. one morning after he had been singing "sweet echo" before a small party of gentlemen whom the rain had kept in the house, the baronet, passing from a smiling remark to his next neighbor said: "come here, dan!" the boy came forward with unusual reluctance. he wore an embroidered holland blouse which set off the rich coloring of his head and throat, and the resistant gravity about his mouth and eyes as he was being smiled upon, made their beauty the more impressive. every one was admiring him. "what do you say to being a great singer? should you like to be adored by the world and take the house by storm, like mario and tamberlik?" daniel reddened instantaneously, but there was a just perceptible interval before he answered with angry decision, "no; i should hate it!" "well, well, well!" said sir hugo, with surprised kindliness intended to be soothing. but daniel turned away quickly, left the room, and going to his own chamber threw himself on the broad window-sill, which was a favorite retreat of his when he had nothing particular to do. here he could see the rain gradually subsiding with gleams through the parting clouds which lit up a great reach of the park, where the old oaks stood apart from each other, and the bordering wood was pierced with a green glade which met the eastern sky. this was a scene which had always been part of his home--part of the dignified ease which had been a matter of course in his life. and his ardent clinging nature had appropriated it all with affection. he knew a great deal of what it was to be a gentleman by inheritance, and without thinking much about himself--for he was a boy of active perceptions and easily forgot his own existence in that of robert bruce--he had never supposed that he could be shut out from such a lot, or have a very different part in the world from that of the uncle who petted him. it is possible (though not greatly believed in at present) to be fond of poverty and take it for a bride, to prefer scoured deal, red quarries and whitewash for one's private surroundings, to delight in no splendor but what has open doors for the whole nation, and to glory in having no privileges except such as nature insists on; and noblemen have been known to run away from elaborate ease and the option of idleness, that they might bind themselves for small pay to hard-handed labor. but daniel's tastes were altogether in keeping with his nurture: his disposition was one in which everyday scenes and habits beget not _ennui_ or rebellion, but delight, affection, aptitudes; and now the lad had been stung to the quick by the idea that his uncle--perhaps his father--thought of a career for him which was totally unlike his own, and which he knew very well was not thought of among possible destinations for the sons of english gentlemen. he had often stayed in london with sir hugo, who to indulge the boy's ear had carried him to the opera to hear the great tenors, so that the image of a singer taking the house by storm was very vivid to him; but now, spite of his musical gift, he set himself bitterly against the notion of being dressed up to sing before all those fine people, who would not care about him except as a wonderful toy. that sir hugo should have thought of him in that position for a moment, seemed to daniel an unmistakable proof that there was something about his birth which threw him out from the class of gentlemen to which the baronet belonged. would it ever be mentioned to him? would the time come when his uncle would tell him everything? he shrank from the prospect: in his imagination he preferred ignorance. if his father had been wicked--daniel inwardly used strong words, for he was feeling the injury done him as a maimed boy feels the crushed limb which for others is merely reckoned in an average of accidents--if his father had done any wrong, he wished it might never be spoken of to him: it was already a cutting thought that such knowledge might be in other minds. was it in mr. fraser's? probably not, else he would not have spoken in that way about the pope's nephews. daniel fancied, as older people do, that every one else's consciousness was as active as his own on a matter which was vital to him. did turvey the valet know?--and old mrs. french the housekeeper?--and banks the bailiff, with whom he had ridden about the farms on his pony?--and now there came back the recollection of a day some years before when he was drinking mrs. banks's whey, and banks said to his wife with a wink and a cunning laugh, "he features the mother, eh?" at that time little daniel had merely thought that banks made a silly face, as the common farming men often did, laughing at what was not laughable; and he rather resented being winked at and talked of as if he did not understand everything. but now that small incident became information: it was to be reasoned on. how could he be like his mother and not like his father? his mother must have been a mallinger, if sir hugo were his uncle. but no! his father might have been sir hugo's brother and have changed his name, as mr. henleigh mallinger did when he married miss grandcourt. but then, why had he never heard sir hugo speak of his brother deronda, as he spoke of his brother grandcourt? daniel had never before cared about the family tree--only about that ancestor who had killed three saracens in one encounter. but now his mind turned to a cabinet of estate-maps in the library, where he had once seen an illuminated parchment hanging out, that sir hugo said was the family tree. the phrase was new and odd to him--he was a little fellow then--hardly more than half his present age--and he gave it no precise meaning. he knew more now and wished that he could examine that parchment. he imagined that the cabinet was always locked, and longed to try it. but here he checked himself. he might be seen: and he would never bring himself near even a silent admission of the sore that had opened in him. it is in such experiences of a boy or girlhood, while elders are debating whether most education lies in science or literature, that the main lines of character are often laid down. if daniel had been of a less ardently affectionate nature, the reserve about himself and the supposition that others had something to his disadvantage in their minds, might have turned into a hard, proud antagonism. but inborn lovingness was strong enough to keep itself level with resentment. there was hardly any creature in his habitual world that he was not fond of; teasing them occasionally, of course--all except his uncle, or "nunc," as sir hugo had taught him to say; for the baronet was the reverse of a strait-laced man, and left his dignity to take care of itself. him daniel loved in that deep-rooted filial way which makes children always the happier for being in the same room with father or mother, though their occupations may be quite apart. sir hugo's watch-chain and seals, his handwriting, his mode of smoking and of talking to his dogs and horses, had all a rightness and charm about them to the boy which went along with the happiness of morning and breakfast time. that sir hugo had always been a whig, made tories and radicals equally opponents of the truest and best; and the books he had written were all seen under the same consecration of loving belief which differenced what was his from what was not his, in spite of general resemblance. those writings were various, from volumes of travel in the brilliant style, to articles on things in general, and pamphlets on political crises; but to daniel they were alike in having an unquestionable rightness by which other people's information could be tested. who cannot imagine the bitterness of a first suspicion that something in this object of complete love was _not_ quite right? children demand that their heroes should be fleckless, and easily believe them so: perhaps a first discovery to the contrary is hardly a less revolutionary shock to a passionate child than the threatened downfall of habitual beliefs which makes the world seem to totter for us in maturer life. but some time after this renewal of daniel's agitation it appeared that sir hugo must have been making a merely playful experiment in his question about the singing. he sent for daniel into the library, and looking up from his writing as the boy entered threw himself sideways in his armchair. "ah, dan!" he said kindly, drawing one of the old embroidered stools close to him. "come and sit down here." daniel obeyed, and sir hugo put a gentle hand on his shoulder, looking at him affectionately. "what is it, my boy? have you heard anything that has put you out of spirits lately?" daniel was determined not to let the tears come, but he could not speak. "all changes are painful when people have been happy, you know," said sir hugo, lifting his hand from the boy's shoulder to his dark curls and rubbing them gently. "you can't be educated exactly as i wish you to be without our parting. and i think you will find a great deal to like at school." this was not what daniel expected, and was so far a relief, which gave him spirit to answer, "am i to go to school?" "yes, i mean you to go to eton. i wish you to have the education of an english gentleman; and for that it is necessary that you should go to a public school in preparation for the university: cambridge i mean you to go to; it was my own university." daniel's color came and went. "what do you say, sirrah?" said sir hugo, smiling. "i should like to be a gentleman," said daniel, with firm distinctness, "and go to school, if that is what a gentleman's son must do." sir hugo watched him silently for a few moments, thinking he understood now why the lad had seemed angry at the notion of becoming a singer. then he said tenderly, "and so you won't mind about leaving your old nunc?" "yes, i shall," said daniel, clasping sir hugo's caressing arm with both his hands. "but sha'n't i come home and be with you in the holidays?" "oh yes, generally," said sir hugo. "but now i mean you to go at once to a new tutor, to break the change for you before you go to eton." after this interview daniel's spirit rose again. he was meant to be a gentleman, and in some unaccountable way it might be that his conjectures were all wrong. the very keenness of the lad taught him to find comfort in his ignorance. while he was busying his mind in the construction of possibilities, it became plain to him that there must be possibilities of which he knew nothing. he left off brooding, young joy and the spirit of adventure not being easily quenched within him, and in the interval before his going away he sang about the house, danced among the old servants, making them parting gifts, and insisted many times to the groom on the care that was to be taken of the black pony. "do you think i shall know much less than the other boys, mr. fraser?" said daniel. it was his bent to think that every stranger would be surprised at his ignorance. "there are dunces to be found everywhere," said the judicious fraser. "you'll not be the biggest; but you've not the makings of a porson in you, or a leibnitz either." "i don't want to be a porson or a leibnitz," said daniel. "i would rather be a greater leader, like pericles or washington." "ay, ay; you've a notion they did with little parsing, and less algebra," said fraser. but in reality he thought his pupil a remarkable lad, to whom one thing was as easy as another, if he had only a mind to it. things went on very well with daniel in his new world, except that a boy with whom he was at once inclined to strike up a close friendship talked to him a great deal about his home and parents, and seemed to expect a like expansiveness in return. daniel immediately shrank into reserve, and this experience remained a check on his naturally strong bent toward the formation of intimate friendship. every one, his tutor included, set him down as a reserved boy, though he was so good-humored and unassuming, as well as quick, both at study and sport, that nobody called his reserve disagreeable. certainly his face had a great deal to do with that favorable interpretation; but in this instance the beauty of the closed lips told no falsehood. a surprise that came to him before his first vacation strengthened the silent consciousness of a grief within, which might be compared in some ways with byron's susceptibility about his deformed foot. sir hugo wrote word that he was married to miss raymond, a sweet lady, whom daniel must remember having seen. the event would make no difference about his spending the vacation at the abbey; he would find lady mallinger a new friend whom he would be sure to love--and much more to the usual effect when a man, having done something agreeable to himself, is disposed to congratulate others on his own good fortune, and the deducible satisfactoriness of events in general. let sir hugo be partly excused until the grounds of his action can be more fully known. the mistakes in his behavior to deronda were due to that dullness toward what may be going on in other minds, especially the minds of children, which is among the commonest deficiencies, even in good-natured men like him, when life has been generally easy to themselves, and their energies have been quietly spent in feeling gratified. no one was better aware than he that daniel was generally suspected to be his own son. but he was pleased with that suspicion; and his imagination had never once been troubled with the way in which the boy himself might be affected, either then or in the future, by the enigmatic aspect of his circumstances. he was as fond of him as could be, and meant the best by him. and, considering the lightness with which the preparation of young lives seem to lie on respectable consciences, sir hugo mallinger can hardly be held open to exceptional reproach. he had been a bachelor till he was five-and-forty, had always been regarded as a fascinating man of elegant tastes; what could be more natural, even according to the index of language, than that he should have a beautiful boy like the little deronda to take care of? the mother might even, perhaps, be in the great world--met with in sir hugo's residence abroad. the only person to feel any objection was the boy himself, who could not have been consulted. and the boy's objections had never been dreamed of by anybody but himself. by the time deronda was ready to go to cambridge, lady mallinger had already three daughters--charming babies, all three, but whose sex was announced as a melancholy alternative, the offspring desired being a son; if sir hugo had no son the succession must go to his nephew, mallinger grandcourt. daniel no longer held a wavering opinion about his own birth. his fuller knowledge had tended to convince him that sir hugo was his father, and he conceived that the baronet, since he never approached a communication on the subject, wished him to have a tacit understanding of the fact, and to accept in silence what would be generally considered more than the due love and nurture. sir hugo's marriage might certainly have been felt as a new ground of resentment by some youths in deronda's position, and the timid lady mallinger with her fast-coming little ones might have been images to scowl at, as likely to divert much that was disposable in the feelings and possessions of the baronet from one who felt his own claim to be prior. but hatred of innocent human obstacles was a form of moral stupidity not in deronda's grain; even the indignation which had long mingled itself with his affection for sir hugo took the quality of pain rather than of temper; and as his mind ripened to the idea of tolerance toward error, he habitually liked the idea with his own silent grievances. the sense of an entailed disadvantage--the deformed foot doubtfully hidden by the shoe, makes a restlessly active spiritual yeast, and easily turns a self-centered, unloving nature into an ishmaelite. but in the rarer sort, who presently see their own frustrated claim as one among a myriad, the inexorable sorrow takes the form of fellowship and makes the imagination tender. deronda's early-weakened susceptibility, charged at first with ready indignation and resistant pride, had raised in him a premature reflection on certain questions of life; it had given a bias to his conscience, a sympathy with certain ills, and a tension of resolve in certain directions, who marked him off from other youths much more than any talents he possessed. one day near the end of the long vacation, when he had been making a tour in the rhineland with his eton tutor, and was come for a farewell stay at the abbey before going to cambridge, he said to sir hugo, "what do you intend me to be, sir?" they were in the library, and it was the fresh morning. sir hugo had called him in to read a letter from a cambridge don who was to be interested in him; and since the baronet wore an air at once business-like and leisurely, the moment seemed propitious for entering on a grave subject which had never yet been thoroughly discussed. "whatever your inclination leads you to, my boy. i thought it right to give you the option of the army, but you shut the door on that, and i was glad. i don't expect you to choose just yet--by-and-by, when you have looked about you a little more and tried your mettle among older men. the university has a good wide opening into the forum. there are prizes to be won, and a bit of good fortune often gives the turn to a man's taste. from what i see and hear, i should think you can take up anything you like. you are in the deeper water with your classics than i ever got into, and if you are rather sick of that swimming, cambridge is the place where you can go into mathematics with a will, and disport yourself on the dry sand as much as you like. i floundered along like a carp." "i suppose money will make some difference, sir," said daniel blushing. "i shall have to keep myself by-and-by." "not exactly. i recommend you not to be extravagant--yes, yes, i know--you are not inclined to that--but you need not take up anything against the grain. you will have a bachelor's income--enough for you to look about with. perhaps i had better tell you that you may consider yourself secure of seven hundred a year. you might make yourself a barrister--be a writer--take up politics. i confess that is what would please me best. i should like to have you at my elbow and pulling with me." deronda looked embarrassed. he felt that he ought to make some sign of gratitude, but other feelings clogged his tongue. a moment was passing by in which a question about his birth was throbbing within him, and yet it seemed more impossible than ever that the question should find vent--more impossible than ever that he could hear certain things from sir hugo's lips. the liberal way in which he was dealt with was the more striking because the baronet had of late cared particularly for money, and for making the utmost of his life-interest in the estate by way of providing for his daughters; and as all this flashed through daniel's mind it was momentarily within his imagination that the provision for him might come in some way from his mother. but such vaporous conjecture passed away as quickly as it came. sir hugo appeared not to notice anything peculiar in daniel's manner, and presently went on with his usual chatty liveliness. "i am glad you have done some good reading outside your classics, and have got a grip of french and german. the truth is, unless a man can get the prestige and income of a don and write donnish books, it's hardly worth while for him to make a greek and latin machine of himself and be able to spin you out pages of the greek dramatists at any verse you'll give him as a cue. that's all very fine, but in practical life nobody does give you the cue for pages of greek. in fact, it's a nicety of conversation which i would have you attend to--much quotation of any sort, even in english is bad. it tends to choke ordinary remark. one couldn't carry on life comfortably without a little blindness to the fact that everything had been said better than we can put it ourselves. but talking of dons, i have seen dons make a capital figure in society; and occasionally he can shoot you down a cart-load of learning in the right place, which will tell in politics. such men are wanted; and if you have any turn for being a don, i say nothing against it." "i think there's not much chance of that. quicksett and puller are both stronger than i am. i hope you will not be much disappointed if i don't come out with high honors." "no, no. i should like you to do yourself credit, but for god's sake don't come out as a superior expensive kind of idiot, like young brecon, who got a double first, and has been learning to knit braces ever since. what i wish you to get is a passport in life. i don't go against our university system: we want a little disinterested culture to make head against cotton and capital, especially in the house. my greek has all evaporated; if i had to construe a verse on a sudden, i should get an apoplectic fit. but it formed my taste. i dare say my english is the better for it." on this point daniel kept a respectful silence. the enthusiastic belief in sir hugo's writings as a standard, and in the whigs as the chosen race among politicians, had gradually vanished along with the seraphic boy's face. he had not been the hardest of workers at eton. though some kinds of study and reading came as easily as boating to him, he was not of the material that usually makes the first-rate eton scholar. there had sprung up in him a meditative yearning after wide knowledge which is likely always to abate ardor in the fight for prize acquirement in narrow tracks. happily he was modest, and took any second-rateness in himself simply as a fact, not as a marvel necessarily to be accounted for by a superiority. still, mr. fraser's high opinion of the lad had not been altogether belied by the youth: daniel had the stamp of rarity in a subdued fervor of sympathy, an activity of imagination on behalf of others which did not show itself effusively, but was continually seen in acts of considerateness that struck his companions as moral eccentricity. "deronda would have been first-rate if he had had more ambition," was a frequent remark about him. but how could a fellow push his way properly when he objected to swop for his own advantage, knocked under by choice when he was within an inch of victory, and, unlike the great clive, would rather be the calf than the butcher? it was a mistake, however, to suppose that deronda had not his share of ambition. we know he had suffered keenly from the belief that there was a tinge of dishonor in his lot; but there are some cases, and his was one of them, in which the sense of injury breeds--not the will to inflict injuries and climb over them as a ladder, but, a hatred of all injury. he had his flashes of fierceness and could hit out upon occasion, but the occasions were not always what might have been expected. for in what related to himself his resentful impulses had been early checked by a mastering affectionateness. love has a habit of saying "never mind" to angry self, who, sitting down for the nonce in the lower place, by-and-by gets used to it. so it was that as deronda approached manhood his feeling for sir hugo, while it was getting more and more mixed with criticism, was gaining in that sort of allowance which reconciles criticism with tenderness. the dear old beautiful home and everything within it, lady mallinger and her little ones included, were consecrated for the youth as they had been for the boy--only with a certain difference of light on the objects. the altarpiece was no longer miraculously perfect, painted under infallible guidance, but the human hand discerned in the work was appealing to a reverent tenderness safer from the gusts of discovery. certainly deronda's ambition, even in his spring-time, lay exceptionally aloof from conspicuous, vulgar triumph, and from other ugly forms of boyish energy; perhaps because he was early impassioned by ideas, and burned his fire on those heights. one may spend a good deal of energy in disliking and resisting what others pursue, and a boy who is fond of somebody else's pencil-case may not be more energetic than another who is fond of giving his own pencil-case away. still it was not deronda's disposition to escape from ugly scenes; he was more inclined to sit through them and take care of the fellow least able to take care of himself. it had helped to make him popular that he was sometimes a little compromised by this apparent comradeship. for a meditative interest in learning how human miseries are wrought--as precocious in him as another sort of genius in the poet who writes a queen mab at nineteen--was so infused with kindliness that it easily passed for comradeship. enough. in many of our neighbors' lives there is much not only of error and lapse, but of a certain exquisite goodness which can never be written or even spoken--only divined by each of us, according to the inward instruction of our own privacy. the impression he made at cambridge corresponded to his position at eton. every one interested in him agreed that he might have taken a high place if his motives had been of a more pushing sort, and if he had not, instead of regarding studies as instruments of success, hampered himself with the notion that they were to feed motive and opinion--a notion which set him criticising methods and arguing against his freight and harness when he should have been using all his might to pull. in the beginning his work at the university had a new zest for him: indifferent to the continuation of eton classical drill, he applied himself vigorously to mathematics, for which he had shown an early aptitude under mr. fraser, and he had the delight of feeling his strength in a comparatively fresh exercise of thought. that delight, and the favorable opinion of his tutor, determined him to try for a mathematical scholarship in the easter of his second year: he wished to gratify sir hugo by some achievement, and the study of the higher mathematics, having the growing fascination inherent in all thinking which demands intensity, was making him a more exclusive worker than he had been before. but here came the old check which had been growing with his growth. he found the inward bent toward comprehension and thoroughness diverging more and more from the track marked out by the standards of examination: he felt a heightening discontent with the wearing futility and enfeebling strain of a demand for excessive retention and dexterity without any insight into the principles which form the vital connections of knowledge. (deronda's undergraduateship occurred fifteen years ago, when the perfection of our university methods was not yet indisputable.) in hours when his dissatisfaction was strong upon him he reproached himself for having been attracted by the conventional advantage of belonging to an english university, and was tempted toward the project of asking sir hugo to let him quit cambridge and pursue a more independent line of study abroad. the germs of this inclination had been already stirring in his boyish love of universal history, which made him want to be at home in foreign countries, and follow in imagination the traveling students of the middle ages. he longed now to have the sort of apprenticeship to life which would not shape him too definitely, and rob him of the choice that might come from a free growth. one sees that deronda's demerits were likely to be on the side of reflective hesitation, and this tendency was encouraged by his position; there was no need for him to get an immediate income, or to fit himself in haste for a profession; and his sensibility to the half-known facts of his parentage made him an excuse for lingering longer than others in a state of social neutrality. other men, he inwardly said, had a more definite place and duties. but the project which flattered his inclination might not have gone beyond the stage of ineffective brooding, if certain circumstances had not quickened it into action. the circumstances arose out of an enthusiastic friendship which extended into his after-life. of the same year with himself, and occupying small rooms close to his, was a youth who had come as an exhibitioner from christ's hospital, and had eccentricities enough for a charles lamb. only to look at his pinched features and blonde hair hanging over his collar reminded one of pale quaint heads by early german painters; and when this faint coloring was lit up by a joke, there came sudden creases about the mouth and eyes which might have been moulded by the soul of an aged humorist. his father, an engraver of some distinction, had been dead eleven years, and his mother had three girls to educate and maintain on a meagre annuity. hans meyrick--he had been daringly christened after holbein--felt himself the pillar, or rather the knotted and twisted trunk, round which these feeble climbing plants must cling. there was no want of ability or of honest well-meaning affection to make the prop trustworthy: the ease and quickness with which he studied might serve him to win prizes at cambridge, as he had done among the blue coats, in spite of irregularities. the only danger was, that the incalculable tendencies in him might be fatally timed, and that his good intentions might be frustrated by some act which was not due to habit but to capricious, scattered impulses. he could not be said to have any one bad habit; yet at longer or shorter intervals he had fits of impish recklessness, and did things that would have made the worst habits. hans in his right mind, however, was a lovable creature, and in deronda he had happened to find a friend who was likely to stand by him with the more constancy, from compassion for these brief aberrations that might bring a long repentance. hans, indeed, shared deronda's rooms nearly as much as he used his own: to deronda he poured himself out on his studies, his affairs, his hopes; the poverty of his home, and his love for the creatures there; the itching of his fingers to draw, and his determination to fight it away for the sake of getting some sort of a plum that he might divide with his mother and the girls. he wanted no confidence in return, but seemed to take deronda as an olympian who needed nothing--an egotism in friendship which is common enough with mercurial, expansive natures. deronda was content, and gave meyrick all the interest he claimed, getting at last a brotherly anxiety about him, looking after him in his erratic moments, and contriving by adroitly delicate devices not only to make up for his friend's lack of pence, but to save him from threatening chances. such friendship easily becomes tender: the one spreads strong sheltering wings that delight in spreading, the other gets the warm protection which is also a delight. meyrick was going in for a classical scholarship, and his success, in various ways momentous, was the more probable from the steadying influence of deronda's friendship. but an imprudence of meyrick's, committed at the beginning of the autumn term, threatened to disappoint his hopes. with his usual alternation between unnecessary expense and self-privation, he had given too much money for an old engraving which fascinated him, and to make up for it, had come from london in a third-class carriage with his eyes exposed to a bitter wind and any irritating particles the wind might drive before it. the consequence was a severe inflammation of the eyes, which for some time hung over him the threat of a lasting injury. this crushing trouble called out all deronda's readiness to devote himself, and he made every other occupation secondary to that of being companion and eyes to hans, working with him and for him at his classics, that if possible his chance of the classical scholarship might be saved. hans, to keep the knowledge of his suffering from his mother and sisters, alleged his work as a reason for passing the christmas at cambridge, and his friend stayed up with him. meanwhile deronda relaxed his hold on his mathematics, and hans, reflecting on this, at length said: "old fellow, while you are hoisting me you are risking yourself. with your mathematical cram one may be like moses or mohammed or somebody of that sort who had to cram, and forgot in one day what it had taken him forty to learn." deronda would not admit that he cared about the risk, and he had really been beguiled into a little indifference by double sympathy: he was very anxious that hans should not miss the much-needed scholarship, and he felt a revival of interest in the old studies. still, when hans, rather late in the day, got able to use his own eyes, deronda had tenacity enough to try hard and recover his lost ground. he failed, however; but he had the satisfaction of seeing meyrick win. success, as a sort of beginning that urged completion, might have reconciled deronda to his university course; but the emptiness of all things, from politics to pastimes, is never so striking to us as when we fail in them. the loss of the personal triumph had no severity for him, but the sense of having spent his time ineffectively in a mode of working which had been against the grain, gave him a distaste for any renewal of the process, which turned his imagined project of quitting cambridge into a serious intention. in speaking of his intention to meyrick he made it appear that he was glad of the turn events had taken--glad to have the balance dip decidedly, and feel freed from his hesitations; but he observed that he must of course submit to any strong objection on the part of sir hugo. meyrick's joy and gratitude were disturbed by much uneasiness. he believed in deronda's alleged preference, but he felt keenly that in serving him daniel had placed himself at a disadvantage in sir hugo's opinion, and he said mournfully, "if you had got the scholarship, sir hugo would have thought that you asked to leave us with a better grace. you have spoiled your luck for my sake, and i can do nothing to amend it." "yes, you can; you are to be a first-rate fellow. i call that a first-rate investment of my luck." "oh, confound it! you save an ugly mongrel from drowning, and expect him to cut a fine figure. the poets have made tragedies enough about signing one's self over to wickedness for the sake of getting something plummy; i shall write a tragedy of a fellow who signed himself over to be good, and was uncomfortable ever after." but hans lost no time in secretly writing the history of the affair to sir hugo, making it plain that but for deronda's generous devotion he could hardly have failed to win the prize he had been working for. the two friends went up to town together: meyrick to rejoice with his mother and the girls in their little home at chelsea; deronda to carry out the less easy task of opening his mind to sir hugo. he relied a little on the baronet's general tolerance of eccentricities, but he expected more opposition than he met with. he was received with even warmer kindness than usual, the failure was passed over lightly, and when he detailed his reasons for wishing to quit the university and go to study abroad, sir hugo sat for some time in a silence which was rather meditative than surprised. at last he said, looking at daniel with examination, "so you don't want to be an englishman to the backbone after all?" "i want to be an englishman, but i want to understand other points of view. and i want to get rid of a merely english attitude in studies." "i see; you don't want to be turned out in the same mould as every other youngster. and i have nothing to say against your doffing some of our national prejudices. i feel the better myself for having spent a good deal of my time abroad. but, for god's sake, keep an english cut, and don't become indifferent to bad tobacco! and, my dear boy, it is good to be unselfish and generous; but don't carry that too far. it will not do to give yourself to be melted down for the benefit of the tallow-trade; you must know where to find yourself. however, i shall put no veto on your going. wait until i can get off committee, and i'll run over with you." so deronda went according to his will. but not before he had spent some hours with hans meyrick, and been introduced to the mother and sisters in the chelsea home. the shy girls watched and registered every look of their brother's friend, declared by hans to have been the salvation of him, a fellow like nobody else, and, in fine, a brick. they so thoroughly accepted deronda as an ideal, that when he was gone the youngest set to work, under the criticism of the two elder girls, to paint him as prince camaralzaman. chapter xvii. "this is truth the poet sings, that a sorrow's crown of sorrow is remembering happier things." --tennyson: _locksley hall_. on a fine evening near the end of july, deronda was rowing himself on the thames. it was already a year or more since he had come back to england, with the understanding that his education was finished, and that he was somehow to take his place in english society; but though, in deference to sir hugo's wish, and to fence off idleness, he had begun to read law, this apparent decision had been without other result than to deepen the roots of indecision. his old love of boating had revived with the more force now that he was in town with the mallingers, because he could nowhere else get the same still seclusion which the river gave him. he had a boat of his own at putney, and whenever sir hugo did not want him, it was his chief holiday to row till past sunset and come in again with the stars. not that he was in a sentimental stage; but he was in another sort of contemplative mood perhaps more common in the young men of our day--that of questioning whether it were worth while to take part in the battle of the world: i mean, of course, the young men in whom the unproductive labor of questioning is sustained by three or five per cent, on capital which somebody else has battled for. it puzzled sir hugo that one who made a splendid contrast with all that was sickly and puling should be hampered with ideas which, since they left an accomplished whig like himself unobstructed, could be no better than spectral illusions; especially as deronda set himself against authorship--a vocation which is understood to turn foolish thinking into funds. rowing in his dark-blue shirt and skull-cap, his curls closely clipped, his mouth beset with abundant soft waves of beard, he bore only disguised traces of the seraphic boy "trailing clouds of glory." still, even one who had never seen him since his boyhood might have looked at him with slow recognition, due perhaps to the peculiarity of the gaze which gwendolen chose to call "dreadful," though it had really a very mild sort of scrutiny. the voice, sometimes audible in subdued snatches of song, had turned out merely a high baritone; indeed, only to look at his lithe, powerful frame and the firm gravity of his face would have been enough for an experienced guess that he had no rare and ravishing tenor such as nature reluctantly makes at some sacrifice. look at his hands: they are not small and dimpled, with tapering fingers that seem to have only a deprecating touch: they are long, flexible, firmly-grasping hands, such as titian has painted in a picture where he wanted to show the combination of refinement with force. and there is something of a likeness, too, between the faces belonging to the hands--in both the uniform pale-brown skin, the perpendicular brow, the calmly penetrating eyes. not seraphic any longer: thoroughly terrestrial and manly; but still of a kind to raise belief in a human dignity which can afford to recognize poor relations. such types meet us here and there among average conditions; in a workman, for example, whistling over a bit of measurement and lifting his eyes to answer our question about the road. and often the grand meanings of faces as well as of written words may lie chiefly in the impressions that happen just now to be of importance in relation to deronda, rowing on the thames in a very ordinary equipment for a young englishman at leisure, and passing under kew bridge with no thought of an adventure in which his appearance was likely to play any part. in fact, he objected very strongly to the notion, which others had not allowed him to escape, that his appearance was of a kind to draw attention; and hints of this, intended to be complimentary, found an angry resonance in him, coming from mingled experiences, to which a clue has already been given. his own face in the glass had during many years associated for him with thoughts of some one whom he must be like--one about whose character and lot he continually wondered, and never dared to ask. in the neighborhood of kew bridge, between six and seven o'clock, the river was no solitude. several persons were sauntering on the towing-path, and here and there a boat was plying. deronda had been rowing fast to get over this spot, when, becoming aware of a great barge advancing toward him, he guided his boat aside, and rested on his oar within a couple of yards of the river-brink. he was all the while unconsciously continuing the low-toned chant which had haunted his throat all the way up the river--the gondolier's song in the _otello_, where rossini has worthily set to music the immortal words of dante, "nessun maggior dolore che ricordarsi del tempo felice nella miseria": [footnote: dante's words are best rendered by our own poet in the lines at the head of the chapter.] and, as he rested on his oar, the pianissimo fall of the melodic wail "nella miseria" was distinctly audible on the brink of the water. three or four persons had paused at various spots to watch the barge passing the bridge, and doubtless included in their notice the young gentleman in the boat; but probably it was only to one ear that the low vocal sounds came with more significance than if they had been an insect-murmur amidst the sum of current noises. deronda, awaiting the barge, now turning his head to the river-side, and saw at a few yards' distant from him a figure which might have been an impersonation of the misery he was unconsciously giving voice to: a girl hardly more than eighteen, of low slim figure, with most delicate little face, her dark curls pushed behind her ears under a large black hat, a long woolen cloak over her shoulders. her hands were hanging down clasped before her, and her eyes were fixed on the river with a look of immovable, statue-like despair. this strong arrest of his attention made him cease singing: apparently his voice had entered her inner world without her taking any note of whence it came, for when it suddenly ceased she changed her attitude slightly, and, looking round with a frightened glance, met deronda's face. it was but a couple of moments, but that seemed a long while for two people to look straight at each other. her look was something like that of a fawn or other gentle animal before it turns to run away: no blush, no special alarm, but only some timidity which yet could not hinder her from a long look before she turned. in fact, it seemed to deronda that she was only half conscious of her surroundings: was she hungry, or was there some other cause of bewilderment? he felt an outleap of interest and compassion toward her; but the next instant she had turned and walked away to a neighboring bench under a tree. he had no right to linger and watch her: poorly-dressed, melancholy women are common sights; it was only the delicate beauty, picturesque lines and color of the image that was exceptional, and these conditions made it more markedly impossible that he should obtrude his interest upon her. he began to row away and was soon far up the river; but no other thoughts were busy enough quite to expel that pale image of unhappy girlhood. he fell again and again to speculating on the probable romance that lay behind that loneliness and look of desolation; then to smile at his own share in the prejudice that interesting faces must have interesting adventures; then to justify himself for feeling that sorrow was the more tragic when it befell delicate, childlike beauty. "i should not have forgotten the look of misery if she had been ugly and vulgar," he said to himself. but there was no denying that the attractiveness of the image made it likelier to last. it was clear to him as an onyx cameo; the brown-black drapery, the white face with small, small features and dark, long-lashed eyes. his mind glanced over the girl-tragedies that are going on in the world, hidden, unheeded, as if they were but tragedies of the copse or hedgerow, where the helpless drag wounded wings forsakenly, and streak the shadowed moss with the red moment-hand of their own death. deronda of late, in his solitary excursions, had been occupied chiefly with uncertainties about his own course; but those uncertainties, being much at their leisure, were wont to have such wide-sweeping connections with all life and history that the new image of helpless sorrow easily blent itself with what seemed to him the strong array of reasons why he should shrink from getting into that routine of the world which makes men apologize for all its wrong-doing, and take opinions as mere professional equipment--why he should not draw strongly at any thread in the hopelessly-entangled scheme of things. he used his oars little, satisfied to go with the tide and be taken back by it. it was his habit to indulge himself in that solemn passivity which easily comes with the lengthening shadows and mellow light, when thinking and desiring melt together imperceptibly, and what in other hours may have seemed argument takes the quality of passionate vision. by the time he had come back again with the tide past richmond bridge the sun was near setting: and the approach of his favorite hour--with its deepening stillness and darkening masses of tree and building between the double glow of the sky and the river--disposed him to linger as if they had been an unfinished strain of music. he looked out for a perfectly solitary spot where he could lodge his boat against the bank, and, throwing himself on his back with his head propped on the cushions, could watch out the light of sunset and the opening of that bead-roll which some oriental poet describes as god's call to the little stars, who each answer, "here am i." he chose a spot in the bend of the river just opposite kew gardens, where he had a great breadth of water before him reflecting the glory of the sky, while he himself was in shadow. he lay with his hands behind his head, propped on a level with the boat's edge, so that he could see all round him, but could not be seen by any one at a few yards' distance; and for a long while he never turned his eyes from the view right in front of him. he was forgetting everything else in a half-speculative, half-involuntary identification of himself with the objects he was looking at, thinking how far it might be possible habitually to shift his centre till his own personality would be no less outside him than the landscape--when the sense of something moving on the bank opposite him where it was bordered by a line of willow bushes, made him turn his glance thitherward. in the first moment he had a darting presentiment about the moving figure; and now he could see the small face with the strange dying sunlight upon it. he feared to frighten her by a sudden movement, and watched her with motionless attention. she looked round, but seemed only to gather security from the apparent solitude, hid her hat among the willows, and immediately took off her woolen cloak. presently she seated herself and deliberately dipped the cloak in the water, holding it there a little while, then taking it out with effort, rising from her seat as she did so. by this time deronda felt sure that she meant to wrap the wet cloak round her as a drowning shroud; there was no longer time to hesitate about frightening her. he rose and seized his oar to ply across; happily her position lay a little below him. the poor thing, overcome with terror at this sign of discovery from the opposite bank, sank down on the brink again, holding her cloak half out of the water. she crouched and covered her face as if she kept a faint hope that she had not been seen, and that the boatman was accidentally coming toward her. but soon he was within brief space of her, steadying his boat against the bank, and speaking, but very gently, "don't be afraid. you are unhappy. pray, trust me. tell me what i can do to help you." she raised her head and looked up at him. his face now was toward the light, and she knew it again. but she did not speak for a few moments which were a renewal of their former gaze at each other. at last she said in a low sweet voice, with an accent so distinct that it suggested foreignness and yet was not foreign, "i saw you before," and then added dreamily, after a like pause, "nella miseria." deronda, not understanding the connection of her thoughts, supposed that her mind was weakened by distress and hunger. "it was you, singing?" she went on, hesitatingly--"nessun maggior dolore." the mere words themselves uttered in her sweet undertones seemed to give the melody to deronda's ear. "ah, yes," he said, understanding now, "i am often singing them. but i fear you will injure yourself staying here. pray let me take you in my boat to some place of safety. and that wet cloak--let me take it." he would not attempt to take it without her leave, dreading lest he should scare her. even at his words, he fancied that she shrank and clutched the cloak more tenaciously. but her eyes were fixed on him with a question in them as she said, "you look good. perhaps it is god's command." "do trust me. let me help you. i will die before i will let any harm come to you." she rose from her sitting posture, first dragging the saturated cloak and then letting it fall on the ground--it was too heavy for her tired arms. her little woman's figure as she laid her delicate chilled hands together one over the other against her waist, and went a step backward while she leaned her head forward as if not to lose sight of his face, was unspeakably touching. "great god!" the words escaped deronda in a tone so low and solemn that they seemed like a prayer become unconsciously vocal. the agitating impression this forsaken girl was making on him stirred a fibre that lay close to his deepest interest in the fates of women--"perhaps my mother was like this one." the old thought had come now with a new impetus of mingled feeling, and urged that exclamation in which both east and west have for ages concentrated their awe in the presence of inexorable calamity. the low-toned words seemed to have some reassurance in them for the hearer: she stepped forward close to the boat's side, and deronda put out his hand, hoping now that she would let him help her in. she had already put her tiny hand into his which closed around it, when some new thought struck her, and drawing back she said, "i have nowhere to go--nobody belonging to me in all this land." "i will take you to a lady who has daughters," said deronda, immediately. he felt a sort of relief in gathering that the wretched home and cruel friends he imagined her to be fleeing from were not in the near background. still she hesitated, and said more timidly than ever, "do you belong to the theatre?" "no; i have nothing to do with the theatre," said deronda, in a decided tone. then beseechingly, "i will put you in perfect safety at once; with a lady, a good woman; i am sure she will be kind. let us lose no time: you will make yourself ill. life may still become sweet to you. there are good people--there are good women who will take care of you." she drew backward no more, but stepped in easily, as if she were used to such action, and sat down on the cushions. "you had a covering for your head," said deronda. "my hat?" (she lifted up her hands to her head.) "it is quite hidden in the bush." "i will find it," said deronda, putting out his hand deprecatingly as she attempted to rise. "the boat is fixed." he jumped out, found the hat, and lifted up the saturated cloak, wringing it and throwing it into the bottom of the boat. "we must carry the cloak away, to prevent any one who may have noticed you from thinking you have been drowned," he said, cheerfully, as he got in again and presented the old hat to her. "i wish i had any other garment than my coat to offer you. but shall you mind throwing it over your shoulders while we are on the water? it is quite an ordinary thing to do, when people return late and are not enough provided with wraps." he held out the coat toward her with a smile, and there came a faint melancholy smile in answer, as she took it and put it on very cleverly. "i have some biscuits--should you like them?" said deronda. "no; i cannot eat. i had still some money left to buy bread." he began to ply his oar without further remark, and they went along swiftly for many minutes without speaking. she did not look at him, but was watching the oar, leaning forward in an attitude of repose, as if she were beginning to feel the comfort of returning warmth and the prospect of life instead of death. the twilight was deepening; the red flush was all gone and the little stars were giving their answer one after another. the moon was rising, but was still entangled among the trees and buildings. the light was not such that he could distinctly discern the expression of her features or her glance, but they were distinctly before him nevertheless--features and a glance which seemed to have given a fuller meaning for him to the human face. among his anxieties one was dominant: his first impression about her, that her mind might be disordered, had not been quite dissipated: the project of suicide was unmistakable, and given a deeper color to every other suspicious sign. he longed to begin a conversation, but abstained, wishing to encourage the confidence that might induce her to speak first. at last she did speak. "i like to listen to the oar." "so do i." "if you had not come, i should have been dead now." "i cannot bear you to speak of that. i hope you will never be sorry that i came." "i cannot see how i shall be glad to live. the _maggior dolore_ and the _miseria_ have lasted longer than the _tempo felice_." she paused and then went on dreamily,--"_dolore--miseria_--i think those words are alive." deronda was mute: to question her seemed an unwarrantable freedom; he shrank from appearing to claim the authority of a benefactor, or to treat her with the less reverence because she was in distress. she went on musingly, "i thought it was not wicked. death and life are one before the eternal. i know our fathers slew their children and then slew themselves, to keep their souls pure. i meant it so. but now i am commanded to live. i cannot see how i shall live." "you will find friends. i will find them for you." she shook her head and said mournfully, "not my mother and brother. i cannot find them." "you are english? you must be--speaking english so perfectly." she did not answer immediately, but looked at deronda again, straining to see him in the double light. until now she had been watching the oar. it seemed as if she were half roused, and wondered which part of her impression was dreaming and which waking. sorrowful isolation had benumbed her sense of reality, and the power of distinguishing outward and inward was continually slipping away from her. her look was full of wondering timidity such as the forsaken one in the desert might have lifted to the angelic vision before she knew whether his message was in anger or in pity. "you want to know if i am english?" she said at last, while deronda was reddening nervously under a gaze which he felt more fully than he saw. "i want to know nothing except what you like to tell me," he said, still uneasy in the fear that her mind was wandering. "perhaps it is not good for you to talk." "yes, i will tell you. i am english-born. but i am a jewess." deronda was silent, inwardly wondering that he had not said this to himself before, though any one who had seen delicate-faced spanish girls might simply have guessed her to be spanish. "do you despise me for it?" she said presently in low tones, which had a sadness that pierced like a cry from a small dumb creature in fear. "why should i?" said deronda. "i am not so foolish." "i know many jews are bad." "so are many christians. but i should not think it fair for you to despise me because of that." "my mother and brother were good. but i shall never find them. i am come a long way--from abroad. i ran away; but i cannot tell you--i cannot speak of it. i thought i might find my mother again--god would guide me. but then i despaired. this morning when the light came, i felt as if one word kept sounding within me--never! never! but now--i begin--to think--" her words were broken by rising sobs--"i am commanded to live--perhaps we are going to her." with an outburst of weeping she buried her head on her knees. he hoped that this passionate weeping might relieve her excitement. meanwhile he was inwardly picturing in much embarrassment how he should present himself with her in park lane--the course which he had at first unreflectingly determined on. no one kinder and more gentle than lady mallinger; but it was hardly probable that she would be at home; and he had a shuddering sense of a lackey staring at this delicate, sorrowful image of womanhood--of glaring lights and fine staircases, and perhaps chilling suspicious manners from lady's maid and housekeeper, that might scare the mind already in a state of dangerous susceptibility. but to take her to any other shelter than a home already known to him was not to be contemplated: he was full of fears about the issue of the adventure which had brought on him a responsibility all the heavier for the strong and agitating impression this childlike creature had made on him. but another resource came to mind: he could venture to take her to mrs. meyrick's--to the small house at chelsea--where he had been often enough since his return from abroad to feel sure that he could appeal there to generous hearts, which had a romantic readiness to believe in innocent need and to help it. hans meyrick was safe away in italy, and deronda felt the comfort of presenting himself with his charge at a house where he would be met by a motherly figure of quakerish neatness, and three girls who hardly knew of any evil closer to them than what lay in history-books, and dramas, and would at once associate a lovely jewess with rebecca in _ivanhoe_, besides thinking that everything they did at deronda's request would be done for their idol, hans. the vision of the chelsea home once raised, deronda no longer hesitated. the rumbling thither in the cab after the stillness of the water seemed long. happily his charge had been quiet since her fit of weeping, and submitted like a tired child. when they were in the cab, she laid down her hat and tried to rest her head, but the jolting movement would not let it rest. still she dozed, and her sweet head hung helpless, first on one side, then on the other. "they are too good to have any fear about taking her in," thought deronda. her person, her voice, her exquisite utterance, were one strong appeal to belief and tenderness. yet what had been the history which had brought her to this desolation? he was going on a strange errand--to ask shelter for this waif. then there occurred to him the beautiful story plutarch somewhere tells of the delphic women: how when the maenads, outworn with their torch-lit wanderings, lay down to sleep in the market-place, the matrons came and stood silently round them to keep guard over their slumbers; then, when they waked, ministered to them tenderly and saw them safely to their own borders. he could trust the women he was going to for having hearts as good. deronda felt himself growing older this evening and entering on a new phase in finding a life to which his own had come--perhaps as a rescue; but how to make sure that snatching from death was rescue? the moment of finding a fellow-creature is often as full of mingled doubt and exultation as the moment of finding an idea. chapter xviii. life is a various mother: now she dons her plumes and brilliants, climbs the marble stairs with head aloft, nor ever turns her eyes on lackeys who attend her; now she dwells grim-clad, up darksome alleys, breathes hot gin, and screams in pauper riot. but to these she came a frugal matron, neat and deft, with cheerful morning thoughts and quick device to find the much in little. mrs. meyrick's house was not noisy: the front parlor looked on the river, and the back on gardens, so that though she was reading aloud to her daughters, the window could be left open to freshen the air of the small double room where a lamp and two candles were burning. the candles were on a table apart for kate, who was drawing illustrations for a publisher; the lamp was not only for the reader but for amy and mab, who were embroidering satin cushions for "the great world." outside, the house looked very narrow and shabby, the bright light through the holland blind showing the heavy old-fashioned window-frame; but it is pleasant to know that many such grim-walled slices of space in our foggy london have been and still are the homes of a culture the more spotlessly free from vulgarity, because poverty has rendered everything like display an impersonal question, and all the grand shows of the world simply a spectacle which rouses petty rivalry or vain effort after possession. the meyricks' was a home of that kind: and they all clung to this particular house in a row because its interior was filled with objects always in the same places, which, for the mother held memories of her marriage time, and for the young ones seemed as necessary and uncriticised a part of their world as the stars of the great bear seen from the back windows. mrs. meyrick had borne much stint of other matters that she might be able to keep some engravings specially cherished by her husband; and the narrow spaces of wall held a world history in scenes and heads which the children had early learned by heart. the chairs and tables were also old friends preferred to new. but in these two little parlors with no furniture that a broker would have cared to cheapen except the prints and piano, there was space and apparatus for a wide-glancing, nicely-select life, opened to the highest things in music, painting and poetry. i am not sure that in the times of greatest scarcity, before kate could get paid-work, these ladies had always had a servant to light their fires and sweep their rooms; yet they were fastidious in some points, and could not believe that the manners of ladies in the fashionable world were so full of coarse selfishness, petty quarreling, and slang as they are represented to be in what are called literary photographs. the meyricks had their little oddities, streaks of eccentricity from the mother's blood as well as the father's, their minds being like mediæval houses with unexpected recesses and openings from this into that, flights of steps and sudden outlooks. but mother and daughters were all united by a triple bond--family love; admiration for the finest work, the best action; and habitual industry. hans' desire to spend some of his money in making their lives more luxurious had been resisted by all of them, and both they and he had been thus saved from regrets at the threatened triumphs of his yearning for art over the attractions of secured income--a triumph that would by-and-by oblige him to give up his fellowship. they could all afford to laugh at his gavarni-caricatures and to hold him blameless in following a natural bent which their unselfishness and independence had left without obstacle. it was enough for them to go on in their old way, only having a grand treat of opera-going (to the gallery) when hans came home on a visit. seeing the group they made this evening, one could hardly wish them to change their way of life. they were all alike small, and so in due proportion to their miniature rooms. mrs. meyrick was reading aloud from a french book; she was a lively little woman, half french, half scotch, with a pretty articulateness of speech that seemed to make daylight in her hearer's understanding. though she was not yet fifty, her rippling hair, covered by a quakerish net cap, was chiefly gray, but her eyebrows were brown as the bright eyes below them; her black dress, almost like a priest's cassock with its rows of buttons, suited a neat figure hardly five feet high. the daughters were to match the mother, except that mab had hans' light hair and complexion, with a bossy, irregular brow, and other quaintnesses that reminded one of him. everything about them was compact, from the firm coils of their hair, fastened back _à la chinoise_, to their gray skirts in puritan nonconformity with the fashion, which at that time would have demanded that four feminine circumferences should fill all the free space in the front parlor. all four, if they had been wax-work, might have been packed easily in a fashionable lady's traveling trunk. their faces seemed full of speech, as if their minds had been shelled, after the manner of horse-chestnuts, and become brightly visible. the only large thing of its kind in the room was hafiz, the persian cat, comfortably poised on the brown leather back of a chair, and opening his large eyes now and then to see that the lower animals were not in any mischief. the book mrs. meyrick had before her was erckmann-chatrian's _historie d'un conscrit_. she had just finished reading it aloud, and mab, who had let her work fall on the ground while she stretched her head forward and fixed her eyes on the reader, exclaimed, "i think that is the finest story in the world." "of course, mab!" said amy, "it is the last you have heard. everything that pleases you is the best in its turn." "it is hardly to be called a story," said kate. "it is a bit of history brought near us with a strong telescope. we can see the soldiers' faces: no, it is more than that--we can hear everything--we can almost hear their hearts beat." "i don't care what you call it," said mab, flirting away her thimble. "call it a chapter in revelations. it makes me want to do something good, something grand. it makes me so sorry for everybody. it makes me like schiller--i want to take the world in my arms and kiss it. i must kiss you instead, little mother!" she threw her arms round her mother's neck. "whenever you are in that mood, mab, down goes your work," said amy. "it would be doing something good to finish your cushion without soiling it." "oh--oh--oh!" groaned mab, as she stooped to pick up her work and thimble. "i wish i had three wounded conscripts to take care of." "you would spill their beef tea while you were talking," said amy. "poor mab! don't be hard on her," said the mother. "give me the embroidery now, child. you go on with your enthusiasm, and i will go on with the pink and white poppy." "well, ma, i think you are more caustic than amy," said kate, while she drew her head back to look at her drawing. "oh--oh--oh!" cried mab again, rising and stretching her arms. "i wish something wonderful would happen. i feel like the deluge. the waters of the great deep are broken up, and the windows of heaven are opened. i must sit down and play the scales." mab was opening the piano while the others were laughing at this climax, when a cab stopped before the house, and there forthwith came a quick rap of the knocker. "dear me!" said mrs. meyrick, starting up, "it is after ten, and phoebe is gone to bed." she hastened out, leaving the parlor door open. "mr. deronda!" the girls could hear this exclamation from their mamma. mab clasped her hands, saying in a loud whisper, "there now! something _is_ going to happen." kate and amy gave up their work in amazement. but deronda's tone in reply was so low that they could not hear his words, and mrs. meyrick immediately closed the parlor door. "i know i am trusting to your goodness in a most extraordinary way," deronda went on, after giving his brief narrative; "but you can imagine how helpless i feel with a young creature like this on my hands. i could not go with her among strangers, and in her nervous state i should dread taking her into a house full of servants. i have trusted to your mercy. i hope you will not think my act unwarrantable." "on the contrary. you have honored me by trusting me. i see your difficulty. pray bring her in. i will go and prepare the girls." while deronda went back to the cab, mrs. meyrick turned into the parlor again and said: "here is somebody to take care of instead of your wounded conscripts, mab: a poor girl who was going to drown herself in despair. mr. deronda found her only just in time to save her. he brought her along in his boat, and did not know what else it would be safe to do with her, so he has trusted us and brought her here. it seems she is a jewess, but quite refined, he says--knowing italian and music." the three girls, wondering and expectant, came forward and stood near each other in mute confidence that they were all feeling alike under this appeal to their compassion. mab looked rather awe-stricken, as if this answer to her wish were something preternatural. meanwhile deronda going to the door of the cab where the pale face was now gazing out with roused observation, said, "i have brought you to some of the kindest people in the world: there are daughters like you. it is a happy home. will you let me take you to them?" she stepped out obediently, putting her hand in his and forgetting her hat; and when deronda led her into the full light of the parlor where the four little women stood awaiting her, she made a picture that would have stirred much duller sensibilities than theirs. at first she was a little dazed by the sudden light, and before she had concentrated her glance he had put her hand into the mother's. he was inwardly rejoicing that the meyricks were so small: the dark-curled head was the highest among them. the poor wanderer could not be afraid of these gentle faces so near hers: and now she was looking at each of them in turn while the mother said, "you must be weary, poor child." "we will take care of you--we will comfort you--we will love you," cried mab, no longer able to restrain herself, and taking the small right hand caressingly between both her own. this gentle welcoming warmth was penetrating the bewildered one: she hung back just enough to see better the four faces in front of her, whose good will was being reflected in hers, not in any smile, but in that undefinable change which tells us that anxiety is passing in contentment. for an instant she looked up at deronda, as if she were referring all this mercy to him, and then again turning to mrs. meyrick, said with more collectedness in her sweet tones than he had heard before, "i am a stranger. i am a jewess. you might have thought i was wicked." "no, we are sure you are good," burst out mab. "we think no evil of you, poor child. you shall be safe with us," said mrs. meyrick. "come now and sit down. you must have some food, and then you must go to rest." the stranger looked up again at deronda, who said, "you will have no more fears with these friends? you will rest to-night?" "oh, i should not fear. i should rest. i think these are the ministering angels." mrs. meyrick wanted to lead her to seat, but again hanging back gently, the poor weary thing spoke as if with a scruple at being received without a further account of herself. "my name is mirah lapidoth. i am come a long way, all the way from prague by myself. i made my escape. i ran away from dreadful things. i came to find my mother and brother in london. i had been taken from my mother when i was little, but i thought i could find her again. i had trouble--the houses were all gone--i could not find her. it has been a long while, and i had not much money. that is why i am in distress." "our mother will be good to you," cried mab. "see what a nice little mother she is!" "do sit down now," said kate, moving a chair forward, while amy ran to get some tea. mirah resisted no longer, but seated herself with perfect grace, crossing her little feet, laying her hands one over the other on her lap, and looking at her friends with placid reverence; whereupon hafiz, who had been watching the scene restlessly came forward with tail erect and rubbed himself against her ankles. deronda felt it time to go. "will you allow me to come again and inquire--perhaps at five to-morrow?" he said to mrs. meyrick. "yes, pray; we shall have had time to make acquaintance then." "good-bye," said deronda, looking down at mirah, and putting out his hand. she rose as she took it, and the moment brought back to them both strongly the other moment when she had first taken that outstretched hand. she lifted her eyes to his and said with reverential fervor, "the god of our fathers bless you and deliver you from all evil as you have delivered me. i did not believe there was any man so good. none before have thought me worthy of the best. you found me poor and miserable, yet you have given me the best." deronda could not speak, but with silent adieux to the meyricks, hurried away. book iii.--maidens choosing. chapter xix. "i pity the man who can travel from dan to beersheba, and say, 'tis all barren': and so it is: and so is all the world to him who will not cultivate the fruits it offers."--sterne: _sentimental journey_. to say that deronda was romantic would be to misrepresent him; but under his calm and somewhat self-repressed exterior there was a fervor which made him easily find poetry and romance among the events of every-day life. and perhaps poetry and romance are as plentiful as ever in the world except for those phlegmatic natures who i suspect would in any age have regarded them as a dull form of erroneous thinking. they exist very easily in the same room with the microscope and even in railway carriages: what banishes them in the vacuum in gentlemen and lady passengers. how should all the apparatus of heaven and earth, from the farthest firmament to the tender bosom of the mother who nourished us, make poetry for a mind that had no movements of awe and tenderness, no sense of fellowship which thrills from the near to the distant, and back again from the distant to the near? to deronda this event of finding mirah was as heart-stirring as anything that befell orestes or rinaldo. he sat up half the night, living again through the moments since he had first discerned mirah on the river-brink, with the fresh and fresh vividness which belongs to emotive memory. when he took up a book to try and dull this urgency of inward vision, the printed words were no more than a network through which he saw and heard everything as clearly as before--saw not only the actual events of two hours, but possibilities of what had been and what might be which those events were enough to feed with the warm blood of passionate hope and fear. something in his own experience caused mirah's search after her mother to lay hold with peculiar force on his imagination. the first prompting of sympathy was to aid her in her search: if given persons were extant in london there were ways of finding them, as subtle as scientific experiment, the right machinery being set at work. but here the mixed feelings which belonged to deronda's kindred experience naturally transfused themselves into his anxiety on behalf of mirah. the desire to know his own mother, or to know about her, was constantly haunted with dread; and in imagining what might befall mirah it quickly occurred to him that finding the mother and brother from whom she had been parted when she was a little one might turn out to be a calamity. when she was in the boat she said that her mother and brother were good; but the goodness might have been chiefly in her own ignorant innocence and yearning memory, and the ten or twelve years since the parting had been time enough for much worsening. spite of his strong tendency to side with the objects of prejudice, and in general with those who got the worst of it, his interest had never been practically drawn toward existing jews, and the facts he knew about them, whether they walked conspicuous in fine apparel or lurked in by-streets, were chiefly of a sort most repugnant to him. of learned and accomplished jews he took it for granted that they had dropped their religion, and wished to be merged in the people of their native lands. scorn flung at a jew as such would have roused all his sympathy in griefs of inheritance; but the indiscriminate scorn of a race will often strike a specimen who has well earned it on his own account, and might fairly be gibbeted as a rascally son of adam. it appears that the caribs, who know little of theology, regard thieving as a practice peculiarly connected with christian tenets, and probably they could allege experimental grounds for this opinion. deronda could not escape (who can?) knowing ugly stories of jewish characteristics and occupations; and though one of his favorite protests was against the severance of past and present history, he was like others who shared his protest, in never having cared to reach any more special conclusions about actual jews than that they retained the virtues and vices of a long-oppressed race. but now that mirah's longing roused his mind to a closer survey of details, very disagreeable images urged themselves of what it might be to find out this middle-aged jewess and her son. to be sure, there was the exquisite refinement and charm of the creature herself to make a presumption in favor of her immediate kindred, but--he must wait to know more: perhaps through mrs. meyrick he might gather some guiding hints from mirah's own lips. her voice, her accent, her looks--all the sweet purity that clothed her as with a consecrating garment made him shrink the more from giving her, either ideally or practically, an association with what was hateful or contaminating. but these fine words with which we fumigate and becloud unpleasant facts are not the language in which we think. deronda's thinking went on in rapid images of what might be: he saw himself guided by some official scout into a dingy street; he entered through a dim doorway, and saw a hawk-eyed woman, rough-headed, and unwashed, cheapening a hungry girl's last bit of finery; or in some quarter only the more hideous for being smarter, he found himself under the breath of a young jew talkative and familiar, willing to show his acquaintance with gentlemen's tastes, and not fastidious in any transactions with which they would favor him--and so on through the brief chapter of his experience in this kind. excuse him: his mind was not apt to run spontaneously into insulting ideas, or to practice a form of wit which identifies moses with the advertisement sheet; but he was just now governed by dread, and if mirah's parents had been christian, the chief difference would have been that his forebodings would have been fed with wider knowledge. it was the habit of his mind to connect dread with unknown parentage, and in this case as well as his own there was enough to make the connection reasonable. but what was to be done with mirah? she needed shelter and protection in the fullest sense, and all his chivalrous sentiment roused itself to insist that the sooner and the more fully he could engage for her the interest of others besides himself, the better he should fulfill her claims on him. he had no right to provide for her entirely, though he might be able to do so; the very depth of the impression she had produced made him desire that she should understand herself to be entirely independent of him; and vague visions of the future which he tried to dispel as fantastic left their influence in an anxiety stronger than any motive he could give for it, that those who saw his actions closely should be acquainted from the first with the history of his relation to mirah. he had learned to hate secrecy about the grand ties and obligations of his life--to hate it the more because a strong spell of interwoven sensibilities hindered him from breaking such secrecy. deronda had made a vow to himself that--since the truths which disgrace mortals are not all of their own making--the truth should never be made a disgrace to another by his act. he was not without terror lest he should break this vow, and fall into the apologetic philosophy which explains the world into containing nothing better than one's own conduct. at one moment he resolved to tell the whole of his adventure to sir hugo and lady mallinger the next morning at breakfast, but the possibility that something quite new might reveal itself on his next visit to mrs. meyrick's checked this impulse, and he finally went to sleep on the conclusion that he would wait until that visit had been made. chapter xx. "it will hardly be denied that even in this frail and corrupted world, we sometimes meet persons who, in their very mien and aspect, as well as in the whole habit of life, manifest such a signature and stamp of virtue, as to make our judgment of them a matter of intuition rather than the result of continued examination."--alexander knox: quoted in southey's life of wesley. mirah said that she had slept well that night; and when she came down in mab's black dress, her dark hair curling in fresh fibrils as it gradually dried from its plenteous bath, she looked like one who was beginning to take comfort after the long sorrow and watching which had paled her cheek and made blue semicircles under her eyes. it was mab who carried her breakfast and ushered her down--with some pride in the effect produced by a pair of tiny felt slippers which she had rushed out to buy because there were no shoes in the house small enough for mirah, whose borrowed dress ceased about her ankles and displayed the cheap clothing that, moulding itself on her feet, seemed an adornment as choice as the sheaths of buds. the farthing buckles were bijoux. "oh, if you please, mamma?" cried mab, clasping her hands and stooping toward mirah's feet, as she entered the parlor; "look at the slippers, how beautiful they fit! i declare she is like the queen budoor--'two delicate feet, the work of the protecting and all-recompensing creator, support her; and i wonder how they can sustain what is above them.'" mirah looked down at her own feet in a childlike way and then smiled at mrs. meyrick, who was saying inwardly, "one could hardly imagine this creature having an evil thought. but wise people would tell me to be cautious." she returned mirah's smile and said, "i fear the feet have had to sustain their burden a little too often lately. but to-day she will rest and be my companion." "and she will tell you so many things and i shall not hear them," grumbled mab, who felt herself in the first volume of a delightful romance and obliged to miss some chapters because she had to go to pupils. kate was already gone to make sketches along the river, and amy was away on business errands. it was what the mother wished, to be alone with this stranger, whose story must be a sorrowful one, yet was needful to be told. the small front parlor was as good as a temple that morning. the sunlight was on the river and soft air came in through the open window; the walls showed a glorious silent cloud of witnesses--the virgin soaring amid her cherubic escort; grand melancholia with her solemn universe; the prophets and sibyls; the school of athens; the last supper; mystic groups where far-off ages made one moment; grave holbein and rembrandt heads; the tragic muse; last-century children at their musings or their play; italian poets--all were there through the medium of a little black and white. the neat mother who had weathered her troubles, and come out of them with a face still cheerful, was sorting colored wools for her embroidery. hafiz purred on the window-ledge, the clock on the mantle-piece ticked without hurry, and the occasional sound of wheels seemed to lie outside the more massive central quiet. mrs. meyrick thought that this quiet might be the best invitation to speech on the part of her companion, and chose not to disturb it by remark. mirah sat opposite in her former attitude, her hands clasped on her lap, her ankles crossed, her eyes at first traveling slowly over the objects around her, but finally resting with a sort of placid reverence on mrs. meyrick. at length she began to speak softly. "i remember my mother's face better than anything; yet i was not seven when i was taken away, and i am nineteen now." "i can understand that," said mrs. meyrick. "there are some earliest things that last the longest." "oh, yes, it was the earliest. i think my life began with waking up and loving my mother's face: it was so near to me, and her arms were round me, and she sang to me. one hymn she sang so often, so often: and then she taught me to sing it with her: it was the first i ever sang. they were always hebrew hymns she sang; and because i never knew the meaning of the words they seemed full of nothing but our love and happiness. when i lay in my little bed and it was all white above me, she used to bend over me, between me and the white, and sing in a sweet, low voice. i can dream myself back into that time when i am awake, and it often comes back to me in my sleep--my hand is very little, i put it up to her face and she kisses it. sometimes in my dreams i begin to tremble and think that we are both dead; but then i wake up and my hand lies like this, and for a moment i hardly know myself. but if i could see my mother again i should know her." "you must expect some change after twelve years," said mrs. meyrick, gently. "see my grey hair: ten years ago it was bright brown. the days and months pace over us like restless little birds, and leave the marks of their feet backward and forward; especially when they are like birds with heavy hearts--then they tread heavily." "ah, i am sure her heart has been heavy for want of me. but to feel her joy if we could meet again, and i could make her know i love her and give her deep comfort after all her mourning! if that could be, i should mind nothing; i should be glad that i have lived through my trouble. i did despair. the world seemed miserable and wicked; none helped me so that i could bear their looks and words; i felt that my mother was dead, and death was the only way to her. but then in the last moment--yesterday, when i longed for the water to close over me--and i thought that death was the best image of mercy--then goodness came to me living, and i felt trust in the living. and--it is strange--but i began to hope that she was living too. and now i with you--here--this morning, peace and hope have come into me like a flood. i want nothing; i can wait; because i hope and believe and am grateful--oh, so grateful! you have not thought evil of me--you have not despised me." mirah spoke with low-toned fervor, and sat as still as a picture all the while. "many others would have felt as we do, my dear," said mrs. meyrick, feeling a mist come over her eyes as she looked at her work. "but i did not meet them--they did not come to me." "how was it that you were taken from your mother?" "ah, i am a long while coming to that. it is dreadful to speak of, yet i must tell you--i must tell you everything. my father--it was he that took me away. i thought we were only going on a little journey; and i was pleased. there was a box with all my little things in. but we went on board a ship, and got farther and farther away from the land. then i was ill; and i thought it would never end--it was the first misery, and it seemed endless. but at last we landed. i knew nothing then, and believed what my father said. he comforted me, and told me i should go back to my mother. but it was america we had reached, and it was long years before we came back to europe. at first i often asked my father when we were going back; and i tried to learn writing fast, because i wanted to write to my mother; but one day when he found me trying to write a letter, he took me on his knee and told me that my mother and brother were dead; that was why we did not go back. i remember my brother a little; he carried me once; but he was not always at home. i believed my father when he said that they were dead. i saw them under the earth when he said they were there, with their eyes forever closed. i never thought of its not being true; and i used to cry every night in my bed for a long while. then when she came so often to me, in my sleep, i thought she must be living about me though i could not always see her, and that comforted me. i was never afraid in the dark, because of that; and very often in the day i used to shut my eyes and bury my face and try to see her and to hear her singing. i came to do that at last without shutting my eyes." mirah paused with a sweet content in her face, as if she were having her happy vision, while she looked out toward the river. "still your father was not unkind to you, i hope," said mrs. meyrick, after a minute, anxious to recall her. "no; he petted me, and took pains to teach me. he was an actor; and i found out, after, that the 'coburg' i used to hear of his going to at home was a theatre. but he had more to do with the theatre than acting. he had not always been an actor; he had been a teacher, and knew many languages. his acting was not very good; i think, but he managed the stage, and wrote and translated plays. an italian lady, a singer, lived with us a long time. they both taught me, and i had a master besides, who made me learn by heart and recite. i worked quite hard, though i was so little; and i was not nine when i first went on the stage. i could easily learn things, and i was not afraid. but then and ever since i hated our way of life. my father had money, and we had finery about us in a disorderly way; always there were men and women coming and going; there was loud laughing and disputing, strutting, snapping of fingers, jeering, faces i did not like to look at--though many petted and caressed me. but then i remembered my mother. even at first when i understood nothing, i shrank away from all those things outside me into companionship with thoughts that were not like them; and i gathered thoughts very fast, because i read many things--plays and poetry, shakespeare and schiller, and learned evil and good. my father began to believe that i might be a great singer: my voice was considered wonderful for a child; and he had the best teaching for me. but it was painful that he boasted of me, and set me to sing for show at any minute, as if i had been a musical box. once when i was nine years old, i played the part of a little girl who had been forsaken and did not know it, and sat singing to herself while she played with flowers. i did it without any trouble; but the clapping and all the sounds of the theatre were hateful to me; and i never liked the praise i had, because it all seemed very hard and unloving: i missed the love and trust i had been born into. i made a life in my own thoughts quite different from everything about me: i chose what seemed to me beautiful out of the plays and everything, and made my world out of it; and it was like a sharp knife always grazing me that we had two sorts of life which jarred so with each other--women looking good and gentle on the stage, and saying good things as if they felt them, and directly after i saw them with coarse, ugly manners. my father sometimes noticed my shrinking ways; and signora said one day, when i had been rehearsing, 'she will never be an artist: she has no notion of being anybody but herself. that does very well now, but by-and-by you will see--she will have no more face and action than a singing-bird.' my father was angry, and they quarreled. i sat alone and cried, because what she had said was like a long unhappy future unrolled before me. i did not want to be an artist; but this was what my father expected of me. after a while signora left us, and a governess used to come and give me lessons in different things, because my father began to be afraid of my singing too much; but i still acted from time to time. rebellious feelings grew stronger in me, and i wished to get away from this life; but i could not tell where to go, and i dreaded the world. besides, i felt it would be wrong to leave my father: i dreaded doing wrong, for i thought i might get wicked and hateful to myself, in the same way that many others seemed hateful to me. for so long, so long i had never felt my outside world happy; and if i got wicked i should lose my world of happy thoughts where my mother lived with me. that was my childish notion all through those years. oh how long they were!" mirah fell to musing again. "had you no teaching about what was your duty?" said mrs. meyrick. she did not like to say "religion"--finding herself on inspection rather dim as to what the hebrew religion might have turned into at this date. "no--only that i ought to do what my father wished. he did not follow our religion at new york, and i think he wanted me not to know much about it. but because my mother used to take me to the synagogue, and i remembered sitting on her knee and looking through the railing and hearing the chanting and singing, i longed to go. one day when i was quite small i slipped out and tried to find the synagogue, but i lost myself a long while till a peddler questioned me and took me home. my father, missing me, had been much in fear, and was very angry. i too had been so frightened at losing myself that it was long before i thought of venturing out again. but after signora left us we went to rooms where our landlady was a jewess and observed her religion. i asked her to take me with her to the synagogue; and i read in her prayer-books and bible, and when i had money enough i asked her to buy me books of my own, for these books seemed a closer companionship with my mother: i knew that she must have looked at the very words and said them. in that way i have come to know a little of our religion, and the history of our people, besides piecing together what i read in plays and other books about jews and jewesses; because i was sure my mother obeyed her religion. i had left off asking my father about her. it is very dreadful to say it, but i began to disbelieve him. i had found that he did not always tell the truth, and made promises without meaning to keep them; and that raised my suspicion that my mother and brother were still alive though he had told me they were dead. for in going over the past again as i got older and knew more, i felt sure that my mother had been deceived, and had expected to see us back again after a very little while; and my father taking me on his knee and telling me that my mother and brother were both dead seemed to me now but a bit of acting, to set my mind at rest. the cruelty of that falsehood sank into me, and i hated all untruth because of it. i wrote to my mother secretly: i knew the street, colman street, where we lived, and that it was not blackfriars bridge and the coburg, and that our name was cohen then, though my father called us lapidoth, because, he said, it was a name of his forefathers in poland. i sent my letter secretly; but no answer came, and i thought there was no hope for me. our life in america did not last much longer. my father suddenly told me we were to pack up and go to hamburg, and i was rather glad. i hoped we might get among a different sort of people, and i knew german quite well--some german plays almost all by heart. my father spoke it better than he spoke english. i was thirteen then, and i seemed to myself quite old--i knew so much, and yet so little. i think other children cannot feel as i did. i had often wished that i had been drowned when i was going away from my mother. but i set myself to obey and suffer: what else could i do? one day when we were on our voyage, a new thought came into my mind. i was not very ill that time, and i kept on deck a good deal. my father acted and sang and joked to amuse people on board, and i used often to hear remarks about him. one day, when i was looking at the sea and nobody took notice of me, i overheard a gentleman say, 'oh, he is one of those clever jews--a rascal, i shouldn't wonder. there's no race like them for cunning in the men and beauty in the women. i wonder what market he means that daughter for.' when i heard this it darted into my mind that the unhappiness in my life came from my being a jewess, and that always to the end the world would think slightly of me and that i must bear it, for i should be judged by that name; and it comforted me to believe that my suffering was part of the affliction of my people, my part in the long song of mourning that has been going on through ages and ages. for if many of our race were wicked and made merry in their wickedness--what was that but part of the affliction borne by the just among them, who were despised for the sins of their brethren?--but you have not rejected me." mirah had changed her tone in this last sentence, having suddenly reflected that at this moment she had reason not for complaint but for gratitude. "and we will try to save you from being judged unjustly by others, my poor child," said mrs. meyrick, who had now given up all attempt at going on with her work, and sat listening with folded hands and a face hardly less eager than mab's would have been. "go on, go on: tell me all." "after that we lived in different towns--hamburg and vienna, the longest. i began to study singing again: and my father always got money about the theatres. i think he brought a good deal of money from america, i never knew why we left. for some time he was in great spirits about my singing, and he made me rehearse parts and act continually. he looked forward to my coming out in the opera. but by-and-by it seemed that my voice would never be strong enough--it did not fulfill its promise. my master at vienna said, 'don't strain it further: it will never do for the public:--it is gold, but a thread of gold dust.' my father was bitterly disappointed: we were not so well off at that time. i think i have not quite told you what i felt about my father. i knew he was fond of me and meant to indulge me, and that made me afraid of hurting him; but he always mistook what would please me and give me happiness. it was his nature to take everything lightly; and i soon left off asking him any questions about things that i cared for much, because he always turned them off with a joke. he would even ridicule our own people; and once when he had been imitating their movements and their tones in praying, only to make others laugh, i could not restrain myself--for i always had an anger in my heart about my mother--and when we were alone, i said, 'father, you ought not to mimic our own people before christians who mock them: would it not be bad if i mimicked you, that they might mock you?' but he only shrugged his shoulders and laughed and pinched my chin, and said, 'you couldn't do it, my dear." it was this way of turning off everything, that made a great wall between me and my father, and whatever i felt most i took the most care to hide from him. for there were some things--when they were laughed at i could not bear it: the world seemed like a hell to me. is this world and all the life upon it only like a farce or a vaudeville, where you find no great meanings? why then are there tragedies and grand operas, where men do difficult things and choose to suffer? i think it is silly to speak of all things as a joke. and i saw that his wishing me to sing the greatest music, and parts in grand operas, was only wishing for what would fetch the greatest price. that hemmed in my gratitude for his affectionateness, and the tenderest feeling i had toward him was pity. yes, i did sometimes pity him. he had aged and changed. now he was no longer so lively. i thought he seemed worse--less good to others than to me. every now and then in the latter years his gaiety went away suddenly, and he would sit at home silent and gloomy; or he would come in and fling himself down and sob, just as i have done myself when i have been in trouble. if i put my hand on his knee and say, 'what is the matter, father?' he would make no answer, but would draw my arm round his neck and put his arm round me and go on crying. there never came any confidence between us; but oh, i was sorry for him. at those moments i knew he must feel his life bitter, and i pressed my cheek against his head and prayed. those moments were what most bound me to him; and i used to think how much my mother once loved him, else she would not have married him. "but soon there came the dreadful time. we had been at pesth and we came back to vienna. in spite of what my master leo had said, my father got me an engagement, not at the opera, but to take singing parts at a suburb theatre in vienna. he had nothing to do with the theatre then; i did not understand what he did, but i think he was continually at a gambling house, though he was careful always about taking me to the theatre. i was very miserable. the plays i acted in were detestable to me. men came about us and wanted to talk to me: women and men seemed to look at me with a sneering smile; it was no better than a fiery furnace. perhaps i make it worse than it was--you don't know that life: but the glare and the faces, and my having to go on and act and sing what i hated, and then see people who came to stare at me behind the scenes--it was all so much worse than when i was a little girl. i went through with it; i did it; i had set my mind to obey my father and work, for i saw nothing better that i could do. but i felt that my voice was getting weaker, and i knew that my acting was not good except when it was not really acting, but the part was one that i could be myself in, and some feeling within me carried me along. that was seldom. "then, in the midst of all this, the news came to me one morning that my father had been taken to prison, and he had sent for me. he did not tell me the reason why he was there, but he ordered me to go to an address he gave me, to see a count who would be able to get him released. the address was to some public rooms where i was to ask for the count, and beg him to come to my father. i found him, and recognized him as a gentleman whom i had seen the other night for the first time behind the scenes. that agitated me, for i remembered his way of looking at me and kissing my hand--i thought it was in mockery. but i delivered my errand, and he promised to go immediately to my father, who came home again that very evening, bringing the count with him. i now began to feel a horrible dread of this man, for he worried me with his attentions, his eyes were always on me: i felt sure that whatever else there might be in his mind toward me, below it all there was scorn for the jewess and the actress. and when he came to me the next day in the theatre and would put my shawl around me, a terror took hold of me; i saw that my father wanted me to look pleased. the count was neither very young nor very old; his hair and eyes were pale; he was tall and walked heavily, and his face was heavy and grave except when he looked at me. he smiled at me, and his smile went through me with horror: i could not tell why he was so much worse to me than other men. some feelings are like our hearing: they come as sounds do, before we know their reason. my father talked to me about him when we were alone, and praised him--said what a good friend he had been. i said nothing, because i supposed he had got my father out of prison. when the count came again, my father left the room. he asked me if i liked being on the stage. i said no, i only acted in obedience to my father. he always spoke french, and called me _petite ange_ and such things, which i felt insulting. i knew he meant to make love to me, and i had it firmly in my mind that a nobleman and one who was not a jew could have no love for me that was not half contempt. but then he told me that i need not act any longer; he wished me to visit him at his beautiful place, where i might be queen of everything. it was difficult to me to speak, i felt so shaken with anger: i could only say, 'i would rather stay on the stage forever,' and i left him there. hurrying out of the room i saw my father sauntering in the passage. my heart was crushed. i went past him and locked myself up. it had sunk into me that my father was in a conspiracy with that man against me. but the next day he persuaded me to come out: he said that i had mistaken everything, and he would explain: if i did not come out and act and fulfill my engagement, we should be ruined and he must starve. so i went on acting, and for a week or more the count never came near me. my father changed our lodgings, and kept at home except when he went to the theatre with me. he began one day to speak discouragingly of my acting, and say, i could never go on singing in public--i should lose my voice--i ought to think of my future, and not put my nonsensical feelings between me and my fortune. he said, 'what will you do? you will be brought down to sing and beg at people's doors. you have had a splendid offer and ought to accept it.' i could not speak: a horror took possession of me when i thought of my mother and of him. i felt for the first time that i should not do wrong to leave him. but the next day he told me that he had put an end to my engagement at the theatre, and that we were to go to prague. i was getting suspicious of everything, and my will was hardening to act against him. it took us two days to pack and get ready; and i had it in my mind that i might be obliged to run away from my father, and then i would come to london and try if it were possible to find my mother. i had a little money, and i sold some things to get more. i packed a few clothes in a little bag that i could carry with me, and i kept my mind on the watch. my father's silence--his letting drop that subject of the count's offer--made me feel sure that there was a plan against me. i felt as if it had been a plan to take me to a madhouse. i once saw a picture of a madhouse, that i could never forget; it seemed to me very much like some of the life i had seen--the people strutting, quarreling, leering--the faces with cunning and malice in them. it was my will to keep myself from wickedness; and i prayed for help. i had seen what despised women were: and my heart turned against my father, for i saw always behind him that man who made me shudder. you will think i had not enough reason for my suspicions, and perhaps i had not, outside my own feeling; but it seemed to me that my mind had been lit up, and all that might be stood out clear and sharp. if i slept, it was only to see the same sort of things, and i could hardly sleep at all. through our journey i was everywhere on the watch. i don't know why, but it came before me like a real event, that my father would suddenly leave me and i should find myself with the count where i could not get away from him. i thought god was warning me: my mother's voice was in my soul. it was dark when we reached prague, and though the strange bunches of lamps were lit it was difficult to distinguish faces as we drove along the street. my father chose to sit outside--he was always smoking now--and i watched everything in spite of the darkness. i do believe i could see better then than i ever did before: the strange clearness within seemed to have got outside me. it was not my habit to notice faces and figures much in the street; but this night i saw every one; and when we passed before a great hotel i caught sight only of a back that was passing in--the light of the great bunch of lamps a good way off fell on it. i knew it--before the face was turned, as it fell into shadow, i knew who it was. help came to me. i feel sure help came. i did not sleep that night. i put on my plainest things--the cloak and hat i have worn ever since; and i sat watching for the light and the sound of the doors being unbarred. some one rose early--at four o'clock, to go to the railway. that gave me courage. i slipped out, with my little bag under my cloak, and none noticed me. i had been a long while attending to the railway guide that i might learn the way to england; and before the sun had risen i was in the train for dresden. then i cried for joy. i did not know whether my money would last out, but i trusted. i could sell the things in my bag, and the little rings in my ears, and i could live on bread only. my only terror was lest my father should follow me. but i never paused. i came on, and on, and on, only eating bread now and then. when i got to brussels i saw that i should not have enough money, and i sold all that i could sell; but here a strange thing happened. putting my hand into the pocket of my cloak, i found a half-napoleon. wondering and wondering how it came there, i remembered that on the way from cologne there was a young workman sitting against me. i was frightened at every one, and did not like to be spoken to. at first he tried to talk, but when he saw that i did not like it, he left off. it was a long journey; i ate nothing but a bit of bread, and he once offered me some of the food he brought in, but i refused it. i do believe it was he who put that bit of gold in my pocket. without it i could hardly have got to dover, and i did walk a good deal of the way from dover to london. i knew i should look like a miserable beggar-girl. i wanted not to look very miserable, because if i found my mother it would grieve her to see me so. but oh, how vain my hope was that she would be there to see me come! as soon as i set foot in london, i began to ask for lambeth and blackfriars bridge, but they were a long way off, and i went wrong. at last i got to blackfriars bridge and asked for colman street. people shook their heads. none knew it. i saw it in my mind--our doorsteps, and the white tiles hung in the windows, and the large brick building opposite with wide doors. but there was nothing like it. at last when i asked a tradesman where the coburg theatre and colman street were, he said, 'oh, my little woman, that's all done away with. the old streets have been pulled down; everything is new.' i turned away and felt as if death had laid a hand on me. he said: 'stop, stop! young woman; what is it you're wanting with colman street, eh?' meaning well, perhaps. but his tone was what i could not bear; and how could i tell him what i wanted? i felt blinded and bewildered with a sudden shock. i suddenly felt that i was very weak and weary, and yet where could i go? for i looked so poor and dusty, and had nothing with me--i looked like a street-beggar. and i was afraid of all places where i could enter. i lost my trust. i thought i was forsaken. it seemed that i had been in a fever of hope--delirious--all the way from prague: i thought that i was helped, and i did nothing but strain my mind forward and think of finding my mother; and now--there i stood in a strange world. all who saw me would think ill of me, and i must herd with beggars. i stood on the bridge and looked along the river. people were going on to a steamboat. many of them seemed poor, and i felt as if it would be a refuge to get away from the streets; perhaps the boat would take me where i could soon get into a solitude. i had still some pence left, and i bought a loaf when i went on the boat. i wanted to have a little time and strength to think of life and death. how could i live? and now again it seemed that if ever i were to find my mother again, death was the way to her. i ate, that i might have strength to think. the boat set me down at a place along the river--i don't know where--and it was late in the evening. i found some large trees apart from the road, and i sat down under them that i might rest through the night. sleep must have soon come to me, and when i awoke it was morning. the birds were singing, and the dew was white about me, i felt chill and oh, so lonely! i got up and walked and followed the river a long way and then turned back again. there was no reason why i should go anywhere. the world about me seemed like a vision that was hurrying by while i stood still with my pain. my thoughts were stronger than i was; they rushed in and forced me to see all my life from the beginning; ever since i was carried away from my mother i had felt myself a lost child taken up and used by strangers, who did not care what my life was to me, but only what i could do for them. it seemed all a weary wandering and heart-loneliness--as if i had been forced to go to merrymakings without the expectation of joy. and now it was worse. i was lost again, and i dreaded lest any stranger should notice me and speak to me. i had a terror of the world. none knew me; all would mistake me. i had seen so many in my life who made themselves glad with scorning, and laughed at another's shame. what could i do? this life seemed to be closing in upon me with a wall of fire--everywhere there was scorching that made me shrink. the high sunlight made me shrink. and i began to think that my despair was the voice of god telling me to die. but it would take me long to die of hunger. then i thought of my people, how they had been driven from land to land and been afflicted, and multitudes had died of misery in their wandering--was i the first? and in the wars and troubles when christians were cruelest, our fathers had sometimes slain their children and afterward themselves: it was to save them from being false apostates. that seemed to make it right for me to put an end to my life; for calamity had closed me in too, and i saw no pathway but to evil. but my mind got into war with itself, for there were contrary things in it. i knew that some had held it wrong to hasten their own death, though they were in the midst of flames; and while i had some strength left it was a longing to bear if i ought to bear--else where was the good of all my life? it had not been happy since the first years: when the light came every morning i used to think, 'i will bear it.' but always before i had some hope; now it was gone. with these thoughts i wandered and wandered, inwardly crying to the most high, from whom i should not flee in death more than in life--though i had no strong faith that he cared for me. the strength seemed departing from my soul; deep below all my cries was the feeling that i was alone and forsaken. the more i thought the wearier i got, till it seemed i was not thinking at all, but only the sky and the river and the eternal god were in my soul. and what was it whether i died or lived? if i lay down to die in the river, was it more than lying down to sleep?--for there too i committed my soul--i gave myself up. i could not bear memories any more; i could only feel what was present in me--it was all one longing to cease from my weary life, which seemed only a pain outside the great peace that i might enter into. that was how it was. when the evening came and the sun was gone, it seemed as if that was all i had to wait for. and a new strength came into me to will what i would do. you know what i did. i was going to die. you know what happened--did he not tell you? faith came to me again; i was not forsaken. he told you how he found me?" mrs. meyrick gave no audible answer, but pressed her lips against mirah's forehead. * * * * * "she's just a pearl; the mud has only washed her," was the fervid little woman's closing commentary when, _tete-à-tete_ with deronda in the back parlor that evening, she had conveyed mirah's story to him with much vividness. "what is your feeling about a search for this mother?" said deronda. "have you no fears? i have, i confess." "oh, i believe the mother's good," said mrs. meyrick, with rapid decisiveness; "or _was_ good. she may be dead--that's my fear. a good woman, you may depend: you may know it by the scoundrel the father is. where did the child get her goodness from? wheaten flour has to be accounted for." deronda was rather disappointed at this answer; he had wanted a confirmation of his own judgment, and he began to put in demurrers. the argument about the mother would not apply to the brother; and mrs. meyrick admitted that the brother might be an ugly likeness of the father. then, as to advertising, if the name was cohen, you might as well advertise for two undescribed terriers; and here mrs. meyrick helped him, for the idea of an advertisement, already mentioned to mirah, had roused the poor child's terror; she was convinced that her father would see it--he saw everything in the papers. certainly there were safer means than advertising; men might be set to work whose business it was to find missing persons; but deronda wished mrs. meyrick to feel with him that it would be wiser to wait, before seeking a dubious--perhaps a deplorable result; especially as he was engaged to go abroad the next week for a couple of months. if a search were made, he would like to be at hand, so that mrs. meyrick might not be unaided in meeting any consequences--supposing that she would generously continue to watch over mirah. "we should be very jealous of any one who took the task from us," said mrs. meyrick. "she will stay under my roof; there is hans's old room for her." "will she be content to wait?" said deronda, anxiously. "no trouble there. it is not her nature to run into planning and devising: only to submit. see how she submitted to that father! it was a wonder to herself how she found the will and contrivance to run away from him. about finding her mother, her only notion now is to trust; since you were sent to save her and we are good to her, she trusts that her mother will be found in the same unsought way. and when she is talking i catch her feeling like a child." mrs. meyrick hoped that the sum deronda put into her hands as a provision for mirah's wants was more than would be needed; after a little while mirah would perhaps like to occupy herself as the other girls did, and make herself independent. deronda pleaded that she must need a long rest. "oh, yes; we will hurry nothing," said mrs. meyrick. "rely upon it, she shall be taken tender care of. if you like to give me your address abroad, i will write to let you know how we get on. it is not fair that we should have all the pleasure of her salvation to ourselves. and besides, i want to make believe that i am doing something for you as well as for mirah." "that is no make-believe. what should i have done without you last night? everything would have gone wrong. i shall tell hans that the best of having him for a friend is, knowing his mother." after that they joined the girls in the other room, where mirah was seated placidly, while the others were telling her what they knew about mr. deronda--his goodness to hans, and all the virtues that hans had reported of him. "kate burns a pastille before his portrait every day," said mab. "and i carry his signature in a little black-silk bag round my neck to keep off the cramp. and amy says the multiplication-table in his name. we must all do something extra in honor of him, now he has brought you to us." "i suppose he is too great a person to want anything," said mirah, smiling at mab, and appealing to the graver amy. "he is perhaps very high in the world?" "he is very much above us in rank," said amy. "he is related to grand people. i dare say he leans on some of the satin cushions we prick our fingers over." "i am glad he is of high rank," said mirah, with her usual quietness. "now, why are you glad of that?" said amy, rather suspicious of this sentiment, and on the watch for jewish peculiarities which had not appeared. "because i have always disliked men of high rank before." "oh, mr. deronda is not so very high," said kate, "he need not hinder us from thinking ill of the whole peerage and baronetage if we like." when he entered, mirah rose with the same look of grateful reverence that she had lifted to him the evening before: impossible to see a creature freer at once from embarrassment and boldness. her theatrical training had left no recognizable trace; probably her manners had not much changed since she played the forsaken child at nine years of age; and she had grown up in her simplicity and truthfulness like a little flower-seed that absorbs the chance confusion of its surrounding into its own definite mould of beauty. deronda felt that he was making acquaintance with something quite new to him in the form of womanhood. for mirah was not childlike from ignorance: her experience of evil and trouble was deeper and stranger than his own. he felt inclined to watch her and listen to her as if she had come from a far off shore inhabited by a race different from our own. but for that very reason he made his visit brief with his usual activity of imagination as to how his conduct might affect others, he shrank from what might seem like curiosity or the assumption of a right to know as much as he pleased of one to whom he had done a service. for example, he would have liked to hear her sing, but he would have felt the expression of such a wish to be rudeness in him--since she could not refuse, and he would all the while have a sense that she was being treated like one whose accomplishments were to be ready on demand. and whatever reverence could be shown to woman, he was bent on showing to this girl. why? he gave himself several good reasons; but whatever one does with a strong unhesitating outflow of will has a store of motive that it would be hard to put into words. some deeds seem little more than interjections which give vent to the long passion of a life. so deronda soon took his farewell for the two months during which he expected to be absent from london, and in a few days he was on his way with sir hugo and lady mallinger to leubronn. he had fulfilled his intention of telling them about mirah. the baronet was decidedly of opinion that the search for the mother and brother had better be let alone. lady mallinger was much interested in the poor girl, observing that there was a society for the conversion of the jews, and that it was to be hoped mirah would embrace christianity; but perceiving that sir hugo looked at her with amusement, she concluded that she had said something foolish. lady mallinger felt apologetically about herself as a woman who had produced nothing but daughters in a case where sons were required, and hence regarded the apparent contradictions of the world as probably due to the weakness of her own understanding. but when she was much puzzled, it was her habit to say to herself, "i will ask daniel." deronda was altogether a convenience in the family; and sir hugo too, after intending to do the best for him, had begun to feel that the pleasantest result would be to have this substitute for a son always ready at his elbow. this was the history of deronda, so far as he knew it, up to the time of that visit to leubronn in which he saw gwendolen harleth at the gaming-table. chapter xxi. it is a common sentence that knowledge is power; but who hath duly considered or set forth the power of ignorance? knowledge slowly builds up what ignorance in an hour pulls down. knowledge, through patient and frugal centuries, enlarges discovery and makes record of it; ignorance, wanting its day's dinner, lights a fire with the record, and gives a flavor to its one roast with the burned souls of many generations. knowledge, instructing the sense, refining and multiplying needs, transforms itself into skill and makes life various with a new six days' work; comes ignorance drunk on the seventh, with a firkin of oil and a match and an easy "let there not be," and the many-colored creation is shriveled up in blackness. of a truth, knowledge is power, but it is a power reined by scruple, having a conscience of what must be and what may be; whereas ignorance is a blind giant who, let him but wax unbound, would make it a sport to seize the pillars that hold up the long-wrought fabric of human good, and turn all the places of joy dark as a buried babylon. and looking at life parcel-wise, in the growth of a single lot, who having a practiced vision may not see that ignorance of the true bond between events, and false conceit of means whereby sequences may be compelled--like that falsity of eyesight which overlooks the gradations of distance, seeing that which is afar off as if it were within a step or a grasp--precipitates the mistaken soul on destruction? it was half-past ten in the morning when gwendolen harleth, after her gloomy journey from leubronn, arrived at the station from which she must drive to offendene. no carriage or friend was awaiting her, for in the telegram she had sent from dover she had mentioned a later train, and in her impatience of lingering at a london station she had set off without picturing what it would be to arrive unannounced at half an hour's drive from home--at one of those stations which have been fixed on not as near anywhere, but as equidistant from everywhere. deposited as a _femme sole_ with her large trunks, and having to wait while a vehicle was being got from the large-sized lantern called the railway inn, gwendolen felt that the dirty paint in the waiting-room, the dusty decanter of flat water, and the texts in large letters calling on her to repent and be converted, were part of the dreary prospect opened by her family troubles; and she hurried away to the outer door looking toward the lane and fields. but here the very gleams of sunshine seemed melancholy, for the autumnal leaves and grass were shivering, and the wind was turning up the feathers of a cock and two croaking hens which had doubtless parted with their grown-up offspring and did not know what to do with themselves. the railway official also seemed without resources, and his innocent demeanor in observing gwendolen and her trunks was rendered intolerable by the cast in his eye; especially since, being a new man, he did not know her, and must conclude that she was not very high in the world. the vehicle--a dirty old barouche--was within sight, and was being slowly prepared by an elderly laborer. contemptible details these, to make part of a history; yet the turn of most lives is hardly to be accounted for without them. they are continually entering with cumulative force into a mood until it gets the mass and momentum of a theory or a motive. even philosophy is not quite free from such determining influences; and to be dropped solitary at an ugly, irrelevant-looking spot, with a sense of no income on the mind, might well prompt a man to discouraging speculation on the origin of things and the reason of a world where a subtle thinker found himself so badly off. how much more might such trifles tell on a young lady equipped for society with a fastidious taste, an indian shawl over her arm, some twenty cubic feet of trunks by her side, and a mortal dislike to the new consciousness of poverty which was stimulating her imagination of disagreeables? at any rate they told heavily on poor gwendolen, and helped to quell her resistant spirit. what was the good of living in the midst of hardships, ugliness, and humiliation? this was the beginning of being at home again, and it was a sample of what she had to expect. here was the theme on which her discontent rung its sad changes during her slow drive in the uneasy barouche, with one great trunk squeezing the meek driver, and the other fastened with a rope on the seat in front of her. her ruling vision all the way from leubronn had been that the family would go abroad again; for of course there must be some little income left--her mamma did not mean that they would have literally nothing. to go to a dull place abroad and live poorly, was the dismal future that threatened her: she had seen plenty of poor english people abroad and imagined herself plunged in the despised dullness of their ill-plenished lives, with alice, bertha, fanny and isabel all growing up in tediousness around her, while she advanced toward thirty and her mamma got more and more melancholy. but she did not mean to submit, and let misfortune do what it would with her: she had not yet quite believed in the misfortune; but weariness and disgust with this wretched arrival had begun to affect her like an uncomfortable waking, worse than the uneasy dreams which had gone before. the self-delight with which she had kissed her image in the glass had faded before the sense of futility in being anything whatever--charming, clever, resolute--what was the good of it all? events might turn out anyhow, and men were hateful. yes, men were hateful. but in these last hours, a certain change had come over their meaning. it is one thing to hate stolen goods, and another thing to hate them the more because their being stolen hinders us from making use of them. gwendolen had begun to be angry with grandcourt for being what had hindered her from marrying him, angry with him as the cause of her present dreary lot. but the slow drive was nearly at an end, and the lumbering vehicle coming up the avenue was within sight of the windows. a figure appearing under the portico brought a rush of new and less selfish feeling in gwendolen, and when springing from the carriage she saw the dear beautiful face with fresh lines of sadness in it, she threw her arms round her mother's neck, and for the moment felt all sorrows only in relation to her mother's feeling about them. behind, of course, were the sad faces of the four superfluous girls, each, poor thing--like those other many thousand sisters of us all--having her peculiar world which was of no importance to any one else, but all of them feeling gwendolen's presence to be somehow a relenting of misfortune: where gwendolen was, something interesting would happen; even her hurried submission to their kisses, and "now go away, girls," carried the sort of comfort which all weakness finds in decision and authoritativeness. good miss merry, whose air of meek depression, hitherto held unaccountable in a governess affectionately attached to the family, was now at the general level of circumstances, did not expect any greeting, but busied herself with the trunks and the coachman's pay; while mrs. davilow and gwendolen hastened up-stairs and shut themselves in the black and yellow bedroom. "never mind, mamma dear," said gwendolen, tenderly pressing her handkerchief against the tears that were rolling down mrs. davilow's cheeks. "never mind. i don't mind. i will do something. i will be something. things will come right. it seemed worse because i was away. come now! you must be glad because i am here." gwendolen felt every word of that speech. a rush of compassionate tenderness stirred all her capability of generous resolution; and the self-confident projects which had vaguely glanced before her during her journey sprang instantaneously into new definiteness. suddenly she seemed to perceive how she could be "something." it was one of her best moments, and the fond mother, forgetting everything below that tide mark, looked at her with a sort of adoration. she said, "bless you, my good, good darling! i can be happy, if you can!" but later in the day there was an ebb; the old slippery rocks, the old weedy places reappeared. naturally, there was a shrinking of courage as misfortune ceased to be a mere announcement, and began to disclose itself as a grievous tyrannical inmate. at first--that ugly drive at an end--it was still offendene that gwendolen had come home to, and all surroundings of immediate consequence to her were still there to secure her personal ease; the roomy stillness of the large solid house while she rested; all the luxuries of her toilet cared for without trouble to her; and a little tray with her favorite food brought to her in private. for she had said, "keep them all away from us to-day, mamma. let you and me be alone together." when gwendolen came down into the drawing-room, fresh as a newly-dipped swan, and sat leaning against the cushions of the settee beside her mamma, their misfortune had not yet turned its face and breath upon her. she felt prepared to hear everything, and began in a tone of deliberate intention, "what have you thought of doing, exactly, mamma?" "oh, my dear, the next thing to be done is to move away from this house. mr. haynes most fortunately is as glad to have it now as he would have been when we took it. lord brackenshaw's agent is to arrange everything with him to the best advantage for us: bazley, you know; not at all an ill-natured man." "i cannot help thinking that lord brackenshaw would let you stay here rent-free, mamma," said gwendolen, whose talents had not been applied to business so much as to discernment of the admiration excited by her charms. "my dear child, lord brackenshaw is in scotland, and knows nothing about us. neither your uncle nor i would choose to apply to him. besides, what could we do in this house without servants, and without money to warm it? the sooner we are out the better. we have nothing to carry but our clothes, you know?" "i suppose you mean to go abroad, then?" said gwendolen. after all, this is what she had familiarized her mind with. "oh, no, dear, no. how could we travel? you never did learn anything about income and expenses," said mrs. davilow, trying to smile, and putting her hand on gwendolen's as she added, mournfully, "that makes it so much harder for you, my pet." "but where are we to go?" said gwendolen, with a trace of sharpness in her tone. she felt a new current of fear passing through her. "it is all decided. a little furniture is to be got in from the rectory--all that can be spared." mrs. davilow hesitated. she dreaded the reality for herself less than the shock she must give to gwendolen, who looked at her with tense expectancy, but was silent. "it is sawyer's cottage we are to go to." at first, gwendolen remained silent, paling with anger--justifiable anger, in her opinion. then she said with haughtiness, "that is impossible. something else than that ought to have been thought of. my uncle ought not to allow that. i will not submit to it." "my sweet child, what else could have been thought of? your uncle, i am sure, is as kind as he can be: but he is suffering himself; he has his family to bring up. and do you quite understand? you must remember--we have nothing. we shall have absolutely nothing except what he and my sister give us. they have been as wise and active as possible, and we must try to earn something. i and the girls are going to work a table-cloth border for the ladies' charity at winchester, and a communion cloth that the parishioners are to present to pennicote church." mrs. davilow went into these details timidly: but how else was she to bring the fact of their position home to this poor child who, alas! must submit at present, whatever might be in the background for her? and she herself had a superstition that there must be something better in the background. "but surely somewhere else than sawyer's cottage might have been found," gwendolen persisted--taken hold of (as if in a nightmare) by the image of this house where an exciseman had lived. "no, indeed, dear. you know houses are scarce, and we may be thankful to get anything so private. it is not so very bad. there are two little parlors and four bedrooms. you shall sit alone whenever you like." the ebb of sympathetic care for her mamma had gone so low just now, that gwendolen took no notice of these deprecatory words. "i cannot conceive that all your property is gone at once, mamma. how can you be sure in so short a time? it is not a week since you wrote to me." "the first news came much earlier, dear. but i would not spoil your pleasure till it was quite necessary." "oh, how vexatious!" said gwendolen, coloring with fresh anger. "if i had known, i could have brought home the money i had won: and for want of knowing, i stayed and lost it. i had nearly two hundred pounds, and it would have done for us to live on a little while, till i could carry out some plan." she paused an instant and then added more impetuously, "everything has gone against me. people have come near me only to blight me." among the "people" she was including deronda. if he had not interfered in her life she would have gone to the gaming-table again with a few napoleons, and might have won back her losses. "we must resign ourselves to the will of providence, my child," said poor mrs. davilow, startled by this revelation of the gambling, but not daring to say more. she felt sure that "people" meant grandcourt, about whom her lips were sealed. and gwendolen answered immediately, "but i don't resign myself. i shall do what i can against it. what is the good of calling the people's wickedness providence? you said in your letter it was mr. lassman's fault we had lost our money. has he run away with it all?" "no, dear, you don't understand. there were great speculations: he meant to gain. it was all about mines and things of that sort. he risked too much." "i don't call that providence: it was his improvidence with our money, and he ought to be punished. can't we go to law and recover our fortune? my uncle ought to take measures, and not sit down by such wrongs. we ought to go to law." "my dear child, law can never bring back money lost in that way. your uncle says it is milk spilled upon the ground. besides, one must have a fortune to get any law: there is no law for people who are ruined. and our money has only gone along with other people's. we are not the only sufferers: others have to resign themselves besides us." "but i don't resign myself to live at sawyer's cottage and see you working for sixpences and shillings because of that. i shall not do it. i shall do what is more befitting our rank and education." "i am sure your uncle and all of us will approve of that, dear, and admire you the more for it," said mrs. davilow, glad of an unexpected opening for speaking on a difficult subject. "i didn't mean that you should resign yourself to worse when anything better offered itself. both your uncle and aunt have felt that your abilities and education were a fortune for you, and they have already heard of something within your reach." "what is that, mamma?" some of gwendolen's anger gave way to interest, and she was not without romantic conjectures. "there are two situations that offer themselves. one is in a bishop's family, where there are three daughters, and the other is in quite a high class of school; and in both, your french, and music, and dancing--and then your manners and habits as a lady, are exactly what is wanted. each is a hundred a year--and--just for the present,"--mrs. davilow had become frightened and hesitating,--"to save you from the petty, common way of living that we must go to--you would perhaps accept one of the two." "what! be like miss graves at madame meunier's? no." "i think, myself, that dr. monpert's would be more suitable. there could be no hardship in a bishop's family." "excuse me, mamma. there are hardships everywhere for a governess. and i don't see that it would be pleasanter to be looked down on in a bishop's family than in any other. besides, you know very well i hate teaching. fancy me shut up with three awkward girls something like alice! i would rather emigrate than be a governess." what it precisely was to emigrate, gwendolen was not called on to explain. mrs. davilow was mute, seeing no outlet, and thinking with dread of the collision that might happen when gwendolen had to meet her uncle and aunt. there was an air of reticence in gwendolen's haughty, resistant speeches which implied that she had a definite plan in reserve; and her practical ignorance continually exhibited, could not nullify the mother's belief in the effectiveness of that forcible will and daring which had held mastery over herself. "i have some ornaments, mamma, and i could sell them," said gwendolen. "they would make a sum: i want a little sum--just to go on with. i dare say marshall, at wanchester, would take them: i know he showed me some bracelets once that he said he had bought from a lady. jocosa might go and ask him. jocosa is going to leave us, of course. but she might do that first." "she would do anything she could, poor, dear soul. i have not told you yet--she wanted me to take all her savings--her three hundred pounds. i tell her to set up a little school. it will be hard for her to go into a new family now she has been so long with us." "oh, recommend her for the bishop's daughters," said gwendolen, with a sudden gleam of laughter in her face. "i am sure she will do better than i should." "do take care not to say such things to your uncle," said mrs. davilow. "he will be hurt at your despising what he has exerted himself about. but i dare say you have something else in your mind that he might not disapprove, if you consulted him." "there is some one else i want to consult first. are the arrowpoints at quetcham still, and is herr klesmer there? but i daresay you know nothing about it, poor, dear mamma. can jeffries go on horseback with a note?" "oh, my dear, jeffries is not here, and the dealer has taken the horses. but some one could go for us from leek's farm. the arrowpoints are at quetcham, i know. miss arrowpoint left her card the other day: i could not see her. but i don't know about herr klesmer. do you want to send before to-morrow?" "yes, as soon as possible. i will write a note," said gwendolen, rising. "what can you be thinking of, gwen?" said mrs. davilow, relieved in the midst of her wonderment by signs of alacrity and better humor. "don't mind what, there's a dear, good mamma," said gwendolen, reseating herself a moment to give atoning caresses. "i mean to do something. never mind what until it is all settled. and then you shall be comforted. the dear face!--it is ten years older in these three weeks. now, now, now! don't cry"--gwendolen, holding her mamma's head with both hands, kissed the trembling eyelids. "but mind you don't contradict me or put hindrances in my way. i must decide for myself. i cannot be dictated to by my uncle or any one else. my life is my own affair. and i think"--here her tone took an edge of scorn--"i think i can do better for you than let you live in sawyer's cottage." in uttering this last sentence gwendolen again rose, and went to a desk where she wrote the following note to klesmer:, miss harleth presents her compliments to herr klesmer, and ventures to request of him the very great favor that he will call upon her, if possible, to-morrow. her reason for presuming so far on his kindness is of a very serious nature. unfortunate family circumstances have obliged her to take a course in which she can only turn for advice to the great knowledge and judgment of herr klesmer. "pray get this sent to quetcham at once, mamma," said gwendolen, as she addressed the letter. "the man must be told to wait for an answer. let no time be lost." for the moment, the absorbing purpose was to get the letter dispatched; but when she had been assured on this point, another anxiety arose and kept her in a state of uneasy excitement. if klesmer happened not to be at quetcham, what could she do next? gwendolen's belief in her star, so to speak, had had some bruises. things had gone against her. a splendid marriage which presented itself within reach had shown a hideous flaw. the chances of roulette had not adjusted themselves to her claims; and a man of whom she knew nothing had thrust himself between her and her intentions. the conduct of those uninteresting people who managed the business of the world had been culpable just in the points most injurious to her in particular. gwendolen harleth, with all her beauty and conscious force, felt the close threats of humiliation: for the first time the conditions of this world seemed to her like a hurrying roaring crowd in which she had got astray, no more cared for and protected than a myriad of other girls, in spite of its being a peculiar hardship to her. if klesmer were not at quetcham--that would be all of a piece with the rest: the unwelcome negative urged itself as a probability, and set her brain working at desperate alternatives which might deliver her from sawyer's cottage or the ultimate necessity of "taking a situation," a phrase that summed up for her the disagreeables most wounding to her pride, most irksome to her tastes; at least so far as her experience enabled her to imagine disagreeables. still klesmer might be there, and gwendolen thought of the result in that case with a hopefulness which even cast a satisfactory light over her peculiar troubles, as what might well enter into the biography of celebrities and remarkable persons. and if she had heard her immediate acquaintances cross-examined as to whether they thought her remarkable, the first who said "no" would have surprised her. chapter xxii. we please our fancy with ideal webs of innovation, but our life meanwhile is in the loom, where busy passion plies the shuttle to and fro, and gives our deeds the accustomed pattern. gwendolen's note, coming "pat betwixt too early and too late," was put into klesmer's hands just when he was leaving quetcham, and in order to meet her appeal to his kindness he, with some inconvenience to himself spent the night at wanchester. there were reasons why he would not remain at quetcham. that magnificent mansion, fitted with regard to the greatest expense, had in fact became too hot for him, its owners having, like some great politicians, been astonished at an insurrection against the established order of things, which we plain people after the event can perceive to have been prepared under their very noses. there were as usual many guests in the house, and among them one in whom miss arrowpoint foresaw a new pretender to her hand: a political man of good family who confidently expected a peerage, and felt on public grounds that he required a larger fortune to support the title properly. heiresses vary, and persons interested in one of them beforehand are prepared to find that she is too yellow or too red, tall and toppling or short and square, violent and capricious or moony and insipid; but in every case it is taken for granted that she will consider herself an appendage to her fortune, and marry where others think her fortunes ought to go. nature, however, not only accommodates herself ill to our favorite practices by making "only children" daughters, but also now and then endows the misplaced daughter with a clear head and a strong will. the arrowpoints had already felt some anxiety owing to these endowments of their catherine. she would not accept the view of her social duty which required her to marry a needy nobleman or a commoner on the ladder toward nobility; and they were not without uneasiness concerning her persistence in declining suitable offers. as to the possibility of her being in love with klesmer they were not at all uneasy--a very common sort of blindness. for in general mortals have a great power of being astonished at the presence of an effect toward which they have done everything, and at the absence of an effect toward which they had done nothing but desire it. parents are astonished at the ignorance of their sons, though they have used the most time-honored and expensive means of securing it; husbands and wives are mutually astonished at the loss of affection which they have taken no pains to keep; and all of us in our turn are apt to be astonished that our neighbors do not admire us. in this way it happens that the truth seems highly improbable. the truth is something different from the habitual lazy combinations begotten by our wishes. the arrowpoints' hour of astonishment was come. when there is a passion between an heiress and a proud independent-spirited man, it is difficult for them to come to an understanding; but the difficulties are likely to be overcome unless the proud man secures himself by a constant _alibi_. brief meetings after studied absence are potent in disclosure: but more potent still is frequent companionship, with full sympathy in taste and admirable qualities on both sides; especially where the one is in the position of teacher and the other is delightedly conscious of receptive ability which also gives the teacher delight. the situation is famous in history, and has no less charm now than it had in the days of abelard. but this kind of comparison had not occurred to the arrowpoints when they first engaged klesmer to come down to quetcham. to have a first-rate musician in your house is a privilege of wealth; catherine's musical talent demanded every advantage; and she particularly desired to use her quieter time in the country for more thorough study. klesmer was not yet a liszt, understood to be adored by ladies of all european countries with the exception of lapland: and even with that understanding it did not follow that he would make proposals to an heiress. no musician of honor would do so. still less was it conceivable that catherine would give him the slightest pretext for such daring. the large check that mr. arrowpoint was to draw in klesmer's name seemed to make him as safe an inmate as a footman. where marriage is inconceivable, a girl's sentiments are safe. klesmer was eminently a man of honor, but marriages rarely begin with formal proposals, and moreover, catherine's limit of the conceivable did not exactly correspond with her mother's. outsiders might have been more apt to think that klesmer's position was dangerous for himself if miss arrowpoint had been an acknowledged beauty; not taking into account that the most powerful of all beauty is that which reveals itself after sympathy and not before it. there is a charm of eye and lip which comes with every little phrase that certifies delicate perception or fine judgment, with every unostentatious word or smile that shows a heart awake to others; and no sweep of garment or turn of figure is more satisfying than that which enters as a restoration of confidence that one person is present on whom no intention will be lost. what dignity of meaning goes on gathering in frowns and laughs which are never observed in the wrong place; what suffused adorableness in a human frame where there is a mind that can flash out comprehension and hands that can execute finely! the more obvious beauty, also adorable sometimes--one may say it without blasphemy--begins by being an apology for folly, and ends like other apologies in becoming tiresome by iteration; and that klesmer, though very susceptible to it, should have a passionate attachment to miss arrowpoint, was no more a paradox than any other triumph of a manifold sympathy over a monotonous attraction. we object less to be taxed with the enslaving excess of our passions than with our deficiency in wider passion; but if the truth were known, our reputed intensity is often the dullness of not knowing what else to do with ourselves. tannhäuser, one suspects, was a knight of ill-furnished imagination, hardly of larger discourse than a heavy guardsman; merlin had certainly seen his best days, and was merely repeating himself, when he fell into that hopeless captivity; and we know that ulysses felt so manifest an _ennui_ under similar circumstances that calypso herself furthered his departure. there is indeed a report that he afterward left penelope; but since she was habitually absorbed in worsted work, and it was probably from her that telemachus got his mean, pettifogging disposition, always anxious about the property and the daily consumption of meat, no inference can be drawn from this already dubious scandal as to the relation between companionship and constancy. klesmer was as versatile and fascinating as a young ulysses on a sufficient acquaintance--one whom nature seemed to have first made generously and then to have added music as a dominant power using all the abundant rest, and, as in mendelssohn, finding expression for itself not only in the highest finish of execution, but in that fervor of creative work and theoretic belief which pierces the whole future of a life with the delight of congruous devoted purpose. his foibles of arrogance and vanity did not exceed such as may be found in the best english families; and catherine arrowpoint had no corresponding restlessness to clash with his: notwithstanding her native kindliness she was perhaps too coolly firm and self-sustained. but she was one of those satisfactory creatures whose intercourse has the charm of discovery; whose integrity of faculty and expression begets a wish to know what they will say on all subjects or how they will perform whatever they undertake; so that they end by raising not only a continual expectation but a continual sense of fulfillment--the systole and diastole of blissful companionship. in such cases the outward presentment easily becomes what the image is to the worshipper. it was not long before the two became aware that each was interesting to the other; but the "how far" remained a matter of doubt. klesmer did not conceive that miss arrowpoint was likely to think of him as a possible lover, and she was not accustomed to think of herself as likely to stir more than a friendly regard, or to fear the expression of more from any man who was not enamored of her fortune. each was content to suffer some unshared sense of denial for the sake of loving the other's society a little too well; and under these conditions no need had been felt to restrict klesmer's visits for the last year either in country or in town. he knew very well that if miss arrowpoint had been poor he would have made ardent love to her instead of sending a storm through the piano, or folding his arms and pouring out a hyperbolical tirade about something as impersonal as the north pole; and she was not less aware that if it had been possible for klesmer to wish for her hand she would have found overmastering reasons for giving it to him. here was the safety of full cups, which are as secure from overflow as the half-empty, always supposing no disturbance. naturally, silent feeling had not remained at the same point any more than the stealthly dial-hand, and in the present visit to quetcham, klesmer had begun to think that he would not come again; while catherine was more sensitive to his frequent _brusquerie_, which she rather resented as a needless effort to assert his footing of superior in every sense except the conventional. meanwhile enters the expectant peer, mr. bult, an esteemed party man who, rather neutral in private life, had strong opinions concerning the districts of the niger, was much at home also in brazils, spoke with decision of affairs in the south seas, was studious of his parliamentary and itinerant speeches, and had the general solidity and suffusive pinkness of a healthy briton on the central table-land of life. catherine, aware of a tacit understanding that he was an undeniable husband for an heiress, had nothing to say against him but that he was thoroughly tiresome to her. mr. bult was amiably confident, and had no idea that his insensibility to counterpoint could ever be reckoned against him. klesmer he hardly regarded in the light of a serious human being who ought to have a vote; and he did not mind miss arrowpoint's addiction to music any more than her probable expenses in antique lace. he was consequently a little amazed at an after-dinner outburst of klesmer's on the lack of idealism in english politics, which left all mutuality between distant races to be determined simply by the need of a market; the crusades, to his mind, had at least this excuse, that they had a banner of sentiment round which generous feelings could rally: of course, the scoundrels rallied too, but what then? they rally in equal force round your advertisement van of "buy cheap, sell dear." on this theme klesmer's eloquence, gesticulatory and other, went on for a little while like stray fireworks accidentally ignited, and then sank into immovable silence. mr. bult was not surprised that klesmer's opinions should be flighty, but was astonished at his command of english idiom and his ability to put a point in a way that would have told at a constituents' dinner--to be accounted for probably by his being a pole, or a czech, or something of that fermenting sort, in a state of political refugeeism which had obliged him to make a profession of his music; and that evening in the drawing-room he for the first time went up to klesmer at the piano, miss arrowpoint being near, and said, "i had no idea before that you were a political man." klesmer's only answer was to fold his arms, put out his nether lip, and stare at mr. bult. "you must have been used to public speaking. you speak uncommonly well, though i don't agree with you. from what you said about sentiment, i fancy you are a panslavist." "no; my name is elijah. i am the wandering jew," said klesmer, flashing a smile at miss arrowpoint, and suddenly making a mysterious, wind-like rush backward and forward on the piano. mr. bult felt this buffoonery rather offensive and polish, but--miss arrowpoint being there--did not like to move away. "herr klesmer has cosmopolitan ideas," said miss arrowpoint, trying to make the best of the situation. "he looks forward to a fusion of races." "with all my heart," said mr. bult, willing to be gracious. "i was sure he had too much talent to be a mere musician." "ah, sir, you are under some mistake there," said klesmer, firing up. "no man has too much talent to be a musician. most men have too little. a creative artist is no more a mere musician than a great statesman is a mere politician. we are not ingenious puppets, sir, who live in a box and look out on the world only when it is gaping for amusement. we help to rule the nations and make the age as much as any other public men. we count ourselves on level benches with legislators. and a man who speaks effectively through music is compelled to something more difficult than parliamentary eloquence." with the last word klesmer wheeled from the piano and walked away. miss arrowpoint colored, and mr. bult observed, with his usual phlegmatic stolidity, "your pianist does not think small beer of himself." "herr klesmer is something more than a pianist," said miss arrowpoint, apologetically. "he is a great musician in the fullest sense of the word. he will rank with schubert and mendelssohn." "ah, you ladies understand these things," said mr. bult, none the less convinced that these things were frivolous because klesmer had shown himself a coxcomb. catherine, always sorry when klesmer gave himself airs, found an opportunity the next day in the music-room to say, "why were you so heated last night with mr. bult? he meant no harm." "you wish me to be complaisant to him?" said klesmer, rather fiercely. "i think it is hardly worth your while to be other than civil." "you find no difficulty in tolerating him, then?--you have a respect for a political platitudinarian as insensible as an ox to everything he can't turn into political capital. you think his monumental obtuseness suited to the dignity of the english gentleman." "i did not say that." "you mean that i acted without dignity, and you are offended with me." "now you are slightly nearer the truth," said catherine, smiling. "then i had better put my burial-clothes in my portmanteau and set off at once." "i don't see that. if i have to bear your criticism of my operetta, you should not mind my criticism of your impatience." "but i do mind it. you would have wished me to take his ignorant impertinence about a 'mere musician' without letting him know his place. i am to hear my gods blasphemed as well as myself insulted. but i beg pardon. it is impossible you should see the matter as i do. even you can't understand the wrath of the artist: he is of another caste for you." "that is true," said catherine, with some betrayal of feeling. "he is of a caste to which i look up--a caste above mine." klesmer, who had been seated at a table looking over scores, started up and walked to a little distance, from which he said, "that is finely felt--i am grateful. but i had better go, all the same. i have made up my mind to go, for good and all. you can get on exceedingly well without me: your operetta is on wheels--it will go of itself. and your mr. bull's company fits me 'wie die faust ins auge.' i am neglecting my engagements. i must go off to st. petersburg." there was no answer. "you agree with me that i had better go?" said klesmer, with some irritation. "certainly; if that is what your business and feeling prompt. i have only to wonder that you have consented to give us so much of your time in the last year. there must be treble the interest to you anywhere else. i have never thought of you consenting to come here as anything else than a sacrifice." "why should i make the sacrifice?" said klesmer, going to seat himself at the piano, and touching the keys so as to give with the delicacy of an echo in the far distance a melody which he had set to heine's "ich hab' dich geliebet und liebe dich noch." "that is the mystery," said catherine, not wanting to affect anything, but from mere agitation. from the same cause she was tearing a piece of paper into minute morsels, as if at a task of utmost multiplication imposed by a cruel fairy. "you can conceive no motive?" said klesmer, folding his arms. "none that seems in the least probable." "then i shall tell you. it is because you are to me the chief woman in the world--the throned lady whose colors i carry between my heart and my armor." catherine's hands trembled so much that she could no longer tear the paper: still less could her lips utter a word. klesmer went on, "this would be the last impertinence in me, if i meant to found anything upon it. that is out of the question. i meant no such thing. but you once said it was your doom to suspect every man who courted you of being an adventurer, and what made you angriest was men's imputing to you the folly of believing that they courted you for your own sake. did you not say so?" "very likely," was the answer, in a low murmur. "it was a bitter word. well, at least one man who has seen women as plenty as flowers in may has lingered about you for your own sake. and since he is one whom you can never marry, you will believe him. there is an argument in favor of some other man. but don't give yourself for a meal to a minotaur like bult. i shall go now and pack. i shall make my excuses to mrs. arrowpoint." klesmer rose as he ended, and walked quickly toward the door. "you must take this heap of manuscript," then said catherine, suddenly making a desperate effort. she had risen to fetch the heap from another table. klesmer came back, and they had the length of the folio sheets between them. "why should i not marry the man who loves me, if i love him?" said catherine. to her the effort was something like the leap of a woman from the deck into the lifeboat. "it would be too hard--impossible--you could not carry it through. i am not worth what you would have to encounter. i will not accept the sacrifice. it would be thought a _mésalliance_ for you and i should be liable to the worst accusations." "is it the accusations you are afraid of? i am afraid of nothing but that we should miss the passing of our lives together." the decisive word had been spoken: there was no doubt concerning the end willed by each: there only remained the way of arriving at it, and catherine determined to take the straightest possible. she went to her father and mother in the library, and told them that she had promised to marry klesmer. mrs. arrowpoint's state of mind was pitiable. imagine jean jacques, after his essay on the corrupting influence of the arts, waking up among children of nature who had no idea of grilling the raw bone they offered him for breakfast with the primitive couvert of a flint knife; or saint just, after fervidly denouncing all recognition of pre-eminence, receiving a vote of thanks for the unbroken mediocrity of his speech, which warranted the dullest patriots in delivering themselves at equal length. something of the same sort befell the authoress of "tasso," when what she had safely demanded of the dead leonora was enacted by her own catherine. it is hard for us to live up to our own eloquence, and keep pace with our winged words, while we are treading the solid earth and are liable to heavy dining. besides, it has long been understood that the proprieties of literature are not those of practical life. mrs. arrowpoint naturally wished for the best of everything. she not only liked to feel herself at a higher level of literary sentiment than the ladies with whom she associated; she wished not to be behind them in any point of social consideration. while klesmer was seen in the light of a patronized musician, his peculiarities were picturesque and acceptable: but to see him by a sudden flash in the light of her son-in-law gave her a burning sense of what the world would say. and the poor lady had been used to represent her catherine as a model of excellence. under the first shock she forgot everything but her anger, and snatched at any phrase that would serve as a weapon. "if klesmer has presumed to offer himself to you, your father shall horsewhip him off the premises. pray, speak, mr. arrowpoint." the father took his cigar from his mouth, and rose to the occasion by saying, "this will never do, cath." "do!" cried mrs. arrowpoint; "who in their senses ever thought it would do? you might as well say poisoning and strangling will not do. it is a comedy you have got up, catherine. else you are mad." "i am quite sane and serious, mamma, and herr klesmer is not to blame. he never thought of my marrying him. i found out that he loved me, and loving him, i told him i would marry him." "leave that unsaid, catherine," said mrs. arrowpoint, bitterly. "every one else will say that for you. you will be a public fable. every one will say that you must have made an offer to a man who has been paid to come to the house--who is nobody knows what--a gypsy, a jew, a mere bubble of the earth." "never mind, mamma," said catherine, indignant in her turn. "we all know he is a genius--as tasso was." "those times were not these, nor is klesmer tasso," said mrs. arrowpoint, getting more heated. "there is no sting in _that_ sarcasm, except the sting of undutifulness." "i am sorry to hurt you, mamma. but i will not give up the happiness of my life to ideas that i don't believe in and customs i have no respect for." "you have lost all sense of duty, then? you have forgotten that you are our only child--that it lies with you to place a great property in the right hands?" "what are the right hands? my grandfather gained the property in trade." "mr. arrowpoint, _will_ you sit by and hear this without speaking?" "i am a gentleman, cath. we expect you to marry a gentleman," said the father, exerting himself. "and a man connected with the institutions of this country," said the mother. "a woman in your position has serious duties. where duty and inclination clash, she must follow duty." "i don't deny that," said catherine, getting colder in proportion to her mother's heat. "but one may say very true things and apply them falsely. people can easily take the sacred word duty as a name for what they desire any one else to do." "your parent's desire makes no duty for you, then?" "yes, within reason. but before i give up the happiness of my life--" "catherine, catherine, it will not be your happiness," said mrs. arrowpoint, in her most raven-like tones. "well, what seems to me my happiness--before i give it up, i must see some better reason than the wish that i should marry a nobleman, or a man who votes with a party that he may be turned into a nobleman. i feel at liberty to marry the man i love and think worthy, unless some higher duty forbids." "and so it does, catherine, though you are blinded and cannot see it. it is a woman's duty not to lower herself. you are lowering yourself. mr. arrowpoint, will you tell your daughter what is her duty?" "you must see, catherine, that klesmer is not the man for you," said mr. arrowpoint. "he won't do at the head of estates. he has a deuced foreign look--is an unpractical man." "i really can't see what that has to do with it, papa. the land of england has often passed into the hands of foreigners--dutch soldiers, sons of foreign women of bad character:--if our land were sold to-morrow it would very likely pass into the hands of some foreign merchant on 'change. it is in everybody's mouth that successful swindlers may buy up half the land in the country. how can i stem that tide?" "it will never do to argue about marriage, cath," said mr. arrowpoint. "it's no use getting up the subject like a parliamentary question. we must do as other people do. we must think of the nation and the public good." "i can't see any public good concerned here, papa," said catherine. "why is it to be expected of any heiress that she should carry the property gained in trade into the hands of a certain class? that seems to be a ridiculous mishmash of superannuated customs and false ambition. i should call it a public evil. people had better make a new sort of public good by changing their ambitions." "that is mere sophistry, catherine," said mrs. arrowpoint. "because you don't wish to marry a nobleman, you are not obliged to marry a mountebank or a charlatan." "i cannot understand the application of such words, mamma." "no, i dare say not," rejoined mrs. arrowpoint, with significant scorn. "you have got to a pitch at which we are not likely to understand each other." "it can't be done, cath," said mr. arrowpoint, wishing to substitute a better-humored reasoning for his wife's impetuosity. "a man like klesmer can't marry such a property as yours. it can't be done." "it certainly will not be done," said mrs. arrowpoint, imperiously. "where is the man? let him be fetched." "i cannot fetch him to be insulted," said catherine. "nothing will be achieved by that." "i suppose you would wish him to know that in marrying you he will not marry your fortune," said mrs. arrowpoint. "certainly; if it were so, i should wish him to know it." "then you had better fetch him." catherine only went into the music-room and said, "come." she felt no need to prepare klesmer. "herr klesmer," said mrs. arrowpoint, with a rather contemptuous stateliness, "it is unnecessary to repeat what has passed between us and our daughter. mr. arrowpoint will tell you our resolution." "your marrying is out of the question," said mr. arrowpoint, rather too heavily weighted with his task, and standing in an embarrassment unrelieved by a cigar. "it is a wild scheme altogether. a man has been called out for less." "you have taken a base advantage of our confidence," burst in mrs. arrowpoint, unable to carry out her purpose and leave the burden of speech to her husband. klesmer made a low bow in silent irony. "the pretension is ridiculous. you had better give it up and leave the house at once," continued mr. arrowpoint. he wished to do without mentioning the money. "i can give up nothing without reference to your daughter's wish," said klesmer. "my engagement is to her." "it is useless to discuss the question," said mrs. arrowpoint. "we shall never consent to the marriage. if catherine disobeys us we shall disinherit her. you will not marry her fortune. it is right you should know that." "madam, her fortune has been the only thing i have had to regret about her. but i must ask her if she will not think the sacrifice greater than i am worthy of." "it is no sacrifice to me," said catherine, "except that i am sorry to hurt my father and mother. i have always felt my fortune to be a wretched fatality of my life." "you mean to defy us, then?" said mrs. arrowpoint. "i mean to marry herr klesmer," said catherine, firmly. "he had better not count on our relenting," said mrs. arrowpoint, whose manners suffered from that impunity in insult which has been reckoned among the privileges of women. "madam," said klesmer, "certain reasons forbid me to retort. but understand that i consider it out of the power of either of you, or of your fortune, to confer on me anything that i value. my rank as an artist is of my own winning, and i would not exchange it for any other. i am able to maintain your daughter, and i ask for no change in my life but her companionship." "you will leave the house, however," said mrs. arrowpoint. "i go at once," said klesmer, bowing and quitting the room. "let there be no misunderstanding, mamma," said catherine; "i consider myself engaged to herr klesmer, and i intend to marry him." the mother turned her head away and waved her hand in sign of dismissal. "it's all very fine," said mr. arrowpoint, when catherine was gone; "but what the deuce are we to do with the property?" "there is harry brendall. he can take the name." "harry brendall will get through it all in no time," said mr. arrowpoint, relighting his cigar. and thus, with nothing settled but the determination of the lovers, klesmer had left quetcham. chapter xxiii. among the heirs of art, as is the division of the promised land, each has to win his portion by hard fighting: the bestowal is after the manner of prophecy, and is a title without possession. to carry the map of an ungotten estate in your pocket is a poor sort of copyhold. and in fancy to cast his shoe over eden is little warrant that a man shall ever set the sole of his foot on an acre of his own there. the most obstinate beliefs that mortals entertain about themselves are such as they have no evidence for beyond a constant, spontaneous pulsing of their self-satisfaction--as it were a hidden seed of madness, a confidence that they can move the world without precise notion of standing-place or lever. "pray go to church, mamma," said gwendolen the next morning. "i prefer seeing herr klesmer alone." (he had written in reply to her note that he would be with her at eleven.) "that is hardly correct, i think," said mrs. davilow, anxiously. "our affairs are too serious for us to think of such nonsensical rules," said gwendolen, contemptuously. "they are insulting as well as ridiculous." "you would not mind isabel sitting with you? she would be reading in a corner." "no; she could not: she would bite her nails and stare. it would be too irritating. trust my judgment, mamma, i must be alone. take them all to church." gwendolen had her way, of course; only that miss merry and two of the girls stayed at home, to give the house a look of habitation by sitting at the dining-room windows. it was a delicious sunday morning. the melancholy waning sunshine of autumn rested on the half-strown grass and came mildly through the windows in slanting bands of brightness over the old furniture, and the glass panel that reflected the furniture; over the tapestried chairs with their faded flower-wreaths, the dark enigmatic pictures, the superannuated organ at which gwendolen had pleased herself with acting saint cecelia on her first joyous arrival, the crowd of pallid, dusty knickknacks seen through the open doors of the antechamber where she had achieved the wearing of her greek dress as hermione. this last memory was just now very busy in her; for had not klesmer then been struck with admiration of her pose and expression? whatever he had said, whatever she imagined him to have thought, was at this moment pointed with keenest interest for her: perhaps she had never before in her life felt so inwardly dependent, so consciously in need of another person's opinion. there was a new fluttering of spirit within her, a new element of deliberation in her self-estimate which had hitherto been a blissful gift of intuition. still it was the recurrent burden of her inward soliloquy that klesmer had seen but little of her, and any unfavorable conclusion of his must have too narrow a foundation. she really felt clever enough for anything. to fill up the time she collected her volumes and pieces of music, and laying them on the top of the piano, set herself to classify them. then catching the reflection of her movements in the glass panel, she was diverted to the contemplation of the image there and walked toward it. dressed in black, without a single ornament, and with the warm whiteness of her skin set off between her light-brown coronet of hair and her square-cut bodice, she might have tempted an artist to try again the roman trick of a statue in black, white, and tawny marble. seeing her image slowly advancing, she thought "i _am_ beautiful"--not exultingly, but with grave decision. being beautiful was after all the condition on which she most needed external testimony. if any one objected to the turn of her nose or the form of her neck and chin, she had not the sense that she could presently show her power of attainment in these branches of feminine perfection. there was not much time to fill up in this way before the sound of wheels, the loud ring, and the opening doors assured her that she was not by any accident to be disappointed. this slightly increased her inward flutter. in spite of her self-confidence, she dreaded klesmer as part of that unmanageable world which was independent of her wishes--something vitriolic that would not cease to burn because you smiled or frowned at it. poor thing! she was at a higher crisis of her woman's fate than in her last experience with grandcourt. the questioning then, was whether she should take a particular man as a husband. the inmost fold of her questioning now was whether she need take a husband at all--whether she could not achieve substantially for herself and know gratified ambition without bondage. klesmer made his most deferential bow in the wide doorway of the antechamber--showing also the deference of the finest gray kerseymere trousers and perfect gloves (the 'masters of those who know' are happily altogether human). gwendolen met him with unusual gravity, and holding out her hand said, "it is most kind of you to come, herr klesmer. i hope you have not thought me presumptuous." "i took your wish as a command that did me honor," said klesmer, with answering gravity. he was really putting by his own affairs in order to give his utmost attention to what gwendolen might have to say; but his temperament was still in a state of excitation from the events of yesterday, likely enough to give his expressions a more than usually biting edge. gwendolen for once was under too great a strain of feeling to remember formalities. she continued standing near the piano, and klesmer took his stand near the other end of it with his back to the light and his terribly omniscient eyes upon her. no affectation was of use, and she began without delay. "i wish to consult you, herr klesmer. we have lost all our fortune; we have nothing. i must get my own bread, and i desire to provide for my mamma, so as to save her from any hardship. the only way i can think of--and i should like it better than anything--is to be an actress--to go on the stage. but, of course, i should like to take a high position, and i thought--if you thought i could"--here gwendolen became a little more nervous--"it would be better for me to be a singer--to study singing also." klesmer put down his hat upon the piano, and folded his arms as if to concentrate himself. "i know," gwendolen resumed, turning from pale to pink and back again--"i know that my method of singing is very defective; but i have been ill taught. i could be better taught; i could study. and you will understand my wish:--to sing and act too, like grisi, is a much higher position. naturally, i should wish to take as high rank as i can. and i can rely on your judgment. i am sure you will tell me the truth." gwendolen somehow had the conviction that now she made this serious appeal the truth would be favorable. still klesmer did not speak. he drew off his gloves quickly, tossed them into his hat, rested his hands on his hips, and walked to the other end of the room. he was filled with compassion for this girl: he wanted to put a guard on his speech. when he turned again, he looked at her with a mild frown of inquiry, and said with gentle though quick utterance, "you have never seen anything, i think, of artists and their lives?--i mean of musicians, actors, artists of that kind?" "oh, no," said gwendolen, not perturbed by a reference to this obvious fact in the history of a young lady hitherto well provided for. "you are--pardon me," said klesmer, again pausing near the piano--"in coming to a conclusion on such a matter as this, everything must be taken into consideration--you are perhaps twenty?" "i am twenty-one," said gwendolen, a slight fear rising in her. "do you think i am too old?" klesmer pouted his under lip and shook his long fingers upward in a manner totally enigmatic. "many persons begin later than others," said gwendolen, betrayed by her habitual consciousness of having valuable information to bestow. klesmer took no notice, but said with more studied gentleness than ever, "you have probably not thought of an artistic career until now: you did not entertain the notion, the longing--what shall i say?--you did not wish yourself an actress, or anything of that sort, till the present trouble?" "not exactly: but i was fond of acting. i have acted; you saw me, if you remember--you saw me here in charades, and as hermione," said gwendolen, really fearing that klesmer had forgotten. "yes, yes," he answered quickly, "i remember--i remember perfectly," and again walked to the other end of the room. it was difficult for him to refrain from this kind of movement when he was in any argument either audible or silent. gwendolen felt that she was being weighed. the delay was unpleasant. but she did not yet conceive that the scale could dip on the wrong side, and it seemed to her only graceful to say, "i shall be very much obliged to you for taking the trouble to give me your advice, whatever it maybe." "miss harleth," said klesmer, turning toward her and speaking with a slight increase of accent, "i will veil nothing from you in this matter. i should reckon myself guilty if i put a false visage on things--made them too black or too white. the gods have a curse for him who willingly tells another the wrong road. and if i misled one who is so young, so beautiful--who, i trust, will find her happiness along the right road, i should regard myself as a--_bösewicht_." in the last word klesmer's voice had dropped to a loud whisper. gwendolen felt a sinking of heart under this unexpected solemnity, and kept a sort of fascinated gaze on klesmer's face, as he went on. "you are a beautiful young lady--you have been brought up in ease--you have done what you would--you have not said to yourself, 'i must know this exactly,' 'i must understand this exactly,' 'i must do this exactly,'"--in uttering these three terrible _musts_, klesmer lifted up three long fingers in succession. "in sum, you have not been called upon to be anything but a charming young lady, whom it is an impoliteness to find fault with." he paused an instant; then resting his fingers on his hips again, and thrusting out his powerful chin, he said, "well, then, with that preparation, you wish to try the life of an artist; you wish to try a life of arduous, unceasing work, and--uncertain praise. your praise would have to be earned, like your bread; and both would come slowly, scantily--what do i say?--they may hardly come at all." this tone of discouragement, which klesmer had hoped might suffice without anything more unpleasant, roused some resistance in gwendolen. with a slight turn of her head away from him, and an air of pique, she said, "i thought that you, being an artist, would consider the life one of the most honorable and delightful. and if i can do nothing better?--i suppose i can put up with the same risks as other people do." "do nothing better?" said klesmer, a little fired. "no, my dear miss harleth, you could do nothing better--neither man nor woman could do anything better--if you could do what was best or good of its kind. i am not decrying the life of the true artist. i am exalting it. i say, it is out of the reach of any but choice organizations--natures framed to love perfection and to labor for it; ready, like all true lovers, to endure, to wait, to say, i am not yet worthy, but she--art, my mistress--is worthy, and i will live to merit her. an honorable life? yes. but the honor comes from the inward vocation and the hard-won achievement: there is no honor in donning the life as a livery." some excitement of yesterday had revived in klesmer and hurried him into speech a little aloof from his immediate friendly purpose. he had wished as delicately as possible to rouse in gwendolen a sense of her unfitness for a perilous, difficult course; but it was his wont to be angry with the pretensions of incompetence, and he was in danger of getting chafed. conscious of this, he paused suddenly. but gwendolen's chief impression was that he had not yet denied her the power of doing what would be good of its kind. klesmer's fervor seemed to be a sort of glamor such as he was prone to throw over things in general; and what she desired to assure him of was that she was not afraid of some preliminary hardships. the belief that to present herself in public on the stage must produce an effect such as she had been used to feel certain of in private life, was like a bit of her flesh--it was not to be peeled off readily, but must come with blood and pain. she said, in a tone of some insistence; "i am quite prepared to bear hardships at first. of course no one can become celebrated all at once. and it is not necessary that every one should be first-rate--either actresses or singers. if you would be so kind as to tell me what steps i should take, i shall have the courage to take them. i don't mind going up hill. it will be easier than the dead level of being a governess. i will take any steps you recommend." klesmer was convinced now that he must speak plainly. "i will tell you the steps, not that i recommend, but that will be forced upon you. it is all one, so far, what your goal will be--excellence, celebrity, second, third rateness--it is all one. you must go to town under the protection of your mother. you must put yourself under training--musical, dramatic, theatrical:--whatever you desire to do you have to learn"--here gwendolen looked as if she were going to speak, but klesmer lifted up his hand and said, decisively, "i know. you have exercised your talents--you recite--you sing--from the drawing-room _standpunkt_. my dear fräulein, you must unlearn all that. you have not yet conceived what excellence is: you must unlearn your mistaken admirations. you must know what you have to strive for, and then you must subdue your mind and body to unbroken discipline. your mind, i say. for you must not be thinking of celebrity: put that candle out of your eyes, and look only at excellence. you would of course earn nothing--you could get no engagement for a long while. you would need money for yourself and your family. but that," here klesmer frowned and shook his fingers as if to dismiss a triviality, "that could perhaps be found." gwendolen turned pink and pale during this speech. her pride had felt a terrible knife-edge, and the last sentence only made the smart keener. she was conscious of appearing moved, and tried to escape from her weakness by suddenly walking to a seat and pointing out a chair to klesmer. he did not take it, but turned a little in order to face her and leaned against the piano. at that moment she wished that she had not sent for him: this first experience of being taken on some other ground than that of her social rank and her beauty was becoming bitter to her. klesmer, preoccupied with a serious purpose, went on without change of tone. "now, what sort of issue might be fairly expected from all this self-denial? you would ask that. it is right that your eyes should be open to it. i will tell you truthfully. this issue would be uncertain, and, most probably, would not be worth much." at these relentless words klesmer put out his lip and looked through his spectacles with the air of a monster impenetrable by beauty. gwendolen's eyes began to burn, but the dread of showing weakness urged her to added self-control. she compelled herself to say, in a hard tone, "you think i want talent, or am too old to begin." klesmer made a sort of hum, and then descended on an emphatic "yes! the desire and the training should have begun seven years ago--or a good deal earlier. a mountebank's child who helps her father to earn shillings when she is six years old--a child that inherits a singing throat from a long line of choristers and learns to sing as it learns to talk, has a likelier beginning. any great achievement in acting or in music grows with the growth. whenever an artist has been able to say, 'i came, i saw, i conquered,' it has been at the end of patient practice. genius at first is little more than a great capacity for receiving discipline. singing and acting, like the fine dexterity of the juggler with his cups and balls, require a shaping of the organs toward a finer and finer certainty of effect. your muscles--your whole frame--must go like a watch, true, true to a hair. that is the work of spring-time, before habits have been determined." "i did not pretend to genius," said gwendolen, still feeling that she might somehow do what klesmer wanted to represent as impossible. "i only suppose that i might have a little talent--enough to improve." "i don't deny that," said klesmer. "if you had been put in the right track some years ago and had worked well you might now have made a public singer, though i don't think your voice would have counted for much in public. for the stage your personal charms and intelligence might then have told without the present drawback of inexperience--lack of discipline--lack of instruction." certainly klesmer seemed cruel, but his feeling was the reverse of cruel. our speech, even when we are most single-minded, can never take its line absolutely from one impulse; but klesmer's was, as far as possible, directed by compassion for poor gwendolen's ignorant eagerness to enter on a course of which he saw all the miserable details with a definiteness which he could not if he would have conveyed to her mind. gwendolen, however, was not convinced. her self-opinion rallied, and since the counselor whom she had called in gave a decision of such severe peremptoriness, she was tempted to think that his judgment was not only fallible but biased. it occurred to her that a simpler and wiser step for her to have taken would have been to send a letter through the post to the manager of a london theatre, asking him to make an appointment. she would make no further reference to her singing; klesmer, she saw, had set himself against her singing. but she felt equal to arguing with him about her going on the stage, and she answered in a resistant tone, "i understood, of course, that no one can be a finished actress at once. it may be impossible to tell beforehand whether i should succeed; but that seems to me a reason why i should try. i should have thought that i might have taken an engagement at a theatre meanwhile, so as to earn money and study at the same time." "can't be done, my dear miss harleth--i speak plainly--it can't be done. i must clear your mind of these notions which have no more resemblance to reality than a pantomime. ladies and gentlemen think that when they have made their toilet and drawn on their gloves they are as presentable on the stage as in a drawing-room. no manager thinks that. with all your grace and charm, if you were to present yourself as an aspirant to the stage, a manager would either require you to pay as an amateur for being allowed to perform or he would tell you to go and be taught--trained to bear yourself on the stage, as a horse, however beautiful, must be trained for the circus; to say nothing of that study which would enable you to personate a character consistently, and animate it with the natural language of face, gesture, and tone. for you to get an engagement fit for you straight away is out of the question." "i really cannot understand that," said gwendolen, rather haughtily--then, checking herself, she added in another tone--"i shall be obliged to you if you will explain how it is that such poor actresses get engaged. i have been to the theatre several times, and i am sure there were actresses who seemed to me to act not at all well and who were quite plain." "ah, my dear miss harleth, that is the easy criticism of the buyer. we who buy slippers toss away this pair and the other as clumsy; but there went an apprenticeship to the making of them. excuse me; you could not at present teach one of those actresses; but there is certainly much that she could teach you. for example, she can pitch her voice so as to be heard: ten to one you could not do it till after many trials. merely to stand and move on the stage is an art--requires practice. it is understood that we are not now talking of a _comparse_ in a petty theatre who earns the wages of a needle-woman. that is out of the question for you." "of course i must earn more than that," said gwendolen, with a sense of wincing rather than of being refuted, "but i think i could soon learn to do tolerably well all those little things you have mentioned. i am not so very stupid. and even in paris, i am sure, i saw two actresses playing important ladies' parts who were not at all ladies and quite ugly. i suppose i have no particular talent, but i _must_ think it is an advantage, even on the stage, to be a lady and not a perfect fright." "ah, let us understand each other," said klesmer, with a flash of new meaning. "i was speaking of what you would have to go through if you aimed at becoming a real artist--if you took music and the drama as a higher vocation in which you would strive after excellence. on that head, what i have said stands fast. you would find--after your education in doing things slackly for one-and-twenty years--great difficulties in study; you would find mortifications in the treatment you would get when you presented yourself on the footing of skill. you would be subjected to tests; people would no longer feign not to see your blunders. you would at first only be accepted on trial. you would have to bear what i may call a glaring insignificance: any success must be won by the utmost patience. you would have to keep your place in a crowd, and after all it is likely you would lose it and get out of sight. if you determine to face these hardships and still try, you will have the dignity of a high purpose, even though you may have chosen unfortunately. you will have some merit, though you may win no prize. you have asked my judgment on your chances of winning. i don't pretend to speak absolutely; but measuring probabilities, my judgment is:--you will hardly achieve more than mediocrity." klesmer had delivered himself with emphatic rapidity, and now paused a moment. gwendolen was motionless, looking at her hands, which lay over each other on her lap, till the deep-toned, long-drawn "_but_," with which he resumed, had a startling effect, and made her look at him again. "but--there are certainly other ideas, other dispositions with which a young lady may take up an art that will bring her before the public. she may rely on the unquestioned power of her beauty as a passport. she may desire to exhibit herself to an admiration which dispenses with skill. this goes a certain way on the stage: not in music: but on the stage, beauty is taken when there is nothing more commanding to be had. not without some drilling, however: as i have said before, technicalities have in any case to be mastered. but these excepted, we have here nothing to do with art. the woman who takes up this career is not an artist: she is usually one who thinks of entering on a luxurious life by a short and easy road--perhaps by marriage--that is her most brilliant chance, and the rarest. still, her career will not be luxurious to begin with: she can hardly earn her own poor bread independently at once, and the indignities she will be liable to are such as i will not speak of." "i desire to be independent," said gwendolen, deeply stung and confusedly apprehending some scorn for herself in klesmer's words. "that was my reason for asking whether i could not get an immediate engagement. of course i cannot know how things go on about theatres. but i thought that i could have made myself independent. i have no money, and i will not accept help from any one." her wounded pride could not rest without making this disclaimer. it was intolerable to her that klesmer should imagine her to have expected other help from him than advice. "that is a hard saying for your friends," said klesmer, recovering the gentleness of tone with which he had begun the conversation. "i have given you pain. that was inevitable. i was bound to put the truth, the unvarnished truth, before you. i have not said--i will not say--you will do wrong to choose the hard, climbing path of an endeavoring artist. you have to compare its difficulties with those of any less hazardous--any more private course which opens itself to you. if you take that more courageous resolve i will ask leave to shake hands with you on the strength of our freemasonry, where we are all vowed to the service of art, and to serve her by helping every fellow-servant." gwendolen was silent, again looking at her hands. she felt herself very far away from taking the resolve that would enforce acceptance; and after waiting an instant or two, klesmer went on with deepened seriousness. "where there is the duty of service there must be the duty of accepting it. the question is not one of personal obligation. and in relation to practical matters immediately affecting your future--excuse my permitting myself to mention in confidence an affair of my own. i am expecting an event which would make it easy for me to exert myself on your behalf in furthering your opportunities of instruction and residence in london--under the care, that is, of your family--without need for anxiety on your part. if you resolve to take art as a bread-study, you need only undertake the study at first; the bread will be found without trouble. the event i mean is my marriage--in fact--you will receive this as a matter of confidence--my marriage with miss arrowpoint, which will more than double such right as i have to be trusted by you as a friend. your friendship will have greatly risen in value for _her_ by your having adopted that generous labor." gwendolen's face had begun to burn. that klesmer was about to marry miss arrowpoint caused her no surprise, and at another moment she would have amused herself in quickly imagining the scenes that must have occurred at quetcham. but what engrossed her feeling, what filled her imagination now, was the panorama of her own immediate future that klesmer's words seemed to have unfolded. the suggestion of miss arrowpoint as a patroness was only another detail added to its repulsiveness: klesmer's proposal to help her seemed an additional irritation after the humiliating judgment he had passed on her capabilities. his words had really bitten into her self-confidence and turned it into the pain of a bleeding wound; and the idea of presenting herself before other judges was now poisoned with the dread that they also might be harsh; they also would not recognize the talent she was conscious of. but she controlled herself, and rose from her seat before she made any answer. it seemed natural that she should pause. she went to the piano and looked absently at leaves of music, pinching up the corners. at last she turned toward klesmer and said, with almost her usual air of proud equality, which in this interview had not been hitherto perceptible. "i congratulate you sincerely, herr klesmer. i think i never saw any one so admirable as miss arrowpoint. and i have to thank you for every sort of kindness this morning. but i can't decide now. if i make the resolve you have spoken of, i will use your permission--i will let you know. but i fear the obstacles are too great. in any case, i am deeply obliged to you. it was very bold of me to ask you to take this trouble." klesmer's inward remark was, "she will never let me know." but with the most thorough respect in his manner, he said, "command me at any time. there is an address on this card which will always find me with little delay." when he had taken up his hat and was going to make his bow, gwendolen's better self, conscious of an ingratitude which the clear-seeing klesmer must have penetrated, made a desperate effort to find its way above the stifling layers of egoistic disappointment and irritation. looking at him with a glance of the old gayety, she put out her hand, and said with a smile, "if i take the wrong road, it will not be because of your flattery." "god forbid that you should take any road but one where you will find and give happiness!" said klesmer, fervently. then, in foreign fashion, he touched her fingers lightly with his lips, and in another minute she heard the sound of his departing wheels getting more distant on the gravel. gwendolen had never in her life felt so miserable. no sob came, no passion of tears, to relieve her. her eyes were burning; and the noonday only brought into more dreary clearness the absence of interest from her life. all memories, all objects, the pieces of music displayed, the open piano--the very reflection of herself in the glass--seemed no better than the packed-up shows of a departing fair. for the first time since her consciousness began, she was having a vision of herself on the common level, and had lost the innate sense that there were reasons why she should not be slighted, elbowed, jostled--treated like a passenger with a third-class ticket, in spite of private objections on her own part. she did not move about; the prospects begotten by disappointment were too oppressively preoccupying; she threw herself into the shadiest corner of a settee, and pressed her fingers over her burning eyelids. every word that klesmer had said seemed to have been branded into her memory, as most words are which bring with them a new set of impressions and make an epoch for us. only a few hours before, the dawning smile of self-contentment rested on her lips as she vaguely imagined a future suited to her wishes: it seemed but the affair of a year or so for her to become the most approved juliet of the time: or, if klesmer encouraged her idea of being a singer, to proceed by more gradual steps to her place in the opera, while she won money and applause by occasional performances. why not? at home, at school, among acquaintances, she had been used to have her conscious superiority admitted; and she had moved in a society where everything, from low arithmetic to high art, is of the amateur kind, politely supposed to fall short of perfection only because gentlemen and ladies are not obliged to do more than they like--otherwise they would probably give forth abler writings, and show themselves more commanding artists than any the world is at present obliged to put up with. the self-confident visions that had beguiled her were not of a highly exceptional kind; and she had at least shown some rationality in consulting the person who knew the most and had flattered her the least. in asking klesmer's advice, however, she had rather been borne up by a belief in his latent admiration than bent on knowing anything more unfavorable that might have lain behind his slight objections to her singing; and the truth she had asked for, with an expectation that it would be agreeable, had come like a lacerating thong. "too old--should have begun seven years ago--you will not, at best, achieve more than mediocrity--hard, incessant work, uncertain praise--bread coming slowly, scantily, perhaps not at all--mortifications, people no longer feigning not to see your blunders--glaring insignificance"--all these phrases rankled in her; and even more galling was the hint that she could only be accepted on the stage as a beauty who hoped to get a husband. the "indignities" that she might be visited with had no very definite form for her, but the mere association of anything called "indignity" with herself, roused a resentful alarm. and along with the vaguer images which were raised by those biting words, came the precise conception of disagreeables which her experience enabled her to imagine. how could she take her mamma and the four sisters to london? if it were not possible for her to earn money at once? and as for submitting to be a _protégé_, and asking her mamma to submit with her to the humiliation of being supported by miss arrowpoint--that was as bad as being a governess; nay, worse; for suppose the end of all her study to be as worthless as klesmer clearly expected it to be, the sense of favors received and never repaid, would embitter the miseries of disappointment. klesmer doubtless had magnificent ideas about helping artists; but how could he know the feelings of ladies in such matters? it was all over: she had entertained a mistaken hope; and there was an end of it. "an end of it!" said gwendolen, aloud, starting from her seat as she heard the steps and voices of her mamma and sisters coming in from church. she hurried to the piano and began gathering together her pieces of music with assumed diligence, while the expression on her pale face and in her burning eyes was what would have suited a woman enduring a wrong which she might not resent, but would probably revenge. "well, my darling," said gentle mrs. davilow, entering, "i see by the wheel-marks that klesmer has been here. have you been satisfied with the interview?" she had some guesses as to its object, but felt timid about implying them. "satisfied, mamma? oh, yes," said gwendolen, in a high, hard tone, for which she must be excused, because she dreaded a scene of emotion. if she did not set herself resolutely to feign proud indifference, she felt that she must fall into a passionate outburst of despair, which would cut her mamma more deeply than all the rest of their calamities. "your uncle and aunt were disappointed at not seeing you," said mrs. davilow, coming near the piano, and watching gwendolen's movements. "i only said that you wanted rest." "quite right, mamma," said gwendolen, in the same tone, turning to put away some music. "am i not to know anything now, gwendolen? am i always to be in the dark?" said mrs. davilow, too keenly sensitive to her daughter's manner and expression not to fear that something painful had occurred. "there is really nothing to tell now, mamma," said gwendolen, in a still higher voice. "i had a mistaken idea about something i could do. herr klesmer has undeceived me. that is all." "don't look and speak in that way, my dear child: i cannot bear it," said mrs. davilow, breaking down. she felt an undefinable terror. gwendolen looked at her a moment in silence, biting her inner lip; then she went up to her, and putting her hands on her mamma's shoulders, said, with a drop in her voice to the lowest undertone, "mamma, don't speak to me now. it is useless to cry and waste our strength over what can't be altered. you will live at sawyer's cottage, and i am going to the bishop's daughters. there is no more to be said. things cannot be altered, and who cares? it makes no difference to any one else what we do. we must try not to care ourselves. we must not give way. i dread giving way. help me to be quiet." mrs. davilow was like a frightened child under her daughter's face and voice; her tears were arrested and she went away in silence. chapter xxiv. "i question things but do not find one that will answer to my mind: and all the world appears unkind." --wordsworth. gwendolen was glad that she had got through her interview with klesmer before meeting her uncle and aunt. she had made up her mind now that there were only disagreeables before her, and she felt able to maintain a dogged calm in the face of any humiliation that might be proposed. the meeting did not happen until the monday, when gwendolen went to the rectory with her mamma. they had called at sawyer's cottage by the way, and had seen every cranny of the narrow rooms in a mid-day light, unsoftened by blinds and curtains; for the furnishing to be done by gleanings from the rectory had not yet begun. "how _shall_ you endure it, mamma?" said gwendolen, as they walked away. she had not opened her lips while they were looking round at the bare walls and floors, and the little garden with the cabbage-stalks, and the yew arbor all dust and cobwebs within. "you and the four girls all in that closet of a room, with the green and yellow paper pressing on your eyes? and without me?" "it will be some comfort that you have not to bear it too, dear." "if it were not that i must get some money, i would rather be there than go to be a governess." "don't set yourself against it beforehand, gwendolen. if you go to the palace you will have every luxury about you. and you know how much you have always cared for that. you will not find it so hard as going up and down those steep narrow stairs, and hearing the crockery rattle through the house, and the dear girls talking." "it is like a bad dream," said gwendolen, impetuously. "i cannot believe that my uncle will let you go to such a place. he ought to have taken some other steps." "don't be unreasonable, dear child. what could he have done?" "that was for him to find out. it seems to me a very extraordinary world if people in our position must sink in this way all at once," said gwendolen, the other worlds with which she was conversant being constructed with a sense of fitness that arranged her own future agreeably. it was her temper that framed her sentences under this entirely new pressure of evils: she could have spoken more suitably on the vicissitudes in other people's lives, though it was never her aspiration to express herself virtuously so much as cleverly--a point to be remembered in extenuation of her words, which were usually worse than she was. and, notwithstanding the keen sense of her own bruises, she was capable of some compunction when her uncle and aunt received her with a more affectionate kindness than they had ever shown before. she could not but be struck by the dignified cheerfulness with which they talked of the necessary economies in their way of living, and in the education of the boys. mr. gascoigne's worth of character, a little obscured by worldly opportunities--as the poetic beauty of women is obscured by the demands of fashionable dressing--showed itself to great advantage under this sudden reduction of fortune. prompt and methodical, he had set himself not only to put down his carriage, but to reconsider his worn suits of clothes, to leave off meat for breakfast, to do without periodicals, to get edwy from school and arrange hours of study for all the boys under himself, and to order the whole establishment on the sparest footing possible. for all healthy people economy has its pleasures; and the rector's spirit had spread through the household. mrs. gascoigne and anna, who always made papa their model, really did not miss anything they cared about for themselves, and in all sincerity felt that the saddest part of the family losses was the change for mrs. davilow and her children. anna for the first time could merge her resentment on behalf of rex in her sympathy with gwendolen; and mrs. gascoigne was disposed to hope that trouble would have a salutary effect on her niece, without thinking it her duty to add any bitters by way of increasing the salutariness. they had both been busy devising how to get blinds and curtains for the cottage out of the household stores; but with delicate feeling they left these matters in the back-ground, and talked at first of gwendolen's journey, and the comfort it was to her mamma to have her at home again. in fact there was nothing for gwendolen to take as a justification for extending her discontent with events to the persons immediately around her, and she felt shaken into a more alert attention, as if by a call to drill that everybody else was obeying, when her uncle began in a voice of firm kindness to talk to her of the efforts he had been making to get her a situation which would offer her as many advantages as possible. mr. gascoigne had not forgotten grandcourt, but the possibility of further advances from that quarter was something too vague for a man of his good sense to be determined by it: uncertainties of that kind must not now slacken his action in doing the best he could for his niece under actual conditions. "i felt that there was no time to be lost, gwendolen; for a position in a good family where you will have some consideration is not to be had at a moment's notice. and however long we waited we could hardly find one where you would be better off than at bishop mompert's. i am known to both him and mrs. mompert, and that of course is an advantage to you. our correspondence has gone on favorably; but i cannot be surprised that mrs. mompert wishes to see you before making an absolute engagement. she thinks of arranging for you to meet her at wanchester when she is on her way to town. i dare say you will feel the interview rather trying for you, my dear; but you will have a little time to prepare your mind." "do you know _why_ she wants to see me, uncle?" said gwendolen, whose mind had quickly gone over various reasons that an imaginary mrs. mompert with three daughters might be supposed to entertain, reasons all of a disagreeable kind to the person presenting herself for inspection. the rector smiled. "don't be alarmed, my dear. she would like to have a more precise idea of you than my report can give. and a mother is naturally scrupulous about a companion for her daughters. i have told her you are very young. but she herself exercises a close supervision over her daughters' education, and that makes her less anxious as to age. she is a woman of taste and also of strict principle, and objects to having a french person in the house. i feel sure that she will think your manners and accomplishments as good as she is likely to find; and over the religious and moral tone of the education she, and indeed the bishop himself, will preside." gwendolen dared not answer, but the repression of her decided dislike to the whole prospect sent an unusually deep flush over her face and neck, subsiding as quickly as it came. anna, full of tender fears, put her little hand into her cousin's, and mr. gascoigne was too kind a man not to conceive something of the trial which this sudden change must be for a girl like gwendolen. bent on giving a cheerful view of things, he went on, in an easy tone of remark, not as if answering supposed objections, "i think so highly of the position, that i should have been tempted to try and get it for anna, if she had been at all likely to meet mrs. mompert's wants. it is really a home, with a continuance of education in the highest sense: 'governess' is a misnomer. the bishop's views are of a more decidedly low church color than my own--he is a close friend of lord grampian's; but, though privately strict, he is not by any means narrow in public matters. indeed, he has created as little dislike in his diocese as any bishop on the bench. he has always remained friendly to me, though before his promotion, when he was an incumbent of this diocese, we had a little controversy about the bible society." the rector's words were too pregnant with satisfactory meaning to himself for him to imagine the effect they produced in the mind of his niece. "continuance of education"--"bishop's views"--"privately strict"--"bible society,"--it was as if he had introduced a few snakes at large for the instruction of ladies who regarded them as all alike furnished with poison-bags, and, biting or stinging, according to convenience. to gwendolen, already shrinking from the prospect open to her, such phrases came like the growing heat of a burning glass--not at all as the links of persuasive reflection which they formed for the good uncle. she began, desperately, to seek an alternative. "there was another situation, i think, mamma spoke of?" she said, with determined self-mastery. '"yes," said the rector, in rather a depreciatory tone; "but that is in a school. i should not have the same satisfaction in your taking that. it would be much harder work, you are aware, and not so good in any other respect. besides, you have not an equal chance of getting it." "oh dear no," said mrs. gascoigne, "it would be much harder for you, my dear--it would be much less appropriate. you might not have a bedroom to yourself." and gwendolen's memories of school suggested other particulars which forced her to admit to herself that this alternative would be no relief. she turned to her uncle again and said, apparently in acceptance of his ideas, "when is mrs. mompert likely to send for me?" "that is rather uncertain, but she has promised not to entertain any other proposal till she has seen you. she has entered with much feeling into your position. it will be within the next fortnight, probably. but i must be off now. i am going to let part of my glebe uncommonly well." the rector ended very cheerfully, leaving the room with the satisfactory conviction that gwendolen was going to adapt herself to circumstances like a girl of good sense. having spoken appropriately, he naturally supposed that the effects would be appropriate; being accustomed, as a household and parish authority, to be asked to "speak to" refractory persons, with the understanding that the measure was morally coercive. "what a stay henry is to us all!" said mrs. gascoigne, when her husband had left the room. "he is indeed," said mrs. davilow, cordially. "i think cheerfulness is a fortune in itself. i wish i had it." "and rex is just like him," said mrs. gascoigne. "i must tell you the comfort we have had in a letter from him. i must read you a little bit," she added, taking the letter from her pocket, while anna looked rather frightened--she did not know why, except that it had been a rule with her not to mention rex before gwendolen. the proud mother ran her eyes over the letter, seeking for sentences to read aloud. but apparently she had found it sown with what might seem to be closer allusions than she desired to the recent past, for she looked up, folding the letter, and saying, "however, he tells us that our trouble has made a man of him; he sees a reason for any amount of work: he means to get a fellowship, to take pupils, to set one of his brothers going, to be everything that is most remarkable. the letter is full of fun--just like him. he says, 'tell mother she has put out an advertisement for a jolly good hard-working son, in time to hinder me from taking ship; and i offer myself for the place.' the letter came on friday. i never saw my husband so much moved by anything since rex was born. it seemed a gain to balance our loss." this letter, in fact, was what had helped both mrs. gascoigne and anna to show gwendolen an unmixed kindliness; and she herself felt very amiably about it, smiling at anna, and pinching her chin, as much as to say, "nothing is wrong with you now, is it?" she had no gratuitously ill-natured feeling, or egoistic pleasure in making men miserable. she only had an intense objection to their making her miserable. but when the talk turned on furniture for the cottage gwendolen was not roused to show even a languid interest. she thought that she had done as much as could be expected of her this morning, and indeed felt at an heroic pitch in keeping to herself the struggle that was going on within her. the recoil of her mind from the only definite prospect allowed her, was stronger than even she had imagined beforehand. the idea of presenting herself before mrs. mompert in the first instance, to be approved or disapproved, came as pressure on an already painful bruise; even as a governess, it appeared she was to be tested and was liable to rejection. after she had done herself the violence to accept the bishop and his wife, they were still to consider whether they would accept her; it was at her peril that she was to look, speak, or be silent. and even when she had entered on her dismal task of self-constraint in the society of three girls whom she was bound incessantly to edify, the same process of inspection was to go on: there was always to be mrs. mompert's supervision; always something or other would be expected of her to which she had not the slightest inclination; and perhaps the bishop would examine her on serious topics. gwendolen, lately used to the social successes of a handsome girl, whose lively venturesomeness of talk has the effect of wit, and who six weeks before would have pitied the dullness of the bishop rather than have been embarrassed by him, saw the life before her as an entrance into a penitentiary. wild thoughts of running away to be an actress, in spite of klesmer, came to her with the lure of freedom; but his words still hung heavily on her soul; they had alarmed her pride and even her maidenly dignity: dimly she conceived herself getting amongst vulgar people who would treat her with rude familiarity--odious men, whose grins and smirks would not be seen through the strong grating of polite society. gwendolen's daring was not in the least that of the adventuress; the demand to be held a lady was in her very marrow; and when she had dreamed that she might be the heroine of the gaming-table, it was with the understanding that no one should treat her with the less consideration, or presume to look at her with irony as deronda had done. to be protected and petted, and to have her susceptibilities consulted in every detail, had gone along with her food and clothing as matters of course in her life: even without any such warning as klesmer's she could not have thought it an attractive freedom to be thrown in solitary dependence on the doubtful civility of strangers. the endurance of the episcopal penitentiary was less repulsive than that; though here too she would certainly never be petted or have her susceptibilities consulted. her rebellion against this hard necessity which had come just to her of all people in the world--to her whom all circumstances had concurred in preparing for something quite different--was exaggerated instead of diminished as one hour followed another, with the imagination of what she might have expected in her lot and what it was actually to be. the family troubles, she thought, were easier for every one than for her--even for poor dear mamma, because she had always used herself to not enjoying. as to hoping that if she went to the momperts' and was patient a little while, things might get better--it would be stupid to entertain hopes for herself after all that had happened: her talents, it appeared, would never be recognized as anything remarkable, and there was not a single direction in which probability seemed to flatter her wishes. some beautiful girls who, like her, had read romances where even plain governesses are centres of attraction and are sought in marriage, might have solaced themselves a little by transporting such pictures into their own future; but even if gwendolen's experience had led her to dwell on love-making and marriage as her elysium, her heart was too much oppressed by what was near to her, in both the past and the future, for her to project her anticipations very far off. she had a world-nausea upon her, and saw no reason all through her life why she should wish to live. no religious view of trouble helped her: her troubles had in her opinion all been caused by other people's disagreeable or wicked conduct; and there was really nothing pleasant to be counted on in the world: that was her feeling; everything else she had heard said about trouble was mere phrase-making not attractive enough for her to have caught it up and repeated it. as to the sweetness of labor and fulfilled claims; the interest of inward and outward activity; the impersonal delights of life as a perpetual discovery; the dues of courage, fortitude, industry, which it is mere baseness not to pay toward the common burden; the supreme worth of the teacher's vocation;--these, even if they had been eloquently preached to her, could have been no more than faintly apprehended doctrines: the fact which wrought upon her was her invariable observation that for a lady to become a governess--to "take a situation"--was to descend in life and to be treated at best with a compassionate patronage. and poor gwendolen had never dissociated happiness from personal pre-eminence and _éclat_. that where these threatened to forsake her, she should take life to be hardly worth the having, cannot make her so unlike the rest of us, men or women, that we should cast her out of our compassion; our moments of temptation to a mean opinion of things in general being usually dependent on some susceptibility about ourselves and some dullness to subjects which every one else would consider more important. surely a young creature is pitiable who has the labyrinth of life before her and no clue--to whom distrust in herself and her good fortune has come as a sudden shock, like a rent across the path that she was treading carelessly. in spite of her healthy frame, her irreconcilable repugnance affected her even physically; she felt a sort of numbness and could set about nothing; the least urgency, even that she should take her meals, was an irritation to her; the speech of others on any subject seemed unreasonable, because it did not include her feeling and was an ignorant claim on her. it was not in her nature to busy herself with the fancies of suicide to which disappointed young people are prone: what occupied and exasperated her was the sense that there was nothing for her but to live in a way she hated. she avoided going to the rectory again: it was too intolerable to have to look and talk as if she were compliant; and she could not exert herself to show interest about the furniture of that horrible cottage. miss merry was staying on purpose to help, and such people as jocosa liked that sort of thing. her mother had to make excuses for her not appearing, even when anna came to see her. for that calm which gwendolen had promised herself to maintain had changed into sick motivelessness: she thought, "i suppose i shall begin to pretend by-and-by, but why should i do it now?" her mother watched her with silent distress; and, lapsing into the habit of indulgent tenderness, she began to think what she imagined that gwendolen was thinking, and to wish that everything should give way to the possibility of making her darling less miserable. one day when she was in the black and yellow bedroom and her mother was lingering there under the pretext of considering and arranging gwendolen's articles of dress, she suddenly roused herself to fetch the casket which contained the ornaments. "mamma," she began, glancing over the upper layer, "i had forgotten these things. why didn't you remind me of them? do see about getting them sold. you will not mind about parting with them. you gave them all to me long ago." she lifted the upper tray and looked below. "if we can do without them, darling, i would rather keep them for you," said mrs. davilow, seating herself beside gwendolen with a feeling of relief that she was beginning to talk about something. the usual relation between them had become reversed. it was now the mother who tried to cheer the daughter. "why, how came you to put that pocket handkerchief in here?" it was the handkerchief with the corner torn off which gwendolen had thrust in with the turquoise necklace. "it happened to be with the necklace--i was in a hurry," said gwendolen, taking the handkerchief away and putting it in her pocket. "don't sell the necklace, mamma," she added, a new feeling having come over her about that rescue of it which had formerly been so offensive. "no, dear, no; it was made out of your dear father's chain. and i should prefer not selling the other things. none of them are of any great value. all my best ornaments were taken from me long ago." mrs. davilow colored. she usually avoided any reference to such facts about gwendolen's step-father as that he had carried off his wife's jewelry and disposed of it. after a moment's pause she went on, "and these things have not been reckoned on for any expenses. carry them with you." "that would be quite useless, mamma," said gwendolen, coldly. "governesses don't wear ornaments. you had better get me a gray frieze livery and a straw poke, such as my aunt's charity children wear." "no, dear, no; don't take that view of it. i feel sure the momperts will like you the better for being graceful and elegant." "i am not at all sure what the momperts will like me to be. it is enough that i am expected to be what they like," said gwendolen bitterly. "if there is anything you would object to less--anything that could be done--instead of your going to the bishop's, do say so, gwendolen. tell me what is in your heart. i will try for anything you wish," said the mother, beseechingly. "don't keep things away from me. let us bear them together." "oh, mamma, there is nothing to tell. i can't do anything better. i must think myself fortunate if they will have me. i shall get some money for you. that is the only thing i have to think of. i shall not spend any money this year: you will have all the eighty pounds. i don't know how far that will go in housekeeping; but you need not stitch your poor fingers to the bone, and stare away all the sight that the tears have left in your dear eyes." gwendolen did not give any caresses with her words as she had been used to do. she did not even look at her mother, but was looking at the turquoise necklace as she turned it over her fingers. "bless you for your tenderness, my good darling!" said mrs. davilow, with tears in her eyes. "don't despair because there are clouds now. you are so young. there may be great happiness in store for you yet." "i don't see any reason for expecting it, mamma," said gwendolen, in a hard tone; and mrs. davilow was silent, thinking as she had often thought before--"what did happen between her and mr. grandcourt?" "i _will_ keep this necklace, mamma," said gwendolen, laying it apart and then closing the casket. "but do get the other things sold, even if they will not bring much. ask my uncle what to do with them. i shall certainly not use them again. i am going to take the veil. i wonder if all the poor wretches who have ever taken it felt as i do." "don't exaggerate evils, dear." "how can any one know that i exaggerate, when i am speaking of my own feeling? i did not say what any one else felt." she took out the torn handkerchief from her pocket again, and wrapped it deliberately round the necklace. mrs. davilow observed the action with some surprise, but the tone of her last words discouraged her from asking any question. the "feeling" gwendolen spoke of with an air of tragedy was not to be explained by the mere fact that she was going to be a governess: she was possessed by a spirit of general disappointment. it was not simply that she had a distaste for what she was called on to do: the distaste spread itself over the world outside her penitentiary, since she saw nothing very pleasant in it that seemed attainable by her even if she were free. naturally her grievances did not seem to her smaller than some of her male contemporaries held theirs to be when they felt a profession too narrow for their powers, and had an _à priori_ conviction that it was not worth while to put forth their latent abilities. because her education had been less expensive than theirs, it did not follow that she should have wider emotions or a keener intellectual vision. her griefs were feminine; but to her as a woman they were not the less hard to bear, and she felt an equal right to the promethean tone. but the movement of mind which led her to keep the necklace, to fold it up in the handkerchief, and rise to put it in her _nécessaire_, where she had first placed it when it had been returned to her, was more peculiar, and what would be called less reasonable. it came from that streak of superstition in her which attached itself both to her confidence and her terror--a superstition which lingers in an intense personality even in spite of theory and science; any dread or hope for self being stronger than all reasons for or against it. why she should suddenly determine not to part with the necklace was not much clearer to her than why she should sometimes have been frightened to find herself in the fields alone: she had a confused state of emotion about deronda--was it wounded pride and resentment, or a certain awe and exceptional trust? it was something vague and yet mastering, which impelled her to this action about the necklace. there is a great deal of unmapped country within us which would have to be taken into account in an explanation of our gusts and storms. chapter xxv. how trace the why and wherefore in a mind reduced to the barrenness of a fastidious egoism, in which all direct desires are dulled, and have dwindled from motives into a vacillating expectation of motives: a mind made up of moods, where a fitful impulse springs here and there conspicuously rank amid the general weediness? 'tis a condition apt to befall a life too much at large, unmoulded by the pressure of obligation. _nam deteriores omnes sumus licentiae_, or, as a more familiar tongue might deliver it, _"as you like" is a bad finger-post._ potentates make known their intentions and affect the funds at a small expense of words. so when grandcourt, after learning that gwendolen had left leubronn, incidentally pronounced that resort of fashion a beastly hole, worse than baden, the remark was conclusive to mr. lush that his patron intended straightway to return to diplow. the execution was sure to be slower than the intention, and, in fact, grandcourt did loiter through the next day without giving any distinct orders about departure--perhaps because he discerned that lush was expecting them: he lingered over his toilet, and certainly came down with a faded aspect of perfect distinction which made fresh complexions and hands with the blood in them, seem signs of raw vulgarity; he lingered on the terrace, in the gambling-rooms, in the reading-room, occupying himself in being indifferent to everybody and everything around him. when he met lady mallinger, however, he took some trouble--raised his hat, paused, and proved that he listened to her recommendation of the waters by replying, "yes; i heard somebody say how providential it was that there always happened to be springs at gambling places." "oh, that was a joke," said innocent lady mallinger, misled by grandcourt's languid seriousness, "in imitation of the old one about the towns and the rivers, you know." "ah, perhaps," said grandcourt, without change of expression. lady mallinger thought this worth telling to sir hugo, who said, "oh, my dear, he is not a fool. you must not suppose that he can't see a joke. he can play his cards as well as most of us." "he has never seemed to me a very sensible man," said lady mallinger, in excuse of herself. she had a secret objection to meeting grandcourt, who was little else to her than a large living sign of what she felt to be her failure as a wife--the not having presented sir hugo with a son. her constant reflection was that her husband might fairly regret his choice, and if he had not been very good might have treated her with some roughness in consequence, gentlemen naturally disliking to be disappointed. deronda, too, had a recognition from grandcourt, for which he was not grateful, though he took care to return it with perfect civility. no reasoning as to the foundations of custom could do away with the early-rooted feeling that his birth had been attended with injury for which his father was to blame; and seeing that but for this injury grandcourt's prospects might have been his, he was proudly resolute not to behave in any way that might be interpreted into irritation on that score. he saw a very easy descent into mean unreasoning rancor and triumph in others' frustration; and being determined not to go down that ugly pit, he turned his back on it, clinging to the kindlier affections within him as a possession. pride certainly helped him well--the pride of not recognizing a disadvantage for one's self which vulgar minds are disposed to exaggerate, such as the shabby equipage of poverty: he would not have a man like grandcourt suppose himself envied by him. but there is no guarding against interpretation. grandcourt did believe that deronda, poor devil, who he had no doubt was his cousin by the father's side, inwardly winced under their mutual position; wherefore the presence of that less lucky person was more agreeable to him than it would otherwise have been. an imaginary envy, the idea that others feel their comparative deficiency, is the ordinary _cortège_ of egoism; and his pet dogs were not the only beings that grandcourt liked to feel his power over in making them jealous. hence he was civil enough to exchange several words with deronda on the terrace about the hunting round diplow, and even said, "you had better come over for a run or two when the season begins." lush, not displeased with delay, amused himself very well, partly in gossiping with sir hugo and in answering his questions about grandcourt's affairs so far as they might affect his willingness to part with his interest in diplow. also about grandcourt's personal entanglements, the baronet knew enough already for lush to feel released from silence on a sunny autumn day, when there was nothing more agreeable to do in lounging promenades than to speak freely of a tyrannous patron behind his back. sir hugo willingly inclined his ear to a little good-humored scandal, which he was fond of calling _traits de moeurs_; but he was strict in keeping such communications from hearers who might take them too seriously. whatever knowledge he had of his nephew's secrets, he had never spoken of it to deronda, who considered grandcourt a pale-blooded mortal, but was far from wishing to hear how the red corpuscles had been washed out of him. it was lush's policy and inclination to gratify everybody when he had no reason to the contrary; and the baronet always treated him well, as one of those easy-handled personages who, frequenting the society of gentlemen, without being exactly gentlemen themselves, can be the more serviceable, like the second-best articles of our wardrobe, which we use with a comfortable freedom from anxiety. "well, you will let me know the turn of events," said sir hugo, "if this marriage seems likely to come off after all, or if anything else happens to make the want of money pressing. my plan would be much better for him than burdening ryelands." "that's true," said lush, "only it must not be urged on him--just placed in his way that the scent may tickle him. grandcourt is not a man to be always led by what makes for his own interest; especially if you let him see that it makes for your interest too. i'm attached to him, of course. i've given up everything else for the sake of keeping by him, and it has lasted a good fifteen years now. he would not easily get any one else to fill my place. he's a peculiar character, is henleigh grandcourt, and it has been growing on him of late years. however, i'm of a constant disposition, and i've been a sort of guardian to him since he was twenty; an uncommonly fascinating fellow he was then, to be sure--and could be now, if he liked. i'm attached to him; and it would be a good deal worse for him if he missed me at his elbow." sir hugo did not think it needful to express his sympathy or even assent, and perhaps lush himself did not expect this sketch of his motives to be taken as exact. but how can a man avoid himself as a subject in conversation? and he must make some sort of decent toilet in words, as in cloth and linen. lush's listener was not severe: a member of parliament could allow for the necessities of verbal toilet; and the dialogue went on without any change of mutual estimate. however, lush's easy prospect of indefinite procrastination was cut off the next morning by grandcourt's saluting him with the question, "are you making all the arrangements for our starting by the paris train?" "i didn't know you meant to start," said lush, not exactly taken by surprise. "you might have known," said grandcourt, looking at the burned length of his cigar, and speaking in that lowered tone which was usual with him when he meant to express disgust and be peremptory. "just see to everything, will you? and mind no brute gets into the same carriage with us. and leave my p. p. c. at the mallingers'." in consequence they were at paris the next day; but here lush was gratified by the proposal or command that he should go straight on to diplow and see that everything was right, while grandcourt and the valet remained behind; and it was not until several days later that lush received the telegram ordering the carriage to the wanchester station. he had used the interim actively, not only in carrying out grandcourt's orders about the stud and household, but in learning all he could of gwendolen, and how things were going on at offendene. what was the probable effect that the news of the family misfortunes would have on grandcourt's fitful obstinacy he felt to be quite incalculable. so far as the girl's poverty might be an argument that she would accept an offer from him now in spite of any previous coyness, it might remove that bitter objection to risk a repulse which lush divined to be one of grandcourt's deterring motives; on the other hand, the certainty of acceptance was just "the sort of thing" to make him lapse hither and thither with no more apparent will than a moth. lush had had his patron under close observation for many years, and knew him perhaps better than he knew any other subject; but to know grandcourt was to doubt what he would do in any particular case. it might happen that he would behave with an apparent magnanimity, like the hero of a modern french drama, whose sudden start into moral splendor after much lying and meanness, leaves you little confidence as to any part of his career that may follow the fall of the curtain. indeed, what attitude would have been more honorable for a final scene than that of declining to seek an heiress for her money, and determining to marry the attractive girl who had none? but lush had some general certainties about grandcourt, and one was that of all inward movements those of generosity were least likely to occur in him. of what use, however, is a general certainty that an insect will not walk with his head hindmost, when what you need to know is the play of inward stimulus that sends him hither and thither in a network of possible paths? thus lush was much at fault as to the probable issue between grandcourt and gwendolen, when what he desired was a perfect confidence that they would never be married. he would have consented willingly that grandcourt should marry an heiress, or that he should marry mrs. glasher: in the one match there would have been the immediate abundance that prospective heirship could not supply, in the other there would have been the security of the wife's gratitude, for lush had always been mrs. glasher's friend; and that the future mrs. grandcourt should not be socially received could not affect his private comfort. he would not have minded, either, that there should be no marriage in question at all; but he felt himself justified in doing his utmost to hinder a marriage with a girl who was likely to bring nothing but trouble to her husband--not to speak of annoyance if not ultimate injury to her husband's old companion, whose future mr. lush earnestly wished to make as easy as possible, considering that he had well deserved such compensation for leading a dog's life, though that of a dog who enjoyed many tastes undisturbed, and who profited by a large establishment. he wished for himself what he felt to be good, and was not conscious of wishing harm to any one else; unless perhaps it were just now a little harm to the inconvenient and impertinent gwendolen. but the easiest-humored of luxury and music, the toad-eater the least liable to nausea, must be expected to have his susceptibilities. and mr. lush was accustomed to be treated by the world in general as an apt, agreeable fellow: he had not made up his mind to be insulted by more than one person. with this imperfect preparation of a war policy, lush was awaiting grandcourt's arrival, doing little more than wondering how the campaign would begin. the first day grandcourt was much occupied with the stables, and amongst other things he ordered a groom to put a side-saddle on criterion and let him review the horse's paces. this marked indication of purpose set lush on considering over again whether he should incur the ticklish consequences of speaking first, while he was still sure that no compromising step had been taken; and he rose the next morning almost resolved that if grandcourt seemed in as good a humor as yesterday and entered at all into talk, he would let drop the interesting facts about gwendolen and her family, just to see how they would work, and to get some guidance. but grandcourt did not enter into talk, and in answer to a question even about his own convenience, no fish could have maintained a more unwinking silence. after he had read his letters he gave various orders to be executed or transmitted by lush, and then thrust his shoulder toward that useful person, who accordingly rose to leave the room. but before he was out of the door grandcourt turned his head slightly and gave a broken, languid "oh." "what is it?" said lush, who, it must have been observed, did not take his dusty puddings with a respectful air. "shut the door, will you? i can't speak into the corridor." lush closed the door, came forward, and chose to sit down. after a little pause grandcourt said, "is miss harleth at offendene?" he was quite certain that lush had made it his business to inquire about her, and he had some pleasure in thinking that lush did not want _him_ to inquire. "well, i hardly know," said lush, carelessly. "the family's utterly done up. they and the gascoignes too have lost all their money. it's owing to some rascally banking business. the poor mother hasn't a _sou_, it seems. she and the girls have to huddle themselves into a little cottage like a laborer's." "don't lie to me, if you please," said grandcourt, in his lowest audible tone. "it's not amusing, and it answers no other purpose." "what do you mean?" said lush, more nettled than was common with him--the prospect before him being more than commonly disturbing. "just tell me the truth, will you?" "it's no invention of mine. i have heard the story from several--bazley, brackenshaw's man, for one. he is getting a new tenant for offendene." "i don't mean that. is miss harleth there, or is she not?" said grandcourt, in his former tone. "upon my soul, i can't tell," said lush, rather sulkily. "she may have left yesterday. i heard she had taken a situation as governess; she may be gone to it for what i know. but if you wanted to see her no doubt the mother would send for her back." this sneer slipped off his tongue without strict intention. "send hutchins to inquire whether she will be there tomorrow." lush did not move. like many persons who have thought over beforehand what they shall say in given cases, he was impelled by an unexpected irritation to say some of those prearranged things before the cases were given. grandcourt, in fact, was likely to get into a scrape so tremendous that it was impossible to let him take the first step toward it without remonstrance. lush retained enough caution to use a tone of rational friendliness, still he felt his own value to his patron, and was prepared to be daring. "it would be as well for you to remember, grandcourt, that you are coming under closer fire now. there can be none of the ordinary flirting done, which may mean everything or nothing. you must make up your mind whether you wish to be accepted; and more than that, how you would like being refused. either one or the other. you can't be philandering after her again for six weeks." grandcourt said nothing, but pressed the newspaper down on his knees and began to light another cigar. lush took this as a sign that he was willing to listen, and was the more bent on using the opportunity; he wanted, if possible, to find out which would be the more potent cause of hesitation--probable acceptance or probable refusal. "everything has a more serious look now than it had before. there is her family to be provided for. you could not let your wife's mother live in beggary. it will be a confoundedly hampering affair. marriage will pin you down in a way you haven't been used to; and in point of money you have not too much elbow-room. and after all, what will you get by it? you are master over your estates, present or future, as far as choosing your heir goes; it's a pity to go on encumbering them for a mere whim, which you may repent of in a twelvemonth. i should be sorry to see you making a mess of your life in that way. if there were anything solid to be gained by the marriage, that would be a different affair." lush's tone had gradually become more and more unctuous in its friendliness of remonstrance, and he was almost in danger of forgetting that he was merely gambling in argument. when he left off, grandcourt took his cigar out of his mouth, and looking steadily at the moist end while he adjusted the leaf with his delicate finger-tips, said, "i knew before that you had an objection to my marrying miss harleth." here he made a little pause before he continued. "but i never considered that a reason against it." "i never supposed you did," answered lush, not unctuously but dryly. "it was not _that_ i urged as a reason. i should have thought it might have been a reason against it, after all your experience, that you would be acting like the hero of a ballad, and making yourself absurd--and all for what? you know you couldn't make up your mind before. it's impossible you can care much about her. and as for the tricks she is likely to play, you may judge of that from what you heard at leubronn. however, what i wished to point out to you was, that there can be no shilly-shally now." "perfectly," said grandcourt, looking round at lush and fixing him with narrow eyes; "i don't intend that there should be. i dare say it's disagreeable to you. but if you suppose i care a damn for that you are most stupendously mistaken." "oh, well," said lush, rising with his hands in his pockets, and feeling some latent venom still within him, "if you have made up your mind!--only there's another aspect of the affair. i have been speaking on the supposition that it was absolutely certain she would accept you, and that destitution would have no choice. but i am not so sure that the young lady is to be counted on. she is kittle cattle to shoe, i think. and she had her reasons for running away before." lush had moved a step or two till he stood nearly in front of grandcourt, though at some distance from him. he did not feel himself much restrained by consequences, being aware that the only strong hold he had on his present position was his serviceableness; and even after a quarrel the want of him was likely sooner or later to recur. he foresaw that gwendolen would cause him to be ousted for a time, and his temper at this moment urged him to risk a quarrel. "she had her reasons," he repeated more significantly. "i had come to that conclusion before," said grandcourt, with contemptuous irony. "yes, but i hardly think you know what her reasons were." "you do, apparently," said grandcourt, not betraying by so much as an eyelash that he cared for the reasons. "yes, and you had better know too, that you may judge of the influence you have over her if she swallows her reasons and accepts you. for my own part i would take odds against it. she saw lydia in cardell chase and heard the whole story." grandcourt made no immediate answer, and only went on smoking. he was so long before he spoke that lush moved about and looked out of the windows, unwilling to go away without seeing some effect of his daring move. he had expected that grandcourt would tax him with having contrived the affair, since mrs. glasher was then living at gadsmere, a hundred miles off, and he was prepared to admit the fact: what he cared about was that grandcourt should be staggered by the sense that his intended advances must be made to a girl who had that knowledge in her mind and had been scared by it. at length grandcourt, seeing lush turn toward him, looked at him again and said, contemptuously, "what follows?" here certainly was a "mate" in answer to lush's "check"; and though his exasperation with grandcourt was perhaps stronger than it had ever been before, it would have been idiocy to act as if any further move could be useful. he gave a slight shrug with one shoulder, and was going to walk away, when grandcourt, turning on his seat toward the table, said, as quietly as if nothing had occurred, "oblige me by pushing that pen and paper here, will you?" no thunderous, bullying superior could have exercised the imperious spell that grandcourt did. why, instead of being obeyed, he had never been told to go to a warmer place, was perhaps a mystery to those who found themselves obeying him. the pen and paper were pushed to him, and as he took them he said, "just wait for this letter." he scrawled with ease, and the brief note was quickly addressed. "let hutchins go with it at once, will you?" said grandcourt, pushing the letter away from him. as lush had expected, it was addressed to miss harleth, offendene. when his irritation had cooled down he was glad there had been no explosive quarrel; but he felt sure that there was a notch made against him, and that somehow or other he was intended to pay. it was also clear to him that the immediate effect of his revelation had been to harden grandcourt's previous determination. but as to the particular movements that made this process in his baffling mind, lush could only toss up his chin in despair of a theory. chapter xxvi. he brings white asses laden with the freight of tyrian vessels, purple, gold and balm, to bribe my will: i'll bid them chase him forth, nor let him breathe the taint of his surmise on my secure resolve. ay, 'tis secure: and therefore let him come to spread his freight. for firmness hath its appetite and craves the stronger lure, more strongly to resist; would know the touch of gold to fling it off; scent wine to feel its lip the soberer; behold soft byssus, ivory, and plumes to say, "they're fair, but i will none of them," and flout enticement in the very face. mr. gascoigne one day came to offendene with what he felt to be the satisfactory news that mrs. mompert had fixed tuesday in the following week for her interview with gwendolen at wanchester. he said nothing of his having incidentally heard that mr. grandcourt had returned to diplow; knowing no more than she did that leubronn had been the goal of her admirer's journeying, and feeling that it would be unkind uselessly to revive the memory of a brilliant prospect under the present reverses. in his secret soul he thought of his niece's unintelligible caprice with regret, but he vindicated her to himself by considering that grandcourt had been the first to behave oddly, in suddenly walking away when there had the best opportunity for crowning his marked attentions. the rector's practical judgment told him that his chief duty to his niece now was to encourage her resolutely to face the change in her lot, since there was no manifest promise of any event that would avert it. "you will find an interest in varied experience, my dear, and i have no doubt you will be a more valuable woman for having sustained such a part as you are called to." "i cannot pretend to believe that i shall like it," said gwendolen, for the first time showing her uncle some petulance. "but i am quite aware that i am obliged to bear it." she remembered having submitted to his admonition on a different occasion when she was expected to like a very different prospect. "and your good sense will teach you to behave suitably under it," said mr. gascoigne, with a shade more gravity. "i feel sure that mrs. mompert will be pleased with you. you will know how to conduct yourself to a woman who holds in all senses the relation of a superior to you. this trouble has come on you young, but that makes it in some respects easier, and there is a benefit in all chastisement if we adjust our minds to it." this was precisely what gwendolen was unable to do; and after her uncle was gone, the bitter tears, which had rarely come during the late trouble, rose and fell slowly as she sat alone. her heart denied that the trouble was easier because she was young. when was she to have any happiness, if it did not come while she was young? not that her visions of possible happiness for herself were as unmixed with necessary evil as they used to be--not that she could still imagine herself plucking the fruits of life without suspicion of their core. but this general disenchantment with the world--nay, with herself, since it appeared that she was not made for easy pre-eminence--only intensified her sense of forlornness; it was a visibly sterile distance enclosing the dreary path at her feet, in which she had no courage to tread. she was in that first crisis of passionate youthful rebellion against what is not fitly called pain, but rather the absence of joy--that first rage of disappointment in life's morning, which we whom the years have subdued are apt to remember but dimly as part of our own experience, and so to be intolerant of its self-enclosed unreasonableness and impiety. what passion seems more absurd, when we have got outside it and looked at calamity as a collective risk, than this amazed anguish that i and not thou, he or she, should be just the smitten one? yet perhaps some who have afterward made themselves a willing fence before the breast of another, and have carried their own heart-wound in heroic silence--some who have made their deeds great, nevertheless began with this angry amazement at their own smart, and on the mere denial of their fantastic desires raged as if under the sting of wasps which reduced the universe for them to an unjust infliction of pain. this was nearly poor gwendolen's condition. what though such a reverse as hers had often happened to other girls? the one point she had been all her life learning to care for was that it had happened to _her_: it was what _she_ felt under klesmer's demonstration that she was not remarkable enough to command fortune by force of will and merit; it was what _she_ would feel under the rigors of mrs. mompert's constant expectation, under the dull demand that she should be cheerful with three miss momperts, under the necessity of showing herself entirely submissive, and keeping her thoughts to herself. to be a queen disthroned is not so hard as some other down-stepping: imagine one who had been made to believe in his own divinity finding all homage withdrawn, and himself unable to perform a miracle that would recall the homage and restore his own confidence. something akin to this illusion and this helplessness had befallen the poor spoiled child, with the lovely lips and eyes and the majestic figure--which seemed now to have no magic in them. she rose from the low ottoman where she had been sitting purposeless, and walked up and down the drawing-room, resting her elbow on one palm while she leaned down her cheek on the other, and a slow tear fell. she thought, "i have always, ever since i was little, felt that mamma was not a happy woman; and now i dare say i shall be more unhappy than she has been." her mind dwelt for a few moments on the picture of herself losing her youth and ceasing to enjoy--not minding whether she did this or that: but such picturing inevitably brought back the image of her mother. "poor mamma! it will be still worse for her now. i can get a little money for her--that is all i shall care about now." and then with an entirely new movement of her imagination, she saw her mother getting quite old and white, and herself no longer young but faded, and their two faces meeting still with memory and love, and she knowing what was in her mother's mind--"poor gwen too is sad and faded now"--and then, for the first time, she sobbed, not in anger, but with a sort of tender misery. her face was toward the door, and she saw her mother enter. she barely saw that; for her eyes were large with tears, and she pressed her handkerchief against them hurriedly. before she took it away she felt her mother's arms round her, and this sensation, which seemed a prolongation of her inward vision, overcame her will to be reticent; she sobbed anew in spite of herself, as they pressed their cheeks together. mrs. davilow had brought something in her hand which had already caused her an agitating anxiety, and she dared not speak until her darling had become calmer. but gwendolen, with whom weeping had always been a painful manifestation to be resisted, if possible, again pressed her handkerchief against her eyes, and, with a deep breath, drew her head backward and looked at her mother, who was pale and tremulous. "it was nothing, mamma," said gwendolen, thinking that her mother had been moved in this way simply by finding her in distress. "it is all over now." but mrs. davilow had withdrawn her arms, and gwendolen perceived a letter in her hand. "what is that letter?--worse news still?" she asked, with a touch of bitterness. "i don't know what you will think it, dear," said mrs. davilow, keeping the letter in her hand. "you will hardly guess where it comes from." "don't ask me to guess anything," said gwendolen, rather impatiently, as if a bruise were being pressed. "it is addressed to you, dear." gwendolen gave the slightest perceptible toss of the head. "it comes from diplow," said mrs. davilow, giving her the letter. she knew grandcourt's indistinct handwriting, and her mother was not surprised to see her blush deeply; but watching her as she read, and wondering much what was the purport of the letter, she saw the color die out. gwendolen's lips even were pale as she turned the open note toward her mother. the words were few and formal: mr. grandcourt presents his compliments to miss harleth, and begs to know whether he may be permitted to call at offendene tomorrow after two and to see her alone. mr. grandcourt has just returned from leubronn, where he had hoped to find miss harleth. mrs. davilow read, and then looked at her daughter inquiringly, leaving the note in her hand. gwendolen let it fall to the floor, and turned away. "it must be answered, darling," said mrs. davilow, timidly. "the man waits." gwendolen sank on the settee, clasped her hands, and looked straight before her, not at her mother. she had the expression of one who had been startled by a sound and was listening to know what would come of it. the sudden change of the situation was bewildering. a few minutes before she was looking along an inescapable path of repulsive monotony, with hopeless inward rebellion against the imperious lot which left her no choice: and lo, now, a moment of choice was come. yet--was it triumph she felt most or terror? impossible for gwendolen not to feel some triumph in a tribute to her power at a time when she was first tasting the bitterness of insignificance: again she seemed to be getting a sort of empire over her own life. but how to use it? here came the terror. quick, quick, like pictures in a book beaten open with a sense of hurry, came back vividly, yet in fragments, all that she had gone through in relation to grandcourt--the allurements, the vacillations, the resolve to accede, the final repulsion; the incisive face of that dark-eyed lady with the lovely boy: her own pledge (was it a pledge not to marry him?)--the new disbelief in the worth of men and things for which that scene of disclosure had become a symbol. that unalterable experience made a vision at which in the first agitated moment, before tempering reflections could suggest themselves, her native terror shrank. where was the good of choice coming again? what did she wish? anything different? no! and yet in the dark seed-growths of consciousness a new wish was forming itself--"i wish i had never known it!" something, anything she wished for that would have saved her from the dread to let grandcourt come. it was no long while--yet it seemed long to mrs. davilow, before she thought it well to say, gently, "it will be necessary for you to write, dear. or shall i write an answer for you--which you will dictate?" "no, mamma," said gwendolen, drawing a deep breath. "but please lay me out the pen and paper." that was gaining time. was she to decline grandcourt's visit--close the shutters--not even look out on what would happen?--though with the assurance that she should remain just where she was? the young activity within her made a warm current through her terror and stirred toward something that would be an event--toward an opportunity in which she could look and speak with the former effectiveness. the interest of the morrow was no longer at a deadlock. "there is really no reason on earth why you should be so alarmed at the man's waiting a few minutes, mamma," said gwendolen, remonstrantly, as mrs. davilow, having prepared the writing materials, looked toward her expectantly. "servants expect nothing else than to wait. it is not to be supposed that i must write on the instant." "no, dear," said mrs. davilow, in the tone of one corrected, turning to sit down and take up a bit of work that lay at hand; "he can wait another quarter of an hour, if you like." it was very simple speech and action on her part, but it was what might have been subtly calculated. gwendolen felt a contradictory desire to be hastened: hurry would save her from deliberate choice. "i did not mean him to wait long enough for that needlework to be finished," she said, lifting her hands to stroke the backward curves of her hair, while she rose from her seat and stood still. "but if you don't feel able to decide?" said mrs. davilow, sympathizingly. "i _must_ decide," said gwendolen, walking to the writing-table and seating herself. all the while there was a busy undercurrent in her, like the thought of a man who keeps up a dialogue while he is considering how he can slip away. why should she not let him come? it bound her to nothing. he had been to leubronn after her: of course he meant a direct unmistakable renewal of the suit which before had been only implied. what then? she could reject him. why was she to deny herself the freedom of doing this--which she would like to do? "if mr. grandcourt has only just returned from leubronn," said mrs. davilow, observing that gwendolen leaned back in her chair after taking the pen in her hand--"i wonder whether he has heard of our misfortunes?" "that could make no difference to a man in his position," said gwendolen, rather contemptuously, "it would to some men," said mrs. davilow. "they would not like to take a wife from a family in a state of beggary almost, as we are. here we are at offendene with a great shell over us, as usual. but just imagine his finding us at sawyer's cottage. most men are afraid of being bored or taxed by a wife's family. if mr. grandcourt did know, i think it a strong proof of his attachment to you." mrs. davilow spoke with unusual emphasis: it was the first time she had ventured to say anything about grandcourt which would necessarily seem intended as an argument in favor of him, her habitual impression being that such arguments would certainly be useless and might be worse. the effect of her words now was stronger than she could imagine: they raised a new set of possibilities in gwendolen's mind--a vision of what grandcourt might do for her mother if she, gwendolen, did--what she was not going to do. she was so moved by a new rush of ideas that, like one conscious of being urgently called away, she felt that the immediate task must be hastened: the letter must be written, else it might be endlessly deferred. after all, she acted in a hurry, as she had wished to do. to act in a hurry was to have a reason for keeping away from an absolute decision, and to leave open as many issues as possible. she wrote: "miss harleth presents her compliments to mr. grandcourt. she will be at home after two o'clock to-morrow." before addressing the note she said, "pray ring the bell, mamma, if there is any one to answer it." she really did not know who did the work of the house. it was not till after the letter had been taken away and gwendolen had risen again, stretching out one arm and then resting it on her head, with a low moan which had a sound of relief in it, that mrs. davilow ventured to ask, "what did you say, gwen?" "i said that i should be at home," answered gwendolen, rather loftily. then after a pause, "you must not expect, because mr. grandcourt is coming, that anything is going to happen, mamma." "i don't allow myself to expect anything, dear. i desire you to follow your own feeling. you have never told me what that was." "what is the use of telling?" said gwendolen, hearing a reproach in that true statement. "when i have anything pleasant to tell, you may be sure i will tell you." "but mr. grandcourt will consider that you have already accepted him, in allowing him to come. his note tells you plainly enough that he is coming to make you an offer." "very well; and i wish to have the pleasure of refusing him." mrs. davilow looked up in wonderment, but gwendolen implied her wish not to be questioned further by saying, "put down that detestable needle-work, and let us walk in the avenue. i am stifled." chapter xxvii. desire has trimmed the sails, and circumstance brings but the breeze to fill them. while grandcourt on his beautiful black yarico, the groom behind him on criterion, was taking the pleasant ride from diplow to offendene, gwendolen was seated before the mirror while her mother gathered up the lengthy mass of light-brown hair which she had been carefully brushing. "only gather it up easily and make a coil, mamma," said gwendolen. "let me bring you some ear-rings, gwen," said mrs. davilow, when the hair was adjusted, and they were both looking at the reflection in the glass. it was impossible for them not to notice that the eyes looked brighter than they had done of late, that there seemed to be a shadow lifted from the face, leaving all the lines once more in their placid youthfulness. the mother drew some inference that made her voice rather cheerful. "you do want your earrings?" "no, mamma; i shall not wear any ornaments, and i shall put on my black silk. black is the only wear when one is going to refuse an offer," said gwendolen, with one of her old smiles at her mother, while she rose to throw off her dressing-gown. "suppose the offer is not made after all," said mrs. davilow, not without a sly intention. "then that will be because i refuse it beforehand," said gwendolen. "it comes to the same thing." there was a proud little toss of the head as she said this; and when she walked down-stairs in her long black robes, there was just that firm poise of head and elasticity of form which had lately been missing, as in a parched plant. her mother thought, "she is quite herself again. it must be pleasure in his coming. can her mind be really made up against him?" gwendolen would have been rather angry if that thought had been uttered; perhaps all the more because through the last twenty hours, with a brief interruption of sleep, she had been so occupied with perpetually alternating images and arguments for and against the possibility of her marrying grandcourt, that the conclusion which she had determined on beforehand ceased to have any hold on her consciousness: the alternate dip of counterbalancing thoughts begotten of counterbalancing desires had brought her into a state in which no conclusion could look fixed to her. she would have expressed her resolve as before; but it was a form out of which the blood had been sucked--no more a part of quivering life than the "god's will be done" of one who is eagerly watching chances. she did not mean to accept grandcourt; from the first moment of receiving his letter she had meant to refuse him; still, that could not but prompt her to look the unwelcome reasons full in the face until she had a little less awe of them, could not hinder her imagination from filling out her knowledge in various ways, some of which seemed to change the aspect of what she knew. by dint of looking at a dubious object with a constructive imagination, one can give it twenty different shapes. her indistinct grounds of hesitation before the interview at the whispering stones, at present counted for nothing; they were all merged in the final repulsion. if it had not been for that day in cardell chase, she said to herself now, there would have been no obstacle to her marrying grandcourt. on that day and after it, she had not reasoned and balanced; she had acted with a force of impulse against which all questioning was no more than a voice against a torrent. the impulse had come--not only from her maidenly pride and jealousy, not only from the shock of another woman's calamity thrust close on her vision, but--from her dread of wrong-doing, which was vague, it was true, and aloof from the daily details of her life, but not the less strong. whatever was accepted as consistent with being a lady she had no scruple about; but from the dim region of what was called disgraceful, wrong, guilty, she shrunk with mingled pride and terror; and even apart from shame, her feeling would have made her place any deliberate injury of another in the region of guilt. but now--did she know exactly what was the state of the case with regard to mrs. glasher and her children? she had given a sort of promise--had said, "i will not interfere with your wishes." but would another woman who married grandcourt be in fact the decisive obstacle to her wishes, or be doing her and her boy any real injury? might it not be just as well, nay better, that grandcourt should marry? for what could not a woman do when she was married, if she knew how to assert herself? here all was constructive imagination. gwendolen had about as accurate a conception of marriage--that is to say, of the mutual influences, demands, duties of man and woman in the state of matrimony--as she had of magnetic currents and the law of storms. "mamma managed badly," was her way of summing up what she had seen of her mother's experience: she herself would manage quite differently. and the trials of matrimony were the last theme into which mrs. davilow could choose to enter fully with this daughter. "i wonder what mamma and my uncle would say if they knew about mrs. glasher!" thought gwendolen in her inward debating; not that she could imagine herself telling them, even if she had not felt bound to silence. "i wonder what anybody would say; or what they would say to mr. grandcourt's marrying some one else and having other children!" to consider what "anybody" would say, was to be released from the difficulty of judging where everything was obscure to her when feeling had ceased to be decisive. she had only to collect her memories, which proved to her that "anybody" regarded the illegitimate children as more rightfully to be looked shy on and deprived of social advantages than illegitimate fathers. the verdict of "anybody" seemed to be that she had no reason to concern herself greatly on behalf of mrs. glasher and her children. but there was another way in which they had caused her concern. what others might think could not do away with a feeling which in the first instance would hardly be too strongly described as indignation and loathing that she should have been expected to unite herself with an outworn life, full of backward secrets which must have been more keenly felt than any association with _her_. true, the question of love on her own part had occupied her scarcely at all in relation to grandcourt. the desirability of marriage for her had always seemed due to other feeling than love; and to be enamored was the part of the man, on whom the advances depended. gwendolen had found no objection to grandcourt's way of being enamored before she had had that glimpse of his past, which she resented as if it had been a deliberate offense against her. his advances to _her_ were deliberate, and she felt a retrospective disgust for them. perhaps other men's lives were of the same kind--full of secrets which made the ignorant suppositions of the women they wanted to marry a farce at which they were laughing in their sleeves. these feelings of disgust and indignation had sunk deep; and though other troublous experience in the last weeks had dulled them from passion into remembrance, it was chiefly their reverberating activity which kept her firm to the understanding with herself, that she was not going to accept grandcourt. she had never meant to form a new determination; she had only been considering what might be thought or said. if anything could have induced her to change, it would have been the prospect of making all things easy for "poor mamma:" that, she admitted, was a temptation. but no! she was going to refuse him. meanwhile, the thought that he was coming to be refused was inspiriting: she had the white reins in her hands again; there was a new current in her frame, reviving her from the beaten-down consciousness in which she had been left by the interview with klesmer. she was not now going to crave an opinion of her capabilities; she was going to exercise her power. was this what made her heart palpitate annoyingly when she heard the horse's footsteps on the gravel?--when miss merry, who opened the door to grandcourt, came to tell her that he was in the drawing-room? the hours of preparation and the triumph of the situation were apparently of no use: she might as well have seen grandcourt coming suddenly on her in the midst of her despondency. while walking into the drawing-room, she had to concentrate all her energy in that self-control, which made her appear gravely gracious--as she gave her hand to him, and answered his hope that she was quite well in a voice as low and languid as his own. a moment afterward, when they were both of them seated on two of the wreath-painted chairs--gwendolen upright with downcast eyelids, grandcourt about two yards distant, leaning one arm over the back of his chair and looking at her, while he held his hat in his left hand--any one seeing them as a picture would have concluded that they were in some stage of love-making suspense. and certainly the love-making had begun: she already felt herself being wooed by this silent man seated at an agreeable distance, with the subtlest atmosphere of attar of roses and an attention bent wholly on her. and he also considered himself to be wooing: he was not a man to suppose that his presence carried no consequences; and he was exactly the man to feel the utmost piquancy in a girl whom he had not found quite calculable. "i was disappointed not to find you at leubronn," he began, his usual broken drawl having just a shade of amorous languor in it. "the place was intolerable without you. a mere kennel of a place. don't you think so?" "i can't judge what it would be without myself," said gwendolen, turning her eyes on him, with some recovered sense of mischief. "_with_ myself i like it well enough to have stayed longer, if i could. but i was obliged to come home on account of family troubles." "it was very cruel of you to go to leubronn," said grandcourt, taking no notice of the troubles, on which gwendolen--she hardly knew why--wished that there should be a clear understanding at once. "you must have known that it would spoil everything: you knew you were the heart and soul of everything that went on. are you quite reckless about me?" it would be impossible to say "yes" in a tone that would be taken seriously; equally impossible to say "no;" but what else could she say? in her difficulty, she turned down her eyelids again and blushed over face and neck. grandcourt saw her in a new phase, and believed that she was showing her inclination. but he was determined that she should show it more decidedly. "perhaps there is some deeper interest? some attraction--some engagement--which it would have been only fair to make me aware of? is there any man who stands between us?" inwardly the answer framed itself. "no; but there is a woman." yet how could she utter this? even if she had not promised that woman to be silent, it would have been impossible for her to enter on the subject with grandcourt. but how could she arrest his wooing by beginning to make a formal speech--"i perceive your intention--it is most flattering, etc."? a fish honestly invited to come and be eaten has a clear course in declining, but how if it finds itself swimming against a net? and apart from the network, would she have dared at once to say anything decisive? gwendolen had not time to be clear on that point. as it was, she felt compelled to silence, and after a pause, grandcourt said, "am i to understand that some one else is preferred?" gwendolen, now impatient of her own embarrassment, determined to rush at the difficulty and free herself. she raised her eyes again and said with something of her former clearness and defiance, "no"--wishing him to understand, "what then? i may not be ready to take _you_." there was nothing that grandcourt could not understand which he perceived likely to affect his _amour propre_. "the last thing i would do, is to importune you. i should not hope to win you by making myself a bore. if there were no hope for me, i would ask you to tell me so at once, that i might just ride away to--no matter where." almost to her own astonishment, gwendolen felt a sudden alarm at the image of grandcourt finally riding away. what would be left her then? nothing but the former dreariness. she liked him to be there. she snatched at the subject that would defer any decisive answer. "i fear you are not aware of what has happened to us. i have lately had to think so much of my mamma's troubles, that other subjects have been quite thrown into the background. she has lost all her fortune, and we are going to leave this place. i must ask you to excuse my seeming preoccupied." in eluding a direct appeal gwendolen recovered some of her self-possession. she spoke with dignity and looked straight at grandcourt, whose long, narrow, impenetrable eyes met hers, and mysteriously arrested them: mysteriously; for the subtly-varied drama between man and woman is often such as can hardly be rendered in words put together like dominoes, according to obvious fixed marks. the word of all work, love, will no more express the myriad modes of mutual attraction, than the word thought can inform you what is passing through your neighbor's mind. it would be hard to tell on which side--gwendolen's or grandcourt's--the influence was more mixed. at that moment his strongest wish was to be completely master of this creature--this piquant combination of maidenliness and mischief: that she knew things which had made her start away from him, spurred him to triumph over that repugnance; and he was believing that he should triumph. and she--ah, piteous equality in the need to dominate!--she was overcome like the thirsty one who is drawn toward the seeming water in the desert, overcome by the suffused sense that here in this man's homage to her lay the rescue from helpless subjection to an oppressive lot. all the while they were looking at each other; and grandcourt said, slowly and languidly, as if it were of no importance, other things having been settled, "you will tell me now, i hope, that mrs. davilow's loss of fortune will not trouble you further. you will trust me to prevent it from weighing upon her. you will give me the claim to provide against that." the little pauses and refined drawlings with which this speech was uttered, gave time for gwendolen to go through the dream of a life. as the words penetrated her, they had the effect of a draught of wine, which suddenly makes all things easier, desirable things not so wrong, and people in general less disagreeable. she had a momentary phantasmal love for this man who chose his words so well, and who was a mere incarnation of delicate homage. repugnance, dread, scruples--these were dim as remembered pains, while she was already tasting relief under the immediate pain of hopelessness. she imagined herself already springing to her mother, and being playful again. yet when grandcourt had ceased to speak, there was an instant in which she was conscious of being at the turning of the ways. "you are very generous," she said, not moving her eyes, and speaking with a gentle intonation. "you accept what will make such things a matter of course?" said grandcourt, without any new eagerness. "you consent to become my wife?" this time gwendolen remained quite pale. something made her rise from her seat in spite of herself and walk to a little distance. then she turned and with her hands folded before her stood in silence. grandcourt immediately rose too, resting his hat on the chair, but still keeping hold of it. the evident hesitation of this destitute girl to take his splendid offer stung him into a keenness of interest such as he had not known for years. none the less because he attributed her hesitation entirely to her knowledge about mrs. glasher. in that attitude of preparation, he said, "do you command me to go?" no familiar spirit could have suggested to him more effective words. "no," said gwendolen. she could not let him go: that negative was a clutch. she seemed to herself to be, after all, only drifted toward the tremendous decision--but drifting depends on something besides the currents when the sails have been set beforehand. "you accept my devotion?" said grandcourt, holding his hat by his side and looking straight into her eyes, without other movement. their eyes meeting in that way seemed to allow any length of pause: but wait as long as she would, how could she contradict herself? what had she detained him for? he had shut out any explanation. "yes," came as gravely from gwendolen's lips as if she had been answering to her name in a court of justice. he received it gravely, and they still looked at each other in the same attitude. was there ever such a way before of accepting the bliss-giving "yes"? grandcourt liked better to be at that distance from her, and to feel under a ceremony imposed by an indefinable prohibition that breathed from gwendolen's bearing. but he did at length lay down his hat and advance to take her hand, just pressing his lips upon it and letting it go again. she thought his behavior perfect, and gained a sense of freedom which made her almost ready to be mischievous. her "yes" entailed so little at this moment that there was nothing to screen the reversal of her gloomy prospects; her vision was filled by her own release from the momperts, and her mother's release from sawyer's cottage. with a happy curl of the lips, she said, "will you not see mamma? i will fetch her." "let us wait a little," said grandcourt, in his favorite attitude, having his left forefinger and thumb in his waist-coat pocket, and with his right hand caressing his whisker, while he stood near gwendolen and looked at her--not unlike a gentleman who has a felicitous introduction at an evening party. "have you anything else to say to me?" said gwendolen, playfully. "yes--i know having things said to you is a great bore," said grandcourt, rather sympathetically. "not when they are things i like to hear." "will it bother you to be asked how soon we can be married?" "i think it will, to-day," said gwendolen, putting up her chin saucily. "not to-day, then, but to-morrow. think of it before i come to-morrow. in a fortnight--or three weeks--as soon as possible." "ah, you think you will be tired of my company," said gwendolen. "i notice when people are married the husband is not so much with his wife as when they are engaged. but perhaps i shall like that better, too." she laughed charmingly. "you shall have whatever you like," said grandcourt. "and nothing that i don't like?--please say that; because i think i dislike what i don't like more than i like what i like," said gwendolen, finding herself in the woman's paradise, where all her nonsense is adorable. grandcourt paused; these were subtilties in which he had much experience of his own. "i don't know--this is such a brute of a world, things are always turning up that one doesn't like. i can't always hinder your being bored. if you like to ride criterion, i can't hinder his coming down by some chance or other." "ah, my friend criterion, how is he?" "he is outside: i made the groom ride him, that you might see him. he had the side-saddle on for an hour or two yesterday. come to the window and look at him." they could see the two horses being taken slowly round the sweep, and the beautiful creatures, in their fine grooming, sent a thrill of exultation through gwendolen. they were the symbols of command and luxury, in delightful contrast with the ugliness of poverty and humiliation at which she had lately been looking close. "will you ride criterion to-morrow?" said grandcourt. "if you will, everything shall be arranged." "i should like it of all things," said gwendolen. "i want to lose myself in a gallop again. but now i must go and fetch mamma." "take my arm to the door, then," said grandcourt, and she accepted. their faces were very near each other, being almost on a level, and he was looking at her. she thought his manners as a lover more agreeable than any she had seen described. she had no alarm lest he meant to kiss her, and was so much at her ease, that she suddenly paused in the middle of the room and said half archly, half earnestly, "oh, while i think of it--there is something i dislike that you can save me from. i do _not_ like mr. lush's company." "you shall not have it. i'll get rid of him." "you are not fond of him yourself?" "not in the least. i let him hang on me because he has always been a poor devil," said grandcourt, in an _adagio_ of utter indifference. "they got him to travel with me when i was a lad. he was always that coarse-haired kind of brute--sort of cross between a hog and a _dilettante_." gwendolen laughed. all that seemed kind and natural enough: grandcourt's fastidiousness enhanced the kindness. and when they reached the door, his way of opening it for her was the perfection of easy homage. really, she thought, he was likely to be the least disagreeable of husbands. mrs. davilow was waiting anxiously in her bed-room when gwendolen entered, stepped toward her quickly, and kissing her on both cheeks said in a low tone, "come down, mamma, and see mr. grandcourt. i am engaged to him." "my darling child," said mrs. davilow, with a surprise that was rather solemn than glad. "yes," said gwendolen, in the same tone, and with a quickness which implied that it was needless to ask questions. "everything is settled. you are not going to sawyer's cottage, i am not going to be inspected by mrs. mompert, and everything is to be as i like. so come down with me immediately." book iv.--gwendolen gets her choice. chapter xxviii. "il est plus aisé de connoître l'homme en général que de connoître un homme en particulier."--la rochefoucauld. an hour after grandcourt had left, the important news of gwendolen's engagement was known at the rectory, and mr. and mrs. gascoigne, with anna, spent the evening at offendene. "my dear, let me congratulate you on having created a strong attachment," said the rector. "you look serious, and i don't wonder at it: a lifelong union is a solemn thing. but from the way mr. grandcourt has acted and spoken i think we may already see some good arising out of our adversity. it has given you an opportunity of observing your future husband's delicate liberality." mr. gascoigne referred to grandcourt's mode of implying that he would provide for mrs. davilow--a part of the love-making which gwendolen had remembered to cite to her mother with perfect accuracy. "but i have no doubt that mr. grandcourt would have behaved quite as handsomely if you had not gone away to germany, gwendolen, and had been engaged to him, as you no doubt might have been, more than a month ago," said mrs. gascoigne, feeling that she had to discharge a duty on this occasion. "but now there is no more room for caprice; indeed, i trust you have no inclination to any. a woman has a great debt of gratitude to a man who perseveres in making her such an offer. but no doubt you feel properly." "i am not at all sure that i do, aunt," said gwendolen, with saucy gravity. "i don't know everything it is proper to feel on being engaged." the rector patted her shoulder and smiled as at a bit of innocent naughtiness, and his wife took his behavior as an indication that she was not to be displeased. as for anna, she kissed gwendolen and said, "i do hope you will be happy," but then sank into the background and tried to keep the tears back too. in the late days she had been imagining a little romance about rex--how if he still longed for gwendolen her heart might be softened by trouble into love, so that they could by-and-by be married. and the romance had turned to a prayer that she, anna, might be able to rejoice like a good sister, and only think of being useful in working for gwendolen, as long as rex was not rich. but now she wanted grace to rejoice in something else. miss merry and the four girls, alice with the high shoulders, bertha and fanny the whisperers, and isabel the listener, were all present on this family occasion, when everything seemed appropriately turning to the honor and glory of gwendolen, and real life was as interesting as "sir charles grandison." the evening passed chiefly in decisive remarks from the rector, in answer to conjectures from the two elder ladies. according to him, the case was not one in which he could think it his duty to mention settlements: everything must, and doubtless would safely be left to mr. grandcourt. "i should like to know exactly what sort of places ryelands and gadsmere are," said mrs. davilow. "gadsmere, i believe, is a secondary place," said mr. gascoigne; "but ryelands i know to be one of our finest seats. the park is extensive and the woods of a very valuable order. the house was built by inigo jones, and the ceilings are painted in the italian style. the estate is said to be worth twelve thousand a year, and there are two livings, one a rectory, in the gift of the grandcourts. there may be some burdens on the land. still, mr. grandcourt was an only child." "it would be most remarkable," said mrs. gascoigne, "if he were to become lord stannery in addition to everything else. only think: there is the grandcourt estate, the mallinger estate, _and_ the baronetcy, _and_ the peerage,"--she was marking off the items on her fingers, and paused on the fourth while she added, "but they say there will be no land coming to him with the peerage." it seemed a pity there was nothing for the fifth finger. "the peerage," said the rector, judiciously, "must be regarded as a remote chance. there are two cousins between the present peer and mr. grandcourt. it is certainly a serious reflection how death and other causes do sometimes concentrate inheritances on one man. but an excess of that kind is to be deprecated. to be sir mallinger grandcourt mallinger--i suppose that will be his style--with corresponding properties, is a valuable talent enough for any man to have committed to him. let us hope it will be well used." "and what a position for the wife, gwendolen!" said mrs. gascoigne; "a great responsibility indeed. but you must lose no time in writing to mrs. mompert, henry. it is a good thing that you have an engagement of marriage to offer as an excuse, else she might feel offended. she is rather a high woman." "i am rid of that horror," thought gwendolen, to whom the name of mompert had become a sort of mumbo-jumbo. she was very silent through the evening, and that night could hardly sleep at all in her little white bed. it was a rarity in her strong youth to be wakeful: and perhaps a still greater rarity for her to be careful that her mother should not know of her restlessness. but her state of mind was altogether new: she who had been used to feel sure of herself, and ready to manage others, had just taken a decisive step which she had beforehand thought that she would not take--nay, perhaps, was bound not to take. she could not go backward now; she liked a great deal of what lay before her; and there was nothing for her to like if she went back. but her resolution was dogged by the shadow of that previous resolve which had at first come as the undoubting movement of her whole being. while she lay on her pillow with wide-open eyes, "looking on darkness which the blind do see," she was appalled by the idea that she was going to do what she had once started away from with repugnance. it was new to her that a question of right or wrong in her conduct should rouse her terror; she had known no compunction that atoning caresses and presents could not lay to rest. but here had come a moment when something like a new consciousness was awaked. she seemed on the edge of adopting deliberately, as a notion for all the rest of her life, what she had rashly said in her bitterness, when her discovery had driven her away to leubronn:--that it did not signify what she did; she had only to amuse herself as best she could. that lawlessness, that casting away of all care for justification, suddenly frightened her: it came to her with the shadowy array of possible calamity behind it--calamity which had ceased to be a mere name for her; and all the infiltrated influences of disregarded religious teaching, as well as the deeper impressions of something awful and inexorable enveloping her, seemed to concentrate themselves in the vague conception of avenging power. the brilliant position she had longed for, the imagined freedom she would create for herself in marriage, the deliverance from the dull insignificance of her girlhood--all immediately before her; and yet they had come to her hunger like food with the taint of sacrilege upon it, which she must snatch with terror. in the darkness and loneliness of her little bed, her more resistant self could not act against the first onslaught of dread after her irrevocable decision. that unhappy-faced woman and her children--grandcourt and his relations with her--kept repeating themselves in her imagination like the clinging memory of a disgrace, and gradually obliterated all other thought, leaving only the consciousness that she had taken those scenes into her life. her long wakefulness seemed a delirium; a faint, faint light penetrated beside the window-curtain; the chillness increased. she could bear it no longer, and cried "mamma!" "yes, dear," said mrs. davilow, immediately, in a wakeful voice. "let me come to you." she soon went to sleep on her mother's shoulder, and slept on till late, when, dreaming of a lit-up ball-room, she opened her eyes on her mother standing by the bedside with a small packet in her hand. "i am sorry to wake you, darling, but i thought it better to give you this at once. the groom has brought criterion; he has come on another horse, and says he is to stay here." gwendolen sat up in bed and opened the packet. it was a delicate enameled casket, and inside was a splendid diamond ring with a letter which contained a folded bit of colored paper and these words: pray wear this ring when i come at twelve in sign of our betrothal. i enclose a check drawn in the name of mr. gascoigne, for immediate expenses. of course mrs. davilow will remain at offendene, at least for some time. i hope, when i come, you will have granted me an early day, when you may begin to command me at a shorter distance. yours devotedly, h. m. grandcourt. the check was for five hundred pounds, and gwendolen turned it toward her mother, with the letter. "how very kind and delicate!" said mrs. davilow, with much feeling. "but i really should like better not to be dependent on a son-in-law. i and the girls could get along very well." "mamma, if you say that again, i will not marry him," said gwendolen, angrily. "my dear child, i trust you are not going to marry only for my sake," said mrs. davilow, deprecatingly. gwendolen tossed her head on the pillow away from her mother, and let the ring lie. she was irritated at this attempt to take away a motive. perhaps the deeper cause of her irritation was the consciousness that she was not going to marry solely for her mamma's sake--that she was drawn toward the marriage in ways against which stronger reasons than her mother's renunciation were yet not strong enough to hinder her. she had waked up to the signs that she was irrevocably engaged, and all the ugly visions, the alarms, the arguments of the night, must be met by daylight, in which probably they would show themselves weak. "what i long for is your happiness, dear," continued mrs. davilow, pleadingly. "i will not say anything to vex you. will you not put on the ring?" for a few moments gwendolen did not answer, but her thoughts were active. at last she raised herself with a determination to do as she would do if she had started on horseback, and go on with spirit, whatever ideas might be running in her head. "i thought the lover always put on the betrothal ring himself," she said laughingly, slipping the ring on her finger, and looking at it with a charming movement of her head. "i know why he has sent it," she added, nodding at her mamma. "why?" "he would rather make me put it on than ask me to let him do it. aha! he is very proud. but so am i. we shall match each other. i should hate a man who went down on his knees, and came fawning on me. he really is not disgusting." "that is very moderate praise, gwen." "no, it is not, for a man," said gwendolen gaily. "but now i must get up and dress. will you come and do my hair, mamma, dear," she went on, drawing down her mamma's face to caress it with her own cheeks, "and not be so naughty any more as to talk of living in poverty? you must bear to be made comfortable, even if you don't like it. and mr. grandcourt behaves perfectly, now, does he not?" "certainly he does," said mrs. davilow, encouraged, and persuaded that after all gwendolen was fond of her betrothed. she herself thought him a man whose attentions were likely to tell on a girl's feeling. suitors must often be judged as words are, by the standing and the figure they make in polite society: it is difficult to know much else of them. and all the mother's anxiety turned not on grandcourt's character, but on gwendolen's mood in accepting him. the mood was necessarily passing through a new phase this morning. even in the hour of making her toilet, she had drawn on all the knowledge she had for grounds to justify her marriage. and what she most dwelt on was the determination, that when she was grandcourt's wife, she would urge him to the most liberal conduct toward mrs. glasher's children. "of what use would it be to her that i should not marry him? he could have married her if he liked; but he did _not_ like. perhaps she is to blame for that. there must be a great deal about her that i know nothing of. and he must have been good to her in many ways, else she would not have wanted to marry him." but that last argument at once began to appear doubtful. mrs. glasher naturally wished to exclude other children who would stand between grandcourt and her own: and gwendolen's comprehension of this feeling prompted another way of reconciling claims. "perhaps we shall have no children. i hope we shall not. and he might leave the estate to the pretty little boy. my uncle said that mr. grandcourt could do as he liked with the estates. only when sir hugo mallinger dies there will be enough for two." this made mrs. glasher appear quite unreasonable in demanding that her boy should be sole heir; and the double property was a security that grandcourt's marriage would do her no wrong, when the wife was gwendolen harleth with all her proud resolution not to be fairly accused. this maiden had been accustomed to think herself blameless; other persons only were faulty. it was striking, that in the hold which this argument of her doing no wrong to mrs. glasher had taken on her mind, her repugnance to the idea of grandcourt's past had sunk into a subordinate feeling. the terror she had felt in the night-watches at overstepping the border of wickedness by doing what she had at first felt to be wrong, had dulled any emotions about his conduct. she was thinking of him, whatever he might be, as a man over whom she was going to have indefinite power; and her loving him having never been a question with her, any agreeableness he had was so much gain. poor gwendolen had no awe of unmanageable forces in the state of matrimony, but regarded it as altogether a matter of management, in which she would know how to act. in relation to grandcourt's past she encouraged new doubts whether he were likely to have differed much from other men; and she devised little schemes for learning what was expected of men in general. but whatever else might be true in the world, her hair was dressed suitably for riding, and she went down in her riding-habit, to avoid delay before getting on horseback. she wanted to have her blood stirred once more with the intoxication of youth, and to recover the daring with which she had been used to think of her course in life. already a load was lifted off her; for in daylight and activity it was less oppressive to have doubts about her choice, than to feel that she had no choice but to endure insignificance and servitude. "go back and make yourself look like a duchess, mamma," she said, turning suddenly as she was going down-stairs. "put your point-lace over your head. i must have you look like a duchess. you must not take things humbly." when grandcourt raised her left hand gently and looked at the ring, she said gravely, "it was very good of you to think of everything and send me that packet." "you will tell me if there is anything i forget?" he said, keeping the hand softly within his own. "i will do anything you wish." "but i am very unreasonable in my wishes," said gwendolen, smiling. "yes, i expect that. women always are." "then i will not be unreasonable," said gwendolen, taking away her hand and tossing her head saucily. "i will not be told that i am what women always are." "i did not say that," said grandcourt, looking at her with his usual gravity. "you are what no other woman is." "and what is that, pray?" said gwendolen, moving to a distance with a little air of menace. grandcourt made his pause before he answered. "you are the woman i love." "oh, what nice speeches!" said gwendolen, laughing. the sense of that love which he must once have given to another woman under strange circumstances was getting familiar. "give me a nice speech in return. say when we are to be married." "not yet. not till we have had a gallop over the downs. i am so thirsty for that, i can think of nothing else. i wish the hunting had begun. sunday the twentieth, twenty-seventh, monday, tuesday." gwendolen was counting on her fingers with the prettiest nod while she looked at grandcourt, and at last swept one palm over the other while she said triumphantly, "it will begin in ten days!" "let us be married in ten days, then," said grandcourt, "and we shall not be bored about the stables." "what do women always say in answer to that?" said gwendolen, mischievously. "they agree to it," said the lover, rather off his guard. "then i will not!" said gwendolen, taking up her gauntlets and putting them on, while she kept her eyes on him with gathering fun in them. the scene was pleasant on both sides. a cruder lover would have lost the view of her pretty ways and attitudes, and spoiled all by stupid attempts at caresses, utterly destructive of drama. grandcourt preferred the drama; and gwendolen, left at ease, found her spirits rising continually as she played at reigning. perhaps if klesmer had seen more of her in this unconscious kind of acting, instead of when she was trying to be theatrical, he might have rated her chance higher. when they had had a glorious gallop, however, she was in a state of exhilaration that disposed her to think well of hastening the marriage which would make her life all of apiece with this splendid kind of enjoyment. she would not debate any more about an act to which she had committed herself; and she consented to fix the wedding on that day three weeks, notwithstanding the difficulty of fulfilling the customary laws of the _trousseau_. lush, of course, was made aware of the engagement by abundant signs, without being formally told. but he expected some communication as a consequence of it, and after a few days he became rather impatient under grandcourt's silence, feeling sure that the change would affect his personal prospects, and wishing to know exactly how. his tactics no longer included any opposition--which he did not love for its own sake. he might easily cause grandcourt a great deal of annoyance, but it would be to his own injury, and to create annoyance was not a motive with him. miss gwendolen he would certainly not have been sorry to frustrate a little, but--after all there was no knowing what would come. it was nothing new that grandcourt should show a perverse wilfulness; yet in his freak about this girl he struck lush rather newly as something like a man who was _fey_--led on by an ominous fatality; and that one born to his fortune should make a worse business of his life than was necessary, seemed really pitiable. having protested against the marriage, lush had a second-sight for its evil consequences. grandcourt had been taking the pains to write letters and give orders himself instead of employing lush, and appeared to be ignoring his usefulness, even choosing, against the habit of years, to breakfast alone in his dressing-room. but a _tete-à-tete_ was not to be avoided in a house empty of guests; and lush hastened to use an opportunity of saying--it was one day after dinner, for there were difficulties in grandcourt's dining at offendene, "and when is the marriage to take place?" grandcourt, who drank little wine, had left the table and was lounging, while he smoked, in an easy chair near the hearth, where a fire of oak boughs was gaping to its glowing depths, and edging them with a delicate tint of ashes delightful to behold. the chair of red-brown velvet brocade was a becoming back-ground for his pale-tinted, well-cut features and exquisite long hands. omitting the cigar, you might have imagined him a portrait by moroni, who would have rendered wonderfully the impenetrable gaze and air of distinction; and a portrait by that great master would have been quite as lively a companion as grandcourt was disposed to be. but he answered without unusual delay. "on the tenth." "i suppose you intend to remain here." "we shall go to ryelands for a little while; but we shall return here for the sake of the hunting." after this word there was the languid inarticulate sound frequent with grandcourt when he meant to continue speaking, and lush waited for something more. nothing came, and he was going to put another question, when the inarticulate sound began again and introduced the mildly uttered suggestion, "you had better make some new arrangement for yourself." "what! i am to cut and run?" said lush, prepared to be good-tempered on the occasion. "something of that kind." "the bride objects to me. i hope she will make up to you for the want of my services." "i can't help your being so damnably disagreeable to women," said grandcourt, in soothing apology. "to one woman, if you please." "it makes no difference since she is the one in question." "i suppose i am not to be turned adrift after fifteen years without some provision." "you must have saved something out of me." "deuced little. i have often saved something for you." "you can have three hundred a year. but you must live in town and be ready to look after things when i want you. i shall be rather hard up." "if you are not going to be at ryelands this winter, i might run down there and let you know how swinton goes on." "if you like. i don't care a toss where you are, so that you keep out of sight." "much obliged," said lush, able to take the affair more easily than he had expected. he was supported by the secret belief that he should by-and-by be wanted as much as ever. "perhaps you will not object to packing up as soon as possible," said grandcourt. "the torringtons are coming, and miss harleth will be riding over here." "with all my heart. can't i be of use in going to gadsmere?" "no. i am going myself." "about your being rather hard up. have you thought of that plan--" "just leave me alone, will you?" said grandcourt, in his lowest audible tone, tossing his cigar into the fire, and rising to walk away. he spent the evening in the solitude of the smaller drawing-room, where, with various new publications on the table of the kind a gentleman may like to have on hand without touching, he employed himself (as a philosopher might have done) in sitting meditatively on the sofa and abstaining from literature--political, comic, cynical, or romantic. in this way hours may pass surprisingly soon, without the arduous invisible chase of philosophy; not from love of thought, but from hatred of effort--from a state of the inward world, something like premature age, where the need for action lapses into a mere image of what has been, is, and may or might be; where impulse is born and dies in a phantasmal world, pausing in rejection of even a shadowy fulfillment. that is a condition which often comes with whitening hair; and sometimes, too, an intense obstinacy and tenacity of rule, like the main trunk of an exorbitant egoism, conspicuous in proportion as the varied susceptibilities of younger years are stripped away. but grandcourt's hair, though he had not much of it, was of a fine, sunny blonde, and his moods were not entirely to be explained as ebbing energy. we mortals have a strange spiritual chemistry going on within us, so that a lazy stagnation or even a cottony milkiness may be preparing one knows not what biting or explosive material. the navvy waking from sleep and without malice heaving a stone to crush the life out of his still sleeping comrade, is understood to lack the trained motive which makes a character fairly calculable in its actions; but by a roundabout course even a gentleman may make of himself a chancy personage, raising an uncertainty as to what he may do next, that sadly spoils companionship. grandcourt's thoughts this evening were like the circlets one sees in a dark pool, continually dying out and continually started again by some impulse from below the surface. the deeper central impulse came from the image of gwendolen; but the thoughts it stirred would be imperfectly illustrated by a reference to the amatory poets of all ages. it was characteristic that he got none of his satisfaction from the belief that gwendolen was in love with him; and that love had overcome the jealous resentment which had made her run away from him. on the contrary, he believed that this girl was rather exceptional in the fact that, in spite of his assiduous attention to her, she was not in love with him; and it seemed to him very likely that if it had not been for the sudden poverty which had come over her family, she would not have accepted him. from the very first there had been an exasperating fascination in the tricksiness with which she had--not met his advances, but--wheeled away from them. she had been brought to accept him in spite of everything--brought to kneel down like a horse under training for the arena, though she might have an objection to it all the while. on the whole, grandcourt got more pleasure out of this notion than he could have done out of winning a girl of whom he was sure that she had a strong inclination for him personally. and yet this pleasure in mastering reluctance flourished along with the habitual persuasion that no woman whom he favored could be quite indifferent to his personal influence; and it seemed to him not unlikely that by-and-by gwendolen might be more enamored of him than he of her. in any case, she would have to submit; and he enjoyed thinking of her as his future wife, whose pride and spirit were suited to command every one but himself. he had no taste for a woman who was all tenderness to him, full of petitioning solicitude and willing obedience. he meant to be master of a woman who would have liked to master him, and who perhaps would have been capable of mastering another man. lush, having failed in his attempted reminder to grandcourt, thought it well to communicate with sir hugo, in whom, as a man having perhaps interest enough to command the bestowal of some place where the work was light, gentlemanly, and not ill-paid, he was anxious to cultivate a sense of friendly obligation, not feeling at all secure against the future need of such a place. he wrote the following letter, and addressed it to park lane, whither he knew the family had returned from leubronn: my dear sir hugo--since we came home the marriage has been absolutely decided on, and is to take place in less than three weeks. it is so far the worse for him that her mother has lately lost all her fortune, and he will have to find supplies. grandcourt, i know, is feeling the want of cash; and unless some other plan is resorted to, he will be raising money in a foolish way. i am going to leave diplow immediately, and i shall not be able to start the topic. what i should advise is, that mr. deronda, who i know has your confidence, should propose to come and pay a short visit here, according to invitation (there are going to be other people in the house), and that you should put him fully in possession of your wishes and the possible extent of your offer. then, that he should introduce the subject to grandcourt so as not to imply that you suspect any particular want of money on his part, but only that there is a strong wish on yours. what i have formerly said to him has been in the way of a conjecture that you might be willing to give a good sum for his chance of diplow; but if mr. deronda came armed with a definite offer, that would take another sort of hold. ten to one he will not close for some time to come; but the proposal will have got a stronger lodgment in his mind; and though at present he has a great notion of the hunting here, i see a likelihood, under the circumstances, that he will get a distaste for the neighborhood, and there will be the notion of the money sticking by him without being urged. i would bet on your ultimate success. as i am not to be exiled to siberia, but am to be within call, it is possible that, by and by, i may be of more service to you. but at present i can think of no medium so good as mr. deronda. nothing puts grandcourt in worse humor than having the lawyers thrust their paper under his nose uninvited. trusting that your visit to leubronn has put you in excellent condition for the winter, i remain, my dear sir hugo, yours very faithfully, thomas cranmer lush. sir hugo, having received this letter at breakfast, handed it to deronda, who, though he had chambers in town, was somehow hardly ever in them, sir hugo not being contented without him. the chatty baronet would have liked a young companion even if there had been no peculiar reasons for attachment between them: one with a fine harmonious unspoiled face fitted to keep up a cheerful view of posterity and inheritance generally, notwithstanding particular disappointments; and his affection for deronda was not diminished by the deep-lying though not obtrusive difference in their notions and tastes. perhaps it was all the stronger; acting as the same sort of difference does between a man and a woman in giving a piquancy to the attachment which subsists in spite of it. sir hugo did not think unapprovingly of himself; but he looked at men and society from a liberal-menagerie point of view, and he had a certain pride in deronda's differing from him, which, if it had found voice, might have said--"you see this fine young fellow--not such as you see every day, is he?--he belongs to me in a sort of way. i brought him up from a child; but you would not ticket him off easily, he has notions of his own, and he's as far as the poles asunder from what i was at his age." this state of feeling was kept up by the mental balance in deronda, who was moved by an affectionateness such as we are apt to call feminine, disposing him to yield in ordinary details, while he had a certain inflexibility of judgment, and independence of opinion, held to be rightfully masculine. when he had read the letter, he returned it without speaking, inwardly wincing under lush's mode of attributing a neutral usefulness to him in the family affairs. "what do you say, dan? it would be pleasant enough for you. you have not seen the place for a good many years now, and you might have a famous run with the harriers if you went down next week," said sir hugo. "i should not go on that account," said deronda, buttering his bread attentively. he had an objection to this transparent kind of persuasiveness, which all intelligent animals are seen to treat with indifference. if he went to diplow he should be doing something disagreeable to oblige sir hugo. "i think lush's notion is a good one. and it would be a pity to lose the occasion." "that is a different matter--if you think my going of importance to your object," said deronda, still with that aloofness of manner which implied some suppression. he knew that the baronet had set his heart on the affair. "why, you will see the fair gambler, the leubronn diana, i shouldn't wonder," said sir hugo, gaily. "we shall have to invite her to the abbey, when they are married," he added, turning to lady mallinger, as if she too had read the letter. "i cannot conceive whom you mean," said lady mallinger, who in fact had not been listening, her mind having been taken up with her first sips of coffee, the objectionable cuff of her sleeve, and the necessity of carrying theresa to the dentist--innocent and partly laudable preoccupations, as the gentle lady's usually were. should her appearance be inquired after, let it be said that she had reddish blonde hair (the hair of the period), a small roman nose, rather prominent blue eyes and delicate eyelids, with a figure which her thinner friends called fat, her hands showing curves and dimples like a magnified baby's. "i mean that grandcourt is going to marry the girl you saw at leubronn--don't you remember her--the miss harleth who used to play at roulette." "dear me! is that a good match for him?" "that depends on the sort of goodness he wants," said sir hugo, smiling. "however, she and her friends have nothing, and she will bring him expenses. it's a good match for my purposes, because if i am willing to fork out a sum of money, he may be willing to give up his chance of diplow, so that we shall have it out and out, and when i die you will have the consolation of going to the place you would like to go to--wherever i may go." "i wish you would not talk of dying in that light way, dear." "it's rather a heavy way, lou, for i shall have to pay a heavy sum--forty thousand, at least." "but why are we to invite them to the abbey?" said lady mallinger. "i do _not_ like women who gamble, like lady cragstone." "oh, you will not mind her for a week. besides, she is not like lady cragstone because she gambled a little, any more than i am like a broker because i'm a whig. i want to keep grandcourt in good humor, and to let him see plenty of this place, that he may think the less of diplow. i don't know yet whether i shall get him to meet me in this matter. and if dan were to go over on a visit there, he might hold out the bait to him. it would be doing me a great service." this was meant for deronda. "daniel is not fond of mr. grandcourt, i think, is he?" said lady mallinger, looking at deronda inquiringly. "there is no avoiding everybody one doesn't happen to be fond of," said deronda. "i will go to diplow--i don't know that i have anything better to do--since sir hugo wishes it." "that's a trump!" said sir hugo, well pleased. "and if you don't find it very pleasant, it's so much experience. nothing used to come amiss to me when i was young. you must see men and manners." "yes; but i have seen that man, and something of his manners too," said deronda. "not nice manners, i think," said lady mallinger. "well, you see they succeed with your sex," said sir hugo, provokingly. "and he was an uncommonly good-looking fellow when he was two or three and twenty--like his father. he doesn't take after his father in marrying the heiress, though. if he had got miss arrowpoint and my land too, confound him, he would have had a fine principality." deronda, in anticipating the projected visit, felt less disinclination than when consenting to it. the story of that girl's marriage did interest him: what he had heard through lush of her having run away from the suit of the man she was now going to take as a husband, had thrown a new sort of light on her gambling; and it was probably the transition from that fevered worldliness into poverty which had urged her acceptance where she must in some way have felt repulsion. all this implied a nature liable to difficulty and struggle--elements of life which had a predominant attraction for his sympathy, due perhaps to his early pain in dwelling on the conjectured story of his own existence. persons attracted him, as hans meyrick had done, in proportion to the possibility of his defending them, rescuing them, telling upon their lives with some sort of redeeming influence; and he had to resist an inclination, easily accounted for, to withdraw coldly from the fortunate. but in the movement which had led him to repurchase gwendolen's necklace for her, and which was at work in him still, there was something beyond his habitual compassionate fervor--something due to the fascination of her womanhood. he was very open to that sort of charm, and mingled it with the consciously utopian pictures of his own future; yet any one able to trace the folds of his character might have conceived that he would be more likely than many less passionate men to love a woman without telling her of it. sprinkle food before a delicate-eared bird: there is nothing he would more willingly take, yet he keeps aloof, because of his sensibility to checks which to you are imperceptible. and one man differs from another, as we all differ from the bosjesman, in a sensibility to checks, that come from variety of needs, spiritual or other. it seemed to foreshadow that capability of reticence in deronda that his imagination was much occupied with two women, to neither of whom would he have held it possible that he should ever make love. hans meyrick had laughed at him for having something of the knight-errant in his disposition; and he would have found his proof if he had known what was just now going on in deronda's mind about mirah and gwendolen. deronda wrote without delay to announce his visit to diplow, and received in reply a polite assurance that his coming would give great pleasure. that was not altogether untrue. grandcourt thought it probable that the visit was prompted by sir hugo's desire to court him for a purpose which he did not make up his mind to resist; and it was not a disagreeable idea to him that this fine fellow, whom he believed to be his cousin under the rose, would witness, perhaps with some jealousy, henleigh mallinger grandcourt play the commanding part of betrothed lover to a splendid girl whom the cousin had already looked at with admiration. grandcourt himself was not jealous of anything unless it threatened his mastery--which he did not think himself likely to lose. chapter xxix. "surely whoever speaks to me in the right voice, him or her i shall follow. as the water follows the moon, silently, with fluid steps anywhere around the globe." --walt whitman. "now my cousins are at diplow," said grandcourt, "will you go there?--to-morrow? the carriage shall come for mrs. davilow. you can tell me what you would like done in the rooms. things must be put in decent order while we are away at ryelands. and to-morrow is the only day." he was sitting sideways on a sofa in the drawing-room at offendene, one hand and elbow resting on the back, and the other hand thrust between his crossed knees--in the attitude of a man who is much interested in watching the person next to him. gwendolen, who had always disliked needlework, had taken to it with apparent zeal since her engagement, and now held a piece of white embroidery which, on examination, would have shown many false stitches. during the last eight or nine days their hours had been chiefly spent on horseback, but some margin had always been left for this more difficult sort of companionship, which, however, gwendolen had not found disagreeable. she was very well satisfied with grandcourt. his answers to her lively questions about what he had seen and done in his life, bore drawling very well. from the first she had noticed that he knew what to say; and she was constantly feeling not only that he had nothing of the fool in his composition, but that by some subtle means he communicated to her the impression that all the folly lay with other people, who did what he did not care to do. a man who seems to have been able to command the best, has a sovereign power of depreciation. then grandcourt's behavior as a lover had hardly at all passed the limit of an amorous homage which was inobtrusive as a wafted odor of roses, and spent all its effects in a gratified vanity. one day, indeed, he had kissed not her cheek but her neck a little below her ear; and gwendolen, taken by surprise, had started up with a marked agitation which made him rise too and say, "i beg your pardon--did i annoy you?" "oh, it was nothing," said gwendolen, rather afraid of herself, "only i cannot bear--to be kissed under my ear." she sat down again with a little playful laugh, but all the while she felt her heart beating with a vague fear: she was no longer at liberty to flout him as she had flouted poor rex. her agitation seemed not uncomplimentary, and he had been contented not to transgress again. to-day a slight rain hindered riding; but to compensate, a package had come from london, and mrs. davilow had just left the room after bringing in for admiration the beautiful things (of grandcourt's ordering) which lay scattered about on the tables. gwendolen was just then enjoying the scenery of her life. she let her hands fall on her lap, and said with a pretty air of perversity, "why is to-morrow the only day?" "because the next day is the first with the hounds," said grandcourt. "and after that?" "after that i must go away for a couple of days--it's a bore--but i shall go one day and come back the next." grandcourt noticed a change in her face, and releasing his hand from under his knees, he laid it on hers, and said, "you object to my going away?" "it's no use objecting," said gwendolen, coldly. she was resisting to the utmost her temptation to tell him that she suspected to whom he was going--the temptation to make a clean breast, speaking without restraint. "yes it is," said grandcourt, enfolding her hand. "i will put off going. and i will travel at night, so as only to be away one day." he thought that he knew the reason of what he inwardly called this bit of temper, and she was particularly fascinating to him at this moment. "then don't put off going, but travel at night," said gwendolen, feeling that she could command him, and finding in this peremptoriness a small outlet for her irritation. "then you will go to diplow to-morrow?" "oh, yes, if you wish it," said gwendolen, in a high tone of careless assent. her concentration in other feelings had really hindered her from taking notice that her hand was being held. "how you treat us poor devils of men!" said grandcourt, lowering his tone. "we are always getting the worst of it." "_are_ you?" said gwendolen, in a tone of inquiry, looking at him more naïvely than usual. she longed to believe this commonplace _badinage_ as the serious truth about her lover: in that case, she too was justified. if she knew everything, mrs. glasher would appear more blamable than grandcourt. "_are_ you always getting the worst?" "yes. are you as kind to me as i am to you?" said grandcourt, looking into her eyes with his narrow gaze. gwendolen felt herself stricken. she was conscious of having received so much, that her sense of command was checked, and sank away in the perception that, look around her as she might, she could not turn back: it was as if she had consented to mount a chariot where another held the reins; and it was not in her nature to leap out in the eyes of the world. she had not consented in ignorance, and all she could say now would be a confession that she had not been ignorant. her right to explanation was gone. all she had to do now was to adjust herself, so that the spikes of that unwilling penance which conscience imposed should not gall her. with a sort of mental shiver, she resolutely changed her mental attitude. there had been a little pause, during which she had not turned away her eyes; and with a sudden break into a smile, she said, "if i were as kind to you as you are to me, that would spoil your generosity: it would no longer be as great as it could be--and it is that now." "then i am not to ask for one kiss," said grandcourt, contented to pay a large price for this new kind of love-making, which introduced marriage by the finest contrast. "not one?" said gwendolen, getting saucy, and nodding at him defiantly. he lifted her little left hand to his lips, and then released it respectfully. clearly it was faint praise to say of him that he was not disgusting: he was almost charming; and she felt at this moment that it was not likely she could ever have loved another man better than this one. his reticence gave her some inexplicable, delightful consciousness. "apropos," she said, taking up her work again, "is there any one besides captain and mrs. torrington at diplow?--or do you leave them _tete-à-tete_? i suppose he converses in cigars, and she answers with her chignon." "she has a sister with her," said grandcourt, with his shadow of a smile, "and there are two men besides--one of them you know, i believe." "ah, then, i have a poor opinion of him," said gwendolen, shaking her head. "you saw him at leubronn--young deronda--a young fellow with the mallingers." gwendolen felt as if her heart were making a sudden gambol, and her fingers, which tried to keep a firm hold on her work, got cold. "i never spoke to him," she said, dreading any discernible change in herself. "is he not disagreeable?" "no, not particularly," said grandcourt, in his most languid way. "he thinks a little too much of himself. i thought he had been introduced to you." "no. some one told me his name the evening before i came away. that was all. what is he?" "a sort of ward of sir hugo mallinger's. nothing of any consequence." "oh, poor creature! how very unpleasant for him!" said gwendolen, speaking from the lip, and not meaning any sarcasm. "i wonder if it has left off raining!" she added, rising and going to look out of the window. happily it did not rain the next day, and gwendolen rode to diplow on criterion as she had done on that former day when she returned with her mother in the carriage. she always felt the more daring for being in her riding-dress; besides having the agreeable belief that she looked as well as possible in it--a sustaining consciousness in any meeting which seems formidable. her anger toward deronda had changed into a superstitious dread--due, perhaps, to the coercion he had exercised over her thought--lest the first interference of his in her life might foreshadow some future influence. it is of such stuff that superstitions are commonly made: an intense feeling about ourselves which makes the evening star shine at us with a threat, and the blessing of a beggar encourage us. and superstitions carry consequences which often verify their hope or their foreboding. the time before luncheon was taken up for gwendolen by going over the rooms with mrs. torrington and mrs. davilow; and she thought it likely that if she saw deronda, there would hardly be need for more than a bow between them. she meant to notice him as little as possible. and after all she found herself under an inward compulsion too strong for her pride. from the first moment of their being in the room together, she seemed to herself to be doing nothing but notice him; everything else was automatic performance of an habitual part. when he took his place at lunch, grandcourt had said, "deronda, miss harleth tells me you were not introduced to her at leubronn?" "miss harleth hardly remembers me, i imagine," said deronda, looking at her quite simply, as they bowed. "she was intensely occupied when i saw her." now, did he suppose that she had not suspected him of being the person who redeemed her necklace? "on the contrary. i remember you very well," said gwendolen, feeling rather nervous, but governing herself and looking at him in return with new examination. "you did not approve of my playing at roulette." "how did you come to that conclusion?" said deronda, gravely. "oh, you cast an evil eye on my play," said gwendolen, with a turn of her head and a smile. "i began to lose as soon as you came to look on. i had always been winning till then." "roulette in such a kennel as leubronn is a horrid bore," said grandcourt. "_i_ found it a bore when i began to lose," said gwendolen. her face was turned toward grandcourt as she smiled and spoke, but she gave a sidelong glance at deronda, and saw his eyes fixed on her with a look so gravely penetrating that it had a keener edge for her than his ironical smile at her losses--a keener edge than klesmer's judgment. she wheeled her neck round as if she wanted to listen to what was being said by the rest, while she was only thinking of deronda. his face had that disturbing kind of form and expression which threatens to affect opinion--as if one's standard was somehow wrong. (who has not seen men with faces of this corrective power till they frustrated it by speech or action?) his voice, heard now for the first time, was to grandcourt's toneless drawl, which had been in her ears every day, as the deep notes of a violoncello to the broken discourse of poultry and other lazy gentry in the afternoon sunshine. grandcourt, she inwardly conjectured, was perhaps right in saying that deronda thought too much of himself:--a favorite way of explaining a superiority that humiliates. however the talk turned on the rinderpest and jamaica, and no more was said about roulette. grandcourt held that the jamaica negro was a beastly sort of baptist caliban; deronda said he had always felt a little with caliban, who naturally had his own point of view and could sing a good song; mrs. davilow observed that her father had an estate in barbadoes, but that she herself had never been in the west indies; mrs. torrington was sure she should never sleep in her bed if she lived among blacks; her husband corrected her by saying that the blacks would be manageable enough if it were not for the half-breeds; and deronda remarked that the whites had to thank themselves for the half-breeds. while this polite pea-shooting was going on, gwendolen trifled with her jelly, and looked at every speaker in turn that she might feel at ease in looking at deronda. "i wonder what he thinks of me, really? he must have felt interested in me, else he would not have sent me my necklace. i wonder what he thinks of my marriage? what notions has he to make him so grave about things? why is he come to diplow?" these questions ran in her mind as the voice of an uneasy longing to be judged by deronda with unmixed admiration--a longing which had had its seed in her first resentment at his critical glance. why did she care so much about the opinion of this man who was "nothing of any consequence"? she had no time to find the reason--she was too much engaged in caring. in the drawing-room, when something had called grandcourt away, she went quite unpremeditatedly up to deronda, who was standing at a table apart, turning over some prints, and said to him, "shall you hunt to-morrow, mr. deronda?" "yes, i believe so." "you don't object to hunting, then?" "i find excuses for it. it is a sin i am inclined to--when i can't get boating or cricketing." "do you object to my hunting?" said gwendolen, with a saucy movement of the chin. "i have no right to object to anything you choose to do." "you thought you had a right to object to my gambling," persisted gwendolen. "i was sorry for it. i am not aware that i told you of my objection," said deronda, with his usual directness of gaze--a large-eyed gravity, innocent of any intention. his eyes had a peculiarity which has drawn many men into trouble; they were of a dark yet mild intensity which seemed to express a special interest in every one on whom he fixed them, and might easily help to bring on him those claims which ardently sympathetic people are often creating in the minds of those who need help. in mendicant fashion we make the goodness of others a reason for exorbitant demands on them. that sort of effect was penetrating gwendolen. "you hindered me from gambling again," she answered. but she had no sooner spoken than she blushed over face and neck; and deronda blushed, too, conscious that in the little affair of the necklace he had taken a questionable freedom. it was impossible to speak further; and she turned away to a window, feeling that she had stupidly said what she had not meant to say, and yet being rather happy that she had plunged into this mutual understanding. deronda also did not dislike it. gwendolen seemed more decidedly attractive than before; and certainly there had been changes going on within her since that time at leubronn: the struggle of mind attending a conscious error had wakened something like a new soul, which had better, but also worse, possibilities than her former poise of crude self-confidence: among the forces she had come to dread was something within her that troubled satisfaction. that evening mrs. davilow said, "was it really so, or only a joke of yours, about mr. deronda's spoiling your play, gwen?" her curiosity had been excited, and she could venture to ask a question that did not concern mr. grandcourt. "oh, it merely happened that he was looking on when i began to lose," said gwendolen, carelessly. "i noticed him." "i don't wonder at that: he is a striking young man. he puts me in mind of italian paintings. one would guess, without being told, that there was foreign blood in his veins." "is there?" said gwendolen. "mrs. torrington says so. i asked particularly who he was, and she told me that his mother was some foreigner of high rank." "his mother?" said gwendolen, rather sharply. "then who was his father?" "well--every one says he is the son of sir hugo mallinger, who brought him up; though he passes for a ward. she says, if sir hugo mallinger could have done as he liked with his estates, he would have left them to this mr. deronda, since he has no legitimate son." gwendolen was silent; but her mother observed so marked an effect in her face that she was angry with herself for having repeated mrs. torrington's gossip. it seemed, on reflection, unsuited to the ear of her daughter, for whom mrs. davilow disliked what is called knowledge of the world; and indeed she wished that she herself had not had any of it thrust upon her. an image which had immediately arisen in gwendolen's mind was that of the unknown mother--no doubt a dark-eyed woman--probably sad. hardly any face could be less like deronda's than that represented as sir hugo's in a crayon portrait at diplow. a dark-eyed woman, no longer young, had become "stuff o' the conscience" to gwendolen. that night when she had got into her little bed, and only a dim light was burning, she said, "mamma, have men generally children before they are married?" "no, dear, no," said mrs. davilow. "why do you ask such a question?" (but she began to think that she saw the why.) "if it were so, i ought to know," said gwendolen, with some indignation. "you are thinking of what i said about mr. deronda and sir hugo mallinger. that is a very unusual case, dear." "does lady mallinger know?" "she knows enough to satisfy her. that is quite clear, because mr. deronda has lived with them." "and people think no worse of him?" "well, of course he is under some disadvantage: it is not as if he were lady mallinger's son. he does not inherit the property, and he is not of any consequence in the world. but people are not obliged to know anything about his birth; you see, he is very well received." "i wonder whether he knows about it; and whether he is angry with his father?" "my dear child, why should you think of that?" "why?" said gwendolen, impetuously, sitting up in her bed. "haven't children reason to be angry with their parents? how can they help their parents marrying or not marrying?" but a consciousness rushed upon her, which made her fall back again on her pillow. it was not only what she would have felt months before--that she might seem to be reproaching her mother for that second marriage of hers; what she chiefly felt now was that she had been led on to a condemnation which seemed to make her own marriage a forbidden thing. there was no further talk, and till sleep came over her gwendolen lay struggling with the reasons against that marriage--reasons which pressed upon her newly now that they were unexpectedly mirrored in the story of a man whose slight relations with her had, by some hidden affinity, bitten themselves into the most permanent layers of feeling. it was characteristic that, with all her debating, she was never troubled by the question whether the indefensibleness of her marriage did not include the fact that she had accepted grandcourt solely as a man whom it was convenient for her to marry, not in the least as one to whom she would be binding herself in duty. gwendolen's ideas were pitiably crude; but many grand difficulties of life are apt to force themselves on us in our crudity. and to judge wisely, i suppose we must know how things appear to the unwise; that kind of appearance making the larger part of the world's history. in the morning there was a double excitement for her. she was going to hunt, from which scruples about propriety had threatened to hinder her, until it was found that mrs. torrington was horsewoman enough to accompany her--going to hunt for the first time since her escapade with rex; and she was going again to see deronda, in whom, since last night, her interest had so gathered that she expected, as people do about revealed celebrities, to see something in his appearance which she had missed before. what was he going to be? what sort of life had he before him--he being nothing of any consequence? and with only a little difference in events he might have been as important as grandcourt, nay--her imagination inevitably went into that direction--might have held the very estates which grandcourt was to have. but now, deronda would probably some day see her mistress of the abbey at topping, see her bearing the title which would have been his own wife's. these obvious, futile thoughts of what might have been, made a new epoch for gwendolen. she, whose unquestionable habit it had been to take the best that came to her for less than her own claim, had now to see the position which tempted her in a new light, as a hard, unfair exclusion of others. what she had now heard about deronda seemed to her imagination to throw him into one group with mrs. glasher and her children; before whom she felt herself in an attitude of apology--she who had hitherto been surrounded by a group that in her opinion had need be apologetic to her. perhaps deronda himself was thinking of these things. could he know of mrs. glasher? if he knew that she knew, he would despise her; but he could have no such knowledge. would he, without that, despise her for marrying grandcourt? his possible judgment of her actions was telling on her as importunately as klesmer's judgment of her powers; but she found larger room for resistance to a disapproval of her marriage, because it is easier to make our conduct seem justifiable to ourselves than to make our ability strike others. "how can i help it?" is not our favorite apology for incompetency. but gwendolen felt some strength in saying, "how can i help what other people have done? things would not come right if i were to turn round now and declare that i would not marry mr. grandcourt." and such turning round was out of the question. the horses in the chariot she had mounted were going at full speed. this mood of youthful, elated desperation had a tidal recurrence. she could dare anything that lay before her sooner than she could choose to go backward, into humiliation; and it was even soothing to think that there would now be as much ill-doing in the one as in the other. but the immediate delightful fact was the hunt, where she would see deronda, and where he would see her; for always lurking ready to obtrude before other thoughts about him was the impression that he was very much interested in her. but to-day she was resolved not to repeat her folly of yesterday, as if she were anxious to say anything to him. indeed, the hunt would be too absorbing. and so it was for a long while. deronda was there, and within her sight very often; but this only added to the stimulus of a pleasure which gwendolen had only once before tasted, and which seemed likely always to give a delight independent of any crosses, except such as took away the chance of riding. no accident happened to throw them together; the run took them within convenient reach of home, and the agreeable sombreness of the gray november afternoon, with a long stratum of yellow light in the west, gwendolen was returning with the company from diplow, who were attending her on the way to offendene. now the sense of glorious excitement was over and gone, she was getting irritably disappointed that she had had no opportunity of speaking to deronda, whom she would not see again, since he was to go away in a couple of days. what was she going to say? that was not quite certain. she wanted to speak to him. grandcourt was by her side; mrs. torrington, her husband, and another gentleman in advance; and deronda's horse she could hear behind. the wish to speak to him and have him speaking to her was becoming imperious; and there was no chance of it unless she simply asserted her will and defied everything. where the order of things could give way to miss gwendolen, it must be made to do so. they had lately emerged from a wood of pines and beeches, where the twilight stillness had a repressing effect, which increased her impatience. the horse-hoofs again heard behind at some little distance were a growing irritation. she reined in her horse and looked behind her; grandcourt after a few paces, also paused; but she, waving her whip and nodding sideways with playful imperiousness, said, "go on! i want to speak to mr. deronda." grandcourt hesitated; but that he would have done after any proposition. it was an awkward situation for him. no gentleman, before marriage, could give the emphasis of refusal to a command delivered in this playful way. he rode on slowly, and she waited till deronda came up. he looked at her with tacit inquiry, and she said at once, letting her horse go alongside of his, "mr. deronda, you must enlighten my ignorance. i want to know why you thought it wrong for me to gamble. is it because i am a woman?" "not altogether; but i regretted it the more because you were a woman," said deronda, with an irrepressible smile. apparently it must be understood between them now that it was he who sent the necklace. "i think it would be better for men not to gamble. it is a besotting kind of taste, likely to turn into a disease. and, besides, there is something revolting to me in raking a heap of money together, and internally chuckling over it, when others are feeling the loss of it. i should even call it base, if it were more than an exceptional lapse. there are enough inevitable turns of fortune which force us to see that our gain is another's loss:--that is one of the ugly aspects of life. one would like to reduce it as much as one could, not get amusement out of exaggerating it." deronda's voice had gathered some indignation while he was speaking. "but you do admit that we can't help things," said gwendolen, with a drop in her tone. the answer had not been anything like what she had expected. "i mean that things are so in spite of us; we can't always help it that our gain is another's loss." "clearly. because of that, we should help it where we can." gwendolen, biting her lip inside, paused a moment, and then forcing herself to speak with an air of playfulness again, said, "but why should you regret it more because i am a woman?" "perhaps because we need that you should be better than we are." "but suppose _we_ need that men should be better than we are," said gwendolen with a little air of "check!" "that is rather a difficulty," said deronda, smiling. "i suppose i should have said, we each of us think it would be better for the other to be good." "you see, i needed you to be better than i was--and you thought so," said gwendolen, nodding and laughing, while she put her horse forward and joined grandcourt, who made no observation. "don't you want to know what i had to say to mr. deronda?" said gwendolen, whose own pride required her to account for her conduct. "a--no," said grandcourt, coldly. "now that is the first impolite word you have spoken--that you don't wish to hear what i had to say," said gwendolen, playing at a pout. "i wish to hear what you say to me--not to other men," said grandcourt. "then you wish to hear this. i wanted to make him tell me why he objected to my gambling, and he gave me a little sermon." "yes--but excuse me the sermon." if gwendolen imagined that grandcourt cared about her speaking to deronda, he wished her to understand that she was mistaken. but he was not fond of being told to ride on. she saw he was piqued, but did not mind. she had accomplished her object of speaking again to deronda before he raised his hat and turned with the rest toward diplow, while her lover attended her to offendene, where he was to bid farewell before a whole day's absence on the unspecified journey. grandcourt had spoken truth in calling the journey a bore: he was going by train to gadsmere. chapter xxx. no penitence and no confessional, no priest ordains it, yet they're forced to sit amid deep ashes of their vanished years. imagine a rambling, patchy house, the best part built of gray stone, and red-tiled, a round tower jutting at one of the corners, the mellow darkness of its conical roof surmounted by a weather-cock making an agreeable object either amidst the gleams and greenth of summer or the low-hanging clouds and snowy branches of winter: the ground shady with spreading trees: a great tree flourishing on one side, backward some scotch firs on a broken bank where the roots hung naked, and beyond, a rookery: on the other side a pool overhung with bushes, where the water-fowl fluttered and screamed: all around, a vast meadow which might be called a park, bordered by an old plantation and guarded by stone lodges which looked like little prisons. outside the gate the country, once entirely rural and lovely, now black with coal mines, was chiefly peopled by men and brethren with candles stuck in their hats, and with a diabolic complexion which laid them peculiarly open to suspicion in the eyes of the children at gadsmere--mrs. glasher's four beautiful children, who had dwelt there for about three years. now, in november, when the flower-beds were empty, the trees leafless, and the pool blackly shivering, one might have said that the place was sombrely in keeping with the black roads and black mounds which seemed to put the district in mourning;--except when the children were playing on the gravel with the dogs for their companions. but mrs. glasher, under her present circumstances, liked gadsmere as well as she would have liked any other abode. the complete seclusion of the place, which the unattractiveness of the country secured, was exactly to her taste. when she drove her two ponies with a waggonet full of children, there were no gentry in carriages to be met, only men of business in gigs; at church there were no eyes she cared to avoid, for the curate's wife and the curate himself were either ignorant of anything to her disadvantage, or ignored it: to them she was simply a widow lady, the tenant of gadsmere; and the name of grandcourt was of little interest in that district compared with the names of fletcher and gawcome, the lessees of the collieries. it was full ten years since the elopement of an irish officer's beautiful wife with young grandcourt, and a consequent duel where the bullets wounded the air only, had made some little noise. most of those who remembered the affair now wondered what had become of that mrs. glasher, whose beauty and brilliancy had made her rather conspicuous to them in foreign places, where she was known to be living with young grandcourt. that he should have disentangled himself from that connection seemed only natural and desirable. as to her, it was thought that a woman who was understood to have forsaken her child along with her husband had probably sunk lower. grandcourt had of course got weary of her. he was much given to the pursuit of women: but a man in his position would by this time desire to make a suitable marriage with the fair young daughter of a noble house. no one talked of mrs. glasher now, any more than they talked of the victim in a trial for manslaughter ten years before: she was a lost vessel after whom nobody would send out an expedition of search; but grandcourt was seen in harbor with his colors flying, registered as seaworthy as ever. yet, in fact, grandcourt had never disentangled himself from mrs. glasher. his passion for her had been the strongest and most lasting he had ever known; and though it was now as dead as the music of a cracked flute, it had left a certain dull disposedness, which, on the death of her husband three years before, had prompted in him a vacillating notion of marrying her, in accordance with the understanding often expressed between them during the days of his first ardor. at that early time grandcourt would willingly have paid for the freedom to be won by a divorce; but the husband would not oblige him, not wanting to be married again himself, and not wishing to have his domestic habits printed in evidence. the altered poise which the years had brought in mrs. glasher was just the reverse. at first she was comparatively careless about the possibility of marriage. it was enough that she had escaped from a disagreeable husband and found a sort of bliss with a lover who had completely fascinated her--young, handsome, amorous, and living in the best style, with equipage and conversation of the kind to be expected in young men of fortune who have seen everything. she was an impassioned, vivacious woman, fond of adoration, exasperated by five years of marital rudeness; and the sense of release was so strong upon her that it stilled anxiety for more than she actually enjoyed. an equivocal position was of no importance to her then; she had no envy for the honors of a dull, disregarded wife: the one spot which spoiled her vision of her new pleasant world, was the sense that she left her three-year-old boy, who died two years afterward, and whose first tones saying "mamma" retained a difference from those of the children that came after. but now the years had brought many changes besides those in the contour of her cheek and throat; and that grandcourt should marry her had become her dominant desire. the equivocal position which she had not minded about for herself was now telling upon her through her children, whom she loved with a devotion charged with the added passion of atonement. she had no repentance except in this direction. if grandcourt married her, the children would be none the worse off for what had passed: they would see their mother in a dignified position, and they would be at no disadvantage with the world: her son could be made his father's heir. it was the yearning for this result which gave the supreme importance to grandcourt's feeling for her; her love for him had long resolved itself into anxiety that he should give her the unique, permanent claim of a wife, and she expected no other happiness in marriage than the satisfaction of her maternal love and pride--including her pride for herself in the presence of her children. for the sake of that result she was prepared even with a tragic firmness to endure anything quietly in marriage; and she had acuteness enough to cherish grandcourt's flickering purpose negatively, by not molesting him with passionate appeals and with scene-making. in her, as in every one else who wanted anything of him, his incalculable turns, and his tendency to harden under beseeching, had created a reasonable dread:--a slow discovery, of which no presentiment had been given in the bearing of a youthful lover with a fine line of face and the softest manners. but reticence had necessarily cost something to this impassioned woman, and she was the bitterer for it. there is no quailing--even that forced on the helpless and injured--which has not an ugly obverse: the withheld sting was gathering venom. she was absolutely dependent on grandcourt; for though he had been always liberal in expenses for her, he had kept everything voluntary on his part; and with the goal of marriage before her, she would ask for nothing less. he had said that he would never settle anything except by will; and when she was thinking of alternatives for the future it often occurred to her that, even if she did not become grandcourt's wife, he might never have a son who would have a legitimate claim on him, and the end might be that her son would be made heir to the best part of his estates. no son at that early age could promise to have more of his father's physique. but her becoming grandcourt's wife was so far from being an extravagant notion of possibility, that even lush had entertained it, and had said that he would as soon bet on it as on any other likelihood with regard to his familiar companion. lush, indeed, on inferring that grandcourt had a preconception of using his residence at diplow in order to win miss arrowpoint, had thought it well to fan that project, taking it as a tacit renunciation of the marriage with mrs. glasher, which had long been a mark for the hovering and wheeling of grandcourt's caprice. but both prospects had been negatived by gwendolen's appearance on the scene; and it was natural enough for mrs. glasher to enter with eagerness into lush's plan of hindering that new danger by setting up a barrier in the mind of the girl who was being sought as a bride. she entered into it with an eagerness which had passion in it as well as purpose, some of the stored-up venom delivering itself in that way. after that, she had heard from lush of gwendolen's departure, and the probability that all danger from her was got rid of; but there had been no letter to tell her that the danger had returned and had become a certainty. she had since then written to grandcourt, as she did habitually, and he had been longer than usual in answering. she was inferring that he might intend coming to gadsmere at the time when he was actually on the way; and she was not without hope--what construction of another's mind is not strong wishing equal to?--that a certain sickening from that frustrated courtship might dispose him to slip the more easily into the old track of intention. grandcourt had two grave purposes in coming to gadsmere: to convey the news of his approaching marriage in person, in order to make this first difficulty final; and to get from lydia his mother's diamonds, which long ago he had confided to her and wished her to wear. her person suited diamonds, and made them look as if they were worth some of the money given for them. these particular diamonds were not mountains of light--they were mere peas and haricots for the ears, neck and hair; but they were worth some thousands, and grandcourt necessarily wished to have them for his wife. formerly when he had asked lydia to put them into his keeping again, simply on the ground that they would be safer and ought to be deposited at the bank, she had quietly but absolutely refused, declaring that they were quite safe; and at last had said, "if you ever marry another woman i will give them up to her: are you going to marry another woman?" at that time grandcourt had no motive which urged him to persist, and he had this grace in him, that the disposition to exercise power either by cowing or disappointing others or exciting in them a rage which they dared not express--a disposition which was active in him as other propensities became languid--had always been in abeyance before lydia. a severe interpreter might say that the mere facts of their relation to each other, the melancholy position of this woman who depended on his will, made a standing banquet for his delight in dominating. but there was something else than this in his forbearance toward her: there was the surviving though metamorphosed effect of the power she had had over him; and it was this effect, the fitful dull lapse toward solicitations that once had the zest now missing from life, which had again and again inclined him to espouse a familiar past rather than rouse himself to the expectation of novelty. but now novelty had taken hold of him and urged him to make the most of it. mrs. glasher was seated in the pleasant room where she habitually passed her mornings with her children round her. it had a square projecting window and looked on broad gravel and grass, sloping toward a little brook that entered the pool. the top of a low, black cabinet, the old oak table, the chairs in tawny leather, were littered with the children's toys, books and garden garments, at which a maternal lady in pastel looked down from the walls with smiling indulgence. the children were all there. the three girls, seated round their mother near the widow, were miniature portraits of her--dark-eyed, delicate-featured brunettes with a rich bloom on their cheeks, their little nostrils and eyebrows singularly finished as if they were tiny women, the eldest being barely nine. the boy was seated on the carpet at some distance, bending his blonde head over the animals from a noah's ark, admonishing them separately in a voice of threatening command, and occasionally licking the spotted ones to see if the colors would hold. josephine, the eldest, was having her french lesson; and the others, with their dolls on their laps, sat demurely enough for images of the madonna. mrs. glasher's toilet had been made very carefully--each day now she said to herself that grandcourt might come in. her head, which, spite of emaciation, had an ineffaceable beauty in the fine profile, crisp curves of hair, and clearly-marked eyebrows, rose impressively above her bronze-colored silk and velvet, and the gold necklace which grandcourt had first clasped round her neck years ago. not that she had any pleasure in her toilet; her chief thought of herself seen in the glass was, "how changed!"--but such good in life as remained to her she would keep. if her chief wish were fulfilled, she could imagine herself getting the comeliness of a matron fit for the highest rank. the little faces beside her, almost exact reductions of her own, seemed to tell of the blooming curves which had once been where now was sunken pallor. but the children kissed the pale cheeks and never found them deficient. that love was now the one end of her life. suddenly mrs. glasher turned away her head from josephine's book and listened. "hush, dear! i think some one is coming." henleigh the boy jumped up and said, "mamma, is it the miller with my donkey?" he got no answer, and going up to his mamma's knee repeated his question in an insistent tone. but the door opened, and the servant announced mr. grandcourt. mrs. glasher rose in some agitation. henleigh frowned at him in disgust at his not being the miller, and the three little girls lifted up their dark eyes to him timidly. they had none of them any particular liking for this friend of mamma's--in fact, when he had taken mrs. glasher's hand and then turned to put his other hand on henleigh's head, that energetic scion began to beat the friend's arm away with his fists. the little girls submitted bashfully to be patted under the chin and kissed, but on the whole it seemed better to send them into the garden, where they were presently dancing and chatting with the dogs on the gravel. "how far are you come?" said mrs. glasher, as grandcourt put away his hat and overcoat. "from diplow," he answered slowly, seating himself opposite her and looking at her with an unnoting gaze which she noted. "you are tired, then." "no, i rested at the junction--a hideous hole. these railway journeys are always a confounded bore. but i had coffee and smoked." grandcourt drew out his handkerchief, rubbed his face, and in returning the handkerchief to his pocket looked at his crossed knee and blameless boot, as if any stranger were opposite to him, instead of a woman quivering with a suspense which every word and look of his was to incline toward hope or dread. but he was really occupied with their interview and what it was likely to include. imagine the difference in rate of emotion between this woman whom the years had worn to a more conscious dependence and sharper eagerness, and this man whom they were dulling into a more neutral obstinacy. "i expected to see you--it was so long since i had heard from you. i suppose the weeks seem longer at gadsmere than they do at diplow," said mrs. glasher. she had a quick, incisive way of speaking that seemed to go with her features, as the tone and _timbre_ of a violin go with its form. "yes," drawled grandcourt. "but you found the money paid into the bank." "oh, yes," said mrs. glasher, curtly, tingling with impatience. always before--at least she fancied so--grandcourt had taken more notice of her and the children than he did to-day. "yes," he resumed, playing with his whisker, and at first not looking at her, "the time has gone on at rather a rattling pace with me; generally it is slow enough. but there has been a good deal happening, as you know"--here he turned his eyes upon her. "what do i know?" said she, sharply. he left a pause before he said, without change of manner, "that i was thinking of marrying. you saw miss harleth?" "_she_ told you that?" the pale cheeks looked even paler, perhaps from the fierce brightness in the eyes above them. "no. lush told me," was the slow answer. it was as if the thumb-screw and the iron boot were being placed by creeping hands within sight of the expectant victim. "good god! say at once that you are going to marry her," she burst out, passionately, her knees shaking and her hands tightly clasped. "of course, this kind of thing must happen some time or other, lydia," said he; really, now the thumb-screw was on, not wishing to make the pain worse. "you didn't always see the necessity." "perhaps not. i see it now." in those few under-toned words of grandcourt's she felt as absolute a resistance as if her thin fingers had been pushing at a fast shut iron door. she knew her helplessness, and shrank from testing it by any appeal--shrank from crying in a dead ear and clinging to dead knees, only to see the immovable face and feel the rigid limbs. she did not weep nor speak; she was too hard pressed by the sudden certainty which had as much of chill sickness in it as of thought and emotion. the defeated clutch of struggling hope gave her in these first moments a horrible sensation. at last she rose, with a spasmodic effort, and, unconscious of every thing but her wretchedness, pressed her forehead against the hard, cold glass of the window. the children, playing on the gravel, took this as a sign that she wanted them, and, running forward, stood in front of her with their sweet faces upturned expectantly. this roused her: she shook her head at them, waved them off, and overcome with this painful exertion, sank back in the nearest chair. grandcourt had risen too. he was doubly annoyed--at the scene itself, and at the sense that no imperiousness of his could save him from it; but the task had to be gone through, and there was the administrative necessity of arranging things so that there should be as little annoyance as possible in the future. he was leaning against the corner of the fire-place. she looked up at him and said, bitterly, "all this is of no consequence to you. i and the children are importunate creatures. you wish to get away again and be with miss harleth." "don't make the affair more disagreeable than it need be. lydia. it is of no use to harp on things that can't be altered. of course, its deucedly disagreeable to me to see you making yourself miserable. i've taken this journey to tell you what you must make up your mind to--you and the children will be provided for as usual--and there's an end of it." silence. she dared not answer. this woman with the intense, eager look had had the iron of the mother's anguish in her soul, and it had made her sometimes capable of a repression harder than shrieking and struggle. but underneath the silence there was an outlash of hatred and vindictiveness: she wished that the marriage might make two others wretched, besides herself. presently he went on, "it will be better for you. you may go on living here. but i think of by-and-by settling a good sum on you and the children, and you can live where you like. there will be nothing for you to complain of then. whatever happens, you will feel secure. nothing could be done beforehand. every thing has gone on in a hurry." grandcourt ceased his slow delivery of sentences. he did not expect her to thank him, but he considered that she might reasonably be contented; if it were possible for lydia to be contented. she showed no change, and after a minute he said, "you have never had any reason to fear that i should be illiberal. i don't care a curse about the money." "if you did care about it, i suppose you would not give it us," said lydia. the sarcasm was irrepressible. "that's a devilishly unfair thing to say," grandcourt replied, in a lower tone; "and i advise you not to say that sort of thing again." "should you punish me by leaving the children in beggary?" in spite of herself, the one outlet of venom had brought the other. "there is no question about leaving the children in beggary," said grandcourt, still in his low voice. "i advise you not to say things that you will repent of." "i am used to repenting," said she, bitterly. "perhaps you will repent. you have already repented of loving me." "all this will only make it uncommonly difficult for us to meet again. what friend have you besides me?" "quite true." the words came like a low moan. at the same moment there flashed through her the wish that after promising himself a better happiness than that he had had with her, he might feel a misery and loneliness which would drive him back to her to find some memory of a time when he was young, glad, and hopeful. but no! he would go scathless; it was she that had to suffer. with this the scorching words were ended. grandcourt had meant to stay till evening; he wished to curtail his visit, but there was no suitable train earlier than the one he had arranged to go by, and he had still to speak to lydia on the second object of his visit, which like a second surgical operation seemed to require an interval. the hours had to go by; there was eating to be done; the children came in--all this mechanism of life had to be gone through with the dreary sense of constraint which is often felt in domestic quarrels of a commoner kind. to lydia it was some slight relief for her stifled fury to have the children present: she felt a savage glory in their loveliness, as if it would taunt grandcourt with his indifference to her and them--a secret darting of venom which was strongly imaginative. he acquitted himself with all the advantage of a man whose grace of bearing has long been moulded on an experience of boredom--nursed the little antonia, who sat with her hands crossed and eyes upturned to his bald head, which struck her as worthy of observation--and propitiated henleigh by promising him a beautiful saddle and bridle. it was only the two eldest girls who had known him as a continual presence; and the intervening years had overlaid their infantine memories with a bashfulness which grandcourt's bearing was not likely to dissipate. he and lydia occasionally, in the presence of the servants, made a conventional remark; otherwise they never spoke; and the stagnant thought in grandcourt's mind all the while was of his own infatuation in having given her those diamonds, which obliged him to incur the nuisance of speaking about them. he had an ingrained care for what he held to belong to his caste, and about property he liked to be lordly; also he had a consciousness of indignity to himself in having to ask for anything in the world. but however he might assert his independence of mrs. glasher's past, he had made a past for himself which was a stronger yoke than any he could impose. he must ask for the diamonds which he had promised to gwendolen. at last they were alone again, with the candles above them, face to face with each other. grandcourt looked at his watch, and then said, in an apparently indifferent drawl, "there is one thing i had to mention, lydia. my diamonds--you have them." "yes, i have them," she answered promptly, rising and standing with her arms thrust down and her fingers threaded, while grandcourt sat still. she had expected the topic, and made her resolve about it. but she meant to carry out her resolve, if possible, without exasperating him. during the hours of silence she had longed to recall the words which had only widened the breach between them. "they are in this house, i suppose?" "no; not in this house." "i thought you said you kept them by you." "when i said so it was true. they are in the bank at dudley." "get them away, will you? i must make an arrangement for your delivering them to some one." "make no arrangement. they shall be delivered to the person you intended them for. _i_ will make the arrangement." "what do you mean?" "what i say. i have always told you that i would give them up to your wife. i shall keep my word. she is not your wife yet." "this is foolery," said grandcourt, with undertoned disgust. it was too irritating that this indulgence of lydia had given her a sort of mastery over him in spite of dependent condition. she did not speak. he also rose now, but stood leaning against the mantle-piece with his side-face toward her. "the diamonds must be delivered to me before my marriage," he began again. "what is your wedding-day?" "the tenth. there is no time to be lost." "and where do you go after the marriage?" he did not reply except by looking more sullen. presently he said, "you must appoint a day before then, to get them from the bank and meet me--or somebody else i will commission;--it's a great nuisance. mention a day." "no; i shall not do that. they shall be delivered to her safely. i shall keep my word." "do you mean to say," said grandcourt, just audibly, turning to face her, "that you will not do as i tell you?" "yes, i mean that," was the answer that leaped out, while her eyes flashed close to him. the poor creature was immediately conscious that if her words had any effect on her own lot, the effect must be mischievous, and might nullify all the remaining advantage of her long patience. but the word had been spoken. he was in a position the most irritating to him. he could not shake her nor touch her hostilely; and if he could, the process would not bring his mother's diamonds. he shrank from the only sort of threat that would frighten her--if she believed it. and in general, there was nothing he hated more than to be forced into anything like violence even in words: his will must impose itself without trouble. after looking at her for a moment, he turned his side-face toward her again, leaning as before, and said, "infernal idiots that women are!" "why will you not tell me where you are going after the marriage? i could be at the wedding if i liked, and learn in that way," said lydia, not shrinking from the one suicidal form of threat within her power. "of course, if you like, you can play the mad woman," said grandcourt, with _sotto voce_ scorn. "it is not to be supposed that you will wait to think what good will come of it--or what you owe to me." he was in a state of disgust and embitterment quite new in the history of their relation to each other. it was undeniable that this woman, whose life he had allowed to send such deep suckers into his, had a terrible power of annoyance in her; and the rash hurry of his proceedings had left her opportunities open. his pride saw very ugly possibilities threatening it, and he stood for several minutes in silence reviewing the situation--considering how he could act upon her. unlike himself she was of a direct nature, with certain simple strongly-colored tendencies, and there was one often-experienced effect which he thought he could count upon now. as sir hugo had said of him, grandcourt knew how to play his cards upon occasion. he did not speak again, but looked at his watch, rang the bell, and ordered the vehicle to be brought round immediately. then he removed farther from her, walked as if in expectation of a summons, and remained silent without turning his eyes upon her. she was suffering the horrible conflict of self-reproach and tenacity. she saw beforehand grandcourt leaving her without even looking at her again--herself left behind in lonely uncertainty--hearing nothing from him--not knowing whether she had done her children harm--feeling that she had perhaps made him hate her;--all the wretchedness of a creature who had defeated her own motives. and yet she could not bear to give up a purpose which was a sweet morsel to her vindictiveness. if she had not been a mother she would willingly have sacrificed herself to her revenge--to what she felt to be the justice of hindering another from getting happiness by willingly giving her over to misery. the two dominant passions were at struggle. she must satisfy them both. "don't let us part in anger, henleigh," she began, without changing her voice or attitude: "it is a very little thing i ask. if i were refusing to give anything up that you call yours it would be different: that would be a reason for treating me as if you hated me. but i ask such a little thing. if you will tell me where you are going on the wedding-day i will take care that the diamonds shall be delivered to her without scandal. without scandal," she repeated entreatingly. "such preposterous whims make a woman odious," said grandcourt, not giving way in look or movement. "what is the use of talking to mad people?" "yes, i am foolish--loneliness has made me foolish--indulge me." sobs rose as she spoke. "if you will indulge me in this one folly i will be very meek--i will never trouble you." she burst into hysterical crying, and said again almost with a scream--"i will be very meek after that." there was a strange mixture of acting and reality in this passion. she kept hold of her purpose as a child might tighten its hand over a small stolen thing, crying and denying all the while. even grandcourt was wrought upon by surprise: this capricious wish, this childish violence, was as unlike lydia's bearing as it was incongruous with her person. both had always had a stamp of dignity on them. yet she seemed more manageable in this state than in her former attitude of defiance. he came close up to her again, and said, in his low imperious tone, "be quiet, and hear what i tell you, i will never forgive you if you present yourself again and make a scene." she pressed her handkerchief against her face, and when she could speak firmly said, in the muffled voice that follows sobbing, "i will not--if you will let me have my way--i promise you not to thrust myself forward again. i have never broken my word to you--how many have you broken to me? when you gave me the diamonds to wear you were not thinking of having another wife. and i now give them up--i don't reproach you--i only ask you to let me give them up in my own way. have i not borne it well? everything is to be taken away from me, and when i ask for a straw, a chip--you deny it me." she had spoken rapidly, but after a little pause she said more slowly, her voice freed from its muffled tone: "i will not bear to have it denied me." grandcourt had a baffling sense that he had to deal with something like madness; he could only govern by giving way. the servant came to say the fly was ready. when the door was shut again grandcourt said sullenly, "we are going to ryelands then." "they shall be delivered to her there," said lydia, with decision. "very well, i am going." he felt no inclination even to take her hand: she had annoyed him too sorely. but now that she had gained her point, she was prepared to humble herself that she might propitiate him. "forgive me; i will never vex you again," she said, with beseeching looks. her inward voice said distinctly--"it is only i who have to forgive." yet she was obliged to ask forgiveness. "you had better keep that promise. you have made me feel uncommonly ill with your folly," said grandcourt, apparently choosing this statement as the strongest possible use of language. "poor thing!" cried lydia, with a faint smile;--was he aware of the minor fact that he made her feel ill this morning? but with the quick transition natural to her, she was now ready to coax him if he would let her, that they might part in some degree reconciled. she ventured to lay her hand on his shoulder, and he did not move away from her: she had so far succeeded in alarming him, that he was not sorry for these proofs of returned subjection. "light a cigar," she said, soothingly, taking the case from his breast-pocket and opening it. amidst such caressing signs of mutual fear they parted. the effect that clung and gnawed within grandcourt was a sense of imperfect mastery. chapter xxxi. "a wild dedication of yourselves to unpath'd waters, undreamed shores." --shakespeare. on the day when gwendolen harleth was married and became mrs. grandcourt, the morning was clear and bright, and while the sun was low a slight frost crisped the leaves. the bridal party was worth seeing, and half pennicote turned out to see it, lining the pathway up to the church. an old friend of the rector's performed the marriage ceremony, the rector himself acting as father, to the great advantage of the procession. only two faces, it was remarked, showed signs of sadness--mrs. davilow's and anna's. the mother's delicate eyelids were pink, as if she had been crying half the night; and no one was surprised that, splendid as the match was, she should feel the parting from a daughter who was the flower of her children and of her own life. it was less understood why anna should be troubled when she was being so well set off by the bridesmaid's dress. every one else seemed to reflect the brilliancy of the occasion--the bride most of all. of her it was agreed that as to figure and carriage she was worthy to be a "lady o' title": as to face, perhaps it might be thought that a title required something more rosy; but the bridegroom himself not being fresh-colored--being indeed, as the miller's wife observed, very much of her own husband's complexion--the match was the more complete. anyhow he must be very fond of her; and it was to be hoped that he would never cast it up to her that she had been going out to service as a governess, and her mother to live at sawyer's cottage--vicissitudes which had been much spoken of in the village. the miller's daughter of fourteen could not believe that high gentry behaved badly to their wives, but her mother instructed her--"oh, child, men's men: gentle or simple, they're much of a muchness. i've heard my mother say squire pelton used to take his dogs and a long whip into his wife's room, and flog 'em there to frighten her; and my mother was lady's-maid there at the very time." "that's unlucky talk for a wedding, mrs. girdle," said the tailor. "a quarrel may end wi' the whip, but it begins wi' the tongue, and it's the women have got the most o' that." "the lord gave it 'em to use, i suppose," said mrs. girdle. "_he_ never meant you to have it all your own way." "by what i can make out from the gentleman as attends to the grooming at offendene," said the tailor, "this mr. grandcourt has wonderful little tongue. everything must be done dummy-like without his ordering." "then he's the more whip, i doubt," said mrs. girdle. "_she's_ got tongue enough, i warrant her. see, there they come out together!" "what wonderful long corners she's got to her eyes!" said the tailor. "she makes you feel comical when she looks at you." gwendolen, in fact, never showed more elasticity in her bearing, more lustre in her long brown glance: she had the brilliancy of strong excitement, which will sometimes come even from pain. it was not pain, however, that she was feeling: she had wrought herself up to much the same condition as that in which she stood at the gambling-table when deronda was looking at her, and she began to lose. there was an enjoyment in it: whatever uneasiness a growing conscience had created was disregarded as an ailment might have been, amidst the gratification of that ambitious vanity and desire for luxury within her which it would take a great deal of slow poisoning to kill. this morning she could not have said truly that she repented her acceptance of grandcourt, or that any fears in hazy perspective could hinder the glowing effect of the immediate scene in which she was the central object. that she was doing something wrong--that a punishment might be hanging over her--that the woman to whom she had given a promise and broken it, was thinking of her in bitterness and misery with a just reproach--that deronda with his way of looking into things very likely despised her for marrying grandcourt, as he had despised her for gambling--above all, that the cord which united her with this lover and which she had heretofore held by the hand, was now being flung over her neck,--all this yeasty mingling of dimly understood facts with vague but deep impressions, and with images half real, half fantastic, had been disturbing her during the weeks of her engagement. was that agitating experience nullified this morning? no: it was surmounted and thrust down with a sort of exulting defiance as she felt herself standing at the game of life with many eyes upon her, daring everything to win much--or if to lose, still with _éclat_ and a sense of importance. but this morning a losing destiny for herself did not press upon her as a fear: she thought that she was entering on a fuller power of managing circumstances--with all the official strength of marriage, which some women made so poor a use of. that intoxication of youthful egoism out of which she had been shaken by trouble, humiliation, and a new sense of culpability, had returned upon her under a newly-fed strength of the old fumes. she did not in the least present the ideal of the tearful, tremulous bride. poor gwendolen, whom some had judged much too forward and instructed in the world's ways!--with her erect head and elastic footstep she was walking among illusions; and yet, too, there was an under-consciousness of her that she was a little intoxicated. "thank god you bear it so well, my darling!" said mrs. davilow, when she had helped gwendolen to doff her bridal white and put on her traveling dress. all the trembling had been done by the poor mother, and her agitation urged gwendolen doubly to take the morning as if it were a triumph. "why, you might have said that, if i had been going to mrs. mompert's, you dear, sad, incorrigible mamma!" said gwendolen just putting her hands to her mother's cheeks with laughing tenderness--then retreating a little and spreading out her arms as if to exhibit herself: "here am i--mrs. grandcourt! what else would you have me, but what i am sure to be? you know you were ready to die with vexation when you thought that i would not be mrs. grandcourt." "hush, hush, my child, for heaven's sake!" said mrs. davilow, almost in a whisper. "how can i help feeling it when i am parting from you. but i can bear anything gladly if you are happy." "not gladly, mamma, no!" said gwendolen, shaking her head, with a bright smile. "willingly you would bear it, but always sorrowfully. sorrowing is your sauce; you can take nothing without it." then, clasping her mother's shoulders and raining kisses first on one cheek and then on the other between her words, she said, gaily, "and you shall sorrow over my having everything at my beck---and enjoying everything glorious--splendid houses--and horses--and diamonds, i shall have diamonds--and going to court--and being lady certainly--and lady perhaps--and grand here--and tantivy there--and always loving you better than anybody else in the world." "my sweet child!--but i shall not be jealous if you love your husband better; and he will expect to be first." gwendolen thrust out her lips and chin with a pretty grimace, saying, "rather a ridiculous expectation. however, i don't mean to treat him ill, unless he deserves it." then the two fell into a clinging embrace, and gwendolen could not hinder a rising sob when she said, "i wish you were going with me, mamma." but the slight dew on her long eyelashes only made her the more charming when she gave her hand to grandcourt to be led to the carriage. the rector looked in on her to give a final "good-bye; god bless you; we shall see you again before long," and then returned to mrs. davilow, saying half cheerfully, half solemnly, "let us be thankful, fanny. she is in a position well suited to her, and beyond what i should have dared to hope for. and few women can have been chosen more entirely for their own sake. you should feel yourself a happy mother." * * * * * there was a railway journey of some fifty miles before the new husband and wife reached the station near ryelands. the sky had veiled itself since the morning, and it was hardly more than twilight when they entered the park-gates, but still gwendolen, looking out of the carriage-window as they drove rapidly along, could see the grand outlines and the nearer beauties of the scene--the long winding drive bordered with evergreens backed by huge gray stems: then the opening of wide grassy spaces and undulations studded with dark clumps; till at last came a wide level where the white house could be seen, with a hanging wood for a back-ground, and the rising and sinking balustrade of a terrace in front. gwendolen had been at her liveliest during the journey, chatting incessantly, ignoring any change in their mutual position since yesterday; and grandcourt had been rather ecstatically quiescent, while she turned his gentle seizure of her hand into a grasp of his hand by both hers, with an increased vivacity as of a kitten that will not sit quiet to be petted. she was really getting somewhat febrile in her excitement; and now in this drive through the park her usual susceptibility to changes of light and scenery helped to make her heart palpitate newly. was it at the novelty simply, or the almost incredible fulfilment about to be given to her girlish dreams of being "somebody"--walking through her own furlong of corridor and under her own ceilings of an out-of-sight loftiness, where her own painted spring was shedding painted flowers, and her own fore-shortened zephyrs were blowing their trumpets over her; while her own servants, lackeys in clothing but men in bulk and shape, were as nought in her presence, and revered the propriety of her insolence to them:--being in short the heroine of an admired play without the pains of art? was it alone the closeness of this fulfilment which made her heart flutter? or was it some dim forecast, the insistent penetration of suppressed experience, mixing the expectation of a triumph with the dread of a crisis? hers was one of the natures in which exultation inevitably carries an infusion of dread ready to curdle and declare itself. she fell silent in spite of herself as they approached the gates, and when her husband said, "here we are at home!" and for the first time kissed her on the lips, she hardly knew of it: it was no more than the passive acceptance of a greeting in the midst of an absorbing show. was not all her hurrying life of the last three months a show, in which her consciousness was a wondering spectator? after the half-willful excitement of the day, a numbness had come over her personality. but there was a brilliant light in the hall--warmth, matting, carpets, full-length portraits, olympian statues, assiduous servants. not many servants, however: only a few from diplow in addition to those constantly in charge of the house; and gwendolen's new maid, who had come with her, was taken under guidance by the housekeeper. gwendolen felt herself being led by grandcourt along a subtly-scented corridor, into an ante-room where she saw an open doorway sending out a rich glow of light and color. "these are our dens," said grandcourt. "you will like to be quiet here till dinner. we shall dine early." he pressed her hand to his lips and moved away, more in love than he had ever expected to be. gwendolen, yielded up her hat and mantle, threw herself into a chair by the glowing hearth, and saw herself repeated in glass panels with all her faint-green satin surroundings. the housekeeper had passed into this boudoir from the adjoining dressing-room and seemed disposed to linger, gwendolen thought, in order to look at the new mistress of ryelands, who, however, being impatient for solitude said to her, "will you tell hudson when she has put out my dress to leave everything? i shall not want her again, unless i ring." the housekeeper, coming forward, said, "here is a packet, madam, which i was ordered to give into nobody's hands but yours, when you were alone. the person who brought it said it was a present particularly ordered by mr. grandcourt; but he was not to know of its arrival till he saw you wear it. excuse me, madam; i felt it right to obey orders." gwendolen took the packet and let it lie on her lap till she heard the doors close. it came into her mind that the packet might contain the diamonds which grandcourt had spoken of as being deposited somewhere and to be given to her on her marriage. in this moment of confused feeling and creeping luxurious languor she was glad of this diversion--glad of such an event as having her own diamonds to try on. within all the sealed paper coverings was a box, but within the box there _was_ a jewel-case; and now she felt no doubt that she had the diamonds. but on opening the case, in the same instant that she saw them gleam she saw a letter lying above them. she knew the handwriting of the address. it was as if an adder had lain on them. her heart gave a leap which seemed to have spent all her strength; and as she opened the bit of thin paper, it shook with the trembling of her hands. but it was legible as print, and thrust its words upon her. these diamonds, which were once given with ardent love to lydia glasher, she passes on to you. you have broken your word to her, that you might possess what was hers. perhaps you think of being happy, as she once was, and of having beautiful children such as hers, who will thrust hers aside. god is too just for that. the man you have married has a withered heart. his best young love was mine: you could not take that from me when you took the rest. it is dead: but i am the grave in which your chance of happiness is buried as well as mine. you had your warning. you have chosen to injure me and my children. he had meant to marry me. he would have married me at last, if you had not broken your word. you will have your punishment. i desire it with all my soul. will you give him this letter to set him against me and ruin us more--me and my children? shall you like to stand before your husband with these diamonds on you, and these words of mine in his thoughts and yours? will he think you have any right to complain when he has made you miserable? you took him with your eyes open. the willing wrong you have done me will be your curse. it seemed at first as if gwendolen's eyes were spell-bound in reading the horrible words of the letter over and over again as a doom of penance; but suddenly a new spasm of terror made her lean forward and stretch out the paper toward the fire, lest accusation and proof at once should meet all eyes. it flew like a feather from her trembling fingers and was caught up in a great draught of flame. in her movement the casket fell on the floor and the diamonds rolled out. she took no notice, but fell back in her chair again helpless. she could not see the reflections of herself then; they were like so many women petrified white; but coming near herself you might have seen the tremor in her lips and hands. she sat so for a long while, knowing little more than that she was feeling ill, and that those written words kept repeating themselves to her. truly here were poisoned gems, and the poison had entered into this poor young creature. after that long while, there was a tap at the door and grandcourt entered, dressed for dinner. the sight of him brought a new nervous shock, and gwendolen screamed again and again with hysterical violence. he had expected to see her dressed and smiling, ready to be led down. he saw her pallid, shrieking as it seemed with terror, the jewels scattered around her on the floor. was it a fit of madness? in some form or other the furies had crossed his threshold. chapter xxxii. in all ages it hath been a favorite text that a potent love hath the nature of an isolated fatality, whereto the mind's opinions and wonted resolves are altogether alien; as, for example, daphnis his frenzy, wherein it had little availed him to have been convinced of heraclitus his doctrine; or the philtre-bred passion of tristan, who, though he had been as deep as duns scotus, would have had his reasoning marred by that cup too much; or romeo in his sudden taking for juliet, wherein any objections he might have held against ptolemy had made little difference to his discourse under the balcony. yet all love is not such, even though potent; nay, this passion hath as large scope as any for allying itself with every operation of the soul: so that it shall acknowledge an effect from the imagined light of unproven firmaments, and have its scale set to the grander orbits of what hath been and shall be. deronda, on his return to town, could assure sir hugo of his having lodged in grandcourt's mind a distinct understanding that he could get fifty thousand pounds by giving up a prospect which was probably distant, and not absolutely certain; but he had no further sign of grandcourt's disposition in the matter than that he was evidently inclined to keep up friendly communications. "and what did you think of the future bride on a nearer survey?" said sir hugo. "i thought better of her than i did in leubronn. roulette was not a good setting for her; it brought out something of the demon. at diplow she seemed much more womanly and attractive--less hard and self-possessed. i thought her mouth and eyes had quite a different expression." "don't flirt with her too much, dan," said sir hugo, meaning to be agreeably playful. "if you make grandcourt savage when they come to the abbey at christmas, it will interfere with my affairs." "i can stay in town, sir." "no, no. lady mallinger and the children can't do without you at christmas. only don't make mischief--unless you can get up a duel, and manage to shoot grandcourt, which might be worth a little inconvenience." "i don't think you ever saw me flirt," said deronda, not amused. "oh, haven't i, though?" said sir hugo, provokingly. "you are always looking tenderly at the women, and talking to them in a jesuitical way. you are a dangerous young fellow--a kind of lovelace who will make the clarissas run after you instead of you running after them." what was the use of being exasperated at a tasteless joke?--only the exasperation comes before the reflection on utility. few friendly remarks are more annoying than the information that we are always seeming to do what we never mean to do. sir hugo's notion of flirting, it was to be hoped, was rather peculiar; for his own part, deronda was sure that he had never flirted. but he was glad that the baronet had no knowledge about the repurchase of gwendolen's necklace to feed his taste for this kind of rallying. he would be on his guard in future; for example, in his behavior at mrs. meyrick's, where he was about to pay his first visit since his arrival from leubronn. for mirah was certainly a creature in whom it was difficult not to show a tender kind of interest both by looks and speech. mrs. meyrick had not failed to send deronda a report of mirah's well-being in her family. "we are getting fonder of her every day," she had written. "at breakfast-time we all look toward the door with expectation to see her come in; and we watch her and listen to her as if she were a native from a new country. i have not heard a word from her lips that gives me a doubt about her. she is quite contented and full of gratitude. my daughters are learning from her, and they hope to get her other pupils; for she is anxious not to eat the bread of idleness, but to work, like my girls. mab says our life has become like a fairy tale, and all she is afraid of is that mirah will turn into a nightingale again and fly away from us. her voice is just perfect: not loud and strong, but searching and melting, like the thoughts of what has been. that is the way old people like me feel a beautiful voice." but mrs. meyrick did not enter into particulars which would have required her to say that amy and mab, who had accompanied mirah to the synagogue, found the jewish faith less reconcilable with their wishes in her case than in that of scott's rebecca. they kept silence out of delicacy to mirah, with whom her religion was too tender a subject to be touched lightly; but after a while amy, who was much of a practical reformer, could not restrain a question. "excuse me, mirah, but _does_ it seem quite right to you that the women should sit behind rails in a gallery apart?" "yes, i never thought of anything else," said mirah, with mild surprise. "and you like better to see the men with their hats on?" said mab, cautiously proposing the smallest item of difference. "oh, yes. i like what i have always seen there, because it brings back to me the same feelings--the feelings i would not part with for anything else in the world." after this, any criticism, whether of doctrine or practice, would have seemed to these generous little people an inhospitable cruelty. mirah's religion was of one fibre with her affections, and had never presented itself to her as a set of propositions. "she says herself she is a very bad jewess, and does not half know her people's religion," said amy, when mirah was gone to bed. "perhaps it would gradually melt away from her, and she would pass into christianity like the rest of the world, if she got to love us very much, and never found her mother. it is so strange to be of the jews' religion now." "oh, oh, oh!" cried mab. "i wish i were not such a hideous christian. how can an ugly christian, who is always dropping her work, convert a beautiful jewess, who has not a fault?" "it may be wicked of me," said shrewd kate, "but i cannot help wishing that her mother may not be found. there might be something unpleasant." "i don't think it, my dear," said mrs. meyrick. "i believe mirah is cut out after the pattern of her mother. and what a joy it would be to her to have such a daughter brought back again! but a mother's feelings are not worth reckoning, i suppose" (she shot a mischievous glance at her own daughters), "and a dead mother is worth more than a living one?" "well, and so she may be, little mother," said kate; "but we would rather hold you cheaper, and have you alive." not only the meyricks, whose various knowledge had been acquired by the irregular foraging to which clever girls have usually been reduced, but deronda himself, with all his masculine instruction, had been roused by this apparition of mirah to the consciousness of knowing hardly anything about modern judaism or the inner jewish history. the chosen people have been commonly treated as a people chosen for the sake of somebody else; and their thinking as something (no matter exactly what) that ought to have been entirely otherwise; and deronda, like his neighbors, had regarded judaism as a sort of eccentric fossilized form which an accomplished man might dispense with studying, and leave to specialists. but mirah, with her terrified flight from one parent, and her yearning after the other, had flashed on him the hitherto neglected reality that judaism was something still throbbing in human lives, still making for them the only conceivable vesture of the world; and in the idling excursion on which he immediately afterward set out with sir hugo he began to look for the outsides of synagogues, and the title of books about the jews. this awakening of a new interest--this passing from the supposition that we hold the right opinions on a subject we are careless about, to a sudden care for it, and a sense that our opinions were ignorance--is an effectual remedy for _ennui_, which, unhappily, cannot be secured on a physician's prescription; but deronda had carried it with him, and endured his weeks of lounging all the better. it was on this journey that he first entered a jewish synagogue--at frankfort--where his party rested on a friday. in exploring the juden-gasse, which he had seen long before, he remembered well enough its picturesque old houses; what his eyes chiefly dwelt on now were the human types there; and his thought, busily connecting them with the past phases of their race, stirred that fibre of historic sympathy which had helped to determine in him certain traits worth mentioning for those who are interested in his future. true, when a young man has a fine person, no eccentricity of manners, the education of a gentleman, and a present income, it is not customary to feel a prying curiosity about his way of thinking, or his peculiar tastes. he may very well be settled in life as an agreeable clever young fellow without passing a special examination on those heads. later, when he is getting rather slovenly and portly, his peculiarities are more distinctly discerned, and it is taken as a mercy if they are not highly objectionable. but any one wishing to understand the effect of after-events on deronda should know a little more of what he was at five-and-twenty than was evident in ordinary intercourse. it happened that the very vividness of his impressions had often made him the more enigmatic to his friends, and had contributed to an apparent indefiniteness in his sentiments. his early-wakened sensibility and reflectiveness had developed into a many-sided sympathy, which threatened to hinder any persistent course of action: as soon as he took up any antagonism, though only in thought, he seemed to himself like the sabine warriors in the memorable story--with nothing to meet his spear but flesh of his flesh, and objects that he loved. his imagination had so wrought itself to the habit of seeing things as they probably appeared to others, that a strong partisanship, unless it were against an immediate oppression, had become an insincerity for him. his plenteous, flexible sympathy had ended by falling into one current with that reflective analysis which tends to neutralize sympathy. few men were able to keep themselves clearer of vices than he; yet he hated vices mildly, being used to think of them less in the abstract than as a part of mixed human natures having an individual history, which it was the bent of his mind to trace with understanding and pity. with the same innate balance he was fervidly democratic in his feeling for the multitude, and yet, through his affections and imagination, intensely conservative; voracious of speculations on government and religion, yet loth to part with long-sanctioned forms which, for him, were quick with memories and sentiments that no argument could lay dead. we fall on the leaning side; and deronda suspected himself of loving too well the losing causes of the world. martyrdom changes sides, and he was in danger of changing with it, having a strong repugnance to taking up that clue of success which the order of the world often forces upon us and makes it treason against the common weal to reject. and yet his fear of falling into an unreasoning narrow hatred made a check for him: he apologized for the heirs of privilege; he shrank with dislike from the loser's bitterness and the denunciatory tone of the unaccepted innovator. a too reflective and diffusive sympathy was in danger of paralyzing in him that indignation against wrong and that selectness of fellowship which are the conditions of moral force; and in the last few years of confirmed manhood he had become so keenly aware of this that what he most longed for was either some external event, or some inward light, that would urge him into a definite line of action, and compress his wandering energy. he was ceasing to care for knowledge--he had no ambition for practice--unless they could both be gathered up into one current with his emotions; and he dreaded, as if it were a dwelling-place of lost souls, that dead anatomy of culture which turns the universe into a mere ceaseless answer to queries, and knows, not everything, but everything else about everything--as if one should be ignorant of nothing concerning the scent of violets except the scent itself for which one had no nostril. but how and whence was the needed event to come?--the influence that would justify partiality, and make him what he longed to be, yet was unable to make himself--an organic part of social life, instead of roaming in it like a yearning disembodied spirit, stirred with a vague social passion, but without fixed local habitation to render fellowship real? to make a little difference for the better was what he was not contented to live without; but how to make it? it is one thing to see your road, another to cut it. he found some of the fault in his birth and the way he had been brought up, which had laid no special demands on him and had given him no fixed relationship except one of a doubtful kind; but he did not attempt to hide from himself that he had fallen into a meditative numbness, and was gliding farther and farther from that life of practically energetic sentiment which he would have proclaimed (if he had been inclined to proclaim anything) to be the best of all life, and for himself the only way worth living. he wanted some way of keeping emotion and its progeny of sentiments--which make the savors of life--substantial and strong in the face of a reflectiveness that threatened to nullify all differences. to pound the objects of sentiment into small dust, yet keep sentiment alive and active, was something like the famous recipe for making cannon--to first take a round hole and then enclose it with iron; whatever you do keeping fast hold of your round hole. yet how distinguish what our will may wisely save in its completeness, from the heaping of cat-mummies and the expensive cult of enshrined putrefactions? something like this was the common under-current in deronda's mind while he was reading law or imperfectly attending to polite conversation. meanwhile he had not set about one function in particular with zeal and steadiness. not an admirable experience, to be proposed as an ideal; but a form of struggle before break of day which some young men since the patriarch have had to pass through, with more or less of bruising if not laming. i have said that under his calm exterior he had a fervor which made him easily feel the presence of poetry in everyday events; and the forms of the juden-gasse, rousing the sense of union with what is remote, set him musing on two elements of our historic life which that sense raises into the same region of poetry;--the faint beginnings of faiths and institutions, and their obscure lingering decay; the dust and withered remnants with which they are apt to be covered, only enhancing for the awakened perception the impressiveness either of a sublimely penetrating life, as in the twin green leaves that will become the sheltering tree, or of a pathetic inheritance in which all the grandeur and the glory have become a sorrowing memory. this imaginative stirring, as he turned out of the juden-gasse, and continued to saunter in the warm evening air, meaning to find his way to the synagogue, neutralized the repellent effect of certain ugly little incidents on his way. turning into an old book-shop to ask the exact time of service at the synagogue, he was affectionately directed by a precocious jewish youth, who entered cordially into his wanting, not the fine new building of the reformed but the old rabbinical school of the orthodox; and then cheated him like a pure teuton, only with more amenity, in his charge for a book quite out of request as one "nicht so leicht zu bekommen." meanwhile at the opposite counter a deaf and grisly tradesman was casting a flinty look at certain cards, apparently combining advantages of business with religion, and shoutingly proposed to him in jew-dialect by a dingy man in a tall coat hanging from neck to heel, a bag in hand, and a broad low hat surmounting his chosen nose--who had no sooner disappeared than another dingy man of the same pattern issued from the background glooms of the shop and also shouted in the same dialect. in fact, deronda saw various queer-looking israelites not altogether without guile, and just distinguishable from queer-looking christians of the same mixed _morale_. in his anxiety about mirah's relatives, he had lately been thinking of vulgar jews with a sort of personal alarm. but a little comparison will often diminish our surprise and disgust at the aberrations of jews and other dissidents whose lives do not offer a consistent or lovely pattern of their creed; and this evening deronda, becoming more conscious that he was falling into unfairness and ridiculous exaggeration, began to use that corrective comparison: he paid his thaler too much, without prejudice to his interests in the hebrew destiny, or his wish to find the _rabbinische schule_, which he arrived at by sunset, and entered with a good congregation of men. he happened to take his seat in a line with an elderly man from whom he was distant enough to glance at him more than once as rather a noticeable figure--his ample white beard and felt hat framing a profile of that fine contour which may as easily be italian as hebrew. he returned deronda's notice till at last their eyes met; an undesirable chance with unknown persons, and a reason to deronda for not looking again; but he immediately found an open prayer-book pushed toward him and had to bow his thanks. however, the congregation had mustered, the reader had mounted to the _almemor_ or platform, and the service began. deronda, having looked enough at the german translation of the hebrew in the book before him to know that he was chiefly hearing psalms and old testament passages or phrases, gave himself up to that strongest effect of chanted liturgies which is independent of detailed verbal meaning--like the effect of an allegri's _miserere_ or a palestrina's _magnificat_. the most powerful movement of feeling with a liturgy is the prayer which seeks for nothing special, but is a yearning to escape from the limitations of our own weakness and an invocation of all good to enter and abide with us; or else a self-oblivious lifting up of gladness, a _gloria in excelsis_ that such good exists; both the yearning and the exaltation gathering their utmost force from the sense of communion in a form which has expressed them both, for long generations of struggling fellow-men. the hebrew liturgy, like others, has its transitions of litany, lyric, proclamation, dry statement and blessing; but this evening, all were one for deronda: the chant of the _chazaris_ or reader's grand wide-ranging voice with its passage from monotony to sudden cries, the outburst of sweet boys' voices from the little choir, the devotional swaying of men's bodies backward and forward, the very commonness of the building and shabbiness of the scene where a national faith, which had penetrated the thinking of half the world, and moulded the splendid forms of that world's religion, was finding a remote, obscure echo--all were blent for him as one expression of a binding history, tragic and yet glorious. he wondered at the strength of his own feeling; it seemed beyond the occasion--what one might imagine to be a divine influx in the darkness, before there was any vision to interpret. the whole scene was a coherent strain, its burden a passionate regret, which, if he had known the liturgy for the day of reconciliation, he might have clad in its autithetic burden; "happy the eye which saw all these things; but verily to hear only of them afflicts our soul. happy the eye that saw our temple and the joy of our congregation; but verily to hear only of them afflicts our soul. happy the eye that saw the fingers when tuning every kind of song; but verily to hear only of them afflicts our soul." but with the cessation of the devotional sounds and the movement of many indifferent faces and vulgar figures before him there darted into his mind the frigid idea that he had probably been alone in his feeling, and perhaps the only person in the congregation for whom the service was more than a dull routine. there was just time for this chilling thought before he had bowed to his civil neighbor and was moving away with the rest--when he felt a hand on his arm, and turning with the rather unpleasant sensation which this abrupt sort of claim is apt to bring, he saw close to him the white-bearded face of that neighbor, who said to him in german, "excuse me, young gentleman--allow me--what is your parentage--your mother's family--her maiden name?" deronda had a strongly resistant feeling: he was inclined to shake off hastily the touch on his arm; but he managed to slip it away and said coldly, "i am an englishman." the questioner looked at him dubiously still for an instant, then just lifted his hat and turned away; whether under a sense of having made a mistake or of having been repulsed, deronda was uncertain. in his walk back to the hotel he tried to still any uneasiness on the subject by reflecting that he could not have acted differently. how could he say that he did not know the name of his mother's family to that total stranger?--who indeed had taken an unwarrantable liberty in the abruptness of his question, dictated probably by some fancy of likeness such as often occurs without real significance. the incident, he said to himself, was trivial; but whatever import it might have, his inward shrinking on the occasion was too strong for him to be sorry that he had cut it short. it was a reason, however, for his not mentioning the synagogue to the mallingers--in addition to his usual inclination to reticence on anything that the baronet would have been likely to call quixotic enthusiasm. hardly any man could be more good-natured than sir hugo; indeed in his kindliness especially to women, he did actions which others would have called romantic; but he never took a romantic view of them, and in general smiled at the introduction of motives on a grand scale, or of reasons that lay very far off. this was the point of strongest difference between him and deronda, who rarely ate at breakfast without some silent discursive flight after grounds for filling up his day according to the practice of his contemporaries. this halt at frankfort was taken on their way home, and its impressions were kept the more actively vibrating in him by the duty of caring for mirah's welfare. that question about his parentage, which if he had not both inwardly and outwardly shaken it off as trivial, would have seemed a threat rather than a promise of revelation, and reinforced his anxiety as to the effect of finding mirah's relatives and his resolve to proceed with caution. if he made any unpleasant discovery, was he bound to a disclosure that might cast a new net of trouble around her? he had written to mrs. meyrick to announce his visit at four o'clock, and he found mirah seated at work with only mrs. meyrick and mab, the open piano, and all the glorious company of engravings. the dainty neatness of her hair and dress, the glow of tranquil happiness in a face where a painter need have changed nothing if he had wanted to put it in front of the host singing "peace on earth and good will to men," made a contrast to his first vision of her that was delightful to deronda's eyes. mirah herself was thinking of it, and immediately on their greeting said, "see how different i am from the miserable creature by the river! all because you found me and brought me to the very best." "it was my good chance to find you," said deronda. "any other man would have been glad to do what i did." "that is not the right way to be thinking about it," said mirah, shaking her head with decisive gravity, "i think of what really was. it was you, and not another, who found me and were good to me." "i agree with mirah," said mrs. meyrick. "saint anybody is a bad saint to pray to." "besides, anybody could not have brought me to you," said mirah, smiling at mrs. meyrick. "and i would rather be with you than with any one else in the world except my mother. i wonder if ever a poor little bird, that was lost and could not fly, was taken and put into a warm nest where was a mother and sisters who took to it so that everything came naturally, as if it had been always there. i hardly thought before that the world could ever be as happy and without fear as it is to me now." she looked meditative a moment, and then said, "sometimes i am a _little_ afraid." "what is it you are afraid of?" said deronda with anxiety. "that when i am turning at the corner of a street i may meet my father. it seems dreadful that i should be afraid of meeting him. that is my only sorrow," said mirah, plaintively. "it is surely not very probable," said deronda, wishing that it were less so; then, not to let the opportunity escape--"would it be a great grief to you now if you were never to meet your mother?" she did not answer immediately, but meditated again, with her eyes fixed on the opposite wall. then she turned them on deronda and said firmly, as if she had arrived at the exact truth, "i want her to know that i have always loved her, and if she is alive i want to comfort her. she may be dead. if she were i should long to know where she was buried; and to know whether my brother lives, to say kaddish in memory of her. but i will try not to grieve. i have thought much for so many years of her being dead. and i shall have her with me in my mind, as i have always had. we can never be really parted. i think i have never sinned against her. i have always tried not to do what would hurt her. only, she might be sorry that i was not a good jewess." "in what way are you not a good jewess?" said deronda. "i am ignorant, and we never observed the laws, but lived among christians just as they did. but i have heard my father laugh at the strictness of the jews about their food and all customs, and their not liking christians. i think my mother was strict; but she could never want me not to like those who are better to me than any of my own people i have ever known. i think i could obey in other things that she wished but not in that. it is so much easier to me to share in love than in hatred. i remember a play i read in german--since i have been here it has come into my mind--where the heroine says something like that." "_antigone_," said deronda. "ah, you know it. but i do not believe that my mother would wish me not to love my best friends. she would be grateful to them." here mirah had turned to mrs. meyrick, and with a sudden lighting up of her whole countenance, she said, "oh, if we ever do meet and know each other as we are now, so that i could tell what would comfort her--i should be so full of blessedness my soul would know no want but to love her!" "god bless you, child!" said mrs. meyrick, the words escaping involuntarily from her motherly heart. but to relieve the strain of feeling she looked at deronda and said, "it is curious that mirah, who remembers her mother so well it is as if she saw her, cannot recall her brother the least bit--except the feeling of having been carried by him when she was tired, and of his being near her when she was in her mother's lap. it must be that he was rarely at home. he was already grown up. it is a pity her brother should be quite a stranger to her." "he is good; i feel sure ezra is good," said mirah, eagerly. "he loved my mother--he would take care of her. i remember more of him than that. i remember my mother's voice once calling, 'ezra!' and then his answering from a distance 'mother!'"--mirah had changed her voice a little in each of these words and had given them a loving intonation--"and then he came close to us. i feel sure he is good. i have always taken comfort from that." it was impossible to answer this either with agreement or doubt. mrs. meyrick and deronda exchanged a quick glance: about this brother she felt as painfully dubious as he did. but mirah went on, absorbed in her memories, "is it not wonderful how i remember the voices better than anything else? i think they must go deeper into us than other things. i have often fancied heaven might be made of voices." "like your singing--yes," said mab, who had hitherto kept a modest silence, and now spoke bashfully, as was her wont in the presence of prince camaralzaman--"ma, do ask mirah to sing. mr. deronda has not heard her." "would it be disagreeable to you to sing now?" said deronda, with a more deferential gentleness than he had ever been conscious of before. "oh, i shall like it," said mirah. "my voice has come back a little with rest." perhaps her ease of manner was due to something more than the simplicity of her nature. the circumstances of her life made her think of everything she did as work demanded from her, in which affectation had nothing to do; and she had begun her work before self-consciousness was born. she immediately rose and went to the piano--a somewhat worn instrument that seemed to get the better of its infirmities under the firm touch of her small fingers as she preluded. deronda placed himself where he could see her while she sang; and she took everything as quietly as if she had been a child going to breakfast. imagine her--it is always good to imagine a human creature in whom bodily loveliness seems as properly one with the entire being as the bodily loveliness of those wondrous transparent orbs of life that we find in the sea--imagine her with her dark hair brushed from her temples, but yet showing certain tiny rings there which had cunningly found their own way back, the mass of it hanging behind just to the nape of the little neck in curly fibres, such as renew themselves at their own will after being bathed into straightness like that of water-grasses. then see the perfect cameo her profile makes, cut in a duskish shell, where by some happy fortune there pierced a gem-like darkness for the eye and eyebrow; the delicate nostrils defined enough to be ready for sensitive movements, the finished ear, the firm curves of the chin and neck, entering into the expression of a refinement which was not feebleness. she sang beethoven's "per pietà non dirmi addio" with a subdued but searching pathos which had that essential of perfect singing, the making one oblivious of art or manner, and only possessing one with the song. it was the sort of voice that gives the impression of being meant like a bird's wooing for an audience near and beloved. deronda began by looking at her, but felt himself presently covering his eyes with his hand, wanting to seclude the melody in darkness; then he refrained from what might seem oddity, and was ready to meet the look of mute appeal which she turned toward him at the end. "i think i never enjoyed a song more than that," he said, gratefully. "you like my singing? i am so glad," she said, with a smile of delight. "it has been a great pain to me, because it failed in what it was wanted for. but now we think i can use it to get my bread. i have really been taught well. and now i have two pupils, that miss meyrick found for me. they pay me nearly two crowns for their two lessons." "i think i know some ladies who would find you many pupils after christmas," said deronda. "you would not mind singing before any one who wished to hear you?" "oh no, i want to do something to get money. i could teach reading and speaking, mrs. meyrick thinks. but if no one would learn of me, that is difficult." mirah smiled with a touch of merriment he had not seen in her before. "i dare say i should find her poor--i mean my mother. i should want to get money for her. and i can not always live on charity; though"--here she turned so as to take all three of her companions in one glance--"it is the sweetest charity in all the world." "i should think you can get rich," said deronda, smiling. "great ladies will perhaps like you to teach their daughters. we shall see. but now do sing again to us." she went on willingly, singing with ready memory various things by gordigiani and schubert; then, when she had left the piano, mab said, entreatingly, "oh, mirah, if you would not mind singing the little hymn." "it is too childish," said mirah. "it is like lisping." "what is the hymn?" said deronda. "it is the hebrew hymn she remembers her mother singing over her when she lay in her cot," said mrs. meyrick. "i should like very much to hear it," said deronda, "if you think i am worthy to hear what is so sacred." "i will sing it if you like," said mirah, "but i don't sing real words--only here and there a syllable like hers--the rest is lisping. do you know hebrew? because if you do, my singing will seem childish nonsense." deronda shook his head. "it will be quite good hebrew to me." mirah crossed her little feet and hands in her easiest attitude, and then lifted up her head at an angle which seemed to be directed to some invisible face bent over her, while she sang a little hymn of quaint melancholy intervals, with syllables that really seemed childish lisping to her audience; the voice in which she gave it forth had gathered even a sweeter, more cooing tenderness than was heard in her other songs. "if i were ever to know the real words, i should still go on in my old way with them," said mirah, when she had repeated the hymn several times. "why not?" said deronda. "the lisped syllables are very full of meaning." "yes, indeed," said mrs. meyrick. "a mother hears something of a lisp in her children's talk to the very last. their words are not just what everybody else says, though they may be spelled the same. if i were to live till my hans got old, i should still see the boy in him. a mother's love, i often say, is like a tree that has got all the wood in it, from the very first it made." "is not that the way with friendship, too?" said deronda, smiling. "we must not let the mothers be too arrogant." the little woman shook her head over her darning. "it is easier to find an old mother than an old friend. friendships begin with liking or gratitude--roots that can be pulled up. mother's love begins deeper down." "like what you were saying about the influence of voices," said deronda, looking at mirah. "i don't think your hymn would have had more expression for me if i had known the words. i went to the synagogue at frankfort before i came home, and the service impressed me just as much as if i had followed the words--perhaps more." "oh, was it great to you? did it go to your heart?" said mirah, eagerly. "i thought none but our people would feel that. i thought it was all shut away like a river in a deep valley, where only heaven saw--i mean---" she hesitated, feeling that she could not disentangle her thought from its imagery. "i understand," said deronda. "but there is not really such a separation--deeper down, as mrs. meyrick says. our religion is chiefly a hebrew religion; and since jews are men, their religious feelings must have much in common with those of other men--just as their poetry, though in one sense peculiar, has a great deal in common with the poetry of other nations. still it is to be expected that a jew would feel the forms of his people's religion more than one of another race--and yet"--here deronda hesitated in his turn--"that is perhaps not always so." "ah no," said mirah, sadly. "i have seen that. i have seen them mock. is it not like mocking your parents?--like rejoicing in your parents' shame?" "some minds naturally rebel against whatever they were brought up in, and like the opposite; they see the faults in what is nearest to them," said deronda apologetically. "but you are not like that," said mirah, looking at him with unconscious fixedness. "no, i think not," said deronda; "but you know i was not brought up as a jew." "ah, i am always forgetting," said mirah, with a look of disappointed recollection, and slightly blushing. deronda also felt rather embarrassed, and there was an awkward pause, which he put an end to by saying playfully, "whichever way we take it, we have to tolerate each other; for if we all went in opposition to our teaching, we must end in difference, just the same." "to be sure. we should go on forever in zig-zags," said mrs. meyrick. "i think it is very weak-minded to make your creed up by the rule of the contrary. still one may honor one's parents, without following their notions exactly, any more than the exact cut of their clothing. my father was a scotch calvinist and my mother was a french calvinist; i am neither quite scotch, nor quite french, nor two calvinists rolled into one, yet i honor my parents' memory." "but i could not make myself not a jewess," said mirah, insistently, "even if i changed my belief." "no, my dear. but if jews and jewesses went on changing their religion, and making no difference between themselves and christians, there would come a time when there would be no jews to be seen," said mrs. meyrick, taking that consummation very cheerfully. "oh, please not to say that," said mirah, the tears gathering. "it is the first unkind thing you ever said. i will not begin that. i will never separate myself from my mother's people. i was forced to fly from my father; but if he came back in age and weakness and want, and needed me, should i say, 'this is not my father'? if he had shame, i must share it. it was he who was given to me for my father, and not another. and so it is with my people. i will always be a jewess. i will love christians when they are good, like you. but i will always cling to my people. i will always worship with them." as mirah had gone on speaking she had become possessed with a sorrowful passion--fervent, not violent. holding her little hands tightly clasped and looking at mrs. meyrick with beseeching, she seemed to deronda a personification of that spirit which impelled men after a long inheritance of professed catholicism to leave wealth and high place and risk their lives in flight, that they might join their own people and say, "i am a jew." "mirah, mirah, my dear child, you mistake me!" said mrs. meyrick, alarmed. "god forbid i should want you to do anything against your conscience. i was only saying what might be if the world went on. but i had better have left the world alone, and not wanted to be over-wise. forgive me, come! we will not try to take you from anybody you feel has more right to you." "i would do anything else for you. i owe you my life," said mirah, not yet quite calm. "hush, hush, now," said mrs. meyrick. "i have been punished enough for wagging my tongue foolishly--making an almanac for the millennium, as my husband used to say." "but everything in the world must come to an end some time. we must bear to think of that," said mab, unable to hold her peace on this point. she had already suffered from a bondage of tongue which threatened to become severe if mirah were to be too much indulged in this inconvenient susceptibility to innocent remarks. deronda smiled at the irregular, blonde face, brought into strange contrast by the side of mirah's--smiled, mab thought, rather sarcastically as he said, "that prospect of everything coming to an end will not guide us far in practice. mirah's feelings, she tells us, are concerned with what is." mab was confused and wished she had not spoken, since mr. deronda seemed to think that she had found fault with mirah; but to have spoken once is a tyrannous reason for speaking again, and she said, "i only meant that we must have courage to hear things, else there is hardly anything we can talk about." mab felt herself unanswerable here, inclining to the opinion of socrates: "what motive has a man to live, if not for the pleasure of discourse?" deronda took his leave soon after, and when mrs. meyrick went outside with him to exchange a few words about mirah, he said, "hans is to share my chambers when he comes at christmas." "you have written to rome about that?" said mrs. meyrick, her face lighting up. "how very good and thoughtful of you! you mentioned mirah, then?" "yes, i referred to her. i concluded he knew everything from you." "i must confess my folly. i have not yet written a word about her. i have always been meaning to do it, and yet have ended my letter without saying a word. and i told the girls to leave it to me. however!--thank you a thousand times." deronda divined something of what was in the mother's mind, and his divination reinforced a certain anxiety already present in him. his inward colloquy was not soothing. he said to himself that no man could see this exquisite creature without feeling it possible to fall in love with her; but all the fervor of his nature was engaged on the side of precaution. there are personages who feel themselves tragic because they march into a palpable morass, dragging another with them, and then cry out against all the gods. deronda's mind was strongly set against imitating them. "i have my hands on the reins now," he thought, "and i will not drop them. i shall go there as little as possible." he saw the reasons acting themselves out before him. how could he be mirah's guardian and claim to unite with mrs. meyrick, to whose charge he had committed her, if he showed himself as a lover--whom she did not love--whom she would not marry? and if he encouraged any germ of lover's feeling in himself it would lead up to that issue. mirah's was not a nature that would bear dividing against itself; and even if love won her consent to marry a man who was not of her race and religion, she would never be happy in acting against that strong native bias which would still reign in her conscience as remorse. deronda saw these consequences as we see any danger of marring our own work well begun. it was a delight to have rescued this child acquainted with sorrow, and to think of having placed her little feet in protected paths. the creature we help to save, though only a half-reared linnet, bruised and lost by the wayside--how we watch and fence it, and dote on its signs of recovery! our pride becomes loving, our self is a not-self for whose sake we become virtuous, when we set to some hidden work of reclaiming a life from misery and look for our triumph in the secret joy--"this one is the better for me." "i would as soon hold out my finger to be bitten off as set about spoiling her peace," said deronda. "it was one of the rarest bits of fortune that i should have had friends like the meyricks to place her with--generous, delicate friends without any loftiness in their ways, so that her dependence on them is not only safety but happiness. there could be no refuge to replace that, if it were broken up. but what is the use of my taking the vows and settling everything as it should be, if that marplot hans comes and upsets it all?" few things were more likely. hans was made for mishaps: his very limbs seemed more breakable than other people's--his eyes more of a resort for uninvited flies and other irritating guests. but it was impossible to forbid hans's coming to london. he was intending to get a studio there and make it his chief home; and to propose that he should defer coming on some ostensible ground, concealing the real motive of winning time for mirah's position to become more confirmed and independent, was impracticable. having no other resource deronda tried to believe that both he and mrs. meyrick were foolishly troubling themselves about one of those endless things called probabilities, which never occur; but he did not quite succeed in his trying; on the contrary, he found himself going inwardly through a scene where on the first discovery of hans's inclination he gave him a very energetic warning--suddenly checked, however, by the suspicion of personal feeling that his warmth might be creating in hans. he could come to no result, but that the position was peculiar, and that he could make no further provision against dangers until they came nearer. to save an unhappy jewess from drowning herself, would not have seemed a startling variation among police reports; but to discover in her so rare a creature as mirah, was an exceptional event which might well bring exceptional consequences. deronda would not let himself for a moment dwell on any supposition that the consequences might enter deeply into his own life. the image of mirah had never yet had that penetrating radiation which would have been given to it by the idea of her loving him. when this sort of effluence is absent from the fancy (whether from the fact or not) a man may go far in devotedness without perturbation. as to the search for mirah's mother and brother, deronda took what she had said to-day as a warrant for deferring any immediate measures. his conscience was not quite easy in this desire for delay, any more than it was quite easy in his not attempting to learn the truth about his own mother: in both cases he felt that there might be an unfulfilled duty to a parent, but in both cases there was an overpowering repugnance to the possible truth, which threw a turning weight into the scale of argument. "at least, i will look about," was his final determination. "i may find some special jewish machinery. i will wait till after christmas." what should we all do without the calendar, when we want to put off a disagreeable duty? the admirable arrangements of the solar system, by which our time is measured, always supply us with a term before which it is hardly worth while to set about anything we are disinclined to. chapter xxxiii. "no man," says a rabbi, by way of indisputable instance, "may turn the bones of his father and mother into spoons"--sure that his hearers felt the checks against that form of economy. the market for spoons has never expanded enough for any one to say, "why not?" and to argue that human progress lies in such an application of material. the only check to be alleged is a sentiment, which will coerce none who do not hold that sentiments are the better part of the world's wealth. deronda meanwhile took to a less fashionable form of exercise than riding in rotten row. he went often rambling in those parts of london which are most inhabited by common jews. he walked to the synagogues at times of service, he looked into shops, he observed faces:--a process not very promising of particular discovery. why did he not address himself to an influential rabbi or other member of a jewish community, to consult on the chances of finding a mother named cohen, with a son named ezra, and a lost daughter named mirah? he thought of doing so--after christmas. the fact was, notwithstanding all his sense of poetry in common things, deronda, where a keen personal interest was aroused, could not, more than the rest of us, continuously escape suffering from the pressure of that hard unaccommodating actual, which has never consulted our taste and is entirely unselect. enthusiasm, we know, dwells at ease among ideas, tolerates garlic breathed in the middle ages, and sees no shabbiness in the official trappings of classic processions: it gets squeamish when ideals press upon it as something warmly incarnate, and can hardly face them without fainting. lying dreamily in a boat, imagining one's self in quest of a beautiful maiden's relatives in cordova elbowed by jews in the time of ibn-gebirol, all the physical incidents can be borne without shock. or if the scenery of st. mary axe and whitechapel were imaginatively transported to the borders of the rhine at the end of the eleventh century, when in the ears listening for the signals of the messiah, the hep! hep! hep! of the crusaders came like the bay of blood-hounds; and in the presence of those devilish missionaries with sword and firebrand the crouching figure of the reviled jew turned round erect, heroic, flashing with sublime constancy in the face of torture and death--what would the dingy shops and unbeautiful faces signify to the thrill of contemplative emotion? but the fervor of sympathy with which we contemplate a grandiose martyrdom is feeble compared with the enthusiasm that keeps unslacked where there is no danger, no challenge--nothing but impartial midday falling on commonplace, perhaps half-repulsive, objects which are really the beloved ideas made flesh. here undoubtedly lies the chief poetic energy: in the force of imagination that pierces or exalts the solid fact, instead of floating among cloud-pictures. to glory in a prophetic vision of knowledge covering the earth, is an easier exercise of believing imagination than to see its beginning in newspaper placards, staring at you from the bridge beyond the corn-fields; and it might well happen to most of us dainty people that we were in the thick of the battle of armageddon without being aware of anything more than the annoyance of a little explosive smoke and struggling on the ground immediately about us. it lay in deronda's nature usually to contemn the feeble, fastidious sympathy which shrinks from the broad life of mankind; but now, with mirah before him as a living reality, whose experience he had to care for, he saw every common jew and jewess in the light of a comparison with her, and had a presentiment of the collision between her idea of the unknown mother and brother and the discovered fact--a presentiment all the keener in him because of a suppressed consciousness that a not unlike possibility of collision might lie hidden in his own lot. not that he would have looked with more complacency of expectation at wealthy jews, outdoing the lords of the philistines in their sports; but since there was no likelihood of mirah's friends being found among that class, their habits did not immediately affect him. in this mood he rambled, without expectation of a more pregnant result than a little preparation of his own mind, perhaps for future theorizing as well as practice--very much as if, mirah being related to welsh miners, he had gone to look more closely at the ways of those people, not without wishing at the same time to get a little light of detail on the history of strikes. he really did not long to find anybody in particular; and when, as his habit was, he looked at the name over a shop door, he was well content that it was not ezra cohen. i confess, he particularly desired that ezra cohen should not keep a shop. wishes are held to be ominous; according to which belief the order of the world is so arranged that if you have an impious objection to a squint, your offspring is the more likely to be born with one; also, that if you happened to desire a squint you would not get it. this desponding view of probability the hopeful entirely reject, taking their wishes as good and sufficient security for all kinds of fulfilment. who is absolutely neutral? deronda happening one morning to turn into a little side street out of the noise and obstructions of holborn, felt the scale dip on the desponding side. he was rather tired of the streets and had paused to hail a hansom cab which he saw coming, when his attention was caught by some fine old clasps in chased silver displayed in the window at his right hand. his first thought was that lady mallinger, who had a strictly protestant taste for such catholic spoils, might like to have these missal-clasps turned into a bracelet: then his eyes traveled over the other contents of the window, and he saw that the shop was that kind of pawnbroker's where the lead is given to jewelry, lace and all equivocal objects introduced as _bric-à-brac_. a placard in one corner announced--_watches and jewelry exchanged and repaired_. but his survey had been noticed from within, and a figure appeared at the door, looking round at him and saying in a tone of cordial encouragement, "good day, sir." the instant was enough for deronda to see the face, unmistakably jewish, belonged to a young man about thirty, and wincing from the shopkeeper's persuasiveness that would probably follow, he had no sooner returned the "good day," than he passed to the other side of the street and beckoned to the cabman to draw up there. from that station he saw the name over the shop window--_ezra cohen_. there might be a hundred ezra cohens lettered above shop windows, but deronda had not seen them. probably the young man interested in a possible customer was ezra himself; and he was about the age to be expected in mirah's brother, who was grown up while she was still a little child. but deronda's first endeavor as he drove homeward was to convince himself that there was not the slightest warrantable presumption of this ezra being mirah's brother; and next, that even if, in spite of good reasoning, he turned out to be that brother, while on inquiry the mother was found to be dead, it was not his--deronda's--duty to make known the discovery to mirah. in inconvenient disturbance of this conclusion there came his lately-acquired knowledge that mirah would have a religious desire to know of her mother's death, and also to learn whether her brother were living. how far was he justified in determining another life by his own notions? was it not his secret complaint against the way in which others had ordered his own life, that he had not open daylight on all its relations, so that he had not, like other men, the full guidance of primary duties? the immediate relief from this inward debate was the reflection that he had not yet made any real discovery, and that by looking into the facts more closely he should be certified that there was no demand on him for any decision whatever. he intended to return to that shop as soon as he could conveniently, and buy the clasps for lady mallinger. but he was hindered for several days by sir hugo, who, about to make an after-dinner speech on a burning topic, wanted deronda to forage for him on the legal part of the question, besides wasting time every day on argument which always ended in a drawn battle. as on many other questions, they held different sides, but sir hugo did not mind this, and when deronda put his point well, said, with a mixture of satisfaction and regret, "confound it, dan! why don't you make an opportunity of saying these things in public? you're wrong, you know. you won't succeed. you've got the massive sentiment--the heavy artillery of the country against you. but it's all the better ground for a young man to display himself on. when i was your age, i should have taken it. and it would be quite as well for you to be in opposition to me here and there. it would throw you more into relief. if you would seize an occasion of this sort to make an impression, you might be in parliament in no time. and you know that would gratify me." "i am sorry not to do what would gratify you, sir," said deronda. "but i cannot persuade myself to look at politics as a profession." "why not? if a man is not born into public life by his position in the country, there's no way for him but to embrace it by his own efforts. the business of the country must be done--her majesty's government carried on, as the old duke said. and it never could be, my boy, if everybody looked at politics as if they were prophecy, and demanded an inspired vocation. if you are to get into parliament, it won't do to sit still and wait for a call either from heaven or constituents." "i don't want to make a living out of opinions," said deronda; "especially out of borrowed opinions. not that i mean to blame other men. i dare say many better fellows than i don't mind getting on to a platform to praise themselves, and giving their word of honor for a party." "i'll tell you what, dan," said sir hugo, "a man who sets his face against every sort of humbug is simply a three-cornered, impracticable fellow. there's a bad style of humbug, but there is also a good style--one that oils the wheels and makes progress possible. if you are to rule men, you must rule them through their own ideas; and i agree with the archbishop at naples who had a st. januarius procession against the plague. it's no use having an order in council against popular shallowness. there is no action possible without a little acting." "one may be obliged to give way to an occasional necessity," said deronda. "but it is one thing to say, 'in this particular case i am forced to put on this foolscap and grin,' and another to buy a pocket foolscap and practice myself in grinning. i can't see any real public expediency that does not keep an ideal before it which makes a limit of deviation from the direct path. but if i were to set up for a public man i might mistake my success for public expediency." it was after this dialogue, which was rather jarring to him, that deronda set out on his meditated second visit to ezra cohen's. he entered the street at the end opposite to the holborn entrance, and an inward reluctance slackened his pace while his thoughts were transferring what he had just been saying about public expediency to the entirely private difficulty which brought him back again into this unattractive thoroughfare. it might soon become an immediate practical question with him how far he could call it a wise expediency to conceal the fact of close kindred. such questions turning up constantly in life are often decided in a rough-and-ready way; and to many it will appear an over-refinement in deronda that he should make any great point of a matter confined to his own knowledge. but we have seen the reasons why he had come to regard concealment as a bane of life, and the necessity of concealment as a mark by which lines of action were to be avoided. the prospect of being urged against the confirmed habit of his mind was naturally grating. he even paused here and there before the most plausible shop-windows for a gentleman to look into, half inclined to decide that he would not increase his knowledge about that modern ezra, who was certainly not a leader among his people--a hesitation which proved how, in a man much given to reasoning, a bare possibility may weigh more than the best-clad likelihood; for deronda's reasoning had decided that all likelihood was against this man's being mirah's brother. one of the shop-windows he paused before was that of a second-hand book-shop, where, on a narrow table outside, the literature of the ages was represented in judicious mixture, from the immortal verse of homer to the mortal prose of the railway novel. that the mixture was judicious was apparent from deronda's finding in it something that he wanted--namely, that wonderful bit of autobiography, the life of the polish jew, salomon maimon; which, as he could easily slip it into his pocket, he took from its place, and entered the shop to pay for, expecting to see behind the counter a grimy personage showing that _nonchalance_ about sales which seems to belong universally to the second-hand book-business. in most other trades you find generous men who are anxious to sell you their wares for your own welfare; but even a jew will not urge simson's euclid on you with an affectionate assurance that you will have pleasure in reading it, and that he wishes he had twenty more of the article, so much is it in request. one is led to fear that a secondhand bookseller may belong to that unhappy class of men who have no belief in the good of what they get their living by, yet keep conscience enough to be morose rather than unctuous in their vocation. but instead of the ordinary tradesman, he saw, on the dark background of books in the long narrow shop, a figure that was somewhat startling in its unusualness. a man in threadbare clothing, whose age was difficult to guess--from the dead yellowish flatness of the flesh, something like an old ivory carving--was seated on a stool against some bookshelves that projected beyond the short counter, doing nothing more remarkable than reading yesterday's _times_; but when he let the paper rest on his lap and looked at the incoming customer, the thought glanced through deronda that precisely such a physiognomy as that might possibly have been seen in a prophet of the exile, or in some new hebrew poet of the mediæval time. it was a fine typical jewish face, wrought into intensity of expression apparently by a strenuous eager experience in which all the satisfaction had been indirect and far off, and perhaps by some bodily suffering also, which involved that absence of ease in the present. the features were clear-cut, not large; the brow not high but broad, and fully defined by the crisp black hair. it might never have been a particularly handsome face, but it must always have been forcible; and now with its dark, far-off gaze, and yellow pallor in relief on the gloom of the backward shop, one might have imagined one's self coming upon it in some past prison of the inquisition, which a mob had suddenly burst upon; while the look fixed on an incidental customer seemed eager and questioning enough to have been turned on one who might have been a messenger either of delivery or of death. the figure was probably familiar and unexciting enough to the inhabitants of this street; but to deronda's mind it brought so strange a blending of the unwonted with the common, that there was a perceptible interval of mutual observation before he asked his question; "what is the price of this book?" after taking the book and examining the fly-leaves without rising, the supposed bookseller said, "there is no mark, and mr. ram is not in now. i am keeping the shop while he is gone to dinner. what are you disposed to give for it?" he held the book close on his lap with his hand on it and looked examiningly at deronda, over whom there came the disagreeable idea, that possibly this striking personage wanted to see how much could be got out of a customer's ignorance of prices. but without further reflection he said, "don't you know how much it is worth?" "not its market-price. may i ask have you read it?" "no. i have read an account of it, which makes me want to buy it." "you are a man of learning--you are interested in jewish history?" this was said in a deepened tone of eager inquiry. "i am certainly interested in jewish history," said deronda, quietly, curiosity overcoming his dislike to the sort of inspection as well as questioning he was under. but immediately the strange jew rose from his sitting posture, and deronda felt a thin hand pressing his arm tightly, while a hoarse, excited voice, not much above a loud whisper, said, "you are perhaps of our race?" deronda colored deeply, not liking the grasp, and then answered with a slight shake of the head, "no." the grasp was relaxed, the hand withdrawn, the eagerness of the face collapsed into uninterested melancholy, as if some possessing spirit which had leaped into the eyes and gestures had sunk back again to the inmost recesses of the frame; and moving further off as he held out the little book, the stranger said in a tone of distant civility, "i believe mr. ram will be satisfied with half-a-crown, sir." the effect of this change on deronda--he afterward smiled when he recalled it--was oddly embarrassing and humiliating, as if some high dignitary had found him deficient and given him his _congé_. there was nothing further to be said, however: he paid his half-crown and carried off his _salomon maimon's lebensgeschichte_ with a mere "good-morning." he felt some vexation at the sudden arrest of the interview, and the apparent prohibition that he should know more of this man, who was certainly something out of the common way--as different probably as a jew could well be from ezra cohen, through whose door deronda was presently entering, and whose flourishing face glistening on the way to fatness was hanging over the counter in negotiation with some one on the other side of the partition, concerning two plated stoppers and three teaspoons, which lay spread before him. seeing deronda enter, he called out "mother! mother!" and then with a familiar nod and smile, said, "coming, sir--coming directly." deronda could not help looking toward the door from the back with some anxiety, which was not soothed when he saw a vigorous woman beyond fifty enter and approach to serve him. not that there was anything very repulsive about her: the worst that could be said was that she had that look of having made her toilet with little water, and by twilight, which is common to unyouthful people of her class, and of having presumably slept in her large earrings, if not in her rings and necklace. in fact, what caused a sinking of heart in deronda was her not being so coarse and ugly as to exclude the idea of her being mirah's mother. any one who has looked at a face to try and discern signs of known kinship in it will understand his process of conjecture--how he tried to think away the fat which had gradually disguised the outlines of youth, and to discern what one may call the elementary expressions of the face. he was sorry to see no absolute negative to his fears. just as it was conceivable that this ezra, brought up to trade, might resemble the scapegrace father in everything but his knowledge and talent, so it was not impossible that this mother might have had a lovely refined daughter whose type of feature and expression was like mirah's. the eyebrows had a vexatious similarity of line; and who shall decide how far a face may be masked when the uncherishing years have thrust it far onward in the ever-new procession of youth and age? the good-humor of the glance remained and shone out in a motherly way at deronda, as she said, in a mild guttural tone, "how can i serve you, sir?" "i should like to look at the silver clasps in the window," said deronda; "the larger ones, please, in the corner there." they were not quite easy to get at from the mother's station, and the son seeing this called out, "i'll reach 'em, mother; i'll reach 'em," running forward with alacrity, and then handing the clasps to deronda with the smiling remark, "mother's too proud: she wants to do everything herself. that's why i called her to wait on you, sir. when there's a particular gentleman customer, sir, i daren't do any other than call her. but i can't let her do herself mischief with stretching." here mr. cohen made way again for his parent, who gave a little guttural, amiable laugh while she looked at deronda, as much as to say, "this boy will be at his jokes, but you see he's the best son in the world," and evidently the son enjoyed pleasing her, though he also wished to convey an apology to his distinguished customer for not giving him the advantage of his own exclusive attention. deronda began to examine the clasps as if he had many points to observe before he could come to a decision. "they are only three guineas, sir," said the mother, encouragingly. "first-rate workmanship, sir--worth twice the money; only i get 'em a bargain from cologne," said the son, parenthetically, from a distance. meanwhile two new customers entered, and the repeated call, "addy!" brought from the back of the shop a group that deronda turned frankly to stare at, feeling sure that the stare would be held complimentary. the group consisted of a black-eyed young woman who carried a black-eyed little one, its head already covered with black curls, and deposited it on the counter, from which station it looked round with even more than the usual intelligence of babies: also a robust boy of six and a younger girl, both with black eyes and black-ringed hair--looking more semitic than their parents, as the puppy lions show the spots of far-off progenitors. the young woman answering to "addy"--a sort of paroquet in a bright blue dress, with coral necklace and earrings, her hair set up in a huge bush--looked as complacently lively and unrefined as her husband; and by a certain difference from the mother deepened in deronda the unwelcome impression that the latter was not so utterly common a jewess as to exclude her being the mother of mirah. while that thought was glancing through his mind, the boy had run forward into the shop with an energetic stamp, and setting himself about four feet from deronda, with his hands in the pockets of his miniature knickerbockers, looked at him with a precocious air of survey. perhaps it was chiefly with a diplomatic design to linger and ingratiate himself that deronda patted the boy's head, saying, "what is your name, sirrah?" "jacob alexander cohen," said the small man, with much ease and distinctness. "you are not named after your father, then?" "no, after my grandfather; he sells knives and razors and scissors--my grandfather does," said jacob, wishing to impress the stranger with that high connection. "he gave me this knife." here a pocket-knife was drawn forth, and the small fingers, both naturally and artificially dark, opened two blades and a cork-screw with much quickness. "is not that a dangerous plaything?" said deronda, turning to the grandmother. "_he_'ll never hurt himself, bless you!" said she, contemplating her grandson with placid rapture. "have _you_ got a knife?" says jacob, coming closer. his small voice was hoarse in its glibness, as if it belonged to an aged commercial soul, fatigued with bargaining through many generations. "yes. do you want to see it?" said deronda, taking a small penknife from his waistcoat-pocket. jacob seized it immediately and retreated a little, holding the two knives in his palms and bending over them in meditative comparison. by this time the other clients were gone, and the whole family had gathered to the spot, centering their attention on the marvelous jacob: the father, mother, and grandmother behind the counter, with baby held staggering thereon, and the little girl in front leaning at her brother's elbow to assist him in looking at the knives. "mine's the best," said jacob, at last, returning deronda's knife as if he had been entertaining the idea of exchange and had rejected it. father and mother laughed aloud with delight. "you won't find jacob choosing the worst," said mr. cohen, winking, with much confidence in the customer's admiration. deronda, looking at the grandmother, who had only an inward silent laugh, said, "are these the only grandchildren you have?" "all. this is my only son," she answered in a communicative tone, deronda's glance and manner as usual conveying the impression of sympathetic interest--which on this occasion answered his purpose well. it seemed to come naturally enough that he should say, "and you have no daughter?" there was an instantaneous change in the mother's face. her lips closed more firmly, she looked down, swept her hands outward on the counter, and finally turned her back on deronda to examine some indian handkerchiefs that hung in pawn behind her. her son gave a significant glance, set up his shoulders an instant and just put his fingers to his lips,--then said quickly, "i think you're a first-rate gentleman in the city, sir, if i may be allowed to guess." "no," said deronda, with a preoccupied air, "i have nothing to do with the city." "that's a bad job. i thought you might be the young principal of a first-rate firm," said mr. cohen, wishing to make amends for the check on his customer's natural desire to know more of him and his. "but you understand silver-work, i see." "a little," said deronda, taking up the clasps a moment and laying them down again. that unwelcome bit of circumstantial evidence had made his mind busy with a plan which was certainly more like acting than anything he had been aware of in his own conduct before. but the bare possibility that more knowledge might nullify the evidence now overpowered the inclination to rest in uncertainty. "to tell you the truth," he went on, "my errand is not so much to buy as to borrow. i dare say you go into rather heavy transactions occasionally." "well, sir, i've accommodated gentlemen of distinction--i'm proud to say it. i wouldn't exchange my business with any in the world. there's none more honorable, nor more charitable, nor more necessary for all classes, from the good lady who wants a little of the ready for the baker, to a gentleman like yourself, sir, who may want it for amusement. i like my business, i like my street, and i like my shop. i wouldn't have it a door further down. and i wouldn't be without a pawn-shop, sir, to be the lord mayor. it puts you in connection with the world at large. i say it's like the government revenue--it embraces the brass as well as the gold of the country. and a man who doesn't get money, sir, can't accommodate. now, what can i do for _you_, sir?" if an amiable self-satisfaction is the mark of earthly bliss, solomon in all his glory was a pitiable mortal compared with mr. cohen--clearly one of those persons, who, being in excellent spirits about themselves, are willing to cheer strangers by letting them know it. while he was delivering himself with lively rapidity, he took the baby from his wife and holding it on his arm presented his features to be explored by its small fists. deronda, not in a cheerful mood, was rashly pronouncing this ezra cohen to be the most unpoetic jew he had ever met with in books or life: his phraseology was as little as possible like that of the old testament: and no shadow of a suffering race distinguished his vulgarity of soul from that of a prosperous, pink-and-white huckster of the purest english lineage. it is naturally a christian feeling that a jew ought not to be conceited. however, this was no reason for not persevering in his project, and he answered at once in adventurous ignorance of technicalities, "i have a fine diamond ring to offer as security--not with me at this moment, unfortunately, for i am not in the habit of wearing it. but i will come again this evening and bring it with me. fifty pounds at once would be a convenience to me." "well, you know, this evening is the sabbath, young gentleman," said cohen, "and i go to the _shool_. the shop will be closed. but accommodation is a work of charity; if you can't get here before, and are any ways pressed--why, i'll look at your diamond. you're perhaps from the west end--a longish drive?" "yes; and your sabbath begins early at this season. i could be here by five--will that do?" deronda had not been without hope that by asking to come on a friday evening he might get a better opportunity of observing points in the family character, and might even be able to put some decisive question. cohen assented; but here the marvelous jacob, whose _physique_ supported a precocity that would have shattered a gentile of his years, showed that he had been listening with much comprehension by saying, "you are coming again. have you got any more knives at home?" "i think i have one," said deronda, smiling down at him. "has it two blades and a hook--and a white handle like that?" said jacob, pointing to the waistcoat-pocket. "i dare say it has." "do you like a cork-screw?" said jacob, exhibiting that article in his own knife again, and looking up with serious inquiry. "yes," said deronda, experimentally. "bring your knife, then, and we'll shwop," said jacob, returning the knife to his pocket, and stamping about with the sense that he had concluded a good transaction. the grandmother had now recovered her usual manners, and the whole family watched deronda radiantly when he caressingly lifted the little girl, to whom he had not hitherto given attention, and seating her on the counter, asked for her name also. she looked at him in silence, and put her fingers to her gold earrings, which he did not seem to have noticed. "adelaide rebekah is her name," said her mother, proudly. "speak to the gentleman, lovey." "shlav'm shabbes fyock on," said adelaide rebekah. "her sabbath frock, she means," said the father, in explanation. "she'll have her sabbath frock on this evening." "and will you let me see you in it, adelaide?" said deronda, with that gentle intonation which came very easily to him. "say yes, lovey--yes, if you please, sir," said her mother, enchanted with this handsome young gentleman, who appreciated remarkable children. "and will you give me a kiss this evening?" said deronda with a hand on each of her little brown shoulders. adelaide rebekah (her miniature crinoline and monumental features corresponded with the combination of her names) immediately put up her lips to pay the kiss in advance; whereupon her father rising in still more glowing satisfaction with the general meritoriousness of his circumstances, and with the stranger who was an admiring witness, said cordially, "you see there's somebody will be disappointed if you don't come this evening, sir. you won't mind sitting down in our family place and waiting a bit for me, if i'm not in when you come, sir? i'll stretch a point to accommodate a gent of your sort. bring the diamond, and i'll see what i can do for you." deronda thus left the most favorable impression behind him, as a preparation for more easy intercourse. but for his own part those amenities had been carried on under the heaviest spirits. if these were really mirah's relatives, he could not imagine that even her fervid filial piety could give the reunion with them any sweetness beyond such as could be found in the strict fulfillment of a painful duty. what did this vaunting brother need? and with the most favorable supposition about the hypothetic mother, deronda shrank from the image of a first meeting between her and mirah, and still more from the idea of mirah's domestication with this family. he took refuge in disbelief. to find an ezra cohen when the name was running in your head was no more extraordinary than to find a josiah smith under like circumstances; and as to the coincidence about the daughter, it would probably turn out to be a difference. if, however, further knowledge confirmed the more undesirable conclusion, what would be wise expediency?--to try and determine the best consequences by concealment, or to brave other consequences for the sake of that openness which is the sweet fresh air of our moral life. chapter xxxiv. "er ist geheissen israel. ihn hat verwandelt hexenspruch in einen hund. * * * * * aber jeden freitag abend, in der dämm'rungstunde, plötzlich weicht der zauber, und der hund wird aufs neu' ein menschlich wesen." --heine: _prinzessin sabbath_. when deronda arrived at five o'clock, the shop was closed and the door was opened for him by the christian servant. when she showed him into the room behind the shop he was surprised at the prettiness of the scene. the house was old, and rather extensive at the back: probably the large room he now entered was gloomy by daylight, but now it was agreeably lit by a fine old brass lamp with seven oil-lights hanging above the snow-white cloth spread on the central table. the ceiling and walls were smoky, and all the surroundings were dark enough to throw into relief the human figures, which had a venetian glow of coloring. the grandmother was arrayed in yellowish brown with a large gold chain in lieu of the necklace, and by this light her yellow face with its darkly-marked eyebrows and framing roll of gray hair looked as handsome as was necessary for picturesque effect. young mrs. cohen was clad in red and black, with a string of large artificial pearls wound round and round her neck: the baby lay asleep in the cradle under a scarlet counterpane; adelaide rebekah was in braided amber, and jacob alexander was in black velveteen with scarlet stockings. as the four pairs of black eyes all glistened a welcome at deronda, he was almost ashamed of the supercilious dislike these happy-looking creatures had raised in him by daylight. nothing could be more cordial than the greeting he received, and both mother and grandmother seemed to gather more dignity from being seen on the private hearth, showing hospitality. he looked round with some wonder at the old furniture: the oaken bureau and high side-table must surely be mere matters of chance and economy, and not due to the family taste. a large dish of blue and yellow ware was set up on the side-table, and flanking it were two old silver vessels; in front of them a large volume in darkened vellum with a deep-ribbed back. in the corner at the farther end was an open door into an inner room, where there was also a light. deronda took in these details by parenthetic glances while he met jacob's pressing solicitude about the knife. he had taken the pains to buy one with the requisites of the hook and white handle, and produced it on demand, saying, "is that the sort of thing you want, jacob?" it was subjected to a severe scrutiny, the hook and blades were opened, and the article of barter with the cork-screw was drawn forth for comparison. "why do you like a hook better than a cork-screw?" said deronda. "'caush i can get hold of things with a hook. a corkscrew won't go into anything but corks. but it's better for you, you can draw corks." "you agree to change, then?" said deronda, observing that the grandmother was listening with delight. "what else have you got in your pockets?" said jacob, with deliberative seriousness. "hush, hush, jacob, love," said the grandmother. and deronda, mindful of discipline, answered, "i think i must not tell you that. our business was with the knives." jacob looked up into his face scanningly for a moment or two, and apparently arriving at his conclusions, said gravely, "i'll shwop," handing the cork-screw knife to deronda, who pocketed it with corresponding gravity. immediately the small son of shem ran off into the next room, whence his voice was heard in rapid chat; and then ran back again--when, seeing his father enter, he seized a little velveteen hat which lay on a chair and put it on to approach him. cohen kept on his own hat, and took no notice of the visitor, but stood still while the two children went up to him and clasped his knees: then he laid his hands on each in turn and uttered his hebrew benediction; whereupon the wife, who had lately taken baby from the cradle, brought it up to her husband and held it under his outstretched hands, to be blessed in its sleep. for the moment, deronda thought that this pawnbroker, proud of his vocation, was not utterly prosaic. "well, sir, you found your welcome in my family, i think," said cohen, putting down his hat and becoming his former self. "and you've been punctual. nothing like a little stress here," he added, tapping his side pocket as he sat down. "it's good for us all in our turn. i've felt it when i've had to make up payments. i began to fit every sort of box. it's bracing to the mind. now then! let us see, let us see." "that is the ring i spoke of," said deronda, taking it from his finger. "i believe it cost a hundred pounds. it will be a sufficient pledge to you for fifty, i think. i shall probably redeem it in a month or so." cohen's glistening eyes seemed to get a little nearer together as he met the ingenuous look of this crude young gentleman, who apparently supposed that redemption was a satisfaction to pawnbrokers. he took the ring, examined and returned it, saying with indifference, "good, good. we'll talk of it after our meal. perhaps you'll join us, if you've no objection. me and my wife'll feel honored, and so will mother; won't you, mother?" the invitation was doubly echoed, and deronda gladly accepted it. all now turned and stood round the table. no dish was at present seen except one covered with a napkin; and mrs. cohen had placed a china bowl near her husband that he might wash his hands in it. but after putting on his hat again, he paused, and called in a loud voice, "mordecai!" can this be part of the religious ceremony? thought deronda, not knowing what might be expected of the ancient hero. but he heard a "yes" from the next room, which made him look toward the open door; and there, to his astonishment, he saw the figure of the enigmatic jew whom he had this morning met with in the book-shop. their eyes met, and mordecai looked as much surprised as deronda--neither in his surprise making any sign of recognition. but when mordecai was seating himself at the end of the table, he just bent his head to the guest in a cold and distant manner, as if the disappointment of the morning remained a disagreeable association with this new acquaintance. cohen now washed his hands, pronouncing hebrew words the while: afterward, he took off the napkin covering the dish and disclosed the two long flat loaves besprinkled with seed--the memorial of the manna that fed the wandering forefathers--and breaking off small pieces gave one to each of the family, including adelaide rebekah, who stood on the chair with her whole length exhibited in her amber-colored garment, her little jewish nose lengthened by compression of the lip in the effort to make a suitable appearance. cohen then uttered another hebrew blessing, and after that, the male heads were uncovered, all seated themselves, and the meal went on without any peculiarity that interested deronda. he was not very conscious of what dishes he ate from; being preoccupied with a desire to turn the conversation in a way that would enable him to ask some leading question; and also thinking of mordecai, between whom and himself there was an exchange of fascinated, half-furtive glances. mordecai had no handsome sabbath garment, but instead of the threadbare rusty black coat of the morning he wore one of light drab, which looked as if it had once been a handsome loose paletot now shrunk with washing; and this change of clothing gave a still stronger accentuation to his dark-haired, eager face which might have belonged to the prophet ezekiel--also probably not modish in the eyes of contemporaries. it was noticeable that the thin tails of the fried fish were given to mordecai; and in general the sort of share assigned to a poor relation--no doubt a "survival" of prehistoric practice, not yet generally admitted to be superstitious. mr. cohen kept up the conversation with much liveliness, introducing as subjects always in taste (the jew is proud of his loyalty) the queen and the royal family, the emperor and empress of the french--into which both grandmother and wife entered with zest. mrs. cohen the younger showed an accurate memory of distinguished birthdays; and the elder assisted her son in informing the guest of what occurred when the emperor and empress were in england and visited the city ten years before. "i dare say you know all about it better than we do, sir," said cohen, repeatedly, by way of preface to full information; and the interesting statements were kept up in a trio. "our baby is named _eu_genie esther," said young mrs. cohen, vivaciously. "it's wonderful how the emperor's like a cousin of mine in the face," said the grandmother; "it struck me like lightning when i caught sight of him. i couldn't have thought it." "mother and me went to see the emperor and empress at the crystal palace," said mr. cohen. "i had a fine piece of work to take care of, mother; she might have been squeezed flat--though she was pretty near as lusty then as she is now. i said if i had a hundred mothers i'd never take one of 'em to see the emperor and empress at the crystal palace again; and you may think a man can't afford it when he's got but one mother--not if he'd ever so big an insurance on her." he stroked his mother's shoulder affectionately, and chuckled a little at his own humor. "your mother has been a widow a long while, perhaps," said deronda, seizing his opportunity. "that has made your care for her the more needful." "ay, ay, it's a good many _yore-zeit_ since i had to manage for her and myself," said cohen quickly. "i went early to it. it's that makes you a sharp knife." "what does--what makes a sharp knife, father?" said jacob, his cheek very much swollen with sweet-cake. the father winked at his guest and said, "having your nose put on the grindstone." jacob slipped from his chair with the piece of sweet-cake in his hand, and going close up to mordecai, who had been totally silent hitherto, said, "what does that mean--putting my nose to the grindstone?" "it means that you are to bear being hurt without making a noise," said mordecai, turning his eyes benignantly on the small face close to his. jacob put the corner of the cake into mordecai's mouth as an invitation to bite, saying meanwhile, "i shan't though," and keeping his eyes on the cake to observe how much of it went in this act of generosity. mordecai took a bite and smiled, evidently meaning to please the lad, and the little incident made them both look more lovable. deronda, however, felt with some vexation that he had taken little by his question. "i fancy that is the right quarter for learning," said he, carrying on the subject that he might have an excuse for addressing mordecai, to whom he turned and said, "you have been a great student, i imagine?" "i have studied," was the quiet answer. "and you?--you know german by the book you were buying." "yes, i have studied in germany. are you generally engaged in bookselling?" said deronda. "no; i only go to mr. ram's shop every day to keep it while he goes to meals," said mordecai, who was now looking at deronda with what seemed a revival of his original interest: it seemed as if the face had some attractive indication for him which now neutralized the former disappointment. after a slight pause, he said, "perhaps you know hebrew?" "i am sorry to say, not at all." mordecai's countenance fell: he cast down his eyelids, looking at his hands, which lay crossed before him, and said no more. deronda had now noticed more decisively than in their former interview a difficulty in breathing, which he thought must be a sign of consumption. "i've had something else to do than to get book-learning." said mr. cohen,--"i've had to make myself knowing about useful things. i know stones well,"--here he pointed to deronda's ring. "i'm not afraid of taking that ring of yours at my own valuation. but now," he added, with a certain drop in his voice to a lower, more familiar nasal, "what do you want for it?" "fifty or sixty pounds," deronda answered, rather too carelessly. cohen paused a little, thrust his hands into his pockets, fixed on deronda a pair of glistening eyes that suggested a miraculous guinea-pig, and said, "couldn't do you that. happy to oblige, but couldn't go that lengths. forty pound--say forty--i'll let you have forty on it." deronda was aware that mordecai had looked up again at the words implying a monetary affair, and was now examining him again, while he said, "very well, i shall redeem it in a month or so." "good. i'll make you out the ticket by-and-by," said cohen, indifferently. then he held up his finger as a sign that conversation must be deferred. he, mordecai and jacob put on their hats, and cohen opened a thanksgiving, which was carried on by responses, till mordecai delivered himself alone at some length, in a solemn chanting tone, with his chin slightly uplifted and his thin hands clasped easily before him. not only in his accent and tone, but in his freedom from the self-consciousness which has reference to others' approbation, there could hardly have been a stronger contrast to the jew at the other end of the table. it was an unaccountable conjunction--the presence among these common, prosperous, shopkeeping types, of a man who, in an emaciated threadbare condition, imposed a certain awe on deronda, and an embarrassment at not meeting his expectations. no sooner had mordecai finished his devotional strain, than rising, with a slight bend of his head to the stranger, he walked back into his room, and shut the door behind him. "that seems to be rather a remarkable man," said deronda, turning to cohen, who immediately set up his shoulders, put out his tongue slightly, and tapped his own brow. it was clearly to be understood that mordecai did not come up to the standard of sanity which was set by mr. cohen's view of men and things. "does he belong to your family?" said deronda. this idea appeared to be rather ludicrous to the ladies as well as to cohen, and the family interchanged looks of amusement. "no, no," said cohen. "charity! charity! he worked for me, and when he got weaker and weaker i took him in. he's an incumbrance; but he brings a blessing down, and he teaches the boy. besides, he does the repairing at the watches and jewelry." deronda hardly abstained from smiling at this mixture of kindliness and the desire to justify it in the light of a calculation; but his willingness to speak further of mordecai, whose character was made the more enigmatically striking by these new details, was baffled. mr. cohen immediately dismissed the subject by reverting to the "accommodation," which was also an act of charity, and proceeded to make out the ticket, get the forty pounds, and present them both in exchange for the diamond ring. deronda, feeling that it would be hardly delicate to protract his visit beyond the settlement of the business which was its pretext, had to take his leave, with no more decided result than the advance of forty pounds and the pawn-ticket in his breast-pocket, to make a reason for returning when he came up to town after christmas. he was resolved that he would then endeavor to gain a little more insight into the character and history of mordecai; from whom also he might gather something decisive about the cohens--for example, the reason why it was forbidden to ask mrs. cohen the elder whether she had a daughter. book v.--mordecai. chapter xxxv. were uneasiness of conscience measured by extent of crime, human history had been different, and one should look to see the contrivers of greedy wars and the mighty marauders of the money-market in one troop of self-lacerating penitents with the meaner robber and cut-purse and the murderer that doth his butchery in small with his own hand. no doubt wickedness hath its rewards to distribute; but who so wins in this devil's game must needs be baser, more cruel, more brutal than the order of this planet will allow for the multitude born of woman, the most of these carrying a form of conscience--a fear which is the shadow of justice, a pity which is the shadow of love--that hindereth from the prize of serene wickedness, itself difficult of maintenance in our composite flesh. on the twenty-ninth of december deronda knew that the grandcourts had arrived at the abbey, but he had had no glimpse of them before he went to dress for dinner. there had been a splendid fall of snow, allowing the party of children the rare pleasures of snow-balling and snow-building, and in the christmas holidays the mallinger girls were content with no amusement unless it were joined in and managed by "cousin," as they had always called deronda. after that outdoor exertion he had been playing billiards, and thus the hours had passed without his dwelling at all on the prospect of meeting gwendolen at dinner. nevertheless that prospect was interesting to him; and when, a little tired and heated with working at amusement, he went to his room before the half-hour bell had rung, he began to think of it with some speculation on the sort of influence her marriage with grandcourt would have on her, and on the probability that there would be some discernible shades of change in her manner since he saw her at diplow, just as there had been since his first vision of her at leubronn. "i fancy there are some natures one could see growing or degenerating every day, if one watched them," was his thought. "i suppose some of us go on faster than others: and i am sure she is a creature who keeps strong traces of anything that has once impressed her. that little affair of the necklace, and the idea that somebody thought her gambling wrong, had evidently bitten into her. but such impressibility leads both ways: it may drive one to desperation as soon as to anything better. and whatever fascinations grandcourt may have for capricious tastes--good heavens! who can believe that he would call out the tender affections in daily companionship? one might be tempted to horsewhip him for the sake of getting some show of passion into his face and speech. i'm afraid she married him out of ambition--to escape poverty. but why did she run out of his way at first? the poverty came after, though. poor thing! she may have been urged into it. how can one feel anything else than pity for a young creature like that--full of unused life--ignorantly rash--hanging all her blind expectations on that remnant of a human being." doubtless the phrases which deronda's meditation applied to the bridegroom were the less complimentary for the excuses and pity in which it clad the bride. his notion of grandcourt as a "remnant" was founded on no particular knowledge, but simply on the impression which ordinary polite intercourse had given him that grandcourt had worn out all his natural healthy interest in things. in general, one may be sure that whenever a marriage of any mark takes place, male acquaintances are likely to pity the bride, female acquaintances the bridegroom: each, it is thought, might have done better; and especially where the bride is charming, young gentlemen on the scene are apt to conclude that she can have no real attachment to a fellow so uninteresting to themselves as her husband, but has married him on other grounds. who, under such circumstances, pities the husband? even his female friends are apt to think his position retributive: he should have chosen some one else. but perhaps deronda may be excused that he did not prepare any pity for grandcourt, who had never struck acquaintances as likely to come out of his experiences with more suffering than he inflicted; whereas, for gwendolen, young, headlong, eager for pleasure, fed with the flattery which makes a lovely girl believe in her divine right to rule--how quickly might life turn from expectancy to a bitter sense of the irremediable! after what he had seen of her he must have had rather dull feelings not to have looked forward with some interest to her entrance into the room. still, since the honeymoon was already three weeks in the distance, and gwendolen had been enthroned, not only at ryelands, but at diplow, she was likely to have composed her countenance with suitable manifestation or concealment, not being one who would indulge the curious by a helpless exposure of her feelings. a various party had been invited to meet the new couple; the old aristocracy was represented by lord and lady pentreath; the old gentry by young mr. and mrs. fitzadam of the worcestershire branch of the fitzadams; politics and the public good, as specialized in the cider interest, by mr. fenn, member for west orchards, accompanied by his two daughters; lady mallinger's family, by her brother, mr. raymond, and his wife; the useful bachelor element by mr. sinker, the eminent counsel, and by mr. vandernoodt, whose acquaintance sir hugo had found pleasant enough at leubronn to be adopted in england. all had assembled in the drawing-room before the new couple appeared. meanwhile, the time was being passed chiefly in noticing the children--various little raymonds, nephews and nieces of lady mallinger's with her own three girls, who were always allowed to appear at this hour. the scene was really delightful--enlarged by full-length portraits with deep backgrounds, inserted in the cedar paneling--surmounted by a ceiling that glowed with the rich colors of the coats of arms ranged between the sockets--illuminated almost as much by the red fire of oak-boughs as by the pale wax-lights--stilled by the deep-piled carpet and by the high english breeding that subdues all voices; while the mixture of ages, from the white-haired lord and lady pentreath to the four-year-old edgar raymond, gave a varied charm to the living groups. lady mallinger, with fair matronly roundness and mildly prominent blue eyes, moved about in her black velvet, carrying a tiny white dog on her arm as a sort of finish to her costume; the children were scattered among the ladies, while most of the gentlemen were standing rather aloof, conversing with that very moderate vivacity observable during the long minutes before dinner. deronda was a little out of the circle in a dialogue fixed upon him by mr. vandernoodt, a man of the best dutch blood imported at the revolution: for the rest, one of those commodious persons in society who are nothing particular themselves, but are understood to be acquainted with the best in every department; close-clipped, pale-eyed, _nonchalant_, as good a foil as could well be found to the intense coloring and vivid gravity of deronda. he was talking of the bride and bridegroom, whose appearance was being waited for. mr. vandernoodt was an industrious gleaner of personal details, and could probably tell everything about a great philosopher or physicist except his theories or discoveries; he was now implying that he had learned many facts about grandcourt since meeting him at leubronn. "men who have seen a good deal of life don't always end by choosing their wives so well. he has had rather an anecdotic history--gone rather deep into pleasures, i fancy, lazy as he is. but, of course, you know all about him." "no, really," said deronda, in an indifferent tone. "i know little more of him than that he is sir hugo's nephew." but now the door opened and deferred any satisfaction of mr. vandernoodt's communicativeness. the scene was one to set off any figure of distinction that entered on it, and certainly when mr. and mrs. grandcourt entered, no beholder could deny that their figures had distinction. the bridegroom had neither more nor less easy perfection of costume, neither more nor less well-cut impassibility of face, than before his marriage. it was to be supposed of him that he would put up with nothing less than the best in outward equipment, wife included; and the bride was what he might have been expected to choose. "by george, i think she's handsomer, if anything!" said mr. vandernoodt. and deronda was of the same opinion, but he said nothing. the white silk and diamonds--it may seem strange, but she did wear diamonds on her neck, in her ears, in her hair--might have something to do with the new imposingness of her beauty, which flashed on him as more unquestionable if not more thoroughly satisfactory than when he had first seen her at the gaming-table. some faces which are peculiar in their beauty are like original works of art: for the first time they are almost always met with question. but in seeing gwendolen at diplow, deronda had discerned in her more than he had expected of that tender appealing charm which we call womanly. was there any new change since then? he distrusted his impressions; but as he saw her receiving greetings with what seemed a proud cold quietude and a superficial smile, there seemed to be at work within her the same demonic force that had possessed her when she took him in her resolute glance and turned away a loser from the gaming-table. there was no time for more of a conclusion--no time even for him to give his greeting before the summons to dinner. he sat not far from opposite to her at table, and could sometimes hear what she said in answer to sir hugo, who was at his liveliest in conversation with her; but though he looked toward her with the intention of bowing, she gave him no opportunity of doing so for some time. at last sir hugo, who might have imagined that they had already spoken to each other, said, "deronda, you will like to hear what mrs. grandcourt tells me about your favorite klesmer." gwendolen's eyelids had been lowered, and deronda, already looking at her, thought he discovered a quivering reluctance as she was obliged to raise them and return his unembarrassed bow and smile, her own smile being one of the lip merely. it was but an instant, and sir hugo continued without pause, "the arrowpoints have condoned the marriage, and he is spending the christmas with his bride at quetcham." "i suppose he will be glad of it for the sake of his wife, else i dare say he would not have minded keeping at a distance," said deronda. "it's a sort of troubadour story," said lady pentreath, an easy, deep-voiced old lady; "i'm glad to find a little romance left among us. i think our young people now are getting too worldly wise." "it shows the arrowpoints' good sense, however, to have adopted the affair, after the fuss in the paper," said sir hugo. "and disowning your own child because of a _mésalliance_ is something like disowning your one eye: everybody knows it's yours, and you have no other to make an appearance with." "as to _mésalliance_, there's no blood on any side," said lady pentreath. "old admiral arrowpoint was one of nelson's men, you know--a doctor's son. and we all know how the mother's money came." "if they were any _mésalliance_ in the case, i should say it was on klesmer's side," said deronda. "ah, you think it is a case of the immortal marrying the mortal. what is your opinion?" said sir hugo, looking at gwendolen. "i have no doubt that herr klesmer thinks himself immortal. but i dare say his wife will burn as much incense before him as he requires," said gwendolen. she had recovered any composure that she might have lost. "don't you approve of a wife burning incense before her husband?" said sir hugo, with an air of jocoseness. "oh, yes," said gwendolen, "if it were only to make others believe in him." she paused a moment and then said with more gayety, "when herr klesmer admires his own genius, it will take off some of the absurdity if his wife says amen." "klesmer is no favorite of yours, i see," said sir hugo. "i think very highly of him, i assure you," said gwendolen. "his genius is quite above my judgment, and i know him to be exceedingly generous." she spoke with the sudden seriousness which is often meant to correct an unfair or indiscreet sally, having a bitterness against klesmer in her secret soul which she knew herself unable to justify. deronda was wondering what he should have thought of her if he had never heard of her before: probably that she put on a little hardness and defiance by way of concealing some painful consciousness--if, indeed, he could imagine her manners otherwise than in the light of his suspicion. but why did she not recognize him with more friendliness? sir hugo, by way of changing the subject, said to her, "is not this a beautiful room? it was part of the refectory of the abbey. there was a division made by those pillars and the three arches, and afterward they were built up. else it was half as large again originally. there used to be rows of benedictines sitting where we are sitting. suppose we were suddenly to see the lights burning low and the ghosts of the old monks rising behind all our chairs!" "please don't!" said gwendolen, with a playful shudder. "it is very nice to come after ancestors and monks, but they should know their places and keep underground. i should be rather frightened to go about this house all alone. i suppose the old generations must be angry with us because we have altered things so much." "oh, the ghosts must be of all political parties," said sir hugo. "and those fellows who wanted to change things while they lived and couldn't do it must be on our side. but if you would not like to go over the house alone, you will like to go in company, i hope. you and grandcourt ought to see it all. and we will ask deronda to go round with us. he is more learned about it than i am." the baronet was in the most complaisant of humors. gwendolen stole a glance at deronda, who must have heard what sir hugo said, for he had his face turned toward them helping himself to an _entrée_; but he looked as impassive as a picture. at the notion of deronda's showing her and grandcourt the place which was to be theirs, and which she with painful emphasis remembered might have been his (perhaps, if others had acted differently), certain thoughts had rushed in--thoughts repeated within her, but now returning on an occasion embarrassingly new; and was conscious of something furtive and awkward in her glance which sir hugo must have noticed. with her usual readiness of resource against betrayal, she said, playfully, "you don't know how much i am afraid of mr. deronda." "how's that? because you think him too learned?" said sir hugo, whom the peculiarity of her glance had not escaped. "no. it is ever since i first saw him at leubronn. because when he came to look on at the roulette-table, i began to lose. he cast an evil eye on my play. he didn't approve it. he has told me so. and now whatever i do before him, i am afraid he will cast an evil eye upon it." "gad! i'm rather afraid of him myself when he doesn't approve," said sir hugo, glancing at deronda; and then turning his face toward gwendolen, he said less audibly, "i don't think ladies generally object to have his eyes upon them." the baronet's small chronic complaint of facetiousness was at this moment almost as annoying to gwendolen as it often was to deronda. "i object to any eyes that are critical," she said, in a cool, high voice, with a turn of her neck. "are there many of these old rooms left in the abbey?" "not many. there is a fine cloistered court with a long gallery above it. but the finest bit of all is turned into stables. it is part of the old church. when i improved the place i made the most of every other bit; but it was out of my reach to change the stables, so the horses have the benefit of the fine old choir. you must go and see it." "i shall like to see the horses as well as the building," said gwendolen. "oh, i have no stud to speak of. grandcourt will look with contempt at my horses," said sir hugo. "i've given up hunting, and go on in a jog-trot way, as becomes an old gentlemen with daughters. the fact is, i went in for doing too much at this place. we all lived at diplow for two years while the alterations were going on: do you like diplow?" "not particularly," said gwendolen, with indifference. one would have thought that the young lady had all her life had more family seats than she cared to go to. "ah! it will not do after ryelands," said sir hugo, well pleased. "grandcourt, i know, took it for the sake of the hunting. but he found something so much better there," added the baronet, lowering his voice, "that he might well prefer it to any other place in the world." "it has one attraction for me," said gwendolen, passing over this compliment with a chill smile, "that it is within reach of offendene." "i understand that," said sir hugo, and then let the subject drop. what amiable baronet can escape the effect of a strong desire for a particular possession? sir hugo would have been glad that grandcourt, with or without reason, should prefer any other place to diplow; but inasmuch as in the pure process of wishing we can always make the conditions of our gratification benevolent, he did wish that grandcourt's convenient disgust for diplow should not be associated with his marriage with this very charming bride. gwendolen was much to the baronet's taste, but, as he observed afterward to lady mallinger, he should never have taken her for a young girl who had married beyond her expectations. deronda had not heard much of this conversation, having given his attention elsewhere, but the glimpses he had of gwendolen's manner deepened the impression that it had something newly artificial. later, in the drawing-room, deronda, at somebody's request, sat down to the piano and sang. afterward, mrs. raymond took his place; and on rising he observed that gwendolen had left her seat, and had come to this end of the room, as if to listen more fully, but was now standing with her back to every one, apparently contemplating a fine cowled head carved in ivory which hung over a small table. he longed to go to her and speak. why should he not obey such an impulse, as he would have done toward any other lady in the room? yet he hesitated some moments, observing the graceful lines of her back, but not moving. if you have any reason for not indulging a wish to speak to a fair woman, it is a bad plan to look long at her back: the wish to see what it screens becomes the stronger. there may be a very sweet smile on the other side. deronda ended by going to the end of the small table, at right angles to gwendolen's position, but before he could speak she had turned on him no smile, but such an appealing look of sadness, so utterly different from the chill effort of her recognition at table, that his speech was checked. for what was an appreciative space of time to both, though the observation of others could not have measured it, they looked at each other--she seeming to take the deep rest of confession, he with an answering depth of sympathy that neutralized all other feelings. "will you not join in the music?" he said, by way of meeting the necessity for speech. that her look of confession had been involuntary was shown by that just perceptible shake and change of countenance with which she roused herself to reply calmly, "i join in it by listening. i am fond of music." "are you not a musician?" "i have given a great deal of time to music. but i have not talent enough to make it worth while. i shall never sing again." "but if you are fond of music, it will always be worth while in private, for your own delight. i make it a virtue to be content with my middlingness," said deronda, smiling; "it is always pardonable, so that one does not ask others to take it for superiority." "i cannot imitate you," said gwendolen, recovering her tone of artificial vivacity. "to be middling with me is another phrase for being dull. and the worst fault i have to find with the world is that it is dull. do you know, i am going to justify gambling in spite of you. it is a refuge from dullness." "i don't admit the justification," said deronda. "i think what we call the dullness of things is a disease in ourselves. else how can any one find an intense interest in life? and many do." "ah, i see! the fault i find in the world is my own fault," said gwendolen, smiling at him. then after a moment, looking up at the ivory again, she said, "do _you_ never find fault with the world or with others?" "oh, yes. when i am in a grumbling mood." "and hate people? confess you hate them when they stand in your way--when their gain is your loss? that is your own phrase, you know." "we are often standing in each other's way when we can't help it. i think it is stupid to hate people on that ground." "but if they injure you and could have helped it?" said gwendolen with a hard intensity unaccountable in incidental talk like this. deronda wondered at her choice of subjects. a painful impression arrested his answer a moment, but at last he said, with a graver, deeper intonation, "why, then, after all, i prefer my place to theirs." "there i believe you are right," said gwendolen, with a sudden little laugh, and turned to join the group at the piano. deronda looked around for grandcourt, wondering whether he followed his bride's movements with any attention; but it was rather undiscerning to him to suppose that he could find out the fact. grandcourt had a delusive mood of observing whatever had an interest for him, which could be surpassed by no sleepy-eyed animal on the watch for prey. at that moment he was plunged in the depth of an easy chair, being talked to by mr. vandernoodt, who apparently thought the acquaintance of such a bridegroom worth cultivating; and an incautious person might have supposed it safe to telegraph secrets in front of him, the common prejudice being that your quick observer is one whose eyes have quick movements. not at all. if you want a respectable witness who will see nothing inconvenient, choose a vivacious gentleman, very much on the alert, with two eyes wide open, a glass in one of them, and an entire impartiality as to the purpose of looking. if grandcourt cared to keep any one under his power he saw them out of the corners of his long narrow eyes, and if they went behind him he had a constructive process by which he knew what they were doing there. he knew perfectly well where his wife was, and how she was behaving. was he going to be a jealous husband? deronda imagined that to be likely; but his imagination was as much astray about grandcourt as it would have been about an unexplored continent where all the species were peculiar. he did not conceive that he himself was a likely subject of jealousy, or that he should give any pretext for it; but the suspicion that a wife is not happy naturally leads one to speculate on the husband's private deportment; and deronda found himself after one o'clock in the morning in the rather ludicrous position of sitting up severely holding a hebrew grammar in his hands (for somehow, in deference to mordecai, he had begun to study hebrew), with the consciousness that he had been in that attitude nearly an hour, and had thought of nothing but gwendolen and her husband. to be an unusual young man means for the most part to get a difficult mastery over the usual, which is often like the sprite of ill-luck you pack up your goods to escape from, and see grinning at you from the top of your luggage van. the peculiarities of deronda's nature had been acutely touched by the brief incident and words which made the history of his intercourse with gwendolen; and this evening's slight addition had given them an importunate recurrence. it was not vanity--it was ready sympathy that had made him alive to a certain appealingness in her behavior toward him; and the difficulty with which she had seemed to raise her eyes to bow to him, in the first instance, was to be interpreted now by that unmistakable look of involuntary confidence which she had afterward turned on him under the consciousness of his approach. "what is the use of it all?" thought deronda, as he threw down his grammar, and began to undress. "i can't do anything to help her--nobody can, if she has found out her mistake already. and it seems to me that she has a dreary lack of the ideas that might help her. strange and piteous to think what a center of wretchedness a delicate piece of human flesh like that might be, wrapped round with fine raiment, her ears pierced for gems, her head held loftily, her mouth all smiling pretense, the poor soul within her sitting in sick distaste of all things! but what do i know of her? there may be a demon in her to match the worst husband, for what i can tell. she was clearly an ill-educated, worldly girl: perhaps she is a coquette." this last reflection, not much believed in, was a self-administered dose of caution, prompted partly by sir hugo's much-contemned joking on the subject of flirtation. deronda resolved not to volunteer any _tete-à-tete_ with gwendolen during the days of her stay at the abbey; and he was capable of keeping a resolve in spite of much inclination to the contrary. but a man cannot resolve about a woman's actions, least of all about those of a woman like gwendolen, in whose nature there was a combination of proud reserve with rashness, of perilously poised terror with defiance, which might alternately flatter and disappoint control. few words could less represent her than "coquette." she had native love of homage, and belief in her own power; but no cold artifice for the sake of enslaving. and the poor thing's belief in her power, with her other dreams before marriage, had often to be thrust aside now like the toys of a sick child, which it looks at with dull eyes, and has no heart to play with, however it may try. the next day at lunch sir hugo said to her, "the thaw has gone on like magic, and it's so pleasant out of doors just now--shall we go and see the stables and the other odd bits about the place?" "yes, pray," said gwendolen. "you will like to see the stables, henleigh?" she added, looking at her husband. "uncommonly," said grandcourt, with an indifference which seemed to give irony to the word, as he returned her look. it was the first time deronda had seen them speak to each other since their arrival, and he thought their exchange of looks as cold or official as if it had been a ceremony to keep up a charter. still, the english fondness for reserve will account for much negation; and grandcourt's manners with an extra veil of reserve over them might be expected to present the extreme type of the national taste. "who else is inclined to make the tour of the house and premises?" said sir hugo. "the ladies must muffle themselves; there is only just about time to do it well before sunset. you will go, dan, won't you?" "oh, yes," said deronda, carelessly, knowing that sir hugo would think any excuse disobliging. "all meet in the library, then, when they are ready--say in half an hour," said the baronet. gwendolen made herself ready with wonderful quickness, and in ten minutes came down into the library in her sables, plume, and little thick boots. as soon as she entered the room she was aware that some one else was there: it was precisely what she had hoped for. deronda was standing with his back toward her at the far end of the room, and was looking over a newspaper. how could little thick boots make any noise on an axminster carpet? and to cough would have seemed an intended signaling which her pride could not condescend to; also, she felt bashful about walking up to him and letting him know that she was there, though it was her hunger to speak to him which had set her imagination on constructing this chance of finding him, and had made her hurry down, as birds hover near the water which they dare not drink. always uneasily dubious about his opinion of her, she felt a peculiar anxiety to-day, lest he might think of her with contempt, as one triumphantly conscious of being grandcourt's wife, the future lady of this domain. it was her habitual effort now to magnify the satisfactions of her pride, on which she nourished her strength; but somehow deronda's being there disturbed them all. there was not the faintest touch of coquetry in the attitude of her mind toward him: he was unique to her among men, because he had impressed her as being not her admirer but her superior: in some mysterious way he was becoming a part of her conscience, as one woman whose nature is an object of reverential belief may become a new conscience to a man. and now he would not look round and find out that she was there! the paper crackled in his hand, his head rose and sank, exploring those stupid columns, and he was evidently stroking his beard; as if this world were a very easy affair to her. of course all the rest of the company would soon be down, and the opportunity of her saying something to efface her flippancy of the evening before, would be quite gone. she felt sick with irritation--so fast do young creatures like her absorb misery through invisible suckers of their own fancies--and her face had gathered that peculiar expression which comes with a mortification to which tears are forbidden. at last he threw down the paper and turned round. "oh, you are there already," he said, coming forward a step or two: "i must go and put on my coat." he turned aside and walked out of the room. this was behaving quite badly. mere politeness would have made him stay to exchange some words before leaving her alone. it was true that grandcourt came in with sir hugo immediately after, so that the words must have been too few to be worth anything. as it was, they saw him walking from the library door. "a--you look rather ill," said grandcourt, going straight up to her, standing in front of her, and looking into her eyes. "do you feel equal to the walk?" "yes, i shall like it," said gwendolen, without the slightest movement except this of the lips. "we could put off going over the house, you know, and only go out of doors," said sir hugo, kindly, while grandcourt turned aside. "oh, dear no!" said gwendolen, speaking with determination; "let us put off nothing. i want a long walk." the rest of the walking party--two ladies and two gentlemen besides deronda--had now assembled; and gwendolen rallying, went with due cheerfulness by the side of sir hugo, paying apparently an equal attention to the commentaries deronda was called upon to give on the various architectural fragments, to sir hugo's reasons for not attempting to remedy the mixture of the undisguised modern with the antique--which in his opinion only made the place the more truly historical. on their way to the buttery and kitchen they took the outside of the house and paused before a beautiful pointed doorway, which was the only old remnant in the east front. "well, now, to my mind," said sir hugo, "that is more interesting standing as it is in the middle of what is frankly four centuries later, than if the whole front had been dressed up in a pretense of the thirteenth century. additions ought to smack of the time when they are made and carry the stamp of their period. i wouldn't destroy any old bits, but that notion of reproducing the old is a mistake, i think. at least, if a man likes to do it he must pay for his whistle. besides, where are you to stop along that road--making loopholes where you don't want to peep, and so on? you may as well ask me to wear out the stones with kneeling; eh, grandcourt?" "a confounded nuisance," drawled grandcourt. "i hate fellows wanting to howl litanies--acting the greatest bores that have ever existed." "well, yes, that's what their romanticism must come to," said sir hugo, in a tone of confidential assent--"that is if they carry it out logically." "i think that way of arguing against a course because it may be ridden down to an absurdity would soon bring life to a standstill," said deronda. "it is not the logic of human action, but of a roasting-jack, that must go on to the last turn when it has been once wound up. we can do nothing safely without some judgment as to where we are to stop." "i find the rule of the pocket the best guide," said sir hugo, laughingly. "and as for most of your new-old building, you had need to hire men to scratch and chip it all over artistically to give it an elderly-looking surface; which at the present rate of labor would not answer." "do you want to keep up the old fashions, then, mr. deronda?" said gwendolen, taking advantage of the freedom of grouping to fall back a little, while sir hugo and grandcourt went on. "some of them. i don't see why we should not use our choice there as we do elsewhere--or why either age or novelty by itself is an argument for or against. to delight in doing things because our fathers did them is good if it shuts out nothing better; it enlarges the range of affection--and affection is the broadest basis of good in life." "do you think so?" said gwendolen with a little surprise. "i should have thought you cared most about ideas, knowledge, wisdom, and all that." "but to care about _them_ is a sort of affection," said deronda, smiling at her sudden _naïveté_. "call it attachment; interest, willing to bear a great deal for the sake of being with them and saving them from injury. of course, it makes a difference if the objects of interest are human beings; but generally in all deep affections the objects are a mixture--half persons and half ideas--sentiments and affections flow in together." "i wonder whether i understand that," said gwendolen, putting up her chin in her old saucy manner. "i believe i am not very affectionate; perhaps you mean to tell me, that is the reason why i don't see much good in life." "no, i did _not_ mean to tell you that; but i admit that i should think it true if i believed what you say of yourself," said deronda, gravely. here sir hugo and grandcourt turned round and paused. "i never can get mr. deronda to pay me a compliment," said gwendolen. "i have quite a curiosity to see whether a little flattery can be extracted from him." "ah!" said sir hugo, glancing at deronda, "the fact is, it is useless to flatter a bride. we give it up in despair. she has been so fed on sweet speeches that every thing we say seems tasteless." "quite true," said gwendolen, bending her head and smiling. "mr. grandcourt won me by neatly-turned compliments. if there had been one word out of place it would have been fatal." "do you hear that?" said sir hugo, looking at the husband. "yes," said grandcourt, without change of countenance. "it's a deucedly hard thing to keep up, though." all this seemed to sir hugo a natural playfulness between such a husband and wife; but deronda wondered at the misleading alternations in gwendolen's manner, which at one moment seemed to excite sympathy by childlike indiscretion, at another to repel it by proud concealment. he tried to keep out of her way by devoting himself to miss juliet fenn, a young lady whose profile had been so unfavorably decided by circumstances over which she had no control, that gwendolen some months ago had felt it impossible to be jealous of her. nevertheless, when they were seeing the kitchen--a part of the original building in perfect preservation--the depth of shadow in the niches of the stone-walls and groined vault, the play of light from the huge glowing fire on polished tin, brass, and copper, the fine resonance that came with every sound of voice or metal, were all spoiled for gwendolen, and sir hugo's speech about them was made rather importunate, because deronda was discoursing to the other ladies and kept at a distance from her. it did not signify that the other gentlemen took the opportunity of being near her: of what use in the world was their admiration while she had an uneasy sense that there was some standard in deronda's mind which measured her into littleness? mr. vandernoodt, who had the mania of always describing one thing while you were looking at another, was quite intolerable with his insistence on lord blough's kitchen, which he had seen in the north. "pray don't ask us to see two kitchens at once. it makes the heat double. i must really go out of it," she cried at last, marching resolutely into the open air, and leaving the others in the rear. grandcourt was already out, and as she joined him, he said, "i wondered how long you meant to stay in that damned place"--one of the freedoms he had assumed as a husband being the use of his strongest epithets. gwendolen, turning to see the rest of the party approach, said, "it was certainly rather too warm in one's wraps." they walked on the gravel across a green court, where the snow still lay in islets on the grass, and in masses on the boughs of the great cedar and the crenelated coping of the stone walls, and then into a larger court, where there was another cedar, to find the beautiful choir long ago turned into stables, in the first instance perhaps after an impromptu fashion by troopers, who had a pious satisfaction in insulting the priests of baal and the images of ashtoreth, the queen of heaven. the exterior--its west end, save for the stable door, walled in with brick and covered with ivy--was much defaced, maimed of finial and gargoyle, the friable limestone broken and fretted, and lending its soft gray to a powdery dark lichen; the long windows, too, were filled in with brick as far as the springing of the arches, the broad clerestory windows with wire or ventilating blinds. with the low wintry afternoon sun upon it, sending shadows from the cedar boughs, and lighting up the touches of snow remaining on every ledge, it had still a scarcely disturbed aspect of antique solemnity, which gave the scene in the interior rather a startling effect; though, ecclesiastical or reverential indignation apart, the eyes could hardly help dwelling with pleasure on its piquant picturesqueness. each finely-arched chapel was turned into a stall, where in the dusty glazing of the windows there still gleamed patches of crimson, orange, blue, and palest violet; for the rest, the choir had been gutted, the floor leveled, paved, and drained according to the most approved fashion, and a line of loose boxes erected in the middle: a soft light fell from the upper windows on sleek brown or gray flanks and haunches; on mild equine faces looking out with active nostrils over the varnished brown boarding; on the hay hanging from racks where the saints once looked down from the altar-pieces, and on the pale golden straw scattered or in heaps; on a little white-and-liver-colored spaniel making his bed on the back of an elderly hackney, and on four ancient angels, still showing signs of devotion like mutilated martyrs--while over all, the grand pointed roof, untouched by reforming wash, showed its lines and colors mysteriously through veiling shadow and cobweb, and a hoof now and then striking against the boards seemed to fill the vault with thunder, while outside there was the answering bay of the blood-hounds. "oh, this is glorious!" gwendolen burst forth, in forgetfulness of everything but the immediate impression: there had been a little intoxication for her in the grand spaces of courts and building, and the fact of her being an important person among them. "this _is_ glorious! only i wish there were a horse in every one of the boxes. i would ten times rather have these stables than those at diplow." but she had no sooner said this than some consciousness arrested her, and involuntarily she turned her eyes toward deronda, who oddly enough had taken off his felt hat and stood holding it before him as if they had entered a room or an actual church. he, like others, happened to be looking at her, and their eyes met--to her intense vexation, for it seemed to her that by looking at him she had betrayed the reference of her thoughts, and she felt herself blushing: she exaggerated the impression that even sir hugo as well as deronda would have of her bad taste in referring to the possession of anything at the abbey: as for deronda, she had probably made him despise her. her annoyance at what she imagined to be the obviousness of her confusion robbed her of her usual facility in carrying it off by playful speech, and turning up her face to look at the roof, she wheeled away in that attitude. if any had noticed her blush as significant, they had certainly not interpreted it by the secret windings and recesses of her feeling. a blush is no language: only a dubious flag-signal which may mean either of two contradictories. deronda alone had a faint guess at some part of her feeling; but while he was observing her he was himself under observation. "do you take off your hat to horses?" said grandcourt, with a slight sneer. "why not?" said deronda, covering himself. he had really taken off the hat automatically, and if he had been an ugly man might doubtless have done so with impunity; ugliness having naturally the air of involuntary exposure, and beauty, of display. gwendolen's confusion was soon merged in the survey of the horses, which grandcourt politely abstained from appraising, languidly assenting to sir hugo's alternate depreciation and eulogy of the same animal, as one that he should not have bought when he was younger, and piqued himself on his horses, but yet one that had better qualities than many more expensive brutes. "the fact is, stables dive deeper and deeper into the pocket nowadays, and i am very glad to have got rid of that _démangeaison_," said sir hugo, as they were coming out. "what is a man to do, though?" said grandcourt. "he must ride. i don't see what else there is to do. and i don't call it riding to sit astride a set of brutes with every deformity under the sun." this delicate diplomatic way of characterizing sir hugo's stud did not require direct notice; and the baronet, feeling that the conversation had worn rather thin, said to the party generally, "now we are going to see the cloister--the finest bit of all--in perfect preservation; the monks might have been walking there yesterday." but gwendolen had lingered behind to look at the kenneled blood-hounds, perhaps because she felt a little dispirited; and grandcourt waited for her. "you had better take my arm," he said, in his low tone of command; and she took it. "it's a great bore being dragged about in this way, and no cigar," said grandcourt. "i thought you would like it." "like it!--one eternal chatter. and encouraging those ugly girls--inviting one to meet such monsters. how that _fat_ deronda can bear looking at her----" "why do you call him a _fat_? do you object to him so much?" "object? no. what do i care about his being a _fat_? it's of no consequence to me. i'll invite him to diplow again if you like." "i don't think he would come. he is too clever and learned to care about _us_," said gwendolen, thinking it useful for her husband to be told (privately) that it was possible for him to be looked down upon. "i never saw that make much difference in a man. either he is a gentleman, or he is not," said grandcourt. that a new husband and wife should snatch a moment's _tete-à-tete_ was what could be understood and indulged; and the rest of the party left them in the rear till, re-entering the garden, they all paused in that cloistered court where, among the falling rose-petals thirteen years before, we saw a boy becoming acquainted with his first sorrow. this cloister was built of a harder stone than the church, and had been in greater safety from the wearing weather. it was a rare example of a northern cloister with arched and pillared openings not intended for glazing, and the delicately-wrought foliage of the capitals seemed still to carry the very touches of the chisel. gwendolen had dropped her husband's arm and joined the other ladies, to whom deronda was noticing the delicate sense which had combined freedom with accuracy in the imitation of natural forms. "i wonder whether one oftener learns to love real objects through their representations, or the representations through the real objects," he said, after pointing out a lovely capital made by the curled leaves of greens, showing their reticulated under-side with the firm gradual swell of its central rib. "when i was a little fellow these capitals taught me to observe and delight in the structure of leaves." "i suppose you can see every line of them with your eyes shut," said juliet fenn. "yes. i was always repeating them, because for a good many years this court stood for me as my only image of a convent, and whenever i read of monks and monasteries, this was my scenery for them." "you must love this place very much," said miss fenn, innocently, not thinking of inheritance. "so many homes are like twenty others. but this is unique, and you seem to know every cranny of it. i dare say you could never love another home so well." "oh, i carry it with me," said deronda, quietly, being used to all possible thoughts of this kind. "to most men their early home is no more than a memory of their early years, and i'm not sure but they have the best of it. the image is never marred. there's no disappointment in memory, and one's exaggerations are always on the good side." gwendolen felt sure that he spoke in that way out of delicacy to her and grandcourt--because he knew they must hear him; and that he probably thought of her as a selfish creature who only cared about possessing things in her own person. but whatever he might say, it must have been a secret hardship to him that any circumstances of his birth had shut him out from the inheritance of his father's position; and if he supposed that she exulted in her husband's taking it, what could he feel for her but scornful pity? indeed it seemed clear to her that he was avoiding her, and preferred talking to others--which nevertheless was not kind in him. with these thoughts in her mind she was prevented by a mixture of pride and timidity from addressing him again, and when they were looking at the rows of quaint portraits in the gallery above the cloisters, she kept up her air of interest and made her vivacious remarks without any direct appeal to deronda. but at the end she was very weary of her assumed spirits, and as grandcourt turned into the billiard-room, she went to the pretty boudoir which had been assigned to her, and shut herself up to look melancholy at her ease. no chemical process shows a more wonderful activity than the transforming influence of the thoughts we imagine to be going on in another. changes in theory, religion, admirations, may begin with a suspicion of dissent or disapproval, even when the grounds of disapproval are but matter of searching conjecture. poor gwendolen was conscious of an uneasy, transforming process--all the old nature shaken to its depths, its hopes spoiled, its pleasures perturbed, but still showing wholeness and strength in the will to reassert itself. after every new shock of humiliation she tried to adjust herself and seize her old supports--proud concealment, trust in new excitements that would make life go by without much thinking; trust in some deed of reparation to nullify her self-blame and shield her from a vague, ever-visiting dread of some horrible calamity; trust in the hardening effect of use and wont that would make her indifferent to her miseries. yes--miseries. this beautiful, healthy young creature, with her two-and-twenty years and her gratified ambition, no longer felt inclined to kiss her fortunate image in the glass. she looked at it with wonder that she could be so miserable. one belief which had accompanied her through her unmarried life as a self-cajoling superstition, encouraged by the subordination of every one about her--the belief in her own power of dominating--was utterly gone. already, in seven short weeks, which seemed half her life, her husband had gained a mastery which she could no more resist than she could have resisted the benumbing effect from the touch of a torpedo. gwendolen's will had seemed imperious in its small girlish sway; but it was the will of a creature with a large discourse of imaginative fears: a shadow would have been enough to relax its hold. and she had found a will like that of a crab or a boa-constrictor, which goes on pinching or crushing without alarm at thunder. not that grandcourt was without calculation of the intangible effects which were the chief means of mastery; indeed, he had a surprising acuteness in detecting that situation of feeling in gwendolen which made her proud and rebellious spirit dumb and helpless before him. she had burned lydia glasher's letter with an instantaneous terror lest other eyes should see it, and had tenaciously concealed from grandcourt that there was any other cause of her violent hysterics than the excitement and fatigue of the day: she had been urged into an implied falsehood. "don't ask me--it was my feeling about everything--it was the sudden change from home." the words of that letter kept repeating themselves, and hung on her consciousness with the weight of a prophetic doom. "i am the grave in which your chance of happiness is buried as well as mine. you had your warning. you have chosen to injure me and my children. he had meant to marry me. he would have married me at last, if you had not broken your word. you will have your punishment. i desire it with all my soul. will you give him this letter to set him against me and ruin us more--me and my children? shall you like to stand before your husband with these diamonds on you, and these words of mine in his thoughts and yours? will he think you have any right to complain when he has made you miserable? you took him with your eyes open. the willing wrong you have done me will be your curse." the words had nestled their venomous life within her, and stirred continually the vision of the scene at the whispering stones. that scene was now like an accusing apparition: she dreaded that grandcourt should know of it--so far out of her sight now was that possibility she had once satisfied herself with, of speaking to him about mrs. glasher and her children, and making them rich amends. any endurance seemed easier than the mortal humiliation of confessing that she knew all before she married him, and in marrying him had broken her word. for the reasons by which she had justified herself when the marriage tempted her, and all her easy arrangement of her future power over her husband to make him do better than he might be inclined to do, were now as futile as the burned-out lights which set off a child's pageant. her sense of being blameworthy was exaggerated by a dread both definite and vague. the definite dread was lest the veil of secrecy should fall between her and grandcourt, and give him the right to taunt her. with the reading of that letter had begun her husband's empire of fear. and her husband all the while knew it. he had not, indeed, any distinct knowledge of her broken promise, and would not have rated highly the effect of that breach on her conscience; but he was aware not only of what lush had told him about the meeting at the whispering stones, but also of gwendolen's concealment as to the cause of her sudden illness. he felt sure that lydia had enclosed something with the diamonds, and that this something, whatever it was, had at once created in gwendolen a new repulsion for him and a reason for not daring to manifest it. he did not greatly mind, or feel as many men might have felt, that his hopes in marriage were blighted: he had wanted to marry gwendolen, and he was not a man to repent. why should a gentleman whose other relations in life are carried on without the luxury of sympathetic feeling, be supposed to require that kind of condiment in domestic life? what he chiefly felt was that a change had come over the conditions of his mastery, which, far from shaking it, might establish it the more thoroughly. and it was established. he judged that he had not married a simpleton unable to perceive the impossibility of escape, or to see alternative evils: he had married a girl who had spirit and pride enough not to make a fool of herself by forfeiting all the advantages of a position which had attracted her; and if she wanted pregnant hints to help her in making up her mind properly he would take care not to withhold them. gwendolen, indeed, with all that gnawing trouble in her consciousness, had hardly for a moment dropped the sense that it was her part to bear herself with dignity, and appear what is called happy. in disclosure of disappointment or sorrow she saw nothing but a humiliation which would have been vinegar to her wounds. whatever her husband might have come at last to be to her, she meant to wear the yoke so as not to be pitied. for she did think of the coming years with presentiment: she was frightened at grandcourt. the poor thing had passed from her girlish sauciness of superiority over this inert specimen of personal distinction into an amazed perception of her former ignorance about the possible mental attitude of a man toward the woman he sought in marriage--of her present ignorance as to what their life with each other might turn into. for novelty gives immeasurableness to fear, and fills the early time of all sad changes with phantoms of the future. her little coquetries, voluntary or involuntary, had told on grandcourt during courtship, and formed a medium of communication between them, showing him in the light of a creature such as she could understand and manage: but marriage had nullified all such interchange, and grandcourt had become a blank uncertainty to her in everything but this, that he would do just what he willed, and that she had neither devices at her command to determine his will, nor any rational means of escaping it. what had occurred between them and her wearing the diamonds was typical. one evening, shortly before they came to the abbey, they were going to dine at brackenshaw castle. gwendolen had said to herself that she would never wear those diamonds: they had horrible words clinging and crawling about them, as from some bad dream, whose images lingered on the perturbed sense. she came down dressed in her white, with only a streak of gold and a pendant of emeralds, which grandcourt had given her, round her neck, and the little emerald stars in her ears. grandcourt stood with his back to the fire and looked at her as she entered. "am i altogether as you like?" she said, speaking rather gaily. she was not without enjoyment in this occasion of going to brackenshaw castle with her new dignities upon her, as men whose affairs are sadly involved will enjoy dining out among persons likely to be under a pleasant mistake about them. "no," said grandcourt. gwendolen felt suddenly uncomfortable, wondering what was to come. she was not unprepared for some struggle about the diamonds; but suppose he were going to say, in low, contemptuous tones, "you are not in any way what i like." it was very bad for her to be secretly hating him; but it would be much worse when he gave the first sign of hating her. "oh, mercy!" she exclaimed, the pause lasting till she could bear it no longer. "how am i to alter myself?" "put on the diamonds," said grandcourt, looking straight at her with his narrow glance. gwendolen paused in her turn, afraid of showing any emotion, and feeling that nevertheless there was some change in her eyes as they met his. but she was obliged to answer, and said as indifferently as she could, "oh, please not. i don't think diamonds suit me." "what you think has nothing to do with it," said grandcourt, his _sotto voce_ imperiousness seeming to have an evening quietude and finish, like his toilet. "i wish you to wear the diamonds." "pray excuse me; i like these emeralds," said gwendolen, frightened in spite of her preparation. that white hand of his which was touching his whisker was capable, she fancied, of clinging round her neck and threatening to throttle her; for her fear of him, mingling with the vague foreboding of some retributive calamity which hung about her life, had reached a superstitious point. "oblige me by telling me your reason for not wearing the diamonds when i desire it," said grandcourt. his eyes were still fixed upon her, and she felt her own eyes narrowing under them as if to shut out an entering pain. of what use was the rebellion within her? she could say nothing that would not hurt her worse than submission. turning slowly and covering herself again, she went to her dressing-room. as she reached out the diamonds, it occurred to her that her unwillingness to wear them might have already raised a suspicion in grandcourt that she had some knowledge about them which he had not given her. she fancied that his eyes showed a delight in torturing her. how could she be defiant? she had nothing to say that would touch him--nothing but what would give him a more painful grasp on her consciousness. "he delights in making the dogs and horses quail: that is half his pleasure in calling them his," she said to herself, as she opened the jewel-case with a shivering sensation. "it will come to be so with me; and i shall quail. what else is there for me? i will not say to the world, 'pity me.'" she was about to ring for her maid when she heard the door open behind her. it was grandcourt who came in. "you want some one to fasten them," he said, coming toward her. she did not answer, but simply stood still, leaving him to take out the ornaments and fasten them as he would. doubtless he had been used to fasten them on some one else. with a bitter sort of sarcasm against herself, gwendolen thought, "what a privilege this is, to have robbed another woman of!" "what makes you so cold?" said grandcourt, when he had fastened the last ear-ring. "pray put plenty of furs on. i hate to see a woman come into a room looking frozen. if you are to appear as a bride at all, appear decently." this marital speech was not exactly persuasive, but it touched the quick of gwendolen's pride and forced her to rally. the words of the bad dream crawled about the diamonds still, but only for her: to others they were brilliants that suited her perfectly, and grandcourt inwardly observed that she answered to the rein. "oh, yes, mamma, quite happy," gwendolen had said on her return to diplow. "not at all disappointed in ryelands. it is a much finer place than this--larger in every way. but don't you want some more money?" "did you not know that mr. grandcourt left me a letter on your wedding-day? i am to have eight hundred a year. he wishes me to keep offendene for the present, while you are at diplow. but if there were some pretty cottage near the park at ryelands we might live there without much expense, and i should have you most of the year, perhaps." "we must leave that to mr. grandcourt, mamma." "oh, certainly. it is exceedingly handsome of him to say that he will pay the rent for offendene till june. and we can go on very well--without any man-servant except crane, just for out-of-doors. our good merry will stay with us and help me to manage everything. it is natural that mr. grandcourt should wish me to live in a good style of house in your neighborhood, and i cannot decline. so he said nothing about it to you?" "no; he wished me to hear it from you, i suppose." gwendolen in fact had been very anxious to have some definite knowledge of what would be done for her mother, but at no moment since her marriage had she been able to overcome the difficulty of mentioning the subject to grandcourt. now, however, she had a sense of obligation which would not let her rest without saying to him, "it is very good of you to provide for mamma. you took a great deal on yourself in marrying a girl who had nothing but relations belonging to her." grandcourt was smoking, and only said carelessly, "of course i was not going to let her live like a gamekeeper's mother." "at least he is not mean about money," thought gwendolen, "and mamma is the better off for my marriage." she often pursued the comparison between what might have been, if she had not married grandcourt, and what actually was, trying to persuade herself that life generally was barren of satisfaction, and that if she had chosen differently she might now have been looking back with a regret as bitter as the feeling she was trying to argue away. her mother's dullness, which used to irritate her, she was at present inclined to explain as the ordinary result of woman's experience. true, she still saw that she would "manage differently from mamma;" but her management now only meant that she would carry her troubles with spirit, and let none suspect them. by and by she promised herself that she should get used to her heart-sores, and find excitements that would carry her through life, as a hard gallop carried her through some of the morning hours. there was gambling: she had heard stories at leubronn of fashionable women who gambled in all sorts of ways. it seemed very flat to her at this distance, but perhaps if she began to gamble again, the passion might awake. then there was the pleasure of producing an effect by her appearance in society: what did celebrated beauties do in town when their husbands could afford display? all men were fascinated by them: they had a perfect equipage and toilet, walked into public places, and bowed, and made the usual answers, and walked out again, perhaps they bought china, and practiced accomplishments. if she could only feel a keen appetite for those pleasures--could only believe in pleasure as she used to do! accomplishments had ceased to have the exciting quality of promising any pre-eminence to her; and as for fascinated gentlemen--adorers who might hover round her with languishment, and diversify married life with the romantic stir of mystery, passion, and danger, which her french reading had given her some girlish notion of--they presented themselves to her imagination with the fatal circumstance that, instead of fascinating her in return, they were clad in her own weariness and disgust. the admiring male, rashly adjusting the expression of his features and the turn of his conversation to her supposed tastes, had always been an absurd object to her, and at present seemed rather detestable. many courses are actually pursued--follies and sins both convenient and inconvenient--without pleasure or hope of pleasure; but to solace ourselves with imagining any course beforehand, there must be some foretaste of pleasure in the shape of appetite; and gwendolen's appetite had sickened. let her wander over the possibilities of her life as she would, an uncertain shadow dogged her. her confidence in herself and her destiny had turned into remorse and dread; she trusted neither herself nor her future. this hidden helplessness gave fresh force to the hold deronda had from the first taken on her mind, as one who had an unknown standard by which he judged her. had he some way of looking at things which might be a new footing for her--an inward safeguard against possible events which she dreaded as stored-up retribution? it is one of the secrets in that change of mental poise which has been fitly named conversion, that to many among us neither heaven nor earth has any revelation till some personality touches theirs with a peculiar influence, subduing them into receptiveness. it had been gwendolen's habit to think of the persons around her as stale books, too familiar to be interesting. deronda had lit up her attention with a sense of novelty: not by words only, but by imagined facts, his influence had entered into the current of that self-suspicion and self-blame which awakens a new consciousness. "i wish he could know everything about me without my telling him," was one of her thoughts, as she sat leaning over the end of a couch, supporting her head with her hand, and looking at herself in a mirror--not in admiration, but in a sad kind of companionship. "i wish he knew that i am not so contemptible as he thinks me; that i am in deep trouble, and want to be something better if i could." without the aid of sacred ceremony or costume, her feelings had turned this man, only a few years older than herself, into a priest; a sort of trust less rare than the fidelity that guards it. young reverence for one who is also young is the most coercive of all: there is the same level of temptation, and the higher motive is believed in as a fuller force--not suspected to be a mere residue from weary experience. but the coercion is often stronger on the one who takes the reverence. those who trust us educate us. and perhaps in that ideal consecration of gwendolen's, some education was being prepared for deronda. chapter xxxvi. "rien ne pese tant qu'un secret le porter loin est difficile aux dames: et je sçais mesme sur ce fait bon nombre d'hommes qui sont femmes." --la fontaine. meanwhile deronda had been fastened and led off by mr. vandernoodt, who wished for a brisker walk, a cigar, and a little gossip. since we cannot tell a man his own secrets, the restraint of being in his company often breeds a desire to pair off in conversation with some more ignorant person, and mr. vandernoodt presently said, "what a washed-out piece of cambric grandcourt is! but if he is a favorite of yours, i withdraw the remark." "not the least in the world," said deronda. "i thought not. one wonders how he came to have a great passion again; and he must have had--to marry in this way. though lush, his old chum, hints that he married this girl out of obstinacy. by george! it was a very accountable obstinacy. a man might make up his mind to marry her without the stimulus of contradiction. but he must have made himself a pretty large drain of money, eh?" "i know nothing of his affairs." "what! not of the other establishment he keeps up?" "diplow? of course. he took that of sir hugo. but merely for the year." "no, no; not diplow: gadsmere. sir hugo knows, i'll answer for it." deronda said nothing. he really began to feel some curiosity, but he foresaw that he should hear what mr. vandernoodt had to tell, without the condescension of asking. "lush would not altogether own to it, of course. he's a confident and go-between of grandcourt's. but i have it on the best authority. the fact is, there's another lady with four children at gadsmere. she has had the upper hand of him these ten years and more, and by what i can understand has it still--left her husband for him, and used to travel with him everywhere. her husband's dead now; i found a fellow who was in the same regiment with him, and knew this mrs. glasher before she took wing. a fiery dark-eyed woman--a noted beauty at that time--he thought she was dead. they say she has grandcourt under her thumb still, and it's a wonder he didn't marry her, for there's a very fine boy, and i understand grandcourt can do absolutely as he pleases with the estates. lush told me as much as that." "what right had he to marry this girl?" said deronda, with disgust. mr. vandernoodt, adjusting the end of his cigar, shrugged his shoulders and put out his lips. "_she_ can know nothing of it," said deronda, emphatically. but that positive statement was immediately followed by an inward query--"could she have known anything of it?" "it's rather a piquant picture," said mr. vandernoodt--"grandcourt between two fiery women. for depend upon it this light-haired one has plenty of devil in her. i formed that opinion of her at leubronn. it's a sort of medea and creüsa business. fancy the two meeting! grandcourt is a new kind of jason: i wonder what sort of a part he'll make of it. it's a dog's part at best. i think i hear ristori now, saying, 'jasone! jasone!' these fine women generally get hold of a stick." "grandcourt can bite, i fancy," said deronda. "he is no stick." "no, no; i meant jason. i can't quite make out grandcourt. but he's a keen fellow enough--uncommonly well built too. and if he comes into all this property, the estates will bear dividing. this girl, whose friends had come to beggary, i understand, may think herself lucky to get him. i don't want to be hard on a man because he gets involved in an affair of that sort. but he might make himself more agreeable. i was telling him a capital story last night, and he got up and walked away in the middle. i felt inclined to kick him. do you suppose that is inattention or insolence, now?" "oh, a mixture. he generally observes the forms: but he doesn't listen much," said deronda. then, after a moment's pause, he went on, "i should think there must be some exaggeration or inaccuracy in what you have heard about this lady at gadsmere." "not a bit, depend upon it; it has all lain snug of late years. people have forgotten all about it. but there the nest is, and the birds are in it. and i know grandcourt goes there. i have good evidence that he goes there. however, that's nobody's business but his own. the affair has sunk below the surface." "i wonder you could have learned so much about it," said deronda, rather drily. "oh, there are plenty of people who knew all about it; but such stories get packed away like old letters. they interest me. i like to know the manners of my time--contemporary gossip, not antediluvian. these dryasdust fellows get a reputation by raking up some small scandal about semiramis or nitocris, and then we have a thousand and one poems written upon it by all the warblers big and little. but i don't care a straw about the _faux pas_ of the mummies. you do, though. you are one of the historical men--more interested in a lady when she's got a rag face and skeleton toes peeping out. does that flatter your imagination?" "well, if she had any woes in her love, one has the satisfaction of knowing that she's well out of them." "ah, you are thinking of the medea, i see." deronda then chose to point to some giant oaks worth looking at in their bareness. he also felt an interest in this piece of contemporary gossip, but he was satisfied that mr. vandernoodt had no more to tell about it. since the early days when he tried to construct the hidden story of his own birth, his mind had perhaps never been so active in weaving probabilities about any private affair as it had now begun to be about gwendolen's marriage. this unavowed relation of grandcourt's--could she have gained some knowledge of it, which caused her to shrink from the match--a shrinking finally overcome by the urgence of poverty? he could recall almost every word she had said to him, and in certain of these words he seemed to discern that she was conscious of having done some wrong--inflicted some injury. his own acute experience made him alive to the form of injury which might affect the unavowed children and their mother. was mrs. grandcourt, under all her determined show of satisfaction, gnawed by a double, a treble-headed grief--self-reproach, disappointment, jealousy? he dwelt especially on all the slight signs of self-reproach: he was inclined to judge her tenderly, to excuse, to pity. he thought he had found a key now by which to interpret her more clearly: what magnifying of her misery might not a young creature get into who had wedded her fresh hopes to old secrets! he thought he saw clearly enough now why sir hugo had never dropped any hint of this affair to him; and immediately the image of this mrs. glasher became painfully associated with his own hidden birth. gwendolen knowing of that woman and her children, marrying grandcourt, and showing herself contented, would have been among the most repulsive of beings to him; but gwendolen tasting the bitterness of remorse for having contributed to their injury was brought very near to his fellow-feeling. if it were so, she had got to a common plane of understanding with him on some difficulties of life which a woman is rarely able to judge of with any justice or generosity; for, according to precedent, gwendolen's view of her position might easily have been no other than that her husband's marriage with her was his entrance on the path of virtue, while mrs. glasher represented his forsaken sin. and deronda had naturally some resentment on behalf of the hagars and ishmaels. undeniably deronda's growing solicitude about gwendolen depended chiefly on her peculiar manner toward him; and i suppose neither man nor woman would be the better for an utter insensibility to such appeals. one sign that his interest in her had changed its footing was that he dismissed any caution against her being a coquette setting snares to involve him in a vulgar flirtation, and determined that he would not again evade any opportunity of talking to her. he had shaken off mr. vandernoodt, and got into a solitary corner in the twilight; but half an hour was long enough to think of those possibilities in gwendolen's position and state of mind; and on forming the determination not to avoid her, he remembered that she was likely to be at tea with the other ladies in the drawing-room. the conjecture was true; for gwendolen, after resolving not to go down again for the next four hours, began to feel, at the end of one, that in shutting herself up she missed all chances of seeing and hearing, and that her visit would only last two days more. she adjusted herself, put on her little air of self-possession, and going down, made herself resolutely agreeable. only ladies were assembled, and lady pentreath was amusing them with a description of a drawing-room under the regency, and the figure that was cut by ladies and gentlemen in , the year she was presented--when deronda entered. "shall i be acceptable?" he said. "perhaps i had better go back and look for the others. i suppose they are in the billiard-room." "no, no; stay where you are," said lady pentreath. "they were all getting tired of me; let us hear what _you_ have to say." "that is rather an embarrassing appeal," said deronda, drawing up a chair near lady mallinger's elbow at the tea-table. "i think i had better take the opportunity of mentioning our songstress," he added, looking at lady mallinger--"unless you have done so." "oh, the little jewess!" said lady mallinger. "no, i have not mentioned her. it never entered my head that any one here wanted singing lessons." "all ladies know some one else who wants singing lessons," said deronda. "i have happened to find an exquisite singer,"--here he turned to lady pentreath. "she is living with some ladies who are friends of mine--the mother and sisters of a man who was my chum at cambridge. she was on the stage at vienna; but she wants to leave that life, and maintain herself by teaching." "there are swarms of those people, aren't there?" said the old lady. "are her lessons to be very cheap or very expensive? those are the two baits i know of." "there is another bait for those who hear her," said deronda. "her singing is something quite exceptional, i think. she has had such first-rate teaching--or rather first-rate instinct with her teaching--that you might imagine her singing all came by nature." "why did she leave the stage, then?" said lady pentreath. "i'm too old to believe in first-rate people giving up first-rate chances." "her voice was too weak. it is a delicious voice for a room. you who put up with my singing of schubert would be enchanted with hers," said deronda, looking at mrs. raymond. "and i imagine she would not object to sing at private parties or concerts. her voice is quite equal to that." "i am to have her in my drawing-room when we go up to town," said lady mallinger. "you shall hear her then. i have not heard her myself yet; but i trust daniel's recommendation. i mean my girls to have lessons of her." "is it a charitable affair?" said lady pentreath. "i can't bear charitable music." lady mallinger, who was rather helpless in conversation, and felt herself under an engagement not to tell anything of mirah's story, had an embarrassed smile on her face, and glanced at deronda. "it is a charity to those who want to have a good model of feminine singing," said deronda. "i think everybody who has ears would benefit by a little improvement on the ordinary style. if you heard miss lapidoth"--here he looked at gwendolen--"perhaps you would revoke your resolution to give up singing." "i should rather think my resolution would be confirmed," said gwendolen. "i don't feel able to follow your advice of enjoying my own middlingness." "for my part," said deronda, "people who do anything finely always inspirit me to try. i don't mean that they make me believe i can do it as well. but they make the thing, whatever it may be, seem worthy to be done. i can bear to think my own music not good for much, but the world would be more dismal if i thought music itself not good for much. excellence encourages one about life generally; it shows the spiritual wealth of the world." "but then, if we can't imitate it, it only makes our own life seem the tamer," said gwendolen, in a mood to resent encouragement founded on her own insignificance. "that depends on the point of view, i think," said deronda. "we should have a poor life of it if we were reduced for all our pleasure to our own performances. a little private imitation of what is good is a sort of private devotion to it, and most of us ought to practice art only in the light of private study--preparation to understand and enjoy what the few can do for us. i think miss lapidoth is one of the few." "she must be a very happy person, don't you think?" said gwendolen, with a touch of sarcasm, and a turn of her neck toward mrs. raymond. "i don't know," answered the independent lady; "i must hear more of her before i say that." "it may have been a bitter disappointment to her that her voice failed her for the stage," said juliet fenn, sympathetically. "i suppose she's past her best, though," said the deep voice of lady pentreath. "on the contrary, she has not reached it," said deronda. "she is barely twenty." "and very pretty," interposed lady mallinger, with an amiable wish to help deronda. "and she has very good manners. i'm sorry she's a bigoted jewess; i should not like it for anything else, but it doesn't matter in singing." "well, since her voice is too weak for her to scream much, i'll tell lady clementina to set her on my nine granddaughters," said lady pentreath; "and i hope she'll convince eight of them that they have not voice enough to sing anywhere but at church. my notion is, that many of our girls nowadays want lessons not to sing." "i have had my lessons in that," said gwendolen, looking at deronda. "you see lady pentreath is on my side." while she was speaking, sir hugo entered with some of the other gentlemen, including grandcourt, and standing against the group at the low tea-table said, "what imposition is deronda putting on you, ladies--slipping in among you by himself?" "wanting to pass off an obscurity on us as better than any celebrity," said lady pentreath--"a pretty singing jewess who is to astonish these young people. you and i, who heard catalani in her prime, are not so easily astonished." sir hugo listened with his good-humored smile as he took a cup of tea from his wife, and then said, "well, you know, a liberal is bound to think that there have been singers since catalani's time." "ah, you are younger than i am. i dare say you are one of the men who ran after alcharisi. but she married off and left you all in the lurch." "yes, yes; it's rather too bad when these great singers marry themselves into silence before they have a crack in their voices. and the husband is a public robber. i remember leroux saying, 'a man might as well take down a fine peal of church bells and carry them off to the steppes," said sir hugo, setting down his cup and turning away, while deronda, who had moved from his place to make room for others, and felt that he was not in request, sat down a little apart. presently he became aware that, in the general dispersion of the group, gwendolen had extricated herself from the attentions of mr. vandernoodt and had walked to the piano, where she stood apparently examining the music which lay on the desk. will any one be surprised at deronda's concluding that she wished him to join her? perhaps she wanted to make amends for the unpleasant tone of resistance with which she had met his recommendation of mirah, for he had noticed that her first impulse often was to say what she afterward wished to retract. he went to her side and said, "are you relenting about the music and looking for something to play or sing?" "i am not looking for anything, but i _am_ relenting," said gwendolen, speaking in a submissive tone. "may i know the reason?" "i should like to hear miss lapidoth and have lessons from her, since you admire her so much--that is, of course, when we go to town. i mean lessons in rejoicing at her excellence and my own deficiency," said gwendolen, turning on him a sweet, open smile. "i shall be really glad for you to see and hear her," said deronda, returning the smile in kind. "is she as perfect in every thing else as in her music?" "i can't vouch for that exactly. i have not seen enough of her. but i have seen nothing in her that i could wish to be different. she has had an unhappy life. her troubles began in early childhood, and she has grown up among very painful surroundings. but i think you will say that no advantages could have given her more grace and truer refinement." "i wonder what sort of trouble hers were?" "i have not any very precise knowledge. but i know that she was on the brink of drowning herself in despair." "and what hindered her?" said gwendolen, quickly, looking at deronda. "some ray or other came--which made her feel that she ought to live--that it was good to live," he answered, quietly. "she is full of piety, and seems capable of submitting to anything when it takes the form of duty." "those people are not to be pitied," said gwendolen, impatiently. "i have no sympathy with women who are always doing right. i don't believe in their great sufferings." her fingers moved quickly among the edges of the music. "it is true," said deronda, "that the consciousness of having done wrong is something deeper, more bitter. i suppose we faulty creatures can never feel so much for the irreproachable as for those who are bruised in the struggle with their own faults. it is a very ancient story, that of the lost sheep--but it comes up afresh every day." "that is a way of speaking--it is not acted upon, it is not real," said gwendolen, bitterly. "you admire miss lapidoth because you think her blameless, perfect. and you know you would despise a woman who had done something you thought very wrong." "that would depend entirely upon her own view of what she had done," said deronda. "you would be satisfied if she were very wretched, i suppose," said gwendolen, impetuously. "no, not satisfied--full of sorrow for her. it was not a mere way of speaking. i did not mean to say that the finer nature is not more adorable; i meant that those who would be comparatively uninteresting beforehand may become worthier of sympathy when they do something that awakens in them a keen remorse. lives are enlarged in different ways. i dare say some would never get their eyes opened if it were not for a violent shock from the consequences of their own actions. and when they are suffering in that way one must care for them more than for the comfortably self-satisfied." deronda forgot everything but his vision of what gwendolen's experience had probably been, and urged by compassion let his eyes and voice express as much interest as they would. gwendolen had slipped on to the music-stool, and looked up at him with pain in her long eyes, like a wounded animal asking for help. "are you persuading mrs. grandcourt to play to us, dan?" said sir hugo, coming up and putting his hand on deronda's shoulder with a gentle, admonitory pinch. "i cannot persuade myself," said gwendolen, rising. others had followed sir hugo's lead, and there was an end of any liability to confidences for that day. but the next was new year's eve; and a grand dance, to which the chief tenants were invited, was to be held in the picture-gallery above the cloister--the sort of entertainment in which numbers and general movement may create privacy. when gwendolen was dressing, she longed, in remembrance of leubronn, to put on the old turquoise necklace for her sole ornament; but she dared not offend her husband by appearing in that shabby way on an occasion when he would demand her utmost splendor. determined to wear the memorial necklace somehow, she wound it thrice round her wrist and made a bracelet of it--having gone to her room to put it on just before the time of entering the ball-room. it was always a beautiful scene, this dance on new year's eve, which had been kept up by the family tradition as nearly in the old fashion as inexorable change would allow. red carpet was laid down for the occasion: hot-house plants and evergreens were arranged in bowers at the extremities and in every recess of the gallery; and the old portraits stretching back through generations, even to the pre-portraying period, made a piquant line of spectators. some neighboring gentry, major and minor, were invited; and it was certainly an occasion when a prospective master and mistress of abbott's and king's topping might see their future glory in an agreeable light, as a picturesque provincial supremacy with a rent-roll personified by the most prosperous-looking tenants. sir hugo expected grandcourt to feel flattered by being asked to the abbey at a time which included this festival in honor of the family estate; but he also hoped that his own hale appearance might impress his successor with the probable length of time that would elapse before the succession came, and with the wisdom of preferring a good actual sum to a minor property that must be waited for. all present, down to the least important farmer's daughter, knew that they were to see "young grandcourt," sir hugo's nephew, the presumptive heir and future baronet, now visiting the abbey with his bride after an absence of many years; any coolness between uncle and nephew having, it is understood, given way to a friendly warmth. the bride opening the ball with sir hugo was necessarily the cynosure of all eyes; and less than a year before, if some magic mirror could have shown gwendolen her actual position, she would have imagined herself moving in it with a glow of triumphant pleasure, conscious that she held in her hands a life full of favorable chances which her cleverness and spirit would enable her to make the best of. and now she was wondering that she could get so little joy out of the exultation to which she had been suddenly lifted, away from the distasteful petty empire of her girlhood with its irksome lack of distinction and superfluity of sisters. she would have been glad to be even unreasonably elated, and to forget everything but the flattery of the moment; but she was like one courting sleep, in whom thoughts insist like willful tormentors. wondering in this way at her own dullness, and all the while longing for an excitement that would deaden importunate aches, she was passing through files of admiring beholders in the country-dance with which it was traditional to open the ball, and was being generally regarded by her own sex as an enviable woman. it was remarked that she carried herself with a wonderful air, considering that she had been nobody in particular, and without a farthing to her fortune. if she had been a duke's daughter, or one of the royal princesses, she could not have taken the honors of the evening more as a matter of course. poor gwendolen! it would by-and-by become a sort of skill in which she was automatically practiced to bear this last great gambling loss with an air of perfect self-possession. the next couple that passed were also worth looking at. lady pentreath had said, "i shall stand up for one dance, but i shall choose my partner. mr. deronda, you are the youngest man, i mean to dance with you. nobody is old enough to make a good pair with me. i must have a contrast." and the contrast certainly set off the old lady to the utmost. she was one of those women who are never handsome till they are old, and she had had the wisdom to embrace the beauty of age as early as possible. what might have seemed harshness in her features when she was young, had turned now into a satisfactory strength of form and expression which defied wrinkles, and was set off by a crown of white hair; her well-built figure was well covered with black drapery, her ears and neck comfortably caressed with lace, showing none of those withered spaces which one would think it a pitiable condition of poverty to expose. she glided along gracefully enough, her dark eyes still with a mischievous smile in them as she observed the company. her partner's young richness of tint against the flattened hues and rougher forms of her aged head had an effect something like that of a fine flower against a lichenous branch. perhaps the tenants hardly appreciated this pair. lady pentreath was nothing more than a straight, active old lady: mr. deronda was a familiar figure regarded with friendliness; but if he had been the heir, it would have been regretted that his face was not as unmistakably english as sir hugo's. grandcourt's appearance when he came up with lady mallinger was not impeached with foreignness: still the satisfaction in it was not complete. it would have been matter of congratulation if one who had the luck to inherit two old family estates had had more hair, a fresher color, and a look of greater animation; but that fine families dwindled off into females, and estates ran together into the single heirship of a mealy-complexioned male, was a tendency in things which seemed to be accounted for by a citation of other instances. it was agreed that mr. grandcourt could never be taken for anything but what he was--a born gentleman; and that, in fact, he looked like an heir. perhaps the person least complacently disposed toward him at that moment was lady mallinger, to whom going in procession up this country-dance with grandcourt was a blazonment of herself as the infelicitous wife who had produced nothing but daughters, little better than no children, poor dear things, except for her own fondness and for sir hugo's wonderful goodness to them. but such inward discomfort could not prevent the gentle lady from looking fair and stout to admiration, or her full blue eyes from glancing mildly at her neighbors. all the mothers and fathers held it a thousand pities that she had not had a fine boy, or even several--which might have been expected, to look at her when she was first married. the gallery included only three sides of the quadrangle, the fourth being shut off as a lobby or corridor: one side was used for dancing, and the opposite side for the supper-table, while the intermediate part was less brilliantly lit, and fitted with comfortable seats. later in the evening gwendolen was in one of these seats, and grandcourt was standing near her. they were not talking to each other: she was leaning backward in her chair, and he against the wall; and deronda, happening to observe this, went up to ask her if she had resolved not to dance any more. having himself been doing hard duty in this way among the guests, he thought he had earned the right to sink for a little while into the background, and he had spoken little to gwendolen since their conversation at the piano the day before. grandcourt's presence would only make it the easier to show that pleasure in talking to her even about trivialities which would be a sign of friendliness; and he fancied that her face looked blank. a smile beamed over it as she saw him coming, and she raised herself from her leaning posture. grandcourt had been grumbling at the _ennui_ of staying so long in this stupid dance, and proposing that they should vanish: she had resisted on the ground of politeness--not without being a little frightened at the probability that he was silently angry with her. she had her reason for staying, though she had begun to despair of the opportunity for the sake of which she had put the old necklace on her wrist. but now at last deronda had come. "yes; i shall not dance any more. are you not glad?" she said, with some gayety, "you might have felt obliged humbly to offer yourself as a partner, and i feel sure you have danced more than you like already." "i will not deny that," said deronda, "since you have danced as much as you like." "but will you take trouble for me in another way, and fetch me a glass of that fresh water?" it was but a few steps that deronda had to go for the water. gwendolen was wrapped in the lightest, softest of white woolen burnouses, under which her hands were hidden. while he was gone she had drawn off her glove, which was finished with a lace ruffle, and when she put up her hand to take the glass and lifted it to her mouth, the necklace-bracelet, which in its triple winding adapted itself clumsily to her wrist, was necessarily conspicuous. grandcourt saw it, and saw that it was attracting deronda's notice. "what is that hideous thing you have got on your wrist?" said the husband. "that?" said gwendolen, composedly, pointing to the turquoises, while she still held the glass; "it is an old necklace i like to wear. i lost it once, and someone found it for me." with that she gave the glass again to deronda, who immediately carried it away, and on returning said, in order to banish any consciousness about the necklace, "it is worth while for you to go and look out at one of the windows on that side. you can see the finest possible moonlight on the stone pillars and carving, and shadows waving across it in the wind." "i should like to see it. will you go?" said gwendolen, looking up at her husband. he cast his eyes down at her, and saying, "no, deronda will take you," slowly moved from his leaning attitude, and walked away. gwendolen's face for a moment showed a fleeting vexation: she resented this show of indifference toward her. deronda felt annoyed, chiefly for her sake; and with a quick sense, that it would relieve her most to behave as if nothing peculiar had occurred, he said, "will you take my arm and go, while only servants are there?" he thought that he understood well her action in drawing his attention to the necklace: she wished him to infer that she had submitted her mind to rebuke--her speech and manner had from the first fluctuated toward that submission--and that she felt no lingering resentment. her evident confidence in his interpretation of her appealed to him as a peculiar claim. when they were walking together, gwendolen felt as if the annoyance which had just happened had removed another film of reserve from between them, and she had more right than before to be as open as she wished. she did not speak, being filled with the sense of silent confidence, until they were in front of the window looking out on the moonlit court. a sort of bower had been made round the window, turning it into a recess. quitting his arm, she folded her hands in her burnous, and pressed her brow against the glass. he moved slightly away, and held the lapels of his coat with his thumbs under the collar as his manner was: he had a wonderful power of standing perfectly still, and in that position reminded one sometimes of dante's _spiriti magni con occhi tardi e gravi_. (doubtless some of these danced in their youth, doubted of their own vocation, and found their own times too modern.) he abstained from remarking on the scene before them, fearing that any indifferent words might jar on her: already the calm light and shadow, the ancient steadfast forms, and aloofness enough from those inward troubles which he felt sure were agitating her. and he judged aright: she would have been impatient of polite conversation. the incidents of the last minute or two had receded behind former thoughts which she had imagined herself uttering to deronda, which now urged themselves to her lips. in a subdued voice, she said, "suppose i had gambled again, and lost the necklace again, what should you have thought of me?" "worse than i do now." "then you are mistaken about me. you wanted me not to do that--not to make my gain out of another's loss in that way--and i have done a great deal worse." "i can't imagine temptations," said deronda. "perhaps i am able to understand what you mean. at least i understand self-reproach." in spite of preparation he was almost alarmed at gwendolen's precipitancy of confidence toward him, in contrast with her habitual resolute concealment. "what should you do if you were like me--feeling that you were wrong and miserable, and dreading everything to come?" it seemed that she was hurrying to make the utmost use of this opportunity to speak as she would. "that is not to be amended by doing one thing only--but many," said deronda, decisively. "what?" said gwendolen, hastily, moving her brow from the glass and looking at him. he looked full at her in return, with what she thought was severity. he felt that it was not a moment in which he must let himself be tender, and flinch from implying a hard opinion. "i mean there are many thoughts and habits that may help us to bear inevitable sorrow. multitudes have to bear it." she turned her brow to the window again, and said impatiently, "you must tell me then what to think and what to do; else why did you not let me go on doing as i liked and not minding? if i had gone on gambling i might have won again, and i might have got not to care for anything else. you would not let me do that. why shouldn't i do as i like, and not mind? other people do." poor gwendolen's speech expressed nothing very clearly except her irritation. "i don't believe you would ever get not to mind," said deronda, with deep-toned decision. "if it were true that baseness and cruelty made an escape from pain, what difference would that make to people who can't be quite base or cruel? idiots escape some pain; but you can't be an idiot. some may do wrong to another without remorse; but suppose one does feel remorse? i believe you could never lead an injurious life--all reckless lives are injurious, pestilential--without feeling remorse." deronda's unconscious fervor had gathered as he went on: he was uttering thoughts which he had used for himself in moments of painful meditation. "then tell me what better i can do," said gwendolen, insistently. "many things. look on other lives besides your own. see what their troubles are, and how they are borne. try to care about something in this vast world besides the gratification of small selfish desires. try to care for what is best in thought and action--something that is good apart from the accidents of your own lot." for an instant or two gwendolen was mute. then, again moving her brow from the glass, she said, "you mean that i am selfish and ignorant." he met her fixed look in silence before he answered firmly--"you will not go on being selfish and ignorant!" she did not turn away her glance or let her eyelids fall, but a change came over her face--that subtle change in nerve and muscle which will sometimes give a childlike expression even to the elderly: it is the subsidence of self-assertion. "shall i lead you back?" said deronda, gently, turning and offering her his arm again. she took it silently, and in that way they came in sight of grandcourt, who was walking slowly near their former place. gwendolen went up to him and said, "i am ready to go now. mr. deronda will excuse us to lady mallinger." "certainly," said deronda. "lord and lady pentreath disappeared some time ago." grandcourt gave his arm in silent compliance, nodding over his shoulder to deronda, and gwendolen too only half turned to bow and say, "thanks." the husband and wife left the gallery and paced the corridors in silence. when the door had closed on them in the boudoir, grandcourt threw himself into a chair and said, with undertoned peremptoriness, "sit down." she, already in the expectation of something unpleasant, had thrown off her burnous with nervous unconsciousness, and immediately obeyed. turning his eyes toward her, he began, "oblige me in future by not showing whims like a mad woman in a play." "what do you mean?" said gwendolen. "i suppose there is some understanding between you and deronda about that thing you have on your wrist. if you have anything to say to him, say it. but don't carry on a telegraphing which other people are supposed not to see. it's damnably vulgar." "you can know all about the necklace," said gwendolen, her angry pride resisting the nightmare of fear. "i don't want to know. keep to yourself whatever you like." grandcourt paused between each sentence, and in each his speech seemed to become more preternaturally distinct in its inward tones. "what i care to know i shall know without your telling me. only you will please to behave as becomes my wife. and not make a spectacle of yourself." "do you object to my talking to mr. deronda?" "i don't care two straws about deronda, or any other conceited hanger-on. you may talk to him as much as you like. he is not going to take my place. you are my wife. and you will either fill your place properly--to the world and to me--or you will go to the devil." "i never intended anything but to fill my place properly," said gwendolen, with bitterest mortification in her soul. "you put that thing on your wrist, and hid it from me till you wanted him to see it. only fools go into that deaf and dumb talk, and think they're secret. you will understand that you are not to compromise yourself. behave with dignity. that's all i have to say." with that last word grandcourt rose, turned his back to the fire and looked down on her. she was mute. there was no reproach that she dared to fling back at him in return for these insulting admonitions, and the very reason she felt them to be insulting was that their purport went with the most absolute dictate of her pride. what she would least like to incur was the making a fool of herself and being compromised. it was futile and irrelevant to try and explain that deronda too had only been a monitor--the strongest of all monitors. grandcourt was contemptuous, not jealous; contemptuously certain of all the subjection he cared for. why could she not rebel and defy him? she longed to do it. but she might as well have tried to defy the texture of her nerves and the palpitation of her heart. her husband had a ghostly army at his back, that could close round her wherever she might turn. she sat in her splendid attire, like a white image of helplessness, and he seemed to gratify himself with looking at her. she could not even make a passionate exclamation, or throw up her arms, as she would have done in her maiden days. the sense of his scorn kept her still. "shall i ring?" he said, after what seemed to her a long while. she moved her head in assent, and after ringing he went to his dressing-room. certain words were gnawing within her. "the wrong you have done me will be your own curse." as he closed the door, the bitter tears rose, and the gnawing words provoked an answer: "why did you put your fangs into me and not into him?" it was uttered in a whisper, as the tears came up silently. but she immediately pressed her handkerchief against her eyes, and checked her tendency to sob. the next day, recovered from the shuddering fit of this evening scene, she determined to use the charter which grandcourt had scornfully given her, and to talk as much as she liked with deronda; but no opportunities occurred, and any little devices she could imagine for creating them were rejected by her pride, which was now doubly active. not toward deronda himself--she was singularly free from alarm lest he should think her openness wanting in dignity: it was part of his power over her that she believed him free from all misunderstanding as to the way in which she appealed to him; or rather, that he should misunderstand her had never entered into her mind. but the last morning came, and still she had never been able to take up the dropped thread of their talk, and she was without devices. she and grandcourt were to leave at three o'clock. it was too irritating that after a walk in the grounds had been planned in deronda's hearing, he did not present himself to join in it. grandcourt was gone with sir hugo to king's topping, to see the old manor-house; others of the gentlemen were shooting; she was condemned to go and see the decoy and the waterfowl, and everything else that she least wanted to see, with the ladies, with old lord pentreath and his anecdotes, with mr. vandernoodt and his admiring manners. the irritation became too strong for her; without premeditation, she took advantage of the winding road to linger a little out of sight, and then set off back to the house, almost running when she was safe from observation. she entered by a side door, and the library was on her left hand; deronda, she knew, was often there; why might she not turn in there as well as into any other room in the house? she had been taken there expressly to see the illuminated family tree, and other remarkable things--what more natural than that she should like to look in again? the thing most to be feared was that the room would be empty of deronda, for the door was ajar. she pushed it gently, and looked round it. he was there, writing busily at a distant table, with his back toward the door (in fact, sir hugo had asked him to answer some constituents' letters which had become pressing). an enormous log fire, with the scent of russia from the books, made the great room as warmly odorous as a private chapel in which the censors have been swinging. it seemed too daring to go in--too rude to speak and interrupt him; yet she went in on the noiseless carpet, and stood still for two or three minutes, till deronda, having finished a letter, pushed it aside for signature, and threw himself back to consider whether there were anything else for him to do, or whether he could walk out for the chance of meeting the party which included gwendolen, when he heard her voice saying, "mr. deronda." it was certainly startling. he rose hastily, turned round, and pushed away his chair with a strong expression of surprise. "am i wrong to come in?" said gwendolen. "i thought you were far on your walk," said deronda. "i turned back," said gwendolen. "do you intend to go out again? i could join you now, if you would allow me." "no; i want to say something, and i can't stay long," said gwendolen, speaking quickly in a subdued tone, while she walked forward and rested her arms and muff on the back of the chair he had pushed away from him. "i want to tell you that it is really so--i can't help feeling remorse for having injured others. that was what i meant when i said that i had done worse than gamble again and pawn the necklace again--something more injurious, as you called it. and i can't alter it. i am punished, but i can't alter it. you said i could do many things. tell me again. what should you do--what should you feel if you were in my place?" the hurried directness with which she spoke--the absence of all her little airs, as if she were only concerned to use the time in getting an answer that would guide her, made her appeal unspeakably touching. deronda said, "i should feel something of what you feel--deep sorrow." "but what would you try to do?" said gwendolen, with urgent quickness. "order my life so as to make any possible amends, and keep away from doing any sort of injury again," said deronda, catching her sense that the time for speech was brief. "but i can't--i can't; i must go on," said gwendolen, in a passionate loud whisper. "i have thrust out others--i have made my gain out of their loss--tried to make it--tried. and i must go on. i can't alter it." it was impossible to answer this instantaneously. her words had confirmed his conjecture, and the situation of all concerned rose in swift images before him. his feeling for those who had been thrust out sanctioned her remorse; he could not try to nullify it, yet his heart was full of pity for her. but as soon as he could he answered--taking up her last words, "that is the bitterest of all--to wear the yoke of our own wrong-doing. but if you submitted to that as men submit to maiming or life-long incurable disease?--and made the unalterable wrong a reason for more effort toward a good, that may do something to counterbalance the evil? one who has committed irremediable errors may be scourged by that consciousness into a higher course than is common. there are many examples. feeling what it is to have spoiled one life may well make us long to save other lives from being spoiled." "but you have not wronged any one, or spoiled their lives," said gwendolen, hastily. "it is only others who have wronged _you_." deronda colored slightly, but said immediately--"i suppose our keen feeling for ourselves might end in giving us a keen feeling for others, if, when we are suffering acutely, we were to consider that others go through the same sharp experience. that is a sort of remorse before commission. can't you understand that?" "i think i do--now," said gwendolen. "but you were right--i _am_ selfish. i have never thought much of any one's feelings, except my mother's. i have not been fond of people. but what can i do?" she went on, more quickly. "i must get up in the morning and do what every one else does. it is all like a dance set beforehand. i seem to see all that can be--and i am tired and sick of it. and the world is all confusion to me"--she made a gesture of disgust. "you say i am ignorant. but what is the good of trying to know more, unless life were worth more?" "this good," said deronda promptly, with a touch of indignant severity, which he was inclined to encourage as his own safeguard; "life _would_ be worth more to you: some real knowledge would give you an interest in the world beyond the small drama of personal desires. it is the curse of your life--forgive me--of so many lives, that all passion is spent in that narrow round, for want of ideas and sympathies to make a larger home for it. is there any single occupation of mind that you care about with passionate delight or even independent interest?" deronda paused, but gwendolen, looking startled and thrilled as by an electric shock, said nothing, and he went on more insistently, "i take what you said of music for a small example--it answers for all larger things--you will not cultivate it for the sake of a private joy in it. what sort of earth or heaven would hold any spiritual wealth in it for souls pauperized by inaction? if one firmament has no stimulus for our attention and awe, i don't see how four would have it. we should stamp every possible world with the flatness of our own inanity--which is necessarily impious, without faith or fellowship. the refuge you are needing from personal trouble is the higher, the religious life, which holds an enthusiasm for something more than our own appetites and vanities. the few may find themselves in it simply by an elevation of feeling; but for us who have to struggle for our wisdom, the higher life must be a region in which the affections are clad with knowledge." the half-indignant remonstrance that vibrated in deronda's voice came, as often happens, from the habit of inward argument with himself rather than from severity toward gwendolen: but it had a more beneficial effect on her than any soothings. nothing is feebler than the indolent rebellion of complaint; and to be roused into self-judgment is comparative activity. for the moment she felt like a shaken child--shaken out of its wailing into awe, and she said humbly, "i will try. i will think." they both stood silent for a minute, as if some third presence had arrested them,--for deronda, too, was under that sense of pressure which is apt to come when our own winged words seem to be hovering around us,--till gwendolen began again, "you said affection was the best thing, and i have hardly any--none about me. if i could, i would have mamma; but that is impossible. things have changed to me so--in such a short time. what i used not to like i long for now. i think i am almost getting fond of the old things now they are gone." her lip trembled. "take the present suffering as a painful letting in of light," said deronda, more gently. "you are conscious of more beyond the round of your own inclinations--you know more of the way in which your life presses on others, and their life on yours. i don't think you could have escaped the painful process in some form or other." "but it is a very cruel form," said gwendolen, beating her foot on the ground with returning agitation. "i am frightened at everything. i am frightened at myself. when my blood is fired i can do daring things--take any leap; but that makes me frightened at myself." she was looking at nothing outside her; but her eyes were directed toward the window, away from deronda, who, with quick comprehension said, "turn your fear into a safeguard. keep your dread fixed on the idea of increasing that remorse which is so bitter to you. fixed meditation may do a great deal toward defining our longing or dread. we are not always in a state of strong emotion, and when we are calm we can use our memories and gradually change the bias of our fear, as we do our tastes. take your fear as a safeguard. it is like quickness of hearing. it may make consequences passionately present to you. try to take hold of your sensibility, and use it as if it were a faculty, like vision." deronda uttered each sentence more urgently; he felt as if he were seizing a faint chance of rescuing her from some indefinite danger. "yes, i know; i understand what you mean," said gwendolen in her loud whisper, not turning her eyes, but lifting up her small gloved hand and waving it in deprecation of the notion that it was easy to obey that advice. "but if feelings rose--there are some feelings--hatred and anger--how can i be good when they keep rising? and if there came a moment when i felt stifled and could bear it no longer----" she broke off, and with agitated lips looked at deronda, but the expression on his face pierced her with an entirely new feeling. he was under the baffling difficulty of discerning that what he had been urging on her was thrown into the pallid distance of mere thought before the outburst of her habitual emotion. it was as if he saw her drowning while his limbs were bound. the pained compassion which was spread over his features as he watched her, affected her with a compunction unlike any she had felt before, and in a changed and imploring tone she said, "i am grieving you. i am ungrateful. you _can_ help me. i will think of everything. i will try. tell me--it will not be a pain to you that i have dared to speak of my trouble to you? you began it, you know, when you rebuked me." there was a melancholy smile on her lips as she said that, but she added more entreatingly, "it will not be a pain to you?" "not if it does anything to save you from an evil to come," said deronda, with strong emphasis; "otherwise, it will be a lasting pain." "no--no--it shall not be. it may be--it shall be better with me because i have known you." she turned immediately, and quitted the room. when she was on the first landing of the staircase, sir hugo passed across the hall on his way to the library, and saw her. grandcourt was not with him. deronda, when the baronet entered, was standing in his ordinary attitude, grasping his coat-collar, with his back to the table, and with that indefinable expression by which we judge that a man is still in the shadow of a scene which he has just gone through. he moved, however, and began to arrange the letters. "has mrs. grandcourt been in here?" said sir hugo. "yes, she has." "where are the others?" "i believe she left them somewhere in the grounds." after a moment's silence, in which sir hugo looked at a letter without reading it, he said "i hope you are not playing with fire, dan--you understand me?" "i believe i do, sir," said deronda, after a slight hesitation, which had some repressed anger in it. "but there is nothing answering to your metaphor--no fire, and therefore no chance of scorching." sir hugo looked searchingly at him, and then said, "so much the better. for, between ourselves, i fancy there may be some hidden gunpowder in that establishment." chapter xxxvii. _aspern._ pardon, my lord--i speak for sigismund. _fronsberg._ for him? oh, ay--for him i always hold a pardon safe in bank, sure he will draw sooner or later on me. what his need? mad project broken? fine mechanic wings that would not fly? durance, assault on watch, bill for epernay, not a crust to eat? _aspern._ oh, none of these, my lord; he has escaped from circe's herd, and seeks to win the love of your fair ward cecilia: but would win first your consent. you frown. _fronsberg._ distinguish words. i said i held a pardon, not consent. in spite of deronda's reasons for wishing to be in town again--reasons in which his anxiety for mirah was blent with curiosity to know more of the enigmatic mordecai--he did not manage to go up before sir hugo, who preceded his family that he might be ready for the opening of parliament on the sixth of february. deronda took up his quarters in park lane, aware that his chambers were sufficiently tenanted by hans meyrick. this was what he expected; but he found other things not altogether according to his expectations. most of us remember retzsch's drawing of destiny in the shape of mephistopheles playing at chess with man for his soul, a game in which we may imagine the clever adversary making a feint of unintended moves so as to set the beguiled mortal on carrying his defensive pieces away from the true point of attack. the fiend makes preparation his favorite object of mockery, that he may fatally persuade us against our taking out waterproofs when he is well aware the sky is going to clear, foreseeing that the imbecile will turn this delusion into a prejudice against waterproofs instead of giving a closer study to the weather-signs. it is a peculiar test of a man's mettle when, after he has painfully adjusted himself to what seems a wise provision, he finds all his mental precaution a little beside the mark, and his excellent intentions no better than miscalculated dovetails, accurately cut from a wrong starting-point. his magnanimity has got itself ready to meet misbehavior, and finds quite a different call upon it. something of this kind happened to deronda. his first impression was one of pure pleasure and amusement at finding his sitting-room transformed into an _atelier_ strewed with miscellaneous drawings and with the contents of two chests from rome, the lower half of the windows darkened with baize, and the blonde hans in his weird youth as the presiding genius of the littered place--his hair longer than of old, his face more whimsically creased, and his high voice as usual getting higher under the excitement of rapid talk. the friendship of the two had been kept up warmly since the memorable cambridge time, not only by correspondence but by little episodes of companionship abroad and in england, and the original relation of confidence on one side and indulgence on the other had been developed in practice, as is wont to be the case where such spiritual borrowing and lending has been well begun. "i knew you would like to see my casts and antiquities," said hans, after the first hearty greetings and inquiries, "so i didn't scruple to unlade my chests here. but i've found two rooms at chelsea not many hundred yards from my mother and sisters, and i shall soon be ready to hang out there--when they've scraped the walls and put in some new lights. that's all i'm waiting for. but you see i don't wait to begin work: you can't conceive what a great fellow i'm going to be. the seed of immortality has sprouted within me." "only a fungoid growth, i dare say--a growing disease in the lungs," said deronda, accustomed to treat hans in brotherly fashion. he was walking toward some drawings propped on the ledge of his bookcases; five rapidly-sketched heads--different aspects of the same face. he stood at a convenient distance from them, without making any remark. hans, too, was silent for a minute, took up his palette and began touching the picture on his easel. "what do you think of them?" he said at last. "the full face looks too massive; otherwise the likenesses are good," said deronda, more coldly than was usual with him. "no, it is not too massive," said hans, decisively. "i have noted that. there is always a little surprise when one passes from the profile to the full face. but i shall enlarge her scale for berenice. i am making a berenice series--look at the sketches along there--and now i think of it, you are just the model i want for the agrippa." hans, still with pencil and palette in hand, had moved to deronda's side while he said this, but he added hastily, as if conscious of a mistake, "no, no, i forgot; you don't like sitting for your portrait, confound you! however, i've picked up a capital titus. there are to be five in the series. the first is berenice clasping the knees of gessius florus and beseeching him to spare her people; i've got that on the easel. then, this, where she is standing on the xystus with agrippa, entreating the people not to injure themselves by resistance." "agrippa's legs will never do," said deronda. "the legs are good realistically," said hans, his face creasing drolly; "public men are often shaky about the legs--' their legs, the emblem of their various thought,' as somebody says in the _rehearsal._" "but these are as impossible as the legs of raphael's alcibiades," said deronda. "then they are good ideally," said hans. "agrippa's legs were possibly bad; i idealize that and make them impossibly bad. art, my eugenius, must intensify. but never mind the legs now: the third sketch in the series is berenice exulting in the prospects of being empress of rome, when the news has come that vespasian is declared emperor and her lover titus his successor." "you must put a scroll in her mouth, else people will not understand that. you can't tell that in a picture." "it will make them feel their ignorance then--an excellent æsthetic effect. the fourth is, titus sending berenice away from rome after she has shared his palace for ten years--both reluctant, both sad--_invitus invitam_, as suetonius hath it. i've found a model for the roman brute." "shall you make berenice look fifty? she must have been that." "no, no; a few mature touches to show the lapse of time. dark-eyed beauty wears well, hers particularly. but now, here is the fifth: berenice seated lonely on the ruins of jerusalem. that is pure imagination. that is what ought to have been--perhaps was. now, see how i tell a pathetic negative. nobody knows what became of her--that is finely indicated by the series coming to a close. there is no sixth picture." here hans pretended to speak with a gasping sense of sublimity, and drew back his head with a frown, as if looking for a like impression on deronda. "i break off in the homeric style. the story is chipped off, so to speak, and passes with a ragged edge into nothing--_le néant_; can anything be more sublime, especially in french? the vulgar would desire to see her corpse and burial--perhaps her will read and her linen distributed. but now come and look at this on the easel. i have made some way there." "that beseeching attitude is really good," said deronda, after a moment's contemplation. "you have been very industrious in the christmas holidays; for i suppose you have taken up the subject since you came to london." neither of them had yet mentioned mirah. "no," said hans, putting touches to his picture, "i made up my mind to the subject before. i take that lucky chance for an augury that i am going to burst on the world as a great painter. i saw a splendid woman in the trastevere--the grandest women there are half jewesses--and she set me hunting for a fine situation of a jewess at rome. like other men of vast learning, i ended by taking what lay on the surface. i'll show you a sketch of the trasteverina's head when i can lay my hands on it." "i should think she would be a more suitable model for berenice," said deronda, not knowing exactly how to express his discontent. "not a bit of it. the model ought to be the most beautiful jewess in the world, and i have found her." "have you made yourself sure that she would like to figure in that character? i should think no woman would be more abhorrent to her. does she quite know what you are doing?" "certainly. i got her to throw herself precisely into this attitude. little mother sat for gessius florus, and mirah clasped her knees." here hans went a little way off and looked at the effect of his touches. "i dare say she knows nothing about berenice's history," said deronda, feeling more indignation than he would have been able to justify. "oh, yes, she does--ladies' edition. berenice was a fervid patriot, but was beguiled by love and ambition into attaching herself to the arch-enemy of her people. whence the nemesis. mirah takes it as a tragic parable, and cries to think what the penitent berenice suffered as she wandered back to jerusalem and sat desolate amidst desolation. that was her own phrase. i couldn't find it in my heart to tell her i invented that part of the story." "show me your trasteverina," said deronda, chiefly in order to hinder himself from saying something else. "shall you mind turning over that folio?" said hans. "my studies of heads are all there. but they are in confusion. you will perhaps find her next to a crop-eared undergraduate." after deronda had been turning over the drawings a minute or two, he said, "these seem to be all cambridge heads and bits of country. perhaps i had better begin at the other end." "no; you'll find her about the middle. i emptied one folio into another." "is this one of your undergraduates?" said deronda, holding up a drawing. "it's an unusually agreeable face." "that! oh, that's a man named gascoigne--rex gascoigne. an uncommonly good fellow; his upper lip, too, is good. i coached him before he got his scholarship. he ought to have taken honors last easter. but he was ill, and has had to stay up another year. i must look him up. i want to know how he's going on." "here she is, i suppose," said deronda, holding up a sketch of the trasteverina. "ah," said hans, looking at it rather contemptuously, "too coarse. i was unregenerate then." deronda was silent while he closed the folio, leaving the trasteverina outside. then clasping his coat-collar, and turning toward hans, he said, "i dare say my scruples are excessive, meyrick, but i must ask you to oblige me by giving up this notion." hans threw himself into a tragic attitude, and screamed, "what! my series--my immortal berenice series? think of what you are saying, man--destroying, as milton says, not a life but an immortality. wait before you answer, that i may deposit the implements of my art and be ready to uproot my hair." here hans laid down his pencil and palette, threw himself backward into a great chair, and hanging limply over the side, shook his long hair over his face, lifted his hooked fingers on each side his head, and looked up with comic terror at deronda, who was obliged to smile, as he said, "paint as many berenices as you like, but i wish you could feel with me--perhaps you will, on reflection--that you should choose another model." "why?" said hans, standing up, and looking serious again. "because she may get into such a position that her face is likely to be recognized. mrs. meyrick and i are anxious for her that she should be known as an admirable singer. it is right, and she wishes it, that she should make herself independent. and she has excellent chances. one good introduction is secured already, and i am going to speak to klesmer. her face may come to be very well known, and--well, it is useless to attempt to explain, unless you feel as i do. i believe that if mirah saw the circumstances clearly, she would strongly object to being exhibited in this way--to allowing herself to be used as a model for a heroine of this sort." as hans stood with his thumbs in the belt of his blouse, listening to this speech, his face showed a growing surprise melting into amusement, that at last would have its way in an explosive laugh: but seeing that deronda looked gravely offended, he checked himself to say, "excuse my laughing, deronda. you never gave me an advantage over you before. if it had been about anything but my own pictures, i should have swallowed every word because you said it. and so you actually believe that i should get my five pictures hung on the line in a conspicuous position, and carefully studied by the public? zounds, man! cider-cup and conceit never gave me half such a beautiful dream. my pictures are likely to remain as private as the utmost hypersensitiveness could desire." hans turned to paint again as a way of filling up awkward pauses. deronda stood perfectly still, recognizing his mistake as to publicity, but also conscious that his repugnance was not much diminished. he was the reverse of satisfied either with himself or with hans; but the power of being quiet carries a man well through moments of embarrassment. hans had a reverence for his friend which made him feel a sort of shyness at deronda's being in the wrong; but it was not in his nature to give up anything readily, though it were only a whim--or rather, especially if it were a whim, and he presently went on, painting the while, "but even supposing i had a public rushing after my pictures as if they were a railway series including nurses, babies and bonnet-boxes, i can't see any justice in your objection. every painter worth remembering has painted the face he admired most, as often as he could. it is a part of his soul that goes out into his pictures. he diffuses its influence in that way. he puts what he hates into a caricature. he puts what he adores into some sacred, heroic form. if a man could paint the woman he loves a thousand times as the _stella maris_ to put courage into the sailors on board a thousand ships, so much the more honor to her. isn't that better than painting a piece of staring immodesty and calling it by a worshipful name?" "every objection can be answered if you take broad ground enough, hans: no special question of conduct can be properly settled in that way," said deronda, with a touch of peremptoriness. "i might admit all your generalities, and yet be right in saying you ought not to publish mirah's face as a model for berenice. but i give up the question of publicity. i was unreasonable there." deronda hesitated a moment. "still, even as a private affair, there might be good reasons for your not indulging yourself too much in painting her from the point of view you mention. you must feel that her situation at present is a very delicate one; and until she is in more independence, she should be kept as carefully as a bit of venetian glass, for fear of shaking her out of the safe place she is lodged in. are you quite sure of your own discretion? excuse me, hans. my having found her binds me to watch over her. do you understand me?" "perfectly," said hans, turning his face into a good-humored smile. "you have the very justifiable opinion of me that i am likely to shatter all the glass in my way, and break my own skull into the bargain. quite fair. since i got into the scrape of being born, everything i have liked best has been a scrape either for myself or somebody else. everything i have taken to heartily has somehow turned into a scrape. my painting is the last scrape; and i shall be all my life getting out of it. you think now i shall get into a scrape at home. no; i am regenerate. you think i must be over head and ears in love with mirah. quite right; so i am. but you think i shall scream and plunge and spoil everything. there you are mistaken--excusably, but transcendently mistaken. i have undergone baptism by immersion. awe takes care of me. ask the little mother." "you don't reckon a hopeless love among your scrapes, then," said deronda, whose voice seemed to get deeper as hans's went higher. "i don't mean to call mine hopeless," said hans, with provoking coolness, laying down his tools, thrusting his thumbs into his belt, and moving away a little, as if to contemplate his picture more deliberately. "my dear fellow, you are only preparing misery for yourself," said deronda, decisively. "she would not marry a christian, even if she loved him. have you heard her--of course you have--heard her speak of her people and her religion?" "that can't last," said hans. "she will see no jew who is tolerable. every male of that race is insupportable--'insupportably advancing'--his nose." "she may rejoin her family. that is what she longs for. her mother and brother are probably strict jews." "i'll turn proselyte, if she wishes it," said hans, with a shrug and a laugh. "don't talk nonsense, hans. i thought you professed a serious love for her," said deronda, getting heated. "so i do. you think it desperate, but i don't." "i know nothing; i can't tell what has happened. we must be prepared for surprises. but i can hardly imagine a greater surprise to me than that there should have seemed to be anything in mirah's sentiments for you to found a romantic hope on." deronda felt that he was too contemptuous. "i don't found my romantic hopes on a woman's sentiments," said hans, perversely inclined to be the merrier when he was addressed with gravity. "i go to science and philosophy for my romance. nature designed mirah to fall in love with me. the amalgamation of races demands it--the mitigation of human ugliness demands it--the affinity of contrasts assures it. i am the utmost contrast to mirah--a bleached christian, who can't sing two notes in tune. who has a chance against me?" "i see now; it was all _persiflage_. you don't mean a word you say, meyrick," said deronda, laying his hand on meyrick's shoulder, and speaking in a tone of cordial relief. "i was a wiseacre to answer you seriously." "upon my honor i do mean it, though," said hans, facing round and laying his left hand on deronda's shoulder, so that their eyes fronted each other closely. "i am at the confessional. i meant to tell you as soon as you came. my mother says you are mirah's guardian, and she thinks herself responsible to you for every breath that falls on mirah in her house. well, i love her--i worship her--i won't despair--i mean to deserve her." "my dear fellow, you can't do it," said deronda, quickly. "i should have said, i mean to try." "you can't keep your resolve, hans. you used to resolve what you would do for your mother and sisters." "you have a right to reproach me, old fellow," said hans, gently. "perhaps i am ungenerous," said deronda, not apologetically, however. "yet it can't be ungenerous to warn you that you are indulging mad, quixotic expectations." "who will be hurt but myself, then?" said hans, putting out his lip. "i am not going to say anything to her unless i felt sure of the answer. i dare not ask the oracles: i prefer a cheerful caliginosity, as sir thomas browne might say. i would rather run my chance there and lose, than be sure of winning anywhere else. and i don't mean to swallow the poison of despair, though you are disposed to thrust it on me. i am giving up wine, so let me get a little drunk on hope and vanity." "with all my heart, if it will do you any good," said deronda, loosing hans's shoulder, with a little push. he made his tone kindly, but his words were from the lip only. as to his real feeling he was silenced. he was conscious of that peculiar irritation which will sometimes befall the man whom others are inclined to trust as a mentor--the irritation of perceiving that he is supposed to be entirely off the same plane of desire and temptation as those who confess to him. our guides, we pretend, must be sinless: as if those were not often the best teachers who only yesterday got corrected for their mistakes. throughout their friendship deronda had been used to hans's egotism, but he had never before felt intolerant of it: when hans, habitually pouring out his own feelings and affairs, had never cared for any detail in return, and, if he chanced to know any, had soon forgotten it. deronda had been inwardly as well as outwardly indulgent--nay, satisfied. but now he had noted with some indignation, all the stronger because it must not be betrayed, hans's evident assumption that for any danger of rivalry or jealousy in relation to mirah, deronda was not as much out of the question as the angel gabriel. it is one thing to be resolute in placing one's self out of the question, and another to endure that others should perform that exclusion for us. he had expected that hans would give him trouble: what he had not expected was that the trouble would have a strong element of personal feeling. and he was rather ashamed that hans's hopes caused him uneasiness in spite of his well-warranted conviction that they would never be fulfilled. they had raised an image of mirah changing; and however he might protest that the change would not happen, the protest kept up the unpleasant image. altogether poor hans seemed to be entering into deronda's experience in a disproportionate manner--going beyond his part of rescued prodigal, and rousing a feeling quite distinct from compassionate affection. when deronda went to chelsea he was not made as comfortable as he ought to have been by mrs. meyrick's evident release from anxiety about the beloved but incalculable son. mirah seemed livelier than before, and for the first time he saw her laugh. it was when they were talking of hans, he being naturally the mother's first topic. mirah wished to know if deronda had seen mr. hans going through a sort of character piece without changing his dress. "he passes from one figure to another as if he were a bit of flame where you fancied the figures without seeing them," said mirah, full of her subject; "he is so wonderfully quick. i used never to like comic things on the stage--they were dwelt on too long; but all in one minute mr. hans makes himself a blind bard, and then rienzi addressing the romans, and then an opera-dancer, and then a desponding young gentleman--i am sorry for them all, and yet i laugh, all in one"--here mirah gave a little laugh that might have entered into a song. "we hardly thought that mirah could laugh till hans came," said mrs. meyrick, seeing that deronda, like herself, was observing the pretty picture. "hans seems in great force just now," said deronda in a tone of congratulation. "i don't wonder at his enlivening you." "he's been just perfect ever since he came back," said mrs. meyrick, keeping to herself the next clause--"if it will but last." "it is a great happiness," said mirah, "to see the son and brother come into this dear home. and i hear them all talk about what they did together when they were little. that seems like heaven, and to have a mother and brother who talk in that way. i have never had it." "nor i," said deronda, involuntarily. "no?" said mirah, regretfully. "i wish you had. i wish you had had every good." the last words were uttered with a serious ardor as if they had been part of a litany, while her eyes were fixed on deronda, who with his elbow on the back of his chair was contemplating her by the new light of the impression she had made on hans, and the possibility of her being attracted by that extraordinary contrast. it was no more than what had happened on each former visit of his, that mirah appeared to enjoy speaking of what she felt very much as a little girl fresh from school pours forth spontaneously all the long-repressed chat for which she has found willing ears. for the first time in her life mirah was among those whom she entirely trusted, and her original visionary impression that deronda was a divinely-sent messenger hung about his image still, stirring always anew the disposition to reliance and openness. it was in this way she took what might have been the injurious flattery of admiring attention into which her helpless dependence had been suddenly transformed. every one around her watched for her looks and words, and the effect on her was simply that of having passed from a trifling imprisonment into an exhilarating air which made speech and action a delight. to her mind it was all a gift from others' goodness. but that word of deronda's implying that there had been some lack in his life which might be compared with anything she had known in hers, was an entirely new inlet of thought about him. after her first expression of sorrowful surprise she went on, "but mr. hans said yesterday that you thought so much of others you hardly wanted anything for yourself. he told us a wonderful story of buddha giving himself to the famished tigress to save her and her little ones from starving. and he said you were like buddha. that is what we all imagine of you." "pray don't imagine that," said deronda, who had lately been finding such suppositions rather exasperating. "even if it were true that i thought so much of others, it would not follow that i had no wants for myself. when buddha let the tigress eat him he might have been very hungry himself." "perhaps if he was starved he would not mind so much about being eaten," said mab, shyly. "please don't think that, mab; it takes away the beauty of the action," said mirah. "but if it were true, mirah?" said the rational amy, having a half-holiday from her teaching; "you always take what is beautiful as if it were true." "so it is," said mirah, gently. "if people have thought what is the most beautiful and the best thing, it must be true. it is always there." "now, mirah, what do you mean?" said amy. "i understand her," said deronda, coming to the rescue. "it is a truth in thought though it may never have been carried out in action. it lives as an idea. is that it?" he turned to mirah, who was listening with a blind look in her lovely eyes. "it must be that, because you understand me, but i cannot quite explain," said mirah, rather abstractedly--still searching for some expression. "but _was_ it beautiful for buddha to let the tiger eat him?" said amy, changing her ground. "it would be a bad pattern." "the world would get full of fat tigers," said mab. deronda laughed, but defended the myth. "it is like a passionate word," he said; "the exaggeration is a flash of fervor. it is an extreme image of what is happening every day--the transmutation of self." "i think i can say what i mean, now," said mirah, who had not heard the intermediate talk. "when the best thing comes into our thoughts, it is like what my mother has been to me. she has been just as really with me as all the other people about me--often more really with me." deronda, inwardly wincing under this illustration, which brought other possible realities about that mother vividly before him, presently turned the conversation by saying, "but we must not get too far away from practical matters. i came, for one thing, to tell of an interview i had yesterday, which i hope mirah will find to have been useful to her. it was with klesmer, the great pianist." "ah?" said mrs. meyrick, with satisfaction. "you think he will help her?" "i hope so. he is very much occupied, but has promised to fix a time for receiving and hearing miss lapidoth, as we must learn to call her"--here deronda smiled at mirah--"if she consents to go to him." "i shall be very grateful," said mirah. "he wants to hear me sing, before he can judge whether i ought to be helped." deronda was struck with her plain sense about these matters of practical concern. "it will not be at all trying to you, i hope, if mrs. meyrick will kindly go with you to klesmer's house." "oh, no, not at all trying. i have been doing that all my life--i mean, told to do things that others may judge of me. and i have gone through a bad trial of that sort. i am prepared to bear it, and do some very small thing. is klesmer a severe man?" "he is peculiar, but i have not had experience enough of him to know whether he would be what you would call severe." "i know he is kind-hearted--kind in action, if not in speech." "i have been used to be frowned at and not praised," said mirah. "by the by, klesmer frowns a good deal," said deronda, "but there is often a sort of smile in his eyes all the while. unhappily he wears spectacles, so you must catch him in the right light to see the smile." "i shall not be frightened," said mirah. "if he were like a roaring lion, he only wants me to sing. i shall do what i can." "then i feel sure you will not mind being invited to sing in lady mallinger's drawing-room," said deronda. "she intends to ask you next month, and will invite many ladies to hear you, who are likely to want lessons from you for their daughters." "how fast we are mounting!" said mrs. meyrick, with delight. "you never thought of getting grand so quickly, mirah." "i am a little frightened at being called miss lapidoth," said mirah, coloring with a new uneasiness. "might i be called cohen?" "i understand you," said deronda, promptly. "but i assure you, you must not be called cohen. the name is inadmissible for a singer. this is one of the trifles in which we must conform to vulgar prejudice. we could choose some other name, however--such as singers ordinarily choose--an italian or spanish name, which would suit your _physique_." to deronda just now the name cohen was equivalent to the ugliest of yellow badges. mirah reflected a little, anxiously, then said, "no. if cohen will not do, i will keep the name i have been called by. i will not hide myself. i have friends to protect me. and now--if my father were very miserable and wanted help--no," she said, looking at mrs. meyrick, "i should think, then, that he was perhaps crying as i used to see him, and had nobody to pity him, and i had hidden myself from him. he had none belonging to him but me. others that made friends with him always left him." "keep to what you feel right, my dear child," said mrs. meyrick. "_i_ would not persuade you to the contrary." for her own part she had no patience or pity for that father, and would have left him to his crying. deronda was saying to himself, "i am rather base to be angry with hans. how can he help being in love with her? but it is too absurdly presumptuous for him even to frame the idea of appropriating her, and a sort of blasphemy to suppose that she could possibly give herself to him." what would it be for daniel deronda to entertain such thoughts? he was not one who could quite naively introduce himself where he had just excluded his friend, yet it was undeniable that what had just happened made a new stage in his feeling toward mirah. but apart from other grounds for self-repression, reasons both definite and vague made him shut away that question as he might have shut up a half-opened writing that would have carried his imagination too far, and given too much shape to presentiments. might there not come a disclosure which would hold the missing determination of his course? what did he really know about his origin? strangely in these latter months when it seemed right that he should exert his will in the choice of a destination, the passion of his nature had got more and more locked by this uncertainty. the disclosure might bring its pain, indeed the likelihood seemed to him to be all on that side; but if it helped him to make his life a sequence which would take the form of duty--if it saved him from having to make an arbitrary selection where he felt no preponderance of desire? still more, he wanted to escape standing as a critic outside the activities of men, stiffened into the ridiculous attitude of self-assigned superiority. his chief tether was his early inwrought affection for sir hugo, making him gratefully deferential to wishes with which he had little agreement: but gratitude had been sometimes disturbed by doubts which were near reducing it to a fear of being ungrateful. many of us complain that half our birthright is sharp duty: deronda was more inclined to complain that he was robbed of this half; yet he accused himself, as he would have accused another, of being weakly self-conscious and wanting in resolve. he was the reverse of that type painted for us in faulconbridge and edmund of gloster, whose coarse ambition for personal success is inflamed by a defiance of accidental disadvantages. to daniel the words father and mother had the altar-fire in them; and the thought of all closest relations of our nature held still something of the mystic power which had made his neck and ears burn in boyhood. the average man may regard this sensibility on the question of birth as preposterous and hardly credible; but with the utmost respect for his knowledge as the rock from which all other knowledge is hewn, it must be admitted that many well-proved facts are dark to the average man, even concerning the action of his own heart and the structure of his own retina. a century ago he and all his forefathers had not had the slightest notion of that electric discharge by means of which they had all wagged their tongues mistakenly; any more than they were awake to the secluded anguish of exceptional sensitiveness into which many a carelessly-begotten child of man is born. perhaps the ferment was all the stronger in deronda's mind because he had never had a confidant to whom he could open himself on these delicate subjects. he had always been leaned on instead of being invited to lean. sometimes he had longed for the sort of friend to whom he might possibly unfold his experience: a young man like himself who sustained a private grief and was not too confident about his own career; speculative enough to understand every moral difficulty, yet socially susceptible, as he himself was, and having every outward sign of equality either in bodily or spiritual wrestling--for he had found it impossible to reciprocate confidences with one who looked up to him. but he had no expectation of meeting the friend he imagined. deronda's was not one of those quiveringly-poised natures that lend themselves to second-sight. chapter xxxviii. there be who hold that the deeper tragedy were a prometheus bound not _after_ but _before_ he had well got the celestial fire into the _narthex_ whereby it might be conveyed to mortals: thrust by the kratos and bia of instituted methods into a solitude of despised ideas, fastened in throbbing helplessness by the fatal pressure of poverty and disease--a solitude where many pass by, but none regard. "second-sight" is a flag over disputed ground. but it is matter of knowledge that there are persons whose yearnings, conceptions--nay, traveled conclusions--continually take the form of images which have a foreshadowing power; the deed they would do starts up before them in complete shape, making a coercive type; the event they hunger for or dread rises into vision with a seed-like growth, feeding itself fast on unnumbered impressions. they are not always the less capable of the argumentative process, nor less sane than the commonplace calculators of the market: sometimes it may be that their natures have manifold openings, like the hundred-gated thebes, where there may naturally be a greater and more miscellaneous inrush than through a narrow beadle-watched portal. no doubt there are abject specimens of the visionary, as there is a minim mammal which you might imprison in the finger of your glove. that small relative of the elephant has no harm in him; but what great mental or social type is free from specimens whose insignificance is both ugly and noxious? one is afraid to think of all that the genus "patriot" embraces; or of the elbowing there might be at the day of judgment for those who ranked as authors, and brought volumes either in their hands or on trucks. this apology for inevitable kinship is meant to usher in some facts about mordecai, whose figure had bitten itself into deronda's mind as a new question which he felt an interest in getting answered. but the interest was no more than a vaguely-expectant suspense: the consumptive-looking jew, apparently a fervid student of some kind, getting his crust by a quiet handicraft, like spinoza, fitted into none of deronda's anticipations. it was otherwise with the effect of their meeting on mordecai. for many winters, while he had been conscious of an ebbing physical life, and as widening spiritual loneliness, all his passionate desire had concentrated itself in the yearning for some young ear into which he could pour his mind as a testament, some soul kindred enough to accept the spiritual product of his own brief, painful life, as a mission to be executed. it was remarkable that the hopefulness which is often the beneficent illusion of consumptive patients, was in mordecai wholly diverted from the prospect of bodily recovery and carried into the current of this yearning for transmission. the yearning, which had panted upward from out of over-whelming discouragements, had grown into a hope--the hope into a confident belief, which, instead of being checked by the clear conception he had of his hastening decline, took rather the intensity of expectant faith in a prophecy which has only brief space to get fulfilled in. some years had now gone since he had first begun to measure men with a keen glance, searching for a possibility which became more and more a distinct conception. such distinctness as it had at first was reached chiefly by a method of contrast: he wanted to find a man who differed from himself. tracing reasons in that self for the rebuffs he had met with and the hindrances that beset him, he imagined a man who would have all the elements necessary for sympathy with him, but in an embodiment unlike his own: he must be a jew, intellectually cultured, morally fervid--in all this a nature ready to be plenished from mordecai's; but his face and frame must be beautiful and strong, he must have been used to all the refinements of social life, his voice must flow with a full and easy current, his circumstances be free from sordid need: he must glorify the possibilities of the jew, not sit and wonder as mordecai did, bearing the stamp of his people amid the sign of poverty and waning breath. sensitive to physical characteristics, he had, both abroad and in england, looked at pictures as well as men, and in a vacant hour he had sometimes lingered in the national gallery in search of paintings which might feed his hopefulness with grave and noble types of the human form, such as might well belong to men of his own race. but he returned in disappointment. the instances are scattered but thinly over the galleries of europe, in which the fortune or selection even of the chief masters has given to art a face at once young, grand, and beautiful, where, if there is any melancholy, it is no feeble passivity, but enters into the foreshadowed capability of heroism. some observant persons may perhaps remember his emaciated figure, and dark eyes deep in their sockets, as he stood in front of a picture that had touched him either to new or habitual meditation: he commonly wore a cloth cap with black fur round it, which no painter would have asked him to take off. but spectators would be likely to think of him as an odd-looking jew who probably got money out of pictures; and mordecai, when he looked at them, was perfectly aware of the impression he made. experience had rendered him morbidly alive to the effect of a man's poverty and other physical disadvantages in cheapening his ideas, unless they are those of a peter the hermit who has a tocsin for the rabble. but he was too sane and generous to attribute his spiritual banishment solely to the excusable prejudices of others; certain incapacities of his own had made the sentence of exclusion; and hence it was that his imagination had constructed another man who would be something more ample than the second soul bestowed, according to the notion of the cabalists, to help out the insufficient first--who would be a blooming human life, ready to incorporate all that was worthiest in an existence whose visible, palpable part was burning itself fast away. his inward need for the conception of this expanded, prolonged self was reflected as an outward necessity. the thoughts of his heart (that ancient phrase best shadows the truth) seemed to him too precious, too closely interwoven with the growth of things not to have a further destiny. and as the more beautiful, the stronger, the more executive self took shape in his mind, he loved it beforehand with an affection half identifying, half contemplative and grateful. mordecai's mind wrought so constantly in images, that his coherent trains of thought often resembled the significant dreams attributed to sleepers by waking persons in their most inventive moments: nay, they often resembled genuine dreams in their way of breaking off the passage from the known to the unknown. thus, for a long while, he habitually thought of the being answering to his need as one distantly approaching or turning his back toward him, darkly painted against a golden sky. the reason of the golden sky lay in one of mordecai's habits. he was keenly alive to some poetic aspects of london; and a favorite resort of his, when strength and leisure allowed, was to some of the bridges, especially about sunrise or sunset. even when he was bending over watch-wheels and trinkets, or seated in a small upper room looking out on dingy bricks and dingy cracked windows, his imagination spontaneously planted him on some spot where he had a far-stretching scene; his thoughts went on in wide spaces; and whenever he could, he tried to have in reality the influences of a large sky. leaning on the parapet of blackfriar's bridge, and gazing meditatively, the breadth and calm of the river, with its long vista half hazy, half luminous, the grand dim masses of tall forms of buildings which were the signs of world-commerce, the oncoming of boats and barges from the still distance into sound and color, entered into his mood and blent themselves indistinguishably with his thinking, as a fine symphony to which we can hardly be said to listen, makes a medium that bears up our spiritual wings. thus it happened that the figure representative of mordecai's longing was mentally seen darkened by the excess of light in the aerial background. but in the inevitable progress of his imagination toward fuller detail, he ceased to see the figure with its back toward him. it began to advance, and a face became discernible; the words youth, beauty, refinement, jewish birth, noble gravity, turned into hardly individual but typical form and color: gathered from his memory of faces seen among the jews of holland and bohemia, and from the paintings which revived that memory. reverently let it be said of this mature spiritual need that it was akin to the boy's and girl's picturing of the future beloved; but the stirrings of such young desire are feeble compared with the passionate current of an ideal life straining to embody itself, made intense by resistance to imminent dissolution. the visionary form became a companion and auditor; keeping a place not only in the waking imagination, but in those dreams of lighter slumber of which it is truest to say, "i sleep, but my heart waketh"--when the disturbing trivial story of yesterday is charged with the impassioned purpose of years. of late the urgency of irremediable time, measured by the gradual choking of life, had turned mordecai's trust into an agitated watch for the fulfillment that must be at hand. was the bell on the verge of tolling, the sentence about to be executed? the deliverer's footstep must be near--the deliverer who was to rescue mordecai's spiritual travail from oblivion, and give it an abiding-place in the best heritage of his people. an insane exaggeration of his own value, even if his ideas had been as true and precious as those of columbus or newton, many would have counted this yearning, taking it as the sublimer part for a man to say, "if not i, then another," and to hold cheap the meaning of his own life. but the fuller nature desires to be an agent, to create, and not merely to look on: strong love hungers to bless, and not merely to behold blessing. and while there is warmth enough in the sun to feed an energetic life, there will still be men to feel, "i am lord of this moment's change, and will charge it with my soul." but with that mingling of inconsequence which belongs to us all, and not unhappily, since it saves us from many effects of mistake, mordecai's confidence in the friend to come did not suffice to make him passive, and he tried expedients, pathetically humble, such as happened to be within his reach, for communicating something of himself. it was now two years since he had taken up his abode under ezra cohen's roof, where he was regarded with much good-will as a compound of workman, dominie, vessel of charity, inspired idiot, man of piety, and (if he were inquired into) dangerous heretic. during that time little jacob had advanced into knickerbockers, and into that quickness of apprehension which has been already made manifest in relation to hardware and exchange. he had also advanced in attachment to mordecai, regarding him as an inferior, but liking him none the worse, and taking his helpful cleverness as he might have taken the services of an enslaved djinn. as for mordecai, he had given jacob his first lessons, and his habitual tenderness easily turned into the teacher's fatherhood. though he was fully conscious of the spiritual distance between the parents and himself, and would never have attempted any communication to them from his peculiar world, the boy moved him with that idealizing affection which merges the qualities of the individual child in the glory of childhood and the possibilities of a long future. and this feeling had drawn him on, at first without premeditation, and afterward with conscious purpose, to a sort of outpouring in the ear of the boy which might have seemed wild enough to any excellent man of business who overheard it. but none overheard when jacob went up to mordecai's room one day, for example, in which there was little work to be done, or at an hour when the work was ended, and after a brief lesson in english reading or in numeration, was induced to remain standing at his teacher's knees, or chose to jump astride them, often to the patient fatigue of the wasted limbs. the inducement was perhaps the mending of a toy, or some little mechanical device in which mordecai's well-practiced finger-tips had an exceptional skill; and with the boy thus tethered, he would begin to repeat a hebrew poem of his own, into which years before he had poured his first youthful ardors for that conception of a blended past and future which was the mistress of his soul, telling jacob to say the words after him. "the boy will get them engraved within him," thought mordecai; "it is a way of printing." none readier than jacob at this fascinating game of imitating unintelligible words; and if no opposing diversion occurred he would sometimes carry on his share in it as long as the teacher's breath would last out. for mordecai threw into each repetition the fervor befitting a sacred occasion. in such instances, jacob would show no other distraction than reaching out and surveying the contents of his pockets; or drawing down the skin of his cheeks to make his eyes look awful, and rolling his head to complete the effect; or alternately handling his own nose and mordecai's as if to test the relation of their masses. under all this the fervid reciter would not pause, satisfied if the young organs of speech would submit themselves. but most commonly a sudden impulse sent jacob leaping away into some antic or active amusement, when, instead of following the recitation he would return upon the foregoing words most ready to his tongue, and mouth or gabble, with a see-saw suited to the action of his limbs, a verse on which mordecai had spent some of his too scanty heart's blood. yet he waited with such patience as a prophet needs, and began his strange printing again undiscouraged on the morrow, saying inwardly, "my words may rule him some day. their meaning may flash out on him. it is so with a nation--after many days." meanwhile jacob's sense of power was increased and his time enlivened by a store of magical articulation with which he made the baby crow, or drove the large cat into a dark corner, or promised himself to frighten any incidental christian of his own years. one week he had unfortunately seen a street mountebank, and this carried off his muscular imitativeness in sad divergence from new hebrew poetry, after the model of jehuda ha-levi. mordecai had arrived at a fresh passage in his poem; for as soon as jacob had got well used to one portion, he was led on to another, and a fresh combination of sounds generally answered better in keeping him fast for a few minutes. the consumptive voice, generally a strong high baritone, with its variously mingling hoarseness, like a haze amidst illuminations, and its occasional incipient gasp had more than the usual excitement, while it gave forth hebrew verses with a meaning something like this: "away from me the garment of forgetfulness. withering the heart; the oil and wine from presses of the goyim, poisoned with scorn. solitude is on the sides of mount nebo, in its heart a tomb: there the buried ark and golden cherubim make hidden light: there the solemn gaze unchanged, the wings are spread unbroken: shut beneath in silent awful speech the law lies graven. solitude and darkness are my covering, and my heart a tomb; smite and shatter it, o gabriel! shatter it as the clay of the founder around the golden image." in the absorbing enthusiasm with which mordecai had intoned rather than spoken this last invocation, he was unconscious that jacob had ceased to follow him and had started away from his knees; but pausing he saw, as by a sudden flash, that the lad had thrown himself on his hands with his feet in the air, mountebank fashion, and was picking up with his lips a bright farthing which was a favorite among his pocket treasures. this might have been reckoned among the tricks mordecai was used to, but at this moment it jarred him horribly, as if it had been a satanic grin upon his prayer. "child! child!" he called out with a strange cry that startled jacob to his feet, and then he sank backward with a shudder, closing his eyes. "what?" said jacob, quickly. then, not getting an immediate answer, he pressed mordecai's knees with a shaking movement, in order to rouse him. mordecai opened his eyes with a fierce expression in them, leaned forward, grasped the little shoulders, and said in a quick, hoarse whisper, "a curse is on your generation, child. they will open the mountain and drag forth the golden wings and coin them into money, and the solemn faces they will break up into ear-rings for wanton women! and they shall get themselves a new name, but the angel of ignominy, with the fiery brand, shall know them, and their heart shall be the tomb of dead desires that turn their life to rottenness." the aspect and action of mordecai were so new and mysterious to jacob--they carried such a burden of obscure threat--it was as if the patient, indulgent companion had turned into something unknown and terrific: the sunken dark eyes and hoarse accents close to him, the thin grappling fingers, shook jacob's little frame into awe, and while mordecai was speaking he stood trembling with a sense that the house was tumbling in and they were not going to have dinner any more. but when the terrible speech had ended and the pinch was relaxed, the shock resolved itself into tears; jacob lifted up his small patriarchal countenance and wept aloud. this sign of childish grief at once recalled mordecai to his usual gentle self: he was not able to speak again at present, but with a maternal action he drew the curly head toward him and pressed it tenderly against his breast. on this jacob, feeling the danger well-nigh over, howled at ease, beginning to imitate his own performance and improve upon it--a sort of transition from impulse into art often observable. indeed, the next day he undertook to terrify adelaide rebekah in like manner, and succeeded very well. but mordecai suffered a check which lasted long, from the consciousness of a misapplied agitation; sane as well as excitable, he judged severely his moments of aberration into futile eagerness, and felt discredited with himself. all the more his mind was strained toward the discernment of that friend to come, with whom he would have a calm certainty of fellowship and understanding. it was just then that, in his usual midday guardianship of the old book-shop, he was struck by the appearance of deronda, and it is perhaps comprehensible now why mordecai's glance took on a sudden eager interest as he looked at the new-comer: he saw a face and frame which seemed to him to realize the long-conceived type. but the disclaimer of jewish birth was for the moment a backward thrust of double severity, the particular disappointment tending to shake his confidence in the more indefinite expectation. nevertheless, when he found deronda seated at the cohens' table, the disclaimer was for the moment nullified: the first impression returned with added force, seeming to be guaranteed by this second meeting under circumstance more peculiar than the former; and in asking deronda if he knew hebrew, mordecai was so possessed by the new inrush of belief, that he had forgotten the absence of any other condition to the fulfillment of his hopes. but the answering "no" struck them all down again, and the frustration was more painful than before. after turning his back on the visitor that sabbath evening, mordecai went through days of a deep discouragement, like that of men on a doomed ship, who having strained their eyes after a sail, and beheld it with rejoicing, behold it never advance, and say, "our sick eyes make it." but the long-contemplated figure had come as an emotional sequence of mordecai's firmest theoretic convictions; it had been wrought from the imagery of his most passionate life; and it inevitably reappeared--reappeared in a more specific self-asserting form than ever. deronda had that sort of resemblance to the preconceived type which a finely individual bust or portrait has to the more generalized copy left in our minds after a long interval: we renew our memory with delight, but we hardly know with how much correction. and now, his face met mordecai's inward gaze as it had always belonged to the awaited friend, raying out, moreover, some of that influence which belongs to breathing flesh; till by-and-by it seemed that discouragement had turned into a new obstinacy of resistance, and the ever-recurrent vision had the force of an outward call to disregard counter-evidence, and keep expectation awake. it was deronda now who was seen in the often painful night-watches, when we are all liable to be held with the clutch of a single thought--whose figure, never with its back turned, was seen in moments of soothed reverie or soothed dozing, painted on that golden sky which was the doubly blessed symbol of advancing day and of approaching rest. mordecai knew that the nameless stranger was to come and redeem his ring; and, in spite of contrary chances, the wish to see him again was growing into a belief that he should see him. in the january weeks, he felt an increasing agitation of that subdued hidden quality which hinders nervous people from any steady occupation on the eve of an anticipated change. he could not go on with his printing of hebrew on little jacob's mind; or with his attendance at a weekly club, which was another effort of the same forlorn hope: something else was coming. the one thing he longed for was to get as far as the river, which he could do but seldom and with difficulty. he yearned with a poet's yearning for the wide sky, the far-reaching vista of bridges, the tender and fluctuating lights on the water which seems to breathe with a life that can shiver and mourn, be comforted and rejoice. chapter xxxix. "vor den wissenden sich stellen, sicher ist's in allen fällen! wenn du lange dich gequälet, weiß er gleich, wo dir es fehlet. auch auf beifall darfst du hoffen; denn er weiß, wo du's getroffen." --goethe: _west-östlicher divan_. momentous things happened to deronda the very evening of that visit to the small house at chelsea, when there was the discussion about mirah's public name. but for the family group there, what appeared to be the chief sequence connected with it occurred two days afterward. about four o'clock wheels paused before the door, and there came one of those knocks with an accompanying ring which serve to magnify the sense of social existence in a region where the most enlivening signals are usually those of the muffin-man. all the girls were at home, and the two rooms were thrown together to make space for kate's drawing, as well as a great length of embroidery which had taken the place of the satin cushions--a sort of _pièce de résistance_ in the courses of needlework, taken up by any clever fingers that happened to be at liberty. it stretched across the front room picturesquely enough, mrs. meyrick bending over it on one corner, mab in the middle, and amy at the other end. mirah, whose performances in point of sewing were on the make-shift level of the tailor-bird's, her education in that branch having been much neglected, was acting as reader to the party, seated on a camp-stool; in which position she also served kate as model for a title-page vignette, symbolizing a fair public absorbed in the successive volumes of the family tea-table. she was giving forth with charming distinctness the delightful essay of elia, "the praise of chimney-sweeps," and all were smiling over the "innocent blackness," when the imposing knock and ring called their thoughts to loftier spheres, and they looked up in wonderment. "dear me!" said mrs. meyrick; "can it be lady mallinger? is there a grand carriage, amy?" "no--only a hansom cab. it must be a gentleman." "the prime minister, i should think," said kate dryly. "hans says the greatest man in london may get into a hansom cab." "oh, oh, oh!" cried mab. "suppose it should be lord russell!" the five bright faces were all looking amused when the old maid-servant bringing in a card distractedly left the parlor-door open, and there was seen bowing toward mrs. meyrick a figure quite unlike that of the respected premier--tall and physically impressive even in his kid and kerseymere, with massive face, flamboyant hair, and gold spectacles: in fact, as mrs. meyrick saw from the card, _julius klesmer_. even embarrassment could hardly have made the "little mother" awkward, but quick in her perceptions she was at once aware of the situation, and felt well satisfied that the great personage had come to mirah instead of requiring her to come to him; taking it as a sign of active interest. but when he entered, the rooms shrank into closets, the cottage piano, mab thought, seemed a ridiculous toy, and the entire family existence as petty and private as an establishment of mice in the tuileries. klesmer's personality, especially his way of glancing round him, immediately suggested vast areas and a multitudinous audience, and probably they made the usual scenery of his consciousness, for we all of us carry on our thinking in some habitual locus where there is a presence of other souls, and those who take in a larger sweep than their neighbors are apt to seem mightily vain and affected. klesmer was vain, but not more so than many contemporaries of heavy aspect, whose vanity leaps out and startles one like a spear out of a walking-stick; as to his carriage and gestures, these were as natural to him as the length of his fingers; and the rankest affectation he could have shown would have been to look diffident and demure. while his grandiose air was making mab feel herself a ridiculous toy to match the cottage piano, he was taking in the details around him with a keen and thoroughly kind sensibility. he remembered a home no longer than this on the outskirts of bohemia; and in the figurative bohemia too he had had large acquaintance with the variety and romance which belong to small incomes. he addressed mrs. meyrick with the utmost deference. "i hope i have not taken too great a freedom. being in the neighborhood, i ventured to save time by calling. our friend, mr. deronda, mentioned to me an understanding that i was to have the honor of becoming acquainted with a young lady here--miss lapidoth." klesmer had really discerned mirah in the first moment of entering, but, with subtle politeness, he looked round bowingly at the three sisters as if he were uncertain which was the young lady in question. "those are my daughters: this is miss lapidoth," said mrs. meyrick, waving her hand toward mirah. "ah," said klesmer, in a tone of gratified expectation, turning a radiant smile and deep bow to mirah, who, instead of being in the least taken by surprise, had a calm pleasure in her face. she liked the look of klesmer, feeling sure that he would scold her, like a great musician and a kind man. "you will not object to beginning our acquaintance by singing to me," he added, aware that they would all be relieved by getting rid of preliminaries. "i shall be very glad. it is good of you to be willing to listen to me," said mirah, moving to the piano. "shall i accompany myself?" "by all means," said klesmer, seating himself, at mrs. meyrick's invitation, where he could have a good view of the singer. the acute little mother would not have acknowledged the weakness, but she really said to herself, "he will like her singing better if he sees her." all the feminine hearts except mirah's were beating fast with anxiety, thinking klesmer terrific as he sat with his listening frown on, and only daring to look at him furtively. if he did say anything severe it would be so hard for them all. they could only comfort themselves with thinking that prince camaralzaman, who had heard the finest things, preferred mirah's singing to any other: also she appeared to be doing her very best, as if she were more instead of less at ease than usual. the song she had chosen was a fine setting of some words selected from leopardi's grand ode to italy:, "_o patria mia, vedo le mura c gli archi e le colonne e i simula-cri e l'erme torridegli avi nostri_", this was recitative: then followed, "_ma la gloria--non vedo_", a mournful melody, a rhythmic plaint. after this came a climax of devout triumph--passing from the subdued adoration of a happy andante in the words, "_beatissimi voi. che offriste il petto alle nemiche lance per amor di costei che al sol vi diede_", to the joyous outburst of an exultant allegro in, "_oh viva, oh viva: beatissimi voi mentre nel monde si favelli o scriva._" when she had ended, klesmer said after a moment, "that is old leo's music." "yes, he was my last master--at vienna: so fierce and so good," said mirah, with a melancholy smile. "he prophesied that my voice would not do for the stage. and he was right." "_con_tinue, if you please," said klesmer, putting out his lips and shaking his long fingers, while he went on with a smothered articulation quite unintelligible to the audience. the three girls detested him unanimously for not saying one word of praise. mrs. meyrick was a little alarmed. mirah, simply bent on doing what klesmer desired, and imagining that he would now like to hear her sing some german, went through prince radzivill's music to gretchen's songs in the _faust,_ one after the other without any interrogatory pause. when she had finished he rose and walked to the extremity of the small space at command, then walked back to the piano, where mirah had risen from her seat and stood looking toward him with her little hands crossed before her, meekly awaiting judgment; then with a sudden unknitting of his brow and with beaming eyes, he stretched out his hand and said abruptly, "let us shake hands: you are a musician." mab felt herself beginning to cry, and all the three girls held klesmer adorable. mrs. meyrick took a long breath. but straightway the frown came again, the long hand, back uppermost, was stretched out in quite a different sense to touch with finger-tip the back of mirah's, and with protruded lip he said, "not for great tasks. no high roofs. we are no skylarks. we must be modest." klesmer paused here. and mab ceased to think him adorable: "as if mirah had shown the least sign of conceit!" mirah was silent, knowing that there was a specific opinion to be waited for, and klesmer presently went on--"i would not advise--i would not further your singing in any larger space than a private drawing-room. but you will do there. and here in london that is one of the best careers open. lessons will follow. will you come and sing at a private concert at my house on wednesday?" "oh, i shall be grateful," said mirah, putting her hands together devoutly. "i would rather get my bread in that way than by anything more public. i will try to improve. what should i work at most?" klesmer made a preliminary answer in noises which sounded like words bitten in two and swallowed before they were half out, shaking his fingers the while, before he said, quite distinctly, "i shall introduce you to astorga: he is the foster-father of good singing and will give you advice." then addressing mrs. meyrick, he added, "mrs. klesmer will call before wednesday, with your permission." "we shall feel that to be a great kindness," said mrs. meyrick. "you will sing to her," said klesmer, turning again to mirah. "she is a thorough musician, and has a soul with more ears to it than you will often get in a musician. your singing will satisfy her: 'vor den wissenden sich stellen;' you know the rest?" "'sicher ist's in alien fällen.'" said mirah, promptly. and klesmer saying "schön!" put out his hand again as a good-by. he had certainly chosen the most delicate way of praising mirah, and the meyrick girls had now given him all their esteem. but imagine mab's feeling when suddenly fixing his eyes on her, he said decisively, "that young lady is musical, i see!" she was a mere blush and sense of scorching. "yes," said mirah, on her behalf. "and she has a touch." "oh, please, mirah--a scramble, not a touch," said mab, in anguish, with a horrible fear of what the next thing might be: this dreadful divining personage--evidently satan in gray trousers--might order her to sit down to the piano, and her heart was like molten wax in the midst of her. but this was cheap payment for her amazed joy when klesmer said benignantly, turning to mrs. meyrick, "will she like to accompany miss lapidoth and hear the music on wednesday?" "there could hardly be a greater pleasure for her," said mrs. meyrick. "she will be most glad and grateful." thereupon klesmer bowed round to the three sisters more grandly than they had ever been bowed to before. altogether it was an amusing picture--the little room with so much of its diagonal taken up in klesmer's magnificent bend to the small feminine figures like images a little less than life-size, the grave holbein faces on the walls, as many as were not otherwise occupied, looking hard at this stranger who by his face seemed a dignified contemporary of their own, but whose garments seemed a deplorable mockery of the human form. mrs. meyrick could not help going out of the room with klesmer and closing the door behind her. he understood her, and said with a frowning nod, "she will do: if she doesn't attempt too much and her voice holds out, she can make an income. i know that is the great point: deronda told me. you are taking care of her. she looks like a good girl." "she is an angel," said the warm-hearted woman. "no," said klesmer, with a playful nod; "she is a pretty jewess: the angels must not get the credit of her. but i think she has found a guardian angel," he ended, bowing himself out in this amiable way. the four young creatures had looked at each other mutely till the door banged and mrs. meyrick re-entered. then there was an explosion. mab clapped her hands and danced everywhere inconveniently; mrs. meyrick kissed mirah and blessed her; amy said emphatically, "we can never get her a new dress before wednesday!" and kate exclaimed, "thank heaven my table is not knocked over!" mirah had reseated herself on the music-stool without speaking, and the tears were rolling down her cheeks as she looked at her friends. "now, now, mab!" said mrs. meyrick; "come and sit down reasonably and let us talk?" "yes, let us talk," said mab, cordially, coming back to her low seat and caressing her knees. "i am beginning to feel large again. hans said he was coming this afternoon. i wish he had been here--only there would have been no room for him. mirah, what are you looking sad for?" "i am too happy," said mirah. "i feel so full of gratitude to you all; and he was so very kind." "yes, at last," said mab, sharply. "but he might have said something encouraging sooner. i thought him dreadfully ugly when he sat frowning, and only said, '_con_tinue.' i hated him all the long way from the top of his hair to the toe of his polished boot." "nonsense, mab; he has a splendid profile," said kate. "_now_, but not _then_. i cannot bear people to keep their minds bottled up for the sake of letting them off with a pop. they seem to grudge making you happy unless they can make you miserable beforehand. however, i forgive him everything," said mab, with a magnanimous air, "but he has invited me. i wonder why he fixed on me as the musical one? was it because i have a bulging forehead, ma, and peep from under it like a newt from under a stone?" "it was your way of listening to the singing, child," said mrs. meyrick. "he has magic spectacles and sees everything through them, depend upon it. but what was that german quotation you were so ready with, mirah--you learned puss?" "oh, that was not learning," said mirah, her tearful face breaking into an amused smile. "i said it so many times for a lesson. it means that it is safer to do anything--singing or anything else--before those who know and understand all about it." "that was why you were not one bit frightened, i suppose," said amy. "but now, what we have to talk about is a dress for you on wednesday." "i don't want anything better than this black merino," said mirah, rising to show the effect. "some white gloves and some new _bottines_." she put out her little foot, clad in the famous felt slipper. "there comes hans," said mrs. meyrick. "stand still, and let us hear what he says about the dress. artists are the best people to consult about such things." "you don't consult me, ma," said kate, lifting up her eyebrow with a playful complainingness. "i notice mothers are like the people i deal with--the girls' doings are always priced low." "my dear child, the boys are such a trouble--we could never put up with them, if we didn't make believe they were worth more," said mrs. meyrick, just as her boy entered. "hans, we want your opinion about mirah's dress. a great event has happened. klesmer has been here, and she is going to sing at his house on wednesday among grand people. she thinks this dress will do." "let me see," said hans. mirah in her childlike way turned toward him to be looked at; and he, going to a little further distance, knelt with one knee on a hassock to survey her. "this would be thought a very good stage-dress for me," she said, pleadingly, "in a part where i was to come on as a poor jewess and sing to fashionable christians." "it would be effective," said hans, with a considering air; "it would stand out well among the fashionable _chiffons_." "but you ought not to claim all the poverty on your side, mirah," said amy. "there are plenty of poor christians and dreadfully rich jews and fashionable jewesses." "i didn't mean any harm," said mirah. "only i have been used to thinking about my dress for parts in plays. and i almost always had a part with a plain dress." "that makes me think it questionable," said hans, who had suddenly become as fastidious and conventional on this occasion as he had thought deronda was, apropos of the berenice-pictures. "it looks a little too theatrical. we must not make you a _rôle_ of the poor jewess--or of being a jewess at all." hans had a secret desire to neutralize the jewess in private life, which he was in danger of not keeping secret. "but it is what i am really. i am not pretending anything. i shall never be anything else," said mirah. "i always feel myself a jewess." "but we can't feel that about you," said hans, with a devout look. "what does it signify whether a perfect woman is a jewess or not?" "that is your kind way of praising me; i never was praised so before," said mirah, with a smile, which was rather maddening to hans and made him feel still more of a cosmopolitan. "people don't think of me as a british christian," he said, his face creasing merrily. "they think of me as an imperfectly handsome young man and an unpromising painter." "but you are wandering from the dress," said amy. "if that will not do, how are we to get another before wednesday? and to-morrow sunday?" "indeed this will do," said mirah, entreatingly. "it is all real, you know," here she looked at hans--"even if it seemed theatrical. poor berenice sitting on the ruins--any one might say that was theatrical, but i know that this is just what she would do." "i am a scoundrel," said hans, overcome by this misplaced trust. "that is my invention. nobody knows that she did that. shall you forgive me for not saying so before?" "oh, yes," said mirah, after a momentary pause of surprise. "you knew it was what she would be sure to do--a jewess who had not been faithful--who had done what she did and was penitent. she could have no joy but to afflict herself; and where else would she go? i think it is very beautiful that you should enter so into what a jewess would feel." "the jewesses of that time sat on ruins," said hans, starting up with a sense of being checkmated. "that makes them convenient for pictures." "but the dress--the dress," said amy; "is it settled?" "yes; is it not?" said mirah, looking doubtfully at mrs. meyrick, who in her turn looked up at her son, and said, "what do you think, hans?" "that dress will not do," said hans, decisively. "she is not going to sit on ruins. you must jump into a cab with her, little mother, and go to regent street. it's plenty of time to get anything you like--a black silk dress such as ladies wear. she must not be taken for an object of charity. she has talents to make people indebted to her." "i think it is what mr. deronda would like--for her to have a handsome dress," said mrs. meyrick, deliberating. "of course it is," said hans, with some sharpness. "you may take my word for what a gentleman would feel." "i wish to do what mr. deronda would like me to do," said mirah, gravely, seeing that mrs. meyrick looked toward her; and hans, turning on his heel, went to kate's table and took up one of her drawings as if his interest needed a new direction. "shouldn't you like to make a study of klesmer's head, hans?" said kate. "i suppose you have often seen him?" "seen him!" exclaimed hans, immediately throwing back his head and mane, seating himself at the piano and looking round him as if he were surveying an amphitheatre, while he held his fingers down perpendicularly toward the keys. but then in another instant he wheeled round on the stool, looked at mirah and said, half timidly--"perhaps you don't like this mimicry; you must always stop my nonsense when you don't like it." mirah had been smiling at the swiftly-made image, and she smiled still, but with a touch of something else than amusement, as she said--"thank you. but you have never done anything i did not like. i hardly think he could, belonging to you," she added, looking at mrs. meyrick. in this way hans got food for his hope. how could the rose help it when several bees in succession took its sweet odor as a sign of personal attachment? chapter xl. "within the soul a faculty abides, that with interpositions, which would hide and darken, so can deal, that they become contingencies of pomp; and serve to exalt her native brightness, as the ample moon, in the deep stillness of a summer even, rising behind a thick and lofty grove, burns, like an unconsuming fire of light, in the green trees; and, kindling on all sides their leafy umbrage, turns the dusky veil into a substance glorious as her own, yea, with her own incorporated, by power capacious and serene." --wordsworth: _excursion_, b. iv. deronda came out of the narrow house at chelsea in a frame of mind that made him long for some good bodily exercise to carry off what he was himself inclined to call the fumes of his temper. he was going toward the city, and the sight of the chelsea stairs with the waiting boats at once determined him to avoid the irritating inaction of being driven in a cab, by calling a wherry and taking an oar. his errand was to go to ram's book-shop, where he had yesterday arrived too late for mordecai's midday watch, and had been told that he invariably came there again between five and six. some further acquaintance with this remarkable inmate of the cohens was particularly desired by deronda as a preliminary to redeeming his ring: he wished that their conversation should not again end speedily with that drop of mordecai's interest which was like the removal of a drawbridge, and threatened to shut out any easy communication in future. as he got warmed with the use of the oar, fixing his mind on the errand before him and the ends he wanted to achieve on mirah's account, he experienced, as was wont with him, a quick change of mental light, shifting his point of view to that of the person whom he had been thinking of hitherto chiefly as serviceable to his own purposes, and was inclined to taunt himself with being not much better than an enlisting sergeant, who never troubles himself with the drama that brings him the needful recruits. "i suppose if i got from this man the information i am most anxious about," thought deronda, "i should be contented enough if he felt no disposition to tell me more of himself, or why he seemed to have some expectation from me which was disappointed. the sort of curiosity he stirs would die out; and yet it might be that he had neared and parted as one can imagine two ships doing, each freighted with an exile who would have recognized the other if the two could have looked out face to face. not that there is any likelihood of a peculiar tie between me and this poor fellow, whose voyage, i fancy, must soon be over. but i wonder whether there is much of that momentous mutual missing between people who interchange blank looks, or even long for one another's absence in a crowded place. however, one makes one's self chances of missing by going on the recruiting sergeant's plan." when the wherry was approaching blackfriars bridge, where deronda meant to land, it was half-past four, and the gray day was dying gloriously, its western clouds all broken into narrowing purple strata before a wide-spreading saffron clearness, which in the sky had a monumental calm, but on the river, with its changing objects, was reflected as a luminous movement, the alternate flash of ripples or currents, the sudden glow of the brown sail, the passage of laden barges from blackness into color, making an active response to that brooding glory. feeling well heated by this time, deronda gave up the oar and drew over him again his inverness cape. as he lifted up his head while fastening the topmost button his eyes caught a well-remembered face looking toward him over the parapet of the bridge--brought out by the western light into startling distinctness and brilliancy--an illuminated type of bodily emaciation and spiritual eagerness. it was the face of mordecai, who also, in his watch toward the west, had caught sight of the advancing boat, and had kept it fast within his gaze, at first simply because it was advancing, then with a recovery of impressions that made him quiver as with a presentiment, till at last the nearing figure lifted up its face toward him--the face of his visions--and then immediately, with white uplifted hand, beckoned again and again. for deronda, anxious that mordecai should recognize and await him, had lost no time before signaling, and the answer came straightway. mordecai lifted his cap and waved it--feeling in that moment that his inward prophecy was fulfilled. obstacles, incongruities, all melted into the sense of completion with which his soul was flooded by this outward satisfaction of his longing. his exultation was not widely different from that of the experimenter, bending over the first stirrings of change that correspond to what in the fervor of concentrated prevision his thought has foreshadowed. the prefigured friend had come from the golden background, and had signaled to him: this actually was: the rest was to be. in three minutes deronda had landed, had paid his boatman, and was joining mordecai, whose instinct it was to stand perfectly still and wait for him. "i was very glad to see you standing here," said deronda, "for i was intending to go on to the book-shop and look for you again. i was there yesterday--perhaps they mentioned it to you?" "yes," said mordecai; "that was the reason i came to the bridge." this answer, made with simple gravity, was startlingly mysterious to deronda. were the peculiarities of this man really associated with any sort of mental alienation, according to cohen's hint? "you knew nothing of my being at chelsea?" he said, after a moment. "no; but i expected you to come down the river. i have been waiting for you these five years." mordecai's deep-sunk eyes were fixed on those of the friend who had at last arrived with a look of affectionate dependence, at once pathetic and solemn. deronda's sensitiveness was not the less responsive because he could not but believe that this strangely-disclosed relation was founded on an illusion. "it will be a satisfaction to me if i can be of any real use to you," he answered, very earnestly. "shall we get into a cab and drive to--wherever you wish to go? you have probably had walking enough with your short breath." "let us go to the book-shop. it will soon be time for me to be there. but now look up the river," said mordecai, turning again toward it and speaking in undertones of what may be called an excited calm--so absorbed by a sense of fulfillment that he was conscious of no barrier to a complete understanding between him and deronda. "see the sky, how it is slowly fading. i have always loved this bridge: i stood on it when i was a little boy. it is a meeting-place for the spiritual messengers. it is true--what the masters said--that each order of things has its angel: that means the full message of each from what is afar. here i have listened to the messages of earth and sky; when i was stronger i used to stay and watch for the stars in the deep heavens. but this time just about sunset was always what i loved best. it has sunk into me and dwelt with me--fading, slowly fading: it was my own decline: it paused--it waited, till at last it brought me my new life--my new self--who will live when this breath is all breathed out." deronda did not speak. he felt himself strangely wrought upon. the first-prompted suspicion that mordecai might be liable to hallucinations of thought--might have become a monomaniac on some subject which had given too severe a strain to his diseased organism--gave way to a more submissive expectancy. his nature was too large, too ready to conceive regions beyond his own experience, to rest at once in the easy explanation, "madness," whenever a consciousness showed some fullness and conviction where his own was blank. it accorded with his habitual disposition that he should meet rather than resist any claim on him in the shape of another's need; and this claim brought with it a sense of solemnity which seemed a radiation from mordecai, as utterly nullifying his outward poverty and lifting him into authority as if he had been that preternatural guide seen in the universal legend, who suddenly drops his mean disguise and stands a manifest power. that impression was the more sanctioned by a sort of resolved quietude which the persuasion of fulfillment had produced in mordecai's manner. after they had stood a moment in silence he said, "let us go now," and when they were riding he added, "we will get down at the end of the street and walk to the shop. you can look at the books, and mr. ram will be going away directly and leave us alone." it seemed that this enthusiast was just as cautious, just as much alive to judgments in other minds as if he had been that antipode of all enthusiasm called "a man of the world." while they were rattling along in the cab, mirah was still present with deronda in the midst of this strange experience, but he foresaw that the course of conversation would be determined by mordecai, not by himself: he was no longer confident what questions he should be able to ask; and with a reaction on his own mood, he inwardly said, "i suppose i am in a state of complete superstition, just as if i were awaiting the destiny that could interpret the oracle. but some strong relation there must be between me and this man, since he feels it strongly. great heaven! what relation has proved itself more potent in the world than faith even when mistaken--than expectation even when perpetually disappointed? is my side of the relation to be disappointing or fulfilling?--well, if it is ever possible for me to fulfill i will not disappoint." in ten minutes the two men, with as intense a consciousness as if they had been two undeclared lovers, felt themselves alone in the small gas-lit book-shop and turned face to face, each baring his head from an instinctive feeling that they wished to see each other fully. mordecai came forward to lean his back against the little counter, while deronda stood against the opposite wall hardly more than four feet off. i wish i could perpetuate those two faces, as titian's "tribute money" has perpetuated two types presenting another sort of contrast. imagine--we all of us can--the pathetic stamp of consumption with its brilliancy of glance to which the sharply-defined structure of features reminding one of a forsaken temple, give already a far-off look as of one getting unwillingly out of reach; and imagine it on a jewish face naturally accentuated for the expression of an eager mind--the face of a man little above thirty, but with that age upon it which belongs to time lengthened by suffering, the hair and beard, still black, throwing out the yellow pallor of the skin, the difficult breathing giving more decided marking to the mobile nostril, the wasted yellow hands conspicuous on the folded arms: then give to the yearning consumptive glance something of the slowly dying mother's look, when her one loved son visits her bedside, and the flickering power of gladness leaps out as she says, "my boy!"--for the sense of spiritual perpetuation in another resembles that maternal transference of self. seeing such a portrait you would see mordecai. and opposite to him was a face not more distinctively oriental than many a type seen among what we call the latin races; rich in youthful health, and with a forcible masculine gravity in its repose, that gave the value of judgment to the reverence with which he met the gaze of this mysterious son of poverty who claimed him as a long-expected friend. the more exquisite quality of deronda's nature--that keenly perceptive sympathetic emotiveness which ran along with his speculative tendency--was never more thoroughly tested. he felt nothing that could be called belief in the validity of mordecai's impressions concerning him or in the probability of any greatly effective issue: what he felt was a profound sensibility to a cry from the depths of another and accompanying that, the summons to be receptive instead of superciliously prejudging. receptiveness is a rare and massive power, like fortitude; and this state of mind now gave deronda's face its utmost expression of calm benignant force--an expression which nourished mordecai's confidence and made an open way before him. he began to speak. "you cannot know what has guided me to you and brought us together at this moment. you are wondering." "i am not impatient," said deronda. "i am ready to listen to whatever you may wish to disclose." "you see some of the reasons why i needed you," said mordecai, speaking quietly, as if he wished to reserve his strength. "you see that i am dying. you see that i am as one shut up behind bars by the wayside, who if he spoke to any would be met only by head-shaking and pity. the day is closing--the light is fading--soon we should not have been able to discern each other. but you have come in time." "i rejoice that i am come in time," said deronda, feelingly. he would not say, "i hope you are not mistaken in me,"--the very word "mistaken," he thought, would be a cruelty at that moment. "but the hidden reasons why i need you began afar off," said mordecai; "began in my early years when i was studying in another land. then ideas, beloved ideas, came to me, because i was a jew. they were a trust to fulfill, because i was a jew. they were an inspiration, because i was a jew, and felt the heart of my race beating within me. they were my life; i was not fully born till then. i counted this heart, and this breath, and this right hand"--mordecai had pathetically pressed his hand upon his breast, and then stretched its wasted fingers out before him--"i counted my sleep and my waking, and the work i fed my body with, and the sights that fed my eyes--i counted them but as fuel to the divine flame. but i had done as one who wanders and engraves his thought in rocky solitudes, and before i could change my course came care and labor and disease, and blocked the way before me, and bound me with the iron that eats itself into the soul. then i said, 'how shall i save the life within me from being stifled with this stifled breath?'" mordecai paused to rest that poor breath which had been taxed by the rising excitement of his speech. and also he wished to check that excitement. deronda dared not speak: the very silence in the narrow space seemed alive with mingled awe and compassion before this struggling fervor. and presently mordecai went on: "but you may misunderstand me. i speak not as an ignorant dreamer--as one bred up in the inland valleys, thinking ancient thoughts anew, and not knowing them ancient, never having stood by the great waters where the world's knowledge passes to and fro. english is my mother-tongue, england is the native land of this body, which is but as a breaking pot of earth around the fruit-bearing tree, whose seed might make the desert rejoice. but my true life was nourished in holland at the feet of my mother's brother, a rabbi skilled in special learning: and when he died i went to hamburg to study, and afterwards to göttingen, that i might take a larger outlook on my people, and on the gentile world, and drank knowledge at all sources. i was a youth; i felt free; i saw our chief seats in germany; i was not then in utter poverty. and i had possessed myself of a handicraft. for i said, i care not if my lot be as that of joshua ben chananja: after the last destruction he earned his bread by making needles, but in his youth he had been a singer on the steps of the temple, and had a memory of what was before the glory departed. i said, let my body dwell in poverty, and my hands be as the hands of the toiler: but let my soul be as a temple of remembrance where the treasures of knowledge enter and the inner sanctuary is hope. i knew what i chose. they said, 'he feeds himself on visions,' and i denied not; for visions are the creators and feeders of the world. i see, i measure the world as it is, which the vision will create anew. you are not listening to one who raves aloof from the lives of his fellows." mordecai paused, and deronda, feeling that the pause was expectant, said, "do me the justice to believe that i was not inclined to call your words raving. i listen that i may know, without prejudgment. i have had experience which gives me a keen interest in the story of a spiritual destiny embraced willingly, and embraced in youth." "a spiritual destiny embraced willingly--in youth?" mordecai repeated in a corrective tone. "it was the soul fully born within me, and it came in my boyhood. it brought its own world--a mediaeval world, where there are men who made the ancient language live again in new psalms of exile. they had absorbed the philosophy of the gentile into the faith of the jew, and they still yearned toward a center for our race. one of their souls was born again within me, and awakened amid the memories of their world. it traveled into spain and provence; it debated with aben-ezra; it took ship with jehuda ha-levi; it heard the roar of the crusaders and the shrieks of tortured israel. and when its dumb tongue was loosed, it spoke the speech they had made alive with the new blood of their ardor, their sorrow, and their martyred trust: it sang with the cadence of their strain." mordecai paused again, and then said in a loud, hoarse whisper, "while it is imprisoned in me, it will never learn another." "have you written entirely in hebrew, then?" said deronda, remembering with some anxiety the former question as to his own knowledge of that tongue. "yes--yes," said mordecai, in a tone of deep sadness: "in my youth i wandered toward that solitude, not feeling that it was a solitude. i had the ranks of the great dead around me; the martyrs gathered and listened. but soon i found that the living were deaf to me. at first i saw my life spread as a long future: i said part of my jewish heritage is an unbreaking patience; part is skill to seek divers methods and find a rooting-place where the planters despair. but there came new messengers from the eternal. i had to bow under the yoke that presses on the great multitude born of woman: family troubles called me--i had to work, to care, not for myself alone. i was left solitary again; but already the angel of death had turned to me and beckoned, and i felt his skirts continually on my path. i loosed not my effort. i besought hearing and help. i spoke; i went to men of our people--to the rich in influence or knowledge, to the rich in other wealth. but i found none to listen with understanding. i was rebuked for error; i was offered a small sum in charity. no wonder. i looked poor; i carried a bundle of hebrew manuscript with me; i said, our chief teachers are misleading the hope of our race. scholar and merchant were both too busy to listen. scorn stood as interpreter between me and them. one said, 'the book of mormon would never have answered in hebrew; and if you mean to address our learned men, it is not likely you can teach them anything.' he touched a truth there." the last words had a perceptible irony in their hoarsened tone. "but though you had accustomed yourself to write in hebrew, few, surely, can use english better," said deronda, wanting to hint consolation in a new effort for which he could smooth the way. mordecai shook his head slowly, and answered, "too late--too late. i can write no more. my writing would be like this gasping breath. but the breath may wake the fount of pity--the writing not. if i could write now and used english, i should be as one who beats a board to summon those who have been used to no signal but a bell. my soul has an ear to hear the faults of its own speech. new writing of mine would be like this body"--mordecai spread his arms--"within it there might be the ruach-ha-kodesh--the breath of divine thought--but, men would smile at it and say, 'a poor jew!' and the chief smilers would be of my own people." mordecai let his hands fall, and his head sink in melancholy: for the moment he had lost hold of his hope. despondency, conjured up by his own words, had floated in and hovered above him with eclipsing wings. he had sunk into momentary darkness, "i feel with you--i feel strongly with you," said deronda, in a clear deep voice which was itself a cordial, apart from the words of sympathy. "but forgive me if i speak hastily--for what you have actually written there need be no utter burial. the means of publication are within reach. if you will rely on me, i can assure you of all that is necessary to that end." "that is not enough," said mordecai, quickly, looking up again with the flash of recovered memory and confidence. "that is not all my trust in you. you must be not only a hand to me, but a soul--believing my belief--being moved by my reasons--hoping my hope--seeing the vision i point to--beholding a glory where i behold it!"--mordecai had taken a step nearer as he spoke, and now laid his hand on deronda's arm with a tight grasp; his face little more than a foot off had something like a pale flame in it--an intensity of reliance that acted as a peremptory claim, while he went on--"you will be my life: it will be planted afresh; it will grow. you shall take the inheritance; it has been gathering for ages. the generations are crowding on my narrow life as a bridge: what has been and what is to be are meeting there; and the bridge is breaking. but i have found you. you have come in time. you will take the inheritance which the base son refuses because of the tombs which the plow and harrow may not pass over or the gold-seeker disturb: you will take the sacred inheritance of the jew." deronda had become as pallid as mordecai. quick as an alarm of flood or fire, there spread within him not only a compassionate dread of discouraging this fellowman who urged a prayer as one in the last agony, but also the opposing dread of fatally feeding an illusion, and being hurried on to a self-committal which might turn into a falsity. the peculiar appeal to his tenderness overcame the repulsion that most of us experience under a grasp and speech which assumed to dominate. the difficulty to him was to inflict the accents of hesitation and doubt on this ardent suffering creature, who was crowding too much of his brief being into a moment of perhaps extravagant trust. with exquisite instinct, deronda, before he opened his lips, placed his palm gently on mordecai's straining hand--an act just then equal to many speeches. and after that he said, without haste, as if conscious that he might be wrong, "do you forget what i told you when we first saw each other? do you remember that i said i was not of your race?" "it can't be true," mordecai whispered immediately, with no sign of shock. the sympathetic hand still upon him had fortified the feeling which was stronger than those words of denial. there was a perceptible pause, deronda feeling it impossible to answer, conscious indeed that the assertion "it can't be true"--had the pressure of argument for him. mordecai, too entirely possessed by the supreme importance of the relation between himself and deronda to have any other care in his speech, followed up that assertion by a second, which came to his lips as a mere sequence of his long-cherished conviction--"you are not sure of your own origin." "how do you know that?" said daniel, with an habitual shrinking which made him remove his hands from mordecai's, who also relaxed his hold, and fell back into his former leaning position. "i know it--i know it; what is my life else?" said mordecai, with a low cry of impatience. "tell me everything: tell me why you deny." he could have no conception what that demand was to the hearer--how probingly it touched the hidden sensibility, the vividly conscious reticence of years; how the uncertainty he was insisting on as part of his own hope had always for daniel been a threatening possibility of painful revelation about his mother. but the moment had influences which were not only new but solemn to deronda; any evasion here might turn out to be a hateful refusal of some task that belonged to him, some act of due fellowship; in any case it would be a cruel rebuff to a being who was appealing to him as a forlorn hope under the shadow of a coming doom. after a few moments, he said, with a great effort over himself--determined to tell all the truth briefly, "i have never known my mother. i have no knowledge about her. i have never called any man father. but i am convinced that my father is an englishman." deronda's deep tones had a tremor in them as he uttered this confession; and all the while there was an undercurrent of amazement in him at the strange circumstances under which he uttered it. it seemed as if mordecai were hardly overrating his own power to determine the action of the friend whom he had mysteriously chosen. "it will be seen--it will be declared," said mordecai, triumphantly. "the world grows, and its frame is knit together by the growing soul; dim, dim at first, then clearer and more clear, the consciousness discerns remote stirrings. as thoughts move within us darkly, and shake us before they are fully discerned--so events--so beings: they are knit with us in the growth of the world. you have risen within me like a thought not fully spelled; my soul is shaken before the words are all there. the rest will come--it will come." "we must not lose sight of the fact that the outward event has not always been a fulfillment of the firmest faith," said deronda, in a tone that was made hesitating by the painfully conflicting desires, not to give any severe blow to mordecai, and not to give his confidence a sanction which might have the severest of blows in reserve. mordecai's face, which had been illuminated to the utmost in that last declaration of his confidence, changed under deronda's words, not only into any show of collapsed trust: the force did not disappear from the expression, but passed from the triumphant into the firmly resistant. "you would remind me that i may be under an illusion--that the history of our people's trust has been full of illusion. i face it all." here mordecai paused a moment. then bending his head a little forward, he said, in his hoarse whisper, "_so it might be with my trust, if you would make it an illusion. but you will not._" the very sharpness with which these words penetrated deronda made him feel the more that here was a crisis in which he must be firm. "what my birth was does not lie in my will," he answered. "my sense of claims on me cannot be independent of my knowledge there. and i cannot promise you that i will try to hasten a disclosure. feelings which have struck root through half my life may still hinder me from doing what i have never been able to do. everything must be waited for. i must know more of the truth about my own life, and i must know more of what it would become if it were made a part of yours." mordecai had folded his arms again while deronda was speaking, and now answered with equal firmness, though with difficult breathing, "you _shall_ know. what are we met for, but that you should know. your doubts lie as light as dust on my belief. i know the philosophies of this time and of other times; if i chose i could answer a summons before their tribunals. i could silence the beliefs which are the mother-tongue of my soul and speak with the rote-learned language of a system, that gives you the spelling of all things, sure of its alphabet covering them all. i could silence them: may not a man silence his awe or his love, and take to finding reasons, which others demand? but if his love lies deeper than any reasons to be found? man finds his pathways: at first they were foot tracks, as those of the beast in the wilderness: now they are swift and invisible: his thought dives through the ocean, and his wishes thread the air: has he found all the pathways yet? what reaches him, stays with him, rules him: he must accept it, not knowing its pathway. say, my expectation of you has grown but as false hopes grow. that doubt is in your mind? well, my expectation was there, and you are come. men have died of thirst. but i was thirsty, and the water is on my lips! what are doubts to me? in the hour when you come to me and say, 'i reject your soul: i know that i am not a jew: we have no lot in common'--i shall not doubt. i shall be certain--certain that i have been deluded. that hour will never come!" deronda felt a new chord sounding in his speech: it was rather imperious than appealing--had more of conscious power than of the yearning need which had acted as a beseeching grasp on him before. and usually, though he was the reverse of pugnacious, such a change of attitude toward him would have weakened his inclination to admit a claim. but here there was something that balanced his resistance and kept it aloof. this strong man whose gaze was sustainedly calm and his finger-nails pink with health, who was exercised in all questioning, and accused of excessive mental independence, still felt a subduing influence over him in the tenacious certitude of the fragile creature before him, whose pallid yellow nostril was tense with effort as his breath labored under the burthen of eager speech. the influence seemed to strengthen the bond of sympathetic obligation. in deronda at this moment the desire to escape what might turn into a trying embarrassment was no more likely to determine action than the solicitations of indolence are likely to determine it in one with whom industry is a daily law. he answered simply, "it is my wish to meet and satisfy your wishes wherever that is possible to me. it is certain to me at least that i desire not to undervalue your toil and your suffering. let me know your thoughts. but where can we meet?" "i have thought of that," said mordecai. "it is not hard for you to come into this neighborhood later in the evening? you did so once." "i can manage it very well occasionally," said deronda. "you live under the same roof with the cohens, i think?" before mordecai could answer, mr. ram re-entered to take his place behind the counter. he was an elderly son of abraham, whose childhood had fallen on the evil times at the beginning of this century, and who remained amid this smart and instructed generation as a preserved specimen, soaked through and through with the effect of the poverty and contempt which were the common heritage of most english jews seventy years ago. he had none of the oily cheerfulness observable in mr. cohen's aspect: his very features--broad and chubby--showed that tendency to look mongrel without due cause, which, in a miscellaneous london neighborhood, may perhaps be compared with the marvels of imitation in insects, and may have been nature's imperfect effort on behalf of the pure caucasian to shield him from the shame and spitting to which purer features would have been exposed in the times of zeal. mr. ram dealt ably in books, in the same way that he would have dealt in tins of meat and other commodities--without knowledge or responsibility as to the proportion of rottenness or nourishment they might contain. but he believed in mordecai's learning as something marvellous, and was not sorry that his conversation should be sought by a bookish gentleman, whose visits had twice ended in a purchase. he greeted deronda with a crabbed good-will, and, putting on large silver spectacles, appeared at once to abstract himself in the daily accounts. but deronda and mordecai were soon in the street together, and without any explicit agreement as to their direction, were walking toward ezra cohen's. "we can't meet there: my room is too narrow," said mordecai, taking up the thread of talk where they had dropped it. "but there is a tavern not far from here where i sometimes go to a club. it is the _hand and banner_, in the street at the next turning, five doors down. we can have the parlor there any evening." "we can try that for once," said deronda. "but you will perhaps let me provide you with some lodging, which would give you more freedom and comfort than where you are." "no; i need nothing. my outer life is as nought. i will take nothing less precious from you than your soul's brotherhood. i will think of nothing else yet. but i am glad you are rich. you did not need money on that diamond ring. you had some other motive for bringing it." deronda was a little startled by this clear-sightedness; but before he could reply mordecai added--"it is all one. had you been in need of the money, the great end would have been that we should meet again. but you are rich?" he ended, in a tone of interrogation. "not rich, except in the sense that every one is rich who has more than he needs for himself." "i desired that your life should be free," said mordecai, dreamily--"mine has been a bondage." it was clear that he had no interest in the fact of deronda's appearance at the cohens' beyond its relation to his own ideal purpose. despairing of leading easily up to the question he wished to ask, deronda determined to put it abruptly, and said, "can you tell me why mrs. cohen, the mother, must not be spoken to about her daughter?" there was no immediate answer, and he thought that he should have to repeat the question. the fact was that mordecai had heard the words, but had to drag his mind to a new subject away from his passionate preoccupation. after a few moments, he replied with a careful effort such as he would have used if he had been asked the road to holborn: "i know the reason. but i will not speak even of trivial family affairs which i have heard in the privacy of the family. i dwell in their tent as in a sanctuary. their history, so far as they injure none other, is their own possession." deronda felt the blood mounting to his cheeks as a sort of rebuke he was little used to, and he also found himself painfully baffled where he had reckoned with some confidence on getting decisive knowledge. he became the more conscious of emotional strain from the excitements of the day; and although he had the money in his pocket to redeem his ring, he recoiled from the further task of a visit to the cohens', which must be made not only under the former uncertainty, but under a new disappointment as to the possibility of its removal. "i will part from you now," he said, just before they could reach cohen's door; and mordecai paused, looking up at him with an anxious fatigued face under the gaslight. "when will you come back?" he said, with slow emphasis. "may i leave that unfixed? may i ask for you at the cohens' any evening after your hour at the book-shop? there is no objection, i suppose, to their knowing that you and i meet in private?" "none," said mordecai. "but the days i wait now are longer than the years of my strength. life shrinks: what was but a tithe is now the half. my hope abides in you." "i will be faithful," said deronda--he could not have left those words unuttered. "i will come the first evening i can after seven: on saturday or monday, if possible. trust me." he put out his ungloved hand. mordecai, clasping it eagerly, seemed to feel a new instreaming of confidence, and he said with some recovered energy--"this is come to pass, and the rest will come." that was their good-by. book vi.--revelations chapter xli. "this, too is probable, according to that saying of agathon: 'it is a part of probability that many improbable things will happen.'" --aristotle: _poetics_. imagine the conflict in a mind like deronda's given not only to feel strongly but to question actively, on the evening after the interview with mordecai. to a young man of much duller susceptibilities the adventure might have seemed enough out of the common way to divide his thoughts; but it had stirred deronda so deeply, that with the usual reaction of his intellect he began to examine the grounds of his emotion, and consider how far he must resist its guidance. the consciousness that he was half dominated by mordecai's energetic certitude, and still more by his fervent trust, roused his alarm. it was his characteristic bias to shrink from the moral stupidity of valuing lightly what had come close to him, and of missing blindly in his own life of to-day the crisis which he recognized as momentous and sacred in the historic life of men. if he had read of this incident as having happened centuries ago in rome, greece, asia minor, palestine, cairo, to some man young as himself, dissatisfied with his neutral life, and wanting some closer fellowship, some more special duty to give him ardor for the possible consequences of his work, it would have appeared to him quite natural that the incident should have created a deep impression on that far-off man, whose clothing and action would have been seen in his imagination as part of an age chiefly known to us through its more serious effects. why should he be ashamed of his own agitated feeling merely because he dressed for dinner, wore a white tie, and lived among people who might laugh at his owning any conscience in the matter, as the solemn folly of taking himself too seriously?--that bugbear of circles in which the lack of grave emotion passes for wit. from such cowardice before modish ignorance and obtuseness, deronda shrank. but he also shrank from having his course determined by mere contagion, without consent of reason; or from allowing a reverential pity for spiritual struggle to hurry him along a dimly-seen path. what, after all, had really happened? he knew quite accurately the answer sir hugo would have given: "a consumptive jew, possessed by a fanaticism which obstacles and hastening death intensified, had fixed on deronda as the antitype of some visionary image, the offspring of wedded hope and despair: despair of his own life, irrepressible hope in the propagation of his fanatical beliefs. the instance was perhaps odd, exceptional in its form, but substantially it was not rare. fanaticism was not so common as bankruptcy, but taken in all its aspects it was abundant enough. while mordecai was waiting on the bridge for the fulfillment of his visions, another man was convinced that he had the mathematical key of the universe which would supersede newton, and regarded all known physicists as conspiring to stifle his discovery and keep the universe locked; another, that he had the metaphysical key, with just that hair's-breadth of difference from the old wards which would make it fit exactly. scattered here and there in every direction you might find a terrible person, with more or less power of speech, and with an eye either glittering or preternaturally dull, on the look-out for the man who must hear him; and in most cases he had volumes which it was difficult to get printed, or if printed to get read. this mordecai happened to have a more pathetic aspect, a more passionate, penetrative speech than was usual with such monomaniacs; he was more poetical than a social reformer with colored views of the new moral world in parallelograms, or than an enthusiast in sewage; still he came under the same class. it would be only right and kind to indulge him a little, to comfort him with such help as was practicable; but what likelihood was there that his notions had the sort of value he ascribed to them? in such cases a man of the world knows what to think beforehand. and as to mordecai's conviction that he had found a new executive self, it might be preparing for him the worst of disappointments--that which presents itself as final." deronda's ear caught all these negative whisperings; nay, he repeated them distinctly to himself. it was not the first but it was the most pressing occasion on which he had had to face this question of the family likeness among the heirs of enthusiasm, whether prophets or dreamers of dreams, whether the "great benefactors of mankind, deliverers," or the devotees of phantasmal discovery--from the first believer in his own unmanifested inspiration, down to the last inventor of an ideal machine that will achieve perpetual motion. the kinship of human passion, the sameness of mortal scenery, inevitably fill fact with burlesque and parody. error and folly have had their hecatombs of martyrs. reduce the grandest type of man hitherto known to an abstract statement of his qualities and efforts, and he appears in dangerous company: say that, like copernicus and galileo, he was immovably convinced in the face of hissing incredulity; but so is the contriver of perpetual motion. we cannot fairly try the spirits by this sort of test. if we want to avoid giving the dose of hemlock or the sentence of banishment in the wrong case, nothing will do but a capacity to understand the subject-matter on which the immovable man is convinced, and fellowship with human travail, both near and afar, to hinder us from scanning any deep experience lightly. shall we say, "let the ages try the spirits, and see what they are worth?" why, we are the beginning of the ages, which can only be just by virtue of just judgments in separate human breasts--separate yet combined. even steam-engines could not have got made without that condition, but must have stayed in the mind of james watt. this track of thinking was familiar enough to deronda to have saved him from any contemptuous prejudgment of mordecai, even if their communication had been free from that peculiar claim on himself strangely ushered in by some long-growing preparation in the jew's agitated mind. this claim, indeed, considered in what is called a rational way, might seem justifiably dismissed as illusory and even preposterous; but it was precisely what turned mordecai's hold on him from an appeal to his ready sympathy into a clutch on his struggling conscience. our consciences are not all of the same pattern, an inner deliverance of fixed laws: they are the voice of sensibilities as various as our memories (which also have their kinship and likeness). and deronda's conscience included sensibilities beyond the common, enlarged by his early habit of thinking himself imaginatively into the experience of others. what was the claim this eager soul made upon him?--"you must believe my beliefs--be moved by my reasons--hope my hopes--see the vision i point to--behold a glory where i behold it!" to take such a demand in the light of an obligation in any direct sense would have been preposterous--to have seemed to admit it would have been dishonesty; and deronda, looking on the agitation of those moments, felt thankful that in the midst of his compassion he had preserved himself from the bondage of false concessions. the claim hung, too, on a supposition which might be--nay, probably was--in discordance with the full fact: the supposition that he, deronda, was of jewish blood. was there ever a more hypothetic appeal? but since the age of thirteen deronda had associated the deepest experience of his affections with what was a pure supposition, namely, that sir hugo was his father: that was a hypothesis which had been the source of passionate struggle within him; by its light he had been accustomed to subdue feelings and to cherish them. he had been well used to find a motive in a conception which might be disproved; and he had been also used to think of some revelation that might influence his view of the particular duties belonging to him. to be in a state of suspense, which was also one of emotive activity and scruple, was a familiar attitude of his conscience. and now, suppose that wish-begotten belief in his jewish birth, and that extravagant demand of discipleship, to be the foreshadowing of an actual discovery and a genuine spiritual result: suppose that mordecai's ideas made a real conquest over deronda's conviction? nay, it was conceivable that as mordecai needed and believed that, he had found an active replenishment of himself, so deronda might receive from mordecai's mind the complete ideal shape of that personal duty and citizenship which lay in his own thought like sculptured fragments certifying some beauty yearned after but not traceable by divination. as that possibility presented itself in his meditations, he was aware that it would be called dreamy, and began to defend it. if the influence he imagined himself submitting to had been that of some honored professor, some authority in a seat of learning, some philosopher who had been accepted as a voice of the age, would a thorough receptiveness toward direction have been ridiculed? only by those who hold it a sign of weakness to be obliged for an idea, and prefer to hint that they have implicitly held in a more correct form whatever others have stated with a sadly short-coming explicitness. after all, what was there but vulgarity in taking the fact that mordecai was a poor jewish workman, and that he was to be met perhaps on a sanded floor in the parlor of the _hand and banner_ as a reason for determining beforehand that there was not some spiritual force within him that might have a determining effect on a white-handed gentleman? there is a legend told of the emperor domitian, that having heard of a jewish family, of the house of david, whence the ruler of the world was to spring, he sent for its members in alarm, but quickly released them on observing that they had the hands of work-people--being of just the opposite opinion with that rabbi who stood waiting at the gate of rome in confidence that the messiah would be found among the destitute who entered there. both emperor and rabbi were wrong in their trust of outward signs: poverty and poor clothes are no sign of inspiration, said deronda to his inward objector, but they have gone with it in some remarkable cases. and to regard discipleship as out of the question because of them, would be mere dullness of imagination. a more plausible reason for putting discipleship out of the question was the strain of visionary excitement in mordecai, which turned his wishes into overmastering impressions, and made him read outward facts as fulfillment. was such a temper of mind likely to accompany that wise estimate of consequences which is the only safeguard from fatal error, even to ennobling motive? but it remained to be seen whether that rare conjunction existed or not in mordecai: perhaps his might be one of the natures where a wise estimate of consequences is fused in the fires of that passionate belief which determines the consequences it believes in. the inspirations of the world have come in that way too: even strictly-measuring science could hardly have got on without that forecasting ardor which feels the agitations of discovery beforehand, and has a faith in its preconception that surmounts many failures of experiment. and in relation to human motives and actions, passionate belief has a fuller efficacy. here enthusiasm may have the validity of proof, and happening in one soul, give the type of what will one day be general. at least, deronda argued, mordecai's visionary excitability was hardly a reason for concluding beforehand that he was not worth listening to except for pity's sake. suppose he had introduced himself as one of the strictest reasoners. do they form a body of men hitherto free from false conclusions and illusory speculations? the driest argument has its hallucinations, too hastily concluding that its net will now at last be large enough to hold the universe. men may dream in demonstrations, and cut out an illusory world in the shape of axioms, definitions, and propositions, with a final exclusion of fact signed q.e.d. no formulas for thinking will save us mortals from mistake in our imperfect apprehension of the matter to be thought about. and since the unemotional intellect may carry us into a mathematical dreamland where nothing is but what is not, perhaps an emotional intellect may have absorbed into its passionate vision of possibilities some truth of what will be--the more comprehensive massive life feeding theory with new material, as the sensibility of the artist seizes combinations which science explains and justifies. at any rate, presumptions to the contrary are not to be trusted. we must be patient with the inevitable makeshift of our human thinking, whether in its sum total or in the separate minds that have made the sum. columbus had some impressions about himself which we call superstitions, and used some arguments which we disapprove; but he had also some sound physical conceptions, and he had the passionate patience of genius to make them tell on mankind. the world has made up its mind rather contemptuously about those who were deaf to columbus. "my contempt for them binds me to see that i don't adopt their mistake on a small scale," said deronda, "and make myself deaf with the assumption that there cannot be any momentous relation between this jew and me, simply because he has clad it in illusory notions. what i can be to him, or he to me, may not at all depend on his persuasion about the way we came together. to me the way seems made up of plainly discernible links. if i had not found mirah, it is probable that i should not have begun to be specially interested in the jews, and certainly i should not have gone on that loitering search after an ezra cohen which made me pause at ram's book-shop and ask the price of _maimon_. mordecai, on his side, had his visions of a disciple, and he saw me by their light; i corresponded well enough with the image his longing had created. he took me for one of his race. suppose that his impression--the elderly jew at frankfort seemed to have something like it--suppose in spite of all presumptions to the contrary, that his impression should somehow be proved true, and that i should come actually to share any of the ideas he is devoted to? this is the only question which really concerns the effect of our meeting on my life. "but if the issue should be quite different?--well, there will be something painful to go through. i shall almost inevitably have to be an active cause of that poor fellow's crushing disappointment. perhaps this issue is the one i had need prepare myself for. i fear that no tenderness of mine can make his suffering lighter. would the alternative--that i should not disappoint him--be less painful to me?" here deronda wavered. feelings had lately been at work within him which had very much modified the reluctance he would formerly have had to think of himself as probably a jew. and, if you like, he was romantic. that young energy and spirit of adventure which have helped to create the world-wide legions of youthful heroes going to seek the hidden tokens of their birth and its inheritance of tasks, gave him a certain quivering interest in the bare possibility that he was entering on a like track --all the more because the track was one of thought as well as action. "the bare possibility." he could not admit it to be more. the belief that his father was an englishman only grew firmer under the weak assaults of unwarranted doubt. and that a moment should ever come in which that belief was declared a delusion, was something of which deronda would not say, "i should be glad." his life-long affection for sir hugo, stronger than all his resentment, made him shrink from admitting that wish. which way soever the truth might lie, he repeated to himself what he had said to mordecai--that he could not without farther reasons undertake to hasten its discovery. nay, he was tempted now to regard his uncertainty as a condition to be cherished for the present. if further intercourse revealed nothing but illusions as what he was expected to share in, the want of any valid evidence that he was a jew might save mordecai the worst shock in the refusal of fraternity. it might even be justifiable to use the uncertainty on this point in keeping up a suspense which would induce mordecai to accept those offices of friendship that deronda longed to urge on him. these were the meditations that busied deronda in the interval of four days before he could fulfill his promise to call for mordecai at ezra cohen's, sir hugo's demands on him often lasting to an hour so late as to put the evening expedition to holborn out of the question. chapter xlii. "wenn es eine stufenleiter von leiden giebt, so hat israel die höchste staffel erstiegen; wen die dauer der schmerzen und die geduld, mit welcher sie ertragen werden, adeln, so nehmen es die juden mit den hochgeborenen aller länder auf; wenn eine literatur reich genannt wird, die wenige klassische trauerspiele besitzt, welcher platz gebührt dann einer tragodie die anderthalb jahrtausende wahrt, gedichtet und dargestellt von den helden selber?"--zunz: _die synagogale poesie des mittelalters._ "if there are ranks in suffering, israel takes precedence of all the nations--if the duration of sorrows and the patience with which they are borne ennoble, the jews are among the aristocracy of every land--if a literature is called rich in the possession of a few classic tragedies, what shall we say to a national tragedy lasting for fifteen hundred years, in which the poets and the actors were also the heroes?" deronda had lately been reading that passage of zunz, and it occurred to him by way of contrast when he was going to the cohens, who certainly bore no obvious stamp of distinction in sorrow or in any other form of aristocracy. ezra cohen was not clad in the sublime pathos of the martyr, and his taste for money-getting seemed to be favored with that success which has been the most exasperating difference in the greed of jews during all the ages of their dispersion. this jeshurun of a pawnbroker was not a symbol of the great jewish tragedy; and yet was there not something typical in the fact that a life like mordecai's--a frail incorporation of the national consciousness, breathing with difficult breath--was nested in the self-gratulating ignorant prosperity of the cohens? glistening was the gladness in their faces when deronda reappeared among them. cohen himself took occasion to intimate that although the diamond ring, let alone a little longer, would have bred more money, he did not mind _that_--not a sixpence--when compared with the pleasure of the women and children in seeing a young gentleman whose first visit had been so agreeable that they had "done nothing but talk of it ever since." young mrs. cohen was very sorry that baby was asleep, and then very glad that adelaide was not yet gone to bed, entreating deronda not to stay in the shop, but to go forthwith into the parlor to see "mother and the children." he willingly accepted the invitation, having provided himself with portable presents; a set of paper figures for adelaide, and an ivory cup and ball for jacob. the grandmother had a pack of cards before her and was making "plates" with the children. a plate had just been thrown down and kept itself whole. "stop!" said jacob, running to deronda as he entered. "don't tread on my plate. stop and see me throw it up again." deronda complied, exchanging a smile of understanding with the grandmother, and the plate bore several tossings before it came to pieces; then the visitor was allowed to come forward and seat himself. he observed that the door from which mordecai had issued on the former visit was now closed, but he wished to show his interest in the cohens before disclosing a yet stronger interest in their singular inmate. it was not until he had adelaide on his knee, and was setting up the paper figures in their dance on the table, while jacob was already practicing with the cup and ball, that deronda said, "is mordecai in just now?" "where is he, addy?" said cohen, who had seized an interval of business to come and look on. "in the workroom there," said his wife, nodding toward the closed door. "the fact is, sir," said cohen, "we don't know what's come to him this last day or two. he's always what i may call a little touched, you know"--here cohen pointed to his own forehead--"not quite so rational in all things, like you and me; but he's mostly wonderful regular and industrious so far as a poor creature can be, and takes as much delight in the boy as anybody could. but this last day or two he's been moving about like a sleep-walker, or else sitting as still as a wax figure." "it's the disease, poor dear creature," said the grandmother, tenderly. "i doubt whether he can stand long against it." "no; i think its only something he's got in his head," said mrs. cohen the younger. "he's been turning over writing continually, and when i speak to him it takes him ever so long to hear and answer." "you may think us a little weak ourselves," said cohen, apologetically. "but my wife and mother wouldn't part with him if he was a still worse encumbrance. it isn't that we don't know the long and short of matters, but it's our principle. there's fools do business at a loss and don't know it. i'm not one of 'em." "oh, mordecai carries a blessing inside him," said the grandmother. "he's got something the matter inside him," said jacob, coming up to correct this erratum of his grandmother's. "he said he couldn't talk to me, and he wouldn't have a bit o' bun." "so far from wondering at your feeling for him," said deronda, "i already feel something of the same sort myself. i have lately talked to him at ram's book-shop--in fact, i promised to call for him here, that we might go out together." "that's it, then!" said cohen, slapping his knee. "he's been expecting you, and it's taken hold of him. i suppose he talks about his learning to you. it's uncommonly kind of _you_, sir; for i don't suppose there's much to be got out of it, else it wouldn't have left him where he is. but there's the shop." cohen hurried out, and jacob, who had been listening inconveniently near to deronda's elbow, said to him with obliging familiarity, "i'll call mordecai for you, if you like." "no, jacob," said his mother; "open the door for the gentleman, and let him go in himself hush! don't make a noise." skillful jacob seemed to enter into the play, and turned the handle of the door as noiselessly as possible, while deronda went behind him and stood on the threshold. the small room was lit only by a dying fire and one candle with a shade over it. on the board fixed under the window, various objects of jewelry were scattered: some books were heaped in the corner beyond them. mordecai was seated on a high chair at the board with his back to the door, his hands resting on each other and on the board, a watch propped on a stand before him. he was in a state of expectation as sickening as that of a prisoner listening for the delayed deliverance--when he heard deronda's voice saying, "i am come for you. are you ready?" immediately he turned without speaking, seized his furred cap which lay near, and moved to join deronda. it was but a moment before they were both in the sitting-room, and jacob, noticing the change in his friend's air and expression, seized him by the arm and said, "see my cup and ball!" sending the ball up close to mordecai's face, as something likely to cheer a convalescent. it was a sign of the relieved tension in mordecai's mind that he could smile and say, "fine, fine!" "you have forgotten your greatcoat and comforter," said young mrs. cohen, and he went back into the work-room and got them. "he's come to life again, do you see?" said cohen, who had re-entered--speaking in an undertone. "i told you so: i'm mostly right." then in his usual voice, "well, sir, we mustn't detain you now, i suppose; but i hope this isn't the last time we shall see you." "shall you come again?" said jacob, advancing. "see, i can catch the ball; i'll bet i catch it without stopping, if you come again." "he has clever hands," said deronda, looking at the grandmother. "which side of the family does he get them from?" but the grandmother only nodded towards her son, who said promptly, "my side. my wife's family are not in that line. but bless your soul! ours is a sort of cleverness as good as gutta percha; you can twist it which way you like. there's nothing some old gentlemen won't do if you set 'em to it." here cohen winked down at jacob's back, but it was doubtful whether this judicious allusiveness answered its purpose, for its subject gave a nasal whinnying laugh and stamped about singing, "old gentlemen, old gentlemen," in chiming cadence. deronda thought, "i shall never know anything decisive about these people until i ask cohen pointblank whether he lost a sister named mirah when she was six years old." the decisive moment did not yet seem easy for him to face. still his first sense of repulsion at the commonness of these people was beginning to be tempered with kindlier feeling. however unrefined their airs and speech might be, he was forced to admit some moral refinement in their treatment of the consumptive workman, whose mental distinction impressed them chiefly as a harmless, silent raving. "the cohens seem to have an affection for you," said deronda, as soon as he and mordecai were off the doorstep. "and i for them," was the immediate answer. "they have the heart of the israelite within them, though they are as the horse and the mule, without understanding beyond the narrow path they tread." "i have caused you some uneasiness, i fear," said deronda, "by my slowness in fulfilling my promise. i wished to come yesterday, but i found it impossible." "yes--yes, i trusted you. but it is true i have been uneasy, for the spirit of my youth has been stirred within me, and this body is not strong enough to bear the beating of its wings. i am as a man bound and imprisoned through long years: behold him brought to speech of his fellow and his limbs set free: he weeps, he totters, the joy within him threatens to break and overthrow the tabernacle of flesh." "you must not speak too much in this evening air," said deronda, feeling mordecai's words of reliance like so many cords binding him painfully. "cover your mouth with the woolen scarf. we are going to the _hand and banner_, i suppose, and shall be in private there?" "no, that is my trouble that you did not come yesterday. for this is the evening of the club i spoke of, and we might not have any minutes alone until late, when all the rest are gone. perhaps we had better seek another place. but i am used to that only. in new places the outer world presses on me and narrows the inward vision. and the people there are familiar with my face." "i don't mind the club if i am allowed to go in," said deronda. "it is enough that you like this place best. if we have not enough time i will come again. what sort of club is it?" "it is called 'the philosophers.' they are few--like the cedars of lebanon--poor men given to thought. but none so poor as i am: and sometimes visitors of higher worldly rank have been brought. we are allowed to introduce a friend, who is interested in our topics. each orders beer or some other kind of drink, in payment for the room. most of them smoke. i have gone when i could, for there are other men of my race who come, and sometimes i have broken silence. i have pleased myself with a faint likeness between these poor philosophers and the masters who handed down the thought of our race--the great transmitters, who labored with their hands for scant bread, but preserved and enlarged for us the heritage of memory, and saved the soul of israel alive as a seed among the tombs. the heart pleases itself with faint resemblances." "i shall be very glad to go and sit among them, if that will suit you. it is a sort of meeting i should like to join in," said deronda, not without relief in the prospect of an interval before he went through the strain of his next private conversation with mordecai. in three minutes they had opened the glazed door with the red curtain, and were in the little parlor, hardly much more than fifteen feet square, where the gaslight shone through a slight haze of smoke on what to deronda was a new and striking scene. half-a-dozen men of various ages, from between twenty and thirty to fifty, all shabbily dressed, most of them with clay pipes in their mouths, were listening with a look of concentrated intelligence to a man in a pepper-and-salt dress, with blonde hair, short nose, broad forehead and general breadth, who, holding his pipe slightly uplifted in the left hand, and beating his knee with the right, was just finishing a quotation from shelley (the comparison of the avalanche in his "prometheus unbound") "as thought by thought is piled, till some great truth is loosened, and the nations echo round." the entrance of the new-comers broke the fixity of attention, and called for re-arrangement of seats in the too narrow semicircle round the fire-place and the table holding the glasses, spare pipes and tobacco. this was the soberest of clubs; but sobriety is no reason why smoking and "taking something" should be less imperiously needed as a means of getting a decent status in company and debate. mordecai was received with welcoming voices which had a slight cadence of compassion in them, but naturally all glances passed immediately to his companion. "i have brought a friend who is interested in our subjects," said mordecai. "he has traveled and studied much." "is the gentlemen anonymous? is he a great unknown?" said the broad-chested quoter of shelley, with a humorous air. "my name is daniel deronda. i am unknown, but not in any sense great." the smile breaking over the stranger's grave face as he said this was so agreeable that there was a general indistinct murmur, equivalent to a "hear, hear," and the broad man said, "you recommend the name, sir, and are welcome. here, mordecai, come to this corner against me," he added, evidently wishing to give the coziest place to the one who most needed it. deronda was well satisfied to get a seat on the opposite side, where his general survey of the party easily included mordecai, who remained an eminently striking object in this group of sharply-characterized figures, more than one of whom, even to daniel's little exercised discrimination, seemed probably of jewish descent. in fact pure english blood (if leech or lancet can furnish us with the precise product) did not declare itself predominantly in the party at present assembled. miller, the broad man, an exceptional second-hand bookseller who knew the insides of books, had at least grand-parents who called themselves german, and possibly far-away ancestors who denied themselves to be jews; buchan, the saddler, was scotch; pash, the watchmaker, was a small, dark, vivacious, triple-baked jew; gideon, the optical instrument maker, was a jew of the red-haired, generous-featured type easily passing for englishmen of unusually cordial manners: and croop, the dark-eyed shoemaker, was probably more celtic than he knew. only three would have been discernable everywhere as englishmen: the wood-inlayer goodwin, well-built, open-faced, pleasant-voiced; the florid laboratory assistant marrables; and lily, the pale, neat-faced copying-clerk, whose light-brown hair was set up in a small parallelogram above his well-filled forehead, and whose shirt, taken with an otherwise seedy costume, had a freshness that might be called insular, and perhaps even something narrower. certainly a company select of the select among poor men, being drawn together by a taste not prevalent even among the privileged heirs of learning and its institutions; and not likely to amuse any gentleman in search of crime or low comedy as the ground of interest in people whose weekly income is only divisible into shillings. deronda, even if he had not been more than usually inclined to gravity under the influence of what was pending between him and mordecai, would not have set himself to find food for laughter in the various shades of departure from the tone of polished society sure to be observable in the air and talk of these men who had probably snatched knowledge as most of us snatch indulgences, making the utmost of scant opportunity. he looked around him with the quiet air of respect habitual to him among equals, ordered whisky and water, and offered the contents of his cigar-case, which, characteristically enough, he always carried and hardly ever used for his own behoof, having reasons for not smoking himself, but liking to indulge others. perhaps it was his weakness to be afraid of seeming straight-laced, and turning himself into a sort of diagram instead of a growth which can exercise the guiding attraction of fellowship. that he made a decidedly winning impression on the company was proved by their showing themselves no less at ease than before, and desirous of quickly resuming their interrupted talk. "this is what i call one of our touch-and-go nights, sir," said miller, who was implicitly accepted as a sort of moderator--on addressing deronda by way of explanation, and nodding toward each person whose name he mentioned. "sometimes we stick pretty close to the point. but tonight our friend pash, there, brought up the law of progress; and we got on statistics; then lily, there, saying we knew well enough before counting that in the same state of society the same sort of things would happen, and it was no more wonder that quantities should remain the same, than that qualities should remain the same, for in relation to society numbers are qualities--the number of drunkards is a quality in society--the numbers are an index to the qualities, and give us no instruction, only setting us to consider the causes of difference between different social states--lily saying this, we went off on the causes of social change, and when you came in i was going upon the power of ideas, which i hold to be the main transforming cause." "i don't hold with you there, miller," said goodwin, the inlayer, more concerned to carry on the subject than to wait for a word from the new guest. "for either you mean so many sorts of things by ideas that i get no knowledge by what you say, any more than if you said light was a cause; or else you mean a particular sort of ideas, and then i go against your meaning as too narrow. for, look at it in one way, all actions men put a bit of thought into are ideas--say, sowing seed, or making a canoe, or baking clay; and such ideas as these work themselves into life and go on growing with it, but they can't go apart from the material that set them to work and makes a medium for them. it's the nature of wood and stone yielding to the knife that raises the idea of shaping them, and with plenty of wood and stone the shaping will go on. i look at it, that such ideas as are mixed straight away with all the other elements of life are powerful along with 'em. the slower the mixing, the less power they have. and as to the causes of social change, i look at it in this way--ideas are a sort of parliament, but there's a commonwealth outside and a good deal of the commonwealth is working at change without knowing what the parliament is doing." "but if you take ready mixing as your test of power," said pash, "some of the least practical ideas beat everything. they spread without being understood, and enter into the language without being thought of." "they may act by changing the distribution of gases," said marrables; "instruments are getting so fine now, men may come to register the spread of a theory by observed changes in the atmosphere and corresponding changes in the nerves." "yes," said pash, his dark face lighting up rather impishly, "there is the idea of nationalities; i dare say the wild asses are snuffing it, and getting more gregarious." "you don't share that idea?" said deronda, finding a piquant incongruity between pash's sarcasm and the strong stamp of race on his features. "say, rather, he does not share that spirit," said mordecai, who had turned a melancholy glance on pash. "unless nationality is a feeling, what force can it have as an idea?" "granted, mordecai," said pash, quite good-humoredly. "and as the feeling of nationality is dying, i take the idea to be no better than a ghost, already walking to announce the death." "a sentiment may seem to be dying and yet revive into strong life," said deronda. "nations have revived. we may live to see a great outburst of force in the arabs, who are being inspired with a new zeal." "amen, amen," said mordecai, looking at deronda with a delight which was the beginning of recovered energy: his attitude was more upright, his face was less worn. "that may hold with backward nations," said pash, "but with us in europe the sentiment of nationality is destined to die out. it will last a little longer in the quarters where oppression lasts, but nowhere else. the whole current of progress is setting against it." "ay," said buchan, in a rapid thin scotch tone which was like the letting in of a little cool air on the conversation, "ye've done well to bring us round to the point. ye're all agreed that societies change--not always and everywhere--but on the whole and in the long run. now, with all deference, i would beg t' observe that we have got to examine the nature of changes before we have a warrant to call them progress, which word is supposed to include a bettering, though i apprehend it to be ill-chosen for that purpose, since mere motion onward may carry us to a bog or a precipice. and the questions i would put are three: is all change in the direction of progress? if not, how shall we discern which change is progress and which not? and thirdly, how far and in what way can we act upon the course of change so as to promote it where it is beneficial, and divert it where it is injurious?" but buchan's attempt to impose his method on the talk was a failure. lily immediately said, "change and progress are merged in the idea of development. the laws of development are being discovered, and changes taking place according to them are necessarily progressive; that is to say, it we have any notion of progress or improvement opposed to them, the notion is a mistake." "i really can't see how you arrive at that sort of certitude about changes by calling them development," said deronda. "there will still remain the degrees of inevitableness in relation to our own will and acts, and the degrees of wisdom in hastening or retarding; there will still remain the danger of mistaking a tendency which should be resisted for an inevitable law that we must adjust ourselves to,--which seems to me as bad a superstition or false god as any that has been set up without the ceremonies of philosophizing." "that is a truth," said mordecai. "woe to the men who see no place for resistance in this generation! i believe in a growth, a passage, and a new unfolding of life whereof the seed is more perfect, more charged with the elements that are pregnant with diviner form. the life of a people grows, it is knit together and yet expanded, in joy and sorrow, in thought and action; it absorbs the thought of other nations into its own forms, and gives back the thought as new wealth to the world; it is a power and an organ in the great body of the nations. but there may come a check, an arrest; memories may be stifled, and love may be faint for the lack of them; or memories may shrink into withered relics--the soul of a people, whereby they know themselves to be one, may seem to be dying for want of common action. but who shall say, 'the fountain of their life is dried up, they shall forever cease to be a nation?' who shall say it? not he who feels the life of his people stirring within his own. shall he say, 'that way events are wending, i will not resist?' his very soul is resistance, and is as a seed of fire that may enkindle the souls of multitudes, and make a new pathway for events." "i don't deny patriotism," said gideon, "but we all know you have a particular meaning, mordecai. you know mordecai's way of thinking, i suppose." here gideon had turned to deronda, who sat next to him, but without waiting for an answer he went on. "i'm a rational jew myself. i stand by my people as a sort of family relations, and i am for keeping up our worship in a rational way. i don't approve of our people getting baptised, because i don't believe in a jew's conversion to the gentile part of christianity. and now we have political equality, there's no excuse for a pretense of that sort. but i am for getting rid of all of our superstitions and exclusiveness. there's no reason now why we shouldn't melt gradually into the populations we live among. that's the order of the day in point of progress. i would as soon my children married christians as jews. and i'm for the old maxim, 'a man's country is where he's well off.'" "that country's not so easy to find, gideon," said the rapid pash, with a shrug and grimace. "you get ten shillings a-week more than i do, and have only half the number of children. if somebody will introduce a brisk trade in watches among the 'jerusalem wares,' i'll go--eh, mordecai, what do you say?" deronda, all ear for these hints of mordecai's opinion, was inwardly wondering at his persistence in coming to this club. for an enthusiastic spirit to meet continually the fixed indifference of men familiar with the object of his enthusiasm is the acceptance of a slow martyrdom, beside which the fate of a missionary tomahawked without any considerate rejection of his doctrines seems hardly worthy of compassion. but mordecai gave no sign of shrinking: this was a moment of spiritual fullness, and he cared more for the utterance of his faith than for its immediate reception. with a fervor which had no temper in it, but seemed rather the rush of feeling in the opportunity of speech, he answered pash:, "what i say is, let every man keep far away from the brotherhood and inheritance he despises. thousands on thousands of our race have mixed with the gentiles as celt with saxon, and they may inherit the blessing that belongs to the gentile. you cannot follow them. you are one of the multitudes over this globe who must walk among the nations and be known as jews, and with words on their lips which mean, 'i wish i had not been born a jew, i disown any bond with the long travail of my race, i will outdo the gentile in mocking at our separateness,' they all the while feel breathing on them the breath of contempt because they are jews, and they will breathe it back poisonously. can a fresh-made garment of citizenship weave itself straightway into the flesh and change the slow deposit of eighteen centuries? what is the citizenship of him who walks among a people he has no hardy kindred and fellowship with, and has lost the sense of brotherhood with his own race? it is a charter of selfish ambition and rivalry in low greed. he is an alien of spirit, whatever he may be in form; he sucks the blood of mankind, he is not a man, sharing in no loves, sharing in no subjection of the soul, he mocks it all. is it not truth i speak, pash?" "not exactly, mordecai," said pash, "if you mean that i think the worse of myself for being a jew. what i thank our fathers for is that there are fewer blockheads among us than among other races. but perhaps you are right in thinking the christians don't like me so well for it." "catholics and protestants have not liked each other much better," said the genial gideon. "we must wait patiently for prejudices to die out. many of our people are on a footing with the best, and there's been a good filtering of our blood into high families. i am for making our expectations rational." "and so am i!" said mordecai, quickly, leaning forward with the eagerness of one who pleads in some decisive crisis, his long, thin hands clasped together on his lap. "i, too, claim to be a rational jew. but what is it to be rational--what is it to feel the light of the divine reason growing stronger within and without? it is to see more and more of the hidden bonds that bind and consecrate change as a dependent growth--yea, consecrate it with kinship: the past becomes my parent and the future stretches toward me the appealing arms of children. is it rational to drain away the sap of special kindred that makes the families of men rich in interchanged wealth, and various as the forests are various with the glory of the cedar and the palm? when it is rational to say, 'i know not my father or my mother, let my children be aliens to me, that no prayer of mine may touch them,' then it will be rational for the jew to say, 'i will seek to know no difference between me and the gentile, i will not cherish the prophetic consciousness of our nationality--let the hebrew cease to be, and let all his memorials be antiquarian trifles, dead as the wall-paintings of a conjectured race. yet let his child learn by rote the speech of the greek, where he abjures his fellow-citizens by the bravery of those who fought foremost at marathon--let him learn to say that was noble in the greek, that is the spirit of an immortal nation! but the jew has no memories that bind him to action; let him laugh that his nation is degraded from a nation; let him hold the monuments of his law which carried within its frame the breath of social justice, of charity, and of household sanctities--let him hold the energy of the prophets, the patient care of the masters, the fortitude of martyred generations, as mere stuff for a professorship. the business of the jew in all things is to be even as the rich gentile." mordecai threw himself back in his chair, and there was a moment's silence. not one member of the club shared his point of view or his emotion; but his whole personality and speech had on them the effect of a dramatic representation which had some pathos in it, though no practical consequences; and usually he was at once indulged and contradicted. deronda's mind went back upon what must have been the tragic pressure of outward conditions hindering this man, whose force he felt to be telling on himself, from making any world for his thought in the minds of others--like a poet among people of a strange speech, who may have a poetry of their own, but have no ear for his cadence, no answering thrill to his discovery of the latent virtues in his mother tongue. the cool buchan was the first to speak, and hint the loss of time. "i submit," said he, "that ye're traveling away from the questions i put concerning progress." "say they're levanting, buchan," said miller, who liked his joke, and would not have objected to be called voltairian. "never mind. let us have a jewish night; we've not had one for a long while. let us take the discussion on jewish ground. i suppose we've no prejudice here; we're all philosophers; and we like our friends mordecai, pash, and gideon, as well as if they were no more kin to abraham than the rest of us. we're all related through adam, until further showing to the contrary, and if you look into history we've all got some discreditable forefathers. so i mean no offence when i say i don't think any great things of the part the jewish people have played in the world. what then? i think they were iniquitously dealt by in past times. and i suppose we don't want any men to be maltreated, white, black, brown, or yellow--i know i've just given my half-crown to the contrary. and that reminds me, i've a curious old german book--i can't read it myself, but a friend of mine was reading out of it to me the other day--about the prejudicies against the jews, and the stories used to be told against 'em, and what do you think one was? why, that they're punished with a bad odor in their bodies; and _that_, says the author, date (i've just been pricing and marking the book this very morning)--that is true, for the ancients spoke of it. but then, he says, the other things are fables, such as that the odor goes away all at once when they're baptized, and that every one of the ten tribes, mind you, all the ten being concerned in the crucifixion, has got a particular punishment over and above the smell:--asher, i remember, has the right arm a handbreadth shorter than the left, and naphthali has pig's ears and a smell of live pork. what do you think of that? there's been a good deal of fun made of rabbinical fables, but in point of fables my opinion is, that all over the world it's six of one and half-a-dozen of the other. however, as i said before, i hold with the philosophers of the last century that the jews have played no great part as a people, though pash will have it they're clever enough to beat all the rest of the world. but if so, i ask, why haven't they done it?" "for the same reason that the cleverest men in the country don't get themselves or their ideas into parliament," said the ready pash; "because the blockheads are too many for 'em." "that is a vain question," said mordecai, "whether our people would beat the rest of the world. each nation has its own work, and is a member of the world, enriched by the work of each. but it is true, as jehuda-ha-levi first said, that israel is the heart of mankind, if we mean by heart the core of affection which binds a race and its families in dutiful love, and the reverence for the human body which lifts the needs of our animal life into religion, and the tenderness which is merciful to the poor and weak and to the dumb creature that wears the yoke for us." "they're not behind any nation in arrogance," said lily; "and if they have got in the rear, it has not been because they were over-modest." "oh, every nation brags in its turn," said miller. "yes," said pash, "and some of them in the hebrew text." "well, whatever the jews contributed at one time, they are a stand-still people," said lily. "they are the type of obstinate adherence to the superannuated. they may show good abilities when they take up liberal ideas, but as a race they have no development in them." "that is false!" said mordecai, leaning forward again with his former eagerness. "let their history be known and examined; let the seed be sifted, let its beginning be traced to the weed of the wilderness--the more glorious will be the energy that transformed it. where else is there a nation of whom it may be as truly said that their religion and law and moral life mingled as the stream of blood in the heart and made one growth--where else a people who kept and enlarged their spiritual store at the very time when they are hated with a hatred as fierce as the forest fires that chase the wild beast from his covert? there is a fable of the roman, that swimming to save his life he held the roll of his writings between his teeth and saved them from the waters. but how much more than that is true of our race? they struggled to keep their place among the nations like heroes--yea, when the hand was hacked off, they clung with their teeth; but when the plow and the harrow had passed over the last visible signs of their national covenant, and the fruitfulness of their land was stifled with the blood of the sowers and planters, they said, 'the spirit is alive, let us make it a lasting habitation--lasting because movable--so that it may be carried from generation to generation, and our sons unborn may be rich in the things that have been, and possess a hope built on an unchangeable foundation.' they said it and they wrought it, though often breathing with scant life, as in a coffin, or as lying wounded amid a heap of slain. hooted and scared like the unknown dog, the hebrew made himself envied for his wealth and wisdom, and was bled of them to fill the bath of gentile luxury; he absorbed knowledge, he diffused it; his dispersed race was a new phoenicia working the mines of greece and carrying their products to the world. the native spirit of our tradition was not to stand still, but to use records as a seed and draw out the compressed virtues of law and prophecy; and while the gentile, who had said, 'what is yours is ours, and no longer yours,' was reading the letter of our law as a dark inscription, or was turning its parchments into shoe-soles for an army rabid with lust and cruelty, our masters were still enlarging and illuminating with fresh-fed interpretation. but the dispersion was wide, the yoke of oppression was a spiked torture as well as a load; the exile was forced afar among brutish people, where the consciousness of his race was no clearer to him than the light of the sun to our fathers in the roman persecution, who had their hiding-place in a cave, and knew not that it was day save by the dimmer burning of their candles. what wonder that multitudes of our people are ignorant, narrow, superstitious? what wonder?" here mordecai, whose seat was next the fireplace, rose and leaned his arm on the little shelf; his excitement had risen, though his voice, which had begun with unusual strength, was getting hoarser. "what wonder? the night is unto them, that they have no vision; in their darkness they are unable to divine; the sun is gone down over the prophets, and the day is dark above them; their observances are as nameless relics. but which among the chief of the gentile nations has not an ignorant multitude? they scorn our people's ignorant observance; but the most accursed ignorance is that which has no observance--sunk to the cunning greed of the fox, to which all law is no more than a trap or the cry of the worrying hound. there is a degradation deep down below the memory that has withered into superstition. in the multitudes of the ignorant on three continents who observe our rites and make the confession of the divine unity, the soul of judaism is not dead. revive the organic centre: let the unity of israel which has made the growth and form of its religion be an outward reality. looking toward a land and a polity, our dispersed people in all the ends of the earth may share the dignity of a national life which has a voice among the peoples of the east and the west--which will plant the wisdom and skill of our race so that it may be, as of old, a medium of transmission and understanding. let that come to pass, and the living warmth will spread to the weak extremities of israel, and superstition will vanish, not in the lawlessness of the renegade, but in the illumination of great facts which widen feeling, and make all knowledge alive as the young offspring of beloved memories." mordecai's voice had sunk, but with the hectic brilliancy of his gaze it was not the less impressive. his extraordinary excitement was certainly due to deronda's presence: it was to deronda that he was speaking, and the moment had a testamentary solemnity for him which rallied all his powers. yet the presence of those other familiar men promoted expression, for they embodied the indifference which gave a resistant energy to his speech. not that he looked at deronda: he seemed to see nothing immediately around him, and if any one had grasped him he would probably not have known it. again the former words came back to deronda's mind,--"you must hope my hopes--see the vision i point to--behold a glory where i behold it." they came now with gathered pathos. before him stood, as a living, suffering reality, what hitherto he had only seen as an effort of imagination, which, in its comparative faintness, yet carried a suspicion, of being exaggerated: a man steeped in poverty and obscurity, weakened by disease, consciously within the shadow of advancing death, but living an intense life in an invisible past and future, careless of his personal lot, except for its possible making some obstruction to a conceived good which he would never share except as a brief inward vision--a day afar off, whose sun would never warm him, but into which he threw his soul's desire, with a passion often wanting to the personal motives of healthy youth. it was something more than a grandiose transfiguration of the parental love that toils, renounces, endures, resists the suicidal promptings of despair--all because of the little ones, whose future becomes present to the yearning gaze of anxiety. all eyes were fixed on mordecai as he sat down again, and none with unkindness; but it happened that the one who felt the most kindly was the most prompted to speak in opposition. this was the genial and rational gideon, who also was not without a sense that he was addressing the guest of the evening. he said, "you have your own way of looking at things, mordecai, and as you say, your own way seems to you rational. i know you don't hold with the restoration of judea by miracle, and so on; but you are as well aware as i am that the subject has been mixed with a heap of nonsense both by jews and christians. and as to the connection of our race with palestine, it has been perverted by superstition till it's as demoralizing as the old poor-law. the raff and scum go there to be maintained like able-bodied paupers, and to be taken special care of by the angel gabriel when they die. it's no use fighting against facts. we must look where they point; that's what i call rationality. the most learned and liberal men among us who are attached to our religion are for clearing our liturgy of all such notions as a literal fulfillment of the prophecies about restoration, and so on. prune it of a few useless rites and literal interpretations of that sort, and our religion is the simplest of all religions, and makes no barrier, but a union, between us and the rest of the world." "as plain as a pike-staff," said pash, with an ironical laugh. "you pluck it up by the roots, strip off the leaves and bark, shave off the knots, and smooth it at top and bottom; put it where you will, it will do no harm, it will never sprout. you may make a handle of it, or you may throw it on the bonfire of scoured rubbish. i don't see why our rubbish is to be held sacred any more than the rubbish of brahmanism or buddhism." "no," said mordecai, "no, pash, because you have lost the heart of the jew. community was felt before it was called good. i praise no superstition, i praise the living fountains of enlarging belief. what is growth, completion, development? you began with that question, i apply it to the history of our people. i say that the effect of our separateness will not be completed and have its highest transformation unless our race takes on again the character of a nationality. that is the fulfillment of the religious trust that moulded them into a people, whose life has made half the inspiration of the world. what is it to me that the ten tribes are lost untraceably, or that multitudes of the children of judah have mixed themselves with the gentile populations as a river with rivers? behold our people still! their skirts spread afar; they are torn and soiled and trodden on; but there is a jeweled breastplate. let the wealthy men, the monarchs of commerce, the learned in all knowledge, the skilful in all arts, the speakers, the political counselors, who carry in their veins the hebrew blood which has maintained its vigor in all climates, and the pliancy of the hebrew genius for which difficulty means new device--let them say, 'we will lift up a standard, we will unite in a labor hard but glorious like that of moses and ezra, a labor which shall be a worthy fruit of the long anguish whereby our fathers maintained their separateness, refusing the ease of falsehood.' they have wealth enough to redeem the soil from debauched and paupered conquerors; they have the skill of the statesman to devise, the tongue of the orator to persuade. and is there no prophet or poet among us to make the ears of christian europe tingle with shame at the hideous obloquy of christian strife which the turk gazes at as at the fighting of beasts to which he has lent an arena? there is store of wisdom among us to found a new jewish polity, grand, simple, just, like the old--a republic where there is equality of protection, an equality which shone like a star on the forehead of our ancient community, and gave it more than the brightness of western freedom amid the despotisms of the east. then our race shall have an organic centre, a heart and brain to watch and guide and execute; the outraged jew shall have a defense in the court of nations, as the outraged englishmen of america. and the world will gain as israel gains. for there will be a community in the van of the east which carries the culture and the sympathies of every great nation in its bosom: there will be a land set for a halting-place of enmities, a neutral ground for the east as belgium is for the west. difficulties? i know there are difficulties. but let the spirit of sublime achievement move in the great among our people, and the work will begin." "ay, we may safely admit that, mordecai," said pash. "when there are great men on 'change, and high-flying professors converted to your doctrine, difficulties will vanish like smoke." deronda, inclined by nature to take the side of those on whom the arrows of scorn were falling, could not help replying to pash's outfling, and said, "if we look back to the history of efforts which have made great changes, it is astonishing how many of them seemed hopeless to those who looked on in the beginning. "take what we have all heard and seen something of--the effort after the unity of italy, which we are sure soon to see accomplished to the very last boundary. look into mazzini's account of his first yearning, when he was a boy, after a restored greatness and a new freedom to italy, and of his first efforts as a young man to rouse the same feelings in other young men, and get them to work toward a united nationality. almost everything seemed against him; his countrymen were ignorant or indifferent, governments hostile, europe incredulous. of course the scorners often seemed wise. yet you see the prophecy lay with him. as long as there is a remnant of national consciousness, i suppose nobody will deny that there may be a new stirring of memories and hopes which may inspire arduous action." "amen," said mordecai, to whom deronda's words were a cordial. "what is needed is the leaven--what is needed is the seed of fire. the heritage of israel is beating in the pulses of millions; it lives in their veins as a power without understanding, like the morning exultation of herds; it is the inborn half of memory, moving as in a dream among writings on the walls, which it sees dimly but cannot divide into speech. let the torch of visible community be lit! let the reason of israel disclose itself in a great outward deed, and let there be another great migration, another choosing of israel to be a nationality whose members may still stretch to the ends of the earth, even as the sons of england and germany, whom enterprise carries afar, but who still have a national hearth and a tribunal of national opinion. will any say 'it cannot be'? baruch spinoza had not a faithful jewish heart, though he had sucked the life of his intellect at the breasts of jewish tradition. he laid bare his father's nakedness and said, 'they who scorn him have the higher wisdom.' yet baruch spinoza confessed, he saw not why israel should not again be a chosen nation. who says that the history and literature of our race are dead? are they not as living as the history and literature of greece and rome, which have inspired revolutions, enkindled the thought of europe, and made the unrighteous powers tremble? these were an inheritance dug from the tomb. ours is an inheritance that has never ceased to quiver in millions of human frames." mordecai had stretched his arms upward, and his long thin hands quivered in the air for a moment after he had ceased to speak. gideon was certainly a little moved, for though there was no long pause before he made a remark in objection, his tone was more mild and deprecatory than before; pash, meanwhile, pressing his lips together, rubbing his black head with both his hands and wrinkling his brow horizontally, with the expression of one who differs from every speaker, but does not think it worth while to say so. there is a sort of human paste that when it comes near the fire of enthusiasm is only baked into harder shape. "it may seem well enough on one side to make so much of our memories and inheritance as you do, mordecai," said gideon; "but there's another side. it isn't all gratitude and harmless glory. our people have inherited a good deal of hatred. there's a pretty lot of curses still flying about, and stiff settled rancor inherited from the times of persecution. how will you justify keeping one sort of memory and throwing away the other? there are ugly debts standing on both sides." "i justify the choice as all other choice is justified," said mordecai. "i cherish nothing for the jewish nation, i seek nothing for them, but the good which promises good to all the nations. the spirit of our religious life, which is one with our national life, is not hatred of aught but wrong. the master has said, an offence against man is worse than an offence against god. but what wonder if there is hatred in the breasts of jews, who are children of the ignorant and oppressed--what wonder, since there is hatred in the breasts of christians? our national life was a growing light. let the central fire be kindled again, and the light will reach afar. the degraded and scorned of our race will learn to think of their sacred land, not as a place for saintly beggary to await death in loathsome idleness, but as a republic where the jewish spirit manifests itself in a new order founded on the old, purified and enriched by the experience our greatest sons have gathered from the life of the ages. how long is it?--only two centuries since a vessel carried over the ocean the beginning of the great north american nation. the people grew like meeting waters--they were various in habit and sect--there came a time, a century ago, when they needed a polity, and there were heroes of peace among them. what had they to form a polity with but memories of europe, corrected by the vision of a better? let our wise and wealthy show themselves heroes. they have the memories of the east and west, and they have the full vision of a better. a new persia with a purified religion magnified itself in art and wisdom. so will a new judaea, poised between east and west--a covenant of reconciliation. will any say, the prophetic vision of your race has been hopelessly mixed with folly and bigotry: the angel of progress has no message for judaism--it is a half-buried city for the paid workers to lay open--the waters are rushing by it as a forsaken field? i say that the strongest principle of growth lies in human choice. the sons of judah have to choose that god may again choose them. the messianic time is the time when israel shall will the planting of the national ensign. the nile overflowed and rushed onward: the egyptian could not choose the overflow, but he chose to work and make channels for the fructifying waters, and egypt became the land of corn. shall man, whose soul is set in the royalty of discernment and resolve, deny his rank and say, i am an onlooker, ask no choice or purpose of me? that is the blasphemy of this time. the divine principle of our race is action, choice, resolved memory. let us contradict the blasphemy, and help to will our own better future and the better future of the world--not renounce our higher gift and say, 'let us be as if we were not among the populations;' but choose our full heritage, claim the brotherhood of our nation, and carry into it a new brotherhood with the nations of the gentiles. the vision is there; it will be fulfilled." with the last sentence, which was no more than a loud whisper, mordecai let his chin sink on his breast and his eyelids fall. no one spoke. it was not the first time that he had insisted on the same ideas, but he was seen to-night in a new phase. the quiet tenacity of his ordinary self differed as much from his present exaltation of mood as a man in private talk, giving reasons for a revolution of which no sign is discernable, differs from one who feels himself an agent in a revolution begun. the dawn of fulfillment brought to his hope by deronda's presence had wrought mordecai's conception into a state of impassioned conviction, and he had found strength in his excitement to pour forth the unlocked floods of emotive argument, with a sense of haste as at a crisis which must be seized. but now there had come with the quiescence of fatigue a sort of thankful wonder that he had spoken--a contemplation of his life as a journey which had come at last to this bourne. after a great excitement, the ebbing strength of impulse is apt to leave us in this aloofness from our active self. and in the moments after mordecai had sunk his head, his mind was wandering along the paths of his youth, and all the hopes which had ended in bringing him hither. every one felt that the talk was ended, and the tone of phlegmatic discussion made unseasonable by mordecai's high-pitched solemnity. it was as if they had come together to hear the blowing of the _shophar_, and had nothing to do now but to disperse. the movement was unusually general, and in less than ten minutes the room was empty of all except mordecai and deronda. "good-nights" had been given to mordecai, but it was evident he had not heard them, for he remained rapt and motionless. deronda would not disturb this needful rest, but waited for a spontaneous movement. chapter xliii. "my spirit is too weak; mortality weighs heavily on me like unwilling sleep, and each imagined pinnacle and steep of godlike hardship tells me i must die like a sick eagle looking at the sky." --keats. after a few minutes the unwonted stillness had penetrated mordecai's consciousness, and he looked up at deronda, not in the least with bewilderment and surprise, but with a gaze full of reposing satisfaction. deronda rose and placed his chair nearer, where there could be no imagined need for raising the voice. mordecai felt the action as a patient feels the gentleness that eases his pillow. he began to speak in a low tone, as if he were only thinking articulately, not trying to reach an audience. "in the doctrine of the cabbala, souls are born again and again in new bodies till they are perfected and purified, and a soul liberated from a worn-out body may join the fellow-soul that needs it, that they may be perfected together, and their earthly work accomplished. then they will depart from the mortal region, and leave place for new souls to be born out of the store in the eternal bosom. it is the lingering imperfection of the souls already born into the mortal region that hinders the birth of new souls and the preparation of the messianic time:--thus the mind has given shape to what is hidden, as the shadow of what is known, and has spoken truth, though it were only in parable. when my long-wandering soul is liberated from this weary body, it will join yours, and its work will be perfected." mordecai's pause seemed an appeal which deronda's feeling would not let him leave unanswered. he tried to make it truthful; but for mordecai's ear it was inevitably filled with unspoken meaning. he only said, "everything i can in conscience do to make your life effective i will do." "i know it," said mordecai, in a tone of quiet certainty which dispenses with further assurance. "i heard it. you see it all--you are by my side on the mount of vision, and behold the paths of fulfillment which others deny." he was silent a moment or two, and then went on meditatively, "you will take up my life where it was broken. i feel myself back in that day when my life was broken. the bright morning sun was on the quay--it was at trieste--the garments of men from all nations shone like jewels--the boats were pushing off--the greek vessel that would land us at beyrout was to start in an hour. i was going with a merchant as his clerk and companion. i said, i shall behold the lands and people of the east, and i shall speak with a fuller vision. i breathed then as you do, without labor; i had the light step and the endurance of youth, i could fast, i could sleep on the hard ground. i had wedded poverty, and i loved my bride--for poverty to me was freedom. my heart exulted as if it had been the heart of moses ben maimon, strong with the strength of three score years, and knowing the work that was to fill them. it was the first time i had been south; the soul within me felt its former sun; and standing on the quay, where the ground i stood on seemed to send forth light, and the shadows had an azure glory as of spirits become visible, i felt myself in the flood of a glorious life, wherein my own small year-counted existence seemed to melt, so that i knew it not; and a great sob arose within me as at the rush of waters that were too strong a bliss. so i stood there awaiting my companion; and i saw him not till he said: 'ezra, i have been to the post and there is your letter.'" "ezra!" exclaimed deronda, unable to contain himself. "ezra," repeated mordecai, affirmatively, engrossed in memory. "i was expecting a letter; for i wrote continually to my mother. and that sound of my name was like the touch of a wand that recalled me to the body wherefrom i had been released as it were to mingle with the ocean of human existence, free from the pressure of individual bondage. i opened the letter; and the name came again as a cry that would have disturbed me in the bosom of heaven, and made me yearn to reach where that sorrow was--'ezra, my son!'" mordecai paused again, his imagination arrested by the grasp of that long-passed moment. deronda's mind was almost breathlessly suspended on what was coming. a strange possibility had suddenly presented itself. mordecai's eyes were cast down in abstracted contemplation, and in a few moments he went on, "she was a mother of whom it might have come--yea, might have come to be said, 'her children arise up and call her blessed.' in her i understood the meaning of that master who, perceiving the footsteps of his mother, rose up and said, 'the majesty of the eternal cometh near!' and that letter was her cry from the depths of anguish and desolation--the cry of a mother robbed of her little ones. i was her eldest. death had taken four babes one after the other. then came, late, my little sister, who was, more than all the rest, the desire of my mother's eyes; and the letter was a piercing cry to me--'ezra, my son, i am robbed of her. he has taken her away and left disgrace behind. they will never come again.'"--here mordecai lifted his eyes suddenly, laid his hand on deronda's arm, and said, "mine was the lot of israel. for the sin of the father my soul must go into exile. for the sin of the father the work was broken, and the day of fulfilment delayed. she who bore me was desolate, disgraced, destitute. i turned back. on the instant i turned--her spirit and the spirit of her fathers, who had worthy jewish hearts, moved within me, and drew me. god, in whom dwells the universe, was within me as the strength of obedience. i turned and traveled with hardship--to save the scant money which she would need. i left the sunshine, and traveled into freezing cold. in the last stage i spent a night in exposure to cold and snow. and that was the beginning of this slow death." mordecai let his eyes wander again and removed his hand. deronda resolutely repressed the questions which urged themselves within him. while mordecai was in this state of emotion, no other confidence must be sought than what came spontaneously: nay, he himself felt a kindred emotion which made him dread his own speech as too momentous. "but i worked. we were destitute--every thing had been seized. and she was ill: the clutch of anguish was too strong for her, and wrought with some lurking disease. at times she could not stand for the beating of her heart, and the images in her brain became as chambers of terror, where she beheld my sister reared in evil. in the dead of night i heard her crying for her child. then i rose, and we stretched forth our arms together and prayed. we poured forth our souls in desire that mirah might be delivered from evil." "mirah?" deronda repeated, wishing to assure, himself that his ears had not been deceived by a forecasting imagination. "did you say mirah?" "that was my little sister's name. after we had prayed for her, my mother would rest awhile. it lasted hardly four years, and in the minute before she died, we were praying the same prayer--i aloud, she silently. her soul went out upon its wings." "have you never since heard of your sister?" said deronda, as quietly as he could. "never. never have i heard whether she was delivered according to our prayer. i know not, i know not. who shall say where the pathways lie? the poisonous will of the wicked is strong. it poisoned my life--it is slowly stifling this breath. death delivered my mother, and i felt it a blessedness that i was alone in the winters of suffering. but what are the winters now?--they are far off"--here mordecai again rested his hand on deronda's arm, and looked at him with that joy of the hectic patient which pierces us to sadness--"there is nothing to wail in the withering of my body. the work will be the better done. once i said the work of this beginning was mine, i am born to do it. well, i shall do it. i shall live in you. i shall live in you." his grasp had become convulsive in its force, and deronda, agitated as he had never been before--the certainty that this was mirah's brother suffusing his own strange relation to mordecai with a new solemnity and tenderness--felt his strong young heart beating faster and his lips paling. he shrank from speech. he feared, in mordecai's present state of exaltation (already an alarming strain on his feeble frame), to utter a word of revelation about mirah. he feared to make an answer below that high pitch of expectation which resembled a flash from a dying fire, making watchers fear to see it die the faster. his dominant impulse was to do as he had once done before: he laid his firm, gentle hand on the hand that grasped him. mordecai's, as if it had a soul of its own--for he was not distinctly willing to do what he did--relaxed its grasp, and turned upward under deronda's. as the two palms met and pressed each other mordecai recovered some sense of his surroundings, and said, "let us go now. i cannot talk any longer." and in fact they parted at cohen's door without having spoken to each other again--merely with another pressure of the hands. deronda felt a weight on him which was half joy, half anxiety. the joy of finding in mirah's brother a nature even more than worthy of that relation to her, had the weight of solemnity and sadness; the reunion of brother and sister was in reality the first stage of a supreme parting--like that farewell kiss which resembles greeting, that last glance of love which becomes the sharpest pang of sorrow. then there was the weight of anxiety about the revelation of the fact on both sides, and the arrangements it would be desirable to make beforehand. i suppose we should all have felt as deronda did, without sinking into snobbishness or the notion that the primal duties of life demand a morning and an evening suit, that it was an admissible desire to free mirah's first meeting with her brother from all jarring outward conditions. his own sense of deliverance from the dreaded relationship of the other cohens, notwithstanding their good nature, made him resolve if possible to keep them in the background for mirah, until her acquaintance with them would be an unmarred rendering of gratitude for any kindness they had shown to her brother. on all accounts he wished to give mordecai surroundings not only more suited to his frail bodily condition, but less of a hindrance to easy intercourse, even apart from the decisive prospect of mirah's taking up her abode with her brother, and tending him through the precious remnant of his life. in the heroic drama, great recognitions are not encumbered with these details; and certainly deronda had as reverential an interest in mordecai and mirah as he could have had in the offspring of agamemnon; but he was caring for destinies still moving in the dim streets of our earthly life, not yet lifted among the constellations, and his task presented itself to him as difficult and delicate, especially in persuading mordecai to change his abode and habits. concerning mirah's feeling and resolve he had no doubt: there would be a complete union of sentiment toward the departed mother, and mirah would understand her brother's greatness. yes, greatness: that was the word which deronda now deliberately chose to signify the impression that mordecai had made on him. he said to himself, perhaps rather defiantly toward the more negative spirit within him, that this man, however erratic some of his interpretations might be--this consumptive jewish workman in threadbare clothing, lodged by charity, delivering himself to hearers who took his thoughts without attaching more consequences to them than the flemings to the ethereal chimes ringing above their market-places--had the chief elements of greatness; a mind consciously, energetically moving with the larger march of human destinies, but not the less full of conscience and tender heart for the footsteps that tread near and need a leaning-place; capable of conceiving and choosing a life's task with far-off issues, yet capable of the unapplauded heroism which turns off the road of achievement at the call of the nearer duty whose effect lies within the beatings of the hearts that are close to us, as the hunger of the unfledged bird to the breast of its parent. deronda to-night was stirred with the feeling that the brief remnant of this fervid life had become his charge. he had been peculiarly wrought on by what he had seen at the club of the friendly indifference which mordecai must have gone on encountering. his own experience of the small room that ardor can make for itself in ordinary minds had had the effect of increasing his reserve; and while tolerance was the easiest attitude to him, there was another bent in him also capable of becoming a weakness--the dislike to appear exceptional or to risk an ineffective insistence on his own opinion. but such caution appeared contemptible to him just now, when he, for the first time, saw in a complete picture and felt as a reality the lives that burn themselves out in solitary enthusiasm: martyrs of obscure circumstance, exiled in the rarity of their own minds, whose deliverances in other ears are no more than a long passionate soliloquy--unless perhaps at last, when they are nearing the invisible shores, signs of recognition and fulfilment may penetrate the cloud of loneliness; or perhaps it may be with them as with the dying copernicus made to touch the first printed copy of his book when the sense of touch was gone, seeing it only as a dim object through the deepening dusk. deronda had been brought near to one of those spiritual exiles, and it was in his nature to feel the relation as a strong chain, nay, to feel his imagination moving without repugnance in the direction of mordecai's desires. with all his latent objection to schemes only definite in their generality and nebulous in detail--in the poise of his sentiments he felt at one with this man who had made a visionary selection of him: the lines of what may be called their emotional theory touched. he had not the jewish consciousness, but he had a yearning, grown the stronger for the denial which had been his grievance, after the obligation of avowed filial and social ties. his feeling was ready for difficult obedience. in this way it came that he set about his new task ungrudgingly; and again he thought of mrs. meyrick as his chief helper. to her first he must make known the discovery of mirah's brother, and with her he must consult on all preliminaries of bringing the mutually lost together. happily the best quarter for a consumptive patient did not lie too far off the small house at chelsea, and the first office deronda had to perform for this hebrew prophet who claimed him as a spiritual inheritor, was to get him a healthy lodging. such is the irony of earthly mixtures, that the heroes have not always had carpets and teacups of their own; and, seen through the open window by the mackerel-vender, may have been invited with some hopefulness to pay three hundred per cent, in the form of fourpence. however, deronda's mind was busy with a prospective arrangement for giving a furnished lodging some faint likeness to a refined home by dismantling his own chambers of his best old books in vellum, his easiest chair, and the bas-reliefs of milton and dante. but was not mirah to be there? what furniture can give such finish to a room as a tender woman's face?--and is there any harmony of tints that has such stirrings of delight as the sweet modulation of her voice? here is one good, at least, thought deronda, that comes to mordecai from his having fixed his imagination on me. he has recovered a perfect sister, whose affection is waiting for him. chapter xliv. fairy folk a-listening hear the seed sprout in the spring. and for music to their dance hear the hedgerows wake from trance, sap that trembles into buds sending little rhythmic floods of fairy sound in fairy ears. thus all beauty that appears has birth as sound to finer sense and lighter-clad intelligence. and gwendolen? she was thinking of deronda much more than he was thinking of her--often wondering what were his ideas "about things," and how his life was occupied. but a lap-dog would be necessarily at a loss in framing to itself the motives and adventures of doghood at large; and it was as far from gwendolen's conception that deronda's life could be determined by the historical destiny of the jews, as that he could rise into the air on a brazen horse, and so vanish from her horizon in the form of a twinkling star. with all the sense of inferiority that had been forced upon her, it was inevitable that she should imagine a larger place for herself in his thoughts than she actually possessed. they must be rather old and wise persons who are not apt to see their own anxiety or elation about themselves reflected in other minds; and gwendolen, with her youth and inward solitude, may be excused for dwelling on signs of special interest in her shown by the one person who had impressed her with the feeling of submission, and for mistaking the color and proportion of those signs in the mind of deronda. meanwhile, what would he tell her that she ought to do? "he said, i must get more interest in others, and more knowledge, and that i must care about the best things--but how am i to begin?" she wondered what books he would tell her to take up to her own room, and recalled the famous writers that she had either not looked into or had found the most unreadable, with a half-smiling wish that she could mischievously ask deronda if they were not the books called "medicine for the mind." then she repented of her sauciness, and when she was safe from observation carried up a miscellaneous selection--descartes, bacon, locke, butler, burke, guizot--knowing, as a clever young lady of education, that these authors were ornaments of mankind, feeling sure that deronda had read them, and hoping that by dipping into them all in succession, with her rapid understanding she might get a point of view nearer to his level. but it was astonishing how little time she found for these vast mental excursions. constantly she had to be on the scene as mrs. grandcourt, and to feel herself watched in that part by the exacting eyes of a husband who had found a motive to exercise his tenacity--that of making his marriage answer all the ends he chose, and with the more completeness the more he discerned any opposing will in her. and she herself, whatever rebellion might be going on within her, could not have made up her mind to failure in her representation. no feeling had yet reconciled her for a moment to any act, word, or look that would be a confession to the world: and what she most dreaded in herself was any violent impulse that would make an involuntary confession: it was the will to be silent in every other direction that had thrown the more impetuosity into her confidences toward deronda, to whom her thought continually turned as a help against herself. her riding, her hunting, her visiting and receiving of visits, were all performed in a spirit of achievement which served instead of zest and young gladness, so that all around diplow, in those weeks of the new year, mrs. grandcourt was regarded as wearing her honors with triumph. "she disguises it under an air of taking everything as a matter of course," said mrs. arrowpoint. "a stranger might suppose that she had condescended rather than risen. i always noticed that doubleness in her." to her mother most of all gwendolen was bent on acting complete satisfaction, and poor mrs. davilow was so far deceived that she took the unexpected distance at which she was kept, in spite of what she felt to be grandcourt's handsome behavior in providing for her, as a comparative indifference in her daughter, now that marriage had created new interests. to be fetched to lunch and then to dinner along with the gascoignes, to be driven back soon after breakfast the next morning, and to have brief calls from gwendolen in which her husband waited for her outside either on horseback or sitting in the carriage, was all the intercourse allowed to her mother. the truth was, that the second time gwendolen proposed to invite her mother with mr. and mrs. gascoigne, grandcourt had at first been silent, and then drawled, "we can't be having _those people_ always. gascoigne talks too much. country clergy are always bores--with their confounded fuss about everything." that speech was full of foreboding for gwendolen. to have her mother classed under "those people" was enough to confirm the previous dread of bringing her too near. still, she could not give the true reasons--she could not say to her mother, "mr. grandcourt wants to recognize you as little as possible; and besides it is better you should not see much of my married life, else you might find out that i am miserable." so she waived as lightly as she could every allusion to the subject; and when mrs. davilow again hinted the possibility of her having a house close to ryelands, gwendolen said, "it would not be so nice for you as being near the rectory here, mamma. we shall perhaps be very little at ryelands. you would miss my aunt and uncle." and all the while this contemptuous veto of her husband's on any intimacy with her family, making her proudly shrink from giving them the aspect of troublesome pensioners, was rousing more inward inclination toward them. she had never felt so kindly toward her uncle, so much disposed to look back on his cheerful, complacent activity and spirit of kind management, even when mistaken, as more of a comfort than the neutral loftiness which was every day chilling her. and here perhaps she was unconsciously finding some of that mental enlargement which it was hard to get from her occasional dashes into difficult authors, who instead of blending themselves with her daily agitations required her to dismiss them. it was a delightful surprise one day when mr. and mrs. gascoigne were at offendene to see gwendolen ride up without her husband--with the groom only. all, including the four girls and miss merry, seated in the dining-room at lunch, could see the welcome approach; and even the elder ones were not without something of isabel's romantic sense that the beautiful sister on the splendid chestnut, which held its head as if proud to bear her, was a sort of harriet byron or miss wardour reappearing out of her "happiness ever after." her uncle went to the door to give her his hand, and she sprang from her horse with an air of alacrity which might well encourage that notion of guaranteed happiness; for gwendolen was particularly bent to-day on setting her mother's heart at rest, and her unusual sense of freedom in being able to make this visit alone enabled her to bear up under the pressure of painful facts which were urging themselves anew. the seven family kisses were not so tiresome as they used to be. "mr. grandcourt is gone out, so i determined to fill up the time by coming to you, mamma," said gwendolen, as she laid down her hat and seated herself next to her mother; and then looking at her with a playfully monitory air, "that is a punishment to you for not wearing better lace on your head. you didn't think i should come and detect you--you dreadfully careless-about-yourself mamma!" she gave a caressing touch to the dear head. "scold me, dear," said mrs. davilow, her delicate worn face flushing with delight. "but i wish there was something you could eat after your ride--instead of these scraps. let jocosa make you a cup of chocolate in your old way. you used to like that." miss merry immediately rose and went out, though gwendolen said, "oh, no, a piece of bread, or one of those hard biscuits. i can't think about eating. i am come to say good-bye." "what! going to ryelands again?" said mr. gascoigne. "no, we are going to town," said gwendolen, beginning to break up a piece of bread, but putting no morsel into her mouth. "it is rather early to go to town," said mrs. gascoigne, "and mr. grandcourt not in parliament." "oh, there is only one more day's hunting to be had, and henleigh has some business in town with lawyers, i think," said gwendolen. "i am very glad. i shall like to go to town." "you will see your house in grosvenor square," said mrs. davilow. she and the girls were devouring with their eyes every movement of their goddess, soon to vanish. "yes," said gwendolen, in a tone of assent to the interest of that expectation. "and there is so much to be seen and done in town." "i wish, my dear gwendolen," said mr. gascoigne, in a kind of cordial advice, "that you would use your influence with mr. grandcourt to induce him to enter parliament. a man of his position should make his weight felt in politics. the best judges are confident that the ministry will have to appeal to the country on this question of further reform, and mr. grandcourt should be ready for the opportunity. i am not quite sure that his opinions and mine accord entirely; i have not heard him express himself very fully. but i don't look at the matter from that point of view. i am thinking of your husband's standing in the country. and he has now come to that stage of life when a man like him should enter into public affairs. a wife has great influence with her husband. use yours in that direction, my dear." the rector felt that he was acquitting himself of a duty here, and giving something like the aspect of a public benefit to his niece's match. to gwendolen the whole speech had the flavor of bitter comedy. if she had been merry, she must have laughed at her uncle's explanation to her that he had not heard grandcourt express himself very fully on politics. and the wife's great influence! general maxims about husbands and wives seemed now of a precarious usefulness. gwendolen herself had once believed in her future influence as an omnipotence in managing--she did not know exactly what. but her chief concern at present was to give an answer that would be felt appropriate. "i should be very glad, uncle. but i think mr. grandcourt would not like the trouble of an election--at least, unless it could be without his making speeches. i thought candidates always made speeches." "not necessarily--to any great extent," said mr. gascoigne. "a man of position and weight can get on without much of it. a county member need have very little trouble in that way, and both out of the house and in it is liked the better for not being a speechifier. tell mr. grandcourt that i say so." "here comes jocosa with my chocolate after all," said gwendolen, escaping from a promise to give information that would certainly have been received in a way inconceivable to the good rector, who, pushing his chair a little aside from the table and crossing his leg, looked as well as if he felt like a worthy specimen of a clergyman and magistrate giving experienced advice. mr. gascoigne had come to the conclusion that grandcourt was a proud man, but his own self-love, calmed through life by the consciousness of his general value and personal advantages, was not irritable enough to prevent him from hoping the best about his niece's husband because her uncle was kept rather haughtily at a distance. a certain aloofness must be allowed to the representative of an old family; you would not expect him to be on intimate terms even with abstractions. but mrs. gascoigne was less dispassionate on her husband's account, and felt grandcourt's haughtiness as something a little blameable in gwendolen. "your uncle and anna will very likely be in town about easter," she said, with a vague sense of expressing a slight discontent. "dear rex hopes to come out with honors and a fellowship, and he wants his father and anna to meet him in london, that they may be jolly together, as he says. i shouldn't wonder if lord brackenshaw invited them, he has been so very kind since he came back to the castle." "i hope my uncle will bring ann to stay in grosvenor square," said gwendolen, risking herself so far, for the sake of the present moment, but in reality wishing that she might never be obliged to bring any of her family near grandcourt again. "i am very glad of rex's good fortune." "we must not be premature, and rejoice too much beforehand," said the rector, to whom this topic was the happiest in the world, and altogether allowable, now that the issue of that little affair about gwendolen had been so satisfactory. "not but that i am in correspondence with impartial judges, who have the highest hopes about my son, as a singularly clear-headed young man. and of his excellent disposition and principle i have had the best evidence." "we shall have him a great lawyer some time," said mrs. gascoigne. "how very nice!" said gwendolen, with a concealed scepticism as to niceness in general, which made the word quite applicable to lawyers. "talking of lord brackenshaw's kindness," said mrs. davilow, "you don't know how delightful he has been, gwendolen. he has begged me to consider myself his guest in this house till i can get another that i like--he did it in the most graceful way. but now a house has turned up. old mr. jodson is dead, and we can have his house. it is just what i want; small, but with nothing hideous to make you miserable thinking about it. and it is only a mile from the rectory. you remember the low white house nearly hidden by the trees, as we turn up the lane to the church?" "yes, but you have no furniture, poor mamma," said gwendolen, in a melancholy tone. "oh, i am saving money for that. you know who has made me rather rich, dear," said mrs. davilow, laying her hand on gwendolen's. "and jocosa really makes so little do for housekeeping--it is quite wonderful." "oh, please let me go up-stairs with you and arrange my hat, mamma," said gwendolen, suddenly putting up her hand to her hair and perhaps creating a desired disarrangement. her heart was swelling, and she was ready to cry. her mother _must_ have been worse off, if it had not been for grandcourt. "i suppose i shall never see all this again," said gwendolen, looking round her, as they entered the black and yellow bedroom, and then throwing herself into a chair in front of the glass with a little groan as of bodily fatigue. in the resolve not to cry she had become very pale. "you are not well, dear?" said mrs. davilow. "no; that chocolate has made me sick," said gwendolen, putting up her hand to be taken. "i should be allowed to come to you if you were ill, darling," said mrs. davilow, rather timidly, as she pressed the hand to her bosom. something had made her sure today that her child loved her--needed her as much as ever. "oh, yes," said gwendolen, leaning her head against her mother, though speaking as lightly as she could. "but you know i never am ill. i am as strong as possible; and you must not take to fretting about me, but make yourself as happy as you can with the girls. they are better children to you than i have been, you know." she turned up her face with a smile. "you have always been good, my darling. i remember nothing else." "why, what did i ever do that was good to you, except marry mr. grandcourt?" said gwendolen, starting up with a desperate resolve to be playful, and keep no more on the perilous edge of agitation. "and i should not have done that unless it had pleased myself." she tossed up her chin, and reached her hat. "god forbid, child! i would not have had you marry for my sake. your happiness by itself is half mine." "very well," said gwendolen, arranging her hat fastidiously, "then you will please to consider that you are half happy, which is more than i am used to seeing you." with the last words she again turned with her old playful smile to her mother. "now i am ready; but oh, mamma, mr. grandcourt gives me a quantity of money, and expects me to spend it, and i can't spend it; and you know i can't bear charity children and all that; and here are thirty pounds. i wish the girls would spend it for me on little things for themselves when you go to the new house. tell them so." gwendolen put the notes into her mother's hands and looked away hastily, moving toward the door. "god bless you, dear," said mrs. davilow. "it will please them so that you should have thought of them in particular." "oh, they are troublesome things; but they don't trouble me now," said gwendolen, turning and nodding playfully. she hardly understood her own feeling in this act toward her sisters, but at any rate she did not wish it to be taken as anything serious. she was glad to have got out of the bedroom without showing more signs of emotion, and she went through the rest of her visit and all the good-byes with a quiet propriety that made her say to herself sarcastically as she rode away, "i think i am making a very good mrs. grandcourt." she believed that her husband had gone to gadsmere that day--had inferred this, as she had long ago inferred who were the inmates of what he had described as "a dog-hutch of a place in a black country;" and the strange conflict of feeling within her had had the characteristic effect of sending her to offendene with a tightened resolve--a form of excitement which was native to her. she wondered at her own contradictions. why should she feel it bitter to her that grandcourt showed concern for the beings on whose account she herself was undergoing remorse? had she not before her marriage inwardly determined to speak and act on their behalf?--and since he had lately implied that he wanted to be in town because he was making arrangements about his will, she ought to have been glad of any sign that he kept a conscience awake toward those at gadsmere; and yet, now that she was a wife, the sense that grandcourt was gone to gadsmere was like red heat near a burn. she had brought on herself this indignity in her own eyes--this humiliation of being doomed to a terrified silence lest her husband should discover with what sort of consciousness she had married him; and as she had said to deronda, she "must go on." after the intense moments of secret hatred toward this husband who from the very first had cowed her, there always came back the spiritual pressure which made submission inevitable. there was no effort at freedoms that would not bring fresh and worse humiliation. gwendolen could dare nothing except an impulsive action--least of all could she dare premeditatedly a vague future in which the only certain condition was indignity. in spite of remorse, it still seemed the worst result of her marriage that she should in any way make a spectacle of herself; and her humiliation was lightened by her thinking that only mrs. glasher was aware of the fact which caused it. for gwendolen had never referred the interview at the whispering stones to lush's agency; her disposition to vague terror investing with shadowy omnipresence any threat of fatal power over her, and so hindering her from imagining plans and channels by which news had been conveyed to the woman who had the poisoning skill of a sorceress. to gwendolen's mind the secret lay with mrs. glasher, and there were words in the horrible letter which implied that mrs. glasher would dread disclosure to the husband, as much as the usurping mrs. grandcourt. something else, too, she thought of as more of a secret from her husband than it really was--namely that suppressed struggle of desperate rebellion which she herself dreaded. grandcourt could not indeed fully imagine how things affected gwendolen: he had no imagination of anything in her but what affected the gratification of his own will; but on this point he had the sensibility which seems like divination. what we see exclusively we are apt to see with some mistake of proportions; and grandcourt was not likely to be infallible in his judgments concerning this wife who was governed by many shadowy powers, to him nonexistent. he magnified her inward resistance, but that did not lessen his satisfaction in the mastery of it. chapter xlv. behold my lady's carriage stop the way. with powdered lacquey and with charming bay; she sweeps the matting, treads the crimson stair. her arduous function solely "to be there." like sirius rising o'er the silent sea. she hides her heart in lustre loftily. so the grandcourts were in grosvenor square in time to receive a card for the musical party at lady mallinger's, there being reasons of business which made sir hugo know beforehand that his ill-beloved nephew was coming up. it was only the third evening after their arrival, and gwendolen made rather an absent-minded acquaintance with her new ceilings and furniture, preoccupied with the certainty that she was going to speak to deronda again, and also to see the miss lapidoth who had gone through so much, and was "capable of submitting to anything in the form of duty." for gwendolen had remembered nearly every word that deronda had said about mirah, and especially that phrase, which she repeated to herself bitterly, having an ill-defined consciousness that her own submission was something very different. she would have been obliged to allow, if any one had said it to her, that what she submitted to could not take the shape of duty, but was submission to a yoke drawn on her by an action she was ashamed of, and worn with a strength of selfish motives that left no weight for duty to carry. the drawing-rooms in park lane, all white, gold, and pale crimson, were agreeably furnished, and not crowded with guests, before mr. and mrs. grandcourt entered; and more than half an hour of instrumental music was being followed by an interval of movement and chat. klesmer was there with his wife, and in his generous interest for mirah he proposed to accompany her singing of leo's "_o patria mia_," which he had before recommended her to choose, as more distinctive of her than better known music. he was already at the piano, and mirah was standing there conspicuously, when gwendolen, magnificent in her pale green velvet and poisoned diamonds, was ushered to a seat of honor well in view of them. with her long sight and self-command she had the rare power of quickly distinguishing persons and objects on entering a full room, and while turning her glance toward mirah she did not neglect to exchange a bow with klesmer as she passed. the smile seemed to each a lightning-flash back on that morning when it had been her ambition to stand as the "little jewess" was standing, and survey a grand audience from the higher rank of her talent--instead of which she was one of the ordinary crowd in silk and gems, whose utmost performance it must be to admire or find fault. "he thinks i am in the right road now," said the lurking resentment within her. gwendolen had not caught sight of deronda in her passage, and while she was seated acquitting herself in chat with sir hugo, she glanced round her with careful ease, bowing a recognition here and there, and fearful lest an anxious-looking exploration in search of deronda might be observed by her husband, and afterward rebuked as something "damnably vulgar." but all traveling, even that of a slow gradual glance round a room, brings a liability to undesired encounters, and amongst the eyes that met gwendolen's, forcing her into a slight bow, were those of the "amateur too fond of meyerbeer," mr. lush, whom sir hugo continued to find useful as a half-caste among gentlemen. he was standing near her husband, who, however, turned a shoulder toward him, and was being understood to listen to lord pentreath. how was it that at this moment, for the first time, there darted through gwendolen, like a disagreeable sensation, the idea that this man knew all about her husband's life? he had been banished from her sight, according to her will, and she had been satisfied; he had sunk entirely into the background of her thoughts, screened away from her by the agitating figures that kept up an inward drama in which lush had no place. here suddenly he reappeared at her husband's elbow, and there sprang up in her, like an instantaneously fabricated memory in a dream, the sense of his being connected with the secrets that made her wretched. she was conscious of effort in turning her head away from him, trying to continue her wandering survey as if she had seen nothing of more consequence than the picture on the wall, till she discovered deronda. but he was not looking toward her, and she withdrew her eyes from him, without having got any recognition, consoling herself with the assurance that he must have seen her come in. in fact, he was not standing far from the door with hans meyrick, whom he had been careful to bring into lady mallinger's list. they were both a little more anxious than was comfortable lest mirah should not be heard to advantage. deronda even felt himself on the brink of betraying emotion, mirah's presence now being linked with crowding images of what had gone before and was to come after--all centering in the brother he was soon to reveal to her; and he had escaped as soon as he could from the side of lady pentreath, who had said in her violoncello voice, "well, your jewess is pretty--there's no denying that. but where is her jewish impudence? she looks as demure as a nun. i suppose she learned that on the stage." he was beginning to feel on mirah's behalf something of what he had felt for himself in his seraphic boyish time, when sir hugo asked him if he would like to be a great singer--an indignant dislike to her being remarked on in a free and easy way, as if she were an imported commodity disdainfully paid for by the fashionable public, and he winced the more because mordecai, he knew, would feel that the name "jewess" was taken as a sort of stamp like the lettering of chinese silk. in this susceptible mood he saw the grandcourts enter, and was immediately appealed to by hans about "that vandyke duchess of a beauty." pray excuse deronda that in this moment he felt a transient renewal of his first repulsion from gwendolen, as if she and her beauty and her failings were to blame for the undervaluing of mirah as a woman--a feeling something like class animosity, which affection for what is not fully recognized by others, whether in persons or in poetry, rarely allows us to escape. to hans admiring gwendolen with his habitual hyperbole, he answered, with a sarcasm that was not quite good-natured, "i thought you could admire no style of woman but your berenice." "that is the style i worship--not admire," said hans. "other styles of women i might make myself wicked for, but for berenice i could make myself--well, pretty good, which is something much more difficult." "hush," said deronda, under the pretext that the singing was going to begin. he was not so delighted with the answer as might have been expected, and was relieved by hans's movement to a more advanced spot. deronda had never before heard mirah sing "_o patria mia_." he knew well leopardi's fine ode to italy (when italy sat like a disconsolate mother in chains, hiding her face on her knees and weeping), and the few selected words were filled for him with the grandeur of the whole, which seemed to breathe an inspiration through the music. mirah singing this, made mordecai more than ever one presence with her. certain words not included in the song nevertheless rang within deronda as harmonies from the invisible, "non ti difende nessun dè tuoi! l'armi, qua l'armi: io solo combatteró, procomberó sol io"-- [footnote: do none of thy children defend thee? arms! bring me arms! alone i will fight, alone i will fall.] they seemed the very voice of that heroic passion which is falsely said to devote itself in vain when it achieves the god-like end of manifesting unselfish love. and that passion was present to deronda now as the vivid image of a man dying helplessly away from the possibility of battle. mirah was equal to his wishes. while the general applause was sounding, klesmer gave a more valued testimony, audible to her only--"good, good--the crescendo better than before." but her chief anxiety was to know that she had satisfied mr. deronda: any failure on her part this evening would have pained her as an especial injury to him. of course all her prospects were due to what he had done for her; still, this occasion of singing in the house that was his home brought a peculiar demand. she looked toward him in the distance, and he saw that she did; but he remained where he was, and watched the streams of emulous admirers closing round her, till presently they parted to make way for gwendolen, who was taken up to be introduced by mrs. klesmer. easier now about "the little jewess," daniel relented toward poor gwendolen in her splendor, and his memory went back, with some penitence for his momentary hardness, over all the signs and confessions that she too needed a rescue, and one much more difficult than that of the wanderer by the river--a rescue for which he felt himself helpless. the silent question--"but is it not cowardly to make that a reason for turning away?" was the form in which he framed his resolve to go near her on the first opportunity, and show his regard for her past confidence, in spite of sir hugo's unwelcome hints. klesmer, having risen to gwendolen as she approached, and being included by her in the opening conversation with mirah, continued near them a little while, looking down with a smile, which was rather in his eyes than on his lips, at the piquant contrast of the two charming young creatures seated on the red divan. the solicitude seemed to be all on the side of the splendid one. "you must let me say how much i am obliged to you," said gwendolen. "i had heard from mr. deronda that i should have a great treat in your singing, but i was too ignorant to imagine how great." "you are very good to say so," answered mirah, her mind chiefly occupied in contemplating gwendolen. it was like a new kind of stage-experience to her to be close to genuine grand ladies with genuine brilliants and complexions, and they impressed her vaguely as coming out of some unknown drama, in which their parts perhaps got more tragic as they went on. "we shall all want to learn of you--i, at least," said gwendolen. "i sing very badly, as herr klesmer will tell you,"--here she glanced upward to that higher power rather archly, and continued--"but i have been rebuked for not liking to be middling, since i can be nothing more. i think that is a different doctrine from yours?" she was still looking at klesmer, who said quickly, "not if it means that it would be worth while for you to study further, and for miss lapidoth to have the pleasure of helping you." with that he moved away, and mirah taking everything with _naïve_ seriousness, said, "if you think i could teach you, i shall be very glad. i am anxious to teach, but i have only just begun. if i do it well, it must be by remembering how my master taught me." gwendolen was in reality too uncertain about herself to be prepared for this simple promptitude of mirah's, and in her wish to change the subject, said, with some lapse from the good taste of her first address, "you have not been long in london, i think?--but you were perhaps introduced to mr. deronda abroad?" "no," said mirah; "i never saw him before i came to england in the summer." "but he has seen you often and heard you sing a great deal, has he not?" said gwendolen, led on partly by the wish to hear anything about deronda, and partly by the awkwardness which besets the readiest person, in carrying on a dialogue when empty of matter. "he spoke of you to me with the highest praise. he seemed to know you quite well." "oh, i was poor and needed help," said mirah, in a new tone of feeling, "and mr. deronda has given me the best friends in the world. that is the only way he came to know anything about me--because he was sorry for me. i had no friends when i came. i was in distress. i owe everything to him." poor gwendolen, who had wanted to be a struggling artist herself, could nevertheless not escape the impression that a mode of inquiry which would have been rather rude toward herself was an amiable condescension to this jewess who was ready to give her lessons. the only effect on mirah, as always on any mention of deronda, was to stir reverential gratitude and anxiety that she should be understood to have the deepest obligation to him. but both he and hans, who were noticing the pair from a distance, would have felt rather indignant if they had known that the conversation had led up to mirah's representation of herself in this light of neediness. in the movement that prompted her, however, there was an exquisite delicacy, which perhaps she could not have stated explicitly--the feeling that she ought not to allow any one to assume in deronda a relation of more equality or less generous interest toward her than actually existed. her answer was delightful to gwendolen: she thought of nothing but the ready compassion which in another form she had trusted in and found herself; and on the signals that klesmer was about to play she moved away in much content, entirely without presentiment that this jewish _protégé_ would ever make a more important difference in her life than the possible improvement of her singing--if the leisure and spirits of a mrs. grandcourt would allow of other lessons than such as the world was giving her at rather a high charge. with her wonted alternation from resolute care of appearances to some rash indulgence of an impulse, she chose, under the pretext of getting farther from the instrument, not to go again to her former seat, but placed herself on a settee where she could only have one neighbor. she was nearer to deronda than before: was it surprising that he came up in time to shake hands before the music began--then, that after he had stood a little while by the elbow of the settee at the empty end, the torrent-like confluences of bass and treble seemed, like a convulsion of nature, to cast the conduct of petty mortals into insignificance, and to warrant his sitting down? but when at the end of klesmer's playing there came the outburst of talk under which gwendolen had hoped to speak as she would to deronda, she observed that mr. lush was within hearing, leaning against the wall close by them. she could not help her flush of anger, but she tried to have only an air of polite indifference in saying, "miss lapidoth is everything you described her to be." "you have been very quick in discovering that," said deronda, ironically. "i have not found out all the excellencies you spoke of--i don't mean that," said gwendolen; "but i think her singing is charming, and herself, too. her face is lovely--not in the least common; and she is such a complete little person. i should think she will be a great success." this speech was grating on deronda, and he would not answer it, but looked gravely before him. she knew that he was displeased with her, and she was getting so impatient under the neighborhood of mr. lush, which prevented her from saying any word she wanted to say, that she meditated some desperate step to get rid of it, and remained silent, too. that constraint seemed to last a long while, neither gwendolen nor deronda looking at the other, till lush slowly relieved the wall of his weight, and joined some one at a distance. gwendolen immediately said, "you despise me for talking artificially." "no," said deronda, looking at her coolly; "i think that is quite excusable sometimes. but i did not think what you were last saying was altogether artificial." "there was something in it that displeased you," said gwendolen. "what was it?" "it is impossible to explain such things," said deronda. "one can never communicate niceties of feeling about words and manner." "you think i am shut out from understanding them," said gwendolen, with a slight tremor in her voice, which she was trying to conquer. "have i shown myself so very dense to everything you have said?" there was an indescribable look of suppressed tears in her eyes, which were turned on him. "not at all," said deronda, with some softening of voice. "but experience differs for different people. we don't all wince at the same things. i have had plenty of proof that you are not dense." he smiled at her. "but one may feel things and are not able to do anything better for all that," said gwendolen, not smiling in return--the distance to which deronda's words seemed to throw her chilling her too much. "i begin to think we can only get better by having people about us who raise good feelings. you must not be surprised at anything in me. i think it is too late for me to alter. i don't know how to set about being wise, as you told me to be." "i seldom find i do any good by my preaching. i might as well have kept from meddling," said deronda, thinking rather sadly that his interference about that unfortunate necklace might end in nothing but an added pain to him in seeing her after all hardened to another sort of gambling than roulette. "don't say that," said gwendolen, hurriedly, feeling that this might be her only chance of getting the words uttered, and dreading the increase of her own agitation. "if you despair of me, i shall despair. your saying that i should not go on being selfish and ignorant has been some strength to me. if you say you wish you had not meddled--that means you despair of me and forsake me. and then you will decide for me that i shall not be good. it is you who will decide; because you might have made me different by keeping as near to me as you could, and believing in me." she had not been looking at him as she spoke, but at the handle of the fan which she held closed. with the last words she rose and left him, returning to her former place, which had been left vacant; while every one was settling into quietude in expectation of mirah's voice, which presently, with that wonderful, searching quality of subdued song in which the melody seems simply an effect of the emotion, gave forth, _per pietà non dirmi addio_. in deronda's ear the strain was for the moment a continuance of gwendolen's pleading--a painful urging of something vague and difficult, irreconcilable with pressing conditions, and yet cruel to resist. however strange the mixture in her of a resolute pride and a precocious air of knowing the world, with a precipitate, guileless indiscretion, he was quite sure now that the mixture existed. sir hugo's hints had made him alive to dangers that his own disposition might have neglected; but that gwendolen's reliance on him was unvisited by any dream of his being a man who could misinterpret her was as manifest as morning, and made an appeal which wrestled with his sense of present dangers, and with his foreboding of a growing incompatible claim on him in her mind. there was a foreshadowing of some painful collision: on the one side the grasp of mordecai's dying hand on him, with all the ideals and prospects it aroused; on the other the fair creature in silk and gems, with her hidden wound and her self-dread, making a trustful effort to lean and find herself sustained. it was as if he had a vision of himself besought with outstretched arms and cries, while he was caught by the waves and compelled to mount the vessel bound for a far-off coast. that was the strain of excited feeling in him that went along with the notes of mirah's song; but when it ceased he moved from his seat with the reflection that he had been falling into an exaggeration of his own importance, and a ridiculous readiness to accept gwendolen's view of himself, as if he could really have any decisive power over her. "what an enviable fellow you are," said hans to him, "sitting on a sofa with that young duchess, and having an interesting quarrel with her!" "quarrel with her?" repeated deronda, rather uncomfortably. "oh, about theology, of course; nothing personal. but she told you what you ought to think, and then left you with a grand air which was admirable. is she an antinomian--if so, tell her i am an antinomian painter, and introduce me. i should like to paint her and her husband. he has the sort of handsome _physique_ that the duke ought to have in _lucrezia borgia_--if it could go with a fine baritone, which it can't." deronda devoutly hoped that hans's account of the impression his dialogue with gwendolen had made on a distant beholder was no more than a bit of fantastic representation, such as was common with him. and gwendolen was not without her after-thoughts that her husband's eyes might have been on her, extracting something to reprove--some offence against her dignity as his wife; her consciousness telling her that she had not kept up the perfect air of equability in public which was her own ideal. but grandcourt made no observation on her behavior. all he said as they were driving home was, "lush will dine with us among the other people to-morrow. you will treat him civilly." gwendolen's heart began to beat violently. the words that she wanted to utter, as one wants to return a blow, were. "you are breaking your promise to me--the first promise you made me." but she dared not utter them. she was as frightened at a quarrel as if she had foreseen that it would end with throttling fingers on her neck. after a pause, she said in the tone rather of defeat than resentment, "i thought you did not intend him to frequent the house again." "i want him just now. he is useful to me; and he must be treated civilly." silence. there may come a moment when even an excellent husband who has dropped smoking under more or less of a pledge during courtship, for the first time will introduce his cigar-smoke between himself and his wife, with the tacit understanding that she will have to put up with it. mr. lush was, so to speak, a very large cigar. if these are the sort of lovers' vows at which jove laughs, he must have a merry time of it. chapter xlvi. "if any one should importune me to give a reason why i loved him, i feel it could no otherwise be expressed than by making answer, 'because it was he, because it was i.' there is, beyond what i am able to say, i know not what inexplicable power that brought on this union."--montaigne: _on friendship_. the time had come to prepare mordecai for the revelation of the restored sister and for the change of abode which was desirable before mirah's meeting with her brother. mrs. meyrick, to whom deronda had confided everything except mordecai's peculiar relation to himself, had been active in helping him to find a suitable lodging in brompton, not many minutes' walk from her own house, so that the brother and sister would be within reach of her motherly care. her happy mixture of scottish fervor and gaelic liveliness had enabled her to keep the secret close from the girls as well as from hans, any betrayal to them being likely to reach mirah in some way that would raise an agitating suspicion, and spoil the important opening of that work which was to secure her independence, as we rather arbitrarily call one of the more arduous and dignified forms of our dependence. and both mrs. meyrick and deronda had more reasons than they could have expressed for desiring that mirah should be able to maintain herself. perhaps "the little mother" was rather helped in her secrecy by some dubiousness in her sentiment about the remarkable brother described to her; and certainly if she felt any joy and anticipatory admiration, it was due to her faith in deronda's judgment. the consumption was a sorrowful fact that appealed to her tenderness; but how was she to be very glad of an enthusiasm which, to tell the truth, she could only contemplate as jewish pertinacity, and as rather an undesirable introduction among them all of a man whose conversation would not be more modern and encouraging than that of scott's covenanters? her mind was anything but prosaic, and had her soberer share of mab's delight in the romance of mirah's story and of her abode with them; but the romantic or unusual in real life requires some adaptation. we sit up at night to read about sakya-mouni, st. francis, or oliver cromwell; but whether we should be glad for any one at all like them to call on us the next morning, still more, to reveal himself as a new relation, is quite another affair. besides, mrs. meyrick had hoped, as her children did, that the intensity of mirah's feeling about judaism would slowly subside, and be merged in the gradually deepening current of loving interchange with her new friends. in fact, her secret favorite continuation of the romance had been no discovery of jewish relations, but something much more favorable to the hopes she discerned in hans. and now--here was a brother who would dip mirah's mind over again in the deepest dye of jewish sentiment. she could not help saying to deronda, "i am as glad as you are that the pawnbroker is not her brother: there are ezras and ezras in the world; and really it is a comfort to think that all jews are not like those shopkeepers who _will not_ let you get out of their shops: and besides, what he said to you about his mother and sister makes me bless him. i am sure he's good. but i never did like anything fanatical. i suppose i heard a little too much preaching in my youth and lost my palate for it." "i don't think you will find that mordecai obtrudes any preaching," said deronda. "he is not what i should call fanatical. i call a man fanatical when his enthusiasm is narrow and hoodwinked, so that he has no sense of proportions, and becomes unjust and unsympathetic to men who are out of his own track. mordecai is an enthusiast; i should like to keep that word for the highest order of minds--those who care supremely for grand and general benefits to mankind. he is not a strictly orthodox jew, and is full of allowances for others; his conformity in many things is an allowance for the condition of other jews. the people he lives with are as fond of him as possible, and they can't in the least understand his ideas." "oh, well, i can live up to the level of the pawnbroker's mother, and like him for what i see to be good in him; and for what i don't see the merits of i will take your word. according to your definition, i suppose one might be fanatical in worshipping common-sense; for my poor husband used to say the world would be a poor place if there were nothing but common-sense in it. however, mirah's brother will have good bedding--that i have taken care of; and i shall have this extra window pasted up with paper to prevent draughts." (the conversation was taking place in the destined lodging.) "it is a comfort to think that the people of the house are no strangers to me--no hypocritical harpies. and when the children know, we shall be able to make the rooms much prettier." "the next stage of the affair is to tell all to mordecai, and get him to move--which may be a more difficult business," said deronda. "and will you tell mirah before i say anything to the children?" said mrs. meyrick. but deronda hesitated, and she went on in a tone of persuasive deliberation--"no, i think not. let me tell hans and the girls the evening before, and they will be away the next morning?" "yes, that will be best. but do justice to my account of mordecai--or ezra, as i suppose mirah will wish to call him: don't assist their imagination by referring to habakkuk mucklewrath," said deronda, smiling--mrs. meyrick herself having used the comparison of the covenanters. "trust me, trust me," said the little mother. "i shall have to persuade them so hard to be glad, that i shall convert myself. when i am frightened i find it a good thing to have somebody to be angry with for not being brave: it warms the blood." deronda might have been more argumentative or persuasive about the view to be taken of mirah's brother, if he had been less anxiously preoccupied with the more important task immediately before him, which he desired to acquit himself of without wounding the cohens. mordecai, by a memorable answer, had made it evident that he would be keenly alive to any inadvertance in relation to their feelings. in the interval, he had been meeting mordecai at the _hand and banner_, but now after due reflection he wrote to him saying that he had particular reasons for wishing to see him in his own home the next evening, and would beg to sit with him in his workroom for an hour, if the cohens would not regard it as an intrusion. he would call with the understanding that if there were any objection, mordecai would accompany him elsewhere. deronda hoped in this way to create a little expectation that would have a preparatory effect. he was received with the usual friendliness, some additional costume in the women and children, and in all the elders a slight air of wondering which even in cohen was not allowed to pass the bounds of silence--the guest's transactions with mordecai being a sort of mystery which he was rather proud to think lay outside the sphere of light which enclosed his own understanding. but when deronda said, "i suppose mordecai is at home and expecting me," jacob, who had profited by the family remarks, went up to his knee and said, "what do you want to talk to mordecai about?" "something that is very interesting to him," said deronda, pinching the lad's ear, "but that you can't understand." "can you say this?" said jacob, immediately giving forth a string of his rote-learned hebrew verses with a wonderful mixture of the throaty and the nasal, and nodding his small head at his hearer, with a sense of giving formidable evidence which might rather alter their mutual position. "no, really," said deronda, keeping grave; "i can't say anything like it." "i thought not," said jacob, performing a dance of triumph with his small scarlet legs, while he took various objects out of the deep pockets of his knickerbockers and returned them thither, as a slight hint of his resources; after which, running to the door of the workroom, he opened it wide, set his back against it, and said, "mordecai, here's the young swell"--a copying of his father's phrase, which seemed to him well fitted to cap the recitation of hebrew. he was called back with hushes by mother and grandmother, and deronda, entering and closing the door behind him, saw that a bit of carpet had been laid down, a chair placed, and the fire and lights attended to, in sign of the cohens' respect. as mordecai rose to greet him, deronda was struck with the air of solemn expectation in his face, such as would have seemed perfectly natural if his letter had declared that some revelation was to be made about the lost sister. neither of them spoke, till deronda, with his usual tenderness of manner, had drawn the vacant chair from the opposite side of the hearth and had seated himself near to mordecai, who then said, in a tone of fervid certainty, "you are coming to tell me something that my soul longs for." "it is true i have something very weighty to tell you--something i trust that you will rejoice in," said deronda, on his guard against the probability that mordecai had been preparing himself for something quite different from the fact. "it is all revealed--it is made clear to you," said mordecai, more eagerly, leaning forward with clasped hands. "you are even as my brother that sucked the breasts of my mother--the heritage is yours--there is no doubt to divide us." "i have learned nothing new about myself," said deronda. the disappointment was inevitable: it was better not to let the feeling be strained longer in a mistaken hope. mordecai sank back in his chair, unable for the moment to care what was really coming. the whole day his mind had been in a state of tension toward one fulfillment. the reaction was sickening and he closed his eyes. "except," deronda went on gently, after a pause,--"except that i had really some time ago come into another sort of hidden connection with you, besides what you have spoken of as existing in your own feeling." the eyes were not opened, but there was a fluttering in the lids. "i had made the acquaintance of one in whom you are interested." "one who is closely related to your departed mother," deronda went on wishing to make the disclosure gradual; but noticing a shrinking movement in mordecai, he added--"whom she and you held dear above all others." mordecai, with a sudden start, laid a spasmodic grasp on deronda's wrist; there was a great terror in him. and deronda divined it. a tremor was perceptible in his clear tones as he said, "what was prayed for has come to pass: mirah has been delivered from evil." mordecai's grasp relaxed a little, but he was panting with a tearless sob. deronda went on: "your sister is worthy of the mother you honored." he waited there, and mordecai, throwing himself backward in his chair, again closed his eyes, uttering himself almost inaudibly for some minutes in hebrew, and then subsiding into a happy-looking silence. deronda, watching the expression in his uplifted face, could have imagined that he was speaking with some beloved object: there was a new suffused sweetness, something like that on the faces of the beautiful dead. for the first time deronda thought he discerned a family resemblance to mirah. presently when mordecai was ready to listen, the rest was told. but in accounting for mirah's flight he made the statement about the father's conduct as vague as he could, and threw the emphasis on her yearning to come to england as the place where she might find her mother. also he kept back the fact of mirah's intention to drown herself, and his own part in rescuing her; merely describing the home she had found with friends of his, whose interest in her and efforts for her he had shared. what he dwelt on finally was mirah's feeling about her mother and brother; and in relation to this he tried to give every detail. "it was in search of them," said deronda, smiling, "that i turned into this house: the name ezra cohen was just then the most interesting name in the world to me. i confess i had fear for a long while. perhaps you will forgive me now for having asked you that question about the elder mrs. cohen's daughter. i cared very much what i should find mirah's friends to be. but i had found a brother worthy of her when i knew that her ezra was disguised under the name of mordecai." "mordecai is really my name--ezra mordecai cohen." "is there any kinship between this family and yours?" said deronda. "only the kinship of israel. my soul clings to these people, who have sheltered me and given me succor out of the affection that abides in jewish hearts, as sweet odor in things long crushed and hidden from the outer air. it is good for me to bear with their ignorance and be bound to them in gratitude, that i may keep in mind the spiritual poverty of the jewish million, and not put impatient knowledge in the stead of loving wisdom." "but you don't feel bound to continue with them now there is a closer tie to draw you?" said deronda, not without fear that he might find an obstacle to overcome. "it seems to me right now--is it not?--that you should live with your sister; and i have prepared a home to take you to in the neighborhood of her friends, that she may join you there. pray grant me this wish. it will enable me to be with you often in the hours when mirah is obliged to leave you. that is my selfish reason. but the chief reason is, that mirah will desire to watch over you, and that you ought to give her the guardianship of a brother's presence. you shall have books about you. i shall want to learn of you, and to take you out to see the river and trees. and you will have the rest and comfort that you will be more and more in need of--nay, that i need for you. this is the claim i make on you, now that we have found each other." deronda spoke in a tone of earnest, affectionate pleading, such as he might have used to a venerated elder brother. mordecai's eyes were fixed on him with a listening contemplation, and he was silent for a little while after deronda had ceased to speak. then he said, with an almost reproachful emphasis, "and you would have me hold it doubtful whether you were born a jew! have we not from the first touched each other with invisible fibres--have we not quivered together like the leaves from a common stem with stirring from a common root? i know what i am outwardly, i am one among the crowd of poor--i am stricken, i am dying. but our souls know each other. they gazed in silence as those who have long been parted and meet again, but when they found voice they were assured, and all their speech is understanding. the life of israel is in your veins." deronda sat perfectly still, but felt his face tingling. it was impossible either to deny or assent. he waited, hoping that mordecai would presently give him a more direct answer. and after a pause of meditation he did say, firmly, "what you wish of me i will do. and our mother--may the blessing of the eternal be with her in our souls!--would have wished it too. i will accept what your loving kindness has prepared, and mirah's home shall be mine." he paused a moment, and then added in a more melancholy tone, "but i shall grieve to part from these parents and the little ones. you must tell them, for my heart would fail me." "i felt that you would want me to tell them. shall we go now at once?" said deronda, much relieved by this unwavering compliance. "yes; let us not defer it. it must be done," said mordecai, rising with the air of a man who has to perform a painful duty. then came, as an afterthought, "but do not dwell on my sister more than is needful." when they entered the parlor he said to the alert jacob, "ask your father to come, and tell sarah to mind the shop. my friend has something to say," he continued, turning to the elder mrs. cohen. it seemed part of mordecai's eccentricity that he should call this gentleman his friend; and the two women tried to show their better manners by warm politeness in begging deronda to seat himself in the best place. when cohen entered with a pen behind his ear, he rubbed his hands and said with loud satisfaction, "well, sir! i'm glad you're doing us the honor to join our family party again. we are pretty comfortable, i think." he looked round with shiny gladness. and when all were seated on the hearth the scene was worth peeping in upon: on one side baby under her scarlet quilt in the corner being rocked by the young mother, and adelaide rebekah seated on the grandmother's knee; on the other, jacob between his father's legs; while the two markedly different figures of deronda and mordecai were in the middle--mordecai a little backward in the shade, anxious to conceal his agitated susceptibility to what was going on around him. the chief light came from the fire, which brought out the rich color on a depth of shadow, and seemed to turn into speech the dark gems of eyes that looked at each other kindly. "i have just been telling mordecai of an event that makes a great change in his life," deronda began, "but i hope you will agree with me that it is a joyful one. since he thinks of you as his best friends, he wishes me to tell you for him at once." "relations with money, sir?" burst in cohen, feeling a power of divination which it was a pity to nullify by waiting for the fact. "no; not exactly," said deronda, smiling. "but a very precious relation wishes to be reunited to him--a very good and lovely young sister, who will care for his comfort in every way." "married, sir?" "no, not married." "but with a maintenance?" "with talents which will secure her a maintenance. a home is already provided for mordecai." there was silence for a moment or two before the grandmother said in a wailing tone, "well, well! and so you're going away from us, mordecai." "and where there's no children as there is here," said the mother, catching the wail. "no jacob, and no adelaide, and no eugenie!" wailed the grandmother again. "ay, ay, jacob's learning 'ill all wear out of him. he must go to school. it'll be hard times for jacob," said cohen, in a tone of decision. in the wide-open ears of jacob his father's words sounded like a doom, giving an awful finish to the dirge-like effect of the whole announcement. his face had been gathering a wondering incredulous sorrow at the notion of mordecai's going away: he was unable to imagine the change as anything lasting; but at the mention of "hard times for jacob" there was no further suspense of feeling, and he broke forth in loud lamentation. adelaide rebekah always cried when her brother cried, and now began to howl with astonishing suddenness, whereupon baby awaking contributed angry screams, and required to be taken out of the cradle. a great deal of hushing was necessary, and mordecai feeling the cries pierce him, put out his arms to jacob, who in the midst of his tears and sobs was turning his head right and left for general observation. his father, who had been saying, "never mind, old man; you shall go to the riders," now released him, and he went to mordecai, who clasped him, and laid his cheek on the little black head without speaking. but cohen, sensible that the master of the family must make some apology for all this weakness, and that the occasion called for a speech, addressed deronda with some elevation of pitch, squaring his elbows and resting a hand on each knee: "it's not as we're the people to grudge anybody's good luck, sir, or the portion of their cup being made fuller, as i may say. i'm not an envious man, and if anybody offered to set up mordecai in a shop of my sort two doors lower down, _i_ shouldn't make wry faces about it. i'm not one of them that had need have a poor opinion of themselves, and be frightened at anybody else getting a chance. if i'm offal, let a wise man come and tell me, for i've never heard it yet. and in point of business, i'm not a class of goods to be in danger. if anybody takes to rolling me, i can pack myself up like a caterpillar, and find my feet when i'm let alone. and though, as i may say, you're taking some of our good works from us, which is property bearing interest, i'm not saying but we can afford that, though my mother and my wife had the good will to wish and do for mordecai to the last; and a jew must not be like a servant who works for reward--though i see nothing against a reward if i can get it. and as to the extra outlay in schooling, i'm neither poor nor greedy--i wouldn't hang myself for sixpence, nor half a crown neither. but the truth of it is, the women and children are fond of mordecai. you may partly see how it is, sir, by your own sense. a jewish man is bound to thank god, day by day, that he was not made a woman; but a woman has to thank god that he has made her according to his will. and we all know what he has made her--a child-bearing, tender-hearted thing is the woman of our people. her children are mostly stout, as i think you'll say addy's are, and she's not mushy, but her heart is tender. so you must excuse present company, sir, for not being glad all at once. and as to this young lady--for by what you say 'young lady' is the proper term"--cohen here threw some additional emphasis into his look and tone--"we shall all be glad for mordecai's sake by-and-by, when we cast up our accounts and see where we are." before deronda could summon any answer to this oddly mixed speech, mordecai exclaimed, "friends, friends! for food and raiment and shelter i would not have sought better than you have given me. you have sweetened the morsel with love; and what i thought of as a joy that would be left to me even in the last months of my waning strength was to go on teaching the lad. but now i am as one who had clad himself beforehand in his shroud, and used himself to making the grave his bed, when the divine command sounded in his ears, 'arise, and go forth; the night is not yet come.' for no light matter would i have turned away from your kindness to take another's. but it has been taught us, as you know, that _the reward of one duty is the power to fulfill another_--so said ben azai. you have made your duty to one of the poor among your brethren a joy to you and me; and your reward shall be that you will not rest without the joy of like deeds in the time to come. and may not jacob come and visit me?" mordecai had turned with this question to deronda, who said, "surely that can be managed. it is no further than brompton." jacob, who had been gradually calmed by the need to hear what was going forward, began now to see some daylight on the future, the word "visit" having the lively charm of cakes and general relaxation at his grandfather's, the dealer in knives. he danced away from mordecai, and took up a station of survey in the middle of the hearth with his hands in his knickerbockers. "well," said the grandmother, with a sigh of resignation, "i hope there'll be nothing in the way of your getting _kosher_ meat, mordecai. for you'll have to trust to those you live with." "that's all right, that's all right, you may be sure, mother," said cohen, as if anxious to cut off inquiry on matters in which he was uncertain of the guest's position. "so, sir," he added, turning with a look of amused enlightenment to deronda, "it was better than learning you had to talk to mordecai about! i wondered to myself at the time. i thought somehow there was a something." "mordecai will perhaps explain to you how it was that i was seeking him," said deronda, feeling that he had better go, and rising as he spoke. it was agreed that he should come again and the final move be made on the next day but one; but when he was going mordecai begged to walk with him to the end of the street, and wrapped himself in coat and comforter. it was a march evening, and deronda did not mean to let him go far, but he understood the wish to be outside the house with him in communicative silence, after the exciting speech that had been filling the last hour. no word was spoken until deronda had proposed parting, when he said, "mirah would wish to thank the cohens for their goodness. you would wish her to do so--to come and see them, would you not?" mordecai did not answer immediately, but at length said, "i cannot tell. i fear not. there is a family sorrow, and the sight of my sister might be to them as the fresh bleeding of wounds. there is a daughter and sister who will never be restored as mirah is. but who knows the pathways? we are all of us denying or fulfilling prayers--and men in their careless deeds walk amidst invisible outstretched arms and pleadings made in vain. in my ears i have the prayers of generations past and to come. my life is as nothing to me but the beginning of fulfilment. and yet i am only another prayer--which you will fulfil." deronda pressed his hand, and they parted. chapter xlvii. "and you must love him ere to you he will seem worthy of your love." --wordsworth. one might be tempted to envy deronda providing new clothes for mordecai, and pleasing himself as if he were sketching a picture in imagining the effect of the fine gray flannel shirts and a dressing-gown very much like a franciscan's brown frock, with mordecai's head and neck above them. half his pleasure was the sense of seeing mirah's brother through her eyes, and securing her fervid joy from any perturbing impression. and yet, after he had made all things ready, he was visited with doubt whether he were not mistaking her, and putting the lower effect for the higher: was she not just as capable as he himself had been of feeling the impressive distinction in her brother all the more for that aspect of poverty which was among the memorials of his past? but there were the meyricks to be propitiated toward this too judaic brother; and deronda detected himself piqued into getting out of sight everything that might feed the ready repugnance in minds unblessed with that precious "seeing," that bathing of all objects in a solemnity as of sun-set glow, which is begotten of a loving reverential emotion. and his inclination would have been the more confirmed if he had heard the dialogue round mrs. meyrick's fire late in the evening, after mirah had gone to her room. hans, settled now in his chelsea rooms, had stayed late, and mrs. meyrick, poking the fire into a blaze, said, "now, kate, put out your candle, and all come round the fire cosily. hans, dear, do leave off laughing at those poems for the ninety-ninth time, and come too. i have something wonderful to tell." "as if i didn't know that, ma. i have seen it in the corner of your eye ever so long, and in your pretense of errands," said kate, while the girls came up to put their feet on the fender, and hans, pushing his chair near them, sat astride it, resting his fists and chin on the back. "well, then, if you are so wise, perhaps you know that mirah's brother is found!" said mrs. meyrick, in her clearest accents. "oh, confound it!" said hans, in the same moment. "hans, that is wicked," said mab. "suppose we had lost you?" "i _cannot_ help being rather sorry," said kate. "and her mother?--where is she?" "her mother is dead." "i hope the brother is not a bad man," said amy. "nor a fellow all smiles and jewelry--a crystal palace assyrian with a hat on," said hans, in the worst humor. "were there ever such unfeeling children?" said mrs. meyrick, a little strengthened by the need for opposition. "you don't think the least bit of mirah's joy in the matter." "you know, ma, mirah hardly remembers her brother," said kate. "people who are lost for twelve years should never come back again," said hans. "they are always in the way." "hans!" said mrs. meyrick, reproachfully. "if you had lost me for _twenty_ years, i should have thought--" "i said twelve years," hans broke in. "anywhere about twelve years is the time at which lost relations should keep out of the way." "well, but it's nice finding people--there is something to tell," said mab, clasping her knees. "did prince camaralzaman find him?" then mrs. meyrick, in her neat, narrative way, told all she knew without interruption. "mr. deronda has the highest admiration for him," she ended--"seems quite to look up to him. and he says mirah is just the sister to understand this brother." "deronda is getting perfectly preposterous about those jews," said hans with disgust, rising and setting his chair away with a bang. "he wants to do everything he can to encourage mirah in her prejudices." "oh, for shame, hans!--to speak in that way of mr. deronda," said mab. and mrs. meyrick's face showed something like an under-current of expression not allowed to get to the surface. "and now we shall never be all together," hans went on, walking about with his hands thrust into the pockets of his brown velveteen coat, "but we must have this prophet elijah to tea with us, and mirah will think of nothing but sitting on the ruins of jerusalem. she will be spoiled as an artist--mind that--she will get as narrow as a nun. everything will be spoiled--our home and everything. i shall take to drinking." "oh, really, hans," said kate, impatiently. "i do think men are the most contemptible animals in all creation. every one of them must have everything to his mind, else he is unbearable." "oh, oh, oh, it's very dreadful!" cried mab. "i feel as if ancient nineveh were come again." "i should like to know what is the good of having gone to the university and knowing everything, if you are so childish, hans," said amy. "you ought to put up with a man that providence sends you to be kind to. _we_ shall have to put up with him." "i hope you will all of you like the new lamentations of jeremiah--'to be continued in our next'--that's all," said hans, seizing his wide-awake. "it's no use being one thing more than another if one has to endure the company of those men with a fixed idea, staring blankly at you, and requiring all your remarks to be small foot-notes to their text. if you're to be under a petrifying wall, you'd better be an old boot. i don't feel myself an old boot." then abruptly, "good night, little mother," bending to kiss her brow in a hasty, desperate manner, and condescendingly, on his way to the door, "good-night, girls." "suppose mirah knew how you are behaving," said kate. but her answer was a slam of the door. "i _should_ like to see mirah when mr. deronda tells her," she went on to her mother. "i know she will look so beautiful." but deronda, on second thoughts, had written a letter, which mrs. meyrick received the next morning, begging her to make the revelation instead of waiting for him, not giving the real reason--that he shrank from going again through a narrative in which he seemed to be making himself important and giving himself a character of general beneficence--but saying that he wished to remain with mordecai while mrs. meyrick would bring mirah on what was to be understood as a visit, so that there might be a little interval before that change of abode which he expected that mirah herself would propose. deronda secretly felt some wondering anxiety how far mordecai, after years of solitary preoccupation with ideas likely to have become the more exclusive from continual diminution of bodily strength, would allow him to feel a tender interest in his sister over and above the rendering of pious duties. his feeling for the cohens, and especially for little jacob, showed a persistent activity of affection; but these objects had entered into his daily life for years; and deronda felt it noticeable that mordecai asked no new questions about mirah, maintaining, indeed, an unusual silence on all subjects, and appearing simply to submit to the changes that were coming over his personal life. he donned the new clothes obediently, but said afterward to deronda, with a faint smile, "i must keep my old garments by me for a remembrance." and when they were seated, awaiting mirah, he uttered no word, keeping his eyelids closed, but yet showing restless feeling in his face and hands. in fact, mordecai was undergoing that peculiar nervous perturbation only known to those whose minds, long and habitually moving with strong impetus in one current, are suddenly compelled into a new or reopened channel. susceptible people, whose strength has been long absorbed by dormant bias, dread an interview that imperiously revives the past, as they would dread a threatening illness. joy may be there, but joy, too, is terrible. deronda felt the infection of excitement, and when he heard the ring at the door, he went out, not knowing exactly why, that he might see and greet mirah beforehand. he was startled to find that she had on the hat and cloak in which he had first seen her--the memorable cloak that had once been wetted for a winding-sheet. she had come down-stairs equipped in this way; and when mrs. meyrick said, in a tone of question, "you like to go in that dress, dear?" she answered, "my brother is poor, and i want to look as much like him as i can, else he may feel distant from me"--imagining that she should meet him in the workman's dress. deronda could not make any remark, but felt secretly rather ashamed of his own fastidious arrangements. they shook hands silently, for mirah looked pale and awed. when deronda opened the door for her, mordecai had risen, and had his eyes turned toward it with an eager gaze. mirah took only two or three steps, and then stood still. they looked at each other, motionless. it was less their own presence that they felt than another's; they were meeting first in memories, compared with which touch was no union. mirah was the first to break the silence, standing where she was. "ezra," she said, in exactly the same tone as when she was telling of her mother's call to him. mordecai with a sudden movement advanced and laid his hand on her shoulders. he was the head taller, and looked down at her tenderly while he said, "that was our mother's voice. you remember her calling me?" "yes, and how you answered her--'mother!'--and i knew you loved her." mirah threw her arms round her brother's neck, clasped her little hands behind it, and drew down his face, kissing it with childlike lavishness. her hat fell backward on the ground and disclosed all her curls. "ah, the dear head, the dear head!" said mordecai, in a low loving tone, laying his thin hand gently on the curls. "you are very ill, ezra," said mirah, sadly looking at him with more observation. "yes, dear child, i shall not be long with you in the body," was the quiet answer. "oh, i will love you and we will talk to each other," said mirah, with a sweet outpouring of her words, as spontaneous as bird-notes. "i will tell you everything, and you will teach me:--you will teach me to be a good jewess--what she would have liked me to be. i shall always be with you when i am not working. for i work now. i shall get money to keep us. oh, i have had such good friends." mirah until now had quite forgotten that any one was by, but here she turned with the prettiest attitude, keeping one hand on her brother's arm while she looked at mrs. meyrick and deronda. the little mother's happy emotion in witnessing this meeting of brother and sister had already won her to mordecai, who seemed to her really to have more dignity and refinement than she had felt obliged to believe in from deronda's account. "see this dear lady!" said mirah. "i was a stranger, a poor wanderer, and she believed in me, and has treated me as a daughter. please give my brother your hand," she added, beseechingly, taking mrs. meyrick's hand and putting it in mordecai's, then pressing them both with her own and lifting them to her lips. "the eternal goodness has been with you," said mordecai. "you have helped to fulfill our mother's prayer." "i think we will go now, shall we?--and return later," said deronda, laying a gentle pressure on mrs. meyrick's arm, and she immediately complied. he was afraid of any reference to the facts about himself which he had kept back from mordecai, and he felt no uneasiness now in the thought of the brother and sister being alone together. chapter xlviii. 'tis hard and ill-paid task to order all things beforehand by the rule of our own security, as is well hinted by machiavelli concerning caesar borgia, who, saith he, had thought of all that might occur on his father's death, and had provided against every evil chance save only one: it had never come into his mind that when his father died, his own death would quickly follow. grandcourt's importance as a subject of this realm was of the grandly passive kind which consists in the inheritance of land. political and social movements touched him only through the wire of his rental, and his most careful biographer need not have read up on schleswig-holstein, the policy of bismarck, trade-unions, household suffrage, or even the last commercial panic. he glanced over the best newspaper columns on these topics, and his views on them can hardly be said to have wanted breadth, since he embraced all germans, all commercial men, and all voters liable to use the wrong kind of soap, under the general epithet of "brutes;" but he took no action on these much-agitated questions beyond looking from under his eyelids at any man who mentioned them, and retaining a silence which served to shake the opinions of timid thinkers. but grandcourt, within his own sphere of interest, showed some of the qualities which have entered into triumphal diplomacy of the wildest continental sort. no movement of gwendolen in relation to deronda escaped him. he would have denied that he was jealous; because jealousy would have implied some doubt of his own power to hinder what he had determined against. that his wife should have more inclination to another man's society than to his own would not pain him: what he required was that she should be as fully aware as she would have been of a locked hand-cuff, that her inclination was helpless to decide anything in contradiction with his resolve. however much of vacillating whim there might have been in his entrance on matrimony, there was no vacillating in his interpretation of the bond. he had not repented of his marriage; it had really brought more of aim into his life, new objects to exert his will upon; and he had not repented of his choice. his taste was fastidious, and gwendolen satisfied it: he would not have liked a wife who had not received some elevation of rank from him; nor one who did not command admiration by her mien and beauty; nor one whose nails were not of the right shape; nor one the lobe of whose ear was at all too large and red; nor one who, even if her nails and ears were right, was at the same time a ninny, unable to make spirited answers. these requirements may not seem too exacting to refined contemporaries whose own ability to fall in love has been held in suspense for lack of indispensable details; but fewer perhaps may follow him in his contentment that his wife should be in a temper which would dispose her to fly out if she dared, and that she should have been urged into marrying him by other feelings than passionate attachment. still, for those who prefer command to love, one does not see why the habit of mind should change precisely at the point of matrimony. grandcourt did not feel that he had chosen the wrong wife; and having taken on himself the part of husband, he was not going in any way to be fooled, or allow himself to be seen in a light that could be regarded as pitiable. this was his state of mind--not jealousy; still, his behavior in some respects was as like jealousy as yellow is to yellow, which color we know may be the effect of very different causes. he had come up to town earlier than usual because he wished to be on the spot for legal consultation as to the arrangements of his will, the transference of mortgages, and that transaction with his uncle about the succession to diplow, which the bait of ready money, adroitly dangled without importunity, had finally won him to agree upon. but another acceptable accompaniment of his being in town was the presentation of himself with the beautiful bride whom he had chosen to marry in spite of what other people might have expected of him. it is true that grandcourt went about with the sense that he did not care a languid curse for any one's admiration: but this state of not-caring, just as much as desire, required its related object--namely, a world of admiring or envying spectators: for if you are fond of looking stonily at smiling persons--the persons must be and they must smile--a rudimentary truth which is surely forgotten by those who complain of mankind as generally contemptible, since any other aspect of the race must disappoint the voracity of their contempt. grandcourt, in town for the first time with his wife, had his non-caring abstinence from curses enlarged and diversified by splendid receptions, by conspicuous rides and drives, by presentations of himself with her on all distinguished occasions. he wished her to be sought after; he liked that "fellows" should be eager to talk with her and escort her within his observation; there was even a kind of lofty coquetry on her part that he would not have objected to. but what he did not like were her ways in relation to deronda. after the musical party at lady mallinger's, when grandcourt had observed the dialogue on the settee as keenly as hans had done, it was characteristic of him that he named deronda for invitation along with the mallingers, tenaciously avoiding the possible suggestion to anybody concerned that deronda's presence or absence could be of the least importance to him; and he made no direct observation to gwendolen on her behavior that evening, lest the expression of his disgust should be a little too strong to satisfy his own pride. but a few days afterward he remarked, without being careful of the _à propos_, "nothing makes a woman more of a gawky than looking out after people and showing tempers in public. a woman ought to have good manners. else it's intolerable to appear with her." gwendolen made the expected application, and was not without alarm at the notion of being a gawky. for she, too, with her melancholy distaste for things, preferred that her distaste should include admirers. but the sense of overhanging rebuke only intensified the strain of expectation toward any meeting with deronda. the novelty and excitement of her town life was like the hurry and constant change of foreign travel; whatever might be the inward despondency, there was a programme to be fulfilled, not without gratification to many-sided self. but, as always happens with a deep interest, the comparatively rare occasions on which she could exchange any words with deronda had a diffusive effect in her consciousness, magnifying their communication with each other, and therefore enlarging the place she imagined it to have in his mind. how could deronda help this? he certainly did not avoid her; rather he wished to convince her by every delicate indirect means that her confidence in him had not been indiscreet since it had not lowered his respect. moreover he liked being near her--how could it be otherwise? she was something more than a problem: she was a lovely woman, for the turn of whose mind and fate he had a care which, however futile it might be, kept soliciting him as a responsibility, perhaps all the more that, when he dared to think of his own future, he saw it lying far away from this splendid sad-hearted creature, who, because he had once been impelled to arrest her attention momentarily, as he might have seized her arm with warning to hinder her from stepping where there was danger, had turned to him with a beseeching persistent need. one instance in which grandcourt stimulated a feeling in gwendolen that he would have liked to suppress without seeming to care about it, had relation to mirah. gwendolen's inclination lingered over the project of the singing lessons as a sort of obedience to deronda's advice, but day followed day with that want of perceived leisure which belongs to lives where there is no work to mark off intervals; and the continual liability to grandcourt's presence and surveillance seemed to flatten every effort to the level of the boredom which his manner expressed; his negative mind was as diffusive as fog, clinging to all objects, and spoiling all contact. but one morning when they were breakfasting, gwendolen, in a recurrent fit of determination to exercise the old spirit, said, dallying prettily over her prawns without eating them, "i think of making myself accomplished while we are in town, and having singing lessons." "why?" said grandcourt, languidly. "why?" echoed gwendolen, playing at sauciness; "because i can't eat _pâté de foie gras_ to make me sleepy, and i can't smoke, and i can't go to the club to make me like to come away again--i want a variety of _ennui_. what would be the most convenient time, when you are busy with your lawyers and people, for me to have lessons from that little jewess, whose singing is getting all the rage." "whenever you like," said grandcourt, pushing away his plate, and leaning back in his chair while he looked at her with his most lizard-like expression and, played with the ears of the tiny spaniel on his lap (gwendolen had taken a dislike to the dogs because they fawned on him). then he said, languidly, "i don't see why a lady should sing. amateurs make fools of themselves. a lady can't risk herself in that way in company. and one doesn't want to hear squalling in private." "i like frankness: that seems to me a husband's great charm," said gwendolen, with her little upward movement of her chin, as she turned her eyes away from his, and lifting a prawn before her, looked at the boiled ingenuousness of its eyes as preferable to the lizard's. "but;" she added, having devoured her mortification, "i suppose you don't object to miss lapidoth's singing at our party on the fourth? i thought of engaging her. lady brackenshaw had her, you know: and the raymonds, who are very particular about their music. and mr. deronda, who is a musician himself and a first-rate judge, says there is no singing in such good taste as hers for a drawing-room. i think his opinion is an authority." she meant to sling a small stone at her husband in that way. "it's very indecent of deronda to go about praising that girl," said grandcourt in a tone of indifference. "indecent!" exclaimed gwendolen, reddening and looking at him again, overcome by startled wonder, and unable to reflect on the probable falsity of the phrase--"to go about praising." "yes; and especially when she is patronized by lady mallinger. he ought to hold his tongue about her. men can see what is his relation to her." "men who judge of others by themselves," said gwendolen, turning white after her redness, and immediately smitten with a dread of her own words. "of course. and a woman should take their judgment--else she is likely to run her head into the wrong place," said grandcourt, conscious of using pinchers on that white creature. "i suppose you take deronda for a saint." "oh dear no!" said gwendolen, summoning desperately her almost miraculous power of self-control, and speaking in a high hard tone. "only a little less of a monster." she rose, pushed her chair away without hurry, and walked out of the room with something like the care of a man who is afraid of showing that he has taken more wine than usual. she turned the keys inside her dressing-room doors, and sat down for some time looking pale and quiet as when she was leaving the breakfast-room. even in the moments after reading the poisonous letter she had hardly had more cruel sensations than now; for emotion was at the acute point, where it is not distinguishable from sensation. deronda unlike what she had believed him to be, was an image which affected her as a hideous apparition would have done, quite apart from the way in which it was produced. it had taken hold of her as pain before she could consider whether it were fiction or truth; and further to hinder her power of resistance came the sudden perception, how very slight were the grounds of her faith in deronda--how little she knew of his life--how childish she had been in her confidence. his rebukes and his severity to her began to seem odious, along with all the poetry and lofty doctrine in the world, whatever it might be; and the grave beauty of his face seemed the most unpleasant mask that the common habits of men could put on. all this went on in her with the rapidity of a sick dream; and her start into resistance was very much like a waking. suddenly from out the gray sombre morning there came a stream of sunshine, wrapping her in warmth and light where she sat in stony stillness. she moved gently and looked round her--there was a world outside this bad dream, and the dream proved nothing; she rose, stretching her arms upward and clasping her hands with her habitual attitude when she was seeking relief from oppressive feeling, and walked about the room in this flood of sunbeams. "it is not true! what does it matter whether _he_ believes it or not?" this is what she repeated to herself--but this was not her faith come back again; it was only the desperate cry of faith, finding suffocation intolerable. and how could she go on through the day in this state? with one of her impetuous alternations, her imagination flew to wild actions by which she would convince herself of what she wished: she would go to lady mallinger and question her about mirah; she would write to deronda and upbraid him with making the world all false and wicked and hopeless to her--to him she dared pour out all the bitter indignation of her heart. no; she would go to mirah. this last form taken by her need was more definitely practicable, and quickly became imperious. no matter what came of it. she had the pretext of asking mirah to sing at her party on the fourth. what was she going to say beside? how satisfy? she did not foresee--she could not wait to foresee. if that idea which was maddening her had been a living thing, she would have wanted to throttle it without waiting to foresee what would come of the act. she rang her bell and asked if mr. grandcourt were gone out: finding that he was, she ordered the carriage, and began to dress for the drive; then she went down, and walked about the large drawing-room like an imprisoned dumb creature, not recognizing herself in the glass panels, not noting any object around her in the painted gilded prison. her husband would probably find out where she had been, and punish her in some way or other--no matter--she could neither desire nor fear anything just now but the assurance that she had not been deluding herself in her trust. she was provided with mirah's address. soon she was on the way with all the fine equipage necessary to carry about her poor uneasy heart, depending in its palpitations on some answer or other to questioning which she did not know how she should put. she was as heedless of what happened before she found that miss lapidoth was at home, as one is of lobbies and passages on the way to a court of justice--heedless of everything till she was in a room where there were folding-doors, and she heard deronda's voice behind it. doubtless the identification was helped by forecast, but she was as certain of it as if she had seen him. she was frightened at her own agitation, and began to unbutton her gloves that she might button them again, and bite her lips over the pretended difficulty, while the door opened, and mirah presented herself with perfect quietude and a sweet smile of recognition. there was relief in the sight of her face, and gwendolen was able to smile in return, while she put out her hand in silence; and as she seated herself, all the while hearing the voice, she felt some reflux of energy in the confused sense that the truth could not be anything that she dreaded. mirah drew her chair very near, as if she felt that the sound of the conversation should be subdued, and looked at her visitor with placid expectation, while gwendolen began in a low tone, with something that seemed like bashfulness, "perhaps you wonder to see me--perhaps i ought to have written--but i wished to make a particular request." "i am glad to see you instead of having a letter," said mirah, wondering at the changed expression and manner of the "vandyke duchess," as hans had taught her to call gwendolen. the rich color and the calmness of her own face were in strong contrast with the pale agitated beauty under the plumed hat. "i thought," gwendolen went on--"at least i hoped, you would not object to sing at our house on the th--in the evening--at a party like lady brackenshaw's. i should be so much obliged." "i shall be very happy to sing for you. at ten?" said mirah, while gwendolen seemed to get more instead of less embarrassed. "at ten, please," she answered; then paused, and felt that she had nothing more to say. she could not go. it was impossible to rise and say good-bye. deronda's voice was in her ears. she must say it--she could contrive no other sentence, "mr. deronda is in the next room." "yes," said mirah, in her former tone. "he is reading hebrew with my brother." "you have a brother?" said gwendolen, who had heard this from lady mallinger, but had not minded it then. "yes, a dear brother who is ill--consumptive, and mr. deronda is the best of friends to him, as he has been to me," said mirah, with the impulse that will not let us pass the mention of a precious person indifferently. "tell me," said gwendolen, putting her hand on mirah's, and speaking hardly above a whisper--"tell me--tell me the truth. you are sure he is quite good. you know no evil of him. any evil that people say of him is false." could the proud-spirited woman have behaved more like a child? but the strange words penetrated mirah with nothing but a sense of solemnity and indignation. with a sudden light in her eyes and a tremor in her voice, she said, "who are the people that say evil of him? i would not believe any evil of him, if an angel came to tell it me. he found me when i was so miserable--i was going to drown myself; i looked so poor and forsaken; you would have thought i was a beggar by the wayside. and he treated me as if i had been a king's daughter. he took me to the best of women. he found my brother for me. and he honors my brother--though he too was poor--oh, almost as poor as he could be. and my brother honors him. that is no light thing to say"--here mirah's tone changed to one of profound emphasis, and she shook her head backward: "for my brother is very learned and great-minded. and mr. deronda says there are few men equal to him." some jewish defiance had flamed into her indignant gratitude and her anger could not help including gwendolen since she seemed to have doubted deronda's goodness. but gwendolen was like one parched with thirst, drinking the fresh water that spreads through the frame as a sufficient bliss. she did not notice that mirah was angry with her; she was not distinctly conscious of anything but of the penetrating sense that deronda and his life were no more like her husband's conception than the morning in the horizon was like the morning mixed with street gas. even mirah's words sank into the indefiniteness of her relief. she could hardly have repeated them, or said how her whole state of feeling was changed. she pressed mirah's hand, and said, "thank you, thank you," in a hurried whisper, then rose, and added, with only a hazy consciousness, "i must go, i shall see you--on the fourth--i am so much obliged"--bowing herself out automatically, while mirah, opening the door for her, wondered at what seemed a sudden retreat into chill loftiness. gwendolen, indeed, had no feeling to spare in any effusiveness toward the creature who had brought her relief. the passionate need of contradiction to grandcourt's estimate of deronda, a need which had blunted her sensibility to everything else, was no sooner satisfied than she wanted to be gone. she began to be aware that she was out of place, and to dread deronda's seeing her. and once in the carriage again, she had the vision of what awaited her at home. when she drew up before the door in grosvenor square, her husband was arriving with a cigar between his fingers. he threw it away and handed her out, accompanying her up-stairs. she turned into the drawing-room, lest he should follow her farther and give her no place to retreat to; then she sat down with a weary air, taking off her gloves, rubbing her hand over her forehead, and making his presence as much of a cipher as possible. but he sat, too, and not far from her--just in front, where to avoid looking at him must have the emphasis of effort. "may i ask where you have been at this extraordinary hour?" said grandcourt. "oh, yes; i have been to miss lapidoth's, to ask her to come and sing for us," said gwendolen, laying her gloves on the little table beside her, and looking down at them. "and to ask her about her relations with deronda?" said grandcourt, with the coldest possible sneer in his low voice which in poor gwendolen's ear was diabolical. for the first time since their marriage she flashed out upon him without inward check. turning her eyes full on his she said, in a biting tone, "yes; and what you said is false--a low, wicked falsehood." "she told you so--did she?" returned grandcourt, with a more thoroughly distilled sneer. gwendolen was mute. the daring anger within her was turned into the rage of dumbness. what reasons for her belief could she give? all the reasons that seemed so strong and living within her--she saw them suffocated and shrivelled up under her husband's breath. there was no proof to give, but her own impression, which would seem to him her own folly. she turned her head quickly away from him and looked angrily toward the end of the room: she would have risen, but he was in her way. grandcourt saw his advantage. "it's of no consequence so far as her singing goes," he said, in his superficial drawl. "you can have her to sing, if you like." then, after a pause, he added in his lowest imperious tone, "but you will please to observe that you are not to go near that house again. as my wife, you must take my word about what is proper for you. when you undertook to be mrs. grandcourt, you undertook not to make a fool of yourself. you have been making a fool of yourself this morning; and if you were to go on as you have begun, you might soon get yourself talked of at the clubs in a way you would not like. what do _you_ know about the world? you have married _me_, and must be guided by my opinion." every slow sentence of that speech had a terrific mastery in it for gwendolen's nature. if the low tones had come from a physician telling her that her symptoms were those of a fatal disease, and prognosticating its course, she could not have been more helpless against the argument that lay in it. but she was permitted to move now, and her husband never again made any reference to what had occurred this morning. he knew the force of his own words. if this white-handed man with the perpendicular profile had been sent to govern a difficult colony, he might have won reputation among his contemporaries. he had certainly ability, would have understood that it was safer to exterminate than to cajole superseded proprietors, and would not have flinched from making things safe in that way. gwendolen did not, for all this, part with her recovered faith;--rather, she kept it with a more anxious tenacity, as a protestant of old kept his bible hidden or a catholic his crucifix, according to the side favored by the civil arm; and it was characteristic of her that apart from the impression gained concerning deronda in that visit, her imagination was little occupied with mirah or the eulogised brother. the one result established for her was, that deronda had acted simply as a generous benefactor, and the phrase "reading hebrew" had fleeted unimpressively across her sense of hearing, as a stray stork might have made its peculiar flight across her landscape without rousing any surprised reflection on its natural history. but the issue of that visit, as it regarded her husband, took a strongly active part in the process which made an habitual conflict within her, and was the cause of some external change perhaps not observed by any one except deronda. as the weeks went on bringing occasional transient interviews with her, he thought that he perceived in her an intensifying of her superficial hardness and resolute display, which made her abrupt betrayals of agitation the more marked and disturbing to him. in fact, she was undergoing a sort of discipline for the refractory which, as little as possible like conversion, bends half the self with a terrible strain, and exasperates the unwillingness of the other half. grandcourt had an active divination rather than discernment of refractoriness in her, and what had happened about mirah quickened his suspicion that there was an increase of it dependent on the occasions when she happened to see deronda: there was some "confounded nonsense" between them: he did not imagine it exactly as flirtation, and his imagination in other branches was rather restricted; but it was nonsense that evidently kept up a kind of simmering in her mind--an inward action which might become disagreeable outward. husbands in the old time are known to have suffered from a threatening devoutness in their wives, presenting itself first indistinctly as oddity, and ending in that mild form of lunatic asylum, a nunnery: grandcourt had a vague perception of threatening moods in gwendolen which the unity between them in his views of marriage required him peremptorily to check. among the means he chose, one was peculiar, and was less ably calculated than the speeches we have just heard. he determined that she should know the main purport of the will he was making, but he could not communicate this himself, because it involved the fact of his relation to mrs. glasher and her children; and that there should be any overt recognition of this between gwendolen and himself was supremely repugnant to him. like all proud, closely-wrapped natures, he shrank from explicitness and detail, even on trivialities, if they were personal: a valet must maintain a strict reserve with him on the subject of shoes and stockings. and clashing was intolerable to him; his habitual want was to put collision out of the question by the quiet massive pressure of his rule. but he wished gwendolen to know that before he made her an offer it was no secret to him that she was aware of his relations with lydia, her previous knowledge being the apology for bringing the subject before her now. some men in his place might have thought of writing what he wanted her to know, in the form of a letter. but grandcourt hated writing: even writing a note was a bore to him, and he had long been accustomed to have all his writing done by lush. we know that there are persons who will forego their own obvious interest rather than do anything so disagreeable as to write letters; and it is not probable that these imperfect utilitarians would rush into manuscript and syntax on a difficult subject in order to save another's feelings. to grandcourt it did not even occur that he should, would, or could write to gwendolen the information in question; and the only medium of communication he could use was lush, who, to his mind, was as much of an implement as pen and paper. but here too grandcourt had his reserves, and would not have uttered a word likely to encourage lush in an impudent sympathy with any supposed grievance in a marriage which had been discommended by him. who that has a confidant escapes believing too little in his penetration, and too much in his discretion? grandcourt had always allowed lush to know his external affairs indiscriminately--irregularities, debts, want of ready money; he had only used discrimination about what he would allow his confidant to say to him; and he had been so accustomed to this human tool, that the having him at call in london was a recovery of lost ease. it followed that lush knew all the provisions of the will more exactly than they were known to the testator himself. grandcourt did not doubt that gwendolen, since she was a woman who could put two and two together, knew or suspected lush to be the contriver of her interview with lydia, and that this was the reason why her first request was for his banishment. but the bent of a woman's inferences on mixed subjects which excites mixed passions is not determined by her capacity for simple addition; and here grandcourt lacked the only organ of thinking that could have saved him from mistake--namely, some experience of the mixed passions concerned. he had correctly divined one-half of gwendolen's dread--all that related to her personal pride, and her perception that his will must conquer hers; but the remorseful half, even if he had known of her broken promise, was as much out of his imagination as the other side of the moon. what he believed her to feel about lydia was solely a tongue-tied jealousy, and what he believed lydia to have written with the jewels was the fact that she had once been used to wearing them, with other amenities such as he imputed to the intercourse with jealous women. he had the triumphant certainty that he could aggravate the jealousy and yet smite it with a more absolute dumbness. his object was to engage all his wife's egoism on the same side as his own, and in his employment of lush he did not intend an insult to her: she ought to understand that he was the only possible envoy. grandcourt's view of things was considerably fenced in by his general sense, that what suited him others must put up with. there is no escaping the fact that want of sympathy condemns us to corresponding stupidity. mephistopheles thrown upon real life, and obliged to manage his own plots, would inevitably make blunders. one morning he went to gwendolen in the boudoir beyond the back drawing-room, hat and gloves in hand, and said with his best-tempered, most persuasive drawl, standing before her and looking down on her as she sat with a book on her lap, "a--gwendolen, there's some business about property to be explained. i have told lush to come and explain it to you. he knows all about these things. i am going out. he can come up now. he's the only person who can explain. i suppose you'll not mind." "you know that i do mind," said gwendolen, angrily, starting up. "i shall not see him." she showed the intention to dart away to the door. grandcourt was before her, with his back toward it. he was prepared for her anger, and showed none in return, saying, with the same sort of remonstrant tone that he might have used about an objection to dining out, "it's no use making a fuss. there are plenty of brutes in the world that one has to talk to. people with any _savoir vivre_ don't make a fuss about such things. some business must be done. you can't expect agreeable people to do it. if i employ lush, the proper thing for you is to take it as a matter of course. not to make a fuss about it. not to toss your head and bite your lips about people of that sort." the drawling and the pauses with which this speech was uttered gave time for crowding reflections in gwendolen, quelling her resistance. what was there to be told her about property? this word had certain dominant associations for her, first with her mother, then with mrs. glasher and her children. what would be the use if she refused to see lush? could she ask grandcourt to tell her himself? that might be intolerable, even if he consented, which it was certain he would not, if he had made up his mind to the contrary. the humiliation of standing an obvious prisoner, with her husband barring the door, was not to be borne any longer, and she turned away to lean against a cabinet, while grandcourt again moved toward her. "i have arranged for lush to come up now, while i am out," he said, after a long organ stop, during which gwendolen made no sign. "shall i tell him he may come?" yet another pause before she could say "yes"--her face turned obliquely and her eyes cast down. "i shall come back in time to ride, if you like to get ready," said grandcourt. no answer. "she is in a desperate rage," thought he. but the rage was silent, and therefore not disagreeable to him. it followed that he turned her chin and kissed her, while she still kept her eyelids down, and she did not move them until he was on the other side of the door. what was she to do? search where she would in her consciousness, she found no plea to justify a plaint. any romantic illusions she had had in marrying this man had turned on her power of using him as she liked. he was using her as he liked. she sat awaiting the announcement of lush as a sort of searing operation that she had to go through. the facts that galled her gathered a burning power when she thought of their lying in his mind. it was all a part of that new gambling, in which the losing was not simply a _minus_, but a terrible _plus_ that had never entered into her reckoning. lush was neither quite pleased nor quite displeased with his task. grandcourt had said to him by way of conclusion, "don't make yourself more disagreeable than nature obliges you." "that depends," thought lush. but he said, "i will write a brief abstract for mrs. grandcourt to read." he did not suggest that he should make the whole communication in writing, which was a proof that the interview did not wholly displease him. some provision was being made for himself in the will, and he had no reason to be in a bad humor, even if a bad humor had been common with him. he was perfectly convinced that he had penetrated all the secrets of the situation; but he had no diabolical delight in it. he had only the small movements of gratified self-loving resentment in discerning that this marriage had fulfilled his own foresight in not being as satisfactory as the supercilious young lady had expected it to be, and as grandcourt wished to feign that it was. he had no persistent spite much stronger than what gives the seasoning of ordinary scandal to those who repeat it and exaggerate it by their conjectures. with no active compassion or good-will, he had just as little active malevolence, being chiefly occupied in liking his particular pleasures, and not disliking anything but what hindered those pleasures--everything else ranking with the last murder and the last _opéra bouffe_, under the head of things to talk about. nevertheless, he was not indifferent to the prospect of being treated uncivilly by a beautiful woman, or to the counter-balancing fact that his present commission put into his hands an official power of humiliating her. he did not mean to use it needlessly; but there are some persons so gifted in relation to us that their "how do you do?" seems charged with offense. by the time that mr. lush was announced, gwendolen had braced herself to a bitter resolve that he should not witness the slightest betrayal of her feeling, whatever he might have to tell. she invited him to sit down with stately quietude. after all, what was this man to her? he was not in the least like her husband. her power of hating a coarse, familiar-mannered man, with clumsy hands, was now relaxed by the intensity with which she hated his contrast. he held a small paper folded in his hand while he spoke. "i need hardly say that i should not have presented myself if mr. grandcourt had not expressed a strong wish to that effect--as no doubt he has mentioned to you." from some voices that speech might have sounded entirely reverential, and even timidly apologetic. lush had no intention to the contrary, but to gwendolen's ear his words had as much insolence in them as his prominent eyes, and the pronoun "you" was too familiar. he ought to have addressed the folding-screen, and spoke of her as mrs. grandcourt. she gave the smallest sign of a bow, and lush went on, with a little awkwardness, getting entangled in what is elegantly called tautology. "my having been in mr. grandcourt's confidence for fifteen years or more--since he was a youth, in fact--of course gives me a peculiar position. he can speak to me of affairs that he could not mention to any one else; and, in fact, he could not have employed any one else in this affair. i have accepted the task out of friendship for him. which is my apology for accepting the task--if you would have preferred some one else." he paused, but she made no sign, and lush, to give himself a countenance in an apology which met no acceptance, opened the folded paper, and looked at it vaguely before he began to speak again. "this paper contains some information about mr. grandcourt's will, an abstract of a part he wished you to know--if you'll be good enough to cast your eyes over it. but there is something i had to say by way of introduction--which i hope you'll pardon me for, if it's not quite agreeable." lush found that he was behaving better than he had expected, and had no idea how insulting he made himself with his "not quite agreeable." "say what you have to say without apologizing, please," said gwendolen, with the air she might have bestowed on a dog-stealer come to claim a reward for finding the dog he had stolen. "i have only to remind you of something that occurred before your engagement to mr. grandcourt," said lush, not without the rise of some willing insolence in exchange for her scorn. "you met a lady in cardell chase, if you remember, who spoke to you of her position with regard to mr. grandcourt. she had children with her--one a very fine boy." gwendolen's lips were almost as pale as her cheeks; her passion had no weapons--words were no better than chips. this man's speech was like a sharp knife-edge drawn across her skin: but even her indignation at the employment of lush was getting merged in a crowd of other feelings, dim and alarming as a crowd of ghosts. "mr. grandcourt was aware that you were acquainted with this unfortunate affair beforehand, and he thinks it only right that his position and intentions should be made quite clear to you. it is an affair of property and prospects; and if there were any objection you had to make, if you would mention it to me--it is a subject which of course he would rather not speak about himself--if you will be good enough just to read this." with the last words lush rose and presented the paper to her. when gwendolen resolved that she would betray no feeling in the presence of this man, she had not prepared herself to hear that her husband knew the silent consciousness, the silently accepted terms on which she had married him. she dared not raise her hand to take the paper, least it should visibly tremble. for a moment lush stood holding it toward her, and she felt his gaze on her as ignominy, before she could say even with low-toned haughtiness, "lay it on the table. and go into the next room, please." lush obeyed, thinking as he took an easy-chair in the back drawing-room, "my lady winces considerably. she didn't know what would be the charge for that superfine article, henleigh grandcourt." but it seemed to him that a penniless girl had done better than she had any right to expect, and that she had been uncommonly knowing for her years and opportunities: her words to lydia meant nothing, and her running away had probably been part of her adroitness. it had turned out a master-stroke. meanwhile gwendolen was rallying her nerves to the reading of the paper. she must read it. her whole being--pride, longing for rebellion, dreams of freedom, remorseful conscience, dread of fresh visitation--all made one need to know what the paper contained. but at first it was not easy to take in the meaning of the words. when she had succeeded, she found that in the case of there being no son as issue of her marriage, grandcourt had made the small henleigh his heir; that was all she cared to extract from the paper with any distinctness. the other statement as to what provision would be made for her in the same case, she hurried over, getting only a confused perception of thousands and gadsmere. it was enough. she could dismiss the man in the next room with the defiant energy which had revived in her at the idea that this question of property and inheritance was meant as a finish to her humiliations and her thraldom. she thrust the paper between the leaves of her book, which she took in her hand, and walked with her stateliest air into the next room, where lush immediately arose, awaiting her approach. when she was four yards from him, it was hardly an instant that she paused to say in a high tone, while she swept him with her eyelashes, "tell mr. grandcourt that his arrangements are just what i desired"--passing on without haste, and leaving lush time to mingle some admiration of her graceful back with that half-amused sense of her spirit and impertinence, which he expressed by raising his eyebrows and just thrusting his tongue between his teeth. he really did not want her to be worse punished, and he was glad to think that it was time to go and lunch at the club, where he meant to have a lobster salad. what did gwendolen look forward to? when her husband returned he found her equipped in her riding-dress, ready to ride out with him. she was not again going to be hysterical, or take to her bed and say she was ill. that was the implicit resolve adjusting her muscles before she could have framed it in words, as she walked out of the room, leaving lush behind her. she was going to act in the spirit of her message, and not to give herself time to reflect. she rang the bell for her maid, and went with the usual care through her change of toilet. doubtless her husband had meant to produce a great effect on her: by-and-by perhaps she would let him see an effect the very opposite of what he intended; but at present all that she could show was a defiant satisfaction in what had been presumed to be disagreeable. it came as an instinct rather than a thought, that to show any sign which could be interpreted as jealousy, when she had just been insultingly reminded that the conditions were what she had accepted with her eyes open, would be the worst self-humiliation. she said to herself that she had not time to-day to be clear about her future actions; all she could be clear about was that she would match her husband in ignoring any ground for excitement. she not only rode, but went out with him to dine, contributing nothing to alter their mutual manner, which was never that of rapid interchange in discourse; and curiously enough she rejected a handkerchief on which her maid had by mistake put the wrong scent--a scent that grandcourt had once objected to. gwendolen would not have liked to be an object of disgust to this husband whom she hated: she liked all disgust to be on her side. but to defer thought in this way was something like trying to talk without singing in her own ears. the thought that is bound up with our passion is as penetrative as air--everything is porous to it; bows, smiles, conversation, repartee, are mere honeycombs where such thoughts rushes freely, not always with a taste of honey. and without shutting herself up in any solitude, gwendolen seemed at the end of nine or ten hours to have gone through a labyrinth of reflection, in which already the same succession of prospects had been repeated, the same fallacious outlets rejected, the same shrinking from the necessities of every course. already she was undergoing some hardening effect from feeling that she was under eyes which saw her past actions solely in the light of her lowest motives. she lived back in the scenes of her courtship, with the new bitter consciousness of what had been in grandcourt's mind--certain now, with her present experience of him, that he had a peculiar triumph in conquering her dumb repugnance, and that ever since their marriage he had had a cold exultation in knowing her fancied secret. her imagination exaggerated every tyrannical impulse he was capable of. "i will insist on being separated from him"--was her first darting determination; then, "i will leave him whether he consents or not. if this boy becomes his heir, i have made an atonement." but neither in darkness nor in daylight could she imagine the scenes which must carry out those determinations with the courage to feel them endurable. how could she run away to her own family--carry distress among them, and render herself an object of scandal in the society she had left behind her? what future lay before her as mrs. grandcourt gone back to her mother, who would be made destitute again by the rupture of the marriage for which one chief excuse had been that it had brought that mother a maintenance? she had lately been seeing her uncle and anna in london, and though she had been saved from any difficulty about inviting them to stay in grosvenor square by their wish to be with rex, who would not risk a meeting with her, the transient visit she had had from them helped now in giving stronger color to the picture of what it would be for her to take refuge in her own family. what could she say to justify her flight? her uncle would tell her to go back. her mother would cry. her aunt and anna would look at her with wondering alarm. her husband would have power to compel her. she had absolutely nothing that she could allege against him in judicious or judicial ears. and to "insist on separation!" that was an easy combination of words; but considered as an action to be executed against grandcourt, it would be about as practicable as to give him a pliant disposition and a dread of other people's unwillingness. how was she to begin? what was she to say that would not be a condemnation of herself? "if i am to have misery anyhow," was the bitter refrain of her rebellious dreams, "i had better have the misery that i can keep to myself." moreover, her capability of rectitude told her again and again that she had no right to complain of her contract, or to withdraw from it. and always among the images that drove her back to submission was deronda. the idea of herself separated from her husband, gave deronda a changed, perturbing, painful place in her consciousness: instinctively she felt that the separation would be from him too, and in the prospective vision of herself as a solitary, dubiously-regarded woman, she felt some tingling bashfulness at the remembrance of her behavior towards him. the association of deronda with a dubious position for herself was intolerable. and what would he say if he knew everything? probably that she ought to bear what she had brought on herself, unless she were sure that she could make herself a better woman by taking any other course. and what sort of woman was she to be--solitary, sickened of life, looked at with a suspicious kind of pity?--even if she could dream of success in getting that dreary freedom. mrs. grandcourt "run away" would be a more pitiable creature than gwendolen harleth condemned to teach the bishop's daughters, and to be inspected by mrs. mompert. one characteristic trait in her conduct is worth mentioning. she would not look a second time at the paper lush had given her; and before ringing for her maid she locked it up in a traveling-desk which was at hand, proudly resolved against curiosity about what was allotted to herself in connection with gadsmere--feeling herself branded in the minds of her husband and his confidant with the meanness that would accept marriage and wealth on any conditions, however dishonorable and humiliating. day after day the same pattern of thinking was repeated. there came nothing to change the situation--no new elements in the sketch--only a recurrence which engraved it. the may weeks went on into june, and still mrs. grandcourt was outwardly in the same place, presenting herself as she was expected to do in the accustomed scenes, with the accustomed grace, beauty, and costume; from church at one end of the week, through all the scale of desirable receptions, to opera at the other. church was not markedly distinguished in her mind from the other forms of self-presentation, for marriage had included no instruction that enabled her to connect liturgy and sermon with any larger order of the world than that of unexplained and perhaps inexplicable social fashions. while a laudable zeal was laboring to carry the light of spiritual law up the alleys where law is chiefly known as the policeman, the brilliant mrs. grandcourt, condescending a little to a fashionable rector and conscious of a feminine advantage over a learned dean, was, so far as pastoral care and religious fellowship were concerned, in as complete a solitude as a man in a lighthouse. can we wonder at the practical submission which hid her constructive rebellion? the combination is common enough, as we know from the number of persons who make us aware of it in their own case by a clamorous unwearied statement of the reasons against their submitting to a situation which, on inquiry, we discover to be the least disagreeable within their reach. poor gwendolen had both too much and too little mental power and dignity to make herself exceptional. no wonder that deronda now marked some hardening in a look and manner which were schooled daily to the suppression of feeling. for example. one morning, riding in rotten row with grandcourt by her side, she saw standing against the railing at the turn, just facing them, a dark-eyed lady with a little girl and a blonde boy, whom she at once recognized as the beings in all the world the most painful for her to behold. she and grandcourt had just slackened their pace to a walk; he being on the outer side was the nearer to the unwelcome vision, and gwendolen had not presence of mind to do anything but glance away from the dark eyes that met hers piercingly toward grandcourt, who wheeled past the group with an unmoved face, giving no sign of recognition. immediately she felt a rising rage against him mingling with her shame for herself, and the words, "you might at least have raised your hat to her," flew impetuously to her lips--but did not pass them. if as her husband, in her company, he chose to ignore these creatures whom she herself had excluded from the place she was filling, how could she be the person to reproach him? she was dumb. it was not chance, but her own design, that had brought mrs. glasher there with her boy. she had come to town under the pretext of making purchases--really wanting educational apparatus for her children, and had had interviews with lush in which she had not refused to soothe her uneasy mind by representing the probabilities as all on the side of her ultimate triumph. let her keep quiet, and she might live to see the marriage dissolve itself in one way or other--lush hinted at several ways--leaving the succession assured to her boy. she had had an interview with grandcourt, too, who had as usual told her to behave like a reasonable woman, and threatened punishment if she were troublesome; but had, also as usual, vindicated himself from any wish to be stingy, the money he was receiving from sir hugo on account of diplow encouraging him to be lavish. lydia, feeding on the probabilities in her favor, devoured her helpless wrath along with that pleasanter nourishment; but she could not let her discretion go entirely without the reward of making a medusa-apparition before gwendolen, vindictiveness and jealousy finding relief in an outlet of venom, though it were as futile as that of a viper already flung on the other side of the hedge. hence, each day, after finding out from lush the likely time for gwendolen to be riding, she had watched at that post, daring grandcourt so far. why should she not take little henleigh into the park? the medusa-apparition was made effective beyond lydia's conception by the shock it gave gwendolen actually to see grandcourt ignoring this woman who had once been the nearest in the world to him, along with the children she had borne him. and all the while the dark shadow thus cast on the lot of a woman destitute of acknowledged social dignity, spread itself over her visions of a future that might be her own, and made part of her dread on her own behalf. she shrank all the more from any lonely action. what possible release could there be for her from this hated vantage ground, which yet she dared not quit, any more than if fire had been raining outside it? what release, but death? not her own death. gwendolen was not a woman who could easily think of her own death as a near reality, or front for herself the dark entrance on the untried and invisible. it seemed more possible that grandcourt should die:--and yet not likely. the power of tyranny in him seemed a power of living in the presence of any wish that he should die. the thought that his death was the only possible deliverance for her was one with the thought that deliverance would never come--the double deliverance from the injury with which other beings might reproach her and from the yoke she had brought on her own neck. no! she foresaw him always living, and her own life dominated by him; the "always" of her young experience not stretching beyond the few immediate years that seemed immeasurably long with her passionate weariness. the thought of his dying would not subsist: it turned as with a dream-change into the terror that she should die with his throttling fingers on her neck avenging that thought. fantasies moved within her like ghosts, making no break in her more acknowledged consciousness and finding no obstruction in it: dark rays doing their work invisibly in the broad light. only an evening or two after that encounter in the park, there was a grand concert at klesmer's, who was living rather magnificently now in one of the large houses in grosvenor place, a patron and prince among musical professors. gwendolen had looked forward to this occasion as one on which she was sure to meet deronda, and she had been meditating how to put a question to him which, without containing a word that she would feel a dislike to utter, would yet be explicit enough for him to understand it. the struggle of opposite feelings would not let her abide by her instinct that the very idea of deronda's relation to her was a discouragement to any desperate step towards freedom. the next wave of emotion was a longing for some word of his to enforce a resolve. the fact that her opportunities of conversation with him had always to be snatched in the doubtful privacy of large parties, caused her to live through them many times beforehand, imagining how they would take place and what she would say. the irritation was proportionate when no opportunity came; and this evening at klesmer's she included deronda in her anger, because he looked as calm as possible at a distance from her, while she was in danger of betraying her impatience to every one who spoke to her. she found her only safety in a chill haughtiness which made mr. vandernoodt remark that mrs. grandcourt was becoming a perfect match for her husband. when at last the chances of the evening brought deronda near her, sir hugo and mrs. raymond were close by and could hear every word she said. no matter: her husband was not near, and her irritation passed without check into a fit of daring which restored the security of her self-possession. deronda was there at last, and she would compel him to do what she pleased. already and without effort rather queenly in her air as she stood in her white lace and green leaves she threw a royal permissiveness into her way of saying, "i wish you would come and see me to-morrow between five and six, mr. deronda." there could be but one answer at that moment: "certainly," with a tone of obedience. afterward it occurred to deronda that he would write a note to excuse himself. he had always avoided making a call at grandcourt's. he could not persuade himself to any step that might hurt her, and whether his excuse were taken for indifference or for the affectation of indifference it would be equally wounding. he kept his promise. gwendolen had declined to ride out on the plea of not feeling well enough having left her refusal to the last moment when the horses were soon to be at the door--not without alarm lest her husband should say that he too would stay at home. become almost superstitious about his power of suspicious divination, she had a glancing forethought of what she would do in that case--namely, have herself denied as not well. but grandcourt accepted her excuse without remark, and rode off. nevertheless when gwendolen found herself alone, and had sent down the order that only mr. deronda was to be admitted, she began to be alarmed at what she had done, and to feel a growing agitation in the thought that he would soon appear, and she should soon be obliged to speak: not of trivialities, as if she had no serious motive in asking him to come: and yet what she had been for hours determining to say began to seem impossible. for the first time the impulse of appeal to him was being checked by timidity, and now that it was too late she was shaken by the possibility that he might think her invitation unbecoming. if so, she would have sunk in his esteem. but immediately she resisted this intolerable fear as an infection from her husband's way of thinking. that _he_ would say she was making a fool of herself was rather a reason why such a judgment would be remote from deronda's mind. but that she could not rid herself from this sudden invasion of womanly reticence was manifest in a kind of action which had never occurred to her before. in her struggle between agitation and the effort to suppress it, she was walking up and down the length of the two drawing-rooms, where at one end a long mirror reflected her in her black dress, chosen in the early morning with a half-admitted reference to this hour. but above this black dress her head on its white pillar of a neck showed to advantage. some consciousness of this made her turn hastily and hurry to the boudoir, where again there was a glass, but also, tossed over a chair, a large piece of black lace which she snatched and tied over her crown of hair so as completely to conceal her neck, and leave only her face looking out from the black frame. in this manifest contempt of appearance, she thought it possible to be freer from nervousness, but the black lace did not take away the uneasiness from her eyes and lips. she was standing in the middle of the room when deronda was announced, and as he approached her she perceived that he too for some reason was not his usual self. she could not have defined the change except by saying that he looked less happy than usual, and appeared to be under some effort in speaking to her. and yet the speaking was the slightest possible. they both said, "how do you do?" quite curtly; and gwendolen, instead of sitting down, moved to a little distance, resting her arms slightly on the tall back of a chair, while deronda stood where he was,--both feeling it difficult to say any more, though the preoccupation in his mind could hardly have been more remote than it was from gwendolen's conception. she naturally saw in his embarrassment some reflection of her own. forced to speak, she found all her training in concealment and self-command of no use to her and began with timid awkwardness, "you will wonder why i begged you to come. i wanted to ask you something. you said i was ignorant. that is true. and what can i do but ask you?" and at this moment she was feeling it utterly impossible to put the questions she had intended. something new in her nervous manner roused deronda's anxiety lest there might be a new crisis. he said with the sadness of affection in his voice, "my only regret is, that i can be of so little use to you." the words and the tone touched a new spring in her, and she went on with more sense of freedom, yet still not saying anything she had designed to say, and beginning to hurry, that she might somehow arrive at the right words. "i wanted to tell you that i have always been thinking of your advice, but is it any use?--i can't make myself different, because things about me raise bad feelings--and i must go on--i can alter nothing--it is no use." she paused an instant, with the consciousness that she was not finding the right words, but began again hurriedly, "but if i go on i shall get worse. i want not to get worse. i should like to be what you wish. there are people who are good and enjoy great things--i know there are. i am a contemptible creature. i feel as if i should get wicked with hating people. i have tried to think that i would go away from everybody. but i can't. there are so many things to hinder me. you think, perhaps, that i don't mind. but i do mind. i am afraid of everything. i am afraid of getting wicked. tell me what i can do." she had forgotten everything but that image of her helpless misery which she was trying to make present to deronda in broken allusive speech--wishing to convey but not express all her need. her eyes were tearless, and had a look of smarting in their dilated brilliancy; there was a subdued sob in her voice which was more and more veiled, till it was hardly above a whisper. she was hurting herself with the jewels that glittered on her tightly-clasped fingers pressed against her heart. the feeling deronda endured in these moments he afterward called horrible. words seemed to have no more rescue in them than if he had been beholding a vessel in peril of wreck--the poor ship with its many-lived anguish beaten by the inescapable storm. how could he grasp the long-growing process of this young creature's wretchedness?--how arrest and change it with a sentence? he was afraid of his own voice. the words that rushed into his mind seemed in their feebleness nothing better than despair made audible, or than that insensibility to another's hardship which applies precept to soothe pain. he felt himself holding a crowd of words imprisoned within his lips, as if the letting them escape would be a violation of awe before the mysteries of our human lot. the thought that urged itself foremost was--"confess everything to your husband; have nothing concealed:"--the words carried in his mind a vision of reasons which would have needed much fuller expressions for gwendolen to apprehend them, but before he had begun those brief sentences, the door opened and the husband entered. grandcourt had deliberately gone out and turned back to satisfy a suspicion. what he saw was gwendolen's face of anguish framed black like a nun's, and deronda standing three yards from her with a look of sorrow such as he might have bent on the last struggle of life in a beloved object. without any show of surprise grandcourt nodded to deronda, gave a second look at gwendolen, passed on, and seated himself easily at a little distance crossing his legs, taking out his handkerchief and trifling with it elegantly. gwendolen had shrunk and changed her attitude on seeing him, but she did not turn or move from her place. it was not a moment in which she could feign anything, or manifest any strong revulsion of feeling: the passionate movement of her last speech was still too strong within her. what she felt beside was a dull despairing sense that her interview with deronda was at an end: a curtain had fallen. but he, naturally, was urged into self-possession and effort by susceptibility to what might follow for her from being seen by her husband in this betrayal of agitation; and feeling that any pretense of ease in prolonging his visit would only exaggerate grandcourt's possible conjectures of duplicity, he merely said, "i will not stay longer now. good bye." he put out his hand, and she let him press her poor little chill fingers; but she said no good-bye. when he had left the room, gwendolen threw herself into a seat, with an expectation as dull as her despair--the expectation that she was going to be punished. but grandcourt took no notice: he was satisfied to have let her know that she had not deceived him, and to keep a silence which was formidable with omniscience. he went out that evening, and her plea of feeling ill was accepted without even a sneer. the next morning at breakfast he said, "i am going yachting to the mediterranean." "when?" said gwendolen, with a leap of heart which had hope in it. "the day after to-morrow. the yacht is at marseilles. lush is gone to get everything ready." "shall i have mamma to stay with me, then?" said gwendolen, the new sudden possibility of peace and affection filling her mind like a burst of morning light. "no; you will go with me." chapter xlix. ever in his soul that larger justice which makes gratitude triumphed above resentment. 'tis the mark of regal natures, with the wider life. and fuller capability of joy:-- not wits exultant in the strongest lens to show you goodness vanished into pulp never worth "thank you"--they're the devil's friars, vowed to be poor as he in love and trust, yet must go begging of a world that keeps some human property. deronda, in parting from gwendolen, had abstained from saying, "i shall not see you again for a long while: i am going away," lest grandcourt should understand him to imply that the fact was of importance to her. he was actually going away under circumstances so momentous to himself that when he set out to fulfill his promise of calling on her, he was already under the shadow of a solemn emotion which revived the deepest experience of his life. sir hugo had sent for him to his chambers with the note--"come immediately. something has happened:" a preparation that caused him some relief when, on entering the baronet's study, he was received with grave affection instead of the distress which he had apprehended. "it is nothing to grieve you, sir?" said deronda, in a tone rather of restored confidence than question, as he took the hand held out to him. there was an unusual meaning in sir hugo's look, and a subdued emotion in his voice, as he said, "no, dan, no. sit down. i have something to say." deronda obeyed, not without presentiment. it was extremely rare for sir hugo to show so much serious feeling. "not to grieve me, my boy, no. at least, if there is nothing in it that will grieve you too much. but i hardly expected that this--just this--would ever happen. there have been reasons why i have never prepared you for it. there have been reasons why i have never told you anything about your parentage. but i have striven in every way not to make that an injury to you." sir hugo paused, but deronda could not speak. he could not say, "i have never felt it an injury." even if that had been true, he could not have trusted his voice to say anything. far more than any one but himself could know of was hanging on this moment when the secrecy was to be broken. sir hugo had never seen the grand face he delighted in so pale--the lips pressed together with such a look of pain. he went on with a more anxious tenderness, as if he had a new fear of wounding. "i have acted in obedience to your mother's wishes. the secrecy was her wish. but now she desires to remove it. she desires to see you. i will put this letter into your hands, which you can look at by-and-by. it will merely tell you what she wishes you to do, and where you will find her." sir hugo held out a letter written on foreign paper, which deronda thrust into his breast-pocket, with a sense of relief that he was not called on to read anything immediately. the emotion on daniel's face had gained on the baronet, and was visibly shaking his composure. sir hugo found it difficult to say more. and deronda's whole soul was possessed by a question which was the hardest in the world to utter. yet he could not bear to delay it. this was a sacramental moment. if he let it pass, he could not recover the influences under which it was possible to utter the words and meet the answer. for some moments his eyes were cast down, and it seemed to both as if thoughts were in the air between them. but at last deronda looked at sir hugo, and said, with a tremulous reverence in his voice--dreading to convey indirectly the reproach that affection had for years been stifling, "is my father also living?" the answer came immediately in a low emphatic tone--"no." in the mingled emotions which followed that answer it was impossible to distinguish joy from pain. some new light had fallen on the past for sir hugo too in this interview. after a silence in which deronda felt like one whose creed is gone before he has religiously embraced another, the baronet said, in a tone of confession, "perhaps i was wrong, dan, to undertake what i did. and perhaps i liked it a little too well--having you all to myself. but if you have had any pain which i might have helped, i ask you to forgive me." "the forgiveness has long been there," said deronda "the chief pain has always been on account of some one else--whom i never knew--whom i am now to know. it has not hindered me from feeling an affection for you which has made a large part of all the life i remember." it seemed one impulse that made the two men clasp each other's hand for a moment. book vii.--the mother and the son chapter l. "if some mortal, born too soon, were laid away in some great trance--the ages coming and going all the while--till dawned his true time's advent; and could then record the words they spoke who kept watch by his bed, then i might tell more of the breath so light upon my eyelids, and the fingers warm among my hair. youth is confused; yet never so dull was i but, when that spirit passed, i turned to him, scarce consciously, as turns a water-snake when fairies cross his sleep." --browning: _paracelsus_. this was the letter which sir hugo put into deronda's hands:, to my son, daniel deronda. my good friend and yours, sir hugo mallinger, will have told you that i wish to see you. my health is shaken, and i desire there should be no time lost before i deliver to you what i have long withheld. let nothing hinder you from being at the _albergo dell' italia_ in genoa by the fourteenth of this month. wait for me there. i am uncertain when i shall be able to make the journey from spezia, where i shall be staying. that will depend on several things. wait for me--the princess halm-eberstein. bring with you the diamond ring that sir hugo gave you. i shall like to see it again.--your unknown mother, leonora halm-eberstein. this letter with its colorless wording gave deronda no clue to what was in reserve for him; but he could not do otherwise than accept sir hugo's reticence, which seemed to imply some pledge not to anticipate the mother's disclosures; and the discovery that his life-long conjectures had been mistaken checked further surmise. deronda could not hinder his imagination from taking a quick flight over what seemed possibilities, but he refused to contemplate any of them as more likely than another, lest he should be nursing it into a dominant desire or repugnance, instead of simply preparing himself with resolve to meet the fact bravely, whatever it might turn out to be. in this state of mind he could not have communicated to any one the reason for the absence which in some quarters he was obliged to mention beforehand, least of all to mordecai, whom it would affect as powerfully as it did himself, only in rather a different way. if he were to say, "i am going to learn the truth about my birth," mordecai's hope would gather what might prove a painful, dangerous excitement. to exclude suppositions, he spoke of his journey as being undertaken by sir hugo's wish, and threw as much indifference as he could into his manner of announcing it, saying he was uncertain of its duration, but it would perhaps be very short. "i will ask to have the child jacob to stay with me," said mordecai, comforting himself in this way, after the first mournful glances. "i will drive round and ask mrs. cohen to let him come," said mirah. "the grandmother will deny you nothing," said deronda. "i'm glad you were a little wrong as well as i," he added, smiling at mordecai. "you thought that old mrs. cohen would not bear to see mirah." "i undervalued her heart," said mordecai. "she is capable of rejoicing that another's plant blooms though her own be withered." "oh, they are dear good people; i feel as if we all belonged to each other," said mirah, with a tinge of merriment in her smile. "what should you have felt if that ezra had been your brother?" said deronda, mischievously--a little provoked that she had taken kindly at once to people who had caused him so much prospective annoyance on her account. mirah looked at him with a slight surprise for a moment, and then said, "he is not a bad man--i think he would never forsake any one." but when she uttered the words she blushed deeply, and glancing timidly at mordecai, turned away to some occupation. her father was in her mind, and this was a subject on which she and her brother had a painful mutual consciousness. "if he should come and find us!" was a thought which to mirah sometimes made the street daylight as shadowy as a haunted forest where each turn screened for her an imaginary apparition. deronda felt what was her involuntary allusion, and understood the blush. how could he be slow to understand feelings which now seemed nearer than ever to his own? for the words of his mother's letter implied that his filial relation was not to be freed from painful conditions; indeed, singularly enough that letter which had brought his mother nearer as a living reality had thrown her into more remoteness for his affections. the tender yearning after a being whose life might have been the worse for not having his care and love, the image of a mother who had not had all her dues, whether of reverence or compassion, had long been secretly present with him in his observation of all the women he had come near. but it seemed now that this picturing of his mother might fit the facts no better than his former conceptions about sir hugo. he wondered to find that when this mother's very hand-writing had come to him with words holding her actual feeling, his affections had suddenly shrunk into a state of comparative neutrality toward her. a veiled figure with enigmatic speech had thrust away that image which, in spite of uncertainty, his clinging thought had gradually modeled and made the possessor of his tenderness and duteous longing. when he set off to genoa, the interest really uppermost in his mind had hardly so much relation to his mother as to mordecai and mirah. "god bless you, dan!" sir hugo had said, when they shook hands. "whatever else changes for you, it can't change my being the oldest friend you have known, and the one who has all along felt the most for you. i couldn't have loved you better if you'd been my own--only i should have been better pleased with thinking of you always as the future master of the abbey instead of my fine nephew; and then you would have seen it necessary for you to take a political line. however--things must be as they may." it was a defensive movement of the baronet's to mingle purposeless remarks with the expression of serious feeling. when deronda arrived at the _italia_ in genoa, no princess halm-eberstein was there; but on the second day there was a letter for him, saying that her arrival might happen within a week, or might be deferred a fortnight and more; she was under circumstances which made it impossible for her to fix her journey more precisely, and she entreated him to wait as patiently as he could. with this indefinite prospect of suspense on matters of supreme moment to him, deronda set about the difficult task of seeking amusement on philosophic grounds, as a means of quieting excited feeling and giving patience a lift over a weary road. his former visit to the superb city had been only cursory, and left him much to learn beyond the prescribed round of sight-seeing, by spending the cooler hours in observant wandering about the streets, the quay, and the environs; and he often took a boat that he might enjoy the magnificent view of the city and harbor from the sea. all sights, all subjects, even the expected meeting with his mother, found a central union in mordecai and mirah, and the ideas immediately associated with them; and among the thoughts that most filled his mind while his boat was pushing about within view of the grand harbor was that of the multitudinous spanish jews centuries ago driven destitute from their spanish homes, suffered to land from the crowded ships only for a brief rest on this grand quay of genoa, overspreading it with a pall of famine and plague--dying mothers and dying children at their breasts--fathers and sons a-gaze at each other's haggardness, like groups from a hundred hunger-towers turned out beneath the midday sun. inevitably dreamy constructions of a possible ancestry for himself would weave themselves with historic memories which had begun to have a new interest for him on his discovery of mirah, and now, under the influence of mordecai, had become irresistibly dominant. he would have sealed his mind against such constructions if it had been possible, and he had never yet fully admitted to himself that he wished the facts to verify mordecai's conviction: he inwardly repeated that he had no choice in the matter, and that wishing was folly--nay, on the question of parentage, wishing seemed part of that meanness which disowns kinship: it was a disowning by anticipation. what he had to do was simply to accept the fact; and he had really no strong presumption to go upon, now that he was assured of his mistake about sir hugo. there had been a resolved concealment which made all inference untrustworthy, and the very name he bore might be a false one. if mordecai was wrong--if he, the so-called daniel deronda, were held by ties entirely aloof from any such course as his friend's pathetic hope had marked out?--he would not say "i wish"; but he could not help feeling on which side the sacrifice lay. across these two importunate thoughts, which he resisted as much as one can resist anything in that unstrung condition which belongs to suspense, there came continually an anxiety which he made no effort to banish--dwelling on it rather with a mournfulness, which often seems to us the best atonement we can make to one whose need we have been unable to meet. the anxiety was for gwendolen. in the wonderful mixtures of our nature there is a feeling distinct from that exclusive passionate love of which some men and women (by no means all) are capable, which yet is not the same with friendship, nor with a merely benevolent regard, whether admiring or compassionate: a man, say--for it is a man who is here concerned--hardly represents to himself this shade of feeling toward a woman more nearly than in words, "i should have loved her, if----": the "if" covering some prior growth in the inclinations, or else some circumstances which have made an inward prohibitory law as a stay against the emotions ready to quiver out of balance. the "if" in deronda's case carried reasons of both kinds; yet he had never throughout his relations with gwendolen been free from the nervous consciousness that there was something to guard against not only on her account but on his own--some precipitancy in the manifestations of impulsive feeling--some ruinous inroad of what is but momentary on the permanent chosen treasure of the heart--some spoiling of her trust, which wrought upon him now as if it had been the retreating cry of a creature snatched and carried out of his reach by swift horsemen or swifter waves, while his own strength was only a stronger sense of weakness. how could his feelings for gwendolen ever be exactly like his feelings for other women, even when there was one by whose side he desired to stand apart from them? strangely the figure entered into the pictures of his present and future; strangely (and now it seemed sadly) their two lots had come in contact, hers narrowly personal, his charged with far-reaching sensibilities, perhaps with durable purposes, which were hardly more present to her than the reasons why men migrate are present to the birds that come as usual for the crumbs and find them no more. not that deronda was too ready to imagine himself of supreme importance to a woman; but her words of insistence that he must "remain near her--must not forsake her"--continually recurred to him with the clearness and importunity of imagined sounds, such as dante has said pierce us like arrows whose points carry the sharpness of pity, "lamenti saettaron me diversi che di pieta ferrati avean gli strali". day after day passed, and the very air of italy seemed to carry the consciousness that war had been declared against austria, and every day was a hurrying march of crowded time toward the world-changing battle of sadowa. meanwhile, in genoa, the noons were getting hotter, the converging outer roads getting deeper with white dust, the oleanders in the tubs along the wayside gardens looking more and more like fatigued holiday-makers, and the sweet evening changing her office--scattering abroad those whom the midday had sent under shelter, and sowing all paths with happy social sounds, little tinklings of mule-bells and whirrings of thrumbed strings, light footsteps and voices, if not leisurely, then with the hurry of pleasure in them; while the encircling heights, crowned with forts, skirted with fine dwellings and gardens, seemed also to come forth and gaze in fullness of beauty after their long siesta, till all strong color melted in the stream of moonlight which made the streets a new spectacle with shadows, both still and moving, on cathedral steps and against the façades of massive palaces; and then slowly with the descending moon all sank in deep night and silence, and nothing shone but the port lights of the great lanterna in the blackness below, and the glimmering stars in the blackness above. deronda, in his suspense, watched this revolving of the days as he might have watched a wonderful clock where the striking of the hours was made solemn with antique figures advancing and retreating in monitory procession, while he still kept his ear open for another kind of signal which would have its solemnity too: he was beginning to sicken of occupation, and found himself contemplating all activity with the aloofness of a prisoner awaiting ransom. in his letters to mordecai and hans, he had avoided writing about himself, but he was really getting into that state of mind to which all subjects become personal; and the few books he had brought to make him a refuge in study were becoming unreadable, because the point of view that life would make for him was in that agitating moment of uncertainty which is close upon decision. many nights were watched through by him in gazing from the open window of his room on the double, faintly pierced darkness of the sea and the heavens; often in struggling under the oppressive skepticism which represented his particular lot, with all the importance he was allowing mordecai to give it, as of no more lasting effect than a dream--a set of changes which made passion to him, but beyond his consciousness were no more than an imperceptible difference of mass and shadow; sometimes with a reaction of emotive force which gave even to sustained disappointment, even to the fulfilled demand of sacrifice, the nature of a satisfied energy, and spread over his young future, whatever it might be, the attraction of devoted service; sometimes with a sweet irresistible hopefulness that the very best of human possibilities might befall him--the blending of a complete personal love in one current with a larger duty; and sometimes again in a mood of rebellion (what human creature escapes it?) against things in general because they are thus and not otherwise, a mood in which gwendolen and her equivocal fate moved as busy images of what was amiss in the world along with the concealments which he had felt as a hardship in his own life, and which were acting in him now under the form of an afflicting doubtfulness about the mother who had announced herself coldly and still kept away. but at last she was come. one morning in his third week of waiting there was a new kind of knock at the door. a servant in chasseurs livery entered and delivered in french the verbal message that, the princess halm-eberstein had arrived, that she was going to rest during the day, but would be obliged if monsieur would dine early, so as to be at liberty at seven, when she would be able to receive him. chapter li. she held the spindle as she sat, errina with the thick-coiled mat of raven hair and deepest agate eyes, gazing with a sad surprise at surging visions of her destiny-- to spin the byssus drearily in insect-labor, while the throng of gods and men wrought deeds that poets wrought in song. when deronda presented himself at the door of his mother's apartment in the _italia_ he felt some revival of his boyhood with its premature agitations. the two servants in the antechamber looked at him markedly, a little surprised that the doctor their lady had come to consult was this striking young gentleman whose appearance gave even the severe lines of an evening dress the credit of adornment. but deronda could notice nothing until, the second door being opened, he found himself in the presence of a figure which at the other end of the large room stood awaiting his approach. she was covered, except as to her face and part of her arms, with black lace hanging loosely from the summit of her whitening hair to the long train stretching from her tall figure. her arms, naked to the elbow, except for some rich bracelets, were folded before her, and the fine poise of her head made it look handsomer than it really was. but deronda felt no interval of observation before he was close in front of her, holding the hand she had put out and then raising it to his lips. she still kept her hand in his and looked at him examiningly; while his chief consciousness was that her eyes were piercing and her face so mobile that the next moment she might look like a different person. for even while she was examining him there was a play of the brow and nostril which made a tacit language. deronda dared no movement, not able to conceive what sort of manifestation her feeling demanded; but he felt himself changing color like a girl, and yet wondering at his own lack of emotion; he had lived through so many ideal meetings with his mother, and they had seemed more real than this! he could not even conjecture in what language she would speak to him. he imagined it would not be english. suddenly, she let fall his hand, and placed both hers on his shoulders, while her face gave out a flash of admiration in which every worn line disappeared and seemed to leave a restored youth. "you are a beautiful creature!" she said, in a low melodious voice, with syllables which had what might be called a foreign but agreeable outline. "i knew you would be." then she kissed him on each cheek, and he returned the kisses. but it was something like a greeting between royalties. she paused a moment while the lines were coming back into her face, and then said in a colder tone, "i am your mother. but you can have no love for me." "i have thought of you more than of any other being in the world," said deronda, his voice trembling nervously. "i am not like what you thought i was," said the mother decisively, withdrawing her hands from his shoulders, and folding her arms as before, looking at him as if she invited him to observe her. he had often pictured her face in his imagination as one which had a likeness to his own: he saw some of the likeness now, but amidst more striking differences. she was a remarkable looking being. what was it that gave her son a painful sense of aloofness?--her worn beauty had a strangeness in it as if she were not quite a human mother, but a melusina, who had ties with some world which is independent of ours. "i used to think that you might be suffering," said deronda, anxious above all not to wound her. "i used to wish that i could be a comfort to you." "i _am_ suffering. but with a suffering that you can't comfort," said the princess, in a harder voice than before, moving to a sofa where cushions had been carefully arranged for her. "sit down." she pointed to a seat near her; and then discerning some distress in deronda's face, she added, more gently, "i am not suffering at this moment. i am at ease now. i am able to talk." deronda seated himself and waited for her to speak again. it seemed as if he were in the presence of a mysterious fate rather than of the longed-for mother. he was beginning to watch her with wonder, from the spiritual distance to which she had thrown him. "no," she began: "i did not send for you to comfort me. i could not know beforehand--i don't know now--what you will feel toward me. i have not the foolish notion that you can love me merely because i am your mother, when you have never seen or heard of me in all your life. but i thought i chose something better for you than being with me. i did not think i deprived you of anything worth having." "you cannot wish me to believe that your affection would not have been worth having," said deronda, finding that she paused as if she expected him to make some answer. "i don't mean to speak ill of myself," said the princess, with proud impetuosity, "but i had not much affection to give you. i did not want affection. i had been stifled with it. i wanted to live out the life that was in me, and not to be hampered with other lives. you wonder what i was. i was no princess then." she rose with a sudden movement, and stood as she had done before. deronda immediately rose too; he felt breathless. "no princess in this tame life that i live in now. i was a great singer, and i acted as well as i sang. all the rest were poor beside me. men followed me from one country to another. i was living a myriad lives in one. i did not want a child." there was a passionate self-defence in her tone. she had cast all precedent out of her mind. precedent had no excuse for her and she could only seek a justification in the intensest words she could find for her experience. she seemed to fling out the last words against some possible reproach in the mind of her son, who had to stand and hear them--clutching his coat-collar as if he were keeping himself above water by it, and feeling his blood in the sort of commotion that might have been excited if he had seen her going through some strange rite of a religion which gave a sacredness to crime. what else had she to tell him? she went on with the same intensity and a sort of pale illumination in her face. "i did not want to marry. i was forced into marrying your father--forced, i mean, by my father's wishes and commands; and besides, it was my best way of getting some freedom. i could rule my husband, but not my father. i had a right to be free. i had a right to seek my freedom from a bondage that i hated." she seated herself again, while there was that subtle movement in her eyes and closed lips which is like the suppressed continuation of speech. deronda continued standing, and after a moment or two she looked up at him with a less defiant pleading as she said, "and the bondage i hated for myself i wanted to keep you from. what better could the most loving mother have done? i relieved you from the bondage of having been born a jew." "then i _am_ a jew?" deronda burst out with a deep-voiced energy that made his mother shrink a little backward against her cushions. "my father was a jew, and you are a jewess?" "yes, your father was my cousin," said the mother, watching him with a change in her look, as if she saw something that she might have to be afraid of. "i am glad of it," said deronda, impetuously, in the veiled voice of passion. he could not have imagined beforehand how he would have come to say that which he had never hitherto admitted. he could not have dreamed that it would be in impulsive opposition to his mother. he was shaken by a mixed anger which no reflection could come soon enough to check, against this mother who it seemed had borne him unwillingly, had willingly made herself a stranger to him, and--perhaps--was now making herself known unwillingly. this last suspicion seemed to flash some explanation over her speech. but the mother was equally shaken by an anger differently mixed, and her frame was less equal to any repression. the shaking with her was visibly physical, and her eyes looked the larger for her pallid excitement as she said violently, "why do you say you are glad? you are an english gentleman. i secured you that." "you did not know what you secured me. how could you choose my birthright for me?" said deronda, throwing himself sideways into his chair again, almost unconsciously, and leaning his arm over the back, while he looked away from his mother. he was fired with an intolerance that seemed foreign to him. but he was now trying hard to master himself and keep silence. a horror had swept in upon his anger lest he should say something too hard in this moment which made an epoch never to be recalled. there was a pause before his mother spoke again, and when she spoke her voice had become more firmly resistant in its finely varied tones: "i chose for you what i would have chosen for myself. how could i know that you would have the spirit of my father in you? how could i know that you would love what i hated?--if you really love to be a jew." the last words had such bitterness in them that any one overhearing might have supposed some hatred had arisen between the mother and son. but deronda had recovered his fuller self. he was recalling his sensibilities to what life had been and actually was for her whose best years were gone, and who with the signs of suffering in her frame was now exerting herself to tell him of a past which was not his alone but also hers. his habitual shame at the acceptance of events as if they were his only, helped him even here. as he looked at his mother silently after her last words, his face regained some of its penetrative calm; yet it seemed to have a strangely agitating influence over her: her eyes were fixed on him with a sort of fascination, but not with any repose of maternal delight. "forgive me, if i speak hastily," he said, with diffident gravity. "why have you resolved now on disclosing to me what you took care to have me brought up in ignorance of? why--since you seem angry that i should be glad?" "oh--the reasons of our actions!" said the princess, with a ring of something like sarcastic scorn. "when you are as old as i am, it will not seem so simple a question--'why did you do this?' people talk of their motives in a cut and dried way. every woman is supposed to have the same set of motives, or else to be a monster. i am not a monster, but i have not felt exactly what other women feel--or say they feel, for fear of being thought unlike others. when you reproach me in your heart for sending you away from me, you mean that i ought to say i felt about you as other women say they feel about their children. i did _not_ feel that. i was glad to be freed from you. but i did well for you, and i gave you your father's fortune. do i seem now to be revoking everything?--well, there are reasons. i feel many things that i cannot understand. a fatal illness has been growing in me for a year. i shall very likely not live another year. i will not deny anything i have done. i will not pretend to love where i have no love. but shadows are rising round me. sickness makes them. if i have wronged the dead--i have but little time to do what i left undone." the varied transitions of tone with which this speech was delivered were as perfect as the most accomplished actress could have made them. the speech was in fact a piece of what may be called sincere acting; this woman's nature was one in which all feeling--and all the more when it was tragic as well as real--immediately became matter of conscious representation: experience immediately passed into drama, and she acted her own emotions. in a minor degree this is nothing uncommon, but in the princess the acting had a rare perfection of physiognomy, voice, and gesture. it would not be true to say that she felt less because of this double consciousness: she felt--that is, her mind went through--all the more, but with a difference; each nucleus of pain or pleasure had a deep atmosphere of the excitement or spiritual intoxication which at once exalts and deadens. but deronda made no reflection of this kind. all his thoughts hung on the purport of what his mother was saying; her tones and her wonderful face entered into his agitation without being noted. what he longed for with an awed desire was to know as much as she would tell him of the strange mental conflict under which it seemed he had been brought into the world; what his compassionate nature made the controlling idea within him were the suffering and the confession that breathed through her later words, and these forbade any further question, when she paused and remained silent, with her brow knit, her head turned a little away from him, and her large eyes fixed as if on something incorporeal. he must wait for her to speak again. she did so with strange abruptness, turning her eyes upon him suddenly, and saying more quickly, "sir hugo has written much about you. he tells me you have a wonderful mind--you comprehend everything--you are wiser than he is with all his sixty years. you say you are glad to know that you were born a jew. i am not going to tell you that i have changed my mind about that. your feelings are against mine. you don't thank me for what i did. shall you comprehend your mother, or only blame her?" "there is not a fibre within me but makes me wish to comprehend her," said deronda, meeting her sharp gaze solemnly. "it is a bitter reversal of my longing to think of blaming her. what i have been most trying to do for fifteen years is to have some understanding of those who differ from myself." "then you have become unlike your grandfather in that." said the mother, "though you are a young copy of him in your face. he never comprehended me, or if he did, he only thought of fettering me into obedience. i was to be what he called 'the jewish woman' under pain of his curse. i was to feel everything i did not feel, and believe everything i did not believe. i was to feel awe for the bit of parchment in the _mezuza_ over the door; to dread lest a bit of butter should touch a bit of meat; to think it beautiful that men should bind the _tephillin_ on them, and women not,--to adore the wisdom of such laws, however silly they might seem to me. i was to love the long prayers in the ugly synagogue, and the howling, and the gabbling, and the dreadful fasts, and the tiresome feasts, and my father's endless discoursing about our people, which was a thunder without meaning in my ears. i was to care forever about what israel had been; and i did not care at all. i cared for the wide world, and all that i could represent in it. i hated living under the shadow of my father's strictness. teaching, teaching for everlasting--'this you must be,' 'that you must not be'--pressed on me like a frame that got tighter and tighter as i grew. i wanted to live a large life, with freedom to do what every one else did, and be carried along in a great current, not obliged to care. ah!"--here her tone changed to one of a more bitter incisiveness--"you are glad to have been born a jew. you say so. that is because you have not been brought up as a jew. that separateness seems sweet to you because i saved you from it." "when you resolved on that, you meant that i should never know my origin?" said deronda, impulsively. "you have at least changed in your feeling on that point." "yes, that was what i meant. that is what i persevered in. and it is not true to say that i have changed. things have changed in spite of me. i am still the same leonora"--she pointed with her forefinger to her breast--"here within me is the same desire, the same will, the same choice, _but_"--she spread out her hands, palm upward, on each side of her, as she paused with a bitter compression of her lip, then let her voice fall into muffled, rapid utterance--"events come upon us like evil enchantments: and thoughts, feelings, apparitions in the darkness are events--are they not? i don't consent. we only consent to what we love. i obey something tyrannic"--she spread out her hands again--"i am forced to be withered, to feel pain, to be dying slowly. do i love that? well, i have been forced to obey my dead father. i have been forced to tell you that you are a jew, and deliver to you what he commanded me to deliver." "i beseech you to tell me what moved you--when you were young, i mean--to take the course you did," said deronda, trying by this reference to the past to escape from what to him was the heart-rending piteousness of this mingled suffering and defiance. "i gather that my grandfather opposed your bent to be an artist. though my own experience has been quite different, i enter into the painfulness of your struggle. i can imagine the hardship of an enforced renunciation." "no," said the princess, shaking her head and folding her arms with an air of decision. "you are not a woman. you may try--but you can never imagine what it is to have a man's force of genius in you, and yet to suffer the slavery of being a girl. to have a pattern cut out--'this is the jewish woman; this is what you must be; this is what you are wanted for; a woman's heart must be of such a size and no larger, else it must be pressed small, like chinese feet; her happiness is to be made as cakes are, by a fixed receipt.' that was what my father wanted. he wished i had been a son; he cared for me as a make-shift link. his heart was set on his judaism. he hated that jewish women should be thought of by the christian world as a sort of ware to make public singers and actresses of. as if we were not the more enviable for that! that is a chance of escaping from bondage." "was my grandfather a learned man?" said deronda, eager to know particulars that he feared his mother might not think of. she answered impatiently, putting up her hand, "oh, yes,--and a clever physician--and good: i don't deny that he was good. a man to be admired in a play--grand, with an iron will. like the old foscari before he pardons. but such men turn their wives and daughters into slaves. they would rule the world if they could; but not ruling the world, they throw all the weight of their will on the necks and souls of women. but nature sometimes thwarts them. my father had no other child than his daughter, and she was like himself." she had folded her arms again, and looked as if she were ready to face some impending attempt at mastery. "your father was different. unlike me--all lovingness and affection. i knew i could rule him; and i made him secretly promise me, before i married him, that he would put no hindrance in the way of my being an artist. my father was on his deathbed when we were married: from the first he had fixed his mind on my marrying my cousin ephraim. and when a woman's will is as strong as the man's who wants to govern her, half her strength must be concealment. i meant to have my will in the end, but i could only have it by seeming to obey. i had an awe of my father--always i had had an awe of him: it was impossible to help it. i hated to feel awed--i wished i could have defied him openly; but i never could. it was what i could not imagine: i could not act it to myself that i should begin to defy my father openly and succeed. and i never would risk failure." this last sentence was uttered with an abrupt emphasis, and she paused after it as if the words had raised a crowd of remembrances which obstructed speech. her son was listening to her with feelings more and more highly mixed; the first sense of being repelled by the frank coldness which had replaced all his preconceptions of a mother's tender joy in the sight of him; the first impulses of indignation at what shocked his most cherished emotions and principles--all these busy elements of collision between them were subsiding for a time, and making more and more room for that effort at just allowance and that admiration of a forcible nature whose errors lay along high pathways, which he would have felt if, instead of being his mother, she had been a stranger who had appealed to his sympathy. still it was impossible to be dispassionate: he trembled lest the next thing she had to say would be more repugnant to him than what had gone before: he was afraid of the strange coërcion she seemed to be under to lay her mind bare: he almost wished he could say, "tell me only what is necessary," and then again he felt the fascination which made him watch her and listen to her eagerly. he tried to recall her to particulars by asking, "where was my grandfather's home?" "here in genoa, where i was married; and his family had lived here generations ago. but my father had been in various countries." "you must surely have lived in england?" "my mother was english--a jewess of portuguese descent. my father married her in england. certain circumstances of that marriage made all the difference in my life: through that marriage my father thwarted his own plans. my mother's sister was a singer, and afterward she married the english partner of a merchant's house here in genoa, and they came and lived here eleven years. my mother died when i was eight years old, and my father allowed me to be continually with my aunt leonora and be taught under her eyes, as if he had not minded the danger of her encouraging my wish to be a singer, as she had been. but this was it--i saw it again and again in my father:--he did not guard against consequences, because he felt sure he could hinder them if he liked. before my aunt left genoa, i had had enough teaching to bring out the born singer and actress within me: my father did not know everything that was done; but he knew that i was taught music and singing--he knew my inclination. that was nothing to him: he meant that i should obey his will. and he was resolved that i should marry my cousin ephraim, the only one left of my father's family that he knew. i wanted not to marry. i thought of all plans to resist it, but at last i found that i could rule my cousin, and i consented. my father died three weeks after we were married, and then i had my way!" she uttered these words almost exultantly; but after a little pause her face changed, and she said in a biting tone, "it has not lasted, though. my father is getting his way now." she began to look more contemplatively again at her son, and presently said, "you are like him--but milder--there is something of your own father in you; and he made it the labor of his life to devote himself to me: wound up his money-changing and banking, and lived to wait upon me--he went against his conscience for me. as i loved the life of my art, so he loved me. let me look at your hand again: the hand with the ring on. it was your father's ring." he drew his chair nearer to her and gave her his hand. we know what kind of a hand it was: her own, very much smaller, was of the same type. as he felt the smaller hand holding his, as he saw nearer to him the face that held the likeness of his own, aged not by time but by intensity, the strong bent of his nature toward a reverential tenderness asserted itself above every other impression and in his most fervent tone he said, "mother! take us all into your heart--the living and the dead. forgive every thing that hurts you in the past. take my affection." she looked at him admiringly rather than lovingly, then kissed him on the brow, and saying sadly, "i reject nothing, but i have nothing to give," she released his hand and sank back on her cushions. deronda turned pale with what seems always more of a sensation than an emotion--the pain of repulsed tenderness. she noticed the expression of pain, and said, still with melodious melancholy in her tones, "it is better so. we must part again soon and you owe me no duties. i did not wish you to be born. i parted with you willingly. when your father died i resolved that i would have no more ties, but such as i could free myself from. i was the alcharisi you have heard of: the name had magic wherever it was carried. men courted me. sir hugo mallinger was one who wished to marry me. he was madly in love with me. one day i asked him, 'is there a man capable of doing something for love of me, and expecting nothing in return?' he said: 'what is it you want done?' i said, 'take my boy and bring him up as an englishman, and never let him know anything about his parents.' you were little more than two years old, and were sitting on his foot. he declared that he would pay money to have such a boy. i had not meditated much on the plan beforehand, but as soon as i had spoken about it, it took possession of me as something i could not rest without doing. at first he thought i was not serious, but i convinced him, and he was never surprised at anything. he agreed that it would be for your good, and the finest thing for you. a great singer and actress is a queen, but she gives no royalty to her son. all that happened at naples. and afterward i made sir hugo the trustee of your fortune. that is what i did; and i had a joy in doing it. my father had tyrannized over me--he cared more about a grandson to come than he did about me: i counted as nothing. you were to be such a jew as he; you were to be what he wanted. but you were my son, and it was my turn to say what you should be. i said you should not know you were a jew." "and for months events have been preparing me to be glad that i am a jew," said deronda, his opposition roused again. the point touched the quick of his experience. "it would always have been better that i should have known the truth. i have always been rebelling against the secrecy that looked like shame. it is no shame to have jewish parents--the shame is to disown it." "you say it was a shame to me, then, that i used that secrecy," said his mother, with a flash of new anger. "there is no shame attaching to me. i have no reason to be ashamed. i rid myself of the jewish tatters and gibberish that make people nudge each other at sight of us, as if we were tattooed under our clothes, though our faces are as whole as theirs. i delivered you from the pelting contempt that pursues jewish separateness. i am not ashamed that i did it. it was the better for you." "then why have you now undone the secrecy?--no, not undone it--the effects will never be undone. but why have you now sent for me to tell me that i am a jew?" said deronda, with an intensity of opposition in feeling that was almost bitter. it seemed as if her words had called out a latent obstinacy of race in him. "why?--ah, why?" said the princess, rising quickly and walking to the other side of the room, where she turned round and slowly approached him, as he, too, stood up. then she began to speak again in a more veiled voice. "i can't explain; i can only say what is. i don't love my father's religion now any more than i did then. before i married the second time i was baptized; i made myself like the people i lived among. i had a right to do it; i was not like a brute, obliged to go with my own herd. i have not repented; i will not say that i have repented. but yet"--here she had come near to her son, and paused; then again retreated a little and stood still, as if resolute not to give way utterly to an imperious influence; but, as she went on speaking, she became more and more unconscious of anything but the awe that subdued her voice. "it is illness, i don't doubt that it has been gathering illness--my mind has gone back: more than a year ago it began. you see my gray hair, my worn look: it has all come fast. sometimes i am in an agony of pain--i dare say i shall be to-night. then it is as if all the life i have chosen to live, all thoughts, all will, forsook me and left me alone in spots of memory, and i can't get away: my pain seems to keep me there. my childhood--my girlhood--the day of my marriage--the day of my father's death--there seems to be nothing since. then a great horror comes over me: what do i know of life or death? and what my father called 'right' may be a power that is laying hold of me--that is clutching me now. well, i will satisfy him. i cannot go into the darkness without satisfying him. i have hidden what was his. i thought once i would burn it. i have not burned it. i thank god i have not burned it!" she threw herself on her cushions again, visibly fatigued. deronda, moved too strongly by her suffering for other impulses to act within him, drew near her, and said, entreatingly, "will you not spare yourself this evening? let us leave the rest till to-morrow." "no," she said decisively. "i will confess it all, now that i have come up to it. often when i am at ease it all fades away; my whole self comes quite back; but i know it will sink away again, and the other will come--the poor, solitary, forsaken remains of self, that can resist nothing. it was my nature to resist, and say, 'i have a right to resist.' well, i say so still when i have any strength in me. you have heard me say it, and i don't withdraw it. but when my strength goes, some other right forces itself upon me like iron in an inexorable hand; and even when i am at ease, it is beginning to make ghosts upon the daylight. and now you have made it worse for me," she said, with a sudden return of impetuosity; "but i shall have told you everything. and what reproach is there against me," she added bitterly, "since i have made you glad to be a jew? joseph kalonymos reproached me: he said you had been turned into a proud englishman, who resented being touched by a jew. i wish you had!" she ended, with a new marvelous alternation. it was as if her mind were breaking into several, one jarring the other into impulsive action. "who is joseph kalonymos?" said deronda, with a darting recollection of that jew who touched his arm in the frankfort synagogue. "ah! some vengeance sent him back from the east, that he might see you and come to reproach me. he was my father's friend. he knew of your birth: he knew of my husband's death, and once, twenty years ago, after he had been away in the levant, he came to see me and inquire about you. i told him that you were dead: i meant you to be dead to all the world of my childhood. if i had said that you were living, he would have interfered with my plans: he would have taken on him to represent my father, and have tried to make me recall what i had done. what could i do but say you were dead? the act was done. if i had told him of it there would have been trouble and scandal--and all to conquer me, who would not have been conquered. i was strong then, and i would have had my will, though there might have been a hard fight against me. i took the way to have it without any fight. i felt then that i was not really deceiving: it would have come to the same in the end; or if not to the same, to something worse. he believed me and begged that i would give up to him the chest that my father had charged me and my husband to deliver to our eldest son. i knew what was in the chest--things that had been dinned in my ears since i had had any understanding--things that were thrust on my mind that i might feel them like a wall around my life--my life that was growing like a tree. once, after my husband died, i was going to burn the chest. but it was difficult to burn; and burning a chest and papers looks like a shameful act. i have committed no shameful act--except what jews would call shameful. i had kept the chest, and i gave it to joseph kalonymos. he went away mournful, and said, 'if you marry again, and if another grandson is born to him who is departed, i will deliver up the chest to him.' i bowed in silence. i meant not to marry again--no more than i meant to be the shattered woman that i am now." she ceased speaking, and her head sank back while she looked vaguely before her. her thought was traveling through the years, and when she began to speak again her voice had lost its argumentative spirit, and had fallen into a veiled tone of distress. "but months ago this kalonymos saw you in the synagogue at frankfort. he saw you enter the hotel, and he went to ask your name. there was nobody else in the world to whom the name would have told anything about me." "then it is not my real name?" said deronda, with a dislike even to this trifling part of the disguise which had been thrown round him. "oh, as real as another," said his mother, indifferently. "the jews have always been changing their names. my father's family had kept the name of charisi: my husband was a charisi. when i came out as a singer, we made it alcharisi. but there had been a branch of the family my father had lost sight of who called themselves deronda, and when i wanted a name for you, and sir hugo said, 'let it be a foreign name,' i thought of deronda. but joseph kalonymos had heard my father speak of the deronda branch, and the name confirmed his suspicion. he began to suspect what had been done. it was as if everything had been whispered to him in the air. he found out where i was. he took a journey into russia to see me; he found me weak and shattered. he had come back again, with his white hair, and with rage in his soul against me. he said i was going down to the grave clad in falsehood and robbery--falsehood to my father and robbery of my own child. he accused me of having kept the knowledge of your birth from you, and having brought you up as if you had been the son of an english gentleman. well, it was true; and twenty years before i would have maintained that i had a right to do it. but i can maintain nothing now. no faith is strong within me. my father may have god on his side. this man's words were like lion's teeth upon me. my father's threats eat into me with my pain. if i tell everything--if i deliver up everything--what else can be demanded of me? i cannot make myself love the people i have never loved--is it not enough that i lost the life i did love?" she had leaned forward a little in her low-toned pleading, that seemed like a smothered cry: her arms and hands were stretched out at full length, as if strained in beseeching, deronda's soul was absorbed in the anguish of compassion. he could not mind now that he had been repulsed before. his pity made a flood of forgiveness within him. his single impulse was to kneel by her and take her hand gently, between his palms, while he said in that exquisite voice of soothing which expresses oneness with the sufferer, "mother, take comfort!" she did not seem inclined to repulse him now, but looked down at him and let him take both her hands to fold between his. gradually tears gathered, but she pressed her handkerchief against her eyes and then leaned her cheek against his brow, as if she wished that they should not look at each other. "is it not possible that i could be near you often and comfort you?" said deronda. he was under that stress of pity that propels us on sacrifices. "no, not possible," she answered, lifting up her head again and withdrawing her hand as if she wished him to move away. "i have a husband and five children. none of them know of your existence." deronda felt painfully silenced. he rose and stood at a little distance. "you wonder why i married," she went on presently, under the influence of a newly-recurring thought. "i meant never to marry again. i meant to be free and to live for my art. i had parted with you. i had no bonds. for nine years i was a queen. i enjoyed the life i had longed for. but something befell me. it was like a fit of forgetfulness. i began to sing out of tune. they told me of it. another woman was thrusting herself in my place. i could not endure the prospect of failure and decline. it was horrible to me." she started up again, with a shudder, and lifted screening hands like one who dreads missiles. "it drove me to marry. i made believe that i preferred being the wife of a russian noble to being the greatest lyric actress of europe; i made believe--i acted that part. it was because i felt my greatness sinking away from me, as i feel my life sinking now. i would not wait till men said, 'she had better go.'" she sank into her seat again, and looked at the evening sky as she went on: "i repented. it was a resolve taken in desperation. that singing out of tune was only like a fit of illness; it went away. i repented; but it was too late. i could not go back. all things hindered, me--all things." a new haggardness had come in her face, but her son refrained from again urging her to leave further speech till the morrow: there was evidently some mental relief for her in an outpouring such as she could never have allowed herself before. he stood still while she maintained silence longer than she knew, and the light was perceptibly fading. at last she turned to him and said, "i can bear no more now." she put out her hand, but then quickly withdrew it saying, "stay. how do i know that i can see you again? i cannot bear to be seen when i am in pain." she drew forth a pocket-book, and taking out a letter said, "this is addressed to the banking-house in mainz, where you are to go for your grandfather's chest. it is a letter written by joseph kalonymos: if he is not there himself, this order of his will be obeyed." when deronda had taken the letter, she said, with effort but more gently than before, "kneel again, and let me kiss you." he obeyed, and holding his head between her hands, she kissed him solemnly on the brow. "you see, i had no life left to love you with," she said, in a low murmur. "but there is more fortune for you. sir hugo was to keep it in reserve. i gave you all your father's fortune. they can never accuse me of robbery there." "if you had needed anything i would have worked for you," said deronda, conscious of disappointed yearning--a shutting out forever from long early vistas of affectionate imagination. "i need nothing that the skill of man can give me," said his mother, still holding his head, and perusing his features. "but perhaps now i have satisfied my father's will, your face will come instead of his--your young, loving face." "but you will see me again?" said deronda, anxiously. "yes--perhaps. wait, wait. leave me now." chapter lii. "la même fermeté qui sert à résister à l'amour sert aussi à le rendre violent et durable; et les personnes faibles qui sont toujours agitées des passions n'en sont presque jamais véritablement remplies." --la rochefoucauld. among deronda's letters the next morning was one from hans meyrick of four quarto pages, in the small, beautiful handwriting which ran in the meyrick family. my dear deronda,--in return for your sketch of italian movements and your view of the world's affairs generally, i may say that here at home the most judicious opinion going as to the effects of present causes is that "time will show." as to the present causes of past effects, it is now seen that the late swindling telegrams account for the last year's cattle plague--which is a refutation of philosophy falsely so called, and justifies the compensation to the farmers. my own idea that a murrain will shortly break out in the commercial class, and that the cause will subsequently disclose itself in the ready sale of all rejected pictures, has been called an unsound use of analogy; but there are minds that will not hesitate to rob even the neglected painter of his solace. to my feeling there is great beauty in the conception that some bad judge might give a high price for my berenice series, and that the men in the city would have already been punished for my ill-merited luck. meanwhile i am consoling myself for your absence by finding my advantage in it--shining like hesperus when hyperion has departed; sitting with our hebrew prophet, and making a study of his head, in the hours when he used to be occupied with you--getting credit with him as a learned young gentile, who would have been a jew if he could --and agreeing with him in the general principle, that whatever is best is for that reason jewish. i never held it my _forte_ to be a severe reasoner, but i can see that if whatever is best is a, and b happens to be best, b must be a, however little you might have expected it beforehand. on that principle i could see the force of a pamphlet i once read to prove that all good art was protestant. however, our prophet is an uncommonly interesting sitter--a better model than rembrandt had for his rabbi--and i never come away from him without a new discovery. for one thing, it is a constant wonder to me that, with all his fiery feeling for his race and their traditions, he is no straight-laced jew, spitting after the word christian, and enjoying the prospect that the gentile mouth will water in vain for a slice of the roasted leviathan, while israel will be sending up plates for more, _ad libitum_, (you perceive that my studies had taught me what to expect from the orthodox jew.) i confess that i have always held lightly by your account of mordecai, as apologetic, and merely part of your disposition to make an antedeluvian point of view lest you should do injustice to the megatherium. but now i have given ear to him in his proper person, i find him really a sort of philosophical-allegorical-mystical believer, and yet with a sharp dialectic point, so that any argumentative rattler of peas in a bladder might soon be pricked in silence by him. the mixture may be one of the jewish prerogatives, for what i know. in fact, his mind seems so broad that i find my own correct opinions lying in it quite commodiously, and how they are to be brought into agreement with the vast remainder is his affair, not mine. i leave it to him to settle our basis, never yet having seen a basis which is not a world-supporting elephant, more or less powerful and expensive to keep. my means will not allow me to keep a private elephant. i go into mystery instead, as cheaper and more lasting--a sort of gas which is likely to be continually supplied by the decomposition of the elephants. and if i like the look of an opinion, i treat it civilly, without suspicious inquiries. i have quite a friendly feeling toward mordecai's notion that a whole christian is three-fourths a jew, and that from the alexandrian time downward the most comprehensive minds have been jewish; for i think of pointing out to mirah that, arabic and other incidents of life apart, there is really little difference between me and--maimonides. but i have lately been finding out that it is your shallow lover who can't help making a declaration. if mirah's ways were less distracting, and it were less of a heaven to be in her presence and watch her, i must long ago have flung myself at her feet, and requested her to tell me, with less indirectness, whether she wished me to blow my brains out. i have a knack of hoping, which is as good as an estate in reversion, if one can keep from the temptation of turning it into certainty, which may spoil all. my hope wanders among the orchard blossoms, feels the warm snow falling on it through the sunshine, and is in doubt of nothing; but, catching sight of certainty in the distance, sees an ugly janus-faced deity, with a dubious wink on the hither side of him, and turns quickly away. but you, with your supreme reasonableness, and self-nullification, and preparation for the worst--you know nothing about hope, that immortal, delicious maiden forever courted forever propitious, whom fools have called deceitful, as if it were hope that carried the cup of disappointment, whereas it is her deadly enemy, certainty, whom she only escapes by transformation. (you observe my new vein of allegory?) seriously, however, i must be permitted to allege that truth will prevail, that prejudice will melt before it, that diversity, accompanied by merit, will make itself felt as fascination, and that no virtuous aspiration will be frustrated--all which, if i mistake not, are doctrines of the schools, and they imply that the jewess i prefer will prefer me. any blockhead can cite generalities, but the mind-master discerns the particular cases they represent. i am less convinced that my society makes amends to mordecai for your absence, but another substitute occasionally comes in the form of jacob cohen. it is worth while to catch our prophet's expression when he has that remarkable type of young israel on his knee, and pours forth some semitic inspiration with a sublime look of melancholy patience and devoutness. sometimes it occurs to jacob that hebrew will be more edifying to him if he stops his ears with his palms, and imitates the venerable sounds as heard through that muffled medium. when mordecai gently draws down the little fists and holds them fast, jacob's features all take on an extraordinary activity, very much as if he was walking through a menagerie and trying to imitate every animal in turn, succeeding best with the owl and the peccary. but i dare say you have seen something of this. he treats me with the easiest familiarity, and seems in general to look at me as a second-hand christian commodity, likely to come down in price; remarking on my disadvantages with a frankness which seems to imply some thoughts of future purchase. it is pretty, though, to see the change in him if mirah happens to come in. he turns child suddenly--his age usually strikes one as being like the israelitish garments in the desert, perhaps near forty, yet with an air of recent production. but, with mirah, he reminds me of the dogs that have been brought up by women, and remain manageable by them only. still, the dog is fond of mordecai too, and brings sugar-plums to share with him, filling his own mouth to rather an embarrassing extent, and watching how mordecai deals with a smaller supply. judging from this modern jacob at the age of six, my astonishment is that his race has not bought us all up long ago, and pocketed our feebler generations in the form of stock and scrip, as so much slave property. there is one jewess i should not mind being slave to. but i wish i did not imagine that mirah gets a little sadder, and tries all the while to hide it. it is natural enough, of course, while she has to watch the slow death of this brother, whom she has taken to worshipping with such looks of loving devoutness that i am ready to wish myself in his place. for the rest, we are a little merrier than usual. rex gascoigne--you remember a head you admired among my sketches, a fellow with a good upper lip, reading law--has got some rooms in town now not far off us, and has had a neat sister (upper lip also good) staying with him the last fortnight. i have introduced them both to my mother and the girls, who have found out from miss gascoigne that she is cousin to your vandyke duchess!!! i put the notes of exclamation to mark the surprise that the information at first produced on my feeble understanding. on reflection i discovered that there was not the least ground for surprise, unless i had beforehand believed that nobody could be anybody's cousin without my knowing it. this sort of surprise, i take it, depends on a liveliness of the spine, with a more or less constant nullity of brain. there was a fellow i used to meet at rome who was in an effervescence of surprise at contact with the simplest information. tell him what you would--that you were fond of easy boots--he would always say, "no! are you?" with the same energy of wonder: the very fellow of whom pastoral browne wrote prophetically, "a wretch so empty that if e'er there be in nature found the least vacuity 'twill be in him." i have accounted for it all--he had a lively spine. however, this cousinship with the duchess came out by chance one day that mirah was with them at home and they were talking about the mallingers. _apropos_; i am getting so important that i have rival invitations. gascoigne wants me to go down with him to his father's rectory in august and see the country round there. but i think self-interest well understood will take me to topping abbey, for sir hugo has invited me, and proposes--god bless him for his rashness! --that i should make a picture of his three daughters sitting on a bank--as he says, in the gainsborough style. he came to my studio the other day and recommended me to apply myself to portrait. of course i know what that means.--"my good fellow, your attempts at the historic and poetic are simply pitiable. your brush is just that of a successful portrait-painter--it has a little truth and a great facility in falsehood--your idealism will never do for gods and goddesses and heroic story, but it may fetch a high price as flattery. fate, my friend, has made you the hinder wheel--_rota posterior curras, et in axe secundo_--run behind, because you can't help it." --what great effort it evidently costs our friends to give us these candid opinions! i have even known a man to take the trouble to call, in order to tell me that i had irretrievably exposed my want of judgment in treating my subject, and that if i had asked him we would have lent me his own judgment. such was my ingratitude and my readiness at composition, that even while he was speaking i inwardly sketched a last judgment with that candid friend's physiognomy on the left. but all this is away from sir hugo, whose manner of implying that one's gifts are not of the highest order is so exceedingly good-natured and comfortable that i begin to feel it an advantage not to be among those poor fellows at the tip-top. and his kindness to me tastes all the better because it comes out of his love for you, old boy. his chat is uncommonly amusing. by the way, he told me that your vandyke duchess is gone with her husband yachting to the mediterranean. i bethink me that it is possible to land from a yacht, or to be taken on to a yacht from the land. shall you by chance have an opportunity of continuing your theological discussion with the fair supralapsarian--i think you said her tenets were of that complexion? is duke alphonso also theological?--perhaps an arian who objects to triplicity. (stage direction. while d. is reading, a profound scorn gathers in his face till at the last word he flings down the letter, grasps his coat-collar in a statuesque attitude and so remains with a look generally tremendous, throughout the following soliloquy, "o night, o blackness, etc., etc.") excuse the brevity of this letter. you are not used to more from me than a bare statement of facts, without comment or digression. one fact i have omitted--that the klesmers on the eve of departure have behaved magnificently, shining forth as might be expected from the planets of genius and fortune in conjunction. mirah is rich with their oriental gifts. what luck it will be if you come back and present yourself at the abbey while i am there! i am going to behave with consummate discretion and win golden opinions, but i shall run up to town now and then, just for a peep into gad eden. you see how far i have got in hebrew lore--up with my lord bolingbroke, who knew no hebrew, but "understood that sort of learning and what is writ about it." if mirah commanded, i would go to a depth below the tri-literal roots. already it makes no difference to me whether the points are there or not. but while her brother's life lasts i suspect she would not listen to a lover, even one whose "hair is like a flock of goats on mount gilead"--and i flatter myself that few heads would bear that trying comparison better than mine. so i stay with my hope among the orchard-blossoms. your devoted, hans meyrick. some months before, this letter from hans would have divided deronda's thoughts irritatingly: its romancing, about mirah would have had an unpleasant edge, scarcely anointed with any commiseration for his friend's probable disappointment. but things had altered since march. mirah was no longer so critically placed with regard to the meyricks, and deronda's own position had been undergoing a change which had just been crowned by the revelation of his birth. the new opening toward the future, though he would not trust in any definite visions, inevitably shed new lights, and influenced his mood toward past and present; hence, what hans called his hope now seemed to deronda, not a mischievous unreasonableness which roused his indignation, but an unusually persistent bird-dance of an extravagant fancy, and he would have felt quite able to pity any consequent suffering of his friend's, if he had believed in the suffering as probable. but some of the busy thought filling that long day, which passed without his receiving any new summons from his mother, was given to the argument that hans meyrick's nature was not one in which love could strike the deep roots that turn disappointment into sorrow: it was too restless, too readily excitable by novelty, too ready to turn itself into imaginative material, and wear its grief as a fantastic costume. "already he is beginning to play at love: he is taking the whole affair as a comedy," said deronda to himself; "he knows very well that there is no chance for him. just like him--never opening his eyes on any possible objection i could have to receive his outpourings about mirah. poor old hans! if we were under a fiery hail together he would howl like a greek, and if i did not howl too it would never occur to him that i was as badly off as he. and yet he is tender-hearted and affectionate in intention, and i can't say that he is not active in imagining what goes on in other people--but then he always imagines it to fit his own inclination." with this touch of causticity deronda got rid of the slight heat at present raised by hans's naive expansiveness. the nonsense about gwendolen, conveying the fact that she was gone yachting with her husband, only suggested a disturbing sequel to his own strange parting with her. but there was one sentence in the letter which raised a more immediate, active anxiety. hans's suspicion of a hidden sadness in mirah was not in the direction of his wishes, and hence, instead of distrusting his observation here, deronda began to conceive a cause for the sadness. was it some event that had occurred during his absence, or only the growing fear of some event? was it something, perhaps alterable, in the new position which had been made for her? or--had mordecai, against his habitual resolve, communicated to her those peculiar cherished hopes about him, deronda, and had her quickly sensitive nature been hurt by the discovery that her brother's will or tenacity of visionary conviction had acted coercively on their friendship--been hurt by the fear that there was more of pitying self-suppression than of equal regard in deronda's relation to him? for amidst all mirah's quiet renunciation, the evident thirst of soul with which she received the tribute of equality implied a corresponding pain if she found that what she had taken for a purely reverential regard toward her brother had its mixture of condescension. in this last conjecture of deronda's he was not wrong as to the quality in mirah's nature on which he was founding--the latent protest against the treatment she had all her life being subject to until she met him. for that gratitude which would not let her pass by any notice of their acquaintance without insisting on the depth of her debt to him, took half its fervor from the keen comparison with what others had thought enough to render to her. deronda's affinity in feeling enabled him to penetrate such secrets. but he was not near the truth in admitting the idea that mordecai had broken his characteristic reticence. to no soul but deronda himself had he yet breathed the history of their relation to each other, or his confidence about his friend's origin: it was not only that these subjects were for him too sacred to be spoken of without weighty reason, but that he had discerned deronda's shrinking at any mention of his birth; and the severity of reserve which had hindered mordecai from answering a question on a private affair of the cohen family told yet more strongly here. "ezra, how is it?" mirah one day said to him--"i am continually going to speak to mr. deronda as if he were a jew?" he smiled at her quietly, and said, "i suppose it is because he treats us as if he were our brother. but he loves not to have the difference of birth dwelt upon." "he has never lived with his parents, mr. hans, says," continued mirah, to whom this was necessarily a question of interest about every one for whom she had a regard. "seek not to know such things from mr. hans," said mordecai, gravely, laying his hand on her curls, as he was wont. "what daniel deronda wishes us to know about himself is for him to tell us." and mirah felt herself rebuked, as deronda had done. but to be rebuked in this way by mordecai made her rather proud. "i see no one so great as my brother," she said to mrs. meyrick one day that she called at the chelsea house on her way home, and, according to her hope, found the little mother alone. "it is difficult to think that he belongs to the same world as those people i used to live amongst. i told you once that they made life seem like a madhouse; but when i am with ezra he makes me feel that his life is a great good, though he has suffered so much; not like me, who wanted to die because i had suffered a little, and only for a little while. his soul is so full, it is impossible for him to wish for death as i did. i get the same sort of feeling from him that i got yesterday, when i was tired, and came home through the park after the sweet rain had fallen and the sunshine lay on the grass and flowers. everything in the sky and under the sky looked so pure and beautiful that the weariness and trouble and folly seemed only a small part of what is, and i became more patient and hopeful." a dove-like note of melancholy in this speech caused mrs. meyrick to look at mirah with new examination. after laying down her hat and pushing her curls flat, with an air of fatigue, she placed herself on a chair opposite her friend in her habitual attitude, her feet and hands just crossed; and at a distance she might have seemed a colored statue of serenity. but mrs. meyrick discerned a new look of suppressed suffering in her face, which corresponded to the hint that to be patient and hopeful required some extra influence. "is there any fresh trouble on your mind, my dear?" said mrs. meyrick, giving up her needlework as a sign of concentrated attention. mirah hesitated before she said, "i am too ready to speak of troubles, i think. it seems unkind to put anything painful into other people's minds, unless one were sure it would hinder something worse. and perhaps i am too hasty and fearful." "oh, my dear, mothers are made to like pain and trouble for the sake of their children. is it because the singing lessons are so few, and are likely to fall off when the season comes to an end? success in these things can't come all at once." mrs. meyrick did not believe that she was touching the real grief; but a guess that could be corrected would make an easier channel for confidence. "no, not that," said mirah, shaking her head gently. "i have been a little disappointed because so many ladies said they wanted me to give them or their daughters lessons, and then i never heard of them again, but perhaps after the holidays i shall teach in some schools. besides, you know, i am as rich as a princess now. i have not touched the hundred pounds that mrs. klesmer gave me; and i should never be afraid that ezra would be in want of anything, because there mr. deronda," and he said, 'it is the chief honor of my life that your brother will share anything with me.' oh, no! ezra and i can have no fears for each other about such things as food and clothing." "but there is some other fear on your mind," said mrs. meyrick not without divination--"a fear of something that may disturb your peace. don't be forecasting evil, dear child, unless it is what you can guard against. anxiety is good for nothing if we can't turn it into a defense. but there's no defense against all the things that might be. have you any more reason for being anxious now than you had a month ago?" "yes, i have," said mirah. "i have kept it from ezra. i have not dared to tell him. pray forgive me that i can't do without telling you. i _have_ more reason for being anxious. it is five days ago now. i am quite sure i saw my father." mrs. meyrick shrank into a smaller space, packing her arms across her chest and leaning forward--to hinder herself from pelting that father with her worst epithets. "the year has changed him," mirah went on. "he had already been much altered and worn in the time before i left him. you remember i said how he used sometimes to cry. he was always excited one way or the other. i have told ezra everything that i told you, and he says that my father had taken to gambling, which makes people easily distressed, and then again exalted. and now--it was only a moment that i saw him--his face was more haggard, and his clothes were shabby. he was with a much worse-looking man, who carried something, and they were hurrying along after an omnibus." "well, child, he did not see you, i hope?" "no. i had just come from mrs. raymond's, and i was waiting to cross near the marble arch. soon he was on the omnibus and gone out of sight. it was a dreadful moment. my old life seemed to have come back again, and it was worse than it had ever been before. and i could not help feeling it a new deliverance that he was gone out of sight without knowing that i was there. and yet it hurt me that i was feeling so--it seemed hateful in me--almost like words i once had to speak in a play, that 'i had warmed my hands in the blood of my kindred.' for where might my father be going? what may become of him? and his having a daughter who would own him in spite of all, might have hindered the worst. is there any pain like seeing what ought to be the best things in life turned into the worst? all those opposite feelings were meeting and pressing against each other, and took up all my strength. no one could act that. acting is slow and poor to what we go through within. i don't know how i called a cab. i only remember that i was in it when i began to think, 'i cannot tell ezra; he must not know.'" "you are afraid of grieving him?" mrs. meyrick asked, when mirah had paused a little. "yes--and there is something more," said mirah, hesitatingly, as if she were examining her feeling before she would venture to speak of it. "i want to tell you; i cannot tell any one else. i could not have told my own mother: i should have closed it up before her. i feel shame for my father, and it is perhaps strange--but the shame is greater before ezra than before any one else in the world. he desired me to tell him all about my life, and i obeyed him. but it is always like a smart to me to know that those things about my father are in ezra's mind. and--can you believe it? when the thought haunts me how it would be if my father were to come and show himself before us both, what seems as if it would scorch me most is seeing my father shrinking before ezra. that is the truth. i don't know whether it is a right feeling. but i can't help thinking that i would rather try to maintain my father in secret, and bear a great deal in that way, if i could hinder him from meeting my brother." "you must not encourage that feeling, mirah," said mrs. meyrick, hastily. "it would be very dangerous; it would be wrong. you must not have concealment of that sort." "but ought i now to tell ezra that i have seen my father?" said mirah, with deprecation in her tone. "no," mrs. meyrick answered, dubitatively. "i don't know that it is necessary to do that. your father may go away with the birds. it is not clear that he came after you; you may never see him again. and then your brother will have been spared a useless anxiety. but promise me that if your father sees you--gets hold of you in any way again--and you will let us all know. promise me that solemnly, mirah. i have a right to ask it." mirah reflected a little, then leaned forward to put her hands in mrs. meyrick's, and said, "since you ask it, i do promise. i will bear this feeling of shame. i have been so long used to think that i must bear that sort of inward pain. but the shame for my father burns me more when i think of his meeting ezra." she was silent a moment or two, and then said, in a new tone of yearning compassion, "and we are his children--and he was once young like us--and my mother loved him. oh! i cannot help seeing it all close, and it hurts me like a cruelty." mirah shed no tears: the discipline of her whole life had been against indulgence in such manifestation, which soon falls under the control of strong motives; but it seemed that the more intense expression of sorrow had entered into her voice. mrs. meyrick, with all her quickness and loving insight, did not quite understand that filial feeling in mirah which had active roots deep below her indignation for the worst offenses. she could conceive that a mother would have a clinging pity and shame for a reprobate son, but she was out of patience with what she held an exaggerated susceptibility on behalf of this father, whose reappearance inclined her to wish him under the care of a turnkey. mirah's promise, however, was some security against her weakness. that incident was the only reason that mirah herself could have stated for the hidden sadness which hans had divined. of one element in her changed mood she could have given no definite account: it was something as dim as the sense of approaching weather-change, and had extremely slight external promptings, such as we are often ashamed to find all we can allege in support of the busy constructions that go on within us, not only without effort, but even against it, under the influence of any blind emotional stirring. perhaps the first leaven of uneasiness was laid by gwendolen's behavior on that visit which was entirely superfluous as a means of engaging mirah to sing, and could have no other motive than the excited and strange questioning about deronda. mirah had instinctively kept the visit a secret, but the active remembrance of it had raised a new susceptibility in her, and made her alive as she had never been before to the relations deronda must have with that society which she herself was getting frequent glimpses of without belonging to it. her peculiar life and education had produced in her an extraordinary mixture of unworldliness, with knowledge of the world's evil, and even this knowledge was a strange blending of direct observation with the effects of reading and theatrical study. her memory was furnished with abundant passionate situation and intrigue, which she never made emotionally her own, but felt a repelled aloofness from, as she had done from the actual life around her. some of that imaginative knowledge began now to weave itself around mrs. grandcourt; and though mirah would admit no position likely to affect her reverence for deronda, she could not avoid a new painfully vivid association of his general life with a world away from her own, where there might be some involvement of his feeling and action with a woman like gwendolen, who was increasingly repugnant to her--increasingly, even after she had ceased to see her; for liking and disliking can grow in meditation as fast as in the more immediate kind of presence. any disquietude consciously due to the idea that deronda's deepest care might be for something remote not only from herself but even from his friendship for her brother, she would have checked with rebuking questions:--what was she but one who had shared his generous kindness with many others? and his attachment to her brother, was it not begun late to be soon ended? other ties had come before, and others would remain after this had been cut by swift-coming death. but her uneasiness had not reached that point of self-recognition in which she would have been ashamed of it as an indirect, presumptuous claim on deronda's feeling. that she or any one else should think of him as her possible lover was a conception which had never entered her mind; indeed it was equally out of the question with mrs. meyrick and the girls, who with mirah herself regarded his intervention in her life as something exceptional, and were so impressed by his mission as her deliverer and guardian that they would have held it an offense to him at his holding any other relation toward her: a point of view which hans also had readily adopted. it is a little hard upon some men that they appear to sink for us in becoming lovers. but precisely to this innocence of the meyricks was owing the disturbance of mirah's unconsciousness. the first occasion could hardly have been more trivial, but it prepared her emotive nature for a deeper effect from what happened afterward. it was when anna gascoigne, visiting the meyricks; was led to speak of her cousinship with gwendolen. the visit had been arranged that anna might see mirah; the three girls were at home with their mother, and there was naturally a flux of talk among six feminine creatures, free from the presence of a distorting male standard. anna gascoigne felt herself much at home with the meyrick girls, who knew what it was to have a brother, and to be generally regarded as of minor importance in the world; and she had told rex that she thought the university very nice, because brothers made friends there whose families were not rich and grand, and yet (like the university) were very nice. the meyricks seemed to her almost alarmingly clever, and she consulted them much on the best mode of teaching lotta, confiding to them that she herself was the least clever of her family. mirah had lately come in, and there was a complete bouquet of young faces around the tea-table--hafiz, seated a little aloft with large eyes on the alert, regarding the whole scene as an apparatus for supplying his allowance of milk. "think of our surprise, mirah," said kate. "we were speaking of mr. deronda and the mallingers, and it turns out that miss gascoigne knows them." "i only knew about them," said anna, a little flushed with excitement, what she had heard and now saw of the lovely jewess being an almost startling novelty to her. "i have not even seen them. but some months ago, my cousin married sir hugo mallinger's nephew, mr. grandcourt, who lived in sir hugo's place at diplow, near us." "there!" exclaimed mab, clasping her hands. "something must come of that. mrs. grandcourt, the vandyke duchess, is your cousin?" "oh, yes; i was her bridesmaid," said anna. "her mamma and mine are sisters. my aunt was much richer before last year, but then she and mamma lost all their fortune. papa is a clergyman, you know, so it makes very little difference to us, except that we keep no carriage, and have no dinner parties--and i like it better. but it was very sad for poor aunt davilow, for she could not live with us, because she has four daughters besides gwendolen; but then, when she married mr. grandcourt, it did not signify so much, because of his being so rich." "oh, this finding out relationships is delightful!" said mab. "it is like a chinese puzzle that one has to fit together. i feel sure something wonderful may be made of it, but i can't tell what." "dear me, mab," said amy, "relationships must branch out. the only difference is, that we happen to know some of the people concerned. such things are going on every day." "and pray, amy, why do you insist on the number nine being so wonderful?" said mab. "i am sure that is happening every day. never mind, miss gascoigne; please go on. and mr. deronda?--have you never seen mr. deronda? you _must_ bring him in." "no, i have not seen him," said anna; "but he was at diplow before my cousin was married, and i have heard my aunt speaking of him to papa. she said what you have been saying about him--only not so much: i mean, about mr. deronda living with sir hugo mallinger, and being so nice, she thought. we talk a great deal about every one who comes near pennicote, because it is so seldom there is any one new. but i remember, when i asked gwendolen what she thought of mr. deronda, she said, 'don't mention it, anna: but i think his hair is dark.' that was her droll way of answering: she was always so lively. it is really rather wonderful that i should come to hear so much about him, all through mr. hans knowing rex, and then my having the pleasure of knowing you," anna ended, looking at mrs. meyrick with a shy grace. "the pleasure is on our side too; but the wonder would have been, if you had come to this house without hearing of mr. deronda--wouldn't it, mirah?" said mrs. meyrick. mirah smiled acquiescently, but had nothing to say. a confused discontent took possession of her at the mingling of names and images to which she had been listening. "my son calls mrs. grandcourt the vandyke duchess," continued mrs. meyrick, turning again to anna; "he thinks her so striking and picturesque." "yes," said anna. "gwendolen was always so beautiful--people fell dreadfully in love with her. i thought it a pity, because it made them unhappy." "and how do you like mr. grandcourt, the happy lover?" said mrs. meyrick, who, in her way, was as much interested as mab in the hints she had been hearing of vicissitude in the life of a widow with daughters. "papa approved of gwendolen's accepting him, and my aunt says he is very generous," said anna, beginning with a virtuous intention of repressing her own sentiments; but then, unable to resist a rare occasion for speaking them freely, she went on--"else i should have thought he was not very nice--rather proud, and not at all lively, like gwendolen. i should have thought some one younger and more lively would have suited her better. but, perhaps, having a brother who seems to us better than any one makes us think worse of others." "wait till you see mr. deronda," said mab, nodding significantly. "nobody's brother will do after him." "our brothers _must_ do for people's husbands," said kate, curtly, "because they will not get mr. deronda. no woman will do for him to marry." "no woman ought to want him to marry him," said mab, with indignation. "_i_ never should. fancy finding out that he had a tailor's bill, and used boot-hooks, like hans. who ever thought of his marrying?" "i have," said kate. "when i drew a wedding for a frontispiece to 'hearts and diamonds,' i made a sort of likeness to him for the bridegroom, and i went about looking for a grand woman who would do for his countess, but i saw none that would not be poor creatures by the side of him." "you should have seen this mrs. grandcourt then," said mrs. meyrick. "hans says that she and mr. deronda set each other off when they are side by side. she is tall and fair. but you know her, mirah--you can always say something descriptive. what do _you_ think of mrs. grandcourt?" "i think she is the _princess of eboli_ in _don carlos_," said mirah, with a quick intensity. she was pursuing an association in her own mind not intelligible to her hearers--an association with a certain actress as well as the part she represented. "your comparison is a riddle for me, my dear," said mrs. meyrick, smiling. "you said that mrs. grandcourt was tall and fair," continued mirah, slightly paler. "that is quite true." mrs. meyrick's quick eye and ear detected something unusual, but immediately explained it to herself. fine ladies had often wounded mirah by caprices of manner and intention. "mrs. grandcourt had thought of having lessons of mirah," she said turning to anna. "but many have talked of having lessons, and then have found no time. fashionable ladies have too much work to do." and the chat went on without further insistence on the _princess of eboli_. that comparison escaped mirah's lips under the urgency of a pang unlike anything she had felt before. the conversation from the beginning had revived unpleasant impressions, and mrs. meyrick's suggestion of gwendolen's figure by the side of deronda's had the stinging effect of a voice outside her, confirming her secret conviction that this tall and fair woman had some hold on his lot. for a long while afterward she felt as if she had had a jarring shock through her frame. in the evening, putting her cheek against her brother's shoulder as she was sitting by him, while he sat propped up in bed under a new difficulty of breathing, she said, "ezra, does it ever hurt your love for mr. deronda that so much of his life was all hidden away from you--that he is amongst persons and cares about persons who are all so unlike us--i mean unlike you?" "no, assuredly no," said mordecai. "rather it is a precious thought to me that he has a preparation which i lacked, and is an accomplished egyptian." then, recollecting that his words had reference which his sister must not yet understand, he added, "i have the more to give him, since his treasure differs from mine. that is a blessedness in friendship." mirah mused a little. "still," she said, "it would be a trial to your love for him if that other part of his life were like a crowd in which he had got entangled, so that he was carried away from you--i mean in his thoughts, and not merely carried out of sight as he is now--and not merely for a little while, but continually. how should you bear that! our religion commands us to bear. but how should you bear it?" "not well, my sister--not well; but it will never happen," said mordecai, looking at her with a tender smile. he thought that her heart needed comfort on his account. mirah said no more. she mused over the difference between her own state of mind and her brother's, and felt her comparative pettiness. why could she not be completely satisfied with what satisfied his larger judgment? she gave herself no fuller reason than a painful sense of unfitness--in what? airy possibilities to which she could give no outline, but to which one name and one figure gave the wandering persistency of a blot in her vision. here lay the vaguer source of the hidden sadness rendered noticeable to hans by some diminution of that sweet ease, that ready joyousness of response in her speech and smile, which had come with the new sense of freedom and safety, and had made her presence like the freshly-opened daisies and clear bird-notes after the rain. she herself regarded her uneasiness as a sort of ingratitude and dullness of sensibility toward the great things that had been given her in her new life; and whenever she threw more energy than usual into her singing, it was the energy of indignation against the shallowness of her own content. in that mood she once said, "shall i tell you what is the difference between you and me, ezra? you are a spring in the drought, and i am an acorn-cup; the waters of heaven fill me, but the least little shake leaves me empty." "why, what has shaken thee?" said mordecai. he fell into this antique form of speech habitually in talking to his sister and to the cohen children. "thoughts," said mirah; "thoughts that come like the breeze and shake me--bad people, wrong things, misery--and how they might touch our life." "we must take our portion, mirah. it is there. on whose shoulder would we lay it, that we might be free?" the one voluntary sign she made of her inward care was this distant allusion. chapter liii. "my desolation does begin to make a better life." --shakespeare: _antony and cleopatra._ before deronda was summoned to a second interview with his mother, a day had passed in which she had only sent him a message to say that she was not yet well enough to receive him again; but on the third morning he had a note saying, "i leave to-day. come and see me at once." he was shown into the same room as before; but it was much darkened with blinds and curtains. the princess was not there, but she presently entered, dressed in a loose wrap of some soft silk, in color a dusky orange, her head again with black lace floating about it, her arms showing themselves bare from under her wide sleeves. her face seemed even more impressive in the sombre light, the eyes larger, the lines more vigorous. you might have imagined her a sorceress who would stretch forth her wonderful hand and arm to mix youth-potions for others, but scorned to mix them for herself, having had enough of youth. she put her arms on her son's shoulders at once, and kissed him on both cheeks, then seated herself among her cushions with an air of assured firmness and dignity unlike her fitfulness in their first interview, and told deronda to sit down by her. he obeyed, saying, "you are quite relieved now, i trust?" "yes, i am at ease again. is there anything more that you would like to ask me?" she said, with the matter of a queen rather than of a mother. "can i find the house in genoa where you used to live with my grandfather?" said deronda. "no," she answered, with a deprecating movement of her arm, "it is pulled down--not to be found. but about our family, and where my father lived at various times--you will find all that among the papers in the chest, better than i can tell you. my father, i told you, was a physician. my mother was a morteira. i used to hear all those things without listening. you will find them all. i was born amongst them without my will. i banished them as soon as i could." deronda tried to hide his pained feeling, and said, "anything else that i should desire to know from you could only be what it is some satisfaction to your own feeling to tell me." "i think i have told you everything that could be demanded of me," said the princess, looking coldly meditative. it seemed as if she had exhausted her emotion in their former interview. the fact was, she had said to herself, "i have done it all. i have confessed all. i will not go through it again. i will save myself from agitation." and she was acting out that scheme. but to deronda's nature the moment was cruel; it made the filial yearning of his life a disappointed pilgrimage to a shrine where there were no longer the symbols of sacredness. it seemed that all the woman lacking in her was present in him, as he said, with some tremor in his voice, "then are we to part and i never be anything to you?" "it is better so," said the princess, in a softer, mellower voice. "there could be nothing but hard duty for you, even if it were possible for you to take the place of my son. you would not love me. don't deny it," she said, abruptly, putting up her hand. "i know what is the truth. you don't like what i did. you are angry with me. you think i robbed you of something. you are on your grandfather's side, and you will always have a condemnation of me in your heart." deronda felt himself under a ban of silence. he rose from his seat by her, preferring to stand, if he had to obey that imperious prohibition of any tenderness. but his mother now looked up at him with a new admiration in her glance, saying, "you are wrong to be angry with me. you are the better for what i did." after pausing a little, she added, abruptly, "and now tell me what you shall do?" "do you mean now, immediately," said deronda; "or as to the course of my future life?" "i mean in the future. what difference will it make to you that i have told you about your birth?" "a very great difference," said deronda, emphatically. "i can hardly think of anything that would make a greater difference." "what shall you do then?" said the princess, with more sharpness. "make yourself just like your grandfather--be what he wished you--turn yourself into a jew like him?" "that is impossible. the effect of my education can never be done away with. the christian sympathies in which my mind was reared can never die out of me," said deronda, with increasing tenacity of tone. "but i consider it my duty--it is the impulse of my feeling--to identify myself, as far as possible, with my hereditary people, and if i can see any work to be done for them that i can give my soul and hand to i shall choose to do it." his mother had her eyes fixed on him with a wondering speculation, examining his face as if she thought that by close attention she could read a difficult language there. he bore her gaze very firmly, sustained by a resolute opposition, which was the expression of his fullest self. she bent toward him a little, and said, with a decisive emphasis, "you are in love with a jewess." deronda colored and said, "my reasons would be independent of any such fact." "i know better. i have seen what men are," said the princess, peremptorily. "tell me the truth. she is a jewess who will not accept any one but a jew. there _are_ a few such," she added, with a touch of scorn. deronda had that objection to answer which we all have known in speaking to those who are too certain of their own fixed interpretations to be enlightened by anything we may say. but besides this, the point immediately in question was one on which he felt a repugnance either to deny or affirm. he remained silent, and she presently said, "you love her as your father loved me, and she draws you after her as i drew him." those words touched deronda's filial imagination, and some tenderness in his glance was taken by his mother as an assent. she went on with rising passion: "but i was leading him the other way. and now your grandfather is getting his revenge." "mother," said deronda, remonstrantly, "don't let us think of it in that way. i will admit that there may come some benefit from the education you chose for me. i prefer cherishing the benefit with gratitude, to dwelling with resentment on the injury. i think it would have been right that i should have been brought up with the consciousness that i was a jew, but it must always have been a good to me to have as wide an instruction and sympathy as possible. and now, you have restored me my inheritance--events have brought a fuller restitution than you could have made--you have been saved from robbing my people of my service and me of my duty: can you not bring your whole soul to consent to this?" deronda paused in his pleading: his mother looked at him listeningly, as if the cadence of his voice were taking her ear, yet she shook her head slowly. he began again, even more urgently. "you have told me that you sought what you held the best for me: open your heart to relenting and love toward my grandfather, who sought what he held the best for you." "not for me, no," she said, shaking her head with more absolute denial, and folding her arms tightly. "i tell you, he never thought of his daughter except as an instrument. because i had wants outside his purpose, i was to be put in a frame and tortured. if that is the right law for the world, i will not say that i love it. if my acts were wrong--if it is god who is exacting from me that i should deliver up what i withheld--who is punishing me because i deceived my father and did not warn him that i should contradict his trust--well, i have told everything. i have done what i could. and _your_ soul consents. that is enough. i have after all been the instrument my father wanted.--'i desire a grandson who shall have a true jewish heart. every jew should rear his family as if he hoped that a deliverer might spring from it.'" in uttering these last sentences the princess narrowed her eyes, waved her head up and down, and spoke slowly with a new kind of chest-voice, as if she were quoting unwillingly. "were those my grandfather's words?" said deronda. "yes, yes; and you will find them written. i wanted to thwart him," said the princess, with a sudden outburst of the passion she had shown in the former interview. then she added more slowly, "you would have me love what i have hated from the time i was so high"--here she held her left hand a yard from the floor.--"that can never be. but what does it matter? his yoke has been on me, whether i loved it or not. you are the grandson he wanted. you speak as men do--as if you felt yourself wise. what does it all mean?" her tone was abrupt and scornful. deronda, in his pained feeling, and under the solemn urgency of the moment, had to keep a clutching remembrance of their relationship, lest his words should become cruel. he began in a deep entreating tone: "mother, don't say that i feel myself wise. we are set in the midst of difficulties. i see no other way to get any clearness than by being truthful--not by keeping back facts which may--which should carry obligation within them--which should make the only guidance toward duty. no wonder if such facts come to reveal themselves in spite of concealments. the effects prepared by generations are likely to triumph over a contrivance which would bend them all to the satisfaction of self. your will was strong, but my grandfather's trust which you accepted and did not fulfill--what you call his yoke--is the expression of something stronger, with deeper, farther-spreading roots, knit into the foundations of sacredness for all men. you renounced me--you still banish me--as a son"--there was an involuntary movement of indignation in deronda's voice--"but that stronger something has determined that i shall be all the more the grandson whom also you willed to annihilate." his mother was watching him fixedly, and again her face gathered admiration. after a moment's silence she said, in a low, persuasive tone, "sit down again," and he obeyed, placing himself beside her. she laid her hand on his shoulder and went on, "you rebuke me. well--i am the loser. and you are angry because i banish you. what could you do for me but weary your own patience? your mother is a shattered woman. my sense of life is little more than a sense of what was--except when the pain is present. you reproach me that i parted with you. i had joy enough without you then. now you are come back to me, and i cannot make you a joy. have you the cursing spirit of the jew in you? are you not able to forgive me? shall you be glad to think that i am punished because i was not a jewish mother to you?" "how can you ask me that?" said deronda, remonstrantly. "have i not besought you that i might now at least be a son to you? my grief is that you have declared me helpless to comfort you. i would give up much that is dear for the sake of soothing your anguish." "you shall give up nothing," said his mother, with the hurry of agitation. "you shall be happy. you shall let me think of you as happy. i shall have done you no harm. you have no reason to curse me. you shall feel for me as they feel for the dead whom they say prayers for--you shall long that i may be freed from all suffering--from all punishment. and i shall see you instead of always seeing your grandfather. will any harm come to me because i broke his trust in the daylight after he was gone into darkness? i cannot tell:--if you think _kaddish_ will help me--say it, say it. you will come between me and the dead. when i am in your mind, you will look as you do now--always as if you were a tender son--always--as if i had been a tender mother." she seemed resolved that her agitation should not conquer her, but he felt her hand trembling on his shoulder. deep, deep compassion hemmed in all words. with a face of beseeching he put his arm around her and pressed her head tenderly under his. they sat so for some moments. then she lifted her head again and rose from her seat with a great sigh, as if in that breath she were dismissing a weight of thoughts. deronda, standing in front of her, felt that the parting was near. but one of her swift alternations had come upon his mother. "is she beautiful?" she said, abruptly. "who?" said deronda, changing color. "the woman you love." it was not a moment for deliberate explanation. he was obliged to say, "yes." "not ambitious?" "no, i think not." "not one who must have a path of her own?" "i think her nature is not given to make great claims." "she is not like that?" said the princess, taking from her wallet a miniature with jewels around it, and holding it before her son. it was her own in all the fire of youth, and as deronda looked at it with admiring sadness, she said, "had i not a rightful claim to be something more than a mere daughter and mother? the voice and the genius matched the face. whatever else was wrong, acknowledge that i had a right to be an artist, though my father's will was against it. my nature gave me a charter." "i do acknowledge that," said deronda, looking from the miniature to her face, which even in its worn pallor had an expression of living force beyond anything that the pencil could show. "will you take the portrait?" said the princess, more gently. "if she is a kind woman, teach her to think of me kindly." "i shall be grateful for the portrait," said deronda, "but--i ought to say, i have no assurance that she whom i love will have any love for me. i have kept silence." "who and what is she?" said the mother. the question seemed a command. "she was brought up as a singer for the stage," said deronda, with inward reluctance. "her father took her away early from her mother, and her life has been unhappy. she is very young--only twenty. her father wished to bring her up in disregard--even in dislike of her jewish origin, but she has clung with all her affection to the memory of her mother and the fellowship of her people." "ah, like you. she is attached to the judaism she knows nothing of," said the princess, peremptorily. "that is poetry--fit to last through an opera night. is she fond of her artist's life--is her singing worth anything?" "her singing is exquisite. but her voice is not suited to the stage. i think that the artist's life has been made repugnant to her." "why, she is made for you then. sir hugo said you were bitterly against being a singer, and i can see that you would never have let yourself be merged in a wife, as your father was." "i repeat," said deronda, emphatically--"i repeat that i have no assurance of her love for me, of the possibility that we can ever be united. other things--painful issues may lie before me. i have always felt that i should prepare myself to renounce, not cherish that prospect. but i suppose i might feel so of happiness in general. whether it may come or not, one should try and prepare one's self to do without it." "do you feel in that way?" said his mother, laying her hands on his shoulders, and perusing his face, while she spoke in a low meditative tone, pausing between her sentences. "poor boy!----i wonder how it would have been if i had kept you with me----whether you would have turned your heart to the old things against mine----and we should have quarreled----your grandfather would have been in you----and you would have hampered my life with your young growth from the old root." "i think my affection might have lasted through all our quarreling," said deronda, saddened more and more, "and that would not have hampered--surely it would have enriched your life." "not then, not then----i did not want it then----i might have been glad of it now," said the mother, with a bitter melancholy, "if i could have been glad of anything." "but you love your other children, and they love you?" said deronda, anxiously. "oh, yes," she answered, as to a question about a matter of course, while she folded her arms again. "but,"----she added in a deeper tone,----"i am not a loving woman. that is the truth. it is a talent to love--i lack it. others have loved me--and i have acted their love. i know very well what love makes of men and women--it is subjection. it takes another for a larger self, enclosing this one,"--she pointed to her own bosom. "i was never willingly subject to any man. men have been subject to me." "perhaps the man who was subject was the happier of the two," said deronda--not with a smile, but with a grave, sad sense of his mother's privation. "perhaps--but i _was_ happy--for a few years i was happy. if i had not been afraid of defeat and failure, i might have gone on. i miscalculated. what then? it is all over. another life! men talk of 'another life,' as if it only began on the other side of the grave. i have long entered on another life." with the last words she raised her arms till they were bare to the elbow, her brow was contracted in one deep fold, her eyes were closed, her voice was smothered: in her dusky flame-colored garment, she looked like a dreamed visitant from some region of departed mortals. deronda's feeling was wrought to a pitch of acuteness in which he was no longer quite master of himself. he gave an audible sob. his mother opened her eyes, and letting her hands again rest on his shoulders, said, "good-bye, my son, good-bye. we shall hear no more of each other. kiss me." he clasped his arms round her neck, and they kissed each other. deronda did not know how he got out of the room. he felt an older man. all his boyish yearnings and anxieties about his mother had vanished. he had gone through a tragic experience which must forever solemnize his life and deepen the significance of the acts by which he bound himself to others. chapter liv. "the unwilling brain feigns often what it would not; and we trust imagination with such phantasies as the tongue dares not fashion into words; which have no words, their horror makes them dim to the mind's eye." --shelley. madonna pia, whose husband, feeling himself injured by her, took her to his castle amid the swampy flats of the maremma and got rid of her there, makes a pathetic figure in dante's purgatory, among the sinners who repented at the last and desire to be remembered compassionately by their fellow-countrymen. we know little about the grounds of mutual discontent between the siennese couple, but we may infer with some confidence that the husband had never been a very delightful companion, and that on the flats of the maremma his disagreeable manners had a background which threw them out remarkably; whence in his desire to punish his wife to the upmost, the nature of things was so far against him that in relieving himself of her he could not avoid making the relief mutual. and thus, without any hardness to the poor tuscan lady, who had her deliverance long ago, one may feel warranted in thinking of her with a less sympathetic interest than of the better known gwendolen who, instead of being delivered from her errors on earth and cleansed from their effect in purgatory, is at the very height of her entanglement in those fatal meshes which are woven within more closely than without, and often make the inward torture disproportionate to what is discernable as outward cause. in taking his wife with him on a yachting expedition, grandcourt had no intention to get rid of her; on the contrary, he wanted to feel more securely that she was his to do as he liked with, and to make her feel it also. moreover, he was himself very fond of yachting: its dreamy do-nothing absolutism, unmolested by social demands, suited his disposition, and he did not in the least regard it as an equivalent for the dreariness of the maremma. he had his reasons for carrying gwendolen out of reach, but they were not reasons that can seem black in the mere statement. he suspected a growing spirit of opposition in her, and his feeling about the sentimental inclination she betrayed for deronda was what in another man he would have called jealousy. in himself it seemed merely a resolution to put an end to such foolery as must have been going on in that prearranged visit of deronda's which he had divined and interrupted. and grandcourt might have pleaded that he was perfectly justified in taking care that his wife should fulfill the obligations she had accepted. her marriage was a contract where all the ostensible advantages were on her side, and it was only of those advantages that her husband should use his power to hinder her from any injurious self committal or unsuitable behavior. he knew quite well that she had not married him--had not overcome her repugnance to certain facts--out of love to him personally; he had won her by the rank and luxuries he had to give her, and these she had got: he had fulfilled his side of the contract. and gwendolen, we know, was thoroughly aware of the situation. she could not excuse herself by saying that there had been a tacit part of the contract on her side--namely, that she meant to rule and have her own way. with all her early indulgence in the disposition to dominate, she was not one of the narrow-brained women who through life regard all their own selfish demands as rights, and every claim upon themselves as an injury. she had a root of conscience in her, and the process of purgatory had begun for her on the green earth: she knew that she had been wrong. but now enter into the soul of this young creature as she found herself, with the blue mediterranean dividing her from the world, on the tiny plank-island of a yacht, the domain of the husband to whom she felt that she had sold herself, and had been paid the strict price--nay, paid more than she had dared to ask in the handsome maintenance of her mother:--the husband to whom she had sold her truthfulness and sense of justice, so that he held them throttled into silence, collared and dragged behind him to witness what he would, without remonstrance. what had she to complain of? the yacht was of the prettiest; the cabin fitted up to perfection, smelling of cedar, soft-cushioned, hung with silk, expanded with mirrors; the crew such as suited an elegant toy, one of them having even ringlets, as well as a bronze complexion and fine teeth; and mr. lush was not there, for he had taken his way back to england as soon as he had seen all and everything on board. moreover, gwendolen herself liked the sea: it did not make her ill; and to observe the rigging of the vessel and forecast the necessary adjustments was a sort of amusement that might have gratified her activity and enjoyment of imaginary rule; the weather was fine, and they were coasting southward, where even the rain-furrowed, heat-cracked clay becomes gem-like with purple shadows, and where one may float between blue and blue in an open-eyed dream that the world has done with sorrow. but what can still that hunger of the heart which sickens the eye for beauty, and makes sweet-scented ease an oppression? what sort of moslem paradise would quiet the terrible fury of moral repulsion and cowed resistance which, like an eating pain intensifying into torture, concentrates the mind in that poisonous misery? while gwendolen, throned on her cushions at evening, and beholding the glory of sea and sky softening as if with boundless love around her, was hoping that grandcourt in his march up and down was not going to pause near her, not going to look at her or speak to her, some woman, under a smoky sky, obliged to consider the price of eggs in arranging her dinner, was listening for the music of a footstep that would remove all risk from her foretaste of joy; some couple, bending cheek by cheek, over a bit of work done by the one and delighted in by the other, were reckoning the earnings that would make them rich enough for a holiday among the furze and heather. had grandcourt the least conception of what was going on in the breast of his wife? he conceived that she did not love him; but was that necessary? she was under his power, and he was not accustomed to soothe himself, as some cheerfully-disposed persons are, with the conviction that he was very generally and justly beloved. but what lay quite away from his conception was, that she could have any special repulsion for him personally. how could she? he himself knew what personal repulsion was--nobody better; his mind was much furnished with a sense of what brutes his fellow-creatures were, both masculine and feminine; what odious familiarities they had, what smirks, what modes of flourishing their handkerchiefs, what costume, what lavender water, what bulging eyes, and what foolish notions of making themselves agreeable by remarks which were not wanted. in this critical view of mankind there was an affinity between him and gwendolen before their marriage, and we know that she had been attractingly wrought upon by the refined negations he presented to her. hence he understood her repulsion for lush. but how was he to understand or conceive her present repulsion for henleigh grandcourt? some men bring themselves to believe, and not merely maintain, the non-existence of an external world; a few others believe themselves objects of repulsion to a woman without being told so in plain language. but grandcourt did not belong to this eccentric body of thinkers. he had all his life had reason to take a flattering view of his own attractiveness, and to place himself in fine antithesis to the men who, he saw at once, must be revolting to a woman of taste. he had no idea of moral repulsion, and could not have believed, if he had been told it, that there may be a resentment and disgust which will gradually make beauty more detestable than ugliness, through exasperation at that outward virtue in which hateful things can flaunt themselves or find a supercilious advantage. how, then, could grandcourt divine what was going on in gwendolen's breast? for their behavior to each other scandalized no observer--not even the foreign maid, warranted against sea-sickness; nor grandcourt's own experienced valet: still less the picturesque crew, who regarded them as a model couple in high life. their companionship consisted chiefly in a well-bred silence. grandcourt had no humorous observations at which gwendolen could refuse to smile, no chit-chat to make small occasions of dispute. he was perfectly polite in arranging an additional garment over her when needful, and in handing her any object that he perceived her to need, and she could not fall into the vulgarity of accepting or rejecting such politeness rudely. grandcourt put up his telescope and said, "there's a plantation of sugar-canes at the foot of that rock; should you like to look?" gwendolen said, "yes, please," remembering that she must try and interest herself in sugar-canes as something outside her personal affairs. then grandcourt would walk up and down and smoke for a long while, pausing occasionally to point out a sail on the horizon, and at last would seat himself and look at gwendolen with his narrow immovable gaze, as if she were part of the complete yacht; while she, conscious of being looked at was exerting her ingenuity not to meet his eyes. at dinner he would remark that the fruit was getting stale, and they must put in somewhere for more; or, observing that she did not drink the wine, he asked her if she would like any other kind better. a lady was obliged to respond to these things suitably; and even if she had not shrunk from quarrelling on other grounds, quarreling with grandcourt was impossible; she might as well have made angry remarks to a dangerous serpent ornamentally coiled in her cabin without invitation. and what sort of dispute could a woman of any pride and dignity begin on a yacht? grandcourt had intense satisfaction in leading his wife captive after this fashion; it gave their life on a small scale a royal representation and publicity in which every thing familiar was got rid of, and every body must do what was expected of them whatever might be their private protest--the protest (kept strictly private) adding to the piquancy of despotism. to gwendolen, who even in the freedom of her maiden time, had had very faint glimpses of any heroism or sublimity, the medium that now thrust itself everywhere before her view was this husband and her relation to him. the beings closest to us, whether in love or hate, are often virtually our interpreters of the world, and some feather-headed gentleman or lady whom in passing we regret to take as legal tender for a human being, may be acting as a melancholy theory of life in the minds of those who live with them--like a piece of yellow and wavy glass that distorts form and makes color an affliction. their trivial sentences, their petty standards, their low suspicions, their loveless _ennui_, may be making somebody else's life no better than a promenade through a pantheon of ugly idols. gwendolen had that kind of window before her, affecting the distant equally with the near. some unhappy wives are soothed by the possibility that they may become mothers; but gwendolen felt that to desire a child for herself would have been a consenting to the completion of the injury she had been guilty of. she was reduced to dread lest she should become a mother. it was not the image of a new sweetly-budding life that came as a vision of deliverance from the monotony of distaste: it was an image of another sort. in the irritable, fluctuating stages of despair, gleams of hope came in the form of some possible accident. to dwell on the benignity of accident was a refuge from worse temptation. the embitterment of hatred is often as unaccountable to onlookers as the growth of devoted love, and it not only seems but is really out of direct relation with any outward causes to be alleged. passion is of the nature of seed, and finds nourishment within, tending to a predominance which determines all currents toward itself, and makes the whole life its tributary. and the intensest form of hatred is that rooted in fear, which compels to silence and drives vehemence into a constructive vindictiveness, an imaginary annihilation of the detested object, something like the hidden rites of vengeance with which the persecuted have made a dark vent for their rage, and soothed their suffering into dumbness. such hidden rites went on in the secrecy of gwendolen's mind, but not with soothing effect--rather with the effect of a struggling terror. side by side with the dread of her husband had grown the self-dread, which urged her to flee from the pursuing images wrought by her pent-up impulse. the vision of her past wrong-doing, and what it had brought on her, came with a pale ghastly illumination over every imagined deed that was a rash effort at freedom, such as she had made in her marriage. moreover, she had learned to see all her acts through the impression they would make on deronda: whatever relief might come to her, she could not sever it from the judgment of her that would be created in his mind. not one word of flattery, of indulgence, of dependence on her favor, could be fastened on by her in all their intercourse, to weaken his restraining power over her (in this way deronda's effort over himself was repaid); and amid the dreary uncertainties of her spoiled life the possible remedies that lay in his mind, nay, the remedy that lay in her feeling for him, made her only hope. he seemed to her a terrible-browed angel, from whom she could not think of concealing any deed so as to win an ignorant regard from him: it belonged to the nature of their relation that she should be truthful, for his power over her had begun in the raising of a self-discontent which could be satisfied only by genuine change. but in no concealment had she now any confidence: her vision of what she had to dread took more decidedly than ever the form of some fiercely impulsive deed, committed as in a dream that she would instantaneously wake from to find the effects real though the images had been false: to find death under her hands, but instead of darkness, daylight; instead of satisfied hatred, the dismay of guilt; instead of freedom, the palsy of a new terror--a white dead face from which she was forever trying to flee and forever held back. she remembered deronda's words: they were continually recurring in her thought, "turn your fear into a safeguard. keep your dread fixed on the idea of increasing your remorse. * * * take your fear as a safeguard. it is like quickness of hearing. it may make consequences passionately present to you." and so it was. in gwendolen's consciousness temptation and dread met and stared like two pale phantoms, each seeing itself in the other--each obstructed by its own image; and all the while her fuller self beheld the apparitions and sobbed for deliverance from them. inarticulate prayers, no more definite than a cry, often swept out from her into the vast silence, unbroken except by her husband's breathing or the plash of the wave or the creaking of the masts; but if ever she thought of definite help, it took the form of deronda's presence and words, of the sympathy he might have for her, of the direction he might give her. it was sometimes after a white-lipped fierce-eyed temptation with murdering fingers had made its demon-visit that these best moments of inward crying and clinging for rescue would come to her, and she would lie with wide-open eyes in which the rising tears seemed a blessing, and the thought, "i will not mind if i can keep from getting wicked," seemed an answer to the indefinite prayer. so the days passed, taking with them light breezes beyond and about the balearic isles, and then to sardinia, and then with gentle change persuading them northward again toward corsica. but this floating, gentle-wafted existence, with its apparently peaceful influences, was becoming as bad as a nightmare to gwendolen. "how long are we to be yachting?" she ventured to ask one day after they had been touching at ajaccio, and the mere fact of change in going ashore had given her a relief from some of the thoughts which seemed now to cling about the very rigging of the vessel, mix with the air in the red silk cabin below, and make the smell of the sea odious. "what else should we do?" said grandcourt. "i'm not tired of it. i don't see why we shouldn't stay out any length of time. there's less to bore one in this way. and where would you go to? i'm sick of foreign places. and we shall have enough of ryelands. would you rather be at ryelands?" "oh, no," said gwendolen, indifferently, finding all places alike undescribable as soon as she imagined herself and her husband in them. "i only wondered how long you would like this." "i like yachting longer than anything else," said grandcourt; "and i had none last year. i suppose you are beginning to tire of it. women are so confoundedly whimsical. they expect everything to give way to them." "oh, dear, no!" said gwendolen, letting out her scorn in a flute-like tone. "i never expect you to give way." "why should i?" said grandcourt, with his inward voice, looking at her, and then choosing an orange--for they were at table. she made up her mind to a length of yachting that she could not see beyond; but the next day, after a squall which had made her rather ill for the first time, he came down to her and said, "there's been the devil's own work in the night. the skipper says we shall have to stay at genoa for a week while things are set right." "do you mind that?" said gwendolen, who lay looking very white amidst her white drapery. "i should think so. who wants to be broiling at genoa?" "it will be a change," said gwendolen, made a little incautious by her languor. "_i_ don't want any change. besides, the place is intolerable; and one can't move along the roads. i shall go out in a boat, as i used to do, and manage it myself. one can get a few hours every day in that way instead of striving in a damnable hotel." here was a prospect which held hope in it. gwendolen thought of hours when she would be alone, since grandcourt would not want to take her in the said boat, and in her exultation at this unlooked-for relief, she had wild, contradictory fancies of what she might do with her freedom--that "running away" which she had already innumerable times seen to be a worse evil than any actual endurance, now finding new arguments as an escape from her worse self. also, visionary relief on a par with the fancy of a prisoner that the night wind may blow down the wall of his prison and save him from desperate devices, insinuated itself as a better alternative, lawful to wish for. the fresh current of expectation revived her energies, and enabled her to take all things with an air of cheerfulness and alacrity that made a change marked enough to be noticed by her husband. she watched through the evening lights to the sinking of the moon with less of awed loneliness than was habitual to her--nay, with a vague impression that in this mighty frame of things there might be some preparation of rescue for her. why not?--since the weather had just been on her side. this possibility of hoping, after her long fluctuation amid fears, was like a first return of hunger to the long-languishing patient. she was waked the next morning by the casting of the anchor in the port of genoa--waked from a strangely-mixed dream in which she felt herself escaping over the mont cenis, and wondering to find it warmer even in the moonlight on the snow, till suddenly she met deronda, who told her to go back. in an hour or so from that dream she actually met deronda. but it was on the palatial staircase of the _italia_, where she was feeling warm in her light woolen dress and straw hat; and her husband was by her side. there was a start of surprise in deronda before he could raise his hat and pass on. the moment did not seem to favor any closer greeting, and the circumstances under which they had last parted made him doubtful whether grandcourt would be civilly inclined to him. the doubt might certainly have been changed into a disagreeable certainty, for grandcourt on this unaccountable appearance of deronda at genoa of all places, immediately tried to conceive how there could have been an arrangement between him and gwendolen. it is true that before they were well in their rooms, he had seen how difficult it was to shape such an arrangement with any probability, being too cool-headed to find it at once easily credible that gwendolen had not only while in london hastened to inform deronda of the yachting project, but had posted a letter to him from marseilles or barcelona, advising him to travel to genoa in time for the chance of meeting her there, or of receiving a letter from her telling of some other destination--all which must have implied a miraculous foreknowledge in her, and in deronda a bird-like facility in flying about and perching idly. still he was there, and though grandcourt would not make a fool of himself by fabrications that others might call preposterous, he was not, for all that, disposed to admit fully that deronda's presence was, so far as gwendolen was concerned, a mere accident. it was a disgusting fact; that was enough; and no doubt she was well pleased. a man out of temper does not wait for proofs before feeling toward all things animate and inanimate as if they were in a conspiracy against him, but at once threshes his horse or kicks his dog in consequence. grandcourt felt toward gwendolen and deronda as if he knew them to be in a conspiracy against him, and here was an event in league with them. what he took for clearly certain--and so far he divined the truth--was that gwendolen was now counting on an interview with deronda whenever her husband's back was turned. as he sat taking his coffee at a convenient angle for observing her, he discerned something which he felt sure was the effect of a secret delight--some fresh ease in moving and speaking, some peculiar meaning in her eyes, whatever she looked on. certainly her troubles had not marred her beauty. mrs. grandcourt was handsomer than gwendolen harleth: her grace and expression were informed by a greater variety of inward experience, giving new play to her features, new attitudes in movement and repose; her whole person and air had the nameless something which often makes a woman more interesting after marriage than before, less confident that all things are according to her opinion, and yet with less of deer-like shyness--more fully a human being. this morning the benefits of the voyage seemed to be suddenly revealing themselves in a new elasticity of mien. as she rose from the table and put her two heavily-jewelled hands on each side of her neck, according to her wont, she had no art to conceal that sort of joyous expectation which makes the present more bearable than usual, just as when a man means to go out he finds it easier to be amiable to the family for a quarter of an hour beforehand. it is not impossible that a terrier whose pleasure was concerned would perceive those amiable signs and know their meaning--know why his master stood in a peculiar way, talked with alacrity, and even had a peculiar gleam in his eye, so that on the least movement toward the door, the terrier would scuttle to be in time. and, in dog fashion, grandcourt discerned the signs of gwendolen's expectation, interpreting them with the narrow correctness which leaves a world of unknown feeling behind. "a--just ring, please, and tell gibbs to order some dinner for us at three," said grandcourt, as he too rose, took out a cigar, and then stretched his hand toward the hat that lay near. "i'm going to send angus to find a little sailing-boat for us to go out in; one that i can manage, with you at the tiller. it's uncommonly pleasant these fine evenings--the least boring of anything we can do." gwendolen turned cold. there was not only the cruel disappointment; there was the immediate conviction that her husband had determined to take her because he would not leave her out of his sight; and probably this dual solitude in a boat was the more attractive to him because it would be wearisome to her. they were not on the plank-island; she felt it the more possible to begin a contest. but the gleaming content had died out of her. there was a change in her like that of a glacier after sunset. "i would rather not go in the boat," she said. "take some one else with you." "very well; if you don't go, i shall not go," said grandcourt. "we shall stay suffocating here, that's all." "i can't bear to go in a boat," said gwendolen, angrily. "that is a sudden change," said grandcourt, with a slight sneer. "but, since you decline, we shall stay indoors." he laid down his hat again, lit his cigar, and walked up and down the room, pausing now and then to look out of the windows. gwendolen's temper told her to persist. she knew very well now that grandcourt would not go without her; but if he must tyrannize over her, he should not do it precisely in the way he would choose. she would oblige him to stay in the hotel. without speaking again, she passed into the adjoining bedroom and threw herself into a chair with her anger, seeing no purpose or issue--only feeling that the wave of evil had rushed back upon her, and dragged her away from her momentary breathing-place. presently grandcourt came in with his hat on, but threw it off and sat down sideways on a chair nearly in front of her, saying, in his superficial drawl, "have you come round yet? or do you find it agreeable to be out of temper. you make things uncommonly pleasant for me." "why do you want to make them unpleasant for _me_?" said gwendolen, getting helpless again, and feeling the hot tears rise. "now, will you be good enough to say what it is you have to complain of?" said grandcourt, looking into her eyes, and using his most inward voice. "is it that i stay indoors when you stay?" she could give no answer. the sort of truth that made any excuse for her anger could not be uttered. in the conflict of despair and humiliation she began to sob, and the tears rolled down her cheeks--a form of agitation which she had never shown before in her husband's presence. "i hope this is useful," said grandcourt, after a moment or two. "all i can say is, it's most confoundedly unpleasant. what the devil women can see in this kind of thing, i don't know. _you_ see something to be got by it, of course. all i can see is, that we shall be shut up here when we might have been having a pleasant sail." "let us go, then," said gwendolen, impetuously. "perhaps we shall be drowned." she began to sob again. this extraordinary behavior, which had evidently some relation to deronda, gave more definiteness to grandcourt's conclusions. he drew his chair quite close in front of her, and said, in a low tone, "just be quiet and listen, will you?" there seemed to be a magical effect in this close vicinity. gwendolen shrank and ceased to sob. she kept her eyelids down and clasped her hands tightly. "let us understand each other," said grandcourt, in the same tone. "i know very well what this nonsense means. but if you suppose i am going to let you make a fool of me, just dismiss that notion from your mind. what are you looking forward to, if you can't behave properly as my wife? there is disgrace for you, if you like to have it, but i don't know anything else; and as to deronda, it's quite clear that he hangs back from you." "it's all false!" said gwendolen, bitterly. "you don't in the least imagine what is in my mind. i have seen enough of the disgrace that comes in that way. and you had better leave me at liberty to speak with any one i like. it will be better for you." "you will allow me to judge of that," said grandcourt, rising and moving to a little distance toward the window, but standing there playing with his whiskers as if he were awaiting something. gwendolen's words had so clear and tremendous a meaning for herself that she thought they must have expressed it to grandcourt, and had no sooner uttered them than she dreaded their effect. but his soul was garrisoned against presentiments and fears: he had the courage and confidence that belong to domination, and he was at that moment feeling perfectly satisfied that he held his wife with bit and bridle. by the time they had been married a year she would cease to be restive. he continued standing with his air of indifference, till she felt her habitual stifling consciousness of having an immovable obstruction in her life, like the nightmare of beholding a single form that serves to arrest all passage though the wide country lies open. "what decision have you come to?" he said, presently looking at her. "what orders shall i give?" "oh, let us go," said gwendolen. the walls had begun to be an imprisonment, and while there was breath in this man he would have the mastery over her. his words had the power of thumb-screws and the cold touch of the rock. to resist was to act like a stupid animal unable to measure results. so the boat was ordered. she even went down to the quay again with him to see it before midday. grandcourt had recovered perfect quietude of temper, and had a scornful satisfaction in the attention given by the nautical groups to the _milord_, owner of the handsome yacht which had just put in for repairs, and who being an englishman was naturally so at home on the sea that he could manage a sail with the same ease that he could manage a horse. the sort of exultation he had discerned in gwendolen this morning she now thought that she discerned in him; and it was true that he had set his mind on this boating, and carried out his purpose as something that people might not expect him to do, with the gratified impulse of a strong will which had nothing better to exert itself upon. he had remarkable physical courage, and was proud of it--or rather he had a great contempt for the coarser, bulkier men who generally had less. moreover, he was ruling that gwendolen should go with him. and when they came down again at five o'clock, equipped for their boating, the scene was as good as a theatrical representation for all beholders. this handsome, fair-skinned english couple, manifesting the usual eccentricity of their nation, both of them proud, pale, and calm, without a smile on their faces, moving like creatures who were fulfilling a supernatural destiny--it was a thing to go out and see, a thing to paint. the husband's chest, back, and arms, showed very well in his close-fitting dress, and the wife was declared to be a statue. some suggestions were proffered concerning a possible change in the breeze, and the necessary care in putting about, but grandcourt's manner made the speakers understand that they were too officious, and that he knew better than they. gwendolen, keeping her impassable air, as they moved away from the strand, felt her imagination obstinately at work. she was not afraid of any outward dangers--she was afraid of her own wishes which were taking shapes possible and impossible, like a cloud of demon-faces. she was afraid of her own hatred, which under the cold iron touch that had compelled her to-day had gathered a fierce intensity. as she sat guiding the tiller under her husband's eyes, doing just what he told her, the strife within her seemed like her own effort to escape from herself. she clung to the thought of deronda: she persuaded herself that he would not go away while she was there--he knew that she needed help. the sense that he was there would save her from acting out the evil within. and yet quick, quick, came images, plans of evil that would come again and seize her in the night, like furies preparing the deed that they would straightway avenge. they were taken out of the port and carried eastward by a gentle breeze. some clouds tempered the sunlight, and the hour was always deepening toward the supreme beauty of evening. sails larger and smaller changed their aspect like sensitive things, and made a cheerful companionship, alternately near and far. the grand city shone more vaguely, the mountains looked out above it, and there was stillness as in an island sanctuary. yet suddenly gwendolen let her hands fall, and said in a scarcely audible tone, "god help me!" "what is the matter?" said grandcourt, not distinguishing the words. "oh, nothing," said gwendolen, rousing herself from her momentary forgetfulness and resuming the ropes. "don't you find this pleasant?" said grandcourt. "very." "you admit now we couldn't have done anything better?" "no--i see nothing better. i think we shall go on always, like the flying dutchman," said gwendolen wildly. grandcourt gave her one of his narrow examining glances, and then said, "if you like, we can go to spezia in the morning, and let them take us up there." "no; i shall like nothing better than this." "very well: we'll do the same to-morrow. but we must be turning in soon. i shall put about." chapter lv. "ritorna a tua scienza che vuol, quanto la cosa e più perfetta più senta il bene, e cosi la doglienza." --dante. when deronda met gwendolen and grandcourt on the staircase, his mind was seriously preoccupied. he had just been summoned to the second interview with his mother. in two hours after his parting from her he knew that the princess halm-eberstein had left the hotel, and so far as the purpose of his journey to genoa was concerned, he might himself have set off on his way to mainz, to deliver the letter from joseph kalonymos, and get possession of the family chest. but mixed mental conditions, which did not resolve themselves into definite reasons, hindered him from departure. long after the farewell he was kept passive by a weight of retrospective feeling. he lived again, with the new keenness of emotive memory, through the exciting scenes which seemed past only in the sense of preparation for their actual presence in his soul. he allowed himself in his solitude to sob, with perhaps more than a woman's acuteness of compassion, over that woman's life so near to his, and yet so remote. he beheld the world changed for him by the certitude of ties that altered the poise of hopes and fears, and gave him a new sense of fellowship, as if under cover of the night he had joined the wrong band of wanderers, and found with the rise of morning that the tents of his kindred were grouped far off. he had a quivering imaginative sense of close relation to the grandfather who had been animated by strong impulses and beloved thoughts, which were now perhaps being roused from their slumber within himself. and through all this passionate meditation mordecai and mirah were always present, as beings who clasped hands with him in sympathetic silence. of such quick, responsive fibre was deronda made, under that mantle of self-controlled reserve into which early experience had thrown so much of his young strength. when the persistent ringing of a bell as a signal reminded him of the hour he thought of looking into _bradshaw_, and making the brief necessary preparations for starting by the next train--thought of it, but made no movement in consequence. wishes went to mainz and what he was to get possession of there--to london and the beings there who made the strongest attachments of his life; but there were other wishes that clung in these moments to genoa, and they kept him where he was by that force which urges us to linger over an interview that carries a presentiment of final farewell or of overshadowing sorrow. deronda did not formally say, "i will stay over to-night, because it is friday, and i should like to go to the evening service at the synagogue where they must all have gone; and besides, i may see the grandcourts again." but simply, instead of packing and ringing for his bill, he sat doing nothing at all, while his mind went to the synagogue and saw faces there probably little different from those of his grandfather's time, and heard the spanish-hebrew liturgy which had lasted through the seasons of wandering generations like a plant with wandering seed, that gives the far-off lands a kinship to the exile's home--while, also, his mind went toward gwendolen, with anxious remembrance of what had been, and with a half-admitted impression that it would be hardness in him willingly to go away at once without making some effort, in spite of grandcourt's probable dislike, to manifest the continuance of his sympathy with her since their abrupt parting. in this state of mind he deferred departure, ate his dinner without sense of flavor, rose from it quickly to find the synagogue, and in passing the porter asked if mr. and mrs. grandcourt were still in the hotel, and what was the number of their apartment. the porter gave him the number, but added that they were gone out boating. that information had somehow power enough over deronda to divide his thoughts with the memories wakened among the sparse _talithim_ and keen dark faces of worshippers whose way of taking awful prayers and invocations with the easy familiarity which might be called hebrew dyed italian, made him reflect that his grandfather, according to the princess's hints of his character, must have been almost as exceptional a jew as mordecai. but were not men of ardent zeal and far-reaching hope everywhere exceptional? the men who had the visions which, as mordecai said, were the creators and feeders of the world--moulding and feeding the more passive life which without them would dwindle and shrivel into the narrow tenacity of insects, unshaken by thoughts beyond the reach of their antennae. something of a mournful impatience perhaps added itself to the solicitude about gwendolen (a solicitude that had room to grow in his present release from immediate cares) as an incitement to hasten from the synagogue and choose to take his evening walk toward the quay, always a favorite haunt with him, and just now attractive with the possibility that he might be in time to see the grandcourts come in from their boating. in this case, he resolved that he would advance to greet them deliberately, and ignore any grounds that the husband might have for wishing him elsewhere. the sun had set behind a bank of cloud, and only a faint yellow light was giving its farewell kisses to the waves, which were agitated by an active breeze. deronda, sauntering slowly within sight of what took place on the strand, observed the groups there concentrating their attention on a sailing-boat which was advancing swiftly landward, being rowed by two men. amidst the clamorous talk in various languages, deronda held it the surer means of getting information not to ask questions, but to elbow his way to the foreground and be an unobstructed witness of what was occurring. telescopes were being used, and loud statements made that the boat held somebody who had been drowned. one said it was the _milord_ who had gone out in a sailing boat; another maintained that the prostrate figure he discerned was _miladi_; a frenchman who had no glass would rather say that it was _milord_ who had probably taken his wife out to drown her, according to the national practice--a remark which an english skipper immediately commented on in our native idiom (as nonsense which--had undergone a mining operation), and further dismissed by the decision that the reclining figure was a woman. for deronda, terribly excited by fluctuating fears, the strokes of the oars as he watched them were divided by swift visions of events, possible and impossible, which might have brought about this issue, or this broken-off fragment of an issue, with a worse half undisclosed--if this woman apparently snatched from the waters were really mrs. grandcourt. but soon there was no longer any doubt: the boat was being pulled to land, and he saw gwendolen half raising herself on her hands, by her own effort, under her heavy covering of tarpaulin and pea-jackets--pale as one of the sheeted dead, shivering, with wet hair streaming, a wild amazed consciousness in her eyes, as if she had waked up in a world where some judgment was impending, and the beings she saw around were coming to seize her. the first rower who jumped to land was also wet through, and ran off; the sailors, close about the boat, hindered deronda from advancing, and he could only look on while gwendolen gave scared glances, and seemed to shrink with terror as she was carefully, tenderly helped out, and led on by the strong arms of those rough, bronzed men, her wet clothes clinging about her limbs, and adding to the impediment of her weakness. suddenly her wandering eyes fell on deronda, standing before her, and immediately, as if she had been expecting him and looking for him, she tried to stretch out her arms, which were held back by her supporters, saying, in a muffled voice, "it is come, it is come! he is dead!" "hush, hush!" said deronda, in a tone of authority; "quiet yourself." then to the men who were assisting her, "i am a connection of this lady's husband. if you will get her on to the _italia_ as quickly as possible, i will undertake everything else." he stayed behind to hear from the remaining boatman that her husband had gone down irrecoverably, and that his boat was left floating empty. he and his comrade had heard a cry, had come up in time to see the lady jump in after her husband, and had got her out fast enough to save her from much damage. after this, deronda hastened to the hotel to assure himself that the best medical help would be provided; and being satisfied on this point, he telegraphed the event to sir hugo, begging him to come forthwith, and also to mr. gascoigne, whose address at the rectory made his nearest known way of getting the information to gwendolen's mother. certain words of gwendolen's in the past had come back to him with the effectiveness of an inspiration: in moments of agitated confession she had spoken of her mother's presence, as a possible help, if she could have had it. chapter lvi. "the pang, the curse with which they died, had never passed away: i could not draw my eyes from theirs, nor lift them up to pray." --coleridge. deronda did not take off his clothes that night. gwendolen, after insisting on seeing him again before she would consent to be undressed, had been perfectly quiet, and had only asked him, with a whispering, repressed eagerness, to promise that he would come to her when she sent for him in the morning. still, the possibility that a change might come over her, the danger of a supervening feverish condition, and the suspicion that something in the late catastrophe was having an effect which might betray itself in excited words, acted as a foreboding within him. he mentioned to her attendant that he should keep himself ready to be called if there were any alarming change of symptoms, making it understood by all concerned that he was in communication with her friends in england, and felt bound meanwhile to take all care on her behalf--a position which it was the easier for him to assume, because he was well known to grandcourt's valet, the only old servant who had come on the late voyage. but when fatigue from the strangely various emotion of the day at last sent deronda to sleep, he remained undisturbed except by the morning dreams, which came as a tangled web of yesterday's events, and finally waked him, with an image drawn by his pressing anxiety. still, it was morning, and there had been no summons--an augury which cheered him while he made his toilet, and reflected that it was too early to send inquiries. later, he learned that she had passed a too wakeful night, but had shown no violent signs of agitation, and was at last sleeping. he wondered at the force that dwelt in this creature, so alive to dread; for he had an irresistible impression that even under the effects of a severe physical shock she was mastering herself with a determination of concealment. for his own part, he thought that his sensibilities had been blunted by what he had been going through in the meeting with his mother: he seemed to himself now to be only fulfilling claims, and his more passionate sympathy was in abeyance. he had lately been living so keenly in an experience quite apart from gwendolen's lot, that his present cares for her were like a revisiting of scenes familiar in the past, and there was not yet a complete revival of the inward response to them. meanwhile he employed himself in getting a formal, legally recognized statement from the fishermen who had rescued gwendolen. few details came to light. the boat in which grandcourt had gone out had been found drifting with its sail loose, and had been towed in. the fishermen thought it likely that he had been knocked overboard by the flapping of the sail while putting about, and that he had not known how to swim; but, though they were near, their attention had been first arrested by a cry which seemed like that of a man in distress, and while they were hastening with their oars, they heard a shriek from the lady, and saw her jump in. on re-entering the hotel, deronda was told that gwendolen had risen, and was desiring to see him. he was shown into a room darkened by blinds and curtains, where she was seated with a white shawl wrapped round her, looking toward the opening door like one waiting uneasily. but her long hair was gathered up and coiled carefully, and, through all, the blue stars in her ears had kept their place: as she started impulsively to her full height, sheathed in her white shawl, her face and neck not less white, except for a purple line under her eyes, her lips a little apart with the peculiar expression of one accused and helpless, she looked like the unhappy ghost of that gwendolen harleth whom deronda had seen turning with firm lips and proud self-possession from her losses at the gaming table. the sight pierced him with pity, and the effects of all their past relations began to revive within him. "i beseech you to rest--not to stand," said deronda, as he approached her; and she obeyed, falling back into her chair again. "will you sit down near me?" she said. "i want to speak very low." she was in a large arm-chair, and he drew a small one near to her side. the action seemed to touch her peculiarly: turning her pale face full upon his, which was very near, she said, in the lowest audible tone, "you know i am a guilty woman?" deronda himself turned paler as he said, "i know nothing." he did not dare to say more. "he is dead." she uttered this with the same undertoned decision. "yes," said deronda, in a mournful suspense which made him reluctant to speak. "his face will not be seen above the water again," said gwendolen, in a tone that was not louder, but of a suppressed eagerness, while she held both her hands clenched. "no." "not by any one else--only by me--a dead face--i shall never get away from it." it was with an inward voice of desperate self-repression that she spoke these last words, while she looked away from deronda toward something at a distance from her on the floor. she was seeing the whole event--her own acts included--through an exaggerating medium of excitement and horror? was she in a state of delirium into which there entered a sense of concealment and necessity for self-repression? such thoughts glanced through deronda as a sort of hope. but imagine the conflict of feeling that kept him silent. she was bent on confession, and he dreaded hearing her confession. against his better will he shrank from the task that was laid on him: he wished, and yet rebuked the wish as cowardly, that she could bury her secrets in her own bosom. he was not a priest. he dreaded the weight of this woman's soul flung upon his own with imploring dependence. but she spoke again, hurriedly, looking at him, "you will not say that i ought to tell the world? you will not say that i ought to be disgraced? i could not do it. i could not bear it. i cannot have my mother know. not if i were dead. i could not have her know. i must tell you; but you will not say that any one else should know." "i can say nothing in my ignorance," said deronda, mournfully, "except that i desire to help you." "i told you from the beginning--as soon as i could--i told you i was afraid of myself." there was a piteous pleading in the low murmur in which deronda turned his ear only. her face afflicted him too much. "i felt a hatred in me that was always working like an evil spirit--contriving things. everything i could do to free myself came into my mind; and it got worse--all things got worse. that is why i asked you to come to me in town. i thought then i would tell you the worst about myself. i tried. but i could not tell everything. and _he_ came in." she paused, while a shudder passed through her; but soon went on. "i will tell you everything now. do you think a woman who cried, and prayed, and struggled to be saved from herself, could be a murderess?" "great god!" said deronda, in a deep, shaken voice, "don't torture me needlessly. you have not murdered him. you threw yourself into the water with the impulse to save him. tell me the rest afterward. this death was an accident that you could not have hindered." "don't be impatient with me." the tremor, the childlike beseeching in these words compelled deronda to turn his head and look at her face. the poor quivering lips went on. "you said--you used to say--you felt more for those who had done something wicked and were miserable; you said they might get better--they might be scourged into something better. if you had not spoken in that way, everything would have been worse. i _did_ remember all you said to me. it came to me always. it came to me at the very last--that was the reason why i--but now, if you cannot bear with me when i tell you everything--if you turn away from me and forsake me, what shall i do? am i worse than i was when you found me and wanted to make me better? all the wrong i have done was in me then--and more--and more--if you had not come and been patient with me. and now--will you forsake me?" her hands, which had been so tightly clenched some minutes before, were now helplessly relaxed and trembling on the arm of her chair. her quivering lips remained parted as she ceased speaking. deronda could not answer; he was obliged to look away. he took one of her hands, and clasped it as if they were going to walk together like two children: it was the only way in which he could answer, "i will not forsake you." and all the while he felt as if he were putting his name to a blank paper which might be filled up terribly. their attitude, his adverted face with its expression of a suffering which he was solemnly resolved to undergo, might have told half the truth of the situation to a beholder who had suddenly entered. that grasp was an entirely new experience to gwendolen: she had never before had from any man a sign of tenderness which her own being had needed, and she interpreted its powerful effect on her into a promise of inexhaustible patience and constancy. the stream of renewed strength made it possible for her to go on as she had begun--with that fitful, wandering confession where the sameness of experience seems to nullify the sense of time or of order in events. she began again in a fragmentary way, "all sorts of contrivances in my mind--but all so difficult. and i fought against them--i was terrified at them--i saw his dead face"--here her voice sank almost to a whisper close to deronda's ear--"ever so long ago i saw it and i wished him to be dead. and yet it terrified me. i was like two creatures. i could not speak--i wanted to kill--it was as strong as thirst--and then directly--i felt beforehand i had done something dreadful, unalterable--that would make me like an evil spirit. and it came--it came." she was silent a moment or two, as if her memory had lost itself in a web where each mesh drew all the rest. "it had all been in my mind when i first spoke to you--when we were at the abbey. i had done something then. i could not tell you that. it was the only thing i did toward carrying out my thoughts. they went about over everything; but they all remained like dreadful dreams--all but one. i did one act--and i never undid it--it is there still--as long ago as when we were at ryelands. there it was--something my fingers longed for among the beautiful toys in the cabinet in my boudoir--small and sharp like a long willow leaf in a silver sheath. i locked it in the drawer of my dressing-case. i was continually haunted with it and how i should use it. i fancied myself putting it under my pillow. but i never did. i never looked at it again. i dared not unlock the drawer: it had a key all to itself; and not long ago, when we were in the yacht, i dropped the key into the deep water. it was my wish to drop it and deliver myself. after that i began to think how i could open the drawer without the key: and when i found we were to stay at genoa, it came into my mind that i could get it opened privately at the hotel. but then, when we were going up the stairs, i met you; and i thought i should talk to you alone and tell you this--everything i could not tell you in town; and then i was forced to go out in the boat." a sob had for the first time risen with the last words, and she sank back in her chair. the memory of that acute disappointment seemed for the moment to efface what had come since. deronda did not look at her, but he said, insistently, "and it has all remained in your imagination. it has gone on only in your thought. to the last the evil temptation has been resisted?" there was silence. the tears had rolled down her cheeks. she pressed her handkerchief against them and sat upright. she was summoning her resolution; and again, leaning a little toward deronda's ear, she began in a whisper, "no, no; i will tell you everything as god knows it. i will tell you no falsehood; i will tell you the exact truth. what should i do else? i used to think i could never be wicked. i thought of wicked people as if they were a long way off me. since then i have been wicked. i have felt wicked. and everything has been a punishment to me--all the things i used to wish for--it is as if they had been made red-hot. the very daylight has often been a punishment to me. because--you know--i ought not to have married. that was the beginning of it. i wronged some one else. i broke my promise. i meant to get pleasure for myself, and it all turned to misery. i wanted to make my gain out of another's loss--you remember?--it was like roulette--and the money burned into me. and i could not complain. it was as if i had prayed that another should lose and i should win. and i had won, i knew it all--i knew i was guilty. when we were on the sea, and i lay awake at night in the cabin, i sometimes felt that everything i had done lay open without excuse--nothing was hidden--how could anything be known to me only?--it was not my own knowledge, it was god's that had entered into me, and even the stillness--everything held a punishment for me--everything but you. i always thought that you would not want me to be punished--you would have tried and helped me to be better. and only thinking of that helped me. you will not change--you will not want to punish me now?" again a sob had risen. "god forbid!" groaned deronda. but he sat motionless. this long wandering with the conscious-stricken one over her past was difficult to bear, but he dared not again urge her with a question. he must let her mind follow its own need. she unconsciously left intervals in her retrospect, not clearly distinguishing between what she said and what she had only an inward vision of. her next words came after such an interval. "that all made it so hard when i was forced to go in the boat. because when i saw you it was an unexpected joy, and i thought i could tell you everything--about the locked-up drawer and what i had not told you before. and if i had told you, and knew it was in your mind, it would have less power over me. i hoped and trusted in that. for after all my struggles and my crying, the hatred and rage, the temptation that frightened me, the longing, the thirst for what i dreaded, always came back. and that disappointment--when i was quite shut out from speaking to you, and was driven to go in the boat--brought all the evil back, as if i had been locked in a prison with it and no escape. oh, it seems so long ago now since i stepped into that boat! i could have given up everything in that moment, to have the forked lightning for a weapon to strike him dead." some of the compressed fierceness that she was recalling seemed to find its way into her undertoned utterance. after a little silence she said, with agitated hurry, "if he were here again, what should i do? i cannot wish him here--and yet i cannot bear his dead face. i was a coward. i ought to have borne contempt. i ought to have gone away--gone and wandered like a beggar rather than stay to feel like a fiend. but turn where i would there was something i could not bear. sometimes i thought he would kill _me_ if i resisted his will. but now--his dead face is there, and i cannot bear it." suddenly loosing deronda's hand, she started up, stretching her arms to their full length upward, and said with a sort of moan, "i have been a cruel woman! what can _i_ do but cry for help? _i_ am sinking. die--die--you are forsaken--go down, go down into darkness. forsaken--no pity--_i_ shall be forsaken." she sank in her chair again and broke into sobs. even deronda had no place in her consciousness at that moment. he was completely unmanned. instead of finding, as he had imagined, that his late experience had dulled his susceptibility to fresh emotion, it seemed that the lot of this young creature, whose swift travel from her bright rash girlhood into this agony of remorse he had had to behold in helplessness, pierced him the deeper because it came close upon another sad revelation of spiritual conflict: he was in one of those moments when the very anguish of passionate pity makes us ready to choose that we will know pleasure no more, and live only for the stricken and afflicted. he had risen from his seat while he watched that terrible outburst--which seemed the more awful to him because, even in this supreme agitation, she kept the suppressed voice of one who confesses in secret. at last he felt impelled to turn his back toward her and walk to a distance. but presently there was stillness. her mind had opened to the sense that he had gone away from her. when deronda turned round to approach her again, he saw her face bent toward him, her eyes dilated, her lips parted. she was an image of timid forlorn beseeching--too timid to entreat in words while he kept himself aloof from her. was she forsaken by him--now--already? but his eyes met hers sorrowfully--met hers for the first time fully since she had said, "you know i am a guilty woman," and that full glance in its intense mournfulness seemed to say, "i know it, but i shall all the less forsake you." he sat down by her side again in the same attitude--without turning his face toward her and without again taking her hand. once more gwendolen was pierced, as she had been by his face of sorrow at the abbey, with a compunction less egoistic than that which urged her to confess, and she said, in a tone of loving regret, "i make you very unhappy." deronda gave an indistinct "oh," just shrinking together and changing his attitude a little. then he had gathered resolution enough to say clearly, "there is no question of being happy or unhappy. what i most desire at this moment is what will most help you. tell me all you feel it a relief to tell." devoted as these words were, they widened his spiritual distance from her, and she felt it more difficult to speak: she had a vague need of getting nearer to that compassion which seemed to be regarding her from a halo of superiority, and the need turned into an impulse to humble herself more. she was ready to throw herself on her knees before him; but no--her wonderfully mixed consciousness held checks on that impulse, and she was kept silent and motionless by the pressure of opposing needs. her stillness made deronda at last say, "perhaps you are too weary. shall i go away, and come again whenever you wish it?" "no, no," said gwendolen--the dread of his leaving her bringing back her power of speech. she went on with her low-toned eagerness, "i want to tell you what it was that came over me in that boat. i was full of rage at being obliged to go--full of rage--and i could do nothing but sit there like a galley slave. and then we got away--out of the port--into the deep--and everything was still--and we never looked at each other, only he spoke to order me--and the very light about me seemed to hold me a prisoner and force me to sit as i did. it came over me that when i was a child i used to fancy sailing away into a world where people were not forced to live with any one they did not like--i did not like my father-in-law to come home. and now, i thought, just the opposite had come to me. i had stepped into a boat, and my life was a sailing and sailing away--gliding on and no help--always into solitude with _him_, away from deliverance. and because i felt more helpless than ever, my thoughts went out over worse things--i longed for worse things--i had cruel wishes--i fancied impossible ways of--i did not want to die myself; i was afraid of our being drowned together. if it had been any use i should have prayed--i should have prayed that something might befall him. i should have prayed that he might sink out of my sight and leave me alone. i knew no way of killing him there, but i did, i did kill him in my thoughts." she sank into silence for a minute, submerged by the weight of memory which no words could represent. "but yet, all the while i felt that i was getting more wicked. and what had been with me so much, came to me just then--what you once said--about dreading to increase my wrong-doing and my remorse--i should hope for nothing then. it was all like a writing of fire within me. getting wicked was misery--being shut out forever from knowing what you--what better lives were. that had always been coming back to me then--but yet with a despair--a feeling that it was no use--evil wishes were too strong. i remember then letting go the tiller and saying 'god help me!' but then i was forced to take it again and go on; and the evil longings, the evil prayers came again and blotted everything else dim, till, in the midst of them--i don't know how it was--he was turning the sail--there was a gust--he was struck--i know nothing--i only know that i saw my wish outside me." she began to speak more hurriedly, and in more of a whisper. "i saw him sink, and my heart gave a leap as if it were going out of me. i think i did not move. i kept my hands tight. it was long enough for me to be glad, and yet to think it was no use--he would come up again. and he _was_ come--farther off--the boat had moved. it was all like lightning. 'the rope!' he called out in a voice--not his own--i hear it now--and i stooped for the rope--i felt i must--i felt sure he could swim, and he would come back whether or not, and i dreaded him. that was in my mind--he would come back. but he was gone down again, and i had the rope in my hand--no, there he was again--his face above the water--and he cried again--and i held my hand, and my heart said, 'die!'--and he sank; and i felt 'it is done--i am wicked, i am lost!--and i had the rope in my hand--i don't know what i thought--i was leaping away from myself--i would have saved him then. i was leaping from my crime, and there it was--close to me as i fell--there was the dead face--dead, dead. it can never be altered. that was what happened. that was what i did. you know it all. it can never be altered." she sank back in her chair, exhausted with the agitation of memory and speech. deronda felt the burden on his spirit less heavy than the foregoing dread. the word "guilty" had held a possibility of interpretations worse than the fact; and gwendolen's confession, for the very reason that her conscience made her dwell on the determining power of her evil thoughts, convinced him the more that there had been throughout a counterbalancing struggle of her better will. it seemed almost certain that her murderous thought had had no outward effect--that, quite apart from it, the death was inevitable. still, a question as to the outward effectiveness of a criminal desire dominant enough to impel even a momentary act, cannot alter our judgment of the desire; and deronda shrank from putting that question forward in the first instance. he held it likely that gwendolen's remorse aggravated her inward guilt, and that she gave the character of decisive action to what had been an inappreciably instantaneous glance of desire. but her remorse was the precious sign of a recoverable nature; it was the culmination of that self-disapproval which had been the awakening of a new life within her; it marked her off from the criminals whose only regret is failure in securing their evil wish. deronda could not utter one word to diminish that sacred aversion to her worst self--that thorn-pressure which must come with the crowning of the sorrowful better, suffering because of the worse. all this mingled thought and feeling kept him silent; speech was too momentous to be ventured on rashly. there were no words of comfort that did not carry some sacrilege. if he had opened his lips to speak, he could only have echoed, "it can never be altered--it remains unaltered, to alter other things." but he was silent and motionless--he did not know how long--before he turned to look at her, and saw her sunk back with closed eyes, like a lost, weary, storm-beaten white doe, unable to rise and pursue its unguided way. he rose and stood before her. the movement touched her consciousness, and she opened her eyes with a slight quivering that seemed like fear. "you must rest now. try to rest: try to sleep. and may i see you again this evening--to-morrow--when you have had some rest? let us say no more now." the tears came, and she could not answer except by a slight movement of the head. deronda rang for attendance, spoke urgently of the necessity that she should be got to rest, and then left her. chapter lvii. "the unripe grape, the ripe, and the dried. all things are changes, not into nothing, but into that which is not at present."--marcus aurelius. deeds are the pulse of time, his beating life, and righteous or unrighteous, being done, must throb in after-throbs till time itself be laid in darkness, and the universe quiver and breathe upon no mirror more. in the evening she sent for him again. it was already near the hour at which she had been brought in from the sea the evening before, and the light was subdued enough with blinds drawn up and windows open. she was seated gazing fixedly on the sea, resting her cheek on her hand, looking less shattered than when he had left her, but with a deep melancholy in her expression which as deronda approached her passed into an anxious timidity. she did not put out her hand, but said, "how long ago it is!" then, "will you sit near me again a little while?" he placed himself by her side as he had done before, and seeing that she turned to him with that indefinable expression which implies a wish to say something, he waited for her to speak. but again she looked toward the window silently, and again turned with the same expression, which yet did not issue in speech. there was some fear hindering her, and deronda, wishing to relieve her timidity, averted his face. presently he heard her cry imploringly, "you will not say that any one else should know?" "most decidedly not," said deronda. "there is no action that ought to be taken in consequence. there is no injury that could be righted in that way. there is no retribution that any mortal could apportion justly." she was so still during a pause that she seemed to be holding her breath before she said, "but if i had not had that murderous will--that moment--if i had thrown the rope on the instant--perhaps it would have hindered death?" "no--i think not," said deronda, slowly. "if it were true that he could swim, he must have been seized with cramp. with your quickest, utmost effort, it seems impossible that you could have done anything to save him. that momentary murderous will cannot, i think, have altered the course of events. its effect is confined to the motives in your own breast. within ourselves our evil will is momentous, and sooner or later it works its way outside us--it may be in the vitiation that breeds evil acts, but also it may be in the self-abhorrence that stings us into better striving." "i am saved from robbing others--there are others--they will have everything--they will have what they ought to have. i knew that some time before i left town. you do not suspect me of wrong desires about those things?" she spoke hesitatingly. "i had not thought of them," said deronda; "i was thinking too much of the other things." "perhaps you don't quite know the beginning of it all," said gwendolen, slowly, as if she were overcoming her reluctance. "there was some one else he ought to have married. and i knew it, and i told her i would not hinder it. and i went away--that was when you first saw me. but then we became poor all at once, and i was very miserable, and i was tempted. i thought, 'i shall do as i like and make everything right.' i persuaded myself. and it was all different. it was all dreadful. then came hatred and wicked thoughts. that was how it all came. i told you i was afraid of myself. and i did what you told me--i did try to make my fear a safeguard. i thought of what would be if i--i felt what would come--how i should dread the morning--wishing it would be always night--and yet in the darkness always seeing something--seeing death. if you did not know how miserable i was, you might--but now it has all been no use. i can care for nothing but saving the rest from knowing--poor mamma, who has never been happy." there was silence again before she said with a repressed sob--"you cannot bear to look at me any more. you think i am too wicked. you do not believe that i can become any better--worth anything--worthy enough--i shall always be too wicked to--" the voice broke off helpless. deronda's heart was pierced. he turned his eyes on her poor beseeching face and said, "i believe that you may become worthier than you have ever yet been--worthy to lead a life that may be a blessing. no evil dooms us hopelessly except the evil we love, and desire to continue in, and make no effort to escape from. you _have_ made efforts--you will go on making them." "but you were the beginning of them. you must not forsake me," said gwendolen, leaning with her clasped hands on the arm of her chair and looking at him, while her face bore piteous traces of the life-experience concentrated in the twenty-four hours--that new terrible life lying on the other side of the deed which fulfills a criminal desire. "i will bear any penance. i will lead any life you tell me. but you must not forsake me. you must be near. if you had been near me--if i could have said everything to you, i should have been different. you will not forsake me?" "it could never be my impulse to forsake you," said deronda promptly, with that voice which, like his eyes, had the unintentional effect of making his ready sympathy seem more personal and special than it really was. and in that moment he was not himself quite free from a foreboding of some such self-committing effect. his strong feeling for this stricken creature could not hinder rushing images of future difficulty. he continued to meet her appealing eyes as he spoke, but it was with the painful consciousness that to her ear his words might carry a promise which one day would seem unfulfilled: he was making an indefinite promise to an indefinite hope. anxieties, both immediate and distant, crowded on his thought, and it was under their influence that, after a moment's silence, he said, "i expect sir hugo mallinger to arrive by to-morrow night at least; and i am not without hope that mrs. davilow may shortly follow him. her presence will be the greatest comfort to you--it will give you a motive to save her from unnecessary pain?" "yes, yes--i will try. and you will not go away?" "not till after sir hugo has come." "but we shall all go to england?" "as soon as possible," said deronda, not wishing to enter into particulars. gwendolen looked toward the window again with an expression which seemed like a gradual awakening to new thoughts. the twilight was perceptibly deepening, but deronda could see a movement in her eyes and hands such as accompanies a return of perception in one who has been stunned. "you will always be with sir hugo now!" she said presently, looking at him. "you will always live at the abbey--or else at diplow?" "i am quite uncertain where i shall live," said deronda, coloring. she was warned by his changed color that she had spoken too rashly, and fell silent. after a little while she began, again looking away, "it is impossible to think how my life will go on. i think now it would be better for me to be poor and obliged to work." "new promptings will come as the days pass. when you are among your friends again, you will discern new duties," said deronda. "make it a task now to get as well and calm--as much like yourself as you can, before--" he hesitated. "before my mother comes," said gwendolen. "ah! i must be changed. i have not looked at myself. should you have known me," she added, turning toward him, "if you had met me now?--should you have known me for the one you saw at leubronn?" "yes, i should have known you," said deronda, mournfully. "the outside change is not great. i should have seen at once that it was you, and that you had gone through some great sorrow." "don't wish now that you had never seen me; don't wish that," said gwendolen, imploringly, while the tears gathered. "i should despise myself for wishing it," said deronda. "how could i know what i was wishing? we must find our duties in what comes to us, not in what we imagine might have been. if i took to foolish wishing of that sort, i should wish--not that i had never seen you, but that i had been able to save you from this." "you have saved me from worse," said gwendolen, in a sobbing voice. "i should have been worse if it had not been for you. if you had not been good, i should have been more wicked than i am." "it will be better for me to go now," said deronda, worn in spirit by the perpetual strain of this scene. "remember what we said of your task--to get well and calm before other friends come." he rose as he spoke, and she gave him her hand submissively. but when he had left her she sank on her knees, in hysterical crying. the distance between them was too great. she was a banished soul--beholding a possible life which she had sinned herself away from. she was found in this way, crushed on the floor. such grief seemed natural in a poor lady whose husband had been drowned in her presence. book viii.--fruit and seed. chapter lviii. "much adoe there was, god wot; he wold love and she wold not." --nicholas breton. extension, we know, is a very imperfect measure of things; and the length of the sun's journeying can no more tell us how life has advanced than the acreage of a field can tell us what growths may be active within it. a man may go south, and, stumbling over a bone, may meditate upon it till he has found a new starting-point for anatomy; or eastward, and discover a new key to language telling a new story of races; or he may head an expedition that opens new continental pathways, get himself maimed in body, and go through a whole heroic poem of resolve and endurance; and at the end of a few months he may come back to find his neighbors grumbling at the same parish grievance as before, or to see the same elderly gentleman treading the pavement in discourse with himself, shaking his head after the same percussive butcher's boy, and pausing at the same shop-window to look at the same prints. if the swiftest thinking has about the pace of a greyhound, the slowest must be supposed to move, like the limpet, by an apparent sticking, which after a good while is discerned to be a slight progression. such differences are manifest in the variable intensity which we call human experience, from the revolutionary rush of change which makes a new inner and outer life, to that quiet recurrence of the familiar, which has no other epochs than those of hunger and the heavens. something of this contrast was seen in the year's experience which had turned the brilliant, self-confident gwendolen harleth of the archery meeting into the crushed penitent impelled to confess her unworthiness where it would have been her happiness to be held worthy; while it had left her family in pennicote without deeper change than that of some outward habits, and some adjustment of prospects and intentions to reduced income, fewer visits, and fainter compliments. the rectory was as pleasant a home as before: and the red and pink peonies on the lawn, the rows of hollyhocks by the hedges, had bloomed as well this year as last: the rector maintained his cheerful confidence in the good will of patrons and his resolution to deserve it by diligence in the fulfillment of his duties, whether patrons were likely to hear of it or not; doing nothing solely with an eye to promotion except, perhaps, the writing of two ecclesiastical articles, which having no signature, were attributed to some one else, except by the patrons who had a special copy sent them, and these certainly knew the author but did not read the articles. the rector, however, chewed no poisonous cud of suspicion on this point: he made marginal notes on his own copies to render them a more interesting loan, and was gratified that the archdeacon and other authorities had nothing to say against the general tenor of his argument. peaceful authorship!--living in the air of the fields and downs, and not in the thrice-breathed breath of criticism--bringing no dantesque leanness; rather, assisting nutrition by complacency, and perhaps giving a more suffusive sense of achievement than the production of a whole _divina commedia_. then there was the father's recovered delight in his favorite son, which was a happiness outweighing the loss of eighteen hundred a year. of whatever nature might be the hidden change wrought in rex by the disappointment of his first love, it was apparently quite secondary to that evidence of more serious ambition which dated from the family misfortune; indeed, mr. gascoigne was inclined to regard the little affair which had caused him so much anxiety the year before as an evaporation of superfluous moisture, a kind of finish to the baking process which the human dough demands. rex had lately come down for a summer visit to the rectory, bringing anna home, and while he showed nearly the old liveliness with his brothers and sisters, he continued in his holiday the habits of the eager student, rising early in the morning and shutting himself up early in the evenings to carry on a fixed course of study. "you don't repent the choice of the law as a profession, rex?" said his father. "there is no profession i would choose before it," said rex. "i should like to end my life as a first-rate judge, and help to draw up a code. i reverse the famous dictum. i should say, 'give me something to do with making the laws, and let who will make the songs.'" "you will have to stow in an immense amount of rubbish, i suppose--that's the worst of it," said the rector. "i don't see that law-rubbish is worse than any other sort. it is not so bad as the rubbishy literature that people choke their minds with. it doesn't make one so dull. our wittiest men have often been lawyers. any orderly way of looking at things as cases and evidence seems to me better than a perpetual wash of odds and ends bearing on nothing in particular. and then, from a higher point of view, the foundations and the growth of law make the most interesting aspects of philosophy and history. of course there will be a good deal that is troublesome, drudging, perhaps exasperating. but the great prizes in life can't be won easily--i see that." "well, my boy, the best augury of a man's success in his profession is that he thinks it the finest in the world. but i fancy it so with most work when a man goes into it with a will. brewitt, the blacksmith, said to me the other day that his 'prentice had no mind to his trade; 'and yet, sir,' said brewitt, 'what would a young fellow have if he doesn't like the blacksmithing?" the rector cherished a fatherly delight, which he allowed to escape him only in moderation. warham, who had gone to india, he had easily borne parting with, but rex was that romance of later life which a man sometimes finds in a son whom he recognizes as superior to himself, picturing a future eminence for him according to a variety of famous examples. it was only to his wife that he said with decision: "rex will be a distinguished man, nancy, i am sure of it--as sure as paley's father was about his son." "was paley an old bachelor?" said mrs. gascoigne. "that is hardly to the point, my dear," said the rector, who did not remember that irrelevant detail. and mrs. gascoigne felt that she had spoken rather weakly. this quiet trotting of time at the rectory was shared by the group who had exchanged the faded dignity of offendene for the low white house not a mile off, well enclosed with evergreens, and known to the villagers, as "jodson's." mrs. davilow's delicate face showed only a slight deepening of its mild melancholy, her hair only a few more silver lines, in consequence of the last year's trials; the four girls had bloomed out a little from being less in the shade; and the good jocosa preserved her serviceable neutrality toward the pleasures and glories of the world as things made for those who were not "in a situation." the low narrow drawing-room, enlarged by two quaint projecting windows, with lattices wide open on a july afternoon to the scent of monthly roses, the faint murmurs of the garden, and the occasional rare sound of hoofs and wheels seeming to clarify the succeeding silence, made rather a crowded, lively scene, rex and anna being added to the usual group of six. anna, always a favorite with her younger cousins, had much to tell of her new experience, and the acquaintances she had made in london, and when on her first visit she came alone, many questions were asked her about gwendolen's house in grosvenor square, what gwendolen herself had said, and what any one else had said about gwendolen. had anna been to see gwendolen after she had known about the yacht? no:--an answer which left speculation free concerning everything connected with that interesting unknown vessel beyond the fact that gwendolen had written just before she set out to say that mr. grandcourt and she were going yachting on the mediterranean, and again from marseilles to say that she was sure to like the yachting, the cabins were very elegant, and she would probably not send another letter till she had written quite a long diary filled with _dittos_. also, this movement of mr. and mrs. grandcourt had been mentioned in "the newspaper;" so that altogether this new phase of gwendolen's exalted life made a striking part of the sisters' romance, the book-devouring isabel throwing in a corsair or two to make an adventure that might end well. but when rex was present, the girls, according to instructions, never started this fascinating topic, and to-day there had only been animated descriptions of the meyricks and their extraordinary jewish friends, which caused some astonished questioning from minds to which the idea of live jews, out of a book, suggested a difference deep enough to be almost zoological, as of a strange race in pliny's natural history that might sleep under the shade of its own ears. bertha could not imagine what jews believed now; and she had a dim idea that they rejected the old testament since it proved the new; miss merry thought that mirah and her brother could "never have been properly argued with," and the amiable alice did not mind what the jews believed, she was sure she "couldn't bear them." mrs. davilow corrected her by saying that the great jewish families who were in society were quite what they ought to be both in london and paris, but admitted that the commoner unconverted jews were objectionable; and isabel asked whether mirah talked just as they did, or whether you might be with her and not find out that she was a jewess. rex, who had no partisanship with the israelites, having made a troublesome acquaintance with the minutiae of their ancient history in the form of "cram," was amusing himself by playfully exaggerating the notion of each speaker, while anna begged them all to understand that he was only joking, when the laughter was interrupted by the bringing in of a letter for mrs. davilow. a messenger had run with it in great haste from the rectory. it enclosed a telegram, and as mrs. davilow read and re-read it in silence and agitation, all eyes were turned on her with anxiety, but no one dared to speak. looking up at last and seeing the young faces "painted with fear," she remembered that they might be imagining something worse than the truth, something like her own first dread which made her unable to understand what was written, and she said, with a sob which was half relief, "my dears, mr. grandcourt--" she paused an instant, and then began again, "mr. grandcourt is drowned." rex started up as if a missile had been suddenly thrown into the room. he could not help himself, and anna's first look was at him. but then, gathering some self-command while mrs. davilow was reading what the rector had written on the enclosing paper, he said, "can i do anything, aunt? can i carry any word to my father from you?" "yes, dear. tell him i will be ready--he is very good. he says he will go with me to genoa--he will be here at half-past six. jocosa and alice, help me to get ready. she is safe--gwendolen is safe--but she must be ill. i am sure she must be very ill. rex, dear--rex and anna--go and and tell your father i will be quite ready. i would not for the world lose another night. and bless him for being ready so soon. i can travel night and day till we get there." rex and anna hurried away through the sunshine which was suddenly solemn to them, without uttering a word to each other: she chiefly possessed by solicitude about any reopening of his wound, he struggling with a tumultuary crowd of thoughts that were an offence against his better will. the tumult being undiminished when they were at the rectory gate, he said, "nannie, i will leave you to say everything to my father. if he wants me immediately, let me know. i shall stay in the shrubbery for ten minutes--only ten minutes." who has been quite free from egoistic escapes of the imagination, picturing desirable consequences on his own future in the presence of another's misfortune, sorrow, or death? the expected promotion or legacy is the common type of a temptation which makes speech and even prayer a severe avoidance of the most insistent thoughts, and sometimes raises an inward shame, a self-distaste that is worse than any other form of unpleasant companionship. in rex's nature the shame was immediate, and overspread like an ugly light all the hurrying images of what might come, which thrust themselves in with the idea that gwendolen was again free--overspread them, perhaps, the more persistently because every phantasm of a hope was quickly nullified by a more substantial obstacle. before the vision of "gwendolen free" rose the impassable vision of "gwendolen rich, exalted, courted;" and if in the former time, when both their lives were fresh, she had turned from his love with repugnance, what ground was there for supposing that her heart would be more open to him in the future? these thoughts, which he wanted to master and suspend, were like a tumultuary ringing of opposing chimes that he could not escape from by running. during the last year he had brought himself into a state of calm resolve, and now it seemed that three words had been enough to undo all that difficult work, and cast him back into the wretched fluctuations of a longing which he recognized as simply perturbing and hopeless. and at this moment the activity of such longing had an untimeliness that made it repulsive to his better self. excuse poor rex; it was not much more than eighteen months since he had been laid low by an archer who sometimes touches his arrow with a subtle, lingering poison. the disappointment of a youthful passion has effects as incalculable as those of small-pox which may make one person plain and a genius, another less plain and more foolish, another plain without detriment to his folly, and leave perhaps the majority without obvious change. everything depends--not on the mere fact of disappointment, but--on the nature affected and the force that stirs it. in rex's well-endowed nature, brief as the hope had been, the passionate stirring had gone deep, and the effect of disappointment was revolutionary, though fraught with a beneficent new order which retained most of the old virtues; in certain respects he believed that it had finally determined the bias and color of his life. now, however, it seemed that his inward peace was hardly more than that of republican florence, and his heart no better than the alarm-bell that made work slack and tumult busy. rex's love had been of that sudden, penetrating, clinging sort which the ancients knew and sung, and in singing made a fashion of talk for many moderns whose experience has by no means a fiery, demonic character. to have the consciousness suddenly steeped with another's personality, to have the strongest inclinations possessed by an image which retains its dominance in spite of change and apart from worthiness--nay, to feel a passion which clings faster for the tragic pangs inflicted by a cruel, reorganized unworthiness--is a phase of love which in the feeble and common-minded has a repulsive likeness to his blind animalism insensible to the higher sway of moral affinity or heaven-lit admiration. but when this attaching force is present in a nature not of brutish unmodifiableness, but of a human dignity that can risk itself safely, it may even result in a devotedness not unfit to be called divine in a higher sense than the ancient. phlegmatic rationality stares and shakes its head at these unaccountable prepossessions, but they exist as undeniably as the winds and waves, determining here a wreck and there a triumphant voyage. this sort of passion had nested in the sweet-natured, strong rex, and he had made up his mind to its companionship, as if it had been an object supremely dear, stricken dumb and helpless, and turning all the future of tenderness into a shadow of the past. but he had also made up his mind that his life was not to be pauperized because he had had to renounce one sort of joy; rather, he had begun life again with a new counting-up of the treasures that remained to him, and he had even felt a release of power such as may come from ceasing to be afraid of your own neck. and now, here he was pacing the shrubbery, angry with himself that the sense of irrevocableness in his lot, which ought in reason to have been as strong as ever, had been shaken by a change of circumstances that could make no change in relation to him. he told himself the truth quite roughly, "she would never love me; and that is not the question--i could never approach her as a lover in her present position. i am exactly of no consequence at all, and am not likely to be of much consequence till my head is turning gray. but what has that to do with it? she would not have me on any terms, and i would not ask her. it is a meanness to be thinking about it now--no better than lurking about the battle-field to strip the dead; but there never was more gratuitous sinning. i have nothing to gain there--absolutely nothing. then why can't i face the facts, and behave as they demand, instead of leaving my father to suppose that there are matters he can't speak to me about, though i might be useful in them?" the last thought made one wave with the impulse that sent rex walking firmly into the house and through the open door of the study, where he saw his father packing a traveling-desk. "can i be of any use, sir?" said rex, with rallied courage, as his father looked up at him. "yes, my boy; when i'm gone, just see to my letters, and answer where necessary, and send me word of everything. dymock will manage the parish very well, and you will stay with your mother, or, at least, go up and down again, till i come back, whenever that may be." "you will hardly be very long, sir, i suppose," said rex, beginning to strap a railway rug. "you will perhaps bring my cousin back to england?" he forced himself to speak of gwendolen for the first time, and the rector noticed the epoch with satisfaction. "that depends," he answered, taking the subject as a matter-of-course between them. "perhaps her mother may stay there with her, and i may come back very soon. this telegram leaves us in ignorance which is rather anxious. but no doubt the arrangements of the will lately made are satisfactory, and there may possibly be an heir yet to be born. in any case, i feel confident that gwendolen will be liberally--i should expect, splendidly--provided for." "it must have been a great shock for her," said rex, getting more resolute after the first twinge had been borne. "i suppose he was a devoted husband." "no doubt of it," said the rector, in his most decided manner. "few men of his position would have come forward as he did under the circumstances." rex had never seen grandcourt, had never been spoken to about him by any one of the family, and knew nothing of gwendolen's flight from her suitor to leubronn. he only knew that grandcourt, being very much in love with her, had made her an offer in the first weeks of her sudden poverty, and had behaved very handsomely in providing for her mother and sisters. that was all very natural and what rex himself would have liked to do. grandcourt had been a lucky fellow, and had had some happiness before he got drowned. yet rex wondered much whether gwendolen had been in love with the successful suitor, or had only forborne to tell him that she hated being made love to. chapter lix. "i count myself in nothing else so happy as in a soul remembering my good friends." --shakespeare. sir hugo mallinger was not so prompt in starting for genoa as mr. gascoigne had been, and deronda on all accounts would not take his departure until he had seen the baronet. there was not only grandcourt's death, but also the late crisis in his own life to make reasons why his oldest friend would desire to have the unrestrained communication of speech with him, for in writing he had not felt able to give any details concerning the mother who had come and gone like an apparition. it was not till the fifth evening that deronda, according to telegram, waited for sir hugo at the station, where he was to arrive between eight and nine; and while he was looking forward to the sight of the kind, familiar face, which was part of his earliest memories, something like a smile, in spite of his late tragic experience, might have been detected in his eyes and the curve of his lips at the idea of sir hugo's pleasure in being now master of his estates, able to leave them to his daughters, or at least--according to a view of inheritance which had just been strongly impressed on deronda's imagination--to take makeshift feminine offspring as intermediate to a satisfactory heir in a grandson. we should be churlish creatures if we could have no joy in our fellow-mortals' joy, unless it were in agreement with our theory of righteous distribution and our highest ideal of human good: what sour corners our mouths would get--our eyes, what frozen glances! and all the while our own possessions and desires would not exactly adjust themselves to our ideal. we must have some comradeship with imperfection; and it is, happily, possible to feel gratitude even where we discern a mistake that may have been injurious, the vehicle of the mistake being an affectionate intention prosecuted through a life-time of kindly offices. deronda's feeling and judgment were strongly against the action of sir hugo in making himself the agent of a falsity--yes, a falsity: he could give no milder name to the concealment under which he had been reared. but the baronet had probably had no clear knowledge concerning the mother's breach of trust, and with his light, easy way of taking life, had held it a reasonable preference in her that her son should be made an english gentleman, seeing that she had the eccentricity of not caring to part from her child, and be to him as if she were not. daniel's affectionate gratitude toward sir hugo made him wish to find grounds of excuse rather than blame; for it is as possible to be rigid in principle and tender in blame, as it is to suffer from the sight of things hung awry, and yet to be patient with the hanger who sees amiss. if sir hugo in his bachelorhood had been beguiled into regarding children chiefly as a product intended to make life more agreeable to the full-grown, whose convenience alone was to be consulted in the disposal of them--why, he had shared an assumption which, if not formally avowed, was massively acted on at that date of the world's history; and deronda, with all his keen memory of the painful inward struggle he had gone through in his boyhood, was able also to remember the many signs that his experience had been entirely shut out from sir hugo's conception. ignorant kindness may have the effect of cruelty; but to be angry with it as if it were direct cruelty would be an ignorant _un_kindness, the most remote from deronda's large imaginative lenience toward others. and perhaps now, after the searching scenes of the last ten days, in which the curtain had been lifted for him from the secrets of lives unlike his own, he was more than ever disposed to check that rashness of indignation or resentment which has an unpleasant likeness to the love of punishing. when he saw sir hugo's familiar figure descending from the railway carriage, the life-long affection which had been well accustomed to make excuses, flowed in and submerged all newer knowledge that might have seemed fresh ground for blame. "well, dan," said sir hugo, with a serious fervor, grasping deronda's hand. he uttered no other words of greeting; there was too strong a rush of mutual consciousness. the next thing was to give orders to the courier, and then to propose walking slowly in the mild evening, there being no hurry to get to the hotel. "i have taken my journey easily, and am in excellent condition," he said, as he and deronda came out under the starlight, which was still faint with the lingering sheen of day. "i didn't hurry in setting off, because i wanted to inquire into things a little, and so i got sight of your letter to lady mallinger before i started. but now, how is the widow?" "getting calmer," said deronda. "she seems to be escaping the bodily illness that one might have feared for her, after her plunge and terrible excitement. her uncle and mother came two days ago, and she is being well taken care of." "any prospect of an heir being born?" "from what mr. gascoigne said to me, i conclude not. he spoke as if it were a question whether the widow would have the estates for her life." "it will not be much of a wrench to her affections, i fancy, this loss of the husband?" said sir hugo, looking round at deronda. "the suddenness of the death has been a great blow to her," said deronda, quietly evading the question. "i wonder whether grandcourt gave her any notion what were the provisions of his will?" said sir hugo. "do you know what they are, sir?" parried deronda. "yes, i do," said the baronet, quickly. "gad! if there is no prospect of a legitimate heir, he has left everything to a boy he had by a mrs. glasher; you know nothing about the affair, i suppose, but she was a sort of wife to him for a good many years, and there are three older children--girls. the boy is to take his father's name; he is henleigh already, and he is to be henleigh mallinger grandcourt. the mallinger will be of no use to him, i am happy to say; but the young dog will have more than enough with his fourteen years' minority--no need to have had holes filled up with my fifty thousand for diplow that he had no right to: and meanwhile my beauty, the young widow, is to put up with a poor two thousand a year and the house at gadsmere--a nice kind of banishment for her if she chose to shut herself up there, which i don't think she will. the boy's mother has been living there of late years. i'm perfectly disgusted with grandcourt. i don't know that i'm obliged to think the better of him because he's drowned, though, so far as my affairs are concerned, nothing in his life became him like the leaving it." "in my opinion he did wrong when he married this wife--not in leaving his estates to the son," said deronda, rather dryly. "i say nothing against his leaving the land to the lad," said sir hugo; "but since he had married this girl he ought to have given her a handsome provision, such as she could live on in a style fitted to the rank he had raised her to. she ought to have had four or five thousand a year and the london house for her life; that's what i should have done for her. i suppose, as she was penniless, her friends couldn't stand out for a settlement, else it's ill trusting to the will a man may make after he's married. even a wise man generally lets some folly ooze out of him in his will--my father did, i know; and if a fellow has any spite or tyranny in him, he's likely to bottle off a good deal for keeping in that sort of document. it's quite clear grandcourt meant that his death should put an extinguisher on his wife, if she bore him no heir." "and, in the other case, i suppose everything would have been reversed--illegitimacy would have had the extinguisher?" said deronda, with some scorn. "precisely--gadsmere and the two thousand. it's queer. one nuisance is that grandcourt has made me an executor; but seeing he was the son of my only brother, i can't refuse to act. and i shall mind it less if i can be of any use to the widow. lush thinks she was not in ignorance about the family under the rose, and the purport of the will. he hints that there was no very good understanding between the couple. but i fancy you are the man who knew most about what mrs. grandcourt felt or did not feel--eh, dan?" sir hugo did not put this question with his usual jocoseness, but rather with a lowered tone of interested inquiry; and deronda felt that any evasion would be misinterpreted. he answered gravely, "she was certainly not happy. they were unsuited to each other. but as to the disposal of the property--from all i have seen of her, i should predict that she will be quite contented with it." "then she is not much like the rest of her sex; that's all i can say," said sir hugo, with a slight shrug. "however, she ought to be something extraordinary, for there must be an entanglement between your horoscope and hers--eh? when that tremendous telegram came, the first thing lady mallinger said was, 'how very strange that it should be daniel who sends it!' but i have had something of the same sort in my own life. i was once at a foreign hotel where a lady had been left by her husband without money. when i heard of it, and came forward to help her, who should she be but an early flame of mine, who had been fool enough to marry an austrian baron with a long mustache and short affection? but it was an affair of my own that called me there--nothing to do with knight-errantry, any more than you coming to genoa had to do with the grandcourts." there was silence for a little while. sir hugo had begun to talk of the grandcourts as the less difficult subject between himself and deronda; but they were both wishing to overcome a reluctance to perfect frankness on the events which touched their relation to each other. deronda felt that his letter, after the first interview with his mother, had been rather a thickening than a breaking of the ice, and that he ought to wait for the first opening to come from sir hugo. just when they were about to lose sight of the port, the baronet turned, and pausing as if to get a last view, said in a tone of more serious feeling--"and about the main business of your coming to genoa, dan? you have not been deeply pained by anything you have learned, i hope? there is nothing that you feel need change your position in any way? you know, whatever happens to you must always be of importance to me." "i desire to meet your goodness by perfect confidence, sir," said deronda. "but i can't answer those questions truly by a simple yes or no. much that i have heard about the past has pained me. and it has been a pain to meet and part with my mother in her suffering state, as i have been compelled to do. but it is no pain--it is rather a clearing up of doubts for which i am thankful, to know my parentage. as to the effect on my position, there will be no change in my gratitude to you, sir, for the fatherly care and affection you have always shown me. but to know that i was born a jew, may have a momentous influence on my life, which i am hardly able to tell you of at present." deronda spoke the last sentence with a resolve that overcame some diffidence. he felt that the differences between sir hugo's nature and his own would have, by-and-by, to disclose themselves more markedly than had ever yet been needful. the baronet gave him a quick glance, and turned to walk on. after a few moments' silence, in which he had reviewed all the material in his memory which would enable him to interpret deronda's words, he said, "i have long expected something remarkable from you, dan; but, for god's sake, don't go into any eccentricities! i can tolerate any man's difference of opinion, but let him tell it me without getting himself up as a lunatic. at this stage of the world, if a man wants to be taken seriously, he must keep clear of melodrama. don't misunderstand me. i am not suspecting you of setting up any lunacy on your own account. i only think you might easily be led arm in arm with a lunatic, especially if he wanted defending. you have a passion for people who are pelted, dan. i'm sorry for them too; but so far as company goes, it's a bad ground of selection. however, i don't ask you to anticipate your inclination in anything you have to tell me. when you make up your mind to a course that requires money, i have some sixteen thousand pounds that have been accumulating for you over and above what you have been having the interest of as income. and now i am come, i suppose you want to get back to england as soon as you can?" "i must go first to mainz to get away a chest of my grandfather's, and perhaps to see a friend of his," said deronda. "although the chest has been lying there these twenty years, i have an unreasonable sort of nervous eagerness to get it away under my care, as if it were more likely now than before that something might happen to it. and perhaps i am the more uneasy, because i lingered after my mother left, instead of setting out immediately. yet i can't regret that i was here--else mrs. grandcourt would have had none but servants to act for her." "yes, yes," said sir hugo, with a flippancy which was an escape of some vexation hidden under his more serious speech; "i hope you are not going to set a dead jew above a living christian." deronda colored, and repressed a retort. they were just turning into the _italia_. chapter lx. "but i shall say no more of this at this time; for this is to be felt and not to be talked of; and they who never touched it with their fingers may secretly perhaps laugh at it in their hearts and be never the wiser."--jeremy taylor. the roman emperor in the legend put to death ten learned israelites to avenge the sale of joseph by his brethren. and there have always been enough of his kidney, whose piety lies in punishing who can see the justice of grudges but not of gratitude. for you shall never convince the stronger feeling that it hath not the stronger reason, or incline him who hath no love to believe that there is good ground for loving. as we may learn from the order of word-making, wherein _love_ precedeth _lovable_. when deronda presented his letter at the banking-house in the _schuster strasse_ at mainz, and asked for joseph kalonymos, he was presently shown into an inner room, where, seated at a table arranging open letters, was the white-bearded man whom he had seen the year before in the synagogue at frankfort. he wore his hat--it seemed to be the same old felt hat as before--and near him was a packed portmanteau with a wrap and overcoat upon it. on seeing deronda enter he rose, but did not advance or put out his hand. looking at him with small penetrating eyes which glittered like black gems in the midst of his yellowish face and white hair, he said in german, "good! it is now you who seek me, young man." "yes; i seek you with gratitude, as a friend of my grandfather's," said deronda, "and i am under an obligation to you for giving yourself much trouble on my account." he spoke without difficulty in that liberal german tongue which takes many strange accents to its maternal bosom. kalonymos now put out his hand and said cordially, "so you are no longer angry at being something more than an englishman?" "on the contrary. i thank you heartily for helping to save me from remaining in ignorance of my parentage, and for taking care of the chest that my grandfather left in trust for me." "sit down, sit down," said kalonymos, in a quick undertone, seating himself again, and pointing to a chair near him. then deliberately laying aside his hat and showing a head thickly covered, with white hair, he stroked and clutched his beard while he looked examiningly at the young face before him. the moment wrought strongly on deronda's imaginative susceptibility: in the presence of one linked still in zealous friendship with the grandfather whose hope had yearned toward him when he was unborn, and who, though dead, was yet to speak with him in those written memorials which, says milton, "contain a potency of life in them to be as active as that soul whose progeny they are," he seemed to himself to be touching the electric chain of his own ancestry; and he bore the scrutinizing look of kalonymos with a delighted awe, something like what one feels in the solemn commemoration of acts done long ago but still telling markedly on the life of to-day. impossible for men of duller fibre--men whose affection is not ready to diffuse itself through the wide travel of imagination, to comprehend, perhaps even to credit this sensibility of deronda's; but it subsisted, like their own dullness, notwithstanding their lack of belief in it--and it gave his face an expression which seemed very satisfactory to the observer. he said in hebrew, quoting from one of the fine hymns in the hebrew liturgy, "as thy goodness has been great to the former generations, even so may it be to the latter." then after pausing a little he began, "young man, i rejoice that i was not yet set off again on my travels, and that you are come in time for me to see the image of my friend as he was in his youth--no longer perverted from the fellowship of your people--no longer shrinking in proud wrath from the touch of him who seemed to be claiming you as a jew. you come with thankfulness yourself to claim the kindred and heritage that wicked contrivance would have robbed you of. you come with a willing soul to declare, 'i am the grandson of daniel charisi.' is it not so?" "assuredly it is," said deronda. "but let me say that i should at no time have been inclined to treat a jew with incivility simply because he was a jew. you can understand that i shrank from saying to a stranger, 'i know nothing of my mother.'" "a sin, a sin!" said kalonymos, putting up his hand and closing his eyes in disgust. "a robbery of our people--as when our youths and maidens were reared for the roman edom. but it is frustrated. i have frustrated it. when daniel charisi--may his rock and his redeemer guard him!--when daniel charisi was a stripling and i was a lad little above his shoulder, we made a solemn vow always to be friends. he said, 'let us bind ourselves with duty, as if we were sons of the same mother.' that was his bent from first to last--as he said, to fortify his soul with bonds. it was a saying of his, 'let us bind love with duty; for duty is the love of law; and law is the nature of the eternal.' so we bound ourselves. and though we were much apart in our later life, the bond has never been broken. when he was dead, they sought to rob him; but they could not rob him of me. i rescued that remainder of him which he had prized and preserved for his offspring. and i have restored to him the offspring they had robbed him of. i will bring you the chest forthwith." kalonymos left the room for a few minutes, and returned with a clerk who carried the chest, set it down on the floor, drew off a leather cover, and went out again. it was not very large, but was made heavy by ornamental bracers and handles of gilt iron. the wood was beautifully incised with arabic lettering. "so!" said kalonymos, returning to his seat. "and here is the curious key," he added, taking it from a small leathern bag. "bestow it carefully. i trust you are methodic and wary." he gave deronda the monitory and slightly suspicious look with which age is apt to commit any object to the keeping of youth. "i shall be more careful of this than of any other property," said deronda, smiling and putting the key in his breast-pocket. "i never before possessed anything that was a sign to me of so much cherished hope and effort. and i shall never forget that the effort was partly yours. have you time to tell me more of my grandfather? or shall i be trespassing in staying longer?" "stay yet a while. in an hour and eighteen minutes i start for trieste," said kalonymos, looking at his watch, "and presently my sons will expect my attention. will you let me make you known to them, so that they may have the pleasure of showing hospitality to my friend's grandson? they dwell here in ease and luxury, though i choose to be a wanderer." "i shall be glad if you will commend me to their acquaintance for some future opportunity," said deronda. "there are pressing claims calling me to england--friends who may be much in need of my presence. i have been kept away from them too long by unexpected circumstances. but to know more of you and your family would be motive enough to bring me again to mainz." "good! me you will hardly find, for i am beyond my threescore years and ten, and i am a wanderer, carrying my shroud with me. but my sons and their children dwell here in wealth and unity. the days are changed for us since karl the great fetched my ancestors from italy to bring some tincture of knowledge to our rough german brethren. i and my contemporaries have had to fight for it too. our youth fell on evil days; but this we have won; we increase our wealth in safety, and the learning of all germany is fed and fattened by jewish brains--though they keep not always their jewish hearts. have you been left altogether ignorant of your people's life, young man?" "no," said deronda, "i have lately, before i had any true suspicion of my parentage, been led to study everything belonging to their history with more interest than any other subject. it turns out that i have been making myself ready to understand my grandfather a little." he was anxious less the time should be consumed before this circuitous course of talk could lead them back to the topic he most cared about. age does not easily distinguish between what it needs to express and what youth needs to know--distance seeming to level the objects of memory; and keenly active as joseph kalonymos showed himself, an inkstand in the wrong place would have hindered his imagination from getting to beyrout: he had been used to unite restless travel with punctilious observation. but deronda's last sentence answered its purpose. "so--you would perhaps have been such a man as he if your education had not hindered; for you are like him in features:--yet not altogether, young man. he had an iron will in his face: it braced up everybody about him. when he was quite young he had already got one deep upright line in his brow. i see none of that in you. daniel charisi used to say, 'better, a wrong will than a wavering; better a steadfast enemy than an uncertain friend; better a false belief than no belief at all.' what he despised most was indifference. he had longer reasons than i can give you." "yet his knowledge was not narrow?" said deronda, with a tacit reference to the usual excuse for indecision--that it comes from knowing too much. "narrow? no," said kalonymos, shaking his head with a compassionate smile "from his childhood upward, he drank in learning as easily as the plant sucks up water. but he early took to medicine and theories about life and health. he traveled to many countries, and spent much of his substance in seeing and knowing. what he used to insist on was that the strength and wealth of mankind depended on the balance of separateness and communication, and he was bitterly against our people losing themselves among the gentiles; 'it's no better,' said he, 'than the many sorts of grain going back from their variety into sameness.' he mingled all sorts of learning; and in that he was like our arabic writers in the golden time. we studied together, but he went beyond me. though we were bosom friends, and he poured himself out to me, we were as different as the inside and outside of the bowl. i stood up for two notions of my own: i took charisi's sayings as i took the shape of the trees: they were there, not to be disputed about. it came to the same thing in both of us; we were both faithful jews, thankful not to be gentiles. and since i was a ripe man, i have been what i am now, for all but age--loving to wander, loving transactions, loving to behold all things, and caring nothing about hardship. charisi thought continually of our people's future: he went with all his soul into that part of our religion: i, not. so we have freedom, i am content. our people wandered before they were driven. young man when i am in the east, i lie much on deck and watch the greater stars. the sight of them satisfies me. i know them as they rise, and hunger not to know more. charisi was satisfied with no sight, but pieced it out with what had been before and what would come after. yet we loved each other, and as he said, he bound our love with duty; we solemnly pledged ourselves to help and defend each other to the last. i have fulfilled my pledge." here kalonymos rose, and deronda, rising also, said, "and in being faithful to him you have caused justice to be done to me. it would have been a robbery of me too that i should never have known of the inheritance he had prepared for me. i thank you with my whole soul." "be worthy of him, young man. what is your vocation?" this question was put with a quick abruptness which embarrassed deronda, who did not feel it quite honest to allege his law-reading as a vocation. he answered, "i cannot say that i have any." "get one, get one. the jew must be diligent. you will call yourself a jew and profess the faith of your fathers?" said kalonymos, putting his hand on deronda's shoulder and looking sharply in his face. "i shall call myself a jew," said deronda, deliberately, becoming slightly paler under the piercing eyes of his questioner. "but i will not say that i shall profess to believe exactly as my fathers have believed. our fathers themselves changed the horizon of their belief and learned of other races. but i think i can maintain my grandfather's notion of separateness with communication. i hold that my first duty is to my own people, and if there is anything to be done toward restoring or perfecting their common life, i shall make that my vocation." it happened to deronda at that moment, as it has often happened to others, that the need for speech made an epoch in resolve. his respect for the questioner would not let him decline to answer, and by the necessity to answer he found out the truth for himself. "ah, you argue and you look forward--you are daniel charisi's grandson," said kalonymos, adding a benediction in hebrew. with that they parted; and almost as soon as deronda was in london, the aged man was again on shipboard, greeting the friendly stars without any eager curiosity. chapter lxi. "within the gentle heart love shelters him, as birds within the green shade of the grove. before the gentle heart, in nature's scheme, love was not, nor the gentle heart ere love." --guido guinicelli (_rossetti's translation_). there was another house besides the white house at pennicote, another breast besides rex gascoigne's, in which the news of grandcourt's death caused both strong agitation and the effort to repress it. it was hans meyrick's habit to send or bring in the _times_ for his mother's reading. she was a great reader of news, from the widest-reaching politics to the list of marriages; the latter, she said, giving her the pleasant sense of finishing the fashionable novels without having read them, and seeing the heroes and heroines happy without knowing what poor creatures they were. on a wednesday, there were reasons why hans always chose to bring the paper, and to do so about the time that mirah had nearly ended giving mab her weekly lesson, avowing that he came then because he wanted to hear mirah sing. but on the particular wednesday now in question, after entering the house as quietly as usual with his latch-key, he appeared in the parlor, shaking the _times_ aloft with a crackling noise, in remorseless interruption of mab's attempt to render _lascia ch'io pianga_ with a remote imitation of her teacher. piano and song ceased immediately; mirah, who had been playing the accompaniment, involuntarily started up and turned round, the crackling sound, after the occasional trick of sounds, having seemed to her something thunderous; and mab said, "o-o-o, hans! why do you bring a more horrible noise than my singing?" "what on earth is the wonderful news?" said mrs. meyrick, who was the only other person in the room. "anything about italy--anything about the austrians giving up venice?" "nothing about italy, but something from italy," said hans, with a peculiarity in his tone and manner which set his mother interpreting. imagine how some of us feel and behave when an event, not disagreeable seems to be confirming and carrying out our private constructions. we say, "what do you think?" in a pregnant tone to some innocent person who has not embarked his wisdom in the same boat with ours, and finds our information flat. "nothing bad?" said mrs. meyrick anxiously, thinking immediately of deronda; and mirah's heart had been already clutched by the same thought. "not bad for anybody we care much about," said hans, quickly; "rather uncommonly lucky, i think. i never knew anybody die conveniently before. considering what a dear gazelle i am, i am constantly wondering to find myself alive." "oh me, hans!" said mab, impatiently, "if you must talk of yourself, let it be behind your own back. what _is_ it that has happened?" "duke alfonso is drowned, and the duchess is alive, that's all," said hans, putting the paper before mrs. meyrick, with his finger against a paragraph. "but more than all is--deronda was at genoa in the same hotel with them, and he saw her brought in by the fishermen who had got her out of the water time enough to save her from any harm. it seems they saw her jump in after her husband, which was a less judicious action than i should have expected of the duchess. however deronda is a lucky fellow in being there to take care of her." mirah had sunk on the music stool again, with her eyelids down and her hands tightly clasped; and mrs. meyrick, giving up the paper to mab, said, "poor thing! she must have been fond of her husband to jump in after him." "it was an inadvertence--a little absence of mind," said hans, creasing his face roguishly, and throwing himself into a chair not far from mirah. "who can be fond of a jealous baritone, with freezing glances, always singing asides?--that was the husband's _rôle_, depend upon it. nothing can be neater than his getting drowned. the duchess is at liberty now to marry a man with a fine head of hair, and glances that will melt instead of freezing her. and i shall be invited to the wedding." here mirah started from her sitting posture, and fixing her eyes on hans, with an angry gleam in them, she said, in a deeply-shaken voice of indignation, "mr. hans, you ought not to speak in that way. mr. deronda would not like you to speak so. why will you say he is lucky--why will you use words of that sort about life and death--when what is life to one is death to another? how do you know it would be lucky if he loved mrs. grandcourt? it might be a great evil to him. she would take him away from my brother--i know she would. mr. deronda would not call that lucky to pierce my brother's heart." all three were struck with the sudden transformation. mirah's face, with a look of anger that might have suited ithuriel, pale, even to the lips that were usually so rich of tint, was not far from poor hans, who sat transfixed, blushing under it as if he had been a girl, while he said, nervously, "i am a fool and a brute, and i withdraw every word. i'll go and hang myself like judas--if it's allowable to mention him." even in hans's sorrowful moments, his improvised words had inevitably some drollery. but mirah's anger was not appeased: how could it be? she had burst into indignant speech as creatures in intense pain bite and make their teeth meet even through their own flesh, by way of making their agony bearable. she said no more, but, seating herself at the piano, pressed the sheet of music before her, as if she thought of beginning to play again. it was mab who spoke, while mrs. meyrick's face seemed to reflect some of hans' discomfort. "mirah is quite right to scold you, hans. you are always taking mr. deronda's name in vain. and it is horrible, joking in that way about his marrying mrs. grandcourt. men's minds must be very black, i think," ended mab, with much scorn. "quite true, my dear," said hans, in a low tone, rising and turning on his heel to walk toward the back window. "we had better go on, mab; you have not given your full time to the lesson," said mirah, in a higher tone than usual. "will you sing this again, or shall i sing it to you?" "oh, please sing it to me," said mab, rejoiced to take no more notice of what had happened. and mirah immediately sang _lascia ch'io pianga_, giving forth its melodious sobs and cries with new fullness and energy. hans paused in his walk and leaned against the mantel-piece, keeping his eyes carefully away from his mother's. when mirah had sung her last note and touched the last chord, she rose and said, "i must go home now. ezra expects me." she gave her hand silently to mrs. meyrick and hung back a little, not daring to look at her, instead of kissing her, as usual. but the little mother drew mirah's face down to hers, and said, soothingly, "god bless you, my dear." mirah felt that she had committed an offense against mrs. meyrick by angrily rebuking hans, and mixed with the rest of her suffering was the sense that she had shown something like a proud ingratitude, an unbecoming assertion of superiority. and her friend had divined this compunction. meanwhile hans had seized his wide-awake, and was ready to open the door. "now, hans," said mab, with what was really a sister's tenderness cunningly disguised, "you are not going to walk home with mirah. i am sure she would rather not. you are so dreadfully disagreeable to-day." "i shall go to take care of her, if she does not forbid me," said hans, opening the door. mirah said nothing, and when he had opened the outer door for her and closed it behind him, he walked by her side unforbidden. she had not the courage to begin speaking to him again--conscious that she had perhaps been unbecomingly severe in her words to him, yet finding only severer words behind them in her heart. besides, she was pressed upon by a crowd of thoughts thrusting themselves forward as interpreters of that consciousness which still remained unaltered to herself. hans, on his side, had a mind equally busy. mirah's anger had waked in him a new perception, and with it the unpleasant sense that he was a dolt not to have had it before. suppose mirah's heart were entirely preoccupied with deronda in another character than that of her own and her brother's benefactor; the supposition was attended in hans's mind with anxieties which, to do him justice, were not altogether selfish. he had a strong persuasion, which only direct evidence to the contrary could have dissipated, and that was that there was a serious attachment between deronda and mrs. grandcourt; he had pieced together many fragments of observation, and gradually gathered knowledge, completed by what his sisters had heard from anna gascoigne, which convinced him not only that mrs. grandcourt had a passion for deronda, but also, notwithstanding his friend's austere self-repression, that deronda's susceptibility about her was the sign of concealed love. some men, having such a conviction, would have avoided allusions that could have roused that susceptibility; but hans's talk naturally fluttered toward mischief, and he was given to a form of experiment on live animals which consisted in irritating his friends playfully. his experiments had ended in satisfying him that what he thought likely was true. on the other hand, any susceptibility deronda had manifested about a lover's attentions being shown to mirah, hans took to be sufficiently accounted for by the alleged reason, namely, her dependent position; for he credited his friend with all possible unselfish anxiety for those whom he could rescue and protect. and deronda's insistence that mirah would never marry one who was not a jew necessarily seemed to exclude himself, since hans shared the ordinary opinion, which he knew nothing to disturb, that deronda was the son of sir hugo mallinger. thus he felt himself in clearness about the state of deronda's affections; but now, the events which really struck him as concurring toward the desirable union with mrs. grandcourt, had called forth a flash of revelation from mirah--a betrayal of her passionate feeling on this subject which had made him melancholy on her account as well as his own--yet on the whole less melancholy than if he had imagined deronda's hopes fixed on her. it is not sublime, but it is common, for a man to see the beloved object unhappy because his rival loves another, with more fortitude and a milder jealousy than if he saw her entirely happy in his rival. at least it was so with the mercurial hans, who fluctuated between the contradictory states of feeling, wounded because mirah was wounded, and of being almost obliged to deronda for loving somebody else. it was impossible for him to give mirah any direct sign of the way in which he had understood her anger, yet he longed that his speechless companionship should be eloquent in a tender, penitent sympathy which is an admissible form of wooing a bruised heart. thus the two went side by side in a companionship that yet seemed an agitated communication, like that of two chords whose quick vibrations lie outside our hearing. but when they reached the door of mirah's home, and hans said "good-bye," putting out his hand with an appealing look of penitence, she met the look with melancholy gentleness, and said, "will you not come in and see my brother?" hans could not but interpret this invitation as a sign of pardon. he had not enough understanding of what mirah's nature had been wrought into by her early experience, to divine how the very strength of her late excitement had made it pass more quickly into the resolute acceptance of pain. when he had said, "if you will let me," and they went in together, half his grief was gone, and he was spinning a little romance of how his devotion might make him indispensable to mirah in proportion as deronda gave his devotion elsewhere. this was quite fair, since his friend was provided for according to his own heart; and on the question of judaism hans felt thoroughly fortified:--who ever heard in tale or history that a woman's love went in the track of her race and religion? moslem and jewish damsels were always attracted toward christians, and now if mirah's heart had gone forth too precipitately toward deronda, here was another case in point. hans was wont to make merry with his own arguments, to call himself a giaour, and antithesis the sole clue to events; but he believed a little in what he laughed at. and thus his bird-like hope, constructed on the lightest principles, soared again in spite of heavy circumstances. they found mordecai looking singularly happy, holding a closed letter in his hand, his eyes glowing with a quiet triumph which in his emaciated face gave the idea of a conquest over assailing death. after the greeting between him and hans, mirah put her arm round her brother's neck and looked down at the letter in his hand, without the courage to ask about it, though she felt sure that it was the cause of his happiness. "a letter from daniel deronda," said mordecai, answering her look. "brief--only saying that he hopes soon to return. unexpected claims have detained him. the promise of seeing him again is like the bow in the cloud to me," continued mordecai, looking at hans; "and to you it must be a gladness. for who has two friends like him?" while hans was answering mirah slipped away to her own room; but not to indulge in any outburst of the passion within her. if the angels, once supposed to watch the toilet of women, had entered the little chamber with her and let her shut the door behind them, they would only have seen her take off her hat, sit down and press her hands against her temples as if she had suddenly reflected that her head ached; then rise to dash cold water on her eyes and brow and hair till her backward curls were full of crystal beads, while she had dried her brow and looked out like a freshly-opened flower from among the dewy tresses of the woodland; then give deep sighs of relief, and putting on her little slippers, sit still after that action for a couple of minutes, which seemed to her so long, so full of things to come, that she rose with an air of recollection, and went down to make tea. something of the old life had returned. she had been used to remember that she must learn her part, must go to rehearsal, must act and sing in the evening, must hide her feelings from her father; and the more painful her life grew, the more she had been used to hide. the force of her nature had long found its chief action in resolute endurance, and to-day the violence of feeling which had caused the first jet of anger had quickly transformed itself into a steady facing of trouble, the well-known companion of her young years. but while she moved about and spoke as usual, a close observer might have discerned a difference between this apparent calm, which was the effect of restraining energy, and the sweet genuine calm of the months when she first felt a return of her infantine happiness. those who have been indulged by fortune and have always thought of calamity as what happens to others, feel a blind incredulous rage at the reversal of their lot, and half believe that their wild cries will alter the course of the storm. mirah felt no such surprise when familiar sorrow came back from brief absence, and sat down with her according to the old use and wont. and this habit of expecting trouble rather than joy, hindered her from having any persistent belief in opposition to the probabilities which were not merely suggested by hans, but were supported by her own private knowledge and long-growing presentiment. an attachment between deronda and mrs. grandcourt, to end in their future marriage, had the aspect of a certainty for her feeling. there had been no fault in him: facts had ordered themselves so that there was a tie between him and this woman who belonged to another world than hers and ezra's--nay, who seemed another sort of being than deronda, something foreign that would be a disturbance in his life instead of blending with it. well, well--but if it could have been deferred so as to make no difference while ezra was there! she did not know all the momentousness of the relation between deronda and her brother, but she had seen, and instinctively felt enough to forebode its being incongruous with any close tie to mrs. grandcourt; at least this was the clothing that mirah first gave to her mortal repugnance. but in the still, quick action of her consciousness, thoughts went on like changing states of sensation unbroken by her habitual acts; and this inward language soon said distinctly that the mortal repugnance would remain even if ezra were secured from loss. "what i have read about and sung about and seen acted, is happening to me--this that i am feeling is the love that makes jealousy;" so impartially mirah summed up the charge against herself. but what difference could this pain of hers make to any one else? it must remain as exclusively her own, and hidden, as her early yearning and devotion to her lost mother. but unlike that devotion, it was something that she felt to be a misfortune of her nature--a discovery that what should have been pure gratitude and reverence had sunk into selfish pain, that the feeling she had hitherto delighted to pour out in words was degraded into something she was ashamed to betray--an absurd longing that she who had received all and given nothing should be of importance where she was of no importance--an angry feeling toward another woman who possessed the good she wanted. but what notion, what vain reliance could it be that had lain darkly within her and was now burning itself into sight as disappointment and jealousy? it was as if her soul had been steeped in poisonous passion by forgotten dreams of deep sleep, and now flamed out in this unaccountable misery. for with her waking reason she had never entertained what seemed the wildly unfitting thought that deronda could love her. the uneasiness she had felt before had been comparatively vague and easily explained as part of a general regret that he was only a visitant in her and her brother's world, from which the world where his home lay was as different as a portico with lights and lacqueys was different from the door of a tent, where the only splendor came from the mysterious inaccessible stars. but her feeling was no longer vague: the cause of her pain--the image of mrs. grandcourt by deronda's side, drawing him farther and farther into the distance, was as definite as pincers on her flesh. in the psyche-mould of mirah's frame there rested a fervid quality of emotion, sometimes rashly supposed to require the bulk of a cleopatra; her impressions had the thoroughness and tenacity that give to the first selection of passionate feeling the character of a lifelong faithfulness. and now a selection had declared itself, which gave love a cruel heart of jealousy: she had been used to a strong repugnance toward certain objects that surrounded her, and to walk inwardly aloof from them while they touched her sense. and now her repugnance concentrated itself on mrs. grandcourt, of whom she involuntarily conceived more evil than she knew. "i could bear everything that used to be--but this is worse--this is worse,--i used not to have horrible feelings!" said the poor child in a loud whisper to her pillow. strange that she should have to pray against any feeling which concerned deronda! but this conclusion had been reached through an evening spent in attending to mordecai, whose exaltation of spirit in the prospect of seeing his friend again, disposed him to utter many thoughts aloud to mirah, though such communication was often interrupted by intervals apparently filled with an inward utterance that animated his eyes and gave an occasional silent action to his lips. one thought especially occupied him. "seest thou, mirah," he said once, after a long silence, "the _shemah_, wherein we briefly confess the divine unity, is the chief devotional exercise of the hebrew; and this made our religion the fundamental religion for the whole world; for the divine unity embraced as its consequence the ultimate unity of mankind. see, then--the nation which has been scoffed at for its separateness, has given a binding theory to the human race. now, in complete unity a part possesses the whole as the whole possesses every part: and in this way human life is tending toward the image of the supreme unity: for as our life becomes more spiritual by capacity of thought, and joy therein, possession tends to become more universal, being independent of gross material contact; so that in a brief day the soul of man may know in fuller volume the good which has been and is, nay, is to come, than all he could possess in a whole life where he had to follow the creeping paths of the senses. in this moment, my sister, i hold the joy of another's future within me: a future which these eyes will not see, and which my spirit may not then recognize as mine. i recognize it now, and love it so, that i can lay down this poor life upon its altar and say: 'burn, burn indiscernibly into that which shall be, which is my love and not me.' dost thou understand, mirah?" "a little," said mirah, faintly, "but my mind is too poor to have felt it." "and yet," said mordecai, rather insistently, "women are specially framed for the love which feels possession in renouncing, and is thus a fit image of what i mean. somewhere in the later _midrash_, i think, is the story of a jewish maiden who loved a gentile king so well, that this was what she did:--she entered into prison and changed clothes with the woman who was beloved by the king, that she might deliver that woman from death by dying in her stead, and leave the king to be happy in his love which was not for her. this is the surpassing love, that loses self in the object of love." "no, ezra, no," said mirah, with low-toned intensity, "that was not it. she wanted the king when she was dead to know what she had done, and feel that she was better than the other. it was her strong self, wanting to conquer, that made her die." mordecai was silent a little, and then argued, "that might be, mirah. but if she acted so, believing the king would never know." "you can make the story so in your mind, ezra, because you are great, and like to fancy the greatest that could be. but i think it was not really like that. the jewish girl must have had jealousy in her heart, and she wanted somehow to have the first place in the king's mind. that is what she would die for." "my sister, thou hast read too many plays, where the writers delight in showing the human passions as indwelling demons, unmixed with the relenting and devout elements of the soul. thou judgest by the plays, and not by thy own heart, which is like our mother's." mirah made no answer. chapter lxii. "das gluck ist eine leichte dirne, und weilt nicht gern am selben ort; sie streicht das haar dir von der stirne und kusst dich rasch und flattert fort frau ungluck hat im gegentheile dich liebefest an's herz gedruckt; sie sagt, sie habe keine eile, setzt sich zu dir an's bett und strickt." --heine. something which mirah had lately been watching for as the fulfilment of a threat, seemed now the continued visit of that familiar sorrow which had lately come back, bringing abundant luggage. turning out of knightsbridge, after singing at a charitable morning concert in a wealthy house, where she had been recommended by klesmer, and where there had been the usual groups outside to see the departing company, she began to feel herself dogged by footsteps that kept an even pace with her own. her concert dress being simple black, over which she had thrown a dust cloak, could not make her an object of unpleasant attention, and render walking an imprudence; but this reflection did not occur to mirah: another kind of alarm lay uppermost in her mind. she immediately thought of her father, and could no more look round than if she had felt herself tracked by a ghost. to turn and face him would be voluntarily to meet the rush of emotions which beforehand seemed intolerable. if it were her father he must mean to claim recognition, and he would oblige her to face him. she must wait for that compulsion. she walked on, not quickening her pace--of what use was that?--but picturing what was about to happen as if she had the full certainty that the man behind her was her father; and along with her picturing went a regret that she had given her word to mrs. meyrick not to use any concealment about him. the regret at last urged her, at least, to try and hinder any sudden betrayal that would cause her brother an unnecessary shock. under the pressure of this motive, she resolved to turn before she reached her own door, and firmly will the encounter instead of merely submitting to it. she had already reached the entrance of the small square where her home lay, and had made up her mind to turn, when she felt her embodied presentiment getting closer to her, then slipping to her side, grasping her wrist, and saying, with a persuasive curl of accent, "mirah!" she paused at once without any start; it was the voice she expected, and she was meeting the expected eyes. her face was as grave as if she had been looking at her executioner, while his was adjusted to the intention of soothing and propitiating her. once a handsome face, with bright color, it was now sallow and deep-lined, and had that peculiar impress of impudent suavity which comes from courting favor while accepting disrespect. he was lightly made and active, with something of youth about him which made the signs of age seem a disguise; and in reality he was hardly fifty-seven. his dress was shabby, as when she had seen him before. the presence of this unreverend father now, more than ever, affected mirah with the mingled anguish of shame and grief, repulsion and pity--more than ever, now that her own world was changed into one where there was no comradeship to fence him from scorn and contempt. slowly, with a sad, tremulous voice, she said, "it is you, father." "why did you run away from me, child?" he began with rapid speech which was meant to have a tone of tender remonstrance, accompanied with various quick gestures like an abbreviated finger-language. "what were you afraid of? you knew i never made you do anything against your will. it was for your sake i broke up your engagement in the vorstadt, because i saw it didn't suit you, and you repaid me by leaving me to the bad times that came in consequence. i had made an easier engagement for you at the vorstadt theater in dresden: i didn't tell you, because i wanted to take you by surprise. and you left me planted there--obliged to make myself scarce because i had broken contract. that was hard lines for me, after i had given up everything for the sake of getting you an education which was to be a fortune to you. what father devoted himself to his daughter more than i did to you? you know how i bore that disappointment in your voice, and made the best of it: and when i had nobody besides you, and was getting broken, as a man must who has had to fight his way with his brains--you chose that time to leave me. who else was it you owed everything to, if not to me? and where was your feeling in return? for what my daughter cared, i might have died in a ditch." lapidoth stopped short here, not from lack of invention, but because he had reached a pathetic climax, and gave a sudden sob, like a woman's, taking out hastily an old yellow silk handkerchief. he really felt that his daughter had treated him ill--a sort of sensibility which is naturally strong in unscrupulous persons, who put down what is owing to them, without any _per contra_. mirah, in spite of that sob, had energy enough not to let him suppose that he deceived her. she answered more firmly, though it was the first time she had ever used accusing words to him. "you know why i left you, father; and i had reason to distrust you, because i felt sure that you had deceived my mother. if i could have trusted you, i would have stayed with you and worked for you." "i never meant to deceive your mother, mirah," said lapidoth, putting back his handkerchief, but beginning with a voice that seemed to struggle against further sobbing. "i meant to take you back to her, but chances hindered me just at the time, and then there came information of her death. it was better for you that i should stay where i was, and your brother could take care of himself. nobody had any claim on me but you. i had word of your mother's death from a particular friend, who had undertaken to manage things for me, and i sent him over money to pay expenses. there's one chance to be sure--" lapidoth had quickly conceived that he must guard against something unlikely, yet possible--"he may have written me lies for the sake of getting the money out of me." mirah made no answer; she could not bear to utter the only true one--"i don't believe one word of what you say"--and she simply showed a wish that they should walk on, feeling that their standing still might draw down unpleasant notice. even as they walked along, their companionship might well have made a passer-by turn back to look at them. the figure of mirah, with her beauty set off by the quiet, careful dress of an english lady, made a strange pendant to this shabby, foreign-looking, eager, and gesticulating man, who withal had an ineffaceable jauntiness of air, perhaps due to the bushy curls of his grizzled hair, the smallness of his hands and feet, and his light walk. "you seem to have done well for yourself, mirah? _you_ are in no want, i see," said the father, looking at her with emphatic examination. "good friends who found me in distress have helped me to get work," said mirah, hardly knowing what she actually said, from being occupied with what she would presently have to say. "i give lessons. i have sung in private houses. i have just been singing at a private concert." she paused, and then added, with significance, "i have very good friends, who know all about me." "and you would be ashamed they should see your father in this plight? no wonder. i came to england with no prospect, but the chance of finding you. it was a mad quest; but a father's heart is superstitious--feels a loadstone drawing it somewhere or other. i might have done very well, staying abroad: when i hadn't you to take care of, i could have rolled or settled as easily as a ball; but it's hard being lonely in the world, when your spirit's beginning to break. and i thought my little mirah would repent leaving her father when she came to look back. i've had a sharp pinch to work my way; i don't know what i shall come down to next. talents like mine are no use in this country. when a man's getting out at elbows nobody will believe in him. i couldn't get any decent employ with my appearance. i've been obliged to get pretty low for a shilling already." mirah's anxiety was quick enough to imagine her father's sinking into a further degradation, which she was bound to hinder if she could. but before she could answer his string of inventive sentences, delivered with as much glibness as if they had been learned by rote, he added promptly, "where do you live, mirah?" "here, in this square. we are not far from the house." "in lodgings?" "yes." "any one to take care of you?" "yes," said mirah again, looking full at the keen face which was turned toward hers--"my brother." the father's eyelids fluttered as if the lightning had come across them, and there was a slight movement of the shoulders. but he said, after a just perceptible pause: "ezra? how did you know--how did you find him?" "that would take long to tell. here we are at the door. my brother would not wish me to close it on you." mirah was already on the doorstep, but had her face turned toward her father, who stood below her on the pavement. her heart had begun to beat faster with the prospect of what was coming in the presence of ezra; and already in this attitude of giving leave to the father whom she had been used to obey--in this sight of him standing below her, with a perceptible shrinking from the admission which he had been indirectly asking for, she had a pang of the peculiar, sympathetic humiliation and shame--the stabbed heart of reverence--which belongs to a nature intensely filial. "stay a minute, _liebchen_," said lapidoth, speaking in a lowered tone; "what sort of man has ezra turned out?" "a good man--a wonderful man," said mirah, with slow emphasis, trying to master the agitation which made her voice more tremulous as she went on. she felt urged to prepare her father for the complete penetration of himself which awaited him. "but he was very poor when my friends found him for me--a poor workman. once--twelve years ago--he was strong and happy, going to the east, which he loved to think of; and my mother called him back because--because she had lost me. and he went to her, and took care of her through great trouble, and worked for her till she died--died in grief. and ezra, too, had lost his health and strength. the cold had seized him coming back to my mother, because she was forsaken. for years he has been getting weaker--always poor, always working--but full of knowledge, and great-minded. all who come near him honor him. to stand before him is like standing before a prophet of god"--mirah ended with difficulty, her heart throbbing--"falsehoods are no use." she had cast down her eyes that she might not see her father while she spoke the last words--unable to bear the ignoble look of frustration that gathered in his face. but he was none the less quick in invention and decision. "mirah, _liebchen_," he said, in the old caressing way, "shouldn't you like me to make myself a little more respectable before my son sees me? if i had a little sum of money, i could fit myself out and come home to you as your father ought, and then i could offer myself for some decent place. with a good shirt and coat on my back, people would be glad enough to have me. i could offer myself for a courier, if i didn't look like a broken-down mountebank. i should like to be with my children, and forget and forgive. but you have never seen your father look like this before. if you had ten pounds at hand--or i could appoint you to bring it me somewhere--i could fit myself out by the day after to-morrow." mirah felt herself under a temptation which she must try to overcome. she answered, obliging herself to look at him again, "i don't like to deny you what you ask, father; but i have given a promise not to do things for you in secret. it _is_ hard to see you looking needy; but we will bear that for a little while; and then you can have new clothes, and we can pay for them." her practical sense made her see now what was mrs. meyrick's wisdom in exacting a promise from her. lapidoth's good humor gave way a little. he said, with a sneer, "you are a hard and fast young lady--you have been learning useful virtues--keeping promises not to help your father with a pound or two when you are getting money to dress yourself in silk--your father who made an idol of you, and gave up the best part of his life to providing for you." "it seems cruel--i know it seems cruel," said mirah, feeling this a worse moment than when she meant to drown herself. her lips were suddenly pale. "but, father, it is more cruel to break the promises people trust in. that broke my mother's heart--it has broken ezra's life. you and i must eat now this bitterness from what has been. bear it. bear to come in and be cared for as you are." "to-morrow, then," said lapidoth, almost turning on his heel away from this pale, trembling daughter, who seemed now to have got the inconvenient world to back her; but he quickly turned on it again, with his hands feeling about restlessly in his pockets, and said, with some return to his appealing tone, "i'm a little cut up with all this, mirah. i shall get up my spirits by to-morrow. if you've a little money in your pocket, i suppose it isn't against your promise to give me a trifle--to buy a cigar with." mirah could not ask herself another question--could not do anything else than put her cold trembling hands in her pocket for her _portemonnaie_ and hold it out. lapidoth grasped it at once, pressed her fingers the while, said, "good-bye, my little girl--to-morrow then!" and left her. he had not taken many steps before he looked carefully into all the folds of the purse, found two half-sovereigns and odd silver, and, pasted against the folding cover, a bit of paper on which ezra had inscribed, in a beautiful hebrew character, the name of his mother, the days of her birth, marriage, and death, and the prayer, "may mirah be delivered from evil." it was mirah's liking to have this little inscription on many articles that she used. the father read it, and had a quick vision of his marriage day, and the bright, unblamed young fellow he was at that time; teaching many things, but expecting by-and-by to get money more easily by writing; and very fond of his beautiful bride sara--crying when she expected him to cry, and reflecting every phase of her feeling with mimetic susceptibility. lapidoth had traveled a long way from that young self, and thought of all that this inscription signified with an unemotional memory, which was like the ocular perception of a touch to one who has lost the sense of touch, or like morsels on an untasting palate, having shape and grain, but no flavor. among the things we may gamble away in a lazy selfish life is the capacity for ruth, compunction, or any unselfish regret--which we may come to long for as one in slow death longs to feel laceration, rather than be conscious of a widening margin where consciousness once was. mirah's purse was a handsome one--a gift to her, which she had been unable to reflect about giving away--and lapidoth presently found himself outside of his reverie, considering what the purse would fetch in addition to the sum it contained, and what prospect there was of his being able to get more from his daughter without submitting to adopt a penitential form of life under the eyes of that formidable son. on such a subject his susceptibilities were still lively. meanwhile mirah had entered the house with her power of reticence overcome by the cruelty of her pain. she found her brother quietly reading and sifting old manuscripts of his own, which he meant to consign to deronda. in the reaction from the long effort to master herself, she fell down before him and clasped his knees, sobbing, and crying, "ezra, ezra!" he did not speak. his alarm for her spending itself on conceiving the cause of her distress, the more striking from the novelty in her of this violent manifestation. but mirah's own longing was to be able to speak and tell him the cause. presently she raised her hand, and still sobbing, said brokenly, "ezra, my father! our father! he followed me. i wanted him to come in. i said you would let him come in. and he said no, he would not--not now, but to-morrow. and he begged for money from me. and i gave him my purse, and he went away." mirah's words seemed to herself to express all the misery she felt in them. her brother found them less grievous than his preconceptions, and said gently, "wait for calm, mirah, and then tell me all,"--putting off her hat and laying his hands tenderly on her head. she felt the soothing influence, and in a few minutes told him as exactly as she could all that had happened. "he will not come to-morrow," said mordecai. neither of them said to the other what they both thought, namely, that he might watch for mirah's outgoings and beg from her again. "seest thou," he presently added, "our lot is the lot of israel. the grief and the glory are mingled as the smoke and the flame. it is because we children have inherited the good that we feel the evil. these things are wedded for us, as our father was wedded to our mother." the surroundings were of brompton, but the voice might have come from a rabbi transmitting the sentences of an elder time to be registered in _babli_--by which (to our ears) affectionate-sounding diminutive is meant the voluminous babylonian talmud. "the omnipresent," said a rabbi, "is occupied in making marriages." the levity of the saying lies in the ear of him who hears it; for by marriages the speaker meant all the wondrous combinations of the universe whose issue makes our good and evil. chapter lxiii. "moses, trotz seiner befeindung der kunst, dennoch selber ein großer künstler war und den wahren künstlergeist besaß. nur war dieser künstlergeist bei ihm, wie bei seinen ägyptischen landsleuten, nur auf das kolossale und unverwüstliche gerichtet. aber nicht wie die Ägypter formierte er seine kunstwerke aus backstein und gra- nit, sondern er baute menschenpyramiden, er meisselte menschenobelisken, er nahm einen armen hirten- stamm und schuf daraus ein volk, das ebenfalls den jahrhunderten trotzen sollte . . .er schuf israel!" --heine: _gestandnisse_. imagine the difference in deronda's state of mind when he left england and when he returned to it. he had set out for genoa in total uncertainty how far the actual bent of his wishes and affections would be encouraged--how far the claims revealed to him might draw him into new paths, far away from the tracks his thoughts had lately been pursuing with a consent of desire which uncertainty made dangerous. he came back with something like a discovered charter warranting the inherited right that his ambition had begun to yearn for: he came back with what was better than freedom--with a duteous bond which his experience had been preparing him to accept gladly, even if it had been attended with no promise of satisfying a secret passionate longing never yet allowed to grow into a hope. but now he dared avow to himself the hidden selection of his love. since the hour when he left the house at chelsea in full-hearted silence under the effect of mirah's farewell look and words--their exquisite appealingness stirring in him that deep-laid care for womanhood which had begun when his own lip was like a girl's--her hold on his feeling had helped him to be blameless in word and deed under the difficult circumstances we know of. there seemed no likelihood that he could ever woo this creature who had become dear to him amidst associations that forbade wooing; yet she had taken her place in his soul as a beloved type--reducing the power of other fascination and making a difference in it that became deficiency. the influence had been continually strengthened. it had lain in the course of poor gwendolen's lot that her dependence on deronda tended to rouse in him the enthusiasm of self-martyring pity rather than of personal love, and his less constrained tenderness flowed with the fuller stream toward an indwelling image in all things unlike gwendolen. still more, his relation to mordecai had brought with it a new nearness to mirah which was not the less agitating because there was no apparent change in his position toward her; and she had inevitably been bound up in all the thoughts that made him shrink from an issue disappointing to her brother. this process had not gone on unconsciously in deronda: he was conscious of it as we are of some covetousness that it would be better to nullify by encouraging other thoughts than to give it the insistency of confession even to ourselves: but the jealous fire had leaped out at hans's pretensions, and when his mother accused him of being in love with a jewess any evasion suddenly seemed an infidelity. his mother had compelled him to a decisive acknowledgment of his love, as joseph kalonymos had compelled him to a definite expression of his resolve. this new state of decision wrought on deronda with a force which surprised even himself. there was a release of all the energy which had long been spent in self-checking and suppression because of doubtful conditions; and he was ready to laugh at his own impetuosity when, as he neared england on his way from mainz, he felt the remaining distance more and more of an obstruction. it was as if he had found an added soul in finding his ancestry--his judgment no longer wandering in the mazes of impartial sympathy, but choosing, with that partiality which is man's best strength, the closer fellowship that makes sympathy practical--exchanging that bird's eye reasonableness which soars to avoid preference and loses all sense of quality for the generous reasonableness of drawing shoulder to shoulder with men of like inheritance. he wanted now to be again with mordecai, to pour forth instead of restraining his feeling, to admit agreement and maintain dissent, and all the while to find mirah's presence without the embarrassment of obviously seeking it, to see her in the light of a new possibility, to interpret her looks and words from a new starting-point. he was not greatly alarmed about the effect of hans's attentions, but he had a presentiment that her feeling toward himself had from the first lain in a channel from which it was not likely to be diverted into love. to astonish a woman by turning into her lover when she has been thinking of you merely as a lord chancellor is what a man naturally shrinks from: he is anxious to create an easier transition. what wonder that deronda saw no other course than to go straight from the london railway station to the lodgings in that small square in brompton? every argument was in favor of his losing no time. he had promised to run down the next day to see lady mallinger at the abbey, and it was already sunset. he wished to deposit the precious chest with mordecai, who would study its contents, both in his absence and in company with him; and that he should pay this visit without pause would gratify mordecai's heart. hence, and for other reasons, it gratified deronda's heart. the strongest tendencies of his nature were rushing in one current--the fervent affectionateness which made him delight in meeting the wish of beings near to him, and the imaginative need of some far-reaching relation to make the horizon of his immediate, daily acts. it has to be admitted that in this classical, romantic, world-historic position of his, bringing as it were from its hiding-place his hereditary armor, he wore--but so, one must suppose, did the most ancient heroes, whether semitic or japhetic--the summer costume of his contemporaries. he did not reflect that the drab tints were becoming to him, for he rarely went to the expense of such thinking; but his own depth of coloring, which made the becomingness, got an added radiance in the eyes, a fleeting and returning glow in the skin, as he entered the house wondering what exactly he should find. he made his entrance as noiseless as possible. it was the evening of that same afternoon on which mirah had had the interview with her father. mordecai, penetrated by her grief, and also the sad memories which the incident had awakened, had not resumed his task of sifting papers: some of them had fallen scattered on the floor in the first moments of anxiety, and neither he nor mirah had thought of laying them in order again. they had sat perfectly still together, not knowing how long; while the clock ticked on the mantelpiece, and the light was fading, mirah, unable to think of the food that she ought to have been taking, had not moved since she had thrown off her dust-cloak and sat down beside mordecai with her hand in his, while he had laid his head backward, with closed eyes and difficult breathing, looking, mirah thought, as he would look when the soul within him could no longer live in its straitened home. the thought that his death might be near was continually visiting her when she saw his face in this way, without its vivid animation; and now, to the rest of her grief, was added the regret that she had been unable to control the violent outburst which had shaken him. she sat watching him--her oval cheeks pallid, her eyes with the sorrowful brilliancy left by young tears, her curls in as much disorder as a just-awakened child's--watching that emaciated face, where it might have been imagined that a veil had been drawn never to be lifted, as if it were her dead joy which had left her strong enough to live on in sorrow. and life at that moment stretched before mirah with more than a repetition of former sadness. the shadow of the father was there, and more than that, a double bereavement--of one living as well as one dead. but now the door was opened, and while none entered, a well-known voice said: "daniel deronda--may he come in?" "come! come!" said mordecai, immediately rising with an irradiated face and opened eyes--apparently as little surprised as if he had seen deronda in the morning, and expected this evening visit; while mirah started up blushing with confused, half-alarmed expectation. yet when deronda entered, the sight of him was like the clearness after rain: no clouds to come could hinder the cherishing beam of that moment. as he held out his right hand to mirah, who was close to her brother's left, he laid his other hand on mordecai's right shoulder, and stood so a moment, holding them both at once, uttering no word, but reading their faces, till he said anxiously to mirah, "has anything happened?--any trouble?" "talk not of trouble now," said mordecai, saving her from the need to answer. "there is joy in your face--let the joy be ours." mirah thought, "it is for something he cannot tell us." but they all sat down, deronda drawing a chair close in front of mordecai. "that is true," he said, emphatically. "i have a joy which will remain to us even in the worst trouble. i did not tell you the reason of my journey abroad, mordecai, because--never mind--i went to learn my parentage. and you were right. i am a jew." the two men clasped hands with a movement that seemed part of the flash from mordecai's eyes, and passed through mirah like an electric shock. but deronda went on without pause, speaking from mordecai's mind as much as from his own, "we have the same people. our souls have the same vocation. we shall not be separated by life or by death." mordecai's answer was uttered in hebrew, and in no more than a loud whisper. it was in the liturgical words which express the religious bond: "our god and the god of our fathers." the weight of feeling pressed too strongly on that ready-winged speech which usually moved in quick adaptation to every stirring of his fervor. mirah fell on her knees by her brother's side, and looked at his now illuminated face, which had just before been so deathly. the action was an inevitable outlet of the violent reversal from despondency to a gladness which came over her as solemnly as if she had been beholding a religious rite. for the moment she thought of the effect on her own life only through the effect on her brother. "and it is not only that i am a jew," deronda went on, enjoying one of those rare moments when our yearnings and our acts can be completely one, and the real we behold is our ideal good; "but i come of a strain that has ardently maintained the fellowship of our race--a line of spanish jews that has borne many students and men of practical power. and i possess what will give us a sort of communion with them. my grandfather, daniel charisi, preserved manuscripts, family records stretching far back, in the hope that they would pass into the hands of his grandson. and now his hope is fulfilled, in spite of attempts to thwart it by hiding my parentage from me. i possess the chest containing them, with his own papers, and it is down below in this house. i mean to leave it with you, mordecai, that you may help me to study the manuscripts. some of them i can read easily enough--those in spanish and italian. others are in hebrew, and, i think, arabic; but there seem to be latin translations. i was only able to look at them cursorily while i stayed at mainz. we will study them together." deronda ended with that bright smile which, beaming out from the habitual gravity of his face, seemed a revelation (the reverse of the continual smile that discredits all expression). but when this happy glance passed from mordecai to rest on mirah, it acted like a little too much sunshine, and made her change her attitude. she had knelt under an impulse with which any personal embarrassment was incongruous, and especially any thoughts about how mrs. grandcourt might stand to this new aspect of things--thoughts which made her color under deronda's glance, and rise to take her seat again in her usual posture of crossed hands and feet, with the effort to look as quiet as possible. deronda, equally sensitive, imagined that the feeling of which he was conscious, had entered too much into his eyes, and had been repugnant to her. he was ready enough to believe that any unexpected manifestation might spoil her feeling toward him--and then his precious relation to brother and sister would be marred. if mirah could have no love for him, any advances of love on his part would make her wretched in that continual contact with him which would remain inevitable. while such feelings were pulsating quickly in deronda and mirah, mordecai, seeing nothing in his friend's presence and words but a blessed fulfillment, was already speaking with his old sense of enlargement in utterance, "daniel, from the first, i have said to you, we know not all the pathways. has there not been a meeting among them, as of the operations in one soul, where an idea being born and breathing draws the elements toward it, and is fed and glows? for all things are bound together in that omnipresence which is the place and habitation of the world, and events are of a glass wherethrough our eyes see some of the pathways. and if it seems that the erring and unloving wills of men have helped to prepare you, as moses was prepared, to serve your people the better, that depends on another order than the law which must guide our footsteps. for the evil will of man makes not a people's good except by stirring the righteous will of man; and beneath all the clouds with which our thought encompasses the eternal, this is clear--that a people can be blessed only by having counsellors and a multitude whose will moves in obedience to the laws of justice and love. for see, now, it was your loving will that made a chief pathway, and resisted the effect of evil; for, by performing the duties of brotherhood to my sister, and seeking out her brother in the flesh, your soul has been prepared to receive with gladness this message of the eternal, 'behold the multitude of your brethren.'" "it is quite true that you and mirah have been my teachers," said deronda. "if this revelation had been made to me before i knew you both, i think my mind would have rebelled against it. perhaps i should have felt then--'if i could have chosen, i would not have been a jew.' what i feel now is--that my whole being is a consent to the fact. but it has been the gradual accord between your mind and mine which has brought about that full consent." at the moment deronda was speaking, that first evening in the book-shop was vividly in his remembrance, with all the struggling aloofness he had then felt from mordecai's prophetic confidence. it was his nature to delight in satisfying to the utmost the eagerly-expectant soul, which seemed to be looking out from the face before him, like the long-enduring watcher who at last sees the mountain signal-flame; and he went on with fuller fervor, "it is through your inspiration that i have discerned what may be my life's task. it is you who have given shape to what, i believe, was an inherited yearning--the effect of brooding, passionate thoughts in many ancestors--thoughts that seem to have been intensely present in my grandfather. suppose the stolen offspring of some mountain tribe brought up in a city of the plain, or one with an inherited genius for painting, and born blind--the ancestral life would lie within them as a dim longing for unknown objects and sensations, and the spell-bound habit of their inherited frames would be like a cunningly-wrought musical instrument, never played on, but quivering throughout in uneasy mysterious meanings of its intricate structure that, under the right touch, gives music. something like that, i think, has been my experience. since i began to read and know, i have always longed for some ideal task, in which i might feel myself the heart and brain of a multitude--some social captainship, which would come to me as a duty, and not be striven for as a personal prize. you have raised the image of such a task for me--to bind our race together in spite of heresy. you have said to me--'our religion united us before it divided us--it made us a people before it made rabbanites and karaites.' i mean to try what can be done with that union--i mean to work in your spirit. failure will not be ignoble, but it would be ignoble for me not to try." "even as my brother that fed at the breasts of my mother," said mordecai, falling back in his chair with a look of exultant repose, as after some finished labor. to estimate the effect of this ardent outpouring from deronda we must remember his former reserve, his careful avoidance of premature assent or delusive encouragement, which gave to this decided pledge of himself a sacramental solemnity, both for his own mind and mordecai's. on mirah the effect was equally strong, though with a difference: she felt a surprise which had no place in her brother's mind, at deronda's suddenly revealed sense of nearness to them: there seemed to be a breaking of day around her which might show her other facts unlike her forebodings in the darkness. but after a moment's silence mordecai spoke again, "it has begun already--the marriage of our souls. it waits but the passing away of this body, and then they who are betrothed shall unite in a stricter bond, and what is mine shall be thine. call nothing mine that i have written, daniel; for though our masters delivered rightly that everything should be quoted in the name of him that said it--and their rule is good--yet it does not exclude the willing marriage which melts soul into soul, and makes thought fuller as the clear waters are made fuller, where the fullness is inseparable and the clearness is inseparable. for i have judged what i have written, and i desire the body that i gave my thought to pass away as this fleshly body will pass; but let the thought be born again from our fuller soul which shall be called yours." "you must not ask me to promise that," said deronda, smiling. "i must be convinced first of special reasons for it in the writings themselves. and i am too backward a pupil yet. that blent transmission must go on without any choice of ours; but what we can't hinder must not make our rule for what we ought to choose. i think our duty is faithful tradition where we can attain it. and so you would insist for any one but yourself. don't ask me to deny my spiritual parentage, when i am finding the clue of my life in the recognition of natural parentage." "i will ask for no promise till you see the reason," said mordecai. "you have said the truth: i would obey the master's rule for another. but for years my hope, nay, my confidence, has been, not that the imperfect image of my thought, which is an ill-shaped work of the youthful carver who has seen a heavenly pattern, and trembles in imitating the vision--not that this should live, but that my vision and passion should enter into yours--yea, into yours; for he whom i longed for afar, was he not you whom i discerned as mine when you came near? nevertheless, you shall judge. for my soul is satisfied." mordecai paused, and then began in a changed tone, reverting to previous suggestions from deronda's disclosure: "what moved your parents----?" but he immediately checked himself, and added, "nay, i ask not that you should tell me aught concerning others, unless it is your pleasure." "some time--gradually--you will know all," said deronda. "but now tell me more about yourselves, and how the time has passed since i went away. i am sure there has been some trouble. mirah has been in distress about something." he looked at mirah, but she immediately turned to her brother, appealing to him to give the difficult answer. she hoped he would not think it necessary to tell deronda the facts about her father on such an evening as this. just when deronda had brought himself so near, and identified himself with her brother, it was cutting to her that he should hear of this disgrace clinging about them, which seemed to have become partly his. to relieve herself she rose to take up her hat and cloak, thinking she would go to her own room: perhaps they would speak more easily when she had left them. but meanwhile mordecai said, "to-day there has been a grief. a duty which seemed to have gone far into the distance, has come back and turned its face upon us, and raised no gladness--has raised a dread that we must submit to. but for the moment we are delivered from any visible yoke. let us defer speaking of it as if this evening which is deepening about us were the beginning of the festival in which we must offer the first fruits of our joy, and mingle no mourning with them." deronda divined the hinted grief, and left it in silence, rising as he saw mirah rise, and saying to her, "are you going? i must leave almost immediately--when i and mrs. adam have mounted the precious chest, and i have delivered the key to mordecai--no, ezra,--may i call him ezra now? i have learned to think of him as ezra since i have heard you call him so." "please call him ezra," said mirah, faintly, feeling a new timidity under deronda's glance and near presence. was there really something different about him, or was the difference only in her feeling? the strangely various emotions of the last few hours had exhausted her; she was faint with fatigue and want of food. deronda, observing her pallor and tremulousness, longed to show more feeling, but dared not. she put out her hand with an effort to smile, and then he opened the door for her. that was all. a man of refined pride shrinks from making a lover's approaches to a woman whose wealth or rank might make them appear presumptuous or low-motived; but deronda was finding a more delicate difficulty in a position which, superficially taken, was the reverse of that--though to an ardent reverential love, the loved woman has always a kind of wealth and rank which makes a man keenly susceptible about the aspect of his addresses. deronda's difficulty was what any generous man might have felt in some degree; but it affected him peculiarly through his imaginative sympathy with a mind in which gratitude was strong. mirah, he knew, felt herself bound to him by deep obligations, which to her sensibilities might give every wish of his the aspect of a claim; and an inability to fulfill it would cause her a pain continually revived by their inevitable communion in care of ezra. here were fears not of pride only, but of extreme tenderness. altogether, to have the character of a benefactor seemed to deronda's anxiety an insurmountable obstacle to confessing himself a lover, unless in some inconceivable way it could be revealed to him that mirah's heart had accepted him beforehand. and the agitation on his own account, too, was not small. even a man who has practised himself in love-making till his own glibness has rendered him sceptical, may at last be overtaken by the lover's awe--may tremble, stammer, and show other signs of recovered sensibility no more in the range of his acquired talents than pins and needles after numbness: how much more may that energetic timidity possess a man whose inward history has cherished his susceptibilities instead of dulling them, and has kept all the language of passion fresh and rooted as the lovely leafage about the hill-side spring! as for mirah her dear head lay on its pillow that night with its former suspicions thrown out of shape but still present, like an ugly story which had been discredited but not therefore dissipated. all that she was certain of about deronda seemed to prove that he had no such fetters upon him as she had been allowing herself to believe in. his whole manner as well as his words implied that there were no hidden bonds remaining to have any effect in determining his future. but notwithstanding this plainly reasonable inference, uneasiness still clung about mirah's heart. deronda was not to blame, but he had an importance for mrs. grandcourt which must give her some hold on him. and the thought of any close confidence between them stirred the little biting snake that had long lain curled and harmless in mirah's gentle bosom. but did she this evening feel as completely as before that her jealousy was no less remote from any possibility for herself personally than if her human soul had been lodged in the body of a fawn that deronda had saved from the archers? hardly. something indefinable had happened and made a difference. the soft warm rain of blossoms which had fallen just where she was--did it really come because she was there? what spirit was there among the boughs? chapter lxiv. "questa montagna e tale, che sempre al cominciar di sotto a grave. e quanto uom piu va su e men fa male." --dante: _il purgatorio_. it was not many days after her mother's arrival that gwendolen would consent to remain at genoa. her desire to get away from that gem of the sea, helped to rally her strength and courage. for what place, though it were the flowery vale of enna, may not the inward sense turn into a circle of punishment where the flowers are no better than a crop of flame-tongues burning the soles of our feet? "i shall never like to see the mediterranean again," said gwendolen, to her mother, who thought that she quite understood her child's feeling--even in her tacit prohibition of any express reference to her late husband. mrs. davilow, indeed, though compelled formally to regard this time as one of severe calamity, was virtually enjoying her life more than she had ever done since her daughter's marriage. it seemed that her darling was brought back to her not merely with all the old affection, but with a conscious cherishing of her mother's nearness, such as we give to a possession that we have been on the brink of losing. "are you there, mamma?" cried gwendolen, in the middle of the night (a bed had been made for her mother in the same room with hers), very much as she would have done in her early girlhood, if she had felt frightened in lying awake. "yes, dear; can i do anything for you?" "no, thank you; only i like so to know you are there. do you mind my waking you?" (this question would hardly have been gwendolen's in her early girlhood.) "i was not asleep, darling." "it seemed not real that you were with me. i wanted to make it real. i can bear things if you are with me. but you must not lie awake, anxious about me. you must be happy now. you must let me make you happy now at last--else what shall i do?" "god bless you, dear; i have the best happiness i can have, when you make much of me." but the next night, hearing that she was sighing and restless mrs. davilow said, "let me give you your sleeping-draught, gwendolen." "no, mamma, thank you; i don't want to sleep." "it would be so good for you to sleep more, my darling." "don't say what would be good for me, mamma," gwendolen answered, impetuously. "you don't know what would be good for me. you and my uncle must not contradict me and tell me anything is good for me when i feel it is not good." mrs. davilow was silent, not wondering that the poor child was irritable. presently gwendolen said, "i was always naughty to you, mamma." "no, dear, no." "yes, i was," said gwendolen insistently. "it is because i was always wicked that i am miserable now." she burst into sobs and cries. the determination to be silent about all the facts of her married life and its close, reacted in these escapes of enigmatic excitement. but dim lights of interpretation were breaking on the mother's mind through the information that came from sir hugo to mr. gascoigne, and, with some omissions, from mr. gascoigne to herself. the good-natured baronet, while he was attending to all decent measures in relation to his nephew's death, and the possible washing ashore of the body, thought it the kindest thing he could do to use his present friendly intercourse with the rector as an opportunity for communicating with him, in the mildest way, the purport of grandcourt's will, so as to save him the additional shock that would be in store for him if he carried his illusions all the way home. perhaps sir hugo would have been communicable enough without that kind motive, but he really felt the motive. he broke the unpleasant news to the rector by degrees: at first he only implied his fear that the widow was not so splendidly provided for as mr. gascoigne, nay, as the baronet himself had expected; and only at last, after some previous vague reference to large claims on grandcourt, he disclosed the prior relations which, in the unfortunate absence of a legitimate heir, had determined all the splendor in another direction. the rector was deeply hurt, and remembered, more vividly than he had ever done before, how offensively proud and repelling the manners of the deceased had been toward him--remembered also that he himself, in that interesting period just before the arrival of the new occupant at diplow, had received hints of former entangling dissipations, and an undue addiction to pleasure, though he had not foreseen that the pleasure which had probably, so to speak, been swept into private rubbish-heaps, would ever present itself as an array of live caterpillars, disastrous to the green meat of respectable people. but he did not make these retrospective thoughts audible to sir hugo, or lower himself by expressing any indignation on merely personal grounds, but behaved like a man of the world who had become a conscientious clergyman. his first remark was, "when a young man makes his will in health, he usually counts on living a long while. probably mr. grandcourt did not believe that this will would ever have its present effect." after a moment, he added, "the effect is painful in more ways than one. female morality is likely to suffer from this marked advantage and prominence being given to illegitimate offspring." "well, in point of fact," said sir hugo, in his comfortable way, "since the boy is there, this was really the best alternative for the disposal of the estates. grandcourt had nobody nearer than his cousin. and it's a chilling thought that you go out of this life only for the benefit of a cousin. a man gets a little pleasure in making his will, if it's for the good of his own curly heads; but it's a nuisance when you're giving the bequeathing to a used-up fellow like yourself, and one you don't care two straws for. it's the next worse thing to having only a life interest in your estates. no; i forgive grandcourt for that part of his will. but, between ourselves, what i don't forgive him for, is the shabby way he has provided for your niece--_our_ niece, i will say--no better a position than if she had been a doctor's widow. nothing grates on me more than that posthumous grudgingness toward a wife. a man ought to have some pride and fondness for his widow. _i_ should, i know. i take it as a test of a man, that he feels the easier about his death when he can think of his wife and daughters being comfortable after it. i like that story of the fellows in the crimean war, who were ready to go to the bottom of the sea if their widows were provided for." "it has certainly taken me by surprise," said mr. gascoigne, "all the more because, as the one who stood in the place of father to my niece, i had shown my reliance on mr. grandcourt's apparent liberality in money matters by making no claims for her beforehand. that seemed to me due to him under the circumstances. probably you think me blamable." "not blamable exactly. i respect a man for trusting another. but take my advice. if you marry another niece, though it may be to the archbishop of canterbury, bind him down. your niece can't be married for the first time twice over. and if he's a good fellow, he'll wish to be bound. but as to mrs. grandcourt, i can only say that i feel my relation to her all the nearer because i think that she has not been well treated. and i hope you will urge her to rely on me as a friend." thus spake the chivalrous sir hugo, in his disgust at the young and beautiful widow of a mallinger grandcourt being left with only two thousand a year and a house in a coal-mining district. to the rector that income naturally appeared less shabby and less accompanied with mortifying privations; but in this conversation he had devoured a much keener sense than the baronet's of the humiliation cast over his niece, and also over her nearest friends, by the conspicuous publishing of her husband's relation to mrs. glasher. and like all men who are good husbands and fathers, he felt the humiliation through the minds of the women who would be chiefly affected by it; so that the annoyance of first hearing the facts was far slighter than what he felt in communicating them to mrs. davilow, and in anticipating gwendolen's feeling whenever her mother saw fit to tell her of them. for the good rector had an innocent conviction that his niece was unaware of mrs. glasher's existence, arguing with masculine soundness from what maidens and wives were likely to know, do, and suffer, and having had a most imperfect observation of the particular maiden and wife in question. not so gwendolen's mother, who now thought that she saw an explanation of much that had been enigmatic in her child's conduct and words before and after her engagement, concluding that in some inconceivable way gwendolen had been informed of this left-handed marriage and the existence of the children. she trusted to opportunities that would arise in moments of affectionate confidence before and during their journey to england, when she might gradually learn how far the actual state of things was clear to gwendolen, and prepare her for anything that might be a disappointment. but she was spared from devices on the subject. "i hope you don't expect that i am going to be rich and grand, mamma," said gwendolen, not long after the rector's communication; "perhaps i shall have nothing at all." she was dressed, and had been sitting long in quiet meditation. mrs. davilow was startled, but said, after a moment's reflection, "oh yes, dear, you will have something. sir hugo knows all about the will." "that will not decide," said gwendolen, abruptly. "surely, dear: sir hugo says you are to have two thousand a year and the house at gadsmere." "what i have will depend on what i accept," said gwendolen. "you and my uncle must not attempt to cross me and persuade me about this. i will do everything i can do to make you happy, but in anything about my husband i must not be interfered with. is eight hundred a year enough for you, mamma?" "more than enough, dear. you must not think of giving me so much." mrs. davilow paused a little, and then said, "do you know who is to have the estates and the rest of the money?" "yes," said gwendolen, waving her hand in dismissal of the subject. "i know everything. it is all perfectly right, and i wish never to have it mentioned." the mother was silent, looked away, and rose to fetch a fan-screen, with a slight flush on her delicate cheeks. wondering, imagining, she did not like to meet her daughter's eyes, and sat down again under a sad constraint. what wretchedness her child had perhaps gone through, which yet must remain as it always had been, locked away from their mutual speech. but gwendolen was watching her mother with that new divination which experience had given her; and in tender relenting at her own peremptoriness, said, "come and sit nearer to me, mamma, and don't be unhappy." mrs. davilow did as she was told, but bit her lips in the vain attempt to hinder smarting tears. gwendolen leaned toward her caressingly and said, "i mean to be very wise; i do, really. and good--oh, so good to you, dear, old, sweet mamma, you won't know me. only you must not cry." the resolve that gwendolen had in her mind was that she would ask deronda whether she ought to accept any of her husband's money--whether she might accept what would enable her to provide for her mother. the poor thing felt strong enough to do anything that would give her a higher place in deronda's mind. an invitation that sir hugo pressed on her with kind urgency was that she and mrs. davilow should go straight with him to park lane, and make his house their abode as long as mourning and other details needed attending to in london. town, he insisted, was just then the most retired of places; and he proposed to exert himself at once in getting all articles belonging to gwendolen away from the house in grosvenor square. no proposal could have suited her better than this of staying a little while in park lane. it would be easy for her there to have an interview with deronda, if she only knew how to get a letter into his hands, asking him to come to her. during the journey, sir hugo, having understood that she was acquainted with the purport of her husband's will, ventured to talk before her and to her about her future arrangements, referring here and there to mildly agreeable prospects as matters of course, and otherwise shedding a decorous cheerfulness over her widowed position. it seemed to him really the more graceful course for a widow to recover her spirits on finding that her husband had not dealt as handsomely by her as he might have done; it was the testator's fault if he compromised all her grief at his departure by giving a testamentary reason for it, so that she might be supposed to look sad, not because he had left her, but because he had left her poor. the baronet, having his kindliness doubly fanned by the favorable wind on his fortunes and by compassion for gwendolen, had become quite fatherly in his behavior to her, called her "my dear," and in mentioning gadsmere to mr. gascoigne, with its various advantages and disadvantages, spoke of what "we" might do to make the best of that property. gwendolen sat by in pale silence while sir hugo, with his face turned toward mrs. davilow or mr. gascoigne, conjectured that mrs. grandcourt might perhaps prefer letting gadsmere to residing there during any part of the year, in which case he thought that it might be leased on capital terms to one of the fellows engaged with the coal: sir hugo had seen enough of the place to know that it was as comfortable and picturesque a box as any man need desire, providing his desires were circumscribed within a coal area. "_i_ shouldn't mind about the soot myself," said the baronet, with that dispassionateness which belongs to the potential mood. "nothing is more healthy. and if one's business lay there, gadsmere would be a paradise. it makes quite a feature in scrogg's history of the county, with the little tower and the fine piece of water--the prettiest print in the book." "a more important place than offendene, i suppose?" said mr. gascoigne. "much," said the baronet, decisively. "i was there with my poor brother--it is more than a quarter of a century ago, but i remember it very well. the rooms may not be larger, but the grounds are on a different scale." "our poor dear offendene is empty after all," said mrs. davilow. "when it came to the point, mr. haynes declared off, and there has been no one to take it since. i might as well have accepted lord brackenshaw's kind offer that i should remain in it another year rent-free: for i should have kept the place aired and warmed." "i hope you've something snug instead," said sir hugo. "a little too snug," said mr. gascoigne, smiling at his sister-in-law. "you are rather thick upon the ground." gwendolen had turned with a changed glance when her mother spoke of offendene being empty. this conversation passed during one of the long unaccountable pauses often experienced in foreign trains at some country station. there was a dreamy, sunny stillness over the hedgeless fields stretching to the boundary of poplars; and to gwendolen the talk within the carriage seemed only to make the dreamland larger with an indistinct region of coal-pits, and a purgatorial gadsmere which she would never visit; till at her mother's words, this mingled, dozing view seemed to dissolve and give way to a more wakeful vision of offendene and pennicote under their cooler lights. she saw the gray shoulders of the downs, the cattle-specked fields, the shadowy plantations with rutted lanes where the barked timber lay for a wayside seat, the neatly-clipped hedges on the road from the parsonage to offendene, the avenue where she was gradually discerned from the window, the hall-door opening, and her mother or one of the troublesome sisters coming out to meet her. all that brief experience of a quiet home which had once seemed a dullness to be fled from, now came back to her as a restful escape, a station where she found the breath of morning and the unreproaching voice of birds after following a lure through a long satanic masquerade, which she had entered on with an intoxicated belief in its disguises, and had seen the end of in shrieking fear lest she herself had become one of the evil spirits who were dropping their human mummery and hissing around her with serpent tongues. in this way gwendolen's mind paused over offendene and made it the scene of many thoughts; but she gave no further outward sign of interest in this conversation, any more than in sir hugo's opinion on the telegraphic cable or her uncle's views of the church rate abolition bill. what subjects will not our talk embrace in leisurely day-journeying from genoa to london? even strangers, after glancing from china to peru and opening their mental stores with a liberality threatening a mutual impression of poverty on any future meeting, are liable to become excessively confidential. but the baronet and the rector were under a still stronger pressure toward cheerful communication: they were like acquaintances compelled to a long drive in a mourning-coach who having first remarked that the occasion is a melancholy one, naturally proceed to enliven it by the most miscellaneous discourse. "i don't mind telling _you_," said sir hugo to the rector, in mentioning some private details; while the rector, without saying so, did not mind telling the baronet about his sons, and the difficulty of placing them in the world. by the dint of discussing all persons and things within driving-reach of diplow, sir hugo got himself wrought to a pitch of interest in that former home, and of conviction that it was his pleasant duty to regain and strengthen his personal influence in the neighborhood, that made him declare his intention of taking his family to the place for a month or two before the autumn was over; and mr. gascoigne cordially rejoiced in that prospect. altogether, the journey was continued and ended with mutual liking between the male fellow-travellers. meanwhile gwendolen sat by like one who had visited the spirit-world and was full to the lips of an unutterable experience that threw a strange unreality over all the talk she was hearing of her own and the world's business; and mrs. davilow was chiefly occupied in imagining what her daughter was feeling, and in wondering what was signified by her hinted doubt whether she would accept her husband's bequest. gwendolen in fact had before her the unsealed wall of an immediate purpose shutting off every other resolution. how to scale the wall? she wanted again to see and consult deronda, that she might secure herself against any act he would disapprove. would her remorse have maintained its power within her, or would she have felt absolved by secrecy, if it had not been for that outer conscience which was made for her by deronda? it is hard to say how much we could forgive ourselves if we were secure from judgment by another whose opinion is the breathing-medium of all our joy--who brings to us with close pressure and immediate sequence that judgment of the invisible and universal which self-flattery and the world's tolerance would easily melt and disperse. in this way our brother may be in the stead of god to us, and his opinion which has pierced even to the joints and marrow, may be our virtue in the making. that mission of deronda to gwendolen had begun with what she had felt to be his judgment of her at the gaming-table. he might easily have spoiled it:--much of our lives is spent in marring our own influence and turning others' belief in us into a widely concluding unbelief which they call knowledge of the world, while it is really disappointment in you or me. deronda had not spoiled his mission. but gwendolen had forgotten to ask him for his address in case she wanted to write, and her only way of reaching him was through sir hugo. she was not in the least blind to the construction that all witnesses might put on her giving signs of dependence on deronda, and her seeking him more than he sought her: grandcourt's rebukes had sufficiently enlightened her pride. but the force, the tenacity of her nature had thrown itself into that dependence, and she would no more let go her hold on deronda's help, or deny herself the interview her soul needed, because of witnesses, than if she had been in prison in danger of being condemned to death. when she was in park lane and knew that the baronet would be going down to the abbey immediately (just to see his family for a couple of days and then return to transact needful business for gwendolen), she said to him without any air of hesitation, while her mother was present, "sir hugo, i wish to see mr. deronda again as soon as possible. i don't know his address. will you tell it me, or let him know that i want to see him?" a quick thought passed across sir hugo's face, but made no difference to the ease with which he said, "upon my word, i don't know whether he's at his chambers or the abbey at this moment. but i'll make sure of him. i'll send a note now to his chambers telling him to come, and if he's at the abbey i can give him your message and send him up at once. i am sure he will want to obey your wish," the baronet ended, with grave kindness, as if nothing could seem to him more in the appropriate course of things than that she should send such a message. but he was convinced that gwendolen had a passionate attachment to deronda, the seeds of which had been laid long ago, and his former suspicion now recurred to him with more strength than ever, that her feeling was likely to lead her into imprudences--in which kind-hearted sir hugo was determined to screen and defend her as far as lay in his power. to him it was as pretty a story as need be that this fine creature and his favorite dan should have turned out to be formed for each other, and that the unsuitable husband should have made his exit in such excellent time. sir hugo liked that a charming woman should be made as happy as possible. in truth, what most vexed his mind in this matter at present was a doubt whether the too lofty and inscrutable dan had not got some scheme or other in his head, which would prove to be dearer to him than the lovely mrs. grandcourt, and put that neatly-prepared marriage with her out of the question. it was among the usual paradoxes of feeling that sir hugo, who had given his fatherly cautions to deronda against too much tenderness in his relations with the bride, should now feel rather irritated against him by the suspicion that he had not fallen in love as he ought to have done. of course all this thinking on sir hugo's part was eminently premature, only a fortnight or so after grandcourt's death. but it is the trick of thinking to be either premature or behind-hand. however, he sent the note to deronda's chambers, and it found him there. chapter lxv. "o, welcome, pure-eyed faith, white-handed hope, thou hovering angel, girt with golden wings!" --milton. deronda did not obey gwendolen's new summons without some agitation. not his vanity, but his keen sympathy made him susceptible to the danger that another's heart might feel larger demands on him than he would be able to fulfill; and it was no longer a matter of argument with him, but of penetrating consciousness, that gwendolen's soul clung to his with a passionate need. we do not argue the existence of the anger or the scorn that thrills through us in a voice; we simply feel it, and it admits of no disproof. deronda felt this woman's destiny hanging on his over a precipice of despair. any one who knows him cannot wonder at his inward confession, that if all this had happened little more than a year ago, he would hardly have asked himself whether he loved her; the impetuous determining impulse which would have moved him would have been to save her from sorrow, to shelter her life forevermore from the dangers of loneliness, and carry out to the last the rescue he had begun in that monitory redemption of the necklace. but now, love and duty had thrown other bonds around him, and that impulse could no longer determine his life; still, it was present in him as a compassionate yearning, a painful quivering at the very imagination of having again and again to meet the appeal of her eyes and words. the very strength of the bond, the certainty of the resolve, that kept him asunder from her, made him gaze at her lot apart with the more aching pity. he awaited her coming in the back drawing-room--part of that white and crimson space where they had sat together at the musical party, where gwendolen had said for the first time that her lot depended on his not forsaking her, and her appeal had seemed to melt into the melodic cry--_per pietà non dirmi addio_. but the melody had come from mirah's dear voice. deronda walked about this room, which he had for years known by heart, with a strange sense of metamorphosis in his own life. the familiar objects around him, from lady mallinger's gently smiling portrait to the also human and urbane faces of the lions on the pilasters of the chimney-piece, seemed almost to belong to a previous state of existence which he was revisiting in memory only, not in reality; so deep and transforming had been the impressions he had lately experienced, so new were the conditions under which he found himself in the house he had been accustomed to think of as a home--standing with his hat in his hand awaiting the entrance of a young creature whose life had also been undergoing a transformation--a tragic transformation toward a wavering result, in which he felt with apprehensiveness that his own action was still bound up. but gwendolen was come in, looking changed; not only by her mourning dress, but by a more satisfied quietude of expression than he had seen in her face at genoa. her satisfaction was that deronda was there; but there was no smile between them as they met and clasped hands; each was full of remembrance--full of anxious prevision. she said, "it was good of you to come. let us sit down," immediately seating herself in the nearest chair. he placed himself opposite to her. "i asked you to come because i want you to tell me what i ought to do," she began, at once. "don't be afraid of telling me what you think is right, because it seems hard. i have made up my mind to do it. i was afraid once of being poor; i could not bear to think of being under other people; and that was why i did something--why i married. i have borne worse things now. i think i could bear to be poor, if you think i ought. do you know about my husband's will?" "yes, sir hugo told me," said deronda, already guessing the question she had to ask. "ought i to take anything he has left me? i will tell you what i have been thinking," said gwendolen, with a more nervous eagerness. "perhaps you may not quite know that i really did think a good deal about my mother when i married. i _was_ selfish, but i did love her, and feel about her poverty; and what comforted me most at first, when i was miserable, was her being better off because i had married. the thing that would be hardest to me now would be to see her in poverty again; and i have been thinking that if i took enough to provide for her, and no more--nothing for myself--it would not be wrong; for i was very precious to my mother--and he took me from her--and he meant--and if she had known--" gwendolen broke off. she had been preparing herself for this interview by thinking of hardly anything else than this question of right toward her mother; but the question had carried with it thoughts and reasons which it was impossible for her to utter, and these perilous remembrances swarmed between her words, making her speech more and more agitated and tremulous. she looked down helplessly at her hands, now unladen of all rings except her wedding-ring. "do not hurt yourself by speaking of that," said deronda, tenderly. "there is no need; the case is very simple. i think i can hardly judge wrongly about it. you consult me because i am the only person to whom you have confided the most painful part of your experience: and i can understand your scruples." he did not go on immediately, waiting for her to recover herself. the silence seemed to gwendolen full of the tenderness that she heard in his voice, and she had courage to lift up her eyes and look at him as he said, "you are conscious of something which you feel to be a crime toward one who is dead. you think that you have forfeited all claim as a wife. you shrink from taking what was his. you want to keep yourself from profiting by his death. your feeling even urges you to some self-punishment--some scourging of the self that disobeyed your better will--the will that struggled against temptation. i have known something of that myself. do i understand you?" "yes--at least, i want to be good--not like what i have been," said gwendolen. "i will try to bear what you think i ought to bear. i have tried to tell you the worst about myself. what ought i to do?" "if no one but yourself were concerned in this question of income," said deronda, "i should hardly dare to urge you against any remorseful prompting; but i take as a guide now, your feeling about mrs. davilow, which seems to me quite just. i cannot think that your husband's dues even to yourself are nullified by any act you have committed. he voluntarily entered into your life, and affected its course in what is always the most momentous way. but setting that aside, it was due from him in his position that he should provide for your mother, and he of course understood that if this will took effect she would share the provision he had made for you." "she has had eight hundred a year. what i thought of was to take that and leave the rest," said gwendolen. she had been so long inwardly arguing for this as a permission, that her mind could not at once take another attitude. "i think it is not your duty to fix a limit in that way," said deronda. "you would be making a painful enigma for mrs. davilow; an income from which you shut yourself out must be embittered to her. and your own course would become too difficult. we agreed at genoa that the burden on your conscience is one what no one ought to be admitted to the knowledge of. the future beneficence of your life will be best furthered by your saving all others from the pain of that knowledge. in my opinion you ought simply to abide by the provisions of your husband's will, and let your remorse tell only on the use that you will make of your monetary independence." in uttering the last sentence deronda automatically took up his hat which he had laid on the floor beside him. gwendolen, sensitive to his slightest movement, felt her heart giving a great leap, as if it too had a consciousness of its own, and would hinder him from going: in the same moment she rose from her chair, unable to reflect that the movement was an acceptance of his apparent intention to leave her; and deronda, of course, also rose, advancing a little. "i will do what you tell me," said gwendolen, hurriedly; "but what else shall i do?" no other than these simple words were possible to her; and even these were too much for her in a state of emotion where her proud secrecy was disenthroned: as the child-like sentences fell from her lips they re-acted on her like a picture of her own helplessness, and she could not check the sob which sent the large tears to her eyes. deronda, too, felt a crushing pain; but imminent consequences were visible to him, and urged him to the utmost exertion of conscience. when she had pressed her tears away, he said, in a gently questioning tone, "you will probably be soon going with mrs. davilow into the country." "yes, in a week or ten days." gwendolen waited an instant, turning her eyes vaguely toward the window, as if looking at some imagined prospect. "i want to be kind to them all--they can be happier than i can. is that the best i can do?" "i think so. it is a duty that cannot be doubtful," said deronda. he paused a little between his sentences, feeling a weight of anxiety on all his words. "other duties will spring from it. looking at your life as a debt may seem the dreariest view of things at a distance; but it cannot really be so. what makes life dreary is the want of motive: but once beginning to act with that penitential, loving purpose you have in your mind, there will be unexpected satisfactions--there will be newly-opening needs--continually coming to carry you on from day to day. you will find your life growing like a plant." gwendolen turned her eyes on him with the look of one athirst toward the sound of unseen waters. deronda felt the look as if she had been stretching her arms toward him from a forsaken shore. his voice took an affectionate imploringness when he said, "this sorrow, which has cut down to the root, has come to you while you are so young--try to think of it not as a spoiling of your life, but as a preparation for it. let it be a preparation----" any one overhearing his tones would have thought he was entreating for his own happiness. "see! you have been saved from the worst evils that might have come from your marriage, which you feel was wrong. you have had a vision of injurious, selfish action--a vision of possible degradation; think that a severe angel, seeing you along the road of error, grasped you by the wrist and showed you the horror of the life you must avoid. and it has come to you in your spring-time. think of it as a preparation. you can, you will, be among the best of women, such as make others glad that they were born." the words were like the touch of a miraculous hand to gwendolen. mingled emotions streamed through her frame with a strength that seemed the beginning of a new existence, having some new power or other which stirred in her vaguely. so pregnant is the divine hope of moral recovery with the energy that fulfills it. so potent in us is the infused action of another soul, before which we bow in complete love. but the new existence seemed inseparable from deronda: the hope seemed to make his presence permanent. it was not her thought, that he loved her, and would cling to her--a thought would have tottered with improbability; it was her spiritual breath. for the first time since that terrible moment on the sea a flush rose and spread over her cheek, brow and neck, deepened an instant or two, and then gradually disappeared. she did not speak. deronda advanced and put out his hand, saying, "i must not weary you." she was startled by the sense that he was going, and put her hand in his, still without speaking. "you look ill yet--unlike yourself," he added, while he held her hand. "i can't sleep much," she answered, with some return of her dispirited manner. "things repeat themselves in me so. they come back--they will all come back," she ended, shudderingly, a chill fear threatening her. "by degrees they will be less insistent," said deronda. he could not drop her hand or move away from her abruptly. "sir hugo says he shall come to stay at diplow," said gwendolen, snatching at previously intended words which had slipped away from her. "you will come too." "probably," said deronda, and then feeling that the word was cold, he added, correctively, "yes, i shall come," and then released her hand, with the final friendly pressure of one who has virtually said good-bye. "and not again here, before i leave town?" said gwendolen, with timid sadness, looking as pallid as ever. what could deronda say? "if i can be of any use--if you wish me--certainly i will." "i must wish it," said gwendolen, impetuously; "you know i must wish it. what strength have i? who else is there?" again a sob was rising. deronda felt a pang, which showed itself in his face. he looked miserable as he said, "i will certainly come." gwendolen perceived the change in his face; but the intense relief of expecting him to come again could not give way to any other feeling, and there was a recovery of the inspired hope and courage in her. "don't be unhappy about me," she said, in a tone of affectionate assurance. "i shall remember your words--every one of them. i shall remember what you believe about me; i shall try." she looked at him firmly, and put out her hand again as if she had forgotten what had passed since those words of his which she promised to remember. but there was no approach to a smile on her lips. she had never smiled since her husband's death. when she stood still and in silence, she looked like a melancholy statue of the gwendolen whose laughter had once been so ready when others were grave. it is only by remembering the searching anguish which had changed the aspect of the world for her that we can understand her behavior to deronda--the unreflecting openness, nay, the importunate pleading, with which she expressed her dependence on him. considerations such as would have filled the minds of indifferent spectators could not occur to her, any more than if flames had been mounting around her, and she had flung herself into his open arms and clung about his neck that he might carry her into safety. she identified him with the struggling regenerative process in her which had begun with his action. is it any wonder that she saw her own necessity reflected in his feeling? she was in that state of unconscious reliance and expectation which is a common experience with us when we are preoccupied with our own trouble or our own purposes. we diffuse our feeling over others, and count on their acting from our motives. her imagination had not been turned to a future union with deronda by any other than the spiritual tie which had been continually strengthening; but also it had not been turned toward a future separation from him. love-making and marriage--how could they now be the imagery in which poor gwendolen's deepest attachment could spontaneously clothe itself? mighty love had laid his hand upon her; but what had he demanded of her? acceptance of rebuke--the hard task of self-change--confession--endurance. if she cried toward him, what then? she cried as the child cries whose little feet have fallen backward--cried to be taken by the hand, lest she should lose herself. the cry pierced deronda. what position could have been more difficult for a man full of tenderness, yet with clear foresight? he was the only creature who knew the real nature of gwendolen's trouble: to withdraw himself from any appeal of hers would be to consign her to a dangerous loneliness. he could not reconcile himself to the cruelty of apparently rejecting her dependence on him; and yet in the nearer or farther distance he saw a coming wrench, which all present strengthening of their bond would make the harder. he was obliged to risk that. he went once and again to park lane before gwendolen left; but their interviews were in the presence of mrs. davilow, and were therefore less agitating. gwendolen, since she had determined to accept her income, had conceived a project which she liked to speak of: it was to place her mother and sisters with herself in offendene again, and, as she said, piece back her life unto that time when they first went there, and when everything was happiness about her, only she did not know it. the idea had been mentioned to sir hugo, who was going to exert himself about the letting of gadsmere for a rent which would more than pay the rent of offendene. all this was told to deronda, who willingly dwelt on a subject that seemed to give some soothing occupation to gwendolen. he said nothing and she asked nothing, of what chiefly occupied himself. her mind was fixed on his coming to diplow before the autumn was over; and she no more thought of the lapidoths--the little jewess and her brother--as likely to make a difference in her destiny, than of the fermenting political and social leaven which was making a difference in the history of the world. in fact poor gwendolen's memory had been stunned, and all outside the lava-lit track of her troubled conscience, and her effort to get deliverance from it, lay for her in dim forgetfulness. chapter lxvi. "one day still fierce 'mid many a day struck calm." --browning: _the king and the book_. meanwhile ezra and mirah, whom gwendolen did not include in her thinking about deronda, were having their relation to him drawn closer and brought into fuller light. the father lapidoth had quitted his daughter at the doorstep, ruled by that possibility of staking something in play or betting which presented itself with the handling of any sum beyond the price of staying actual hunger, and left no care for alternative prospects or resolutions. until he had lost everything he never considered whether he would apply to mirah again or whether he would brave his son's presence. in the first moment he had shrunk from encountering ezra as he would have shrunk from any other situation of disagreeable constraint; and the possession of mirah's purse was enough to banish the thought of future necessities. the gambling appetite is more absolutely dominant than bodily hunger, which can be neutralized by an emotional or intellectual excitation; but the passion for watching chances--the habitual suspensive poise of the mind in actual or imaginary play--nullifies the susceptibility of other excitation. in its final, imperious stage, it seems the unjoyous dissipation of demons, seeking diversion on the burning marl of perdition. but every form of selfishness, however abstract and unhuman, requires the support of at least one meal a day; and though lapidoth's appetite for food and drink was extremely moderate, he had slipped into a shabby, unfriendly form of life in which the appetite could not be satisfied without some ready money. when, in a brief visit at a house which announced "pyramids" on the window-blind, he had first doubled and trebled and finally lost mirah's thirty shillings, he went out with her empty purse in his pocket, already balancing in his mind whether he should get another immediate stake by pawning the purse, or whether he should go back to her giving himself a good countenance by restoring the purse, and declaring that he had used the money in paying a score that was standing against him. besides, among the sensibilities still left strong in lapidoth was the sensibility to his own claims, and he appeared to himself to have a claim on any property his children might possess, which was stronger than the justice of his son's resentment. after all, to take up his lodging with his children was the best thing he could do; and the more he thought of meeting ezra the less he winced from it, his imagination being more wrought on by the chances of his getting something into his pocket with safety and without exertion, than by the threat of a private humiliation. luck had been against him lately; he expected it to turn--and might not the turn begin with some opening of supplies which would present itself through his daughter's affairs and the good friends she had spoken of? lapidoth counted on the fascination of his cleverness--an old habit of mind which early experience had sanctioned: and it is not only women who are unaware of their diminished charm, or imagine that they can feign not to be worn out. the result of lapidoth's rapid balancing was that he went toward the little square in brompton with the hope that, by walking about and watching, he might catch sight of mirah going out or returning, in which case his entrance into the house would be made easier. but it was already evening--the evening of the day next to that which he had first seen her; and after a little waiting, weariness made him reflect that he might ring, and if she were not at home he might ask the time at which she was expected. but on coming near the house he knew that she was at home: he heard her singing. mirah, seated at the piano, was pouring forth "_herz, mein herz_," while ezra was listening with his eyes shut, when mrs. adam opened the door, and said in some embarrassment, "a gentleman below says he is your father, miss." "i will go down to him," said mirah, starting up immediately and looking at her brother. "no, mirah, not so," said ezra, with decision. "let him come up, mrs. adam." mirah stood with her hands pinching each other, and feeling sick with anxiety, while she continued looking at ezra, who had also risen, and was evidently much shaken. but there was an expression in his face which she had never seen before; his brow was knit, his lips seemed hardened with the same severity that gleamed from his eye. when mrs. adam opened the door to let in the father, she could not help casting a look at the group, and after glancing from the younger man to the elder, said to herself as she closed the door, "father, sure enough." the likeness was that of outline, which is always most striking at the first moment; the expression had been wrought into the strongest contrasts by such hidden or inconspicuous differences as can make the genius of a cromwell within the outward type of a father who was no more than a respectable parishioner. lapidoth had put on a melancholy expression beforehand, but there was some real wincing in his frame as he said, "well, ezra, my boy, you hardly know me after so many years." "i know you--too well--father," said ezra, with a slow biting solemnity which made the word father a reproach. "ah, you are not pleased with me. i don't wonder at it. appearances have been against me. when a man gets into straits he can't do just as he would by himself or anybody else, _i_'ve suffered enough, i know," said lapidoth, quickly. in speaking he always recovered some glibness and hardihood; and now turning toward mirah, he held out her purse, saying, "here's your little purse, my dear. i thought you'd be anxious about it because of that bit of writing. i've emptied it, you'll see, for i had a score to pay for food and lodging. i knew you would like me to clear myself, and here i stand--without a single farthing in my pocket--at the mercy of my children. you can turn me out if you like, without getting a policeman. say the word, mirah; say, 'father, i've had enough of you; you made a pet of me, and spent your all on me, when i couldn't have done without you; but i can do better without you now,'--say that, and i'm gone out like a spark. i shan't spoil your pleasure again." the tears were in his voice as usual, before he had finished. "you know i could never say it, father," answered mirah, with not the less anguish because she felt the falsity of everything in his speech except the implied wish to remain in the house. "mirah, my sister, leave us!" said ezra, in a tone of authority. she looked at her brother falteringly, beseechingly--in awe of his decision, yet unable to go without making a plea for this father who was like something that had grown in her flesh with pain. she went close to her brother, and putting her hand in his, said, in a low voice, but not so low as to be unheard by lapidoth, "remember, ezra--you said my mother would not have shut him out." "trust me, and go," said ezra. she left the room, but after going a few steps up the stairs, sat down with a palpitating heart. if, because of anything her brother said to him, he went away-- lapidoth had some sense of what was being prepared for him in his son's mind, but he was beginning to adjust himself to the situation and find a point of view that would give him a cool superiority to any attempt at humiliating him. this haggard son, speaking as from a sepulchre, had the incongruity which selfish levity learns to see in suffering, and until the unrelenting pincers of disease clutch its own flesh. whatever preaching he might deliver must be taken for a matter of course, as a man finding shelter from hail in an open cathedral might take a little religious howling that happened to be going on there. lapidoth was not born with this sort of callousness: he had achieved it. "this home that we have here," ezra began, "is maintained partly by the generosity of a beloved friend who supports me, and partly by the labors of my sister, who supports herself. while we have a home we will not shut you out from it. we will not cast you out to the mercy of your vices. for you are our father, and though you have broken your bond, we acknowledge ours. but i will never trust you. you absconded with money, leaving your debts unpaid; you forsook my mother; you robbed her of her little child and broke her heart; you have become a gambler, and where shame and conscience were there sits an insatiable desire; you were ready to sell my sister--you had sold her, but the price was denied you. the man who has done these things must never expect to be trusted any more. we will share our food with you--you shall have a bed, and clothing. we will do this duty to you, because you are our father. but you will never be trusted. you are an evil man: you made the misery of our mother. that such a man is our father is a brand on our flesh which will not cease smarting. but the eternal has laid it upon us; and though human justice were to flog you for crimes, and your body fell helpless before the public scorn, we would still say, 'this is our father; make way, that we may carry him out of your sight.'" lapidoth, in adjusting himself to what was coming, had not been able to foresee the exact intensity of the lightning or the exact course it would take--that it would not fall outside his frame but through it. he could not foresee what was so new to him as this voice from the soul of his son. it touched that spring of hysterical excitability which mirah used to witness in him when he sat at home and sobbed. as ezra ended, lapidoth threw himself into a chair and cried like a woman, burying his face against the table--and yet, strangely, while this hysterical crying was an inevitable reaction in him under the stress of his son's words, it was also a conscious resource in a difficulty; just as in early life, when he was a bright-faced curly young man, he had been used to avail himself of this subtly-poised physical susceptibility to turn the edge of resentment or disapprobation. ezra sat down again and said nothing--exhausted by the shock of his own irrepressible utterance, the outburst of feelings which for years he had borne in solitude and silence. his thin hands trembled on the arms of the chair; he would hardly have found voice to answer a question; he felt as if he had taken a step toward beckoning death. meanwhile mirah's quick expectant ear detected a sound which her heart recognized: she could not stay out of the room any longer. but on opening the door her immediate alarm was for ezra, and it was to his side that she went, taking his trembling hand in hers, which he pressed and found support in; but he did not speak or even look at her. the father with his face buried was conscious that mirah had entered, and presently lifted up his head, pressed his handkerchief against his eyes, put out his hand toward her, and said with plaintive hoarseness, "good-bye, mirah; your father will not trouble you again. he deserves to die like a dog by the roadside, and he will. if your mother had lived, she would have forgiven me--thirty-four years ago i put the ring on her finger under the _chuppa_, and we were made one. she would have forgiven me, and we should have spent our old age together. but i haven't deserved it. good-bye." he rose from the chair as he said the last "good-bye." mirah had put her hand in his and held him. she was not tearful and grieving, but frightened and awe-struck, as she cried out, "no, father, no!" then turning to her brother, "ezra, you have not forbidden him?--stay, father, and leave off wrong things. ezra, i cannot bear it. how can i say to my father, 'go and die!'" "i have not said it," ezra answered, with great effort. "i have said, stay and be sheltered." "then you will stay, father--and be taken care of--and come with me," said mirah, drawing him toward the door. this was really what lapidoth wanted. and for the moment he felt a sort of comfort in recovering his daughter's dutiful attendance, that made a change of habits seem possible to him. she led him down to the parlor below, and said, "this is my sitting-room when i am not with ezra, and there is a bed-room behind which shall be yours. you will stay and be good, father. think that you are come back to my mother, and that she has forgiven you--she speaks to you through me." mirah's tones were imploring, but she could not give one of her former caresses. lapidoth quickly recovered his composure, began to speak to mirah of the improvement in her voice, and other easy subjects, and when mrs. adam came to lay out his supper, entered into converse with her in order to show her that he was not a common person, though his clothes were just now against him. but in his usual wakefulness at night, he fell to wondering what money mirah had by her, and went back over old continental hours at _roulette_, reproducing the method of his play, and the chances that had frustrated it. he had had his reasons for coming to england, but for most things it was a cursed country. these were the stronger visions of the night with lapidoth, and not the worn frame of his ireful son uttering a terrible judgment. ezra did pass across the gaming-table, and his words were audible; but he passed like an insubstantial ghost, and his words had the heart eaten out of them by numbers and movements that seemed to make the very tissue of lapidoth's consciousness. chapter lxvii. the godhead in us wrings our noble deeds from our reluctant selves. it was an unpleasant surprise to deronda when he returned from the abbey to find the undesirable father installed in the lodgings at brompton. mirah had felt it necessary to speak of deronda to her father, and even to make him as fully aware as she could of the way in which the friendship with ezra had begun, and of the sympathy which had cemented it. she passed more lightly over what deronda had done for her, omitting altogether the rescue from drowning, and speaking of the shelter she had found in mrs. meyrick's family so as to leave her father to suppose that it was through these friends deronda had become acquainted with her. she could not persuade herself to more completeness in her narrative: she could not let the breath of her father's soul pass over her relation to deronda. and lapidoth, for reasons, was not eager in his questioning about the circumstances of her flight and arrival in england. but he was much interested in the fact of his children having a beneficent friend apparently high in the world. it was the brother who told deronda of this new condition added to their life. "i am become calm in beholding him now," ezra ended, "and i try to think it possible that my sister's tenderness, and the daily tasting a life of peace, may win him to remain aloof from temptation. i have enjoined her, and she has promised, to trust him with no money. i have convinced her that he will buy with it his own destruction." deronda first came on the third day from ladipoth's arrival. the new clothes for which he had been measured were not yet ready, and wishing to make a favorable impression, he did not choose to present himself in the old ones. he watched for deronda's departure, and, getting a view of him from the window, was rather surprised at his youthfulness, which mirah had not mentioned, and which he had somehow thought out of the question in a personage who had taken up a grave friendship and hoary studies with the sepulchral ezra. lapidoth began to imagine that deronda's real or chief motive must be that he was in love with mirah. and so much the better; for a tie to mirah had more promise of indulgence for her father than a tie to ezra: and lapidoth was not without the hope of recommending himself to deronda, and of softening any hard prepossessions. he was behaving with much amiability, and trying in all ways at his command to get himself into easy domestication with his children--entering into mirah's music, showing himself docile about smoking, which mrs. adam could not tolerate in her parlor, and walking out in the square with his german pipe, and the tobacco with which mirah supplied him. he was too acute to offer any present remonstrance against the refusal of money, which mirah told him that she must persist in as a solemn duty promised to her brother. he was comfortable enough to wait. the next time deronda came, lapidoth, equipped in his new clothes, and satisfied with his own appearance, was in the room with ezra, who was teaching himself, as a part of his severe duty, to tolerate his father's presence whenever it was imposed. deronda was cold and distant, the first sight of this man, who had blighted the lives of his wife and children, creating in him a repulsion that was even a physical discomfort. but lapidoth did not let himself be discouraged, asked leave to stay and hear the reading of papers from the old chest, and actually made himself useful in helping to decipher some difficult german manuscript. this led him to suggest that it might be desirable to make a transcription of the manuscript, and he offered his services for this purpose, and also to make copies of any papers in roman characters. though ezra's young eyes he observed were getting weak, his own were still strong. deronda accepted the offer, thinking that lapidoth showed a sign of grace in the willingness to be employed usefully; and he saw a gratified expression in ezra's face, who, however, presently said, "let all the writing be done here; for i cannot trust the papers out of my sight, lest there be an accident by burning or otherwise." poor ezra felt very much as if he had a convict on leave under his charge. unless he saw his father working, it was not possible to believe that he would work in good faith. but by this arrangement he fastened on himself the burden of his father's presence, which was made painful not only through his deepest, longest associations, but also through lapidoth's restlessness of temperament, which showed itself the more as he become familiarized with his situation, and lost any awe he had felt of his son. the fact was, he was putting a strong constraint on himself in confining his attention for the sake of winning deronda's favor; and like a man in an uncomfortable garment he gave himself relief at every opportunity, going out to smoke, or moving about and talking, or throwing himself back in his chair and remaining silent, but incessantly carrying on a dumb language of facial movement or gesticulation: and if mirah were in the room, he would fall into his old habit of talk with her, gossiping about their former doings and companions, or repeating quirks and stories, and plots of the plays he used to adapt, in the belief that he could at will command the vivacity of his earlier time. all this was a mortal infliction to ezra; and when mirah was at home she tried to relieve him, by getting her father down into the parlor and keeping watch over him there. what duty is made of a single difficult resolve? the difficulty lies in the daily unflinching support of consequences that mar the blessed return of morning with the prospect of irritation to be suppressed or shame to be endured. and such consequences were being borne by these, as by many other heroic children of an unworthy father--with the prospect, at least to mirah, of their stretching onward through the solid part of life. meanwhile lapidoth's presence had raised a new impalpable partition between deronda and mirah--each of them dreading the soiling inferences of his mind, each of them interpreting mistakenly the increased reserve and diffidence of the other. but it was not very long before some light came to deronda. as soon as he could, after returning from his brief visit to the abbey, he had called at hans meyrick's rooms, feeling it, on more grounds than one, a due of friendship that hans should be at once acquainted with the reasons of his late journey, and the changes of intention it had brought about. hans was not there; he was said to be in the country for a few days; and deronda, after leaving a note, waited a week, rather expecting a note in return. but receiving no word, and fearing some freak of feeling in the incalculably susceptible hans, whose proposed sojourn at the abbey he knew had been deferred, he at length made a second call, and was admitted into the painting-room, where he found his friend in a light coat, without a waistcoat, his long hair still wet from a bath, but with a face looking worn and wizened--anything but country-like. he had taken up his palette and brushes, and stood before his easel when deronda entered, but the equipment and attitude seemed to have been got up on short notice. as they shook hands, deronda said, "you don't look much as if you had been in the country, old fellow. is it cambridge you have been to?" "no," said hans, curtly, throwing down his palette with the air of one who has begun to feign by mistake; then pushing forward a chair for deronda, he threw himself into another, and leaned backward with his hands behind his head, while he went on, "i've been to i-don't-know-where--no man's land--and a mortally unpleasant country it is." "you don't mean to say you have been drinking, hans," said deronda, who had seated himself opposite, in anxious survey. "nothing so good. i've been smoking opium. i always meant to do it some time or other, to try how much bliss could be got by it; and having found myself just now rather out of other bliss, i thought it judicious to seize the opportunity. but i pledge you my word i shall never tap a cask of that bliss again. it disagrees with my constitution." "what has been the matter? you were in good spirits enough when you wrote to me." "oh, nothing in particular. the world began to look seedy--a sort of cabbage-garden with all the cabbages cut. a malady of genius, you may be sure," said hans, creasing his face into a smile; "and, in fact, i was tired of being virtuous without reward, especially in this hot london weather." "nothing else? no real vexation?" said deronda. hans shook his head. "i came to tell you of my own affairs, but i can't do it with a good grace if you are to hide yours." "haven't an affair in the world," said hans, in a flighty way, "except a quarrel with a bric-à-brac man. besides, as it is the first time in our lives that you ever spoke to me about your own affairs, you are only beginning to pay a pretty long debt." deronda felt convinced that hans was behaving artificially, but he trusted to a return of the old frankness by-and-by if he gave his own confidence. "you laughed at the mystery of my journey to italy, hans," he began. "it was for an object that touched my happiness at the very roots. i had never known anything about my parents, and i really went to genoa to meet my mother. my father has been long dead--died when i was an infant. my mother was the daughter of an eminent jew; my father was her cousin. many things had caused me to think of this origin as almost a probability before i set out. i was so far prepared for the result that i was glad of it--glad to find myself a jew." "you must not expect me to look surprised, deronda," said hans, who had changed his attitude, laying one leg across the other and examining the heel of his slipper. "you knew it?" "my mother told me. she went to the house the morning after you had been there--brother and sister both told her. you may imagine we can't rejoice as they do. but whatever you are glad of, i shall come to be glad of in the end--_when_ exactly the end may be i can't predict," said hans, speaking in a low tone, which was as usual with him as it was to be out of humor with his lot, and yet bent on making no fuss about it. "i quite understand that you can't share my feeling," said deronda; "but i could not let silence lie between us on what casts quite a new light over my future. i have taken up some of mordecai's ideas, and i mean to try and carry them out, so far as one man's efforts can go. i dare say i shall by and by travel to the east and be away for some years." hans said nothing, but rose, seized his palette and began to work his brush on it, standing before his picture with his back to deronda, who also felt himself at a break in his path embarrassed by hans's embarrassment. presently hans said, again speaking low, and without turning, "excuse the question, but does mrs. grandcourt know of all this?" "no; and i must beg of you, hans," said deronda, rather angrily, "to cease joking on that subject. any notions you have are wide of the truth--are the very reverse of the truth." "i am no more inclined to joke than i shall be at my own funeral," said hans. "but i am not at all sure that you are aware what are my notions on that subject." "perhaps not," said deronda. "but let me say, once for all, that in relation to mrs. grandcourt, i never have had, and never shall have the position of a lover. if you have ever seriously put that interpretation on anything you have observed, you are supremely mistaken." there was silence a little while, and to each the silence was like an irritating air, exaggerating discomfort. "perhaps i have been mistaken in another interpretation, also," said hans, presently. "what is that?" "that you had no wish to hold the position of a lover toward another woman, who is neither wife nor widow." "i can't pretend not to understand you, meyrick. it is painful that our wishes should clash. i hope you will tell me if you have any ground for supposing that you would succeed." "that seems rather a superfluous inquiry on your part, deronda," said hans, with some irritation. "why superfluous?" "because you are perfectly convinced on the subject--and probably have had the very best evidence to convince you." "i will be more frank with you than you are with me," said deronda, still heated by hans' show of temper, and yet sorry for him. "i have never had the slightest evidence that i should succeed myself. in fact, i have very little hope." hans looked round hastily at his friend, but immediately turned to his picture again. "and in our present situation," said deronda, hurt by the idea that hans suspected him of insincerity, and giving an offended emphasis to his words, "i don't see how i can deliberately make known my feeling to her. if she could not return it, i should have embittered her best comfort; for neither she nor i can be parted from her brother, and we should have to meet continually. if i were to cause her that sort of pain by an unwilling betrayal of my feeling, i should be no better than a mischievous animal." "i don't know that i have ever betrayed _my_ feeling to her," said hans, as if he were vindicating himself. "you mean that we are on a level, then; you have no reason to envy me." "oh, not the slightest," said hans, with bitter irony. "you have measured my conceit and know that it out-tops all your advantages." "i am a nuisance to you, meyrick. i am sorry, but i can't help it," said deronda, rising. "after what passed between us before, i wished to have this explanation; and i don't see that any pretensions of mine have made a real difference to you. they are not likely to make any pleasant difference to myself under present circumstances. now the father is there--did you know that the father is there?" "yes. if he were not a jew i would permit myself to damn him--with faint praise, i mean," said hans, but with no smile. "she and i meet under greater constraint than ever. things might go on in this way for two years without my getting any insight into her feeling toward me. that is the whole state of affairs, hans. neither you nor i have injured the other, that i can see. we must put up with this sort of rivalry in a hope that is likely enough to come to nothing. our friendship can bear that strain, surely." "no, it can't," said hans, impetuously, throwing down his tools, thrusting his hands into his coat-pockets, and turning round to face deronda, who drew back a little and looked at him with amazement. hans went on in the same tone, "our friendship--my friendship--can't bear the strain of behaving to you like an ungrateful dastard and grudging you your happiness. for you _are_ the happiest dog in the world. if mirah loves anybody better than her brother, _you are the man_." hans turned on his heel and threw himself into his chair, looking up at deronda with an expression the reverse of tender. something like a shock passed through deronda, and, after an instant, he said, "it is a good-natured fiction of yours, hans." "i am not in a good-natured mood. i assure you i found the fact disagreeable when it was thrust on me--all the more, or perhaps all the less, because i believed then that your heart was pledged to the duchess. but now, confound you! you turn out to be in love in the right place--a jew--and everything eligible." "tell me what convinced you--there's a good fellow," said deronda, distrusting a delight that he was unused to. "don't ask. little mother was witness. the upshot is, that mirah is jealous of the duchess, and the sooner you relieve your mind the better. there! i've cleared off a score or two, and may be allowed to swear at you for getting what you deserve--which is just the very best luck i know of." "god bless you, hans!" said deronda, putting out his hand, which the other took and wrung in silence. chapter lxviii. "all thoughts, all passions, all delights, whatever stirs this mortal frame, all are but ministers of love, and feed his sacred flame." --coleridge. deronda's eagerness to confess his love could hardly have had a stronger stimulus than hans had given it in his assurance that mirah needed relief from jealousy. he went on his next visit to ezra with the determination to be resolute in using--nay, in requesting--an opportunity of private conversation with her. if she accepted his love, he felt courageous about all other consequences, and as her betrothed husband he would gain a protective authority which might be a desirable defense for her in future difficulties with her father. deronda had not observed any signs of growing restlessness in lapidoth, or of diminished desire to recommend himself; but he had forebodings of some future struggle, some mortification, or some intolerable increase of domestic disquietude in which he might save ezra and mirah from being helpless victims. his forebodings would have been strengthened if he had known what was going on in the father's mind. that amount of restlessness, that desultoriness of attention, which made a small torture to ezra, was to lapidoth an irksome submission to restraint, only made bearable by his thinking of it as a means of by-and-by securing a well-conditioned freedom. he began with the intention of awaiting some really good chance, such as an opening for getting a considerable sum from deronda; but all the while he was looking about curiously, and trying to discover where mirah deposited her money and her keys. the imperious gambling desire within him, which carried on its activity through every other occupation, and made a continuous web of imagination that held all else in its meshes, would hardly have been under the control of a contracted purpose, if he had been able to lay his hands on any sum worth capturing. but mirah, with her practical clear-sightedness, guarded against any frustration of the promise she had given to ezra, by confiding all money, except what she was immediately in want of, to mrs. meyrick's care, and lapidoth felt himself under an irritating completeness of supply in kind as in a lunatic asylum where everything was made safe against him. to have opened a desk or drawer of mirah's, and pocketed any bank-notes found there, would have been to his mind a sort of domestic appropriation which had no disgrace in it; the degrees of liberty a man allows himself with other people's property being often delicately drawn, even beyond the boundary where the law begins to lay its hold--which is the reason why spoons are a safer investment than mining shares. lapidoth really felt himself injuriously treated by his daughter, and thought that he ought to have had what he wanted of her other earnings as he had of her apple-tart. but he remained submissive; indeed, the indiscretion that most tempted him, was not any insistence with mirah, but some kind of appeal to deronda. clever persons who have nothing else to sell can often put a good price on their absence, and lapidoth's difficult search for devices forced upon him the idea that his family would find themselves happier without him, and that deronda would be willing to advance a considerable sum for the sake of getting rid of him. but, in spite of well-practiced hardihood, lapidoth was still in some awe of ezra's imposing friend, and deferred his purpose indefinitely. on this day, when deronda had come full of a gladdened consciousness, which inevitably showed itself in his air and speech, lapidoth was at a crisis of discontent and longing that made his mind busy with schemes of freedom, and deronda's new amenity encouraged them. this pre-occupation was at last so strong as to interfere with his usual show of interest in what went forward, and his persistence in sitting by even when there was reading which he could not follow. after sitting a little while, he went out to smoke and walk in the square, and the two friends were all the easier. mirah was not at home, but she was sure to be in again before deronda left, and his eyes glowed with a secret anticipation: he thought that when he saw her again he should see some sweetness of recognition for himself to which his eyes had been sealed before. there was an additional playful affectionateness in his manner toward ezra. "this little room is too close for you, ezra," he said, breaking off his reading. "the week's heat we sometimes get here is worse than the heat in genoa, where one sits in the shaded coolness of large rooms. you must have a better home now. i shall do as i like with you, being the stronger half." he smiled toward ezra, who said, "i am straitened for nothing except breath. but you, who might be in a spacious palace, with the wide green country around you, find this a narrow prison. nevertheless, i cannot say, 'go.'" "oh, the country would be a banishment while you are here," said deronda, rising and walking round the double room, which yet offered no long promenade, while he made a great fan of his handkerchief. "this is the happiest room in the world to me. besides, i will imagine myself in the east, since i am getting ready to go there some day. only i will not wear a cravat and a heavy ring there," he ended emphatically, pausing to take off those superfluities and deposit them on a small table behind ezra, who had the table in front of him covered with books and papers. "i have been wearing my memorable ring ever since i came home," he went on, as he reseated himself. "but i am such a sybarite that i constantly put it off as a burden when i am doing anything. i understand why the romans had summer rings--_if_ they had them. now then, i shall get on better." they were soon absorbed in their work again. deronda was reading a piece of rabbinical hebrew under ezra's correction and comment, and they took little notice when lapidoth re-entered and took a seat somewhat in the background. his rambling eyes quickly alighted on the ring that sparkled on the bit of dark mahogany. during his walk, his mind had been occupied with the fiction of an advantageous opening for him abroad, only requiring a sum of ready money, which, on being communicated to deronda in private, might immediately draw from him a question as to the amount of the required sum: and it was this part of his forecast that lapidoth found the most debatable, there being a danger in asking too much, and a prospective regret in asking too little. his own desire gave him no limit, and he was quite without guidance as to the limit of deronda's willingness. but now, in the midst of these airy conditions preparatory to a receipt which remained indefinite, this ring, which on deronda's finger had become familiar to lapidoth's envy, suddenly shone detached and within easy grasp. its value was certainly below the smallest of the imaginary sums that his purpose fluctuated between; but then it was before him as a solid fact, and his desire at once leaped into the thought (not yet an intention) that if he were quietly to pocket that ring and walk away he would have the means of comfortable escape from present restraint, without trouble, and also without danger; for any property of deronda's (available without his formal consent) was all one with his children's property, since their father would never be prosecuted for taking it. the details of this thinking followed each other so quickly that they seemed to rise before him as one picture. lapidoth had never committed larceny; but larceny is a form of appropriation for which people are punished by law; and, take this ring from a virtual relation, who would have been willing to make a much heavier gift, would not come under the head of larceny. still, the heavier gift was to be preferred, if lapidoth could only make haste enough in asking for it, and the imaginary action of taking the ring, which kept repeating itself like an inward tune, sank into a rejected idea. he satisfied his urgent longing by resolving to go below, and watch for the moment of deronda's departure, when he would ask leave to join him in his walk and boldly carry out his meditated plan. he rose and stood looking out of the window, but all the while he saw what lay beyond him--the brief passage he would have to make to the door close by the table where the ring was. however he was resolved to go down; but--by no distinct change of resolution, rather by a dominance of desire, like the thirst of the drunkard--it so happened that in passing the table his fingers fell noiselessly on the ring, and he found himself in the passage with the ring in his hand. it followed that he put on his hat and quitted the house. the possibility of again throwing himself on his children receded into the indefinite distance, and before he was out on the square his sense of haste had concentrated itself on selling the ring and getting on shipboard. deronda and ezra were just aware of his exit; that was all. but, by-and-by, mirah came in and made a real interruption. she had not taken off her hat; and when deronda rose and advanced to shake hands with her, she said, in a confusion at once unaccountable and troublesome to herself, "i only came in to see that ezra had his new draught. i must go directly to mrs. meyrick's to fetch something." "pray allow me to walk with you," said deronda urgently. "i must not tire ezra any further; besides my brains are melting. i want to go to mrs. meyrick's: may i go with you?" "oh, yes," said mirah, blushing still more, with the vague sense of something new in deronda, and turning away to pour out ezra's draught; ezra meanwhile throwing back his head with his eyes shut, unable to get his mind away from the ideas that had been filling it while the reading was going on. deronda for a moment stood thinking of nothing but the walk, till mirah turned round again and brought the draught, when he suddenly remembered that he had laid aside his cravat, and saying--"pray excuse my dishabille--i did not mean you to see it," he went to the little table, took up his cravat, and exclaimed with a violent impulse of surprise, "good heavens, where is my ring gone?" beginning to search about on the floor. ezra looked round the corner of his chair. mirah, quick as thought, went to the spot where deronda was seeking, and said, "did you lay it down?" "yes," said deronda, still unvisited by any other explanation than that the ring had fallen and was lurking in shadow, indiscernable on the variegated carpet. he was moving the bits of furniture near, and searching in all possible and impossible places with hand and eyes. but another explanation had visited mirah and taken the color from her cheeks. she went to ezra's ear and whispered "was my father here?" he bent his head in reply, meeting her eyes with terrible understanding. she darted back to the spot where deronda was still casting down his eyes in that hopeless exploration which we are apt to carry on over a space we have examined in vain. "you have not found it?" she said, hurriedly. he, meeting her frightened gaze, immediately caught alarm from it and answered, "i perhaps put it in my pocket," professing to feel for it there. she watched him and said, "it is not there?--you put it on the table," with a penetrating voice that would not let him feign to have found it in his pocket; and immediately she rushed out of the room. deronda followed her--she was gone into the sitting-room below to look for her father--she opened the door of the bedroom to see if he were there--she looked where his hat usually hung--she turned with her hands clasped tight and her lips pale, gazing despairingly out of the window. then she looked up at deronda, who had not dared to speak to her in her white agitation. she looked up at him, unable to utter a word--the look seemed a tacit acceptance of the humiliation she felt in his presence. but he, taking her clasped hands between both his, said, in a tone of reverent adoration, "mirah, let me think that he is my father as well as yours--that we can have no sorrow, no disgrace, no joy apart. i will rather take your grief to be mine than i would take the brightest joy of another woman. say you will not reject me--say you will take me to share all things with you. say you will promise to be my wife--say it now. i have been in doubt so long--i have had to hide my love so long. say that now and always i may prove to you that i love you with complete love." the change in mirah had been gradual. she had not passed at once from anguish to the full, blessed consciousness that, in this moment of grief and shame, deronda was giving her the highest tribute man can give to woman. with the first tones and the first words, she had only a sense of solemn comfort, referring this goodness of deronda's to his feeling for ezra. but by degrees the rapturous assurance of unhoped-for good took possession of her frame: her face glowed under deronda's as he bent over her; yet she looked up still with intense gravity, as when she had first acknowledged with religious gratitude that he had thought her "worthy of the best;" and when he had finished, she could say nothing--she could only lift up her lips to his and just kiss them, as if that were the simplest "yes." they stood then, only looking at each other, he holding her hands between his--too happy to move, meeting so fully in their new consciousness that all signs would have seemed to throw them farther apart, till mirah said in a whisper: "let us go and comfort ezra." chapter lxix. "the human nature unto which i felt that i belonged, and reverenced with love, was not a punctual presence, but a spirit diffused through time and space, with aid derived of evidence from monuments, erect, prostrate, or leaning toward their common rest in earth, the widely scattered wreck sublime of vanished nations." --wordsworth: _the prelude_. sir hugo carried out his plan of spending part of the autumn at diplow, and by the beginning of october his presence was spreading some cheerfulness in the neighborhood, among all ranks and persons concerned, from the stately home of brackenshaw and quetcham to the respectable shop-parlors in wanchester. for sir hugo was a man who liked to show himself and be affable, a liberal of good lineage, who confided entirely in reform as not likely to make any serious difference in english habits of feeling, one of which undoubtedly is the liking to behold society well fenced and adorned with hereditary rank. hence he made diplow a most agreeable house, extending his invitations to old wanchester solicitors and young village curates, but also taking some care in the combination of the guests, and not feeding all the common poultry together, so that they should think their meal no particular compliment. easy-going lord brackenshaw, for example, would not mind meeting robinson the attorney, but robinson would have been naturally piqued if he had been asked to meet a set of people who passed for his equals. on all these points sir hugo was well informed enough at once to gain popularity for himself and give pleasure to others--two results which eminently suited his disposition. the rector of pennicote now found a reception at diplow very different from the haughty tolerance he had undergone during the reign of grandcourt. it was not that the baronet liked mr. gascoigne; it was that he desired to keep up a marked relation of friendliness with him on account of mrs. grandcourt, for whom sir hugo's chivalry had become more and more engaged. why? the chief reason was one that he could not fully communicate, even to lady mallinger--for he would not tell what he thought one woman's secret to another, even though the other was his wife--which shows that his chivalry included a rare reticence. deronda, after he had become engaged to mirah, felt it right to make a full statement of his position and purposes to sir hugo, and he chose to make it by letter. he had more than a presentiment that his fatherly friend would feel some dissatisfaction, if not pain, at this turn of his destiny. in reading unwelcome news, instead of hearing it, there is the advantage that one avoids a hasty expression of impatience which may afterward be repented of. deronda dreaded that verbal collision which makes otherwise pardonable feeling lastingly offensive. and sir hugo, though not altogether surprised, was thoroughly vexed. his immediate resource was to take the letter to lady mallinger, who would be sure to express an astonishment which her husband could argue against as unreasonable, and in this way divide the stress of his discontent. and in fact when she showed herself astonished and distressed that all daniel's wonderful talents, and the comfort of having him in the house, should have ended in his going mad in this way about the jews, the baronet could say, "oh, nonsense, my dear! depend upon it, dan will not make a fool of himself. he has large notions about judaism--political views which you can't understand. no fear but dan will keep himself head uppermost." but with regard to the prospective marriage she afforded him no counter-irritant. the gentle lady observed, without rancor, that she had little dreamed of what was coming when she had mirah to sing at her musical party and give lessons to amabel. after some hesitation, indeed, she confessed it _had_ passed through her mind that after a proper time daniel might marry mrs. grandcourt--because it seemed so remarkable that he should be at genoa just at that time--and although she herself was not fond of widows she could not help thinking that such a marriage would have been better than his going altogether with the jews. but sir hugo was so strongly of the same opinion that he could not correct it as a feminine mistake; and his ill-humor at the disproof of his disagreeable conclusions on behalf of gwendolen was left without vent. he desired lady mallinger not to breathe a word about the affair till further notice, saying to himself, "if it is an unkind cut to the poor thing (meaning gwendolen), the longer she is without knowing it the better, in her present nervous state. and she will best learn it from dan himself." sir hugo's conjectures had worked so industriously with his knowledge, that he fancied himself well informed concerning the whole situation. meanwhile his residence with his family at diplow enabled him to continue his fatherly attentions to gwendolen; and in these lady mallinger, notwithstanding her small liking for widows, was quite willing to second him. the plan of removal to offendene had been carried out; and gwendolen, in settling there, maintained a calm beyond her mother's hopes. she was experiencing some of that peaceful melancholy which comes from the renunciation of demands for self, and from taking the ordinary good of existence, and especially kindness, even from a dog, as a gift above expectation. does one who has been all but lost in a pit of darkness complain of the sweet air and the daylight? there is a way of looking at our life daily as an escape, and taking the quiet return of morn and evening--still more the star-like out-glowing of some pure fellow-feeling, some generous impulse breaking our inward darkness--as a salvation that reconciles us to hardship. those who have a self-knowledge prompting such self-accusation as hamlet's, can understand this habitual feeling of rescue. and it was felt by gwendolen as she lived through and through again the terrible history of her temptations, from their first form of illusory self-pleasing when she struggled away from the hold of conscience, to their latest form of an urgent hatred dragging her toward its satisfaction, while she prayed and cried for the help of that conscience which she had once forsaken. she was now dwelling on every word of deronda's that pointed to her past deliverance from the worst evil in herself, and the worst infliction of it on others, and on every word that carried a force to resist self-despair. but she was also upborne by the prospect of soon seeing him again: she did not imagine him otherwise than always within her reach, her supreme need of him blinding her to the separateness of his life, the whole scene of which she filled with his relation to her--no unique preoccupation of gwendolen's, for we are all apt to fall into this passionate egoism of imagination, not only toward our fellow-men, but toward god. and the future which she turned her face to with a willing step was one where she would be continually assimilating herself to some type that he would hold before her. had he not first risen on her vision as a corrective presence which she had recognized in the beginning with resentment, and at last with entire love and trust? she could not spontaneously think of an end to that reliance, which had become to her imagination like the firmness of the earth, the only condition of her walking. and deronda was not long before he came to diplow, which was a more convenient distance from town than the abbey. he had wished to carry out a plan for taking ezra and mirah to a mild spot on the coast, while he prepared another home which mirah might enter as his bride, and where they might unitedly watch over her brother. but ezra begged not to be removed, unless it were to go with them to the east. all outward solicitations were becoming more and more of a burden to him; but his mind dwelt on the possibility of this voyage with a visionary joy. deronda, in his preparations for the marriage, which he hoped might not be deferred beyond a couple of months, wished to have fuller consultation as to his resources and affairs generally with sir hugo, and here was a reason for not delaying his visit to diplow. but he thought quite as much of another reason--his promise to gwendolen. the sense of blessedness in his own lot had yet an aching anxiety at his heart: this may be held paradoxical, for the beloved lover is always called happy, and happiness is considered as a well-fleshed indifference to sorrow outside it. but human experience is usually paradoxical, if that means incongruous with the phrases of current talk or even current philosophy. it was no treason to mirah, but a part of that full nature which made his love for her the more worthy, that his joy in her could hold by its side the care for another. for what is love itself, for the one we love best?--an enfolding of immeasurable cares which yet are better than any joys outside our love. deronda came twice to diplow, and saw gwendolen twice--and yet he went back to town without having told her anything about the change in his lot and prospects. he blamed himself; but in all momentous communication likely to give pain we feel dependent on some preparatory turn of words or associations, some agreement of the other's mood with the probable effect of what we have to impart. in the first interview gwendolen was so absorbed in what she had to say to him, so full of questions which he must answer, about the arrangement of her life, what she could do to make herself less ignorant, how she could be kindest to everybody, and make amends for her selfishness and try to be rid of it, that deronda utterly shrank from waiving her immediate wants in order to speak of himself, nay, from inflicting a wound on her in these moments when she was leaning on him for help in her path. in the second interview, when he went with new resolve to command the conversation into some preparatory track, he found her in a state of deep depression, overmastered by some distasteful miserable memories which forced themselves on her as something more real and ample than any new material out of which she could mould her future. she cried hysterically, and said that he would always despise her. he could only seek words of soothing and encouragement: and when she gradually revived under them, with that pathetic look of renewed childlike interest which we see in eyes where the lashes are still beaded with tears, it was impossible to lay another burden on her. but time went on, and he felt it a pressing duty to make the difficult disclosure. gwendolen, it was true, never recognized his having any affairs; and it had never even occurred to her to ask him why he happened to be at genoa. but this unconsciousness of hers would make a sudden revelation of affairs that were determining his course in life all the heavier blow to her; and if he left the revelation to be made by different persons, she would feel that he had treated her with cruel inconsiderateness. he could not make the communication in writing: his tenderness could not bear to think of her reading his virtual farewell in solitude, and perhaps feeling his words full of a hard gladness for himself and indifference for her. he went down to diplow again, feeling that every other peril was to be incurred rather than that of returning and leaving her still in ignorance. on this third visit deronda found hans meyrick installed with his easel at diplow, beginning his picture of the three daughters sitting on a bank, "in the gainsborough style," and varying his work by rambling to pennicote to sketch the village children and improve his acquaintance with the gascoignes. hans appeared to have recovered his vivacity, but deronda detected some feigning in it, as we detect the artificiality of a lady's bloom from its being a little too high-toned and steadily persistent (a "fluctuating rouge" not having yet appeared among the advertisements). also with all his grateful friendship and admiration for deronda, hans could not help a certain irritation against him, such as extremely incautious, open natures are apt to feel when the breaking of a friend's reserve discloses a state of things not merely unsuspected but the reverse of what had been hoped and ingeniously conjectured. it is true that poor hans had always cared chiefly to confide in deronda, and had been quite incurious as to any confidence that might have been given in return; but what outpourer of his own affairs is not tempted to think any hint of his friend's affairs is an egotistic irrelevance? that was no reason why it was not rather a sore reflection to hans that while he had been all along naively opening his heart about mirah, deronda had kept secret a feeling of rivalry which now revealed itself as the important determining fact. moreover, it is always at their peril that our friends turn out to be something more than we were aware of. hans must be excused for these promptings of bruised sensibility, since he had not allowed them to govern his substantial conduct: he had the consciousness of having done right by his fortunate friend; or, as he told himself, "his metal had given a better ring than he would have sworn to beforehand." for hans had always said that in point of virtue he was a _dilettante_: which meant that he was very fond of it in other people, but if he meddled with it himself he cut a poor figure. perhaps in reward of his good behavior he gave his tongue the more freedom; and he was too fully possessed by the notion of deronda's happiness to have a conception of what he was feeling about gwendolen, so that he spoke of her without hesitation. "when did you come down, hans?" said deronda, joining him in the grounds where he was making a study of the requisite bank and trees. "oh, ten days ago; before the time sir hugo fixed. i ran down with rex gascoigne and stayed at the rectory a day or two. i'm up in all the gossip of these parts; i know the state of the wheelwright's interior, and have assisted at an infant school examination. sister anna, with the good upper lip, escorted me, else i should have been mobbed by three urchins and an idiot, because of my long hair and a general appearance which departs from the pennicote type of the beautiful. altogether, the village is idyllic. its only fault is a dark curate with broad shoulders and broad trousers who ought to have gone into the heavy drapery line. the gascoignes are perfect--besides being related to the vandyke duchess. i caught a glimpse of her in her black robes at a distance, though she doesn't show to visitors." "she was not staying at the rectory?" said deronda. "no; but i was taken to offendene to see the old house, and as a consequence i saw the duchess' family. i suppose you have been there and know all about them?" "yes, i have been there," said deronda, quietly. "a fine old place. an excellent setting for a widow with romantic fortunes. and she seems to have had several romances. i think i have found out that there was one between her and my friend rex." "not long before her marriage, then?" said deronda, really interested, "for they had only been a year at offendene. how came you to know anything of it?" "oh--not ignorant of what it is to be a miserable devil, i learn to gloat on the signs of misery in others. i found out that rex never goes to offendene, and has never seen the duchess since she came back; and miss gascoigne let fall something in our talk about charade-acting--for i went through some of my nonsense to please the young ones--something that proved to me that rex was once hovering about his fair cousin close enough to get singed. i don't know what was her part in the affair. perhaps the duke came in and carried her off. that is always the way when an exceptionally worthy young man forms an attachment. i understand now why gascoigne talks of making the law his mistress and remaining a bachelor. but these are green resolves. since the duke did not get himself drowned for your sake, it may turn out to be for my friend rex's sake. who knows?" "is it absolutely necessary that mrs. grandcourt should marry again?" said deronda, ready to add that hans's success in constructing her fortunes hitherto had not been enough to warrant a new attempt. "you monster!" retorted hans, "do you want her to wear weeds for _you_ all her life--burn herself in perpetual suttee while you are alive and merry?" deronda could say nothing, but he looked so much annoyed that hans turned the current of his chat, and when he was alone shrugged his shoulders a little over the thought that there really had been some stronger feeling between deronda and the duchess than mirah would like to know of. "why didn't she fall in love with me?" thought hans, laughing at himself. "she would have had no rivals. no woman ever wanted to discuss theology with me." no wonder that deronda winced under that sort of joking with a whip-lash. it touched sensibilities that were already quivering with the anticipation of witnessing some of that pain to which even hans's light words seemed to give more reality:--any sort of recognition by another giving emphasis to the subject of our anxiety. and now he had come down with the firm resolve that he would not again evade the trial. the next day he rode to offendene. he had sent word that he intended to call and to ask if gwendolen could receive him; and he found her awaiting him in the old drawing-room where some chief crises of her life had happened. she seemed less sad than he had seen her since her husband's death; there was no smile on her face, but a placid self-possession, in contrast with the mood in which he had last found her. she was all the more alive to the sadness perceptible in deronda; and they were no sooner seated--he at a little distance opposite to her--than she said: "you were afraid of coming to see me, because i was so full of grief and despair the last time. but i am not so today. i have been sorry ever since. i have been making it a reason why i should keep up my hope and be as cheerful as i can, because i would not give you any pain about me." there was an unwonted sweetness in gwendolen's tone and look as she uttered these words that seemed to deronda to infuse the utmost cruelty into the task now laid upon him. but he felt obliged to make his answer a beginning of the task. "i _am_ in some trouble to-day," he said, looking at her rather mournfully; "but it is because i have things to tell you which you will almost think it a want of confidence on my part not to have spoken of before. they are things affecting my own life--my own future. i shall seem to have made an ill return to you for the trust you have placed in me--never to have given you an idea of events that make great changes for me. but when we have been together we have hardly had time to enter into subjects which at the moment were really less pressing to me than the trials you have been going through." there was a sort of timid tenderness in deronda's deep tones, and he paused with a pleading look, as if it had been gwendolen only who had conferred anything in her scenes of beseeching and confession. a thrill of surprise was visible in her. such meaning as she found in his words had shaken her, but without causing fear. her mind had flown at once to some change in his position with regard to sir hugo and sir hugo's property. she said, with a sense of comfort from deronda's way of asking her pardon, "you never thought of anything but what you could do to help me; and i was so troublesome. how could you tell me things?" "it will perhaps astonish you," said deronda, "that i have only quite lately known who were my parents." gwendolen was not astonished: she felt the more assured that her expectations of what was coming were right. deronda went on without check. "the reason why you found me in italy was that i had gone there to learn that--in fact, to meet my mother. it was by her wish that i was brought up in ignorance of my parentage. she parted with me after my father's death, when i was a little creature. but she is now very ill, and she felt that the secrecy ought not to be any longer maintained. her chief reason had been that she did not wish me to know i was a jew." "_a jew_!" gwendolen exclaimed, in a low tone of amazement, with an utterly frustrated look, as if some confusing potion were creeping through her system. deronda colored, and did not speak, while gwendolen, with her eyes fixed on the floor, was struggling to find her way in the dark by the aid of various reminiscences. she seemed at last to have arrived at some judgment, for she looked up at deronda again and said, as if remonstrating against the mother's conduct, "what difference need that have made?" "it has made a great difference to me that i have known it," said deronda, emphatically; but he could not go on easily--the distance between her ideas and his acted like a difference of native language, making him uncertain what force his words would carry. gwendolen meditated again, and then said feelingly, "i hope there is nothing to make you mind. _you_ are just the same as if you were not a jew." she meant to assure him that nothing of that external sort could affect the way in which she regarded him, or the way in which he could influence her. deronda was a little helped by this misunderstanding. "the discovery was far from being painful to me," he said, "i had been gradually prepared for it, and i was glad of it. i had been prepared for it by becoming intimate with a very remarkable jew, whose ideas have attracted me so much that i think of devoting the best part of my life to some effort at giving them effect." again gwendolen seemed shaken--again there was a look of frustration, but this time it was mingled with alarm. she looked at deronda with lips childishly parted. it was not that she had yet connected his words with mirah and her brother, but that they had inspired her with a dreadful presentiment of mountainous travel for her mind before it could reach deronda's. great ideas in general which she had attributed to him seemed to make no great practical difference, and were not formidable in the same way as these mysteriously-shadowed particular ideas. he could not quite divine what was going on within her; he could only seek the least abrupt path of disclosure. "that is an object," he said, after a moment, "which will by-and-by force me to leave england for some time--for some years. i have purposes which will take me to the east." here was something clearer, but all the more immediately agitating. gwendolen's lips began to tremble. "but you will come back?" she said, tasting her own tears as they fell, before she thought of drying them. deronda could not sit still. he rose, and went to prop himself against the corner of the mantel-piece, at a different angle from her face. but when she had pressed her handkerchief against her cheeks, she turned and looked up at him, awaiting an answer. "if i live," said deronda--"_some time_." they were both silent. he could not persuade himself to say more unless she led up to it by a question; and she was apparently meditating something that she had to say. "what are you going to do?" she asked, at last, very mildly. "can i understand the ideas, or am i too ignorant?" "i am going to the east to become better acquainted with the condition of my race in various countries there," said deronda, gently--anxious to be as explanatory as he could on what was the impersonal part of their separateness from each other. "the idea that i am possessed with is that of restoring a political existence to my people, making them a nation again, giving them a national center, such as the english have, though they too are scattered over the face of the globe. that is a task which presents itself to me as a duty; i am resolved to begin it, however feebly. i am resolved to devote my life to it. at the least, i may awaken a movement in other minds, such as has been awakened in my own." there was a long silence between them. the world seemed getting larger round poor gwendolen, and she more solitary and helpless in the midst. the thought that he might come back after going to the east, sank before the bewildering vision of these wild-stretching purposes in which she felt herself reduced to a mere speck. there comes a terrible moment to many souls when the great movements of the world, the larger destinies of mankind, which have lain aloof in newspapers and other neglected reading, enter like an earthquake into their own lives--where the slow urgency of growing generations turns into the tread of an invading army or the dire clash of civil war, and gray fathers know nothing to seek for but the corpses of their blooming sons, and girls forget all vanity to make lint and bandages which may serve for the shattered limbs of their betrothed husbands. then it is as if the invisible power that had been the object of lip-worship and lip-resignation became visible, according to the imagery of the hebrew poet, making the flames his chariot, and riding on the wings of the wind, till the mountains smoke and the plains shudder under the rolling fiery visitations. often the good cause seems to lie prostrate under the thunder of unrelenting force, the martyrs live reviled, they die, and no angel is seen holding forth the crown and the palm branch. then it is that the submission of the soul to the highest is tested, and even in the eyes of frivolity life looks out from the scene of human struggle with the awful face of duty, and a religion shows itself which is something else than a private consolation. that was the sort of crisis which was at this moment beginning in gwendolen's small life: she was for the first time feeling the pressure of a vast mysterious movement, for the first time being dislodged from her supremacy in her own world, and getting a sense that her horizon was but a dipping onward of an existence with which her own was revolving. all the troubles of her wifehood and widowhood had still left her with the implicit impression which had accompanied her from childhood, that whatever surrounded her was somehow specially for her, and it was because of this that no personal jealousy had been roused in her relation to deronda: she could not spontaneously think of him as rightfully belonging to others more than to her. but here had come a shock which went deeper than personal jealousy--something spiritual and vaguely tremendous that thrust her away, and yet quelled all her anger into self-humiliation. there had been a long silence. deronda had stood still, even thankful for an interval before he needed to say more, and gwendolen had sat like a statue with her wrists lying over each other and her eyes fixed--the intensity of her mental action arresting all other excitation. at length something occurred to her that made her turn her face to deronda and say in a trembling voice, "is that all you can tell me?" the question was like a dart to him. "the jew whom i mentioned just now," he answered, not without a certain tremor in his tones too, "the remarkable man who has greatly influenced my mind, has not perhaps been totally unheard of by you. he is the brother of miss lapidoth, whom you have often heard sing." a great wave of remembrance passed through gwendolen and spread as a deep, painful flush over neck and face. it had come first at the scene of that morning when she had called on mirah, and heard deronda's voice reading, and been told, without then heeding it, that he was reading hebrew with mirah's brother. "he is very ill--very near death now," deronda went on, nervously, and then stopped short. he felt that he must wait. would she divine the rest? "did she tell you that i went to her?" said gwendolen, abruptly, looking up at him. "no," said deronda. "i don't understand you." she turned away her eyes again, and sat thinking. slowly the color dried out of face and neck, and she was as pale as before--with that almost withered paleness which is seen after a painful flush. at last she said--without turning toward him--in a low, measured voice, as if she were only thinking aloud in preparation for future speech, "but _can_ you marry?" "yes," said deronda, also in a low voice. "i am going to marry." at first there was no change in gwendolen's attitude: she only began to tremble visibly; then she looked before her with dilated eyes, as at something lying in front of her, till she stretched her arms out straight, and cried with a smothered voice, "i said i should be forsaken. i have been a cruel woman. and i am forsaken." deronda's anguish was intolerable. he could not help himself. he seized her outstretched hands and held them together, and kneeled at her feet. she was the victim of his happiness. "i am cruel, too, i am cruel," he repeated, with a sort of groan, looking up at her imploringly. his presence and touch seemed to dispel a horrible vision, and she met his upward look of sorrow with something like the return of consciousness after fainting. then she dwelt on it with that growing pathetic movement of the brow which accompanies the revival of some tender recollection. the look of sorrow brought back what seemed a very far-off moment--the first time she had ever seen it, in the library at the abbey. sobs rose, and great tears fell fast. deronda would not let her hands go--held them still with one of his, and himself pressed her handkerchief against her eyes. she submitted like a half-soothed child, making an effort to speak, which was hindered by struggling sobs. at last she succeeded in saying, brokenly, "i said--i said--it should be better--better with me--for having known you." his eyes too were larger with tears. she wrested one of her hands from his, and returned his action, pressing his tears away. "we shall not be quite parted," he said. "i will write to you always, when i can, and you will answer?" he waited till she said in a whisper, "i will try." "i shall be more with you than i used to be," deronda said with gentle urgency, releasing her hands and rising from his kneeling posture. "if we had been much together before, we should have felt our differences more, and seemed to get farther apart. now we can perhaps never see each other again. but our minds may get nearer." gwendolen said nothing, but rose too, automatically. her withered look of grief, such as the sun often shines on when the blinds are drawn up after the burial of life's joy, made him hate his own words: they seemed to have the hardness of easy consolation in them. she felt that he was going, and that nothing could hinder it. the sense of it was like a dreadful whisper in her ear, which dulled all other consciousness; and she had not known that she was rising. deronda could not speak again. he thought that they must part in silence, but it was difficult to move toward the parting, till she looked at him with a sort of intention in her eyes, which helped him. he advanced to put out his hand silently, and when she had placed hers within it, she said what her mind had been laboring with, "you have been very good to me. i have deserved nothing. i will try--try to live. i shall think of you. what good have i been? only harm. don't let me be harm to _you_. it shall be the better for me--" she could not finish. it was not that she was sobbing, but that the intense effort with which she spoke made her too tremulous. the burden of that difficult rectitude toward him was a weight her frame tottered under. she bent forward to kiss his cheek, and he kissed hers. then they looked at each other for an instant with clasped hands, and he turned away. when he was quite gone, her mother came in and found her sitting motionless. "gwendolen, dearest, you look very ill," she said, bending over her and touching her cold hands. "yes, mamma. but don't be afraid. i am going to live," said gwendolen, bursting out hysterically. her mother persuaded her to go to bed, and watched by her. through the day and half the night she fell continually into fits of shrieking, but cried in the midst of them to her mother, "don't be afraid. i shall live. i mean to live." after all, she slept; and when she waked in the morning light, she looked up fixedly at her mother and said tenderly, "ah, poor mamma! you have been sitting up with me. don't be unhappy. i shall live. i shall be better." chapter lxx. in the checkered area of human experience the seasons are all mingled as in the golden age: fruit and blossom hang together; in the same moment the sickle is reaping and the seed is sprinkled; one tends the green cluster and another treads the winepress. nay, in each of our lives harvest and spring-time are continually one, until himself gathers us and sows us anew in his invisible fields. among the blessings of love there is hardly one more exquisite than the sense that in uniting the beloved life to ours we can watch over its happiness, bring comfort where hardship was, and over memories of privation and suffering open the sweetest fountains of joy. deronda's love for mirah was strongly imbued with that blessed protectiveness. even with infantine feet she had begun to tread among thorns; and the first time he had beheld her face it had seemed to him the girlish image of despair. but now she was glowing like a dark-tipped yet delicate ivory-tinted flower in the warm sunlight of content, thinking of any possible grief as part of that life with deronda, which she could call by no other name than good. and he watched the sober gladness which gave new beauty to her movements; and her habitual attitudes of repose, with a delight which made him say to himself that it was enough of personal joy for him to save her from pain. she knew nothing of hans's struggle or of gwendolen's pang; for after the assurance that deronda's hidden love had been for her, she easily explained gwendolen's eager solicitude about him as part of a grateful dependence on his goodness, such as she herself had known. and all deronda's words about mrs. grandcourt confirmed that view of their relation, though he never touched on it except in the most distant manner. mirah was ready to believe that he had been a rescuing angel to many besides herself. the only wonder was, that she among them all was to have the bliss of being continually by his side. so, when the bridal veil was around mirah it hid no doubtful tremors--only a thrill of awe at the acceptance of a great gift which required great uses. and the velvet canopy never covered a more goodly bride and bridegroom, to whom their people might more wisely wish offspring; more truthful lips never touched the sacrament marriage-wine; the marriage-blessing never gathered stronger promise of fulfillment than in the integrity of their mutual pledge. naturally, they were married according to the jewish rite. and since no religion seems yet to have demanded that when we make a feast we should invite only the highest rank of our acquaintances, few, it is to be hoped, will be offended to learn that among the guests at deronda's little wedding-feast was the entire cohen family, with the one exception of the baby who carried on her teething intelligently at home. how could mordecai have borne that those friends of his adversity should have been shut out from rejoicing in common with him? mrs. meyrick so fully understood this that she had quite reconciled herself to meeting the jewish pawnbroker, and was there with her three daughters--all of them enjoying the consciousness that mirah's marriage to deronda crowned a romance which would always make a sweet memory to them. for which of them, mother or girls, had not had a generous part in it--giving their best in feeling and in act to her who needed? if hans could have been there, it would have been better; but mab had already observed that men must suffer for being so inconvenient; suppose she, kate, and amy had all fallen in love with mr. deronda?--but being women they were not so ridiculous. the meyricks were rewarded for conquering their prejudices by hearing a speech from mr. cohen, which had the rare quality among speeches of not being quite after the usual pattern. jacob ate beyond his years, and contributed several small whinnying laughs as a free accompaniment of his father's speech, not irreverently, but from a lively sense that his family was distinguishing itself; while adelaide rebekah, in a new sabbath frock, maintained throughout a grave air of responsibility. mordecai's brilliant eyes, sunken in their large sockets, dwelt on the scene with the cherishing benignancy of a spirit already lifted into an aloofness which nullified only selfish requirements and left sympathy alive. but continually, after his gaze had been traveling round on the others, it returned to dwell on deronda with a fresh gleam of trusting affection. the wedding-feast was humble, but mirah was not without splendid wedding-gifts. as soon as the betrothal had been known, there were friends who had entertained graceful devices. sir hugo and lady mallinger had taken trouble to provide a complete equipment for eastern travel, as well as a precious locket containing an inscription--"_to the bride of our dear daniel deronda all blessings. h. and l. m._" the klesmers sent a perfect watch, also with a pretty inscription. but something more precious than gold and gems came to deronda from the neighborhood of diplow on the morning of his marriage. it was a letter containing these words: do not think of me sorrowfully on your wedding-day. i have remembered your words--that i may live to be one of the best of women, who make others glad that they were born. i do not yet see how that can be, but you know better than i. if it ever comes true, it will be because you helped me. i only thought of myself, and i made you grieve. it hurts me now to think of your grief. you must not grieve any more for me. it is better--it shall be better with me because i have known you. gwendolen grandcourt. the preparations for the departure of all three to the east began at once; for deronda could not deny ezra's wish that they should set out on the voyage forthwith, so that he might go with them, instead of detaining them to watch over him. he had no belief that ezra's life would last through the voyage, for there were symptoms which seemed to show that the last stage of his malady had set in. but ezra himself had said, "never mind where i die, so that i am with you." he did not set out with them. one morning early he said to deronda, "do not quit me to-day. i shall die before it is ended." he chose to be dressed and sit up in his easy chair as usual, deronda and mirah on each side of him, and for some hours he was unusually silent, not even making the effort to speak, but looking at them occasionally with eyes full of some restful meaning, as if to assure them that while this remnant of breathing-time was difficult, he felt an ocean of peace beneath him. it was not till late in the afternoon, when the light was falling, that he took a hand of each in his and said, looking at deronda, "death is coming to me as the divine kiss which is both parting and reunion--which takes me from your bodily eyes and gives me full presence in your soul. where thou goest, daniel, i shall go. is it not begun? have i not breathed my soul into you? we shall live together." he paused, and deronda waited, thinking that there might be another word for him. but slowly and with effort ezra, pressing on their hands, raised himself and uttered in hebrew the confession of the divine unity, which long for generations has been on the lips of the dying israelite. he sank back gently into his chair, and did not speak again. but it was some hours before he had ceased to breathe, with mirah's and deronda's arms around him. "nothing is here for tears, nothing to wail or knock the breast; no weakness, no contempt, dispraise or blame; nothing but well and fair, and what may quiet us in a death so noble." the jews of barnow. stories karl emil franzos _translated from the german by_ m. w. macdowall new york d. appleton and company , , and bond street "the scoff, the curse--his people's heritage-- have left upon his shrunken face their sting; his eyes gleam like those of some hunted thing, against whose life implacable war men wage. we read the jew's face as one reads a page of his own nation's history, for there cling about its lines, deep-worn with suffering, the traces still of israel's lordly age." f. f. m. preface to the american edition. although the high literary art which franzos possesses (the finer quality of which has been preserved in this translation) is fully admitted by intelligent jews, the subject-matter of his book itself, its _raison d'être_, they have by no means relished. in a review of "the jews of barnow," published some months ago in a leading new york journal, it was asserted by the writer that, from internal evidence, franzos must be a jew. this statement was directly controverted by a jewish weekly of the highest standing. still, we must believe that the acumen of the new york reviewer was not at fault, because in a late number of "blackwood's magazine," which contained an interesting criticism of franzos and his book, it was asserted that the author is or was a jew. no man not born a jew, perfectly familiar with all the phases of jewish life in eastern galicia, and in sympathy with them, could have created this book. franzos may have clothed jews and jewesses with poetical raiment, given them melodramatic phrasings, but the gabardine, caftan, love-locks, are visible--the whine, the nasal twang audible. this denial that franzos was a jew, though apparently insignificant in itself, and due, perhaps, to a want of acquaintance with the facts, is still peculiarly indicative of a natural _travers_ of the jewish mind. any description of the inner life of jews, when written by a jew, unless it be laudatory, is particularly distasteful to jews. no race cares to have its failings exposed. from one of another creed such strictures may be passed over with stolid indifference, but, from one of their own blood, any censure, direct or applied, is considered by jews in the light of a sacrilege. with jews it is ever a cry, "it is a dirty bird that fouls its own nest." such acridity as a goldwin smith distills, jews laugh at; but when one of their kinsmen, a mr. montefiore, finds fault with them, bidding them look for grace in another direction, then at once a holy horror pervades them. what franzos describes is jewish life pent up within the narrow limits of some galician town. religious dislikes, racial hatreds kindled a thousand years ago, have never been quenched. though to-day in that town a jew could not be murdered, because it would be against the law, the inclination to kill him, because he is a jew, still exists. the simple fact, that every jew had been taught to read and write, had quickened his brains. through heredity he became, intellectually, superior to the illiterate peasant, or townsfolk, who hemmed him in. the mental phenomenon the jew would present, under such conditions, would not be, after all, so peculiar. he had but two ends in life, to work and pray. even his toil was restricted, for he could only engage in certain callings. his solace was his religion. he might pray to his maker, but only in such set phrases as had been chosen for him. his god was by far too sublime for him, poor worm, to address in such homely words as might well up spontaneously from his own heart. a slave to tradition, bound down by rote, the jew had been taught that the least divergence from a cut-and-dried ritual was heresy. mental and physical isolation brought about arrested development. the only wonder about this all is, that the jew in eastern europe, seeing a better chance for life beyond the pale of his religion, had not broken bounds, and, abjuring his creed, found outside of it an easier existence. brushing aside that sentimentalism which so often obscures considerations of this character, the chances of security for an apostate jew were not very certain. travestied in the guise of a christian, he never could have looked like one. stamped on his features were all the marked characteristics of his orientalism. even his tongue would have played him false, for the rabbi had forbidden him the use of that language common to the state in which he lived. by some complications brought about by the jews themselves in eastern europe, they are not always subjected to the same regulations as christians. religious laws made for their own government, which underpinned their social life, were rarely meddled with. in a primitive society, necessarily ignorant, any accredited head, according to the laws of sociology, must be a despotic one. a rabbi, then, in these unknown towns, wielded almost the power of life and death. that modern infliction of boycotting has been borrowed directly from the jews. for a trivial divergence from common custom the punishment was severe. in these polish or russian districts, thirty years ago, a jew did not dare read a christian book. what franzos shows markedly in his "jews of barnow" is that barrier which jews throw around their household. the seclusion of the family, so purely oriental in its character, is something which the polish rabbi takes particular pains to teach. this hiding, of what is the finest trait the jew possesses, that love and peace which dwell in his home, that reverence which children have for their parents, that sacrifice of everything to his affections, because it never is known, has tended more than anything else to alienate the jew from his neighbor. among the ultra-orthodox jews, whether they live in odessa, cracow, frankfort, london, or new york, their doors are inhospitably closed to those of another belief. has there been transmitted some instinct engendered by mistrust? is judaism, then, so sensitive a plant that it should wither by mere contact? if, to live, it must have seclusion, it approaches closely to the eastern's idea of a woman's virtue, something wanting the protection of high walls and difficult approaches. in our age, any religion which requires exclusiveness so that it may exist is hardly worth the keeping. franzos's stories exhibit those barbarities even now practiced under the sacred name of religion. there are jews who are not merely galled by the opprobrium which in some places is still attached to their race, but are sincerely desirous of removing it. franzos, because he describes what is the iron law of talmudical or rabbinical tradition, shows how superstition degrades the man. it is difficult at this day, when research and modern methods of criticism have thrown such a flood of light on the past, to realize the mental condition of that vast body of jews at the time of the commencement of the christian era and the destruction of jerusalem. the whole national and municipal administration of the country was in the hands of the priesthood. every law, every ordinance, every police and sanitary regulation, became a religious obligation. every action in every man's family, whether social or political, was regulated for him by rules handed down from former generations, and these rules were barnacled by conventionalisms. for his guidance in the most commonplace actions, a jew had perforce recourse to his rabbi. as must always be the case, when municipal administration emanates from a church, religious observances override legal or social obligations. with the crucifixion of christ came that hatred of jews, the intensity of which can only now be measured by its continuance. the exclusion of jews from the society and communion of mankind petrified into marble-like hardness all those existing traditions which guided the jew's methods of life. forbidden by every conceivable form of oppression and disability from accompanying the rest of mankind on their march toward a higher civilization, every advance, mental or physical, denied them, it was as if a hot iron had been seared over the bloody wound which had lopped them off from the family of nations. it is a wonder that all future growth was not arrested. as to the charge of tribalism (the writer acknowledging that the vast majority of jews believe in it), and even according some unknown and undefined power as derivable from tribalism, to make a charge of this is but to repeat the old fable of the wolf and the lamb. all that intelligent jews are doing to-day is to take advantage of their freedom. they are trying to rid themselves of that incubus which has been weighing them down. that large and increasing number of reformers and reform synagogues, springing up in the large cities of western europe and the united states; the decadence, the difficulty of maintaining synagogues of pure orthodox jews; the complaints, the lamentations which are constantly heard from the mouths of orthodox ministers and their organs, over what they call "the neglect of religious observance," show that the time of change has come. even among some of the orthodox, the gross superstitions accompanying the offerings (auction-sales of god's blessings, knocked down to the highest bidder) have been for the major part abolished. efforts are continually made to modify the ritual by denationalizing the older-fashioned form of prayer, and giving it more of that spiritual life which maimonides first developed. dietary and physical observances, which the eastern jew borrowed or adopted from the nations which once surrounded him, are being expunged. what is the true reason for this change, a change which, born in america and in england, is now commencing to exert some slight influence in germany? the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church. every act of wrong done to jews rendered them the more rigid in their belief, causing at the same time differentiation in their surroundings. whenever, through the operation of better, more humane laws, oppression was removed, jews became more like the men among whom they lived. why should m. renan find fault with the french jew, and take the parisian israelite as the type of some hebraic athenian? under normal conditions men float in the general current, at about equal depths, for the social law of specific gravity remains forever the same. those sociologists are ignorant of their calling who demand, then, of the jew an instantaneous reversal of an existence formed by his surroundings, and a forgetting of the great belief which has been burned into his heart by the fires of thousands of years. to the american jew, "the jews of barnow" shows very clearly a great many things he may have been ignorant about. jews who came to this country fifty years since, who by thrift, honesty, and intelligence, have secured an ample store of the world's goods, are prone to forget their early surroundings, or hesitate to tell their american children of that bigotry which existed in their european birth-places. they have educated their children in their own creed; but american school-boys or school-girls have had one inestimable blessing, the contact with an outer world and the opportunity of thinking for themselves. education and superstition can never have a co-existence. these fathers would feel ashamed, then, did they tell their children the absurdities which they once were taught. that one story of franzos's, "the child of atonement," is a revelation. as an american jew reads it, he might be inclined to deem the rabbi of sadagóra a torquemada, or that it was a clever creation, having no existence save in the brain of the romance-writer. but it is not a fancy-drawn picture, but had once actual being. such stories as "the child of atonement" and "the nameless graves" can not be read by any intelligent jew without the burning brand of shame rising to his cheeks. as to the truthfulness of many portions of franzos's book, unfortunately there can be no possible doubt. there may not be many rabbis of sadagóra, but excommunication, the _cherem_, that social inquisition, is as prevalent in russia and poland, in , as it was a thousand years ago. the rabbi of sadagóra of franzos's book is dead, but his son actually lives, exercises perhaps not the same cruelties, but attributes to himself the identical miraculous functions as did his wicked father before him, and still this younger medicine-man has his followers. "the jews of barnow" should make the existence of a rabbi of sadagóra an impossibility. jewish women who read "the jews of barnow" will be amazed to learn how degraded is the condition of their sex in eastern europe. that one horrible text in their prayer-book, said by the men, "thank god that thou hast not made me a woman," belongs to the period of the coarsest barbarity. it is incorporated in innumerable volumes, now perhaps being printed. educated jews who read this vicious paragraph, who think of mother, wife, and daughter, feel the degradation of it, and loathe its interpretation. we can not agree with frances power cobbe in the general application of this sentence of hers, that "something appears to be lacking in jewish feeling concerning women. too much of oriental materialism still lingers. too little of occidental chivalry and romance has yet arisen." this might be applicable for the east, even in its most exaggerated sense, but is hardly just to the west. still, as franzos tells us in his book, girls are sold to men, and become, it is true, wives, but with as little ceremony as if they were circassians. the oldest source of any religion is not the purest, "if it be an historical religion, fanaticism always assumes the form of a return to the primitive type." the ultra-orthodox jew is ruled by the ashkenazim of jerusalem, the most superstitious, the most ignorant of men. this sect still fights for power. even the purity of the ashkenazim's belief, monotheism, the only thing left it, must be taken with suspicion, because the sanity or sincerity of any cabalist is to be doubted. there are little, if any, differences existing in the social strata, educated or uneducated, which uphold christian beliefs. if rome is the fountain-head of catholicity, jerusalem ought to be the true source whence hebraism flows. the holy city of the jews does exert its influence over millions of the ultra-orthodox, but for educated israelites has no more weight than have the decrees of any miracle-working rabbi who holds forth in cracow. if there be in russia, finland, scandinavia, austria, hungary, roumania, turkey, some five and a half million jews, and in england, france, and the united states, half a million more, what a vast proportion are steeped in darkness! what does as much as anything else to injure the jew, and to make mankind his enemy, is that belief he entertains that he is the race "god cherishes most." this is, indeed, tribalism. selected by the creator as his special favorites, pious jews think that to them "all blessings shall be given." once it was believed that a jew's brain was made of a finer material, that he was less subject to dementia, than others. some very sad personal observations assure the writer that such is not the case. if anything, in that struggle for wealth in which jews engage in the large cities of the united states, they have children more prone to feeble-mindedness than christians. the close-marriage system of the jews may in a certain measure induce degeneracy by exhaustion of the original stock, for the laws of nature are inexorable, and act alike in christian or mohammedan. that preservation of his race is something the jew most particularly prides himself about. the parsee, who for so long a time has had a religion apart, presents the precise condition of an isolated existence which the jew is so proud of. morality, continence, the sacred character of the marriage-ties, do in a certain measure preserve the jewish race, but the miraculous in such fractional existence has nothing marvelous about it. this self-laudation of race, that "pride-belief," is the most difficult to eradicate, for it has been the consolation of an oppressed race. what, then, is reform, this jewish reform? it is pure, unadulterated monotheism. it believes that men, though they may expound religion, can not create it. it looks on the talmud, as did emanuel deutsch, as the most poetical, the most confusing of chronicles, but utterly worthless for the guidance of any human being--a curiosity, patched over, embroidered, by a thousand different hands, something to be placed in a cabinet, to be gazed on, but as practically useless for human instruction as would be the arthurian romances. yahya ibn main was a worshiper of the prophet, and labored all his life to purify the text of his koran, and thus he is recorded to have said: "i wrote down numbers of traditions under the dictation of liars, and made use of the paper for heating my ovens. i thus obtained at least one advantage--my bread was well baked." one saying in the talmud is applicable to it: "they dived into the ocean and brought up a potsherd." oh, the _olla-podrida_ of nonsense in it! and still it shapes the lives of millions of jews; it warps their ways, for it is almost their only book. the reformer is no iconoclast, he is educated enough not to wish to destroy this relic of a past, but he is striving to expunge it, to deprive the talmud from exerting its baleful influence. the reformed jew believes in a god of mercy--one of love. he thinks that his creator is not a vengeful being. he does not believe that christ was the son of god, doubts even a coming messiah, but thinks that modern teachings have done for man's immortal soul what the older lawgivers did for grosser flesh and blood only. what the reformer desires most especially is that he shall have readers, clergymen (call them what you please), who shall not only be familiar with the language they live in, but have the highest, the very highest education, be in fact the equals of those who preach to their christian friends. these reformers sicken over those attempts of crass ignorance which, through the borrowed sanctity of a salaried office, assume the direction of educated intelligence. the majority of these reformers are utterly indifferent to dietary regulations. can peace with god, a resurrection of the soul after the death of the body, entrance to heaven, have anything to do with the eating of a mollusk? could the great creator have made food for one man which another dare not eat? trivialities, mixed up in religion, debase it, weaken it, sap it to its very vitals. a stronger, more hearty belief must emancipate itself from puerilities. a reformed jew can not be a materialist, though he may strip religion of its symbolisms. millennium is far distant, and a bishop of sadagóra and a goldwin smith may never, perhaps, lie in the same bed, or sup at the same banquet, for both of them represent that antagonism which inflamed england in king john's time, or is rampant to-day with pastor stöcker in king william of prussia's reign. "every country has the jews it deserves," writes franzos, quoting the most direful of sayings. god help, in his infinite mercy, american-born jews if, in generations to come, this cruel speech had ever an application! it might arise from their own errors, and the faults of their surroundings. it would mean, however, nothing less than the political degradation of that country in which christian and jew live. mr. froude has been much blamed, little lauded, for what he wrote in regard to an oppressed race. it was somewhat as follows: that those who could not fight for their freedom did not deserve it. it sometimes happens that fiction produces effects where facts fail. it is believed, then, that franzos's stories will not only be of interest to numerous readers, but in the hands of the reformed jew, by means of the lessons it teaches, help him in his earnest efforts to save his race from retrogression. barnet phillips. preface. the following stories, the scene of which is laid in the podolian ghetto, were my first literary attempt. they were for the most part written while i was at the university, and were published in various journals. owing to circumstances, another and later book--"aus halb-asien"--was the first to come out; for this youthful work was not published as a whole until . i mention this, although it is visible from internal evidence, to explain my choice of subjects. the preface to that edition gives a further account of this, and from it i make the following quotations: "when i took up my pen four years ago, i strongly felt the necessity of making my work as artistic as possible. i wished to write stories, and strove to give them poetic value. for this very reason, it seemed necessary that i should describe the kind of life with which i was best acquainted. this was essentially the case with regard to that of the podolian jews. i therefore became the historian of the podolian ghetto, and it was my great desire to give these stories an artistic form; but not at the cost of truth. i have never permitted my love of the beautiful to lead me into the sin of falsifying the facts and conditions of life, and am confident that i have described this strange and outlandish mode of existence precisely as it appeared to me. if in my first published volume my efforts to portray men and manners needed the assistance of my powers as a novelist, so in this book my knowledge of men and manners has to help me in my labors as a novelist. sometimes the one side of my character takes the upper hand, and sometimes the other; but still they are at bottom inseparable, and it has always been my endeavor to describe facts artistically. however the novelist may be judged, the portrayer of men and manners demands that his words should be believed. "this request is not superfluous, for it is a very strange mode of life to which i am about to introduce the reader. the influences and counter-influences that affect it are only touched upon in this book. had i given a full account of them in an introduction, the introduction would, in all likelihood have been longer than the book. i have therefore refrained from doing it, and believe that i was right in making this decision. for i have kept before my eyes, while penning these stories, that i am writing for a western reader. if he will only trust to my love of truth, and regard the separate stories in combination with each other, he will gain a clear idea of the kind of life i describe without any further particulars. i would repeat one sentence, the truth of which is shown in my first book: 'every country has the jews that it deserves'--and it is not the fault of the polish jews that they are less civilized than their brethren in the faith in england, germany, and france. at least, it is not entirely their fault. "no one can do more than his nature permits. this book is to a certain extent polemical, and the stories are written with an object. i do not deny that this is the case, and do not think it requires any excuse. still i have never allowed myself to sin against truth in the pursuit of this object. i do not make the polish jews out to be either better or worse than they really are. these stories are not written for the purpose of holding up the eastern jews to obloquy or admiration, but with the object of throwing as much light as i could in dark places." the second edition, published in , only differed from the first in a few alterations made in the language; but the third edition (from which this translation is taken) is not only enlarged, but is also changed in several important particulars. i examined each story carefully, and strove to bring all into a distinct connection with each other, thus giving a clear idea of polish judaism regarded as a whole. for this reason new tales were introduced: they describe jewish customs that had been at first passed over in silence, but which were necessary for the proper appreciation of the subject. this work has been translated into all european languages, as well as into hebrew; and now i have the pleasure of being able to lay it before the english public, by whom i hope it will receive as kind a reception as it has been given elsewhere. i hope so less for my own sake than in the interest of the unfortunate people whose life it describes. karl emil franzos. vienna. contents. the shylock of barnow chane two saviours of the people "the child of atonement" esterka regina "baron schmule" the picture of christ nameless graves the shylock of barnow. ( .) the jew's great white house stands exactly opposite the old gray monastery of the dominicans, and close to the public road that leads from lemberg to skala, passing through the gloomy little town of barnow on the way. the people born in the small dirty houses of the ghetto grow up with a feeling of the deepest respect and admiration for this house and its owner, old moses freudenthal. both house and man are the pride of barnow; and both in their own way justify this pride. to describe the house in the first place. it really seems to be conscious of its own grandeur as it stands there proud and stately in all the dignity of white-washed cleanliness, the long windows of the first floor bright and shining, and the painted shutters of the shop-windows coming down to the very ground at either side of the great folding-doors which stand invitingly open. for it is a house of entertainment, and the nobles of the country-side know how to take advantage of its superior attractions when they come to town on magisterial business, or attend the weekly market. it is also patronized by the cavalry officers who are stationed in the villages in the neighborhood, whenever the boredom of country quarters drives them into town. besides this, the house is let in suites of apartments, and the greatest of the magnates of barnow, such as the district judge and the doctor, live there. but it would be difficult to give a list of all the house contains, the ground-floor is so crowded. in one room is a lottery agency, then come the offices of a company for insuring cattle, men, and corn; and again, a drapery establishment, a grocer's shop, a room in which gentlemen may drink their wine, and another where the poor man can enjoy his glass of brandy-and-water. but then, the lottery agent, the agent of the insurance company, the draper, the grocer, and the innkeeper are one and all--moses freudenthal. but the tall stern-looking old man to whom the house belongs is even more worthy of notice than it and all it contains. his family has been the grandest in the town as long as people can remember, and to him belongs of right the chief place in the synagogue. his father had been appointed head of the session on the death of his grandfather, and when his father died he was chosen as his successor without a dissentient voice, and by the unsolicited vote of the whole congregation. he is regarded as one of the most pious and honorable men in the jewish community. added to this is his wealth--his enormous wealth! his co-religionists regard him as a millionaire, and they are right. for he not only possesses the big white house and all that is in it, but he has every reason to look upon several of the estates in the neighborhood as more really belonging to him than to the polish nobles who live on them. and then komorowka is his also. this beautiful place fell into his hands when little count smólski and his lovely wife aurora lost it by their extravagance after a very few years' possession. komorowka is indeed a lovely place. no wonder that when the time came for count smólski to leave his old home, he was in such utter despair that he sought to forget his woes in the worst fit of drunkenness of his whole life. would you be much surprised if you were now told that moses freudenthal was not only the richest and proudest, but also the most envied, man in barnow? but this he is not. ask the poorest man in the jewish town--the teacher of the law, who, with his six children, often suffers from the pangs of hunger, or the water-carriers, who groan under the heavy pails they bear from morning to night from the town-well--ask these men whether they would exchange lots with moses, and they will at once answer, "no." for freudenthal's sorrow is even greater than his wealth. it is true that you can not read this in his face as he stands, tall and stately, in the doorway of his house. his silver-gray hair falls down below his black velvet skull-cap; the two long curls that hang, one at each side of the face, as is the fashion of the chassidim, are also silver-gray and thin. but his figure is still strong and upright, and the curiously cut jewish coat that he wears, resembling a _talar_ in shape, and made of black cloth, is by no means an unbecoming garment. the old man stands almost motionless watching the painter who is busy painting the doors of the spirit-shop a bright arsenic green, with bottles, glasses, and _bretzeln_,[ ] in yellow and white upon the green background. he seldom turns to acknowledge the greeting of a passer-by, for but few people are in the streets to-day. now and then a group of ruthenian peasants may be seen reeling out of the town-gate, or a nobleman drives past in his light britzska, or perhaps it is some poor peddler, who has been wandering the whole week long from farm to farm in the district, exchanging money and cloth for the sheepskins, laden with which he is returning to town. his burden is heavy and his gain is but small, yet his pale, worn, and, it may be, cunning face is not without a gleam of joy and pride. a few hours later and the miserable ragged jewish peddler, on whom farmers and nobles had tried the weight of their whips, and on whom they had made many a scurrilous jest, is transformed into a proud prince awaiting the arrival of his lovely bride--the day of rest, the sabbath. [footnote : a kind of biscuit.] he has not long to wait now, the friday afternoon is drawing to a close, and the sun will soon set. preparations for the day of rest are being made in every house; the sunlit street is almost totally deserted. herr lozinski, the district judge, a tall, thin, yellow-faced man, is coming down the street accompanied by a young stranger. he stands at the door for a few minutes talking to moses before going up-stairs to his rooms. they discuss the badness of the times, the low price of silver, and the promising april weather; for it is a real spring day, more like may than anything else. the streets are very dry, except for a few puddles in the market-place; the air is deliciously soft and warm, and yonder in the monk's garden the fruit-trees and elder bushes are covered with blossom. the christian children coming home from school are shouting, "spring! spring is coming!" "yes, spring is coming," says the district judge, taking off his hat and leading his guest up-stairs. "spring is coming," repeats old moses, passing his hand across his forehead as if awakening from a dream.... "spring is coming!" "old moses is a very remarkable man," says the district judge to the new registrar. "i scarcely know whether to call him eccentric or not. you won't believe it, but he knows as much law as the best barrister in the land. and besides that, he's the richest man in the country-side. he is said to be worth millions! and yet he slaves week-in, week-out, as though he hadn't the wherewithal to buy his sabbath dinner." "a niggardly money-grubber like all the jews," says the registrar, making the smoke of his cigar curl slowly in the air. "h'm! by no means. he is generous. i must confess that he is very generous. but his generosity gives him no more pleasure than his wealth. yet he goes on speculating as before. and for whom, if you please--for whom?" "has he no children?" inquires the other. "yes. that's to say, he has and he hasn't. ask him, and he will tell you that he has none. but you don't know his story, do you?... every one here knows it--but then, you see, you come from lemberg. i suppose that you never heard any one speak of the old man's daughter, beautiful esther freudenthal, when you were there? the whole affair is very romantic; i must tell it you...." the old man, whose story every one knows, is still leaning against the doorway of his house, watching the flower-laden branches of the fruit-trees in the cloister garden as they sway in the breeze. what is he thinking of? it can not be of his business; for his eyes are wet with unshed tears, and his lips tremble for a moment as though with stifled grief. he shades his eyes with his hand, as if the sunlight were blinding him. then he draws himself up, and shakes his head, as though trying to rid himself of the sad thoughts that oppress him. "make haste, the sabbath is drawing nigh," he says to the painter as he approaches to examine his work more closely. the little humpback, who wears a shabby frogged coat of a fashion only known in poland, has just finished the folding-doors, and now limps away to the window-shutters, paint-pot in hand. these shutters had formerly been colored a bright crimson, and their faded surface still bears the almost illegible inscription in white letters: "for ready money to-day--to-morrow gratis." their glory has long since departed, and the little man, quickly filling his brush with the vivid green, begins to paint over them, saying as he works, "do you remember, pani moschko, that i painted this too?" and with that he points to the dirty brown-red of the first coloring. but moses is thinking of other things, and scarcely heeding him, answers with an indifferent, "really." "of course i did," continues the little man eagerly. "don't you remember? i painted it fifteen years ago on just such another beautiful day as this is. the house was quite new, and i was a young fellow then. when i had finished my work, you looked at it, and said, 'i am pleased with you, janko.' you were standing in front of the door, just where you are now, i verily believe, and your little esterka was beside you. holy virgin! how lovely the child was! and how pleasant it was to hear her laugh when she saw the white letters appearing one after the other on the red ground! she asked what they meant, the darling! you gave me three theresien _zwanzigers_[ ] for my work. i remember it as distinctly as if it were yesterday. i thought then that it was my last job in barnow; for old herr von polanski wanted to send me to the school of design at cracow. but soon afterward he lost every farthing he possessed, and was even obliged to sell his daughter jadwiga in order to get food to eat, and so i remained a house-painter. ah yes! man proposes and.... deuce take it! the old man's gone, and here i am gossiping away to the empty air. i suppose that the jew is counting his money as usual...." [footnote : about s. d. english.] but janko is mistaken. moses freudenthal is not counting his treasures at this moment. indeed he would probably give up all that he possesses without a sigh could he thereby rid his life of what has made him poorer and more wretched than the beggar at his gates. he has taken refuge in the large dusky sitting-room, into which no ray of sunlight, and no sound of the human voice, can penetrate. he can now throw himself into his arm-chair, and sob from the bottom of his heart without any one asking him what is the matter; he can let his head fall upon his breast, tear his hair, or cover his face with his hands.... he does not weep, or pray, nor yet does he curse; he moans out in pain, the words echoing in the quiet room, "how pleasant it was to hear the child's laugh!..." thus he sits alone in the twilight. at last he gets up and raises his eyes as if in prayer--nay, rather as a man who demands a right. "o god!" he cries, "i do not ask that she may come back to me, for i made my servants drive her from my door; i do not ask that she may be happy, for she has sinned grievously in the sight of god and man; i do not ask that she may be unhappy, for she is my own flesh and blood; i only ask that she may die, so that i may not have to curse my only child. let her die, o god, let her die, or let me!..." meanwhile the district judge is concluding his story in the room above. "no one knows what has become of the pretty little girl. she is forgotten; her father even doesn't seem to remember her existence. they're a heartless race these jews; they're all alike...." it has grown dusk in the town, but there is no gloom in the hearts of its jewish inhabitants. the dismal irregularly built houses of the ghetto are now enlivened by thousands of candles, and thousands of happy faces. the sabbath has begun in the hearts of these people and in their rooms, a common and usual occurrence, and yet a mysterious and blessed influence that drives away all that is poor and mean in everyday life. to-day, every hovel is lighted up, and every heart made glad with sufficiency of food. the teacher of the law has forgotten his hunger, the water-carrier his hard work, the peddler the blows and derision that continually fall to his lot, and the rich usurer his gain. to-day all are equal; all are the happy trustful sons of the same almighty father. the feeble light of the tallow-candle in its rude candlestick, and the soft light of the wax-candle in the silver candelabra, illumine the same picture. the daughters of the house and the little boys sit silently watching their mother, as she, in obedience to the beautiful old custom handed down from generation to generation, blesses the candles. the father then takes the large prayer-book down from the book-shelf and gives it to his eldest son to carry to the synagogue for him. after that they all go out into the street, the men and women keeping apart, as the strict law commands. their words are few, and those they utter are grave and quiet. to-day neither grief nor joy finds vent in speech, for all hearts are full of the divine peace of the sabbath.... the large white house opposite the dominican monastery is also illuminated. but the candles were lighted by a stranger, for there is no mistress there to speak the customary blessing. the finest linen covers the tables in the best parlor, which is handsomely furnished, but no child's merry laugh, and no loving word is heard there. the melancholy sound of the sputtering candles alone disturbs the stillness. but the old man who now enters the room in his sabbath suit has been accustomed to this state of things for years--for five long years. at first he used involuntarily to turn and listen for the sound of the voice he loved so well; for it was on an evening such as this that his child had left him. but this evening he crosses the room quickly, and taking the heavy leather-bound prayer-book from the shelf, leaves the room at once. does he fear that to-day of all days the ghosts of the past will come forth to meet him from every corner of the well-lighted room? if that be the case, it is foolish to fly from them, moses freudenthal! see, they dog your footsteps wherever you go through the narrow gloomy little streets. they whisper in your ear, even though you strive to drown their voices by entering into conversation with the passers-by. they appear before your very eyes in spite of your fixing them upon the votive tablets fastened to the pillars in the house of god! and when you pass through the congregation and take your seat in your accustomed place, they flutter around your head, look at you out of the very letters of your prayer-book, and speak to you in the voice of the officiating minister!... "praise ye the lord. break out into joy, gladness, and song. for he judgeth the world with righteousness and the people with his truth." "and the solitary," cries a secret voice in the heart of the unhappy man, "shall he break in pieces!" his eyes are fixed upon his book, his lips whisper the words of prayer; but he does not pray, he can not! the whole of his past life rises ghost-like before his mental vision, and in such vivid detail as to cause him intense agony.... "he who can no longer pray," his old father had often told him, and now the words involuntarily recur to him,--"he who can no longer pray shall be cast out from before the face of the eternal." he distinctly remembers the day on which he had first heard those words. he was then a boy of thirteen, and had been allowed to put on the phylacteries for the first time, the sign that he had reached man's estate. the life that opened out before him on that day was not easy and pleasant like that of the fortunate of the earth, but hard and narrow as that endured by his race. in common with every one around him, he had early learned to dedicate his life to two objects, and these were--prayer and money-making. when he was seventeen years of age his father had called him into his room, and had then told him, in a calm matter-of-fact tone, that he was to marry chaim grünstein's daughter rosele in three months' time. he did not know the girl. he had seen her, it is true, but he had never really looked at her. his father had, however, chosen her to be his wife, and he was satisfied that it was well. three months later he married rosele.... hark! the chazzân is beginning the ancient sabbath hymn, whose words, expressive of joy and longing, go straight to the heart--"lecho daudi likras kalle." and immediately the choir takes up the strain triumphantly, "lecho daudi likras kalle"--"come, o friend, let us go forth to meet the bride, let us receive the sabbath with joy!" strange emotion to stir the spirit of a people to its very depths! strange that all the passion and sensuousness of which its heart and mind are capable are expended on the adoration of the divinity, and on that alone. the same race whose genius gave birth to the song of songs--the eternal hymn of love,--and to whom the world owes the story of ruth, the most beautiful idyl of womanhood ever known--has now, after a thousand years of the night of oppression and wandering, learned to look upon marriage as a mere matter of business, by which to secure some pecuniary advantage, and as a means of preventing the chosen of the lord from dying off the face of the earth. these men know not what they do--they have no suspicion of the sin of which they are guilty in thus acting. nor did moses freudenthal know it. he honored his wife as long as she lived, and found in her a faithful helpmeet in joy and sorrow. a blessing seemed to rest upon everything he did, for whatever he undertook prospered. he studied the language of the christians around him with an eager determination to learn, and then began the arduous task of learning german law: the man of thirty studied as hard as if he had been a schoolboy. he was not actuated by the desire of gain alone, but also by a love of honor and knowledge. and this knowledge bore fruit; he became rich--very rich. the nobles and officers of the neighborhood came to his house and bowed themselves down before the majesty of his wealth; but before he had done with them, they were forced to hold him in as much respect as his gold. in those days every one envied him, and people used to whisper as he passed--"that is the happiest man in the whole district." but was he really happy? if he were so, why did he often look gloomy, and why did rosele weep as if her heart would break, when she was sure that no one could see her? a dark shadow rested on the married life of this couple, who, in their daily intercourse, had gradually learned to esteem each other. their marriage was childless. as they had been brought together by strangers, and were not even yet united in heart and soul, they could not live down their sorrow, or find comfort in each other's love. the proud man bore his grief in silence, and, unmoved, watched his wife fading away before his very eyes. when his friends spoke of a divorce, he shook his head, but no word of love for the unhappy woman to whom he was bound ever crossed his lips. years passed away; but at last one evening--it was in winter--when he entered the sitting-room, and wished his wife "good evening" as usual, instead of answering softly, and glancing at him shyly and sadly, she hastened to meet him, and clung to him as though she felt for the first time that she had a right to his love. he gazed at her blushing excited face, his surprise giving way to joyful anticipation; then taking her hand, he drew her down to the seat beside him, and made her lay her head upon his breast. their lips trembled, but neither of them could find words to express their joy--none seemed adequate!... "praise ye the lord!" these words of the minister roused moses from his dream of the past, and he hears the congregation reply, "praised be the lord our god, who createth the day and createth the night, who separateth the light from the darkness, and the darkness from the light: praised be the lord, the almighty, the eternal, the god of battles!..." "praised be god!..." with what mixed feelings had moses freudenthal joined in this cry of thanksgiving on that sabbath evening twenty-two years ago when he first entered the house of god a father! his heart bled and rejoiced at the same moment; he wept with mingled joy and sorrow, for a little daughter had indeed been born to him: but his wife's strength had been unable to withstand her sufferings, and she had died. she had borne her terrible agony with unmurmuring resignation; and even when dying a happy smile passed over her pale face whenever she heard the voice of her child. in those sad hours before the end the hearts of the husband and wife, that had remained strangers to each other during the long years of their married life, at length found each other out. he alone understood why his wife said, "now i can die in peace;" she alone understood why he bent over her hand again and again, sobbing, "forgive me, rosele; forgive me!" "the child," she said; "take care of the child!" then she shivered and died. next morning they carried her out to the "good place." and he rent his garments, took the shoes from off his feet, and sat on the floor of the chamber of death for seven days and seven nights, thus fulfilling the days of mourning after the manner of the children of israel. he did not weep, but fixed his sad tearless eyes on the flame of the funeral light which has to burn for a whole week in order that the homeless spirit may have a resting-place on earth until god shows it where it is henceforth to dwell. "he is talking to the dead," whispered his relations in awe-struck tones, when they saw his lips move, as he murmured, "all might have been well now, and you are dead!" his sorrow found relief in tears when they brought him the child, and asked what it should be called. "esther," he answered--"esther, like my mother." he held his little daughter long in his arms, and his tears fell on her face. then he gave the child back to her nurse, and from that moment became calm and composed. when the days of mourning were over he returned to his business, and worked harder than ever before. a new spirit seemed to possess him, and every day he embarked in new and daring undertakings. he ventured to do what no one else would attempt, and fortune remained true to him. he now carried out the wish he had long nourished--bought the piece of land opposite the dominican monastery, and began to build a large house there. he passed his days in unceasing labor; but in the evening he would sit for hours at a time by his child's cradle, gazing at the soft baby face. and in the first months after his bereavement, the nurse was often startled by seeing him come noiselessly into the nursery in the middle of the night, and watch and listen long to see if all were well with the child. the days grew into months, the months into years, and little esterka became ever more remarkable for beauty and cleverness as time went on. she was very like her father, for she had the same black curly hair, high forehead, and determined mouth; but in strange and touching contrast with the other features of the defiant little face, were the gentle blue eyes she had inherited from her mother. the father often looked at those eyes, and whenever he did so, he took his little girl in his arms, pressed her to his heart, and called her by a thousand pet names; but except at such times, the grave reserved man showed the child few tokens of the almost insane love he bore her. when esther was five years old they left the small house they had formerly inhabited in the ghetto, and went to live in the large white house opposite the monastery. and after that moses began to take measures for the education of his daughter, who was to be brought up according to old established usage. esther learned to cook, to pray, and to count--that was enough for the house, for heaven, and for life. and what could her father have taught her in addition to this? polish and german, perhaps? she could speak both languages, and he, like every other jew in barnow, regarded reading and writing as needless luxuries for a girl. he had learned both in order that he might write his business letters, and understand the book of civil law; his daughter did not need to do either. besides that, would greater knowledge make her a better or happier woman? "when a jewish girl knows how to pray"--has come to be a proverb among these stern-natured men--"she needs nothing more to make her good and happy!" and yet little esther was to learn to read german, and much more besides!... "it was in an hour of weakness," murmurs the old man, as he rises with the rest of the congregation to take part in the long prayer, during which all must stand--"of weakness and folly that i gave way. woe unto me for consenting, and cursed be he who led me astray!" how can you say so, moses freudenthal! however much your misfortunes may have enlightened you, and taught you to know your own heart, you can not even yet see that it was a sin you were committing in shutting out the light of the world from your child, and that you did right when you consented to permit another to reveal it to her. oh, how you sin, old man, when, hardening your heart in egotism and ignorance, you say, "that was the cause of her misfortunes and of mine also! from that time forward her mind was poisoned, and turned away from me and my god! cursed, cursed be that hour!" ... but all this happened on a warm bright summer evening thirteen years ago.... the moonlight lay on the houses and streets, and the very dust on the road seemed to glitter like silver. moses freudenthal was sitting on the stone seat at his door lost in thought. he felt strangely soft hearted that evening; for whether he would or not, he could not help living over again in memory the occurrences of his former life, and thinking of his dead wife rosele. his daughter, who was now nine years old, was sitting beside him, gazing wide-eyed into the moonlit night. suddenly a man came up the street and stood looking at them. moses did not at once recognize him, but little esther sprang to her feet with a cry of joy--"uncle schlome! how glad i am that you have come to see us, uncle schlome!" moses now recognized the stranger, and rose in astonishment. what did schlome grünstein want with him, and how had his daughter become acquainted with the "meschumed?" he was rosele's brother, and had been his playfellow in his boyhood, but moses had not spoken to him for twenty years; for a pious jew could hold no communication with a meschumed, an apostate from the faith--and schlome was an apostate in the eyes of the ghetto. and yet the pale, delicate-looking man, with the gentle dreamy expression, had always remained a jew, and had lived quietly and peacefully among his neighbors, spending his wealth in works of charity and mercy. but the name and the shame had cleaved to him from his youth upward. his had been a strange boyhood. as he had been a shy, thoughtful child, living only in his books, and showing no talent except in literary things, his father determined to make him a rabbi. schlome was pleased with this decision, and studied so hard to fit himself for his future calling that he not only injured his health, but soon got beyond his teacher. the delicate boy was consumed by an unquenchable thirst for knowledge. and this thirst became the cause of his destruction, the curse of his life. by means of money and passionate entreaties combined, he induced the christian schoolmaster of the place to teach him at night and in secret. thus he learned high german, the forbidden and much-hated language of the gentiles around him, and also "christian theology." of the latter branch of learning the schoolmaster himself knew very little; so he helped out his ignorance by lending his unwearied pupil many books belonging to the dominican library, and this he did before schlome had got over all the difficulties of learning to read. in this way the boy read all manner of strange books, one on the top of the other, and often enough, no doubt, put sufficiently curious interpretations upon them. at last one day a book fell into his hands, which nearly drove him mad. the form and tone were well known to him, for did they not enforce obedience to the holy thora (law)? but the spirit that breathed in its pages was another and--the youth's very blood seemed to freeze in his veins--a milder and better than what he had known. for this book was the new testament. its teaching seemed to him like the mild beauty of a spring day, and yet his hair stood on end with horror. this, then, was the idol-worship of the christians,--this was the history of the life and labors of that man whom his father crucified, and from whose likeness he had been taught to turn away his head in hatred and contempt! the blow was too severe. schlome became very ill, and lay for many weeks dangerously sick of a fever. often and often in his delirium the unconscious youth wept and talked of the pale nazarene, of the cross, and of that ill-starred book. his parents and neighbors listened to his ravings in horror; they searched into their cause, and at length discovered schlome's secret studies. soon afterward a strange rumor was circulated in the ghetto, to the effect that schlome grünstein had wished to become a christian, and that as a punishment for this sin god had visited him with madness. in course of time the youth recovered, and went about among his brethren in the faith as usual; but henceforth he seemed paler, shyer, and more depressed than before. no one knew what inward conflicts he had to wage; but every child in the jewish quarter called him a meschumed, and told how he had sworn a holy oath to his father that he would only remain a jew on two conditions--first, that he might buy and read whatever books he chose; and second, that he might remain unmarried. he kept his oath, even when the death of his parents made him rich and independent. thus he passed his life in the narrow, gloomy ghetto. he had only one friend, david blum, a man who devoted his life to tending the sick, and whose own story was both strange and sad. but then he did not make him his friend till late in life, and lost him soon afterward; for david blum died, whether of low fever or of a broken heart it were difficult to say. the meschumed mourned his loss deeply. it seemed to him as though a bit of his own heart had been buried with his friend. and yet these men differed from each other as much in character as in the circumstances that had moulded their lives. david was strong and high-hearted, but quick-tempered and fantastic, so that he broke down once for all when fate aimed a heavy blow at him; schlome, on the contrary, was weak and gentle, and endowed with a great power of endurance which enabled him to bend under the blows of fate instead of being broken by them. thus he lived on in the midst of men and yet terribly alone--the poor even hesitated to accept charity at his hands. still he loved all men, but especially children; and these alone returned his affection, although they could seldom show it from fear of their parents. he almost idolized little esther, the only child of his dead sister; and she loved him better than her grave, reserved father. such was the man who came up to the bench on which moses freudenthal and his daughter were seated on that lovely summer evening. "i want to speak to you, brother," he said, as moses rose and looked at him with a coldly questioning gaze. he then requested the child to go to bed, and after she had left them, continued: "i want to speak to you about many important things. sit down beside me.... you needn't be afraid! there isn't a creature to be seen in the street...." moses sat down hesitatingly. "it is about the child," resumed the meschumed. "i have been thinking long and earnestly about her, and when i chanced to see you this evening as i was passing, i determined to say what i had to say at once. you see, brother, the child is growing a big girl. she will be beautiful one day; but what is more to the purpose at present, is, that her goodness and intelligence are surprising in one so young. you have scarcely any idea of the sort of questions she asks, and of the kind of thoughts that little head contains--you'd hardly believe it, brother." "and how do you know?" interrupted moses, in a harsh stern voice. "did i ever give you leave?..." "don't let us discuss that point, if you please," replied schlome, raising his hand in deprecation, "don't let us discuss that point. i could answer you boldly that esther is my sister's child, and that i have a right to love and care for her. but i will not answer you thus; we have been kept apart long enough by angry words. and even if you tell me that i am a stranger in your house, and by my own fault, too, i will answer you nothing. love is not alone induced by ties of blood, and the world is not so rich in love that one can afford to cast any aside. but--it isn't that you mean. you fear danger for your child; you fear that i should try to undermine her faith. you feel less confidence in me than in the lowest servant in your house." he ceased, but moses made no reply. and yet the hard man's heart was really touched when he once more heard the voice that had been so dear to him in his boyhood. but he shook off his emotion, and when schlome repeated his question, answered with cold severity, "my servants are all pious, and are stanch believers in the faith of their fathers." this he said with his eyes fixed on the ground. had he looked up he would have seen his brother-in-law's lips tremble with bitter grief and disappointment. and yet his answer was gentle. "listen, moses," he said; "it is written, and it is a true saying, 'by their fruits ye shall know them.' every incident of my life is known to you, and to all our neighbors. i have always been terribly alone in the world, forsaken of all men, but still i have striven with all my heart and soul to unite my life to that of others. i have striven to make it as useful as it was possible for it to be after the blight that had fallen upon it. you are the first person to whom i have ever said this, and you will be the last who will ever hear from me that i know i have acted toward my fellow-men with as much beneficence--as it is called--as i could; and yet, what is such beneficence in reality but the duty every man owes to his kind? i have not, therefore, lived either a happy or a good life; but judge, moses, i entreat of you, whether it shows either folly or sin?" moses passed his hand slowly across his forehead and eyes, as though to give himself time for thought. then he answered more mildly: "no man can judge a whole life with a righteous judgement; god, who knows all, can alone do so. i am willing to believe it is as you say, and it is well for you that you can thus justify your life. for you can thus wait quietly for the hour when god himself will judge you. but"--he interrupted himself, and then continued, almost shyly--"_do_ you believe in god?" "yes," replied schlome, raising his head; "yes, i believe in him. i sought him in my boyhood, when i imagined that he was a god of wrath and vengeance, the light and refuge of one people alone; i sought him in my youth, when i imagined that he was a god of love and mercy, who yet was only gracious to those who worshiped him with certain forms and ceremonies. later on, i really found him and knew him as he is. he is neither a god of wrath nor of mercy, but a god of justice and necessity; he _is_, and all are in him, even those who deny him...." he had risen in his excitement, and as he stood in the moonlight before moses, the latter felt strangely moved; it seemed to him almost as if schlome's face shone. he did not know how it happened, but he could not help looking at the image of christ opposite to him in the monastery garden, which stood out sharp and distinct in the clear pale light against the dark sky. "and he over there?" he asked, almost fearing the words he had uttered. "he," answered the meschumed, his voice sounding strangely soft and gentle, "he was a great and noble man, perhaps the best man that ever lived. but he is dead, and his spirit has died out--died out even in those who call him their redeemer! the fools! through himself alone can man be redeemed--through himself and in himself...." he ceased, and moses was silent also. the two men sat side by side for some time without speaking, each busied with his own thoughts. at length moses asked: "and what do you want with the child?" "i want to be her teacher," replied schlome, "for i have learned to love her dearly in the few interviews i dared to have with her. and believe me--she is no common child! oh, had she only been a boy! i have often thought; and then, again, i have been thankful she was a girl--you can guess why, perhaps. she has a real hunger for knowledge, and a strange longing for the light of truth...." here the other interrupted him impatiently. "you are dreaming, schlome!... esther is scarcely nine years old, and i, her own father, have noticed nothing of the kind in her." "because you wouldn't see it," was the answer; "because you wouldn't see it, or, forgive me, couldn't see it. you look upon it as dreaming or folly, or else think it childish. but i know what it is for a young heart to have to bear that longing alone. believe me, it would be a sin to let it die out for want of food. i therefore beg of you to allow me to be esther's teacher!" there was another long silence between the men. at length moses answered: "i can not, brother, and i dare not if i would. it isn't because of you that i say this--i believe that you are good, and that you would only teach the child what is good. but it would not be suitable for my daughter. i wish her to remain a simple jewish girl; i wish it, and it must be so. why should she learn what may make her sad, and discontented with her lot? my daughter is to grow up a pious, simple-minded woman; it is best for her that it should be so, and that is my reason for refusing your request. i have already arranged that she should marry a rich and honorable man." "yes," said the meschumed, and, for the first time during this conversation, his voice sounded bitter and hard--"yes; you are rich and have the right to do as you will: you have therefore arranged that you should have a rich son-in-law. the girl is now nine years old; in six or seven years' time you will give her to the wealthiest and most pious youth in the district, or perhaps to a widower who is even richer and more pious. she will not know him, but what of that? she will have plenty of time to make his acquaintance after marriage! then she will probably fear him, or hate him, or else he will be indifferent to her. but what of that? what does a jewish woman want with love? what more does she need but to love god, and her children, and--let me not forget to mention it--her little possessions?..." "i don't understand you," said moses, hesitating and astonished. "you do not understand me!" cried the other, springing up excitedly. "can _you_ say that--_you_? o moses, think of my sister...." moses freudenthal started like a wild creature shot to the heart. he wanted to answer angrily, to order schlome to leave him at once and for ever; but he could not do it. his eyes involuntarily sank before those of the despised meschumed: after a long and hard struggle with himself he felt constrained to answer low and sadly, "it was not my fault." "no," replied the other, gently; "no, it was not your fault; it was that of your father and mine. but remember that you, and you only, will be responsible for what you do with your child." he paused a while, and then finding that moses was too deeply moved to be able to answer, went on: "do not harden your heart, lest you be tempted to evil. remember what is written, 'give to the thirsty to drink.' brother, will you allow me to show your child the light and life for which her whole nature thirsts?" moses was unable to answer, but next day a strange rumor was afloat in the ghetto, to the effect that moses freudenthal had become reconciled to schlome, the meschumed, and had permitted him to teach his only child!... it is of that hour that the lonely old man in the synagogue is thinking, and it is that hour which he curses from the bottom of his soul. the remembrance of it follows him as he rises with the rest of the congregation and goes out into the spring night. the narrow streets are full of life; the houses are lighted up; the children and young girls are standing in the doorway of their homes waiting for the return of their parents. the unhappy man tortures himself as he walks with the thought of how different everything would be if he were now going home with his son-in-law and his daughter, to be greeted by his grandchildren at the gate. every child's laugh, every word of welcome that he hears, cuts him to the heart. ah, well! perhaps he is not so very much to blame when he mutters below his breath, "if god is just, he will punish him who gained the heart of my child only to lead her astray, and him also who opened her ears to the words of the tempter!..." at this moment he feels a hand laid upon his shoulder, and, turning round to see who it is, starts back as though he saw a ghost. his breath comes thick and fast, his eyes flash, and he clinches his fist. the man he has just cursed stands before him--a sickly, broken old man--schlome, the meschumed. "i must speak to you," he says to moses. "i have a letter...." "silence, wretch!" cries the other, half mad with rage and misery. "silence .... i will not listen.... may you words choke...." a crowd collects round the two men. the meschumed advances a few steps nearer his brother-in-law, and repeats: "i must speak to you. curse me if you like, but listen to me. she is...." before he can utter another word, moses has turned and rushed away. he flies like a hunted creature through the narrow streets, across the market-place, and up to his own house. there he sinks half fainting on the stone seat by the door. he sits still, waiting till his breathing becomes more regular, and his pulses beat less quickly. then all at once he thinks he hears some one mention his name. the first-floor windows are lighted up and widely opened; loud laughter can be heard within the room. frau kasimira lozinska is having an "at home" this evening. now he hears it again quite distinctly: his name, and then a burst of laughter. he pays no attention to it, but goes into his parlor and sits down, silently pushing away the food and drink the old housekeeper sets before him. "she is dead!"--these words seem to ring in his ears and heart--"of course--she is dead!" thus he sits alone in the brilliantly lighted room in a tumult of wild thoughts, of passionate internal conflict. all around him is hushed; the melancholy sputtering of the numerous candles is the only sound to be heard. * * * * * the wife of the district judge has an "at home" to-night. the gentlemen are in the ante-room playing at whist and _tarok_, and perhaps a little innocent game of hazard. the ladies in the drawing-room are seated round a large tea-table, drinking tea out of enormous cups, eating sweet cakes of all kinds, and talking a great deal. the only person at all out of humor is the fat wife of the fat estate agent. she is accustomed to be the principal lady in barnow, but is dethroned for to-day by the wife of a beggarly government official--i. e., the new registrar. for frau emilie comes from lemberg, the capital of the province, and has brought with her not only the latest fashions in dress, but also a number of piquant stories. in return for these, she is of course told all the scandals of barnow that relate to any lady who happens not to be present at the time. but that amusement soon comes to an end, as almost every one of any standing is at frau kasimira's this evening. then, as luck will have it, frau emilie asks to be told the curious story her husband has heard about from the district judge that day. "i can tell you that story better than any one else," answers her hostess, eagerly. "we have lived in this house for the last twelve years, and i know everything that happened. it is very interesting, for a handsome hussar is the hero of the tale. i'm sure that you can not have heard anything like it in lemberg." she then goes on to relate as follows: "well, as you know already, the story is about esterka, the daughter of the jew to whom this house belongs. she was ten years old when we came here, and tall of her age, with black hair and large blue eyes. she was scarcely ever to be seen, and never to be heard: she used to sit over her books all day long, and often far into the night. my daughter malvina, who was about the same age, used to ask her to come and play with her; but the proud little jewish girl wouldn't accept any of her invitations, she was so taken up with her reading. it was very foolish of her, and her uncle grünstein was at the bottom of it all. old grünstein is a very queer sort of man--most disagreeable to have anything to do with, i should say: he's neither jew nor christian--quite an infidel, in fact; indeed, some people go so far as to say that he can raise the dead when he likes. yes, i mean what i say! he can raise the very dead from their graves! and he was esterka's teacher. he must have given her a nice sort of education, for at the end of three years she was every bit as foolish and godless as himself. to give you an example of this, let me tell you what happened one very hot august afternoon when she was with us. you must know that she embroidered beautifully, so we had asked her to come and help malvina to finish a bit of work. as we sat at our sewing the clouds began to come up thick and fast, and soon afterward there was a terrible storm; it thundered, lightened, and hailed with the greatest possible fury. my daughter, who, thank god, had received the education of a good catholic, began to pray aloud; but the jewess remained calm and cool. 'esther,' i said, 'aren't you afraid of the judgement of god?'--'a thunder-storm isn't a judgement of god,' answered the conceited little thing.--'well, then, what do you call the lightning?' i asked.--'a discharge of atmospheric electricity,' was her reply.--'aren't you afraid of the lightning, then?'--'oh, yes,' she answered, 'because we haven't a lightning-conductor on the house!'--i couldn't possibly allow such godless sentiments to pass unreproved, as malvina was there, so i said very sternly: 'you're a little infidel, child; remember this, the good god guides every flash of lightning!'--'how can that be?' answered miss impudence. 'the poor peddler, berisch katz, was killed by lightning last year, when he was crossing the open fields, although he was a very good man; and now that he is dead, his children haven't enough to eat.'--i said nothing more at the time, but next day, when i happened to see old moses, i told him the whole story. 'the child is having a nice sort of education,' i said in conclusion, 'and if this kind of thing goes on, who knows what the end of it will be?'--'it shall not go on,' he replied; 'i had made up my mind to put a stop to it before, and what you tell me determines me to do so at once.'--he was as good as his word, and took away all of esther's books. then he put her in the shop, and made her weigh the sugar and sell the groceries. as for schlome, he turned him out of the house. "all this took place nine years ago last summer. one sabbath afternoon in the following autumn esther came to my daughter and entreated her with tears to lend her a german book, or else she would die. she said that her father had taken away every one of her books, and looked after her so strictly that she couldn't herself get any to take their place. he did not, however, go so far as to prevent her visiting us. our acquaintance was an honor to the girl, and besides that, he knew that i was a woman of principle. well, as i said before, esther wept and entreated in such a heart-rending manner that i was touched. so i lent her some german books that i happened to have in the house: heine's 'reisebilder,' klopstock's 'messiade,' 'kaiser joseph,' by louise mühlbach, the new 'pitaval,' eichendorf's poems, and the novels of paul de kock. she read them all, devouring them much as a hungry wolf does a lamb. she read them in the shop whenever her father's back was turned, and at night when she went to her room. the only book she didn't like was the first novel of paul de kock; she brought it back to me, and asked me to find her something else. but i hadn't time to do so then, so i said: 'read it, child, read it; you'll like it when once you've fairly begun.' i was right; she liked it so much that she never offered to give back the second novel, and after the third, she wanted to finish all by that author before reading anything else. i was able to gratify her, as we have the whole of his works. she devoured the hundred and eighty volumes in the course of one winter. for, i can assure you, these jewish girls have no moral feeling...!" the ladies all agree in regarding this statement as true. the estate-agent's wife is the only one who does not join in the chorus. for though she is very fat and rather stupid, she has a good heart. "it wasn't right," she says very distinctly and very gravely. "you have a great deal to answer for." the frau kasimira looks at her in silent astonishment. if she were not a very courteous woman, a woman of the world, and, above all, if it were not her own house, she would smile sarcastically and shrug her shoulders. as it is, she contents herself with saying apologetically, "mon dieu! she was only a jewess!" "only a jewess!" repeats the chorus of ladies aloud, and also in a whisper. many of them laugh as they say ... "only a jewess!" "only a jewess!" is echoed in a grave deep voice. the games in the ante-room, are finished, and the gentlemen have rejoined the ladies unnoticed. "you have made a great mistake, madam." it is the doctor of barnow who speaks, a tall stately man. he is a jew by birth. he is hated because of his religion, and feared because of his power of sarcasm. his position obliges these people to receive him into their society, and he accepts their invitations because theirs is the only society to be had in the dull little country town. "you have made a mistake," he repeats, addressing the estate-agent's wife. "you have never been able to throw off the prejudices of your german home, where people look upon a jew as a human being. it is very foolish of you not to have learned to look upon the subject from the podolian point of the view!" "laugh as much as you like," says his hostess quickly. "i still maintain that an uneducated jewess has very little moral feeling!" "yes," is the dry answer, "especially when she has been put through a course of paul de kock--has been given the whole of his works without exception. but, pray, don't let me interrupt you; go on with your story." frau kasimira continues: "very well; where did i leave off? oh, i remember now. she had finished kock by the spring. i had no more german books to lend her; so she begged me to subscribe to the tarnapol lending library for her, and i at length consented to do so. i didn't like it at all, but she entreated me to do it so piteously, that i must have had a heart of stone to refuse. she read every one of the books in the library, beginning with about and ending with zschokke. her father had no suspicion of the truth, and he never knew it. she used only to read in the night when she went to her bedroom. the exertion did not hurt her eyes at all. she had most beautiful eyes, large and blue--blue as the sky. as to her figure, it was queenly, slender, upright, and rounded. in short, she was lovely--very lovely. but at the same time she was a silly romantic girl, who thought that real life was like the novels she used to devour. when she was sixteen her father told her that he wished her to marry a son of moschko fränkel from chorostko, a handsome jewish lad of about her own age. she said she would rather die than marry him. but old freudenthal isn't a man to jest with. the betrothal took place, and beautiful esther sat at the feast pale and trembling as though she were about to die. i had gone down-stairs to see the ceremony from curiosity. my heart is not a very soft one, but when i saw esther looking so miserable, i really felt for the girl. 'why are you forcing your daughter to marry against her will?' i asked the old man. he answered me abruptly, almost rudely, i thought: 'pardon me; you don't understand; our ways are different from your ways. we don't look upon the chicken as wiser than the hen. and, thank god, we know nothing of love and of all that kind of nonsense. we consider that two things are alone requisite when arranging a marriage, and these are health and wealth. the bride and bridegroom in this case possess both. i've given in to esther so far as to consent that the marriage should be put off for a year. that will give her time to learn to do her duty. many changes take place in a year.' "the old man was right. many changes take place in a year. the greatest possible change had taken place in beautiful esterka, but it was not the change that her father had expected or wished to see. look here, the doctor there looks upon me as hating all jews, but i am perfectly just to them, and i tell you that the girl, although inwardly depraved, had hitherto conducted herself in the most praiseworthy manner. and yet her temptations must have been very great. she was known throughout the whole district, and every one called her the 'beautiful jewess.' the inn and bar down-stairs had more visitors than moses cared for. when the young nobles of the district came to barnow on magisterial business, they spread out the work they had to do over three days, instead of contenting themselves with one as before; the unmarried lawyers and custom-house officials spent their whole time at the bar; and as for the hussar officers, they took up their quarters there altogether. these men, one and all, paid their court to esther, but she never wasted a thought upon one of them. her father kept her as much as possible out of the way of his customers. when she met them, she returned their greeting courteously, but was as if deaf to their compliments and flattery. and if any one was rude to her, she was quite able to defend herself. young baron starsky found that out to his cost--you know him, don't you? a tall fair man, and the hero of that queer story about gräfin jadwiga bortynska. well, he once met esther as he was leaving the bar-parlor rather the worse for wine. he will never forget that meeting, because of the tremendous box on the ear that she gave him. "there was a change in her after her engagement. not that she was on more friendly terms with these men than before, but that she no longer rebuffed one of their number. this favored individual was a captain in the würtemberg hussars, graf géza szapany by name. he was like a hero of romance: tall, slight, and interesting-looking, with dark hair, black eyes, and a lovely little mustache. this is no flattering portrait, i can assure you; our friend hortensia will bear witness that i do not exaggerate, she used to know him too...." frau hortensia, a handsome blonde, and wife of the assistant judge of the district, blushes scarlet, and casts an angry look at her "friend" and hostess, but forces herself to answer indifferently, "ah yes, to be sure, i remember him.... he was a good-looking man." "good-looking," repeats frau kasimira. "he was more than that. he was very handsome; and so interesting! his manners were perfect. he thoroughly understood the art of making himself agreeable to women; but that was natural enough, for he had had plenty of experience. beautiful esterka was soon caught in his toils. he approached her almost shyly, and spoke to her with the utmost respect; and more than all, he paid her no compliments. that helped on his cause wonderfully. and then you mustn't forget what i told you before, that she was depraved at heart, and foolishly romantic. the affair ran the usual course. at first a few meetings, then many; at first but a few words were exchanged, afterward many; at first one kiss, then many more.... it was very amusing!" every one present seems to regard it in the same light as frau kasimira. the ladies giggle and the gentleman laugh. one lady alone remains grave--and she is the fat, kind-hearted german woman sitting in the corner of the sofa. "you don't seem to be amused by the story," observes the doctor, who is sitting beside her. "no," she answers. "it is a very sad story. the poor girl was a victim." "yes," says the doctor, his voice sounding deep and low with suppressed feeling, "she was a victim. but she was not a victim of the handsome hussar, nor even of our kind hostess here. the cause of her ruin lies deeper, much deeper than that. as the twilight is more eerie than complete darkness, so a half education is more dangerous than absolute ignorance. darkness and ignorance alike lay a bandage over the eyes and prevent the feet from straying beyond the threshold of the known; knowledge and light open the eyes of man and enable him to advance boldly on the path that lies before him; while half knowledge and twilight only remove part of the bandage and leave him to grope about blindly, perhaps even cause him to fall! poor child! she was snatched away from the pure stream, and her thirst was so great that she strove to slake it in any puddles she passed on the way. poor child! she...." here a yawn interrupts the speaker. the fat woman is thoroughly good and kind, but she is by no means intellectual, and hates having to listen to what she does not understand. meanwhile frau kasimira continues as follows: "so graf géza soon succeeded in gaining complete influence over her. and when he left this to be stationed at marburg, she followed him there. one friday evening--just like to-day--when moses came home, he found the nest empty. there was a great uproar down-stairs. they called her, sought her everywhere with tears--no words can describe the scene. my husband went down-stairs--moses raged like a madman. it all happened five years ago, but i shall never forget that night.... "the next few days were very uncomfortable and queer. they all went on as if esther were dead. the shop and bar were both closed; the pictures were hung with black; the mirrors were turned with their faces to the wall. a small lamp was burnt in a corner of her room for seven days and seven nights, and during the whole of that time moses sat on the floor of the room barefoot and with his clothes torn. i don't know whether it is true, but i heard that the jews took an empty coffin to the cemetery on the sunday following, and then filled in an empty grave. i have been told that they even went so far as to put up a gravestone to esther! on the eighth day moses rose up and went quietly about his business again. these jews are such strange creatures! only fancy! he came to us that very day to ask for his rent. i scarcely recognized him--his hair had turned quite gray in the course of a week. his manner was quiet and composed, and he seems to have forgotten all about his daughter now. but as everybody knows, the jews are fonder of their money than of their children!" "has no one heard anything more about esther?" asks the fat woman. "yes--once. but what we heard wasn't much to be relied on. little lieutenant szilagy--you remember what fibs he used to tell--went to spend his leave in hungary on one occasion, and when he came back, he declared that he had seen graf géza and esther in a box in the national theatre at pesth. but the little man tells so many lies that one never knows how much to believe. it may quite well have been some other pretty girl." "do you know," says frau emilie, the highly educated lady from lemberg, "do you know what this story reminds me of? of a very amusing play i once saw acted in lemberg. it was translated from the english of a certain ... oh dear! these english names...." "perhaps you mean shakespeare?" inquires the doctor, coming to the rescue. "shakespeare," repeats the district judge; "he's a rather well-known poet." "yes; a very talented man!" says the doctor, with the utmost gravity. "you're right--shakespeare!" continues frau emilie; "and the play was called 'the merchant of venice.' there is a jew in it, shylock by name, whose daughter also ran away, and who, like moses, was far fonder of his money than of his child. i therefore propose that we should no longer call the freudenthal of to-day by his own name, but instead of that"--the speaker makes a long pause--"the shylock--of barnow!" the registrar feels very proud of his clever wife. the gentlemen laugh, the ladies titter, and even the estate-agent's fat wife smiles as they one and all repeat: "ha! ha! ha! the shylock of barnow!" * * * * * but they do not laugh next morning. they never laugh at shylock again--neither they nor any one else. the wan pale light of the sabbath morning dawns upon a woful sight. it is a damp, misty, disagreeable morning. the wind, which had risen at midnight, and had driven the heavy black clouds across the sky, covering the moon as though with a pall, has fallen; but the clouds are heavier and blacker than ever, and a thick cold mist inwraps the whole plain and the gloomy little town. all sleep soundly in the small houses of the ghetto. not a step is to be heard in the narrow streets. the dogs in the courtyards, and the night-watchman in front of the town-hall, are alone awake. the latter is usually asleep at this hour, but the dogs are making too much noise to allow him even to fall into a doze. they are barking furiously. the dogs at the town-gate are the first to begin it, then the watch-dog at the monastery takes up the chorus, and lastly, moses freudenthal's black "britan" joins in the uproar. the wise watchman therefore makes up his mind that some stranger is passing the monastery and going toward the jew's house. but it never occurs to him to go and see who it is. the mist makes the morning very dark, and the streets very slippery. so the guardian of barnow remains quietly in his little box in front of the town-hall. "britan is barking so loud," he says to himself, consolingly, "that the jew can't help hearing him." he is not mistaken. the people in freudenthal's house hear the furious barking. the old housekeeper gets up to see what is the matter, and to call the man-servant. as she passes her master's room, she notices a light under the door, and, on hearing the sound of her footsteps, old moses comes out. he is still dressed; he has evidently not yet gone to bed, although it is nearly two o'clock in the morning. he looks thoroughly worn-out. "go back to bed," he says to the old woman; "i will go myself and see if anything is wrong." at the same moment the dog again barks furiously, and then all at once begins to whine and utter short barks of joy. they hear the huge creature jumping about and scratching at the outer door. he has evidently recognized the person who has come up to the house, and is trying to get to him. the old man turns as pale as death. "who can it be?" he murmurs. then he proceeds with tottering steps toward the entrance-hall. the housekeeper prepares to follow him, but he exclaims "go away" so passionately, that she draws back. he takes no candle with him, for it is the sabbath; so he feels his way to the house-door. the old woman stands and listens. she hears the dog spring forward to meet his master, and then run with joyous whines toward the outer door. then she hears moses ask, "who is there?" all is still. the dog alone utters a short bark. moses repeats his question. an answer comes from without. the housekeeper can not hear what it is. it sounds to her like a cry of pain. but the old man must have understood. he opens the heavy outer door, steps out, and shuts it behind him. the dog has apparently slipped out at the same time as his master, for the housekeeper can hear the stifled sound of his bark. then moses's voice becomes audible; he speaks very loudly and passionately. what he says sounds at first like scolding, and then like a solemn curse or conjuration. but the old woman can not hear the words.... no mortal ear hears the words that moses freudenthal addresses to the person who had knocked at his door that dismal night. after a minute of suspense, the housekeeper hears the outer door creak. moses is coming back. he returns alone. the dog has remained outside. there is a moment's silence; and then the housekeeper hears a heavy fall. she seizes the candle--what does she care in her terror about the old pious custom?--and hastens to the door. there lies moses freudenthal, motionless and pale as death. she raises his head; he breathes stertorously. on perceiving this, the old woman utters a loud shriek. the man-servant and shopman, wakened by her cry, hasten to the spot. they lifted their master, and, carrying him to his room, put him to bed. then one of them goes for the doctor of the district, who lives close by on the first floor. he bleeds the sick man, but shakes his head as he does so. the old man has had a stroke. the housekeeper weeps, the men stand about the room awkwardly, not knowing whether to go or stay, and the doctor attends to his patient. thus the hours pass slowly, and the morning comes. no one remembers the stranger who had knocked at the door in the night. early in the morning a loud knocking is heard at the door. the night-watchman stands without, accompanied by several people who have come in early to the market. they have found a poorly-dressed, half-starved-looking young woman lying dead at the door. black britan is lying beside the corpse, whining, and licking its hands. when any one tries to approach, he growls and shows his teeth. the doctor goes on and bends over the dead woman. he lays his hand on her heart; it has ceased to beat. he then looks at the pale, worn face, and recognizes it at once. he rises sadly, and orders the corpse to be taken to the dead-house. he then returns to the sick man, who still lies senseless. next day they bury esther freudenthal. no one knows what her religion had been--whether she had remained a jewess, or had become a christian. not even her uncle schlome, who cowers down by her bier in a stupor of grief. so they bury her where suicides are laid; and yet she had died of starvation. a packet of letters is found in her pocket. they are all written in the same hand, and bear the same superscription--géza. the last of these letters, which is stamped with the post-mark of a small hungarian town, contains the following lines: "i tell you honestly that i am tired of the whole thing. i am now with my regiment, and advise you not to attempt to follow me. my sergeant, koloman, has promised to marry you. he likes you. if you don't like him, you had better go home." she did go home. old moses does not die in consequence of the occurrences of that night. he lives on for a long time; he outlives his brother-in-law, and many happy people. he lives a gloomy, solitary, mysterious life. when he dies, the only people who weep for him are the mourning-women who have been hired for the purpose. he leaves his great fortune to the wonder-working rabbi of sadagóra, the most jealous opponent of light, the most fanatical supporter of the old dark faith. this is the story of moses freudenthal, whom they called the "shylock of barnow." chane. ( .) many years have passed since poor esther freudenthal died at her father's feet. moses has also been dead for a long time. the large white house opposite the dominican monastery, which now belongs to the rabbi of sadagóra, looks quite as grand and well cared for as when it was owned by the stern, unhappy old man. an oval plate now hangs above the door, on which a black eagle is painted on a yellow shield, and round the edge are the words, "royal and imperial district court." petty thieves, polish rebels, and jewish usurers are brought to trial where moses and his daughter had lived and suffered. these public offices occupy the ground-floor on the right of the entrance-door. the shop formerly kept by old moses still remains on the left hand, but another name is now painted above the door--"nathan silberstein, grocer and wine-merchant." two words of the inscription were wrongly spelt; but that was the fault of humpbacked little janko, who painted the sign. the new owner has made no changes on the first floor, which is still let to the doctor and district judge. the district judge is, however, different from the one moses freudenthal knew. herr julko von negrusz has succeeded herr hippolyt lozinski, with the yellow face and attenuated figure. he differs from his predecessor in every respect. herr lozinski considered the jews his prey, rich and poor alike; and what he extorted from them he gave to poor christians--such as the nobles, officials, and officers. his wife, kasimira, who came of the noble family of cybulski--which name in english means onion--was celebrated for five german miles around barnow for three peculiarities--her debts, her brilliant toilets, and her love of dancing. she deceived her husband so openly, that people wondered how he could continue to cock his hat so jauntily on his long yellow head. but all this is changed. herr von negrusz extorts nothing from the jews, nor does he give great feasts to the christians. he lives entirely in his office, and for his lovely young wife and two pretty boys. his wife is very beautiful. her figure is straight and slender, and though her carriage is proud, she is extremely graceful. her features are finely cut, and her dreamy dark eyes are unfathomably deep. but her most striking beauty is her rich olive complexion. her appearance conjures up zuleima and zuleika, and the enchanted beauties of the east; but it must be observed that the district judge's wife wears a cross upon a chain round her throat, and that she has printed upon her calling-cards, "christine von negrusz." strange to say, these cards form her sole connection with other people. she has no visitors, and she visits no one. between her and the world of barnow there is a limit of acquaintance, past which neither she nor they try to step. if some public functionary sent to barnow happens to be a married man, he is carefully instructed by his colleagues to borrow the old carriage and horses of old herr von wolanski, and drive with his wife to the large white house. arrived there, he is to send in cards, and is warned that the customary answer received on such occasions is, that the district judge is not at home, and that _gnädige frau_ is not well. in the course of a week herr von negrusz and his wife drive in the same carriage to return the visit, and the ceremony is acted over again with the parts reversed. all intercourse then ceases between the two families. this custom is invariable. another curious circumstance is, that frau von negrusz never goes out of the house alone. once or twice a week she takes a walk with her husband. the inhabitants of barnow are accustomed to walk in the new park surrounding the castle of gräfin jadwiga bortynska, _née_ polanska. unlike other people, the district judge and his wife always take their constitutional in the deserted garden by the river-side, and close to the old castle. the direct road to these pleasure-grounds is through the jews' quarter; but this unsociable pair avoid the nearest way, and choose rather to go all round the outskirts of the town. one might have supposed their reason to have been that they wished to escape the dust and bad odors of the ghetto; but this hardly accounts for it, as when once caught in a storm, they made the same long round in the pouring rain. herr von negrusz looks everybody pluckily in the face, and never avoids meeting his friends; why should his wife be so unsociable, and what proscription separates her from the rest of the world? you have only to ask the gossip and newsmonger of barnow--the magnificent frau emilie, wife of the new registrar. her husband has lived ten years in barnow, but he is still called the "new registrar," to distinguish him from his colleague, who has been there twice as long. frau emilie will show you a calling-card, and answer as follows: "how can one associate with such a person? look at her card--why has she not had it printed in the proper way, with her maiden name in the usual place? because it would not look well to put 'christine von negrusz, _née_ bilkes, _divorcée_ silberstein.' her real name is chane, her father is nathan bilkes, and another nathan--nathan silberstein--is her first husband. negrusz is eccentric. first he wanted to marry the daughter of a millionaire, an armenian baron, and when this was forbidden, he suddenly comforted himself by falling in love with the rather good-looking jewess, and he bought her from her husband...." "bought?" you will ask with surprise--"for money--for hard cash?" "of course--why not?" your informant will reply. "are you really surprised? to a jew everything is salable--even a wife. it is said that negrusz had to pay down a thousand gulden. if you do not believe me, ask every one in barnow, or, better still, ask nathan silberstein how much he got. he is a wine-merchant, and though he is continually traveling about, he is sure to be at home for the great feasts. he will tell you that he gave her up to the district judge willingly. now, i ask you, can we associate with such a woman?" emilie, the magnificent, is right for the most part. frau christine was really chane, and she had been chane bilkes, and afterward chane silberstein. the wine-merchant had given her up voluntarily to the district judge. she was right also when she said that it was impossible for her--emilie--to know such a person. she was quite wrong about the money transaction. the price paid was not a bank-note, but a human heart. * * * * * the synagogue is a gray weather-beaten building, erected long ago, almost in the middle ages. the country people call it the judenburg (jews' strong-hold), because the jews once took refuge in it, and intrenched themselves there, when prince czartoryski came to murder and rob them. one of his reasons for doing so was that he wanted sport, and there were no foxes or wild boars to be found in the neighborhood in the hunting season; and another was, that he wanted money. the jews hid themselves and their property behind the walls and iron bars of the synagogue, and held out until the men of jagiellnica arrived from their neighboring fortress, and relieved them. at that time the walls of the judenburg were strong, and the iron-work firm; but the bars are all broken now, or they are lost, and the walls are half in ruins. as if to testify to the importance of the building as a holy refuge, the poorest of the jews' houses are built round it on three sides. on the fourth side, the sluggish river lered flows so close to the synagogue that there is only space for two dwellings. one of these is a large new house, painted yellow--an unusual decoration in this vicinity--and the other is a dirty, ruinous cottage clinging forlornly to the bank of the river. the yellow house seems to be shoving its poorer neighbor over the brink, the moldering walls of the hovel hang so directly above the slow sad water. the rich wine-merchant, manasse silberstein, used to live with his son in the large house, and a very poor man, nathan bilkes, had lived for many years in the hovel. nathan had been a _dorfgeher_ (peddler) as long as his strength had lasted, and then he spent a weak lonely old age upon his hardly earned savings, eked out by the charity of the community. he had become prematurely old and weak, like most people of his hard-working, poverty-stricken class. a _dorfgeher_ means, in the language of his co-religionists, a traveler who gains his livelihood by supplying the surrounding villages with the necessaries of life. on sundays he tramps out of the town with an enormous pack upon his back, in which is stored all that the heart of a ruthenian peasant could wish for, except the one thing most desired--for the _dorfgeher_ does not sell schnapps. everything else he sells: straw hats, leather belts, boots, clasp-knives, flowers, ribbons, corals, love-philters, stuffs for gowns, spindles, linen, tallow, hardware, images of the saints, charms, wax-candles, needles, linen thread, and newspapers of the last week. he sells everything, and all are his customers--from the cavalry officers, who buy his smuggled cigars, and the pastors and gentry, who buy his fine stuffs, to the poorest peasant. throughout the whole week he goes from village to village, from house to house--in the height of summer and the depth of winter. he knows everybody, and all know him. if they require his wares they invite him to cross their thresholds; if they want to buy nothing they drive him away, and if he does not go immediately they hound their dogs at him. the peasant and the noble, the chaplain and the young lieutenants, sharpen their wits at his expense; and if their jokes are not always ready, they try their switches and spurs. but he never wearies, and from early morning until late evening he raises his hoarse cry, and haggles and cheats wherever he can. if he can not get money in exchange for his wares, he will take what he can get--skins, grain, chickens, ducks, or eggs. on friday afternoons he returns to town, and for one whole day he feels himself a man; but on sunday he becomes nothing but a _dorfgeher_ again.... nathan bilkes was a _dorfgeher_, and the above is a description of his life, which differed in no way from that of others of his trade. his father had found him a wife in due time. she had proved most excellent, but had died soon after her marriage, leaving two children. the children grew up, strong and beautiful, in the dark cheerless cottage, as one sometimes sees sweet flowers blooming in the midst of rubbish and decay. but their father bewailed their strength and beauty, for these qualities lost them to him. his children so passed out of his life that he grew to look upon them as dead. the son was obliged to become a soldier, because nathan could not pay the fifty gulden that were required to obtain his release. bär blitzer, the broker, had said that it could be done for fifty gulden, but the money was not there. the lad went to italy with his regiment, and after the battle of magenta his name was in the official list as "missing." his old father waited long for his return, but he never came back. his daughter, too, died to him. "my chane," the old man took care to say, "was a beautiful jewess; but i do not know the heathen (_goje_) frau christine." the _dorfgeher_ had not foreseen that his daughter would be a source of trouble to him. his chane had been as obedient as she was lovely, modest, and industrious. she was not alone beloved by her father--she was a universal favorite. no one grudged her good luck when old manasse silberstein sought her hand in marriage for his only son nathan. it was a great and unexpected good fortune; for these people are strictly divided into classes, and the rich and poor seldom intermarry. this custom is natural; for the only occupation they were permitted to follow was money-making, thus the possession of wealth has been their sole happiness for many generations. the poor peddler was at first incredulous. old manasse was very rich, and had a large grocery business, and a prosperous trade in hungarian and moldavian wines. it was a great distinction for the poor girl that his choice fell upon her. nathan silberstein was a man of irreproachable character. he was a fine-looking young fellow, honest, straightforward, and intelligent, and knew the talmud as well as he knew his trade. as he was to be a merchant, his father had had him taught high german. with the help of his teacher he learned reading and writing, and waded through a "complete letter-writer," and a "complete index of german municipal law." these two books were supposed to represent his german library; but hidden in his bookcase, under great hebrew folios, was one other little german book. on saturday afternoons, when he went to spend his holiday in the park, he took this little volume in his pocket. he read it in a solitary corner where the green leaves rustled around him, and at these times he felt something within him moving in sympathy with the poetry, of which he was unconscious during the rest of the week. perhaps it was his heart beating. on the back of the book the title was written in gilt letters, "schiller's poems." when his father told him he had chosen him a wife, and who she was to be, his heart was untouched. he answered dutifully, "as you will, father;" but the color left his face as he spoke. the girl was as obedient to her father as he was to his, only she blushed instead of turning pale when she heard the name of her future husband. the betrothal took place, and three months later they were married. in the interval, nathan gave his _fiancée_ presents of costly pearls and precious stones; and she embroidered a robe in gold and silver for him to wear in the synagogue. their conversations were always on indifferent subjects. they did not talk of themselves or their future life, and they did not talk of the past; for though they had been neighbors all their lives, they had no mutual recollections. the marriage was solemnized with great pomp and ceremony: wine flowed liberally, mountains of meat and confectionery were consumed, and the best musicians and merry-andrews enlivened the guests. the young people then took up their abode in the large roomy house opposite the dominican monastery, which manasse had prepared for his son. they led a busy life; their days were spent in labor, and they lived on pleasant friendly terms with one another. they were both good and well-disposed, and as they had never expected their married life to be spent in an earthly paradise, they were not disappointed. custom, a common occupation, and mutual respect bound them to each other. time passed uneventfully until the end of the first year, when a child was born, and the young father again felt his heart beat as it had not done for a long time. the infant only survived its birth a few weeks, and grief brought the young couple into closer sympathy than before. old manasse died about the same time, and the whole responsibility of the business fell upon their shoulders. nathan had to go away on long journeys, and chane became a trustworthy stewardess of the great house. she learned to read and write german, so as to be able to help her husband in the business, while his personal comforts were her ceaseless care. he had the greatest esteem for her, and brought her many presents from lemberg and czernowitz. they were contented with their lot, and were happy enough. happy enough--why were they not quite happy? because they did not love one another. they knew nothing of love except that christians, previous to marriage, fell in love; and what concern had a jew in christian usages? they were happy enough, and their married life seemed firmly founded on esteem for each other, and on their common interests and work; but the storms of passion were to shake the structure to its base, and after throwing it down, were to carry them onward to grief and pain. * * * * * barnow is a very small town, a squalid nook in a god-forgotten corner of the earth, where the great current of life hardly seems to cause the faintest ripple--but it has its _casino_. this is only a modest little room in the court behind nathan's shop, containing two tables and a few chairs. nathan had opened it for the use of his principal customers. here the officials and magnates of barnow are accustomed to drink their morning glasses and discuss politics; and if their wives allow them, they do the same again in the evening. the high-born florian von bolwinski, a squire without land, and a bachelor, drinks not only his morning and evening glasses in this room, but sundry others also, filling up the intervals with expeditions to make love to a cook, or squeeze a jew, or execute some important business. the former district judge, herr hippolyt lozinski, had been a constant customer; and the little room did him one good service in giving him a red nose, which was a fine contrast to his yellow complexion. when the red deepened to ruby color he died, rather to the delight of the district, and to the grief of his many admirers. frau kasimira retired to the estate of the von cybulskies, a small, heavily mortgaged farmhouse near tarnopol; and the new district judge, herr julko von negrusz, took up his residence in the first floor of the white house. he took the place of his predecessor at the _casino_ also, but without frequenting it so continually as he had been used to do. herr von negrusz was a man of about thirty. he was recognized at once to be an excellent jurist, and when better known, he was also considered a good fellow. a district judge in podolia is a sort of demigod, and is either the blessing or curse of the district. herr von negrusz made a good use of his power. there is not much to be said about his external appearance: he was a slightly built man, with quiet brown eyes and a face that could neither be called handsome nor ugly. the custom-house officer's three sallow elderly daughters considered him a barbarian, and quite unsusceptible to the charms of women. he did not care for ladies' society. herr von negrusz soon became a constant guest in the little parlor behind the grocer's shop. he went there daily when he left the office, and spent half an hour reading the newspapers before going home to the dinner prepared by his old housekeeper. as the entrance by the court was inconvenient and not very clean, he always, like most of the guests, went through the shop where nathan silberstein's beautiful wife superintended the business. it was his habit to pass her with a bow. he never talked and joked with her, as did most of the older men and the young officers. he had no particular reason for acting thus, except that much laughing and joking was not in his way. he may also have thought that what these men called compliments were probably objectionable to her; but if so, he was mistaken--chane was indifferent to what they said, and regarded their talk as one of the annoyances inseparable from attendance in the shop, as, for example, the draughts. her manner was very decided, and she was well able to protect herself from impertinence. she answered the elder men with the same lightness as they used in speaking to her, while she greeted the officers curtly and laconically. when love was made the subject of conversation, she would laugh and joke almost extravagantly. love was not only an enigma to her, for she had never felt it, but it was positively ludicrous in her eyes. whoever ventured, between the first and second pints, to say to her, "i love you," she openly derided and inwardly despised; but whoever attempted to slip his arm round her waist ... well, to find this out, you have only to ask little lieutenant albert sturm, a forward, ill-favored, saucy young fellow, why his right cheek was once redder and rounder than his left for the space of a week. she never needed to protect herself from word or look of the district judge. for the first three months after his arrival they did not exchange a word. such stiffness was most unusual in barnow, where every one knew each other, more especially as she and herr von negrusz inhabited the same house, and chane expressed her surprise openly and unaffectedly to her husband. one day nathan stood at the shop-door for a long time in earnest conversation with the district judge and florian von bolwinski. at last negrusz went away to his office, while florian entered the shop with the merchant, in order to drink an extra glass for the good of his digestion. "nathan," said chane, "what a strange man the district judge is! he must be very proud! he has never yet spoken to me." "no, he is not at all proud," answered nathan. "he is one of the most good-natured men i know, but he is not a great talker. why he is so silent i can not tell--perhaps he is unhappy." "ho, ho!" growled florian. "what a vain woman your wife is, pani nathan! we are all at her feet, but that is not enough for her. she wants young herr julko to be the next victim. ho, ho, ho! all her trouble will be thrown away upon him, however, for he is already in love. god's punishment is in store for her!" chane waited patiently until the old toper had finished speaking: she was accustomed to his rude witticisms. "we are not all as light-hearted as you are," she answered, "and this man really seems too sensible to be capable of falling in love." herr florian put his hands on his sides and laughed and sniggered. "ho, ho!" he gasped. "did you ever hear such nonsense?... ho, ho, ho!... as if only stupid people could fall in love!... am i stupid? and--pani nathan, are you not jealous?--i am in love with her. to punish you, i must assure you that he is already disposed of!... his heart is buried in a grave. ho, ho, ho!" "fool!" muttered chane impatiently, while herr florian staggered into the _casino_ with nathan. she could not get what he had told her out of her head, and in the evening, when she sat arranging business letters with her husband, who was to leave home next day, she suddenly asked-- "what did bolwinski mean by saying that herr von negrusz's heart was buried in a grave?" "i do not know," replied nathan; "but the story goes that he was in love with a girl who died, and that he will never marry. it may be true, for christians are fools when they are in love." "ah!" said chane, staring thoughtfully at the flame of the lamp. she soon took her pen again, and finished a letter to moses rosenzweig, ordering a barrel of herrings and five hundredweights of sugar from czernowitz. * * * * * next day a strange thing happened. herr florian bolwinski is not only a fat man, he is also a good-natured man. as he has never injured any one, he is not afraid of any one--except his landlady, although he has never injured her. he is good-natured, but he has one great fault--he tells everything that he knows, and even invents a little now and then. these additions are the fruit, partly of a vivid imagination, and partly of his numerous potations. next morning, when he sat alone in the _casino_ with the district judge, he related how frau chane had opened her heart to him, and had confessed, with torrents of tears, her mad love for herr von negrusz, and that she felt inclined to kill herself in despair, because the object of her passionate love did not take any notice of her, and would not waste one word upon her, even if she were dying. herr florian did not make his story as short as i have given it above, but he went into every little particular, giving the most graphic descriptions of the whole scene. he interrupted himself several times to laugh, "ho, ho, ho!" and ejaculate, "do you see!" he had to do this to give himself breath, for herr von negrusz said not a word. he listened gravely, only occasionally allowing a sarcastic smile to play upon his lips. herr florian disliked this smile, and as often as he saw it he could not help feeling embarrassed. this he tried to hide by adorning his tale still more. "now what do you think of it all?" he concluded, out of breath. "what do i think of it?" repeated the district judge. "i only admire your wonderful imagination. adam mickiewicz is nothing to you." "what! what!--ho, ho! you do not believe me! my dear herr von negrusz, i do not deserve this. have you ever heard me tell a lie? and besides that, what good would it do me? no; on my honor, i am speaking the truth. i was quite sorry for the poor woman. she is over head and ears in love with you. i never saw anything like it--even i, who know women so well. over head and ears, over head and ears; and now i want to know what i am to say to her? nathan is away--do you understand?--away for three weeks--ho, ho! the woman...." "herr von bolwinski," interrupted the district judge, rising and folding up the newspapers, which he had been glancing through, "you, who are a catholic nobleman, think you may say what you like of the wife of the jew silberstein behind her back. i must, however, tell you that if i did not know that the story you have just told me is a lie from the first word to the last...." "herr von negrusz!..." "i repeat it--a lie from the first word to the last. had you really been the bearer of a message of love to me from a faithless woman, i should have declined any further acquaintance with you. you have been joking in your peculiar way, which is certainly not my way, for i object to jokes at the expense of such worthy people as this jewish couple. i recommend you not to continue such jokes when you find any of your butts as reluctant as i...." herr florian lost his temper completely. his story was not credited, and his good joke was lost. this he might have pardoned, as he was accustomed to the incredulity of his hearers, but herr von negrusz took his story seriously, almost tragically. he treated him like a schoolboy, and that he could not stand. he felt that his honor would not allow him to retract his words, so he rose, and with much gesticulation, said in an overbearing way-- "do you know to whom you are speaking--do you hear? do you know to whom you are speaking, i ask? you are speaking to me, florian von bolwinski. you must respect what i say; remember what is due to me. i never heard such language. a liar and a go-between, am i?... ho, ho! i must be respected. remain virtuous if you choose, but what i tell you is true. chane is in love with you--madly in love...." "be silent!" these words, spoken in a sharp incisive voice, interrupted his flow of words. he looked toward the door, and his arms fell to his sides, the blood forsaking his cheeks. herr von negrusz turned crimson. "be silent," repeated chane, stretching her hand toward the fat, trembling little man. drawn up to her full height, she stood in the doorway, looking as proud and beautiful as a queen. herr florian let his head sink and his under lip fall, and altogether looked very sheepish. chane closed the door, and walked up to the two men. "did--you--listen?" stammered the old sinner, trying to laugh. "i did not listen," answered chane, emphatically. "it is not my custom to try to hear what gentlemen say in this room. it is no concern of mine. i was engaged in that part of the shop where the spices are; it is so close to the door that i could not help overhearing. it was bitter enough to do so, but it is harder still to be obliged to speak for myself." as she said this the hot blood rushed to her face. she hesitated, and then continued: "but nathan is not at home, and i am compelled to tell you myself, to your face, herr von bolwinski, that you are a liar. yesterday i did ask my husband if herr von negrusz was proud, as he never spoke to me, as other gentlemen do. i meant nothing wrong, and therefore, herr von bolwinski ... you ... you ought to be ashamed...." herr von bolwinski did as he was bid; he was ashamed. his face fell, and his eyes sought the ground. herr von negrusz, on the contrary, fixed his eyes upon chane. it was dangerous, even for one whose heart was "buried in the grave," to drink in her marvelous beauty. "i thank herr von negrusz," continued chane, with increasing hesitation, and blushing more deeply than before, "for showing a friendly interest in nathan and me; and if he will not speak to me, i must speak to him, and tell him that he is rightly called a noble-minded man, and for my part, i thank him...." like herr florian, the district judge found no words of reply, and looked down somewhat abashed. he seized his hat, and bowing respectfully, left the room. his old housekeeper, who had a great regard for him, was distressed at his loss of appetite that evening, for he sent away his favorite dishes almost untouched. * * * * * the days passed, and imperceptibly a bond of love was formed between these two hearts, which was sinful and criminal in the sight of god and man. the scene in the little wine-shop had had no apparent consequences, except that herr von bolwinski took the rest of his potations at home that day. of course he took an extra quantity, to console him for what he considered his undeserved rebuff. next day he appeared as usual, passing chane in the shop. herr von negrusz also came as usual in the middle of the day. that he should do so was not a matter of surprise. it was, however, astonishing that things went on in the old way. bolwinski continued his customary badinage, and getting no reply from chane, he said, "ho, ho! you are proud, but i love you all the same!" while herr von negrusz only bowed as before. what was his reason? it is not difficult for people to deceive themselves when they wish to do so. "i will not speak to her," he said to himself, "lest i should give the old gossip an opportunity for sarcasm, or the invention of fresh slanders." at the same time he was conscious that this was not his real reason, and sometimes he was childish enough to be angry with the woman whose beauty tempted his heart to be untrue to its natural sense of honor. it was not the bashfulness of which the lively emilie accused him; because, after she had on one occasion pressed his hand confidentially, he had not offered to shake hands with her again. neither was it that "unsusceptibility to the charms of women" of which the three graces complained. no sensible, clever man is ever bashful, and what did his unsusceptibility amount to? alas! the beautiful and outraged woman had made a deeper impression on his heart than was altogether pleasant to him. the wanton conduct of herr von bolwinski had placed him in such a peculiar position toward a woman with whom he was unacquainted, that he could not hit upon the right tone or words with which to address her. he certainly did not feel at ease in her presence, although he swore to himself that he was so. he continually said to himself, "i will not speak to her, so that that wicked old woman in trousers may have no reason for chatter; besides, i have nothing to talk to her about." he knew that he was deceiving himself, and that he was behaving badly; but as time passed on, he found it more and more impossible to break the silence which he knew to be a mistake. he longed to know what she thought of him. and chane never spoke of him, even to her husband. she had talked about him openly before the scene in the wine-room, and now she could do so no longer. she did not even tell nathan, on his return home after a month's absence, of the gross conduct of herr von bolwinski. "why should i make him angry?" she thought; but she knew that she was unwilling to mention the name of herr von negrusz. an inexplicable reticence prevented her from doing so. she thought so much about him, and yet she could not speak of him. every day her imagination took a different turn. sometimes she thought it was not nice of him to treat her with such marked indifference; and at other times she wondered if the haughty christian really believed she was in love with him, and wished to show her that she was nothing to him. "he need not do that," she thought, "for he is certainly nothing to me. but then he stood up for me nobly, and perhaps he does not intend to give that fat, ugly bolwinski an opportunity for further lies. it must be true that his heart is buried in the grave. he loves a dead woman so truly that he will never speak to a living one. he does not even talk to the custom-house officer's wife. how is it possible to love one who is dead--and what is love?..." the power that shapes our lives often uses strange means. two people were being brought together who were not on speaking terms! they maintained silence for three long months, though they saw one another daily. the summer passed away, the yellow leaves in the monastery garden began to fall; the vintage came, and nathan started on his long rounds through hungary and moldavia. he was to return on the sabbath before the great feast. "take care of yourself, and see that you get good vinegar out of the spoiled must," were his parting words. he embraced his wife, calmly kissing her on the brow. he little thought that he did so for the last time. * * * * * one beautiful sunny day in september chane was busy in the shop, and herr von bolwinski and the collector of taxes were talking politics in the _casino_. everything was as usual. herr von negrusz stepped into the shop. he lifted his hat, and was passing on, but was prevented by a cask of herrings, which filled the passage. "you must come round here," said chane, pointing behind the counter. "thank you," he said, passing her. then he stopped, and added, "you are making changes here." he wished to say something, and could think of nothing better. "yes; for the fruit season." "there is a splendid crop this year...." "particularly of apples...." "and the wine promises well, i hear. where is herr nathan just now?" "at hegyallja, i believe; but i do not know for certain. he has not much time for writing when he is traveling. perhaps he is at tokay now." pride in the flourishing state of the business here triumphed over her shyness, and she continued: "we opened up a good trade with potocki and czartoryski last spring, so we now import wines direct from tokay, as well as from the rhine." "i congratulate you on doing so well!" he said, lightly, and passed into the _casino_. this was their first conversation, and herr von bolwinski could not have found any love-making in it, even after his thirtieth pint. the ice was, however, broken, and many similar conversations followed, sometimes about the weather, or trade, or little everyday events. it was strange that while they were on distant terms, they were shy of one another; but on knowing each other better, they became firm friends. they might now be said to stand at cross-roads. their simple daily intercourse might put an end to the peculiar feelings toward each other that had been produced by their first acquaintance, and subsequent coldness of manner; or it might bring about a still more dangerous juxtaposition. they were unconscious of the different paths that lay before them, and as they saw more of one another, and enjoyed the pleasure of each other's society more and more, they did not know that they had already entered upon the road which must lead to sorrow and renunciation, or to shame.... surely, had they known they would not have ventured on dangerous subjects of conversation, which gave opportunities for the expression of deep feeling and the revelation of each other's hearts. for instance, she allowed him to know that herr von bolwinski had told her of his love for one who had died. she almost joked about it, but was immediately sorry when she saw the gravity of his face. "i have wounded you," she said, regretfully. "no, no," he answered, "but i should have liked to be the first to tell you." he then told her the simple story of his first love. when he was a student in munich he had fallen in love with a young girl of noble family, to whom he gave lessons. she returned his affection; but the world was too strong for them, and she married some one else, only to die after a short wedded life. to the jewess his story sounded like a fairy tale. a few months before, she would not have understood his feeling at all, and even now it was partly incomprehensible to her. she showed this by her next question. "and you love her still?" she asked. "she is dead," he replied, "and i do not love her in the same way as i loved the living woman; but her memory will be dear to me as long as i live. i shall never forget her." chane looked thoughtfully before her. "love must be strong," she whispered. he made no reply. perhaps he had not heard what she said. weeks fled rapidly, and the time of the great feast came nearer. nathan would soon return home, and they talked of him continually, praising his industry, his honorable character, and his good honest heart. it is surprising that they should have spoken of him so often, but perhaps they did it because they felt they ought to strengthen their recollection of his existence. he was the barrier that stood between them, and respect for him was their last safeguard. the day of nathan's arrival dawned; it was the friday before the jewish new year. the decisive word was yet unspoken. the fatal time was, however, near when the scales should fall from their eyes, and they should see the abyss that yawned beneath them. * * * * * it was october. the rain had fallen ceaselessly all night, making the country and the dark little town look doubly desolate. toward morning the wind rose and scattered the clouds, blowing down the narrow, tortuous streets, and robbing the poplars of the last red leaves that clung to their branches. it was one of those miserable days when sorrow and loneliness seem doubly heavy to those who have to bear their weight. chane was alone in the shop. no customers were likely to come in such weather. she watched the wind sporting with the leaves. without any apparent reason for unhappiness, her heart felt heavy. at last rosel juster came in. she was a very poor, but pretty and lively girl. she made great purchases of sugar, almonds, raisins, and spices. "you are preparing for your betrothal," said chane in a friendly tone. "i have heard of it, and wish you every happiness. he is a lucky man." "thank you," answered the girl; "the betrothal is to be on tuesday, and the wedding will be on the second sabbath after that. we have to think of his little children--he is a widower." "you will have a great deal to do." "oh, i should think nothing of the work, but he has a sister living with him, and he is an old man; but what is the good of talking about it?" "then you would rather not marry him?" rosel looked at her in surprise. "when are we women ever consulted as to what we should like?" she asked. "i am a poor girl, and he takes me, and provides for me--that is all that i have to do with it." she shrugged her shoulders, passed her hand over her eyes, and went on quickly: "please give me two ounces of ginger." chane said no more, but turned to weigh out the requisite quantity of ginger. her hands trembled as she twisted up the little paper packet, and she made several mistakes with the weights. "you are not well, i am sure," said rosel, as she prepared to go. "you look so pale!" "i am tired," answered chane, sinking into a chair. as the door closed behind the girl, she let her face fall between her hands, and sat a long time buried in thought. the words spoken by rosel rang in her ears: "when are we women ever consulted as to what we should like? i am a poor girl, and he has taken me, and provided for me, that is all--my god, all!..." she kept her eyes firmly closed, but she could not shut them to the truth any longer. her whole life lay before her, and she knew that she was living a lie. "i belong to nathan, body and soul--not because it was my will--not because it was his will--but because our fathers desired it. and now, when i feel that i am a human being, with a heart and will of my own--when i love another, i must either be miserable, or ..." she did not finish her sentence, for she was no longer able to control her thoughts. she was filled with self-commiseration, and burning tears fell from her eyes. she forgot where she was, and that he whom she loved, and yet feared to meet, might come at any moment. she was first roused by the monastery bell ringing at twelve o'clock, and tried to recover her composure. it was too late. he stood within the door he had just opened. they had never hitherto spoken of their love for each other. they had scarcely known that it existed. but when he came near her, and took her hand in his, gazing into her large, soft, tearful eyes, which were fixed pathetically upon his face, their love was revealed to him, and all the sorrow it must bring. she, too, knew that her love was returned as he gently smoothed her hair back from her forehead, and tried to comfort her. then he let her hands fall and left her side. "we shall have much to endure," he said, as if their love and all its consequences were mutually understood. "but we must be firm. i have much to say to you, but this is not the right time or place; and this evening"--he hesitated, and then continued: "your husband is coming back, and i will not ask you to give me an interview in secret from him. i will write to you, and tell you what i think we ought to do." he pressed her hand and went into the _casino_. chane got up from her chair, and sent the apprentice, who had been rubbing up the silver and brass utensils in preparation for the feast, into the shop. she remained in the kitchen preparing for the sabbath, and for the return of her husband. she did everything carefully, but her manner was different from usual. "have you a headache, ma'am?" asked the maid-servant, seeing her suddenly clasp her hands upon her brow, as if she were trying to recollect something. she felt confused and at a loss, but yet there was some secret source of joy. in the evening the office-boy brought her a note. "from the district judge to your husband," he said; but when she opened the envelope, she found that it contained a letter addressed to herself. she did not open it, trembling for its purport. dusk had fallen, and candles were brought. she repeated the beautiful old prayer dutifully, that light and peace should dwell in the house, and that god's mercy should avert every sorrow, pain, and grief.... she knew the few words of the formula by heart, and yet this evening they fell slowly from her lips. she doubted that she was worthy to pray to god--she a jewess, who had in her possession a letter from her christian lover! overcome with fatigue and anxiety, she sank upon a chair, and looked at the outside of the letter. it was sealed. it was a sin to break a seal upon the sabbath. "it is not my greatest sin," she thought, as she tore open the letter. herr von negrusz wrote of his love for her, and that he must die or go mad without her. "become a christian, and be my wife. the sin against your husband will not be so great as the sin against our love, if you refuse. i know that you love me. only tell me that you will come to me, and all else is my care." she crushed the letter in her hand, and threw it down. then she picked it up, straightened it out, and reread it. her hands fell from the table, and bending over them, her tears fell fast. she stammered convulsively: "o my god! help me, enlighten me. let me not become like esther freudenthal, and end my days in shame and remorse. i have been a faithful wife.... i can not break my marriage vows ... but i love him, and feel that life is worthless away from him. he is a good man ... but were he as wicked as the hussar who ruined esther.... o my god! desert me not...." crying thus in the agony of her soul, she did not hear the door open, or a man's step behind her. a hand was laid upon her shoulder. she looked up, her husband stood before her. "thank god!" he cried, joyfully, "i am home at last. the storm has made the roads...." he stopped and looked at her.... "chane," he added, anxiously, "how ill you look! what is the matter?" she did not answer, and his glance fell on the letter. he reached toward it, and she did not try to stop him. he read the first line, and became as pale as death. "to you--writing to you thus!" he read a little further, and then looked at the signature. "from him! this is a blow i did not expect." he read on. his eyes seemed starting out of their sockets, his hand trembled, and his face showed how he suffered. "what?" he cried, when he had reached a certain point. "what? is this true?" he ceased, and she slipped on to the floor and clasped his knees, while he finished reading the letter. he then threw it on the table, and bending over her, said sternly, "rise and be seated." she obeyed. "i only wish to know one thing," he went on, standing in front of her--"the christian writes that you love him.... is it not a lie?... chane, the christian lies?..." lower and lower she bent her head. "kill me," she said, "for i deserve it. what he writes is true. i do love him." nathan started convulsively. his usually placid features were strangely agitated. "the truth!" he hissed; "and you remain in my house, you false wife?" she looked him in the face with flashing eyes. "nathan!" she cried, "i swear by my dead mother that he touched my hand to-day for the first time." he gave a short laugh. "what if i believe you?" he said. "shall we divide you between us? shall i possess you, and he have your love? are you not mine, body and soul? and if you could not be altogether mine, why did you become my wife?" she stepped close up to him, and said, with a despairing gesture, and a sharp ring in her voice: "do not be so hard, nathan. i have been a true wife to you; but when you ask why i married you, i reply, that my wishes were never consulted." her words seemed to strike him, for he could not answer, and there was a long silence. she buried her face in the sofa-cushions. at last he said, "go--we will talk of this to-morrow." she left the room. he bolted the door and resumed his restless pacing up and down. the old servant knocked at the door--she had brought the supper-tray, but he dismissed her at once. she went away grumbling, and he heard her afterward saying to the cook: "god knows what is the matter! the master has locked himself into the parlor, and the mistress is in her bedroom. neither of them will have any supper." a hot flush of shame mounted quickly to nathan's face. "the servants suspect something already," he thought, "and soon all the world will wonder what has happened. old jutta is right; god alone knows what misery has fallen on my house, and god alone can help, for i know not what to do." he threw himself down on the sofa, and thought it all over again, but he could not keep still, and soon started up and began to walk up and down the room again. "how foolish it was of me to say that god alone could help!" he thought. "god can not be expected to work miracles for our individual needs. what can god do but let him die, or me?--that would solve the difficulty." he pressed his burning brow on the window-pane, and stared out into the darkness. "i possessed a treasure, and i did not know its value until another, who was wiser than i, came and took it from me. perhaps--perhaps i deserve it.... "deserve it!" he repeated. "no, no, she is my wife, and whoever takes her from me is a robber and a coward.... "he is a coward!... he, who always used to be such a good, straightforward man. i can scarcely believe that he could have been so wicked.... it must have been her fault--her fault alone. "but oh, is a wife like other property, as i have always thought? is she no more than any other chattel, such as an ornament or a house? has she not a will like every other human being? and has that will ever been consulted?... "that was the sin, and now we are suffering from its consequences. "i was not to blame in those old days; nor was she. and we have lived irreproachably for many years. the punishment for that sin has come upon us now; and on which of us is the expiation to fall?... "can i give her up? if i do, my heart will break; but my heart must not decide. i must not think of myself; but try to find out whether it would not be a sin against god and the law. ought i to let my wife leave me, and become the mistress of a christian, or even become a christian herself? ought i to bring such shame upon the name of our god and upon his people?" he drew himself up to his full height, and stretched out his hand toward heaven: "though my heart and hers should break, thy name shall not be dishonored, my lord and my god." his hand fell slowly, and he paused. "alas!" he whispered, "has not thy name even now been dishonored? has she not spread her hands out to thee above the lights in my house, with the image of the christian in her heart? could any sin be greater? is it thy will that this wickedness should go on for the rest of our lives? is it thy will, o god?" he sat down, and bent his head upon the table. "i do not know what to do," he exclaimed aloud. "help me, o god! thou hast revealed thy will through thy priests and thy prophets. i will study the law." he went to the bookcase and took out a large folio. as he did so, a little book that had been lying behind it fell on the floor. he did not observe it, and carried the folio to the table, opened it, and began to read. he read for a long time, consulting different parts of it. at last he closed the book sharply, stood up, and resting his clinched fist heavily upon it, said, mournfully: "the law does not help me; there is nothing in it at all applicable to a case such as this. the oldest law ordains that 'she should be stoned.' and the law of the talmud is this: 'let her die because of her sin, if the laws of the land in which ye live permit. if not, let the guilty woman be thrust out of her husband's house, and let her return to her father, who shall then punish and correct her as shall seem good in his eyes. she shall be without honor and without rights, excluded from all inheritance, and deprived of family ties....' "the law does not apply to us," he repeated. "she has been weak, not criminal. she has not deceived me--she is mine; but, alas! her heart does not belong to me. it never did, and i never thought of trying to make it mine. the law does not apply; and who can show me a higher law?" sighing deeply, he replaced the folio on the shelf, but when he tried to close the doors of the bookcase, he found that the little volume which had fallen unobserved prevented his doing so. he picked it up and looked at it. memories of the past came back in a flood as he recognized the german book he had read so often as a youth. he had never quite understood its contents, and yet had studied it again and again, because of the sympathetic emotion it aroused in him. schiller's poems, which he had laid aside for so many years, came into his hands again at this dark hour of his life.... he sat down at the table, opened the book, and began to read. his youthful days returned vividly to his mind. one poem he had read beneath the old oak-tree in the park, and another he had surreptitiously studied in a corner of the cellar when he was overlooking his father's workmen. as he read on, he found to his surprise that he understood the whole meaning of the poems, and yet he had learned nothing new since these old days, except perhaps the secrets of the wine-trade. each poem made a deep impression on him. it was so different from all that he had found in it before! whether better or worse he did not stop to inquire; but the influence must have been good, for his heart felt relieved of the load that had oppressed it. he rose and walked about the room in the stillness of the early sabbath, repeating in a whisper some of the words he had just read. the only sound that was to be heard was the sputtering of one or other of the numerous wax-lights, or the fall of a heavy rain-drop against the window-pane. * * * * * morning came at last. the rain had ceased falling, and the last clouds were being driven by the wind across the leaden sky. in the east the sun was beginning to redden, and send its first bright rays upon the sodden plain: it had also penetrated to nathan's parlor. it found him still awake, but he was no longer restless, or speaking to himself. he stood quietly by the window, his face turned toward the east. the reflection of the sunrise lighted up his pale worn face, on which the calmness and peace of determined action were expressed. his eyes were fixed steadily on the east, and he seemed to be praying, though his lips did not move. he had stood there a long time communing with god in the silence of the early morning. the other inmates of the house began to stir. the servants held whispered consultations; they guessed that something unusual had happened. chane left her room. her face was pale, and her eyes were red with weeping. she approached nathan with bent head. "chane," he said, gently, "i have made up my mind. i hope that what i mean to do will be for the best for you--and for him. as for me, our god is a merciful god--he will not forsake me." he spoke the last words in so low a voice that she did not hear them. she blushed deeply, but did not speak. a moment later she hurried from the room, and after a long absence, returned with his breakfast. that done, they went to the synagogue together as usual; and no one seeing them had the least idea of the agony of heart they were both enduring. "thank god! there is nothing wrong," said old jutta to the other maid-servant when she saw them come home together, and sit down to their dinner as usual. nathan soon rose, saying, "be not afraid. i am going to speak to him now. you shall know our decision in half an hour." he went up-stairs to the rooms occupied by herr von negrusz. the district judge was seated at his writing-table. he seemed confused when he saw the husband of the woman he loved. he expected a painful scene. nathan's manner was very quiet, and after a courteous greeting, he said: "herr von negrusz, your confusion shows that you know the reason of my visit. you wrote this letter to my wife, but before i give you the answer, tell me--why did you do it? is not the commandment, 'thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife,' as binding upon you as upon me?" "yes," answered herr von negrusz, "i know that i am guilty of a great sin--i love your wife. i make no excuse for myself." "i am glad you have answered so candidly," said nathan. "i have nothing further to say, except to give you the answer to your letter. my wife returns your love, therefore she can not be my wife any longer; and i shall take the proper steps to obtain a divorce. what shall you do then, herr von negrusz?" "so help me god, i will marry her!" he replied, earnestly. nathan looked at him keenly. "good," he said. "i have no doubt that you intend to do so, for you are an honorable man; but you are a government official, a christian, and of noble birth. she is only a jewess. you are educated; chane is not. you may afterward be influenced by these considerations, and repudiate your present plan of action. i must guard against your doing so; for chane was my wife, and the moment she leaves me for your sake, her father and the whole jewish community will cast her off. should you break your promise, i shall take her back, for i--but enough of that. i tell you plainly, if you do not marry her, _i will kill you, so help me god_! you are the district judge, and i am nothing but a jew. you have a hundred means at your disposal of getting rid of me, but i will keep my word." herr von negrusz raised his hand, and was about to protest, but nathan interrupted him hastily: "do not swear," he said, "but keep your word, so that i may not have to keep mine. chane and i will be divorced in a few days, and if she is not your wife before the end of two months, you are a dead man. farewell." he went home and said to his wife: "we will go to the rabbi to-morrow, and tell him that we have an insurmountable dislike to each other, and he will at once give us a divorce on that account. the christian has promised to marry you. had that not been his intention before, it is now...." "nathan!" she cried, throwing herself at his feet, and covering his hand with tears and kisses--"nathan, how good you are!" "no," he answered, "i am not good. i am only doing what i consider to be my duty. i am atoning for a sin that was committed through no fault of mine. we were married without our feelings being consulted. that was a sin, and it is expiated now; for i love you, although perhaps i did not know it until yesterday, and you do not love me--but another. i can not doom you to misery; rather than do that, i suffer myself. this is the plain state of the case, and i claim no merit for what i am doing. what distresses me most is that you will leave our faith, and that i enable you to do so. i have prayed so earnestly to god for pardon, that i hope he will forgive me. he sees my heart, and he knows that i have no choice." * * * * * there is little more to tell. nathan obtained a divorce in the course of a few days, and a few weeks after, chane--now christine--married herr von negrusz. there had not been such a scandal in the neighborhood for years. curses and malevolence followed chane to her new home; and even those who wished her well, shook their heads over the marriage. the reader already knows that the curses were fruitless, and the fears of the benevolent unfounded. that chane lived, a happy wife and mother, in the same house, on the threshold of which esther freudenthal had died because she had loved a christian. this time love had triumphed over creed. it seemed to work miracles: for not only did it overlap barriers, but in spite of the objectionable features of the case, and the dissimilarity of the husband and wife, theirs was a happy marriage. for theirs was true love, and true love is a mighty power, a divine gift, without which it is a sin against god and man to enter into any marriage. christine von negrusz has only one sorrow. it is not that frau emilie will hardly speak to her, or that the three elderly "graces" look the other way when they chance to meet; nor is it the sardonic smile with which herr von bolwinski accompanies the words--"i was the first to notice it, ho, ho!" whenever he has the opportunity. none of these things distress her; but a real shadow lies upon her otherwise happy life. this is the wrath of her father, which will probably never cease until the lonely, disappointed old man finds peace in the grave. nathan took great pains to save her this one sorrow, but he was not successful. he does not yet give up hope of a reconciliation, and every time he revisits barnow, he tries to soften the old man's heart. but nathan is seldom at barnow, and when he returns there two or three times in the year, his visits are short. his business in the little town is managed for him by a cousin, and he travels to distant countries. he is no longer a small shop-keeper, but one of the richest wine-merchants in the country. he has never married again. once it was supposed that he was engaged to a girl in czernowitz, but it was not the case. only one person knew the reason of his solitude, and this was frau christine. this she learned the only time she ever saw him to speak to after their separation. nathan and herr von negrusz always met with friendly feelings, and when the former was at home, the two boys were continually with him; but he had avoided any meeting with christine until now. it was at the time that people said that he was going to be married again. the boys were sitting with nathan on the bench at the house-door, and as it was late, their mother came to fetch them. they ran to meet her, showed her the presents nathan had brought for them, and dragged her up to the bench. "i must thank you, herr silberstein," she said, in a trembling voice; but she corrected herself quickly, and went on--"i must thank you, nathan, for being so kind to the children." "they are such dear little boys," he said, hastily. "i am very glad, chane, to see you so happy." "yes," she answered, "i am very happy--and you?" "thank you," he said, quietly; "the business is prospering." "the other day i heard some good news about you--from czernowitz." "there is nothing in it," he answered. "oh, why? she is said to be a good and pretty girl." he looked at her, and then on the ground. "i found that i could not love her," he said. many years have passed since then, and nathan is one of the richest men in the country. people wonder why he works so hard when he has no one to leave his riches to. but nathan smiles at such questions--he knows that he is working for some one. two saviours of the people. ( .) any one who was ever in barnow was sure to make the acquaintance of frau hanna, mother of the chief of the jewish session; and no one could know her without honestly liking and admiring her, she was so good and kind, and so very quick in understanding and entering into the thoughts and feelings of others. but it would be difficult to convey an adequate idea of her loving-kindness and wisdom to those who never knew her. she was called _babele_ (grannie) by everybody who lived in the little town, and not merely by her own grandchildren; and no wonder. she was never too busy or too tired to help those who needed her assistance either in word or deed; and even those who did not require money or advice used to delight in going to see her, and in hearing her stories of old times; for her renown as a story-teller was as great as her reputation for benevolence. any one passing the old synagogue or _judenburg_ about the third hour on a sabbath afternoon in summer, might see with his own eyes what a crowd of attentive listeners she had, and might hear with his own ears how well worth listening to her stories always were. she used to sit on a rug spread out in the shade with her silent eager auditors, who sometimes numbered fifty men and women, grouped closely around her for fear of losing a single word that fell from her lips. her stories were all about old days in barnow--about things that had happened within her own memory, or that she had heard from others. any attempt to reproduce her stories as she used to relate them would be very difficult, and if i try to do so, it is only because the tale i have chosen is the one she related far oftener than any other. i have heard her tell it scores of times, and will now endeavor to translate it from the jewish-german in which she used to speak as faithfully as i can: "who is great," began frau hanna, "and who is small? who is mighty, and who is weak? we poor short-sighted mortals are seldom capable of deciding this question rightly. the rich and strong are mighty and great in our eyes, while the poor and feeble are regarded as weak and small. but in very truth it is not so. greatness does not lie in riches or in brute strength, but a strong will and a good heart. and, my friends, god sometimes shows us this very clearly; indeed, we jews of barnow can tell how our eyes were opened to this truth. on two different occasions our community was plunged in great danger and suffering from the oppression of the gentiles around us, and on each of these occasions a saviour came forward from among us, and delivering us from our distresses, turned our mourning into joy. who were these saviours of the people? were they the strongest or the richest of the congregation?... listen to me and i will tell you how it all happened. "when you cross the market-place, you see a great big block of wood sticking out of the ground in front of the dominican monastery. it is weather-beaten and decayed, and would have been taken away long ago, were it not kept as a memorial of a time of terror and despair. "you know nothing of those old days, and you may be thankful for it! if i tell you about that time of misery, it is not that i wish to make your hearts heavy with grief for what is past and gone, or to fill them with bitter anger or hate. no; the sorrows of which i speak are over and done with, and those who suffered from them are dead and buried. it is written among the sayings of one of our wise and holy men: 'forgive those who have trespassed against you, and return good for evil.' what i am going to tell you is the history of a great and noble deed that was done by one who lived and suffered during that time of dire distress--a deed that should make your hearts beat high when you hear of it, for it is as heroic, good, and great as was ever done on the face of the earth. "its author was a simple jewish woman, whose heart had been steeled to heroism by the force of circumstances. her name was lea, and she was the wife of a rich and pious man called samuel. the family was afterward given the surname of beermann when the austrians came into the country, and made it the law that our people should have german names as well as their old ones; for at the time when these events took place we had no such names. it was more than a hundred years ago, and we were still living under the rule of the polish nobles. "the single-headed white eagle was indeed a cruel bird of prey! long ago, when it was full-plumaged, when its eyes were clear and piercing, and its talons firm and relentless in their grip, it was a proud and noble bird that held its own against both west and north, and protected all who took refuge under its wing most generously. for three hundred years we lived a free and happy life under the shadow of its wings; but when the eagle grew old and weak, and the other birds of prey round about had deprived it of many of its feathers, it became cowardly, sly, and cruel; and because it did not dare to attack its enemies, it turned its wrath upon the defenseless jews. the power of the kings of poland became a subject for children to jest about, and then the letters of freedom we had been given of old were no longer of any avail. the nobles became our masters. they oppressed us, extorted money from us, and disposed of our lives and property as it seemed good in their eyes. oh, that was a time of unspeakable tribulation! "barnow belonged even then to the noble family of bortynski, to whom the good emperor joseph afterward gave the title of graf. young joseph bortynski had entered into possession of his estate that very year. he was a quiet, pious, humble-minded man, and had been educated in a cloister. his ways were different from those of the other young men of his position in the neighborhood, for he hated wine, cards, and women, looked after the management of his property, and prayed four hours a day. he was just and kind in his dealings with his serfs; but we experienced very little of his kindness and justice, for he was hard and cruel to us. he once gave samuel, the leader of the synagogue, his reason for treating us so badly: 'you crucified my god,' he said. whenever he was inclined to act toward us with less harshness, he was prevented doing so by his private chaplain, a man who had formerly been his tutor, and who had great influence over him. his name has not come down to us, but he was always talked of as the 'black priest.' "we jews used to be very careful of our conduct in those days, and even those of our number who were evil-disposed refrained from deeds of wickedness. 'you crucified my god,' the graf had said to samuel, and had then added in a threatening tone: 'i give you fair warning, that if i find any of your people guilty of a crime, i shall burn your town as your god once did to sodom and gomorrah.' our fears may be better imagined than described. "so the spring of began. the easter festival was about to commence, when it was rumored that the empress-queen at vienna intended to deprive the poles of their remaining power, and to govern the land hence-forward by means of her own officials. but so far as we could see, there was no sign of this intention being carried out. "samuel, the leader of the synagogue, and his wife lea, lived in the old house in the market-place that is still known as the 'yellow house.' they were both very much respected by the community: the husband, because of his riches, wisdom, and piety; and the beautiful young wife, because of her gentleness and beneficence. they were in great trouble that easter, for their only child, a little boy of a year and a half old, had died suddenly a few days before. "late one sunday evening they were sitting together in silent grief. the easter festival was to begin on the following evening, and lea was very tired, for she had been busy all day long cleaning and dusting the whole house from top to bottom. suddenly they were startled by a loud knocking at the house-door. samuel opened the window and looked out. an old peasant-woman was standing at the door with a bundle on her back. on seeing the master of the house, she moaned out a piteous entreaty for admittance. she was too weak, she said, to walk home to her village that evening, and so she begged samuel to give her shelter for the night. "'this isn't an inn,' answered samuel, shortly, at the same time shutting the window. "'poor thing,' said lea, 'ought we to send her away?' "'we're living in dangerous times,' replied samuel; 'i don't like to admit a stranger into my house.' "'but this poor creature is ill and weak,' said lea. "and as the old woman outside continued to make an appeal to his pity, samuel gave way and let her in. the maid-servants were all in bed and asleep, so lea took her guest to a garret-room, and, after providing her with food and wine, wished her good-night, and left her. "next morning the stranger took leave of her hostess very early, and with many expressions of gratitude. lea was so busy all day making the final preparations for the feast, that she had not time to visit the room that had been occupied by the old woman until late in the afternoon, when she was making a last round of the house to see that no leavened bread was anywhere to be found. the room was perfectly neat and tidy, but she was astonished to find it pervaded by a most disagreeable smell. she opened the window, but that had no effect. she hunted about for the cause of the horrible odor. at length, on looking under the bed, she saw what made her blood run cold and her hair stand on end with terror. for under the bed there lay the naked corpse of a half-starved little child, with great wounds in its neck and chest. lea at once understood what had happened, and struggled hard against the faintness that threatened to overpower her. the old woman had brought the corpse to the house, and had concealed it there, in order that the hideous old story might be revived that the jews were in the habit of killing christian children before the feast of the passover; and terrible would be the vengeance taken by the christians of the neighborhood. lea recognized the full horrors of her position, and remembered the graf's warning to her husband. she was nearly overwhelmed with the weight of her misery. for was it not she, and she alone, who, by inducing her husband to admit the woman into the house, had brought all the sorrow, persecution, and death that would surely come upon her home and upon the whole jewish community? while she sat there shivering with fever and anguish, she heard wild cries, shrieks, and the sound of weeping in the street, and also the clank of swords. 'they are coming,' she muttered, and at the same moment a thought flashed into her mind, far more strange and horrible than a woman's brain had ever before conceived, and yet so noble and self-sacrificing that a woman alone could have entertained it. 'it was my fault,' she said to herself, 'and i alone must bear the consequences.' she rose to her feet, pressed her lips firmly together, and after a struggle regained her composure. then taking up the child's corpse, she wrapped it in a linen cloth and laid it on her knee. "she listened; ... the minutes seemed to drag. then she heard the young graf's voice outside speaking passionately to her husband and another member of the session in these words: 'the woman heard the death-rattle distinctly. i will not leave one stone upon another if i find the body.' she heard the men going through all the rooms in the house. as their steps approached the one in which she was seated, she rose and went to the window, below which the roof fell away steeply, and overhung the paved courtyard of the house. "the door was thrown open violently; the graf entered, accompanied by the two members of session, and followed by his men-at-arms. lea sprang forward to meet them with a wild laugh, showed them the child's body, and then flung it out of the window on to the court beneath.... "'i am a murderess,' she cried out to the graf; 'yes, i am, i am. take me, bind me, kill me! i murdered my own child last night; i don't deny it. you've come to fetch me; here i am!' "the men stared at her in speechless amazement. "then came furious cries, shouts, and questions. samuel, strong man as he was, fainted away. the other jews, at once perceiving the true state of the case, and seeing no other way of saving the whole community from certain death, supported her in her statement. lea remained firm. the graf looked at her piercingly, and she returned his gaze without flinching: 'listen, woman,' he said; 'if you have really committed the crime of which you have confessed yourself guilty, you shall die a death of torture far more terrible than any one has ever yet suffered; but if the other jews killed the child in order to drink its blood at the feast, you and your husband shall go unpunished, and the others shall alone expiate their crime. i swear this by all that is holy! now--choose!' "lea did not hesitate for a moment. 'it was my child,' she said. "the graf had lea taken to prison and confined in a solitary cell. he quite saw all the improbability of her story, but he did not believe in any greatness of soul in one of our people. 'if it were not true,' he thought, 'why should the woman have given herself up?' "the trial threw no light upon the subject. "all the jewish witnesses bore testimony against lea. one told how she had hated her child; another how she had threatened to kill it. fear of death forced these lies from their lips. the only christian witness was the black priest's housekeeper--the same woman who had gone to samuel's house on that fatal evening in the disguise of a peasant to bring destruction on the jewish community. she told how she had heard the death rattle of the child during the night. she could not say more without betraying herself, and so her story tallied with lea's confession. the 'black priest' took no apparent interest in the trial. he probably thought that one victim would suffice for the time, or it may be that he feared the discovery of his crime. "the graf's judges pronounced lea guilty, and condemned her to be broken on the wheel in the market-place, and there beheaded. the wooden block in front of the dominican monastery was placed there for this purpose. "but lea did not die on the scaffold; she died peacefully in her own house forty years later, surrounded by her children and grandchildren; for austrian military law was proclaimed in the district before graf bortynski's people had had time to execute the sentence pronounced upon lea, and an austrian government official, whose duty it was to try criminal cases, examined the evidence against her. samuel went to him and told him the whole story, and he, after due inquiry, set lea free. "the wooden block is still standing. it reminds us of the old dark days of our oppression. but it also reminds us of the noble and heroic action by which a weak woman saved the community.... "and eighty years after that, my friends--eighty years after that--when we were once more in danger of losing our lives, who was it that saved us? not a woman this time; but a timid little man whom no one could have imagined capable of a courageous action, and whose name i have only to mention to send you into a fit of laughter. it was little mendele.... ah, see now how you are chuckling! well, well, i can't blame you, for he is a very queer little man. he knows many a merry tale, and tells them very amusingly. and then it is certainly a very strange thing to see a gray-haired man no taller than a child, and with the ways and heart of a child. he used to dance and sing all day long. i don't think that any one ever saw him quiet. even now he does not walk down a street, but trots instead; he does not talk, but sings, and his hands seem to have been given him for no other use but to beat time. but--what of that? it is better to keep a cheerful heart than to wear a look of hypocritical solemnity. mendele abenstern is a great singer, and we may well be proud of having him for our _chazzân_ (deacon). it is true that he sometimes rattles off a touching prayer as if it were a waltz, and that when reading the thorah he fidgets about from one leg to the other as if he were a dancer at a theatre. but these little peculiarities of his never interfere with our devotions, for we have been accustomed to mendele and his ways for the last forty years, and if any one happens to get irritated with him now and then, he takes care not to vent it on the manikin. he can not help remembering, you see, that little mendele can be grave enough at times, and that the poor _chazzân_ once did the town greater service by his gift of song than all the wise and rich could accomplish by their wisdom or their wealth. "i will tell you how that came to pass. "you know that a jew is looked upon nowadays as a man like every one else; and that if any noble or peasant dares to strike or oppress a jew, the latter can at once bring his assailant before the austrian district judge at the court-hall, and herr von negrusz punishes the offender for his injustice. but before the great year when the emperor proclaimed that all men had equal rights, it was not so. in those old days, the lord of the manor exercised justice within the bounds of his territory by means of his agent; but what was called justice by these men was generally great injustice. ah, my friends, those were hard times! the land belonged to the lord of the manor, and so did all the people who lived on it; and the very air and water were his also. it was not only in the villages that this was the case, but in the towns too, especially when they belonged to a noble, and when their inhabitants were jews. the noble was lord of all, and ruled over his subjects through his agent or _mandatar_. "at least it was so with us in barnow. our master, graf bortynski, lived in paris all the year round, and gave himself no trouble about his estates or their management. his agent was supreme in barnow, and was to all intents and purposes our master. so we always used to pray that the _mandatar_ might be a good man, who would allow us to live in peace and quietness. and at first god answered our prayers, for stout old herr stephan grudza was as easy-tempered a man as we jews could have desired. it's true that he used to drink from morning till night, but he was always good-natured in his cups, and would not for the world have made any one miserable when he was merry. but one day, after making a particularly good dinner, he was seized with apoplexy and died. the whole district mourned for him, and so did we jews of barnow. for, in the first place, herr grudza had been kind to every one; and in the second--who knew what his successor would be like! "our fears were well grounded. "the new _mandatar_, friedrich wollmann, was a german. now the germans had hitherto treated us less harshly than the poles. the new agent, however, was an exception to this rule. he was a tall, thin man, with black hair and bright black eyes. his expression was stern and sad--always, always--no one ever saw him smile. he was a good manager, and soon got the estate into order; he also insisted on the laws being obeyed; taught evil-doers that he was not a man to be trifled with; and i am quite sure that no one with whom he had any dealings defrauded him of a halfpenny. but he hated us jews with a deadly hatred, and did us all as much harm as he could. he increased our taxes threefold--sent our sons away to be soldiers--disturbed our feasts--and whenever we had a lawsuit with a christian, the christian's word was always taken, while ours was disbelieved. he was very hard upon the peasants too--in fact, they said that no other agent at barnow had ever been known to exact the _robot_ due from the villein to his lord with so much severity, and yet in that matter he acted within the letter of the law; and so there was a sort of justice in his mode of procedure. but as soon as he had anything to do with a jew, he forgot both reason and justice. "why did he persecute us so vehemently? no one knew for certain, but we all guessed. it was said that he used to be called troim wollmann, and that he was a christianized jew from posen; that he had forsworn his religion from love for a christian girl, and that the jews of his native place had persecuted and calumniated him so terribly in consequence of his apostasy, that the girl's parents had broken off their daughter's engagement to him. i do not know who told us this, but no one could deny the probability of the story who ever had looked him in the face, or had watched the mode of treating us. "so our days were sad and full of foreboding for the future. wollmann oppressed and squeezed us whether we owed him money or not, and none that displeased him had a chance of escape. thus matters stood in the autumn before the great year. "it isn't the pleasantest thing in the world for a jew to be an austrian soldier, but if one of our race is sent into the russian service his fate is worse than death. he is thenceforward lost to god, to his parents, and to himself. is it, then, a matter for surprise that the russian jews should gladly spend their last penny to buy their children's freedom from military service, or that any youth, whose people are too poor to ransom him, should fly over the border to escape his fate? many such cases are known: some of the fugitives are caught before they have crossed the frontiers of russia, and it would have been better for them if they had never been born; but some make good their escape into moldavia, or into our part of austrian poland. well, it happened that about that time a jewish conscript--born at berdiezow--escaped over the frontier near hussintyn, and was sent on to barnow from thence. the community did what they could for him, and a rich, kind-hearted man, chaim grünstein, father-in-law of moses freudenthal, took him into his service as groom. "the russian government of course wanted to get the fugitive back into their hands, and our officials received orders to look for him. "our _mandatar_ got the same order as the others. he at once sent for the elders of our congregation and questioned them on the subject. they were inwardly much afraid, but outwardly they made no sign, and denied all knowledge of the stranger. it was on the eve of the day of atonement that this took place--and how could they have entered the presence of god that evening if they had betrayed their brother in the faith? so they remained firm in spite of the agent's threats and rage. when he perceived that they either knew nothing or would confess nothing, he let them go with these dark words of warning: 'it will be the worse for you if i find the youth in barnow. you do not know me yet, but--i swear that you shall know me then!' "the elders went home, and i need hardly tell you that the hearts of the whole community sank on hearing wollmann's threat. the young man they were protecting was a hard-working honest fellow, but even if he had been different, it wouldn't have mattered--he was a jew, and none of them would have forsaken him in his adversity. if he remained in barnow, the danger to him and to all of them was great, for the _mandatar_ would find him out sooner or later--nothing could be kept from him for long. but if they sent him away without a passport or naturalization papers, he would of course be arrested very soon. after a long consultation, chaim grünstein had a happy inspiration. one of his relations was a tenant-farmer in marmaros, in hungary. the young man should be sent to him on the night following the day of atonement, and should be desired to make the whole journey by night for fear of discovery. in this manner he could best escape from his enemies. "they all agreed that the idea was a good one, and then partook with lightened hearts of the feast which was to strengthen them for their fast on the day of atonement. dusk began to fall. the synagogue was lighted up with numerous wax-candles, and the whole community hastened there with a broken and a contrite heart to confess their sins before god; for at that solemn fast we meet to pray to the judge of all men to be gracious to us, and of his mercy to forgive us our trespasses. the women were all dressed in white, and the men in white grave-clothes. chaim grünstein and his household were there to humble themselves before the lord, and among them was the poor fugitive, who was trembling in every limb with fear lest he should fall into the hands of his enemies. "all were assembled, and divine service was about to begin. little mendele had placed the flat of his hand upon his throat in order to bring out the first notes of the 'kol-nidra' with fitting tremulousness, when he was interrupted by a disturbance at the door. the entrance of the synagogue was beset by the graf's men-at-arms, and herr wollmann was seen walking up the aisle between the rows of seats. the intruder advanced until he stood beside the ark of the covenant and quite close to little mendele, who drew back in terror, but the elders of the congregation came forward with quiet humility. "'i know that the young man is here,' said wollmann; 'will you give him up now?' "the men were silent. "'very well,' continued the _mandatar_, 'i see that kindness has no effect upon you. i will arrest him after service when you leave the synagogue. and i warn you that both he and you shall have cause to remember this evening. but now, don't let me disturb you; go on with your prayers. i have time to wait.' "a silence as of death reigned in the synagogue. it was at length broken by a shrill cry from the women's gallery. the whole congregation was at first stupefied with fear. but after a time every one began to regain his self-command, and to raise his eyes to god for help. without a word each went back to his seat. "little mendele trembled in every limb; but all at once he drew himself up and began to sing the 'kol-nidra,' that ancient simple melody, which no one who has ever heard can forget. his voice at first sounded weak and quavering, but it gradually gained strength and volume, filled the edifice, thrilled the hearts of all the worshipers, and rose up to the throne of god. little mendele never again sang as he did that evening. he seemed as though he were inspired. when he was singing in that marvelous way, he ceased to be the absurd little man he had always hitherto been, and became a priest pleading with god for his people. he reminded us of the former glories of our race, and then of the many, many centuries of ignominy and persecution that had followed. in the sound of his voice we could hear the story of the way in which we had been chased from place to place--never suffered to rest long anywhere; of how we were the poorest of the poor, the most wretched among the miserable of the earth; and how the days of our persecution were not yet ended, but ever new oppressors rose against us and ground us down with an iron hand. the tale of our woes might be heard in his voice--of our unspeakable woes and our innumerable tears. but there was something else to be heard in it too. it told us in triumphant tones of our pride in our nation, and of our confidence and _trust in god_. ah me! i can never describe the way little mendele sang that evening; he made us weep for our desolation, and yet restored our courage and our trust.... "the women were sobbing aloud when he ceased; even the men were weeping; but little mendele hid his face in his hands and fainted. "at the beginning of the service wollmann had kept his eyes fixed on the ark of the covenant, but as it went on he had to turn away. he was very pale, and his knees shook so that, strong man as he was, he could hardly stand. his eyes shone as though through tears. with trembling steps and bowed head he slowly passed mendele, and walked down the aisle to the entrance-door. then he gave the soldiers a sign to follow him. "every one guessed what had happened, but no one spoke of it. "he sent for chaim grünstein on the day after the fast, and, giving him a blank passport, said, 'it will perhaps be useful to you.' "from that time forward he treated us with greater toleration; but his power did not last long. the peasants, whom he had formerly oppressed, rose against him in the spring of the great year, and put him to death...." * * * * * "now, my friends, this is the story of the two saviours of the jews of barnow. let it teach you to think twice before saying who is great and who is small, who is weak and who is mighty!" "the child of atonement." ( .) the heroine of this story is a child. her name was lea, and at the time of which the story treats, she was four years old. she had glossy black hair and large dark eyes. her eyes, however, were not bright, for it seemed as if a shadow lay on her pale delicate face. she was the child of poor people, and had only one frock, which was patched all over--the same for saturdays as for the other days of the week. it was hardly possible to distinguish the original color of the yellow gabardine. but that was not the cause of the sadness of her expression, for what did lea know of poverty? every day her appetite was satisfied, or at any rate half satisfied; and every day she played in the sunshine as long as she liked. she had the most beautiful playground that could be desired--large, green, quiet, and full of countless flowers, and of elders bowing their blossom-laden heads over many resting-places. lea's playground was the jewish cemetery at barnow. it was strange to see the serious child wandering among the graves, or sitting on a stone watching the merry cockchafers running about in the grass; but this was not the cause of the shade of sadness on her face. what did lea know of death? she knew that her father was dead, and that death meant sleep, and never, never to be hungry more. how, then, could the daily sight of the graves have saddened her?... no, it had not; and the jews of barnow were also wrong when they said, "the child is a child of atonement; how can its face be otherwise than sad?" no; every trace of suffering in her pale face was an inheritance. poor miriam goldstein had borne the child beneath a heart that was heavy with grief and sorrow. bitter tears had fallen upon the face of the little creature that lay upon her bosom. such tears dry, but they leave their traces. lea bore upon her countenance the marks of the tears shed by her mother. later, as the child grew older, her mother ceased to weep. the poor widow had no time for tears. she had to work all day long, and when she came home at night, she sank exhausted on her bed. even when she wakened, and mused upon her hard sad lot, she did not weep, for she could always comfort herself with the reflection, "thank god! the child and i are not obliged to beg or starve. thank god! the child is well." "the child is well." miriam goldstein, widow of the gravedigger at barnow, who received from the community as her widow's portion the grant of a little room in the cottage near the gate of the cemetery, and who worked in other people's houses all day long, did not weep during any sleepless hours that might come to her at night, because--her child was well. i ask all mothers--had miriam goldstein any cause for tears? the days came and went. little lea was now four years old. she played on the grave-mounds during the long, bright summer days, crept about under the branches of the elder bushes quietly and happily, and beneath the clothes which her mother had hung up in long lines above the graves to dry. soon autumn came with its long damp evenings. it became dark early, and when miriam was detained till a late hour, lea used to wait for her patiently in their little room. she knew that ere long she would hear her mother's step outside, and her voice calling her as she opened the door. she could then run into her arms, and a fire would soon be burning to cook a warm supper. but once, on a raw, cold september night, it was not so. the washerwoman came home and called her child, but no answer came. trembling, she struck a light. the room was empty. "lea!" she cried again, loudly and sharply. still no answer. she let her hands fall helplessly at her sides. recovering herself quickly, she rushed into the room of her neighbor, the gravedigger who had formerly been under her husband, and who had succeeded to his place. "my child!" she cried; "where is my child?" the man and his wife stared at her as if she were mad. "how should we know?" they at length answered, with hesitation. "she is gone! oh, help me, help me!" the mother cried in desperation, as she turned and hurried out into the dark burial-ground. the gravedigger's wife searched the highroad which leads toward the town, while the man followed miriam. he distinguished her dark figure amongst the mounds and headstones, but he was unable to over-take her. she was running wildly over every obstacle, now stepping on a gravestone, and again stumbling over the root of a tree, calling her child loudly as she ran. the man knew the place well, and its terrors had become commonplace in his eyes; but still his hair stood on end with fear, as he ran in the dark over the graves, and the mother's despairing cry fell on his ears. they both neared the spot where the burial-ground is bounded by the deep, sluggish river lered. "the fence is broken," muttered the man, and he tried not to follow up the thought that had occurred to him. but fate had been merciful. as they hastened along by the side of the fence, and miriam, with an almost failing voice, called her child, suddenly, from behind a gravestone, a thin trembling voice answered--"mother!" the little girl had run about the whole day. when the dusk had surprised her in this distant place, she had sat down and fallen asleep. the child only half comprehended why her mother seized her hastily in her arms, and pressed her to her breast, covering her little face with a thousand kisses and tears. slowly miriam carried her home, the gravedigger following and rejoicing, while he shook his head, and murmured: "it wouldn't have surprised me had we found the child dead. not at all! the great death is coming near us again. they say that it has already reached the turks!..." miriam did not hear these strange words. she carried the child into her little room, and put her in bed even more tenderly than usual, smoothing her hair off her brow, and kissing her mouth again and again. then she visited her neighbors, and thanked them in woman's fashion, in many words. after that, she returned to her own room, and thanked god with a long silent look upward. she could not sleep, so she crouched beside the bed, and watched her sleeping child. but, heavens! what was the matter? the poor woman's blood turned cold, for lea's usually pale face was flushed with fever, and she was breathing quickly and stertorously. her hands and feet were cold, and her head was burning hot. "lea, are you ill?" cried miriam. "speak, my life!" hearing her voice, the child opened her eyes, but they were no longer lusterless. a strange unnatural light glowed in them. "i am cold," she lisped, drawing the bed-clothes about her. "she will die!..." was miriam's muttered thought, and she felt paralyzed for the moment. recovering herself, however, she took her thin shawl from her shoulders, and her best gown from her box, and spread them over the child. lea's teeth were chattering. she shivered with cold, though she seemed but half conscious. miriam once more hurried to her neighbors' room, and knocked at their closed door. she wished to beg them to come and tell her what was the matter with her child; for a jewish gravedigger is required to visit the sick as well as to bury the dead. when the doctor is not called in, the gravedigger is sent for. but the man had gone to the town to keep the night-watch over the body of rich moses freudenthal. his wife came, however, and staid with the poor widow, in hopes of comforting her. "it is only a fever," she said, consolingly. "the child has caught cold, and it is only a common fever. see, burning heat follows a shivering fit." in fact, lea's fever soon ran so high, that all her bed-clothes had to be taken off. the women made a strong herb tea, but the child would not drink it. the terrible night passed very slowly. in the morning, when the gravedigger came home from his sad vigil, he went to see the sick child. on seeing her, he shook his head. the mother wrung her hands in despair when she saw his gesture, and gave utterance to a low moan. he pitied her, and said slowly: "it isn't a dangerous kind of fever. lea will soon be well." "tell me the truth," cried miriam; "but i shall send for the doctor whether the illness is dangerous or not." the gravedigger shrugged his shoulders. "the doctor has been at the muster at zalesczyki for the last eight days. but even if he were here.... no doctor can help the child!" "must she die?" asked miriam. "no _doctor_, i say," answered the gravedigger slowly, "but a holy rabbi might save her. old moses freudenthal's funeral is to take place to-day, and our rabbi is going to attend. ask him to see the child, and bless it. he is a holy man--perhaps he is strong enough to save it, and perhaps he will give you advice." so saying, he went away to prepare the grave. his wife followed him. "i may as well dig two graves," said he, as he struck his spade into the ground. "you mean for the child?" asked his wife. "poor miriam--god spare her!..." "yes," he answered, "it makes my heart ache. but no man can save her. they say that the great death is coming again. god will spare us. he will only take the 'child of atonement' that we have delivered up to him." "in god's name," cried the woman, "why should an innocent life be taken." the man shrugged his shoulders, and asked: "would you pretend to be more holy than our holy rabbi? are you more just than the great reb grolce, the wonder-working rabbi of sadagóra, who has ordained it so?" the woman was silent. * * * * * what had the wonder-working rabbi ordained? and why did they call the child a "child of atonement"? * * * * * ... mysteriously, irresistibly, the destroying-angel of the lord brought an unknown plague into every land in the terrible year . it was called the cholera. it came from the far east, and spread onward to the far west, devastating the towns, and filling the cemeteries. it fell heavily on the dirty, poverty-stricken villages in the podolian plain. countless numbers of the inhabitants died like flies, and enough were not left to bury the dead. no remedies saved life; no precautions protected it. stolid resignation, or else angry desperation, possessed the people. and god permitted all this misery, and from god no help came! they called upon him and he did not hear!... why? why? was it not _their_ god whom they implored, the god of their fathers, the almighty, the just, and the only god? had he no longer ears to hear, or arms to help? why did he suddenly turn against his own people? why did he not protect the good and the just among them? the minds of the unhappy people began to waver. they had but one beacon to direct their lives--their faith; and their faith betrayed them. they could not comprehend it. then another thought occurred to them--a fearful and crushing thought, and yet it brought comfort. was not their god a god of vengeance? was he not a jealous god, who exacted, for every offense, a fearful and inexorable atonement? and now, when he caused the evil and the good to suffer alike, was it not probably because the wicked sinned, and the good allowed their sins to pass unpunished? "we will purify ourselves," the suffering people cried aloud in their agony. "we will seek the offender in our midst, and by his punishment we will atone, and save ourselves from the wrath of god...." and they purified themselves.... a tribunal was formed by the people--an awful court, which tried in secret, judged in secret, and punished in secret. it was stern and inexorable in the execution of its decrees, and no one could escape from it. it "vindicated god's holy name," and caused the hour of retribution to strike for many criminals who had evaded the laws. but with how much innocent blood had these fanatics stained their hands! deeds were done in those dark days of madness and terror that chill the blood, and make the historian, who attempts to describe them, falter. the pestilence became more and more terrible. the few doctors that remained folded their hands. they could not alleviate the suffering of the people, far less could they save their lives. men ceased to persecute each other for real or imaginary sins. the growing burden of misfortune took away their spirit, and made them faint-hearted. they even prayed no longer; a mediator had to pray for them. the intercessor they chose was the rabbi of sadagóra, a little town in bukowina. this man was called the "wonder-worker," on account of all that he had done, or was supposed to have done, for the people. to him the podolian jews turned in their dire necessity, imploring him to save them, by beseeching god in his own name, a powerful name; for it was believed that from his race the redeemer was to spring: and it was said that he had upon the palms of his hands the stamp of the royal line of david. this mark was the outline of a lion imprinted upon the skin, and it was a sign that his mission was from god. money and precious gifts were collected, and were given to the rabbi to insure his intercession with god; even the poor gave all that they possessed. the disinterested rabbi promised to help the people. "you have all sinned against god," he said, "and you must all do penance." he made a calendar of the days of expiation, and the days of fasting and mortification were punctually kept. fear of death insured the fulfillment of all his injunctions. it may sound incredible, but it is literally true, that during this time the whole eastern jewish population only ate and drank every second day. the result of this may be easily imagined. their weakened frames were all the more liable to be smitten by the disease. the renown of the rabbi was at stake, and with it the profits of his calling. he adopted another expedient. "god is pleased," he said, "by an increase of his faithful people. let each community choose a couple from its number, and marry them in the burial-ground--as a sacrifice to the angry god." this new remedy had different consequences. in many places, the assemblage of crowds of people in the graveyards, in order to be present at the marriage ceremonies, helped to spread the plague. in other places, however, the insane remedy was harmless, as the "great death" was already passing away, and was soon to become extinct. this means of propitiation was not soon forgotten; and in the year , when, along with freedom, poverty came, bringing the "great death" in its train across the eastern steppes, the panic-stricken people resorted to it again. these appalling marriages were solemnized everywhere. one took place in barnow. the unfortunate couple who were chosen--without any wish of their own, but by the will of the tyrants--to be endowed with a marriage-portion of misery, and to be made man and wife among the freshly dug graves, were nathan goldstein, the gravedigger, and miriam roth, a friendless orphan, and maid-servant in the house of the warden of the community. they saw each other for the first time when they plighted their troth under the open sky. the couple, who were thus suddenly and horribly set apart to atone for the sins of the congregation, were resigned, and even happy. none knew better than these poor dependants how to appreciate the blessings of a home. miriam and nathan were happy in their married life, and two children were born to them. their first great grief was the loss of both of their children, who fell ill, and died within a few days of each other in the year . god, however, repaired the loss, for in the spring of the following year, miriam knew she was again to be a mother. that summer, the destroying-angel once more came from the east, and brought a fearful scourge upon the neglected jewish villages of the great podolian plain. barnow was spared. one victim alone was taken--nathan the gravedigger. the widow's grief knew no bounds, and she was left in an utterly helpless condition. the community, on the other hand, rejoiced at their happy escape from the plague, which died out altogether. they sent the good news, with grateful thanks and presents, to sadagóra, where the son of the late wonder-working rabbi had succeeded to his father's office. the rabbi accepted the gifts, but declined the thanks; and when the deputation informed him of the one death that had taken place, he said: "god was well pleased with you when he withdrew the plague eleven years ago, after you had made a sacrifice to him; but the people you chose to dedicate to him did not please him, so their children died. now the man has died as a sin-offering for you all. if the woman has another child, it also will only live to be a sin-offering." so spoke the rabbi, for the gravedigger's widow could give him no present. the men returned home and reported what he had said. miriam heard of it, and wept bitterly. but she had little time for weeping. she had to work hard to keep herself and her child from starvation. so the years passed, until the sad autumn of came. the poles had risen against the great eastern nation, and a whispered rumor went through the land, that pestilence, the terrible sister of war, was again aroused. therefore the gravedigger did not believe that little lea, "the child of atonement," would live. * * * * * the funeral of old moses freudenthal was over. he was a very old man, and few mourners followed him to the grave. after the service was over, these went away immediately, and the old rabbi, also, did not linger. the widow had humbly waited for this moment to step forward and ask the rabbi to come and see her child. she added no word of entreaty, but something in the tone of her voice, and in the expression of her eyes, involuntarily touched the heart of the old man. this woman embarrassed him--for was she not displeasing to god? was not the destiny of the child well known--this "child of atonement"?... but he went to the little house, and entered the room where the sick child lay. he bent over the bed, and looked at her in silence for a length of time. his expression was stern and harsh when he raised his head. with intense anxiety the mother waited for him to speak, but the old man turned to go without uttering a word. "will you not bless the child?" asked the widow. "woman," answered the rabbi, gloomily, "no blessing can save her; and besides, i can not do it: it would be interfering with the almighty." miriam threw herself upon the bed, with a loud cry, clasping the unconscious child to her heart, as though she would save her from every one, even from god. "why," she cried, "why, rabbi?" the old man looked at her darkly, then his eyes, as if confused, sought the ground. "you know," he said with hesitation, "why you and your husband were married. you know why he died, and what was the object of his death. you know the word that the great rabbi of sadagóra has spoken concerning you and your child. and ... now ... the 'great death' is coming again...." the woman understood him. "ah," she whispered, in a low voice of indescribable scorn. with flaming eyes and glowing face she rose from the bed, so that she stood opposite the rabbi, and hissed out, "you lie, rabbi, you lie! my child shall not die!... god is wise, gracious, and just; but you, neither you, nor any of the others, are like god! you want to be just, and yet you demand that an innocent child should expiate your sins by its death! you want to be gracious, and yet you desire the death of another! you want to be wise, and yet you believe that god will allow this--our good, strong, just god!" she clasped her hands over her forehead, tottered, and sank fainting on the floor. "may god judge between you and me!" murmured the old man as he left the room. * * * * * a day and night passed, and it seemed as if god must quickly decide between the poor woman and the rabbi. it appeared as if he would be on the side of the rabbi, and of hard, stubborn mankind. when the gray light of the second morning dawned, and the flame of the night-light wavered in the draught of the cold autumn wind, which made its way through the badly fitting window-frame, the young life flickered under the icy breath of death, like a dying torch. the mother wept no more. she wept no more. the fountain of her tears was dried up, for the deepest grief is tearless. with dry, straining eyes she knelt by the bedside. only at intervals, when the fever was at its height, she rose softly. hours passed, and all throughout the day the room was filled with visitors. a number of women came and went, and also a few men. some of these may have come out of compassion, but most of them came for selfish reasons of mixed curiosity and pity. miriam saw them around her with indifference. once only she roused herself to cry, "go, go, there is nothing to see; the child is not dying yet!" the people who were in the room went away reproved.... in the afternoon a carriage stopped at the cottage door. it was the warden's britzska, and a very old woman was seated in it. as she could not move without assistance, the servants lifted her out carefully, and carried her into the house. it was sarah grün, widow of a former warden of the community, and mother of frau hanna, whose stories were so deservedly popular in barnow. hanna was sixty years of age, and was nicknamed "babele" (grannie), and sarah, who was ninety, was called "urbabele" (great-grandmother). they were known by these names to every one, great and small, christian and jewish, in the little town, and their superior age, wisdom, and knowledge were much respected. miriam had formerly been a servant in their house, and had won the love of the old woman, who, notwithstanding the opposition of her friends, had now come to see her. she was carried into the room, and put down on a chair. miriam glanced indifferently toward her, then seeing who she was, her eyes brightened. "urbabele!" she cried, throwing herself at the feet of the old woman--"urbabele, god bless you!..." she could not say more. sobs stifled her voice, for at last she wept. the old woman passed her hand gently over her bent head. "do not speak," she said; "i know your trouble--we all know it.... do not speak, but hear what i have to propose; listen quietly...." her own tears were flowing, and falling over her pale sweet face as she spoke. "i do not know--i am an old woman, my feet refuse to carry me, and my head is not as strong as it was--but i believe we are wrong in letting your child die. yes, very wrong; for i do not believe it to be god's will that she should die, nor the will of the great rabbi of sadagóra--since he is inspired by the spirit of god...." the old woman paused for a moment, shaking her head as if she wished to negative some thought that had risen to her mind. then she continued: "yes, he has certainly done great wonders. god's spirit moves him, and he has spoken his will concerning you and your child. we must believe what he says. i say that, whether we wish or not, we _must_ believe him. for if we lose our faith in him, we lose our faith in everything.... therefore our rabbi did not deserve the hard things you said to him yesterday." "ah, if you only knew!..." "do not speak!" said the old woman, emphatically, as if she wished to impress each word on the widow's mind; "do not speak, do not excuse yourself. you need no excuse. my god! who could blame you, when your child's life was at stake? i can not, for i also am a mother.... but listen to me: whatever the rabbi ordains must be--as you know.... i have thought of everything, and your only chance is to go to sadagóra, and beg for the life of your child." "and leave her alone, when she is ill?" cried miriam. "i will do all i can for her," said the old woman; and the gravedigger's wife added, "i will nurse her as if she were my own child." "must i go?" cried the unhappy mother. "you must," answered the old woman decidedly; but she added more gently, "at least it seems that you ought to go, but god alone knows what is right. ah, miriam, you do not know how much i have thought and suffered for you and your child! for eighty years of my life, i have never lost my faith in god and in his prophets, and now i begin to doubt!" then she collected herself, and said in a tone of command: "miriam, you _must_ go to the rabbi. tomorrow morning early, simon the carrier is going to start for czernowitz, with two women. he will take you as far as sadagóra. i will engage your seat for you in the cart; and here is money for going and returning. in three days you can be home again, and i am convinced you will find lea getting better. will you go, miriam? it concerns the whole town--but that is nothing to you--it concerns your child that you should go." the poor woman had a hard struggle. her old belief in god had been without avail, for the child was growing weaker. as a drowning man catches at a straw, she determined to beseech forbearance from the man whom she had cursed. "i will go," she said, with a sort of agony. * * * * * and she did go. next morning she started with simon and the two women, passing out of the town, and along the highroad which leads southward into bukowina. what she suffered in taking leave of her child shall not be here described; there is enough that is sad in my story. the sun was rising. it was a cold, dull september sun, and it shone with a pale light upon the flat desolate country, and upon the cart which crawled slowly along the muddy highroad. the clouds were gathering like a thick veil, and the day became more and more dull as the clouds grew heavier. the soft, mild autumn wind sighed across the plain, and at times a gust shook the canvas awning of the cart. the horses made their way slowly along the broad neglected road, beneath the leafless dripping trees, and past mist-enshrouded pools and poor villages, which looked doubly miserable on this miserable day. in many places the road was axle-deep in mud, so that the cart stuck fast. simon and the three women had to dismount and push, in order to get it under way again. miriam was certainly the weakest of the party, but she worked the hardest. she only roused herself at these times. generally she sat with closed eyes, as if asleep. she went through terrible suffering. her eyes were shut, but vivid pictures were continually before them. she thought she saw her child stretching out her little arms toward her. some one seemed to bend over the little girl. was it the gravedigger's wife? no, it was not she, it was a white-robed figure, with a pale bloodless countenance, like the angel of death.... another moment she imagined she was in the presence of the great rabbi of sadagóra. he looked stern and hard, but she entreated him earnestly, as only a mother can entreat, for the life of her child, and he drove her away with cruel words. she thought she came back and found her child dead!... and again she pictured to herself that he received her kindly, saying, "your child shall live," and she came home and found lea dead ... dead!... it was frightful!... the mild autumn wind still blew across the heath; but was it only the plaintive sound of the wind that reached her ears? when it blew a little stronger she thought it sounded like lea's voice, crying, "mother!... mother!..." "did you hear anything?" cried miriam wildly, seizing the hand of the woman nearest her.... at about two o'clock in the afternoon the cart stopped at a large, lonely tavern by the roadside, between thuste and zalesczyki. the horses were to rest here before proceeding farther. a well-appointed traveling carriage, out of which the horses had been taken, stood at the door, bespattered with mud as though from a long journey. "miriam, we are to stop here for two hours," said the carrier. the women added compassionately, "come, miriam, get out. you will be ill if you don't eat some warm food." miriam got out of the cart and followed them into the large public room. "i must not let myself become ill," she murmured half aloud. the large room, with its gray damp walls and uneven floor, was almost empty. one little table alone was occupied. the people seated there were a young couple in comfortable traveling attire. the man appeared to be about thirty years of age. he had light hair, and his expression was good-natured and energetic. his companion was a dark-complexioned and beautiful woman, whose bright eyes sparkled in her happy, pleasant face. that they were newly married was evident, and they talked and laughed and joked as they ate. they were enjoying but a poor meal, consisting of bread and eggs, for they had considered the prices of the tavern extortionate. the three women sat down in a corner. "that is our frau gräfin's head forester," whispered one woman to the other; "he has just married a young wife in czernowitz, and now he must be bringing her home to barnow." "to barnow?" asked miriam hastily; but she sank back in her chair again--she had to go to sadagóra. the women ordered refreshment, and miriam ate a mouthful or two. she soon pushed her plate away, and when simon came into the room, went up to him, and asked, "must we stay here so long?" "yes--because of the horses," he answered. "we must stop here until four o'clock." "so long!" she sighed. "how many miles are we from barnow!" "only three miles.[ ] the road is so bad." [footnote : an austrian mile is equal to . english miles.] "only three miles!" she reiterated with dismay. "when shall we arrive at sadagóra?" "the day after to-morrow, at noon." "the day after to-morrow!" she cried. "then i can not be at home for six days, and the sabbath as well! seven days--that is a whole week! oh my god! my god!" she sat down in her corner again, and pressed her hands to her face. but she could not shut out the pictures that had haunted her on the way. again it seemed that she heard the feeble cry of "mother!... mother!" coming through the walls. the travelers had overheard her conversation with the carrier, and when they saw the woman's despair, asked him what was wrong. simon raised his hat respectfully to the gentlefolks, and related miriam's story. when he had finished, the husband and wife looked at one another. "it is dreadful, is it not, ludmilla?" said the forester. "what a horrible superstition!..." "it is horrible, karl," answered she. the happy expression left her face, and she looked at miriam with the deepest compassion. the poor woman still sat motionless with her hands pressed upon her face. she was shaken with physical pain and feverishness; but the storm within her breast was infinitely greater. the forester paid his bill, and his coachman came and announced that the carriage was ready. the travelers put on their overcoats, but they did not seem in a hurry to start. "karl," said the young wife, undecidedly. "what do you wish, ludmilla?" "karl--the poor, poor woman!..." "yes, ludmilla, she is very much to be pitied...." they again paused on their way to the door. miriam at the same moment let her hands fall, after passing them over her face, as if to clear her thoughts. seeing the travelers ready to go, she rose and came toward them. she looked at the lady with endless petition in her eyes, and folded her hands as if in prayer to god, but she could not utter a word. the lady's eyes filled with tears as she gazed at the pale grief-stricken face before her. "can i help you?" she asked. "to barnow," stammered miriam. "can you take me to barnow?" "willingly," answered the lady. "we shall be glad to take you--shall we not, karl?" "ah, yes," he answered. "and the rabbi!" screamed the two jewish women. "are you not going to the rabbi?" "what will the community say?" objected the carrier. "they may say what they like," she answered--"i must go to my child!" she seemed to lose her strength again after this effort, and the gentleman and his servant had almost to carry her to the carriage. they placed her beside the lady, and the forester took the opposite seat. poor miriam did not observe this, and did not thank him. "drive as fast as the horses can go," he said to the coachman, and then she looked at him gratefully. she sat silently beside her newly found friends, only now and then moving restlessly, as if the pace was too slow. the horses went quickly, and it was still daylight when they reached barnow. the people in the streets stared at the ill-assorted company in the carriage, and put their heads together as to what it could mean. the lady blushed, but her husband shook his head, and said, "what does it matter to us?" when they passed the large figure of the virgin which stands in a niche of the monastery wall, a sudden thought occurred to him, and he said softly to his wife: "she was called miriam (mary), and was a poor jewish woman, and her heart was torn with grief for her child!" it was dark when they stopped at the door of the little cottage by the graveyard. miriam sprang quickly out of the carriage. "may god reward you!" she breathlessly ejaculated. "have you a doctor?" asked the gentleman. "no," she replied; "the doctor is away, passing the recruits." "then i will send the private physician from the castle to see you," he shouted. miriam, however, was beyond hearing, as she had hastened into the house. the sick child was alone. a lamp threw its light upon her flushed face, and showed that her skin was covered with moisture. she had only a light sheet thrown over her. miriam quickly put warm blankets on the bed. "her skin is moist," she thought joyfully--"that is a sign of recovery." almost immediately, the gravedigger's wife returned to her charge. she was much surprised to see miriam, but she did not venture to reproach her for coming back. "the child was in such a heat," was all she said, "that i took off all the blankets." "that was a mistake," answered miriam; "it is wrong to check perspiration." then she knelt by the bed, feeling as if all must now go well. an hour later a carriage stopped at the door. it brought the private physician from the castle. he examined the child, felt her pulse, and then covered her carefully again; after which he desired the women to give him an account of the illness from beginning to end. "she has been in great danger," he said, when they had concluded, "but that is over now. it was most fortunate that you were aware of the necessity of keeping her warm when perspiration began." miriam's eyes glistened. "and if we had not been so?" she asked. the doctor looked at her with surprise. "what a strange question!..." he said. "answer me, i entreat!" she cried. "well," he replied, hastily, "the child would certainly, or rather, would probably, have died." "god be praised!" cried miriam, adding, as she turned proudly to her companion, "now will you say that god has cursed me, when he has worked such a miracle for me? it _was_ a miracle that the kind gentlefolks arrived at the tavern at the same time as i--it _was_ a miracle, for otherwise my child would have died!" the child recovered. and what did the people of barnow say? the conviction that a mother's love is strong enough to conquer ill-will, and bring healing and salvation, would not have made them cease their rancor toward the widow and her child; but this, in their eyes, was a visible miracle wrought by god, and such a miracle was of course more powerful than even a decree of the wonder-working rabbi. esterka regina. ( .) esterka regina!... that was what we school-boys used to call her when we returned home for the midsummer holidays from the gymnasium at taropol, or from that at czernowitz; and later on, when we were students at the university of vienna, we called her by the same name whenever we talked of the girls at barnow during any of our meetings with each other. her real name was rachel welt, and afterward, when she married lanky chaim, the cattle-dealer, rachel pinkus. she was a poor girl who lived in the jewish quarter in barnow. she lived in the small dwelling close to the jewish slaughter-house, and her father, hirsch welt, was a butcher. he was a big burly man, and was disliked because of his rough ways. but that did not prevent us admiring her from a distance, and the christian _élégants_ of barnow did the same with less reserve than we. the unmarried members of the provincial court, instead of walking in the graf's garden during their leisure hours--a place where they would have enjoyed plenty of fresh air and the perfume of flowers--chose rather to wander up and down the narrow street in front of the slaughter-house, where but little fresh air and no aromatic odors were to be found. even the officers of the garrison never seemed to tire of watching hirsch welt as he used his butcher's knife in strict accordance with talmudic law. one and all of these loungers were actuated by the desire to catch a glance from the bright eyes of esterka regina!... it was a name that suited her exactly, and there was nothing exaggerated in it, although a poet had given it her. this poet was herr thaddäus wiliszewski. he had studied philosophy in lemberg, but unfortunately had been unable to pass his examination--a hopeful youth, who always wore a tightly buttoned czamara and long hair, and who wrote verses, either for home use or for the krakau "ladies' journal." the first time that herr thaddäus saw rachel welt walking by the river in her poor sabbath frock, he exclaimed in delight, "now i understand the bible at last! esther must have looked like that when the king of persia turned away his face and ordered that haman should die on the gallows; and so must that other esther, who induced our good king kazimirz, the peasant's friend, to allow the jews to settle freely in poland, after the wise germans had turned them out. she is esterka, the queen!" and from that time forward all the educated people in barnow called her nothing but esterka regina. i repeat that there was no exaggeration in this name. perhaps i had better content myself with making this assertion. for were i to add that her eyes were deep, dark, and bright as the sea on a star-light night, that her hair was black and perfumed like a southern night, and that her smile resembled a dream of spring--you would even then have no clearer idea of her beauty. i knew her, and remember her well. but the thought of that lovely creature fills my heart with sorrow. her beauty was anything but a blessing to the dear child--nay, it was perhaps a curse. beautiful, queenly esterka was very unhappy. she is so no longer, nor has she been so for many years. she is happy now. she is sleeping in the "good place." they laid her there to rest in peace one spring day long years ago. may her sleep be calm and sweet, for she suffered much, and her sorrow was even greater than her beauty. the cause of her death was entered in the register as heart complaint, and truly so, for she died of a broken heart. a most unusual thing to die of--far more unusual than any one thinks. very few people die of it, and those who most loudly bewail their misery, and say that they are sure to die of a broken heart, generally live a long time, and at last die of old age or indigestion. rachel never complained of her lot by word or sigh. she went about the house as usual, and did her work as long as she could. when her strength failed her, and she knew that her end was at hand, she sat down tremblingly and wrote a long letter in the hebrew character, sealed it, and then tottered out to the post-office with it. she asked the clerk to write the address for her in german: "an den wohlgeborenen herrn dr. adolph leiblinger, holländischen stabsartz in batavia." the young man smiled when she dictated this address to him, but on glancing at her face and seeing that the hand of death was upon her, his smile died away. she got a receipt for the letter which she registered, and then tottered home and died. hers was a very simple story--simple as all the stories one meets with in real life, which differ from those thought out in a poet's brain--inasmuch as life is the greatest and most unrelenting of poets. when i attempt to transcribe the events of this story, i can not remain calm and unmoved, for i knew beautiful, unhappy esterka regina!... i knew her when she was a little girl of seven years old, and i was a mischievous boy, grumbling at the strict discipline of school. i used to see her every day at that time. when i ran down the gloomy little street on cold winter mornings with my satchel of books on my back, i was in the habit of stopping at the door of the house in which she lived, and calling out "aaron! aaron!" for one of my school-fellows--black aaron--lived in a poor garret of the same house with his mother. hirsch welt had given the use of this room out of charity to chane leiblinger, who was the widow of a butcher's man; for she was very poor, and could scarcely keep herself and her boy from starving by the exercise of her trade of fruit-seller. the moment i had called aaron, the door opened very softly, and little rachel came out, her hands hidden under her pinafore. then the poor boy came down the worm-eaten wooden stairs, dressed in threadbare clothing, and rachel hastily thrust the food she had been hiding in her pinafore into his hand. he took it, often with hesitation, and always without a word of thanks; but he would look at the child strangely and smile. no one who had not seen it could have believed that that grave, stern-looking boy could smile, and smile so kindly too!... "aaron, will you come with me to the ice? i am going to slide." "no." "why not? you're always so quiet, and your eyes look so gloomy!" "what reason have i to be happy? is poverty such a cheering thing? cold is very disagreeable, and so is hunger. or is it the blows i have to endure that should make me happy? the schoolmaster beats me, and so do all the christian boys; and why? because we crucified _him_? _i_ didn't crucify him. why do they beat me?" "oh, it'll be all right when we're grown up and are barristers." "i shall never be a barrister; i intend to be a very great and very rich doctor. then i shall come back to barnow and say to old hirsch, 'here are a hundred ducats, which will pay off all our arrears of rent.' after that, the poles will come to me and entreat me to cure their diseases and to lend them money; but i shall turn upon them and say, 'go away, you dogs!'" "and rachel?" "what's that to you? well--if you really want to know--i intend to marry rachel, and when she is my wife she shall wear silk gowns; but they must be a thousand times more splendid than those that the gräfin...." aaron leiblinger was strange and somewhat eccentric even as a boy. there was nothing very noticeable in his appearance: he was short and insignificant-looking, and his face was almost ugly, but it was redeemed by beautiful and expressive eyes. his forehead was low, and the hair that hung over it was black and curly. he was of a thoughtful disposition, and many of his ideas were surprising in a boy who was the son of an ignorant hawker, and who lived in a miserable garret. he made, or rather forced, his way through life by his quick intelligence, firmness, and energy. for a time it might have been said of him that he succeeded in all his aims and desires. his mother had intended him to help her in her labors as fruit-seller as soon as he had learned to read the prayer-book; but aaron wanted to go to a thorah school, and he went. he wanted to learn the talmud, and to know it better than his school-fellows, and he succeeded. after that, he wanted to go to the christian school--an unheard-of thing--and yet he had his own way. the means he employed were unusual. first of all he told his mother of his determination. the woman was pious and narrow-minded, so she cursed and swore, and then hastened to tell the members of session with loud cries and lamentations that her son intended to become a christian. for what other reason could induce a jewish boy to go to a christian school? the doctor certainly sent his sons to it; but then, the doctor was only half a jew, and wore a "german" suit of clothes. the chiefs of session praised the woman for her pious zeal, and sent for the boy. he came, and before they could overwhelm him with the remonstrances and threats they deemed suitable for the case, he said: "i know all that you would tell me, so you may save yourselves the trouble of speaking to me. now, listen to me, for you don't know what i have to say to you. i intend to go to the christian school, for i am determined to learn everything that can be learned. we need not discuss that point, because my mind is made up. what we have to settle is, whether i am to do it as a christian or as a jew. my mother can no longer support me--she is growing old--so i tell you plainly that if you will give me food, clothes, and books, i will remain a jew, and will teach the children for that remuneration. if you refuse, i shall become a christian--the fat dean will do anything to secure the salvation of a soul." this strange and eccentric address was not ineffectual. the elders of the congregation bowed before the iron will of the boy, and gave him the small help that he demanded. he went to the monastery school as a jew, in caftan and curls. it was dreadful what he suffered in consequence of this dress. perhaps god counted the tears he shed and the blows he received; he grew tired of counting them, tired of weeping. he bore everything--injustice and blows, hunger and cold, or the few, very few, acts of kindness shown him--with the same gloomy and defiant composure. an unquenchable longing for knowledge and an unquenchable thirst for vengeance sustained him. his face even quite lost its youthful expression. my school-fellow, aaron leiblinger, was much, very much, to be pitied. but even the poorest life possesses some treasure to which it clings. the gloomy, reserved boy loved little rachel dearly. his face softened strangely and touchingly when he was talking to her. i used to feel, though i could not have told why, that it did him good to speak to him about the child. i believe that he would have died for her unhesitatingly. and once a very curious thing happened--he wept--when rachel had small-pox. he scarcely shed a tear when his mother died. her death made no great void in his life, and apparently did not much move him. he lived alone in the garret now--that was all. burly old hirsch welt provided him with food after that, but he did not trespass long on his kindness. one summer morning he came to see me very early. "good-by," he said; "i've come to say good-by, because you were always kind to me. i'm going away from barnow to-day, that i may become a rich man." "but you'll starve by the way." "oh no; i have the money that my mother left--three florins. i'm going to lemberg--good-by." so he went away, and i did not hear of him again for a long, long time. * * * * * esterka regina!... it was a summer day--a bright, beautiful afternoon in july. the sun was shining on the heath, which was sweet with flowers and musical with the hum of insects. although a dull solitary place during the greater part of the year, it was full of color, perfume, and life in summer. all was quiet and still in the ghetto; no one was moving about in the street; the bustle of trade was hushed. the young people were walking by the river-side, dressed in their best clothes. the young men looked pale and old of their age, and their conversation was no more suited to their years than their appearance. they discussed their talmudic studies and their business; it seldom happened that one of them whispered to his friend that he thought the girl who had just passed was very pretty, and that he should esteem himself lucky if his father were to fix upon her for his bride. it would be hard to say what the girls talked about. who can tell what thoughts fill the head of a jewish maiden, or why she titters as she passes down the walk in her best gown on a fine sabbath afternoon. why? well, perhaps at the sight of the young gentlemen who, in spite of their wearing neither caftan nor curls, came to walk on the "jewish promenade" by the river, as if it were a matter of course for them to be there. and yet it was an unusual sight to see them there, for they were christians, and grand people; and such do not generally haunt jewish resorts. but it was worth while to make a sacrifice for the chance of seeing esterka regina--even a greater sacrifice than that of spending an hour or two on the jewish promenade. the three groups of _élégants_ waited patiently, watching the stars of the society--the rebeccas, miriams, and doras--until at length the sun appeared--the butcher's beautiful daughter. there were three groups, i said. there were the military cadets and lieutenants of the lichtenstein hussars, in their light blue uniforms, led by fair, talkative, little szilagy; there were young polish nobles and _literati_, with the long-haired poet, herr thaddäus wiliszewski, at their head; and lastly, there were a number of boys at home for the holidays, among whom was a youth, who is no longer a youth now, and who feels sad at heart whenever he thinks of that glorious summer afternoon. for its glory has long since departed, and that lovely girl sank into her early grave years ago, a broken-hearted woman. but i can see her now as distinctly as i did on that day when she came slowly down the lime-tree walk leaning on the arm of a girl-friend. there was a stir among all at her approach: even the jewish youths felt the influence of her beauty, and many of them involuntarily straightened their caftans and the long curl at either side of their faces. the three groups that i mentioned before prepared for the encounter. the blue-coated hussars took up the first line as beseemed brave warriors, and fore-most among them was little szilagy, for he was the most audacious. she walked on slowly, and at last came close to him, he having placed himself directly in her way. she did not cast down her eyes like the other girls on passing these would-be lady-killers, but, on the contrary, held up her head and looked about her as calmly and indifferently as if the blue-coated hussars had been nothing but blue mist. when, however, she was forced to stand still, because the impudent little man had placed himself so that she could not pass him, her expression changed. this was clearly shown by szilagy's conduct: he flushed as red as a peony, stepped back, and--incredible as it may sound--saluted her awkwardly. when herr von szervay laughed at him afterward for having been routed with such disorder, he said, "i have plenty of courage, and have often proved it, but i couldn't stand the way that she looked at me...." the second group, who had witnessed the defeat of the hussars, thought discretion the better part of valor, and drew back betimes, the long-haired poet gazing with great eyes of astonishment and delight at the beautiful girl who was passing him. it was at that moment that herr thaddäus's poor little brain, which hitherto had only been capable of making verses for home use or for the krakau "ladies' journal," was suddenly inspired to invent the name that i have put at the head of this story.... and the third group! the school-boys were neither irresistible nor had they any ambition to appear so; they had hardly courage to look at the sparkling black eyes of the lesser lights, and when they saw the loveliest of all the jewish maidens approaching them, they huddled together like a flock of frightened sheep. but one of their number--i can not tell to this day how i found courage to do it--stepped forward boldly and spoke to the girl--a good deal less boldly.... "pardon me, fräulein," i stammered, touching my hat, "perhaps you don't remember me--little aaron...." "yes, i remember you," she answered kindly; "you were always a good friend to him. have you heard of him lately?" "no, i haven't heard anything about him since he went away." "then i know more than you do. old itzig türkischgelb, the 'marschallik'--you know the silly old man--was at lemberg a short time ago, and when there he chanced to meet aaron, so he stopped and spoke to him. he hardly knew him at first; for just fancy what our poor little aaron has become! he has become a gentleman, and dresses and speaks like a german. he left the latin school three years ago, and ever since then he has lived at vienna, where he is learning to be a doctor! who ever would have believed it? and," she added, hesitatingly, "the 'marschallik' says that he has grown very proud, and will not speak to a jew. only think, he calls himself adolf now, and they say that he is going to become a christian. i can't believe it, though--can you?" i would not have believed in the possibility of anything that was disagreeable to the girl for the world. "no," i answered with decision, "i don't believe it either. however, i shall soon have an opportunity of knowing for certain. i'm going to vienna in a few weeks, to the university; and when i am there i'll look up aaron or adolf, whichever he calls himself." "yes, do," she said, quickly. "how glad he will be to see you again! and," she added, her cheeks flushing, "remember me to him if he hasn't forgotten me. but--you understand--only if he hasn't forgotten me...." "oh," i exclaimed, boldly and enthusiastically, "who could forget you?" i was so terrified by my own boldness that i at once touched my hat and withdrew, stammering some words of farewell. but i managed to regain sufficient mastery over myself, before i joined my companions, to be able to receive the storm of curiosity, envy, and admiration with which they greeted me, with dignified calmness. * * * * * i did not set off in search of aaron or adolf leiblinger as soon as i arrived in vienna, although i had fully determined to do so. who will not at once understand the reason? imagine a lad of eighteen years of age, shy, poor, ignorant of the world, and brought up in a small country town, suddenly removed from all his accustomed surroundings and transplanted to one of the great capitals of europe. he would naturally feel lost and dazed in the crowd hurrying past him, and among the endless streets and houses stretched out before him. he would need time to grow used to the change in his life, and to gain courage to face it. it was so with me. and then again, how was i to find him among the four thousand students who attended the university classes? i gave up the idea, and trusted to chance. it was on a dismal afternoon in december that we met at last. there had been a thick mist all day, which after a time became a fine persistent and very wetting rain. it was so disagreeable that i was driven to take refuge in a large crowded _café_ in the alster suburb, in hopes of the shower passing off. every seat was occupied, but at last i succeeded in finding a vacant chair in the billiard-room. the rain lasted so long that i grew tired of watching the drip from the leaves of the plants in the garden, and turned my attention to the game that was going on. three young men were playing at pool. the marker addressed them all as "herr doctor," so i saw that they must be medical students. my attention was particularly drawn to one of the three--a slender and rather delicate-looking man of middle height, with marked but finely cut features. he would have looked pale anyhow, but the intense blue-black of his wavy hair and beard made him appear almost startlingly pallid. his face could not be called handsome--his lips were too thin for that, and his forehead too low. the moment i caught sight of his face, i saw that he had a story; it did not occur to me at first that i had ever seen him before. but suddenly, when the thin lips were firmly pressed together, and the low forehead was contracted into a frown at some jesting remark of one of his companions, it flashed upon me all at once--"that is black aaron!" and so it was. i can hardly tell whether our meeting was a pleasurable one; at any rate, our pleasure was not unmixed. when two young people have been separated for some time, they are apt to be rather shy with each other when they first meet, for they hardly know how much change may have taken place in each other's ways and ideas. this is doubly the case after a long separation, such as aaron's and mine. we strove hard to bring back the old footing that had existed between us, but in vain. our conversation was disjointed, and threatened to come to a speedy conclusion, when i suddenly remembered the message with which i had been intrusted. "somebody at barnow," i said, "is very much interested in your career. can you guess who it is?" "no." and so saying he blew a cloud of tobacco-smoke nonchalantly in the air. "my dear boy, you have no idea how much trouble i have given myself to forget the people at barnow, entirely--absolutely." "even your guardian angel, little rachel?" "what, was it rachel?" he exclaimed, eagerly. and then resuming his indifferent manner: "what has become of the little girl? she must be pretty big now, though--sixteen years old or thereabout." "and very beautiful too," i replied. i then proceeded to give him such an enthusiastic description of her beauty and intelligence, that he could not help smiling. but when i had finished, he said, gravely--"i am very sorry to hear it--very!" "why? what do you mean?" "i am very grateful to the little guardian angel of my boyhood, and should like her to be happy. but there's very small hope of that, if she is really as beautiful and intelligent as you say. she will either be tempted beyond her power of resistance, and fall a prey to some polish or hungarian swell in spite of all her wisdom...." "impossible!" i cried, indignantly. "or else she will remain the good obedient child of a father who will one day give her to wife, whether she will or not, to some rude illiterate member of the chassidim. and as she possesses more intelligence than most women, she will sooner or later feel the whole misery and humiliation of her lot very keenly, and will at length die a poor broken-hearted creature in some corner of a podolian ghetto." "you take too black a view of the subject." "i see things as they are. you need not tell me what the chassidim are. don't let us discuss the matter further. good-by for the present." so we parted, and although we spoke of meeting again, our words were cool. we did not give ourselves any trouble to bring about another meeting. but accident at length brought us together again, and for a longer time. early in spring, i moved into new lodgings, and the first time that i looked out at my window, i saw the face of my old school-fellow at barnow, in an opposite window, side by side with that of the skeleton he was studying. he lived in the same house and in the same quadrangle as i did. we therefore renewed our acquaintance in some measure, and gradually even became friends--that is to say, as far as it was possible for students of such different standing (he was in his fourth year, i only in my first), and for characters so dissimilar as ours, to be friends. as regards his character, one saw in him a clear proof of the truth of the old saying, that "the impressions of childhood are the most deeply rooted of all." adolf lieblinger, student of medicine, was the same in character as black aaron. the metamorphosis of the reserved ugly boy, into the able, worldly, interesting young man, had left the basis of his character untouched: he still possessed the same defiant spirit and the same consciousness of his own powers, and the same hatred as of old was hidden away at the bottom of his heart. besides that, he was unchanged in his gratitude for every kindness, however small, and in his thirst after knowledge. when he first left barnow, he had had a hard struggle for existence, and yet he had passed his examination at the gymnasium in an incredibly short space of time. he made his way both there, and afterward at the university of vienna. and so he still regarded the old proverb, "where there's a will there's a way," as essentially true. he was only changed in one respect; his ideas of god and religion were fundamentally altered. in the old days, partly because he was so proud, he had clung all the more tenaciously to the religious teaching of his childhood that he had been persecuted for holding it, and his god had been more or less the god of his own vengeance; for he had never tired of imploring him to send down a flash of lightning to destroy the christian boys who bullied him, and our stupid, rough-mannered teachers. but now he was indifferent to god, and hated the jewish faith with a bitter hatred. he always spoke of jews and judaism with passionate virulence. herr thaddäus wiliszewski, who had written some verses for his friends, and not for the "ladies' journal" this time, which he called a "poem against the jews," was mild as a dove in comparison. but still he remained in appearance a member of the old faith. "my coat is uncomfortable," he used to say, "and doesn't fit me well, but i can't find any other on the face of the earth that would fit me better; and, as you know, one can't go about coatless--people would stare so!" i grew very fond of adolf--as fond as i used to be of aaron when i was a boy; so when the vacation approached, i invited him to accompany me to my eastern home, and was heartily glad when he accepted my invitation. during this journey our conversation chanced to turn on rachel as we speeded through the night in the railway toward barnow. her name had never been mentioned by either of us since the day on which we had first met in vienna. "take care of yourself," i said jestingly; "old love never rusts out." he laughed. "i," he said, "what have _i_ to do with love? you know that love is soft and tender, and i--am a hard man." he laughed again, and then added gravely and almost tenderly: "look here--i will avoid seeing rachel. the memory of her is the only pleasurable one of my boyhood, and shall i do well to destroy it by going to see her? for doubtless she is now a shy and dirty girl who would address me in jewish-german." he opened the carriage-window and stared out into the dark night for many minutes. * * * * * we arrived at barnow at the end of july. "black aaron's" coming awakened great excitement, and it was both ludicrous and sad to see the way in which the orthodox jews received him. he, "black aaron," aaron leiblinger, son of chane leiblinger, who used to live in the cottage by the river, actually dared to wear "christian" clothes, to eat "christian" food, to smoke on the sabbath; and had even gone so far as to study! deadly sins all of these in the eyes of the orthodox,--sins that should meet with condign punishment! no one spoke to him, and any one he addressed turned away from him in scorn. the little boys ran after him in the street, shouting, _meschumed!_ (apostate). the young man laughed at the children, and repaid the scorn of their elders in the same coin. we did not often put ourselves in the way of these people, however, but used to make long expeditions into the country, and visited the christian officials of the town. we were heartily welcomed by the latter. herr thaddäus wiliszewski was kind enough to read his poems to us, and the sallow daughters of the steueramts-vorsteher[ ] allowed us to flirt with them a little. adolf was outwardly full of laughter and fun, and i alone guessed how bitterly he felt the reception he had met with from his own people. he kept true to his determination not to see rachel. [footnote : head of the office for the assessment of taxes.] one day--it was on a fearfully hot sunday afternoon in august, the second we had spent in the little town--the tempter came to him at last, or rather, came to me in the first instance. i was alone at home that afternoon, when the door opened, and a little manikin, with a very red nose and very thin legs, trotted into the room. it was herr isaak türkischgelb, the "marschallik" of barnow, which, being interpreted, means the merrymaker, or marshal of weddings at barnow. a dignitary of this kind, besides a thousand other duties, is intrusted with that of inviting the guests to a marriage. it was in this capacity that he honored me with a visit. he had been sent by frau sprinze klein to invite adolf and me to the wedding-party, to be given on the following tuesday in honor of the marriage of her daughter, jutta klein, to herr isidor spitz (_vulgo_, "red itzigel"). "thank you," i said. "but shall we see any pretty girls there? is esterka regina to be one of the guests?" "who?" asked the little man in amazement, putting his hand up to his ear and bending forward the better to hear my answer. "well, i mean rachel welt, the fat butcher's daughter." "do you ask if she is to be there?" cried the marschallik, pathetically. "is it reasonable to suppose that any one would invite all the ugly girls in barnow and leave out the most beautiful? take my word for it, young sir, sprinze klein and i know how to act on such occasions; and it is an acknowledged thing that when you invite young men to a party, you ought to have some pretty girls to meet them. besides that, we know that we needn't deck out a room with flowers when rachel is there, for she is the loveliest flower i ever saw; and that's as true as that god blesses my undertakings! "the loveliest flower," he repeated; "and so you will come, won't you?--you and your friend aaronleben--pardon me for calling him that; for how can i call him adolf, when i often had him in my arms when he was a little child, and his mother, chane, was my own sister's daughter? you'll come now, and prevent the people in barnow saying of the old marschallik--'he's only fit to invite common jews, the uneducated folk of the town; he's no good at all where young gentlemen are concerned!'" i could not help laughing. "all right," i said, "make your mind easy as regards me. but whether adolf will go or not is a different question; i don't think he will. however, you'd better come back to-morrow and hear what he says." the little man once more raised his hands in the air, bowing low at the same time; after which, he trotted out of the room with a broad smile upon his face. i was convinced that i should have to go alone. and, indeed, when i told adolf of the invitation, he answered testily: "say no more. i'll follow you to hell if you like, but not to these people!" "what a pity!" i said. "it would have been such a good opportunity for you to have made an interesting study of the character of--our hostess, frau sprinze klein. you don't know her. she was born at brzezan, and is now a very rich widow. she keeps a haberdasher's shop." "very interesting," he replied, scornfully. "more so than you imagine. a very grave psychological process is going on in that woman. she is struggling with all her might to free herself from the oppressive bonds of orthodoxy, and to gain a more enlarged view of life; but it must be confessed that her efforts to attain this end are very comical, to say the least of it. frau klein lives like every other jewess. she does not venture to wear her own hair, and can not bring herself to disobey the levitical laws regarding food in the smallest particular. but as she once spent six months in lemberg when she was a girl, she has a sort of platonic love for 'culture' and 'enlightenment.' she begins nearly every sentence with, 'when i was in lemberg.' she shows her platonic love of enlightenment in strange ways. for instance, she delights in speaking high-german, and whenever she manages to pick up a foreign word, she continually drags it into her conversation by hook or by crook for the next week. you may easily imagine how the unfortunate foreign word suffers at her hands; or rather, i should say, you can't imagine it, for it far exceeds the bounds of the wildest imagination. here is another example: frau sprinze can't read a word of german, and yet she bought three second-hand books at a sale--these are, schiller's 'robbers,' a story by caroline pichler, and a volume of 'casanova.' she is in the habit of keeping one of these books lying open before her on the counter, and whenever she thinks that any one is looking at her, she stares at the mysterious characters printed on the page as attentively as though she understood what they meant. if any pious jew tells her that reading a german book is a deadly sin, she invariably answers: 'when i was in lemberg, i noticed that the daughters of the chief rabbi were in the habit of reading german books.' at the same she secretly comforts herself by the thought: 'if reading these books is really a sin, i am innocent of committing it....' as a last example of her large-mindedness, we have the invitation to her daughter's marriage-feast. you must know that she has arranged that the dancing at her party shall not be conducted after the 'jewish fashion'--the men with men and the women with women--but after that of the christians, which allows men and women to dance with each other. we probably owe the heartiness of our invitation to the fact that very few of the young men who are to be there know how to dance properly." "how flattering!" "pooh! what does that matter? it'll be capital fun, i expect! even if they only have slow country-dances, i think that the chance of having such a pretty girl as esterka regina as a partner would make up for anything. don't you?" "no, i don't," answered adolf, shortly. but he looked thoughtful when he heard her name, and next day when the marschallik came to invite him to frau klein's party, he at once consented to go, very much to my surprise and to that of the old man. ... on the following tuesday evening he went to the rich widow's house, which we found grandly decorated for the evening's entertainment. the marriage ceremony had been performed, so that every one was waiting for the dancing to begin. our hostess met us at the ball-room door and received us more than graciously. she wore a dress of heavy yellow silk, and above that a pale-green velvet mantle; and the well-assorted jeweler's shop (for that is the only way to describe it) that she had hung about her, rattled with every movement she made. "you will find everything arranged as it is done at lemberg," she said to us, with a beaming smile; "for when i was at lemberg, i learned the proper way to do _les horreurs_ as hostess!" we went into the dancing-room. the men did not look enchanted to see us, but the girls seemed to witness our arrival with more satisfaction. we at once set to work to fulfill the duty for which we had come, and danced diligently. soon afterward, an old man came into the room accompanied by a young girl. it was hirsch welt and his daughter. it was the first time that we had seen her since our return, and, as though with one breath, we ejaculated, "how very beautiful she is!" but i will not even now attempt to describe her. "does seeing the girl really destroy the pleasurable memories of your boyhood?" i asked adolf, with a smile. but he did not answer. for one moment he turned very pale. immediately recovering himself, he went up to her and asked her to dance with him. she also turned pale, looked at him with a startled expression, and answered in a low voice--"no!" his cheek flushed. "you--you don't dance?" "i do dance," she replied slowly, and still with the same look in her face, "but not with you." he forced himself to smile, but with a great effort. "and what have i done to deserve such a punishment?" "you hate us all, and make game of us--of us, our ways, and our language. and what good does it do you, after all, to act thus? it does not make you the less a jew." his face darkened. "oh, if you only knew," he began hastily, but stopped himself there. after a short pause, he continued, with a smile: "you are mistaken. the people of barnow have done me no wrong, nor i them. how could it be otherwise? i was born and brought up here among them." "oh, i know," she said, quickly; "you used to live in the garret-room in our house, you and your old mother; peace be with her!..." his face lighted up with pleasure. "you remember those old days? i should hardly have expected it--it's eleven years ago!" "yes, i remember it all distinctly. we used to be great friends, you and i. and had you forgotten me?" "certainly not!" he said, emphatically. then they began to talk in a low voice, and i could hear no more of their conversation. he was probably reminding rachel of a number of little incidents of their childhood, for a happy smile played upon her lips every now and then. neither of them remembered what a strange thing it must have seemed to every one present that they should have so much to say to each other in private. people began to whisper, and i heard the platonic lover of progress say to one of her gossips, 'i saw many curious things when i was in lemberg; but i never knew before that any girl who was engaged to be married would venture to talk so long to a stranger--i really never did!' but at this moment they separated. "i am so glad that you haven't forgotten old times," said the girl aloud; "it's a sign that you aren't wicked, though many people say that you are.... but now--i must say good-by." and in another moment she was gone. he gazed after her retreating figure as though in a dream. i went up to him. "you've given the unfortunate bridegroom rather a bad half hour," i said, laughingly. "what!" he asked, quickly, "is she engaged?" "i heard some one say so just now." "to whom?" "i don't know. didn't she tell you about it?" "no," he answered, and then begged me to go home--he had had enough of the party. that was their first meeting. * * * * * two months later. the mild autumn sunshine was gilding the landscape, and the heath was brightly tinted with deep russet hues. adolf and i were once more sitting opposite each other in the railway-carriage, but this time we were going northward, and were leaving barnow behind us. adolf's manner had been rather strange of late. he had sometimes been unreasonably full of high spirits, and again absolutely silent, not a word to be got out of him on any subject; sometimes confident, and again sentimental. any one could see that the poor fellow was over head and ears in love, and therefore in a very unsettled frame of mind. i did not know how matters stood between him and the girl he loved, and did not care to ask; but i rejoiced in silence that the spring-time of joy had at last come to the sad solitary heart of my old friend. he was very gentle during the whole of that day, and did not give utterance to a single sarcastic speech. his face looked softer and brighter than i could have imagined it possible for those sharply-cut features to look. at last he addressed me suddenly. "i've got something to tell you that you'll be glad to hear." "go on." but he grew silent again. after a long pause he burst out all at once: "i love her; she loves me. i can not bear to keep it to myself any longer, so i will tell you how it all happened...." i shook him warmly by the hand, and then he went on: "you remember that marriage. i am not a poet, nor do i find it easy to put my impressions into words, therefore i simply can not tell you what effect seeing that girl had upon me, for it was unspeakable, indescribable. still, although her dear face was continually before me in imagination, i could not make up my mind to visit her in her father's house, for that house was haunted by the ghosts of my miserable childhood--ghosts i dared not waken without pressing necessity. besides that, hirsch welt is one of the most narrow-minded of the pious sect in the community, and i felt no desire to receive any more proofs of the affection of that lot than i have already had. "so i left our next meeting to be brought about by chance; and, as chance would have it, i met rachel again before another week had passed. it was in a curious place--the very last that i should have thought of. "you know the old ruined castle on the left bank of the lered; you know it better than i do. i never had any liking for the place, for a love of romantic scenery has no part in my composition; but somehow or other i was that day impelled to climb the hillock on which the ruins lie, after having wandered aimlessly about the heath for hours. i felt--laugh at me if you like--that i must go to the top of some eminence and get a good view of the country round. "well, as i said before, i climbed the little hill, and there i found rachel sitting on a stone in the ruined court, right under the great red wooden cross, the presence of which makes the jews so averse to visiting the place. she was sewing diligently, and a book was lying on the grass at her side. "on hearing the sound of my footsteps, she looked up, and returned my greeting quietly. "'here you are at last,' she said. "i stared at her in astonishment. 'did you know that i was coming? i only came up here by chance.' "'no one told me that you were coming,' she answered, blushing deeply as she spoke, 'but i was quite sure that you would come. yes; i brought that book to show you.' she put it in my hand. 'do you remember it?' "i remembered it well. a strange feeling came over me as i gazed at the dog's-eared discolored pages. it was a prayer-book, written in jewish-german for the use of women, and was one of the few things that i had inherited from my mother. in spite of all my hardness, i was profoundly moved--i scarcely knew why. "my eyes were dim, and i returned the book in silence. "'you gave it to me,' she said, 'when you went away out into the wide world to seek your fortune on that beautiful summer morning long ago. we cried a great deal when you left us, fair-haired chaim and i. it is to him that i am engaged, you know....' "'to him!' i repeated, as calmly as i could. 'you said nothing about your engagement the other evening.' "'because we were talking of other things,' she answered; and then added, 'nor did you tell me about the girl that you're engaged to, and yet they say that she is very beautiful and grand.' "i could not help laughing. 'no, fräulein[ ] rachel,' i said, 'i'm not engaged.' [footnote : i have made use of the word "fräulein" in order to avoid the discussion as to "thou" and "you."--_translator's note._] "she looked at me questioningly. 'aren't you? it's another lie, then. our people say that you're engaged to a very rich and beautiful christian girl; but,' she continued, speaking quickly and eagerly, 'it's your own fault that they tell so many false and wicked tales about you. you are proud and reserved to all our people, and turn us into ridicule whenever you can. that was the reason why i was so angry with you when i first saw you at the marriage. i soon saw that you weren't wicked, and told you so; but you're proud--even to me.' "i would have spoken, but she interrupted me. "'you are; you needn't say no, for it's quite true. why do you address me so stiffly, and not as you used to do?' "'because little rachel is now a grown-up young lady--' "'there you are--sarcastic again,' she interrupted, passionately. 'i'm not a young lady--i am only a jewish girl; so let me beg of you to call me simply by my name, as an old friend should do.' "'willingly,' i replied; 'but you must do the same by me.' "'no,' she said, blushing, but with great decision; 'that wouldn't do at all. you are a learned man, and will soon be a doctor, while i--i am only rachel welt. you must not ask that of me.' "we talked," continued adolf, "for a long time and about many things--not only on that morning, but on many mornings for a number of weeks. rachel took her work to the ruined castle every day. 'it's so airless down below,' she said; 'and here one can see the sunshine, and the birds that are singing all around. i like plenty of light.' you know how poverty, oppression, and sorrow have stifled almost all sense of the picturesque in the podolian jews, but that simple girlish spirit is full of it. "i was quite as punctual as rachel in arriving at our meeting-place. even if i wished, i couldn't tell you all the things we talked about--the smallest matters were weighty enough to us to become the theme of endless conversation. neither of us knew what it was that drew us to meet so often. it was a happy time we spent together, ignorant of the cause of our joy; perhaps, when i look back at it, it seems almost the brightest part of those bright days...." adolf paused abruptly, and again that look of softened happiness that i had before remarked passed over his face. "you are right," i said; "the happiest time of first love is when neither of the lovers has as yet awakened to the cause that makes the most wonderful event seem simple, and the simplest a wonder. it is generally to some external influence that the lovers owe the discovery of how deep this feeling has grown." adolf laughed. "you speak like a book," he answered. "but--you're right all the same. the 'external influence,' as you call it, was not wanting in our case." then he continued: "one morning i went to the ruins as usual, but she did not come. hour after hour i paced the courtyard impatiently, every now and then going to look down the pathway leading to the town. all in vain. rachel did not come. my disappointment opened my eyes to the fact that she had grown very dear to me. "she did not appear on the next day or the next. a week passed, and she did not come. i was in despair. "at last i found her seated in the old place one morning when i went to the castle. i hastened to her and took her hand in mine. 'thank god! you've come back,' i cried, joyfully. 'rachel, rachel, you don't know how anxious i have been about you.' "she smiled sadly; her face was pale, and her eyelids reddened with weeping. 'i could not come,' she said softly, 'i was ill.' "'ill!' i exclaimed. 'and i not with you! i had then good reason to be anxious about you.' "'it wasn't much,' she returned. 'and you came here often?' "'every day--and waited and waited!' "'thank you,' she said in a low voice, and held out her hand once more to me. "as we stood there silent, looking at each other and finding no word to say, we all at once became clearly conscious of our love for each other. we both trembled. "'i must go,' she said at length, withdrawing her hand from mine. 'my mother will be anxious--good-by.' "'till to-morrow,' i answered. 'you will come?' "'i will come,' she said in a low voice.... "i had not long to wait for her on the following day: she was very punctual. "i went to meet her shyly, and rather ill at ease,--not joyously, as on the previous day. "she was still very pale, and showed her weakness by the tremulousness of her walk. "'you are worse than you'd have me believe,' i said. "'no,' she replied, 'i am not ill, and'--she hesitated, and then resumed in a firmer voice--'i haven't been ill. i lied to you yesterday.' "i stared at her in amazement. "'yes,' she repeated, 'i lied, because i had not courage to tell the truth. i am pale, and my eyes are red, because i wept so much, and was so miserable during the last week. i've a great deal to say to you, and entreat of you to listen to me quietly.' "we seated ourselves on the great stone at the foot of the red cross. "'i don't know,' she began in a clear firm voice, 'who told my parents that i was in the habit of meeting you here every day, and it doesn't much matter who it was. i should have been certain to have told them myself some time, for i saw no harm in what i had done. but one day lately, when i went home, my father received me with vehement reproaches, and with words ... with words.... i will not repeat them, for they were very cruel and unjust. he said that i had forgotten my honor and my duty; he reminded me of the man to whom i am betrothed, and besought me to beware of you, for you were an unbeliever, and would tempt me to evil. his anger did not frighten me, but that did; for something all at once seemed to tell me why i had gone so regularly to the ruins, and why your words and looks made me so happy. now--i know the truth. and when my father entreated me not to shame him, and to swear a holy oath that i would neither see nor speak to you again, i could not do it. if god and all the angels in heaven had commanded me to take that oath, i couldn't have done it--it would have seemed desecration. i bore my father's anger and my mother's tears, because i knew that i ... that i loved you....' "i would have spoken, but she raised her hand to stay me, and continued: "'when i first knew the truth i was filled with horror--i could not understand myself; and yet in spite of all that i felt happy. i saw the grief and despair that my conduct brought upon my parents, but, even to please them, i could not remain engaged to chaim. the world still believes that i am, but i really belong to you. that is the reason why i could not help coming to see you yesterday in secret. then i saw both in your words and looks that you loved me as really as i loved you. and now i ask you what is to be done? what is to be the end of all this?' "i did not hear the sadness of every tone of her voice, because i would not hear it--my heart was so full of joy unspeakable. "'child,' i cried, 'you love me; then all is well!' "but she only looked at me gravely and sadly, and after a short pause went on: "'no--all is lost!... you feel happy, and so do i; but while you're contented with that, i look to the future. and there is no comfort, no light to be found there for me. i can not be your wife--the life i have hitherto led has unfitted me for that. i have had no education, no teaching. god knows that i am nothing, know nothing, and can do nothing. woe is me, i can not even speak 'german.' what should you, who are going to be a doctor, do with a wife who is utterly ignorant of the life you lead and its ways? oh, i fear your world with a deadly fear. were i to marry you and then bring you to shame before others, because of my ignorance and mistakes, you would say in your heart that your love for me had been your bane....' "'rachel,' i cried, 'don't say that; you only make both yourself and me miserable by giving way to such idle fears.' "'i am only saying what is true,' she answered, with trembling lips. 'and then--can i buy my own happiness at the expense of my parents' sorrow?--as our people would regard it--shame? were i to do so they would die of grief. often in my misery i felt that i must entreat you to go away--at once. to forget me--would not bring happiness, but safety.' "'and do you really think that i could forget you?' i asked, gravely. 'could you forget me?' "'no,' she said, 'i could not. but tell me--can you see a way out of all this misery?' "'yes,' i answered, with determination, for the spirit of defiance was roused within me, and i felt more than ever convinced of the truth of the proverb, 'where there's a will there's a way.' 'i will go and speak to your father, and prove to him how foolish the prejudice he feels toward me really is. i will entreat him not to make his only child unhappy, and ask him to give you to me. if he will not consent, i will win you by my own labor; but when i have done that, you must leave your parents for your husband. we should have to wait and work for two years. but you will not tire any more than i shall. and then you will be my dear wife, and will be able to look back at your cares and anxieties of to-day with a smile. i swear that you shall be my wife--or else, i shall never marry.' "'i will be true to you,' she said, in a low voice, but so earnestly that it almost seemed like a sacred oath. "so we parted...." adolf was silent for a time. we stared out into the dusk without speaking, and gazed at the shadowy outlines of the vast plain of western galicia. it was not until the silence had lasted a long time that i asked, "did you go to hirsch welt?" "yes," he answered. "and were you successful?" "he turned me out of the house," returned adolf calmly; "but what of that? rachel shall be my wife. 'where there's a will, there's a way!...'" * * * * * fifteen months passed away after our conversation in the railway-carriage without any event worthy of record taking place. when we returned to vienna we took up our abode in different parts of the town, and in consequence met but seldom. i only knew that adolf was working very hard, and that he had good accounts of rachel. early one morning in december, before the sun was well up, i heard a violent knocking at my door, and ere i could call out "come in," the door opened, and my friend entered hurriedly, his face deadly pale and anxious-looking. "what! it's you, adolf!" i exclaimed. "but what's the matter?... is anything wrong?" he passed his hand across his forehead, and pushed back his hair to which a few snow-flakes were sticking. "i don't know what has happened," he said, "that is the reason i am so uneasy.... don't question me, but get up and come with me...." i obeyed, and dressed as quickly as i could, for something in his voice and manner made me feel very anxious. he went to the window, and throwing himself into my arm-chair with a weary sigh, stared out into the cold, gray, winter morning. his face was deadly pale, and his eyes shone with a feverish brightness. "adolf," i exclaimed, "you are ill." "no, i'm not ill," he answered impatiently--"i mustn't be ill. but come, come--" "where?" "i'll tell you." i followed him out into the cold, stormy december morning with a feeling of anxiety that increased every moment. "where is the nearest telegraph-office?" he asked. "a good way off; what are we to do there?" "come on--and don't ask so many questions." seeing how excited he was, i accompanied him in silence. when we at length reached the door of the telegraph-office, he said: "and now, please, will you do something for me? will you telegraph to your mother and ask her if it is true that--rachel welt is to be married next week--?" "what? did you hear that she was?" "never mind just now--i'll tell you all afterward; but now, pray, go at once and send off the telegram. beg for an immediate answer--immediate, you understand. have mercy on me, and go!" his words, and the repressed pain in his voice, had all the more effect on me from their contrast with the habitual coldness and reserve of his manner. i went into the office and sent off the telegram. somehow or other it never occurred to me until after i had dispatched the message, that my people would think it strange that i should be so much interested in the fate of rachel welt, and i almost smiled at the thought. but all desire to smile forsook me when i rejoined adolf. his face was now flushed, his eyes were shining, and every now and then he shivered as though with ague.... "you _are_ ill," i once more exclaimed. "come...." and, seizing him by the arm, i took him to the nearest _café_--the snow, meanwhile, had begun to fall thick and fast. "it's nothing," he answered. "it's only a slight feverish attack--i must have had a chill--i have been wandering all night long in the streets. i know what you're going to say--it was foolish of me, i am quite aware of that, my medical studies have taught me how foolish it was; but i couldn't help it--i couldn't keep still.... when do you expect an answer to your telegram?" he added, suddenly and quickly. "late in the afternoon--perhaps not till nightfall." "not till then?" "remember that barnow is a hundred and fifty miles[ ] from here, that there is a dreadful snow-storm, and that--what is perhaps more to the purpose--herr michalski, the telegraph officer at home, is generally drunk, and is in the habit of keeping back telegrams till it suits him to deliver them. but you may trust me to bring you the answer as soon as it arrives." [footnote : an austrian mile is equal to . english miles.] "thank you," he said. "you can not tell what i have suffered since i was startled by the sudden intelligence." "who told you?" i asked. "i got to know by a strange accident," he replied. "i happened to go into one of the surgical wards of the infirmary yesterday evening; suddenly i heard some one call me by my name. i went to the bed from which the voice had come, and there i found a jewish lad lying--it was salomon pinkus, brother of chaim pinkus, the cattle-dealer at barnow. salomon told me sadly that he had brought some cattle belonging to his brother to vienna, had sold them well, and was preparing to return home, when he slipped on some ice in the street and broke his arm. 'i didn't want to go to vienna,' he whined--'i was afraid; but i had to do it, as my brother could not leave home just then--he is to be married to rachel, daughter of the butcher at barnow, next week.'--'to whom did you say?' i cried, catching his sound arm in such a firm grip that he shrieked out that i wanted to break it too. well, he afterward told me that his brother's bride was rachel welt--he was sure that i must know her--i think he chuckled when he said it--'she had refused to marry chaim for a long time, but had suddenly come to her senses again, and was now quite willing to take him....' "he told me a good deal more, and though i answered him, i can't remember what i said. i only know that i ran away from him in the end, and, rushing out-of-doors, paced the streets all night like a madman, unheeding the storm and the cold. what i felt i can never describe, nor would you understand if i were to attempt to do so...." "poor fellow!" i answered, compassionately. "no," he cried, passionately, "you couldn't understand, nor would any one. it was not a mere boyish affair, you see--such a thing would have been impossible to me. it was the first great passion of my life, and it will be the last. i have poured out all the love my nature is capable of feeling at that girl's feet, and if she has deceived me, i shall go mad or die. believe me, i am not exaggerating--i can read my own case as clearly as if it were physical illness from which i am suffering: as a proof of this, let me tell you that love never made me blind; i always saw the difficulties that would beset rachel's path and mine. i know that no one could well imagine anything more opposite than our habits of mind and opinions on every subject. she and i have both to thank orthodox judaism for this. but i also know that the barriers between us are not insuperable. if i have been man enough to make my own life and open a career for myself, i shall also be man enough to raise my wife to my own level. there is only one thing that could crush me--only one: if rachel were untrue!..." "and do you think that possible?" i asked. "i am unwilling to believe it; no one yields at once to a belief that would make his life worthless in his eyes for evermore--and so i cling to a last hope. that was why i asked you to telegraph. although it is very improbable that salomon should have lied to me, yet it is possible that he may have done so;... still, i confess that i have very little hope, for she used to write to me every week regularly, and i haven't heard from her for the last fortnight...." "but," i asked, "even supposing that the marriage is really fixed for next week, may you not suspect the girl unjustly? what if she were not faithless after all, but forced into this marriage by her relations, god knows how?" "impossible," said adolf, firmly. "if i could have believed in the possibility of such a thing for a single moment, i should have been on my way to barnow instead of sitting here. i know the girl far too well to entertain such an idea. rachel is simple-hearted, clear-minded, and immovable. she could not be forced to do anything against her will. if the worst came to the worst, she would rather have run away from her parents and come to me, than have given way, even though she'd had to beg her bread from barnow to vienna. i know her...." adolf and i talked long together on that gloomy winter morning. at last i persuaded him to go to the hospital and do his usual work, promising at the same time to bring him the telegram, whatever it might contain, the very moment that it arrived. it did not come until early on the following morning, so our worthy fellow-townsman, herr michalski, must have been celebrating some festival on the preceding evening. it ran as follows: "yes; rachel is going to marry pinkus the cattle-dealer next tuesday. but what does it matter to you?" alas! it mattered much more to me at that moment than my dear mother imagined. i immediately sent for a drosky, and drove to mariengasse, where adolf had taken a little room. my heart beat when i pulled the bell. his old housekeeper came out to meet me. "thank god that you've come!" she exclaimed joyfully as soon as she saw me. "i've been so dreadfully anxious all night. just think, another letter came from poland yesterday for the herr doctor; i knew where it came from by the stamp; well, i put it carefully in his flat candlestick that he might find it the very moment he came home. if i had only guessed what was in that letter--i'm an honest woman, sir, and have never stolen anything in my life, but i should have destroyed it, god forgive me! and thought it a good deed. for, just listen, sir. he came home early yesterday evening and asked me breathlessly if you had been here. 'no,' said i--'but there's a letter for you from poland.' 'where?' said he, running into his room and snatching up his letter. there must have been something dreadful in that letter, sir, for the doctor turned as pale as death, and shivered all over. then, suddenly, he threw the letter away and began to laugh aloud--it made my blood run cold to hear him, it was such a mad laugh. then he looked about him like this"--the old woman tried to put on an insane stare--"and shouted to me to go away--and--god forgive me!--i was so frightened that i ran away as quickly as i could. all was silent for a time, but soon i heard the doctor walking up and down, up and down, very quickly, and then he threw himself on the sofa and moaned quite low. i can't describe it, it made me shiver with terror; for, you see, a dreadful thing happened in this very house about two years ago. my neighbor's lodger, a young apothecary, poisoned himself because his sweetheart was false to him. i heard him moan just like the doctor last night; and i couldn't help thinking that it was the same story over again. so at last i summoned courage and went into the room. he started up, and stared at me as if he didn't know who i was. 'it's only me,' i said; 'are you ill?'--'no,' said he, 'i only want to be alone,' so i went away again, but the whole night long...." i left the old woman talking, and hastened to my friend's room. adolf was sitting motionless in his arm-chair, his face buried in his hands--it almost seemed as if he must be asleep, he was so very still. when he heard the sound of my steps, he let his hands fall to his side and got up. i never saw the stamp of grief more strongly marked on any human face than on his as he turned toward me. "read that," he said, hoarsely, at the same time pushing a letter nearer me that was lying on the table. i read as follows: "herr doctor: forgive me for not having written sooner to tell you that i had made a mistake. i find that i do not love you. i had mistaken friendship for love. i soon found out that this was the case, but was afraid to write to you sooner. that is why i only write now, the week before i am married to chaim. perhaps you may think that i am forced to marry him by my father, but that is not the case--i do it willingly. forgive me, herr doctor--it was a mistake. "rachel." "it was a mistake!" cried adolf in despair, and then sank fainting on the floor. * * * * * one spring morning, more than four years after that gloomy winter day when adolf received the news of rachel's treachery, i was seated in a large dull house in vienna bending over a manuscript. my servant came into the room and gave me a card, saying that the gentleman was waiting to see whether i could receive him. i looked at the card, and on seeing the name of dr. adolf leiblinger, rushed to the outer door and opened it. i had not seen my friend for two years. we had never met since the day when he came to me and said very quietly and unconcernedly: "i have accepted a medical appointment under the dutch government, and am to start for batavia immediately. good-by!" he was very little changed. his pale face, with its unalterable expression of calm defiance, had only grown browner and darker in the tropical climate where he had lived during the last year or two. "so you've come back to europe!" i exclaimed joyfully. "i am so glad. you remember how earnestly i tried to dissuade you from carrying out your project. going to that murderous climate was neither more nor less than a sort of suicide on your part." "yes, it was so," he answered, calmly, "you're quite right." "you'll remain here now that you've come back, won't you?" "yes. my life is not a happy one even now, but it is no longer miserable. i am, and always shall be, indifferent to death; but so long as i live it shall be my endeavor to make my life as useful as possible. i shall settle down either here or in some other university town, as assistant professor." "i am very glad to hear it," i said. "i never lost hope that time would bring you healing." "if you call this healing, it was not time that brought it, but--a letter." "a letter!" "yes--from barnow--from _her_. as soon as i got it i set out for europe--and went straight to barnow. i think that i traveled quicker than any one ever did before,--and yet i arrived too late." "she is dead?" i asked in a low voice. "yes; she died four weeks ago." "she called you to visit her on her deathbed then?" "as you know the whole story, i will let you read her letter." he put it in my hand. it was written in trembling and scarcely legible characters, and ran as follows: "spring will soon be here, but i feel that i shall not live to see it, so i will write to you now when i have strength. i do so partly for my own sake, but far more for yours. for my sake, that you may not despise me after i am dead, and for yours, that you may no longer have the pain of feeling that the woman you loved was unworthy of you. "i lied in that letter which i wrote to you four years ago. i loved you then, love you now, and shall love you till i die. and if god grants that we are the same in heaven as on earth, i shall love you even after death. and it was because i loved you that i parted from you. "do not shake your head in despair at these strange words. "happiness that i had purchased at the expense of my father's curse and my mother's despair would not have been pure and unsullied. but i should have lived that down. "_one_ thing alone i could not have got over--you smiled at me for saying so long ago, and yet i was right: my ignorance unfitted me for the position your wife would have to hold. "i had lived too long, in a little provincial town, a gray, still life passed in utter ignorance of the world and its ways; i could not have borne an active life and the full light of day. i should not have been able rightly to understand you either in sorrow or in joy, and that would have been terrible to me, and perhaps even more terrible to you. i should never have been at my ease with your friends or their wives; they would have laughed at my manners and mode of speaking, and i should have been hurt and you also. you would then perhaps have kept me shut out from society, and i could not have borne that. the thought that my husband was ashamed of me would have been agony to me--as well as to you. and so the time would have surely come of which i once warned you: you would have cursed the hour when i became your wife. you would not have separated from me--i know that. but we should have been unhappy, and you, perhaps, would have been even more unhappy than i. "i saw all this clearly, and i loved you so dearly that i did not want you to be made miserable through me. so i determined that the sorrow should all be mine--told my parents that i would marry chaim, and wrote that letter to you. "though i lied to you, i told chaim the whole truth. i told him my story, and said that i could only be his faithful servant and helper. he answered that time would put all right. i knew that it would have no effect, but i had taken up my burden and would bear it. "it was right, and i do not complain. "but, alas! i must needs confess that i was too weak to bear my weight of sorrow. i have become pale and ill, and my heart beats so quickly at times that i often faint. i am growing so much weaker that i feel that death must be drawing very near. but i have no fear of death, and i thank god for his goodness in letting me suffer for so short a time, instead of for a long term of years. what good would a long life have been to me? "ever since the day i formed the resolution never to be your wife, i have looked forward to writing you one letter that should tell you the whole truth before i died. i never thought that the happiness would have come to me so soon of justifying my conduct in your eyes. "my life is drawing to a close--our god is truly a merciful god. and now, let me thank you once more for all your love for me. you have been the light and joy of my poor dark life. you made me happy, and are innocent of causing my sorrow. forgive all the pain that i have brought upon you. it is my last entreaty, and i am dying. "ah no!--i have something else to beg of you, and if you do not grant my request, i shall find no rest in the grave. "your friend, the doctor's son, told his people in one of his letters that you were now living in a distant land, where the sun is very hot, and where nearly all foreigners die of a malignant fever. he wrote that you had probably gone there because my marriage had caused you misery and despair. i can not tell you what i suffered when i heard that, and were i to attempt to do so you would hardly believe it. but i entreat of you, leave that deadly climate. my heart tells me that you are the greatest and best doctor that ever lived. come home and help poor sick people. "your mother's old prayer-book, that you gave me long ago, shall be buried with me. "farewell! may your life be as long and happy as i wish it to be! i shall be dead when you read this letter. "rachel." i silently returned the letter to my friend. he rose, and said as quietly as before: "now you know why i am going to remain in europe. good-by for the present." but when we had taken each other's hand in silence, the proud reserved man broke down utterly. with a low heart-broken sob, he ejaculated: "why couldn't it have been otherwise? why?..." i know not what answer to make to this question any more than he did, and so i do not venture to add another word to the story of rachel welt, who used to be known in barnow by the name of "esterka regina." "baron schmule." ( .) when driving from barnow toward the south, to bukowina or moldavia, a grand castle may be seen perched on the top of a hill at about three hours'[ ] distance from barnow. it is situated near z----, at which place the highroad crosses the dniester, and it stands so high that its white walls and shimmering windows may be seen from a great distance. it is surrounded by beautiful pleasure-grounds, which extend over the hill, and stretch far out into the plain below. it is, perhaps, the most beautiful place in podolia, and is certainly better kept up than any other. its owner is known far and wide as "baron schmule;" for although he is now the powerful freiherr sigismund von ronnicki, he began life as schmule runnstein. [footnote : about fifteen english miles.] his success was rapid and wonderful, for he went straight as an arrow toward his object, without wasting time by looking to the right hand or to the left. very few people can do that. most men resemble tops, for they are quite satisfied with making rapid and noisy gyrations, and do not perceive that they never leave the spot from which they started, but are only turning round and round upon their own axis; while the arrow, which baron schmule resembled, neither hastens nor lags in its flight, but makes straight for the mark. putting metaphor aside, let me say that baron schmule knew what he wanted, and attained the object for which he strove as quickly and certainly as if he had had two eyes to guide him on his way instead of one. like every one else, he began life as a top; but something happened that changed his whole character, and with his character, his career. that something was a _blow with a riding-whip_. it is a strange story.... more than fifty years ago a poor widow lived in z---- with her son. she strove to make enough to feed and clothe them both by the proceeds of her trade of confectioner--a poor one to follow in a place so small as z----. she was called miriam runnstein. the little boy began to help his mother as soon as he could walk and count: he had to sell the sweetmeats that his mother made, and used to perambulate the streets, calling, "who'll buy 'fladen'? 'fladen' and almond comfits! who'll buy? who'll buy?" but very few people in the ghetto make a practice of eating sweetmeats, and a marriage or circumcision feast, on which occasion a confectioner is hired for the day, is not of constant occurrence. pennies came in very slowly, and poor little schmule often cried with hunger, as he walked about trying to sell the sugar-plums in his basket. his best customers lived at the castle, about half a mile[ ] from the town. this castle belonged to baron wodnicki. alfred wodnicki was a very rich man--so rich that, although he was a great spendthrift, he could not manage to squander much more than the income accruing from his immense property. he lived very little at the castle, for he was soon bored by the quietness and dullness of country life, so he spent most of his time at paris or baden-baden. he always went to baden-baden when his wife was in paris, and to paris when she was at baden-baden. the husband and wife got on very well together now that they had agreed to live separate lives. their only child, young baron wladislaus, did not live at the castle either, but had been sent to a celebrated jesuit seminary at krakau. [footnote : a little more than two english miles.] so the servants had the castle all to themselves. there is an old polish proverb that runs very much to this effect: "who is so idle and has so sweet a tooth as a lackey!" the proverb was true in this case at least. little schmule always found purchasers for his wares when he had succeeded in dragging his heavy basket up the hill, and so he used often to go there both in summer and winter, although it was a long way for such a little fellow to walk with his burden. it is true that he got as many boxes on the ear as pence, but what did he care for that?--a jewish child was used to such treatment! so time went on, till schmule was thirteen years old. who knows how long he might have gone on hawking his mother's "fladen" and almond comfits about the country-side, if something had not happened that changed the whole course of his life. one very hot day in august schmule set out for the castle. the sun was blazing down upon him, and the great heat made him pant as he toiled up the steep ascent leading to the castle; but he almost ran, he was so eager to get to the top--and no wonder. it was between eleven and twelve on a friday morning, and there was not a penny at home with which to buy the sabbath dinner. if hunger is hard to bear on an ordinary day, it is much worse on the sabbath, when there is more time to think of it. as schmule hastened along, he was far too busy thinking of what had to be bought on his return to z----, to look about him, or to keep his ears open; and so he never heard a horse galloping up the drive, until it was so close to him that he only saved himself from being ridden over by a hasty spring on one side. the rider was a pale-faced youth, with a fowling-piece at his side, and turned out to be young baron wladislaus wodnicki, who had come home to spend his summer holidays. he laughed heartily when he saw what a fright he had given the jewish boy, who was still trembling too much to remember to touch his cap. he then turned his horse and rode slowly up to schmule, till he almost touched him. the latter meanwhile pressed as close as he could to the wall of rock that bordered the drive. "why didn't you touch your cap to me, you rascal?" asked the young baron, raising his riding-whip. "because--i--was--so--frightened," stammered schmule. the young man lowered his riding-whip, and after a few moments' thought, burst into a loud laugh. "you're afraid of the horse, are you?" he asked; "very well, then, go and stand there," pointing to the middle of the road. "don't you hear me? _there!_" he repeated, angrily; and the boy obeyed with manifest terror. "now, then," he continued, "don't move from there till i allow you--do you understand? it'll be the worse for you if you move," and snatching up his gun, he went on. "i swear, by all the saints, that i'll shoot you down like a mad dog if you move!" after saying this he rode on, and then turned again, and galloped down the drive straight at the boy. schmule watched the horse approaching him with the fascination of terror--a mist came over his eyes--in another moment he jumped out of the way and--the horse, instead of hitting him, only knocked the basket of sweetmeats from his back, scattering its contents all over the dusty road. the boy also fell, but only from nervous fear. "you did move, you scoundrel!" cried baron wladislaus, putting his gun to his shoulder. suddenly he changed his mind, and restoring his fowling-piece to its place, rushed at the boy with his riding-whip. the latter, in order to avoid as much as possible the violent blows that were aimed at him, now with the end and now with the knob of the whip, threw himself at the young man's feet. all at once schmule uttered a heart-rending shriek, and fell senseless on the ground. and then baron wladislaus rode away. an hour later a kind-hearted peasant took the unconscious boy in his hay-cart to the little jewish town, and gave him to his mother. it is unnecessary to say what the poor woman felt when she saw her boy's disfigured countenance and senseless state--such things are better not described. the doctor came, restored schmule to consciousness, and washed and bound up his wounds. he said that the boy would soon be quite well again, but that the sight of his right eye was gone for ever. schmule had an unexpected visitor on the first day that he was able to get out of bed. fat gregor, the young baron's valet, came to see him. he brought the boy two ducats, and told him that his master was ready and willing to pay both the doctor and apothecary, if he would forbear making any complaint to the magistrate of his conduct. "go!" cried schmule--that was all that he said--but his remaining eye glared so savagely at gregor, that the latter thought discretion the better part of valor, and beat a hasty retreat. as soon as he got back to the castle, he went to his master, and said: "beg your pardon, herr baron, you've sent the jew stark-staring mad as well as knocked out his eye--he was more like a wild beast than anything else." when schmule was able to go out again, his first walk was to the court of justice. the leader of the synagogue offered to go with him, but he said he wanted to go alone. "thank you," he said; "but it isn't necessary. i am no longer a child--that blow has made me ten years older. besides that, i only want justice." he went to the judge and made his complaint. the trial began, and was carried on as--well as all such trials were in those days. what chance had a poor jewish boy against a polish noble long ago? none! but the trial had one merit: it was short. the persons interested in it were not long kept in suspense as to what the verdict was to be. all was settled in the space of a month. schmule was then cited to appear before the court, and the herr mandatar said to him very sternly: "your story was a lie, jew! you did not get out of the herr baron's way, but insisted on pressing close up to the horse, and so you were accidentally struck by the riding-whip. you may be thankful that baron wladislaus has been good enough to pardon you for making such a calumnious charge against him, otherwise you might have been tried for perjury! now--go!" schmule went home. when he entered his mother's kitchen, the good woman was so startled by the look on his face, that she exclaimed, in terror: "child, child! what is the matter? has anything worse happened?" "yes," he answered, "something much worse--justice has been denied me." his voice here died away into an indistinct murmur, but at last his mother heard him say: "i will do as the herr mandatar advised me--i will be grateful for baron wladislaus's kindness...." "son!" cried the old woman, in a voice of agony. "i know what you're going to do. i can read it in your face. you're going to steal into the castle and murder him in his sleep!..." "no," replied schmule, with a smile. "that wouldn't do at all, for they would hang me for murder, and who would take care of you then? no, my vengeance must be of another kind--i must become a rich man." "god has darkened your understanding, my son," moaned the old woman. but she wept still more bitterly when schmule told her that he had made up his mind to go to barnow. he sold the only things that belonged to him, which would not be required now that he was going away--his bed and bedding. the sale of these articles brought him five gulden in all, because at the last moment he threw in some prayer-books that he did not want. as he was going away he promised to send his mother a share of his earnings. he went to barnow with his little store of five gulden, or about five florins in english money, in his pocket, and there set up a little pack, consisting of matches, soap, pomade, and feathers. he sold his merchandise at the inns and in the streets. and, as he was untiring in his labors, and spent very little on himself, he was able both to support his mother and to lay by a little money. in two years' time he was so far beforehand with the world, that he gave up this mode of gaining his livelihood, and bought a large store of goods such as country people require. he then began to travel about the country-side as a peddler; and a very hard life he led. like nathan bilkes, the father of frau christine, he wandered about, with a great pack on his back, from village to village, and from fair to fair. he was seldom paid in money for his goods, but received fruit and skins instead. this circumstance, however, was of advantage to him. after having worked as a peddler for three years, he returned to barnow, and set up a stall for small-wares in a corner of the market-place. his success was so great that he was soon able to rent a real shop, and to keep his mother more comfortably. but he remained as abstemious as before with regard to himself. his food consisted for the most part of dry bread, for he only allowed himself the luxury of a bit of meat upon the sabbath. his mother died when he was twenty-three--that is, ten years after he left z----. she died in his arms. when he had buried her, and the eight days of mourning were over, he went to czernowitz, which is a larger town than barnow. as chance would have it, baron wladislaus wodnicki, who had just taken the management of his estates into his own hands, drove past him in his phaeton, as he was leaving the little town of z----. "i am glad to have seen him," said schmule to his traveling companion; "for otherwise grief might have made me idle for some time to come." schmule was now alone in the world, but still he worked as hard as if he had had a large family to support, and so he gradually became well to do in the world. he was much respected as an honorable man, fair in all his dealings; and this, added to his wealth, enabled him to gain the hand in marriage of one of the richest heiresses in czernowitz, in spite of his having only one eye. after his marriage he increased his business considerably, and became well known in the commercial world as samuel runnstein, the dry-salter. and again, as if this did not give him enough to do, he set up a large wine business, in addition to the other. schmule now showed for the first time to their full extent the marvelous powers of work and determination of character that he possessed. he traveled all over germany and france, russia and moldavia, setting up agencies everywhere. ten years later he was looked upon as the richest merchant in the whole district. at length his wife died, leaving him a little daughter. schmule now sold the good-will of both the wine and dry-salting businesses, and became a corn-merchant. he bought in podolia, bessarabia, and moldavia, and sold in the western markets. there was only one landowner from whom he would buy nothing, and that was baron wladislaus wodnicki: although the bailiff offered him very good bargains, he was not to be tempted. the unfortunate bailiff had rather a hard time of it--he found it so difficult to provide his master with a large and constant supply of money. for wladislaus succeeded in doing what the old baron had never done: every month he spent as much as his estates brought in in the year. his wife, a french lady, did her part in squandering her husband's wealth. and so the bailiff came to schmule and begged him to buy some corn, but he refused, saying with a strange smile: "i made a vow more than five-and-twenty years ago that i would only do _one_ stroke of business with your master; and the time for that has not come yet...." years passed, and schmule grew richer and richer. he married again, and his wife brought him a large fortune. then came the year , with its revolutionary restlessness; and schmule, who knew how to turn everything to his advantage, became a millionaire. he was now known as herr sigismund runnstein, and the russian government employed him to provision their army in hungary. by this means he made a great deal more money. after that he gave up business, and when any one wanted him to undertake some new project, he refused, alleging that he preferred to wait. he had not long to wait. it is quite possible to squander even a colossal fortune if one has a mind to do it. two years later, baron wladislaus and his wife were obliged to leave paris. they returned to z----, but even there they found it difficult to get enough money to live on; for their estates were so deeply mortgaged that not a blade of grass could really be said to belong to them, and their creditors became more and more troublesome every day. after a time, the baroness went back to her own people in france, and the baron, who had to remain at z---- whether he would or not, sought comfort first in champagne, and afterward, when that became too expensive a luxury, in schnapps. at length one day he found himself no longer beset by his creditors. schmule had bought up all the claims against him, although they amounted to many thousand pounds sterling. "it's the first bad bargain that schmule runnstein ever made," said all his friends. but the general astonishment was much increased when it was discovered that he apparently let things alone after that, and took no steps to foreclose. but in spite of appearances, he had not been idle. he sent a petition to the emperor, begging for leave to buy an estate; for in those days the galician jews were legally incapacitated from holding land. he even went to vienna, to support his cause in person. but all in vain. "if i had committed murder," said schmule when he came home, "i might perhaps have persuaded the government to let me off; but this request they will not grant." he wandered about for many days, lost in deep and melancholy thought. at last, after a terrible struggle, he determined on the course he meant to pursue. he went to his wife, whom he loved dearly, and said to her: "i have made up my mind to be baptized and become a christian. don't look so frightened, and don't cry--listen to me quietly. i _must_ do it. my whole life would otherwise be a lie, a folly, a failure. i must become possessor of the wodnicki estates. i have lived poorly and worked hard--harder perhaps than any other man on the face of the earth. and now it is not a reward that i demand, but my just right. this is the _only_ way that i can attain it, so it must be done. but you shall choose for yourself; i leave you free. how dearly i love you i need not say, but still i repeat--i will not oppose your decision, whatever it may be...." she loved him too, but she could not give up her religion, and so they parted. schmule became a member of the roman catholic church, and took the name of sigismund ronnicki. his daughter by his first marriage, who was nearly grown up, was baptized at the same time, and received the name of maria. the conversion of the rich jew and his daughter was the theme of endless conversation in the neighborhood. the day after he had been received into the christian church, schmule foreclosed all the mortgages he held upon wladislaus's estates, and, as was to be expected, the land went at a very low price. schmule bought it. the baron disappeared--no one knew where he had gone; and schmule took up his abode at the castle of z----, with his daughter maria. in the year , when the army was so much increased that the state was greatly in want of money, schmule bought himself the title of "freiherr" for a large sum. but still he used to say, "i haven't got all that i want yet--my full right." but the time was fast approaching when this strange man's last wish was to be fulfilled. one day an announcement was made in the polish newspapers, to the effect that a comfortable home and suitable maintenance had been provided for that irredeemable vagabond and drunkard, baron wladislaus wodnicki, by the kindness of a noble-minded benefactor. and so it was. the "noble-minded benefactor" was baron sigismund ronnicki, who had literally picked the "vagabond" out of the streets of barnow, where he was wandering houseless and forlorn, and had taken him home to his castle at z----. wladislaus was given everything he wanted except--schnapps. and why was this, and this alone, denied him? "when he drinks schnapps," said schmule, "he forgets everything that has happened. and i intend that he should remember. i will have my right." but the "drunkard" was not to be long a source of satisfaction to the new lord of the castle. at midsummer, in the year following, a great feast was given by schmule, in honor of his daughter's marriage to a magyar noble. during the evening wodnicki succeeded in getting some schnapps. he drank freely, and then staggered out of doors, and down the drive in which he had met the jewish boy fifty years before. he never returned to the castle. next morning he was found lying dead under the steep wall of rock that bounded one side of the drive. whether he had fallen over the precipice in his drunken blindness, or had thrown himself over, no one ever knew. this is one of the many strange stories that take place on this earth of ours. the picture of christ. ( .) ... how distinctly i can see the little town even now, with its narrow, tortuous, and gloomy streets, its ruined castle on the top of the hill, and its stately monastery near the river! it is to this last that i wish to draw the reader's attention. the dominican monastery is a huge pile of buildings surrounded by a wall in which one can still see the traces of the old tartar attacks of long ago. within the wall is a confused mass of chapels and dwelling-houses, separated from each other by damp, moss-grown courtyards, or by sparsely covered grass-plots. i often went there in my boyhood, and used to like playing among the graves in the little churchyard. i also delighted in listening to the echo of my footsteps in the great empty refectory; but i liked best of all to go to the "abbot's chapel," a small byzantine building which was known by that name, and look up at a picture that had been hung there a short time before. it had been painted by the proud and beautiful gräfin jadwiga bortynska, lady of the manor of barnow. it was a wonderful picture--breathing love and peace. christ was represented standing on vaporous clouds, his hands stretched out in blessing over the earth. the pale face, which was, as it were, framed in black curls, had an expression of divine love and sublime goodness--perfect man and perfect god. but i did not think of that when i first saw the picture, for i was then only a thoughtless boy of twelve years old. it was on a bright, warm autumn day that i saw it first. an hour after it was hung up in its place, little wladik, the sexton's son, showed it to me. the sunshine was falling full upon it at the time, and i almost started as i saw the life-like figure in its dark frame. "do you know who it is?" i asked my school-fellow. "how can you ask?" he exclaimed with boyish indignation. "it is our lord jesus christ, whom the jews crucified." "no, wladik," i answered with the utmost decision, "it isn't; it's bocher david, who used to teach me until last spring." wladik was very angry, and scolded me well for saying such a dreadful thing, but he could not convince me that i was wrong: i knew what i knew. when i went home in the evening i told my father about the picture. "silly child," he said with a smile; "who could have painted it?" "our frau gräfin," i replied. my father looked grave. "well, well," he said thoughtfully, "it is almost incredible...." "what?" i asked quickly. but he told me to be quiet. i should not then have understood what he meant; but i heard the story afterward when i was older--the sad story of that picture of christ in the chapel at barnow--and learned that it was also, as i had supposed, a portrait of my old teacher, bocher david. it is a strange story, reader, and will seem all the more extraordinary to you, if you have been brought up in a western home, and have been accustomed from your infancy to civilization and tolerance of others. it is also sad, very sad. but do not blame me for that, for my heart bleeds when i remember this over-true tale, which must be regarded as one of the dark riddles of life, and as the doing of that eternal, inscrutable power that deals out darkness or light, happiness or misery, to the weak human heart.... i will now tell you the story. * * * * * the small town of barnow lies in the middle of an immense plain. close to it is the only hill for several miles around, and on the top of this little hill are the ruins of a castle where the lords of barnow, or barecki starosts, used to live. the last of this race, an old man, weak in mind as in body, now lives in his cheerless house by the river-side; while the new lord of the manor, graf bortynski, lives in a new and splendid castle in the plain, far away from the one-storied cottages, the rickety little houses, the narrow, airless streets of barnow, and all the want and misery of the people who inhabit them. but these inhabitants of barnow are happy, their streets are light and airy, and their houses comfortable, in comparison with those who have to live in that part of the town which is built in the unhealthy marshes near the river. it is always dark and gloomy there, however brightly the sun may shine, and dark pestiferous vapors fill the air, although the meadows beyond may be full of flowers. and this wretched part of the town is the most thickly inhabited of all, for it is the ghetto, the jews' quarter, or, as they call it in barnow, the "gasse." david was the strangest and most mysterious-looking figure in the "gasse," which was anyhow only too full of such people--for when plants are kept in the dark they are apt to take eccentric forms. he was the son of the former rabbi of the town. even in his boyhood he had been the pride and delight of his father, and indeed of the whole community. his bright young intelligence was early able to comprehend the secrets of the talmud, its subtleties and riddles, and the boy was looked upon with wondering admiration by all. for, pale and delicate as he was, the jews of barnow believed that he would live to become a great scribe, learned in the scriptures. so they forgave his hastiness and fits of passion. in course of time the old rabbi died, and left his widow and only child nothing but his great library and the love of the whole congregation. the community did what they could for the widow and orphan, or rather did what they thought proper and necessary. david and his mother were allowed to remain in the small back rooms of their old house, and the front rooms were given to the new rabbi. it was right and fitting that it should be so, but it wounded the child's feelings. david no longer heard the words of praise that he had been accustomed to, although he deserved them more and more every day; so he became ever more defiant, and was consequently very much disliked. it happened one day that he excelled the rabbi in his interpretation of a passage of the talmud, and afterward told different people that he had done so, and thus made an enemy in the community. he was now as much disliked as he had once been praised. his position grew unbearable. but as long as his mother lived, he remained at barnow. she was the only person he obeyed, and she alone could sometimes bring a smile to the grave, sad face of her son. one morning soon after her death, which happened when he was fifteen, david disappeared. no one knew what had become of him. he was soon forgotten, and was only spoken of now and then as the late rabbi's son, a wise and learned youth, but wicked and wrong-headed to an extraordinary degree. he remained away for twelve long years. at length he returned unexpectedly, and rented one of the small rickety houses in the little podolian town. on the following day he went to the elders of the synagogue, and to those men who were appointed to nurse the sick, and told them that he had determined to devote his life to the care of the sick and dying. he said that he knew many simples, and a good deal about the art of healing, and entreated them to grant his request, and not to spare him when he could be of any use. they were astonished at his resolution, and praised him for his goodness. but as time went on they learned really to appreciate his help, and blessed him; then once more his praises were repeated from mouth to mouth as of yore. but there was a certain air of mystery about him, for he made no intimacies in the "gasse." no one knew what studies he was engaged in when his night-lamp burned till early morning; no one knew what were his resources, or where he had been during his absence from barnow. the rabbi, who had long forgotten david's boyish faults, and my father--because he was the town doctor--used to see a good deal of him, and they were the only people with whom he was on familiar terms. it was discovered through them that he had been in the holy land, that he had seen the countries of the west, and that he had even crossed the great ocean, and had spent some time in "amerikum," as it was called in the language of the "gasse." it was said that he could speak many foreign tongues, that he knew everything, and could do whatever he chose, whether good or evil, for he was a master of the "cabala," and well acquainted with the great and terrible secrets of the "sohar," the cabalist primer; and, finally, that he had sworn to himself that he would never marry, and so he was still a "bocher," or bachelor. but he either knew nothing of these rumors, or did not care what people said of him. he helped all who were in need of his assistance, without desiring either thanks or payment. and as time passed on, all began to feel a deep respect, and even love, for the pale silent man who did so much for them. his face had quite lost the gloomy passionate expression of his boyhood, and had become at once grave and gentle. while every one felt a fearless confidence in his kindness and sympathy, no one would have ventured to treat him with familiarity. the "bocher" was the only inhabitant of the ghetto whom the christian boys neither pelted nor scorned, although outwardly he was only distinguished from his brethren in the faith by the careful cleanliness of his clothing. he wore the same curious old-fashioned polish garments as all the other jews in poland and russia; and no dress could have shown off to better advantage his tall stately figure, and pale intellectual face surrounded by clustering curls of black hair. this man was my teacher from my sixth till my twelfth year. i was a very mischievous boy, always ready for fun, and hating to sit still, and he treated me with continual grave kindness. we seldom exchanged a word that had not to do with the lessons he was teaching me. but once it was different: it was on the day on which i had gone to the monastery school for the first time. i came home weeping bitterly because of the contemptuous way in which my school-fellows had treated me for my religion's sake. the "bocher" came in, and i told him of my distress. he listened to me in silence, and then opened the bible at the place where he had given me my last lesson on the previous evening. my tears would not stop. "don't cry," he said; "don't cry, my child, 'they know not what they do.'" and then he added, in a harsh stern tone, such as i had never heard from him before: "don't cry. they are not worth your tears. and a day of retribution will come sooner or later." i looked up at him in surprise, and saw that his face wore a strange threatening expression. he was silent for a time, and gradually the fierce look faded away. then he explained the passage to me in a quiet voice.... i was his only pupil during all these years, but all at once he gave up teaching me. a strange and important event had taken place in his own life, which made him wish me to leave him. i only spoke to him once afterward. * * * * * old graf adam bortynski was a hard man, loved by none and feared by all. he belonged to a younger branch of the bortynskis, and so had had very little chance of ever becoming head of the family. he seldom lived in the country, and had his rents sent to him in paris, london, monaco, or homburg. very little was known about him in barnow, when he suddenly came there as master at the death of young graf arthur, who died in paris of apoplexy brought on by intemperance. people used to whisper mysteriously in barnow about that time that no one had had such an evil influence on the late lord of the manor as his present successor, graf adam. but, however that might be, graf adam was master now. he had never married, although he was by no means a woman-hater; but on becoming head of the family, he made up his mind that it was his duty to do so. he chose lovely jadwiga polanska to be his wife. she was the daughter of an impoverished noble in the vicinity. every one knew that she feared and hated graf bortynski, but it was also known that her father had sold her to him; and several people who were better informed than the rest could have told the price that had been paid for her to a farthing. for years afterward the inhabitants of the little town used to talk about the wedding procession, and tell how proud and triumphant graf adam had looked that day, and how his bride had walked beside him pale as death, and with an expression of deep wretchedness. the breakfast was very grand, and went off well; but at an early hour on the following morning, the servants heard a shot fired in the wing in which the rooms of the newly-married couple were, and on hastening there they found graf adam in his room, shot through the head, the pistol still convulsively clutched in his right hand. no one knew what had induced him to commit suicide in this unexpected way, and the pale young widow never said a word to clear up the mystery. the story formed the subject of endless discussion and conjecture, until something else happened to take its place. such things are not of uncommon occurrence in poland and russia! the estates went to the heir of entail, the head of a distant branch of the family, and gräfin jadwiga inherited the castle and town of barnow. it seemed fated that the castle should remain uninhabited, for even the young widow went away. she was eighteen when she left barnow, and it was years before she returned. rumors were current of her triumphs as a beauty and a wit in paris, heligoland, or baden-baden. she did not marry again, as every one expected. one spring day she returned to barnow, after an absence of nearly ten years. the castle was once more inhabited, and its courtyards were full of life and bustle. gräfin jadwiga had grown rather stouter than of old, but she was still beautiful, marvelously beautiful, in spite of what some people would have thought the too great pallor of her face. * * * * * one fine morning in may two young people were out riding together, and enjoying the freshness and brightness of the weather. were they happy? the rapid movement and the fresh morning air had brought a tinge of color to the lady's pale face which was very becoming to her. the gräfin jadwiga looked bright and sweet that day, and really happy. her companion did not look either so cheerful or so happy as she did. he was a young man with fair hair, the stature of a giant, and the heart of a child. scandal-mongers even went so far as to say that he was like a child in intellect also. but however that may be, it is true that baron starsky loved gräfin jadwiga with all the intensity of _first_ love, as he used to call it, when he forgot that he had once talked "love" to his mother's pretty little french maid. but that was long ago--fully six months ago. he was very rich, his estates adjoined those of the gräfin, but he would have loved her even had this not been the case. he wanted to have told her all this during that morning's ride, and to have asked her to be his wife; but he had had no opportunity. who could make an offer to a woman when riding at a hand-gallop? at length gräfin jadwiga grew tired of what baron starsky inwardly called the "mad pace" at which she had been going. the horses panted as they returned toward the town at a walk; but, strangely enough, the palpitation which starsky had before ascribed to the quickness of the pace at which he had been riding, did not in the least diminish. it grew worse. the moment for speaking had come, and he hesitated whether or not to seize it. he began to talk about the weather, like the good, stupid, loving giant that he was. he expatiated on the beauty of the spring, and although as a general rule he cared little or nothing for flowers, he now told gräfin jadwiga a great many wonderful things about them. the pauses in their conversation grew longer and longer. at last he saw with terror that he could not keep up this kind of small-talk much longer. it was as though he had been suddenly relieved of a burden too heavy to be borne, when the gräfin suddenly reined in her horse, and asked, "what can that curious dark figure down there in the meadow be?" baron starsky put up his eye-glass in order to see better. "it's a jew, gräfin," he said. "but look! he has got something shining in his hand--a zinc box of some kind. what the deuce is he doing with it?" "let us ask him." so saying, the gräfin leaped the ditch into the meadow, and starsky of course followed her. the jew started as though he would have run away, but changing his mind, he waited quietly until the riders approached him. his whole manner showed how timid he was and how little at his ease. "what are you doing there?" asked gräfin jadwiga. "i am collecting medicinal herbs for my sick people," he replied in pure german. "you're a doctor!" she inquired in surprise. "that's a strange calling for a tradesman or a talmudist--and you jews are all either the one or the other--to pursue in addition to your other work...." here starsky interrupted her by asking somewhat roughly-- "if you're only gathering herbs, why can't you look people full in the face? why do you breathe so hard--eh, jew?" and stooping from the saddle, he seized him firmly by the shoulder. the man wrenched himself free, and in so doing his hat fell off, letting them see his noble, thoughtful face. "leave me alone!" he cried, threateningly. gräfin jadwiga hastily thrust her horse between the angry men. she was deadly pale, her breath came quick and fast, and her colorless lips trembled as if she were trying in vain to speak. her eyes never left the jew's face. he meanwhile had recovered his self-possession, and although pale, looked calm and collected. "who are you?... is it _really_ you?... who are you?" she exclaimed, now in a voice sharpened by anxiety, and again as though in joy.... "my name is david blum," he answered, in a low toneless voice. "people call me bocher david. i am a jewish teacher and sick-nurse in your town...." she reeled in her saddle and hid her face in her hands. "my god!" she moaned, "is it a bad dream?... it is you, friedrich!... your voice!... your face!... why are you here, and in that dress?... can i be going mad?... friedrich, it _must_ be you ... friedrich reimann!..." she dismounted, and going to him, took his hands in hers. starsky felt his head going round as he watched the scene. bocher david had a hard struggle. he turned to go away; then he tried to speak, but could not. at length he managed to force out the words in a low, strained voice: "friedrich reimann is dead--has been dead for years. i am david blum, the sick-nurse." she drew a long breath. "i understand you," she said; "friedrich is dead, but david blum is alive. and i must say to him what i can no longer say to friedrich.... i have sought you long, long and earnestly. i have found you at last. you must not go until you have listened to me...." "it would be useless, frau gräfin," he answered, gently but firmly. "friedrich forgave you long ago--forgave you with all his heart...." there was a look of pain on his face as he spoke. "but it isn't useless," she exclaimed, "or at least not to me. i entreat you to listen to me only once--for one hour. come and see me this afternoon at the castle...." he shook his head with a sad smile. "don't say no," she continued. "you are a jew, and it was a jew who said, 'be merciful to the weak!' it is for mercy that i beg.... oh, come!... for god's sake come, and for the sake of old times!..." "i promise," he said, after a short pause. then silently raising his hat he went away. gräfin jadwiga drew a long breath of relief, passed her hand across her eyes as if she were waking from a dream, and then turned to starsky, who was approaching her with an expression of unmitigated astonishment. they remounted their horses, and returned to barnow castle in silence. on getting there they parted without a word. starsky rode home to his father's house in deep thought, a very unusual circumstance with him. gräfin jadwiga bortynska and bocher david.... his brain reeled.... and this was the woman he would have asked to be his wife! if he had done so, she would perhaps have accepted him--_perhaps?_--undoubtedly--certainly! it was horrible!... the domestic annals of the house of starsky contained an unwonted occurrence on that day: a youthful member of that noble family ate very little dinner, and remained lost in thought during the whole of the rest of the afternoon!... * * * * * the park at barnow castle was very prettily laid out in flower-beds, and beyond these it was dotted with clumps of fine old trees. the air was full of the song of birds and the perfume of spring flowers. the sun was shining brightly. a small summer-house was situated in a quiet corner, and from its windows one could look down over blossoming elder-bushes upon the blue waters of the lake, in which the willows at the edge were mirrored. it was a place to sit and dream in. but the woman who was seated in the large easy-chair near the window was not thinking pleasant thoughts. her eyes, which were gazing fixedly at some point in the horizon, saw nothing of the quiet beauty of the spring landscape. her expression was as sad and despairing as her heart. the mask she wore in public had fallen from her face, and she looked what she was--an unhappy, sorely tried woman, and haunted by the bitter memories of the past.... memories of the past! the days of childhood and early youth, which other people look back upon as an eden of light and joy, were a time of which she never thought without a shuddering horror:--the dissipation and penury of the life in her father's house--a life of misery and constant dread.... her mother, a pale, broken-hearted woman, who, foreseeing her husband's ruin, had yet been powerless to prevent it, and who had at last faded and died under the weight of a burden too heavy for her to bear.... she had been the good angel of the house. after her death matters had come to a climax, and everything had to be sold except a small estate to which jadwiga and her father had been removed.... how distinctly she remembered the following years, with their ever-increasing poverty and shame! this last was the worst--it had been harder to bear than even cold and hunger. and the hopelessness of it all!... her father, indeed, had been able to find continual comfort in all the ills of life in the brandy-bottle, and when he had drunk himself into a good humor and hopefulness, it had irritated him to see his daughter's sad tearful face. on such occasions he used to beat her cruelly in order to make her look cheerful!... as jadwiga thought of these things her face wore an expression of utter contempt. alas for those who can only remember their parents with scorn! she grew up to be a beautiful woman, in spite of her tears and the blows she had to bear. but she cursed her beauty, and she cursed the day on which graf adam had first seen her and fallen in love with her. she shuddered as she thought of the day when he had bought her from her father for ten thousand polish gulden; when her father had come to her and had told her that she must be gräfin bortynska, if she did not wish to see him, a gray-haired old man, begging his bread from door to door. she remembered how she had thrown herself at his feet, and entreated him with tears not to give her into the power of that harsh, cruel old man, whom she hated and feared, and who, people said, was a murderer. how she had promised to work for her father and herself, were it even as a domestic servant, swearing that he should never, never starve. but all in vain!... a polanska should never become a household drudge.... and after that she had become graf adam's bride.... her memory of that time was so vivid that it was almost more than she could bear. she started up from her seat, and paced up and down the summer-house with folded arms and tightly compressed lips. but it was of no use; one picture of the past after another rose up before her. once more she lived through that time of misery. she thought of the day when they had dragged her to church, an unwilling victim, and had forced her to perjure her soul in the sight of her god; her god, who had hitherto been the only light and comfort in her dark life, and whom they had thus, as it were, made a lie to her. she thought of the marriage-feast, during which she had first made up her mind that either she or her husband should die before morning. she remembered how slowly the minutes had passed, till she could at length get up and leave the table. she had gone at once to her room, and finding her maid waiting for her, had sent her to bed. she had then turned with loathing from the sight of the luxury surrounding her, and had busied herself with thoughts of vengeance on the man who had forced her to marry him, knowing all the time how she hated him. even now, so many years afterward, she could not help shuddering, when she remembered that she had suddenly gained sufficient calmness to carry out the diabolical plan she had thought of. she recollected how she had taken one of the heavy silver candlesticks on her table, and had gone through all the echoing passages and rooms in the wing in which her rooms were situated. she had avoided looking in any of the mirrors that she passed, fearing to see her own face, for she had a horror of herself. she had at last come to the large folding-doors opening into the picture-gallery. she had gone in. at the end of the long row of portraits, she had seen two leaning against the wall, and on examining them had seen that they were those of the late graf arthur and of her husband. they had come from paris on the previous day, but had not been hung up, because they had been forgotten in the hurry and confusion caused by the preparations for the marriage. she had then lifted the portrait of graf arthur in her arms. it was very heavy, but she had not felt it. she had carried it to her room, and laid it on a table in the middle of the room, and had arranged the wax-candles round it in such a way as thoroughly to illuminate it. then with difficulty controlling her nervous horror, she had sat down in the window and waited. the thoughts that had assailed her during those hours of passive endurance were maddening. it was not until the gray of the early morning that she had heard graf adam's step.... she had risen to meet him, pale and determined, and as he entered she had seen from his face that he had been drinking deeply. his eyes had at once fallen on the portrait of his victim. in the pale gray of the morning, and with the flickering light of the candles falling upon it, the pictured face had seemed alive and about to start out of its frame. she remembered how graf adam had started back on seeing it, and how his drunken senses had reeled with ghostly terror.... that was what she had counted upon.... she had then said in a clear hard voice: "begone!... you are a murderer!... your victim stands between you and me...." and graf adam had turned and staggered from the room. when he had gone, she had sunk back in her chair, with a beating heart and trembling limbs. a minute later she had heard a shot. gräfin jadwiga closed her eyes, hoping thus to change the current of her thoughts. she clasped her hands over her face. in vain! the memories of the past persistently haunted her!... she thought of the wretched time she had passed through immediately after her husband's death--when she had been expected to weep and show grief for his death, although her only feeling had been a dumb horror. she had gone abroad as soon as she could. life at the castle would have been unendurable in those days. she remembered how she had shone as a queen of fashion in luxurious paris _salons_. she had seemed happy then, for her smile had been frequent, and her conversation both brilliant and witty. but in reality she had not been happy, because she had not been able to forget, and because the gay world and its amusements had not filled the void in her heart. then temptation had come to her.... a fair-haired, pale, foolish ruler: the curse of his country; the worthy son of a half-imbecile father and a vicious mother. pah! she had thrust him from her presence in disgust. but hundreds of others had been at her feet, not only rich and handsome, but also good and true-hearted men. and she had loved none of them. her hour had at last struck. she had gone to baden-baden.... there she had met doctor friedrich reimann, private physician of prince sugatscheff, and she had learned to love him as he loved her. and then she had lost him--by her own fault, as her heart had told her many a time.... she had never been able to make reparation, for he had disappeared immediately after that fatal hour, and though she had tried to find him, she had never been able to do so. and she had smiled, jested, and ruled over her intimates as before. but her heart was no longer empty, it was filled with a bitter repentance. she had borne it for a long time, but at last the life she was leading had become utterly distasteful to her. she had then returned home, in the hope of forgetting what had happened, or, at any rate, of finding relief in no longer being obliged to wear a mask of happiness. there she had found the man for whom she had sought. she had found him under circumstances she could not understand. but what did that matter? no one could prevent her marrying whom she would.... she longed to repair the wrong she had once done. she longed to be happy, and to make her lover happy.... for the first time in the long hours in which she had been sitting alone in the summer-house she smiled, and it was a smile of hope and love.... * * * * * a breath of spring penetrated even the dark labyrinth of the jewish town on that day, making the anxious forget their anxieties, and the sick their sufferings. the bright warm sunshine spread hope and joy around. bocher david found nearly all of his patients better and more cheerful. he talked longer than usual with each of them, and promised almost solemnly to see them next day. after that he went to the castle. the fat porter told him that the frau gräfin was waiting for him in the summer-house in the park. he went there, and entered with his usual expression of gentle gravity. she hastened to meet him, and putting her hand in his, said: "thank you, friedrich! thank you for coming. i have looked forward to this day, and have hoped so much from it. all will be well now." she paused, as though expecting him to speak. "i have come, frau gräfin," he answered, gravely and quietly, "because you entreated me to do so. and, as circumstances have brought us together again so strangely, i owe you an explanation regarding my dress and my former life. you have a right to it...." her eyes filled with tears when she heard him speak so coldly and gravely. "no, no, friedrich," she exclaimed; "you are cruel. you are angry with me, and you have just cause for anger. but i have suffered so terribly ever since the day when i wrote that dreadful letter.... forgive me for the sake of my sorrow and repentance! oh, forgive me, and don't look at me so sternly!" "i forgave you long ago," he said, more gently. "i told you so before. but you want to do what is impossible. you want to waken the dead, and to strike moments out of our life that are imperishable, because they are too deeply engraved on our memories ever to be forgotten. i know and can understand how you have suffered," he continued, his voice trembling, "because i can compare your feelings with my own. and now, that you may be spared more pain, and may not form hopes that can never be fulfilled, i entreat you to listen to me, although you asked me to come here to listen to you...." when he began to speak she had raised her clasped hands in mute appeal to his compassion, but now she let them fall listlessly to her side, and sighed deeply. she then resumed her seat, and motioned to him to take a chair opposite. he sat down, and went on firmly and decidedly: "i was born at barnow, and am the son of the late rabbi. the people there were very kind to me in their own way after my father's death, but i was ungrateful, and mistook their meaning. i left the place after my mother died. i can still remember the dismal, misty autumn morning when i ran away as distinctly as if it were yesterday. i had no money, but jews are always kind and charitable to the poor. i traveled through galicia and poland, remaining sometimes for a few weeks with a rabbi, who was good enough to take me as a pupil; but none of the teaching i received entirely satisfied me. i went on farther. in course of time i reached wilna, where rabbi naphtali, the celebrated cabalist, has a school. under his guidance i learned to know the 'cabala'--that strange, deep, mysterious book, containing the profoundest wisdom and religious teaching of our people. i threw myself into its study with the utmost enthusiasm. that was my misfortune, if you like to call it so. i went through that time of doubt when all dogmatic religion appears to be glaringly false--a time which no young man who thinks at all about these subjects can fail to pass through, and during which he boldly and determinately endeavors to grasp the inconceivable. "my knowledge appeared small and narrow. i strove to make it both wider and higher. the german people, with their great poets and thinkers, were irresistibly attractive to me. i studied their language carefully; and by dint of teaching, and exercising an economy that was almost miserly, i at last succeeded in making enough money to go to germany. i set out at a most fortunate moment for myself, for it chanced that i made the acquaintance of old prince sugatscheff at a small town on the borders of lithuania. he was of the truest nobility: he was a noble-minded man. prince alexius, whom you met at baden-baden, was his son, frau gräfin." "i remember," she answered, in a low voice. "well," he continued, "the young polish jew, who knew lessing, and delighted in schiller's poetry, awakened his sympathy. he gave me the means of studying. the ancient world was now revealed to me in the books to which i had access at college. i saw it in all its cheerful light-heartedness, and also in its thoughtfulness and depth. but that was not the kind of knowledge for which i thirsted. i then made natural science my principal study. my researches were all confined to the realm of matter. at length the need of leading a practically active life grew more and more apparent to me. the fire of youth had begun to smolder; i gave up trying to raise the veil of isis, and endeavoring to discover the reason of every natural phenomenon. i became a doctor, and i can now say that i made a reputation for skill in my profession. i had changed my name. david blum would have had many stumbling-blocks and disagreeables in his path that friedrich reimann was spared. i did not change my religion with my name--from habit, if you like--for i was indifferent to every form of dogmatic religion. "my practice increased, and i became one of the first physicians in the northern seaport town where i had settled. then old prince sugatscheff was taken ill in paris, and sent for me. it was his last illness. before his death, he entreated me to be a faithful friend to his young son, and to accompany him everywhere as his private physician until i thought him capable of taking care of himself, and of withstanding the temptations of the great world. i gave him the promise that destroyed my own career; but he was the only man who had felt a real friendship for me, and he was the only one whom i loved next to my mother. "i discovered the whole responsibility and painfulness of my position very soon after his death. prince alexius was a light-minded and depraved, if not absolutely bad man. i did my duty without caring whether it made him dislike me or not; he respected me at least. it was a time of great anxiety and trouble; one thing alone sustained me, and that was the consciousness of having done my duty. then we went to baden-baden, where i made your acquaintance, frau gräfin...." she had until now listened to him with bent head, but at these words she fixed her eyes upon his face, as though awaiting a sentence of life or death. and he continued, with a slight quiver in his voice: "i will not attempt to recall the events of that happy time to your memory. i loved you with all my heart and soul, and i know that you loved me. if it is any comfort to you to know it, let me tell you that i never doubted your love for me, even at the moment when you wounded me most deeply. but there is one thing i ought to tell you, and that is why i did not then inform you of all that you now know. i did not conceal it from any false shame about my past or my religion, but simply because i never thought of it. you were my first love, and my sad restless heart found rest and happiness in you. i shall always be grateful to you for that short time of unalloyed happiness. first love knows nothing of the past, and does not look forward to the future. the german poet was right when he wrote, 'first love does not know that it must die, as a child does not know what death is, although it may often hear of it.' my love was so great that i did not guess that your love might change when you learned that a jewish mother had borne me, and that i had been a poor talmudist. it was not because you were the gräfin jadwiga bortynska that i loved you, but because you were you--a noble high-minded woman, whose heart beat in response to mine. i could never have felt a different kind of love than this, for the experience of life had made me grave and proud. what separates us now, and must separate us for ever, is that you were not what i thought you, that you could not rise above the prejudices of your station--it is that, and that alone.... "i did not just come to this conviction," he went on, his voice once more sounding clear and full, "during the long years that have passed since we parted; i felt it even in that dark hour when i read the letter in which you wrote, 'if you are really a jew, if rumor tells the truth about your past life, all is over between us now and for ever.' even then i knew that the breach was irreparable, and that our love was a blunder; so i did not do as another in my position might have done, i did not try to appeal to what little love for me might still remain in your heart--i went away. "i went away to france, to england, and from there to america. but i carried my sorrow with me wherever i went. i suffered much, and had a hard struggle before i could think of all that had happened with less pain; for you had been the sunshine and spring of my life; and when my faith in you was destroyed, it seemed as if faith in everything else must go with it. but in time i conquered that feeling. when my suffering was worst to bear, i devoted my life to the care of the sick and wretched; for it had changed me. in the old days i had worked for name and fame, and from an intense love of knowledge. pride and self-seeking had induced me to put out all my powers to get on in the world, but my own sorrow taught me to feel for others, and to determine that henceforth my life should be spent in strengthening and upholding my brother men, as far as in me lay. i was tired, dreadfully tired, when the battle was over. i can not bend under the blast of misfortune, but am broken by it. it is my nature; i can not help it. where could i work better than at home? so i came back to barnow, to the people who had been kind to me in my childhood, and to the graves of my parents.... i returned to a faith in a god of love and mercy, and worship him in the religious forms i have been accustomed to since my infancy. it was not repentance that brought this about, for i had not been a sinner. it was not any desire to propitiate the deity, for i feel neither hope nor desire of any kind. it was an unspeakably deep, an unspeakably anxious longing for a firm support to which i could cling in the darkness, sorrow, and confusion in which i was plunged.... i learned to love my people again--my poor, despised, persecuted people--and, in order to be one with them, i resumed their dress. i have not made a name for myself, as was once my ambition, but have become a poor and simple tender of the sick; but many people down there in barnow, both jew and christian, have turned their hearts to god for my sake. perhaps i might have gained the fame for which i used to thirst, if i had remained in the rush of life; but here it is better--i do my work and feel no pain. i have ceased to ask, as i often did in the bitterness of anger and misery, why all this should have come upon me, and what i had done to deserve it. i am now at peace, and am therefore happy: i have learned renunciation!..." he was silent. the setting sun cast its light over the lake and the blossoming trees outside, and it also rested like a glory on the calm pale face of the speaker. after a short pause he continued: "i did not know that you were the possessor of my native town until you arrived at the castle a few weeks ago. i hoped that we should never meet again: for your sake. i knew that if we did, your pain and repentance would be reawakened; for you loved me too, though it was with a different love." he ceased speaking. she did not answer. she only sobbed--a low, shuddering sob, as from a broken heart. he rose to go. then she once more approached him, her face deadly pale, and heavy tears falling from her widely opened eyes. "so this is the end," she murmured almost inaudibly. "the end.... i have found you only to lose you for ever. friedrich! friedrich!... it will kill me...." he looked at her compassionately, and then said very gently: "you will also gain calmness and peace, and then you will be happier. you will then understand that i could not have acted otherwise." she sighed deeply. "i am severely punished," she said, with trembling lips. "i must pay for the weakness of a moment with the misery of a long, long life. but there is one thing i can not have you do. you must not despise me. i was induced to write you that letter by the devilish machination of a wretch, who knew how to make use of the prejudice that my people feel against yours--a prejudice i learned in my earliest childhood." "i thought so," he interrupted her, mildly. "i have felt the effects of that prejudice sorely. i forgive you all the more easily. but who was it?" "prince alexius sugatscheff," she answered. "what! that man!" he exclaimed contemptuously; but immediately forced back the words he would have uttered, and continued quietly: "thank you for telling me this. it makes it easier for me to forgive myself for having partly broken my promise to the old prince...." it had grown darker in the summer-house now, and the sun had set. "good-by, jadwiga," he said, in a low voice. "be happy!"--he took her hand in his--"and never forget that we shall meet again one day." she could not speak. she stood in the middle of the room listening, until the last echo of his footsteps died away, and then fell fainting on the floor.... the next day found baron starsky as troubled in mind and as thoughtful as on the previous day. gräfin jadwiga had gone away very early in the morning. nobody knew where. he was much put out, for in spite of the curious scene he had witnessed between her and "that beast of a jew," he would perhaps--have married her. the man against whom his wrath was roused was however at that very moment lovingly stroking the boyish head of the writer of these pages, and comforting him in his sorrow. he had just told the boy that he could be his teacher no longer, for he must now give every moment of his time to the sick and miserable. * * * * * the jewish burial-ground at barnow is a pretty and quiet place--a place that brings thoughts of peace and not of terror--especially in summer, when the blue sky smiles down upon the little field with its fresh green grass and sweet-scented flowers. a blossoming elder-bush is to be found close to the crumbling headstone of every grave. there is one on the bocher's grave, as on all of the others. i have often sat under it and thought of the man who sleeps beneath its shadow. and whenever i went there i used to read the beautiful and touchingly simple words upon the headstone, which tell how he had devoted himself to the help of the helpless and the care of the sick, and how he had, like a true hero, died at his post.... he went "home" a year after the interview i have described between him and gräfin jadwiga. low fever was very prevalent in the "gasse" that winter. david saved all he could, and never spared himself in any way. at last he also took it. he recovered from the fever, but his strength was so much weakened by it, that he fell into a decline, and faded slowly but visibly. he never ceased his labors until he was actually confined to bed. there he lay quietly, and hardly liked people to put themselves out of the way by nursing him. he sent for me a few days before his death, so i went to see him. he looked pale and ill, and was lying beside the open window, through which the first breath of spring was penetrating his close room. "i am glad that you have come," he said, with a kind smile. "i have something to say to you before i die...." he paused a moment, and then went on: "i was very wrong when i spoke to you about vengeance and retribution for the humiliation we have suffered. i entreat you to forget that, and always wait and think, in the spirit of the words i then quoted to you--'forgive them, for they know not what they do.' i know that a hasty word is often deeply engraved on a child's mind, so i want you to put your hand in mine, and promise that you will do this, and will try not to allow yourself to think such thoughts as those i uttered in my anger." i promised him with passionate tears. boy as i was, i could not help feeling the greatness of soul shown by this man, who, even when he was dying, had time to think of doing good to others. "you are crying, foolish child," he said, gently. "you should not do so. have i not often been face to face with death before? and, believe me, death is not terrible--he comes as a friend and comforter to man. it is true that i should have liked to have lived a little longer, and to have gone on with the work i had undertaken; but god, who rules our lives, has willed that it should not be so. his will be done!..." he pushed my hair back from my forehead, and placing his hand on my head in blessing, added: "good-by, my child! good-by! and ... may you be happier than your teacher!" the last words were said so low that i could scarcely hear them. one beautiful bright spring morning his attendant found him dead, with a smile upon his lips. gräfin jadwiga is still alive, and is still a beautiful woman. who can tell whether she is happy, or whether, at the bottom of her heart, there is not a sad remembrance of the man whom she had really loved after her own fashion? she painted the picture of christ--that strange product of religious enthusiasm and human love--in switzerland during the summer that succeeded david blum's death. the art she had once followed as an amusement now, perhaps, brought her comfort; and the picture also showed that she had understood the nobility and greatness of the self-sacrifice made by the jew for her sake and his own. this is the story of the picture of christ at barnow. it is strange and sad, as i said before; but do not blame me for that, for my heart bleeds when i remember this over-true tale, which must be regarded as one of the dark riddles of life, and as the doing of that eternal, inscrutable power that deals out darkness or light, happiness or misery, to the weak human heart.... nameless graves. ( .) the last time that i went there was on a beautiful, still autumn day. the sunshine was brightening the landscape, and the only sound to be heard was the faint crackling of the withered leaves on the bushes by the wayside. i followed the winding path that ran through the fields and gardens. i was alone, but i knew the place so well that i did not need to ask my way; for i always go there when i revisit my old home, and every year i become more attached to it. every year the number of acquaintances to whom it leads me grows more numerous; indeed, the day will soon come when none of them will be found in the little town, for all will be there.... it was the "good place" to which i was going; and as this is the only place to which neither the pole's whip nor the covetous hand of the wonder-working rabbi can reach, the name is a good one. here each poor soul is freed from the double ban--and who can count its victims?--that ground him down, and stifled the good that was in him. he is delivered alike from outward humiliation and from the dark night of ignorance. none of these people could have been called really happy until they died. then, it is true, they know nothing about it, but they feel that it must be so even while they are alive; so they have given their burial-ground the beautiful name of the "good place," and take care to make it as fair to look upon as they can. it never occurs to the eastern jews to plant trees or sow annuals there; but the fresh green grass is allowed to cover the graves, and blossoming elders grow by every headstone. their burial-ground was the only bit of land these people were allowed to possess until a few years ago!... the "good place" at barnow is as sweet a spot as is to be found anywhere. i have already described what it was like in late spring when the elders were in blossom, filling the air with a perfume that was almost too powerful, and when the red and purple berries were beginning to show among the leaves. in autumn the bushes are shorn of much of their former beauty, but they are pleasant to look at even then in their own way. the air in september is so wonderfully clear and bright, and the autumnal tints are so vivid, that they lend the somewhat uninteresting landscape a beauty of their own. the moor is never a cheerful place, and it looks more calm and solemn than ever in autumn; but not _triste_--the heather glows with too deep a red, and the foliage of the limes fades into too soft a yellow for that. here and there a pond may be seen with its dark, clear waters. any one going to the burial-ground through country such as this, can not fail, i think, to be impressed with its quiet beauty. but perhaps i am not a good judge of that; perhaps one must have been born in a moorland country to be able to appreciate it.... the "good place" lies on a hill, from which one has an extensive view on all sides. from thence one can see ten ponds, hard by which some villages are situated, whose houses, roofed with brown thatch, resemble collections of bee-hives; and finally, at the foot of the hill is the town, which has a very respectable appearance from there, although, in reality, it is neither more nor less than a wretchedly dirty hole. one is able to breathe more freely when enjoying such an extensive view, such a wide horizon-line. for to east, north, and south the only limit is the sky, and on gray days the same is the case to the west. but when the air is clear and bright, one can see what looks like a curiously-shaped blue-gray bank of cloud on the western horizon. on seeing it for the first time one is inclined to believe that a storm is brewing there. but the cloud neither increases nor decreases in size, and though its outline may seem to shift now and then, it stands fast for ever--it is the carpathian range of mountains.... but it is beautiful close to where one is standing also. it is true that the queer, twisted branches of the elders are now leafless and bare of blossom and fruit, but they are interlaced with a delicate network of spiders' webs that tremble and glow with prismatic colors in the sunlight. their deep-red leaves cover the graves, and between the hillocks are flowering asters. the graves are well cared for; the jewish people have a great reverence for the majesty of death. to the jews, death is a mighty and somewhat stern ruler, who is kindly disposed to poor humanity, and draws them to him in mercy. these people do not like to die, but death is easier and pleasanter to them than to others, for their belief in immortality is more absolute than that of any other nation. this belief is not merely founded on self-love, but on love to god. is not god all-just? and where would be his justice if he did not requite them in the other world for all the misery heaped upon them while they lived on earth? and yet they cling to this earth, and regard all the blessedness of heaven as a state of transition, a preparation and foretaste of the fuller blessedness of earth after the coming of the messiah. it is therefore serving god to bury the dead. it is therefore serving god to tend the graves of those who are gone. even the oldest and most weather-beaten gravestone is propped up and steadied by some great-grandson, or perhaps one who was no blood relation of the deceased, and who was only moved to do it because the sleeper had once been a man like himself who had felt the joys and sorrows of humanity. he was a jew, and he should find his resting-place in order when the trumpet should sound. some people may look upon this belief as ludicrous, but i could never feel it so.... one's heart and mind are full of many thoughts as one wanders up the hill between the rows of graves. i do not mean those eternal questions which one generation inherits as a legacy of torment from those that have preceded it, and to which only fools suppose they can give an adequate answer. verily, we all hope for such an answer, for we are all fools, poor fools, with an eternal bandage covering our eyes, and an eternal thirst for knowledge filling our spirits. but why touch unnecessarily on such deep subjects? i mean questions of a different kind from these. whoever, for example, walks through that part of the cemetery where the hill slopes down gently to the plain below, near the river, can not help thinking of the evil consequences of two polish nobles determining to show themselves humane at the same time. on four hundred headstones the same year is chiseled as the date of death--the same year, the same day, the same hour--it is an unspeakable history. wet? no! drowned in blood and tears! and it all came from a contemporaneous desire for the exercise of the virtue of humanity! during the time that the polish kings had power in the land, the jagellons protected the jews, who paid them tribute in return. but as the royal authority became of less and less account--still existent, more because it refused to die than because any remnant of power remained to it--the waywodes, and in the flat land the starosts, snatched at the chance of taking the jews under their protection; they were one and all so filled to overflowing with the milk of human kindness. a large and rich jewish community lived in barnow, so it was regarded as doing god good service to take care of so great a number of men who were capable of paying considerable taxes with ease. two starosts--those of tulste and of old barnow--drew up in battle array, one at each side of the town, and each sent a message to the following effect to the jewish community: "if you do not choose me as your protector, i shall at once put you and your possessions to fire and sword." the unfortunate jews had not much time granted them in which to deliberate; they quickly gathered together all the ready money that they could, and bought the protection of both. this conduct brought down further misfortunes upon the poor people. the starosts were both philanthropists, and both wished to fulfill the duty they had undertaken. neither trusted the other with a work of such importance, and each determined to put his rival to the proof; so the starost of old barnow began to murder and plunder the jews at one end of the town, and then waited to see whether the other would do his duty and protect his _protégés_. but, unfortunately, his rival was equally determined to try the worth of his promises, and had been doing exactly the same at the other end. thus neither gained his object. good men seldom attain what they strive for! the terrible carnage lasted for three days and three nights.... the mild autumn sunshine falls as softly on the graves of these murdered people as elsewhere, and the asters are larger and more perfect between these closely massed hillocks; the grasshoppers chirp merrily in the grass and moss that cover them, and the autumn threads spun by the busy spider wave to and fro in the gentle breeze. peace and quiet reign here also--a peace as restful as in any other part of the "good place;" and yet it seems to me as though a sudden cry must arise from these graves, as though a piercing, agonized cry must break the stillness of all around; and that cry would not be one of mourning, but of accusation, and not alone of the starosts of tulste and old barnow.... there are many other graves besides these that bear the same date ... those, for instance, that were filled in the days when a czartoryski hunted the jews because there was so little game left in the neighborhood. and then, again, in this very century, in those three terrible summers when the wrath of god--the cholera--raged throughout the great plain. grass makes more resistance against the scythe than these people did, in their narrow pestiferous streets, against the great plague. the graves are innumerable, and the field in which they lie is a very large one; but the community now living in barnow is much smaller than one would think on seeing the cemetery. but the very poorest creature who is given a resting-place and headstone there, has it in perpetuity; none will disturb his rest until, as they say, the last trumpet sounds.... the headstone on every grave is of the same shape. no eccentric monumental tablets are to be seen, and no artistically carved figure is represented on any of the gravestones--the jewish faith forbids all such adornments. the only difference in these stones lies in the fact that those of the poor are small, and those of the rich large; that the inscription on the poor man's headstone shows him to have been an honest man, and that on the rich man's makes him out to have been the noblest man who ever lived--that is all; for even the arrangement of the inscription is strictly ordained in the talmodim. the insignia of the tribe is put first, then the name of the deceased, followed by those of his parents, and after that his occupation in life. sometimes this last is passed over in silence, for "usurer" or "informer" would not look well upon a tomb, to say nothing of worse things. in such cases the friends content themselves with putting, "he was indefatigable in the study of his religion, and loved his children"--and, as a rule, this was true. whoever reads these inscriptions will see that he need go no further in search of the island of the blessed, or of the garden of eden, where angels walk about in human form--that is to say, if he believes the inscriptions. the semitic race goes further in showing reverence for the dead than any other. the romans contented themselves with "_de mortuis nil nisi bonum_." they demanded that the dead should be spoken of with kindness and respect, maintaining that such conduct was only seemly in face of the majesty of death and the helplessness of the dead. the semites go further than this: they exact that only good should be spoken of the dead. and if any man is so terrible a sinner that no good is to be found in him, they keep silence regarding him.... they keep silence. the worst anathema known to this people is, "his name shall be blotted out." and so in such cases they do not inscribe his name upon his headstone. there is many a nameless grave in podolian burial-grounds. this is meant as a punishment, as a requital of the evil the man had done while on earth. and, again, it is meant in mercy: for on the day when the kingdom of god shall come, the heavenly trumpets can not alone waken the sleepers; the angel of eternal life is to do that. he will go from stone to stone, and call the dead by the name inscribed on the headstone--the righteous to unspeakable blessedness, and the wicked to unspeakable punishment. if no name is carved upon the stone, he will perhaps pass on without arousing the sleeper. perhaps!--all hope that it may be so, in mercy to the sinner!... there are many nameless graves in the "good place" at barnow, and in some cases the punishment may have been well deserved. it is often the hardest that has reached the criminal. the black deed has been done, and the darkness of the ghetto hid the crime. the podolian jews fear the world, and a christian is supreme in the imperial court of justice. they do not like to deliver their sinful brother into the hands of an alien. they punish him themselves as they best can: he must spend much money on good objects, or make a pilgrimage to jerusalem, or fast every second day for years. his crime is hidden as long as he lives, and it is only after his death that it is discovered. some very curious things are also looked upon as crimes, and punished in the same way. whoever hears of such can hardly help asking a very bitter question--a very ancient and grimly bitter question, that can never die out as long as the human race continues to exist on the face of the earth.... for example, an old beggar once formed part of the jewish community at barnow--a discharged soldier who had been crippled in the wars. no one did anything for him. the christians would not help him because he was a jew, and the jews would not do it because he had eaten christian food for so long, and because he was in the habit of swearing most blasphemously. perhaps neither of these sins was entirely his own fault: for no army in the world has ever put its commissariat under the charge of a rabbi since the maccabees fell asleep; and as for profane swearing, it may be as much part and parcel of an old soldier as an acorn is of an oak. but, however that may be, his co-religionists took both of these circumstances in very bad part, and provided him with nothing but daily lumps of black bread, and on friday afternoons with seven kreutzers. even an old beggar could not live properly in barnow on so small an allowance, and the poor old man suffered frequently from the pangs of hunger. so when the day of atonement came round again--the strictest fast-day in the whole year--he found no pleasure in abstaining from food, for hunger was no unusual feeling with him. he was discovered on that day behind a pillar of the bridge with a bit of sausage in his hand. he was not ill-treated, nor was his allowance diminished: and yet fate would have been kind to him had he died in that hour: for were i to relate all that happened to the old man, i think that the hardest heart could not fail to be touched. but fate is seldom kind: he lived for many years. when he died, his rich relations put a headstone on his grave, but left it blank. but i think--i think, that the dead soldier is not nearly so much pained by this, as he was by much that they did to him when he was alive.... close to the old soldier sleeps a man who met with a like fate. a very strange man he was--chaim lippener by name, and by trade a shoemaker. people who follow that trade have often a great liking for philosophical speculation, perhaps because of the sedentary life they lead. our chaim was also a philosopher after his own fashion. he never rose above the basis of all investigation--doubt; and his favorite expression was, "who knows the truth?" as the pale little man felt himself unable to answer the question by means of speculation, he determined to try whether experience could not help him. he went from one sect to the other--from the "chassidim," or enthusiasts, to the "misnagdim," who were zealous for the scriptures; then he joined the former again, and afterward went over to the "karaits." then he took refuge under the banner of the wonder-working rabbi of sadagóra, after which he remained among the "aschkenasim"--those are in favor of german culture--for a year, and finally became a cabalist. this he was for a long time; and as his boots and shoes were good and well-made, people troubled themselves very little about his midnight studies and his profoundly mystical talk. but one cold, white moonlight night, when some men who had remained until an unusually late hour at the wine-shop were returning home, they found a man kneeling motionlessly in the snow at the foot of the great crucifix at the dominican monastery, his arms stretched out as though to embrace the christ. they stood still and gazed at the unwonted sight in astonishment, but their surprise was changed into horror when they saw that the solitary worshiper was none other than chaim. they drew nearer, but he did not hear their footsteps. suddenly he began to speak aloud, and in a sobbing, tremulous voice uttered a prayer in the holy language: it was the blessing which is prescribed to the traveler when he sees the sun rise as he journeys along. the listeners were at once filled with pious wrath; they threw themselves upon the little man, beat him unmercifully, and chased him home. next morning there was great excitement in the "gasse;" even the most indifferent went up to the synagogue to pray, partly from religious motives, to entreat god not to avenge the sin of the individual upon the community--and partly from curiosity, for every one wanted to know what penance the rabbi and the council would impose upon the sinner. the congregation did not disperse as usual after the conclusion of the service. the council took their plans. but the culprit was not there, for the excitement and the beating he had undergone had proved too much for his feeble strength--he had fallen ill. as his presence was necessary, some men were sent to fetch him. they brought him on a mattress. a great clamor arose as he was borne up the aisle, and all those who stood near relieved their hearts by spitting upon him. then the rabbi commanded silence, and began a long speech, in which the place where eternal darkness and eternal cold reign, the place to which the wicked are relegated after death, took a prominent part. having thus spoken, he turned to the accused and asked him what he had to say in his own favor. but whether it was that the sick man could not speak, or that he had nothing to say, none can tell--he remained silent, and only shook his head. this conduct increased the general indignation; the rabbi made a solemn remonstrance, and the others spat upon the offender. at length the little man raised himself upon his pillows, looked at the zealots with quiet earnestness, and began to speak. the words he uttered were few, and consisted merely of his favorite question, "who knows the truth?" the scene that followed may easily be imagined. those men who were not carried away by fanatical zeal, protected chaim with their own bodies: had they not done so, his offense had been washed out in his blood then and there. at last, quiet being restored, the rabbi was able to pronounce judgment. i do not remember what the fine imposed on chaim lippener amounted to; but so much i know, that he had to leave wife and child, and set out on a pilgrimage to jerusalem, from whence he was never to return. he was commanded to tell every community he passed on the way what he had done, and to request them to kick him and spit upon him. he was never able to set out on his pilgrimage, for he fell into a decline, and faded away like snow before the sun. he prayed so much during the last months of his illness, that every one was convinced that he was converted, and had turned from the error of his ways. i am the only person who knew better; and as it can no longer injure chaim to tell the truth, i will now do so. when i came home for the holidays in july, his wife came and asked me to go and see him, but begged that it might be in the evening, that no one might notice it. i did so. the sick man was very weak, but he had an immense folio volume resting on his knees, in which he was reading eagerly. after making long and rather confused excuses for the trouble he had given me, he said that he wanted to know whether it was true that the christians had holy scriptures as well as the jews. when i told him that they had, he begged me to try and get him the book. this request affected me curiously, almost painfully; but it was the wish of a dying man, and--"who knows the truth?" i found some difficulty in fulfilling my promise, for chaim could only read hebrew. i sent to vienna for a translation the english bible society had made for mission purposes in palestine. the book was a fortnight in coming, and when it arrived i could not give it to the man; but it did not matter, for he probably knew more then, than he could have learned from that book and all the books in the world.... ah yes! these were strange, very strange, crimes. on that autumn day, as i stood beside the two graves, i felt inclined to stoop down and say to the dead: "forgive your poor brothers; do not be angry with them, for they know not what they do!..." what a peculiar history the jews have had! their strong religion, founded on a rock, was once a protection to them, and saved them from the axes and clubs of their enemies. they would have been destroyed without that protection, for the blows aimed at them were heavy and hard to parry; and for that very reason, they clung to it the more tenaciously, until at last, instead of enlightening their hearts, they made of it a bandage for their eyes. they were not so much to be pitied for this long ago, for then all the world went about with their eyes bandaged. but now, when the light of day is shining in the west, and the dawn has at last broken in the east, they have not raised the bandage one inch. i do not want them to do it too quickly, nor do i want them to throw away their faith; i only desire that they should open their eyes to the light which is shining more and more around them.... it must be so; and it will be so. necessity is the only divinity in which one can believe without doubting or despairing. light will come to them; but no one can tell how long the light will last, or count the victims it will destroy. it is only by accident one hears of them. the living are silent, and the graves are silent, especially those that are nameless. the history of those nameless graves may be shown by a mark of interrogation, hard but not impossible to decipher. my curiosity was excited by the last of those blank headstones set up in the cemetery at barnow. i found it the last time i went there on the beautiful september afternoon i have before described. it was a solitary grave standing apart from the rest. it lay in the hollow near the river, and close to the broken hedge. this in itself was strange, for the dead are generally buried next to each other as their turn comes to die. a family seldom has a plot of ground set apart for itself--very seldom; for all who sleep here are members of the same family. an exception had been made with regard to this grave. not another headstone was to be seen far and wide; but to the right and left of it, as close to it as possible, were two other graves--small graves, unmarked by aught save the tiny hillocks they made. so small were they, that one could scarcely see them under their covering of juniper-bushes and red heather. it was easy to guess who slept there: little boys who had died before they were eight days old, before they had been given a name; and she who lay between them must have been their mother, for the headstone was that of a woman--one could tell that from its shape. hitherto men alone had been given nameless graves, because they alone commit crimes, whether real or imaginary. the jewish woman is good and pious. it was the first woman's grave i had ever seen with a blank headstone. what had she done? i puzzled long in the calm sunny stillness of that autumn day. i made up one story after another, each more extraordinary than the preceding one, to account for it; but again i was to learn that truth is often stranger than fiction. as i sat thinking on the grave, looking from me, and hardly seeing the rainbow tints that the clouds of dancing insects took in the clear air whenever a ray of sunshine touched their wings, i suddenly heard the monotonous drawling sound of mournful voices, and looking up, saw two old men advancing toward me along the hedgerow. they were busied in the exercise of a pious rite that i had not seen for so long, that, now that i saw it again, it struck me as it would have struck a stranger. each of the men was carrying a short yellow wooden stick in his right hand, and round each of the sticks a thread was wound closely and thickly, uniting them to each other; for one end of the thread was wound round one stick, and the other end was wound round the other stick. whenever the men stood still, they held the two sticks close together, and sang their strange duet in mournful unison. then one of them ceased singing, held his stick perpendicularly, and stood as though rooted to the spot; while the other walked on slowly and gravely by the side of the hedge, singing in high nasal tones, and unwinding the thread as he went, in such a manner as to keep it straight and tight. after having gone about thirty paces, he stood still and silent. the other, meanwhile, began to advance toward him, singing in his turn, and winding up the thread, so that the ball on the one stick grew larger and larger, while that on the other stick grew smaller. thus there were alternately one duet and two solos. this is called "measuring the boundaries;" and although it is only done after this fashion in some of the podolian cemeteries, it is yet done in some way or other wherever the jews are to be found. on the anniversary of the day on which a near and dear relation has deceased, it is the custom to measure the borders of the burial-ground in which he rests with a thread, that is afterward used for some pious purpose, such as to form the wick of candles offered in sacrifice, or to sew a prayer-mantle. the custom is the outcome of a sad gloomy symbolism, but it would take up too much room were i to attempt to explain it. i watched the men for a time, and then went up to them, and asked whose was the grave that had interested me. they looked at me mistrustfully. "why do you ask?" one of them at length answered, with hesitation. "because i want to know." "and why do you want to know?" a direct answer would have been too long, so i made him an indirect and shorter reply. one of the two worthy but extremely dirty old men--so dirty that one looked at them in wonder--had a very red nose--a circumstance from which one might infer that he was subject to constant thirst, and was of a cheerful disposition. it is always easy to make one's self understood by a person of that kind. i looked at the man smilingly, as though he were an old friend, and at the same time put my hand in my pocket.... "well--who is it?" i asked. he watched my movements with visible interest, but did not give way as yet. "isn't the name engraved upon the stone?" he inquired. "i should not have asked you what it was if it had been there." "why isn't it there?" my hand came out of my pocket, but the old man was not yet gained over. "why?" he repeated; "because it is a sin even to think of the name of her who lies there! why should i sin by telling you what it is? why should you sin by listening to it? why should reb nathan here sin by listening to us both?" "money spent on the poor will wash out the sin," i replied calmly, pressing something into the old man's hand. but the venerable gentleman was evidently very particular about any matter that might affect the salvation of his soul, so he counted the silver i had given him in a whisper, as if to make sure that i had given him enough. his face now expressed satisfaction; but reb nathan, in his turn, began to feel uneasy. he might easily have gone away, and so escaped the sin of listening; but instead of that, he chose another course of action, although he had not a red nose. when these preliminaries were all settled, the first said, "whose grave is that?" and the other answered, "lea rendar's." which, being interpreted, means, "lea, the daughter of the innkeeper, lies there." but i still looked inquiringly at the two men. "every one knew her!" they exclaimed, in astonishment. "lea of the yellow karezma (inn); the wife of long ruben, who lives near the town-hall; lea with the long hair." i knew now whom they meant, and my curiosity was turned into an anxious interest. "what! she was a sinner?" i cried, in amazement. "was she a sinner?" exclaimed reb abraham, the red-nosed man. "could there have been a greater than she? no: there never was a greater! she trod the law under her feet! and who will be damned for it? she and her husband--ruben of the town-hall! for had he not permitted it, the transgression had never been perpetrated." "another person will also be damned for her sin," cried reb nathan--"gawriel rendar, her father; for if he had brought her up differently, she would never have committed such a trespass against the law." "ah, yes, of course," assented abraham. then, seized with a sudden revulsion of feeling, he pitied the man in whose house his nose had gained its rosy hue, and added more gently: "perhaps the almighty may forgive gawriel after all. how could the poor father ever have guessed that she would do such a horrible thing? none of jewish birth could ever have thought it! but as for ruben--that's different; he is certainly condemned!" "was the crime really so terrible?" "terrible, did you say?--most abominable! didn't you hear of it? an extraordinary story!--a most remarkable and unheard-of story!" they then told me this "remarkable and unheard-of story." and truly it deserved the adjectives they applied to it, although in a different sense from that in which they used them. i can hardly describe my feelings as i write down what i then heard. in the first place, the whole affair sounds so incredible. only those few people in the west who have a slight knowledge of this ignorant fanatical eastern judaism, will be able to comprehend that such things can really be. all others will shake their heads. i can only say that it is a true story; i did not invent it: it really took place. besides that, the story is a very sad one. it fills one with sorrow when one thinks of it.... lea was a very lovely girl. she did not inherit her beauty from either of her parents; for her mother was a dumpy, little red-faced woman, and gawriel rendar, landlord of the large yellow inn on the way to old barnow, was an awkward giant with a muddy complexion, and a face much pitted with small-pox. the two sons, who hung about the house, were by no means ornamental members of society. in short, they were a rascally-looking lot, and their chief occupation was to provide bad spirits for the thirsty, and fling those who had imbibed too much of the villainous compound they sold out-of-doors in a rough-and-ready manner. it was in this house and among these people that the loveliest, merriest child grew up into a gentle modest girl. lea bergheimer was more like a sunbeam than any one i ever knew. her head was crowned with a wealth of shining golden hair. a jewess is seldom fair; and when she happens to be so, is, as a general rule, anything but good-looking. the beautiful women of this race have either brown or black hair. but lea was an exception. indeed, she was not at all of the jewish type except in her slender, upright, graceful figure. her face was of the highest germanic type: small, delicate features, rosy cheeks, and deep violet eyes. the expression of her face was bright and intelligent. there is a seventeenth-century picture in one of the side rooms of the belvedere at vienna of a viennese burgher maiden painted by an italian. the original was a german girl, but the artist has given her face the impress of the "spirit, fire, and dew" that animate so many southern natures. that picture might have been a portrait of lea, the resemblance to her was so strong. the darkest place may be lighted by a sunbeam; so pretty lea brought light and joy into the noisy inn. it is scarcely necessary to say how devoted her parents and brothers were to her, and how in their awkward way they delighted to do her honor, watching over her and anticipating her slightest wish in the most touching way. old gawriel was well-to-do in the world, for his spirit-shop stood in a central place, and no landlord in podolia understood better than he the art of watering schnapps, and of doubling the chalked score of any one who went upon tick. but he spent so much upon lea, that it was really wonderful that he was able to lay by anything. he did not have the girl educated--she learned nothing but what jewish women in eastern europe are taught; but he used to dress her on week-days as rich men did not dress their daughters on new-year's day. her family had unintentionally done their best to make her vain and coquettish. and other people had done their part; the women through their jealousy, and the men through their admiration. lea awakened feelings in the hearts of the young men of barnow such as were seldom to be found there. for, as a general rule, the long-haired jewish youth never even thinks of any girl until his father tells him that he has chosen a wife for him. he sometimes sees his bride for the first time at his betrothal, but in a great many cases he does not see her until his marriage-day; and then, whether she pleases him or not, he makes up his mind to get used to her, and generally succeeds. but many thought of lea; and as she walked down the street, people would turn and look at her--a thing hitherto unknown. even in the "klaus," where the quiet, dreamy, and very dirty talmudists bent over their heavy folios, her name was sometimes mentioned, followed by many a deep sigh. beautiful lea knew nothing of this. but other people took care that she should not remain in doubt as to whether she pleased them or not. the school-boys who came home to barnow for the holidays were all in love with her and esterka regina, another beautiful jewish girl whose life was a sad one. then there were the young nobles, who were in the habit of stopping at the door of gawriel's inn for a glass of schnapps and a little conversation. but the boldest of all were the hussar officers, who got into the habit of spending hours in the bar-room, without making any way with the girl. lea was vain, but she was thoroughly good and modest. jewish women are, as a rule, kind, charitable, and sympathetic with others; but lea was even more so than the generality--so the poor used to bless her and reverence her. the girl's great weakness was, that she was in love with her own beauty, and especially with that of her splendid hair. when she loosened her heavy plaits, her hair used to infold her like a mantle of cloth-of-gold, descending to her knees--a mantle of which any queen would have been proud. it was this that gained for her her nickname of "lea with the long hair...." the jews of barnow were firmly convinced that lea would never marry. the women hoped and the men feared that it would be so. she grew up, was seventeen, eighteen, nineteen years old, and yet had never deemed any of her suitors worthy of her hand. such a thing was unheard of among the podolian jews, who usually marry at a very early age. but old gawriel acted differently from most fathers--he let his daughter decide her own fate. lea's answer to all her suitors was a short, resolute "no." and after the day when josef purzelbaum was dismissed in like fashion, although he was the son of the richest man in the whole district--and also little chaim machmirdas, who was nearly connected by marriage with the great rabbi of sadagóra--no other suitor ventured to come forward. the rejection of a member of the holy family of sadagóra filled every one with amazement, and many looked upon it as tantamount to blasphemy. but lea was not to be moved, and continued to drive the match-makers to despair. in the end these good people scarcely dared to set foot in the inn, although there are no quieter and more considerate men in the world than the jewish match-makers in podolia. but one of them, herr itzig türkischgelb, used to say: "i am an old man, but i have not yet given up the hope of living to see lea's marriage and the coming of the messiah. but, truly, i think the latter will take place first." itzig türkischgelb always liked his joke. at last lea's engagement was announced. and when the name of the fortunate suitor was made known, the astonishment of all was even greater than at the fact of the engagement. for ruben rosenmann--or ruben of the town-hall, as he was called, because of the position of his shop--was neither rich nor of a pious family; and besides that he was a widower. he was a handsome man, tall and dignified, and of a grave and serious disposition. he was particular about his dress, and wore his caftan about a span shorter than any one else. he had spent two years in a large town called brody, and had learned to read, speak, and write high german. perhaps this was the reason that he was looked upon as a freethinker, which he certainly was not, for he followed all the commands, not only of religion, but also of superstition, with a slavish obedience. when lea was asked why she had chosen him of all people, her only answer was, "because i like him." it was an unheard-of reason for a podolian jewess to give: so no one believed that it could be the real reason. many questions were asked of the match-makers, but they could throw no light on the subject. even türkischgelb had to confess that this engagement was not brought about by his diplomacy. ruben had sent him to lea; but the girl had refused to listen to him, saying, "let him come and speak to me himself if he has anything to say." ruben went to see her. the two young people had a long conversation that lasted fully two hours. no one, not even the girl's parents, knew what they had talked about during their interview. but old gawriel heard ruben say in a loud impressive voice: "very well--if you have set your heart upon it, i consent. it is not a sin in the sight of god, although our people regard it as such. keep your secret carefully; for, were it discovered, it would cause the destruction of us both." the father tried in vain to persuade lea to tell him her secret. the marriage took place soon afterward. lea was lovelier than ever as she stood under the "trauhimmel." and yet her richest ornament, her golden hair, was wanting. no married woman is allowed to wear her own hair, which is always cut short, and sometimes even shaved, before the wedding. the head is then covered with a high erection made of wool or silk, called a _scheitel_. stern and ancient custom demands this. for a married woman to wear her own hair, would not merely be regarded as immodest, but as a terrible sin against god. lea permitted no one to lay a finger on her hair, but locking herself into her room, cut it off with her own hands.... contrary to expectation, the marriage was a happy one; and more wonderful still, lea was a humble, obedient wife. the most envious could not deny that ruben was a lucky fellow. no one knew it better than he did, and, when he heard that lea hoped soon to be a mother, his joy knew no bounds. but, unfortunately, this hope was not fulfilled; the child was born dead, and before it was expected. the doctor said it was in consequence of a chill from which lea had been suffering; but the rabbi of barnow was of a different opinion. he sent for lea, and asked if she had not broken some commandment in secret, and so brought down upon herself the judgment of god. lea turned very pale, but answered firmly, "no, rabbi." this happened in spring. one autumn day, a year and a half afterward, lea had a son; but it only lived six days. the doctor said it had died of apoplexy, like many other new-born babies. lea wept bitterly; but when the rabbi came to her and repeated the question he had before asked her, she again answered shortly and firmly, "no, rabbi." in the following summer lea knew that she was to become a mother for the third time. she felt oppressed by a foreboding that the same sorrow as before would come to her. she took every precaution, and ruben watched over her anxiously and tenderly. but when the day of atonement came round, she insisted on spending the whole day in the synagogue fasting, in spite of her husband's remonstrances and the doctor's having forbidden her to do so. that was the cause of her destruction. the old synagogue was dreadfully close that day, and worse than close; it was filled with a most disagreeable and sickening odor of candles, and of an uncleanly congregation that had spent hours within its walls praying and weeping. it was an atmosphere in which the strongest person might have been overcome with faintness; so that its effects on a delicate woman in lea's condition may be readily imagined. her head began to swim, and, uttering a low cry, she fell from her prayer-stool in a swoon. the women quickly surrounded her, and tried to bring her to herself. they loosened her dress, and thrust two or three smelling-bottles under her nose at the same time. all at once they started back: a wild shriek from a hundred throats echoed through the building; it was followed by silence--the silence of dread.... lea's _scheitel_ had become displaced, and her glorious hair, which had been confined within the _scheitel_, flowed over her shoulders, and crowned her pale beautiful face as with a golden halo. that was lea's secret. the scene that followed can not be described; an idea of it can hardly be conveyed to a stranger. the stillness was broken by wild shouts of rage, curses, and struggling. quick as lightning the news flew to the body of the synagogue, where the men were praying; and its effect was the same there as in the women's part. at first horror and astonishment produced an intense stillness; then the men seemed filled with an insane fury, and rushed into the women's "school." had lea just confessed that she had murdered her children--and the jews regarded infanticide as the worst of crimes, as even more wicked than parricide--their wrath could not have been greater. but in the eyes of these ignorant, superstitious people, lea's hair had borne silent witness that she was indeed guilty!... it was the holiest day in the year, and she against whom their wrath was raised was a weak woman, and was, moreover, in a condition that ought to have pleaded for her with the most savage of men. but who knows how far pious zeal might not have led these fanatics? it had often before carried them to incredible lengths. ruben forced his way through the ranks of infuriated men, his anger and pain giving him strength to do so. he lifted his wife like a child, and, supporting her with his left arm, pushed a way for himself and her through the crowd by a vigorous use of his right arm. he then rushed down-stairs, and home through the streets, pursued by the curses of his co-religionists. the october wind blew his wife's hair sharply in his pale face as he ran, and almost blinded him. lea soon recovered from her faint; but when she looked round and saw her hair hanging about her like a cloud, she shrieked out, and fell into violent convulsions. the doctor hastened to her; but he only succeeded in saving the life of the mother, not that of the child. next morning the jews of barnow told each other that the judgment of god had fallen upon the sinner for the third time. ruben was as though petrified with grief. and when he was summoned before the rabbi in council that very morning, he obeyed the mandate as calmly as if he had not been the culprit to be tried. he returned no answer to the curses that were heaped upon him, and, when put upon his defense, gave short and bold replies to the questions addressed to him. he was asked whether he had known of his wife's sin. yes, he said, he had. why had he suffered her to commit such a wickedness? because it was not wicked in his eyes. did he recognize what had now befallen him as a judgment of god? no; because he believed in an all-wise, all-merciful god. would he at least consent to cut off his wife's hair now? no, for that would be breaking the promise he had made her when they were engaged. did he know the punishment he was bringing upon himself by continuing in his sin? he did, and would know how to bear it. this punishment was the "great _cherem_" or excommunication--the worst punishment that the community could inflict upon one of its members. whoever is thus excluded from the congregation is outlawed by them, and it is regarded as a good deed to do him as much harm as possible, both socially and in his business relations. neither he nor anything that belonged to him might be touched except in enmity; his presence could only be permitted with the object of doing him an injury. _cherem_ loosens the holiest ties, and what in other cases would be a terrible sin is, under such circumstances, regarded as a sacred duty--the wife may forsake her husband, the son may raise his hand against his father. it is a war of all against one--a merciless war, in which all means of attack are admissible. no love, no friendship, can venture to break down the barrier of excommunication, contempt, and loathing that incloses the culprit. it is a fate too awful to contemplate, a punishment terrible enough to break the most iron will. he who falls under this ban, generally hastens to make his peace with the rabbi on any terms, however humiliating. ruben thought this too high a price to pay, although he felt the curse of the excommunication doubly, both in his person and his work. no customers came to his shop. but he did not give way. he turned for protection to those who were bound to help him, and appealed to the imperial court of justice in barnow. it is a punishable offense in austria to use the _cherem_ as a means of extortion; and, in the best case, when there is real and just cause for the infliction of punishment on an offender, it is nothing but an audacious attempt of a community to arrogate to itself the functions of the state. the sympathy of herr julko von negrusz, district judge of barnow, was aroused by ruben's tale, and he did what he could to help him; but naturally he could not do much. he summoned the rabbi before his court, and punished every injury or indignity that was put upon ruben which could be proved against any one in particular. but in most cases the mischief was done in the dead of night, and the prosecution of the rabbi only served to increase the fanatical rage of the people. as for the shop, herr von negrusz had no power to force any one to buy their sugar and coffee from ruben if they did not wish to do so. the war of parties lasted all winter, and well into the spring. in april the rabbi was sentenced to six weeks' imprisonment. when he was set free, the community showed their joy by illuminating the streets and breaking ruben's windows; otherwise, nothing was changed--ruben remained firm. he was growing visibly poorer. his father-in-law continually entreated him to give way, but in vain. more than that, lea, who had wept away all her youth and beauty during that terrible winter, and who, now that the spring was come, knew that she was again to become a mother, entreated her husband to allow her to cut off her hair. perhaps the poor woman had been so influenced by the superstition of her neighbors, that she had really begun to think that it might cause the death of her child were she to continue to wear it. but ruben shook his head sternly, and answered--"no; keep your hair; and if there is a god, he will not desert us--he will give me the victory." in most cases it is a dangerous thing to place one's belief in the existence of god on the answer to a question such as this. it was so here: ruben was conquered. what remains to be told i will relate in as few words as possible.... in the following november another son was born to lea. the child was a strong, healthy little fellow, and the mother's heart was at rest about him. six days passed; then the rabbi summoned his most faithful adherents to his presence. "the father is under the ban of _cherem_, and the mother wears her own hair; but the child is innocent. if we remain idle, the child must die as his brother died, because the mother continues to sin." this was what the rabbi said--that is to say, it was probably he who spoke; but the originator of the horrible deed was never discovered. this was the deed of darkness perpetrated by the zealots. about midnight of the sixth day after the baby's birth, some masked men burst into ruben's house, overpowered both him and the nurse, dragged lea out of bed, and cut off her hair. two days later lea died in consequence of the fright she had had. the child, which had taken a fit soon after the men had broken into the house, died a few hours before its mother. ruben remained at barnow until the judicial examination was over, although he hoped but little from it; for when the jews are determined to be silent, no power on earth can make them speak. then he went away. many years have passed away since then. he, probably, has also found rest, and sleeps away the dark sorrows of his life in some other corner of the world. i have already described lea's grave, and there is nothing more to be said. i must add a few words in conclusion, that come from the bottom of my heart: forgive them, be not angry with them, for they know not what they do! the end. christian reid's novels. "the author has wrought with care and with a good ethical and artistic purpose; and these are the essential needs in the building up of an american literature." valerie aylmer. morton house. mabel lee. ebb-tide. nina's atonement, and other stories. a daughter of bohemia. bonny kate. the land of the sky. after many days. hearts and hands. a gentle belle. a question of honor. a summer idyl. (forming no. xii in appletons' "new handy-volume series.") vol. heart of steel. rhoda broughton's novels. "_i love the romances of miss broughton; i think them much truer to nature than ouida's, and more impassioned and less preachy than george eliot's. miss broughton's heroines are living beings, having not only flesh and blood, but also esprit and soul; in a word, they are real women, neither animals nor angels, but allied to both._"--andrÉ theuriet (the french novelist). second thoughts. joan. cometh up as a flower. not wisely, but too well. nancy. good-bye, sweetheart! red as a rose is she. julia kavanagh's works "there is a quiet power in the writings of this gifted author which is as far removed from the sensational school as any modern novels can be." adele; a tale. beatrice. daisy burns. grace lee. madeline. nathalie; a tale. rachel grey. seven years, and other tales. sybil's second love. queen mab. john dorrien. the two lilies. women of christianity. exemplary for piety and charity. dora. illustrated by gaston fay. silvia. a novel. bessie. a novel. vice versÂ; or, a lesson to fathers. by f. anstey. "if there ever was a book made up from beginning to end of laughter, yet not a comic book, or a 'merry' book, or a book of jokes, or a book of pictures, or a jest-book, or a tomfool-book, but a perfectly sober and serious book, in the reading of which a sober man may laugh without shame from beginning to end, it is the new book called 'vice versâ; or, a lesson to fathers....' we close the book, recommending it very earnestly to all fathers, in the first instance, and their sons, nephews, uncles, and male cousins next."--_saturday review._ "cordially do we recommend 'vice versâ.' we content ourselves with a tardy tribute, in general terms, to its originality, its irresistible humor, and never relaxed fascination."--_new york independent._ "by all odds the freshest and most unconventional work of fiction recently published."--_new york herald._ "if the story were not so laughable in every incident, and the humor so delightful, we should weep over mr. bultitude; but we are grateful to the author for an original, incomparably funny, and morally instructive story, which exhibits a variety of talent that will make him a distinguished novelist."--_criterion_, st. louis, mo. "we predict for this book a wide popularity in america."--_boston journal of education._ "'vice versâ' is a remarkable book. it has been received in england with a clamor of applause, and deserves all the good that has been said of it."--_new york critic._ "an uncommonly bright and amusing novel. it is brimful of clean and spirited humor, and is as diverting a book as we have met with in some time: refined in character, admirable in literary style, and equally keen and clever in satire."--_boston gazette._ "'vice versâ' has a rare and lasting flavor that will make it sought."--_boston globe._ "a capital book, full of fun, constantly provoking to laughter, and abounding in dramatic incidents. it is the cleverest book of the kind that has been written for many a day."--_baltimore sun._ "if you want the best novel of the year, buy 'vice versâ.'"--_chicago inter-ocean._ "one of the drollest and most entertaining books ever written."--_new york churchman._ "a work of genuine and well-sustained humor from beginning to end."--_utica, n. y. herald._ uncle remus: _his songs and his sayings._ the folk-lore of the old plantation. by joel chandler harris. "the idea of preserving and publishing these legends in the form in which the old plantation negroes actually tell them, is altogether one of the happiest literary conceptions of the day. and very admirably is the work done.... in such touches lies the charm of this fascinating little volume of legends, which deserves to be placed on a level with _reincke fuchs_ for its quaint humor, without reference to the ethnological interest possessed by these stories, as indicating, perhaps, a common origin for very widely-severed races."--_london spectator._ "we are just discovering what admirable literary material there is at home, what a great mine there is to explore, and how quaint and peculiar is the material which can be dug up. mr. harris's book may be looked on in a double light--either as a pleasant volume recounting the stories told by a typical old colored man to a child, or as a valuable contribution to our somewhat meager folk-lore.... to northern readers the story of brer (brother--brudder) rabbit may be novel. to those familiar with plantation life, who have listened to these quaint old stories, who have still tender reminiscences of some good old mauma who told these wondrous adventures to them when they were children, brer rabbit, the tar baby, and brer fox, come back again with all the past pleasures of younger days."--_new york times._ "uncle remus's sayings on current happenings are very shrewd and bright, and the plantation and revival songs are choice specimens of their sort."--_boston journal._ "the volume is a most readable one, whether it be regarded as a humorous book merely, or as a contribution to the literature of folk-lore."--_new york world._ "this is a thoroughly amusing book, and is much the best humorous compilation that has been put before the american public for many a day."--_philadelphia telegraph._ well illustrated from drawings by f. s. church, whose humorous animal drawings are so well known, and j. h. moser, of georgia. charlotte m yonge's novels. heir of redclyffe. the clever woman of the family. the daisy chain; or, aspirations. the trial; or, more links in the daisy chain. dove in the eagle's nest. dynevor terrace; or, the clue of life. heartsease. hopes and fears. kenneth; or, the rear guard. the three brides. the two guardians. young stepmother; or, a chronicle of mistakes. the chaplet of pearls. the caged lion. beechcroft. ben sylvester's word. the castle builders. the disturbing element. james fenimore cooper's novels. _new library edition._ . the spy. . the pilot. . the red rover. . the deerslayer. . the pathfinder. . last of the mohicans. . the pioneers. . the prairie. . lionel lincoln. . wept of wish-ton-wish. . the water-witch. . the bravo. . mercedes of castile. . the two admirals. . afloat and ashore. . miles wallingford. . wing-and-wing. . oak openings. . satanstoe. . the chain-bearer. . the red-skins. . the crater. . homeward bound. . home as found. . heidenmauer. . the headsman. . jack tier. . the sea-lions. . wyandotte. . the monikins. . precaution. . ways of the hour. _green and gold edition._ illustrated with steel-plates from drawings by darley. handsomely bound in green cloth, beveled boards, gilt top. _leather-stocking tales._ illustrated by darley. i. the last of the mohicans. ii. the deerslayer. iii. the pathfinder. iv. the pioneers. v. the prairie. _the sea-tales._ illustrated by darley. i. the pilot. ii. the red rover. iii. the water-witch, iv. wing-and-wing. v. the two admirals. _appletons' popular series._ i. rodman the keeper: southern sketches. by constance fenimore woolson, author of "anne," etc. the success of miss woolson's novel, "anne," has caused a fresh demand for the artistic and remarkable sketches in the above volume. ii. in the brush; or, old-time social and political life in the south-west. by h. w. pierson, d. d. illustrated by w. l. sheppard. "_it has peculiar attractions in its literary methods, its rich and quiet humor, and the genial spirit of its author._"--the critic. iii. the oddest of courtships; or, the bloody chasm. a novel. by j. w. de forest, author of "the wetherel affair," "overland," etc. "_at last, it seems, we have the american novel, with letters royal to attest its birthright._"--home journal. iv. the new nobility: a story of europe and america. by j. w. forney. "the new nobility" is remarkable for its varied scenes and characters, for the range of themes that it covers, and for its picturesque and animated style. * * * * * +-----------------------------------------------------------+ | transcriber's note: | | | | inconsistent hyphenation in the original document has | | been preserved. | | | | obvious typographical errors have been corrected. for | | a complete list, please see the end of this document. | | | +-----------------------------------------------------------+ * * * * * ghetto tragedies the mm co. ghetto tragedies by i. zangwill author of "children of the ghetto," "the king of schnorrers," etc. philadelphia the jewish publication society of america copyright, , by i. zangwill norwood press j.s. cushing & co.--berwick & smith norwood mass. u.s.a. preface the "ghetto tragedies" collected in a little volume in have been so submerged in the present collection that i have relegated the original name to the sub-title. "satan mekatrig" was written in , "bethulah" this year. anyone who should wish to measure the progress or decay of my imagination during the ten years has therefore materials to hand. "noah's ark" stands on the firmer ararat of history, my invention being confined to the figure of peloni (the hebrew for "nobody"). the other stories have also a basis in life. but neither in pathos nor heroic stimulation can they vie with the literal tragedy with which the whole book is in a sense involved. mrs. n.s. joseph, the great-hearted lady to whom "ghetto tragedies" was inscribed, herself walked in darkness, yet was not dismayed: in the prime of life she went down into the valley of the shadow, with no word save of consideration for others. i trust the new stories would not have been disapproved by my friend, to whose memory they must now, alas! be dedicated. i.z. october, . contents i page "they that walk in darkness" ii transitional iii noah's ark iv the land of promise v to die in jerusalem vi bethulah vii the keeper of conscience viii satan mekatrig ix diary of a meshumad x incurable xi the sabbath-breaker * * * * * i "they that walk in darkness" * * * * * i "they that walk in darkness" i it was not till she had fasted every monday and thursday for a twelvemonth, that zillah's long yearning for a child was gratified. she gave birth--o more than fair-dealing god!--to a boy. jossel, who had years ago abandoned the hope of an heir to pray for his soul, was as delighted as he was astonished. his wife had kept him in ignorance of the fasts by which she was appealing to heaven; and when of a monday or thursday evening on his return from his boot factory in bethnal green, he had sat down to his dinner in dalston, no suspicion had crossed his mind that it was zillah's breakfast. he himself was a prosaic person, incapable of imagining such spontaneities of religion, though he kept every fast which it behoves an orthodox jew to endure who makes no speciality of sainthood. there was a touch of the fantastic in zillah's character which he had only appreciated in its manifestation as girlish liveliness, and which zillah knew would find no response from him in its religious expression. not that her spiritual innovations were original inventions. from some pious old crone, after whom (as she could read hebrew) a cluster of neighbouring dames repeated what they could catch of the new year prayers in the women's synagogue, zillah had learnt that certain holy men were accustomed to afflict their souls on mondays and thursdays. from her unsuspecting husband himself she had further elicited that these days were marked out from the ordinary, even for the man of the world, by a special prayer dubbed "the long 'he being merciful.'" surely on mondays and thursdays, then, he would indeed be merciful. to make sure of his good-will she continued to be unmerciful to herself long after it became certain that her prayer had been granted. ii both zillah and jossel lived in happy ignorance of most things, especially of their ignorance. the manufacture of boots and all that appertained thereto, the synagogue and religion, misunderstood reminiscences of early days in russia, the doings and misdoings of a petty social circle, and such particular narrowness with general muddle as is produced by stumbling through a sabbath paper and a sunday paper: these were the main items in their intellectual inventory. separate zillah from her husband and she became even poorer, for she could not read at all. yet they prospered. the pavements of the east end resounded with their hob-nailed boots, and even in many a west end drawing-room their patent-leather shoes creaked. but they themselves had no wish to stand in such shoes; the dingy perspectives of dalston villadom limited their ambition, already sufficiently gratified by migration from whitechapel. the profits went to enlarge their factory and to buy houses, a favourite form of investment in their set. zillah could cook fish to perfection, both fried and stewed, and the latter variety both sweet and sour. nothing, in fine, had been wanting to their happiness--save a son, heir, and mourner. when he came at last, little that religion or superstition could do for him was left undone. an amulet on the bedpost scared off lilith, adam's first wife, who, perhaps because she missed being the mother of the human race, hankers after babes and sucklings. the initiation into the abrahamic covenant was graced by a pious godfather with pendent ear-locks, and in the ceremony of the redemption of the first-born the five silver shekels to the priest were supplemented by golden sovereigns for the poor. nor, though zillah spoke the passable english of her circle, did she fail to rock her brum's cradle to the old "yiddish" nursery-songs:-- "sleep, my birdie, shut your eyes, o sleep, my little one; too soon from cradle you'll arise to work that must be done. "almonds and raisins you shall sell, and holy scrolls shall write; so sleep, dear child, sleep sound and well, your future beckons bright. "brum shall learn of ancient days, and love good folk of this; so sleep, dear babe, your mother prays, and god will send you bliss." alas, that with all this, brum should have grown up a weakling, sickly and anæmic, with a look that in the child of poorer parents would have said starvation. iii yet through all the vicissitudes of his infantile career, zillah's faith in his survival never faltered. he was emphatically a child from heaven, and providence would surely not fly in its own face. jossel, not being aware of this, had a burden of perpetual solicitude, which zillah often itched to lighten. only, not having done so at first, she found it more and more difficult to confess her negotiation with the celestial powers. she went as near as she dared. "if the highest one has sent us a son after so many years," she said in the "yiddish" which was still natural to her for intimate domestic discussion, "he will not take him away again." "as well say," jossel replied gloomily, "that because he has sent us luck and blessing after all these years, he may not take away our prosperity." "hush! don't beshrew the child!" and zillah spat out carefully. she was tremulously afraid of words of ill-omen and of the evil eye, against which, she felt vaguely, even heaven's protection was not potent. secretly she became more and more convinced that some woman, envious of all this "luck and blessing," was withering brum with her evil eye. and certainly the poor child was peaking and pining away. "marasmus," a physician had once murmured, wondering that so well dressed a child should appear so ill nourished. "take him to the seaside often, and feed him well," was the universal cry of the doctors; and so zillah often deserted her husband for a _kosher_ boarding-house at brighton or ramsgate, where the food was voluminous, and where brum wrote schoolboy verses to the strange, fascinating sea. for there were compensations in the premature flowering of his intellect. even other mothers gradually came round to admitting he was a prodigy. the black eyes seemed to burn in the white face as they looked out on the palpitating universe, or devoured every and any scrap of print! a pity they had so soon to be dulled behind spectacles. but zillah found consolation in the thought that the glasses would go well with the high black waistcoat and white tie of the british rabbi. he had been given to her by heaven, and to heaven must be returned. besides, that might divert it from any more sinister methods of taking him back. in his twelfth year brum began to have more trouble with his eyes, and renewed his early acquaintance with the drab ante-rooms of eye hospitals that led, at the long-expected ting-ting of the doctor's bell, into a delectable chamber of quaint instruments. but it was not till he was on the point of _bar-mitzvah_ (confirmation at thirteen) that the blow fell. unwarned explicitly by any physician, brum went blind. "oh, mother," was his first anguished cry, "i shall never be able to read again." iv the prepared festivities added ironic complications to the horror. after brum should have read in the law from the synagogue platform, there was to have been a reception at the house. brum himself had written out the invitations with conscious grammar. "present their compliments to mr. and mrs. solomon and shall be glad to see _them_" (not _you_, as was the fashion of their set). it was after writing out so many notes in a fine schoolboy hand, that brum began to be conscious of thickening blurs and dancing specks and colours. now that the blind boy was crouching in hopeless misery by the glowing fire, where he had so often recklessly pored over books in the delicious dusk, there was no one handy to write out the countermands. as yet the wretched parents had kept the catastrophe secret, as though it reflected on themselves. and by every post the confirmation presents came pouring in. brum refused even to feel these shining objects. he had hoped to have a majority of books, but now the preponderance of watches, rings, and penknives, left him apathetic. to his parents each present brought a fresh feeling of dishonesty. "we must let them know," they kept saying. but the tiny difficulty of writing to so many prevented action. "perhaps he'll be all right by sabbath," zillah persisted frenziedly. she clung to the faith that this was but a cloud: for that the glory of the confirmation of a future rabbi could be so dimmed would argue an incomprehensible providence. brum's performance was to be so splendid--he was to recite not only his own portion of the law but the entire sabbath _sedrah_ (section). "he will never be all right," said jossel, who, in the utter breakdown of zillah, had for the first time made the round of the doctors with brum. "none of the physicians, not even the most expensive, hold out any hope. and the dearest of all said the case puzzled him. it was like the blindness that often breaks out in russia after the great fasts, and specially affects delicate children." "yes, i remember," said zillah; "but that was only among the christians." "we have so many christian customs nowadays," said jossel grimly; and he thought of the pestilent heretic in his own synagogue who advocated that ladies should be added to the choir. "then what shall we do about the people?" moaned zillah, wringing her hands in temporary discouragement. "you can advertise in the jewish papers," came suddenly from the brooding brum. he had a flash of pleasure in the thought of composing something that would be published. "yes, then everybody will read it on the friday," said jossel eagerly. then brum remembered that he would not be among the readers, and despair reconquered him. but zillah was shaking her head. "yes, but if we tell people not to come, and then when brum opens his eyes on the sabbath morning, he can see to read the _sedrah_--" "but i don't want to see to read the _sedrah_," said the boy petulantly; "i know it all by heart." "my blessed boy!" cried zillah. "there's nothing wonderful," said the boy; "even if you read the scroll, there are no vowels nor musical signs." "but do you feel strong enough to do it all?" said the father anxiously. "god will give him strength," put in the mother. "and he will make his speech, too, won't you, my brum?" the blind face kindled. yes, he would give his learned address. he had saved his father the expense of hiring one, and had departed in original rhetorical ways from the conventional methods of expressing filial gratitude to the parents who had brought him to manhood. and was this eloquence to remain entombed in his own breast? his courageous resolution lightened the gloom. his parents opened parcels they had not had the heart to touch. they brought him his new suit, they placed the high hat of manhood on his head, and told him how fine and tall he looked; they wrapped the new silk praying-shawl round his shoulders. "are the stripes blue or black?" he asked. "blue--a beautiful blue," said jossel, striving to steady his voice. "it feels very nice," said brum, smoothing the silk wistfully. "yes, i can almost feel the blue." later on, when his father, a little brightened, had gone off to the exigent boot factory, brum even asked to see the presents. the blind retain these visual phrases. zillah described them to him one by one as he handled them. when it came to the books it dawned on her that she could not tell him the titles. "they have such beautiful pictures," she gushed evasively. the boy burst into tears. "yes, but i shall never be able to read them," he sobbed. "yes, you will." "no, i won't." "then i'll read them to you," she cried, with sudden resolution. "but you can't read." "i can learn." "but you will be so long. i ought to have taught you myself. and now it is too late!" v in order to insure perfection, and prevent stage fright, so to speak, it had been arranged that brum should rehearse his reading of the _sedrah_ on friday in the synagogue itself, at an hour when it was free from worshippers. this rehearsal, his mother thought, was now all the more necessary to screw up brum's confidence, but the father argued that as all places were now alike to the blind boy, the prominence of a public platform and a large staring audience could no longer unnerve him. "but he will _feel_ them there!" zillah protested. "but since they are not there on the friday--?" "all the more reason. since he cannot see that they are _not_ there, he can fancy they _are_ there. on saturday he will be quite used to them." * * * * * but when jossel, yielding, brought brum to the synagogue appointment, the fusty old beadle who was faithfully in attendance held up his hands in holy and secular horror at the blasphemy and the blindness respectively. "a blind man may not read the law to the congregation!" he explained. "no?" said jossel. "why not?" asked brum sharply. "because it stands that the law shall be read. and a blind man cannot read. he can only recite." "but i know every word of it," protested brum. the beadle shook his head. "but suppose you make a mistake! shall the congregation hear a word or a syllable that god did not write? it would be playing into satan's hands." "i shall say every word as god wrote it. give me a trial." but the fusty beadle's piety was invincible. he was highly sympathetic toward the human affliction, but he refused to open the ark and produce the scroll. "i'll let the _chazan_ (cantor) know he must read to-morrow, as usual," he said conclusively. jossel went home, sighing, but silenced. zillah however, was not so easily subdued. "but my brum will read it as truly as an angel!" she cried, pressing the boy's head to her breast. "and suppose he does make a mistake! haven't i heard the congregation correct winkelstein scores of times?" "hush!" said jossel, "you talk like an epicurean. satan makes us all err at times, but we must not play into his hands. the _din_ (judgment) is that only those who see may read the law to the congregation." "brum will read it much better than that snuffling old winkelstein." "sha! enough! the _din_ is the _din_!" "it was never meant to stop my poor brum from--" "the _din_ is the _din_. it won't let you dance on its head or chop wood on its back. besides, the synagogue refuses, so make an end." "i _will_ make an end. i'll have _minyan_ (congregation) here, in our own house." "what!" and the poor man stared in amaze. "always she falls from heaven with a new idea!" "brum shall not be disappointed." and she gave the silent boy a passionate hug. "but we have no scroll of the law," brum said, speaking at last, and to the point. "ah, that's you all over, zillah," cried jossel, relieved,--"loud drumming in front and no soldiers behind!" "we can borrow a scroll," said zillah. jossel gasped again. "but the iniquity is just the same," he said. "as if brum made mistakes!" "if you were a rabbi, the congregation would baptize itself!" jossel quoted. zillah writhed under the proverb. "it isn't as if you went to the rabbi; you took the word of the beadle." "he is a learned man." zillah donned her bonnet and shawl. "where are you going?" "to the minister." jossel shrugged his shoulders, but did not stop her. the minister, one of the new school of rabbis who preach sermons in english and dress like christian clergymen, as befitted the dignity of dalston villadom, was taken aback by the ritual problem, so new and so tragic. his acquaintance with the vast casuistic literature of his race was of the shallowest. "no doubt the beadle is right," he observed profoundly. "he cannot be right; he doesn't know my brum." worn out by zillah's persistency, the minister suggested going to the beadle's together. aware of the beadle's prodigious lore, he had too much regard for his own position to risk congregational odium by flying in the face of an exhumable _din_. at the beadle's, the _din_ was duly unearthed from worm-eaten folios, but zillah remaining unappeased, further searching of these rabbinic scriptures revealed a possible compromise. if the portion the boy recited was read over again by a reader not blind, so that the first congregational reading did not count, it might perhaps be permitted. it would be of course too tedious to treat the whole _sedrah_ thus, but if brum were content to recite his own particular seventh thereof, he should be summoned to the rostrum. so zillah returned to jossel, sufficiently triumphant. vi "abraham, the son of jossel, shall stand." in obedience to the cantor's summons, the blind boy, in his high hat and silken praying-shawl with the blue stripes, rose, and guided by his father's hand ascended the platform, amid the emotion of the synagogue. his brave boyish treble, pursuing its faultless way, thrilled the listeners to tears, and inflamed zillah's breast, as she craned down from the gallery, with the mad hope that the miracle had happened, after all. the house-gathering afterward savoured of the grewsome conviviality of a funeral assemblage. but the praises of brum, especially after his great speech, were sung more honestly than those of the buried; than whom the white-faced dull-eyed boy, cut off from the gaily coloured spectacle in the sunlit room, was a more tragic figure. but zillah, in her fineries and forced smiles, offered the most tragic image of all. every congratulation was a rose-wreathed dagger, every eulogy of brum's eloquence a reminder of the rabbi god had thrown away in him. vii amid the endless babble of suggestions made to her for brum's cure, one--repeated several times by different persons--hooked itself to her distracted brain. germany! there was a great eye-doctor in germany, who could do anything and everything. yes, she would go to germany. this resolution, at which jossel shrugged his shoulders in despairing scepticism, was received with rapture by brum. how he had longed to see foreign countries, to pass over that shining sea which whispered and beckoned so, at brighton and ramsgate! he almost forgot he would not _see_ germany, unless the eye-doctor were a miracle-monger indeed. but he was doomed to a double disappointment; for instead of his going to germany, germany came to him, so to speak, in the shape of the specialist's annual visit to london; and the great man had nothing soothing to say, only a compassionate head to shake, with ominous warnings to make the best of a bad job and fatten up the poor boy. nor did zillah's attempts to read take her out of the infant primers, despite long hours of knitted brow and puckered lips, and laborious triumphs over the childish sentences, by patient addition of syllable to syllable. she also tried to write, but got no further than her own name, imitated from the envelopes. to occupy brum's days, jossel, gaining enlightenment in the ways of darkness, procured braille books. but the boy had read most of the stock works thus printed for the blind, and his impatient brain fretted at the tardiness of finger-reading. jossel's one consolation was that the boy would not have to earn his living. the thought, however, of how his blind heir would be cheated by agents and rent-collectors was a touch of bitter even in this solitary sweet. viii it was the sabbath fire-woman who, appropriately enough, kindled the next glimmer of hope in zillah's bosom. the one maid-of-all-work, who had supplied all the help and grandeur zillah needed in her establishment, having transferred her services to a husband, zillah was left searching for an angel at thirteen pounds a year. in the interim the old irishwoman who made a few pence a week by attending to the sabbath fires of the poor jews of the neighbourhood, became necessary on friday nights and saturdays, to save the household from cold or sin. "och, the quare little brat!" she muttered, when she first came upon the pale, gnome-like figure by the fender, tapping the big book, for all the world like the leprechaun cobbling. "and can't he see at all, at all?" she asked zillah confidentially one sabbath, when the boy was out of the room. zillah shook her head, unable to speak. "_nebbich!_" compassionately sighed the fire-woman, who had corrupted her native brogue with "yiddish." "and wud he be borrun dark?" "no, it came only a few months ago," faltered zillah. the fire-woman crossed herself. "sure, and who'll have been puttin' the evil oi on him?" she asked. zillah's face was convulsed. "i always said so!" she cried; "i always said so!" "the divil burrun thim all!" cried the fire-woman, poking the coals viciously. "yes, but i don't know who it is. they envied me my beautiful child, my lamb, my only one. and nothing can be done." she burst into tears. "nothin' is a harrd wurrd! if he was _my_ bhoy, the darlint, i'd cure him, aisy enough, so i wud." zillah's sobs ceased. "how?" she asked, her eyes gleaming strangely. "i'd take him to the pope, av course." "the pope!" repeated zillah vaguely. "ay, the holy father! the ownly man in this wurruld that can take away the evil oi." zillah gasped. "do you mean the pope of rome?" she knew the phrase somehow, but what it connoted was very shadowy and sinister: some strange, mighty chief of hostile heathendom. "who else wud i be manin'? the holy mother i'd be for prayin' to meself; but as ye're a jewess, i dursn't tell ye to do that. but the pope, he's a gintleman, an' so he is, an' sorra a bit he'll moind that ye don't go to mass, whin he shpies that poor, weeshy, pale shrimp o' yours. he'll just wave his hand, shpake a wurrd, an' whisht! in the twinklin' of a bedposht ye'll be praisin' the holy mother." zillah's brain was whirling. "go to rome!" she said. the fire-woman poised the poker. "well, ye can't expect the pope to come to dalston!" "no, no; i don't mean that," said zillah, in hasty apology. "only it's so far off, and i shouldn't know how to go." "it's not so far off as ameriky, an' it's two broths of bhoys i've got there." "isn't it?" asked zillah. "no, lord love ye: an' sure gold carries ye anywhere nowadays, ixcept to heaven." "but if i got to rome, would the pope see the child?" "as sartin as the child wud see him," the fire-woman replied emphatically. "he can do miracles, then?" inquired zillah. "what else wud he be for? not that 'tis much of a miracle to take away the evil oi, bad scran to the witch!" "then perhaps our rabbi can do it, too?" cried zillah, with a sudden hope. the fire-woman shook her head. "did ye ever hear he could?" "no," admitted zillah. "thrue for you, mum. divil a wurrd wud i say aginst your priesht--wan's as good as another, maybe, for ivery-day use; but whin it comes to throuble and heart-scaldin', i pity the poor craythurs who can't put up a candle to the blessed saints--an' so i do. niver a bhoy o' mine has crassed the ocean without the virgin havin' her candle." "and did they arrive safe?" "they did so; ivery mother's son av 'em." ix the more the distracted mother pondered over this sensational suggestion, the more it tugged at her. science and judaism had failed her: perhaps this unknown power, this heathen pope, had indeed mastery over things diabolical. perhaps the strange religion he professed had verily a saving efficacy denied to her own. why should she not go to rome? true, the journey loomed before her as fearfully as a polar expedition to an ordinary mortal. germany she had been prepared to set out for: it lay on the great route of jewish migration westwards. but rome? she did not even know where it was. but her new skill in reading would, she felt, help her through the perils. she would be able to make out the names of the railway stations, if the train waited long enough. but with the cunning of the distracted she did not betray her heretical ferment. "p--o--p--e, pope," she spelt out of her infants' primer in brum's hearing. "pope? what's that, brum?" "oh, haven't you ever heard of the pope, mother?" "no," said zillah, crimsoning in conscious invisibility. "he's a sort of chief rabbi of the roman catholics. he wears a tiara. kings and emperors used to tremble before him." "and don't they now?" she asked apprehensively. "no; that was in the middle ages--hundreds of years ago. he only had power over the dark ages." "over the dark ages?" repeated zillah, with a fresh, vague hope. "when all the world was sunk in superstition and ignorance, mother. then everybody believed in him." zillah felt chilled and rebuked. "then he no longer works miracles?" she said faintly. brum laughed. "oh, i daresay he works as many miracles as ever. of course thousands of pilgrims still go to kiss his toe. i meant his temporal power is gone--that is, his earthly power. he doesn't rule over any countries; all he possesses is the vatican, but that is full of the greatest pictures by michael angelo and raphael." zillah gazed open-mouthed at the prodigy she had brought into the world. "raphael--that sounds jewish," she murmured. she longed to ask in what country rome was, but feared to betray herself. brum laughed again. "raphael jewish! why--so it is! it's a hebrew word meaning 'god's healing.'" "god's healing!" repeated zillah, awestruck. her mind was made up. x "knowest thou what, jossel?" she said in "yiddish," as they sat by the friday-night fireside when brum had been put to bed. "i have heard of a new doctor, better than all the others!" after all it was the doctor, the healer, the exorcist of the evil eye, that she was seeking in the pope, not the rabbi of an alien religion. jossel shook his head. "you will only throw more money away." "better than throwing hope away." "well, who is it now?" "he lives far away." "in germany again?" "no, in rome." "in rome? why, that's at the end of the world--in italy!" "i know it's in italy!" said zillah, rejoiced at the information. "but what then? if organ-grinders can travel the distance, why can't i?" "but you can't speak italian!" "and they can't speak english!" "madness! work, but not wisdom! i could not trust you alone in such a strange country, and the season is too busy for me to leave the factory." "i don't need you with me," she said, vastly relieved. "brum will be with me." he stared at her. "brum!" "brum knows everything. believe me, jossel, in two days he will speak italian." "let be! let be! let me rest!" "and on the way back he will be able to see! he will show me everything, and mr. raphael's pictures. 'god's healing,'" she murmured to herself. "but you'd be away for passover! enough!" "no, we shall be easily back by passover." "o these women! the almighty could not have rested on the seventh day if he had not left woman still uncreated." "you don't care whether brum lives or dies!" zillah burst into sobs. "it is just because i do that i ask how are you going to live on the journey? and there are no _kosher_ hotels in italy." "we shall manage on eggs and fish. god will forgive us if the hotel plates are unclean." "but you won't be properly nourished without meat." "nonsense; when we were poor we _had_ to do without it." to herself she thought, "if he only knew i did without food altogether on mondays and thursdays!" xi and so brum passed at last over the shining, wonderful sea, feeling only the wind on his forehead and the salt in his nostrils. it was a beautiful day at the dawn of spring; the far-stretching sea sparkled with molten diamonds, and zillah felt that the highest god's blessing rested like a blue sky over this strange pilgrimage. she was dressed with great taste, and few would have divined the ignorance under her silks. "mother, can you see france yet?" brum asked very soon. "no, my lamb." "mother, can you see france yet?" he persisted later. "i see white cliffs," she said at last. "ah! that's only the white cliffs of old england. look the other way." "i _am_ looking the other way. i see white cliffs coming to meet us." "has france got white cliffs, too?" cried brum, disappointed. on the journey to paris he wearied her to describe france. in vain she tried: her untrained vision and poor vocabulary could give him no new elements to weave into a mental picture. there were trees and sometimes houses and churches. and again trees. what kind of trees? green! brum was in despair. france was, then, only like england; white cliffs without, trees and houses within. he demanded the seine at least. "yes, i see a great water," his mother admitted at last. "that's it! it rises in the côte d'or, flows n.n.w. then w., and n.w. into the english channel. it is more than twice as long as the thames. perhaps you'll see the tributaries flowing into it--the little rivers, the oise, the marne, the yonne." "no wonder the angels envy me him!" thought zillah proudly. they halted at paris, putting up for the night, by the advice of a friendly fellow-traveller, at a hotel by the gare de lyon, where, to zillah's joy and amazement, everybody spoke english to her and accepted her english gold--a pleasant experience which was destined to be renewed at each stage, and which increased her hope of a happy issue. "how loud paris sounds!" said brum, as they drove across it. he had to construct it from its noises, for in answer to his feverish interrogations his mother could only explain that some streets were lined with trees and some foolish unrespectable people sat out in the cold air, drinking at little tables. "oh, how jolly!" said brum. "but can't you see notre dame?" "what's that?" "a splendid cathedral, mother--very old. do look for two towers. we must go there the first thing to-morrow." "the first thing to-morrow we take the train. the quicker we get to the doctor, the better." "oh, but we can't leave paris without seeing notre dame, and the gargoyles, and perhaps quasimodo, and all that victor hugo describes. i wonder if we shall see a devil-fish in italy," he added irrelevantly. "you'll see the devil if you go to such places," said zillah, who, besides shirking the labor of description, was anxious not to provoke unnecessarily the god of israel. "but i've often been to st. paul's with the boys," said brum. "have you?" she was vaguely alarmed. "yes, it's lovely--the stained windows and the organ. yes, and the abbey's glorious, too; it almost makes me cry. i always liked to hear the music with my eyes shut," he added, with forced cheeriness, "and now that'll be all right." "but your father wouldn't like it," said zillah feebly. "father wouldn't like me to read the _pilgrim's progress_," retorted brum. "he doesn't understand these things. there's no harm in our going to notre dame." "no, no; it'll be much better to save all these places for the way back, when you'll be able to see for yourself." too late it struck her she had missed an opportunity of breaking to brum the real object of the expedition. "but the seine, anyhow!" he persisted. "we can go there to-night." "but what can you see at night?" cried zillah, unthinkingly. "oh, mother! how beautiful it used to be to look over london bridge at night when we came back from the crystal palace!" in the end zillah accepted the compromise, and after their dinner of fish and vegetables--for which brum had scant appetite--they were confided by the hotel porter to a bulbous-nosed cabman, who had instructions to restore them to the hotel. zillah thought wistfully of her warm parlour in dalston, with the firelight reflected in the glass cases of the wax flowers. the cab stopped on a quay. "well?" said brum breathlessly. "little fool!" said zillah good-humouredly. "there is nothing but water--the same water as in london." "but there are lights, aren't there?" "yes, there are lights," she admitted cheerfully. "where is the moon?" "where she always is--in the sky." "doesn't she make a silver path on the water?" he said, with a sob in his voice. "what are you crying at? the mother didn't mean to make you cry." she strained him contritely to her bosom, and kissed away his tears. xii the train for switzerland started so early that brum had no time to say his morning prayers; so, the carriage being to themselves, he donned his phylacteries and his praying-shawl with the blue stripes. zillah sat listening to the hour-long recitative with admiration of his memory. early in the hour she interrupted him to say: "how lucky i haven't to say all that! i should get tired." "that's curious!" replied brum. "i was just saying, 'blessed art thou, o lord our god, who hath not made me a woman.' but a woman _has_ to pray, too, mother. else why is there given a special form for the women to substitute?--'who hath made me according to his will.'" "ah, that's only for learned women. only learned women pray." "well, you'd like to pray the benediction that comes next, mother, i know. say it with me--do." she repeated the hebrew obediently, then asked: "what does it mean?" "'blessed art thou, o lord our god, who openest the eyes of the blind.'" "oh, my poor brum! teach it me! say the hebrew again." she repeated it till she could say it unprompted. and then throughout the journey her lips moved with it at odd times. it became a talisman--a compromise with the god who had failed her. "blessed art thou, o lord our god, who openest the eyes of the blind." xiii mountains were the great sensation of the passage through switzerland. brum had never seen a mountain, and the thought of being among the highest mountains in europe was thrilling. even zillah's eyes could scarcely miss the mountains. she painted them in broad strokes. but they did not at all correspond to brum's expectations of the alps. "don't you see glaciers?" he asked anxiously. "no," replied zillah, but kept a sharp eye on the windows of passing chalets till the boy discovered that she was looking for glaziers at work. "great masses of ice," he explained, "sliding down very slowly, and glittering like the bergs in the polar regions." "no, i see none," she said, blushing. "ah! wait till we come to mont blanc." mont blanc was an obsession; his geography was not minute enough to know that the route did not pass within sight of it. he had expected it to dominate switzerland as a cathedral spire dominates a little town. "mont blanc is , feet above the sea," he said voluptuously. "eternal snow is on its top, but you will not see that, because it is above the clouds." "it is, then, in heaven," said zillah. "god is there," replied brum gravely, and burst out with coleridge's lines from his school-book:-- "'god! let the torrents, like a shout of nations, answer! and let the ice-plains echo, god! god! sing ye meadow-streams with gladsome voice! ye pine-groves, with your soft and soul-like sounds! and they, too, have a voice, yon piles of snow, and in their perilous fall shall thunder god!'" "who openest the eyes of the blind," murmured zillah. "there are five torrents rushing down, also," added brum. "'and you, ye five wild torrents fiercely glad.' you'll recognize mont blanc by that. don't you see them yet, mother?" "wait, i think i see them coming." presently she announced mont blanc definitely; described it with glaciers and torrents and its top reaching to god. brum's face shone. "poor lamb! i may as well give him mont blanc," she thought tenderly. xiv endless other quaint dialogues passed between mother and son on that tedious and harassing journey southwards. "there'll be no more snow when we get to italy," brum explained. "italy's the land of beauty--always sunshine and blue sky. it's the country of the old gods--venus, the goddess of beauty; juno, with her peacocks; jupiter, with his thunderbolts, and lots of others." "but i thought the pope was a christian," said zillah. "so he is. it was long ago, before people believed in christianity." "but then they were all jews." "oh no, mother. there were pagan gods that people used to believe in at rome and in greece. in greece, though, these gods changed their names." "so!" said zillah scornfully; "i suppose they wanted to have a fresh chance. and what's become of them now?" "they weren't ever there, not really." "and yet people believed in them? is it possible?" zillah clucked her tongue with contemptuous surprise. then she murmured mechanically, "'blessed art thou, o lord our god, who openest the eyes of the blind.'" "well, and what do people believe in now? the pope!" brum reminded her. "and yet _he's_ not true." zillah's heart sank. "but he's really there," she protested feebly. "oh yes, he's there, because pilgrims come from all parts of the world to get his blessing." her hopes revived. "but they wouldn't come unless he really did them good." "well, if you argue like that, mother, you might as well say we ought to believe in christ." "hush! hush!" the forbidden word jarred on zillah. she felt chilled and silenced. she had to call up the image of the irish fire-woman to restore herself to confidence. it was clear brum must not be told; his unfaith might spoil all. no, the deception must be kept up till his eyes were opened--in more than one sense. xv after mont blanc, brum's great interest was the leaning tower of pisa. "it is one of the wonders of the world," he said; "there are seven altogether." "yes, it is a wonderful world," said zillah; "i never thought about it before." and in truth italy was beginning to touch sleeping chords. the cypresses, the sunset on the mountains, the white towns dozing on the hills under the magical blue sky,--all these broad manifestations of an obvious beauty, under the spur of brum's incessant interrogatory, began to penetrate. nature in unusual combinations spoke to her as its habitual phenomena had never done. her replies to brum did rough justice to italy. florence recalled "romola" to the boy. he told his mother about savonarola. "he was burnt!" "what!" cried zillah. "burn a christian! no wonder, then, they burnt jews. but why?" "he wanted the people to be good. all good people suffer." "oh, nonsense, brum! it is the bad who suffer." then she looked at his wasted, white face, grown thinner with the weariness of the long journey through perpetual night, and wonder at her own words struck her silent. xvi they arrived at last in the eternal city, having taken a final run of many hours without a break. but the pope was still to seek. leaving the exhausted brum in bed, zillah drove the first morning to the vatican, where brum said he lived, and asked to see him. a glittering swiss guard stared blankly at her, and directed her by dumb show to follow the stream of people--the pilgrims, zillah told herself. she was made to scrawl her name, and, thanking god that she had acquired that accomplishment, she went softly up a gorgeous flight of steps, and past awe-inspiring creatures in tufted helmets, into the sistine chapel, where she wondered at people staring ceilingwards through opera-glasses, or looking downwards into little mirrors. zillah also stared up through the gloom till she had a crick in the neck, but saw no sign of the pope. she inquired of the janitor whether he was the pope, and realized that english was, after all, not the universal language. she returned gloomily to see after brum, and to consider her plan of campaign. "the great doctor was not at home," she said. "we must wait a little." "and yet you made us hurry so through everything," grumbled brum. brum remained in bed while zillah went to get some lunch in the dining-room. a richly dressed old lady who sat near her noticed that she was eating lenten fare, like herself, and, assuming her a fellow-catholic, spoke to her, in foreign-sounding english, about the blind boy whose arrival she had observed. zillah asked her how one could get to see the pope, and the old lady told her it was very difficult. "ah, those blessed old times before !--ah, the splendid ceremonies in st. peter's! do you remember them?" zillah shook her head. the old lady's assumption of spiritual fellowship made her uneasy. but st. peter's stuck in her mind. brum had already told her it was the pope's house of prayer. clearly, therefore, it was only necessary to loiter about there with brum to chance upon him and extort his compassionate withdrawal of the spell of the evil eye. with a culminating inspiration she bought a photograph of the pope, and overcoming the first shock of hereditary repulsion at the sight of the large pendent crucifix at his breast, she studied carefully the pontiff's face and the papal robes. then, when brum declared himself strong enough to get up, they drove to st. peter's, the instruction being given quietly to the driver so that brum should not overhear it. it was the first time zillah had ever been in a cathedral; and the vastness and glory of it swept over her almost as a reassuring sense of a greater god than she had worshipped in dingy synagogues. she walked about solemnly, leading brum by the hand, her breast swelling with suppressed sobs of hope. her eyes roved everywhere, searching for the pope; but at moments she well-nigh forgot her disappointment at his absence in the wonder and ghostly comfort of the great dim spaces, and the mysterious twinkle of the countless lights before the bronze canopy with its golden-flashing columns. "where are we, mother?" said brum at last. "we are waiting for the doctor." "but where?" "in the waiting-room." "it seems very large, mother." "no, i am walking round and round." "there is a strange smell, mother,--i don't know what--something religious." "oh, nonsense!" she laughed uneasily. "i know what it smells like: cold marble pillars and warm coloured windows." her blood froze at such uncanny sensibility. "it is the smell of the medicines," she murmured. somehow his divination made it more difficult to confess to him. "it feels like being in st. paul's or the abbey," he persisted, "when i used to shut my eyes to hear the organ better." he had scarcely ceased speaking, when a soft, slow music began to thrill with life the great stone spaces. brum's grasp tightened convulsively: a light leapt into the blind face. both came to a standstill, silent. in zillah's breast rapture made confusion more confounded; and as this pealing grandeur, swelling more passionately, uplifted her high as the mighty dome, she forgot everything--even the need of explanation to brum--in this wonderful sense of a power that could heal, and her hebrew benediction flowed out into sobbing speech:-- "'blessed art thou, o lord our god, who openest the eyes of the blind.'" but brum had fainted, and hung heavy on her arm. xvii when brum awoke, in bed again, after his long fainting-fit, he related with surprise his vivid dream of st. paul's, and zillah weakly acquiesced in the new deception, especially as the doctor warned her against exciting the boy. but her hopes were brighter than ever; for the old lady had beneficently appeared from behind a pillar in st. peter's to offer eau de cologne for the unconscious brum, and had then, interesting herself in the couple, promised to procure for her fellow-catholics admission to the next papal reception. being a very rich and fashionable old lady, she kept her word; but unfortunately, when the day came round, brum was terribly low and forbidden to leave his bed. zillah was distracted. if she should miss the great chance after all! it might never recur again. "brum," she said at last, "this is the only day for a long time that the great eye-doctor receives patients. do you think you could go, my lamb?" "why won't he come here--like the other doctors?" "he is too great." "well, i daresay i can manage. it's miserable lying in bed. fancy coming to rome and seeing nothing!" with infinite care brum was dressed and wrapped up, and placed in a specially comfortable brougham; and thus at last mother and son stood waiting in one of the ante-chambers of the vatican, amid twenty other pilgrims whispering in strange languages. zillah was radiantly assured: the mighty power, whatever it was, that spoke in music and in mountains, would never permit such weary journeyings and waitings to end in the old darkness; the malice of witches could not prevail against this great spirit of sunshine. for brum, too, the long pilgrimage had enveloped the doctor with a miraculous glamour as of an eighth wonder of the world. drooping wearily on his mother's arm, but wrought up to joyous anticipation, brum had an undoubting sense of the patient crowd around him waiting, as in his old hospital days, for admission to the doctor's sanctum. his ear was strung for the ting-ting of the bell summoning the sufferers one by one. at last a wave of awe swept over the little fashionable gathering, and set zillah's heart thumping and the room fading in mist, through which the tall, venerable, robed figure, the eagle features softened in benediction, gleamed like a god's. then she found herself on her knees, with brum at her side, and the wonderful figure passing between two rows of reverent pilgrims. "why must i kneel, mother?" murmured brum feebly. "hush! hush!" she whispered. "the great doc--" she hesitated in awe of the venerable figure--"the great healer is here." "the great healer!" breathed brum. his face was transfigured with ecstatic forevision. "'who openeth the eyes of the blind,'" he murmured, as he fell forward in death. * * * * * ii transitional * * * * * ii transitional i the day came when old daniel peyser could no longer withstand his wife's desire for a wider social sphere and a horizon blacker with advancing bachelors. for there were seven daughters, and not a man to the pack. indeed, there had been only one marriage in the whole portsmouth congregation during the last five years, and the christian papers had had reports of the novel ceremony, with the ritual bathing of the bride and the breaking of the glass under the bridegroom's heel. to mrs. peyser, brought up amid the facile pairing of the russian pale, this congestion of celibacy approached immorality. portsmouth with its careless soldiers and sailors might be an excellent town for pawnbroking, especially when one was not too punctiliously acceptant of the ethics of the heathen, but as a market for maidens--even with dowries and pretty faces--it was hopeless. but it was not wholly as an emporium for bachelors that london appealed. it was the natural goal of the provincial jew, the reward of his industry. the best people had all drifted to the mighty magic city, whose fascination survived even cheap excursions to it. would father deny that they had now made enough to warrant the migration? no, father would not deny it. ever since he had left germany as a boy he had been saving money, and his surplus he had shrewdly invested in the neighbouring soil of southsea, fast growing into a watering-place. even allowing three thousand pounds for each daughter's dowry, he would still have a goodly estate. was there any social reason why they should not cut as great a dash as the benjamins or the rosenweilers? no, father would not deny that his girls were prettier and more polished than the daughters of these pioneers, especially when six of them crowded around the stern granite figure, arguing, imploring, cajoling, kissing. "but i don't see why we should waste the money," he urged, with the cautious instincts of early poverty. "waste!" and the pretty lips made reproachful "oh's!" "yes, waste!" he retorted. "in india one treads on diamonds and gold, but in london the land one treads on costs diamonds and gold." "but are we never to have a grandson?" cried mrs. peyser. the indian item was left unquestioned, so that little schnapsie, whose childish imagination was greatly impressed by these eventful family debates, had for years a vivid picture of picking her way with bare feet over sharp-pointed diamonds and pebbly gold. indeed, long after she had learned to wonder at her father's naïve geography the word "india" always shone for her with barbaric splendour. environed by so much persistent femininity, the rugged elderly toiler was at last nagged into accepting a leisured life in london. ii and so the family spread its wings joyfully and migrated to the wonder-town. only its head and tail--old daniel and little schnapsie--felt the least sentiment for the things left behind. old daniel left the dingy synagogue to whose presidency he had mounted with the fattening of his purse, and in which he bought for himself, or those he delighted to honour, the choicest privileges of ark-opening or scroll-bearing; left the cronies who dropped in to play "klabberjagd" on sunday afternoons; left the bustling lucrative saturday nights in the shop when the heathen housewives came to redeem their sabbath finery. and little schnapsie--who was only eleven, and not keen about husbands--left the twinkling tarry harbour, with its heroic hulks and modern men-of-war amid which the half-penny steamer plied; left the great waves that smashed on the pebbly beach, and the friendly moon that threw shimmering paths across their tranquillity; left the narrow lively streets in which she had played, and the school in which she had always headed her class, and the salt wind that blew over all. little schnapsie was only schnapsie to her father. her real name was florence. the four younger girls all bore pagan names--sylvia, lily, daisy, florence--symbolic of the influence upon the family councils of the three elder girls, grown to years of discretion and disgust with their own leah, rachael, and rebecca. between these two strata of girls--jewish and pagan--two boys had intervened, but their stay was brief and pitiful, so that all this plethora of progeny had not provided the father with a male mourner to say the _kaddish_. but it seemed likely a grandson would not long be a-wanting, for the eldest girl was twenty-five, and all were good-looking. as if in irony, the jewish group was blond, almost christian, in colouring (for they took after the teuton father), while the pagan group had characteristically oriental traits. in little schnapsie these eastern charms--a whit heavy in her sisters--were repeated in a key of exquisite refinement. the thick black eyebrows and hair were soft as silk, dark dreamy eyes suffused her oval face with poetry, and her skin was like dead ivory flushing into life. iii the first year at highbury, that genteel suburb in the north of london, was an enchanted ecstasy for the mother and the jewish group of girls, taken at once to the bosom of a great german clan, and admitted to a new world of dances and dinners, of "at homes" and theatres and card parties. the eldest of the pagan group, sylvia--tyrannically kept young in the interests of her sisters--was the only one who grumbled at the change, for lily and daisy found sufficient gain in the prospect of replacing the elder group when it should have passed away in an odour of orange blossom. the scent of that was always in the air, and mrs. peyser and her three hopefuls sniffed it night and day. "no, no; rebecca shall have him." "not me! i am not going to marry a man with carroty hair. leah's the eldest; it's her turn first." "thank you, my dear. don't give away what you haven't got." every new young man who showed the faintest signs of liking to drop in, provoked a similar semi-facetious but also semi-serious canvassing--his person, his income, and the girl to whom he should be allotted supplying the sauce of every meal at which he--or his fellow--was not present. thus, whether in the flesh or the spirit, the young man--for so many of him appeared on the scene that he hovered in the air rather as a type than an individual--was a permanent guest at the peyser table. but all this new domestic excitement did not compensate little schnapsie for her moonlit waters and the strange ships that came and went with their cargo of mystery. and poor old daniel found no cronies to appeal to him like the old, nothing in the roar of london to compensate for the saturday night bustle of the pawn-shop, no dingy little synagogue desirous of his presidential pomp. he sat inconspicuously in a handsome half-empty edifice, and knew himself a superfluous atom in a vast lonely wilderness. he was not, indeed, an imposing figure, with his ragged graying whiskers and his boyish blue eyes. in the street he had the stoop and shuffle of the ghetto, and forgot to hide his coarse red hands with gloves; in the house he persisted in wearing a pious skull-cap. at first his more adaptable wife and his english-bred daughters tried to fit him for decent society, and to make him feel at home during their "at homes." but he was soon relegated to the background of these brilliant social tableaux; for he was either too silent or too talkative, with old-fashioned jewish jokes which disconcerted the smart young men, and with hebrew quotations which they could not even understand. and sometimes there thrilled through the small-talk the trumpet-note of his nose, as he blew it into a coloured handkerchief. gradually he was eliminated from the drawing-room altogether. but for some years longer he reigned supreme in the dining-room--when there was no company. old habit kept the girls at table when he intoned with noisy unction the hebrew grace after meals; they even joined in the melodious morceaux that diversified the plain-chant. but little by little their contributions dwindled to silence. and when they had smart company to dinner, the old man himself was hushed by rows of blond and bugle eyebrows; especially after he had once or twice put young men to shame by offering them the honour of reciting the grace they did not know. daniel's prayer on such occasions was at length reduced to a pious mumbling, which went unobserved amid the joyous clatter of dessert, even as his pious skull-cap passed as a preventive against cold. last stage of all, the mumbling of his company manners passed over into the domestic circle; and this humble whispering to god became symbolic of his suppression. iv "i don't think he means rachael at all." "oh, how can you say so, leah? it was me he took down to supper." "nonsense! it isn't either of you he's after; that's only his politeness to my sisters. didn't he say the bouquet was for me?" "don't be silly, rebecca. you know you can't have him. the eldest must take precedence." this changed tone indicated their humbler attitude toward the young man as the years went by. for the first young man did not propose, either to the sisterhood _en bloc_ or to a particular sister. and his example was followed by his successors. in fact, a procession of young men passed and repassed through the house, or danced with the girls at balls, without a single application for any of these many hands. and the first season passed into the second, and the second into the third, with tantalizing mirages of marriage. balls, dances, dinners, a universe of nebulous matrimonial matter on the whirl, but never the shot-off star of an engagement! mrs. peyser's hair began to whiten faster. she even surreptitiously called in the shadchan, or rather surrendered to his solicitations. "pooh! not find any one suitable?" he declared, rubbing his hands. "i have hundreds of young men on my books, just your sort, real gentlemen." at first the girls refused to consider applications from such a source. it was not done in their set, they said. mrs. peyser snorted sceptically. "oh, indeed! and pray how did those rosenweiler girls find husbands?" "oh, yes, the rosenweilers!" they shrugged their shoulders; they knew they had not that disadvantage of hideousness. nevertheless they lent an ear to the agent's suggestions as filtered through the mother, though under pretence of deriding them. but the day came when even that pretence was dropped, and with broken spirit they waited eagerly for each new possibility. and with the passing of the years the young man aged. he grew balder, less gentlemanly, poorer. once indeed, he turned up as a handsome and wealthy christian, but this time it was he that was rejected in a unanimous sisterly shudder. five slow years wore by, then of a sudden the luck changed. a water-proof manufacturer on the sunny side of forty appeared, the long glacial epoch was broken up, and the first orange blossom ripened for the peyser household. it was rebecca, the youngest of the jewish group, who proved the pioneer to the canopy, but her marriage gave a new lease of youth even to the oldest. and miraculously, mysteriously, within a few months two other girls flew off mrs. peyser's shoulders--a jewish and a pagan--though sylvia was not yet formally "out." and though leah, the first born, still remained unchosen, yet sylvia's marriage to a bayswater household had raised the family status, and provided a better field for operations. the shadchan was frozen off. but he returned. for despite all these auguries and auspices another arctic winter set in. no orange blossoms, only desolate lichens of fruitless flirtation. gradually the pagan group pushed its way into unconcealable womanhood. the problem darkened all the horizon. the young man grew middle-aged again. he lost all his money; he wanted old daniel to set him up in business. even this seemed better than a barren fine ladyhood, and leah might have even harked back to the parental pawn-shop had not another sudden epidemic of felicity married off all save little schnapsie within eighteen months. mrs. peyser was knocked breathless by all these shocks. first a rich german banker, then a prosperous solicitor (for leah), then a cape financier--any one in himself catch enough to "gouge out the eyes" of the neighbours. "i told you so," she said, her portly bosom swelling portlier with exultation as the sixth bride was whirled off in a rice shower from the highbury villa, while the other five sat around in radiant matronhood. "i told you to come to london." daniel pressed her hand in gratitude for all the happiness she had given herself and the girls. "if it were not for florence," she went on wistfully. "ah, little schnapsie!" sighed daniel. somehow he felt he would have preferred her hymeneal felicity to all these marvellous marriages. for there had grown up a strange sympathy between the poor lonely old man, now nearly seventy, and his little girl, now twenty-four. they never conversed except about commonplaces, but somehow he felt that her presence warmed the air. and she--she divined his solitude, albeit dimly; had an intuition of what life had been for him in the days before she was born: the long days behind the counter, the risings in the gray dawn to chant orisons and don phylacteries ere the pawn-shop opened, the lengthy prayer and the swift supper when the shutters were at last put up--all the bare rock on which this floriage of prosperity had been sown. and long after the others had dropped kissing him good-night, she would tender her lips, partly because of the necessary domestic fiction that she was still a baby, but also because she felt instinctively that the kiss counted in his life. through all these years of sordid squabbles and canvassings and weary waiting, all those endless scenes of hysteria engendered by the mutual friction of all that close-packed femininity, poor schnapsie had lived, shuddering. sometimes a sense of the pathos of it all, of the tragedy of women's lives, swept over her. she regretted every inch she grew, it seemed to shame her celibate sisters so. she clung willingly to short skirts until she was of age, wore her long raven hair in a plait with a red ribbon. "well, florence," said leah genially, when the last outsider at daisy's wedding had departed, "it's your turn next. you'd better hurry up." "thank you," said florence coldly. "i shall take my own time; fortunately there is no one behind me." "humph!" said leah, playing with her diamond rings. "it don't do to be too particular. why don't you come round and see me sometimes?" "there are so many of you now," murmured florence. she was not attracted by the solicitors and traders in whose society and carriages her mother lolled luxuriously, and she resented the matronly airs of her sisters. with leah, however, she was conscious of a different and more paradoxical provocation. leah had an incredible air of juvenility. all those unthinkable, innumerable years little schnapsie had conceived of her eldest sister as an old maid, hopeless, senescent, despite the wonderful belt that had kept her figure dashing; but now that she was married she had become the girlish bride, kittenish, irresistible, while little schnapsie was the old maid, the sister in peril of being passed by. and indeed she felt herself appallingly ancient, prematurely aged by her long stay at seventeen. "yes, you are right, leah," she said pensively, with a touch of malice. "to-morrow i shall be twenty-four." "what?" shrieked leah. "yes," florence said obstinately. "and oh, how glad i shall be!" she raised her arms exultingly and stretched herself, as if shooting up seven years as soon as the pressure of her sisters was removed. "do you hear, mother?" whispered leah. "that fool of a florence is going to celebrate her twenty-fourth birthday. not the slightest consideration for _us_!" "i didn't say i would celebrate it publicly," said florence. "besides," she suggested, smiling, "very soon people will forget that i am _not_ the eldest." "then your folly will recoil on your own head," said leah. little schnapsie gave a devil-may-care shrug--a ghetto trait that still clung to all the sisters. "yes," added mrs. peyser. "think what it will be in ten years' time!" "i shall be thirty-four," said florence imperturbably. another little smile lit up the dreamy eyes. "then i _shall_ be the eldest." "madness!" cried mrs. peyser, aloud, forgetting that her daughters' husbands were about. "god forbid i should live to see any girl of mine thirty-four!" "hush, mother!" said florence quietly. "i hope you will; indeed, i am sure you will, for i shall _never_ marry. so don't bother to put me on the books--i'm not on the market. good-night." she sought out poor daniel, who, awed by the culture and standing of his five sons-in-law, not to speak of the guests, was hanging about the deserted supper-room, smoking cigar after cigar, much to the disgust of the caterer's men, who were waiting to spirit away the box. having duly kissed her father, little schnapsie retired to bed to read browning's love-poems. her mother had to take a glass of champagne to restore her ruffled nerves to the appropriate ecstasy. v poor portly mrs. peyser was not destined to enjoy her harvest of happiness for more than a few years. but these years were an overbrimming cup, with only the bitter drop of florence's heretical indifference to the young man. environed by the six households which she had begotten, mrs. peyser breathed that atmosphere of ebullient babyhood which was the breath of her jewish nostrils; babies appeared almost every other month. it was a seething well-spring of healthy life. religious ceremonies connected with these chubby new-comers, or medical recipes for their bodily salvation, absorbed her. but her exuberant grandmotherliness usually received a check in the summer, when the babies were deported to scattered sea-shores; and thus it came to pass that the summer of her death found her still lingering in london with a bad cold, with only daniel and little schnapsie at hand. and before the others could be called, mrs. peyser passed away in peace, in the old portsmouth bed, overlooked by the old hebrew picture exiled from the london dining-room. it was a curious end. she did not know she was dying, but daniel was anxious she should not be reft into silence before she had made the immemorial proclamation of the unity. at the same time he hesitated to appall her with the grim knowledge. he was blubbering piteously, yet striving to hide his sobs. the early days of his struggle came back, the first weeks of wedded happiness, then the long years of progressive prosperity and godly cheerfulness in portsmouth ere she had grown fashionable and he unimportant; and a vast self-pity mingled with his pitiful sense of her excellencies--the children she had borne him in agony, the economy of her house management, the good bargains she had driven with the clod-pated soldiers and sailors, the later splendour of her social achievement. and little schnapsie wept with a sense of the vanity of these dual existences to which she owed her own empty life. suddenly mrs. peyser, over whose black eyes a glaze had been stealing, let the long dark eyelashes fall over them. "sarah!" whispered daniel frantically. "say the shemang!" "hear, o israel, the lord our god, the lord is one," said the sensuous lips obediently. little schnapsie shrugged her shoulders rebelliously. the dogma seemed so irrelevant. mrs. peyser opened her eyes, and a beautiful mother-light came into them as she saw the weeping girl. "ah, florrie, do not fret," she said reassuringly, in her long-lapsed yiddish. "i will find thee a bridegroom." her eyes closed, and little schnapsie shuddered with a weird image of a lover fetched from the shrouded dead. vi after his sarah had been lowered into "the house of life," and the excitement of the tombstone recording her virtues had subsided, daniel would have withered away in an empty world but for little schnapsie. the two kept house together; the same big house that had reeked with so much feminine life, and about which the odours of perfumes and powders still seemed to linger. but father and daughter only met at meals. he spent hours over the morning paper, with the old quaint delusions about india and other things he read of, and he pottered about the streets, or wandered into the beth-hamidrash, which a local fanatic had just instituted in north london, and in which, under the guidance of a polish sage, daniel strove to concentrate his aged wits on the ritual problems of babylon. at long intervals he brushed his old-fashioned high hat carefully, and timidly rang the bell of one of his daughters' mansions, and was permitted to caress a loudly remonstrating baby; but they all lived so far from him and one another in this mighty london. from sylvia's, where there was a boy with buttons, he had always been frightened off, and when the others began to emulate her, his visits ceased altogether. as for the sisters coming to see him, all pleaded overwhelming domestic duty, and the frigidity of florence's reception of them. "now if you lived alone--or with one of us!" but somehow daniel felt the latter alternative would be as desolate as the former. and though he knew some wide vague river flowed between even his present housemate's life and his own, yet he felt far more clearly the bridge of love over which their souls passed to each other. figure then the septuagenarian's amaze when, one fine morning, as he was shuffling about in his carpet slippers, the servant brought him word that his six daughters demanded his instantaneous presence in the drawing-room. the shock drove out all thoughts of toilet; his heart beat quicker with a painful premonition of he knew not what. this simultaneous visit recalled funerals, weddings. he looked out of a window and saw four carriages drawn up, and that completed his sense of something elemental. he tottered into the drawing-room--grown dingy now that it had no more daughters to dispose of--and shrank before the resplendence with which their presence reinvested it. they rustled with silks, shone with gold necklaces, and impregnated the air with its ancient aroma of powders and perfumes. he felt himself dwindling before all this pungent prosperity, like some more creative frankenstein before a congress of his own monsters. they did not rise as he entered. the jewish group and the pagan group were promiscuously seated--marriage had broken down all the ancient landmarks. they all looked about the same agelessness--a standstill buxom matronhood. daniel stood at the door, glancing from one to another. some coughed; others fidgeted with muffs. "sit down, sit down, father," said rachael kindly, though she retained the arm-chair,--and there was a general air of relief at her voice. but the old embarrassment returned as the silence reëstablished itself when daniel had drooped into a stiff chair. at last leah took the word: "we have come while florrie is at her slumming--" "at her slumming!" repeated sylvia, with more significance, and a meaning smile spread over the six faces. "yes?" daniel murmured. "--because we did not want her to know of our coming." "it concerns schnapsie?" he murmured. "yes, your little schnapsie," said daisy viciously. "yes; she has no time to come and see _us_," cried rebecca. "but she has plenty of time for her--_slumming_." "well, she does good," he murmured apologetically. "a fat lot of good!" sniggered rachael. "to herself!" corrected lily. "i do not understand," he muttered uneasily. "well--" began lily. "you tell him, leah; you know more about it." "you know as much as i do." he looked appealingly from one to the other. "i always said the slums were dangerous places for people of our class," said sylvia. "she doesn't even confine herself to her own people." the faces began to lighten--evidently they felt the ice broken. "dangerous!" he repeated, catching at the ominous word. "dreadful!" in a common shudder. he half rose. "you have bad news?" he cried. the faces gloomed over, the heads nodded. "about schnapsie?" he shrieked, jumping up. "sit down, sit down; she's not dead," said leah contemptuously. he sat down. "well, what is it? what has happened?" "she's engaged!" in leah's mouth the word sounded like a death-bell. "engaged!" he breathed, with a glimmering foreboding of the horror. "to a christian!" said daisy brutally. he sank back, pale and trembling. a tense silence fell on the room. "but how? who?" he murmured at last. the girls recovered themselves. now they were all speaking at once. "another slummer." "he's the son of an archdeacon." "an awful christian crank." "and that's your pet schnapsie." "if _we_ had wanted christians, we could have been married twenty years ago." "it's a terrible disgrace for us." "she doesn't consider us in the least." "she'll be miserable, anyhow. when they quarrel, he'll always throw it up to her that she's a jewess." "and wouldn't join our daughters of mercy committee--had no time." "wasn't going to marry--turned up her nose at all the jewish young men!" "but she would have told me!" he murmured hopelessly. "i don't believe it. my little schnapsie!" "don't believe it?" snorted leah. "why, she didn't even deny it." "have you spoken to her, then?" "have we spoken to her! why, she says judaism is all nonsense! she will disgrace us all." the blind racial instinct spoke through them--the twenty-five centuries of tested separateness. but daniel felt in super-addition the conscious religious horror. "but is she to be married in a christian church?" he breathed. "oh, she isn't going to marry--yet." his poor heart fluttered at the reprieve. "she doesn't care a pin for _our_ feelings," went on leah. "but of course she won't marry while _you_ are alive." lily took up the thread. "we all told her if she'd only marry a jew, we'd all be glad to have you--in turn. but she said it wasn't that. she could have you herself; her alfred wouldn't mind. it's the shock to your religious feelings that keeps her back. she doesn't want to hurt you." "god bless her, my good little schnapsie!" he murmured. his dazed brain did not grasp all the bearings, was only conscious of a vast relief. disgust darkened all the faces. he groped to understand it, putting his hand over the white hairs that straggled from his skull-cap. "but then--then it's all right." "yes, all right," said leah brutally. "but for how long?" her meaning seized him like an icy claw upon his heart. for the first time in his life he realized the certainty of death, and simultaneously with the certainty its imminence. "we want you to put a stop to it _now_," said sylvia. "for our sakes make her promise that even when-- you're the only one who has any influence over her." she rose, as if to wind up the painful interview, and the others rose, too, with a multiplex rustling of silken skirts. he shook the six jewelled hands as in a dream, and promised to do his best; and as he watched the little procession of carriages roll off, it seemed to him indeed a funeral, and his own. vii ah god, that it should have come to this. little schnapsie could not be happy till he was dead. well, why should he keep her waiting? what mattered the few odd years or months? he was already dead. there was his funeral going down the street. to speak to schnapsie he had never intended, even while he was promising it. those years of silent life together had made real conversation impossible. the bridge on which his soul passed over to hers was a bridge over which hung a sacred silence. under the weight of words, especially of angry parental words, it might break down forever. and that would be worse than death. no; little schnapsie had her own life, and he somehow knew he had not the right to question it, even though it seemed on the verge of deadly sin. he could not have expressed it in logical speech, was not even clearly conscious of it; but his tender relation with her had educated him to a sense of her moral rightness, which now survived and subsisted with his conviction that she was hopelessly astray. no, he had not the right to interfere with her life, with her prospect of happiness in her own way. he must give up living. little schnapsie must be nearly thirty; the best of her youth was gone. she should be happy with this strange man. but if he killed himself, that would bring disgrace on the family--and little schnapsie. perhaps, too, alfred would not marry her. was there no way of slipping quietly out of existence? but then suicide was another deadly sin. if only that had really been his funeral procession! "o god, god of israel, tell me what to do!" viii a sudden inspiration leapt to his heart. she should not have to wait for his death to be happy; he would _live_ to see her happy. he would pretend that her marriage cost him no pang; indeed, would not truly the pang be swallowed up in the thought of her happiness? but _would_ she be happy? _could_ she be happy with this alien? ah, there was the chilling doubt! if a quarrel came, would not the man always throw it in her face that she was a jewess? well, that must be left to herself. she was old enough not to rush into misery. through all these years he had taken her pensive brow as the seat of all wisdom, her tender eyes as the glow of all goodness, and he could not suddenly readjust himself to a contradictory conception. by the time she came in he had composed himself for his task. "ah, my dear," he said, with a beaming smile, "i have heard the good news." the answering smile died out of her eyes. she looked frightened. "it's all right, little schnapsie," he said roguishly. "so now i shall have seven sons-in-law. and alfred the second, eh?" "you have heard?" "yes," he said, pinching her ear. "thinks she can keep anything from her old father, does she?" "but do you know that he is a--a--" "a christian? of course. what's the difference, as long as he's a good man, eh?" he laughed noisily. little schnapsie looked more frightened than ever. were her father's wits wandering at last? "but i thought--" "thought i would want you to sacrifice yourself! no, no, my dear; we are not in india, where women are burnt alive to please their dead husbands." little schnapsie had an irrelevant vision of herself treading on diamonds and gold. she murmured, "who told you?" "leah." "leah! but leah is angry about it!" "so she is. she came to me in a tantrum, but i told her whatever little schnapsie did was right." "father!" with a sudden cry of belief and affection she fell on his neck and kissed him. "but isn't the darling old jew shocked?" she said, half smiling, half weeping. cunning lent him clairvoyance. "how much judaism is there in your sisters' husbands?" he said. "and without the religion, what is the use of the race?" "why, father, that's what i'm always preaching!" she cried, in astonishment. "think what our judaism was in the dear old portsmouth days. what is the sabbath here? a mockery. not one of your sons-in-law closes his business. but there, when the sabbath came in, how beautiful! gradually it glided, glided; you heard the angel's wings. then its shining presence was upon you, and a holy peace settled over the house." "yes, yes." his eyes filled with tears. he saw the row of innocent girl faces at the white sabbath table. what had london and prosperity brought him instead? "and then the atonement days, when the ram's horn thrilled us with a sense of sin and judgment, when we thought the heavenly scrolls were being signed and sealed. who feels that here, father? some of us don't even fast." "true, true." he forgot his part. "then you are a good jewess still?" she shook her head sadly. "we have outlived our destiny. our isolation is a meaningless relic." but she had kindled a new spark of hope. "can't you bring him over to us?" "to what? to our empty synagogues?" "then you are going over to him?" he tried to keep his voice steady. "i must; his father is an archdeacon." "i know, i know," he said, though she might as well have said an archangel. "but you do not believe in--in--" "i believe in self-sacrifice; that is christianity." "is it? i thought it was three gods." "that is not the essential." "thank god!" he said. then he added hurriedly: "but will you be happy with him? such different bringing up! you can't really feel close to him." she laughed and blushed. "there are deeper things than one's bringing up, father." "but if after marriage you should have a quarrel, he would always throw up to you that you are a jewess." "no, alfred will never do that." "then make haste, little schnapsie, or your old father won't live to see you under the canopy." she smiled happily, believing him. "but there won't be any canopy," she said. "well, well, whatever it is," he laughed back, with horrid imagining that it might be a cross. ix it was agreed between them that, to avoid endless family councils, the sisters should not be told, and that the ceremony should be conducted as privately as possible. the archdeacon himself was coming up to town to perform the ceremony in the church of another of his sons in chalk farm. after the short honeymoon, daniel was to come and live with the couple in whitechapel, for they were to live in the centre of their labours. poor daniel tried to find some comfort in the thought that whitechapel was a more jewish and a homelier quarter than highbury. but the unhomely impression produced upon him by his latest son-in-law neutralized everything. all his other sons-in-law had more or less awed him, but beneath the awe ran a tunnel of brotherhood. with this alfred, however, he was conscious of a glacial current, which not all the young man's cordiality could tepefy. "are you sure you will be happy with him, little schnapsie?" he asked anxiously. "you dear worrying old thing!" "but if after marriage you quarrel, he will always throw it up to you that you are--" "and i'll throw it up to him that he is a christian, and oughtn't to quarrel." he was silenced. but his heart thanked god that his dear old wife had been spared the coming ordeal. "this too was for good," he murmured, in the hebrew proverb. and so the tragic day drew nigh. x one short week before, daniel was wandering about, dazed by the near prospect. an unholy fascination drew him toward chalk farm, to gaze on the church in which the profane union would be perpetrated. perhaps he ought even to go inside; to get over his first horror at being in such a building, so as not to betray himself during the actual ceremony. as he drew near the heathen edifice he saw a striped awning, carriages, a bustle of people entering, a pressing, peeping crowd. a wedding! ah, good! there was no doubt now he must go in; he would see what this unknown ceremony in this unknown building was like. it would be a sort of rehearsal; it would help to steel him at the tragic moment. he was passing through the central doors with some other men, but a policeman motioned them to a side door. he shuffled timidly within. full as the church was, the chill stone spaces struck cold to his heart; all the vast alien life they typified froze his soul. the dread word _meshumad_--apostate--seemed echoing and reëchoing from the cold pillars. he perceived his companions had bared their heads, and he hastily snatched off his rusty beaver. the unaccustomed sensation in his scalp completed his sense of unholiness. nothing seemed going on yet, but as he slipped into a seat in the aisle he became aware of an organ playing joyous preludes, almost jiggish. for a moment he wondered dully what there was to be gay about, and his eyes filled with bitter tears. a craning forward in the nondescript congregation made the old man peer forward. he saw, at the far end of the church, a sort of platform upon which four men, in strange, flowing robes, stood under a cross. he hid his eyes from the sight of the symbol that had overshadowed his ancestors' lives. when he opened his eyes again the men were kneeling. would _he_ have to kneel, he wondered. would his old joints have to assume that pagan posture? presently four bridesmaids, shielded by great glowing bouquets, appeared on the platform, and descending, passed with measured theatric pace down the farther avenue, too remote for his clear vision. his neighbours stood up to stare at them, and he rose, too. and throughout the organ bubbled out its playful cadenzas. a stir and a buzz swept through the church. a procession began to file in. at its head was a pale, severe young man, supported by a cheerful young man. other young men followed; then the bridesmaids reappeared. and finally--target of every glance--there passed a glory of white veil supported by an old military looking man in a satin waistcoat. ah, that would be he and schnapsie, then. up that long avenue, beneath all these curious christian eyes, he, daniel peyser, would have to walk. he tried to rehearse it mentally now, so that he might not shame her; he paced pompously and stiffly, with beautiful schnapsie on his arm, a glory of white veil. he saw himself slowly reaching the platform, under the chilling cross; then everything swam before him, and he sank shuddering into his seat. his little schnapsie! she was being sucked up into all this hateful heathendom, to the seductive music of satanic orchestras. he sat in a strange daze, vaguely conscious that the organ had ceased, and that some preacher's recitative had begun instead. when he looked up again, the bridal party before the altar loomed vague, as through a mist. he passed his hand over his clouded brow. of a sudden a sentence of the recitative pierced sharply to his brain:-- "therefore if any man can show any just cause why they may not lawfully be joined together, let him now speak, or else hereafter forever hold his peace." o god of israel! then it was the last chance! he sprang to his feet, and shouted in agony: "no, no, she must not marry him! she must not!" all heads turned toward the shabby old man. an electric shiver ran through the church. the bride paled; a bridesmaid shrieked; the minister, taken aback, stood silent. a white-gloved usher hurried up. "do you forbid the banns?" called the minister. the old man's mind awoke, and groped mistily. "come, what have you to say?" snapped the usher. "i--i--nothing," he murmured in awed confusion. "he is drunk," said the usher. "out with you, my man." he hustled daniel toward the side door, and let it swing behind him. but daniel shrank from facing the cordon of spectators outside. he hung miserably about the vestibule till the wedding march swelled in ironic triumph, and the human outpour swept him into the street. xi his abstracted look, his ragged talk, troubled schnapsie at the evening meal, but she could not elicit that anything had happened. in the evening paper, her eye, avid of marriage items, paused on a big-headed paragraph. "i forbid the banns!" strange scene at a chalk farm church. when she had finished the paragraph and read another, the first began to come back to her, shadowed with a strange suspicion. why, this was the very church--? a jewish-looking old man--! great heavens! then all this had been mere pose, self-sacrifice. and his wits were straying under the too heavy burden! only blind craving for her own happiness could have made her believe that the mental habits of seventy years could be broken off. "well, father," she said brightly, "you will be losing me very soon now." his lips quivered into a pathetic smile. "i am very glad." he paused, struggling with himself. "if you are sure you will be happy!" "but haven't we talked that over enough, father?" "yes--but you know--if a quarrel arose, he would always throw it up--that--" "nonsense, nonsense," she laughed. but the repetition of the old thought struck her poignantly as a sign of maundering wits. "and you are sure you will get along together?" "quite sure." "then i am glad." he drew her to him, and kissed her. she broke down and wept under the conviction of his lying. he became the comforter in his turn. "don't cry, little schnapsie, don't cry. i didn't mean to frighten you. alfred is a good man, and i am sure, even if you quarrel, he will never throw it--" the mumbling passed into a kiss on her wet cheek. xii that night, after a long passionate vigil in her bedroom, little schnapsie wrote a letter:-- "dearest alfred,--this will be as painful for you to read as for me to write. i find at the eleventh hour i cannot marry you. i owe it to you to state my reason. as you know, i did not consent to our love being crowned by union till my father had given his consent. i now find that this consent was not the free outcome of my father's soul, that it was only to promote my happiness. try to imagine what it means for an old man of seventy odd years to wrench himself away from all his life-long prejudices, and you will realize what he has been trying to do for me. but the wrench was beyond his strength. he is breaking his heart over it, and, i fear, even wandering in his mind. "you will say, let us again consent to wait for a contingency which i am not cold-blooded enough to set down more openly. but i do not think it is fair to you to let you risk your happiness further by keeping it entangled with mine. a new current of thought has been set going in my mind. if a religion that i thought all formalism is capable of producing such types of abnegation as my dear father, then it must, too, somewhere or other, hold in solution all those ennobling ingredients, all those stimuli to self-sacrifice, which the world calls christian. perhaps i have always misunderstood. we were so badly taught. perhaps the prosaic epoch of judaism into which i was born is only transitional, perhaps it only belongs to the middle classes, for i know i felt more of its poetry in my childhood; perhaps the future will develop (or recultivate) its diviner sides and lay more stress upon the life beautiful, and thus all this blind instinct of isolation may prove only the conservation of the race for its nobler future, when it may still become, in very truth, a witness to the highest, a chosen people in whom all the families of the earth may be blessed. i do not know; all this is very confused and chaotic to me to-night. i only know i can hold out no certain hope of the earthly fulfilment of our love. i, too, feel in transition, and i know not to what. but, dearest alfred, shall we not be living the christian life--the life of abnegation--more truly if we give up the hope of personal happiness? forgive me, darling, the pain i am causing you, and thus help me to bear my own. "your friend till death, "florence." it was an hour past midnight ere the letter was finished, and when it was sealed a sense of relief at remaining in the jewish fold stole over her, though she would scarcely acknowledge it to herself, and impatiently analyzed it away as hereditary. and despite it, if she slept on the letter, would it ever be posted? but the house was sunk in darkness. she was the only creature stirring. and yet she yearned to have the thing over, irrevocable. perhaps she might venture out herself with her latch-key. there was a letter-box at the street corner. she lit a candle and stole out on the landing, casting a monstrous shadow which frightened her. in her over-wrought mood it almost seemed an uncanny creature grinning at her. her mother's death-bed rose suddenly before her; her mother's voice cried: "ah, florrie, do not fret. i will find thee a bridegroom." was this the bridegroom--was this the only one she would ever know? "father! father!" she shrieked, with sudden terror. a door was thrown open; a figure shambled forth in carpet slippers--a dear, homely, reassuring figure--holding the coloured handkerchief which had helped to banish him from the drawing-room. his face was smeared; his eyelids under the pushed-up horn spectacles were red: he, too, had kept vigil. "what is it? what is it, little schnapsie?" "nothing. i--i--i only wanted to ask you if you would be good enough to post this letter--to-night." "good enough? why, i shall enjoy a breath of air." he took the letter and essayed a roguish laugh as his eye caught the superscription. "ho! ho!" he pinched her cheek. "so we mustn't let a day pass without writing to him, eh?" she quivered under this unforeseen misconception. "no," she echoed, with added firmness, "we mustn't let a day pass." "but go to bed at once, little schnapsie. you look quite pale. if you stay up so late writing him letters, you won't make him a beautiful bride." "no," she repeated, "i won't make him a beautiful bride." she heard the hall door close gently upon his cautious footsteps, and her eyes dimmed with divine tears as she thought of the joy that awaited his return. * * * * * iii noah's ark * * * * * iii noah's ark i on a summer's day toward the close of the first quarter of the nineteenth century after christ, peloni walked in "the good place" of the frankfort _judengasse_ and pondered. at times he came to a standstill and appeared to study the inscriptions on the tumbled tombstones, or the carven dragons, shields, and stars, but his black eyes burnt inward and he saw less the tragedy of jewish death than the tragedy of jewish life. for "the good place" was the place of death. here alone in frankfort--in this shut-in bit of the shut-in jew-street--was true peace for israel. the rest of the jew-street offered comparative tranquillity even for the living; yet when, ninety years before peloni was born, the great fire had raged therein, the inhabitants had locked the ghetto-gate against the christians, less fearful of the ravaging flames than of their fellow-citizens. even to-day, if he ventured outside the _judengasse_, peloni must tread delicately. the foot-path was not for him: he must plod on the dusty road, with all the other beasts. in some places the very road was too holy for him, and any passer-by might snatch off his hat in punishment for his breaking bounds. the ragged street urchin or the staggering drunkard might cry to him "_'jud,' mach mores_: jew, mind your manners." some ten years ago the frankfort ghetto had been verbally abolished by a civilized archduke, caught up in the wave of napoleonic toleration. peloni had shared in the exultation of the jews at the final dissipation of the long night of mediævalism. he had written a hebrew poem on it, brilliantly rhymed, congested with apt quotations from bible and talmud, the whole making an acrostic upon the name of the enlightened karl theodor von dalberg. henceforth israel would take his place among the peoples, honour on his brow, love in his heart, manhood in his limbs. a gracious letter of acknowledgment from the archduke was displayed in the window of peloni's little bookselling establishment, amid the door-amulets, phylacteries, praying-shawls, purim-scrolls, and hebrew volumes. but now the prince had been ousted, napoleon was dead, everywhere the ghetto-gates were locked again, and the poem lay stacked on the remainder shelves. in vain had the grateful jews hastened to fight for the fatherland, tendered it body and soul. poor little curly-haired peloni had been attacked in the streets as an alien that very morning. roysterers had raised the old cry of "hep! hep!"--fatal, immemorial cry, ghastly heritage of the crusades. century after century that cry had gone echoing through europe. century after century the jews thought they had lived it down, bought it down, died it down. but no! it rose again, buoyant, menacing, irresponsible. ah, what a fool he had been to hope! there was no hope. rarely, indeed, since the dark ages had persecution flaunted itself so openly. riots and massacres were breaking out all over germany, and in his own ghetto peloni had seen sights that had turned his patriotism to gall, and crushed his trust in the christian, his beautiful bubble-dreams of the millennium. rothschild himself, whose house in the _judengasse_ with the sign of the red shield had been the centre of the attack, was well-nigh unable to maintain his position in the town. and these local successes inflamed the jew-haters everywhere. "let the children of israel be sold to the english," recommended a popular pamphlet of the period, "who could employ them in their indian plantations instead of the blacks. the best plan would be to purge the land entirely of this vermin, either by exterminating them, or, as pharaoh, and the people of meiningen, würzburg, and frankfort did, by driving them from the country." "oh, god!" thought peloni, as his mind ran over the long chain from pharaoh to frankfort. "evermore to wander, stoned and derided! thou hast set a mark on his forehead, but his punishment is greater than he can bear." the dead lay all around him, one upon another, new red stones shouldering aside the gray stones that told to boot of the death of the centuries. and the pressure of all this struggle for death-room had raised the earth higher than the adjacent paths. he thought of how these dead had always come here; even in their lifetime, when the enemy raged outside. here they had put the women and children and gone back to the synagogue to pray. ah, the cowards! always oscillating betwixt cemetery and synagogue, why did they not live, why did they not fight? yes, but they had fought,--fought for germany, and this was germany's reply. but could they not fight for themselves then, with money, with the sinews of war, if not with the weapons; with gold, if not with steel? could they not join financial forces all through the world? but no! there was no such solidarity as the christians dreamed. and they were too mixed up with the european world to dream of self-concentration. even while the frankfort rothschild's house was surrounded by rioters, the paris rothschild was giving a ball to the _élite_ of diplomatic society. no! the old jews were right--there was only the synagogue and the cemetery. but was there even the synagogue? that, too, was dead. the living faith, the vivid realization of israel's hope, which had made the dark ages endurable and even luminous, were only to be found now among fanatics whose blind ignorance and fierce clinging to the dead letter and the obsolete form counterbalanced the poetry and sublimity of their persistence. in the middle ages, peloni felt, his poems would have been absorbed into the liturgy. for when the liturgy and the religion were alive, they took in and gave out--like all living things. but no--the synagogue of to-day was dead. remained only the cemetery. "_jude, verrek!_" jew, die like a beast. yes, what else was there to do? for he was not even a rothschild, he told himself with whimsical anguish; only a poor poet, unread, unknown, unhealthy; a shadow that only found substance to suffer; a set of heart-strings across which every wind that blew made a poignant, passionate music; a lamentation incarnate, a voice of weeping in the wilderness, a bubble blown of tears, a dream, a mist, a nobody,--in short, peloni! the dead generations drew him. he fell, weeping passionately, upon a tomb. ii there seemed an unwonted stir in the _judengasse_ when peloni returned to it. was there another riot threatening? he thought, as he passed along the narrow street of three-storied frame houses, most of them gabled, and all marked by peculiar signs and figures--the bear or the lion or the garlic or the red shield (_rothschild_)! outside the synagogue loitered a crowd, and as he drew near he perceived that there was a long proclamation in a couple of folio sheets nailed on the door. it was doubtless this which was being discussed by the little groups he had already noted. about the synagogue door the throng was so thick that he could not get near enough to read it himself. but fortunately some one was engaged in reading it aloud for the benefit of those on the outskirts. "'wherefore i, mordecai manuel noah, citizen of the united states of america, late consul of said states to the city and kingdom of tunis, high sheriff of new york, counsellor-at-law, and by the grace of god governor and judge of israel, have issued this my proclamation.'" a derisive laugh from a dwarfish figure in the crowd interrupted the reading. "father noah come to life again!" it was the _possemacher_, or wedding-jester, who was not sparing of his wit, even when not professionally engaged. "a foreigner--an american!" sneered a more serious voice. "who made him ruler in israel?" "that's what the wicked israelite asked moses!" cried peloni, curiously excited. "_nun, nun!_ go on!" cried others. "'announcing to the jews throughout the world, that an asylum is prepared and hereby offered to them, where they can enjoy that peace, comfort, and happiness which have been denied them through the intolerance and misgovernment of former ages. an asylum in a free and powerful country, where ample protection is secured to their persons, their property, and religious rights; an asylum in a country remarkable for its vast resources, the richness of its soil, and the salubrity of its climate; where industry is encouraged, education promoted, and good faith rewarded. "a land of milk and honey," where israel may repose in peace, under his "vine and fig tree," and where our people may so familiarize themselves with the science of government and the lights of learning and civilization, as may qualify them for that great and final restoration to their ancient heritage, which the times so powerfully indicate.'" the crowd had grown attentive. peloni's face was pale as death. what was this great thing, fallen so unexpectedly from the impassive heaven his hopelessness had challenged? but the _possemacher_ captured the moment. "father noah's drunk again!" a great laugh shook the crowd. but peloni dug his nails into his palms. "read on! read on!" he cried hoarsely. "'the place of refuge is in the state of new york, the largest in the american union, and the spot to which i invite my beloved people from the whole world is called grand island.'" peloni drew a deep breath. his face had now changed to the other extreme and was flushed with excitement. "noah's ark!" shot the _possemacher_ dryly, and had his audience swaying hysterically. "for god's sake, brethren!" cried peloni. "this is no joke. have you forgotten already that here we are only animals?" "and they went in two by two," said the _possemacher_, "the clean beasts, and the unclean beasts!" "hush, hush, let us hear!" from some of the crowd. "'here i am resolved to lay the foundation of a state, named ararat.'" "ah! what did i say?" the exultant _possemacher_ shrieked at peloni. "ha! ha! ha!" laughed the crowd. "noah's ark resting on ararat!" the dullest saw that. peloni was taken aback for a moment. "but why should not the place of israel's ark of refuge be named ararat?" he asked of his neighbours. "if only his name wasn't noah!" they answered. "that makes it even more appropriate," he murmured. but "noah's ark" was the nickname that kills. though the reader continued, it was only to an audience exhilarated by a sense of arabian nights fantasy. but the elaborate description of the grandeurs of this grand island, and the eloquent passages about the century of right, and the ancient oracles, restored peloni's enthusiasm to fever heat. "it is too long," said the reader, wearying at last. peloni rushed forward and took up the task. the first sentence exalted him still further. "'in god's name i revive, renew, and reëstablish the government of the jewish nation, under the auspices and protection of the constitution and the laws of the united states, confirming and perpetuating all our rights and privileges, our name, our rank, and our power among the nations of the earth, as they existed and were recognized under the government of the judges of israel.'" peloni's voice shook with fervour. as he began the next sentence, "'it is my will,'" he stretched out his hand with an involuntary regal gesture. the spirit of noah was entering into him, and he felt almost as if it was he who was re-creating the jewish nation--"'it is my will that a census of the jews throughout the world be taken, that those who are well treated and wish to remain in their respective countries shall aid those who wish to go; that those who are in military service shall until further orders remain true and loyal to their rulers. "'i command'"--peloni read the words with expansive magnificence, his poet's soul vibrating to that other royal dreamer's across the great atlantic--"'that a strict neutrality be maintained in the pending war betwixt greece and turkey. "'i abolish forever'"--peloni's hand swept the air,--"'polygamy among the jews.'" "but where have we polygamy?" interrupted the _possemacher_. "'as it is still practised in africa and asia,'" read on peloni severely. "i'm off at once for africa and asia!" cried the marriage-jester, pretending to run. "good business for me there." "you'll find better business in america," said peloni scathingly. "for do not all our austrian young men fly thither to marry, seeing that at home only the eldest son may found a family? a pretty fatherland indeed to be a citizen of--a step-fatherland. listen, on the contrary, to the noble tolerance of the jew. 'christians are freely invited.'" "ah! do you know who'll go?" broke in a narrow-faced zealot. "the missionaries." peloni continued hastily: "'ararat is open, too, to the caraites and the samaritans. the black jews of india and africa shall be welcome; our brethren in cochin-china and the sect on the coast of malabar; all are welcome.'" "ha! ha! ha!" laughed a burly jew. "so we're to live with the blacks. enough of this joke!" but peloni went on solemnly: "'a capitation-tax on every jew of three silver shekels per annum--'" "ah, now we have got to it!" and a great roar broke from the crowd. "not a bad _geschäft_, eh?" and they winked. "he is no fool, this noah." peloni's blood boiled. "do you believe everybody is like yourselves?" he cried. "listen!" "'i do appoint the first day of next adar for a thanksgiving day to the god of israel, for his divine protection and the fulfilment of his promises to the house of israel. i recommend peace and union among ourselves, charity and good-will to all, toleration and liberality toward our brethren of all religions--'" "didn't i say a missionary in disguise?" murmured the zealot. peloni ended, with tremulous emotion: "'i humbly entreat to be remembered in your prayers, and earnestly do i enjoin you to "keep the charge of the holy god," to walk in his ways, to keep his statutes and his commandments and his judgments and testimonies, as written in the laws of moses; "that thou mayest prosper in all thou doest and whithersoever thou turnest thyself." "'given under our hand and seal in the state of new york, on the d of ab in the fiftieth year of american independence.'" * * * * * peloni's efforts to organize a company of pilgrims to the new jerusalem brought him only heart-ache. the very rabbi who had good-naturedly consented to circulate the fantastic foreigner's invitation, tapped his forehead significantly: "a visionary! of good intentions, doubtless, but still--a visionary. besides, according to our dogmas, god alone knows the epoch of the israelitish restoration; he alone will make it known to the whole universe, by signs entirely unequivocal; and every attempt on our part to reassemble with any political, national design, is forbidden as an act of high treason against the divine majesty. mr. noah has doubtless forgotten that the israelites, faithful to the principles of their belief, are too much attached to the countries where they dwell, and devoted to the governments under which they enjoy liberty and protection, not to treat as a mere jest the chimerical consulate of a pseudo-restorer." "noah's a madman, and you're an infant," peloni's friends told him. "since the destruction of the temple," he quoted in retort, "the gift of prophecy has been confined to children and fools." "you are giving up a decent livelihood," they warned him. "you are throwing it into the atlantic." "'cast thy bread upon the waters and it shall return to thee after many days.'" "but in the meantime?" "'man doth not live by bread alone.'" "as you please. but don't ask _us_ to throw up our comfortable home here." "comfortable home!" and peloni grew almost apoplectic as he reminded them of their miseries. "persecution?" they shrugged their shoulders. "it comes only now and again, like a snow-storm, and we crawl through it." "that's just it--the lack of manliness--the poisoned atmosphere!" "bah! the _goyim_ refuse us equal rights because they know we're their superiors. let us not jump from the frying-pan into the fire." so peloni sailed for new york alone. iii he was rather disappointed to find no other pilgrim even on the ship. true, there was one jew, but the business paradise of new york was his goal across this waste of waters, and of noah's ark he had never heard. peloni's panegyric of grand island was rendered ineffective by his own nebulous conception of its commercial possibilities. he passed the slow days in the sailing-vessel polishing up his english, the literature of which he had long studied. in new york peloni's hopes revived. major noah--for it appeared he was an officer of militia likewise--was in everybody's mouth. editor of the _national advocate_, the leading organ of the bucktails, or tammany party, a journalist whose clever sallies and humorous paragraphs were widely enjoyed, an author of excellent "travels," a playwright of the first distinction, whose patriotic dramas were always given on the fourth of july, a critic regarded as sir oracle, a politician, lawyer, and man of the world, a wit, the gay centre of every gathering--surely in this lion of new york, who was also the lion of david, israel had at last found a deliverer. they called him madman down in frankfort, did they? well, let them come here and see. he wrote home to the scoffers of the _judengasse_ all the information about the great man that was in the very air of the american city, though the man himself he had only as yet corresponded with. he told the famous story of how when noah was canvassing for the office of high sheriff of new york, it was urged that no jew should be put into an office where he might have to hang a christian, to which noah had retorted wittily, "pretty christian, to have to be hanged!" "and you all fancied 'father noah' would fall to pieces before the _possemacher's_ wit!" peloni commented with vengeful satisfaction. "i rejoice to say that noah will never have anything to do with a _possemacher_, for he is president of the old bachelors' club, the members of which are pledged never to marry." he told of noah's adventurous career: of how when he was a mere boy clerk in the auditor's office of his native philadelphia, congress had voted him a hundred dollars for his precocious preparation of the actuary tables for the eight-per-cent loan; of the three duels at charleston, in which he had vindicated at once the courage of the jew and the policy of american resistance to great britain; of his consulate in tunis, his capture at sea by the british fleet during the war, his release on parole that enabled him to travel about england; of his genius for letters--a very david in israel; of his generosity to hundreds of strugglers; of his quixotic disdain of money; of his impoverishing himself by paying two hundred thousand dollars of other people's debts as the price of his impulsive shrieval action in throwing open the doors of the debtor's jail when the yellow fever broke out within. "yes," wrote peloni exultantly, "in new york they talk no more of shylock. and with all the temptations to christian fellowship or pagan free-living, a pillar of the synagogue,--nay, israel's one hope in all the world!" it was a wonderful moment when peloni, at last invited to call on the judge of israel, palpitated on the threshold of his study and gazed blinkingly at the great man enthroned before his writing-table amid elegant vistas of books and paintings. what a noble poetic vision it seemed to him: the broad brow, with the tumbled hair; the long, delicate-featured face tapering to a narrow chin environed with whiskers, but clean of beard or even of mustache, so that the mobile, sensitive mouth was laid bare. peloni's glance also took in a handsome black coat, with a decoration on the lapel, a high-peaked collar, a black puffy bow, a frilled shirt, and a very broad jewelled cuff over a white, long-fingered hand, that held a tall quill with a great breadth of feather. "ah, come in," said the governor of israel, waving his quill. "you are peloni of frankfort." "come three thousand miles to kiss the hem of your garment." noah permitted the attention. "i am obliged to you for your hebrew poem in honour of my project," he said urbanely. "i approve of hebrew--it is a link that binds us to our forefathers. i am myself editing a translation of the book of jasher." "you will have found my verses a very poor expression of your divine ideas." "you use a difficult hebrew. but the general drift seemed to show you had caught the greatness of my conception." "ah, yes! i have lived in _judengasse_, oppressed and derided." "but there is worse than oppression--there is inward stagnation of the spiritual life. my idea came to me in tunis, where the jews are little oppressed. you know president madison appointed me consul of the united states for the city and kingdom of tunis, one of the most respectable and interesting stations in the regencies of barbary. i had long desired to visit the country of dido and hannibal, to trace the field of zama, and seek out the ruins of utica,--whose sites i believe i have now successfully established,--but it was my main design to investigate the condition of the barbary jews, of whom, you will remember, we have no account later than benjamin of tudela's in the thirteenth century. but do not stand--take a chair. well, i found our brethren--to the number of seven hundred thousand--controlling everything in barbary, farming the revenue, regulating the coinage, keeping the dey's jewels and almost his person,--in short, anything but persecuted, though, of course, the majority were miserably poor. they did not know i was a jew--though secretary monroe recalled me because i was, and it was monroe's doctrine that judaism would be an obstacle to the discharge of my functions. absurd! the catholic priest was allowed to sprinkle the consulate with holy water: the barefooted franciscan received an alms, nor did i fail to acknowledge by a donation the decorated branch sent on palm sunday by the greek bishop. and as for the slaves, i assure you they were not backward in coming to ask favours. the only people who never came to me were precisely the jews. i went about among them incognito, so to speak, like haroun alraschid among his subjects; hence i was able to see all the evils that will never be eliminated till israel is again a nation." "ah! your words are the words of wisdom. you touch the root of the evil. it is what i have always told them." noah rose to his feet, displaying a royal stature in harmony with his broad shoulders. "yes, i resolved it should be mine to elevate my people, to make them hold up their heads worthily in this century of freedom and enlightenment." "it is the ark of the convenant, as well as of the deluge, which will rest on ararat!" "true--and like the first noah, i may become the progenitor of a new world. i have communications from the four corners of the earth. you are the type of thousands who will flee from the rotting tyrannies of europe into the great free republic which i shall direct." he began to pace the room. peloni had visions of great black lines of pilgrims converging from every quarter of the compass. "but this grand island--is it yours?" he inquired timidly. "i have bought thousands of acres of it--i and a few others who believe in the great future of our people." "jews?" "no, not jews--capitalists who know that we shall become the commercial centre of the new world,--that is, of the world of the future." peloni groaned. "and jews will not believe? we must go to the gentiles. jews will only put their money into gentile schemes; will build always for others, never for themselves. it is the same everywhere. alas for israel!" "it is what i preach. why administer barbary for a savage dey when you can administer grand island for yourself? seven hundred thousand jews in savage barbary, and throughout these vast free states not seven thousand. ah, but they will come; they will come. ararat will gather its millions." "but will there be room?" "the state of new york," replied noah, impressively, "is the largest in the union, containing forty-three thousand two hundred and fourteen square miles divided into fifty-five counties and having six thousand and eighty-seven post-towns and cities together with six million acres of cultivated land. the constitution is founded on equality of rights. we recognize no religious differences. in our seven thousand free schools and gymnasia, four hundred thousand children of every religion are being educated. here in this great and progressive state the long wandering of my beloved people shall end." "but grand island itself?" murmured peloni feebly. "come here," and noah unrolled a great map. "see, how nobly it is situated in the niagara river, near the world-famed falls, which will supply water-power for our machinery. it is twelve miles long and from three to seven broad, and contains seventeen thousand acres. lake erie is two hundred and seventy miles long and borders new york, pennsylvania, and ohio, as well as canada. and see! by navigable streams this great lake is connected with all that wonderful chain of lakes. by short canals we shall connect with the illinois and mississippi, and trade with new orleans and the gulf of mexico. through the ontario--see here!--we traffic with quebec, montreal, and touch the great atlantic. the niagara falls, as i said, turn our machinery. the fur trade, the lumber trade, all is ours. our cattle multiply, our lands wave with harvests. we are the centre of the world, the capital of the future. and look! see what the _albany gazette_ says: 'here the hebrews can have their jerusalem without fearing the legions of titus. here they can erect their temple without dreading the torches of frenzied soldiers. here they can lay their heads on their pillows at night without fear of mobs, of bigotry and persecution.'" peloni drew a long breath, enraptured by this holy el dorado, sparkling on the map, amid its tributary lakes and rivers. "you will see the eighteenth chapter of isaiah fulfilled," noah went on. "for what is the 'land shadowing with wings, which is beyond the rivers of ethiopia,' which shall send messengers to a nation scattered and peeled? what but america, shadowing us with the wings of its eagle? as it is written elsewhere, 'i will bear thee on eagle's wings.' it is true the english bible translates 'woe to the land,' but this is a mistranslation. it should be 'hail to the land!' also the word '_goumey_' they translate 'bulrushes'--'that sendeth messengers in vessels of bulrushes!' but does not '_goumey_' also mean 'rush, impetus?' and is it not therefore a prophecy of those new steam-vessels that are beginning to creep up, one of which has just crossed from england to india? erelong they will be running between america and all the world. it is the lord making ready for the easy ingathering of his people. ay, and along these lakes"--the prophet's finger swept the map--"will be heard the panting of mighty steam-monsters, all making for ararat. by the way, ararat lies here," and he indicated a spot of the island opposite tonawanda on the mainland. peloni bent down and poetically pressed his lips to the spot, like jehuda halevi kissing the holy soil. "there is no one in possession there?" he inquired anxiously. "maybe a few iroquois indians," said noah. "but they will not have to be turned out like the hittites and amorites and jebusites by our ancestors." "no?" murmured peloni. "of course not. they are our own brothers, carried away by the king of assyria. there can be not the slightest doubt that the red indians are the lost ten tribes of israel." "what?" cried peloni, vastly excited. "i shall publish a book on the subject. yes, in worship, dialect, language, sacrifices, marriages, divorces, burials, fastings, purifications, punishments, cities of refuge, divisions of tribes, high-priests, wars, triumphs--'tis our very tradition." "then i suppose one could lodge with them. i am anxious to settle in ararat at once." "you can scarcely settle there till the forest is cleared," said the great man, arching his eyebrows. "the forest!" repeated peloni, taken aback. "ah, you are dismayed. you are a european, accustomed to ready-made cities. we americans, we change continents while you wait, build up aladdin's palaces over-night. as soon as i can manage to go over the ground i will plan out the city." "you haven't been there yet?" gasped peloni. "ah, my dear peloni. when should i find time to travel all the way to buffalo,--a busy editor, lawyer, playwright, what not? true, the time that other men give to domestic happiness the president of the old bachelors' club is able to give to his fellow-men. but the slow canal voyage--" at this moment there was a knock at the door, and a servant inquired if major noah could see his tailor. "ah, a good augury!" cried the major. "here is the tailor come to try on my robe of governor and judge of israel." the man bore an elaborate robe of crimson silk trimmed with ermine, which he arranged about noah's portly person, making marks with pins and chalk where it could be made to fit better. "do you like it?" said noah, puffing himself out regally. peloni's uneasiness vanished. doubt was impossible before these magnificent realities. ah! the americans were wonderful. "i had to go through our annals," noah explained, "to find which period of our government we could revive. kingship was opposed to the sentiment of these states: in the epoch of the judges i found my ideal. indeed, what is the president of the united states but a _shophet_, a judge of israel? ah, you are looking at that painting of me--i shall have to be done again in my new robes. that elegant creature who hangs beside me is miss leesugg, the hebe of english actresses, as she appeared in my 'she would be a soldier, or the plains of chippewa.' there is a caricature of my uncle, aaron j. phillips, as the turkish commander in my 'grecian captive.' dear me, shall i ever forget how he tumbled off that elephant! ha! ha! ha! that is miss johnson, in my 'yusef carmatti, or the siege of tripoli.' the black and white is a fancy sketch of 'marion, or the hero of lake george,' a play i wrote for the reopening of the park theatre and to celebrate the evacuation of new york by the british in ." "ah, i was there, major," said the tailor. "it was bully. but the house was so full of generals and colonels you could hardly hear a word." "fortunately for me," laughed noah. "yes, i asked them to come in full uniform for the _éclat_ of the occasion. which reminds me--here is a ticket for you." "for the play?" murmured peloni, as he took it. noah started and looked at him keenly. but his flush of anger faded before peloni's innocent eyes. "no, no," he explained; "for the opening ceremony of the foundation of ararat." peloni's black eyes shone. "there will be a great crush and only ticket-holders can be admitted into the church." "into the church!" echoed peloni, paling. "yes," said the judge of israel impressively, as he stood before a glass to adjust the graceful folds of his crimson robe. "our fellow-citizens in buffalo have been good enough to lend us the episcopal church for the ceremony." "what ceremony?" he faltered, as horrid images swept before him, and he heard all the way from frankfort the taunting cry of "missionary!" "the laying of the foundation-stone of ararat." "laying the foundation-stone in a church!" peloni was puzzled. "ah," said the major, misunderstanding him; "it seems strange to you, nursed in the musty lap of europe. but here in this land of freedom and this century of enlightenment all men are brothers." "but surely the foundation-stone should be laid on grand island." "it would have been desirable. but so many will wish to be present at this great celebration. buffalo alone has some thirteen hundred inhabitants. how should we get them across? there are scarcely any boats to be had--and ararat is twelve miles away. no, no, it is better to hold our ceremony in buffalo. it is, after all, only a symbolism. the corner-stone is already being inscribed in hebrew and english. 'hear, o israel, the lord is our god. ararat, a city of refuge for the jews, founded by mordecai m. noah in the month tishri, corresponding with september, , in the fiftieth year of american independence.'" the sonorous recitation by the _shophet_ in his crimson and ermine robe somewhat restored peloni's equanimity. "but when will the actual city be begun?" he asked. the _shophet_ waved his hand airily. "a matter of days." "but are you sure we can build there?" "look at the map. here is grand island--ours! here is the site of ararat. it is all as plain as a pikestaff. and, talking of pikestaffs, it would not be a bad idea to plant a staff on ararat with the flag of israel." peloni took fire: "yes, yes, let me go and plant it. i'll journey night and day." "you shall plant it," said the _shophet_ graciously. "yes, i'll have the flag made at once. the property man at the park theatre will attend to it for me. the lion of judah and seven stars." "it shall be waving on grand island before you open the celebration in buffalo." peloni went out like a lion, his head in the seven stars. could it be possible that to him--peloni--had fallen the privilege of proclaiming the new jerusalem! iv after the bustle of new york, the scattered village of buffalo was restful but somewhat chilling to the ghetto-bred poet, with his quick brain, unaccustomed to the slow processes of nature. buffalo--with its muddy, unpaved streets, and great trees, up which squirrel and chipmunk ran--was still half in and half out of mother earth; man's artifice ruled in the high street with its stores and inns, some of which were even of brick; but in the byways every now and then a primitive log cabin broke the line of frame cottages, and in the outskirts cows and pigs walked about unconcernedly. it was a reminder of all that would have to be done in ararat ere a temple could shine, like a lighthouse of righteousness to the tossing nations. but when peloni learned that it was only twelve years since the scarcely born village had been burnt down by the british and indians in the war, he felt reëncouraged, warming himself at the flame, so to speak. and when he found that the citizens were all agog about ararat and the church celebration--that it divided interest with the erie canal, the hanging of the three thayers, and the recent reception of general lafayette at the eagle tavern--his heart expanded in a new poem. it was indeed an auspicious moment for noah's scheme. all eyes were turned on the coming celebration of the opening of the great canal, to be the terminus of which buffalo had fought victoriously against black rock. golden visions of the future gleamed almost tangibly; and amid the general magnificence noah's ornate dream took on equal solidity. endless capital would be directed into the neighbourhood of buffalo--for ararat was only twelve miles away. besides, all the great men of buffalo--and there were many--had been honoured with elaborate cards of invitation to the grand ceremony of the foundation-stone. a few old baptist farmers were surly about the threatened vast jewish immigration, but the majority proclaimed with righteous warmth that the glorious american constitution welcomed all creeds, and that there was money in it. peloni looked about for a jew to guide him, but could find none. finally a seneca indian from the camp just below buffalo undertook to look for the spot. it was with a strange thrill that peloni's eyes rested for the first time on a red indian. was this indeed a long-lost brother of his? he cried "shalom aleikhem" in hebrew, but the indian, despite noah's theories, did not seem to understand. ultimately the dialogue was carried on in the few words of broken english which the indian had picked up from the trappers, and in the gesture-language, in which, with his genius for all languages, peloni was soon at home. and in truth he did find at heart some subtle sympathy with this copper-coloured savage which was not called out by the busy citizens of buffalo. on a sunlit morning, bearing his flagstaff with the flag wrapped round it, a blanket, and a little store of provisions for camping out over-night, peloni slipped into the birch canoe and the indian paddled off. for miles they glided in silence along the sparkling niagara, lone denizens of a lonely world. suddenly peloni thought of the _judengasse_ of frankfort, and for a moment it seemed to him that he must be dreaming. what! a few short months ago he was selling prayer-books and phylacteries in the shadow of the old high-gabled houses, and now, in a virgin district of the new world, in company with a half-naked red indian, he was going to plant the flag of judah on an island forest and to found the new jerusalem. what would they say, his old friends, if they could see him now? and he--the _possemacher_--what winged jest would he let fly? a perception of the monstrous fantasy of the thing stole on poor peloni. was he, perhaps, dreaming after all? no, there was the niagara river, the village of black rock on his right hand, and on the other side of the gorge the lively fort erie and the poplar-fringed canadian shore, and there too--on the map noah had given him--ararat lay waiting. the indian paddled imperturbably, throwing back the sparkling water with a soft, soothing sound. peloni lapsed into more pleasurable reflections. how beautiful was this great free place of sun and wind, of water and forest, after the noisome jew-street! he was not dreaming, nor--thank god!--was noah. strange, indeed, that thus should deliverance for israel be wrought; yet what was israel's history but a series of miracles? and his--peloni's--humble hand was to plant the flag that had lain folded and inglorious these twenty centuries! they glided by a couple of little islands, duly marked on the map, and then a great, wooded, dark purple mass rose to meet them with a band of deep orange on the low coast-line. it was grand island. peloni whispered a prayer. obeying the map marked by noah, the canoe glided round the island, keeping to the american side. as they shot past a third little island, a dull booming began to be audible. "what is that?" peloni's face inquired. the indian smiled. "not go many miles farther," he indicated. "the rapids soon. then--whizz! then big jump! niagara. dead." fortunately ararat was due much sooner than niagara. as they drew near the fourth of the little islands, which lay betwixt grand island and the mainland of the states, and saw the tonawanda creek emptying itself into the river, peloni signed to the indian to land; for it was here that ararat was to arise. the landing was easy, the river here being shallow and the bank low. the beauty of the spot, as it lay wild and fresh from god's hand in the golden sunlight, moved peloni to tears. the indian, who seemed curious as to his movements and willing to share his mid-day meal, tied his canoe to a basswood tree and followed the standard-bearer. there was a glorious medley of leafy life--elm, oak, maple, linden, pine, wild cherry, wild plum--which peloni could only rejoice in without differentiating it by names; and as the oddly assorted couple walked through the sun-dappled glades they startled a world of scurrying animal life--snipe and plover and partridges and singing-birds, squirrels and rabbits and even deer, that frisked and fluttered unprescient of the new jerusalem that menaced their immemorial inheritance. the joy of city-building had begun at last to dawn on peloni, the immense pleasure to the human will of beginning afresh, of shaking off the pressure of the ages, of inscribing free ideas on the plastic universe. as he wandered at random in search of a suitable spot on which to plant the flagstaff, the romance of this great american world thrilled him, of this vast continent won acre by acre from nature and the savage, covering itself with splendid cities; a retrospective sympathy with the citizens of buffalo and their coming canal warmed his breast. of a sudden he heard a screaming, and looking up he observed two strange, huge birds upon a blasted pine. "eagles," said the laconic indian. "eagles!" and peloni's heart leaped with a remembrance of noah's words. "here under their wings shall our flag be unfurled. and that blasted tree is israel, that shall flourish again." he dug the pole into the earth. a breeze caught the flag, and the folds flew out, and the lion of judah and the seven stars flapped in the face of an inattentive universe. peloni intoned the hebrew benediction, closing his eyes in pious ecstasy. "blessed art thou, o lord our god, who hast kept us alive, and preserved us, and enabled us to reach this day!" as he opened his eyes, he perceived in the distance high in air, rising far above the island, a great mist of shining spray, amid which rainbows netted and tangled themselves in ineffable dream-like loveliness. at the same instant his ear caught--over the boom of the rapids--the first hint of another, a mightier, a more majestic roar. "niagara," murmured the indian. but peloni's eyes were fixed on the celestial vision. "the _shechinah_!" he whispered. "the divine presence that rested on the tabernacle, and on solomon's temple, and that has returned at last--to ararat." v the booming of cannon from the court house, and from the terrace facing the lake, saluted the bright september dawn and reminded the citizens of buffalo that the messianic day was here. but they needed no reminding. the great folk had laid out their best clothes; military insignia and masonic regalia had been furbished up. troops guarded st. paul's church and kept off the swarming crowd. the first act of the great historic drama--"mordecai manuel noah; or, the redemption of israel"--passed off triumphantly, to the music of patriotic american airs. the procession, which marched at eleven from the lodge through the chief streets, did honour to this marshaller of stage pageants. order of procession grand marshal, col. potter, on horseback. music. military. citizens. civil officers. state officers in uniform. president and trustees of the corporation. tyler. stewards. entered apprentices. fellow crafts. master masons. senior and junior deacons. secretary and treasurer. senior and junior wardens. master of lodges. past masters. rev. clergy. stewards, with corn, wine, and oil. | principal architect, | globe | with square, level, | globe | and plumb. | bible. square and compass, borne by a master mason. the judge of israel in black, wearing the judicial robes of crimson silk, trimmed with ermine, and a richly embossed golden medal suspended from the neck. a master mason. royal arch masons. knights templars. at the church door there was a halt. the troops parted to right and left, the pageant passed through into the crowded church, gay with the summer dresses of the ladies, the band played the grand march from "judas maccabæus," the organ pealed out the "jubilate." on the communion-table lay the corner-stone of ararat! the morning service was read by the rev. mr. searle in full canonicals; the choir sang "before jehovah's awful throne"; then came a special prayer for ararat, and passages from jeremiah, zephaniah, and the psalms, charged with divine promises and consolations for the long suffering of israel, idyllic pictures of the messianic future, symbolized by the silver cups with wine, corn, and oil, that lay on the corner-stone. at last arose, with that crimson silk robe trimmed with ermine thrown over his stately black attire, and with the richly embossed golden medal hanging from his neck--the master of the show, the dramatist of the real, the humorist without a sense of humour, the dreamer of the ghetto and american man of action, the governor and judge of israel, the _shophet_,--in brief, mordecai manuel noah. he delivered a great discourse on the history of israel and its present reorganization, which filled more than five columns of the newspapers, and was heard with solemn attention by the crowded christian audience. save a few indians and his own secretary, not a single jew was present to hold in check the orator's oriental imagination. then the glittering procession filed back to the lodge, and the brethren and the military dined joyously at the eagle tavern, and noah's wit and humour returned for the after-dinner speech. he withdrew early in order to write a full account of the proceedings for the _buffalo patriot extra_. a salvo of twenty-four guns rounded off the great day of israel's restoration. vi meantime peloni on his island awaited the coming of its ruler. he heard faintly the cannonade that preceded and concluded the laying of the foundation-stone in the chancel of the church, and he expected noah the next day at the latest. but the next day passed, and no noah. peloni fed on the remains of his corn and drank from the river, but though his indian guide was gone and he was a prisoner, he had no fear of starvation, because he saw the wigwams of another indian encampment across the river and occasionally a party of them would glide past in a large canoe. despite hunger, his sensations on this first day were delicious. the poet in him responded rapturously to the appeal of all this new life; to feel the brotherhood of wild creatures, to sleep under the stars in the vast night, to watch the silent, passionate beauty of the sunrise, ripening to the music of the birds. on the second day his eyes were gladdened by the oncoming of a boat rowed by two whites. they proved to be a stone mason and his man, and they bore provisions, a letter, and newspapers from noah:-- "my dear peloni: "a hurried line to report a glorious success, thank heaven! a finer day and more general satisfaction has not been known on any similar occasion. all the dignity and talent of the neighbourhood for miles was present. i hear that a vast concourse also assembled at tonawanda, expecting that the ceremonies would be at grand island, but that many of them came up in carriages in time to hear my inaugural speech. you will see that the newspapers, especially the _buffalo patriot extra_, have reported me fully, showing how they realize the importance of this world-stirring episode in israel's history. their comments, too, are for the most part highly sympathetic. of course the _new york herald_ will sneer; but then bennett was once in my employ on the _courier and enquirer_. they tell me that you duly set out to plant the flag of judah, and i assume it is now by god's grace waving over ararat. heaven bless you! my heart is too full for words. i had hoped to find time to-day to behold the sublime spectacle myself, but urgent legal business calls me back to new york. but i am resolved to start the city without delay, and the bearers of this have my plan for a little monument of brick and wood with the simple inscription--'ararat founded by mordecai manuel noah, '--from the summit of which the flag can wave. i leave you to superintend the same, and take any measures you please to promote the growth of the city and to receive, as my representative, the inflowing immigrants from the ghettos of the world. i appoint you, moreover, keeper of the records. to you shall be given to write the new book of the chronicles of israel. my friend mr. smith, one of the proprietors of the island, will communicate with you on behalf of the shareholders, as occasion arises. expect me shortly (perhaps with my bride, for i am entering into holy wedlock with the most amiable and beautiful of her sex) and meantime receive my blessing. "mordecai manuel noah, judge of israel, "_pro_ a.b. seixas, secr. _pro tem._" while the little monument was building, and the men were coming to and fro in boats, peloni made friends with the indians, the smoke-wreaths of whose lodges hovered across the river, and he picked up a little of their language. also he explored his island, drawn by the crescendo roar of niagara. it was at burnt island bay that he had his first, if distant, view of the falls themselves. the rapids, gurgling and plunging with foam and swirl and eddy, quickened his blood, but the cataracts disappointed him, after that rainbow glimpse of the upper spray, and it was not till he got himself landed on the canadian shore and saw the monstrous rush of the vast tameless flood toward the great leap that he felt the presence and the power that were to be with him for the rest of his days. the bend of the horse-shoe was hidden by a white spray mountain that rose above its topmost waters, as they hurled themselves from green solidity to creamy mist. and as he looked, lo! the enchanting rainbows twinkled again, and he had a sense as of the smile of god, of the love of that awful, unfathomable being, eternally persistent, while the generations rise and fall like vaporous spray. the tide was low and, drawn by an irresistible fascination, he adventured down among the rocks near the foot of the fall. but a tingling storm of spray smote him half blind and wholly breathless, and all he could see was a monstrous misty brocken-spirit upreared and in his ears were a thousand thunders. a wild elemental passion swelled and lifted him. yes, force, force, was the secret of things: the vast primal energies that sent the stars shining and the seas roaring. force, life, strength, that was what israel needed. it had grown anæmic, slouching along its airless _judengassen_. oh, to fight, to fight, like the warriors who went out against the greeks, who defended the holy city against the romans. "for the lord is a man of war." and he shouted the cry of david, "blessed be the lord, my rock, who teacheth my hands to war, and my fingers to fight." but he stopped, smitten by an ironic memory. this very blessing was uttered every sabbath twilight, in every ghetto, by every bloodless worshipper, to a melancholy despairing melody, in the lightless dusk of the synagogues. the monument was speedily erected and, being hollow, proved useful for peloni to sleep in, as the october nights grew chilly. and thus peloni lived, a latter-day crusoe. he had now procured fishing-tackle, and grew dexterous in luring black bass and perch and whitefish from the river. also he had found out what berries he might eat. occasionally a boat would sell him cornmeal from buffalo, but his savings were melting away and he preferred to forage for himself, relishing the wild flavour of uncivilized living. he even wished it were possible to eat the birds or the rabbits he could have killed: but as various points of jewish law forbade such diet, there was no use in buying a musket or a bow and arrow. so his relations with the animal world remained purely amicable. the robins and bluebirds and thrushes sang for him. the woodpeckers tapped on his monument to wake him in the morning. the blue jays screamed without wrath, and the partridges drummed unmartially. the squirrels frolicked with him, and the rabbits lost their shyness. one would have said these were the lost ten tribes he had found. peloni had become, not the keeper of the records, but the keeper of noah's ark. vii so winter came, and there was still nothing to record, save the witchery of the muffled white world with its blue shadows and fantastic ice friezes and stalactites. great icicles glittered on the rocks, showing all the hues beneath. peloni, wrapped in his blanket, crouched on his monument over a log that burnt in an improvised grate. it was very lonely. he had heard from no one, neither from noah, nor smith, nor any jewish or even indian pilgrim to the new jerusalem, and the stock of winter provisions had exhausted his little hoard of coin. the old despair began to twine round him like some serpent of ice. as he listened in such moods to the distant thunder of niagara--which waxed louder as the air grew heavier, till it quite dominated the ever present rumble of the rapids--the sound took on endless meanings to his feverish brain. now it was no longer the voice of the eternal being, it was the endless plaint of israel beseeching the deaf heaven, the roar of prayer from some measureless synagogue; now it was the raucous voice of persecution, the dull bestial roar of malicious multitudes; and again it was the voice of the whole earth, groaning and travailing. and the horror of it was that it would not stop. it dropped on his brain, this falling water, as on the prisoner's in the mediæval torture chamber. could no one stop this turning wheel of the world, jar it grindingly to a standstill? spring wore slowly round again. the icicles melted, the friezes dripped away, the fantastic mufflers slipped from the trees, and the young buds peeped out and the young birds sang. the river flowed uncurdled, the cataracts fell unclogged. in peloni's breast alone the ice did not melt: no new sap stirred in his veins. the very rainbows on the leaping mist were now only reminders of the biblical promise that the world would go on forever; forever the wheel would turn, and israel wander homeless. and at last one sunny day a boat arrived with a message from the master. alas! even noah had abandoned ararat. "i am beginning to see," he wrote, "that our only hope is palestine. zion alone has magnetism for the jew. the great war against gog prophesied in ezekiel will be in palestine. gog is russia, and the russians are the descendants of the joint colony of meshech and tubal and the little horn of daniel. russia in an attempt to wrest india and turkey from the english and the turks will make the holy land the theatre of a terrible conflict. but yet in the end in jerusalem shall we reërect solomon's temple. the ports of the mediterranean will be again open to the busy hum of commerce; the fields will again bear the fruitful harvest, and christian and jew will together, on mount zion, raise their voices in praise of him whose covenant with abraham was to endure forever, in whose seed all the nations of the earth are to be blessed. this is our destiny." peloni wandered automatically to the apex of the island at burnt ship bay, and stood gazing meaninglessly at the fragments of the sunken ships. before him raced the rapids, frenziedly anxious for the great leap. even so, he thought, had noah and he dreamed israel would haste to ararat. and niagara maintained its mocking roar--its roar of gigantic laughter. reërect solomon's temple in palestine! a ruined country to regenerate a ruined people! a land belonging to the turks, centre of the fanaticisms of three religions and countless sects! a soil which even to noah was the destined theatre of world-shaking war! as he lifted his swimming eyes he saw to his astonishment that he was no longer alone. a tall majestic figure stood gazing at him: a grave, sorrowful indian, feathered and tufted, habited only in buckskin leggings, and girdled by a belt of wampum. a musket in his hand showed he had been hunting, and a canoe peloni now saw tethered to the bank indicated he was going back to his lodge. peloni knew from his talks with the tonawanda indians opposite ararat that this was red jacket, the famous chief of the iroquois, the ancient lords of the soil. peloni tendered the salute due to the royalty stamped on the man. red jacket ceremoniously acknowledged the obeisance. then they gazed silently at each other, the puny, stooping scholar from the german ghetto, and the stalwart, kingly savage. "tell me," said red jacket imperiously, "what nation are you that build a monument but never a city like the other white men, nor even a camp like my people?" "great chief," replied peloni in his best iroquois, "we are a people that build for others." "i would ye would build for my people then. for these white men sweep us back, farther, farther, till there is nothing but"--and he made an eloquent gesture, implying the sweep into the river, into the jaws of the hurrying rapids. "yet, methinks, i heard of a plan of your people--of a great pow-wow of your chiefs in a church, of a great city to be born here." "it is dead before birth," said peloni. "strange," mused red jacket. "scarce twenty summers ago joseph elliott came here to plan out his city on a soil that was not his, and lo! this buffalo rises already mighty and menacing. to-morrow it will be at my wigwam door--and we"--another gesture, hopeless, yet full of regal dignity, rounded off the sentence. and in that instant it was borne in upon peloni that they were indeed brothers: the jew who stood for the world that could not be born again, and the red indian who stood for the world that must pass away. yes, they were both doomed. israel had been too bent and broken by the long dispersion and the long persecution: the spring was snapped; he could not recover. he had been too long the pliant protégé of kings and popes: he had prayed too many centuries in too many countries for the simultaneous welfare of too many governments, to be capable of realizing that government of his own for which he likewise prayed. this pious patience--this rejection of the burden on to the shoulders of messiah and miracle--was it more than the veil of unconscious impotence? ah, better sweep oneself away than endure the long ignominy. and niagara laughed on. "may i have the privilege of crossing in your canoe?" he asked. "you are not afraid?" said red jacket. "the rapids are dangerous here." afraid! peloni's inward laughter seemed to himself to match niagara's. when he got to the mainland, he made straight for the fall. he was on the american side, and he paused on the sward, on the very brink of the tameless cataract, that had for immemorial ages been driving itself backward by eating away its own rock. his fascinated eyes watched the curious smooth, purring slide of the vast mass of green water over the sharp edges, unending, unresting, the eternal revolution of a maddening, imperturbable wheel. o that blind wheel, turning, turning, while the generations waxed and waned, one succeeding the other without haste or rest or possibility of pause: creatures of meaningless majesty, shadows of shadows, dreaming of love and justice, and fading into the kindred mist, while this solid green cataract roared and raced through æons innumerable, stable as the stars, thundering in majestic meaninglessness. and suddenly he threw himself into its remorseless whirl and was sucked down into the monstrous chaos of seething waters and whirled and hurled amid the rocks, battered and shapeless, but still holding noah's letter in his convulsively clinched hand, while the rainbowed spray leapt impassively heavenward. the corner-stone of ararat lies in the rooms of the buffalo historical society, and no one who copies the inscription dreams that it is the gravestone of peloni. and while the very monument has mouldered away in ararat, buffalo sits throned amid her waters, the queen city of the empire state, with the world's commerce at her feet. and from their palaces of medina sandstone the christian railroad kings go out to sail in their luxurious yachts,--vessels not of bulrushes but driven by steam, as predicted by mordecai manuel noah, governor and judge of israel. * * * * * iv the land of promise * * * * * iv the land of promise i "telegraph how many pieces you have." in this wise did the steamship company convey to the astute agent its desire to know how many russian jews he was smuggling out of the pale into the steerage of its atlantic liner. the astute agent's task was simple enough. the tales he told of america were only the clarification of a nebulous vision of the land flowing with milk and honey that hovered golden-rayed before all these hungry eyes. to the denizens of the pale, in their cellars, in their gutter-streets, in their semi-subterranean shops consisting mainly of shutters and annihilating one another's profits; to the congested populations newly reinforced by the driving back of thousands from beyond the pale, and yet multiplying still by an improvident reliance on providence; to the old people pauperized by the removal of the vodka business to christian hands, and the young people dammed back from their natural outlets by pan-slavic ukases, and clogged with whimsical edicts and rescripts--the astute agent's offer of getting you through germany, without even a russian passport, by a simple passage from libau to new york, was peculiarly alluring. it was really almost an over-baiting of the hook on the part of the too astute agent to whisper that he had had secret information of a new thunderbolt about to be launched at the pale; whereby the period of service for jewish conscripts would be extended to fifteen years, and the area of service would be extended to siberia. "three hundred and seventy-seven pieces," ran his telegram in reply. in a letter he suggested other business he might procure for the line. "confine yourself to freight," the company wrote cautiously, for even under sealed envelopes you cannot be too careful. "the more the better." freight! the word was not inexact. did not even the government reports describe these exploiters of the muzhik as in some places packed in their hovels like salt herrings in a barrel; as sleeping at night in serried masses in sties which by day were tallow or leather factories? to be shipped as cargo came therefore natural enough. nevertheless, each of these "pieces," being human after all, had a history, and one of these histories is here told. ii nowhere was the poverty of the pale bitterer than in the weavers' colony, in which srul betrothed himself to biela. the dowries, which had been wont to kindle so many young men's passions, had fallen to freezing-point; and biela, if she had no near prospect of marriage, could console herself with the knowledge that she was romantically loved. even the attraction of _kest_--temporary maintenance of the young couple by the father-in-law--was wanting in biela's case, for the simple reason that she had no father, both her parents having died of the effort to get a living. for marriage-portion and _kest_, biela could only bring her dark beauty, and even that was perhaps less than it seemed. for you scarcely ever saw biela apart from her homely quasi-mother, her elder sister leah, who, like the original leah, had "tender eyes," which combined with a pock-marked face to ensure for her premature recognition as an old maid. the inflamed eyelids were the only legacy leah's father had left her. from srul's side, though his parents were living, came even fainter hope of the wedding-canopy. srul's father was blind--perhaps a further evidence that the local hygienic conditions were nocuous to the eye in particular--and srul himself, who had occupied most of his time in learning to weave rabbinic webs, had only just turned his attention to cloth, though heaven was doubtless pleased with the gear of _gemara_ he had gathered in his short sixteen years. the old weaver had--in more than one sense--seen better days before his affliction and the great factories came on: days when the independent hand-weaver might sit busily before the loom from the raw dawn to the black midnight, taking his meals at the bench; days when, moreover, the "piece" of satin-faced cloth was many ells shorter. "but they make up for the extra length," he would say with pathetic humour, "by cutting the pay shorter." the same sense of humour enabled him to bear up against the forced rests that increasing slackness brought the hand-weavers, while the factories whirred on. "now is the proverb fulfilled," he cried to his unsmiling wife, "for there are two sabbaths a week." alas! as the winter grew older and colder, it became a week of sabbaths. the wheels stood still; in all the colony not a spool was reeled. it was unprecedented. gradually the factories had stolen the customers. some sat waiting dazedly for the raw yarns they knew could no longer come at this season; others left the suburb in which the colony had drowsed from time immemorial, and sought odd jobs in the town, in the frowning shadows of the factories. but none would enter the factories themselves, though these were ready to suck them in on one sole condition. ah! here was the irony of the tragedy. the one condition was the one condition the poor weavers could not accept. it was open to them to reduce the week of sabbaths to its ancient and diurnal dimensions, provided the sabbath itself came on sunday. nay, even the working-day offered them was less, and the wage was more than their own. the deeper irony within this irony was that the proprietor of every one of these factories was a brother in israel! jeshurun grown fat and kicking. even the old blind man's composure deserted him when it began to be borne in on his darkness that the younger weavers meditated surrender. the latent explosives generated through the years by their perusal of un-jewish books in insidious "yiddish" versions, now bade fair to be touched to eruption by this paraded prosperity of wickedness; wickedness that had even discarded the caftan and shaved the corners of its beard. "but thou, apple of my eye," the old man said to srul, "thou wilt die rather than break the sabbath?" "father," quoted the youth, with a shuddering emotion at the bare idea, "i have been young and now i am old, but never have i seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging for bread." "my son! a true spark of the patriarchs!" and the old man clasped the boy to his arms and kissed him on the pious cheeks down which the ear-locks dangled. "but if biela should tempt thee, so that thou couldst have the wherewithal to marry her," put in his mother, who could not keep her thoughts off grandchildren. "not for apples of gold, mother, will i enter the service of these serpents." "nevertheless, biela is fair to see, and thou art getting on in years," murmured the mother. "leah would not give biela to a sabbath-breaker," said the old man reassuringly. "yes, but suppose she gives her to a bread-winner," persisted the mother. "do not forget that biela is already fifteen, only a year younger than thyself." but leah kept firm to the troth she had plighted on behalf of biela, even though the young man's family sank lower and lower, till it was at last reduced from the little suburban wooden cottage, with the spacious courtyard, to one corner of a large town-cellar, whose population became amphibious when the vistula overflowed. and srul kept firm to the troth israel had plighted with the sabbath-bride, even when his father's heart no longer beat, so could not be broken. the old man remained to the last the most cheerful denizen of the cellar: perhaps because he was spared the vision of his emaciated fellow-troglodytes. he called the cellar "arba kanfôs," after the four-cornered garment of fringes which he wore: and sometimes he said these were the "four corners" from which, according to the prophets, god would gather israel. iii in such a state of things an agent scarcely needed to be astute. "pieces" were to be had for the picking up. the only trouble was that they were not gold pieces. the idle weavers could not defray the passage-money, still less the agent's commission for smuggling them through. "if i only had a few hundred roubles," srul lamented to leah, "i could get to a land where there is work without breaking the sabbath, a land to which biela could follow me when i waxed in substance." leah supported her household of three--for there was a younger sister, tsirrélé, who, being only nine, did not count except at meal-times--on the price of her piece-work at the christian umbrella factory, where, by a considerate russian law, she could work on sunday, though the christians might not. thus she earned, by literal sweating in a torrid atmosphere, three roubles, all except a varying number of kopecks, every week. and when you live largely on black bread and coffee, you may, in the course of years, save a good deal, even if you have three mouths. therefore, leah had the sum that srul mentioned so wistfully, put by for a rainy day (when there should be no umbrellas to make). and as the sum had kept increasing, the notion that it might form the nucleus of an establishment for biela and srul had grown clearer and clearer in her mind, which it tickled delightfully. but the idea that now came to her of staking all on a possible future was agitating. "we might, perhaps, be able to get together the money," she said tentatively. "but--" she shook her head, and the russian proverb came to her lips. "before the sun rises the dew may destroy you." srul plunged into an eager recapitulation of the agent's assurances. and before the eyes of both the marriage-canopy reared itself splendid in the land of promise, and the figure of biela flitted, crowned with the bridal wreath. "but what will become of your mother?" leah asked. srul's soap-bubbles collapsed. he had forgotten for the moment that he had a mother. "she might come to live with us," leah hastened to suggest, seeing his o'erclouded face. "ah, no, that would be too much of a burden. and tsirrélé, too, is growing up." "tsirrélé eats quite as much now as she will in ten years' time," said leah, laughing, as she thought fondly of her dear, beautiful little one, her gay whimsies and odd caprices. "and my mother does not eat very much," said srul, wavering. in this way srul became a "piece," and was dumped down in the land of promise. iv to the four females left behind--odd fragments of two families thrown into an odder one--the movements of the particular piece, srul, were the chief interest of existence. the life in the three-roomed wooden cottage soon fell into a routine, leah going daily to the tropical factory, biela doing the housework and dreaming of her lover, little tsirrélé frisking about and chattering like the squirrel she was, and srul's mother dozing and criticising and yearning for her lost son and her unborn grandchildren. by the time srul's first letter, with its exciting pictorial stamp, arrived from the land of promise, the household seemed to have been established on this basis from time immemorial. "i had a lucky escape, god be thanked," srul wrote. "for when i arrived in new york i had only fifty-one roubles in my pocket. now it seems that these rich americans are so afraid of being overloaded with paupers that they will not let you in, if you have less than fifty dollars, unless you can prove you are sure to prosper. and a dollar, my dear biela, is a good deal more than a rouble. however, blessed be the highest one, i learned of this ukase just the day before we arrived, and was able to borrow the difference from a fellow-passenger, who lent me the money to show the commissioners. of course, i had to give it back as soon as i was passed, and as i had to pay him five roubles for the use of it, i set foot on the soil of freedom with only forty-six. however, it was well worth it; for just think, beloved biela, if i had been shipped back and all that money wasted! the interpreter also said to me, 'i suppose you have got some work to do here?' 'i wish i had,' i said. no sooner had the truth slipped out than my heart seemed turned to ice, for i feared they would reject me after all as a poor wretch out of work. but quite the contrary; it seemed this was only a trap, a snare of the fowler. poor caminski fell into it--you remember the red-haired weaver who sold his looms to the maggid's brother-in-law. he said he had agreed to take a place in a glove factory. it is true, you know, that some polish jews have made a glove town in the north, so the poor man thought that would sound plausible. hence you may expect to see caminski's red hair back again, unless he takes ship again from libau and tells the truth at the second attempt. i left him howling in a wooden pen, and declaring he would kill himself rather than face his friends at home with the brand on his head of not being good enough for america. he did not understand that contract-labourers are not let in. protection is the word they call it. hence, i thank god that my father--his memory for a blessing!--taught me to make truth the law of my mouth, as it is written. verily was the word of the talmud (tractate sabbath) fulfilled at the landing-stage: 'falsehood cannot stay, but truth remains forever.' with god's help, i shall remain here all my life, for it is a land overflowing with milk and honey. i had almost forgotten to tell my dove that the voyage was hard and bitter as the egyptian bondage; not because of the ocean, over which i passed as easily as our forefathers over the red sea, but by reason of the harshness of the overseers, who regarded not our complaints that the meat was not _kosher_, as promised by the agent. also the butter and meat plates were mixed up. i and many with me lived on dry bread, nor could we always get hot water to make coffee. when my biela comes across the great waters--god send her soon--she must take with her salt meat of her own." from the first, srul courageously assumed that the meat would soon have to be packed; nay, that leah might almost set about salting it at once. even the slow beginnings of his profits as a peddler did not daunt him. "a great country," he wrote on paper stamped with the stars and stripes, with an eagle screaming on the envelope. "no special taxes for the jews, permission to travel where you please, the schools open freely to our children, no passports and papers at every step, above all, no conscription. no wonder the people call it god's own country. truly, as it is written, this is none other but the house of god, this is the gate of heaven. and when biela comes, it will be heaven." letters like this enlarged the little cottage as with an american room, brightened it as with a fresh wash of blue paint. despite the dreary grind of the week, sabbaths and festivals found the household joyous enough. the wedding-canopy of srul and biela was a beacon of light for all four, which made life livable as they struggled toward it. nevertheless, it came but slowly to meet them: nearly three years oozed by before srul began to lift his eye toward a store. the hereditary weaver of business combinations had emerged tardily from beneath the logic-weaver and the cloth-weaver, but of late he had been finding himself. "if i could only get together five hundred dollars clear," he wrote to leah. "for that is all i should have to pay down for a ladies' store near broadway, and just at the foot of the stairs of the elevated railway. what a pity i have only four hundred and thirty-five dollars! stock and goodwill, and only five hundred dollars cash! the other five hundred could stand over at five per cent. if i were once in the store i could gradually get some of the rooms above (there is already a parlour, in which i shall sleep), and then, as soon as i was making a regular profit, i could send biela and mother their passage-money, and my wife could help 'the boss' behind the counter." to hasten the rosy day leah sent thirty-five roubles, and presently, sure enough, srul was in possession, and a photograph of the store itself came over to gladden their weary eyes and dilate those of the neighbours. the photograph of srul, which had come eighteen months before, was not so suited for display, since his peaked cap and his caftan had been replaced by a jacket and a bowler, and, but for the ear-locks which were still in the picture, he would have looked like a factory-owner. in return, srul received a photograph of the four--taken together, for economy's sake--leah with her arm around biela's waist, and tsirrélé sitting in his mother's lap. v but a long, wearying struggle was still before the new "boss," and two years crept along, with their turns of luck and ill-luck, of bargains and bad debts, ere the visionary marriage-canopy (that seemed to span the atlantic) began to stand solidly on american soil. the third year was not half over ere srul actually sent the money for biela's passage, together with a handsome "waist" from his stock, for her to wear. but biela was too timid to embark alone without srul's mother, whose fare srul could not yet manage to withdraw from his capital. leah, of course, offered to advance it, but biela refused this vehemently, because a new hope had begun to spring up in her breast. why should she be parted from her family at all? since her marriage had been delayed these five and a half years, a few months more or less could make no difference. let leah's savings, then, be for leah's passage (and tsirrélé's) and to give her a start in the new world. "it rains, even in america, and there are umbrella factories there, too," she urged. "you will make twice the living. look at srul!" and there was a new fear, too, which haunted biela's aching heart, but which she dared not express to leah. leah's eyes were getting worse. the temperature of the factory was a daily hurt, and then, too, she had read so many vilely printed yiddish books and papers by the light of the tallow candle. what if she were going blind? what if, while she, biela, was happy with srul, leah should be starving with tsirrélé? no, they must all remain together: and she clung to her sister, with tears. to leah the prospect of witnessing her sister's happiness was so seductive that she tried to take the lowest estimate of her own chances of finding work in new york. her savings, almost eaten up by the journey, could not last long, and it would be terrible to have to come upon srul for help, a man with a wife and (if god were good) children, to say nothing of his old mother. no, she could not risk tsirrélé's bread. but the increased trouble with her eyes turned her in favour of going, though, curiously enough, for a side reason quite unlike biela's. leah, too, was afraid of a serious breakdown, though she would not hint her fears to any one else. from her miscellaneous yiddish reading she had gathered that miraculous eye-doctors lived in königsberg. now a journey to germany was not to be thought of; if she went to america, however, it could be taken en route. it would be a sort of saving, and few things appealed to leah as much as economy. this was why, some four months later, the ancient furniture of the blue-washed cottage was sold off, and the quartette set their faces for america by way of germany. the farewell to the home of their youth took place in the cemetery among the high-shouldered hebrew-speaking stones. leah and biela passionately invoked the spirits of their dead parents and bade them watch over their children. the old woman scribbled srul and biela's interlinked names over the flat tomb of a holy scholar. "take their names up to the highest one," she pleaded. "entreat that their quiver be full, for the sake of thy righteousness." more dead than alive, the four "pieces" with their bundles arrived at hamburg. days and nights of travelling, packed like "freight" in hard, dirty wooden carriages, the endless worry of passports, tickets, questions, hygienic inspections and processes, the illegal exactions of petty officials, the strange phantasmagoria of places and faces--all this had left them dazed. only two things kept up their spirits--the image of srul waiting on the transatlantic wharf in hymeneal attire, and the "pooh-pooh" of the miraculous königsberg doctor, reassuring leah as to her eyes. there was nothing radically the matter. even the inflamed eyelids--though incurable, because hereditary--would improve with care. peasant-like, leah craved a lotion. "the sea voyage and the rest will do you more good than my medicines. and don't read so much." not a groschen did leah have to pay for the great specialist's services. it was the first time in her hard life anybody had done anything for her for nothing, and her involuntary weeping over this phenomenon tended to hurt the very eyelids under attention. they were still further taxed by the kindness of the jewish committee at hamburg, on the look-out to smooth the path of poor emigrants and overcome their dietary difficulties. but it was a crowded ship, and our party reverted again to "freight." with some of the other females, they were accommodated in hammocks swung over the very dining-tables, so that they must needs rise at dawn and be cleared away before breakfast. the hot, oily whiff of the cooking-engines came through the rocking doorway. of the quartette, only tsirrélé escaped sea-sickness, but "baby" was too accustomed to be petted and nursed to be able suddenly to pet and nurse, and she would spend hours on the slip of lower deck, peering into the fairy saloons which were vivified by bugle instead of bell, and in which beautiful people ate dishes fit for the saints in heaven. by an effort of will, leah soon returned to her rôle of factotum, but the old woman and biela remained limp to the end. fortunately, there was only one day of heavy rolling and battened-down hatches. for the bulk of the voyage the great vessel brushed the pack of waves disdainfully aside. and one wonderful day, amid unspeakable joy, new york arrived, preceded by a tug and by a boat that conveyed inquiring officials. the great statue of liberty, on bedloe's island, upheld its torch to light the new-comers' path. srul--there he is on the wharf, dear old srul!--god bless him! despite his close-cropped hair and his shaven ear-locks. ah! heaven be praised! don't you see him waving? ah, but we, too, must be content with waving. for here only the _tschinovniks_ of the gilded saloon may land. the "freight" must be packed later into rigid gangs, according to the ship's manifest, transferred to a smaller steamer and discharged on ellis island, a little beyond bedloe's. vi and at ellis island a terrible thing happened, unforeseen--a shipwreck in the very harbour. as the "freight" filed slowly along the corridor-cages in the great bare hall, like cattle inspected at ports by the veterinary surgeon, it came into the doctor's head that leah's eye-trouble was infectious. "granular lids--contagious," he diagnosed it on paper. and this diagnosis was a flaming sword that turned every way, guarding against leah the land of promise. "but it is not infectious," she protested in her best german. "it is only in the family." "so i perceive," dryly replied america's guardian angel, who was now examining the obvious sister clinging to leah's skirts. and in biela, heavy-eyed with sickness and want of sleep, his suspicious vision easily discovered a reddish rim of eyelid that lent itself to the same fatal diagnosis, and sent her to join leah in the dock of the rejected. the fresh-faced tsirrélé and the wizen-faced mother of srul passed unscrutinized, and even the dread clerk at the desk who asked questions was content with their oath that the wealthy srul would support them. srul was, indeed, sent for at once, as tsirrélé was too pretty to be let out under the mere protection of a polish crone. when the full truth that neither she nor biela was to set foot in new york burst through the daze in leah's brain, her protest grew frantic. "but my sister has nothing the matter with her--nothing. o _gnädiger herr_, have pity. the königsberg doctor--the great doctor--told me i had no disease, no disease at all. and even if i have, my sister's eyes are pure as the sunshine. look, _mein herr_, look again. see," and she held up biela's eyelids and passionately kissed the wet bewildered eyes. "she is to be married, my lamb--her bridegroom awaits her on the wharf. send _me_ back, _gnädiger herr_; i ought not to have come. but for god's sake, don't keep biela out, don't." she wrung her hands. but the marriage card had been played too often in that hall of despairing dodges. "oh, _herr doktor_," and she kissed the coat-tail of the ship's doctor, "plead for us; speak a word for her." the ship's doctor spoke a word on his own behalf. it was he who had endorsed the two girls' health-certificates at hamburg, and he would be blamed by the steamship company, which would have to ship the sisters back free, and even defray their expenses while in quarantine at the dépôt. he ridiculed the idea that the girls were suffering from anything contagious. but the native doctor frowned, immovable. leah grew hysteric. it was the first time in her life she had lost her sane standpoint. "your own eye is affected," she shrieked, her dark pock-marked face almost black with desperate anger, "if you cannot see that it is only because my sister has been weeping, because she is ill from the voyage. but she carries no infection--she is healthy as an ox, and her eye is the eye of an eagle!" she was ordered to be silent, but she shrieked angrily, "the german doctors know, but the americans have no _bildung_." "oh, don't, leah," moaned biela, throwing her arms round the panting breast. "what's the use?" but the irrepressible leah got an s.i. ticket of special inquiry, forced a hearing in the commissioners' court. "let her in, kind gentlemen, and send back the other one. tsirrélé will go back with me. it does not matter about the little one." the kind gentlemen on the bench were really kind, but america must be protected. "you can take the young one and the old one both back with you," the interpreter told her. "but they are the only ones we can let in." leah and biela were driven back among the damned. the favoured twain stood helplessly in their happier compartment. even tsirrélé, the squirrel, was dazed. presently the spruce srul arrived--to find the expected raptures replaced by funereal misery. he wormed his way dizzily into the cage of the rejected. it was not the etiquette of the pale to kiss one's betrothed bride, but srul stared dully at biela without even touching her hand, as if the atlantic already rolled again between them. here was a pretty climax to the dreams of years! "my poor srul, we must go back to hamburg to be married," faltered biela. "and give up my store?" srul wailed. "here the dollar spins round. we have now what one names a boom. there is no land on earth like ours." the forlornness of the others stung leah to her senses. "listen, srul," she said hurriedly. "it is all my fault, because i wanted to share in the happiness. i ought not to have come. if we had not been together they never would have suspected biela's eyes--who would notice the little touch of inflammation which is the most she has ever suffered from? she shall come again in another ship, all alone--for she knows now how to travel. is it not so, biela, my lamb? i will see you on board, and srul will meet you here, although not till you have passed the doctor, so that no one will have a chance of remembering you. it will cost a heap, alas! but i can get some work in hamburg, and the jews there have hearts of gold. eh, biela, my poor lamb?" "yes, yes, leah, you can always give yourself a counsel," and biela put her wet face to her sister's, and kissed the pock-marked cheek. srul acquiesced eagerly. no one remembered for the moment that leah would be left alone in the old world. the problem of effecting the bride's entry blocked all the horizon. "yes, yes," said srul. "the mother will look after tsirrélé, and in less than three weeks biela will slip in." "no, three weeks is too soon," said leah. "we must wait a little longer till the doctor forgets." "oh, but i have already waited so long!" whimpered srul. leah's eyes filled with sympathetic tears. "i ought not to have made so much fuss. now she will stick in the doctor's mind. forgive me, dear srul, i will do my best and try to make amends." leah and biela were taken away to the hospital, where they remained isolated from the world till the steamer sailed back to hamburg. herein, generously lodged, they had ample leisure to review the situation. biela discovered that the new plan would leave leah deserted, leah remembered that she would be deserting little tsirrélé. both were agreed that tsirrélé must go back with them, till they bethought themselves that her passage would have to be paid for, as she was not refused. and every kopeck was precious now. "let the child stay till i get back," said biela. "then i will send her to you." "yes, it is best to let her stay awhile. i myself may be able to join you after all. i will go back to königsberg, and the great doctor will write me out a certificate that my affliction is not contagious." at the very worst--if even biela could not get in--srul should sell his store and come back to the old world. it would put off the marriage again. but they had waited so long. "so let us cheer up after all, and thank the lord for his mercies. we might all have been drowned on the voyage." thus the sisters' pious conclusion. but though srul and his mother and tsirrélé got on board to see them off, and tsirrélé gave graphic accounts of the wonders of the store and the rooms prepared for the bride, to say nothing of the great city itself, and srul brought biela and leah splendid specimens of his stock for their adornment, yet it was a horrible thing for them to go back again without having once trodden the sidewalks of the land of promise. and when the others were tolled off, as by a funeral bell, and became specks in a swaying crowd; when the dock receded and the cheers and good-byes faded, and the waving handkerchiefs became a blur, and the statue of liberty dwindled, and the lone waste of waters faced them once more, leah's optimism gave way, a chill sinister shadow fell across her new plan, some ominous intuition traversed her like a shudder, and she turned away lest biela should see her tears. vii this despair did not last long. it was not in leah's nature to despair. but her wildest hopes were exceeded when she set foot again in hamburg and explained her hard case to the good committee, and a member gave her an informal hint which was like a flash of light from heaven--its answer to her ceaseless prayer. ellis island was not the only way of approaching the land of promise. you could go round about through canada, where they were not so particular, and you could slip in by rail from montreal without attracting much attention. true, there was the extra expense. expense! leah would have gladly parted with her last rouble to unite biela with her bridegroom. there must be no delay. a steamer for canada was waiting to sail. what a fool she had been not to think that out for herself! yes, but there was biela's timidity again to consider. travel by herself through this unknown canada! and then if they were not so particular, why could not leah slip through likewise? "yes, but my eyes are more noticeable. i might again do you an injury." "we will separate at the landing-stage and the frontier. we will pretend to be strangers." biela's wits were sharpened by the crisis. "well, i can only lose the passage-money," said leah, and resolved to take the risk. she wrote a letter to srul explaining the daring invasion of new york overland which they were to attempt, and was about to post it, when biela said:-- "poor srul! and if i shall not get in after all!" leah's face fell. "true," she pondered. "he will have a more heart-breaking disappointment than before." "let us not kindle their hopes. after all, if we get in, we shall only be a few days later than our letter. and then think of the joy of the surprise." "you are right, biela," and leah's face glowed again with the anticipated joy of the surprise. the journey to canada was longer than to the states, and the "freight" was less companionable. there were fewer jews and women, more stalwart shepherds, miners, and dock-labourers. when after eleven days, land came, it was not touched at, but only remained cheeringly on the horizon for the rest of the voyage. at last the sisters found themselves unmolested on one of the many wharves of montreal. but they would not linger a day in this unhomely city. the next morning saw them, dazed and worn out but happy-hearted, dodging the monstrous catapults of the new york motor-cars, while a polish porter helped them with their bundles and convoyed them toward srul's store. ah, what ecstasy to be unregarded units of this free chaotic crowd. outside the store--what a wonderful store it was, larger than the largest in the weavers' colony!--the sisters paused a moment to roll the coming bliss under their tongues. they peeped in. ah, there is srul behind the counter, waiting for customers. ah, ah, he little knows what customers are waiting for him! they turned and kissed each other for mere joy. "draw your shawl over your face," whispered leah merrily. "go in and ask him if he has a wedding-veil." biela slipped in, brimming over with mischief and tears. "yes, miss?" said srul, with his smartest store manner. "i want a wedding-veil of white lace," she said in yiddish. at her voice srul started. biela could keep up the joke no longer. "srul, my darling srul!" she cried hysterically, her arms yearning to reach him across the counter. he drew back, pale, gasping for breath. "ah, my dear ones!" blubbered leah, rushing in. "god has been good to you, after all." "but--but--how did you get in?" he cried, staring. "never mind how we got in," said leah, every pock-mark glistening with smiles and tears. "and where is tsirrélé--my dear little tsirrélé?" "she--she is out marketing, with the mother." "and the mother?" "she is well and happy." "thank god!" said leah fervently, and beckoned the porter with the bundles. "but--but i let the room," he said, flushing. "i did not know that--i could not afford--" "never mind, we will find a room. the day is yet high." she settled with the porter. meantime srul had begun playing nervously with a pair of scissors. he snipped a gorgeous piece of stuff to fragments. "what are you doing?" said biela at last. "oh--i--" he burst into a nervous laugh. "and so you ran the blockade after all. but--but i expect customers every minute--we can't talk now. go inside and rest, biela: you will find a sofa in the parlour. leah, i want--i want to talk to you." leah flashed a swift glance at him as biela, vaguely chilled, moved through the back door into the revivifying splendours of the parlour. "something is wrong, srul," leah said hoarsely. "tsirrélé is not here. you feared to tell us." he hung his head. "i did my best." "she is ill--dead, perhaps! my beautiful angel!" he opened his eyes. "dead? no. married!" "what! to whom?" he turned a sickly white. "to me." in all that long quest of the canopy, leah had never come so near fainting as now. the horror of ellis island was nothing to this. that scene resurged, and tsirrélé's fresh beauty, unflecked by the voyage, came up luridly before her; the "baby," whom the unnoted years had made a young woman of fifteen, while they had been aging and staling biela. "but--but this will break biela's heart," she whispered, heart-broken. "how was i to know biela would _ever_ get in?" he said, trying to be angry. "was i to remain a bachelor all my life, breaking the almighty's ordinance? did i not wait and wait faithfully for biela all those years?" "you could have migrated elsewhere," she said faintly. "and ruin my connection--and starve?" his anger was real by now. "besides i have married into the family--it is almost the same thing. and the old mother is just as pleased." "oh, she!" and all the endured bitterness of the long years was in the exclamation. "all she wants is grandchildren." "no, it isn't," he retorted. "grandchildren with good eyes." "god forgive you," was all the lump in leah's throat allowed her to reply. she steadied herself with a hand on the counter, striving to repossess her soul for biela's sake. a customer came in, and the tragic universe dwindled to a prosaic place in which ribbons existed in unsatisfactory shades. "of course we must go this minute," leah said, as srul clanked the coins into the till. "biela cannot ever live here with you now." "yes, it is better so," he assented sulkily. "besides, you may as well know at once. i keep open on the sabbath, and that would not have pleased biela. that is another reason why it was best not to marry biela. tsirrélé doesn't seem to mind." the very ruins of her world seemed toppling now. but this new revelation of tsirrélé's and his own wickedness seemed only of a piece with the first--indeed, went far to account for it. "you break the sabbath, after all!" he shrugged his shoulders. "we are not in poland any longer. no dead flies here. everybody does it. shut the store two days a week! i should get left." "and you bring your mother's gray hairs down with sorrow to the grave." "my mother's gray hairs are no longer hidden by a stupid black _shaitel_. that is all. i have explained to her that america is the land of enlightenment and freedom. her eyes are opened." "i trust to god, your father's--peace be upon him!--are still shut!" said leah as she walked with slow steady steps into the parlour, to bear off her wounded lamb. * * * * * v to die in jerusalem * * * * * v to die in jerusalem i the older isaac levinsky grew, and the more he saw of the world after business hours, the more ashamed he grew of the russian rabbi whom heaven had curiously chosen for his father. at first it seemed natural enough to shout and dance prayers in the stuffy little spitalfields synagogue, and to receive reflected glory as the son and heir of the illustrious maggid (preacher) whose four hour expositions of scripture drew even west end pietists under the spell of their celestial crookedness. but early in isaac's english school-life--for cocksure philanthropists dragged the younger generation to anglicization--he discovered that other fathers did not make themselves ridiculously noticeable by retaining the gabardine, the fur cap, and the ear-locks of eastern europe: nay, that a few--o, enviable sons!--could scarcely be distinguished from the teachers themselves. when the guardian angels of the ghetto apprenticed him, in view of his talent for drawing, to a lithographic printer, he suffered agonies at the thought of his grotesque parent coming to sign the indentures. "you might put on a coat to-morrow," he begged in yiddish. the maggid's long black beard lifted itself slowly from the worm-eaten folio of the babylonian talmud, in which he was studying the tractate anent the payment of the half-shekel head-tax in ancient palestine. "if he took the money from the second tithes or from the sabbatical year fruit," he was humming in his quaint sing-song, "he must eat the full value of the same in the city of jerusalem." as he encountered his boy's querulous face his dream city vanished, the glittering temple of solomon crumbled to dust, and he remembered he was in exile. "put on a coat?" he repeated gently. "nay, thou knowest 'tis against our holy religion to appear like the heathen. i emigrated to england to be free to wear the jewish dress, and god hath not failed to bless me." isaac suppressed a precocious "damn!" he had often heard the story of how the cruel czar nicholas had tried to make his jews dress like christians, so as insidiously to assimilate them away; how the police had even pulled off the unsightly cloth-coverings of the shaven polls of the married women, to the secret delight of the pretty ones, who then let their hair grow in godless charm. and, mixed up with this story, were vaguer legends of raw recruits forced by their sergeants to kneel on little broken stones till they perceived the superiority of christianity. how the maggid would have been stricken to the heart to know that isaac now heard these legends with inverted sympathies! "the blind fools!" thought the boy, with ever growing bitterness. "to fancy that religion can lie in clothes, almost as if it was something you could carry in your pockets! but that's where most of their religion does lie--in their pocket." and he shuddered with a vision of greasy, huckstering fanatics. "and just imagine if i was sweet on a girl, having to see all her pretty hair cut off! as for those recruits, it served them right for not turning christians. as if judaism was any truer! and the old man never thinks of how he is torturing _me_--all the sharp little stones he makes _me_ kneel on." and, looking into the future with the ambitious eye of conscious cleverness, he saw the paternal gabardine over-glooming his life. ii one friday evening--after isaac had completed his 'prentice years--there was anxiety in the maggid's household in lieu of the sabbath peace. isaac's seat at the board was vacant. the twisted loaves seemed without salt, the wine of the consecration cup without savour. the mother was full of ominous explanations. "perturb not the sabbath," reproved the gabardined saint gently, and quoted the talmud: "'no man has a finger maimed but 'tis decreed from above." "isaac has gone to supper somewhere else," suggested his little sister, miriam. "children and fools speak the truth," said the maggid, pinching her cheek. but they had to go to bed without seeing him, as though this were only a profane evening, and he amusing himself with the vague friends of his lithographic life. they waited till the candles flared out, and there seemed something symbolic in the gloom in which they groped their way upstairs. they were all shivering, too, for the fire had become gray ashes long since, the sabbath fire-woman having made her last round at nine o'clock and they themselves being forbidden to touch even a candlestick or a poker. the sunrise revealed to the unclosed eyes of the mother that her boy's bed was empty. it also showed--what she might have discovered the night before had religion permitted her to enter his room with a light--that the room was empty, too: empty of his scattered belongings, of his books and sketches. "god in heaven!" she cried. her boy had run away. she began to wring her hands and wail with oriental amplitude, and would have torn her hair had it not been piously replaced by a black wig, neatly parted in the middle and now grotesquely placid amid her agonized agitation. the maggid preserved more outward calm. "perhaps we shall find him in synagogue," he said, trembling. "he has gone away, he will never come back. woe is me!" "he has never missed the sabbath service!" the maggid urged. but inwardly his heart was sick with the fear that she prophesied truly. this england, which had seduced many of his own congregants to christian costume, had often seemed to him to be stealing away his son, though he had never let himself dwell upon the dread. his sermon that morning was acutely exegetical: with no more relation to his own trouble than to the rest of contemporary reality. his soul dwelt in old jerusalem, and dreamed of israel's return thither in some vague millennium. when he got home he found that the postman had left a letter. his wife hastened to snatch it. "what dost thou?" he cried. "not to-day. when sabbath is out." "i cannot wait. it is from him--it is from isaac." "wait at least till the fire-woman comes to open it." for answer the mother tore open the envelope. it was the boldest act of her life--her first breach with the traditions. the rabbi stood paralyzed by it, listening, as without conscious will, to her sobbing delivery of its contents. the letter was in hebrew (for neither parent could read english), and commenced abruptly, without date, address, or affectionate formality. "this is the last time i shall write the holy tongue. my soul is wearied to death of jews, a blind and ungrateful people, who linger on when the world no longer hath need of them, without country of their own, nor will they enter into the blood of the countries that stretch out their hands to them. seek not to find me, for i go to a new world. blot out my name even as i shall blot out yours. let it be as though i was never begotten." the mother dropped the letter and began to scream hysterically. "i who bore him! i who bore him!" "hold thy peace!" said the father, his limbs shaking but his voice firm. "he is dead. 'the lord giveth and the lord taketh away. blessed be the name of the lord.' to-night we will begin to sit the seven days' mourning. but to-day is the sabbath." "my sabbath is over for aye. thou hast driven my boy away with thy long prayers." "nay, god hath taken him away for thy sins, thou godless sabbath-breaker! peace while i make the consecration." "my isaac, my only son! we shall say _kaddish_ (mourning-prayer) for him, but who will say _kaddish_ for us?" "peace while i make the consecration!" he got through with the prayer over the wine, but his breakfast remained untasted. iii re-reading the letter, the poor parents agreed that the worst had happened. the allusions to "blood" and "the new world" seemed unmistakable. isaac had fallen under the spell of a beautiful heathen female; he was marrying her in a church and emigrating with her to america. willy-nilly, they must blot him out of their lives. and so the years went by, over-brooded by this shadow of living death. the only gleam of happiness came when miriam was wooed and led under the canopy by the president of the congregation, who sold haberdashery. true, he spoke english well and dressed like a clerk, but in these degenerate days one must be thankful to get a son-in-law who shuts his shop on the sabbath. one evening, some ten years after isaac's disappearance, miriam sat reading the weekly paper--which alone connected her with the world and the fulness thereof--when she gave a sudden cry. "what is it?" said the haberdasher. "nothing--i thought--" and she stared again at the rough cut of a head embedded in the reading matter. but no, it could not be! "mr. ethelred p. wyndhurst, whose versatile talents have brought him such social popularity, is rumoured to have budded out in a new direction. he is said to be writing a comedy for mrs. donald o'neill, who, it will be remembered, sat to him recently for the portrait now on view at the azure art club. the dashing _comédienne_ will, it is stated, produce the play in the autumn season. mr. wyndhurst's smart sayings have often passed from mouth to mouth, but it remains to be seen whether he can make them come naturally from the mouths of his characters." what had these far-away splendours to do with isaac levinsky? with isaac and his heathen female across the atlantic? and yet--and yet ethelred p. wyndhurst _was_ like isaac--that characteristic curve of the nose, those thick eyebrows! and perhaps isaac _had_ worked himself up into a portrait-painter. why not? did not his old sketch of herself give distinction to her parlour? her heart swelled proudly at the idea. but no! more probably the face in print was roughly drawn--was only accidentally like her brother. she sighed and dropped the paper. but she could not drop the thought. it clung to her, wistful and demanding satisfaction. the name of ethelred p. wyndhurst, whenever it appeared in the paper--and it was surprising how often she saw it now, though she had never noticed it before--made her heart beat with the prospect of clews. she bought other papers, merely in the hope of seeing it, and was not unfrequently rewarded. involuntarily, her imagination built up a picture of a brilliant romantic career that only needed to be signed "isaac." she began to read theatrical and society journals on the sly, and developed a hidden life of imaginative participation in fashionable gatherings. and from all this mass of print the name ethelred p. wyndhurst disengaged itself with lurid brilliancy. the rumours of his comedy thickened. it was christened _the sins of society_. it was to be put on soon. it was not written yet. another manager had bid for it. it was already in rehearsal. it was called _the bohemian boy_. it would not come on this season. miriam followed feverishly its contradictory career. and one day there was a large picture of isaac! isaac to the life! she soared skywards. but it adorned an interview, and the interview dropped her from the clouds. ethelred was born in brazil of an english engineer and a spanish beauty, who performed brilliantly on the violin. he had shot big game in the rocky mountains, and studied painting in rome. the image of her mother playing the violin, in her preternaturally placid wig, brought a bitter smile to miriam's lips. and yet it was hard to give up ethelred now. it seemed like losing isaac a second time. and presently she reflected shrewdly that the wig and the gabardine wouldn't have shown up well in print, that indeed isaac in his farewell letter had formally renounced them, and it was therefore open to him to invent new parental accessories. of course--fool that she was!--how could ethelred p. wyndhurst acknowledge the same childhood as isaac levinsky! yes, it might still be her isaac. well, she would set the doubt at rest. she knew, from the wide reading to which ethelred had stimulated her, that authors appeared before the curtain on first nights. she would go to the first night of _the whirligig_ (that was the final name), and win either joy or mental rest. she made her expedition to the west end on the pretext of a sick friend in bow, and waited many hours to gain a good point of view in the first row of the gallery, being too economical to risk more than a shilling on the possibility of relationship to the dramatist. as the play progressed, her heart sank. though she understood little of the conversational paradoxes, it seemed to her--now she saw with her physical eye this brilliant belgravian world, in the stalls as well as on the stage--that it was impossible her isaac could be of it, still less that it could be isaac's spirit which marshalled so masterfully these fashionable personages through dazzling drawing-rooms; and an undercurrent of satire against jews who tried to get into society by bribing the fashionables, contributed doubly to chill her. she shared in the general laughter, but her laugh was one of hysterical excitement. but when at last amid tumultuous cries of "author!" isaac levinsky really appeared,--isaac, transformed almost to a fairy prince, as noble a figure as any in his piece, isaac, the proved master-spirit of the show, the unchallenged treader of all these radiant circles,--then all miriam's effervescing emotion found vent in a sobbing cry of joy. "isaac!" she cried, stretching out her arms across the gallery bar. but her cry was lost in the applause of the house. iv she wrote to him, care of the theatre. the first envelope she had to tear up because it was inadvertently addressed to isaac levinsky. her letter was a gush of joy at finding her dear isaac, of pride in his wonderful position. who would have dreamed a lithographer's apprentice would arrive at leading the fashions among the nobility and gentry? but she had always believed in his talents; she had always treasured the water-colour he had made of her, and it hung in the parlour behind the haberdasher's shop into which she had married. he, too, was married, they had imagined, and gone to america. but perhaps he _was_ married, although in england. would he not tell her? of course, his parents had cast him out of their hearts, though she had heard mother call out his name in her sleep. but she herself thought of him very often, and perhaps he would let her come to see him. she would come very quietly when the grand people were not there, nor would she ever let out that he was a jew, or not born in brazil. father was still pretty strong, thank god, but mother was rather ailing. hoping to see him soon, she remained his loving miriam. she waited eagerly for his answer. day followed day, but none came. when the days passed into weeks, she began to lose hope; but it was not till _the whirligig_, which she followed in the advertisement columns, was taken off after a briefer run than the first night seemed to augur, that she felt with curious conclusiveness that her letter would go unanswered. perhaps even it had miscarried. but it was now not difficult to hunt out ethelred p. wyndhurst's address, and she wrote him anew. still the same wounding silence. after the lapse of a month, she understood that what he had written in hebrew was final; that he had cut himself free once and forever from the swaddling coils of gabardine, and would not be dragged back even within touch of its hem. she wept over her second loss of him, but the persistent thought of him had brought back many tender childish images, and it seemed incredible that she would never really creep into his life again. he had permanently enlarged her horizon, and she continued to follow his career in the papers, worshipping it as it loomed grandiose through her haze of ignorance. gradually she began to boast of it in her more english circles, and so in course of time it became known to all but the parents that the lost isaac was a shining light in high heathendom, and a vast secret admiration mingled with the contempt of the ghetto for ethelred p. wyndhurst. v in high heathendom a vast secret contempt mingled with the admiration for ethelred p. wyndhurst. he had, it is true, a certain vogue, but behind his back he was called a jew. he did not deserve the stigma in so far as it might have implied financial prosperity. his numerous talents had only availed to prevent one another from being seriously cultivated. he had had a little success at first with flamboyant pictures, badly drawn, and well paragraphed; he had written tender verses for music, and made quiet love to ugly and unhappy society ladies; he was an assiduous first-nighter, and was suspected of writing dramatic criticisms, even of his own comedy. and in that undefined social segment where kensington and bohemia intersect, he was a familiar figure (a too familiar figure, old fogies grumbled) with an unenviable reputation as a diner-out--for the sake of the dinner. yet some of the people who called him "sponge" were not averse from imbibing his own liquids when he himself played the gracious host. he was appearing in that rôle one sunday evening before a motley assembly in his dramatically furnished studio, nay, he was in the very act of biting into a sandwich scrupulously compounded with ham, when a telegram was handed to him. "another of those blessed actresses crying off," he said. "i wonder how they ever manage to take up their cues!" then his face changed as he hurriedly crumpled up the pinkish paper. "mother is dying. no hope. she cries to see you. have told her you are in london. father consents. come at once.--miriam." he put the crumpled paper to the gas and lit a new cigarette with it. "as i thought," he said, smiling. "when a woman is an actress as well as a woman--" vi after his wife died--vainly calling for her isaac--the old maggid was left heart-broken. it was as if his emotions ran in obedient harmony with the dictum of the talmud: "whoso sees his first wife's death is as one who in his own day saw the temple destroyed." what was there for him in life now but the ruins of the literal temple? he must die soon, and the dream that had always haunted the background of his life began to come now into the empty foreground. if he could but die in jerusalem! there was nothing of consequence for him to do in england. his miriam was married and had grown too english for any real communion. true, his congregation was dear to him, but he felt his powers waning: other maggidim were arising who could speak longer. to see and kiss the sacred soil, to fall prostrate where once the temple had stood, to die in an ecstasy that was already gan-iden (paradise)--could life, indeed, hold such bliss for him, life that had hitherto proved a cup of such bitters? life was not worth living, he agreed with his long-vanished brother-rabbis in ancient babylon, it was only a burden to be borne nobly. but if life was not worth living, death--in jerusalem--was worth dying. jerusalem! to which he had turned three times a day in praying, whose name was written on his heart, as on that of the mediæval spanish singer, with whom he cried:-- "who will make to me wings that i may fly ever eastward, until my ruined heart shall dwell in the ruins of thee? then will i bend my face to thy sacred soil and hold precious thy very stones, yea e'en to thy dust shall i tender be. "life of the soul is the air of thy land, and myrrh of the purest each grain of thy dust, thy waters sweetest honey of the comb. joyous my soul would be, could i even naked and barefoot, amid the holy ruins of thine ancient temple roam, where the ark was shrined, and the cherubim in the oracle had their home." to die in jerusalem!--that were success in life. here he was lonely. in jerusalem he would be surrounded by a glorious host. patriarchs, prophets, kings, priests, rabbonim--they all hovered lovingly over its desolation, whispering heavenly words of comfort. but now a curious difficulty arose. the maggid knew from correspondence with jerusalem rabbis that a russian subject would have great difficulty in slipping in at jaffa or beyrout, even aided by _bakhshîsh_. the only safe way was to enter as a british subject. grotesque irony of the fates! for nigh half a century the old man had lived in england in his gabardine, and now that he was departing to die in gabardine lands, he was compelled to seek naturalization as a voluntary englishman! he was even compelled to account mendaciously for his sudden desire to identify himself with john bull's institutions and patriotic prejudices, and to live as a free-born englishman. by the aid of a rich but pious west end jew, who had sometimes been drawn eastwards by the maggid's exegetical eloquence, all difficulties were overcome. armed with a passport, signed floridly as with a lion's tail rampant, the maggid--after a quasi-death-bed blessing to miriam by imposition of hands from the railway-carriage window upon her best bonnet--was whirled away toward his holy dying-place. vii such disappointment as often befalls the visionary when he sees the land of his dreams was spared to the maggid, who remained a visionary even in the presence of the real; beholding with spiritual eye the refuse-laden alleys and the rapacious _schnorrers_ (beggars). he lived enswathed as with heavenly love, waiting for the moment of transition to the shining world-to-come, and his supplications at the wailing wall for the restoration of zion's glory had, despite their sympathetic fervour, the peaceful impersonality of one who looks forward to no worldly kingdom. to outward view he lived--in the rare intervals when he was not at a synagogue or a house-of-learning--somewhere up a dusky staircase in a bleak, narrow court, in one tiny room supplemented by a kitchen in the shape of a stove on the landing, itself a centre of pilgrimage to _schnorrers_ innumerable, for whom the rich english maggid was an unexpected windfall. rich and english were synonymous in hungry jerusalem, but these beggars' notion of charity was so modest, and the coin of the realm so divisible, that the maggid managed to gratify them at a penny a dozen. at uncertain intervals he received a letter from miriam, written in english. the daughter had not carried on the learned tradition of the mother, and so the maggid was wont to have recourse to the head of the philanthropic technical school for the translation of her news into hebrew. there was, however, not much of interest; miriam's world had grown too alien: she could scrape together little to appeal to the dying man. and so his last ties with the past grew frailer and frailer, even as his body grew feebler and feebler, until at last, bent with great age and infirmity, so that his white beard swept the stones, he tottered about the sacred city like an incarnation of its holy ruin. he seemed like one bent over the verge of eternity, peering wistfully into its soundless depths. surely god would send his death-angel now. then one day a letter from miriam wrenched him back violently from his beatific vision, jerked him back to that other eternity of the dead past. isaac, isaac had come home! had come home to find desolation. had then sought his sister, and was now being nursed by her through his dying hours. his life had come to utter bankruptcy: his possessions--by a cruel coincidence--had been sold up at the very moment that the doctors announced to him that he was a doomed man. and his death-bed was a premature hell of torture and remorse. he raved incessantly for his father. would he not annul the curse, grant him his blessing, promise to say _kaddish_ for his soul, that he might be saved from utter damnation? would he not send his forgiveness by return, for isaac's days were numbered, and he could not linger on more than a month or so? the maggid was terribly shaken. he recalled bitterly the years of suffering, crowned by isaac's brutal heedlessness to the cry of his dying mother: but the more grievous the boy's sin, the more awful the anger of god in store for him. and the mother--would not her own gan-iden be spoilt by her boy's agonizing in hell? for her sake he must forgive his froward offspring; perhaps god would be more merciful, then. the merits of the father counted: he himself was blessed beyond his deserts by the merits of the fathers--of abraham, isaac, and jacob. he had made the pilgrimage to jerusalem; perhaps his prayers would be heard at the mercy-seat. with shaking hand the old man wrote a letter to his son, granting him a full pardon for the sin against himself, but begging him to entreat god day and night. and therewith an anthology of consoling talmudical texts: "a man should pray for mercy even till the last clod is thrown upon his grave.... for repentance and prayer and charity avert the evil decree." the charity he was himself distributing to the startled _schnorrers_. the schoolmaster wrote out the envelope, as usual, but the maggid did not post the letter. the image of his son's death-bed was haunting him. isaac called to him in the old boyish tones. could he let his boy die there without giving him the comfort of his presence, the visible assurance of his forgiveness, the touch of his hands upon his head in farewell blessing? no, he must go to him. but to leave jerusalem at his age? who knew if he would ever get back to die there? if he should miss the hope of his life! but isaac kept calling to him--and isaac's mother. yes, he had strength for the journey. it seemed to come to him miraculously, like a gift from heaven and a pledge of its mercy. he journeyed to beyrout, and after a few days took ship for marseilles. viii meantime in the london ghetto the unhappy ethelred p. wyndhurst found each day a year. he was in a rapid consumption: a disorderly life had told as ruinously upon his physique as upon his finances. and with this double collapse had come a strange irresistible resurgence of early feelings and forgotten superstitions. the avenging hand was heavy upon him in life,--what horrors yet awaited him when he should be laid in the cold grave? the shadow of death and judgment over-brooded him, clouding his brain almost to insanity. there would be no forgiveness for him--his father's remoteness had killed his hope of that. it was the nemesis, he felt, of his refusal to come to his dying mother. god had removed his father from his pleadings, had wrapped him in an atmosphere holy and aloof. how should miriam's letter penetrate through the walls of jerusalem, pierce through the stonier heart hardened by twenty years of desertion! and so the day after she had sent it, the spring sunshine giving him a spurt of strength and courage, a desperate idea came to him. if he could go to jerusalem himself! if he could fall upon his father's neck, and extort his blessing! and then, too, he would die in jerusalem! some half-obliterated text sounded in his ears: "and the land shall forgive sin." he managed to rise--his betaking himself to bed, he found, as the sunshine warmed him, had been mere hopelessness and self-pity. let him meet death standing, aye, journeying to the sun-lands. nay, when miriam, getting over the alarm of his up-rising, began to dream of the palestine climate curing him, he caught a last flicker of optimism, spoke artistically of the glow and colour of the east, which he had never seen, but which he might yet live to render on canvas, winning a new reputation. yes, he would start that very day. miriam pledged her jewellery to supply him with funds, for she dared not ask her husband to do more for the stranger. but long before ethelred p. wyndhurst reached jaffa he knew that only the hope of his father's blessing was keeping him alive. somewhere at sea the ships must have passed each other. ix when the gabardined maggid reached miriam's house, his remains of strength undermined by the long journey, he was nigh stricken dead on the door-step by the news that his journey was vain. "it is the will of god," he said hopelessly. the sinner was beyond mercy. he burst into sobs and tears ran down his pallid cheeks and dripped from his sweeping white beard. "thou shouldst have let us know," said miriam gently. "we never dreamed it was possible for thee to come." "i came as quickly as a letter could have announced me." "but thou shouldst have cabled." "cabled?" the process had never come within his ken. "but how should i dream he could travel? thy letter said he was on his death-bed. i prayed god i might but arrive in time." he was for going back at once, but miriam put him to bed--the bed isaac should have died in. "thou canst cable thy forgiveness, at least," she said, and so, without understanding this new miracle, he bade her ask the schoolmaster to convey his forgiveness to his son. "isaac will inquire for me, if he arrives alive," he said. "the schoolmaster will hear of him. it is a very small place, alas! for god hath taken away its glory by reason of our sins." the answer came the same afternoon. "message just in time. son died peacefully." the maggid rent his bed-garment. "thank god!" he cried. "he died in jerusalem. better he than i! isaac died in jerusalem! god will have mercy on his soul." tears of joy sprang to his bleared eyes. "he died in jerusalem," he kept murmuring happily at intervals. "my isaac died in jerusalem." three days later the maggid died in london. * * * * * vi bethulah * * * * * vi bethulah i the image of her so tragically trustful in that mountain village of bukowina still haunts my mind, and refuses to be exorcised, as of yore, by the prose of life. one who is very dear to me advises driving her out at the point of the pen. whether such recording of my life's strangest episode will lay these memories or not, the story itself may at least instruct my fellow-jews in new york how variously their religion has manifested itself upon this perplexing planet. doubtless many are still as ignorant as i was respecting their mediæval contemporaries in eastern europe. true, they have now opportunities in their own ghetto--which is, for cosmopolitanism, a new york within a new york--of studying strata from other epochs of judaism spread out on the same plane of time as their own, even as upon the white sheet of that wonderful invention my aged eyes have lived to see, sequent events may be pictured simultaneously. in my youth these opportunities did not exist. only in baltimore and a few of the great eastern cities was there any aggregation of jews, and these were all--or wanted to be--good yankees; while beyond the mississippi, where my father farmed and hunted like a christian, and where you might have scoured a thousand square miles to get _minyan_ (ten jews for worship), our picturesque customs and ceremonies dwindled away from sheer absence of fellowship. my father used to tell of a bronzed trapper he breakfasted with on the prairie, who astonished him by asking him over their bacon if he were a jew. "yes," said my father. "shake!" said the trapper. "you're the first fellow-jew i've met for twenty years." though in my childhood my father taught me the hebrew he had brought from europe, and told me droll jewish stories in his native german, it will readily be understood that the real influences i absorbed were the great american ideals of liberty and humanity, emancipation and enlightenment, and that therefore the strange things i witnessed among the carpathians were far more startling to me than they can be to the jews of to-day upon whom the old world has poured its archaic inhabitants. nevertheless, i cannot but think that even those who have met strange drifts of sects in new york will be astonished by the tradition which i stumbled upon so blindly in my first european tour. for, so far as i can gather, the zloczszol legend is unique in jewish history and confined exclusively to this out-of-the-way corner, however near other heresies may have approached to some of the underlying conceptions. my landlord yarchi's view that it was a mere piece of local commercial myth-making, a gross artifice, would have at least the merit of explaining this uniqueness. it has, in my eyes, no other. this tour of mine was to make not a circle, but a half-circle, for, landing at hamburg i was to return by the baltic, after a circuit through berlin, prague, vienna, buda-pesth, lemberg, (where my grandfather had once been a rabbi of consideration), moscow, and st. petersburg. i did not linger at hamburg; purchasing a stout horse, i started on my long ride. of course it did not seem so long to me--who had already ridden from kansas to both of our seaboards--as it would to a young gentleman of to-day accustomed to parlour cars, though the constant change of dialects and foods was somewhat unsettling. but money speaks all languages, and a good western stomach digests all diets. bad water, however, no stomach can cope with; and i was laid up at prague with a fever, which left me too weak to hurry on. i rambled about the ghetto--the judenstadt--which gave me my first insight into mediæval judaism, and was fascinated by the quaint alleys and houses, the jewish town-hall, and the cellarlike _alt-neu_ synagogue with its miraculous history of unnumbered centuries. i heard the story of the great red flag on the pillar, with its "shield of david" and the swede's hat, and was shown on the walls the spatterings of the blood of the martyrs of . what emotions i had in the old graveyard--a ghetto of the dead--where the graves were huddled together, three and four deep, and the very tombstones and corpses had undergone ghetto persecution! a whole new world opened out to me, crooked as the ghetto alleys--so alien from the free life of the flowering prairies--as i walked about this "judengarten," studying the hebrew inscriptions and the strange symbolic sculptures--the priest's hands of blessing, the levite's ewer, the israelites' bunch of grapes, the virgin with roses--and trying to reconstruct the life these dead had lived. strange ancestral memories seemed thrilling through me, helping me to understand. many stories did i hear, too, of the celebrated rabbi löw, and of the _golem_ he created, which brought him his meals: in sign whereof i was shown his grave, and his house marked with a lion on a blue background. i listened with american incredulity but hereditary sympathy. i was astonished to find men who still believed in a certain sabbataï zevi, messiah of the jews, and one showed me a sabbatian prayer-book with a turbaned head of this redeemer side by side with king david's, and another who scoffed at this seventeenth-century impostor, yet told me the tradition in his own family, how they had sold their business and were about to start for palestine, when the news reached them that so far from deposing the sultan, this redeemer of israel had become his doorkeeper and a mohammedan. the year was passing toward the fall ere i got to buda-pesth (in those days the enchanted gateway of the orient, resounding with gypsy music, and not the civilized capital i found it the other day), and i had not proceeded far on the northerly bend of my journey when, soon after crossing the carpathians, i was imprisoned in the mountain village of zloczszol by the sudden overflow of the dniester. the village itself was sheltered from the floods by a mountain between it and the tributary of the dniester; but all the roads northward were impassable, and the water came round by clefts and soused our bordering fields and oozed very near the maize-garden of yarchi's pine cottage, to which i had removed from the dirty inn, where a squalling baby in a cradle had shared the private sitting-room. it was a very straggling village, which began to straggle at the mountain-foot, but, for fear of avalanches, i was told, the houses did not grow companionable till some half a mile down the plain. in the centre of the village was a cobble-paved "ring-place" and market-place, on which gave a few streets of shops (the provision-shops benefiting hugely by the floods, which made imports difficult). it was a jewish colony, with the exception of a few outlying farms, whose peasants brought touches of gorgeous colour into the procession of black gabardines. it was strange to me to live in a place in which every door-post bore a _mezuzah_. it gave me a novel sense of being in a land of israel, and sometimes i used to wonder how these people could feel such a sense of local patriotism as seemed to possess them. and yet i reflected that, like the giant cedar of lebanon which rose from the plain in such strange contrast with the native trees of zloczszol, israel could be transplanted everywhere, and was made of as enduring and undying a wood--nay, that, even like this cedar-wood, it had strange properties of conserving other substances and arresting putrefaction. hence its ubiquitous patriotism was universally profitable. nevertheless, this was one of the surprises of my journey--to find jews speaking every language under the european sun, regarding themselves everywhere as part of the soil, and often patriotic to the point of resenting immigrant jews as foreigners. i myself was popularly known as "the stranger," though i was not resented, because the couple of dollars at which i purchased the privilege of "ark-opening" on my first visit to the synagogue--a little gothic building standing in a court-yard--gave me a further reputation as "the rich stranger." once i blushed to overhear myself called "the handsome stranger," and i looked into my cracked mirror with fresh interest. but i told myself modestly a stalwart son of the prairies had an unfair advantage in such a world of stooping sallow students. certainly i felt myself favoured both in youth and looks when i stepped into the beth-hamedrash, the house of study (which i had at first taken for a little mosque, like those i had seen on the slopes of buda), and watched the curious gnarled graybeards crooning and rocking the livelong day over worm-eaten folios. despite such odd glimpses of the interesting, i grew as tired of waiting for the waters to abate as noah himself must have felt in his zoological institute. one day as i was gazing from my one-story window at the melancholy marsh to which the flood had reduced the landscape, i said glumly to my hunchbacked landlord, who stood snuffing himself under the porch, "i suppose it will be another week before i can get away." "alas! yes," yarchi replied. "why alas?" i asked. "it's an ill wind that blows nobody any good, and the longer i stay the better for you." he shook his head. "the flood that keeps you here keeps away the pilgrims." "the pilgrims!" i echoed. "ay," said he. "there will be three in that bed of yours." "but what pilgrims?" he stared at me. "don't you know the new year is nigh?" "of course," i said mendaciously. i felt ashamed to confess my ignorant unconcern as to the proximity of the solemn season of ram's-horn blasts and penitence. "well, it is at new year the pilgrims flock to their wonder rabbi, that he may hear their petitions and bear them on high, likewise wrestle with satan, and entreat for their forgiveness at the throne of grace." there was a twinkle in yarchi's eyes not quite consistent with the gravity of his words. "do wonder rabbis live nowadays?" i asked. a pinch of snuff yarchi was taking fell from between his fingers. "do they live!" he cried. "yes--and off white bread, for poverty!" "we have none in america. i only heard of one in prague," i murmured apologetically, fearing the genus might be of the very elements of judaism. "ah, yes, the high rabbi löw, his memory for a blessing," he said reverently. "but these new wonder rabbis can only work one miracle." "what is that?" i asked. "the greatest of all--making their worshippers support them like princes." and he laughed in admiration of his own humour. "then you are a heretic?" i said. "heretic!" yarchi's black eyes exchanged their twinkle for a flash of resentment. "nay; they are the heretics, breeding dissension in israel. did they not dance on the grave of the sainted elijah wilna?" tired of tossing the ball of conversation up and down, i left the window and joined the philosopher under his porch, where i elicted from him his version of the eighteenth-century movement of _chassidim_, (the pious ones), which, in these days of english books on judaism, will not be so new to american jews as it was to me. these shakers (or, as we should perhaps say nowadays, salvationists), these protestants against cut-and-dried judaism, who arose among the carpathians under the inspiration of besht (a word which yarchi explained to me was made out of the initials of baal shem tob--the master of the good name), had, it seemed, pullulated into a thousand different sects, each named after the wonder rabbi whom it swore by, and in whose "exclusive divine right" (the phrase is yarchi's) it believed. "but _we_ have the divinest chief," concluded yarchi, grinning. "that's what they all say, eh?" i said, smiling in response. "yes; but the zloczszol rabbi is stamped with the royal seal. he professes to be of the messianic seed, a direct descendant of david, the son of jesse." and the hunchback chuckled with malicious humour. "i should like to see him," i said, feeling as if providence had provided a new interest for my boredom. yarchi pointed silently with his discoloured thumb over the plain. "you don't mean he is kept in that storehouse!" i said. yarchi guffawed in high good-humour. "that! that's the _klaus_!" "and what's the _klaus_?" "the _chassidim stubele_ (little room)." "is that where the miracles are done?" "no; that's their synagogue." "oh, they just pray there!" "pray? they get as drunk as lot." ii i returned to my window and gazed curiously at the _klaus_, and now that my eye was upon it i saw it was astir with restless life. men came and went continually. i looked toward the synagogue, and the more pretentious building seemed dead. then i remembered what yarchi had told me, that the _chassidim_ had revolted against set prayer-times. ("they pray and drink at all hours," was his way of putting it.) something must always be forward in the _klaus_, i thought, as i took my hat and stick, on exploring bent. instinctively i put my pistol in my hip pocket, then bethought myself with a laugh that i was not likely to be molested by the "pious ones." but as it was unloaded, i let it remain in the pocket. i slipped into the building and on to a bench near the door. but for the veiled ark at the end, i should not have known the place for a house of worship. true, some men were sitting or standing about, shouting and singing, with odd spasmodic gestures, but the bulk were lounging, smoking clay pipes, drinking coffee, and chattering, while a few, looking like tramps, lay snoring on the hard benches, deaf to all the din. my eye sought at once for the wonder rabbi himself, but amid the many quaint physiognomies there was none with any apparent seal of supremacy. the note of all the faces was easy-going good-will, and even the passionate contortions of melody and body which the worshippers produced, the tragic clutchings at space, the clinching of fists, and the beating of breasts had an air of cheery impromptu. they seemed to enjoy their very tears. and every now and then the inspiration would catch one of the gossipers and contort him likewise, while a worshipper would as suddenly fall to gossiping. very soon a frost-bitten old man i remembered coming across in the cemetery on the mountain-slope, where he was sweeping the fallen leaves from a tomb, and singing like the grave-digger in _hamlet_, sidled up to me and asked me if i needed vodka. i thought it advisable to need some, and was quickly supplied from a box the old fellow seemed to keep under the ark. the price was so moderate that i tipped him with as much again, doubtless to the enhancement of the "rich stranger's" reputation. sipping it, i was able to follow with more show of ease the bursts of rambling conversation. sometimes they talked about the floods, anon about politics, then about sacred texts and the illuminations of the _zohar_. but there was one topic which ran like a winding pattern through all the talk, bursting in at the most unexpected places, and this was the wonders wrought by their rabbi. as they dilated "with enkindlement" upon miracle after miracle, some wrought on earth and some in the higher spheres to which his soul ascended, my curiosity mounted, and calling for more vodka, "where is the rabbi?" i asked the sexton. "he may perhaps come down to lunch," said he, in reverent accents, as if to imply that the rabbi was now in the upper spheres. i waited till tables were spread with plain fare in the _klaus_ itself. at the savour the fountain of worship was sealed; the snorers woke up. i was invited to partake of the meal, which, i was astonished to find, was free to all, provided by the rabbi. "truly royal hospitality," i thought. but our royal host himself did not "come down." my neighbour, of whom i kept inquiring, at last told me, sympathetically, to have patience till friday evening, when the rabbi would come to welcome in the sabbath. but as it was then tuesday, "cannot i call upon him?" i asked. he shook his head. "ben david holds his court no more this year," he said. "he is in seclusion, preparing for the exalted soul-flights of the pilgrim season. the sabbath is his only public day now." there was nothing for it but to wait till the friday eve, though in the meantime i got yarchi to show me the royal palace--a plain two-storied oriental-looking building with a flat roof, and a turret on the eastern side, whose high, ivy-mantled slit of window turned at the first rays of the sun into a great diamond. "he couldn't come down, couldn't he?" yarchi commented. "i daresay he wasn't sober enough." somehow this jarred upon me. i was beginning to conjure up romantic pictures, and assuredly my one glimpse of the sect had not shown any intoxication save psychic. "he is very generous, anyhow," i said. "he supplies a free lunch." "free to him," retorted the incorrigible yarchi. "the worshippers fancy it is free, but it is they who pay for it." and he snuffed himself, chuckling. "i'll tell you what is free," he added. "his morals!" "but how do you know?" "oh, all those fellows go in for the adamite life." "what is the adamite life?" he winked. "not the pre-evite." i saw it was fruitless to reason with his hunchbacked view of the subject. on the friday eve i repaired again to the _klaus_, but this time it was not so easy to find a seat. however, by the grace of my friend the sexton, i was accommodated near the ark, where, amid a congregation clad in unexpected white, i sat, a conscious black discord. there was a certain palpitating fervour in the air, as though the imminence of the new year and judgment day had strung all spirits to a higher tension. suddenly a shiver seemed to run through the assemblage, and all eyes turned to the door. a tall old man, escorted by several persons of evident consideration, walked with erect head but tottering gait to the little platform in front of the ark, and, taking a praying-shawl from the reverential hand of the sexton, held it a moment, as in abstraction, before drawing it over his head and shoulders. as he stood thus, almost facing me, yet unconscious of me, his image was photographed on my excited brain. he seemed very aged, with abundant white locks and beard, and he was clothed in a white satin robe cut low at the neck and ornamented at the breast with gold-laced, intersecting triangles of "the shield of david." on his head was a sort of white biretta. i noted a curious streak of yellow in the silvered eyebrows, as if youth clung on, so to speak, by a single hair, and underneath these arrestive eyebrows green pupils alternately glowed and smouldered. on his forefinger he wore a signet ring, set with amethysts and with a huge persian emerald, which, as his hand rose and fell, and his fingers clasped and unclasped themselves in the convulsion of prayer, seemed to glare at me like a third green eye. and as soon as he began thus praying, every trace of age vanished. he trembled, but only from emotion; and his passion mounted, till at last his whole body prayed. and the congregation joined in with shakings and quiverings and thunderings and ululations. not even in prague had i experienced such sympathetic emotion. after the well-regulated frigidities of our american services, it was truly warming to be among worshippers not ashamed to feel. hours must have passed, but i sat there as content as any. when the service ended, everybody crowded round the wonder rabbi to give the "good sabbath" handshake. the scene jarred me by its incongruous suggestion of our american receptions at which the lion of the evening must extend his royal paw to every guest. but i went up among the rest, and murmured my salutation. the glow came into his eyes as they became conscious of me for the first time, and his gaunt bloodless hand closed crushingly on mine, so that i almost fancied the signet ring was sealing my flesh. "good sabbath, stranger," he replied. "you linger long here." "as long as the floods," i said. "are you as dangerous to us?" he flashed back. "i trust not," i said, a whit startled. his jewelled forefinger drummed on the reading-stand, and his eyes no longer challenged mine, but were lowered as in abstraction. "your grandfather, who lies in lemberg, was no friend to the followers of besht. he laid the ban even on white sabbath garments, and those who but wept in the synagogues he classed with us." i was more taken aback by his knowledge of my grandfather than by that ancient gentleman's hostility to the emotional heresy of his day. "i never saw my grandfather," i replied simply. "true. the son of the prairies should know more of god than the bookworms. will you accept a seat at my table?" "with pleasure, rabbi," i murmured, dazed by his clairvoyant air. they were now arranging the two tables, one with a white cloth for the master and his circle in strict order of precedence; and the other of bare wood for such of the rabble as could first scramble into the seats. i was placed on his right hand, and became at once an object of wonder and awe. the _kiddush_ which initiated the supper was not a novel ceremony to me, but what i had never seen before was the eagerness with which each guest sipped from the circulating wine-cup of consecration, and the disappointment of such of the mob as could find no drop to drain. still fiercer was the struggle for the wonder rabbi's soup, after he had taken a couple of spoonfuls; even i had no chance of distinction before this sudden simultaneous swoop, though of course i had my own plateful to drink. as sudden was the transition from soup to song, the whole company singing and swaying in victorious ecstasy. i turned to speak to my host, but his face awed me. the eyes had now their smouldering inward fire. the eyebrows seemed wholly white; the features were still. then as i watched him his whole body grew rigid, he closed his eyes, his head fell back. the singing ceased; as tense a silence reigned as though the followers too were in a trance. my eyes were fixed on the master's blind face, which had now not the dignity of death, but only the indignity of lifelessness, and, but for the suggestion of mystery behind, would have ceased to impress me. for there was now revealed a coarseness of lips, a narrowness of forehead, an ugliness of high cheek-bone, which his imperial glance had transfigured, and which his flowing locks still abated. but as i gazed, the weird stillness took possession of me. i could not but feel with the rest that the master was making a "soul-ascension." it seemed very long--yet it may have been only a few minutes, for in absolute silence one's sense of time is disconcerted--ere waves of returning life began to traverse the cataleptic face and form. at last the wonder rabbi opened his eyes, and the hush grew profounder. every ear was astrain for the revelations to come. "children," said he slowly, "as i passed through the circles the souls cried to me. 'haste, haste, for the evil one plotteth and the messianic day will be again delayed.' so i rose into the ante-chamber of grace where the fiery wheels sang 'holy, holy,' and there i came upon the poison god waiting to see the glory of the little face. and with him was a soul, very strange, such as i had never seen, living neither in heaven nor hell, perchance created of satan himself for his instrument. then with a great cry i uttered the name, and the poison god fled with a great fluttering, leaving the nameless, naked soul helpless amid the consuming, dazzling wheels. so i returned through the circles to reassure the souls, and they shouted with a great shout." "hallelujah!" came in a great shout from the wrought-up listeners, and then they burst into a lilting chant of triumph. but by this time my mood had changed. the spell of novelty had begun to wear off; perhaps also i was fatigued by the long strain. i recalled the coarser face of the comatose saint, and i found nothing but gibberish in the oracular "revelation" which he had brought down with such elaborate pains from the circles amid which he seemed to move. thanking him for his hospitality, i slipped from the hot, roaring room. ah! what a waft of fresh air and sense of starlit space! the young moon floated in the star-sprinkled heavens like a golden boat, with a faint suggestion of the full-sailed orb. the true glamour and mystery of the universe were again borne in upon me, as in our rich, constellated prairie nights, and all the artificial abracadabra of the _klaus_ seemed akin to its heated, noisy atmosphere. the lights of the village were extinguished, and, looking at my watch, i found it was close upon midnight. but as i passed the saint's "palace" i was astonished to find a light twinkling from the turret window. i wondered who kept vigil. then i bethought me it was friday night when no light could be struck, and this must be ben david's bed-room lamp, awaiting his return. "i thought he had taken you up in his fiery chariot," grumbled yarchi sleepily, as he unbarred the door. "the fiery chariot must not run on the sabbath," i said smiling. "and, moreover, ben david takes no passengers to the circles." "circles! he ought to have a circle of rope round his neck." "the soup was good," i pleaded, as i groped my way toward my quaint, tall bed. iii i cannot explain why, when yarchi asked me sarcastically, over the sabbath dinner, whether i was going to the "supper of the holy queen," i knew at once that i should be found at this mysterious meal. perhaps it was that i had nothing better to do; perhaps my sympathy was returning to those strange, good-humoured, musical loungers, so far removed from the new york ideal of life. or perhaps i was vaguely troubled by the dream i had wrestled with more or less obscurely all night long--that i stood naked in a whirl of burning wheels that sang, as they turned, the melody of the _chassidim_. was i this nondescript soul, i wondered, half smilingly, fashioned of the evil one to delay the messianic era? the sun was set, the three stars already in the sky, and my pious landlord had performed the ceremony of division ere i set out, declining the bread and fish yarchi offered to make up in a package. "saturday nights every man must bring his own meal," he said. i replied that i went not to eat, but to look on. however, i was so late in arriving that, as there were no lights, looking on was well-nigh reduced to listening. in the gray twilight the _klaus_ seemed full of uncanny forms rocking in monotonous sing-song. through the gathering gloom the old wonder rabbi's face loomed half ghostlike, half regal. as the mystic dusk grew deeper and darkness fell, the fascination of it all began to overcome me: the dim, tossing, crooning figures, divined rather than seen, washed round lappingly and swayingly by their own rhythmic melody, full of wistful sweetness. my soul too tossed in this circumlapping tide. the complex world of modern civilization fell away from me as garments fall from a bather. even this primitive mountain village passed into nothingness, and in a timeless, spaceless universe i floated in a lulling, measureless music. Æons might have elapsed ere the glare of light dazzled my eyes when the week-day candles were lit, and the supper to escort the departing holy queen--the sabbath--began. again i was invited to the upper table, despite yarchi's warning. but i had no appetite for earthly things, was jarred by the prosaic gusto with which the mystics threw themselves upon the tureen of red _borsch_ and the black pottle of brandy. "der rabbi hat geheissen branntwein trinken," hummed the sexton joyously. but little by little, as their stomachs grew satiate, the holy singing started afresh, and presently they leaped up, pulled aside the table, and made a whirling ring. i was caught up into the human cyclone, and round and round we flew, our hands upon one another's shoulders, with blind ecstatic faces, our legs kicking out madly, to repel, i understood, the embryonic demons outside the magic circle. and again methought i made a "soul-ascension," or at least hovered as near to the ineffable mysteries as the demoniacles to our magic circle. oh, what inexpressible religious raptures were mine! what no gorgeous temple, nor pealing organ, nor white-robed minister had ever wrought for me was wrought in this barracklike room with its rude benches and wooden ark. "children of the palace" we sang, and as i strove to pick up the words i thought we were indeed sons of our father who is in heaven. children of the palace children of the palace, haste-- all who yearn the bliss to taste of the glorious little-faced, where, within the king's house placed, shines the sapphire throne enchased. come, in joyful dance enlaced, mock the cold and primly chaste. see no sullen nor straitlaced in our circle may be traced. here with th' ancient one embraced inmost truth 'tis ours to taste, outer husks are shred to waste. children of the palace, haste, with the glory to be graced, come, behold the little-faced. we broke up some hours earlier than the previous evening, but i hurried away from my sauntering fellow-worshippers, not now because i was disgusted, but because i feared to be. i needed solitude--communion with my own soul. the same crescent moon hung in the heavens, the same endless stars drew on the thoughts to a material infinity. but now i felt there was another and a truer universe encompassing this painted vision--a spiritual universe of which i had hitherto known nothing, though i had glibly prated of it and listened well-satisfied to sermons about it. the air was warm and pleasant, and, still thrilling with the sense of the over-soul, i had passed the outposts of the village almost unconsciously, and walked in the direction of the cemetery on the other slope of the mountain (for the dead feared neither floods nor avalanches). on my left ran the river, still turbulent and encumbered with wreckage and logs, but now at low tide some feet below the level of its steep banks. the road gradually narrowed till at last i was walking on a mere strip of path between the starlit water and the base of the mountain, which rose ineffably solemn with its desolate rock at my side and its dark pines higher up. and suddenly lifting my eyes, i saw before me a mystic moonlit figure that set my heart beating with terror and surprise. it was the figure of a woman, or rather of a girl, tall, queenly, shining in a strange white robe, with a crown of roses and olive branches. for a moment she seemed like some spirit of moonlight. but though the eyes were misted with sadness and dream, the face was of the most beautiful jewish oval, glowing with dark creamy flesh. a wild idea rose to my mind, and, absurdly enough, stilled my beating heart. this was the holy queen sabbath whose departure we had just been celebrating, and in this unfrequented haunt she abode till the twilight of the next friday. "hail, holy queen!" i said, almost involuntarily. i saw her large beautiful eyes grow larger as she woke with a start to my presence, but she only inclined her head with a sovereign air, as one used to adoration, and floated on--for so her gracious motion seemed to me. and as she passed by, it flashed upon me that the strange white robe was nothing but a shroud. and again a great horror seized me. but struggling with my failing senses, i told myself that at worst it was some poor creature buried alive in the graveyard, who had forced the coffin lid, and now wandered half insanely homewards. "may i not escort you, lady?" i cried after her. "the way is lonely." she turned her face again upon me. i saw it had fire as well as mystery. "who dare molest the holy queen?" she said. again i was plunged into the wildest bewilderment. was my first fancy true? or had i stumbled upon some esoteric title she bore? or had she but seized on my own phrase? "but you go far?" i persisted. "unto my father's house." "pardon me. i am a stranger." she turned round wholly now and looked at me. "oh, are _you_ the _stranger_?" she said. the question rippled like music from her lips and was as sweet to my ear, linking her to me by the suggestion that i was not new to her imagination. "i am the stranger," i answered, moving slowly toward her, "and therefore afraid for your sake, and startled by the shroud you wear." "since the dawn of my thirteenth year it has been my daily robe. it should be in lamentation for zion laid waste. but me, i fear, it reminds more of my dead mother and sisters." "you had sisters?" "two beautiful lives, blown out one after the other like candles, making our home dark, when i was but a child. they too wore shrouds in life and death, first the elder, then the younger; and when i draw mine over my dress, it is of them i think always. i feel we are truly sisters--sisters of the shroud." i shivered as from some chill graveyard air, despite her sweet corporeality. "but the crown--the crown of joy?" i murmured, regarding now with closer vision the intertangled weaving of roses and myrtle and olive branches, with gold and crimson threads wound about salt stones and the pale yellow of pyrites. "i do not know what it signifies," she said simply. "are you not the holy queen?" i asked, beginning to scent some cabalistic or _chassidic_ mystery. "men worship me. but i know not of what i am queen." and a wistful smile played about the sweet mouth. "peace and sweet dreams to you, sir." and she turned her face to the village. she knew not of what she was queen. there, all in one sentence, was the charm, the wonder, the pathos, of her. yet there was still much that she knew that would enlighten me. and it was not wholly curiosity that provoked me to hold the vision. i hated to see the enchantment of her presence dissolve, to be robbed of the liquid notes of her voice. "you are queen of me at least," i said, following her, and throwing all my republican principles into the river among the other wreckage. "and your majesty's liege cannot endure to see you walk unattended so late in the night." "i have god's company," she answered quietly. "true; he is always with us. nevertheless, at night and in the mountains--" "he may be perceived more clearly. my father makes soul-ascensions at any hour by force of prayer. but for me the divine ecstasy comes only under god's heaven, and most clearly at night and among the graves. by day god is invisible, like the stars." "they may be perceived from a well," i said, mechanically, for my brain was busy with the intuition that she was ben david's daughter, that her "queendom" was somehow bound up with his alleged royal descent. "even so is god visible from the deeps of the spirit," she answered. "but these depths are not mine, and day speaks to me less surely of him." "the day is divine too," i urged. "god speaks also through joy, through sunshine." "it is but the gilding of sorrow." "nay, that is too hard a saying. how can you know that? you"--i made a bold guess, for my brain had continued to work feverishly--"who live cloistered in a turret, who are kept sequestered from man, who walk at night, and only among the dead. how can you know that life is so sad?" "i feel it. is not every stone in the graveyard hewn from the dead heart of the mourners?" all the sadness of the world was in her eyes, yet somehow all the sweet solace. again she bade me good-night, and i was so under the spell of her strange reply that i made no further effort to follow her, as she was swallowed up in the gloom of the firs where the path wound back round the mountain. iv the floods abated before the new year dawned, as was testified by the arrival, not of doves with olive leaves, but of pilgrims from the north with shekels. the road was therefore open for me to go, yet i lingered. i told myself it was the fascination of the pilgrims, that curious new population which brought quite a bustle into the "ring-place" of zloczszol, and gave even the shops of the native _chassidim_ a live air. there were unpleasant camp-followers in the train of the invading army, cripples and consumptives, both rich and poor; but, on the whole, it was a cheery, well-to-do company. i retained my room by paying the rent of three lodgers, and even then yarchi would come in and look at the big, tall bed wistfully, as if it were a waste of sleeping material. the great episode of each day was now the royal levee. crowds besieged the door of the "palace," in quest of health, wealth, and happiness, and the proprietor of fields had to squeeze in with the tramp, and the peasant woman and her neglected brat jostled the jewelled dame from the towns. i was glad to think that the "holy queen" was hidden safely away in her turret, and this consoled me for not meeting her again, though i walked or trotted about on my bay mare at all hours and in all places in quest of her. it may seem curious that i did not boldly call and ask to see her, but that would bring the commonplace into our so poetic relation. besides which, i divined that she would not be easily on view. beyond indirectly justifying my intuition that she was ben david's daughter by satisfying myself that the wonder rabbi had once had three girls, two of whom had died, i would not even make inquiries. i feared to dissipate the mystery and sacredness of our relation by gossip. perhaps yarchi would tell me she was mad, or treat me to some other coarse misconception due to the callous feelers with which he apprehended the world. i did not even know for certain that the light i saw in the turret was hers. but when at night it was out, i hastened to the river-side, to see only my own shadow on the hushed mountain slope or on the white tombs. it seemed clear that she was being kept sacred from the pilgrims' gaze; perhaps, too, the deserted, untravelled road which was safe as her own home in normal times, was less secure now. when i at last ventured to say casually to yarchi that ben david's daughter seemed to be kept strictly to the house, the ribald grin i had feared distorted his malicious mouth. "oh, you have seen bethulah!" he said. "yes," i murmured, turning my flushed face away, but glad to learn her name. bethulah! bethulah! my heart seemed to beat to the music of it. "does she still stalk about in a shroud?" he did not wait for an answer, but went off into unending laughter, which doubled him up till his hunch protruded upward like a camel's. "she does not go about at all now," i said freezingly. but this set yarchi cachinnating worse than ever. "he daren't trust even his own disciples, you see! ha! ha! ha!" "yarchi!" i cried angrily, "you know bethulah must be kept sacred from this rabble," and i switched with my riding-whip at the poppies that grew among the maize in the little front garden, as if they were pilgrims and i a tarquin. "yes, i know that's ben david's game. but i wish some man would marry her and ruin his business. ha! ha! ha!" "it would ruin yours too," i reminded him, more angrily. "you are ready enough to let lodgings to the pilgrims." yarchi shrugged his hump. "if fools are fools, wise men are wise men," he replied oracularly. i strode away, but he had heated my brain with a new idea, or one that i now allowed myself to see clearly. some man might marry her. then why should i not be that man? why should i not carry bethulah back to america with me--the most precious curiosity of the old world--a frank, virginal creature with that touch of the angel which i had dreamed of but had never met among our smart girls--up to then. and even if it were true that ben david was a fraud, and needed the girl for his cabalistic mystifications, even so i was rich enough to recoup him. the girl herself was no conscious accessory; of that i felt certain. when my brain cooled, suggestions of the other aspects of the question began to find entrance. what of bethulah herself? why should she care to marry me? or to go to the strange, raw country? and such a union--was it not too incongruous, too fantastic, for practical life? thus i wrestled with myself for three days, all the while watching bethulah's turret or the roads she might come by. on the third night i saw a wild mob of men at the turret end of the house, dancing in a ring and singing, with their eyes turned upward to the light that burnt on high. their words i could not catch at first through the tumultuous howl, but it went on and on, like their circumvolutions, over and over again, till my brain reeled. it seemed to be an appeal to bethulah to plead their cause on the coming _yom-hadin_ (new-year day of judgment):-- "by thy soul without sin, enter heaven within, this divine _yom-hadin_, holy maid. "undertake thou our plea; let the poison god be answered stoutly by thee, holy queen." when i came to write this down afterward, i discovered it was an acrostic on her name, as is customary with festival prayers. and this i have preserved in my rough translation. v despite my new spiritual insight, i could not bring myself to sympathize with such crude earthly visionings of the heavenly judgment bar (doubtless borrowed from the book of job, which our enlightened western rabbis rightly teach to be allegorical). temporary absorption into the over-soul seemed to me to sum up the limits of _chassidic_ experience. besides, bethulah was not a being to be employed as a sort of supernatural advocate, but a sad, tender creature needing love and protection. this mob howling outside my lady's chamber added indignation to my strange passion for this beautiful "sister of the shroud." i would rescue her from this grotesque environment. i would go to her father and formally demand her hand, as, i had learnt, was the custom among these people. i slept upon the resolution, yet in the morning it was still uncrumpled; and immediately after breakfast i took my stand among the jostling crowd outside the turreted house, and unfairly secured precedence by a gold piece slipped into the palm of the doorkeeper. the scribe i found stationed in the ante-chamber made me write my wish on a piece of paper, which, however, i was instructed to carry in myself. ben david was seated in a curious soft-cushioned, high-backed chair, with the intersecting triangles making a carved apex to it, but otherwise there was no mark of what yarchi would have called charlatanism. his face, set between a black velvet biretta and the white masses of his beard, had the dignity with which it had first impressed me, and his long, fur-trimmed robe gave him an air of mediæval wisdom. "peace be to you, long-lingering stranger," he said, though his green eyes glittered ominously. "peace," i murmured uneasily. with his left hand he put the still folded paper to his brow. i watched the light playing on the persian emerald seal of the ring on the forefinger of his right hand. suddenly i perceived he too was looking at the stone--nay, into it--and that while that continued to glitter, his own eyes had grown glazed. "strange, strange," he muttered. "again i see the fiery wheels, and the strange soul fashioned of satan that dwells neither in heaven nor in hell." and his eyes lit up terribly again and rolled like fiery wheels. "what do you want?" he cried harshly. "it is written on the paper," i faltered, "just two words." he opened the paper and read out, "your daughter!" his eyes rolled again. "what know you of my daughter?" "oh, i know all about her," i said airily. "then you know that my daughter does not receive pilgrims." "nay, 'tis i that wish to receive your daughter," i ventured jocosely, with a touch of levity i did not feel. he raised his clinched hand as if to strike me, and i had a lurid sense of three green eyes glaring at me. i stood my ground as coolly as possible, and said, in dry, formal tones, "i wish to make application for her hand." a great blackness came over the frosted visage, as if his black biretta had been suddenly drawn forward, and his erst blanched eyebrows gloomed like a black lightning-cloud over the baleful eyes. i shrank back, then i had a sudden vision of the wagons clattering down broadway in a live, sunlit, go-ahead world, and the wonder rabbi turned into an absurd old parent with a beautiful daughter and a bad temper. "i am a man of substance," i went on dryly. "in my country i have fat lands." the horribleness of thus bidding for bethulah flashed on me even as i spoke. to mix up a creature of mist and moonlight with substance and fat lands! monstrous! and yet i knew that thus, and thus only, by honourable talk with her guardian, could a zloczszol bride be won. but the wonder rabbi sprang to his feet so vehemently that his high-backed chair rocked as in a gale. "dog!" he shrieked. "blasphemer!" i summoned all my american sang-froid. "dog," i agreed, "inasmuch as i follow your daughter like a dog, humbly, lovingly. but blasphemer? say rather worshipper. for i worship bethulah." "then worship her like the others," he roared. had i not heard him pray, i should have expected the hoary patriarch to collapse after such an outburst. "thank you," i said. "i don't want her to fly up to heaven for me. i want her to come down to earth--from her turret." "she will not come down to any earthly spouse," he said more gently. "quite the reverse." "then i will make a soul-ascension," i said defiantly. "get back to hell, spawn of satan!" he thundered again. "or since, strange son of the new world, you neither believe nor disbelieve, hover eternally between hell and heaven!" "meantime i am here," i said good-humouredly, "between you and your daughter. come, come, be sensible; you are a very old man. where in zloczszol will you find a superior husband for your child?" "the lord, to whom she is consecrated, forgive you your blasphemy," he said, in a changed voice, and rang his bell, so that the next applicant came in and i had to go. it was plain the girl was kept as a sacred celibate, a sort of vestal virgin--bethulah was the very hebrew for virgin, it suddenly flashed upon me. but how came such practices into judaism--judaism, with its cheery creed, "increase and multiply?" and _chassidism_, i had hitherto imagined, was the cheeriness of judaism concentrated! in yarchi's version it was even license--"the adamite life." i raked up my memories of the bible--remembered jephtha's daughter. but no! there could be no question of a vow; this was some new _chassidic_ mystery. the crown and the shroud! the shroud of renunciation, the crown of victory! and for some fantastic shadow-myth a beautiful young life was to be immolated. my respect for _chassidism_ vanished as suddenly as it came. but i was powerless. i could only wait till the flood of pilgrims oozed back, even as the waters had done. then perhaps bethulah might walk again upon the moonlit mountain-peak, or in the "house of life," as the cemetery was mystically called. the penitential season, with its trumpets and terrors, judgment-writings and sealings, was over at last, and tabernacles came like a breath of air and nature. yarchi hammered up a little wooden booth in the corner of his front garden, and hung grapes and oranges and flowers from its loose roof of boughs, through which the stars peeped at us as we ate. it struck me as a very pretty custom, and i wondered why american judaism had let it fall into desuetude. ere the break-up of these booths the pilgrims had begun to melt away, the old sleepiness to fall upon zloczszol. hence i was startled one morning by the passage of a joyous procession that carried torches and played on flutes and tambourines. i ran out and discovered that i was part of a wedding procession escorting a bride. as this was a company not of _chassidim_, but of everyday jews, bound for the little gothic synagogue, i was surprised, despite my experience of the tabernacles, to find such picturesque goings-on, and i went all the way to the courtyard, where the rabbi came out to meet us with the bridegroom, who, it seemed, had already been conducted hither with parallel pomp. the happy youth--for he could only have been sixteen--was arrayed in festival finery, with white shoes on his feet and black phylacteries on his forehead, which was further over-gloomed by a cowl. he took the bride's hand, and then we all threw wheat over their heads, crying three times, "_peru, urvu_" (be fruitful and multiply). but just when i expected the ceremony to begin, the bride was snatched away, and we all filed into the synagogue to await her return. i had fallen into a mournful reverie--perhaps the suggestion of my own infelicitous romance was too strong--when i felt a stir of excitement animating my neighbours, and, looking up, lo! i saw a tall female figure in a white shroud, with a veiled face, and on her head a crown of roses and myrtles and olive branches. a shiver ran through me. "bethulah!" i cried half-aloud. my neighbours smiled, and as i continued to stare at the figure, i saw it was only the bride, thus transmogrified for the wedding canopy. and then some startling half comprehension came to me. bethulah's dress was a bride's dress, then. she was made to appear a perpetual bride. of whom? to what cabalistic mystery was this the key? the friday night hymn sprang to my mind. "oh, come, my beloved, to meet the bride, the face of the sabbath let us welcome." for a moment i thought i held the solution, and that my very first conjecture had been warranted. the holy queen sabbath was also typified as the sabbath bride, and this dual allegory it was that bethulah incarnated. or perchance it was israel, the bride of god! but i was still dissatisfied. i felt that the truth lay deeper than a mere poetic metaphor or a poetical masquerading. i discovered it at last, but at the risk of my life. vi i continued to walk nightly on the narrow path between the mountain and the river, like the ghost of one drowned, but without a glimpse of bethulah. at last it grew plain that her father had warned her against me, that she had changed the hour of her exercise and soul-ascension, or even the place. i was indebted to accident for my second vision of this strange creature. i had diverted myself by visiting the neighbouring village, a refreshing contrast to jewish zloczszol, from the rough garland-hung wayside crosses (which were like sign-posts to its gilt-towered church) to the peasant women in pink aprons and top boots. a marvellous sunset was well-nigh over as i struck the river-side that curved homewards. the bank was here very steep, the river running as between cliffs. in the sky great drifts of gold-flushed cloud hung like relics of the glory that had been, and the autumn leaves that muffled my mare's footsteps seemed to have fallen from the sunset. in the background the white peak of the mountain was slowly parting with its volcanic splendour. and low on the horizon, like a small lake of fire in the heart of a tangled bush, the molten sun showed monstrous and dazzling. and straight from the sunset over the red leaves bethulah came walking, rapt as in prophetic thought, shrouded and crowned, preceded by a long shadow that seemed almost as intangible. i reined in my horse and watched the apparition with a great flutter at my heart. and as i gazed, and thought of her grotesque worshippers, it was borne in upon me how unbefittingly nature had peopled her splendid planet. the pageantry of dawn and sunset, of seas and mountains, how incongruous a framework for our petty breed, sordidly crawling under the stars. bethulah alone seemed fitted to the high setting of the scene. she matched this lone icy peak, this fiery purity. "bethulah!" i said, as she was almost upon my horse. she looked up, and a little cry that might have been joy or surprise came from her lips. but by the smile that danced in her eyes and the blood that leapt to her cheeks, i saw with both joy and surprise that this second meeting was as delightful to her as to me. but the conscious bethulah hastened to efface what the unconscious had revealed. "it is not right of you, stranger, to linger here so long," she said, frowning. "i am your shadow," i replied, "and must linger where you linger." "but you are indeed a shadow, my father says--a being fashioned of the poison god to work us woe." "no, no," i said, laughing; "my horse bears no shadow. and the poison god who fashioned me is not the absurd horned and tailed tempter you have been taught to believe in, but a little rosy-winged god, with a bow and poisoned arrows." "a little rosy-winged god?" she said. "i know of none such." "and you know not of what you are queen," i retorted, smiling. "there is but one god," she insisted, with sweet seriousness. "see, he burns in the bush, yet it is not consumed." she pointed to where the red sinking sun seemed to eat out the heart of the bush through which we saw it. "thus this love-god burns in our hearts," i said, lifted up into her poetic strain, "and we are not consumed, only glorified." i strove to touch her hand, which had dropped caressingly on my horse's neck. but she drew back with a cry. "i may not listen. this is the sinful talk my father warned me of. fare you well, stranger." and with swift step she turned homewards. i sat still a minute or two, half-disconcerted, half-content to gaze at her gracious motions; then i touched the mare with my heel, and she bounded off in pursuit. but at this instant three men in long gabardines and great round velvet hats started forward from the thicket, shouting and waving lighted pine-branches, and my frightened animal reared and plunged, and then broke into a mad gallop, making straight for the river curve between the cliffs. i threw myself back in the saddle, tugging desperately at the creature's mouth; but i might have been a child pulling at an elephant. i shook my feet free of the stirrups and prepared to tumble off as best i could, rather than risk the plunge into the river, when a projecting bough made me duck my head instinctively; but as i passed under it, with another instinctive movement i threw out my hands to clasp it, and, despite a violent wrench that seemed to pull my arms out of their sockets and swung my feet high forward, i hung safely. the mare, eased of my weight, was at the river-side the next instant, and with a wild, incredible leap alighted with her forefeet and the bulk of her body on the other bank, up which she scraped convulsively, and then stood still, trembling and sweating. i could not get at her, so, trusting she would find her way home safely, i dropped to the ground and ran back, with a mixed idea of finding bethulah and chastising the three scoundrels. but all were become invisible. i walked half a mile across the plain to get to the rough pine bridge; and, once on the other bank, i had no difficulty in recovering the mare. she cantered up to me, indeed, and put her soft and still perspiring nose in my palm and whinnied her apologetic congratulations on our common escape. i rode slowly home, reflecting on the new turn in my love affairs, for it was plain that bethulah had now been provided with a body-guard, of which she was as unconscious as of her body itself. but for the apparent necessity of her making soul-ascensions under god's heaven, i supposed she would not have been allowed to take the air at all with such a creature of satan hovering. i stood sunning myself the next day on the same pine bridge, looking down on the swift current, and regretting there was no rail to lean on as one watched the fascinating flow of the beautiful river. it struck me as inordinately blue,--perhaps, i analyzed, by contrast with the long, sinuous weeds which here glided and tossed in the current like green water-snakes. these flexible greens reminded me of the wonder rabbi's eyes and his emerald seal; and i turned, with some sudden premonition of danger, just in time to dodge the attack of the same three ruffians, who must have been about to push me over. in an instant i had whipped out my pistol from my hip pocket, and cried, "stand, or i fire!" the trio froze instantly in odd attitudes, which was lucky, as my pistol was unloaded. they looked almost comical in their air of abject terror. their narrow, fanatical foreheads, with ringlets of piety hanging down below the velvet, fur-trimmed hats, showed them more accustomed to murdering texts than men. had i not been still smouldering over yesterday's trick, i could have pitied them for the unwelcome job thrust upon their unskilled and apparently even unweaponed hands by the machinations of the poison god and the orders of ben david. one of them seemed quite elderly, and one quite young. the middle-aged one had a goitre, and perhaps that made me fancy him the most sinister, and keep my eye most warily upon him. "sons of belial," i said, recalling a biblical phrase that might be expected to prick, "why do you seek my life?" two of them cowered under my gaze, but the elderly _chassid_, seeing the shooting was postponed, spoke up boldly: "we are no sons of belial. you are the begotten of satan; you are the arch enemy of israel." "i?" i protested in my turn. "i am a plain god-fearing son of abraham." "a precious scion of the patriarch's seed, who would delay the coming of the messiah!" again that incomprehensible accusation. "you speak riddles," i said. "how so? did you not tell ben david--his horn be exalted--that you knew all concerning bethulah? then must you know that of her immaculacy will the messiah be born, one ninth of ab." a flood of light burst upon me--mystic, yet clarifying; blinding, yet dissipating my darkness. my pistol drooped in my hand. my head swam with a whirl of strange thoughts, and bethulah, already divine to me, took on a dazzling aureola, sailed away into some strange supernatural ether. "have we not been in exile long enough?" said the youngest. "shall a godless stranger tamper with the hope of generations?" "but whence this mad hope?" i said, struggling under the mystic obsession of his intensity. "mad?" began the first, his eyes spitting fire; but the younger interrupted him. "is not our saint the sole scion of the house of david? is not his daughter the last of the race?" "and what if she is?" "then who but she can be the destined mother of israel's redeemer?" the goitred _chassid_ opened his lips and added, "if not now, when? as hillel asked." "in our days at last must come the crowning glory of the house of ben david," the young man went on. "for generations now, since the signs have pointed to the millennium, have the daughters of the house been kept unwedded." "what!" i cried. "generations of _bethulahs_ have been sacrificed to a dream!" again the eyes of the first _chassid_ dilated dangerously. i raised my pistol, but hastened to ask, in a more conciliatory tone, "then how has the line been carried on?" "through the sons, of course," said the young _chassid_. "now for the first time there are no sons, and only one daughter remains, the manifest vessel of salvation." i tried to call up that image of bustling broadway that had braced me in colloquy with the old wonder rabbi, but it seemed shadowy now, compared with this world of solid spiritualities which begirt me. could it be the same planet on which such things went on simultaneously? or perhaps i was dreaming, and these three grotesque creatures were the product of yarchi's cookery. but their hanging curls had a daylight definiteness, and down in the sunlit, translucent river i could see every shade of colour, from the green of the sinuous reed-snakes to the brown of the moss patches. on the bank walked two crows, and i noted for the first time with what comic pomposity they paced, their bodies bent forward like two important old gentlemen with their hands in the pockets of their black coat tails. they brought a smile to my face, but a menacing movement of the _chassidim_ warned me to be careful. "and does the girl know all this?" i asked hurriedly. "she did not yesterday," said the elderly fellow. "now she has been told." there was another long pause. i meditated rapidly but disjointedly, having to keep an eye against a sudden rush of my assailants, and mistrusting the goitred saint yet the more because he was so silent. "and is bethulah content with her destiny?" i asked. "she is in the seventh heaven," said the elderly saint. i had a poignant shudder of incredulous protest. i recalled the flush of her sweet face at the sight of me, and brief as our meetings had been, i dared to feel that the irrevocable thrill had passed between us; that the rest would have been only a question of time. "let bethulah tell me so herself," i cried, "and i will leave her in her heaven." the men looked at one another. then the eldest shook his head. "no; you shall never speak to her again." "we have maidens more beautiful among us," said the young man. "you shall have your choice. ay, even my own betrothed would i give you." i flicked aside his suggestion. "but you cannot prevent bethulah walking under god's heaven." they looked dismayed. "i will meet her," i said, pursuing my advantage. "and yarchi and other good jews shall be at hand." "she shall be removed elsewhere," said the first. "i will track her down. ah, you are afraid," i said mockingly. "you see it is not true that she is content to be immolated." "it is true," they muttered. "true as the torah," added the elderly man. "then there is no harm in her telling me so." "you may bear her off on your horse," said he of the goitre. "i will go on foot. let her bid me go away, and i will leave zloczszol." again they looked at one another, and the relief in their eyes brought heart-sinking into mine. yes, it was true. bethulah was in the glow of a great surrender; she was still tingling with the revelation of her supreme destiny. to put her to the test now would be fatal. no; let her have time to meditate; ay, even to disbelieve. "to-morrow you shall speak with her, and no man shall know," said the oldest _chassid_. "no, not to-morrow. in a week or two." "ah, you wish to linger among us," he replied suspiciously. "i will go away till the appointed day," i replied readily. "good. continue your travels. let us say a month, or even two." "if you will not spirit her away in my absence." "it is as easy to do so in your presence." "so be it." "shall we say--the eve of chanukah?" he suggested. it was my turn to regard him suspiciously. but i could see nothing to cavil at. he had merely mentioned an obvious date--that of the next festival landmark. chanukah--the feast of rededication of the temple after the grecian pollution--the miracle of the unwaning oil, the memorial lighting of lights; there seemed nothing in these to work unduly upon the girl's soul, except in so far as the inspiring tradition of judas maccabæus might attach her more devotedly to her conceptions of duty and self-dedication. perhaps, i thought, with a flash of jealous anger, they meditated a feast of rededication of her after the pollution of my presence had been removed. well, we should see. "the eve of chanukah," i agreed, with a nonchalant air. "only let the place be where i first met her--the path 'twixt mountain and river as you go to the cemetery." that would at least be a counter-influence to chanukah! as they understood none of the subtleties of love, they agreed to this, and i made them swear by the name. when they went their way i stood pondering on the bridge, my empty pistol drooping in my hand, till sky and river glowed mystically as with blood, and the chill evening airs reminded me that november was nigh. vii i got to warsaw and back in the time at my disposal, but not all the freshness and variety of my experiences could banish the thought of bethulah. there were days when i could absorb myself in the passing panorama, but i felt always, so to speak, in the ante-chamber of the great moment of our third and decisive meeting. and with every shortening day of december that moment approached. yet i all but missed it when it came. a snowfall i might easily have foreseen retarded my journey at the eleventh hour, but my faithful mare ploughed her way through the white morasses. as she munched her mid-day corn in that quaint christian village that neighboured zloczszol, and in which i had agreed to stable her, it was borne in on me for the first time that the eve of chanukah was likewise christmas eve. i wondered vaguely if there was any occult significance in the coincidence or in the _chassidic_ choice of dates; but it was too late now to protest, and loading my pistol against foul play, i hurried to the rendezvous. on the dark barren base of the mountain, patches of snow gleamed like winter blossoms; the gargoyle-like faces of the jags of rock on the river-bank were white-bearded with icicles. down below the stream raced, apparently as turbid as ever, but suddenly, as it made a sharp curve and came under a thick screen of snow-laden boughs interarching over the cleft, it grew glazed in death. the sight of bethulah was as of a spirit of sunshine moving across the white desolation. her tall lone shadow fell blue upon the snowy path. she was swathed now in splendid silver furs, from which her face shone out like a tropical flower beneath its wreathed crown. dignity and sovereignty had subtly replaced the grace of her movement, her very stature seemed aggrandized by the consciousness of her unique mission. she turned, and her virginal eyes met mine with abashing purity, and in that instant of anguished rapture i knew that my quest was vain. the delicate flush of joy and surprise touched her cheeks, indeed, as before, but this time i felt it would not be succeeded by terror. self-conscious now, self-poised, she stood regally where she had faltered and fled. "you return to spend chanukah with us," she said. "i came," i said, with uneasy bravado, "in the hope of spending it elsewhere--with you." "but you know that cannot be," she said gently. ah, now she knew of what she was queen. but revolt was hot in my heart. "then they have made you share their dream," i said bitterly. "yes," she replied, with unruffled sweetness. "how beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of those that bring good tidings!" and her eyes shone in exultation. "they were messengers of evil," i said--"whisperers of untruth. life is for love and joy." "ah, no!" she urged tremulously. "surely you know the world--how full it is of suffering and sin." and as with an unconscious movement, she threw back her splendid furs, revealing the weird shroud. "ah, what ecstasy to think that the divine day will come, ere i am old, when, as it is written in the twenty-fifth chapter of isaiah, '_he will destroy in this mountain the face of the covering cast over all people, and the vail that is spread over all nations. he will swallow up death in victory: and the lord god will wipe away tears from off all faces; and the rebuke of his people shall he take away from off all the earth: for the lord hath spoken._'" her own eyes were full of tears, which i yearned to kiss away. "but your own life meantime?" i said softly. "my life--does it not already take on the glory of god as this mountain the coming day?" she seemed indeed akin to the cold white peak as i had seen it flushed with sunrise. my passion seemed suddenly prosaic and selfish. i was lifted up into the higher love that worships and abnegates. "god bless you!" i said, and turning away with misty vision, saw, creeping off, the three dark fanatical figures. viii half a century later i was startled to find the name of zloczszol in a headline of the sunday edition of my american paper. i had married, and was even a grandfather; for after my return to america the world of bethulah had grown fantastic, stupidly superstitious, and, finally, shadowy and almost unreal. years and years of happiness had dissipated and obliterated the delicate fragrant dream of spiritual love. but that strange long-forgotten name stirred instantly the sleeping past to life. i adjusted my spectacles and read the column eagerly. it was sensational enough, though not more so than a hundred columns of calamities in unknown places that one skips or reads with the mildest of thrills. the long-threatened avalanche had fallen, and nature had once more rudely reminded man of his puny place in creation. rare conditions had at last come together. first a slight fall of snow, covering the mountain--how vividly i pictured it!--then a sharp frost which had frozen this deposit; after that a measureless, blinding snow-storm and a cyclonic wind. when all seemed calm again, the second mass of snow had begun to slide down the frozen surface of the first, quickening to a terrific pace, tearing down the leafless trunks and shooting them at the village like giant arrows of the angry gods. one of these arrows penetrated the trunk of a great cedar on the plain and stuck out on both sides, making a sort of cross, which the curious came from far and near to see. but, alas! the avalanche had not contented itself with such freakish manifestations; it had annihilated the new portion of the village which had dared crawl nearer the mountain when the railroad--a railroad in zloczszol!--had found it cheaper to pass near the base than to make a circuit round the congested portion! alas! the cheapness was illusory. the dépôt with its crowd had been wiped out as by the offended fury of the mountain; though by another freakish incident, illustrating the titanic forces at work, yet the one redeeming detail of the appalling catastrophe, a small train of three carriages that had just moved off was lifted up bodily by the terrible wind that raced ahead of the monstrous sliding snowball, and was clapped down in a field out of its reach, as if by a protecting hand. not a creature on it was injured. i had passed the years allotted to man by the psalmist, and my memory of the things of yesterday had begun to be faint and elusive, but the images of my zloczszol adventure returned with a vividness that grew daily more possessive. what had become of bethulah? was she alive? was she dead? and which were the sadder alternative--to have felt the darkness of early death closing round the great hope, or to have survived its possibility, and old, bent, bitter, and deserted by her followers, to await the lesser disenchantment of the grave? an irresistible instinct impelled me--aged as i was myself--to revisit alone these scenes of my youth, to see how fate had rounded or broken off its grim ironic story. i pass over the stages of the journey, at the conclusion of which i found myself again in the mountain village. alas! the changes on the route had prepared me for the change in zloczszol. railroads threw their bridges over the gorges i had climbed, telegraph poles tamed the erst savage forest ways. and zloczszol itself had now, by the line passing through it, expanded into a trading centre, with vitality enough to recuperate quickly from the avalanche. the hotel was clean and commodious, but i could better have endured that ancient sitting-room in which the squalling baby was rocked. strange, i could see its red wrinkled face, catch the very timbre of its piping cries! only the mountain was unchanged, and the pines and firs that had whispered dreams to my youth whispered sleep to my age. ah, how frail and futile is the life of man! he passes like a shadow, and the green sunlit earth he trod on closes over him and takes the tread of the new generations. what had i to say to these new, smart people in zloczszol? no, the dead were my gossips and neighbours. for me more than the avalanche had desolated zloczszol. i repaired to the cemetery. there i should find yarchi. it was no use looking for him under the porch of the pine cottage. and there, too, i should in all likelihood find bethulah! but ben david's tomb was the first i found, carved with the intersecting triangles. the date showed he had died very soon after my departure; perhaps, i thought remorsefully, my importunities had agitated him too much. ah! there at last was yarchi. under a high white stone he slept as soundly as any straight corpse. his sneering mouth had crumbled to dust, but i would have given much to hear it once more abuse the _chassidim_. propped on my stick and poring over the faded gilt letters, i recalled "the handsome stranger" whom the years had marred. but of bethulah i saw no sign. i wandered back and found the turreted house, but it had been converted into a large store, and from bethulah's turret window hung a great advertising sky-sign. i returned cheerlessly to the hotel, but as the sun began to pierce auspiciously through the bleakness of early march, i was about to sally forth again in the direction of yarchi's ancient cottage, when the porter directed me--as if i were a mere tourist--to go to see the giant cedar of lebanon with its titanic arrow. however, i followed his instructions, and pretty soon i espied the broad-girthed tree towering over its field, with the foreign transpiercing trunk about fifteen feet from the ground, making indeed a vast cross. leaning against the sunlit cedar was a white-robed figure, and as i hobbled nearer i saw by the shroud and the crown of flowers that i had found bethulah. at my approach she drew herself up in statuesque dignity, upright as ben david of yore, and looked at me with keen unclouded eyes. there was a wondrous beauty of old age in her face and bearing. the silver hair banded on the temples glistened picturesquely against the reds and greens and golds of her crown. "ah, stranger!" she said, with a gracious smile. "you return to us." "you recognize me?" i mumbled, in amaze. "it is the face i loved in youth," she said simply. strange, happy, wistful tears sprang to my old eyes--some blurred sense of youth and love and god. "your youth seems with you still," i said. "your face is as sweet, your voice as full of music." the old ecstatic look lit up her eyes. "it is god who keeps me ever young, till the great day dawns." i was taken aback. what! she believed still! that alternative had not figured in my prevision of pathetic closes. i was silent, but the old tumult of thought raged within me. "but is not the day passed forever?" i murmured at last. the light in her eyes became queenly fire. "while there is life," she cried, "in the veins of the house of ben david!" and as she spoke my eye caught the gleam of the persian emerald on her forefinger. "and your worshippers--what of them?" i asked. her eyes grew sad. "after my father's death--his memory for a blessing!--the pilgrims fell off, and when the years passed without the miracle, his followers even here in zloczszol began to weaken. and slowly a new generation arose, impatient and lax, which believed not in the faith of their forefathers and mocked my footsteps, saying, 'behold! the dreamer cometh!' and then the black fire-monster came, whizzing daily to and fro on the steel lines and breathing out fumes of unfaith, and the young men said lo! there is our true redeemer. wherefore, as the years waxed and waned, until at last advancing death threw his silver shadow on my hair, even the faithful grew to doubt, and they said, 'but a few short years more and death must claim her, her mission unfulfilled, and the lamp of israel's hope shattered forever. perchance it is we that have misunderstood the prophecies. not here, not here, shall god's great miracle be wrought; this is not holy ground. "for the lord dwelleth in zion,"' they cried with the prophets. only on the sacred soil, outside of which god has never revealed himself, only in palestine, they said, can israel's redeemer be born. as it is written, 'but upon mount zion shall be deliverance, and there shall be holiness.' "then these and the scoffers persuaded me, seeing that i waxed very old, and i sold my father's house--now grown of high value--to obtain the money for the journey, and i made ready to start for jerusalem. there had been a whirlwind and a great snow the day before and i would have tarried, but they said i must arrive in the holy city ere the eve of chanukah. and putting off my shroud and my crown, seeing that only in jerusalem i might be a bride, i trusted myself to the fire-monster, and a vast company went with me to the starting-place--both of those who believed that salvation was of zion and those who scoffed. but the monster had scarcely crawled out under god's free heaven than god's hand lifted me up and those with me--for my blessedness covered them--and put us down very far off, while a great white thunder-bolt fell upon the building and upon the scoffers and upon those who had prated of zion, and behold! they were not. the multitude of moab was as straw trodden down for the dunghill, and the high fort of the fire-monster was brought down and laid low and brought to the ground, even to the dust. then arose a great cry from all the town and the mountain, and a rending of garments and a weeping in sackcloth. and many returned to the faith in me, for god's hand has shown that here, and not elsewhere, is the miracle to be wrought. as it is written, word for word, in the twenty-fifth chapter of isaiah:-- "'_and he will destroy in this mountain the face of the covering cast over all people, and the vail that is spread over all nations. he will swallow up death in victory; and the lord god shall wipe away tears from off all faces: and the rebuke of his people shall he take away from off all the earth: for the lord hath spoken it. and it shall be said in that day, lo, this is our god; we have waited for him, and he will save us: this is the lord; we have waited for him, we will be glad and rejoice in his salvation. for in this mountain shall the hand of the lord rest, and moab shall be trodden down under him, even as straw is trodden down for the dunghill. and he shall spread forth his hands in the midst of them, as he that swimmeth spreadeth forth to swim: and he shall bring down their pride together with the spoils of their hands. and the fortress of the high fort of thy walls shall he bring down, lay low, and bring to the ground, even to the dust._' "and here in this cedar of lebanon, transplanted like israel under the shadow of this alien mountain, the lord has shot a bolt, for a sign to all that can read. and here i come daily to pray, and to await the divine moment." she ceased, and her eyes turned to the now stainless heaven. and as i gazed upon her shining face it seemed to me that the fresh flowers and leaves of her crown, still wet with the dew, seen against that garment of death and the silver of decaying life, were symbolic of an undying, ever rejuvenescent hope. ix a last surprise awaited me. bethulah now lived all alone in yarchi's pine cottage, which the years had left untouched. whether accident or purpose settled her there i do not know, but my heart was overcharged with mingled emotion as i went up the garden the next day to pay her a farewell visit. the poppies flaunted riotously amid the neglected maize, but the cottage itself seemed tidy. it was the season when the cold wrinkled lips of winter meet the first kiss of spring, and death is passing into resurrection. it was the hour when the chill shadows steal upon the sunlit day. in the sky was the shot purple of a rolling moor, merging into a glow of lovely green. i stood under the porch where yarchi had been wont to sun and snuff himself, and knocked at the door, but receiving no answer, i lifted the latch softly and looked in. bethulah was at her little table, her head lying on a great old bible which her arms embraced. one long finger of departing sunlight pointed through the window and touched the flowers on the gray hair. i stole in with a cold fear that she was dead. but she seemed only asleep, with that sleep of old age which is so near to death and is yet the renewal of life. i was curious to see what she had been reading. it was the eighteenth chapter of genesis, and in the shadow of her crown ran the verses:-- "_and the lord said unto abraham, wherefore did sarah laugh, saying, shalt i of a surety bear a child, which am old?_ "_is anything too hard for the lord?_" * * * * * vii the keeper of conscience * * * * * vii the keeper of conscience i salvina brill walked to and fro in the dingy hackney terrace, waiting till her mother should return with the house-key. so far as change of scene was concerned the little pupil-teacher might as well have stood still. everywhere bow-windows, venetian blinds, little front gardens--all that had represented domestic grandeur to her after a childhood of apartments in spitalfields, though her subsequent glimpse of the west end home in which her sister kitty was governess, had made her dazedly aware of alps beyond alps. though only seventeen, salvina was not superficially sweet and could win no consideration from the seated males in the homeward train, and the heat of the weather and the crush of humanity--high hats sandwiched between workmen's tool-baskets--had made her head ache. her day at the whitechapel school had already been trying, and thursday was always heavy with the accumulated fatigues of the week. it was unfortunate that her mother should be late, but she remembered how at breakfast the good creature had promised father to make a little excursion to the borough and take a packet of tea to the house of some distant relatives of his, who were sitting _shivah_ (seven days' mourning). the non-possession of a servant made it necessary to lock up the house and pull down the blinds, when its sole occupant went visiting. after a few minutes of vain expectation, salvina mechanically returned to her greek grammar, which opened as automatically at the irregular verbs. she had just achieved the greatest distinction of her life, and one not often paralleled in board school girl-circles, by matriculating at the london university. hers was only a second-class pass, but gained by private night-study, supplemented by some evening lessons at the people's palace, it was sufficiently remarkable; especially when one considered she had still other subjects to prepare for the centres. salvina was now audaciously aiming at the bachelorhood of arts, for which the greek verbs were far more irregular. it was not only the love of knowledge that animated her: as a bachelor she might become a head-mistress, nay, might even aspire to follow the lead of her dashing elder sister and teach in a wealthy family that treated you as one of itself. not that kitty had ever matriculated, but an ugly duckling needs many plumes of learning ere it can ruffle itself like a beautiful swan. who should now come upon the promenading student but sugarman the shadchan, his hand full of papers, and his blue bandanna trailing from his left coat-tail! "ah, you are the very person i was coming to see," he cried gleefully in his corrupt german accent. "what is your sister's address now?" "why?" said salvina distrustfully. "i have a fine young man for her!" salvina's pallid cheek coloured with modesty and resentment. "my sister doesn't need your services." "maybe not," said sugarman, unruffled. "but the young man does. he saw your sister once years ago, before he went to the cape. now he is a _takif_ (rich man) and wants a wife." "he's not rich enough to buy kitty." salvina's romantic soul was outraged, and she spoke with unwonted asperity. "he is rich enough to buy kitty all she wants. he is quite in love with her--she can ask for anything." "then let him go and tell her so himself. what does he come to you for? he must be a very poor lover." "poor! i tell you he is rolling in gold. it's the luckiest thing that could have happened to your family. you will all ride in your carriage. you ought to fall on your knees and bless me. your sister is not so young any more, at nineteen a girl can't afford to sniff. believe me there are thousands of girls who would jump at the chance--yes, girls with dowries, too. and your sister hasn't a penny." "my sister has a heart and a soul," retorted salvina witheringly, "and she wants a heart and a soul to sympathize with hers, not a money-bag." "then, won't you take a ticket for the lotte_ree_?" rejoined sugarman pleasantly. "then you get a money-bag of your own." "no, thank you." "not even half a ticket? only thirty-six shillings! you needn't pay me now. i trust you." she shook her head. "but think--i may win you the great prize--a hundred thousand marks." the sum fascinated salvina, and for an instant her imagination played with its marvellous potentialities. they could all move to the country, and there among the birds and the flowers she could study all day long, and even try for a degree with honours. her father would be saved from the cigar factory, her sister from exile amid strangers, her mother should have a servant, her brother the wife he coveted. all her spitalfields circle had speculated through sugarman, not without encouraging hits. she smiled as she remembered the vendor of slippers who had won sixty pounds and was so puffed up that when his wife stopped in the street to speak to a shabby acquaintance, he cried vehemently, "betsey, betsey, do learn to behave according to your station." "you don't believe me?" said sugarman, misapprehending her smile. "you can read it all for yourself. a hundred thousand marks, so sure my little nehemiah shall see rejoicings. look!" but salvina waved back the thin rustling papers with their exotic continental flavour. "gambling is wicked," she said. sugarman was incensed. "me in a wicked business! why, i know more talmud than anybody in london, and can be called up the law as _morenu_! you'll say marrying is wicked, next. but they are both state institutions. england is the only country in the world without a lotte_ree_." salvina wavered, but her instinct was repugnant to money that did not accumulate itself by slow, painful economies, and her multifarious reading had made the word "speculation" a prism of glittering vice. "i daresay _you_ think it's not wrong," she said, "and i apologize if i hurt your feelings. but don't you see how you go about unsettling people?" "me! why, i settle them! and if you'd only give me your sister's address--" his persistency played upon salvina's delicate conscience; made her feel she must not refuse the poor man everything. besides, the grand address would choke him off. "she's at bedford square, with the samuelsons." "ah, i know. two daughters, lily and mabel," and sugarman instead of being impressed nodded his head, as if even the samuelsons were mortal and marriageable. "yes, my sister is their governess and companion. but you'll only waste your time." "you think so?" he said triumphantly. "look at this likeness!" and he drew out the photograph of a coarse-faced middle-aged man, with a jaunty flower in his frock-coat and a prosperous abdomen supporting a heavily trinketed watch-chain. underneath swaggered the signature, "yours truly, moss m. rosenstein." salvina shuddered: "he was wise to send _you_," she said slyly. "is it not so? ah, and your brother, too, would have done better to come to me instead of falling in love with a girl with a hundred pounds. but i bear your family no grudge, you see. perhaps it is not too late yet. tell lazarus that if he should come to break with the jonases, there are better fish in the sea--gold fish, too. good-bye. we shall both dance at your sister's wedding." and he tripped off. salvina resumed her greek, but the grotesque aorists could not hold her attention. she was hungry and worn out, and even when her mother came, it would be some time before her evening meal could be prepared. she felt she must sit down, if only on her doorsteps, but their whiteness was inordinately marred as by many dirty boots--she wondered whose and why--and she had to content herself with leaning against the stucco balustrade. and gradually as the summer twilight faded, the grammar dropped in her hand, and salvina fell a-dreaming. what did she dream of, this board school drudge, whose pasty face was craned curiously forward on sloping shoulders? was it of the enchanted land of love of which sugarman had reminded her, but over whose roses he had tramped so grossly? alas! sugarman himself had never thought of her as a client for any but the lottery section of his business. within, she was one glow of eager romance, of honour, of quixotic duty, but no ray of this pierced without to give a sparkle to the eye, a colour to the cheek. no faintest dash of coquetry betrayed the yearning of the soul or gave grace to walk or gesture: her dress was merely a tidy covering. her exquisite sensibility found bodily expression only as a clumsy shyness. poor salvina! ii at last the welcome jar and creak of the gate awoke her. "why, i thought you knew i had to go to the borough!" began a fretful voice, forestalling reproach, and a buxom woman resplendent with black satin and much jewellery came up the tiny garden-path. "it doesn't matter, mother--i haven't been waiting long." "well, you know how difficult it is to get a 'bus in this weather--at least if you want to sit outside, and it always makes my head ache frightfully to go inside--i'm not strong and young like you--and such a long way, i had to change at the bank, and i made sure you'd get something to eat at one of the girls', and go straight to the people's palace." still muttering, mrs. brill produced a key, and after some fumbling threw open the door. both made a step within, then both stopped, aghast. "it's the wrong house," thought salvina confusedly, conscious of her power of making such mistakes. "_kisshuf_ (witchcraft)!" whispered her mother, terrified into her native idiom. the passage lay before them, entirely bare of all its familiar colour and furniture: the framed engravings depicting the trials of william lord russell, in the old bailey, and earl stafford in westminster hall, the flower-pots on the hall table, the proudly purchased hat-rack, the metal umbrella-stand, all gone! and beyond, facing them, lay the parlour, an equally forlorn vacancy striking like a blast of chilly wind through its wide-open door. "thieves!" cried mrs. brill, reverting from the supernatural and the yiddish. "murder! i'm ruined! they've stolen my house!" "hush! hush!" said salvina, strung to calm by her mother's incoherence. "let us see first what has really happened." "happened! haven't you got eyes in your head? all the fruit of my years of toil!" and mrs. brill wrung her jewelled hands. "your father would have me call on those sperlings, though i told him they'd be glad to dance on my tomb. and why didn't lazarus stay at home?" "you know he has to be out looking for work." "and my gilt clock that i trembled even to wind up, and the big vase with the picture on it, and my antimacassars, and my beautiful couch that nobody had ever sat upon! oh my god, oh my god!" leaving her mother moaning out a complete inventory in the passage, salvina advanced into the violated parlour. it was an aching void. on the bare mantelpiece, just where the gilt clock had announced a perpetual half-past two, gleamed an unstamped letter. she took it up wonderingly. it was in her father's schoolboyish hand, addressed to her mother. she opened it, as usual, for mrs. brill did not even know the alphabet, and refused steadily to make its acquaintance, to the ironic humiliation of the board school teacher. "you would not let me give you _get_," [ran the letter abruptly], "so you have only yourself to blame. i have left the clothes in the bed-rooms, but what is mine is mine. good-bye. "michael brill. "p.s.--don't try to find me at the factory. i have left." salvina steadied herself against the mantelpiece till the room should have finished reeling round. _get!_ her father had wanted to put away her mother! divorce, departure, devastation--what strange things were these, come to wreck a prosperity so slowly built up! "quick, salvina, there goes a policeman!" came her mother's cry. the room stood still suddenly. "hush, hush, mother," salvina said imperiously. "there's no thief!" she ran back into the passage, the letter in her hand. a fierce flame of intelligence leapt into the woman's face. "ah, it's your father!" she cried. "i knew it, i knew he'd go after that painted widow, just because she has a little money, a black curse on her bones. oh! oh! god in heaven! to bring such shame on me, for the sake of a saucy-nosed slut whose sister sold ironmongery in petticoat lane--a low lot, one and all, and not fit to wipe my shoes on, even when she was respectable, and this is what you call a father, salvina! oh my god, my god!" salvina was by this time dazed, yet she had a gleam of consciousness left with which to register this culminating destruction of all her social landmarks. what! that monstrous wickedness of marquises and epauletted officers which hovered vaguely in the shadow-land of novels and plays had tumbled with a bang into real life; had fallen not even into its natural gilded atmosphere, but through the amulet-guarded doors of a respectable jewish family in the heart of a hackney terrace, amid the horsehair couches and deal tables of homely reality. nay--more sordid than the romantic wickedness of shadowland--it had even removed those couches and tables! and oddly blent with this tossing chaos of new thought in salvina's romantic brain surged up another thought, no less new and startling. her father and mother had once loved each other! they, too, had dawned upon each other, fairy prince and fairy princess; had laid in each other's hand that warm touch of trust and readiness to live and die for each other. it was very wonderful, and she almost forgot their hostile relationship in a rapid back-glance upon the years in which they had lived in mutual love before her unsuspecting eyes. their prosaic bickering selves were transfigured: her vivid imagination threw off the damage of the years, saw her coarse, red-cheeked father and her too plump mother as the idyllic figures on the lamented parlour vase. and when her thought struggled painfully back to the actual moment, it was with a new concrete sense of its tragic intensity. "o mother, mother!" she cried, as she threw her arms round her. the greek grammar and the letter fell unregarded to the floor. the fountain of mrs. brill's wrongs leapt higher at the sympathy. "and i could have had half-a-dozen young men! the boils of egypt be upon him! time after time i said, 'no,' though the shadchan bewitched my parents into believing that michael was an angel without wings." "but you also thought father an angel," salvina pleaded. "yes; and now he _has_ got wings," said mrs. brill savagely. salvina's tears began to ooze out. poor swain and shepherdess on the parlour vase! was this, then, how idylls ended? "perhaps he'll come back," she murmured. the wife snorted viciously. "and my furniture? the beautiful furniture i toiled and scraped for, that he always grumbled at, though i saved it out of the housekeeping money, without its costing _him_ a penny, and no man in london had better meals,--hot meat every day and fish for sabbath, even when plaice were eightpence a pound,--and no servant--every scrap of work done with my own two hands! now he carts everything away as if it were his." "i suppose it is by law," salvina said mildly. "law! i'll have the law on him." "oh, no, mother!" and salvina shuddered. "besides, he has left our clothes." mrs. brill's eye lit up. "i see no clothes." "in our rooms. the letter says so." "and you still believe what he says?" she began to mount the stairs. "i am sure he packed in my paisley shawl while he was about it. it is fortunate i wore all my jewellery. and you always say i put on too much!" sustained by this unanswerable vindication of her past policy, mrs. brill ascended the stairs without further wailing. salvina, whose sense of romance never exalted her above the practical, remembered now that her brother lazarus might come back at any moment clamorously hungry. this pinned her to the concrete moment. how to get him some supper! and her mother, too, must be faint and tired. she ran into the kitchen, and found enough odds and ends left to make a meal, and even a cracked teapot and a few coarse cups not worth carrying away; and, with a sense of robinson crusoe adventure, she extracted light, heat, and cheerfulness from the obedient gas branch, which took on the air of a case of precious goods not washed away in the household wreck. when her mother at last came down, cataloguing the wardrobe salvage in picturesque yiddish, salvina stopped her curses with hot tea. they both drank, leaning against the kitchen-dresser, which served for a table for the cups. salvina's crusoe excitement increased when her mother asked her where they were to sleep, seeing that even the beds had been spirited away. "i have five shillings in my purse; i'll go out and buy a cheap mattress. but then there's lazarus! oh dear!" "lazarus has his own bed. yes, yes, thank god, we'll be able to borrow his wedding furniture." "but it's all stored away in the jonas's attic." a smart rat-tat at the door denoted the inopportune return of lazarus himself. salvina darted upstairs to let him in and break the shock. he was a slimmer and more elegant edition of his father, a year older than kitty, and taller than salvina by a jaunty head and shoulders. "and why isn't the hall lamp alight?" he queried, as her white face showed itself in the dusky door-slit. "it looks so beastly shabby. the only light's in the kitchen; i daresay you and the mater are pigging there again. why can't you live up to your position?" the unexpected reproach broke her down. "we have no position any more," she sobbed out. and all the long years of paralyzing economies swept back to her memory, all the painful progress--accelerated by her growing salary--from the hounsditch apartments to the bow-windows and gas-chandeliers of hackney! "what do you mean? what is the matter? speak, you little fool! don't cry." he came across the threshold and shook her roughly. "father's run away with the furniture and some woman," she explained chokingly. "the devil!" the smart cane slipped from his fingers and he maintained his cigar in his mouth with difficulty. "do you mean to say the old man has gone and--the beastly brute! the selfish hypocrite! but how could he get the furniture?" "he made mother go on a visit to the borough." "the old fox! that's your religious chaps. i'll go and give 'em both brimstone. where are they?" "i don't know where--but you must not--it is all too horrible. there's nothing even to sleep on. we thought of borrowing your furniture!" "what! and give the whole thing away to the jonases--and lose rhoda, perhaps. good heavens, sally. don't be so beastly selfish. think of the disgrace, if we can't cover it up." "the disgrace is for father, not for you." "don't be an idiot. old jonas looked down on us enough already, and if it hadn't been for kitty's calling on him in the samuelsons' carriage, he might never have consented to the engagement." "oh, dear!" said salvina, melted afresh by this new aspect. "my poor lazarus!" and she gazed dolefully at the handsome youth who had divided with kitty the good looks of the family. "but still," she added consolingly, "you couldn't have married for a long time, anyhow." "i don't know so much. i had a very promising interview this afternoon with the manager of granders brothers, the big sponge-people." "but you don't understand travelling in sponge." "pooh! travelling's travelling. there's nothing to understand. whatever the article is, you just tell lies about it." "oh, lazarus!" "don't make eyes--you ain't pretty enough. what do you know of the world, you who live mewed up in a board school? i daresay you believe all the rot you have to tell the little girls." her brother's shot made a wound he had not intended. salvina was at last reminded of her own relation to the sordid tragedy, of what the other teachers would think, ay, even the little girls, so sharp in all that did not concern school-learning. would her pupils have any inkling of the cloud on teacher's home? ah, her brother was right. this disgrace besplashed them all, and she saw herself confusedly as a tainted figure holding forth on honour and duty to rows of white pinafores. iii meantime, her mother had toiled up--her jewels glittering curiously in the dusk--and now poured herself out to the fresh auditor in a breathless wail; recapitulated her long years of devotion and the abstracted contents of the house. but lazarus soon wearied of the inventory of her virtues and furniture. "what's the use of crying over spilt milk?" he said. "you must get a new jug." "a new jug! and what about the basin and the coffee-pot and the saucepans and the plates! and my new blue dish with the willow-pattern. oh, my god!" "don't be so stupid." "she's a little dazed, lazarus, dear. have patience with her. lazarus says it's no use crying and letting the neighbours hear you: we must make the best of a bad job, and cover it up." "you'll soon cover me up. i won't need my clothes then--only a clean shroud. after twenty years--he wipes his mouth and he goes away! tear the rent in your garments, children mine, your mother is dead." "how can any one have patience with her?" cried lazarus. "one would think it was such a treat for her to live with father. judging by the rows you've had, mother, you ought to be thankful to be rid of him." "i _am_ thankful," she retorted hysterically. "who said i wasn't? a grumbling, grunting pig, who grudged me my horsehair couch because he couldn't sit on it. well, let him squat on it now with his lady. i don't care. all my enemies will pity me, will they? if they only knew how glad i was!" and she broke into more sobs. "come, mother; come downstairs, lazarus: don't let us stay up in the dark." "not me," said lazarus. "i'm not going down to hear this all over again. besides, where am i to sit or to sleep? i must go to an hotel." he struck a match to relight his cigar and it flared weirdly upon the tear-smudged female faces. "got any money, salvina," he said more gently. "only five shillings." "well, i daresay i can manage on that. good-night, mother, don't take on so, it'll be all the same a hundred years hence." he opened the door; then paused with his hand on the knob, and said awkwardly: "i suppose you'll manage to find something to sleep on just for to-night." "oh, yes," said salvina reassuringly; "we'll manage. don't worry, dear." "i'll be in the first thing in the morning. we'll have a council of war. good-night. it _is_ a beastly mean trick," and he went out meditatively. when he was gone, salvina remembered that the five shillings were for the mattress. but she further bethought herself that the sum would scarcely have sufficed even for a straw mattress, and that the little gold ring kitty had given her when she matriculated would fetch more. her mother's jewellery must be left sacred; the poor creature was smarting enough from the sense of loss. bidding her sit on the stairs till she returned, she hastened into mare street, the great hackney highway, christened "the devil's mile" by the salvation army. early experience had familiarized her with the process of pawning, but now she slipped furtively into the first pawn-shop and did not stay to make a good bargain. she spent on a telegram to the central post-office sixpence of the proceeds, so that she might be able to draw out without delay the few pounds she had laid by for her summer holiday. while she was purchasing the mattress at the garishly illuminated furniture store, the words "hire system" caught her eye, and seemed a providential solution of the position. she broached negotiations for the furnishing of a bed-room and a kitchen, minus carpet and oilcloth (for these would not fit the cheaper apartments into which they would now have to revert), but she found there were tedious formalities to be gone through, and that her own signature would be invalid, as she was legally a child. however, she was able to secure the porterage of the mattress at once, and, followed by a bending atlas, she hurried back to her mother--who sat on her stair, moaning--and diverted her from her griefs by teaching her to sign her name, in view of the legal exigencies of the morrow. it was a curious wind-up to her day's teaching. poor mrs. brill's obstinate objection to education had to give way at last under such unexpected conditions, but she insisted on the shortest possible spelling, and so the uncouth "esther brills" pencilled at the top of the sheet were exchanged for more flowing "e. brills" lower down. even then, the good woman took the thing as a pictorial flourish, or a section of a map, and disdained acquaintance with the constituent letters, so that her progress in learning remained only nominal. then the "infant" at law put her mother to bed and lay down beside her on the mattress, both in their clothes for lack of blankets. the mother soon dozed off, but the "child" lay turning from side to side. the pressure of her little tasks had dulled the edge of emotion, but now, in the silence of the night, the whole tragic position came back with all its sordid romanticism, its pathetic meanness; and when at last she slept, its obsession lay heavy upon her dreams, and she sat at her examination desk in the london university, striving horridly to recall the irregularities of greek verbs, and to set them down with a pen that could never dip up any ink, while the inexorable hands of the clock went round, and her father, in the coveted bachelor's gown, waited to spirit away her desk and seat as soon as the hour should strike. iv the next morning salvina should have awakened with a sense through all her bones that it was friday--the last day of the school-week, harbinger of such blessed rest that the mere expectation of it was also a rest. alas! she woke from the nightmare of sleep to the nightmare of reality, and the week-end meant only time to sound the horror of the new situation. in one point alone, friday remained a consolation. only one day to face her fellow-teachers and her children, and then two days for hiding from the world with her pain, for preparing to face it again; to say nothing of the leisure for practical recuperation of the home. lazarus turned up so late that the council of war was of the briefest and held almost on the door-step, for salvina must be in school by nine. the thought of staying away--even in this crisis--simply did not occur to her. she arranged that lazarus was to meet her in the city after morning school, when she would have drawn her savings from the post-office: more than enough for the advance on the furniture, which must be delivered that very afternoon. lazarus had been for telegraphing at once to kitty for assistance, but salvina put her foot down. "let us not frighten her--i will go and break it to her on sunday afternoon. you know she can't spare any money; it is as much as she can do to dress up to the position." "i do hope the scandal won't spread," said lazarus gloomily. "it would be a nice thing if she lost the position and fell back on our hands." "yes, he has ruined all my children," sobbed mrs. brill, breaking out afresh. "but what did he care? ah, if it wasn't for me, you would have been in the workhouse long ago." "well then, go and do your sabbath marketing or else we'll have to go there now," said lazarus not unkindly; "the tradespeople will give you credit." "rather! they know _i_ never ran away." "and mind, mother," said salvina as she snatched up her greek grammar, "mind the fried fish is as good as usual; we're a long way from the workhouse yet! and if you're not in to-night, lazarus," she whispered as she ran off, "i'll never forgive you." "well, i'm blowed!" said lazarus, looking after the awkward little figure, flying to catch the . . "yes, but i've no frying pan!" mrs. brill called after her. "you'll have it by this afternoon," salvina called back reassuringly. the sun was already strong, the train packed, and salvina stood so jammed in that she could scarcely hold her grammar open, and the irregular verbs danced before her eyes even more than their strange moods and tenses warranted. at the school her thrilling consciousness of her domestic tragedy interposed some strange veil between her and her fellow-teachers, and they seemed to stand away from her, enveloped in another atmosphere. she heard herself teaching--five elevens are fifty-five--and her own self seemed to stand away from her, too. she noted without protest two of the girls pulling each other's hair in some far-off hazy world, and the answering drone of the class--five elevens are fifty-five--seemed like the peaceful buzzing of a gigantic blue-bottle on a drowsy afternoon. it occurred to her suddenly that she was fifty-five years old, and when miss rolver, the christian head-mistress, came into her room, salvina had an unexpected feeling of advantage in life-experience over this desiccated specimen of femininity, redolent of time-tables, record-parchments, foolscap, and clean blotting-paper. outside all this scheduled world pulsed a large irregular life of flesh and blood; all the primitive verbs in every language were irregular, it suddenly flashed upon her, and she had an instant of vivifying insight into the greek language she had unquestioningly accepted as "dead"; saw grecian men and women breathing their thoughts and passions--even expressing the shape of their throats and lips--through these erratic aorists. "you look tired, dear," said the head-mistress. "it's the heat," salvina murmured. "never mind; the summer holidays will soon be here." it sounded a mockery. summer holidays would no longer mean ramsgate, and delicious days of study on sunny cliffs, with the relaxation of novels and poems. these slowly achieved luxuries of the last two years were impossible for this year at least. and this thought of being penned up in london during the dog days oppressed her: she felt choking. her next sensation was of water sprinkling on her face, and of miss rolver's kind anxious voice asking her if she felt better. instead of replying, salvina wondered in a clouded way where the school-managers were. even her naïve mind had been struck at last by the coincidence that whenever, after a managers' meeting, these omnipotent ladies and gentlemen from a higher world strolled through the school, miss rolver happened to be discovered in an interesting attitude. if it was the play-hour, she would be--for this occasion only--in the playground leading the games, surrounded by clamorously affectionate little ones. if it was working-time, she was found as a human island amid a sea of sewing: billows of pinafores and aprons heaved tumultuously around her. or, with a large air of angelic motherhood, she would be tying up some child's bruised finger. her greatest invention--so it had appeared to the scrupulous salvina--was the stray, starved, half-frozen, sweet little kitten, lapping up milk from a saucer before a ruddy blazing fire at the very instant of the great personages' passage. how they had beamed, one and all, at the touching sight. hence it was that salvina's dazed vision now sought vaguely for the school-managers. but in another instant she realized that this present solicitude was not for another but for herself, and that it had nothing of the theatrical. a remorseful pang of conscience added to her pains. she said tremulously that she felt better and was gently chided for over-study and admonished to go home and rest. "oh, no, i am all right now," she responded instinctively. "but i'll take your class," miss rolver insisted, and salvina found herself wandering outside in the free sunshine, with a sense of the forbidden. an acute consciousness of board school classes droning dutifully all over london made the streets at that hour strange and almost sinful. she went to the post-office and drew out as much of her money as red tape allowed, and while wandering about in whitechapel waiting for the hour of her rendezvous with lazarus, she had time to purchase a coarse but white table-cloth, a plush cover embroidered with "jerusalem" in hebrew, and a gilt goblet. these were for the friday-night table. v but the sabbath brought no peace. though miracles were wrought in that afternoon, and, except that it was laid in the kitchen, the sabbath table had all its immemorial air, with the consecration cup, the long plaited loaves under the "jerusalem" cover, and the dish of fried fish that had grown to seem no less religious; yet there could be no glossing over the absence of the gross-paunched paternal figure that had so unctuously presided over the ceremony. his vacant place held all the emptiness of death, and all the fulness of retrospective profanation. how like he was to moss m. rosenstein, salvina thought suddenly. lazarus had ignored the gilt goblet and the shilling bottle of claret, and was helping himself from the coffee-pot, when his mother cried bitterly: "what! are we to eat like the animals?" "oh bother!" lazarus exclaimed. "you know i hate all these mummeries. i wouldn't say if they really made people good. but you see for yourself--" "oh, but you must say _kiddush_, lazarus," said salvina, half pleadingly, half peremptorily. she fetched the prayer-book and lazarus, grumbling inarticulately, took the head of the table, and stumbled through the prayer, thanking god for having chosen and sanctified israel above all nations, and in love and favour given it the holy sabbath as an inheritance. but oh! how tamely the words sounded, how void of that melodious devotion thrilling through the joyous roulades of the father. it was a sort of symbol of the mutilated home, and thus salvina felt it. and she remembered the last ceremony at which her father had presided--that of the separation when the sabbath faded into work-day--the ceremony of division between the holy and the profane, and she shivered to think it had indeed marked for the unhappy man the line of demarcation. "blessed art thou, o lord our god, who hallowest the sabbath," lazarus was mumbling, and in another instant he was awkwardly distributing the ritual morsels of bread. but the mother could not swallow hers, for indignant imaginings of the rival sabbath board. "may _her_ morsel choke her!" she cried, and nearly was choked by her own. "oh, mother, do not mention her--neither her nor him.--_never any more_," said salvina. and again the new note of peremptoriness rang in her voice, and her mother stopped suddenly short like a scolded child. "will you have plaice or sole, mother?" salvina went on, her voice changing to a caress. "i can't eat, salvina. don't ask me." "but you must eat." and salvina calmly helped her to fish and to coffee and put in the lumps of sugar; and the mother ate and drank with equal calm, as if hypnotized. all through the meal salvina's mind kept swinging betwixt the past and the future. strange odds and ends of scenes came up in which her father figured, and her old and new conceptions of him interplayed bewilderingly. her sudden vision of him as moss m. rosenstein persisted, and could only be laid by concentrating her thoughts on the early days when he used to take herself and kitty to victoria park, carrying her in his arms when she was tired. but it made her cry to see that little tired happy figure cuddling the trusted giant, and she had to jump for refuge into the future. they must move back to hounsditch. she must give up the idea of becoming a "bachelor": the hours of evening study must now be devoted to teaching others. her university distinction was already great enough to give her an unusual chance of pupils, while her "yiddish," sucked in with her mother's milk, had become exceptionally good german under study. she might hope for as much as two shillings an hour and thus earn a whole sovereign extra per week. and over this poor helpless blighted mother, she would watch as over a child. all the maternal instinct in her awoke under the stress of this curiously inverted position. her remorseful memory summoned a penitential procession of bygone petulances. never again would she be cross or hasty with this ill-starred heroine. yes, her mother was become a figure of romance to her, as well as a nursling. this woman, whose prosaic humours she had so often fretted under, was in truth a woman who had lived and loved. she had ceased to be a mere mother; a large being who presided over one's childhood. and this imaginative insight, she noted with surprise, would never have been hers but for her father's desertion: like one who realizes the virtues of a corpse, she had waited till love was slain to perceive its fragrance. a postman's knock, as the meal was finished, made her heart give a corresponding pit-a-pat, and she turned quite faint. all her nerves seemed to be on the rack, expecting new sensational developments. the letter was for lazarus. "ah, you abomination!" cried his mother, as he tore open the envelope. he did not pause to defend his sabbath breaking, but cried joyfully: "what did i tell you? granders brothers offer me travelling expenses and a commission!" "oh, thank god, thank god!" ejaculated his mother, her eyes raised piously. he took up his hat. "where are you going?" said mrs. brill. "to see rhoda of course. don't you think she's as anxious about it as you?" salvina's eyes were full of sympathetic tears: "yes, yes, let him go, mother." vi on the sunday afternoon, feeling much better for the saturday rest, and scrupulously gloved, shod, and robed in deference to the grandeur of her destination, salvina boarded an omnibus, and after a tedious journey, involving a walk at the end, she arrived at the west end square in which her sister bloomed as governess and companion in a newly enriched jewish family. she stood an instant in the porch to compose herself for the tragic task before her and felt in her pocket to be sure she had not lost the little bottle of smelling-salts with which she had considerately armed herself, in anticipation of a failure of kitty's nerves. then she knocked timidly at the door, which was opened by a speckless boy in buttons, who also opened up to her imagination endless vistas of aristocratic association. his impressive formality, as of the priest of a shrine, seemed untinged by any remembrance that on her one previous visit she had been made free of the holy of holies. but perhaps it was not the same boy. he was indeed less a boy to her than a row of buttons, and less a row of buttons than a symbol of all the elegances and opulences in which kitty moved as to the manner born; the elaborate ritual of the toilette, the sacramental shaving of poodles, the mysterious panoramic dinners in which one had to be constantly aware of the appropriate fork. salvina had not waited a minute in the imposing hall, ere a radiant belle flew down the stairs--with a vivacity that troubled the sacro-sanct atmosphere--and caught salvina in her arms. "oh, you dear sally! i am _so_ glad to see you," and a fusillade of kisses accompanied the hug. "whatever brings you here? oh, and such a dowdy frock! you needn't flush up so, silly little child; nobody expects you to know how to dress like us ignoramuses, and it doesn't matter to-day, there's no one to see you, for they're all out driving, and i'm lying down with a headache." "poor kitty. but then you ought to be out driving." she was divided between sympathy for the sufferer, and admiration of the finished, fine ladyhood implied in indifference to the chance of a carriage-drive. "yes, but i've so many letters to write, and they don't really drive on sundays, just stop at house after house, and not good houses either. it is such a bore. they've never shaken off the society they had before they made their money." "well, but that's rather nice of them." "perhaps, but not nice for me. but come upstairs and you shall have some tea." salvina mounted the broad staircase with a reverence attuned to her own hushed footfalls, but her task of breaking the news to her sister weighed the heavier upon her for all this subdued magnificence. it seemed almost profane to bring the squalid episodes of hackney into this atmosphere, appropriate indeed to the sinful romances of marquises and epauletted officers, but wholly out of accord with surreptitious furniture vans. what a blow to poor kitty the news would be! she dallied weakly, till the tea was brought by a powdered footman. then she had an ingenious idea for a little shock to lead up to a greater. she would say they were going to move. but as she took off her white glove not to sully it with the tea and cake, kitty cried: "why what have you done with my ring?" here was an excellent natural opening, but salvina was taken too much aback to avail herself of it, especially as the artificial opening preoccupied her mind. "oh, your ring's all right," she said hastily; "i came to tell you we are going to move." kitty clapped her hands. "ah! so you've taken my advice at last! i'm so glad. it wasn't nice for me to stay with you at that dingy hole, even for a day or two a year. mustn't mother be pleased!" salvina bit her lip. her task was now heavier than ever. "no, mother isn't pleased. she is crying about it." "crying? disgusting. how she still hankers after spitalfields and the lane!" "she isn't crying for that, but because father won't go with us." "oh, i have no patience with father. he hasn't a soul above red herrings and potatoes." "oh, yes he has. he has left us." "what! left you?" kitty's pretty eyes opened wide. "because he won't move to a better house!" "no, we are moving to a worse house because he has moved to a better." "what _are_ you talking about? is it a joke? a riddle? i give it up." "father--can't you guess, kitty?--father has gone away. there is some other woman." "no?" gasped kitty. "ha! ha! ha! ha!" and she shook with long peals of silvery laughter. "well, of all the funny things! ha! ha! ha!" "funny!" and salvina looked at her sternly. "what, don't you see the humour of it? father turning into the hero of a novelette. romance and red herrings! passion and potatoes! ha! ha! ha!" "if you had seen the havoc it wrought, you wouldn't have had the heart to laugh." "oh well, mother was crying. that i understand. but that's nothing new for her. she'd cry just as much if he were there. the average rainfall is--how many inches?" salvina's face was stern and white. "a mother's tears are sacred," she said in low but firm protest. "oh, dear me, sally, i always forget you have no sense of humour. well, what are you going to do about it?" and her own sense of humour continued to twitch and dimple the corners of her pretty mouth. "i told you. we cannot afford to keep up the house--we must go back to apartments in spitalfields." instantly kitty's face grew as serious as salvina's. "oh, nonsense!" she said instinctively. the thought of her family returning to the discarded shell of apartments was humiliating; her own personality seemed being dragged back. "we can't pay the rent. we must give a quarter's notice at once." "absurd! you'll only save a few shillings a week. why can't you let apartments yourselves? at least you would preserve a decent appearance." "is it worth while having the responsibility of the rent? there's only mother and i--we shan't need a house." "but there's lazarus!" "he'll have a place of his own. he'll marry before our notice expires." "that same jonas girl?" "yes." "ridiculous. small tradespeople, and dreadfully common, all the lot. i thought he'd got over his passion for that bold black creature who's been seen licking ice-cream out of a street-glass. to connect us with that family! men are so selfish. but i still don't see why you can't remain as you are--let your drawing-room, say, furnished." "but it isn't furnished." "not furnished. why, i've sat on the couch myself." "yes," said salvina, a faint smile tempering her deadly gravity. "you are the only person who has ever done that. but there's no couch now. father smuggled all the furniture away in a van." again kitty's silver laughter rang out unquenchably. "and you don't call that funny! eloped with the chairs! i call it killing." "yes, for mother," said salvina. "pooh! she'll outlive all of us. i wish you were as sure of getting the furniture back. she's not a bad mother, as mothers go, but you take her too seriously." "but, kitty, consider the disgrace!" "the disgrace of having a wicked parent! i've endured for years the disgrace of having a poor one--and that's worse. my people--the samuelsons, i mean--will never even hear of the pater's escapade--gossip keeps strictly to its station. and even if they do, they know already my family's under a cloud, and they have learned to accept me for myself." "well, i am glad you don't mind," said salvina, half-relieved, half-shocked. "i mind, if it makes you uncomfortable, you dear, silly sally." "oh, don't worry about me. i think i'll go back to mother, now." "nonsense, why, we haven't begun to talk yet. have another cup of tea. no? how's old miss what's-a-name, your head-mistress? any more frozen little kittens?" "she's very kind, really. i'm sorry i told you about the kitten. she let me go home early on friday." "why? to track the van?" "no; i wasn't very well." "poor sally!" and kitty hugged her again. "i daresay you were more upset than mother." tears came into salvina's eyes at her sister's affectionateness. "oh, no; but please don't talk about it any more. father is dead to us now." "then we must speak well of him." salvina shuddered. "he is a wicked, heartless man, and mother and i never wish to see his face again." a cloud darkened kitty's blonde brow. "yes, but she isn't going to marry another man, i hope." "how can she?" said salvina. "i wouldn't let her make any public scandal." "but aren't there funny laws in our religion--_get_ and things like that--which dispense with the english courts." "i believe there are--i read about something of the kind in a novel--oh, yes! and father did offer mother _get_ before he went off, so i suppose he considers his conscience clear." "well, i rely upon you, sally, to see that she doesn't marry or complicate things more. we don't want two wicked parents." "of course not. but i am sure she doesn't dream of any new complications. you don't do her justice, kitty. she's just broken-hearted; a perpetual widow, with worse than her husband's death to lament." "yes--her lost furniture." "oh, kitty, do realize what it means." "i do, my dear. i do realize it--it's too killing. passion in a pantechnicon or elopements economically conducted. by the day or hour. oh, dear, oh, dear! but do promise me, salvina, that you won't go back to spitalfields." "i must be somewhere near the school, dearest. it will save train-fares." kitty pouted. "well, you know i couldn't drive up to see you any more; hackney was all but outside the radius--the radius of respectability. i couldn't ask coachman to go to spitalfields--unless i pretended to be slumming." "well, pretend." "oh, salvina! i thought you were so conscientious. no, i'll have to come in a cab. you're quite sure you won't have some more tea? oh, do, i insist. one piece of sugar?" "yes, thank you, dear. by the way, has sugarman the shadchan been here?" "you mean--has he gone?" "oh, poor kitty! it was my fault. i let him know your address. i do hope the horrid man hasn't worried you." "sugarman?" "no--moss m. rosenstein." "how pat you have his name! but why do you call him horrid?" salvina stared. "but have you seen his photograph?" "oh, you can't go by photographs. he has been here." "what! sugarman had the impudence to bring him!" kitty flushed slightly. "no, he called alone--this afternoon, just before you." "what impertinence! a brazen commercial courtship! you wouldn't receive him, of course." "oh, well, i thought it would be fun just to look at him," said kitty uneasily. "a commercial courtship, as you express it, is not unamusing." "i don't see anything amusing in it--it's an outrage." "i told you you had no sense of humour. i find it comic to be loved before first sight by a man who has no _h_'s, but only _l_'s, _s_'s, and _d_'s." "sugarman says he did see you before loving you--noticed you before he went to the cape. but you must have been a little girl then." "he didn't tell me that--that would have been even more romantic. he only said he fell in love with my photograph, as paraded by sugarman." "why, where should sugarman get--" "you never know what mother's been up to," interrupted kitty dryly. "much more likely father." "what's the odds? do have another piece of cake." "no, thank you. but what did you say to the man?" "the same as you. don't stare so, you stupid dear. i said, no, thank you." "that i knew. of course you couldn't possibly marry a bloated creature from the cape. i meant, in what terms did you put him in his place?" "oh, really," said kitty, laughing, but without her recent merriment. "this is too prejudiced. i can't admit that mere residence in the cape is a disqualification." "oh, yes, it is. why do they go there? only to make money. a person whose one idea in life is money can't be a nice person." "but money isn't his one idea--now his one idea is matrimony. that is a joke. you ought to laugh." "it makes me cry to think that some nice girl may be driven into marrying him just for his money." "poor man! so because of his money he is to be prevented from having a nice wife." salvina was taken aback by this obverse view. "how is he ever to improve?" asked kitty, pursuing her advantage. "yes, that's true," salvina admitted. "the best thing would be if some nice girl could _fall in love_ with him. but that doesn't make his methods less insulting. i wish all these shadchans could be slaughtered off." "what a savage little chit! they often make as good marriages as are made in heaven." "don't tease. you know you think as i do." salvina took an affectionate leave of her sister, and walked down the soft staircase, confused but cheerful. the boy in buttons let her out. to do so he hurriedly put down the infant of the house who was riding on his shoulders. such a touch of humanity in a row of buttons gave salvina a new insight and a suspicion that even the powdered footman who brought the tea might have an emotion behind his gorgeous waistcoat. but the crowds fighting for the omnibuses that fine sunday afternoon depressed her again. all the seats outside were packed, and it was only after standing a long time on the pavement that she squeezed her way into an inside seat. the stuffiness and jolting made her feel sick and dizzy. by a happy accident her fingers encountered the bottle of smelling-salts in her pocket, and, as she pulled it out eagerly, she remembered it had been intended for kitty. vii lazarus remained out late that evening, and, as he had forgotten to borrow the key, salvina was sitting up for him. she utilized the time in preparing her sewing. she was making a night-dress with dozens and dozens of tiny tucks at the breast, all run by hand, and she was putting into the fine calico an artistic needlework absolutely futile, and with its perpetual "count two, miss two,"--infinitely trying to the eyes, especially by gas-light. the insane competition of the teachers, refining upon a code in itself stupidly exacting, made the needlework the most distressing of all the tasks of the girl-teachers of that day. salvina herself, with her morbid conscientiousness and desire to excel, underwent nightmares from the vexatiousness of learning how to cut holes so that they could not possibly be darned, and then darning them. when, at the head-centre, the lady demonstrator, armed with a brobdingnagian whalebone needle, threaded with a bright red cord, executed herringboned fantasias on a canvas frame resembling a violin stand, it all looked easy enough. but when salvina herself had to unravel a little piece of stockinette with a real needle and then fill in the hole so as to leave no trace of the crime, she was reduced to hysteria. even the coloured threads with which she worked were a scant relief to the eye. and all this elaborate fancywork was entirely useless. at home salvina was always at work, darning and mending; never was there a defter needle. even the "hedge-tear-down" was neatly and expeditiously repaired, so long as she avoided the scholastic methods. "what's all this madness?" her mother had asked once, when she had tried the orthodox "swiss darning" on a real article. and mrs. brill surveyed in amazement the back of the darn, which looked like turkish towelling. to-night salvina could not long continue her taxing work. her eyes ached, and she at last resolved to rise early in the morning and proceed with the night-dress then. she turned the gas low, so as to reduce the bill, and it was as if she had turned down her own spirits, for a strange melancholy now took possession of her in the silent fuscous kitchen in the denuded house, and the emptiness of the other rooms seemed to strike a chill upon her senses. there were strange creaks and ghostly noises from all parts. she fixed her thought on the one furnished bed-room now occupied by her mother, as on a symbol of life and recuperation. but the uncanny noises went on; rustlings, and patterings, and salvina felt that she might shriek and frighten her mother. she had almost resolved to turn up the gas, when the sound of a harmonium came muffled through the wall, and the softened voices of her christian neighbours sang a sunday hymn. salvina ceased to be alone; and tears bathed her cheeks, as the crude melody lilted on. she felt absorbed in some great light and love, which was somehow both a present possession and a beckoning future that awaited her soul, and it was all mysteriously mixed with the blue skies of victoria park, in those far-off happy days when she had gone home on her father's shoulder; and with the blue skies of those enchanted sunlit lands of art and beauty, in which she would wander in the glorious future, when she should be making a hundred and fifty a year. paris, venice, athens, madrid--how the mellifluous syllables thrilled her! one by one, in her annual summer holiday, she and her mother might see them all. meantime she saw them all in her imagination, bathed in the light that never was on sea or land, and it was not her mother with whom she journeyed but a noble young bayard, handsome and tender-hearted, who had imperceptibly slipped into her mother's place. poor salvina, with all her modesty, never saw herself as others saw her, never lost the dream of a romantic love. lazarus's rat-tat recalled her to reality. "i know i'm late," he said, with apologetic defiance, "but it's no pleasure to sit in an empty house. _you_ may like it, but your tastes were always peculiar, and that straw mattress on the floor isn't inviting." "i am so sorry, dear. but then mother _must_ have the bed." "well, it won't last long, thank heaven. i made the jonases consent to the marriage before the scandal gets to them." "so soon!" said salvina with unconscious social satire. "yes, and we'll have our honeymoon travelling for granders brothers. she's a good sort, is rhoda, she doesn't mind gypsying. and that saves us from the expense of completing the furniture." he paused, and added awkwardly, "i'd lend it to you, only that might give us away." "but we don't need the furniture, dear, and don't you think they _ought_ to know--it is the rest of the world that it _doesn't_ concern." "they are bound to know after the marriage. we've kept it dark so far, thanks to being in hackney away from our old acquaintances and to mother's stinginess in not having encouraged new people to drop in. i've told the jonases father was ill and might have to go away for his health. that'll pave the way to his absence from the wedding. it sounds quite grand. we'll send him to a german spa." salvina did not share her brother's respect for old jonas, who bored her with trite quotations from english literature or the hebrew bible. he was in sooth a pompous ignoramus, acutely conscious of being an intellectual light in an ignorant society; a green shade he wore over his left eye added to his air of dignified distinction. foreign jews in especial were his scorn, and he seriously imagined that his own stereotyped phrases uttered with a good english pronunciation gave his conversation an immeasurable superiority over the most original thinking tainted by a german or yiddish accent. salvina's timid corrections of his english quotations made him angry and imperilled lazarus's wooing. the young man was indeed the only member of the family who cultivated relations with the jonases, though now it would be necessary to exchange perfunctory visits. lazarus presided over these visits in fear and trembling, glossing over any slips as to the father, who was gone to the seaside for his health. on second thoughts, lazarus had not ventured on a german spa. viii ere the wedding-day arrived, salvina had to go to the seaside. clacton-on-sea was the somewhat plebeian place and the school-fête the occasion. salvina looked forward to it without much personal pleasure, because of the responsibilities involved, but it was a break in the pupil-teacher's monotonous round of teaching at the school and being taught at the centres; and in the actual expedition the children's joy was contagious and made salvina shed secret tears of sympathy. arrived at the beach of the stony, treeless, popular watering-place, most of the happy little girls were instantly paddling in the surf with yells of delight, while the tamer sort dug sand-pits and erected castles. salvina, whose office on this occasion was to assist an "assistant teacher," had to keep her eye on a particular contingent. she sat down on the noisy sunlit sands with her back to the sea-wall so as to sweep the field of vision. her nervous conscientiousness made her count her sheep at frequent intervals, and be worried over missing now this one, now that one. how her heart beat furiously and then almost stopped, when she saw a child wading out too far. no, decidedly it was a trying form of pleasure for the teacher. one bright little girl who had never beheld the sea before picked up a wonderfully smooth white pebble, and bringing it to salvina asked if it was worth any money. salvina held it up, extemporizing an object lesson for the benefit of the little bystanders. "no," she said, "this is not worth any money, because you can get plenty of them without trouble, and even beautiful things are not considered valuable if anybody can have them. this stone was polished without charge by the action of the waves washing against it for millions and millions of years, and if it--" the sudden blare of a brass band on the other side of the sea-wall made her turn her head, and there, in a brand-new room of a brand-new house on the glaring promenade, a room radiating blatant prosperity from its stony balcony, she perceived her father, in holiday attire, and by his side a woman, buxom and yellow-haired. a hot wave of blood seemed to flood salvina up to the eyes. so there he was luxuriating in the sun, rich and careless. all her homely instincts of work and duty rose in burning contempt. and poor mrs. brill had to remain cooped at home, drudging and wailing. for a second she felt she would like to throw the stone at him, but her next feeling was pain lest the sight of her should painfully embarrass him; and turning her face swiftly seawards she went on, with scarce a pause perceptible to the little girls, "if it gets worn away some more millions of years, it will be ground down to sand, like all the other stones that were once here," and as she spoke, she began to realize her own words, and a tragic sense of her own insignificance in this eternal wash of space and time seemed to reduce her to a grain of sand, and blow her about the great spaces. but the mood passed away before a fresh upwelling of concrete resentment against the self-pampered pair at the promenade window. nevertheless, her feeling of how their seeming satisfaction would be upset at the sight of her, made her carefully minimize the contingency, and the dread of it hovered over the day, adding to the worries over the children. but she vowed that her mother should be revenged; she, too, poor wronged one, should wallow in promenade luxury in her future holidays; no more should she be housed in back streets without sea-views. at night, after mrs. brill was in bed, salvina could not resist saying to lazarus, whose supper she had been keeping hot for him: "how strange! father _is_ at the seaside." "the dickens!" he paused, fork in hand. "you saw him at clacton-on-sea?" "yes, but don't tell mother. so we didn't tell a lie after all. i'm so glad." "oh, go to blazes, you and your conscience. where was he staying?" "in a house in the very centre of the promenade; it's simply shocking!" "make me some fresh mustard, and don't moralize. did you have a good time?" "not very; a little cripple-girl in my class went paddling, and joking, and dropped her crutch, and it floated away--" "bother your little cripple-girls. they always seem to be in your class!" "because my class is on the ground floor." "ha! ha! ha! just your luck. by the way," he became grave, "look what a beastly letter from kitty! not coming to the wedding. i call it awfully selfish of her." kitty wrote her deep regrets, but her people had suddenly determined to go abroad and she could not lose this chance of seeing the world; "the governess's honeymoon," she christened it. paris, switzerland, rome,--all the magic places were to be hers,--and salvina, reading the letter, gasped with sympathy and longing. but the happy traveller was represented at the wedding by a large bronze-looking knight on horseback, which towered in shining green over the insignificant gifts of the jonas's circle; the utilitarian salad-bowls, and fish-slices, and dessert sets. one other present stood out luridly, but only to salvina. it was a glossy arm-chair, and on the seat lay a card: "from rhoda's loving father-in-law." when salvina first saw this--at a family card-party, the sunday evening before the wedding--she started and flushed so furiously that lazarus had to give her a warning nudge, and to whisper: "only for appearance." at the supper-table old jonas, who carved and jested with much appreciation of his own skill in both departments, referred facetiously to the absent father, who might, nevertheless, be said to be "in the chair" on that occasion. salvina dressed her mother as carefully for the ceremony as though kitty's fears were being realized and mrs. brill was the bride of the occasion; and so debonair a figure emerged from the ordeal that you could recognize kitty's mother instead of salvina's. lazarus had spent his farewell evening of bachelorhood at an hotel, justly complaining that a mirrorless bed-room with a straw mattress was no place for a bridegroom to issue from. never had bridegroom been so ill-treated, he grumbled; and he shook his fist imaginatively at the father who had despoiled him. but he joined his mother and sister in the cab; and as it approached the synagogue, he said suddenly: "don't be shocked--but i rather expect father will be at the _shool_ (synagogue)." "what!" and mrs. brill appeared like to faint. "he wouldn't have the cheek," salvina said reassuringly, as she pulled out the smelling-salts which kitty had not needed. "he wouldn't have the cheek _not_ to come," said lazarus. "i asked him." "you!" they glared at him in horror. "yes; i wasn't going to have things look funny--i hate explanations. the jonases thought there was something queer the other night, when you both bungled the explanation of the rheumatism, spite all my coaching." "but where did you find him?" said the mother excitedly. "at clacton-on-sea." salvina bit her lip. "i sent in my card,--'laurence beryl, of granders brothers.' when he saw me, i thought he would have had a fit. i told him if he didn't come up to the wedding and play heavy father, i'd summons him--" "summons him!" echoed mrs. brill. "for stealing my old arm-chair. i remembered--ha! ha! ha!--it was i that had bought the easy-chair for myself, when we lived in spitalfields and had only wooden chairs." "so he _did_ send that easy-chair!" said salvina. "yes; that was rather clever of him. and don't you think it's clever of me to save appearances?" "it'll be terrible for mother!" said salvina hotly. "didn't you think of that?" "she won't have to talk to him. he'll only hang round. nobody will notice." "it would have been better to tell the truth," cried salvina, "or even a lie. this is only acting a lie. and it must be as painful for him as for us." "serve him right--the old furniture-sneak!" "it was a mistake," salvina persisted. "hush, hush, salvina!" said mrs. brill. "don't disturb your brother's festival." "he has disturbed it himself," said salvina, bursting into tears. "i wish, mother, we had not come." "here, here! this is a pretty wedding," said lazarus. "hush, salvina, hush!" said mrs. brill. "what does it matter to us if a dog creeps into synagogue?" at this point the cab stopped. "we're not there!" cried mrs. brill. "no," lazarus explained; "but we pick up father here. we must appear to arrive together." ere the horrified pair could protest, he opened the door, sprang out, and pushed inside a stout, rubicund man with a festal rose in his holiday coat, but a miserable, shamefaced look in his eyes. lazarus took his seat ere a word could be spoken. the cab rolled on. "good-morning, esther," he muttered. "i offered you _get_." "silence!" cried salvina, as if she had been talking to the little girls. "how dare you speak to her?" she held her mother's hand and felt the pulse beating madly. "you old serpent--" began mrs. brill hotly. "mother!" pleaded salvina; "not a word; he doesn't deserve it." "in jerusalem i could have two wives," he muttered. but no one replied. the four human beings sat in painful silence, their knees touching. the culprit shot uneasy, surreptitious glances at his wife, so radiant in jewels and finery and with so kitty-like a complexion. it was as if he saw her freshly, or as if he were shocked--even startled--by her retaining so much joy of life despite his desertion of her. fortunately the strange drive only lasted a few minutes. the bridegroom's wedding-party passed into the synagogue through an avenue of sympathetic observers. mr. brill had no part to play in the ceremony. the honours were carried off by mr. jonas, who stalked in slowly, with the bride on his arm, and a new green shade over his left eye. the rival father hovered meekly on the outskirts of the marriage-canopy amid a crowd of jonases. salvina stationed herself and her mother on the opposite border of the canopy, and throughout bristled, apprehensive, prohibitive, fiery, like a spaniel guarding its mistress against a bull-dog on the pounce. the bull-dog indeed was docile enough; avoiding the spaniel's eye, and trailing a spiritless tail. but the creature revived at the great wedding-feast in the hall of a hundred covers, and under the congratulations and the convivial influences tended to forget he was in disgrace. the bridegroom's parents were placed together, but salvina changed seats with her mother, and became a buffer between the twain, a non-conducting medium through which the father could not communicate with the mother. with the latter she herself maintained a continuous conversation, and mr. brill soon found it more pleasant to forget his troubles in the charms of mrs. jonas, his other neighbour. after the almond-pudding, a succession of speakers ranging from relatives to old friends, and even the officiating minister, gave certificates of character to the bride and the bridegroom, amid the tears of the ladies. father jonas made an elaborate speech beginning, "unaccustomed as i am to public speaking," and interlarded with hebrew quotations. father brill expressed the pleasure it gave him to acknowledge on behalf of himself and his dear wife, the kind things which had been said, and the delight they felt in seeing their son settled in the paths of domestic happiness, especially in connection with a scion of the house of jonas, of whose virtues much had been said so deservedly that night. lazarus declared, amid roars of laughter, that on this occasion only he would respond for his dear wife, but he felt sure that for the rest of their lives she would have the last word. then the tables were cleared away and dancing began, which grew livelier as the dawn grew nearer. but long before that, salvina had borne her mother away from the hovering bull-dog. not, however, without a terrible scene in the homeward cab. all the volcanic flames salvina and etiquette had suppressed during the day shot forth luridly. burning lava was hurled against her husband, against her son, against salvina. an impassioned inventory of the lost furniture followed, and the refrain of the whole was that she had been taken to a wedding, when all she wanted was a funeral. ix salvina did not count this break-down against her mother. it was the natural revolt of nerves tried beyond endurance by lazarus's trick. the whole episode intensified her sense of the romantic situation of her mother, and of the noble courage and dignity with which she confronted it. she wondered whether she herself would have emerged so stanchly from the ordeal of meeting a loved but faithless one, and her protective pity was tempered by a new admiration. her admiration increased, when, as the secret gradually leaked out, her mother maintained an attitude of defiance against the world's sympathy, refused to hear stigmatizations of her husband, even from old jonas, reserving the privilege of denunciation for her own mouth and salvina's ear. and now began the new life of mother and daughter. with kitty on the continent, lazarus married, and the father blotted out, they had only each other. they moved back to the skirts of the ghetto, and mrs. brill resumed with secret joy her old place among her old cronies. inwardly, she had fretted at the loss of them, for which the dignity of hackney had been but a shadowy compensation. but to salvina she only expressed her outraged pride, the humiliation of it all, and the poor girl, unconscious of how happy her mother really was among the ghetto gossips, tortured her brain during school-hours with the thought of her mother's lonely misery. and even if salvina had not been compelled to give private lessons in the evenings to supplement their income, she would in any case have relinquished her bachelorhood aspirations in order to give her time to her mother. for mrs. brill had no resources within herself, so far as salvina knew. even the great artificial universe of books and newspapers was closed to her. salvina resolved to overcome her obstinate reluctance to learn to read, as soon as the pressure of the other private lessons relaxed. meantime, she lived for her mother and her mother on her. oh, the bitterness of those private lessons after the fag of the day; the toiling to distant places on tired feet; the grinding bargains imposed by the well-to-do! one of these fiends was a beautiful lady, haughty, with fair complexion and frosted hair, and somehow suggested to salvina a steel engraving. she arranged graciously that salvina should teach her little girl conversational german at half-a-crown an hour, but when salvina started on the first lesson in the luxurious sanctum, she found two sweetly dressed sisters; who, she was informed, could not bear to be separated, and might therefore be considered one. the steel engraving herself sat there, as if to superintend, occasionally asking for the elucidation of a point. at the second lesson there were two other little girls, neighbours, the lady informed her, who had thought it would be a good opportunity for them to learn, too. salvina expressed her pleasure and her gratitude to her patroness. at the third lesson the aunt of the two little girls was also present with a suspicious air of discipleship. when at end of the month, salvina presented her bill at five shillings an hour, the patroness flew into a towering rage. what did it matter to her how many children partook of the hour? an hour was an hour and a bargain a bargain. salvina had not the courage or the capital to resist. and this life of ever teaching and never learning went on, week after week, year after year. for when her salary at the school increased, the additional burden of lazarus and his wife and children fell upon her. for her feckless brother had soon exhausted the patience of granders brothers; he had passed shiftlessly from employment to employment, frequently dependent on salvina and his father-in-law till old jonas had declared, with all the dignity of his green shade, that his son-in-law--graceless offspring of a graceless sire--must never darken his door-step again. but the joy mrs. brill found in her grandchildren, the filling-out of her life, repaid salvina amply for all the pinching necessary to subsidize her brother's household. she winced, though, to see her mother drop thoughtlessly into the glossy arm-chair presented by her absentee husband, and therein ensconced dandle lazarus's children. salvina was too sensitive to remind her mother, and shrank also from appearing fantastic. but that chair inspired a morbid repugnance, and one day, taking advantage of the fact that the stuffing began to extrude, she bought lazarus a new and better easy-chair without saying why, and had the satisfaction of noting the relegation of the old one to a bed-room. two bright spots of colour dappled those long, monotonous years. one was kitty; the other was the summer holiday. kitty's mere letters from the continent--she wrote twice during the tour--were a source of exhilaration as well as of instruction. she brought nearer all those wonderful places which salvina still promised herself to behold one day, though year after year she went steadily to ramsgate. for her mother shrank from sea-voyages and strange places, as much as she loved the familiar beach swarming with jewish faces and nigger minstrels. even salvina's little scheme of enthroning her mother expensively on the parade at clacton-on-sea, that mother unconsciously thwarted, though she endured equivalent splendour at ramsgate at three guineas a week, with much grumbling over her daughter's extravagance. once indeed when salvina had seriously projected paris in the interest of her french, there had been a quarrel on the subject. there were many quarrels on many subjects, but it was always one quarrel and had always the same groundwork of dialogue on mrs. brill's part, whatever the temporal variations. "a nice daughter! to trample under foot her own flesh and blood, because she thinks i'm dependent on her! well, well, do your own marketing, you little ignoramus who don't know a skirt steak from a loin chop; you'll soon see if i don't earn my keep. i earned my living before you were born, and i can do so still. i'd rather live in one room than have my blood shed a day longer. i'll send for kitty--she never stamps on the little mother. she shan't slave her heart out any more among strangers, my poor fatherless kitty. no, we'll live together, kitty and i. lazarus would jump at us--my own dear, handsome lazarus. i never see him but he tells me how the children are crying day and night for their granny, and why don't i go and live with him? _he_ wouldn't spit upon the mother who suckled him, and even rhoda has more respect for me than my own real daughter." such was the basal theme; the particular variation, when the holiday was concerned, took the shape of religious remonstrance. "and where am i to get _kosher_ food in paris? in ramsgate i enjoy myself; there's a _kosher_ butcher, and all the people i know. it's as good as london." tears always conquered salvina. she had an infinite patience with her mother on these occasions, not resenting the basal theme, but regarding it as a mere mechanic explosion of nervous irritation, generated by her lonely life. sometimes she forgot this and argued, but was always the more sorry afterward. not that she did not enjoy ramsgate. her nature that craved for so much and was content with so little found even ramsgate a paradise after a year of the slum-school, to which she always returned looking almost healthy. but this constant absorption in her mother's personality narrowed her almost to the same mental bookless horizon. all the red blood of ambition was sucked away as by a vampire; her energy was sapped and the unchanging rut of school-existence combined to fray away her individuality. she never went into any society; the rare invitation to a social event was always refused with heart-shrinking. every year made her more shy and ungainly, more bent in on herself, and on the little round of school and home life, which left her indeed too weary in brain and body for aught beside. she sank into the scholastic old maid, unconsciously taking on the very gait and accent of miss rolver, into the limitations of whose life she had once had a flash of insight. yet she was unaware of her decay; her automatic brain was still alive in one corner, where the dreams hived and nested. paris and rome and the wonder-places still shone on the horizon, together with the noble young bayard, handsome and tender-hearted. and twice or thrice a year kitty would flash upon the scene to remind her that there was truly a world of elegance and adventure. her mother had begun to worry over the beautiful kitty's failure to marry; she had imagined that in those gilded regions she would have snapped up a south african millionaire or other ingenuous person. how nearly kitty had actually come to doing so, even without the spring-board of bedford square, salvina never told her. she had kept both sugarman and moss m. rosenstein from pestering her mother, by telling the shadchan that kitty's voice and kitty's alone weighed with kitty in such a matter. when the swarthy capitalist returned to the cape, despairing, salvina had written to congratulate her sister on her high-mindedness. in the years that followed, she had to endure many a bad quarter of an hour of maternal reproach because kitty did not marry, but mrs. brill's vengeance was unconscious. kitty herself never heard a word of these complaints; to her the mother was all wreathed smiles, for she never came without bringing a trinket, and every one of these trinkets meant days of happiness. the little lockets and brooches were shown about to all the neighbours and hitched them on to the bright spheres which kitty adorned. carriages and footmen, soft carpets and gilded mirrors gleamed in the air. "my kitty!" rolled under mrs. brill's tongue like a honeyed sweet. kitty's little gifts, flashing splendidly on the everyday dulness, made more impression than all the steady monotonous services of salvina. for the rest, salvina conscientiously repaid these gifts in kind on kitty's birthdays and other high days. x when salvina was twenty-three years old a change came. lazarus ceased to demand assistance: he was cheery and self-confident, and inclined to chaff salvina on her prim ways. he removed to a larger house and her easy-chair disappeared before a more elegant. and the apparent brightness of her brother's prospects brightened salvina's. her savings increased, and, under the continuous profit of his self-support, she was soon able to meditate changes on her own account. either she would give up her night-teaching--which had been more and more undermining her system--or she would procure her mother and kitty a delightful surprise by migrating back to hackney. her mind hesitated between the joyous alternatives, lingering voluptuously now on one, now on the other, but somehow aware that it would ultimately choose the latter, for kitty on her rare visits never failed to grumble at the lowness of the neighbourhood and the expense of cabs, and mrs. brill still yearned to see horses pawing outside her door-step. but an unexpected visit from kitty, not six weeks after her last, and equally unexpected in place--for it was at salvina's school--decided the matter suddenly. it was about half-past twelve, and salvina, long since a full "assistant teacher," was seated at her desk, correcting the german exercises of a private pupil. sparsely dotted about the symmetric benches were a few demure criminals undergoing the punishment of being kept in, and the air was still heavy with the breaths and odours of the blissful departed. a severe museum-case, with neatly ticketed specimens, backed salvina's chair, and around the spacious room hung coloured diagrams of animals and plants. kitty seemed a specimen from another world as her coquettish leghorn hat flowering with poppies burst upon the scholastic scene. "oh, dear, i thought you'd be alone," she said pettishly. "is it anything important? the children don't matter," said salvina. "you can tell me in german. i do hope nothing is the matter." "no, nothing so alarming as that," kitty replied in german. "but i thought i'd find you alone and have a chat." "i had to stay here with the children. they must be punished." "seems more like punishing yourself. but have you lunched, then?" "no." salvina flushed slightly. "no? what's up? a jewish fast! ninth day of ab, fall of temple, and funny things like that. one always seems to stumble upon them in the east end." "how you do rattle on, kitty!" and salvina smiled. "no, i shall lunch as soon as these children are released." "but why wait for that?" salvina's blush deepened. "well, one doesn't want to eat a good dinner before hungry girls." "a good dinner! why, what in heaven's name do you get? truffles and plovers' eggs?" "no, but i get a very good meal sent in from the cooking centre opposite, and compared with what these girls get at home, steak and potatoes are the luxuries of lucullus." "oh, i don't believe it. they all look fatter than you. then this is double punishment for you--extra work and hunger. do send them away. they get on my nerves. and have your lunch like a sensible being." and without waiting for salvina's assent: "go along, girls," she said airily. the girls hesitated and looked at salvina, who coloured afresh, but said, "yes, this lady pleads for you, and i said that if you all promised to--" "oh, yes, teacher," they interrupted enthusiastically, and were off. "well, what i came to tell you, sally, is that i'm not sure of my place much longer." salvina turned pale, and that much-tried heart of hers thumped like a hammer. she waited in silence for the facts. "lily is going to be married." "well? all the more reason for mabel to have a companion." kitty shook her head. "it's the beginning of the end. marriage is a contagious complaint in a family. first one member is taken off, then another. but that's not the worst." "no?" poor salvina held her breath. "who do you think is the happy man? you'll never guess." "how should i? i don't know their circle." "yes, you do. i mean, you know him." salvina wrinkled her forehead vainly. "no, you'll never guess after all these years! moss m. rosenstein!" "is it possible?" salvina gasped. "lily samuelson!" "yes--lily samuelson!" "but he must be an old man by now." "well, _she_ isn't a chicken. and you thought it was such an outrage of him to ask for _me_. i suppose having once got inside the door to see me, he had the idea of aspiring higher." "oh, don't say higher, kitty. richer, that's all--and now, i should say, lower, inasmuch as lily samuelson stoops to pick up what you passed by with scorn. and picks him up out of sugarman's hand, probably." "yes, it's all very well, and it's revenge enough in a way to think to myself what i do think to myself, when i see the young couple going on, and moss is mortally scared of me, as i shoot him a glare, now and again. i shouldn't be surprised if he eggs them on to get rid of me. it would be too bad to be done out of everything." "well, we must hope for the best," said salvina, kissing her. "after all, you can always get another place." "i'm getting old," kitty said glumly. "you old!" and the anæmic little school-mistress looked with laughing admiration at her sister's untarnished radiance. but when kitty went, and lunch came, salvina could not eat it. xi it was clear, however, that of the alternatives--giving up the night-work or returning to hackney--the latter was the one favoured by providence. kitty might at any moment return to the parental roof, and there must be something, that kitty would consider a roof, to shelter her. on saturday salvina went house-hunting alone in hackney, and there--as if further pointed out by providence--stood their old house "to let!" it had a dilapidated air, as if it had stood empty for many moons and had lost hope. it seemed to her symbolic of her mother's fortunes, and her imagination leapt at the idea of recuperating both. very soon she had re-rented the house, though from another landlord, and the workmen were in possession, making everything bright and beautiful. salvina chose wall-papers of the exact pattern of aforetime, and ordered the painting and decorations to repeat the old effects. they were to move in, a few days before the quarter. her happy secret shone in her cheeks, and she felt all bright and refreshed, as if she, too, were being painted and cleaned and redecorated. the task of keeping it all from her mother was a great daily strain, and the secret had to overbrim for the edification of lazarus. lazarus hailed the change with expressions of unselfish joy, that brought tears into salvina's eyes. he even went with her to see how the repairs were getting on, chatted with the workmen, disapproved of the landlord's stinginess in not putting down new drain pipes, and made a special call upon that gentleman. one day on her return from school salvina found a postcard to the effect that the house was ready for occupation. salvina was for once glad that she had never yet found time to persuade her mother to learn to read. she went to feast her eyes on the new-old house and came home with the key, which she hid carefully till the sunday afternoon, when she induced her mother to make an excursion to victoria park. the weather was dull, and the old woman needed a deal of coaxing, especially as the coaxing must be so subtle as not to arouse suspicion. on the way back in the evening from the park, which, as there was an unexpected band playing popular airs, her mother enjoyed, salvina led her by the old familiar highways and byways back to the old home, keeping her engrossed in conversation lest it should suddenly befall her to ask why they were going that way. the expedient was even more successful than she had bargained for, mrs. brill's sub-consciousness calmly accepting all the old unchanged streets and sights and sounds, while her central consciousness was absorbed by the talk. her legs trod automatically the dingy hackney terrace to which she had so often returned from her park outing, her hand pushed open mechanically the old garden-gate, and as salvina, breathlessly wondering if the spell could be kept up till the very last, opened the door with the latch-key, her mother sank wearily, and with a sigh of satisfaction, upon the accustomed hall-chair. in that instant of maternal apathy, the astonishment was wholly salvina's. that hall-chair on which her mother sat was the very one which had stood there in the bygone happy years; the hat-rack was the one with which her father had "eloped"; on it stood the little flower-pots and on the wall hung the two engravings of the trials of lord william russell and earl stafford exactly in the same place, and facing her stood the open parlour with all the old furniture and colour. in that uncanny instant salvina wondered if she had passed through years of hallucination. there was her mother, natural and unconcerned, bonneted and jewelled, exactly as she had come from camberwell years ago when they had entered the house together. perhaps they were still at that moment; she knew from her studies as well as from experience that you can dream years of harassing and multiplex experience in a single second. perhaps there had been no waking hallucination; perhaps the long waiting for her mother to appear with the house-key had made her sleepy, and in that instant of doze she had dreamed all those horrible things--the empty house, her father's flight, his reappearance at her brother's marriage; the long years of evening lessons. perhaps she was still seventeen, studying the greek verbs for the bachelorhood of arts, perhaps her mother was still a happy wife. her eyes filled with tears, and she let herself dwell upon the wondrous possibility a second or so longer than she believed in it. for the smell of new paint was too potent; it routed the persuasions of the old furniture. and in another instant it had penetrated through mrs. brill's fatigue. she started up, aware of something subtly wrong, ere clearer consciousness dawned. "michael!" she shrieked, groping. "hush, hush, mother!" said salvina, with a pain as of swords at her heart. she felt her mother had stumbled--with whatever significance--upon the word of the enigma. "another trick has been played on us." "a trick!" mrs. brill groped further. "but _you_ brought me. how comes this house here? what has happened?" "i wanted to surprise you. i have rented the old house, and some one else has put in the old furniture." "michael is coming back! you and your father have plotted." "oh, mother! how can you accuse me of such a thing!" all the expected joy of the surprise had been changed to anguish, she felt, both for her and for her mother. oh, what a fatal mistake! "i won't have the furniture, we'll pitch it into the street--we are going to live here together, mammy, you and i, in the old home. we can afford it now." she laid her cheek to her mother's, but mrs. brill broke away petulantly and ran toward the parlour. "and does he think i'll have anything to do with him after all these years!" she cried. "dear mother, he doesn't know you if he thinks that!" said salvina, following her. "no, indeed! and a chip out of my best vase, just as i thought! and that isn't my chair--he's shoved me in one of a worse set. the horsehair may seem the same, but look at the legs--no carving at all. and where's the extra leaf of the table? gone, too, i daresay. and my little gilt shovel that used to stand in the fender here, what's become of that? and do you call this a sofa? with the castors all off! oh, my god, she has ruined all my furniture," and she burst into hysteric tears. salvina could do nothing till the torrent had spent itself. but she was busy, thinking. she saw that again her brother and her father had conspired together. hence lazarus's officiousness toward the landlord and the workmen--that he might easily get the entry to the house. but perhaps the conspiracy had not the significance her mother put upon it. perhaps lazarus was principal, not agent; in the flush of his new prosperity he had really projected a generous act; perhaps he had resolved to put the coping-stone on the surprise salvina was preparing for her mother, and had hence negotiated with the father for the old things. if so, she felt she had not the right to make her mother refuse them; the rather, she must hasten at once to lazarus to pour out her appreciation of his thoughtfulness. "come along, mother," she said at last, "don't sit there, crying. i think lazarus must have bought back the things for you. you see, mammy, i wanted to give you a little surprise, and dear lazarus has given _me_ a little surprise." "do you really think it's only lazarus?" asked mrs. brill, and to salvina's anxious ear there seemed a shade of disappointment in the tone. "i'm sure it is--father couldn't possibly have the impudence. after all these years, too!" but when she at last got her mother to lazarus, that gentleman confessed aggressively that he had been only the agent. "i don't see why you shouldn't let the poor old man come back," he said. "the other person died a year ago, only nobody liked to tell mother, she was so bristly and snappy." "ah," interrupted mrs. brill exultantly, "then heaven has heard my curses. may she burn in the lowest gehenna. may her body become one yellow flame like her dyed hair." "hush!" said salvina sternly. "god shall judge the dead." "oh, of course you always take everybody's part against your mother." and mrs. brill burst into tears again and sank into the new easy-chair. "i do think mother's right," said lazarus sullenly. "why do you stand in her way?" "i?" salvina was paralyzed. "yes, if it wasn't for you--" "mother, do you hear what lazarus is saying? that i keep you from father!" "father! a pretty father to you! he waits till she's dead, and then he wants to creep back to us. but let him lie on her grave. he'll swell to bursting before he crosses my door-step." "there, lazarus, do you hear?" "yes, i hear," he said incredulously. "but does she know what father offers her--every comfort, every luxury? he is rich now." "rich?" said mrs. brill. "the old swindler!" "he didn't swindle--he's very sorry for the past now, and awfully kind and generous." salvina had a flash of insight. "ho! so this is why--" she checked herself and looked round the handsome room, and the new easy-chair in which her mother sat became suddenly as hateful as the old. "well, suppose it is?" said lazarus defiantly. "i don't see why we shouldn't share in his luck." "and where does the luck come from?" salvina demanded. "what's that to do with us? from the stock exchange, i believe." "and where did he get the money to gamble with?" "oh, they always had money." salvina's eyes blazed. the nerveless creature of the school became a fury. "and you'd touch that!" "hang it all, he owes us reparation. you, too, salvina--he is anxious to do everything for you. he says you must chuck up school--it's simply wearing you away. he says he wants to take you abroad--to paris." "oh, and so he thinks he'll get round mother by getting round me, does he? but let him take his furniture away at once, or we'll pitch it into the street. at once, do you hear?" "he won't mind." lazarus smiled irritatingly. "he wants to put better furniture in, and his real desire is to move to a big house in highbury new park. but i persuaded him to put back the old furniture--i thought it would touch you--a token, you know, that he wanted 'auld lang syne.'" "yes, yes, i understood," said salvina, and then she thought suddenly of kitty and a burst of hysteric laughter caught her. "elopements economically conducted," went through her mind. "by the day or hour!" and she imagined the new phrases kitty would coin. "the prodigal father and the pantechnicon"--"the old love and the old furniture," and the wild laughter rang on, till lazarus was quite disconcerted. "i don't see where the fun comes in," he said wrathfully. "father is very sorry, indeed he is. he quite cried to me--on that very chair where mother is sitting. i swear to you he did. and you have the heart to laugh!" "would you have me cry, too? no, no; i am glad he is punished." "yes--a nice miserable lonely old age he has before him." "he has plenty of money." "you're a cold, unfeeling minx! i don't envy the man who marries you, salvina." salvina flushed. "i don't, either--if he were to treat me as mother has been treated." "yes, no one has had a life like mine, since the world began," moaned mrs. brill, and her waning tears returned in full flood. "my poor mammy," and salvina put a handkerchief to the flooded cheeks. "come home, we have had enough of this." mrs. brill rose obediently. "oh, yes, take her home," said lazarus savagely, "take her to your shabby, stinking lodging, when she might have a house in highbury new park and three servants." "she has a house at hackney, and i'll give her a servant, too. come, mother." salvina mopped up her mother's remaining tears, and with an inspiration of arrogant independence, she rang for lazarus's servant and bade her hail a hansom cab. "if you don't want all hackney to come and gaze at a furnished road," she said, in parting, "you'll take away that furniture yourself." mrs. brill bowled homeward, half consoled for everything by this charioted magnificence. some neighbours stood by gossiping as she alighted, and then her unspoken satisfaction was complete. xii they moved into the new-old house, after salvina had carefully ascertained that the furniture had returned to the cloud under which it had so long lived. in her resentment against its reappearance, she spent more than she could afford on the rival furniture that succeeded it, and which she now studied to make unlike it, so that quite without any touch of conscious taste, it became light, elegant, and even artistic in comparison with the old horsehair massiveness. then began a very bad year for salvina, even though the damocles sword of kitty's dismissal never fell, and lily's migration to the cape with moss m. rosenstein left kitty still in power as companion to mabel, to judge at least by kitty's not seeking the parental roof, even as visitor. mrs. brill's happiness did not keep pace with the restored grandeurs and salvina's own spurt of hope died down. she grew wanner than ever, going listlessly to her work and returning limp and fagged out. "you mew me up here with not a soul to speak to from morning till night," her mother burst forth one day. salvina was not sorry to have her mother's silent lachrymosity thus interpreted. but she regretted that her helpless parent had not expressed her satisfaction with gossip when the ghetto provided it, instead of yearning for higher scenes. she tried again to persuade mrs. brill to learn to read by way of mental resource, and mrs. brill indeed made some spasmodic efforts to master the alphabet and the vagaries of pronunciation from an infant's primer. but her brain was too set; and she forgot from word to word, and made bold bad guesses, so that even when "a fat cat sat on a mat" she was capable of making a fat cow eat in a mug. she struggled loyally though, except when salvina's attention relaxed for an instant, and then she would proceed by leaps and bounds, like a cheating child with the teacher's eye off it, getting over five lines in the time she usually took to spell out one, and paradoxically pleased with herself at her rapid progress. salvina was in despair. there is no crêche for mothers, or she might have sent mrs. brill to one. she bethought herself of at last laying on a servant, as providing the desired combination of grandeur and gossip. to pay for the servant she undertook two hours of extra night-teaching. but the maid-of all-work proved only an exhaustless ground for grumbling. mrs. brill had never owned a servant, and the girl's deviation from angelhood of character and unerring perfection of action in every domestic department were a constant disappointment and grief to the new mistress. "a nice thing you have done for me," she wept to salvina, having carefully ascertained the servant was out of ear-shot, "to seat a mistress on my head--and for that i must pay her into the bargain." "aren't you glad you haven't got three servants?" said salvina, with a touch of irresistible irony. "don't throw up to me that you're saving me from falling on your father. i can be my own bread-winner. i don't want your doll's house furniture that one is scared to touch--like walking among eggshells. i'd rather live in one room and scrub floors than be beholden to anybody. then i should be my own mistress, and not under a daughter's thumb. if only kitty would marry, then i could go to _her_. why doesn't she marry? it isn't as if she were like you. is there a prettier girl in the whole congregation? it's because she's got no money, my poor, hardworking little kitty. her father would give her a dowry, if he were a man, not a pig." "mother!" salvina was white and trembling. "how can you dream of that?" "not for myself. i'd see him rot before i'd take a farthing of his money. but i'm not domineering and spiteful like you. i don't stand in the way of other people benefiting. the money will only go to some other vermin. kitty may as well have some." "lazarus has some. that's enough, and more than enough." "lazarus deserves it--he is a better son to me than you are a daughter!" and the tears fell again. salvina cast about for what to do. her mother's nerves were no doubt entirely disorganized by her sufferings and by the shock of lazarus's trick. some radical medicine must be applied. but every day duty took salvina to school and harassed her there and drove her to private lessons afterward, and left her neither the energy nor the brain for further innovations. and whenever she met lazarus by accident--for she was too outraged to visit a house practically kept up by dishonourable money, apart from her objection to its perpetually festive atmosphere of solo-whist supper-parties--he would sneer at her high and mighty airs in casting out the furniture. "oh, we're very grand now, we keep a servant; we have cut our father off with a shilling." she wished her mother would not go to see lazarus, but she felt she had not the right to interfere with these visits, though mrs. brill returned from them, fretful and restive. evidently lazarus must be still insinuating reconciliation. "lazarus worries you, mother, i feel sure," she ventured to say once. "oh, no, he is a good son. he wants me to live with him." "what! on _her_ money!" "it isn't her money--your father made it on the stock exchange." "who told you so?" "didn't you hear lazarus say so yourself?" then a horrible suspicion came to salvina. "he doesn't set father at you when you go there?" she cried. mrs. brill flushed furiously. "i'd like to see him try it on," she murmured. salvina stooped to kiss her. "but he tells you tales of father's riches, i suppose." "who wants his riches? if he offered me my own horse and carriage, i wouldn't be seen with him after the disgrace he's put upon me." "i wish, mother, lazarus had inherited your sense of honour." mrs. brill was pleased. "there isn't a woman in the world with more pride! your father made a mistake when he began with me!" xiii a horse and carriage did come, one flamboyant afternoon, but it was the samuelsons', and brought the long-absent kitty. and kitty as usual brought a present. this time it was a bracelet, and mrs. brill clasped and unclasped it ecstatically, feeling that she had at least one daughter who loved her and did not domineer. salvina was at school, and mrs. brill took kitty all over the house, enjoying her approval, and accepting all the praise for the lighter and more artistic furniture. she told her of the episode of the return of the old furniture--"and didn't have the decency to put new castors on the sofa she had sprawled on!" kitty's laughter was as loud and ringing as salvina had anticipated; mrs. brill coloured under it, as though _she_ were found food for laughter. "what a ridiculous person he is!" kitty added hastily. "yes," said mrs. brill with eager pride and relief. "he thought he could coax me back like a dog with a bit of sugar." "it would be too funny to live with him again." and kitty's eyes danced. "do you think so?" said mrs. brill anxiously. and under the sunshine of her daughter's approval she confided to her that he had really turned up twice at lazarus's, beautifully costumed, with diamonds on his fingers and a white flower in his button-hole, but that she had repulsed him as she would repulse a drunken heathen. he had put his arms round her, but she had shaken him off as one shakes off a black beetle. kitty turned away and stuffed her handkerchief into her mouth. she knew there was a tragic side, but the comic aspect affected her more. "then you think i was right?" mrs. brill wound up. "of course," kitty said soothingly. "what do you want of him?" "but don't tell salvina, or she'd eat my head off." and then, the eager upleaping fountain of her mother's egoistic babblings beginning at last to trickle thinly, kitty found a breathing-space in which to inform her of the great news that throbbed in her own breast. "lily samuelson's dead! mrs. rosenstein, you know!" "oh, my god!" ejaculated mrs. brill, trembling like a leaf. nothing upset her more than to find that persons within her ken could actually die. "yes, we had a cable from the cape yesterday." "hear, o israel! let me see--yes, she must have died in child-birth." "she did--the house is all in hysterics. i couldn't stand it any longer. i ordered the carriage and came here." "my poor kitty! that lily was too old to have a baby. and now he will marry mabel." "oh, no, mother." "oh, yes, he will. mabel will jump at him, you'll see." "but it isn't legal--you can't marry your deceased wife's sister." "i know you can't in england--what foolishness! but they'll go to holland to be married." "don't be so absurd, mother." "absurd!" mrs. brill glared. "you mark my words. they'll be in holland before the year's out, like hyam emanuel's eldest brother-in-law and the red-haired sister of samuel, the pawnbroker." "well, i don't care if they are," said kitty, yawning. "don't care! why, you'll lose your place. they kept you on for mabel, but now--" kitty cut her short. "don't worry, mother. i'll be all right. he's not married mabel yet." this reminder seemed to come to mrs. brill like a revelation, so fast had her imagination worked. she calmed down and kitty took the opportunity to seek to escape. "tell salvina the news," she said. "she'll be specially interested in it. in fact, judging by the last time, she'll be more excited than i am," and she smiled somewhat mysteriously. "tell her i'm sorry i missed her--i was hoping to find her having a holiday, but apparently i haven't been lucky enough to strike some jewish fast." but partly because mrs. brill was enraptured by her beautiful daughter, partly to keep the pompous equipage outside her door as long as possible, she detained kitty so unconscionably that salvina arrived from school. kitty flew to embrace her as usual, but arrested herself, shocked. "why, sally!" she cried. "you look like a ghost! what's the matter?" "nothing," said salvina with a wan smile. "just the excitement of seeing you, i suppose." kitty performed the postponed embrace but remained dubious and shaken. was it that her mind was morbidly filled with funereal images, or was it that her fresh eye had seen what her mother's custom-blinded vision had missed--that there was death in salvina's face? this face of death-in-life stirred up unwonted emotions in kitty and made her refrain apprehensively from speaking again of lily's death; and some days later, when the first bustle of grief had subsided in bedford square, kitty, still haunted by that grewsome vision, wrote salvina a letter. "my dear old sally,--you must really draw in your horns. you were not looking at all well the other day. you are burning the candle at both ends, i am sure. that horrid board school is killing you. i am going to beg a fortnight's holiday for you, and i am going to take you to boulogne for a week, and then, when you are all braced up again, we can have the second week at paris." "my dearest and best of sisters," [salvina replied,] "how shocking the news mother has told me of the death of poor lily! if she did wrong she was speedily punished. but let us hope she really loved him. i am sure that your brooding on her sad fate and your sympathy with the family in this terrible affliction has made you fancy all sorts of things about me, just as mother is morbidly apprehensive of that horrible creature marrying mabel and thus robbing you of your place. but your sweet letter did me more good than if i had really gone to paris. how did you know it was the dream of my life? but it cannot be realized just yet, for it would be impossible for me to be spared from school just now. miss green is away with diphtheria, and as this is examination time, miss rolver has her hands full. besides, mother would be left alone. don't worry about me, darling. i always feel like this about this time of year, but the summer holiday is not many weeks off and ramsgate always sets me up again. "your loving sister, "salvina. "p.s. mother told me you advised her not to go to lazarus's any more, and she isn't going. i am so glad, dear. these visits have worried her, as lazarus is so persistent. i am only sorry i didn't think of enlisting your influence before--it is naturally greater than mine. good-bye, dear. "p.p.s. i find i have actually forgotten to thank you for your generous offer. but you know all that is in my heart, don't you, darling?" all the same kitty's alarm began to communicate itself to salvina, especially after repeated if transient premonitions of fainting in her class-room. for what would happen if she really fell ill? she could get sick leave of course for a time; though that would bring her under the eagle eye of the board doctor, before which every teacher quailed. he might brutally pronounce her unfit for service. and how if she did break down permanently? or if she died! her savings were practically nil; her salary ceased with her breath. who would support her mother? kitty of course would nobly take up the burden, but it would be terribly hard on her, especially when mabel samuelson should come to marry. not that she was going to die, of course; she was too used to being sickly. death was only a shadow, hovering far off. xiv what was to be done? an inspiration came to her in the shape of a pamphlet. life assurance! ah, that was it. scottish widows' fund! how peculiarly apposite the title. if her mother could be guaranteed a couple of thousand pounds, death would lose its sting. salvina carefully worked out all the arithmetical points involved, and discovered to her surprise that life assurance was a form of gambling. the company wagered her that she would live to a certain age, and she wagered that she would not. but after a world of trouble in filling up documents and getting endorsers, when she went before the company's doctor she was refused. the bet was not good enough. "heart weak," was the ruthless indictment. "you ought not to teach," the doctor even told her privately, and amid all her consternation salvina was afraid lest by some mysterious brotherhood he should communicate with the board doctor and rob her of her situation. she began praying to god extemporaneously, in english. that was, for her, an index of impotence. she was at the end of her resources. she could see only a blank wall, and the wall was a great gravestone on which was chiselled: "_hic jacet_, salvina brill, school board teacher, undergraduate of london university. unloved and unhappy." she wept over the inscription, being still romantic. poor mother, poor kitty, what a blow her death would be to them! even lazarus would be sorry. and in the thought of them she drifted away from the rare mood of self-pity and wondered again how she could get together enough money before she died to secure her mother's future. but no suggestion came even in answer to prayer. once she thought of the stock exchange, but it seemed to her vaguely wicked to conjure with stocks and shares. she had read articles against it. besides, what did she understand? true, she understood as much as her father. but who knew whether his money really came from this source? she dismissed the stock exchange despairingly. and meanwhile mrs. brill continued peevish and lachrymose, and salvina found it more and more difficult to hide her own melancholy. one day, as she was leaving the school-premises, sugarman the shadchan accosted her. "do make a beginning," he said winningly. "only a sixteenth of a ticket. you can't lose." sugarman still never thought of her even as a refuge for impecunious bachelors, but with that shameless pertinacity which was the secret of his success, both as british marriage-maker and continental lottery agent, he had never ceased cajoling her toward his other net. he was now destined to a success which surprised even himself. her scrupulous conscientiousness undermined by her analysis of the assurance system, salvina inquired eagerly as to the prizes, and bought three whole tickets at a quarter of the price of one assurance instalment. sugarman made a careful note of the numbers, and so did salvina. but it was unnecessary in her case. they were printed on her brain, graven on her heart, repeated in her prayers; they hovered luminous across her day-dreams, and if they distracted feverishly her dreams of the night, yet they tinged the school-routine pleasantly and made her mother's fretfulness endurable. they actually improved her health, and as the may sunshine warmed the earth, salvina felt herself bourgeoning afresh, and she told herself her fears were morbid. nevertheless there was one thing she was resolved to complete, in case she were truly doomed, and that was her mother's education in reading, so often begun, so often foiled by her mother's pertinacious subsidence into contented ignorance. of what use even to assure mrs. brill's physical future, if her mind were to be left a pauper, dependent on others? how, without the magic resource of books, could she get through the long years of age, when decrepitude might confine her to the chimney-corner? already her talk groaned with aches and pains. since the servant had been installed, the reading lessons had dropped off and finally been discontinued. now that salvina persisted in continuing, she found that her mother's brain had retained nothing. mrs. brill had to begin again at the alphabet, and all the old routine of audacious guessing recommenced. again a fat cow ate in a mug, for though mrs. brill had no head at all for corrections, she had a wonderful memory for her own mistakes, and took the whole sentence at a confident jump. it was an old friend. one evening, in the kitchen to which mrs. brill always gravitated when the servant was away, she paused between her misreadings to dilate on the inconsiderateness of the servant in having this day out, though she was paid for the full week, and though the mistress had to stick at home and do all the work. as salvina seemed to be spiritless this evening, and allowed the domestic to go undefended, this topic was worn out more quickly than usual, but the never failing subject of mrs. brill's aches and pains provided more pretexts for dodging the hard words. and meantime in a chair beside hers, poor salvina, silent as to her own aches and pains, and the faintness which was coming over her, strained her attention to follow in correction on the heels of her mother's reading; but do what she would, she could not keep her eyes continuously on the little primer, and whenever mrs. brill became aware that salvina's attention had relaxed, she scampered along at a breakneck speed, taking trisyllables as unhesitatingly as a hunter a three-barred gate. but every now and again salvina would struggle back into concentration, and mrs. brill would tumble at the first ditch. at last, mrs. brill, to her content, found herself cantering along, unimpeded, for a great stretch. salvina lay back in her chair, dead. "the broken dancer only merry danger," read mrs. brill, at a joyous gallop. suddenly the knocker beat a frantic tattoo on the street door. up jumped mrs. brill, in sheer nervousness. salvina lay rigid, undisturbed. "she's fallen asleep," thought her mother, guiltily conscious of having taken advantage of her slumbers. "all the same, she might spare my aged bones the trouble of dragging upstairs." but, being already on her feet, she mounted the stairs, and opened the door on sugarman's beaming, breathless face. "your daughter--number , ," he gasped. mrs. brill, who knew nothing of salvina's speculations, took some seconds to catch his drift. "what, what?" she cried, trembling. "i have won her a hundred thousand marks--the great prize!" "the great prize!" screamed mrs. brill. "salvina! salvina! come up," and not waiting for her reply, and overturning the flower-pots on the hall-table, she flew downstairs, helter-skelter. "salvina!" she shook her roughly. "wake up! you have won the great prize!" but salvina did not wake up, though she had won the great prize. xv one sunday afternoon nearly five months later a nondescript series of vehicles, erratically and unpunctually succeeding one another, drew up near the mortuary of the jewish cemetery, but, from the presence of women, it was obvious that something else than a funeral was in progress. in fact, the two four-wheelers, three hansom cabs, several dog-carts, and one open landau suggested rather a picnic amid the tombs. but it was only the ceremony of the setting of salvina's tombstone, which was attracting all these relatives and well-wishers. in the landau--which gave ample space for their knees--sat the same quartette that had shared a cab to lazarus's wedding, except that salvina was replaced by kitty. that ever young and beautiful person was the only member of the family who had the air of having fallen in the world, for despite that salvina's great prize was now added to mr. brill's capital (he being the legal heir), he had refused to set up a groom in addition to a carriage. a coachman, he insisted, was all that was necessary. it was the same tone that he had taken about the horsehair sofa, and it helped mrs. brill to feel that her husband was unchanged, after all. arrived on the ground, the brills found a gathering of the jonases, reconciled by death and riches. others were to arrive, and the party distributed itself about the cemetery with an air of conscious incompleteness. old jonas shook hands cordially with lazarus, and wiped away a tear from under his green shade. a few of salvina's fellow-teachers had obeyed the notification of the advertisement in the jewish papers, and were come to pay the last tribute of respect. the men wore black hat-bands, the women crape, which on all the nearer relatives already showed signs of wear. and among all these groups, conversing amiably of this or that in the pleasant october sunshine, the genteel stone-mason insinuated himself, pervading the gathering. his breast was divided between anxiety as to whether the parents would like the tombstone, and uncertainty as to whether they would pay on the spot. "have you seen the stone? what do you think of it?" he kept saying to everybody, with a deferential assumption of artistic responsibility; though, as it was a handsome granite stone, the bulk of the chiselling had been done in aberdeen, for the sake of economy, whilst the stone was green, and his own contribution had been merely the hebrew lettering. one by one, under the guidance of the artist, the groups wandered toward the tombstone, and a spectator or two admiringly opened negotiations for future contingencies. an old lady who knew the stonemason's sister-in-law strove to make a bargain for her own tombstone, quite forgetting that the money she was saving on it would not be enjoyed by herself. "what will you charge _me_?" she asked, with grotesque coquetry. "i think you ought to do it cheaper for _me_." and in the house of the priests the minister in charge of the ceremonial impatiently awaited the late comers, that he might intone the beautiful immemorial psalms. he had made a close bargain with the cabman, and was anxious not to set him grumbling over the delay; apart from his desire to get back to his pretty wife, who was "at home" that afternoon. at last the genteel stone-mason found an opportunity of piercing through the throng of friends that surrounded mr. brill, and of obsequiously inviting the generous orderer of this especially handsome and profitable tombstone to inspect it. kitty followed in the wake of her parents. almost at the tomb, a corpulent man with graying hair, issuing suddenly from an avenue of headstones, accosted her. she frowned. "you oughtn't to have come," she said. "since i belong to the family, kitty," he remonstrated, playing nervously with his massive watch seals. "no, you don't," she retorted. then, relentingly: "i told you, moss, that i could not give you my formal consent till after my sister's tombstone was set. that is the least respect i can pay her." and she turned away from the somewhat disconcerted rosenstein, feeling very right-minded and very forgiving toward salvina for delaying by so many years her marriage with the south african magnate. meantime mr. brill, in his heavily draped high hat, stood beside the pompous granite memorial, surveying it approvingly. his wife's hand lay tenderly in his own. underneath their feet lay the wormy dust that had once palpitated with truth and honour, that had kept the conscience of the household. "that bit of scroll-work," said the stone-mason admiringly, and with an air of having thrown it in at a loss; "you don't often see a bit like that--everybody's been saying so." "very fine!" replied mr. brill obediently. "i paid the synagogue bill for you--to save you trouble," added the stone-mason, insinuatingly. but mr. brill was abstractedly studying the stone, and the mason moved off delicately. mrs. brill tried to spell out a few of the words, but, as there was no one to reprimand her, admitted her break-down. "read it to me, dear heart," she whispered to mr. brill. "i did read it you, my precious one," he said, "when kitty sent it us. it says:-- "'salvina brill, whom god took suddenly, on may th, , aged twenty-five; loved and lamented by all for her perfect goodness.' then come the hebrew letters." "poor salvina!" sighed mrs. brill. "she deserves it, though she did spoil our lives for years." he pressed her hand. "i can't tell you how frightened i was of her," she went on. "she almost made me think i ought not to forgive you even on the day of atonement. but i don't bear her malice, and i don't grudge her what the stone says." "no, you mustn't," he said piously. "besides, everybody knows one never puts the whole truth on tombstones." * * * * * viii satan mekatrig * * * * * viii satan mekatrig "_suffer not the evil imagination to have dominion over us ... deliver me from the destructive satan._"--morning prayer. without, the air was hot, heavy and oppressive; squadrons of dark clouds had rolled up rapidly from the rim of the horizon, and threatened each instant to shake heaven and earth with their artillery. but within the little synagogue of the "congregation of love and mercy," though it was crowded to suffocation, not a window was open. the worshippers, arrayed in their sabbath finery, were too intent on following the quaint monotonous sing-song of the cantor reading the law to have much attention left for physical discomfort. they thought of their perspiring brows and their moist undergarments just about as little as they thought of the meaning of the hebrew words the reader was droning. though the language was perfectly intelligible to them, yet their consciousness was chiefly and agreeably occupied with its musical accentuation, their piety being so interwoven with these beloved and familiar material elements as hardly to be separable therefrom. perspiration, too, had come to seem almost an ingredient of piety on great synagogal occasions. frequent experience had linked the two, as the poor opera-goer associates patti with crushes. and the present was a great occasion. it was only an ordinary sabbath afternoon service, but there was a feast of intellectual good things to follow. the great rav rotchinsky from brody was to deliver a sermon; and so the swarthy, eager-eyed, curly-haired, shrewd-visaged cobblers, tailors, cigar-makers, peddlers, and beggars, who made up the congregation, had assembled in their fifties to enjoy the dialectical subtleties, the theological witticisms and the talmudical anecdotes which the reputation of the galician maggid foreshadowed. and not only did they come themselves; many brought their wives, who sat in their wigs and earrings behind a curtain which cut them off from the view of the men. the general ungainliness of their figures and the unattractiveness of their low-browed, high-cheekboned, and heavy-jawed faces would have made this pious precaution appear somewhat superfluous to an outsider. the women, whose section of the large room thus converted into a place of worship was much smaller than the men's, were even more closely packed on their narrow benches. little wonder, therefore, that just as a member of the congregation was intoning from the central platform the blessing which closes the reading of the law, a woman disturbed her neighbours by fainting. she was carried out into the open air, though not without a good deal of bustle, which invoked indignant remonstrances in the jüdisch-deutsch jargon, of "hush, little women!" from the male worshippers, unconscious of the cause. the beadle went behind the curtain, and, fearing new disturbances, tried to open the window at the back of the little room, to let in some air from the back-yard on which it abutted. the sash was, however, too inert from a long season of sloth to move even in its own groove, and so the beadle elbowed his way back into the masculine department, and by much tugging at a cord effected a small slit between a dusty skylight and the ceiling, neglecting the grumblings of the men immediately beneath. hardly had he done so, when all the heavy shadows that lay in the corners of the synagogue, all the glooms that the storm-clouds cast upon the day, and that the grimy, cobwebbed windows multiplied, were sent flying off by a fierce flash of lightning that bathed in a sea of fire the dingy benches, the smeared walls, the dingily curtained ark, the serried rows of swarthy faces. almost on the heels of the lightning came the thunder--that vast, instantaneous crash which denotes that the electric cloud is low. the service was momentarily interrupted; the congregation was on its feet; and from all parts rose the hebrew blessing, "blessed art thou, o lord, performing the work of the creation;" followed, as the thunder followed the lightning, by the sonorous "blessed art thou, o lord, whose power and might fill the universe." then the congregation, led by the great rav rotchinsky, to whose venerable thought-lined face, surmounted by its black cap, all eyes had instinctively turned, sat down again, feeling safe. the blessing was intended to mean, and meant no more than, a reverential acknowledgment of the majesty of the creator revealed in elemental phenomena; but human nature, struggling amid the terrors and awfulness of the universe, is always below its creed, and scarce one but felt the prayer a talisman. a moment afterward all rose again, as moshé grinwitz, wrapped in his talith, or praying-shawl, prepared to descend from the _al memor_, or central platform, bearing in his arms the scroll of the law, which had just been reverentially wrapped in its bandages, and devoutly covered with its embroidered mantle and lovingly decorated with its ornamental bells and pointer. now, as moshé grinwitz stood on the _al memor_ with his sacred burden, another terrible flash of lightning and appalling crash of thunder startled the worshippers. and moshé's arms were nervously agitated, and a frightful thought came into his head. _suppose he should drop the holy scroll!_ as this dreadful possibility occurred to him he trembled still more. the _sepher torah_ is to the jew at once the most precious and the most sacred of possessions, and in the eyes of the "congregation of love and mercy" their _sepher torah_ was, if possible, invested with a still higher preciousness and sanctity, because they had only one. they were too poor to afford luxuries; and so this single scroll was the very symbol and seal of their brotherhood; in it lay the very possibility of their existence as a congregation. not that it would be rendered "_pasul_," imperfect and invalid, by being dropped; the fall could not erase any of the letters so carefully written on the parchment; but the calamity would be none the less awful and ominous. every person present would have to abstain for a day from all food and drink, in sign of solemn grief. moshé felt that if the idea that had flitted across his brain were to be realized, he would never have the courage to look his pious wife in the face after such passive profanity. the congregation, too, which honoured him, and which now waited to press devout kisses on the mantle of the scroll, on its passage to the ark--he could not but be degraded in its eyes by so negligent a performance of a duty which was a coveted privilege. all these thoughts, which were instinctively felt, rather than clearly conceived, caused moshé grinwitz to clasp the sacred scroll, which reached a little above his head, tightly to his breast. feeling secure from the peril of dropping it, he made a step forward, but the bells jangled weirdly to his ears, and when he came to the two steps which led down from the platform, a horrible foreboding overcame him that he would stumble and fall in the descent. he stepped down one of the steps with morbid care, but lo! the feeling that no power on earth could prevent his falling gained tenfold in intensity. an indefinable presentiment of evil was upon him; the air was charged with some awful and maleficent influence, of which the convulsion of nature seemed a fit harbinger. and now his sensations became more horrible. the conviction of the impending catastrophe changed into a desire to take an active part in it, to have it done with and over. his arms itched to loose their hold of the _sepher torah_. oh! if he could only dash the thing to the ground, nay, stamp upon it, uttering fearful blasphemies, and shake off this dark cloud that seemed to close round and suffocate him. a last shred of will, of sanity, wrestled with his wild wishes. the perspiration poured in streams down his forehead. it was but a moment since he had taken the holy scroll into his arms; but it seemed ages ago. his foot hovered between the first and second step, when a strange thing happened. straight through the narrow slit opened in the skylight came a swift white arrow of flame, so dazzling that the awed worshippers closed their eyes; then a long succession of terrific peals shook the room as with demoniac laughter, and when the congregants came to their senses and opened their eyes they saw moshé grinwitz sitting dazed upon the steps of the _al memor_, his hands tightly grasping the ends of his praying-shawl, while the _sepher torah_ lay in the dust of the floor. for a moment the shock was such that no one could speak or move. there was an awful, breathless silence, broken only by the mad patter of the rain on the roof and the windows. the floodgates of heaven were opened at last, and through the fatal slit a very cascade of water seemed to descend. automatically the beadle rushed to the cord and pulled the window to. his action broke the spell, and a dozen men, their swarthy faces darker with concern, rushed to raise up the prostrate scroll, while a hubbub of broken ejaculations rose from every side. but ere a hand could reach it, moshé grinwitz had darted forward and seized the precious object. "no, no," he cried, in the jargon which was the common language of all present. "what do you want? the _mitzvah_ (good deed) is mine. i alone must carry it." he shouldered it anew. "kiss it, at least," cried the great rav rotchinsky in a hoarse, shocked whisper. "kiss it?" cried moshé grinwitz, with a sneering laugh. "what! with my wife in synagogue! isn't it enough that i embrace it?" then, without giving his hearers time to grasp the profanity of his words, he went on: "ah, now i can carry thee easily. i can hold thee, and yet breathe freely. see!" and he held out the scroll lengthwise, showing the gilded metal chain and the pointer and the bells contorted by the lightning. "i didn't hurt thee; god hurt thee," he said, addressing the scroll. with a quick jerk of the hand he drew off the mantle and showed the parchment blackened and disfigured. a groan burst from some; others looked on in dazed silence. the pecuniary loss, added to the manifestation of divine wrath, overwhelmed them. "thou hast no soul now to struggle out of my hands," went on moshé grinwitz contemptuously. "look!" he added suddenly: "the lightning has gone back to hell again!" the men nearest him shuddered, and gazed down at the point on the floor toward which he was inclining the extremity of the scroll. the wood was charred, and a small hole revealed the path the electric current had taken. as they looked in awestruck silence, a loud wailing burst forth from behind the curtain. the ill-omened news of the destruction of the _sepher torah_ had reached the women, and their oriental natures found relief in profuse lamentation. "smell! smell!" cried moshé grinwitz, sniffing the sulphurous air with open delight. "woe! woe!" wailed the women. "woe has befallen us!" "be silent, all!" thundered the maggid, suddenly recovering himself. "be silent, women! listen to my words. this is the vengeance of heaven for the wickedness ye have committed in england. since ye left your native country ye have forgotten your judaism. there are men in this synagogue that have shaved the corners of their beard; there are women who have not separated the sabbath dough. hear ye! to-morrow shall be a fast day for you all. and you, moshé grinwitz, _bench gomel_--thank the holy one, blessed be he, for saving your life." "not i," said moshé grinwitz. "you talk nonsense. if the holy one, blessed be he, saved my life, it was he that threatened it. my life was in no danger if he hadn't interfered." to hear blasphemies like this from the hitherto respectable and devout moshé grinwitz overwhelmed his hearers. but only for a moment. from a hundred throats there rose the angry cry, "epikouros! epikouros!" and mingled with this accusation of graceless scepticism there swelled a gathering tumult of "his is the sin! cast him out! he is the jonah! he is the sinner!" the congregants had all risen long ago and menacing faces glared behind menacing faces. some of more heady temperament were starting from their places. "moshé grinwitz," cried the great rav, his voice dominating the din, "are you mad?" "now for the first time am i sane," replied the man, his brow dark with defiance, his tall but usually stooping frame rigid, his narrow chest dilated, his head thrown back so that the somewhat rusty high hat he wore sloped backward half off his skull. it was always a strange, arrestive face, was moshé grinwitz's, with its sallow skin, its melancholy dark eyes, its aquiline nose, its hanging side-curls, and its full, fleshy mouth embowered in a forest of black beard and mustache; and now there was an uncanny light about it which made it almost weird. "now i see that the socialists and atheists are right, and that we trouble ourselves and tear out our very gall to read a _torah_ which the overseer himself, if there is one, scornfully shrivels up and casts beneath our feet. know ye what, brethren? let us all go to the socialist club and smoke our cigarettes. otherwise are _you_ mad!" as he uttered these impious words, another flash of flame lit up the crowded dusk with unearthly light; the building seemed to rock and crash; the fingers of the storm beat heavily upon the windows. from the women's compartment came low wails of fear: "lord, have mercy! forgive us for our sins! it is the end of the world!" but from the men's benches there arose an incoherent cry like the growl of a tiger, and from all sides excited figures precipitated themselves upon the blasphemer. but moshé grinwitz laughed a wild, maniacal laugh, and whirled the sacred scroll round and dashed the first comers against one another. but a muscular lithuanian seized the extremity of the scroll, and others hung on, and between them they wrested it from his grasp. still he fought furiously, as if endowed with sinews of steel, and his irritated opponents, their faces bleeding and swollen, closed round him, forgetting that their object was but to expel him, and bent on doing him a mischief. another moment and it would have fared ill with the man, when a voice, whose tones startled all but moshé grinwitz, though they were spoken close to his ear, hissed in yiddish: "well, if this is the way the members of the congregation of love and mercy spend their sabbath, methinks they had done as well to smoke cigarettes at the socialist club. what say ye, brethren?" these words, pregnant and deserved enough in themselves, were underlined by an accent of indescribable mockery, not bitter, but as gloating over the enjoyment of their folly. involuntarily all turned their eyes to the speaker. who was he? where did he spring from, this black-coated, fur-capped, red-haired hunchback with the gigantic marble brow, the cold, keen, steely eyes that drew and enthralled the gazer, the handsome clean-shaven lips contorted with a sneer? none remembered seeing him enter--none had seen him sitting at their side, or near them. he was not of their congregation, nor of their brotherhood, nor of any of their crafts. yet as they looked at him the exclamations died away on their lips, their menacing hands fell to their sides, and a wave of vague, uneasy remembrance passed over all the men in the synagogue. there was not one that did not seem to know him; there was not one who could have told who he was, or when or where he had seen him before. even the great rav rotchinsky, who had set foot on english soil but a fortnight ago, felt a stir of shadowy recollection within him; and his corrugated brow wrinkled itself still more in the search after definiteness. a deep and sudden silence possessed the synagogue; the very sobs of the unseeing women were checked. only the sough of the storm, the ceaseless plash of the torrent, went on as before. without, the busy life of london pulsed, unchecked by the tempest; within, the little synagogue was given over to mystery and nameless awe. the sneering hunchback took the holy scroll from the nerveless hands of the lithuanian, and waved it as in derision. "blasted! harmless!" he cried. "the great name itself mocked by the elements! so this is what ye toil and sweat for--to store up gold that his words may be inscribed finely on choice parchment; and then this is how he laughs at your toil and your self-sacrifice. listen to him no more; give not up the seventh day to idleness when your lord worketh his lightnings thereon. blind yourselves no longer over old-fashioned pages, dusty and dreary. rise up against him and his law, for he is moved with mirth at your mummeries. he and his angels laugh at you--heaven is merry with your folly. what hath he done for his chosen people for their centuries of anguish and martyrdom? it is for his plaything that he hath _chosen_ you. he hath given you over into the hand of the spoiler; ye are a byword among nations; the followers of the victorious christ spit in your faces. here in england your lot is least hard; but even here ye eat your scanty bread with sorrow and travail. sleep may rarely visit your eyes; your homes are noisome styes; your children perish around you; ye go down in sorrow to the grave. rouse yourselves, and be free men. waste your lives neither for god nor man. or, if you will worship, worship the christ, whose ministers will pour gold upon you. eat, drink, and be merry, for to-morrow ye die." a charmed silence still hung over his auditors. their resentment, their horror, was dead; a waft of fiery air seemed to blow over their souls, an intoxicating flush of evil thoughts held riot in their hearts. they felt their whole spirit move under the sway of the daring speaker, who now seemed to them merely to put into words thoughts long suppressed in their own hearts, but now rising into active consciousness. yes, they had been fools: they would free themselves, and quaff the wine of life before the angel of death, azrael, spilled the goblet. moshé grinwitz's melancholy eyes blazed with sympathetic ardour. "hush, miserable blasphemer!" faltered the great rav rotchinsky, who alone could find his tongue. "the guardian of israel neither slumbereth nor sleepeth." the hunchback wheeled round and cast a chilling glance at the venerable man. then, smiling, "the maidens of england are beautiful," he said. "they are even fairer than the women of brody." the great rav turned pale, but his eyes shone. he struck out feebly with his arms, as though beating back some tempting vision. "you and i have spoken together before, rabbi," said the hunchback. "we shall speak again--about women, wine, and other things. your beard is long and white, but many days of sunshine are still before you, and the darkness of the grave is afar." the rabbi tried to mutter a prayer, but his lips only beat tremulously together. "profane mocker," he muttered at length, "go to thy work and thy wine and thy pleasure, if thou wouldst desecrate the sacred sabbath-day; but tempt not others to sin with thee. begone; and may the holy one, blessed be he, blast thee with his lightnings." "the holy one blasteth only that which is holy," grimly rejoined the dwarfish stranger, exhibiting the scroll, while a low sound of applause went up from the audience. "said i not, ye were a sport and a mockery unto him? ye assemble in your multitude for prayer, and the vapour of your piety but prepares the air for the passage of his arrows. ye adorn his scroll with bells and chains, and the gilded metal but draws his lightnings." he looked around the room and a cat-like gleam of triumph stole into his wonderful eyes as he noted the effect of his words. he paused, and again for a moment the tense, awful silence reigned, emphasized by the loud but decreasing patter of the rain. this time it was broken in a strange, unexpected fashion. "_yisgadal, veyiskadash shemé rabbo_," rang out a clear, childish voice from the rear of the synagogue. a little orphan child, who had come to repeat the _kaddish_, the hebrew mourners' unquestioning acknowledgment of the supreme goodness, had fallen into a sleep, overcome by the heat, and had slept all through the storm. awakening now amid a universal silence, the poor little fellow instinctively felt that the congregation was waiting for him to pronounce the prayer. alone of the male worshippers he had neither seen the blaspheming hunchback nor listened to his words. the hunchback's handsome face was distorted with a scowl; he stamped his broad splay-foot, but hearing no verbal interruption, the child, its eyes piously closed, continued its prayer-- "_in the world which he hath created...._" "the rain has ceased, brethren," huskily whispered the hunchback, for his words seemed to stick in his throat. "come outside and i will tell you how to enjoy this world, for world-to-come there is none." not a figure stirred. the child's treble went unfalteringly on. the stranger hurried toward the door. arrived there, he looked back. moshé grinwitz alone followed him. he hurled the scroll at the child's head, but the lad just then took the three backward steps which accompany the conclusion of the prayer. the scroll dashed itself against the wall; the stranger was gone and with him moshé grinwitz. a great wave of trembling passed through the length and breadth of the synagogue; the men drew long breaths, as if some heavy and sulphurous vapour had been dissipated from the atmosphere; the child lifted up with difficulty the battered scroll, kissed it and handed it to his neighbour, who deposited it reverently in the ark; a dazzling burst of sunshine flooded the room from above, and transmuted the floating dust into the golden shafts of some celestial structure; the cantor and the congregation continued the words of the service at the point interrupted, as though all the strange episode had been a dream. they did not speak or wonder among themselves at it; nor did the rabbi allude to it in the marvellous exhortation that succeeded the service, save at its close, when he reminded them that on the morrow they must observe a solemn fast. but ever afterward they shunned moshé grinwitz as a leper; for the sight of him recalled his companion in blasphemy, the atheist and socialist propagandist, who had insidiously crept into their midst, after perverting and crazing their fellow as a preliminary; and the thought of the strange hunchback set their blood tingling and their brain surging with wild fancies and audacious thoughts. the tidings of their misfortune induced a few benevolent men to join in purchasing a new scroll of the law for them, and before the feast of consecration of this precious possession was well over, the once vivid images of that stormy and disgraceful scene were as shadows in the minds of men not unaccustomed to heated synagogal discussions, and not altogether strangers to synagogal affrays. "_she will do him good and not evil all the days of her life._"--prov. xxxi. . as moshé grinwitz followed his new-found friend down the narrow windings that led to his own home, his whole being surrendered itself to the new delicious freedom. the burst of sunshine that greeted him almost as soon as he crossed the threshold of the synagogue seemed to him to typify the new life that was to be his. he drew up his gaunt form to his full height, stiffened his curved shoulders, bent by much stooping over his machine, and adjusted his high hat firmly on his head. it was not a restful, placid feeling that now possessed him; rather a busy ferment of ideas, a stirring of nerve currents, an accumulation of energy striving to discharge itself, a mercurial flowing of the blood. the weight of old life-long conceptions, nay, the burden of old learning, of which his store had been vast, was cast off. he did not know what he should do with the new life that tingled in his veins; he only felt alive in every pore. "ha! brother!" he shouted to the hunchback, who was hurrying on before. "these fools in the synagogue would do better to come out and enjoy the fine weather." "they breathe the musty air to offer it up as a sweet incense," responded the dwarf, slackening his steps to allow his companion to come up with him. their short walk was diversified by quite a number of incidents. a driver lashed his horse so savagely that the animal bolted; two children walking hand in hand suddenly began to fight; a foreign-looking, richly dressed gentleman, half-drunk, staggered along. moshé felt it a shame that one wealthy man should wear a heavy gold chain, which would support a poor family for a month; but ere his own temptation had gathered to a head, the poor gentleman was felled by a sudden blow, and a respectably clad figure vanished down an alley with the coveted spoil. moshé felt glad, and made no attempt to assist the victim, and his attention was immediately attracted by some boys, who commenced to tie a cracker to a cat's tail. occupied by all these observations, moshé suddenly noted with a start that they had reached the house in which he lived. his companion had already entered the passage, for the door was always ajar, and moshé had the impression that it was very kind of his new friend to accept his invitation to visit him. he felt very pleased, and followed him into the passage, but no sooner had he done so than an impalpable cloud of distrust seemed to settle upon him. the house was a tall, old-fashioned and grimy structure, which had been fine, and even stately, a century before, but which now sheltered a dozen families, mainly jewish. moshé grinwitz's one room was situated at the very top, its walls forming part of the roof. every flight of stairs moshé went up, his spirit grew darker and darker, as if absorbing the darkness that hung around the cobwebbed, massive balustrades, upon which no direct ray of sunlight ever fell; and by the time he had reached the dusky landing outside his own door the vague uneasiness had changed into a horrible definite conception; a memory had come back upon him which set his heart thumping guiltily and anxiously in his bosom. his wife! his pure, virtuous, god-fearing wife! how was he to make her understand? but immediately a thought came, by which the burden of shame and anxiety was half lifted. his wife was not at home; she would still be in the synagogue of love and mercy, where, mercifully blinded by the curtain, she, perhaps, was still ignorant of the part he had played. he turned suddenly to his companion, and caught the vanishing traces of an ugly scowl wrinkling the high white forehead under the fur cap. the hunchback's hair burnt like fire on the background of the gloom; his eyes flashed lightning. "probably my wife is in the synagogue," said moshé. "if so, she has the key, and we can't get in." "the key matters little," hissed the hunchback. "but you must first tear down this thing." moshé's eyes followed in wonder the direction of his companion's long, white forefinger, and rested on the _mezuzah_, where, in a tin case, the holy verses and the name hung upon the door-post. "tear it down?" repeated moshé. "tear it down!" replied the hunchback. "never will i enter a home where this superstitious gew-gaw is allowed to decorate the door." moshé hesitated; the thought of what his wife would say, again welled up strongly within him; all his new impious daring seemed to be melting away. but a mocking glance from the cruel eyes thrilled through him. he put his hand on the _mezuzah_, then the unbroken habit of years asserted its sway, and he removed the finger which had lain on the name and kissed it. instantly another semi-transformation of his thoughts took place; he longed to take the hunchback by the throat. but it was an impotent longing, for when a low hiss of intense scorn and wrath was breathed from the clenched lips of his companion, he made a violent tug at the firmly fastened _mezuzah_. it was half-loosed from the woodwork when, from behind the door, there issued in clear, womanly tones the solemn hebrew words:-- "_blessed is the man that walketh not in the council of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful._" it was rebecca grinwitz commencing the book of psalms, which she read through every sabbath afternoon. a violent shudder agitated moshé grinwitz's frame; he paused with his hand on the _mezuzah_, struggled with himself awhile, then kissed his finger again, and, turning to defy the scorn of his companion, saw that he had slipped noiselessly downstairs. a sob of intense relief burst from moshé's lips. "rivkoly, rivkoly!" he cried hysterically, beating at the door; and in another moment he was folded in the quiet haven of his wife's arms. "who told thee it was i?" said rebecca, after a moment of delicious happiness for both. "i told them not to alarm thee, nor to spoil thy enjoyment of the sermon, because i knew thou wouldst be uneasy and be wanting to leave the synagogue if thou knewest i had fainted." "no one told me thou hadst fainted!" moshé exclaimed, instantly forgetting his own perturbation. "and yet thou didst guess it!" said rebecca, a happy little smile dimpling her pale cheek, "and came away after me." then, her face clouding, "the _satan mekatrig_ has tempted us both away from synagogue," she said, "and even when i commence to say _tehillim_ (psalms) at home, he interrupts me by sending me my darling husband." moshé kissed her in acknowledgment of the complimentary termination of a sentence begun with unquestionable gloom. "but what made my rivkoly faint?" he asked, glad, on reflection, that his wife's misconception obviated the necessity of explanations. "they ought to have opened the window at the back of the women's room." rebecca shuddered. "god forbid!" she cried. "it wasn't the heat--it was _that_." her eyes stared a moment at some unseen vision. "what?" cried moshé, catching the contagion of horror. "he would have come in," she said. "who would have come in?" he gasped. "the _satan mekatrig_," replied his wife. "he was outside, and he glared at me as if i prevented his coming in." a nervous silence followed. moshé's heart beat painfully. then he laughed with ghastly merriment. "thou didst fall asleep from the heat," he said, "and hadst an evil dream." "no, no," protested his wife earnestly. "as sure as i stand here, no! i was looking into my _chumosh_ (pentateuch), following the reading of the _torah_, and all at once i felt something plucking my eyes off my book and turning my head to look through the window immediately behind me. i wondered what _satan mekatrig_ was distracting my thoughts from the service. for a long time i resisted, but when the reading ceased for a moment the temptation overcame me and i turned and saw him." "how looked he?" moshé asked in a whisper that strove in vain not to be one. "do not ask me," rebecca replied, with another shudder. "a little crooked demon with red hair, and a fur cap, and a white forehead, and baleful eyes, and a cock's talons for toes." again moshé laughed, a strange, hollow laugh. "little fool!" he said, "i know the man. he is only a brother-jew--a poor cutter or cigar-maker who laughs at _yiddishkeit_ (judaism), because he has no wife like mine to show him the heavenly light. why, didst thou not see him afterward? but no, thou must have been gone by the time he came inside." "what i saw was no man," returned rebecca, looking at him sternly. "no earthly being could have stopped my heart with his glances. it was the _satan mekatrig_ himself, who goeth to and fro on the earth, and walketh up and down in it. i must have been having wicked thoughts indeed this sabbath, thinking of my new dress, for my sabbath angel to have deserted me, and to let the disturber and the tempter assail me unchecked." the poor, conscience-stricken woman burst into tears. "my rivkoly have wicked thoughts!" said moshé incredulously, as he smoothed her cheek. "if my rivkoly puts on a new dress in honour of the sabbath, is not the dear god pleased? why, where _is_ thy new dress?" "i have changed it for an old one," she sobbed. "i do not want to see the demon again." "the _satan mekatrig_ has no real existence, i tell thee," said moshé, irritated. "he only means our own inward thoughts, that distract us in the performance of the precepts; our own inward temptations to go astray after our eyes and after our hearts." "moshé!" rebecca exclaimed in a shocked tone, "have i married an epikouros after all? my father, the rav, peace be unto him, always said thou hadst the makings of one--that thou didst ask too many questions." "well, whether there is a _satan_ or not," retorted her husband, "thou couldst not have seen him; for the person thou describest is the man i tell thee of." "and thou keepest company with such a man," she answered; "a man who scoffs at _yiddishkeit_! may the holy one, blessed be he, forgive thee! now i know why we have no children, no son to say _kaddish_ after us." and rebecca wept bitterly--for the children she did not possess. their common cause of grief coming thus unexpectedly into their consciousness softened them toward one another and dispelled the gathering irritation. both had a melancholy vision of themselves stretched out stiff and stark in their shrouds, with no filial _kaddish_ breaking in upon and gladdening their ears. o if their souls should be doomed to purgatory, with no son's prayers to release them! very soon they were sitting hand in hand, reading together the interrupted psalms. and a deep peace fell upon moshé grinwitz. so the immortal allegorist, john bunyan, must have felt when the mad longing to utter blasphemies and obscenities from the pulpit was stifled; and when he felt his soul once more in harmony with the spirit of good. so feel all men who have wrestled with a being in the darkness and prevailed. they were a curious contrast--the tall, sallow, stooping, black-bearded man, and the small, keen-eyed, plump, pleasant-looking, if not pretty woman, in her dark wig and striped cotton dress, and as they sat, steadily going through the whole collection of psalms to a strange, melancholy tune, fraught with a haunting and indescribable pathos, the shadows of twilight gathered unnoticed about the attic, which was their all in all of home. the iron bed, the wooden chairs, the gilt-framed _mizrach_ began to lose their outlines in the dimness. the psalms were finished at last, and then the husband and wife sat, still hand in hand, talking of their plans for the coming week. for once neither spoke of going to evening service at the synagogue of love and mercy, and when a silver ray of moonlight lay broad across the counterpane, and rebecca grinwitz, peering into the quiet sky that overhung the turbid alley, announced that three stars were visible, the devout couple turned their faces to the east and sang the hymns that usher out the sabbath. and when the evening prayer was over rebecca produced from the cupboard the plainly cut goblet of raisin wine, and the metal wine-cup, the green twisted waxlight, and the spice-box, wherewith to perform the beautiful symbolical ceremony of the _havdalah_, welcoming in the days of work, the six long days of dreary drudgery, with cheerful resignation to the will of the maker of all things--of the sabbath and the day of work, the light and the shadow, the good and the evil, blent into one divine harmony by his inscrutable wisdom and love. moshé filled the cup with raisin wine, and, holding it with his right hand, chanted a short majestic hebrew poem, whereof the burden was:-- "lo! god is my salvation; i will trust, and i will not be afraid. be with us light and joy, gladness and honour." then blessing the king of the universe, who had created the fruit of the vine, he placed the cup on the table and took up the spices, uttering a blessing over them as he did so. then having smelled the spice-box, he passed it on to his wife and spread out his hands toward the light of the spiral wax taper, reciting solemnly: "blessed be thou, o lord, our god, king of the universe, who createst the light of the fire." and then looking down at the shade made by his bent fingers, he took up the wine-cup again, and chanted, with especial fervour, and with a renewed sense of the sanctities and sweet tranquillities of religion: "blessed be thou, o lord our god, king of the universe, who makest a distinction between the holy and the non-holy, between light and darkness." "_as for that night, let darkness seize upon it._"--job iii. . it was _kol nidré_ night, the commencement of the great white fast, the day of atonement. throughout the jewish quarter there was an air of subdued excitement. the synagogues had just emptied themselves and everywhere men and women, yet under the solemn shadow of passionate prayer, were meeting and exchanging the wish that they might weather the fast safely. the night was dark and starless, as if nature partook of the universal mournfulness. solitary, though amidst a crowd, a slight, painfully thin woman shuffled wearily along, her feet clad in the slippers which befitted the occasion, her head bent, her worn cheek furrowed with still-falling tears. they were not the last dribblets of an exhausted emotion, not the meaningless, watery expression of over-excited sensibility. they were real, salt, bitter tears born of an intense sorrow. the long, harassing service, with its untiring demands upon the most exalted and the most poignant emotions, would have been a blessing if it had dulled her capacity for anguish. but it had not. poor rebecca grinwitz was still thinking of her husband. it was of him she thought, even when the ministers, in their long white cerements, were pouring forth their souls in passionate vocalization, now rising to a wail, now breaking to a sob, now sinking to a dread whisper; it was of him she thought when the weeping worshippers, covered from head to foot in their praying-shawls, rocked to and fro in a frenzy of grief, and battered the gates of heaven with fiery lyrics; it was of him she thought when she beat her breast with her clenched fist as she made the confession of sin and clamoured for forgiveness. sins enough she knew she had--but _his_ sin! ah! god, _his_ sin! for moshé had gone from bad to worse. he refused to reënter the synagogue where he had been so roughly handled. his speech became more and more profane. he said no more prayers; wore no more phylacteries. her peaceful home-life wrecked, her reliance on her husband gone, the poor wife clung to him, still hoping on. at times she did not believe him sane. gradually rumours of his mad behaviour on the sabbath on which she had fainted reached her ears, and remembering that his strangeness had begun from the sunday morning following that delicious afternoon of common psalm-saying, she was often inclined to put it all down to mental aberration. but then his talk--so clever, if so blasphemous; bristling with little pointed epigrams and maxims such as she had never before heard from him or any one else. he was full of new ideas, too, on politics and the social system and other unpractical topics, picturing endless potentialities of wealth and happiness for the labourer. meantime his wages had fallen by a third, owing to the loss of his former place, his master having been the president of the congregation of love and mercy. what wonder, therefore, if moshé grinwitz intruded upon all his wife's thoughts--devotional or worldly? in a very real sense he had become her _satan mekatrig_. up till to-night she had gone on hoping. for when the great white fast comes round, a mighty wave as of some subtle magnetism passes through the world of jews. men and women who have not obeyed one precept of judaism for a whole year suddenly awake to a remembrance of the faith in which they were born, and hasten to fast and pray, and abase themselves before the throne of mercy. the long-drawn, tremulous, stirring notes of the trumpet that ushers in the new year, seem to rally and gather together the dispersed of israel from every region of the underworld of unfaith and to mass them beneath the cope of heaven. and to-night surely the newly rooted nightshade of doubt would wither away in her husband's bosom. surely this one link still held him to the religion of his fathers; and this one link would redeem him and yet save his soul from the everlasting tortures of the damned. but this last hope had been doomed to disappointment. utterly unmoved by all the olden sanctities of the days of judgment that initiate the new year, the miserable man showed no signs of remorse when the more awful terrors of the day of atonement drew near--the last day of grace for the sinner, the day on which the divine sentence is sealed irrevocably. and so the wretched woman had gone to the synagogue alone. reaching home, she toiled up the black staircase and turned the handle of the door. as she threw open the door she uttered a cry. she saw nothing before her but a gigantic shadow, flickering grotesquely on the sloping walls and the slip of ceiling. it must be her own shadow, for other living occupant of the room she could see none. where was her husband? whither had he gone? why had he recklessly left the door unlocked? she looked toward the table gleaming weirdly with its white tablecloth; the tall wax _yom kippur_ candle, specially lit on the eve of the solemn fast and intended to burn far on into the next day, had all but guttered away, and the flame was quivering unsteadily under the influence of a draught coming from the carelessly opened window. rebecca shivered from head to foot; a dread presentiment of evil shook her soul. for years the candle had burnt steadily, and her life also had been steady and undisturbed. alas! it needed not the omen of the _yom kippur_ candle to presage woe. "may the dear god have mercy on me!" she exclaimed, bursting into fresh tears. hardly had she uttered the words when a monstrous black cat, with baleful green eyes, dashed from under the table, sprang upon the window-sill, and disappeared into the darkness, uttering a melancholy howl. almost frantic with terror, the poor woman dragged herself to the window and closed it with a bang, but ere the sash had touched the sill, something narrow and white had flashed from the room through the gap, and the reverberations made in the silent garret by the shock of the violently closed window were prolonged in mocking laughter. "well thrown, rav moshé!" said a grating voice. "now that you have at last conquered your reverence for a bit of tin and a morsel of parchment, i will honour your mansion with my presence." instantly rebecca felt a wild longing to join in the merriment and to laugh away her fears; but, muttering a potent talismanic verse, she turned and faced her husband and his guest. instinct had not deceived her--the new-comer was the hunchback of that fatal sabbath. this time she did not faint. "a strange hour and occasion to bring a visitor, moshé," she said sternly, her face growing even more rigid and white as she caught the nicotian and alcoholic reek of the two men's breaths. "your good _frau_ is not over-polite," said the visitor. "but it's _yom kippur_, and so i suppose she feels she must tell the truth." "i brought him, rivkoly, to convince thee what a fool thou wast to assert that thou hadst seen--but _i_ mustn't be impolite," he broke off, with a coarse laugh. "there's no call for _me_ to tell the truth because it's _yom kippur_. down at the club we celebrated the occasion by something better than truth--a jolly spread! and our good friend here actually stood a bottle of champagne! champagne, rivkoly! think of it! real, live champagne, like that which fizzes and sparkles on the table of the lord mayor. oh, he's a jolly good fellow! and so said all of us, too. and yet thou sayest he isn't a fellow at all." a drunken leer overspread his sallow face, and was rendered more ghastly by the flame leaping up from the expiring candle. "_roshah_, sinner!" thundered the woman. then looking straight into the cruel eyes of the hunchback, her wan face shining with the stress of a great emotion, her meagre form convulsed with fury, "avaunt, _satan mekatrig_!" she screamed. "get thee down from my house--get thee down. in god's name, get thee down--to hell." even the brazen-faced hunchback trembled before her passion; but he grasped his friend's hot hand in his long, nervous fingers, and seemed to draw courage from the contact. "if i go, i take your husband!" he hissed, his great eyes blazing in turn. "he will leave me no more. send me away, if you will." "yes, thou must not send my friend away like this," hiccoughed moshé grinwitz. "come, make him welcome, like the good wife thou wast wont to be." rebecca uttered a terrible cry, and, cowering down on the ground, rocked herself to and fro. the drunkard appeared moved. "get up, rivkoly," he said, with a tremour in his tones. "to see thee one would think thou wast sitting _shivah_ over my corpse." he put out his hand as if to raise her up. "back!" she screamed, writhing from his grasp. "touch me not; no longer am i wife of thine." "hear you that, man?" said the hunchback eagerly. "you are free. i am here as a witness. think of it; you are free." "yes, i am free," repeated moshé, with a horrible, joyous exultation on his sickly visage. the gigantic shadow of himself that bent over him, cast by the dying flame of the _yom kippur_ candle, seemed to dance in grim triumph, his long side-curls dangling in the spectral image like barbaric ornaments in the ears of a savage, while the unshapely, fantastic shadow of the hunchback seemed to nod its head in applause. then, as the flame leaped up in an irregular jet, the distorted shadow of the tempter intertwined itself in a ghastly embrace with her own. with frozen blood and stifled breath the tortured woman turned away, and, as her eyes fell upon the many-cracked looking-glass which adorned the mantelpiece, she saw, or her overwrought fancy seemed to see--her husband's dead face, wreathed with a slavering serpent in the place of the phylacteries he had ceased to wear, and surrounded by endless perspectives of mocking marble-browed visages, with fiery snakes for hair and live coals for eyes. she felt her senses slipping away from her grasp, but she struggled wildly against the heavy vapour that seemed to choke her. "moshé!" she shrieked, in mad, involuntary appeal for help, as she clutched the mantel and closed her eyes to shut out the hideous vision. "i am no longer thy husband," tauntingly replied the man. "i may not touch thee." "hear you that, woman?" came the sardonic voice of the hunchback. "you are free. i am here as a witness." "i am here as a witness," a thousand mocking voices seemed to hiss in echoed sibilance. a terrible silence followed. at last she turned her white shrunken face, which the contrast of the jet-black wig rendered weird and death-like, toward the man who had been her husband, and looked long and slowly, yearningly yet reproachfully, into his bloodshot eyes. again a great wave of agitation shook the man from head to foot. "don't look at me like that, rivkoly," he almost screamed. "i won't have it. i won't see thee. curse that candle! why does it flicker on eternally and not blot thee from my sight?" he puffed violently at the tenacious flame and a pall fell over the room. but the next instant the light leaped up higher than ever. "moshé!" rebecca shrieked in wild dismay. "dost thou forget it is _kol nidré_ night? how canst thou dare to blow out a light? besides, it is the _yom kippur_ candle--it is our life and happiness for the new year. if you blow it out, i swear, by my soul and the great name, that you shall never look upon my face again." "it is because i do not wish to see thy face that i will blow it out," he replied, laughing hysterically. "no, no!" she pleaded. "i will go away rather. it is nearly dead of itself; let it die." "no! it takes too long dying; 'tis like thy father, the rav, who had the corpse-watchers so long in attendance that one died himself," said moshé grinwitz with horrible laughter. "i will kill it!" and bending down low over the broad socket of the candlestick, so that his head loomed gigantic on the ceiling, he silenced forever the restless tongue of fire. immediately a thick blackness, as of the grave, settled upon the chamber. hollow echoes of the blasphemer's laughter rang and resounded on every side. myriads of dreadful faces shaped themselves out of the gloom, and mowed and gibbered at the woman. at the window, the green, baleful eyes of the black cat glared with phosphorescent light. a wreath of fiery serpents twisted themselves in fiendish contortions, shedding lurid radiance upon the cruel marble brow they garlanded. an unspeakable eeriness, an unnameable unholiness, floated with far-sweeping, rustling pinions through the darkness. with stifling throat that strove in vain to shriek, the woman dashed out through the well-known door, fled wildly down the stairs, pursued at every step by the sardonic merriment, met at every corner by the gibbering shapes--fled on, dashing through the heavy, ever-open street door into the fresher air of the night--on, instinctively on, through the almost deserted streets and alleys, where only the vile gin-houses gleamed with life--on, without pause or rest, till she fell exhausted upon the dusty door-step of the synagogue of love and mercy. "_all israel have a portion in the world to come._"--ethics of the fathers. the aged keeper of the synagogue rushed out at the noise. "save me! for god's sake, save me, reb yitzchok!" cried the fallen figure. "save me from the _satan mekatrig_! i have no home--no husband--any more! take me in!" "take you in?" said reb yitzchok pityingly, for he dimly guessed something of her story. "where can i take you in? you know my wife and i are allowed but one tiny room here." "take me in!" repeated the woman. "i will pass the night in the synagogue. i must pray for my husband's soul, for he has no son to pray for him. let me come in! save me from the _satan mekatrig_!" "you would certainly meet many a _satan mekatrig_ in the streets during the night," said the old man musingly. "but have you no friends to go to?" "none--none--but god! let me in that i may go to him. give me shelter, and he will have mercy on you when the great _tekiah_ sounds to-morrow night!" without another word reb yitzchok went into his room, returned with the key, and threw open the door of the women's synagogue, revealing a dazzling flood of light from the numerous candles, big and little, which had been left burning in their sconces. the low curtain that served as a partition had been half rolled back by devoted husbands who had come to inquire after their wives at the end of the service, and the synagogue looked unusually large and bright, though it was hot and close, with lingering odours of breaths, and snuff, and tallow, and smelling-salts. with a sob of infinite thankfulness rebecca dropped upon a wooden bench. "would you like a blanket?" said the old man. "no, no, god bless you!" she replied. "i must watch and weep, not sleep. for the scroll of judgment is written and the book of life is all but closed." with a pitying sigh the old man turned and left her alone for the night in the synagogue of love and mercy. for a few moments rebecca sat, prayerless, her soul full of a strange peace. then she found herself counting the chimes as they rolled out sonorously from a neighbouring steeple: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve! * * * * * starting up suddenly when the last stroke ceased to vibrate on the air, rebecca grinwitz found, to her surprise, that a merciful sleep must have overtaken her eyelids, that hours must have passed since midnight had struck, and that the great day of atonement must have dawned. both compartments of the synagogue were full of the restless stir of a praying multitude. with a sense of something vaguely strange, she bent her eyes downward on her neighbour's _machzor_. the woman immediately pushed the prayer-book more toward rebecca, with a wonderful smile of love and tenderness, which seemed to go right through rebecca's heart, though she could not clearly remember ever having seen her neighbour before. nor, wonderingly stealing a first glance around, could she help feeling that the entire congregation was somewhat strange and unfamiliar, though she could not quite think why or how. the male worshippers, too, why did they all wear the shroud-like garments, usually confined on this solemn occasion to the ministers and a few extra-devout personages? and had not some transformation come over the synagogue? was it only the haze before her tear-worn eyes or did dim perspectives of worshippers stretch away boundlessly on all sides of the clearly seen area, which still retained the form of the room she knew so well? but the curious undercurrent of undefined wonder lasted but a moment. in another instant she was reconciled to the scene. all was familiar and expected; once more she was taking part in divine service with no sorrowful thoughts of her husband coming to distract her, her whole soul bathing in and absorbing the peace of god which passeth all understanding. then suddenly she felt a stir of recollection coming over her, and a stream of love warming her heart, and looking up at her neighbour's face she saw with joyous content that it was that of her mother. the service went on, mother and daughter following it in the book they had in common. after several hours, during which the huge, far-spreading congregation alternated with the cantor in intoning the beautiful poems of the liturgy of the day, the white curtain with its mystic cabalistic insignia was rolled back from the ark of the covenant and two scrolls were withdrawn therefrom. rebecca noted with joy that the ark was filled with scrolls big and little, in rich mantles, and that those taken out were swathed in satin beautifully embroidered, and that the ornaments and the musically tinkling bells were of pure gold. then some of the worshippers were called up in turn to the _al memor_ to be present at the reading of a section of the law. they were all well known to rebecca. first came moses ben amram. he walked humbly up to the _al memor_ with bowed head, his long _talith_ enveloping him from crown to foot. rebecca saw his face well, for though it was covered with a thick veil, it shone luminously through its draping. "bless ye the lord, who is blessed," said moses ben amram, the words seeming all the sweeter from his lips for the slight stammering with which they were uttered. "blessed be the lord, who is blessed to all eternity and beyond," responded the endless congregation, in a low murmur that seemed to be taken up and vibrated away and away into the infinite distances for ever and ever. "blessed be the lord, who is blessed to all eternity and beyond," echoed the melodious voice. then, in words that seemed to roll and fill the great gulfs of space with a choral music of sacred joy, moses continued, "blessed be thou, o lord, our god, the king of the universe, who hath chosen us from all peoples, and given unto us his law. blessed art thou, o lord, who givest the law." after him came aaron ben amram, whose white beard reached to his knees. abraham ben terah, isaac ben abraham, and jacob ben isaac--all venerable figures, with faces which rebecca felt were radiant with infinite tenderness and compassion for such poor helpless children as herself--were also called up, and after the patriarchs, elijah the prophet. lastly came a white-haired, stooping figure, whose gait and whose every gesture told rebecca that it was her father. how glad she felt to see him thus honoured! as she listened to his quavering tones the dusty tombstones of dead years seemed rolled away, and all their simple joys and griefs to live again, not quite as of yore, but transfigured by some solemn pathos. when the reading of the law was at an end, david ben jesse, a royal-looking graybeard, held up the scroll to the four corners of space, and it was rolled up by his son solomon, the preacher; the carrying of it to the ark being given to rabbi akiba, whose features wore a strange, ecstatic look, as though ennobled by suffering. the vast multitude rose with a great rustling, the sound whereof reached afar, and sang a hymn of rejoicing, so that the whole universe was filled with melody. rebecca alone could not sing. for the first time she missed her husband, moshé. why was he not here, like all the other friends of her life, whose beloved faces surrounded her on every side and made a sweet atmosphere of security for her soul? what was he doing outside of this mighty assembly? why was he not there to have the sacred duty of carrying the scroll entrusted to him? she felt the tears pouring down her cheeks. she was ready to sink to the earth with sudden lassitude. "mother! dear mother!" she cried, "i feel so faint." "you must have some air, my child, my rivkoly," said the mother, the dearly remembered voice falling for the first time with ineffable sweetness on rebecca's ears. and she put out her hand, and lo! it grew longer and longer, till it reached up to the skylight, and then suddenly the whole roof vanished and the free air of heaven blew in like celestial balm upon rebecca's hot forehead. yet she noted with wonder that the holy candles burnt on steadily, unfluttered by the refreshing breeze. and then, lo! the starless heavens above her opened out in indescribable glory. the dark budded into ineffable beauty; a supernally pure, luminous splendour, transcendently dazzling, filled the infinite depths of the firmament with melodious coruscations of infinite love made visible, and white-winged hosts of radiant cherubim sang "holy, holy, holy is the lord of hosts, the whole earth is full of his glory." and all the vast congregation fell upon their faces and cried "holy, holy, holy is the lord of hosts, the whole earth is full of his glory." and moses ben amram arose, and he lifted his hands toward the splendour and he cried, "lord, lord god, merciful and gracious, long-suffering and full of kindness and truth. lo, thou sealest the seals before the twilight. seal thy people, i pray thee, in the book of life, though thou blot me out. forgive them, and pardon their transgressions for the sake of the merits of the patriarchs and for the sake of the merits of the martyrs, who have shed their blood like water and offered their flesh to the flames for the sanctification of the name. forgive them, and blot out their transgressions." and all the congregation said "amen." then a surging wave of hope rose within rebecca's breast, and it lifted her to her feet and stretched out her arms toward the splendour. and she said: "lord god, forgive thou my husband, for he is in the hand of the tempter. save him from the power of the evil one by thine outstretched arm and thy mighty hand. save him and pardon him, lord, in thine infinite mercy." then a strange, dread, anxious silence fell upon the vast spaces of the firmament, till from the heart of the celestial splendour there fell a word that floated through the universe like the sweet blended strains of all sweet instruments, a word that mingled all the harmonies of winds and waters and mortal and angelic voices into one divine cadence--_salachti_. and with the sweet word of forgiveness lingering musically in her charmed ears, and the sweet assurance at her heart that she, the poor, miserable tailor's wife, despised and trodden under foot by the rich and by the heathen around, could lean upon the breast of an almighty father, who had prepared for her immortal glories and raptures amid all her loved ones in a world where he would wipe the tears from off all eyes, rebecca grinwitz awoke to find the bright morning sunshine streaming in upon her and the fresh morning air blowing in upon her fevered brow from the skylight which reb yitzchok had just opened. "_surely he shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler._"--psalm xci. . a shroud of newly fallen snow enveloped the dead earth, over which the dull, murky sky looked drearily down. within his fireless garret, which was almost empty of furniture, moshé grinwitz lay, wasted away to a shadow. his beard was unkempt, his cheek-bones were almost fleshless, his feverish eyes large and staring, his side-curls tangled and untended. there did not seem enough strength left in the frame to resist a babe; yet, when he coughed, the whole skeleton was agitated as though with galvanic energy. "will he never come back?" he murmured uneasily. "fear not; so far as lies in my power, i shall be with you always," replied the voice of the hunchback as he entered the room. "but, alas! i have little comfort to bring you. one pawnbroker after another refused to advance anything on my waistcoat, and at last i sold it right out for a few pence. see; here is some milk. it is warm." moshé tried to clutch the jug, but fell back, helpless. a shade of anxiety passed over his companion's face. "have i miscalculated?" he muttered. he held the jug to the sick man's lips, supporting his head with the other. moshé drank, then fell back, and pressed his friend's hand gratefully. "poor moshé," said the hunchback. "what a shame i tossed into the gutter the gold my father left me seven months ago! how could i foresee you would be struck down with this long sickness?" "no, no, don't regret it," quavered moshé, his white face lighting up. "we had jolly old times, jolly old times, while the money lasted. oh, you've been a good friend to me--a good friend. if i had never known you, i should have passed away into nothingness, without ever having known the mad joys of wine and riot. i have had wild, voluptuous moments of revelry and mirth. no power in heaven or hell can take away the past. and then the sweet freedom of doing as you will, thinking as you will, flying with wings unclogged by superstition--to you i owe it all! and since i have been ill you have watched over me like--like a woman." his words died away in a sob, and then there was silence, except when his cough sounded strange and hollow in the bare room. presently he went on:-- "how unjust rivkoly was to you! she once said"--here the speaker laughed a little melancholy laugh--"that you were the _satan mekatrig_ in person." "poor afflicted woman!" said his friend, with pitying scorn. "in this nineteenth century, when among the wise the belief in the gods has died out, there are yet fools alive who believe in the devil. but she could only have meant it metaphorically." the sick man shook his head. "she said the evil influence--of course, it seemed evil to her--you wielded over her thoughts, and i suppose mine, too, was more than human--was supernatural." "oh, i don't say i'm not more strong-minded than most people. of course i am, or i should be howling hymns at the present moment. but why does a soldier catch fire under the eye of his captain? what magnetism enables one man to bewitch a nation? why does one friend's unspoken thought find unuttered echo in another's? go to science, study mesmerism, hypnotism, thought-transference, and you will learn all about me and my influence." "yes, rivkoly never had any idea of anything outside her prayer-book. rivkoly--" "mention not her name to me," interrupted the hunchback harshly. "a woman who deserts her husband--" "she swore to go if i blew out the _yom kippur_ light. and i did." "a woman who goes out of her wits because her husband gets into his!" sneered the other. "doubtless her superstitious fancy conjured up all sorts of sights in the dark. ho! ho! ho!" and he laughed a ghastly laugh. "happily she will never come back. she's evidently able to get along without you. probably she has another husband more to her pious taste." moshé raised himself convulsively. "don't say that again!" he screamed. "_my_ rivkoly!" then a violent cough shook him and his white lips were reddened with blood. the cold eyes of the hunchback glittered strangely as he saw the blood. "at any rate," he said, more gently, "she cannot break the mighty oath she sware. she will never come back." "no, she will never come back," the sick man groaned hopelessly. "but it was cruel of me to drive her away. would to g--" the hunchback hastily put his hand on the speaker's mouth, and tenderly wiped away the blood. "when i am better," said moshé, with sudden resolution, "i will seek her out: perhaps she is starving." "as you will. you know she can always earn her bread and water at the cap-making. but you are your own master. when you are rid of this sickness--which will be soon--you shall go and seek her out and bring her to abide with you." the words rang sardonically through the chamber. "how good you are!" moshé murmured, as he sank back relieved. the hunchback leaned over the bed till his gigantic brow almost touched the sick man's, till his wonderful eyes lay almost on his. "and yet you will not let me hasten on your recovery in the way i proposed to you." "no, no," moshé said, trembling all over. "what matters if i lie here a week more or less?" "lie here!" hissed his friend. "in a week you will lie rotting." a wild cry broke from the blood-bespattered lips! "i am not dying! i am not dying! you said just now i should be better soon." "so you will; so you will. but only if we have money. our last farthing, our last means of raising a farthing, is gone. without proper food, without a spark of fire, how can you hold out a week in this bitter weather? no, unless you would pass from the light and the gladness of life to the gloom and the shadow of the tomb, you must be instantly baptized." "_shmad_ myself! never!" said the sick man, the very word conjuring up an intolerable loathing, deeper than reason; and then another violent fit of coughing shook him. "see how this freezing atmosphere tells on you. you must take christian gold, i tell you. thus only shall i be able to get you fire--to get you fire," repeated the hunchback with horrible emphasis. "you call yourself a disbeliever. if so, what matters? why should you die for a miserable prejudice? but you are no true infidel. so long as you shrink from professing any religion under the sun, you still possess a religion. your unfaith is but foam-drift on the deep sea of faith; but lip-babble while your heart is still infected with superstition. come, bid me fetch the priest with his crucifix and holy water. let us fool him to the top of his bent. rouse yourself; be a man and live." "no, no, brother! i will be a man and die." "fool!" hissed the hunchback. "it fits not one who has lived for months by christian gold to be so nice." "you lie!" moshé gasped. "the seven months that you and i have known each other, it is christian gold that has warmed you and fed you and rejoiced you, and that, melted down, has flowed in your veins as wine. whence, then, took i the money for our riotings?" "from your father, you said." "yes, from my spiritual father," was the grim reply. "no, having that belief, which _you_ still lack, in the hollowness and mockery of all save pleasure, i became a christian. for a time they paid me well, but as soon as i had been put on the annual report i had served my purpose and the supplies fell off. i could be converted again in another town or country, but i dare not leave you. but you are a new man, and should i drag you into the fold they will reward us both well. instead of subsisting on dry bread and milk you will fare on champagne and turtle-soup once more." moshé sat up and gazed wildly one long second at the tempter. he looked at his own fleshless arms, and shuddered. he felt the icy hand of death upon him. he knew himself a young man still. must he go down into the eternal darkness, and be folded in the freezing clasp of the king of terrors, while the warm bosom of life offered itself to his embrace? no; give him life, life, life, polluted and stained with hypocrisy, but still life, delicious life. the steely eyes of the hunchback watched the contest anxiously. suddenly a change came over the wildly working face--it fell back chill and rigid on the pillow, the eyes closed. the room seemed to fill with an impalpable, brooding vapour, as if a thick fog were falling outside. the watcher caught madly at his friend's wrist and sought to detect a pulsation. his eyes glowed with horrible exultant relief. "not yet, not yet, brother azrael," he said mockingly, as if addressing the impalpable vapour; "thou who art wholly woven of eyes, canst thou not see that it is not yet time to throw the fatal pellet into his throat? back, back!" the vapour thickened. the minutes passed. the hunchback peered expectant at the corpse-like face on the dingy pillow. at last the eyes opened, but in them shone a strange, rapt expression. "thank god, rivkoly!" the dying lips muttered. "i knew thou wouldst come." as he spoke there was a frantic beating at the door. the hunchback's face was convulsed. "hasten, hasten, brother azrael!" he cried. the vapour lightened a little. moshé grinwitz seemed to rally. his face glowed with eagerness. "open the door! open the door!" he cried. "it's rivkoly--my rivkoly!" the vain battering at the door grew fiercer, but none noted it in the house. since the shadow of the hunchback had first fallen within that thickly crowded human nest, the doves had become hawks, the hawks vultures. all was discord and bickering. "lie still," said the hunchback; "'tis but your fevered imagination. drink." he put the jug to the dying man's lips, but it was dashed violently from his hand and shattered into a hundred pieces. "give me nothing bought with christian money!" gasped moshé hoarsely, his breath rattling painfully in his throat. "never will i knowingly gain by the denial of the unity of god." "then die like a dog!" roared the hunchback. "hasten, brother azrael!" the vapour folded itself thickly about the room. the rickety door was shaken frantically, as by a great gale. "moshé! moshé!" shrieked a voice. "let me in--me--thy rivkoly! in god's name, let me in! i bring thee a precious gift. or art thou dead, dead, dead? my god, why didst thou not cause me to know he was ill before!" "your husband is dying," said the hunchback. "when he is dead, you shall look upon his face. but he may not look upon your face again. you have sworn it." "devil!" cried the fierce voice of the woman. "i swore it on _kol nidré_ night, when i had just asked the almighty to absolve me from all rash oaths. let me in, i tell you." "i will not have a sacred oath treated thus lightly," said the hunchback savagely. "i will keep your soul from sin." "cursed be thou to eternity of eternities!" replied the woman. "pray, moshé, pray for thy soul. pray, for thou art dying." "hear, o israel, the lord our god, the lord is one," rose the sonorous hebrew. "hear, o israel, the lord our god, the lord is one," wailed the woman. the very vapour seemed to cling round and prolong the vibrations of the sacred words. only the hunchback was silent. the mocking words died on his lips, and as the woman, with one last mighty blow, dashed in through the flying door, he seemed to glide past her and melt into the darkness of the staircase. rivkoly heeded not his contorted, malignant visage, crowned with its serpentine wreath of fiery hair; she flew straight through the heavy vapour, stooped and kissed the livid mouth, read in a moment the decree of death in the eyes, and then put something small and warm into her husband's fast chilling arms. "take it, moshé," she cried, "and comfort thy soul in death. 'tis thy child, for god has at last sent us a son. _yom kippur_ night--now six long months ago--i had a dream that god would forgive thee, and i was glad. but when i thought to go home to thee in the evening, i learnt that thou hadst been feasting all that dread day of atonement with the _satan mekatrig_; and my heart fell, for i knew that my dream was but the vain longing of my breast, and that through thine own misguided soul thou couldst never be saved from the eternal vengeance. then i went away, far from here, and toiled and lived hard and lone; and i believed not in my dream. but i prayed and prayed for thy soul, and lo! very soon i was answered; for i knew we should have a child. and then i entreated that it should be a son, to pray for thee, and perhaps win thee back to god, and to say the _kaddish_ after thee when thou shouldst come to die, though i knew not that thy death was at hand; and a few weeks back the almighty was gracious and merciful to me, and i had my wish." she ceased, her wan face radiant. the shadow of death could not chill her sublime faith, her simple, trustful hope. the husband was clasping the feebly whimpering babe to his frozen breast, and showering passionate kisses on its unconscious form. "rivkoly!" he whispered, as the tears rolled down his cheeks, "how pale and thin thou art grown! o god, my sin has been heavy!" "no, no," she cried, her loving hand in his. "it was the _satan mekatrig_ that led thee astray. i am well and strong. i will work for our child, and train it up to pray for thee and to love thee. i have named it jacob, for it shall wrestle with the recording angel and shall prevail." the hue of death deepened on moshé grinwitz's face, but it was overspread by a divine calm. "ah, the good old times we had at the _cheder_ in poland," he said. "the rabbi was sometimes cross, but we children were always in good spirits; and when the rejoicing of the law came round it was such fun carrying the candles stuck in hollowed apples, and gnawing at your candlestick as you walked. i always loved _simchath torah_, rivkoly. how long is it to the rejoicing?" "it will soon be here again, now passover is over," she said, pressing his hand. "is _pesach_ over?" he said mournfully. "i don't remember giving _seder_. why didst thou not remind me, rivkoly? it was so wrong of thee. thou knowest how i loved the sight of the table--the angels always seemed to hover about it. _chad gadyah! chad gadyah!_" he commenced to sing in a cracked, hoarse whisper. the child burst into a wail. "hush, hush, yaankely," said the mother, taking it to her breast. "a--a--ah!" a wild scream rose from moshé grinwitz's lips. "my _kaddish_! take not away my _kaddish_!" he sat up, with clammy, ghastly brow, and glared with sightless eyes, his arms groping. a thin stream of blood oozed from his mouth. "hear, o israel!" screamed the woman, as she put her hand to his mouth to stanch the blood. he beat her back wildly. "not thee! i want not thee! my _kaddish_!" came the mad, hoarse whisper. "i have blasphemed god! give me my _kaddish_! give me my _kaddish_!" she put the child into his arms, and he clutched it in his dying frenzy. as he felt its feeble form, the old divine peace came over his face. the babe's cries were hushed in fear. the mother was dumb and stony. and silently the vapour crawled in sluggish folds through the heavy air. but in a moment the silence was broken by a deep, stertorous rattle. moshé grinwitz's head fell back; his arms relaxed their hold of his child, which was caught with a wild cry to its mother's bosom. and the dark vapour lifted, and showed the three figures to the baleful, agonized eyes of the hunchback at the open door. * * * * * ix diary of a meshumad * * * * * ix diary of a meshumad[ ] _tchemnovosk, saturday (midnight)._--so! the first words have been written. for the first time in my life i have commenced a diary. will it prove the solace i have heard it is? shall i find these now cold, blank pages growing more and more familiar, till i shall turn to them as to a sympathetic friend; till this little book shall become that loved and trusted confidant for whom my lonely soul longs? instead of either black or white clergy, this record in black and white shall be my father confessor. our village pope, to whom i have so often confessed everything but the truth, would be indeed shocked, if he could gossip with this, his new-created brother. what a heap of roubles it would take to tranquillize him! ah, god! _ach_, god of israel! how is it possible that a man who has known the tenderest human ties should be so friendless, so solitary in his closing years, that not even in memory can he commune with a fellow-soul? verily, the old curse has wrought itself out, that penalty of apostasy which came to my mind the other day after nearly forty years of forgetfulness, that curse which has filled my spirit with shuddering awe, and driven me to seek daily communion through thee, little book, even with my own self of yesterday--"_and that soul shall be cut off from among its people._" yea, and from all others, too! for so many days and years caterina was my constant companion; i loved her as my own soul. yet was she but a sun that dazzled my eyes so that i could not gaze upon my own soul; but a veil between me and my dead youth. the sun has sunk forever below the horizon; the veil is rent. no phantom from the other world hovers to remind me of our happiness. those years, with all their raptures and successes, are a dull blank. it is the years of boyhood and youth which resurge in my consciousness; their tints are vivid, their tones are clear. why is this? is it caterina's death? is it old age? is it returning to these village scenes after half a lifetime spent in towns? is it the sight of the _izbas_, and their torpid, tow-haired, sheepskin-clad inhabitants, and the great slushy cabbage gardens, that has rekindled the ashen past into colours of flame? and yet, except our vodka-seller, there isn't a jew in the place. however it be, caterina's face is filmy, phantasmal, compared with my mother's. and mother died forty years ago; the grass of two short years grows over my wife's grave. and paul? he is living--he kissed me but a few moments back. yet _his_ face is far-away--elusive. the hues of life are on my father's--poor, ignorant, narrow-minded, warm-hearted father, whose heart i broke. happily i have not to bear the remembrance of his dying look, but can picture him as i saw him in those miserable, happy days. my father's kiss is warm upon the lips which my son's has just left cold. poor st. paul, living up there with your ideals and your theories like a dove in a balloon! and yet, _golubtchik_, how i love you, my handsome, gifted boy, fighting the battle of life so pluckily and well! ah! it is hard fighting when one is hampered by a conscience. is it your fault that the cold iron bar of a secret lies between our souls; that a bar my own hands have forged, and which i have not the courage or the strength to break, keeps you from my inmost heart, and makes us strangers? no; you are the best of sons, and love me truly. but if your eyes were purged, and you could see the ugly, hateful thing, and through and beyond it, into my ugly, hateful soul! ah, no! that must never be. your affection, your reverential affection, is the only sacred and precious thing yet left to me on earth. if i lost that, if my spirit were cut off even from the semblance of human sympathy, then might the grave close over my body, as it would have already closed over my soul. and yet should i have the courage to die? yes; for then paul would know; paul would obey my wishes and see me buried among my people. paul would hire mourners (god! hired mourners, when i have a son!) to say the _kaddish_. paul would do his duty, though his heart broke. terrible, ominous words! break my son's heart as i did my father's! the saints--_voi!_ i mean god--forfend! and for opposite reasons. _ach_, it is a strange world. is religion, then, a curse, eternally dividing man from man? no, i will not think these blasphemous thoughts. my poor, brave paul! to-morrow will be a hard day. _sunday night._--i have just read over my last entry. how cold, how tame the words seem, compared with the tempest with which i am shaken. and yet it _is_ a relief to have uttered them; to have given vent to my passion and pain. already this scrawl of mine has become sacred to me; already this study in which i write has become a sanctuary to which my soul turns with longing. all day long my diary was in my thoughts. all my turbulent emotions were softened by the knowledge that i should come here and survey them with calm; by the hope that the tranquil reflectiveness which writing induces would lead me into some haven of rest. and first let me confess that i am glad paul goes back to st. petersburg on tuesday. it is a comfort to have him here for a few days, and yet, oh, how i dread to meet his clear gaze! how irksome this close contact, with the rough rubs it gives to all my sore places! how i abhorred myself to-day as i went through the ghastly mimicries of prayer, and crossing myself, and genuflexion, in our little church. how i hate the sight of its sky-blue dome and its gilt minarets! when the pope brought me the gospel to kiss, fiery shame coursed through my veins. and then when i saw the look of humble reverence on paul's face as he pressed his lips to the silver-bound volume, my blood was frozen to ice. strange, dead memories seemed to float about the incense-laden air; shadowy scenes; old, far-away cadences. and when the deacon walked past me with his _bougie_, there seemed to flash upon me some childish recollection of a joyous candle-bearing procession, whereat my eyes grew filled with sudden tears. the marble altar, the silver candlesticks, the glittering jewelled scene faded into mist. and then the choir sang, and under the music i grew calm again. after all, religions were made for men. and this one was just fitted for the simple muzhiks who dotted the benches with their stupid, good natured figures. they must have their gold-bedecked gods in painting and image; and their saints in gold brocade to kneel before at all hours to solace themselves with visions of a brocaded paradise. and yet what had i to do with these childish superstitions?--i whose race preached the great doctrine of the unity to a world sunk in vice and superstition; whose childish lips were taught to utter the _shemang_ as soon as they could form the syllables; who _know_ that the christian creed is a monstrous delusion! to think that i have lent the sanction of my manhood to these grotesque beliefs. grotesque, say i? when to paul they are the essence of all lofty feeling and aspiration! and yet i know that he is blind, or sees things with that strange perversion of vision of which i have heard him accuse the jews--my brethren. he believes what he has been taught. and who taught him? _bozhe moi!_ was it not i who have brought him up in these degrading beliefs, which he imagines i share? god! is this my punishment, that he is faithful to the creed taught him by a father who was faithless to his own? and yet there were excuses enough for me, thou knowest. why did these forms and ceremonies, which now loom beautiful to me through a mist of tears, seem hideous chains on the free limbs of childhood? was it my father's fault or my own that the stereotyped routine of the day; that the being dragged out of bed in the gray dawn to go to synagogue, or to intone in monotonous sing-song the weary casuistries of the rabbis; that the endless precepts or prohibitions, made me conceive religion as the most hateful of tyrannies? through the cloud of forty years i can but dimly recall the violence of the repulsion with which things jewish inspired me--of how it galled me to feel that i was one of that detested race, that i was that mockery and byword, a _zhit_; that, with little sympathy with my people, i was yet destined to partake of its burdens and its disabilities. bitter as my soul is within me to-day, i can yet understand, can yet half excuse, that fatal mistake of ignorant and ambitious youth. it were easy for me now to acknowledge myself a jew, even with the risk of siberia before me. i am rich, i have some of the education for which i longed, above all, i have _lived_. ah, how differently the world, with its hopes and its fears, and its praise and censure, looks to the youth who is climbing slowly up the hill, and the man who is swiftly descending to the valley! but the knowledge of the vanity of all things comes too late; this, too, is vanity. enough that i sacrificed the sincerity and reality of life for unrealities, which then seemed to me the only things worth having. there was none to counsel, and none to listen. i fled my home; i was baptized into the church. at once all that hampered me was washed away. before me stretched the free, open road of culture and well-being. i was no longer the slave of wanton laws, the laughing-stock of every muscovite infant, liable to be kicked and cuffed and spat at by every true russian. what mattered a lip-profession of christianity, when i cared as little for judaism as for it? i never looked back; my prior life faded quickly from my memory. alone i fought the battle of life--alone, unaided by man or hope in god. a few lucky speculations on the bourse, starting from the risking of the few kopecks amassed by tuition, rescued me from the need of pursuing my law-studies. i fell in love and married. caterina, your lovely face came effectively between me and what vague visions of my past, what dim uneasiness of remorse, yet haunted me. you never knew--your family never knew--that i was not a slav to the backbone. the new life lay fold on fold over the old; the primitive writing of the palimpsest was so thickly written over, that no thought of what i had once been troubled me during all those years of wedded life, made happier by your birth and growth, my paul, my darling paul; no voice came from those forgotten shores, save once, when--who knows through what impalpable medium?--i learnt or divined my father's death, and all the air was filled with hollow echoes of reproach. during those years i avoided contact with jews as much as i could; when it was inevitable, i made the contact brief. the thought of the men, of their gabardines and their pious ringlets, of their studious dronings and their devout quiverings and wailings, of the women with their coarse figures and their unsightly wigs; the remembrance of their vulgar dialect, and their shuffling ways, and their accommodating morality, filled me with repulsion. as if to justify myself to myself, my mind conceived of them only in their meanest and tawdriest aspects. the black points alone caught my eye, and linked themselves into a perfect-seeming picture. _da_, i have been a good russian, a good christian. i have not stirred my little finger to help the jews in their many and grievous afflictions. they were nothing to me. over the vodka and the champagne i have joined in the laugh against them, without even feeling i was of them. why, then, these strange sympathies that agitate me now; these feelings, shadowy, but strong and resistless as the shadow of death? am i sane, or is this but incipient madness? am i sinking into a literal second childhood, in which all the terrors and the sanctities that once froze or stirred my soul have come to possess me once more? am i dying? i have heard that the scene of half a century ago may be more vivid to dying eyes than the chamber of death itself. has caterina's death left a blank which these primitive beloved memories rush in to fill up? was it the light of her face that blinded me to the dear homely faces of my father and mother? if i had not met her, how would things have been? should i have repented earlier of my hollow existence? was it the genuineness of her faith in her heathen creed that made me acquiesce in its daily profession and its dominance in our household life? and are the old currents flowing so strongly now, only because they were so long artificially dammed up? of what avail to ask myself these questions? i asked them yesterday and i shall be no wiser to-morrow. no man can analyze his own emotions, least of all i, unskilled to sound the depths of my soul, content if the surface be unruffled. perhaps, after all, it is paul who is the cause of the troubling of the waters, which yet i am glad have not been left in their putrid stagnation. for since caterina's clay-cold form was laid in the moscow churchyard, and paul and i have been brought the nearer together for the void, my son has opened my eyes to my baseness. the light that radiates from his own terrible nobleness has shown me how black and polluted a soul is mine. my whole life has been shuffled through under false colours. even if i shared few of the jew's beliefs, it should have been my duty--and my proud duty--to proclaim myself of the race. if, as i fondly believed, i was superior to my people, then it behoved me to allow that superiority to be counted to their credit and to the honour of the jewish flag. my poor brethren, sore indeed has been your travail, and your cry of pain pierces the centuries. perhaps--who knows?--i could have helped a little if i had been faithful, as faithful as paul will be to his own ideals. ah, if paul had been a jew--! my god! _is_ paul a jew? have i upon my shoulders the guilt of this loss to judaism, too? analyze myself, reproach myself, doubt my own sanity how i may, one thing is clear. from the bottom of my heart i long, i yearn, i burn to return to the religion of my childhood. i long to say and to sing the hebrew words that come scantily and with effort to my lips. i long to join my brethren at prayer, to sit with them in the synagogue, in the study, at the table; to join them in their worship and at their meals; to share with them their joys and sorrows, their wrongs and their inner delights. laugh at myself how i will, i long to bind my arm and brow with the phylacteries of old and to wrap myself in my fringed shawl, and to abase myself in the dust before the god of israel; nay, to don the greasy gabardine at which i have mocked, and to let my hair grow even as theirs. as yet this is all but a troubled aspiration, but it is irresistible and must work itself out in deeds. it cannot be argued with. the wind bloweth as it listeth; who shall say why i am tempest-tossed? _monday night._--paul has retired to rest to rise early to-morrow for the journey to moscow. for something has happened to alter his plans, and he goes thither instead of to the capital. he is sleeping the sleep of the young, the hopeful, and the joyous. _ach_, that what gives him joy should be to me--; but let me write down all. this morning at breakfast paul received a letter, which he read with a cry of astonishment and joy. "look, little father, look," he exclaimed, handing it to me. i read, trying to disguise my own feelings and to sympathize with his gladness. it was a letter from a firm of well-known publishers in moscow, offering to publish a work on the greek church, the ms. of which he had submitted to them. "_nu vot, batiushka_," said he, "i will tell you that this book _donnera à penser_ to the theologians of the bastard forms of christianity." the ribald remark that rose to my lips did not pass them. "but why did you not tell me of this before?" i asked instead, endeavouring to infuse a note of reproach into my indifference. "ah, father, i did not want you to distress yourself. i knew your affection for me was so great that you might want to stint yourself, and put yourself to trouble to help me to pay the expenses of publication myself. you would have shared my disappointments. i wanted you to share my triumph--as now. it is two years that i have been trying to get it published. i wrote it in the year before mother, whose soul is with the saints, left us. but, _eka!_ i am recompensed at last." and his pale face beamed and his dark eyes flashed with excitement. yes, paul was right. as paul always is. brought up, i think wisely, to believe in my comparative poverty, he has become manlier for not having a crutch to lean upon. was it not enough that he was devoid from the start of the dull, dead weight of judaism which clogged my own early years? up to the present, though, he has not done so well as i. russian provincial journalism scatters few luxuries to its votaries. paul is so stupidly contented with everything that he is not likely to write anything to make a sensation. he has not invented gunpowder. paul's voice broke in curiously on my reflections. "it ought to make some sensation. i have collected a whole series of new arguments, partly textual, partly historical, to show the absolute want of _locus standi_ of any other than the orthodox church." "indeed," i murmured, "and what _is_ the orthodox church?" paul stared at me. "i mean," i added hastily, "your conception of the orthodox church." "my conception?" said paul. "i suppose you mean how do i defend the conception which is embodied in our ceremonies and ritual?" and before i could stop him, he had given me a summary of his arguments under which i would not have kept awake if i had not been thinking of other things. my poor boy! so this wire-drawn stuff about the sacrament and the lord's supper is what has cost you toilsome days and sleepless nights, while to me the thought that i had embraced one variety of christianity rather than another had never before occurred. all forms were the same to me, from catholicism to calvinism; the baptismal water had glided from my back as from a duck's. true, i have lived with all the conventional surroundings of my christian fellow-countrymen, as i have lived with the language of russia on my lips, and subservient to russian customs and manners. but all the while i was neither a russian nor a christian. i was a jew. every now and again i roused myself to laudatory assent to one of paul's arguments when i divined by his tone that it was due. but when he wound up with a panegyric on "our glorious russian state," and "our little father, the czar, god's vicegerent on earth, who alone of european monarchs incarnates and unites in his person church and state, so that loyalty and piety are one," i could not refrain from pointing out that it was a pure fluke that russia was "orthodox" at all. "suppose," said i, "wladimir, when he made his famous choice between the creeds of the world, had picked judaism? it all turned on a single man's whim." "father," paul cried in a pained tone, "do not be blasphemous. wladimir was divinely inspired to dower his country with the true faith. just therein lay the wisdom of providence in achieving such great results through the medium of an individual. it is impossible that god should have permitted him to incline his ear to the infidel israelite, who has survived to be at once a link with the past and a living proof of the sterility of the soul that refuses the living waters. the millions of holy russia perpetuating the stubborn heresy of the jews--adopting an unfaith as a faith! the very thought makes the blood run cold. nay, then would every russian deserve to be sunk in squalor, dishonesty, and rapacity, even as every jew." "not every jew, paul," i remonstrated. "no, not perhaps every jew in squalor," he assented, with a sarcastic laugh; "for too many of the knaves have feathered their nests very comfortably. even the raskolnik is more tolerable. and many of them are not even jews. the russian press is infested with these fellows, who take the bread out of the mouths of honest christians, and will even write the leaders in the religious papers. believe me, little father, these jewish scribblers who have planted their flagstaffs everywhere have cost me many a heartache, many a disappointment." i could not help thinking this sentiment somewhat unworthy of my paul, though it threw a flood of light on the struggle, whose details he had never troubled me with. i began to doubt my wisdom in sending so unpractical a youth out into the battle of life, to hew his way as best he might. but how was i to foresee that he would become a writing man, that he would be tripped up at every turn by some clever hebrew, and that his aversion from the race would be intensified? "but surely," i said, after a moment of silence, "our slavic journalists are not all christians, either." "they are not," he admitted sadly. "the universities have much to answer for. instead of rigidly excluding every vicious book that unsettles the great social and religious ideals of which god designed russia to be the exponent, the works of spencer and taine, and karl marx and tourguénieff, and every literary antichrist, are allowed to poison faith in the sap. the censor only bars the superficially anti-russian books. but there will come a reaction. a reaction," he added solemnly, "to which this work of mine may, by the grace of god, be permitted to contribute." i could have laughed at my son if i had not felt so inclined to weep. paul's pietism irritated me for the first time. was it that _my_ reaction against my past had become stronger than ever, was it that paul had never exposed his own narrowness so completely before? i know not. i only know i felt quite angry with him. "and how do you know there will ever be a reaction?" i asked. "christ never leaves himself without a witness long," he answered sententiously. "and already there are symptoms enough that the creed of the materialist does not satisfy the soul. look at our tolstoï, who is coming back to christianity after ranging at will through the gaudy pleasure-grounds of science and life; it is true his christianity is cast after his own formula, and that he has still much intellectual pride to conquer, but he is on the right road to the fountain of life. but, little father, you are unlike yourself this morning," he went on, putting his hand to my hot forehead. "you are not well." he kissed me. "let me give you another cup of tea," he said, and turned on the tap of the samovar with an air that disposed of the subject. i sipped at my cup to please him, remarking in the interval between two sips as indifferently as i could, "but what makes you so bitter against the jews?" "and what makes you so suddenly their champion?" he retorted. "when have i championed them?" i asked, backing. "your pardon," he said. "of course i should have understood you are only putting in a word for them for argument's sake. but i confess i have no patience with any one who has any patience with these bloodsuckers of the state. every true russian must abhor them. they despise the true faith, and are indifferent to our ideals. they sneak out of the conscription. they live for themselves, and regard us as their natural prey. our peasantry are corrupted by their brandy-shops, squeezed by their money-lenders, and roused to discontent by the insidious utterances of their peddlers, d----d wandering jews, who hate the government and the tschinn and everything russian. when did a jew invest his money in russian industries? they are a filthy, treacherous, swindling set. believe me, _batiushka_, pity is wasted upon them." "pity is never spent upon them," i retorted. "they are what the russians--what we russians--have made them. who has pent them into their foul cellars and reeking dens? they work with their brains, and you--we--abuse them for not working with their hands. they work with their hands, and the czar issues a ukase that they are to be driven off the soil they have tilled. it is Æsop's fable of the wolf and the lamb." "in which the wolf is the jew," said paul coolly. "the jew can always be trusted to take care of himself. his cunning is devilish. till his heart is regenerate, the jew remains the ishmael of the modern world, his hand against every man's, every man's against his." "'love thy neighbour as thyself,'" i quoted bitterly. "even so," said paul. "the jew must be cut off, even as the christian must pluck out his own eye if it offendeth him. christ came among us to bring not peace but a sword. if the kingdom of christ is delayed by these vermin, they must be poisoned off for the sake of russia and humanity at large." "vermin, indeed!" i cried hotly, for i could no longer restrain myself. "and what know you of these vermin of whom you speak with such assurance? what know you of their inner lives, of their sanctified homes, of their patient sufferings? have you penetrated to their hearths and seen the beautiful _naïveté_ of their lives, their simple faith in god's protection, though it may well seem illusion, their unselfish domesticity, their sublime scorn of temptation, their fidelity to the faith of their ancestors, their touching celebrations of fast and festival, their stanchness to one another, their humble living and their high respect for things intellectual, their unflinching toil from morn till eve for a few kopecks of gain, their heroic endurance of every form of torment, vilification, contempt--?" i felt myself bursting into tears and broke from the breakfast table. paul followed me to my room in amazement. in the midst of all my tempest of emotion i was no less amazed at my own indiscretion. "what is the matter with you?" he said, clasping his arm around my neck. "why make yourself so hot over this accursed race, for whom, from some strange whim or spirit of perverseness, you stand up to-day for the first time in my recollection?" "it is true; why indeed?" i murmured, striving to master myself. after all, the picture i had drawn was as ideal in its beauty as paul's in its ugliness. "_nu_, i only wanted you to remember that they were human beings." "_ach_, there is the pity of it," persisted paul; "that human beings should fall so low. and who has been telling you of all these angelic qualities you roll so glibly off your tongue?" "no one," i answered. "then you have invented them. ha! ha! ha!" and paul went off into a fit of good-humoured laughter. that laughter was a sword between his life and mine, but i let a responsive smile play across my features, and paul went to his own room in higher spirits than ever. we met again at dinner, and again at our early supper, but paul was too full of his book, and i of my own thoughts to permit of a renewal of the dispute. even a saint, i perceive, has his touch of egotism, and behind all paul's talk of russia's ideals, of the misconceptions of their fatherland's function by feather-brained nihilists and democrats possessed of that devil, the modern spirit, there danced, i am convinced, a glorified vision of st. paul floating down the vistas of the future, with a nimbus of russian ideals around his head. if he has only put them as eloquently into his book as he talks of them he will at least be read. but i have bred a bigot. and the more bigoted he is, the more my heart faints within me for the simple, sublime faith of my people. behind all the tangled network of ceremony and ritual, the larger mind of the man who has lived and loved sees the outlines of a creed grand in its simplicity, sublime in its persistence. the spirit has clothed itself on with flesh, as it must do for human eyes to gaze on it and live with it; and if, in addition, it has swaddled itself with fold on fold of garment, even so the music has not gone out of its voice, nor the love out of its eyes. as soon as paul is gone to-morrow, i must plan out my future life. his book will doubtless launch him on the road to fame and fortune. but what remains for me? to live on as i am doing would be intolerable. to do nothing for my people, either with voice or purse, to live alone in this sleepy hamlet, cut off from all human fellowship, alienated from everything that makes my neighbours' lives endurable--better death than such a death-in-life. and yet is it possible that i can get into touch again with my youth, that after a sort of rip van winkle sleep, i can take up again and retwine the severed strands? how shall my people receive again a viper into its bosom? well, come what may, there must be an end to this. even at this moment reproachful voices haunt my ear; and in another moment, when i put down my pen to go to my sleepless bed, i shall take care to light my bed-room candle before extinguishing my lamp, for the momentary darkness would be filled with impalpable solemnity bordering on horror. flashes and echoes from the ghostly world of my youth, the faces of my dead parents, strange fragments of sound and speech, the sough of the wind in the trees of the "house of the living," the far-away voice of the chazan singing some melancholy tune full of heart-break and weirdness, the little crowded cheder where the rabbi intoned the monotonous lesson, the whizz of the stone little ivanovitch flung at my forehead because i had "killed christ"--. no, my nerves are not strong enough to bear these visions and voices. all my life long i see now i have been reserved and solitary. never has any one been admitted to my heart of hearts--not even caterina. but now i must unburden my soul to some one ere i die. and to another living soul. for this dead sheet of paper will not, i perceive, do after all. _saturday night._--nearly a week has passed since i wrote the above words, and i am driven to your pages again. i would have come to you last night, but suddenly i recollected that it was the sabbath. i have kept the sabbath. i have prayed a few broken fragments of prayer, recovered almost miraculously from the deeps of memory. i have rested from every toil. i stayed myself from stirring up the fire, though it was cold and i was shivering. and a new peace has come to me. i have heard from paul; he has completed the negotiations with the moscow booksellers. the book is to have every chance. of course, in a way i wish it success. it cannot do much harm, and i am proud of paul, after all. what a rabbi he would have made! it seems these publishers are also the owners of a paper, and paul is to have some work on it, which will give him enough to live upon. so he will stay in moscow for a few months and see his book through the press. he fears the distance is too great for him to come to and fro, as he would have done had he been at the capital. though i know i shall long for his presence sometimes in my strange reactions, yet on the whole i feel relieved. to-morrow without paul will be an easier day. i shall not go to church, though honest old clara petroffskovna may stare and cross herself in holy horror, and spoil the _borsch_. as for the neighbours--let the _startchina_ and the _starostas_ and the retired major from courland, and even the bibulous prince shoubinoff, gossip as they will. i cannot remain here now for more than a few weeks. besides, i can be unwell. no, on second thoughts, i shall not be unwell. i have had enough of shuffling and deceit. _sunday._--a day of horrible _ennui_ and despair. i tried to read the old testament, of course in russian, for hebrew books i have none, and it is doubtful whether i could read them if i had. but the black cloud remained. it chokes me as i write. my limbs are as lead, my head aches. and yet i know the ailment is not of the body. _monday._--the depression persists. i made a little expedition into the country. i rowed up the stream in a _duscehubka_. i tried to forget everything but the colours of the forest and the sparkle of the waters. the air was less cold than it has been for the last few days, but the russet of the pine-leaves spoke to me only of melancholy and decay. the sun set in blood behind the hills. once i heard the howl of the wolves, but they were far away. _monday._--so. just a week. nicholas alexandrovitch says i must not write yet, but i _must_ fill up the record, even if in a few lines. it is strange how every habit--even diary-keeping--enslaves you, till you think only of your neglected task. ah, well! if i have been ill, i have been lucky in my period, for those frightful storms would have kept me indoors. nicholas alexandrovitch says it was a _mild_ attack of influenza. god preserve me from a severe one! and yet would it not be better if it had carried me off altogether? but that is a cowardly thought. i must face the future bravely, for my own hands have forged my fate. how the writing trembles and contorts itself! i must remember nicholas's caution. he is a frank, good-hearted fellow, is our village doctor, and i have had two or three talks with him from between the bedclothes. i don't think friend nicholas is a very devout christian, by the by; for he said one or two things which i should have taken seriously, had i been what he thinks i am; but which had an audacious, ironical sound to my sympathetic, sceptical ears. how funny was that story about the archimandrite of czernovitch! _thursday afternoon._--my haste to be out of bed precipitated me back again into it. but the actual pain has been small. i have grown very friendly with nicholas alexandrovitch, and he has promised to spend the evening with me. i am better now in body, though still troubled in mind. paul's silence has brought a new anxiety. he has not written for twelve days. what can be the matter with him? i suppose he is overworking himself. and now to hunt up my best cigarettes for _monsieur le médecin_. strange that illness should perhaps have brought me a friend. nothing, alas! can bring me a confidant. _ p.m._--astounding discovery! nicholas alexandrovitch is a jew! i don't know how it was, but suddenly something was said; we looked at each other, and then a sort of light flashed across our faces; we read the mutual secret in each other's eyes; a magnetic impulse linked our hands together in a friendly clasp, and we felt that we were brothers. and yet nicholas is a whole world apart from me in feeling and conviction. how strange and mysterious is this latent brotherhood which binds our race together through all differences of rank, country, and even faith! for nicholas is an agnostic of agnostics; he is even further removed from sympathy with my new-found faith than the ordinary christian, and yet my sympathy with him is not only warmer than, but different in _kind_ from, that which i feel toward any christian, even caterina's brother. i have told him all. yes, little book, him also have i told all. and he sneers at me. but there lurks more fraternity in his sneer than in a christian's applause. we are knit below the surface like two ocean rocks, whose isolated crests rise above the waters. nicholas laughs at there being any judaism to survive, or anything in judaism worth surviving. he declares that the chosen people have been chosen for the plaything of the fates, fed with illusions and windy conceit, and rewarded for their fidelity with torture and persecution. he pities them, as he would pity a dog that wanders round its master's grave, and will not eat for grief. in fact, save for this pity, he is even as i was until these new emotions rent me. he is outwardly a christian, because he could not live comfortably otherwise, but he has nothing but contempt for the poor peasants whose fever-wrung brows he touches with a woman's hand. he looks upon them only as a superior variety of cattle, and upon the well-to-do people here as animals with all the vices of the muzhiks, and none of their virtues. for my judaic cravings he has a good-natured mockery, and tells me i was but sickening for this influenza. he says all my symptoms are physical, not spiritual; that the loss of caterina depressed me, that this depression drove me into solitude, and that this solitude in its turn reacted on my depression. he thinks that religion is a secretion of morbid minds, and that my judaism will vanish again with the last traces of my influenza. and, indeed, there is much force in what he says, and much truth in his diagnosis and analysis of my condition. he advises me to take plenty of outdoor exercise, and to go back again to one of the great towns. to go back to judaism, to ally one's self with an outcast race and a dying religion is, he thinks, an act of folly only paralleled by its inutility. the world will outgrow all these forms and prejudices in time is his confident assurance, as he puffs tranquilly at his cigarette and sips his chartreuse. he points out, what is true enough, that i am not alone in my dissent from the religion i profess; for, as he epigrammatically puts it, the greatest raskolniks[ ] are the orthodox. the religious statistics of the procurator of the state synod are, indeed, a poor index to the facts. well, there is comfort in being damned in company. i do not agree with him on any other point, but he has done me good. the black cloud is partially lifted--perhaps the trouble was only physical, after all. i feel brighter and calmer than for months past. anyhow, if i am to become a jew again, i can think it out quietly. even if i could bear paul's contempt, there would always be, as nicholas points out, great peril for me in renouncing the orthodox faith. true, it would be easy enough to bribe the priest and the authorities, and to continue to receive my eucharistical certificate. but where is the sacrifice in that? it is hypocrisy exchanged for hypocrisy. and then what would become of paul's prospects if it were known his father was a _zhit_? but i cannot think of all this now. paul's silence is beginning to fill me with a frightful uneasiness. a presentiment of evil weighs upon me. my dear dove, my _dusha_ paul! _friday afternoon._--still no letter from paul. can anything have happened? i have written to him, briefly informing him that i have been unwell. i shall ride to zlotow and telegraph, if i do not hear in a day or two. _saturday morning._--all petty and stupid thoughts of my own spiritual condition are swallowed up in the thought of paul. ever selfish, i have allowed him to dwell alone in a far-off city, exposed to all the vicissitudes of life. perhaps he is ill, perhaps he is half-starved on his journalistic pittance. _saturday night._--a cruel disappointment! a letter came, but it was only from my man of business, advising investment in some south american loan. have given him _carte blanche_. of what use is my money to me? even paul couldn't spend it now, with the training i have given him. he is only fitted for the cowl. he may yet join the black clergy. why does he not write, my poor st. paul? _sunday._--obedient to the insistent clamour of the bells, i accompanied nicholas alexandrovitch to _church_, and mechanically asked help of the virgin at the street corner. for i have gone back into my old indifference, as nicholas predicted. i have given the necessary orders. the _paracladnoi_ is ready. to-morrow i go to zlotow; thence i take the train for moscow. he will not tell me the truth if i wire.... the weather is bitterly cold, and the stoves here are so small.... i am shivering again, but a glass of vodka will put me right.... a knock.... clara petroffskovna has run to the door. who can it be? paul? _monday afternoon._--no, it was not paul. only nicholas alexandrovitch. he had heard in the village that i was making preparations for a journey, and came to inquire about it, and to reproach me for not telling him. he looked relieved when i told him it was only to moscow to look after paul. i fancy he thought i had had a fit of remorse for my morning's devotions, and was off to seek readmission into the fold. except our innkeeper, there is not a jew in this truly god-forsaken place. of course, i don't reckon myself--or the doctor. i wonder if our pope is a jew! i laugh--but who knows? anyhow i am here, wrapped in my thickest fur cloak, while it is nicholas who is on the road to moscow. he spoke truly in saying i was too weak yet to undertake the journey--that springless _paracladnoi_ alone is enough to knock a healthy man up; though whether he was equally veracious in professing to have business to transact in moscow, i cannot say. _da_, he is a good fellow, is my brother nicholas. to-morrow i shall know if anything has happened to my son, to my only child. _tuesday night._--thank god! a wire from nicholas. "have seen paul. no cause for uneasiness. will write." blessings on you, my friend, for the trouble you have taken for me. i feel much better already. paul has, i suppose, been throwing himself heart and soul into this new journalistic work, and has forgotten his loving father. after all, it is only a fortnight, though it has seemed months. anyhow, he will write. i shall hear from him in a day or two now. but a sudden thought. "will write." who will write? paul or nicholas? oh, paul; paul without doubt. nicholas has told him of my anxiety. yes. to-morrow night or the next morning i shall have a letter from paul. all is well. if i were to tell paul the truth, i wonder what he would say! i am afraid i shall never know. _thursday noon._--a letter from nicholas. i cannot do better than place it here. "my dear demetrius,--i hope you got my telegram and are at ease again. i had a lively journey up here, travelling in company with a government _employé_, who is very proud of his country, and of the stanislaus cross round his neck. such a pompous ass i have never met; he beats even our friend, prince shoubinoff, in his sunday clothes, with the _barina_ on his arm. as you may imagine, i drew him out like a telescope. i have many a droll story for you when i return. to come to paul. i made it my business at once to call upon the publishers--it is one of the largest firms here--and from them i learnt that your son was still at the same address, in the _kitai-gorod_, as that given in the first and only letter you have had from him. i did not care about going there direct, for i thought it best that he should be unaware of my presence, in case there should be anything which it would be advisable for me to find out for your information. however, by haunting the neighbourhood of the offices of his newspaper, i caught sight of him within a couple of hours. he has a somewhat over-wrought expression in his countenance, and does not look particularly well. i fancy he is exciting himself about the production of his book. he has not seen me yet, nor shall i let him see me till i ascertain that he is not in any trouble. it is only his silence to you that makes me fancy something may be the matter; otherwise i should unhesitatingly put down his pallor and intensity of expression to over-work and, perhaps, religious fervour. he went straight to the petrovski cathedral on leaving the offices. i am here for a few days longer, and will write again. it is frightfully cold. the thermometer is at freezing point. i sit in my _shuba_ and shiver. _au revoir._ "nicholas alexandrovitch." there is something not quite satisfying about this letter. it looks as if there was more beneath the surface. paul is evidently looking ill or ecstatic, or both. but, at any rate, my main anxiety is allayed. i can wait with more composure for nicholas's second letter. but why does not the boy write himself? he must have got the letter telling him i had been unwell. and yet not a word of sympathy! i don't half like nicholas's idea of playing the spy, though, as if my son is not to be trusted. what can he suspect? but nicholas alexandrovitch dearly loves to invent a mystery for the sake of ferreting it out. these scientific men are so sharp that they often cut themselves. _friday afternoon._--at last paul has written. "my darling papasha,--i am surprised you should be anxious about me. i am quite comfortable here, and have now conquered all the difficulties that beset me at the first. how came you to allow yourself to be unwell? i hope nicholas alexandrovitch is taking care of you. by the by, i almost thought i saw him here this morning on the bridge, looking over into the _reka_, but there was a church procession, and i had hurried past the man before the thought struck me, and the odds were so much against its being our _zemski-doktor_, that i would not trouble to turn back. i have already corrected the proofs of several sheets of my book. it will be dedicated, by special permission, to archbishop varenkin. my articles in the _courier_ are attracting considerable attention. i have left orders for the publishers to send you my last, which will appear to-morrow. may the holy mother and the saints watch over you. --your devoted son, paul. "p.s.--i am making more money than i want, and i shall be glad to send you some, if you have any wants unsupplied." my darling boy! how could i ever have felt myself alienated from you? i will come to you and live with you and share your triumphs. no miserable scruples shall divide our lives any more. the past is ineradicable; the future is its inevitable fruit. so be it. my spiritual yearnings and wrestlings were but the outcome of a morbid physical condition. nicholas was right. and now to read my son's article, which i have here, marked with a blue border. why should i, with my superficial ponderings, be right and he wrong? _saturday night._--i have a vague remembrance that three stars marked the close of the sabbath. and here in the frosty sky i see a whole host scintillating in the immeasurable depths. the sabbath is over and once more i drag myself to my writing desk to pour out the anguish of a tortured spirit. all day i have sat as in a dumb trance gazing out beyond the _izbas_ and the cabbage fields toward the eternal hills. how beautiful and peaceful everything is! god, wilt thou not impart to me the secret of peace? little did i divine what awaited my eyes when they rested fondly on the first sentence of paul's article. _voi_, it was a pronouncement on the jewish question, venomous, scathing, mordant, terrific. it was an indictment of the race, lit up with all the glow of moral indignation; cruel and slanderous, yet noble and righteous in its tone and ideals; base as hell, yet pure as heaven; breathing a savagery as of torquemada, and a saintliness as of tolstoï. paul in every line, my own noble, bigoted, wrong-headed paul. as i read it, my whole frame trembled. a corresponding passion and indignation stirred my blood to fever-heat. all my slumbering jewish instincts woke again to fresh life; and i knew myself for the weak, miserable wretch that i am. to think that a son of mine should thus vilify his own race. what can i do? _bozhe moi_, what can i do? how can i stop this horrible, unnatural thing? i dare not open paul's eyes to what he is doing. and yet it is my duty.... it is my duty. by that token i know i shall not do it. heaven have pity on me! _tuesday._--heaven have pity on paul! here is nicholas's promised letter. "dear demetrius,--i have strange news for you. it is quite providential (i use the word without prejudice, as the lawyers say) that i came here. but all is well now, so you may read what follows without alarm. last thursday morning, during my purposeful wanderings within paul's usual circuit, i came face to face with our young gentleman. his eyes stared straight at me without seeing me. his face was ghastly white, and the lines were rigid as if with some stern determination. his lips were moving, but i could not catch his mutterings. he held a sealed letter in his hand. i saw the superscription. it was addressed to you. instantly the dread came to my mind that he was about to commit suicide, and that this was his farewell to you. i followed him. he posted the letter at the post-office, turned back, threaded his way like a somnambulist across the bridge, without, however, approaching the parapet, walked mechanically onward to his own apartments, put the latch-key into the house-door, and then fell back in a dead faint--into my arms. i took him upstairs, explained what had happened, put him to bed, and--i write this from the bedside. for the crisis is over now; the brain fever has abated, and he has now nothing to do but to get well, though he will be longer about it than a young fellow of his age has a right to be. his body is emaciated with fasts and vigils and penances. i curse religion when i look at him. as if the struggle for life were not hard enough without humanity being hampered by these miserable superstitions. but you will be wanting to know what is the matter. well, _batiushka_, what should be the matter but the old, old matter? _la femme_ is, strange to relate, a fine specimen of our own race of lovely women, my dear demetrius. she is a jewess of the most orthodox family in moscow, and therein lies the crux of the situation. (i am not playing upon words, but the phrase is doubly significant here.) of course paul has not the slightest idea i know all this; but of course i have had it from his hot lips all the same. as far as i have been able to piece his broken utterances together, they have had some stolen love passages, each followed by swift remorse on both sides, and--another furtive love passage. paul has been comparing himself to st. anthony, and even to jesus, when satan, _ce chef admirable_, spread a first-class dinner in the wilderness. but the poor lad must have suffered much behind all his heroics. and what his final resolution to give her up cost him is pretty evident. i suppose he must have told you of it in that letter. isn't it the oddest thing in the world? rachel jacobvina is the girl's name, and her people keep a clothes' store round the corner, and her father is the parnass (you will remember what that means) of his synagogue. she is a sweet little thing; and paul evidently has a taste for other _belles_ than _belles-lettres_. from what you told me of him i fully expected this sort of thing. the poor fellow is looking at me now from among his iced bandages with a piteous air of resignation to the will of nicholas alexandrovitch in bringing him back to this world of trouble when he already felt his wings sprouting. poor paul! he little dreams what i am writing; but he will get over this, and marry some fair, blue-eyed circassian with corresponding tastes in fasting, and an enthusiastic longing for the kingdom of god, when the year shall be a perpetual lent. in his failure to realize history, he thinks it a crime to adore a jewish virgin, though he spends half his time in adoring the madonna. how shocked he would be if i pointed this out! people who look through ecclesiastical spectacles so rarely realize that the holy family was a jewish one. but my pen is running away with me, and our patient looks thirsty. _proshchaï_. "nicholas." "p.s.--there is not the slightest danger of a relapse unless the image of this diabolical girl comes before him again. and i keep his attention distracted. besides, he had finally conquered his passion. this illness was at once the seal and the witness of his unchangeable resolve. i have heard him repeat the terms of the letter of farewell he sent her. it was final." so this was the meaning of your silence; this the tragedy that lay behind your simple sentence, "i have now conquered all the difficulties which beset me at the first." this was the motive that guided your hand to write those bitter lines about our race, so that you might henceforth cut yourself off from the possibility of allying yourself with it even in thought. i understand all now, my poor high-mettled boy. how you must have suffered! how your pride must have rebelled at the idea that you might have to make such a confession to me--little knowing i should have hailed it with delight. that temptation should have assailed you, too, at such a period--when you were publishing your great work on the ideals of holy russia! mysterious, indeed, are the ways of providence. and yet why may not all be well after all, and heaven grant me such grace as i would willingly sacrifice my life to deserve? it is impossible that my son's passion can be utterly dead. such fires are only covered up. i will go to him and tell him all. the news that he is a jew will revolutionize him. his love will flame up afresh and take on the guise and glamour of duty. love, posing as logic, will whisper in his ear that no bars of early training can avail to keep him from the race to which he belongs by blood and by his father's faith. in this girl's eyes he will read god's message of command, and i, god's message of peace and reconciliation. the tears are in my eyes; i can hardly see to write. the happiness i foresee is too great. blessings on your sweet face, rachel jacobvina, my own darling daughter that is to be. to you is allotted the blessed task of solving a fearful problem, of rescuing and reuniting two human lives. yes, heaven is indeed merciful. to-morrow i start for moscow. _thursday._--how can i write it? no, there is no pity in heaven. the sky smiles in steely blankness. the air cuts like a knife. paul is well, or as well as a convalescent can be. he must have had a heart of ice. but it is fortunate he had, seeing what the icy fates have wrought. i arrived at moscow, and hurried in a _droshky_ across the well-known bridge to paul's lodgings. a ghastly procession stopped me. some _burlaks_ were bearing the corpse of a young girl who had thrown herself into the ice-laden river. a clammy foreboding gathered at my heart, but ere i had time to say a word, an old, caftan-clad man, with agonized eyes and a white, streaming beard, dashed up, pulled off the face-cloth, revealing a strange, weird loveliness, uttered a scream which yet rings in my ears, threw himself passionately on the body, rose up again, murmured something solemnly and resignedly in hebrew, rent his garments, readjusted the face-cloth, and followed weeping in the rear. and from lip to lip, that for once forgot to curl in scorn, flew the murmur: "rachel jacobvina." _saturday night._--i slouched into the synagogue this morning, the cynosure of suspicious eyes. i nearly uncovered my head in forgetfulness. somebody offered me a _talith_, which i wrapped round myself with marked awkwardness. the service moved me beyond measure. i have neither the pen nor the will to describe my sensations. i was a youth again. the intervening decades faded away. rachel's father said the _kaddish_. the peace of god has touched my soul. paul is asleep. i have made nicholas take his much-needed rest. i am reading the hebrew psalms. the language comes back to me bit by bit. _monday._--paul is sitting up reading--proofs. i have been to condole with rachel's father, as he sat mourning upon the ground. i explained that i was a stranger in the town, and had heard of the accident. i have given five hundred roubles to the synagogue. the whole congregation is buzzing with the generosity of the rich jewish farmer from the country. fortunately there is no danger of paul hearing anything of my doings. he is a prisoner; and nicholas and myself keep watch over him by turns. _tuesday._--i have just come from a meeting of the palestine colonization society. heavens, what ideals burn in these breasts supposed to throb only with cupidity and cunning! their souls still turn to the orient, as the needle turns to the pole. and how the better-off among them pity their weaker brethren! with what enthusiasm they plot and plan to get them beyond the frontier into freer countries, but chiefly into the centre of all jewish aspiration, the holy land! how they wept when i doubled their finances at a stroke. my poor, much-wronged brethren! * * * * * _odessa, monday._--it is almost a year since i closed this book, and now, after a period of peace, i am driven to it again. paul has made an irruption into my tranquil household. for eleven months now i have lived in this little two-storied house overlooking the roadstead, with isaac and the _ekonomka_ for my sole companions. so long as i could pour my troubles into the ear of the venerable old rabbi (who was starving for material sustenance when i took him, as i was for spiritual), so long i had no need of you, my old confidant. but this visit of paul has reopened all my sores. i have smuggled the rabbi out of the way; but even if he were here, he could not understand the terrible situation. the god of israel alone knows what i feel at having to deny him, at having to hide my faith from my own son. he must not stay. the new year is nigh, with its feasts and fasts. moreover, surrounded as one is by spies, paul's presence here may lead to discoveries that i am not what the authorities imagine. perhaps it would have been better if i had gone back to the village. but no. there was that church-going. a village is so small. in this great and bustling seaport i am lost, or comparatively so. a few roubles in the ecclesiastical palm, and complete oblivion settles on me. to-night i shall know to what i owe this sudden visit. paul is radiant. he plays with his untold news like a child with a new toy. he drops all sorts of mysterious hints. he frisks around me like a fond spaniel. but he reserves his tit-bit for to-night, when the tramp of the sailors and the perambulating peasantry shall have died away, and we shall be seated cosily in my study, smoking our cigarettes, and looking out toward the quiet lights of the shipping. of course it is good news--heaven help me, i fear paul's good news. good news that paul has come all the way from st. petersburg to tell me, which only his own lips may tell me, must, if past omens speak truly, be terrible. god grant i may survive the telling. what a coward i am! have i not long since made up my mind that paul must go his way and i mine? what difference, then, can his news make to me? he will never know now that i am a _zhit_ unless he hears it from my dying lips as i utter the declaration of the unity. i made up my mind to that when i came here. paul threatens to make his mark as a writer on theological subjects. to tell him the truth would only sadden him and do him no good; while to reveal my own judaism to the world would but serve to damage him and injure his prospects. this may seem but a cover for my cowardice, for my fear of state reprisals; but it is true for all that. _bozhe moi_, is it not punishment enough not to be able to join my brethren in their worship? i must remain here, where i am unknown, practising my religion unostentatiously and in secret. the sense of being in a jewish city satisfies my soul. we are here more than a fourth of the population. house-rent and fuel are very dear, but we thrive and prosper, thanks to god. i give to our poor, through isaac, but they hardly want my help. i rejoice in the handsome synagogues, though i dare not enter them. yes, i am best here. why be upset by my boy's visit? paul will tell me his news, i shall congratulate him, he will go back to the capital, and all will be as before. _monday midnight._--no, all can never be as before. one last step remained to divide our lives to all eternity. _voi_, paul has taken it. all came off as arranged. we sat together at my window. it was a glorious night, and a faint, fresh wind blew in from the sea. the lights in the harbour twinkled, the stars glistened in the sky. but as paul told me his good news, the whole horizon was one great flame before my eyes. he began by recapitulating, though with fuller details than was possible by letter, what i knew pretty well already; the story of the great success of his book, which had been reviewed in all the theological magazines of europe, and had gone through four editions in the year, and been translated into german and italian; the story of how he had been encouraged to come to st. petersburg, and how he had prospered on the press there. and then came the grand news--he was offered the editorship of the _novoe vremia_, the great st. petersburg paper! in an instant i realized all it meant, and in my horror i almost fainted. paul would direct this famous government and anti-semitic organ, paul would pen day after day those envenomed leaders, goading on the mob to turn and rend their jewish fellow-citizens, denying them the rights of human beings. paul would direct the flood of sarcasm and misrepresentation poured forth day after day upon my inoffensive brethren. the old anguish with which i had read that article a year ago returned to me; but not the old tempest of wrath. by sheer force of will i kept myself calm. a great issue was at stake, and i nerved myself for the contest. "paul," said i, "you are a lucky fellow." i kissed him on the brow with icy lips. he saw my great emotion, but felt it was but natural. "_da_," said he, "i am a lucky fellow. it is a great thing. few men have had such an opportunity at twenty-five." "_nutchozh?_ and how do you propose to utilize it?" i asked. "_och_, i must conduct the paper on the same general lines," he said; "of course, with improvements." "amongst the latter the omission of the anti-semitic bias, i hope." he stared at me. "certainly not. the proprietors make its continuance on the same general lines a condition. they are very good. they even guard me against possible prosecutions by paying a handsome salary to a man of straw. _ish-lui_, it is a fine berth that i've got." should i tell him the thing was impossible--that he was a jew? no; time for that when all other means had failed. "_och_, you have accepted it?" i said. "of course i have, father. why should i give them time to change their minds?" "i should have thought you would have consulted me first." "_nu, uzh_, i have never consulted you yet about accepting work," he said in a wondering, disappointed tone. "_nuka_, but this puts you finally into a career, does it not?" "certainly. that is why i accepted it, and i thought you would be glad." "that is why you should have refused it. but i _am_ glad all the same." "i do not understand you, father." "_nuka_, _golubtchik_, listen," i said in my most endearing tone, drawing my arm round his neck. "your struggles for existence were but struggles for the sake of the struggle. you are not as other young men. you have succeeded; and the moment you win the prize is the moment for retiring gracefully, leaving it in the hands of him who needs it. your fight was but a game i allowed you to play. you are rich." "rich?" "rich! nearly all my life i have been a wealthy man. i own land in every part of russia; i hold shares in all the most successful companies. i have kept this knowledge from you so that you might enjoy your riches more when you knew the truth." "rich?" he repeated the word again in a dazed tone. "_ach_, why did i not know this before?" "you had not succeeded. you had not had your experience, my son, my dearest paul. but now your work is over, or rather your true work begins. freed from the detestable routine of a newspaper office, you shall write your books and work out your ideas at leisure, and relieved from all material considerations." "_da_, it would have been a beautiful ideal--once," he said; then added fiercely: "rich? and i did not know it." "but you were the happier for your ignorance." "no, father. the struggle is too terrible. often have i sat and wept. _ish-lui_, time after time my book--destined as it was to success--came back to me from the publishers. and i could have produced it myself all along!" pangs of remorse agitated me. had my plan been, indeed, a failure? "but you have the pride of unhelped success." "and the bitter memories. and once--" he paused. "once?" i said. "once i loved a girl. she is dead now, so it doesn't matter. there were many and complicated obstacles to our union. with money they would have been overcome." "poor boy!" i said wonderingly, for i knew nothing of this apparently new love episode. "forgive me, my son, if i have acted mistakenly. anyhow, from this moment your happiness is my sole care." "no," he said, with sudden determination. "it is too late now. you meant it for the best, _papasha_. but i do not want the money now. i have money of my own--and glory. why should i give up what my own hands have won?" "because i ask it of you, paul; because i ask you to allow me to make reparation for the mischief i have done." "the truest reparation will be to let things go unrepaired," he said, with a touch of sarcasm. "i shall be happier as editor of this paper. what finer medium for my ideas than a great newspaper? what more potent lever to my hand for raising holy russia to a yet higher plane? no, father. let bygones be bygones. give my share of your wealth to a society for helping struggling talent. i struggle no longer. leave me to go on in the path my pen has carved out." i fell at his feet and begged him to let me have my way, but some obstinate demon seemed to have taken possession of his breast. i opened my desk and showered bank-notes upon him. he spurned them, and one flew out into the night. neither of us put out a hand to arrest its flight. i saw that nothing but the truth had any chance to alter his resolve. but i played one more card before resorting to this dangerous weapon. "listen, my own dearest paul," i burst out. "if money will not tempt you, let a father's petition persuade you. learn, then, that i dread your taking this position because you will perpetually have to attack the jews--" "as they deserve," he put in. "be it so. but i--i have a kindness for this oppressed race." he looked at me in silence, as if awaiting further explanation. i gave it, blurting out the shameful lie with ill-concealed confusion. "once upon a time i--i loved a jewess. i could not marry her, of course. but ever since that time i have had a soft place in my heart for her unhappy race." a look of surprise flashed into paul's eyes. then his face grew tender. he took my hand in his. "father, we have a common sorrow," he said. "the girl i spoke of was a jewess." "how?" i exclaimed, surprised in my turn. it was the same affair, then. "yes, she was a jewess. but i taught her the truth. christ was revealed to her prisoned soul. she would have fled with me if we had had the means, and if i had been able to support her in some other country. but she did not dare be baptized and stay in moscow or anywhere near. she said her father would have killed her. the only alternative was for me to embrace judaism. impossible as you may think it, father, and i confess it to my eternal shame, at the very period i was correcting the proofs of my book, i was wrestling with a temptation to embrace this satanic heresy. but i conquered the temptation. it was easy to conquer. to renounce the faith which was my blessed birthright would, as you know, have cost me dear. selfishness warred for once on the side of salvation. rachel wished to fly with me. i knew she would have been poor and unhappy. i refused to take advantage of her girlish impetuousness. i heard afterward that she had drowned herself." the tears rained down his cheeks. "we had arranged to wait till i could save a stock of money. _voi_, the delay undid us. one day rachel's father called on me. he had got wind of our secret. he fell at my feet and tore his hair, and wept and conjured me not to darken his home and his life. a jewess could only wed a jew, he said. if i had only been born a jew all would have been well. but his rachel had, perhaps, talked of becoming a christian. did i not know that was impossible? as well expect the sheep to howl like the wolf. blood was thicker than baptismal water. her heart would always cleave to her own religion. and was my love so blind as not to see that even if she spoke of christianity it was only to please me? that she only kissed the crucifix that i might kiss her, and knelt to the virgin that i might kneel to her? at home, he swore it with fearful oaths, she was always bitterly sarcastic at the expense of the true faith. i believed him. my god, i believed him! for at times i had feared it myself. i would be no party to such carnal blasphemy, and charged him with a note of farewell. when he went i felt as if i had escaped from a terrible temptation. i fell on my knees and thanked the saints." "but why did you not tell me this at the time?" i cried in intolerable anguish. "_nu_; to what end? it would only have worried you. i did not know you were rich." "and at this time you offered to send _me_ money!" i said, with sudden recollection. "since i had not enough, you might as well have some of it. anyhow, father, you see all this has made no difference to me. i shall never marry now, of course; but it hasn't altered the opinion i have always had of the jews--rather corroborated it. rachel told me enough of the superstitious slavery amid which she was forced to live. i have no doubt now that her father lied. but for his pigheaded tribalism, rachel would have been alive to-day. so why your love for a jewish girl should make you tender to the race i do not see, dearest father. there are always exceptions to everything--rachel was one; the woman you loved was another. and now it is very late; i think i will go to bed." he kissed me and went out at the door. then he came back and put his head inside again. a sweet, sad, winning smile lit up his pale, thoughtful face. "i will put you on the free list of the _novoe vremia_, father," he said. "good-night, _papasha_." what could i say? what could i do? i called up a smile to my trembling lips. "good-night, paul," i said. i shall never tell him now. _tuesday, a.m._--i reopen these pages to note an ironic climax to this bitter day. through the excitement of paul's coming i had not read my letters. after sitting here in a numb trance for hours, i suddenly bethought me of them. one is from my business man, informing me that he has just sold the south american stock, respecting which i gave him _carte blanche_. i go to bed richer by five thousand roubles. * * * * * _odessa, wednesday night._--six months have passed. i am on the free list of the _novoe vremia_. almost every day brings me a fresh stab as i read. but i am a "constant reader." it is my penance, and i bear it as such. after a long silence, i have just had a letter from nicholas alexandrovitch, and i reopen my diary to note it. he is about to marry a prosperous widow, and is going over to catholicism. he writes he is very happy. lucky, soulless being. he does not know he will be a richer man when i die. happily, i am ready, though it were to-day. my peace is made, i hope, with god and man, though paul knows nothing even now. he could not fail to learn it, though, if he came to odessa again. i have bribed the spies and the clergy heavily. thanks to their silence, i am one of the most prominent jews of the town, and nobody dreams of connecting me with the trenchant editor of the _novoe vremia_. i see now that i could have acted so all along, if i had not been such a coward. but i keep paul away. it is my last cowardice. in a postscript nicholas writes that paul's articles are causing a great sensation in the remotest parts of russia. alas, i know it. are there not anti-jewish riots in all parts, encouraged by cruel government measures? do not the local newspapers everywhere reproduce paul's printed firebrands? have i not the pleasure of coming across them again in our own odessa papers, in the _wiertnik_ and the _listok_? i should not wonder if we had an outbreak here. there was a little affray yesterday in the _pereouloks_ of the jewish quarter, though we are quiet enough down this way.... great god! what is that noise i hear?... yes! it is! it is! "down with the _zhits_! down with the _zhits_!" there is red on the horizon. _bozhe moi!_ it is flame! _voi!_ they are pillaging the jewish quarter. the sun sinks in blood, as on that unhappy day among the village hills.... _ach!_ paul, paul! why did i not stop your murderous pen?... but if not you, another would have written.... no, that is no excuse.... forgive me, o god, i have been weak. ever weak and cowardly from the day i first deserted thee, even unto this day.... i am not worthy of my blood, of my race.... they are coming this way. it goes through me like a knife. "down with the _zhits_! down with the _zhits_!" and now i see them. they are mad, drunk with the vodka they have stolen from the jewish inns. great god! they have knives and guns. and their leader is flourishing a newspaper and shouting out something from it. there are soldiers among them, and sailors, native and foreign, and mad muzhiks. where are the police?... the mob is passing under my window. _god pity me, it is paul's words they are shouting._... they have passed. no one thinks of me. thank god, i am safe. i am safe from these demons. what a narrow escape!... ah, god, they have captured rabbi isaac and are dragging him along by his white beard toward the barracks. my place is by his side. i will rouse my brethren. we are not a few. we will turn on these dogs and rend them. _proshchaï_, my loved diary. farewell! i go to proclaim the unity. footnotes: [ ] in order to preserve the local colour, the translator has occasionally left a word or phrase of the ms. in the original russian. [ ] dissenters. * * * * * x "incurable" * * * * * x "incurable" "_cast off among the dead, like the slain that lie in the grave. whom thou rememberest no more, and they are cut off from thy hand. thou hast laid me in the lowest pit, in dark places, in the deeps. thy wrath lieth hard upon me and thou hast afflicted me with all thy waves. thou hast put mine acquaintance far from me; thou hast made me an abomination unto them; i am shut up and i cannot come forth. mine eye wasteth away by reason of affliction. i have called daily upon thee, o lord, i have spread forth my hands unto thee._"--eighty-eighth psalm. there was a restless air about the refuge. in a few minutes the friends of the patients would be admitted. the incurables would hear the latest gossip of the ghetto, for the world was still very much with these abortive lives, avid of sensations, jewish to the end. it was an unpretentious institution--two corner houses knocked together--near the east lung of london; supported mainly by the poor at a penny a week, and scarcely recognized by the rich; so that paraplegia and vertigo and rachitis and a dozen other hopeless diseases knocked hopelessly at its narrow portals. but it was a model institution all the same, and the patients lacked for nothing except freedom from pain. there was even a miniature synagogue for their spiritual needs, with the women's compartment religiously railed off from the men's, as if these grotesque ruins of sex might still distract each other's devotions. yet the rabbis knew human nature. the sprightly, hydrocephalous, paralytic leah had had the chair she inhabited carried down into the men's sitting-room to beguile the moments, and was smiling fascinatingly upon the deaf blind man, who had the braille bible at his fingers' ends, and read on as stolidly as st. anthony. mad mo had strolled vacuously into the ladies' ward, and, indifferent to the pretty white-aproned christian nurses, was loitering by the side of a weird, hatchet-faced cripple with a stiletto-shaped nose supporting big spectacles. like most of the patients she was up and dressed; only a few of the white pallets ranged along the walls were occupied. "leah says she'd be quite happy if she could walk like you," said mad mo in complimentary tones. "she always says milly walks so beautiful. she says you can walk the whole length of the garden." milly, huddled in her chair, smiled miserably. "you're crying again, rebecca," protested a dark-eyed, bright-faced dwarf in excellent english, as she touched her friend's withered hand. "you are in the blues again. why, that page is all blistered." "no--i feel so nice," said the sad-eyed russian in her quaint musical accent. "you sall not tink i cry because i am not happy. ven i read sad tings--like my life--den only i am happy." the dwarf gave a short laugh that made her pendent earrings oscillate. "i thought you were brooding over your love affairs," she said. "me!" cried rebecca. "i lost too young my leg to be in love. no, it is psalm eighty-eight dat i brood over. 'i am afflicted and ready to die from my yout' up.' yes, i vas only a girl ven i had to go to königsberg to find a doctor to cut off my leg. 'lover and friend hast dou put far from me, and mine acquaintance into darkness!'" her face shone ecstatic. "hush!" whispered the dwarf, with a warning nudge and a slight nod in the direction of a neighbouring waterbed on which a pale, rigid, middle-aged woman lay, with shut sleepless eyes. "se cannot understand englis'," said the russian girl proudly. "don't be so sure, look how the nurses here have picked up yiddish!" rebecca shook her head incredulously. "sarah is a polis' woman," she said. "for years dey are in england and dey learn noting." "_ick bin krank! krank! krank!_" suddenly moaned a shrivelled polish grandmother--an advanced centenarian--as if to corroborate the girl's contention. she was squatting monkey-like on her bed, every now and again murmuring her querulous burden of sickness, and jabbering at the nurses to shut all the windows. fresh air she objected to as vehemently as if it were butter or some other heterodox dainty. hard upon her crooning came bloodcurdling screams from the room above, sounds that reminded the visitor he was not in a "barnum" show, that the monstrosities were genuine. pretty sister margaret--not yet indurated--thrilled with pity, as before her inner vision rose the ashen perspiring face of the palsied sufferer, who sat quivering all the long day in an easy-chair, her swollen jelly-like hands resting on cotton-wool pads, an air-pillow between her knees, her whole frame racked at frequent intervals by fierce spasms of pain, her only diversion faint blurred reflections of episodes of the street in the glass of a framed picture; yet morbidly suspicious of slow poison in her drink, and cursed with an incurable vitality. meantime sarah lay silent, bitter thoughts moving beneath her white, impassive face like salt tides below a frozen surface. it was a strong, stern face, telling of a present of pain, and faintly hinting at a past of prettiness. she seemed alone in the populated ward, and indeed the world was bare for her. most of her life had been spent in the warsaw ghetto, where she was married at sixteen, nineteen years before. her only surviving son--a youth whom the english atmosphere had not improved--had sailed away to trade with the kaffirs. and her husband had not been to see her for a fortnight! when the visitors began to arrive, her torpor vanished. she eagerly raised the half of her that was not paralyzed, partially sitting up. but gradually expectation died out of her large gray eyes. there was a buzz of talk in the room--the hydrocephalous girl was the gay centre of a group; the polish grandmother who cursed her grandchildren when they didn't come and when they did, was denouncing their neglect of her to their faces; everybody had somebody to kiss or quarrel with. one or two acquaintances approached the bed-ridden wife, too, but she would speak no word, too proud to ask after her husband, and wincing under the significant glances occasionally cast in her direction. by and by she had the red screen placed round her bed, which gave her artificial walls and a quasi-privacy. her husband would know where to look for her-- "woe is me!" wailed her centenarian country-woman, rocking to and fro. "what sin have i committed to get such grandchildren? you only come to see if the old grandmother isn't dead yet. so sick! so sick! so sick!" twilight filled the wards. the white beds looked ghostly in the darkness. the last visitor departed. sarah's husband had not yet come. "he is not well, mrs. kretznow," sister margaret ventured to say in her best yiddish. "or he is busy working. work is not so slack any more." alone in the institution she shared sarah's ignorance of the kretznow scandal. talk of it died before her youth and sweetness. "he would have written," said sarah sternly. "he is awearied of me. i have lain here a year. job's curse is on me." "shall i to him"--sister margaret paused to excogitate the yiddish word--"write?" "no! he hears me knocking at his heart." they had flashes of strange savage poetry, these crude yet complex souls. sister margaret, who was still liable to be startled, murmured feebly, "but--" "leave me in peace!" with a cry like that of a wounded animal. the matron gently touched the novice's arm and drew her away. "_i_ will write to him," she whispered. night fell, but sleep fell only for some. sarah kretznow tossed in a hell of loneliness. ah, surely her husband had not forgotten her--surely she would not lie thus till death--that far-off death her strong religious instinct would forbid her hastening! she had gone into the refuge to save him the constant sight of her helplessness and the cost of her keep. was she now to be cut off forever from the sight of his strength? the next day he came--by special invitation. his face was sallow, rimmed with swarthy hair; his under lip was sensuous. he hung his head, half veiling the shifty eyes. sister margaret ran to tell his wife. sarah's face sparkled. "put up the screen!" she murmured, and in its shelter drew her husband's head to her bosom and pressed her lips to his hair. but he, surprised into indiscretion, murmured: "i thought thou wast dying." a beautiful light came into the gray eyes. "thy heart told thee right, herzel, my life. i _was_ dying--for a sight of thee." "but the matron wrote to me pressingly," he blurted out. he felt her breast heave convulsively under his face; with her hands she thrust him away. "god's fool that i am--i should have known; to-day is not visiting day. they have compassion on me--they see my sorrows--it is public talk." his pulse seemed to stop. "they have talked to thee of me," he faltered. "i did not ask their pity. but they saw how i suffered--one cannot hide one's heart." "they have no right to talk," he muttered in sulky trepidation. "they have every right," she rejoined sharply. "if thou hadst come to see me even once--why hast thou not?" "i--i--have been travelling in the country with cheap jewellery. the tailoring is so slack." "look me in the eyes! law of moses? no, it is a lie. god shall forgive thee. why hast thou not come?" "i have told thee." "tell that to the sabbath fire-woman! why hast thou not come? is it so very much to spare me an hour or two a week? if i could go out like some of the patients, i would come to thee. but i have tired thee out utterly--" "no, no, sarah," he murmured uneasily. "then why--?" he was covered with shame and confusion. his face was turned away. "i did not like to come," he said desperately. "why not?" crimson patches came and went on her white cheeks; her heart beat madly. "surely thou canst understand!" "understand what? i speak of green and thou answerest of blue!" "i answer as thou askest." "thou answerest not at all." "no answer is also an answer," he snarled, driven to bay. "thou understandest well enough. thyself saidst it was public talk." "ah--h--h!" in a stifled shriek of despair. her intuition divined everything. the shadowy, sinister suggestions she had so long beat back by force of will took form and substance. her head fell back on the pillow, the eyes closed. he stayed on, bending awkwardly over her. "so sick! so sick! so sick!" moaned the wizened grandmother. "thou sayest they have compassion on thee in their talk," he murmured at last, half deprecatingly, half resentfully; "have they none on me?" her silence chilled him. "but _thou_ hast compassion, sarah," he urged. "_thou_ understandest." presently she reopened her eyes. "thou art not gone?" she murmured. "no--thou seest i am not tired of thee, sarah, my life! only--" "wilt thou wash my skin, and not make me wet?" she interrupted bitterly. "go home. go home to her!" "i will not go home." "then go under like korah." he shuffled out. that night her lonely hell was made lonelier by the opening of a peep-hole into paradise--a paradise of adam and eve and forbidden fruit. for days she preserved a stony silence toward the sympathy of the inmates. of what avail words against the flames of jealousy in which she writhed? he lingered about the passage on the next visiting day, vaguely remorseful, but she would not see him. so he went away, vaguely indignant, and his new housemate comforted him, and he came no more. when you lie on your back all day and all night you have time to think, especially if you do not sleep. a situation presents itself in many lights from dawn to dusk and from dusk to dawn. one such light flashed on the paradise, and showed it to her as but the portico of purgatory. her husband would be damned in the next world, even as she was in this. his soul would be cut off from among its people. on this thought she brooded till it loomed horribly in her darkness. and at last she dictated a letter to the matron, asking herzel to come and see her. he obeyed, and stood shame-faced at her side, fidgeting with his peaked cap. her hard face softened momentarily at the sight of him, her bosom heaved, suppressed sobs swelled her throat. "thou hast sent for me?" he murmured. "yes--perhaps thou didst again imagine i was on my death-bed!" she replied, with bitter irony. "it is not so, sarah. i would have come of myself--only thou wouldst not see my face." "i have seen it for twenty years--it is another's turn now." he was silent. "it is true all the same--i am on my death-bed." he started. a pang shot through his breast. he darted an agitated glance at her face. "is it not so? in this bed i shall die. but god knows how many years i shall lie in it." her calm gave him an uncanny shudder. "and till the holy one, blessed be he, takes me, thou wilt live a daily sinner." "i am not to blame. god has stricken me. i am a young man." "thou art to blame!" her eyes flashed fire. "blasphemer! life is sweet to thee--yet perchance thou wilt die before me." his face grew livid. "i am a young man," he repeated tremulously. "dost thou forget what rabbi eliezer said? 'repent one day before thy death'--that is to-day, for who knows?" "what wouldst thou have me do?" "give up--" "no, no," he interrupted. "it is useless. i cannot. i am so lonely." "give up," she repeated inexorably, "thy wife." "what sayest thou? my wife! but she is not my wife. thou art my wife." "even so. give me up. give me _get_ (divorce)." his breath failed, his heart thumped at the suggestion. "give thee _get_!" he whispered. "yes. why didst thou not send me a bill of divorcement when i left thy home for this?" he averted his face. "i thought of it," he stammered. "and then--" "and then?" he seemed to see a sardonic glitter in the gray eyes. "i--i was afraid." "afraid!" she laughed in grim mirthlessness. "afraid of a bed-ridden woman!" "i was afraid it would make thee unhappy." the sardonic gleam melted into softness, then became more terrible than before. "and so thou hast made me happy instead!" "stab me not more than i merit. i did not think people would be cruel enough to tell thee." "thine own lips told me." "nay--by my soul," he cried, startled. "thine eyes told me, then." "i feared so," he said, turning them away. "when she came into my house, i--i dared not go to see thee--that was why i did not come, though i always meant to, sarah, my life. i feared to look thee in the eyes. i foresaw they would read the secret in mine--so i was afraid." "afraid!" she repeated bitterly. "afraid i would scratch them out! nay, they are good eyes. have they not seen my heart? for twenty years they have been my light.... those eyes and mine have seen our children die." spasmodic sobs came thickly now. swallowing them down, she said, "and she--did she not ask thee to give me _get_?" "nay, she was willing to go without. she said thou wast as one dead--look not thus at me. it is the will of god. it was for thy sake, too, sarah, that she did not become my wife by law. she, too, would have spared thee the knowledge of her." "yes; ye have both tender hearts! she is a mother in israel, and thou art a spark of our father abraham." "thou dost not believe what i say?" "i can disbelieve it, and still remain a jewess." then, satire boiling over into passion, she cried vehemently, "we are threshing empty ears. thinkest thou i am not aware of the judgments--i, the granddaughter of reb shloumi (the memory of the righteous for a blessing)? thinkest thou i am ignorant thou couldst not obtain a _get_ against me--me who have borne thee children, who have wrought no evil? i speak not of the _beth-din_, for in this impious country they are loath to follow the judgments, and from the english _beth-din_ thou wouldst find it impossible to obtain the _get_ in any case, even though thou didst not marry me in this country, nor according to its laws. i speak of our own _rabbonim_--thou knowest even the maggid would not give thee _get_ merely because thy wife is bed-ridden. that--that is what thou wast afraid of." "but if thou art willing,--" he replied eagerly, ignoring her scornful scepticism. his readiness to accept the sacrifice was salt upon her wounds. "thou deservest i should let thee burn in the lowest gehenna," she cried. "the almighty is more merciful than thou," he answered. "it is he that hath ordained it is not good for man to live alone. and yet men shun me--people talk--and she--she may leave me to my loneliness again." his voice faltered with self-pity. "here thou hast friends, nurses, visitors. i--i have nothing. true, thou didst bear me children, but they withered as by the evil eye. my only son is across the ocean; he hath no love for me or thee." the recital of their common griefs softened her toward him. "go!" she whispered. "go and send me the _get_. go to the maggid, he knew my grandfather. he is the man to arrange it for thee with his friends. tell him it is my wish." "god shall reward thee. how can i thank thee for giving thy consent?" "what else have i to give thee, my herzel, i who eat the bread of strangers? truly says the proverb, 'when one begs of a beggar the herr god laughs!'" "i will send thee the _get_ as soon as possible." "thou art right, i am a thorn in thine eye. pluck me out quickly." "thou wilt not refuse the _get_, when it comes?" he replied apprehensively. "is it not a wife's duty to submit?" she asked with grim irony. "nay, have no fear. thou shalt have no difficulty in serving the _get_ upon me. i will not throw it in the messenger's face.... and thou wilt marry her?" "assuredly. people will no longer talk. and she must needs bide with me. it is my one desire." "it is mine likewise. thou must atone and save thy soul." he lingered uncertainly. "and thy dowry?" he said at last. "thou wilt not make claim for compensation?" "be easy--i scarce know where my _cesubah_ (marriage certificate) is. what need have i of money? as thou sayest, i have all i want. i do not even desire to purchase a grave--lying already so long in a charity-grave. the bitterness is over." he shivered. "thou art very good to me," he said. "good-bye." he stooped down--she drew the bedclothes frenziedly over her face. "kiss me not!" "good-bye, then," he stammered. "god be good to thee!" he moved away. "herzel!" she had uncovered her face with a despairing cry. he slouched back toward her, perturbed, dreading she would retract. "do not send it--bring it thyself. let me take it from thy hand." a lump rose in his throat. "i will bring it," he said brokenly. the long days of pain grew longer--the summer was coming, harbingered by sunny days that flooded the wards with golden mockery. the evening herzel brought the _get_, sarah could have read every word on the parchment plainly, if her eyes had not been blinded by tears. she put out her hand toward her husband, groping for the document he bore. he placed it in her burning palm. the fingers closed automatically upon it, then relaxed, and the paper fluttered to the floor. but sarah was no longer a wife. herzel was glad to hide his burning face by stooping for the fallen bill of divorcement. he was long picking it up. when his eyes met hers again, she had propped herself up in her bed. two big round tears trickled down her cheeks, but she received the parchment calmly and thrust it into her bosom. "let it lie there," she said stonily, "there where thy head hath lain. blessed be the true judge." "thou art not angry with me, sarah?" "why should i be angry? she was right--i am but a dead woman. only no one may say _kaddish_ for me, no one may pray for the repose of my soul. i am not angry, herzel. a wife should light the sabbath candles, and throw in the fire the morsel of dough. but thy home was desolate, there was none to do these things. here i have all i need. now thou wilt be happy, too." "thou hast been a good wife, sarah," he murmured, touched. "recall not the past; we are strangers now," she said, with recurrent harshness. "but i may come and see thee--sometimes." he had stirrings of remorse as the moment of final parting came. "wouldst thou reopen my wounds?" "farewell, then." he put out his hand timidly; she seized it and held it passionately. "yes, yes, herzel! do not leave me! come and see me here--as a friend, an acquaintance, a man i used to know. the others are thoughtless--they forget me--i shall lie here--perhaps the angel of death will forget me, too." her grasp tightened till it hurt him acutely. "yes, i will come--i will come often," he said, with a sob of physical pain. her clasp loosened, she dropped his hand. "but not till thou art married," she said. "be it so." "of course thou must have a 'still wedding.' the english synagogue will not marry thee." "the maggid will marry me." "thou wilt show me her _cesubah_ when thou comest next?" "yes--i will contrive to get it from her." a week passed--he brought the marriage certificate. outwardly she was calm. she glanced through it. "god be thanked," she said, and handed it back. they chatted of indifferent things, of the doings of the neighbours. when he was going, she said, "thou wilt come again?" "yes, i will come again." "thou art so good to spend thy time on me thus. but thy wife--will she not be jealous?" he stared, bewildered by her strange, eerie moments. "jealous of thee?" he murmured. she took it in its contemptuous sense and her white lips twitched. but she only said, "is she aware thou hast come here?" he shrugged his shoulders. "do i know? i have not told her." "tell her." "as thou wishest." there was a pause. presently the woman spoke. "wilt thou not bring her to see me? then she will know that thou hast no love left for me--" he flinched as at a stab. after a painful moment he said: "art thou in earnest?" "i am no marriage-jester. bring her to me--will she not come to see an invalid? it is a _mitzvah_ (good deed) to visit the sick. it will wipe out her trespass." "she shall come." she came. sarah stared at her for an instant with poignant curiosity, then her eyelids drooped to shut out the dazzle of her youth and freshness. herzel's wife moved awkwardly and sheepishly. but she was beautiful--a buxom, comely country girl from a russian village, with a swelling bust and a cheek rosy with health and confusion. sarah's breast was racked by a thousand needles. but she found breath at last. "god bless--thee, mrs.--kretznow," she said gaspingly. she took the girl's hand. "how good thou art to come and see a sick creature." "my husband willed it," the new wife said in deprecation. she had a simple, stupid air that did not seem wholly due to the constraint of the strange situation. "thou wast right to obey. be good to him, my child. for three years he waited on me, when i lay helpless. he has suffered much. be good to him!" with an impulsive movement she drew the girl's head down to her and kissed her on the lips. then with an anguished cry of "leave me for to-day," she jerked the blanket over her face and burst into tears. she heard the couple move hesitatingly away. the girl's beauty shone on her through the opaque coverings. "o god!" she wailed. "god of abraham, isaac, and jacob, let me die now. for the merits of the patriarchs take me soon, take me soon." her vain passionate prayer, muffled by the bedclothes, was wholly drowned by ear-piercing shrieks from the ward above--screams of agony mingled with half-articulate accusations of attempted poisoning--the familiar paroxysm of the palsied woman who clung to life. the thrill passed again through sister margaret. she uplifted her sweet humid eyes. "ah, christ!" she whispered. "if i could die for her!" * * * * * xi the sabbath-breaker * * * * * xi the sabbath-breaker the moment came near for the polish centenarian grandmother to die. from the doctor's statement it appeared she had only a bad quarter of an hour to live. her attack had been sudden, and the grandchildren she loved to scold could not be present. she had already battled through the great wave of pain, and was drifting beyond the boundaries of her earthly refuge. the nurses, forgetting the trouble her querulousness and her overweening dietary scruples had cost them, hung over the bed on which the shrivelled entity lay. they did not know she was living again through the one great episode of her life. nearly forty years back, when (though already hard upon seventy and a widow) a polish village was all her horizon, she received a letter. it arrived on the eve of sabbath on a day of rainy summer. it was from her little boy--her only boy--who kept a country inn seven-and-thirty miles away, and had a family. she opened the letter with feverish anxiety. her son--her _kaddish_--was the apple of her eye. the old woman eagerly perused the hebrew script, from right to left. then weakness overcame her and she nearly fell. embedded casually enough in the four pages was a passage that stood out for her in letters of blood. "i am not feeling very well lately; the weather is so oppressive and the nights are misty. but it is nothing serious; my digestion is a little out of order, that's all." there were roubles for her in the letter, but she let them fall to the floor unheeded. panic fear, travelling quicker than the tardy post of those days, had brought rumour of a sudden outbreak of cholera in her son's district. already alarm for her boy had surged about her heart all day; the letter confirmed her worst apprehensions. even if the first touch of the cholera-fiend was not actually on him when he wrote, still he was by his own confession in that condition in which the disease takes easiest grip. by this time he was on a bed of sickness--nay, perhaps on his death-bed, if not dead. even in those days the little grandmother had lived beyond the common span; she had seen many people die, and knew that the angel of death does not always go about his work leisurely. in an epidemic his hands are too full to enable him to devote much attention to each case. maternal instinct tugged at her heart-strings, drawing her toward her boy. the end of the letter seemed impregnated with special omen--"come and see me soon, dear little mother. i shall be unable to get to see you for some time." yes, she must go at once--who knew but that it would be the last time she would look upon his face? but then came a terrible thought to give her pause. the sabbath was just "in"--a moment ago. driving, riding, or any manner of journeying was prohibited during the next twenty-four hours. frantically she reviewed the situation. religion permitted the violation of the sabbath on one condition--if life was to be saved. by no stretch of logic could she delude herself into the belief her son's recovery hinged upon her presence--nay, analyzing the case with the cruel remorselessness of a scrupulous conscience, she saw his very illness was only a plausible hypothesis. no; to go to him now were beyond question to profane the sabbath. and yet beneath all the reasoning, her conviction that he was sick unto death, her resolve to set out at once, never wavered. after an agonizing struggle she compromised. she could not go by cart--that would be to make others work into the bargain, and would moreover involve a financial transaction. she must walk! sinful as it was to transgress the limit of two thousand yards beyond her village--the distance fixed by rabbinical law--there was no help for it. and of all the forms of travelling, walking was surely the least sinful. the holy one, blessed be he, would know she did not mean to work; perhaps in his mercy he would make allowance for an old woman who had never profaned his rest-day before. and so, that very evening, having made a hasty meal, and lodged the precious letter in her bosom, the little grandmother girded up her loins to walk the seven-and-thirty miles. no staff took she with her, for to carry such came under the talmudical definition of work. neither could she carry an umbrella, though it was a season of rain. mile after mile she strode briskly on, toward that pallid face that lay so far beyond the horizon, and yet ever shone before her eyes like a guiding star. "i am coming, my lamb," she muttered. "the little mother is on the way." it was a muggy night. the sky, flushed with a weird, hectic glamour, seemed to hang over the earth like a pall. the trees that lined the roadway were shrouded in a draggling vapour. at midnight the mist blotted out the stars. but the little grandmother knew the road ran straight. all night she walked through the forest, fearless as una, meeting neither man nor beast, though the wolf and the bear haunted its recesses, and snakes lurked in the bushes. but only the innocent squirrels darted across her path. the morning found her spent, and almost lame. but she walked on. almost half the journey was yet to do. she had nothing to eat with her; food, too, was an illegal burden, nor could she buy any on the holy day. she said her sabbath morning prayer walking, hoping god would forgive the disrespect. the recital gave her partial oblivion of her pains. as she passed through a village the dreadful rumour of cholera was confirmed; it gave wings to her feet for ten minutes, then bodily weakness was stronger than everything else, and she had to lean against the hedges on the outskirts of the village. it was nearly noon. a passing beggar gave her a piece of bread. fortunately it was unbuttered, so she could eat it with only minor qualms lest it had touched any unclean thing. she resumed her journey, but the rest had only made her feet move more painfully and reluctantly. she would have liked to bathe them in a brook, but that, too, was forbidden. she took the letter from her bosom and reperused it, and whipped up her flagging strength with a cry of "courage, my lamb! the little mother is on the way." then the leaden clouds melted into sharp lines of rain, which beat into her face, refreshing her for the first few moments, but soon wetting her to the skin, making her sopped garments a heavier burden, and reducing the pathway to mud, that clogged still further her feeble footsteps. in the teeth of the wind and the driving shower she limped on. a fresh anxiety consumed her now--would she have strength to hold out? every moment her pace lessened, she was moving like a snail. and the slower she went the more vivid grew her prescience of what awaited her at the journey's end. would she even hear his dying word? perhaps--terrible thought!--she would only be in time to look upon his dead face! mayhap that was how god would punish her for her desecration of the holy day. "take heart, my lamb!" she wailed. "do not die yet. the little mother comes." the rain stopped. the sun came out, hot and fierce, and dried her hands and face, then made them stream again with perspiration. every inch won was torture now, but the brave feet toiled on. bruised and swollen and crippled, they toiled on. there was a dying voice--very far off yet, alas!--that called to her, and as she dragged herself along, she replied: "i am coming, my lamb. take heart! the little mother is on the way. courage! i shall look upon thy face, i shall find thee alive." once a wagoner observed her plight and offered her a lift, but she shook her head steadfastly. the endless afternoon wore on--she crawled along the forest-way, stumbling every now and then from sheer faintness, and tearing her hands and face in the brambles of the roadside. at last the cruel sun waned, and reeking mists rose from the forest pools. and still the long miles stretched away, and still she plodded on, torpid from over-exhaustion, scarcely conscious, and taking each step only because she had taken the preceding. from time to time her lips mumbled: "take heart, my lamb! i am coming." the sabbath was "out" ere, broken and bleeding, and all but swooning, the little grandmother crawled up to her son's inn, on the border of the forest. her heart was cold with fatal foreboding. there was none of the usual saturday night litter of polish peasantry about the door. the sound of many voices weirdly intoning a hebrew hymn floated out into the night. a man in a caftan opened the door, and mechanically raised his forefinger to bid her enter without noise. the little grandmother saw into the room behind. her daughter-in-law and her grandchildren were seated on the floor--the seat of mourners. "blessed be the true judge!" she said, and rent the skirt of her dress. "when did he die?" "yesterday. we had to bury him hastily ere the sabbath came in." the little, grandmother lifted up her quavering voice, and joined the hymn, "i will sing a new song unto thee, o god; upon a harp of ten strings will i sing praises unto thee." * * * * * the nurses could not understand what sudden inflow of strength and impulse raised the mummified figure into a sitting posture. the little grandmother thrust a shrivelled claw into her peaked, shrunken bosom, and drew out a paper, crumpled and yellow as herself, covered with strange crabbed hieroglyphics, whose hue had long since faded. she held it close to her bleared eyes--a beautiful light came into them, and illumined the million-puckered face. the lips moved faintly; "i am coming, my lamb," she mumbled. "courage! the little mother is on the way. i shall look on thy face. i shall find thee alive." printed in the united states of america. * * * * * +-----------------------------------------------------------+ | typographical errors corrected in text: | | | | page : stanchness is a legitimate spelling variant | | of staunchness | | | +-----------------------------------------------------------+ * * * * * none _the king of schnorrers_ _i. zangwill_ _the king of schnorrers_ _grotesques and fantasies_ by i. zangwill author of "children of the ghetto," "the old maids' club," "merely mary ann," etc. new york the macmillan company london: macmillan & co., ltd. _all rights reserved_ copyright, , by macmillan and co. set up and electrotyped january, . reprinted april, ; september, ; january, ; october, ; august, ; june, . norwood press j. s. cushing & co.--berwick & smith norwood mass. u.s.a. _foreword to "the king of schnorrers."_ _these episodes make no claim to veracity, while the personages are not even sun-myths. i have merely amused myself and attempted to amuse idlers by incarnating the floating tradition of the jewish_ schnorrer, _who is as unique among beggars as israel among nations. the close of the eighteenth century was chosen for a background, because, while the most picturesque period of anglo-jewish history, it has never before been exploited in fiction, whether by novelists or historians. to my friend, mr. asher i. myers, i am indebted for access to his unique collection of jewish prints and caricatures of the period, and i have not been backward in_ schnorring _suggestions from him and other private humourists. my indebtedness to my artists is more obvious, from my old friend george hutchinson to my newer friend phil may, who has been good enough to allow me to reproduce from his annuals the brilliant sketches illustrating two of the shorter stories. of these shorter stories it only remains to be said there are both tragic and comic, and i will not usurp the critic's prerogative by determining which is which._ _i. z._ _that all men are beggars, 'tis very plain to see, though some they are of lowly, and some of high degree: your ministers of state will say they never will allow that kings from subjects beg; but that you know is all bow-wow. bow-wow-wow! fol lol, etc._ old play. _contents._ the king of schnorrers _illustrated by_ george hutchinson. the semi-sentimental dragon _illustrated by_ phil may. an honest log-roller _illustrated by_ f. h. townsend. a tragi-comedy of creeds the memory clearing house _illustrated by_ a. j. finberg. mated by a waiter _illustrated by_ mark zangwill. the principal boy _illustrated by_ f. h. townsend _and_ mark zangwill. an odd life _illustrated by_ f. h. townsend. cheating the gallows _illustrated by_ george hutchinson. santa claus _illustrated by_ mark zangwill. a rose of the ghetto _illustrated by_ a. j. finberg. a double-barrelled ghost _illustrated by_ phil may. vagaries of a viscount _illustrated by_ f. h. townsend. the queen's triplets _illustrated by_ irving montagu. a successful operation flutter-duck: a ghetto grotesque _illustrated by_ mark zangwill. the king of schnorrers. chapter i. showing how the wicked philanthropist was turned into a fish-porter. in the days when lord george gordon became a jew, and was suspected of insanity; when, out of respect for the prophecies, england denied her jews every civic right except that of paying taxes; when the _gentleman's magazine_ had ill words for the infidel alien; when jewish marriages were invalid and bequests for hebrew colleges void; when a prophet prophesying primrose day would have been set in the stocks, though pitt inclined his private ear to benjamin goldsmid's views on the foreign loans--in those days, when tevele schiff was rabbi in israel, and dr. de falk, the master of the tetragrammaton, saint and cabbalistic conjuror, flourished in wellclose square, and the composer of "the death of nelson" was a choir-boy in the great synagogue; joseph grobstock, pillar of the same, emerged one afternoon into the spring sunshine at the fag-end of the departing stream of worshippers. in his hand was a large canvas bag, and in his eye a twinkle. there had been a special service of prayer and thanksgiving for the happy restoration of his majesty's health, and the cantor had interceded tunefully with providence on behalf of royal george and "our most amiable queen, charlotte." the congregation was large and fashionable--far more so than when only a heavenly sovereign was concerned--and so the courtyard was thronged with a string of _schnorrers_ (beggars), awaiting the exit of the audience, much as the vestibule of the opera-house is lined by footmen. they were a motley crew, with tangled beards and long hair that fell in curls, if not the curls of the period; but the gaberdines of the german ghettoes had been in most cases exchanged for the knee-breeches and many-buttoned jacket of the londoner. when the clothes one has brought from the continent wear out, one must needs adopt the attire of one's superiors, or be reduced to buying. many bore staves, and had their loins girded up with coloured handkerchiefs, as though ready at any moment to return from the captivity. their woebegone air was achieved almost entirely by not washing--it owed little to nature, to adventitious aids in the shape of deformities. the merest sprinkling boasted of physical afflictions, and none exposed sores like the lazars of italy or contortions like the cripples of constantinople. such crude methods are eschewed in the fine art of _schnorring_. a green shade might denote weakness of sight, but the stone-blind man bore no braggart placard--his infirmity was an old established concern well known to the public, and conferring upon the proprietor a definite status in the community. he was no anonymous atom, such as drifts blindly through christendom, vagrant and apologetic. rarest of all sights in this pageantry of jewish pauperdom was the hollow trouser-leg or the empty sleeve, or the wooden limb fulfilling either and pushing out a proclamatory peg. when the pack of _schnorrers_ caught sight of joseph grobstock, they fell upon him full-cry, blessing him. he, nothing surprised, brushed pompously through the benedictions, though the twinkle in his eye became a roguish gleam. outside the iron gates, where the throng was thickest, and where some elegant chariots that had brought worshippers from distant hackney were preparing to start, he came to a standstill, surrounded by clamouring _schnorrers_, and dipped his hand slowly and ceremoniously into the bag. there was a moment of breathless expectation among the beggars, and joseph grobstock had a moment of exquisite consciousness of importance, as he stood there swelling in the sunshine. there was no middle class to speak of in the eighteenth-century jewry; the world was divided into rich and poor, and the rich were very, very rich, and the poor very, very poor, so that everyone knew his station. joseph grobstock was satisfied with that in which it had pleased god to place him. he was a jovial, heavy-jowled creature, whose clean-shaven chin was doubling, and he was habited like a person of the first respectability in a beautiful blue body-coat with a row of big yellow buttons. the frilled shirt front, high collar of the very newest fashion, and copious white neckerchief showed off the massive fleshiness of the red throat. his hat was of the quaker pattern, and his head did not fail of the periwig and the pigtail, the latter being heretical in name only. [illustration: "dipped his hand into the bag."] what joseph grobstock drew from the bag was a small white-paper packet, and his sense of humour led him to place it in the hand furthest from his nose; for it was a broad humour, not a subtle. it enabled him to extract pleasure from seeing a fellow-mortal's hat rollick in the wind, but did little to alleviate the chase for his own. his jokes clapped you on the back, they did not tickle delicately. such was the man who now became the complacent cynosure of all eyes, even of those that had no appeal in them, as soon as the principle of his eleemosynary operations had broken on the crowd. the first _schnorrer_, feverishly tearing open his package, had found a florin, and, as by electricity, all except the blind beggar were aware that joseph grobstock was distributing florins. the distributor partook of the general consciousness, and his lips twitched. silently he dipped again into the bag, and, selecting the hand nearest, put a second white package into it. a wave of joy brightened the grimy face, to change instantly to one of horror. "you have made a mistake--you have given me a penny!" cried the beggar. "keep it for your honesty," replied joseph grobstock imperturbably, and affected not to enjoy the laughter of the rest. the third mendicant ceased laughing when he discovered that fold on fold of paper sheltered a tiny sixpence. it was now obvious that the great man was distributing prize-packets, and the excitement of the piebald crowd grew momently. grobstock went on dipping, lynx-eyed against second applications. one of the few pieces of gold in the lucky-bag fell to the solitary lame man, who danced in his joy on his sound leg, while the poor blind man pocketed his halfpenny, unconscious of ill-fortune, and merely wondering why the coin came swathed in paper. [illustration: "danced on his sound leg."] by this time grobstock could control his face no longer, and the last episodes of the lottery were played to the accompaniment of a broad grin. keen and complex was his enjoyment. there was not only the general surprise at this novel feat of alms; there were the special surprises of detail written on face after face, as it flashed or fell or frowned in congruity with the contents of the envelope, and for undercurrent a delicious hubbub of interjections and benedictions, a stretching and withdrawing of palms, and a swift shifting of figures, that made the scene a farrago of excitements. so that the broad grin was one of gratification as well as of amusement, and part of the gratification sprang from a real kindliness of heart--for grobstock was an easy-going man with whom the world had gone easy. the _schnorrers_ were exhausted before the packets, but the philanthropist was in no anxiety to be rid of the remnant. closing the mouth of the considerably lightened bag and clutching it tightly by the throat, and recomposing his face to gravity, he moved slowly down the street like a stately treasure-ship flecked by the sunlight. his way led towards goodman's fields, where his mansion was situate, and he knew that the fine weather would bring out _schnorrers_ enough. and, indeed, he had not gone many paces before he met a figure he did not remember having seen before. leaning against a post at the head of the narrow passage which led to bevis marks was a tall, black-bearded, turbaned personage, a first glance at whom showed him of the true tribe. mechanically joseph grobstock's hand went to the lucky-bag, and he drew out a neatly-folded packet and tendered it to the stranger. the stranger received the gift graciously, and opened it gravely, the philanthropist loitering awkwardly to mark the issue. suddenly the dark face became a thunder-cloud, the eyes flashed lightning. "an evil spirit in your ancestors' bones!" hissed the stranger, from between his flashing teeth. "did you come here to insult me?" "pardon, a thousand pardons!" stammered the magnate, wholly taken aback. "i fancied you were a--a--a--poor man." "and, therefore, you came to insult me!" "no, no, i thought to help you," murmured grobstock, turning from red to scarlet. was it possible he had foisted his charity upon an undeserving millionaire? no! through all the clouds of his own confusion and the recipient's anger, the figure of a _schnorrer_ loomed too plain for mistake. none but a _schnorrer_ would wear a home-made turban, issue of a black cap crossed with a white kerchief; none but a _schnorrer_ would unbutton the first nine buttons of his waistcoat, or, if this relaxation were due to the warmth of the weather, counteract it by wearing an over-garment, especially one as heavy as a blanket, with buttons the size of compasses and flaps reaching nearly to his shoe-buckles, even though its length were only congruous with that of his undercoat, which already reached the bottoms of his knee-breeches. finally, who but a _schnorrer_ would wear this overcoat cloak-wise, with dangling sleeves, full of armless suggestion from a side view? quite apart from the shabbiness of the snuff-coloured fabric, it was amply evident that the wearer did not dress by rule or measure. yet the disproportions of his attire did but enhance the picturesqueness of a personality that would be striking even in a bath, though it was not likely to be seen there. the beard was jet black, sweeping and unkempt, and ran up his cheeks to meet the raven hair, so that the vivid face was framed in black; it was a long, tapering face with sanguine lips gleaming at the heart of a black bush; the eyes were large and lambent, set in deep sockets under black arching eyebrows; the nose was long and coptic; the brow low but broad, with straggling wisps of hair protruding from beneath the turban. his right hand grasped a plain ashen staff. worthy joseph grobstock found the figure of the mendicant only too impressive; he shrank uneasily before the indignant eyes. "i meant to help you," he repeated. "and this is how one helps a brother in israel?" said the _schnorrer_, throwing the paper contemptuously into the philanthropist's face. it struck him on the bridge of the nose, but impinged so mildly that he felt at once what was the matter. the packet was empty--the _schnorrer_ had drawn a blank; the only one the good-natured man had put into the bag. [illustration: "it struck him on the bridge of the nose."] the _schnorrer's_ audacity sobered joseph grobstock completely; it might have angered him to chastise the fellow, but it did not. his better nature prevailed; he began to feel shamefaced, fumbled sheepishly in his pocket for a crown; then hesitated, as fearing this peace-offering would not altogether suffice with so rare a spirit, and that he owed the stranger more than silver--an apology to wit. he proceeded honestly to pay it, but with a maladroit manner, as one unaccustomed to the currency. "you are an impertinent rascal," he said, "but i daresay you feel hurt. let me assure you i did not know there was nothing in the packet. i did not, indeed." "then your steward has robbed me!" exclaimed the _schnorrer_ excitedly. "you let him make up the packets, and he has stolen my money--the thief, the transgressor, thrice-cursed who robs the poor." "you don't understand," interrupted the magnate meekly. "i made up the packets myself." "then, why do you say you did not know what was in them? go, you mock my misery!" "nay, hear me out!" urged grobstock desperately. "in some i placed gold, in the greater number silver, in a few copper, in one alone--nothing. that is the one you have drawn. it is your misfortune." "_my_ misfortune!" echoed the _schnorrer_ scornfully. "it is _your_ misfortune--i did not even draw it. the holy one, blessed be he, has punished you for your heartless jesting with the poor--making a sport for yourself of their misfortunes, even as the philistines sported with samson. the good deed you might have put to your account by a gratuity to me, god has taken from you. he has declared you unworthy of achieving righteousness through me. go your way, murderer!" "murderer!" repeated the philanthropist, bewildered by this harsh view of his action. "yes, murderer! stands it not in the talmud that he who shames another is as one who spills his blood? and have you not put me to shame--if anyone had witnessed your almsgiving, would he not have laughed in my beard?" the pillar of the synagogue felt as if his paunch were shrinking. "but the others--" he murmured deprecatingly. "i have not shed their blood--have i not given freely of my hard-earned gold?" "for your own diversion," retorted the _schnorrer_ implacably. "but what says the midrash? there is a wheel rolling in the world--not he who is rich to-day is rich to-morrow, but this one he brings up, and this one he brings down, as is said in the seventy-fifth psalm. therefore, lift not up your horn on high, nor speak with a stiff neck." he towered above the unhappy capitalist, like an ancient prophet denouncing a swollen monarch. the poor man put his hand involuntarily to his high collar as if to explain away his apparent arrogance, but in reality because he was not breathing easily under the _schnorrer's_ attack. "you are an uncharitable man," he panted hotly, driven to a line of defence he had not anticipated. "i did it not from wantonness, but from faith in heaven. i know well that god sits turning a wheel--therefore i did not presume to turn it myself. did i not let providence select who should have the silver and who the gold, who the copper and who the emptiness? besides, god alone knows who really needs my assistance--i have made him my almoner; i have cast my burden on the lord." "epicurean!" shrieked the _schnorrer_. "blasphemer! is it thus you would palter with the sacred texts? do you forget what the next verse says: 'bloodthirsty and deceitful men shall not live out half their days'? shame on you--you a _gabbai_ (treasurer) of the great synagogue. you see i know you, joseph grobstock. has not the beadle of your synagogue boasted to me that you have given him a guinea for brushing your spatterdashes? would you think of offering _him_ a packet? nay, it is the poor that are trodden on--they whose merits are in excess of those of beadles. but the lord will find others to take up his loans--for he who hath pity on the poor lendeth to the lord. you are no true son of israel." the _schnorrer's_ tirade was long enough to allow grobstock to recover his dignity and his breath. "if you really knew me, you would know that the lord is considerably in my debt," he rejoined quietly. "when next you would discuss me, speak with the psalms-men, not the beadle. never have i neglected the needy. even now, though you have been insolent and uncharitable, i am ready to befriend you if you are in want." "if i am in want!" repeated the _schnorrer_ scornfully. "is there anything i do not want?" "you are married?" "you correct me--wife and children are the only things i do _not_ lack." "no pauper does," quoth grobstock, with a twinkle of restored humour. "no," assented the _schnorrer_ sternly. "the poor man has the fear of heaven. he obeys the law and the commandments. he marries while he is young--and his spouse is not cursed with barrenness. it is the rich man who transgresses the judgment, who delays to come under the canopy." "ah! well, here is a guinea--in the name of my wife," broke in grobstock laughingly. "or stay--since you do not brush spatterdashes--here is another." "in the name of my wife," rejoined the _schnorrer_ with dignity, "i thank you." "thank me in your own name," said grobstock. "i mean tell it me." "i am manasseh bueno barzillai azevedo da costa," he answered simply. "a sephardi!" exclaimed the philanthropist. "is it not written on my face, even as it is written on yours that you are a tedesco? it is the first time that i have taken gold from one of your lineage." "oh, indeed!" murmured grobstock, beginning to feel small again. "yes--are we not far richer than your community? what need have i to take the good deeds away from my own people--they have too few opportunities for beneficence as it is, being so many of them wealthy; brokers and west india merchants, and--" "but i, too, am a financier, and an east india director," grobstock reminded him. "maybe; but your community is yet young and struggling--your rich men are as the good men in sodom for multitude. you are the immigrants of yesterday--refugees from the ghettoes of russia and poland and germany. but we, as you are aware, have been established here for generations; in the peninsula our ancestors graced the courts of kings, and controlled the purse-strings of princes; in holland we held the empery of trade. ours have been the poets and scholars in israel. you cannot expect that we should recognise your rabble, which prejudices us in the eyes of england. we made the name of jew honourable; you degrade it. you are as the mixed multitude which came up with our forefathers out of egypt." "nonsense!" said grobstock sharply. "all israel are brethren." "esau was the brother of israel," answered manasseh sententiously. "but you will excuse me if i go a-marketing, it is such a pleasure to handle gold." there was a note of wistful pathos in the latter remark which took off the edge of the former, and touched joseph with compunction for bandying words with a hungry man whose loved ones were probably starving patiently at home. "certainly, haste away," he said kindly. "i shall see you again," said manasseh, with a valedictory wave of his hand, and digging his staff into the cobblestones he journeyed forwards without bestowing a single backward glance upon his benefactor. grobstock's road took him to petticoat lane in the wake of manasseh. he had no intention of following him, but did not see why he should change his route for fear of the _schnorrer_, more especially as manasseh did not look back. by this time he had become conscious again of the bag he carried, but he had no heart to proceed with the fun. he felt conscience stricken, and had recourse to his pockets instead in his progress through the narrow jostling market-street, where he scarcely ever bought anything personally save fish and good deeds. he was a connoisseur in both. to-day he picked up many a good deed cheap, paying pennies for articles he did not take away--shoe-latchets and cane-strings, barley-sugar and butter-cakes. suddenly, through a chink in an opaque mass of human beings, he caught sight of a small attractive salmon on a fishmonger's slab. his eye glittered, his chops watered. he elbowed his way to the vendor, whose eye caught a corresponding gleam, and whose finger went to his hat in respectful greeting. "good afternoon, jonathan," said grobstock jovially, "i'll take that salmon there--how much?" "pardon me," said a voice in the crowd, "i am just bargaining for it." grobstock started. it was the voice of manasseh. "stop that nonsense, da costa," responded the fishmonger. "you know you won't give me my price. it is the only one i have left," he added, half for the benefit of grobstock. "i couldn't let it go under a couple of guineas." "here's your money," cried manasseh with passionate contempt, and sent two golden coins spinning musically upon the slab. in the crowd sensation, in grobstock's breast astonishment, indignation, and bitterness. he was struck momentarily dumb. his face purpled. the scales of the salmon shone like a celestial vision that was fading from him by his own stupidity. "i'll take that salmon, jonathan," he repeated, spluttering. "three guineas." "pardon me," repeated manasseh, "it is too late. this is not an auction." he seized the fish by the tail. grobstock turned upon him, goaded to the point of apoplexy. "you!" he cried. "you--you--rogue! how dare you buy salmon!" [illustration: "'you rogue! how dare you buy salmon!'"] "rogue yourself!" retorted manasseh. "would you have me steal salmon?" "you have stolen my money, knave, rascal!" "murderer! shedder of blood! did you not give me the money as a free-will offering, for the good of your wife's soul? i call on you before all these witnesses to confess yourself a slanderer!" "slanderer, indeed! i repeat, you are a knave and a jackanapes. you--a pauper--a beggar--with a wife and children. how can you have the face to go and spend two guineas--two whole guineas--all you have in the world--on a mere luxury like salmon?" manasseh elevated his arched eyebrows. "if i do not buy salmon when i have two guineas," he answered quietly, "when shall i buy salmon? as you say, it is a luxury; very dear. it is only on rare occasions like this that my means run to it." there was a dignified pathos about the rebuke that mollified the magnate. he felt that there was reason in the beggar's point of view--though it was a point to which he would never himself have risen, unaided. but righteous anger still simmered in him; he felt vaguely that there was something to be said in reply, though he also felt that even if he knew what it was, it would have to be said in a lower key to correspond with manasseh's transition from the high pitch of the opening passages. not finding the requisite repartee he was silent. "in the name of my wife," went on manasseh, swinging the salmon by the tail, "i ask you to clear my good name which you have bespattered in the presence of my very tradesmen. again i call upon you to confess before these witnesses that you gave me the money yourself in charity. come! do you deny it?" "no, i don't deny it," murmured grobstock, unable to understand why he appeared to himself like a whipped cur, or how what should have been a boast had been transformed into an apology to a beggar. "in the name of my wife, i thank you," said manasseh. "she loves salmon, and fries with unction. and now, since you have no further use for that bag of yours, i will relieve you of its burden by taking my salmon home in it." he took the canvas bag from the limp grasp of the astonished tedesco, and dropped the fish in. the head protruded, surveying the scene with a cold, glassy, ironical eye. [illustration: "the head protruded."] "good afternoon all," said the _schnorrer_ courteously. "one moment," called out the philanthropist, when he found his tongue. "the bag is not empty--there are a number of packets still left in it." "so much the better!" said manasseh soothingly. "you will be saved from the temptation to continue shedding the blood of the poor, and i shall be saved from spending _all_ your bounty upon salmon--an extravagance you were right to deplore." "but--but!" began grobstock. "no--no 'buts,'" protested manasseh, waving his bag deprecatingly. "you were right. you admitted you were wrong before; shall i be less magnanimous now? in the presence of all these witnesses i acknowledge the justice of your rebuke. i ought not to have wasted two guineas on one fish. it was not worth it. come over here, and i will tell you something." he walked out of earshot of the by-standers, turning down a side alley opposite the stall, and beckoned with his salmon bag. the east india director had no course but to obey. he would probably have followed him in any case, to have it out with him, but now he had a humiliating sense of being at the _schnorrer's_ beck and call. "well, what more have you to say?" he demanded gruffly. "i wish to save you money in future," said the beggar in low, confidential tones. "that jonathan is a son of the separation! the salmon is not worth two guineas--no, on my soul! if you had not come up i should have got it for twenty-five shillings. jonathan stuck on the price when he thought you would buy. i trust you will not let me be the loser by your arrival, and that if i should find less than seventeen shillings in the bag you will make it up to me." the bewildered financier felt his grievance disappearing as by sleight of hand. manasseh added winningly: "i know you are a gentleman, capable of behaving as finely as any sephardi." this handsome compliment completed the _schnorrer's_ victory, which was sealed by his saying, "and so i should not like you to have it on your soul that you had done a poor man out of a few shillings." grobstock could only remark meekly: "you will find more than seventeen shillings in the bag." "ah, why were you born a tedesco!" cried manasseh ecstatically. "do you know what i have a mind to do? to come and be your sabbath-guest! yes, i will take supper with you next friday, and we will welcome the bride--the holy sabbath--together! never before have i sat at the table of a tedesco--but you--you are a man after my own heart. your soul is a son of spain. next friday at six--do not forget." "but--but i do not have sabbath-guests," faltered grobstock. "not have sabbath-guests! no, no, i will not believe you are of the sons of belial, whose table is spread only for the rich, who do not proclaim your equality with the poor even once a week. it is your fine nature that would hide its benefactions. do not i, manasseh bueno barzillai azevedo da costa, have at my sabbath-table every week yankelé ben yitzchok--a pole? and if i have a tedesco at my table, why should i draw the line there? why should i not permit you, a tedesco, to return the hospitality to me, a sephardi? at six, then! i know your house well--it is an elegant building that does credit to your taste--do not be uneasy--i shall not fail to be punctual. _a dios!_" this time he waved his stick fraternally, and stalked down a turning. for an instant grobstock stood glued to the spot, crushed by a sense of the inevitable. then a horrible thought occurred to him. [illustration: "waved his stick fraternally."] easy-going man as he was, he might put up with the visitation of manasseh. but then he had a wife, and, what was worse, a livery servant. how could he expect a livery servant to tolerate such a guest? he might fly from the town on friday evening, but that would necessitate troublesome explanations. and manasseh would come again the next friday. that was certain. manasseh would be like grim death--his coming, though it might be postponed, was inevitable. oh, it was too terrible. at all costs he must revoke the invitation(?). placed between scylla and charybdis, between manasseh and his manservant, he felt he could sooner face the former. "da costa!" he called in agony. "da costa!" the _schnorrer_ turned, and then grobstock found he was mistaken in imagining he preferred to face da costa. "you called me?" enquired the beggar. "ye--e--s," faltered the east india director, and stood paralysed. "what can i do for you?" said manasseh graciously. "would you mind--very much--if i--if i asked you--" "not to come," was in his throat, but stuck there. "if you asked me--" said manasseh encouragingly. "to accept some of my clothes," flashed grobstock, with a sudden inspiration. after all, manasseh was a fine figure of a man. if he could get him to doff those musty garments of his he might almost pass him off as a prince of the blood, foreign by his beard--at any rate he could be certain of making him acceptable to the livery servant. he breathed freely again at this happy solution of the situation. "your cast-off clothes?" asked manasseh. grobstock was not sure whether the tone was supercilious or eager. he hastened to explain. "no, not quite that. second-hand things i am still wearing. my old clothes were already given away at passover to simeon the psalms-man. these are comparatively new." "then i would beg you to excuse me," said manasseh, with a stately wave of the bag. "oh, but why not?" murmured grobstock, his blood running cold again. "i cannot," said manasseh, shaking his head. "but they will just about fit you," pleaded the philanthropist. "that makes it all the more absurd for you to give them to simeon the psalms-man," said manasseh sternly. "still, since he is your clothes-receiver, i could not think of interfering with his office. it is not etiquette. i am surprised you should ask me if i should mind. of course i should mind--i should mind very much." "but he is not my clothes-receiver," protested grobstock. "last passover was the first time i gave them to him, because my cousin, hyam rosenstein, who used to have them, has died." "but surely he considers himself your cousin's heir," said manasseh. "he expects all your old clothes henceforth." "no. i gave him no such promise." manasseh hesitated. "well, in that case--" "in that case," repeated grobstock breathlessly. "on condition that i am to have the appointment permanently, of course." "of course," echoed grobstock eagerly. "because you see," manasseh condescended to explain, "it hurts one's reputation to lose a client." "yes, yes, naturally," said grobstock soothingly. "i quite understand." then, feeling himself slipping into future embarrassments, he added timidly, "of course they will not always be so good as the first lot, because--" "say no more," manasseh interrupted reassuringly, "i will come at once and fetch them." "no. i will send them," cried grobstock, horrified afresh. "i could not dream of permitting it. what! shall i put you to all that trouble which should rightly be mine? i will go at once--the matter shall be settled without delay, i promise you; as it is written, 'i made haste and delayed not!' follow me!" grobstock suppressed a groan. here had all his manoeuvring landed him in a worse plight than ever. he would have to present manasseh to the livery servant without even that clean face which might not unreasonably have been expected for the sabbath. despite the text quoted by the erudite _schnorrer_, he strove to put off the evil hour. "had you not better take the salmon home to your wife first?" said he. "my duty is to enable you to complete your good deed at once. my wife is unaware of the salmon. she is in no suspense." even as the _schnorrer_ spake it flashed upon grobstock that manasseh was more presentable with the salmon than without it--in fact, that the salmon was the salvation of the situation. when grobstock bought fish he often hired a man to carry home the spoil. manasseh would have all the air of such a loafer. who would suspect that the fish and even the bag belonged to the porter, though purchased with the gentleman's money? grobstock silently thanked providence for the ingenious way in which it had contrived to save his self-respect. as a mere fish-carrier manasseh would attract no second glance from the household; once safely in, it would be comparatively easy to smuggle him out, and when he did come on friday night it would be in the metamorphosing glories of a body-coat, with his unspeakable undergarment turned into a shirt and his turban knocked into a cocked hat. they emerged into aldgate, and then turned down leman street, a fashionable quarter, and so into great prescott street. at the critical street corner grobstock's composure began to desert him: he took out his handsomely ornamented snuff-box and administered to himself a mighty pinch. it did him good, and he walked on and was well nigh arrived at his own door when manasseh suddenly caught him by a coat button. [illustration: "administered a mighty pinch."] "stand still a second," he cried imperatively. "what is it?" murmured grobstock, in alarm. "you have spilt snuff all down your coat front," manasseh replied severely. "hold the bag a moment while i brush it off." joseph obeyed, and manasseh scrupulously removed every particle with such patience that grobstock's was exhausted. "thank you," he said at last, as politely as he could. "that will do." "no, it will not do," replied manasseh. "i cannot have my coat spoiled. by the time it comes to me it will be a mass of stains if i don't look after it." "oh, is that why you took so much trouble?" said grobstock, with an uneasy laugh. "why else? do you take me for a beadle, a brusher of gaiters?" enquired manasseh haughtily. "there now! that is the cleanest i can get it. you would escape these droppings if you held your snuff-box so--" manasseh gently took the snuff-box and began to explain, walking on a few paces. "ah, we are at home!" he cried, breaking off the object-lesson suddenly. he pushed open the gate, ran up the steps of the mansion and knocked thunderously, then snuffed himself magnificently from the bejewelled snuff-box. behind came joseph grobstock, slouching limply, and carrying manasseh da costa's fish. chapter ii. showing how the king reigned. when he realised that he had been turned into a fish-porter, the financier hastened up the steps so as to be at the _schnorrer's_ side when the door opened. the livery-servant was visibly taken aback by the spectacle of their juxtaposition. "this salmon to the cook!" cried grobstock desperately, handing him the bag. [illustration: "'this salmon to the cook!'"] da costa looked thunders, and was about to speak, but grobstock's eye sought his in frantic appeal. "wait a minute; i will settle with you," he cried, congratulating himself on a phrase that would carry another meaning to wilkinson's ears. he drew a breath of relief when the flunkey disappeared, and left them standing in the spacious hall with its statues and plants. "is this the way you steal my salmon, after all?" demanded da costa hotly. "hush, hush! i didn't mean to steal it! i will pay you for it!" "i refuse to sell! you coveted it from the first--you have broken the tenth commandment, even as these stone figures violate the second. your invitation to me to accompany you here at once was a mere trick. now i understand why you were so eager." "no, no, da costa. seeing that you placed the fish in my hands, i had no option but to give it to wilkinson, because--because--" grobstock would have had some difficulty in explaining, but manasseh saved him the pain. "you had to give _my_ fish to wilkinson!" he interrupted. "sir, i thought you were a fine man, a man of honour. i admit that i placed my fish in your hands. but because i had no hesitation in allowing you to carry it, this is how you repay my confidence!" in the whirl of his thoughts grobstock grasped at the word "repay" as a swimmer in a whirlpool grasps at a straw. "i will repay your money!" he cried. "here are your two guineas. you will get another salmon, and more cheaply. as you pointed out, you could have got this for twenty-five shillings." "two guineas!" ejaculated manasseh contemptuously. "why you offered jonathan, the fishmonger, three!" grobstock was astounded, but it was beneath him to bargain. and he remembered that, after all, he _would_ enjoy the salmon. "well, here are three guineas," he said pacifically, offering them. "three guineas!" echoed manasseh, spurning them. "and what of my profit?" "profit!" gasped grobstock. "since you have made me a middle-man, since you have forced me into the fish trade, i must have my profits like anybody else." "here is a crown extra!" "and my compensation?" "what do you mean?" enquired grobstock, exasperated. "compensation for what?" "for what? for two things at the very least," manasseh said unswervingly. "in the first place," and as he began his logically divided reply his tone assumed the sing-song sacred to talmudical dialectics, "compensation for not eating the salmon myself. for it is not as if i offered it you--i merely entrusted it to you, and it is ordained in exodus that if a man shall deliver unto his neighbour an ass, or an ox, or a sheep, or any beast to keep, then for every matter of trespass, whether it be for ox, for ass, for sheep, for raiment, or for any manner of lost thing, the man shall receive double, and therefore you should pay me six guineas. and secondly--" "not another farthing!" spluttered grobstock, red as a turkey-cock. "very well," said the _schnorrer_ imperturbably, and, lifting up his voice, he called "wilkinson!" "hush!" commanded grobstock. "what are you doing?" "i will tell wilkinson to bring back my property." "wilkinson will not obey you." "not obey _me_! a servant! why he is not even black! all the sephardim i visit have black pages--much grander than wilkinson--and they tremble at my nod. at baron d'aguilar's mansion in broad street buildings there is a retinue of twenty-four servants, and they--" "and what is your second claim?" "compensation for being degraded to fishmongering. i am not of those who sell things in the streets. i am a son of the law, a student of the talmud." "if a crown piece will satisfy each of these claims--" "i am not a blood-sucker--as it is said in the talmud, tractate passover, 'god loves the man who gives not way to wrath nor stickles for his rights'--that makes altogether three guineas and three crowns." "yes. here they are." wilkinson reappeared. "you called me, sir?" he said. "no, _i_ called you," said manasseh, "i wished to give you a crown." and he handed him one of the three. wilkinson took it, stupefied, and retired. "did i not get rid of him cleverly?" said manasseh. "you see how he obeys me!" "ye-es." "i shall not ask you for more than the bare crown i gave him to save your honour." "to save my honour!" "would you have had me tell him the real reason i called him was that his master was a thief? no, sir, i was careful not to shed your blood in public, though you had no such care for mine." "here is the crown!" said grobstock savagely. "nay, here are three!" he turned out his breeches-pockets to exhibit their absolute nudity. "no, no," said manasseh mildly, "i shall take but two. you had best keep the other--you may want a little silver." he pressed it into the magnate's hand. "you should not be so prodigal in future," he added, in kindly reproach. "it is bad to be left with nothing in one's pocket--i know the feeling, and can sympathise with you." grobstock stood speechless, clasping the crown of charity. standing thus at the hall door, he had the air of wilkinson, surprised by a too generous vail. da costa cut short the crisis by offering his host a pinch from the jewel-crusted snuff-box. grobstock greedily took the whole box, the beggar resigning it to him without protest. in his gratitude for this unexpected favour, grobstock pocketed the silver insult without further ado, and led the way towards the second-hand clothes. he walked gingerly, so as not to awaken his wife, who was a great amateur of the siesta, and might issue suddenly from her apartment like a spider, but manasseh stolidly thumped on the stairs with his staff. happily the carpet was thick. the clothes hung in a mahogany wardrobe with a plateglass front in grobstock's elegantly appointed bedchamber. grobstock rummaged among them while manasseh, parting the white persian curtains lined with pale pink, gazed out of the window towards the tenterground that stretched in the rear of the mansion. leaning on his staff, he watched the couples promenading among the sunlit parterres and amid the shrubberies, in the cool freshness of declining day. here and there the vivid face of a dark-eyed beauty gleamed like a passion-flower. manasseh surveyed the scene with bland benevolence; at peace with god and man. [illustration: "grobstock rummaged among them."] he did not deign to bestow a glance upon the garments till grobstock observed: "there! i think that's all i can spare." then he turned leisurely and regarded--with the same benign aspect--the litter grobstock had spread upon the bed--a medley of articles in excellent condition, gorgeous neckerchiefs piled in three-cornered hats, and buckled shoes trampling on white waistcoats. but his eye had scarcely rested on them a quarter of a minute when a sudden flash came into it, and a spasm crossed his face. "excuse me!" he cried, and hastened towards the door. "what's the matter?" exclaimed grobstock, in astonished apprehension. was his gift to be flouted thus? "i'll be back in a moment," said manasseh, and hurried down the stairs. relieved on one point, grobstock was still full of vague alarms. he ran out on the landing. "what do you want?" he called down as loudly as he dared. "my money!" said manasseh. imagining that the _schnorrer_ had left the proceeds of the sale of the salmon in the hall, joseph grobstock returned to his room, and occupied himself half-mechanically in sorting the garments he had thrown higgledy-piggledy upon the bed. in so doing he espied amid the heap a pair of pantaloons entirely new and unworn which he had carelessly thrown in. it was while replacing this in the wardrobe that he heard sounds of objurgation. the cook's voice--hibernian and high-pitched--travelled unmistakably to his ears, and brought fresh trepidation to his heart. he repaired to the landing again, and craned his neck over the balustrade. happily the sounds were evanescent; in another minute manasseh's head reappeared, mounting. when his left hand came in sight, grobstock perceived it was grasping the lucky-bag with which a certain philanthropist had started out so joyously that afternoon. the unlucky-bag he felt inclined to dub it now. "i have recovered it!" observed the _schnorrer_ cheerfully. "as it is written, 'and david recovered all that the amalekites had taken.' you see in the excitement of the moment i did not notice that you had stolen my packets of silver as well as my salmon. luckily your cook had not yet removed the fish from the bag--i chid her all the same for neglecting to put it into water, and she opened her mouth not in wisdom. if she had not been a heathen i should have suspected her of trickery, for i knew nothing of the amount of money in the bag, saving your assurance that it did not fall below seventeen shillings, and it would have been easy for her to replace the fish. therefore, in the words of david, will i give thanks unto thee, o lord, among the heathen." the mental vision of the irruption of manasseh into the kitchen was not pleasant to grobstock. however, he only murmured: "how came you to think of it so suddenly?" "looking at your clothes reminded me. i was wondering if you had left anything in the pockets." the donor started--he knew himself a careless rascal--and made as if he would overhaul his garments. the glitter in manasseh's eye petrified him. "do you--do you--mind my looking?" he stammered apologetically. "am i a dog?" quoted the _schnorrer_ with dignity. "am i a thief that you should go over my pockets? if, when i get home," he conceded, commencing to draw distinctions with his thumb, "i should find anything in my pockets that is of no value to anybody but you, do you fear i will not return it? if, on the other hand, i find anything that is of value to me, do you fear i will not keep it?" "no, but--but--" grobstock broke down, scarcely grasping the argumentation despite his own clarity of financial insight; he only felt vaguely that the _schnorrer_ was--professionally enough--begging the question. "but what?" enquired manasseh. "surely you need not me to teach you your duty. you cannot be ignorant of the law of moses on the point." "the law of moses says nothing on the point!" "indeed! what says deuteronomy? 'when thou reapest thine harvest in thy field, and hast forgot a sheaf in the field, thou shalt not go again to fetch it: it shall be for the stranger, for the fatherless, and for the widow.' is it not further forbidden to go over the boughs of thy olive-tree again, or to gather the fallen fruit of thy vineyard? you will admit that moses would have added a prohibition against searching minutely the pockets of cast-off garments, were it not that for forty years our ancestors had to wander in the wilderness in the same clothes, which miraculously waxed with their growth. no, i feel sure you will respect the spirit of the law, for when i went down into your kitchen and examined the door-post to see if you had nailed up a _mezuzah_ upon it, knowing that many jews only flaunt _mezuzahs_ on door-posts visible to visitors, it rejoiced me to find one below stairs." grobstock's magnanimity responded to the appeal. it would be indeed petty to scrutinise his pockets, or to feel the linings for odd coins. after all he had manasseh's promise to restore papers and everything of no value. "well, well," he said pleasantly, consoled by the thought his troubles had now come to an end--for that day at least--"take them away as they are." "it is all very well to say take them away," replied manasseh, with a touch of resentment, "but what am i to take them in?" "oh--ah--yes! there must be a sack somewhere--" "and do you think i would carry them away in a sack? would you have me look like an old clo' man? i must have a box. i see several in the box-room." "very well," said grobstock resignedly. "if there's an empty one you may have it." manasseh laid his stick on the dressing-table and carefully examined the boxes, some of which were carelessly open, while every lock had a key sticking in it. they had travelled far and wide with grobstock, who invariably combined pleasure with business. [illustration: "manasseh carefully examined the boxes."] "there is none quite empty," announced the _schnorrer_, "but in this one there are only a few trifles--a pair of galligaskins and such like--so that if you make me a present of them the box _will_ be empty, so far as you are concerned." "all right," said grobstock, and actually laughed. the nearer the departure of the _schnorrer_, the higher his spirits rose. manasseh dragged the box towards the bed, and then for the first time since his return from the under-regions, surveyed the medley of garments upon it. the light-hearted philanthropist, watching his face, saw it instantly change to darkness, like a tropical landscape. his own face grew white. the _schnorrer_ uttered an inarticulate cry, and turned a strange, questioning glance upon his patron. "what is it now?" faltered grobstock. "i miss a pair of pantaloons!" [illustration: "'i miss a pair of pantaloons!' he shrieked."] grobstock grew whiter. "nonsense! nonsense!" he muttered. "i--miss--a--pair--of--pantaloons!" reiterated the _schnorrer_ deliberately. "oh, no--you have all i can spare there," said grobstock uneasily. the _schnorrer_ hastily turned over the heap. then his eye flashed fire; he banged his fist on the dressing-table to accompany each _staccato_ syllable. "i--miss--a--pair--of--pan--ta--loons!" he shrieked. the weak and ductile donor had a bad quarter of a minute. "perhaps," he stammered at last, "you--m--mean--the new pair i found had got accidentally mixed up with them." "of course i mean the new pair! and so you took them away! just because i wasn't looking. i left the room, thinking i had to do with a man of honour. if you had taken an old pair i shouldn't have minded so much; but to rob a poor man of his brand-new breeches!" "i must have them," cried grobstock irascibly. "i have to go to a reception to-morrow, and they are the only pair i shall have to wear. you see i--" "oh, very well," interrupted the _schnorrer_, in low, indifferent tones. after that there was a dead silence. the _schnorrer_ majestically folded some silk stockings and laid them in the box. upon them he packed other garments in stern, sorrowful _hauteur_. grobstock's soul began to tingle with pricks of compunction. da costa completed his task, but could not shut the overcrowded box. grobstock silently seated his weighty person upon the lid. manasseh neither resented nor welcomed him. when he had turned the key he mutely tilted the sitter off the box and shouldered it with consummate ease. then he took his staff and strode from the room. grobstock would have followed him, but the _schnorrer_ waved him back. [illustration: "tilted the sitter off the box."] "on friday, then," the conscience-stricken magnate said feebly. manasseh did not reply; he slammed the door instead, shutting in the master of the house. grobstock fell back on the bed exhausted, looking not unlike the tumbled litter of clothes he replaced. in a minute or two he raised himself and went to the window, and stood watching the sun set behind the trees of the tenterground. "at any rate i've done with him," he said, and hummed a tune. the sudden bursting open of the door froze it upon his lips. he was almost relieved to find the intruder was only his wife. "what have you done with wilkinson?" she cried vehemently. she was a pale, puffy-faced, portly matron, with a permanent air of remembering the exact figure of her dowry. "with wilkinson, my dear? nothing." "well, he isn't in the house. i want him, but cook says you've sent him out." "i? oh, no," he returned, with dawning uneasiness, looking away from her sceptical gaze. suddenly his pupils dilated. a picture from without had painted itself on his retina. it was a picture of wilkinson--wilkinson the austere, wilkinson the unbending--treading the tenterground gravel, curved beneath a box! before him strode the _schnorrer_. never during all his tenure of service in goodman's fields had wilkinson carried anything on his shoulders but his livery. grobstock would have as soon dreamt of his wife consenting to wear cotton. he rubbed his eyes, but the image persisted. he clutched at the window curtains to steady himself. "my persian curtains!" cried his wife. "what is the matter with you?" "he must be the baal shem himself!" gasped grobstock unheeding. "what is it? what are you looking at?" "n--nothing." mrs. grobstock incredulously approached the window and stared through the panes. she saw wilkinson in the gardens, but did not recognise him in his new attitude. she concluded that her husband's agitation must have some connection with a beautiful brunette who was tasting the cool of the evening in a sedan chair, and it was with a touch of asperity that she said: "cook complains of being insulted by a saucy fellow who brought home your fish." "oh!" said poor grobstock. was he never to be done with the man? "how came you to send him to her?" his anger against manasseh resurged under his wife's peevishness. "my dear," he cried, "i did not send him anywhere--except to the devil." "joseph! you might keep such language for the ears of creatures in sedan chairs." and mrs. grobstock flounced out of the room with a rustle of angry satin. when wilkinson reappeared, limp and tired, with his pompousness exuded in perspiration, he sought his master with a message, which he delivered ere the flood of interrogation could burst from grobstock's lips. "mr. da costa presents his compliments, and says that he has decided on reconsideration not to break his promise to be with you on friday evening." "oh, indeed!" said grobstock grimly. "and, pray, how came you to carry his box?" "you told me to, sir!" "_i_ told you!" "i mean he told me you told me to," said wilkinson wonderingly. "didn't you?" grobstock hesitated. since manasseh _would_ be his guest, was it not imprudent to give him away to the livery-servant? besides, he felt a secret pleasure in wilkinson's humiliation--but for the _schnorrer_ he would never have known that wilkinson's gold lace concealed a pliable personality. the proverb "like master like man" did not occur to grobstock at this juncture. "i only meant you to carry it to a coach," he murmured. "he said it was not worth while--the distance was so short." "ah! did you see his house?" enquired grobstock curiously. "yes; a very fine house in aldgate, with a handsome portico and two stone lions." grobstock strove hard not to look surprised. "i handed the box to the footman." grobstock strove harder. wilkinson ended with a weak smile: "would you believe, sir, i thought at first he brought home your fish! he dresses so peculiarly. he must be an original." "yes, yes; an eccentric like baron d'aguilar, whom he visits," said grobstock eagerly. he wondered, indeed, whether he was not speaking the truth. could he have been the victim of a practical joke, a prank? did not a natural aristocracy ooze from every pore of his mysterious visitor? was not every tone, every gesture, that of a man born to rule? "you must remember, too," he added, "that he is a spaniard." "ah, i see," said wilkinson in profound accents. "i daresay he dresses like everybody else, though, when he dines or sups out," grobstock added lightly. "i only brought him in by accident. but go to your mistress! she wants you." "yes, sir. oh, by the way, i forgot to tell you he hopes you will save him a slice of his salmon." "go to your mistress!" "you did not tell me a spanish nobleman was coming to us on friday," said his spouse later in the evening. "no," he admitted curtly. "but is he?" "no--at least, not a nobleman." "what then? i have to learn about my guests from my servants." "apparently." "oh! and you think that's right!" "to gossip with your servants? certainly not." "if my husband will not tell me anything--if he has only eyes for sedan chairs." joseph thought it best to kiss mrs. grobstock. [illustration: "thought it best to kiss mrs. grobstock."] "a fellow-director, i suppose?" she urged, more mildly. "a fellow-israelite. he has promised to come at six." manasseh was punctual to the second. wilkinson ushered him in. the hostess had robed herself in her best to do honour to a situation which her husband awaited with what hope he could. she looked radiant in a gown of blue silk; her hair was done in a tuft and round her neck was an "esclavage," consisting of festoons of gold chains. the sabbath table was equally festive with its ponderous silver candelabra, coffee-urn, and consecration cup, its flower-vases, and fruit-salvers. the dining-room itself was a handsome apartment; its buffets glittered with venetian glass and dresden porcelain, and here and there gilt pedestals supported globes of gold and silver fish. at the first glance at his guest grobstock's blood ran cold. manasseh had not turned a hair, nor changed a single garment. at the next glance grobstock's blood boiled. a second figure loomed in manasseh's wake--a short _schnorrer_, even dingier than da costa, and with none of his dignity, a clumsy, stooping _schnorrer_, with a cajoling grin on his mud-coloured, hairy face. neither removed his headgear. mrs. grobstock remained glued to her chair in astonishment. "peace be unto you," said the king of _schnorrers_, "i have brought with me my friend yankelé ben yitzchok of whom i told you." yankelé nodded, grinning harder than ever. "you never told me he was coming," grobstock rejoined, with an apoplectic air. "did i not tell you that he always supped with me on friday evenings?" manasseh reminded him quietly. "it is so good of him to accompany me even here--he will make the necessary third at grace." the host took a frantic surreptitious glance at his wife. it was evident that her brain was in a whirl, the evidence of her senses conflicting with vague doubts of the possibilities of spanish grandeeism and with a lingering belief in her husband's sanity. grobstock resolved to snatch the benefit of her doubts. "my dear," said he, "this is mr. da costa." "manasseh bueno barzillai azevedo da costa," said the _schnorrer_. the dame seemed a whit startled and impressed. she bowed, but words of welcome were still congealed in her throat. "and this is yankelé ben yitzchok," added manasseh. "a poor friend of mine. i do not doubt, mrs. grobstock, that as a pious woman, the daughter of moses bernberg (his memory for a blessing), you prefer grace with three." [illustration: "'and this is yankelÃ� ben yitzchok,' added manasseh."] "any friend of yours is welcome!" she found her lips murmuring the conventional phrase without being able to check their output. "i never doubted that either," said manasseh gracefully. "is not the hospitality of moses bernberg's beautiful daughter a proverb?" moses bernberg's daughter could not deny this; her salon was the rendezvous of rich bagmen, brokers and bankers, tempered by occasional young bloods and old bucks not of the jewish faith (nor any other). but she had never before encountered a personage so magnificently shabby, nor extended her proverbial hospitality to a polish _schnorrer_ uncompromisingly musty. joseph did not dare meet her eye. "sit down there, yankelé," he said hurriedly, in ghastly genial accents, and he indicated a chair at the farthest possible point from the hostess. he placed manasseh next to his polish parasite, and seated himself as a buffer between his guests and his wife. he was burning with inward indignation at the futile rifling of his wardrobe, but he dared not say anything in the hearing of his spouse. "it is a beautiful custom, this of the sabbath guest, is it not, mrs. grobstock?" remarked manasseh as he took his seat. "i never neglect it--even when i go out to the sabbath-meal as to-night." the late miss bernberg was suddenly reminded of auld lang syne: her father (who according to a wag of the period had divided his time between the law and the profits) having been a depositary of ancient tradition. perhaps these obsolescent customs, unsuited to prosperous times, had lingered longer among the spanish grandees. she seized an early opportunity, when the sephardic _schnorrer_ was taking his coffee from wilkinson, of putting the question to her husband, who fell in weakly with her illusions. he knew there was no danger of manasseh's beggarly status leaking out; no expressions of gratitude were likely to fall from that gentleman's lips. he even hinted that da costa dressed so fustily to keep his poor friend in countenance. nevertheless, mrs. grobstock, while not without admiration for the quixotism, was not without resentment for being dragged into it. she felt that such charity should begin and end at home. "i see you did save me a slice of salmon," said manasseh, manipulating his fish. "what salmon was that?" asked the hostess, pricking up her ears. "one i had from mr. da costa on wednesday," said the host. "oh, that! it was delicious. i am sure it was very kind of you, mr. da costa, to make us such a nice present," said the hostess, her resentment diminishing. "we had company last night, and everybody praised it till none was left. this is another, but i hope it is to your liking," she finished anxiously. "yes, it's very fair, very fair, indeed. i don't know when i've tasted better, except at the house of the president of the _deputados_. but yankelé here is a connoisseur in fish, not easy to please. what say you, yankelé?" yankelé munched a muffled approval. "help yourself to more bread and butter, yankelé," said manasseh. "make yourself at home--remember you're my guest." silently he added: "the other fork!" grobstock's irritation found vent in a complaint that the salad wanted vinegar. "how can you say so? it's perfect," said mrs. grobstock. "salad is cook's speciality." manasseh tasted it critically. "on salads you must come to me," he said. "it does not want vinegar," was his verdict; "but a little more oil would certainly improve it. oh, there is no one dresses salad like hyman!" hyman's fame as the _kosher chef_ who superintended the big dinners at the london tavern had reached mrs. grobstock's ears, and she was proportionately impressed. "they say his pastry is so good," she observed, to be in the running. "yes," said manasseh, "in kneading and puffing he stands alone." "our cook's tarts are quite as nice," said grobstock roughly. "we shall see," manasseh replied guardedly. "though, as for almond-cakes, hyman himself makes none better than i get from my cousin, barzillai of fenchurch street." "your cousin!" exclaimed grobstock, "the west indian merchant!" "the same--formerly of barbadoes. still, your cook knows how to make coffee, though i can tell you do not get it direct from the plantation like the wardens of my synagogue." grobstock was once again piqued with curiosity as to the _schnorrer's_ identity. "you accuse me of having stone figures in my house," he said boldly, "but what about the lions in front of yours?" "i have no lions," said manasseh. "wilkinson told me so. didn't you, wilkinson?" "wilkinson is a slanderer. that was the house of nathaniel furtado." grobstock began to choke with chagrin. he perceived at once that the _schnorrer_ had merely had the clothes conveyed direct to the house of a wealthy private dealer. "take care!" exclaimed the _schnorrer_ anxiously, "you are spluttering sauce all over that waistcoat, without any consideration for me." joseph suppressed himself with an effort. open discussion would betray matters to his wife, and he was now too deeply enmeshed in falsehoods by default. but he managed to whisper angrily, "why did you tell wilkinson i ordered him to carry your box?" "to save your credit in his eyes. how was he to know we had quarrelled? he would have thought you discourteous to your guest." "that's all very fine. but why did you sell my clothes?" "you did not expect me to wear them? no, i know my station, thank god." "what is that you are saying, mr. da costa?" asked the hostess. "oh, we are talking of dan mendoza," replied grobstock glibly; "wondering if he'll beat dick humphreys at doncaster." "oh, joseph, didn't you have enough of dan mendoza at supper last night?" protested his wife. "it is not a subject _i_ ever talk about," said the _schnorrer_, fixing his host with a reproachful glance. grobstock desperately touched his foot under the table, knowing he was selling his soul to the king of _schnorrers_, but too flaccid to face the moment. "no, da costa doesn't usually," he admitted. "only dan mendoza being a portuguese i happened to ask if he was ever seen in the synagogue." "if i had my way," growled da costa, "he should be excommunicated--a bruiser, a defacer of god's image!" "by gad, no!" cried grobstock, stirred up. "if you had seen him lick the badger in thirty-five minutes on a twenty-four foot stage--" "joseph! joseph! remember it is the sabbath!" cried mrs. grobstock. "i would willingly exchange our dan mendoza for your david levi," said da costa severely. david levi was the literary ornament of the ghetto; a shoe-maker and hat-dresser who cultivated hebrew philology and the muses, and broke a lance in defence of his creed with dr. priestley, the discoverer of oxygen, and tom paine, the discoverer of reason. "pshaw! david levi! the mad hatter!" cried grobstock. "he makes nothing at all out of his books." "you should subscribe for more copies," retorted manasseh. "i would if you wrote them," rejoined grobstock, with a grimace. "i got six copies of his _lingua sacra_," manasseh declared with dignity, "and a dozen of his translation of the pentateuch." "you can afford it!" snarled grobstock, with grim humour. "i have to earn my money." "it is very good of mr. da costa, all the same," interposed the hostess. "how many men, born to great possessions, remain quite indifferent to learning!" "true, most true," said da costa. "men-of-the-earth, most of them." after supper he trolled the hebrew grace hilariously, assisted by yankelé, and ere he left he said to the hostess, "may the lord bless you with children!" "thank you," she answered, much moved. "you see i should be so pleased to marry your daughter if you had one." "you are very complimentary," she murmured, but her husband's exclamation drowned hers, "you marry my daughter!" "who else moves among better circles--would be more easily able to find her a suitable match?" "oh, in _that_ sense," said grobstock, mollified in one direction, irritated in another. "in what other sense? you do not think i, a sephardi, would marry her myself!" "my daughter does not need your assistance," replied grobstock shortly. "not yet," admitted manasseh, rising to go; "but when the time comes, where will you find a better marriage broker? i have had a finger in the marriage of greater men's daughters. you see, when i recommend a maiden or a young man it is from no surface knowledge. i have seen them in the intimacy of their homes--above all i am able to say whether they are of a good, charitable disposition. good sabbath!" "good sabbath," murmured the host and hostess in farewell. mrs. grobstock thought he need not be above shaking hands, for all his grand acquaintances. "this way, yankelé," said manasseh, showing him to the door. "i am so glad you were able to come--you must come again." chapter iii. showing how his majesty went to the theatre and was wooed. as manasseh the great, first beggar in europe, sauntered across goodman's fields, attended by his polish parasite, both serenely digesting the supper provided by the treasurer of the great synagogue, joseph grobstock, a martial music clove suddenly the quiet evening air, and set the _schnorrers'_ pulses bounding. from the tenterground emerged a squad of recruits, picturesque in white fatigue dress, against which the mounted officers showed gallant in blue surtouts and scarlet-striped trousers. "ah!" said da costa, with swelling breast. "there go my soldiers!" [illustration: "'there go my soldiers.'"] "your soldiers!" ejaculated yankelé in astonishment. "yes--do you not see they are returning to the india house in leadenhall street?" "and vat of dat?" said yankelé, shrugging his shoulders and spreading out his palms. "what of that? surely you have not forgotten that the clodpate at whose house i have just entertained you is a director of the east india company, whose soldiers these are?" "oh," said yankelé, his mystified face relaxing in a smile. the smile fled before the stern look in the spaniard's eyes; he hastened to conceal his amusement. yankelé was by nature a droll, and it cost him a good deal to take his patron as seriously as that potentate took himself. perhaps if manasseh bueno barzillai azevedo da costa had had more humour he would have had less momentum. your man of action is blind in one eye. cæsar would not have come and conquered if he had really seen. wounded by that temporary twinkle in his client's eye, the patron moved on silently, in step with the military air. "it is a beautiful night," observed yankelé in contrition. the words had hardly passed his lips before he became conscious that he had spoken the truth. the moon was peeping from behind a white cloud, and the air was soft, and broken shadows of foliage lay across the path, and the music was a song of love and bravery. somehow, yankelé began to think of da costa's lovely daughter. her face floated in the moonlight. manasseh shrugged his shoulders, unappeased. "when one has supped well, it is always a beautiful night," he said testily. it was as if the cloud had overspread the moon, and a thick veil had fallen over the face of da costa's lovely daughter. but yankelé recovered himself quickly. "ah, yes," he said, "you have indeed made it a beaudiful night for me." the king of _schnorrers_ waved his staff deprecatingly. "it is alvays a beaudiful night ven i am mid _you_," added yankelé, undaunted. "it is strange," replied manasseh musingly, "that i should have admitted to my hearth and grobstock's table one who is, after all, but a half-brother in israel." "but grobstock is also a tedesco," protested yankelé. "that is also what i wonder at," rejoined da costa. "i cannot make out how i have come to be so familiar with him." "you see!" ventured the tedesco timidly. "p'raps ven grobstock had really had a girl you might even have come to marry her." "guard your tongue! a sephardi cannot marry a tedesco! it would be a degradation." "yes--but de oder vay round. a tedesco _can_ marry a sephardi, not so? dat is a rise. if grobstock's daughter had married you, she vould have married above her," he ended, with an ingenuous air. "true," admitted manasseh. "but then, as grobstock's daughter does not exist, and my wife does--!" "ah, but if you vas me," said yankelé, "vould you rader marry a tedesco or a sephardi?" "a sephardi, of course. but--" "i vill be guided by you," interrupted the pole hastily. "you be de visest man i have ever known." "but--" manasseh repeated. "do not deny it. you be! instantly vill i seek out a sephardi maiden and ved her. p'raps you crown your counsel by choosing von for me. vat?" manasseh was visibly mollified. "how do i know your taste?" he asked hesitatingly. "oh, any spanish girl would be a prize," replied yankelé. "even ven she had a face like a passover cake. but still i prefer a pentecost blossom." "what kind of beauty do you like best?" "your daughter's style," plumply answered the pole. "but there are not many like that," said da costa unsuspiciously. "no--she is like de rose of sharon. but den dere are not many handsome faders." manasseh bethought himself. "there is gabriel, the corpse-watcher's daughter. people consider his figure and deportment good." "pooh! offal! she's ugly enough to keep de messiah from coming. vy, she's like cut out of de fader's face! besides, consider his occupation! you vould not advise dat i marry into such a low family! be you not my benefactor?" "well, but i cannot think of any good-looking girl that would be suitable." yankelé looked at him with a roguish, insinuating smile. "say not dat! have you not told grobstock you be de first of marriage-brokers?" but manasseh shook his head. "no, you be quite right," said yankelé humbly; "i could not get a really beaudiful girl unless i married your deborah herself." "no, i am afraid not," said manasseh sympathetically. yankelé took the plunge. "ah, vy can i not hope to call you fader-in-law?" manasseh's face was contorted by a spasm of astonishment and indignation. he came to a standstill. "dat must be a fine piece," said yankelé quickly, indicating a flamboyant picture of a fearsome phantom hovering over a sombre moat. [illustration: "'dat must be a fine piece.'"] they had arrived at leman street, and had stopped before goodman's fields theatre. manasseh's brow cleared. "it is _the castle spectre_," he said graciously. "would you like to see it?" "but it is half over--" "oh, no," said da costa, scanning the play bill. "there was a farce by o'keefe to start with. the night is yet young. the drama will be just beginning." "but it is de sabbath--ve must not pay." manasseh's brow clouded again in wrathful righteous surprise. "did you think i was going to pay?" he gasped. "n-n-no," stammered the pole, abashed. "but you haven't got no orders?" "orders? me? will you do me the pleasure of accepting a seat in my box?" "in your box?" "yes, there is plenty of room. come this way," said manasseh. "i haven't been to the play myself for over a year. i am too busy always. it will be an agreeable change." yankelé hung back, bewildered. "through this door," said manasseh encouragingly. "come--you shall lead the way." "but dey vill not admit me!" "will not admit you! when i give you a seat in my box! are you mad? now you shall just go in without me--i insist upon it. i will show you manasseh bueno barzillai azevedo da costa is a man whose word is the law of moses; true as the talmud. walk straight through the portico, and, if the attendant endeavours to stop you, simply tell him mr. da costa has given you a seat in his box." not daring to exhibit scepticism--nay, almost confident in the powers of his extraordinary protector, yankelé put his foot on the threshold of the lobby. "but you be coming, too?" he said, turning back. "oh, yes, i don't intend to miss the performance. have no fear." yankelé walked boldly ahead, and brushed by the door-keeper of the little theatre without appearing conscious of him; indeed, the official was almost impressed into letting the _schnorrer_ pass unquestioned as one who had gone out between the acts. but the visitor was too dingy for anything but the stage-door--he had the air of those nondescript beings who hang mysteriously about the hinder recesses of playhouses. recovering himself just in time, the functionary (a meek little cockney) hailed the intruder with a backward-drawing "hi!" "vat you vant?" said yankelé, turning his head. "vhere's your ticket?" "don't vant no ticket." "don't you? i does," rejoined the little man, who was a humorist. "mr. da costa has given me a seat in his box." "oh, indeed! you'd swear to that in the box?" "by my head. he gave it me." "a seat in his box?" "yes." "mr. da costa, you vos a-sayin', i think?" "the same." "ah! this vay, then!" and the humorist pointed to the street. yankelé did not budge. "this vay, my lud!" cried the little humorist peremptorily. "i tells you i'm going into mr. da costa's box!" "and i tells you you're a-goin' into the gutter." and the official seized him by the scruff of the neck and began pushing him forwards with his knee. "now then! what's this?" [illustration: "'now then! what's this?'"] a stern, angry voice broke like a thunderclap upon the humorist's ears. he released his hold of the _schnorrer_ and looked up, to behold a strange, shabby, stalwart figure towering over him in censorious majesty. "why are you hustling this poor man?" demanded manasseh. "he wanted to sneak in," the little cockney replied, half apologetically, half resentfully. "expect 'e 'ails from saffron 'ill, and 'as 'is eye on the vipes. told me some gammon--a cock-and-bull story about having a seat in a box." "in mr. da costa's box, i suppose?" said manasseh, ominously calm, with a menacing glitter in his eye. "ye-es," said the humorist, astonished and vaguely alarmed. then the storm burst. "you impertinent scoundrel! you jackanapes! you low, beggarly rapscallion! and so you refused to show my guest into my box!" "are you mr. da costa?" faltered the humorist. "yes, _i_ am mr. da costa, but _you_ won't much longer be door-keeper, if this is the way you treat people who come to see your pieces. because, forsooth, the man looks poor, you think you can bully him safely--forgive me, yankelé, i am so sorry i did not manage to come here before you, and spare you this insulting treatment! and as for you, my fine fellow, let me tell you that you make a great mistake in judging from appearances. there are some good friends of mine who could buy up your theatre and you and your miserable little soul at a moment's notice, and to look at them you would think they were cadgers. one of these days--hark you!--you will kick out a person of quality, and be kicked out yourself." "i--i'm very sorry, sir." "don't say that to me. it is my guest you owe an apology to. yes--and, by heaven! you shall pay it, though he is no plutocrat, but only what he appears. surely, because i wish to give a treat to a poor man who has, perhaps, never been to the play in his life, i am not bound to send him to the gallery--i can give him a corner in my box if i choose. there is no rule against that, i presume?" "no, sir, i can't say as there is," said the humorist humbly. "but you will allow, sir, it's rayther unusual." "unusual! of course, it's unusual. kindness and consideration for the poor are always unusual. the poor are trodden upon at every opportunity, treated like dogs, not men. if i had invited a drunken fop, you'd have met him hat in hand (no, no, you needn't take it off to me now; it's too late). but a sober, poor man--by gad! i shall report your incivility to the management, and you'll be lucky if i don't thrash you with this stick into the bargain." "but 'ow vos i to know, sir?" "don't speak to me, i tell you. if you have anything to urge in extenuation of your disgraceful behaviour, address your remarks to my guest." "you'll overlook it this time, sir," said the little humorist, turning to yankelé. "next time, p'raps, you believe me ven i say i have a seat in mr. da costa's box," replied yankelé, in gentle reproach. "well, if _you're_ satisfied, yankelé," said manasseh, with a touch of scorn, "i have no more to say. go along, my man, show us to our box." the official bowed and led them into the corridor. suddenly he turned back. "what box is it, please?" he said timidly. "blockhead!" cried manasseh. "which box should it be? the empty one, of course." "but, sir, there are two boxes empty," urged the poor humorist deprecatingly, "the stage-box and the one by the gallery." "dolt! do i look the sort of person who is content with a box on the ceiling? go back to your post, sir--i'll find the box myself--heaven send you wisdom--go back, some one might sneak in while you are away, and it would just serve you right." the little man slunk back half dazed, glad to escape from this overwhelming personality, and in a few seconds manasseh stalked into the empty box, followed by yankelé, whose mouth was a grin and whose eye a twinkle. as the spaniard took his seat there was a slight outburst of clapping and stamping from a house impatient for the end of the _entr'acte_. manasseh craned his head over the box to see the house, which in turn craned to see him, glad of any diversion, and some people, imagining the applause had reference to the new-comer, whose head appeared to be that of a foreigner of distinction, joined in it. the contagion spread, and in a minute manasseh was the cynosure of all eyes and the unmistakable recipient of an "ovation." he bowed twice or thrice in unruffled dignity. [illustration: "he bowed."] there were some who recognised him, but they joined in the reception with wondering amusement. not a few, indeed, of the audience were jews, for goodman's fields was the ghetto theatre, and the sabbath was not a sufficient deterrent to a lax generation. the audiences--mainly german and poles--came to the little unfashionable playhouse as one happy family. distinctions of rank were trivial, and gallery held converse with circle, and pit collogued with box. supper parties were held on the benches. in a box that gave on the pit a portly jewess sat stiffly, arrayed in the very pink of fashion, in a spangled robe of india muslin, with a diamond necklace and crescent, her head crowned by terraces of curls and flowers. "betsy!" called up a jovial feminine voice from the pit, when the applause had subsided. "betsy" did not move, but her cheeks grew hot and red. she had got on in the world, and did not care to recognise her old crony. "betsy!" iterated the well-meaning woman. "by your life and mine, you must taste a piece of my fried fish." and she held up a slice of cold plaice, beautifully browned. betsy drew back, striving unsuccessfully to look unconscious. to her relief the curtain rose, and _the castle spectre_ walked. yankelé, who had scarcely seen anything but private theatricals, representing the discomfiture of the wicked haman and the triumph of queen esther (a _rôle_ he had once played himself, in his mother's old clothes), was delighted with the thrills and terrors of the ghostly melodrama. it was not till the conclusion of the second act that the emotion the beautiful but injured heroine cost him welled over again into matrimonial speech. "ve vind up de night glorious," he said. "i am glad you like it. it is certainly an enjoyable performance," manasseh answered with stately satisfaction. "your daughter, deborah," yankelé ventured timidly, "do she ever go to de play?" "no, i do not take my womankind about. their duty lies at home. as it is written, i call my wife not 'wife' but 'home.'" "but dink how dey vould enjoy deirselves!" "we are not sent here to enjoy ourselves." "true--most true," said yankelé, pulling a smug face. "ve be sent here to obey de law of moses. but do not remind me i be a sinner in israel." "how so?" "i am twenty-five--yet i have no vife." "i daresay you had plenty in poland." "by my soul, not. only von, and her i gave _gett_ (divorce) for barrenness. you can write to de rabbi of my town." "why should i write? it's not my affair." "but i vant it to be your affair." manasseh glared. "do you begin that again?" he murmured. "it is not so much dat i desire your daughter for a vife as you for a fader-in-law." "it cannot be!" said manasseh more gently. "oh dat i had been born a sephardi!" said yankelé with a hopeless groan. "it is too late now," said da costa soothingly. "dey say it's never too late to mend," moaned the pole. "is dere no vay for me to be converted to spanish judaism? i could easily pronounce hebrew in your superior vay." "our judaism differs in no essential respect from yours--it is a question of blood. you cannot change your blood. as it is said, 'and the blood is the life.'" "i know, i know dat i aspire too high. oh, vy did you become my friend, vy did you make me believe you cared for me--so dat i tink of you day and night--and now, ven i ask you to be my fader-in-law, you say it cannot be. it is like a knife in de heart! tink how proud and happy i should be to call you my fader-in-law. all my life vould be devoted to you--my von thought to be vordy of such a man." "you are not the first i have been compelled to refuse," said manasseh, with emotion. "vat helps me dat dere be other _schlemihls_ (unlucky persons)?" quoted yankelé, with a sob. "how can i live midout you for a fader-in-law?" "i am sorry for you--more sorry than i have ever been." "den you do care for me! i vill not give up hope. i vill not take no for no answer. vat is dis blood dat it should divide jew from jew, dat it should prevent me becoming de son-in-law of de only man i have ever loved? say not so. let me ask you again--in a month or a year--even twelve months vould i vait, ven you vould only promise not to pledge yourself to anoder man." "but if i became your father-in-law--mind, i only say if--not only would i not keep you, but you would have to keep my deborah." "and supposing?" "but you are not able to keep a wife!" "not able? who told you dat?" cried yankelé indignantly. "you yourself! why, when i first befriended you, you told me you were blood-poor." "dat i told you as a _schnorrer_. but now i speak to you as a suitor." "true," admitted manasseh, instantly appreciating the distinction. "and as a suitor i tell you i can _schnorr_ enough to keep two vives." "but do you tell this to da costa the father or da costa the marriage-broker?" "hush!" from all parts of the house as the curtain went up and the house settled down. but yankelé was no longer in _rapport_ with the play; the spectre had ceased to thrill and the heroine to touch. his mind was busy with feverish calculations of income, scraping together every penny he could raise by hook or crook. he even drew out a crumpled piece of paper and a pencil, but thrust them back into his pocket when he saw manasseh's eye. "i forgot," he murmured apologetically. "being at de play made me forget it was de sabbath." and he pursued his calculations mentally; this being naturally less work. when the play was over the two beggars walked out into the cool night air. "i find," yankelé began eagerly in the vestibule, "i make at least von hundred and fifty pounds"--he paused to acknowledge the farewell salutation of the little door-keeper at his elbow--"a hundred and fifty a year." "indeed!" said manasseh, in respectful astonishment. "yes! i have reckoned it all up. ten are de sources of charity--" "as it is written," interrupted manasseh with unction, "'with ten sayings was the world created; there were ten generations from noah to abraham; with ten trials our father abraham was tried; ten miracles were wrought for our fathers in egypt and ten at the red sea; and ten things were created on the eve of the sabbath in the twilight!' and now it shall be added, 'ten good deeds the poor man affords the rich man.' proceed, yankelé." "first comes my allowance from de synagogue--eight pounds. vonce a veek i call and receive half-a-crown." "is that all? our synagogue allows three-and-six." "ah!" sighed the pole wistfully. "did i not say you be a superior race?" "but that only makes six pound ten!" "i know--de oder tirty shillings i allow for passover cakes and groceries. den for synagogue-knocking i get ten guin--" "stop! stop!" cried manasseh, with a sudden scruple. "ought i to listen to financial details on the sabbath?" "certainly, ven dey be connected vid my marriage--vich is a commandment. it is de law ve really discuss." "you are right. go on, then. but remember, even if you can prove you can _schnorr_ enough to keep a wife, i do not bind myself to consent." "you be already a fader to me--vy vill you not be a fader-in-law? anyhow, you vill find me a fader-in-law," he added hastily, seeing the blackness gathering again on da costa's brow. "nay, nay, we must not talk of business on the sabbath," said manasseh evasively. "proceed with your statement of income." "ten guineas for synagogue-knocking. i have tventy clients who--" "stop a minute! i cannot pass that item." "vy not? it is true." "maybe! but synagogue-knocking is distinctly _work_!" "vork?" "well, if going round early in the morning to knock at the doors of twenty pious persons, and rouse them for morning service, isn't work, then the christian bell-ringer is a beggar. no, no! profits from this source i cannot regard as legitimate." "but most _schnorrers_ be synagogue-knockers!" "most _schnorrers_ are congregation-men or psalms-men," retorted the spaniard witheringly. "but i call it debasing. what! to assist at the services for a fee! to worship one's maker for hire! under such conditions to pray is to work." his breast swelled with majesty and scorn. "i cannot call it vork," protested the _schnorrer_. "vy at dat rate you vould make out dat de minister vorks? or de preacher? vy, i reckon fourteen pounds a year to my services as congregation-man." "fourteen pounds! as much as that?" "yes, you see dere's my private customers as vell as de synagogue. ven dere is mourning in a house dey cannot alvays get together ten friends for de services, so i make von. how can you call that vork? it is friendship. and the more dey pay me de more friendship i feel," asserted yankelé with a twinkle. "den de synagogue allows me a little extra for announcing de dead." in those primitive times, when a jewish newspaper was undreamt of, the day's obituary was published by a peripatetic _schnorrer_, who went about the ghetto rattling a pyx--a copper money-box with a handle and a lid closed by a padlock. on hearing this death-rattle, anyone who felt curious would ask the _schnorrer_: "who's dead to-day?" "so-and-so ben so-and-so--funeral on such a day--mourning service at such an hour," the _schnorrer_ would reply, and the enquirer would piously put something into the "byx," as it was called. the collection was handed over to the holy society--in other words, the burial society. "p'raps you call that vork?" concluded yankelé, in timid challenge. "of course i do. what do you call it?" "valking exercise. it keeps me healty. vonce von of my customers (from whom i _schnorred_ half-a-crown a veek) said he was tired of my coming and getting it every friday. he vanted to compound mid me for six pound a year, but i vouldn't." "but it was a very fair offer. he only deducted ten shillings for the interest on his money." "dat i didn't mind. but i vanted a pound more for his depriving me of my valking exercise, and dat he vouldn't pay, so he still goes on giving me de half-crown a veek. some of dese charitable persons are terribly mean. but vat i vant to say is dat i carry de byx mostly in the streets vere my customers lay, and it gives me more standing as a _schnorrer_." "no, no, that is a delusion. what! are you weak-minded enough to believe that? all the philanthropists say so, of course, but surely you know that _schnorring_ and work should never be mixed. a man cannot do two things properly. he must choose his profession, and stick to it. a friend of mine once succumbed to the advice of the philanthropists instead of asking mine. he had one of the best provincial rounds in the kingdom, but in every town he weakly listened to the lectures of the president of the congregation inculcating work, and at last he actually invested the savings of years in jewellery, and went round trying to peddle it. the presidents all bought something to encourage him (though they beat down the price so that there was no profit in it), and they all expressed their pleasure at his working for his living, and showing a manly independence. 'but i _schnorr_ also,' he reminded them, holding out his hand when they had finished. it was in vain. no one gave him a farthing. he had blundered beyond redemption. at one blow he had destroyed one of the most profitable connections a _schnorrer_ ever had, and without even getting anything for the goodwill. so if you will be guided by me, yankelé, you will do nothing to assist the philanthropists to keep you. it destroys their satisfaction. a _schnorrer_ cannot be too careful. and once you begin to work, where are you to draw the line?" "but you be a marriage-broker yourself," said yankelé imprudently. "that!" thundered manasseh angrily, "that is not work! that is pleasure!" "vy look! dere is hennery simons," cried yankelé, hoping to divert his attention. but he only made matters worse. henry simons was a character variously known as the tumbling jew, harry the dancer, and the juggling jew. he was afterwards to become famous as the hero of a slander case which deluged england with pamphlets for and against, but for the present he had merely outraged the feelings of his fellow _schnorrers_ by budding out in a direction so rare as to suggest preliminary baptism. he stood now playing antic and sleight-of-hand tricks--surrounded by a crowd--a curious figure crowned by a velvet skull-cap from which wisps of hair protruded, with a scarlet handkerchief thrust through his girdle. his face was an olive oval, bordered by ragged tufts of beard and stamped with melancholy. "you see the results of working," cried manasseh. "it brings temptation to work on sabbath. that epicurean there is profaning the holy day. come away! a _schnorrer_ is far more certain of the-world-to-come. no, decidedly, i will not give my daughter to a worker, or to a _schnorrer_ who makes illegitimate profits." "but i _make_ de profits all de same," persisted yankelé. "you make them to-day--but to-morrow? there is no certainty about them. work of whatever kind is by its very nature unreliable. at any moment trade may be slack. people may become less pious, and you lose your synagogue-knocking. or more pious--and they won't want congregation-men." "but new synagogues spring up," urged yankelé. "new synagogues are full of enthusiasm," retorted manasseh. "the members are their own congregation-men." yankelé had his roguish twinkle. "at first," he admitted, "but de _schnorrer_ vaits his time." manasseh shook his head. "_schnorring_ is the only occupation that is regular all the year round," he said. "everything else may fail--the greatest commercial houses may totter to the ground; as it is written, 'he humbleth the proud.' but the _schnorrer_ is always secure. whoever falls, there are always enough left to look after _him_. if you were a father, yankelé, you would understand my feelings. how can a man allow his daughter's future happiness to repose on a basis so uncertain as work? no, no. what do you make by your district visiting? everything turns on that." "tventy-five shilling a veek!" "really?" "law of moses! in sixpences, shillings, and half-crowns. vy in houndsditch alone, i have two streets all except a few houses." "but are they safe? population shifts. good streets go down." "dat tventy-five shillings is as safe as mocatta's business. i have it all written down at home--you can inspect de books if you choose." "no, no," said manasseh, with a grand wave of his stick. "if i did not believe you, i should not entertain your proposal for a moment. it rejoices me exceedingly to find you have devoted so much attention to this branch. i always held strongly that the rich should be visited in their own homes, and i grieve to see this personal touch, this contact with the very people to whom you give the good deeds, being replaced by lifeless circulars. one owes it to one's position in life to afford the wealthy classes the opportunity of charity warm from the heart; they should not be neglected and driven in their turn to write cheques in cold blood, losing all that human sympathy which comes from personal intercourse--as it is written, 'charity delivers from death.' but do you think charity that is given publicly through a secretary and advertised in annual reports has so great a redeeming power as that slipped privately into the hands of the poor man, who makes a point of keeping secret from every donor what he has received from the others?" "i am glad you don't call collecting de money vork," said yankelé, with a touch of sarcasm which was lost on da costa. "no, so long as the donor can't show any 'value received' in return. and there's more friendship in _such_ a call, yankelé, than in going to a house of mourning to pray for a fee." "oh," said yankelé, wincing. "den p'raps you strike out all my year-time item!" "year-time! what's that?" "don't you know?" said the pole, astonished. "ven a man has year-time, he feels charitable for de day." "do you mean when he commemorates the anniversary of the death of one of his family? we sephardim call that 'making years'! but are there enough year-times, as you call them, in your synagogue?" "dere might be more--i only make about fifteen pounds. our colony is, as you say, too new. de globe road cemetery is as empty as a synagogue on veek-days. de faders have left _deir_ faders on de continent, and kept many year-times out of de country. but in a few years many faders and moders must die off here, and every parent leaves two or tree sons to have year-times, and every child two or tree broders and a fader. den every day more german jews come here--vich means more and more to die. i tink indeed it vould be fair to double this item." "no, no; stick to facts. it is an iniquity to speculate in the misfortunes of our fellow-creatures." "somebody must die dat i may live," retorted yankelé roguishly; "de vorld is so created. did you not quote, 'charity delivers from death'? if people lived for ever, _schnorrers_ could not live at all." "hush! the world could not exist without _schnorrers_. as it is written, 'and repentance and _prayer_ and charity avert the evil decree.' charity is put last--it is the climax--the greatest thing on earth. and the _schnorrer_ is the greatest man on earth; for it stands in the talmud, 'he who causes is greater than he who does.' therefore, the _schnorrer_ who causes charity is even greater than he who gives it." "talk of de devil," said yankelé, who had much difficulty in keeping his countenance when manasseh became magnificent and dithyrambic. "vy, dere is greenbaum, whose fader vas buried yesterday. let us cross over by accident and vish him long life." "greenbaum dead! was that the greenbaum on 'change, who was such a rascal with the wenches?" "de same," said yankelé. then approaching the son, he cried, "good sabbath, mr. greenbaum; i vish you long life. vat a blow for de community!" "it comforts me to hear you say so," said the son, with a sob in his voice. "ah, yes!" said yankelé chokingly. "your fader vas a great and good man--just my size." [illustration: "'your fader vas a great and good man--just my size.'"] "i've already given them away to baruch the glazier," replied the mourner. "but he has his glaziering," remonstrated yankelé. "i have noting but de clothes i stand in, and dey don't fit me half so vell as your fader's vould have done." "baruch has been very unfortunate," replied greenbaum defensively. "he had a misfortune in the winter, and he has never got straight yet. a child of his died, and, unhappily, just when the snowballing was at its height, so that he lost seven days by the mourning." and he moved away. "did i not say work was uncertain?" cried manasseh. "not all," maintained the _schnorrer_. "what of de six guineas i make by carrying round de palm-branch on tabernacles to be shaken by de voomans who cannot attend synagogue, and by blowing de trumpet for de same voomans on new year, so dat dey may break deir fasts?" "the amount is too small to deserve discussion. pass on." "dere is a smaller amount--just half dat--i get from de presents to de poor at de feast of lots, and from de bridegrooms of de beginning and de bridegrooms of de law at de rejoicing of de law, and dere is about four pounds ten a year from de sale of clothes given to me. den i have a lot o' meals given me--dis, i have reckoned, is as good as seven pounds. and, lastly, i cannot count de odds and ends under ten guineas. you know dere are alvays legacies, gifts, distributions--all unexpected. you never know who'll break out next." "yes, i think it's not too high a percentage of your income to expect from unexpected sources," admitted manasseh. "i have myself lingered about 'change alley or sampson's coffee house just when the jobbers have pulled off a special coup, and they have paid me quite a high percentage on their profits." "and i," boasted yankelé, stung to noble emulation, "have made two sov'rans in von minute out of gideon de bullion-broker. he likes to give _schnorrers_ sov'rans, as if in mistake for shillings, to see vat dey'll do. de fools hurry off, or move slowly avay, as if not noticing, or put it quickly in de pocket. but dose who have visdom tell him he's made a mistake, and he gives dem anoder sov'ran. honesty is de best policy with gideon. den dere is rabbi de falk, de baal shem--de great cabbalist. ven--" "but," interrupted manasseh impatiently, "you haven't made out your hundred and fifty a year." yankelé's face fell. "not if you cut out so many items." "no, but even all inclusive it only comes to a hundred and forty-three pounds nineteen shillings." "nonsense!" said yankelé, staggered. "how can you know so exact?" "do you think i cannot do simple addition?" responded manasseh sternly. "are not these your ten items?" £ s. d. . synagogue pension, with passover extras . synagogue-knocking . district visiting . as congregation-man and pyx-bearer . year-times . palm-branch and trumpet fees . purim-presents, &c. . sale of clothes . equivalent of free meals . miscellanea, the unexpected total £ "a child could sum it up," concluded manasseh severely. yankelé was subdued to genuine respect and consternation by da costa's marvellous memory and arithmetical genius. but he rallied immediately. "of course, i also reckoned on a dowry mid my bride, if only a hundred pounds." "well, invested in consols, that would not bring you four pounds more," replied manasseh instantly. "the rest vill be made up in extra free meals," yankelé answered no less quickly. "for ven i take your daughter off your hands you vill be able to afford to invite me more often to your table dan you do now." "not at all," retorted manasseh, "for now that i know how well off you are i shall no longer feel i am doing a charity." "oh, yes, you vill," said yankelé insinuatingly. "you are too much a man of honour to know as a private philantropist vat i have told de marriage-broker, de fader-in-law and de fellow _schnorrer_. besides, i vould have de free meals from you as de son-in-law, not de _schnorrer_." "in that relation i should also have free meals from you," rejoined manasseh. "i never dared to tink you vould do me de honour. but even so i can never give you such good meals as you give me. so dere is still a balance in my favour." "that is true," said da costa thoughtfully. "but you have still about a guinea to make up." yankelé was driven into a corner at last. but he flashed back, without perceptible pause, "you do not allow for vat i save by my piety. i fast twenty times a year, and surely dat is at least anoder guinea per annum." "but you will have children," retorted da costa. yankelé shrugged his shoulders. "dat is de affair of de holy one, blessed be he. ven he sends dem he vill provide for dem. you must not forget, too, dat mid _your_ daughter de dowry vould be noting so small as a hundred pounds." "my daughter will have a dowry befitting her station, certainly," said manasseh, with his grandest manner; "but then i had looked forward to her marrying a king of _schnorrers_." "vell, but ven i marry her i shall be." "how so?" "i shall have _schnorred_ your daughter--the most precious thing in the world! and _schnorred_ her from a king of _schnorrers_, too!! and i shall have _schnorred_ your services as marriage-broker into de bargain!!!" chapter iv. showing how the royal wedding was arranged. manasseh bueno barzillai azevedo da costa was so impressed by his would-be son-in-law's last argument that he perpended it in silence for a full minute. when he replied, his tone showed even more respect than had been infused into it by the statement of the aspirant's income. manasseh was not of those to whom money is a fetish; he regarded it merely as something to be had for the asking. it was intellect for which he reserved his admiration. that was strictly not transferable. "it is true," he said, "that if i yielded to your importunities and gave you my daughter, you would thereby have approved yourself a king of _schnorrers_, of a rank suitable to my daughter's, but an analysis of your argument will show that you are begging the question." "vat more proof do you vant of my begging powers?" demanded yankelé, spreading out his palms and shrugging his shoulders. [illustration: "'vat more proof do you vant?'"] "much greater proof," replied manasseh. "i ought to have some instance of your powers. the only time i have seen you try to _schnorr_ you failed." "me! ven?" exclaimed yankelé indignantly. "why, this very night. when you asked young weinstein for his dead father's clothes!" "but he had already given them away!" protested the pole. "what of that? if anyone had given away _my_ clothes, i should have demanded compensation. you must really be above rebuffs of that kind, yankelé, if you are to be my son-in-law. no, no, i remember the dictum of the sages: 'to give your daughter to an uncultured man is like throwing her bound to a lion.'" "but you have also seen me _schnorr_ mid success," remonstrated the suitor. "never!" protested manasseh vehemently. "often!" "from whom?" "from you!" said yankelé boldly. "from _me_!" sneered manasseh, accentuating the pronoun with infinite contempt. "what does that prove? i am a generous man. the test is to _schnorr_ from a miser." "i _vill schnorr_ from a miser!" announced yankelé desperately. "you will!" "yes. choose your miser." "no, i leave it to you," said da costa politely. "vell, sam lazarus, de butcher shop!" "no, not sam lazarus, he once gave a _schnorrer_ i know elevenpence." "elevenpence?" incredulously murmured yankelé. "yes, it was the only way he could pass a shilling. it wasn't bad, only cracked, but he could get no one to take it except a _schnorrer_. he made the man give him a penny change though. 'tis true the man afterwards laid out the shilling at lazarus's shop. still a really great miser would have added that cracked shilling to his hoard rather than the perfect penny." "no," argued yankelé, "dere vould be no difference, since he does not spend." "true," said da costa reflectively, "but by that same token a miser is not the most difficult person to tackle." "how do you make dat out?" "is it not obvious? already we see lazarus giving away elevenpence. a miser who spends nothing on himself may, in exceptional cases, be induced to give away something. it is the man who indulges himself in every luxury and gives away nothing who is the hardest to _schnorr_ from. he has a _use_ for his money--himself! if you diminish his store you hurt him in the tenderest part--you rob him of creature comforts. to _schnorr_ from such a one i should regard as a higher and nobler thing than to _schnorr_ from a mere miser." "vell, name your man." "no--i couldn't think of taking it out of your hands," said manasseh again with his stately bow. "whomever you select i will abide by. if i could not rely on your honour, would i dream of you as a son-in-law?" "den i vill go to mendel jacobs, of mary axe." "mendel jacobs--oh, no! why, he's married! a married man cannot be entirely devoted to himself." "vy not? is not a vife a creature comfort? p'raps also she comes cheaper dan a housekeeper." "we will not argue it. i will not have mendel jacobs." "simon kelutski, de vine-merchant." "he! he is quite generous with his snuff-box. i have myself been offered a pinch. of course i did not accept it." yankelé selected several other names, but manasseh barred them all, and at last had an inspiration of his own. "isn't there a rabbi in your community whose stinginess is proverbial? let me see, what's his name?" "a rabbi!" murmured yankelé disingenuously, while his heart began to palpitate with alarm. "yes, isn't there--rabbi bloater!" yankelé shook his head. ruin stared him in the face--his fondest hopes were crumbling. "i know it's some fishy name--rabbi haddock--no it isn't. it's rabbi remorse something." yankelé saw it was all over with him. "p'raps you mean rabbi remorse red-herring," he said feebly, for his voice failed him. "ah, yes! rabbi remorse red-herring," said manasseh. "from all i hear--for i have never seen the man--a king of guzzlers and topers, and the meanest of mankind. now if you could dine with _him_ you might indeed be called a king of _schnorrers_." yankelé was pale and trembling. "but _he_ is married!" he urged, with a happy thought. [illustration: "the trembling jew."] "dine with him to-morrow," said manasseh inexorably. "he fares extra royally on the sabbath. obtain admission to his table, and you shall be admitted into my family." "but you do not know the man--it is impossible!" cried yankelé. "that is the excuse of the bad _schnorrer_. you have heard my ultimatum. no dinner, no wife. no wife--no dowry!" "vat vould dis dowry be?" asked yankelé, by way of diversion. "oh, unique--quite unique. first of all there would be all the money she gets from the synagogue. our synagogue gives considerable dowries to portionless girls. there are large bequests for the purpose." yankelé's eyes glittered. "ah, vat gentlemen you spaniards be!" "then i daresay i should hand over to my son-in-law all my jerusalem land." "have you property in de holy land?" said yankelé. "first class, with an unquestionable title. and, of course, i would give you some province or other in this country." "what!" gasped yankelé. "could i do less?" said manasseh blandly. "my own flesh and blood, remember! ah, here is my door. it is too late to ask you in. good sabbath! don't forget your appointment to dine with rabbi remorse red-herring to-morrow." "good sabbath!" faltered yankelé, and crawled home heavy-hearted to dinah's buildings, tripe yard, whitechapel, where the memory of him lingers even unto this day. rabbi remorse red-herring was an unofficial preacher who officiated at mourning services in private houses, having a gift of well-turned eulogy. he was a big, burly man with overlapping stomach and a red beard, and his spiritual consolations drew tears. his clients knew him to be vastly self-indulgent in private life, and abstemious in the matter of benevolence; but they did not confound the _rôles_. as a mourning preacher he gave every satisfaction: he was regular and punctual, and did not keep the congregation waiting, and he had had considerable experience in showing that there was yet balm in gilead. he had about five ways of showing it--the variants depending upon the circumstances. if, as not infrequently happened, the person deceased was a stranger to him, he would enquire in the passage: "was it man or woman? boy or girl? married or single? any children? young 'uns or old 'uns?" when these questions had been answered, he was ready. he knew exactly which of his five consolatory addresses to deliver--they were all sufficiently vague and general to cover considerable variety of circumstance, and even when he misheard the replies in the passage, and dilated on the grief of a departed widower's relict, the results were not fatal throughout. the few impossible passages might be explained by the mishearing of the audience. sometimes--very rarely--he would venture on a supplementary sentence or two fitting the specific occasion, but very cautiously, for a man with a reputation for extempore addresses cannot be too wary of speaking on the spur of the moment. off obituary lines he was a failure; at any rate, his one attempt to preach from an english synagogue pulpit resulted in a nickname. his theme was remorse, which he explained with much care to the congregation. "for instance," said the preacher, "the other day i was walking over london bridge, when i saw a fishwife standing with a basket of red-herrings. i says, 'how much?' she says, 'two for three-halfpence.' i says, 'oh, that's frightfully dear! i can easily get three for twopence.' but she wouldn't part with them at that price, so i went on, thinking i'd meet another woman with a similar lot over the water. they were lovely fat herrings, and my chaps watered in anticipation of the treat of eating them. but when i got to the other end of the bridge there was no other fishwife to be seen. so i resolved to turn back to the first fishwife, for, after all, i reflected, the herrings were really very cheap, and i had only complained in the way of business. but when i got back the woman was just sold out. i could have torn my hair with vexation. now, that's what i call remorse." [illustration: "'i could have torn my hair.'"] after that the rabbi was what the congregation called remorse; also red-herring. the rabbi's fondness for concrete exemplification of abstract ideas was not, however, to be stifled, and there was one illustration of charity which found a place in all the five sermons of consolation. "if you have a pair of old breeches, send them to the rabbi." rabbi remorse red-herring was, however, as is the way of preachers, himself aught but a concrete exemplification of the virtues he inculcated. he lived generously--through other people's generosity--but no one could boast of having received a farthing from him over and above what was due to them; while _schnorrers_ (who deemed considerable sums due to them) regarded him in the light of a defalcating bankrupt. he, for his part, had a countervailing grudge against the world, fancying the work he did for it but feebly remunerated. "i get so little," ran his bitter plaint, "that i couldn't live, _if it were not for the fasts_." and, indeed, the fasts of the religion were worth much more to him than to yankelé; his meals were so profuse that his savings from this source were quite a little revenue. as yankelé had pointed out, he was married. and his wife had given him a child, but it died at the age of seven, bequeathing to him the only poignant sorrow of his life. he was too jealous to call in a rival consolation preacher during those dark days, and none of his own five sermons seemed to fit the case. it was some months before he took his meals regularly. at no time had anyone else taken meals in his house, except by law entitled. though she had only two to cook for, his wife habitually provided for three, counting her husband no mere unit. herself she reckoned as a half. it was with intelligible perturbation, therefore, that yankelé, dressed in some other man's best, approached the house of rabbi remorse red-herring about a quarter of an hour before the sabbath mid-day meal, intent on sharing it with him. "no dinner, no marriage!" was da costa's stern ukase. what wonder if the inaccessible meal took upon itself the grandiosity of a wedding feast! deborah da costa's lovely face tantalised him like a mirage. the sabbath day was bleak, but chiller was his heart. the rabbi had apartments in steward street, spitalfields, an elegant suite on the ground-floor, for he stinted himself in nothing but charity. at the entrance was a porch--a pointed gothic arch of wood supported by two pillars. as yankelé mounted the three wooden steps, breathing as painfully as if they were three hundred, and wondering if he would ever get merely as far as the other side of the door, he was assailed by the temptation to go and dine peacefully at home, and represent to da costa that he had feasted with the rabbi. manasseh would never know, manasseh had taken no steps to ascertain if he satisfied the test or not. such carelessness, he told himself in righteous indignation, deserved fitting punishment. but, on the other hand, he recalled manasseh's trust in him; manasseh believed him a man of honour, and the patron's elevation of soul awoke an answering chivalry in the parasite. he decided to make the attempt at least, for there would be plenty of time to say he had succeeded, after he had failed. vibrating with tremors of nobility as well as of apprehension, yankelé lifted the knocker. he had no programme, trusting to chance and mother-wit. mrs. remorse red-herring half opened the door. "i vish to see de rabbi," he said, putting one foot within. [illustration: "'i vish to see de rabbi.'"] "he is engaged," said the wife--a tiny thin creature who had been plump and pretty. "he is very busy talking with a gentleman." "oh, but i can vait." "but the rabbi will be having his dinner soon." "i can vait till after dinner," said yankelé obligingly. "oh, but the rabbi sits long at table." "i don't mind," said yankelé with undiminished placidity, "de longer de better." the poor woman looked perplexed. "i'll tell my husband," she said at last. yankelé had an anxious moment in the passage. "the rabbi wishes to know what you want," she said when she returned. "i vant to get married," said yankelé with an inspiration of veracity. "but my husband doesn't marry people." "vy not?" "he only brings consolation into households," she explained ingenuously. "vell, i won't get married midout him," yankelé murmured lugubriously. the little woman went back in bewilderment to her bosom's lord. forthwith out came rabbi remorse red-herring, curiosity and cupidity in his eyes. he wore the skull-cap of sanctity, but looked the gourmand in spite of it. "good sabbath, sir! what is this about your getting married?" "it's a long story," said yankelé, "and as your good vife told me your dinner is just ready, i mustn't keep you now." "no, there are still a few minutes before dinner. what is it?" yankelé shook his head. "i couldn't tink of keeping you in dis draughty passage." "i don't mind. i don't feel any draught." "dat's just vere de danger lays. you don't notice, and one day you find yourself laid up mid rheumatism, and you vill have remorse," said yankelé with a twinkle. "your life is precious--if _you_ die, who vill console de community?" it was an ambiguous remark, but the rabbi understood it in its most flattering sense, and his little eyes beamed. "i would ask you inside," he said, "but i have a visitor." "no matter," said yankelé, "vat i have to say to you, rabbi, is not private. a stranger may hear it." still undecided, the rabbi muttered, "you want me to marry you?" "i have come to get married," replied yankelé. "but i have never been called upon to marry people." "it's never too late to mend, dey say." "strange--strange," murmured the rabbi reflectively. "vat is strange?" "that you should come to me just to-day. but why did you not go to rabbi sandman?" "rabbi sandman!" replied yankelé with contempt. "vere vould be de good of going to him?" "but why not?" "every _schnorrer_ goes to him," said yankelé frankly. "hum!" mused the rabbi. "perhaps there _is_ an opening for a more select marrier. come in, then, i can give you five minutes if you really don't mind talking before a stranger." he threw open the door, and led the way into the sitting-room. yankelé followed, exultant; the outworks were already carried, and his heart beat high with hope. but at his first glance within, he reeled and almost fell. standing with his back to the fire and dominating the room was manasseh bueno barzillai azevedo da costa! "ah, yankelé, good sabbath!" said da costa affably. "g-g-ood sabbath!" stammered yankelé. "why, you know each other!" cried the rabbi. "oh, yes," said manasseh, "an acquaintance of yours, too, apparently." "no, he is just come to see me about something," replied the rabbi. "i thought you did not know the rabbi, mr. da costa?" yankelé could not help saying. "i didn't. i only had the pleasure of making his acquaintance half an hour ago. i met him in the street as he was coming home from morning service, and he was kind enough to invite me to dinner." yankelé gasped; despite his secret amusement at manasseh's airs, there were moments when the easy magnificence of the man overwhelmed him, extorted his reluctant admiration. how in heaven's name had the spaniard conquered at a blow! looking down at the table, he now observed that it was already laid for dinner--and for three! he should have been that third. was it fair of manasseh to handicap him thus? naturally, there would be infinitely less chance of a fourth being invited than a third--to say nothing of the dearth of provisions. "but, surely, you don't intend to stay to dinner!" he complained in dismay. "i have given my word," said manasseh, "and i shouldn't care to disappoint the rabbi." "oh, it's no disappointment, no disappointment," remarked rabbi remorse red-herring cordially, "i could just as well come round and see you after dinner." "after dinner i never see people," said manasseh majestically; "i sleep." the rabbi dared not make further protest: he turned to yankelé and asked, "well, now, what's this about your marriage?" "i can't tell you before mr. da costa," replied yankelé, to gain time. "why not? you said anybody might hear." "noting of the sort. i said a stranger might hear. but mr. da costa isn't a stranger. he knows too much about de matter." "what shall we do, then?" murmured the rabbi. "i can vait till after dinner," said yankelé, with good-natured carelessness. "_i_ don't sleep--" before the rabbi could reply, the wife brought in a baked dish, and set it on the table. her husband glowered at her, but she, regular as clockwork, and as unthinking, produced the black bottle of _schnapps_. it was her husband's business to get rid of yankelé; her business was to bring on the dinner. if she had delayed, he would have raged equally. she was not only wife, but maid-of-all-work. seeing the advanced state of the preparations, manasseh da costa took his seat at the table; obeying her husband's significant glance, mrs. red-herring took up her position at the foot. the rabbi himself sat down at the head, behind the dish. he always served, being the only person he could rely upon to gauge his capacities. yankelé was left standing. the odour of the meat and potatoes impregnated the atmosphere with wistful poetry. suddenly the rabbi looked up and perceived yankelé. "will you do as we do?" he said in seductive accents. the _schnorrer's_ heart gave one wild, mad throb of joy. he laid his hand on the only other chair. "i don't mind if i do," he said, with responsive amiability. "then go home and have _your_ dinner," said the rabbi. [illustration: "'then go home and have your dinner.'"] yankelé's wild heart-beat was exchanged for a stagnation as of death. a shiver ran down his spine. he darted an agonised appealing glance at manasseh, who sniggered inscrutably. "oh, i don't tink i ought to go avay and leave you midout a tird man for grace," he said, in tones of prophetic rebuke. "since i _be_ here, it vould be a sin not to stay." the rabbi, having a certain connection with religion, was cornered; he was not able to repudiate such an opportunity of that more pious form of grace which needs the presence of three males. "oh, i should be very glad for you to stay," said the rabbi, "but, unfortunately, we have only three meat-plates." "oh, de dish vill do for me." "very well, then!" said the rabbi. and yankelé, with the old mad heart-beat, took the fourth chair, darting a triumphant glance at the still sniggering manasseh. the hostess rose, misunderstanding her husband's optical signals, and fished out a knife and fork from the recesses of a chiffonier. the host first heaped his own plate high with artistically coloured potatoes and stiff meat--less from discourtesy than from life-long habit--then divided the remainder in unequal portions between manasseh and the little woman, in rough correspondence with their sizes. finally, he handed yankelé the empty dish. "you see there is nothing left," he said simply. "we didn't even expect one visitor." "first come, first served," observed manasseh, with his sphinx-like expression, as he fell-to. yankelé sat frozen, staring blankly at the dish, his brain as empty. he had lost. such a dinner was a hollow mockery--like the dish. he could not expect manasseh to accept it, quibbled he ever so cunningly. he sat for a minute or two as in a dream, the music of knife and fork ringing mockingly in his ears, his hungry palate moistened by the delicious savour. then he shook off his stupor, and all his being was desperately astrain, questing for an idea. manasseh discoursed with his host on neo-hebrew literature. "we thought of starting a journal at grodno," said the rabbi, "only the funds--" "be you den a native of grodno?" interrupted yankelé. "yes, i was born there," mumbled the rabbi, "but i left there twenty years ago." his mouth was full, and he did not cease to ply the cutlery. "ah!" said yankelé enthusiastically, "den you must be de famous preacher everybody speaks of. i do not remember you myself, for i vas a boy, but dey say ve haven't got no such preachers nowaday." "in grodno my husband kept a brandy shop," put in the hostess. there was a bad quarter of a minute of silence. to yankelé's relief, the rabbi ended it by observing, "yes, but doubtless the gentleman (you will excuse me calling you that, sir, i don't know your real name) alluded to my fame as a boy-maggid. at the age of five i preached to audiences of many hundreds, and my manipulation of texts, my demonstrations that they did not mean what they said, drew tears even from octogenarians familiar with the torah from their earliest infancy. it was said there never was such a wonder-child since ben sira." "but why did you give it up?" enquired manasseh. "it gave me up," said the rabbi, putting down his knife and fork to expound an ancient grievance. "a boy-maggid cannot last more than a few years. up to nine i was still a draw, but every year the wonder grew less, and, when i was thirteen, my bar-mitzvah (confirmation) sermon occasioned no more sensation than those of the many other lads whose sermons i had written for them. i struggled along as boyishly as i could for some time after that, but it was in a losing cause. my age won on me daily. as it is said, 'i have been young, and now i am old.' in vain i composed the most eloquent addresses to be heard in grodno. in vain i gave a course on the emotions, with explanations and instances from daily life--the fickle public preferred younger attractions. so at last i gave it up and sold _vodki_." [illustration: "'sold vodki.'"] "vat a pity! vat a pity!" ejaculated yankelé, "after vinning fame in de torah!" "but what is a man to do? he is not always a boy," replied the rabbi. "yes, i kept a brandy shop. that's what i call degradation. but there is always balm in gilead. i lost so much money over it that i had to emigrate to england, where, finding nothing else to do, i became a preacher again." he poured himself out a glass of _schnapps_, ignoring the water. "i heard nothing of de _vodki_ shop," said yankelé; "it vas svallowed up in your earlier fame." the rabbi drained the glass of _schnapps_, smacked his lips, and resumed his knife and fork. manasseh reached for the unoffered bottle, and helped himself liberally. the rabbi unostentatiously withdrew it beyond his easy reach, looking at yankelé the while. "how long have you been in england?" he asked the pole. "not long," said yankelé. "ha! does gabriel the cantor still suffer from neuralgia?" yankelé looked sad. "no--he is dead," he said. "dear me! well, he was tottering when i knew him. his blowing of the ram's horn got wheezier every year. and how is his young brother, samuel?" "he is dead!" said yankelé. "what, he too! tut, tut! he was so robust. has mendelssohn, the stonemason, got many more girls?" "he is dead!" said yankelé. "nonsense!" gasped the rabbi, dropping his knife and fork. "why, i heard from him only a few months ago." "he is dead!" said yankelé. "good gracious me! mendelssohn dead!" after a moment of emotion he resumed his meal. "but his sons and daughters are all doing well, i hope. the eldest, solomon, was a most pious youth, and his third girl, neshamah, promised to be a rare beauty." "they are dead!" said yankelé. this time the rabbi turned pale as a corpse himself. he laid down his knife and fork automatically. "d--dead," he breathed in an awestruck whisper. "all?" "everyone. de same cholera took all de family." the rabbi covered his face with his hands. "then poor solomon's wife is a widow. i hope he left her enough to live upon." "no, but it doesn't matter," said yankelé. "it matters a great deal," cried the rabbi. "she is dead," said yankelé. "rebecca schwartz dead!" screamed the rabbi, for he had once loved the maiden himself, and, not having married her, had still a tenderness for her. "rebecca schwartz," repeated yankelé inexorably. "was it the cholera?" faltered the rabbi. "no, she vas heart-broke." rabbi remorse red-herring silently pushed his plate away, and leaned his elbows upon the table and his face upon his palms, and his chin upon the bottle of _schnapps_ in mournful meditation. [illustration: "in mournful meditation."] "you are not eating, rabbi," said yankelé insinuatingly. "i have lost my appetite," said the rabbi. "vat a pity to let food get cold and spoil! you'd better eat it." the rabbi shook his head querulously. "den i vill eat it," cried yankelé indignantly. "good hot food like dat!" "as you like," said the rabbi wearily. and yankelé began to eat at lightning speed, pausing only to wink at the inscrutable manasseh; and to cast yearning glances at the inaccessible _schnapps_ that supported the rabbi's chin. presently the rabbi looked up: "you're quite sure all these people are dead?" he asked with a dawning suspicion. "may my blood be poured out like this _schnapps_," protested yankelé, dislodging the bottle, and vehemently pouring the spirit into a tumbler, "if dey be not." the rabbi relapsed into his moody attitude, and retained it till his wife brought in a big willow-pattern china dish of stewed prunes and pippins. she produced four plates for these, and so yankelé finished his meal in the unquestionable status of a first-class guest. the rabbi was by this time sufficiently recovered to toy with two platefuls in a melancholy silence which he did not break till his mouth opened involuntarily to intone the grace. [illustration: "prunes and pippins."] when grace was over he turned to manasseh and said, "and what was this way you were suggesting to me of getting a profitable sephardic connection?" "i did, indeed, wonder why you did not extend your practice as consolation preacher among the spanish jews," replied manasseh gravely. "but after what we have just heard of the death-rate of jews in grodno, i should seriously advise you to go back there." "no, they cannot forget that i was once a boy," replied the rabbi with equal gravity. "i prefer the spanish jews. they are all well-to-do. they may not die so often as the russians, but they die better, so to speak. you will give me introductions, you will speak of me to your illustrious friends, i understand." "you understand!" repeated manasseh in dignified astonishment. "you do not understand. i shall do no such thing." "but you yourself suggested it!" cried the rabbi excitedly. "i? nothing of the kind. i had heard of you and your ministrations to mourners, and meeting you in the street this afternoon for the first time, it struck me to enquire why you did not carry your consolations into the bosom of my community where so much more money is to be made. i said i wondered you had not done so from the first. and you--invited me to dinner. i still wonder. that is all, my good man." he rose to go. the haughty rebuke silenced the rabbi, though his heart was hot with a vague sense of injury. "do you come my way, yankelé?" said manasseh carelessly. the rabbi turned hastily to his second guest. "when do you want me to marry you?" he asked. "you have married me," replied yankelé. "i?" gasped the rabbi. it was the last straw. "yes," reiterated yankelé. "hasn't he, mr. da costa?" his heart went pit-a-pat as he put the question. "certainly," said manasseh without hesitation. yankelé's face was made glorious summer. only two of the quartette knew the secret of his radiance. "there, rabbi," he cried exultantly. "good sabbath!" "good sabbath!" added manasseh. "good sabbath," dazedly murmured the rabbi. "good sabbath," added his wife. "congratulate me!" cried yankelé when they got outside. "on what?" asked manasseh. "on being your future son-in-law, of course." "oh, on _that_? certainly, i congratulate you most heartily." the two _schnorrers_ shook hands. "i thought you were asking for compliments on your manoeuvring." "vy, doesn't it deserve dem?" "no," said manasseh magisterially. "no?" queried yankelé, his heart sinking again. "vy not?" "why did you kill so many people?" "somebody must die dat i may live." "you said that before," said manasseh severely. "a good _schnorrer_ would not have slaughtered so many for his dinner. it is a waste of good material. and then you told lies!" "how do you know they are not dead?" pleaded yankelé. the king shook his head reprovingly. "a first-class _schnorrer_ never lies," he laid it down. "i might have made truth go as far as a lie--if you hadn't come to dinner yourself." "what is that you say? why, i came to encourage you by showing you how easy your task was." "on de contrary, you made it much harder for me. dere vas no dinner left." "but against that you must reckon that since the rabbi had already invited one person, he couldn't be so hard to tackle as i had fancied." "oh, but you must not judge from yourself," protested yankelé. "you be not a _schnorrer_--you be a miracle." "but i should like a miracle for my son-in-law also," grumbled the king. "and if you had to _schnorr_ a son-in-law, you vould get a miracle," said yankelé soothingly. "as he has to _schnorr_ you, _he_ gets the miracle." "true," observed manasseh musingly, "and i think you might therefore be very well content without the dowry." "so i might," admitted yankelé, "only _you_ vould not be content to break your promise. i suppose i shall have some of de dowry on de marriage morning." "on that morning you shall get my daughter--without fail. surely that will be enough for one day!" "vell, ven do i get de money your daughter gets from de synagogue?" "when she gets it from the synagogue, of course." "how much vill it be?" "it may be a hundred and fifty pounds," said manasseh pompously. yankelé's eyes sparkled. "and it may be less," added manasseh as an after-thought. "how much less?" enquired yankelé anxiously. "a hundred and fifty pounds," repeated manasseh pompously. "d'you mean to say i may get noting?" "certainly, if she gets nothing. what i promised you was the money she gets from the synagogue. should she be fortunate enough in the _sorteo_--" "de _sorteo_! vat is dat?" "the dowry i told you of. it is accorded by lot. my daughter has as good a chance as any other maiden. by winning her you stand to win a hundred and fifty pounds. it is a handsome amount. there are not many fathers who would do as much for their daughters," concluded manasseh with conscious magnanimity. "but about de jerusalem estate!" said yankelé, shifting his standpoint. "i don't vant to go and live dere. de messiah is not yet come." "no, you will hardly be able to live on it," admitted manasseh. "you do not object to my selling it, den?" "oh, no! if you are so sordid, if you have no true jewish sentiment!" "ven can i come into possession?" "on the wedding day if you like." "one may as vell get it over," said yankelé, suppressing a desire to rub his hands in glee. "as de talmud says, 'one peppercorn to-day is better dan a basketful of pumpkins to-morrow.'" "all right! i will bring it to the synagogue." "bring it to de synagogue!" repeated yankelé in amaze. "oh, you mean de deed of transfer." "the deed of transfer! do you think i waste my substance on solicitors? no, i will bring the property itself." "but how can you do dat?" "where is the difficulty?" demanded manasseh with withering contempt. "surely a child could carry a casket of jerusalem earth to synagogue!" "a casket of earth! is your property in jerusalem only a casket of earth?" "what then? you didn't expect it would be a casket of diamonds?" retorted manasseh, with gathering wrath. "to a true jew a casket of jerusalem earth is worth all the diamonds in the world." "but your jerusalem property is a fraud!" gasped yankelé. "oh, no, you may be easy on that point. it's quite genuine. i know there is a good deal of spurious palestine earth in circulation, and that many a dead man who has clods of it thrown into his tomb is nevertheless buried in unholy soil. but this casket i was careful to obtain from a rabbi of extreme sanctity. it was the only thing he had worth _schnorring_." "i don't suppose i shall get more dan a crown for it," said yankelé, with irrepressible indignation. "that's what i say," returned manasseh; "and never did i think a son-in-law of mine would meditate selling my holy soil for a paltry five shillings! i will not withdraw my promise, but i am disappointed in you--bitterly disappointed. had i known this earth was not to cover your bones, it should have gone down to the grave with me, as enjoined in my last will and testament, by the side of which it stands in my safe." "very vell, i von't sell it," said yankelé sulkily. "you relieve my soul. as the _mishnah_ says, 'he who marries a wife for money begets froward children.'" "and vat about de province in england?" asked yankelé, in low, despondent tones. he had never believed in _that_, but now, behind all his despair and incredulity, was a vague hope that something might yet be saved from the crash. "oh, you shall choose your own," replied manasseh graciously. "we will get a large map of london, and i will mark off in red pencil the domain in which i _schnorr_. you will then choose any district in this--say, two main streets and a dozen byways and alleys--which shall be marked off in blue pencil, and whatever province of my kingdom you pick, i undertake not to _schnorr_ in, from your wedding-day onwards. i need not tell you how valuable such a province already is; under careful administration, such as you would be able to give it, the revenue from it might be doubled, trebled. i do not think your tribute to me need be more than ten per cent." yankelé walked along mesmerised, reduced to somnambulism by his magnificently masterful patron. "oh, here we are!" said manasseh, stopping short. "won't you come in and see the bride, and wish her joy?" a flash of joy came into yankelé's own face, dissipating his glooms. after all there was always da costa's beautiful daughter--a solid, substantial satisfaction. he was glad she was not an item of the dowry. the unconscious bride opened the door. [illustration: "the unconscious bride opened the door."] "ah, ha, yankelé!" said manasseh, his paternal heart aglow at the sight of her loveliness. "you will be not only a king, but a rich king. as it is written, 'who is rich? he who hath a beautiful wife.'" chapter v. showing how the king dissolved the mahamad. manasseh da costa (thus docked of his nominal plenitude in the solemn writ) had been summoned before the mahamad, the intended union of his daughter with a polish jew having excited the liveliest horror and displeasure in the breasts of the elders of the synagogue. such a jew did not pronounce hebrew as they did! [illustration: "the elders of the synagogue."] the mahamad was a council of five, no less dread than the more notorious council of ten. like the venetian tribunal, which has unjustly monopolised the attention of history, it was of annual election, and it was elected by a larger body of elders, just as the council of ten was chosen by the aristocracy. "the gentlemen of the mahamad," as they were styled, administered the affairs of the spanish-portuguese community, and their oligarchy would undoubtedly be a byword for all that is arbitrary and inquisitorial but for the widespread ignorance of its existence. to itself the mahamad was the centre of creation. on one occasion it refused to bow even to the authority of the lord mayor of london. a sephardic jew lived and moved and had his being "by permission of the mahamad." without its consent he could have no legitimate place in the scheme of things. minus "the permission of the mahamad" he could not marry; with it he could be divorced readily. he might, indeed, die without the sanction of the council of five, but this was the only great act of his life which was free from its surveillance, and he could certainly not be buried save "by permission of the mahamad." the haham himself, the sage or chief rabbi of the congregation, could not unite his flock in holy wedlock without the "permission of the mahamad." and this authority was not merely negative and passive, it was likewise positive and active. to be a yahid--a recognised congregant--one had to submit one's neck to a yoke more galling even than that of the torah, to say nothing of the payment of finta, or poll-tax. woe to him who refused to be warden of the captives--he who ransomed the chained hostages of the moorish corsairs, or the war prisoners held in durance by the turks--or to be president of the congregation, or parnass of the holy land, or bridegroom of the law, or any of the numerous dignitaries of a complex constitution. fines, frequent and heavy--for the benefit of the poor-box--awaited him "by permission of the mahamad." unhappy the wight who misconducted himself in synagogue "by offending the president, or grossly insulting any other person," as the ordinance deliciously ran. penalties, stringent and harrying, visited these and other offences--deprivation of the "good deeds," of swathing the holy scroll, or opening the ark; ignominious relegation to seats behind the reading-desk, withdrawal of the franchise, prohibition against shaving for a term of weeks! and if, accepting office, the yahid failed in the punctual and regular discharge of his duties, he was mulcted and chastised none the less. a fine of forty pounds drove from the synagogue isaac disraeli, collector of _curiosities of literature_, and made possible that curiosity of politics, the career of lord beaconsfield. the fathers of the synagogue, who drew up their constitution in pure castilian in the days when pepys noted the indecorum in their little synagogue in king street, meant their statutes to cement, not thus to disintegrate, the community. 'twas a tactless tyranny, this of the mahamad, an inelastic administration of a cast-iron codex wrought "in good king charles's golden days," when the colony of dutch-spanish exiles was as a camp in enemies' country, in need of military _régime_; and it co-operated with the attractions of an unhampered "christian" career in driving many a brilliant family beyond the gates of the ghetto, and into the pages of debrett. athens is always a dangerous rival to sparta. but the mahamad itself moved strictly in the grooves of prescription. that legalistic instinct of the hebrew, which had evolved the most gigantic and minute code of conduct in the world, had beguiled these latter-day jews into super-adding to it a local legislation that grew into two hundred pages of portuguese--an intertangled network of _ascamot_ or regulations, providing for every contingency of synagogue politics, from the quarrels of members for the best seats down to the dimensions of their graves in the _carreira_, from the distribution of "good deeds" among the rich to the distribution of passover cakes among the poor. if the wheels and pulleys of the communal life moved "by permission of the mahamad," the mahamad moved by permission of the _ascamot_. the solemn council was met--"in complete mahamad." even the chief of the elders was present, by virtue of his privilege, making a sixth; not to count the chancellor or secretary, who sat flutteringly fingering the portuguese minute book on the right of the president. he was a little man, an odd medley of pomp and bluster, with a snuff-smeared upper lip, and a nose that had dipped in the wine when it was red. he had a grandiose sense of his own importance, but it was a pride that had its roots in humility, for he felt himself great because he was the servant of greatness. he lived "by permission of the mahamad." as an official he was theoretically inaccessible. if you approached him on a matter he would put out his palms deprecatingly and pant, "i must consult the mahamad." it was said of him that he had once been asked the time, and that he had automatically panted, "i must consult the mahamad." this consultation was the merest form; in practice the secretary had more influence than the chief rabbi, who was not allowed to recommend an applicant for charity, for the quaint reason that the respect entertained for him might unduly prejudice the council in favour of his candidate. as no gentleman of the mahamad could possibly master the statutes in his year of office, especially as only a rare member understood the portuguese in which they had been ultimately couched, the secretary was invariably referred to, for he was permanent, full of saws and precedents, and so he interpreted the law with impartial inaccuracy--"by permission of the mahamad." in his heart of hearts he believed that the sun rose and the rain fell--"by permission of the mahamad." the council chamber was of goodly proportions, and was decorated by gold lettered panels, inscribed with the names of pious donors, thick as saints in a graveyard, overflowing even into the lobby. the flower and chivalry of the spanish jewry had sat round that council-table, grandees who had plumed and ruffled it with the bloods of their day, clanking their swords with the best, punctilious withal and ceremonious, with the stately castilian courtesy still preserved by the men who were met this afternoon, to whom their memory was as faint as the fading records of the panels. these descendants of theirs had still elaborate salutations and circumlocutions, and austere dignities of debate. "god-fearing men of capacity and respectability," as the _ascama_ demanded, they were also men of money, and it gave them a port and a repose. his britannic majesty graced the throne no better than the president of the mahamad, seated at the head of the long table in his alcoved arm-chair, with the chief of the elders on his left, and the chancellor on his right, and his councillors all about him. the westering sun sent a pencil of golden light through the norman windows as if anxious to record the names of those present in gilt letters--"by permission of the mahamad." [illustration: "the president of the mahamad."] "let da costa enter," said the president, when the agenda demanded the great _schnorrer's_ presence. the chancellor fluttered to his feet, fussily threw open the door, and beckoned vacancy with his finger till he discovered manasseh was not in the lobby. the beadle came hurrying up instead. [illustration: "beckoned with his finger."] "where is da costa?" panted the chancellor. "call da costa." "da costa!" sonorously intoned the beadle with the long-drawn accent of court ushers. the corridor rang hollow, empty of manasseh. "why, he was here a moment ago," cried the bewildered beadle. he ran down the passage, and found him sure enough at the end of it where it abutted on the street. the king of _schnorrers_ was in dignified converse with a person of consideration. "da costa!" the beadle cried again, but his tone was less awesome and more tetchy. the beggar did not turn his head. "mr. da costa," said the beadle, now arrived too near the imposing figure to venture on familiarities with it. this time the beggar gave indications of restored hearing. "yes, my man," he said, turning and advancing a few paces to meet the envoy. "don't go, grobstock," he called over his shoulder. "didn't you hear me calling?" grumbled the beadle. "i heard you calling da costa, but i naturally imagined it was one of your drinking companions," replied manasseh severely. "the mahamad is waiting for you," faltered the beadle. "tell _the gentlemen_ of the mahamad," said manasseh, with reproving emphasis, "that i shall do myself the pleasure of being with them presently. nay, pray don't hurry away, my dear grobstock," he went on, resuming his place at the german magnate's side--"and so your wife is taking the waters at tunbridge wells. in faith, 'tis an excellent regimen for the vapours. i am thinking of sending my wife to buxton--the warden of our hospital has his country-seat there." "but you are wanted," murmured grobstock, who was anxious to escape. he had caught the _schnorrer's_ eye as its owner sunned himself in the archway, and it held him. "'tis only a meeting of the mahamad i have to attend," he said indifferently. "rather a nuisance--but duty is duty." grobstock's red face became a setting for two expanded eyes. "i thought the mahamad was your chief council," he exclaimed. "yes, there are only five of us," said manasseh lightly, and, while grobstock gaped incredulous, the chancellor himself shambled up in pale consternation. "you are keeping the gentlemen of the mahamad waiting," he panted imperiously. "ah, you are right, grobstock," said manasseh with a sigh of resignation. "they cannot get on without me. well, you will excuse me, i know. i am glad to have seen you again--we shall finish our chat at your house some evening, shall we? i have agreeable recollections of your hospitality." "my wife will be away all this month," grobstock repeated feebly. "ha! ha! ha!" laughed manasseh roguishly. "thank you for the reminder. i shall not fail to aid you in taking advantage of her absence. perhaps mine will be away, too--at buxton. two bachelors, ha! ha! ha!" and, proffering his hand, he shook grobstock's in gracious farewell. then he sauntered leisurely in the wake of the feverishly impatient chancellor, his staff tapping the stones in measured tardiness. [illustration: "'ha! ha! ha!' laughed manasseh."] "good afternoon, gentlemen," he observed affably as he entered the council chamber. "you have kept us waiting," sharply rejoined the president of the mahamad, ruffled out of his regal suavity. he was a puffy, swarthy personage, elegantly attired, and he leaned forward on his velvet throne, tattooing on the table with bediamonded fingers. "not so long as you have kept _me_ waiting," said manasseh with quiet resentment. "if i had known you expected me to cool my heels in the corridor i should not have come, and, had not my friend the treasurer of the great synagogue opportunely turned up to chat with me, i should not have stayed." "you are impertinent, sir," growled the president. "i think, sir, it is you who owe me an apology," maintained manasseh unflinchingly, "and, knowing the courtesy and high breeding which has always distinguished your noble family, i can only explain your present tone by your being unaware i have a grievance. no doubt it is your chancellor who cited me to appear at too early an hour." the president, cooled by the quiet dignity of the beggar, turned a questioning glance upon the outraged chancellor, who was crimson and quivering with confusion and indignation. "it is usual t-t-to summon persons before the c-c-commencement of the meeting," he stammered hotly. "we cannot tell how long the prior business will take." "then i would respectfully submit to the chief of the elders," said manasseh, "that at the next meeting of his august body he move a resolution that persons cited to appear before the mahamad shall take precedence of all other business." the chief of the elders looked helplessly at the president of the mahamad, who was equally at sea. "however, i will not press that point now," added manasseh, "nor will i draw the attention of the committee to the careless, perfunctory manner in which the document summoning me was drawn up, so that, had i been a stickler for accuracy, i need not have answered to the name of manasseh da costa." "but that _is_ your name," protested the chancellor. "if you will examine the charity list," said manasseh magnificently, "you will see that my name is manasseh bueno barzillai azevedo da costa. but you are keeping the gentlemen of the mahamad waiting." and with a magnanimous air of dismissing the past, he seated himself on the nearest empty chair at the foot of the table, leaned his elbows on the table, and his face on his hands, and gazed across at the president immediately opposite. the councillors were so taken aback by his unexpected bearing that this additional audacity was scarcely noted. but the chancellor, wounded in his inmost instincts, exclaimed irately, "stand up, sir. these chairs are for the gentlemen of the mahamad." "and being gentlemen," added manasseh crushingly, "they know better than to keep an old man on his legs any longer." "if you were a gentleman," retorted the chancellor, "you would take that thing off your head." "if you were not a man-of-the-earth," rejoined the beggar, "you would know that it is not a mark of disrespect for the mahamad, but of respect for the law, which is higher than the mahamad. the rich man can afford to neglect our holy religion, but the poor man has only the law. it is his sole luxury." the pathetic tremor in his voice stirred a confused sense of wrong-doing and injustice in the councillors' breasts. the president felt vaguely that the edge of his coming impressive rebuke had been turned, if, indeed, he did not sit rebuked instead. irritated, he turned on the chancellor, and bade him hold his peace. "he means well," said manasseh deprecatingly. "he cannot be expected to have the fine instincts of the gentlemen of the mahamad. may i ask you, sir," he concluded, "to proceed with the business for which you have summoned me? i have several appointments to keep with clients." the president's bediamonded fingers recommenced their ill-tempered tattoo; he was fuming inwardly with a sense of baffled wrath, of righteous indignation made unrighteous. "is it true, sir," he burst forth at last in the most terrible accents he could command in the circumstances, "that you meditate giving your daughter in marriage to a polish jew?" "no," replied manasseh curtly. "no?" articulated the president, while a murmur of astonishment went round the table at this unexpected collapse of the whole case. "why, your daughter admitted it to my wife," said the councillor on manasseh's right. manasseh turned to him, expostulant, tilting his chair and body towards him. "my daughter is going to marry a polish jew," he explained with argumentative forefinger, "but i do not meditate giving her to him." "oh, then, you will refuse your consent," said the councillor, hitching his chair back so as to escape the beggar's progressive propinquity. "by no means," quoth manasseh in surprised accents, as he drew his chair nearer again, "i have already consented. i do not _meditate_ consenting. that word argues an inconclusive attitude." "none of your quibbles, sirrah," cried the president, while a scarlet flush mantled on his dark countenance. "do you not know that the union you contemplate is disgraceful and degrading to you, to your daughter, and to the community which has done so much for you? what! a sephardi marry a tedesco! shameful." "and do you think i do not feel the shame as deeply as you?" enquired manasseh, with infinite pathos. "do you think, gentlemen, that i have not suffered from this passion of a tedesco for my daughter? i came here expecting your sympathy, and do you offer me reproach? perhaps you think, sir"--here he turned again to his right-hand neighbour, who, in his anxiety to evade his pertinacious proximity, had half-wheeled his chair round, offering only his back to the argumentative forefinger--"perhaps you think, because i have consented, that i cannot condole with you, that i am not at one with you in lamenting this blot on our common 'scutcheon; perhaps you think"--here he adroitly twisted his chair into argumentative position on the other side of the councillor, rounding him like a cape--"that, because you have no sympathy with my tribulation, i have no sympathy with yours. but, if i have consented, it is only because it was the best i could do for my daughter. in my heart of hearts i have repudiated her, so that she may practically be considered an orphan, and, as such, a fit person to receive the marriage dowry bequeathed by rodriguez real, peace be upon him." "this is no laughing matter, sir," thundered the president, stung into forgetfulness of his dignity by thinking too much of it. "no, indeed," said manasseh sympathetically, wheeling to the right so as to confront the president, who went on stormily, "are you aware, sir, of the penalties you risk by persisting in your course?" "i risk no penalties," replied the beggar. "indeed! then do you think anyone may trample with impunity upon our ancient _ascamot_?" "our ancient _ascamot_!" repeated manasseh in surprise. "what have they to say against a sephardi marrying a tedesco?" the audacity of the question rendered the council breathless. manasseh had to answer it himself. "they have nothing to say. there is no such _ascama_." there was a moment of awful silence. it was as though he had disavowed the decalogue. "do you question the first principle of our constitution?" said the president at last, in low, ominous tones. "do you deny that your daughter is a traitress? do you--?" "ask your chancellor," calmly interrupted manasseh. "he is a man-of-the-earth, but he should know your statutes, and he will tell you that my daughter's conduct is nowhere forbidden." "silence, sir," cried the president testily. "mr. chancellor, read the _ascama_." the chancellor wriggled on his chair, his face flushing and paling by turns; all eyes were bent upon him in anxious suspense. he hemmed and ha'd and coughed, and took snuff, and blew his nose elaborately. "there is n-n-no express _ascama_," he stuttered at last. manasseh sat still, in unpretentious triumph. the councillor who was now become his right-hand neighbour was the first to break the dazed silence, and it was his first intervention. "of course, it was never actually put into writing," he said in stern reproof. "it has never been legislated against, because it has never been conceived possible. these things are an instinct with every right-minded sephardi. have we ever legislated against marrying christians?" manasseh veered round half a point of the compass, and fixed the new opponent with his argumentative forefinger. "certainly we have," he replied unexpectedly. "in section xx., paragraph ii." he quoted the _ascama_ by heart, rolling out the sonorous portuguese like a solemn indictment. "if our legislators had intended to prohibit intermarriage with the german community, they would have prohibited it." "there is the traditional law as well as the written," said the chancellor, recovering himself. "it is so in our holy religion, it is so in our constitution." "yes, there are precedents assuredly," cried the president eagerly. "there is the case of one of our treasurers in the time of george ii.," said the little chancellor, blossoming under the sunshine of the president's encouragement, and naming the ancestor of a duchess of to-day. "he wanted to marry a beautiful german jewess." "and was interdicted," said the president. "hem!" coughed the chancellor. "he--he was only permitted to marry her under humiliating conditions. the elders forbade the attendance of the members of the house of judgment, or of the cantors; no celebration was to take place in the _snoga_; no offerings were to be made for the bridegroom's health, nor was he even to receive the bridegroom's call to the reading of the law." [illustration: "'hem!' coughed the chancellor."] "but the elders will not impose any such conditions on my son-in-law," said manasseh, skirting round another chair so as to bring his forefinger to play upon the chief of the elders, on whose left he had now arrived in his argumentative advances. "in the first place he is not one of us. his desire to join us is a compliment. if anyone has offended your traditions, it is my daughter. but then she is not a male, like the treasurer cited; she is not an active agent, she has not gone out of her way to choose a tedesco--she has been chosen. your masculine precedents cannot touch her." "ay, but we can touch you," said the contemporary treasurer, guffawing grimly. he sat opposite manasseh, and next to the chancellor. "is it fines you are thinking of?" said manasseh with a scornful glance across the table. "very well, fine me--if you can afford it. you know that i am a student, a son of the law, who has no resources but what you allow him. if you care to pay this fine it is your affair. there is always room in the poor-box. i am always glad to hear of fines. you had better make up your mind to the inevitable, gentlemen. have i not had to do it? there is no _ascama_ to prevent my son-in-law having all the usual privileges--in fact, it was to ask that he might receive the bridegroom's call to the law on the sabbath before his marriage that i really came. by section iii., paragraph i., you are empowered to admit any person about to marry the daughter of a yahid." again the sonorous portuguese rang out, thrilling the councillors with all that quintessential awfulness of ancient statutes in a tongue not understood. it was not till a quarter of a century later that the _ascamot_ were translated into english, and from that moment their authority was doomed. the chancellor was the first to recover from the quotation. daily contact with these archaic sanctities had dulled his awe, and the president's impotent irritation spurred him to action. "but you are _not_ a yahid," he said quietly. "by paragraph v. of the same section, any one whose name appears on the charity list ceases to be a yahid." "and a vastly proper law," said manasseh with irony. "everybody may vote but the _schnorrer_." and, ignoring the chancellor's point at great length, he remarked confidentially to the chief of the elders, at whose elbow he was still encamped, "it is curious how few of your elders perceive that those who take the charity are the pillars of the synagogue. what keeps your community together? fines. what ensures respect for your constitution? fines. what makes every man do his duty? fines. what rules this very mahamad? fines. and it is the poor who provide an outlet for all these moneys. egad, do you think your members would for a moment tolerate your penalties, if they did not know the money was laid out in 'good deeds'? charity is the salt of riches, says the talmud, and, indeed, it is the salt that preserves your community." "have done, sir, have done!" shouted the president, losing all regard for those grave amenities of the ancient council chamber which manasseh did his best to maintain. "do you forget to whom you are talking?" "i am talking to the chief of the elders," said manasseh in a wounded tone, "but if you would like me to address myself to you--" and wheeling round the chief of the elders, he landed his chair next to the president's. "silence, fellow!" thundered the president, shrinking spasmodically from his confidential contact. "you have no right to a voice at all; as the chancellor has reminded us, you are not even a yahid, a congregant." "then the laws do not apply to me," retorted the beggar quietly. "it is only the yahid who is privileged to do this, who is prohibited from doing that. no _ascama_ mentions the _schnorrer_, or gives you any authority over him." "on the contrary," said the chancellor, seeing the president disconcerted again, "he is bound to attend the weekday services. but this man hardly ever does, sir." "i _never_ do," corrected manasseh, with touching sadness. "that is another of the privileges i have to forego in order to take your charity; i cannot risk appearing to my maker in the light of a mercenary." "and what prevents you taking your turn in the graveyard watches?" sneered the chancellor. the antagonists were now close together, one on either side of the president of the mahamad, who was wedged between the two bobbing, quarrelling figures, his complexion altering momently for the blacker, and his fingers working nervously. "what prevents me?" replied manasseh. "my age. it would be a sin against heaven to spend a night in the cemetery. if the body-snatchers did come they might find a corpse to their hand in the watch-tower. but i do my duty--i always pay a substitute." "no doubt," said the treasurer. "i remember your asking me for the money to keep an old man out of the cemetery. now i see what you meant." "yes," began two others, "and i--" "order, gentlemen, order," interrupted the president desperately, for the afternoon was flitting, the sun was setting, and the shadows of twilight were falling. "you must not argue with the man. hark you, my fine fellow, we refuse to sanction this marriage; it shall not be performed by our ministers, nor can we dream of admitting your son-in-law as a yahid." "then admit him on your charity list," said manasseh. "we are more likely to strike _you_ off! and, by gad!" cried the president, tattooing on the table with his whole fist, "if you don't stop this scandal instanter, we will send you howling." [illustration: "'if you don't stop this scandal instanter, we will send you howling!'"] "is it excommunication you threaten?" said manasseh, rising to his feet. there was a menacing glitter in his eye. "this scandal must be stopped," repeated the president, agitatedly rising in involuntary imitation. "any member of the mahamad could stop it in a twinkling," said manasseh sullenly. "you yourself, if you only chose." "if i only chose?" echoed the president enquiringly. "if you only chose my daughter. are you not a bachelor? i am convinced she could not say nay to anyone present--excepting the chancellor. only no one is really willing to save the community from this scandal, and so my daughter must marry as best she can. and yet, it is a handsome creature who would not disgrace even a house in hackney." manasseh spoke so seriously that the president fumed the more. "let her marry this pole," he ranted, "and you shall be cut off from us in life and death. alive, you shall worship without our walls, and dead you shall be buried 'behind the boards.'" "for the poor man--excommunication," said manasseh in ominous soliloquy. "for the rich man--permission to marry the tedesco of his choice." "leave the room, fellow," vociferated the president. "you have heard our ultimatum!" but manasseh did not quail. "and you shall hear mine," he said, with a quietness that was the more impressive for the president's fury. "do not forget, mr. president, that you and i owe allegiance to the same brotherhood. do not forget that the power which made you can unmake you at the next election; do not forget that if i have no vote i have vast influence; that there is not a yahid whom i do not visit weekly; that there is not a _schnorrer_ who would not follow me in my exile. do not forget that there is another community to turn to--yes! that very ashkenazic community you contemn--with the treasurer of which i talked but just now; a community that waxes daily in wealth and greatness while you sleep in your sloth." his tall form dominated the chamber, his head seemed to touch the ceiling. the councillors sat dazed as amid a lightning-storm. "jackanapes! blasphemer! shameless renegade!" cried the president, choking with wrath. and being already on his legs, he dashed to the bell and tugged at it madly, blanching the chancellor's face with the perception of a lost opportunity. [illustration: "he dashed to the bell."] "i shall not leave this chamber till i choose," said manasseh, dropping stolidly into the nearest chair and folding his arms. at once a cry of horror and consternation rose from every throat, every man leapt threateningly to his feet, and manasseh realised that he was throned on the alcoved arm-chair! but he neither blenched nor budged. "nay, keep your seats, gentlemen," he said quietly. the president, turning at the stir, caught sight of the _schnorrer_, staggered and clutched at the mantel. the councillors stood spellbound for an instant, while the chancellor's eyes roved wildly round the walls, as if expecting the gold names to start from their panels. the beadle rushed in, terrified by the strenuous tintinnabulation, looked instinctively towards the throne for orders, then underwent petrifaction on the threshold, and stared speechless at manasseh, what time the president, gasping like a landed cod, vainly strove to utter the order for the beggar's expulsion. "don't stare at me, gomez," manasseh cried imperiously. "can't you see the president wants a glass of water?" the beadle darted a glance at the president, and, perceiving his condition, rushed out again to get the water. this was the last straw. to see his authority usurped as well as his seat maddened the poor president. for some seconds he strove to mouth an oath, embracing his supine councillors as well as this beggar on horseback, but he produced only an inarticulate raucous cry, and reeled sideways. manasseh sprang from his chair and caught the falling form in his arms. for one terrible moment he stood supporting it in a tense silence, broken only by the incoherent murmurs of the unconscious lips; then crying angrily, "bestir yourselves, gentlemen, don't you see the president is ill?" he dragged his burden towards the table, and, aided by the panic-stricken councillors, laid it flat thereupon, and threw open the ruffled shirt. he swept the minute book to the floor with an almost malicious movement, to make room for the president. the beadle returned with the glass of water, which he well-nigh dropped. "run for a physician," manasseh commanded, and throwing away the water carelessly, in the chancellor's direction, he asked if anyone had any brandy. there was no response. "come, come, mr. chancellor," he said, "bring out your phial." and the abashed functionary obeyed. "has any of you his equipage without?" manasseh demanded next of the mahamad. they had not, so manasseh despatched the chief of the elders in quest of a sedan chair. then there was nothing left but to await the physician. "you see, gentlemen, how insecure is earthly power," said the _schnorrer_ solemnly, while the president breathed stertorously, deaf to his impressive moralising. "it is swallowed up in an instant, as lisbon was engulfed. cursed are they who despise the poor. how is the saying of our sages verified--'the house that opens not to the poor opens to the physician.'" his eyes shone with unearthly radiance in the gathering gloom. the cowed assembly wavered before his words, like reeds before the wind, or conscience-stricken kings before fearless prophets. when the physician came he pronounced that the president had had a slight stroke of apoplexy, involving a temporary paralysis of the right foot. the patient, by this time restored to consciousness, was conveyed home in the sedan chair, and the mahamad dissolved in confusion. manasseh was the last to leave the council chamber. as he stalked into the corridor he turned the key in the door behind him with a vindictive twist. then, plunging his hand into his breeches-pocket, he gave the beadle a crown, remarking genially, "you must have your usual perquisite, i suppose." the beadle was moved to his depths. he had a burst of irresistible honesty. "the president gives me only half-a-crown," he murmured. "yes, but he may not be able to attend the next meeting," said manasseh. "and i may be away, too." chapter vi. showing how the king enriched the synagogue. the synagogue of the gates of heaven was crowded--members, orphan boys, _schnorrers_, all were met in celebration of the sabbath. but the president of the mahamad was missing. he was still inconvenienced by the effects of his stroke, and deemed it most prudent to pray at home. the council of five had not met since manasseh had dissolved it, and so the matter of his daughter's marriage was left hanging, as indeed was not seldom the posture of matters discussed by sephardic bodies. the authorities thus passive, manasseh found scant difficulty in imposing his will upon the minor officers, less ready than himself with constitutional precedent. his daughter was to be married under the sephardic canopy, and no jot of synagogual honour was to be bated the bridegroom. on this sabbath--the last before the wedding--yankelé was to be called to the reading of the law like a true-born portuguese. he made his first appearance in the synagogue of his bride's fathers with a feeling of solemn respect, not exactly due to manasseh's grandiose references to the ancient temple. he had walked the courtyard with levity, half prepared, from previous experience of his intended father-in-law, to find the glories insubstantial. their unexpected actuality awed him, and he was glad he was dressed in his best. his beaver hat, green trousers, and brown coat equalled him with the massive pillars, the gleaming candelabra, and the stately roof. da costa, for his part, had made no change in his attire; he dignified his shabby vestments, stuffing them with royal manhood, and wearing his snuff-coloured over-garment like a purple robe. there was, in sooth, an official air about his habiliment, and to the worshippers it was as impressively familiar as the black stole and white bands of the cantor. it seemed only natural that he should be called to the reading first, quite apart from the fact that he was a _cohen_, of the family of aaron, the high priest, a descent that, perhaps, lent something to the loftiness of his carriage. when the minister intoned vigorously, "the good name, manasseh, the son of judah, the priest, the man, shall arise to read in the law," every eye was turned with a new interest on the prospective father-in-law. manasseh arose composedly, and, hitching his sliding prayer-shawl over his left shoulder, stalked to the reading platform, where he chanted the blessings with imposing flourishes, and stood at the minister's right hand while his section of the law was read from the sacred scroll. there was many a man of figure in the congregation, but none who became the platform better. it was beautiful to see him pay his respects to the scroll; it reminded one of the meeting of two sovereigns. the great moment, however, was when, the section being concluded, the master reader announced manasseh's donations to the synagogue. the financial statement was incorporated in a long benediction, like a coin wrapped up in folds of paper. this was always a great moment, even when inconsiderable personalities were concerned, each man's generosity being the subject of speculation before and comment after. manasseh, it was felt, would, although a mere _schnorrer_, rise to the height of the occasion, and offer as much as seven and sixpence. the shrewder sort suspected he would split it up into two or three separate offerings, to give an air of inexhaustible largess. the shrewder sort were right and wrong, as is their habit. the master reader began his quaint formula, "may he who blessed our fathers," pausing at the point where the hebrew is blank for the amount. he span out the prefatory "who vows"--the last note prolonging itself, like the vibration of a tuning-fork, at a literal pitch of suspense. it was a sensational halt, due to his forgetting the amounts or demanding corroboration at the eleventh hour, and the stingy often recklessly amended their contributions, panic-struck under the pressure of imminent publicity. "who vows--" the congregation hung upon his lips. with his usual gesture of interrogation, he inclined his ear towards manasseh's mouth, his face wearing an unusual look of perplexity; and those nearest the platform were aware of a little colloquy between the _schnorrer_ and the master reader, the latter bewildered and agitated, the former stately. the delay had discomposed the master as much as it had whetted the curiosity of the congregation. he repeated: "who vows--_cinco livras_"--he went on glibly without a pause--"for charity--for the life of yankov ben yitzchok, his son-in-law, &c., &c." but few of the worshippers heard any more than the _cinco livras_ (five pounds). a thrill ran through the building. men pricked up their ears, incredulous, whispering one another. one man deliberately moved from his place towards the box in which sat the chief of the elders, the presiding dignitary in the absence of the president of the mahamad. "i didn't catch--how much was that?" he asked. [illustration: "'i didn't catch.'"] "five pounds," said the chief of the elders shortly. he suspected an irreverent irony in the beggar's contribution. the benediction came to an end, but ere the hearers had time to realise the fact, the master reader had started on another. "may he who blessed our fathers!" he began, in the strange traditional recitative. the wave of curiosity mounted again, higher than before. "who vows--" the wave hung an instant, poised and motionless. "_cinco livras!_" the wave broke in a low murmur, amid which the master imperturbably proceeded, "for oil--for the life of his daughter deborah, &c." when he reached the end there was a poignant silence. was it to be _da capo_ again? "may he who blessed our fathers!" the wave of curiosity surged once more, rising and subsiding with this ebb and flow of financial benediction. "who vows--_cinco livras_--for the wax candles." this time the thrill, the whisper, the flutter, swelled into a positive buzz. the gaze of the entire congregation was focussed upon the beggar, who stood impassive in the blaze of glory. even the orphan boys, packed in their pew, paused in their inattention to the service, and craned their necks towards the platform. the veriest magnates did not thus play piety with five pound points. in the ladies' gallery the excitement was intense. the occupants gazed eagerly through the grille. one woman--a buxom dame of forty summers, richly clad and jewelled--had risen, and was tiptoeing frantically over the woodwork, her feather waving like a signal of distress. it was manasseh's wife. the waste of money maddened her, each donation hit her like a poisoned arrow; in vain she strove to catch her spouse's eye. the air seemed full of gowns and toques and farthingales flaming away under her very nose, without her being able to move hand or foot in rescue; whole wardrobes perished at each benediction. it was with the utmost difficulty she restrained herself from shouting down to her prodigal lord. at her side the radiant deborah vainly tried to pacify her by assurances that manasseh never intended to pay up. [illustration: "she strove to catch her spouse's eye."] "who vows--" the benediction had begun for a fourth time. "_cinco livras_ for the holy land." and the sensation grew. "for the life of this holy congregation, &c." the master reader's voice droned on impassively, interminably. the fourth benediction was drawing to its close, when the beadle was seen to mount the platform and whisper in his ear. only manasseh overheard the message. "the chief of the elders says you must stop. this is mere mockery. the man is a _schnorrer_, an impudent beggar." the beadle descended the steps, and after a moment of inaudible discussion with da costa, the master reader lifted up his voice afresh. the chief of the elders frowned and clenched his praying-shawl angrily. it was a fifth benediction! but the reader's sing-song went on, for manasseh's wrath was nearer than the magnate's. "who vows--_cinco livras_--for the captives--for the life of the chief of the elders!" the chief bit his lip furiously at this delicate revenge; galled almost to frenzy by the aggravating foreboding that the congregation would construe his message as a solicitation of the polite attention. for it was of the amenities of the synagogue for rich people to present these benedictions to one another. and so the endless stream of donatives flowed on, provoking the hearers to fever pitch. the very orphan boys forgot that this prolongation of the service was retarding their breakfasts indefinitely. every warden, dignitary and official, from the president of the mahamad down to the very keeper of the bath, was honoured by name in a special benediction, the chief of manasseh's weekly patrons were repaid almost in kind on this unique and festive occasion. most of the congregation kept count of the sum total, which was mounting, mounting.... suddenly there was a confusion in the ladies' gallery, cries, a babble of tongues. the beadle hastened upstairs to impose his authority. the rumour circulated that mrs. da costa had fainted and been carried out. it reached manasseh's ears, but he did not move. he stood at his post, unfaltering, donating, blessing. [illustration: "mrs. da costa had fainted."] "who vows--_cinco livras_--for the life of his wife, sarah!" and a faint sardonic smile flitted across the beggar's face. the oldest worshipper wondered if the record would be broken. manasseh's benefactions were approaching thrillingly near the highest total hitherto reached by any one man upon any one occasion. every brain was troubled by surmises. the chief of the elders, fuming impotently, was not alone in apprehending a blasphemous mockery; but the bulk imagined that the _schnorrer_ had come into property or had always been a man of substance, and was now taking this means of restoring to the synagogue the funds he had drawn from it. and the fountain of benevolence played on. the record figure was reached and left in the rear. when at length the poor master reader, sick unto death of the oft-repeated formula (which might just as well have covered all the contributions the first time, though manasseh had commanded each new benediction as if by an after-thought), was allowed to summon the levite who succeeded manasseh, the synagogue had been enriched by a hundred pounds. the last benediction had been coupled with the name of the poorest _schnorrer_ present--an assertion and glorification of manasseh's own order that put the coping-stone on this sensational memorial of the royal wedding. it was, indeed, a kingly munificence, a sovereign graciousness. nay, before the service was over, manasseh even begged the chief of the elders to permit a special _rogation_ to be said for a sick person. the chief, meanly snatching at this opportunity of reprisals, refused, till, learning that manasseh alluded to the ailing president of the mahamad, he collapsed ingloriously. but the real hero of the day was yankelé, who shone chiefly by reflected light, but yet shone even more brilliantly than the spaniard, for to him was added the double lustre of the bridegroom and the stranger, and he was the cause and centre of the sensation. his eyes twinkled continuously throughout. the next day, manasseh fared forth to collect the hundred pounds! the day being sunday, he looked to find most of his clients at home. he took grobstock first as being nearest, but the worthy speculator and east india director espied him from an upper window, and escaped by a back-door into goodman's fields--a prudent measure, seeing that the incredulous manasseh ransacked the house in quest of him. manasseh's manner was always a search-warrant. the king consoled himself by paying his next visit to a personage who could not possibly evade him--none other than the sick president of the mahamad. he lived in devonshire square, in solitary splendour. him manasseh bearded in his library, where the convalescent was sorting his collection of prints. the visitor had had himself announced as a gentleman on synagogual matters, and the public-spirited president had not refused himself to the business. but when he caught sight of manasseh, his puffy features were distorted, he breathed painfully, and put his hand to his hip. [illustration: "sorting his collection of prints."] "you!" he gasped. "have a care, my dear sir! have a care!" said manasseh anxiously, as he seated himself. "you are still weak. to come to the point--for i would not care to distract too much a man indispensable to the community, who has already felt the hand of the almighty for his treatment of the poor--" he saw that his words were having effect, for these prosperous pillars of the synagogue were mightily superstitious under affliction, and he proceeded in gentler tones. "to come to the point, it is my duty to inform you (for i am the only man who is certain of it) that while you have been away our synagogue has made a bad debt!" "a bad debt!" an angry light leapt into the president's eyes. there had been an ancient practice of lending out the funds to members, and the president had always set his face against the survival of the policy. "it would not have been made had i been there!" he cried. "no, indeed," admitted manasseh. "you would have stopped it in its early stages. the chief of the elders tried, but failed." "the dolt!" cried the president. "a man without a backbone. how much is it?" "a hundred pounds!" "a hundred pounds!" echoed the president, seriously concerned at this blot upon his year of office. "and who is the debtor?" "i am." "you! you have borrowed a hundred pounds, you--you jackanapes!" "silence, sir! how dare you? i should leave this apartment at once, were it not that i cannot go without your apology. never in my life have i borrowed a hundred pounds--nay, never have i borrowed one farthing. i am no borrower. if you are a gentleman, you will apologise!" "i am sorry if i misunderstood," murmured the poor president, "but how, then, do you owe the money?" "how, then?" repeated manasseh impatiently. "cannot you understand that i have donated it to the synagogue?" the president stared at him open-mouthed. "i vowed it yesterday in celebration of my daughter's marriage." the president let a sigh of relief pass through his open mouth. he was even amused a little. "oh, is that all? it was like your deuced effrontery; but still, the synagogue doesn't lose anything. there's no harm done." "what is that you say?" enquired manasseh sternly. "do you mean to say i am not to pay this money?" "how can you?" "how can i? i come to you and others like you to pay it for me." "nonsense! nonsense!" said the president, beginning to lose his temper again. "we'll let it pass. there's no harm done." "and this is the president of the mahamad!" soliloquised the _schnorrer_ in bitter astonishment. "this is the chief of our ancient, godly council! what, sir! do you hold words spoken solemnly in synagogue of no account? would you have me break my solemn vow? do you wish to bring the synagogue institutions into contempt? do you--a man already once stricken by heaven--invite its chastisement again?" the president had grown pale--his brain was reeling. "nay, ask its forgiveness, sir," went on the king implacably; "and make good this debt of mine in token of your remorse, as it is written, 'and repentance, and prayer, and _charity_ avert the evil decree.'" "not a penny!" cried the president, with a last gleam of lucidity, and strode furiously towards the bell-pull. then he stood still in sudden recollection of a similar scene in the council chamber. "you need not trouble to ring for a stroke," said manasseh grimly. "then the synagogue is to be profaned, then even the benediction which i in all loyalty and forgiveness caused to be said for the recovery of the president of the mahamad is to be null, a mockery in the sight of the holy one, blessed be he!" the president tottered into his reading-chair. "how much did you vow on my behalf?" "five pounds." the president precipitately drew out a pocket-book and extracted a crisp bank of england note. "give it to the chancellor," he breathed, exhausted. "i am punished," quoth manasseh plaintively as he placed it in his bosom. "i should have vowed ten for you." and he bowed himself out. in like manner did he collect other contributions that day from sephardic celebrities, pointing out that now a foreign jew--yankelé to wit--had been admitted to their communion, it behoved them to show themselves at their best. what a bad effect it would have on yankelé if a sephardi was seen to vow with impunity! first impressions were everything, and they could not be too careful. it would not do for yankelé to circulate contumelious reports of them among his kin. those who remonstrated with him over his extravagance he reminded that he had only one daughter, and he drew their attention to the favourable influence his example had had on the saturday receipts. not a man of those who came after him in the reading had ventured to offer half-crowns. he had fixed the standard in gold for that day at least, and who knew what noble emulation he had fired for the future? every man who yielded to manasseh's eloquence was a step to reach the next, for manasseh made a list of donors, and paraded it reproachfully before those who had yet to give. withal, the most obstinate resistance met him in some quarters. one man--a certain rodriques, inhabiting a mansion in finsbury circus--was positively rude. "if i came in a carriage, you'd soon pull out your ten-pound note for the synagogue," sneered manasseh, his blood boiling. "certainly i would," admitted rodriques laughing. and manasseh shook off the dust of his threshold in disdain. by reason of such rebuffs, his collection for the day only reached about thirty pounds, inclusive of the value of some depreciated portuguese bonds which he good-naturedly accepted as though at par. disgusted with the meanness of mankind, da costa's genius devised more drastic measures. having carefully locked up the proceeds of sunday's operations, and, indeed, nearly all his loose cash, in his safe, for, to avoid being put to expense, he rarely carried money on his person, unless he gathered it _en route_, he took his way to bishopsgate within, to catch the stage for clapton. the day was bright, and he hummed a festive synagogue tune as he plodded leisurely with his stick along the bustling, narrow pavements, bordered by costers' barrows at one edge, and by jagged houses, overhung by grotesque signboards, at the other, and thronged by cits in worsted hose. but when he arrived at the inn he found the coach had started. nothing concerned, he ordered a post-chaise in a supercilious manner, criticising the horses, and drove to clapton in style, drawn by a pair of spanking steeds, to the music of the postillion's horn. very soon they drew out of the blocked roads, with their lumbering procession of carts, coaches, and chairs, and into open country, green with the fresh verdure of the spring. the chaise stopped at "the red cottage," a pretty villa, whose façade was covered with virginian creeper that blushed in the autumn. manasseh was surprised at the taste with which the lawn was laid out in the italian style, with grottoes and marble figures. the householder, hearing the windings of the horn, conceived himself visited by a person of quality, and sent a message that he was in the hands of his hairdresser, but would be down in less than half an hour. this was of a piece with manasseh's information concerning the man--a certain belasco, emulous of the great fops, an amateur of satin waistcoats and novel shoestrings, and even said to affect a spying-glass when he showed at vauxhall. manasseh had never seen him, not having troubled to go so far afield, but from the handsome appurtenances of the hall and the staircase he augured the best. the apartments were even more to his liking; they were oak panelled, and crammed with the most expensive objects of art and luxury. the walls of the drawing-room were frescoed, and from the ceiling depended a brilliant lustre, with seven spouts for illumination. having sufficiently examined the furniture, manasseh grew weary of waiting, and betook himself to belasco's bedchamber. "you will excuse me, mr. belasco," he said, as he entered through the half open door, "but my business is urgent." the young dandy, who was seated before a mirror, did not look up, but replied, "have a care, sir, you well nigh startled my hairdresser." "far be it from me to willingly discompose an artist," replied manasseh drily, "though from the elegance of the design, i venture to think my interruption will not make a hair's-breadth of difference. but i come on a matter which the son of benjamin belasco will hardly deny is more pressing than his toilette." "nay, nay, sir, what can be more momentous?" "the synagogue!" said manasseh austerely. "pah! what are you talking of, sir?" and he looked up cautiously for the first time at the picturesque figure. "what does the synagogue want of me? i pay my _finta_ and every bill the rascals send me. monstrous fine sums, too, egad--" "but you never go there!" "no, indeed, a man of fashion cannot be everywhere. routs and rigotti play the deuce with one's time." "what a pity!" mused manasseh ironically. "one misses you there. 'tis no edifying spectacle--a slovenly rabble with none to set the standard of taste." the pale-faced beau's eyes lit up with a gleam of interest. "ah, the clods!" he said. "you should yourself be a buck of the eccentric school by your dress. but i stick to the old tradition of elegance." "you had better stick to the old tradition of piety," quoth manasseh. "your father was a saint, you are a sinner in israel. return to the synagogue, and herald your return by contributing to its finances. it has made a bad debt, and i am collecting money to reimburse it." the young exquisite yawned. "i know not who you may be," he said at length, "but you are evidently not one of us. as for the synagogue i am willing to reform its dress, but dem'd if i will give a shilling more to its finances. let your slovenly rabble of tradesmen pay the piper--i cannot afford it!" "_you_ cannot afford it!" "no--you see i have such extravagant tastes." "but i give you the opportunity for extravagance," expostulated manasseh. "what greater luxury is there than that of doing good?" "confound it, sir, i must ask you to go," said beau belasco coldly. "do you not perceive that you are disconcerting my hairdresser?" "i could not abide a moment longer under this profane, if tasteful, roof," said manasseh, backing sternly towards the door. "but i would make one last appeal to you, for the sake of the repose of your father's soul, to forsake your evil ways." "be hanged to you for a meddler," retorted the young blood. "my money supports men of genius and taste--it shall not be frittered away on a pack of fusty shopkeepers." the _schnorrer_ drew himself up to his full height, his eyes darted fire. "farewell, then!" he hissed in terrible tones. "_you will make the third at grace!_" [illustration: "'farewell!' he hissed."] he vanished--the dandy started up full of vague alarm, forgetting even his hair in the mysterious menace of that terrifying sibilation. "what do you mean?" he cried. "i mean," said manasseh, reappearing at the door, "that since the world was created, only two men have taken their clothes with them to the world to come. one was korah, who was swallowed down, the other was elijah, who was borne aloft. it is patent in which direction the third will go." the sleeping chord of superstition vibrated under manasseh's dexterous touch. "rejoice, o young man, in your strength," went on the beggar, "but a day will come when only the corpse-watchers will perform your toilette. in plain white they will dress you, and the devil shall never know what a dandy you were." "but who are you, that i should give you money for the synagogue?" asked the beau sullenly. "where are your credentials?" "was it to insult me that you called me back? do i look a knave? nay, put up your purse. i'll have none of your filthy gold. let me go." gradually manasseh was won round to accepting ten sovereigns. "for your father's sake," he said, pocketing them. "the only thing i will take for your sake is the cost of my conveyance. i had to post hither, and the synagogue must not be the loser." beau belasco gladly added the extra money, and reseated himself before the mirror, with agreeable sensations in his neglected conscience. "you see," he observed, half apologetically, for manasseh still lingered, "one cannot do everything. to be a prince of dandies, one needs all one's time." he waved his hand comprehensively around the walls which were lined with wardrobes. "my buckskin breeches were the result of nine separate measurings. do you note how they fit?" "they scarcely do justice to your eminent reputation," replied manasseh candidly. beau belasco's face became whiter than even at the thought of earthquakes and devils. "they fit me to bursting!" he breathed. "but are they in the pink of fashion?" queried manasseh. "and assuredly the nankeen pantaloons yonder i recollect to have seen worn last year." "my tailor said they were of a special cut--'tis a shape i am introducing, baggy--to go with frilled shirts." manasseh shook his head sceptically, whereupon the beau besought him to go through his wardrobe, and set aside anything that lacked originality or extreme fashionableness. after considerable reluctance manasseh consented, and set aside a few cravats, shirts, periwigs, and suits from the immense collection. "aha! that is all you can find," said the beau gleefully. "yes, that is all," said manasseh sadly. "all i can find that does any justice to your fame. these speak the man of polish and invention; the rest are but tawdry frippery. anybody might wear them." "anybody!" gasped the poor beau, stricken to the soul. "yes, i might wear them myself." "thank you! thank you! you are an honest man. i love true criticism, when the critic has nothing to gain. i am delighted you called. these rags shall go to my valet." "nay, why waste them on the heathen?" asked manasseh, struck with a sudden thought. "let me dispose of them for the benefit of the synagogue." "if it would not be troubling you too much!" "is there anything i would not do for heaven?" said manasseh with a patronising air. he threw open the door of the adjoining piece suddenly, disclosing the scowling valet on his knees. "take these down, my man," he said quietly, and the valet was only too glad to hide his confusion at being caught eavesdropping by hastening down to the drive with an armful of satin waistcoats. [illustration: "the scowling valet on his knees."] manasseh, getting together the remainder, shook his head despairingly. "i shall never get these into the post-chaise," he said. "you will have to lend me your carriage." "can't you come back for them?" said the beau feebly. "why waste the synagogue's money on hired vehicles? no, if you will crown your kindness by sending the footman along with me to help me unpack them, you shall have your equipage back in an hour or two." so the carriage and pair were brought out, and manasseh, pressing into his service the coachman, the valet, and the footman, superintended the packing of the bulk of beau belasco's wardrobe into the two vehicles. then he took his seat in the carriage, the coachman and the gorgeous powdered footman got into their places, and with a joyous fanfaronade on the horn, the procession set off, manasseh bowing graciously to the master of "the red house," who was waving his beruffled hand from a window embowered in greenery. after a pleasant drive, the vehicles halted at the house, guarded by stone lions, in which dwelt nathaniel furtado, the wealthy private dealer, who willingly gave fifteen pounds for the buck's belaced and embroidered vestments, besides being inveigled into a donation of a guinea towards the synagogue's bad debt. manasseh thereupon dismissed the chaise with a handsome gratuity, and drove in state in the now-empty carriage, attended by the powdered footman, to finsbury circus, to the mansion of rodriques. "i have come for my ten pounds," he said, and reminded him of his promise (?). rodriques laughed, and swore, and laughed again, and swore that the carriage was hired, to be paid for out of the ten pounds. [illustration: "drove in state."] "hired?" echoed manasseh resentfully. "do you not recognise the arms of my friend, beau belasco?" and he presently drove off with the note, for rodriques had a roguish eye. and then, parting with the chariot, the king took his way on foot to fenchurch street, to the house of his cousin barzillai, the ex-planter of barbadoes, and now a west indian merchant. barzillai, fearing humiliation before his clerks, always carried his relative off to the neighbouring franco's head tavern, and humoured him with costly liquors. "but you had no right to donate money you did not possess; it was dishonest," he cried with irrepressible ire. "hoity toity!" said manasseh, setting down his glass so vehemently that the stem shivered. "and were you not called to the law after me? and did you not donate money?" "certainly! but i _had_ the money." "what! _with_ you?" "no, no, certainly not. i do not carry money on the sabbath." "exactly. neither do i." "but the money was at my bankers'." "and so it was at mine. _you_ are my bankers, you and others like you. you draw on your bankers--i draw on mine." and his cousin being thus confuted, manasseh had not much further difficulty in wheedling two pounds ten out of him. "and now," said he, "i really think you ought to do something to lessen the synagogue's loss." "but i have just given!" quoth barzillai in bewilderment. "_that_ you gave to me as your cousin, to enable your relative to discharge his obligations. i put it strictly on a personal footing. but now i am pleading on behalf of the synagogue, which stands to lose heavily. you are a sephardi as well as my cousin. it is a distinction not unlike the one i have so often to explain to you. you owe me charity, not only as a cousin, but as a _schnorrer_ likewise." and, having wrested another guinea from the obfuscated merchant, he repaired to grobstock's business office in search of the defaulter. but the wily grobstock, forewarned by manasseh's promise to visit him, and further frightened by his sunday morning call, had denied himself to the _schnorrer_ or anyone remotely resembling him, and it was not till the afternoon that manasseh ran him to earth at sampson's coffee-house in exchange alley, where the brokers foregathered, and 'prentices and students swaggered in to abuse the ministers, and all kinds of men from bloods to barristers loitered to pick up hints to easy riches. manasseh detected his quarry in the furthermost box, his face hidden behind a broadsheet. [illustration: "his face hidden behind a broadsheet."] "why do you always come to me?" muttered the east india director helplessly. "eh?" said manasseh, mistrustful of his own ears. "i beg your pardon." "if your own community cannot support you," said grobstock, more loudly, and with all the boldness of an animal driven to bay, "why not go to abraham goldsmid, or his brother ben, or to van oven, or oppenheim--they're all more prosperous than i." "sir!" said manasseh wrathfully. "you are a skilful--nay, a famous, financier. you know what stocks to buy, what stocks to sell, when to follow a rise, and when a fall. when the premier advertises the loans, a thousand speculators look to you for guidance. what would you say if _i_ presumed to interfere in your financial affairs--if i told you to issue these shares or to call in those? you would tell me to mind my own business; and you would be perfectly right. now _schnorring_ is _my_ business. trust me, i know best whom to come to. you stick to stocks and leave _schnorring_ alone. you are the king of financiers, but i am the king of _schnorrers_." grobstock's resentment at the rejoinder was mitigated by the compliment to his financial insight. to be put on the same level with the beggar was indeed unexpected. "will you have a cup of coffee?" he said. "i ought scarcely to drink with you after your reception of me," replied manasseh unappeased. "it is not even as if i came to _schnorr_ for myself; it is to the finances of our house of worship that i wished to give you an opportunity of contributing." "aha! your vaunted community hard up?" queried joseph, with a complacent twinkle. "sir! we are the richest congregation in the world. we want nothing from anybody," indignantly protested manasseh, as he absent-mindedly took the cup of coffee which grobstock had ordered for him. "the difficulty merely is that, in honour of my daughter's wedding, i have donated a hundred pounds to the synagogue which i have not yet managed to collect, although i have already devoted a day-and-a-half of my valuable time to the purpose." "but why do you come to me?" "what! do you ask me that again?" "i--i--mean," stammered grobstock--"why should i contribute to a portuguese synagogue?" manasseh clucked his tongue in despair of such stupidity. "it is just you who should contribute more than any portuguese." "i?" grobstock wondered if he was awake. "yes, you. was not the money spent in honour of the marriage of a german jew? it was a splendid vindication of your community." "this is too much!" cried grobstock, outraged and choking. "too much to mark the admission to our fold of the first of your sect! i am disappointed in you, deeply disappointed. i thought you would have applauded my generous behaviour." "i don't care what you thought!" gasped grobstock. he was genuinely exasperated at the ridiculousness of the demand, but he was also pleased to find himself preserving so staunch a front against the insidious _schnorrer_. if he could only keep firm now, he told himself, he might emancipate himself for ever. yes, he would be strong, and manasseh should never dare address him again. "i won't pay a stiver," he roared. "if you make a scene i will withdraw," said manasseh quietly. "already there are ears and eyes turned upon you. from your language people will be thinking me a dun and you a bankrupt." "they can go to the devil!" thundered grobstock, "and you too!" "blasphemer! you counsel me to ask the devil to contribute to the synagogue! i will not bandy words with you. you refuse, then, to contribute to this fund?" "i do, i see no reason." "not even the five pounds i vowed on behalf of yankelé himself--one of your own people?" "what! i pay in honour of yankelé--a dirty _schnorrer_!" "is this the way you speak of your guests?" said manasseh, in pained astonishment. "do you forget that yankelé has broken bread at your table? perhaps this is how you talk of me when my back is turned. but, beware! remember the saying of our sages, 'you and i cannot live in the world,' said god to the haughty man. come, now! no more paltering or taking refuge in abuse. you refuse me this beggarly five pounds?" "most decidedly." "very well, then!" manasseh called the attendant. "what are you about to do?" cried grobstock apprehensively. "you shall see," said manasseh resolutely, and when the attendant came, he pressed the price of his cup of coffee into his hand. grobstock flushed in silent humiliation. manasseh rose. grobstock's fatal strain of weakness gave him a twinge of compunction at the eleventh hour. "you see for yourself how unreasonable your request was," he murmured. "do not strive to justify yourself, i am done with you," said manasseh. "i am done with you as a philanthropist. for the future you may besnuff and bespatter your coat as much as you please, for all the trouble i shall ever take. as a financier, i still respect you, and may yet come to you, but as a philanthropist, never." "anything i can do--" muttered grobstock vaguely. "let me see!" said manasseh, looking down upon him thoughtfully. "ah, yes, an idea! i have collected over sixty pounds. if you would invest this for me--" "certainly, certainly," interrupted grobstock, with conciliatory eagerness. "good! with your unrivalled knowledge of the markets, you could easily bring it up to the necessary sum in a day or two. perhaps even there is some grand _coup_ on the _tapis_, something to be bulled or beared in which you have a hand." grobstock nodded his head vaguely. he had already remembered that the proceeding was considerably below his dignity; he was not a stockbroker, never had he done anything of the kind for anyone. "but suppose i lose it all?" he asked, trying to draw back. "impossible," said the _schnorrer_ serenely. "do you forget it is a synagogue fund? do you think the almighty will suffer his money to be lost?" "then why not speculate yourself?" said grobstock craftily. "the almighty's honour must be guarded. what! shall he be less well served than an earthly monarch? do you think i do not know your financial relations with the court? the service of the almighty demands the best men. i was the best man to collect the money--you are the best to invest it. to-morrow morning it shall be in your hands." "no, don't trouble," said grobstock feebly. "i don't need the actual money to deal with." "i thank you for your trust in me," replied manasseh with emotion. "now you speak like yourself again. i withdraw what i said to you. i _will_ come to you again--to the philanthropist no less than financier. and--and i am sorry i paid for my coffee." his voice quivered. grobstock was touched. he took out a sixpence and repaid his guest with interest. manasseh slipped the coin into his pocket, and shortly afterwards, with some final admonitions to his stock-jobber, took his leave. being in for the job, grobstock resolved to make the best of it. his latent vanity impelled him to astonish the beggar. it happened that he _was_ on the point of a magnificent manoeuvre, and alongside his own triton manasseh's minnow might just as well swim. he made the sixty odd pounds into six hundred. a few days after the royal wedding, the glories of which are still a tradition among the degenerate _schnorrers_ of to-day, manasseh struck the chancellor breathless by handing him a bag containing five score of sovereigns. thus did he honourably fulfil his obligation to the synagogue, and with more celerity than many a warden. nay, more! justly considering the results of the speculation should accrue to the synagogue, whose money had been risked, he, with quixotic scrupulousness, handed over the balance of five hundred pounds to the mahamad, stipulating only that it should be used to purchase a life-annuity (styled the da costa fund) for a poor and deserving member of the congregation, in whose selection he, as donor, should have the ruling voice. the council of five eagerly agreed to his conditions, and a special junta was summoned for the election. the donor's choice fell upon manasseh bueno barzillai azevedo da costa, thenceforward universally recognised, and hereby handed down to tradition, as the king of _schnorrers_. [illustration: "struck the chancellor breathless."] the semi-sentimental dragon. [illustration: the semi-sentimental dragon.] there was nothing about the outside of the dragon to indicate so large a percentage of sentiment. it was a mere every-day dragon, with the usual squamous hide, glittering like silver armour, a commonplace crested head with a forked tongue, a tail like a barbed arrow, a pair of fan-shaped wings, and four indifferently ferocious claws, one per foot. how it came to be so susceptible you shall hear, and then, perhaps, you will be less surprised at its unprecedented and undragonlike behaviour. once upon a time, as the good old chronicler, richard johnson, relateth, egypt was oppressed by a dragon who made a plaguy to-do unless given a virgin daily for dinner. for twenty-four years the menu was practicable; then the supply gave out. there was absolutely no virgin left in the realm save sabra, the king's daughter. as Ã� only = , i suspect that the girls were anxious to dodge the dragon by marrying in haste. the government of the day seems to have been quite unworthy of confidence and utterly unable to grapple with the situation, and poor ptolemy was reduced to parting with the princess, though even so destruction was only staved off for a day, as virgins would be altogether "off" on the morrow. so short-sighted was the egyptian policy that this does not appear to have occurred to anybody. at the last moment an english tourist from coventry, known as george (and afterwards sainted by an outgoing administration sent to his native borough by the country), resolved to tackle the monster. the chivalrous englishman came to grief in the encounter, but by rolling under an orange tree he was safe from the dragon so long as he chose to stay there, and so in the end had no difficulty in despatching the creature; which suggests that the soothsayers and the magicians would have been much better occupied in planting orange trees than in sacrificing virgins. thus far the story, which is improbable enough to be an allegory. now many centuries after these events did not happen, a certain worthy citizen, an illiterate fellow, but none the worse for that, made them into a pantomime--to wit, _st. george and the dragon; or, harlequin tom thumb_. and the same was duly played at a provincial theatre, with a lightly clad chorus of egyptian lasses, in glaring contradiction of the dearth of such in the fable, and a sabra who sang to them a topical song about the county council. curiously enough, in private life, sabra, although her name was miss on the posters, was really a miss. she was quite as young and pretty as she looked, too, and only rouged herself for the sake of stage perspective. i don't mean to say she was as beautiful as the egyptian princess, who was as straight as a cedar and wore her auburn hair in wanton ringlets, but she was a sprightly little body with sparkling eyes and a complexion that would have been a good advertisement to any soap on earth. but better than sabra's skin was sabra's heart, which though as yet untouched by man was full of love and tenderness, and did not faint under the burden of supporting her mother and the household. for instead of having a king for a sire, sabra had a drunken scene-shifter for a father. everybody about the theatre liked sabra, from the actor-manager (who played st. george) to the stage door-keeper (who played st. peter). even her under-study did not wish her ill. [illustration: "instead of having a king for a sire, sabra had a drunken scene-shifter for a father."] needless, therefore, to say it was sabra who made the dragon semi-sentimental. not in the "book," of course, where his desire to eat her remained purely literal. real dragons keep themselves aloof from sentiment, but a stage dragon is only human. such a one may be entirely the slave of sentiment, and it was perhaps to the credit of our dragon that only half of him was in the bonds. the other half--and that the better half--was saturnine and teetotal, and answered to the name of davie brigg. davie was the head man on the dragon. he played the anterior parts, waggled the head and flapped the wings and sent gruesome grunts and penny squibs through the "firebreathing" jaws. he was a dour middle-aged, but stagestruck, scot, very proud of his rapid rise in the profession, for he had begun as a dramatist. the rear of the dragon was simply known as jimmy. jimmy was a wreck. his past was a mystery. his face was a brief record of baleful experiences, and he had the aspirates of a gentleman. he had gone on the stage to be out of the snow and the rain. not knowing this, the actor-manager paid him ninepence a night. his wages just kept him in beer-money. the original sabra tamed two lions, but perhaps it was a greater feat to tame this half of a dragon. jimmy's tenderness for sabra began at rehearsal, when he saw a good deal of her, and felicitated himself on the fact that they were on in the same scenes. after a while, however, he perceived this to be a doleful drawback, for whereas at rehearsal he could jump out of his skin and breathe himself and feast his eyes on sabra when the dragon was disengaged, on the stage he was forced to remain cramped in darkness while ptolemy was clowning or st. george executing a step dance. sabra was invisible, except for an odd moment or so between the scenes when he caught sight of her gliding to her dressing-room like a streak of discreet sunshine. still he had his compensations; her dulcet notes reached his darkness (mellowed by the painted canvas and the tin scales sewn over it), as the chant of the unseen cuckoo reaches the woodland wanderer. sometimes, when she sang that song about the county council, he forgot to wag his tail. [illustration: "sometimes, when she sang that song about the county council, he forgot to wag his tail."] thus was love blind, while indifference in the person of davie brigg looked its full through the mask that stood for the monster's head. after a bit jimmy conceived a mad envy of his superior's privileges; he longed to see sabra through the dragon's mouth. he was so weary of the little strip of stage under the dragon's belly, which, even if he peered through the breathing-holes in the patch of paint-disguised gauze let into its paunch, was the most he could see. one night he asked davie to change places with him. davie's look of surprise and consternation was beautiful to see. "do i hear aricht?" he asked. "just for a night," said jimmy, abashed. "but d'ye no ken this is a speakin' part?" [illustration: "'but d'ye no ken this a speakin' part?'"] "i did--not--know--that," faltered jimmy. "where's your ears, mon?" inquired davie sternly. "dinna ye hear me growlin' and grizzlin' and squealin' and skirlin'?" "y--e--s," said jimmy. "but i thought you did it at random." "thocht i did it at random!" cried davie, holding up his hands in horror. "and mebbe also ye thocht onybody could do't!" jimmy's shamed silence gave consent also to this unflinching interpretation of his thought. "ah weel!" said davie, with melancholy resignation, "this is the artist's reward for his sweat and labour. why, mon, let me tell ye, ilka note is not ainly timed but modulatit to the dramatic eenterest o' the moment, and that i hae practised the squeak hours at a time wi' a bagpiper. tak' my place, indeed! are ye fou again, or hae ye tint your senses?" "but you could do the words all the same. i only want to see for once." "and how d'ye think the words should sound, coming from the creature's belly? and what should ye see! you should nae ken where to go, i warrant. come, i'll spier ye. where d'ye come in for the fight with st. george--is it r e or l u e?" "l u e," replied jimmy feebly. "ye donnered auld runt!" cried davie triumphantly. "'tis neither one nor t'other. 'tis r c. why, ye're capable of deein' up stage instead of down! ye'd spoil my great scene. and ye are to remember i wad bear the wyte for 't, for naebody but our two sel's should ken the truth. nay, nay, my mon. i hae my responsibeelities to the management. ye're all verra weel in a subordinate position, but dinna ye aspire to more than beseems your abeelities. i am richt glad ye spoke me. eh, but it would be an awfu' thing if i was taken bad and naebody to play the part. i'll warn the manager to put on an under-study betimes." "oh, but let _me_ be the under-study, then," pleaded jimmy. davie sniffed scornfully. "'tis a braw thing, ambeetion," he said, "but there's a proverb about it ye ken, mebbe." "but i'll notice everything you do, and exactly how you do it!" davie relented a little. "ah, weel," he said cautiously, "i'll bide a wee before speaking to the manager." but davie remained doggedly robust, and so jimmy still walked in darkness. he often argued the matter out with his superior, maintaining that they ought to toss for the position--head or tail. failing to convince davie, he offered him fourpence a night for the accommodation, but davie saw in this extravagance evidence of a determined design to supplant him. in despair jimmy watched for a chance of slipping into the wire framework before davie, but the conscientious artist was always at his post first. they held dialogues on the subject, while with pantomimic license the chorus of egyptian lasses was dancing round the dragon as if it were a maypole. their angry messages to each other vibrated along the wires of their prison-house, rending the dragon with intestinal war. weave your cloud-wrought utopias, o social reformer, but wherever men inhabit, there jealousy and disunion shall creep in, and this gaudy canvas tent with its tin roofing was a hotbed of envy, hatred, and all uncharitableness. yet love was there, too--a stranger, purer passion than the battered jimmy had ever known; for it had the unselfishness of a love that can never be more than a dream, that the beloved can never even know of. perhaps, if jimmy had met sabra before he left off being a gentleman--! the silent, hopeless longing, the chivalrous devotion yearning dumbly within him, did not stop his beer; he drank more to drown his thoughts. every night he entered into his part gladly, knowing himself elevated in the zoological scale, not degraded, by an assumption that made him only half a beast. it was kind of providence to hide him wholly away from her vision, so that her bright eyes might not be sullied by the sight of his foulness. none of the grinning audience suspected the tragedy of the hind legs of the dragon, as blindly following their leader, they went "galumphing" about the stage. the innocent children marvelled at the monster, in wide-eyed excitement, unsuspecting even its humanity, much less its double nature; only davie knew that in that dragon there were the ruins of a man and the makings of a great actor! "why are ye sae anxious to stand in my shoon?" he would ask, when the hind legs became too obstreperous. "i don't want to be in your shoes; i only want to see the stage for once." but davie would shake his head incredulously, making the dragon's mask wobble at the wrong cues. at last, once when sabra was singing, poor jimmy, driven to extremities, confessed the truth, and had the mortification of feeling the wires vibrate with the scotchman's silent laughter. he blushed unseen. but it transpired that davie's amusement was not so much scornful as sceptical. he still suspected the tail of a sinister intention to wag the dragon. "nae, nae," he said, "ye shallna get me to swallow that. ye're an unco puir creature, but ye're no sa daft as to want the moon. she's a bonnie lassie, and i willna be surprised if she catches a coronet in the end, when she makes a name in lunnon; for the swells here, though i see a wheen foolish faces nicht after nicht in the stalls, are but a puir lot. eh, but it's a gey grand tocher is a pretty face. in the meanwhiles, like a canny girl, she's settin' her cap at the chief." "hold your tongue!" hissed the hind legs. "she's as pure as an angel." "hoot-toot!" answered the head. "dinna leebel the angels. it's no an angel that lets her manager give her sly squeezes and saft kisses that are nae in the stage directions." "then she can't know he's a married man," said the hind legs hoarsely. "dinna fash yoursel'--she kens that full weel and a thocht or two more. dod! ye should just see how she and st. george carry on after my death scene, when he's supposit to ha' rescued her and they fall a-cuddlin'." "you're a liar!" said the hind legs. davie roared and breathed burning squibs and capered about, and jimmy had to prance after him in involuntary pursuit. he felt choking in his stuffy hot black rollicking dungeon. the thought of this bloated sexagenarian faked up as a _jeune premier_, pawing that sweet little girl, sickened him. "dom'd leear yersel!" resumed davie, coming to a standstill. "i maun believe my own eyes, what they tell me nicht after nicht." "then let me see for myself, and i'll believe you." "ye dinna catch me like that," said davie, chuckling. after that poor jimmy's anxiety to see the stage became feverish. he even meditated malingering and going in front of the house, but could only have got a distant view, and at the risk of losing his place in an overcrowded profession. his opportunity came at length, but not till the pantomime was half run out and the actor-manager sought to galvanise it by a "second edition," which in sum meant a new lot of the variety entertainers who came on and played copophones before ptolemy, did card-tricks in the desert, and exhibited trained poodles to the palm-trees. but davie, determined to rise to the occasion, thought out a fresh conception of his part, involving three new grunts, and was so busy rehearsing them at home that he forgot the flight of the hours and arrived at the theatre only in time to take second place in the dragon that was just waiting, half-manned, at the wing. he was so flustered that he did not even think of protesting for the first few minutes. when he did protest, jimmy said, "what are you jawing about? this is a second edition, isn't it?" and caracoled around, dragging the unhappy davie in his train. "i'll tell the chief," groaned the hind legs. "all right, let him know you were late," answered the head cheerfully. "eh, but it's pit-mirk, here. i canna see onything." "you see i'm no liar. shall i send a squib your way?" "nay, nay, nae larking. mind the business or you'll ruin my reputation." "mind my business, i'll mind yours," replied jimmy joyously, for the lovely sabra was smiling right in his eyes. a dragon divided against itself cannot stand, so davie had to wait till the beast came off. to his horror jimmy refused to budge from his shell. he begged for just one "keek" at the stage, but jimmy replied: "you don't catch me like that." davie said little more, but he matured a crafty plan, and in the next scene he whispered:-- "jimmy!" "shut up, davie; i'm busy." "i've got a pin, and if ye shallna promise to restore me my richts after the next exit, ye shall feel the taste of it." "you'll just stay where you are," came back the peremptory reply. deep went the pin in jimmy's rear, and the dragon gave such a howl that davie's blood ran cold. too late he remembered that it was not the dragon's cue, and that he was making havoc of his own professional reputation. through the canvas he felt the stern gaze of the actor-manager. he thought of pricking jimmy only at the howling cues, but then the howl thus produced was so superior to his own, that if jimmy chose to claim it, he might be at once engaged to replace him in the part. what a dilemma! poor davie! as if it was not enough to be cut off from all the brilliant spectacle, pent in pitchy gloom and robbed of all his "fat" and his painfully rehearsed "second edition" touches. he felt like one of those fallen archangels of the footlights who live to bear ophelia's bier on boards where they once played hamlet. far different emotions were felt at the dragon's head, where jimmy's joy faded gradually away, replaced by a passion of indignation, as with love-sharpened eyes he ascertained for himself the true relations of the actor-manager with his "principal girl." he saw from his coign of vantage the poor modest little thing shrinking before the cowardly advances of her employer, who took every possible advantage of the stage potentialities, in ways the audience could not discriminate from the acting. alas! what could the gentle little bread-winner do? but jimmy's blood was boiling. davie's great scene arrived: the battle royal between st. george and the dragon. sabra, bewitchingly radiant in white arabian silk, stood under the orange-tree where the pendent fruit was labelled three a penny. here st. george, in knightly armour clad, retired between the rounds, to be sponged by the fair sabra, from whose lips he took the opportunity of drinking encouragement. when the umpire cried "time!" jimmy uttered inarticulate cries of real rage and malediction, vomiting his squibs straight at the champion's eyes with intent to do him grievous bodily injury. but squibs have their own ways of jumping, and the actor-manager's face was protected by his glittering burgonet. at last jimmy and davie were duly despatched by st. george's trusty sword, ascalon, which passed right between them and stuck out on the other side amid the frantic applause of the house. the dragon reeled cumbrously sideways and bit the dust, of which there was plenty. then sabra rushed forward from under the orange-tree and encircled her hero's hauberk with a stage embrace, while st. george, lifting up his visor, rained kiss after kiss on sabra's scarlet face, and the "gods" went hoarse with joy. "oh, sir!" jimmy heard the still small voice of the bread-winner protest feebly again and again amid the thunder, as she tried to withdraw herself from her employer's grasp. this was the last straw. anger and the foul air of his prison wrought up jimmy to asphyxiation point. what wonder if the dragon lost his head completely? davie will never forget the horror of that moment when he felt himself dragged upwards as by an irresistible tornado, and knew himself for a ruined actor. mechanically he essayed to cling to the ground, but in vain. the dead dragon was on its feet in a moment; in another, jimmy had thrown off the mask, showing a shock of hair and a blotched crimson face, spotted with great beads of perspiration. unconscious of this culminating outrage, davie made desperate prods with his pin, but jimmy was equally unconscious of the pricks. the thunder died abruptly. a dead silence fell upon the whole house--you could have heard davie's pin drop. st. george, in amazed consternation, released his hold of sabra and cowered back before the wild glare of the bloodshot eyes. "how dare you?" rang out in hoarse screaming accents from the protruding head, and with one terrific blow of its right fore-leg the hybrid monster felled sabra's insulter to the ground. the astonished st. george lay on his back, staring up vacantly at the flies. "i'll teach you how to behave to a lady!" roared the dragon. then davie tugged him frantically backwards, but jimmy cavorted obstinately in the centre of the stage, which the actor-manager had taken even in his fall, so that the dragon's hind legs trampled blindly on davie's prostrate chief, amid the hysterical convulsions of the house. * * * * * next morning the local papers were loud in their praises of the "second edition" of _st. george and the dragon_, especially of the "genuinely burlesque and topsy-turvy episode in which the dragon rises from the dead to read st. george a lesson in chivalry; a really side-splitting conception, made funnier by the grotesque revelation of the constituents of the dragon, just before it retires for the night." the actor-manager had no option but to adopt this reading, so had to be hoofed and publicly reprimanded every evening during the rest of the season, glad enough to get off so cheaply. of course, jimmy was dismissed, but st. george was painfully polite to sabra ever after, not knowing but what jimmy was in the gallery with a brickbat, and perhaps not unimpressed by the lesson in chivalry he was receiving every evening. perhaps you think the dragon deserved to marry sabra, but that would be really too topsy-turvy, and the sentimental beast himself was quite satisfied to have rescued her from st. george. but the person who profited most by jimmy's sacrifice was davie, who stepped into a real speaking part, emerged from the obscurity of his surroundings, burst his swaddling clothes, and made his appearance on the stage--a thing he could scarcely be said to have done in the dragon's womb. and so the world wags. _an honest log-roller._ louis maunders was writing an anonymous novel, and a large circle of friends and acquaintances expected it to make a big hit. louis maunders was so modest that he distrusted his own opinion, and was glad to find his friends sharing it in this matter. it strengthened him. he carried the manuscript unostentatiously about in a long brief bag, while the book was writing, and worked at it during all his spare moments. even in omnibuses he was to be seen scribbling hard with a stylus, and neglecting to attend to the conductor. the plot of the story was sad and heartrending, for louis was only twenty-one. louis refused to give those roseate pictures of life which the conventional novelist turns out to please the public. he objected to "happy endings." in real life, he said, no story ends happily; for the end of everybody's story is death. in this book he said some bitter things about life which it would have winced to hear, had it been alive. as for death, he doubted whether it was worth dying. towards nature he took a tone of haughty superiority, and expressed himself disrespectfully on the subject of fate. he mocked at it through the lips of his hero, and altogether seemed qualifying for the liver complaint, which is the prometheus myth done into modern english. he taught that the only peace for man lies in snapping the fingers at fortune, taking her buffets and her favours with equal contempt, and generally teaching her to know her place. the soul of the philosopher, he said, would stand grinning cynically though the planetary system were sold off by auction. these lessons were taught with great tragic power in maunders' novel, and he was looking forward to the time when it should be in print, and on all the carpets of conversation. he was extremely gratified to find his friends thinking so well of its prospects, for it was pleasing to him to discover that he had chosen his circle so well, and had such intelligent friends. it did not seem to him at all unlikely that he would make his fortune with this novel; and he hurried on with it, till the masterpiece needed only a few final touches and a few last insults to fate. then he left the bag in a hansom cab. when he remembered his forgetfulness, he was distracted. he raved like a maniac--and like a maniac did not even write his ravings down for after use. he applied at scotland yard, but the superintendent said that drivers brought there only articles of value. he sent paragraphs to the papers, asking even of the _echo_ where his lost novel was. but the _echo_ answered not. several spiteful papers insinuated that he was a liar, and a high-class comic paper went out of its way to make a joke, and to call his book "the mystery of a hansom cab." the annoying part of the business was that after getting all this gratuitous advertisement, in itself enough to sell two editions, the book still refused to come up for publication. maunders was too heart-broken to write another. for months he went about, a changed being. he had put the whole of himself into that book, and it was lost. he mourned for the departed manuscript, and generously extolled its virtues. for years he remained faithful to its memory; and its pages were made less dry with his tears. but the most intemperate grief wears itself out at last; and after a few years of melancholy, maunders rallied and became a critic. [illustration: the great critic.] as a critic he set in with great severity, and by carefully refraining from doing anything himself, gained a great reputation far and wide. in due course he joined the staff of the _acadæum_, where his signed contributions came to be looked for with profound respect by the public and with fear and trembling by authors. for maunders' criticism was so very superior, even for the _acadæum_, of which the trade motto was "stop here for criticism--superior to anything in the literary market." maunders flayed and excoriated marsyas till the world accepted him as apollo. what maunders was most down upon was novel-writing. not having to follow them himself, he had high ideals of art; and woe to the unfortunate author who thought he had literary and artistic instinct when he had only pen and paper. maunders was especially severe upon the novels of young authors, with their affected style and jejune ideas. perhaps the most brilliant criticism he ever wrote was a merciless dissection of a book of this sort, reeking with the insincerity and crudity of youth, full of accumulated ignorance of life, and brazening it out by flashy cynicism. a week after this notice appeared, his oldest and dearest friend called upon him and asked him for an explanation. "what do you mean?" said maunders. "when i read your slashing notice of 'a fingersnap for fate,' i at once got the book." "what! after i had disembowelled it; after i had shown it was a stale sausage stuffed with old and putrid ideas?" "well, to tell the truth," said his friend, a little crestfallen at having to confess, "i always get the books you pitch into. so do lots of people. we are only plain, ordinary, homespun people, you know; so we feel sure that whatever you praise will be too superior for us, while what you condemn will suit us to a _t_. that is why the great public studies and respects your criticisms. you are our literary pastor and monitor. your condemnation is our guide-post, and your praise is our _index expurgatorius_. but for you we should be lost in the wilderness of new books." "and this is all the result of my years of laborious criticism," fumed the _acadæum_ critic. "proceed, sir." "well, what i came to say was, that if my memory does not play me a trick after all these years, 'a fingersnap for fate' is your long-lost novel." "what!" shrieked the great critic; "my long-lost child! impossible." "yes," persisted his oldest and dearest friend. "i recognised it by the strawberry mark in cap. ii., where the hero compares the younger generation to fresh strawberries smothered in stale cream. i remember your reading it to me!" "heavens! the whole thing comes back to me," cried the critic. "now i know why i damned it so unmercifully for plagiarism! all the while i was reading it, there was a strange, haunting sense of familiarity." "but, surely you will expose the thief!" "how can i? it would mean confessing that i wrote the book myself. that i slated it savagely, is nothing. that will pass as a good joke, if not a piece of rare modesty. but confess myself the author of such a wretched failure!" "excuse me," said his friend. "it is not a failure. it is a very popular success. it is selling like wildfire. excuse the inaccurate simile; but you know what i mean. your notice has sent the sale up tremendously. ever since your notice appeared, the printing presses have been going day and night and are utterly unable to cope with the demand. oh, you must not let a rogue make a fortune out of you like this. that would be too sinful." so the great critic sought out the thief. and they divided the profits. and then the thief, who was a fool as well as a rogue, wrote another book--all out of his own head this time. and the critic slated it. and they divided the profits. _a tragi-comedy of creeds._ not much before midnight in a midland town--a thriving commercial town, whose dingy back streets swarmed with poverty and piety--a man in a soft felt hat and a white tie was hurrying home over a bridge that spanned a dark crowded river. he had missed the tram, and did not care to be seen out late, but he could not afford a cab. suddenly he felt a tug at his long black coat-tail. vaguely alarmed and definitely annoyed, he turned round quickly. a breathless, roughly-clad, rugged-featured man loosed his hold of the skirt. "'scuse me, sir--i've been running," gasped the stranger, placing his horny hand on his breast and panting. "what is it? what do you want?" said the gentleman impatiently. "my wife's dying," jerked the man. "i'm very sorry," murmured the gentleman incredulously, expecting some conventional street-plea. "awful sudden attack--this last of hers--only came on an hour ago." "i'm not a doctor." "no, sir, i know. i don't want a doctor. he's there and only gives her ten minutes to live. come with me at once, please." "come with you? why, what good can i do?" "you're a clergyman!" "a clergyman!" repeated the other. "yes--aren't you?" the wearer of the white tie looked embarrassed. "ye-es," he stammered. "in a--in a way. but i'm not the sort of clergyman your wife will be wanting." "no?" said the man, puzzled and pained. then with a sudden dread in his voice: "you're not a catholic clergyman?" "no," was the unhesitating reply. "oh, then it's all right!" cried the man, relieved. "come with me, sir, for god's sake. don't let us waste time." his face was lit up with anxious appeal. but still the clergyman hesitated. "you're making a mistake," he murmured. "i am not a christian clergyman." he turned to resume his walk. "not a christian clergyman!" exclaimed the man, as who should say "not a black negro!" "no--i am a jewish minister." "that don't matter," broke in the man, almost before he could finish the sentence. "as long as you're not a catholic. oh, don't go away now, sir!" his voice broke piteously. "don't go away after i've been chasing you for five minutes--i saw your rig-out--i beg pardon, your coat and hat--in the distance just as i came out of the house. walk back with me, anyhow," he pleaded, seeing the jew's hesitation, "oh! for pity's sake, walk back with me at once and we can discuss it as we go along. i know i should never get hold of another parson in time at this hour of the night." the man's accents were so poignant, his anxiety was so apparently sincere, that the minister's humanity could scarcely resist the solicitation to walk back at least. he would still have time to decide whether to enter the house or not--whether the case were genuine or a mere trap concealing robbery or worse. the man took a short cut through evil-looking slums that did not increase the minister's confidence. he wondered what his flock would think if they saw their pastor in such company. he was a young unmarried minister, and the reputation of such in provincial jewish congregations, overflowing with religion and tittle-tattle, is as a pretty unprotected orphan girl's. "why don't you go to your own clergyman?" he asked. "i've got none," said the man half-apologetically. "i don't believe in nothing myself. but you know what women are!" the minister sniffed, but did not deny the weakness of the sex. "betsy goes to some place or other every sunday almost; sometimes she's there and back from a service before i'm up, and so long as the breakfast's ready i don't mind. i don't ask her no questions, and in return she don't bother about my soul--leastways, not for these ten years, ever since she's had kids to convert. we get along all right, the missus and me and the kids. oh, but it's all come to an end now," he concluded, with a sob. "yes, but my good fellow," protested the minister, "i told you you were making a mistake. you know nothing about religion; but what your wife wants is some one to talk to her of jesus, or to give her the sacrament, or the confession, or something, for i confess i'm not very clear about the forms of christianity; and i haven't got any wafers or things of that sort. no, i couldn't do it, even if i had a mind to. it would ruin my position if it were known. but apart from that, i really can't do it. i wouldn't know what to say, and i couldn't bring my tongue to say it if i did." "oh, but you believe in _something_?" persisted the man piteously. "h'm! yes, i can't deny that," said the minister; "but it's not the same something that your wife believes in." "you believe in a god, don't you?" the minister felt a bit chagrined at being catechised in the elements of his religion. "of course!" he said fretfully. "there! i knew it," cried the man in triumph. "none of us do in our shop; but, of course, clergymen are different. but if you believe in a god, that's enough, ain't it? you're both religious folk." "no, it isn't enough--at least, not for your wife." "oh, well, you needn't let out, sir, need you? so long as you talk of god and keep clear of the pope. i've heard her going on about a scarlet woman to the kids. (god bless their little hearts! i wonder what they'll do without her!) she'll never know, sir, and she'll die happy. i've done my duty. she whispered i wasn't to bring a roman catholic, poor thing. i fancy i heard her say once they're even worse than jews. oh, i don't mean that, sir. you're sure you're not a roman catholic?" he concluded anxiously. "quite sure." "well, sir, you'll keep the rest dark, won't you? there's no call to let out you don't believe the same other things as her." "i shall tell no lie," said the minister firmly. "you have called me in to give consolation to your dying wife, and i shall do my duty as best i can. is this the house?" "yes, sir--right at the top." the minister conquered a last impulse of mistrust, and looked round cautiously to be sure he was unobserved. charity was not a strong point with his flock, and certainly his proceedings were suspicious. even if they learnt the truth, he was not at all sure they would not consider his praying with a dying christian akin to blasphemy. on the whole he must be credited with some courage in mounting that black, ill-smelling, interminable staircase. he found himself in a gloomy garret at last, lighted by an oil-lamp. a haggard woman lay with shut eyes on an iron bed, her chilling hands clasping the hands of the "converted" kids, a boy of ten and a girl of seven, who stood blubbering in their night-attire. the doctor leaned against the head of the bed, the ungainly shadows of the group sprawling across the blank wall. he had done all he could--without hope of payment--to ease the poor woman's last moments. he was a big-brained, large-hearted irishman, a roman catholic, who thought science and religion might be the best of friends. the husband looked at him in frantic interrogation. "you are not too late," replied the doctor. "thank god!" said the atheist. "betsy, old girl, here is the clergyman." the cloud seemed to pass off the blind face, and a wave of wan sunlight to traverse it; slowly the eyes opened, the hands withdrew themselves from the children's grasp, and the palms met for prayer. "christ jesus--" began the lips mechanically. the minister was hot with confusion and a-quiver with emotion. he knew not what to say, as automatically he drew out a hebrew prayer-book from his pocket and began reading the deathbed confession in the english version that appeared on the alternate pages. "i acknowledge unto thee, o lord, my god, and the god of my fathers, that both my cure and my death are in thy hands...." as he read, the dying lips moved, mumbling the words after him. how often had those white lips prayed that the stiff-necked jews might find grace and be saved from damnation; how often had those poor, rough hands put pennies into conversionist collecting-boxes after toiling hard to scrape them together; so that only she might suffer by their diversion from the household treasury. the prayer went on, the mournful monotone thrilling through the hot, dim, oil-reeking attic, and awing the weeping children into silence. the atheist stood by reverently, torn by conflicting emotions; glad the poor foolish creature had her wish, and on thorns lest she should live long enough to discover the deception. there was no room in his overcharged heart for personal grief just then. "make known to me the path of life; in thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand are pleasures for evermore." an ecstatic look overspread the plain, careworn face, she stretched out her arms as if to embrace some unseen vision. "yes, i am coming ... jesus," she murmured. then her hands dropped heavily upon her breast; the face grew rigid, the eyes closed. involuntarily the minister seized the hand nearest him. he felt it respond faintly to his clasp in unconsciousness of the pagan pollution of his touch. he read on, "thou who art the father of the fatherless and the judge of the widow, protect my beloved kindred with whose soul my own is knit." the lips still echoed him almost imperceptibly, the departing spirit lulled into peace by the prayer of the unbeliever. "into thy hand i commend my spirit. thou hast redeemed me, o lord god of truth. amen and amen." and in that last amen, with a final gleam of blessedness flitting across her sightless face, the poor christian toiler breathed out her life of pain, holding the jew's hand. there was a moment of solemn silence, the three men becoming as the little children in the presence of the eternal mystery. * * * * * it leaked out, as everything did in that gossipy town, and among that gossipy jewish congregation. to the minister's relief, his flock took it better than he expected. "what a blessed privilege for that heathen female!" was all their comment. _the memory clearing house._ when i moved into better quarters on the strength of the success of my first novel, i little dreamt that i was about to be the innocent instrument of a new epoch in telepathy. my poor geraldine--but i must be calm; it would be madness to let them suspect i am insane. no, these last words must be final. i cannot afford to have them discredited. i cannot afford any luxuries now. would to heaven i had never written that first novel! then i might still have been a poor, unhappy, struggling, realistic novelist; i might still have been residing at , little turncot street, chapelby road, st. pancras. but i do not blame providence. i knew the book was conventional even before it succeeded. my only consolation is that geraldine was part-author of my misfortunes, if not of my novel. she it was who urged me to abandon my high ideals, to marry her, and live happily ever afterwards. she said if i wrote only one bad book it would be enough to establish my reputation; that i could then command my own terms for the good ones. i fell in with her proposal, the banns were published, and we were bound together. i wrote a rose-tinted romance, which no circulating library could be without, instead of the veracious picture of life i longed to paint; and i moved from , little turncot street, chapelby road, st. pancras, to , albert flats, victoria square, westminster. [illustration: "urged me to abandon my high ideals."] a few days after we had sent out the cards, i met my friend o'donovan, late member for blackthorn. he was an irishman by birth and profession, but the recent general election had thrown him out of work. the promise of his boyhood and of his successful career at trinity college was great, but in later years he began to manifest grave symptoms of genius. i have heard whispers that it was in the family, though he kept it from his wife. possibly i ought not to have sent him a card and have taken the opportunity of dropping his acquaintance. but geraldine argued that he was not dangerous, and that we ought to be kind to him just after he had come out of parliament. o'donovan was in a rage. [illustration: "o'donovan was in a rage."] "i never thought it of you!" he said angrily, when i asked him how he was. he had a good irish accent, but he only used it when addressing his constituents. "never thought what?" i enquired in amazement. "that you would treat your friends so shabbily." "wh-what, didn't you g-get a card?" i stammered. "i'm sure the wife--" "don't be a fool!" he interrupted. "of course i got a card. that's what i complain of." i stared at him blankly. the social experiences resulting from my marriage had convinced me that it was impossible to avoid giving offence. i had no reason to be surprised, but i was. "what right have you to move and put all your friends to trouble?" he enquired savagely. "i have put myself to trouble," i said, "but i fail to see how i have taxed _your_ friendship." "no, of course not," he growled. "i didn't expect you to see. you're just as inconsiderate as everybody else. don't you think i had enough trouble to commit to memory ' , little turncot street, chapelby road, st. pancras,' without being unexpectedly set to study ' , victoria flats--?'" " , albert flats," i interrupted mildly. "there you are!" he snarled. "you see already how it harasses my poor brain. i shall never remember it." "oh yes, you will," i said deprecatingly. "it is much easier than the old address. listen here! ' , albert flats, victoria square, westminster.' --a symmetrical number, the first double even number; the first is two, the second is two, too, and the whole is two, two, too--quite æsthetical, you know. then all the rest is royal--albert, albert the good, see. victoria--the queen. westminster--westminster palace. and the other words--geometrical terms, flat, square. why, there never was such an easy address since the days of adam before he moved out of eden," i concluded enthusiastically. [illustration: "'there never was such an easy address.'"] "it's easy enough for you, no doubt," he said, unappeased. "but do you think you're the only acquaintance who's not contented with his street and number? bless my soul, with a large circle like mine, i find myself charged with a new schoolboy task twice a month. i shall have to migrate to a village where people have more stability of character. heavens! why have snails been privileged with a domiciliary constancy denied to human beings?" "but you ought to be grateful," i urged feebly. "think of , albert flats, victoria square, westminster, and then think of what i might have moved to. if i have given you an imposition, at least admit it is a light one." "it isn't so much the new address i complain of, it's the old. just imagine what a weary grind it has been to master--' , little turncot street, chapelby road, st. pancras.' for the last eighteen months i have been grappling with it, and now, just as i am letter perfect and postcard secure, behold all my labour destroyed, all my pains made ridiculous. it's the waste that vexes me. here is a piece of information, slowly and laboriously acquired, yet absolutely useless. nay, worse than useless; a positive hindrance. for i am just as slow at forgetting as at picking up. whenever i want to think of your address, up it will spring, ' , little turncot street, chapelby road, st. pancras.' it cannot be scotched--it must lie there blocking up my brains, a heavy, uncouth mass, always ready to spring at the wrong moment; a possession of no value to anyone but the owner, and not the least use to _him_." he paused, brooding on the thought in moody silence. suddenly his face changed. "but isn't it of value to anybody _but_ the owner?" he exclaimed excitedly. "are there not persons in the world who would jump at the chance of acquiring it? don't stare at me as if i was a comet. look here! suppose some one had come to me eighteen months ago and said, 'patrick, old man, i have a memory i don't want. it's , little turncot street, chapelby road, st. pancras! you're welcome to it, if it's any use to you.' don't you think i would have fallen on that man's--or woman's--neck, and watered it with my tears? just think what a saving of brain-force it would have been to me--how many petty vexations it would have spared me! see here, then! is your last place let?" "yes," i said. "a mr. marrow has it now." "ha!" he said, with satisfaction. "now there must be lots of mr. marrow's friends in the same predicament as i was--people whose brains are softening in the effort to accommodate ' , little turncot street, chapelby road, st. pancras.' psychical science has made such great strides in this age that with a little ingenuity it should surely not be impossible to transfer the memory of it from my brain to theirs." [illustration: "'people whose brains are softening.'"] "but," i gasped, "even if it was possible, why should you give away what you don't want? that would be charity." "you do not suspect me of that?" he cried reproachfully. "no, my ideas are not so primitive. for don't you see that there is a memory _i_ want--' , royal flats--'" " , albert flats," i murmured shame-facedly. " , albert flats," he repeated witheringly. "you see how badly i want it. well, what i propose is to exchange my memory of ' , little turncot street, chapelby road, st. pancras'" (he always rolled it slowly on his tongue with morbid self-torture and almost intolerable reproachfulness), "for the memory of ' , albert square.'" "but you forget," i said, though i lacked the courage to correct him again, "that the people who want ' , little turncot street,' are not the people who possess ' , albert flats.'" "precisely; the principle of direct exchange is not feasible. what is wanted, therefore, is a memory clearing house. if i can only discover the process of thought-transference, i will establish one, so as to bring the right parties into communication. everybody who has old memories to dispose of will send me in particulars. at the end of each week i will publish a catalogue of the memories in the market, and circulate it among my subscribers, who will pay, say, a guinea a year. when the subscriber reads his catalogue and lights upon any memory he would like to have, he will send me a postcard, and i will then bring him into communication with the proprietor, taking, of course, a commission upon the transaction. doubtless, in time, there will be a supplementary catalogue devoted to 'wants,' which may induce people to scour their brains for half-forgotten reminiscences, or persuade them to give up memories they would never have parted with otherwise. well, my boy, what do you think of it?" [illustration: "'the subscriber reads his catalogue.'"] "it opens up endless perspectives," i said, half-dazed. "it will be the greatest invention ever known!" he cried, inflaming himself more and more. "it will change human life, it will make a new epoch, it will effect a greater economy of human force than all the machines under the sun. think of the saving of nerve-tissue, think of the prevention of brain-irritation. why, we shall all live longer through it--centenarians will become as cheap as american millionaires." live longer through it! alas, the mockery of the recollection! he left me, his face working wildly. for days the vision of it interrupted my own work. at last, i could bear the suspense no more and went to his house. i found him in ecstasies and his wife in tears. she was beginning to suspect the family skeleton. "_eureka!_" he was shouting. "_eureka!_" "what is the matter?" sobbed the poor woman. "why don't you speak english? he has been going on like this for the last five minutes," she added, turning pitifully to me. [illustration: "'what is the matter?'"] "_eureka!_" shouted o'donovan. "i must say it. no new invention is complete without it." "bah! i didn't think you were so conventional," i said contemptuously. "i suppose you have found out how to make the memory-transferring machine?" "i have," he cried exultantly. "i shall christen it the noemagraph, or thought-writer. the impression is received on a sensitised plate which acts as a medium between the two minds. the brow of the purchaser is pressed against the plate, through which a current of electricity is then passed." he rambled on about volts and dynamic psychometry and other hard words, which, though they break no bones, should be strictly confined in private dictionaries. "i am awfully glad you came in," he said, resuming his mother tongue at last--"because if you won't charge me anything i will try the first experiment on you." i consented reluctantly, and in two minutes he rushed about the room triumphantly shouting, " , albert flats, victoria square, westminster," till he was hoarse. but for his enthusiasm i should have suspected he had crammed up my address on the sly. he started the clearing house forthwith. it began humbly as an attic in the strand. the first number of the catalogue was naturally meagre. he was good enough to put me on the free list, and i watched with interest the development of the enterprise. he had canvassed his acquaintances for subscribers, and begged everybody he met to send him particulars of their cast-off memories. when he could afford to advertise a little, his _clientèle_ increased. there is always a public for anything _bizarre_, and a percentage of the population would send thirteen stamps for the philosopher's stone, post free. of course, the rest of the population smiled at him for an ingenious quack. the "memories on sale" catalogue grew thicker and thicker. the edition issued to the subscribers contained merely the items, but o'donovan's copy comprised also the names and addresses of the vendors, and now and again he allowed me to have a peep at it in strict confidence. the inventor himself had not foreseen the extraordinary uses to which his noemagraph would be put, nor the extraordinary developments of his business. here are some specimens culled at random from no. of the clearing house catalogue when o'donovan still limited himself to facilitating the sale of superfluous memories:-- . , portsdown avenue, maida. vale. . , (banknote numbers). . history of england (a few saxon kings missing), as successful in a recent examination by the college of preceptors. adapted to the requirements of candidates for the oxford and cambridge local and the london matriculation. . paley's evidences, together with a job lot of dogmatic theology (second-hand), a valuable collection by a clergyman recently ordained, who has no further use for them. . a dozen whist wrinkles, as used by a retiring speculator. excessively cheap. . mathematical formulæ (complete sets; all the latest novelties and improvements, including those for the higher plane curves, and a selection of the most useful logarithms), the property of a dying senior wrangler. applications must be immediate, and no payment need be made to the heirs till the will has been proved. . arguments in favour of home rule (warranted sound); proprietor, distinguished gladstonian m.p., has made up his mind to part with them at a sacrifice. eminently suitable for bye-elections. principals only. . witty wedding speech, as delivered amid great applause by a bridegroom. also an assortment of toasts, jocose and serious, in good condition. reduction on taking a quantity. [illustration: "a clergyman recently ordained."] politicians, clergymen, and ex-examinees soon became the chief customers. graduates in arts and science hastened to discumber their memories of the useless load of learning which had outstayed its function of getting them on in the world. thus not only did they make some extra money, but memories which would otherwise have rapidly faded were turned over to new minds to play a similarly beneficent part in aiding the careers of the owners. the fine image of lucretius was realised, and the torch of learning was handed on from generation to generation. had o'donovan's business been as widely known as it deserved, the curse of cram would have gone to roost for ever, and a finer physical race of englishmen would have been produced. in the hands of honest students the invention might have produced intellectual giants, for each scholar could have started where his predecessor left off, and added more to his wealth of lore, the moderns standing upon the shoulders of the ancients in a more literal sense than bacon dreamed. the memory of macaulay, which all englishmen rightly reverence, might have been possessed by his schoolboy. as it was, omniscient idiots abounded, left colossally wise by their fathers, whose painfully acquired memories they inherited without the intelligence to utilise them. [illustration: the omniscient idiot.] o'donovan's parliamentary connection was a large one, doubtless merely because of his former position and his consequent contact with political circles. promises to constituents were always at a discount, the supply being immensely in excess of the demand; indeed, promises generally were a drug in the market. instead of issuing the projected supplemental catalogue of "memories wanted," o'donovan by this time saw his way to buying them up on spec. he was not satisfied with his commission. he had learnt by experience the kinds that went best, such as exam. answers, but he resolved to have all sorts and be remembered as the whiteley of memory. thus the clearing house very soon developed into a storehouse. o'donovan's advertisement ran thus:-- wanted! wanted! wanted! memories! memories! best prices in the trade. happy, sad, bitter, sweet (as used by minor poets). high prices for absolutely pure memories. memories, historical, scientific, pious, &c. good memories! special terms to liars. precious memories (exeter hall-marked). new memories for old! lost memories recovered while you wait. old memories turned equal to new. o'donovan soon sported his brougham. any day you went into the store (which now occupied the whole of the premises in the strand) you could see endless traffic going on. i often loved to watch it. people who were tired of themselves came here to get a complete new outfit of memories, and thus change their identities. plaintiffs, defendants, and witnesses came to be fitted with memories that would stand the test of the oath, and they often brought solicitors with them to advise them in selecting from the stock. counsel's opinion on these points was regarded as especially valuable. statements that would wash and stand rough pulling about were much sought after. gentlemen and ladies writing reminiscences and autobiographies were to be met with at all hours, and nothing was more pathetic than to see the humble artisan investing his hard-earned "tanner" in recollections of a seaside holiday. [illustration: "they often brought solicitors with them."] in the buying-up department trade was equally brisk, and people who were hard-up were often forced to part with their tenderest recollections. memories of dead loves went at five shillings a dozen, and all those moments which people had vowed never to forget were sold at starvation prices. the memories "indelibly engraven" on hearts were invariably faded and only sold as damaged. the salvage from the most ardent fires of affection rarely paid the porterage. as a rule, the dearest memories were the cheapest. of the memory of favours there was always a glut, and often heaps of diseased memories had to be swept away at the instigation of the sanitary inspector. memories of wrongs done, being rarely parted with except when their owners were at their last gasp, fetched fancy prices. mourners' memories ruled especially lively. in the memory exchange, too, there was always a crowd, the temptation to barter worn-out memories for new proving irresistible. [illustration: "when their owners were at their last gasp."] one day o'donovan came to me, crying "_eureka!_" once more. "shut up!" i said, annoyed by the idiotic hellenicism. "shut up! why, i shall open ten more shops. i have discovered the art of duplicating, triplicating, polyplicating memories. i used only to be able to get one impression out of the sensitised plate, now i can get any number." "be careful!" i said. "this may ruin you." "how so?" he asked scornfully. "why, just see--suppose you supply two candidates for a science degree with the same chemical reminiscences, you lay them under a suspicion of copying; two after-dinner speakers may find themselves recollecting the same joke; several autobiographers may remember their making the same remark to gladstone. unless your customers can be certain they have the exclusive right in other people's memories, they will fall away." [illustration: two after-dinner speakers recollecting the same joke.] "perhaps you are right," he said. "i must '_eureka_' something else." his greek was as defective as if he had had a classical education. what he found was "the hire system." some people who might otherwise have been good customers objected to losing their memories entirely. they were willing to part with them for a period. for instance, when a man came up to town or took a run to paris, he did not mind dispensing with some of his domestic recollections, just for a change. people who knew better than to forget themselves entirely profited by the opportunity of acquiring the funds for a holiday, merely by leaving some of their memories behind them. there were always others ready to hire for a season the discarded bits of personality, and thus remorse was done away with, and double lives became a luxury within the reach of the multitude. to the very poor, o'donovan's new development proved an invaluable auxiliary to the pawn-shop. on monday mornings, the pavement outside was congested with wretched-looking women anxious to pawn again the precious memories they had taken out with saturday's wages. under this hire system it became possible to pledge the memories of the absent _for_ wine instead of in it. but the most gratifying result was its enabling pious relatives to redeem the memories of the dead, on payment of the legal interest. it was great fun to watch o'donovan strutting about the rooms of his newest branch, swelling with pride like a combination cock and john bull. [illustration: wretched-looking women pawning their memories.] the experiences he gained here afforded him the material for a final development, but, to be strictly chronological, i ought first to mention the newspaper into which the catalogue evolved. it was called _in memoriam_, and was published at a penny, and gave a prize of a thousand pounds to any reader who lost his memory on the railway, and who applied for the reward in person. _in memoriam_ dealt with everything relating to memory, though, dishonestly enough, the articles were all original. so were the advertisements, which were required to have reference to the objects of the clearing house--_e.g._, a philanthropic gentleman of good _address_, who has travelled a great deal, wishes to offer his _addresses_ to impecunious _young ladies_ (orphans preferred). only those genuinely desirous of changing their residences, and with weak memories, need apply. and now for the final and fatal "_eureka_." the anxiety of some persons to hire out their memories for a period led o'donovan to see that it was absurd for him to pay for the use of them. the owners were only too glad to dodge remorse. he hit on the sublime idea that they ought to pay _him_. the result was the following advertisement in _in memoriam_ and its contemporaries:-- amnesia agency! o'donovan's anodyne. cheap forgetfulness--complete or partial. easy amnesia--temporary or permanent. haunting memories laid! consciences cleared. cares carefully removed without gas or pain. the london address of lethe is , strand. don't forget it. quite a new class of customers rushed to avail themselves of the new pathological institution. what attracted them was having to pay. hitherto they wouldn't have gone if you paid _them_, as o'donovan used to do. widows and widowers presented themselves in shoals for treatment, with the result that marriages took place even within the year of mourning--a thing which obviously could not be done under any other system. i wonder whether geraldine--but let me finish now! how well i remember that bright summer's morning when, wooed without by the liberal sunshine, and disgusted with the progress i was making with my new study in realistic fiction, i threw down my pen, strolled down the strand, and turned into the clearing house. i passed through the selling department, catching a babel of cries from the counter-jumpers--"two gross anecdotes? yes, sir; this way, sir. half-dozen proposals; it'll be cheaper if you take a dozen, miss. can i do anything more for you, mum? just let me show you a sample of our innocent recollections. the duchess of bayswater has just taken some. anything in the musical line this morning, signor? we have some lovely new recollections just in from impecunious composers. won't you take a score? good morning, mr. clement archer. we have the very thing for you--a memory of macready playing wolsey, quite clear and in excellent preservation; the only one in the market. oh, no, mum; we have already allowed for these memories being slightly soiled. jones, this lady complains the memories we sent her were short." [illustration: "'two gross anecdotes?'"] o'donovan was not to be seen. i passed through the buying department, where the employees were beating down the prices of "kind remembrances," and through the hire department, where the clerks were turning up their noses at the old memories that had been pledged so often, into the amnesia agency. there i found the great organiser peering curiously at a sensitised plate. "oh," he said, "is that you? here's a curiosity." "what is it?" i asked. "the memory of a murder. the patient paid well to have it off his mind, but i am afraid i shall miss the usual second profit, for who will buy it again?" "i will!" i cried, with a sudden inspiration. "oh! what a fool i have been. i should have been your best customer. i ought to have bought up all sorts of memories, and written the most veracious novel the world has seen. i haven't got a murder in my new book, but i'll work one in at once. '_eureka!_'" "stash that!" he said revengefully. "you can have the memory with pleasure. i couldn't think of charging an old friend like you, whose moving from an address, which i've sold, to , albert flats, victoria square, westminster, made my fortune." that was how i came to write the only true murder ever written. it appears that the seller, a poor labourer, had murdered a friend in epping forest, just to rob him of half-a-crown, and calmly hid him under some tangled brushwood. a few months afterwards, having unexpectedly come into a fortune, he thought it well to break entirely with his past, and so had the memory extracted at the agency. this, of course, i did not mention, but i described the murder and the subsequent feelings of the assassin, and launched the book on the world with a feeling of exultant expectation. alas! it was damned universally for its tameness and the improbability of its murder scenes. the critics, to a man, claimed to be authorities on the sensations of murderers, and the reading public, aghast, said i was flying in the face of dickens. they said the man would have taken daily excursions to the corpse, and have been forced to invest in a season ticket to epping forest; they said he would have started if his own shadow crossed his path, not calmly have gone on drinking beer like an innocent babe at its mother's breast. i determined to have the laugh of them. stung to madness, i wrote to the papers asserting the truth of my murder, and giving the exact date and the place of burial. the next day a detective found the body, and i was arrested. i asked the police to send for o'donovan, and gave them the address of the amnesia agency, but o'donovan denied the existence of such an institution, and said he got his living as secretary of the shamrock society. i raved and cursed him then--now it occurs to me that he had perhaps submitted himself (and everybody else) to amnesiastic treatment. the jury recommended me to mercy on the ground that to commit a murder for the artistic purpose of describing the sensations bordered on insanity; but even this false plea has not saved my life. it may. a petition has been circulated by mudie's, and even at the eighth hour my reprieve may come. yet, if the third volume of my life be closed to-morrow, i pray that these, my last words, may be published in an _édition de luxe_, and such of the profits as the publisher can spare be given to geraldine. if i am reprieved, i will never buy another murderer's memory, not for all the artistic ideals in the world, i'll be hanged if i do. _mated by a waiter._ chapter i. black and white. jones! i mention him here because he is the first and last word of the story. it is the story of what might be called a game of chess between me and him; for i never made a move, but he made a counter-move. you must remember though that he played, so to speak, blindfold, while i started the game, not with the view of mating him, but merely for the fun of playing. there was to be a review of the fleet, and the inhabitants of ryde rejoiced, as befitted sons of the sea. although many of them would be reduced to living in their cellars, like their own black-beetles, so that they might harbour the patriotic immigrant, they sacrificed themselves ungrudgingly. no, it was not the natives who grumbled. my friends, jack woolwich and merton towers, being in the civil service, naturally desired to pay a compliment to the less civil department of state, and picked their month's holiday so as to include the review. they took care to let the review come out at the posterior extremity of the holiday, so as to find them quite well and in the enjoyment of excellent quarters at economical rates. they selected a comfortable but unfashionable hotel, at moderate but uninclusive terms, and joyously stretched their free limbs unswaddled by red-tape. soon london became a forgotten nightmare. they wrote to me irregularly, tantalising me unwittingly with glimpses of buoyant wave and sunny pasture. it fretted me to be immured in the stone-prison of the metropolis, and my friends' letters did but sprinkle sea-salt on my wounds; for i was working up a medical practice in the northern district, and my absence might prove fatal--not so much, perhaps, to my patients as to my prospects. i was beginning to be recognised as a specialist in throats and eyes, and i invariably sent my clients' ears to my old hospital chum, robins, which increased the respect of the neighbourhood for my professional powers. your general practitioner is a suspiciously omniscient person, and it is far sager to know less and to charge more. "my dear ted," wrote the woolwich infant (of course we could not escape calling jack woolwich thus), "i do wish we had you here. such larks! we've got the most comical cuss of a waiter you ever saw. i feel sure he would appeal irresistibly to your sense of humour. he seems to boss the whole establishment. his name is jones; and when you have known him a day you feel that he is the only jones--the only jones possible. he is a middle-aged man, with a slight stoop and a cat-like crawl. his face is large and flabby, ornamented with mutton-chop whiskers, streaked as with the silver of half a century of tips. he is always at your elbow--a mercenary mephistopheles--suggesting drives or sails, and recommending certain yachts, boats, and carriages with insinuative irresistibleness. he has the tenacity of an army of able-bodied leeches, and if you do not take his advice he spoils your day. you may shake him off by fleeing into the interior of the isle, or plunging into the sea; but you cannot be always trotting about or bathing; and at mealtimes he waits upon those who have disregarded his recommendations. he has a hopelessly corruptive effect on the soul, and i, who have always prided myself on my immaculate moral get-up, was driven to desperate lying within twenty-four hours of my arrival. i told him how much i had enjoyed the carriage-drive he had counselled, or the sail he had sanctioned by his approval; and, in return, he regaled me with titbits at our _table d'hôte_ dinner. but the next day he followed me about with large, reproachful eyes, in grieved silence. i saw that he knew all; and i dragged myself along with my tail between my legs, miserably asking myself how i could regain his respect. [illustration: "the infant."] "wherever i turned i saw nothing but those dilated orbs of rebuke. i took refuge in my bedroom, but he glided in to give me a bad french halfpenny the chambermaid had picked up under my bed; and the implied contrast to be read in those eyes, between the honesty of the establishment and my own, was more than i could bear. i flew into a passion--the last resource of detected guilt--and irrelevantly told him i would choose my own amusements, and that i had not come down to increase his commissions. "ted, till my dying day i shall not forget the dumb martyrdom of those eyes! when he was sufficiently recovered to speak, he swore, in a voice broken by emotion, that he would scorn taking commissions from the quarters i imagined. ashamed of my unjust suspicions, i apologised, and went out that afternoon alone for a trip in the _mayblossom_, and was violently sick. merton funked it because the weather was rough, and had a lucky escape; but he had to meet jones in the evening. "merton's theory is, that jones doesn't get commissions, for the simple reason that the wagonettes and broughams and bath-chairs and boats and yachts he recommends all belong to him, and that the nominal proprietors are men of straw, stuffed by the only jones. this theory is, i must admit, borne out by the evidence of o'rafferty, a jolly old irishman, whose wife died here early in the year, and who has been making holiday ever since. he says that jones had a week off in march when there was hardly anybody in the hotel, and he was to be seen driving a wagonette between ryde and cowes daily. and, indeed, there is something curiously provincial and plebeian about jones's mind which suggests a man who has risen from the cab-ranks. "his ideas of tips are delightfully democratic, and you cannot insult him even with twopence. he handles a bottle of cheap claret as reverently as a russian the image of his saint, and he has never got over his awe of champagne. to drink monopole at dinner is to mount a pedestal of dignity, and i completely recovered his esteem by drowning the memories of that awful marine experience in a pint of 'dry.' when he draws the champagne cork he has a sacerdotal air, and he pours out the foaming liquid with the obsequiousness of an archbishop placing on his sovereign's head the crown he may never hope to do more than touch. but perhaps the best proof of the humbleness of his origin is his veneration for the aristocracy. an average waiter is, from the nature of his occupation, liable to be brought into contact with the bluest of blood, and to have his undiminished reverence for it tempered with a good-natured perception of mortal foibles. but jones's attitude is one of awestruck unquestioning worship. he speaks of a lord with bated breath, and he dare not, even in conversation, ascend to a duke. [illustration: "the only jones."] "it would seem that this is not one of the hotels which the aristocrat's fancy turns to thoughts of; for apparently only one lord has ever stayed here, judging by the frequency with which jones whispers his name. though some of us seem to have a beastly lot of money, and to do all the year round what merton and i can only indulge in for a month, we are a rather plebeian company i fear, and it is simply overwhelming the way jones rams lord porchester down our throats. "'when his lordship stayed here he partic'larly admired the view from that there window.' 'his lordship wouldn't drink anything but pommery green-oh; he used to swallow it by tumblersful, as you or i might rum-and-water, sir.' 'ah, sir! lord porchester hired the _mayblossom_ all to himself, and often said: "by jove! she's like a sea-gull. she almost comes near my own little beauty. i think i shall have to buy her, by gad i shall! and let them race each other."' "and the fellow is such an inveterate gossip that everybody here knows everybody else's business. the proprietor is a quiet, gentlemanly fellow, and is the only person in the place who keeps his presence of mind in the presence of jones, and is not in mental subjugation to the flabby, florid, crawling boss of the rest of the show. "you may laugh, but i warrant you wouldn't be here a day before jones would get the upper hand of you. on the outside, of course, he is as fixedly deferential as if every moment were to be your last, and the cab were waiting to take you to the station; but inwardly, you feel he is wound about you like a boa-constrictor. i do so long to see him swathing you in his coils! won't you come down, and give your patients a chance?" "my dear jack," i wrote back to the infant, "i am so sorry that you are having bad weather. you don't say so, but when a man covers six sheets of writing-paper i know what it means. i must say you have given me an itching to try my strength with the only jones; but, alas! this is a musical neighbourhood, and there is a run on sore throats, so i must be content to enjoy my jones by deputy. is there any other attraction about the shanty?" merton towers took up the running: "barring ourselves and jones," he wrote, "and perhaps o'rafferty, there isn't a decent human being in the hotel. the ladies are either old and ugly, or devoted to their husbands. the only ones worth talking to are in the honeymoon stage. but jones is worth a hundred petticoats: he is tremendous fun. we've got a splendid spree on now. i think the infant told you that jones has not enjoyed that actual contact with the 'hupper suckles' which his simple snobbish soul so thoroughly deserves; and that, in spite of the eternal lord porchester, his acquaintance is less with the _beau monde_ than with the bow and bromley _monde_. since the infant and i discovered this we have been putting on the grand air. unfortunately, it was too late to claim titles; but we have managed to convey the impression that, although commoners and plain misters, we have yet had the privilege of rubbing against the purple. we have casually and carelessly dropped hints of aristocratic acquaintances, and jones has bowed down and picked them up reverently. "the other day, when he brought us our chartreuse after dinner, the infant said: 'ah! i suppose you haven't got damtidam in stock?' the only jones stared awestruck. 'of course not! how can it possibly have penetrated to these parts yet?' i struck in with supercilious reproach. 'damtidam! what is that, sir?' faltered jones. 'what! you don't mean to say you haven't even heard of it?' cried the infant in amaze. jones looked miserable and apologetic. 'it's the latest liqueur,' i explained graciously. 'awfully expensive; made by a new brotherhood of anchorites in dalmatia, who have secluded themselves from the world in order to concoct it. they only serve the aristocracy; but, of course, now and then a millionaire manages to get hold of a bottle. lord everett made me a present of some a couple of months ago, but i use it very, very sparingly, and i daresay the flask's at least half-full. i have it in my portmanteau.' 'how does it taste, sir?' enquired jones, in a hushed, solemn whisper. 'damtidam is not the sort of thing that would please the uncultured palate,' i replied haughtily. 'it's what they call an acquired taste, ain't it, sir?' he asked wistfully. 'would you like to have a drop?' i said affably. 'oh, towers!' cried the infant, 'what would lord everett say?' 'well, but how is lord everett to know?' i responded. 'jones will never let on.' 'his lordship shall never hear a word from my lips,' jones protested gratefully. 'but you won't like it at first. to really enjoy damtidam, you'll have to have several goes at it. have you got a little phial?' jones ran and fetched the phial, and i fished out of my portmanteau the bottle of dyspepsia mixture you gave us and filled jones's phial. i watched him glide into the garden and put the phial to his lips with a heavenly expression, through which some suggestions of purgatory subsequently flitted. that was yesterday. "'well, jones, how do you like damtidam?' i enquired genially this morning. 'very 'igh-class, very 'igh-class in its taste, thank you, sir,' he replied. 'it's 'ardly for the likes o' me, i'm afraid; but as you've been good enough to give me some, i'll make so bold as to enjoy it. i 'ad a second sip at it this morning, and i liked it a deal better than yesterday. it requires time to get the taste, sir; but, depend upon it, i'll do my best to acquire it.' 'i wish you success!' i cried. 'once you get used to it, it's simply delicious. why, i'd never travel without a bottle of it. i often take it in the middle of the night. you finish that phial, jones; never mind the cost. i'm writing to lord everett to-day, and i'll drop him a broad hint that i should like another.' "eureka! as i write this a glorious idea has occurred to me. i _am_ writing to you to-day, and you _are_ the giver of the damtidam, _alias_ dyspepsia mixture. oh, if you could only come down and pose as lord everett! what larks we should have! do, old boy; it'll be the greatest spree we've ever had. don't say 'no.' you want a change, you know you do; or you'll be on the sick-list yourself soon. come, if only for a week! surely you can find a chum to take your practice. how about robins? he can't be all ears. i daresay he's equal to looking after your throats and eyes for a week. the infant joins with me, and says that if you don't come he'll kill off jones, and deprive you for ever of the pleasure of knowing him. "i remain, "yours till jones's death, "merton towers. "p.s.--when you come, bring a dozen of damtidam." the prospect of becoming lord everett flattered and tickled me, and was a daily temptation to me in my dreary drudgery. to the appeal of the pictured visions of woods and waters was added the alluring figure of jones, standing a little bent amid the smiling landscape, acquiring a taste for damtidam; his pasty face kneaded ecstatically, his hand on the pit of his stomach. at last i could stand it no longer, i went to see robins, and i wrote to my friends: "jones wins! expect me about ten days before the review, so that we can return to town together. "when i first asked robins to take my eyes, he was inclined to dash them; but the moment i let him into the plot against jones, he agreed to do all my work on condition of being informed of the progress of the campaign. "i shan't tell anyone i'm leaving town, and robins will forward my letters in an envelope addressed to lord everett. "p.s.--i am bottling a special brand of damtidam." chapter ii. a difficult opening. the proudest moment of jones's life was probably when he assisted me to alight from the carriage i had ordered at the station. i wore a light duster, a straw hat, and goloshes (among other things), together with the air of having come over in the same steamboat as the conqueror. i may as well mention here that i am tall, almost as tall as the woolwich infant, who frequently stands six foot two on my pet corn (towers, by the way, is a short squat man, whose delusion that he is handsome can be read plainly upon his face). my features, like my habits, are regular. by complexion i belong to the fair sex; but there is a masculine vigour about my physique and my language which redeems me from effeminateness. i do not mention my tawny moustache, because that is not an exclusively male trait in these days of women's rights. "good morning, my lord!" said jones, his obeisance so low and his voice so loud that i had to give the driver half-a-crown. i nodded almost imperceptibly, knowing that the surest way to impress jones with my breeding was to display no trace of it. i strolled languidly into the hall, deferentially followed by the infant and merton towers, leaving jones distracted between the desire to handle my luggage and to show me my room. "hexcuse me, my lord," said jones, fluttered. "jane, run for the master." "excuse _me_, my lord," said the infant; "i'll run up and wash for lunch. see you in a moment. come along, merton. it's so beastly high-up. when are you going to get a lift, jones?" "in a moment, sir; in a moment!" replied jones automatically. he seemed half-dazed. the quiet, gentlemanly young proprietor, who appeared to have been disturbed in his studies, for he held a volume of dickens in his hand, conducted me to a gorgeously furnished bedroom on the first floor facing the sea. "it's the best we can do for your lordship," he said apologetically; "but with the review so near--" i waved my hand impatiently, wishing he could have done worse for me. in town i had been too busy to realise the situation in detail; but now it began to dawn upon me that it was going to be an expensive joke. besides, i was separated from my friends, who were corridors away and flights higher, and convivial meetings at midnight would mean disagreeable stockinged wanderings for somebody--a mere shadow of a trifle, no doubt, but little things like that worry more than they look. i was afraid to ask the price of this swell bedroom, and i began to comprehend the meaning of _noblesse oblige_. "the sitting-room adjoins," said the hotel-keeper, suddenly opening a door and ushering me into a magnificent chamber, with a lofty ceiling and a dado. the furniture was plush-covered and suggestive of footmen. "i presume you will not be taking your meals in public?" "h'm! h'm!" i muttered, tugging at my moustache. then, struck by a bright idea, i said: "what do mr. woolwich and mr. towers do?" "they join the _table d'hôte_, your lordship," said the proprietor. "they didn't require a sitting-room they said, as they should be almost entirely in the open air." "oh! well, i could hardly leave my friends," i said reflectively; "i suppose i shall have to join them at the _table d'hôte_." "i daresay they would like to have your lordship with them," said the proprietor, with a faint, flattering smile. i smiled internally at my cunning in getting out of the sitting-room. "it's an awful bore," i yawned; "but i'm afraid they'd be annoyed if i ate up here alone, so--" "you'll invite them up here for all meals? yes, my lord," said jones at my elbow. he had sidled up with his cat-like crawl. through the open door of communication i saw he had deposited my boxes in the gorgeous bedroom. there was a moment of tense silence, in which i struggled desperately for a response. the brazen shudder of a gong vibrated through the house. "is that lunch?" i asked in relief, making a step towards the door. "yes, my lord," said jones; "but not your lordship's lunch. it will be laid here immediately, my lord. i will go at once and convey your invitation to your lordship's friends." he hastened from the room, leaving me dumbfounded. i did not enjoy jones as much as i had anticipated. in a moment a pretty parlour-maid arrived to lay the cloth. i became conscious that i was hungry and thirsty and travel-stained, and i determined to let things slide till after lunch, when i could easily set them right. the sunshine was flooding the room, and the sea was a dance of diamonds. the sight of the prandial preparations softened me. i retired to my beautiful bedroom and plunged my face into a basin of water. there was a knock at the door. "come in!" i spluttered. "your hot water, my lord!" it was jones. "i've got into enough already," i thought. "don't want it," i growled peremptorily; "i always wash in cold." i would have my way in small things, i resolved, if i could not have it in great. "certainly, your lordship; this is only for shaving." my cheeks grew hot beneath the fingers washing them. i remembered that i had overslept myself that morning, and neglected shaving lest i should miss my train. there were but a few microscopic hairs, yet i felt at once i had not the face to meet jones at lunch. "thank you!" i said savagely. when i had wiped my eyes i found he was still in the room, bent in meek adoration. "what in the devil do you want now?" i thundered. his eyes lit up with rapture. it was as though i had made oath i was a nobleman and removed his last doubt. "pommery green-oh or hideseek, my lord?" i cursed silently. i am of an easy-going disposition, and in my most penurious student days, had to spend twenty-five per cent more on my modest lunch whenever the waiter said: "stout or bitter, sir?" but the present alternative was far more terrible. i was on the point of saying i was a teetotaller, when i remembered that would shut off my nocturnal whisky-and-water, and condemn me to goody-goody beverages at meals. i remembered, too, that jones intended the champagne as much for my friends as myself, and that lords are proverbially disassociated from temperance. oh! it was horrible that this oleaginous snob should rob a poor man of his beer! perhaps i could escape with claret. in my agitation i commenced lathering my chin and returned no answer at all. the voice of jones came at last, charged with deeper respect, but inevitable as the knell of doom. "did you say pommery green-oh! my lord?" "no!" i yelled defiantly. "thank you, my lord. lord porchester was very partial to our hideseek--when he was here. we have an excellent year." "i wish you had twelve months," i thought furiously. then when the door closed upon him, i ground my razor savagely and muttered: "all right! i'll take it out of you in damtidam." i heard the bustle of my friends arriving to lunch, and i shaved myself hastily. then slipping on my coat and dabbing a bit of sticking-plaster on my chin, i threw open the door violently; for i was not going to let those two fellows off an exhibition of slang. they should have thought out the plot more fully; have hired me a moderate bedroom in advance, and not have let me in for the luxuries of lucullus. it was a cowardly desertion, their leaving me at the critical moment, and they should learn what i thought of it. "you ruffians!" i began; but the words died on my lips. jones was waiting at table. it ought to have been a delicious lunch: broiled chickens and apple-tart; the cool breeze coming through the open window, the sea and the champagne sparkling. but i, who was hungriest, enjoyed it least; jones, who ate nothing, enjoyed it most. the infant and merton towers simply overflowed with high spirits, keeping up a running fire of aristocratic allusions, which galled me beyond endurance. "by the way, how is the dowager-duchess?" wound up the infant. "d---- the dowager-duchess!" i roared, losing the remains of my temper. jones grew radiant, and the infant winked irritating approval of my natural touches. such contempt for duchesses could only be bred of familiarity. at last i could contain myself no longer; i must either explode or have a fit. i sent jones for cigarettes. directly the door closed those two men turned upon me. "i say, old fellow," exclaimed towers reproachfully, "isn't this just going it a little too far?" "what in creation made you take these howling apartments?" asked the infant. "review time, too! they've been saving up these rooms, foreseeing there would be some tip-top swells crowded out of the fashionable hotels. why, there's a cosy little crib next to ours i made sure you'd have." "well, i call this cool!" i gasped. "so it is," said the infant; "i admit that. it's the coolest room in the house. it'll be real jolly up here; and if you can stand the racket i'm sure i'm not the chap to grumble." "you must have been doing beastly well, old man," towers put in enviously; "to feed us like critics on chicken and champagne. i suppose they'll be opening new cemeteries down your way presently." "look here, my fine fellows," i said ferociously, "don't you forget that there's plenty of room still in ryde churchyard." "hallo, ted!" cried the infant, looking up with ingenuous surprise, "i thought you came down here on a holiday?" "stash that!" i said. "it's you who've got me into this hole, and you know it." "hole!" cried towers, looking round the room in amaze. "he calls this a hole! hang it all, my boy, are you a millionaire? i call this good enough for a lord." "yes; but as i'm neither," i said grimly, "i should like you to understand that i'm not going to pay for this spread." "what!" gasped the infant. "invite a man to lunch, and expect him to square the bill?" "i never invited you!" i said indignantly. "who then?" said towers sternly. "jones!" i answered. "yes, my lord! sorry to have kept your lordship waiting; but i think you will find these cigarettes to your liking. i haven't been at this box since lord porchester was here, and it got mislaid." "take them away!" i roared. "they're egyptians!" "yes, my lord!" said jones, in delight. he glided proudly from the room. "'jones invited us?'" pursued the infant. "what rot! as if jones would dare do anything you hadn't told him. _we_ are his slaves. but you? why, he hangs on your words!" "d---- him! i should like to see him hanging on something higher!" i cried. "yes, your language _is_ low," admitted the infant. "but, seriously, what's all the row about? i thought this champagne lunch was a bit of realism, just to start off with." i explained briefly how jones had coiled himself around me, even as they had described. the dado echoed their ribald laughter. "oh, well," said the infant, "it's only right you should give a lunch the day you come into a peerage. it's really too much to expect us to pay scot, when there was a beautiful lunch of cold beef and pickles waiting for us in the dining-room, and included in our terms per week. we aren't going to pay for two lunches." "i don't mind the lunch," i said, smiling, my sense of humour returning now that i had poured forth my grievance. "i'd gladly give you chaps a lunch any day, and i'm pleased you enjoyed it so much. but, for the rest, i'm going to run this joke by syndicate, or not at all. i only came down with a tenner." "a pound a day!" said towers, "that ought to be enough." "why, there's a pound gone bang over this lunch already!" i retorted. "and then there's the apartments," put in the infant roguishly. "i wonder what they'll tot up to?" "jones alone knows," i groaned. he came in--a veritable devil--while his name was on my lips, with a new box of cigarettes. "clear away!" i said briefly. he cleared away, and we breathed freely. we leaned back in the plush-covered easy-chairs, sending rings of fragrant smoke towards the blue horizon, and i felt more able to face the situation calmly. "i daresay we can lend you five quid between us," said towers. "what's the good of a loan to an honest man?" i asked. "can't we work the joke without such a lot of capital? the first thing is to get out of these rooms, and into that cosy little crib near you. i can say i yearn for your society." "but have you the courage to look jones in the face and tell him that?" queried towers dubiously. i hesitated. i felt instinctively that jones would be dreadfully shocked if i changed my palatial apartments for a cheap bedroom; that it would be better if some one else broke the news. "oh, the infant'll explain," i said lightly. "nothing of the sort," said the infant; "it won't wash now. besides, they'd make you shell out in any case. they'd pretend they turned lots of applicants away this morning, because the rooms were let. no, keep the bedroom, and we'll go shares in this sitting-room. it's jollier to have a proper private room." "good!" i said. "then it only remains to escape from these special meals and the champagne." "you leave that to me," said the infant. "i'll tell jones that you hunger for our company at meals, but that we can't consent to come up here, because you, with that reckless prodigality which is wearing the dowager-duchess to a shadow, insist on paying for everything consumed on your premises, so that you must e'en come to the general table. jones will be glad enough to trot you round." "and i'll tell him," added towers, "that, with that determined dipsomania which is making the money-lenders daily friendlier to your little brother, you swill champagne till you fly at waiters' throats like a mad dog, and that it is our sacred duty to diet you on table-beer or tintara." "wouldn't it be simpler to tell him the truth?" i asked feebly. "what!" gasped the infant, "chuck up the sponge? don't spoil the loveliest holiday i ever had, old man. just think how you will go up in his estimation, when we tell him you are a spendthrift and a drunkard! for pity's sake, don't throw a gloom over jones's life." "very well," i said, relenting. "only the exes must be cut down. the motto must be, 'extravaganza without extravagance, or farces economically conducted.'" "right you are!" they said; and then we smoked on in halcyon voluptuousness, now and then passing the matches or a droll remark about jones. in the middle of one of the latter there was a knock at the door, and jones entered. "the carriage will be round in five minutes, my lord," he announced. "the carriage!" i faltered, growing pale. "yes, my lord. i took the liberty of thinking your lordship wouldn't waste such a fine afternoon indoors." "no; i'm going out at once," i said resolutely. "but i shan't drive." "very well, my lord; i will countermand the carriage, and order a horse. i presume your lordship would like a spirited one? jayes, up the street, has a beautiful bay steed." "thank you; i don't care for riding--er--other people's horses." "no; of course not, my lord. i'll see that the _may blossom_ is reserved for your lordship's use this afternoon. your lordship will have time for a glorious sail before dinner." he hastened from the room. "you'd better have the carriage," said the infant drily; "it's cheaper than the yacht. you'll have to have it once, and you may as well get it over. after one trial, you can say it's too springless and the cushions are too crustaceous for your delicate anatomy." "i'll see him at jericho first!" i cried, and wrenched at the bell-pull with angry determination. "yes, my lord!" he stood bent and insinuative before me. "i won't have the yacht." "very well, my lord; then i won't countermand the carriage." he turned to go. "jones!" i shrieked. he looked back at me. his eyes, full of a trusting reverence, met mine. my resolution began oozing out at every pore. "is--is--are _you_ going with the carriage?" i stammered, for want of something to say. "no, my lord," he answered wistfully. that settled it. i let him depart without another word. it was certainly a pleasant drive through the delightful scenery of the isle, and i determined, since i had to pay the piper, to enjoy the dance. the infant and towers were hilarious to the point of vulgarity: i let myself go at the will of jones. when we got back, we realised with a start that it was half-past six. the dressing-gong was sounding. jones met me in the passage. "dinner at seven, my lord, in your room." i made frantic motions to the infant. "tell him!" i breathed. "it's too late now," he whispered back. "to-morrow!" i telegraphed desperately to towers. he shook his thick head helplessly. "have you invited my friends to dinner?" i asked jones bitingly. "no, my lord," he said simply. "i thought your lordship 'ad seen enough of them to-day." there was a suggestion of reproach in the apology. jones was more careful of my dignity than i was. when i got to my room, i found, to my horror, my dress-clothes laid out on the bed--i had brought them on the off-chance of going to a local dance. jones had opened my portmanteau. for a moment a cold chill traversed my spine, as i thought he must have seen the monogram on my linen, and discovered the imposture. then i remembered with joy that it was an "e," which is the more formal initial of ted, and would do for everett. in my relief, i felt i must submit to the nuisance of dressing--in honour of jones. while changing my trousers, a sudden curiosity took me. i peeped through the keyhole of my sitting-room, and saw jones just arriving with another bottle of heidsieck. i groaned. i knew i should have to drink it, to keep up the fiction towers was going to palm off on jones to-morrow. i felt like bolting on the spot, but i was in my jaegers. presently jones sidled mysteriously towards my door and knelt down before it. it flashed upon me he wanted the keyhole i was occupying. i jumped up in alarm, and dressed with the decorum of a god with a worshipper's eye on him. i swallowed what jones gave me, fuming. with the roast, a blessed thought came to soothe me. thenceforward i chuckled continuously. i refused the _parfait aux frais_ and the savoury in my eagerness for the end of the meal. revenge was sufficient sweets. "haw, hum!" i murmured, caressing my moustache. "bring me a damtidam." i knew his little phial must be exhausted long since. i intended to give him a bottle. "did your lordship say damtidam?" "damtidam!" i roared, while my heart beat voluptuous music. "you don't mean to say you don't keep it?" "oh no, my lord! we laid in a big stock of it; but lord porchester was that fond of it (used to drink it like your lordship does champagne), i doubt if i could lay my hand on a bottle." "what an awful bo-ah!" i yawned. "i suppose i'll have to get a bottle of my own out of that little black box under my bed. i couldn't possibly go without it after dinner. hang it all, the key is in my other trousers!" "oh, don't trouble, my lord," said jones anxiously. "i'll run and see if i can find any." i waited, gloating. jones returned gleefully. "i've found plenty, my lord," he said, setting down a brimming liqueur-glass. he lingered about, clearing the table. his eye was upon me. i drank the damtidam. then jones departed, and i went about kicking the furniture, and striding about in my desolate grandeur, like napoleon at st. helena. presently the infant and towers came rushing in, choking with laughter. "your arrival has fired afresh all jones's aristocratic ambitions," gurgled towers. "ha! ha! ha!" "ho! ho! ho!" panted the infant. "he's coaxed us out of all our remaining damtidam." i grinned a sickly response. "great scot!" the infant bellowed. "what's this howling wilderness of shirt-front?" "it's cooler," i explained. chapter iii. the queen comes into play. i had to breakfast in my room, but by lunch the next day my friends had found an opportunity to explain me to jones. they had on several occasions strongly exhorted jones to secrecy as to my rank, so that the eyes of the whole table were on me when i entered. i ate with the ease of one conscious of giving involuntary lessons in etiquette to a furtive-glancing bourgeoisie. the infant gave me tintara, to break me gradually of champagne and reduce me to malt. after lunch towers remonstrated with jones on having obviously given me away. "sir," protested jones, in righteous indignation, "i promised to tell no one in the hotel, and i have kept my word!" "well, how do they know then?" enquired towers. "i shouldn't be surprised if they read it in the _visitors' list_," jones answered. being now half-emancipated, i fell into the usual routine of a seaside holiday. i swam, i rowed, i walked, i lounged, whenever jones would let me. one wet morning we even congratulated ourselves on our luxurious sitting-room, as we sat and smoked before the rain-whipt sea, till, unexpected, jones brought up lunch for three. that evening, as we were entering the dining-room, jones observed humbly to the infant and towers: "excuse me, gentlemen; i 'ave 'ad to separate you from his lordship. we've 'ad such a influx of visitors for the review, i've been 'ard put to it to squeeze them all in." those wretched cowards marched feebly to a new extremity of the table, while i walked to my usual seat near the window, with anger flaming duskily on my brow. this time i was determined. i would stick to table-beer all the same. but before i dropped into my chair every trace of anger vanished. my heart throbbed violently, my dazzled eyes surveyed my _serviette_. at my side was one of the most charming girls i had ever met. when the heidsieck came, i raised my glass as in a dream, and silently drank to the glorious creature nearest my heart--on the left hand. we medicos are not easily upset by woman's beauty; we know too well what it is made of. but there was something so exquisite about this girl's face as to make a hardened materialist hesitate to resolve her into a physiological formula. it was not long before i offered to pass her the pepper. she declined with thanks and brevity. her accent grated unexpectedly on my ear: i was puzzled to know why. i spoke of the rain that still tapped at the window, as if anxious to come in. "it was raining when i left paris," she said; "but up till then i had a lovely time." now i saw what was the matter. she suffered from twang and was american. i have always had a prejudice against americans--chiefly, i believe, because they always seem to be having "a lovely time." it was with a sense of partial disenchantment that i continued the conversation: "so you have been in paris?" i said, thinking of the old joke about good americans going there when they die. "i must admit you look as if you had come from heaven!" "so wretched as all that!" she retorted, laughing merrily. there was no twang in the laugh; it was a ripple of music. "i don't mean an exile from heaven," i answered: "an excursionist, with a return-ticket." "oh! but i'm not going back," she said, shaking her lovely head. "not even when you die?" i asked, smiling. "i guess i shall need a warmer climate then!" she flashed back audaciously. "you're too good for that," i answered, without hesitation. i caught a mischievous twinkle in her blue eyes, as she answered: "gracious! you're very spry at giving strange folks certificates." "it's my business to give certificates," i answered, smiling. "marriage certificates, my lord?" she asked roguishly. i was about to answer "doctors' certificates," but her last two syllables froze the words on my lips. "you--you--know me?" i stammered. "yes, your lordship," with a mock bow. "why--how--?" i faltered. "you've only just come." "jones," she answered. "jones!" i repeated, vexed. "yes, my lord." he glided up and re-filled my glass. "jones is a nuisance," i said, when he was out of earshot again. "jones is a britisher!" she said enigmatically. "surely you don't mind people knowing who you are?" "i'm afraid i do," i replied uneasily. "i guess your reputation must be real shady," she said, with her american candour. "you english lords, we have just about sized you up in the states." "i--i--" i stammered. "no! don't tell me," she interrupted quickly; "i'd rather not know. my aunt here, that lady on my left,--she's a widow and half a britisher, and respectable, don't you know,--will want me to cut you." "and you don't want to?" i exclaimed eagerly. "well, one must talk to somebody," she said, arching her eyebrows. "it's all very well for my aunt. she's left her children at home. that's happiness enough for her. but that don't make things equally lively for me." "your language is frank," i said laughingly. "yes, that's one of the languages you've forgotten how to speak in this old country." again that musical ripple of mirth. her fascination was fast enswathing me like another jones, only a thousandfold more sweetly. already i found her twang delightful, lending the last touch of charm to her original utterances. i looked up suddenly, and saw the infant and towers glaring enviously at me from the other end of the table. then i was quite happy. true, they had the sprightly o'rafferty between them, but he did not seem to console them--rather to chaff them. "ho! ho!" i roared, when we reached our sitting-room that night. "there's virtue in the peerage after all." "shut up!" the infant snarled. "if you think you're going to annex that ripping creature, i warn you that bloated aristocracy will have to settle up for its marble halls. we're running this thing by syndicate, remember." "yes, but this isn't part of the profits," i urged defiantly. "oh, isn't it?" put in towers. "why do you suppose jones sat her next to you, if not as a prerogative of nobility?" "well, but if i can get her to go out with me alone, that's a private transaction." "no go, teddy," said the infant. "we don't allow you to play for your own hand." "or hers," added towers. "while you were spooning, jones was telling us all about her. her name's harper--ethelberta harper, and her old man is a railway king, or something." "she's a queen--i don't care of what!" i said fervently. "we got very chummy, and i'm going to take her for a row to-morrow morning. it's not my fault if she doesn't pal on to you." "stow that cant!" cried the infant. "either you surrender her to the syndicate or pay your own exes. choose!" "well, i'll compromise!" i said desperately. "no, you don't! it's to prevent your compromising her we want to stand in. we'll all go for that row." "no, listen to my suggestion. i'll invite her to lunch after the row, and i'll invite you fellows to meet her." "but how do you know she'll come?" said towers. "she will if i ask her aunt too." "scoundrel, you've asked them both already!" cried the infant. "where's the compromise?" "i hadn't asked _you_ already," i reminded him. "no, but now you propose to use the capital of the syndicate!" he rejoined sharply. "nothing of the kind," i retorted rashly. so it was settled. i had four guests to lunch, and jones expanded visibly. the infant and towers kept miss harper pretty well to themselves, while i was left to entertain mrs. windpeg, a comely but tedious lady, who gave me details of her life in england since she left new york, a newly married wife, twenty years before. she seemed greatly interested in these details. ethelberta paid no attention to her aunt, but a great deal to my friends. several times i found myself gnawing my lip instead of my wing. but i had my revenge at the _table d'hôte_. jones kept my friends remorselessly at bay, and religiously guarded my proximity to the lovely american. strange mental revolution! the idea of tipping jones actually commenced to germinate in my mind. it was on review-day that i realised i was hopelessly in love. of course my quartet of friends was at the windows of my sitting-room. jones also selected this room to see the review from, and i fancy he regaled my visitors with delicate refreshments throughout the day, and i remember being vaguely glad that he made amends for the general neglect of mrs. windpeg by offering her the choicest titbits; but i have no clear recollection of anything but ethelberta. her face was my review, though there was no powder on it. the play of light on her cheeks and hair was all the manoeuvres i cared for--the pearls of her mouth were my ranged rows of ships; and when everybody else was peering hopelessly into the thick smoke, my eyes were feasting on the sunshine of her face. i did not hear the cannon, nor the long, endless clamour of the packed streets, only the soft words she spoke from time to time. "to-morrow morning i must go away," i murmured to her at dinner. i fancied she grew paler, but i could not be sure, for jones at that moment changed my plate. "i am sorry," she said simply. "must you go?" "yes," i answered sadly. "my beautiful holiday is over. to-morrow, to work." "i thought, for you lords, life was one long holiday," she said, surprised. i was glad of the reminder. my love was hopeless. a struggling doctor could not ask for the hand of an heiress. even if he could, it would be a poor recommendation to start with a confession of imposture. to ask, without confessing, were to become a scoundrel and a fortune-hunter of the lowest type. no; better to pass from her ken, leaving her memory of me untainted by suspicion--leaving my memory of her an idyllic, unfinished dream. and yet i could not help reflecting, with agony, that if i had not begun under false colours, if i had come to her only as what i was, i might have dared to ask for her love--yea, and perhaps have won it. oh, how weak i had been not to tell her from the first! as if she would not have appreciated the joke! as if she would not have enrolled herself joyously in the campaign against jones! "ah! my life will be anything but a long holiday, i fear," i sighed. "say, you're not an hereditary legislator?" she asked. "legislation is not the hereditary disease i complain of," i said evasively. "what then?" "love!" i replied desperately. she laughed gaily. "i guess that's an original view of love." "why? my parents suffered from it: at least, i hope they did." "doubtful! your upper ten is usually supposed to have cured marriage of it." she bent her head over her plate, so that i strove in vain to read her eyes. "well, it's a beastly shame," i said. "don't you think so, miss harper--ethelberta? may i call you ethelberta?" "if it gives you any comfort," she said plumply. "it gives me more than comfort," i rejoined. a wild hope flamed in my breast. what if she loved me after all! i would speak the word. but no! if she did, i had won her love under a false glamour of nobility. better, far better, to keep both my secrets in my own breast. besides, had i not seen she was a flirt? i continued to call her ethelberta, but that was all. when we rose from table i had not spoken; knowing that my friends would claim my society for the rest of the evening, i held out my hand in final farewell. she took it. her own hand was hot. i clasped it for a moment, gazing into the wonderful blue eyes; then i let it go, and all was over. "i do believe teddy is hit!" towers said when i came into our room, whither they had preceded me. "rot!" i said, turning my face away. "a seasoned bachelor like me. heigho! i shall be awfully glad to get to work again to-morrow." "yes," said the infant. "i see from the statistics that the mortality of your district has declined frightfully. that robins must be a regular duffer." "i'll soon set that right!" i exclaimed, with a forced grin. "she certainly is a stunner," towers mused. "hullo! i'm afraid it's merton that's damaged," i laughed boisterously. "well, if she wasn't an heiress--" began towers slowly. "she might have you," finished the infant. "but i say, boys, we'd better ask for our bills; we've got to be off in the morning by the . . jones mightn't be up when we leave." the room echoed with sardonic laughter at the idea. there was no need to ring for jones; he found two pretexts an hour to come and gaze upon me. when my bill came, i went to the window for air and to hide my face from jones. "all right, jones!" cried the infant, guessing what was up. "we'll leave it on the table before we go to bed." "well?" my friends enquired eagerly, when jones had crawled off. "twenty-seven pounds two and tenpence!" i groaned, letting the accursed paper drift helplessly to the floor. "d----d reasonable!" said the infant. "you would go it!" towers added soothingly. "reasonable or not," i said, "i've only got six pounds in my pockets." "you said you brought ten," said towers. "yes! but what of carriage-sails and yacht-drives?" i cried agitatedly. "you're drunk," said the infant brutally. "however, i suppose, before going into dividing exes we must get together the gross sum." it was easier said than done. when every farthing had been scraped together, we were thirteen pounds short on the three bills. we held a long council of war, discussing the possibilities of surreptitious pledging--the unspeakable jones, playing his blindfold game, had reduced us to pawn--but even these were impracticable. "confound you!" cried merton towers. "why didn't you think of the bill before?" as if i had not better things to think of! the horror of facing jones in the morning drove us to the most desperate devices; but none seemed workable. "there's only one way left of getting the coin, teddy," said the infant at last. "what's that?" i cried eagerly. "ask the heiress." it was an ambiguous phrase, but in whatever sense he meant it, it was a cruel and unmanly thrust; in my indignation i saw light. "what fools we have been!" i shouted. "it's as easy as a b c. i'm not in an office like you, bound to be back to the day--i stay on over to-morrow, and you send me on the money from town." "where are we to get it from?" growled towers. "anywhere! anybody!" i cried excitedly; "i'll write to robins at once for it." "why not wire?" said the infant. "i don't see the necessity for wasting sixpence," i said; "we must be economical. besides, jones would read the wire." chapter iv. the winning move. time slipped on; but i could not tear myself away from this enchanted hotel. the departure of my friends allowed me to be nearly all day with ethelberta. i had drowned reason and conscience: day followed day in a golden languor and the longer i stopped, the harder it was to go. at last robins's telegrams became too imperative to be disregarded, and even my second supply of money would not suffice for another day. the bitter experience of parting had to be faced again; the miserable evening, when i had first called her ethelberta, had to be repeated. we spoke little at dinner; afterwards, as i had not my friends to go to this time, we left mrs. windpeg sitting over her dessert, and paced up and down in the little cultivated enclosure which separated the hotel from the parade. it was a balmy evening; the moon was up, silvering the greenery, stretching a rippling band across the sea, and touching ethelberta's face to a more marvellous fairness. the air was heavy with perfume; everything combined to soften my mood. tears came into my eyes as i thought that this was the very last respite. those tears seemed to purge my vision: i saw the beauty of truth and sincerity, and felt that i could not go away without telling her who i really was; then, in future years, whatever she thought of me, i, at least, could think of her sacredly, with no cloud of falseness between me and her. "ethelberta!" i said, in low trembling tones. "lord everett!" she murmured responsively. "i have a confession to make." she flushed and lowered her eyes. "no, no!" she said agitatedly; "spare me that confession. i have heard it so often; it is so conventional. let us part friends." she looked up into my face with that frank, heavenly glance of hers. it shook my resolution, but i recovered myself and went on: "it is not a conventional confession. i was not going to say i love you." "no?" she murmured. was it the tricksy play of the moon among the clouds, or did a shade of disappointment flit across her face? were her words genuine, or was she only a coquette? i stopped not to analyse; i paused not to enquire; i forgot everything but the loveliness that intoxicated me. "i--i--mean i was!" i stammered awkwardly; "i have loved you from the first moment i saw you." i strove to take her hand; but she drew it away haughtily. "lord everett, it is impossible! say no more." the twang dropped from her speech in her dignity; her accents rang pure and sweet. "why not?" i cried passionately. "why is it impossible? you seemed to care for me." she was silent; at last she answered slowly: "you are a lord! i cannot marry a lord." my heart gave a great leap, then i felt cold as ice. "because i am a lord?" i murmured wonderingly. "yes! i--i--flirted with you at first out of pure fun--believe me, that was the truth. if i loved you now," her words were tremulous and almost inaudible, "it would be right that i should be punished. we must never meet again. good-bye!" she stood still and extended her hand. i touched it with my icy fingers. "oh! if you had only let me confess just now what i wanted to!" i cried in agony. "confess what?" she said. "have you not confessed?" "no! you may disbelieve me now; but i wanted to tell you that i am not a lord at all, that i only became one through jones." her lovely eyes dilated with surprise. i explained briefly, confusedly. she laughed, but there was a catch in her voice. "listen!" she said hurriedly, starting pacing again; "i, too, have a confession to make. jones has corrupted me too. i'm not an heiress at all, nor even an american--just a moderately successful london actress, resting a few weeks, and mrs. windpeg is only my companion and general factotum, the widow of a drunken stage-carpenter, who left her without resources, poor thing. but we had hardly crossed the steps of the hotel, before jones mentioned lord everett was in the place, and buzzed the name so in our ears that the idea of a wild frolic flashed into my head. i am a great flirt, you know, and i thought that while i had the chance i would test the belief that english lords always fall in love with american heiresses." "it was no test," i interrupted. "a chinese mandarin would fall in love with you equally." "i let mrs. windpeg tell jones all about me--imaginatively," she went on with a sad smile; "i told her to call me harper, because _harper's magazine_ came into my mind. but it was jones who seated us together. i will believe that you took a genuine liking to me; still, it was a foolish freak on both sides, and we must both forget it as soon as possible." "i can never forget it!" i said passionately; "i love you; and i dare to think you care for me, though while you fancied i was a peer you stifled the feeling that had grown up despite you. believe me, i understand the purity of your motives, and love you the more for them." she shook her head. "good-bye!" she faltered. "i will not say 'good-bye'! i have little to offer you, but it includes a heart that is aching for you. there is no reason now why we should part." her lips were white in the moonlight. "i never said i loved you," she murmured. "not in so many words," i admitted; "but why did you let me call you ethelberta?" i asked passionately. "because it is not my name," she answered; and a ghost of the old gay smile lit up the lovely features. i stood for a moment dumbfounded. unconsciously we had come to a standstill under the window of the dining-room. she took advantage of my consternation to say more lightly: "come, let us part friends." i dimly understood that, in some subtle way i was too coarse to comprehend, she was ashamed of the part she had played throughout, that she would punish herself by renunciation. i knew not what to say; i saw the happiness of my life fading before my eyes. she held out her hand for the last time and i clasped it mechanically. so we stood, silent. "what does that matter, mrs. windpeg? you're a real lady, that's enough for me. it wasn't because i thought you had money that i ventured to raise my eyes to you." we started. it was the voice of jones. mrs. windpeg had evidently lingered too long over her dessert. "but i tell you i have nothing at all--nothing!" came the voice of mrs. windpeg. "i don't want it. you see, i'm like you--not what i seem. this place belongs to me, only i was born and bred a waiter in this very hotel, and i don't see why the 'ouse shouldn't profit by the tips instead of a stranger. my son does the show part; but he ain't fit for anything but reading dickens and other low-class writers, and i feel the want of a real lady, knowing the ways of the aristocrats. what with lord porchester and lord everett, it looks as if this hotel is going to be fashionable and i know there's lots of 'igh-class wrinkles i ain't picked up yet. only lately i was flummoxed by a gent asking for a liqueur i'd never 'eard of. you're mixed up with tip-top swells; i loved you from the moment i saw you fold your first _serviette_. i'm a widower, you're a widow. let bygones be bygones. why shouldn't we make a match of it?" we looked at each other and laughed; false subtleties were swept away by a wave of mutual merriment. "'let bygones be bygones. why shouldn't we make a match of it?'" i echoed. "jones is right." i tightened my grasp of her hand and drew her towards me, almost without resistance. "you're going to lose your companion, you'll want another." her lovely face came nearer and nearer. "besides," i said gaily, "i understand you're out of an engagement." "thanks," she said; "i don't care for an engagement in the provinces, and i have sworn never to marry in the profession: they're a bad lot." "call me an actor?" my lips were almost on hers. "you played lord dundreary--not unforgivably." our lips met! "oh, augustus," came the voice of mrs. windpeg, "i feel so faint with happiness!" "loose your arms a moment, my popsy. i'll fetch you a drop of damtidam!" answered the voice of jones. _the principal boy._ i. to sit out a play is a bore; to sit out a dance demands less patience. even when you do it merely to prevent your partner dancing with you, it is the less disagreeable alternative. but it sometimes makes you giddier than galoping. frank redhill lost his head--a well-built head--completely through indulging in it; and without the head to look after it, the heart soon goes. he held lucy's little hand in his hot clasp. she wished he would get himself gloves large enough not to split at the thumbs, and felt quite affectionate towards the dear, untidy boy. as a woman almost out of her teens, she could permit herself a motherly feeling for a lad who had but just attained his majority. the little thing looked very sweet in a demure dress of nun's veiling, which frank would have described as "white robes." for he was only an undergraduate. some undergraduates are past masters in the science and art of woman; but frank was not in that set. nor did he herd with the athletic, who drift mainly into the unpaid magistracy, nor with the worldly, who usually go in for the church. he was a reading man. only he did not stick to the curriculum, but fed himself on the conceits of the poets, and thirsted to redeem mankind. so he got a second-class. but this is anticipating. perhaps lucy had been anticipating, too. at any rate she went through the scene as admirably as if she had rehearsed for it. and yet it was presumably the first time she had been asked to say: "i love you"--that wonderful little phrase, so easy to say and so hard to believe. still, lucy said and frank believed it. not that lucy did not share his belief. it must be for love that she was conceding frank her hand--since her mother objected to the match. as the nephew of a peer, frank could give her rather better society than she now enjoyed, even if he could not give her that of the peer, who had an hereditary feud with him. of course she could not marry him yet, he was quite too poor for that, but he was a young man of considerable talents--which are after all gold pieces. when fame and fortune came to him, lucy would come and join the party. _en attendant_, their souls would be wed. they kissed each other passionately, sealing the contract of souls with the red sealing-wax of burning lips. to them in paradise entered the guardian angel with flaming countenance, and drove them into the outer darkness of the brilliant ball-room. "my dear," said the guardian angel, who was lucy grayling's mother, "there is going to be an interval, and mrs. bayswater is so anxious for you to give that sweet recitation from racine." so lucy declaimed one of athalie's terrible speeches in a way that enthralled those who understood it, and made those who didn't, enthusiastic. the applause did not seem to gratify the guardian angel as much as usual. lucy wondered how much she had seen, and, disliking useless domestic discussion, extorted a promise of secrecy from her lover before they parted. he did not care about keeping anything from his father--especially something of which his approval was dubious. still, all's fair and honourable in love--or love makes it seem so. frank took a solemn view of engagement, and embraced lucy in his general scheme for the redemption of mankind. he felt she was a sacred as well as a precious charge, and he promised himself to attend to her spiritual salvation in so far as her pure instincts needed guidance. he directed her reading in bulky letters bearing the oxford post-mark. meantime, lucy disapproved of his neckties. she thought he would be even nicer with a loving wife to look after his wardrobe. ii. when frank achieved the indistinction of a second-class, as prematurely revealed, he went to canada, and became a farm-pupil. it was not that his physique warranted the work, but there seemed no way in the old country of making enough money to marry lucy (much less to redeem mankind) on. he was suffering, too, at the moment from a disgust with the schools, and a sentimental yearning to "return to nature." the parting with lucy was bitter, but he carried her bright image in his heart, and wrote to her by every mail. in canada he did not look at a woman, as the saying goes; true, the opportunities were scant on the lonely log-farm. absence, distance, lent the last touch of idealisation and enchantment to his conception of lucy. she stood to him not only for womanhood and purity, but for england, home, and beauty. nay, the thought of her was even culture, when the evening found him too worn with physical toil to read a page of the small library he had brought with him. he saw his way to profitable farming on his own account in a few years' time. then lucy would come out to him, if they should be too impatient to wait till he had made money enough to go to her. lucy's letters did nothing to disabuse him of his ideals or his aims. they were charming, affectionate, and intellectual. midway, in the batch he treasured more than eastern jewels, the sheets began to wear mourning for lucy's mother. the guardian angel was gone--whether to continue the rôle none could say. frank comforted the orphaned girl as best he could with epistolary kisses and condolences, and hoped she would get along pleasantly with her aunt till the necessity for that good relative vanished. and so the correspondence went on, lucy's mind improving visibly under her lover's solicitous guidance. then one day redhill the elder cabled that by the death of his brother and nephew within a few days of each other, he had become lord redhill, and frank consequently heir to a fine old peerage, and with an heir's income. whereupon frank returned forthwith from nature to civilisation. now he could marry lucy (and redeem mankind) immediately. only he did not tell lucy he was coming. he could not deny himself (or her) the pleasure of so pleasurable a surprise. iii. it was a cold evening in early november when frank's hansom drove up to the little house near bond street, where lucy's aunt resided. he had not been to see his father yet; lucy's angel-face hovered before him, warming the wintry air, and drawing him onwards towards the roof that sheltered her. the house was new to him; and as he paused outside for a moment, striving to still his emotion, his eye caught sight of a little placard in the window of the ground floor, inscribed "apartments." he shuddered, a pang akin to self-reproach shot through him. lucy's aunt was poor, was reduced to letting lodgings. lucy herself had, perhaps, been left penniless. delicacy had restrained her from alluding to her poverty in her letter. he had taken everything too much for granted--surely, straitened as were his means, he should have proffered her some assistance. a suspicion that he lacked worldly wisdom dawned upon him for the first time, as he rang the bell. poor little lucy! well, whatever she had gone through, the bright days were come at last. the ocean which had severed them for so many weary moons no longer rolled between them--thank god, only the panels of the street-door divided them now. in another instant that darling head--no more the haunting elusive phantom of dream--would be upon his breast. then as the door opened, the thought flashed upon him that she might not be in--the idea of waiting a single moment longer for her turned him sick. but his fears vanished at the encouraging expression on the face of the maid servant who opened the door. "miss gray's upstairs," she mumbled, without waiting for him to speak. and, all intelligent reflection swamped by a great wave of joy, he followed her up one narrow flight of stairs, and passed eagerly into a room to which she pointed. it was a bright, cosy room, prettily furnished, and a cheerful fire crackled on the hearth. there were books and flowers about, and engravings on the walls. the little round table was laid for tea. everything smiled "welcome." but these details only gradually penetrated frank's consciousness--for the moment all he saw was that _she_ was not there. then he became aware of the fire, and moved involuntarily towards it, and held his hands over it, for they were almost numbed with the cold. straightening himself again, he was startled by his own white face in the glass. he gazed at it dreamily, and beyond it towards the folding-doors, which led into an adjoining room. his eyes fixed themselves fascinated upon these reflected doors, and strayed no more. it was through them that she would come. suddenly a dreadful thought occurred to him. when she came through those doors, what would be the effect of his presence upon her? would not the sudden shock, joyful though it was, upset the fragile little beauty? had he not even heard of people dying from joy? why had he not prepared her for his return, if only to the tiniest extent? the suspicion that he lacked worldly wisdom gained in force. tumultuous suggestions of retreat crossed his mind--but before he could move, the folding-doors in the mirror flew apart, and a radiant image dashed lightly through them. it was a vision of dazzling splendour that made his eyes blink--a beautiful glittering figure in tights and tinsel, the prancing prince of pantomime. for an infinitesimal fraction of a second, frank had the horror of the thought that he had come into the wrong house. "good evening, george," the prince cried: "i had almost given you up." great god! was the voice, indeed, lucy's? frank grasped at the mantel, sick and blind, the world tumbling about his ears. the suspicion that he lacked worldly wisdom became a certainty. slowly he turned his head to face the waves of dazzling colour that tossed before his dizzy eyes. the prince's outstretched hand dropped suddenly. a startled shriek broke from the painted lips. the re-united lovers stood staring half blindly at each other. more than the atlantic rolled between them. lucy broke the terrible silence. "brute!" it was his welcome home. "brute?" he echoed interrogatively, in a low, hoarse whisper. "brute and cad!" said the prince vehemently, the musical tones strident with anger. "is this your faith, your loyalty--to sneak back home like a thief--to peep through the keyhole to see if i was a good little girl--?" "lucy! don't!" he interrupted in anguished tones. "as there is a heaven above us, i had no suspicion--" "but you have now," the prince interrupted with a bitter laugh. neither made any attempt to touch the other, though they were but a few inches apart. "out with it!" "lucy, i have nothing to say against you. how should i? i know nothing. it is for you to speak. for pity's sake tell me all. what is this masquerade?" "this masquerade?" she touched her pink tights--he shuddered at the touch. "these are--" she paused. why not tell the easy lie and be done with the whole business, and marry the dear, devoted boy? but the mad instinct of revolt and resentment swept over her in a flood that dragged the truth from her heart and hurled it at him. "these are the legs of prince prettypet. if i am lucky, i shall stand on them in the pantomime of _the enchanted princess; or, harlequin dick turpin_, at the oriental theatre. the man who has the casting of the part is coming to see how i look." "you have gone on the stage?" "yes; i couldn't live on your lectures," prince prettypet said, still in the same resentful tone. "i couldn't fritter away the little capital i had when mamma died, and then wait for starvation. i had no useful accomplishments. i could only recite--_athalie_." "but surely your aunt--" "is a fiction. had she been a fact it would have been all the same. i had had enough of mamma. no more leading-strings!" "lucy! and you wept over her so in your letters?" "crocodile's tears. heavens, are women to have no lives of their own?" "oh, why did you not write to me of your difficulties?" he groaned. "i would have come over and fetched you--we would have borne poverty together." "yes," the prince said mockingly. "''e was werry good to me, 'e was.' do you think i could submit to government by a prig?" he started as if stung. the little tinselled figure, looking taller in its swashbuckling habits, stared at him defiantly. "tell me," he said brokenly, "have you made a living?" "no. if truth must be told, lucy gray--docked at the tail, sir--hasn't made enough to keep lucy grayling in theatrical costumes. i got plenty of kudos in the provinces, but two of my managers were bogus." "yes?" he said vaguely. "no treasury, don't you know? ghost didn't walk. no oof, rhino, shiners, coin, cash, salary!" "do i understand you have travelled about the country by yourself?" "by myself! what, in a company? you've picked up irish in america. ha! ha! ha!" "you know what i mean, lucy." it seemed strange to call this new person lucy, but "miss grayling" would have sounded just as strange. "oh, there was sure to be a married lady--with her husband--in the troupe, poor thing!" the prince had a roguish twinkle in the eye. "and surely i am old enough to take care of myself. still, i felt you wouldn't like it. that's why i was anxious to get a london appearance--if only in east-end pantomime. the money's safe, and your notices are more valuable. i only want a show to take the town. i do hope george won't disappoint me. i thought you were he." "who is george?" he said slowly, as if in pain. the shrill clamour of the bell answered him. "there he is!" said the prince joyfully. "george is only georgie spanner, stage-manager of the oriental. i have been besieging him for two days. bella bright, who had to play prince prettypet, has gone and eloped with the property-man, and as soon as i heard of it, i got a letter of introduction to georgie spanner, and he said i was too little, and i said that was nonsense--that i had played in burlesque at eastbourne--come in!" [illustration: the stage-manager.] "are you at home, miss?" said the maid, putting her head inside the door. "certainly, fanny. that's mr. spanner i told you of--" the girl's head looked puzzled as it removed itself. "and so he said if i would put my things on, he would try and run down for an hour this evening, and see if i looked the part." "and couldn't all that be done at the theatre?" "of course it could. but it's ten times more convenient for me here. and it's very considerate of georgie to come all this way--he's a very busy man, i can tell you." the street-door slammed loudly. a sudden paroxysm shook frank's frame. "lucy, send this man away--for god's sake." in his excitement he came nearer, he laid his hand pleadingly upon the glittering shoulder. the prince trembled a little under his touch, and stood as in silent hesitancy. the stairs creaked under heavy footsteps. "go to your room," he said more imperatively. even in the wreck of his ideal, it was an added bitterness to think that limbs whose shapeliness had never even occurred to him, should be made a public spectacle. "put on decent clothes." it was the wrong chord to touch. the prince burst into a boisterous laugh. "silly old macdougall!" the footsteps were painfully near. "you are mad," frank whispered hoarsely. "you are killing me--you whom i throned as an angel of light; you who were the first woman in the world--" "and now i'm going to be the principal boy," she laughed quietly back. "is that you, dear old chap? come in, george." the door opened--frank, disgusted, heart-broken, moved back towards the window-curtains. a corpulent, beef-faced, double-chinned man, with a fat cigar and a fur overcoat, came in. "how do, lucy? cold, eh? what, in your togs? that's right." "there, you bad man! don't i look ripping?" "stunning, lucy," he said, approaching her. "well, then, down on your knees, george, and apologise for saying i was too little." "well, i see more of you now, he! he! he! yes, you'll do. what swell diggings!" "come to the fire. take that easy-chair. there, that's right, old man. now, what is it to be? there's tea laid--you've let it get cold, unpunctual ruffian. perhaps you'd like a brandy and soda better?" "m' yes." she rang the bell. "so glad--because there's only tea for two, and i know my friend would prefer tea," with a sneering intonation. "let me introduce you--mr. redhill, mr. spanner, you have heard of mr. spanner, the celebrated author and stage-manager?" the celebrated author and stage-manager half rose in his easy-chair, startled, and not over-pleased. the pale-faced rival visitor, half hidden in the curtains, inclined his head stiffly, then moved towards the door. "oh, no, don't run away like that, without a cup of tea, in this bitter weather. mr. spanner won't mind talking business before you, will you, george? such a dear old friend, you know." it was a merry tea-party. lucy rattled away bewitchingly, overpowering mr. spanner like an embodied brandy and soda. the slang of the green room and the sporting papers rolled musically off her tongue, grating on frank's ear like the scraping of slate pencils. he had not insight enough to divine that she was accentuating her vulgar acquirements to torture him. spanner went at last--for the oriental boards claimed him--leaving behind him as nearly definite a promise of the part as a stage-manager can ever bring himself to utter. lucy accompanied him downstairs. when she returned, frank was still sitting as she had left him--one hand playing with the spoon in his cup, the rest of the body lethargic, immobile. she bent over him tenderly. "frank!" she whispered. he shivered and looked up at the lovely face, daubed with rouge and pencilled at the eyebrows with black--as for the edification of the distant "gods." he lowered his eyes again, and said slowly: "lucy, i have come back to marry you. what date will be most convenient to you?" "you want to marry me," she echoed in low tones. "all the same!" a strange wonderful light came into her eyes. the big lashes were threaded with glistening tears. she put her little hand caressingly upon his hair, and was silent. "yes! it is an old promise. it shall be kept." "ah!" she drew her hand away with an inarticulate cry. "like a duty dance, but you do not love me?" he ignored the point. "i am rich now--my father has unexpectedly become lord redhill--you probably heard it!" "you don't love me! you can't love me!" it sounded like the cry of a soul in despair. "so there's no need for either of us to earn a living." "but you don't love me! you only want to save me." "well, of course lord redhill wouldn't like his daughter-in-law to be--" "the principal boy--ha! ha! ha! but what--ho! ho! ho! i must laugh, frank, old man, it _is_ so funny--what about the principal boy? do you think he'd cotton to the idea of marrying a peer in embryo! not if lucy gray knows it; no, by jove! why, when your coronet came along, i should have to leave the stage, or else people 'ud be saying i couldn't act worth a cent. they'd class me with lady london and lady hansard--oh, lord! fancy me on the drury lane bills--prince prettypet, lady redhill. and then, great scot, think whom they'd class you with. ha! ha! ha! no, my boy, i'm not going to marry a microcephalous idiot. ho! ho! ho! i wish somebody would put all this in a farce." "do i understand that you wish to break off the engagement?" frank said slowly, a note of surprise in his voice. "you've hit it--now that i hear about this peerage business--why didn't you tell me before? i'm out of all the gossip of court circles, and it wasn't in the _era_. no, i might have redeemed my promise to a commoner, but a lord, ugh! i never had your sense of duty, frank, and must really cry 'quits.' now you see the value of secret engagements--ours is off, and nobody will be the wiser--or the worse. now get thee to his lordship--concealment, like a worm i' the bud, no longer preying upon thy damask cheek. i was alway sorry you had to keep it from the old buffer. but it was for the best, wasn't it?--ha! ha!--it was for the best! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha!" frank fled down the staircase followed by long peals of musical laughter. they followed him into the bleak night, which had no frost for him; but they became less musical as they rang on, and as the terrified maid and the landlady strove in vain to allay the hysterical tempest. iv. the oriental, on boxing night, was like a baker's oven for temperature, and an unopened sardine-barrel for populousness. the east-end had poured its rollicking multitudes into the vast theatre, which seethed over with noisy vitality. there was much traffic in ginger beer, oranges, banbury cakes, and "bitter." the great audience roared itself hoarse over old choruses with new words. lucy gray, as prince prettypet, made an instant success. the mashers of the oriental ogled her in silent flattery. her clear elocution, her charming singing voice, her sprightly dancing, her _chic_, her frank vulgarity, when she "let herself go," took every heart captive. every heart, that is, save one, which was filled with sickness and anguish, and covered with a veil of fine linen. the heir of the house of redhill cowered at the back of the o.p. stage-box--the only place in the house disengaged when he drove up in a mistaken dress-suit. it was the first time he had seen prince prettypet since the merry tea-party, and he did not know why he was seeing her now. he hoped she did not see him. she pirouetted up to the front of his box pretty often during the evening, and several times hurled ancient wheezes at the riotous funnymen from that coign of vantage. spoken so near his ear, the vulgar jokes tingled through him like lashes from a whip. once she sang a chorus, winking in his direction. but that was the business of the song, and impersonal. he saw no sure signs of recognition, and was glad. [illustration: the oriental on boxing night.] when, during the gradual but gorgeous evolution of the transformation scene, he received a note from her, he remained glad. it ran, "the bearer will take you behind. i have no one to see me home. always your friend--lucy." he went "behind," following his guide through a confusion of coatless carpenters waving torches of blue and green fire from the wings, and gauzy, highly coloured whitechapel girls ensconcing themselves in uncomfortable attitudes on wooden pedestals, which were mounting and descending. georgie spanner was bustling about, half crazed, amid a hubbub perfectly inaudible from the front; but he found time to scowl at frank, as that gentleman stumbled over the pantaloon and fell against a little iron lever, whose turning might have plunged the stage in darkness. frank found lucy in a tiny cellar with whitewashed walls and a rough counter, on which stood a tin basin and a litter of "make up" materials. she had "changed" before he came. it was the first time for years he had seen her in her true womanly envelope. assuredly she had grown far lovelier, and her face was flushed with triumph; otherwise it was the old lucy. the prince was washed off with the paint. frank's eyes filled with tears. how hard he had been on her! nay, had he not misjudged her? she looked so frail, so little, so childish, what guile could she know? it was all mere surface-froth on her lips! how narrow to set up his life, his ideals, as models, patterns! the poor little thing had her own tastes, her own individuality! how hard she worked to earn her own living! he bent down and kissed her forehead, remorsefully, as one might kiss an overscolded child. she drew his head down lower and kissed him--passionately--on the lips. "let us wait a little," she said, as he spoke of sending for a hansom. "sloman, the lessee, gives a little supper on the stage after the show--he'll be annoyed if i don't stay. he'll be delighted to have you." the pantomime had gone better than anyone had expected. it had been insufficiently rehearsed, and though everybody had said "it'll be all right at night"--in the immemorial phrase of the profession--they had said it more automatically than confidently. consequently everyone was in high feather, and agreeably surprised at the accuracy of the prophesying. even georgie spanner ceased to scowl under the genial influences of success and sloman's very decent champagne. the air was full of laughter and gaiety, and everybody (except the clown) cracked jokes. the leading ladies made themselves pleasant, and did not swear. everybody seemed to have acquired a new respect for lucy, seeing her with such a real belgravian swell. probably she would soon have a theatre of her own. it was the prig's first excursion into bohemia, and he thought the natives very civil-spoken, naïve, and cordial. frank had no doubt now that lucy was right, that he was a prig to want to redeem mankind. and the conviction that he lacked worldly wisdom was sealed for aye. v. so he married her. _an odd life._ it was the most curious case of croup i had ever attended. not that there was anything unusual about the symptoms--they were so correct as to be devoid of the slightest interest. certainly they were not worth while being called up for in the middle of the night. the patient it was that attracted my attention. he was a handsome baby of one year and nine months--by name willy streetside--with such an expression of candour and intelligence that i was moved to see him suffer. i sat down by his bedside, took his poor little feverish hand, and felt the weak quick pulse, and knew it had not much longer to beat. i put the glass of barley and water to his lips, and he drank eagerly. he seemed to be an orphan, in charge of a strange, silent serving-man, apparently the only other occupant of the luxurious and artistically furnished flat. i judged downton to be a man of some culture, from the latest magazines strewn about the bedroom; but i could not help thinking that a female, more familiar with infantile ailments, might have been more useful. apathetic and torpid though i was, from eighteen hours' continuous activity in a hundred sickrooms, my eyes filled with tears, and i sat for an instant, holding the little hand, listening to the poor child's painful breathing, and speculating on the mystery of that existence so early recalled. all his organs were sound. but for this accidental croup, i told myself, he might have lived till eighty. "poor willy streetside!" i murmured, for his curious name clung to my memory. suddenly the baby turned his blue eyes full on me, and said: "i suppose it's all up, doctor?" i started violently, and let go his hand. the words were perhaps not altogether beyond the capacity of an infant; but the air of manly resignation with which they were uttered was astonishing. for more reasons than one, i hesitated. "you need not be afraid to tell me the truth," said the baby, with a wistful smile; "i'm not afraid to hear it." "well--well, you're pretty bad," i stammered. "ah! thank you," the child replied gratefully. "how many hours do you give me?" the baby's gravity took my breath away. he spoke with an old-world courtesy and the ingenuous stateliness of an infant prince. "it may not be quite hopeless," i murmured. willy shook his head, the pretty, wan features distorted by a quaint grimace. "i suppose i'm too young to rally," he said quietly, and closed his eyes. presently he re-opened them, and added: "but i should have liked to live to see the irish question settled." "you would?" i ejaculated, overwhelmed. "yes," he said, adding with a whimsical expression in the wee blue eyes: "you mustn't think i crave for earthly immortality. i use 'settled' in a merely rough sense. my mother was an irish poetess, over whose songs impetuous celts still break their hearts and their heads." i gazed speechless at this wonder-child, pushing the golden locks back from his feverish baby-brow, as if to assure myself by touching him that he was not a phantom. "ah, well!" he finished, "it doesn't matter. i have had my day, and mustn't grumble. i scarcely thought, when i witnessed the dissolution of the third gladstone government, that i should have lived to see him premier a fourth time. three doctors told me i was breaking up fast." i began to be frightened of this extraordinary infant, divining some wizardry behind the candid little face--some latter-day mystery of re-incarnation, esoteric buddhism, what-not. the child perceived my perturbation. "you are thinking i have packed a good deal into my short life," he said, with an amused smile. "and yet some men will make a gladstone bag hold as much as a portmanteau. gladstone has done so; and why not i, in my humble degree?" "true," i answered; "but you cannot begin to pack before you are born." "you are entirely mistaken," replied the baby, "if you think i have done anything so precocious as that." "then you must have lived an odd life," i said, puzzled. "you have hit it!" exclaimed the child, with a suspicion of eagerness, not unmingled with surprise. "i did not mean to tell anyone; but since you are a man of science and i am on the point of death, you may as well know you have guessed the truth." "have i?" i said, more bewildered than ever. "yes. in all these years no one has suspected it. it has been carefully kept from outsiders. but now it would, perhaps, be childish folly to be reticent about it. it is the truth--the plain, literal truth--i have lived an odd life." "how did it begin?" i asked, scarce knowing what i said or what i meant. "you shall know all," said willy. "i must begin before i was born--before i could begin packing, as you put it." his breath came and went painfully. overwrought with curiosity as i was, i experienced a pang of compunction. "no, no; never mind," i said; "you have not the strength to speak much--you must not waste what you have." "it can only cost me a few minutes of life--i can spare the time," he answered, almost peevishly. now that he had been strung up to speaking point, he seemed to resent my diminished interest. i put the glass of barley and water to his lips, and forced him to moisten his throat. "i can spare the time," he repeated, while an air of grim satisfaction came over the tiny features. "i have stolen plenty--i have outwitted the arch-thief himself. i have survived my own death." "what!" i gasped. "have you already died?" "no, no," he replied fretfully; "i am only just going to die. that is how i have survived my death. how dull you are!" "you were going to begin at the beginning," i murmured feebly. "no! what is the use of beginning at the beginning?" this _enfant terrible_ enquired, in the same peevish tones. "i was going to begin before the beginning." "yes, yes," i said soothingly, patting his golden curls; "you were going to begin before you were born." "with my mother," he said more gently. "she did not lead a very happy life--it enabled her to hymn the wrongs of her country. her childhood was a succession of sorrows, her girlhood a mass of misfortunes; and when she married the man she loved, she found herself deserted by him a few months later. it was then that she first conceived the thought that has changed my life. it came to her in a moment of tears, as she sat over the ashes of her happiness. from that moment the thought never left her." there was a wild look in the baby's eyes. i began to suspect him of premature insanity. "what was this thought?" i murmured. "i am coming to it. there came into her head suddenly the refrain of a song she had learnt at school: 'life like a river with constant motion.' 'the river of life! the stream of life! how true it is!' she mused. 'how much more than mere metaphors these phrases are! verily, one's life flows on towards the dark ocean of death, irresistibly, unrestingly, willy-nilly--whether swift or slow, whether long or short--whether it flows through pleasant champaigns or dreary marshes, past romantic castled crags, or by bleak quarries. what is the use of experience, of knowledge of past bits of the route, when no two bits are ever really alike, when the future course is hidden and is always a panorama of surprises, when no life-stream knows what awaits it round the corner every time it turns, when the scenery of the source avails one nothing in one's resistless progress towards the scenery of the mouth? what is life but a series of mistakes, whose fruit is wisdom, maybe, but wisdom overripe? we do not pluck the fruit till it will no longer serve our appetites. nothing repeats itself on the stage of existence--always new situations and new follies. _experientia docet._ experience teaches, indeed; but her lesson is that nothing can be learnt.'" the baby paused, and reached out his wasted hand for the glass. his pinafore and his tiny shoes on the chest of drawers caught my eye, and moistened it with the thought he would never don them again. "as my mother brooded upon this bitter truth," he resumed, when he had refreshed himself, "and saw how sad an illustration of it was her own life--with its sufferings and its mistakes--she could not help wishing existence had been ordered otherwise. if we had had at least two lives, we might profit in the second by the first. but, she told herself, with a sigh, this was vain day-dreaming. then suddenly _the_ thought flashed upon her. granting that more than one life was impossible upon this planet, why should it not be differently distributed? suppose, instead of flowing on like a stream, one's life progressed like a london street--the odd numbers on the one side and the even on the other, so that after doing the numbers , , , , , , &c., &c., one could return and do the numbers , , , , , , &c., &c. without craving from providence more than man's allotted span, what if, by a slight re-arrangement of the years, it were possible to extort an infinitely greater degree of happiness from one's lifetime! what if it were possible to live the odd years, gleaning experience as well as joys, and then to return to the even years, armed with all the wisdom of one's age! what if _her_ child could enjoy this inestimable privilege! the thought haunted her, she brooded on it day and night; and when i was born, she drew me eagerly towards her, as if to see some mark of promise written on my forehead. but a year passed before she dared to think her wish had found fulfilment. on the eve of my first birthday she measured and weighed me with intense anxiety, though pretending to herself she only wished to keep a register of my growth. in the morning i was more by a year's inches and pounds. i had shot up at a bound into my third year, and manifested sudden symptoms of walking and talking. she almost fainted with joy when my unexpected teeth bit her finger. she could not get my shoes on me, nor my frock. but, although my mother had made no preparations for my changed condition, she welcomed the trouble i put her to, and carefully laid aside my useless garments, knowing i should want them again. the neighbours noticed nothing; they thought me a big boy for my age, and extremely precocious. when i was in my fifth year i went on the stage as an 'infant phenomenon,' my age being attested by my certificate of birth, though you will of course see that i was really in my ninth. in the next few years i made enough money to gild my mother's few declining years; and when i retired temporarily from the boards at the advice of my critics, it was of course with the intention of studying and returning to the stage when i was younger. and so i advanced to manhood, skipping the alternate years. i rejoice to say that my mother, though she died when i was seventy-three, had the satisfaction of knowing what felicity her unselfish aspiration had brought into my life. she told me of my strange exemption from the common burden of continuous existence, as soon as i had skipped into years of discretion. not for me did time pass with that tragic footstep which never returns on itself; for me he was not the irrevocable, the relentless. i regretted my lost youth--but it was not with hopeless, passionate tears, with mutinous yearnings after the impossible; it was as one who waves a regretful adieu to a charming girl he will meet again." "ah! but you will not meet her again," i said softly. "no; but the feeling was the same. of course, when i was thirty i did not know i should die before i was two. i had no more privilege of prescience than the ordinary mortal. but in everything else how enviable was my lot compared to his whom every day is sweeping towards death, for whom no vision of renewed youth gleams behind the black hangings! oh! the glory of growing old without dread, with the assurance that age, which is ripening you, is not ripening you for the gleaner, that the years will add wisdom without eternally subtracting the capacity for joy, and that every tottering step is bringing you nearer, not the grave, but the joyous resurrection of your youth!" "and you have experienced that?" i cried, with envious incredulity. "yes," answered the baby solemnly. "of course i prepared for the great change. not that nature did not herself smooth the metamorphosis. the loss of teeth, the gradual baldness, the feeble limbs, everything pointed to the proximity of my second childhood. i knew that my odd life had not much longer to run, that at any moment the transformation might take place and the even numbers begin. giving out that i was going to explore the african deserts, and accompanied only by my faithful body-servant, downton, i retired to egypt to await the great event, having previously ordered baby-linen and the various requisites of infantile toilette. i had at one time meditated providing myself with parents, but ultimately concluded that they would prove too troublesome to manage, and that it would be better to trust myself entirely to the management of downton, since i had already placed myself in his power by leaving him all my money." "but what necessity was there for that?" i enquired. "every necessity," he replied gravely. "do you not see that i had to arrange all my affairs and make my will before being born again, because afterwards i should not be of legal age for ten years. at first i thought of leaving all my money to myself and passing as my own child, but there would have been difficulties. i was unmarried and seventy-seven. downton could easily pretend his septuagenarian master had died in the african deserts, but he could not so easily patch up a marriage there. i had no option, therefore, but to make downton my heir, and i have never had occasion to regret it from the day of my rebirth to this, the day of my death. as soon as i was born we returned to england, and i wrote my obituary and drove to the press association with it. downton took it into the office while i waited in fleet street in the hansom. i can scarcely hope to convey to you an idea of the intensity and agreeableness of my sensations at this unprecedented epoch. the variegated life of fleet street gave me the keenest joy: every sight and every sound--beautiful or sordid--thrilled my nerves to rapture. i was interested in everything. imagine the delicious freshness of one's second year supervening upon the jaded sensibilities of seventy-seven. all my wide and varied knowledge of life lay in my soul as before, but transfigured. over my large experience of men and things was shed a stream of sunshine which irradiated everything with divine light; every streak of cynicism faded. i had the wisdom of an old man and the heart of a little child. i believed in man again, and even in woman. i shed tears of pure ecstasy; and when i heard a female of the lower classes say: 'poor little thing! what a shame to leave it crying in a cab!' i laughed aloud in glee. she exclaimed: 'ah! now it's laughing, my petsy-wootsy!' her conversation saddened me again, and i was glad i had not burdened myself with a mother, and that i took my milk from a bottle instead of a doting nurse. and how exquisite was this same apparently monotonous menu of milk to an epicurean who had ruined his digestion! i felt i was recuperating on a vegetarian diet, and i rejoiced to think some years must elapse before i would care for champagne or re-acquire a taste for full-flavoured manillas. perhaps somewhat unreasonably, i was proud of my strength of will, which had enabled me in one day to abandon tobacco without a pang, and seven-course dinners without repining. i slept a good deal, too, at this period, whereas i had previously been greatly exercised by insomnia. but these joys of the senses were as nothing to the joys of the intellect. an exquisite curiosity played like a sea-breeze about my long-stagnant soul. all my early interests revived; worldly propositions i had thought settled showed themselves unstable and volant; everything was shaken by the moving spirit of youth. theology, poetry, and even metaphysics became alive; all sorts of unpractical questions became suddenly burning. i saw in myself the seeds of a great thinker: a felicitous congruity of opposite capacities that had never before met in a single man--the sobriety of age tempered by the audacity of youth, fire and water, judgment and inspiration. i was revolutionist and reactionary in one. i read all the new books, and agreed with all the old." "all you tell me only makes the pathos of your premature death more intolerable," i said in moved accents. "you are, like keats and chatterton,--only an earlier edition,--an inheritor of unfulfilled renown." the little blue eyes smiled wistfully at me. "not at all," said the wee rose-lips, with a quiver. "don't you see, i have already dodged death? evidently, if i had taken my second year in its natural order, i should have been cut short by croup at the outset. apparently i had enough vital energy in me to have lasted till seventy-seven, if i could only get over the croup. i think one ought to be satisfied with having survived himself by thirty odd years." "yes, if you put it like that, the pathos lightens," i admitted. "of course i saw from the first that you were considerably in advance of your age. did you assure your life?" i asked, with a sudden thought. "i did; but by an oversight i let the policy be invalidated by my imaginary expedition to the african deserts. downton has, however, taken out a fresh policy for my new life." "what a baffling complex of probabilities would be added to life assurances if your way of living were to become general!" i observed. "downton will probably more than recoup himself for his first loss. have you always been a bachelor, by the way?" i asked. "yes," said the baby, with a sigh. "i missed marriage; it probably fell in an even year." "poor child!" i cried, my eyes growing humid again. to think, too, of that beautiful young girl, that fond wife, waiting for him who would never come; that innocent maiden cheated of love and happiness because her appointed husband had not lived in the other alternate series of years,--to think of this tangled tragedy moved me to fresh tears, not a few of which were for the husband who never was. "nay, do not pity me," said the baby, and his tones were hushed and low, and in his heavenly blue eyes i seemed to read the high sorrowful wisdom of the ages; "for, since i have lain here on this bed of sickness with no spectacular whirl to claim my thoughts, with four walls for my horizon, and the agony of death in my throat, the darker side of my dual existence has been borne in upon me. i see the shadow cast by the sunshine of my privilege of double birth; i see the curse which is the obverse of the blessing my mother's prayers brought me; i see myself dissipating a youth which i knew would recur, throwing away a manhood which i knew would come again, and sinking into a sensual senility which i knew would pass into an innocent infancy. i see myself rejecting the best gifts and the highest duties of to-day for the illusory felicities and the far-away virtues of the day-after-to-morrow. i see myself passing by love with the reflection that i should be passing again; putting off purity with the thought that i should be round that way presently; and waving to duty an amicable salute of 'expect me soon.' and in this moment of clear vision i see not only my past, i realise what my future would be if i lived. i see the influx of fresh feeling gradually exhausted, overcome, ousted, and finally replaced by a satiety more horrible than that of the septuagenarian, as i came to realise that life for me held no surprises, no lures to curiosity, that the future was no enchanted realm of mysterious possibilities, that the white clouds revealed no seraph shapes on the horizon, that hope did not stand like a veiled bride with beckoning finger, that fairies were not lurking round every corner nor magic palaces waiting to start up at every turn. i see life stretching before me like old ground i had been over--in my mother's image like a street one side of which i had walked down. what could the other offer of fresh, of delightful? it is so rarely one side differs from the other: a church for a public-house, a grocer's instead of a bookshop. conceive the horror of foreknowledge: of having no sensations to learn and few new emotions to feel; to have, moreover, the enthusiasm of youth sicklied over with the prescience of senile cynicism, and the healthy vigour of manhood made flaccid by anticipations of the dodderings of age! i foresee the ever-growing dismay at the leaps and bounds with which my youth was fleeting. i see myself, instead of profiting by my experience, feverishly clutching at every pleasure on my path, as a drowning man, borne along by a torrent, snatches at every scrap of flotsam and jetsam. i see manhood arrive only to pass away, as an express passes through a petty station, full speed for the terminus. i see a panic terror close upon me with every hurrying year at the knowledge that my hours were thirty minutes and my months virtually fortnights, and that i was leading the fastest life on record. add to this the anguish of feeling myself torn from the bosom of the wife i loved and hurried away from the embraces of the children whose careers it would be my solicitude to watch over. imagine the agony if i had been cruelly spared to my seventy-eighth year--the agony of a condemned criminal who does not know on what day he is to be execu--" [illustration: "the enthusiasm of youth sicklied over with the prescience of senile cynicism."] his voice failed suddenly. he had slightly raised himself on his pillow in his excitement, but now his head fell back, revealing the fatal white patches on the baby throat. i seized his hand quickly to feel his pulse. the little palm lay cold in mine. i started violently and sat up rigidly in my chair. the child was dead. downton was sobbing at my side. as i was writing out the certificate, an odd thought came into my head. i scribbled what i thought an appropriate epitaph and showed it to downton, but he glared at me furiously. i hastened home to bed. my epitaph ran: here lies william ("willy") streetside, who led a double life, and died in blameless repute, at the average age of years. "_and in their death they were not divided._" _cheating the gallows._ chapter i. a curious couple. they say that a union of opposites makes the happiest marriage, and perhaps it is on the same principle that men who chum together are always so oddly assorted. you shall find a man of letters sharing diggings with an auctioneer, and a medical student pigging with a stockbroker's clerk. perhaps each thus escapes the temptation to talk "shop" in his hours of leisure, while he supplements his own experiences of life by his companion's. there could not be an odder couple than tom peters and everard g. roxdal--the contrast began with their names, and ran through the entire chapter. they had a bedroom and a sitting-room in common, but it would not be easy to find what else. to his landlady, worthy mrs. seacon, tom peters's profession was a little vague, but everybody knew that roxdal was the manager of the city and suburban bank, and it puzzled her to think why a bank manager should live with such a seedy-looking person, who smoked clay pipes and sipped whisky-and-water all the evening when he was at home. for roxdal was as spruce and erect as his fellow-lodger was round-shouldered and shabby; he never smoked, and he confined himself to a small glass of claret at dinner. [illustration: tom peters.] [illustration: everard g. roxdal.] it is possible to live with a man and see very little of him. where each of the partners lives his own life in his own way, with his own circle of friends and external amusements, days may go by without the men having five minutes together. perhaps this explains why these partnerships jog along so much more peaceably than marriages, where the chain is drawn so much tighter, and galls the partners rather than links them. diverse, however, as were the hours and habits of the chums, they often breakfasted together, and they agreed in one thing--they never stayed out at night. for the rest peters sought his diversions in the company of journalists, and frequented debating rooms, where he propounded the most iconoclastic views; while roxdal had highly respectable houses open to him in the suburbs, and was, in fact, engaged to be married to clara newell, the charming daughter of a retired corn factor, a widower with no other child. [illustration: asked twenty-five per cent more.] clara naturally took up a good deal of roxdal's time, and he often dressed to go to the play with her, while peters stayed at home in a faded dressing-gown and loose slippers. mrs. seacon liked to see gentlemen about the house in evening dress, and made comparisons not favourable to peters. and this in spite of the fact that he gave her infinitely less trouble than the younger man. it was peters who first took the apartments, and it was characteristic of his easy-going temperament that he was so openly and naïvely delighted with the view of the thames obtainable from the bedroom window, that mrs. seacon was emboldened to ask twenty-five per cent more than she had intended. she soon returned to her normal terms, however, when his friend roxdal called the next day to inspect the rooms, and overwhelmed her with a demonstration of their numerous shortcomings. he pointed out that their being on the ground floor was not an advantage, but a disadvantage, since they were nearer the noises of the street--in fact, the house being a corner one, the noises of two streets. roxdal continued to exhibit the same finicking temperament in the petty details of the _ménage_. his shirt fronts were never sufficiently starched, nor his boots sufficiently polished. tom peters, having no regard for rigid linen, was always good-tempered and satisfied, and never acquired the respect of his landlady. he wore blue check shirts and loose ties even on sundays. it is true he did not go to church, but slept on till roxdal returned from morning service, and even then it was difficult to get him out of bed, or to make him hurry up his toilette operations. often the mid-day meal would be smoking on the table while peters would be still reading in bed, and roxdal, with his head thrust through the folding-doors that separated the bedroom from the sitting-room, would be adjuring the sluggard to arise and shake off his slumbers, and threatening to sit down without him, lest the dinner be spoilt. in revenge, tom was usually up first on week-days, sometimes at such unearthly hours that polly had not yet removed the boots from outside the bedroom door, and would bawl down to the kitchen for his shaving-water. for tom, lazy and indolent as he was, shaved with the unfailing regularity of a man to whom shaving has become an instinct. if he had not kept fairly regular hours, mrs. seacon would have set him down as an actor, so clean shaven was he. roxdal did not shave. he wore a full beard, and, being a fine figure of a man to boot, no uneasy investor could look upon him without being reassured as to the stability of the bank he managed so successfully. and thus the two men lived in an economical comradeship, all the firmer, perhaps, for their mutual incongruities. [illustration: "for his shaving-water."] chapter ii. a woman's instinct. it was on a sunday afternoon in the middle of october, ten days after roxdal had settled in his new rooms, that clara newell paid her first visit to him there. she enjoyed a good deal of liberty, and did not mind accepting his invitation to tea. the corn factor, himself indifferently educated, had an exaggerated sense of the value of culture, and so clara, who had artistic tastes without much actual talent, had gone in for painting, and might be seen, in pretty toilettes, copying pictures in the museum. at one time it looked as if she might be reduced to working seriously at her art, for satan, who finds mischief still for idle hands to do, had persuaded her father to embark the fruits of years of toil in bubble companies. however, things turned out not so bad as they might have been, a little was saved from the wreck, and the appearance of a suitor, in the person of everard g. roxdal, ensured her a future of competence, if not of the luxury she had been entitled to expect. she had a good deal of affection for everard, who was unmistakably a clever man, as well as a good-looking one. the prospect seemed fair and cloudless. nothing presaged the terrible storm that was about to break over these two lives. nothing had ever for a moment come to vex their mutual contentment, till this sunday afternoon. the october sky, blue and sunny, with an indian summer sultriness, seemed an exact image of her life, with its aftermath of a happiness that had once seemed blighted. everard had always been so attentive, so solicitous, that she was as much surprised as chagrined to find that he had apparently forgotten the appointment. hearing her astonished interrogation of polly in the passage, tom shambled from the sitting-room in his loose slippers and his blue check shirt, with his eternal clay pipe in his mouth, and informed her that roxdal had gone out suddenly earlier in the afternoon. [illustration: "tom shambled from the sitting-room."] "g-g-one out?" stammered poor clara, all confused. "but he asked me to come to tea." "oh, you're miss newell, i suppose," said tom. "yes, i am miss newell." "he has told me a great deal about you, but i wasn't able honestly to congratulate him on his choice till now." clara blushed uneasily under the compliment, and under the ardour of his admiring gaze. instinctively she distrusted the man. the very first tones of his deep bass voice gave her a peculiar shudder. and then his impoliteness in smoking that vile clay was so gratuitous. "oh, then you must be mr. peters," she said in return. "he has often spoken to me of you." "ah!" said tom laughingly, "i suppose he's told you all my vices. that accounts for your not being surprised at my sunday attire." she smiled a little, showing a row of pearly teeth. "everard ascribes to you all the virtues," she said. "now that's what i call a friend!" he cried ecstatically. "but won't you come in? he must be back in a moment. he surely would not break an appointment with _you_." the admiration latent in the accentuation of the last pronoun was almost offensive. she shook her head. she had a just grievance against everard, and would punish him by going away indignantly. "do let _me_ give you a cup of tea," tom pleaded. "you must be awfully thirsty this sultry weather. there! i will make a bargain with you! if you will come in now, i promise to clear out the moment everard returns, and not spoil your _tête-à-tête_." but clara was obstinate; she did not at all relish this man's society, and besides, she was not going to throw away her grievance against everard. "i know everard will slang me dreadfully when he comes in if i let you go," tom urged. "tell me at least where he can find you." "i am going to take the 'bus at charing cross, and i'm going straight home," clara announced determinedly. she put up her parasol in a pet, and went up the street into the strand. a cold shadow seemed to have fallen over all things. but just as she was getting into the 'bus, a hansom dashed down trafalgar square, and a well-known voice hailed her. the hansom stopped, and everard got out and held out his hand. "i'm so glad you're a bit late," he said. "i was called out unexpectedly, and have been trying to rush back in time. you wouldn't have found me if you had been punctual. but i thought," he added, laughing, "i could rely on you as a woman." "i _was_ punctual," clara said angrily. "i was not getting out of this 'bus, as you seem to imagine, but into it, and was going home." "my darling!" he cried remorsefully. "a thousand apologies." the regret on his handsome face soothed her. he took the rose he was wearing in the buttonhole of his fashionably cut coat and gave it to her. "why were you so cruel?" he murmured, as she nestled against him in the hansom. "think of my despair if i had come home to hear you had come and gone. why didn't you wait a moment?" [illustration: "she nestled against him."] a shudder traversed her frame. "not with that man, peters!" she murmured. "not with that man, peters!" he echoed sharply. "what is the matter with peters?" "i don't know," she said. "i don't like him." "clara," he said, half sternly, half cajolingly, "i thought you were above these feminine weaknesses; you are punctual, strive also to be reasonable. tom is my best friend. from boyhood we have been always together. there is nothing tom would not do for me, or i for tom. you must like him, clara; you must, if only for my sake." "i'll try," clara promised, and then he kissed her in gratitude and broad daylight. "you'll be very nice to him at tea, won't you?" he said anxiously. "i shouldn't like you two to be bad friends." "i don't want to be bad friends," clara protested; "only the moment i saw him a strange repulsion and mistrust came over me." "you are quite wrong about him--quite wrong," he assured her earnestly. "when you know him better, you'll find him the best of fellows. oh, i know," he said suddenly, "i suppose he was very untidy, and you women go so much by appearances!" "not at all," clara retorted. "'tis you men who go by appearances." "yes, you do. that's why you care for me," he said, smiling. she assured him it wasn't, and she didn't care for him so much as he plumed himself, but he smiled on. his smile died away, however, when he entered his rooms and found tom nowhere. "i daresay you've made him run about hunting for me," he grumbled. "perhaps he knew i'd come back, and went away to leave us together," she answered. "he said he would when you came." "and yet you say you don't like him!" she smiled reassuringly. inwardly, however, she felt pleased at the man's absence. chapter iii. polly receives a proposal. if clara newell could have seen tom peters carrying on with polly in the passage, she might have felt justified in her prejudice against him. it must be confessed, though, that everard also carried on with polly. alas! it is to be feared that men are much of a muchness where women are concerned; shabby men and smart men, bank managers and journalists, bachelors and semi-detached bachelors. perhaps it was a mistake after all to say the chums had nothing patently in common. everard, i am afraid, kissed polly rather more often than clara, and although it was because he respected her less, the reason would perhaps not have been sufficiently consoling to his affianced wife. for polly was pretty, especially on alternate sunday afternoons, and she liked to receive the homage of real gentlemen, setting her white cap at all indifferently. thus, just before clara knocked on that memorable sunday afternoon, polly, being confined to the house by the unwritten code regulating the lives of servants, was amusing herself by flirting with peters. [illustration: "carrying on with polly."] "you _are_ fond of me a little bit," the graceless tom whispered, "aren't you?" "you know i am, sir," polly replied. "you don't care for anyone else in the house?" "oh no, sir. i wonder how it is, sir?" polly replied ingenuously. and that very evening, when clara was gone and tom still out, polly turned without the faintest atom of scrupulosity, or even jealousy, to the more fascinating roxdal. if it would seem at first sight that everard had less excuse for such frivolity than his friend, perhaps the seriousness he showed in this interview may throw a different light upon the complex character of the man. "you're quite sure you don't care for anyone but me?" he asked earnestly. "of course not, sir!" polly replied indignantly. "how could i?" "but you care for that soldier i saw you out with last sunday?" "oh no, sir, he's only my young man," she said apologetically. "would you give him up?" he hissed suddenly. polly's pretty face took a look of terror. "i couldn't, sir! he'd kill me! he's such a jealous brute, you've no idea." "yes, but suppose i took you away from here?" he whispered eagerly. "somewhere where he couldn't find you--south america, africa, somewhere thousands of miles across the seas." "oh, sir, you frighten me!" whispered polly, cowering before his ardent eyes, which shone in the dimly lit passage. "would you come with me?" he hissed. she did not answer; she shook herself free and ran into the kitchen, trembling with a vague fear. chapter iv. the crash. one morning, earlier than his earliest hour of demanding his shaving-water, tom rang the bell violently and asked the alarmed polly what had become of mr. roxdal. "how should i know, sir?" she gasped. "ain't he been in, sir?" "apparently not," tom answered anxiously. "he never remains out. we have been here three weeks now, and i can't recall a single night he hasn't been home before twelve. i can't make it out." all enquiries proved futile. mrs. seacon reminded him of the thick fog that had come on suddenly the night before. "what fog?" asked tom. "lord! didn't you notice it, sir?" "no, i came in early, smoked, read, and went to bed about eleven. i never thought of looking out of the window." "it began about ten," said mrs. seacon, "and got thicker and thicker. i couldn't see the lights of the river from my bedroom. the poor gentleman has been and gone and walked into the water." she began to whimper. "nonsense, nonsense," said tom, though his expression belied his words. "at the worst i should think he couldn't find his way home, and couldn't get a cab, so put up for the night at some hotel. i daresay it will be all right." he began to whistle as if in restored cheerfulness. at eight o'clock there came a letter for roxdal, marked "immediate," but as he did not turn up for breakfast, tom went round personally to the city and suburban bank. he waited half-an-hour there, but the manager did not make his appearance. then he left the letter with the cashier and went away with anxious countenance. that afternoon it was all over london that the manager of the city and suburban had disappeared, and that many thousand pounds of gold and notes had disappeared with him. scotland yard opened the letter marked "immediate," and noted that there had been a delay in its delivery, for the address had been obscure, and an official alteration had been made. it was written in a feminine hand and said: "on second thoughts i cannot accompany you. do not try to see me again. forget me. i shall never forget you." [illustration: "scotland yard opened the letter."] there was no signature. clara newell, distracted, disclaimed all knowledge of this letter. polly deposed that the fugitive had proposed flight to her, and the routes to africa and south america were especially watched. some months passed without result. tom peters went about overwhelmed with grief and astonishment. the police took possession of all the missing man's effects. gradually the hue and cry dwindled, died. chapter v. faith and unfaith. "at last we meet!" cried tom peters, while his face lit up in joy. "how _are_ you, dear miss newell?" clara greeted him coldly. her face had an abiding pallor now. her lover's flight and shame had prostrated her for weeks. her soul was the arena of contending instincts. alone of all the world she still believed in everard's innocence, felt that there was something more than met the eye, divined some devilish mystery behind it all. and yet that damning letter from the anonymous lady shook her sadly. then, too, there was the deposition of polly. when she heard peters's voice accosting her all her old repugnance resurged. it flashed upon her that this man--roxdal's boon companion--must know far more than he had told to the police. she remembered how everard had spoken of him, with what affection and confidence! was it likely he was utterly ignorant of everard's movements? mastering her repugnance, she held out her hand. it might be well to keep in touch with him; he was possibly the clue to the mystery. she noticed he was dressed a shade more trimly, and was smoking a meerschaum. he walked along at her side, making no offer to put his pipe out. "you have not heard from everard?" he asked. she flushed. "do you think i'm an accessory after the fact?" she cried. "no, no," he said soothingly. "pardon me, i was thinking he might have written--giving no exact address, of course. men do sometimes dare to write thus to women. but, of course, he knows you too well--you would have put the police on his track." "certainly," she exclaimed indignantly. "even if he is innocent he must face the charge." "do you still entertain the possibility of his innocence?" "i do," she said boldly, and looked him full in the face. his eyelids drooped with a quiver. "don't you?" "i have hoped against hope," he replied, in a voice faltering with emotion. "poor old everard! but i am afraid there is no room for doubt. oh, this wicked curse of money--tempting the noblest and the best of us." the weeks rolled on. gradually she found herself seeing more and more of tom peters, and gradually, strange to say, he grew less repulsive. from the talks they had together, she began to see that there was really no reason to put faith in everard; his criminality, his faithlessness, were too flagrant. gradually she grew ashamed of her early mistrust of peters; remorse bred esteem, and esteem ultimately ripened into feelings so warm, that when tom gave freer vent to the love that had been visible to clara from the first, she did not repulse him. [illustration: "she did not repulse him."] it is only in books that love lives for ever. clara, so her father thought, showed herself a sensible girl in plucking out an unworthy affection and casting it from her heart. he invited the new lover to his house, and took to him at once. roxdal's somewhat supercilious manner had always jarred upon the unsophisticated corn factor. with tom the old man got on much better. while evidently quite as well informed and cultured as his whilom friend, tom knew how to impart his superior knowledge with the accent on the knowledge rather than on the superiority, while he had the air of gaining much information in return. those who are most conscious of defects of early education are most resentful of other people sharing their consciousness. moreover, tom's _bonhomie_ was far more to the old fellow's liking than the studied politeness of his predecessor, so that on the whole tom made more of a conquest of the father than of the daughter. nevertheless, clara was by no means unresponsive to tom's affection, and when, after one of his visits to the house, the old man kissed her fondly and spoke of the happy turn things had taken, and how, for the second time in their lives, things had mended when they seemed at their blackest, her heart swelled with a gush of gratitude and joy and tenderness, and she fell sobbing into her father's arms. [illustration: "with tom the old man got on much better."] tom calculated that he made a clear five hundred a year by occasional journalism, besides possessing some profitable investments which he had inherited from his mother, so that there was no reason for delaying the marriage. it was fixed for may-day, and the honeymoon was to be spent in italy. chapter vi. the dream and the awakening. but clara was not destined to happiness. from the moment she had promised herself to her first love's friend, old memories began to rise up and reproach her. strange thoughts stirred in the depths of her soul, and in the silent watches of the night she seemed to hear everard's accents, charged with grief and upbraiding. her uneasiness increased as her wedding-day drew near. one night, after a pleasant afternoon spent in being rowed by tom among the upper reaches of the thames, she retired to rest full of vague forebodings. and she dreamt a terrible dream. the dripping form of everard stood by her bedside, staring at her with ghastly eyes. had he been drowned on the passage to his land of exile? frozen with horror, she put the question. "i have never left england!" the vision answered. her tongue clove to the roof of her mouth. "never left england?" she repeated, in tones which did not seem to be hers. the wraith's stony eyes stared on, but there was silence. "where have you been then?" she asked in her dream. "very near you," came the answer. "there has been foul play then!" she shrieked. the phantom shook its head in doleful assent. "i knew it!" she shrieked. "tom peters--tom peters has done away with you. is it not he? speak!" "yes, it is he--tom peters--whom i loved more than all the world." even in the terrible oppression of the dream she could not resist saying, woman-like: "did i not warn you against him?" the phantom stared on silently and made no reply. "but what was his motive?" she asked at length. "love of gold--and you. and you are giving yourself to him," it said sternly. "no, no, everard! i will not! i will not! i swear it! forgive me!" the spirit shook its head sceptically. "you love him. women are false--as false as men." she strove to protest again, but her tongue refused its office. "if you marry him, i shall always be with you! beware!" [illustration: "identified the body."] the dripping figure vanished as suddenly as it came, and clara awoke in a cold perspiration. oh, it was horrible! the man she had learnt to love, the murderer of the man she had learnt to forget! how her original prejudice had been justified! distracted, shaken to her depths, she would not take counsel even of her father, but informed the police of her suspicions. a raid was made on tom's rooms, and lo! the stolen notes were discovered in a huge bundle. it was found that he had several banking accounts, with a large, recently deposited amount in each bank. tom was arrested. attention was now concentrated on the corpses washed up by the river. it was not long before the body of roxdal came to shore, the face distorted almost beyond recognition by long immersion, but the clothes patently his, and a pocket-book in the breast-pocket removing the last doubt. mrs. seacon and polly and clara newell all identified the body. both juries returned a verdict of murder against tom peters, the recital of clara's dream producing a unique impression in the court and throughout the country, especially in theological and theosophical circles. the theory of the prosecution was that roxdal had brought home the money, whether to fly alone or to divide it, or whether, even for some innocent purpose, as clara believed, was immaterial; that peters determined to have it all, that he had gone out for a walk with the deceased, and, taking advantage of the fog, had pushed him into the river, and that he was further impelled to the crime by love for clara newell, as was evident from his subsequent relations with her. the judge put on the black cap. tom peters was duly hung by the neck till he was dead. [illustration: the corpse washed up by the river.] chapter vii. brief rÃ�sumÃ� of the culprit's confession. when you all read this i shall be dead and laughing at you. i have been hung for my own murder. i am everard g. roxdal. i am also tom peters. we two were one. when i was a young man my moustache and beard wouldn't come. i bought false ones to improve my appearance. one day, after i had become manager of the city and suburban bank, i took off my beard and moustache at home, and then the thought crossed my mind that nobody would know me without them. i was another man. instantly it flashed upon me that if i ran away from the bank, that other man could be left in london, while the police were scouring the world for a non-existent fugitive. but this was only the crude germ of the idea. slowly i matured my plan. the man who was going to be left in london must be known to a circle of acquaintance beforehand. it would be easy enough to masquerade in the evenings in my beardless condition, with other disguises of dress and voice. but this was not brilliant enough. i conceived the idea of living with him. it was box and cox reversed. we shared rooms at mrs. seacon's. it was a great strain, but it was only for a few weeks. i had trick clothes in my bedroom like those of quick-change artistes; in a moment i could pass from roxdal to peters and from peters to roxdal. polly had to clean two pairs of boots a morning, cook two dinners, &c., &c. she and mrs. seacon saw one or the other of us every moment; it never dawned upon them they never saw us _both together_. at meals i would not be interrupted, ate off two plates, and conversed with my friend in loud tones. a slight ventriloquial gift enabled me to hold audible conversations with him when he was supposed to be in the bedroom. at other times we dined at different hours. on sundays he was supposed to be asleep when i was in church. there is no landlady in the world to whom the idea would have occurred that one man was troubling himself to be two (and to pay for two, including washing). i worked up the idea of roxdal's flight, asked polly to go with me, manufactured that feminine letter that arrived on the morning of my disappearance. as tom peters i mixed with a journalistic set. i had another room where i kept the gold and notes till i mistakenly thought the thing had blown over. unfortunately, returning from here on the night of my disappearance, with roxdal's clothes in a bundle i intended to drop into the river, it was stolen from me in the fog, and the man into whose possession it ultimately came appears to have committed suicide, so that his body dressed in my clothes was taken for mine. what, perhaps, ruined me was my desire to keep clara's love, and to transfer it to the survivor. everard told her i was the best of fellows. once married to her, i would not have had much fear. even if she had discovered the trick, a wife cannot give evidence against her husband, and often does not want to. i made none of the usual slips, but no man can guard against a girl's nightmare after a day up the river and a supper at the star and garter. i might have told the judge he was an ass, but then i should have had penal servitude for bank robbery, and that is worse than death. the only thing that puzzles me, though, is whether the law has committed murder or i suicide. what is certain is that i have cheated the gallows. _santa claus._ a story for the nursery. although bob was asleep on the doorstep the children in the passage talked so loudly that they woke him up. they did not mean to do it, for they were nice, clean, handsome children. bob was always pretty dirty, so nobody knew if he was pretty clean. he was not a dog, though you might think so from his name and the way he was treated. nobody cared for bob except tommy whom he could fight one-hand. the lucky nice clean children had jam to lick, but bob had only tommy. poor tommy! bob sat up on his stony doorstep, drawing his rags around him. his toes were freezing. when you have no boots it is awkward to stamp your feet. that is why they are so cold. bob's idea of heaven was a place with a fire in it. he lived before free education and his ideas were mixed. bob heard the children inside talking about santa claus and the presents they expected. bob gathered that he was a kind-hearted old gentleman, and he thought to himself: "if i could find out santa claus's address, i'd go and arx 'im for some presents too." so he waited outside, shivering, till a pretty little girl and boy came out, when he said to them: "please, can you tell me where santa claus lives?" the little girl and boy drew back when he spoke to them, because they had strict orders to keep their pinafores clean. but when they heard his strange question, they looked at each other with large eyes. then their pretty faces filled with smiling sunshine, and they said: "he lives in the sky. he is a spirit." bob's face fell. "oh, then i carn't call upon 'im," he said. "but 'ow is it _i_ never gets no presents like i 'ears yer say _you_ does?" "perhaps you are not a good child," said the little girl gravely. "yes, look how you've torn your clothes," said the little boy reprovingly. "well, but 'ow is _you_ goin' to get presents from the sky?" "we hang up our stockings to-night, just before christmas, and in the night santa claus fills them," they explained, and just then the maid came out and led them away. now bob understood. he had never had any stockings in his life. he felt mad to think how much else he had missed through the want of a pair. if he could only get a pair of stockings to hang up, he might be a rich boy and dine off bread and treacle. he wandered through the courts and alleys looking for stockings in the gutters and dustbins. they were not there. old boots were to be found in abundance though not in couples (which was odd); but bob soon discovered that people never throw away their stockings. at last he plucked up courage and begged from house to house, but nobody had a pair to spare. what becomes of all the old stockings? not everybody hoards treasure in them. bob met plenty of kind hearts; they offered him bread when he asked for a stocking. at last, weary and footsore, he returned to his doorstep and pondered. he wondered if he could cheat santa claus by making a pair out of a piece of newspaper he had picked up. but perhaps mr. claus was particular about the material and admitted nothing under cotton. he thought of stepping deeply into the mud and caking a pair, but then he could only remove them at night by brushing them off in little pieces; he feared they would stick too tight to come off whole. he also thought of painting his calves with stripes from "wet paint," on the off chance that mr. claus would drop the presents carelessly down along his legs. but he concluded that if mr. claus lived in the sky he could look down and see all he was doing. so he began to cry instead. "what are you crying about?" said a quavering voice, and bob, startled, became aware of a wretched old creature dining on the doorstep at his side. [illustration: an old woman dining on the doorstep.] "i ain't got no stockings," he sobbed in answer. "well, i'll give you mine," said his neighbour. bob hesitated. the poor old woman looked so brokendown herself, it seemed mean to accept her offer. "won't you be cold?" he asked timidly. "i shan't be warmer," mumbled the old woman. "but then you will." "no, i won't have them, thank you kindly, mum," said bob stoutly. "then i'll tell you what to do," said the old woman, who was really a fairy, though she had lost both wings--they had been amputated in a surgical operation. "it's easy enough to get stockings if you only know how. run away now and pick out any person you meet and say, 'i wish that person's stockings were on my feet.' you can only wish once, so be careful, especially, not to wish for a pair of blue stockings, as they won't suit you." she grinned and vanished. bob jumped up and was about to wish off the stockings of the first man he met, when a horrible thought struck him. the man had nice clothes and looked rich, but what proof was there he had stockings on? bob really could not afford to risk wasting his wish. he walked about and looked at all the people--the men with their long trousers, the women with their trailing skirts; and the more he walked, the more grew his doubt and his agony. a terrible scepticism of humanity seized him. they looked very prim and demure without, these men and women, with their varnished boots and their satin gowns, but what if they were all hypocrites, walking about without stockings! night came on. half distracted by distrust of his kind, he wandered on to the docks, and there to his joy he saw people coming off a steamer by a narrow plank. as they walked the ladies lifted up their skirts so as not to tumble over them, and he caught several glimpses of dainty stockings. at last he selected a lady with very broad stockings, that looked as if they would hold lots of mr. claus's presents, and wished. instantly he felt very funny about the feet, and the lady wobbled about so in her big boots that she overbalanced herself and fell into the water and was drowned. bob ran back to his doorstep, and when it was dark slipped off his stockings carefully and hung them up on the knocker. and--sure enough!--in the morning they were fall of fine cigars and spanish lace. bob sold the lace for a penny, but he kept the cigars and smoked the first with his penn'uth of christmas plum-duff. _moral_:--england expects every man to pay his duty. _a rose of the ghetto._ one day it occurred to leibel that he ought to get married. he went to sugarman the shadchan forthwith. "i have the very thing for you," said the great marriage-broker. "is she pretty?" asked leibel. "her father has a boot and shoe warehouse," replied sugarman enthusiastically. "then there ought to be a dowry with her," said leibel eagerly. "certainly a dowry! a fine man like you!" "how much do you think it would be?" "of course it is not a large warehouse; but then you could get your boots at trade price, and your wife's, perhaps, for the cost of the leather." "when could i see her?" "i will arrange for you to call next sabbath afternoon." "you won't charge me more than a sovereign?" "not a _groschen_ more! such a pious maiden! i'm sure you will be happy. she has so much way-of-the-country [breeding]. and, of course, five per cent on the dowry?" "h'm! well, i don't mind!" "perhaps they won't give a dowry," he thought, with a consolatory sense of outwitting the shadchan. on the saturday leibel went to see the damsel, and on the sunday he went to see sugarman the shadchan. "but your maiden squints!" he cried resentfully. "an excellent thing!" said sugarman. "a wife who squints can never look her husband straight in the face and overwhelm him. who would quail before a woman with a squint?" "i could endure the squint," went on leibel dubiously, "but she also stammers." "well, what is better, in the event of a quarrel? the difficulty she has in talking will keep her far more silent than most wives. you had best secure her while you have the chance." "but she halts on the left leg," cried leibel, exasperated. "_gott in himmel!_ do you mean to say you do not see what an advantage it is to have a wife unable to accompany you in all your goings?" leibel lost patience. "why, the girl is a hunchback!" he protested furiously. "my dear leibel," said the marriage-broker, deprecatingly shrugging his shoulders and spreading out his palms. "you can't expect perfection!" nevertheless, leibel persisted in his unreasonable attitude. he accused sugarman of wasting his time, of making a fool of him. "a fool of you!" echoed the shadchan indignantly, "when i give you a chance of a boot and shoe manufacturer's daughter. you will make a fool of yourself if you refuse. i daresay her dowry would be enough to set you up as a master-tailor. at present you are compelled to slave away as a cutter for thirty shillings a week. it is most unjust. if you only had a few machines you would be able to employ your own cutters. and they can be got so cheap nowadays." this gave leibel pause, and he departed without having definitely broken the negotiations. his whole week was befogged by doubt, his work became uncertain, his chalk-marks lacked their usual decision, and he did not always cut his coat according to his cloth. his aberrations became so marked that pretty rose green, the sweater's eldest daughter, who managed a machine in the same room, divined, with all a woman's intuition, that he was in love. "what is the matter?" she said in rallying yiddish, when they were taking their lunch of bread and cheese and ginger-beer, amid the clatter of machines, whose serfs had not yet knocked off work. "they are proposing me a match," he answered sullenly. "a match!" ejaculated rose. "thou!" she had worked by his side for years, and familiarity bred the second person singular. leibel nodded his head, and put a mouthful of dutch cheese into it. "with whom?" asked rose. somehow he felt ashamed. he gurgled the answer into the stone ginger-beer bottle, which he put to his thirsty lips. "with leah volcovitch!" "leah volcovitch!" gasped rose. "leah, the boot and shoe manufacturer's daughter?" leibel hung his head--he scarce knew why. he did not dare meet her gaze. his droop said "yes." there was a long pause. "and why dost thou not have her?" said rose. it was more than an enquiry. there was contempt in it, and perhaps even pique. leibel did not reply. the embarrassing silence reigned again, and reigned long. rose broke it at last. "is it that thou likest me better?" she asked. leibel seemed to see a ball of lightning in the air; it burst, and he felt the electric current strike right through his heart. the shock threw his head up with a jerk, so that his eyes gazed into a face whose beauty and tenderness were revealed to him for the first time. the face of his old acquaintance had vanished--this was a cajoling, coquettish, smiling face, suggesting undreamed-of things. "_nu_, yes," he replied, without perceptible pause. "_nu_, good!" she rejoined as quickly. and in the ecstasy of that moment of mutual understanding leibel forgot to wonder why he had never thought of rose before. afterwards he remembered that she had always been his social superior. the situation seemed too dreamlike for explanation to the room just yet. leibel lovingly passed the bottle of ginger-beer and rose took a sip, with a beautiful air of plighting troth, understood only of those two. when leibel quaffed the remnant it intoxicated him. the relics of the bread and cheese were the ambrosia to this nectar. they did not dare kiss--the suddenness of it all left them bashful, and the smack of lips would have been like a cannon-peal announcing their engagement. there was a subtler sweetness in this sense of a secret, apart from the fact that neither cared to break the news to the master-tailor--a stern little old man. leibel's chalk-marks continued indecisive that afternoon; which shows how correctly rose had connected them with love. before he left that night rose said to him: "art thou sure thou wouldst not rather have leah volcovitch?" "not for all the boots and shoes in the world," replied leibel vehemently. "and i," protested rose, "would rather go without my own than without thee." the landing outside the workshop was so badly lighted that their lips came together in the darkness. "nay, nay, thou must not yet," said rose. "thou art still courting leah volcovitch. for aught thou knowest, sugarman the shadchan may have entangled thee beyond redemption." "not so," asserted leibel. "i have only seen the maiden once." "yes. but sugarman has seen her father several times," persisted rose. "for so misshapen a maiden his commission would be large. thou must go to sugarman to-night, and tell him that thou canst not find it in thy heart to go on with the match." "kiss me, and i will go," pleaded leibel. "go, and i will kiss thee," said rose resolutely. "and when shall we tell thy father?" he asked, pressing her hand, as the next best thing to her lips. "as soon as thou art free from leah." "but will he consent?" "he will not be glad," said rose frankly. "but after mother's death--peace be upon her--the rule passed from her hands into mine." "ah, that is well," said leibel. he was a superficial thinker. leibel found sugarman at supper. the great shadchan offered him a chair, but nothing else. hospitality was associated in his mind with special occasions only, and involved lemonade and "stuffed monkeys." he was very put out--almost to the point of indigestion--to hear of leibel's final determination, and plied him with reproachful enquiries. "you don't mean to say that you give up a boot and shoe manufacturer merely because his daughter has round shoulders!" he exclaimed incredulously. "it is more than round shoulders--it is a hump!" cried leibel. "and suppose? see how much better off you will be when you get your own machines! we do not refuse to let camels carry our burdens because they have humps." "ah, but a wife is not a camel," said leibel, with a sage air. "and a cutter is not a master-tailor," retorted sugarman. "enough, enough!" cried leibel. "i tell you i would not have her if she were a machine warehouse." "there sticks something behind," persisted sugarman, unconvinced. leibel shook his head. "only her hump," he said, with a flash of humour. "moses mendelssohn had a hump," expostulated sugarman reproachfully. "yes, but he was a heretic," rejoined leibel, who was not without reading. "and then he was a man! a man with two humps could find a wife for each. but a woman with a hump cannot expect a husband in addition." "guard your tongue from evil," quoth the shadchan angrily. "if everybody were to talk like you, leah volcovitch would never be married at all." leibel shrugged his shoulders, and reminded him that hunchbacked girls who stammered and squinted and halted on left legs were not usually led under the canopy. "nonsense! stuff!" cried sugarman angrily. "that is because they do not come to me." "leah volcovitch _has_ come to you," said leibel, "but she shall not come to me." and he rose, anxious to escape. instantly sugarman gave a sigh of resignation. "be it so! then i shall have to look out for another, that's all." "no, i don't want any," replied leibel quickly. sugarman stopped eating. "you don't want any?" he cried. "but you came to me for one?" "i--i--know," stammered leibel. "but i've--i've altered my mind." "one needs hillel's patience to deal with you!" cried sugarman. "but i shall charge you all the same for my trouble. you cannot cancel an order like this in the middle! no, no! you can play fast and loose with leah volcovitch. but you shall not make a fool of me." "but if i don't want one?" said leibel sullenly. sugarman gazed at him with a cunning look of suspicion. "didn't i say there was something sticking behind?" leibel felt guilty. "but whom have you got in your eye?" he enquired desperately. "perhaps you may have some one in yours!" naïvely answered sugarman. leibel gave a hypocritic long-drawn, "u-m-m-m. i wonder if rose green--where i work--" he said, and stopped. "i fear not," said sugarman. "she is on my list. her father gave her to me some months ago, but he is hard to please. even the maiden herself is not easy, being pretty." "perhaps she has waited for some one," suggested leibel. sugarman's keen ear caught the note of complacent triumph. "you have been asking her yourself!" he exclaimed in horror-stricken accents. "and if i have?" said leibel defiantly. "you have cheated me! and so has eliphaz green--i always knew he was tricky! you have both defrauded me!" "i did not mean to," said leibel mildly. "you _did_ mean to. you had no business to take the matter out of my hands. what right had you to propose to rose green?" "i did not," cried leibel excitedly. "then you asked her father!" "no; i have not asked her father yet." "then how do you know she will have you?" "i--i know," stammered leibel, feeling himself somehow a liar as well as a thief. his brain was in a whirl; he could not remember how the thing had come about. certainly he had not proposed; nor could he say that she had. "you know she will have you," repeated sugarman, reflectively. "and does _she_ know?" "yes. in fact," he blurted out, "we arranged it together." "ah! you both know. and does her father know?" "not yet." "ah! then i must get his consent," said sugarman decisively. "i--i thought of speaking to him myself." "yourself!" echoed sugarman, in horror. "are you unsound in the head? why, that would be worse than the mistake you have already made!" "what mistake?" asked leibel, firing up. "the mistake of asking the maiden herself. when you quarrel with her after your marriage, she will always throw it in your teeth that you wished to marry her. moreover, if you tell a maiden you love her, her father will think you ought to marry her as she stands. still, what is done is done." and he sighed regretfully. "and what more do i want? i love her." "you piece of clay!" cried sugarman contemptuously. "love will not turn machines, much less buy them. you must have a dowry. her father has a big stocking--he can well afford it." leibel's eyes lit up. there was really no reason why he should not have bread-and-cheese with his kisses. "now, if _you_ went to her father," pursued the shadchan, "the odds are that he would not even give you his daughter--to say nothing of the dowry. after all, it is a cheek of you to aspire so high. as you told me from the first, you haven't saved a penny. even my commission you won't be able to pay till you get the dowry. but if _i_ go, i do not despair of getting a substantial sum--to say nothing of the daughter." "yes, i think you had better go," said leibel eagerly. "but if i do this thing for you i shall want a pound more," rejoined sugarman. "a pound more!" echoed leibel, in dismay. "why?" "because rose green's hump is of gold," replied sugarman oracularly. "also, she is fair to see, and many men desire her." "but you have always your five per cent on the dowry." "it will be less than volcovitch's," explained sugarman. "you see, green has other and less beautiful daughters." "yes; but then it settles itself more easily. say five shillings." "eliphaz green is a hard man," said the shadchan instead. "ten shillings is the most i will give!" "twelve and sixpence is the least i will take. eliphaz green haggles so terribly." they split the difference, and so eleven and threepence represented the predominance of eliphaz green's stinginess over volcovitch's. the very next day sugarman invaded the green work-room. rose bent over her seams, her heart fluttering. leibel had duly apprised her of the roundabout manner in which she would have to be won, and she had acquiesced in the comedy. at the least it would save her the trouble of father-taming. sugarman's entry was brusque and breathless. he was overwhelmed with joyous emotion. his blue bandanna trailed agitatedly from his coat-tail. "at last!" he cried, addressing the little white-haired master-tailor, "i have the very man for you." "yes?" grunted eliphaz, unimpressed. the monosyllable was packed with emotion. it said: "have you really the face to come to me again with an ideal man?" "he has all the qualities that you desire," began the shadchan, in a tone that repudiated the implications of the monosyllable. "he is young, strong, god-fearing--" "has he any money?" grumpily interrupted eliphaz. "he _will_ have money," replied sugarman unhesitatingly, "when he marries." "ah!" the father's voice relaxed, and his foot lay limp on the treadle. he worked one of his machines himself, and paid himself the wages so as to enjoy the profit. "how much will he have?" "i think he will have fifty pounds; and the least you can do is to let him have fifty pounds," replied sugarman, with the same happy ambiguity. eliphaz shook his head on principle. "yes, you will," said sugarman, "when you learn how fine a man he is." the flush of confusion and trepidation already on leibel's countenance became a rosy glow of modesty, for he could not help overhearing what was being said, owing to the lull of the master-tailor's machine. "tell me, then," rejoined eliphaz. "tell me, first, if you will give fifty to a young, healthy, hard-working, god-fearing man, whose idea it is to start as a master-tailor on his own account? and you know how profitable that is!" "to a man like that," said eliphaz, in a burst of enthusiasm, "i would give as much as twenty-seven pounds ten!" sugarman groaned inwardly, but leibel's heart leaped with joy. to get four months' wages at a stroke! with twenty-seven pounds ten he could certainly procure several machines, especially on the instalment system. out of the corners of his eyes he shot a glance at rose, who was beyond earshot. "unless you can promise thirty it is waste of time mentioning his name," said sugarman. "well, well--who is he?" sugarman bent down, lowering his voice into the father's ear. "what! leibel!" cried eliphaz, outraged. "sh!" said sugarman, "or he will overhear your delight, and ask more. he has his nose high enough as it is." "b--b--b--ut," sputtered the bewildered parent, "i know leibel myself. i see him every day. i don't want a shadchan to find me a man i know--a mere hand in my own workshop!" "your talk has neither face nor figure," answered sugarman sternly. "it is just the people one sees every day that one knows least. i warrant that if i had not put it into your head you would never have dreamt of leibel as a son-in-law. come now, confess." eliphaz grunted vaguely, and the shadchan went on triumphantly. "i thought as much. and yet where could you find a better man to keep your daughter?" "he ought to be content with her alone," grumbled her father. sugarman saw the signs of weakening, and dashed in, full strength. "it's a question whether he will have her at all. i have not been to him about her yet. i awaited your approval of the idea." leibel admired the verbal accuracy of these statements, which he just caught. "but i didn't know he would be having money," murmured eliphaz. "of course you didn't know. that's what the shadchan is for--to point out the things that are under your nose." "but where will he be getting this money from?" "from you," said sugarman frankly. "from me?" "from whom else? are you not his employer? it has been put by for his marriage-day." "he has saved it?" "he has not _spent_ it," said sugarman, impatiently. "but do you mean to say he has saved fifty pounds?" "if he could manage to save fifty pounds out of your wages he would be indeed a treasure," said sugarman. "perhaps it might be thirty." "but you said fifty." "well, _you_ came down to thirty," retorted the shadchan. "you cannot expect him to have more than your daughter brings." "i never said thirty," eliphaz reminded him. "twenty-seven ten was my last bid." "very well; that will do as a basis of negotiations," said sugarman resignedly. "i will call upon him this evening. if i were to go over and speak to him now he would perceive you were anxious and raise his terms, and that will never do. of course, you will not mind allowing me a pound more for finding you so economical a son-in-law?" "not a penny more." "you need not fear," said sugarman resentfully. "it is not likely i shall be able to persuade him to take so economical a father-in-law. so you will be none the worse for promising." "be it so," said eliphaz, with a gesture of weariness, and he started his machine again. "twenty-seven pounds ten, remember," said sugarman, above the whirr. eliphaz nodded his head, whirring his wheelwork louder. "and paid before the wedding, mind?" the machine took no notice. "before the wedding, mind," repeated sugarman. "before we go under the canopy." "go now, go now!" grunted eliphaz, with a gesture of impatience. "it shall be all well." and the white-haired head bowed immovably over its work. in the evening rose extracted from her father the motive of sugarman's visit, and confessed that the idea was to her liking. "but dost thou think he will have me, little father?" she asked, with cajoling eyes. "anyone would have my rose." "ah, but leibel is different. so many years he has sat at my side and said nothing." "he had his work to think of; he is a good, saving youth." "at this very moment sugarman is trying to persuade him--not so? i suppose he will want much money." "be easy, my child." and he passed his discoloured hand over her hair. sugarman turned up the next day, and reported that leibel was unobtainable under thirty pounds, and eliphaz, weary of the contest, called over leibel, till that moment carefully absorbed in his scientific chalk-marks, and mentioned the thing to him for the first time. "i am not a man to bargain," eliphaz said, and so he gave the young man his tawny hand, and a bottle of rum sprang from somewhere, and work was suspended for five minutes, and the "hands" all drank amid surprised excitement. sugarman's visits had prepared them to congratulate rose. but leibel was a shock. the formal engagement was marked by even greater junketing, and at last the marriage-day came. leibel was resplendent in a diagonal frock-coat, cut by his own hand, and rose stepped from the cab a medley of flowers, fairness, and white silk, and behind her came two bridesmaids--her sisters--a trio that glorified the spectator-strewn pavement outside the synagogue. eliphaz looked almost tall in his shiny high hat and frilled shirt-front. sugarman arrived on foot, carrying red-socked little ebenezer tucked under his arm. leibel and rose were not the only couple to be disposed of, for it was the thirty-third day of the omer--a day fruitful in marriages. but at last their turn came. they did not, however, come in their turn, and their special friends among the audience wondered why they had lost their precedence. after several later marriages had taken place, a whisper began to circulate. the rumour of a hitch gained ground steadily, and the sensation was proportionate. and, indeed, the rose was not to be picked without a touch of the thorn. gradually the facts leaked out, and a buzz of talk and comment ran through the waiting synagogue. eliphaz had not paid up! at first he declared he would put down the money immediately after the ceremony. but the wary sugarman, schooled by experience, demanded its instant delivery on behalf of his other client. hard-pressed, eliphaz produced ten sovereigns from his trousers' pocket, and tendered them on account. these sugarman disdainfully refused, and the negotiations were suspended. the bridegroom's party was encamped in one room, the bride's in another, and after a painful delay eliphaz sent an emissary to say that half the amount should be forthcoming, the extra five pounds in a bright new bank of england note. leibel, instructed and encouraged by sugarman, stood firm. and then arose a hubbub of voices, a chaos of suggestions; friends rushed to and fro between the camps, some emerging from their seats in the synagogue to add to the confusion. but eliphaz had taken his stand upon a rock--he had no more ready money. to-morrow, the next day, he would have some. and leibel, pale and dogged, clutched tighter at those machines that were slipping away momently from him. he had not yet seen his bride that morning, and so her face was shadowy compared with the tangibility of those machines. most of the other maidens were married women by now, and the situation was growing desperate. from the female camp came terrible rumours of bridesmaids in hysterics, and a bride that tore her wreath in a passion of shame and humiliation. eliphaz sent word that he would give an i o u for the balance, but that he really could not muster any more current coin. sugarman instructed the ambassador to suggest that eliphaz should raise the money among his friends. and the short spring day slipped away. in vain the minister, apprised of the block, lengthened out the formulæ for the other pairs, and blessed them with more reposeful unction. it was impossible to stave off the leibel-green item indefinitely, and at last rose remained the only orange-wreathed spinster in the synagogue. and then there was a hush of solemn suspense, that swelled gradually into a steady rumble of babbling tongues as minute succeeded minute and the final bridal party still failed to appear. the latest bulletin pictured the bride in a dead faint. the afternoon was waning fast. the minister left his post near the canopy, under which so many lives had been united, and came to add his white tie to the forces for compromise. but he fared no better than the others. incensed at the obstinacy of the antagonists, he declared he would close the synagogue. he gave the couple ten minutes to marry in or quit. then chaos came, and pandemonium--a frantic babel of suggestion and exhortation from the crowd. when five minutes had passed, a legate from eliphaz announced that his side had scraped together twenty pounds, and that this was their final bid. leibel wavered; the long day's combat had told upon him; the reports of the bride's distress had weakened him. even sugarman had lost his cocksureness of victory. a few minutes more and both commissions might slip through his fingers. once the parties left the synagogue it would not be easy to drive them there another day. but he cheered on his man still--one could always surrender at the tenth minute. at the eighth the buzz of tongues faltered suddenly, to be transposed into a new key, so to speak. through the gesticulating assembly swept that murmur of expectation which crowds know when the procession is coming at last. by some mysterious magnetism all were aware that the bride herself--the poor hysteric bride--had left the paternal camp, was coming in person to plead with her mercenary lover. and as the glory of her and the flowers and the white draperies loomed upon leibel's vision his heart melted in worship, and he knew his citadel would crumble in ruins at her first glance, at her first touch. was it fair fighting? as his troubled vision cleared and as she came nigh unto him, he saw to his amazement that she was speckless and composed--no trace of tears dimmed the fairness of her face, there was no disarray in her bridal wreath. the clock showed the ninth minute. she put her hand appealingly on his arm, while a heavenly light came into her face--the expression of a joan of arc animating her country. "do not give in, leibel," she said. "do not have me! do not let them persuade thee. by my life thou must not! go home!" [illustration: "'by my life thou must not!'"] so at the eleventh minute the vanquished eliphaz produced the balance, and they all lived happily ever afterwards. _a double-barrelled ghost._ i was ruined. the bank in which i had been a sleeping-partner from my cradle smashed suddenly, and i was exempted from income tax at one fell blow. it became necessary to dispose even of the family mansion and the hereditary furniture. the shame of not contributing to my country's exchequer spurred me to earnest reflection upon how to earn an income, and, having mixed myself another lemon-squash, i threw myself back on the canvas garden-chair, and watched the white, scented wreaths of my cigar-smoke hanging in the drowsy air, and provoking inexperienced bees to settle upon them. it was the sort of summer afternoon on which to eat lotus, and to sip the dew from the lips of amaryllises; but although i had an affianced amaryllis (whose christian name was jenny grant), i had not the heart to dally with her in view of my sunk fortunes. she loved me for myself, no doubt, but then i was not myself since the catastrophe; and although she had hastened to assure me of her unchanged regard, i was not at all certain whether _i_ should be able to support a wife in addition to all my other misfortunes. so that i was not so comfortable that afternoon as i appeared to my perspiring valet: no rose in the garden had a pricklier thorn than i. the thought of my poverty weighed me down; and when the setting sun began flinging bars of gold among the clouds, the reminder of my past extravagance made my heart heavier still, and i broke down utterly. swearing at the manufacturers of such collapsible garden-chairs, i was struggling to rise when i perceived my rings of smoke comporting themselves strangely. they were widening and curving and flowing into definite outlines, as though the finger of the wind were shaping them into a rough sketch of the human figure. sprawling amid the ruins of my chair, i watched the nebulous contours grow clearer and clearer, till at last the agitation subsided, and a misty old gentleman, clad in vapour of an eighteenth-century cut, stood plainly revealed upon the sun-flecked grass. "good afternoon, john," said the old gentleman, courteously removing his cocked hat. "good afternoon!" i gasped. "how do you know my name?" "because i have not forgotten my own," he replied. "i am john halliwell, your great-grandfather. don't you remember me?" a flood of light burst upon my brain. of course! i ought to have recognised him at once from the portrait by sir joshua reynolds, just about to be sold by auction. the artist had gone to full length in painting him, and here he was complete, from his white wig, beautifully frizzled by the smoke, to his buckled shoes, from his knee-breeches to the frills at his wrists. "oh! pray pardon my not having recognised you," i cried remorsefully; "i have such a bad memory for faces. won't you take a chair?" "sir, i have not sat down for a century and a half," he said simply. "pray be seated yourself." [illustration: "pray be seated yourself," said the ghost simply.] thus reminded of my undignified position, i gathered myself up, and readjusting the complex apparatus, confided myself again to its canvas caresses. then, grown conscious of my shirt-sleeves, i murmured,-- "excuse my deshabille. i did not expect to see you." "i am aware the season is inopportune," he said apologetically. "but i did not care to put off my visit till christmas. you see, with us christmas is a kind of bank holiday; and when there is a general excursion, a refined spirit prefers its own fireside. moreover, i am not, as you may see, very robust, and i scarce like to risk exposing myself to such an extreme change of temperature. your english christmas is so cold. with the pyrometer at three hundred and fifty, it is hardly prudent to pass to thirty. on a sultry day like this the contrast is less marked." "i understand," i said sympathetically. "but i should hardly have ventured," he went on, "to trespass upon you at this untimely season merely out of deference to my own valetudinarian instincts. the fact is, i am a _littérateur_." "oh, indeed," i said vaguely; "i was not aware of it." "nobody was aware of it," he replied sadly; "but my calling at this professional hour will, perhaps, go to substantiate my statement." i looked at him blankly. was he quite sane? all the apparitions i had ever heard of spoke with some approach to coherence, however imbecile their behaviour. the statistics of insanity in the spiritual world have never been published, but i suspect the percentage of madness is high. mere harmless idiocy is doubtless the prevalent form of dementia, judging by the way the poor unhappy spirits set about compassing their ends; but some of their actions can only be explained by the more violent species of mania. my great-grandfather seemed to read the suspicion in my eye, for he hastily continued:-- "of course it is only the outside public who imagine that the spirits of literature really appear at christmas. it is the annuals that appear at christmas. the real season at which we are active on earth is summer, as every journalist knows. by christmas the authors of our being have completely forgotten our existence. as a writer myself, and calling in connection with a literary matter, i thought it more professional to pay my visit during the dog days, especially as your being in trouble supplied me with an excuse for asking permission to go beyond bounds." "you knew i was in trouble?" i murmured, touched by this sympathy from an unexpected quarter. "certainly. and from a selfish point of view i am not sorry. you have always been so inconsiderately happy that i could never find a seemly pretext to get out to see you." "is it only when your descendants are in trouble that you are allowed to visit them?" i enquired. "even so," he answered. "of course spirits whose births were tragic, who were murdered into existence, are allowed to supplement the inefficient police departments of the upper globe, and a similar charter is usually extended to those who have hidden treasures on their conscience; but it is obvious that if all spirits were accorded what furloughs they pleased, eschatology would become a farce. sir, you have no idea of the number of bogus criminal romances tendered daily by those wishing to enjoy the roving license of avenging spirits, for the ex-assassinated are the most enviable of immortals, and cases of personation are of frequent occurrence. our actresses, too, are always pretending to have lost jewels; there is no end to the excuses. the christmas bank holiday is naturally inadequate to our needs. sir, i should have been far happier if my descendants had gone wrong; but in spite of the large fortune i had accumulated, both your father and your grandfather were of exemplary respectability and unruffled cheerfulness. the solitary outing i had was when your father attended a séance, and i was knocked up in the middle of the night. but i did not enjoy my holiday in the least; the indignity of having to move the furniture made the blood boil in my veins as in a spirit-lamp, and exposed me to the malicious badinage of my circle on my return. i protested that i did not care a rap; but i was mightily rejoiced when i learnt that your father had denounced the proceedings as a swindle, and was resolved never to invite me to his table again. when you were born i thought you were born to trouble, as the sparks fly upwards from our dwelling-place; but i was mistaken. up till now your life has been a long summer afternoon." "yes, but now the shades are falling," i said grimly. "it looks as if my life henceforwards will be a long holiday--for you." he shook his wig mournfully. "no, i am only out on parole. i have had to give my word of honour to try to set you on your legs again as soon as possible." "you couldn't have come at a more opportune moment," i cried, remembering how he had found me. "you are a good as well as a great-grandfather, and i am proud of my descent. won't you have a cigar?" "thank you, i never smoke--on earth," said the spirit hurriedly, with a flavour of bitter in his accents. "let us to the point. you have been reduced to the painful necessity of earning your living." i nodded silently, and took a sip of lemon-squash. a strange sense of salvation lulled my soul. "how do you propose to do it?" asked my great-grandfather. "oh, i leave that to you," i said confidingly. "well, what do you say to a literary career?" "eh? what?" i gasped. "a literary career," he repeated. "what makes you so astonished?" "well, for one thing it's exactly what tom addlestone, the leader-writer of the _hurrygraph_, was recommending to me this morning. he said: 'john, my boy, if i had had your advantages ten years ago, i should have been spared many a headache and supplied with many a dinner. it may turn out a lucky thing yet that you gravitated so to literary society, and that so many press men had free passes to your suppers. consider the number of men of letters you have mixed drinks with! why, man, you can succeed in any branch of literature you please.'" my great-grandfather's face was radiant. perhaps it was only the setting sun that touched it. "a chip of the old block," he murmured. "that was i in my young days. johnson, goldsmith, sheridan, burke, hume, i knew them all--gay dogs, gay dogs! except that great hulking brute of a johnson," he added, with a sudden savage snarl that showed his white teeth. "i told addlestone that i had no literary ability whatever, and he scoffed at me for my simplicity. all the same, i think he was only poking fun at me. my friends might puff me out to bull-size; but i am only a frog, and i should very soon burst. the public might be cajoled into buying one book; they could not be duped a second time. don't you think i was right? i haven't any literary ability, have i?" "certainly not, certainly not," replied my great-grandfather with an alacrity and emphasis that would have seemed suspicious in a mere mortal. "but it does seem a shame to waste so great an opportunity. the ball that addlestone waited years for is at your foot, and it is grievous to think that there it must remain merely because you do not know how to kick it." "well, but what's a man to do?" "what's a man to do?" repeated my great-grandfather contemptuously. "get a ghost, of course." "by jove!" i cried with a whistle. "that's a good idea! addlestone has a ghost to do his leaders for him when he's lazy. i've seen the young fellow myself. tom pays him six guineas a dozen, and gets three guineas apiece himself. but of course tom has to live in much better style, and that makes it fair all round. you mean that i am to take advantage of my influence to get some other fellow work, and take a commission for the use of my name? that seems feasible enough. but where am i to find a ghost with the requisite talents?" "here," said my great-grandfather. "what! you?" "yes, i," he replied calmly. "but you couldn't write--" "not now, certainly not. all i wrote now would be burnt." "then how the devil--?" i began. "hush!" he interrupted nervously. "listen, and i will a tale unfold. it is called _the learned pig_. i wrote it in my forty-fifth year, and it is full of sketches from the life of all the more notable personages of my time, from lord chesterfield to mrs. thrale, from peg woffington to adam smith and the ingenious mr. dibdin. i have painted the portrait of sir joshua quite as faithfully as he has painted mine. of course much of the dialogue is real, taken from conversations preserved in my note-book. it is, i believe, a complete picture of the period, and being the only book i ever wrote or intended to write, i put my whole self into it, as well as all my friends." "it must be, indeed, your masterpiece," i cried enthusiastically. "but why is it called _the learned pig_, and how has it escaped publication?" "you shall hear. the learned pig is dr. johnson. he refused to take wine with me. i afterwards learnt that he had given up strong liqueurs altogether, and i went to see him again, but he received me with epigrams. he is the pivot of my book, all the other characters revolving about him. naturally, i did not care to publish during his lifetime; not entirely, i admit, out of consideration to his feelings, but because foolish admirers had placed him on such a pedestal that he could damn any book he did not relish. i made sure of surviving him, so many and diverse were his distempers; whereas my manuscript survived me. in the moment of death i strove to tell your grandfather of the hiding-place in which i had bestowed it; but i could only make signs to which he had not the clue. you can imagine how it has embittered my spirit to have missed the aim of my life and my due niche in the pantheon of letters. in vain i strove to be registered among the 'hidden treasure' spirits, with the perambulatory privileges pertaining to the class. i was told that to recognise manuscripts under the head of 'treasures' would be to open a fresh door to abuse, there being few but had scribbled in their time and had a good conceit of their compositions to boot. i could offer no proofs of the value of my work, not even printers' proofs, and even the fact that the manuscript was concealed behind a sliding panel availed not to bring it into the coveted category. moreover, not only did i have no other pretext to call on my descendants, but both my son and grandson were too respectable to be willingly connected with letters and too flourishing to be enticed by the prospects of profit. to you, however, this book will prove the avenue to fresh fortune." "do you mean i am to publish it under your name?" "no, under yours." "but, then, where does the satisfaction come in?" "your name is the same as mine." "i see; but still, why not tell the truth about it? in a preface, for instance." "who would believe it? in my own day i could not credit that macpherson spoke truly about the way ossian came into his possession, nor to judge from gossip i have had with the younger ghosts did anyone attach credence to sir walter scott's introductions." "true," i said musingly. "it is a played-out dodge. but i am not certain whether an attack on dr. johnson would go down nowadays. we are aware that the man had porcine traits, but we have almost canonised him." "the very reason why the book will be a success," he replied eagerly. "i understand that in these days of yours the best way of attracting attention is to fly in the face of all received opinion, and so in the realm of history to whitewash the villains and tar and feather the saints. the sliding panel of which i spoke is just behind the picture of me. lose no time. go at once, even as i must." the shadowy contours of his form waved agitatedly in the wind. "but how do you know anyone will bring it out?" i said doubtfully. "am i to haunt the publishers' offices till--" "no, no, i will do that," he interrupted in excitement. "promise me you will help me." "but i don't feel at all sure it stands a ghost of a chance," i said, growing colder in proportion as he grew more enthusiastic. "it is the only chance of a ghost," he pleaded. "come, give me your word. any of your literary friends will get you a publisher, and where could you get a more promising ghost?" "oh, nonsense!" i said quietly, unconsciously quoting ibsen. "there must be ghosts all the country over, as thick as the sand of the sea." i was determined to put the matter on its proper footing, for i saw that under pretence of restoring my fortunes he was really trying to get me to pull his chestnuts out of the fire, and i resented the deceptive spirit that could put forward such tasks as favours. it was evident that he cherished a post-mortem grudge against the great lexicographer, as well as a posthumous craving for fame, and wished to use me as the instrument of his reputation and his revenge. but i was a man of the world, and i was not going to be rushed by a mere phantom. "i don't deny there are plenty of ghosts about," he answered with insinuative deference. "only will any of the others work for nothing?" he saw he had scored a point, and his eyes twinkled. "yes, but i don't know that i approve of black-legs," i answered sternly. "you are taking the bread and butter out of some honest ghost's mouth." the corners of his own mouth drooped; his eyes grew misty; he looked fading away. "most true," he faltered; "but be pitiful. have you no great-grand-filial feelings?" "no, i lost everything in the crash," i answered coldly. "suppose the book's a frost?" "i shan't mind," he said eagerly. "no, i don't suppose you _would_ mind a frost," i retorted witheringly. "but look at the chaff you'd be letting me in for. hadn't you better put off publication for a century or two?" "no, no," he cried wildly; "our mansion will pass into strange hands. i shall not have the right of calling on the new proprietors." "phew!" i whistled; "perhaps that's why you timed your visit now, you artful old codger. i have always heard appearances are deceptive. however, i have ever been a patron of letters; and although i cannot approve of post-mundane malice, and think the dead past should be let bury its dead, still, if you are set upon it, i will try and use my influence to get your book published." "bless you!" he cried tremulously, with all the effusiveness natural to an author about to see himself in print, and trembled so violently that he dissipated himself away. i stood staring a moment at the spot where he had stood, pleased at having out-manoeuvred him; then my chair gave way with another crash, and i picked myself up painfully, together with the dead stump of my cigar, and brushed the ash off my trousers, and rubbed my eyes and wondered if i had been dreaming. but no! when i ran into the cheerless dining-room, with its pervading sense of imminent auction, i found the sliding panel behind the portrait by reynolds, which seemed to beam kindly encouragement upon me, and, lo! _the learned pig_ was there in a mass of musty manuscript. as everybody knows, the book made a hit. the _acadæum_ was unusually generous in its praise: "a lively picture of the century of farthingales and stomachers, marred only by numerous anachronisms and that stilted air of faked-up archæological knowledge which is, we suppose, inevitable in historical novels. the conversations are particularly artificial. still, we can forgive mr. halliwell a good deal of inaccuracy and inacquaintance with the period, in view of the graphic picture of the literary dictator from the novel point of view of a contemporary who was not among the worshippers. it is curious how the honest, sterling character of the man is brought out all the more clearly from the incapacity of the narrator to comprehend its greatness--to show this was a task that called for no little skill and subtlety. if it were only for this one ingenious idea, mr. halliwell's book would stand out from the mass of abortive attempts to resuscitate the past. he has failed to picture the times, but he has done what is better--he has given us human beings who are alive, instead of the futile shadows that flit through the walhalla of the average historical novel." all the leading critics were at one as to the cleverness with which the great soul of dr. johnson was made to stand out on the background of detraction, and the public was universally agreed that this was the only readable historical novel published for many years, and that the anachronisms didn't matter a pin. i don't know what i had done to tom addlestone; but when everybody was talking about me, he went about saying that i kept a ghost. i was annoyed, for i did not keep one in any sense, and i openly defied the world to produce him. why, i never saw him again myself--i believe he was too disgusted with the fillip he had given dr. johnson's reputation, and did not even take advantage of the christmas bank holiday. but addlestone's libel got to jenny grant's ears, and she came to me indignantly, and said: "i won't have it. you must either give up me or the ghost." "to give up you would be to give up the ghost, darling," i answered soothingly. "but you, and you alone, have a right to the truth. it is not my ghost at all, it is my great-grandfather's." "do you mean to say he bequeathed him to you?" "it came to that." i then told her the truth, and showed how in any case the profits of my ancestor's book rightfully reverted backwards to me. so we were married on them, and jenny, fired by my success, tried _her_ hand on a novel, and published it, truthfully enough, under the name of j. halliwell. she has written all my stories ever since, including this one; which, if it be necessarily false in the letter, is true in the spirit. _vagaries of a viscount._ that every man has a romance in his life has always been a pet theory of mine, so i was not surprised to find the immaculate dorking smoking a clay pipe in cable street (late ratcliff highway) at half-past eight of a winter's morning. nor was i surprised to find myself there, because, as a romancer, i have a poetic license to go anywhere and see everything. viscount dorking had just come out of an old clo' shop, and was got up like a sailor. under his arm was a bundle. he lurched against me without recognising me, for i, too, was masquerading in my shabbiest and roughest attire, and the morning was bleak and foggy, the round red sun flaming in the forehead of the morning sky like the eye of a cyclop. but there could be no doubt it was dorking--even if i had not been acquainted with the sedate viscount (that paradox of the peerage, whose treatises on pure mathematics were the joy of senior wranglers) i should have suspected something shady from the whiteness of my sailor's hands. dorking was a dapper little man, almost dissociable from gloves and a chimneypot. the sight of him shambling along like one of the crew of h. m. s. _pinafore_ gave me a pleasant thrill of excitement. i turned, and followed him along the narrow yellow street. he made towards the docks, turning down king david lane. he was apparently without any instrument of protection, though i, for my part, was glad to feel the grasp of the old umbrella that walks always with me, hand in knob. hard by the shadwell basin he came to a halt before a frowsy coffee-house, reflectively removed his pipe from his mouth, and whistled a bar of a once popular air in a peculiar manner. then he pushed open the bleared glass door, and was lost to view. after an instant's hesitation i pulled my sombrero over my eyes and strode in after him, plunging into a wave of musty warmth not entirely disagreeable after the frigid street. the boxes were full of queer waterside characters, among whom flitted a young woman robustly beautiful. the viscount was already smiling at her when i entered. "bring us the usual," he said, in a rough accent. "come along, jenny, pint and one," impatiently growled a weather-beaten old ruffian in a pilot's cap. "pawn your face!" murmured jenny, turning to me with an enquiring air. "pint and one," i said boldly, in as husky a tone as i could squeeze out. several battered visages, evidently belonging to _habitués_ of the place, were bent suspiciously in my direction; perhaps because my rig-out, though rough, had no flavour of sea-salt or river-mud, for no one took the least notice of dorking, except the comely attendant. i waited with some curiosity for my fare, which turned out to be nothing more mysterious than a pint of coffee and one thick slice of bread and butter. not to appear ignorant of the prices ruling, i tendered jenny a sixpence, whereupon she returned me fourpence-halfpenny. this appeared to me so ridiculously cheap that i had not the courage to offer her the change as i had intended, nor did she seem to expect it. the pint of coffee was served in one great hulking cup such as gargantua might have quaffed. i took a sip, and found it of the flavour of chalybeate springs. but it was hot, and i made shift to drink a little, casting furtive glances at dorking, three boxes off across the gangway. my gentleman sailor seemed quite at home, swallowing stolidly as though at his own breakfast-table. i grew impatient for him to have done, and beguiled the time by studying a placard on the wall offering a reward for information as to the whereabouts of a certain ship's cook who was wanted for knifing human flesh. and presently, curiously enough, in comes a police-sergeant on this very matter, and out goes dorking (rather hastily, i thought), with me at his heels. no sooner had he got round a corner than he started running at a rate that gave me a stitch in the side. he did not stop till he reached a cab-rank. there was only one vehicle on it, and the coughing, red-nosed driver, unpleasantly suggesting a mixture of grog and fog, was climbing to his seat when i came cautiously and breathlessly up, and dorking was returning to his trousers' pocket a jingling mass of gold and silver coins, which he had evidently been exhibiting to the sceptical cabman. he seemed to walk these regions with the fearlessness of una in the enchanted forest. i had no resource but to hang on to the rear, despite the alarums of "whip behind," raised by envious and inconsiderate urchins. and in this manner, defiantly dodging the cabman, who several times struck me unfairly behind his back, i drove through a labyrinth of sordid streets to the bethnal green museum. here we alighted, and the viscount strolled about outside the iron railings, from time to time anxiously scrutinising the church clock and looking towards the fountain which only performs in the summer, and was then wearing its winter night-cap. at last, as if weary of waiting, he walked with sudden precipitation towards the turnstile, and was lost to view within. after a moment i followed him, but was stopped by the janitor, who, with an air of astonishment, informed me there was sixpence to pay, it being a wednesday. i understood at once why the viscount had selected this day, for there was no one to be seen inside, and it was five minutes ere i discovered him. he was in the national portrait gallery, before one of sir peter lely's insipid beauties, which to my surprise he was copying in pencil. evidently he was trying to while away the time. at eleven o'clock to the second he scribbled something underneath the sketch, folded it up carefully, picked up his bundle and walked unhesitatingly downstairs into the second gallery, where, after glancing about to assure himself that the policeman's head was turned away, he deposited the paper between two bottles of tape-worms, and stole out through the back door. feverishly seizing the sketch, i followed him, but the policeman's eye was now upon me, and i had to walk with dignified slowness, though i was in agonies lest i should lose my man. my anxiety was justified; when i reached the grounds, the viscount was nowhere to be seen. i ran hither and thither like a madman, along the back street and about the grounds, hacking my shins against a perambulator, and at last sank upon a frigid garden seat, breathless and exhausted. i now bethought me of the paper clenched in my fist, and, smoothing it out, deciphered these words faintly pencilled beneath a caricature of the court beauty:-- "not my fault you missed me. if you are still set on your folly, you will find me lunching at the chingford hotel." i sprang up exultant, new fire in my veins. true, the mystery was darkening, but it was the darkness that precedes the dawn. "_cherchez la femme!_" i muttered, and darting down three colts lane i reached the junction, only to find the barrier dashed in my face. but half-a-crown drove it back, and i sprang into the guard's van on his very heels. a shilling stifled the oath on his lips, and transferred it to mine when i discovered i had jumped into the enfield fast. before i really got to chingford it was long past noon. but i found him. the viscount was toying with a chartreuse in the dining-room. the waiters eyed me suspiciously, for i was shabby and dusty and haggard-looking. to my surprise dorking had doffed the sailor, and wore a loud checked suit! he looked up as i entered, but did not appear to recognise me. there was no one with him. still i had found him. that was the prime thing. becoming conscious i was faint with hunger, i took up the menu, when to my vexation i saw the viscount pay his bill, and don an overcoat and a billy-cock, and ere i could snatch bite or sup i was striding along the slimy forest paths, among the gaunt, fog-wrapped trees, following the viscount by his footprints whenever i lost him for a moment among the avenues. dorking marched with quick, decisive steps. in the heart of the forest, by a great oak, whose roots sprawled in every direction, he came to a standstill. hidden behind some brushwood, i awaited the sequel with beating heart. the viscount took out a great coloured handkerchief, and spread it carefully over the roots of the oak; then he sat down on the handkerchief, and whistled the same bar of the same once popular air he had whistled outside the coffee-house. immediately a broken-nosed man emerged from behind a bush, and addressed the viscount. i strained my ears, but could not catch their conversation, but i heard dorking laugh heartily, as he sprang up and clapped the man on the shoulder. they walked off together. i was now excited to the wildest degree; i forgot the pangs of baffled appetite; my whole being was strung to find a key to the strange proceedings of the mathematical viscount. tracking their double footsteps through the mist, i found them hobnobbing in a public-house on the forest border. after peeping in, i ran round to another door, and stood in an adjoining bar, where, without being seen, i could have a snack of bread and cheese, and hear all. "could you bring her round to my house to-night?" said dorking, in a hoarse whisper. "you shall have the money down." "right, sir!" said the man. and then their pewters clinked. to my chagrin this was all the conversation. the viscount strode out alone--except for my company. the fog had grown deeper, and i was glad to be conducted to the station. this time we went to liverpool street. dorking lingered at the book-stall, and at last enquired if they had yesterday's _times_. receiving a reply in the negative, he clucked his tongue impatiently. then, as with a sudden thought, he ran up to the north london railway book-stall, only to be again disappointed. he took out the great coloured handkerchief, and wiped his forehead. then he entered into confidential conversation with an undistinguished stranger, fat and foreign, who had been looking eagerly up and down at the extreme end of the platform. re-descending into the street, he jumped into a charing cross 'bus. as he went inside i had no option but to go outside, though the air was yellow and i felt chilled to the bone. [illustration: in confidential conversation with an undistinguished foreigner.] alighting at charing cross, he went into the telegraph office, and wrote a telegram. the composition seemed to cause him great difficulty. standing outside the door, i saw him discard two half-begun forms. when he came out i made a swift calculation of the chances, and determined to secure the two forms, even at the risk of losing him. neither had an address. one read: "if you are still set on your fol--"; the other: "come to-night if you are still--" bolting out with these precious scraps of evidence, that only added fuel to the flame of curiosity that was consuming me, i turned cold to find the viscount swallowed up in the crowd. after an instant's agonised hesitation, i hailed a hansom, and drove to his flat in victoria street. the valet told me the viscount was ill in bed, and could not see me. i read in his face that it was a lie. i resolved to loiter outside the building till dorking's return. i had not long to wait. in less than ten minutes a hansom discharged him at my feet. had i not been prepared for anything, i should not have recognised him again in his red whiskers, white hat, and blue spectacles. he rang the bell, and enquired of his own valet if viscount dorking was at home. the man said he was ill in bed. "oh, we'll soon put him on his legs again," interrupted dorking, with a professional air, and pushed his valet aside. in that moment the solution dawned upon me. _dorking was mad!_ nothing but insanity would account for his day's vagaries. i felt it was my duty, as a fellow-creature, to look to him. i followed him, to the open-eyed consternation of the valet. suddenly he turned upon me, and seized me savagely by the throat. i felt choking. my worst fear was confirmed. "no further, my man," he cried, flinging me back. "now go, and tell her ladyship how you have earned your fee!" "dorking! are you mad?" i gasped. "don't you remember me--mr. pry--from the bachelor's club?" "great heavens, paul!" he cried. then he fell back on an ottoman, and laughed till the whiskers ran down his sides. he always had a sense of humour, i remembered. we explained the situation to each other. dorking had an eccentric aunt who wished to leave her money to him. suddenly dorking learnt from his valet, who was betrothed to her ladyship's maid, that she had taken it into her head he could not be so virtuous and so devoted to pure mathematics as he appeared, and so she had commissioned a private detective agency to watch her nephew, and discover how deep the still waters ran. incensed at the suspicion, he had that day started a course of action calculated to bamboozle the agency, and having no other meaning whatever. when he caught sight of me gazing at him so curiously he mistook me for one of its minions, and determined to lead me a dance; the mistake was confirmed by my patient obedience to his piping. the broken-nosed man was an accident. anticipating his value as a beautiful false clue, dorking laughed uproariously at the sight of him, and readily agreed to buy a french poodle. the queen's triplets, a nursery tale for the old. [illustration: the queen's triplets, a nursery tale for the old] once upon a time there was a queen who unexpectedly gave birth to three princes. they were all so exactly alike that after a moment or two it was impossible to remember which was the eldest or which was the youngest. any two of them, sort them how you pleased, were always twins. they all cried in the same key and with the same comic grimaces. in short, there was not a hair's-breadth of difference between them--not that they had a hair's-breadth between them, for, like most babies, they were prematurely bald. the king was very much put out. he did not mind the expense of keeping three heir apparents, for that fell on the country, and was defrayed by an impost called "the queen's tax." but it was the consecrated custom of the kingdom that the crown should pass over to the eldest son, and the absence of accurate knowledge upon this point was perplexing. a triumvirate was out of the question; the multiplication of monarchs would be vexation to the people, and the rule of three would drive them mad. the queen was just as annoyed, though on different grounds. she felt it hard enough to be the one mother in the realm who could not get the queen's bounty, without having to suffer the king's reproaches. her heart was broken, and she died soon after of laryngitis. to distinguish the triplets (when it was too late) they were always dressed one in green, one in blue, and one in black, the colours of the national standard, and naturally got to be popularly known by the sobriquets of the green prince, the blue prince, and the black prince. every year they got older and older till at last they became young men. and every year the king got older and older till at last he became an old man, and the fear crept into his heart that he might be restored to his wife and leave the kingdom embroiled in civil feud unless he settled straightway who should be the heir. but, being human, notwithstanding his court laureates, he put off the disagreeable duty from day to day, and might have died without an heir, if the envoys from paphlagonia had not aroused him to the necessity of a decision. for they announced that the princess of paphlagonia, being suddenly orphaned, would be sent to him in the twelfth moon that she might marry his eldest son as covenanted by ancient treaty. this was the last straw. "but i don't know who is my eldest son!" yelled the king, who had a vast respect for covenants and the constitution. in great perturbation he repaired to a famous oracle, at that time worked by a priestess with her hair let down her back. the king asked her a plain question: "which is my eldest son?" after foaming at the mouth like an open champagne bottle, she replied:-- "the eldest is he that the princess shall wed." [illustration: "'the eldest is he that the princess shall wed.'"] the king said he knew that already, and was curtly told that if the replies did not give satisfaction he could go elsewhere. so he went to the wise men and the magicians, and held a levée of them, and they gave him such goodly counsel that the chief magician was henceforth honoured with the privilege of holding the green, black, and blue tricolour over the king's head at mealtimes. soon after, it being the twelfth moon, the king set forward with a little retinue to meet the princess of paphlagonia, whose coming had got abroad; but returned two days later with the news that the princess was confined to her room, and would not arrive in the city till next year. [illustration: "the chief magician."] on the last day of the year the king summoned the three princes to the presence chamber. and they came, the green prince, and the blue prince, and the black prince, and made obeisance to the monarch, who sat in moiré antique robes, on the old gold throne, with his courtiers all around him. "my sons," he said, "ye are aware that, according to the immemorial laws of the realm, one of you is to be my heir, only i know not which of you he is; the difficulty is complicated by the fact that i have covenanted to espouse him to the princess of paphlagonia, of whose imminent arrival ye have heard. in this dilemma there are those who would set the sovereignty of the state upon the hazard of a die. but not by such undignified methods do i deem it prudent to extort the designs of the gods. there are ways alike more honourable to you and to me of ascertaining the intentions of the fates. and first, the wise men and the magicians recommend that ye be all three sent forth upon an arduous emprise. as all men know, somewhere in the great seas that engirdle our dominion, somewhere beyond the ultimate thule, there rangeth a vast monster, intolerable, not to be borne. every ninth moon this creature approacheth our coasts, deluging the land with an inky vomit. this plaguy serpent cannot be slain, for the soothsayers aver it beareth a charmed life, but it were a mighty achievement, if for only one year, the realm could be relieved of its oppression. are ye willing to set forth separately upon this knightly quest?" [illustration: "'there rangeth a vast monster.'"] then the three princes made enthusiastic answer, entreating to be sped on the journey forthwith, and a great gladness ran through the presence chamber, for all had suffered much from the annual incursions of the monster. and the king's heart was fain of the gallant spirit of the princes. "'tis well," said he. "to-morrow, at the first dawn of the new year, shall ye fare forth together; when ye reach the river ye shall part, and for eight moons shall ye wander whither ye will; only, when the ninth moon rises, shall ye return and tell me how ye have fared. hasten now, therefore, and equip yourselves as ye desire, and if there be aught that will help you in the task, ye have but to ask for it." then, answering quickly before his brothers could speak, the black prince cried: "sire, i would crave the magic boat which saileth under the sea and destroyeth mighty armaments." "it is thine," replied the king. then the green prince said: "sire, grant me the magic car which saileth through the air over the great seas." the black prince started and frowned, but the king answered, "it is granted." then, turning to the blue prince, who seemed lost in meditation, the king said: "why art thou silent, my son? is there nothing i can give thee?" "thanks, i will take a little pigeon," answered the blue prince abstractedly. the courtiers stared and giggled, and the black prince chuckled, but the blue prince was seemingly too proud to back out of his request. so at sunrise on the morrow the three princes set forth, journeying together till they came to the river where they had agreed to part company. here the magic boat was floating at anchor, while the magic car was tied to the trunk of a plane-tree upon the bank, and the little pigeon, fastened by a thread, was fluttering among the branches. now, when the green prince saw the puny pigeon, he was like to die of laughing. "dost thou think to feed the serpent with thy pigeon?" he sneered. "i fear me thou wilt not choke him off thus." "and what hast thou to laugh at?" retorted the black prince, interposing. "dost thou think to find the serpent of the sea in the air?" "he is always in the air," murmured the blue prince, inaudibly. "nay," said the green prince, scratching his head dubiously. "but thou didst so hastily annex the magic boat, i had to take the next best thing." "dost thou accuse me of unfairness?" cried the black prince in a pained voice. "sooner than thou shouldst say that, i would change with thee." "wouldst thou, indeed?" enquired the green prince eagerly. "ay, that would i," said the black prince indignantly. "take the magic boat, and may the gods speed thee." so saying he jumped briskly into the magic car, cut the rope, and sailed aloft. then, looking down contemptuously upon the blue prince, he shouted: "come, mount thy pigeon, and be off in search of the monster." but the blue prince replied, "i will await you here." then the green prince pushed off his boat, chuckling louder than ever. "dost thou expect to keep the creature off our coasts by guarding the head of the river?" he scoffed. but the blue prince replied, "i will await you both here till the ninth moon." no sooner were his brothers gone than the blue prince set about building a hut. here he lived happily, fishing his meals out of the river or snaring them out of the sky. the pigeon was never for a moment in danger of being eaten. it was employed more agreeably to itself and its master in operations which will appear anon. most of the time the blue prince lay on his back among the wild flowers, watching the river rippling to the sea or counting the passing of the eight moons, that alternately swelled and dwindled, now showing like the orb of the black prince's car, now like the green prince's boat. sometimes he read scraps of papyrus, and his face shone. one lovely starry night, as the blue prince was watching the heavens, it seemed to him as if the eighth moon in dying had dropped out of the firmament and was falling upon him. but it was only the black prince come back. his garments were powdered with snow, his brows were knitted gloomily, he had a dejected, despondent aspect. "thou here!" he snapped. "of course," said the blue prince cheerfully, though he seemed a little embarrassed all the same. "haven't i been here all the time? but go into my hut, i've kept supper hot for thee." "has the green prince had his?" "no, i haven't seen anything of him. hast thou scotched the serpent?" "no, i haven't seen anything of him," growled the black prince. "i've passed backwards and forwards over the entire face of the ocean, but nowhere have i caught the slightest glimpse of him. what a fool i was to give up the magic boat! he never seems to come to the surface." all this while the blue prince was dragging his brother with suspicious solicitude towards the hut, where he sat him down to his own supper of ortolans and oysters. but the host had no sooner run outside again, on the pretext of seeing if the green prince was coming, than there was a disturbance and eddying in the stream as of a rally of water-rats, and the magic boat shot up like a catapult, and the green prince stepped on deck all dry and dusty, and with the air of a draggled dragon-fly. "good evening, hast thou er--scotched the serpent?" stammered the blue prince, taken aback. "no, i haven't even seen anything of him," growled the green prince. "i have skimmed along the entire surface of the ocean, and sailed every inch beneath it, but nowhere have i caught the slightest glimpse of him. what a fool i was to give up the magic car! from a height i could have commanded an ampler area of ocean. perhaps he was up the river." "no, i haven't seen anything of him," replied the blue prince hastily. "but go into my hut, thy supper must be getting quite cold." he hurried his verdant brother into the hut, and gave him some chestnuts out of the oven (it was the best he could do for him), and then rushed outside again, on the plea of seeing if the serpent was coming. but he seemed to expect him to come from the sky, for, leaning against the trunk of the plane-tree by the river, he resumed his anxious scrutiny of the constellations. presently there was a gentle whirring in the air, and a white bird became visible, flying rapidly downwards in his direction. almost at the same instant he felt himself pinioned by a rope to the tree-trunk, and saw the legs of the alighting pigeon neatly prisoned in the black prince's fist. "aha!" croaked the black prince triumphantly. "now we shall see through thy little schemes." he detached the slip of papyrus which dangled from the pigeon's neck. "how darest thou read my letters?" gasped the blue prince. "if i dare to rob the mail, i shall certainly not hesitate to read the letters," answered the black prince coolly, and went on to enunciate slowly (for the light was bad) the following lines:-- "heart-sick i watch the old moon's ling'ring death, and long upon my face to feel thy breath; i burn to see its final flicker die, and greet our moon of honey in the sky." "what is all this moonshine?" he concluded in bewilderment. now the blue prince was the soul of candour, and seeing that nothing could now be lost by telling the truth, he answered:-- "this is a letter from a damsel who resideth in the tower of telifonia, on the outskirts of the capital; we are engaged. no doubt the language seemeth to thee a little overdone, but wait till thy turn cometh." [illustration: the damsel of the tower.] "and so thou hast employed this pigeon as a carrier between thee and this suburban young person?" cried the black prince, feeling vaguely boiling over with rage. "even so," answered his brother, "but guard thy tongue. the lady of whom thou speakest so disrespectfully is none other than the princess of paphlagonia." "eh? what?" gasped the black prince. "she hath resided there since the twelfth moon of last year. the king received her the first time he set out to meet her." "dost thou dare say the king hath spoken untruth?" "nay, nay. the king is a wise man. wise men never mean what they say. the king said she was confined to her room. it is true, for he had confined her in the tower with her maidens for fear she should fall in love with the wrong prince, or the reverse, before the rightful heir was discovered. the king said she would not arrive in the city till next year. this also is true. as thou didst rightly observe, the tower of telifonia is situated in the suburbs. the king did not bargain for my discovering that a beautiful woman lived in its topmost turret." "nay, how couldst thou discover that? the king did not lend thee the magic car, and thou certainly couldst not see her at that height without the magic glass!" "i have not seen her. but through the embrasure i often saw the sunlight flashing and leaping like a thing of life, and i knew it was what the children call a 'johnny noddy.' now a 'johnny noddy' argueth a mirror, and a mirror argueth a woman, and frequent use thereof argueth a beautiful woman. so, when in the presence chamber the king told us of his dilemma as to the hand of the princess of paphlagonia, it instantly dawned upon me who the beautiful woman was, and why the king was keeping her hidden away, and why he had hidden away his meaning also. wherefore straightway i asked for a pigeon, knowing that the pigeons of the town roost on the tower of telifonia, so that i had but to fly my bird at the end of a long string like a kite to establish communication between me and the fair captive. in time my little messenger grew so used to the journey to and fro that i could dispense with the string. our courtship has been most satisfactory. we love each other ardently, and--" "but you have never seen each other!" interrupted the black prince. "thou forgettest we are both royal personages," said the blue prince in astonished reproof. "but this is gross treachery--what right hadst thou to make these underhand advances in our absence?" "thou forgettest i had to scotch the serpent," said the blue prince in astonished reproof. "thou forgettest also that she can only marry the heir to the throne." "ah, true!" said the black prince, considerably relieved. "and as thou hast chosen to fritter away the time in making love to her, thou hast taken the best way to lose her." "thou forgettest i shall have to marry her," said the blue prince in astonished reproof. "not only because i have given my word to a lady, but because i have promised the king to do my best to scotch the serpent of the sea. really thou seemest terribly dull to-day. let me put the matter in a nutshell. if he who scotches the sea serpent is to marry the princess, then would i scotch the sea serpent by marrying the princess, and marry the princess to scotch the sea serpent. thou hast searched the face of the sea, and our brother has dragged its depths, and nowhere have ye seen the sea serpent. yet in the ninth moon he will surely come, and the land will be covered with an inky vomit as in former years. but if i marry the princess of paphlagonia in the ninth moon, the royal wedding will ward off the sea serpent, and not a scribe will shed ink to tell of his advent. therefore, instead of ranging through the earth, i stayed at home and paid my addresses to the--" "yes, yes, what a fool i was!" interrupted the black prince, smiting his brow with his palm, so that the pigeon escaped from between his fingers, and winged its way back to the tower of telifonia as if to carry his words to the princess. "thou forgettest thou art a fool still," said the blue prince in astonished reproof. "prithee, unbind me forthwith." "nay, i am a fool no longer, for it is i that shall wed the princess of paphlagonia and scotch the sea serpent, it is i that have sent the pigeon to and fro, and unless thou makest me thine oath to be silent on the matter i will slay thee and cast thy body into the river." "thou forgettest our brother, the green prince," said the blue prince in astonished reproof. "bah! he hath eyes for naught but the odd ortolans and oysters i sacrificed that he might gorge himself withal, while i spied out thy secret. he shall be told that i returned to exchange my car for thy pigeon even as i exchanged my boat for his car. come, thine oath or thou diest." and a jewelled scimitar shimmered in the starlight. [illustration: "a jewelled scimitar shimmered in the starlight."] the blue prince reflected that though life without love was hardly worth living, death was quite useless. so he swore and went in to supper. when he found that the green prince had not spared even a baked chestnut before he fell asleep, he swore again. and on the morrow when the princes approached the tower of telifonia, with its flashing "johnny noddy," they met a courier from the king, who, having informed himself of the black prince's success, ran ahead with the rumour thereof. and lo! when the princes passed through the city gate they found the whole population abroad clad in all their bravery, and flags flying and bells ringing and roses showering from the balconies, and merry music swelling in all the streets for joy of the prospect of the sea serpent's absence. and when the new moon rose, the three princes, escorted by flute-players, hied them to the presence chamber, and the king embraced his sons, and the black prince stood forward and explained that if a prince were married in the ninth moon it would prevent the monster's annual visit. then the king fell upon the black prince's neck and wept and said, "my son! my son! my pet! my baby! my tootsicums! my popsy-wopsy!" and then, recovering himself, and addressing the courtiers, he said: "the gods have enabled me to discover my youngest son. if they will only now continue as propitious, so that i may discover the elder of the other two, i shall die not all unhappy." [illustration: "'the gods have enabled me to discover my youngest son.'"] but the black prince could repress his astonishment no longer. "am i dreaming, sire?" he cried. "surely i have proved myself the eldest, not the youngest!" "thou forgettest that thou hast come off successful," replied the king in astonished reproof. "or art thou so ignorant of history or of the sacred narratives handed down to us by our ancestors that thou art unaware that when three brothers set out on the same quest, it is always the youngest brother that emerges triumphant? such is the will of the gods. cease, therefore, thy blasphemous talk, lest they overhear thee and be put out." a low, ominous murmur from the courtiers emphasised the king's warning. "but the princess--she at least is mine," protested the unhappy prince. "we love each other--we are engaged." "thou forgettest she can only marry the heir," replied the king in astonished reproof. "wouldst thou have us repudiate our solemn treaty?" "but i wasn't really the first to hit on the idea at all!" cried the black prince desperately. "ask the blue prince! he never telleth untruth." "thou forgettest i have taken an oath of silence on the matter," replied the blue prince in astonished reproof. "the black prince it was that first hit on the idea," volunteered the green prince. "he exchanged his boat for the car and the car for the pigeon." so the three princes were dismissed, while the king took counsel with the magicians and the wise men who never mean what they say. and the court chamberlain, wearing the orchid of office in his buttonhole, was sent to interview the princess, and returned saying that she refused to marry any one but the proprietor of the pigeon, and that she still had his letters as evidence in case of his marrying anyone else. "bah!" said the king, "she shall obey the treaty. six feet of parchment are not to be put aside for the whim of a girl five foot eight. the only real difficulty remaining is to decide whether the blue prince or the green prince is the elder. let me see--what was it the oracle said? perhaps it will be clearer now:-- "'the eldest is he that the princess shall wed.' "no, it still seems merely to avoid stating anything new." "pardon me, sire," replied the chief magician; "it seems perfectly plain now. obviously, thou art to let the princess choose her husband, and the oracle guarantees that, other things being equal, she shall select the eldest. if thou hadst let her have the pick from among the three, she would have selected the one with whom she was in love--the black prince to wit, and that would have interfered with the oracle's arrangements. but now that we know with whom she is in love, we can remove that one, and then, there being no reason why she should choose the green prince rather than the blue prince, the deities of the realm undertake to inspire her to go by age only." "thou hast spoken well," said the king. "let the princess of paphlagonia be brought, and let the two princes return." so after a space the beautiful princess, preceded by trumpeters, was conducted to the palace, blinking her eyes at the unaccustomed splendour of the lights. and the king and all the courtiers blinked their eyes, dazzled by her loveliness. she was clad in white samite, and on her shoulder was perched a pet pigeon. the king sat in his moiré robes on the old gold throne, and the blue prince stood on his right hand, and the green prince on his left, the black prince as the youngest having been sent to bed early. the princess courtesied three times, the third time so low that the pigeon was flustered, and flew off her shoulder, and, after circling about, alighted on the head of the blue prince. [illustration: "the beautiful princess, preceded by trumpeters, was conducted to the palace."] "it is the crown," said the chief magician, in an awestruck voice. then the princess's eyes looked around in search of the pigeon, and when they lighted on the prince's head they kindled as the grey sea kindles at sunrise. an answering radiance shone in the blue prince's eyes, as, taking the pigeon that nestled in his hair, he let it fly towards the princess. but the princess, her bosom heaving as if another pigeon fluttered beneath the white samite, caught it and set it free again, and again it made for the blue prince. three times the bird sped to and fro. then the princess raised her humid eyes heavenward, and from her sweet lips rippled like music the verse:-- "last night i watched its final flicker die." and the blue prince answered:-- "_now_ greet our moon of honey in the sky." half fainting with rapture the princess fell into his arms, and from all sides of the great hall arose the cries, "the heir! the heir! long live our future king! the eldest-born! the oracle's fulfilled!" such was the origin of lawn tennis, which began with people tossing pigeons to each other in imitation of the prince and princess in the palace hall. and this is why love plays so great a part in the game, and that is how the match was arranged between the blue prince and the princess of paphlagonia. _a successful operation._ robert came home, anxious and perturbed. for the first time since his return from their honeymoon he crossed the threshold of the tiny house without a grateful sense of blessedness. "what is it, robert?" panted mary, her sweet lips cold from his perfunctory kiss. "he is going blind," he said in low tones. "not your father!" she murmured, dazed. "yes, my father! i thought it was nothing, or rather i scarcely thought about it at all. the doctor at the eye hospital merely asked him to bring some one with him next time; naturally he came to me." there was a touch of bitterness about the final phrase. "oh, how terrible!" said mary. her pretty face looked almost wan. "i don't see that you're called upon to distress yourself so much, dear," said robert, a little resentfully. "he hasn't even been a friend to you." "oh, robert! how can you think of all that now? if he did try to keep you from marrying a penniless, friendless girl, if he did force you to work long years for me, was it not all for the best? now that his fortune has been swept away, where would you be without money or occupation?" "where would providence be without its women-defenders?" murmured robert. "you don't understand finance, dear. he might easily have provided for me long before the crash came." "never mind, robert. are we not all the happier for having waited for each other?" and in the spiritual ecstasy of her glance he forgot for a while his latest trouble. robert's father lived in a little room on a small allowance made him by his outcast son. broken by age and misfortune, he pottered about chess-rooms and debating forums, garrulous and dogmatic, and given to tippling. but now the consciousness of his coming infirmity crushed him, and he sat for days on his bed brooding, waiting in terror for the darkness, and glad when day after day ended only in the shadows of eve. sometimes, instead of the dreaded darkness, sunlight came. that was when mary dropped in to cheer him up, and to repeat to him that the hospital took a most hopeful view of his case, was only waiting for the darkness to be thickest to bring back the dawn. it took four months before the light faded utterly, and then another month before the film was opaque enough to allow the cataract to be couched. the old man was to go into the hospital for the operation. robert hired a lad to be with him during the month of waiting, and sometimes sat with him in the evenings, after business, and now and then the landlady looked in and told him her troubles, and the attendant was faithful and went out frequently to buy him gin. but it was only mary who could really soothe him now, for the poor old creature's soul groped blindly amid new apprehensions--a nervous dread of the chloroforming, the puncturing, the strange sounds of voices of the great blank hospital, where he felt confusedly he would be lost in an ocean of unfathomable night, incapable even of divining, from past experience, the walls about him or the ceiling over his head, and withal a paralysing foreboding that the operation would be a failure, that he would live out the rest of his days with the earth prematurely over his eyes. "i am very glad to see you, my dear," he would say when mary came, and then he fell a-maundering self-pitifully. mary went home one day and said, "robert, dear, i have been thinking." "yes, my pet," he said encouragingly, for she looked timid and hesitant. "couldn't we have the operation performed here?" he was startled; protested, pointed out the impossibility. but she had answers for all his objections. they could give up their own bedroom for a fortnight--it would only be a fortnight or three weeks at most--turn their sitting-room into a bedroom for themselves. what if infinite care would be necessary in regulating the "dark room," surely they could be as careful as the indifferent hospital nurses if they were only told what to do, and as for the trouble, that wasn't worth considering. "but you forget, my foolish little girl," he said at last, "if he comes here we shall have to pay the expenses of the operation ourselves." "well, would that be much?" she asked innocently. "only fifty guineas or so, i should think," he replied crushingly. "what with the operating fee, and the nurse, and the subsequent medical attendance." but mary was not altogether crushed. "it wouldn't be all our savings," she murmured. "are you forgetting what we shall be needing our savings for?" he said with gentle reproach, as he stroked her soft hair. she blushed angelically. "no, but surely there will be enough left and--and i shall be making all his things myself--and by that time we shall have put by a little more." in the end she conquered. the old man, to whom no faintest glimmer now penetrated, was installed in the best bedroom, which was darkened by double blinds and strips of cloth over every chink and a screen before the door; and a nurse sat on guard lest any ray or twinkle should find its way into the pitchy gloom. the great specialist came with two assistants, and departed in an odour of chloroform, conscious of another dexterous deed, to return only when the critical moment of raising the bandage should have arrived. during the fortnight of suspense an assistant replaced him, and the old man lay quiet and hopeful, rousing himself to talk dogmatically to his visitors. mary gave him such time as she could spare from household duties, and he always kissed her on the forehead (so that his bandage just grazed her hair), remarking he was very glad to see her. it was a strange experience, these conversations carried on in absolute darkness, and they gave her a feeling of kinship with the blind. she discovered that smiles were futile, and that laughter alone availed in this uncanny intercourse. for compensation, her face could wear an anxious expression without alarming the patient. but it rarely did, for her spirits mounted with his. before the operation she had been terribly anxious, wondering at the last moment if it would not have been performed more safely at the hospital, and ready to take upon her shoulders the responsibility for a failure. but as day after day went by, and all seemed going well, her thoughts veered round. she felt sure they would not have been so careful at the hospital. it was owing to this new confidence that one fatal night, carrying her candle, she walked mechanically into her bedroom, forgetting it was not hers. the nurse sprang up instantly, rushed forward, and blew out the light. mary screamed, the screen fell with a clatter, the blind old man awoke and shrieked nervously--it was a terrible moment. after that mary went through agonies of apprehension and remorse. fortunately the end of the operation was very near now. in a day or two the great specialist came to remove the bandage, while the nurse carefully admitted a feeble illumination. if the patient could see now, the rest was a mere matter of time, of cautious gradation of light in the sick chamber, so that there might be no relapse. mary dared not remain in the room at the instant of supreme crisis; she lingered outside, overwrought. slowly, with infinite solicitude, the bandage was raised. "can you see anything?" burst from robert's lips. "yes, but what makes the window look red?" grumbled the old man. "i congratulate you," said the great specialist in loud, hearty accents. "thank god!" sobbed mary's voice outside. when her child was born it was blind. _flutter-duck._ _a ghetto grotesque._ chapter i. flutter-duck in feather. "so sitting, served by man and maid, she felt her heart grow prouder." --tennyson: _the goose_. although everybody calls her "flutter-duck" now, there was a time when the inventor had exclusive rights in the nickname, and used it only in the privacy of his own apartment. that time did not last long, for the inventor was flutter-duck's husband, and his apartment was a public work-room among other things. he gave her the name in yiddish--_flatterkatchki_--a descriptive music in syllables, full of the flutter and quack of the farm-yard. it expressed his dissatisfaction with her airy, flighty propensities, her love of gaiety and gadding. she was a butterfly, irresponsible, off to balls and parties almost once a month, and he, a self-conscious ant, resented her. from the point of view of piety she was also sadly to seek, rejecting wigs in favour of the fringe. in the weak moments of early love her husband had acquiesced in the profanity, but later all the gain to her soft prettiness did not compensate for the twinges of his conscience. flutter-duck's husband was a furrier--a master-furrier, for did he not run a workshop? this workshop was also his living-room, and this living-room was also his bedroom. it was a large front room on the first floor, over a chandler's shop in an old-fashioned house in montague street, whitechapel. its shape was peculiar--an oblong stretching streetwards, interrupted in one of the longer walls by a square projection that might have been accounted a room in itself (by the landlord), and was, indeed, used as a kitchen. that the fireplace had been built in this corner was thus an advantage. entering through the door on the grand staircase, you found yourself nearest the window with the bulk of the room on your left, and the square recess at the other end of your wall, so that you could not see it at first. at the window, which, of course, gave on montague street, was the bare wooden table at which the "hands"--man, woman, and boy--sat and stitched. the finished work--a confusion of fur caps, boas, tippets, and trimmings--hung over the dirty wainscot between the door and the recess. the middle of the room was quite bare, to give the workers freedom of movement, but the wall facing you was a background for luxurious furniture. first--nearest the window--came a sofa, on which even in the first years of marriage flutter-duck's husband sometimes lay prone, too unwell to do more than superintend the operations, for he was of a consumptive habit. over the sofa hung a large gilt-framed mirror, the gilt protected by muslin drapings, in the corners of which flyblown paper flowers grew. next to the sofa was a high chest of drawers crowned with dusty decanters, and after an interval filled up with the sabbath clothes hanging on pegs and covered by a white sheet; the bed used up the rest of the space, its head and one side touching the walls, and its foot stretching towards the kitchen fire. on the wall above this fire hung another mirror,--small and narrow, and full of wavering, watery reflections,--also framed in muslin, though this time the muslin served to conceal dirt, not to protect gilt. the kitchen-dresser, decorated with pink needle-work paper, was at right angles to the fireplace, and it faced the kitchen table, at which flutter-duck cleaned fish, peeled potatoes, and made meat _kosher_ by salting and soaking it, as rabbinic law demanded. by the foot of the bed, in the narrow wall opposite the window, was a door leading to a tiny inner room. for years this door remained locked; another family lived on the other side, and the furrier had neither the means nor the need for an extra bedroom. it was a room made for escapades and romances, connected with the back-yard by a steep ladder, up and down which the family might be seen going, and from which you could tumble into a broken-headed water-butt, or, by a dexterous back-fall, arrive in a dustbin. jacob's ladder the neighbours called it, though the family name was isaacs. and over everything was the trail of the fur. the air was full of a fine fluff--a million little hairs floated about the room covering everything, insinuating themselves everywhere, getting down the backs of the workers and tickling them, getting into their lungs and making them cough, getting into their food and drink and sickening them till they learnt callousness. they awoke with "furred" tongues, and they went to bed with them. the irritating filaments gathered on their clothes, on their faces, on the crockery, on the sofa, on the mirrors (big and little), on the bed, on the decanters, on the sheet that hid the sabbath clothes--an impalpable down overlaying everything, penetrating even to the drinking-water in the board-covered zinc bucket, and covering "rebbitzin," the household cat, with foreign fur. and in this room, drawing such breath of life, they sat--man, woman, boy--bending over boas bewitching young ladies would skate in; stitch, stitch, from eight till two and from three to eight, with occasional overtime that ran on now and again far into the next day; till their eyelids would not keep open any longer, and they couched on the floor on a heap of finished work; stitch, stitch, winter and summer, all day long, swallowing hirsute bread and butter at nine in the morning, and pausing at tea-time for five o'clock fur. and when twilight fell the gas was lit in the crowded room, thickening still further the clogged atmosphere, charged with human breaths and street odours, and wafts from the kitchen corner and the leathery smell of the dyed skins; and at times the yellow fog would steal in to contribute its clammy vapours. and often of a winter's morning the fog arrived early, and the gas that had lighted the first hours of work would burn on all day in the thick air, flaring on the oriental figures with that strange glamour of gas-light in fog, and throwing heavy shadows on the bare boards; glazing with satin sheen the pendent snakes of fur, illuming the bowed heads of the workers and the master's sickly face under the tasselled smoking-cap, and touching up the faded fineries of flutter-duck, as she flitted about, chattering and cooking. into such an atmosphere flutter-duck one day introduced a daughter, the "hands" getting an afternoon off, in honour not of the occasion but of decency. after that the crying of an infant became a feature of existence in the furrier's workshop; gradually it got rarer, as little rachel grew up and reconciled herself to life. but the fountain of tears never quite ran dry. rachel was a passionate child, and did not enjoy the best of parents. every morning flutter-duck, who felt very grateful to heaven for this crowning boon,--at one time bitterly dubious,--made the child say her prayers. flutter-duck said them word by word, and rachel repeated them. they were in hebrew, and neither flutter-duck nor rachel had the least idea what they meant. for years these prayers preluded stormy scenes. "_médiâni!_" flutter-duck would begin. "_médiâni!_" little rachel would lisp in her piping voice. it was two words, but flutter-duck imagined it was one. she gave the syllables in recitative, the _âni_ just two notes higher than the _médi_, and she accented them quite wrongly. when rachel first grew articulate, flutter-duck was so overjoyed to hear the little girl echoing her, that she would often turn to her husband with an exclamation of "thou hearest, lewis, love?" and he, impatiently: "nee, nee, i hear." flutter-duck, thus recalled from the pleasures of maternity to its duties, would recommence the prayer. "_médiâni!_" which little rachel would silently ignore. "_médiâni!_" flutter-duck's tone would now be imperative and ill-tempered. then little rachel would turn to her father querulously. "she thayth it again, _médiâni_, father!" and flutter-duck, outraged by this childish insolence, would exclaim, "thou hearest, lewis, love?" and incontinently fall to clouting the child. and the father, annoyed by the shrill ululation consequent upon the clouting: "nee, nee, i hear too much." rachel's refusal to be coerced into giving devotional over-measure was not merely due to her sense of equity. her appetite counted for more. prayers were the avenue to breakfast, and to pamper her featherheaded mother in repetitions was to put back the meal. flutter-duck was quite capable of breaking down, even in the middle, if her attention was distracted for a moment, and of trying back from the very beginning. she would, for example, get as far as "hear--my daughter--the instruction--of thy mother," giving out the words one by one in the sacred language which was to her abracadabra. and little rachel, equally in the dark, would repeat obediently, "hear--my daughter--the instruction of--thy mother." then the kettle would boil, or flutter-duck would overhear a remark made by one of the "hands," and interject: "yes, i'd _give_ him!" or, "a fat lot _she_ knows about it," or some phrase of that sort; after which she would grope for the lost thread of prayer, and end by ejaculating desperately:-- "_médiâni!_" and the child sternly setting her face against this flippancy, there would be slapping and screaming, and if the father protested, flutter-duck would toss her head, and rejoin in her most dignified english: "if i bin a mother, i bin a mother!" to the logical adult it will be obvious that the little girl's obstinacy put the breakfast still further back; but then, obstinate little girls are not logical, and when rachel had been beaten she would eat no breakfast at all. she sat sullenly in the corner, her pretty face swollen by weeping, and her great black eyes suffused with tears. only her father could coax her then. he would go so far as to allow her to nurse "rebbitzin," without reminding her that the creature's touch would make her forget all she knew, and convert her into a "cat's-head." and certainly rachel always forgot not to touch the cat. possibly the basis of her father's psychological superstition was the fact that the cat is an unclean animal, not to be handled, for he would not touch puss himself, though her pious title of "rebbitzin," or rabbi's wife, was the invention of this master of nicknames. but for such flashes no one would have suspected the stern little man of humour. but he had it--dry. he called the cat "rebbitzin" ever since the day she refused to drink milk after meat. perhaps she was gorged with the meat. but he insisted that the cat had caught religion through living in a jewish family, and he developed a theory that she would not eat meat till it was _kosher_, so that in its earlier stages it might be exposed without risk of feline larceny. cats are soothing to infants, but they ceased to satisfy rachel when she grew up. her education, while it gratified her majesty's inspectors, was not calculated to eradicate the domestic rebel in her. at school she learnt of the existence of two hebrew words, called _moudeh anî_, but it was not till some time after that it flashed upon her that they were closely related to _médiâni_, and the discovery did not improve her opinion of her mother. she was a bonny child, who promised to be a beautiful girl, and her teachers petted her. they dressed well, these teachers, and rachel ceased to consider flutter-duck's sabbath shawl the standard of taste and splendour. ere she was in her teens she grumbled at her home surroundings, and even fell foul of the all-pervading fur, thereby quarrelling with her bread and butter in more senses than one. she would open the window--strangely fastidious--to eat her bread and butter off the broad ledge outside the room, but often the fur only came flying the faster to the spot, as if in search of air; and in the winter her pretentious queasiness set everybody remonstrating and shivering in the sudden draught. her objection to fur did not, however, embrace the preparation of it, for after school hours the little girl sat patiently stitching till late at night, by way of apprenticeship to her future, buoyed up by her earnings, and adding strip to strip, with the hair going all the same way, till she had made a great black snake. of course she did not get anything near three-halfpence for twelve yards, like the real "hands," but whatever she earnt went towards her festival frocks, which she would have got in any case. not knowing this, she was happy to deserve the pretty dresses she loved, and was least impatient of her mother's chatter when flutter-duck dinned into her ears how pretty she looked in them. alas! it is to be feared lewis was right, that flutter-duck was a rattle-brain indeed. and the years which brought flutter-duck prosperity, which emancipated her from personal participation in the sewing, and gave rachel the little bedroom to herself, did not bring wisdom. when flutter-duck's felicity culminated in a maid-servant (if only one who slept out), she was like a child with a monkey-on-a-stick. she gave the servant orders merely to see her arms and legs moving. she also lay late in bed to enjoy the spectacle of the factotum making the nine o'clock coffee it had been for so many years her own duty to prepare for the "hands." how sweetly the waft of chicory came to her nostrils! at first her husband remonstrated. "it is not beautiful," he said. "you ought to get up before the 'hands' come." flutter-duck flushed resentfully. "if i bin a missis, i bin a missis," she said with dignity. it became one of her formulæ. when the servant developed insolence, as under flutter-duck's fostering familiarity she did, flutter-duck would resume her dignity with a jerk. "if i bin a missis," she would say, tossing her flighty head haughtily, "i bin a missis." chapter ii. a migratory bird. "there strode a stranger to the door, and it was windy weather." --tennyson: _the goose_. one day, when rachel was nineteen, there came to the workshop a handsome young man. he had been brought by a placard in the window of the chandler's shop, and was found to answer perfectly to its wants. he took his place at the work-table, and soon came to the front as a wage-earner, wielding a dexterous needle that rarely snapped, even in white fur. his name was emanuel lefkovitch, and his seat was next to rachel's. for rachel had long since entered into her career, and the beauty of her early-blossoming womanhood was bent day after day over strips of rabbit-skin, which she made into sealskin jackets. for compensation to her youth rachel walked out on the sabbath elegantly attired in the latest fashion. she ordered her own frocks now, having a banking account of her own, in a tin box that was hidden away in her little bedroom. her father honourably paid her a wage as large as she would have got elsewhere--otherwise she would have gone there. her sabbath walks extended as far as hyde park, and she loved to watch the fine ladies cantering in the row, or lolling in luxurious carriages. sometimes she even peeped into fashionable restaurants. she became the admiring disciple of a girl who worked at a jewish furrier's in regent street, and whose occidental habitat gave her a halo of aristocracy. even on friday nights rachel would disappear from the sacred domesticity of the sabbath hearth, and flutter-duck suspected that she went to the cambridge music hall in spitalfields. this led to dramatic scenes, for rachel's frowardness had not decreased with age. if she had only gone out with some accredited young man, flutter-duck could have borne the scandal in view of the joyous prospect of becoming a grandmother. but no! rachel tolerated no matrimonial advances, not even from the most seductive of _shadchanim_, though her voluptuous figure and rosy lips marked her out for the marriage-broker's eye. her father had grown sterner with the growth of his malady, and though at the bottom of his heart he loved and was proud of his beautiful rachel, the words that rose to his lips were often as harsh and bitter as flutter-duck's own, so that the girl would withdraw sullenly into herself and hold no converse with her parents for days. nevertheless, there were plenty of halcyon intervals, especially in the busy season, when the extra shillings made the whole work-room brisk and happy, and the furriers gossiped of this and that, and told stories more droll than decorous. and then, too, every day was a delightfully inevitable sweep towards the sabbath, and every sabbath was a spoke in the great revolving wheel that brought round to them picturesque festivals, or solemn fasts, scarcely less enjoyable. and so there was an undercurrent of poetry below the sordid prose of daily life, and rifts in the grey fog, through which they caught glimpses of the azure vastness overarching the world. and the advent of emanuel lefkovitch distinctly lightened the atmosphere. his handsome face, his gay spirits, were like an influx of ozone. rachel was perceptibly the brighter for his presence. she was gentler to everybody, even to her parents, and chatted vivaciously, and walked with an airier step! the sickly master-furrier's face lit up with pleasure as from his sofa he watched emanuel's assiduous attentions to his girl in the way of picking up scissors and threading needles, and he frowned when flutter-duck hovered about the young man, chattering and monopolising his conversation. but one fine morning, some months after emanuel's arrival, a change came over the spirit of the scene. there was a knock at the door, and an ugly, shabby woman, in a green tartan shawl, entered. she scrutinised the room sharply, then uttered a joyful cry of "emanuel, my love!" and threw herself upon the handsome young man with an affectionate embrace. emanuel, flushed and paralysed, was a ludicrous figure, and the workers tittered, not unfamiliar with marital _contretemps_. "let me be," he said sullenly at last, as he untwined her dogged arms. "i tell you i won't have anything to do with you. it's no use." "oh no, emanuel, love, don't say that; not after all these months?" "go away!" cried emanuel hoarsely. "be not so obstinate," she persisted, in wheedling accents, stroking his flaming cheeks. "kiss little joshua and little miriam." here the spectators became aware of two woebegone infants dragging at her skirts. "go away!" repeated emanuel passionately, and pushed her from him with violence. the ugly, shabby woman burst into hysterical tears. "my own husband, dear people," she sobbed, addressing the room. "my own husband--married to me in poland five years ago. see, i have the _cesubah_!" she half drew the marriage parchment from her bosom. "and he won't live with me! every time he runs away from me. last time i saw him was in liverpool, on the eve of tabernacles. and before that i had to go and find him in newcastle, and he promised me never to go away again--yes, you did, you know you did, emanuel, love. and here have i been looking weeks for you at all the furriers and tailors, without bread and salt for the children, and the board of guardians won't believe me, and blame me for coming to london. oh, emanuel, love, god shall forgive you." her dress was dishevelled, her wig awry; big tears streamed down her cheeks. "how can i live with an old witch like that?" asked emanuel, in brutal self-defence. "there are worse than me in the world," rejoined the woman meekly. "nee, nee," roughly interposed the master-furrier, who had risen from his sofa in the excitement of the scene. "it is not beautiful not to live with one's wife." he paused to cough. "you must not put her to shame." "it's she who puts me to shame." emanuel turned to rachel, who had let her work slip to the floor, and whose face had grown white and stern, and continued deprecatingly, "i never wanted her. they caught me by a trick." "don't talk to me," snapped rachel, turning her back on him. the woman looked at her suspiciously--the girl's beauty seemed to burst upon her for the first time. "he is my husband," she repeated, and made as if she would draw out the _cesubah_ again. "nee, nee, enough!" said the master-furrier curtly. "you are wasting our time. your husband shall live with you, or he shall not work with me." "you have deceived us, you rogue!" put in flutter-duck shrilly. "did i ever say i was a single man?" retorted emanuel, shrugging his shoulders. "there! he confesses it!" cried his wife in glee. "come, emanuel, love," and she threw her arms round his neck, and kissed him passionately. "do not be obstinate." "i can't come now," he said, with sulky facetiousness. "where are you living?" she told him, and he said he would come when work was over. "on your faith?" she asked, with another uneasy glance at rachel. "on my faith," he answered. she moved towards the door, with her draggle-tail of infants. as she was vanishing, he called shame-facedly to the departing children,-- "well, joshua! well, miriam! is this the way one treats a father? a nice way your mother has brought you up!" they came back to him dubiously, with unwashed, pathetic faces, and he kissed them. rachel bent down to pick up her rabbit-skin. work was resumed in dead silence. chapter iii. flight. "the goose flew this way and flew that, and filled the house with clamour." --tennyson: _the goose_. flutter-duck could not resist rushing in to show the gorgeous goose she had bought from a man in the street--a most wonderful bargain. although it was only a wednesday, why should they not have a goose? they were at the thick of the busy season, and the winter promised to be bitter, so they could afford it. "nee, nee; there are enough festivals in our religion already," grumbled her husband, who, despite his hacking cough, had been driven to the work-table by the plentifulness of work and the scarcity of "hands." "almost as big a goose as herself!" whispered emanuel lefkovitch to his circle. he had made his peace with his wife, and was again become the centre of the work-room's gaiety. "what a bargain!" he said aloud, clucking his tongue with admiration. and flutter-duck, consoled for her husband's criticism, scurried out again to have her bargain killed by the official slaughterer. when she returned, doleful and indignant, with the goose still in her basket, and the news that the functionary had refused it jewish execution, and pronounced it _tripha_ (unclean) for some minute ritual reason, she broke off her denunciation of the vendor from a sudden perception that some graver misfortune had happened in her absence. "nee, nee," said lewis, when she stopped her chatter. "decidedly god will not have us make festival to-day. even you must work." "me?" gasped flutter-duck. then she learnt that emanuel lefkovitch, whom she had left so gay, had been taken with acute pains--and had had to go home. and work pressed, and flutter-duck must under-study him in all her spare moments. she was terribly vexed--she had arranged to go and see an old crony's daughter married in the synagogue that afternoon, and she would have to give that up, if indeed her husband did not even expect her to give up the ball in the evening. she temporarily tethered the goose's leg to a bed-post by a long string, so that for the rest of the day the big bird waddled pompously about the floor and under the bed, unconscious to what or whom it owed its life, and blissfully unaware that it was _tripha_. "nee, nee," sniggered lewis, as flutter-duck savagely kicked the cat out of her way. "don't be alarmed, rebbitzin won't attack it. rebbitzin is a better judge of _triphas_ than you." it was another cat, but it was the same joke. flutter-duck began to clean the fish with intensified viciousness. she had bought them as a substitute for the goose, and they were a constant reminder of her complex illhap. very soon she cut her finger, and scoured the walls vainly in search of cobweb ligature. bitter was her plaint of the servant's mismanagement; when she herself had looked after the house there had been no lack of cobwebs in the corners. nor was this the end of flutter-duck's misfortunes. when, in the course of the afternoon, she sent up to mrs. levy on the second floor to remind her that she would be wanting her embroidered petticoat for the evening, answer came back that it was the anniversary of mrs. levy's mother's death, and she could not permit even her petticoat to go to a wedding. finally, the gloves that flutter-duck borrowed from the chandler's wife were split at the thumbs. and so the servant was kept running to and fro, spoiling the neighbours for the greater glory of flutter-duck. it was only at the eleventh hour that an embroidered petticoat was obtained. altogether there was electricity in the air, and emanuel was not present to divert it down the road of jocularity. the furriers stitched sullenly, with a presentiment of storm. but it held over all day, and there was hope the currents would pass harmlessly away. with the rising of flutter-duck from the work-table, however, the first rumblings began. lewis did not attempt to restrain her from her society dissipation, but he fumed inwardly throughout her toilette. more than ever he realised, as he sat coughing and bending over the ermine he was tufting with black spots, the incompatibility of this union between ant and butterfly, and occasionally his thought would shoot out in dry sarcasm. but flutter-duck had passed beyond the plane in which lewis existed as her husband. all day she had talked freely, if a whit condescendingly, to her fellow-furriers, lamenting the mischances of the day; but in proportion as she began to get clean and beautiful, as the muslins of the great mirror became a frame for a gorgeous picture of a lady, flutter-duck grew more and more aloof from workaday interests, felt herself borne into a higher world of radiance and elegance, into a rarefied atmosphere of gentility, that froze her to statue-like frigidity. she was not flutter-duck then. and when she was quite dressed for the wedding, and had put on the earrings with the coloured stones and the crowning glory of the chignon of false plaits, stuck over with little artificial white flowers, the female neighbours came crowding into the work-room boudoir to see how she looked, and she revolved silently for their inspection like a dressmaker's figure, at most acknowledging their compliments with monosyllables. she had invited them to come and admire her appearance, but by the time they came she had grown too proud to speak to them. even the women of whose finery she wore fragments, and who had contributed to her splendour, seemed to her poor dingy creatures, whose contact would sully her embroidered petticoat. in grotesque contrast with her peacock-like stateliness, the big _tripha_ goose began to get lively, cackling and flapping about within its radius, as if the soul of flutter-duck had passed into its body. the moment of departure had come. the cab stood at the street-door, and a composite crowd stood round the cab. in the ghetto a cab has special significance, and flutter-duck would have to pass to hers through an avenue of polyglot commentators. at the last moment, adjusting her fleecy wrap over her head like any _grande dame_ (from whom she differed only in the modesty of her high bodice and her full sleeves), flutter-duck discovered that there was a great rent in one part of the wrap and a great stain in another. she uttered an exclamation of dismay--this seemed to her the climax of the day's misfortunes. "what shall i do? what shall i do?" she cried, her dignity almost melting in tears. the by-standers made sympathetic but profitless noises. "oh, double it another way," jerked rachel from the work-table. "come here, i'll do it for you." "are you too lazy to come here?" replied flutter-duck irritably. rachel rose and went towards her, and rearranged the wrap. "oh no, that won't do," complained flutter-duck, attitudinising before the glass. "it shows as bad as ever. oh, what shall i do?" "do you know what i'll tell you?" said her husband meditatively: "don't go!" flutter-duck threw him a fiery look. "oh well," said rachel, shrugging her shoulders and thrusting forward her lip contemptuously, "it'll have to do." "no, it won't--lend me your pink one." "i'm not going to have my pink one dirtied, too," grumbled rachel. "do you hear what i say?" exclaimed flutter-duck, with increasing wrath. "give me the pink wrap! when the mother says is said!" and she looked around the group of spectators, in search of sympathy with her trials and admiration for her maternal dignity. "i can never keep anything for myself," said rachel sullenly. "you never take care of anything." "i took care of you," screamed flutter-duck, goaded beyond endurance by the thought that her neighbours were witnessing this filial disrespect. "and a fat lot of good it's done me." "yes, much care you take of me. you only think of enjoying yourself. it's young girls who ought to go out, not old women." "you impudent face!" and with an irresistible impulse of savagery, a reversion to the days of _médiâni_, flutter-duck swung round her arm, and struck rachel violently on the cheek with her white-gloved hand. [illustration: "'you impudent face!'"] the sound of the slap rang hollow and awful through the room. the workers looked up and paused, the neighbours held their breath; there was a dread silence, broken only by the hissings of the excited goose, and the half involuntary apologetic murmurings of flutter-duck's lips: "if i bin a mother, i bin a mother." for an instant rachel's face was a white mask, on which five fingers stood out in fire; the next it was one burning mass of angry blood. she clenched her fist, as if about to strike her mother, then let the fingers relax; half from a relic of filial awe, half from respect for the finery. there was a peculiar light in her eyes. without a word she turned slowly on her heel and walked into her little room, emerging, after an instant of general suspense, with the pink wrap in her hand. she gave it to her mother, without looking at her, and walked back to her work, and poor foolish flutter-duck, relieved, triumphant, and with an irreproachable head-wrap, passed majestically from the room, amid the buzz of the neighbours (who accompanied her downstairs with valedictory brushings of fur-fluff from her shoulders), through the avenue of polyglot commentators, into the waiting cab. all this time flutter-duck's husband had sat petrified, but now a great burst of coughing shook him. he did not know what to say or do, and prolonged the cough artificially to cover his embarrassment. then he opened his mouth several times, but shut it indecisively. at last he said soothingly, with kindly clumsiness: "nee, nee; you shouldn't irritate the mother, rachel. you know what she is." rachel's needle plodded on, and the uneasy silence resumed its sway. presently rachel rose, put down her piece of work finished, and without a word passed back to her bedroom, her beautiful figure erect and haughty. lewis heard her key turn in the lock. the hours passed, and she did not return. her father did not like to appear anxious before the "hands," but he had a discomforting vision of her lying on her bed, in a dumb agony of shame and rage. at last eight o'clock struck, and, backward as the work was, lewis did not suggest overtime. he even dismissed the servant an hour before her time. he was in a fever of impatience, but delicacy had kept him from intruding on his daughter's grief before strangers. now he hastened to her door, and knocked timidly, then loudly. "nee, nee, rachel," he cried, with sympathetic sternness, "enough!" but a chill silence alone answered him. he burst open the rickety door, and saw a dark mass huddled up in the shadow on the bed. a nearer glance showed him it was only clothes. he opened the door that led on to jacob's ladder, and called her name. then by the light streaming in from the other apartment he hastily examined the room. it was obvious that she had put on her best clothes, and gone out. half relieved, he returned to the sitting-room, leaving the door ajar, and recited his evening prayer. then he began to prepare a little meal for himself, telling himself that she had gone for a walk, after her manner; perhaps was shaking off her depression at the cambridge music hall. supper over and grace said, he started doing the overwork, and then, when sheer weariness forced him to stop, he drew his comfortless wooden chair to the kitchen fire, and studied rabbinical lore from a minutely printed folio. the whitechapel church clock, suddenly booming midnight, awoke him from these sacred subtleties with a start of alarm. rachel had not returned. the fire burnt low. he shivered, and threw on some coal. half an hour more he waited, listening for her footstep. surely the music-hall must be closed by now. he crept down the stairs, and wandered vaguely into the cold, starless night, jostled by leering females, and returned forlorn and coughing. then the thought flashed upon him that his girl had gone to her mother, had gone to fetch her from the wedding ball, and to make it up with her. yes; that would be it. hence the best clothes. it could be nothing else. he must not let any other thought get a hold on his mind. he would have run round to the festive scene, only he did not know precisely where it was, and it was too late to ask the neighbours. one o'clock! a mournful monotone, stern in its absoluteness, like the clang of a gate shutting out a lost soul. one more hour of aching suspense, scarcely dulled by the task of making hot coffee, and cutting bread and butter for his returning womankind; then flutter-duck came back. alone! came back in her cab, her fading features flushed with the joy of life, with the artificial flowers in her false chignon, and the pink wrap over her head. "where is rachel?" gasped poor lewis, meeting her at the street-door. "rachel! isn't she here? i left her with you," answered flutter-duck, half sobered. "merciful god!" ejaculated her husband, and put his hand to his breast, pierced by a shooting pain. "i left her with you," repeated flutter-duck with white lips. "why did you let her go out? why didn't you look after her?" "silence, you sinful mother!" cried lewis. "you shamed her before strangers, and she has gone out--to drown herself--what do i know?" flutter-duck burst into hysterical sobbing. "yes, take her part against me! you always make me out wrong." "restrain yourself!" he whispered imperiously. "do you wish to have the neighbours hear you again?" "i daresay she's only hiding somewhere, sulking, as she did when a child," said flutter-duck. "have you looked under the bed?" foolish as he knew her words were, they gave him a gleam of hope. he led the way upstairs without answering, and taking a candle, examined her bedroom again with ludicrous minuteness. this time the sight of her old clothes was comforting; if she had wanted to drown herself, she would not--he reasoned with perhaps too masculine a logic--have taken her best clothes to spoil. with a sudden thought he displaced the hearthstone. he had early discovered where she kept her savings, though he had neither tampered with them nor betrayed his knowledge. the tin box was broken open, empty! in the drawers there was not a single article of her jewellery. rachel had evidently left home! she had gone by way of jacob's ladder--secretly. prostrated by the discovery, the parents sat down in helpless silence. then flutter-duck began to wring her white-gloved hands, and to babble incoherent suggestions and reproaches, and protestations that she was not to blame. the hot coffee cooled untasted, the pink wrap lay crumpled on the floor. lewis revolved the situation rapidly. what could be done? evidently nothing--for that night at least. even the police could do nothing till the morning, and to call them in at all would be to publish the scandal to the whole world. rachel had gone to some lodging--there could be no doubt about that. and yet he could not go to bed, his heart still expected her, though his brain had given up hope. he walked about restlessly, racked by fits of coughing, then he dropped back into his seat before the decaying fire. and flutter-duck, frightened into silence at last, sat on the sofa, dazed, in her trappings and gewgaws, with the white flowers glistening in her false hair, and her pallid cheeks stained with tears. and so they waited in the uncouth room in the solemn watches of the night, pricking up their ears at a rare footstep in the street, and hastening to peep out of the window; waiting for the knock that came not, and the dawn that was distant. the silence lay upon them like a pall. suddenly, in the weird stillness, they heard a fluttering and a skurrying, and, looking up, they saw a great white thing floating through the room. flutter-duck uttered a terrible cry. "hear, o israel!" she shrieked. "nee, nee," said lewis reassuringly, though scarcely less startled. "it is only the _tripha_ goose got loose." "nay, nay, it is the devil!" hoarsely whispered flutter-duck, who had covered her face with her hands, and was shaking as with palsy. her terror communicated itself to her husband. "hush, hush! talk not so," he said, shivering with indefinable awe. "say psalms, say psalms!" panted flutter-duck. "drive him out." lewis opened the window, but the unclean bird showed no desire to flit. it was evidently the not-good-one himself. "hear, o israel!" wailed flutter-duck. "since he came in this morning everything has been upside down." the goose chuckled. lewis was seized with a fell terror that gave him a mad courage. murmuring a holy phrase, he grabbed at the goose, which eluded him, and fluttered flappingly hither and thither. lewis gave chase, his lips praying mechanically. at last he caught it by a wing, haled it, hissing and struggling and uttering rasping cries, to the window, flung it without, and closed the sash with a bang. then he fell impotent against the work-table, and spat out a mouthful of blood. "god be praised!" said flutter-duck, slowly uncovering her eyes. "now rachel will come back." and with renewed hope they waited on, and the deathly silence again possessed the room. all at once they heard a light step under the window; the father threw it open and saw a female form outlined in the darkness. there was a rat-tat-tat at the door. "ah, there she is!" hysterically ejaculated flutter-duck, starting up. "the holy one be blessed!" cried lewis, rushing down the stairs. a strange figure, the head covered by a green tartan shawl, greeted him. a cold ague passed over his limbs. "thank god, it's all right," said mrs. lefkovitch. "i see from your light you are still working; but isn't it time my emanuel left off?" "your emanuel?" gasped lewis, with a terrible suspicion. "he went home early in the day; he was taken ill." flutter-duck, who had crept at his heels bearing a candle, cried out, "god in israel! she has flown away with emanuel." "hush, you piece of folly!" whispered lewis furiously. "yes, it was already arranged, and you blamed me!" gasped flutter-duck, with a last instinct of self-defence ere consciousness left her, and she fell forward. "silence," lewis began, but there was an awful desolation at his heart and the salt of blood was in his mouth as he caught the falling form. the candlestick rolled to the ground, and the group was left in the heavy shadows of the staircase and the cold blast from the open door. "god have mercy on me and the poor children! i knew all along it would come to that!" wailed emanuel's wife. "and i advanced him his week's money on monday," lewis remembered in the agony of the moment. chapter iv. poor flutter-duck. "her cap blew off, her gown blew up, and a whirlwind cleared the larder." --tennyson: _the goose_. it was new year's eve. in the ghetto, where "the evening and the morning are one day," new year's eve is at its height at noon. the muddy market-places roar, and the joyous medley of squeezing humanity moves slowly through the crush of mongers, pickpockets, and beggars. it is one of those festival occasions on which even those who have migrated from the ghetto gravitate back to purchase those dainties whereof the heathen have not the secret, and to look again upon the old familiar scene. there is a stir of goodwill and gaiety, a reconciliation of old feuds in view of the solemn season of repentance, and a washing-down of enmities in rum. at the point where the two main market-streets met, a grey-haired elderly woman stood and begged. poor flutter-duck! her husband dead, after a protracted illness that frittered away his savings; her daughter lost; her home a mattress in the corner of a strange family's garret; her faded prettiness turned to ugliness: her figure thin and wasted; her yellow-wrinkled face framed in a frowsy shawl; her clothes tattered and flimsy; flutter-duck stood and _schnorred_. but flutter-duck did not do well. her feather-head was not equal to the demands of her profession. she had selected what was ostensibly the coign of most vantage, forgetting that though everybody in the market must pass her station, they would already have been mulcted in the one street or the other. [illustration: market-day in the ghetto.] but she held out her hand pertinaciously, appealing to every passer-by of importance, and throwing audible curses after those that ignored her. the cold of the bleak autumn day and the apathy of the public chilled her to the bone; the tears came into her eyes as she thought of all her misery and of the happy time--only a couple of years ago--when new year meant new dresses. only a grey fringe--the last vanity of pauperdom--remained of all her fashionableness. no more the plaited chignon, the silk gown, the triple necklace,--the dazzling exterior that made her too proud to speak to admiring neighbours,--only hunger and cold and mockery and loneliness. no plumes could she borrow, now that she really needed them to cover her nakedness. she who had reigned over a work-room, who had owned a husband and a marriageable daughter, who had commanded a maid-servant, who had driven in shilling cabs! oh, if she could only find her daughter--that lost creature by whose wedding-canopy she should have stood, radiant, the envy of montague street! but this was not a thought of to-day. it was at the bottom of all her thoughts always, ever since that fatal night. during the first year she was always on the lookout, peering into every woman's face, running after every young couple that looked like emanuel and rachel. but repeated disappointment dulled her. she had no energy for anything except begging. yet the hope of finding rachel was the gleam of idealism that kept her soul alive. the hours went by, but the streams of motley pedestrians and the babel of vociferous vendors and chattering buyers did not slacken. females were in the great majority, housewives from far and near foraging for festival supplies. in vain flutter-duck wished them "a good sealing." it seemed as if her own festival would be black and bitter as the feast of ab. but she continued to hold out her bloodless hand. towards three o'clock a fine english lady, in a bonnet, passed by, carrying a leather bag. "grant me a halfpenny, lady, dear! may you be written down for a good year!" the beautiful lady paused, startled. then flutter-duck's heart gave a great leap of joy. the impossible had happened at last. behind the veil shone the face of rachel--a face of astonishment and horror. "rachel!" she shrieked, tottering. "mother!" cried rachel, catching her by the arm. "what are you doing here? what has happened?" "do not touch me, sinful girl!" answered flutter-duck, shaking her off with a tragic passion that gave dignity to the grotesque figure. now that rachel was there in the flesh, the remembrance of her shame surged up, drowning everything. "you have disgraced the mother who bore you and the father who gave you life." the fine english lady--her whole soul full of sudden remorse at the sight of her mother's incredible poverty, shrank before the blazing eyes. the passers-by imagined rachel had refused the beggar-woman alms. "what have i done?" she faltered. "where is emanuel?" "emanuel!" repeated rachel, puzzled. "emanuel lefkovitch that you ran away with." "mother, are you mad? i have never seen him. i am married." "married!" gasped flutter-duck ecstatically. then a new dread rose to her mind. "to a christian?" "me marry a christian! the idea!" flutter-duck fell a-sobbing on the fine lady's fur jacket. "and you never ran away with lefkovitch?" "me take another woman's leavings? well, upon my word!" "oh," sobbed flutter-duck. "oh, if your father could only have lived to know the truth!" rachel's remorse became heartrending. "is father dead?" she murmured with white lips. after awhile she drew her mother out of the babel, and giving her the bag to carry to save appearances, she walked slowly towards liverpool street, and took train with her for her pretty little cottage near epping forest. rachel's story was as simple as her mother's. after the showing up of emanuel's duplicity, home had no longer the least attraction for her. her nascent love for the migratory husband changed to a loathing that embraced the whole ghetto in which such things were possible. weary of flutter-duck's follies, indifferent to her father, she had long meditated joining her west-end girl-friend in the fur establishment in regent street, but the blow precipitated matters. she felt she could not remain a night more under her mother's roof, and her father's clumsy comment was but salt on her wound. her heart was hard against both; month after month passed before her passionate, sullen nature would let her dwell on the thought of their trouble, and even then she felt that the motive of her flight was so plain that they would feel only remorse, not anxiety. they knew she could always earn her living, just as she knew they could always earn theirs. living "in," and going out but rarely, and then in the fashionable districts, she never met any drift from the ghetto, and the busy life of the populous establishment soon effaced the old, which faded to a forgotten dream. one day the chief provincial traveller of the house saw her, fell in love, married her, and took her about the country for six months. he was coming back to her that very evening for the new year. she had gone back to the ghetto that day to buy new year honey, and, softened by time and happiness, rather hoped to stumble across her mother in the market-place, and so save the submission of a call. she never dreamed of death and poverty. she would not blame herself for her father's death--he had always been consumptive--but since death was come at last, it was lucky she could offer her mother a home. her husband would be delighted to find a companion for his wife during his country rounds. "so you see, mother, everything is for the best." flutter-duck listened in a delicious daze. what! was everything then to end happily after all? was she--the shabby old starveling--to be restored to comfort and fine clothes? her brain seemed bursting with the thought of so much happiness; as the train flew along past green grass and autumn-tinted foliage, she strove to articulate a prayer of gratitude to heaven, but she only mumbled "_médiâni_," and lapsed into silence. and then, suddenly remembering she had started a prayer and must finish it, she murmured again "_médiâni_." when they came to the grand house with the front garden, and were admitted by a surprised maid-servant, infinitely nattier than any flutter-duck had ever ruled over, the poor creature was palsied with excess of bliss. the fire was blazing merrily in the luxurious parlour: could this haven of peace and pomp--these arm-chairs, those vases, that side-board--be really for her? was she to spend her new year's night surrounded by love and luxury, instead of huddling in the corner of a cold garret? and as soon as rachel had got her mother installed in a wonderful easy-chair, she hastened with all the eagerness of maternal pride, with all the enthusiasm of remorse, to throw open the folding-doors that led to her bedroom, so as to give flutter-duck the crowning surprise--the secret titbit she had reserved for the grand climax. "there's a fine boy!" she cried. and as flutter-duck caught sight of the little red face peeping out from the snowy draperies of the cradle, a rapture too great to bear seemed almost to snap something within her foolish, overwrought brain. "i have already a grandchild!" she shrieked, with a great sob of ecstasy; and, running to the cradle-side, she fell on her knees, and covered the little red face with frantic kisses, repeating "lewis love, lewis love, lewis love," till the babe screamed, and rachel had to tear the babbling creature away. * * * * * you may see her almost any day walking in the ghetto market-place--a meagre, old figure, with a sharp-featured face and a plaited chignon. she dresses richly in silk, and her golden earrings are set with coloured stones, and her bonnet is of the latest fashion. she lives near epping forest, and almost always goes home to tea. sometimes she stands still at the point where the two market streets meet, extending vacantly a gloved hand, but for the most part she wanders about the by-streets and alleys of whitechapel with an anxious countenance, peering at every woman she meets, and following every young couple. "if i could only find her!" she thinks yearningly. nobody knows whom she is looking for, but everybody knows she is only "flutter-duck." macmillan's dollar series of works by popular authors. _crown vo. cloth extra. $ . each._ by f. marion crawford. with the solitary exception of mrs. oliphant, we have no living novelist more distinguished for variety of theme and range of imaginative outlook than mr. marion crawford.--_spectator._ the children of the king. don orsino. mr. isaacs: a tale of modern india. dr. claudius: a true story. zoroaster. a tale of a lonely parish. saracinesca. a new novel. marzio's crucifix. with the immortals. greifenstein. sant' ilario. a cigarette-maker's romance. khaled: a tale of arabia. the witch of prague. with numerous illustrations by w. j. hennessy. the three fates. by charles dickens. it would be difficult to imagine a better edition of dickens at the price than that which is now appearing in macmillan's series of dollar novels.--_boston beacon._ the pickwick papers. illustrations. (_ready._) oliver twist. illustrations. (_ready._) nicholas nickleby. illustrations. (_ready._) martin chuzzlewit. illustrations. (_ready._) the old curiosity shop. illustrations. (_ready._) barnaby rudge. illustrations. (_ready._) sketches by boz. illustrations. (_ready._) dombey and son. illustrations. (_ready._) christmas books. illustrations. (_december._) david copperfield. illustrations.(_january._) american notes, and pictures from italy. illustrations. (_feb._) by charles kingsley. alton locke. hereward. heroes. westward ho! hypatia. two years ago. water babies. illustrated. yeast. by henry james. he has the power of seeing with the artistic perception of the few, and of writing about what he has seen, so that the many can understand and feel with him.--_saturday review._ the lesson of the master and other stories. the reverberator. the aspen papers and other stories. a london life. by annie keary. in our opinion there have not been many novels published better worth reading. the literary workmanship is excellent, and all the windings of the stories are worked with patient fulness and a skill not often found.--_spectator._ janet's home. clemency franklyn. a doubting heart. the heroes of asgard. a york and lancaster rose. by d. christie murray. few modern novelists can tell a story of english country life better than mr. d. christie murray.--_spectator._ aunt rachel. the weaker vessel. schwarz. by mrs. oliphant. has the charm of style, the literary quality and flavour that never fails to please.--_saturday review._ at her best she is, with one or two exceptions, the best of living english novelists.--_academy._ a son of the soil. new edition. the curate in charge. new edition. young musgrave. new edition. he that will not when he may. new and cheaper edition. sir tom. new edition. hester. a story of contemporary life. the wizard's son. new edition. a country gentleman and his family. new edition. neighbours on the green. new edition. agnes hopetoun's schools and holidays. with illustrations. by j. h. shorthouse. powerful, striking, and fascinating romances.--_anti-jacobin._ blanche, lady falaise. john inglesant. sir percival. the countess eve. a teacher of the violin. the little schoolmaster mark. by mrs. craik. (the author of "john halifax, gentleman.") little sunshine's holiday. adventures of a brownie. alice learmont. our year. by mrs. humphry ward. mrs. ward, with her "robert elsmere" and "david grieve," has established with extraordinary rapidity an enduring reputation as one who has expressed what is deepest and most real in the thought of the time.... they are dramas of the time vitalized by the hopes, fears, doubts, and despairing struggles after higher ideals which are swaying the minds of men and women of this generation.--_new york tribune._ robert elsmere. the history of david grieve. milly and olly. by rudyard kipling. every one knows that it is not easy to write good short stories. mr. kipling has changed all that. here are forty of them, averaging less than eight pages apiece; there is not a dull one in the lot. some are tragedy, some broad comedy, some tolerably sharp satire. the time has passed to ignore or undervalue mr. kipling. he has won his spurs and taken his prominent place in the arena. this, as the legitimate edition, should be preferred to the pirated ones by all such as care for honesty in letters.--_churchman_, new york. plain tales from the hills. life's handicap. by amy levy. reuben sachs. by m. mclennan. muckle jock, and other stories. by thomas hughes. tom brown's schooldays. illustrated. rugby, tennessee. by rolf boldrewood. mr. boldrewood can tell what he knows with great point and vigour, and there is no better reading than the adventurous parts of his books.--_saturday review._ robbery under arms. nevermore. sydney-side saxon. by sir henry cunningham, k.c.i.e. interesting as specimens of romance, the style of writing is so excellent--scholarly and at the same time easy and natural--that the volumes are worth reading on that account alone. but there is also masterly description of persons, places, and things; skilful analysis of character; a constant play of wit and humour; and a happy gift of instantaneous portraiture.--_st. james's gazette._ the coeruleans: a vacation idyll. by george gissing. we earnestly commend the book for its high literary merit, its deep bright interest, and for the important and healthful lessons that it teaches.--_boston home journal._ denzil quarrier. the odd women. by w. clark russell. the descriptions are wonderfully realistic ... and the breath of the ocean is over and through every page. the plot is very novel indeed, and is developed with skill and tact. altogether one of the cleverest and most entertaining of mr. russell's many works.--_boston times._ a strange elopement. by the hon. emily lawless. it is a charming story, full of natural life, fresh in style and thought, pure in tone, and refined in feeling.--_nineteenth century._ a strong and original story. it is marked by originality, freshness, insight, a rare graphic power, and as rare a psychological perception. it is in fact a better story than "hurrish," and that is saying a good deal.--_new york tribune._ grania: the story of an island. by a new author. we should not be surprised if this should prove to be the most popular book of the present season; it cannot fail to be one of the most remarkable.--_literary world._ tim: a story of school life. by lanoe falconer. (author of "mademoiselle ixe.") it is written with cleverness and brightness, and there is so much human nature in it that the attention of the reader is held to the end.... the book shows far greater powers than were evident in "mademoiselle ixe," and if the writer who is hidden behind the _nom de guerre_ lanoe falconer goes on, she is likely to make for herself no inconsiderable name in fiction.--_boston courier._ cecilia de noÃ�l. by the rev. prof. alfred j. church. rev. alfred j. church, m.a., has long been doing valiant service in literature in presenting his stories of the early centuries, so clear is his style and so remarkable his gift of enfolding historical events and personages with the fabric of a romance, entertaining and oftentimes fascinating.... one has the feeling that he is reading an accurate description of real scenes, that the characters are living--so masterly is professor church's ability to reclothe history and make it as interesting as a romance.--_boston times._ stories from the greek comedians. aristophanes. philemon. diphilus. menander. apollodorus. _with sixteen illustrations after the antique._ the story of the iliad. with coloured illustrations. the story of the odyssey. with coloured illustrations. the burning of rome. by mrs. f. a. steel. the story is a delightful one, with a good plot, an abundance of action and incident, well and naturally drawn characters, excellent in sentiment, and with a good ending. its interest begins with the opening paragraph, and is well sustained to the end. mrs. steel touches all her stories with the hand of a master, and she is yet to write one that is any way dull or uninteresting.--_the christian at work._ miss stuart's legacy. by paul cushing. ... a first-class detective story. not a detective story of the ordinary blood-and-thunder kind, but a really good story, that is told in a vigorous and attractive way.... it is full of incident and especially good dialogue. the people in it really talk. the story is well worth reading.--_commercial gazette._ the great chin episode. by mary a. dickens. felicitous in style and simple enough in plot, it is powerfully vivid and dramatic, and well sustains the interest throughout.... there is a vein of grave pleasantry in the earlier portion of the work, which has to be abandoned as the tragic portion of it develops; but it is sufficient to show that the writer possesses the charm of pleasant recital when she wishes to exert it, as becomes her father's daughter.--_the catholic world._ a mere cypher. by mary west. the novel is admirably written. it has not only distinction of style, but intellectual quality of an exceptionable order; and while the treatment is never didactic, questions of ethical import come naturally into evidence, and are dealt with in a decisive way.... a remarkably well-executed piece of fiction.--_utica news._ a born player. by the marchesa theodoli. a thoroughly pleasing and unpretentious story of modern rome. the pictures of home life in the princely astalli family are most curious and interesting; while the reader's sympathy with the charming and delicate romance of the book, ending happily at last, in the face of apparently insurmountable obstacles, will be readily enlisted from its inception.--_the art amateur._ under pressure. yekl a tale of the new york ghetto by a. cahan new york d. appleton and company copyright, , by d. appleton and company. contents. chapter page i.--jake and yekl ii.--the new york ghetto iii.--in the grip of his past iv.--the meeting v.--a paterfamilias vi.--circumstances alter cases vii.--mrs. kavarsky's coup d'État viii.--a housetop idyl ix.--the parting x.--a defeated victor yekl. chapter i. jake and yekl. the operatives of the cloak-shop in which jake was employed had been idle all the morning. it was after twelve o'clock and the "boss" had not yet returned from broadway, whither he had betaken himself two or three hours before in quest of work. the little sweltering assemblage--for it was an oppressive day in midsummer--beguiled their suspense variously. a rabbinical-looking man of thirty, who sat with the back of his chair tilted against his sewing machine, was intent upon an english newspaper. every little while he would remove it from his eyes--showing a dyspeptic face fringed with a thin growth of dark beard--to consult the cumbrous dictionary on his knees. two young lads, one seated on the frame of the next machine and the other standing, were boasting to one another of their respective intimacies with the leading actors of the jewish stage. the board of a third machine, in a corner of the same wall, supported an open copy of a socialist magazine in yiddish, over which a cadaverous young man absorbedly swayed to and fro droning in the talmudical intonation. a middle-aged operative, with huge red side whiskers, who was perched on the presser's table in the corner opposite, was mending his own coat. while the thick-set presser and all the three women of the shop, occupying the three machines ranged against an adjoining wall, formed an attentive audience to an impromptu lecture upon the comparative merits of boston and new york by jake. he had been speaking for some time. he stood in the middle of the overcrowded stuffy room with his long but well-shaped legs wide apart, his bulky round head aslant, and one of his bared mighty arms akimbo. he spoke in boston yiddish, that is to say, in yiddish more copiously spiced with mutilated english than is the language of the metropolitan ghetto in which our story lies. he had a deep and rather harsh voice, and his r's could do credit to the thickest irish brogue. "when i was in boston," he went on, with a contemptuous mien intended for the american metropolis, "i knew a _feller_,[ ] so he was a _preticly_ friend of john shullivan's. he is a christian, that feller is, and yet the two of us lived like brothers. may i be unable to move from this spot if we did not. how, then, would you have it? like here, in new york, where the jews are a _lot_ of _greenhornsh_ and can not speak a word of english? over there every jew speaks english like a stream." [ ] english words incorporated in the yiddish of the characters of this narrative are given in italics. "_say_, dzake," the presser broke in, "john sullivan is _tzampion_ no longer, is he?" "oh, no! not always is it holiday!" jake responded, with what he considered a yankee jerk of his head. "why, don't you know? jimmie corbett _leaked_ him, and jimmie _leaked_ cholly meetchel, too. _you can betch you' bootsh!_ johnnie could not leak chollie, _becaush_ he is a big _bluffer_, chollie is," he pursued, his clean-shaven florid face beaming with enthusiasm for his subject, and with pride in the diminutive proper nouns he flaunted. "but jimmie _pundished_ him. _oh, didn't he knock him out off shight!_ he came near making a meat ball of him"--with a chuckle. "he _tzettled_ him in three _roynds_. i knew a feller who had seen the fight." "what is a _rawnd_, dzake?" the presser inquired. jake's answer to the question carried him into a minute exposition of "right-handers," "left-handers," "sending to sleep," "first blood," and other commodities of the fistic business. he must have treated the subject rather too scientifically, however, for his female listeners obviously paid more attention to what he did in the course of the boxing match, which he had now and then, by way of illustration, with the thick air of the room, than to the verbal part of his lecture. nay, even the performances of his brawny arms and magnificent form did not charm them as much as he thought they did. for a display of manly force, when connected--even though in a purely imaginary way--with acts of violence, has little attraction for a "daughter of the ghetto." much more interest did those arms and form command on their own merits. nor was his chubby high-colored face neglected. true, there was a suggestion of the bulldog in its make up; but this effect was lost upon the feminine portion of jake's audience, for his features, illuminated by a pair of eager eyes of a hazel hue, and shaded by a thick crop of dark hair, were, after all, rather pleasing than otherwise. strongly semitic naturally, they became still more so each time they were brightened up by his good-natured boyish smile. indeed, jake's very nose, which was fleshy and pear-shaped and decidedly not jewish (although not decidedly anything else), seemed to join the mosaic faith, and even his shaven upper lip looked penitent, as soon as that smile of his made its appearance. "nice fun that!" observed the side-whiskered man, who had stopped sewing to follow jake's exhibition. "fighting--like drunken moujiks in russia!" "tarrarra-boom-de-ay!" was jake's merry retort; and for an exclamation mark he puffed up his cheeks into a balloon, and exploded it by a "_pawnch_" of his formidable fist. "look, i beg you, look at his dog's tricks!" the other said in disgust. "horse's head that you are!" jake rejoined good-humoredly. "do you mean to tell me that a moujik understands how to _fight_? a disease he does! he only knows how to strike like a bear [jake adapted his voice and gesticulation to the idea of clumsiness], _an' dot'sh ull_! what does he _care_ where his paw will land, so he strikes. _but_ here one must observe _rulesh_ [rules]." at this point meester bernstein--for so the rabbinical-looking man was usually addressed by his shopmates--looked up from his dictionary. "can't you see?" he interposed, with an air of assumed gravity as he turned to jake's opponent, "america is an educated country, so they won't even break bones without grammar. they tear each other's sides according to 'right and left,'[ ] you know." this was a thrust at jake's right-handers and left-handers, which had interfered with bernstein's reading. "nevertheless," the latter proceeded, when the outburst of laughter which greeted his witticism had subsided, "i do think that a burly russian peasant would, without a bit of grammar, crunch the bones of corbett himself; and he would not _charge_ him a cent for it, either." [ ] a term relating to the hebrew equivalent of the letter _s_, whose pronunciation depends upon the right or left position of a mark over it. "_is dot sho?_" jake retorted, somewhat nonplussed. "_i betch you_ he would not. the peasant would lie bleeding like a hog before he had time to turn around." "_but_ they might kill each other in that way, _ain't it_, jake?" asked a comely, milk-faced blonde whose name was fanny. she was celebrated for her lengthy tirades, mostly in a plaintive, nagging strain, and delivered in her quiet, piping voice, and had accordingly been dubbed "the preacher." "oh, that will happen but very seldom," jake returned rather glumly. the theatrical pair broke off their boasting match to join in the debate, which soon included all except the socialist; the former two, together with the two girls and the presser, espousing the american cause, while malke the widow and "de viskes" sided with bernstein. "let it be as you say," said the leader of the minority, withdrawing from the contest to resume his newspaper. "my grandma's last care it is who can fight best." "nice pleasure, _anyhull_," remarked the widow. "_never min'_, we shall see how it will lie in his head when he has a wife and children to _support_." jake colored. "what does a _chicken_ know about these things?" he said irascibly. bernstein again could not help intervening. "and you, jake, can not do without 'these things,' can you? indeed, i do not see how you manage to live without them." "don't you like it? i do," jake declared tartly. "once i live in america," he pursued, on the defensive, "i want to know that i live in america. _dot'sh a' kin' a man i am!_ one must not be a _greenhorn_. here a jew is as good as a gentile. how, then, would you have it? the way it is in russia, where a jew is afraid to stand within four ells of a christian?" "are there no other christians than _fighters_ in america?" bernstein objected with an amused smile. "why don't you look for the educated ones?" "do you mean to say the _fighters_ are not _ejecate_? better than you, _anyhoy_," jake said with a yankee wink, followed by his semitic smile. "here you read the papers, and yet _i'll betch you_ you don't know that corbett _findished college_." "i never read about fighters," bernstein replied with a bored gesture, and turned to his paper. "then say that you don't know, and _dot'sh ull_!" bernstein made no reply. in his heart jake respected him, and was now anxious to vindicate his tastes in the judgment of his scholarly shopmate and in his own. "_alla right_, let it be as you say; the _fighters_ are not _ejecate_. no, not a bit!" he said ironically, continuing to address himself to bernstein. "but what will you say to _baseball_? all _college boys_ and _tony peoplesh_ play it," he concluded triumphantly. bernstein remained silent, his eyes riveted to his newspaper. "ah, you don't answer, _shee_?" said jake, feeling put out. the awkward pause which followed was relieved by one of the playgoers who wanted to know whether it was true that to pitch a ball required more skill than to catch one. "_sure!_ you must know how to _peetch_," jake rejoined with the cloud lingering on his brow, as he lukewarmly delivered an imaginary ball. "and i, for my part, don't see what wisdom there is to it," said the presser with a shrug. "i think i could throw, too." "he can do everything!" laughingly remarked a girl named pessé. "how hard can you hit?" jake demanded sarcastically, somewhat warming up to the subject. "as hard as you at any time." "_i betch you a dullar to you' ten shent_ you can not," jake answered, and at the same moment he fished out a handful of coin from his trousers pocket and challengingly presented it close to his interlocutor's nose. "there he goes!--betting!" the presser exclaimed, drawing slightly back. "for my part, your _pitzers_ and _catzers_ may all lie in the earth. a nice entertainment, indeed! just like little children--playing ball! and yet people say america is a _smart_ country. i don't see it." "_'f caush_ you don't, _becaush_ you are a bedraggled _greenhorn_, afraid to budge out of heshter shtreet." as jake thus vented his bad humour on his adversary, he cast a glance at bernstein, as if anxious to attract his attention and to re-engage him in the discussion. "look at the yankee!" the presser shot back. "more of a one than you, _anyhoy_." "he thinks that _shaving_ one's mustache makes a yankee!" jake turned white with rage. "_'pon my vord_, i'll ride into his mug and give such a _shaving_ and planing to his pig's snout that he will have to pick up his teeth." "that's all you are good for." "better don't answer him, jake," said fanny, intimately. "oh, i came near forgetting that he has somebody to take his part!" snapped the presser. the girl's milky face became a fiery red, and she retorted in vituperative yiddish from that vocabulary which is the undivided possession of her sex. the presser jerked out an innuendo still more far-reaching than his first. jake, with bloodshot eyes, leaped at the offender, and catching him by the front of his waistcoat, was aiming one of those bearlike blows which but a short while ago he had decried in the moujik, when bernstein sprang to his side and tore him away, pessé placing herself between the two enemies. "don't get excited," bernstein coaxed him. "better don't soil your hands," fanny added. after a slight pause bernstein could not forbear a remark which he had stubbornly repressed while jake was challenging him to a debate on the education of baseball players: "look here, jake; since fighters and baseball men are all educated, then why don't you try to become so? instead of _spending_ your money on fights, dancing, and things like that, would it not be better if you paid it to a teacher?" jake flew into a fresh passion. "_never min'_ what i do with my money," he said; "i don't steal it from you, do i? rejoice that you keep tormenting your books. much does he know! learning, learning, and learning, and still he can not speak english. i don't learn and yet i speak quicker than you!" a deep blush of wounded vanity mounted to bernstein's sallow cheek. "_ull right, ull right!_" he cut the conversation short, and took up the newspaper. another nervous silence fell upon the group. jake felt wretched. he uttered an english oath, which in his heart he directed against himself as much as against his sedate companion, and fell to frowning upon the leg of a machine. "vill you go by joe to-night?" asked fanny in english, speaking in an undertone. joe was a dancing master. she was sure jake intended to call at his "academy" that evening, and she put the question only in order to help him out of his sour mood. "no," said jake, morosely. "vy, to-day is vensday." "and without you i don't know it!" he snarled in yiddish. the finisher girl blushed deeply and refrained from any response. "he does look like a _regely_ yankee, doesn't he?" pessé whispered to her after a little. "go and ask him!" "go and hang yourself together with him! such a nasty preacher! did you ever hear--one dares not say a word to the noblewoman!" at this juncture the boss, a dwarfish little jew, with a vivid pair of eyes and a shaggy black beard, darted into the chamber. "it is _no used_!" he said with a gesture of despair. "there is not a stitch of work, if only for a cure. look, look how they have lowered their noses!" he then added with a triumphant grin. "_vell_, i shall not be teasing you, 'pity living things!' the expressman is _darn stess_. i would not go till i saw him _start_, and then i caught a car. no other _boss_ could get a single jacket even if he fell upon his knees. _vell_, do you appreciate it at least? not much, ay?" the presser rushed out of the room and presently came back laden with bundles of cut cloth which he threw down on the table. a wild scramble ensued. the presser looked on indifferently. the three finisher women, who had awaited the advent of the bundles as eagerly as the men, now calmly put on their hats. they knew that their part of the work wouldn't come before three o'clock, and so, overjoyed by the certainty of employment for at least another day or two, they departed till that hour. "look at the rush they are making! just like the locusts of egypt!" the boss cried half sternly and half with self-complacent humour, as he shielded the treasure with both his arms from all except "de viskes" and jake--the two being what is called in sweat-shop parlance, "_chance-mentshen_," i.e., favorites. "don't be snatching and catching like that," the boss went on. "you may burn your fingers. go to your machines, i say! the soup will be served in separate plates. never fear, it won't get cold." the hands at last desisted gingerly, jake and the whiskered operator carrying off two of the largest bundles. the others went to their machines empty-handed and remained seated, their hungry glances riveted to the booty, until they, too, were provided. the little boss distributed the bundles with dignified deliberation. in point of fact, he was no less impatient to have the work started than any of his employees. but in him the feeling was overridden by a kind of malicious pleasure which he took in their eagerness and in the demonstration of his power over the men, some of whom he knew to have enjoyed a more comfortable past than himself. the machines of jake and "de viskes" led off in a duet, which presently became a trio, and in another few minutes the floor was fairly dancing to the ear-piercing discords of the whole frantic sextet. in the excitement of the scene called forth by the appearance of the bundles, jake's gloomy mood had melted away. nevertheless, while his machine was delivering its first shrill staccatos, his heart recited a vow: "as soon as i get my pay i shall call on the installment man and give him a deposit for a ticket." the prospective ticket was to be for a passage across the atlantic from hamburg to new york. and as the notion of it passed through jake's mind it evoked there the image of a dark-eyed young woman with a babe in her lap. however, as the sewing machine throbbed and writhed under jake's lusty kicks, it seemed to be swiftly carrying him away from the apparition which had the effect of receding, as a wayside object does from the passenger of a flying train, until it lost itself in a misty distance, other visions emerging in its place. it was some three years before the opening of this story that jake had last beheld that very image in the flesh. but then at that period of his life he had not even suspected the existence of a name like jake, being known to himself and to all povodye--a town in northwestern russia--as yekl or yekelé. it was not as a deserter from military service that he had shaken off the dust of that town where he had passed the first twenty-two years of his life. as the only son of aged parents he had been exempt from the duty of bearing arms. jake may have forgotten it, but his mother still frequently recurs to the day when he came rushing home, panting for breath, with the "red certificate" assuring his immunity in his hand. she nearly fainted for happiness. and when, stroking his dishevelled sidelocks with her bony hand and feasting her eye on his chubby face, she whispered, "my recovered child! god be blessed for his mercy!" there was a joyous tear in his eye as well as in hers. well does she remember how she gently spat on his forehead three times to avert the effect of a possible evil eye on her "flourishing tree of a boy," and how his father standing by made merry over what he called her crazy womanish tricks, and said she had better fetch some brandy in honour of the glad event. but if yekl was averse to wearing a soldier's uniform on his own person he was none the less fond of seeing it on others. his ruling passion, even after he had become a husband and a father, was to watch the soldiers drilling on the square in front of the whitewashed barracks near which stood his father's smithy. from a cheder[ ] boy he showed a knack at placing himself on terms of familiarity with the jewish members of the local regiment, whose uniforms struck terror into the hearts of his schoolmates. he would often play truant to attend a military parade; no lad in town knew so many russian words or was as well versed in army terminology as yekelé "beril the blacksmith's;" and after he had left cheder, while working his father's bellows, yekl would vary synagogue airs with martial song. [ ] a school where jewish children are instructed in the old testament or the talmud. three years had passed since yekl had for the last time set his eyes on the whitewashed barracks and on his father's rickety smithy, which, for reasons indirectly connected with the government's redoubled discrimination against the sons of israel, had become inadequate to support two families; three years since that beautiful summer morning when he had mounted the spacious _kibitka_ which was to carry him to the frontier-bound train; since, hurried by the driver, he had leaned out of the wagon to kiss his half-year old son good-bye amid the heart-rending lamentations of his wife, the tremulous "go in good health!" of his father, and the startled screams of the neighbours who rushed to the relief of his fainting mother. the broken russian learned among the povodye soldiers he had exchanged for english of a corresponding quality, and the bellows for a sewing machine--a change of weapons in the battle of life which had been brought about both by yekl's tender religious feelings and robust legs. he had been shocked by the very notion of seeking employment at his old trade in a city where it is in the hands of christians, and consequently involves a violation of the mosaic sabbath. on the other hand, his legs had been thought by his early american advisers eminently fitted for the treadle. unlike new york, the jewish sweat-shops of boston keep in line, as a rule, with the christian factories in observing sunday as the only day of rest. there is, however, even in boston a lingering minority of bosses--more particularly in the "pants"-making branch--who abide by the sabbath of their fathers. accordingly, it was under one of these that yekl had first been initiated into the sweat-shop world. subsequently jake, following numerous examples, had given up "pants" for the more remunerative cloaks, and having rapidly attained skill in his new trade he had moved to new york, the centre of the cloak-making industry. soon after his arrival in boston his religious scruples had followed in the wake of his former first name; and if he was still free from work on saturdays he found many another way of "desecrating the sabbath." three years had intervened since he had first set foot on american soil, and the thought of ever having been a yekl would bring to jake's lips a smile of patronizing commiseration for his former self. as to his russian family name, which was podkovnik, jake's friends had such rare use for it that by mere negligence it had been left intact. chapter ii. the new york ghetto. it was after seven in the evening when jake finished his last jacket. some of the operators had laid down their work before, while others cast an envious glance on him as he was dressing to leave, and fell to their machines with reluctantly redoubled energy. fanny was a week worker and her time had been up at seven; but on this occasion her toilet had taken an uncommonly long time, and she was not ready until jake got up from his chair. then she left the room rather suddenly and with a demonstrative "good-night all!" when jake reached the street he found her on the sidewalk, making a pretense of brushing one of her sleeves with the cuff of the other. "so kvick?" she asked, raising her head in feigned surprise. "you cull dot kvick?" he returned grimly. "good-bye!" "say, ain't you goin' to dance to-night, really?" she queried shamefacedly. "i tol' you i vouldn't." "what does _she_ want of me?" he complained to himself proceeding on his way. he grew conscious of his low spirits, and, tracing them with some effort to their source, he became gloomier still. "no more fun for me!" he decided. "i shall get them over here and begin a new life." after supper, which he had taken, as usual, at his lodgings, he went out for a walk. he was firmly determined to keep himself from visiting joe peltner's dancing academy, and accordingly he took a direction opposite to suffolk street, where that establishment was situated. having passed a few blocks, however, his feet, contrary to his will, turned into a side street and thence into one leading to suffolk. "i shall only drop in to tell joe that i can not sell any of his ball tickets, and return them," he attempted to deceive his own conscience. hailing this pretext with delight he quickened his pace as much as the overcrowded sidewalks would allow. he had to pick and nudge his way through dense swarms of bedraggled half-naked humanity; past garbage barrels rearing their overflowing contents in sickening piles, and lining the streets in malicious suggestion of rows of trees; underneath tiers and tiers of fire escapes, barricaded and festooned with mattresses, pillows, and feather-beds not yet gathered in for the night. the pent-in sultry atmosphere was laden with nausea and pierced with a discordant and, as it were, plaintive buzz. supper had been despatched in a hurry, and the teeming populations of the cyclopic tenement houses were out in full force "for fresh air," as even these people will say in mental quotation marks. suffolk street is in the very thick of the battle for breath. for it lies in the heart of that part of the east side which has within the last two or three decades become the ghetto of the american metropolis, and, indeed, the metropolis of the ghettos of the world. it is one of the most densely populated spots on the face of the earth--a seething human sea fed by streams, streamlets, and rills of immigration flowing from all the yiddish-speaking centres of europe. hardly a block but shelters jews from every nook and corner of russia, poland, galicia, hungary, roumania; lithuanian jews, volhynian jews, south russian jews, bessarabian jews; jews crowded out of the "pale of jewish settlement"; russified jews expelled from moscow, st. petersburg, kieff, or saratoff; jewish runaways from justice; jewish refugees from crying political and economical injustice; people torn from a hard-gained foothold in life and from deep-rooted attachments by the caprice of intolerance or the wiles of demagoguery--innocent scapegoats of a guilty government for its outraged populace to misspend its blind fury upon; students shut out of the russian universities, and come to these shores in quest of learning; artisans, merchants, teachers, rabbis, artists, beggars--all come in search of fortune. nor is there a tenement house but harbours in its bosom specimens of all the whimsical metamorphoses wrought upon the children of israel of the great modern exodus by the vicissitudes of life in this their promised land of to-day. you find there jews born to plenty, whom the new conditions have delivered up to the clutches of penury; jews reared in the straits of need, who have here risen to prosperity; good people morally degraded in the struggle for success amid an unwonted environment; moral outcasts lifted from the mire, purified, and imbued with self-respect; educated men and women with their intellectual polish tarnished in the inclement weather of adversity; ignorant sons of toil grown enlightened--in fine, people with all sorts of antecedents, tastes, habits, inclinations, and speaking all sorts of subdialects of the same jargon, thrown pellmell into one social caldron--a human hodgepodge with its component parts changed but not yet fused into one homogeneous whole. and so the "stoops," sidewalks, and pavements of suffolk street were thronged with panting, chattering, or frisking multitudes. in one spot the scene received a kind of weird picturesqueness from children dancing on the pavement to the strident music hurled out into the tumultuous din from a row of the open and brightly illuminated windows of what appeared to be a new tenement house. some of the young women on the sidewalk opposite raised a longing eye to these windows, for floating, by through the dazzling light within were young women like themselves with masculine arms round their waists. as the spectacle caught jake's eye his heart gave a leap. he violently pushed his way through the waltzing swarm, and dived into the half-dark corridor of the house whence the music issued. presently he found himself on the threshold and in the overpowering air of a spacious oblong chamber, alive with a damp-haired, dishevelled, reeking crowd--an uproarious human vortex, whirling to the squeaky notes of a violin and the thumping of a piano. the room was, judging by its untidy, once-whitewashed walls and the uncouth wooden pillars supporting its bare ceiling, more accustomed to the whir of sewing machines than to the noises which filled it at the present moment. it took up the whole of the first floor of a five-story house built for large sweat-shops, and until recently it had served its original purpose as faithfully as the four upper floors, which were still the daily scenes of feverish industry. at the further end of the room there was now a marble soda fountain in charge of an unkempt boy. a stocky young man with a black entanglement of coarse curly hair was bustling about among the dancers. now and then he would pause with his eyes bent upon some two pairs of feet, and fall to clapping time and drawling out in a preoccupied singsong: "von, two, tree! leeft you' feet! don' so kvick--sloy, sloy! von, two, tree, von, two, tree!" this was professor peltner himself, whose curly hair, by the way, had more to do with the success of his institution than his stumpy legs, which, according to the unanimous dictum of his male pupils, moved about "like a _regely_ pair of bears." the throng showed but a very scant sprinkling of plump cheeks and shapely figures in a multitude of haggard faces and flaccid forms. nearly all were in their work-a-day clothes, very few of the men sporting a wilted white shirt front. and while the general effect of the kaleidoscope was one of boisterous hilarity, many of the individual couples somehow had the air of being engaged in hard toil rather than as if they were dancing for amusement. the faces of some of these bore a wondering martyrlike expression, as who should say, "what have we done to be knocked about in this manner?" for the rest, there were all sorts of attitudes and miens in the whirling crowd. one young fellow, for example, seemed to be threatening vengeance to the ceiling, while his partner was all but exultantly exclaiming: "lord of the universe! what a world this be!" another maiden looked as if she kept murmuring, "you don't say!" whereas her cavalier mutely ejaculated, "glad to try my best, your noble birth!"--after the fashion of a russian soldier. the prevailing stature of the assemblage was rather below medium. this does not include the dozen or two of undergrown lasses of fourteen or thirteen who had come surreptitiously, and--to allay the suspicion of their mothers--in their white aprons. they accordingly had only these articles to check at the hat box, and hence the nickname of "apron-check ladies," by which this truant contingent was known at joe's academy. so that as jake now stood in the doorway with an orphaned collar button glistening out of the band of his collarless shirt front and an affected expression of _ennui_ overshadowing his face, his strapping figure towered over the circling throng before him. he was immediately noticed and became the target for hellos, smiles, winks, and all manner of pleasantry: "vot you stand like dot? you vont to loin dantz?" or "you a detectiff?" or "you vont a job?" or, again, "is it hot anawff for you?" to all of which jake returned an invariable "yep!" each time resuming his bored mien. as he thus gazed at the dancers, a feeling of envy came over him. "look at them!" he said to himself begrudgingly. "how merry they are! such _shnoozes_, they can hardly set a foot well, and yet they are free, while i am a married man. but wait till you get married, too," he prospectively avenged himself on joe's pupils; "we shall see how you will then dance and jump!" presently a wave of joe's hand brought the music and the trampling to a pause. the girls at once took their seats on the "ladies' bench," while the bulk of the men retired to the side reserved for "gents only." several apparent post-graduates nonchalantly overstepped the boundary line, and, nothing daunted by the professor's repeated "zents to de right an' ladess to the left!" unrestrainedly kept their girls chuckling. at all events, joe soon desisted, his attention being diverted by the soda department of his business. "sawda!" he sang out. "ull kin's! sam, you ought ashamed you'selv; vy don'tz you treat you' lada?" in the meantime jake was the centre of a growing bevy of both sexes. he refused to unbend and to enter into their facetious mood, and his morose air became the topic of their persiflage. by-and-bye joe came scuttling up to his side. "goot-evenig, dzake!" he greeted him; "i didn't seen you at ull! say, dzake, i'll take care dis site an' you take care dot site--ull right?" "alla right!" jake responded gruffly. "gentsh, getch you partnesh, hawrry up!" he commanded in another instant. the sentence was echoed by the dancing master, who then blew on his whistle a prolonged shrill warble, and once again the floor was set straining under some two hundred pounding, gliding, or scraping feet. "don' bee 'fraid. gu right aheat an' getch you partner!" jake went on yelling right and left. "don' be 'shamed, mish cohen. dansh mit dot gentlemarn!" he said, as he unceremoniously encircled miss cohen's waist with "dot gentlemarn's" arm. "cholly! vot's de madder mitch _you_? you do hop like a cossack, as true as i am a jew," he added, indulging in a momentary lapse into yiddish. english was the official language of the academy, where it was broken and mispronounced in as many different ways as there were yiddish dialects represented in that institution. "dot'sh de vay, look!" with which jake seized from charley a lanky fourteen-year-old miss jacobs, and proceeded to set an example of correct waltzing, much to the unconcealed delight of the girl, who let her head rest on his breast with an air of reverential gratitude and bliss, and to the embarrassment of her cavalier, who looked at the evolutions of jake's feet without seeing. presently jake was beckoned away to a corner by joe, whereupon miss jacobs, looking daggers at the little professor, sulked off to a distant seat. "dzake, do me a faver; hask mamie to gib dot feller a couple a dantzes," joe said imploringly, pointing to an ungainly young man who was timidly viewing the pandemonium-like spectacle from the further end of the "gent's bench." "i hasked 'er myself, but se don' vonted. he's a beesness man, you 'destan', an' he kan a lot o' fellers an' i vonted make him satetzfiet." "dot monkey?" said jake. "vot you talkin' aboyt! she vouldn't lishn to me neider, honesht." "say dot you don' vonted and dot's ull." "alla right; i'm goin' to ashk her, but i know it vouldn't be of naw used." "never min', you hask 'er foist. you knaw se vouldn't refuse _you_!" joe urged, with a knowing grin. "hoy much vill you bet she will refushe shaw?" jake rejoined with insincere vehemence, as he whipped out a handful of change. "vot kin' foon a man you are! ulleways like to bet!" said joe, deprecatingly. 'f cuss it depend mit vot kin' a mout' you vill hask, you 'destan'?" "by gum, jaw! vot you take me for? ven i shay i ashk, i ashk. you knaw i don' like no monkey beeshnesh. ven i promish anytink i do it shquare, dot'sh a kin' a man _i_ am!" and once more protesting his firm conviction that mamie would disregard his request, he started to prove that she would not. he had to traverse nearly the entire length of the hall, and, notwithstanding that he was compelled to steer clear of the dancers, he contrived to effect the passage at the swellest of his gaits, which means that he jauntily bobbed and lurched, after the manner of a blacksmith tugging at the bellows, and held up his enormous bullet head as if he were bidding defiance to the whole world. finally he paused in front of a girl with a superabundance of pitch-black side bangs and with a pert, ill natured, pretty face of the most strikingly semitic cast in the whole gathering. she looked twenty-three or more, was inclined to plumpness, and her shrewd deep dark eyes gleamed out of a warm gipsy complexion. jake found her seated in a fatigued attitude on a chair near the piano. "good-evenig, mamie!" he said, bowing with mock gallantry. "rats!" "shay, mamie, give dot feller a tvisht, vill you?" "dot slob again? joe must tink if you ask me i'll get scared, ain't it? go and tell him he is too fresh," she said with a contemptuous grimace. like the majority of the girls of the academy, mamie's english was a much nearer approach to a justification of its name than the gibberish spoken by the men. jake felt routed; but he put a bold face on it and broke out with studied resentment: "vot you kickin' aboyt, anyhoy? jaw don' mean notin' at ull. if you don' vonted never min', an' dot'sh ull. it don' cut a figger, shee?" and he feignedly turned to go. "look how kvick he gets excited!" she said, surrenderingly. "i ain't get ekshitet at ull; but vot'sh de used a makin' monkey beesnesh?" he retorted with triumphant acerbity. "you are a monkey you'self," she returned with a playful pout. the compliment was acknowledged by one of jake's blandest grins. "an' you are a monkey from monkey-land," he said. "vill you dansh mit dot feller?" "rats! vot vill you give me?" "vot should i give you?" he asked impatiently. "vill you treat?" "treat? ger-rr oyt!" he replied with a sweeping kick at space. "den i von't dance." "alla right. i'll treat you mit a coupel a waltch." "is dot so? you must really tink i am swooning to dance vit you," she said, dividing the remark between both jargons. "look at her, look! she is a _regely_ getzke[ ]: one must take off one's cap to speak to her. don't you always say you like to _dansh_ with me _becush_ i am a good _dansher_?" [ ] a crucifix. "you must tink you are a peach of a dancer, ain' it? bennie can dance a ---- sight better dan you," she recurred to her english. "alla right!" he said tartly. "so you don' vonted?" "o sugar! he is gettin' mad again. vell, who is de getzke, me or you? all right, i'll dance vid de slob. but it's only becuss you ask me, mind you!" she added fawningly. "dot'sh alla right!" he rejoined, with an affectation of gravity, concealing his triumph. "but you makin' too much fush. i like to shpeak plain, shee? dot'sh a kin' a man _i_ am." the next two waltzes mamie danced with the ungainly novice, taking exaggerated pains with him. then came a lancers, joe calling out the successive movements huckster fashion. his command was followed by less than half of the class, however, for the greater part preferred to avail themselves of the same music for waltzing. jake was bent upon giving mamie what he called a "sholid good time"; and, as she shared his view that a square or fancy dance was as flimsy an affair as a stick of candy, they joined or, rather, led the seceding majority. they spun along with all-forgetful gusto; every little while he lifted her on his powerful arm and gave her a "mill," he yelping and she squeaking for sheer ecstasy, as he did so; and throughout the performance his face and his whole figure seemed to be exclaiming, "dot'sh a kin' a man _i_ am!" several waifs stood in a cluster admiring or begrudging the antics of the star couple. among these was lanky miss jacobs and fanny the preacher, who had shortly before made her appearance in the hall, and now stood pale and forlorn by the "apron-check" girl's side. "look at the way she is stickin' to him!" the little girl observed with envious venom, her gaze riveted to mamie, whose shapely head was at this moment reclining on jake's shoulders, with her eyes half shut, as if melting in a transport of bliss. fanny felt cut to the quick. "you are jealous, ain't you?" she jerked out. "who, me? vy should i be jealous?" miss jacobs protested, colouring. "on my part let them both go to ----. _you_ must be jealous. here, here! see how your eyes are creeping out looking! here, here!" she teased her offender in yiddish, poking her little finger at her as she spoke. "will you shut your scurvy mouth, little piece of ugliness, you? such a piggish apron check!" poor fanny burst out under breath, tears starting to her eyes. "such a nasty little runt!" another girl chimed in. "such a little cricket already knows what 'jealous' is!" a third of the bystanders put in. "you had better go home or your mamma will give you a spanking." whereat the little cricket made a retort, which had better be left unrecorded. "to think of a bit of a flea like that having so much _cheek_! here is america for you!" "america for a country and '_dod'll do_' [that'll do] for a language!" observed one of the young men of the group, indulging one of the stereotype jokes of the ghetto. the passage at arms drew jake's attention to the little knot of spectators, and his eye fell on fanny. whereupon he summarily relinquished his partner on the floor, and advanced toward his shopmate, who, seeing him approach, hastened to retreat to the girls' bench, where she remained seated with a drooping head. "hello, fanny!" he shouted briskly, coming up in front of her. "hello!" she returned rigidly, her eyes fixed on the dirty floor. "come, give ush a tvisht, vill you?" "but you ain't goin' by joe to-night!" she answered, with a withering curl of her lip, her glance still on the ground. "go to your lady, she'll be mad atch you." "i didn't vonted to gu here, honesht, fanny. i o'ly come to tell jaw shometin', an' dot'sh ull," he said guiltily. "why should you apologize?" she addressed the tip of her shoe in her mother tongue. "as if he was obliged to apologize to me! _for my part_ you can _dance_ with her day and night. _vot do i care?_ as if i _cared_! i have only come to see what a _bluffer_ you are. do you think i am a _fool_? as _smart_ as your mamie, _anyvay_. as if i had not known he wanted to make me stay at home! what are you afraid of? am i in your way then? as if i was in his way! what business have i to be in your way? who is in your way?" while she was thus speaking in her voluble, querulous, harassing manner, jake stood with his hands in his trousers' pockets, in an attitude of mock attention. then, suddenly losing patience, he said: "_dot'sh alla right!_ you will finish your sermon afterward. and in the meantime _lesh have a valtz_ from the land of _valtzes_!" with which he forcibly dragged her off her seat, catching her round the waist. "but i don't need it, i don't wish it! go to your mamie!" she protested, struggling. "i tell you i don't need it, i don't----" the rest of the sentence was choked off by her violent breathing; for by this time she was spinning with jake like a top. after another moment's pretense at struggling to free herself she succumbed, and presently clung to her partner, the picture of triumph and beatitude. meanwhile mamie had walked up to joe's side, and without much difficulty caused him to abandon the lancers party to themselves, and to resume with her the waltz which jake had so abruptly broken off. in the course of the following intermission she diplomatically seated herself beside her rival, and paraded her tranquillity of mind by accosting her with a question on shop matters. fanny was not blind to the manoeuvre, but her exultation was all the greater for it, and she participated in the ensuing conversation with exuberant geniality. by-and-bye they were joined by jake. "vell, vill you treat, jake?" said mamie. "vot you vant, a kish?" he replied, putting his offer in action as well as in language. mamie slapped his arm. "may the angel of death kiss you!" said her lips in yiddish. "try again!" her glowing face overruled them in a dialect of its own. fanny laughed. "once i am _treating_, both _ladas_ must be _treated_ alike, _ain' it_?" remarked the gallant, and again he proved himself as good as his word, although fanny struggled with greater energy and ostensibly with more real indignation. "but vy don't you treat, you stingy loafer you?" "vot elsh you vant? a peench?" he was again on the point of suiting the action to the word, but mamie contrived to repay the pinch before she had received it, and added a generous piece of profanity into the bargain. whereupon there ensued a scuffle of a character which defies description in more senses than one. nevertheless jake marched his two "ladas" up to the marble fountain, and regaled them with two cents' worth of soda each. an hour or so later, when jake got out into the street, his breast pocket was loaded with a fresh batch of "professor peltner's grand annual ball" tickets, and his two arms--with mamie and fanny respectively. "as soon as i get my wages i'll call on the installment agent and give him a deposit for a steamship ticket," presently glimmered through his mind, as he adjusted his hold upon the two girls, snugly gathering them to his sides. chapter iii. in the grip of his past. jake had never even vaguely abandoned the idea of supplying his wife and child with the means of coming to join him. he was more or less prompt in remitting her monthly allowance of ten rubles, and the visit to the draft and passage office had become part of the routine of his life. it had the invariable effect of arousing his dormant scruples, and he hardly ever left the office without ascertaining the price of a steerage voyage from hamburg to new york. but no sooner did he emerge from the dingy basement into the noisy scenes of essex street, than he would consciously let his mind wander off to other topics. formerly, during the early part of his sojourn in boston, his landing place, where some of his townsfolk resided and where he had passed his first two years in america, he used to mention his gitl and his yosselé so frequently and so enthusiastically, that some wags among the hanover street tailors would sing "yekl and wife and the baby" to the tune of molly and i and the baby. in the natural course of things, however, these retrospective effusions gradually became far between, and since he had shifted his abode to new york he carefully avoided all reference to his antecedents. the jewish quarter of the metropolis, which is a vast and compact city within a city, offers its denizens incomparably fewer chances of contact with the english-speaking portion of the population than any of the three separate ghettos of boston. as a consequence, since jake's advent to new york his passion for american sport had considerably cooled off. and, to make up for this, his enthusiastic nature before long found vent in dancing and in a general life of gallantry. his proved knack with the gentle sex had turned his head and now cost him all his leisure time. still, he would occasionally attend some variety show in which boxing was the main drawing card, and somehow managed to keep track of the salient events of the sporting world generally. judging from his unstaid habits and happy-go-lucky abandon to the pleasures of life, his present associates took it for granted that he was single, and instead of twitting him with the feigned assumption that he had deserted a family--a piece of burlesque as old as the ghetto--they would quiz him as to which of his girls he was "dead struck" on, and as to the day fixed for the wedding. on more than one such occasion he had on the tip of his tongue the seemingly jocular question, "how do you know i am not married already?" but he never let the sentence cross his lips, and would, instead, observe facetiously that he was not "shtruck on nu goil," and that he was dead struck on all of them in "whulshale." "i hate retail beesnesh, shee? dot'sh a' kin' a man _i_ am!" one day, in the course of an intimate conversation with joe, jake, dropping into a philosophical mood, remarked: "it's something like a baker, _ain't it_? the more _cakes_ he has the less he likes them. you and i have a _lot_ of girls; that's why we don't _care_ for any one of them." but if his attachment for the girls of his acquaintance collectively was not coupled with a quivering of his heart for any individual mamie, or fanny, or sarah, it did not, on the other hand, preclude a certain lingering tenderness for his wife. but then his wife had long since ceased to be what she had been of yore. from a reality she had gradually become transmuted into a fancy. during the three years since he had set foot on the soil, where a "shister[ ] becomes a mister and a mister a shister," he had lived so much more than three years--so much more, in fact, than in all the twenty-two years of his previous life--that his russian past appeared to him a dream and his wife and child, together with his former self, fellow-characters in a charming tale, which he was neither willing to banish from his memory nor able to reconcile with the actualities of his american present. the question of how to effect this reconciliation, and of causing gitl and little yosselé to step out of the thickening haze of reminiscence and to take their stand by his side as living parts of his daily life, was a fretful subject from the consideration of which he cowardly shrank. he wished he could both import his family and continue his present mode of life. at the bottom of his soul he wondered why this should not be feasible. but he knew that it was not, and his heart would sink at the notion of forfeiting the lion's share of attentions for which he came in at the hands of those who lionized him. moreover, how will he look people in the face in view of the lie he has been acting? he longed for an interminable respite. but as sooner or later the minds of his acquaintances were bound to become disabused, and he would have to face it all out anyway, he was many a time on the point of making a clean breast of it, and failed to do so for a mere lack of nerve, each time letting himself off on the plea that a week or two before his wife's arrival would be a more auspicious occasion for the disclosure. [ ] yiddish for shoemaker. neither jake nor his wife nor his parents could write even yiddish, although both he and his old father read fluently the punctuated hebrew of the old testament or the prayer-book. their correspondence had therefore to be carried on by proxy, and, as a consequence, at longer intervals than would have been the case otherwise. the missives which he received differed materially in length, style, and degree of illiteracy as well as in point of penmanship; but they all agreed in containing glowing encomiums of little yosselé, exhorting yekl not to stray from the path of righteousness, and reproachfully asking whether he ever meant to send the ticket. the latter point had an exasperating effect on jake. there were times, however, when it would touch his heart and elicit from him his threadbare vow to send the ticket at once. but then he never had money enough to redeem it. and, to tell the truth, at the bottom of his heart he was at such moments rather glad of his poverty. at all events, the man who wrote jake's letters had a standing order to reply in the sharpest terms at his command that yekl did not spend his money on drink; that america was not the land they took it for, where one could "scoop gold by the skirtful;" that gitl need not fear lest he meant to desert her, and that as soon as he had saved enough to pay her way and to set up a decent establishment she would be sure to get the ticket. jake's scribe was an old jew who kept a little stand on pitt street, which is one of the thoroughfares and market places of the galician quarter of the ghetto, and where jake was unlikely to come upon any people of his acquaintance. the old man scraped together his livelihood by selling yiddish newspapers and cigarettes, and writing letters for a charge varying, according to the length of the epistle, from five to ten cents. each time jake received a letter he would take it to the galician, who would first read it to him (for an extra remuneration of one cent) and then proceed to pen five cents' worth of rhetoric, which might have been printed and forwarded one copy at a time for all the additions or alterations jake ever caused to be made in it. "what else shall i write?" the old man would ask his patron, after having written and read aloud the first dozen lines, which jake had come to know by heart. "how do _i_ know?" jake would respond. "it is you who can write; so you ought to understand what else to write." and the scribe would go on to write what he had written on almost every previous occasion. jake would keep the letter in his pocket until he had spare united states money enough to convert into ten rubles, and then he would betake himself to the draft office and have the amount, together with the well-crumpled epistle, forwarded to povodye. and so it went month in and month out. the first letter which reached jake after the scene at joe peltner's dancing academy came so unusually close upon its predecessor that he received it from his landlady's hand with a throb of misgiving. he had always laboured under the presentiment that some unknown enemies--for he had none that he could name--would some day discover his wife's address and anonymously represent him to her as contemplating another marriage, in order to bring gitl down upon him unawares. his first thought accordingly was that this letter was the outcome of such a conspiracy. "or maybe there is some death in the family?" he next reflected, half with terror and half with a feeling almost amounting to reassurance. when the cigarette vender unfolded the letter he found it to be of such unusual length that he stipulated an additional cent for the reading of it. "_alla right_, hurry up now!" jake said, grinding his teeth on a mumbled english oath. "_righd evay! righd evay!_" the old fellow returned jubilantly, as he hastily adjusted his spectacles and addressed himself to his task. the letter had evidently been penned by some one laying claim to hebrew scholarship and ambitious to impress the new world with it; for it was quite replete with poetic digressions, strained and twisted to suit some quotation from the bible. and what with this unstinted verbosity, which was greek to jake, one or two interruptions by the old man's customers, and interpretations necessitated by difference of dialect, a quarter of an hour had elapsed before the scribe realized the trend of what he was reading. then he suddenly gave a start, as if shocked. "vot'sh a madder? vot'sh a madder?" "_vot's der madder?_ what should be the _madder_? wait--a--i don't know what i can do"--he halted in perplexity. "any bad news?" jake inquired, turning pale. "speak out!" "speak out! it is all very well for you to say 'speak out.' you forget that one is a piece of jew," he faltered, hinting at the orthodox custom which enjoins a child of israel from being the messenger of sad tidings. "don't _bodder_ a head!" jake shouted savagely. "i have paid you, haven't i?" "_say_, young man, you need not be so angry," the other said, resentfully. "half of the letter i have read, have i not? so i shall refund you one cent and leave me in peace." he took to fumbling in his pockets for the coin, with apparent reluctance. "tell me what is the matter," jake entreated, with clinched fists. "is anybody dead? do tell me now." "_vell_, since you know it already, i may as well tell you," said the scribe cunningly, glad to retain the cent and jake's patronage. "it is your father who has been freed; may he have a bright paradise." "ha?" jake asked aghast, with a wide gape. the galician resumed the reading in solemn, doleful accents. the melancholy passage was followed by a jeremiade upon the penniless condition of the family and jake's duty to send the ticket without further procrastination. as to his mother, she preferred the povodye graveyard to a watery sepulchre, and hoped that her beloved and only son, the apple of her eye, whom she had been awake nights to bring up to manhood, and so forth, would not forget her. "so now they will be here for sure, and there can be no more delay!" was jake's first distinct thought. "poor father!" he inwardly exclaimed the next moment, with deep anguish. his native home came back to him with a vividness which it had not had in his mind for a long time. "was he an old man?" the scribe queried sympathetically. "about seventy," jake answered, bursting into tears. "seventy? then he had lived to a good old age. may no one depart younger," the old man observed, by way of "consoling the bereaved." as jake's tears instantly ran dry he fell to wringing his hands and moaning. "good-night!" he presently said, taking leave. "i'll see you to-morrow, if god be pleased." "good-night!" the scribe returned with heartfelt condolence. as he was directing his steps to his lodgings jake wondered why he did not weep. he felt that this was the proper thing for a man in his situation to do, and he endeavoured to inspire himself with emotions befitting the occasion. but his thoughts teasingly gambolled about among the people and things of the street. by-and-bye, however, he became sensible of his mental eye being fixed upon the big fleshy mole on his father's scantily bearded face. he recalled the old man's carriage, the melancholy nod of his head, his deep sigh upon taking snuff from the time-honoured birch bark which jake had known as long as himself; and his heart writhed with pity and with the acutest pangs of homesickness. "and it was evening and it was morning, the sixth day. and the heavens and the earth were finished." as the hebrew words of the sanctification of the sabbath resounded in jake's ears, in his father's senile treble, he could see his gaunt figure swaying over a pair of sabbath loaves. it is friday night. the little room, made tidy for the day of rest and faintly illuminated by the mysterious light of two tallow candles rising from freshly burnished candlesticks, is pervaded by a benign, reposeful warmth and a general air of peace and solemnity. there, seated by the side of the head of the little family and within easy reach of the huge brick oven, is his old mother, flushed with fatigue, and with an effort keeping her drowsy eyes open to attend, with a devout mien, her husband's prayer. opposite to her, by the window, is yekl, the present jake, awaiting his turn to chant the same words in the holy tongue, and impatiently thinking of the repast to come after it. besides the three of them there is no one else in the chamber, for jake visioned the fascinating scene as he had known it for almost twenty years, and not as it had appeared during the short period since the family had been joined by gitl and subsequently by yosselé. suddenly he felt himself a child, the only and pampered son of a doting mother. he was overcome with a heart-wringing consciousness of being an orphan, and his soul was filled with a keen sense of desolation and self-pity. and thereupon everything around him--the rows of gigantic tenement houses, the hum and buzz of the scurrying pedestrians, the jingling horse cars--all suddenly grew alien and incomprehensible to jake. ah, if he could return to his old home and old days, and have his father recite sanctification again, and sit by his side, opposite to mother, and receive from her hand a plate of reeking _tzimess_,[ ] as of yore! poor mother! he _will_ not forget her--but what is the italian playing on that organ, anyhow? ah, it is the new waltz! by the way, this is monday and they are dancing at joe's now and he is not there. "i shall not go there to-night, nor any other night," he commiserated himself, his reveries for the first time since he had left the pitt street cigarette stand passing to his wife and child. her image now stood out in high relief with the multitudinous noisy scene at joe's academy for a discordant, disquieting background, amid which there vaguely defined itself the reproachful saintlike visage of the deceased. "i will begin a new life!" he vowed to himself. [ ] a kind of dessert made of carrots or turnips. he strove to remember the child's features, but could only muster the faintest recollection--scarcely anything beyond a general symbol--a red little thing smiling, as he, jake, tickles it under its tiny chin. yet jake's finger at this moment seemed to feel the soft touch of that little chin, and it sent through him a thrill of fatherly affection to which he had long been a stranger. gitl, on the other hand, loomed up in all the individual sweetness of her rustic face. he beheld her kindly mouth opening wide--rather too wide, but all the lovelier for it--as she spoke; her prominent red gums, her little black eyes. he could distinctly hear her voice with her peculiar lisp, as one summer morning she had burst into the house and, clapping her hands in despair, she had cried, "a weeping to me! the yellow rooster is gone!" or, as coming into the smithy she would say: "father-in-law, mother-in-law calls you to dinner. hurry up, yekl, dinner is ready." and although this was all he could recall her saying, jake thought himself retentive of every word she had ever uttered in his presence. his heart went out to gitl and her environment, and he was seized with a yearning tenderness that made him feel like crying. "i would not exchange her little finger for all the american _ladas_," he soliloquized, comparing gitl in his mind with the dancing-school girls of his circle. it now filled him with disgust to think of the morals of some of them, although it was from his own sinful experience that he knew them to be of a rather loose character. he reached his lodgings in a devout mood, and before going to bed he was about to say his prayers. not having said them for nearly three years, however, he found, to his dismay, that he could no longer do it by heart. his landlady had a prayer-book, but, unfortunately, she kept it locked in the bureau, and she was now asleep, as was everybody else in the house. jake reluctantly undressed and went to bed on the kitchen lounge, where he usually slept. when a boy his mother had taught him to believe that to go to sleep at night without having recited the bed prayer rendered one liable to be visited and choked in bed by some ghost. later, when he had grown up, and yet before he had left his birthplace, he had come to set down this earnest belief of his good old mother as a piece of womanish superstition, while since he had settled in america he had hardly ever had an occasion to so much as think of bed prayers. nevertheless, as he now lay vaguely listening to the weird ticking of the clock on the mantelpiece over the stove, and at the same time desultorily brooding upon his father's death, the old belief suddenly uprose in his mind and filled him with mortal terror. he tried to persuade himself that it was a silly notion worthy of womenfolk, and even affected to laugh at it audibly. but all in vain. "cho-king! cho-king! cho-king!" went the clock, and the form of a man in white burial clothes never ceased gleaming in his face. he resolutely turned to the wall, and, pulling the blanket over his head, he huddled himself snugly up for instantaneous sleep. but presently he felt the cold grip of a pair of hands about his throat, and he even mentally stuck out his tongue, as one does while being strangled. with a fast-beating heart jake finally jumped off the lounge, and gently knocked at the door of his landlady's bedroom. "_eshcoosh me, mishesh_, be so kind as to lend me your prayer-book. i want to say the night prayer," he addressed her imploringly. the old woman took it for a cruel practical joke, and flew into a passion. "are you crazy or drunk? a nice time to make fun!" and it was not until he had said with suppliant vehemence, "may i as surely be alive as my father is dead!" and she had subjected him to a cross-examination, that she expressed sympathy and went to produce the keys. chapter iv. the meeting. a few weeks later, on a saturday morning, jake, with an unfolded telegram in his hand, stood in front of one of the desks at the immigration bureau of ellis island. he was freshly shaven and clipped, smartly dressed in his best clothes and ball shoes, and, in spite of the sickly expression of shamefacedness and anxiety which distorted his features, he looked younger than usual. all the way to the island he had been in a flurry of joyous anticipation. the prospect of meeting his dear wife and child, and, incidentally, of showing off his swell attire to her, had thrown him into a fever of impatience. but on entering the big shed he had caught a distant glimpse of gitl and yosselé through the railing separating the detained immigrants from their visitors, and his heart had sunk at the sight of his wife's uncouth and un-american appearance. she was slovenly dressed in a brown jacket and skirt of grotesque cut, and her hair was concealed under a voluminous wig of a pitch-black hue. this she had put on just before leaving the steamer, both "in honour of the sabbath" and by way of sprucing herself up for the great event. since yekl had left home she had gained considerably in the measurement of her waist. the wig, however, made her seem stouter and as though shorter than she would have appeared without it. it also added at least five years to her looks. but she was aware neither of this nor of the fact that in new york even a jewess of her station and orthodox breeding is accustomed to blink at the wickedness of displaying her natural hair, and that none but an elderly matron may wear a wig without being the occasional target for snowballs or stones. she was naturally dark of complexion, and the nine or ten days spent at sea had covered her face with a deep bronze, which combined with her prominent cheek bones, inky little eyes, and, above all, the smooth black wig, to lend her resemblance to a squaw. jake had no sooner caught sight of her than he had averted his face, as if loth to rest his eyes on her, in the presence of the surging crowd around him, before it was inevitable. he dared not even survey that crowd to see whether it contained any acquaintance of his, and he vaguely wished that her release were delayed indefinitely. presently the officer behind the desk took the telegram from him, and in another little while gitl, hugging yosselé with one arm and a bulging parcel with the other, emerged from a side door. "yekl!" she screamed out in a piteous high key, as if crying for mercy. "dot'sh alla right!" he returned in english, with a wan smile and unconscious of what he was saying. his wandering eyes and dazed mind were striving to fix themselves upon the stern functionary and the questions he bethought himself of asking before finally releasing his prisoners. the contrast between gitl and jake was so striking that the officer wanted to make sure--partly as a matter of official duty and partly for the fun of the thing--that the two were actually man and wife. "_oi_ a lamentation upon me! he shaves his beard!" gitl ejaculated to herself as she scrutinized her husband. "yosselé, look! here is _taté_!" but yosselé did not care to look at taté. instead, he turned his frightened little eyes--precise copies of jake's--and buried them in his mother's cheek. when gitl was finally discharged she made to fling herself on jake. but he checked her by seizing both loads from her arms. he started for a distant and deserted corner of the room, bidding her follow. for a moment the boy looked stunned, then he burst out crying and fell to kicking his father's chest with might and main, his reddened little face appealingly turned to gitl. jake continuing his way tried to kiss his son into toleration, but the little fellow proved too nimble for him. it was in vain that gitl, scurrying behind, kept expostulating with yosselé: "why, it is taté!" taté was forced to capitulate before the march was brought to its end. at length, when the secluded corner had been reached, and jake and gitl had set down their burdens, husband and wife flew into mutual embrace and fell to kissing each other. the performance had an effect of something done to order, which, it must be owned, was far from being belied by the state of their minds at the moment. their kisses imparted the taste of mutual estrangement to both. in jake's case the sensation was quickened by the strong steerage odours which were emitted by gitl's person, and he involuntarily recoiled. "you look like a _poritz_,"[ ] she said shyly. [ ] yiddish for nobleman. "how are you? how is mother?" "how should she be? so, so. she sends you her love," gitl mumbled out. "how long was father ill?" "maybe a month. he cost us health enough." he proceeded to make advances to yosselé, she appealing to the child in his behalf. for a moment the sight of her, as they were both crouching before the boy, precipitated a wave of thrilling memories on jake and made him feel in his old environment. presently, however, the illusion took wing and here he was, jake the yankee, with this bonnetless, wigged, dowdyish little greenhorn by his side! that she was his wife, nay, that he was a married man at all, seemed incredible to him. the sturdy, thriving urchin had at first inspired him with pride; but as he now cast another side glance at gitl's wig he lost all interest in him, and began to regard him, together with his mother, as one great obstacle dropped from heaven, as it were, in his way. gitl, on her part, was overcome with a feeling akin to awe. she, too, could not get herself to realize that this stylish young man--shaved and dressed as in povodye is only some young nobleman--was yekl, her own yekl, who had all these three years never been absent from her mind. and while she was once more examining jake's blue diagonal cutaway, glossy stand-up collar, the white four-in-hand necktie, coquettishly tucked away in the bosom of his starched shirt, and, above all, his patent leather shoes, she was at the same time mentally scanning the yekl of three years before. the latter alone was hers, and she felt like crying to the image to come back to her and let her be _his_ wife. presently, when they had got up and jake was plying her with perfunctory questions, she chanced to recognise a certain movement of his upper lip--an old trick of his. it was as if she had suddenly discovered her own yekl in an apparent stranger, and, with another pitiful outcry, she fell on his breast. "don't!" he said, with patient gentleness, pushing away her arms. "here everything is so different." she coloured deeply. "they don't wear wigs here," he ventured to add. "what then?" she asked, perplexedly. "you will see. it is quite another world." "shall i take it off, then? i have a nice saturday kerchief," she faltered. "it is of silk--i bought it at kalmen's for a bargain. it is still brand new." "here one does not wear even a kerchief." "how then? do they go about with their own hair?" she queried in ill-disguised bewilderment. "_vell, alla right_, put it on, quick!" as she set about undoing her parcel, she bade him face about and screen her, so that neither he nor any stranger could see her bareheaded while she was replacing the wig by the kerchief. he obeyed. all the while the operation lasted he stood with his gaze on the floor, gnashing his teeth with disgust and shame, or hissing some bowery oath. "is this better?" she asked bashfully, when her hair and part of her forehead were hidden under a kerchief of flaming blue and yellow, whose end dangled down her back. the kerchief had a rejuvenating effect. but jake thought that it made her look like an italian woman of mulberry street on sunday. "_alla right_, leave it be for the present," he said in despair, reflecting that the wig would have been the lesser evil of the two. * * * * * when they reached the city gitl was shocked to see him lead the way to a horse car. "_oi_ woe is me! why, it is sabbath!" she gasped. he irately essayed to explain that a car, being an uncommon sort of vehicle, riding in it implied no violation of the holy day. but this she sturdily met by reference to railroads. besides, she had seen horse cars while stopping in hamburg, and knew that no orthodox jew would use them on the seventh day. at length jake, losing all self-control, fiercely commanded her not to make him the laughing-stock of the people on the street and to get in without further ado. as to the sin of the matter he was willing to take it all upon himself. completely dismayed by his stern manner, amid the strange, uproarious, forbidding surroundings, gitl yielded. as the horses started she uttered a groan of consternation and remained looking aghast and with a violently throbbing heart. if she had been a culprit on the way to the gallows she could not have been more terrified than she was now at this her first ride on the day of rest. the conductor came up for their fares. jake handed him a ten-cent piece, and raising two fingers, he roared out: "two! he ain' no maur as tree years, de liddle feller!" and so great was the impression which his dashing manner and his english produced on gitl, that for some time it relieved her mind and she even forgot to be shocked by the sight of her husband handling coin on the sabbath. having thus paraded himself before his wife, jake all at once grew kindly disposed toward her. "you must be hungry?" he asked. "not at all! where do you eat your _varimess_?"[ ] [ ] yiddish for dinner. "don't say varimess," he corrected her complaisantly; "here it is called _dinner_!" "_dinner?_[ ] and what if one becomes fatter?" she confusedly ventured an irresistible pun. [ ] yiddish for thinner. this was the way in which gitl came to receive her first lesson in the five or six score english words and phrases which the omnivorous jewish jargon has absorbed in the ghettos of english-speaking countries. chapter v. a paterfamilias. it was early in the afternoon of gitl's second wednesday in the new world. jake, bernstein and charley, their two boarders, were at work. yosselé was sound asleep in the lodgers' double bed, in the smallest of the three tiny rooms which the family rented on the second floor of one of a row of brand-new tenement houses. gitl was by herself in the little front room which served the quadruple purpose of kitchen, dining room, sitting room, and parlour. she wore a skirt and a loose jacket of white russian calico, decorated with huge gay figures, and her dark hair was only half covered by a bandana of red and yellow. this was gitl's compromise between her conscience and her husband. she panted to yield to jake's demands completely, but could not nerve herself up to going about "in her own hair, like a gentile woman." even the expostulations of mrs. kavarsky--the childless middle-aged woman who occupied with her husband the three rooms across the narrow hallway--failed to prevail upon her. nevertheless jake, succumbing to mrs. kavarsky's annoying solicitations, had bought his wife a cheap high-crowned hat, utterly unfit to be worn over her voluminous wig, and even a corset. gitl could not be coaxed into accompanying them to the store; but the eloquent neighbour had persuaded jake that her presence at the transaction was not indispensable after all. "leave it to me," she said; "i know what will become her and what won't. i'll get her a hat that will make a fifth avenue lady of her, and you shall see if she does not give in. if she is then not _satetzfiet_ to go with her own hair, _vell_!" what then would take place mrs. kavarsky left unsaid. the hat and the corset had been lying in the house now three days, and the neighbour's predictions had not yet come true, save for gitl's prying once or twice into the pasteboard boxes in which those articles lay, otherwise unmolested, on the shelf over her bed. the door was open. gitl stood toying with the knob of the electric bell, and deriving much delight from the way the street door latch kept clicking under her magic touch two flights above. finally she wearied of her diversion, and shutting the door she went to take a look at yosselé. she found him fast asleep, and, as she was retracing her steps through her own and jake's bedroom, her eye fell upon the paper boxes. she got up on the edge of her bed and, lifting the cover from the hatbox, she took a prolonged look at its contents. all at once her face brightened up with temptation. she went to fasten the hallway door of the kitchen on its latch, and then regaining the bedroom shut herself in. after a lapse of some ten or fifteen minutes she re-emerged, attired in her brown holiday dress in which she had first confronted jake on ellis island, and with the tall black straw hat on her head. walking on tiptoe, as though about to commit a crime, she crossed over to the looking-glass. then she paused, her eyes on the door, to listen for possible footsteps. hearing none she faced the glass. "quite a _panenke_!"[ ] she thought to herself, all aglow with excitement, a smile, at once shamefaced and beatific, melting her features. she turned to the right, then to the left, to view herself in profile, as she had seen mrs. kavarsky do, and drew back a step to ascertain the effect of the corset. to tell the truth, the corset proved utterly impotent against the baggy shapelessness of the povodye garment. yet gitl found it to work wonders, and readily pardoned it for the very uncomfortable sensation which it caused her. she viewed herself again and again, and was in a flutter both of ecstasy and alarm when there came a timid rap on the door. trembling all over, she scampered on tiptoe back into the bedroom, and after a little she returned in her calico dress and bandana kerchief. the knock at the door had apparently been produced by some peddler or beggar, for it was not repeated. yet so violent was gitl's agitation that she had to sit down on the haircloth lounge for breath and to regain composure. [ ] a young noblewoman. "what is it they call this?" she presently asked herself, gazing at the bare boards of the floor. "floor!" she recalled, much to her self-satisfaction. "and that?" she further examined herself, as she fixed her glance on the ceiling. this time the answer was slow in coming, and her heart grew faint. "and what was it yekl called that?"--transferring her eyes to the window. "veen--neev--veenda," she at last uttered exultantly. the evening before she had happened to call it _fentzter_, in spite of jake's repeated corrections. "can't you say _veenda_?" he had growled. "what a peasant head! other _greenhornsh_ learn to speak american _shtyle_ very fast; and she--one might tell her the same word eighty thousand times, and it is _nu used_." "_es is of'n veenda mein ich_,"[ ] she hastened to set herself right. [ ] it is on the window, i meant to say. she blushed as she said it, but at the moment she attached no importance to the matter and took no more notice of it. now, however, jake's tone of voice, as he had rebuked her backwardness in picking up american yiddish, came back to her and she grew dejected. she was getting used to her husband, in whom her own yekl and jake the stranger were by degrees merging themselves into one undivided being. when the hour of his coming from work drew near she would every little while consult the clock and become impatient with the slow progress of its hands; although mixed with this impatience there was a feeling of apprehension lest the supper, prepared as it was under culinary conditions entirely new to her, should fail to please jake and the boarders. she had even become accustomed to address her husband as jake without reddening in the face; and, what is more, was getting to tolerate herself being called by him goitie (gertie)--a word phonetically akin to yiddish for gentile. for the rest she was too inexperienced and too simple-hearted naturally to comment upon his manner toward her. she had not altogether overcome her awe of him, but as he showed her occasional marks of kindness she was upon the whole rather content with her new situation. now, however, as she thus sat in solitude, with his harsh voice ringing in her ears and his icy look before her, a feeling of suspicion darkened her soul. she recalled other scenes where he had looked and spoken as he had done the night before. "he must hate me! a pain upon me!" she concluded with a fallen heart. she wondered whether his demeanour toward her was like that of other people who hated their wives. she remembered a woman of her native village who was known to be thus afflicted, and she dropped her head in a fit of despair. at one moment she took a firm resolve to pluck up courage and cast away the kerchief and the wig; but at the next she reflected that god would be sure to punish her for the terrible sin, so that instead of winning jake's love the change would increase his hatred for her. it flashed upon her mind to call upon some "good jew" to pray for the return of his favour, or to seek some old polish beggar woman who could prescribe a love potion. but then, alas! who knows whether there are in this terrible america any good jews or beggar women with love potions at all! better she had never known this "black year" of a country! here everybody says she is green. what an ugly word to apply to people! she had never been green at home, and here she had suddenly become so. what do they mean by it, anyhow? verily, one might turn green and yellow and gray while young in such a dreadful place. her heart was wrung with the most excruciating pangs of homesickness. and as she thus sat brooding and listlessly surveying her new surroundings--the iron stove, the stationary washtubs, the window opening vertically, the fire escape, the yellowish broom with its painted handle--things which she had never dreamed of at her birthplace--these objects seemed to stare at her haughtily and inspired her with fright. even the burnished cup of the electric bell knob looked contemptuously and seemed to call her "greenhorn! greenhorn!" "lord of the world! where am i?" she whispered with tears in her voice. the dreary solitude terrified her, and she instinctively rose to take refuge at yosselé's bedside. as she got up, a vague doubt came over her whether she should find there her child at all. but yosselé was found safe and sound enough. he was rubbing his eyes and announcing the advent of his famous appetite. she seized him in her arms and covered his warm cheeks with fervent kisses which did her aching heart good. and by-and-bye, as she admiringly watched the boy making savage inroads into a generous slice of rye bread, she thought of jake's affection for the child; whereupon things began to assume a brighter aspect, and she presently set about preparing supper with a lighter heart, although her countenance for some time retained its mournful woe-begone expression. * * * * * meanwhile jake sat at his machine merrily pushing away at a cloak and singing to it some of the popular american songs of the day. the sensation caused by the arrival of his wife and child had nearly blown over. peltner's dancing school he had not visited since a week or two previous to gitl's landing. as to the scene which had greeted him in the shop after the stirring news had first reached it, he had faced it out with much more courage and got over it with much less difficulty than he had anticipated. "did i ever tell you i was a _tzingle man_?" he laughingly defended himself, though blushing crimson, against his shopmates' taunts. "and am i obliged to give you a _report_ whether my wife has come or not? you are not worth mentioning her name to, _anyhoy_." the boss then suggested that jake celebrate the event with two pints of beer, the motion being seconded by the presser, who volunteered to fetch the beverage. jake obeyed with alacrity, and if there had still lingered any trace of awkwardness in his position it was soon washed away by the foaming liquid. as a matter of fact, fanny's embarrassment was much greater than jake's. the stupefying news was broken to her on the very day of gitl's arrival. after passing a sleepless night she felt that she could not bring herself to face jake in the presence of her other shopmates, to whom her feelings for him were an open secret. as luck would have it, it was sunday, the beginning of a new working week in the metropolitan ghetto, and she went to look for a job in another place. jake at once congratulated himself upon her absence and missed her. but then he equally missed the company of mamie and of all the other dancing-school girls, whose society and attentions now more than ever seemed to him necessities of his life. they haunted his mind day and night; he almost never beheld them in his imagination except as clustering together with his fellow-cavaliers and making merry over him and his wife; and the vision pierced his heart with shame and jealousy. all his achievements seemed wiped out by a sudden stroke of ill fate. he thought himself a martyr, an innocent exile from a world to which he belonged by right; and he frequently felt the sobs of self-pity mounting to his throat. for several minutes at a time, while kicking at his treadle, he would see, reddening before him, gitl's bandana kerchief and her prominent gums, or hear an un-american piece of yiddish pronounced with gitl's peculiar lisp--that very lisp, which three years ago he used to mimic fondly, but which now grated on his nerves and was apt to make his face twitch with sheer disgust, insomuch that he often found a vicious relief in mocking that lisp of hers audibly over his work. but can it be that he is doomed for life? no! no! he would revolt, conscious at the same time that there was really no escape. "ah, may she be killed, the horrid greenhorn!" he would gasp to himself in a paroxysm of despair. and then he would bewail his lost youth, and curse all russia for his premature marriage. presently, however, he would recall the plump, spunky face of his son who bore such close resemblance to himself, to whom he was growing more strongly attached every day, and who was getting to prefer his company to his mother's; and thereupon his heart would soften toward gitl, and he would gradually feel the qualms of pity and remorse, and make a vow to treat her kindly. "never min'," he would at such instances say in his heart, "she will _oyshgreen_[ ] herself and i shall get used to her. she is a ---- _shight_ better than all the dancing-school girls." and he would inspire himself with respect for her spotless purity, and take comfort in the fact of her being a model housewife, undiverted from her duties by any thoughts of balls or picnics. and despite a deeper consciousness which exposed his readiness to sacrifice it all at any time, he would work himself into a dignified feeling as the head of a household and the father of a promising son, and soothe himself with the additional consolation that sooner or later the other fellows of joe's academy would also be married. [ ] a verb coined from the yiddish _oys_, out, and the english _green_, and signifying to cease being green. on the wednesday in question jake and his shopmates had warded off a reduction of wages by threatening a strike, and were accordingly in high feather. and so jake and bernstein came home in unusually good spirits. little joey--for such was yosselé's name now--with whom his father's plays were for the most part of an athletic character, welcomed jake by a challenge for a pugilistic encounter, and the way he said "coom a fight!" and held out his little fists so delighted mr. podkovnik, sr., that upon ordering gitl to serve supper he vouchsafed a fillip on the tip of her nose. while she was hurriedly setting the table, jake took to describing to charley his employer's defeat. "you should have seen how he looked, the cockroach!" he said. "he became as pale as the wall and his teeth were chattering as if he had been shaken up with fever, _'pon my void_. and how quiet he became all of a sudden, as if he could not count two! one might apply him to an ulcer, so soft was he--ha-ha-ha!" he laughed, looking to bernstein, who smiled assent. at last supper was announced. bernstein donned his hat, and did not sit down to the repast before he had performed his ablutions and whispered a short prayer. as he did so jake and charley interchanged a wink. as to themselves, they dispensed with all devotional preliminaries, and took their seats with uncovered heads. gitl also washed her fingers and said the prayer, and as she handed yosselé his first slice of bread she did not release it before he had recited the benediction. bernstein, who, as a rule, looked daggers at his meal, this time received his plate of _borshtch_[ ]--his favourite dish--with a radiant face; and as he ate he pronounced it a masterpiece, and lavished compliments on the artist. [ ] a sour soup of cabbage and beets. "it's a long time since i tasted such a borshtch! simply a vivifier! it melts in every limb!" he kept rhapsodizing, between mouthfuls. "it ought to be sent to the chicago exposition. the _missess_ would get a medal." "a _regely_ european borshtch!" charley chimed in. "it is worth ten cents a spoonful, _'pon mine vort_!" "go away! you are only making fun of me," gitl declared, beaming with pride. "what is there to be laughing at? i make it as well as i can," she added demurely. "let him who is laughing laugh with teeth," jested charlie. "i tell you it is a----" the remainder of the sentence was submerged in a mouthful of the vivifying semi-liquid. "_alla right!_" jake bethought himself. "_charge_ him ten _shent_ for each spoonful. mr. bernstein, you shall be kind enough to be the _bookkeeper_. but if you don't pay, chollie, i'll get out a _tzommesh_ [summons] from _court_." whereat the little kitchen rang with laughter, in which all participated except bernstein. even joey, or yosselé, joined in the general outburst of merriment. otherwise he was busily engaged cramming borshtch into his mouth, and, in passing, also into his nose, with both his plump hands for a pair of spoons. from time to time he would interrupt operations to make a wry face and, blinking his eyes, to lisp out rapturously, "sour!" "look--may you live long--do look; he is laughing, too!" gitl called attention to yosselé's bespattered face. "to think of such a crumb having as much sense as that!" she was positive that he appreciated his father's witticism, although she herself understood it but vaguely. "may he know evil no better than he knows what he is laughing at," jake objected, with a fatherly mien. "what makes you laugh, joey?" the boy had no time to spare for an answer, being too busy licking his emptied plate. "look at the soldier's appetite he has, _de feller_! joey, hoy you like de borshtch? alla right?" jake asked in english. "awrr-ra rr-right!" joey pealed out his sturdy rustic r's, which he had mastered shortly before taking leave of his doting grandmother. "see how well he speaks english?" jake said, facetiously. "a ---- _shight_ better than his mamma, _anyvay_." gitl, who was in the meantime serving the meat, coloured, but took the remark in good part. "_i tell ye_ he is growing to be presdent 'nited states," charlie interposed. "_greenhorn_ that you are! a president must be american born," jake explained, self-consciously. "ain't it, mr. bernstein?" "it's a pity, then, that he was not born in this country," bernstein replied, his eye envyingly fixed now on gitl, now at the child, on whose plate she was at this moment carving a piece of meat into tiny morsels. "_vell_, if he cannot be a president of the united states, he may be one of a synagogue, so he is a president." "don't you worry for his sake," gitl put in, delighted with the attention her son was absorbing. "he does not need to be a pesdent; he is growing to be a rabbi; don't be making fun of him." and she turned her head to kiss the future rabbi. "who is making fun?" bernstein demurred. "i wish i had a boy like him." "get married and you will have one," said gitl, beamingly. "_shay_, mr. bernstein, how about your _shadchen_?"[ ] jake queried. he gave a laugh, but forthwith checked it, remaining with an embarrassed grin on his face, as though anxious to swallow the question. bernstein blushed to the roots of his hair, and bent an irate glance on his plate, but held his peace. [ ] a matrimonial agent. his reserved manner, if not his superior education, held bernstein's shopmates at a respectful distance from him, and, as a rule, rendered him proof against their badinage, although behind his back they would indulge an occasional joke on his inferiority as a workman, and--while they were at it--on his dyspepsia, his books, and staid, methodical habits. recently, however, they had got wind of his clandestine visits to a marriage broker's, and the temptation to chaff him on the subject had proved resistless, all the more so because bernstein, whose leading foible was his well-controlled vanity, was quick to take offence in general, and on this matter in particular. as to jake, he was by no means averse to having a laugh at somebody else's expense; but since bernstein had become his boarder he felt that he could not afford to wound his pride. hence his regret and anxiety at his allusion to the matrimonial agent. after supper charlie went out for the evening, while bernstein retired to their little bedroom. gitl busied herself with the dishes, and jake took to romping about with joey and had a hearty laugh with him. he was beginning to tire of the boy's company and to feel lonesome generally, when there was a knock at the door. "coom in!" gitl hastened to say somewhat coquettishly, flourishing her proficiency in american manners, as she raised her head from the pot in her hands. "coom in!" repeated joey. the door flew open, and in came mamie, preceded by a cloud of cologne odours. she was apparently dressed for some occasion of state, for she was powdered and straight-laced and resplendent in a waist of blazing red, gaudily trimmed, and with puff sleeves, each wider than the vast expanse of white straw, surmounted with a whole forest of ostrich feathers, which adorned her head. one of her gloved hands held the huge hoop-shaped yellowish handle of a blue parasol. "good-evenin', jake!" she said, with ostentatious vivacity. "good-evenin', mamie!" jake returned, jumping to his feet and violently reddening, as if suddenly pricked. "mish fein, my vife! my vife, mish fein!" miss fein made a stately bow, primly biting her lip as she did so. gitl, with the pot in her hands, stood staring sheepishly, at a loss what to do. "say 'i'm glyad to meech you,'" jake urged her, confusedly. the english phrase was more than gitl could venture to echo. "she is still _green_," jake apologized for her, in yiddish. "_never min'_, she will soon _oysgreen_ herself," mamie remarked, with patronizing affability. "the _lada_ is an acquaintance of mine," jake explained bashfully, his hand feeling the few days' growth of beard on his chin. gitl instinctively scented an enemy in the visitor, and eyed her with an uneasy gaze. nevertheless she mustered a hospitable air, and drawing up the rocking chair, she said, with shamefaced cordiality: "sit down; why should you be standing? you may be seated for the same money." in the conversation which followed mamie did most of the talking. with a nervous volubility often broken by an irrelevant giggle, and violently rocking with her chair, she expatiated on the charms of america, prophesying that her hostess would bless the day of her arrival on its soil, and went off in ecstasies over joey. she spoke with an overdone american accent in the dialect of the polish jews, affectedly germanized and profusely interspersed with english, so that gitl, whose mother tongue was lithuanian yiddish, could scarcely catch the meaning of one half of her flood of garrulity. and as she thus rattled on, she now examined the room, now surveyed gitl from head to foot, now fixed her with a look of studied sarcasm, followed by a side glance at jake, which seemed to say, "woe to you, what a rag of a wife yours is!" whenever gitl ventured a timid remark, mamie would nod assent with dignified amiability, and thereupon imitate a smile, broad yet fleeting, which she had seen performed by some uptown ladies. jake stared at the lamp with a faint simper, scarcely following the caller's words. his head swam with embarrassment. the consciousness of gitl's unattractive appearance made him sick with shame and vexation, and his eyes carefully avoided her bandana, as a culprit schoolboy does the evidence of his offence. "you mush vant you tventy-fife dollars," he presently nerved himself up to say in english, breaking an awkward pause. "i should cough!" mamie rejoined. "in a coupel a veeksh, mamie, as sure as my name is jake." "in a couple o' veeks! no, sirree! i mus' have my money at oncet. i don' know vere you vill get it, dough. vy, a married man!"--with a chuckle. "you got a ---- of a lot o' t'ings to pay for. you took de foinitsha by a custom peddler, ain' it? but what a ---- do _i_ care? i vant my money. i voiked hard enough for it." "don' shpeak english. she'll t'ink i don' knu vot ve shpeakin'," he besought her, in accents which implied intimacy between the two of them and a common aloofness from gitl. "vot d'i care vot she t'inks? she's your vife, ain' it? vell, she mus' know ev'ryt'ing. dot's right! a husban' dass'n't hide not'ink from his vife!"--with another chuckle and another look of deadly sarcasm at gitl "i can say de same in jewish----" "shurr-r up, mamie!" he interrupted her, gaspingly. "don'tch you like it, lump it! a vife mus'n't be skinned like a strange lady, see?" she pursued inexorably. "o'ly a strange goil a feller might bluff dot he ain' married, and skin her out of tventy-five dollars." in point of fact, he had never directly given himself out for a single man to her. but it did not even occur to him to defend himself on that score. "mamie! ma-a-mie! shtop! i'll pay you ev'ry shent. shpeak jewesh, pleashe!" he implored, as if for life. "you'r' afraid of her? dot's right! dot's right! dot's nice! all religious peoples is afraid of deir vifes. but vy didn' you say you vas married from de sta't, an' dot you vant money to send for dem?" she tortured him, with a lingering arch leer. "for chrish' shake, mamie!" he entreated her, wincingly. "shtop to shpeak english, an' shpeak shomet'ing differench. i'll shee you--vere can i shee you?" "you von't come by joe no more?" she asked, with sudden interest and even solicitude. "you t'ink indeed i'm 'frait? if i vanted i can gu dere more ash i ushed to gu dere. but vere can i findsh you?" "i guess you know vere i'm livin', don'ch you? so kvick you forget? vot a sho't mind you got! vill you come? never min', i know you are only bluffin', an' dot's all." "i'll come, ash sure ash i leev." "vill you? all right. but if you don' come an' pay me at least ten dollars for a sta't, you'll see!" in the meanwhile gitl, poor thing, sat pale and horror-struck. mamie's perfumes somehow terrified her. she was racked with jealousy and all sorts of suspicions, which she vainly struggled to disguise. she could see that they were having a heated altercation, and that jake was begging about something or other, and was generally the under dog in the parley. ever and anon she strained her ears in the effort to fasten some of the incomprehensible sounds in her memory, that she might subsequently parrot them over to mrs. kavarsky, and ascertain their meaning. but, alas! the attempt proved futile; "never min'" and "all right" being all she could catch. mamie concluded her visit by presenting joey with the imposing sum of five cents. "what do you say? say 'danks, sir!'" gitl prompted the boy. "shay 't'ank you, ma'am!'" jake overruled her. "'shir' is said to a gentlemarn." "good-night!" mamie sang out, as she majestically opened the door. "good-night!" jake returned, with a burning face. "goot-night!" gitl and joey chimed in duet. "say 'cull again!'" "cullye gain!" "good-night!" mamie said once more, as she bowed herself out of the door with what she considered an exquisitely "tony" smile. * * * * * the guest's exit was succeeded by a momentary silence. jake felt as if his face and ears were on fire. "we used to work in the same shop," he presently said. "is that the way a seamstress dresses in america?" gitl inquired. "it is not for nothing that it is called the golden land," she added, with timid irony. "she must be going to a ball," he explained, at the same moment casting a glance at the looking-glass. the word "ball" had an imposing ring for gitl's ears. at home she had heard it used in connection with the sumptuous life of the russian or polish nobility, but had never formed a clear idea of its meaning. "she looks a veritable _panenke_,"[ ] she remarked, with hidden sarcasm. "was she born here?" [ ] a young noblewoman. "_nu_, but she has been very long here. she speaks english like one american born. we are used to speak in english when we talk _shop_. she came to ask me about a _job_." gitl reflected that with bernstein jake was in the habit of talking shop in yiddish, although the boarder could even read english books, which her husband could not do. chapter vi. circumstances alter cases. jake was left by mamie in a state of unspeakable misery. he felt discomfited, crushed, the universal butt of ridicule. her perfumes lingered in his nostrils, taking his breath away. her venomous gaze stung his heart. she seemed to him elevated above the social plane upon which he had recently (though the interval appeared very long) stood by her side, nay, upon which he had had her at his beck and call; while he was degraded, as it were, wallowing in a mire, from which he yearningly looked up to his former equals, vainly begging for recognition. an uncontrollable desire took possession of him to run after her, to have an explanation, and to swear that he was the same jake and as much of a yankee and a gallant as ever. but here was his wife fixing him with a timid, piteous look, which at once exasperated and cowed him; and he dared not stir out of the house, as though nailed by that look of hers to the spot. he lay down on the lounge, and shut his eyes. gitl dutifully brought him a pillow. as she adjusted it under his head the touch of her hand on his face made him shrink, as if at the contact with a reptile. he was anxious to flee from his wretched self into oblivion, and his wish was soon gratified, the combined effect of a hard day's work and a plentiful and well-relished supper plunging him into a heavy sleep. while his snores resounded in the little kitchen, gitl put the child to bed, and then passed with noiseless step into the boarders' room. the door was ajar and she entered it without knocking, as was her wont. she found bernstein bent over a book, with a ponderous dictionary by its side. a kerosene lamp with a red shade, occupying nearly all the remaining space on the table, spread a lurid mysterious light. gitl asked the studious cloakmaker whether he knew a polish girl named mamie fein. "mamie fein? no. why?" said bernstein, with his index finger on the passage he had been reading, and his eyes on gitl's plumpish cheek, bathed in the roseate light. "nothing. may not one ask?" "what is the matter? speak out! are you afraid to tell me?" he insisted. "what should be the matter? she was here. a nice _lada_." "your husband knows many nice _ladies_," he said, with a faint but significant smile. and immediately regretting the remark he went on to smooth it down by characterizing jake as an honest and good-natured fellow. "you ought to think yourself fortunate in having him for your husband," he added. "yes, but what did you mean by what you said first?" she demanded, with an anxious air. "what did i mean? what should i have meant? i meant what i said. _'f cou'se_ he knows many girls. but who does not? you know there are always girls in the shops where we work. never fear, jake has nothing to do with them." "who says i fear! did i say i did? why should i?" encouraged by the cheering effect which his words were obviously having on the credulous, unsophisticated woman, he pursued: "may no jewish daughter have a worse husband. be easy, be easy. i tell you he is melting away for you. he never looked as happy as he does since you came." "go away! you must be making fun of me!" she said, beaming with delight. "don't you believe me? why, are you not a pretty young woman?" he remarked, with an oily look in his eye. the crimson came into her cheek, and she lowered her glance. "stop making fun of me, i beg you," she said softly. "is it true?" "is what true? that you are a pretty young woman? take a looking-glass and see for yourself." "strange man that you are!" she returned, with confused deprecation. "i mean what you said before about jake," she faltered. "oh, about jake! then say so," he jested. "really he loves you as life." "how do you know?" she queried, wistfully. "how do i know!" he repeated, with an amused smile. "as if one could not see!" "but he never told you himself!" "how do you know he did not? you have guessed wrongly, see! he did, lots of times," he concluded gravely, touched by the anxiety of the poor woman. she left bernstein's room all thrilling with joy, and repentant for her excess of communicativeness. "a wife must not tell other people what happens to her husband," she lectured herself, in the best of humours. still, the words "your husband knows many nice _ladas_," kept echoing at the bottom of her soul, and in another few minutes she was at mrs. kavarsky's, confidentially describing mamie's visit as well as her talk with the boarder, omitting nothing save the latter's compliments to her looks. mrs. kavarsky was an eccentric, scraggy little woman, with a vehement manner and no end of words and gesticulations. her dry face was full of warts and surmounted by a chaotic mass of ringlets and curls of a faded brown. none too tidy about her person, and rather slattern in general appearance, she zealously kept up the over-scrupulous cleanliness for which the fame of her apartments reached far and wide. her neighbours and townsfolk pronounced her crazy but "with a heart of diamond," that is to say, the diametrical opposite of the precious stone in point of hardness, and resembling it in the general sense of excellence of quality. she was neighbourly enough, and as she was the most prosperous and her establishment the best equipped in the whole tenement, many a woman would come to borrow some cooking utensil or other, or even a few dollars on rent day, which mrs. kavarsky always started by refusing in the most pointed terms, and almost always finished by granting. she started to listen to gitl's report with a fierce mien which gradually thawed into a sage smile. when the young neighbour had rested her case, she first nodded her head, as who should say, "what fools this young generation be!" and then burst out: "do you know what _i_ have to tell you? guess!" gitl thought heaven knows what revelations awaited her. "that you are a lump of horse and a greenhorn and nothing else!" (gitl felt much relieved.) "that piece of ugliness should _try_ and come to _my_ house! then she would know the price of a pound of evil. i should open the door and--_march_ to eighty black years! let her go to where she came from! america is not russia, thanked be the lord of the world. here one must only know how to handle a husband. here a husband must remember '_ladas foist_'--but then you do not even know what that means!" she exclaimed, with a despairing wave of her hand. "what does it mean?" gitl inquired, pensively. "what does it mean? what should it mean? it means but too well, _never min'_. it means that when a husband does not _behabe_ as he should, one does not stroke his cheeks for it. a prohibition upon me if one does. if the wife is no greenhorn she gets him shoved into the oven, over there, across the river." "you mean they send him to prison?" "where else--to the theatre?" mrs. kavarsky mocked her furiously. "a weeping to me!" gitl said, with horror. "may god save me from such things!" in due course mrs. kavarsky arrived at the subject of head-gear, and for the third or fourth time she elicited from her pupil a promise to discard the kerchief and to sell the wig. "no wonder he does hate you, seeing you in that horrid rag, which makes a grandma of you. drop it, i tell you! drop it so that no survivor nor any refugee is left of it. if you don't obey me this time, dare not cross my threshold any more, do you hear?" she thundered. "one might as well talk to the wall as to her!" she proceeded, actually addressing herself to the opposite wall of her kitchen, and referring to her interlocutrice in the third person. "i am working and working for her, and here she appreciates it as much as the cat. fie!" with which the irate lady averted her face in disgust. "i shall take it off; now for sure--as sure as this is wednesday," said gitl, beseechingly. mrs. kavarsky turned back to her pacified. "remember now! if you _deshepoitn_ [disappoint] me this time, well!--look at me! i should think i was no gentile woman, either. i am as pious as you _anyhull_, and come from no mean family, either. you know i hate to boast; _but_ my father--peace be upon him!--was fit to be a rabbi. _vell_, and yet i am not afraid to go with my own hair. may no greater sins be committed! then it would be _never min'_ enough. plenty of time for putting on the patch [meaning the wig] when i get old; _but_ as long as i am young, i am young _an' dot's ull_! it can not be helped; when one lives in an _edzecate_ country, one must live like _edzecate peoples_. as they play, so one dances, as the saying is. but i think it is time for you to be going. go, my little kitten," mrs. kavarsky said, suddenly lapsing into accents of the most tender affection. "he may be up by this time and wanting _tea_. go, my little lamb, go and _try_ to make yourself agreeable to him and the uppermost will help. in america one must take care not to displease a husband. here one is to-day in new york and to-morrow in chicago; do you understand? as if there were any shame or decency here! a father is no father, a wife, no wife--_not'ing_! go now, my baby! go and throw away your rag and be a nice woman, and everything will be _ull right_." and so hurrying gitl to go, she detained her with ever a fresh torrent of loquacity for another ten minutes, till the young woman, standing on pins and needles and scarcely lending an ear, plucked up courage to plead her household duties and take a hasty departure. she found jake fast asleep. it was after eleven when he slowly awoke. he got up with a heavy burden on his soul--a vague sense of having met with some horrible rebuff. in his semiconsciousness he was unaware, however, of his wife's and son's existence and of the change which their advent had produced in his life, feeling himself the same free bird that he had been a fortnight ago. he stared about the room, as if wondering where he was. noticing gitl, who at that moment came out of the bedroom, he instantly realized the situation, recalling mamie, hat, perfumes, and all, and his heart sank within him. the atmosphere of the room became stifling to him. after sitting on the lounge for some time with a drooping head, he was tempted to fling himself on the pillow again, but instead of doing so he slipped on his hat and coat and went out. gitl was used to his goings and comings without explanation. yet this time his slam of the door sent a sharp pang through her heart. she had no doubt but that he was bending his steps to another interview with the polish witch, as she mentally branded miss fein. nor was she mistaken, for jake did start, mechanically, in the direction of chrystie street, where mamie lodged. he felt sure that she was away to some ball, but the very house in which she roomed seemed to draw him with magnetic force. moreover, he had a lurking hope that he might, after all, find her about the building. ah, if by a stroke of good luck he came upon her on the street! all he wished was to have a talk, and that for the sole purpose of amending her unfavourable impression of him. then he would never so much as think of mamie, for, indeed, she was hateful to him, he persuaded himself. arrived at his destination, and failing to find mamie on the sidewalk, he was tempted to wait till she came from the ball, when he was seized with a sudden sense of the impropriety of his expedition, and he forthwith returned home, deciding in his mind, as he walked, to move with his wife and child to chicago. meanwhile mamie lay brooding in her cot-bed in the parlour, which she shared with her landlady's two daughters. she was in the most wretched frame of mind, ineffectually struggling to fall asleep. she had made her way down the stairs leading from the podkovniks with a violently palpitating heart. she had been bound for no more imposing a place than joe's academy, and before repairing thither she had had to betake herself home to change her stately toilet for a humbler attire. for, as a matter of fact, it was expressly for her visit to the podkovniks that she had thus pranked herself out, and that would have been much too gorgeous an appearance to make at joe's establishment on one of its regular dancing evenings. having changed her toilet she did call at joe's; but so full was her mind of jake and his wife and, accordingly, she was so irritable, that in the middle of a quadrille she picked a quarrel with the dancing master, and abruptly left the hall. * * * * * the next day jake's work fared badly. when it was at last over he did not go direct home as usual, but first repaired to mamie's. he found her with her landlady in the kitchen. she looked careworn and was in a white blouse which lent her face a convalescent, touching effect. "good-eveni'g, mrs. bunetzky! good-eveni'g, mamie!" he fairly roared, as he playfully fillipped his hat backward. and after addressing a pleasantry or two to the mistress of the house, he boldly proposed to her boarder to go out with him for a talk. for a moment mamie hesitated, fearing lest her landlady had become aware of the existence of a mrs. podkovnik; but instantly flinging all considerations to the wind, she followed him out into the street. "you'sh afraid i vouldn't pay you, mamie?" he began, with bravado, in spite of his intention to start on a different line, he knew not exactly which. mamie was no less disappointed by the opening of the conversation than he. "i ain't afraid a bit," she answered, sullenly. "do you think my _kshpenshesh_ are larger now?" he resumed in yiddish. "may i lose as much through sickness. on the countrary, i _shpend_ even much less than i used to. we have two nice boarders--i keep them only for company's sake--and i have a _shteada job_--_a puddin' of a job_. i shall have still more money to _shpend outshite_," he added, falteringly. "outside?"--and she burst into an artificial laugh which sent the blood to jake's face. "why, do you think i sha'n't go to joe's, nor to the theatre, nor anywhere any more? still oftener than before! _hoy much vill you bet?_" "_rats!_ a married man, a papa go to a dancing school! not unless your wife drags along with you and never lets go of your skirts," she said sneeringly, adding the declaration that jake's "bluffs" gave her a "regula' pain in de neck." jake, writhing under her lashes, protested his freedom as emphatically as he could; but it only served to whet mamie's spite, and against her will she went on twitting him as a henpecked husband and an old-fashioned jew. finally she reverted to the subject of his debt, whereupon he took fire, and after an interchange of threats and some quite forcible language they parted company. * * * * * from that evening the spectre of mamie dressed in her white blouse almost unremittingly preyed on jake's mind. the mournful sneer which had lit her pale, invalid-looking face on their last interview, when she wore that blouse, relentlessly stared down into his heart; gnawed at it with tantalizing deliberation; "drew out his soul," as he once put it to himself, dropping his arms and head in despair. "is this what they call love?" he wondered, thinking of the strange, hitherto unexperienced kind of malady, which seemed to be gradually consuming his whole being. he felt as if mamie had breathed a delicious poison into his veins, which was now taking effect, spreading a devouring fire through his soul, and kindling him with a frantic thirst for more of the same virus. his features became distended, as it were, and acquired a feverish effect; his eyes had a pitiable, beseeching look, like those of a child in the period of teething. he grew more irritable with gitl every day, the energy failing him to dissemble his hatred for her. there were moments when, in his hopeless craving for the presence of mamie, he would consciously seek refuge in a feeling of compunction and of pity for his wife; and on several such occasions he made an effort to take an affectionate tone with her. but the unnatural sound of his voice each time only accentuated to himself the depth of his repugnance, while the hysterical promptness of her answers, the servile gratitude which trembled in her voice and shone out of her radiant face would, at such instances, make him breathless with rage. poor gitl! she strained every effort to please him; she tried to charm him by all the simple-minded little coquetries she knew, by every art which her artless brain could invent; and only succeeded in making herself more offensive than ever. as to jake's feelings for joey, they now alternated between periods of indifference and gusts of exaggerated affection; while, in some instances, when the boy let himself be fondled by his mother or returned her caresses in his childish way, he would appear to jake as siding with his enemy, and share with gitl his father's odium. * * * * * one afternoon, shortly after jake's interview with mamie in front of the chrystie street tenement house, fanny called on gitl. "are you mrs. podkovnik?" she inquired, with an embarrassed air. "yes; why?" mrs. podkovnik replied, turning pale. "she is come to tell me that jake has eloped with that polish girl," flashed upon her overwrought mind. at the same moment fanny, sizing her up, exclaimed inwardly, "so this is the kind of woman she is, poor thing!" "nothing. i _just_ want to speak to you," the visitor uttered, mysteriously. "what is it?" "as i say, nothing at all. is there nobody else in the house?" fanny demanded, looking about. "may i not live till to-morrow if there is a living soul except my boy, and he is asleep. you may speak; never fear. but first tell me who you are; do not take ill my question. be seated." the girl's appearance and manner began to inspire gitl with confidence. "my name is rosy--rosy blank," said fanny, as she took a seat on the further end of the lounge. "_'f cou'se_, you don't know me, how should you? but i know you well enough, never mind that we have never seen each other before. i used to work with your husband in one shop. i have come to tell you such an important thing! you must know it. it makes no difference that you don't know who i am. may god grant me as good a year as my friendship is for you." "something about jake?" gitl blurted out, all anxiety, and instantly regretted the question. "how did you guess? about jake it is! about him and somebody else. but see how you did guess! swear that you won't tell anybody that i have been here." "may i be left speechless, may my arms and legs be paralyzed, if i ever say a word!" gitl recited vehemently, thrilling with anxiety and impatience. "so it is! they have eloped!" she added in her heart, seating herself close to her caller. "a darkness upon my years! what will become of me and yosselé now?" "remember, now, not a word, either to jake or to anybody else in the world. i had a mountain of _trouble_ before i found out where you lived, and i _stopped_ work on purpose to come and speak to you. as true as you see me alive. i wanted to call when i was sure to find you alone, you understand. is there really nobody about?" and after a preliminary glance at the door and exacting another oath of discretion from mrs. podkovnik, fanny began in an undertone: "there is a girl; well, her name is mamie; well, she and your husband used to go to the same dancing school--that is a place where _fellers_ and _ladies_ learn to dance," she explained. "i go there, too; but i know your husband from the shop." "but that _lada_ has also worked in the same shop with him, hasn't she?" gitl broke in, with a desolate look in her eye. "why, did jake tell you she had?" fanny asked in surprise. "no, not at all, not at all! i am just asking. may i be sick if i know anything." "the idea! how could they work together, seeing that she is a shirtmaker and he a cloakmaker. ah, if you knew what a witch she is! she has set her mind on your husband, and is bound to take him away from you. she hitched on to him long ago. but since you came i thought she would have god in her heart, and be ashamed of people. not she! she be ashamed! you may sling a cat into her face and she won't mind it. the black year knows where she grew up. i tell you there is not a girl in the whole dancing school but can not bear the sight of that polish lizard!" "why, do they meet and kiss?" gitl moaned out. "tell me, do tell me all, my little crown, keep nothing from me, tell me my whole dark lot." "_ull right_, but be sure not to speak to anybody. i'll tell you the truth: my name is not rosy blank at all. it is fanny scutelsky. you see, i am telling you the whole truth. the other evening they stood near the house where she _boards_, on chrystie street; so they were looking into each other's eyes and talking like a pair of little doves. a _lady_ who is a _particla_ friend of mine saw them; so she says a child could have guessed that she was making love to him and _trying_ to get him away from you. _'f cou'se_ it is none of my _business_. is it my _business_, then? what do _i care_? it is only _becuss_ i pity you. it is like the nature i have; i can not bear to see anybody in trouble. other people would not _care_, but i do. such is my nature. so i thought to myself i must go and tell mrs. podkovnik all about it, in order that she might know what to do." for several moments gitl sat speechless, her head hung down, and her bosom heaving rapidly. then she fell to swaying her frame sidewise, and vehemently wringing her hands. "_oi! oi!_ little mother! a pain to me!" she moaned. "what is to be done? lord of the world, what is to be done? come to the rescue! people, do take pity, come to the rescue!" she broke into a fit of low sobbing, which shook her whole form and was followed by a torrent of tears. whereupon fanny also burst out crying, and falling upon gitl's shoulder she murmured: "my little heart! you don't know what a friend i am to you! oh, if you knew what a serpent that polish thief is!" chapter vii. mrs. kavarsky's coup d'État. it was not until after supper time that gitl could see mrs. kavarsky; for the neighbour's husband was in the installment business, and she generally spent all day in helping him with his collections as well as canvassing for new customers. when gitl came in to unburden herself of fanny's revelations, she found her confidante out of sorts. something had gone wrong in mrs. kavarsky's affairs, and, while she was perfectly aware that she had only herself to blame, she had laid it all to her husband and had nagged him out of the house before he had quite finished his supper. she listened to her neighbour's story with a bored and impatient air, and when gitl had concluded and paused for her opinion, she remarked languidly: "it serves you right! it is all _becuss_ you will not throw away that ugly kerchief of yours. what is the use of your asking my advice?" "_oi!_ i think even that wouldn't help it now," gitl rejoined, forlornly. "the uppermost knows what drug she has charmed him with. a cholera into her, lord of the world!" she added, fiercely. mrs. kavarsky lost her temper. "_say_, will you stop talking nonsense?" she shouted savagely. "no wonder your husband does not _care_ for you, seeing these stupid greenhornlike notions of yours." "how then could she have bewitched him, the witch that she is? tell me, little heart, little crown, do tell me! take pity and be a mother to me. i am so lonely and----" heartrending sobs choked her voice. "what shall i tell you? that you are a blockhead? _oi! oi! oi!_" she mocked her. "will the crying help you? _ull right_, cry away!" "but what shall i do?" gitl pleaded, wiping her tears. "it may drive me mad. i won't wear the kerchief any more. i swear this is the last day," she added, propitiatingly. "_dot's right!_ when you talk like a man i like you. and now sit still and listen to what an older person and a business woman has to tell you. in the first place, who knows what that girl--jennie, fannie, shmennie, yomtzedemennie--whatever you may call her--is after?" the last two names mrs. kavarsky invented by poetical license to complete the rhyme and for the greater emphasis of her contempt. "in the second place, _asposel_ [supposing] he did talk to that polish piece of disturbance. _vell_, what of it? it is all over with the world, isn't it? the mourner's prayer is to be said after it, i declare! a married man stood talking to a girl! just think of it! may no greater evil befall any yiddish daughter. this is not europe where one dares not say a word to a strange woman! _nu, sir!_" "what, then, is the matter with him? at home he would hardly ever leave my side, and never ceased looking into my eyes. woe is me, what america has brought me to!" and again her grief broke out into a flood of tears. this time mrs. kavarsky was moved. "don't be crying, my child; he may come in for you," she said, affectionately. "believe me you are making a mountain out of a fly--you are imagining too much." "_oi_, as my ill luck would have it, it is all but too true. have i no eyes, then? he mocks at everything i say or do; he can not bear the touch of my hand. america _has_ made a mountain of ashes out of me. really, a curse upon columbus!" she ejaculated mournfully, quoting in all earnestness a current joke of the ghetto. mrs. kavarsky was too deeply touched to laugh. she proceeded to examine her pupil, in whispers, upon certain details, and thereupon her interest in gitl's answers gradually superseded her commiseration for the unhappy woman. "and how does he behave toward the boy?" she absently inquired, after a melancholy pause. "would he were as kind to me!" "then it is _ull right_! such things will happen between man and wife. it is all _humbuk_. it will all come right, and you will some day be the happiest woman in the world. you shall see. remember that mrs. kavarsky has told you so. and in the meantime stop crying. a husband hates a sniveller for a wife. you know the story of jacob and leah, as it stands written in the holy five books, don't you? her eyes became red with weeping, and jacob, our father, did not _care_ for her on that account. do you understand?" all at once mrs. kavarsky bit her lip, her countenance brightening up with a sudden inspiration. at the next instant she made a lunge at gitl's head, and off went the kerchief. gitl started with a cry, at the same moment covering her head with both hands. "take off your hands! take them off at once, i say!" the other shrieked, her eyes flashing fire and her feet performing an irish jig. gitl obeyed for sheer terror. then, pushing her toward the sink, mrs. kavarsky said peremptorily: "you shall wash off your silly tears and i'll arrange your hair, and from this day on there shall be no kerchief, do you hear?" gitl offered but feeble resistance, just enough to set herself right before her own conscience. she washed herself quietly, and when her friend set about combing her hair, she submitted to the operation without a murmur, save for uttering a painful hiss each time there came a particularly violent tug at the comb; for, indeed, mrs. kavarsky plied her weapon rather energetically and with a bloodthirsty air, as if inflicting punishment. and while she was thus attacking gitl's luxurious raven locks she kept growling, as glibly as the progress of the comb would allow, and modulating her voice to its movements: "believe me you are a lump of hunchback, _sure_; you may--may depend up-upon it! tell me, now, do you ever comb yourself? you have raised quite a plica, the black year take it! another woman would thank god for such beau-beautiful hair, and here she keeps it hidden and makes a bu-bugbear of herself--a _regele monkey_!" she concluded, gnashing her teeth at the stout resistance with which her implement was at that moment grappling. gitl's heart swelled with delight, but she modestly kept silent. suddenly mrs. kavarsky paused thoughtfully, as if conceiving a new idea. in another moment a pair of scissors and curling irons appeared on the scene. at the sight of this gitl's blood ran chill, and when the scissors gave their first click in her hair she felt as though her heart snapped. nevertheless, she endured it all without a protest, blindly trusting that these instruments of torture would help reinstall her in jake's good graces. at last, when all was ready and she found herself adorned with a pair of rich side bangs, she was taken in front of the mirror, and ordered to hail the transformation with joy. she viewed herself with an unsteady glance, as if her own face struck her as unfamiliar and forbidding. however, the change pleased her as much as it startled her. "do you really think he will like it?" she inquired with piteous eagerness, in a fever of conflicting emotions. "if he does not, i shall refund your money!" her guardian snarled, in high glee. for a moment or so mrs. kavarsky paused to admire the effect of her art. then, in a sudden transport of enthusiasm, she sprang upon her ward, and with an "_oi_, a health to you!" she smacked a hearty kiss on her burning cheek. "and now come, piece of wretch!" so saying, mrs. kavarsky grasped gitl by the wrist, and forcibly convoyed her into her husband's presence. * * * * * the two boarders were out, jake being alone with joey. he was seated at the table, facing the door, with the boy on his knees. "_goot-evenik_, mr. podkovnik! look what i have brought you: a brand new wife!" mrs. kavarsky said, pointing at her charge, who stood faintly struggling to disengage her hand from her escort's tight grip, her eyes looking to the ground and her cheeks a vivid crimson. gitl's unwonted appearance impressed jake as something unseemly and meretricious. the sight of her revolted him. "it becomes her like a--a--a wet cat," he faltered out with a venomous smile, choking down a much stronger simile which would have conveyed his impression with much more precision, but which he dared not apply to his own wife. the boy's first impulse upon the entrance of his mother had been to run up to her side and to greet her merrily; but he, too, was shocked by the change in her aspect, and he remained where he was, looking from her to jake in blank surprise. "go away, you don't mean it!" mrs. kavarsky remonstrated distressedly, at the same moment releasing her prisoner, who forthwith dived into the bedroom to bury her face in a pillow, and to give way to a stream of tears. then she made a few steps toward jake, and speaking in an undertone she proceeded to take him to task. "another man would consider himself happy to have such a wife," she said. "such a quiet, honest woman! and such a housewife! why, look at the way she keeps everything--like a fiddle. it is simply a treat to come into your house. i do declare you sin!" "what do i do to her?" he protested morosely, cursing the intruder in his heart. "who says you do? mercy and peace! only--you understand--how shall i say it?--she is only a young woman; _vell_, so she imagines that you do not _care_ for her as much as you used to. come, mr. podkovnik, you know you are a sensible man! i have always thought you one--you may ask my husband. really you ought to be ashamed of yourself. a prohibition upon me if i could ever have believed it of you. do you think a stylish girl would make you a better wife? if you do, you are grievously mistaken. what are they good for, the hussies? to darken the life of a husband? that, i admit, they are really great hands at. they only know how to squander his money for a new hat or rag every monday and thursday, and to tramp around with other men, fie upon the abominations! may no good jew know them!" her innuendo struck mrs. kavarsky as extremely ingenious, and, egged on by the dogged silence of her auditor, she ventured a step further. "do you mean to tell me," she went on, emphasizing each word, and shaking her whole body with melodramatic defiance, "that you would be better off with a _dantzin'-school_ girl?" "_a danshin'-shchool_ girl?" jake repeated, turning ashen pale, and fixing his inquisitress with a distant gaze. "who says i care for a danshin'-shchool girl?" he bellowed, as he let down the boy and started to his feet red as a cockscomb. "it was she who told you that, was it?" joey had tripped up to the lounge where he now stood watching his father with a stare in which there was more curiosity than fright. the little woman lowered her crest. "not at all! god be with you!" she said quickly, in a tone of abject cowardice, and involuntarily shrinking before the ferocious attitude of jake's strapping figure. "who? what? when? i did not mean anything at all, _sure_. gitl _never_ said a word to me. a prohibition if she did. come, mr. podkovnik, why should you get _ektzited_?" she pursued, beginning to recover her presence of mind. "by-the-bye--i came near forgetting--how about the boarder you promised to get me; do you remember, mr. podkovnik?" "talk away a toothache for your grandma, not for me. who told her about _danshin'_ girls?" he thundered again, re-enforcing the ejaculation with an english oath, and bringing down a violent fist on the table as he did so. at this gitl's sobs made themselves heard from the bedroom. they lashed jake into a still greater fury. "what is she whimpering about, the piece of stench! _alla right_, i do hate her; i can not bear the sight of her; and let her do what she likes. _i don' care!_" "mr. podkovnik! to think of a _sma't_ man like you talking in this way!" "dot'sh alla right!" he said, somewhat relenting. "i don't _care_ for any _danshin'_ girls. it is a ---- ---- lie! it was that scabby _greenhorn_ who must have taken it into her head. i don't _care_ for anybody; not for her certainly"--pointing to the bedroom. "i am an _american feller_, a _yankee_--that's what i am. what punishment is due to me, then, if i can not stand a _shnooza_ like her? it is _nu ushed_; i can not live with her, even if she stand one foot on heaven and one on earth. let her take everything"--with a wave at the household effects--"and i shall pay her as much _cash_ as she asks--i am willing to break stones to pay her--provided she agrees to a divorce." the word had no sooner left his lips than gitl burst out of the darkness of her retreat, her bangs dishevelled, her face stained and flushed with weeping and rage, and her eyes, still suffused with tears, flashing fire. "may you and your polish harlot be jumping out of your skins and chafing with wounds as long as you will have to wait for a divorce!" she exploded. "he thinks i don't know how they stand together near her house making love to each other!" her unprecedented show of pugnacity took him aback. "look at the cossack of straw!" he said quietly, with a forced smile. "such a piece of cholera!" he added, as if speaking to himself, as he resumed his seat. "i wonder who tells her all these fibs?" gitl broke into a fresh flood of tears. "_vell_, what do you want now?" mrs. kavarsky said, addressing herself to her. "he says it is a lie. i told you you take all sorts of silly notions into your head." "_ach_, would it were a lie!" gitl answered between her sobs. at this juncture the boy stepped up to his mother's side, and nestled against her skirt. she clasped his head with both her hands, as though gratefully accepting an offer of succour against an assailant. and then, for the vague purpose of wounding jake's feelings, she took the child in her arms, and huddling him close to her bosom, she half turned from her husband, as much as to say, "we two are making common cause against you." jake was cut to the quick. he kept his glance fixed on the reddened, tear-stained profile of her nose, and, choking with hate, he was going to say, "for my part, hang yourself together with him!" but he had self-mastery enough to repress the exclamation, confining himself to a disdainful smile. "children, children! woe, how you do sin!" mrs. kavarsky sermonized. "come now, obey an older person. whoever takes notice of such trifles? you have had a quarrel? _ull right!_ and now make peace. have an embrace and a good kiss and _dot's ull_! _hurry yup_, mr. podkovnik! don't be ashamed!" she beckoned to him, her countenance wreathed in voluptuous smiles in anticipation of the love scene about to enact itself before her eyes. mr. podkovnik failing to hurry up, however, she went on disappointedly: "why, mr. podkovnik! look at the boy the uppermost has given you. would he might send me one like him. really, you ought to be ashamed of yourself." "vot you kickin' aboyt, anyhoy?" jake suddenly fired out, in english. "min' jou on businesh an' dot'sh ull," he added indignantly, averting his head. mrs. kavarsky grew as red as a boiled lobster. "vo--vo--vot _you_ keeck aboyt?" she panted, drawing herself up and putting her arms akimbo. "he must think i, too, can be scared by his english. i declare my shirt has turned linen for fright! i was in america while you were hauling away at the bellows in povodye; do you know it?" "are you going out of my house or not?" roared jake, jumping to his feet. "and if i am not, what will you do? will you call a _politzman_? _ull right_, do. that is just what i want. i shall tell him i can not leave her alone with a murderer like you, for fear you might kill her and the boy, so that you might dawdle around with that polish wench of yours. here you have it!" saying which, she put her thumb between her index and third finger--the russian version of the well-known gesture of contempt--presenting it to her adversary together with a generous portion of her tongue. jake's first impulse was to strike the meddlesome woman. as he started toward her, however, he changed his mind. "_alla right_, you may remain with her!" he said, rushing up to the clothes rack, and slipping on his coat and hat. "_alla right_," he repeated with broken breath, "we shall see!" and with a frantic bang of the door he disappeared. * * * * * the fresh autumn air of the street at once produced its salutary effect on his overexcited nerves. as he grew more collected he felt himself in a most awkward muddle. he cursed his outbreak of temper, and wished the next few days were over and the breach healed. in his abject misery he thought of suicide, of fleeing to chicago or st. louis, all of which passed through his mind in a stream of the most irrelevant and the most frivolous reminiscences. he was burning to go back, but the nerve failing him to face mrs. kavarsky, he wondered where he was going to pass the night. it was too cold to be tramping about till it was time to go to work, and he had not change enough to pay for a night's rest in a lodging house; so in his despair he fulminated against gitl and, above all, against her tutoress. having passed as far as the limits of the ghetto he took a homeward course by a parallel street, knowing all the while that he would lack the courage to enter his house. when he came within sight of it he again turned back, yearningly thinking of the cosey little home behind him, and invoking maledictions upon gitl for enjoying it now while he was exposed to the chill air without the prospect of shelter for the night. as he thus sauntered reluctantly about he meditated upon the scenes coming in his way, and upon the thousand and one things which they brought to his mind. at the same time his heart was thirsting for mamie, and he felt himself a wretched outcast, the target of ridicule--a martyr paying the penalty of sins, which he failed to recognise as sins, or of which, at any rate, he could not hold himself culpable. yes, he will go to chicago, or to baltimore, or, better still, to england. he pictured to himself the sensation it would produce and gitl's despair. "it will serve her right. what does she want of me?" he said to himself, revelling in a sense of revenge. but then it was such a pity to part with joey! whereupon, in his reverie, jake beheld himself stealing into his house in the dead of night, and kidnapping the boy. and what would mamie say? would she not be sorry to have him disappear? can it be that she does not care for him any longer? she seemed to. but that was before she knew him to be a married man. and again his heart uttered curses against gitl. ah, if mamie did still care for him, and fainted upon hearing of his flight, and then could not sleep, and ran around wringing her hands and raving like mad! it would serve _her_ right, too! she should have come to tell him she loved him instead of making that scene at his house and taking a derisive tone with him upon the occasion of his visit to her. still, should she come to join him in london, he would receive her, he decided magnanimously. they speak english in london, and have cloak shops like here. so he would be no greenhorn there, and wouldn't they be happy--he, mamie, and little joey! or, supposing his wife suddenly died, so that he could legally marry mamie and remain in new york---- a mad desire took hold of him to see the polish girl, and he involuntarily took the way to her lodging. what is he going to say to her? well, he will beg her not to be angry for his failure to pay his debt, take her into his confidence on the subject of his proposed flight, and promise to send her every cent from london. and while he was perfectly aware that he had neither the money to take him across the atlantic nor the heart to forsake gitl and joey, and that mamie would never let him leave new york without paying her twenty-five dollars, he started out on a run in the direction of chrystie street. would she might offer to join him in his flight! she must have money enough for two passage tickets, the rogue. wouldn't it be nice to be with her on the steamer! he thought, as he wrathfully brushed apart a group of street urchins impeding his way. chapter viii. a housetop idyl. jake found mamie on the sidewalk in front of the tenement house where she lodged. as he came rushing up to her side, she was pensively rehearsing a waltz step. "mamie, come shomeversh! i got to shpeak to you a lot," he gasped out. "vot's de madder?" she demanded, startled by his excited manner. "this is not the place for speaking," he rejoined vehemently, in yiddish. "let us go to the grand street dock or to seventh street park. there we can speak so that nobody overhears us." "i bet you he is going to ask me to run away with him," she prophesied to herself; and in her feverish impatience to hear him out she proposed to go on the roof, which, the evening being cool, she knew to be deserted. when they reached the top of the house they found it overhung with rows of half-dried linen, held together with wooden clothespins and trembling to the fresh autumn breeze. overhead, fleecy clouds were floating across a starry blue sky, now concealing and now exposing to view a pallid crescent of new moon. coming from the street below there was a muffled, mysterious hum ever and anon drowned in the clatter and jingle of a passing horse car. a lurid, exceedingly uncanny sort of idyl it was; and in the midst of it there was something extremely weird and gruesome in those stretches of wavering, fitfully silvered white, to jake's overtaxed mind vaguely suggesting the burial clothes of the inmates of a jewish graveyard. after picking and diving their way beneath the trembling lines of underwear, pillowcases, sheets, and what not, they paused in front of a tall chimney pot. jake, in a medley of superstitious terror, infatuation, and bashfulness, was at a loss how to begin and, indeed, what to say. feeling that it would be easy for him to break into tears he instinctively chose this as the only way out of his predicament. "_vot's de madder_, jake? speak out!" she said, with motherly harshness. he now wished to say something, although he still knew not what; but his sobs once called into play were past his control. "she must give you _trouble_," the girl added softly, after a slight pause, her excitement growing with every moment. "ach, mamielé!" he at length exclaimed, resolutely wiping his tears with his handkerchief. "my life has become so dark and bitter to me, i might as well put a rope around my neck." "does she eat you?" "let her go to all lamentations! somebody told her i go around with you." "but you know it is a lie! some one must have seen us the other evening when we were standing downstairs. you had better not come here, then. when you have some money, you will send it to me," she concluded, between genuine sympathy and an intention to draw him out. "_ach_, don't say that, mamie. what is the good of my life without you? i don't sleep nights. since she came i began to understand how dear you are to me. i can not tell it so well," he said, pointing to his heart. "_yes_, _but_ before she came you didn't _care_ for me!" she declared, labouring to disguise the exultation which made her heart dance. "i always did, mamie. may i drop from this roof and break hand and foot if i did not." a flood of wan light struck mamie full in her swarthy face, suffusing it with ivory effulgence, out of which her deep dark eyes gleamed with a kind of unearthly lustre. jake stood enravished. he took her by the hand, but she instantly withdrew it, edging away a step. his touch somehow restored her to calm self-possession, and even kindled a certain thirst for revenge in her heart. "it is not what it used to be, jake," she said in tones of complaisant earnestness. "now that i know you are a married man it is all gone. _yes_, jake, it is all gone! you should have cared for me when she was still there. then you could have gone to a rabbi and sent her a writ of divorce. it is too late now, jake." "it is not too late!" he protested, tremulously. "i will get a divorce, _anyhoy_. and if you don't take me i will hang myself," he added, imploringly. "on a burned straw?" she retorted, with a cruel chuckle. "it is all very well for you to laugh. but if you could enter my heart and see how i _shuffer_!" "woe is me! i don't see how you will stand it," she mocked him. and abruptly assuming a grave tone, she pursued vehemently: "but i don't understand; since you sent her tickets and money, you must like her." jake explained that he had all along intended to send her rabbinical divorce papers instead of a passage ticket, and that it had been his old mother who had pestered him, with her tear-stained letters, into acting contrary to his will. "_all right_," mamie resumed, with a dubious smile; "but why don't you go to fanny, or beckie, or beilké the "black cat"? you used to care for them more than for me. why should you just come to me?" jake answered by characterizing the girls she had mentioned in terms rather too high-scented for print, protesting his loathing for them. whereupon she subjected him to a rigid cross-examination as to his past conduct toward herself and her rivals; and although he managed to explain matters to her inward satisfaction, owing, chiefly, to a predisposition on her own part to credit his assertions on the subject, she could not help continuing obdurate and in a spiteful, vindictive mood. "all you say is not worth a penny, and it is too late, _anyvay_," was her verdict. "you have a wife and a child; better go home and be a father to your _boy_." her last words were uttered with some approach to sincerity, and she was mentally beginning to give herself credit for magnanimity and pious self-denial. she would have regretted her exhortation, however, had she been aware of its effect on her listener; for her mention of the boy and appeal to jake as a father aroused in him a lively sense of the wrong he was doing. moreover, while she was speaking his attention had been attracted to a loosened pillowcase ominously fluttering and flapping a yard or two off. the figure of his dead father, attired in burial linen, uprose to his mind. "you don' vanted? alla right, you be shorry," he said half-heartedly, turning to go. "_hol' on!_" she checked him, irritatedly. "how are you going to _fix_ it? are you _sure_ she will take a divorce?" "will she have a choice then? she will have to take it. i won't live with her _anyhoy_," he replied, his passion once more welling up in his soul. "mamie, my treasure, my glory!" he exclaimed, in tremulous accents. "say that you are _shatichfied_; my heart will become lighter." saying which, he strained her to his bosom, and fell to raining fervent kisses on her face. at first she made a faint attempt at freeing herself, and then suddenly clasping him with mad force she pressed her lips to his in a fury of passion. the pillowcase flapped aloud, ever more sternly, warningly, portentously. jake cast an involuntary side glance at it. his spell of passion was broken and supplanted by a spell of benumbing terror. he had an impulse to withdraw his arms from the girl; but, instead, he clung to her all the faster, as if for shelter from the ghostlike thing. with a last frantic hug mamie relaxed her hold. "remember now, jake!" she then said, in a queer hollow voice. "now it is all _settled_. maybe you are making fun of me? if you are, you are playing with fire. death to me--death to you!" she added, menacingly. he wished to say something to reassure her, but his tongue seemed grown fast to his palate. "am i to blame?" she continued with ghastly vehemence, sobs ringing in her voice. "who asked you to come? did i lure you from her, then? i should sooner have thrown myself into the river than taken away somebody else's husband. you say yourself that you would not live with her, _anyvay_. but now it is all gone. just try to leave me now!" and giving vent to her tears, she added, "do you think my heart is no heart?" a thrill of joyous pity shot through his frame. once again he caught her to his heart, and in a voice quivering with tenderness he murmured: "don't be uneasy, my dear, my gold, my pearl, my consolation! i will let my throat be cut, into fire or water will i go, for your sake." "dot's all right," she returned, musingly. "but how are you going to get rid of her? you von't go back on me, vill you?" she asked in english. "_me?_ may i not be able to get away from this spot. can it be that you still distrust me?" "swear!" "how else shall i swear?" "by your father, peace upon him." "may my father as surely have a bright paradise," he said, with a show of alacrity, his mind fixed on the loosened pillowcase. "_vell_, are you _shatichfied_ now?" "all right," she answered, in a matter-of-fact way, and as if only half satisfied. "but do you think she will take money?" "but i have none." "nobody asks you if you have. but would she take it, if you had?" "if i had! i am sure she would take it; she would have to, for what would she gain if she did not?" "are you _sure_?" "_'f cush!_" "ach, but, after all, why did you not tell me you liked me before she came?" she said testily, stamping her foot. "again!" he exclaimed, wincing. "_all right_; wait." she turned to go somewhere, but checked herself, and facing about, she exacted an additional oath of allegiance. after which she went to the other side of the chimney. when she returned she held one of her arms behind her. "you will not let yourself be talked away from me?" he swore. "not even if your father came to you from the other world--if he came to you in a dream, i mean--and told you to drop me?" again he swore. "and you really don't care for fanny?" and again he swore. "nor for beckie?" the ordeal was too much, and he begged her to desist. but she wouldn't, and so, chafing under inexorable cross-examinations, he had to swear again and again that he had never cared for any of joe's female pupils or assistants except mamie. at last she relented. "look, piece of loafer you!" she then said, holding out an open bank book to his eyes. "but what is the _use_? it is not light enough, and you can not read, _anyvay_. you can eat, _dot's all_. _vell_, you could make out figures, couldn't you? there are three hundred and forty dollars," she proceeded, pointing to the balance line, which represented the savings, for a marriage portion, of five years' hard toil. "it should be three hundred and sixty-five, but then for the twenty-five dollars you owe me i may as well light a mourner's candle, _ain' it_?" when she had started to produce the bank book from her bosom he had surmised her intent, and while she was gone he was making guesses as to the magnitude of the sum to her credit. his most liberal estimate, however, had been a hundred and fifty dollars; so that the revelation of the actual figure completely overwhelmed him. he listened to her with a broad grin, and when she paused he burst out: "mamielé, you know what? let us run away!" "you are a fool!" she overruled him, as she tucked the bank book under her jacket. "i have a better plan. but tell me the truth, did you not guess i had money? now you need not fear to tell me all." he swore that he had not even dreamt that she possessed a bank account. how could he? and was it not because he had suspected the existence of such an account that he had come to declare his love to her and not to fanny, or beckie, or the "black cat"? no, may he be thunderstruck if it was. what does she take him for? on his part she is free to give the money away or throw it into the river. he will become a boss, and take her penniless, for he can not live without her; she is lodged in his heart; she is the only woman he ever cared for. "oh, but why did you not tell me all this long ago?" with which, speaking like the complete mistress of the situation that she was, she proceeded to expound a project, which had shaped itself in her lovelorn mind, hypothetically, during the previous few days, when she had been writhing in despair of ever having an occasion to put it into practice. jake was to take refuge with her married sister in philadelphia until gitl was brought to terms. in the meantime some chum of his, nominated by mamie and acting under her orders, would carry on negotiations. the state divorce, as she had already taken pains to ascertain, would cost fifty dollars; the rabbinical divorce would take five or eight dollars more. two hundred dollars would be deposited with some canal street banker, to be paid to gitl when the whole procedure was brought to a successful termination. if she can be got to accept less, so much the better; if not, jake and mamie will get along, anyhow. when they are married they will open a dancing school. to all of which jake kept nodding approval, once or twice interrupting her with a demonstration of enthusiasm. as to the fate of his boy, mamie deliberately circumvented all reference to the subject. several times jake was tempted to declare his ardent desire to have the child with them, and that mamie should like him and be a mother to him; for had she not herself found him a bright and nice fellow? his heart bled at the thought of having to part with joey. but somehow the courage failed him to touch upon the question. he saw himself helplessly entangled in something foreboding no good. he felt between the devil and the deep sea, as the phrase goes; and unnerved by the whole situation and completely in the shop girl's power, he was glad to be relieved from all initiative--whether forward or backward--to shut his eyes, as it were, and, leaning upon mamie's strong arm, let himself be led by her in whatever direction she chose. "do you know, jake?--now i may as well tell you," the girl pursued, _à propos_ of the prospective dancing school; "do you know that joe has been _bodering_ me to marry him? and he did not know i had a cent, either." "_an you didn' vanted?_" jake asked, joyfully. "_sure!_ i knew all along jakie was my predestined match," she replied, drawing his bulky head to her lips. and following the operation by a sound twirl of his ear, she added: "only he is a great lump of hog, jakie is. but a heart is a clock: it told me i would have you some day. i could have got _lots_ of suitors--may the two of us have as many thousands of dollars--and _business people_, too. do you see what i am doing for you? do you deserve it, _monkey you_?" "_never min'_, you shall see what a _danshin' shchool_ i _shta't_. if i don't take away every _shcholar_ from jaw, my name won't be jake. won't he squirm!" he exclaimed, with childish ardour. "dot's all right; but foist min' dot you don' go back on me!" * * * * * an hour or two later mamie with jake by her side stood in front of the little window in the ferryhouse of the pennsylvania railroad, buying one ticket for the midnight train for philadelphia. "min' je, jake," she said anxiously a little after, as she handed him the ticket. "this is as good as a marriage certificate, do you understand?" and the two hurried off to the boat in a meagre stream of other passengers. chapter ix. the parting. it was on a bright frosty morning in the following january, in the kitchen of rabbi aaronovitz, on the third floor of a rickety old tenement house, that jake and gitl, for the first time since his flight, came face to face. it was also to be their last meeting as husband and wife. the low-ceiled room was fairly crowded with men and women. besides the principal actors in the scene, the rabbi, the scribe, and the witnesses, and, as a matter of course, mrs. kavarsky, there was the rabbi's wife, their two children, and an envoy from mamie, charged to look after the fortitude of jake's nerve. gitl, extremely careworn and haggard, was "in her own hair," thatched with a broad-brimmed winter hat of a brown colour, and in a jacket of black beaver. the rustic, "greenhornlike" expression was completely gone from her face and manner, and, although she now looked bewildered and as if terror-stricken, there was noticeable about her a suggestion of that peculiar air of self-confidence with which a few months' life in america is sure to stamp the looks and bearing of every immigrant. jake, flushed and plainly nervous and fidgety, made repeated attempts to conceal his state of mind now by screwing up a grim face, now by giving his enormous head a haughty posture, now by talking aloud to his escort. the tedious preliminaries were as trying to the rabbi as they were to jake and gitl. however, the venerable old man discharged his duty of dissuading the young couple from their contemplated step as scrupulously as he dared in view of his wife's signals to desist and not to risk the fee. gitl, prompted by mrs. kavarsky, responded to all questions with an air of dazed resignation, while jake, ever conscious of his guard's glance, gave his answers with bravado. at last the scribe, a gaunt middle-aged man, with an expression of countenance at once devout and businesslike, set about his task. whereupon mrs. aaronovitz heaved a sigh of relief, and forthwith banished her two boys into the parlour. an imposing stillness fell over the room. little by little, however, it was broken, at first by whispers and then by an unrestrained hum. the rabbi, in a velvet skullcap, faded and besprinkled with down, presided with pious dignity, though apparently ill at ease, at the head of the table. alternately stroking his yellowish-gray beard and curling his scanty side locks, he kept his eyes on the open book before him, now and then stealing a glance at the other end of the table, where the scribe was rapturously drawing the square characters of the holy tongue. gitl carefully looked away from jake. but he invincibly haunted her mind, rendering her deaf to mrs. kavarsky's incessant buzz. his presence terrified her, and at the same time it melted her soul in a fire, torturing yet sweet, which impelled her at one moment to throw herself upon him and scratch out his eyes, and at another to prostrate herself at his feet and kiss them in a flood of tears. jake, on the other hand, eyed gitl quite frequently, with a kind of malicious curiosity. her general americanized make up, and, above all, that broad-brimmed, rather fussy, hat of hers, nettled him. it seemed to defy him, and as if devised for that express purpose. every time she and her adviser caught his eye, a feeling of devouring hate for both would rise in his heart. he was panting to see his son; and, while he was thoroughly alive to the impossibility of making a child the witness of a divorce scene between father and mother, yet, in his fury, he interpreted their failure to bring joey with them as another piece of malice. "ready!" the scribe at length called out, getting up with the document in his hand, and turning it over to the rabbi. the rest of the assemblage also rose from their seats, and clustered round jake and gitl, who had taken places on either side of the old man. a beam of hard, cold sunlight, filtering in through a grimy window-pane and falling lurid upon the rabbi's wrinkled brow, enhanced the impressiveness of the spectacle. a momentary pause ensued, stern, weird, and casting a spell of awe over most of the bystanders, not excluding the rabbi. mrs. kavarsky even gave a shudder and gulped down a sob. "young woman!" rabbi aaronovitz began, with bashful serenity, "here is the writ of divorce all ready. now thou mayst still change thy mind." mrs. aaronovitz anxiously watched gitl, who answered by a shake of her head. "mind thee, i tell thee once again," the old man pursued, gently. "thou must accept this divorce with the same free will and readiness with which thou hast married thy husband. should there be the slightest objection hidden in thy heart, the divorce is null and void. dost thou understand?" "say that you are _saresfied_," whispered mrs. kavarsky. "_ull ride_, i am _salesfiet_" murmured gitl, looking down on the table. "witnesses, hear ye what this young woman says? that she accepts the divorce of her own free will," the rabbi exclaimed solemnly, as if reading the talmud. "then i must also tell you once more," he then addressed himself to jake as well as to gitl, "that this divorce is good only upon condition that you are also divorced by the government of the land--by the court--do you understand? so it stands written in the separate paper which you get. do you understand what i say?" "_dot'sh alla right_," jake said, with ostentatious ease of manner. "i have already told you that the _dvosh_ of the _court_ is already _fikshed_, haven't i?" he added, even angrily. now came the culminating act of the drama. gitl was affectionately urged to hold out her hands, bringing them together at an angle, so as to form a receptacle for the fateful piece of paper. she obeyed mechanically, her cheeks turning ghastly pale. jake, also pale to his lips, his brows contracted, received the paper, and obeying directions, approached the woman who in the eye of the law of moses was still his wife. and then, repeating word for word after the rabbi, he said: "here is thy divorce. take thy divorce. and by this divorce thou art separated from me and free for all other men!" gitl scarcely understood the meaning of the formula, though each hebrew word was followed by its yiddish translation. her arms shook so that they had to be supported by mrs. kavarsky and by one of the witnesses. at last jake deposited the writ and instantly drew back. gitl closed her hands upon the paper as she had been instructed; but at the same moment she gave a violent tremble, and with a heartrending groan fell on the witness in a fainting swoon. in the ensuing commotion jake slipped out of the room, presently followed by mamie's ambassador, who had remained behind to pay the bill. * * * * * gitl was soon brought to by mrs. kavarsky and the mistress of the house. for a moment or so she sat staring about her, when, suddenly awakening to the meaning of the ordeal she had just been through, and finding jake gone, she clapped her hands and burst into a fit of sobbing. meanwhile the rabbi had once again perused the writ, and having caused the witnesses to do likewise, he made two diagonal slits in the paper. "you must not forget, my daughter," he said to the young woman, who was at that moment crying as if her heart would break, "that you dare not marry again before ninety-one days, counting from to-day, go by; while you--where is he, the young man? gone?" he asked with a frustrated smile and growing pale. "you want him badly, don't you?" growled mrs. kavarsky. "let him go i know where, the every-evil-in-him that he is!" mrs. aaronovitz telegraphing to her husband that the money was safe in her pocket, he remarked sheepishly: "_he_ may wed even to-day." whereupon gitl's sobs became still more violent, and she fell to nodding her head and wringing her hands. "what are you crying about, foolish face that you are!" mrs. kavarsky fired out. "another woman would thank god for having at last got rid of the lump of leavened bread. what say you, rabbi? a rowdy, a sinner of israel, a _regely loifer_, may no good jew know him! _never min'_, the name, be it blessed, will send you your destined one, and a fine, learned, respectable man, too," she added significantly. her words had an instantaneous effect. gitl at once composed herself, and fell to drying her eyes. quick to catch mrs. kavarsky's hint, the rabbi's wife took her aside and asked eagerly: "why, has she got a suitor?" "what is the _differentz_? you need not fear; when there is a wedding canopy i shall employ no other man than your husband," was mrs. kavarsky's self-important but good-natured reply. chapter x. a defeated victor. when gitl, accompanied by her friend, reached home, they were followed into the former's apartments by a batch of neighbours, one of them with joey in tow. the moment the young woman found herself in her kitchen she collapsed, sinking down on the lounge. the room seemed to have assumed a novel aspect, which brought home to her afresh that the bond between her and jake was now at last broken forever and beyond repair. the appalling fact was still further accentuated in her consciousness when she caught sight of the boy. "joeyelé! joeyinké! birdie! little kitten!"--with which she seized him in her arms, and, kissing him all over, burst into tears. then shaking with the child backward and forward, and intoning her words as jewish women do over a grave, she went on: "ai, you have no papa any more, joeyelé! yoselé, little crown, you will never see him again! he is dead, _taté_ is!" whereupon yoselé, following his mother's example, let loose his stentorian voice. "_shurr-r up!_" mrs. kavarsky whispered, stamping her foot. "you want mr. bernstein to leave you, too, do you? no more is wanted than that he should get wind of your crying." "nobody will tell him," one of the neighbours put in, resentfully. "but, _anyhull_, what is the _used_ crying?" "ask her, the piece of hunchback!" said mrs. kavarsky. "another woman would dance for joy, and here she is whining, the cudgel. what is it you are snivelling about? that you have got rid of an unclean bone and a dunce, and that you are going to marry a young man of silk who is fit to be a rabbi, and is as _smart_ and _ejecate_ as a lawyer? you would have got a match like that in povodye, would you? i dare say a man like mr. bernstein would not have spoken to you there. you ought to say psalms for your coming to america. it is only here that it is possible for a blacksmith's wife to marry a learned man, who is a blessing both for god and people. and yet you are not _saresfied_! cry away! if bernstein refuses to go under the wedding canopy, mrs. kavarsky will no more _bodder_ her head about you, depend upon it. it is not enough for her that i neglect _business_ on her account," she appealed to the bystanders. "really, what are you crying about, mrs. podkovnik?" one of the neighbours interposed. "you ought to bless the hour when you became free." all of which haranguing only served to stimulate gitl's demonstration of grief. having let down the boy, she went on clapping her hands, swaying in all directions, and wailing. the truth must be told, however, that she was now continuing her lamentations by the mere force of inertia, and as if enjoying the very process of the thing. for, indeed, at the bottom of her heart she felt herself far from desolate, being conscious of the existence of a man who was to take care of her and her child, and even relishing the prospect of the new life in store for her. already on her way from the rabbi's house, while her soul was full of jake and the polish girl, there had fluttered through her imagination a picture of the grocery business which she and bernstein were to start with the money paid to her by jake. * * * * * while gitl thus sat swaying and wringing her hands, jake, mamie, her emissary at the divorce proceeding, and another mutual friend, were passengers on a third avenue cable car, all bound for the mayor's office. while gitl was indulging herself in an exhibition of grief, her recent husband was flaunting a hilarious mood. he did feel a great burden to have rolled off his heart, and the proximity of mamie, on the other hand, caressed his soul. he was tempted to catch her in his arms, and cover her glowing cheeks with kisses. but in his inmost heart he was the reverse of eager to reach the city hall. he was painfully reluctant to part with his long-coveted freedom so soon after it had at last been attained, and before he had had time to relish it. still worse than this thirst for a taste of liberty was a feeling which was now gaining upon him, that, instead of a conqueror, he had emerged from the rabbi's house the victim of an ignominious defeat. if he could now have seen gitl in her paroxysm of anguish, his heart would perhaps have swelled with a sense of his triumph, and mamie would have appeared to him the embodiment of his future happiness. instead of this he beheld her, bernstein, yoselé, and mrs. kavarsky celebrating their victory and bandying jokes at his expense. their future seemed bright with joy, while his own loomed dark and impenetrable. what if he should now dash into gitl's apartments and, declaring his authority as husband, father, and lord of the house, fiercely eject the strangers, take yoselé in his arms, and sternly command gitl to mind her household duties? but the distance between him and the mayor's office was dwindling fast. each time the car came to a halt he wished the pause could be prolonged indefinitely; and when it resumed its progress, the violent lurch it gave was accompanied by a corresponding sensation in his heart. the end. d. appleton & co.'s publications. stephen crane's books. _maggie: a girl of the streets._ by stephen crane, author of "the red badge of courage," etc. uniform with "the red badge of courage." mo. cloth, cents. in this book the author pictures certain realities of city life, and he has not contented himself with a search for humorous material or with superficial aspects. his story lives, and its actuality can not fail to produce a deep impression and to point a moral which many a thoughtful reader will apply. tenth edition. _the red badge of courage. an episode of the american civil war._ by stephen crane. mo. cloth, $ . . 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"an interesting and cleverly devised book.... no lack of imagination.... shows a skillful and wide acquaintance with scientific facts."--_new york herald._ "the author speculates cleverly and daringly on the scientific advance of the earth, and he revels in the physical luxuriance of jupiter; but he also lets his imagination travel through spiritual realms, and evidently delights in mystic speculation quite as much as in scientific investigation. if he is a follower of jules verne, he has not forgotten also to study the philosophers."--_new york tribune._ "a beautiful example of typographical art and the bookmaker's skill.... to appreciate the story one must read it."--_new york commercial advertiser._ "the date of the events narrated in this book is supposed to be a. d. the inhabitants of north america have increased mightily in numbers and power and knowledge. it is an age of marvelous scientific attainments. flying machines have long been in common use, and finally a new power is discovered called 'apergy,' the reverse of gravitation, by which people are able to fly off into space in any direction, and at what speed they please."--_new york sun._ "the scientific romance by john jacob astor is more than likely to secure a distinct popular success, and achieve widespread vogue both as an amusing and interesting story, and a thoughtful endeavor to prophesy some of the triumphs which science is destined to win by the year . the book has been written with a purpose, and that a higher one than the mere spinning of a highly imaginative yarn. mr. astor has been engaged upon the book for over two years, and has brought to bear upon it a great deal of hard work in the way of scientific research, of which he has been very fond ever since he entered harvard. it is admirably illustrated by dan beard."--_mail and express._ "mr. astor has himself almost all the qualities imaginable for making the science of astronomy popular. he knows the learned maps of the astrologers. he knows the work of copernicus. he has made calculations and observations. he is enthusiastic, and the spectacular does not frighten him."--_new york times._ "the work will remind the reader very much of jules verne in its general plan of using scientific facts and speculation as a skeleton on which to hang the romantic adventures of the central figures, who have all the daring ingenuity and luck of mr. verne's heroes. mr. astor uses history to point out what in his opinion science may be expected to accomplish. it is a romance with a purpose."--_chicago inter-ocean._ "the romance contains many new and striking developments of the possibilities of science hereafter to be explored, but the volume is intensely interesting, both as a product of imagination and an illustration of the ingenious and original application of science."--_rochester herald._ the story of the west series. edited by ripley hitchcock. "there is a vast extent of territory lying between the missouri river and the pacific coast which has barely been skimmed over so far. that the conditions of life therein are undergoing changes little short of marvelous will be understood when one recalls the fact that the first white male child born in kansas is still living there; and kansas is by no means one of the newer states. revolutionary indeed has been the upturning of the old condition of affairs, and little remains thereof, and less will remain as each year goes by, until presently there will be only tradition of the sioux and comanches, the cowboy life, the wild horse, and the antelope. histories, many of them, have been written about the western country alluded to, but most if not practically all by outsiders who knew not personally that life of kaleidoscopic allurement. but ere it shall have vanished forever we are likely to have truthful, complete, and charming portrayals of it produced by men who actually know the life and have the power to describe it."--_henry edward rood, in the mail and express._ _now ready._ _the story of the indian._ by george bird grinnell, author of "pawnee hero stories," "blackfoot lodge tales," etc. mo. cloth. illustrated. $ . . "a valuable study of indian life and character.... an attractive book, ... in large part one in which indians themselves might have written."--_new york tribune._ "among the various books respecting the aborigines of america. mr. grinnell's easily takes a leading position. he takes the reader directly to the camp-fire and the council, and shows us the american indian as he really is.... a book which will convey much interesting knowledge respecting a race which is now fast passing away."--_boston commercial bulletin._ "it must not be supposed that the volume is one only for scholars and libraries of reference. it is far more than that. while it is a true story, yet it is a story none the less abounding in picturesque description and charming anecdote. we regard it as a valuable contribution to american literature."--_n.y. mail and express._ "a most attractive book, which presents an admirable graphic picture of the actual indian, whose home life, religious observances, amusements, together with the various phases of his devotion to war and the chase, and finally the effects of encroaching civilization, are delineated with a certainty and an absence of sentimentalism or hostile prejudice that impart a peculiar distinction to this eloquent story of a passing life."--_buffalo commercial._ "no man is better qualified than mr. grinnell to introduce this series with the story of the original owner of the west, the north american indian. long acquaintance and association with the indians, and membership in a tribe, combined with a high degree of literary ability and thorough education, has fitted the author to understand the red man and to present him fairly to others."--_new york observer._ _in preparation._ the story of the mine. by charles howard shinn. the story of the trapper. by gilbert parker. the story of the explorer. the story of the cowboy. the story of the soldier. the story of the railroad. new york: d. appleton & co., fifth avenue. produced from scanned images of public domain material from the google print project.) stories and pictures by isaac loeb perez translated from the yiddish by helena frank [illustration: colophon] philadelphia the jewish publication society of america copyright, , by the jewish publication society of america preface my heartfelt thanks are due to all those who, directly or indirectly, have helped in the preparation of this book of translations; among the former, to professor israel abrahams, for invaluable help and advice at various junctures; and to mr. b. b., for his detailed and scholarly explanations of difficult passages--explanations to which, fearing to overload a story-book with notes, i have done scant justice. the sympathetic reader who wishes for information concerning the author of these tales will find it in professor wiener's "history of yiddish literature in the nineteenth century," together with much that will help him to a better appreciation of their drift. to fully understand any one of them, we should need to know intimately the life of the russian jews who figure in their pages, and to be familiar with the lore of the talmud and the kabbalah, which colors their talk as the superstitions of slav or celtic lands color the talk of their respective peasants. a yiddish writer once told me, he feared these tales would be too _tief-jüdisch_ (intensely jewish) for gentile readers; and even in the case of the jewish english-reading public, the "east (of europe) is east, and west is west." perez, however, is a distinctly modern writer, and his views and sympathies are of the widest. he was born in , and these stories were all written, quite broadly speaking, between and . they were all published in russia, under the censorship--a fact to be borne in mind when reading such pages as "travel-pictures" (which, by the way, is not a story at all), "in the post-chaise," and others. we may hope that conditions of life such as are depicted in "the dead town" will soon belong entirely to history. it is for those who have seen to tell us whether or not the picture is correct. the future of yiddish in a free russia is hard to tell. there are some who consider its early disappearance by no means a certainty. however that may be, it is at present the only language by which the masses of the russian jews can be reached, and perez's words of , in which he urges the educated writers to remember this fact, have lost none of their interest: "nowadays everyone must work for his own, must plough and sow his own particular plot of land, although, or rather _because_ we believe that the future will represent one universal store, whither shall be carried all the corn of all the harvests.... "we do not wish to desert the flag of universal humanity. "we do not wish to sow the weeds of chauvinism, the thorns of fanaticism, the tares of scholastic philosophy. "we want to pull up the weeds by the roots, to cut down the briars, to burn the tares, and to sow the pure grain of human ideas, human feelings, and knowledge. "we will break up our bit of land, and plough and sow, because we firmly believe that some day there will be a great common store, out of which all the hungry will be fed alike. "we believe that storm and wind and rain will have an end, that a day is coming when earth shall yield her increase, and heaven give warmth and light! "and we do not wish _our_ people, in the day of harvest, to stand apart, weeping for misspent years, while the rest make holiday, forced to beg, with shame, for bread that was earned by the sweat and toil of others. "we want to bring a few sheaves to the store as well as they; we want to be husbandmen also." whenever, in the course of translation, i have come across a yiddish proverb or idiomatic expression of which i knew an english equivalent, i have used the latter without hesitation. to avoid tiresome circumlocutions, some of the more important yiddish words (most of them hebrew) have been preserved in the translation. a list of them with brief explanations will be found on page . nevertheless footnotes had to be resorted to in particular cases. to conclude: i have frequently, in this preface, used the words "was" and "were," because i do not know what kaleidoscopic changes may not have taken place in russo-jewish life since these tales were written. but they are all, with exception of the legend "the image," tales of the middle or the end of the nineteenth century, and chiefly the latter. helena frank january, contents page preface i. if not higher ii. domestic happiness iii. in the post-chaise iv. the new tune v. married vi. the seventh candle of blessing vii. the widow viii. the messenger ix. what is the soul? x. in time of pestilence xi. bontzye shweig xii. the dead town xiii. t<sub>he</sub> days of the messiah xiv. kabbalists xv. travel-pictures preface trust only go! what should a jewess need? no. the maskil the rabbi of tishewitz tales that are told a little boy the yartseff rabbi lyashtzof the first attempt the second attempt at the shochet's the rebbitzin of skul insured the fire the emigrant the madman misery the lÀmed wÒfnik the informer xvi. the outcast xvii. a chat xviii. the pike xix. the fast xx. the woman mistress hannah xxi. in the pond xxii. the chanukah light xxiii. the poor little boy xxiv. underground xxv. between two mountains xxvi. the image glossary i if not higher and the rebbe of nemirov, every friday morning early at sliches-time, disappeared, melted into thin air! he was not to be found anywhere, either in the synagogue or in the two houses-of-study, or worshipping in some minyan, and most certainly not at home. his door stood open, people went in and out as they pleased--no one ever stole anything from the rebbe--but there was not a soul in the house. where can the rebbe be? where _should_ he be, if not in heaven? is it likely a rebbe should have no affairs on hand with the solemn days so near? jews (no evil eye!) need a livelihood, peace, health, successful match-makings, they wish to be good and pious and their sins are great, and satan with his thousand eyes spies out the world from one end to the other, and he sees, and accuses, and tells tales--and who shall help if not the rebbe? so thought the people. once, however, there came a lithuanian--and he laughed! you know the lithuanian jews--they rather despise books of devotion, but stuff themselves with the talmud and the codes. well, the lithuanian points out a special bit of the gemoreh--and hopes it is plain enough: even moses our teacher could not ascend into heaven, but remained suspended thirty inches below it--and who, i ask you, is going to argue with a lithuanian? what becomes of the rebbe? "i don't know, and i don't care," says he, shrugging his shoulders, and all the while (what it is to be a lithuanian!) determined to find out. * * * * * the very same evening, soon after prayers, the lithuanian steals into the rebbe's room, lays himself down under the rebbe's bed, and lies low. he intends to stay there all night to find out where the rebbe goes, and what he does at sliches-time. another in his place would have dozed and slept the time away. not so a lithuanian--he learned a whole treatise of the talmud by heart! day has not broken when he hears the call to prayer. the rebbe has been awake some time. the lithuanian has heard him sighing and groaning for a whole hour. whoever has heard the groaning of the nemirover rebbe knows what sorrow for all-israel, what distress of mind, found voice in every groan. the soul that heard was dissolved in grief. but the heart of a lithuanian is of cast-iron. the lithuanian hears and lies still. the rebbe lies still, too--the rebbe, long life to him, _upon_ the bed and the lithuanian _under_ the bed! * * * * * after that the lithuanian hears the beds in the house squeak--the people jump out of them--a jewish word is spoken now and again--water is poured on the fingers--a door is opened here and there. then the people leave the house, once more it is quiet and dark, only a very little moonlight comes in through the shutter. he confessed afterwards, did the lithuanian, that when he found himself alone with the rebbe terror took hold of him. he grew cold all over, and the roots of his ear-locks pricked his temples like needles. an excellent joke, to be left alone with the rebbe at sliches-time before dawn! but a lithuanian is dogged. he quivers and quakes like a fish--but he does not budge. at last the rebbe, long life to him, rises in his turn. first he does what beseems a jew. then he goes to the wardrobe and takes out a packet--which proves to be the dress of a peasant: linen trousers, high boots, a pelisse, a wide felt hat, and a long and broad leather belt studded with brass nails. the rebbe puts them on. out of the pockets of the pelisse dangles the end of a thick cord, a peasant's cord. on his way out the rebbe steps aside into the kitchen, stoops, takes a hatchet from under a bed, puts it into his belt, and leaves the house. the lithuanian trembles, but he persists. * * * * * a fearful, solemn-day hush broods over the dark streets, broken not unfrequently by a cry of supplication from some little minyan, or the moan of some sick person behind a window. the rebbe keeps to the street side, and walks in the shadow of the houses. he glides from one to the other, the lithuanian after him. and the lithuanian hears the sound of his own heart-beats mingle with the heavy footfall of the rebbe; but he follows on, and together they emerge from the town. * * * * * behind the town stands a little wood. the rebbe, long life to him, enters it. he walks on thirty or forty paces, and then he stops beside a small tree. and the lithuanian, with amaze, sees the rebbe take his hatchet and strike the tree. he sees the rebbe strike blow after blow, he hears the tree creak and snap. and the little tree falls, and the rebbe splits it up into logs, and the logs into splinters. then he makes a bundle, binds it round with the cord, throws it on his shoulder, replaces the hatchet in his belt, leaves the wood, and goes back into the town. in one of the back streets he stops beside a poor, tumbledown little house, and taps at the window. "who is there?" cries a frightened voice within. the lithuanian knows it to be the voice of a jewess, a sick jewess. "i," answers the rebbe in the peasant tongue. "who is i?" inquires the voice further. and the rebbe answers again in the little-russian speech: "vassil." "which vassil? and what do you want, vassil?" "i have wood to sell," says the sham peasant, "very cheap, for next to nothing." and without further ado he goes in. the lithuanian steals in behind him, and sees, in the gray light of dawn, a poor room with poor, broken furniture. in the bed lies a sick jewess huddled up in rags, who says bitterly: "wood to sell--and where am i, a poor widow, to get the money from to buy it?" "i will give you a six-groschen worth on credit." "and how am i ever to repay you?" groans the poor woman. "foolish creature!" the rebbe upbraids her. "see here: you are a poor sick jewess, and i am willing to trust you with the little bundle of wood; i believe that in time you will repay me. and you, you have such a great and mighty god, and you do not trust him! not even to the amount of a miserable six-groschen for a little bundle of wood!" "and who is to light the stove?" groans the widow. "do _i_ look like getting up to do it? and my son away at work!" "i will also light the stove for you," said the rebbe. * * * * * and the rebbe, while he laid the wood in the stove, repeated groaning the first part of sliches. then, when the stove was alight, and the wood crackled cheerily, he repeated, more gaily, the second part of sliches. he repeated the third part when the fire had burnt itself out, and he shut the stove doors.... * * * * * the lithuanian who saw all this remained with the rebbe, as one of his followers. and later, when anyone told how the rebbe early every morning at sliches-time raised himself and flew up into heaven, the lithuanian, instead of laughing, added quietly: "if not higher." ii domestic happiness chaïm is a street porter. when he goes through the town stooping beneath his case of wares, one can hardly make him out--it looks as if the box were walking along on two feet of its own. listen to the heavy breathing! one can hear it quite a long way off. but now he lays down his load, and is given a few pence. he straightens himself, wipes the sweat off his face, draws a deep breath, goes to the fountain and takes a drink of water, and then runs into the court. he stands close to the wall, and lifts his huge head till the point of his chin and the tip of his nose and the brim of his hat are all on a level. "hannah," he calls. a little window opens just below the eaves, and a small female head in a white kerchief answers, "chaïm!" the two look at each other very contentedly. the neighbors say they are "lovering." chaïm tosses up his earnings wrapped in a piece of paper, and hannah catches them in the air--not for the first time in her life, either! "you're a wonder!" says chaïm, and shows no disposition to go away. "off with you, chaïm!" she says, smiling. "i daren't take my eyes off the sick child. i have stood the cradle near the fire-place, and i skim with one hand and rock with the other." "how is it, poor little thing?" "better." "god be praised! where is henne?" "with the sempstress, learning to sew." "and yössele?" "in choder." chaïm lowers his chin and goes away. hannah follows him with her eyes till he disappears. thursday and friday it lasts longer. "how much have you got there in the paper?" inquires hannah. "twenty-two groschen." "i am afraid it is not enough!" "why, what do you want, hannah?" "a sechser's worth of ointment for the baby, a few farthing dips--a sabbath loaf i have--oh! meat--a pound and a half--let me see--and brandy for the kiddush, and a few splinters." "those i can get for you. there are sure to be some in the market." "and then i want," and she makes a calculation of all she needs for sabbath, and it comes to this: that one can say the kiddush quite well over a loaf, and that there are heaps of things one can do without. the two important ones are: the candles to say the blessing over and the salve for the child. and if only the children, god helping, are well, and the metal candle-sticks not in pawn, and supposing there is even a pudding, they spend a cheerful sabbath. hannah _is_ wonderful at puddings! she is always short of something, either meal or eggs or suet, and the end of it all is a sweet, succulent, altogether ravishing pudding--it melts away into the very limbs! "an angel's handiwork!" says hannah, smiling delightedly. "an angel's is it?" chaïm laughs. "you think you are a little angel, do you, because you put up with me and the children? well, they worry you enough, goodness knows! and i'm a regular crosspatch, _i_ am, at times--and never a curse do i get--you're not like other women. and what a comfort i must be to you, too! i'm no good at kiddush or havdoleh either--i can't even sing the hymns properly!" "you're a good husband and a good father," persists hannah. "i ask no better for myself or anyone else. god grant that we may grow old together, you and i!" and they gaze into each other's eyes so kindly and so affectionately as it were from the very heart. it looks for all the world as if they were newly married, and the party at table grows more and more festive. but directly after his nap, chaïm repairs to the little synagogue to hear the law--a teacher expounds alshech[ ] there to simple folk like himself. the faces still look sleepy. one is finishing his doze, another yawns loudly. but all of a sudden, when it comes to the right moment, when there is talk of the other world, of gehenna, where the wicked are scourged with iron rods, of the lightsome garden of eden, where the just sit with golden crowns on their heads and study the torah, then they come to life again! the mouths open, the cheeks flush, they listen breathlessly to be told what the next world will be like. chaïm usually stands near the stove. his eyes are full of tears, he trembles all over, he is all there, in the other world! he suffers together with the wicked; he is immersed in the molten pitch, he is flung away into hell; he gathers chips and splinters in gloomy woods.... he goes through it all himself, and is covered with a cold sweat. but then, later on, he also shares the bliss of the righteous. the garden of eden, the angels, leviathan, behemoth, and all good things present themselves so vividly to his imagination that when the reader kisses the book previously to closing it, chaïm starts as it were out of a dream, like one called back from the other world! "_ach!_" he gasps, for wonder has held him breathless. "o lord, just a tiny bit, just a scrap, just a morsel of the world to come--for me, for my wife, and for my little children!" and then he grows sad, wondering: after all, because of what? as a reward for what? once, when the reading was over, he went up to the teacher: "rabbi," he said, and his voice shook, "advise me! what must i do to gain the world to come?" "study the law, my son!" answered the teacher. "i can't." "study mishnayes, or some "eye of jacob," or even perek." "i can't." "recite the psalms!" "i haven't time!" "pray with devotion!" "i don't know what the prayers mean!" the teacher looks at him with compassion: "what are you?" he asks. "a street porter." "well, then, do some service for the scholars." "i beg pardon?" "for instance, carry a few cans of water every day toward evening into the house-of-study, so that the students may have something to drink." "rabbi," he inquired further, "and my wife?" "when a man sits on a chair in paradise, his wife is his footstool." * * * * * when chaïm went home to say havdoleh, hannah was sitting there reciting "god of abraham." and when he saw her he felt a tug at his heart. "no, hannah," he flung his arms around her, "i won't have you be my footstool! i shall bend down to you and raise you and make you sit beside me. we shall sit both on one chair, just as we are doing now. we are so happy like that! do you hear, hannah? you and i, we are going to sit in a chair together ... the almighty will _have_ to allow it!" iii in the post-chaise he told me everything at once, in one breath. i learned in little over a minute that he was chaïm, yoneh krubishever's son-in-law, beril konskivoler's son, and that the rich meerenstein in lublin was a relation on his mother's side, peace be upon her! but this relation lived almost like a gentile; whether or not they ate forbidden food, he could not tell, but that they ate with unwashed hands ... so much he had seen with his own eyes. they had other queer ways beside: long colored cloths were lying on their stairs; before going in, one rang a bell; figured table-covers were spread about the rooms where people sat as if in jail ... stole across them like thieves ... altogether it was like being in a company of deaf-mutes. his wife has a family of a kind in warsaw. but he never goes near them; they are as poor as himself, so what is the good of them to him, _ha?_ in the house of the lublin relation things are not as they should be, but, at least, he is rich, and whoso rubs against fat meat gets shiny himself; where they chop wood, there are splinters; where there is a meal, one may chance to lick a bone--but those others--paupers! he even counts on the lublin relation's obtaining a place for him. business, he says, is bad; just now he is dealing in eggs, buys them, in the villages, and sends them to lublin, whence they are despatched to london. there, it is said, people put them into lime-ovens and hatch chickens out of them. it must be lies. the english just happen to _like_ eggs! however that may be, the business, for the present, is in a bad way. still, it is better than dealing in produce--produce is knocked on the head. he became a produce dealer soon after his marriage; he had everything to learn, and his partner was an old dealer who simply turned his pockets inside out. * * * * * it was dark in the post-chaise--i could not see chaïm's face, and i don't know to this day how he recognized a fellow-jew in me. when he got in, i was sitting in a corner dozing, and was only awakened by his voice. i don't talk in my sleep--perhaps i gave a jewish groan. perhaps he felt that _my_ groan and _his_ groan were _one_ groan? he even told me that his wife was from warsaw and did not fancy konskivòlye. that is, she was born in krubisheff, but she was brought up in warsaw by that miserable family of hers--lost her parents. there she learned to know about _other_ things. she could talk polish and read german addresses fluently. she even says that she can play, not on a fiddle, but on some other instrument. "and who are you?" and he seized me by the hand. sleep was out of the question, and he had begun to interest me. it was like a story. a young man from a small provincial town; a wife brought up in warsaw--she is impatient of the small town. something might be made of it, i reflect; one must know exactly how it all is, then add a little to it, and it will make a novel. i will put in a villain, a convict, a bankruptcy or two, and rush in a dragon--i, too, will be interesting! i lean toward my neighbor, and tell him who i am. "so it's you," he said, "is it? you yourself! tell me, i beg of you, how do you find the time and attention required for inventing stories?" "well, you see...." "how can i see? you must have inherited a large fortune, and you are living on the interest?" "heaven forbid! my parents are alive." "then you won in the lottery?" "wrong again!" "then, what?" i really did not know how to answer. "do you make a living by _that_?" i gave a genuinely jewish reply--_bê!_ "and that is your whole parnosseh, without anything additional?" "for the present." "o _wa_! how much does it bring in?" "very little." "a bad business, too?" "knocked on the head!" "bad times!" sighed my neighbor. a few minutes' silence, but he could not be quiet long. "tell me, i beg of you, what is the good of the stories you write? i don't mean to _you_," he amended himself. "heaven forbid! a jew must earn a living, if he has to suck it out of the wall--that is not what i mean--what will a jew not do for a living? i am riding in the post-chaise, and not in an 'opportunity,'[ ] because i could not hear of one. heaven knows whether i'm not sitting on shatnez.[ ] i mean the people--what is the good of the stories to _them?_ what is the object of them? what do they put into story books?" then, answering himself: "i guess it's just a question of women's fashions, like crinolines!" "and you," i ask, "have never dipped into a story-book?" "i can tell _you_: i do know a _little_ about them, as much as that." and he measured off a small piece of his finger, but it was dark in the chaise. "did they interest you?" "_me?_ heaven forbid! it was all through my wife! this, you see, is how it happened: it must be five or six years ago--six--a year after the wedding, we were still boarding with my father--when my wife grew poorly. not that she was ill; she went about as usual, but she was not up to the mark. "one day i asked her what was wrong. "but, really--" he caught himself up. "i don't know why i should bother you with all this." "please, go on!" my neighbor laughed. "is straw wanted in egypt? do you want _my_ stories, when you can invent your own?" "do, please, go on!" "apparently, you write fiction for other people and want truth for yourself?" it does not occur to him that one might wish to write the truth. "well," he said, "so be it!" * * * * * "well," repeated my neighbor, "there's nothing to be ashamed of. we had a room to ourselves, i was a young man then, more given to that sort of thing--and i asked her what was the matter. she burst out crying! "i felt very sorry for her. besides being my wife, she was an orphan, away from her home, and altogether much to be pitied." "why so much to be pitied?" i wonder. "you see, my mother, peace be upon her, died about two years before the marriage, and my father, peace be upon him, did not marry again. "my mother, may her merits protect us, was a good woman, and my father could not forget her. well, a woman alone in the house! my father, peace be upon him, had no time to spare--he was away nearly the whole week in the villages--he traded in all sorts of things, whatever you please--eggs, butter, rags, hogs' bristles, linen." "and you?" "i sat in the house-of-study and learned. well, i reflected, a woman gets frightened all by herself; but why cry? no, she said, she was dull. dull? what was that? "i saw that she went about like one half asleep. sometimes she did not hear when spoken to, or she seemed absent-minded, and sat staring at the wall--stared and stared--or else, her lips moved and never a sound to be heard. but as to being dull--all a woman's fancy. an unaccountable folk, women! a jew, a man, is never dull. a jew has no time to be dull, a jew is either hungry or full; either he has business on hand, or he is in the house-of-study, or asleep; if one has _heaps_ of time one smokes a pipe; but dull!----" "remember," i put in, "a woman has no torah, no kohol affairs, no six hundred and thirteen religious obligations." "that's just where it is! i soon came to the conclusion that being dull meant having nothing to do--a sort of emptiness calculated to drive one mad. our sages saw that long ago. do you know the saying, 'idleness leads the mind to wander?' according to the law, no woman may be idle. i said to her: do something! she said, she wanted to 'read'! "'to read,' sounded very queer to me, too. i knew that people who know how to write call 'learning' lehavdîl, reading books and newspapers, but i did _not_ know then that she was so learned.... she spoke less to me than i to her. she was a tall woman; but she kept her head down and her lips closed as though she could not count two. she was quiet altogether--quiet as a lamb; and there was always a look in her face as if a whole ship full of sour milk had foundered at sea. she wanted to read, she said. and what? polish, german, even yiddish--anything to read. "in all konskivòlye there wasn't a book to be found. i was very sorry--i couldn't refuse her. i told her i would get her some books when i went to see my relative in lublin. "'and _you_ have nothing?' she asked. "'_i?_ preserve us!' "'but what do you do all day in the house-of-study?' "'i learn.' "'i want to learn, too,' says she. "i explained to her that the gemoreh is not a story-book, that it is not meant for women, that it had been said women should not study it, that it is hebrew.... "i gave her to understand that if the konskivòlye people heard of such a thing, they would stone me, and quite right, too! i won't keep you in suspense, but tell you at once that she begged so hard of me, cried, fainted, made such a to-do that she had her way. i sat down every evening and translated a page of the gemoreh for her benefit; but i knew what the end of it would be." "and what was it?" "you need not ask. i translated a page about goring oxen, ditches, setting on fire,[ ] commentaries and all. i held forth, and she went to sleep over it night after night. that sort of thing was not intended for women. by good fortune, however, it happened that, during the great gale that blew that year, a certain book-peddler wandered out of his way into konskivòlye, and i brought her home forty pounds' weight of story-books. now it was the other way about--_she_ read to _me_, and--_i_ went to sleep. "and to this day," he wound up, "i don't know what is the use of story-books. at any rate, for men. perhaps you write for women?" * * * * * meanwhile it began to dawn; my neighbor's long, thin, yellow face became visible--with a pair of black-ringed, tired-looking red eyes. he was apparently anxious to recite his prayers, and began to polish the window-pane, but i interrupted him. "tell me, my friend, don't take it amiss. is your wife content _now_?" "how, content?" "she is no longer dull?" "she has a stall with salt and herrings; one child at the breast and two to wash and comb. she has a day's work blowing their noses." again he rubs the pane, and again i question: "tell me, friend, what is your wife like?" my neighbor sat up, threw a side-glance at me, looked me down from head to foot, and asked severely: "then you know my wife? from warsaw, eh?" "not in the least," i answered; "i only mean, in case i am ever in konskivòlye, so that i may recognize her." "so that you may recognize her?" he smiles, reassured. "i'll give you a sign: she has a mole on the left side of her nose." * * * * * the jew got down from the chaise, giving me a cold and distant farewell as he stood on the step. he evidently still suspected me of knowing his wife and of belonging to her miserable family in warsaw. i was left alone in the chaise, but it was useless to think of sleep. the cool morning had taken hold of me. my literary overcoat blew out in the wind, and i felt chilly all over. i shrank together in the corner. the sun began to shine outside. it may be that i was riding through beautiful country; the early rays may have kissed hill-tops and green trees, and slid down a glassy river; but i hadn't the courage to open the little window. a jewish author fears the cold! i began, as the jew put it, to "think out" a story. but other thoughts came in between. two different worlds, a man's world and a woman's world--a world with talmudical treatises on goring oxen, and ditches, and incendiary fires, and the damages to be paid for them, and a world with story-books that are sold by weight! if _he_ reads, _she_ goes to sleep; if _she_ reads, _he_ goes to sleep! as if we were not divided enough, as if we had not already "french noses," "english sticks," "dutch georges," "lithuanian pigs," "polish beggars," "palestinian tramps;" as though every part of our body were not lying in a different place and had not a resounding nickname; as though every part, again, had not fallen into smaller ones: chassidîm, misnagdîm, "germans;" as though all this were not, we must needs divide ourselves into men and women--and every single, narrow, damp, and dirty jewish room must contain these two worlds within itself. these two at least ought to be united. to strive after their unification is a debt every yiddish writer owes his public. only, the writers have too many private debts beside--one requires at least one additional parnosseh, as he said. * * * * * my reflections about an additional parnosseh were broken in upon by a few sharp notes on the postillion's horn. but i did not leave the chaise. i was just feeling a little warmer, and the sun had begun to pour in his beams. i got a new neighbor and, thanks to the bright daylight, i saw his face plainly and even recognized him. it was an old acquaintance, we had skated together as children, played at bakers--we were almost comrades--then _i_ went to the dingy, dirty cheder, and he, to the free, lightsome "gymnasium."[ ] when _i_ did not know the lesson, i was beaten; when i answered right, they pinched my cheek--it hurt either way. _he_ was sometimes kept in and sometimes he got "fives;"[ ] _i_ broke my head over the talmud; he broke his over greek and latin. but we stuck together. we lived on neighborly terms; he taught me to read in secret, lent me books, and in after years we turned the world upside down as we lay on the green grass beside the river. i wanted to invent a kind of gunpowder that should shoot at great distances, say one hundred miles; he, a balloon in which to mount to the stars and bring the people "up there" to a sense of order and enlightenment. we were dreadfully sorry for the poor world, she was stuck in the mud--and how to get her out? ungreased wheels, lazy horses, and the driver--asleep! then i married, and he went to a university. we never corresponded. i heard later that he had failed, and, instead of a doctor, had become an apothecary somewhere in a small country town.... i all but cried for joy when my new neighbor entered the chaise, and my heart grew warm; my hands stretched themselves out; my whole body leaned toward him, but i held myself back--i held myself back with all my strength. there you are! i thought. it is yanek polnivski, our late sequestrator's son. he was my playfellow, he had a large embrace and wanted to put his arms round the whole world and kiss its every limb, except the ugly growths which should be cut away. only--there you are again! present-day times. perhaps he is an anti-semite, breathing death and destruction in the newspapers; perhaps now we jews are the excrescences that need removing from europe's shapely nose. he will measure me with a cold glance, or he may embrace me, but tell me, at the same time, that i am not as other jews. but i was mistaken. polnivski recognized me, fell upon my neck, nor had i spoken a word before he asked me how i liked "this vile anti-semitism." "it is," he said to me, of course in polish, "a kind of cholera--an epidemic." "some say it is political." "i don't believe it," said polnivski. "politicians invent nothing new, they create no _facts_. they only use those which exist, suppress some, and make the most of others. they can fan the flame of hell-fire, but not a spark can they kindle for themselves. it is human nature, not the politician, that weaves the thread of history. the politicians plait it, twist it, knot it, and entangle it. "anti-semitism is a disease. the politician stands by the patient's bedside like a dishonest doctor who tries to spin out the sickness. "the politician makes use of anti-semitism--a stone flies through the air and bismarck's assistant directs it through the window of the shool; otherwise _other_ panes would be smashed. does anyone raise a protesting fist? immediately a thin, shrinking jewish shoulder is thrust beneath it, otherwise _other_ bones would crack. "but the stone, the fist, the hatred, and the detestation, these exist of themselves. "who die of a physical epidemic? children, old people, and invalids. who fall victims to a moral pestilence? the populace, the decadent aristocrat, and a few lunatics who caper round and lead the dance. only the healthy brains resist." "how many healthy brains have we?" i asked. "how many? unhappily, very few," replied polnivski. there was a short, sad silence. "i do not know what my neighbor's thoughts may have been; it seemed to _me_ that the strongest and best-balanced brains had not escaped infection. there are two different phases in history: one in which the best and cleverest man leads the mass, and one in which the mass carries the best and cleverest along with it. the popular leader is a columbus in search of new happiness, a new america for mankind; but no sooner is there scarcity of bread and water on board than the men mutiny, and _they_ lead. the first thing is to kill somebody, the next, to taste meat, and still their hatred." * * * * * "and don't suppose," said polnivski, "that i am fishing for compliments, that i consider myself an _esprit fort_, who runs no danger of infection, an oak-tree no gale can dislodge. "no, brother," he went on, "i am no hero. i might have been like the rest; i also might have been torn like a decayed leaf from the tree of knowledge, and whirled about in the air. i might have tried to think, with the rest of the dead leaves, that it was a ball, and we were dancing for our enjoyment; that the wind was our hired musician who played to us on his flute. "i was saved by an accident; i learned to know a jewish woman. listen!" i leaned toward my neighbor. his face had grown graver, darker; he rested his elbows on his knees and supported his head with his hands. "but don't suppose," he said again, "that i discovered the heroine of a romance, a strong character that breaks through bolt and bar, and goes proudly on its way. don't suppose that she was an 'exception,' an educated woman full of the new ideas, or, in fact, any 'ideal' at all. no; i learned to know a simple jewish woman--one of the best, but one of the best of those who are most to be pitied. i learned to love her, and i'll tell you the truth: whenever i read anything against jews in general, she comes hack to my mind with her soft, sad eyes; stands before me and begs: 'do not believe it. i am not like that.'" he is lost in thought. "the story is a simple one," he rouses himself and begins afresh. "we have not written to one another the whole time, and you don't know what has happened to me, so i'll tell you--briefly. i am only going as far as lukave. "on leaving the gymnasium i entered the university and studied medicine. i did _not_ finish the course; it was partly my comrades' fault, partly the teachers', and most of all my own. i had to leave and become an apothecary, had to marry, take my marriage portion, and set up a shop full of cod-liver oil in a little out-of-the-way town. but i was fortunate in many ways. i had a good father-in-law, who was prompt in fulfilling the contract, a pretty wife--it was a little bit of a town. "my wife's name was maria--i see her before me now, turning round helplessly from the looking-glass. her golden curls refuse to submit to the comb, they fly merrily in all directions; they will not be twisted into the wreath which was just then the fashion. "slender--and such good, laughing, sky-blue eyes. "we were not much disturbed by my professional duties. the town was too poor and an apothecary shop where there is no doctor isn't worth much. there was little doing, but we lived in a paradise, and we were always on the veranda--it was summer-time--side by side, hand in hand. "and what should have claimed our interest? we had enough to live on, and as for going out, where were we to go? the veranda overlooked nearly the whole town--the low, sagging houses, broad, black, wooden booths that leaned, as though in pity, over the roll and apple sellers at their wretched stalls before the house-doors, as though they wanted to protect the old, withered, wrinkled faces from the sun. "the town had once been rich, the booths full of all kinds of produce and fruits, the market full of carts, peasants, and brokers; sometimes even a great nobleman would be seen among the white peasant coats and the gray kaftans (at least so they assured me in the town), but the _chaussée_ and the railroad had thrown everything out. the streets were empty, the booths filled with decayed onions and pieces of cheese--all that was left of the good times. "poor as poor can be. ten traders threw themselves on every cart-load of corn brought in by the peasants, raised the price, then came to an agreement, promised cession money, and bought it in common; but not one of the ten could find in his pockets the wherewith to pay, and they borrowed money on interest. there were one hundred tailors to a pair of trousers; fifty cobblers to put in one patch. in all my born days i never saw such poverty. "we kept away from the town as much as possible--the happy are selfish. "but somehow we could not help noticing a young housewife opposite, not more than eighteen or twenty at most, and we could neither of us take our eyes off her, and she, apparently, couldn't take hers off us. it was an unusual sight. imagine a beauty, a perfect picture, set in a frame as dirty as only a jewish window in a small town can be, beneath a dreadfully bent roof. imagine a pair of sad, soft, dreamy eyes in an alabaster white face and under a hair-band. "she made a terribly sad impression on us. "for hours together she would stand leaning in the window, her fingers twisted together, staring at us, or else at the stars, and swallowing her tears. we saw that she was always alone (your men never have any time to spare), always unhappy and wistful. her face spoke for her. she is a stranger here, we decided; she has come from a larger house, less shut in, and she longs to be far away; her heart yearns after a freer life. she also wanted to live, to live and to be loved. no, you may say what you like, but you _do_ sometimes sell your daughters. it is true that after a while they forget. they are pious and good and patient, but who shall count the tears that fall over their saddened faces till the store is exhausted? or note what the heart suffers till it resigns itself to its living death? and why should it be so? just because they are good and pious? you should have seen the husband--yellow, shrunk together. i saw him twice a day--go out in the morning and come home at night. "a shame!" you will believe that i had no answer ready. we were both silent for a time, and then polnivski went on: "once we missed her. she did not appear at the window all day. "she must be ill, we thought. "that evening the husband came in--the yellow creature--and asked for a remedy. "'what sort?' "'i don't know,' he said; 'a remedy.' "'for whom?' "'you want to know that, too? for my wife.' "'what is wrong with her?' "'i'm sure i don't know. she says, her heart hurts her.' "and that," said polnivski, "was the occasion of our becoming acquainted. i won't be long about it. i am a bit of a doctor, too, and i went back with him." polnivski had begun to talk in broken sentences; he looked for cigarettes; at last he broke off altogether, opened his travelling-bag and commenced to hunt for matches. meantime i was tormented by suspicions. i now looked at polnivski with other eyes; his story had begun to pain me. who can read a man? who knows all that is in him? i began to think that i might have before me a christian weasel who stole into jewish hen-houses. he is too indignant about the fate of jewish daughters; he is too long looking for matches; he is ashamed of something. why will he "not be long about it?" why won't he tell me the whole story in detail? who knows what part he played in it, if not the old part of the serpent in paradise? why won't his conscience let him speak out? there it is again--a jewess--then, why not? at one time it was a merit to christen her; now the approved thing is to incite her to rebel against her god, her parents, her husband, her whole life! it is called liberalism, entering a prison and letting in a breath of fresh air, a few rays of sunlight; awaking the prisoner, giving him a few gingerbreads and then going--not seeing the prisoner grind his teeth as the rusty key turns in the lock, or how his face darkens, how convulsively he breathes, how he tears his hair; or else, if he still _can_ weep, how he waters with bitter tears the mouldy bread at which the mice have been gnawing while he slept. to waken the dark, slumbering, and oppressed heart of a jewish woman strikes a romantic chord; to fan the flame of unknown or smouldering feelings; to kiss and then--good-bye! bolt the door! she must make the best of it! we have been slaked for so long with bitterness, gall, and hatred, that now, when we are offered bread and salt, we feel sure it must be poisoned--even though the hand that holds it out to us shakes with pity; even though there are tears in the eyes, and words of comfort on the lips. it is so hard to believe in it all. for we also are infected; we also have succumbed to the plague. meanwhile polnivski had found his matches, and i unwillingly accepted a cigarette. we smoked. the chaise was filled with blue, smoky rings. i watched them, followed them with my eyes, and thought: thus vanish both good and evil. * * * * * "we made each other's acquaintance," said my christian neighbor, "but nothing came of it in the way of closer friendship." "why not?" i asked, astonished. "we went on looking at each other like the best of friends, but _she_ could not come to us, nor we, to her. "she had but to try it! it was a most orthodox town, where everyone but the feldscher and the ladies' tailor wore kaftans. and there was something besides, i don't know what, that kept us back. "then the worst misfortune befell me that can befall a man. "the apothecary's shop brought in next to nothing, and my wife began to fail in health. "i saw more clearly every day that she was declining, and there was no hope of saving her. she needed italy, and i could not even provide her with enough to eat; and, you know, when people are in that state of health, they are full of hope and do not believe in their illness. "the whole pain, the whole anguish has to be suppressed, buried deep in the heart; and no matter how the heart is aching, _you_ have to smile and wear a smooth brow. it dies within you every second, and yet you must help to make plans for this time next year, settle about enlarging the house, buying a piano." his voice changed. "i am not equal to describing, to living through those times again; but _my_ sorrow and _her_ sorrow brought us nearer together." lukave appeared in the distance. "i will tell you, in the few minutes i have left, that anyone so unhappy as that woman, and at the same time so full of sympathy and compassion for others, i never saw; and all so simple, so natural, without any exaggeration. "she never left maria's bedside; she got round her husband to lend me money at a lower rate of interest. she was our watcher, our housekeeper, our cook, our most devoted friend, and when maria died, it was almost harder to comfort her than me. "then it was i became convinced that hatred between nations is _not_ natural. there's just a lot of trouble in the world, and the more passionate would protest, only the false scribe, the political advocate, drafts instead a denunciation of the jews. "i saw clearly that the jews are not inimical to us--that we _can_ live in peace." lukave draws nearer and nearer to us--or we to it--and still i am afraid of the end. i interrupt him and ask: "and what became of the woman?" "how should i know? i buried my wife, sold the apothecary's shop, cried when i said good-bye to my neighbor, and--that's all. now i live in lukave. i am not doing well there, either." "and what was the name of the little town you lived in before?" "konska-vola."[ ] "your neighbor was tall and pale?" "yes." "thin?" "yes--you know her?" he asked, looking pleased. "she has a mole on the left side of her nose?" "a mole?" laughed yanek. "what an idea!" i think i must have made a mistake and say: "perhaps on the right side?" "my dear fellow, what are you talking about?" "perhaps you did not notice--and her husband is yellow-skinned?" "yes." "called chaïm?" "i think not, and yet--perhaps---- devil may care!" "but _her_ name is hannah?" "_ach_, nonsense! sarah! i remember i called her sòruchna. i shouldn't have forgotten her name." _i_ was the fool. are there so few jewish women leading similar lives? iv the new tune the end of the day of atonement. a blast on the shofar, and the congregation stirred noisily: "next year in jerusalem!" the boys made a dash at the candle-wax on the table, a week-day reader was already at the desk, and the week-day evening prayer was being recited to a week-day tune. full tilt they recited the prayers and full tilt they took off robes and prayer-scarfs and began to put on their boots--who has time to spare? nobody--not even to remark the pale young man walking round and round among the people, dragging after him a still paler child. it is his third round; but nobody notices him. one is under a seat looking for his boots, another finds somebody has taken his goloshes by mistake or dropped candle-grease on his hat, and all are hungry. he looks vainly into their faces; he cannot catch a single glance. "father, let us go home," begs the child. "we will go round once more," he answers, "and look for uncle." meantime the congregation is preparing to leave. the last kaddish is said, the last amen! the congregation make a rush for the door, carrying along with them the young man and the child. in the court of the shool the men begin to recite the blessing on the moon. the women walk away down both sides of the street, forming two white fillets. on the way home, there is time to count how many women really fainted; how many nearly fainted; and to discuss the reader, who grew hoarser this year than he had ever done before. at every house-door two or three people say good-bye to the rest and go in, while the majority are still in the court of the shool, gesticulating toward the moon. the pale young man and the pale child still circulate among them. the crowd lessens, and his face darkens; now the last has finished and gone. the young man remains. "not one; well, we must do without. i am not going to beg into a new year, just after the day of atonement,"[ ] he murmured, with quivering lips. the child thinks he is saying the moon-prayer. "enough now, father," and he took hold of the man's coat. "come home!" his voice was full of tears. "silly child, why are you in such a hurry?" "i want to eat; i'm hungry." "i should think so! of course, you are hungry, you rogue; you needn't tell me that. was i likely to think that you wouldn't be, after fasting through a whole day of atonement?" "come home!" begs the child again. "look here, david'l, there's nothing to eat at home, either." "just a bit of bread!" "there isn't a scrap!" the child stands still in alarm. "david'l," say the father, "you know what day this has been?" the child only sobs quietly. "to-day, david'l, was the day of atonement--a yôm kodesh.[ ] do you know what that means?" yes, the child just nodded. "well, tell me, david'l, what have we done all day?" "prayed," wept the child. "right! and he whose name is blessed, what has _he_ done?" "forgiven us!" (sobbing). "well, do you know, david'l, if god, blessed be he, has forgiven us, i think we ought to be cheerful, don't you?" the child makes no reply. "you remember, david'l, last year, when mother was alive, how we sang after supper, to a new tune? do you remember the tune? "no." "i will sing it to remind you, only you must join in." and the young man began to sing in a weak, hoarse voice. it was not a "sinni" and not a "wallach" tune, but it was a gruesome tune that went to one's heart. the child joined in and sang through his tears. v married (told by a woman) i remember myself at the time when i played marbles and made mud cakes in the yard; in winter i sat all day indoors and rocked a little brother who was born sickly, and who lingered on into his seventh year, when he died of a decline. in summer, whenever it was sunny, the poor little creature sat in the yard, warmed itself in the sun, and watched me playing marbles. in winter it never left its cradle, and i told it stories and sang to it. the other boys all went to cheder. mother was always busy, she had at least ten parnossehs. poor mother! she peddled, she baked gingerbread, she helped at circumcisions and weddings, she was a tikerin, a grave-measurer,[ ] recited prayers, and bought in provisions for better-class households. father earned three rubles a week keeping accounts for reb zeinwill terkelbaum in the forest. and those were the good times; teachers were paid, and the rent, too--almost on rent-day,--and we never had to eat our bread dry. sometimes mother would bake a cake for supper; then there was quite a feast. but that happened seldom. mother usually came home late and tired; often with red eyes and in a bitter mood. she would complain that the well-to-do ladies owed her money. they would get her to lay out her money for them, and then tell her to come for the money to-morrow, the day after; meantime more purchases were made, and when it came to a reckoning, the house-mistress could not remember if she hadn't already paid for the day before yesterday's quarter of a pound of butter--and she "put it aside" to ask her husband about it, who was there at the time--he has a tenacious memory, and will certainly remember how it was. next morning it turns out the husband came home too late from the house-of-study, and she forgot to ask him. on the third day she says, with a pleased expression, that she asked her husband about it, and he was angry with her for bothering him, "as if he had nothing better to do than attend to the affairs of a couple of women;" and it is settled that she, the madam, shall try to remember herself. presently she begins to feel sure the butter was included in the account after all; a little later, she is ready to build on it; and when poor mother reminded her of the butter again, she was called a pert hussy, who was trying to get an extra gulden by trickery--and she was assured that if they heard any more about the butter, she need never show herself there again. mother, who was herself the daughter of well-to-do parents, and would have been a lady herself, were it not for the nobleman who took her dowry, could not accept this meekly. she frequently came home with swollen eyelids, threw herself on the bed with a burst of tears, and lay there weeping bitterly till her heart was eased, when she stood up and cooked us kliskelech[ ] with beans. at other times she vented her anger on us; that is, on me; she never scolded the sick beril, and the other boys only very seldom--they, poor things, used to come home from cheder with their cheeks pinched brown and blue and with swollen under-lids; i, on the other hand, came in for many an undeserved tweak to my hair or else a slap. "you were not so sick all this time, but you could have laid the fire, put on a kettleful of water, were you?" and if i _had_ done it, i caught it worse: "look at my fine lady! goes and makes a fire and lets the wood burn away for nothing and nobody--never a thought of me toiling all day! shell be the ruin of us!" sometimes when father was at work in the woods, mother would sit down on the bed with her face to the window and complain, as she stared before her: "what does he care! there he sits out in the woods like a lord, breathes fresh air, lies about on the grass, eats sour milk, perhaps even cream, how do i know? and here am i, skin and bone!" and with all that, those were good days. we never knew want, and after a week of little worries came a cheerful, or at all events a peaceful, sabbath. father often came home for it, and mother was busy all about the house and smiled to herself in secret. friday evening, just before blessing the candles, she would often kiss me on the head. i knew what that meant. because if it so happened that father did _not_ come home, then i was an idle hussy. even when mother pulled out half my hair while combing it, and gave me a few slaps on the shoulders besides, i didn't cry. my childish heart felt that it was not _me_ she meant, but her unhappy fate. when the wood was all cut down, my father stayed at home, and then food began to grow scarce. it was my father, my mother, and myself, really, who hadn't enough; the other children knew very little about it. beril wanted next to nothing--took a cup of porridge when it was given him, and stared all the time at the ceiling. the other poor children had to go to cheder, "they _must_ have something hot," but i often went hungry. father and mother were always recalling by-gone days with tears in their eyes. i, on the contrary, was happier in the bad times than i had been in the good. now that bread was often lacking in the house, i received a double portion of my mother's love; she never pulled a hair out of my head when combing it, or hit my thin bones; my father would stroke my head at supper and play with me, so that i should not observe the smallness of my share of food; and i was quite proud whenever there came a fast, because i fasted with my parents, like a grown-up girl. it was about that time that beril died. it happened this way: mother woke up one morning and said to father across the bed: "do you know, beril must be better; he has slept the whole night through." i heard it--i have always been a light sleeper--sprang joyfully from my bed on the chest, and ran to look at my "pet of a brother" (that is how i called him--i was so fond of him). i hoped to see a smile on the wan little face, such as came over it once a year--but it was a dead face i saw. there was a week's mourning. after that my father's health failed, and the röfeh began to come to the house. so long as there was money to pay his fee, the old röfeh came in person; later on, when all the bed-clothes and the hanging-lamp, with father's book-case, which for a while my mother wouldn't touch, had gone in medicines, the röfeh began to send his "boy," the assistant. the "boy" displeased my mother dreadfully; he had merely a suspicion of pointed whiskers, was dressed like a gentile, and was continually introducing polish words into his speech. _i_ was afraid of him, to this day i don't know why. but when i knew he was to come, i ran and hid in the yard, and waited there till he had gone. one day a neighbor fell ill, also a poor man, and one whose furniture had apparently gone, too, and the "boy" (to this day i don't know what his name was) went to him straight from our house. crossing the yard, he found me sitting on a log. i looked down. aware of his approach, i felt a chill run through me, and my heart began to beat faster. he came up to me, took me by the chin, lifted my face and said: "a pretty girl like you ought not to have untidy hair! and she ought not to be ashamed before any lad in the world." he let me go, and i ran into the house. i felt that all the blood had rushed into my face at once. i squeezed into the darkest corner behind the stove, under pretense of counting the soiled linen. that was on a wednesday. on friday, for the first time, i reminded my mother of my own accord that my head needed washing, that it was frowzy. "more shame to me!" exclaimed my mother, wringing her hands. "i haven't combed her hair these three weeks." suddenly she grew angry: "lazy thing!" she cried; "a great girl like you and not able to comb her own hair! another at your age would have washed the other children." "sarah'le, don't scream," begged father; but her anger only grew more violent. "lazy girl, you _shall_ comb your own hair, and this minute. do you hear?" but i was afraid to go to the fire-place, where the hot water stood, because i had to pass mother, who would have given me a slap. father saved me, as usual. "sarah'le," he moaned, "don't scream, my head does ache so." that was enough. my mother's anger vanished. i ran freely across the room to the hot water. as i awkwardly combed my hair, i saw my mother go up to my father and point at me with a heavy sigh: "lord of the world, the poor child grows taller every day," she whispered to my father, but my ears caught every word. "fine as gold--and what's to be done with her?" father answered with a still heavier sigh. the röfeh assured us several times that father had nothing serious the matter with him. worry of mind had gone to his liver, and this had swollen and pressed against the heart; nothing worse. he was to drink milk and not trouble any more, walk out into the street, talk with his friends, and find something to do; but father said his feet refused to carry him. why, i only knew later. early one summer morning i was awakened by the following conversation between my parents: "did you knock yourself up in the woods?" asked my mother. "looks like it," answered my father. "they were cutting down in twenty places at once. you see, the wood is the nobleman's, but the peasants have certain privileges;[ ] they get the twigs that fall and lie about on the ground, and the wood of any tree that is struck by lightning. well, when the trees are cut down they lose their privileges, and have to buy wood for building and for heating purposes. so, of course, they wanted to stop it and bring down a commissioner. but they set about it too late. reb zeinwill no sooner saw them scratching their heads than he gave orders to put on forty axes. it was a gehenna! they were felling in perhaps twenty different places, and one had to be everywhere. well, what could you expect? my feet swelled like toadstools." "sinner that i am," sighed my mother. "and there was i fancying you had nothing to do." "nothing at all," my father smiled sadly; "i was only on my feet from dawn to dark." "and three rubles a week wages," added my mother, angrily. "he consented to raise them; meanwhile, you know, the timber raft was sunk, and he told me he was a poor man." "and you believe it?" "it may be." "he is always saying that" (angrily), "and yet the fortune goes on increasing." "with god's help," sighed father. there was silence for a while. "do you know what he is doing now?" asked father, who had scarcely left the house for a year. "what should he? he trades in flax and eggs; he has a public-house." "and she?" "sick, poor thing." "a pity; she was a good woman." "a jewel. the only lady who was not allowed to put up a groschen's worth of preserves! _she_ would have paid me regularly, but she hadn't much to say in the matter." "i fancy she is his third wife," said my father. "she is," my mother agreed. "well, sarah, here we have a rich jew, one who might live comfortably, and, lo and behold, he has no luck with his wives--we all have our troubles." "such a young woman, too," said my mother; "not more than two or three and twenty." "there's no accounting for these things; he must be seventy, and he's solid as iron." "you don't say so." "and no spectacles." "and when he walks, he shakes the planks." "and here am i in bed." these last words gave me a pang. "god will help," mother consoled him. "only she--she--," sighed my mother, and glanced toward my box, "she is growing taller and taller, do you see?" "of course, i see!" "and a face--bright as the sun." there is a silence. "sarah'le, we are not doing our duty." "in what respect?" "in respect to her. how old were you when you married?" "i was younger than she is." "well?" "well--what?" at that moment there were two raps at the shutter. mother sprang out of bed; in one minute she had torn down the string by which the shutter was held to, and thrown open the window, which had long been without a fastening. "what is it?" she called into the street. "rebekah zeinwill is dead!" mother left the window. "blessed be the righteous judge!" said my father. "to die is nothing." "blessed be the righteous judge!" said my mother. "we were just talking about her." * * * * * i was very restless in those days. i don't know myself what ailed me. sometimes i would lie awake all night. hammers beat in my temples, and my heart pained me as though filled with fear, or else with a longing after something for which it had no name. at other times it grew so warm and tender, i could have taken everything and everyone round me in my arms and kissed them and hugged them. only whom? the little brothers wouldn't let me--even the five-year old yochanan butted and screamed; he wouldn't play with a girl. my mother, besides my being afraid of her, was always cross and overdriven; my father--growing from bad to worse. in a short time he was as gray as a pigeon, his face shrivelled like parchment, and his eyes had such a helpless, pleading stare, it needed only one glance at them to send me out of the room crying. then i used to think of beril. i could have told him everything, i could have hugged and kissed him. now he lay in the cold earth, and i cried more bitterly than ever. indeed, the tears often came without any reason at all. sometimes i would be looking out of the window into the yard and see the moon swimming nearer and nearer to the whitewashed fence opposite, and not able to swim over it. and i would be seized with pity for the moon and feel a sudden contraction of the heart, and the tears flowed and flowed. other days i was listless. i hung round with no energy and a pale face with drooping eyelids. there was a rushing in my ears, my head was heavy, and life seemed so little worth living, it would be best to die. at these times i envied beril his lot. he lay in the earth, where it is quiet. and i often dreamt that i was dead; that i lay in the grave, or else that i was flying about in heaven in a shift with my hair loose, and that i looked down to see what people were about on the earth. just about then i lost all the companions with whom i used to play at marbles in days gone by, and they were not replaced. one of them already went out on sabbath with a satin skirt and a watch and chain. it was soon to be her wedding. others were "kallah-mädlich";[ ] match-makers and future fathers-in-law were "breaking in the doors," and there was combing and washing and dressing, when _i_ was still going barefoot, in an old bodice and a short skirt and a faded cotton waist, which had burst in several places right in front, and which i had patched with calico of a different color. the "kallah-mädlich" avoided me, and i was ashamed to play with younger children; besides, marbles amused me no longer. so i never showed myself in the street by day. mother never sent me out on errands, and one day when i intended to go somewhere, she prevented me. i often used to slip out after dark, and walk about behind the house near the barns, or else sit down beside the river. in summer time, i sat there till quite late at night. some evenings, mother would come out after me. she never came up to me, but would stand in the gateway, look round--and i could almost hear the sigh she gave as she watched me in the distance. that also came to an end in time; i would sit by myself there for hours, listening to the noise of the little mill stream, watching the frogs jump out of the grass into the water, or following a cloud through the sky. at times i would fall half asleep with my eyes open. one evening i heard a melancholy song. the voice was young and fresh, and yet the song thrilled me with emotion; it was a jewish song. "that is the röfeh-boy singing," i said to myself. "another would have sung hymns, not a song." i also said to myself that one should go indoors, so as not to hear it or meet the röfeh-boy, and yet i remained sitting; i was in a dreamy state, with no energy to move, and i sat on, though my heart was beating anxiously. the song drew nearer; it was coming from the opposite bank--across the bridge. already i hear steps in the sand, i want to run away, but my limbs are disobedient, and i remain sitting. at last he comes to the spot where i am. "is it you, leah?" i do not answer. the noise in my ears is louder than ever, the hammering in my temples, busier, and it seems to me the kindest and sweetest voice i ever heard. my not answering matters little to him, he sits down beside me on the log, and looks me straight in the face. i do not _see_ his look, because i dare not raise my eyes, but i feel how it is scorching me. "you are a pretty girl, leah," he says, "it's a pity to hide yourself." a dreadful crying fit seizes hold of me, and i run away. the next evening i stayed at home, and the one after. on the third, friday night, my heart was so heavy, i _had_ to go out--i felt i should suffocate indoors. he was apparently waiting for me in the shadow round a corner of the house, for hardly had i sat down in my accustomed place when he stood before me as though he had grown out of the ground. "don't run away from me, leah," he begged gently. "believe me, i will do you no harm." his gentle, earnest voice touched me. then he began to sing a low, sad song, and again the tears came into my eyes. i could not keep them back, and began to cry quietly. "why are you crying, leah," he broke off, and took my hand. "you sing so sadly," i answered, and withdrew my hand from his. "i am an orphan," he said, "unhappy--among strangers." someone appeared in the street and we fled in different directions. i learned the song and used to hum it softly over to myself in bed; i went to sleep with it, and i rose with it next morning. and yet i frequently had remorse, and cried because i had made acquaintance with a röfeh-boy who dressed german fashion and shaved his chin. had he dressed like the old röfeh, had he at least been pious! i knew that if my father heard of it, the grief would kill him; my mother would do herself a mischief, and the secret lay on my heart like a stone. i go up to my father's bed to hand him something, and my mother comes in from the street, and my sin overwhelms me, so that hands and feet shake, and all the color goes from my face. and yet every night i consented to come out again the next, and i felt no desire to run away from him now. he never took my hand again and told me i was a pretty girl. he only talked with me, taught me songs; but one day he brought me a bit of st. john's bread. "eat it, leah." i wouldn't take it. "why not?" he asked sadly. "why will you not take anything from me?" i blurted out that i would rather have a piece of bread. * * * * * how long our sitting together and singing lasted, i don't know. but one day he came sadder than usual; i saw it in his face and asked him what was the matter. "i have to go." "where to?" i asked faintly. "to the recruiting station." i caught hold of his hand. "you are going into the army?" "no," he replied, and pressed my fingers, "i am not strong. i suffer from the heart. i shall not be taken for a soldier, but i must present myself." "shall you come back?" "of course!" we are both silent. "it will only be for a few weeks," he said. i was silent, and he looked at me pleadingly. "shall you miss me?" "yes." i scarcely heard my own reply. another silence. "let us say good-bye." my hand still lay in his. "go in health," i said in a trembling voice. he leaned over, kissed me, and vanished. i stood there a long time like one tipsy. "leah!" it was mother's voice, but the old, gentle, almost singing voice of the days when father was well. "leah'she!" i had not been called that for a long time. one more quiver, and i ran indoors with lips still burning from his kiss. i scarcely recognized the room. on the table stood two strange candle-sticks with lighted candles, and beside them, brandy and gingerbread. father was sitting on a chair propped up with cushions, joy smiling out of every wrinkle in his face. and round the table were strange chairs with strange people--and mother caught me in her arms and kissed me. "good luck to you, daughter, my little daughter, leah'she! good luck to you!" i don't understand, but i am frightened, and my heart beats wildly. when my mother let me loose, my father called me. i had no strength to stand, and i dropped on my knees beside him, and laid my head in his lap. he stroked my head, curled my hair with his fingers. "my child you will never suffer want and hunger again, you will never go barefoot--you will be a lady--you will be rich--you will pay for the teaching of your little brothers--so that they shall not be turned out of the cheder--you will help _us_, too--i-shall get well." "and do you know who the suitor is?" asked mother, excitedly. "reb zeinwill! fancy, reb zeinwill! he sent the match-maker himself." * * * * * i don't know what happened to me, but i woke to find myself on my bed in broad daylight. "god be praised!" cried my mother. "praised be his dear name!" said my father. and they continued to embrace and kiss me. they even offered me preserves.... would i like syrup in water?... perhaps a sip of wine? i shut my eyes again, and was choked with a terrible fit of crying. "never mind, never mind," said my mother, joyfully. "poor child, let her have her cry out. it is our fault for telling her the good news all at once, so suddenly. she might have burst a vein, which heaven forbid. but god be praised! yes, cry your heart out. may all sorrow swim away with the tears, and a new life begin for you--a new life." man has two angels, a good and a bad, and i felt convinced that the good angel bade me forget my röfeh-boy, eat reb zeinwill's preserves, drink his syrup in water, and dress at his expense, while the bad angel urged me to tell my parents, once and for all, that i would not consent, that on no account would i consent. i did not know reb zeinwill, unless i had seen him once and then forgotten--or else not known who it was--but i disliked him. the second night i dreamed that i stood under the wedding canopy. the bridegroom is reb zeinwill, and they lead me round him seven times, but my feet are as if paralyzed, and they carry me in their hands. then i am taken home. my mother comes to meet me with a cake, and they are bringing the golden broth.[ ] i am afraid to raise my eyes. i feel sure i shall see before me a blind man, both eyes gone, with a dreadfully long nose--a cold shudder runs through me--but someone whispers in my ear: "leah, what a pretty girl you are!" and the voice is not that of an old man; it is _his_ voice. i open my eyes a little way; it is _his_ face: "sst!" he whispers; "don't tell! i enticed reb zeinwill into the wood, put him into a sack, tied it up, and threw it into the river (this was out of a story my mother once told me), and i am here in his place!" i woke trembling. pale moonshine was lighting the whole room through a chink in the shutter, and i noticed, for the first time, that the lamp was once more hanging from the ceiling, and that my parents were sleeping in bed-clothes. father smiled in his sleep; mother breathed quietly, and the good angel said to me: "if you are obedient and pious, your father will recover his health; your mother will not have to toil into her old age, and your little brothers will become learned men--rabbis, authorities in the law, great, great jews. their school fees will be paid." "only," put in the bad angel, "reb zeinwill will kiss you with his damp whiskers, and clasp you in his bony arms; and he will torment you as he did the other wives, and send you to an early grave, and _he_ will come back and grieve, and he will teach you no more songs, or sit with you evening after evening--you will be sitting with reb zeinwill!" no! not if the heavens should fall about the earth! tear up the contract! i did not sleep again till morning. my mother was the first to wake. i wanted to talk with her, but i was accustomed to go for help to my father. there, he wakes. "do you know, sarah'le," are his first words, "i feel so well to-day. you will see, i shall go out." "praise to his dear name! it is all owing to our daughter's good fortune, all thanks to her merit." "and the röfeh was quite right: the milk agrees very well with me." they are silent, and the good angel repeats: "if you are good and pious, your father will get well, while if your lips let fall wicked words, he will decline and die." "listen, sarah'le," continued my father, "you are not to go about peddling any more." "what do you mean?" "what i say! i will go to-day to reb zeinwill; he will take me into a business, or lend me a few rubles, and we will have a little shop; i will serve a bit, and you a bit--and later i will deal in produce." "god grant it." "he _will_ grant it. if you want a dress for the wedding, buy it--even _two_ dresses. why not? he said we were to get what we wanted. you are not going in your old clothes?" "go along with you! the thing is to have something made for the children. reuben has been going barefoot--last week he got a splinter in his sole, and he is limping now. winter is coming on, too, they want coats and shirts and warm cloaks." "buy, buy!" "you hear?" said the good angel. "if you speak out, your mother will have no new dress, and you know the old one is falling to bits; the little brothers will run barefoot to cheder in the sharpest frost, and in summer they will get splinters in their soles." "i tell you what it is," said my mother, "everything ought to be talked over and settled in detail, because he is not a _very_ good man. whatever settlement he intends to make on her ought to be put down in writing. there will be any quantity to inherit. even if it isn't a deed, let him give a written promise, because how long is such a one likely to live? another year or so!" "one can live a long time in comfort!" sighed my father. "a long time! remember, he's seventy, and sometimes he looks dead behind his ears." and the bad angel whispered: "if you keep silence, you will marry a dead man; you will live with a corpse; they will lead you to the bridal chamber with a lifeless body." mother sighed. "everything is in god's hands," said my father. mother sighed again, and father said: "and what could we do? anything better? if i only could have gotten well, and earned something, and we had had at least dry bread in the house----" he broke off; i had a feeling that something wept within him. "if she had been a year or two younger, i would have risked it all--perhaps even bought lottery tickets." and i said nothing. * * * * * my seventy-year-old bridegroom gave my father a few hundred gulden for clothes for the wedding, and me a check for one hundred and fifty gulden. people said, "a fine match." i recovered my companions. the one with the satin skirt and the watch and chain came two or three times a day. she was the happiest creature in the world, because i had caught her up, and we were to be married in the same month. i had others, but this one stuck to me like a leech. the others were "common girls, there was no saying how long they wouldn't have to wait!" rivkah's _fiancé_ was a stranger, but she was to board at home for two or three years. during that time we would be close friends; she would run in to me for chicory-coffee; i to her on sabbath, after the mid-day rest, for chicken-broth and pear cider. "and when i am expecting a baby," said rivkah once, and her face shone, "you will come and sit by me?" i made no reply. "well," exclaimed rivkah, "why so sad? there's no saying but you, too.... cheer up!" she went on, "if god will, one can fire off a broom. besides, how long do you suppose it will last? no one can live forever. my word, what a young widow you will make, to be sure. won't you be run after!" rivkah wished reb zeinwill no harm. "to be sure, he's a wretch; he tormented that other woman; but she was sickly, and you are sound as a nut. he will treat _you_ well enough." * * * * * he came back! my father was better, but he fancied a little dry-cupping--he was afraid, otherwise, of going out. he felt that after lying down so long, and then sitting for so many weeks on end, the blood had all settled in one place, and should be stirred. also his shoulders ached, and dry-cupping is the sovereign remedy for that. i shook as with ague. when there was dry-cupping to be done, the "boy" came, not the röfeh himself. "will you go and fetch the röfeh?" asked my father. "the idea!" exclaimed my mother. "a kallah-mädel!" she went herself. "why have you grown so pale?" asked my father, in alarm. "nothing." "it's some days now," he persisted. "you imagine it, tate."[ ] "your mother says the same." "_eh!_" "to-day"--father wanted to cheer me up--"they are coming to measure you for the wedding dress." i was silent. "aren't you pleased?" he asked. "why shouldn't i be?" "you don't even know _what_ they are making you!" "but they've measured me once already." hereupon my mother came in with the röfeh himself. i felt relieved, and yet all the time something mourned within me: "perhaps you will never see him again." "what a world it is!" thus the röfeh coming in panting and groaning. "reb zeinwill marries a young girl, and the treasurer's leezerl has turned ascetic and run away from his wife." "leezerl!" cried mother, in astonishment. "as i tell you; and here am i at sixty about early and late, and my assistant goes to bed." i began to tremble again. "don't keep such a gentile!" said my mother. "a gentile?" said the röfeh. "why a gentile?" "what's all that to me?" interrupted father, impatiently. "you'd better set to work." father was naturally good-tempered; he always seemed to me incapable of hurting a fly, and yet his tone was so full of contempt for the röfeh. when he lay sick in bed, he was always glad if anyone came in to have a chat with him, but he could never get on with the röfeh; he always interrupted him and told him to see to his own business, but this was the first time he had spoken so strongly. it pained me, because how much rougher would he not have been with the other, who was lying ill? what is wrong with him? he had said his heart was weak. what that meant exactly, i did not know; it must be something for which one had to go to bed, and yet _my_ heart told me that i had something to answer for in the matter. that night i cried in my sleep; my mother woke me, and sat down beside me on my bed. "hush, my child," she said, "don't let us wake father." and our conversation was whispered into each other's ears. i noticed that mother was greatly disturbed; she looked at me inquiringly, as though determined to get at the truth, and i resolved to say nothing, at all events so long as my father slept. "my child, why have you been crying?" "i don't know, mother." "do you feel well?" "yes, mamishe; only sometimes my head aches." she sat on my bed, leaning half way over, and i drew nearer her and laid my head on her breast. "mother," i asked, "why does your heart beat so loud?" "for fear, tochter'she." "are _you_ afraid at night, too?" "night and day; i am afraid all the time." "what for are you afraid?" "i am afraid for you." "for me?" no reply, but i felt a warm tear fall on my face. "mother, _you_ are crying now." the tears fell faster. i won't say! my resolve strengthened. suddenly she asked: "has rivkah been telling you anything?" "what about, mother?" "about your intended?" "how should _she_ know him?" "if she really knew him, she would hold her tongue. i only mean, did she repeat any gossip? out of jealousy--when a rich man marries a young girl in his old age, people always talk. i don't know--has no one told you that his last wife died because of the life he led her?" i answered coolly that i had heard something like it, but that i had forgotten from whom. "i'm sure it was rivkah--i wish her mouth were in the back of her head!" (angrily). "then why was it," i inquired, "that she died no suddenly?" "why? she had a weak heart." "but--do people die of a weak heart?" "certainly.".... something seemed to snap inside my brain. * * * * * i became a "silken child," my praise was in everyone's mouth. parents could not understand it--neither could the tailor: i asked for nothing; mother chose everything--material, color, and cut, just as she fancied. rivkah used to come in and pinch her own red cheeks. "who would trust a mother in matters of dress? an old-fashioned jewess? you won't dare to show yourself on sabbath either in shool or in the street or anywhere else! "you've done for yourself," she wound up. it occurred to me that i had done for myself a long time, and i waited indifferently for the sabbath of consolation, when reb zeinwill was to be invited to supper. then there would follow the "calling up,"[ ] and then the wedding. father was really better, he sometimes went out and began to inquire about produce. he thought it too soon to speak to reb zeinwill about anything further; he intended to ask him on sabbath to come again for the "third meal," and to put in a word for himself after that. all being so well, it was time to dismiss the röfeh; there was no difficulty now about credit--he never reminded us of what was owing him, never sent the "boy," but came himself. still, it was time this should end. i don't know how much they sent him, but the messenger was my brother avremele, who was to leave the money on his way to cheder. but the "boy" appeared a few days later. "how, wasn't it enough?" said my father, on seeing him. "yes, reb yehùdah; i have come to say good-bye." "to me?" asked my father in surprise. i had dropped down, when he came in, on the nearest chair, but at these words i stood up; it had flashed across me that i must protect him, not let him be insulted. he hadn't come for that. "i used to come to see you at one time," he said, with his gentle, melancholy voice, which was like sweet oil to my heart, "now i am leaving for good, so i thought--" "well, well, certainly," replied father, quite politely. "take a seat, young man. it was very nice of you to think of it, very nice, indeed." "daughter," he called to me, "we must offer him some refreshment." he sprang up, pale, with quivering lips and burning eyes, but the next instant his face had taken on its old melancholy expression. "no, reb yehùdah, i want nothing, thank you. farewell!" he put out his hand to no one, and barely gave me a glance. and yet, in that one glance, i read that he reproached me, that he would never forgive me. for what? i hardly knew myself. and again i fainted. "the third time," i hear my mother say to my father. "it is of no consequence--at her age it often happens--but heaven forbid that reb zeinwill should hear of it. he would break off the match. he had enough of that with the last one--the invalid." i was not an invalid. and i only fainted once more--on the wedding-day, when i saw reb zeinwill for the first time. never again. yesterday even, when the röfeh, who cuts my reb zeinwill's nails every month (otherwise they grow into his fingers), asked me, as he left, if i remembered his "boy," because he had died in a hospital in warsaw--even then i didn't faint; i only shed one tear. and i was not aware of _that_, only it seemed to please the röfeh. "you are a kind soul," he said, and then i felt it on my cheek. nothing more. i am healthy; i have lived with reb zeinwill five years. _how?_ perhaps i shall tell another time. vi the seventh candle of blessing the thirteen-year-old brow is puckered with anguish, the child-face pale with dread, tear after tear falls from the innocent eyes. only last friday, just a week ago, she was so happy, so full of glee. it was the "short friday."[ ] grandmother had woke her a little earlier than usual, she had spent the day in preparation for the sabbath. in the late afternoon she had washed herself, plaited her long hair, singing and dancing the while, dressed, and gone with grandmother to the synagogue--and they had lighted each her candles. bashe's first candle--god bless grandmother! her second--god bless tatishe,[ ] and let him find lots of work and make heaps of money, and not sigh any more and say that the times are bad. her third--god bless mamishe, and make her strong. and then--for the little sisters and the little brothers, a candle each. it lasted till people began to come in for the prayers. how she loves the synagogue! how she loves candle-blessing. she has lived with grandmother two whole years. she does not want to go home (there is no candle-blessing there, it is not the custom), unless it were just to see her mother, to clasp her father once round the neck and play awhile with his black, silky beard, and to have a game with the little ones. grandmother must not be left alone. she is always so good to her; she has taught her to bless the candles. bashe loves grandmother, and blessing the candles, too. she longs for it the whole week through, she counts the days. but this is a miserable friday. in the morning everything was the same as usual. she had "made sabbath"; grandmother had sat there and watched her happily. they had dressed themselves, and grandmother had taken her stick. then, as ill-luck would have it, there came the postman. grandmother read the letter, threw herself on the bed, and there she has lain for two hours with her face to the wall. she is black as a coal, her eyes are shut; one hand holds the letter; she foams at the mouth. no one is to come near her; no one is to be sent for. bashe is pushed away, and whenever she tries to open the door, grandmother hears and screams "no!" bashe stands by the bed and cannot make it out. her heart beats wildly. god only knows what they have written from home. perhaps--perhaps.... she cannot think what has happened. she drops on to her knees and clutches convulsively at grandmother's hand: "granny, granny, what is it? speak to me! tell me--what is it? granny, i think i shall die of fright!" she spoke involuntarily. grandmother has turned toward her; she moves her lips, opens her eyes, gives her one look, and "die!" she says in a hard voice, and turns her face once more to the wall. "and there wasn't his like!" she adds. "die, bashe, die!" bashe is silent. a blackness passes before her eyes, and her head falls on grandmother's feet. within her all is dark and cold. she has ceased to puzzle herself, she is nearly unconscious. and in this way another half-hour goes by. she hears her grandmother's voice: "get up!" bashe obeys. grandmother has risen to her feet and taken up the stick which she previously had flung away. "how many candles have you?" she asks. "why, eight," is the trembling reply. "leave one out!" bashe does not move. "put one away!" screams grandmother, angrily. bashe trembles like a leaf, but does not move. the old woman has gone to the table herself, undone the packet of candles, taken out one, and tied the rest together again. she pushes them into bashe's hands: "come along!" bashe follows her automatically; neither has thought to fasten the door behind her. bashe does not know herself how she reached the platform with her candles. "light them one at a time, for whom i shall tell you. repeat my words. say: god bless mamishe and grant her long life!" bashe shakes as with ague: the first candle has always been father's. "repeat!" screams grandmother. bashe does so. "the second: god make chaïmle a good jew!" little bashe shakes more and more--her limbs are giving way beneath her--she does not hear her father's name. her heart thumps, her temples throb, her eyes burn. grandmother has no pity on her--she screams louder every time: "repeat, repeat what i say!" bashe is lighting the last candle. "say: god bless sarah!" commands grandmother. no--she will not say that--where is father? no, she cannot say it--her whole being is in revolt against her wicked grandmother--no, no, no! "repeat, repeat!" screams grandmother with increasing violence. bashe refuses to obey--the last light _must_ be father's. she begins: "god bless fa--" "hush!" in a terrible voice. "hush, hush! your father is no longer a jew. he has become an official!"[ ] vii the widow the gray, swirling mists have rolled themselves together into one black cloud. it is warm and stifling; it is going to pour with rain; a few drops are falling already. the little house stands just under the hill. the low, thatched roof is full of holes--there is no one to mend it. the clouds have hidden the sun, and the remaining light is intercepted by the hill. inside the hut it is nearly dark; it is late--night is falling. in the corner, on the chimney-shelf, stands a little empty lamp, with a cracked globe; the naphthaline is exhausted, there is no one to go and buy more. it is closer indoors than out. the fire-place is not empty, it boasts two or three broken earthenware pots, a handful of ashes, a fragment of polished slate, a little iron stand on legs, but not a spark of fire. outside the door lies a log of rotten wood; there is no one to chop it. the owner of the hut lay sick for a whole year, and with every day of it their little hoard of money grew less. he had saved for a child's sake, "scraped together one hundred rubles, to be lent on interest." god gave a little girl: "it shall be her marriage portion!" but there came the illness. the little hoard dwindled and dwindled, and the man's strength likewise. the household goods were disposed of one after another; the last to go was the sewing-machine, and with the last penny out of the bag the soul departed out of the body. the soiled shred of linen that held the money hangs across a glass of water beside the soul-light.[ ] a small, tin trunk stands near the door; it belongs to the servant-girl, who has just gone out to look for another situation. the dismantled room is now all but dark; a few scattered wisps of straw shimmer on the floor; a nail-head stares here and there out of the four walls. on the wall used to hang a looking-glass (it is not wanted now. if the widow were to see her reflection, she would be terrified). a chanukah lamp (for whom should it be lighted?) and clothes used to hang there, too. they came and took each his own before he died. in one corner stands a cradle; in the cradle lies a child, asleep. on the floor beside the cradle sits the newly-made widow. the thin hands hang helpless, the heavy head rests on the cradle; the eyes, which look as if they had wept themselves out, stare fixedly at the ceiling. you might suppose she was dead, that she neither felt nor remembered any longer. her heart scarcely beats, her strength has left her. and yet one thought is revolving ceaselessly in her brain; no other seems able to drive it away--it is not to be dislodged. "hannah," he had once said to her, "hand me the scissors." he had no use for them just then, and he had given a little artful smile. what had he really wanted? did he wish me to go near to him? i was peeling potatoes. did i give him the scissors? no; just then someone came in--but who? she cannot recollect, and goes puzzling herself--who? the child sleeps on, and smiles; it is dreaming. viii the messenger he is on the road, and his beard and coat-tails flutter in the wind. every few minutes he presses a hand to his left side--he feels a pang; but he will not confess to it--he tries to think he is only making sure of his leather letter-bag. "if only i don't lose the contract-paper and the money!" that is what he is so afraid of. "and if it _does_ hurt me, it means nothing. thank god, i've got strength enough for an errand like this and to spare! another at my years wouldn't be able to do a verst,[ ] while i, thanks to his dear name, owe no one a farthing and earn my own living. god be praised, they trust me with money. "if what they trust me with were my own, i shouldn't be running errands at more than seventy years old; but if the almighty wills it so--so be it." it begins to snow in thick flakes; he is continually wiping his face. "i haven't more than half a mile[ ] to go now," he thinks. _"o wa!_ what is that to me? it is much nearer than further." he turns his head. "one doesn't even see the town-clock from here, or the convent, or the barracks; on with you, shemaiah, my lad." and shemaiah tramps on through the wet snow; the old feet welter in and out. "thank god, there is not much wind." much wind, apparently, meant a gale; the wind was strong enough and blew right into his face, taking his breath away with every gust; it forced the tears out of his old eyes, and they hurt him like pins; but then he always suffered from his eyes. it occurred to him that he would spend his next earnings on road-spectacles--large, round ones that would cover his eyes completely. "if god will," he thought, "i shall manage it. if i only had an errand to go every day, a long, long one. thank god, i can walk any distance, and i should soon save up enough for the spectacles." he is also in want of a fur coat of some sort, it would ease the oppression on his chest; but he considers that, meanwhile, he has a warm cloak. "if only it does not tear, it is an excellent one." he smiles to himself. "no new-fangled spider-web for you. all good, old-fashioned sateen--it will outlast me yet. and it has no slit--that's a great point. it doesn't blow out like the cloaks they make nowadays, and it folds over ever so far in front. "of course," he thinks on, "a fur coat is better; it's warm--beautifully warm. but spectacles come first. a fur is only good for winter, and spectacles are wanted all the year round, because in summer, when there's a wind and it blows the dust into your eyes, it's worse than in winter." and so it was settled; first spectacles and then a fur coat. please god, he would help to carry corn--that would mean four gulden. and he tramped on, and the wet snow was blown into his face, the wind grew stronger, and his side pained him more than ever. "if only the wind would change! and yet perhaps it's better so, because coming back i shall feel more tired, and i shall have the wind in my back. then it will be quite different. everything will be done; i shall have nothing on my mind." he was obliged to stop a minute and draw breath; this rather frightened him. "what is the matter with me? a cantonist[ ] ought to know something of the cold," he thought sadly. and he recalls his time of service under nicholas, twenty-five years' active service with the musket, beside his childhood as a cantonist. he has walked enough in his life, marching over hill and dale, in snow and frost and every sort of wind. and what snows, what frosts! the trees would split, the little birds fall dead to the ground, and the russian soldier marched briskly forward, and even sang a song, a _trepak_, a _komarinski_, and beat time with his feet. the thought of having endured those thirty-five years of service, of having lived through all those hardships, all those snows, all those winds, all the mud, hunger, thirst, and privation, and having come home in health--the thought fills him with pride. he holds up his head and feels his strength renewed. "ha, ha, what is a bit of a frost like this to me? in russia, well, yes, there it was something like." he walks on, the wind has lessened a little, it grows darker, night is falling. "call that a day," he said to himself. "well, i never," and he began to hurry, not to be overtaken by the night. not in vain has he been so regularly to study in the shool of a sabbath afternoon--he knows that one should go out and come home again before the sun goes down. he feels rather hungry. he has this peculiarity--that being hungry makes him cheerful. he knows appetite is a good sign; "his" traders, the ones who send him on errands, are continually lamenting their lack of it. he, blessed be his name, has a good appetite; except when he is not up to the mark, as yesterday, when the bread tasted sour to him. why should it have been sour? soldiers' bread? once, perhaps, yes; but now? phonye[ ] bakes bread that any jewish baker might be proud of, and he had bought a new loaf which it was a pleasure to cut; but he was not up to the mark, a chill was going through his bones. but, praised be he whose name he is not worthy to mention, that happens to him but seldom. now he is hungry, and not only that, but he has in his pocket a piece of bread and cheese; the cheese was given him by the trader's wife, may she live and be well. she is a charitable woman--she has a jewish heart. if only she would not scold so, he thinks, she would be really nice. he recalls to mind his dead wife. "there was my shprintze niepritshkes; she also had a good heart and was given to scolding. every time i sent one of the children out into the world she wept like a beaver, although at home she left them no peace with her scolding tongue. and when a death happened in the family!" he went on remembering. "why, she used to throw herself about on the floor whole days like a snake and bang her head with her fists." "one day she wanted to throw a stone at heaven. "we see," he thought, "how little notice god takes of a woman's foolishness. but with her there was no taking away the bier and the corpse. she slapped the women and tore the beards of the men. "she was a fine woman, was shprintze. looked like a fly, and was strong, so strong. yet she was a good woman--she didn't dislike _me_ even, although she never gave me a kind word. "she wanted a divorce--a divorce. otherwise she would run away. only, when was that?" he remembers and smiles. it was a long, long time ago; at that time the excise regulations were still in force, and he was a night watchman, and went about all night with an iron staff, so that no brandy should be smuggled into the town. he knew what service was! to serve with phonye was good discipline; he had had good teachers. it was a winter's morning before daybreak, he went to have his watch relieved by chaïm yoneh--he is in the world of truth now--and then went home, half-frozen and stiff. he knocked at the door and shprintze called out from her bed: "into the ground with you! i thought your dead body would come home some time!" oho! she is angry still, because of yesterday. he cannot remember what happened, but so it must be. "shut your mouth and open the door!" he shouts. "i'll open your head for you!" is the swift reply. "let me in!" "go into the ground, i tell you!" and he turned away and went into the house-of-study, where he lay down to sleep under the stove. as ill-luck would have it, it was a charcoal stove, and he was suffocated and brought home like a dead man. then shprintze was in a way! he could hear, after a while, how she was carrying on. they told her it was nothing--only the charcoal. no! she must have a doctor. she threatened to faint, to throw herself into the water, and went on screaming: "my husband! my treasure!" he pulled himself together, sat up, and asked quietly: "shprintze, do you want a divorce?" "may you be--" she never finished the curse, and burst into tears. "shemaiah, do you think god will punish me for my cursing and my bad temper?" but no sooner was he well again, there was the old shprintze back. a mouth on wheels, a tongue on screws, and strong as iron--she scratched like a cat--ha, ha! a pity she died; and she did not even live to have pleasure in her children. "they must be doing well in the world--all artisans--a trade won't let a man die of hunger. all healthy--they took after me. they don't write, but what of that? they can't do it themselves, and just _you_ go and ask someone to do it for you! besides, what's the good of a letter of that kind? it's like watered soup. and then young boys, in a long time they forget. they _must_ be doing well. "but shprintze is dead and buried. poor shprintze! "soon after the excise offices were abolished, she died. that was before i had got used to going errands and saying to the gentle folk 'your lordship,' instead of 'your high nobility';[ ] before they trusted me with contracts and money--and we used to want for bread. "i, of course, a man and an ex-cantonist, could easily go a day without food, but for her, as i said, it was a matter of life and death. a foolish woman soon loses her strength; she couldn't even scold any more; all the monkey was out of her; she did nothing but cry. "i lost all pleasure in life--she grew somehow afraid to eat, lest i shouldn't have enough. "seeing she was afraid, i grew bold, _i_ screamed, _i_ scolded. for instance: 'why don't you go and eat?' now and then i went into a fury and nearly hit her, but how are you to hit a woman who sits crying with her hands folded and doesn't stir? i run at her with a clenched fist and spit at it, and she only says: 'you go and eat first--and then _i_ will,' and i had to eat some of the bread first and leave her the rest. "once she fooled me out into the street: 'i _will_ eat, only _you_ go into the street--perhaps you will earn something,' and she smiled and patted me. "i go and i come again, and find the loaf much as i left it. she told me she couldn't eat dry bread--she must have porridge." he lets his head drop as though beneath a heavy weight, and the sad thoughts chase one another: "and what a wailing she set up when i wanted to pawn my sabbath cloak--the one i'm wearing now. she moved heaven and earth, and went and pawned the metal candle-sticks, and said the blessing over candles stuck into potatoes to the day of her death. before dying she confessed to me that she had never really wanted a divorce; it was only her evil tongue. "'my tongue, my tongue,' she cried, 'god forgive me my tongue!' and she really died in terror lest in the other world they should hang her by the tongue. "'god,' she said to me, 'will never forgive me; i've been too great a sinner. but when _you_ come--not soon, heaven forbid, but in over a hundred and twenty years[ ]--when you _do_ come, then remember and take me down from the gallows, and tell the heavenly council that _you_ forgave me.' "she began to wander soon after that, and was continually calling the children. she fancied they were there in the room, that she was talking to them, and she asked their pardon. "silly woman, who wouldn't have forgiven her! "how old was she altogether? perhaps fifty. to die so young! it was worse than a person taking his own life, because every time a thing went out at the door, to the pawn-shop, a bit of her health and strength went with it. "she grew thinner and yellower day by day, and said she felt the marrow drying up in her bones; she knew that she would die. "how she loved the room and all its furniture! whatever had to go, whether it were a chair or a bit of crockery or anything else, she washed it with her tears, and parted from it as a mother from her child; put her arms around it and nearly kissed it. 'oho!' she would say, 'when i come to die, you won't be there in the room.' "well, there; every woman is a fool. at one moment she's a cossack in petticoats, and the next weaker than a child; because, really, whether you die with a chair or without a chair, what does it matter? "_phê_," he interrupted himself, "what shall i think of next? fancy letting one's thoughts wander like that, and my pace has slackened, too, thanks to the rubbish! "come, soldier's feet, on with you!" he commanded. he looks round--snow on every hand; above, a gray sky with black patches--just like my under-coat, he thought, stuff patched with black sateen. lord of the world, is it for want of "credit" up there, too? meanwhile it is freezing. his beard and whiskers are ice. his body is fairly comfortable and his head is warm, he even feels the drops of sweat on his forehead; only his feet grow colder and weaker. he has not walked so very far, and yet he would like to rest, and he feels ashamed of himself. it is the first time he ever wanted to rest on an errand of two miles. he will not confess to himself that he is a man of nearly eighty, and his weariness not at all surprising. no, he must walk on--just walk on--for so long as one walks, one is walking, one gets on; the moment one gives way to temptation and rests, it's all over with one. one might easily get a chill, he says to frighten himself, and does all he can to shake off the craving for rest. "it isn't far now to the village; there i shall have time to sit down. "that's what i'll do. i won't go straight to the nobleman--one has to wait there for an hour outside; i'll go first to the jew. "it's a good thing," he reflected, "that i am not afraid of the nobleman's dog. when they let him loose at night, it's dreadful. i've got my supper with me, and he likes cheese. it will be better to go first and get rested. i will go to the jew and warm myself, and wash, and eat something." his mouth waters at the thought; he has had nothing to eat since early this morning; but that's nothing, he doesn't mind if he _is_ hungry; it is a proof that one is alive. only his feet! now he has only two versts more to walk, he can see the nobleman's great straw-covered shed, only his _feet_ cannot see it, and they want to rest. "on the other hand," he mused, "supposing i rested a little after all? one minute, half a minute? why not? let us try. my feet have obeyed me so long, for once i'll obey them." and shemaiah sits down by the road-side on a little heap of snow. now for the first time he becomes aware that his heart is beating like a hammer and his whole head perspiring. he is alarmed. is he going to be ill? and he has other people's money on him. he might faint! then he comforts himself: "god be praised, there is no one coming, and if anyone came, it would never occur to him that i have money with me--that i am trusted with money. just a minute, and then on we go." but his lids are heavy as lead. "no, get up, shemaiah, _vstavai_!"[ ] he commands. he can still give a command, but he cannot carry it out; he cannot move. yet he imagines he is walking, and that he is walking quicker and quicker. now he sees all the little houses--that is antek's, yonder, basili's, he knows them all, he hires conveyances of them. it is still a long way to the jew's. yet, best to go there first--he may find mezumen,[ ] and it seems to him that he approaches the jew's house; but it moves further and further on--he supposes that so it must be. there is a good fire in the chimney, the whole window is cheery and red; the stout mir'l is probably skimming a large potful of potatoes, and she always gives him one. what so nice as a hot potato? and on he trudges, or--so he thinks, for in reality he has not left his place. the frost has lessened its grip, and the snow is falling in broad, thick flakes. he seems to be warmer, too, in his cloak of snow, and he fancies that he is now inside the jew's house. mir'l is straining the potatoes, he hears the water pouring away--_ziùch, ziùch, ziùch_--and so it drips, indeed, off his sateen cloak. yoneh walks round and hums in his beard; it is a habit of his to sing after evening prayer, because then he is hungry and says frequently: "well, mir'l!" but mir'l never hurries--"more haste, worse speed." "am i asleep and is it a dream?" he is seized with joyful surprise. he thinks he sees the door open and let in his eldest son. chonoh, chonoh! oh, he knows him well enough. what is he doing here? but chonoh does not recognize _him_, and shemaiah keeps quiet. ha, ha, ha; he is telling yoneh that he is on his way to see his father; he inquires after him; he has not forgotten; and yoneh, sly dog, never tells him that his father is sitting there on the sleeping-bench. mir'l is busy; she is taken up with the potatoes; she won't stop in her work; she only smiles and mashes the potatoes with the great wooden spoon--and smiles. _ach!_ chonoh must be rich, very rich! everything he has on is whole, and he wears a chain--perhaps it is pinchbeck? no, it is real gold! chonoh wouldn't wear a pinchbeck chain. ha, ha, ha! he glances at the stove.[ ] ha, ha, ha! he nearly splits with laughter. yainkil, beril, zecharyah--all three--ha, ha, ha! they were hidden on the stove. the thieves! what a pity shprintze is not there! what a pity! she would have been so pleased. meantime chonoh is ordering two geese. "chonoh! chonoh! don't you know me? i am he!" and he fancies they embrace him. "look you, chonoh; what a pity your mother cannot see you! yainkil, beril, zecharyah, come down from the stove! i knew you at once! make haste! i knew you would come! look, i have brought you some cheese, real sheep's milk cheese. don't you like soldier's bread? what? perhaps not? yes, it is a pity about the mother." and he fancies that all the four children have put their arms round him and hold him and kiss and press him to them. "gently, children, gently; don't squeeze me too hard! i am no young man--i am eighty years old! gently, you are suffocating me; gently, children! old bones! gently, there is money in the bag. praise god, they trust me with money! enough, children, enough!" and it was enough. he sat there suffocated, with his hand pressed to the bag in his bosom. ix what is the soul? i remember, as in a dream, that there used to be about the house a little, thin jew, with a pointed beard, who often put his arms round me and kissed me. then i remember how the same man lay ill in bed; he groaned a great deal, and my mother stood and beat her head with her hands. one night i woke up and saw the room full of people. outside there was a grievous noise; i was very frightened, and i began to scream. one of the people came up to me, dressed me, and led me away to sleep at a neighbor's. when i saw our room next morning, i did not know it again. straw lay scattered on the floor, the glass on the wall was covered over, the hanging-lamp wrapped in a table cover, and my mother sat on a low stool in her socks. she began to weep loudly at sight of me and cried: "the orphan! the orphan!" an oil-lamp burned in the window; beside it were a glass of water and a piece of linen. they told me that my father had died, that his soul washed itself in the glass and dried itself with the linen; that when once i began to say the kaddish it would fly straight up into heaven. and i fancied the soul was a bird. one evening the "helper" was leading me home from cheder. a few birds flew past me, quite low. "neshome'lech fliehen, neshome'lech fliehen!"[ ] i sang to myself. the "helper" turned round upon me: "you silly!" he said, "those are birds, ordinary birds." afterwards i asked my mother how one could tell the difference between an ordinary bird and a soul. at fourteen years old, i was studying gemoreh with the commentaries, and, as luck would have it, under zerach kneip. to this day i don't know if that was his real name, or whether the boys gave it him because he used to pinch (_kneipen_) without mercy. and he did not wait till one had deserved a pinch; he gave it in advance. "remind me," he would say, "and by and by we shall settle up our accounts." he was a mohel, and had one pointed, uncut finger nail, and every pinch went to the heart. and he used to say: "don't cry; don't cry about nothing! i only pinch your body! what is it to you if the worms have less to eat when you are in your grave?" "the body," said zerach kneip, "is dust. rub one palm against the other, and you will see." and we tried, and saw for ourselves that the body is dust and ashes. "and what is the soul?" i asked. "a spirit," answered the rabbi. zerach kneip hated his wife like poison; but his daughter shprintze was the apple of his eye. _we_ hated shprintze, because she told on us, and--we loved the rebbitzin, who sold us beans and peas on credit, and saved us more than once from the rabbi's hands. i was her special favorite. i was given the largest portions, and when the rabbi had hold of me, she would cry: "murderer! what are you after, treating an orphan like that? his father's soul will be revenged on you!" the rabbi would let go of me, and the rebbitzin got what was left. i remember that one winter's evening i came home from cheder so pinched by the rabbi and so penetrated by the frost that my skin was quite parched. and i lifted my eyes to heaven and cried piteously and prayed: "tatishe, do be revenged on zerach kneip! lord of the world, what does he want of my soul?" i forgot that he only pinched the body. but a man is to be excused for what he says in his distress. on a school holiday, when zerach kneip shut the gemoreh and began to tell stories, he was a different person. he took off his cap and sat in his bushy locks (the skull-cap was hidden by them); he unbuttoned his kaftan, smoothed out his forehead. his lips smiled, and even his voice was different. he taught us in the hard, gruff, angry voice in which he spoke to the rebbitzin; he told us stories in the gentle, small, kind voice in which he addressed shprintze, his dear soul. and we used to implore him as though he were a brigand to tell us a story. we were unaware of the fact that zerach kneip knew only one chapter of the talmud, with which his course for little boys began and ended, and that he _had_ to fill up the time with stories, specially in winter when there are no religious holidays. we little fools used to buy stories of him with peas and beans, and once even we saved up to buy shprintze a red flannel spencer. for the said spencer, reb zerach told us how the almighty takes a soul out of his treasure-house and blows it into a body. and i pictured to myself the souls laid out in the almighty's store-room like the goods in my mother's shop, in boxes, red, green, white, yellow, and blue, and tied with string. "when god," said the rabbi, "has chosen a soul and decided that it is to go down into the sinful world, it trembles and cries. "in the nine months before birth an angel teaches it the whole torah; then he gives it a fillip under the nose, and the soul forgets everything it has learned. "that," added the rabbi, "is why all jewish children have cloven upper lips." that same evening i was skating on the ice outside the town, and i observed that the gentile boys, yantek, voitek, and yashek, had cloven upper lips just like ours. "yashek," i risked my life and asked, "_ti tàkshé màyesh dùshé_?"[ ] "what does it matter to you, soul of a dog?" was the distinct reply. beside going to the rabbi, i had a teacher for writing. this teacher was supposed by the town to be a great heretic, and the neighbors wouldn't borrow his dishes.[ ] he was a widower, and people never believed that gütele, his daughter, a girl about my age, knew how to make meat kosher. but he was exceedingly accomplished, and my mother was determined that her only son should learn to write. "i beg of you, reb teacher," she said to him, "not to teach him anything heretical, nothing out of the bible, but teach him how to write a jewish letter, just a 'greeting to any friend' letter." but i don't know if he kept his word. when i gave him the poser about the cleft lips, he went into a fury; he jumped up from his chair, overturned it with his foot, and began to caper about the room, crying out: "blockheads! murderers! bats!" by degrees he grew calm, sat down again, wiped his spectacles, and drew me to him: "my child," he said, "never believe such rubbish. you took a good look at the gentile boys who were skating? what are their names?" i told him. "well," he continued, "had any one of them a different kind of eye from yours; different hands or feet or limbs? don't they laugh just as you do? and if they cry, do they shed another sort of tears? why should they not have a real soul as well as we? all men are alike, children of one family, one god is their father, one earth their home. it is true that at present the nations hate each other, and each one persuades itself that _it_ is the crown of creation, and occupies all god's thoughts; but _we_ hope for a better day, better and brighter, when humanity will acknowledge one god and one law, when the words of our holy prophets will come true, when there shall be an end to all wars and jealousy and hatred; when all will serve one creator, and it will be as the verse says: 'for out of zion shall go forth the law and the word of the lord from jerusalem.'" i knew that verse from the paragraph, "and it came to pass, when the ark set forward," in the prayer-book.[ ] the teacher went on talking for some time, but i understood little of what he said; i could not believe that "a gentile has brains, too," that all men were equal. i knew that the teacher held heretical opinions; he did not even believe in the transmigration of souls, as i saw for myself after the death of fradel mifkeres (the heretic), when a black dog appeared on the roof of the house where she had lived. then he pared his nails in order, and never cut a "witness"[ ] to throw out of the window. i should very soon have run away from him; i should have told my mother of the way he talked, only-- i am sure you guess what and whom i mean. this alone remained fixed in my head, that there would be a time when the other nations would come to us to learn torah, and that it might be to-morrow. times with us just then were quite messianic; strong hints of it were discovered in the book of daniel, and the word that stood for the current year indicated it; besides, there was a passage in the zohar, and in the midrash ha-néelom, and it was whispered from ear to ear that the rebbe of kozenitz had stopped reciting the supplications; and there was reliable news from palestine that no fox had been seen near the "western wall" all that year. and people looked every day for messiah the son of joseph; kohol gave bribes to escape paying taxes; when messiah came, who would trouble about little things like that? the women came off worst. a few years previously the steps of their bath had fallen in. goodness knows, it took asking enough before the money was granted for new ones. and now the wood was there, ready and waiting, only it seemed a pity, all the same, to hire a workman and spend those few rubles. and i firmly believed that in a short time yashek, who pushed me when i was skating, just as i was doing a "cobbler," so that, thanks to him, i all but broke my neck; that voitek, who always made a pig's ear at me, and yantek, who counted us--_raz, dva, tshi_--that all three, i say, would come and humbly ask me to explain a ritual question, for instance, concerning things improper for the touch, as a stone on sabbath. and i, "merciful and a son of the merciful," would not remember against them what they had done to me, but would tell them. i would be a friend to them and explain to them the mystery of the iron and the paper bridge; tell them not to venture on to the iron bridge--indeed, that it would be best to keep away altogether, if they wished to save their souls. on the eve of new year i completed the course with zerach kneip, and felt as it were the relief of the exodus out of egypt. i had been told that my new teacher, reb yozel, never pinched; never even hit you for nothing. i had been used to see reb yozel at prayers. he was a tall jew, with huge eyebrows, so that his eyes were quite hidden. he wore his kaftan open, and the "little prayer-scarf" appeared on each side of his long, pointed beard. he walked softly and talked softly, as though of secrets. and while he talked, he nodded his head slowly, lifted his brows, drew his forehead together, thrust out his lips and whiskers, and slid both hands into his girdle; it seemed as though every word he spoke were of the greatest importance. reb yozel had been "messenger" for a time to one of the great wonder-workers, and he had even now a certain amount of oils, coins, amulets, salves, etc.,[ ] to sell on commission; he was reckoned the first exorcist in the town, and if the rabbi were poorly, he would preach instead of him on the great sabbath and the new year, and deliver memorial addresses. the rabbi was a weak old man, and reb yozel looked to filling his place when he had accomplished his one hundred and twenty years. beside this, reb yozel was a celebrated blower of the shofar, and when he repeated the blessing before blowing--how goes the saying?--fish trembled in the water. and i was filled with pride at the thought of being his pupil. we had not reached the day of atonement before i had an opportunity of questioning reb yozel about the soul. the soul, with me, had become a sort of _idée fixe_; it was never out of my thoughts. the first thing reb yozel did was to empty my head of the notion of other people being our equals, and to fill it up again with "thou hast chosen us." "not in vain," said he, "do we suffer exile, scorn, and other plagues not mentioned in the denunciations of the pentateuch. were we like to other nations, we should have _this_ world the same as they have it; 'the child whom the father loveth, he correcteth,' so that it may study and enter the gates of knowledge. "but even with us jews," went on reb yozel, "souls are not all alike; there are coarse, ordinary souls, like zerach kneip's, for instance; your teacher, the heretic, has a soul like korah; there are also very great souls, some of which come from out the space under the throne of glory; these belong to the category of _kémach sòlet_."[ ] i understood little, especially about the space under the throne of glory; i only knew the meaning of _kémach sòlet_, and supposed the difference between soul and soul was like that between rye-flour, corn-flour, wheat-flour, and the flour which was used for the sabbath loaf. the greatest of all the souls must be mixed with saffron and raisins. "the great thing," said reb yozel, "is to suffer. "no soul will be lost; they must all return to the state in which they were previous to their stay on earth. and the souls can be cleansed only by suffering. the creator, in his great mercy, sends us suffering so that we may remember we are but flesh and blood, a broken potsherd, mere nothings, who fall into dust and ashes at his look; but in the other world also the souls undergo purification." and he told me all that was done to the poor souls in the seven torture-chambers of gehenna. about the holiday times i had more leisure for looking round at home. just before tabernacles, we had a great wash. one night i dreamt that i was in the next world. i saw how the angels stretched out their hands from heaven and caught hold of the souls who were returning thither. the angels sifted them; those that were clean and white as snow, flew up like doves out of their hands as though into paradise. the dirty ones were thrown into a heap, and the heap was thrown into the sea of ice, beside which stood black angels with their sleeves rolled up, who washed them. after that they were boiled in a black pot over hell-fire. and when the dirt was squeezed out of them and they were ironed, the weeping of the souls was heard from one end of the world to the other. there, in the soiled heap, i recognized the soul of my teacher; it had his long nose, his hollow cheeks, his pointed beard, and it wore his large, blue spectacles. they washed it, and it only looked the blacker. and an angel called out: "that is the soul of the heretical teacher!" then the same angel said angrily to me: "if you walk in his ways, your soul will be as black as his, and it will be washed like this every evening, till it is thrown into gehenna." "i will not walk in his ways!" i cried out in my sleep. my mother woke me and took my hand down from my breast. "what is it, my treasure?" she asked in alarm. "you are bathed in perspiration;" and she blew upon me--_fu_, _fu_, _fu!_ "mother, i have been in the other world!" early next morning my mother asked me in all seriousness if i had seen my father there. i said, "no." "what a pity! what a pity!" she lamented. "he would certainly have given you a message for me." what was to be done, if the teacher even made game of dreams? for his own sake, still more for gütele's, i wished to save him, and i described to him the whole of my dream. but he said dreams were foolish; he paid no attention to such things. he wanted to prove to me out of the bible and the talmud that dreams were rubbish, but i stopped my ears with my little fingers and would not listen. i saw clearly that he was lost; that his sentence would be a terrible one; that i ought to avoid him like the plague; that he was like to ruin my soul, my young soul. but, again, what was to be done? i made a hundred resolves to tell my mother, and never kept one of them. i had my mouth open to speak many a time, but it seemed to me that gütele stood behind her shoulders, held out her small hands to me in supplication, and spoke with her eyes: "no," she begged, "no, don't tell!" and the prayer in her eyes overcame my piety; i felt that for her i would go, not through fire and water only, but into hell itself. and yet it seemed to me a great pity, for my mother and all my teachers were sure that i had in me the making of something remarkable. i was quit of zerach kneip and his long finger-nail, but i was not so much the better off. i was sixteen years old. the match-mongers were already catching at my mother's skirts, and i preserved the childish habit of collecting wax off the shool table on the day of atonement and secretly moulding it in cheder under the table. the beadle hated me for this with a deadly hatred, and i was well served out for it besides. "what have you got there?" asks reb yozel. i am wool-gathering at the moment and lay my whole hand on the gemoreh, wax on all the five fingers. reb yozel has grown pale with anger. he opens the drawer, takes out a piece of thin string, and binds together my two thumbs, but so tight, a pang goes through me. that was only the beginning. he went to the broom and deliberately chose and pulled out a thin, flexible twig. with this twig he whipped me over my tied hands--for how long? it seemed to me forever. and strange to say, i took the pain in good part; i felt sure god had sent it me that i might repent of my sin and give up going to the teacher. when my hands were pretty well swollen and the skin had turned all colors, reb yozel put away the twig and said: "enough! now you'll let the wax alone!" i went on moulding wax all the same. it gave me the greatest satisfaction to make whatever i pleased out of it. i felt i had something to be busy about. i would mould the head of a man, and then turn it into a cat or a mouse; then i drew the sides out into wings, divided the head into two, and it became an imperial eagle. after that, out of the two heads and two wings, i made a bun in four pieces. i myself was just such another piece of wax. reb yozel, the teacher, my mother, and anybody who pleased moulded me into shape. gütele melted me. they moulded me into shapes, but it hurt. i remember very well that it hurt, but why? why must _i_ torment myself about the soul? my comrades laughed at me; they nicknamed me the "soul-boy," and i suffered as much from the name as it was foolish in itself. i am lost in thought; i wonder what my end will be; when i shall have the strength to tear myself out of satan's grasp. i call my own soul to account; i reproach it; i scold it. suddenly i receive a fillip on the nose, "soul-boy." i wish to forget my troubles and plunge into a deep problem of rabbinical dialectics; i yoke together a difficult explanation of the tossafot with a hard passage in the rambam, mix in a piece from the p'ne yehoshuah, and top it off with an argument from eibeschütz. i am in another world, forgotten are the teacher, gütele, the soul. things are fitting one into the other in my brain; i nearly "have it," the solution is at the tip of my tongue--a whistle in my ear--"soul-boy!" it rings through my head, something bursts in my brain. forgotten tossafot, forgotten rambam--i am back on the earth! i stand repeating the eighteen benedictions, my heart and my eyes are alike full of tears, "heal us, o eternal, and we shall be healed!" i say with devotion, and i mean not the body, heaven forbid, i mean the soul: "heal me, almighty; heal my poor soul!" "that's the soul-boy," says one to another, pointing at me. and it is all over with my devotion. thus i suffered day and night. gütele was held to be very clever; her father never called her anything but "my little wisdom," and the neighbors said she was as bright as the day, and that if she were as pious as she was clever, she would rejoice the heart of her mother in paradise. my mother, too, used to praise her cleverness, and, if only gütele had known more about koshering meat, she would not have wished for a better daughter-in-law. and one day, when i found the teacher out, and gütele alone, it occurred to me to ask her opinion about the soul. my knees shook, my hands twitched, my heart fluttered; my eyes were fixed on the floor, and yet i asked: "they all say, gütele, that you are so wise. tell me, please, what is the soul?" she smiled and answered: "i'm sure, i don't know." then she grew suddenly sad and tears came into her eyes: "i just remember," she said to me, "that when my mother was alive (on whom be peace), my father always said, she was his soul--they loved one another so dearly." i don't know what came over me, but that same instant i took her hand and said, trembling: "gütele, will you be my soul?" and she answered me quite softly: "yes!" x in time of pestilence the town takes fright it is coming! _öi_, it is already near! in the villages round about people are in peril of death! lord of the world, what is to be done? "thou shalt not open thy mouth for satan"--the name of the pestilence may not cross the lips, but fear descends on every heart like a stone. and every day there is worse news. in apte a water-carrier, carrying his cans, has fallen dead in the street. in ostrovtze they have made post-mortem examinations on two jews. in brotkoff there is a doctor with a student from warsaw. racheff is isolated; they let nobody out or in. radom is surrounded by a chain of cossacks; in tzoismir, heaven defend us, they say people are falling like flies. a terror! trade slackens, piousness increases. dealers in produce are afraid to leave the spot; big yossil has already sold his horse and wagon--it's a pity about the oats. the produce-brokers tighten the belt across their empty stomachs, and there is daily more room in the dwellings, because every friday something more is taken to be pawned against sabbath. a workman, sometimes even a householder, will take an extra sip of brandy, to put heart into him, but that doesn't go far to fill the innkeeper's pocket, and a peasant is seldom to be seen. to make up for this, the röfeh's wife has removed her wig and put on a hair-band;[ ] a secret maskil has burnt his "love of zion"[ ] in public and taken to reciting psalms; the bather's maid-servant has gone to the rabbi and asked him how to do penance for having been in the habit of peeping into the men's bath-house, on fridays, through a chink in the door. a certain young man, not to mention names, has been fasting a whole month and thinks of becoming an ascetic--heaven only knows for what sin. some of the tailors now return remnants, butchers are more liberal in their cuts, only yeruchem chalfen asks ten per cent. a month on a pawn ticket, and no less with a security. his heart is of flint. and faces grow yellow and livid, lips, blue-brown, eyes look large and round, and heads droop; and the street is hushed. small, scattered groups, men and women apart, stand and hold voiceless conversation; heads are shaken, hands thrown out, and eyes lifted to the leaden sky spread out over the little town. it is quiet even in the house-of-study between afternoon and evening prayers. on the other hand, the women's gallery in the shool is full. every few minutes a piteous cry comes through the grating, and the men feel their hair and nails tingle. there is kol nidrei[ ] every night, and people are bathed in tears. what is to be done? who can advise? it is said that in warsaw they have started tea-houses for the poor, and cheap kitchens; they are giving away coal, clothes, and food for nothing--all "_their_" precautions, all to imitate the nations of the world, and perhaps to please the chief of police. here other means are employed--"meïr baal-ness,"[ ] wonder-workers, and famous charms. saturday evening, as soon as it is dark, "candles of blessing" are stuck in the windows; outside the town, vassil has a mill--the stakes shall be conveyed away by night and buried in holy ground; an orphan boy shall be married to an orphan girl--and every possible thing of the kind; only--only, these charms have been from everlasting, and yet, when there was the plague of , the entire market-place was grass-grown with only a pathway or two in the middle, trodden by those who carried the dead. besides, and worse even than the plague itself, there is disinfection, isolation, and, heaven have mercy on us, post-mortems. no man can live forever, nor can he die more than once; but death and life are in the hands of the all-merciful. weeping, prayer, and confession, these help; almsgiving is a remedy; but the other things mean falling into the hands of men. they suck the marrow out of your bones, it costs you a fortune, treasure and blood--and they make post-mortems! they cut up a corpse, heaven defend us, into little pieces, and bury it without a winding-sheet, in pitch. in the hospital there is poisoning; they burn innocent bedding, or they make a ring of cossacks, and people may starve to death or devour each other as they choose. ha! one must be up and doing and not let the enemy into the town. "candles of blessing" are already in the windows, side-glances are being cast at vassil's mill, and a marriage between two orphans is under discussion. and the terror increases day by day. one had hoped that the calamity would pass away with the summer, with the great heat.... these are all over, the solemn days, too. now, thank god, it is after tabernacles. one feels the cold in one's bones; it snows a little, not unfrequently, and the pestilence creeps on and on. may god watch over us and protect us. two are not afraid and yet there are two persons in the place who are not afraid; and not only that, but they are hoping for the plague. the two persons are the young doctor, savitzki, a christian, and, lehavdîl, yössil, the beggar-student. savitzki came two years and a half ago, straight from the university; he came a good christian, a treasure, quite one of the righteous of the nations of the world; people wished the town-justice were as good. there wasn't a particle of pride in the man; he never gave himself airs; he greeted everyone he passed, even a child, even a woman. for an old person he would step aside. he loved jewish fish as life itself, and the householders treated him one and all with respect; they bowed to him and took off as much as the whole hat; they sent him sabbath cakes, and often asked him in to fish. in fact, they wished him all that is good, only--they never consulted him. who wanted a doctor? hadn't they a röfeh? and what a röfeh! he has only to give the patient one look to know what is the matter with him. so it's no wonder the apothecary is willing to make up his prescriptions. it is possible that another doctor might have got a practice quicker. for instance, if there had come an old doctor with long experience and leaving a large practice somewhere behind him, but there appears this popinjay, who cannot even twirl the down on his upper lip, with a young, pale face like a girl's, dressed like a dandy, a boy fresh from school. and just as the eggs always know more than the hen, so must he think himself better than the old röfeh, who, as the saying goes, had eaten up his teeth at the work. so must he say, that the sick take overmuch castor oil, that cupping was a mistake, especially for a woman in child-bed; leeches he wanted put on the shelf, that they might do no harm; dry-cupping he made fun of, and he had no faith in salves. did you ever hear of a doctor without salves and without blood-letting? who would consult him? an apothecary turns up his nose at such an one's prescriptions--for twenty groschen apiece. thus it went on for six months; there was open war with the röfeh and hidden war with the apothecary, and yet he was on very good terms with the householders. thus it went on, i say, till savitzki came to the last of the few gulden which he had brought with him from somewhere; after a bit he got behindhand with his rent, and was in debt to the butcher and the grocer and the tailor--he was in debt all round--and the creditors grew daily more impatient. and once, when the butcher had sent back the maid without any meat, savitzki let his wings droop, and confessed that blood-letting was necessary, and that castor oil might be taken every minute; but this did him no good at all, because, first, no one believed him, that he really meant it--it was very likely only to take people in; secondly, supposing it were so, and he had really given in to the röfeh, then what was he wanted for? * * * * * savitzki got another gulden or two from somewhere (christians often inherit things from rich uncles and aunts), and dragged on another six months, at the end of which he had an inspiration: _he became an anti-semite_, and a real bitter one. he left off saluting people, and now, if he stepped aside for a jew, it was to spit out before him. he persuaded the town-justice, even though it was winter, to drive a few jewish families off the peasants' land, and when there came a new inspector (the old ones had their hush-money), he would himself take him round the courtyards and show him where there lurked uncleanliness. he told the apothecary one day that in _his_ place he should give all the jews poison; and many, many more things of the kind. _this_ idea really proved helpful. certain of the householders began to call him in and paid him for his visits, although they would afterwards tear up his prescriptions, pour out his mixtures, throw away his ointment. the enemy of israel must have his mouth shut; that also was a kind of "hush-money"; but savitzki did not make a living by it. he had no more inspirations, and there was no hope of things bettering themselves. in addition to this he had the following misfortunes: he was unable to extract a pea out of a little boy's ear; a sick man risked his life by taking one of savitzki's prescriptions and in a week he was dead. but the worst was that he forgot himself one day and declared that fever was not in itself an illness, but a remedy, a weapon by means of which the body would rid itself of the disease. those who heard him all but split with laughter; and still more did they pant for laughing when it happened that he was called in to a woman in child-bed at the critical moment, because the "town-grandmother" was away on business in a village, and there was no help for it. the ridiculous things he did! he called for a basin of water, a piece of soap. he poured something into the basin out of a little bottle he had brought in his pocket. the people stood and watched him, and concluded he made up his medicines at home to annoy the apothecary--but heaven only knew what it was. then he just went and washed his hands; and yet his hands were as clean as clean could be, as is the way with christians. and as if that wasn't enough, he took out a knife and cleaned his nails--really, lehavdîl, he might have been a pious jewess. then he rubbed his hands and washed them anew. what more shall i say about his conjuring tricks? then to business. the woman (it was not her first) said he certainly had smaller hands than the "town-grandmother," and was quicker at it, too, except for his fads. but who could stand all that fuss? and when there's no soap to be had? it just happened to have been washing day, but otherwise? the result of all this was that savitzki went about like a wicked man in the other world, and at the end of two years and a half he saw he would not be able to hold on there; that his "inexpressibles" were getting too big for him, that he was growing daily thinner, and might fall into a decline; he was preparing to run away and leave his debts behind, and now--_it_ was near. no, this is not the time to leave a town of the kind; there are golden days coming. they have already sent an order to build a "barrack" for cholera patients and to set apart a house for their families; and although the heads of the community have forked out and bribed the town-justice and the inspectors, to set down the "expenditures" for the barrack as though it had been built, and not alarm the town, everyone felt it was on the move, that it was coming; that it meant peril of death to everyone and good luck to savitzki. he will get three to four rubles a day from the government, the sick will pay him extra, and those who are well will pay not to be put down as sick. all the jews will pay, for disinfection and no-disinfection, isolation and non-isolation, for being let in and let out, for speaking and for being silent, and above all, "burial money"--not to be made the subject of a post-mortem and be buried in pitch. savitzki revived. his heart grew light within him. he paced the streets whistling a merry air; he looked cheerily into everyone's face, peeped in at all the doors and windows. jews like to hide themselves, ah! but he will not allow it. they shall pay him for the past years--he will come into his own. then he will leave the dead-alive place and marry. whom should he find here? the apothecary's daughter--that ugly thing? the second who is not afraid yössil, the beggar-student, would also like to marry, and has equally put his hope in the pestilence; he is the one orphan lad in the town. the householders could get no other if they wished. they will _have_ to marry him off. and he wishes it very much, which is no wonder--it is in the family. his father and his grandfather at his age had already buried children, and he is eighteen years old. he is "a scorn and a derision." they call him "bachelor" and "old maid," he has no peace at the academy all day. the allusions made at his expense prick him like pins. at night, it's worse. he lies all alone in the house-of-study on the hard bench, and does not sleep whole nights--the bad dreams will not let him; he is ready to crawl up the wall. he begs and implores the neighbors to marry him. he asks mercy, and the answer is always the same: "unless it be the queen of sheba, who will look at you, scab?" that, as it happened, was something yössil had not; but he had other attractions. he had come to the place fourteen years before, with his father, a book-peddler who fell ill on his way through and who--not of you be it said!--died there. he had never known his mother, and therefore had wandered about with his father from babyhood. kohol was moved to pity, householders bought up all the books in order to bury the father, which they did almost for nothing, and even gave him a nice grave. the orphan was taken into the talmud torah and told to sleep in the house-of-study; he ate "days,"[ ] as he was still doing when my story begins. in half a year's time he went through measles in the house-of-study, and then small-pox, and got a face as pitted as a grater. the next year brought a new misfortune. in the house-of-study was an old split stove, of which yössil was the official heater. this oven was a useless old thing and gave out no heat. by day things were bearable; at night the stove went down to freezing-point. yössil's rags, given him by the householders on some holiday, were hardly enough to clothe him, never sufficient for extra covering at night. one day yössil thought the matter over, and stole the key of the wood store-room. he commenced to steal wood, and every day he heated the stove more, and sat by the fire and warmed himself. at last, as people said, god punished him for his theft: the stove suddenly burst, and a piece flew out and broke his foot. the town röfeh cured it, but it remained shorter than the other, and yössil limped from that day forward. and he was no genius, not even specially diligent. who would fix on him? whom was he likely to attract? not even a water-carrier would take him for a son-in-law. meantime, as though to spite him, his eyes would burn like hot coals, his heart beat and yearned and sickened after something. he often felt dizzy, there was a sound as of bells in his ears, and he shook as in a fever, hot and cold, hot and cold. but who troubles about an orphan? the householders feel they have done their part in giving him free meals. what sort of meals? well, what merit is there to be secured in feeding a boy like that? a boy who won't learn, sits over a book, and is all the time wool-gathering? you speak to him and he doesn't hear. and all of a sudden he starts up and jumps away from his place, leaves the book open, and runs about the house-of-study like a mad thing, upsets the reading-desks, upsets the people, like one possessed. a madcap, a scatter-brain. tendons, bones, mouldy bread, the day before yesterday's porridge--and _that's_ a waste! what's the use of him? he may thank his stars that he's an orphan. a boy of that sort in a family is apprenticed to a workman, but nobody wants to undertake a strange child. who would care to be responsible for it? besides, the father was a learned man, who recited torah in his last moments, and who died like a saint in the seventh month, after making a very clear confession of sins; and who would dare apprentice the child of such an one to a workman?[ ] who would undertake to answer for it to the dead? and so yössil grew up alone in the house-of-study; by day he was tormented by malicious observations and at night by bad dreams; it is two or three years since he had rest. but he would not let himself drift; he felt that these were bad thoughts, evil dreams; but they grew stronger and stronger, and his will grew weaker, and he began to fast, but this was of no avail; to recite psalms--no use at all; to study--when he could not read the letters? fiery wheels circled before his eyes. he saw that the seducer was stronger than he was, and he let his wings droop and ceased to oppose him. he only consoled himself with the thought that he, too, might be married some day. and he waited for the match-mongers, and then, as they did not come to him, he put shame aside and went to them. but that is not done so easily. months passed before he ventured to speak to a match-monger; first to one, then to another, then to a third, until he had been to all there were in the town. and when the last one had given him the same reply as the others, that no one would look at him but the queen of sheba, he fell into great despondency. life had become hateful to him. one night it occurred to him that it would be better to die than to live thus. he began to battle afresh with this new sinful thought, and again his strength began to fail. the first time the thought came like a lightning-flash and vanished. the following day it came again and stayed longer; on the third day he had time to consider it; he remembered that last week there had been a strong wind, a sign that some one had hanged himself. perhaps a gentile? no; there would never be a wind because of a gentile; it must have been a jew. a year ago, there was a jew drowned in the bath, chaïm the tailor. who knows, perhaps he drowned himself on purpose? what should a tailor be doing in the bath in the middle of the week? on the eve of the day of atonement everyone goes, but on a wednesday like any other?... a few days later he felt drawn to the bath as though by pincers. where is the harm? i can go if i like. he went, but he did not even undress. he felt that once in, he would never come out again, that he would remain there. he stood some time leaning over the bath, he could not tear himself away from it, but gazed at the dark water with a faint reflection of himself trembling on the surface. then it seemed to him, that was not _his_ image, but chaïm the tailor's, and that chaïm the tailor smiled and beckoned to him: "come! come! it is so quiet here, so cool--a delight!" he grew hot all over and fled in terror. it was only in the street that he collected himself again. passing a rope-maker's, he observed that the ropes lay tossed about anyhow; the rope-maker had gone away somewhere. why had he just gone away? where to? a few other such silly questions passed through yössil's mind, while his hands, acting of themselves, stole away a rope that happened to be lying on the door-step. he was not aware of the theft till he found himself back in the house-of-study. he was very much surprised--he could not think how the cord had got into his pocket. "it is god's doing," he thought, with tears in his eyes; "god himself wishes me to take my life, to hang myself!" and he felt a bitterly piteous compassion for himself in his heart. god who had created him, who had made him an orphan, who had sent him the small-pox, and had thrown the piece of the stove at him, wishes him now to hang himself. he has refused him _this_ world, and now he is to lose the other as well. why? because he had not mastered the seducer? how could he? all by himself--without parents, without companions--and the seducer is, after all, an angel, and has been under arms since the creation; and yössil feels very wretched and unhappy. god himself is unjust to him, if he wishes him to hang himself. he sees it clearly, there is no uncertainty about it. and what is the outcome? if god wills it so, what can he do, he, the worm, the orphan? he cannot withstand the seducer, then how shall he dare to think of going against god? no; he will not attempt to go against god. he takes the rope and goes up into the loft of the shool. he will not profane the house-of-study. he will not hang himself over against the ark. in the loft there is a hook, equally provided by him. how else should there be a hook up there? who knows how long the hook has been waiting for him? god may have prepared it before he, yössil, was born or thought of. thus considering, he folded the rope. something had occurred to him: and suppose the contrary? suppose it to be the work of satan? suppose the same satan who sends me the other thoughts had sent me this one, too? and he let the rope be--it is a matter for consideration. he must think it well over. to lose both this world and the world to come is no trifle. thereupon the clock struck four--dinner-time and he became suddenly aware that his stomach was cramped with hunger. and he came down from the loft and left the rope folded up. every night he feels drawn to the rope. he does what he can to save himself--he runs to the ark, puts his head in among the holy scrolls, and cries pitifully to them for help. he frequently clasps a desk, so that it may be more difficult for him to leave the spot, or he clings with all his might to the old stove. and who knows what the issue of the struggle would have been but for the pestilence? oh! now he drew a deep breath of relief. an end to hanging, an end to melancholy. they will have to give him a companion, and _not_ the queen of sheba; he is the _one_ orphan in the town. savitzki withdraws--yÖssil goes into retreat since the dread of the pestilence had so increased, the townsfolk ran a mile when they saw savitzki coming. they were afraid of him--and no wonder. after all, a man is only flesh and blood, he may suddenly become indisposed any day, and savitzki now is cock of the walk. he can have people put to bed, smeared, rubbed, can pour drugs down their throats, drive out the whole family, burn the furniture, poison people, and then make post-mortems. what an outrage! when doctors want to know the nature of an illness, they poison off the first patients and look for little worms inside them. but what is to be done? when one is in exile--one is!... a röfeh in apte having declared that the doctor there poisoned his patients, they imprisoned him for three months on bread and water. you think i mean the doctor? no, mercy on us, the röfeh! that is why, when savitzki appeared in the street, it grew suddenly empty. if he looked up at a window, a blind was drawn, or the window was filled up with a sheet, a cushion--anything. one fine morning the street where savitzki lived stood empty--all the householders and the tenants had moved away overnight. no one wished to come within his area. it was a real case of "woe to the wicked and woe to his neighbor!" savitzki has remarked it, and he is silent. more than that, he has withdrawn himself from the town for the time being--just as a cat will spring aside from a mouse--it won't run away. he sits the whole day at home, or goes for walks outside the town in the mud. he is sure of his game, then why irritate the people by prying? when the time comes, he will know; doors and windows won't keep the thing in; there will be cries as on the day of atonement. the jews have little self-control. they are a people very much afraid of death, and helpless when face to face with sickness. savitzki had lived through a typhus epidemic; he had seen the overflow of feeling, heard the cries and commotion. he seemed to be in a sea of lamentation and wailing. o no, they will never keep it to themselves. he withdrew from the street. and yössil withdrew from the street and the house-of-study as well. one wished it, the other had to do it. since there was more talk of the pestilence, yössil's whole melancholy had vanished, as though brushed away by the hand. indeed, he grew more cheerful, merrier day by day, and would often, without meaning to do so, burst out laughing. he could not help himself, it bubbled up within him; he had to laugh. it tickled him in all his limbs. the paler the householders grew, the ruddier grew he; the lower they hung their heads, the higher he carried his; the more subdued grew their voices, the clearer and fuller yössil's, and--the more the house-of-study sighed, the louder his laughter: ha-ha-ha! and it was not his fault, something in him laughed of itself. and at a time when all other eyes were dim and moist, his shone brighter and brighter; they fairly sparkled. at a time when people stood and looked at each other open-mouthed, not daring to move a limb, his feet danced beneath him; he could have kissed every desk, the stove, the walls. "is he mad?" people asked, "or what has possessed him?" "he's most certainly mad," was the reply. "certainly! he ought to be sent to the asylum." yössil was not afraid even of the asylum; he knows that kohol will not spend money on that. a few years ago a mad woman was frozen to death in the street, after running around a whole winter without clothes, and all that time it never occurred to anyone to hire a conveyance and have her taken to a refuge. people were extremely sorry for her. another in her case would have gone about the country and begged a few pence. she hadn't even the wits to do so much. the householders only sighed, and there it ended. why should he, yössil, be of more consequence? he is anxious not to make kohol angry; there is no other orphan, true, but--if kohol became angry, they might have one brought. and someone else might become an orphan! alarming thought! anyhow, kohol will have to give a wedding-present. it is well to keep on terms with people. secondly, yössil is afraid lest they should take him for a real lunatic and _have_ to get another. they would never marry a _real_ lunatic. there would be no use in that. another thing--and this is the principal one--he needs retirement. he must be alone with his thoughts, he must reflect and consider, and dream by night and by day. he finds rest now at night in the house-of-study; when the others go, and he is left alone with the desks and chairs, he runs to the window, presses his burning forehead against the cold pane; it grows cool in his brain, his ideas move in order. if it is a clear night, he thinks the moon is making signs to him, that is, that joshua, the son of nun,[ ] says to him, in pantomime, yes or no, as he thinks best. by day he saunters about by himself outside the town. he does not feel the creeping cold that makes its way in through the holes in his garments; he does not feel the wet that enters boldly his half-open boots; he makes gestures with his hand, talks to himself, to the leaden clouds, or to the pale winter sun; he has so much to think about, so much to say. he is the one orphan lad, but there are three orphan girls, and he would like to know which of them is for him. in the foreground stands devosheh, daughter of jeremiah, the shoemaker. the latter was kind to yössil before he died, and would sometimes call him in and mend his boots; once he gave him a pair of cobbler's shoes; he would spare him a piece of bread and dripping, or an onion. yössil, on these occasions, could not take his eyes off devosheh--o, he remembers her well. she stands before him now, a stout, healthy girl, red-cheeked like a simchas-torah apple, and strong as they make them. when she takes the hatchet, the splinters fly. if jeremiah had not died, yössil would have proposed the match--he liked a fine, healthy girl of the sort. when he thinks of her, his mouth waters. once--he cannot forget it--he met her on the stairs, and she attracted him like a magnet. he went close and touched her dress, and she gave him a little push which all but sent him rolling down. a good thing he caught hold of the banisters. after that it was some time before he dared show himself upstairs again; he was afraid, lest she should have told her father; and later on when he would have risked it and gone with his life in his hand, jeremiah was already ill. he lay sick for about three weeks and then died. then his wife fell into a decline and died, too. now devosheh is maid-servant at saul the money-lender's. when he goes there for his "day," he sometimes finds himself alone with her in the room; then he hasn't the courage to say a word to her; she has a look in her eyes! but if kohol wishes it, she will _never_ dare to say _no_! kohol is kohol! devosheh, he thought longingly, would be good to have; he can imagine _no_ better wife. he may possibly get a "pat on the cheek" from her, but that's nothing unusual, and he will take it kindly. he will only hug and kiss her for it. he would wash the dust off her feet and follow her about like a child. he would obey her, stroke her, fondle her, and press her tight to his heart--tighter still, though it should beat even quicker than it was beating now, though it should burst, though it should jump out of him; though his soul should escape, he would die at her feet--and he _will_ press her to himself. _ach!_ if kohol would only settle on devosheh! her little finger is worth the whole of another woman. he asks for nothing more at present than her little finger; he would take it and squeeze it with all his might, to prove to her that she wanted a husband. but kohol may think of another orphan. yonder, at the burial ground, is a second; there she is, though he does not know her name; she is only half an orphan, motherless, but she has a father; only what a father! it were better to have none! a nice person is beril, the grave-digger. he spends the day in the public houses, and leaves her alone among the graves. sometimes he even goes home tipsy and beats her; they say he even measures the graves with her, dragging her along by the hair--the whole town says it--but nobody wants to interfere, they are afraid of him; a drunkard and a strong man besides. some few years ago he gave mösheh gläser a poke in the side, just for good fellowship, and the latter has had a lung trouble ever since; he grows paler every day, and can hardly breathe. if the daughter were not as hard as nails, she wouldn't be alive; the mother went down into an early grave. and what does he want with the girl? yössil feels a pang at his heart. he saw her one day and will never forget it. he saw her at the funeral of jeremiah, the shoemaker, when he was afraid to go near to the grave lest he should find himself close to devosheh. she was crying, and her tears would have fallen on his heart like molten lead. so he turned away and walked round about the cemetery, and two or three times he passed the window of beril, the grave-digger. he saw her standing with downcast eyes peeling potatoes--a pale, ethereal figure. he could have clasped her with one hand; but she must be a good-hearted girl, she has such eyes, such a look. once she lifted her eyelids--and devosheh was nowhere. the whole funeral was nowhere--such was the gentleness that beamed in her blue eyes and the sweetness in her face. only queen esther could have looked like that, and queen esther was sallow,[ ] while she is white like alabaster. her hair is black as coal, but then, once she was married, it would not be seen any more. _aï_, how beautiful she is! how she leads the heart captive! and she has another merit in his eyes; when he sees devosheh, it excites him, but while he looked at her, it felt good, and light, and warm within him. from that day forward he attended every funeral, and glanced in at the window. yes, he wants her, too! let it rather be her; he would just as soon, in fact, it would be better so. he would treat her like a toy, play with her all day, and do everything for her. he would never let her dip a hand in cold water. he would do all the chopping, cooking, baking, and washing, indeed, everything, upon the one condition that she should stand and watch him and smile. when there was time, he would take her and carry her about like a little child. he would rise with the dawn, and, in winter time, soon have the stove lighted; in summer, soon have set the kettle on for morning tea. he would walk softly, on his toes, and quietly dust her dress and shoes; he would quietly place the clothes beside her bed; and then only go noiselessly and bend over her and look at her, and look at her, till the sun rose, and it was broad day, till the sun shone in at the window--then only wake her with a kiss. that would be a life worth the name! and a good match, too! _öi! öi!_ devosheh may have a few gulden, she is saving, but _she_ holds a parnosseh, as it were, in her hand. everyone knows that beril is being burnt up by brandy; the röfeh says he eats nothing and goes about, heaven defend us, with his inside full of holes. in a hundred and twenty years to come, yössil might take over the grave-digging--why not? at first he would feel frightened of the corpses, but one gets used to everything. with _her_ beside him he would feel at home in gehenna. it is not a nice parnosseh, but then he would be able to live outside the town, apart, no one could overlook him. that would be a life--paradise in the burial ground! but if the lot should fall on "lapei?" "lapei" is the nickname of the third orphan girl. when he remembers _her_, he grows cold in every limb. she is a town orphan, who has been one ever since he can remember--sickly, with a large head, hair that falls out, and somewhat crooked feet. she doesn't walk on her soles, but on her toes, with her heels in the air, and as she walks, she wobbles like a tipsy person. he often meets _her_ in the street; she has no home of her own, but goes from house to house, helping the servants--fetches water for one, wood for another, helps a third to chop up a little resinous fir-wood, carries a bucket, fills a tub. when she has no work, she begs. once a year she washes the floor of the house-of-study. where she spends the night, he does not know. lapei, lapei! he pictures her to himself and he shudders. he feels cold all over. she must be forty years old. she has looked so much ever since he can remember. "lord of the world!" he cries out in terror, "that would be worse than hanging!" and lifts his terrified eyes imploringly to heaven. on his pale forehead are drops of perspiration as large as peas. but he is moved to compassion in his heart. poor thing! she would certainly also like to be married, she is equally a blind sheep, equally an orphan. she has nothing, either, beyond a god in heaven. he feels inclined to weep over her lot and his together, and, on second thoughts, he places himself in god's hands. if god wills it so, it shall be she! he throws himself on god and on kohol. the one destined by god and given by kohol shall be his mate, he will honor her and be true to her, and will be to her a husband like any other, and he will forget the other two. then a fresh anxiety rises within him: if the destined one be lapei, where are they to live? where can they go? what will they do? she hasn't a penny, and goes about tattered, a draggle-tail, and sells her birthright for a handful of cold potatoes. she takes two gulden for washing the floor of the house-of-study--not enough for dry bread--and he, what can he do? of what use is he? were he not lame, he would be a messenger. he knows no trade, unless (he consoles himself) he became a teacher. all the householders will give wedding-presents, and he will hire a room with the money and start keeping school; he knows quite enough to teach, especially little children. let come what may if only he has a wife. there are jews who have uglier wives, and who are worse cripples ... but there they are! a wife is a wife! only not to live alone and eat "days!" and he may yet succeed in getting one of the other two, and once more he begins to invent a paradise. and he smiles on at the mud and the leaden clouds. hush! something has occurred to him. if he knew for certain that poor lapei was fated to die of the pestilence, he would gladly marry her. at least, poor thing, she would have had a husband before she died. if only for a month. why not? is she not a jewish daughter? it wouldn't hurt him, and it would be fair on the part of his blessed name. he does not wish her death, heaven forbid! on the contrary, he is sorry for her; he feels and knows the meaning of "misery," of being all alone, always all alone. savitzki and yÖssil together one day, as yössil, the beggar-student, was splashing through the mud, lost in thought, he suddenly felt himself caught hold of by the sleeve. he turned round in a fright and was still more alarmed on seeing before him--dr. savitzki. savitzki and yössil had often passed each other outside the town, and yössil had always taken off his torn cap and bowed low before the christian. savitzki, the first time, had spat out; the second time, he had thrown out an evil, anti-semitic look; the third time, he had only glanced into yössil's face. later he half smiled--and to-day, for the first time, he had caught him by the sleeve. they saw in each other's eyes that there was a link between them, that they had a common interest, a common hope, that something bound them together. savitzki was now quite alone in the town. at one time, he used to go in to the apothecary, but the latter had lately given him to understand, that he had done him harm; that people had grown afraid, on savitzki's account, of buying bitter-water and castor oil, the apothecary's great stand-by. the christian townspeople had also begun to avoid him; they, too, believed that doctors poison people, and savitzki was probably no better than the rest. it was rumored that in some little place or other, a set of tramps had burnt the "barrack" and stoned the doctor. there was occasionally a gleam in the eyes of the townsfolk that boded no good. yössil got on without other people, savitzki longed for someone to speak to. he wondered himself how it was that the lame _zhidlak's_[ ] pitted face seemed so pleasant to him. true, he had a little business with him; it was possible the plague was already there, only people were hiding it. one might be able to learn something from the said _zhidlak_. yössil, on being caught by the sleeve, had given a start; but he soon recovered himself, and did not even notice how quickly savitzki let go of his dirty coat; he only saw that savitzki was no longer angry, but smiling. "well," inquired savitzki, in polish, "no cholera?" yössil had once driven out with the town dayan to a mill to guard wheat for passover, and had there learned a few polish words. he understood savitzki's question; the word "cholera," in spite of the fact that it represented all his hopes, gave him a pang "in the seventh rib," his face twitched, but he composed himself and replied: "none, honored sir, none!" and without his being conscious of it, the answer rang sadly. they soon parted. the day following they met again, advancing toward one another. yössil stood aside like a soldier saluting, but without putting his hand to his cap; savitzki stopped a moment to ask: "well, not yet?" "not yet, honored sir, not yet!" was yössil's reply. the third day they met again and remained longer together. savitzki questioned him as to whether there was no talk anywhere of diarrhoea and sickness, cholereen, etc., or any other intestinal trouble. yössil could not understand everything savitzki said, but he made a good shot, concluding that he was being asked about sicknesses of a suspicious nature. "nothing, honored sir, nothing!" he kept answering. he knew that so far all was quiet in the town. "nothing yet, but it will come!" was savitzki's consoling observation as he walked away. a little time passed, and they had got into the habit, when they met, of walking a few steps together; savitzki continued to question and to receive the same reply: "nothing, sir, nothing," and still he consoled himself and yössil with: "it will come!" "it must come!" he declared with assurance, and yössil translated it into hebrew: "and although it tarry, i expect it,"[ ] and his heart expanded. he wished the town no harm. savitzki might wish for a great outbreak of the pestilence, he only desired a little one, a little tiny one. no one was to die, heaven forbid! a few householders should fall ill--nothing more would be necessary. that is all he asks. he does not wish that his greatest enemy should die. this lasted a month. savitzki even began to lose patience, and made yössil a proposal. he felt sure something must be happening, only that people kept it hid. they were afraid of making it known--jews are so nervous. so he proposed that yössil should pry, find out, and tell him of only one hidden case, tell him of anything. he would be grateful to him. * * * * * savitzki talked too quick for yössil and too "high polish," but he understood that savitzki wished to make a spy of him and have him betray the jewish sick. "no," he thought, "no, yössil is not going to turn informer!" he is resolved not to let out a word to savitzki, and yet, in spite of himself, and for politeness' sake, he nodded in affirmation, and savitzki walked away. yössil's determination not to tell tales strengthened, but there was no reason why he should not find out for himself if they were not concealing something, and he began to go in and out among the people assembled for daily prayer, to see if no one were missing; if he remarked any one's absence, he tried to discover the reason, but it came to nothing. it always turned out to be that the person had risked his life going out into a village to buy stores; or else he had quarrelled with his wife, and was ashamed to come to the house-of-study with a swollen cheek, or he had been to the röfeh to have a tooth out and they couldn't stop the bleeding; and other such trifles that had no connection with the object of his interest. and every day he was able to report honestly to savitzki: "nothing, honored sir, nothing!" every day now they waited one for the other, and every day they talked longer together. yössil endeavored with all his might to make himself intelligible to savitzki; he worked his hands and his feet, and savitzki, who had learnt to understand the gestures, had often to save himself from yössil's too energetic demonstrations. savitzki could not make out what yössil was after, why he kept at a distance from kohol, and why, as was clearly to be seen, he also wished for the pestilence--but he had no time to busy himself with the problem--to fathom the mind of a jew. it was probably a matter of business--perhaps he dealt in linen for winding-sheets. perhaps he made coffins. but when he remarked that yössil was growing depressed, that he was less sure than savitzki that it must come to-morrow, he talked to him freely, gave him courage, and made him confident once more that the community would not escape. to savitzki it was clear as daylight that it would come. it was getting nearer and nearer--was it not in all the papers? six weeks passed. the sharp frosts, for which the community was hoping, had not been, but the pestilence desired by savitzki and yössil delayed equally. even savitzki began to have his doubts, but encouraging yössil, he encouraged himself in the matter. it was simply impossible that it should not come. was there a less clean town anywhere? where else did people eat so many gherkins, so much raw fruit, and as many onions? where were they less well provided with cold water? there were perhaps two or three well-to-do people in the place with metal samovars; three to four houses where they made tea; in the rest they drank pear-drink after the sholent[ ] and old, putrid fish was sold galore. it must come! there were towns over which the pestilence had no power: aix, birmingham, and others whose names yössil could not catch; but there people ate no sholent, and tea was made with distilled water--that was different. meantime another week passed and nothing happened. on the contrary, it was reported that in apte it had decreased considerably; racheff was open again; in tzoismir they had even closed the tea-house for poor people, which had been started to please the governor. yössil began to think his sorry luck would make all his plans evaporate into thin air, that his town was also a kind of birmingham, over which the pestilence had no power. he began to have his old bad nights and felt restless even in the day-time. the brides seemed further off than ever, and, except during the half-hour spent with savitzki, he had no rest. he saw the townsfolk growing unmistakably calmer; then it was said that the villages round about had returned to their normal state. the whole town revived; the women ceased to wail in the synagogue; the younger ones gave up coming to prayers at all, except now and again on sabbath as before; the röfeh's wife began to think of putting on her wig again. the bather's maid-servant was in people's mouths, and they had even reported her to the rabbi. the maskil recommenced to write in hebrew; dealers in produce, to drive out into the country; brokers, to make money; the sunday market was crowded with peasants, the public-houses filled; salt, naphthaline, and other household wares began to sell. the town assumed its old aspect, window blinds disappeared; savitzki's street came to life again. yössil's condition grew daily worse. his former melancholy had returned in part. instead of brides, he had the rope in the loft continually before his eyes. it beckons him and calls to him: come, come! rid yourself of kohol, rid yourself of this wretched life. but he resisted: savitzki is a doctor, he must know. and savitzki holds to his opinion. one day yössil did not meet savitzki outside the town, and just the day he wanted him most. hardly had yössil awoke, early that morning--it was still dark--when the beadle burst joyfully into the house-of-study, with "do you hear, yössil? the doctor and the student have left raeheff! and last night, just at new moon, there was a hard frost, an iron frost. no fear of the pestilence now!" he cried out and ran to call people to prayers with the good news. yössil dressed quickly, that is, he threw round him the cloak he had been using as a covering, and began to move jerkily to and fro across the house-of-study, every now and then running to the window to see if it were daylight, if it were time to hasten out after savitzki. hardly had the day fairly broken, when he recited the morning prayers and ran, without having breakfasted, outside the town. he felt that without comfort from savitzki his heart would burst. he waited about, hungry, till midday; savitzki did not come, he must wait--it had happened before that savitzki did not appear till the afternoon. he is hungry, very hungry, but it never occurs to him to go and buy food; he must wait for savitzki. without having seen him and received comfort from him, he could not swallow one bite. he will have another bad night; he will be drawn to the rope. no, let him fast for once! another hour has passed, it begins to grow dark, the pallid spot of winter sun behind the clouds sinks lower and lower, and will shortly vanish behind vassil's mill. he shivers with cold; he runs to warm himself, claps his hands together, and savitzki does not come. he has never been so late before. he began to think there must have been an accident; savitzki must have been taken ill, or else (yössil grows angry) he is playing cards, the gentile! and the pale ball of sun sinks lower and lower, and in the other, clearer half of the sky appears a second pale misty spot like a sickle. that is the young moon, it is time for evening prayer. yössil loses all hope: savitzki will not come now. the tears choke him. he hurries back to the house-of-study, to be at least in time for prayers. he met scarcely anyone in the street, the men had all gone to pray, only here and there a woman's voice sounded cheerfully through the doors of the little shops and followed him to the steps of the house-of-study. his limbs shook beneath him from exhaustion; there must be some very good news to make the women laugh so loud. he could hardly climb the stairs. outside the door he stopped; he had not the courage to turn the handle; the people were not praying, but they were talking cheerily and all at once; heaven knows what the householders were all so happy about. suddenly he grew angry and flung open the door. "and savitzki," were the first words he heard, "has also, thank heaven, taken himself off." "really and truly?" someone asked. "saw it myself," said the other, "with my own eyes." yössil heard no more; his limbs gave way and his whole body was seized with trembling; he just dragged himself to a bench and sat there like one turned to stone, with great, staring eyes. the end the happy assembly did not notice it. after minchah and maariv (some few only after a page of gemoreh, or a chapter of mishnayes), they went away and left yössil alone as usual. even the householder in whose house yössil should have eaten that day's meals never thought of going up to him and asking why he had not been to breakfast, and why he was not coming back with him to supper; he just hurried home along with the rest, to tell his wife and children the good news, that savitzki had gone, that they were rid of _that_ treasure. it was not till the next day that yössil was missed; then they said, bother would _not_ have taken him, and the beadle lighted the stove himself. the oven smoked and yössil was talked about the whole day; he was the only one who could manage the stove. they began to wonder if he had gone to palestine, or else to argentina? it was true, he had nothing with which to pay his travelling expenses, but then he could always resort to begging. it was only on the sixth day, when the town was looking for the arrival of an inspector of licenses, that the first shop-keeper who climbed up into the loft to hide a piece of imported velvet found yössil hanging and already stark. xi bontzye shweig[ ] down here, in _this_ world, bontzye shweig's death made no impression at all. ask anyone you like who bontzye was, _how_ he lived, and what he died of; whether of heart failure, or whether his strength gave out, or whether his back broke under a heavy load, and they won't know. perhaps, after all, he died of hunger. if a tram-car horse had fallen dead, there would have been more excitement. it would have been mentioned in the papers, and hundreds of people would have crowded round to look at the dead animal--even the spot where the accident took place. but the tramway horse would receive less attention if there were as many horses as men--a thousand million. bontzye lived quietly and died quietly. he passed through _our_ world like a shadow. no wine was drunk at bontzye's circumcision, no healths were proposed, and he made no beautiful speech when he was confirmed. he lived like a little dun-colored grain of sand on the sea-shore, among millions of his kind; and when the wind lifted him and blew him over to the other side of the sea, nobody noticed it. when he was alive, the mud in the street preserved no impression of his feet; after his death, the wind overturned the little board on his grave. the grave-digger's wife found it a long way off from the spot, and boiled a potful of potatoes over it. three days after that, the grave-digger had forgotten where he had laid him. if bontzye had been given a tombstone, then, in a hundred years or so, an antiquarian might have found it, and the name "bontzye shweig" would have echoed once again in _our_ air. a shadow! his likeness remained photographed in nobody's brain, in nobody's heart; not a trace of him remained. "no kith, no kin!" he lived and died alone! had it not been for the human commotion, some one might have heard bontzye's spine snap under its load; had the world been less busy, some one might have remarked that bontzye (also a human being) went about with two extinguished eyes and fearfully hollow cheeks; that even when he had no load on his shoulders, his head drooped earthward as though, while yet alive, he were looking for his grave. were there as few men as tramway horses, some one might perhaps have asked: what has happened to bontzye? when they carried bontzye into the hospital, his corner in the underground lodging was soon filled--there were ten of his like waiting for it, and they put it up to auction among themselves. when they carried him from the hospital bed to the dead-house, there were twenty poor sick persons waiting for the bed. when he had been taken out of the dead-house, they brought in twenty bodies from under a building that had fallen in. who knows how long he will rest in his grave? who knows how many are waiting for the little plot of ground? a quiet birth, a quiet life, a quiet death, and a quieter burial. but it was not so in the _other_ world. _there_ bontzye's death made a great impression. the blast of the great messianic shofar sounded through all the seven heavens: bontzye shweig has left the earth! the largest angels with the broadest wings flew about and told one another: bontzye shweig is to take his seat in the heavenly academy! in paradise there was a noise and a joyful tumult: bontzye shweig! just fancy! bontzye shweig! little child-angels with sparkling eyes, gold thread-work wings, and silver slippers, ran delightedly to meet him. the rustle of the wings, the tap-tap of the little slippers, and the merry laughter of the fresh, rosy mouths, filled all the heavens and reached to the throne of glory, and god himself knew that bontzye shweig was coming. abraham, our father, stood in the gate, his right hand stretched out with a hearty greeting, and a sweet smile lit up his old face. what are they wheeling through heaven? two angels are pushing a golden arm-chair into paradise for bontzye shweig. what flashed so brightly? they were carrying past a gold crown set with precious stones--all for bontzye shweig. "before the decision of the heavenly court has been given?" ask the saints, not quite without jealousy. "o," reply the angels, "that will be a mere formality. even the prosecutor won't say a word against bontzye shweig. the case will not last five minutes." just consider: bontzye shweig! * * * * * when the little angels had met bontzye in mid-air and played him a tune; when abraham, our father, had shaken him by the hand like an old comrade; when he heard that a chair stood waiting for him in paradise, that a crown lay ready for his head; and that not a word would be lost over his case before the heavenly court--bontzye, just as in the other world, was too frightened to speak. his heart sank with terror. he is sure it is all a dream, or else simply a mistake. he is used to both. he often dreamt, in the other world, that he was picking up money off the floor--there were whole heaps of it--and then he woke to find himself as poor as ever; and more than once people had smiled at him and given him a friendly word and then turned away and spit out. "it is my luck," he used to think. and now he dared not raise his eyes, lest the dream should vanish, lest he should wake up in some cave full of snakes and lizards. he was afraid to speak, afraid to move, lest he should be recognized and flung into the pit. he trembles and does not hear the angels' compliments, does not see how they dance round him, makes no answer to the greeting of abraham, our father, and--when he is led into the presence of the heavenly court, he does not even wish it "good morning!" he is beside himself with terror, and his fright increases when he happens to notice the floor of the heavenly courthouse; it is all alabaster set with diamonds. "and my feet standing on it!" he is paralyzed. "who knows what rich man, what rabbi, what saint they take me for--he will come--and that will be the end of me!" his terror is such, he never even hears the president call out: "the case of bontzye shweig!" adding, as he hands the deeds to the advocate, "read, but make haste!" the whole hall goes round and round in bontzye's eyes, there is a rushing in his ears. and through the rushing he hears more and more clearly the voice of the advocate, speaking sweetly as a violin. "his name," he hears, "fitted him like the dress made for a slender figure by the hand of an artist-tailor." "what is he talking about?" wondered bontzye, and he heard an impatient voice break in with: "no similes, please!" "he never," continued the advocate, "was heard to complain of either god or man; there was never a flash of hatred in his eye; he never lifted it with a claim on heaven." still bontzye does not understand, and once again the hard voice interrupts: "no rhetoric, please!" "job gave way--this one was more unfortunate--" "facts, dry facts!" "when he was a week old, he was circumcised...." "we want no realism!" "the mohel who circumcised him did not know his work--" "come, come!" "and he kept silent," the advocate went on, "even when his mother died, and he was given a step-mother at thirteen years old--a serpent, a vixen." "can they mean me after all?" thought bontzye. "no insinuations against a third party!" said the president, angrily. "she grudged him every mouthful--stale, mouldy bread, tendons instead of meat--and _she_ drank coffee with cream." "keep to the subject," ordered the president. "she grudged him everything but her finger nails, and his black-and-blue body showed through the holes in his torn and fusty clothes. winter time, in the hardest frost, he had to chop wood for her, barefoot, in the yard, and his hands were too young and too weak, the logs too thick, the hatchet too blunt. more than once he nearly dislocated his wrist; more than once his feet were nearly frost-bitten, but he kept silent, even to his father." "to that drunkard?" laughs the accuser, and bontzye feels cold in every limb. "he never even complained to his father," finished up the advocate. "and always alone," he continued, "no playmates, no school, nor teaching of any kind--never a whole garment--never a free moment." "facts, please!" reminded the president. "he kept silent even later, when his father seized him by the hair in a fit of drunkenness, and flung him out into the street on a snowy winter's night. he quietly picked himself up out of the snow and ran whither his feet carried him. "he kept silent all the way--however hungry he might be, he only begged with his eyes. "it was a wild, wet night in spring time, when he reached the great town; he fell like a drop into the ocean, and yet he passed that same night under arrest. he kept silent and never asked why, for what. he was let out, and looked about for the hardest work. and he kept silent. harder than the work itself was the finding of it--and he kept silent. "bathed in a cold sweat, crushed together under heavy loads, his empty stomach convulsed with hunger--he kept silent. "bespattered with mud, spat at, driven with his load off the pavement and into the street among the cabs, carts, and tramways, looking death in the eyes every moment--he kept silent. "he never calculated how many pounds' burden go to a groschen, how many times he fell on an errand worth a dreier; how many times he nearly panted out his soul going after his pay; he never calculated the difference between other people's lot and his--he kept silent. "and he never insisted loudly on his pay; he stood in the door-way like a beggar, with a dog-like pleading in his eyes--come again later! and he went like a shadow to come again later, and beg for his wage more humbly than before. "he kept silent even when they cheated him of part, or threw in a false coin. "he took everything in silence." "they mean me after all," thought bontzye. * * * * * "once," continued the advocate, after a sip of water, "a change came into his life: there came flying along a carriage on rubber tires drawn by two runaway horses. the driver already lay some distance off on the pavement with a cracked skull. the terrified horses foamed at the mouth, sparks shot from their hoofs, their eyes shone like fiery lamps on a winter's night--and in the carriage, more dead than alive, sat a man. "and bontzye stopped the horses. and the man he had saved was a charitable jew, who was not ungrateful. "he put the dead man's whip into bontzye's hands, and bontzye became a coachman. more than that--he was provided with a wife, and more still--with a child. "and bontzye kept silent!" "me, they mean me!" bontzye assured himself again, and yet had not the courage to give a glance at the heavenly court. he listens to the advocate further: "he kept silent also when his protector became bankrupt and did not pay him his wages. "he kept silent when his wife ran away from him, leaving him a child at the breast. "he was silent also fifteen years later, when the child had grown up and was strong enough to throw him out of the house." "me, they mean me!" now he is sure of it. * * * * * "he kept silent even," began the angelic advocate once more in a still softer and sadder voice, "when the same philanthropist paid all his creditors their due but him--and even when (riding once again in a carriage with rubber tires and fiery horses) he knocked bontzye down and drove over him. "he kept silent. he did not even tell the police who had done for him." * * * * * "he kept silent even in the hospital, where one may cry out. "he kept silent when the doctor would not come to his bedside without being paid fifteen kopeks, and when the attendant demanded another five--for changing his linen. "he kept silent in the death-struggle--silent in death. "not a word against god; not a word against men! "_dixi!_" * * * * * once more bontzye trembled all over, he knew that after the advocate comes the prosecutor. who knows what _he_ will say? bontzye himself had remembered nothing of his life. even in the other world he forgot every moment what had happened in the one before. the advocate had recalled everything to his mind. who knows what the prosecutor will not remind him of? "gentlemen," begins the prosecutor, in a voice biting and acid as vinegar--but he breaks off. "gentlemen," he begins again, but his voice is milder, and a second time he breaks off. then, from out the same throat, comes in a voice that is almost gentle: "gentlemen! _he_ was silent! i will be silent, too!" there is a hush--and there sounds in front a new, soft, trembling voice: "bontzye, my child," it speaks like a harp, "my dear child bontzye!" and bontzye's heart melts within him. now he would lift up his eyes, but they are blinded with tears; he never felt such sweet emotion before. "my child!" "my bontzye!"--no one, since his mother died, had spoken to him with such words in such a voice. "my child," continued the presiding judge, "you have suffered and kept silent; there is no whole limb, no whole bone in your body, without a scar, without a wound, not a fibre of your soul that has not bled--and you kept silent. "there they did not understand. perhaps you yourself did not know that you might have cried out, and that at your cry the walls of jericho would have shaken and fallen. you yourself knew nothing of your hidden power. "in the other world your silence was not understood, but _that_ is the world of delusion; in the world of truth you will receive your reward. "the heavenly court will not judge you; the heavenly court will not pass sentence on you; they will not apportion you a reward. take what you will! everything is yours!" bontzye looks up for the first time. he is dazzled; everything shines and flashes and streams with light. "_taki?_" he asks shyly. "yes, really!" answers the presiding judge with decision; "really, i tell you, everything is yours; everything in heaven belongs to you. because all that shines and sparkles is only the reflection of your hidden goodness, a reflection of your soul. you only take of what is yours." "_taki?_" asks bontzye again, this time in a firmer voice. "_taki! taki! taki!_" they answer him from all sides. "well, if it is so," bontzye smiles, "i would like to have every day, for breakfast, a hot roll with fresh butter." the court and the angels looked down, a little ashamed; the prosecutor laughed. xii the dead town when travelling in the provinces after jewish statistics, i one day met with a jew dragging himself step by step through the heavy sand. he looks ill, can hardly walk, hardly put one foot before the other. i feel sorry for him and take him into my conveyance. he gets in, gives me a "peace be with you," and asks me every sort of question. i answer, and end by inquiring: "and you, friend, whence are you?" "from the dead town," he answers calmly. i thought he was joking. "where is it?" i ask. "behind the hills of darkness?" "where?" he smiles. "it's just in poland!" "in our country, a town like that?" "there it is!" he said; "there it is! although the nations of the world do not know of it, and have never given it a gentile name, it is a genuinely jewish town." "what do you mean?" "what i say! you know geography, and you think everything is down in it; not at all. we jews live without geography. we are not 'down,' and yet they come to us from far and near. what is the good of geography? every driver knows the way. "you don't believe me?" he asks. i am silent. "and yet it's true; our rabbi corresponds with all the geonim[ ] in the world. questions and answers concerning the most important matters come and go--everything is arranged somehow--it just depends. not long ago, for instance, an elderly grass-widow was released from the marriage-tie. well, of course, the main thing is not the grass-widow, but the dialectics!"[ ] he goes on: "all the einiklich[ ] know of our town. they come, praise god, often--and, praise god, not in vain." "it is the first time i ever heard of a dead town." "that's rather strange! i suppose you keep yourself rather aloof..... and yet it is a truly jewish town, a real jewish metropolis. it has everything a town needs, even two or three lunatics! and it has a reputation for commerce, too!" "is anything taken in or out?" "what? what do you say?" asks the jew, not quite clear as to my meaning. "are you speaking of articles of trade?" i nod my head. "certainly!" he answers. "they take away prayer-scarfs and leather belts, and bring in corfu esrogîm and earth of palestine. but that isn't the chief thing, the chief thing is the business done in the town itself! drink-shops, lodging homes for travellers, old clothes--according to custom--" "a poor town?" "what do you mean by rich and poor? there is parnosseh! the very poor go about begging either in the place or in the neighborhood--mostly in the place itself! whoever holds out a hand is given something! others try for some easy work, they do broker-business, or pick up things in the streets and earn an honest crust. the almighty is faithful! the orphans are given free meals by the householders and study in the talmud torah. the orphan girls become maid-servants, cooks, or find a living elsewhere. widows, divorced women, and grass-widows (there have been a lot of grass-widows lately[ ]) sit over charcoal braziers, and when the fumes go to their head, they dream that rolls hang on the trees ready baked. others live _quite_ decently!" "on what?" "on what? what do other people live on? a poor man hopes; a trader swallows air, and the one who digs--graves, i mean--is never out of employment--" is he joking, the dried-up, little, old jew, the bag-of-bones with the odd gleam in his deeply sunken eyes? on his bony face, covered with a skin like yellow parchment, not the trace of a smile! only his voice has something odd about it. "what sort of a town _is_ it, anyway?" i ask again. "what do you mean? it's a town like any other! there's a shool, and they say that once there were all sorts of animals painted on the walls, beasts and birds--out of perek shirah[ ]--and on the ceiling all sorts of musical instruments, such as were played upon by king david, on whom be peace. i never saw it so, but the old men tell of it." "and nowadays?" "nowadays? dust and spider-webs. there's only a wooden chain, carved out of one piece, that hangs from the beam, and falls very prettily to one side of the ark to the right of the curtain, which was itself the gift of pious women. nobody remembers who made the chain, but it was an artist, there's no doubt! such a chain! "in the shool," he continued, "you see only the common people, artisans, except tailors, who form a congregation apart, and butchers and drivers, who have hired a place of their own to pray in. the shool can hardly read hebrew! the well-to-do householders--sons of the law--assemble in the house-of-study, a large one with piles of books! the chassidîm, again, pray in rooms apart!" "and are there dissensions?" "many men, many minds! in the grave, on the other hand, there is peace; one burial ground for all; and the men's bath--the women's bath--are there for all alike." "what else have you in your town?" "what more would you have? there was a refuge for wayfarers, and it was given up; wayfarers can sleep in the house-of-study--at night it's empty--and we have a hekdesh." "a hospital, you mean?" "not a hospital at all, just a hekdesh, two rooms. at one time they were occupied by the bather, then it was arranged that the bather should content himself with one room, and that the other should be used for the hekdesh; there are not more than three sick women in it altogether: one poor thing, an old woman with paralyzed legs, who lies all of a heap; a second with all her limbs paralyzed, and beside these, a crazy grass-widow. three corners are taken up with beds, in the fourth stands a chimney-stove; in the middle there is a dead-house, in case of need!" "you are laughing at me, friend," i break in, "that is tziachnovke! tziachnovke itself with its commerce and charities and good works! why do you call it the dead town?" "because it is a dead town! i am speaking of a town which, from the day it was built, hung by a hair, and now the hair has snapt, it hangs in the air. it hangs by nothing at all. and because it hangs by nothing and floats in mid-air, it is a dead town; if you like, i will tell you about it." "by all means--most interesting!" meanwhile night is falling, one half of the sky grows blood-red and fiery, over there is the sunset. on our other hand, the moon is swimming into view out of a light mist, like the face of a bride peeping out of her white veil. the pale beams, as they spread over the earth, mix with the quivering shadows of the sad, still night. uncanny!-- we drive into a wood. the moon-rays steal in after us between the trembling leaves. on the ground, among the fallen leaves and twigs, there dance little circles of light, like silver coins. there is something magical in the illumination, in the low breathing of the wood. i glance at the wayfaring jew, his appearance has changed. it is melancholy and serious, and his expression is so simple and honest. can it all be true? _ha!_ i will listen to what he has to say. "the town hung by a hair from the first," said the narrator, "because it was started in a part where no jewish town was allowed to be! it was not till the first minyan was complete that people held a meeting and decided to reckon themselves as belonging to a town in the neighborhood. on this pretense they built a bath, a shool, and after that, a men's bath, and bought a piece of land for a burial ground. "and when all that was finished, they sent people of backstair influence to have it all endorsed." "head downward?" "isn't that always the way with us? how should it be otherwise?" "i don't know!" "however, that's how it was! and the thing was not so underhand as you suppose. "there was a jew who was very rich, and this rich jew, as is usually the case, was a little, not to say very much, in with the authorities, and everything was in his name; it was _his_ shool, _his_ bath, _his_ women's bath--even to _his_ burial ground--and nothing was said; as i tell you, he was a person of influence! "and when the paper came from high quarters, he was to transcribe it in the name of the community and stop paying sop-money to the local police." "and then the rich man said: 'to my account'?" "no, my dear sir, such rich people didn't exist in those days. 'to my account' was a thing unknown; but hear what happened, what things may come to pass! "it was not the gevir, but the envoy who caused the trouble. he made off, half-way, with the money and the papers, and left the freshly-baked community like a grass-widow with a family." "did they send another?" "not so soon as all that! before it was known that the first had absconded, or anything about it, the gevir died and left, among other things, an heir who was a minor; he couldn't sign a paper till he was twenty-one!" "so they hurried up?" "of course, as soon as he was twenty-one, they meant to send another envoy, and perhaps two." "and meanwhile it was entered in the communal records?" "that's where it is! the records remembered and the people forgot! some say the record was burnt, that the trustee took the record, said havdoleh over it, set fire to a little brandy, and--good-bye! "the community, meanwhile, was growing; jews, praise god, soon multiply. and they come in from other places; one person brings in a son-in-law, another a daughter-in-law, in a word, it grew. and the gevir's heirs disappeared as though on purpose! the widow married again and left, one son after another went to seek his fortune elsewhere, to take a look 'round. the youngest remained. kohol appointed him a guardian and married him, and gave him an experienced partner." "who led him about by the nose?" "according to the law of moses and of israel! "he had trouble with the partner and more still with the wife; and he signed a forged check and took himself off, bankrupt; townspeople and strangers collected and made a great noise, the case was heard in court, down came an inspector, no money to be seen anywhere, the wife hid the furniture, the inspector took possession of the shool and the burial ground! "the little town was thunderstruck, it was a bolt from the blue with a vengeance! because, you see, the whole thing had been kept dark to the last minute! "and all of a sudden, the community was seen hanging, as it were, by a hair! "what was to be done? they drove to lawyers. what could they advise in a case like that? the best thing would be to have an auction, the inspector would sell the things and the community buy them at any cost. the community was no community? the papers had been lost by the way? they must find another gevir, and buy in his name! the great thing was not to wait till the gevir should die or go away! "the advice seemed good, kohol was quite used to loss of money; but there was not only _one_ gevir, there were several! and heaps willing to act as diplomatic envoys. whose name should they use? who should be taken for an envoy? all were willing and might be offended. so they held a meeting and talked it over. and they talked it over till the talk became a dispute, and when _we_ have a dispute, it isn't settled in a hurry. now and again it looks like peace, the flame of discord burns low, comes a peacemaker and pours oil on it, and it blazes up again and--blazes on!" the jew wiped his pale forehead and continued: "meanwhile something happened, something not to be believed! "only," he added with a smile, "it is night and the creature who walks the sky at night (he points at the moon) is called 'truth,' and at night, specially in such a quiet one, everything is credible." "well, yes"--i allow unwillingly. "the story is a dreadful one. "the inspector put his foot on the 'holy ground,' the corpses heard and must have grown angry--the tombstones move--the corpses rise up from beneath them--you believe me?" "i am no heretic," i replied, "heaven forbid! and i believe in the immortality of the soul, only--" "only, friend, only?" "i always thought, that only the soul remained--the soul that flies into heaven; but the body that goes into the grave, the image that decays--anyhow, it cannot move without the soul--cannot rise again." "well said!" he praises me. "may i ever hear the like! "i am glad," he said, "that you are book-learned; but, my friend, you have forgotten the world of illusion! you say the soul goes to heaven, into the sky--very well--but to which part? one goes into paradise, the other into gehenna. paradise is for the souls of the righteous, gehenna for the souls of the wicked. the one, for his good deeds, receives a share of leviathan, of behemoth, wine of the ages,--the other, for his sins, boiling pitch; but that only means reward and punishment, and why reward and punishment? because so long as a man lives, he has a free choice. if he wishes to do what is good, he does it, if to do evil, he does evil, and as he makes his bed, _ha?_ so he lies. "but what is the sentence passed when a man was no man, when his life was no life, and he did nothing, neither good nor evil, because he could not do anything? he had no choice, and he slept away his life and lived in a dream. what is such a soul entitled to? gehenna? what for? it never so much as killed a fly. paradise? for what? it never dipped a hand in cold water to gain it." "what _does_ become of such a soul?" "nothing! it goes on living in a world of illusion, it does not detach itself from the body; but just as it dreamt before that it lived _on_ the earth, so it dreams now that it lives _in_ the earth! "no one in our town ever really died, because no one ever really lived! no one did either good or evil, there were no sinners and no righteous--only sleepy-heads and souls in a world of illusion. when such a sleepy-head is laid in the grave, it remains a sleepy-head--only in another lodging--that's all. "and so dying with us was a perfect comedy! because if a feather was put under the nose of a _live_ man, would he stir to brush it away? not he! and the same with a fly. they left off troubling about parnosseh--they simply left off troubling about anything at all! "so it went on.... there are many towns like it, and when it happens, as it has happened with us, that a corpse creeps out of its grave, it doesn't begin to remember that it has made its last confession of sins and drawn its last breath. no sooner have the potsherds fallen from its eyes than it goes straight to the house-of-study, to the bath, or else home to supper--it remembers nothing about having died!" i do not know if it is the moon's fault, or whether i am not quite myself, but i hear, believe, and even ask: "did all the corpses rise? all?" "who can tell? do they keep a register? there may have been a few heretics who thought it was the final resurrection and lay low; but there rose a whole community; they rose and fled before the inspector into the nearest wood!" "why into a wood?" "they couldn't go into the town, because it was daylight, and it is not the thing to appear in winding-sheets by daylight--they might have frightened the young mothers." "true. and the inspector?" "you ask about a gentile? he saw nothing. perhaps he was tipsy--nothing--he did his work, made his inventory." "and sold the things?" "nothing, there was as yet no one to buy." "and the corpses?" "ah--the corpses!" * * * * * he rests for a moment and then goes on: "hardly had night fallen, when the corpses came back into the town; each one went to his home, stole in at the door, the window, or down the chimney--went hastily to the wardrobe, took out some clothes, dressed himself, yawned, and lay down somewhere to sleep. "next morning there was a whole townfull of corpses." "and the living said nothing?" "they never remarked; they were taken up with the dispute; their heads were full of it, they were all at sixes and sevens! and really, when you come to think of it, how much difference is there between a dead-alive person and a walking corpse in winding-sheets? when a son saw his father, he spat out three times, indignant with himself: 'to think of the dream i had--i dreamt i said kaddish for my father and inherited him! may such dreams plague my enemies.' "a widow saw her husband, and gave him a hearty slap. he had deceived her, the wretch! made game of her! and she, foolish woman that she was, had made him new winding-sheets!" "and supposing she had married again?" "how should she have? in the course of the dispute some one set fire to the shool and to the house-of-study and to the wedding canopy; everything, you may say, was burnt. they accused pretty well everybody in turn--" "and after that?" "nothing; the corpses had come to life and the living began to die out, for want of room, for want of air--but specially of hunger--" "was there a famine?" "no more than anywhere else! but there _was_ one for all that. the corpses took their place at the prayer-meetings and at the table at home as well. people didn't know why, but there were suddenly not enough spoons. all ate out of one dish, and there were not enough spoons. every house-mistress knows that she has as many spoons as there are people in the house, so she thinks there has been a robbery! the pious say: witchcraft! but as they came to see the spoons were missing everywhere, and there was not food to go round, then they said: a famine! and they hungered, and they are hungering still." * * * * * "and in a short time the corpses outnumbered the living; now they are the community and the leaders of the community! they do not beget children and increase naturally--not that, but when anyone dies, they steal him away off his bed, out of the grave--and there is a fresh corpse going about the town. "and what is lacking to them? they have no cares, no fear of death--they eat for the purpose of saying grace--they don't want the food, they have no craving for it--let alone drink and lodging; a hundred corpses can sleep in one room--they don't require air! "and they have no worries, because whence do worries spring? from knowing! 'the more knowledge, the more sorrow, but the dead man does not trouble.' it's not his affair! he doesn't wish to know and he _needn't_ know--he wanders in a world of illusion. "he keeps away from living concerns; he has no questions, no anxieties, no heart-ache, no one is conscious of his liver! "who do you think is our rabbi? once it was a live man and a man of action; now he, too, is a corpse; he wanders in a world of illusion, and goes on giving decisions by rote as in a dream. "who are his assistants? people like him--half-decayed corpses. "and they solve ritual questions for the living and the dead, they know everything and do everything; they say blessings, unite in wedlock. who is it stands at the platform? a corpse! he has the face of a corpse, the voice of a corpse; if it happen that a cock crows suddenly, he runs away. "and the gevirîm, the almsgivers, the agitators, the providers, the whole lot--what are they? dead men, long dead and long buried!" * * * * * "and you, friend? what are you?" "i? i am half-dead," answers the jew. he jumps down from the conveyance and disappears among the trees. xiii the days of the messiah as in all the jewish towns in galicia, big and little, so in the one where my parents lived, there was a lunatic. and as in most cases, so in this one, the lunatic was afraid of nobody, neither of kohol, nor of the rabbi or his assistants, not even of the bather or the grave-digger, who are treated with respect by the richest men. on the other hand, the whole of the little town, kohol with all the jewish authorities and the bather and the grave-digger, trembled before the lunatic, closed door and window at his approach. and although the poor lunatic had never said an abusive word, never touched any one with his little finger, everybody called him names, many people hit him, and the street boys threw mud and stones at him. i always felt sorry for the lunatic. he attracted me, somehow, i wanted to talk to him, to console him, to give him a friendly pat; but it was impossible to approach him; i should have received part of the stones and mud with which he was bombarded by the others. i was quite a little boy, and i wore a nice suit from lemberg or cracow, and i wished to preserve my shoulders from stones and my suit from mud; so i remained at a distance. the little town in which my parents lived and where i spent my childhood, dressed in clothes made by the tailors of lemberg and cracow, was a fortress, surrounded by moats, water, earthworks, and high walls. on the walls were batteries, and these were protected by soldiers with muskets, who marched up and down, serious and silent. hardly had darkness fallen, when the iron drawbridge was raised from over the moat, all the gates were closed, and the little town was cut off from the rest of the world till early next morning. at every gate stood a watchman, fully armed. a short while ago, in the day-time, we were all free, we could go in and out without applying for leave to the major in command; one might bathe in the river outside the town, and even lie stretched out on the green bank and gaze into the sky or out into the wide world, as one chose. no one made any objection, and even if one did not return, no questions were asked. but at night all was to be quiet in the town, no one was to go out or to come in. "lucky," i used to think to myself, "that they let in the moon." and as long as i may live, i shall never forget the twilights there, the fall of night. as the shades deepened, a shudder went through the whole town, men and houses seemed suddenly to grow smaller and cower together. the bridge was raised, the iron chains grated against the huge blocks; and the rasp of the iron, the harsh, broken sounds, went through one's very bones. then gate on gate fell to. every evening it was the same thing, and yet every evening people's limbs trembled, a dull apathy overspread their faces, and their eyes were as the eyes of the dead. eye-lids fell heavy as lead; the heart seemed to stop beating, one scarcely breathed. then a patrol would march down the streets, with a clatter of trailing swords and great water-boots; the bayonets glistened, and the patrol shouted: "_wer da?_" to which one had to reply: "a citizen, an inhabitant," otherwise there was no saying what might not happen. many preferred to remain behind lock and key--they were afraid of being seen in the street. * * * * * one day i had the following adventure: i had been bathing in the river, and either i lost myself in thought, or in staring about, or i simply forgot that after day comes night. suddenly i see them raise the bridge; there is a grating in the ears, the gates swing to, and my heart goes by leaps and bounds. no help for it! i must pass the night outside the walls--and strange to say, night after night, as i lay in my warm bed at home, i had dreamt of the free world outside the fortress; and now that my dreams had come true, i was frightened. there ensued the usual dispute between head and heart. the head cried: steady! now, for once, you may enjoy the free air and the starry sky to the full! and the heart, all the while, struggled and fluttered like a caged bird. then from heart to head rose as it were a vapor, a mist, and the clear reasoning became obscured, and was swallowed up in the cloud. there was a rushing noise in my ears, a flickering before my eyes. every sound, however light, every motion of a twig or a blade of grass made me shudder, and threw me on to the ground with fright. i hid my face in the sand. whether or not i slept, and how long i lay there, i cannot tell! but i suddenly heard someone breathing close to me; i spring up and--i am not alone! two well-known, deep, black eyes are gazing at me in all candor and gentleness. it is the lunatic. "what are you doing here?" i ask in smothered tones. "i never sleep in the town!" he answers sadly, and his glance is so gentle, the voice so brotherly, that i recover myself completely and lose all fear. "once upon a time," i reflected, "lunatics were believed to be prophets--it is still so in the east--and i wonder, perhaps he is one, too! is he not persecuted like a prophet? don't they throw stones at him as at a prophet? don't his eyes shine like stars? doesn't his voice sound like the sweetest harp? does he not bear the sorrows of all, and suffer for a whole generation? perhaps he also knows what shall be hereafter!" i have a try and begin to question him, and he answers so softly and sweetly, that i think sometimes it is all a dream, the dream of a summer's night outside the fortress. "do you believe in the days of the messiah?" i ask him. "of course!" he answers gently and confidently, "he _must_ come!" "he must?!" "o, surely! all wait for him, even the heavens and the earth wait! if it were not so, no one would care to live, to dip a hand in cold water--and if people live as they do and show they _want_ to live, it is a sign they all feel that messiah is coming, that he must come, that he is already on the way." "is it true," i question further, "that first there will be dreadful wars, and false messiahs, on account of whom people will tear one another like wild beasts, till the earth be soaked with blood? is it true that rivers of blood will flow from east to west and from north to south, and all the animals and beasts drink human blood, all the fields and gardens and wild places and roads be swamped with human blood, and that in the middle of this bloody time the _true_ messiah will come--the _right_ one? is that true?" "true!" "and people will know him?" "everyone will know him. nobody will be mistaken. he will be messiah in every look, in every word, in every limb, in every glance. he will have no armies with him, he will ride on no horse, and there will be no sword at his side--" "then, what?" "he will have wings--messiah will have wings, and then everyone will have wings. it will be like this: suddenly there will be born a child with wings, and then a second, a third, and so it will go on. at first people will be frightened, by degrees they will get used to it, until there has arisen a whole generation with wings, a generation that will no longer struggle in the mud over a parnosseh-worm." he talked on like this for some time, but i had already ceased to understand him. only his voice was so sadly-sweet that i sucked it up like a sponge. the day was breaking when he ceased--they had opened the gates and were letting down the bridge. since the night spent outside the fortress, the life within it had grown more unbearable still. the old walls, the rasping iron drawbridge, the iron doors, the sentinels and patrols, the hoarsely-angry "_wer da?_" the falsely-servile: "a citizen, an inhabitant!" the eternal quivering of the putty-colored faces, the startled, half-extinguished eyes, the market with its cowering, aimlessly restless shadows of men--the whole thing weighed on me like lead--not to be able to breathe, not to feel free! and my heart grew sick with a great longing. and i resolved to go to meet the messiah. * * * * * i got into the first conveyance that presented itself. the driver turned round and asked: "where to?" "wherever you please," i answered, "only a great way--a great way off from here!" "for how long?" "for as long as the horse can go!" the driver gathered up the reins, and we set off. we drove on and on. other fields, other woods, other villages, other towns, everything different; but the difference was only on the surface, below that everything was the same. when i looked into things, i saw everywhere the same melancholy, every face wore a look of frightened cunning, speech was everywhere broken and halting--the world seemed overspread with a mournful mist that hid every gleam of light and extinguished every joy. everything shrank together and stifled. and i kept shouting: "go on!" but i depended on the driver, and the driver, on the horse--the horse wants to eat, and we are obliged to stop. i step into the inn. a large room, divided into two by means of an old curtain, reaching from one wall to the other. on my side of the curtain, three men sit round a large table. they do not remark me, and i have time to look them over. they represent three generations. the oldest is gray as a pigeon, but he sits erect and gazes with sharp eyes and without spectacles into a large book, lying before him on the table. the old face is grave, the old eyes unerring in their glance, and the old man and the book are blent into one by the white beard, whose silver points rest on the pages. at his right hand sits a younger man, who must be his son; it is the same face, only younger, less unmoved, more nervous, at times more drawn and weary. he also gazes into a book, but through glasses. the book is smaller, and he holds it nearer to his eyes, resting it against the edge of the table. he is of middle age; beard and ear-locks just silvered over. he rocks himself to and fro. it seems every time as if his body wished to tear itself away from the book, only the book draws it back. he rocks himself, and the lips move inaudibly. every now and then he glances at the old man, who does not notice it. to the old man's left sits the youngest, probably a grandson, a young man with glossy black hair and a burning, restless glance. he also is looking at a book, but the book is quite small, and he holds it close to his bright, unquiet eyes. he continually lowers it, however, and throws a glance of mingled fear and respect at the old man, another, with a half-ironic smile, at his father, and then leans over to hear what is going on, on the further side of the curtain. and from the further side of the curtain come moans as of a woman in child-birth-- i am about to cough, so that they may be aware of me. at this moment a fold of the curtain is pushed aside and there appear two women: an old one with a sharp, bony face and sharp eyes, and one of middle age with a gentle, rather flabby face and uncertain glance. they stand looking at the men, and waiting to be questioned. the oldest does not see them--his soul has melted into the soul of the book. the middle-aged man has seen them, and is wondering how best to rouse his father; the youngest starts up-- "mother! grandmother! well?" the father rises anxiously from his chair; the grandfather only pushes the book a little away from him, and lifts his eyes to the women. "how is she?" inquires the young one further, with a trembling voice. "she is over it!" "over it! over it!" stammers the young one. "mother, won't you say, good luck to you?" asks the second. the old one reflects a moment and then asks: "what has happened? even if it is a girl--" "no!"--the grandmother speaks for the first time--"it is a boy." "still-born?" "no, it lives!" answers the old woman, and yet there is no joy in her tone. "a cripple? defective?" "it has marks! on both shoulders--" "what sort of marks?" "of wings--" "of wings?" "yes, of wings, and they are growing--" the old man remains sitting in perplexity, the second is lost in wonder, the youngest fairly leaps for joy. "good, good! let them grow, may they grow into wings, big, strong ones! good, good!" "what is there to be glad about?" inquires his father. "a dreadful deformity!" sighs the old man. "why so?" asks the grandson. "wings," said the old man, sternly, "raise one into the height--when one has wings one cannot keep to the earth." "much it matters!" retorts the grandson, defiantly. "one is quit of living here and wallowing in the mud, one lives in the height. is heaven not better than earth?" the old man grows pale, and the son takes up the word: "foolish child! what is one to live on in the height? air doesn't go far. there are no inns to hire up there, no 'contracts' to sign. there's no one of whom to buy a bit of shoe-leather--in the height--" the old man interrupts him: "in the height," he says in hard tones, "there is no shool, no house-of-study, no kläus to pray and read in; in the height, there is no pathway, trodden out by past generations--in the height, one wanders and gets lost, because one does not know the road. one is a free bird, but woe to the free bird in the hour of doubt and despondency!" "what do you mean?" and the young man starts up with burning cheeks and eyes. but the grandmother is beforehand with him: "what fools men are," she exclaims, "how they talk! and the rabbi? do you suppose the rabbi is going to let him be circumcised? is he likely to allow a blessing to be spoken over a child with wings?" * * * * * i give a start. the night spent outside the town, the drive, and the child with wings were all a dream. xiv kabbalists when times are bad, even torah, "the best ware,"[ ] loses in value. in the lashewitz "academy," there remain only the head, reb yainkil, and one pupil. the head of the academy is on old, thin jew, with a long, pointed beard and old, extinguished eyes; lemech, his beloved pupil, is a young man, likewise thin, tall, and pale, with black, curling ear-locks, dark, glowing eyes, heavily-ringed, dry lips, and sharp, quivering throat; both with garments open at the breast, with _no_ shirts, and both in rags; the teacher just drags about a pair of peasant boots; the pupil's shoes drop from his sockless feet. that is all that remains of the celebrated academy! the impoverished little town sent less and less food, gave fewer and fewer free meals to the poor students, and these crept away elsewhere! but reb yainkil intends to die here, and his pupil remains to close his eyelids! and these two are often hungry. eating little means sleeping little, and whole nights without sleep or food incline one to the kabbalah! if one has to wake whole nights and hunger whole days, one may as well get something by it, if only fasting and flagellations, so long as these open the door to the world of mystery, of spirits, and of angels! and they have been studying the kabbalah for some time! now they are sitting at the one long table. with everyone else it is "after dinner," with them still "before breakfast." they are used to that. the teacher rolls his eyes and holds forth; the pupil sits with both hands supporting his head and listens. "therein," said the teacher, "are many degrees of attainment: one knows a bit of a tune, another half a one, another a whole. the rebbe of blessed memory knew a whole one with the accompaniment. i," he added sadly, "have only been found worthy of a bit like that!" he measured off a tiny piece of his bony finger and went on: "there is one kind of tune that must have words, that is a low order of tune. but there is a higher kind: a tune that sings itself, but without words--a pure melody! but _that_ melody must have a voice--and lips, through which the voice issues! and lips, you see, are material things! "and the voice itself is refined matter, certainly, but matter none the less. let us say, the voice stands mid-way between the spiritual and the material. "however that may be, the tune that finds expression through a voice and is dependent on lips is not pure, not entirely pure, not yet really spiritual! "the real tune sings itself without a voice--it sings itself inside one, in the heart, in the thoughts! "there you have the meaning of the words of king david: 'all my bones shall say,' etc. it ought to sing in the marrow of the bones, that is where the tune should be--that is the highest praise we can give to god. that is no human tone that has been _thought out_! it is a fragment of the melody to which god created the world, of the soul he breathed into it. thus sings the heavenly family, thus sang the rebbe, whose memory be blessed!" the teacher was interrupted by a shock-headed lad with a cord round his waist--a porter. he came into the house-of-study, put down on the table, beside the teacher, a dish of porridge with a piece of bread, said gruffly: "reb tebil sends the teacher some food," turned his back, and added, as he went out: "i'll come back presently for the dish." recalled by the rough tone from the divine harmonies, the teacher rose heavily, and went to the basin to wash, dragging his great boots. he continued to speak as he went, but with less assurance, and the pupil followed him with greedy ears and glowing, dreaming eyes. "but i," repeated reb yainkil, sadly, "was not even worthy of understanding to what category it belongs, of knowing under what heading it is classified. however," he added with a smile, "the initiatory mortifications and purifications, those i _do_ know, and perhaps i will teach them you to-day." the pupil's eyes seem about to start from their sockets with eagerness; he keeps his mouth open so as to catch every word. but the teacher is silent, he is washing his hands; he repeats the ritual formula, comes back to the table and says "thou who bringest forth,"[ ] with trembling lips. he lifts the dish with shaking fingers, and the warm steam rises into his face; then he puts it down, takes the spoon in his right hand, and warms the left at the dish's edge; after which he masticates the rest of the bread with some salt between his tongue and his toothless gums. having warmed his face with his hands, he wrinkles his forehead, purses his thin lips, and begins to blow the porridge. the pupil has not taken his eyes off him the whole time, and when the teacher's trembling mouth met the spoonful of porridge, something came over him, and he covered his face with both hands and withdrew within himself. a few minutes later another boy came in with a bowl of porridge and some bread: "reb yòsef sends the pupil some breakfast!" but the pupil did not remove his hands from his face. the teacher laid down his spoon and went up to the pupil. for a while he gazed at him with affectionate pride, then he wrapped his hand in the skirt of his kaftan, and touched him on the shoulder: "they have brought you something to eat," he said gently, by way of rousing him. slowly and sadly the pupil uncovered his face. it was paler than ever, and the black-ringed eyes had grown wilder. "i know, rebbe," he answered, "but i will not eat anything to-day." "the fourth fast?" asked the teacher, wondering, "and without me?" he added, with a playful pretense at being hurt. "it is another kind of fast," answered the pupil, "it is a penance." "what do you mean? _you_ and a penance?" "yes, rebbe! a penance. a minute ago, when you began to eat, i was tempted to break the commandment: 'thou shalt not covet!'" * * * * * late that night the pupil woke the teacher. they slept on the benches in the kläus, opposite to one another. "rebbe, rebbe!" he called in a weak voice. "what is it?" and the teacher started up in alarm. "just now i attained to a higher degree!" "how so?" inquired the teacher, still half asleep. "it sang within me!" the teacher sat up: "how so? how so?" "i don't know myself, rebbe," replied the pupil in his feeble tones, "i couldn't sleep, and i thought over what you told me. i wanted to get to know the tune--and i was so sorrowful, because i could not, that i began to weep--everything in me wept; all my limbs wept before the creator. "then i made the invocations you taught me--and, wonderful to say, not with my lips, but somehow inside me--with my whole self. suddenly it grew light; i shut my eyes, and still it was light to me, very light, brilliantly light." "there!" and the teacher sat bending toward him. "and i had such pleasant feelings as i lay in the light, and i seemed to weigh nothing at all, no more than if my body had been a feather, i felt as if i could fly." "you see, you see, you see!" "then i felt merry and lively, i wanted to laugh--my face never moved, nor my lips either, and yet i laughed--and so heartily." "you see, you see, you see!" "then there was a humming inside me like the beginning of a melody." the teacher sprang down from his bench, and was across the room. "well, well?" "then i heard something begin to sing within me." "what did you feel like? tell me quick!" "i felt as though all the doors of sense in me were shut, and as though something sang within me--as it ought to do--without any words, like ... like...." "how was it? how was it?" "no, i can't! i knew, before--and then the singing turned into--into--" "into what? what became of it?" "a kind of playing--as though (lehavdîl) there were a fiddle inside me--or as if yoneh, the musician, were sitting there and playing hymns, as he does at the rebbe's dinner-table. only it was better, more beautiful, more spiritual. and without a voice, without any voice at all--it was _all_ spiritual." "happy, happy, happy, are you!" "now it's all gone (sadly), the doors of sense are reopened, and i am so tired, i am so--so--_tired_, that i-- "rebbe!" he called out suddenly, clapping a hand to his heart, "rebbe, say the confession of sins with me! they have come for me! they have come for me! there is a singer wanted in the heavenly family! an angel with white wings! rebbe, rebbe! hear, o israel! hear, o is--" * * * * * the entire little town wished as one man that it might die as blessed a death; but the rebbe was not satisfied. "another fast or two," he groaned, "and he would have died beneath the divine kiss!"[ ] xv travel-pictures preface it was at the end of the good, and the beginning of the bad, years. black clouds had appeared in the sky, but it was believed that the wind[ ]--the spirit of the times, i mean--would soon disperse them, that they would pour out their heart somewhere in the wilderness. in europe's carefully-tended vineyard the bitter root was already cleaving the sod and sending out prickly, poisonous shoots, but look, look! now the gardener will see it and tear it out root and all. that was the idea. it was supposed that the nineteenth century had caught a cold, a feverish chill, in its old age. that it would end in a serious illness, a fit of insanity, never occurred to anyone. how far away america was for us in those days! not a jew troubled himself as to what a plate of porridge looked like over there, or wondered whether people wore their skull-caps on their feet. palestinian esrogîm were as seldom mentioned as barons hirsch and edward de rothschild.[ ] astronomy calculates beforehand every eclipse of the sun or moon. psychology is not so advanced. the world-soul grows suddenly dark, the body is seized with a sort of convulsion, and science cannot foretell the hour--the thing is difficult enough to believe in after it has happened--it is not to be explained. and yet people were uneasy--rumor followed rumor from every side. it was resolved, among other things, to inquire into the common, workaday jewish life, to find out what went on in the little towns, what men were hoping for, how they made a living, what they were about, what the people said. trust my first halting-place was tishewitz. i took lodgings with an acquaintance, reb bòruch. he sent for the beadle and a few householders. while i was waiting for them, i stood by the window and looked at the market-place. the market-place is a large square bounded on each side by a row of grimy, tumbledown houses, some roofed with straw, but the majority, with shingle. all are one-storied with a broad veranda supported by rotten beams. pushing out from the veranda and not far apart, one from the other, stand the huckstresses over the stalls with rolls, bread, peas, beans, and various kinds of fruit. the market-women are in a state of great commotion. i must have impressed them very much. "bad luck to you!" screams one, "don't point at him with your finger; he can see!" "hold your tongue!" the women know that i have come to take notes in writing. they confide the secret one to another so softly that i overhear every word, even inside the house. "they say it is he himself!" "it is a good thing the poor sheep have shepherds who are mindful of them. all the same, if _that_ shepherd[ ] did not help, much good it would be!" "one cannot understand why _that_ shepherd should require such messengers" (in allusion to my shaven beard and short-skirted coat). another is more liberal in her views, and helps herself out of the difficulty by means of the röfeh. "take a röfeh," she says, "he is likewise a heretic, and yet he also is permitted--" "that is another thing altogether, he is a private individual, but is it so hard to find good jews for public affairs?" "they'd better," opines another, "have sent a few hundred rubles. they might let the writing be and welcome, even though my son were _not_ made a general!"[ ] sitting at the table, i saw without being seen. i was hidden from the street, but i could see half the market-place. meantime, mine host had finished his prayers, put off tallis and tefillin, poured out a little brandy, and drunk my health in it. "long life and peace to you!" he said. i answer, "god send better times and parnosseh!" i envy my host--parnosseh is all he wants. he adds impressively: "and there will _have_ to be parnosseh! is there not a god in the world? and the 'good jews' will pray and do what they can." i interrupt him and ask why, although he has confidence in his own business, although he knows quite well "he who gives life gives food"--why he exerts himself so, and lies awake whole nights thinking: to-morrow, later, this time next year. hardly has a jew put on his wedding garments, when he begins to think how to buy others for his children--and then, when it comes to all-israel, his trust is so great that it does not seem worth while to dip one's hand in cold water for it--why is this? "that," he says, "is something quite different. all-israel is another thing. all-israel is god's affair--god is mindful of it, and then, in case there should be forgetfulness before the throne of his glory, there are those who will remind him. but as for private affairs, that's a different matter. besides, how much longer can the misery of israel last? it _must_ come to an end some time, either because the measure of guilt is full, or the measure of merit is full. but parnosseh is quite another thing!" only go! i forgot to tell you that the rabbi of the little town would neither come to see me nor allow me to visit him. he sent to tell me that it was not his business, that he was a poor, weakly creature, besides which he had been sitting now for several weeks over a knotty question of "meat in milk," and then, the principal thing, he was at loggerheads with kohol, because they would not increase his salary by two gulden a week. there came, however, three householders and two beadles. i began with mine host. he has no wife, and before i could put in a word, he excused himself for it by asking, "how long do you suppose she has been dead?" lest i should reproach him for not having found another to fill her place. well, to be brief, i set him down a widower, three sons married, one daughter married, two little boys and one little girl at home. and here he begs me at once to put down that all the sons--except the youngest, who is only four years old "and messiah will come before _he_ is liable to serve"--that all the others are defective[ ] in one way or other. with the exception of the two eldest sons, i already know the whole family. the married daughter lives in her father's house and deals in tobacco, snuff, tea, and sugar; also, in foodstuffs; also, i think, in rock-oil and grease. i had bought some sugar of her early that morning. she is about twenty-eight years old. a thin face, a long hooked nose that seems to be trying to count the black and decaying teeth in her half-opened mouth, cracked, blue-gray lips--her father's image. her sister, a young girl, is like her; but she has "kallah-chen,"[ ] her face is fresher and pinker, the teeth whiter, and altogether she is not so worn and neglected-looking. i also see the two little boys--pretty little boys--they must take after their mother: red cheeks, and shy, restless eyes; their twisted black curls are full of feathers; but they have ugly ways: they are always shrugging their little shoulders and writhing peevishly. they wear stuff cloaks, dirty, but whole. the mother cannot have died more than a short time ago, long enough for the cloaks to get dirty, not long enough for them to be torn. who is there to look after them now? the eldest sister has four children, a husband who is a scholar, and the shop--the little kallah maiden serves her father's customers at the bar; the father himself has no time. "what is your business?" i ask him. "percentage." "do you mean usury?" "well, call it usury, if you like. it doesn't amount to anything either way. do you know what?" he exclaims, "take all my rubbish and welcome, bills of exchange, deeds--everything for twenty-five per cent, only pay me in cash. i will give up the usury, even the public house! would to god i could get away to palestine--but give me the cash! take the whole concern and welcome! you imagine that we live on usury--it lives on us! people don't pay in, the debt increases. the more it increases, the less it's worth, and the poorer am i, upon my faith!" before going out to take further notes, i witness a little scene. while i was taking up all my things, paper, pencil, cigarettes, reb bòruch was buttering bread for the children to take with them to cheder. they had each two slices of bread and butter and a tiny onion as a relish. "now go!" he says; he does not want them in the public house. but the little orphan is not satisfied. he hunches his shoulders and pulls a wry face preparatory to crying. he feels a bit ashamed, however, to cry before me, and waits till i shall have gone; but he cannot tarry so long and gives vent to a wail: "another little onion," he wants. "mother always gave _me_ two!" the sister has come running into the tap-room, she has caught up another onion and gives it to him. "go!" says she also, but much more gently. the mother's voice sounded in her words. what should a jewess need? we go from house to house, from number to number. i can see for myself which houses are inhabited by jews and which by non-jews; i have only to look in the window. dingy windows are a sure sign of "thou hast chosen us," still more so broken panes replaced by cushions and sacking. on the other hand, flower-pots and curtains portray the presence of those who have no such right to poverty as the others. one meets with exceptions--here lives, _not_ a jew, but a drunkard--and here again--flowers and curtains, but they read _hazefirah_.[ ] the worst impression i receive is that made upon me by a great, weird, wooden house. it is larger, but blacker and dirtier than all the other houses. the frontage leans heavily over and looks down upon its likeness--also an old, blackened ruin--upon an old, dried up, bent and tottering jewess, who is haggling with her customer--a sallow, frowzy maid-servant--over an addition to a pound of salt. the beadle points the old woman out to me: "that is the mistress of the house." i was astonished: the jewess is too poor for such a house. "the house," explains the beadle, "is not exactly hers. she pays only one-sixth of the rent--she is a widow--but the heirs, her children, do not live here--so she is called the mistress." "how much does the house bring in?" "nothing at all." "and it's worth?" "about fifteen hundred rubles." "and nothing is made by it?" "it stands empty. who should live there?" "how do you mean, who?" "well, just who? nearly everybody here has his own house, and if any one hires a lodging, he doesn't want to have to heat a special room. the custom here is for a tenant to pay a few rubles a year for the heating of a corner. who wants such large rooms?" "why did they build such a house?" "_ba!_--once upon a time! it isn't wanted nowadays." "poor thing." "why 'poor thing?' she has a stall with salt, earns a few rubles a week. out of that she pays twenty-eight rubles a year house-tax and lives on the rest--what should a jewess need? what can she want more? she has her winding-sheet." i gave another look at the old woman, and really it seemed to me that she was not in need of anything. her wrinkled skin appeared to smile at me: what should a jewess need? no. i went from house to house in their order of number, with a note-book in my hand. but from no. the beadle led me to . "and ?" i ask. "there!" and he points to a ruin in a narrow space between and . "fallen in?" "pulled down," answers the beadle. "why?" "on account of a fire-wall." i did not understand what he meant. we were both tired with walking, and we sat down on a seat at the street side. the beadle explained: "you see--according to law, if one house is not built far enough away from another, the roofs must be separated by a fire-wall. what the distance has to be, i don't know; _their_ laws are incomprehensible; i should say, four ells or more. "a fire-wall is with them a charm against fire. well, this house was built by a very poor man, yeruchem ivànovker, a teacher, and he couldn't afford a fire-wall. "altogether, to tell the truth, he built without a foundation, and out of that, as you will hear presently, there came a lawsuit, at which his wife (peace be upon her) told the whole story, beginning after the custom of women-folk with the sixth day of creation. this is how it happened: "malkah had not spoken to her husband for about fifteen years. she was naturally a sour-tempered woman,--god forgive me for talking against the dead,--tall and thin, dark, with a pointed nose like a hook. she rarely said a word not relating to parnosseh--she was a huckstress--and nobody wanted her to do so. her look was enough to freeze you to the bone. all the other huckstresses trembled before her--there was an expression in her eye. so, you see, yeruchem was quite content that she should be silent--_he_ never said a word to _her_, either. "for all this silence, however, they were blessed with two boys and three girls. "but the desire to become householders made them conversational. the conversation was on this wise: "'malke!' (no answer.) "'malke!' (no answer.) "he malke's and she doesn't stir. "but yeruchem stands up and gives a shout: "'malke, i am going to build a house!' "malke could resist no longer, she raised an eye, and opened her mouth. "'i thought,' she said afterward, 'that he had gone mad.' "and it _was_ a madness. he had inherited the narrow strip of land you have seen from a great-grandfather, and not a farthing in money. the wife's trash, which was afterwards sold for fifty-four gulden, used to be in pawn the whole year round, except on sabbaths and holidays, when yeruchem took them out on tick. "when the desire calls the imagination to its help--who shall withstand? "no sooner has he a house, than all good things will follow. "people will place confidence in him, and he will borrow money to buy a goat, and there will be plenty in the home. he will let out one room as a drink-shop, and he, god helping, will keep it himself. above all, the children will be provided for. the little boys shall be sent one way or the other to a rabbinical college, the girls shall be given a deed as their dowry, promising them, after his death, half as much as the boys will get, and the thing's done. "'and how is the building to be paid for?' "he had an answer ready: "'i,' said he, 'am a teacher, and thou art a huckstress, so we have two parnossehs: let us live on one parnosseh, and build on the other.' "'was there ever such an idiot! we can't make both ends meet as it is!' "'god helps those who help themselves,' said he, 'here's a proof of it: the teacher, noah, our neighbor, has a sickly wife, who earns nothing, and six little children, and it seems they are well and strong--and he lives on nothing but his teaching,' "'there you are again! he is a great teacher, his pupils are the children of gentlefolk.' "'and why do you think it is so? what is the reason? can he "learn" better than i do? most certainly not. but god, blessed be his name, seeing that he has only one parnosseh, increases it to him. and then, another example: look at black brocheh! a widow with five children and nothing but a huckstress--' "'listen to him! _that_ one (would it might be said of me!) has a fortune in the business, at least thirty rubles--' "'that is not the thing,' he gives her to understand, 'the thing is that the blessing can only reach her through the apples. the creator governs the world by the laws of nature.' "and he manages also to persuade her that they can economize in many ways--one can get along-- "and so it was decided: yeruchem gave up taking snuff, and the entire household, sour milk in particular and supper in general--and they began to build. "they built for years, but when it came to the fire-wall, malkah had no wares, yeruchem had no strength left in him, the eldest son had gone begging through the country, the youngest had died, and there was a fortune wanting--forty rubles for a fire-wall. "well, what was to be done? a coin or two changed hands, and they moved into the new house without building a fire-wall." he took possession with rejoicing. he was a member of the burial society, and the community gave him a house-warming. they drank, without exaggeration, a whole barrel of beer, besides brandy and raisin-wine. it was a regular flare-up, a glorification. but the bliss was short-lived. a certain householder quarrelled with a neighbor of yeruchem, with noah the teacher. now noah the teacher had once been a distinguished householder, a very rich man. besides what he had inherited from his father, he disposed of a few tidy hundreds. he had carried on a business in honey. afterwards, when there was the quarrel relating to the lithuanian rabbi, they got his son taken for a soldier (he is serving in the regiment to this day, with a bad lung), and he himself got involved in a lawsuit for having burnt out the rabbi. well, it was a great crime. one is used to denouncing, but to heap sticks round a house on all sides and set fire to it, that's a wicked thing. whether or not he had anything to do with it, the lawsuit and the son together impoverished him completely, and he became a teacher. being so new to the work, he hadn't the knack of getting on with the parents, one of them took offense at something, removed his child, and sent him to yeruchem instead. noah was deeply wounded, but he was a man of high courage; he hung day and night about the office of the district commissioner, and used both his tongue and his pen. well, in due time, up came the matter of the fire-wall, and down came the senior inspector. noah meantime had been seized with remorse. he did all he could to prevent the affair from being carried on. a coin or two changed hands, and the affair was hushed up. all might yet have been well, but for a fresh dispute about "blue." yeruchem was a radziner,[ ] and wore blue "fringes,"[ ] and noah, a rabid belzer,[ ] called down vengeance. the dispute grew hotter, up crops the fire-wall, and the law was called in a second time. there was a judgment given in default, and the court decided that yeruchem should erect a fire-wall within a month's time, otherwise--the house was to be taken to pieces. there wasn't a dreier. this time noah had no remorse; on the contrary, the quarrel was at its height, and there was nothing to be done with him. yeruchem sent to call him before the rabbi, and he sent the beadle flying out of the house. when malkah saw that there was no redress to be had, she seized noah by the collar in the street, and dragged him to the rabbi like a murderer. there was a marketful of belzers about, but who is going to fight a woman? "he who is murdered by women," says the talmud, "has no judge and no avenger." noah's wife followed cursing, but was afraid to interfere. at the rabbi's, malkah told the whole story from beginning to end, and demanded either that noah should build the fire-wall, or else that the matter should be dropped again. our rabbi knew very well that whichever party he declared to be right, the chassidîm on the _other_ side would be at him forthwith, and he wormed himself out of the difficulty like the learned jew that he was. _he_ couldn't decide--it was a question of the impulse to do harm--_bê-mê_. there was no decision possible--the case must be laid before the rebbes.[ ] noah naturally preferred the belzer rebbe, yeruchem had no choice, and to belz they went. yeruchem, before he left, made his brother-in-law his representative, and trusted him with a few rubles which he had borrowed (people lent them out of pity). but it all turned out badly. the brother-in-law spent the money on himself, or (as he averred) lost it--malkah fell ill of worry. yeruchem, it is true, gained his fire-wall with "costs," before the rebbe, but he and noah were both caught on the frontier,[ ] and brought home with the _étape_.[ ] when yeruchem arrived, malkah was dead, and the little house pulled down. the maskil and don't imagine tishewitz to be the world's end. it has a maskil, too, and a real maskil, one of the old style, of middle age, uneducated and unread, without books, without even a newspaper, in a word a mere pretense at a maskil. he lets his beard grow. to be a maskil in tishewitz it is enough only to trim it, but they say "he attends to his hair during the ten days of penitence!" he is not dressed german fashion, and no more is the feldscher, also a jew in a long coat and ear-locks. our maskil stops at blacking his boots and wearing a black ribbon round his neck. he has only sorry remnants of ear-locks, but he wears a peaked cap. people simply say: "yeshurun waxed fat and kicked." he does well, runs a thriving trade, has, altogether, three children--what more can he want? being free of all care, he becomes a maskil. on the strength of what he is a maskil, it is hard to tell--enough that people should consider him one! the whole place knows it, and he confesses to it himself. he is chiefly celebrated for his "wörtlech," is prepared to criticise anything in heaven or on earth. as i heard later, the maskil took me for another maskil, and was sure that i should lodge with him, or, at any rate, that he would be my first entry. "for work of that kind," he said to the others, "you want people with brains. what do you suppose he could do with the like of _you_?" and as the mountain did not go to mohammed, because he had never heard of him, mohammed went to the mountain. he found me in the house of a widow. he came in with the question of the wicked child in the haggadah: "what business is this of yours?" "_mòi pànyiye!_[ ] what are you doing here?" "how here?" i ask. "very likely you think i come from under the stove? that because a person lives in tishewitz, he isn't civilized, and doesn't know what is doing in the world? you remember: "i have sojourned with laban?"[ ] i do live here, but when there's a rat about, i soon smell him." "if you can smell a rat, and know all that is going on, why do you want to ask questions?" the beadle pricked up his ears, and so did the half-dozen loungers who had followed me step by step. there was a fierce delight in their faces, and on their foreheads was written the verse: "let the young men arise"--let us see two maskilîm having it out between them! "what is the good of all this joking?" said the maskil, irritated. "my tongue is not a shoe-sole! and for whose benefit am i to speak? that of the tishewitz donkeys? look at the miserable creatures!" i feel a certain embarrassment. i cannot well take up the defense of tishewitz, because the tishewitz worthies in the window and the door-way are smiling quite pleasantly. "come, tell me, what does it all mean, taking notes?" "statistics!" "_statistic-shmistik!_ we've heard that before. what's the use of it?" i explained--not exactly to _him_, but to the community, so that they should all have an idea of what statistics meant. "ha-ha-ha!" laughs the maskil loudly and thickly, "you can get the tishewitz donkeys to believe that, but you won't get me! why do you want to put down how a person lives, with a floor, without a floor! what does it matter to you if a person lives in a room without a floor? _ha?_" it matters, i tell him, because people want to show how poor the jews are; they think-- "they think nothing of the kind," he interrupted, "but let that pass! why should they want to know exactly how many boys and how many girls a man has? and what their ages are, and all the rest of the bother?" "they suspect us of shirking military duty. the books, as of course you know, are not correct, and we want to prove--" "well, that may be so, for one thing--i'll allow that--but--about licenses! why do you note down who has them--and what they are worth?" "in order to prove that the jews--" but the maskil does not allow me to finish my sentence. "a likely story! meantime, people will know that this one and the other pays less than he ought to for his license, and he'll never hear the last of it." scarcely had he said so, when the heads in the window disappeared; the beadle in the door-way took himself off, and the maskil, who had really meant well all along, stood like one turned to stone. the population had taken fright, and in another hour or two the town was full of me. i was suspected of being commissioned by the excise. and why not, indeed? the excise knew very well that a jew would have less difficulty in getting behind other people's secrets. i was left to pace the market-square alone. the town held aloof. it is true that the maskil dogged my footsteps, but he had become antipathetic to me, and i couldn't look at him. the faces in the gass became graver and darker, and i began to think of escaping. there are too many side-glances to please me--there is too much whispering. it occurred to me to make a last effort. i remembered that the rabbi of tishewitz had once been our dayan, and would remember me, or at least witness to the fact that i was not what they took me for. "where does the rabbi live?" i inquire of the maskil. he is pleased and says: "come, i will show you!" the rabbi of tishewitz no one who has not seen the rabbi of tishewitz's dressing-gown would ever know the reason why the rebbitzin, his third wife, though hardly middle-aged, already wears a large pair of spectacles on her nose. the dressing-gown looks as if it were simply _made_ of patches. "if only," complains the rabbi, "the town would give me another two gulden a week, i could get along. _asö is gor bitter!_ but i shall get my way. their law-suits they can decide without me; when it is a question of pots and pans, any school-teacher will do; questions regarding women, of course, cannot be put off; and yet i shall get my way, i'm only waiting for the election of the elders; they can't have an election without a rabbi. imagine a town--no evil eye!--a metropolis in israel, without elders! and if that won't do it, i shall refuse to try the slaughtering-knives--i've got them fast enough!" it was no easy matter to divert the rabbi's thoughts from his own grievances, but on the maskil's promising to do his utmost to induce the community to raise his salary, he begged us to be seated, and listened to our tale. "nonsense!" he said, "i know you! tell the fools i know you." "they run away from me!" "_ett!_[ ] they run away! why should they run away? who runs away? after what? well, as you say they run away, i will go out with you myself." "in what will you go?" calls out a woman's voice from behind the stove. "give me my cloak," answers the rabbi. "give you your cloak! i've this minute taken it apart." "well," says the rabbi, "the misfortune is happily not great. we will go to-morrow." i give him to understand that it is only noon, that i should be sorry to waste the day. "_nu_, what shall i do?" answers the rabbi, and folds his hands. "the rebbitzin has just started mending my cloak." "call them in here!" "call them? it's easy enough to call them, but who will come? are they likely to listen to me? perhaps i had better go in my dressing-gown?" "it wouldn't do, rabbi!" exclaimed the maskil, 'the inspector is going about in the gass. "for my part," said the rabbi, "i would have gone, but if you say no--no!" it is settled that we shall all three call the people together from the window. but opening the window is no such easy matter. it hasn't been opened for about fifteen years. the panes are cracked with the sun, the putty dried up, the window shakes at every step on the floor. the frame is worm-eaten, and only rust keeps it fastened to the wall. it is just a chance if there are hinges. and yet we succeeded. we opened first one side and then the other without doing any damage. the rabbi stood in the centre, i and the maskil on either side of him, and we all three began to call out. the market was full of people. in a few minutes there was a crowd inside the room. "gentlemen," began the rabbi, "i know this person." "there will be no writing people down!" called out several voices together. the rabbi soon loses heart. "no use, no use," he murmurs, but the maskil has got on to the table and calls out: "donkeys! they _must_ be written down! the good of the jews at large demands it!" "the good of the jews at large," he says, and he goes on to tell them that he has gone through the whole chapter with me, that there is no question of a joke, that i have shown him letters from the chief rabbis. "from which chief rabbis?" is the cry. "from the chief rabbi in paris," bellows the maskil, "from the chief rabbi in paris (no other will do for him), from the chief rabbi in london--" "jews, let us go home!" interrupted someone, "_nisht unsere leut!_"[ ] and the crowd dispersed as quickly as it had come together. we three remained--and the beadle, who came close to me: "give me something," he said, "for the day's work." i gave him a few ten-kopek pieces, he slipped them into his pocket without counting them, and was off without saying good-bye. "what do _you_ say, rabbi?" i asked. "i don't know what to say, how should i? i am only dreadfully afraid--lest it should do me harm--" "_you?_" "whom else? _you?_ if you don't get any statistics, it will be of no great consequence, for 'he that keepeth israel will neither slumber nor sleep!' i mean the two extra gulden a week." the rebbitzin with the large spectacles has come out from behind the stove. "i told you long ago," she says, "not to interfere in the affairs of the community, but when did you ever listen to me? what has a rabbi to do with _that_ sort of thing? kohol's business!" "_nu_, hush, rebbitzin, hush!" he answers gently; "you know what i am, i have a soft heart, it touched me, but it's a pity about the two gulden a week." tales that are told sad and perplexed in spirit, i came down from the rabbi, with the maskil, and into the street. there we came across the beadle, who assured us that, in his opinion, we should be able to go on with the work to-morrow. the whole tararam[ ] had been stirred up by two impoverished householders, who were now in great misery; one, a public-house keeper, and the other, a horse-dealer. the maskil, for his part, promises to talk the matter over with the townspeople between minchah and maariv, and if he doesn't turn the place upside down, then his name is not shmeril (such a name has a maskil in tishewitz!). they may stand on their heads, he said, but the notes must be taken. "the very authorities that forbade will permit." well done! it is evident that the maskil had studied in a cheder, in the great world one meets with other maskilîm. i go back to the inn; the beadle comes, too. at my host's they still have services, the mourning for his wife not being ended. between minchah and maariv, we get on to politics; after maariv, on to the jews. the greater part are dreadfully optimistic. in the first place, it's not a question of _them_, secondly, plans will not prosper against "yainkil,"[ ] he has brains of his own; thirdly, it's like a see-saw, now it goes up and now it goes down;[ ] fourthly, god will help; fifthly, "good jews" will not allow it to happen. the old song! "believe me," exclaims one, with small, restless eyes under a low forehead, "believe me, if there were unity among all 'good jews,' if they would hold together, as one man, and stop repeating tachanun,[ ] messiah would _have_ to come!" "but the kozenitz rebbe, may his memory be blessed, _did_ stop," suggested another. "'one swallow,' replied the young man, 'does not make a summer.' who talks of their imposing a prohibition on all-israel?" there are times when one must set one's self against things--defend one's self. "if they were to issue a prohibition," says someone, ironically, and with a side-glance at me, "the heretics would take to praying, if only for the sake of saying tachanun, so that messiah should _not_ come." the company smile. "but where is the harm," asks someone else, "if the great people don't agree among themselves?" the company gave a groan. doubtless each remembered how many times he had suffered unjustly on account of the want of unity, and the surest proof of tishewitz having greatly suffered by reason of dissensions is, that no clear explanation was given as to who was at fault that the great were not at one, so fearful were they of provoking a fresh disagreement. i put forward that poverty had more to do with the differences than anything. there is nothing to trade with, people go about empty-handed, seeking quarrels to while away the time with; the proof is that in larger towns, where each goes about his own business, there is quiet. if someone, i opine, would throw into tishewitz a few thousand rubles, everything would be forgotten. "to be sure, we know wealth is everything!" exclaims somebody. "if i had only had _so_ much brains, i could put all tishewitz into my pocket to-day. it was just a toss-up--i had only to say the word." "true! true!" was heard on all sides. "it is an actual fact." the man who had only required to have _so_ much brains, or a little determination, to become rich, looked like poverty itself: lean, yellow, shrunk, "wept out," and in a cloak that had its only equal in the dressing-gown of the tishewitz rabbi. thereupon came the maskil. of course, he laughed. "reb elyeh, you must have bought the lucky number an hour before the drawing!" "listen to his cheek!" says reb elyeh. "as if he couldn't remember the story!" "may my head not ache," swears the maskil, "for so long as i have forgotten--if ever i heard the lies at all." "lies!" retorts reb elyeh, much hurt, "is that so? lies? according to you, other things are lies as well." i interfere and ask what the story may be. "you've heard of the tsaddik of vorke of blessed memory?" begins reb elyeh. of course! "naturally, _kind und keit_[ ] knew of him. and you will have heard that there came to him not only the pious men of the nations of the world, but even 'german' jews, even lithuanians, knowing fellows that they are. may i have as much money as i have seen lithuanians at his house! there is even a story about a discussion a lithuanian had with him. a lithuanian must always be showing off his acumen! he asks a question about the tossafot on _vows_. the rebbe, of blessed memory, explains a bit of the mishnah to him upside down. "'well, i never, rebbe!' exclaims the lithuanian, 'why, the tossafot on _new year_ dealing with the same subject says exactly the opposite of your words.' well, what do you say to that? it was a miracle the rebbe did not seize and strangle him on the spot. but that is not what i was driving at. the 'vorker' treated the almighty like a good comrade. "'lord of the world (and he sat down in the middle of the room)! would it not have been enough to torment the jews with persecutions? now one cannot even sit and study in peace.' "someone, it would appear, answered him from 'up there.' "'so,' he said, 'that is another thing altogether! i give in; good pay puts everything straight. but, lord of the world! a little of it here as well!' "again one could see in his face that he heard a response, and he answered: "'well, if not--not! you are solvent, we will wait!' "but that is not what i was after. his chief concern was whatever was connected with circumcision. in the matter of circumcision he was steel and iron. in that he would take no denial from the powers above. and, indeed, they waited for his word up there! scarce had he given a sign, when the thing he wanted was done and established. he said, that before going to a circumcision, when he merely began to think of the mohel-knife, the quality of _fear_[ ] straightway diffused itself through his being, and then there could be no doubt all would go as he wanted, for 'the will of those who _fear_ him he executeth.' "he was very sorry that people had become aware of this peculiarity of his. he knew that on this account he would not perform the ceremony here much longer, that he would be called to join the heavenly academy. his relations to the upper world having become known, the very stability of the world was endangered. it ought to have remained a secret. "well, people had become aware of it. i, too. and even sooner than others, because the treasurer, mösheh, was my first wife's brother-in-law, and he it was who let out the secret. for this he was deprived of his place for half a year, but his distress was so great, the rebbe had compassion on him, and restored him to his office. but that doesn't belong to the story either. "enough that i knew it. "well, 'and he kept the thing in his heart.' i waited, for i was not going to plague the rebbe about a trifle. i waited. i was living just then a mile outside vorke. my first wife was alive, and she did not fare badly, though it was difficult to make both ends meet. but i earned whatever it was by my match-making, and my wife supported us by means of her stall. and not only us, but also she provided for a married couple, my eldest daughter and her husband, who was an excellent scholar. what, then, was lacking? "and it came to pass on a day that my son-in-law was away at the ger rebbe's, there was a fair in the town, and my daughter was in child-bed. it went hard with her, a first baby. beile bashe, the midwife, was at her wit's end, and this was the third day of her pains. no cupping, no blood-letting seemed to help--things were very bad. and i hear that the rebbe is coming to a circumcision. "what do you think? 'there sprang up light for the jews!' we were all overjoyed. it put new life into us. we pray that god will preserve her another day and a half, because people were only let in an hour before the ceremony. but meanwhile things got worse and worse, she was near death. "an hour or two before the ceremony, however, she grew easier, or so it seemed to me. she came to herself, opened her eyes, urged her mother to go to the fair, and called me to her bedside. a foolish woman, they are all alike--they blame us for it. "she doesn't like shmülek, she says, she never liked him, she didn't want him from the very first. she can't stand him and had better die. she had sent her mother out on purpose, because she was afraid of her. she, peace be upon her, was a terror to the children--she wanted to slap her daughter on her wedding-day. "i, of course, gave her to understand that all women are the same, that some even make a vow never to live with their husbands again; that the sin-offering is there on that account--some even swear that--'but no one may be held responsible for what he utters in pain and grief.' but she keeps to it, she bids me farewell, she needs no vows, no oaths, she says, smiling. i am going out, she says, like a candle. "well, i listen to her and can see all the while that she is better. she is quite clear again in her mind, and it only wants half an hour to the circumcision. and she looked quite pretty again. "i sit by the bed and talk to her--even the midwife had gone to buy a cradle at the fair. i look at the clock--it is time to go. i look at her. upon my word! quite well! and yet i do not want to go and leave her all alone, and nearly alone in the town. "the fair, you see, comes once a year, and lasts three days, and it means parnosseh for the whole twelve months. so, you see, there was no one left at the rebbe's even--every soul was off to the fair. "well, i wait a bit. "but in half an hour things got suddenly worse. she snatches at my hand, falls back on the pillows, makes grimaces. bad! "she begins to moan. i call for help, no one answers. there is a great noise from the fair--nobody hears _me_. among a thousand men and women--and we might have been in a wilderness. i want to pull away my hands, go and call somebody, but she holds them tight. "two, three minutes pass, it grows late, things are bad. i tear away my hands and i run thither. the circumcision was at the further end of the town. i fly along roads, over bales of merchandise, i fly and fly! it is all too long to me. it was july and yet i shivered with cold as i ran--there, there is tsemach's house, where the ceremony has taken place." * * * * * "my heart beats as though i were a malefactor; i feel that _there_, at home, a soul is about to escape. there i am at the first window! i will not wait for the door, i will break a pane and get in that way. i run up to the window, i see the rebbe is really in the room, he is walking up and down, i am about to enter like a housebreaker. i gather my remaining strength--there is a cry in my ears: father, father! i leap." the narrator was out of breath. he takes a rest, lowers his eyes, which are full of large tears, and ends quietly with a broken voice: "but it was not to be! there was a heap of manure and stones before the window--i fell, and nearly broke my neck. i have a mark on my forehead to this day. when they brought me in to the rebbe, he motioned me away with his hand. "when i got home (_how_ i got there, i don't know), she was lying on the floor--either she fell out of bed dying, or i pulled her out tearing away my hands." the listeners were silent, a stone weighed on our hearts. the maskil soon recovered himself. "well," he said, "blessed be the righteous judge! where are the riches?" the narrator wiped his eyes with his sleeve, gave a sad smile and continued: "yes, i only wanted to show you what one means when one says, it was not to be. there came trouble after trouble--my wife died--the stall went to the bad because it was kept by a man--i was left alone with the children, and there wasn't a crust--i married again--i took an elderly woman on purpose, because i thought she would do for the stall, but i was taken in. there was a baby a year. meanwhile our fairs fell off, and for a whole twelvemonth the stall wasn't worth a pinch of powder. "i determined to make an end of it--to give up the match-making, grow rich, and sit and study. _aï_--how does one grow rich? i wrote to the brother-in-law of my first wife, to the treasurer, and asked him for god's sake to tell me when next there was a circumcision. "i got a message before the month was out, and hastened to vorke. i stop nowhere, but go straight to the rebbe." "and--a larger manure heap?" laughs the maskil. the narrator gives him a vicious look. "the vorke tsaddik," he said, "went in for ritual cleanliness, his whole religion was ritual cleanliness." "only see," remarked the maskil, "how he looks at me! rascal! when you came here first, who helped you? a vorke chossid? or perhaps your cousin the tsaddik? or was it i? _ha!_ you would have died of hunger long ago if it hadn't been for me!" and he turns to me: "and what do you suppose he is now? he teaches my children, and if i were to take them away from him, he would have no parnosseh left!... not a crust of bread...." the other stands silent with downcast eyes. the maskil disgusts me more and more, although he made a sign to me with his eyes a little while ago, to the effect that he had exerted himself on my behalf, and with his hands, that to-morrow there will be taking of notes. i turn to the other: "well, my friend?" "see for yourself," says he to the maskil, "our note-taker is more of a maskil than you, on the face of him, and _he_ doesn't make game of things ... one might say, on the contrary. rambam[ ] (lehavdîl) did not believe in magic ... but at any rate, he answers seriously ... a jew should have manners ... to make fun of things is not fair ... man, it cuts to the heart!" "well, well," says the maskil, more gently, "let us have the rest!" "i will make it short," says the poor jew. "i come in without a ticket of admission, nothing to speak for me, without even a money-offering, but that would have been no help at such a time, only his face was terrible! my feet shook under me! i stood there without opening my mouth. he, may his merits protect us, took great strides up and down. "suddenly he saw me and gave a roar like a lion. "'what do you want?' "i was more terrified than ever and scarcely answered: "'riches!' "it seemed as though the rebbe had not quite understood. "'riches?' he asked, and his voice was like thunder. "'if only ... parnosseh!' i answer in a lower tone. "'what, parnosseh!' he cried as before. "'only not to die of hunger!' "the rebbe hurried up and down, stopped suddenly and asked: "'what else?' "i thought i should drop dead! it seemed to me (i don't know, but it seemed to me) as if someone else, and not i, had control of my tongue, and it replied: "'i want yòsef to be a learned man!' "'what besides?' i hardly escaped alive, and he, may his merits protect us, died the following week. "well? what lay between me and the riches? a hair's breadth! it was my own fault. if i had stood up to him and kept to it! well!" "at least," i inquire, "is your son learned?" "he _would_ have been," he replies in a broken voice, "only he won't learn ... even a rebbe can't help that ... he _won't_ learn--what can one do?" "and the moral," interposes the maskil, "is that one shouldn't keep rubbish heaps under the window, that you can do nothing without money, and, above all, that one shouldn't be frightened of any rebbe!" in one second the livid-faced jew had flushed scarlet, his eyes shot fire, his person lengthened, and the room resounded with two slaps received by the maskil. * * * * * i fear that his first request will equally go unfulfilled: he will yet die of hunger. a little boy the innkeeper's pretty little boy, with his shrugs and pouts, and his curls full of feathers, haunts me. now he stands before me with a small onion in his hand, and he cries--he wants two; or i hear him at evening prayer, repeating the kaddish in his plaintive child-voice, so tearfully earnest that it goes to my very heart. when the chossid slapped the maskil, the child turned pale and green with fright, so that i took him by the hand and led him out of the room. "come for a walk." "a walk?" he stammers. the pale face flushes. "do you never go out for a walk?" "not now. when my mother, peace be upon her, was alive, she used to take me out walking sabbaths and holidays. my father, long life to him, says it's better to sit at one's book." we were already in the long entrance passage. a "shield of david" shone redly from a lamp some way off. i could not see his face, but the thin little hand trembled as it lay in mine. we stepped out into the street. the sky that hung over tishewitz resembled a dark blue uniform with dim steel buttons. my companion found it like a curtain[ ] sewn with silver spangles. perhaps he is dreaming of just such a blue satin "prayer-bag," with spangles, some day to be his own. in five or six years he may receive it as a gift from his bride. the little town looks quite different by night. the rubbish heaps and the tumbledown houses are hidden in the "poetical and silent lap of darkness." the windows and door-panes look like great, fiery, purple eyes. by the hearth-sides pots of boiling water must be standing ready for the potatoes or the dumplings. the statistics give an average annual expenditure of thirty-seven and a half rubles a head--about ten kopeks a day. now calculate: school fees, two sets of pots and pans, sabbaths and holidays, an illness, and a wonder-working rebbe--besides extras. you see now why there is not always a meal cooking, why the dumplings are of buck-wheat without an egg, and why the potatoes are not always eaten with dripping. many of the houses are stone-blind. in these it is a question of a bit of bread with or without a herring, and perhaps grace without meat. in one of those houses must live the widow who requires so little, beating her hollow chest through the long confession. perhaps she measures her winding-sheet, or thinks of her wedding dress of long ago with its gold braid, and from her old eyes there drops a tear, and she whispers, smiling, into the night: "after all, what does a jewess need?" my motherless companion is thinking of something else. hopping on one little foot, he lifts his face to the moon, swimming with a silly, aristocratic air in and out of the light clouds. he sighs. has he seen a star fall? no. "_Öi_," he says, "_wollt ich gewollt, meshiach soll kimmen!_" (how i do wish the messiah would come!) "what is the matter?" "i want the moon to be made bigger again. it is so dreadfully sad about her! she committed a sin, but to suffer so long! it will soon be six thousand years." altogether, two requests! one of his earthly father for a second little onion, and one of his father in heaven, for the enlargement of the moon. a wild impulse seized me to say: "let alone! your father will soon marry again, you will soon have a step-mother, become a step-child, and have to cry for a bit of bread! spare the little onion, forget about the moon ..." it was all i could do to refrain. we left tishewitz behind, the spring airs blew toward us from the green fields. he drew me to a tree, we sat down. he must have sat here, it occurs to me, with his mother. she must have pointed out to him the different things that grew in the narrow plots belonging to the townspeople. he recognizes wheat, rye, potatoes. and those are briars. nobody eats briars, do they? donkeys eat briars. "why," he asks, "did god make all creatures to eat different things?" he does not know that if they ate the same, they would be all alike. the yartseff rabbi the yartseff rabbi is a man who has all that heart desireth. he gets four rubles a week, and that is really more than enough. how? are they not an old couple without children? he used to be dayan in a larger town. there also he had four rubles a week, and nearly cut his fingers to bits over dried herring from week's end to week's end. here it's different. he goes through his daily fare for my benefit. for breakfast, what shall he say? a little milk-gruel; for dinner, sometimes, half a pound of meat; and in the evening, a glass of hot tea with stale rolls--he really cannot hold more! when one lives in the country, one must follow country customs, and they are much the best!... dinner in the large towns is a ruination and a misery!... if there should happen not to be any meat for dinner, well, he can afford to wait to eat till supper-time. sometimes, early in the day, there is a little vegetable soup with dripping--that is how one lives in yartseff and one does very well. in the large town it was often difficult to get on. not that _he_ cared! he really doesn't like meat. on week-days it is heavy food; on week-days he likes an onion with a little sour milk, he prefers sour milk even to purim herbs, it is his nature, but the rebbitzin, she wouldn't look at it (he smiles as he glances at her)--her feelings used to get hurt. it was jealousy! _how_ was that? well, the shochet's wife had sausage, and she, the dayan'te, not so much as a bone--wasn't that humiliating, _ha_? now he has done with all that; in yartseff, thank god, they all eat meat every sabbath and even mutton, and week-days all fare much alike, too. so long as the rebbitzin has no one to envy, it's all right! "to envy!" throws in the rebbitzin. "i know, i know!" laughs the rabbi's head with the tiny wrinkles, the beard with the soft end quivers, the old eyes grow moister. "i know, it was not the sinful body you were thinking of, but the honor of the law. of course, a shochet sausage and a dayan--no, that was very wrong! a dayan is distinctly greater than a shochet! well, well, anyhow, here i am quit of all that--where they don't kill for a whole week at a time." he is still better pleased with the fresh country air. in the large towns, the householders must live in large houses. the rich householders live in the middle; below, in the cellars, and above, in the attics, poor people, including paid officials of the community like himself. in summer he had felt suffocated there. it went so far that the rebbitzin stole away his snuff-box, so that he might at any rate not stuff snuff up his nose, but she had to give it him back--without snuff he was nowhere; he cannot even sit and read without it; even when not taking any, he must have the root snuff-box to finger while he studies, and even as now, when talking, he would lose the train of his thought and not find suitable words in which to express himself if he had not got it. what do you think? when he first saw yartseff with the wide, grass-grown market-place, he would have liked a band to play--and a band _played_! on that day all kohol was at home, and they came to meet him with chamber-music! and he was charmed by the little, tiny houses, like pieces of root tobacco; there is one walled in, the big one in the centre of the market-place--it is the lord's. and the stairs he got away from when he left the large town! he is naturally weak in the legs, in another year he would have been without feet! then--the restfulness of it here!... quiet!... not a dog barks, and the children (lehavdîl) don't shout. there are thirty boys and perhaps six teachers, so they're kept well in hand, not as in the large towns. at purim and chanukah, then they shout, yes! they make a fearful noise! but otherwise you don't hear a sound. above all, a blessing from his dear name, there are no quarrels! two or three chassidîm with blue fringes,[ ] but he prays for their life, because when they die, may it not be for a hundred years, there will be a to-do over their burial.[ ] meanwhile there is peace. the inhabitants of the place are all peddlers or "messengers." even the artisans do not remain at home, but go and work in the villages, even the feldscher goes about the district with the "cuppers." early on sunday you can see the whole male population coming out of the little houses. outside the town they take off their boots, hang them upon a stick across their shoulder and start off in all directions. friday evening they return. even the shochet sometimes goes away for a whole week, so when should they find time to quarrel? sabbath and holidays are the time for disputes, and every now and again they get up a discussion, start a hare ... but it is not their line! the thing halts. people are sleepy and tired. he just sits and studies. occasionally (he smiles) there is a dispute--only it is for the honor of god--between him and the shochet. you understand, it is seldom a ritual question arises. all the week the people use milk dishes, sabbath--meat dishes. they don't stand at the fire-place together. questions about the fitness of slaughtered animals happen along once a year! but on that very account, they make the most of it, turn over the whole talmud, all the codes, and there you have a quarrel. the shochet is very obstinate and pig-headed, and has a way of shifting his bundle of faults on to other people's shoulders; says, the rabbi is obstinate and pig-headed! even here he had terrible bother with two things: the yeast and the house, and all (he smiles again) through the rebbitzin. with the yeast it befell in this wise; he had agreed with kohol for four rubles a week. the previous rabbi got four rubles with the yeast, but they cheated _him_ out of the yeast--he got none! on the first great sabbath he preached a long sermon on leaven at passover. "the town was beside itself with delight. everyone knows a good thing, when he hears it, even the most ignorant. i say it is because all the souls were present at mount sinai, and there everything was revealed, even what scholars in time to come will deduce from what was explicitly given, so that even when the soul has forgotten, she recognizes whence things are ... and soon the town gave me the yeast. "just at the moment i felt a little exultation, for which his dear name quickly punished me. i had trouble with the yeast! i had disputes to settle all week between the housewives and the rebbitzin; one found her sabbath loaf too hard, another too heavy, a third said her yeast ran, and people suspected the rebbitzin watered it. what could i do? i hadn't seen her do it, and she said no! "well, it was all such nonsense! i can't pass a decision in a case between the rebbitzin and the housewives, and i arbitrate; if they come on friday, i exchange their loaf for mine, and a whole week i give a little extra yeast for kliskelech.[ ] altogether a dreadful worry! god be praised, a tailor brought some dried yeast, and there was an end of it." then as to the house: he observed the rebbitzin was saving money--let her save! was it his affair? the children are doing well, but may-be she wishes to buy a present for a grandchild--so be it! he is not much in favor of that himself, but he is not going to fight a woman. perhaps (he reflects) she means differently; he knows, many prepare for later. he doesn't. he says, blessed be his name, day by day! when they die, there will be a winding-sheet, but he does not concern himself about it. the affair of the yeast was just going on. to cut a long matter short, one day someone told him a fine tale--the rebbitzin had bought some timber. he came home, and sure enough, it was true. she had even engaged some workmen, she was beginning to build a house. what is it? she won't live in lodgings any longer. he interfered no further--let her build! and she built, she took possession, he--he just carried over his talmud. "now, i am a householder, too." but it was a long way for him to go to the house-of-study. "not of you be it said, my feet have grown weak in my old age. i have not many books of my own. they have a rule in the house-of-study not to lend out any book, not to the rabbi, not to any head of the community. when a question arose, i had nothing to lay my hand on. this gave me a deal of trouble. "but god helped me. there was a fire and several houses were burned down, mine among them. god be praised! the other householders had no great loss; they were insured. i was not, and kohol, as you see, set aside for me a little corner of the house-of-study." lyashtzof i arrived in lyashtzof on a dark summer night, between eleven and twelve o'clock. another market-place with various buildings and little, walled-in houses round about. in the middle of the market-place, a collection of large, white stones. i drive nearer--the stones move and grow horns; they become a herd of milk-white goats. the goats show more sense than the heads of the community of tishewitz: they are not frightened. one or two out of the whole lot have lifted their heads, looked at us sleepily, and once more turned their attention to the scanty grass of the gass, and to scratching one the other. happy goats! no one calumniates you, _you_ needn't be afraid of statisticians. it is true, people kill you, but what then? does not everyone die before his time? and as far as troubles go, you certainly have fewer. i recall what i was told in tishewitz: "in lyashtzof you will get on better and faster. the people are sensible, quieter; no one will run after you." kohol and the goats seem to be equally admirable; one like the other. but my host, an old friend, is not encouraging. he says it will not be so easy as people think. "what will you do?" he asks. "go from house to house?" "what else?" "i wish they may be civil." "why shouldn't they be?" "a jew hates having his money-box opened and the contents counted." "why so? won't the blessing enter in afterwards?" "no, it isn't that--the misfortune is that the credit will go out." the first attempt early in the morning, before the arrival of the beadle, there come some jews--they want to see the note-taker. my fame has preceded me. i make a beginning, and turn to one of them: "good morning, friend!" "good morning, _sholom alechem_."[ ] he gives me his hand, quite lazily. "what is your name, friend?" "levi yitzchok." "and your german name?"[ ] "why do you want to know?" "well, is it a secret?" "secret or no secret, you may as well tell me why you want to know. i'll be bound _that's_ no secret!" "then you don't know it?" "not exactly." "make a shot at it--just for fun!" "bärenpelz," he answers, a little ashamed. "a wife?" "_ett!_" "what does _ett_ mean?" "he wants a divorce!" another answers for him. "how many children?" he has to think, and counts on his fingers: "by the first wife--mine: one, two, three; hers: one, two; by the second wife...." he is tired of counting: "let us say six!" "'let us say' is no good. i must know exactly." "you see, 'exactly' is not so easy. 'exactly!' why do you want to know? _wos is?_ are you an official? do they pay you for it? will somebody follow and check your statements? 'exactly!'" "tell, blockhead, tell," the rest encourage him, "now you've begun, tell!" they want to know what the next questions will be. once again he has counted on his fingers and, heaven be praised, there are three more. "nine children, health and strength to them!" "how many sons, how many daughters?" he counts again: "four sons and five daughters." "how many sons and how many daughters married?" "you want to know that, too? look here, tell me why?" "tell him, then, tell him!" cry the rest, impatiently. "three daughters and two sons," answers someone for the questioned. _"taki?"_ says the latter. "and yisrolik?" "but he isn't married yet." "horse! they call him up next sabbath![ ] what does a week and a half matter?" i make a note and ask further: "have you served in the army?" "i bought exemption from kohol, for four hundred rubles![ ] where should i find them now?" and he groans. "and your sons?" "the eldest has a swelling below his right eye, and has besides--not of you be it said!--a rupture. he has been in three hospitals. it cost more than a wedding. they only just sent him home from the regiment! the second drew a high number.[ ] ... the third is serving his time now." "and the wife?" "at home with me, of course. need you ask?" "she might have been at _her_ father's." "a pauper!" "have you a house?" "have i a house!" "worth how much?" "if it were in samoscz, it would be worth something. here it's not worth a dreier, except that i have a place to lay my head down in." "would you sell it for one hundred rubles?" "preserve us! one's own inheritance! not for three hundred." "would you give it for five hundred?" "_mê!_ i should hire a lodging and apply myself to some business!" "and what is your business now?" "what business?" "what do you live on?" "_that's_ what you mean! one just lives." "on what?" "god's providence. when he gives something, one has it!" "but he doesn't throw things down from heaven?" "he does so! can i tell how i live? let us reckon: i need a lot of money, at least four rubles a week. the house yields, beside my own lodging, twelve rubles a year--nine go in taxes, five in repairs, leaves a hole in the pocket of two rubles a year! that's it." he puts on airs: "heaven be praised, i have no money. neither i, nor any one of the jews standing here, nor any other jews--except perhaps the 'german' ones[ ] in the big towns. we have no money. i don't know any trade, my grandfather never sewed a shoe. therefore i live as god wills, and have lived so for fifty years. and if there is a child to be married, we have a wedding, and dance in the mud." "once and for all, what are you?" "a jew." "what do you do all day?" "i study, i pray--what else should a jew do? and when i have eaten, i go to the market." "what do you do in the market?" "what do i do? whatever turns up. well, yesterday, for example, i heard, as i passed, that yoneh borik wanted to buy three rams for a gentleman. before daylight i was at the house of a second gentleman, who had once said, he had too many rams. i made an agreement with yoneh borik, and, heaven be praised, we made a ruble and a half by it." "are you, then, what is called a commission-agent?" "how should i know? sometimes it even occurs to me to buy a bit of produce." "sometimes?" "what do you mean by 'sometimes'? when i have a ruble, i buy." "and when not?" "i get one." "how?" "what do you mean by 'how'?" and it is an hour before i find out that levi yitzchock bärenpelz is a bit of a rabbinical assistant, and acts as arbiter in quarrels; a bit of a commission-agent, a fragment of a merchant, a morsel of a match-maker, and now and again, when the fancy takes him, a messenger. thanks to all these "trades," the counted and the forgotten ones, he earns his bread, although with toil and trouble, for wife and child--even for the married daughter, because her father-in-law is _but_ a pauper. the second attempt i am taken into a shop. a few packets of matches, a few boxes of cigarettes; needles, pins, hair-pins, buttons, green and yellow soap, a few pieces of home-made, fragrant soap, a few grocery wares. "who lives here?" i ask. "you can see for yourself!" answers a jewish woman, and goes on combing the hair of a little girl about ten years old, who has twitched her head from under the comb and stares with great, astonished eyes, at the goï[ ] who talks yiddish. "lay your head down again!" screams the mother. "what is the name of your husband?" i inquire. "mösheh." "and his 'german' name?" "may his name come home!" she scolds suddenly. "he has been four hours getting a dish from the neighbor's!" "stop scolding," says the beadle, "and answer when you're spoken to!" she is afraid of the beadle. he is beadle and bailiff together, and collects the taxes, besides being held in great regard by the town-justice. "who was scolding? who? what? can't i speak against my own husband?" "what is his 'german' name?" i ask again. the beadle remembers it himself, and answers, "jungfreud." "how many children have you?" "i beg of you, friend, come later on, when my husband is here; that's his affair! i've enough to do with the shop and six children. go away, for goodness' sake!" i make a note of six children, and ask how many are married. "married! i wish any of them were married, i should have fewer gray hairs." "are they all girls?" "three are boys." "what are they doing?" "what should they be doing? plaguing my life out with their open mouths!" "why not teach them a trade?" she turns up her nose, gives me a black look, and refuses to give any further answers. i have an idea: i buy a packet of cigarettes. she looks less disagreeable, and i ask: "how much does your husband earn?" "_he?_ he earn anything? what use do you suppose _he_ is, when i can't even send him to fetch a dish from a neighbor's? he's been four hours already. it won't be thanks to _him_ if we get any supper to-night!" she goes off into another fury. i have to go outside and catch the husband in the street. i knew him--he was carrying a dish! at the shochet's i am greeted by a mixture of different voices. a hero of a cock gives a proud crow, as though there were no such thing as a slaughter-knife in the world. contrariwise, a calf lows sadly--it would seem to be hungry, while between the boards under the holes in the tall roof chirp quantities of small birds. they have wings and laugh at the shochet. it is summer, the air is full of insects, men, even the poorest and stingiest, leave crumbs about. zip! zip! and zip! and zip! zip! zip! the bed in the nest is made, the "he" is decked out in bright colors, the "she" is modest and silent, and the children have had enough to eat! they are warm, and are not "down" in someone's note-book for military service or in connection with the matter of a license. but ask them what is the meaning of a "blemish in the holy offerings!" this question is being discussed by two young men, barefoot, in skull-caps, and undressed to their "little prayer-scarfs."[ ] the young men are only unfit for inspecting licenses or wares in the shop, but calves for the altar--as fast as you please! when god portioned out the world, the peasant took the soil, the fisher the river, the hunter the forest, the gardener the fruit-trees, the merchant the weights and measures, and so on; but the poet lingered in a wood. the nightingale sang to him, the trees whispered all sorts of wood-gossip into his ear, and his eyes, the poetical eyes, could not look away from the girl kneeling by the stream, from the tadpole in her hand. and he came too late for everything! the world, when he arrived, was already divided up. god had nothing left for him but clouds, rainbows, roses, and song-birds. he did not even find the young washerwoman on his way back, she had engaged herself somewhere as nurse. you have fancy! create a world for yourself, said god. and people envied the poet--his world was the best! the peasant tilled his land with sweat and toil. the fisher is not idle--breaking ice in winter time is no joke. the hunter wearies hunting and pursuing. pippins are not so easily made out of crab-apples! the merchant must bestir himself, if only about falsifying the weights and measures, else he dies of hunger. _one_ is the poet, who lies on his stomach and creates worlds! but it was a mistake. it turned out that his soul was only a camera-obscura that reflected the outside world with all its mud and pigs. so long as the pig keeps its place, it is not so bad, but when the pig gets into the foreground, the poet's world becomes as piggish as ours. the only people who remain to be envied are our two young men, the shochet's son with the shochet's son-in-law. our world with its pigs doesn't fit in with their world of "blemish in the sacrifice." there is no connection between the two, no bridge, no link whatever. and as i have come into _their_ world out of _our_ world, the gemorehs are shut, while the young faces express fear and wonder. the shochet is not at home, he has gone to a neighboring village; that is why the calf is still lowing in the house. the wife has a little draper's shop. the daughter and a daughter-in-law stand by the fire and their faces are triply red. first, from pride in their husbands with their torah; secondly, from the crackling fire, and thirdly, with confusion before a stranger, a man, and a "german" to boot. one caught a corner of her apron in her mouth, the other moved a few steps backward, as in the synagogue at the end of the kedushah. both look at me in astonishment from under low foreheads with hairbands of plaited thread. the young men, however, soon recover themselves. they have heard of the note-taker, and have guessed that i am he! the note-taking goes quickly. the shochet gets four rubles a week, besides what he earns in the villages; were it not for the meat brought in from the villages round about, he would be doing very well. the shop does not bring in much, but always something. parnosseh, thank god, they have! as for the children, they will live with the parents, and when, in god's good time, the parents shall have departed this life, they will inherit, one, the father's profession, the other, the shop; the house will be in common. they look better off than any in the town; better off than the traders, householders, workmen, better off even than the public-house keeper and the feldscher together. there will come a time--i think as i go out--when even teaching will be one of the best paid professions. it is all not so bad as people think: besides being a rabbi, a shochet, a beadle, and a teacher, there is yet another good way of getting a living. in the shochet's house there is a female lodger; she pays fifteen rubles a year. the door is locked; through the window, which looks into the street, i see quite a nice little room. two well-furnished beds with white pillows, red-painted wooden furniture; copper utensils hang on the wall by the fire-place; there is a bright hanging-lamp. the room is full of comfort and household cheer. she has silver, too, they tell me. i see a large chest with brass fittings. there must be silver candle-sticks in it, and perhaps ornaments. what do you think? they say. she has a lot of money, the whole town is in her pocket. she is a widow with three children. the door is locked all through the week, because she only comes home every sabbath, excepting shabbes chazon.[ ] she spends the whole week going round the villages in the neighborhood, begging, with all three children. the rebbitzin of skul esther the queen was sallow,[ ] but a gleam of graciousness lighted up her countenance. esther, the skul rebbitzin, was also plain-featured, but it was not a gleam, rather a sun, of kindliness that shone in her face. an old, thin woman, her head covered with a thin, wrinkled, pale pink skin, droops like a fine esrog over her red kerchief. only this esrog has two kind, serious eyes. she is a native of the place, and lives by herself; she has married all her children in various parts of the country, but nothing would induce her to live with any one of them. it is never advisable to let oneself be dependent on a son-in-law or daughter-in-law. the husband stands up for the wife--the wife for the husband (not without reason saith the holy torah: "and therefore a man shall leave his parents, etc."). she will not give them occasion to transgress the command to honor a mother, that is a real case of "thou shalt not cause the blind to stumble." "god, blessed be his name, created man so that he should not see the faults of those nearest him, otherwise the world would be as full of divorces as of marriage contracts!" secondly--as the rabbi of skul observed more than once--a widow who depends on her children is a double grass-widow, and "the words of the rabbi of skul should be framed in gold and worn about the neck as an _Öibele_." true, she says with a low sigh, _Öibeles_ are not worn nowadays, imitation pearls are considered prettier! she could not stay on in skul. since her husband the rabbi died, the place has become hateful to her. "really," she says, "'its glory has departed, its splendor, and its beauty.'" she goes there once a year, for the anniversary of his death, but she cannot remain long--"it has grown empty." she lived with the skul rabbi forty years. those that knew him say that she grew to be his second self. he, may he forgive me! was a misnagid; so she thinks nothing of "good jews!" his "service" was the torah in its plain meaning. she sits all day over the pentateuch in yiddish, or learns the shulchan aruch;[ ] she quotes the skul rabbi at every second word and it is his voice, his motions, his customs! after the skul rabbi's kiddush and havdoleh, she will listen to no other; she says her own over cake or currant wine. and _her_ kiddush is _his_ kiddush--the same low, dignified chant, the same sweetness. she eats "just kosher" and is very learned. she can answer ritual questions! forty years running she has stood by the hearth with her kind face turned to the table at which her husband sat and studied; her dove's eyes took in his every movement, her ears, half hidden under the head-kerchief, his every word, she was his true helpmeet, she hid his every thought in her brain and his goodness in her heart. a river may have lain a hundred years in another bed, and all its previous twists and bends are wrought into the rocks of its first one. the skul rabbi's life may have run more peacefully than a river, but the rebbitzin was no rock to him, rather a sponge that absorbed the whole of him. she is not satisfied with the world as it is to-day. "if it is no longer pious, the almighty must have a care; if his people behave so, it is doubtless because he wishes it. only, there is no 'purpose' in it all; the present-day stuffs are spider-webs, and people don't sew as they used to, they cut it all up into seams! "don't talk to me of the curtains before the ark, you can't make so much as a frock for a child out of them! the old-fashioned head-dresses get dearer every day, a head-kerchief ought to last forever, and even out of a bosom-kerchief you can always draw a gold or silver thread, but imitation pearls and glass spangles are good for nothing. and, believe me, it is all much uglier, in my opinion!" but she bears no one a grudge: "my husband, the skul rabbi, was a misnagid, but he never persecuted a chossid, heaven forbid!" she remembers how the householders once came crying out that the chassidîm of the place were late in reciting the shema,[ ] and she heard from his own lips the reply: "there are," he said to them, "different armies, and they have different weapons, different customs, but they all serve the same kingdom. even boots," he added with his smile, "are not all made by the same pattern." she remembers all his sayings and lives according to his ideas. he used to get very angry if a workman rose and stood before him as a sign of respect, for he was greatly in favor of people working with their hands, therefore when she came here with her few hundred rubles, she set up soap-making--sooner than live on others. she knows that even a woman is under the law bidding every one do something for his own support--it is not one of the laws bound to a certain time, from which women are exempt. when they "kept" her money, she remained dependent on the soap only. "it wouldn't be a bad business," she says, "blessed be his name! i make three to four rubles a week before a holiday. my soap, may his name be praised! has a reputation in the whole neighborhood, only--just now it's all on credit. some day the business will fail." i look round on all sides, i see no utensils, no instruments for the work. nothing extra is wanted for it, she gives me to understand: "you take some ashes from the hearth, potatoes, and other vegetables, work them together in water, let them steam and then simmer over the fire; in that way you get 'unclear' soap, and if you do the same thing over again, you get _liter_, that is, good soap!" when i leave, she asks a little troubled and ashamed: "tell me, i beg of you, when your writings come into the hands of the great people, will they not say i must take out a license?" insured a quiet summer night. over there the celebrated wood shows black on the sky-line; our forefathers engraved in its trees the names of the divisions of the talmud they completed as they went along. yonder, not far off, they halted, and the "head of the dispersion" said "pöh lîn!" (here abide!), and the land has ever since been called "pöhlin;"[ ] but the other nations cannot make out the reason. and the wood has a short cut to jerusalem. there was once a goat belonging to one of the native làmed-wòfniks, and the goat knew the road; she used to trot every morning to pasture on the temple mount, and return with three pitcherfuls of milk for the holy man. to the right of the wood, beside a river, lies the town. it is divided into two parts. one part is a long strip--a straight, paved street with walled-in houses under sheet-metal roofs, quite substantial, fastened to the earth with foundations. the inhabitants of the street know for certain that they will live and die in them; that all the winds of heaven may blow without causing them to move an inch. then comes the second part, another world, quite spiritual: flimsy "hen-houses" entirely built of straw and fir planks, with only an occasional slate-roof. a breeze blows over them, and they are gone. do their dwellers hope to find the short cut to the temple mount, like the immortal goat, or do they speculate on the fire-insurance? and how like are the houses to their inhabitants! these are narrow-chested, with darkened eyes, and crouch under crooked straw caps. cocks crow out of the huts, ducks quack, and geese cackle. from out the marsh, which licks the threshold with seventy tongues, croak well-fed, portly frogs. a jewish calf frequently contributes a bleat, and is answered out of the long street by a gentile dog. i shall begin to take notes early in the morning. i know beforehand what it will be: if not thirty-six rubles a year, it will be thirty-three or thirty-two.... i shall find "many trades and few blessings,"[ ] more soap factories, any number of empty houses.... the beadle will reckon up for me: _he_ is a messenger, _she_, a huckstress; two daughters are out in service in lublin, in samoscz.... one son is a "helper" in a cheder, the other serving his time in the army, and the daughter-in-law with three, four, five children has gone home to her father and mother.... i shall find neglected children tumbling about in the swamp with the ducks and geese; mites of babies screaming their throats out in the cradles; sick people left alone in bed; boarded-out children sitting over gemorehs; young women in furry wigs and with or without shyness; i hardly shut my eyes, before these same weary, livid, pale, twisted faces, walking sorrows, rise before me ... there is seldom one who smiles, one with a dimple ... all the men so unmanly, so mummy-like, women with running eyes, carrying a load of fruit, a sack of onions, or else an unborn child together with the onions. i know i shall come across an unlicensed third-rate public-house, two or three horse-stealers, and more than two or three receivers of stolen goods. but what about the statistics? can they answer the question, how many empty stomachs, useless teeth? how many people whose eyes are drawn out of their sockets as with pincers at the sight of a piece of dry bread? how many people who have really died of hunger? all you gain by statistics is that you find out about an unlicensed public-house, or a horse-thief, or a receiver of stolen goods. scientific medicine has invented a machine for checking heart-beats, one by one; the foolish statistics play with figures. do statistics record the anxious heart-beats that thumped in the breast of the grandson of the descendant from spanish ancestors, or the son of the author of the _tevuas shor_, before they committed their first illegality? do they measure how their hearts bled _after_ they committed it? do they count the sleepless nights before and after? can they show how many were the days of hunger? how many times the children flung themselves about in convulsions, how often hands and feet shook when the first glass was filled by the unlicensed brandy-seller? livid, ghastly, blue faces float before me in the empty air, and blue-brown, parched lips whisper: "there has been no fire in my chimney for twenty-four days." "we have eaten potato peelings for ten." "three died without a doctor or a prescription; i _had_ to save the fourth!" the hoarse voices cut me to the heart, like a blunt knife; i leave the window where i have been standing; but the room is full of ghosts. by the stove stands a red jew, well-nourished: "hee, hee!" he laughs. "steal? buy stolen things? a business like any other ... not less than a month's imprisonment ... in a month i would have lost a fortune ... all the noblemen will bear me witness ... honestly! honestly!" that voice is worse; it saws ... i throw myself on the bed, i shut my eyes, and there appears to me the good old rebbitzin of skul. "well," she says with her childlike, silvery voice, "and suppose the result of your inquiries were not favorable for the jews, shall you he able to say: 'thy people are all righteous?'" i feel as if her kind, blue, dove-like eyes rested soothingly on my hot forehead. i fell asleep beneath them, and i dreamt of the two angels, the good inclination and the evil one. i saw them flying earthward before day-break, enveloped in a thin, pink mist. the evil inclination carried, in one hand, a blue paper with a large, black eye in the top left-hand corner, evidently a deed relating to a house or some property ... expensive dresses, besides fur caps, braided kaftans, silk sashes, also a top-hat and frock-coat as if for one person; also handkerchiefs, head-kerchiefs, kerchiefs with tinsel, pearl necklaces, as well as silk and satin trains of all colors--all that in one hand, and in the other--potato peelings.... the good inclination--naked, without clothes or things to carry, as god made him.... both fly ... it seems as if the good inclination wanted to tell me something, he opens his pretty mouth ... but not his voice, a cry of alarm wakes me. fire! i spring out of bed, there is a fire just opposite! a long tongue of flame stretches out toward me and seems to say: "don't be frightened: it's insured!" the fire the fiery tongue was put out at me by reb chaïm weizensang's house. the tongue grew larger and the house smaller till it fell in, into a sea of wails and screams of terror. there was fortunately no wind at the time of the conflagration. when the sun rose from out the mist, blushing red like a beautiful and innocent maiden after the bath, she saw nothing but long, black, male heads turning over the ruins with sticks. they were looking for the remnants of weizensang's riches in the remnants of his house. groups of yellow-faced women are already standing around it. the brown shawls are held with washed fingers over their unwashed heads, and pale lips lament and bewail the house. with the morning came a fresh wind. a little sooner, and it would have played havoc. now it just shakes the remaining old chimney over the women's heads as though it were a palm. the chimney rocks and groans sadly, as though it felt deserted, and perhaps it listens to the inn-keeper telling me the tale of the destruction of the house, and affirms with a nod: "true, true!" you would sooner pick up every thread, every dust-grain of life out of which the sleep-angel has woven you a fantastic dream, than discover all the devices a jew must resort to before he hears the clink of copper coin. if i were to describe everything, you would think i had been dreaming myself.... who shall read the divine countenance when a wretched creature stands before him, lifts its head with its racked brain, extinguished eyes, and trembling voice, and pressing its empty stomach with cracked and bony hands, prays without a voice, without a language; the tongue will not move, but the blood cries: "lord of the world, i have done my part, now--thou must help! lord of the world, feed me like the ravens! in what am i more worthless than they are? lord of the world, where are _my_ crumbs? when will it be _my_ 'sabbath of song?'"[ ] and for all the body he has, he might very well be a bird; nothing is wanting but the wings, and the nest with the crumbs. and therefore the jewish parnossehs are so specialized that their like will only be in the twenty-first century, when one specialist will lift the upper eye-lid, a second press down the lower, and a third examine the sick eye. if a dish of roast veal, a rag in a paper-factory, or an exported egg had a mouth to speak with and the rabbi reb heshil's memory, they would still be unable to say how many jewish hands had taken them out and put them in, from the peasant's shed into the roasting-pan, from the manure-box into the "holländer,"[ ] from servitude into freedom.... and a jewish parnosseh is just such a ladder as jacob our father saw in a dream, the night when all stones united into one stone for his head, a ladder standing on the earth, and the top of it reaches into the sky. how deep it is chained into the earth, is known only to the worm at its foot, and how high it reaches--to the star only that shines above it. _we_ grow giddy gazing up the height; and when we peer down into the depths, our stomach turns, and we look green forever after. angels ascend and descend the ladder; men, alas, _climb_ it with their last remaining strength, and fall down it when their strength is exhausted. and even if he can thank his stars his neck is not broken, the jew has no strength left to begin climbing again. such is the ladder that was partly climbed by our "burnt-out" one. first he travelled between the villages as a "runner," on business for other people; the earth was hot to his bare feet. it was not the cry of a brother's blood this cain heard, it was the cry of wife and children for bread. heaven came to his assistance; he bought very cheaply for two or three years on end, and then he was promoted from a "runner" to a "walker." there was already provision at home for a week at a time, and he only came back fridays with the result of a week's bargaining; the brain was more composed, and had time to take in the fact that the feet were becoming swollen, that the father of six children ought always to walk and not run, if he wishes his feet to carry him till at least one of them is confirmed. and god helped further; he is now, blessed be the name, a village peddler, that is, he walks only when there is no "opportunity"[ ] to ride in from one village to another for a kopek; if the "opportunity" is there, he rides. god helped him on again; another year or two, and he has his own horse and cart! time does not stand still, and he took no rest, and god helped. the one horse turned into two, the cart into a trap, and it even came to a driver! and he is now a produce dealer; first he deals with peasants and then with gentlemen. and, god helping, he gets into favor first with the head of the dairy farm, then with the manager, after that with the bailiff, after that again with the steward, and at last with the count himself. o, by that time he is an inhabitant, settled in the place, the driver becomes a domestic servant, horse and carriage are sold, and pockets are lined with the count's receipts.... what is he now? he is like the sun round which circle the stars--smaller traders, and little stars--brokers. he shines and illumines the whole place with credit. yelenskin compared him to a spider sitting in his web, and the count to one of the flies entangled in it. after a while our "sun-spider," or "spider-sun," enlarged his house, wrote marriage contracts for his children, settled dowries on them; bought his wife pearls and himself a sealskin coat, engaged better teachers for his boys, and for the girls someone to teach them if only how to write a jewish letter. suddenly (at least, for the town), the count was declared bankrupt, and our "spider-sun," or "sun-spider," lost everything at once. if i had passed through a month earlier, i should have put down: a house, fifteen hundred rubles, a propination,[ ] a business in timber and produce, a money-lender. he has lent the count fifteen thousand rubles at ten per cent., not as a mortgage, but for "hand-receipts." now i write one word: "burnt-out." i might add: a man of eighty-two, swollen feet, a household of seventeen persons. the emigrant i open a door. a room without beds, without furniture, carpeted with hay and straw. in the middle of the room stands a barrel upside down. round the barrel, four starved-looking children, with frowzy hair, hang over a great earthenware dish of sour milk, out of which they eat, holding a greenish metal spoon in their right hand and a bit of bran-bread in their left. in one corner, on the floor, sits a pale woman, and the tears fall from her eyes on the potatoes she is about to peel. in the second corner lies "he," also on the floor, and undressed. "it was no good your coming, neighbor," he says to me, without rising, "no good at all! i don't belong here now!" but when he sees that i have no intention of going away, he raises himself slowly. "_nu_, where am i to seat you?" he asks sadly. i assure him that i can write standing. "you will get nothing out of me! i am only waiting for a boat ticket--you see, i have sold everything, even my tools...." "you are a mechanic?" i ask. "a tailor." "and what obliges you to emigrate?" "hunger." and there was hunger in _his_ face, in _her_ face, and still more in the gleaming eyes of the children round the barrel. "no work to be had?" he shrugged his shoulders as much as to say, he and work had long been strangers. "where are you going to?" "to london. i was there once already, and made money. i sent my wife ten rubles a week, and lived like a human being. the bad luck brought me home again." i wondered if the "bad luck" were his wife. "why not have sent for your family to join you?" "it drew me back! it's black as night over there. as soon as ever i closed an eye, i dreamt of the little town, the river round it, ... i felt suffocated there, and it drew me and drew me...." "this is certainly," i remark, "a beautiful bit of country." "the air costs nothing, and we have been living on air, heaven be praised, these three years. this time i am going with wife and child. i mean to put an end to it." "you will miss the wood again!" "the wood!"--he gives himself a twist with a bitter smile--"my wife went into the wood the evening before last, to gather berries, and they marched her out and treated her to the whip." "there is the river,"--i want to take him away from his sad thoughts. his pale face grew paler. "the river? in the summer it took one of my children." i hurried away from the luckless home. the madman i returned to my lodgings quite unnerved, and lay a long time on the hard sofa without closing an eye.... a noise wakes me. something is stealing in to me through the window. i see on the window ledge two long, bony, dirty hands, and there raises itself from behind them an unkempt head with two gleaming eyes in a livid face. "won't you enter _me_?" asks the head, softly. i do not know how to answer. he, meanwhile, has taken silence for consent, and stands in the middle of the room. alarmed, and still more astonished, i keep my eye on him. "write!" he says impatiently. "shall i give you the ink and a pen?" without waiting for an answer, he pushes up to my sofa the little table with the writing materials. "write, please, write!" and his voice is so soft and gentle, it finds its way into my heart, and i am no longer frightened. i sit up to write. i question him, and he answers me. "your name?" "jonah." "your surname?" "when i was a little boy, they called me jonah zieg. after my wedding, jonah drong, but since the misfortune happened to me, mad jonah." "what is your german name?" "o, you mean _that_?... directly, directly. perelmann. you see my pearls?" he points to a torn, red kerchief round his neck, and says: "real pearls, _ha_? but that's what i'm called. how can i help it?" "a wife?" "you had better _not_ put her down: she doesn't live with me. since the misfortune, she doesn't live with me ... a nice wife, too. i would gladly have given her a divorce, but the rabbi wouldn't allow it. he said i mustn't. a nice little wife!" and his eyes grew moist. "she even took the child with her. it's better off with her--what should _i_ do with it? carry it about? they throw stones at me, and would have hurt it." "one child is it you have?" "one." "what was your misfortune?" "may you know trouble as little as i know that! folk say a devil. the röfeh says, a stone fell into my head, and the soul, or, as he calls it, the life, into my belly. i don't remember the stone, but i have a bruise on my head." he takes off his hat and cap together, bends his head, and shows me a bare bump in the hair. "it may have been from a stone, but i _am_ mad--that's certain." "what is your eccentricity?" "two or three times a day i have my soul in my belly, and then i speak out of my belly, and crow like a cock. i can't stop myself, i really can't!" "what were you _before_ the misfortune?" "i hadn't got to be anything. it happened to me early in the köst.[ ] that is why i have only one child, health and strength to it!" "have you any money?" "i had a few gulden dowry. a lot of it went in remedies--on 'good jews' ... the rest i gave _her_." "what do you live on?" "on trouble. the boys throw stones at me. i daren't go about in the market-place, else i might have earned something near a stall. at one time people were sorry for me and gave me things. now times are bad--i have to go begging. i beg before dinner, while the children are still in cheder. and it's little enough i get by it! the town is small; there are two mad people in it beside me. and now they say that yesterday the 'lokshiche'[ ] threw a saucepan at her servant's head. the servant is sure to go mad, quite sure! only i don't know yet if she will crow as i do, or trumpet into her fist, like the rabbi's shlom'tzie, or be silent like hannah the tikerin." misery i shall not call the little town by its name, but if i come across another such, i, too, shall begin to crow, like the madman.... he was an excellent shoemaker, who supported wife and children (rarely less than four or five) respectably. he won a large sum of money in a lottery, took to drink, drank it all up, left his wife and children to shift for themselves, disappeared, and must have died since somewhere or other beneath a hedge. but that is not specifically jewish. take another one of us, his partner in the lottery ticket. he was a teacher, won some money, hired a mill together with the rebbe. the mill failed, now he is beadle in a chassidic meeting-house, gets nothing for it, but he sells the "bitter drop." the wife is a "buyer-in," takes round eggs and butter to the houses. she doesn't earn much, because she is lame. one son is away, the second works somewhere at a carpenter's; one is at home, scrofulous. the widow beile bashe, surname unknown, lives with a daughter-in-law, a soldier's wife. the husband disappeared in the turkish war. the daughter-in-law plucks feathers--she is a tikerin, and watches beside women in child-bed, or else by the sick. in summer, so long as the nobleman allowed it, she gathered berries in the forest; a sickly woman, she does a little bit of begging besides. zeinwill graf has only lately become a skinner. last year he was a great fisher, rented a river which the nobleman wished to let to a christian; he paid a lot of cession-money, caught only "forbidden fish" the whole summer, and is now in dire poverty. shmerke bentzies, formerly a dantzig trader ... it is twenty years since he came home empty-handed. since then he trades in currant-wine for kiddush. the wife is a sempstress, has suffered a year or two with her eyes. "they haven't _no_ children," but competition in the currant-wine trade is very keen, and they struggle. melach berils, a fine young man, only lately boarding with his father-in-law ... he was in business together with a cattle-dealer and lost his money; meantime the father-in-law died in poverty. it is uncertain what he will do. there are three little children, not more. i was also asked to put down a man (they had forgotten the name), a man with a wife, and children (nobody remembers how many, but a lot), who may arrive at any moment. the nobleman has refused to renew his lease; no one can tell what he will take to, but--"you may as well put him down!" the lÀmed-wÒfnik "we (the story is told me by a teacher of small children) once had a real làmed-wòfnik!" "he said so himself?" i ask. "well, he would have been a fine làmed-wòfnik if he had! he denied it 'stone and bone.' if he were questioned about it, he lost his temper and fired up. but, of course, people got wind of it, they knew well enough! yes, 'kith and kin,' the whole town knew it! as if there could be any doubt! people talked, it was clear as daylight! in the beginning, there were some who wouldn't believe--they came to a bad end! "for instance: yainkef-yosef weinshenker, a man of eighty and much respected, i can't quite explain, but he sort of turned up his nose at him. did he _say_ anything? heaven forbid! but there! like that.... turned up his nose as much as to say: preserve us! nothing worse! well, what do you think? not more than five or six years after, he was dead. yainkef-yosef lay in his grave. poor leah, the milkwoman! one was sorry for her. it was muddy, and she did not step off the stone causeway to make room for him. would you believe it, the milk went wrong at all her customers' for a month on end! and there was no begging off! when approached on the subject, he pretended to know nothing about it, and scolded into the bargain!" "of course,"--i wish to show off my knowledge--"though a scholar decline the honor due to him...." "a scholar? _is_ a làmed-wòfnik a scholar? and you think he knew even how to read hebrew properly? he could manage to make seven mistakes in spelling noah. besides, hebrew is nothing. hebrew doesn't count for much with us. he could not even read through the weekly portion. and his reciting the psalms made nevertheless an impression in the highest! the last rebbe, of blessed memory, said that welvil (that was his name, the làmed-wòfnik's) cleft the seventh heaven! and you think his psalm-singing was all! wait till i tell you! "hannah the tikerin's goat (not of you be it said!) fell sick, and she drove it to the gentile exorcist, who lives behind the village. the goat staggered, she was so ill. "on the way--it was heaven's doing--the goat met the làmed-wòfnik, and as she staggered along, she touched his cloak. what do you think? cured, as i live! hannah kept it to herself, only what happened afterwards was this: a disease broke out among the goats; literally, 'there was not a house in which there was not one dead;' then she told. the làmed-wòfnik was enticed into the market-place, and all the goats were driven at him." "and they all got well?" "what a question! they even gave a double quantity of milk." "the tikerin got a groschen a goat--she became quite rich!" "and he?" "he? nothing! why, he denied everything, and even got angry and scolded--and such an one _may_ not take money, he is no 'good jew'--he must not be 'discovered!'" "how did he live?" "at one time he was a shoemaker (a làmed-wòfnik has got to be a workman, if only a water-carrier, only he must support himself with his hands); he used to go to circumcisions in a pair of his own shoes, but in his old age he was no longer any good for a shoemaker, he could no longer so much as draw the thread, let alone put in a patch--his hands shook: he just took a message, carried a canful of water, sat up with the dead at night, recited psalms, was called up to the tochechoh,[ ] and in winter there was the stove to heat in the house-of-study." "he carried wood?" "carry wood? why, where were the boys? the wood was brought, laid in the stove, he gave the word, and applied the light. people say: a stove is a lifeless thing. and yet, do you know, the house-of-study stove knew him as a woman (lehavdîl) knows her husband! he applied a light and the stove burnt! the wind might be as high as you please. everywhere else it smoked, but in the house-of-study it crackled! and the stove, a split one, such an old thing as never was! and let anyone else have a try--by no means! either it wouldn't burn, or else it smoked through every crack, and the heat went up the chimney, and at night one nearly froze to death! when he died, they had to put in another stove, because nobody could do anything with the old one. "he was a terrible loss! so long as he lived there was parnosseh, now, heaven help us, one may whistle for a dreier! there was no need to call in a doctor." "and all through his psalms?" "you ask such a question? why, it was as clear as day that he delivered from death." "and no one died in his day?" "all alive? nobody died? do you suppose the death-angel has no voice in the matter? how many times, do you suppose, has the 'good jew' himself of blessed memory wished a complete recovery, and he, satan, opposed him with all his might? well, was it any good? an angel is no trifle! and the heavenly academy once in a while decides in the death-angel's favor. well, then! there was no doctor wanted; not one could get on here. now we have _two_ doctors!" "beside the exorcist?" "he was taken, too!" "_gepegert?_"[ ] "one doesn't say _gepegert_ of anyone like that--the 'other side'[ ] is no trifle, either." the informer if tomàshef had a làmed-wòfnik, it had an "informer" too! this also was told me by the primary school teacher. neither is it long since he--only i don't know how it should be expressed--departed, died, was taken. perhaps you think an ordinary informer, in the usual sense of the word; he saw a false weight, an unequal balance, and went and told? heaven forbid! not at all! it was all blackmail, all frightening people into paying him not to tell--see, there he goes, he runs, he drives, he writes, he sends! and he sucked the marrow from the bones-- "and he was badly used himself," continued the teacher. "i remember when yeruchem first brought him here! a very fine young man! only yeruchem promised 'dowry and board,' and hadn't enough for a meal for himself. and yeruchem had been badly used, too. his brother getzil (a rich miser as ever was), he had the most to answer for! "it is a tale of two brothers, one clever and good, the other foolish and bad; the good, clever one, poor, and the bad fool, a rich man. of course, the rich brother would do nothing for the poor one. "well, so long as it was only a question of food, yeruchem said nothing. but when his daughter grüne had come to be an overgrown girl of nineteen or twenty, yeruchem made a commotion. the town and the rabbi took the matter up, and getzil handed over a written promise that he would give so and so much to be paid out a year after her marriage. not any sooner; the couple might change their minds, yeruchem would spend the money, and there would be the whole thing over again. "he, getzil, wished to defer the payment until the end of three years, but they succeeded in getting him to promise to pay it in one year. when the time came, getzil said: 'not a penny! anyhow, according to _their_ law, the paper isn't worth a farthing,' and meanwhile it became impossible to settle it within the community. the old rabbi had died; the new rabbi wouldn't interfere, he was afraid of the crown-rabbi, lest he send it up to the regular courts--and there it ended! getzil wouldn't give a kopek, yeruchem disappeared either on the way to a 'good jew,' or else he went begging through the country ... and beinishe remained with grüne! "truly, the ways of the most high are past finding out! it seems ridiculous! he was a lad and she was a girl, but it was all upside down. the woman, an engine, a cossack, and the husband, a misery, a bag of bones! and what do you think! she took him in hand and made a man of him! "she was always setting him on getzil, he was to prevent the congregation from taking out the scrolls until the matter was settled, prevent getzil from being called up to the law.... it made as much impression as throwing a pea at a wall. getzil cuffed him, and after that the young fellow was ashamed to appear in the house-of-study. once, just before passover, when all devices had failed, grüne again drove beinishe to his uncle, and drove him with a broom! beinishe went again, and again the uncle turned him out. i tell you--it was a thing to happen! my second wife (to be) had just been divorced from her first husband, and she was grüne's lodger; and she saw beinishe come home with her own eyes; he was more dead than alive, and shook as if he had the fever; and my good-woman was experienced in that sort of thing (she had been the matron of the hekdesh before it was burnt down), and she saw that something serious had happened. "it was just about the time when grüne was to come home (she sold rolls) from market, and she would have knocked him down; and my good-wife advised him, out of compassion, to lie down and rest on the stove; and he, poor man, was like a dummy, tell him to do a thing and he did it; he got up on the stove. "grüne came home, my good-woman said nothing; beinishe lay and slept, or pretended to sleep, on the stove![ ] and perhaps he was not quite clear in his head, because, when getzil was turning him out of the house, he cried out that he would tell where they had hidden getzil's son, and if he had been clear in the head, he would not have said a thing like that. "however that may be, the words made a great impression on getzil's wife. may my enemies know of their life what beinishe knew of the whereabouts of jonah-getzil's! but there, a woman, a mother, an only son!... so, what do you think? she had a grocery shop, got a porter and a bag of passover-flour, and had it carried after her to grüne. "she goes in ... (such a pity, my wife isn't here! she was an eye-witness of it, and when she tells the story, it is enough to make you split with laughter); she goes in, leaves the porter outside the room. "'good morning, grüne!' grüne makes no reply, and getzil's wife begins to get frightened. "'where,' she asks, 'is beinishe?' 'the black year knows!' answers grüne, and turns to the fire-place, where she goes on skimming the soup. he must have gone to inform, she thinks. she calls in the porter, the sack of meal is put down, grüne does not see, or pretends she doesn't, devil knows which! getzil's wife begins to flush and tremble, 'grünishe, we are relatives ... one blood--call him back! why should he destroy himself and my soul with him?' "then only grüne turned round. she was no fool, and soon took in the situation. she got a few more rubles out of them, and made believe to go after beinishe.... it was soon rumored in the town that beinishe was an informer ... and grüne was glad of it ... she kept beinishe on the stove, and bullied and drew blood at every householder's where there was anything wrong." "at that rate, _she_ was the informer?" "first she, and then he himself. in his misery, he took to drink, hung about at night in the public-houses, threatened to 'inform' all on his own account. he never gave grüne a penny, and spent all he had in dissipation. it was sad--a man like that to end so!" "what happened?" "he burnt up his inside with drink. first he went mad, and ran about in the streets, or lay out somewhere for weeks under a hedge. but home to grüne--not for any money! "even when he was quite a wreck, ten men couldn't get him back into his house. he fought and bit. he had to be brought into the house-of-study (the hekdesh was no longer in existence), and there he died! they tried to save him, called in a specialist, recited psalms." "the làmed-wòfnik, too?" "certainly!" "well?" "a man with no inside--what could you expect?" xvi the outcast may had been cold and wet from beginning to end. people began to feel as if summer would never come, as if it would go on freezing and raining forever. at last, the day before pentecost, the sun shone out. "torah is light!" said my father, with proud satisfaction, and began to look for the tikun[ ] for the night of pentecost. "in honor of the holy feast-day!" exclaimed my mother, joyfully, and went back with fresh courage to her cake-making. "i am going to bake gelle challeh!"[ ] she called to us. soon the house was filled with the smell of freshly-kneaded dough, saffron, cinnamon and cloves, sugared cheese and melted butter. my younger sister hannah took no part in what was going forward. she sat by the window over a book, but she read nothing, and her eyes stared anxiously out into the street. our mother called on her several times for help, but hannah did not even answer.... the pale face wears a scornful smile ... the delicate lips open, she is about to speak! but she remains silent, and fastens her eyes upon her book. "lazy thing!" grumbles our mother, "always poring over books! working-day or holiday, it's all the same to her!" our father, who rarely interferes in household matters, having found the book and dusted it, lies down to sleep before bathing, to prepare for being up at night. our mother stops complaining, lest she should wake him. she calls me quietly to her, gives me a few pennies, and tells me to go down-stairs and buy a bit of green, and some colored paper with which to festoon the windows. heaven knows, i am unwilling enough to leave the room wherein stands a bowl of sweet cream, another of sugared cheese, and where packets of currants and raisins lie all about. at the same time, going to buy, to bargain over, and to pay for greenery and paper, was still more seductive, and away i run. and it turned out to be such a dreadful pentecost! * * * * * hannah, my sister, ran away! we had gone to prayers, and my mother had lain down to rest before blessing the lights.... it was then they gave a signal--my mother remembered afterwards hearing a terrible whistle in her sleep. and she left us, and went over to our enemies! and the time she chose was pentecost, the season of the giving of our law!... it was then she left us. * * * * * everything passes away, joy and sorrow, good and evil, and still we go forward on our way to the land where all things are forgotten--or remembered anew. everything we have lived through lies beneath our feet like stones in a beaten track, like gravestones under which we have buried our friends, good and bad. but i cannot forget hannah! * * * * * the life she had sought so eagerly spurned her from it, the vision of happiness faded into thin air, the flowers turned to sharp thorns in her grasp! there was no return possible. in her way stood the law and two graves: her father's grave and her mother's. where is she? once every year, on the eve of pentecost, she shows herself to me again. she appears in the street, she stands outside at the window, as if she were afraid, as if she had not the power to enter a jewish home. she gazes with staring eyes into the room, and sees me there alone. she looks at me with dismay, supplication, and anger. i understand her. "where are they?" she asks in dismay. "have pity on me!" she says, imploring. and then, in anger, she lays the whole blame of the disaster on us: * * * * * "what could i know of your bitter feud with _them_? _you_ knew, you learned all about it in school, _my_ books told me nothing, not a word! "living in the same house with you, i led a separate life. my story-books were like mirrors filled with the bright reflection of other women's lives, and, as i read, my own appeared there in all its dreariness! "i have betrayed something? "i have been false? to what? "i only exchanged saffron cakes for cakes of another sort, the tales in mother's books of legends for others far more vivid and entrancing--a bit of green in the window for the free, fresh green of the woods and fields--litanies for romances--the narrow, stifling routine of my daily life for sunshine and flowers, for gladness and love! i never betrayed _you_--i never knew you! "i knew nothing of your sorrow, you never spoke to me of yourselves. why did you not tell me of _your_ love, of the love which is your very being, why did you not tell me of your _beauty_--of the terrible, blood-stained beauty of israel? "the beautiful, the precious, the exalted in our religion, you hid it in yourselves, you men, you kept it from me, you kept it from us. "of me, of us, with our flesh and blood, with the strength of our youth struggling and crying out for _life_--of us you asked only butter-cake and gelle challeh! "you cast us out!" * * * * * he who is high above all peoples, who alone can see clearly through their tangled web of prejudice and hatred--_he_ shall judge her. xvii a chat it is warm, real holiday weather, and reb shachneh, a tall, thin jew, one of the last old kotzkers,[ ] and reb zerach, one of the few remaining old belzers,[ ] are taking a stroll outside the town. as young men they had been enemies, hating each other heart and soul. reb shachneh led the kotzkers against the belzers, and reb zerach, the belzers against the kotzkers. but now that they are old, and kotzkers are "not what they were," and belzers have lost their "go," they have separated themselves from their former associates, and left the meeting-rooms where less pious, but younger and stronger, men have taken the lead. they made peace in the synagogue, in winter time, beside the stove, and now, on this intermediate day of passover, on the first fine afternoon, they have come out together for a walk. the sun shines in a wide, blue sky. the little grasses are springing up through the mould, and one can distinctly see the angel who stands beside each blade, and cries: grow, grow! little birds fly about in flocks, looking for last year's nests, and reb shachneh says to reb zerach: "a kotzker, you see, i mean a real kotzker--the present ones don't count--never thought much of the haggadah."[ ] "but only of the dumplings?" smiles reb zerach. "never mind about the dumplings!" answers reb shachneh, gravely, "and don't laugh. you know the meaning of 'thou shalt not deliver up a slave to his master?'" "for me," says the belzer with humble pride, "it is enough to know the hidden meaning of the prayers!" reb shachneh pretends not to have heard, and continues: "the literal interpretation is simple enough: if a slave, or a servant, or a serf, run away, one may not, according to the law, catch him, bind him, and give him up to his master--it is evident, if a man runs away, his very life was endangered. but the hidden meaning is also quite clear: the body here below is a slave--it is the servant of the soul. the body is sinful, it sees a piece of pork, an idol, a woman, what not, and is ready to jump out of its skin. but when the soul says, thou shalt not! it must desist. "on the other hand, suppose the soul desires to perform a religious act. the body must be up and doing, however tired and harassed. the hands must work, the feet must run, the lips move--and why? the soul, the lord, commands! and therefore it is written: 'thou shalt not deliver up!' "the body may not be handed over unconditionally to the soul. the fiery soul would speedily burn it to ashes. had the creator wished for souls without bodies, he would not have made the world. "the body also has its rights. 'he who fasts much is a sinner.' the body must eat. he who would ride must feed his horse! comes a feast, a holiday--be merry, too! take a sip of brandy, rejoice, body, likewise! and the soul rejoices and the body rejoices--the soul in the benediction, and the body in the glass! "passover, the season of our deliverance--here, body, catch a dumpling! and it is inspirited and cheered, and rejoices to fulfil the commandment. "farewell, dumpling! brother, do not laugh." reb zerach opines that the matter is a deep one and worth consideration; but he himself does not eat sheruyah?[ ] "do you _enjoy_ passover cakes dry?" "for dessert?" smiles reb zerach. "and where are my teeth to eat them with?" "how then do you observe the precept: 'and thou shalt rejoice in thy feasts,' as regards the body?" "all sorts of ways. if it likes currant wine--well and good. i myself revel in the haggadah. i sit and repeat and count the plagues, and count and double them and multiply." "materialism!" "materialism? after all the misery and the hard labor--after the long exile of the divine presence? in my opinion, there ought to be a custom introduced of repeating the plagues seven times, and seven times 'pour out thy wrath!' but the great thing is the plagues! i delight in them. i wish i could open the door at the plagues--let _them_ hear! why should i be afraid? do you suppose _they_ understand hebrew?" reb shachneh is silent for a while, and then he relates the following: "listen! this is what happened one day with us. i assure you i won't exaggerate. in perhaps the tenth house from the rebbe's of blessed memory, there lived a shochet who was (may i be forgiven for saying so--he is no more of this world) a mad butcher, a butcher among butchers, one in a thousand. a neck like a bull's, eyebrows like bristles, hands like logs, and a voice, a voice! when he spoke, it sounded like distant thunder, or musketry. he must have been at one time or another a belzer." "well, well," growls reb zerach. "well, and," continues reb shachneh, coolly, "he used to pray with the most extravagant gestures, with shouts and whispers. "his 'they shall remember' reminded one of sprinkling fire with water." "let that pass!" "you can fancy the uproar when a fellow like this sat down to the haggadah. in the rebbe's chamber we could hear every word. he read, of course, like a butcher, and the laugh went round. "the rebbe of blessed memory scarcely moved his lips, and yet everyone could see that he was smiling. later, however, when the butcher began to count the plagues, so that they shot from his mouth like bullets, and brought his fist down on the table, so that the glasses rang again, the rebbe of blessed memory became melancholy." "melancholy? on a feast-day? passover? what do you mean?" "well, we asked him the reason why!" "and what did he answer?" "god himself," was his reply, "became melancholy on the occasion of the exodus." "where had he found that?" "it's a midrash![ ] when the children of israel had crossed the red sea, and the water had covered up and drowned pharaoh and all his host, then the angels began to sing songs, seraphim and ophanim flew into all the seven heavens with hymns and glad tidings, all the stars and planets danced and sang, and the celestial bodies--you can guess what rejoicings! but the creator put an end to them. a voice issued from the throne: "'my children are being drowned in the sea, and you rejoice and sing?' "because god created even pharaoh and all his host, even the devil himself, and it is written: 'his tender mercies are over all his works.'" "certainly!" sighs reb zerach. he says nothing more for a while, and then asks: "and if it _is_ a midrash, what has he added to it to deserve praise?" reb shachneh stands still, and says gravely: "first, belzer fool, no one has the duty to be original; there is no chronological order in the law--the new is old, the old is new. secondly, he showed us why we recite the haggadah, even the plagues in the haggadah, to a mournful "sinni" tune, a tune that is steeped in grief. "thirdly, he translated the precept: _al tismàch yisroel el gil ko-ammim_: materialist, rejoice not in a coarse way--you are no boor! revenge is not for jews." xviii the pike[ ] in honor of the feast-day, live fish have been bought. two large pike are lying in a great, green glass bowl filled with water, and a little further off, in one of blackened earthenware, two or three small carp. these are no sea-folk, but they come out of a fairly wide river, and they are straightened for room in the bowls. the poor little carp, in the one of black glaze, have been aware of its confines for some time past. they have lain for a good hour by the clock, wondering what sort of a prison this may be. and there is plenty of leisure for thinking. it may be long before the cook comes home from market with good things for the feast-day long enough for even a carp to have an idea. but the pike in the glass bowl have not taken in the situation yet. time after time they swim out strongly and bang their heads against the hard glass. pike have iron heads but dull wits. the two captive heroes have received each a hundred knocks from every part of the bowl, but they have not yet realized that all is closed to them. they _feel_ the walls, but the weak pike-eyes do not _see_ them. the glass is green--it is just like river water--and yet there is no getting out. "it is witchcraft!" says one pike to the other. the other agrees with him. "to-morrow there is an auction. the other bidders have bewitched us." "some crayfish or frog has done this." * * * * * it is only a short time since the net drew them out of the water. when they got into the air they had fainted, to recover consciousness inside a barrel of which the lid had been hammered down. "how the days are drawing in!" they had observed both at once. there was very little room in the barrel, scarcely sufficient to turn in, and hardly water enough for anyone to breathe. what with having fainted before, and now this difficulty in breathing, they had fallen into a doze, and had dreamt of all sorts of things, of the fair, and even of the opera and the ballet. but the dream-angel never showed them any kind of barrel. they heard nothing, not even the opening of the barrel and the hubbub of the market. neither perceived they the trembling of the scales in which they oscillated whilst the cook haggled over them with the fish-wife--or remarked the click-clack of the pointer that spoke their doom. they slept still more soundly in the cook's basket, starting into life again only in the bowl, beneath the rush of cold water. and now, after doing unwilling penance for an hour against the glass, they have only just hit upon witchcraft. "what are we to do?" says one to the other. the carp know themselves to be in prison. they, too, have had experience of a long night, and awoke in a bowl. "someone," say they, "had palmed off counterfeit bank-notes on us!" it will be proved, they are sure, if only one could get hold of someone who will take the matter up properly. they give a little leap into the air, catch sight of the pike, and fall back more dead than alive. "they are going to eat us!" they say, trembling. not until they realize that the pike are likewise in prison do they feel somewhat reassured. "they, they certainly have been passing counterfeit notes, too!" says one carp to the other. "yes, and therein lies our salvation. _they_ will not keep silence, and, with god's help, we shall all be set free together." "and they will see us, and, with god's help, will eat us up!" and the carp nestle closer against the bowl. they can just see a tub full of onions on the kitchen floor. "if we signed the contract, we might receive a golden order," observes one of the pike. "please god, we shall be decorated yet," answers the other. "it is a case of witchcraft, but--" "but what?" "there is one thing." "well?" "it sounds almost absurd--but--i wanted to tell you--we ought to _pray_," he stammers, "it is the best thing against sorcery!" "to pray? perhaps so!!" whereupon the two pike discover that it is years since they prayed last. they cannot remember a word. "ashrè,"[ ] begins one. "ashrè," repeats the other, and comes to a standstill. "oh, i want to pray!" moans the first. "so do i!" chimes in the second, "for when all is said and done, we are but fish!" a door opens in the wall, a little way, and two heads are seen in the aperture--a tipsy-looking man's head, and a woman's with curl papers. "ah," exclaims the man's head, joyously, "this is something like! pike--carp--and all the other good things." "i should hope so! and i have sent for meat besides." "my knowing little wife," chuckles the man's head. "there, there, that will do." and the heads disappear. "did you hear?" says a pike, "there are carp, too." "they have the best of it." "how is that?" "to begin with, they have made no contracts, they are free agents. secondly, they can leap." "if they would only give a _good_ leap, they would find themselves back in the river." "quite true." "and something good might come of it for us. wait a bit--let's try! carp!" the carp have suddenly swum to the surface of the water, and are poking their noses over the edge of the bowl. the pike, face to face with the carp: "bad luck, brothers?" he exclaimed. "bad," answer the carp. "bitter?" "bitter!" "very little water?" "oh, very little!" "and it smells?" "ugh!" "not fit to live in?" "not fit!" "we must get home, back to the river!" "we--must!" "we have forgotten what it was like in the river." "forgotten!" "a sin!" "a mortal sin!" "let us beat our head against the wall and do penance." the carp flatten their bellies against the bowl. the pike run their head against the glass till it rings again. "one should leap away home!" continues the pike. "one should leap!" "well--leap!" the pike commands, and the carp are out of the bowl and on the floor--lying there more dead than alive. "i never knew," says the second pike, "that you were such an orator--your lips drop honey!" the carp meanwhile are moaning. "hurry up!" orders the pike. the carp give another little spring. "oh," they moan, "we do not see any river--and our bones are breaking--and we cannot breathe." "on with you--make an effort! it is not much further--give a jump!" but the carp are past hearing. the carp lie dying on the floor, and the pike are having a dispute. both opine that any proper leap would carry one into the river, but one says that other fish are wanted, not stupid carp, who can only leap in the water, who cannot exist for an hour without food, and that what are wanted are--electric fish! and the other says: "no, carp--only, lots and lots of carp. if one hundred thousand carp were to leap, _one_ would certainly fall into the river, and if _one_ fell in, why, then--ha, ha!" xix the fast a winter's night; sarah sits by the oil-lamp, darning an old sock. she works slowly, for her fingers are half-frozen; her lips are blue and brown with cold; every now and then she lays down her work and runs up and down the room to warm her icy feet. in a bed, on a bare straw mattress, sleep four children--two little heads at each end--covered up with some old clothes. now one child and now another gives a start, a head is raised, and there is a plaintive chirp: "hungry!" "patience, dears, patience!" says sarah, soothingly. "father will be here presently, and bring you some supper. i will be sure to wake you." "and something hot?" ask the children, whimpering. "we have had nothing hot to-day yet!" "and something hot, too!" but she does not believe what she is saying. she glances round the room--perhaps, after all, there is something left that she can pawn. nothing! four bare, damp walls--split stove--everything clammy and cold--two or three broken dishes on the chimney-piece--on the stove, an old, battered chanukah lamp--over-head, in the beam, a nail--sole relic of a lamp that hung from the ceiling; two empty beds without pillows--and nothing, nothing else! the children are some time getting to sleep. sarah's heart aches as she looks at them. suddenly she turns her eyes, red with crying, to the door--she has heard footsteps, heavy footsteps, on the stairs leading down into the basement--a clatter of cans against the wall, now to the right, now to the left. a gleam of hope illumines her sunken features. she rubs one foot against the other two or three times, rises stiffly, and goes to the door. she opens it, and in comes a pale, stoop-shouldered jew, with two empty cans. "well?" she whispers. he puts away the cans, takes off his yoke, and answers, lower still: "nothing--nothing at all; nobody paid me. to-morrow! they said. everyone always says to-morrow--the day after to-morrow--on the first day of the month!" "the children have hardly had a bite all day," articulates sarah. "anyway, they're asleep--that is something. o, my poor children!" she can control herself no longer, and begins to cry quietly. "what are you crying for?" asks the man. "o, mendele, the children are so hungry." she is making desperate efforts to gulp down her tears. "and what is to become of us?" she moans. "things only get worse and worse!" "worse? no, sarah! it is a sin to speak so. we are better off than we were this time last year. i had no food to give you, and no shelter. the children were all day rolling in the gutter, and they slept in the dirty courts. now, at least, they sleep on straw, they have a roof over their head." sarah's sobs grow louder. she has been reminded of the child that was taken from her out there in the streets. it caught cold, grew hoarse, and died--and died, as it might have died in the forest, without help of any kind--no tearing open the ark[ ]--no measuring of graves--nothing said over it to exorcise the evil eye--it went out like a candle. he tries to comfort her: "don't cry, sarah; don't cry so! do not sin against god!" "oh, mendele, if only he would help us!" "sarah, for your own sake don't take things so to heart. see what a figure you have made of yourself. do you know, it is ten years to-day since we were married? well, well, who would think you were the beauty of the town!" "and you, mendele; do you remember, you were called mendele the strong--and now you are bent double, you are ill--and you don't tell me! o, my god, my god!" the cry escapes her, the children are startled out of their sleep, and begin to wail anew: "bread! hungry!" "who ever heard of such a thing! who is going to think of eating to-day!" is mendele's sudden exclamation. the children sit up in alarm. "this is a fast-day!" continues mendele with a stern face. several minutes elapse before the children take in what has been said to them. "what sort of fast is it?" they inquire tearfully. and mendele with downcast eyes tells them that in the morning, during the reading of the law, the scroll fell from the desk. "whereupon," he continues, "a fast was proclaimed, in which even sucking-children are to take part." the children are silent, and he goes on to say: "a fast like that on the day of atonement, beginning overnight." the four children tumble out of bed; bare-footed, in their little ragged shirts, they begin to caper round the room, shouting: "we are going to fast, to fast, to fast!" mendele screens the light with his shoulders, so that they shall not see their mother's tears: "there, that will do, children, that will do! fast-days were not meant for dancing. when the rejoicing of the law comes, then we will dance, please god!" the children get back into bed. their hunger is forgotten. one of them, a little girl, starts singing: "our father, our king," etc., and "on the high mountain," etc. mendele shivers from head to foot. "one does not sing, either," he says in a choked voice. the children are silent, and go off to sleep, tired out with singing and dancing. only the eldest opens his eyes once more and inquires of his father: "tate, when shall i be bar-mitzwah?"[ ] "not yet, not for a long time--in another four years. you must grow and get strong." "then you will buy me a pair of phylacteries?" "of course." "and a little bag to hold them?" "why, certainly!" "and a little, tiny prayer-book with gilt edges?" "with god's help! you must pray to god, chaïmle!" "then i shall keep all the fasts!" "yes, yes, chaïmle, all the fasts," adding, below his breath: "lord of the world, only not any like this one--not like to-day's." xx the woman mistress hannah a packet of letters two letters which hannah received from her brother menachem mendil, and one letter from her sister-in-law, eva gütel; altogether, three letters. first letter life and peace to my worthy sister, mistress hannah. i have received your letter, and i can tell you, i wept tears enough over it, and lay sighing and groaning one whole night long. but what was the good, seeing god in heaven is witness that i can do nothing to help you? and as to what you write about the inheritance, i must tell you, dear sister, there is no sense in it. according to the jewish law, you have no claim upon any part. ask your husband, he is learned, he will tell you the same thing. but you need not wait for him to tell you: a clever woman like you can open the "german pentateuch" and see for herself that zelophehad's daughters only inherited because there were no sons. as soon as there are sons, the daughters inherit nothing, and our father left no deed directing you were to inherit half as much as his male descendants. and all you say about our father, peace be upon him, not having given you the whole of your dowry, has nothing in it, because, if you come to think, who _does_ get the whole? you know _i_ did not, and yet i have no claim on anyone. besides, common sense will tell you that if our father, peace be upon him, did not keep to his engagement, neither did the other side, and so the matter rested. the two parties forgave each other, as is the custom among us jews. i would not trust my own judgment, but talked the matter over with our rabbi and his assistants, and we were all agreed that so it should be. further, as regards your contention that you boarded at home only half a year instead of a whole one--i know nothing about it. our father, peace be upon him, never told me. and you know quite well that just then i was living separated from my family and spent the whole time at the rebbe's, long life to him! and eva gütel tells me it was this way: there was a bit of a dispute between you over our mother's seat in the women's shool (peace be upon her), and you tore each other's hair, and our mother (peace be upon her) was greatly distressed. and one sabbath evening you picked up your bundle and your husband and were off to his native town. if so, what do we owe you? whom do you mean in your letter? who asked you to run away? when people want to board, they should board. but heaven forbid that i should distress you with reproaches! i only wish to show you how unjust you are. of course, right or wrong, one has to act according to law, specially in the case of a sister. only--what is the good of wishing? if one can't, one can't! you must know, dear sister, that before our father of blessed memory departed, he made a will, by which he left the large talmud to the large house-of-study and the small edition to the small house-of-study; the mishnayes and the bible were to be sent to the meeting-room where he used to recite the prayers--the funeral cost two hundred gulden, and i distributed alms to the amount of fifty gulden--what am i saying? a great deal more than fifty. i divided our father's clothes among the poor, except the silk cloak, which i am keeping, agreeably to the will, for my little mösheh, so that in a propitious hour he may walk in it to the marriage canopy, and may it be soon, even in our days, amen! what remains? nothing remains but the house. well it isn't worth insuring. even the roof, not of you be it said, has the falling-sickness--it hangs by a hair. the town-justice says, the old fire-wall must be taken down, and altogether it's in a dangerous state. you fancy, dear sister, that i am doing well for myself! when our father died and there was an end of board, i let the three little rooms to the left to grunem, the dealer, called grunem tzop (you must have known him and his wife zlate). i worry along with the money, and can only just pay the taxes and other duties that grow from day to day. meantime i try dodges, give the collector a sip of brandy--come later, come to-morrow! and so on, but the rope round my neck tightens every day, and what the end of it will be, heaven only knows! i live in the three rooms to the right, that are one with the inn and the public room. times are very bad, the villages round about have taken the pledge not to drink brandy. beside this, the land-owner has opened cheap eating shops and tea houses for the peasants--what more need i say? it's despair! one may stare one's eyes out before one sees a peasant come. you say in your letter that everyone from here tells you i am flourishing. the fact is, people see the possessions of others with bigger eyes. one has to struggle for every dreier, and meanwhile there is beile-sasha's wedding coming, and i am getting old and gray with it all! the expenses are endless; they will lend you nothing; there is still a silk over-robe wanting for the wedding outfit, and as soon as the wedding is over, my eva gütel must consult a doctor. if shmüel, the röfeh, advises her to go, you can imagine the condition she must be in. i consulted the rebbe (long life to him), and he also advised her going to warsaw. her cough gets worse every day--you would think people were chopping wood in the room. and as to your trying to frighten me by saying that if i don't behave myself, you will write to our relative in lublin, and she will go to her lawyer, and have me handed over to the gentiles--you know, my dear sister, that i am not the least afraid. first, because a pious woman like you, my sister, knows very well what a jewish court is and (lehavdîl) what a gentile court is. you wouldn't do anything so stupid! no jewish woman would do that! and, even if you wanted to, you have a husband, and he would never allow such a shameful proceeding. he would never dare to show himself to his rebbe or at the stübel again. besides that, i advise you not to throw away money on lawyers, they are incredible people; you give and give, and the moment you stop giving, they don't know who you are. and i must remind you of the tomàshef story which our father, on whom be peace, used to tell. you may have forgotten it, so i will tell it you over again. in tomàshef there died a householder, and his daughter, a divorced woman, fell upon the assessor--he was to give her a share in the inheritance, according to _their_ custom. as she stood talking with the assessor, a coal sprang out of the hearth in her room at home, the room took fire, and a child of hers (not of you or any jew be it said again) was burned. and i advise you, sister hannah, to be sorry, and do penance for what you have written. trouble, as they say, steals a man's wits--but it might, heaven forbid, be brought against you, and you ought to impose something on yourself, if only a day's fasting. i, for my part, forgive you with my whole heart, and if, please god, you come to my daughter's wedding, everything will be made up, and we shall all be happy together. only forbear, for heaven's sake, to begin again about going to law. and i am vexed on account of your husband, who says nothing to me about his health; if he is angry with me, he commits a sin; he must know what is written about the sinfulness of anger, besides which there is a rumor current that he was not once at the rebbe's during the solemn days, but prayed all the while in the house-of-study, and they also say that he intends to abandon study and take up something or other else. he says he intends to work with his hands. you can imagine the grief this is to me. because what shall become of the torah? and who shall study if not a clever head like him? he must know that our father, on whom be peace, did not agree to the marriage on _that_ condition. and especially nowadays, when the "nations-of-the-world" are taking to trade, and business decreases daily, it is for the women to do business and for the men to devote themselves to the torah, and then god may have mercy on us. it would be better for him to get a diploma as a rabbi, or let him become a shochet or a teacher--anything--only not a trader! if i were only sure that he wouldn't turn my child's heart away from _my_ rebbe, i would send him my mösheh'le for teaching and board. see to it that your husband gives up those silly notions, and do you buy a shop or a stall--and may the merits of the fathers on your side and on his be your help and stay! further, i advise you to throw off the melancholy with which your letter is penetrated, so that it is heart-breaking to read. a human being without faith is worse than a beast. he goes about the world like an orphan without a father. we have a god in heaven, blessed be he, and he will not forsake us. when a person falls into melancholy, it is a sign that he has no faith and no trust. and this leads, heaven forbid, to worse things, the very names of which shall not pass my lips. write me also, sister hannah, how peas are selling with you. our two great traders--you remember them? the lame yochanan and the blind yoneh--have raised the price, and our nobleman cannot get any for seed--one might do a little business. it may be heaven's will that i should make a trifle toward wedding expenses. of course, i don't mean you to do me a kindness for nothing. if anything comes of it, i will send you some money, so that you and your husband may come to beile-sasha's wedding--and i will give a present for you--a wedding present from the bride's family. eva gütel sends you her very friendly greetings; she does not write herself because it is fair-day; there are two produce dealers here of the samoscz gluttons, and they insist on having stuffed fish. the bride has gone to the tailor's to be measured for a dress, and i am left alone to keep an eye on the gentile cooks. try now, dear sister, for heaven's sake, not to take things to heart and to have faith. he who feeds the worm in the earth and the bird in its nest, will not forsake you. greet your husband. from me, your brother menachem mendil. second letter life and peace to my sister mistress hannah. i have received your second letter. it was soaked with tears and full of insults directed against me, my wife eva gütel, and even the bride, beile-sasha, and it has upset me very much, for why? you say, sister hannah, that i am a bandit, that i met you, heaven forbid, in a wood, and, heaven forbid, murdered you; that it was i and my wife, eva gütel, who drove you from the house; that beile-sasha, in your opinion, is a hussy, because she is ordering silk dresses--what am i to say? i must listen in silence, knowing the trouble you are in--that it is not you that speak, but your heavy heart. but it is not as you think. i am no murderer, thank heaven! and were any one to come from the street and declare that the cloak i am wearing is his, and that he is going to law about it, i should go with him to the rabbi's without a word. and if, god willing, you come to the wedding, we will go together and have it out. and see here: about the board you did not eat, you confess yourself in your letter that it came about through a quarrel between you and my wife (it's not my affair who began it), and all i see is, that your husband was a great booby--"that he followed after his wife." they say that you ran away in the evening following sabbath, and made yourselves a laughing-stock. our father was greatly distressed, and it shortened his days (he said so plainly--neighbors heard it), and you put it all on eva gütel! it's a calumny! but what is done, is done! our father lies in his grave. there can be no more question of board or anything else. and you know very well that beile-sasha, the bride, is no hussy. she, poor thing, is quite innocent in the matter. her future father-in-law, the takif,[ ] forced me to order the silk dresses. once even she cried, and said it would ruin us, but what am i to do, when the contract says "in dresses of silk and satin," and he will hear of no alteration--it's take it or leave it. and there would be no choice but to see my daughter an old maid. and you know the dowry will not be given entirely in cash. i have promised six, and given three, hundred rubles; i have mortgaged the house for two hundred rubles, and you know the house stands in our father's name, so that i had to pay extra--and now i am so short of money that may god have mercy on me. but what is the use of telling that to a woman! our sages were right when they said: "women are feather-brained," and there is the proverb: "long hair (in girls, of course) and short wits." i shall write separately to your husband; he is a man learned in the law, and he will know that one human being should not lean upon another, because, as we are told, a human being can only just support himself. one must have faith. and i am convinced that god will not forsake you. he does not forsake the weakest fly. the almighty alone can help you, you must pray to him, and i, for my part, when next i am, god willing, at _his_ house[ ] (long life to him), i shall make a special offering in your behalf. that _must_ help. as to the peas, the business is off. before there was time to turn, gabriel, the tenant, had brought several cartloads from your part of the country--he has made a fortune. he is about to marry a son and has actually given a dowry! it so pleased god that you should not be able to afford a stamp, your answer was belated, and gabriel is the winner. and as to what you write about your child being poorly, you must consult the röfeh. don't fancy it in danger. keep up your spirits. i have done my part: i got up quite early, went to the great house-of-study, dropped a coin into the collecting box of meïr baal-ness, wrote on the east wall "for complete recovery," in big letters, and as soon as we have made a little money i will send some candles to the shool. i will also tell the rebbe, and _not_ explain that your husband is no follower of _his_. and you know that i am quite a son of the house. from me, thy brother menachem mendil. my wife, eva gütel, sends you a very friendly greeting; the bride, another. one of these days, god willing, you will receive an invitation to the wedding, and may it bring us all good luck. menachem mendil, the above. third letter to my beloved sister-in-law and worthy relative, the excellent woman, mistress hannah. i beg to inform you that from this time on _i_ shall receive your letters, and not my tender-hearted husband, and _i_--i will burn them. secondly, my dear sister-in-law, between ourselves, it was great forwardness on your part to fall upon us just before the wedding, turning our days into nights, and now you wish to blight our married life with discord. you must fancy that you are still boarding with my father-in-law, a spoiled only daughter that has never learned manners; and just because you can't have the moon to play with, you are ready to scratch people's eyes out, turn the world upside down, and your cries pierce the heavens. i can hear you now, tapping with your feet, and the bang of your fist on the table, while your ninny of a husband goes into the corner, wags his sheep's head, and his ear-locks shake like lulavim; and father-in-law, may he forgive me, lets the spoiled child have her way. dear sister-in-law hannah! it is time to awaken from sleep, to forget the empty dreams, and to realize the kind of world one is in. my father-in-law of blessed memory has long lain in his grave--there is an end to boarding. you can only be spoiled by your husband now, and i--show you twice five fingers. and i have told the postman to deliver your letters to me, not to my husband, my innocent lamb. you know, dear sister-in-law, that people are scandalized at the way you go on. whoever hears of it thinks you are possessed. soril the neggidah[ ] told me plainly, she thought you deserved to be crimped like a fish. and i cannot make out what it is you want of me. it was not i, eva gütel, who wrote the torah; it was not i, eva gütel, who descended on sinai, with thunder and lightning, to deprive you of a share in the inheritance. and if my father-in-law was as great an idler as your husband is a ninny, and no document made special provision for you, am i to blame? it is not for me to advise the almighty, the keys of the gate of mercy are not in my pocket. there is a somebody whom to implore. have you no prayer-book, no supplications? pray, beg for mercy! and if your child is really ill, is there no ark to tear open--are there no graves to measure--no pious offerings to make? but the only idea you have is: eva gütel! eva gütel, and once more, eva gütel! if you haven't parnosseh, whose fault? eva gütel's, and you pour out upon her the bitterness of your heart. if the child is ill, whose fault? of course, eva gütel's, and you scream my head off. god in heaven knows the truth, i am a sick woman; i struggle for breath, and if i am vexed, i am at death's door. and when the cough seizes me, i think it's all over--that i am done for. i live, as they say, with one foot in the house and one in the grave. and if the doctors order me abroad to drink the waters, i shall be left, heaven forbid, without so much as a chemise. and who is to look after the house, and the housekeeping, and the sick children, _wos_? i think you know that the whole house depends on me, that menachem mendil has only to move to cause a disaster. of all putty-fingers! a man that's no use to heaven or earth, can't put a hand into cold water--nothing! and now, as if i hadn't troubles enough, the doctor must needs come and say my liver is enlarged, the danger great, and, in fact, that may heaven have mercy on me! and _you_ insisting that i am a rich woman who can help you! dear sister-in-law, i tell you, you have the heart of a tartar, not that of a jewish daughter; you are without compassion! it is time you left off writing those affectionate letters of yours. and, for heaven's sake, come to the wedding, which, please god, will be soon. _when_, i don't exactly know, and i will not be responsible for the day. menachem mendil shall go to the holy man and consult with him, so that it take place in a propitious hour. i will be sure to tell you. and you are not to bring presents, and if your husband, as i hope, comes with you, you will be among the privileged guests, and i will seat you at the top of the table. and the bride also begs very much that you will come to her wedding. only you must behave well, remember where you are, and not put us to shame and confusion. greet your husband and wish the child a complete recovery. from me, your sister-in-law eva gÜtel. four letters which hannah received from her husband, shmùel mösheh. first letter to my beloved wife mistress hannah: when my letter is given into your hands, i, shmùel mösheh, shall be already far away. and i beg you with my whole heart to forgive me for that same. i left you not of my own good will: i couldn't bear it any longer, i saw plainly that there was no help for it, that the trouble was not to be borne. we have eaten up the dowry, the inheritance has been swallowed by your bandit of a brother. he used the time when the letters were passing between you to have the house entered in the name of his son-in-law's father. i couldn't set up any kind of business, i hadn't the wherewithal. there was nothing left for me but to hang myself, which heaven forbid, like leezer, the tailor, or to run away to america. i chose america, so as at least not to lose the other world as well. and i shall not be idle there. with god's help and with the sweat of my brow and with my ten fingers, i will earn my bread, and perhaps god will have mercy and send a blessing into my ten fingers, and perhaps he will also bless your trade in onions, and bring us together again; either me to you or you to me. amen, thus may it seem good in his sight. and i beg of you, dear, good hannah, not to take it to heart, not to cry so much! you know, i only go away for the sake of parnosseh--a "bit of bread." you are my wife hannah, and i am your husband, shmùel mösheh, and we are both bound to the child, life and health to it. if there had only been a piece of dry bread, i wouldn't have done it. perhaps he whose name is blessed may meantime have compassion, and that, when your brother the bandit, hears that i, heaven forbid, have left you a grass-widow, he will be touched, his stony heart will soften, and he will perhaps send you a few rubles. my precious hannah, what am i to say to you? i must tell you that the idea of going away and leaving you with the child came into my head many and many a time. i saw long ago that i had no other choice. i thought it over day and night, at prayer and at study. i only waited till the child should be well. and when it got better, i hadn't the heart to tell you i wanted to go away, whither my eyes should take me. i was afraid you would say you wouldn't allow it, and that i should not be able to act against your will. so i kept everything to myself, ate my heart out in silence. but the day before yesterday, when you brought home a pound of bread, and divided it between me and the child, and said, you had eaten at our neighbor's, and i saw in your face, which turned all colors--because you cannot tell a lie--that you were fooling me, that you hadn't had a bite, then i felt how i was sinning against you. eating the bread, i felt as if it were your flesh, and afterward, drinking a glass of tea, as if it were your blood. my eyes opened, and i saw, for the first time, what a sinner in israel i was. and yet i was afraid to speak out. i ran away without your knowing. i pawned my outer cloak and prayer-scarf to yechiel the money-lender--but don't, for the love of heaven, let anyone know--and paid for my journey. and if i should be in need, jews are charitable and will not let me fall dead in the street; and i have made a vow that later on, when his name shall have had mercy, and i have earned something, to give it in charity, not only what i got, but more, too, if god so please. you must understand, my precious hannah, how hard and bitter it is for me to go away. when our dear only child was born, it never occurred to me that i should have to leave it fatherless, even for a time. the night i left i must have stood over your bed an hour by the clock. you were asleep. and i saw in the moonlight, for the first time, what you, poor thing, have come to look like; and that the child was as yellow as wax. my heart choked me for terror and pity--i nearly burst out crying, and i left the room half-dead. i knocked at the baker's and bought a loaf, stole back into the house and left it with you, and stood and looked at you a little while longer, and it was all i could do to drag myself away. what more am i to tell you? a man can go through the suffering of a hundred years in one minute. hannah krön,[ ] i know that i am a bandit, a murderer, not to have got you a divorce, or at all events a conditional divorce--but god in heaven is my witness: i hadn't the heart! i felt that if i left you a divorce, i should die of grief on the way. we are a true and faithful couple. god himself was present at our union, and i am bound to you with my whole heart, we are one soul in two bodies, and i do not know how i shall live without you and without the child, may it be well, even for a minute. and should anyone say i have left you a grass-widow, don't believe it; for i, shmùel mösheh, am your husband, and i have only done what i _had_ to do. what will misery not drive a man to? hannah'li krön, if i could lay my heart open before you, you would see what is going on there, and i should feel a little happier. as it is, dear soul, i am very wretched, the tears are pouring from my eyes so that i cannot see what i am writing, and my heart aches and my brain goes round like a mill-wheel--and my teeth chatter, and the letter-carrier, the illiterate boor, stands over me and bangs on the table and cries: "i must go! i must go!" lord of the world, have pity on me now and on my wife hannah, health to her, and on the child, so that i may have joy of it yet. from me, your dear husband, who writes in the inn on the way, shmÙel mÖsheh. second letter my precious and beloved wife: what am i to say to you? i see clearly that my idea of going away was heaven-sent, that god himself put the thought of america into my head; everything he does is for the best. my dear hannah, whenever i shut my eyes i fancy myself at home again, and the dream comes from the other end of the world. for who would have thought that an idler like me, such a nincompoop as i am, such a born fool, should ride on a railway, cross the sea in a ship, and arrive safe in america? the finger of god! "i will praise the lord"--it was god's disposing--his will alone enabled me to leave you and the child, and may we be counted worthy to rear it for the torah, the marriage canopy, and all good works. hannah'li krön, i have seen great wonders on dry land, but nothing to what i saw on the sea. while i was at sea, i forgot everything i had seen on dry land, and now, among the wonders of america, i begin to, forget about the sea. at first i was so miserable on board ship, there are no words for it. but all ended well, and i am sure it was for your sake and the child's. hannah'li, i am sure you remember leeb the reader,[ ] who came to our town once a few years ago, and recited the prayers in our shool during the solemn days. i remember that after the day of atonement you told me you had never heard such davenen[ ] in your life. i even recall the very words you used: leeb the reader "roars like a lion and weeps like a child." next morning there was something of a commotion in the town; people had forgotten leeb the reader, hadn't paid him properly, and he, poor man, went from house to house collecting money--with a little girl, you remember, whose name was genendil. she accompanied her father's singing with her childish voice. when they came to our house, you were very sorry for her, took her into your lap, kissed her on the head, and gave her something, i forget what. and you cried for compassion over the motherless child. perhaps you wonder at my remembering all this? you see, hannah'li krön, i remember all the kind things you said and all your actions, for they were full of charm. you are continually before me. i fancied sometimes, crossing the sea, that you stood beside me, and that the child had hold of your apron, and i heard your voices, and they sounded in my ears with a sweetness beyond all description. and i have come across leeb the reader, by the way. heaven forgive me, but leeb the reader has sunk very low. he paid no attention on board ship as to whether the food were kosher or not, and he drinks as is not the way with jews. i never once saw him in prayer-scarf and phylacteries the whole time, or saying grace after meat. he goes about all day without a hat--and not content with this, he leads his daughter into the same paths. the genendil of those days is now about seventeen. you should see her--a picture! and he made her sing and dance before the passengers on board ship--and she sings in different languages. the people listened and clapped their hands with delight and cried out goodness knows what. and it was all so boisterous that really--.... at first--why deny it?--i was very pleased to see them. it's always somebody from home, i thought. i won't have to hang about so lonely and wretched. but afterward i felt greatly distressed. i couldn't bear to watch his goings-on with his daughter. and now and again it cut me to the heart to hear a jew, who used to stand at the reading-desk, a messenger of israel to the almighty, talk such disgusting nonsense. and his voice is burned with brandy. and they must take me in hand and try to make me presentable. they made fun of me on board. it was always: "idler!" "fool!" he tweaked my ear-locks; she pulled the fringe off my "little prayer-scarf," and the whole ship took it up. and what ailed them at me? that i avoided forbidden food and preferred to fast rather than touch it. you know, i dislike quarrelling, so i edged away, hid in a corner, and wept my heart out in secret. but they discovered me and made a laughing-stock of me, and i thought it would be my death. it is only here, in america, that i see it was all a godsend; that god, in his great goodness, had sent leeb the reader before me into america, as he sent joseph before his brothers into egypt. because, what should i have done without them? a man without the language of the country, without a trade, not knowing at which door to knock? and leeb the reader is quite at home here, talks english fluently, and he got me straight away into a cigar-factory, and i am at work and earning something already. meanwhile we are in the same lodging, because how should i set about finding one for myself? and they behave quite differently to me now. genendil has given over quizzing me about my beard and ear-locks, and keeps at a distance, as beseems a jewish daughter. she cooks for us, and that is very important, although i eat no meat, only eggs, and i drink tea without milk.[ ] she washes for us, too. there is a lesson to be learned from this, namely, that what the lord does is for the best. and do you know _why_ it has all turned out for the best? for _your_ sake! on the boat, already, when i began to feel i could bear it no longer, i plucked up my courage and went to genendil and told her i was your husband. i recalled to her memory the time after the day of atonement when they were in our house, how good you were to her, how you took her on your knee, and so on. her manner changed at once, she had compassion on me, and her eyes filled with tears. then she ran to her father, and talked it over with him, and we made peace. they immediately asked the captain to treat me better, and he agreed to do so. i was given bread as much as i could eat, and tea as much as i could drink. the crew stopped tormenting me, and i began to breathe again. you should have seen what a favorite genendil was on board. and no wonder: first, she is a great beauty, and for a beauty people will jump into the sea; secondly, she is really good-natured, and people are simply charmed by her. and now, my precious wife, i will give you some good news: leeb the reader tells me i shall earn at least ten dollars a week. i reckon to do as follows: the half, five dollars, i will send to you, and keep five for myself. i will live on this and save up to buy a talmud. the mishnah books i brought with me. i have settled to read at least ten pages of the gemoreh a week. i won't buy a prayer-scarf, because so far i have prayed in leeb the reader's--for leeb the reader had one with him. to what end, i don't know, because, as to praying--never a word! i persuade myself, this is also heaven-sent; he was made to bring a prayer-scarf on my account. perhaps he means to pray at the reading-desk during the solemn days. who knows? they are drawing near. anything is possible in america. the world here is topsy-turvy. and the lord knows best what is good for a man. do you know what? i am not angry with your brother, the bandit, any longer. it's the same thing again: i tell you, that also was a godsend; it couldn't otherwise be possible that a man should treat his sister so. that was all brought about in order that i should run away to america, and send for you to come to me. and when, god helping, i have made some money, i will assist your brother, too. i tell you, he also is a pauper. i see now--what _we_ call a rich man is a beggar in america. i end my letter, and this time briefly, although i have heaps and heaps more to say, because i am afraid leeb the reader and genendil may come in, and i don't want them to see what i have written to you. and i beg of you very much not to show my letters to a living soul. why need a stranger know of our doings? and i hug and kiss the child, long life to it. give it ten thousand loving kisses from me--do you hear? from me, your husband shmÙel mÖsheh. third letter my beloved wife: i can remember when yoneh the shoemaker went to america, and people began to talk about it for the first time, wondering what it was like there, how things were done. they asked, whether people walked on their heads, and it is true that everything here is upside down. no sort of order, only a great shouting and noise, as in the butchers' meeting-house at home. imagine, for instance, paltiel the wadding-maker and yössil the tanner coming and saying that our rabbi is not learned; that he is not experienced enough in the application of the law, or that they are not satisfied with the head of the community--that they want another rabbi, another communal head. well, wouldn't one hold one's sides laughing? and here, in america, workmen, cigar-cutters, for instance like me, have a word to say in everything. they share in the elections, take part in the voting, and choose--a president. and what do you think that is? a president is nothing more nor less than the supreme head of the whole country. and america, so i have heard, is ten times as large as the whole of europe. you see what that means? now imagine my surprise, as i sit in my room one evening, thinking of home, and suddenly the door opens, and there come in two workmen, ordinary workmen, who stand with me at the same machine, and are _achènu benè yisroèl_.[ ] and they laid two names before me, i don't even recollect what they were, and tell me, i also am a workman, and must see to the election of a president who shall favor our class. and they told me that _one_ president was all for the rich people and trod down all those who lived by their ten fingers; while the second, the one they wanted to have elected, was a jewel; he stood for the workingman like a flint, and pursued the bloated upper classes with a fierce hatred. and more such foolishness, which i did not understand. inwardly i laughed at them. but for the sake of peace--it is not seemly to be rude to people--i did them the favor and nodded yes. all i wanted was to get rid of them, so as to sit down and write to you. but--isn't it a madness? they say, if the president is elected according to their wish, i shall earn ten dollars a week, and if not, only nine or perhaps eight. and leeb the reader says he understands politics--that there is sense in it all--and that if i remain here some time, i shall get to know something about it, too. well, perhaps so--i nod my head. and i think to myself, he has taken a drop too much and is talking nonsense. but he swore that during election-time he lived on it, and had a little money over for later. i'm sure i don't see how. but, joking apart, it's not our affair whether one or the other is president; it won't make much difference to us. the fact is, i often feel very depressed, the tears fall from my eyes on the tobacco leaves that i am cutting, and i don't sleep well at night. sometimes there is a noise in my ears, and my head aches whole days together--and there is no better remedy for all this than to take paper, pen, and ink, and write a letter to my dear hannah. my precious wife, i cannot keep anything from you. i have to tell you everything: i am still reading the mishnah--i have got no talmud yet. and do you know why? because i have had to make another outlay. you know that it is everywhere the same world. although here they cry without stopping, "liberty! liberty!" it isn't worth an onion. here, too, they dislike jews. they are, if possible, more contemptuous of their appearance. there are no dogs that bark at them in the street and tear their skirts, but there are plenty of hooligans here also. as soon as they catch sight of a "capote"[ ] there is a cry: "jew, jew!" which is the same as _zhidd_[ ] with us. and they throw stones and mud--there is no lack of mud here, either. so what could i do? i did what all the jews do here--i tucked away my ear-locks behind my ears, and i bought (to be paid for by degrees--a custom they have) "german" clothes. there was an end to the money. and you, too, hannah'li, when you come, will have to dress differently, for a custom stultifies a law--and it is their custom. and as to your writing that you don't like genendil, i cannot see why. what ails you at her? it is not for me to set other people right. besides, i am sure she only does it all for parnosseh. she is as modest by nature as any other jewish daughter. all day long, while leeb the reader and i are at the factory, she cooks and washes and sweeps out the rooms. it is only in the evening that she goes with her father to _their_ places of amusement, where she sings and plays and dances before the public. i sit by myself at home, read torah, and write to you. towards midnight they come home, we drink tea together, and we go to bed. and as to your saying, you think genendil stole the spoon which was afterwards missing--that is nonsense! genendil may not be very pious as regards the faith, but she would never think of touching other people's property. for goodness' sake, don't ever let her hear of it. she treats me like her own child, and is always asking me if i don't need a clean shirt or a glass of tea. she is really and truly a good girl. she gives all her earnings to her father, and treats him in a way he doesn't deserve, although at times he comes home very cheerful and talks nineteen to the dozen. and leeb the reader has told me that he is collecting a dowry for her, and that, as soon as he has the first thousand dollars, he will find her a bridegroom and marry her according to the law of moses and of israel, and she will not have to strain her throat for the public any more. i don't know if he really means it--but i hope so. god grant he may succeed and rid her of the ugly parnosseh. genendil was there when he said this and blushed for shame, as a jewish girl should do; so she is evidently agreed. i implore you, dearest hannah, to put away calumny and evil-speaking. that is not right, it only does for gossips in a small town. and you, hannah dear, must come to america. here the women are different--less flighty, more serious, and as occupied as the men. to return to the subject, your shmùel mösheh is no tailor or shoemaker, to throw over his wife for another woman. you mustn't imagine such a thing! it is an insult! you know that your words pierce my heart like knives, and if leeb the reader and his daughter knew of it, they would forsake me, and i should be left alone in a desert! it would be a calamity, for i don't know the language, only a few words, and i should be quite helpless. and now i beg of you, my dear hannah, i beg very much, take the child's hand and guide it across the paper, so that it may write me something--let me see at least a mark or two it has made! lord of the world, how often i get away into a corner and have a good cry! and why? because i was not found worthy to teach my child the law! and as if i were not suffering enough, there come your letters and strew salt on my wounds. look here, to-day leeb the reader asked me, and genendil, too (here she is called sophie), nodded her head, to go with them and hear her sing and see her dance, and i wouldn't. leeb the reader said, "foolish chossid!" _she_ turned up her nose. but i don't care! i shall go my own ways and not a hair's breadth will i turn aside! keep well, you and our child. such is the wish of your husband shmÙel mÖsheh. please don't let on about the clothes! not a soul in our town must know of it, or i would be ashamed to lift my eyes. s. m. fourth letter to my worthy wife mistress hannah: i have written ten letters without mentioning genendil's name. i have not even mentioned her father, leeb the reader. after a great deal of trouble, i have gone into another lodging, at a shochet's, and haven't seen her for weeks, and yet you go on writing nothing but genendil and genendil, and sophie and sophie! and what is it you want of her? what? may i be well, and may you be well, and may it be granted us to meet again in peace, with the child, as surely as i saw sophie come into the factory to see her father--and the director himself went up to her and began to talk to her and to pay her compliments; and although i did not understand what he said, i know he meant no good by it. and he wanted to stroke her cheek. well, what do you think? she gave him such a slap across the hand that i was dumbfounded! and you should have seen the way she turned away from him and went out! i was just delighted. so you see that, in spite of everything, genendil is a good girl, and that you are unjust to her. you tell me i shall be caught like a fish in a net and such-like rubbish. i swear to you, as it were by the torah on the day of atonement, that it is a lie; that for your sake i have gone away from her and avoid her as far as possible. if we do meet, i answer a hundred words with a nod. once more: upon my faith, you are unjust to her! heaven forbid, you sin before god! but that is nothing, i would have passed it over as usual, only it has led to something so dreadful, that, god help us! i would rather the earth had swallowed me up than that i had lived to endure the shame. last week i was taken poorly while at work; i grew giddy and fainted. when i came to myself, i was in bed in my own room. beside the bed stood a doctor. he said it was a fever. i was laid up for ten days. and leeb the reader never left me the whole time, and nursed me as if i had been his own child. afterward, when i had recovered full consciousness, i learnt that while i lay in the fever, sophie used to come in, too, and visit me--and it was just then there came one of your post-cards in which you pour out upon her the bitterness of your heart--they most certainly read it, because i was lying in a fever. and while you were writing your ugly words and calumnies, they, so to say, were risking their lives for me--they sent for doctors, made up my bed and re-made it, gave me medicine, and even pawned a few of their treasures, so that help should be there. they even brought me a bottle of wine. i never touched a drop, upon my word! but they meant it well. besides that they measured the height of the fever three times a day with a little glass tube--the doctors here order it to be done. and who told me all this? the butcher and his wife. had it not been for leeb the reader and sophie, you would be a widow. and at the very same time, you write such foolish things. _phê_, it is a shame! i really don't know how you are to come to america, how you are to live in america! i hope, dear hannah'li, that you will throw off this foolishness, and not darken my life with any more such letters. i often don't sleep at night. i imagine i see you plainly sitting at the table writing to me. you write and scratch out, and write and scratch out, and i see the letter, but i cannot read the words at the distance, and it grieves me very much that i cannot read the letter so far off. and you take the pen and put it into the child's hand--the child is in your lap--and guide its fingers! and you see, my dear wife, that i send you five dollars every week, that i manage with very little. and i have only three shirts altogether. i cannot ask sophie to buy me any, and the shochet's wife has given birth to a baby, and is not yet about again. the circumcision, please god, will be to-morrow. yes--but that is not to the point. what i mean is, be reasonable, for your own sake, and for the sake of me, your husband shmÙel mÖsheh. a postscript, written sideways down the whole length of the letter: i have this minute received another letter from you. and now, my hannah'li, i tell you once and for all, it is enough to make one's hair stand on end, and hardly to be believed! you write that you may as well let your hair grow and talk with gentlemen, that you also can dance and sing--and that you will go to the rebbe's and get him to send a "special death" to both of us. what do you mean? what words are these? lord of the world, what has come to you? i think and think, till i don't know _what_ to think! this is my advice: put away your evil-speaking and calumnies and curses! they are not for such as you! and i tell you simply this, that if you do not soon write the letter a good jewess ought to write, i shall send and fetch the child away without you--do you hear? otherwise--i shall throw myself into the sea. it is enough, heaven forbid, to drive one mad! your husband s. m. two letters which hannah received from her relative in lublin, and one from her brother. first letter to my friend, the excellent lady and esteemed and worthy woman, mistress hannah: dear hannah, you were a whole fool and half a prophet, when you wrote me a second letter. because the first one fell into the hands of my husband, and he put it into his pocket and forgot to give it me. such is his little way--he cares for nothing except eating and drinking. but when i got the second letter, it occurred to me to look in his pocket, and whoso seeks, finds. hannah'li krön, i felt, reading your bitter words, as if i were being struck on the head with an axe. i was stunned with grief. but i soon composed myself and thought, for instance: if my scatterbrain of a husband ran away to america--well? i should just let him run, and pay the piper into the bargain! now think: my whole parnosseh, as you know, is tar,[ ] and i don't require _his_ assistance! indeed, i can't stand his coming into the shop, with the airs he gives himself! if the customer is a woman, he won't answer her, the chossid! won't take the money from her hand, and if it's a man, likely as not he asks too little! if he takes the money, they palm off false coins on him. and if he is so kind, once in a while, as to take up a piece of chalk, and make out a bill for me, it is a bill! may they add up my sins, in the other world, as he adds up my wares! and as to your husband not having left you a divorce, i am not so very surprised; my husband has no such easy time of it, and yet he doesn't divorce me, and why should he? does he want for anything? he has a nice lodging, and when he comes home, supper is ready and the bed made at the proper time, and every sabbath he gets a clean white shirt! many's the time i've begged and prayed of him to go to all devils--not he! do you think he'd budge an inch? and when i scold him and throw things at his head, he gets into a corner, makes a pitiful face, brings crocodile tears into his eyes, and i am so foolish as to relent, i give him food and drink, and off he goes. and as to what you say about your lawsuit, you know, sister hannah, i have quite a celebrated lawyer, because, for my sins, i have a never-ending case against cooks, the hussies! i assure you, hannah'li, servants such as we have in lublin are not to be found anywhere! how shall i describe them? always swilling and stuffing--and they steal anything they can lay hands on, and run away before the quarter is out; and then they lodge a complaint against me, because i haven't paid them a quarter's wages, and in court, nowadays, they don't make a particle of difference between a servant-girl and a mistress, and i have to stand with her side by side! i mayn't open my mouth to say a word, otherwise the judge rings a bell and imposes a fine up to three rubles. so i never go into court alone, but have engaged an excellent lawyer, whose mouth drops sulphur and pitch, and he sees me through. he once told me himself that the judge had frequently wished to imprison me on some ridiculous pretext, such as tearing a girl's hair or giving her a slap! but he cannot do it, because my advocate has all the law-books in his head, knows all the laws, every single one, chooses out the best for me, and flings them in the judge's face, so that he sits there like a dummy and, willy-nilly, has to write "acquitted!" and no sooner had i read your letter, and found the first one in my husband's pocket, than i hastened to my lawyer, and he received me most politely, and asked me to be seated on the plush sofa. i told him your whole story from aleph to taw, down to every detail; and he listened attentively to it all, although the anteroom was crowded with people waiting. he listened and walked up and down the room. then he sighed and said that according to the laws a daughter had equal rights with a son and should inherit a share! so far, good! but there is the following hitch: a wife cannot summons anyone without her husband's knowledge, because she is under his jurisdiction, and must be given power of attorney by him. and when i told him that you, unhappily, were a grass-widow, that your husband had deserted you, and that, in my opinion, you were free to do as you pleased, he planted himself in front of me and shook his head--that meant: by no means! and he went to a book-case, took out one book after the other, looked in, put it down, looked in and put it down, and so on with any number of books, little and big and bigger. one, heaven forgive me, was as fat as a pig. and in this one he apparently found what he was in search of, for he stood over it a long time. and then he told me, that if, after five years from the date of your desertion, you bring him a paper from the justice of your town to certify that your husband has not once shown himself in those five years, he, the lawyer, will put in a plea for you in court, and the court will give you permission to summons your brother. this is what he said--i give it you word for word. i offered him a ruble, and he made a wry face--evidently, not enough; but he took it. send me the ruble, hannah'li krön, as soon as you can, for trade is slack, and tar is a drug in the market. to return to the matter in hand: it is what i always said and i say it again: the holy torah (and _their_ law, lehavdîl, of course, also) has handed us over to the mercy of bandits! a man, a dummy, a bolster, can divorce his wife when he likes, either in person or by proxy; and a worthy woman, like myself, for instance, cannot get rid of an idler like mine for love or money! if we go together to a family gathering, he is stuffed with fish and meat and all good things, and i--get a cup of chicory and milk! when he sits in the booth at tabernacles, one has to send him the best of everything, and i live on bones! i share the three weeks, nine days, and all the fasts, but the rejoicing of the law is _his_! he goes to a rebbe, and they give him honey with apples! and what will paradise, when it comes to that, mean for _me_? i shall be the idiot's footstool! he will sit in a grandfather's chair, and i shall be his footstool! in this world he is a feeble creature and is afraid of me, but how it will be in the other world, don't ask me! i tell you plainly, if he gives me the least shove with his foot, the almighty alone knows what will happen! to return: what would you get by a divorce? believe me, all dogs have the same face! not one of them is worth a dreier! you know my sister miriam suffered through her husband ten years before she could obtain a divorce, and then she had to leave him her money and her clothes--in a word, all she had! a nice thing, wasn't it? she married again and was out of the frying-pan into the fire: another idler to feed! she wanted a second divorce, he was satisfied, but she couldn't afford to pay for it! in short, dear hannah, our mother eve sinned and we suffer for it! and we always shall suffer! for there is no escape from a husband, even in the grave. we have been sold to be servants and slaves in the other world, too! so it was aforetime, so it is now, and so it will be in the future world! one has to suffer! for what is to be done, if the almighty wills it so? therefore, dear hannah, have faith in god, blessed is he! keep well and forget your husband, who has probably forgotten you. that is always the way when they go to america. at first they write honeyed letters and send money; then, less and less; then they write and send money once a year--then, once in seven years--they don't need their wives out there, they have other women, better, livelier! may i be forgiven for saying so, but in lublin, in the jewish quarter, there isn't a house without a grass-widow! wash your hands of him, i tell you, and forget! imagine yourself a real widow or a divorced woman! turn your attention to the onions. may his blessed name send you success in business and preserve you whichever way you turn. such is the wish of your relative. (the signature is undecipherable.) i beg of you to send me the ruble as soon as possible, because my husband, gorger and tippler that he is, is angry with me for having given it. (the same undecipherable signature.) second letter to my sister hannah: first, my dear sister, i let you know that we are all well, except my wife, eva gütel, who (not of you be it said!) is never free from cough for an instant, and who, no sooner is the wedding over, must go to warsaw to consult a doctor. i send you enclosed an invitation to the wedding. mind you come and enjoy yourself! only do not, for mercy's sake, spoil my daughter's happiness, and keep all contentions till the wedding is over. you need not feel called upon to bring any present. if, however, you are troubled about appearances, you are sure to find something in the house that will do. i shall not take it amiss. blood is thicker than water and a sister is a sister. and as to what you say about having no clothes to come in, that is nonsense. you can borrow a dress of some one or other either there or here. and as to what you say about not being able to comfort yourself for the child that has died--you know, dear sister, "he gave and he hath taken away!" children are a pledge from god, and if god wishes to take back the deposit, we must not even brood over it and try to think why. god forbid! and as to your being afraid of your husband finding out that the child is dead and breaking with you altogether, that is another useless anticipation. believe me, sister, it is quite foolish, because if it is true, as people say, that shmùel mösheh is shmùel mösheh no longer--he is treading other paths--it will be all the same, child or no child. he doesn't want you and you cannot hold to him! and if, as i trust, that is all an invention, a calumny, and if, as i firmly believe, shmùel mösheh is still shmùel mösheh, the learned and pious jew, then you have nothing to fear! on the contrary, with half the expense it will be much easier to have you out to join him, and you will live in peace and plenty. and as to your having had no news of him for so long, is it a wonder? i believe it is across the sea! how many ships, preserve us, are wrecked on the way; how many postmen lose their lives on such an errand! and perhaps the ships have to pass the spot where, as the book of the covenant says, the waters stand on an heap, and there is peril of death. thank his dear name that your shmùel mösheh crossed in safety! i consider this fleeing to lands beyond the sea a disgrace and a shame, it is a sign of want of trust, because he who trusts knows that god helps whom he will, and he shrinks from endangering both body and soul. for they say that america is as dangerous to the soul as the sea to the body. they say, people throw off their jewishness on board ship as soon as the sea gives them a toss. they soon begin to eat bread baked by gentiles, forbidden food, to dress german fashion, women wear wigs, even, it has been said, their own hair. and the proof that america is dangerous to the soul is that there is not one "good jew" in all america! and i cannot imagine how one would exist there, where one could get advice in questions of parnosseh, or if one were ill, or anything else happened to one. i tell you that the man who goes into satan's domain of his own accord is responsible for his soul, for he is like a foolish bird flying into a net. and particularly a learned jew, because the greater the man, the greater the danger, the more is the evil one set on his destruction, and decoys him with either riches or beautiful women; the evil one has tools for the work at hand. and, therefore, my advice to you is, so long as you do not know what is happening there, forget! if you earn your livelihood with the onions, well and good, and if, heaven forbid, you cannot, i can give you other advice. if you come to the wedding, i will make it all right between you and my wife. we are, after all, one family, and you know that my wife, eva gütel, is really very good-natured; she is sure to forgive you, and when all is smooth again and she goes to warsaw, after the wedding, then you will remain here and be house-mistress. and when, please god, she comes back cured, she will still find a place for you at the table and a bed in the house. times are bad, but a sister is a sister, and one cuts the herring into thinner slices. but beside all that we have a mighty god--shall he not be able to feed one of his creatures?--and that a woman! nonsense! and, for goodness' sake, come to the wedding in time, so that you may be able to lend eva gütel a hand. it is no more than one has a right to ask a sister-in-law. you would not wish, as things are nowadays, to have us hire extra help? only, be sure and let everything i have said to you about the future remain between ourselves. eva gütel is not to know what i have written to you. the thing ought to come of itself, quite of itself. you know, eva gütel does not like one to interfere in domestic concerns--and i am sure, the thing _will_ arrange itself. a woman is a woman even if she wears a top-hat. that is why i write to you when eva gütel is not at home. she has gone to engage the badchan[ ] and the musician; i shall not even tell her i sent you an invitation: let her imagine you were so good and so right-thinking as to come of your own accord! and may he whose name is blessed comfort you together with all that mourn in israel, and spread the wings of his compassion over all abandoned women. amen, may it seem good in his sight. sister hannah, whether you stay where you are or remain with us for good, come to the wedding! you simply _must_! and you shall not repent it! it will be a fine wedding! it may be that he himself, may his days and years increase, will be present. it will cost me a fortune, but it is worth it! you see that such a wedding is not to be missed? from me, your brother menachem mendil. my wife eva gütel has just come in from market and--a token that heaven wills it so--she tells me that i am not to hide my letter from her, that she bears you no grudge. she advises you to sell the onions, buy a dress, and come to the wedding looking like other people, as befits the bride's aunt. she also says that no present is necessary, and that one can trade in onions here, too. i repeat that my wife eva gütel is both kind-hearted and wise, and that, if you will only not be obstinate, everything will come right. you will see! your brother m. m. an unfinished letter from hannah to her husband. good luck to you, my dear, faithful husband, good luck to you! here's good news from us, and may i ever hear the like from you. amen, may it be his will! we are, indeed, as you say, united for all time, in this world and the other! i let you know, first, dear husband, that my brother menachem mendil and his wife eva gütel (may they live to see the days of the messiah!) forgave me everything, and sent for me in a lucky hour to their daughter's wedding--beile-sasha's wedding. it was a very fine one, fine as fine can be! praise god that i was found worthy to see it! there was every kind of meat, birds and beef; and fish--just fish, and stuffed fish--and all sorts of other dishes, beside wine and brandy--something of everything. and the whole thing was such a success--so elegant! and i myself cooked the meat, stuffed the fish, made the stew, sent up the dinner, and also saw to the marketing beforehand. i was house-mistress! i was waitress! i did not go merely to enjoy myself! i sold my stock of onions, made myself a dress of sorts, and went to my relations, agreeably to their wish, a whole week before the wedding; because there was no one to do the work; the bride was taken up with her clothes, she spent the time with the tailor, the shoemaker, and even the jeweller up to the very last minute. and poor eva gütel, my sister-in-law, has a cough. and they say her liver is not what it should be. so i was everybody--_before_ the wedding and _after_ the wedding, only not at the wedding, during which i felt very tired and done up. i sat in a corner and cried for joy, because i had been counted worthy to marry my brother's child, and--because she had such an elegant wedding! and i was not turned out in a hurry when it was over, either. directly after it, my sister-in-law, health and strength to her, started to consult a doctor in lublin as to which doctor she ought to see in warsaw. then she left for warsaw and went the round of all the celebrated doctors. thence she travelled to some other place to drink the waters--mineral waters they are called--and during the whole six months of her absence, i was mistress of the house. may the almighty remember it to them for good and reward them! there was no cook--i did the cooking. and i drank delight out of it as from a well! in the first place, i had no time for thinking and brooding, and was thereby saved from going mad, or even melancholy! and where, indeed, should i have found it? business, thank heaven, was brisk. the public-house is always full and the counter strewn with the gold and silver of jews and gentiles, lehavdîl. and my sister-in-law eva gütel's stuffed fish are celebrated for miles round, and there the people sit and eat and drink. and if ever i _began_ to think, and _wanted_ to think, beile-sasha, long life to her, soon reminded me of where i was! and she has sharp eyes, bless her, nothing escapes them! and so it went merrily on--and i was so overjoyed at being house-mistress there that once i spat blood--but only once. menachem mendil saw it, and he told me to be sure and behave as if nothing had happened, because, if people knew of it, they would avoid his house. yössil the inn-keeper over the way would soon cry: consumption! and there would be an end of it, and grass growing down our side of the street. but beile-sasha is the cleverer of the two, she soon discovered that it was not consumption, but that i had swallowed a fish-bone, and it scratched my throat, and so, that i should not suffocate, she gave me a blow between the shoulders to loosen it, and, all for love's sake, such a blow that the fish-bone went down--only _my_ bones ached a bit. but all's well that ends well--and eva gütel has come back from drinking the waters! she has come back, thank god, in the best of health and spirits--a sight for sore eyes!--and she has brought presents, the most beautiful presents, for herself, for her husband, for her daughter and her son-in-law--lovely things! but there was nothing for me; she said that i, heaven forbid, was no servant to be given presents and wages. had i not been house-mistress? had not eva gütel herself told me fifty times that i was mistress, and could do as i liked? and no sooner was eva gütel back, than she discovered that menachem mendil had not been near the rebbe the whole time, and she wrung her fingers till the bones cracked, and immediately sent me out to the market-place to hire a conveyance. menachem mendil drove to the holy man that same day. and next morning, eva gütel gave me some good advice, which was to make up my bundle and go--because she was there again and had beile-sasha to help her. i should be fifth wheel to the cart and might go mad from having nothing to do. she advised me to go back whence i came or to stay in the place and do as i thought best. she would not be responsible, either way. i had slept my last night in her house. the next one i spent walking the streets with my bundle under my arm. you see, my dear husband, that i am doing very well. you need send me no more money, as you used to do. you had better give it to leeb the reader to buy you a talmud, or to genendil-sophie to buy you some shirts. and mind she tries them on you herself, to see how they fit--is it not america? you see, my dear, good husband, i harbor no more unjust suspicions. i never say now that genendil stole either the spoon or my husband. i know it is not her fault, and i am convinced that his blessed name only meant to do us a kindness when he brought you and leeb the reader together on the ship, so that he should take care of you--it is all just as you wrote. there is only one thing that will never be as you think. you may jump out of your skin, but you will never send for the child, to take it away from me to america. because our child, for your sake and for that of your pious forefathers, has been gone this long time; it has been hidden somewhere in the burial ground, in a little room without a door, without a window. you may cry to heaven, but you shall not know where its little bones lie! no tombstone, nothing to mark it--nothing at all! go, look for the wind in the fields! askerah[ ] has taken it under her wing. and since you have such a wonderful memory, and remember everything i said and everything i did, i will tell you a story which you may recollect. it is a story about a shawl i did not know what to do with. should i put it on and run for the doctor for the child, or stop up the broken pane with it to keep the snow from blowing in, or wrap it round the child, because the poor thing was suffocating with its throat? and it was cold, bitterly cold. i ran to and fro several times, from the window to the cradle, to the door, and back from the door to the window--i tell you, i ran! i think, my dear husband, you will not forget that moment, because, as you say, we are bound one to the other, you to me and both of us to the child, and now the child is not there, we two may as well go, too. well, what will genendil say? to tell the truth, i have decided to let my hair grow and dress as they dress in america, and do you know that, beside this, i have a sweet voice and can chant all the prayers, and now, since i have been at my brother menachem mendil's, i have heard drunken peasants sing all sorts of songs--and i have learned them and i sing every whit as well as genendil, if not better; and at night, when i slept under the open sky, the queen of sheba came and taught me to dance--and a whole night long i danced with the queen of sheba in the eye of the moon. and you, my dear shmùel mösheh, have made a bad bargain, for i am better than genendil. because i remember quite well that she had two moles, one on the left ear and one on the right cheek--and rather a crooked nose. and i, you know, have a perfectly clear skin, without a mole anywhere. you thought that only genendil could sing and dance every friday night, and let her hair grow, that other people were not up to that! but i am not angry with you, heaven forbid! hold to her! it is enough for me to have the child's grave. i shall go and build myself a little house there, and sit in it through the night till the cock crows. i shall talk to the child, very low and softly, about his father shmùel mösheh, and that will delight him! and if you come yourself, or send anyone, to fetch the child, i shall scratch out his eyes with my nails, because the child is mine, not genendil's--may her name and her remembrance perish, and may you and she..... * * * * * the letter is unfinished; it was found together with the other letters in the pocket of the mad hannah. xxi in the pond once upon a time there was a pond. it had a corner to itself, and lay quite apart from the rest of the field where beasts were wont to graze and herd-boys to fling stones. a high bank, set with briars, screened it from the wind, and it had a slimy, shiny green covering, in which the breeze tore a hole once in twelve months. in the pond there dwelt (according to the order of nature) a colony of quite small worms which fed on still smaller ones. the pond was neither long nor wide, not even deep, and if the little worms could neither discover a bottom nor swim to shore, they had only the thick slime and the water-weeds and the fallen twigs to thank for it. the geography of the pond was in its infancy. conceit, on the other hand, flourished, and fancy had it all her own way beneath the green covering--and the two together sat spinning and weaving. and they wove between them a legend of the beginning of things, a truly worm-like tradition. the pond is the great sea, and the four streams of paradise flow into it. hiddekel brings gold (that is the slime in which they find their nourishment), and the other three bring flowers (the water-weeds among which they play hide-and-seek on holidays), pearls (frog-pawn), and corals (the little orange fungi on the rotting twigs). the green cover, the slimy cap on the surface of the pond, is the heaven stretched out over the ocean, a special heaven for their own particular world. fragments of egg-shell, which have fallen into it, play the part of stars, and a rotten pumpkin does duty for the sun. the chance stones flung into the pond by the herd-boys are, of course, hailstones flung by heaven at the head of sinners! and when their heaven opened, and a few beams of the real sun penetrated to a wormy brain, then they believed in hell! but life in the pond was a pleasant thing! people were satisfied with themselves and with one another. when one lives in the great sea, one is as good as a fish oneself. one worm would call another "tench," "pike;" "crocodile" and "leviathan" would be engraved on tombstones. "roach" was the greatest insult, and "haddock" not to be forgiven, even on the day of atonement. meanwhile, astronomy, poetry, and philosophy blossomed like the rose! the bits of egg-shell were counted over and over again, till everyone was convinced of the absurdity of the attempt. romantic poets harped on the heavenly academy in a thousand different keys. patriots were likened to the stars, stars to ladies' eyes, and the ladies themselves to paradise--or else to purgatory! philosophy transferred the souls of the pious to the rotten pumpkin. in short, nothing was wanting! life had all the colors of the rainbow. in due time a code of law was framed with hundreds of commentaries, they introduced a thousand rules and regulations, and if a worm had the slightest desire to make a change, he had but to remember what the world would think, blush, regret, and do penance! once, however, there was a catastrophe! it was caused by a herd of swine. dreadful feet crashed through the heaven, stamped down the slime, bruised the corals, made havoc of the flowers, and plunged the entire little "world" back into chaos. some of the worms were asleep under the slime (and worms sleep fast and long). these escaped. when they rose out of the mud, the heavens had already swum together again and united; but whole heaps of squeezed, squashed, and suffocated worms were lying about unburied, witnesses in death of the past awful event! "what has happened?" was the cry, and search was made for some living soul who should know the cause of the calamity. but such a living soul was not easy to find! it is no light thing to survive a heaven! those who were not stamped upon had died of fright, and those who were not killed by fright had died of a broken heart. the remainder committed suicide. without a heaven, what is life? one had survived, but, when he had declared to them that the heaven they now saw was a new heaven, fresh, as it were, from the shop, and that the former heaven had been trodden in of beasts; when he asserted that a worm-heaven is not eternal--that only the universal heaven is, perhaps, eternal--then they saw clearly that his mind had become deranged. he was assisted with the deepest compassion, and conveyed to an asylum for lunatics. xxii the chanukah light my top-coat was already in my hand, and yet i could not decide: to go, or not to go--to give my lesson! o, it is so unpleasant outside, such horrible weather!--a mile's trudge--and then what? "once more: pakád, pakádti"[ ]--once more: the old house-master, who has got through his sixty and odd years of life without knowing any grammar; who has been ten times to leipzig, two or three times to dantzig; who once all but landed in constantinople--and who cannot understand such waste of money: grammar, indeed? a fine bargain! then the young house-master, who allows that it is far more practical to wear ear-locks, a fur-cap, and a braided kaftan, to consult with a "good jew," and not to know any grammar ... not that he is otherwise than orthodox himself ... but he is obliged, as a merchant, to mix with men, to wear a hat and a stiff shirt; to permit his wife to visit the theatre; his daughter, to read books; and to engage a tutor for his son.... "my father, of course, knows best! but one must move with the times!" he cannot make up his mind to be left in the lurch by the times! "i only beg of you," he said to me, "don't make an unbeliever of the boy! i will give you," he said, "as much as would pay for a whole lot of grammar, if you will _not_ teach him that the earth goes round the sun!" and i promised that he should never hear it from, me, because--because this was my only lesson, and i had a sick mother at home! to go, or not to go? the whole family will be present to watch me when i give my lesson. _she_ also? she sits in the background, always deep in a book; now and again she lifts her long, silken lashes, and a little brightness is diffused through the room; but so seldom, so seldom! and what is to come of it? nothing ever _can_ come of it, except heart-ache. "listen!" my mother's weak voice from the bed recalls me to myself. "the feldscher says, if only i had a pair of warm, woollen socks, i might creep about the room a little!" that, of course, decides it. except for the lady of the house, who has gone to the play, as usual without the knowledge of her father-in-law, i find the whole family assembled round the pinchbeck samovar. the young house-master acknowledges my greeting with a negligent "a good year to you!" and goes on turning over in his palm a pack of playing cards. doubtless he expects company. the old house-master, in a peaked cap and a voluminous turkish dressing-gown, does not consider it worth while to remove from his lips the long pipe with its amber mouthpiece, or to lift his eyes from off his well-worn book of devotions. he merely gives me a nod, and once more sinks his attention in the portion appointed for chanukah. _she_ also is intent on her reading, only _her_ book, as usual, is a novel. my arrival makes a disagreeable impression on my pupil. "o, i say!" and he springs up from his seat at the table, and lowers his black-ringed, little head defiantly, "lessons to-day?" "why not?" smiles his father. "but it's chanukah!" answers the boy, tapping the floor with his foot, and pointing to the first light, which has been placed in the window, behind the curtain, and fastened to a bit of wood. "quite right!" growls the old gentleman. "well, well," says the younger one, with indifference, "you must excuse him for once!" i have an idea that _she_ has become suddenly paler, that she bends lower over her book. i wish them all good night, but the young house-master will not let me go. "you must stay to tea!" "and to 'rascals with poppy-seed!'"[ ] cries my pupil, joyfully. he is quite willing to be friends, so long as there is no question of "pakád, pakádti." i am diffident as to accepting, but the boy seizes my hand, and, with a roguish smile on his restless features, he places a chair for me opposite to his sister's. has he observed anything? on _my_ side, of course, i mean.... _she_ is always abstracted and lost in her reading. very likely she looks upon me as an idler, or even worse ... she does not know that i have a sick mother at home! "it will soon be time for you to dress!" exclaims her father, impatiently. "soon, very soon, tatishe!" she answers hastily, and her pale cheeks take a tinge of color. the young house-master abandons himself once more to his reflections; my pupil sends a top spinning across the table; the old man lays down his book, and stretches out a hand for his tea. involuntarily i glance at the chanukah light opposite to me in the window. it burns so sadly, so low, as if ashamed in the presence of the great, silvered lamp hanging over the dining-table, and lighting so brilliantly the elegant tea-service. i feel more depressed than ever, and do not observe that she is offering me a glass of tea. "with lemon?" her melancholy voice rouses me. "perhaps you prefer milk?" says her father. "look out! the milk is smoked!" cries my pupil, warningly. an exclamation escapes her: "how can you be so ...!" silence once more. nothing but a sound of sipping and a clink of spoons. suddenly my pupil is moved to inquire: "after all, teacher, what _is_ chanukah?" "ask the rabbi to-morrow in school!" says the old man, impatiently. "eh!" is the prompt reply, "i should think a tutor knew better than a rabbi!" the old man casts an angry glance at his son, as if to say: "do you see?" "_i_ want to know about chanukah, too!" she exclaims softly. "well, well," says the young house-master to me, "let us hear your version of chanukah by all means!" "it happened," i begin, "in the days when the greeks oppressed us in the land of israel. the greeks--" but the old man interrupts me with a sour look: "in the benedictions it says: 'the wicked kingdom of javan.'" "it comes to the same thing," observes his son, "what _we_ call javan, _they_ call greeks." "the greeks," i resume, "oppressed us terribly! it was our darkest hour. as a nation, we were threatened with extinction. after a few ill-starred risings, the life seemed to be crushed out of us, the last gleam of hope had faded. although in our own country, we were trodden under foot like worms." the young house-master has long ceased to pay me any attention. his ear is turned to the door; he is intent on listening for the arrival of a guest. but the old house-master fixes me with his eye, and, when i have a second time used the word "oppressed," he can no longer contain himself: "a man should be explicit! 'oppressed'--what does that convey to me? they forced us to break the sabbath; they forbade us to keep our festivals, to study the law, even to practice circumcision." "you play 'preference'?" inquires the younger gentleman, suddenly, "or perhaps even poker?" once more there is silence, and i continue: "the misfortune was aggravated by the fact that the nobility and the wealthy began to feel ashamed of their own people, and to adopt greek ways of living. they used to frequent the gymnasiums." she and the old gentleman look at me in astonishment.[ ] "in the gymnasiums of those days," i hasten to add, "there was no studying--they used to practice gymnastics, naked, men and women together--" the two pairs of eyes lower their gaze, but the young house-master raises his with a flash. "_what_ did you say?" i make no reply, but go on to speak of the theatres where men fought wild beasts and oxen, and of other greek manners and customs which must have been contrary to jewish tradition. "the greeks thought nothing of all this; they were bent on effacing every trace of independent national existence. they set up an altar in the street with an 'avodeh zoroh,'[ ] and commanded us to sacrifice to it." "what is that?" she asks in polish. i explain; and the old man adds excitedly: "and a swine, too! we were to sacrifice a swine to it!" "and there was found a jew to approach the altar with an offering. "but that same day, the old maccabeus, with his five sons, had come down from the hills, and before the greek soldiers could intervene, the miserable apostate was lying in his blood, and the altar was torn down. in one second the rebellion was ablaze. the maccabees, with a handful of men, drove out the far more numerous greek garrisons. the people were set free! "it is that victory we celebrate with our poor, little illumination, with our chanukah lights." "what?" and the old man, trembling with rage, springs out of his chair. "_that_ is the chanukah light? come here, wretched boy!" he screams to his grandson, who, instead of obeying, shrinks from him in terror. the old man brings his fist down on the table, so that the glasses ring again. "it means--when we had driven out the unclean sons of javan, there was only one little cruse of holy olive-oil left...." but a fit of coughing stops his breath, and his son hastens up, and assists him into the next room. i wish to leave, but she detains me. "you are against assimilation, then?" she asks. "to assimilate," i reply, "is to consume, to eat, to digest. we assimilate beef and bread, and others wish to assimilate _us_--to eat us up like bread and meat." she is silent for a few seconds, and then she asks anxiously: "but will there always, always be wars and dissensions between the nations?" "o no!" i answer, "one point they _must_ all agree--in the end." "and that is?" "humanity. when each is free to follow his own bent, then they will all agree." she is lost in thought, she has more to say, but there comes a tap at the door-- "mamma!" she exclaims under her breath, and escapes, after giving me her hand--for the first time! * * * * * on the next day but one, while i was still in bed, i received a letter by the postman. the envelope bore the name of her father's firm: "jacob berenholz." my heart beat like a sledge-hammer. inside there were only ten rubles--my pay for the month that was not yet complete. good-bye, lesson! xxiii the poor little boy (told by a "man" on a "committee") "give me five kopeks for a night's shelter!" "no!" i answer sharply and walk away. he runs after me with a look of canine entreaty in his burning eyes, he kisses my sleeve--in vain! "i cannot afford to give so much every day...." the poor, i reflect, as i leave the soup-kitchen, eat their fill quickly.... the first time i saw the dirty, wizened little face with the sunken eyes, darkly-burning, sorrowful, and yet intelligent eyes, it went to my heart. i had not even heard his request before an impulse seized me and a groschen flew out of my pocket into his thin little hands. i remember quite well that my hand acted of its own accord, without waiting to ask my heart for its pity, or my reason whether with a pension of forty-one rubles, sixty-six kopeks a month, i could afford to give five kopeks in charity. his entreaty was an electric spark that fired every limb in my body and every cell in every limb, and my reason was not informed of the fresh outlay till later, when the little boy, with a hop, skip, and a jump, had left the soup-kitchen. busy with my own and other people's affairs, i soon forgot the little boy. and yet not altogether. somewhere inside my head, and without my knowing anything about it, there must have been held a meeting of practical thoughts. because the very next evening, when the little boy stopped me again, the same little boy with the broken, quavering accents, and asked me once more for a night's shelter and bed, the following considerations rose up from somewhere, ready prepared, to the surface of my mind: a boy seven or eight years old ought not to beg--he ought not to hang about soup-kitchens; feeding on scraps, before the plates are collected and removed, would make a vagabond of him, a beggar--he would never come to any good if he went on like that. my hand had found its way into my pocket, but _i_ caught it there and held it fast. had i been "pious," i should have reasoned thus: "is the merit i shall acquire really worth five kopeks? should i not gain just as much by repeating the evening prayers? or by giving a hoarse groan during their recital?" not being "pious," i thought only of the boy's good: "my five kopeks will only do him harm and make a hopeless beggar of him." and i gave them to him after all! my hand forced its way out of my pocket, and this time i did not even try to hold it back. something pained me in the region of my heart, and the tears were not far from my eyes. once more the little boy ran joyfully out of the soup-kitchen, my heart grew light, and i felt a smile on my face. the third time it lasted longer--much longer. i had calculated betimes that my means will _not_ allow of my giving every day in charity. of course, it is a pleasure to see the poor little wretch jump for joy, to notice the gleam of light in his young eyes, to know that, thanks to your five kopeks, he will _not_ pass the night in the street, but in the "refuge," where he will be warm, and where, to-morrow morning, he will get a glass of tea and a roll. all that is a pleasure, certainly, but it is one that i, with my income, cannot allow myself--it is out of the question. of course, i did not say all that to the little boy, i merely gave him some good advice. i told him that if he begged he would come to a bad end--that every man (and he also must some day grow into a man) is in honor obliged to work--work is holy, and he who seeks work, finds, and such-like wise things out of books, that could not make up to the little boy for the night-refuge, that could not so much as screen him till daylight from the rain and the snow. and all the while there he stood and kissed my sleeve, and lifted his eyes to mine, on the watch for some gleam of pity to prove that his words were not as peas thrown against a wall. and i felt all the time that he was not watching in vain, that my cold reasonings were growing warmer, that his beseeching, dog-like eyes had a power i could not withstand, and that i must shortly surrender with my whole battery of reproofs and warnings. so i resolved as follows: i will give him something, and then tell him once and for all that he is not to beg any more, tell him sharply and decidedly, so that he may remember. i had not enough in coppers, so i changed a silver coin and gave him five kopeks. "there--but you are not to come begging from me again, do you hear?" whence the "from me?" as far as i knew, i had no such words in my mind, anyway i certainly did not intend to say them, and perhaps i would gladly have given a few kopeks not to have done so! i felt a sudden chill at my heart, as if i had torn away a bit of covering and left a part of it naked. but it was all over like a flash. my stern face, the hard metallic ring of my voice, my outstretched right hand and outward-pointing left foot had done their work. i had a great attraction for that little boy! he stood there as if on hot coals, he wanted to run off so as to get earlier to the lodging house, and yet he stayed on and listened, growing paler and paler, while a tear trembled on his childish lashes. "there! and now don't beg any more," i wound up, "do you hear? this is to be the very last time." the little boy drew a deep breath and ran away. to-day, to-day i have given him nothing--i will not break my word. i will know nothing of "evasions,"[ ] a given word is precious. one must be firm, otherwise there would be an end to everything. i think over again what i have just been saying, and feel quite pleased with myself. i _cannot_ afford to give five kopeks in charity every day, and yet that was not the reason. it was the boy's own good i was thinking of, indeed, the good of all! what is the use of unsystematic charity--and how can there be system without a strict rule? with the little boy i had spoken simple yiddish, with myself, somewhat more learnedly. as i left the soup-kitchen, i reflected: the worst microbe in the body of the community is begging. the man who will not work has no right to eat, and so on. i had no sooner shut the door of the soup-kitchen behind me than my feet sank deep into the mud, i ran my head against a wall, and then plunged into the dark night. there was a dreadful wind blowing, the flames of the gas lamps trembled as with cold, and their flickering shine was reflected a thousandfold in the puddles in the street, so that the eyes were dazzled. it wails plaintively, as though a thousand souls were praying for tikun,[ ] or a thousand little boys for five kopeks for a night's shelter.... bother that little boy!... it would be a sin to drive a dog into the street on such a night, and yet the poor little boy will have to sleep out of doors. but what can _i_ do? i have given him something three times--does that go for nothing? let somebody else give him five kopeks for once! i have done quite enough, coming out to the soup-kitchen in this weather, with my sick chest and a cough, and without a fur coat. were i "pious," it would have been self-interest on my part. i should have done it with a view to acquiring merit, i should have hastened home, turned into bed, and gone to sleep, so that my soul might quickly fly to heaven and enter the good deed to her account. the good deed is the "credit," and the "debit" a fat slice of leviathan. i, when i went to the soup-kitchen, had no reward in view, it was my kind nature that prompted me. as i walked and praised myself thus, my heart felt warm again. if other people had been praising me, i must needs have been ashamed, and motioned them away with my hand, but i can listen to myself without blushing, and i should perhaps have gone on praising myself and have discovered other amiable traits in my character, had i not stepped with my half-soles--heaven knows, i had worn away the other half on the road to the soup-kitchen--stepped with my half-soles right into the mud. "those who are engaged in a religious mission come to no hurt!..." but that is probably on the way out. on the way home, when the newly-created angel is hastening heavenward, one may break one's neck. my feet are wet, and i feel chilled all through. i know to a certainty that i shall catch cold, that i have caught cold already. presently i shall be coughing my heart out, and i feel a sting in my chest. a terror comes over me. it is not long since i spent four weeks in bed. "it's not a thing to do," i say to myself by way of reproach; "no, certainly not! it's all very well as far as _you_ are concerned, but what about your wife and child? what right have you to imperil their support?" if the phrase had been a printed one, and i the reader of it with my pencil in my hand, i should have known what to do--but the phrase was my own. i feel more and more chilled, and home is distant, and my goloshes are full of water, cold and heavy. the windows of a confectioner gleam brightly in front of me--it is the worst in all warsaw--their tea is shocking--but since there is no choice! i rush across the street and plunge into a warm mist. i order a glass of tea and take up a comic paper. the first illustrated joke that caught my eye was like a reflection of the state of things outside. the joke was called: "which has too much?" the weather in the picture is the weather out of doors. two persons are advancing toward each other on the pavement. from one side comes a stout, middle-aged woman, well-nourished, in a silk dress, a satin cloak, and a white hat with feathers. she must have started on her walk, or to make a visit, in fine weather, and now she has been caught by the rain. her face is one of dismay. she dreads the rain and the wind, if not for herself, at least for her hat. she hastens--drops of perspiration appear on her white forehead--she hastens, but her steps are unsteady: both her hands are taken up. in the left she holds the end of her silken train, already spattered with mud, and in the right, a tiny silk parasol that scarcely covers the feathered hat on her head. she _only_ requires a larger umbrella. to make up for that she has enough and to spare of everything else, her face is free from care, it tells only of an abundance of all good things. coming to meet her is a little girl, all skin and bone. she has perhaps long and beautiful hair, but no time to attend to it. it is matted and ruffled, and the wind tears round and round and seizes whole locks with which he whips her narrow shoulders. she wears a thin, tattered frock, and the wind clings round her, seeking a hole through which to steal into her puny body. on her feet she wears a pair of top boots--of mud. she also walks unsteadily, first, because she is meeting the wind, and, secondly, because _her_ hands, too, are taken up. in her left one she carries a pair of big boots, a man's boots (her father's most likely), taking them to be mended. i need not suppose that they are going to the inn to be pawned for a bottle of brandy, because of the split soles. her father has probably come home tired out with his work, her mother is cooking the supper, and she, the eldest daughter, has been sent out with the boots. they must be ready by to-morrow morning early--she hurries along--she knows that if her father does not get his boots by to-morrow, there will be no fire in the oven all day. she pants--the great boots are too heavy for such a little child. but the weight in her right hand is heavier, for she carries an immense journeyman's umbrella--and she carries it proudly--her father has trusted her with it! the child needs a lot of things: in winter, warmth--winter and summer, clothing, and all the year round, enough to eat. by way of compensation, there is excess in the size of her umbrella. i am sure that at this moment the rich lady with the parasol envies her. the little half-starved girl with the merry, roguish eyes, although the wind threatens to upset her every minute, smiles at me from out the picture: there, you see, we have our pleasures, too! as to that lady, i am laughing at her! on paying for my unfinished glass of tea, however, i am again reminded of my little beggar boy. he has no umbrella at all, no home awaits him, not even one with dry potatoes without butter, no little bit of a bed at the foot of father's or mother's. even the unhappy lady would not find anything to envy him for. what made me think of him again? aha, i remember! it flashed across me that for the ten kopeks which i paid for the scarcely-tasted tea, the poor little boy would have had a half-portion of soup or a piece of bread and a corner to sleep in. why did i order the tea? at home the samovar is steaming, somebody sits waiting for me with a "ready" smile, on the table there is something to eat. i was ashamed not to order tea. well, there is something in that, i say to console myself. there is an even stronger wind blowing outside than before. it tears at the roofs as if it were an anti-semite, and the roofs, jews. but the roofs are of iron, and they are at home. it descends with fury on the lamps in the street, but they remain erect like hero-sages at the time of the inquisition. it sweeps down on the pavement, but the flags are set deep in the earth, and the earth does not let go of her dwellers so easily. then he raises himself in anger up, up into the height, but the heavens are far, and the stars look down with indifference--or amusement. the passers in the street bend and bow themselves and huddle together to take up as little room as possible, turn round to catch their breath, and pursue their certain way. but the poor, helpless little boy, i think of him with terror, what will become of _him_? all my philosophy has deserted me, and all my pity is awake. if it were _my_ child? if i thought my own flesh and blood were in the grip of this wind? if _my_ child were roaming the streets to-night? if, even supposing that later on he had managed to beg a groschen, he were going, in this hurricane, toward praga[ ]--over the vistula, over the bridge? and just because he is _not_ mine, is he any the less deserving? does he feel the wind less, shiver the less with cold, because _his_ parents are lying somewhere in a grave under a tombstone? i lose all inclination to go home. i feel as if i had no right to a warm room, to the boiling samovar, to the soft bed and, above all, to the smile of those who are awaiting me. it seems to me that "murderer" or some such word must be written on my forehead, that i have no business to be seen by anyone. and once more i begin to think about "piousness." "why the devil am not i 'pious'?" i mutter. "why need i have been the worse for believing that the one who dwells high above all the stars, high above the heavens, never lets our world out of his sight for a single instant? that not for a single instant will he forget the little boy? why need he lie so heavy on my heart? why cannot i leave him frankly and freely to the great heart of the universe? he would trouble me no more, i should feel him safe under the great eye of the cosmos--the eye, which, should it withdraw itself for an instant, leaves whole worlds a prey to the devil; the eye which, so long as it is open, assures to the least worm its maintenance and its right? as it is, i, with my sick chest, and my wet feet, and in this weather, must go back to the soup-kitchen and _look_ for that little boy. it is a disgrace and a shame!" wherein the shame and the disgrace consisted, why and before whom i felt ashamed, to this day i do not know. and yet, on account of the shame and the disgrace, i did not take the shortest way back to the soup-kitchen, but i went round by several streets. at last i arrived. the first room, the dining-room, was empty. the gehenna of day-time is cooling down, the steam rises higher and higher from the damp floor, and creates a new "heaven" and a new "firmament" between the waters below (from off the feet of the poor people) and the waters above (the drops formed by the vapor). here and there the drops come raining through. thanks to a little window, i can see into the kitchen. the drowsy cook with the untidy head leans with her left hand on the great kettle and lifts the big soup-spoon lazily to her mouth. the second, the kitchen-maid, is shredding macaroni for to-morrow noon. she, too, looks sleepy. the superintendent is counting meal tickets distributed by the committee. there is no one else visible. i cast a look under the tables--no trace of the little boy. i am too late! "but at least," i think, as i leave the kitchen, "nobody saw me!" suddenly i remember that i have been walking the streets for several hours. whatever is the matter with me? i mutter, and begin to pace homeward. i am quite glad to find everyone asleep. i throw off my goloshes in the entrance, steal up to my room and into bed. but i had a bad night. tired out, chilled, and wet through, it was long before i ceased coughing and got warm--a continual shiver ran through my bones. i did not get really to sleep till late in the morning, and then my dreams began to torment me in earnest. i started out of sleep bathed in cold perspiration, sprang out of bed, and went to the window. i look out; the sky is full of stars--the stars look like diamonds set in iron--they roll on so proudly, so calmly, and so high. there is a tearing wind blowing at the back--the whole house shakes. i went back to bed, but i slept no more, i only dozed. my dreams were broken, but the little boy was the centre of them all. every time i saw him in a new place: there he lies asleep out in the street--there he crouches on some steps in an archway--once, even, devils are playing ball with him--he flies from hand to hand through the air--later on i come across him lying frozen in a rubbish-box. i held out till morning and then i flew to the soup-kitchen. he is there! had i not been ashamed, i should have washed the grime off his face with tears of thankfulness. had i not been afraid of my wife, i should have led him home as my own child. he is there--i am _not_ his murderer! well! and i held out a ten kopek piece. he takes it wondering; he does not know what a kindness he has done me. long life to him! and next day, when he begged me for another groschen, i did _not_ give it him, but this time i uttered no word of reproof--what is more, i went away ashamed, not satisfied with myself. i can really and truly not afford it, but my heart is sore: why can i not afford it? * * * * * my grandfather, on whom be peace, was not so far wrong when he used to say: "whoever is not pious, lives in sorrow of heart and dies without consolation." xxiv underground a big underground lodging room full of beds. freude, the tatterdemalion, has been asleep for some time on her chest, in her corner between the stove and the wall. to-day she went to bed early, because to-morrow is fair-day in a neighboring town, and she will have to be astir betimes in order to drive there with the grease. but she lies uneasy--there is trouble and worry in store. she had arranged with the driver to take her, freude, and the _small_ barrel, and now, just as she was going to sleep, it occurred to her that it would be better to take the big one. she tosses from side to side on her couch. "plague take a woman's tongue!" she mutters then, exclaiming against herself: "the _small_ barrel! whatever for? to please the driver? driver be blessed! can't he give his horses a few more oats for once?" grumbling thus over the stupidity of a woman's tongue, she has just managed to doze off. from beneath the counterpane appears a red kerchief that falls dangling round about her face and her pointed red and blue nose. she breathes heavily, and presses one bony hand to her old heart. who knows what she is dreaming? perhaps that the driver has broken his word, and she is left for a whole year without parnosseh. the opposite corner belongs to yoneh the water-carrier. the wife and two children sleep in one bed, and yoneh with the elder cheder boy in another. now and then a sigh issues from the beds. here also people have lain down in sorrow. the little cheder boy has been crying for money to pay the rabbi his fee. and the eldest daughter was left without a situation. she had been doing well, as servant to a couple without children. suddenly her mistress died. so she came home--she could not stay on alone with the widower. there were a few rubles owing to her in wages--they would have been just enough to pay the rabbi--but the widower says it is no concern of his, his wife never mentioned it, and he doesn't know--he never mixes himself up with the affairs of women. they quarrelled a little before going to sleep. the mother advised going to the jewish court, the daughter was in favor of writing a petition either to the _natchàlnik_[ ] or to the _mirovòi_.[ ] yoneh will not hear of doing one or the other. the widower will take his revenge, and get yoneh a bad name among the householders: "he has only to snap his fingers and there's an end of me!" how many water-carriers are there already loafing about with nothing to do since they started the new water-supply? beril, the porter, all by himself in an upper bed, is snoring away like a broken-winded horse. the two children sleep together in another place. his wife is a cook, and this evening she has a wedding supper on hand. here, too, rest is broken. beril has an ache going through his bones, one after the other, and the eldest son sighs frequently in his sleep. he works in a lime-kiln and has burnt his foot. further on lies another snorer alone in a bed: tzirel, the street-seller. in the second bed sleep all three children. her husband is a watchman. no sooner has _he_ come in than _she_ will go out, with bread and fresh rolls. we are already in the third corner, where stands another--this time an iron bedstead. a flushed, unhealthy-looking woman's head is set off by a bundle of rags that serve as pillow. her prematurely parched lips open frequently, and a heavy sigh escapes them. her husband's profession is a hard one, and he has no luck. last week, at the risk of his life, he conveyed away a copper kettle and buried it in the sand outside the town--and it was discovered. who knows what he will bring home to-night? perhaps he is already in jail. it is three weeks since she set on to boil so much as a kettleful of water--and they are clamoring for the rent. "a hard life and no luck!" sigh the parched lips. "and one has to be on one's guard against neighbors. they are always asking: 'what is your husband's trade? what keeps him out so late?'" over all the beds flickers a pale light from the centre of the room. it rises from between four canvas walls that bound the kingdom of a young married couple. treine, the young housewife, is still awake. she has only been married two months, and she is waiting for her husband, who will presently return from the house-of-study. the oil lamp is burning and throws pale patches on to the blackened ceiling. a few feeble rays come through the rents in the canvas walls and dance upon the beds with the poor, worn-out faces. in treine's kingdom all is brighter and cleaner. between the two beds, on a little white table, lies a prayer-book flanked by two little metal candle-sticks, her wedding gifts. wedding garments hang on the wall, also a tallis bag with the shield of david embroidered on it. but there are no chairs in the kingdom. treine sits on one of the beds, making a net to hold the onions which are lying beside her, scattered over the sheet. the soup for supper is keeping hot under the bed-clothes. the door of the big room opens softly. treine's cheeks flush, she lets the net fall out of her hands, and springs off the bed. but then she remains standing--it would never do before all the neighbors. one of them might wake, and she would never hear the last of it. the neighbors are bad enough as it is, especially freude. freude cannot understand a wife not beginning to scold her husband the very next day after the wedding. "just you wait," she says, the old cat, "you'll see the life he'll lead you--when it's too late." freude leaves her no peace. "a husband," she says, "who is not led by the nose is worse than a wolf. he sucks the marrow out of your bones, the blood out of your veins!" it is ten years now since freude had a husband, and she has not got her strength back yet. and freude is a clever woman, she knows a lot. "anything that he has a right to," she says, "fling it out to him as you would a bone to a dog, and--" treine has time to recollect all this, because it is some minutes before yössele manages to steal on tiptoe past all the beds. every step he takes echoes at her heart, but as to going out to meet him--not for any money. there--he nearly fell! now he is just outside the partition walls. she breathes again. "good evening!" he says in a low voice, with downcast eyes. "a good year to you!" she answers lower still. then: "are you hungry?" she asks. "are _you_? wait." he slips out between the partitions and returns with washed and dripping hands. she gives him a towel. on a corner of the table there is some bread and some salt and the now uncovered soup. he sits down on his bed, on the top of all the bed-clothes, she on hers, with the onions. they eat slowly, talking with their eyes--what about, do you think?--and with their lips about the way to earn a living. "well, how are you getting on?" "oh," he sighs, "three pupils already!" "and that is all we have to depend on?" she asks sadly. "_ma!_" he answers with gentle reproach. "god be praised!" she is consoling herself and him together. "god be praised; but that only makes one hundred and twenty rubles," he sighs. "well, why do you sigh?" "add it up," he answers; "one ruble a week rent, that's twenty-six rubles a season. and then i'm in debt--there were wedding expenses." "what do you mean?" she asks astonished. he smiles. "silly little thing! my father couldn't afford to give us anything more than his consent." "well, what do they come to altogether?" she interrupts. "altogether," he goes on, "twelve rubles. that makes thirty-eight. what remains over for food?" she calculates: "eighty-two, i suppose." "for twenty-six weeks." "well, after all," she says, "it's over three rubles a week." "and what," he asks sadly, "what about wood--and candles--sabbaths and holidays?" "_ett_, god is faithful," she tries to cheer him, "and i can do something, too. look, i have bought some onions. eggs are very cheap. i will buy some eggs, too. in a week or so, perhaps, five dozen eggs will yield a little profit." "but just calculate," he persists, "what we must spend on firing and lights." "why, next to nothing. perhaps one ruble a week. that leaves us--" "and sabbaths and holidays! child, what are you thinking of?" and the word "child" falls so softly, so kindly, from his lips, that she must needs smile. "come, say the blessing, quick!" she says, "and let other things be till to-morrow. it's time to go to sleep." then she feels ashamed, lowers her eyelids, and says as if she were excusing herself: "you come so late!" with a yawn that is half a sham. he leans toward her across the little table. "silly child," he whispers, "i come in late on purpose, so that we may eat together, do you see? for a teacher, you know, it's not the thing." "well, well, say the blessing!" she repeats, shutting her eyes tighter. he closes his, he _wants_ to say it seriously. but his eyes keep opening of themselves. he presses down his eyelids, but there remains a chink through which he sees her, in a strangely colored light, so that he cannot do otherwise than look at her. she is tired--he feels sorry for her. he sees her trying to sit further back on the bed and letting her head rest against the wall. she will go to sleep like that, he thinks. "why not take a pillow?" he would like to say, almost crossly, but he cannot--ahem, ahem-- but she doesn't hear. he hurries through the blessing, finishes it, stands up, and there remains, not knowing what to do next. "treine," he calls, but so low, it could not wake her. he goes up to her bed and bends over her. her face smiles, it looks so sweet--she must be dreaming of something pleasant--how beautifully she smiles--it would be a shame to wake her! only her little head will hurt--_öi_, what hair she must have had--he has looked at her curls, long, black hair--all shorn now[ ]--her cap is a thin embroidered one, with holes--she _is_ a beauty! he smiles, too. but she must be woke. he bends lower and feels her breath--he draws it in hastily--she attracts him like a magnet--half-unconsciously he touches her lips with his own. "i wasn't asleep at all!" she says suddenly, and opens a pair of mischievous, laughing eyes. she throws her arms round his shoulders and pulls him down to her. "never mind," she whispers into his ear, and her voice is very sweet, "never mind! god is good and will help us--was it not he who brought us together? he will not forsake us. there will be firing and lights--there will be enough to live on--it will be all right--everything will be right--won't it, yössele? yes, it will!" he makes no reply. he is trembling all over. she pushes him a little further away. "look at me, yössele!" it occurs to her to say. yössele wishes to obey, and cannot. "poor wretch," she says gently, "not accustomed to it yet--ha?" he wants to hide his head in her breast, but she will not allow him to. "why are you ashamed, wretch? you can kiss, but you won't look!" he would rather kiss her, but she will not allow him. "_please_, look at me!" yössele opens his eyes wide, but not for long. "oh, please!" she says, and her voice is softer, "silkier" than ever. he looks. this time it is _her_ lids that fall. "just tell me," she says, "only please tell me the truth, am i a pretty woman?" "yes!" he whispers, and she feels his breath hot on her cheek. "who told you?" "can't i see for myself? you are a queen--a queen!" "and tell me, yössele," she continues, "shall you be always just as--just the same?" "what do you mean by that, treine?" "i mean," her voice shakes, "just as fond of me?" "what a question!" "just as dear?" "what next?" "always?" "always!" he is confident. "shall you always eat with me?" "of course," he answers. "and--and you will never scold me?" "_never._" "never make me unhappy?" "unhappy? i? you? what do you mean? why?" "_i_ don't know, freude says...." "_wa_--the witch!" he draws nearer to her. she pushes him back. "yössele?" "what is it?" "tell me--what is my name?" "treine!" "_phê!_" the small mouth makes a motion of disgust. "treinishe," he corrects himself. she is not pleased yet. "treininyu!" "no!" "well then--treine my life, treine my crown, treine my heart--will that do?" "yes," she answers happily, "only--" "what now, my life, my delight?" "only--listen, yössele,--and--" she stammers. "and what?" "and when--if you should be out of work any time--and when i am not earning much--then perhaps, perhaps--you will scold." the tears come into her eyes. "god forbid! god forbid!" he forces his head out of her hands, and flings himself upon her parted lips. * * * * * "plague take you altogether, head and hands and feet!" a voice comes from beneath the partition. "honey-mooning, as i'm alive! there's no closing an eye--" it is the husky, acidly-spiteful voice of freude, the tatterdemalion. xxv between two mountains (between the rabbi of brisk and the rebbe of byàle) a simchas torah tale told by an old teacher i of course you have heard of the brisk rabbi and the byàle rebbe, but it is not everyone who knows that the holy man of byàle, reb nòach'ke, was at one time the brisk rabbi's pupil, that he studied a good couple of years with him, then disappeared for another two, and finally emerged from his voluntary exile as a distinguished man in byàle. and he left for this reason: they studied torah, with the brisk rabbi, only the rebbe felt that it was _dry_ torah. for instance, one learns about questions regarding women, or about "meat in milk," or else about a money matter--very well. reuben and simon come with a dispute, or there comes a maid-servant or a woman with a question of ritual, and that very moment the study becomes a delight, it is all alive and is there for a purpose. but like this, without them, the rebbe felt the torah, that is, the body of the torah, the explanation, what lies on the surface, is dry. that, he felt, is not the law of life. torah must live! the study of kabbalah books was not allowed in brisk. the brisk rabbi was a misnagid, and by nature "revengeful and relentless as a serpent;" if anyone ventured to open a zohar, a pardes, he would scold and put him under a ban. somebody was caught reading a kabbalah-book, and the rabbi had his beard shaven by gentiles! what do you think? the man became distraught, fell into a melancholy, and, what is more wonderful, no "good jew" was able to help him. the brisk rabbi was no trifle, i can tell you! and how was anyone just to get up and go away from his academy? reb nòach'ke couldn't make up his mind what to do for a long time. then he was shown a dream. he dreamed that the brisk rabbi came in to him and said: "come, nòach, i will take you into the terrestrial garden of eden." and he took his hand and led him away thither. they came into a great palace. there were no doors and no windows in this palace, except for the door by which they came in. and yet it was light, for the walls, as it seemed to the rebbe, were of crystal and gave out a glittering shine. and so they went on, further and further, and one saw no end to it. "hold on to my skirt," said the brisk rabbi, "there are halls without doors and without number, and if you let go of me, you will be lost forever." the rebbe obeyed, and they went further and further, and the whole way he saw no bench, no chair, no kind of furniture, nothing at all! "there is no resting here," explained the brisk rabbi, "one goes on and on!" and he followed, and every hall was longer and brighter than the last, and the walls shone now with this color and now with that, here with several, and there with all colors--but they did not meet with a single human being on their way. the rebbe grew weary walking. he was covered with perspiration, a cold perspiration. he grew cold in every limb, beside which his eyes began to hurt him, from the continual brilliancy. and there came over him a great longing, a longing after jews, after companions, after all-israel. it was no trifle, not meeting a single soul. "long after no one," said the brisk rabbi, "this is a palace for me and for you--you will also, some day, be rabbi of brisk." and the other was more terrified than ever, and laid his hand against the wall to help himself from falling. and the wall burnt him. only not as fire burns, but as ice burns. "rabbi!" he gave a cry, "the walls are ice, simply ice!" the brisk rabbi was silent. and the other cried again: "rabbi, take me away hence! i do not wish to stay alone with you! i wish to be with all-israel!" and hardly had he said it when the brisk rabbi disappeared, and he was left alone in the palace. he knew of no way, no in and no out; a cold terror struck him from the walls; and the longing for a jew, to see a jew, if only a cobbler or a tailor, waxed stronger and stronger. he began to weep. "lord of the world," he begged, "take me away from here. better in gehenna with all-israel than here one by himself!" and immediately there appeared before him a common jew with the red sash of a driver round him, and a long whip in his hand. the jew took him silently by the sleeve, led him out of the palace--and vanished. such was the dream that was sent him. when he woke, before daylight, when it had scarcely begun to dawn, he understood that this had been no ordinary dream. he dressed quickly, and hastened toward the house-of-study to get his dream interpreted by the learned ones who pass the night there. on his way through the market, however, he saw a covered wagon standing, and beside it--the driver with a red sash round the waist, a long whip in his hand, and altogether just such a jew as the one who had led him out of the palace in his dream. nòach (it struck him there was something behind the coincidence) went up to him and asked: "whither drives a jew?" "not _your_ way," answered the driver, very roughly. "well, tell me anyway," he continued. "perhaps i will go with you!" the driver considered a little, and then answered: "and can't a young fellow like you go on foot?" he asked. "go along with you, _your_ way!" "and whither shall i go?" "follow your nose!" answered the driver, "it's not my business." the rebbe understood, and now began his "exile." a few years later, as before said, he emerged into publicity in byàle. how it all happened i won't tell you now, although it's enough to make anyone open his mouth and ears. and about a year after this happened, a byàle householder, reb yechiel his name was, sent for me as a teacher. at first i would not accept the post of teacher in his house. you must know that reb yechiel was a rich man of the old-fashioned type, he gave his daughters a thousand gold pieces dowry, and contracted alliances with the greatest rabbis, and his latest daughter-in-law was a daughter of the rabbi of brisk. you can see for yourselves that if the brisk rabbi and the other connections were misnagdîm, reb yechiel had to be a misnagid, too--and i am a byàle chossid, well--how could i go into a house of that kind? and yet i felt drawn to byàle. you can fancy! the idea of living in the same town as the rebbe! after a good deal of see-sawing, i went. and reb yechiel himself turned out to be a very honest, pious jew, and i tell you, his heart was drawn to the rebbe as if with pincers. he was no learned man, himself, and he stared at the rabbi of brisk as a cock looks at a prayer-book.[ ] he made no objections to my holding to the byàle rebbe, only he would have nothing to do with him himself. when i told anything about the rebbe, he would pretend to yawn, and yet i could see that he pricked up his ears, but his son, the son-in-law of the brisk rabbi, would frown and look at me with mingled anger and contempt, only he never argued; he was silent by nature. and it came to pass on a day that reb yechiel's daughter-in-law, the brisk rabbi's daughter, was expecting the birth of her first child--well, there is nothing new in that, you say? but "thereby hangs a tale." it was well known that the brisk rabbi, because he had shaved a chossid, that is, caused him to be deprived of beard and ear-locks, was made to suffer by the prominent rebbes. both his sons (not of you be it said!) died within five or six years, and not one of his three daughters had a boy, beside which every child they bore nearly cost them their life. everyone saw and knew that it was a visitation of the great rebbes on the brisk rabbi, only he himself, for all his clear-sightedness, did not see it. he went on his way as before, carrying on his opposition by means of force and bans. i was really sorry for gütele (that was the name of the rabbi's daughter), really sorry. first, a jewess; secondly, a good jewess, such a good, kind soul as never was known. not a poor girl was married without her assistance--a "silken creature!" and she was to be punished for her father's outburst of anger! and therefore, as soon as i heard the midwife busy in the room, i wanted to move heaven and earth for them to send to the byàle rebbe--if only a note without a money-offering--after all, it wasn't as if _he_ needed money. the byàle rebbe never thought much of money. but whom was i to speak with? i try it on with the brisk rabbi's son-in-law--and i know very well that his soul is bound up with her soul, that he has never hid from himself that domestic happiness shone out of every corner, out of every word and deed--but he is the brisk rabbi's son-in-law, he spits, goes away, and leaves me standing with my mouth open. i go to reb yechiel himself, and he answers: "it is the brisk rabbi's daughter. i could not treat him like that, not even if there were peril of death, heaven forbid!" i try his wife--a worthy soul, but a simple one--and she answers: "if my husband told me to do so, i would send the rebbe my holiday head-kerchief and the ear-rings at once; they cost a mint of money; but without his consent, not a copper farthing--not a tassel!" "but a note--what harm could a note do you?" "without my husband's knowledge, nothing!" she answers, as a good jewess should answer, and turns away from me, and i see that she only does it to hide her tears--a mother--"the heart knows," her heart has felt the danger. but when i heard the first cry, i ran to the rebbe myself. "shemaiah," he answered me, "what can i do? i will pray!" "give me something for her, rebbe," i implore, "anything, a coin, a trifle, an amulet!" "it would only make matters worse, which heaven forbid!" he replied. "where there is no faith, such things only do harm, and she would have none." what could i do? it was the first day of tabernacles, there was nothing i could do for her, i might as well stay with the rebbe. i was like a son of the house. i thought, i will look imploringly at the rebbe every minute, perhaps he will have compassion. one heard things were not going on well--everything had been done--graves measured, hundreds of candles burnt in the synagogue, in the house-of-study, and a fortune given away in charity. what remains to be told? all the wardrobes stood open; a great heap of coins of all sorts lay on the table, and poor people came in and took away--all who wished, what they wished, as much as they wished! i felt it all deeply. "rebbe," i said, "it is written: 'almsgiving delivers from death.'" and he answered quite away from the matter: "perhaps the brisk rabbi will come!" and in that instant there walks in reb yechiel. he never spoke to the rebbe, any more than if he hadn't seen him, but: "shemaiah," he says to me, and catches hold of the flap of my coat, "there is a cart outside, go, get into it and drive to the brisk rabbi, tell him to come." and he was evidently quite aware of what was involved, for he added: "let him see for himself what it means. let him say what is to be done!" and he looked--what am i to say? a corpse is more beautiful than he was. well, i set off. and thinking, i thought to myself, if my _rebbe knows that the brisk rabbi expects to come here_, something will result. perhaps they will make peace. that is, not the brisk rabbi with the byàle rebbe, for they themselves were not at strife, but their followers. because, really, if he comes, he will see us; he has eyes in his head! but heaven, it seems, will not suffer such things to come to pass so quickly, and set hindrances in my way. hardly had i driven out of byàle when a cloud spread itself out over the sky, and what a cloud! a heavy black cloud like soot, and there came a gust of wind as though spirits were flying abroad, and it blew from all sides at once. a peasant, of course, understands these things, he crossed himself and said that the journey, might heaven defend us, would be hard, and pointed with his whip to the sky. just then came a stronger gust of wind, tore the cloud as you tear a piece of paper, and began to blow one bit of it to one side, and one to the other, as if it were parting ice-floes on a river; i had two or three piles of cloud over my head. i wasn't at all frightened at first. it was no new thing for me to be wet through, and i am not alarmed at thunder. in the first place it never thunders at tabernacles, and secondly, after the rebbe's shofar-blowing! we have a tradition that after the shofar-blowing thunder has no power to harm for a whole year. but when the rain suddenly gave a lash across the face like a whip--once, twice, thrice--my heart sank into my shoes. i saw that heaven was against me, driving me back. and the peasant, too, begged, "let us go home!" but i knew there was peril of death. i sat on the cart and heard through the storm the moans of the woman and the crack of the husband's finger-joints: he wrings his hands; and i see reb yechiel's dark face with the sunken, burning eyes: "drive on," he says, "drive on!" and we drive on. and it pours and pours, it pours from above and splashes from below, from underneath the wheels and the horse's feet, and the road is swamped, literally covered with water. the water frothed, the cart seemed to swim--what am i to tell you? besides that we lost our way--but i lived through it! i brought back the brisk rabbi by the great hosanna.[ ] ii i must tell you the truth, that no sooner had the brisk rabbi taken his seat in the cart than it grew still! the cloud broke up and the sun shone through the rift, and we drove into byàle quite dry and comfortable. even the peasant remarked it, and said in his own language: "a great rabbi! a powerful rabbi!" but the main thing was our arrival in byàle. the women who were in the house crowded to the rabbi like locusts--they nearly fell on their faces before him and wept--the daughter in the inner room was not heard, either because of the women's weeping, or else because she had no strength left to complain--reb yechiel did not see us, he was standing with his forehead pressed against a window-pane, as though his head were burning hot. the brisk rabbi's son-in-law did not turn round to greet us, either. he stood with his face against the wall, and i could see plainly how his whole body shook, and how his head knocked against the wall. i thought i should have fallen. anxiety and terror had taken such hold on me that i was cold in every limb, i felt that my soul was chilled. well, did you know the brisk rabbi? that was a man--a pillar of iron, i tell you! a tall, tall man, "from his shoulders and upward he was higher than any of the people;" he cast awe round him like a king. a long white beard, one point of it, i remember now, had tucked itself under his girdle, the other point quivered over it. his eyebrows were white, thick, and long, they seemed to cover part of his face. when he raised them--lord of the world! the women fell back as though they were thunderstruck, he had such eyes! there were daggers in them, glittering daggers! and he gave a roar like a lion: "women, be gone!" then he asked in a lower and gentler voice: "and where is my daughter?" they showed him. he went in, and i remained standing quite upset: such eyes, such a voice! it is quite another sort another world! the byàle rebbe's eyes are so kind, so quiet, they do one's heart good; he gives you a look, and it's like a shower of gold--and his voice--that sweet voice--soft as velvet--lord of the world! it goes to your heart and soothes it and comforts it--one isn't afraid of _him_, heaven forbid! the soul just melts for love of him, she desires to escape from the body and unite herself to _his_ soul--she is drawn as a butterfly (lehavdîl) to a bright flame! and here--lord of the world, fear and trembling! a gaòn, a gaòn of the old days! and he has gone in to a woman in child-bed! "he will turn her into a heap of bones!" i think in terror. i run to the byàle rebbe. and he met me in the door with a smile: "have you seen," he said to me, "the majesty of the law? the very majesty of the law?" i felt relieved. if the rebbe smiles, i thought, all will be well. * * * * * and all was well. on shemini atseres[ ] she was over it. and on simchas torah the brisk rabbi presided at table. i would have liked to be at table somewhere else, but i did not dare go away, particularly as i made up the tenth man needed to recite grace. well, what am i to tell you? how the brisk rabbi expounded the torah? if the torah is a sea, he was leviathan in the sea--with one twist of his tail he swam through ten treatises, with another he mixed together the talmud and the codes, so that it heaved and splashed and seethed and boiled, just as they say the real sea does--he made my head go round--but "the heart knoweth its own bitterness," and my heart felt no holiday happiness! and then i remembered the rebbe's dream--and i felt petrified. there was sun in the window and no want of wine at table, i could see the whole company was perspiring. and i? i was cold, cold as ice! over yonder i knew the torah was being expounded differently--there it is bright and warm--every word is penetrated and interwoven with love and rapture--one feels that angels are flying through the room, one seems to hear the rustle of the great, white wings--_aï_, lord of the world! only, there's no getting away! suddenly he stops, the brisk rabbi, and asks: "what kind of rabbi have you got here?" "a certain nòach," they reply. well, it cut me to the heart. "a certain nòach!" o, the flattery, the flattery of it! "is he a wonder-worker?" "not very much of one, one doesn't often hear about him--the women talk of him, but who listens to them?" "then he just takes money and does nothing wonderful?" they tell him the truth: that he takes little money, and gives away a great deal. the rabbi muses. "and he is a scholar?" "they say, a great one!" "whence is he, this nòach?" nobody knows, and _i_ have to answer. a conversation ensues between me and the brisk rabbi: "was he not once in brisk, this nòach?" he asks. "was not the rebbe once in brisk?" i stammered. "i think--yes!" "ah," says he, "a follower of his!" and it seems to me he looks at me as one looks at a spider. then he turns to the company: "i once had a pupil," he says, "nòach--he had a good head, but he was attracted to the other side[ ]--i spoke to him once, twice--i would have spoken to him a third time, to warn him, but he disappeared--is it not he? who knows!" and he began to describe him: thin, small, a little black beard, black, curly ear-locks, a dreamer, a quiet voice, and so on. "it may be," said the company, "that it is he; it sounds very like!" i thanked god when they began to say grace. but after grace something happened that i had never dreamt of. the brisk rabbi rises from his seat, calls me aside, and says in a low voice: "take me to _your_ rebbe and _my_ pupil! only, do you hear? no one must know!" of course, i obeyed, only on the way i asked in terror: "brisk rabbi, tell me, with what purpose are you going?" and he answered simply: "it occurred to me at grace, that i had judged by hearsay--i want to see, i want to see for myself, and perhaps," he added, after a while, "god will help me, and i will save a pupil of mine. "know, rascal," he said to me playfully, "that if your rebbe is _that_ nòach who studied with me, he may some day be a great man in israel, a veritable brisk rabbi!" then i knew that it was he, and my heart began to beat with violence. and the two mountains met--and it is a miracle from heaven that i was not crushed between them. the byàle rebbe of blessed memory used to send out his followers, at simchas torah, to walk round the town, and he himself sat in the balcony and looked on and had pleasure in what he saw. it was not the byàle of to-day: it was quite a small place then, with little, low-built houses, except for the shool and the rebbe's kläus. the rebbe's balcony was on the second floor, and you could see everything from it as if it all lay in the flat of your hand: the hills to the east and the river to the west. and the rebbe sits and looks out, sees some chassidîm walking along in silence, and throws down to them from the balcony the fragments of a tune. they catch at it and proceed on their way singing, and batches and batches of them go past and out of the town with songs and real gladness, with real rejoicing of the law--and the rebbe used not to leave the balcony. but on this occasion the rebbe must have heard other steps, for he rose and came to meet the rabbi of brisk. "peace be with you, rabbi!" he said meekly, in his sweet voice. "peace be with you, nòach!" the brisk rabbi answered. "sit, rabbi!" the brisk rabbi took a seat, and the byàle rebbe stood before him. "tell me, nòach," said the brisk rabbi, with lifted eyebrows, "why did you run away from my academy? what was wanting to you there?" "breathing-space, rabbi," answered the other, composedly. "what do you mean? what are you talking about, nòach?" "not for myself," explained the byàle rebbe in a quiet tone, "it was for my soul." "why so, nòach?" "your torah, rabbi, is all justice! it is without mercy! there is not a spark of grace in your torah! and therefore it is joyless, and cannot breathe freely--it is all chains and fetters, iron regulations, copper laws!--and all higher torah for the learned, for the select few!" the brisk rabbi is silent, and the other continues: "and tell me, rabbi, what have you for all-israel? what have you, rabbi, for the wood-cutter, for the butcher, for the artisan, for the common jew?--specially for the simple jew? rabbi, what have you for the _un_learned?" the brisk rabbi is silent, as though he did not understand what was being said to him. and still the byàle rebbe stands before him, and goes on in his sweet voice: "forgive me, rabbi, but i must tell the truth--your torah was _hard_, hard and dry, for it is only the body and not the soul of the law!" "the soul?" asks the brisk rabbi, and rubs his high forehead. "certainly, as i told you, rabbi, your torah is for the select, for the learned, not for all-israel. and the torah _must_ be for all-israel! the divine presence must rest on all-israel! because the torah is the soul of all-israel!" "and _your_ torah, nòach?" "you wish to see it, rabbi?" "torah--_see_ it?" wonders the brisk rabbi. "come, rabbi, i will show it you!--i will show you its splendor, the joy which beams forth from it upon all, upon all-israel!" the brisk rabbi does not move. "i beg of you, rabbi, come! it is not far." he led him out on to the balcony, and i went quietly after. "you may come too, shemaiah," he said to me, "to-day you will see it also--and the brisk rabbi will see--you will see the simchas torah--you will see _real_ rejoicing of the law!" and i saw what i had always seen, only i saw it differently--as if a curtain had fallen from my eyes. a great wide sky--without a limit! the sky was so blue! so blue! it was a delight to the eye. little white clouds, silvery clouds, floated across it, and when you looked at them intently, you saw how they quivered for joy, how they danced for rejoicing in the law! away behind, the town was encircled by a broad green girdle, a dark green one, only the green lived, as though something alive were flying along through the grass; every now and then it seemed as if a living being, a sweet smell, a little life, darted up shining in a different place; one could see plainly how the little flames sprang up and danced and embraced each other. and over the fields with the flames there sauntered parties and parties of chassidîm--the satin and even the satinette cloaks shine like glass, the torn ones and the whole alike--and the little flames that rose from the grass attached themselves to the shining holiday garments and seemed to dance round every chossid with delight and affection--and every company of chassidîm gazed up with wonderfully thirsty eyes at the rebbe's balcony--and i could see how that thirsty gaze of theirs sucked light from the balcony, from the rebbe's face, and the more light they sucked in, the louder they sang--louder and louder--more cheerfully, more devoutly. and every company sang to its own tune, but all the different tunes and voices blended in the air, and there floated up to the rebbe's balcony _one_ strain, _one_ melody--as though all were singing _one_ song. and everything sang--the sky, the celestial bodies, the earth beneath, the soul of the world itself--everything was singing! lord of the world! i thought i should dissolve away for sheer delight! but it was not to be. "it is time for the afternoon prayers!" said the brisk rabbi, suddenly, in a sharp tone; and it all vanished. silence ... the curtain has fallen back across my eyes; above is the usual sky, below--the usual fields, the usual chassidîm in torn cloaks--old, disconnected fragments of song--the flames are extinguished. i glance at the rebbe; his face is darkened, too. * * * * * they were not reconciled; the brisk rabbi remained a misnagid as before. but it had one result! he never persecuted again. xxvi the image great people have been known to do great wonders; witness the time when they attacked the ghetto in prague, and were about to assault the women, roast the children, and beat the remainder to death. when all means of defense were exhausted, the maharal[ ] laid down the gemoreh, stepped out into the street, went up to the first mud-heap outside the door of a school-master, and made a clay image. he blew into its nostril, and it began to move; then he whispered a name into its ear, and away went the image out of the ghetto, and the maharal sat down again to his book. the image fell upon our enemies who were besieging the ghetto, and threshed them as it were with flails--they fell before him as thick as flies. prague was filled with corpses--they say the destruction lasted all wednesday and thursday; friday, at noon, the image was still at it. "rabbi," exclaimed kohol, "the image is making a clean sweep of the city! there will be no one left to light the fires on sabbath or to take down the lamps!"[ ] a second time the maharal shut his book; he took his stand at the desk and began to chant the psalm, "a song of the sabbath day." whereupon the image ceased from work, came back to the ghetto, entered the synagogue, and approached the maharal. the maharal whispered into its ear as before, its eyes closed, the breath left it, and it became once more a clay image. and to this day the image lies aloft in the prague synagogue, covered up with cobwebs that stretch across from wall to wall, and spread over the whole arcade, so that the image shall not be seen, above all, not by the pregnant women of the "women's court." and the cobwebs may not be touched: whoever touches them, dies! no man, not the oldest there, recollects having seen the image; but the chacham zebî, the maharal's grandson, sometimes wonders, whether, for instance, such an image might not be included in one of the ten males required to form a congregation? the image, you see, is not forgotten--the image is there still. but the name with which to give it life in the day of need has fallen as it were into a deep water! and the cobwebs increase and increase, and one may not touch them. what is to be done? glossary (all words given below, unless otherwise specified, are hebrew.) chanukah feast of dedication, or feast of lights, commemorating the victory of judas maccabeus. chassidÎm _see_ chossid. cheder private religious school. chossid (pl. chassidîm). briefly, a mystic. _see_ the article hassidîm, in the jewish encyclopedia, v. dayan assistant to the rabbi of a town. dreier (ger.). a small coin. esrog (pl. esrogîm). the "fruit of the tree hadar," used with the lulav on the feast of tabernacles. _see_ lev. xxiii. . feldscher (ger.). assistant army surgeon; the successor to the celebrated röfeh of twenty or thirty years ago. gehenna the nether world; hell. gemoreh the rabbinical discussion and elaboration of the mishnah. _see_ talmud. gevir (pl. gevirîm). influential rich man. groschen (ger.). a small coin. gulden (ger.). a florin. gÜter yÜd (ger., "good jew"). chassidic wonder-worker. _see_ rebbe. havdoleh division; the ceremony ushering out the sabbath or a holiday. hekdesh free hospital. kabbalah a mystical religious philosophy, much studied by the chassidîm. kaddish sanctification; a doxology. specifically, the doxology recited by a child in memory of its parents during the first eleven months after their death, and thereafter on every anniversary of the day of their death. kedushah sanctification; an important part of the public service in the synagogue. kissush sanctification; the ceremony ushering in the sabbath or a holiday. klÄus (ger.). house of study; lit., hermitage. kohol the community; transferred to the heads of the community. kopek (russian). small russian coin, the hundredth part of a ruble. kosher ritually permitted. lÀmed-wÒfnik. one of the thirty-six hidden saints, whose merits are said to sustain the world. làmed is thirty; wòf is six; and nik is a slavic termination expressing "of the kind." lehavdÎl lit. "to distinguish." elliptical for "to distinguish between the holy and the secular." it is equivalent to "excuse the comparison"; "with due distinction"; "pardon me for mentioning the two things in the same breath"; etc. lulav (pl. lulavîm). the festal wreath used with the esrog on the feast of tabernacles. _see_ lev. xxiii. . maariv the evening service. maskil an enlightened one; an "intellectual." minchah the afternoon service. minyan a company of ten men, the minimum for a public service. mishnah a code of laws. _see_ talmud. mishnayes plural of mishnah; specifically, the volumes containing the mishnah. misnagid (pl. misnagdîm). one opposed to the mystical teaching of the chassidîm. mohel the one who performs the rite of circumcision. parnosseh means of livelihood; sustenance. rabbi teacher of the law; the religious guide and arbiter of a community; also teacher, as at a cheder. reb mr. rebbe the acknowledged leader of the chassidîm, usually a wonder-worker; called also "güter yüd." and tsaddik. rebbitzin wife of a rabbi. rÖfeh jewish physician. ruble (russian). russian coin worth about half a dollar. sechser (ger.). a small coin. shochet ritual slaughterer. shofar ram's horn, used on new year's day, etc. _see_ lev. xxiii. . shool (ger., schul'). synagogue. simchas torah. the festival of rejoicing in the law, the ninth day of the feast of tabernacles. sliches penitential prayers. applied to the week, more or less, before the new year, when these prayers are recited at the synagogue. stÜbele (ger.). chassidic meeting-house. taki (russian). really. tallis prayer-scarf. talmud the traditional lore of the jews, reduced to writing about of the present era. it consists of the mishnah and the gemoreh. talmud torah. free communal school. tefillin phylacteries. tikerin assistant at the women's bath. torah the jewish law in general, and the pentateuch in particular. tossafot an important commentary on the talmud, composed chiefly by franco-german authorities. tsaddik lit. "righteous man"; specifically, a rebbe, a wonder-worker, a "güter yüd." the lord baltimore press baltimore, md., u. s. a. * * * * * changes made in the text (not of the etext transcriber): staid longer=>stayed longer * * * * * footnotes: [ ] a bible commentator of the sixteenth century. [ ] conveyance opportunely going the same way. [ ] shatnez, mixture of wool and linen, forbidden in the pentateuch. [ ] from the talmudical treatise on damages. [ ] college. [ ] five good marks, the highest number given in the russian schools. [ ] the correct name of the town. [ ] the tenth of tishri. new year is tishri . [ ] holy day. hebrew. [ ] in desperate cases of illness, people vow to supply the synagogue with candles equal to the length of certain parts of the cemetery. [ ] small lumps of dough dropped into the soup while it is cooking. [ ] _servituty._ these are of different kinds. [ ] bride-maidens--girls of marriageable age. [ ] thick chicken soup with balls of flour. [ ] father. [ ] of the bridegroom in shool to the reading of the law. [ ] the friday nearest december . [ ] diminutive of tate = father. [ ] no unbaptized jew may become an official in the courts in russia. [ ] for the soul of the dead, to wash and dry itself. [ ] a verst is . of a mile. [ ] a lithuanian mile = . english miles. [ ] a jew taken from his home as a child, under nicholas i, estranged from his family and his faith, and made to serve in the army. [ ] jewish name for the typical russian. [ ] addressing them in polish instead of russian. [ ] "when you are a hundred and twenty years old"--the ideal age for the jew, the age reached by moses. [ ] get up! russian. [ ] three men necessary for a certain form of grace. [ ] pièkalik--built on to the stove. [ ] little souls fly, little souls fly! [ ] "you also have a soul?" polish. [ ] because he was suspected of not keeping the dietary laws. [ ] our little talmud student would not be familiar with much of the prophets' writings beyond what is contained in the prayer-book. the study of the prophets savored rather of free-thinking. [ ] a tiny bit of wood tied up and thrown away with the nails. the superstitions behind this practice are not confined to the jews. [ ] which had been invested with wonder-working powers. [ ] "fine meal," as in gen. xviii. ; used also figuratively. [ ] head-dress with broad ribbon to hide the hair of a married woman. [ ] a celebrated hebrew novel by mapu. [ ] eve of the day of atonement. [ ] pious offerings dropped into the collecting-box of "meïr baal-ness," to be found in every orthodox jewish house. the money is for the poor jews in palestine. [ ] free meals given to poor students at the tables of different householders. [ ] instead of bringing him up to the study of the law. [ ] the man in the moon is sometimes identified with joshua in jewish legend. [ ] according to the talmudical legend. [ ] little jew. [ ] adapted from the twelfth principle of the jewish faith, relating to the messiah. [ ] sabbath dish prepared the day before, and kept in a heated oven overnight. [ ] bontzye "mum." [ ] men of great learning in the law. [ ] by which the law is made applicable to an elderly woman. [ ] grandsons. a celebrated rebbe would have "sons" and "grandsons" among his adherents. the former would remain, the latter would come and go in companies and more or less respectable conveyances. [ ] owing to the emigration of the younger men to america in the "bad times." [ ] "chapter of song," a midrash, found in some editions of the prayer-book. [ ] "töre is die beste s'chöre." from a yiddish cradle-song. [ ] hebrew blessing before eating bread. [ ] according to the talmudic legend like moses and other saints. [ ] rúach, hebrew for wind and spirit both. [ ] who stand for colonization in argentina and palestine, respectively. [ ] god. [ ] they have understood that the writer's mission is connected with the matter of jewish recruits. [ ] unfit for military service. [ ] "bride"-grace, girlish charm. [ ] a hebrew newspaper [ ] followers of the rebbes of radzin and belz, respectively. [ ] to his prayer-scarf. see num. xv. . [ ] followers of the rebbes of radzin and belz, respectively. [ ] the plaintiff must take action in the place of domicile of the defendant. [ ] belz being in austrian poland. there were two famous rebbes of belz in the last century; the second died in . it has been asserted that thirty thousand jews followed him to his grave. [ ] for having no passports. [ ] sir, my lord. polish. [ ] and still jacob did not become like laban. a midrash, a rabbinical amplification of the biblical text. [ ] an exclamation corresponding to the italian _che!_ [ ] not our people! [ ] commotion. [ ] nickname for a jew, diminutive of jacob. [ ] anti-semitism. [ ] prayer of supplication. [ ] kith and kin. [ ] a kabbalistic allusion. [ ] maimonides. [ ] the curtain hung in front of the ark. [ ] to their prayer-scarfs. [ ] opponents might deny them burial in a choice place. [ ] see note p. . [ ] peace be upon you! hebrew. [ ] surname. [ ] special calling-up of a bridegroom to the reading of the law. [ ] up to the time when universal conscription was introduced in russia in , every jewish community, kohol, had to furnish a given number of recruits, the government asking no questions as to how these were obtained. [ ] which exempts him from military service. [ ] who have adopted german = western ways of life. [ ] gentile. [ ] worn beneath the outer garments. [ ] the "sabbath of the vision," preceding the ninth of ab (fast in memory of the destruction of the temple), when the lesson from the prophets is isaiah i, beginning, "the vision of isaiah." at this period there is much almsgiving. [ ] according to the talmudic legend. [ ] the standard code of laws. [ ] "hear, o israel, etc." the chassidîm are not punctilious about observing the prescribed time limits for the recitation of the shema. [ ] pölen = poland. [ ] "a sach melòches un wenig bròches." [ ] so called from moses xv. , read on the day when--it is not far from the "new year for trees"--children place food for birds in the windows. [ ] machine for making paper out of rags. [ ] see note p. . [ ] right of a land-owner to keep a distillery--which was frequently let out to a jew. [ ] boarding with the wife's parents. [ ] macaroni-seller. [ ] the rebukes and threats in lev. xxvi and deut. xxviii. [ ] used when speaking of animals. [ ] "beyond the good"--the powers of darkness. we touch here on kabbalistic lore relating to the origin of evil. [ ] see note p. . [ ] order of service. [ ] bread made with saffron. [ ] followers of the kotzk and belz rebbes, respectively. [ ] the service read in the home on the first (and the second) passover eve. [ ] passover cakes soaked in broth or other liquid. [ ] rabbinical amplification of the biblical text. [ ] this is an allegory referring to certain aspects of zionism. [ ] "happy, etc.," ps. lxxxiv. , three times dally in the prayers. [ ] when the weeping female relatives of the sick force their way through the male congregation to the ark, throw it open, and bedew the scrolls with their tears. [ ] confirmed. [ ] a man of influence. hebrew. [ ] the rebbe's. [ ] rich man's wife. hebrew. [ ] hannah my crown. [ ] chazan, the reader or reciter of the prayers in the synagogue [ ] reciting of prescribed prayers. [ ] lest the meat and milk should not be ritually permitted. [ ] our brothers, the children of israel. [ ] kind of cloak. [ ] russian term of contempt, in contradistinction to _yevrèi_ = hebrew. [ ] this was an important article of trade, required for the peasants' carts, etc. [ ] wedding jester and improvisatore. [ ] croup. [ ] he visited, i visited. hebrew. [ ] a kind of cake. [ ] gymnasium, in russia as in germany, is a college. [ ] idol. hebrew. [ ] as of those religious precepts which it is not possible to carry out literally. [ ] qualification for eternal bliss. [ ] a suburb of warsaw. [ ] russian officials. [ ] as beseemed an orthodox, married jewess. [ ] allusion to the ceremony performed on the eve of the day of atonement, when a cock or hen is twirled round the head, and a prayer is read. [ ] the seventh day of tabernacles. [ ] the eighth day of tabernacles. [ ] to the teaching of the chassidîm. [ ] "the great rabbi loeb" who lived in the sixteenth century, and who became the central figure of many a legend. [ ] no gentile to be hired for that purpose. produced from scanned images of public domain material from the internet archive.) simon eichelkatz the patriarch glossary simon eichelkatz the patriarch two stories of jewish life by ulrich frank translated from the german [illustration: colophon] philadelphia: the jewish publication society of america simon eichelkatz september , . to-day i was called to attend an old man who lives at the flour market, almost opposite the "new" synagogue. the messenger told me i could not possibly miss the house, because the steps leading up to the old man's rooms were built on the outside; and this is in peculiar contrast to the modern architecture prevailing in the city. in fact, i do not know whether another house so curiously constructed is to be seen anywhere else in the place. and so i found it without much questioning. at any rate, i knew of the new synagogue. i have never entered it, yet a soft, secret wave of religious feeling creeps over me each time i pass it, and that happens frequently. the synagogue lies on the road to the extensive factory quarter built up by one of the large manufacturers for his employees. my professional duties often take me there. the synagogue!--i always look at the simple structure, devoid of ornament, with mixed feelings of veneration and awe. i hold tradition in high regard. after all it counts for something that a man is the offspring of a pious race, which cherishes learning and _yichus_. how does the hebrew word happen to come to me? the synagogue keeps its grip on what belongs to it--and on me, too! yet i should not be able to pray within its walls--although it was in such a place as this synagogue that my father taught the word of god. in fact, is it possible for us moderns still to pray? and then those remarkable hebrew words, unintelligible to most of us now--_ovinu malkenu!_ the church has converted them into the lord's prayer, the most fervent of its prayers. _ovinu malkenu!_ i see myself a little chap standing next to my father. how surcharged these words with belief and faith and hope when spoken by him: _ovinu malkenu chosvenu be-sefer parnossoh ve-chalkoloh_--"give us this day our daily bread!" synagogue and church! hebrew or german or latin? the shrill call of the shofar, or the soft sense-enslaving tones of the organ? i believe modern man can pray only in the dumb speech of the heart. it seems to me, if i were all alone in a synagogue, a devout mood would come over me; i would pray there. in florence this happened to me once. it was very early in the morning; i was alone in a small church on the other side of the arno, santa maria del carmine, whose frescoes, painted by masaccio, declare the joy and jubilation of man over his beauty and greatness. but, i remember, the words were hebrew that sprang up in my heart, even if they did not pass my lips. so the dumb language of the soul has its familiar tones, its words endeared by association. truth compels me to admit that it was simon eichelkatz who prompted me to put these thoughts of mine down in writing. my patient at the flour market! when i climbed the steep stairway, thoroughly scoured and strewn with white sand, i little suspected i should soon stand in the presence of one of the most interesting persons it had ever been my good fortune to meet. the stairway led directly into the kitchen. a long, lank individual received me there, and on my asking for herr eichelkatz, he answered testily: "i guess he's in the floored room." at the moment i could not imagine what he meant. then i noticed that the flooring of the kitchen was only of cement, and i realized that he meant to convey that the room in which the patient waited had a wooden flooring. "will you lead me there?" i asked politely. "lead!" with a deprecating shrug of the shoulders. "why should i lead? it's right here. they must be led. these new-fashioned people must be led. can't they walk by themselves?" at these not very friendly words, he pushed a door open and bawled in: "the doctor is here--the herr kreisphysikus. i should lead him to you, reb shimme. by himself he would never find you. reb shimme, should i drive him in with the white or the black horse? it's too far for him, reb shimme, the new-fashioned people want to be led; they want to be announced by a vally. whether they come to a king or to reb shimme eichelkatz, it's all the same, they must be announced." all this was accompanied by scornful chuckles; and he looked at me angrily, quite taken aback, when i pushed him aside with a sweep of my arm just as he cried out again: "herr kenig, the doctor is here!" i stood in the middle of the room, the "floored" room, and, verily, i stood in the presence of a kingly man, i stood before simon eichelkatz. september . what is it that draws me to this old man? i am almost glad he needs my care as a physician. remarkable egotism this on my part; but fortunately the sickness is not serious; a slight indisposition, such as often comes in old age. my patient is well on in the seventies, and is really wonderfully fresh and vigorous. a sudden spell of faintness induced his servant to send for me--the wrathful, snarling servant who received me with so little grace on my first visit. now i am used to feiwel silbermann's quirks and sallies. i know his intentions are not bad; and then his great merit in my eyes is his rare fidelity to simon eichelkatz. after i had finished examining the patient on my first visit, feiwel crept after me, caught hold of me as i stood on the lowest step, and anxiously inquired: "what is the matter with reb shimme? is he, god forbid, really sick? he's never been this way before. i've known him--may he long be spared--these twenty years, but as he was to-day--" feiwel tried to take my hand. "i must scold, _nebbich_. that's what he's used to. and if i were suddenly to come along with fine manners, he might think, _chas ve-sholem_, it was all over with him. now, i ask you, herr kreisphysikusleben, if a man always scolds and means well, isn't that as good as if a man speaks softly and is false? a treacherous dog doesn't bark. praised be god, reb shimme knows what he's got in me. twenty years i've been with him, since madame eichelkatz died. his only son is professor at the university in berlin. a _meshummed_, herr doktor. baptized," he added, his voice growing hoarse. "since the gracious madame eichelkatz died, we live here, at the flour market. and he never saw his son again, herr doktor. but now, if he should, god forbid, get sick--he's an old man--i don't know what i should do." ah! so simon eichelkatz has a skeleton in his closet, not an every-day skeleton, either. i should not have suspected it from what i saw of the gentle, gay-spirited old man. as to feiwel, i set his worries at rest. i told him the illness was not serious, a mere weakness, not unusual in a man of simon eichelkatz's age, and it would pass without serious consequences. feiwel gave me a look of such devout gratitude that i was touched. "of course," i said, "you must be watchful, and must take good care of him, because at his age every symptom must be taken into account." "what, symtohn he has?" feiwel asked, anxious again. "can symtohn become dangerous? is it a very bad trouble? symtohn!" he repeated the word several times. "i've heard of people's getting heart disease, or kidney trouble, may i be forgiven for my sins, or rheumatiz, but to get symtohn!" i explained the meaning of the word to him, and he breathed a sigh of relief. "praised be god, if it's nothing more than that--i'll look out for the symtohns, you can be sure of that, herr kreisphysikusleben." "i'll come again to-morrow to find out how herr eichelkatz is doing," i said, "and i hope it won't be necessary to let herr professor eichelkatz know--" at that moment it occurred to me i had never heard of a university professor of that name. "he isn't called eichelkatz at all," feiwel whispered with spite in his voice. "if a man can have himself baptized, he can throw his father's name away, too. why not? what should a man be named eichelkatz for if he's a professor? if he's a professor, it's better for him _evadde_ to be named eichner--such a name!" eichner! professor friedrich eichner, the most powerful of modern thinkers, the philosopher of world-wide renown, a son of simon eichelkatz! september . i see the new synagogue now every day. it was dedicated over forty years ago, but it is still called "new." they had a rabbi come from berlin to dedicate it, and that after their own rabbi had worked for ten long years to make the building possible, after he had gone to great pains to scrape the money together, after his ardent appeals had succeeded in warming his people up to the undertaking, after he had removed all the difficulties presented by the authorities--after he had brought things so far, his congregation found it in their hearts to humiliate him at the crowning point of his achievement, they found it in their hearts to set him aside at the dedication in favor of another. have honor and justice come back to you? have the years left their traces upon you, o ye, whom i love, my brethren in faith? forty years! new generations have blossomed since those days when pride and false ambition brought sorrow to a noble spirit, and sought to deprive him of the fruits of his labor, blessed and pleasing to the lord. another was permitted to take his place and consecrate the work he had called into being. on the day of his greatest glory they poured gall into his soul, filled his heart with bitterness. but he forgave! gradually i am learning all sorts of stories about the congregation. simon eichelkatz tells them to me when i visit him, and that happens almost daily. it is now one of my favorite recreations to hunt up this old man, this wise old man; for what he says in that easy, simple way of his always awakens new thoughts in me. he little suspects the abundance, the wealth of ideas that arise and take form in his mind. they all well forth so unconsciously, the most profound and the most exalted. one day a granite rock of kantian philosophy towers up before me; the next day the trumpet tones of a nietzsche reveille sound in my ears. and this feeble old man, who gives utterance to these deep thoughts, never read any other book than the book of life, life in a small town remote from the bustle of the world, life in a jewish community, with its intellectual backwardness and provincial peculiarities. the _khille_, it is true, with its concentric circles, its conservatism, its solidarity, its self-sufficiency, was rich soil to foster individuality and develop reserve strength. nothing is wasted there, nothing consumed too quickly in those communities thrown back upon themselves, leading, forced to lead, a life apart from the rest of the world. how much that is of import to the world has gone forth from such communities! when the seed had grown strong and healthy in its native soil, and was then transplanted to fresh soil, how it blossomed forth, fruit-bearing, fructifying! now it seems to me as though professor friedrich eichner could not possibly have been of other parentage. the son, the heir of simon eichelkatz! with amazement, with rapture we listened to his lectures, to which students from all the other departments also crowded; and when the world-philosophies he unfolded loomed before our eyes in gigantic proportions, a feeling came over us of shuddering awe and admiration. who was this man? a radical, an iconoclast. and now, out of the mouth of an old man, i hear ideas, conceptions, truths that might have laid the foundations for the philosophy of the other, the younger, man. not that the relation between them was that of teacher and pupil; for professor friedrich eichner knew nothing of his father's wisdom, and the father knew nothing of his son's philosophic systems. the father does not mention his son--he probably is ignorant of his son's life, of his son's importance to science. only once he referred to him, recently, in telling me about the "new" synagogue. sunk in thought he said: "the first _bar-mitzvah_ that took place there was my son's. i still remember the speech our _rav_ delivered then--about the love of parents and fidelity to those who lead us in our youth--herr kreisphysikus, our rav was a fine, sensible man, but he did not understand just what a child should be. the child should grow away from us, above us, larger, stronger, and higher--and we mustn't ask anything of him, and we mustn't say to him, 'come and stay here with me, where it is cramped and stuffy for want of air--enough air for an old man, but too little for you. and you shall not be my child, not a child, a filly, that neighs for the stable where its father and mother roll on the straw like animals. you must keep on growing--you must be a man, not a child.'" simon eichelkatz--friedrich eichner! my heart is tender, and i love my dear mother, whom a kindly fate has preserved for me unto this day; and i bless and honor the memory of my dead father. my opinion about filial and parental relations is entirely different from simon eichelkatz's; but it seemed to me as though i were listening to a chapter of nietzsche's zarathustra. never did this name sound in your ears, simon eichelkatz. you never left the khille, and for twenty years you have been living alone with your bodyguard, feiwel silbermann. but your son has written great works concerning the zarathustra doctrine. september . the members of the jewish community here are beginning to look upon me as a queer sort of person. in a measure, it is the duty of a new physician of the jewish belief to associate with the "gentry" among his co-religionists. that is what is expected of me; and certainly i ought long ago to have left my card at the doors of the jewish families that are well-to-do, and, as they think, aristocratic and cultivated. on my desk lies a long, imposing list of persons of consequence, and it is my firm intention to pay them my respects; my predecessor urgently recommended me to do so. "you will get into things most quickly," he said, "if you make your way among the well-to-do jewish families. the community has a reputation from of old for setting great store by culture and refinement; and what better for you in a small out-of-the-way place than a stimulus now and then in the form of a visit to some pleasant home? the evenings are long; you can't forever be playing skat." i certainly can't, because i know precious little about the game--and so the cultivated jewish families are my future here. for the present i have found something else, which gives me more than i can expect from the stimulus of would-be æsthetic jewish wives and maidens. i dearly love my fellow-jews. but my love for them must not blind me to their weaknesses, and among their weaknesses i count an assumption of culture, a pseudo-refinement of the intellect, which has taken increasing hold upon the daughters of our race. how often i was disagreeably impressed by them in berlin when they spoke about anything and everything, with that half-culture which produces the feeling that they are not concerned with knowledge, but with the effect to be created by their apparent "information" upon all subjects. what don't they know! what don't they want to know! how often i was tempted to say to one or another of them: "the learning of many things does not cultivate the mind; learn to believe and to think." and must i repeat the same experience here? i am uneasy; my predecessor sentimentalized too much about the "educated" jewesses. some of them, he unluckily told me, had been "finished off" in prominent educational institutions in foreign countries. i know all that, and i'm afraid of it, this finishing-off process of the ladies' seminaries! but probably there will be nothing else for me to do. if the winter evenings here are really so long and dreary, i may not be able to resist the torment of hearing young lips, soft and rosy for kissing, put the question to me: "what do you think of nietzsche's 'beyond evil and good,'" or "do you think the painters of the quatrocento and the secessionists have anything in common?" how that hurts! almost a physical pain! at all events it has often spoilt my taste for kissing soft, rosy lips. if i would seek wisdom, if i would drink at the source of life, here, in this place, i shall not go to youth, but to old age. i spent some time again with simon eichelkatz this afternoon. outside it was raining and storming. a raw, grey day of autumn, the first this year. up to this time the weather has been good. over the small, quiet room a something brooded, something contemplative, genial, spiritual. half dream-like, half meditative. like the dying away of a great melody. i wondered if simon eichelkatz had ever heard of _stimmungen_. i longed to put the question to him. "tell me, reb shimme" (that is how i call him now), "when you are here all by yourself, in this great silence, do you ever have a feeling as if--as if--how should i say?--as if you were a part of your surroundings, as if everything that is about you helped along to give form to certain ideas in your mind?" i had to smile as i put the question. "now say _milieu_," i scoffed at myself; and yet i never before felt the significance of the word so strongly as in that moment. the old man looked at me as though he wanted to find the meaning of the incomprehensible question in my face. his gaze, still clear and keen, rested on me thoughtfully, then passed quickly through the room, as though this would bring him enlightenment upon the relevancy of my question. finally, he said slowly, as though he were formulating his thoughts only with difficulty: "i hear the silence about me--is that what you mean, herr doktor? i hear the silence, and so i am not alone. my soul is not deaf, and everything about me speaks to me. and the table has a language, and the chair on which i sit, and my pipe, herr doktor, my long pipe, it talks a good deal--and the _kiddush_ cup here, and the spice-box--i wonder what they have lived through and have to tell about--and when the sun shines outside and peeps through the window, it's one thing, and when it rains like to-day, it's another." he rested his head on his hand. "but the silence is never dead--it lives as i live." friedrich eichner's form rose before me, as it looked several years ago, when i heard him in his lecture room speak on zarathustra's "still hour." "that's just what is called _stimmungen_, reb shimme," i said, as in a confused dream. he nodded his head several times, but said nothing in response. september . to-day simon eichelkatz told me about rabbi dr. merzbach. this is his favorite topic. he finds the most forceful expressions when he gets to talking about him. "that was a man!" he exclaims over and over again, "fine, clever, good--much too good for the _parchonim_ in the khille. my, how it did look when he came here! i remember it as though it were yesterday. the first _shabbes_ in _shul_--it was still the old shul--they little dreamed a time would come when there would be a 'new synagogue.' and _he_ built it. the old one was almost more below the ground than above it. and that's the way the people here were, too. black! black of heart, black of morals! and first he built a new synagogue in the spirits of the people, and then he built a synagogue of stone and wood, so that they could hold their services in a worthy place. that's what he said, herr doktor, i can hear him preaching yet; and i learned much from what he said, for i never missed a sermon, and, besides, he was good and friendly toward me and spoke with me as often as he saw me. a great scholar--a real doktor, not just a _talmid chochom_; he knew other things, too. on that first shabbes, the old shul was so full that the people stood out on the street, and they were so quiet, you could hear every word. and there he preached, like mosheh rabbenu when he came down from mount sinai to the children of israel. not that they were bad, he told them, but that they must become better. and that they must not let themselves be ruled by their instincts and desires, but that each one must work away at himself to become nobler, more intelligent, and that each one could do this, because it was his divine heritage, which was given to every man when god created him in his image. and they should be proud to be men, and for that they should acquire the dignity of man. it sounded glorious; and even if they didn't understand him, they were so touched, they would cry, and say it was rare good fortune for the congregation that such a man had become their rav. people came from all the places near here to listen to the sermons of doktor salomon merzbach; and in the wine-room of heimann at the ring you heard about nothing else. whoever was fine, or wanted to be considered fine, stuck to him at first, but still more the plain people and the poor and unfortunate, because to them he was like a messenger of god." the narrator paused a while, as though he were letting the past take form again in his mind. "he was gentle with the bad, and friendly and forbearing with the hardened and the malicious, and he explained to them, that if it was their will, they could be good, because the will was given to man to be exerted and to be conquered. i was still young then, and i did not understand him; but one thing i did understand, that a great and good man had come to preach in our wilderness." whence had simon eichelkatz taken these metaphors, these conceptions, these words? i stood before a great riddle. "but later," he continued, "i understood what he meant. in ourselves there is nothing good and nothing bad; it is only what we do, how we act that determines the moral worth of things." i had to suppress an exclamation. i jumped up and hastily said good-night. it was positively uncanny to hear the new values, the basic principles of good and evil, conveyed by one so absolutely unsuspecting of their import. the jews, without doubt, possess philosophic instincts. when i stepped out into the open air, it was still raining. impenetrable clouds hung low in the heavens, as if the whole world would sink down into the cold, trickling mass of fog. the steps leading down to the flour market were smooth and slippery. i groped my way cautiously. "verily, i say unto you: good and evil that perishes not--there is no such thing. out of itself it must always reconquer itself." i said these words half aloud. i shivered, and worn and weary i crept home. september . now i know about how dr. salomon merzbach looked. simon eichelkatz owns an old daguerreotype of him, which he cherishes carefully and honors as a holy relic. he showed it to me when i was there this morning. on the shining, mirror-like surface, the features were almost obliterated; but when i shaded it with my hand, they came out more distinctly. a fine, noble face, a lovable expression, and endlessly good. in the eyes a gleam as of hidden scorn, but benevolence, too, and good humor--perhaps some sadness. he looks, not as one who scoffs at the weaknesses of his fellow-men, but as one who pities them, sympathizes with them. the supernal humor of the wise man plays about the strong mouth with its somewhat sensuous lips. in studying the features, one feels the greatness and goodness of a pure nature. a narrow line of beard frames the face and rounds off under the strong chin, giving the countenance a clerical expression, reminding one more of a pastor than of a rabbi. it was as though simon eichelkatz had guessed the tenor of my thoughts; for he suddenly said: "what a fuss there was about the beard! the orthodox raged, 'a rav should wear a smooth face!' 'he looks as though he were shaved!' they screamed, although they knew perfectly well that a smooth skin can be gotten without a knife, with _aurum_--excuse me, herr kreisphysikus, aurum-stinkum is what we always called it when we were children. but the orthodox wouldn't let on they knew anything about--stinkum! and how they did bother him on account of his beard and his tolerance! right after his first great speech--i told you of it--they got together in the afternoon at _sholosh sudes_, at reb dovidel kessler's, and began to agitate against him. 'what nonsense,' they screamed, 'there is no good and no evil! he's _meshugge!_ what sort of _chochmes_ is that? and he wears a new-fashioned beard, like a--priest, and a gown and a cap--and the _talles_ as narrow as a necktie--that wants to be a rav.'" that very day an opposition party was formed, which was against all the changes and necessary reforms dr. merzbach introduced. they worked in secret, like a mole underground, for no opposition dared show itself openly, because the richer and more intelligent in the congregation stuck to him. the young people especially were his faithful followers. on the saturdays when he preached, the synagogue was always filled to overflowing. besides, in the afternoon he got together in his house all who wanted to be enlightened on religious and moral questions; and they flocked to him like disciples to their master--to this man, who wanted to throw light upon the darkness of their ideas and notions. a nickname was soon coined for his opponents; they were called the "saints." an underhand, double-tongued, cringing, vile lot they were in their libellous attacks upon dr. merzbach. in telling me these things, even at this late day something like righteous indignation came over simon eichelkatz, usually so tranquil and unruffled. "and all that the khille owed him, too!" he exclaimed. "he improved our speech; through the power and beauty of his sermons he awakened in us the endeavor to cultivate a better, more refined language than the jargon we then spoke. even now, when we get excited over what we're saying, it sometimes comes back to us. the younger generation had it easy; it glided right into the newer, better times. it was harder for us older men--we had little time for learning; but whoever wanted to understand him, he could--he could. "i was already a married man when he came here. i had my business, and unfortunately i couldn't go to school any more; yet i did learn from him--to speak, herr kreisphysikus, and perhaps to think--though that came much later. working and attending to business, you can't get to it. but i saw and heard everything the new rabbi undertook, and i followed it with interest, even though at that time i couldn't have a say in congregational affairs. and do you know what he did then? he started a school, a jewish school, with nothing but trained teachers, the boys' school separate from the girls'. and you learned everything there, just as in the christian schools. when he delivered the address at the opening of the school, he said that we were enjoying the blessings of the year , which had brought us jews the liberty, as citizens, to make use of all the privileges of culture and progress. and around him were the boys and girls dressed in their holiday clothes, and the parents full of gratitude. but the 'saints' turned against him in these spiritual efforts, too, and the word 'progress' was like a red rag to a bull with them." simon eichelkatz had a specially good day to-day. he related everything so vividly. it was as though the struggles of that time were still stirring in him. naturally, the young business man, already the head of a household, placed himself entirely on the side of the liberals, who adhered to the rabbi, while the "others" spoke of the "new-fashioned" rav with scorn and fanatical virulence, and made every attempt to overturn the institutions he had introduced. "the changes he made in the service, above all a choir led by a cantor with musical training, also excited their anger. they came forward quite openly and arranged their own service under the leadership of dovidel kessler. but rabbi merzbach had consideration and pity for his enemies, and paid no attention to the way they threw mud at him. he was nothing less than a good, great man, and he would not let himself be hindered in his work. and for ten years of wicked struggles and bitter ill-will, he built his new synagogue in the hearts of his people, and at last the ground was prepared for it. things became better, and, besides, he gave the people a common goal, the building of a new house of worship. now they had an outlet for their energy--but an outlet, too, for their ambition and their vanity. "that's the way it must be, herr kreisphysikus. the highest often comes forth from the lowest. and finally the synagogue stood there finished. what joy there was! and what a reward! but now i ask you, herr doktor, can't life be without the riff-raff? is dirt a constituent of cleanliness?" again those remarkable observations! "are poisoned wells necessary, and evil-smelling fires, and foul dreams, and maggots in the bread of life?" comparisons from zarathustra are always forcing themselves into my mind. whence this wisdom, simon eichelkatz? and do you suspect there is an answer to these questions? "verily, we have no abiding-places prepared for the unclean. unto their bodies our happiness would be an icy cave, and unto their spirits as well. like strong winds we would live above them, neighbors to the eagles, neighbors to the snow, neighbors to the sun; thus do the strong winds live." my eye fell again on the daguerreotype--were you a strong wind, rabbi dr. merzbach? you blew away many a crumbling ruin of the past. yet you knew naught of the new values. you did not know that you must call to your enemies, to them that spit at you: "take heed that ye spit not in the face of the wind." you lived in the times of the daguerreotype. i asked simon eichelkatz for permission to make a number of copies of the picture with my excellent photographic apparatus which i use for the röntgen rays. september . the _rebbetzin_! the word brings a wealth of pictures before my mind. i see my good mother living quietly, modestly, in the little town in which my father of blessed memory was rabbi. when he died--it was just when i was taking the state examination--i wanted to persuade her to move with me to berlin. she would not. "here i am at home, here is the grave of my husband of blessed memory, here are the graves of my dear parents and of my brothers and sisters; here lie your two sisters, who died young--here is my world. everybody knows me, and i know everybody. what should i do in berlin among nothing but strangers? i would worry and never feel at ease, and i would only hinder you in your profession. leave me where i am. old trees should not be transplanted. and here i can live decently on what i have. in the big city, where living is high, it wouldn't hold out. if only you will write often to me, and visit me every year, i shall have a happy, blessed old age." this is the arrangement i have kept up, and hope to keep up many more years. my dear little mother is well and robust; and in the modest corner she has fitted up for herself, dwell genuine peace and true humility. humility! that is not exactly the characteristic mark of a rebbetzin. the real rebbetzin, the one who is exactly what a rebbetzin should be, is proud and conscious of her dignity. the more modest and simple the rav, the haughtier and more exigent the rebbetzin. "and that's altogether natural," said simon eichelkatz to me to-day. "the jews like to lead the people they employ a dance, and they are hard-hearted and domineering toward the weak and the dependent." this is an unexplained trait in the soul of the jewish race. possibly, it is due to the fact that they are often contentious and want the last word in an argument. and then comes a man, fine, tranquil, peace-loving, thoughtful, as were most of the rabbis, especially in those days, fifty years ago, and immediately the spirit of contradiction stirs in the people; and the more they love and respect their rabbi, the more they worry and pester him. everything in which they themselves are lacking--talmudic learning, knowledge and culture, goodness, modesty, and self-effacement, the utmost piety and self-sacrifice--all this they demand of him. "in a way he was to take upon himself all the _tzores_ and wickedness and stupidity of the _baale-batim_," continued simon eichelkatz, "and the more aggressions they allowed themselves, the more virtue they expected of him. a wonder! _nu_, dr. merzbach held up his end, and really atoned for the sins of the 'black' khille." at that time conditions were probably similar to these in all places in which rabbis of modern culture and academic training began to carry light and truth to the minds of the jews, who through the persecutions and oppressions under which they had so long languished had become distrustful, secretive, cowardly, and embittered. it was no slight task. and many a rabbi, weak and faint-hearted, wrecked himself in the attempt. in that case, it was a piece of good fortune if the rebbetzin saw to it that her husband did not suffer all that was put upon him, if she stood shoulder to shoulder with him, protecting, guarding him, warding off what foolishness, ill-nature, and tyrannical whims hatched against him. usually the relation was this: the rav they loved but vexed, the rebbetzin they hated but feared. a certain equilibrium was thus maintained. "and our rebbetzin, frau dr. merzbach, _she_ was their match!" cried simon eichelkatz. "she was proud, and she looked down on the members of the congregation almost disdainfully. they couldn't hold a candle to her so far as family and position went; for she was the daughter of one of the best and most prominent families; and the piety and learning of her father and grandfather were known in all israel. how could anyone in the khille compare with her in breeding and birth?" simon eichelkatz went on to tell me how these tradesmen and business men seemed like vassals to her. that was how she had been used to see the members of the congregation approach her father in his house; and she knew that was how they had approached her grandfather, with the deepest respect and devotion. and so the free way in which the people dared meet her husband, this forwardness and familiarity, wounded her beyond measure. and fearless and self-confident as she was, she made no secret of her feelings. this gave rise to eternal jarring; and again and again the rav tried to reconcile her to the situation. but though she revered her husband as a saint and loved him with the self-surrender and faithfulness of a jewish wife, she would not abandon her ground. perhaps just because she loved him. she unconsciously felt that one could not get around the "rabble" merely with benevolence and mildness; firmness and haughtiness were also necessary in dealing with them. it is not unlikely that dr. merzbach could not have fought the fight to the finish if it had not been for his courageous wife. certain it is that she kept many a slight from him, many an ill-natured offense. they all took care to let her alone; and when frau dr. merzbach walked along the ring, many a one slunk off around the corner, because his conscience pricked him on account of some gossip, some intrigue, or some petty persecution--these were the weapons with which the "saints" agitated against the noble man. with his beautiful nature, he was no match for them, but they trembled before the rebbetzin. "and believe me, herr kreisphysikus," simon eichelkatz commented, "she was right; nothing else was left for her to do. that was the only way to get the better of that lying pack of hypocrites. if they hadn't been afraid of her, they would have fought even harder against the man who wanted to bring them the blessings of a regulated, proper life. they prepared enough bitterness for him, and he would probably have gotten tired and discouraged, gone to pieces sometimes, if his life in his own home had not weighed in the balance against the lowness of the khille. "and that's where the rebbetzin was remarkable. she was just as clever as she was proud; and even her hottest opponents--and not all of them were of the orthodox; some of the 'gentry' were envious of her and fought her--well, even her hottest opponents admitted that she was intelligent, and knew how to tackle things, that she tried to acquire modern culture, and that she gathered the better elements in the congregation about her. and her house was gay and refined, people felt at home there. nowhere did one pass one's time so well as at dr. merzbach's." the rabbi's house on his friday evenings became a centre for the cultivated people, the people who held high places in the intellectual world of the congregation and the city. christians, too, entered the circle. "you can imagine, herr doktor, what bad blood that made. but the rebbetzin didn't concern herself about it, and nobody could get a hold on her, because no fault could be found with her piety. many said she was more orthodox than the rav. there was some truth in this. he, being a great talmudist, might find some freer interpretation of the laws, he might open up new ways, while she stuck fast to what had been sacred to her in her grandfather's and her father's home. i remember how he once came to my office on a very hot day, and took his hat off, and wiped his forehead, and then sat there without anything on his head, when suddenly his wife appeared outside in the store. he snatched up his hat, smiling in an embarrassed way, and said: 'god forbid my wife should see me sitting here without my cap.'" such trivialities and externalities invested her with glamour. besides, there was her great philanthropy and her public work. not a charitable institution belonging to the city or the congregation but that she was at the head of it. and outwardly cold and reserved, always carrying herself with great dignity, she still would willingly sacrifice herself in a good cause. "during the cholera epidemic," continued simon eichelkatz, "i saw her at sick-beds, and i know what a heart she had, for all her fine intellect. but the others came no nearer to her, because they judged her according to her understanding alone, and that often made her appear hard and cold. but she didn't bother about things of that sort. she did not even have the wish to come nearer to those people; they seemed rude and uncultivated to her, and she was not in sympathy with them. dr. merzbach sometimes tried to make her change her opinion, but that was the point on which she would not yield, perhaps she couldn't. this was probably the one dark cloud on their blessed union, and it was a union that lasted through forty-three years of perfect agreement, of the purest and highest joy, of the greatest contentment. "the rebbetzin felt at home only in her own house; to the khille she always remained a stranger. and do you know, herr kreisphysikus, when i come to think about it, i believe the rebbetzin is always a stranger in the congregation? she can't fit herself in." i had to smile. i thought of my mother, who was so different. but, to be sure, times have changed, and manners with them. and then the narrow little community in which my father worked, among friendly, kindly men and women! the "rebbetzin" is probably a phenomenon belonging to a past epoch. _september ._ autumn is now completely upon us. raw, gloomy, chilly, with everlasting rains. the city is not beautiful in this garb, and i would certainly succumb to my tendency to melancholy, if i did not have my profession and--simon eichelkatz. he speaks about every possible thing. only when the talk takes a personal turn, touching upon incidents in his life, he becomes monosyllabic and reserved. consequently, i really know very little about him. with the exception of the hints once thrown out by feiwel silbermann about his "baptized" son friedrich eichner, i have learned nothing about him. it goes against me to question a servant, but i feel sure something lurks behind the sharp, ironic manner in which feiwel on every occasion says "the gracious madame eichelkatz." clearly, madame eichelkatz did not suit his taste. and i learn nothing from the people, either. i have not yet left my card with "the first jewish families" of the congregation, and so i have not yet established any connections. but i really want to very soon. at present i feel more at home among the dead members of this congregation, all of whom, i hope, simon eichelkatz will by and by bring to life for me. this world that has sunk into the past stirs my imagination, and i take deep interest in the figures that glided through the narrow streets fifty years ago. what constituted incidents in this world, what occupied these men, how they lived, loved, and hated--all this has a certain historic charm for me, heightened on account of my racial bias. yesterday simon eichelkatz promised to tell me all sorts of things during the fall and winter. i wonder whether i shouldn't wait a little while before i present my visiting cards. when once you begin, there are invitations and social obligations from which you cannot withdraw--and then there would be an end to the long talks with simon. and i must carefully consider whether i am likely to laugh so heartily in the "æsthetic _salons_" of the fine jewish houses as i did yesterday, when simon told me the story of teacher sandberg. scarcely! the young ladies would undoubtedly find the affair "shocking." but i want to record it here, and i will call it "the adventure of teacher sandberg." it was on the hottest and longest of jewish fast days, _shivoh oser be-tamuz_. the sun glared down pitilessly. not a breath of air to freshen, to quicken the heavy atmosphere. the khille began the "three weeks" with a full fast day, on which the faithful partook neither of meat nor drink. the male members of the congregation strictly observed the customs, although to be pious was especially hard on this day in midsummer, when daylight continues endlessly. the length of the fast has become a byword, and a very tall man is said "to be as long as shivoh oser be-tamuz." but neither heat nor length prevented the faithful from keeping the fast recalling the destruction of the sanctuary on zion. and so the congregation made itself penitential; it fasted, prayed, perspired, groaned, and denied itself every refreshment. the people crawled into the shadow of the houses to escape the heat and the tormenting thirst it caused. in vain! the awful sultriness penetrated everywhere, and brooded over the streets and dwellings, over field and meadow. the fasting men endured it with a certain apathy--after all, they were used to it; it repeated itself every year, and no one could remember that shivoh oser be-tamuz had ever fallen on a cool day. it couldn't be otherwise--in midsummer, the season of ripening fruits, of the harvest. you just had to accept the situation, and, in addition to the tortures of hunger and thirst, suffer those of heat as well. but on shivoh oser be-tamuz in a great fright came to swell the list of agonies in the khille at reissnitz. toward noon the report spread that the teacher sandberg was missing. he had been seen in shul at the morning service, and from there he had gone home, but after that he could not be traced further. two boys who had been playing "cat" that morning in the street, declared they had seen him in front of his house, and then had noticed him go around the corner along the street leading to the so-called "behnisch" meadows. that was the last that could be found out about teacher sandberg. according to simon eichelkatz's description, he was a most singular individual. extremely tall, and thin as a broom-stick, with a peculiar gait, rather pushing and scraping himself along the ground than walking. summer and winter he wore a black silk cloth about his neck, above which showed only a very narrow line of white. his head was usually inclined to the left side in talking, and his whole face was cast into shadow by his large, beaked nose, ugly beyond belief. this nose of his was the butt of his pupils, the alphabet class of the congregational school. sometimes it was a cause of terror to them as well, especially to the new pupils, who always needed some time to grow accustomed to it. but that happened as soon as teacher sandberg looked at them with his good-humored eyes, often gleaming with gayety, which allayed the fright produced by the uglier organ. in fact, it was the eloquence of his eyes that made the teacher a general favorite. everyone liked the odd fellow; and from many a shop and window, sympathetic glances followed his figure as, with hands in his trouser pockets, he slouched along to school. one can therefore imagine the amazement caused by the news of his disappearance. inquiry was made for him in the houses of neighboring families, the synagogue yard was searched,--perhaps he had taken refuge there from the heat,--every nook and cranny of his house, including the shop and cellar, were carefully investigated, the absurdest surmises as to his whereabouts were set afloat. was he in some saloon? impossible, on this fast day! his wife cried and sobbed, his children bawled--her husband, their father--where was he? gone! as if swallowed by an earthquake! not a single clue as to where he had disappeared. some of the people, his weeping wife at their head, went to the "behnisch" meadows. but he was not there; nor had he been seen by the harvesters taking their midday rest on the fresh stacks of hay. and why should he be there, in the maddening heat of high noon, hungry and thirsty from his fast? the mystery remained unsolved and began to assume a more and more terrifying aspect. what had driven him from his room? whither had he wandered? soon the word "accident" was anxiously whispered from mouth to mouth. but what could the nature of the accident be? in awe-stricken tones they hinted at murder! suicide! god forbid that such suppositions should reach the ears of the wife and children! crowds gathered in the white suburb. they looked up and down the gass, they glanced at the windows of teacher sandberg's house; they questioned one another, they propounded all sorts of theories, they debated and took counsel--teacher sandberg remained in the land of the unknown. all forgot hunger and thirst, no one remembered that he was mortifying his flesh. what signifies so slight a sacrifice as compared with the awful fate that had befallen teacher sandberg? fear and pity crept over the spirits of the people. what had happened? all the inhabitants of the city joined in the hunt with the relatives and co-religionists of the lost man. the whole little world was up and doing, excited, amazed, searching--and still teacher sandberg remained in the land of the unknown. at two in the afternoon the rumor had spread from the white suburb to the ring, and penetrated into the quiet study of the rabbi. he immediately hurried to teacher sandberg's home, accompanied by the president, herr manasse, and the chairman of the board, herr karfunkelstein. he was also joined by all the other men in the congregation, by many women and children; and all streamed to the place excited and terrified, to get news of teacher sandberg's fate. the crowd in front of the unfortunate man's house was now so great that even the highly respected police also repaired thither; now all the citizens had assembled, and they talked with bated breath of the "unheard-of case." the rabbi and the president went inside the house to get the details again from the wife. the crowd waited outside expectantly. the rays of the midday sun beat down mercilessly. but no one thought of heat, hunger, or thirst. everyone was occupied with teacher sandberg alone. "sandberg had to choose exactly shivoh oser be-tamuz to get lost on," said little freund, the dealer in smoked meats. "he himself is as long as shivoh oser be-tamuz, and he had to have a misfortune just on the fast day." "just as if you were to put a fur coat on in this heat," said another man. "no jokes," warned a third; "it's a sad business." at that moment a man pushed his way through the crowd, breathless, gasping, in the greatest excitement. he was carrying a bag in which something swayed back and forth. the people looked at him with horror on their faces, and made way for him, carefully avoiding contact with the sack. "do you think it can be sandberg's head that he's dragging in the bag?" the little dealer in smoked meat put the question anxiously. "you can't tell!" answered his neighbor. the man with the sack stepped into the passage way of the house, and the universal gaze was fastened with terrified curiosity upon the entrance. minutes of the greatest expectation! that shuddering sense of oppression which precedes some dreadful occurrence had taken hold of all present. not a single remark was passed, no sound was heard; the next moment was awaited in sheer breathless tension. a heavy weight rested on their spirits, the atmosphere was leaden, as before a storm; and yet the blue of the heavens was undimmed, not a single cloud flecked the horizon, and the sun's rays flamed with the heat of midsummer. so it was from a clear sky that a thunderbolt was to strike the expectant throng, and now--the rabbi came out to the top of the steps leading from the passage-way down to the street, on each side of him one of the directors, and behind him, in the open doorway, the man with the bag, now hanging over his shoulder empty. from within came sounds of mourning, crying, and sobbing. expectation had reached its height, and the voice of dr. merzbach rang out through absolute quiet, as he said with deep seriousness: "beloved congregation! it has pleased the almighty father to let a sad and awful event occur in our midst on this fast day. our highly respected teacher, sandberg, whom we all know and love, the guide and instructor of our children, has met with a misfortune, a fact no longer permitting of doubt, since this man, a miller's apprentice from the garetzki mill, found a pair of boots near the dam, and a red woolen handkerchief, which frau sandberg recognizes as unmistakably belonging to her husband. the miller met some hay-makers and learned from them that search was being made in the city for a lost man, and he came here immediately with the articles he had found. there can no longer be doubt as to the terrible truth, and we must bear with resignation the severe stroke the lord has sent down upon the unfortunate family, so rudely robbed of its support and protection, and upon the community at large. on a day of atonement and repentance god has inflicted so hard a trial upon us." at these words the people began to lament and weep. "_waigeschrieen!_ god cares nothing for our repentance!" some exclaimed, while others hit their breasts and cried: "_oshamnu, bogadnu_...." with great difficulty the rabbi succeeded in allaying the excitement. "be sensible; keep quiet; we must see if it isn't possible still to help the unfortunate man, or at least we must find his corpse." the words had an uncanny ring. a dark shadow seemed to creep over the bright day, the brilliant sunshine. "it will be necessary for us to divide into bands to examine the banks of the stream from the mill-dam as far as the large sluice gate at the miner's dam. the water is shallow because of the drought of the past days, so there is still hope that some trace of him may be discovered. it would be well to take along a few persons who know how to swim, and provide others with poles. our president will also see to it that the police help us in our search, and he will ask garetzki, the proprietor of the mill, to let the water at the dam run off." these directions, thoughtfully and quietly given, did not fail of their effect. search parties were formed on the instant by herr moritz liepmann, and sent in various directions. as they went toward the river, the wit of the khille, reb shmul eisner, even at that critical moment could not repress the remark: "the idea of making _tashlich_ on shivoh oser be-tamuz." many christians in the city joined the expedition, and the people sallied forth in the parching heat to hunt for teacher sandberg. the rabbi and the two trustees accompanied the crowd as far as the meadows bordering on the stream, and here a small posse branched off to go along the mill-race, to carry on the search along the tributary stream as well. then dr. merzbach and his companions went to the meeting-room of the congregation in order to receive word there of the results of the investigation. up and down the river went the people looking for teacher sandberg in the shallow spots. in vain! with the exception of a few irregular foot-prints in the moist soil near the mill-dam, nothing of note was discovered. even the foot-prints were not of much significance, since they disappeared a short distance beyond the slope. teacher sandberg had completely disappeared. but one supposition was possible, that he had met with an accident. probably in the glowing heat he had used the handkerchief to wipe away the perspiration, and had taken off his boots to cool his feet in the water, and in doing so had stepped into a deep spot, or overcome in the water by the heat, he had fainted, and drowned. a hundred guesses were made. but what remained the least explicable part of the mystery was why the teacher had gone out at all in the heat of high noon. in the meantime the day wore on. hour after hour passed by. the searchers returned home dead-tired, hungry, and thirsty. in their zeal they had forgotten they were fasting; but at last the needs of the body asserted themselves. one by one they returned to the city. each brought back the report of their vain endeavors; and when the last came back shortly before sunset, everybody was sure that teacher sandberg was no longer among the living. the rabbi once more went to frau sandberg to speak words of comfort to her and her children, and then the fateful day neared its end. there was scarcely a _minyan_ present at the evening services in the shul. pretty nearly every one remained at home with his family, doubly alive to the blessing of life in the face of this enigmatic death, and relishing the breaking of the fast with heightened appetite. for not a soul had lived through a fast day such as this before. when late in the evening the full moon hung above the houses, casting its white light on the open square and the streets, and the evening coolness had freshened the sultry air of the day, the people's spirits were re-animated, and they came out of their narrow dwellings into the open. all thronged to the ring, the market place. they felt the need of talking over the day's event. before their doors sat the fathers of families, on green-painted benches, smoking their pipes, and discussing all the circumstances of the case. the women collected in groups, sympathizing with frau sandberg and breaking their heads over the problem as to what she would do, nebbich, now she was robbed of her supporter. the young people promenaded up and down, chatted in an undertone, and tried to be serious, in accord with the gravity of the situation, though they did not always succeed in banishing their youthful spirits. on the corner of tarnowitzer street stood reb shmul eisner, the wit of the congregation. half aloud he said to his neighbor: "everybody is certainly happy not to be so famous as teacher sandberg is to-day." the rabbi also came to the ring, and with him the rebbetzin. he wanted to go once again to the wife of the unfortunate man, and the rebbetzin would not absent herself from a place where help and comfort were needed. near the great fountain, called the _kashte_, next to the city hall, the rabbi was detained by some members of his congregation. everyone was eager to hear something about the day's happenings directly from his mouth. at the same time the mayor and two aldermen came down the steps of the city hall. when they noticed dr. merzbach, they went up to him to tell him that it had just been decided to let the water off at the dam early the next morning, through the large sluice, in order, if possible, to recover the corpse of teacher sandberg; for it was not likely that with the water so shallow, the body had been carried down stream; it had probably been caught somewhere in the canal. a shudder ran through the crowd. those standing near the mayor listened to what he said with bated breath and passed on his words to their neighbors. like wildfire it spread through the crowd: "to-morrow they'll recover the body of teacher sandberg." from the kashte rose the primitive figure of a neptune, trident in hand; and the silver moonlight gleamed on the large fountain and the listening throngs about it. "to-morrow they'll recover the body of teacher sandberg." all of a sudden a shrill cry rang out and was echoed by the mass of human beings, stirred to the highest pitch of excitement. horror-struck they scattered in confusion and took to their heels, only now and then looking back fearsomely at a gruesome vision which presented itself to their sight. in one second the ring was vacated, every one had hidden in the houses. there--slowly and meditatively, like a ghost, teacher sandberg stalked across the square, in the garb in which the good lord had created him. he was absolutely naked, not a shred of clothing upon him; his hands at his legs, as though in his usual fashion he were hiding them in trouser pockets, his feet scraping along the ground. the ring looked as though it had been swept. only the rabbi, the two trustees, the mayor, the aldermen, and the rebbetzin remained at the kashte. the rebbetzin, when the singular figure approached, faced about in confusion and eagerly contemplated the neptune, who, although a river god, wore much more clothing than teacher sandberg. the moonlight glistened on the trident and bathed the entire tragi-comic scene in its pale light. the teacher shuffled close up to the gentlemen, who regarded him with glances of astonishment mixed with disapproval. was this object sandberg or his ghost? how could he be wandering about through the city across the ring past all these people in so scanty a costume? the thing was unheard of; the like of it had never been seen. presumably the man was dead, and here he was strolling about--and in what a state! some of the bolder spirits crept out of their houses again, and here and there a curious face bobbed up behind the window panes. the situation was tense. the rebbetzin still had her back turned to the group; and the neptune looked very shy, as if to say: "we barbarians are better people after all; none of us would dare saunter about the ring in bright moonlight without a shred of clothing on." finally the rabbi recovered enough self-possession to address the man standing before him in the garb in which the lord had fashioned him. "is that you, sandberg?" he asked in a tone of mingled severity and mildness. "yes, herr rabbiner, it's i," came the plaintive reply. "your wife, your children, the congregation, the city, all are mourning you as dead." "god forbid!" the teacher exclaimed. "why should i be dead? i am alive, herr rabbiner, praised be god, even if something very disagreeable did happen to me." "he will catch cold, if he doesn't look out." shmul eisner, who had come up in the meantime, tossed the joke to another bystander. but no one thought of offering the naked man a bit of clothing. the amazement was still too great. so the audience was continued, and teacher sandberg, in the primitive garb in which he was, related his adventure before a college of judges consisting of the rabbinate and the municipal authorities. in the morning he had gone to take a bath, and had undressed behind some bushes at the edge of the stream near the petershof dam, where not a soul passes at that hour of the day. he dived into the refreshing depths. the water was delicious. forgotten the torturing heat, forgotten the hunger and thirst of the fast day! he struck off down stream and let himself be carried along by the soft waves, gently warmed and brightened by the sun. after half an hour, possibly longer, he swam back to the spot where he had undressed--but horror of horrors! his clothes had disappeared. not a thing had been left behind, not even a shirt to cover his body. utterly distraught, he ran up and down the bank, hunting for his clothes, calling, crying out, imploring, beseeching help from somewhere. nothing stirred. had someone played a trick on him? had tramps passed by and taken the clothes along as profitable booty? he was absolutely ignorant of how the thing had happened. but one thing was clear; he must hide himself until night, and then find some way of creeping home. he reckoned on the probability that the people, tired out by the fast, would go to bed earlier than usual. so, resigned and thoroughly worn out by the excitement of the fearful adventure, he slid into a field of corn in full ear, ripe for harvesting, and crawled way into its depths to hide himself completely. he dropped down exhausted; the corn-stalks waved high over his head, the crickets chirped, the ragged robins and wild poppies nodded about him. he again began to meditate upon his peculiar position. what happened after that he could not remember. he must have fallen into a deep sleep, and so failed to hear the call of the search parties. when he awoke, the moon was high in the heavens. he did not know what time it was; but he supposed it must be late at night, for he was chilled to the marrow, and dew lay upon the field from which he emerged. then he wended his way homeward, through the meadows wrapt in solitude and nocturnal quiet. with beating heart he slipped past the houses along the deserted streets. it was like a city of the dead. he thought it must be long past midnight, that everybody was buried in sleep. it could not occur to him that the people, because of his disappearance, had congregated at the ring. emboldened by the quiet, he stepped along at a livelier pace, and even calculated that by crossing the ring and going down rybniker street he could reach his home sooner. he was not in the least afraid of meeting anyone at that time except the nightwatch, to whom he could easily explain his plight. so he came through a narrow side street, which ran from the flour market and opened right on the ring and landed--where his appearance was welcomed as a ghost by the excited crowd. and now he was standing before the gentlemen, and he could not have done otherwise, so help him god--amen! his savior in need was the rebbetzin. with averted face she listened to the half-comic, half-pitiful narrative, and suddenly she let her large black mantilla fall to the ground behind her. shmul eisner, who noticed the act, and immediately perceived its purpose, sprang forward, picked up the shawl, and hung it about the teacher's trembling limbs. then, draped in the rebbetzin's black mantilla, the teacher was led to the shelter of his home, to wife and child. "won't frau teacher sandberg be jealous, though," exclaimed reb shmul, the joker, "when she sees him coming home with nothing on but the mantilla of the rebbetzin." "the chief thing is, he is here," replied his companion. and that is what the whole congregation thought, when it sought its well-deserved rest. october . my position keeps me very busy. in a mining district accidents occur almost daily. besides, the whisky fiend has to be reckoned with, leading, as it does, to all sorts of excesses, brawls, and murderous assaults. scarcely a day passes but that i have to make trips into the country, which offers small cheer now in the grey autumn weather and in this dispiriting region. my disposition, naturally inclined to be sombre, becomes still more melancholy; and when i ride through the rain-soaked country, past forges, furnaces, and culm heaps, covered with a thick pall of smoke, with the immediate prospect of seeing dead or injured victims, and having to set down a record of human misery and woe, my mood becomes ever blacker and blacker. i never find time to attend to patients among the upper classes. i believe i am given up as a hopeless case--a jewish kreisphysikus, sans wife, who doesn't seek introductions, must be either an abnormality or a capricious, stuck-up fool, at any rate a person not to be reckoned with seriously. my colleagues probably have the same opinion of me. after the inevitable initial formalities, i did not come in contact with them; if chance brings us together, we give each other a cool if courteous greeting. this exclusiveness has its advantages. the time left free from my duties belongs to me entirely, and i do not spend it thriftlessly in society to which i am indifferent. it has not been my experience that intercourse with many people is of any profit. one gets so little, and gives so much, much too much of what is best and noblest in one's nature, especially if one is a man of feeling, intellect, and ardent temperament. the strongest chord is almost never touched. in the most favorable circumstances, the exchange of courtesies is purely formal, and the acts of friendship are entirely perfunctory. these merely external amenities make men vulgar and untrue, i would not like to use an even stronger expression and say dishonest. heine's words occur to me: weisse, höfliche manschetten, ach wenn sie nur herzen hätten, herzen in der brust und liebe,--wahre liebe in den herzen, denn mich tötet ihr gesinge von erlogenen liebesschmerzen. perhaps such principles produce loneliness; but they strengthen one; at all events they do not embitter the mind and spirit, as some maintain. i have never been sadder than in the midst of many people, among whom i did not find--one human being! and nothing has a happier influence on me than to find a human being where i least expect one--simon eichelkatz, for example. yesterday, after an interval of several days, i went to see him late in the evening. i was worn out and unnerved by my official visit to a neighboring place, the centre of the silesian coal-mining district. two workmen had gotten into a fight in a tavern, and the host, in trying to separate them and smooth over their differences, himself became enraged and threw out the more aggressive of the two. the reeling, sodden wretch lost his balance, and, tumbling down the steps, knocked his head on a stone. his skull was crushed, and he died in a few minutes from contusion of the brain. when i reached the spot, a mob of wild, excited forms had gathered about the scene of the drama. policemen stood on guard; and a cloth covered the corpse, which was not to be disturbed until after an inspection by the officials of the locality. i could do nothing more than affirm that the victim was dead, the examination showed that death had occurred as a result of a fall caused by violent mishandling. the author of the deed was a jew. he was immediately imprisoned, and with great difficulty was withdrawn from the summary lynch-justice of the enraged crowd. defrauded of the prisoner, they turned against his family and his property. the windows of his house were smashed in; the shop was utterly destroyed, and the whisky--that ruinous, unholy "dispeller of cares "--flowed from the casks into the street. his wife and children tried to save their goods and possessions from the fury of the vandals, but received kicks and blows for their efforts. it was a horrid scene. the policemen did not succeed in restoring order and quiet for some time. is it possible they had not received sufficient power from the authorities? was there some other reason? at any rate i had to interpose and try to allay the turmoil. at last the crowd dispersed; but ever and again the echo reached my ears of assassin--murderer--jew--assassin--dirty thief--cheat--jew--jew--liar. all this had utterly depressed and unnerved me. i really wanted to stay at home; but i reconsidered and decided it was better to substitute a pure, peaceful picture for these torturing impressions, and i went to my old friend. i found him gay and friendly as ever, despite the lateness of the hour. but my mood did not escape his searching gaze; and on his questioning me, i told him what had happened. as was his wont, he rubbed his forehead with his forefinger and thumb, and looked thoughtfully into space. finally he said: "that's the way it is to-day, and that's the way it's always been. if a man of some other religion commits a wrong, it's a bad man that did it; but if it happens among our people, then it's the 'jew'! that's a bitter pill we have to swallow, herr doktor, a very bitter pill. but it _is_ so, and it doesn't change, even though the world is said to be so cultured and progressive, and humane--the jew remains a jew! in the eyes of the _goy_ he's something peculiar, something disgraceful! and for that reason the jews must stick to the jew; because the others don't, and never did, and never will. we have nothing to expect or hope from them--and we needn't be afraid of them, neither, we jews, if we stick together. then, if something should happen as to-day, herr kreisphysikus, it's a misfortune, but not a calamity. because the man who did it, is a wicked brute who by accident is a jew, and might just as well have been a goy. what has religion to do with these matters, anyhow? does a goy do something bad because he's a christian, or a jew because he's an israelite? religion teaches both of them to be good, upright, and pious; and if they aren't, how can religion help it? religion is not to be blamed; only good can result from religion. whether jew or christian, it remains the same. each can learn from his own religion; for there is something moral in every religion; and for that reason everybody should honor his own religion and stick to it. the deeds of men must be judged according to the nature of each man, not according to his religion. because, if the jew at raudnitz chucked out the _shikker_ so roughly that he died, the jew did it because he has an angry, wild, ungovernable temper. do you suppose he was thinking of his religion? if he only had! the shikker would be alive if he had. because the jewish belief forbids the jew to be sinful or violent, and to kill; just as their belief forbids the goyim. and the world won't be better until all understand that a man must have respect for his neighbor, because he is a man. when each and everyone feels that he is master of his honor and his dignity, he will also find his rights--not as a jew and not as a christian, but as a man!" i stared at the old man fixedly. whence these ideas on the rights and dignity of man? whence these opinions animated by the spirit of humanitarianism? here, in the jewish community? if he had suddenly begun to unriddle the problem of "the thing in itself," i should scarcely have been astonished. notions had arisen in the mind of this simple man, on the philosophy of human rights and the philosophy of religion, worthy of a great scholar, although he had never heard a word of the notable thinkers who had constructed these ideas into an enduring cosmic edifice. october . the affair in raudnitz had a sad sequel, and gave me a great deal to do. the prisoner hanged himself in jail. the coroner's inquest and the attendant formalities occupied most of my time. i was compelled to drive repeatedly to raudnitz, and i became acquainted with the unfortunate family of the accused who had taken justice into his own hands. the wife, well-mannered, had a rather hard expression; the two daughters were educated and well-bred; the aged mother of the man was pathetic in her old jewish humility and pious resignation. a fearful fate had overtaken the unsuspecting folk who a few days before had been living in quiet happiness. i asked the woman what could possibly have driven her husband to his desperate deed. in the most unfavorable circumstances he would have been punished for homicide through carelessness, and the sentence would certainly have been light, since he could have proved that the fatal fall of the victim was primarily due to his drunkenness. "but the shame, herr doktor, the shame. for months he would have been in jail undergoing examination and cross-questioning; then he'd surely have remained in prison a couple of years--for they would never have acquitted him entirely. he didn't want to live through all that--the shame, herr kreisphysikus, shame before his children, and the sorrow for his mother. it would have lasted years, long, long years; and so he ended it at one stroke. he knew me, and he felt sure i wouldn't lose my head, and would provide for the children. he was certain of it, and knew he would be a greater burden to his family if he was buried alive in prison than if lying dead beneath the earth. it is terribly painful, but there is an end of it; the other would have been an eternal shame. that is the way he reasoned; he killed himself for the sake of his children." i shuddered, when i heard the affair discussed so rationally and cold-bloodedly. was it heartlessness or keensightedness that made them so hard and unloving? hadn't the woman loved and respected her husband? yet did she not judge his deed as the outcome of reasoned consideration, his voluntary death as a sacrifice to his family, as a martyr's death? a question rose to my lips. "but tell me, my dear mrs. schlochauer, your husband must surely have thought that he would hurt you deeply, you with whom he lived happily and whom he certainly loved and respected. and he must have felt that he would give his old mother infinite pain." an odd smile drew the corners of her mouth, and some moments passed before she roused herself from a sort of trance, and said: "his mother is very old, herr doktor, eighty-two years old; she hasn't much more to expect from life, i am sure he thought of that. and as for his love for me "--she hesitated--"he was always considerate of me, and respectful, but love? in a decent jewish family the love of man and wife is their love for their children." what had moved the soul of this woman to such conclusions on married life? yesterday i learned by chance that she was the daughter of a teacher in beuthen, and had herself been trained as a teacher. the community had granted her a scholarship, to complete her course for the teacher's examinations at the seminary in breslau. there she became acquainted with a young painter, a christian, and a love affair, as pure as it was ardent, developed between them. when her parents heard of the affair, they made her come home immediately. her studies were interrupted, and she took up life again in her parents' house, the fountain of her emotions sealed, the bitter sorrow of an unhappy love swelling her heart. what was her inner development after this first, hard disillusionment, this spiritual conflict? who can tell? when, some years later, the first flush of youth past, her father expressed to her his wish that she marry schlochauer in raudnitz, the well-to-do proprietor of a distillery, in order to lighten his own troubles in bringing up his numerous offspring, she obeyed without a murmur. her husband respected her, and offered no objection to her assisting her family and so enabling her brothers to study. he loved her, too--for she presented him with four children. two died young--and as for the two remaining daughters, she would provide for them carefully. her husband would not be deceived in her; the sacrifice of his life was not made in vain. "when everything is settled, herr kreisphysikus, i am going to sell the business and the house, and move to berlin. we have some means, herr doktor; my husband was a good manager. in berlin we are not well known; and grass grows over everything that happens. no matter if a person here and there knows something about it; it is quickly forgotten. people have no time there to gossip about private affairs. i have three brothers in berlin, all in respected positions. so, in the large city, i shall live free from care with my daughters; they are still young and will get over the pain and horror of the present." "and you, frau schlochauer?" i hastily asked. "i? i shall do my duty." the words sounded so natural, yet it made a painful impression on me to see how collected she was, how quietly and circumspectly she looked into the future from out of the confusion and distress of the moment. perhaps she divined the course of my thoughts, for suddenly she continued: "don't wonder that i speak of this matter so calmly. you become accustomed to such things if for twenty years you live with a business man in this neighborhood, among such rude, rough folk. you learn to be on the lookout, to be careful and practical. and you forget that once you regarded the world with different eyes." she uttered the last words softly, with downward glance. when i heard the history of her youth yesterday, i saw her in my mind's eye again, and a feeling of boundless pity for this woman swept over me--not for what she was suffering now--now that she was steeled and experienced--but for her youth, the youth she had lost because practical considerations and hindrances determined the course of her life. but now i must tell about a remarkable acquaintance i made yesterday, the man who told me what i know of frau schlochauer's history. he introduces some humor into the affair. "herr jonas goldstücker." the visiting card with this name printed in large roman characters lies before me and seems to throw a crafty and comical smile at me. in fact my new acquaintance is very amusing. the card was brought in to me at the end of my afternoon office hours. herr jonas goldstücker! i thought it was a patient, and had him admitted even though the time for receiving patients was past. a few moments later an elderly man sat before me, well-preserved and decently dressed. he was perfectly open in letting his curious gaze rove through my room, and i felt that in a minute period of time he had a thorough survey. his inventory took in all the objects in the room, myself included. his sly eyes seemed ever to be investigating and inspecting, and although he frequently pressed them shut, or glanced into space over his nickel-plated _pince-nez_, one felt correctly catalogued and pigeonholed. herr jonas goldstücker began to interest me. without waiting for me to ask his business, he said: "i knew, herr kreisphysikus, that you always stay at home a little while after your office hours, and that's the reason i chose this time for coming to you; i thought we would not be disturbed now." so he was acquainted with my habits, with something about my private life; he wanted to speak to me without outside interruption--did this man know of some secret? did a matter calling for discretion lead him to me? but he gave me no time for surmise, and added: "you certainly don't run after practice among well-to-do patients; no one can reproach you with that--you live like a hermit; and outside of simon eichelkatz no one has had the honor of seeing you at his home." my face must have looked very stupid, or it must have expressed great amazement at his intimate tone and his familiarity with my affairs; because he laughed and said: "yes, herr kreisphysikus, in a little town you get to know people, and all about them." "but i don't know _you_," i interrupted, my patience at last exhausted. "i am jonas goldstücker." "so your card tells me. but i should like to permit myself the question, to what i owe the honor of your visit." "o, you'll soon find out, herr kreisphysikus. i am not sick, as you see. quite another reason brings me to you. but if i should need medical advice, i shall not fail to come to you, although sanitätsrat ehrlich has been treating me for six years--since the time his daughter annie married herr rechtsanwalt bobrecker of leobschütz. an excellent match. any day bobrecker might have gotten sixty thousand marks, and löwenberg, the wool manufacturer in oppeln, would have given him as much as seventy-five thousand, but he wanted to marry a girl from an educated family, and no other. well, the daughter of sanitätsrat ehrlich is no vain delusion." my breath was completely taken away by this information regarding private matters. next came the abrupt question: "in general, herr kreisphysikus, are you in favor of wet or dry treatment in rheumatism?" a patient after all! i breathed more freely. herr jonas goldstücker had given me a creepy sensation. "i don't understand what you mean by that." "i mean, are you in favor of massage and electricity or in favor of baths?" the impudent assurance of the question utterly astounded me, and i wanted to give him a brusque reply, when he continued: "sanitätsrat ehrlich is an excellent physician; but he's a bit antiquated already, herr kreisphysikus. the young doctors of to-day make a much more lymphatic impression." doubtless, he meant "emphatic," because a few moments later another pretentious word was incorrectly applied. "but sanitätsrat ehrlich after all has the largest practice in the congregation; and people would look on it as bigamy if anyone were to say anything against him." i was only slightly acquainted with my colleague, and i did not know that doubt of his powers would be regarded as blasphemy--probably what jonas goldstücker meant to say. the humor of the situation at last began to dawn upon me, and i awaited the further utterances of my remarkable guest in amused curiosity. "and his house, herr kreisphysikus, his house! really, very fine. the frau sanitätsträtin knows how to do the honors and to keep her distance." what he meant by this was not exactly clear to me; but i learned that the youngest daughter of my colleague ehrlich was a ravishing maiden, as herr jonas goldstücker assured me. "very highly educated, speaks every language, plays the piano as well as leubuscher (i didn't know of the performer), and only chopin, rubinstein, offenbach, brahm." "brahms, herr goldstücker, brahms." "why, yes, i said brahm, herr kreisphysikus. and what she doesn't know, besides! and quite a housekeeper, too; she learned cooking. no, not a soul can find a thing to say against miss edith--edith, a pretty name, herr kreisphysikus, edith." he was silent for a moment. i was on the point of telling him that all this had very little interest for me, and that he should come to the real object of his visit; but he continued to impress me as a man of the better classes, with fairly decent manners, calling for a certain amount of consideration. so i maintained my attitude of expectancy, and listened to his digressions and discourses on this theme and that. in the course of his remarks he exclaimed: "it's really a shame that you don't visit at sanitätsrat ehrlich's, though i can imagine you haven't very much time. and now you must be having a good deal of annoyance with that affair in raudnitz. a terrible misfortune, terrible. that herr schlochauer must have had a fearful temper; because it isn't so easy to throw a man out of your place and kill him outright. it must be very trying to his wife; she is an educated woman, daughter of the teacher weiss, in beuthen. she never thought she would marry a thoroughly uneducated saloon-keeper. but he got along very well, and you never heard any talk about her not living happily with him. she always had what she needed, and much more. she could help her own family and give her two daughters a good education--very different from what would have happened if she'd gotten her painter. what a sad picture they'd have made, she and her picture-maker." he laughed complacently at his pun, and i meditated over the ideal jewish marriage. then i was made acquainted with the story of frau rosalie schlochauer's youthful love. "but that he should have gone and taken his life! it's really awful to bring about a misfortune so deliberately. however, a sister-in-law of frau schlochauer, a cousin of my wife, married to the book-dealer grosser, told me that the widow is remarkably calm. frau grosser herself is half dead from the excitement, and she can't possibly comprehend how frau schlochauer can be so collected. the idea of hanging himself in prison! absurd! if he had waited, for all we know he might have been set free. at any rate he would not have gotten more than three or four years. in no circumstances would he have been put into the penitentiary. herr rechtsanwalt cassirer told me yesterday that the jury would certainly have agreed on _dolus eventualiter_." of course, what herr jonas goldstücker wanted to say was _dolus eventualis_. but a little thing like that didn't matter to him, and i continued to wonder how he came to know everybody and associate with the best families. he was evidently on a most intimate footing with the heads of the community. "frau schlochauer," he said, after a while, "will doubtless move away from raudnitz. life for her there in these circumstances is impossible. and what should she do with two daughters, who are almost grown up and will soon be marriageable? she will certainly go to berlin. her brothers live there; one of them is a lawyer, another is a physician, and the third owns a large shirtwaist factory. there she will have someone to cling to." i had a mental picture of frau schlochauer, quiet in her grief, earnest, thoughtful, as she unfolded to me her plans for the future. and this man knew it all. he had guessed it and now expressed his opinion on events in the life of a stranger. "in berlin people don't bother about such stories. there frau schlochauer is the sister of the lawyer weiss and the doctor weiss; she is the rich frau schlochauer with two pretty, well-bred daughters. that's enough. the girls will make very good matches. they say the property amounts to a great deal, much more than you'd think by looking at herr schlochauer. there he was working all day and thinking of nothing but how to serve his customers. he left culture and education to his wife--and now the money, in addition. the sale of the big house and the distillery may bring in as much as four hundred thousand marks. yesterday rothmann, the banker, told me schlochauer had been well off, almost rich. some of his money he placed with rothmann, the rest with the breslau diskonto bank; and rothmann knows the amount of his deposits. if frau schlochauer, when the time comes, will give each daughter one hundred thousands marks--for the present she won't use more than the interest on her money--she will be able to do very well with them. of course, she won't get the sort of person that looks out for a so-called fine family. people like that ask after every possible thing, and are sure to find out about the detention in prison and the suicide. there are some who won't suffer the tiniest speck on the family name--but there are enough young people, too, who haul in without questioning and think, 'let by-gones be by-gones.' sometimes even physicians and lawyers aren't so particular about 'antecedents.'" i looked at my watch. the act should have been an indication to him that i was getting impatient, and was displeased with the familiarity of his talk; but he seemed not to comprehend the delicate hint. for he suddenly broke out with: "herr rabbiner grünbaum in loslau was a brother of your mother, wasn't he, herr kreisphysikus? i knew him very well. i'm from loslau, too. a fine man, and very good and friendly. he was very much loved in the khille, and my blessed mother always used to say: 'fine as silk, fine as silk.' i knew your father, too, herr kreisphysikus; once when he was in loslau, at the funeral of your uncle, i saw him, and i heard the sermon he delivered. great, really great! so touching! the whole congregation shed tears. your father must have been a splendid pulpit orator. a pity he was in such a small congregation. he belonged in breslau or berlin. but, god bless me, good can be accomplished in the smallest of places; and he certainly did do good. herr doktor feilchenstein was in johannisbad with me this summer, and he couldn't get through telling me about your parents, herr kreisphysikus, and what a pious, good old lady your mother is. no wonder, either, if she's a sister of herr rabbiner grünbaum, of loslau. and doktor feilchenstein told me of you, too. you know, i mean your cousin from frankfort-on-the-oder. when he heard that i was from raudnitz, he asked after you, and sent his regards. he refused to believe that i hadn't met you, when you'd been here since april. but, dear me, in summer everybody, of course, is away, and it's no time for visiting. but now, herr kreisphysikus, it's october already, and you haven't made any visits yet." what gave the man the right to remonstrate with me on this subject? to be sure, he seemed well acquainted with my family affairs--my cousin sent messages by him. i pondered a while; the name "jonas goldstücker" was not on my visiting list. curious! all i said was: "you must leave me to judge of that." "but i beg of you, herr kreisphysikus, you misunderstand me. i assure you i did not mean to instruct you in matters of social form. how could you think such a thing? all i meant was, how should families here get to know and appreciate you, if you keep yourself at such a distance? and your cousin, doctor feilchenstein, told me what an excellent person you are, how earnest and thorough, and how you had opened up a career for yourself when you were comparatively young. not out of the thirties and a physikus already--and how much pleasure you are giving your old mother." since i last saw my cousin he must have developed into a garrulous old woman. what had possessed him to tell an utter stranger so much of my life, to praise me, and speak of my relations with my quiet, reserved little mother? i couldn't believe my ears, and i was about to give expression to my amazement when he continued: "and how happy your dear mother would be if you would soon present her with a nice daughter-in-law! if the girl is fine and educated, your mother might even live with you, and end her days under your roof. many young girls, to be sure, are not in favor of such an arrangement; but that depends, and edith ehrlich is such a clever person...." i jumped from my seat, and came near laughing out loud. at last the mystery was solved. herr jonas goldstücker, who honored me with so curious and intimate a visit, was a _shadchen_, the marriage broker of the congregation! it was highly entertaining. but apparently he did not care to notice that i took the matter as a joke, for he remained quietly seated and continued: "and herr sanitätsrat prefers a physician, who might take up his practice later...." "marry into the profession, so to speak," i interjected. "yes, herr kreisphysikus. but that's only by the way. in addition he will give his daughter fifty thousand marks, just as much as rechtsanwalt bobrecker got, and if you--you might pay a visit there anyway--i am sure if you once get to know miss edith, you will see that the description i gave of her is true from head to foot. she has a beautiful head of chestnut brown hair...." the association of ideas was delicious. "she has a fine figure, medium size, and when i think how glad your old mother would be...." i do not know whether i politely showed herr jonas goldstücker the door, or whether he went voluntarily. at all events he was gone. but this very day i mean to write a letter to my cousin, doktor feilchenstein, and give him a piece of my mind. october . "do you know what a _roshekol_ is?" simon eichelkatz asked me with a mischievous smile, when i visited him this afternoon. "a roshekol is the head of a congregation," i answered. he laughed a gentle, chuckling laugh, which was the usual expression of good temper with him, and said: "a roshekol is a disagreeable fellow." "but not always, herr eichelkatz?" "almost always, at least if you get your idea of him from the rabbi and the cantor, nebbich, or even from the khille in general. he is generally arrogant, disputatious, autocratic, and ambitious. as he hasn't anything else to rule, he wants to rule the congregation at least, and he insists the poor officials shall depend upon his good-will entirely. he suffers no contradiction, and as for the opinion of another, it doesn't occur to him that it is entitled to any respect. he commands and the others must agree with him. for they are nearly all dependent upon him, and, therefore, are either for or with him. on the one side is his _mishpocheh_, on the other, people who stand in business or personal relations with him. if he happens to have a so-called academic education, matters are still worse, because on the strength of it he and the khille as well put on an extra touch of pride. he has some standing in the city, too, is on good terms with the goyim, and is generally a city alderman. this makes a tremendous impression on the khille, and it doesn't occur to the _narronim_ that they themselves made him alderman. they say with pride: 'our roshekol must be a very intelligent man; he's an alderman also!' the roshekol, it is true, usually is an intelligent person; but he lacks character and genuine goodness and humanity. it's all on the surface--fine phrases, long words, but within cold, hollow, and calculating. all he thinks of is to show himself off in the best light and hurt other people's feelings." i shook my finger at simon laughingly and said: "reb shimme, i think you are looking at things through dark spectacles; they can't be so bad as you paint them." "just live in a khille fifty years, and you'll know whether or not i'm exaggerating. if you'd have known the president of the congregation, krakauer, _doktor_ krakauer, saving your reverence, you'd have said at least what i say, that a roshekol is a disagreeable fellow. perhaps you'd have said even more. lots of people in the khille were vexed at his treatment of the poor officials, nebbich, and made a fist at him behind his back. but they were too weak to do anything. i, too, herr kreisphysikus. what can a single person do? but when i think of it even now, my gall rises." "now, now, my dear reb shimme, if you excite yourself, i won't allow you to speak one word about it." i tried to soothe him. "why? if one speaks from the heart, it doesn't hurt. just let me tell you quietly about herr doktor krakauer, saving your reverence. i won't make it a reproach against him that he came of a thoroughly ordinary family. there are many jews of low extraction who work themselves up into a fine, noble manhood. besides, if we recall our common stock, everyone is justified in regarding himself as a nobleman of the most ancient lineage. but then one should act accordingly, which most of us unfortunately fail to do. herr doktor krakauer, saving your reverence, certainly did not behave like a nobleman. his father was a dealer in raw hides in peiskretscham, an industrious, decent sort of a jew, who couldn't read or write. his mother was a simple woman, formerly the cook at herr bernhard markus's. they were not young when they married, and when a son was born to them, they were overjoyed. they decided to make something remarkable of the child. the parents now had only one aim, and the boy, who was a studious pupil, made it possible for them to fulfil their desire. he was to study, become an educated, learned gentleman, a doctor. whatever the dealer in raw hides and his wife lacked, was to appear in the son, and more, too. and they lived to experience the joy of seeing him ashamed of them. after he had taken up the profession of physician, and had received positions of trust in the city and the congregation, he was very careful to keep the dealer in raw hides and the jewish cook hidden away. he was their son on the quiet and in secret. to be known as their son might have hurt him in the eyes of the world, and reflect on his public position. so the two old people, who had worked untiringly day and night to put their only child on a higher level than themselves, could watch the results of their efforts only from afar. for his greed, his energy, his cunning, and his disregard of other people had actually advanced him to a dazzling height. he married into a well-to-do family; but the girl was so shy and stupid that she yielded to his autocratic will, in constant terror lest she displease him. "now, then, herr kreisphysikus, imagine such a man a roshekol for years. he oppressed and injured the whole khille; it didn't have the courage to oppose him. everyone trembled before him. the old janitor of the synagogue, the shabbes goy marek, who died last year, always used to say: 'when krakauer comes to shul, holding his head so high you'd think he was trying to bump against the _mogen dovid_, and expanding his chest as if to beat for _al chet_ upon it, the whole khille trembles, because he's so swell and eats _trefa_, and treats the people like cattle.' marek was right, he was a sensible man. and more than the members of the khille, nebbich, those who were dependent upon him trembled before him. but two people did not tremble, rabbi doktor merzbach, who was too aristocratic by nature, and still less, the 'haughty rebbetzin,' who openly called doktor krakauer an upstart, and returned his greeting so condescendingly that he always took the other side of the street when he saw her coming. by way of return he never failed when the occasion offered to do harm to the rabbi and wound his feelings. "his desire for vengeance was incredible; and the more he tried to keep it from showing in his outward manners, the more it fermented in his coarse-grained heart; and wherever it was possible to injure doktor merzbach, he did it. no one seeing the tall, heavily-built, broad-shouldered man with his ingratiating smile, his assumption of aristocracy, and his courtly manners, would have supposed his exterior concealed so black a soul. well, his day of reckoning came after all. but in the meantime he continued to gain influence; and he also had an excellent practice, which later, to be sure, was sliced away a bit by sanitätsrat ehrlich. may no one suffer the fate they invoked on each other--but before the world the best of friends. on one point they were always agreed, to worry and annoy those who were under their control, the officials of the congregation, nebbich! herr sanitätsrat ehrlich was also a trustee; and the two ruled in the congregation for more than thirty years. the first ugly trick they played on dr. merzbach was at the dedication of the new synagogue. i think i've told you about it already, herr kreisphysikus. the building of the new synagogue was due entirely to dr. merzbach's efforts. who would have paid any attention to herr dr. krakauer, saving your reverence? dr. merzbach's name had a good sound, and one is not a son-in-law of reb salme friedländer of posen for nothing. that's exactly what dr. krakauer, saving your reverence, could not forgive him, although he always performed his difficult duties quietly and simply. the rebbetzin, it is true, very clearly showed what she thought of the son of isaac krakauer, dealer in raw hides, and frau yetta, once cook at the house of bernhard markus. there's no denying it, the rebbetzin was proud. but in spite of that she was charitable and noble, and all the poor people in the community loved her. she stood at the beds of the sick and the dying. in the awful cholera time she courageously went with her husband from place to place, showing no sign of fear. she brought comfort to the sufferers, and took the helpless and the orphaned under her wing. it was only to people like krakauer that she showed her scorn for upstarts, if, as she said, they did not also elevate their minds and their morals. you can imagine, herr kreisphysikus, that there were always 'decent' people in the khille who reported to the president every word the rebbetzin said, only exaggerated and adorned with extra flourishes. there were two especially, fine men, herr meyer nathanson and herr saul feuerstein. nathanson was the _shammes_ and treasurer of the khille. he was called the 'caretaker of the khille,' because he concerned himself about everything, and was dr. krakauer's right-hand man. feuerstein was a well-known _pleitegeher_, a professional bankrupt, and made a good living from his profession. these two men acted as spies to ferret out and report every word, every act of frau dr. merzbach's. she didn't concern herself about them; and sometimes she may have been glad that the people learned what she thought of them. but there was always some disturbance and annoyance; and finally the good herr rabbiner was the one to suffer. i can scarcely get myself to speak to you about the way dr. krakauer, saving your reverence, and his assistants imposed their will on the meetings of the committee, and how, when the new synagogue stood there completed, all the difficulties overcome, they sent for a rabbi from berlin to hold the dedication speech. did you ever hear of such a thing? as though a rabbi were a prima donna! he comes and preaches the dedication sermon and pushes aside our own rabbi! dr. krakauer, and meyer nathanson, the caretaker of the khille, and saul feuerstein, the professional bankrupt, triumph; and with them the 'saints,' whom the whole business of the new synagogue doesn't suit anyhow. i believe dr. merzbach suffered very much at the time; his feelings must have been bitterly hurt; but he did not complain, and he did not lose his joy in his work. when he stood in the pulpit on the first shabbes after the dedication, and thanked god for having permitted the congregation to erect their new house of worship, and also thanked the congregation for having made sacrifices and patiently awaited the completion of the difficult work, which he recommended to their protection, their fidelity, and their piety, as a place of upliftment, of edification, comfort, and faith, the eyes of all were filled with tears, and everyone felt that the real dedication sermon had not been delivered until that shabbes. marek, the janitor of the synagogue and shabbes goy, said that when the people came out of the synagogue, they nodded significantly to one another: 'even if the other man did come from berlin he's not a dr. merzbach.' but what they said in an undertone, was publicly declared by the rebbetzin when she left the synagogue, proudly drawing up the black mantilla that had once been draped about the shoulders of teacher sandberg: "'the dedication of the new synagogue did not take place until to-day, praised be god, through the efforts of him who for ten years spent his whole strength for the success of the work.' "she said this as she stood on the top of the steps leading down from the side portal to the street; and so loud that the 'caretaker of the khille,' who was standing near the steps, could hear the words, probably was intended to hear them. by the afternoon he had already reported them to the president, and the result was that the deputy to the convention soon after held in berlin was not the rabbi, but herr dr. krakauer, saving your reverence, and two other ignorant _amrazim_." "that's what you call punishment for the sake of discipline," i interpolated laughingly. "i don't know what you call it, but i know it's a shame that so large a congregation as ours should not have been represented at the convention by its rabbi, a fine talmid chochom, with a good name of the greatest yichus, but by an _amhorez_ who did not know more of _yiddishkeit_ than a coarse dealer in hides and a jewish cook could show him." he came to a sudden stop. "it sickens me and makes my gall rise to think of these things, herr kreisphysikus. and i had to look on and let it all happen, because i was weak and without influence. nothing could be done." a thoughtful, wearied look came into his eyes. i seized the moment to take leave, because, in spite of my interest in his narratives, i did not want him to exert himself any more for the present. outside i advised feiwel silbermann to see to it that his master go to bed as soon as possible. october . at last i have learned something of simon eichelkatz's life history. as if utterly forgetful of himself, he ransacked the store-house of his brain for recollections of the past, but since his own life was closely bound up with that of the congregation, he came to speak of himself involuntarily. i admit, that without wishing to be indiscreet i brought him to do it. for greatly as the figures and events he describes interest me, yet they belong in the past and have an historical significance. but this old man rises out of the past, as a passive observer, it is true, more than an active doer. yet, a portion of his being flourishes and develops on the soil of science, in the most modern, most progressive province of spiritual endeavor. what an evolution from simon eichelkatz to friedrich eichner! i hope to become acquainted with this life which leads from the narrow confines of a jewish community out into the broad world. yesterday my old friend was very talkative. i felt it pleased him to glance back at his own life; and _he_ probably felt that it was not vulgar curiosity but true sympathy that led me to him. when i began my diary, i thought it would record the deeds and events of the day happening here, the most recent news; it has turned out to be a book of the recollections of an old man. it's better so. daily life here is dull and monotonous. the people, as far as i know, seem to be conventional. those typical characteristics which simon eichelkatz reveals to me are lacking in the present generation. the more the jews are acclimatized, the more they lose of their individuality; and if this is not to be deplored in general, yet it is at the expense of much originality, in both a good and a bad sense. whatever originality has been saved for present times has taken the form of individualism, which plays a large and significant rôle in modern life; and i believe that if strong individualities are found among jews, they are traceable to the time when the community at large was concerned with the preservation of individuality and race characteristics. nowadays the jews strive for exactly the opposite ideal. but i want to put the past on record. simon eichelkatz draws some remarkable though not always agreeable pictures. yet if viewed in the softening perspective of time and distance, they evoke a feeling of reconciliation and mild tolerance. was not an impress laid on the jews by the narrowness of their life, its one-sided interests, the lack of a wide outlook, and the failure to take a broad view of the world based on fixed ethical principles? were the large mass of them not rendered doubly small and inferior because the great men among them were entirely too great? was it not a necessary consequence that crudities and deformities should grow out of these contrasts, which were all the worse because they arose under oppression, in malicious, underhand ways? when i think of it all in the right light, my sympathy overcomes my repugnance for those who in the old communities crucified and burned at the stake the men who furthered the idea of reform in judaism. remarkable saints! meyer nathanson, the caretaker of the khille; saul feuerstein, the professional bankrupt, and their savory crew, and alongside of them dr. krakauer, dr. ehrlich, and their colleagues. alas for the miserable khilles! yet i am moved by the recollections of the scenes enacted in the past on this ground where fortune has cast me. instead of the land of sun, in which the famous ancestor of my great-grandmother in brody, dr. abarbanell, served his master, the black coals of upper silesia and the winds of the beskides; instead of converse with scholars and artists, intercourse with the rude folk here; instead of stimulating activity, dissections and grubbing into the mental state of murderers, perjurers, etc.--such is my life and work; yet i have something to give me inner satisfaction--simon eichelkatz. yesterday, he said to me: "what the herr rabbiner did for the congregation as a whole when he came to this 'black' khille cannot compare with what he gave to each person separately. he came here in , soon after the great revolution. shortly before, in the company of a deputation from posen--he had been rabbi in unruhstadt--he had stood before the king, in order to give expression to the 'most humble' thanks of the jews for the rights granted them. you can imagine, herr kreisphysikus, how that impressed the people here--a rav who had stood before the king, a rav who spoke high german and was a doctor. i tell _you_ there was a to-do when they went to receive him and his rebbetzin; they rode as far as kandrzin and met him there. herr dr. krakauer, saving your reverence, had then been president for two years, and, to give the devil his due, it was dr. krakauer who brought a new rav here and insisted on his being a man with an academic education. but when he saw that the rav was independent, and wasn't willing to dance to the tune of his fiddle, he became the herr rabbiner's worst enemy. but on the rabbi's arrival dr. krakauer delivered the address of welcome in kandrzin, and rode here in the same carriage with the rabbi and the rebbetzin. the fourth person in the carriage was the goldsmith manasse, who was then vice-president, a decent sort of a man. that's the way they entered town; the whole khille had assembled before the rabbi's house, in the old school building next to the _mikveh_. well, and then they went up into his apartments, which had been entirely refurnished by joseph, the cabinet-maker, and manasse attempted to deliver a speech there. he was no orator, and embarrassment robbed him of his words. it is reported he stammered so that he couldn't get past the first words, and dr. merzbach said: 'respected friends, i do not need words to be convinced of your sentiment and your kindly feelings for me. i feel that i belong to you, and i came gladly. i hope that in this congregation my activity will find a large field, which perhaps has hitherto been lying fallow, but on which the seeds of fine, noble thoughts, ethical principles, and the idea of forming a worthy communal life, will sprout and bear rich, glorious fruit. i know what you wanted to say to me, respected herr vorsteher, even if the emotion of the occasion overpowered you. whoever looks into your true, good eyes feels that he is facing a kindly man; and so we all have the desire to cling to one another faithfully, and not in words but in deeds work for the weal of this precious congregation.' "manasse repeated this speech to me a hundred times. when the reception committee came down to the rest of the people at the end of half an hour, dr. krakauer looked so exasperated that marek, the shabbes goy, immediately remarked: 'something has gotten onto his nerves.' but saul feuerstein, professional bankrupt, and later leader of the 'saints,' did not see why the formation of a 'worthy communal life' was necessary, since they had been _davvening_ so long, and everything had been all right. did he think they had been waiting for him to shape communal life? as for what he said about 'ethical principles,' you'd have to look it up in an encyclopedia before you could understand it. besides it was a _chutzpeh_ in him to speak of a fallow field. the khille had managed to exist without a sign of a dr. merzbach. under such auspices the new rabbi assumed office--among amrazim and coarse fellows, all of them, the well-educated herr dr. krakauer, saving your reverence, and dr. ehrlich with his fine ways on top. only two men understood the rabbi better, karfunkelstein, the book-dealer, whose father had been rabbi, and schlesinger, the old iron monger. and then there was another who might have if he had wanted to; a sensible, amiable, good, intelligent, and witty man. he joked about the entire congregation and had a great deal of influence, because they were afraid of his keen judgment. he was the new _chazen_, the cantor elias, who had been appointed a short time after the rabbi. "now, isn't it so, herr kreisphysikus, isn't it more of a misfortune than a shame if one hasn't had the opportunity to learn? but it is a shame if one hasn't respect for the knowledge of others, and if one hurts the feelings of those to whom one should look up with respect. cantor elias once said to dr. merzbach: 'if you want to remain friends with the parchonim here, my dear herr doktor, you must learn klabberjas, and franzefuss, and sixty-six. here cards are more important than the pages of the _gemoreh_.' "he was right, herr kreisphysikus, and the worse he thought and spoke of the people, and the more disrespectfully he treated them, the better they were to him. he could always carry his point. every year an increase in salary. and they let him do what he wanted. when he stood before the _omed_ on shabbes and _yontef_ and began to sing, they were all in transports. he sang! such a voice, such a way of singing! i don't know if there is anything like it now. he touched people to the very marrow of their bones. perhaps sounds are more affecting than words. what do you think, herr kreisphysikus? at any rate he had more influence and power over the khille than the rabbi. if the rabbi told them something, they had to think about it first; but they only had to hear what the cantor sang to them. then, after shul, he went with them to drink a glass of wine at heimann's, or lunch with them at schäfer's. reb shäfer would stand at the door and declare, when the herr kantor came, his heart laughed in his body. when the cantor was present, there was always fun and merriment. he was the most popular man. he would play a little game with the people, he lunched with them, and did not despise heimann's hungarian wine. he told the men rugged truths, and he teased the women. no one suspected how genuinely he despised them all, how high he was raised above them. in a few clever words he himself told what he thought about everything. "'do you know what our rav is?' once when i was present he asked the question of some baale-batim with whom he was playing klabber. 'a pearl cast before swine.' "'and the rebbetzin?' some one asked in the midst of their laughter. "at this he suddenly became quite serious, and said: 'she is a pearl picked from the coronet of a princely family. but you don't understand; why should you? you know _malkeh_ and _melech_ only on cards.' then he threw down the ace and said: 'i'll take the king and queen with the diamond; they're in better hands than with you.' "often he used to say to me: 'you're right, eichelkatz, for sticking to the rabbi. if anyone can help you, he's the man, for he knows, yes, he knows what is going on in the souls of men--and--the rebbetzin!' "and i, i really did need someone who understood what was going on in my soul. i myself hardly understood." he paused and looked into space, engrossed in thought. i regarded him in silence; then he began with a voice that sounded like an echo from a great distance: "do you know what an unhappy marriage is, herr kreisphysikus? but how should you? you're a bachelor. you've seen and heard of the thing, but that's nothing. one must live through it oneself, one must experience it in one's own person; then only can you realize that it's the saddest, most fearful thing that can happen to a human being. both parties are to blame; it's always the fault of both. for neither has the courage to admit the truth, to confess, we've made a mistake; we don't suit each other. they drag through their entire lives in sorrow and deception; and again and again the heart is bruised, and one's own life and the life of others is embittered. and when you finally see into it all, it's too late. when your understanding comes, you're too old. and then you think, it doesn't pay to begin anew for the few years that are left. but the few years are long. each year has twelve months; each month, thirty days, and some have even thirty-one; each day, twenty-four hours; each hour, sixty minutes; each minute, sixty seconds; and in each second you grieve and fret and live your whole trouble again." his face took on a thoughtful expression. "do you know, herr kreisphysikus, they say man's life is short; and what are seventy, or, at the extreme, eighty years in the infinity of time? as a moment. but i tell you, every man who reaches his maturity lives a thousand years, because an entire life is condensed in every moment in which he has an experience. i don't know if you understand me, herr doktor. i do not mean those experiences that make up our ordinary life, our habits, and our needs. i mean the things our souls live through. and every sensation of the soul is a whole world in itself, a whole life; everything in us awakens at one blow, and leaps into life, and experiences the entire thing with us. we feel it with all our parts. and now imagine, herr kreisphysikus, how many moments each man lives through, how many thousands of lives. this is the standard we should use for measuring our age. and if a man reaches the end of the seventies, like myself, herr doktor, and has gone through so many things, his life has not been short, but a thousand years long and more." again i stood before the riddle: how did this plain old man arrive at philosophic deductions covering every field of thought, and with singular strength of reasoning lightly solve the most difficult problems, unconsciously, led only by intuition, which clearly and firmly guided him along a path where others groped for the way of truth? did he not instinctively arrive at the correct thing, when he measured the extent of life by intensity, and not by number of years? what _had_ simon eichelkatz lived through? as though he read the question on my face he continued: "and now see, herr doktor, do you know an unhappy marriage is an eternity of heartache? and whoever has lived through one is so old--so old--methuselah is a mere boy compared with him. nowadays you hear of divorces. in my days they were considered a shame. a divorced woman was regarded as something low, an outcast; and people didn't think very highly either of a man who gave a _get_. a divorce always had a disgusting flavor. and here in the khille, once you were mated, there was no way out. always dragging the yoke, always dragging it along! so believe me god, i really don't want to say anything against madame eichelkatz--i am sure she suffered as much from it as i did--but there was no getting away from it, we just didn't suit each other. my simple nature, my straightforwardness, and my lack of education were certainly as obnoxious to her as her culture, her fine manners, and her aristocratic desires were to me. she didn't like my having to stand behind a counter, and i didn't like her speaking french with the herr oberstleutnant von boddin. now tell me, herr kreisphysikus, do you think it is proper for a _bekovet_ jewish woman to drop curtseys, to laugh loud, and amuse herself with the officers in front of her husband's store when they pass by toward evening? it was 'gnädige frau' and 'madame eichelkatz' and a chattering and laughing and always that 'madame eichelkatz.' she refused to see that they were having fun at her expense and made mock of the name eichelkatz, my good, honest name, herr kreisphysikus." poor simon eichelkatz! so jealousy was his life's woe. as if endowed with clairvoyance and the ability to read my thoughts, he looked at me sharply and said: "you must not think that i was jealous, not what one understands by that word. upon my honor, i was not. when i married my wife, friederike, _née_ böhm, there was no talk of love between us. we married as all people married then. i had entered joseph böhm's business as clerk, and later i married into it, because böhm could not continue to carry it on alone. he himself came to me and said: 'simon, if you want to marry my daughter friederike, we needn't pay a shadchen, you needn't and i needn't. you know the business. it's gone backward within the last year; but if you look after it, you will advance it again. you know it once was a good business, and i can no longer keep up against the competition of others; but you can.' "it flattered my ambition that herr joseph böhm, one of the chief wholesale dealers in silesia, should offer his daughter to me himself, to me, who only three years before had entered his business as a poor, unknown clerk. simon eichelkatz, who was simon eichelkatz? born in tarnow, of poor, decent folk, i came to reissnitz and made my fortune there. just think! the son-in-law of joseph böhm! such a thing had never been! but to become a son-in-law you must have a wife; and i took friederike böhm, who was aristocratically brought up, and could speak french." to-day it particularly struck me what it was that so peculiarly characterized his manner of narrating. as soon as he spoke about personal matters or told stories of the khille, he fell into the jargon and the intonation of the jews of former times.[*] but when he dealt with generalities and gave expression to ideas and speculations, his speech acquired a swing, his expressions became almost choice, and the form scarcely ever detracted from the matter. he grew, as it were, beyond his own bounds; and i thought i saw before me not a simple old jew, but a sage. [*] the translator has found it impossible to convey this subtle distinction in english. it shows itself in the german by slightly mispronouncing words, for instance, _leit_ instead of _leute_; using _ä_ instead of the article _ein_ (an), and very slightly changing the correct order of the words. "what did they know at that time of such notions? they harnessed two human beings together and said, now see how you get along with each other." a shadow flitted over his countenance, usually so mild. "and yet," i interposed, "jewish marriages as a whole were seldom unfortunate." "that was because husband and wife were confined to their own homes, their children, and at most to their mishpocheh. nothing strange, from the outside, came to disturb them. life passed in the closest relation of two human beings. nowadays it's different. but if it happened to be different in my time, it was a calamity--and it was a calamity that frau friederike eichelkatz, _née_ böhm, had learned to speak french. during the first year things went pretty well. to be sure, even then she spoke scornfully of having married an uneducated man, who knew nothing but whether cloths were bad or good, who could tell at the first glance whether a piece of cloth came from cottbus or from brünn, whether it was manufactured in germany or in england, whether the woof was wool or thread, and whether the wool was pure or mixed. all this was of value in business, but not in marriage. marriage requires other knowledge to create happiness. and when my wife would ask me so mockingly: 'do you suppose anyone in tarnow knows french?' i had enough for a whole week. "but i always answered back; and that's what made the trouble. i didn't have peace and quiet until i realized that it's best not to say a word, not one word. by the time i found this out it was too late. i believe, herr doktor, one always is too old by the time one learns sense. it doesn't do yourself any good any more, and the young folk want to get their own foolish experiences. and so it's really no use to get sensible." "how can you say anything like that, herr eichelkatz? haven't i the pleasure of listening to so many experiences of yours which interest me and give me food for thought? don't your stories of the congregation give me a picture which is significant to everyone who loves his people, loves them faithfully and with sorrow at the heart? besides, wasn't it through the events and incidents of your life that you arrived, whether early or late, at that state of peace and calm which beautifies your old age?" he listened to me attentively, and a melancholy smile played about his mouth. "peace and calm, herr kreisphysikus, are to be found only after pain has been gotten rid of in life. but to get rid of pain you must _have_ it first. i have had much pain, much pain, and great tzores; and now when sitting here so quietly, you know--believe me--herr kreisphysikus, you by and by become accustomed to that other peace, without end, and you think of it without dread or horror. sometimes you even--well, we won't speak of it, herr doktor. praised be god for having bestowed such a long life on me. my wife has been dead twenty years and--" i waited in a state of tense expectation that he would say something about his son; but he hesitated for only an instant and continued: "we lived together thirty-three years. do you know what that means, herr kreisphysikus, if she looked down on and despised her husband in the very first year of her marriage? because he wasn't so fine as she, merely an immigrant from galicia? because his mishpocheh were poor people, and his father wasn't a wholesale dealer, but merely a peddler, and because he didn't know french? even though i showed them later that i knew something and was something, and even though all the others appreciated me, in the eyes of madame eichelkatz i always remained a creature of a lower order, an intruder, an upstart. and she never forgave her father for having made me his son-in-law. the better i succeeded in business, and the wealthier we grew, the prouder and more arrogant she became. i was good enough to earn a living, and she had no fault to find with my business career; but as to the trouble i took to cultivate my mind, she paid no attention to that. for her i always remained simon eichelkatz from tarnow, an employee in her father's business, a person with an absurd name and no manners, whom she had married at her father's wish and command. 'how did you happen to marry such a husband?' the oberstleutnant von boddin once asked her, while standing in front of the shop door. 'it's a genuine _mésalliance_.' i was standing behind the counter, and i felt that what the oberstleutnant was saying was a great insult to me, even though i didn't know the meaning of the word. but i couldn't go and knock him down. now could i, herr kreisphysikus? i, a jew, and he an oberstleutnant? but i made a mental note of the word, and i kept repeating it to myself: _mésalliance_, _mésalliance_. then, the next shabbes, after _mairev_, i went to the herr rabbiner and asked him what it meant. when he explained it to me, i all of a sudden became real quiet and thought to myself, why the herr oberstleutnant after all is perfectly right. it _was_ a _mésalliance_. a failure of a marriage, i tell you, herr doktor, and it didn't get any better through the birth of our son in the second year. as long as her father, joseph böhm, was alive, she had a little consideration; but after his death that stopped. she sought company of her own. she associated with the goyim, with the frau rechnungsrat and the frau kanzleirat, and more such aristocratic _shnorrers_, who accepted many a little favor here and there from their well-to-do friend. then came the misfortune with the oberstleutnant and the officers, who had their sport with the handsome jewess. she became more and more conceited and foolish; she was ashamed of her husband; and one day she had visiting cards engraved with 'madame eichelkatz, _née_ böhm.' the name stuck to her in the khille. they began to despise her and to pity me." it had gotten late. i had another professional visit to pay, and i took leave of my old friend. i am looking forward eagerly to his future revelations. as i crossed the ring past the shops, i suddenly saw, in my mind's eye, an industrious man, humbled by his lot, standing behind the counter, and before the door a handsome woman. and i murmured to myself: "madame eichelkatz, _née_ böhm." october . late this afternoon i hunted up my old friend in the expectation that he would continue the story of his life. mention had been made of his son, though only _en passant_, and i cherished the secret hope that simon eichelkatz would return to him now that he had once begun to pour out his heart to me. but to-day he didn't say anything bearing on what had gone before. when i entered, i found him in a gay mood; and before i crossed the threshold he called out to me: "it occurred to me to-day that i wanted some time or other to tell you a _maaseh_, which is half funny, half sad." and he only recounted anecdotes. not one word about the events in his life--only the story of the great dearth and famine. simon eichelkatz was right; it is a tragi-comic history. "it was a year of famine after the war of ' ; sickness everywhere; bad harvests, bad business; the potatoes rotting in the ground on account of heavy rains and floods. herr kreisphysikus, to understand the misery of the people thoroughly, you must live through such a year here. "all over the mining district typhus, for which the stupid workmen and peasants thought there was only one remedy, the whisky flask. the women and children died miserably on their foul, ill-smelling straw heaps, the men in the ditches. herr kreisphysikus, happily it is different now; conditions have improved, it cannot be denied, since forty years ago. any one might be satisfied to have the difference expressed in money added to his fortune. on that account it's silly always to talk of the good old times. the world's gotten much better, much better. that's what this old man tells you. the winter was terrible that year. to be sure, the typhus grew less severe when the cold set in; but the poor people suffered from the cold instead. every day you found bodies frozen to death in the ditches by the roadside. of course they were usually drunkards; nevertheless they were human beings, and such occurrences aroused horror among us. the members of families gathered closer together, they doubly realized the comfort of a heated room and the blessing of a well-ordered existence. every sign of well-being was regarded with heightened interest; and one day the greatest excitement was caused by the appearance of a new winter coat on the back of the wife of the vice-president. she wore it to shul for the first time on _sukkoth_. frau wilhelm weinberger was the wife of a well-to-do man who had brought her the garment from the leipsic fair. i can see it now, as though it were yesterday it happened. and you may be sure the other men had it impressed on their memory, too; for you can imagine, herr kreisphysikus, it aroused as much envy as excitement; and after shul most families were probably discussing the coat of frau wilhelm weinberger. it was dark blue, of the finest buckskin, lined with white and light blue striped cloth, and bordered at the bottom with a band of black lambskin. the collar and cuffs were also of lambskin. i tell _you_, herr kreisphysikus, it was a marvel." he chuckled as he always did when something tickled his sense of humor. i did not know whether it was the winter coat of frau wilhelm weinberger which amused him so greatly after the lapse of forty years, or other recollections suggested by it. he paused for a long while before continuing his narrative. "besides teacher sandberg there were two other teachers in the congregational school at that time, teacher deutsch and teacher herrnstädt, and two assistants for the lowest classes. all were married and blessed with children; unfortunately, they were not blessed with a corresponding income. the khille was not in a position to give them sufficient salaries; as it was, its budget for the officers that conducted the services was considerable. so the teachers were extremely hard put to it to support their families in a bekovet way; and in bad times, when it is particularly difficult to get extra jobs, like giving private instruction, they had no smooth road to travel, nebbich. sandberg had it a little easier, because on his free afternoons he was employed as secretary to the congregation and he kept the minutes of the meetings. but deutsch had a hard time of it. he had two daughters, and a son who worked in a dry goods store in breslau. his wife and daughters were very industrious. they did embroidery for the shops, and tried in every possible way to add to the small income of their father. the son also contributed to the support of the family, so that to all outward appearances they seemed to be more than the children of the other teachers. besides, they always associated with the wealthier families in the congregation. but exactly this was their misfortune. people with daughters were annoyed that the daughters of teacher deutsch were always so well-dressed--not like children of a poor teacher, but like those of rich baale-batim. the teachers in meeting had decided to ask for a raise of their salaries because of the increased cost of living on account of the famine. they couldn't go on in the old way. the price of bread, potatoes, coffee, and sugar was exorbitant. as it was, they ate meat only once a week, on shabbes; and it was impossible to obtain the fuel needed during that severe winter. in a very emphatic and touching petition drawn up by teacher herrnstädt, the matter was brought to the attention of the president and the board, who were requested to grant an increase to the teachers for the coming year." at this point feiwel silbermann entered with a large cup of coffee and a freshly filled pipe. simon sipped the hot drink with evident enjoyment, puffed at his pipe several times, and said: "yes, at that time things didn't go very well with us, herr kreisphysikus. feiwel, do you still remember the year ?" "why shouldn't i remember it, herr eichelkatz? am i going to forget how we starved and froze? it wasn't anything, wasn't it? that was a year! the snow lay for four weeks. you wouldn't think there could be such cold, and teacher deutsch's daughters got new winter coats." with this he shambled out of the room and simon said: "yes, the cold was frightful. but in spite of it we were greatly astonished to see caroline and lenchen deutsch, the teacher's daughters, cross the ring on christmas day in new winter coats. of course, we ought to have been glad that the girls had warm clothing in such freezing weather. but human nature is not so indulgent, and the khille rather bore them a grudge. everyone ran to the window to make sure of the wonderful fact. 'look at them,' they called to one another, 'caroline and lenchen deutsch have new coats on. in such bad times! really, you wouldn't believe it. chutzpeh!' but the worst of it was that the coats in cut and color, in goods and trimming, were exactly like frau wilhelm weinberger's--blue buckskin and black lambskin--the latest style. the excitement caused by frau wilhelm weinberger's garment wasn't a circumstance to what caroline and lenchen deutsch's called forth. and the consequences, herr kreisphysikus, the consequences!" again he laughed softly. "i don't believe blue buckskin and black lambskin have ever produced such consequences. on the day after christmas there was a meeting of the committee. the first matter for consideration was the petition of the teachers for a raise in salary. the committee almost unanimously agreed that there was reason in the request. it wasn't fitting that men intrusted with the education of the young should suffer want. in order to have a proper influence upon children teachers should have a free mind and a light heart. thus spoke dr. ehrlich, with great eloquence; and he moved that the petitioners be granted a raise of thirty dollars for the year of famine. hereupon our honorable friend, herr doktor krakauer, saving your reverence, arose and said he had an addition to make to the proposition: 'to exclude teacher deutsch from the benefit of the raise, because for two days his daughters have been flaunting about in winter coats of blue buckskin with black lambskin, coats exactly like the one which frau wilhelm weinberger wears. if anyone can afford that, he needs no raise.'" a dumbfounded expression probably came on my face, because simon looked at me, and with that furtive smile of his he said: "every word of what i tell you is true, herr kreisphysikus. herr manasse, _zichrono livrochoh_, tried to oppose him in vain. he assured the committee that he himself had brought the cloaks with him from breslau, where the son of teacher deutsch, a clerk at immerwahr's, had given them to him, because he wanted to save the expense of expressing them. they had been lying there ever since the beginning of november, and teacher deutsch's son had bought them way below the regular selling-price from a travelling salesman, who had brought them to breslau as samples months before; one of them in fact was quite damaged. but all that didn't help matters any. blue buckskin with lambskin remained a crime. it was no use to urge that a good son and brother had pinched himself to give his parents and sisters a pleasure, and that he was able to do it only because the cloaks were cheap and underpriced. other objections made by two members beside manasse were also refuted. they say manasse almost cried when, at the end, he called out: 'but for heaven's sake, they can't eat blue buckskin and black lambskin to satisfy their hunger!' even that was of no use. our amiable dr. krakauer, saving your reverence, carried his motion, and teacher deutsch's petition was refused." simon looked into space, then said: "do you know the real meaning of the word '_nebbich_' herr kreisphysikus?" "yes, i do, _nebbich_." october . autumn this year is very disagreeable. it rains a great deal, and the damp, foggy atmosphere has a bad effect on health, both in the city and the country. i have had a great deal to do. simon eichelkatz was also indisposed for several days. at his age every disturbance of the physical state is serious. but feiwel silbermann is so touchingly attentive that the care he bestows upon the old man quickly carries him through his trouble. my medical instructions are obeyed by feiwel so punctually and accurately that i can be sure of their effect. we stuck our patient into bed for a few days, but to-day he is sitting up, and this afternoon i allowed him to smoke his pipe. that raised his spirits immediately, and he became more talkative. a light veil of sentimentality still lay on his soul, often the case with convalescents, and he at last returned to the narrative of personal experiences. he remembered a sickness he had had in , late in the summer--a sort of dysentery or _cholera nostras_, then epidemic. "the real illness lasted only a few days, but afterwards," he said, "i was so weak, i couldn't stir a finger. i remember it as though it happened to-day, how i sat before the shop in the sun, to draw some warmth again into my bones. they fairly rattled. i didn't have a feiwel silbermann to look after me then." "and your wife?" i asked. "my wife wasn't at home. she was in warmbrunn with our son, who was to recuperate there. he had just passed his final examinations at the gymnasium. he passed them splendidly, herr kreisphysikus. they even excused him from a part of his oral examinations. the whole city spoke of it; and when herr professor lebeck came in the afternoon to buy cloth for a pair of trousers, he said to me: 'you may be proud of your son, herr eichelkatz; he does credit to you and to our gymnasium. it's been a long time since we've had so gifted and industrious a pupil.' lebeck's red nose glistened as though he had come directly from heimann to me. of course, i sold him the goods very cheap; and as he went out he repeated: 'yes, your son, he'll be something extra some day.'" simon eichelkatz looked down thoughtfully, then he blew a thick cloud of tobacco smoke into the air and added: "fortunately, it passed quickly; only the after-part, until i got back my full strength--but still it wasn't necessary to disturb my wife in her holiday, and my son. at first herr doktor merzbach wanted to write to her; but when i explained to him why i didn't want him to, he gave up the idea. why? herr kreisphysikus! madame eichelkatz would probably have come back, if news of my illness had been sent to her; but she wouldn't have brought love into my house, and no good will, and no devotion, just what a weak, sick man needs. on that account i preferred not to have her here, but to let her amuse herself there with her company. it had just then come into style to go away in the summer; and this was the first time madame eichelkatz, _née_ böhm, had followed the fashion. and there she met her good friends. i told this to the herr rabbiner, and he thought the matter over and asked: 'can nothing be done, eichelkatz, to bring peace into your married life? now that your son is grown up and ready to go to the university?' i felt as though the herr rabbiner were reproaching me. and then for the first and last time i opened out my heart freely. perhaps because i was so weak and alone. i told him what vexations and humiliations i had endured for twenty years. and always carrying the trouble in secret, so as not to give offense and for the sake of the child. he was not to see how matters stood with us, and besides he was greatly attached to her and loved her tenderly, for she had taken him entirely to herself. i ask you who was simon eichelkatz of tarnow? at most a decent, industrious fellow, who, however, didn't trust himself to say what he thought. it was the custom, you know, in jewish homes for the women to concern themselves with the house and with the bringing up of the children, and for the men to earn a living. but there was perfect understanding between husband and wife, real harmony; and the mother taught the children that the father, who looked out for them and worked for them, was the centre of the household. this was utterly lacking with madame and myself. i always remained a stranger to both mother and child. she chose his companions from among the christians with whom she associated, and she estranged him from jewish ways exactly as she had estranged him from his father. she kept up the necessary appearances before the outside world; but within our home it looked very bad. the boy was not put on a sure, sound basis for the future. i know it now, herr kreisphysikus. earlier in life i could not see things so clearly. but when dr. merzbach came to me that time, i realized all; and i told him everything, even that it was too late to change matters, since my son was almost nineteen years old and would leave home. dr. merzbach recognized the truth of what i said, because he didn't say anything in reply. then i went on and said: 'believe me, herr rabbiner, if two human beings are yoked together and do not go in exactly the same way, hand in hand, but one pulls to the left, the other to the right, they cannot reach a common goal. for that matter they have no common goal.' the herr rabbiner shook his head and asked: 'how about your son's future?' "'each of us will probably wish for a different future,' i answered. and that's the way it was, herr kreisphysikus. what _she_ wished came to pass. her son became a very renowned man. she didn't live to see his greatness, and i who did, i hadn't longed for it." he paused, as though revolving his words in his mind and added: "you mustn't misunderstand me, herr kreisphysikus. but what has our personal happiness to do with external success? what can one ever receive from others that does not exist in oneself? hasn't every happiness a different form? hasn't every happiness a different name? honor is happiness to one man, wealth to another, beauty to a third, fame to a fourth. hasn't happiness a thousand names and forms? and have you ever seen two beings who call the same thing happiness? there may be a few things that are looked on as happiness--contentment, health, fulfilment of duty, wealth--but, my dear herr kreisphysikus, that only sounds nice--it may be a part, but it is not the whole. that which all men wish to possess is not the happiness that each individual imagines for himself; because it depends upon the nature of each individual; and there are as many happinesses as there have been men since the creation of the world. or, if you wish it, herr kreisphysikus, there is no such thing as happiness at all. because, if you can't see a thing and say, it is thus and so, does it exist? i can say, this is an apple, this is a potato, this is my pipe; but i can't say, this is happiness. how does it look? round or long, wide or narrow? i must laugh when i think that madame eichelkatz, _née_ böhm, and simon eichelkatz should have said, that is our happiness, that's the way it looks, that's the way it should look." he waved his hand. "i know all; i know what you want to say, herr kreisphysikus, and what herr dr. merzbach also said that time. our son! do you know the sort of picture madame eichelkatz drew for herself of her son? great and renowned in the large outside world, so renowned that herr oberstleutnant von boddin and frau steuereinnehmer antonie metzner, her bosom friend, would open their eyes in astonishment. that's the way _her_ happiness would have looked. she was ambitious and proud and knew french. and do you know how my son looked in my dreams? a good, fine man, an honest jew, who would conduct my business. i was simple and industrious, and i knew all about cloth. so you may believe me, herr kreisphysikus, a madame who speaks french, and a jew who can tell at a glance without touching it whether a piece of cloth comes from cottbus or england, two people like that have very different ideas of happiness!" i followed his words with increasing astonishment. how do such ideas regarding individuality and such clearly-defined notions of eudæmonism arise in the brain of this old man living remote from the world? whence this wisdom? while these questions agitated my mind, he continued: "on that afternoon when i sat in the sun in front of my shop, i began to ponder about these things; and since then i have accustomed myself to reflect about this and that by myself; because i hadn't a single friend with whom i could talk myself out. but, do you know, herr doktor, i think it is better to be alone if one wants to think. and dr. merzbach passed by and saw me sitting there alone; and, while he was talking to me, rittmeister von blücher and major von schmidt cut diagonally across the ring to come up to us. both stepped up and greeted the rabbi, who enjoyed great consideration among the christians. "'how do you do, herr doktor,' the rittmeister called out and laughed: 'do you know the news? to-morrow i shall have the jew haberstroh shot; he was delivered up to us from oswiecin as a spy. he's said to have served in the austrian army near neuberun.' "dr. merzbach answered quietly: "'since you laugh over it, i'm not worried, herr rittmeister. i understand your joke. you would not laugh if a human life were actually at stake. at all events, it's really a sad story that just this good, decent old man should be falsely suspected and delivered up.' "'well, what shall we do with the fellow, herr doktor? according to military law, he ought to have been dead long ago. ask the major if i'm not right.' "'i don't doubt the truth of your words, herr rittmeister; but i also know that both you gentlemen would not have a poor innocent man put to death on an unproved accusation. i pledge myself for haberstroh's innocence.' "'tut, tut tut, herr doktor, will you be answerable for the consequences?' "with these words they left the rabbi, laughing, and haberstroh was not shot to death. after a few days it turned out that he had been arrested on the spiteful charge of a business rival. dr. merzbach had gathered the proofs and handed them over to the rittmeister. he himself had gone to oswiecin for this purpose. that's the way he always threw himself into affairs, and helped with all his energy." i was just about to put a question to simon eichelkatz about the spy, when he suddenly said: "do you believe, herr kreisphysikus, that to be good and noble and help your fellow-beings is happiness?" "have you ever read anything by goethe or heard of him?" i returned, evading the question. "no, herr doktor, i never read anything by him, but i've heard of him." "goethe says: 'let man be noble, helpful, and good.' do you suppose by these words he wanted to show men the road to happiness, herr eichelkatz?" "who can tell?" november . a clear winter has at last come after the foggy days of autumn. it has been snowing for several days, and in the morning jack frost draws crystal flowers on the window panes. this morning i received a remarkable epistle from my mother. its tone is very different from what i am accustomed to in her. as a rule she avoids all interference with my private affairs; and now, all at once, she writes, she doesn't think it proper that i cut myself off, as i do, from all intercourse, and open up no relations whatsoever with the prominent members of the community. she goes on to say that she has learned from trustworthy sources that very fine and cultivated families live in reissnitz, who would esteem it a pleasure to see me in their homes, and who are probably hurt even now that i do not introduce myself to them. she remarks that i am not intimate even with my colleagues, who would be justified in making a claim upon me. in the house of sanitätsrat ehrlich i would surely find the stimulus and the diversion i undoubtedly need after a severe day's work in the practice of my difficult profession. it is always a dubious matter for a bachelor to isolate himself; he develops peculiar ideas and habits, and acquires the manners of a social hermit. who, she'd like to know, is a certain simon eichelkatz, to whom i devote all my spare time? besides, it is necessary for a physician to marry--in order to inspire confidence, for the sake of appearances. i had hesitated too long; as kreisphysikus i should have had a wife long ago; why, the very fact of being kreisphysikus presupposes an age not exactly youthful. i reflected a moment--she was right for three reasons. my thirty-eight years actually do make me seem old to myself. in fact, i am old; and it now occurs to me all of a sudden that i may have failed to make use of the psychological moment to seek and find my affinity. and if i never marry? is marriage so unqualifiedly desirable? i thought of simon eichelkatz. but how did my mother come to hear of him? i didn't recall having mentioned him in my letters to her. as for the other points on which she touched? ah! a flash of inspiration! herr jonas goldstücker! there it stood black on white! a very reliable gentleman had approached her in a matter referring to me, calling for discretion, etc., etc. now, the merits of fräulein edith ehrlich were known in rawitsch also. i had to laugh; but i determined at all events to interrogate my old friend about the persons in question. i went to him in the evening. though he sat near the stove, with a blanket spread over his knees, he still seemed to suffer from the cold. he also seemed tired and not so fresh as a few days before. he responded to my questioning look with: "it's cold, herr kreisphysikus; a bad time for old people. inside nothing to warm you; outside the cold! it chills you to the marrow!" he rubbed his hands and drew the blanket up. feiwel silbermann had stepped in, looked at him anxiously without his noticing it, and then put some more coal in the stove. "we keep up good fires here in upper silesia," said simon, "but what's the use when you begin to freeze inside?" there was a touch of melancholy in his voice. i laughed and said: "feiwel will heat you inside, too." then i ordered hot tea and rum for him at once; and a glass of mulled wine every morning during the cold weather. i was well aware that this prescription would be of little avail; there are no remedies to counteract such symptoms of old age. but he could be given some relief; and after taking the warm drink he felt more comfortable for the moment. "it's a remarkable thing, herr doktor, that man grows into a block of ice, when his time comes. he doesn't die, but he freezes. just as outside in nature everything stiffens with the frost when the time comes; and all life dies, because the sun is gone, the great warmth. what curdles in us, is the warm current of life, the blood. no herb grows which can prevent it. forgive me, herr kreisphysikus, for speaking to you so openly. but at my age you don't make beans about things any more, and you think all sorts of thoughts--about life and death. and i've always found you a sensible man, to whom i can say anything at all; and if i now say to you: when the long winter comes upon men, nothing will help them, no doctor, no tea, and no mulled wine, you won't take offense, will you?" "but spring follows winter," i said more to quiet him than out of conviction. he may have felt this, because he smiled mournfully, and his faded features were suffused with a glorified light--the light that fills us with the awe of the infinite when we stand in the presence of the dead. "what that spring is which follows the winter of our lives, no man knows. i think it is an eternal winter; and if a new life does blossom out of the grave, it is a fresh beginning, which grows from itself, and does not join on to an end without an end." he gazed meditatively into space. "my idea is," he continued, "that death is the only reality on earth. life is only a seeming. life changes at every moment and passes, death never changes and remains forever. tell me, herr kreisphysikus, if men grow old, they live seventy years or a little more, and don't they stay dead a million years? have you ever heard of anyone's living twice, or being young twice?" it is not the first time i am called upon to notice the profundity of the old man's observations; but it never fails to surprise me. "have you never heard of the immortality of the soul, herr eichelkatz?" i asked. "soul, herr doktor? what is soul? where is it? in what is it? how does it look? does it fly out of the body when life is at an end? by the window? by the chimney? through the keyhole? has anyone ever seen it? has someone ever felt it? sometimes i read in the paper about spirits with whom chosen mortals talk. do you believe it, herr doktor? i don't. has such a thing ever been proved? they are meshugge or else cheats; it always turns out that way." i had to laugh at the curt way in which he disposed of spiritualism and all its excrescences. "nevertheless, my dear friend," i answered, "there is probably a spiritual after-life which manifests itself in our children and grandchildren--a young spring time of life made fruitful by the impulses of our souls." he wrapped himself more tightly in his cover. a slight shiver went through his body. "herr kreisphysikus, and how about those who have no children, or those whose children go away from them, or those who do not know their own children?--through no fault of their own. why should they be worse off than the others? what have they done that they should be extinguished forever, while the others live on forever? i don't believe it. for if i did happen to see in the world a great deal about which i had to ask myself why, still i didn't see anything that had no definite plan and no compelling cause, the good and the bad. the thing might not have pleased me, and it might have seemed bad or false, but it had a law according to which it had to be carried out." there he was dealing with kantian abstractions again; the categorical imperative came to him instinctively. i did not want to tire him with thinking too much, and i said: "by the way, herr eichelkatz, i wanted to ask you something that is of personal interest to me. who is herr jonas goldstücker?" he looked at me slyly. "are you trying to provide for a spiritual after-life, which will manifest itself in your children and grandchildren?" he repeated my words with a touch of irony in the intonation. "and herr jonas goldstücker is to help you on to immortality?" "we haven't reached that point yet, herr eichelkatz," i answered laughing, rejoiced that i had made him think of other things. without his noticing it, i turned the conversation upon my colleagues in the place, especially sanitätsrat ehrlich. "i don't know the people of to-day very well, herr kreisphysikus. since i gave up my business i haven't bothered myself much about them. the present sanitätsrat ehrlich is the son of the sanitätsrat ehrlich who was one of the trustees along with dr. krakauer. he studied at the same time as my son. and when ehrlich had finished his course, he established himself here and took up his father's practice. he married and reached a position of prominence and wealth in the same place as his father, who has been dead ten years. if that's what you mean by after-life, herr doktor, then the old sanitätsrat ehrlich actually does live on in his son. they say the son uses the very same prescriptions as his father. he's not a shining light; but he's a fine, respected man. i believe in time he was made trustee, like his father; and he has children, sons and daughters, who are a satisfaction to him. his oldest son is also studying medicine, and will probably some time take up his father's prescriptions and his practice. the old sanitätsrat ehrlich was no shining light, and neither is his son, and i don't know the young one at all--but, at any rate, their light burns a long time, like a _yom kippur_ light, and in the khille it may be said of this family: _ehrlich währt am längsten_." he smiled, and was pleased at his own little joke, and i for my part was glad to have left him in a better mood than i had found him. november . my old friend grows perceptibly weaker. there are no symptoms of a definite trouble but _senectus morbus ipsa_. the nasty cold penetrates the chinks at door and window and settles in some corner of the room, however carefully warmed and provided against weather. the very time of year prepares mischief for an old, decaying body. if simon were sitting in some sunny spot, who knows if his seventy-eight years would be oppressing him so? what remarkable old people i saw in the south, especially in rome. they bore their eighty or ninety years with proud dignity and fine carriage. we of the north age much more rapidly; perhaps we are not even born young. especially we jews! conditions have been bettered in the course of time, since our young people have been allowed to benefit by the sanitary, hygienic, and æsthetic achievements of modern life. they all devote themselves to sports, and the obligation to serve in the army has forced them--and the need therefor is highly significant--to practice gymnastic exercises to their advantage. nevertheless they have something old, thoughtful, worldly-wise in their souls. it is the heritage of the many thousands of years of culture, the culture which has won us renown and singled us out among the nations, but has burdened us also and weighted us down with the over-thoughtfulness born of limitless life-experience. _naïveté_ and an easy mode of existence we have lost through this heritage; and that it manifests itself especially in spiritual matters is praiseworthy, though neither gratifying nor exhilarating. how difficult we are! how dependent upon tradition! what deep roots we have struck in the soil of the past! i believe we drag the chains of our long history more painfully than those put upon us by the other nations. and though these chains are wrought of the gold of fidelity and linked with the pearls of wisdom, they weight us down--they weight us down in a world where we are only tolerated--strangers! simon eichelkatz awakened these thoughts in me. yesterday he told me a great deal again. remarkable! it is as though he felt the need to unburden his soul of a few more matters before he sinks into the great, eternal silence. but he doesn't suspect my anxiety in his behalf. he chats on heedlessly into the twilight of the early winter evenings. the twilight makes people communicative and confidential. it is the time of intimate secrets. and at such a time simon acquainted me with the most solemn experience of his life. "i do not know, herr kreisphysikus, how to tell you--when i found it out, i felt a pain as though a piece of my body were being torn away. it hurt! my, how it hurt! i cried aloud! i made a rent in my coat; i threw myself on the ground, and i sat _shiveh_. my son was dead, my only child! madame eichelkatz said nothing. she remained immovable. not a sound passed her lips; and to this day i do not know what she thought or felt when the news came that our only child had been--baptized! he had had himself _baptized_, herr kreisphysikusleben. converted! stepped from one religion into another as lightly as though stepping from the middle of the street over the gutter onto the pavement! from the painful, dusty road to the elegant, smoothly-paved street! "'what have you to say to this?' i screamed at my wife. but she said nothing. and she raised no objections when after the shiveh i declared my intention of giving up the business, because, not having a child any more, i did not know for whom to work. she quietly let me do whatever i decided on in my pain and anger. she seemed entirely broken. but no one learned whether from surprise, grief, or repentance. she faded away, and two years after the terrible event she died from no special sickness. 'as a punishment,' the people said, 'of a broken heart'--who knows what goes on in the soul of such a woman! "i did not know. and that's where i was wrong in the matter. i know it now. and it's a pity, herr kreisphysikus, that you never know at the right time. you are never clever, you never understand, you never do the right thing at the right time. it always comes when it's too late." he paused in his confidences, somewhat hastily uttered, and looked gloomily into space. then, as though he had suddenly gathered together his inner forces, he added: "and yet, when i think it over carefully, it's probably not such a pity. it must be so and can't be different, because to err is human. and it's only by way of error that you arrive at knowledge. in man error is life. when he knows everything, more than he likes to know, then comes death." error is life, and knowledge is death! the soul of this old man comprehends everything. philosophers and poets--he never read a line of their works, scarcely a name of theirs reaches his ear, and yet their finest thoughts are crystallized in his observations. and again, for after a little pause he said: "death, what is it, herr kreisphysikus? something else that no one knows, surely doesn't know--forgive me, herr kreisphysikus, you, too--although you've studied about life and death--and you're a fine, learned man, a serious, learned man--i know, i know. if anyone could have learned about death you certainly would have--but can one learn the eternal riddles of nature? who knows her secrets? the greatest learning can't penetrate to them. do me a favor, herr kreisphysikus, if there _is_ anyone who knows, tell me; i'd be happy to learn one more thing, before i lay myself down and become a dead man, as now i am a live man." a startling thought flashed through my mind; but before i could answer him, he said, almost hastily: "i knew it, herr kreisphysikus; you can't tell me. why? because there's not a soul who could have discovered it--nobody knows what--we don't know anything." _ignorabimus!_ ay, there's the rub. the thought has given pause to many another besides simon eichelkatz! but now i was determined to give expression to the thought which a moment before had flashed through my mind. "that's not so easily disposed of as you think, herr eichelkatz. we know as little as you say, and yet we know so much! when the inscrutable fails to yield us anything positive, when the exact sciences can tell us no more, then comes the work of hypothesis, of thought." he looked at me with great, astonished eyes. a light of comprehension spread over his face, although he softly said: "that's too much for me, herr kreisphysikus, what you are saying--i mean the way you say it--i think i can understand your meaning; and as for the exact sciences, i can imagine what that means, i have heard the words before. but the other word, poth--pothe--it can't come from apothecary? what you mean is that when we don't know about something, others come and try to explain it from what they have thought over the matter for themselves." "that is called philosophy," i said. "i know the word," he murmured under his breath. "and the greatest minds of all times have occupied themselves with it." "and has anything ever come of it?" he said, an ironical smile flitting about the corners of his sunken mouth. "why, yes! for if thinking, interpreting, and reasoning did not make the things of this earth clear to us and throw a moral light upon them, there would be only one course left to us; we should be driven to desperation." he was obviously trying to adjust the meaning of my words in his mind, for it was after a few minutes' pause that he said: "and you really believe, herr kreisphysikus, that it is of some use? well, i won't argue with you, because i don't understand--but that we should accomplish anything for the general good through morality, i mean, the same sort of morality for many or for all--that--that seems unlikely to me. i've always found that each man has his own morality, just as every jew has his own _shulchan oruch_. and there is nothing too bad or too wicked for one man to do to another but that he can excuse it as being moral. i've experienced it, herr kreisphysikus--i"--he paused an instant--"yes, and why shouldn't i tell you? at the time when my only child forsook the faith of his fathers, he wrote me a letter, yes--and he explained the necessity for his taking the step, and in the finest words and thoughts told me how it is the highest morality to be true to yourself--not to what has been handed down to you by others--and how each must find in himself the moral laws of the world--and how each must free himself in order to strive unhampered toward the light. no one should abide by what others have offered him, for to take is--mercy! and the strong man must not kill himself out of compassion and mercy. but my son said of himself, he was strong, and for that reason, he said, he must go his own way pitilessly, and i should forgive him the pain he caused me--he was not one of those who quietly gives a little of himself here and a little there, as is the custom in narrow circles; he was one of the few--one of the magnificently wealthy--a great giver who gives himself to mankind!" his voice had risen as he conveyed the contents of the letter to me; but then, as though tired out, he added: "i know every word by heart. i read the letter a thousand times; and, do you know, herr kreisphysikus, so that i'd be sure to understand it and read it perfectly, he wrote it in hebrew letters." he drew the bible that always lay on the table closer to himself, took out a piece of paper showing signs of much handling, and gave it to me. it was the letter. the depths of my soul were stirred. "what could i do, nebbich, herr kreisphysikus? this letter was the only thing i'd ever read of philosophy. then--yes, after getting it, i sat shiveh! because i learned from the letter: 'be true to yourself.' and i was true to myself in being true to my religion. 'and each must find in himself the moral laws of the world,'--and the moral law of my world is to hold sacred what the god of israel has commanded. but i hid my sorrow in my soul, and i never again reproached madame eichelkatz with having led him into error through her education. what could a frivolous madame eichelkatz do, and how could she hinder a man who 'gives himself to mankind,' nebbich? "she never saw him again, nor did he stand at her grave; because i got the rabbi to write to him he should not come. he answered with only two lines." simon reached out again for the book, took a slip of paper out, set his horn-rimmed spectacles on his nose, and read: "'weep not, my father! is not all weeping a lament? and all lamenting an accusation? accuse not my mother in her grave--accuse not me. your soul will be healed; for yours is not a petty grief.' "that was the last i heard from him. not a tear was shed at madame eichelkatz's grave. then i settled down here with feiwel silbermann. i had enough to live on, more than enough, and i began to ponder over mankind and things in general. i've grown old, and i am a stranger to people. rabbi dr. merzbach has been dead a long time, and cantor elias, and meyer nathanson the shammes, and saul feuerstein, the professional bankrupt, and dr. krakauer, saving your reverence, and all the others. the new generation scarcely knows me." the last words were uttered brokenly, his head sank softly forward. he had dropped off to sleep from sheer exhaustion. after a few minutes he came to himself, and feiwel silbermann carried him to bed while i stood there. we administered some bouillon and tokay wine; but he remained apathetic, and only murmured, almost unintelligibly: "yes--times change--the khille is no longer _fromm_." then he fell asleep again. i was greatly disturbed on leaving him, and returned the next morning at the very earliest hour possible. he was asleep. two days later he had passed into the eternal sleep of death. november . to-day we carried simon eichelkatz to his last resting-place. only a few people accompanied him. but at his grave stood a solitary man. "myself i sacrifice to my love, and my neighbor i sacrifice as myself, thus runs the speech of all creators." the nietzsche phrase flitted through my mind, a phrase that i had heard explained by the son, the heir of that unlearned, wise old man whom we had just consigned to the earth. "but all creators are hard--thus spoke zarathustra." and there-- in a soft though intelligible voice the solitary man repeated the hebrew words, as he shovelled the earth onto the coffin: "dust thou art, to dust returnest; but the spirit returns to god who gave it." then he raised himself up, his eye fastened on the growing mound. friedrich eichner! the patriarch joshua benas, geheimrat, arose from his seat at his desk. his smug countenance wore a smile of satisfaction, as he gazed thoughtfully into vacancy, and stroked the close-trimmed beard, already touched with grey. "very good," he muttered, with a complacent smile, "first-rate. elkish has put the matter well. _a la bonheur!_ we will declare fourteen per cent dividend; if we strain a point, perhaps fourteen and a half--and enough for a surplus. great! splendid!... what a figure we shall cut! no small affair! the gentlemen will be astonished. but after all that is what they're used to; joshua benas doesn't fall short of what people expect of him." he pressed the electric button. "tell mr. elkish to come up when he leaves the office," he said to the servant who had entered quietly; then he glanced at the clock standing on his desk, a mercury of light-colored barbedienne bronze. "five o'clock already! tell elkish to be here by half-past five." the servant bowed; as he was leaving the room, his master called after him: "is my son at home?" "no, herr geheimrat." "and my daughter?" "she and mlle. tallieu drove to professor jedlitzka's for her music lesson." "hm! very well! be sure to give my message to mr. elkish, francis." at this moment an elderly lady of distinguished appearance entered the room. "do i disturb you, joe?" he dismissed the servant with a nod. "no, fanny, if a half-hour will suffice; in half an hour i expect elkish. at half-past five, francis." the servant withdrew as quietly as he had entered, and husband and wife were left alone. with the eye of the careful housewife she glanced about the room. the luxury of her surroundings had not diminished the traditional concern for minute details of housekeeping. from her mother she had acquired her loving devotion to the affairs of the house. she guarded its growing prosperity, and with a keen eye, as well as a careful hand, she treasured the beautiful and choice possessions with which a fondness for collecting and a feeling for art had enriched her home. her large corps of servants was capable and well-trained; yet mrs. benas would delegate to none the supervision of her household and the inspection of its details. her appearance did not betray her habits. she was forty-nine years old; her dark hair, with a touch of grey, was becomingly arranged over a rather high forehead. her generous mouth, showing well-preserved teeth, and her full double chin gave her countenance a look of energy, softened by the mild and intelligent expression of her eyes. the slight curve of her nose was sufficient to impart to her countenance the unmistakable stamp of her race. but it did not detract from the air of distinction that characterized frau geheimrat benas. the rapid survey satisfied her that everything was in the best of order in the luxuriously equipped workroom of her husband. not a particle of dust rested upon the costly bronzes, standing about on desk and mantel, on tables and stands, with designed carelessness. not too obtrusively, and yet effectively, they revealed the geheimrat as a patron of the arts, able to surround himself with the choicest works of the most distinguished artists. glorious old flemish tapestries hung above the sofa, forming the background for book-cases filled with the classics of all literatures, and for various _objets d'art_, which a discerning taste had collected. mrs. benas's glance rested with particular tenderness upon a few antique pieces of silver, which seemed a curious anachronism in a room furnished in its up-to-date style. they were heirlooms from her parents' home in rogasen, where her father, samuel friedheim--reb salme friedheim as he was called--had been held in high regard. there was the _kiddush_ cup, the _besomim_ box, the _menorah_, and the large silver _seder_ platter, used by her father; and there were the silver candelabra, the lights of which her mother had "blessed". her father had been a thrifty dealer in wools, not too greatly blessed with worldly goods; a great talmudic scholar he had been, however, worthy to marry the great-granddaughter of the celebrated rabbi akiba friedländer, under whom he had studied. mrs. benas's demeanor unconsciously reflected the dignity of such ancestry. she took it as a matter of course that her lot in life should have been cast in the high financial circles, the sphere which gives importance and position to the modern jew. the son-in-law of reb salme friedheim could not be other than a geheimrat, unless, continuing the traditions, he had been a student of the talmud. but, after all, nowadays a geheimrat is to be preferred to a jewish scholar or to a modern rabbi; and with pride becoming to her and no offense to her husband she gloried in the aristocracy of her family, without overlooking the advantages her husband's wealth had brought. the home of her husband had also been in the province of posen; and it was the respect in which her father had been held throughout the province that had attracted his father, isidor benas of lissa, to the match. although the dowry was smaller than benas senior thought he was entitled to demand for his son, the rank of her family weighed so heavily in the balance that joshua was allowed to court fanny and win her as his life companion. his father died shortly after the marriage. joshua moved the banking and grain business, in which he had been a partner, to berlin. here the business prospered to such an extent that the firm of joshua benas was soon reckoned among the most influential of the rapidly developing capital. indeed, it headed all financial and industrial undertakings. joshua benas, prominent in the establishment of a large bank, member of the boards of the principal industrial corporations, was appointed kommerzienrat at the end of the "seventies", and a few years later, in recognition of special services to the government in the supply of arms, he was made geheimrat. at the time there were rumors of a high order, which were never made true; and mrs. benas gave up the hope she had probably cherished in secret, for the growth of anti-semitism set a short limit to the honors conferred on jews, and rendered the dignity of a geheimer kommerzienrat the highest to which they dared aspire. "credit to whom credit is due," a distinguished professor had equivocally remarked in her drawing-room some years before, in reference to the appointment of a banker distinguished for nothing but his wealth as geheimer kommerzienrat. the words ever echoed in her ears. since then the lesson to remain modestly in the background and be content with the achievements of better times had been well learned. in the meantime, benas's income had continued to increase; his home grew in splendor and artistic attractiveness, and while his wife watched over the comfort of her establishment and the carefully planned education of the children, she kept pride of ancestry alive in the secret recesses of her soul. the more she felt herself cut off from intercourse with those of her own station in life--the social circle of the elect--the more she cherished the consciousness of her noble descent. the feeling that had been sacred merely as a tradition in the years of social advance, developed in the present days of social isolation--half voluntary and half enforced--into something more intimate and personal. she spoke but seldom of this; all the deeper and keener was the hurt to her pride. to-day, however, these questions had presented themselves with more insistence than usually. she had received a letter that had led her to seek her husband at this unwonted hour. as she entered the room a nervous tension was apparent in her features, and, turning to him hastily, after the servant left, she said: "i must speak with you, joshua, about a matter of great importance." "goodness! what's the matter, fanny? at such an unusual time, and so excited. i hope nothing has occurred. is it a letter from your sister or...." during this rapid-fire interrogation she had approached the desk and sunk into an arm-chair. "please, benas, not so many questions at once. i came here to tell you all about it, and i myself hardly know whether this letter is pleasant or unpleasant. it's not from my sister, in fact, from somebody very different." "well, from whom? you make me curious. how should i guess from whom?" "i shall tell you immediately, but please sit down quietly next to me; for we must decide upon the answer." he glanced at the clock: "i ordered elkish to come at half-past five." "elkish can wait." "indeed not! i must consult him about to-morrow's committee meeting of the magdeburg machine construction company." "now, benas," she interrupted, "there are weightier matters than the magdeburg machine construction...." "you say that so lightly, fanny.... i cannot understand how a woman as clever as you are can say such things. the 'magdeburgs' not important! a small matter! when the balance-sheet is published to-morrow, and the dividends declared, they will rise in value at least fifteen points; and _that_, you say, is of no importance! i must still give my orders about buying and selling; for at the close of the exchange, they will naturally fall, but the day after, then--i tell you, fanny, it will be a big thing!" "that's all very good and nice. money, sadly enough, is the only power we have nowadays; but sometimes other things affect the course of events, as, for instance, this letter." "well, what of it? elkish may come at any moment." she opened the letter while he turned on the electric light of his reading lamp, whose green silk shade spread a soft, subdued light over the room. "regierungsrat dr. victor weilen begs permission to pay his respects this evening at nine o'clock. he apologizes for setting so late an hour, but explains that his duties keep him occupied until late in the day; and inasmuch as the matter which he wishes to discuss is a family affair, he hopes we shall receive him." "a family affair? he! what does he want of the family? and so unexpectedly! that's really curious. a family affair!" "he begs, as the time is so short, that an answer be sent to him by telephone, to the foreign office, where he will wait until eight o'clock." "gracious, how swell! the foreign office! and thus do we attain to the honor of telephoning to the foreign office," he added satirically. "what shall the answer be, joshua? that we are at home?" "surely, if you wish to receive him. i cannot understand your excitement, dearest. you have received a regierungsrat in your drawing-rooms before this, even an oberregierungsrat. there was a time when mr. breitbach found our moët rather fair...." "there _was_ a time, benas!" he frowned. "well, that's something that cannot be altered, dear child." at this moment his confidential clerk, elkish, was announced. "even though the 'magdeburgs' rise ever so high," she answered ironically. "but that need not hinder you from receiving the regierungsrat. we're still good for something, i suppose. what think you, elkish?" he called to him as he entered. "i do not know to what you refer." "well, what else can i refer to but our balance-sheet?" "as regards that, the firm of joshua benas has no need to hide its head," the old clerk responded proudly. "well, do you see, dear child?" he said to his wife. "do as you think best, i rely upon your judgment. you always do the right thing." she rose. "i will not interrupt you any longer." "i should like to finish this matter before dinner. there is not much time left." "then i shall have francis telephone that we are at home, and we expect him." she waited at the door. "yes, that's all right," he answered, already absorbed in the papers his clerk had spread before him. "good-by, benas! good-by, mr. elkish." "good-by, my child," he called to her as she was leaving. "this only awaits your signature, mr. benas. here. a dividend of fourteen per cent and a half." "really, elkish? i'm delighted!" "yes, and here, , mark in the sinking fund, then , mark for surplus." "excellent! splendid!" he put on his eyeglasses and signed the various papers placed before him. "and who do you think will be elected to the board this year?" "i thought glücksmann and ettinger." "the time for the breitbachs and knesebecks is past.... well, as far as i am concerned, both of them may count upon my vote." "mr. breitbach has not been here for an age," remarked elkish with a shrewd look. "well! to offset that, herr regierungsrat dr. weilen wishes to visit us to-day--a cousin of my wife." "he?" the eyes of the old clerk flamed suddenly with burning hatred. "he is baptized, herr geheimrat. a grandson of rabbi eliezer,.... the first in the family." "that is not so certain," murmured the kommerzienrat under his breath. "and merely to further his prospects! a grandson of rabbi eliezer!" unbounded contempt was expressed by the tone of the faithful clerk, for many years the confidant of his chief, whom he had accompanied from their former home to berlin. "how does the cat get across the stream, elkish? as a jew he would have had no future, even if he were a direct descendant of king david." "and is a career everything?" "one is ambitious, and one must--why not succeed?" "how about the honorable geheimrat himself? haven't you succeeded? if one is able to declare a dividend of fourteen and a half per cent, isn't that success? and if one owns a villa in the tiergartenstrasse, isn't that what you call success? and if one's son serves with the dragoons of the guard? and miss rita studies music with jedlitzka, and literature with erich schmidt? she told me so yesterday. isn't all that success? i tell you, herr kommerzienrat, that is success enough. who buys pictures of menzel, and busts of begas, who, indeed? krupp and joshua benas of lissa. that's what _i_ call success." the longer he spoke, the more intense his enthusiasm, and unconsciously he lapsed into the jewish intonation, which ordinarily did not characterize his speech. "not every one can get to be a kommerzienrat, elkish. earning money is unquestionably a very nice thing, but there are idealists who seek advancement in other ways." "idealists! fine idealists, who sell their religion as dr. weilen has done. the whole duchy of posen was scandalized! a grandson of rabbi eliezer! and what does he want of you? mrs. benas, i hope, will show him what she thinks of the like of him. i'm certainly surprised that with her views she should consent to receive him." "he wishes to speak of family affairs." "family affairs?" sneered the old man. "chutzpeh! perhaps he wants to borrow money of you. that's what usually makes such people remember their family." "why, you're in a fine mood to-day, elkish." "my mood is always spoilt when i think of such matters, mr. benas. after all it is really none of my business. if i had had the _zechus_ to belong to the family of rabbi akiba friedländer, i should not have allowed such a person to cross my threshold." "calm yourself, elkish." "why should i calm myself? i am not at all excited. it does not concern me. you must consider what you are doing; and the main thing after all is that to-morrow we declare fourteen and a half per cent." "yes, elkish, after all, that is the main thing." * * * * * at precisely nine o'clock the servant brought in the card of regierungsrat dr. victor weilen. as was their custom in the evening when at home to a small circle, the family was assembled in the little round sitting-room. the geheimrat was seated in an american rocking-chair, near a revolving book-case, in which the evening papers were carefully arranged on their racks. he was smoking a "henry clay," and was busily engaged in studying the stock quotations in the "national". the tea-table, at which mrs. benas sat, with its fine silver service, its costly embroidered silk table cover, and with cakes and fruit arranged in beautiful old meissen bowls, made an attractive picture. an atmosphere of comfort pervaded the room, which despite the luxuriousness of its furnishings made a cozy impression. artistic vases filled with fresh flowers, fantastically arranged, added to the charm--orchids, delicate and sensitive; chysanthemums of brilliant coloring; bright chinese lilies curiously shaped, and fire-red berries on thorny branches. interspersed among these exotic flowers were graceful violets, lilies of the valley, roses, and lilacs, amid tall foliage plants. the display of flowers drew one's attention away from the artistic objects with which the room was filled, but not overburdened. a rich and refined taste was shown in the whole arrangement. dr. weilen appreciated it the instant he entered the room. mr. benas had advanced a few steps to greet his guest, which he did formally, but cordially, and then presented his wife and his daughter rita. when the visitor entered, rita put aside the latest publication by fontane which she had been reading. his rapid glance recognized "stechlin." immediately after the entrance of the guest, a young man stepped through the half-open door of the adjoining billiard room. "my son hugo," the geheimrat introduced him. "referendar at the court of appeals." "i must again beg your pardon, mrs. benas, that i pay my respects to you so late in the evening. but i have something very much at heart, and i did not wish to lose several days only in order to come at a more seasonable hour." "let me assure you, in our house the word family affair is a pass-word that overrides conventions, however strictly enforced. in this regard we have carried the traditions of our home into the larger world. the word family always bears a special appeal to us." he understood quite well that she wished to intimate her appreciation of the obligations demanded by social considerations, which, however, the special circumstances permitted her to waive. with a bow he seated himself near the tea-table, at which the others resumed their places also. "i am indebted to you for your indulgence. my office hours come at the customary visiting time; and it may have happened that i could not have spoken to you undisturbed, so i took the liberty to claim this privilege." "not at all." in the meantime rita had prepared the tea, and offered him a cup. "thank you." "do you prefer a cigar or a cigarette?" "is smoking permitted?" he asked of the ladies. "during the tea hour my wife allows smoking." "then may i ask for a cigarette?" "hugo, there are the russian----" hesitating, as if overcoming some inner aversion, the young man arose and brought forward a small smoking table with boxes of cigars and cigarettes and smoking appurtenances. dr. weilen, with the eye of a connoisseur, noted the wonderful oriental enamel work in the table. hugo offered him the cigarettes and a burning wax-taper. "thank you, herr kollege." a deep pallor overspread hugo's face as he bowed silently, while his father said with a smile: "to such dignity we have not yet attained." "your son is a lawyer as i am," he graciously said. "i occupied the same position as he does before i was made regierungsrat. such is the order of advance. every one must make a beginning; isn't that so, herr kollege? in which department is your work now?" "in the exchequer. this is the last year of my preparatory service." "he has obtained his doctorate, and has served his year with the dragoons of the guard," explained his father. "then the greatest tasks are over. would you not enjoy entering the service of the government?" "no, sir," he answered in a firm voice. "as a jew i should have no chances there." the words conveyed an unmistakable insinuation. the sullen fire in his eyes reminded the kommerzienrat of the appearance of his clerk when he had spoken to him of dr. weilen. the latter appeared not to have heard hugo's remark, and mrs. benas turned to him with some polite phrase, while rita asked him to allow her to pare some fruit for him. a harsh, ironic expression lay upon hugo's face. the moment was ominous, but dr. weilen rose to the occasion and said: "may i tell you now what prompted me to ask for the pleasure of a visit here?" mr. and mrs. benas looked at him expectantly, and rita's eyes were fastened upon him with evident interest, while hugo stared into vacancy, a sombre expression on his face. "in a few months our uncle, mr. leopold friedländer, will celebrate his ninetieth birthday, on the day before easter. a short while ago chance threw a jewish weekly into my hands, in which mention was made of the unusual occasion, and of the significance of leopold friedländer's career for rawitsch. it was not news to me; for at my home mention was often made of my mother's oldest brother, and as a boy i accompanied her once on a visit to him, in order to become acquainted with him. it was shortly after my confirmation,--i mean my--my bar-mitzvah. such childhood recollections remain with one. my mother wished me to recite for him the chapter of the torah to which i had been 'called up.' this i did, and the impression the moment made must have been very deep, it has remained with me through all the various experiences of my life." "to be sure," mrs. benas felt bound to say, in order to hide the embarrassment which had come upon them. "one never entirely loses the recollections of one's childhood." "why should one? they do not represent our worst side. there are occasions in life when they are forced into the background by weightier, more insistent experiences, but they return most vividly in our maturer years at such times when we search our consciences in a confessional mood. when the restlessness of youth subsides, when the struggle for existence is no longer strenuous, when the goal is attained, then it is that the reminiscences of childhood reappear in full vigor. such reminiscences do not fade, nor become blurred with time." rita had regarded him throughout with fixed attention. "it would be desirable for the shaping of one's career, if such impressions were at all times kept vividly in mind," hugo said pointedly. "that is not altogether true," he responded with a smile. "it would interfere with one's development if such influences were ever present. to live amply means to hold control over oneself, and one's personality can be realized and enjoyed only when we have understood and tasted of life in its fulness. not alone from a one-sided, narrow standpoint, but from the broadest point of view, from the general, the impersonal. only then can that which is most individual in us develop freely and reach full consciousness." he relit his cigarette which he had allowed to go out. "but we are wandering off into philosophic byways," he said lightly. "such is always the case when youth offers us the wisdom of age. you will forgive me, herr kollege. it is a challenge to prove one's life not devoid of experiences." rita thought her brother had deserved this courteously delivered reproof. what could he have been thinking of when he allowed his unpleasant mood to get the better of him? and toward a guest! "during these last few days i have begun to realize, with surprise and yet with pleasure, how strongly my past took hold of me. i happen to take up a periodical; my eyes chance to light upon a name, whose sound, long forgotten, re-awakens old memories. in a flash, the old times live within me again. i am deeply impressed--the sensation grows upon me ever more vividly, and at last seeks expression. that brings me to you." "but how did you happen to come upon this journal?" asked mr. benas, merely for the sake of keeping up the conversation. "at present my interests take me to the department of press and publicity," he rejoined with a smile, "and one finds everything there. that was the way i came upon the notice of the ninetieth birthday of leopold friedländer--my--our uncle. the fine old man has attained the age of a veritable patriarch." "yes, uncle leopold is well-advanced in years," mrs. benas added; "the oldest of fourteen brothers and sisters, he is the only one living." "is he in good health, and how does he bear his advanced years? i take it for granted you are in direct communication with him." "certainly, as head of the family he is highly honored by all of us. we visit him almost every year, and my children, too, have received his blessing. he is vigorous, mentally alert, and reads without spectacles, so that his patriarchal age does not obtrude itself upon his visitors." "strangely enough, that is just as i had pictured him to myself. and what of his direct descendants, his sons and daughters?" "both daughters are still living, but only one of his three sons." "where do they reside?" "they all married and remained in rawitsch. jacob, who is almost seventy years old, carried on his father's business, which is now in the hands of one of his grandsons." "so the firm is perpetuated from generation to generation. the grandson, no doubt, has a family also?" "our cousin is still unmarried." "and do all live together?" "uncle leopold, since the death of his wife, about twenty years ago, lives with his son." "my visit to him took place five years before that, when he was still in active business." "when all the children were provided for, he followed the desire of his heart, and devoted himself to the study of the torah, a pursuit which, as is natural in the oldest son of rabbi eliezer, he had always followed with great devotion. throughout the whole province, too, he is held in esteem, as if he himself were a rabbi worthy to be the spiritual heir of his famous father." "these various stages of family life easily escape one moving in quite different circles, but they interest me exceedingly; and i am most grateful to you for this information. the family must have spread greatly, to judge by the number of children our grandfather had; the descendants must be very numerous. did you know all the brothers and sisters of your mother, mrs. benas?" "i knew all of them, excepting an uncle who died in london, and your own mother." "she was the youngest of rabbi eliezer's children, and died quite young. i, her only child, had not yet reached my fifteenth year. my father married a second time, and consequently the ties of kinship were somewhat loosened, and later, when we moved to south germany, all connections were broken off. from this time on, i heard almost nothing about my mother's family, and when i left my father's house after my final college examinations, to attend the university of heidelberg, i was outside the range of all family connections. shortly after my father died, and as his second marriage was without issue, i was left alone. after the year of mourning, my stepmother went to live with her brother in milwaukee. she married a city alderman, dr. sulzberger, and lives happily there. i give these details, assuming that it might be of some interest to you to learn of the vicissitudes of a near relative, who has come upon you so unexpectedly, even though he is but a branch cut off from the parent stem by peculiar circumstances." "it is very kind of you to tell us these things, mr. weilen. at home, your mother, aunt goldine, was often spoken of. and i also heard mention made of the exceptional talents of her son victor, and of the fact that your father never approached her family after her death." "i do not know the reasons for this, i merely know the result--an entire estrangement from her family, and that after my father's death i stood quite alone." "but you might have approached the family." "such a step is not natural for a young man who is independent financially--which i was, having become my father's heir--and who believes that he has found a new family in the circle of his fellow-students. i belonged to the most prominent corps, and became my own master when i came of age. my boyhood, with its recollections of my mother and her circle, seemed a lost world, from which no echo ever reached me. i loved my mother dearly, but at that age it is not considered good form to give in to sentiment; and it seemed to me more manly to suppress my grief. in regard to her family, a certain obstinacy and pride took possession of me. through all that period there had been no solicitude for me on their part. why should i force myself upon them? i thought that i had no need of them. presumably our views of life were wholly opposed. after the death of my mother, my life was spent in very different circles. i confess that even in later years when i went to posen to visit the grave of my mother, i never thought of calling on the family." mr. weilen's little audience followed his words with mixed feelings. mr. benas was eager as to what would be the outcome of his explanations; in mrs. benas' family sentiment was awakened; rita's flushed cheeks testified to the excitement with which she had listened; while hugo looked sullenly and cynically at the dignified gentleman who spoke so frankly and straightforwardly about himself and the circumstances of his life. up to this time the conversation had been carried on chiefly by mrs. benas and her cousin. the others listened in silence. but now mr. benas interposed. "such things," he said, "frequently happen in large and scattered families. it is almost impossible to follow the career of every member. only those keep in touch with one another whom the peculiar circumstances and conditions of life throw together. my wife has numerous cousins whose names we hardly know, and then, again, there are others with whom we are in constant and close relations. the same is true of my own side of the family. whoever looks us up and shows a desire to be friendly, is welcome." "i thank you, mr. benas." "especially in this case," he continued. "but it is utterly impossible to keep track of every one. think of it, dr. weilen, the father of rabbi eliezer, your grandfather and my wife's as well, that is, your great-grandfather, rabbi akiba, was married three times, and had nine children. these in turn married, and no doubt were richly blessed with children, and so on, according to god's commandment: 'ye shall be numerous as the sands of the sea;' but to pick out all these grains of sand, to observe them, and know them according to their kind, is impossible." "_i_ do not think so, father," said hugo. "you seem to be an enthusiastic member of your family." "i am a jew." dr. weilen's glance rested with sympathy and interest on the young man. "but that has nothing to do with our talk, hugo," said his mother, eager to confine the conversation within safe limits. "your father merely wished to illustrate how impossible it is to be in close personal relation with all the members of a large, ramified family like ours." "to which i desire to add the interesting fact," mr. benas smilingly said, "that hardly a day passes without the appearance of some one or other who claims to be related to us, either in some remote way through rabbi eliezer, or through his father, rabbi akiba. then i always come to the conclusion anew that all jews are related to one another." "that they are, father, racially; and they have kept the race pure for thousands of years, and have made it capable of resisting the dangers threatening it from the outside, through fire and sword, and all persecutions and attacks. only disintegration from within would destroy them--if they cannot put a check upon it--or will not." "but, hugo, why always generalize about matters that are of purely personal concern to us? joe," turning to her husband, "it will surely interest dr. weilen, to see to what trouble you went to establish the numerous branchings of our family tree. for our silver wedding, two years ago, my husband had the genealogy of rabbi akiba friedländer's family traced." "it was not a simple matter," said mr. benas, "and the artistic execution hardly cost professor zeidler more trouble than the gathering of the data. a young student, also from our home and distantly related, worked almost two years at collecting and arranging the material." "i should suppose so. and did he succeed in making it quite complete?" "so far as i can judge, he did succeed. do you care to see the drawing?" "very much." rita rose involuntarily. "will you show it to dr. weilen, my dear?" "certainly, mother." miss rita conducted him to her mother's room through the large state parlor, the walls of which, he noted in passing, were covered with canvasses of distinguished artists. in her mother's room, over a small florentine inlaid table of the sixteenth century, hung the genealogical chart. the room was marked by the same rich style as prevailed elsewhere, but there was something more genial, more home-like in the artistically furnished boudoir. not a boudoir in the ordinary sense of the word, but rather the apartment of a lady,--luxurious and subtly feminine withal. a soft glow from an iridescent hanging lamp dimly illuminated the room. rita turned on the electric light inserted in the bowl of an antique lamp, and a bright radiance fell on the large chart occupying almost the entire wall space. both stood regarding it without speaking. dr. weilen was lost in contemplation, then he adjusted his eyeglasses as if to see better. "so that is the old pedigree! that's the way it looks! so our tribe has grown and multiplied! how remarkable and interesting!" he was lost in contemplation again, and drew nearer to the chart to study it in detail. it seemed as if he had entirely forgotten rita's presence; and she remained perfectly quiet, so as not to disturb him. "curious," he said, half to himself, "who would have believed it? if i hadn't seen it with my own eyes, i would not have realized the persistent vigor in the old stock." he turned his attention to the right-hand side of the chart, read a few names there, and then said to rita: "excuse my abstraction, but it is quite surprising. are you interested in the history of the family?" "of course, i am used to it from childhood up, and my mother has always told me all the peculiarities and incidents of the family." "and you know your cousins personally?" "quite many." "and what is their station in life?" "every possible station. look at all these branchings and ramifications. there is hardly an occupation that does not claim one or the other. lawyers, physicians, tutors, merchants,--some very well placed and others less fortunate. one cousin is an african explorer, another has joined a north pole expedition; and by marriage the women of the family have entered circles as various. among the cousins by marriage there are architects, professors, dentists, veterinary physicians, engineers, and manufacturers. i think it would hardly be necessary to go outside of the family to find one of every kind, with the exception...." here she suddenly paused in her vivacious explanations and stared at him with embarrassment in her large eyes. "well, miss rita, what branch is lacking on the golden tree of life?" a vivid blush suffused her face, which appeared all the prettier to him in its embarrassed shyness. "i will tell you. do you see here to the right?" and he pointed out the place with his finger. "here is the name goldine, the last of the fourteen branches issuing from rabbi eliezer, joined to that of herman weilen--my parents; and here the broken branch, quite symbolic, do you see?--without a name,--that refers to me." anxious fear took possession of her. "oh, herr regierungsrat," she stammered. "that's just it--regierungsrat! i have been deprived of the cousinship on this genealogical tree. a scion without a name, disinherited!" there was more sorrow than bitterness in his voice, and this gave her the courage to say: "it surely happened unintentionally. nothing was known of you in our family, and it was taken for granted that you had broken off connection with it. we had only heard...." suddenly she hesitated. "your reasons are significant, miss rita, the broken-off branch dares not call you cousin." a peculiar smile played about his lips. "but i should like to finish the thought you would not express. you had only heard that i had discarded the belief of my fathers, had changed my religion, had entered the service of the government, had made a career for myself, and hoped to reach a still higher goal. that's it, is it not? a broken-off branch, but not a withered one!" she gazed at him with large, astonished eyes into which a dreamy expression gradually crept. "to be sure," he continued, "i have no right to complain." "i never heard any one speak of you in that way," she declared, trying to regain her self-possession. "in fact you were never spoken of;" then, trying to improve the thoughtless expression, "at least not often. i think you are wrong in your judgment, and also in regard to the family tree. i am sure the omission is accidental." "you are very kind, miss rita, you wish to console me. it doubtless seems cruel to you that a man in the full vigor of life, with energy and ambition to reach yet higher rungs on the ladder of success, should be summarily hewn from the parent stem. if i were superstitious, i should fear for my life, for my future. fortunately i am not, or rather i may be superstitious in believing that side by side with the ill omen there is a good one, in the shape of a friendly young lady; and if she will graciously accept me as a cousin, then the sinister mark on the pedigree will be cancelled. you surely have not forgotten the stories of the bad and the good fairies, because it cannot be so long ago since you were devoted to them. you remember? in compensation for the evil charms of the one, they gave the poor victim the blessings of the other for protection. and i should like to regard you as my good fairy." there was something very winning, very lovable in his manner and his words, and she answered simply: "you will not need such protection, dr. weilen." "please, say 'cousin.'" there was a moment of hesitation, then she said: "you will not need such protection, cousin." "but i may surely count upon you, should i happen to need it?" "you certainly may." then they returned to the tea-table, rita somewhat embarrassed, he in high, good humor. "the family tree is exceedingly interesting, mr. benas," he said. "you will permit me, i hope, to study it in all its details. even a cursory glance impressed me tremendously. at the very root, generations back, where there are names testifying to a strong and hardy stock, is the father of rabbi eliezer, rabbi akiba, a luminary in talmudic lore, a great man even in those days. then again, among his children, one excelled in strong individuality and great knowledge, rabbi eliezer, and from him and his descendants a numerous progeny, among whom again leopold friedländer stands out conspicuous; and so the family tree continues to spread its limbs, luxuriant in leaf and blossom." rita hung on his words; she was nervous, fearing a reference to the broken branch. but he said nothing, only fixed his glance on her meaningly. she drew a long breath of relief. "it was, indeed, a pleasure to me to see the work executed," mr. benas remarked, "and my wife received it with great enthusiasm." "i should suppose so." they felt their guest was sincere in all he said, and yet they could not rid themselves of a feeling of estrangement. he had introduced himself to them in so peculiar a manner. this equivocal position of close kinship and complete alienation produced a certain constraint, which despite the polished ease and courtesy of the man of the world could not be overcome. and all the time each one asked himself the true purpose of his visit. as if conscious of the unspoken question, he said: "as is natural when members of the same family meet each other for the first time, we quickly dropped into the discussion of common interests; and in passing from one subject to another, i have not reached the point of telling you what induced me to visit you." he reflected a moment as if searching for the proper phrase. "when i read the notice of the anniversary celebration of leopold friedländer, i was suddenly overcome with the wish to take part in it. the wish came like a secret longing for--for my home! my boyhood came back to me. i saw my uncle before me as i had seen him then. the years of estrangement disappeared from my mental vision; i heard his tender, hesitating voice again, i felt his hand upon my head, extended in blessing; and i became conscious of the words of the benediction spoken in the language of the race. all that had happened between, i seemed to have forgotten; and it took an appreciable time before i was recalled to myself. but the wish once aroused in me was not to be eradicated, and, ever since, my thoughts have dwelt upon the possibility of its fulfilment." a peculiar tensity of feeling came over the small circle. they followed his words with growing astonishment; and neither he nor the others thought of throwing off the mood his words had inspired. "it was quite clear to me that without some preliminary ceremony i dare not intrude upon the family group gathered about him on this anniversary day. according to the traditions of our family, i had forfeited the right; and yet i hoped i might find some appreciation of my position among the younger generation and the intercession i need. i had often heard of your family, mr. benas, and i saw your name at the head of the lists of all charitable and public enterprises; and although i was surprised never to meet you and your family on occasions at which common interests might have thrown us together in certain social circles, to which you really belong...." "of late years we have withdrawn from all intercourse, except with our own family, and a few intimate friends," interrupted mrs. benas. "but your position involves certain social obligations." "nowadays one hardly notices it, perhaps does not care to notice it, if these obligations are not fulfilled," mr. benas rejoined with a slightly ironical, slightly pained expression. "formerly ours were the most successful, the most elegant, and the most entertaining functions. my wife had a gift for entertaining; and it was always a pleasure for us to welcome happy, clever, representative, gay people. now we confine ourselves to a few formal and official dinners, made necessary by my connection with the leading financial circles." "we have become used to it, and do not miss anything," added mrs. benas. "the spacious rooms which formerly resounded with merry society are now quiet. but a more intimate, a more sincere life has taken its place. personally i should not feel the difference; but at times i am sorry that our daughter is not able to enjoy the stimulus and the attractions of such social gatherings. in the old days she had not yet made her _début_." "but, mother, i have often told you that i have no longings in that direction. your goodness to me enriches my life sufficiently. whatever is beautiful, great, important, i enjoy." "but it was entirely different when the people who offered the great and the beautiful things of which you speak came and went freely in our house, in a certain sense belonged to us, were our guests. the foremost artists and men of science used to come here." "i think, father, it is much pleasanter to know the works than the authors," hugo interrupted brusquely. "every one knows what such as they seek in the homes of rich jews; and when you pay for their services and creations, and ask nothing of them socially, then you do them and yourself the greatest favor." "that has not always been the case, hugo. your views are too severe and rigid." "it has always been so; only perhaps there were times when it was not so evident. what do we want with their well-meant intentions and condescensions, their forbearances and tolerations, their humanitarian impulses! at bottom it has always been the same. the jew was always burned!--in sultan saladin's time, as well as now. only now we do not complacently accept such treatment, wagging our tails in gratitude like a dog." a dull fire burned in his eyes. his face wore an expression of pride and energy. "i'm afraid, hugo," his mother said, trying to calm him, "that our guest has but little interest in your opinions. you know, too, that we do not agree with you altogether." "forgive me, dr. weilen," he said, turning to their guest with the conventional manner and incisiveness of a prussian functionary and a volunteer of the guards. "i was carried away by the subject, and then i thought that here at my father's table.... you see, we are not accustomed, nowadays, to have any one with us who does not understand our pain and indignation." "nor is that the case on this occasion--at least not since this evening, not since this hour which i have been permitted to spend among you." hugo bowed in silence. dr. weilen arose, saying: "but i must not encroach upon your hospitality too long. you know now what it is i wish. do you believe a way can be found for me to be present in rawitsch at uncle leopold's birthday celebration? will the family receive me for that day? will he himself be disposed to receive me? i beg of you to help me realize this desire of mine. in affairs like this, in which a sympathetic temperament is of more avail than cold reason, a clever and noble woman is the best messenger; and women are fine diplomats, too. may i count upon you, mrs. benas, honored cousin?" "i will consider. but how? as regards the matter itself, i am entirely on your side. but you understand that in a large family there are scores of considerations and prejudices that must be taken into account." "i understand that perfectly." "but there is still plenty of time before the birthday celebration." "diplomatic undertakings must be arranged long in advance," he laughed. "i will make use of your suggestion and start negotiations," she said, cleverly responding to his pleasantry. "and will you allow me to come again, to assure myself of the progress of the negotiations, and to encourage them by my personal intervention? i must tell you that i have felt very much at home with you, not at all like a stranger." "i thank you, dr. weilen," answered his host, politely; and his wife added, "you will always find a welcome here." thereupon he took his leave, hugo escorting him to the hall, where the servant helped him on with his heavy fur coat. * * * * * when dr. weilen stepped out into the street, gusts of wind blew the snow-flakes whirling about merrily against his face. tiny, pointed snow-crystals caught in his beard and blinded his eyes. he pulled up his fur collar more snugly, and hailed a passing cab. he hesitated a moment before giving directions. he was not in the mood to return at once to his own house; he drew out his watch and saw by the light of the carriage lamp that it was nearly eleven o'clock. "how quickly the time passed," he mused. "i may still find some of my friends at the 'hermitage' or at the 'kaiserhof.'" but as he was about to enter the cab, he decided that he did not care for companionship, and he concluded to go directly to his house, which was in the upper part of wilhelmsstrasse. on reaching his room, he lit the lamp on his desk, intending to work a little while. but a moment later he tossed his pen aside; he was too restless, and not in the proper mood. he paced up and down the room to regain his composure. "remarkable! what refinement, dignity, and self-respect; and not a bit purse-proud or arrogant," he said softly to himself. "the old man--well, perhaps just a wee bit, but even he is very restrained; one can hardly notice it. and his wife, my cousin, quite _comme il faut_,--so ladylike! why not? the friedländers are of ancient aristocracy! the mother's blood seethes in the son's veins! poor fellow! what experiences and sufferings a young prussian law-student and volunteer of the guards must have met with to have become so curt and repelling. and this despite the princely fortune which might have flung every door open to him, especially of those houses which a man of his age most desires to enter. instead of that, half-martyr, half-hero, he fashions his own ideals. an interesting fellow! evidently talented and possessing the courage of his convictions. how determined he was to vent his opinions, somewhat aggressively, of course, to show me that i did not overawe him in the least. a nice sort of chap! and then little rita! how modest and quiet, and clever withal, for you could see that she was interested in the conversation, even when she was silent. her eyes spoke, and so did her mobile little face. and she takes all this wealth quite as a matter of fact; she is to the manner born; she does not regard it as anything extraordinary. altogether charming!" he had conquered his restlessness a little during these reflections; he lit a cigar and went over to a table by the fire-place, heaped with books, pamphlets, and journals. a low fire flickered on the hearth. he fanned it to a bright flame, then moved the lamp from his desk to the table and settled himself in an arm-chair. "i wonder whether they _will_ restore me to their good graces! not only the benases, but the others,--uncle leopold's family. if only for the one day! how i hope they will! i'm actually homesick for--for the ghetto!" he took up a book. "if they were to see you now, victor, the gentlemen of the foreign office! yet a ghetto it remains for all their liberty and all their magnificence. whether in the grand drawing-room of the tiergarten villa, or at uncle leopold's in rawitsch.... that's exactly what the young son recognizes in his vigor and in his consciousness of injured pride. the older ones have become resigned to it." * * * * * in the family of geheimrat benas the visit of dr. weilen had caused dissension. the father wished to invite dr. weilen to dinner in the near future. it seemed to him a matter of course that a guest who had approached them so graciously and unconstrainedly should receive equal courtesy at their hands. his wife was inclined to second him in this view, but she was strongly influenced by hugo, who decidedly opposed fostering a connection which, experience taught them, might result in nothing but mortification and neglect. at first rita was a silent member of these councils, but at length she said: "i cannot understand why you talk yourself into such ideas, hugo. we have no right to be discourteous to a guest who has approached us so politely. impoliteness is lack of refinement in all circumstances. we do not interfere with your opinions, and therefore you have no right to ask us to have none of our own. but above all, you should not ask us to disregard all the social consideration to which any visitor at our house is entitled." "yes, any one except dr. weilen." "but why? you're indulging in pure caprice! has he done anything or neglected to do anything to cause such brusque treatment?" hugo frowned. "did he not please you, hugo?" his mother asked, in a pacific tone. "please me? i don't think we have a right to be influenced by our personal sympathies or antipathies. dr. weilen pleased me well enough, but he is our enemy, just as every one else.... or rather more than any one else! and therefore i find it unnecessary to give him encouragement. i should not like him to think we are running after him, or feel honored because he condescended...." "goodness gracious, hugo, sometimes you are quite unbearable! if people heard you, they would think you're elkish. one can excuse such prejudices in an old, uneducated man; but in a modern young fellow of your education they are hardly to be condoned. we do not oppose your ideas and your convictions, but you ought not to go so far as to impose them upon the family! as a result of circumstances beyond our control we find ourselves outsiders in society; yet we need not carry our resentment to the extent of repulsing a gentleman who has been so pleasant and respectful in his advances. and that only because he is a man in an exalted position." mr. benas spoke with irritation. he continued impatiently: "entirely of his own accord he told us how he had happened to become estranged from his family; and no doubt he could explain his further actions. but after all it is none of our business. the sincerity of his manner, his personality attracted me. of course, at moments we were constrained and uncomfortable, but that was surely due to us, not to him, and above all to your own brusqueness; and his manner of ignoring that was more than amiable." "we must thank him for this condescension most humbly." "hugo!" he met a look of warning and beseeching in his mother's eyes. "well, enough of this. we'll invite dr. weilen to dine with us next sunday. it is not to be a formal invitation. fanny, you yourself write a few lines, and don't invite many people. ten or twelve will do. in the small dining-room--a simple but elegant affair. however, you're well posted in all those fine distinctions, my lady," he added playfully, to temper the impression of his severity toward hugo. "and see to it that our young man acquires more normal ideas. i know you are confederates, and secretly you harbor his views." "joshua!" he laughed. "there, you see, i am right. usually you call me joe, but in uncommonly solemn moments it is joshua! dr. weilen made the advances, we must invite him, unless we intend to insult him with a repulse, and as we do not want to insult him, we must follow the conventions. i expect you to take this as your rule of behavior toward the regierungsrat, hugo. i have no fondness for ostentation or inconsiderateness. our opinions in order to be sincere and effective need not take the form of aloofness and discourtesy. remember that!" the young man looked almost pained; but he did not respond. as he was a jewish young man, respect for paternal authority was deep-rooted in his being. moreover, his father was ordinarily so amiable, kind, and considerate toward his children, that when once he was decided and firm, there was no thought of opposing him. rita's eyes gleamed on her father. a genial, tacit understanding existed between the two, which leagued them, as it were, against the mother and hugo. this pretty, good-natured party difference gave a peculiar charm to the intimacy of their family life. "it is lucky that rita is my confederate," he laughingly said as he arose, "else, by this time, the shield of david would be emblazoned over the door, and no stranger would be allowed to cross the threshold. in fact, elkish advocated some such thing when we spoke of dr. weilen's visit. elkish and you on the same platform! for heaven's sake, children, do not let us be ridiculous! i surely appreciate the old man; and during the past days he has brilliantly demonstrated his value in the matter of the 'magdeburgs,' but everything must be kept within bounds. it is time for me to go to my office now. fanny, whom do you want to invite?" "how would professor zeidler do--and jedlitzka, and hoffman, the sculptor?" "all right! but no; they have not been invited for some time; and they mustn't think we waited until we could have a regierungsrat to meet them,--oh, no!" a smile of triumph flitted about the corners of hugo's mouth. "invite a few of our own family. justizrat friedheim, robert freudenthal, the architect, and amtsgerichtsrat lesser, with their wives. that makes six; we are four; with dr. weilen eleven. we need a bachelor." "dr. rosenfeld?" he laughed. "well, yes! so that you and hugo may have support. but now i must go. there's just time to catch bamberger before the exchange opens. good-by, children. don't get up from the table--_mahlzeit!_" unanimity of opinion did not prevail among the three he left at their breakfast. nevertheless, before the day was over, dr. weilen received an invitation to dine with the benases on the following sunday. on the whole, the dinner passed off very pleasantly. dr. weilen, with the ease of the man of the world, made himself at home in the small circle. it was not difficult for him to find points of contact with these men holding a high position in society; and the women were so well-mannered, cultured, and genial, that he quickly lost the feeling of strangeness. besides, his own being radiated an atmosphere of cordiality, which smoothed over the awkwardness of a first meeting. the greetings between him and his hosts might almost have been called cordial, as between people conscious of spiritual kinship. the geheimrat was in an especially good humor; and rita felt inclined to be all the more friendly as she was very apprehensive of hugo's conduct toward their guest. her fears proved groundless. hugo was too well-bred to act discourteously toward his father's guest. his behavior, though reserved, was faultlessly polite. the appearance of dr. weilen, the regierungsrat, in his home was a _fait accompli_, to be accepted; consequently dr. weilen soon felt at his ease in this company. the family connection between him and certain of the guests was not spoken of. no one displayed any curiosity. they seemed to be united by a secret bond. in the course of the dinner the feeling of good-will increased. dr. weilen was charmed with the elegant mode of life, and was particularly pleased to see that the forms of good society seemed to come natural to them. nothing betrayed that they had grown up in different circumstances, and that their present luxury had not been inherited from generation to generation, but had been acquired within measurable time. they had all the manners and accessories of their station. the liveried servants, the beautiful porcelain, the costly silver, the exquisite wines, and the choice dishes were as much in place here as in the most aristocratic circles that dr. weilen frequented. the splendor of the surroundings pleased him, not for the sake of the wealth itself, but for the air with which it was carried off. he felt himself attracted to them, he felt a spiritual kinship. he became especially interested in justizrat friedheim, a cousin of mrs. benas's on her father's side. he was a man with a powerful, distinguished head set upon a small, thick-set body. well known in the legal world through his commentary upon commercial law, he had taken a prominent part in behalf of the national liberal party during a recent session of the reichstag. he had declined re-election on the ground of poor health. however, anyone who looked at this vigorous man, still in the prime of his manhood, would readily surmise that there were other, deeper-lying reasons, not openly mentioned, that deprived the fatherland of the services of this active and distinguished statesman. to his left sat the hostess, whom dr. weilen had taken down to dinner, and upon his other side sat mrs. lesser. she was a beautiful blonde, with fine teeth, and animated countenance, and lively manners. she was complaining to her neighbor that it had become an impossibility to get into the reichstag, since he was no longer a member. "i'm not good for anything any more," he answered, "but all you need to do is apply at the office." "that's such a nuisance. formerly it was so pleasant to sit in the members' box, and listen to bebel and eugen richter." with an affectation of alarm she glanced at dr. weilen. "i beg your pardon, herr regierungsrat." "the government is accustomed to evils," jestingly interposed mr. friedheim. she hesitated to reply only one instant; then quick-wittedly: "so we are in the same boat as the government!" "we could wish for no pleasanter companions in our misery," dr. weilen gallantly said, and raised his glass to touch hers. it was inevitable that every now and then the conversation should take a dangerous turn, no matter how careful they were to confine the talk to literary and art topics, and avoid politics. but in a circle of intellectual men this was difficult; and the women of this circle seemed as conversant with the questions of the day as the men. however, with perfect tact and good taste, they avoided whatever might have provoked an argument; and though their opinions were expressed with wit and understanding, nothing occurred to give offense. they left the table in high spirits. the temperament of their race came out very distinctly, no less in the case of the regierungsrat than of the others. friedheim, lesser, and weilen were chatting together in the smoking-room over their coffee; the host and freudenthal, the architect, were looking over the plans for a villa on the wannsee, which had been offered to mr. benas. the ladies and the two younger men had withdrawn to the music-room; and presently the strains of wagner's "feuerzauber" were heard, played with masterly skill. "who plays so wonderfully?" asked dr. weilen. "mrs. freudenthal, a famous artist before my cousin married her. perhaps you heard of her under her stage name, flora bensheimer." "o, of course, the great pianiste?" he asked with interest. "and is she the wife of the architect? has she given up her career?" "she plays only for her immediate family. when our cousin married her ten years ago, she continued to perform now and then in public for charitable purposes; but for the last few years, she has given that up as well." "but that is a loss both to charity and to the public." "freudenthal doesn't let charity suffer on that account," answered mr. friedheim. "he is very rich and gives generously on all sides; but he holds that he has no further obligations to the public. the remarkable talent of his wife he keeps from the world ever since it was subjected to affront. he can dispense his money without attracting notice; but he must conceal his wife's art so as not to attract undue notice." "but that is egotistical." "perhaps. he is peculiar. the marriage is a childless one, and his wife is everything to him, wife and child in one." "and was it easy for her to decide to give up the fascinations of a public career? she is known all over the world." "freudenthal has transplanted her to the best of all worlds, to the shelter of a loving and devoted marriage. he idolizes her and casts laurel wreaths and diamonds at her feet, such as have never been showered upon any other artist--a whole grove of laurels around her villa at nice, and as for the diamonds--consult the ladies about them; they know about such things." dr. weilen was amused by mr. friedheim's sarcastic manner, and he rejoined: "i should like to hear about them. at all events i shall look up the ladies." the closing chords of the "feuerzauber" died away, as he arose quietly and went to the adjoining room. he had observed rita through the open door. she was listening to the music, lost in revery, and she started with surprise, when she suddenly heard at her side: "are you musical, too, miss rita?" "yes, a little. in our family we all play. music is so inspiring, and we seem to have a talent for it. i do not mean flora freudenthal, who has married into the family, but there is mrs. lesser, a cousin of my mother and of mr. friedheim, herself a friedheim, who has a superb voice. she was trained under the most distinguished singing masters; and some of my other cousins have a fine understanding of music, and devote much time to it." "i suspect it is a friedheim gift; for i myself am not at all musical." she reflected a moment before saying: "it seems so, dr. weilen, though i never thought of it before. those on the friedländer side have other talents." he smiled. "you are very kind." slightly embarrassed, she answered: "that was not an empty compliment. my mother's relatives on the maternal side have done much in scientific ways. professor jacob friedländer in breslau, professor emil friedländer in marburg, professor felix friedländer of the karlsruhe polytechnic, are all men of scientific note; as is also professor ernest biedermann, whose mother was a friedländer, and who is a leader among modern german painters." all unconscious though she was of it, her words reflected pride and joyous enthusiasm. a slight flush overspread her face; her animated glance rested involuntarily upon the family pedigree that hung opposite to them. "you are well acquainted with the positions your relatives occupy. do you visit them?" she was startled at his words as though she had discovered a false note in them, irony and derision. but he looked at her so innocently and so sympathetically that she was ashamed of her mistrust. "not at all. occasionally we meet professor biedermann. as a rule his calling takes him into quite different circles." "and who are the people who would not be glad to have the _entrée_ in such a home as your parents'?" he asked thoughtfully. "my parents have not cared for a wide circle of acquaintances for years. my father, whose eminently successful career and public services entitle him to a certain amount of pride, scorns to be put in a position where he is merely tolerated; and my mother's pride is no more able to bear rebuffs." she paused in alarm at what she had said. why had she allowed herself to be so carried away? she had been overcome by the everlasting woe and sorrow of her race, which arise anew in every generation; and this in the presence of a stranger,--of this stranger. she looked at him timidly, with a troubled expression. "why do you not continue, miss rita,--or may i call you cousin, as i did before? you have no idea how much i am interested by what you say. i have met professor biedermann, but i did not introduce myself as cousin." "indeed!" she answered suddenly becoming quite cold. "do not misunderstand me. you see, all these cousins of whom you spoke have very plainly given me to understand that they have renounced me; for otherwise one or the other of them who moves in the same walks that i do would some time have bethought himself of me." "how could you expect that?" she said eagerly. "you are unjust. you were the one to withdraw entirely from the connection, without possibility of recall." again she hesitated. "do you believe that unprejudiced men would lay that up against me?" "i do not believe that exactly; but what cause would there be for them to approach you? those who have need of the family can always find a place in it, and there are many such, alas, many, far more than those who have attained a position in life. the family connection establishes a common interest; and this keeps them in touch with one another permanently. at family gatherings every now and then one hears of some good fortune that has befallen one or the other, and this brings pleasure to each member of the family. my mother especially is very well informed, and is anxious to learn of anyone who has risen to importance or honor. and now we speak of an event of that kind oftener than formerly; we take it as a consolation, a comfort, that one of us has attained to some position, even though it be only what was well deserved, without...." "say it openly, without baptism." a deep flush covered her face, and in her eyes there were restrained tears. to what had the conversation led her? to a point at which he could not but be hurt. she looked at him helplessly, unable to utter a word. at length she stammered, "o no, that--i--that was not intended--i...." "why should they not say it? in reality, it is not an easy matter for those gentlemen to attain the positions that are their due; and therefore their promotion is received with especial delight, not only by the family, but by the congregation, by the whole race. and now at last i hear the tale from a wholly fair and unprejudiced source." she gazed at him with open doubt. "aren't you unprejudiced, miss rita?" "not any longer," she answered, with a sigh. at this moment her mother entered. "rita, betty is going to sing, won't you accompany her?" she arose quickly, as though released from some dread oppression. "gladly, mother." he looked at her with a quiet smile. she noticed it, and was again overcome by her shyness. what must he think of her? like a babbling, foolish child, she had inconsiderately touched upon subjects bound to lead to painful discussions,--topics that all had tactfully avoided, all except herself, the last person to intend an insult. if hugo had said such a thing, how it would have irritated her, and in his case it might have been excusable; but she--was it fate, a spell that forced her thoughts in such directions? it seemed as though these questions cast a shadow over her every thought and action. that an innocent conversation should suddenly and involuntarily take a turn that gives an equivocal meaning to everything said, should give her words unintended innuendo and insinuations--nothing was farther from her thoughts; and yet the thing had occurred. it was only the interruption of her mother that had saved her from further indiscretions. "our cousin betty, mrs. lesser, has a charming voice." "so miss rita has just told me." "so, rita, you have been entertaining our guest with the recital of the talents of our family?" "she has done so, excellently; i have the liveliest interest in them, and am truly grateful to your daughter." he looked at rita with a lingering glance. she returned it. their eyes met, and then she bowed silently and went into the music-room. presently schubert's "wanderer," was heard, beautifully rendered. "and ever longing asketh where!" was the sad, melancholy refrain. "ever where!" he shook his head as if to rid himself of a sad thought. * * * * * dr. weilen took leave, promising to come soon again. both mr. and mrs. benas had invited him to repeat his call. the other guests, who had gathered in the drawing-room, remained to chat a little more and enjoy a glass of pilsener. "you may say what you will, benas, it is more congenial when we are by ourselves," said mr. freudenthal. "you are too exclusive, isi," said mrs. benas. "surely i am the last who would plead for a mixed choir, since we have been plainly given to understand that our voices do not please; but there is nothing about dr. weilen that disturbs our company or seems strange. even on the first evening he came, he struck the right note, and he seemed one of us. he really is at bottom. one cannot deny one's kin." "but it took a long time for him to remember," mr. friedheim said ironically. "only until an opportune moment arrived. how should he have known that the names lesser and friedheim belonged to his family? he was still a boy when connections were broken off with his mother's family, and he has never had any occasion to resume the relation," added mr. benas. "friedheim, he knows you through your commentary; lesser, you, through your 'order of bankruptcy,' your names are well known to the lawyer; but that is no reason for him to have supposed you to be his mishpocheh. it was very evident that he was pleased to discover the additional tie." he laughed jovially. "that's human nature, but the feeling of satisfaction when special honor comes to any member of the family, is particularly developed among us. even he does not deny this, and why? estrangement does not change one's inherited nature." "but habit and education do. whoever alienates himself and cuts himself off, becomes an exile and a stranger," said mr. freudenthal. "dr. weilen is not a case in point. the manner of his coming here is, in fact, an argument against your thesis." "a mere mood, father, a romantic whim," hugo said scornfully. "in such matters your opinion does not count, because your views blind you and make a fanatic of you." "after all, it is not a matter of great moment that he should have come here," said the justizrat. "years ago you might have said so, but not now. whoever seeks us now and acknowledges us, belongs to us." "if you would only free yourself from the habit of considering whatever is connected in the remotest degree with the jewish question as something of the greatest import. it's really a matter of absolute indifference to me whether a given person comes or goes, how he comes or goes, and what he thinks or does. it's merely a private matter, an individual case." "every individual case is at the present time a matter of universal concern," said hugo, his eyes glowering. "there we are, before we know it, at the same wearisome discussion. throw the cat as you will, it always lands on its feet," exclaimed mr. benas, angrily. "the question forces itself upon us, whether we wish it or not," said mr. freudenthal, "the clearest proof that it exists; just as a painful sickness reminds the suffering body of its existence. of what use are morphine injections? merely a momentary deadening, but the evil is not removed." "but one gets tired of continually harping on the same old chord," friedheim answered. "but in the world, by strangers, then in one's own reflections, and finally in the talk of friends, acquaintances, relations, in such social gatherings as this, at skat, or dinners--everywhere the same dish is served. occasionally you really long for an injection for the sake of peace." "yet there are few to whom the matter has been as vital as to you," said freudenthal. "just because of that. do you think a wound is healed by constantly tapping it? i use a morphine of my own, my own tried anæsthetic,--strenuous work, untiring activity, and the development of my specialty. this for the world; and for myself,--a quiet family life." "that has not been your taste always," interrupted lesser. "you, a politician! a man made for public life! concerned in every matter of state and city government, always in the public eye." earlier in their careers the cousins had harbored slight jealousies in matters of this kind. "now we have it again," cried mr. friedheim, angrily, rising, "now the sequel will follow: and how did they reward you? didn't they remind you of the yellow badge your fathers wore? didn't they wave it before you, a token of past shame, and what is worse, of future shame? how did they thank you for the gift you gave them in your legal work, in your endeavors for the public weal, and so on _ad infinitum?_ i know this war cry, and i am not in the mood to-day to hear it again." mr. lesser and mr. freudenthal had also arisen. "whether you wish to hear it or not, that does not in the least change matters," said mr. freudenthal. "and if you should stop up your ears with cotton, you would only deafen yourself temporarily; the trumpet call would sound all the louder." "i'm entirely satisfied to hear no more of it for a time at least." "desire and convenience do not regulate such affairs," said mr. lesser, ironically. "why not? what's to prevent our getting together comfortably without these endless disputes and excited debates?" "the fact that the stranger has been in our midst, and we are restless, excited, nervous, like those who live in unrest, without a fixed abiding-place." all turned toward the speaker; both the women who had followed the conversation in silence, after vain attempts to calm the disputants, and the men, whose tempers were heated by the discussion. the words seemed to echo from another world,--lamenting, exhorting, warning. it was dr. rosenfeld who had spoken them. the young man sat there deathly pale, as though frightened by his uncalled-for interference in the family quarrel. the whole evening and even during the last conversation he and hugo had remained quiet, although their faces plainly expressed their interest. "my dear henry, you, too, carry matters too far," said mr. friedheim, impatiently. "but as our humor is spoilt, and it is late, i think it is best to break up. the fresh december air will cool us off, and we will go home, only to begin over again, at the next opportunity." "we expect you on wednesday for skat," said mrs. freudenthal. "aha, the session for the next discussion is arranged," mr. friedheim laughed. "good-by, then, until wednesday." "good-by." * * * * * hugo and henry also took their leave to spend an hour at the café bauer, where they were to meet several friends. mr. and mrs. benas and rita, left alone, went to mrs. benas's boudoir. "it is strange how easily we are carried away when we are among ourselves. friedheim and lesser are always ready for a fight. the slightest difference of opinion, and off they go," said mrs. benas. "the curious thing is that at bottom their opinions are not so very different, but argumentation is a racial trait. there's no doubt, we have too much temperament." mr. benas smiled, lighting a cigar, and leaning back comfortably in his arm-chair. "i'm curious to know whether dr. weilen is such a wrangler as the rest of the friedländers and the friedheims," he added, trying to tease his wife. "i, joshua? i know others who don't lack the same trait." "but, fanny dear, how can you compare us? generations of practice in the subtle dialectics of the talmud--that tells. it is not by chance that your family is famous in all intellectual pursuits, while the rest of us, who bear on our escutcheon the rabbit skins and bags of wool carried about by our ancestors, cannot get to be more than mere geheimer kommerzienrat." he liked to refer occasionally to his humble descent from simple merchants; especially when he felt his superiority as a quiet, self-contained man of the world, who could afford to laugh at the irritability and sensitiveness of others. that always put him in a good humor; and mrs. benas, well aware of this, fell in with his mood. "naturally, joshua! geheimer kommerzienrat, that's nothing! you know you don't believe that. i think we may well be satisfied with one another. friedländer, friedheim, and benas! that's an imposing triple alliance. i think we may be well content." "and with all that belong to it." "even though they quarrel the moment they come together, at the bottom of their hearts they swear by one another and are proud of one another." "besides, a bit of argument is entertaining, and brings life into the shindig." his wife looked at him reproachfully. "i beg your pardon! i withdraw 'shindig.'" "indeed, you ought to be careful, joe. one's language is bound to deteriorate when one indulges in such vulgar expressions." "but they're so distinctive and expressive, almost as good as the jewish intonation." "leave them to others." "hold on, fanny. do you see how i have caught you? who is exclusive? who are the others? who are the others? pity that hugo is not here." he was delighted and amused, and laughed at the embarrassment of his wife. she quickly recovered herself, and answered: "the others are the vulgar ones, the uncultured, the mob, with whom we have nothing in common, and don't want to have anything in common." "and the rest say the same of us. let us have nothing to do with those aliens, those interlopers, those parasites, that ferment, which decomposes the healthy vigorous elements of the aryan race. that's the gracious, charitable refrain." "here we are again at the jewish question," said mrs. benas, somewhat displeased, "we three, here alone." "papa, mamma, and the baby," laughed mr. benas. "it's really not funny, joshua," said mrs. benas, earnestly and thoughtfully. "it actually seems as if we could never get rid of it, as if it followed us everywhere. mr. friedheim is right. it sits at our table, it accompanies us to social gatherings, to the theatre, and to concert halls; it stands next to us wherever we go in the world, meets us on our travels, and forces itself into our dreams and our prayers." "you exaggerate, fannsherl. the imagination and the eloquence of the friedländers are awakening in you. we know how they think and speak, always in superlatives," he teased good-humoredly, in order to calm her excitement. "but you see how it is yourself, joshua. we get here together cozily, in order to chat a bit, to rest ourselves after the strain of entertaining, we have no sinister intentions, in fact, we are ready to reproach our relatives with indiscretion, and before we know it, we are in the thick of it." "in the soup, _i_ should have said," he added, trying to give the talk a jesting turn. "joshua, please, don't joke. i am in earnest. isn't it very sad that all our thoughts should be dominated by this one subject? that we can't free ourselves from it any more? that we can't rise superior to it? that it intimidates us, makes us anxious, petty, serious, and embittered?" "yes, dearest, since you ask me to be in earnest, i must agree, that conditions are, indeed, very sad, even though great concessions are still made, have to be made, to us merchants who are in the world of commerce and finance. but for how long? who knows? a festering wound spreads, despite morphine injections, as freudenthal says. he could tell tales! one of the most talented of architects, full of spirit and taste, with artistic skill and training seldom met with in his profession, especially here in berlin, and although he has been a royal government architect since the year ' , he has been so completely pushed aside that he has been forced to put all his energies into land and suburban speculations out there on the kurfürstendamm, in the grunewald suburb, and in the elaborate business-houses on the leipzigerstrasse. naturally this brings him a large income, and that is one more reason why his work becomes a reproach." mrs. benas sighed. "and friedheim? his capabilities, his thoroughness, and his valuable achievements entitle him to a place in the ministry. instead of that he has actually reached the exalted point of being justizrat, a title of seniority like sanitätsrat among physicians. what difference does it make that as an attorney he has a practice worth one hundred thousand marks? he is ambitious, has aspirations, like all prominent professional men, and finds himself set aside in the prime of his powers. lesser, too, told me recently that he is going to resign. he has exhausted the last possibility in his career, he cannot hope for further advancement, so he is going to give up official life, devote himself to his scientific researches, and indulge in travel. as soon as hedwig is married, he and betty can get away easily. they can leave the boys behind, they have enough money for that." "that is and will always remain the only thing that gives us independence, and dignity, too," she said bitterly. "we have the money--and then the world is surprised that we strive so persistently to obtain it, hold on to it with such tenacity, and enlarge our fortunes once we have them." "nobody wonders at that nowadays. only the envious and spiteful who have no money themselves. but we may as well admit it; what is true of our own small circle is true everywhere. well-deserving persons are trammelled in their activities. so far and no farther! wherever we look, we see them chained to the lowest stages. 'not beyond the boundary we have mapped out for you,' says the government. 'you want to climb, you are equipped to be brave mountaineers, you lack nothing you need to reach the summit, neither courage, nor endurance, nor strength. yet remain below, remain below!' the foot-hills reached at the first spurt, mere child's play for their abilities, are the only heights they are allowed to scale. the way is barred, the natural course of their energies repressed. it is frightful that restrictions other than considerations of capacity should hold back the aspirants; that ostracism should be decreed because of a mere chance adherence to a certain faith." "then hugo and his friends are not so greatly in the wrong as you sometimes declare?" she asked with tense expectancy in her voice. "no, not in principle, but in their aims. those are phantoms, fantasies! a dream which foolish boys dream,--and clever women." rita had followed her parents' conversation, partly in absent revery, partly with alert interest. "no, you can't get rid of it," she said in a soft, reflective voice. "i myself experienced it this evening, when i was speaking with dr. weilen. suddenly we, too, had arrived at the fateful subject." "well, that settles it. you, too--and he!" her father kissed her tenderly on her forehead, and added jestingly, "pray, don't tell hugo or henry of this. good-night, rita." "good-night, papa. good-night, mamma." she respectfully kissed her parents' hands. "sleep well, dear child," her mother said, also kissing her upon her forehead. * * * * * on the twenty-third of december a company of young men gathered at the house of hugo benas, in his roomy, comfortable study on the second floor. they were in the midst of an exciting debate, when dr. henry rosenfeld entered. "why so late, henry?" one of the young men called to him. he glanced around at the bright, clear-cut faces. two decidedly showed the racial type, but in the others the keenest eye could not detect even a slight indication of their origin; they were blonde and blue-eyed, and crowned broad-shouldered figures. dr. rosenfeld himself answered this description, and no one would have suspected him to be a jew. "we have been expecting you this last half-hour. magnus told us that you would be here at eight o'clock," said hugo as he drew out his watch. "it is half-past eight now." "i was detained by professor lisotakis, in the oriental seminar." he placed his note-books and volumes on the table and accepted the ready courtesy of one of his companions, who helped him to remove his overcoat. "have you been working until now?" tender solicitude was expressed in hugo's voice. "come, sit here," he pointed to a comfortable arm-chair, near the fire-place. "it is very cold this evening, and i am sure you are half-frozen without having noticed it." they all laughed, but the smile that played about rosenfeld's lips was a bit forced. "perhaps you are right, hugo. i have been walking fast, lost in thought; and when you think hard, you forget the weather." "i wager henry was wandering under cedars and palms on his way here, when in reality he was passing under snow-laden trees along the linden, through the tiergarten," laughingly cried out a young man of dark complexion, as he twisted his black moustache, and pushed his gold-rimmed eyeglasses closer to his near-sighted eyes. he caught a curious glance from rosenfeld; his deep blue eyes, fixed upon an imaginary point in the far distance, seemed to carry the suggestion of energy and fanaticism. "that's possible, sternberg," he answered, "why not?" "i cannot understand, sternberg, how you can profane and make a joke of a matter that is sacred to us, the memory of the history of our race," said hugo. "never mind, hugo, why shouldn't dreams become realities?" said rosenfeld, with sadness and longing in his voice. "not in wanton jests, however." "a fellow might be allowed a joke now and then," muttered the culprit. "hardly! everything that belongs to our past is too beautiful; and now that it is a departed glory, a lost sanctuary, it is too sad to make mock of. i find it quite out of place to assuage the irritating wounds of the soul with scorn. it is a sign of degeneracy in us to banter and to scoff, and cynically to vulgarize the ridicule and the contempt heaped upon us by others. it is undignified, and makes for disintegration. that's the reason i object to the type of drama in which jewish manners and peculiarities of the most degenerate and pitiable of our race are exposed on the pillory. they are considered as typical, and people say: 'look you, such they are!' if i had the authority, i should prohibit them. and then, too, i hate those wretched money jokes, those translations of words from the noble language of our race, which give them a distorted, ambiguous meaning. we are not raised so high out of the mire as to allow ourselves such privileges. we are in the midst of it, in the midst of sorrow and enmity, struggle and defense, and we are far from victory, and we alone are at fault. this lukewarmness, this indifference, this hushing-up, this self-ridicule, they are our misfortune. the tactics of an ostrich! keep your eyes tight shut! don't peep! imagine others are blind! but they are only too well aware of our helplessness, our weakness, our cowardice, our lack of courage. where could they find a more suitable object on which to let out their bad humor? i tell you, i would do the same thing. he who grovels on the ground, must expect to be spat upon, and he mustn't complain." his words poured forth in a torrent. he breathed hard, and his face turned ghastly white. deep silence followed his speech. sternberg, embarrassed, fingered a book lying before him. his eyeglasses slipped down on his nose, and his near-sighted eyes roved with searching glances from one to the other of the company. at last a young man spoke: "there's a good deal of truth in what benas says. we dare not deceive ourselves; indeed, we are the very last to do it, even if one of us does occasionally make a poor joke about it. every one of us feels the same passionate pain in his soul as hugo does, and every one is possessed by the same pride and the same enthusiastic desire for a different order of things." these soothing words made a good impression. dr. eric magnus, a young physician, the scion of a very prominent and wealthy family, always found favor as a peacemaker when differences arose among his comrades. it was he who always did the reconciling, and eased the jars inevitable among young men of such various dispositions. they called him the "olive branch," and he was proud of the nickname. "little olive branch is right as usual," said hugo, and extended his hand to sternberg across the table. "i meant no harm, siegfried; and besides it was quite impersonal, you know that. the subject made me forget myself." sternberg was ready to give in; he clasped hugo's hand heartily. the "olive branch" raised his glass, and turning to the two disputants and then to the others, drank to their health: "_prosit._" "_prosit_," they cried as they all touched glasses. and the little unpleasantness that had seemed imminent was averted. thereupon dr. rosenfeld took a letter from his portfolio, and said: "i have brought a most curious note that i received to-day from francis rakenius of frankfort-on-the-main. he is visiting his relatives there for a few days, before starting for east africa. you know that he is a faithful protestant, the son of a pastor, and belongs to a very pious family. his grandfather was school superintendent, his uncle was the celebrated professor of canonical law at halle, and the opinion of such a family concerning our status seems to me of some value." he had spoken in a low voice while unfolding the letter. then he looked at the assembled company. interest and expectancy were depicted on the faces of all. they knew that years ago, during the first semesters of their college life, an intimacy had existed between rosenfeld and rakenius. they had attended the same lectures, prepared for the same examinations, and received their degree of doctor of philosophy on the same day. rakenius then went to halle to continue his special study of theology, and rosenfeld remained in berlin. even as a student rosenfeld had been much interested in the various schemes to improve the shameful conditions which a continually increasing anti-semitism had brought about. he attended meetings, joined various societies, at one time was a zionist, and finally accepted with enthusiasm the idea of providing places of refuge for the persecuted jews by the foundation of agricultural colonies in palestine. no one knew whether he harbored greater ideas; but at all events, he changed his views and he gathered about him a considerable following, not only from among the poor, downtrodden sons of the orient, who, while studying in berlin, suffered hunger and torment and the scorn and contempt of their aryan fellow-students, but also from among the young men of the most prominent, wealthy, and respectable families. there was something winning in rosenfeld's nature. everyone who came in contact with him was devoted to him. his very appearance, which suggested endless sweetness despite the strength of his physique, won him immediate sympathy. and his appearance did not belie his disposition,--honest, simple, and modest. but one felt that his amiable manners concealed the energy and the fearlessness of a true demagogue, and, if need be, he would give clear, vigorous, and absolutely truthful expression to his convictions. of late he had become entirely occupied with questions concerning the jews. all political and social events he interpreted only in their bearing upon what was dearest to his heart. in this way he had obtained a strong influence over his companions, and he became their leader. hugo benas, eric magnus, and siegfried sternberg were devotedly attached to him; and they formed a circle within their circle, which zealously served the general interest. at meetings they were the spokesmen, peculiarly fitted by education and circumstances, for each one of them, by birth, wealth, and station, could have laid claim to and achieved a good social position, such as is ordinarily open to young physicians, lawyers, and scholars. yet they had but one aim,--to devote themselves to the cause of their unfortunate, persecuted race. and they spoke of nothing else whenever, as on the present occasion, they met for confidential, friendly intercourse. with some impatience, therefore, they awaited rosenfeld's communication. "let us hear what rakenius writes," demanded sternberg. henry read aloud to them: "i can perfectly understand your sense of uneasiness, and i sympathize with you. it requires a degree of self-renunciation that cannot be expected, and in my view should never be demanded, of men with proud natures, men of intellect and spirit, men of marked individuality, to suffer what is put upon the jews. yet such is the situation, and whether it is justified or not, is a point upon which at this time i do not care to express an opinion. you know how truly devoted i always have been and still am to you. i have never had a better friend, a dearer companion than you. our friendship was secured by our agreement on the philosophic questions that used to occupy us, by the similarity of our views in regard to things in general, and by our wholly concordant attitude toward the various problems of social life. i need give you no further assurances in regard to that; and whether i separate the personal from the more general view, i am unable to say. "ever since you wrote that the jewish question occupies you to the exclusion of all else, i have been concerning myself with it. in fact it is an insistent issue. it forces itself upon me in my profession, in the world in which i live. you know that i am devoted, body and soul, to my priestly calling, and my attachment grows stronger the more i steep myself in the spirit of the protestant doctrine. how it is to be deplored that the best among you cannot partake of its blessings; for whoever has had the fortune to call you friend, knows how to value you; and i am just enough to recognize that there must be many other jews like yourself. but whether it is that you cannot, or that we do not wish it, the result remains the same; and this result cannot be gainsaid. a few days ago, i came across an expression of feuerbach's, which perhaps gives an explanation of the reproach, often brought against the jew, of pushing aggressiveness. 'to do away with the meaninglessness of our individual existence,' he says, 'is the purpose of our lives, the motive of our enterprises, the source of our virtues as of our faults and shortcomings. man has and should have the desire to be individual. he properly desires to attain significance, to achieve a qualitative value. as a mere individual, he is lost like a single drop of water, indistinguishable in the wearisome stream of a meaningless aggregate. if a person loses the interests that express his individuality, if he becomes conscious of the insignificance of his bare personality, he loses the distinction between existence and non-existence, life becomes loathsome, and he ends it in suicide; that is, he annihilates his non-entity. it is natural that this striving for individual distinction comes out most clearly in a class of society socially subordinated, as a foreign race or a religious sect, subject to the persecution of the majority. everybody wishes to stand for something; and to this end grasps at the best means to secure position or distinction in the domain of science. it is on this account that the jews form so large a contingent to the student class, and they do not shrink from mediocrity, the consequence of a lack of talent.' "ah, my dear rosenfeld, if each of you could only carry feuerbach's analysis with you and let it plead for you on your way through life! but even then the world would cry out with conrad bolz: 'it is an excuse, but not a good one;' and above all, we do not wish to accept it. for it interferes with us, it restricts us. we do not wish to grant so large a field to others for the development of their individuality, we need the room ourselves. the result would be that the aliens would have to renounce the development of their individuality, their striving for the distinctiveness that raises them above the level of general mediocrity. to this you would not submit; why should you? there is so much talent, so much spirit, so much vigor among your co-religionists. it would be suicide committed by individuals of your race, if they passively submitted to absorption by the mass, instead of saving themselves for the welfare of their own people. "whether this end can be attained, i cannot judge. it may be difficult! exceedingly difficult! but at one time there was one among you who accomplished the most difficult of all things--the salvation of the world. "if this scheme should prove impracticable, then i can see only one solution: acknowledge yourselves as disciples of him who went forth from your midst. your best, your greatest, your most distinguished men would have to take the lead. generations may pass before the traces are wiped out, before the recruits are recognized as veterans; but time will bring maturity. if ever you should think otherwise than you do now, then come to me...." "that is pure proselytizing," sternberg burst forth. "you do not know rakenius," answered rosenfeld, sadly. "it merely shows how the very best, the most unprejudiced, and the clearest minds among them think." "and i cannot say that i find the letter remarkably unprejudiced," said hugo, impatiently. "but that's the way they think and feel. it crops out even in those that are anxious to understand our peculiarities. rakenius never gave me the least occasion to mistrust him. he was the one who made the approaches in our friendship, because, as is natural, we are always the ones to hold back for fear of being misunderstood, of being considered aggressive. what he writes is his honest conviction. they know no other solution for our difficulty. but his letter has shown me anew that at least he tries to understand the other man." "it is always the same story; even our defenders are our accusers," said magnus, sadly. "while on the one hand feuerbach shows our course to be justifiable, he on the other hand admits our inferiority, our mediocrity." "among the masses." "but the masses among the others do not study at all, and so we come back to the same point. despite mediocrity and weakness we push forward; and that is just what as aliens is not our right." after further discussion of the topic, magnus and sternberg left. henry and hugo were alone. occupied, each with his own thoughts, they remained in silence for some moments. then hugo asked his friend with concern in his voice: "are you tired?" "o no, just a bit unstrung." "may i speak to you of another matter this evening?" "certainly." "i am uneasy about dr. weilen's intrusion in our family circle. what does he want? what does his interest mean, his familiarity? he comes often, as if he belonged here, like a cousin,--and they like him. all of them--except myself. and i'm afraid--afraid for rita!" henry turned white, he bit his lips, rested his head on his hand, and did not answer. "what do you think, henry? you know my sister well. during the lessons in philosophy that you give her, you surely have an opportunity to probe the girl's soul. what do you think?" "who dares say he knows another's soul,--especially that of such a sensitive nature as rita?" he responded hesitatingly. "but do you know, hugo, i am more tired than i thought i was; i think i'd better go." "shall i go with you?" "no, i thank you. it is late, and there is no reason for your going out into the cold." "well, then, until to-morrow." "good-night, hugo." he went slowly down the stairs. the corridors were still brilliantly lighted. as he reached the hall of the main floor, a servant was holding the door open for dr. weilen. "o, good evening, dr. rosenfeld," he greeted him good-humoredly. "good evening, dr. weilen." "hospitality seems to be exercised on all the floors of this house. you have just been with hugo?" he nodded in answer, and the two men left the house together. * * * * * it was about eleven o'clock when dr. rosenfeld left his friend, and hugo was surprised when scarcely a quarter of an hour later, some one rapped at his door. elkish, the old clerk of the firm of joshua benas, stepped in. his bachelor dwelling was in a wing of the house. here his unmarried sister kept house for him according to the strictest jewish observances. certain privileges were extended to him as the confidant of the family. the assured devotion of the whimsical old man was the excuse for allowing him to do as he wished. in business he was all conscientiousness, faithfulness, and capability. the younger clerks knew that their weal or their woe lay in his hands, for the geheimrat took no step in business matters without elkish's advice. he therefore imagined he had a right to concern himself about family matters as well, and he was good-naturedly allowed his way. the benases were confident that he held the welfare of their house dearer than his own, and though it was not always possible to yield to his peculiar wishes, his interference was tolerated without great opposition. jewish homes often harbor such characters, to whom loyalty gives privileges justified by long service, though their manners are not in harmony with the present order of things. even in the old days in lissa, elkish had been a confidant of benas senior; and this had endeared him to the son, and later to the children of the third generation. to rita and hugo he used the language of the most familiar intercourse, and both of them felt a peculiar attachment to him. as children they had spent many an hour daily in his rooms. he and his sister were most ingenious in preparing surprises and pleasures for them, and it was there that they had learnt to know the charm of the old jewish life. the services of the coming in and the going out of the sabbath, of the seder evenings, and of the high festivals, were strictly observed. a lost world was thus brought back to the bright and eager children. in their parents' home the old life was shown sacred respect, but without adherence to ceremonies. in rita the ceremonies appealed to the imagination, in hugo to the intellect. to the girl the peculiar customs had been sources of pleasure, but to hugo of earnest reflection. rita had frolicked and laughed when uncle elkish on such occasions went through the consecrated forms with solemnity and dignity; hugo, even as a boy, had experienced a feeling of awe for the noble past from which these customs came. so the children had lived in two worlds. their parents' household was entirely "modern." while rita and hugo were quite young children they had discarded--as many others of the jewish faith had done at the same time--the observances that differentiated them from those of other faiths. when, however, the time came which forced them back upon their own resources, the son and daughter, now grown up, did not find the changed circumstances as strange as they would have, had they not come under elkish's influence. they appreciated why sacrifices were demanded, and why they should not desert from the ranks of a religion whose principles, founded in a glorious past, formed the bond that held the race together though scattered through all countries. elkish's importance thus increased in their eyes. hadn't he been right in holding aloof from the stranger? as a result, he did not feel the repulses under which they suffered so intensely. hugo was particularly affected, because as a student, soldier, and lawyer, he was brought in constant contact with a jew-hating world, and exposed to continual mortifications and secret and open attacks. all this embittered him; and he drew closer than ever to the old man, who was inspired alike with great hate for the oppressor and with zeal for the faith. and so hugo greeted his visitor with sincere pleasure. "why so late, elkish?" he called to him cheerily. "what brings you here? pity you did not come sooner. you should have heard dr. rosenfeld this evening; it would have warmed the cockles of your heart." "my heart in this old body cries and laments. hugo, what will it all come to? i'll never laugh again, hugo, never. with tzores i shall go to the grave." "what are you talking about, elkish? before that happens, you still have a lot to do; and you really would have been pleased to see our friends here this evening--dr. rosenfeld, dr. magnus, and sternberg." "what do i care about doctors and lawyers when, god forbid, danger threatens us?" "what danger?" "are you blind, hugoleben, and deaf? don't you want to see and hear, or don't you really see and hear? on this floor, you form jewish societies, you and your friends. rosenfeld talks, and sternberg scolds, and the 'olive branch' hopes, and you think,--but you don't think of what's nearest to you, of what is going on below. day after day that _posheh yisroel_, the aristocratic herr regierungsrat, comes and makes himself agreeable, and poses as being one of the mishpocheh and _chavrusseh_, and rita is there, my ritaleben, and listens to the chochmes and the brilliant conversation, and gazes at the handsome, noble gentleman .... and .... and...." "but, elkish, don't get excited. what's gotten into your head? papa and mamma are there, and i, too, and very often the other relatives." "just because of that! i am not afraid that he will seduce her the way a _baal-milchomoh_ seduces a _shicksel_. such a thing, thank god, does not happen with us jews. but he will lead her astray with his fine thoughts and noble manners, and his great position, and heaven knows what else, and he will make her forsake her religion, become an apostate as he himself is." hugo, himself suspicious of the friendly intercourse growing up between dr. weilen and his own family, was alarmed at the old man's outburst. "you see things too sombrely, elkish. there have always been people of high position, even christians, that have visited us." "those were original goyim, dyed in the wool, not such as he, and not related, god forgive me that i must admit it. and when they came, it was for the good dinners, and the fine champagne direct from france. i ought to know, for i paid the bills. those real cognacs, and the cigars with fancy bands! a small matter! herr geheimrat can well afford it. why object? we merely shrug our shoulders--and despise them. when they came and made genuflexions, and were never too tired to find us, then they wanted money--much money--for charity, and for monuments, and for foundations, and for all sorts of things--even for churches. why not? the jew has always been good enough for that. i never dissuaded your father from such gifts. he still takes my advice occasionally; and when he says, 'i am well advised, elkish,' then he merely means, 'what is your opinion of the matter, elkish?' and i have always thought, there is no harm in giving, and surely not in taking. and when those other fellows, the artists, came and told your mother of their paintings and their busts, and invited her to their studios; and made music to the tune of one thousand marks an evening, and some concert tickets besides, i never protested, but i did some thinking, and i wondered what mr. mendel benas of lissa would have said, had he seen where our good money goes to. but we've grown so great, why should we not give? the time came when they paid us back more than we need. that's all right. perhaps not for the individual, for he grieved, like your father or like friedheim or freudenthal, or all the great folk among the jews; but it was good for the rest. the christians began to think that they have a right to be considered, and _we_ began to feel we were what we are--jews." when elkish flew into a passion, it was not so easy to calm him. hugo therefore did not interrupt his harangue, a mixture of indignation, scorn, and disappointment. with most of it he himself agreed, and even though he viewed events from a more modern standpoint, yet at bottom he held the same opinions as the embittered old man. it did not seem strange to hugo that elkish had dropped into his native jargon, for the sake of emphasis. he always did so when excited. "and therefore i always said," he continued, after a short pause, "'mr. benas,' i said, 'as you like.' but now i do not say 'as you like.' for this fellow wants not only our money, but our child, too,--our darling rita." his voice turned hoarse, and the last words sounded like a plaint. "elkish!" "yes, yes, hugo, that's what it is! why did he never come before? he has been in berlin a long time, and he's always known who joshua benas was, and in what relation he stood to him." "but a special occasion brought him to us, uncle leopold's birthday--" "nonsense! that is a pretext! he had to say something. he had it all planned. _he_ wishes to celebrate reb löbl's birthday! _oser!_ not a word of truth." "there was no necessity for an excuse to visit us; he knew quite well that my parents would have received him, even if he had only said that he wished to become acquainted with his mother's relatives." "but the other story sounds better, more romantic. that attracts a young girl like rita. you may believe me, hugo. i know her. she has not said a word about him, and she goes about as if in a dream. she used to tell rosalie and me about everything, about jedlitzka, with whom she plays, about skarbina, with whom she paints, about the theatre and the concerts, and the lessons in philosophy with rosenfeld, and whether 'olive branch' dances better than cohnheim of bellevue street. my sister and myself got all our entertainment through her, on shabbes afternoons, when she came to us, just as when she was a little girl. but she's never spoken a word about him, not a syllable; as if he did not exist. and yet he comes every afternoon to tea, and evenings, and noon; and they meet at the opera house, by chance, of course, and by chance, too, in the skating rink, on the rousseau island. mlle. tallieu is always present, and she told my nephew redlich, who studies french with her. she even told it to him in french." hugo listened thoughtfully. "but, my dear elkish, there is nothing to be done about it. papa and mamma have begged me expressly to treat him with the utmost courtesy, even though i found it hard from the very beginning. so i withdraw as far as possible when he comes; because it goes without saying that a man of his station must be met with consideration. there really is something very simple and engaging about him." "there you have it, there you have it!" wailed elkish. "it would be much better if you did not withdraw, but remained, and took care that she did not fall in love." "it wouldn't do any good." "why not?" "do you believe, elkish, that a girl like rita becomes enamored of externals? because some one pays her compliments, or casts languishing looks at her, which the presence of a third person might hinder?" "well, then, with what do girls fall in love?" "they fall in love with the personality of a man; with his spiritual nature and his appearance, when the two are united in a congenial individuality--in a man who appeals to or supplements their own character, or charms them." "i do not understand such stuff, hugo. thank god, i am not meshugge. but it is enough to make you crazy to think that a good jewish girl cannot be kept from falling in love with a posheh yisroel. i always advised your father to arrange the match with reinbach of mannheim. if he had followed my advice, she would have been married long ago; and i am curious, very curious, to know whether in such circumstances it would have occurred to the regierungsrat to wish to celebrate the birthday of reb löb friedländer." "but rita did not care for young reinbach; and i am sure no one can blame her. such an arrogant upstart, without any ideals." "there are some with ideals and some without. reinbach is so rich that i cannot see why he needs ideals." "well, to be sure, elkish, he cannot buy them. but we need not complain of our financial position, either, and yet we are moved by ideals in our demands and hopes. or look at magnus. his father is a millionaire, and yet he thinks of nothing but the fulfilment of our plans. and look at sternberg, and rosenfeld, and myself, and others who might pass their lives seeking pleasures of all kinds, instead of worrying over the sorrows of our nation. and here comes a south german dandy, a man about town _à la mode de paris_, a jew, the type that is now being persecuted and maligned as never before, and whenever we come to the subject that absorbs us all so much, he curtly remarks, 'judaism is a misfortune.'" "that is a phrase, nothing more." "it seems to me this is not the time for empty phrases," he answered gloomily. "the man that uses them, and uses them with such an air of superiority, is a fool. and that rita should not accept such a fellow, you should find quite proper." "i prefer a jewish fool to a baptized philosopher." "there are also jewish philosophers." henry's fine, pale face suddenly came to his mind. he arose and paced up and down the room lost in thought. then he said: "it is very late, elkish." "a jewish philosopher, however, is no good match," he persevered. "rita must decide that, not we. so let us go to bed now." "but, hugo, you must promise me one thing. be on your guard,--be on your guard." he shook the old clerk's hand: "rest easy, elkish. i share your fears, and also your dislikes." "i knew it. that's why i came to you. good night, hugo, with god's help all will come out right." "let us hope so." when the door had closed upon the old man, hugo fetched a deep sigh. it occurred to him how suddenly and apparently for no reason rosenfeld had left, when the conversation had turned upon dr. weilen's intercourse with his family. "is it possible that he, too...." he stared fixedly into the burning embers for some time before he put out his lamp, and went to sleep. * * * * * it was the first of january. rita sat reading in the small, cozy drawing-room. a bright wood fire crackled upon the hearth, lit for cheer only; for the house was well heated otherwise. rita could not bear a cold and desolate fire-place, especially on a day like this, when the cold out of doors was severe. on such days only a flood of light and warmth could bring comfort indoors. it was hardly four o'clock, but the lamps were lit, and the electric light, shaded by bright bell-shaped glass globes, produced a pleasant effect. through the windows draped with costly lace curtains the waning daylight peeped and the flurries of large snow-flakes. rita put her book aside, and gazed thoughtfully at the falling snow. how beautiful the flakes were!--the white floating crystals, that played at tag, and chased each other, and then fell so silently and so calmly. the snug comfort of a warm room was peculiarly attractive in contrast to the scene outside. suddenly she thought of those who might be out in the cold. she glanced at the clock; it was almost four o'clock. "mother must be just arriving now," she said to herself. "i hope the snowdrifts will not cause delays." she looked worried and arose to go to the window. at this moment a rap came at the door, and the servant handed her a card, and announced dr. weilen. "ask him in." and then he stood before her, and grasped her hand, and pressed it to his lips. "may i personally repeat the good wishes i sent in writing this morning?" early in the day he had sent beautiful flowers with the compliments of the season. "that is very kind of you," she answered, trying to overcome a slight embarrassment. "i am glad to have the opportunity to return your kind wishes and to thank you. but you must be satisfied with my company to-day. yesterday my mother decided to take a short journey on which she started this morning, and my father and my brother are not likely to return until dinner time, at six o'clock." he gazed at her without speaking, and the delicate blush that suffused her face assured him that his unspoken answer was understood. she knew that he longed to be alone with her, and she also knew that it was for her sake that he came as often as the conventions of polite society allowed. since he had first appeared among them, several weeks ago, he had called repeatedly, and it was obvious that he felt at home with them. mr. and mrs. benas enjoyed his company. with the ease of the man of the world, and with his confiding manner he had readily made a place for himself. without overstepping the barriers that his long estrangement from his family had unconsciously raised, he was able to assume a happy mean between the position of a guest and that of a relative. rita, too, he had been able to win over to his side. she liked to see him, such as he was, partly as one of them, and partly as the formal guest. he had overcome her shyness to such an extent that she accepted him, now as a cousin and again as a visitor. it lent an especial charm to their intercourse, this mingling of intimacy and formality. it attracted him, and even more captivated her. on his arrival it was always the government official whom she greeted; but when she became interested in the conversation, following his lead, she called him cousin. it was a source of unending delight to him, when, carried away by the excitement of the conversation, she, of her own accord, called him cousin. "to what happy circumstances do i owe the pleasure of finding you alone on this new year's day, so that i may express to you my sincere, heartfelt wishes for your happiness, my dear, dear rita?" she sat down at the hearth again, and he placed himself opposite. he looked at her face which, brightened by the reflections from the hearth-fire, and illuminated by her inner excitement, seemed particularly charming. "mamma left this morning for rawitsch, to visit uncle leopold; and papa and hugo are visiting uncle friedheim who has been unwell for several days." he looked at her in astonishment, then he smiled knowingly. "your mother has gone to rawitsch, to uncle leopold? so unexpectedly? she mentioned nothing of her intention on the day before christmas, when i was here, although we spoke even more than usual about uncle leopold and his birthday." "mother decided only yesterday,--there were several things she wished to.... she believed...." she tried in vain to conceal her hesitation. "in this cold and stormy weather? it must have been quite an important matter." "o, not at all, dr. weilen." her embarrassment grew. "mamma has had the intention of going for some time, and the snow came only after her departure. papa and myself accompanied her to the station, and i am sure that nowadays one travels comfortably and agreeably. the coupé was well-heated, and mamma and her maid had it all to themselves. so few people travel on the holidays. i should have loved to go with her, and by this time she is already at her destination. the train arrives there at . ." at first she spoke with uncertainty, as if searching for an unequivocal purpose for this trip; then her utterance became faster and faster; at the last words she looked at the clock on the mantel. a shepherd and shepherdess of old dresden china, looking at each other tenderly, held the dial between them. "yes, at . ," she repeated. "rita!" he caught her hand and held it firmly. "your mother has taken this trip in order to plead for me. she has granted my wish! quite as a diplomatic ambassador! she wished to intercede for me personally, to be my spokesman, to brush aside scruples and prejudices; to place the strange and unexpected in a proper light; to express her conviction that this desire of mine is not a whim, but a pious longing that has lain dormant in a secret corner of my heart. all this she is going to put forward in my behalf. the confidence that all have in her she will use in my favor. she is going to say to them: 'from frequent intercourse with victor weilen, the son of our aunt goldine, who died at an early age, your youngest sister, uncle leopold, the sister of my mother,--from frequent intercourse with him we have the impression that honest feeling leads him to us; that the secret voice of blood-relationship called him, when he discovered that one of the family, the one whose quiet piety, whose honest belief make him appear doubly worthy of honor to those whom life has driven away from their native soil, had attained his ninetieth birthday, and like a patriarch was going to gather his own about him. and on this occasion victor weilen, too, wishes to be present.'" she looked at him in timid bewilderment. she had slowly disengaged her hand from his. "o yes! but mamma also found it necessary to supervise the arrangements for the celebration personally. there will be so many people to come to the small town. our relatives there are, of course, helpless; they are not used to such matters. arrangements will have to be made in advance for the housing and entertainment of the guests.... you see, it is a special festival that is to be celebrated." "do you wish to rob me of the delight of my interpretation, miss rita?" there was a pained expression in his voice. "all that might have been done by correspondence, but your kind mother in person had to justify and advocate the wish of a stranger to be one of the guests, a stranger, yet one of their own blood. for this the winter's journey, to-day, on new year's day, which people like to celebrate together at home. am i right, rita?" "yes," she answered simply. it seemed impossible to her to plead further excuses after he had discovered the honest truth. neither spoke for some time. he gazed at her bowed head. the silence was eloquent of inner sympathy between them. the intense quiet of the room was disturbed only by the crackling of the wood fire. it cast red, quivering reflections across the light carpet covering the floor, and glanced brightly adown the girl's dress. after a few moments during which they were sunk in thought, he said: "i know your mother will succeed in realizing my wish. she is a good spokesman. and i will be near you on that day, rita--near you!" and as though unable any longer to control his tumultuous feelings he jumped up, took her in his arms, and whispered softly in her ears, "my rita!" she rested upon his bosom, as if stunned, quivering with blissful joy. the uncertainty and misgiving that had troubled her heart throughout these many weeks was now converted into a happy reality. he loved her! he! he raised her bowed head and read the confession of her love in the eyes that looked at him in pure radiance. deep emotion took possession of him. she loved him with the love that springs up in the sweet, secret longings, in the pure maidenly fervor, in the rare, modest timidity of the daughters of that people from which he had at one time turned away. as if his thoughts had been transferred to her, she slowly disengaged herself from his arms, hid her face in her hands, and relieved the oppression of her soul in tears. he led her back to the place from which he had so impetuously drawn her, seated her, then kneeled before her, and embraced her softly, tenderly. "rita, dear sweet rita, my precious child. why do you cry? what makes you sad? what frightens you?" "happiness." he drew her to him again passionately, and said: "you shall learn to know this happiness in all its joy. it will exalt you, not sadden you." "you forget what separates us," she stammered, suddenly alarmed, and tried to free herself from his arms. he started violently. then he threw his head back with a proud, victorious gesture, and, caressing her, he said in a firm voice: "that which separated us, draws us together, my love, my sweet love!" she clung to his neck, and without resistance she gave herself up to his kisses. * * * * * at dinner, rita, to conceal from her father and hugo the cause of her quiet and reserve, pleaded a headache. she merely mentioned the visit of dr. weilen; he had come to pay his new year's call. hugo looked at her so searchingly that she blushed, and turned away from his gaze. "did you explain to him that we no longer keep open house, since we have plainly been given to understand that we, citizens of a lower estate, have no right to and no part in the holidays of the others?" deep resentment lay in his words. she looked at him as though her thoughts were of another world, while her father said in irritation: "can't you grant us a moment's respite from your indignation and your scorn? you display your malice at every opportunity. it is really ridiculous for you to ask rita whether she met the politeness of a visitor with such an unpleasant reception." rita cast a grateful glance at her father; her eyes shone with the brightness of suppressed tears. "it is enough that we conduct ourselves as our injured pride demands, but always to throw it up to others is improper and stupid. i tell you those were pleasanter and happier times when we used to celebrate the new year's eve with a ball, and then the next morning received congratulations, and in the evening, instead of sitting sadly alone as we three are, there was a gathering of gay friends for a dinner." "they may have been gayer times," said hugo, nettled, "more amusing, too, and more comfortable, but they were only transient. they were in a condescending mood, and because of an amiable caprice on their part we were allowed to celebrate their feast days with them, and to take part, humbly, in certain civic and public holidays. but religion, despite all, raised an impassable wall between us and them. we were allowed to enjoy pageants, illuminations, parades, patriotic celebrations of all kinds, and then christmas and new year, when you're called upon to give in charity. how tolerant! o, how liberal! o, how i hate that word. sufferance i call it. sufferance! to be tolerated! you're kindly tolerated, partly as a participant, partly as an observer. and you're perfectly aware that you may be pushed aside at any moment when found _de trop_ or too forward. it surely is a thousand times better to be as we are now; without the loud gayety of people to whom at bottom we are strange, and must always remain so. i remember, during my upper class days, the last formal new year's dinner at this house, how herr von knesebeck proposed a toast to the emperor coupled with the toast for the new year. and how jovially and with what amiable condescension the attorney-general, herr von uckermarck, proposed a toast to mother. what an honor! and the way in which you welcomed the guests, the honored friends of the house--strangers then, to-day, and forever! what led them to us was not our company, but the choice pleasures and the agreeable times our money afforded. and to-day they dispense with all that. it would be impossible to get the best of them to come to us now; but the best of us are those who gratefully reject the honor." his father was visibly annoyed, and rita looked anxiously at her brother, who seemed particularly harsh and relentless. if he suspected! a dread possessed her, and pallor overspread her face. the dinner passed off in no very pleasant mood. the three missed the conciliating gentleness of the mother, who shared the son's views without his rancor, and who had opened her husband's eyes to the altered social conditions, while yet appreciating and sympathizing with his regret over the sad changes. everyone was glad to have the meal over. rita excused herself at once. hugo and his father could find no congenial topic for conversation; and so the first day of the new year drew to an unhappy end. * * * * * the next morning rita received a letter. she was at breakfast with mlle. tallieu and could with difficulty conceal the excitement into which the reception of the letter had thrown her. fortunately her companion was absorbed in the "figaro," and paid no attention to rita, who was thus able to hide the letter in her pocket without its being noticed. "_de maman?_" she asked, without looking up from her journal. "_ceça!_" rita answered in a low voice. "_oh! ce pauvre henry .... pauvre! il est mort .... mon dieu! quel malheur pour ma grande patrie .... cette canaille de d .... c'est vraiment ... cette blamage irréparable._" rita arose. she was accustomed to hear mlle. tallieu grow enthusiastic, one day over zola's "_j'accuse_," and the next day equally so for _l'armée_. one of the uncultured or rather half-cultured, she was swayed by the force of pathos, and was ever of the opinion of others, if they were forcibly expressed. at all events mademoiselle was at this moment fully occupied and well provided. there was an abundance of sliced meat on the table, plenty of marmalade, and other good things; the tea-pot was bubbling; and rita could hope to remain undisturbed for a long time. she stepped into her mother's room, and, with a timid glance at the "family tree," she sat down to read her letter. her heart was beating violently, and the sheets rustled in her trembling hands. several minutes passed before she could gain sufficient self-possession to look at the writing. the words swam before her sight: "my dear, precious girl, my rita, my bride! this word fills me with delight, and i know it awakens an echo in your heart; you say it softly to yourself, and you are filled with bride-like thoughts, thoughts that belong to me. whatever might interfere with the union of our hearts from without, within us reigns love, joy, hope. i know i want to win and possess you, and i know you are willing to belong to me. "need i beg your pardon for giving in to the impulsive joy of my heart, to the violent longing of my soul, for not waiting to sue for you soberly and sensibly, as is proper for a man so much older than you are, but stormed you with a youth's love of conquest, throwing prudence to the winds, and scorning careful consideration? i was young again when i saw you before me yesterday in the sweet loveliness of your youth, and i shall be young so long as your love remains the fountain of youth in my soul. "do you want to know how it came about? i might answer you, 'do not ask, be sensible only of the strong, exulting love that arose within us as a marvellous, convincing, dominant fact, as a law of nature.' but i see your earnest, wise eyes, which in the past weeks have rested searchingly upon me so often,--i see them before me in all their sincerity, their sweetness, their purity; and it seems to me that i must explain to the little interrogator all about myself and how it happened. "you know, my love, how i was left alone in the world at an early age. without father or mother, having no connections or relatives--quite orphaned; but healthy, full of vigor, happy and independent in every way. and all at an age in which one is in need of love, in need of wise guidance, of intimate intercourse with congenial spirits and the home feeling of a large family, the feeling inborn in the sons and daughters of our race, because it is their only home. but i was quite homeless! with the fearless courage of youth i decided to found a home for myself. it was not difficult for me; my independence, my large income, and perhaps, too, my personal abilities, admitted me to the best society. at the university, among my fellow-students, in the homes of my teachers, i was considered, and i felt myself to be as one of them. nothing stood between us, nothing tangible, nothing out-spoken. neither my external appearance, nor my interests distinguished me from them,--so entirely had i become a part of their world. there never came a word from the other world within to recall me to my true self. i knew nothing of my former life; no recollection flitted through my mind, because nothing happened to awaken me; and the soft voices that may have made themselves heard occasionally in the early years, were entirely quieted as the new life attracted me and seemed to wipe out the past. i had entirely forgotten at that time to what faith i belonged, and my friends surely never thought of it. one of them especially attracted me. he was two years older than myself--a talented and refined man. like myself he was alone in the world and independent. that was the circumstance that led us to a sincere friendship. he was a devout catholic, and after my examinations we journeyed together to rome. there, under the overpowering impressions of his art-inspiring belief, we were drawn still closer together. finally the wish was born in me to share with him the faith that was the basis of his inner life, and which he, i know not whether consciously or unconsciously, had nurtured in me, and had brought to fruitage. "think of it, my wise, good girl, how young i was then, how enthusiastic, how entirely i had dedicated myself to friendship, and how easy it was for me to succumb to the magic and mystery of a cult whose splendors and associations, there in rome itself, possessed us heart and soul. think of it and you will understand me. the reasons that brought me to the momentous decision were not of a practical kind. i took the step in a state of ecstatic excitement and romantic enthusiasm. i had nothing to forsake, for i possessed nothing that had to be sacrificed for the new faith--neither father, nor mother, nor family,--nothing except my own self, and that belonged to the forces that were then mightiest in me: friendship and imagination. the recollection of an incident of those days comes to me with such remarkable clearness that i will tell you of it. it was the only thing that reminded me of my youth, passed under such wholly unlike circumstances. a few days after the fateful step we were in the galleries of the vatican. i had again become entranced by the glories of raphael. suddenly my eye was caught by a portrait in an adjoining corridor. it was the tall, lean figure of a man who was resting his head in his hand, and looked up thoughtfully from an open book lying before him. in the deeply furrowed countenance a meditative, mild seriousness. eyes expressing endless goodness. a questioning look in them, questioning about the thousand riddles of the universe. the hand resting upon the book was especially remarkable. it spoke a language of its own. its lines and shape expressed tenderness, gentleness, kindness, as if it could dispense only blessings. "i was spell-bound, and could not tear myself away from the picture. there was something familiar in it, as if it were a greeting, a reminder from my youth. suddenly the thing was clear to me. this man, whose characteristic features unmistakably showed him to be an old jew looking up from his talmud, and pondering its enigmatic wisdom, reminded me of my uncle leopold friedländer. in a flash the whole scene came before me: how he pored over his talmud when, led by my mother, i came before him with childlike awe; and how he looked up from his volume and regarded me so kindly, so meditatively, exactly like the man before me in the picture. and while i reeled off what i knew of hebrew lore, he leaned his head upon his left hand, and his right was placed on his book; then he raised his hand and laid it in blessing upon my head, and the tender lips spoke the hebrew words of the benediction. it seemed to me as if i heard again the soft, insistent voice; and as if the high-vaulted corridors of the vatican were transformed into the low, simple room of the jew's house at rawitsch. i was as one in a dream. it made a strong impression upon me. like one possessed i gazed at the picture, and i believe my lips mumbled half-aloud '_yevorechecho adonay ve-yishmerecho_.' never since that day have the words left my memory. they remain like a faint echo in my soul. suddenly i felt a hand upon my shoulder. 'a fine picture, is it not,' said francis to me, 'this hebrew of the sixteenth century? i believe he was a portuguese jew, who was exiled to some italian ghetto, to trastevere or the ghetto vecchio of venice. somewhere or other the artist came upon this fine, characteristic head, whose portrait places him amongst the immortals, although his very name is uncertain. he belongs to the florentine school, possibly a pupil of del sarto. the realistic expression of the hand suggests master andrea himself; or it may have been pontormo, or puligo; at all events, a masterly painter.' while my friend gave these explanations, i had time to recover myself, but it was with difficulty that i threw off the spell of my imagination. so it was a portuguese rabbi of the sixteenth century, not my uncle leopold! and yet he.... i knew it positively. perhaps there was a talisman bequeathed from one to the other that made these talmudic scholars of all times so much alike; or was it the law, to which they devoted themselves with like zeal? or the similarity of their attitude toward life? or the tradition that remained unaltered through the centuries? when we left the vatican soon after i could not dismiss the thought that my uncle leopold friedländer had a place among the portraits of the vatican gallery. "years passed. the incidents of those days had long been forgotten. i was drawn into the great and mighty currents of life. i enjoyed it to the full. after the completion of my examinations for the assessorship, my friends at bonn advised me to enter the service of the government. there was nothing to prevent me, and the position offered me was quite to my liking, and satisfied the ambitions then mastering me. with the death of francis siebert a great void had come into my life; he had died of typhoid fever on a journey of investigation. in the stormy come and go of life, in the restless haste of existence, such things happen daily; and although painfully shocked by his death, i continued my way. it came at a time in my life when i was battling with a great inner struggle that made me wholly self-centered. i prefer not to speak of this to you, at least not to-day. but one thing i may tell you, the experience did not make me unworthy of you. conflict and suffering do not degrade a man, and whatever fails to overcome us, makes us all the stronger. but i became more and more lonely, and i fell into the habit of thinking that it was my lot in life to be lonely. i tried to be content alone. it seemed the easier for me since my career was a happy one and gave me contentment; and so did the kind of life it brought with it. i resigned myself to remaining a bachelor. so much of the married life of my friends as had come under my observation did not make me regret that i had renounced it. my calling, my books, my journeys, gave me sufficient satisfaction. i avoided social gatherings as far as my position allowed me to. in this way, time passed in work and recreation, and the even tenor of my days brought me comfort and satisfaction. there were many hours in which this exclusiveness seemed very pleasant to me; and the longing for intimate fellowship with others grew ever weaker. "then, a few weeks ago, i happened upon the notice of rabbi friedländer's ninetieth birthday. the rest you know. what you do not know, is that on my desk, where i had found the journal containing the notice, i seemed suddenly to see the portrait of the vatican before me; and an unaccountable association of ideas made me see myself standing before it, not as i was in rome, but as a small boy before the old man, whom i thought i had found anew in the portrait--in the presence of the devout, kindly man, as he sat poring over his book in his humble room. and then i heard the words of the blessing again--i felt them in my heart, the heart of an experienced, mature man,--and all in the language of my childhood, the language of the childhood of my race. and suddenly the world vanished from before me, the modern world that claimed me, and the old arose in the clear light of holy recollections. father, mother, the whole family came back to life within me! then i sought your family, sought you! and how i found all of you--how i found you-- "the subtle charm of true family happiness, the aristocratic security of a settled life, entranced me, mingled though they were with secret anguish over the unjust, the foolish prejudices under which the jewish community suffers. such depth of feeling underlies the splendor of your life. there is something so cheerful, so intimate among you. on the very first evening i felt at home with you. your wise, able father, your noble, sensitive mother, your brother with his splendid vindictiveness, and his proud ideals, all interested me as something new, strange, and yet familiar. "i had never known a jewish home of refinement and respectability; i did not realize how such home-life had developed in spite of the unfriendliness and the slights that beset it, and in the midst of hostility that seeks its very destruction. your friends are of the same admirable type. the men serious, capable, intellectually distinguished, and prominent in their various callings; the women bright, artistically gifted, beautiful; the young people ambitious, well-educated, impressionable, enthusiastic. so i learned to know you and your kin,--my kin. may many be like you, i say to myself. among the jews are all too many who under oppression and necessity cannot develop. but how could it be otherwise? by the side of the few, one always finds the masses; by the side of the elect, the average. "and now you, my girl, my precious rita, you have seen how your sweet disposition has influenced me, how it awakened within me new and happy feelings, how my very soul goes out in longing to you. i have regained my youth, and it calls to me exultantly: 'return to your own!' "these are my confessions. it does me a world of good to be allowed to speak to you in this way; and now you will comprehend why it was that i could not restrain myself, but had to take you in my arms, in the happy assurance that you were willing to be mine. "have courage! i will never give you up, and we shall surmount all the difficulties they may put in our way. i shall see you again when your mother returns, and i may be allowed to come. have faith in me! victor." * * * * * tears streamed down rita's face. he had laid bare his soul to her. she remained for a long time lost in thought, considering what had best be done. she did not conceal from herself that her marriage with dr. weilen would encounter strong opposition; that disquiet, excitement, and heartache would enter into her peaceful home when the relation between her and victor was known. her father's opposition would be the easiest to overcome, but her mother's? and hugo's? and elkish's? and the rest of the relatives? and herself? was there no inward protest against what she was about to do? now in these saddest of times, to tear herself away from those who suffered and struggled? an inexpressible fear possessed her. if only her mother were back at home! disquieting thoughts again besieged her. how happy she might have been, to love a man like dr. weilen, to be loved by him! and now alarm in her hopes, doubt in her wishes. she arose slowly and went to her room, and locked the letter in her desk. * * * * * on the fourth of january mrs. benas returned. she was in good spirits, and she had found her uncle hale and hearty. her relatives in the little town were already excited over the coming event, and busy planning and preparing for it. this year _pesach_ came early. the birthday, according to jewish reckoning, was on the twenty-sixth day of march, the first day of the festival. she told them that in rawitsch all arrangements had been made for a celebration on a grand scale. whatever could not be obtained at rawitsch was to be ordered from berlin. arrangements were all the more complicated because of the passover observances; but not one of the peculiar customs was to be slighted; everything was to go on as usual on this holiday. the great number of the family who would be present necessitated especial provision for the seder evening celebration and the days succeeding. it was a mere question of expense, and that need not be considered. on the contrary, it was a pleasant feature, that the unusual event would take place amid unusual circumstances, and instead of bread and cake and the every-day dishes, unleavened bread would be eaten. the distinctive festival, as it has survived in unchanged form, but added glamour to the ninetieth birthday celebration of uncle leopold. the family were gathered at their evening meal when mrs. benas reported on her trip. with happy eagerness she told of her visit, how she found everyone, and what were their plans. "but, fanny, dearest," teased her husband, "do you realize that you are to feed sixty people on _matzoth_, and for two entire days! because, you know, no one may leave before the evening of the second day of the holiday." "everything has been taken into consideration," she answered good-humoredly. "do not worry, joshua, you won't go hungry, and neither will the others. all kinds of nice things, even the finest pastry can be made out of matzoth and matzoth meal--cakes and tarts, and dipped matzoth and _chrimsel_, the specialties of the season, and the rest of the delicacies. you're no scorner of the good things of life, and you will enjoy eating these dishes again." "i'll enjoy the indigestion, too, i warrant. but you're right, dearest, those fine dishes are as unforgettable as they are indigestible, and i am quite ready to risk a karlsbad kur in may, in order to eat properly in march." "it will not be so bad as all that. we shall be careful to combine the prescribed with the palatable. and oh! children, it will be beautiful; i am happy about it now. it will be an occasion on which i shall gladly show what and who we are--we friedländers." "now, don't forget the rest of us," her husband bantered. "the rest of you belong to us, too," she answered with emphasis. "that's just what constitutes the greatness and the strength of the jewish family--that it grasps so firmly whatever is attached to it. you cannot imagine who all are coming to this celebration in rawitsch. some relatives have announced their coming whose names you hardly know, in addition to those in direct descent from rabbi akiba. they are descendants of the brothers and sisters of rabbi akiba. then there will be the relations, grandchildren and great-grandchildren of the sisters and brothers of our grandfather. from the letters received in rawitsch they would not have been able to trace these relationships, if uncle leopold's wonderful memory had not helped to place them. it would have been best if we had had our 'family tree' there as a help in recalling them." her husband was much amused at mrs. benas's pride and zeal. he had not seen her in so happy a frame of mind since a long time. when she was telling of her trip, he felt himself transplanted back to his youth. he saw before his mind's eye the seder in the house of his own parents, with the consecration and devout importance at that time attached to the various customs. and a deep emotion stirred this man, usually so cool and skeptical. "but, tell me, i should really like to know how they will manage. it is no small matter; for instance, at the seder, how many do you expect?" "well, pay attention, joe, and you children, too," she turned to rita and hugo, who had followed her report with interest. "i'll tell you the whole programme. we expect from fifty to sixty persons. of these the ten or fifteen who are extremely orthodox will lodge with the relatives of uncle leopold's wife. they are the sons and a daughter of his deceased nephew. these three families are wealthy and keep a strictly orthodox household, as do most in the town. so the pious ones can be comfortably housed there, and need have no fears on the score of religious observances. the rest will be lodged in the comfortable inn on the market place. i looked at the rooms there, and they are quite possible, allowing for the sort of place rawitsch is." "well, no one will expect to be provided with the accommodations of the 'kaiserhof' or the 'palace hotel.'" "certainly not," she laughed, "but there will be compensations. and now, don't interrupt again, joshua, else i will lose--" "the thread of the strategical plans for the invasion of rawitsch!" "joshua!" she assumed an injured air. "but, my dear girl, don't you see how delighted i myself am with all this? the most serious things can stand a bit of joking; but now i'll be real quiet, as well-behaved as hugo and rita, and all good children when they are having things explained to them. well, _avanti_." she hesitated an imperceptible moment, and then continued: "some of the most prominent families, among others the president of the congregation, offered to entertain some of the guests. in an unusual case like this we may avail ourselves of such invitations. they are the friends and acquaintances of the friedländer family; and besides the whole congregation considers--" "_khille_ is the proper term in this case," he laughingly suggested. "well, then, the whole khille, yes, the whole town, considers this day of honor to uncle leopold as its own." she knew that much depth of feeling lay hidden in her husband's jests. "these outsiders, too, are planning to confer especial honors upon him. at all events, the freedom of the city will be extended to him, for his philanthropy embraces all without distinction of religious belief." "then perhaps it might be appropriate for us to found 'the leopold friedländer home for widows and orphans' on that day, too?" she looked at him gratefully, and reached her hand across the table to him. he had not spoken to her of this plan. obeying a generous impulse suggested by her words, he proposed it as something self-evident. "with a capital of about one hundred thousand marks?" "joshua!" her voice trembled with deep excitement. hugo and rita regarded their father in astonishment. "o papa," the girl said softly in gratitude; while hugo showed the pride he felt in his father, who had decided upon the large sum without hesitation, and then, as if it were a mere aside, mr. benas continued: "the main thing is to assemble as large a number as possible in rawitsch, and to be sure that in respect to lodging everything is well arranged. now will follow the report of the commissariat: mrs. benas has the floor." his good humor infected his wife. "well, in regard to food. i shall send a capable jewish cook, who knows all about keeping _kosher_. there will be people to help her in rawitsch. a new table service will have to be bought,--that i attend to, here, and also whatever is necessary to complete the silver service." "you will provide, then, as i judge, a complete passover service for sixty persons. and what is to become of all of it afterwards?" "i have not thought of that yet. but it will not be wasted." "suppose each one were to receive his own service to take home as a souvenir?" she and the children laughed gayly. "that would not be so bad." "and for us quite worth the while, we should return with four new sets of table service." with an expression of content, he glanced at the costly silver service on the tea-table at which they were seated. "that's what i have been wishing for a long time; and if we are fortunate, we may receive a soup tureen with it." "you're a tease, joshua. why should there not be souvenirs of the day?" "but not exactly silver forks and knives. it might lead to sad complications." then as if an idea had suddenly occurred to him, he continued, "do you know, fanny, leave it all to me. what would you think if i bought so beautiful and valuable a silver service that it might be used after the festival for rita's future household? it would be fine to own silver dedicated on such an occasion. what do you think of it, rita?" at her father's words rita turned pale. "o papa!" she stammered. she felt hugo's eyes staring at her, and the blood rushed back to her cheeks. "you need not get white and red at the idea. the silver service might suggest a groom, but no one forces you to accept him." he was amused at his daughter's confusion. "at all events, you are of an age to justify such thoughts. however, i am quite ready to save this silver treasure for you in my safe just as long as you want. "joe, if you don't stop joking, we shall never finish. first i am the butt, then rita. but rita," she turned to her, "you know your father, and know he is never happier than when he's teasing us. you need not feel embarrassed by what he says. but you really do look as if you had never heard of a young girl of twenty marrying." while her mother was talking, rita tried to regain her self-possession. "mamma, it was only so curious,--the ideas that papa has--this silver." "five dozen; everything necessary for sixty persons. quite complete. renaissance, rococo, or empire ... perhaps the english style pleases you better?" he asked in fun. "please, joshua, do let the poor child alone. i should really like to consider the matter seriously." "well, then, to be quite serious; the question of the arrangements for the table is settled, and with that everything, i believe. you attend to the dishes; they need not exactly be limoges or old vienna. the silver i shall see about, with an idea to future use. i have no doubt, good things will go into the dishes, and enough, too. at such family festivals there is always enough and to spare. the fish and fowl of the region are famous, and other things, too. the matzoth will be baked especially for us, and gregorovius, of unter den linden, shall provide the apples for the _charoseth_. everything will be excellently arranged, i mean it seriously. and i am looking forward to the festival with much pleasure. whatever is intrusted to fanny benas, _née_ friedheim, of the family of akiba friedländer, can only be good and blessed." the last words were spoken gravely, with deep feeling. he arose, took his wife's hand and kissed it. "but you have not told us about one thing--about the chief reason for your going. what do the relatives think of dr. weilen's wish?" the children awaited their mother's answer in breathless expectation. hugo's eyes were fastened with sullen looks on his mother's lips; rita looked shy and anxious. it seemed to her as though her heart had stopped beating, and a choking sensation caught her at the throat. "i am decidedly curious to know what was your success." "he may come!" the face and attitude of the geheimrat showed decided interest. "really? how interesting! i was very doubtful of the issue." but hugo clenched his fist, and said vehemently: "impossible! how could they consent? he will spoil the holiness of the days. what does he want there? what does he wish of us? a stranger!" rita started at her brother's words. his harsh, unfriendly attitude hurt her; but she maintained her self-possession through the very resentment they aroused; she suppressed the sigh that betokened her inner struggle, and catching her breath, she said: "he is no stranger!" "that seems to have been the opinion of the rest of the family," mr. benas said to his son, "and it is really time, hugo, that you put an end to your childish and uncalled-for prejudice against dr. weilen. his personality certainly gives no occasion for such feeling, and he does not encroach upon your wishes and theories. he seems to me the last man to stand in your way." rita gave her father a look of gratitude. "he has no right to, and never shall have," hugo answered angrily. "you spoil everything with your intolerance. and now enough. i'd much rather hear what the pious old man thinks in his mild wisdom than listen to the opinions of a hard, callow youth in his folly." hugo ground his teeth, and refrained from answering. "well, fanny, how did it go?" "at first it seemed very strange to the various members of the family. the oldest son of uncle leopold, with whom he is living, cousin isidor, and his wife hannah, could not at first comprehend what the question was about. cousin isidor is already past seventy, and the horizon of his wife does not extend beyond the line connecting her room and the synagogue." involuntarily she glanced at hugo before she continued: "considering the narrow existence they lead, it is not to be wondered at. the daughters of uncle leopold, friederike and rebecca, and their husbands were also not a little astonished. i found their children, a few of whom have remained at home, equally unsympathetic; but all of them yielded without objection to the authority of uncle leopold, who lives among them like a patriarch. he said: 'if fanny benas, the daughter of my brother-in-law friedheim of rogasen, and of my sister henrietta, pleads for him, then he is surely a good man. and my sister goldine, his mother, was the darling of my mother and my father, zichrono livrochoh. she was named after her grandmother, golde freidchen, the wife of our grandfather, the gaon rabbi akiba, _zecher zaddik livrochoh_. goldine was the youngest of us fourteen children, and the first to die; and if her son wishes to come to me, the oldest and only one, who, _boruch ha-shem_, is still here, and if i have the fortune to survive until the day of the celebration, then he shall come. he shall come with the rest of you, and he shall rejoice with you. and i shall see the only child of my beloved sister goldine.' aunt riekel softly interrupted: 'but he is baptized!' an indescribable look of pain moved his withered old face; but it lasted only for a few moments, and then he answered in a mild voice: 'if he wishes to come, he shall come. perhaps golde freidchen has interceded for her great-grandchild that he should find his way back to the fold. for if a jew is baptized, and he calls out in his hour of death, _shema yisroel_, he shall be accounted a jew! shall i be more severe than _shem yisborach_?' profound humility and goodness were expressed in his words; and no one contradicted him." mrs. benas's recital was received in silence. she continued: "the person expected is evidently not the regierungsrat dr. weilen, but the son of aunt goldine, the youngest sister of uncle leopold friedländer." "and as such he'll come to them," said rita, dreamily. she had listened to her mother's tale as to a revelation. it seemed to her thirsting soul like a miracle from far distant times, and the words forced themselves to her lips involuntarily. "do you believe that, also?" asked mr. benas of his wife. "i am convinced a man such as he is will strike the right note." "so that is settled, too; and we may look forward to the celebration without concern. you must let dr. weilen know the result of your intercession." "i shall write to him to-morrow." * * * * * on the following afternoon mrs. benas was sitting in her room, looking meditatively before her, an expression of melancholy in her sweet, refined face. rita had just left her. mother and daughter had experienced an hour of profound agitation; rita had sought her in order to confess her love for victor. trembling and hesitating, she confided in her mother as in a friend; how the feeling had been awakened on the very first evening, when he referred to his loneliness, and how it had gradually grown, the more she saw of him. his amiable, open-hearted disposition had appealed to her; but above all his confiding intimacy which had found so little encouragement. hugo, in fact, had often spurned him rudely. it had always pained her to see a man, by nature so proud and gentlemanly, accept these rebuffs with patience and forbearance. once, when she tried to excuse hugo, he had said: "i understand his grief and indignation, and so i can forgive him. he must have suffered much before he arrived at a state of such intense resentment as to make him see an enemy in everyone with different opinions from his own. but some day we may find a point of contact; and until then his young anger shall not drive me away from the home of your parents, a home that has grown dear to me,--and from you, rita." since that time a secret understanding had existed between them. they had said nothing to each other; but she knew that he grew dearer to her from day to day. she was happy when he came, and missed him when he stayed away. she knew that he loved her; she knew it through the delicate and subtle sensitiveness that exalts the soul of a young girl in this phase of her life, endows her with intuitions, and makes each slightest impulse rich with meaning. then came that sacred hour of the new year's day,--and his letter. she confessed all to her mother, gradually overcoming the timidity and fear with which she had begun her recital, until her confession grew into a veritable pæan of love. her mother was deeply moved. at the moment she had no thought of the obstacles in the way of such a connection; she thought only of the happiness of her child. then she read dr. weilen's letter. rita's eyes rested on her mother's face to note the effect of his confessions. mrs. benas was profoundly touched. at first it merely interested her greatly, then it stirred her emotions. when she finished tears stood in her eyes. rita, sobbing in mingled joy and sorrow, sought refuge in her mother's arms. what would be the outcome of it all? for the present mrs. benas could give no answer. but she quieted her, lovingly caressed the cheeks wet with streaming tears, and urged her to be calm. nothing must be done precipitately, particularly because of the coming celebration. such consideration was due to the old sage to whom this day was to be dedicated. whatsoever might disturb the harmony, or cause bad humor or disquietude must be avoided. surely she was not asking too much in expressing the wish that until after the celebration no decision should be reached. in the meantime, things must remain as they were; and she was convinced, a man like dr. weilen, wise and prudent, would acquiesce. "but he may visit us?" rita anxiously questioned. "certainly; he may come as before." "and shall i say nothing to him, mamma? not speak to him of his letter? not of all i think and feel?" "i can't prescribe as to that, dear child. but i trust your tact. the private understanding that has existed between you two until now, i do not want to disturb, and i cannot. but what i can ask of you is that you give me time to consider, and that you in turn accept patiently the terms demanded by circumstances. do you promise me that, rita?" "yes, mamma; but dr. weilen?" "he will agree to whatever you want; and this evening you yourself shall tell him. i expect him to dinner, and i asked him to come a little earlier so as to have the chance to speak to him about the birthday celebration. i shall let you report to him that he will be a welcome guest there. and then you can tell him whatever your heart dictates; but your heart must not forget that with us jews feeling of the individual for himself must give way to feeling for something else--for the family; and that such considerations at times require personal sacrifices. these sacrifices have made us great and strong, and have aroused in us the capacity for self-surrender and self-sacrificing love. they are founded upon the noble sentiments of piety and duty. the man who loves you will understand; because very likely he unconsciously loves in you these ethical principles under which you have grown up, and which have laid their impress upon your personality, your culture, and your appearance." tenderly and proudly she looked at her daughter, in whom grace and modesty, dignity and humility, were charmingly blended, whose longing and love had not crowded out the feeling of obedience and compliance. rita kissed her mother's hand in respect and gratitude. "and shall i not tell him that i have made you my confidante?" "i leave that to you; only i should not like to be forced into an understanding with him now. leave everything as it was. you were content then, and you will lose nothing by the arrangement now." rita withdrew. mrs. benas was left to her own thoughts, not free from anxiety, yet full of hope for the happiness of her daughter. * * * * * the benases and their guests, dr. weilen and dr. rosenfeld, were spending the evening together most agreeably. the dinner had passed off pleasantly. mr. benas was in a happy frame of mind, and his good spirits dispelled the reserve and formality that at first prevailed. dr. weilen, with his usual tact and good nature, promptly fell in with and abetted the high spirits of his host. mrs. benas, too, after momentary embarrassment, contributed in her refined and clever manner and with her considerate hospitality, to the pleasure of the small circle. hugo was not so brusque as usual, owing to the benignant influence of his friend henry. rita seemed transformed by her secret happiness. modest and reserved as she always was, her silence was not noticed. at times she glanced at victor's face; and when their eyes happened to meet in love and perfect understanding, the blood rose precipitately to her cheeks. they had had a talk before dinner was served, and rita had given him the news that he was to be welcomed at uncle leopold's celebration. he had gathered her in his arms, and pressed a kiss upon her forehead. "my wife, my dear wife," he said with emotion. she drew closer to him, but made no answer. such was their betrothal--not the passionate, stormy love with which he had courted her on new year's day, but as though devoutly consecrating her. and she was happy. then she told him of her conversation with her mother, and spoke of his letter, which had given her a deep insight into his life, and had brought consolation to her as well as to her mother, especially upon one point. she hesitated as she said this, and he sealed her lips with a kiss: "no, truly, i am no apostate! and my love and faith toward you will last forever, no matter what may come. and you, rita?" "nothing shall separate me from you," she answered simply but resolutely, as if registering a vow. then they talked of her mother's request, and he readily consented to respect it. "if i am certain of your love, then i can reconcile myself to keeping this happiness to myself, until i can joyously proclaim it to the whole world. i must consent to the conditions your mother imposes, however trying they may be. at all events i shall see you; and we share a secret that makes us happy, and brings us yet closer together, if possible. when i look at you, my eyes will tell you that i love you, and i shall know that you are mine. and our eyes will meet in kisses, and every pressure of the hand will tell you of my hopes and longings. and this secret language which only we two understand will be more eloquent than spoken words." tears stood in her eyes. when he saw her before him, in her sweet purity and virgin modesty, it seemed impossible to him to carry out his self-denying resolutions. he drew her to him again, and said excitedly: "and must i do without you, be with you and not enfold you, not kiss you? impossible! how long must it be?" then he became calm again. "well, then, it must be." when later on, mrs. benas entered, he kissed her hand. not a word was said; yet they knew that each understood the other and that they were in accord. when the rest of the company joined them, nothing betrayed their secret conference. after dinner they gathered in the small drawing-room. dr. weilen's tactfulness made it easy to guide the conversation into general channels. he told of the successes of germany's colonial policy, and what far-reaching significance it possessed. "i do not quite understand why this policy is so obstinately opposed here," said mr. benas. "it is because the masses are short-sighted, and appreciate nothing that cannot be realized in the near future. their hand-to-mouth mode of living is the standard by which they measure everything. why spend money upon ventures that will profit only future generations? decidedly not. what nonsense! here are the pennies, here is the bread for their own stomachs. what business of ours is it, if the coming generation eats cake instead of hard, dry bread? to-day's policy knows no to-morrow. such is the logic of the narrow-minded and the illiberal, the philosophy of an insect with one day to live. it is obvious why the people espouse the policy, but it will not do to have it become the dominant policy. it has always been necessary to force upon the masses what was for their own good. reformers and tyrants have had to apply the same formulæ. they have always had to be firm, resolute, not easily discouraged. they had to rule! whatever they regarded as right, had to be carried through at every cost. world-power cannot be attained under a narrow local policy." "do you set great store by our colonial policy?" "decidedly so. for a long time i worked in the colonial department, and even now i take pleasure in following up our colonial affairs. the more i look into the matter, the more i am convinced that a world-power can be properly developed only upon a colonial basis." "the palestinian agricultural colonies for the eastern jews are also a part of the colonial policy," hugo said; and addressing himself directly to dr. weilen, he added: "i don't know whether this has ever occupied your attention." "surely it has; how can you doubt it? how could anyone who is chiefly occupied with such affairs pass it by unheeding? was it likely that i would be the exception? on the whole it is a matter that attracts more attention than is generally supposed, even in well-informed circles. the efforts now being made are well known. they are taken note of, even though not with approval. projects for the formation of an independent government would certainly not be favored. people might smile pityingly or contemptuously at them, perhaps oppose them as hostile to the constituted authorities. but the formula of reformers and tyrants applies to the jews as well: let them be strong of will, indomitable, not easily discouraged, and persistent." "dr. weilen!" the exclamation rang with doubt and hope. hugo stared with burning eyes, in an attempt to read victor's meaning. was he trifling, or was he serious? henry likewise looked at the speaker with surprise; his eyes seemed to plead: "do not make mock of what is sacred to us." then a menacing expression lit up his beautiful, noble face, as he said: "the leaders of this cause are aware of the importance of their undertakings, and they surely do not lack courage to carry them through." "are you amongst the leaders?" "not yet, but i hope to be; at any rate my life is entirely dedicated to the cause." he glanced involuntarily from dr. weilen to rita, and a pained smile flitted across his lips. dr. weilen caught the glance, and noticed that rita's pale face had flushed. in a flash, he recognized the tragedy of his young life; this enthusiast loved her. but devotion to his ideals, to his unhappy race, was the stronger motive, and like a hero, he bade adieu to all desires and hopes, strangled them before they could command him. rita must have had some suspicion of his feelings, else why had she blushed? he looked at her, but her eyes revealed only the most complete surrender to himself. deep sympathy for henry possessed him. a bond united them. henry had looked on the lovely flower, had watched in silence the glorious unfolding of its petals. as a friend of her brother, her friend, too, and a favorite of the family, he might have won her. but voluntarily he renounced her, and chose to tread the thorny path, at whose distant, far distant end beckoned the fulfilment of his ideals. how could he resign her? he studied the young man. how could he give her up,--rita? his eyes sought rita. on her countenance lay the reflection of happy pride and inner contentment. it had made her ineffably happy to hear him speak as he did of the question that engaged her sympathies, chiefly because it formed the supreme interest of the brother to whom she was attached so intimately and lovingly. mrs. benas likewise showed her satisfaction with dr. weilen's attitude, and she looked triumphantly first at her son and then at her husband. a slight, somewhat skeptical smile played about mr. benas's lips, while hugo, not able wholly to control his excitement, exclaimed: "and you yourself, dr. weilen, what is your opinion of the movement?" "from a purely theoretical point of view, as i said, i am throughout in favor of a colonial policy. i consider the expansion and the extension of our possessions an absolute necessity in order to meet the increased needs of the nation. i admire the keen foresight of the emperor, who has recognized this, and has made it his chief aim to fill the arteries of the kingdom with fresh, strong blood. the advantages of the undertaking will become apparent only to future generations, and it will then be difficult to understand the opposition of those who objected to his plans; and that for small considerations, because money considerations are always petty, unless they further great ends. to save at the wrong time and at the wrong place is always a poor policy; and to try to set aside important matters with trifling jests is simply stupid. you can't help despising your opponents, when you know positively that they don't understand what they oppose. in the minds of those who are thoroughly interested in the subject, there is no doubt that the coming century will be largely occupied with the development of colonial affairs, and that such measures will decidedly affect social conditions. mistakes will be made. there will be disappointments, but every pioneer enterprise must contend with that. the method of the reformer and the tyrant will have to be enforced, as has so often been done in the history of mankind. there is a power that stands behind justice, which obstinacy converts into injustice." here he paused and considered. his explanations had been listened to with the greatest interest. no objection was interposed, and so he continued: "now in regard to the colonial plans of the jews: no objection will be made by those who have accepted the colonial policy as their programme, and who expect in the near future to see a practical fulfilment of their carefully evolved plans. why should not the most beneficial results come from such colonization? civilization will in its movement return from west to east, where it began. why should not the descendants of those who carried it from its source to all quarters of the earth be the ones to bring it back? but i must not conceal from you that this is merely my personal view of the matter. recently, when i became absorbed in the question, because i had acquired an especial interest in it,"--he said this with unmistakable pointedness--"i found that i did not look at it from a merely objective and logical point of view, but that my sentiments were involved. at crucial moments you remember that you are the great-grandson of rabbi akiba friedländer. with pride i recall that our great-grandfather, rabbi eliezer, with one of his sons-in-law,--i think it was your father, mrs. benas,--was given an audience by frederick william iii in order to discuss the colonization of the jews in palestine, and to beg his protection. so long ago as that, and he an old rabbi from the province of posen! what crops out in me as a practical interest in colonial schemes, and what makes you, my friend, so deeply devoted to the cause, may be the legacy of our ancestry. possibly this prevents us from judging these matters quite fairly; but, then, our family, in whom this idea has been kept alive for generations, may fitly uphold it without incurring the charge of being dreamers or political schemers." he noticed how rita's face was transfigured while he spoke. he saw that his host was pleased, and that mrs. benas was beaming with calm content, and showed her pleasure and pride, that a descendant of rabbi akiba friedländer should hold these views. he felt henry's inspired gaze rest upon him in questioning surprise, and in hugo's face he read the same sentiments that filled his own soul at the time. "if only we could shout to the entire race," the boy exclaimed, overcome with emotion, "'don't forget your glorious past, be proud of your mission among the peoples of the earth, endure sorrow in hope of the day when you will enjoy an endless period of honor and self-confidence.'" rita rose involuntarily, and stood next to her brother. henry had also drawn near to his friend; and the three young people formed an impressive group--hugo in the proud posture of a conqueror, henry with the devoted expression of apostolic enthusiasm, and rita in pure happiness, the embodiment of youth and beauty awaiting victory. dr. weilen, regarding the trio pensively, went on to say: "young israel may not be deprived of its ideals; those ideals are too worthy, too potent, to be lost; their peculiarity should be cherished, not destroyed." he looked feelingly at rita, and she seemed to accept the glance as a promise. mrs. benas also read the message and a faint smile of content passed over her lips. the conversation then assumed a more general character, although they came back several times to the subject that had given dr. weilen occasion to present his views. dr. rosenfeld found an opportunity to express his opinions of the present position of the jews. he spoke in his melancholy, but sympathetic manner: "it is quite inexplicable that the jew so often lacks courage to acknowledge to himself exactly what he is. the adherents of other faiths think they must protect themselves against jewish influence, and they fear a loss of their national peculiarities. astounding that this instinct of self-preservation is lacking in the jew! that he is not proud and haughty enough to defend his characteristics and to uphold them, just as the other races do, especially since his inheritance includes such worthy and brilliant qualities. until recent times there was a bond that united the jews, it is true, not in free, courageous self-consciousness, but in humility and subjection. the bond was their faith. but to-day, when this faith is shaken,--for as soon as the revered old forms and customs are changed, it becomes insecure,--to-day when among many jews this faith is undermined by destructive criticism, by the onslaught of rationalism, something else must take its place, and that something is historical consciousness. everywhere except among the jews the feeling of nationality has reached a higher expression than ever. yet the consciousness of their great past and of their mighty cultural development would justify their taking such a position. it is urged that the religious, conservative israelite will continue to exist despite the modern jew; but one thing is forgotten, that every new generation is the modern generation; the old die off to make room for the younger. but where among the new, the newer, and the newest, in generation after generation, do you find those who maintain their traditions unaltered? let us not deceive ourselves. where is the jewish home to-day like the home of yesterday? the spirit of the new age has brought about a change even in families maintaining the old traditions with reverence and pride. at best, in some quiet, retired corner they build a temple in memory of the past, possibly only when an aged, venerable member of the family guards the sanctuary like a priest and patriarch." "rosenfeld," teased mr. benas, "your allusions are plainly personal." "forgive me, mr. benas," he answered, his pale face flushing, "it was no hidden allusion, but a plain reference to the example of your family, all the members of which, though living a modern life, and having discarded religious tradition, yet are preparing to celebrate a festival according to the old jewish custom. what is bringing them together, however, is not their faith, not their customs, but one of their number, who has attained the age of a patriarch,--an old man whom they wish to honor, whom they regard with devotion and affection. this old sage will be ninety years old, and these sentiments of the occasion are purely personal, concerning a single individual. it is not faith, only filial reverence. how long will israel continue to have patriarchs? how long will honor be brought to them? and if this bond is broken, and the historical sentiment does not grow strong in israel to take its place, what then? there are many who say, our mission fulfilled, we dare not complain, if we, the small minority, dissolve as an independent influence. one cannot oppose such a view; there is much to justify it, and it contains much truth. but it is a sad truth, and i should not like it to be my conviction; for i would not have my race to disappear. it is worthy to survive. it has great and glorious possibilities. under the sunshine of a free development these will blossom forth and bear fine fruit and make israel great among the nations." his speech was apparently dispassionate, and his arguments were set forth clearly and objectively. but his voice vibrated, as with suppressed grief, a bitter appeal, and inner distress. his noble, quiet countenance seemed to convey a silent plaint, but the speech of his eyes was eloquent. they expressed entreaty, enthusiasm, and hope. mr. benas was lost in thought, while hugo impulsively clasped his friend's hand. the suspense and excitement that had taken hold of all was broken only when mrs. benas asked them to think of more material matters, and invited them to take a glass of beer or wine and a sandwich. the clever woman had waited for the right moment. they chatted yet a while of indifferent matters. somewhat later, when dr. weilen found himself alone with rita, he asked: "who is this dr. rosenfeld?" "a student friend of hugo's. hugo brought him here, and he has become a favorite of all of us." "of you, too, rita?" "yes," she said simply. her candor pleased him. "have you been with him much?" "he became my friend, especially during the last few months, when he gave me lessons in philosophy, and introduced me to the ideas of the great thinkers." "he loves you, rita?" she looked at him with moist eyes, and said in a low voice: "he has never told me so." "who could live near you and not love you? but he is carved out of the stuff of which martyrs are made." involuntarily they both looked at henry who was approaching with hugo. * * * * * a few days before the passover festival the excitement and bustle apt to precede great events took possession of the little town of rawitsch. the preparations for the celebration of the ninetieth birthday of leopold friedländer were in full swing. mrs. benas and her daughter rita had been upon the scene of action for three days. they had personally directed the preparations, and assisted their relatives. mrs. benas was staying with her cousin rebecca strelitz, the oldest daughter of uncle leopold. on the day after her arrival, she astonished all rawitsch by appearing at the market with rebecca and friederike, the second daughter, who had married meyer pinkus, a city alderman. they were accompanied by the cook, whom she had sent from berlin a week before. "the frau geheimrätin deigned to superintend, in her own person, the buying of turkeys and ducks and geese," the poulterer had reported at the _minchah_ service. what could not be had in the little village had been ordered from berlin; and under the direction of uncle leopold's daughter-in-law hannah, at whose house the celebration was to take place, baking and preserving and the preparing of all sorts of delicacies had been busily going on for several days, in a kitchen especially fitted out for the occasion. to rita and to two young girls from breslau and mannheim,--who had also come with their mothers, the granddaughters of uncle leopold,--the life in the little village seemed extraordinary. the great-niece as well as the great-grandchildren had been raised under entirely different circumstances, and all the ceremonial customs observed in preparation for the week of the passover by the entire community, but especially in the homes of their relatives, were new and strange to them. on the last evening before the beginning of the passover they had been present at the _chometz batteln_. the venerable old man took the lead, carrying a taper, some quills, and a large cooking spoon. he was followed by his seventy-year-old son isidor and his wife. thus they all went through the entire house in order to remove the last vestiges of leaven. rita was especially impressed with the seriousness with which this was undertaken, and with the extreme significance attached to these customs. the participants clearly laid greater store by the passover than by the anniversary celebration. the religious observance took precedence of the personal. during the day many more of the relatives arrived, among them several members of the family from the russian city of pinsk. they were adherents of the old orthodoxy, with even a strong leaning in some of them toward chassidism. they had accepted the hospitality of a distant relative who was especially pious. at the inn, "the golden swan," the guests from munich and vienna were lodged; and on the afternoon of the next day, all the rest were expected, among them mr. benas, hugo, and dr. weilen. the tall poulterer, so-called because of his vocation of judging live poultry, was the chronicler of the village, and shmul weissbacher, who was called "rebbe on the contrary," because he always took opposite sides from the person who spoke to him, ran from house to house spreading the latest news; the former circulating a rumor, the latter denying the report. the excitement in the community grew from hour to hour. in order to make sufficient room for the table, two large chambers had been thrown into one by the removal of the partition. the poulterer reported that they were taking out the walls of the house, while "rebbe on the contrary" declared they weren't tearing down the walls at all, merely a bit of boarding between the rooms. at all events mrs. benas's scheme furnished an appropriate apartment. the big room looked decidedly inviting, with its decorations of white bunting and green pine boughs. adjoining was the spacious "best room" of the house; here the large doors dividing the rooms had been removed, and the tables so disposed as to form one large banquet board. the general effect was fine. at twilight the guests assembled for the seder. the geheimrat, who arrived somewhat early to consult with his wife, still occupied with her arrangements, was most agreeably surprised. "you have managed splendidly," he said, gallantly kissing his wife's hand. "truly, wonderfully!" everybody agreed with him, when, after greeting the head of the family, they sat down to the table. it was covered with fine white damask, and literally glistened with silver and glass. the wine sparkled in magnificently cut caraffes. it had come with the pale oranges from the colonies of the holy land. everything was arranged most effectively. the geheimrat had kept his word, and had sent such costly, handsome silver that it might have served for the table of a prince. and like a prince leopold friedländer sat among his own. to-day the modest, honest, unassuming man was a king; not only the king of the family celebration, but the king of a religious festival. in a robe of white, once his wedding costume, and later to be used as his shroud, a white cap bound with a wide silver band resting on his snow-white hair, he sat supported by soft pillows, covered with white embroidery. at his side sat his daughter-in-law, hannah, in a grey brocade dress, with a heavy golden chain about her neck, and a cap of ivory-white lace bedecked with lilac ribbons pressed low on her forehead, the traditional head-dress of strictly orthodox jewesses. friederike and rebecca, her two oldest daughters, likewise wore caps, of more modern fashion however. the relatives from pinsk still clung to the old fashion of the silk _sheitel_, with which a married jewess entirely conceals her hair, replacing her natural adornment by costly jewels. strands of pearls were wound about their heads. in fact all the russian members of the family displayed such a wealth of diamonds and jewels that mr. benas could hardly suppress a smile of amusement. the husbands of the two ladies from pinsk were attired in long silk caftans, and side-curls escaped on each cheek from beneath their caps. in contrast to these were the elegant modern gowns worn by the rest of the family. the young women were arrayed in light airy dresses, and their coiffures--brown or blonde or reddish or deep black,--suggested botticelli pictures. the men were in full dress. and the company was no less diverse in its composition than in the appearance of its members. along with the representatives of the old judaism, which had maintained itself unchanged for centuries, all shades and grades of belief were represented. there were the orthodox, the pious, the conservative, the liberal, the reformed,--and an apostate! similarly, all social stations were represented: high officials, an oberverwaltungsrat, and an attorney-general from munich--descended from the south german branch of the friedländers--professors, physicians, lawyers, engineers, manufacturers, and merchants. there was lacking only a representative of the rabbis. there were several in the family; but they had been prevented from coming because of the necessity of officiating during the holidays. among the younger generation there were gifted youths of studious habits, two bavarian officers and an austrian officer in uniform; barristers, assessors, engineers, tradesmen, and even those who had learnt a craft, and yet there was harmony in this composite picture,--a harmony created by the common sentiment possessing all in this hour. leopold friedländer drew the large silver seder platter towards him. it was decorated with the symbolic dishes of the service. the golden shells at the four corners contained the charoseth, the bitter herbs, the egg roasted in ashes, and the salt water. in the middle were the matzoth covered with a white silk cloth, on which were embroidered, in gold, lions supporting the shield of david worked in silver and jewels. under this stood the blessings in hebrew letters. a granddaughter had executed this beautiful bit of needlework. and now the treble voice of a five-year-old boy, the son of a great-great-grandchild of the patriarch, was heard saying the first words of the haggadah: "_mah nishtaneh ha-layloh hazeh?_" this little boy, sitting at the table of his ancestors, was the representative of the fifth living generation. he traced his ancestry directly back to the rabbis eliezer and akiba friedländer, known as learned and high-minded men, whose virtues and piety, attainments and generosity, had brought honors to them, not only from the jews, but also from those of other faiths. when little jacob, in childlike tones, but clearly and distinctly asked the prescribed question, was leopold friedländer thinking of his father and grandfather? for he bent over his haggadah, and tears flowed from his weary old eyes. deep emotion took hold of the company. they all looked from the old man to the child,--who was staring about him with wide-open eyes and with unsuspecting curiosity,--and then again from the child to the old man. all sorts of questions and ideas crowded into the minds of the guests. the old judaism and the new,--how would they exist together? peacefully and quietly as in this hour? and would youth listen devoutly when age taught the lessons from the history of the race? would the young people of the future gather about the patriarchs? would they leave the busy life, the gay bustle of existence, its struggles, and its duties in search of consecration and peace? such a miracle was happening in this simple jewish home. in a spirit of reverence they followed the recital of the haggadah, as the patriarch intoned in a feeble but impressive voice, the queer, outlandish, talmudic, and casuistic interpretations of the festival. and when, with trembling hands, he filled the tall silver beaker with the wine destined for the prophet elijah, he rose in his chair, and with the expression of religious faith imprinted upon his aged features, exclaimed, _leshonoh habooh bi-yerusholoyim_, a spirit of awe descended upon the company. no one seemed able for the moment to throw off the inspiring impression, not even those who failed to share the hopes expressed in the prayer. hugo benas was most deeply affected. "so it must be," he whispered to his mother, who sat next to him. "though worlds apart in their views, in standards of life, in position, in culture, they are united by ties of race. and wherever jews live in this way, a spiritual zion will arise, as here, in this humble abode." * * * * * the assembled relatives had drawn close together during these holidays. points of contact had appeared, the old bonds had been renewed, new ones had been formed; and with complacency they told one another of the many members of the family who had attained high positions in civil life. honor was paid to those who had kept the religious traditions uncontaminated. undisturbed harmony reigned, and not even victor weilen formed a discordant element. curiously enough, one of the pinsker kin, who knew nothing of victor's apostasy (for the subject had not been referred to), was most attracted to him; and victor questioned the pious and intelligent man about the condition of the jews in russia. it was of interest to him to hear how the old orthodoxy had been preserved there, and had become a factor in politics, in which, despite their religious segregation, the jews were necessarily involved. mr. benas, however, could not resist a good-humored yet slightly satirical remark, when he repeatedly saw these two men together. "under the shelter of the patriarch, the orthodox and the apostate come together," he said to hugo, who responded: "that is zion." with these impressions fresh in mind, the benases returned home; and as a result of their influence the union of weilen with rita was not opposed, not even by hugo. since the evening on which dr. weilen had so freely stated his views concerning colonization, hugo had been less distant toward him, and in the course of time the relation between them grew in cordiality. they had discussed the jewish question repeatedly, and hugo was always agreeably impressed by the man's calm, his lack of prejudice, and his sincerity. such qualities counted doubly in his case. they had also touched upon his change of belief, and dr. weilen had said in regard to it: "the new belief that i adopted could give me nothing, just as the loss of the other had taken nothing from me, because i was not devout in this sense; and that liberated me, and it keeps me free even to-day, as a mature man, to acknowledge and associate myself with those to whom i am attached by a bond which has a deeper hold than this or that rite or ceremony can possibly have." and when hugo saw him so full of tact, taking a cordial interest in all who flocked about the patriarch, on the spot that since then he called "zion," he had taken him into his young heart, readily fired with enthusiasm. he understood his sister's love for this man, and he no longer resisted the inevitable outcome: that she should become his wife according to the laws of the land in which they lived. but then ... then! the engagement was celebrated privately. on the evening of its announcement, when the family was gathered together, the geheimrat, who had feared hugo's impetuous disposition, and who now saw him consent so joyously, gave him a great surprise, too. this day on which his daughter was to be made so happy, should also be of special significance to his son. he announced to hugo that he was ready to interest himself in the colonies in palestine, and to help them financially. with overflowing gratefulness hugo flung his arms about his father, and kissed and fondled his mother. rita and victor declared that they regarded this decision as their finest betrothal gift. hugo was happy. "then i may dedicate myself entirely to these aims? when i have passed my final examinations?" he said, half in question and half in decision. mr. benas frowned slightly: "that means i must give not only my millions but also my son to the cause?" the words sounded good-humored, yet as though he were making fun of himself. "that is building utopia at heavy expense to me." "zion, father, zion, wherever it may be." "_noblesse oblige_," mrs. benas interrupted. "that was the lesson of our visit to uncle leopold's, those memorable days under the shelter of the patriarch." "mamma is right," said victor. "and if all jews thought and acted as you have done, dear father, then happiness and hope would find lodging even among the unfortunate members of our persecuted race, and blessings would spring up. where? well, the world is so big and so great.... civilization is so eager to conquer, and israel so persistent and enduring." his tone was cordial, convincing, and soothing. involuntarily rita stepped to his side, and he drew her gently to him. "and he who speaks thus, father, is--" "he is the _fiancé_ of our daughter, of your sister, hugo," mr. benas quickly interrupted. * * * * * it was spring time. in beauty and splendor the spring had taken possession of the earth! in youth, joy, and glory everything seemed changed, and awakened to new life by the sweet kisses of the sun. lovers are peculiarly sensitive to such joy. entranced, rita and victor were looking out from the terrace of the house upon the park, which, in its green attire, lay before them in easter splendor. victor had taken rita's hand, and held it in silent happiness. hugo approached them with two open letters in his hand. "mother said i should find you here." "is it not beautiful here, hugo?" asked his sister. "at this time of the year berlin always seems wonderful to me, especially out here. how glorious it is!" he paid no attention to her remarks and said: "i looked for you to show you these letters, one from henry, and the other...." he looked at one of the letters. "elkish informs me that he has decided to retire." her expression became sad: "we might have foreseen that," she said in a low voice. "he wishes to return with his sister to his home in lissa." "what does father say?" "he feels he must accept the resignation, and will, of course, allow him a proper pension." victor had listened in silence to the conversation between sister and brother. "is he an old retainer of your house?" rita nodded assent. "is he going because i have come? does his fanaticism drive him away?" "perhaps, but may be he is worn out." it was apparent from the tone of her voice that she herself had no faith in her reassuring words. "o no," said hugo, "he goes because he can no longer comprehend us, so he writes, and he does not wish to make the leave-taking hard, therefore...." "he does not wish to see me again?" rita cried out in pain. superiority was sharply expressed in his countenance, strong self-consciousness, untempered by sympathy. rita looked at weilen as though to beg his pardon, while hugo's serious eyes gazed into vacancy. for several minutes there was silence, then dr. weilen asked: "and what does your friend rosenfeld write?" hugo breathed freely, as if a burden had been lifted from off his soul. "he! he wishes you joy from the bottom of his heart. he is delighted to hear that rita is happy." then he looked over the letter as if searching for a particular passage. "here: 'i thank you for the news of your sister's engagement. such a girl's choice can only bring happiness, and make her happy; for truth and purity are united in her, and such natures as hers are sure to find what is right. what little i know of dr. weilen warrants this assurance. dr. weilen seems to me a man of deep insight and fine feeling, in whom strength and tenderness go together--qualities desirable in the husband of a highly intellectual woman like rita. devout in her tender soul and tolerant in her clear head, that is her personality. her mission is to minister to the happiness of one individual. but as for us, we must think of the common weal, and to it we will dedicate our strength and our blood. and now let us set forth on the road, even though it be wearisome. let us be up and doing.... let us labor in behalf of our co-religionists." he folded the letter. "yes, that shall be our mission." mr. and mrs. benas had stepped into the door and stood looking at their children. they had overheard hugo's last words, and they appreciated the solemnity of the moment. and the consummation of their hopes was glorified by the soft, golden radiance of the spring. glossary (_all words given below, unless otherwise specified, are hebrew. the transliteration aims to reproduce the colloquial pronunciation of hebrew words by german jews._) al chet. "for the sin," beginning of a confession of sins. amhorez. ignoramus. amrazim. plural of the previous word. ignoramuses. baal-milchomoh. soldier. baale-batim. householders. substantial and respectable members of the community, who contribute to its support. bar-mitzvah. religious majority, at the age of thirteen, when a jewish lad is expected to take all religious duties upon himself. bekovet. honorable; dignified. besomim. spices, used at the ceremony of _habdalah_, marking the end of the sabbath. boruch ha-shem. "blessed be the name" (of god). charoseth. a mixture of apples, raisins, wine, cinnamon, etc., used at the _seder_, symbolic of the mortar which the israelites prepared in egypt. chas ve-sholem. "mercy and peace." heaven forbid! chavrusseh. society; company. chazen. cantor; precentor. chochmes. wise ideas; oversubtle notions. chometz batteln. to do away with all leaven (before passover). chutzpeh. arrogance; audacity; impudence. davvening (?). reciting the prayers of the liturgy. evadde. assuredly; certainly. fromm (ger.). pious; observant (of religions and ritual ceremonies). gemoreh. the talmud. get. a bill of divorce. goy. a non-jew. khille. jewish congregation; jewish community. kiddush. sanctification; the ceremony ushering in the sabbath or a holiday. kosher. ritually permitted. maaseh. a story; an anecdote. mah nishtaneh ha-layloh hazeh. "what distinguishes this night" (from all other nights); the question introducing the narrative of the exodus from egypt in the seder service of the passover nights. mairev. evening service. malkeh. queen. matzoth. cakes of unleavened bread. melech. king. menorah. candlestick used on _chanukkah_ or sabbath. meshugge. crazy. meshummed. apostate. mikveh. ritual bath. minchah. afternoon service. minyan. a company of ten men, the minimum for a public service. mishpocheh. family in the wider sense; collateral branches as well as direct descendants; kin. mogen dovid. "the shield of david." a jewish emblem. narronim. (ger. with heb. ending). fools. nebbich. (slavic). an expression of pity. poor thing! too bad! omed. reading desk of the cantor in the synagogue. oser. "forbidden." expression of defiance: you bet i won't; i'd like to catch myself, etc. oshamnu bogadnu. "we have trespassed, we have dealt deceitfully." first two words in the alphabetic confession of sins. ovinu malkenu. "our father, our king." beginning of the lines of a well-known prayer. _see next word._ ovinu malkenu chosvenu be-sefer parnossoh ve-chalkoloh. "our father, our king, inscribe us in the book of sustenance and maintenance." one line of a well-known prayer. parchonim. riff-raff; small fry; vermin. pesach. feast of unleavened bread; passover. pleitegeher. (heb. and ger.). an habitual bankrupt. posheh yisroel. "a sinner in israel"; one who disregards the ceremonial law of judaism. rav. officiating rabbi. rebbetzin. (heb. with ger. suffix). wife of the officiating rabbi. roshekol. head of the jewish community. seder. home service on the first two nights of the passover. shabbes. sabbath. shabbes goy. a non-jew engaged, often by all the families in a jewish congregation, to do work forbidden the jew on the sabbath, such as kindling a fire, etc. shadchen. marriage broker. shammes. verger; beadle; sexton. sheitel (ger.). a covering for the head, to hide the hair of a married jewess. shem yisborach. "the name (of god) be blessed." shema yisroel. "hear, o israel"; beginning of the jewish confession of faith. shicksel. (heb. with ger. suffix). drastic expression for a non-jewish girl. shikker. habitual drunkard. shiveh. "seven" days of mourning, immediately after a death occurs in a family. shivoh oser be-tamuz. "seventeenth day of tamuz"; a fast day commemorating the first breach in the walls of jerusalem by nebuchadnezzar, who took the temple itself three weeks later. shnorrers (ger.). beggars. sholosh sudes. the third meal on the sabbath. shul (ger.). synagogue. shulchan oruch. the jewish code of ritual laws, etc. sukkoth. feast of tabernacles. talles. prayer-scarf. talmid chochom. a jewish scholar, learned specifically in jewish lore. tashlich. "thou wilt cast"; ceremony connected with the afternoon of the first day of new year, and observed at a running stream or at the seashore. trefa. ritually unfit for food. tzores. trials; tribulations. waigeschrieen (ger.). woe is me. yevorechecho adonay ve-yishmerecho. "may the lord bless thee and keep thee." yichus. aristocracy; good family connections. yiddishkeit (ger.). jewishness. yom kippur. day of atonement. yontef. holiday; festival. zecher zaddik livrochoh. "the remembrance of the righteous is for a blessing." zechus. merit; privilege. zichrono livrochoh. "his memory is for a blessing." the lord baltimore press baltimore, md., u. s. a. the white terror and the red the white terror and the red a novel of revolutionary russia by a. cahan author of "yekl" and "the imported bridegroom." [illustration] new york a. s. barnes & company copyright, by a. s. barnes & company _all rights reserved_ _published february, _ _second printing, february, _ _third printing, march, _ contents. chapter page i. an affront to his czar ii. the white terror iii. pievakin pleads guilty iv. the "demonstration" v. pavel's first step vi. a meeting on new terms vii. "terrorism without violence" viii. makar's canvass ix. a day underground x. the czar's escape xi. a mysterious arrest xii. a bewildering encounter xiii. a gendarme's sister xiv. underground miroslav xv. a warning xvi. clara at home xvii. the countess' discovery xviii. pavel at boyko's court xix. strawberries xx. a "conspiracy trip" xxi. makar's father xxii. from cellar to palace xxiii. an unforeseen suggestion xxiv. vladimir finds his cause xxv. clara becomes "illegal" xxvi. on sacred ground xxvii. a postponed wedding xxviii. a second courtship xxix. a hunted monarch xxx. the mystery of a shop xxxi. a reassuring search xxxii. the red terror xxxiii. the revelation xxxiv. the czar takes courage xxxv. a hunted people xxxvi. a "paper from the czar" xxxvii. the defence committee xxxviii. the nihilist's guard xxxix. the riot xl. light out of darkness xli. pavel becomes "illegal" xlii. ominous footsteps xliii. a message through the wall the white terror and the red the white terror and the red. chapter i. an affront to his czar. alexander ii. passed part of the summer of in a german health-resort taking the mineral waters. when not in the castle in which he was staying with his train he affected the life of an ordinary citizen. he did so as much from necessity as from choice. czar or subject, the same water must be drunk at the same spot and hour by all who seek its cure. nor can any distinction be made in the matter of the walk which the patient is to take after draining his two or three gobletsful. the promenade at a watering place is a great parade-ground for the display of plumage, the gayest and costliest gowns being reserved for the procession that follows the taking of the remedy; but while the race is under way and everybody is striving to throw everybody else into the shade, the fact of their being there pierces each dress as with "x" rays, showing their flesh to be of the same fragile clay. so the czar accepted the levelling effect of the place good-naturedly and sought diversion in the unsustained rôle of a common mortal. unsustained, because he carried his gigantic, beautiful form with a graceful self-importance and a martial erectness that betrayed his incognito even in the open country stretches to which he would stroll off in search of mild adventure and flirtation. it was a late afternoon in the valley. the river glittered crimson. the hills on the other side of the summer town were capped by a sultry haze. donkeys used in ascending these hills were trotting about impishly or standing in stupid row awaiting custom. the sun blazed down upon a parade of a hundred countries, including a jet black prince from africa, a rajah, a chinaman in dazzling silks, a wealthy galician jew in atlas, and a pasha with german features. the czar, his immense figure encased in a light frock coat of excellent fit, was sauntering along apparently unaccompanied except by his terrier and cane. when saluted he would raise his straw hat and nod his enormous well-shaped head with a cordiality that bordered on good-fellowship. he seemed to relish this exchange of courtesies with people who were not his subjects in this little republic of physical malady. it was as though he felt apart from his autocratic self without feeling out of that pampering atmosphere of deference and attention which was his second nature; and he gave an effect of inhaling his freedom as one does the first whiffs of spring air. as to his fellow patients, they either discovered something majestic in the very dog that followed him, or were struck by the knuckles of his ungloved hands, for example, as if it were remarkable that they should be the same sort of knuckles as their own. he was strikingly well-built and strikingly handsome. he wore thick close-cropped side whiskers of the kind that is rarely becoming, but his face they became very well indeed, adding majesty to a cast of large, clear-cut features. it was the most monarchical face of its time, and yet it was anything but a strong face. his imposing side whiskers and moustache left bare a full sensuous mouth and a plump weak chin; his blueish eyes gave forth suggestions of melancholy and anguish. interest in him was whetted by stories of his passion for princess dolgoruki, lady in waiting to the czarina; so the women at the watering place tried to decipher the tale of his liaison in those sad amative eyes of his. two refined looking, middle-aged women attracted attention by the bizarre simplicity with which one of them was attired and coiffured. she was extremely pale and made one think of an insane asylum or a convent. she was grey, while her companion had auburn hair and was shorter and flabbier of figure. they were conversing in french, but it was not their native tongue. the one with the grey hair was pani oginska, a polish woman; the other a russian countess named anna nicolayevna varova (varoff). they had first met, in this watering place, less than a fortnight ago, when a chat, in the course of which they warmed to each other, led to the discovery that their estates lay in neighbouring provinces in little russia. they were preceded by a slender youth of eighteen in a broad-brimmed straw hat and a clean-shaven elderly little man in one of soft grey felt. these were prince pavel alexeyevich boulatoff, a son of the countess by a former marriage, and alexandre alexandrovich pievakin, his private tutor, as well as one of his instructors at the gymnasium[a] of his native town. pavel's straw hat was too sedate for his childish face and was pushed down so low that a delicately sculptured chin and mouth and the turned up tip of a rudely hewn russian nose was all one could see under its vast expanse of yellow brim. the old man knew no german and this was his first trip abroad, so his high-born pupil, who had an advantage over him in both these respects, was explaining things to him, with an air at once patronising and respectful. presently pavel interrupted himself. [a] a classical russian high school modelled after its german namesake. "the czar!" he whispered, in a flutter. "the czar!" he repeated over his shoulder, addressing himself to his mother. pievakin raised his glance, paling as he did so, but was so overawed by the sight that he forthwith dropped his eyes, a sickly expression on his lips. when the men came face to face with their monarch they made way and snatched off their hats as if they were on fire. countess varoff, pavel's mother, curtseyed deeply, her flaccid insignificant little body retreating toward the side of the promenade and then sinking to the ground; while the polish woman proceeded on her way stiffly without so much as a nod of her head. the czar returned the greeting of the russian woman gallantly and disappeared in the rear of them. the group walked on in nervous silence, the two women now in the lead. when they reached a deserted spot the youth suddenly flushed a violent red, and, thrusting out his finely chiselled chin at his mother, he said, in quick pugnacious full-toned accents as out of keeping with his boyish figure as his hat: "mother, you are not going to keep up acquaintance with a person who has offered an insult to our czar." "paul! what has come over you?" the countess stammered out, colouring abjectly as she paused. "i mean just what i say, mother." the elderly little man by his side looked on sheepishly, the cold sweat standing in beads on his forehead. "don't mind this wild boy, i beg of you," anna nicolayevna said to the polish woman. "don't pay the least attention to him. he imagines himself a full grown man, but he is merely a silly boy and he gives me no end of trouble. don't take it ill, _ma chère_." she rattled it off in a great flurry of embarrassment, straining the boy back tenderly, while she was condemning him. "i don't take it ill at all," pani oginska answered tremulously. "he's perfectly right. your acquaintance has been a great pleasure to me, countess, but i can see that my company at this place would be very inconvenient to you. adieu!" she walked off toward a row of new cottages, and anna nicolayevna, the countess, stood gazing after her like one petrified. "you are a savage, pasha," she whispered, in russian. "why am i? i have done what is right, and you feel it as well as i do," he returned hotly, in his sedate, compact, combative voice, looking from her to his teacher. when he was excited he sputtered out his sentences in volleys, growling at his listener and seemingly about to flounce off. this was the way he spoke now. "why am i a savage? can you afford to associate with a woman who will behave in this impudent, in this rebellious manner toward the czar? can you, now?" "that's neither here nor there," she said, with irritation, as they resumed their walk. "she is a very unhappy creature. all that she holds dear has been taken from her. her husband was hanged during the polish rebellion and now her son, a college student, has been torn from her and is dying in prison of consumption. if you were not so heartless you would have some pity on her." "her husband was hanged and her son is in prison and you wish to associate with her! do you really? what do you think of it, alexandre alexandrovich?" "a very painful incident," pievakin murmured, wretchedly. "as if i were eager for her company," she returned, timidly. "as if one could help the chance acquaintances that fall into one's way while travelling. besides, _she_ is no rebel. indeed, she is one of the most charming women i ever met, and to hear her story is enough to break a heart of stone. you have no sympathy, pasha." "she is no rebel! why, if she did in russia what she did here a minute ago she would be hustled off to siberia in short order, and it would serve her right, too. and because i don't want my mother to go with such a person i have no sympathy." "pardon me, anna nicolayevna," pievakin interposed, with embarrassed ardour, "but if i were you i should keep out of her way. she is an unfortunate woman, but, god bless her,--pasha is right, i think." "i should say i was," the boy said, triumphantly. "she wouldn't dare do such a thing in russia, would she? but then in russia a woman of that sort would have no chance to do anything of the kind. oh, i do hate the germans for exposing the czar to these insults. it is simply terrible, terrible. couldn't they arrange it so that he should not have to rub shoulders with every tom, dick and harry and be exposed to every sort of affront? and yet when i say so i am a savage and have no heart." he gnashed his teeth and burst into tears. "hush, dear, i didn't mean it. don't be excited, now." "but you did mean it; you know you did." "sh, calm down, pasha," the old man besought him, and pavel's features softened. alexandre alexandrovich was the only teacher at the high school of whom pavel was fond. he was an old-fashioned little man, with cravats of a former generation and with features and movements which conveyed the impression that he was forever making ready to bow. his cackling good humour when the recitations were correct and fluent, his distressed air when they were not; his mixed timidity and quick temper--these things are recalled with fond smiles in miroslav. he was attached to both his subjects and when put on his mettle by the attention of his class he really knew how to put life into the dullest lesson. on such occasions his timid manner would disappear, and he would draw himself up, and go strutting back and forth with long, defiant steps and hurling out his sentences like a domineering rooster. it was only when a lesson of this sort was suddenly disturbed by some sally from a scapegrace of a pupil that pievakin would fly into a passion and then he would take to jumping about, tearing at his own hair, and groaning as though with physical pain. pavel was perhaps the most ardent friend alexandre alexandrovich had in all miroslav. the young prince was in a singular position at the gymnasium. somehow things were always done in a way to make one remember that he was prince boulatoff and a nephew of the governor of the province of which miroslav was the capital. he was the only boy who usually came to school in a carriage and it seemed as though the imposing vehicle had the effect of isolating him from the other boys. as to his teachers, they took a peculiar tone with him--one of ill-concealed reverence which would betray itself with all the more emphasis when they tried to take him to task. the upshot was that most of the other pupils, including the only other prince in the class (who was also the wildest boy in it) kept out of pavel's way, while those who did not treated him with a servility that was even more offensive to him than the aloofness of the rest. he had made several attempts to get on terms of good fellowship with two or three of the boys he liked, but his own effort to laugh and frolic with them had jarred on him like a false note. he had finally settled down to a manner of haughty reticence, keeping an observant eye on his classmates and finding a peculiar pleasure in these silent observations. the only two teachers who did not indulge him were pievakin and the teacher of mathematics, a cheerful hunchback with a pale distended face lit by a pair of comical blue eyes, whom the boys had dubbed "truncated cone." the teacher of mathematics made pavel feel his exceptional position by treating him with special harshness. as to pievakin, who had begun by addressing the aristocratic youth with an embarrassed air, he had gradually adopted toward him a manner of fatherly superiority that developed in the boy's heart a filial attachment for the old pedagogue. in order to increase his income pavel had made him his private tutor, although he stood high in his class and needed no such assistance, and this summer, when the old man complained of rheumatism, he had caused his mother to invite him to the german resort. * * * * * when they reached their hotel the countess unburdened herself to her son's tutor of certain memories which interested her now far more than did her unexpected rupture with the polish woman. she described a court ball at st. petersburg at which the present czar, then still czarowitz, conversed for five minutes with her. she treated the gymnasium teacher partly as she would her priest, partly as if he were her butler, and now, in her burst of reminiscence, she overhauled her past to him with the whole-hearted, childlike abandon which is characteristic of her race and which put the humble old teacher ill at ease. "he told me to take good care of my 'pretty eyes and golden eyebrows,'" she said. "and yet it was for these very eyebrows that pavel's father disliked me." she had been the pet daughter of a wealthy nobleman, high in the service of the ministry for foreign affairs, but pavel's father, and her living husband, from whom she was now practically separated, had almost convinced her that to be disliked was her just share in life. her parents and sisters were dead. she had a little boy by her second marriage, but she was still in love with the shadow of her first husband, and the son he had left her was the one passion of her life. having spent her youth in the two foreign countries to which her father's diplomatic career took the family, she deprecated, in a dim unformulated way, many of the things that surrounded her in her native land. she was unable to reconcile her luminous image of the emperor with the mediæval cruelties that were being perpetrated by his order. she was at a loss to understand how such a gentle-hearted man could send to the gallows or to the living graves of siberia people like the polish patriots. the compulsory religion of the orthodox russian church, too, with its iron-clad organisation and grotesque uniforms, impressed her as a kind of spiritual gendarmerie. yet she accepted it all as part of that panorama of things which whispered the magic word, "russia." and now the sight of the czar had rekindled memories of her better days and stirred in her a submissive sense of her cheerless fate. pavel was meanwhile putting the case of the polish woman to onufri, one of the two servants who accompanied them in their present travels--a retired hussar with a formidable moustache in front of a pinched hollow-cheeked face. "her highness, your mother, is good as an angel, sir," was onufri's verdict. "and you are stupid as a cork," pavel snarled. his sense of the desecration to which the person of his czar was being subjected by mingling with people like the widow of a hanged rebel rankled in his heart. he worked himself up to a state of mind in which the very similarity in physical appearance between the untitled people with whom the czar and born aristocrats like himself and his mother were compelled to mingle at a place like this resort struck him as an impertinence on the part of the untitled people. later when he lay between two german featherbeds and onufri brought him his book and a candle he asked him to take a seat by his bedside. "why are you such a deuced fool, onufri?" "if i am it is god's business, not mine, nor your highness'." "look here, onufri. how would you like to have all common people black like those darkies?" the servant spat out in horror and made the sign of the cross. "for shame, sir. what harm have the common people done you that you should wish them a horrid thing like that? and where does your highness get these cruel thoughts? surely not from your mother. for shame, sir." "idiot that you are, it's mere fancy, just for fun. there ought to be some difference between noble people and common. there is in some countries, you know." he told him about castes, the slave trade in america and passed to the days of chivalry, his favourite topic, until the retired hussar's head sank and a mighty snore rang out of his bushy moustache. pavel flew into a passion. "ass!" he shouted, getting half out of bed and shaking him fiercely. "why don't i fall asleep when you tell me stories?" onufri started and fell to rubbing one eye, while with his other eye he looked about him, as though he had slept a week. the stories he often told young boulatoff mostly related to the days of serfdom, which had been abolished when pavel was a boy of five. onufri's mother had been flogged to death in the presence of her master, pavel's grandfather, and the former hussar would tell the story with a solemnity that reflected his veneration for the "good old times" rather than grief over the fate of his mother. that night pavel dreamed of a pond full of calves that were splashing about and laughing in the water. he carried them all home and on his way there they were transformed into one pair, and the two calves walked about and talked just like onufri and the transformation was no transformation at all, the calves being real calves and negroes at the same time. when he awoke, in the morning, and it came over him that the dream had had something to do with onufri, he was seized with a feeling of self-disgust. he thought of the polish woman and his treatment of her, and this, too, appeared in a new light to him. two or three hours later, when the countess returned from her morning walk pavel, dressed to go out, grave and mysterious, solemnly handed her a sealed note from himself. "don't open it until i have left," he said. "i am going out for a stroll." "what you said yesterday about my being hard-hearted and incapable of sympathy," the letter read, "left a deep impression on me. i thought of it almost the first thing this morning as i opened my eyes, and it kept me thinking all the morning. i looked deep into my soul, i overhauled my whole ego. i turned it inside out, and--well, i must say i have come to the conclusion that what you said was not devoid of foundation. not that i am prepared to imagine ourselves as having anything to do with a woman whose family is a family of rebels and who has the audacity to pass our emperor without bowing; but she is a human being, too, and her sufferings should have aroused some commiseration in me. i envy you, mother. compared to you i really am a hard-hearted, unfeeling brute, and it makes me very, very unhappy to think of it. my heart is so full at this moment that i am at a loss to give expression to what i feel, but you will understand me, darling little mother mine. i do _not_ want to be hard and cruel, and i want you to help me. "your struggling son, "pavel." when anna nicolayevna laid down the letter her large meek grey eyes first grew red and then filled with tears. she sat with her long slim arms loosely folded on a davenport, weeping and smiling at once. there was much charm in her smile, but, barring it and her mass of fine auburn hair, she was certainly not good looking. she was small, ungainly, flat-chested, with a large thin-lipped mouth and, in spite of her beautiful gowns, with a general effect of rustiness. when pavel and his mother met at dinner he felt so embarrassed he could not bring himself to look her in the face. chapter ii. the white terror. miroslav was trisected longitudinally by a clear, cheerful river and by kasimir street, its principal thoroughfare, which contained most of its public buildings and best shops. the middle one of the three sections thus formed was the home of the higher nobility and the official class; the district across the bridge from here was inhabited by christian burghers and workmen, with here and there a clay hovel, the home of a peasant family, gleaming white in the distant outskirts; while the hilly quarter beyond kasimir street was the seat of jewish industry and jewish poverty, part of this neighbourhood being occupied by the market places and "the paradise," as the slums of the town were called ironically. the governor's house, which faced governor's prospect--a small square with a fountain in the centre--and anna nicolayevna's were the two most imposing buildings in miroslav. the countess' residence was the only structure in town that had a colonnaded front. the common people called it the palace and the section of kasimir street it faced the pillars. the sidewalk opposite was the favourite promenade of the younger generation, and every afternoon, in auspicious weather, it glittered with the uniforms of army officers and gymnasium boys. the palace was built by her grandfather in the closing days of the previous century. it abutted on a long narrow lane formed on one side by anna nicolayevna's garden and leading to theatre square, where stood the playhouse and the nobles' club. when the white rigidity of these buildings was relieved by the grass of its lawns and the foliage of its trees the spot was the joy of the town. during the winter of the year following the countess' sojourn at the german watering place, miroslav was stirred by a sensation, the central figure of which was pavel's tutor, the instructor of geography and history in the local gymnasium, alexandre alexandrovich pievakin. pavel was then in the graduating class. besides being connected with the male gymnasium pievakin taught at the female high school of miroslav. the town was fond of him and he was fond of the town and upon the whole he was contented. one of the things that galled him was the fact that his superior, the newly appointed director of the school, was his inferior both in years and in civil rank. pievakin was a "councillor of state," while novikoff, the head of the male gymnasium, was only a "collegiate assessor." novikoff was a painstaking, narrow-minded functionary, superciliously proud of his office and slavishly loyal to the letter of the law. he was a slender, dark-complexioned man of forty, but he tried to look much older and heavier. he copied the czar's side-whiskers, walked like a corpulent grandee, perpetually pulling at his waistcoat as though he were burdened by a voluminous paunch, and interlarded his speech with aphorisms from the latin grammar. one day as the director strutted ponderously along one of the two corridors, the word "parliament" fell on his ear. it was pievakin's voice. the old man was explaining something to his class with great ardour. novikoff paused, his lordly walk congealing into the picture of dignified attention. the next minute, however, his grandeur melted away. his face expressed unfeigned horror. pievakin was drawing an effusive parallel between absolute monarchies and limited. this was distinctly in violation of the circular of the ministry of public enlightenment enjoining teachers of geography, in cases of this kind, to adhere strictly to the bare terminology of the approved text-book without venturing into anything like an elucidation. not that pievakin was betraying any partiality for limited monarchies. indeed, to him the distinction between the two forms of government was neither of more nor of less interest than the difference between a steppe and a prairie or a simoon and a hurricane. it appealed to him because it was geography, and in his ecstasy over the lesson all thought of the ministry and its circulars had escaped his mind. that afternoon he was summoned to the director's office on the floor below. novikoff was at his large, flat-topped desk, studiously absorbed in some papers. he silently motioned the teacher of geography to a seat, and went on with his feigned work. after a lapse of some minutes he straightened up, played a few scales upon the brass buttons of his uniform, and said: "it pains me to have to say it, alexandre alexandrovich, but these are queer times and the passions of youth should be moderated, held in check, suppressed, not aroused. the imagination of one's pupils is not to be trifled with, alexandre alexandrovich." he paused mournfully. the little old man, who had not the least idea what he was driving at, waited in consternation. the room was overheated, and the pause had an overpowering effect on him. he felt on the verge of fainting. "the point is," novikoff resumed, with a sudden spurt in his voice, "that in your class work you sometimes suffer yourself to say things that cannot but be regarded as dangerous. dangerous particularly in view of the evil influences at work among the young of our generation; in view of the very sad fact that college students will disguise themselves as peasants----" "what do you mean, sir?" pievakin burst out, reddening violently. "how dare you liken me to those fellows? i was serving the czar while you were still a whippersnapper. i'm a councillor of state, sir. how dare you make these insinuations?" "i expected as much," novikoff answered, nervously polishing his buttons. "defying one's superior is of a piece with the views you're trying to instill into the minds of your scholars." "what is of a piece with what? speak out, sir," pievakin shrieked. "bridle your temper, sir. i can't allow that." "then tell me what it's all about," the teacher of history and geography said in a queer, half-beseeching, half-threatening voice. "well, this morning you were expatiating upon the blessings of a constitutional government. yes, sir. there are no spies to eavesdrop on one in this building, but it seems you never speak so loud nor with so much gusto as when you get to the subject of constitutions and parliaments and things of that kind." "it isn't true. i merely said a word or two on the various forms of government. it's practically all in smirnoff's geography." "'practically'! it's against the law. i am very sorry, but it becomes my duty to report it to the curator." here pievakin, losing control of himself, shouted "spy!" and "scoundrel!" and darted out of the room. this happened at a time when the "peasantist" movement, the peaceful, unresisting stage in the history of what is commonly known as nihilism, was at its height. the educated young generation was in an ecstasy of altruism. it was the period of "going to the people," when hundreds of well-bred men and women, children of the nobility, would don peasant garb and go to share the life of the tillers of the soil, teaching them to read, talking to them of universal love, liberty and equality. the government punished this "going to the people" with asiatic severity. russia has no capital punishment for the slaying of common mortals, the average penalty for murder being about ten years of penal servitude in siberia; and this penalty the courts were often ordered to impose on absolutely peaceable missionaries, on university students who practically did the same kind of work as that pursued by the "university settlements" in english-speaking countries. there were about one thousand of these propagandists in the political prisons of the empire, and their number was growing. they were kept in solitary confinement in cold, damp cells. scores of them went insane or died of consumption, scurvy or suicide before their cases came up for trial. * * * * * pievakin's house was searched by gendarmes, but no "underground" literature was discovered there. he was not arrested, but spies shadowed his movements and about a month after the domiciliary visit he was officially notified by the curator's office that he was to be transferred to the four-year "progymnasium" of a small town a considerable distance off. this implied that his work was to be restricted to boys of fourteen and less in a town out of the way of "dangerous tendencies." he grew thin and haggard and a certain look of fright never left his eye. the other instructors at the gymnasium, all except one, and many of his private acquaintance plainly shunned him. he had become one of those people with whom one could not come in contact without attracting the undesirable attention of the police. one of those who were not afraid to be seen in his company was the "truncated cone." "my crooked back is the only one that does not bend," the deformed man would joke. the tacit philosophy of his attitude toward the world seemed to be something like this: "you people won't consider me one of you. i am only a hunchback, something like an elf, and you will take many an unwelcome truth from me which you would resent in one like yourselves. so let us proceed on this understanding." when boulatoff heard that his favourite teacher was to be exiled to a small town "to render him harmless," he was shocked. alexandre alexandrovich pievakin was the last man in the world he would have suspected to be guilty of seditious agitation. his only idol at school was thus shattered. pievakin had not the courage to visit the countess' house now, and pavel, on his part, held aloof from him. the old man was hateful to him, not only as a rebel, but also as an impostor and a hypocrite. he felt duped. his blood rankled with disgust and resentment. at the same time the situation did not seem quite clear to him. something puzzled him, although he could not have put his finger on it. chapter iii. pievakin pleads guilty. a lesson in latin was in progress. the teacher was a blond czech. pavel looked at him intently, trying to follow the exercises, but he only became the more aware of the foreigner's struggles with russian and made the discovery that his clumsy carriage, as he walked up and down the room, was suggestive of a peasant woman trying to catch a chicken. his thoughts passed to pievakin and almost at the same instant a question flashed into his brain: if pievakin was unreliable politically, why, then, was he getting off so easily? how was it that instead of being cut off from the living world, instead of being thrown into a dungeon to waste and perish, as was done with all fellows of that sort, he was merely transferred to another school? the bell sounded. the czech put his big flat record-book under his arm and left the room. most of the pupils went out soon after. the two long corridors were bubbling with boys in blue, a-glitter with nickel-plated buttons and silver galloon, some laughing over their experience with the lesson just disposed of, others eagerly reviewing the one soon to be recited. pievakin passed along. the pupils bowed to him with curious sympathetic looks, and he returned their salutes with an air of mixed timidity and gratitude. presently the teacher of mathematics emerged from one of the glass doors, his deformity bulging through the blue broadcloth of his uniform. "alexandre alexandrovich!" he shouted demonstratively, and catching up with him he threw his arm around his waist. pavel, who had been watching the scene, was about to return to his class-room so as to avoid bowing to pievakin, when, by a sudden impulse, he saluted the two teachers, and advancing to meet them, with that peculiar air of politeness which reminded his classmates of his equipage and the colonnade in front of his mother's mansion, he accosted the instructor of history and geography, turning pale as he did so: "may i speak to you, alexandre alexandrovich?" when the mathematician had withdrawn, he inquired in a tone of pain and concern: "what has happened, alexandre alexandrovich?" "oh, i'm in trouble, prince," the old man faltered. he had never addressed the youth by his title before, and there was a note of abject supplication in his voice, as if the boy could help him. his face had a pinched, cowed look. "but, alexandre alexandrovich, it's a terrible thing they are accusing you of. you've been so dear to me, alexandre alexandrovich. i want to know all. i cannot rest, alexandre alexandrovich." "the story is easily told. a misfortune has befallen me. while touching upon the constitutional form of government, i was somewhat carried away. that i don't deny. i know it was wrong of me, but i assure you, prince, i meant no harm." it sounded as though he were a pleading pupil and the boy before him his teacher. pavel was touched and perplexed. "but that's in the text-book, alexandre alexandrovich." "to be sure it is. only the text-book merely uses the term without explaining it, while i, absent-mindedly, proceeded to do so, which is against the rules, and, as ill luck would have it, i warmed up a bit. when i was first asked about it i was not aware of having done any wrong. i was so shocked, in fact, i lost my temper. that was the worst of it. i am a ruined man, prince. thirty-six years have i served the czar and there is not a blemish on my record." "but why should you call yourself a ruined man, alexandre alexandrovich," pavel said impetuously. "i don't see why it should be too late to straighten it all out. i'm going to see my uncle. or, better still, my mother will see him. we can't let it go that way. we should all be a lot of scoundrels if we did. i'm going to tell him so." "do it, prince, if you can," the old man said with shamefaced eagerness. "i shall never forget it." * * * * * when pavel came home he found his mother's sleigh in front of the main entrance, her coachman in dazzling attire, waiting with pompous stolidity. when the liveried porter threw the door open to him and he entered the vestibule he saw coming down the immense staircase his mother and his five-year-old half-brother, kostia, dressed for their afternoon drive, anna nicolayevna in her furs and the little fellow in the costume of a caucasian horseman, which became his grave little face charmingly. following at some distance, with a smile of admiration, half servile, half sincere, on her fresh german face, was kostia's governess. she was not dressed for a drive. she was merely going to see her charge off. "mother, i am afraid i shall have to detain you," pavel said, solemnly. "i wish to speak to you about alexandre alexandrovich." "won't it keep?" she asked, with a facetious gesture. "don't make fun of it, mother," he reproached her. "it's a serious matter. my head is in a whirl." kostia was burning to show himself in public in his new circassian cap and when he saw his mother yield he screwed up his face for a cry, but he forthwith straightened it out again. he scarcely ever cried in pavel's presence for fear of being called "damsel" by him--an appellation he dreaded more than being locked up alone in the schoolroom. they went into anna nicolayevna's favorite sitting-room, a square chamber furnished and decorated in tan, in no particular style, but with an eye to the combined suggestions of old-time solidity and latter-day elegance. it was the embodiment of rest and silence, an effect to which two life-sized bronze statues--a diana and a venus de medici--and the drowsy ticking of an ancient clock contributed not a little. it was known as the english room because its former furnishings had been modelled after london standards. pavel painted pievakin as a penitent, broken spirit till anna nicolayevna's eyes grew red. "still, maybe he does hold dangerous views?" she asked. "dangerous nothing! it's all nonsense. he's more loyal than novikoff anyhow, for novikoff is a soulless, attitudinising nincompoop, while he is the kindliest, most conscientious, most soulful man in the world." "unfortunately all this has nothing to do with loyalty," she said, sadly. "this is a very queer world, pasha. it's just like those wretches who would do away with czars to be warm-hearted and good to everybody. they don't believe there ought to be rich and poor, either. when you come across a man of this sort keep away from him, pasha." "but what has that got to do with pievakin?" he shouted. "the very sight of a nihilist would be enough to frighten him out of his wits. i want you to tell it all to uncle, _mamman_. give him no peace until he promises you to write to the curator about the poor old man." the governor of miroslav was a boulatoff, being a cousin of pavel's deceased father; but he was also related to the young man by marriage to his mother's sister, who had died less than a year ago. anna nicolayevna promised to see her brother-in-law the next morning, but pavel would not wait. he pleaded, he charged her with heartlessness, tapping the thick rug with his foot and shaking all over as he spoke, until she agreed to go at once. while she was gone pavel and kostia went into the ball room and played "hunter and partridge," a game of the gymnasium boys' inventing. they had not been many minutes at it before pavel had forgotten all about the errand on which he had despatched his mother and the vast ball room echoed with his voluminous laughter. his great pleasure was to tease kostia until the little boy's mouth would begin to twitch, and then to shake his finger at him and say: "better not cry, kostia, or you know what i am going to call you." whereupon kostia would make a desperate effort to look nonchalantly grave and pavel would burst into a new roar of merriment. anna nicolayevna came back converted to a rigorous point of view, and although her son had no difficulty in convincing her once again that pievakin deserved mercy, he made up his mind to see his uncle himself, and he did so the very next morning. governor boulatoff was a massive, worn, blinking old satrap, shrewd, tight-fisted, and, what was quite unusual for a man of his class, with an eye to business. his nose was extremely broad and fleshy, his hair was elaborately dressed, and altogether he looked like a successful old comedian. bribe-giving was as universal in miroslav as tipping was in its leading café. one could not turn round without showing "gratitude." the wheels of government would not move in the desired direction unless they were greased, the price of this "grease" or "gratitude" varying all the way from a ten-copeck piece to ten or fifteen thousand rubles. governor boulatoff, who had come to miroslav a ruined man, was now the largest land-owner in the province. whenever he was in need of ready cash he would galvanize into a new lease of life some defunct piece of anti-jewish legislation. this was known among the other officials as "pressing the spring"--the spring of the jewish pocketbook, that is, the invariable effect of the proceeding being the appearance of a delegation with a snug piece of jewish "gratitude." he was continually sneering at the powers behind the throne, and mildly striving for recognition; yet so comfortable did he feel in this city of gardens, card-playing and "gratitude," from which "the czar was too far off and god too high up," that he was in mortal fear lest the promotion which he coveted should come in the form of a transfer to a more important province. pavel found him in his imposing "den." the old potentate was in his morning gown, freshly bathed, shaved and coiffured and smelling of pomade and cigarette smoke. "well, my little statesman," he greeted him in french. "what brings you so early this morning? aren't you going to school at all?" he called him statesman because of his ambition to follow in the footsteps of his diplomatic grandfather. "i shall stay away from the first three lessons," pavel answered. "i cannot rest, uncle. i want to speak to you about that unfortunate man." the governor was very fond of pavel, but he persisted in treating him as a boy, and the only serious talk young boulatoff got out of him regarding pievakin was an exhortation to give "men of that sort a wide berth." "but, uncle----" "don't argue," the governor interrupted him, blinking as he spoke. "this is not the kind of thing for a boy of your station to get mixed up in." "oh, it's enough to drive one crazy. the poor man is sincerely repentant, uncle. he'll never do it again, uncle." "i see you're quite excited over it. just the kind of effect fellows of that stamp will have on the mind of a boy. this is just where the danger comes in. don't forget your name, pasha. come, throw it all out of your clever little head. there's a good boy." "uncle darling, he'll never do it again. let him stay where he is." "you're a foolish boy. whether he'll do it again or no, his very presence in this town would be a source of danger. whoever sets his eyes on him will say to himself: 'here is the man who once talked of the way people live under a constitution.' so you see he'll be a reminder of unlawful ideas. we have no use for fellows of this sort. they are like living poison. do you see the point? let your teacher thank his stars the case was not put in the hands of the gendarmes entirely, or he would be sent to a colder place." all this the governor said in the playful manner of one conversing with a child and, by way of clinching the matter, he explained that he had nothing to do with the case and that it was under the jurisdiction of the "curator of educational district." pavel was in despair and his being treated as a boy threw him into a rage, but he held himself in check for pievakin's sake. "oh, the curator will do anything you ask of him, uncle," he said in a tone of entreaty and resentment at once. "you don't want your uncle to write letters begging for a fellow who was foolish enough to get mixed up in such an affair as that, do you? i used to think you really cared for your uncle." pavel contracted his forehead and put out his chin sullenly. chapter iv. the "demonstration." at the hour of pievakin's departure the miroslav railway station was crowded with gymnasium pupils of both sexes, but pavel was not among them. he had not been informed that such a gathering was in contemplation at all. alexandre alexandrovich, a satchel slung across his breast, wan and haggard, but flushed with excitement, was bustling about in a listless, mechanical way. he was accompanied by his large family and the teacher of mathematics. a number of gendarmes, stalwart, bewhiskered, elaborately formidable, were pacing up and down the large waiting room. the gendarmerie is the political police of the czar. it forms a special military organisation quite distinct from the police proper. a detail of such gendarmes, proportionate to the importance of the place, is to be found in every railroad station of the country. on this occasion, however, the presence of the gendarmes seemed to have some special bearing upon the nature of the scene. they were all big strapping fellows. their jingling spurs, red epaulets and icy silence belonged to the same category of things as the terrible political prisons of kharkoff and st. petersburg; as the clinking of convict-chains, as the frozen wastes of siberia. all at once most of the bespurred men disappeared. after an absence of two or three minutes they came back, considerably re-enforced. "all gymnasium pupils, ladies and gentlemen, will please leave the station," they called out. about one-half of the throng struck out for the doors as if the place were on fire. some fifteen or twenty pupils stood still, frowning upon the guardians of the czar's safety, in timid defiance. the rest, a crowd of about two hundred, made a lunge in the direction of the corner where alexandre alexandrovich and his family were pottering about some light baggage, when three lusty gendarmes planted themselves in front of the little old man. "go home, ladies and gentlemen, go home!" pievakin besought his friends, waving his hands and stamping his feet desperately. "have we no right to say good-bye to our own teacher?" one boy ventured. "not allowed!" a gendarme answered, sternly. "get out, get out!" the crowd surged back; but at this point a young feminine voice, sonorous with indignation and distress, rose above the din of the scramble: "good heavens! can it be that we shall leave without saying good-bye to our dear teacher? all they say of him is a lie, a malicious lie. they're a lot of knaves, and he is the best man in the world. let them arrest us if they will, let them kill us. it would be a shame if we went away like traitors to our dear teacher." the rest was lost in a hubbub of shouts and shrieks. in their effort to get at the speaker, who was shielded by the other pupils, the gendarmes were beating young women with their sheathed swords or pulling them by the hair. with the exception of a few who had skulked out through back doors, the young people now all stood their ground, ready to fight. "arrest us all!" they yelled. "we all say the same thing." "yes, alexandre alexandrovich is the best man in the world. there!" "a better man than novikoff!" "novikoff is a hypocrite and a rogue!" in the commotion the gendarmes lost sight of the girl they were about to arrest. she could not have left the room, but then it was not easy to tell her from any of the other girls. the gendarmes had seen her at a distance, and all they could say was that she was blonde. in their eagerness to pick her out, they were rudely scanning every young woman in the waiting-room. had she been arrested it would have gone hard with her. as good luck would have it, however, major safonoff, the officer in command of the railroad gendarmes, was the brother of one of the girls present. he was a plump, good-natured bachelor, and his devotion to his sister, who had been under his care since she was a year old, was a source of jests and anecdotes. when it occurred to him that the conflict, which was beginning to look like a serious affair, was likely to cause trouble to his sister, he hastened to make light of it. "go home, ladies and gentlemen," he said, in a remonstrative amicable voice, taking the matter in his own hands. his friendly tone and his smiling fat face, added to the tacit understanding that the girl who had made the speech was not to be persecuted, acted as a balm; but the flattering notion that the gendarmes had surrendered kindled new fighting blood. "your men have hit ladies. they've no right to hit anybody. they're a lot of brutes. all we wanted was to say good-bye to alexandre alexandrovich." "but that's impossible, so what's the use getting excited, gentlemen? better go home." the pupils obeyed, in a leisurely way, as though leaving of their own accord. * * * * * during the following few weeks this "victory" over the gendarmes was the great topic of discussion. the personality of the girl who "started the demonstration" was emblazoned with the halo of heroism. the curious part of it was that only a minority of those who had participated in the scene had any idea who she was. when the crowd at the railroad station had dispersed, the handful that knew her whispered her name to some of those who did not, so that the number of pupils in the secret was by now comparatively large, but it was a "revolutionary" secret, so it was guarded most zealously against unreliable pupils as well as against the authorities. one of the page-proofs of the _miroslav messenger_ that were sent to the censor at midnight contained the following paragraph: "alexandre alexandrovich pievakin, for many years instructor of history and geography at our male gymnasium, left for his new place of service yesterday afternoon. a large number of gymnasium pupils were at the railway station." the entire paragraph was stricken out, so that the _messenger_ next morning contained not the remotest reference to the departure of the old teacher. when pasha heard what had happened at the railway station his heart sank. "i must speak to you, mother," he gasped out, bursting into her room, after school time. when her companion, a dried-up little frenchwoman with a thriving streak of black moustache, had withdrawn, he said: "mother, i am a miserable egoist and a scoundrel." he told her the story of pievakin's departure. his dear old teacher was in trouble, the victim of a cruel injustice, yet he, pasha, had not even thought of going to see him off. everybody had been there except him. but what tantalised him more than anything else was the fact that a girl was the only person who had taken a brave noble stand in the old man's behalf. this hurt his knightly sense of honour cruelly. he should have been on the scene and done exactly what that girl had done. "i'm an egoist and a coward, _mamman_. i hate myself. oh, i do hate myself!" anna nicolayevna's eyes grew red. she had an impulse to fold him in her arms and to offer to take him to pievakin's new place so that he might protest his sympathy and affection for the old man, but her instinct told her that this would be improper. oh, there were so many things that made a strong appeal to one's better feelings which were considered improper. so she emitted a sigh of resignation and said nothing. pavel was pacing the floor so vehemently that he came near running into and knocking down the life-sized diana. he walked with rapid heavy steps until his brain grew dizzy and his despair was dulled as from the effect of drink. suddenly the situation rushed back upon him. "i tell you what, mother, he's too good for them," he said, stopping in front of her. "he is better than uncle, anyhow." "hush, you mustn't say that." "the devil i mustn't. it's true." "you are impossible, pasha. can't you calm down?" "i'll tell you calmly, then: uncle is a bribe-taker and a heartless egoist. there." "dear me," she said, in consternation. "but you know he is, mother. and do you call that loyalty to the czar? pievakin is pure as an infant. if the czar knew the real character of both, he would know that the poor man could give uncle points in loyalty." a few days after this conversation the governor dined at "the palace," as countess varoff's residence was known among the common people of miroslav. pavel refused to leave his room. when anna nicolayevna pleaded his uncle's affection for him, he said: "his affection be hanged. who wants the affection of a bribe-taker who will let an honest man perish? look here, mother, you have no business to tell him i have a headache. i want him to know the truth. tell him it's men like himself, bribe-takers, cowards, who spread sedition, not men like pievakin. 'living poison,' indeed! tell him he is a lump of living poison himself. oh, i hate him, i do hate him." his brain was working feverishly. the image of pievakin with three gendarmes between him and a crowd of pupils haunted him. why could he not be pardoned? was there no mercy in this world? his sense of the cruelty of the thing and of his own helplessness seized him as with a violent clutch again and again. once, as he was reviewing the situation for the thousandth time, a voice in him exclaimed: "pardoned? what was pievakin to be pardoned for? what had he done? why should it be wrong to dwell on the vital features of parliamentary government? such governments existed, didn't they? and if they did, then why should one be forbidden to explain their essence?" for the first time did his attention fix itself on this point, and questions came crowding upon him. where was the sense of having such terms as "limited monarchy" in the text-book at all, if the pupils were not to be told what this meant? above all, why should the government be afraid of such explanations? there seemed to be something cowardly, sneaking, about all this which jarred on pavel's sense of the knightly magnificence of the czar and left him with a bad taste in the mouth, as the phrase is. alexandre alexandrovich, then, had done no wrong, and yet he had been banished as "living poison," treated by everybody as a criminal, until he came to believe himself one. why, of course he was better than novikoff. novikoff was a self-seeking, posing wretch, and all the other teachers were cringing and crouching before him; and these insects turned their backs upon alexandre alexandrovich! corruption passed for loyalty, and a really good man was persecuted, hunted down like a wild beast, trampled upon. "trampled upon, trampled upon, trampled upon!" pavel whispered audibly, stamping his foot and gnashing his teeth as he did so. the only gleam of light was the veiled figure of that gymnasium girl. she alone had had sympathy and courage enough to raise her voice for the poor man. "why, she is a perfect heroine," he said in his aching heart. at the gymnasium he felt his loneliness more keenly than ever. wherever he saw a cluster of boys, he felt sure they were whispering about the gendarmes and the girl who had made the "speech" at the railroad station. his pride was gone. he now saw himself an outcast, shut out of the most important things life contained. the leader of the "serious-minded" boys in pavel's class was an underfed jewish youth, with an anæmic chalky face and a cold intelligent look, named elkin. to pavel he had always been repugnant. since pievakin's departure, however, the aristocratic boy had looked at his classmates in a new light, and elkin now even inspired him with respect. "who is the girl that made that speech at the station?" he asked simply. the two had scarcely ever spoken before. elkin gave boulatoff a stare of freezing irony, as who should say: "what do you think of the assurance of this man?" and then, dropping his eyes, he asked: "what girl?" when he spoke his lips assumed the form of two obtuse angles, exposing to view a glistening lozenge of white teeth. "look here, elkin, i want to know who that girl is and all about the whole affair, and if you think i ought not to know it because--well, because i am a boulatoff and my uncle is the governor, i can assure you that if i had been there i should have acted as she did. what's more, i hate myself for not having been there." "i don't know what you're talking about," replied elkin. "as to your hating yourself, that's your own affair." "well, however i may feel toward myself, i certainly have nothing but contempt for a man like you," pasha snapped back, paling. "but if you think you can keep it from me, you're mistaken." elkin sized him up with a look full of venom, as he said: "pitiful wretch! how are you going to find it out? through the political spies?" pavel turned red. it was with a great effort that he kept himself from striking elkin. after a pause he said: "now, i can tell you from the bottom of my heart that you are a knave." "besides," said elkin, as though finishing an interrupted remark, "most of the gymnasium girls who saw alexandre alexandrovich off are daughters of poor, humble people, so of what interest would it have been to a man in your position?" boulatoff stood still for a few moments, and then said under his breath: "well, you're a fool as well as a knave," and turned away. the heroine of the demonstration was hateful to him now. she and elkin seemed to stand at the head of the untitled classes all arrayed against him. he retired into himself deeper than ever. he abhorred her because she had done the right thing, and each time his sympathy for pievakin welled up he hated himself for not having been at the station, and her for having been there. he sought relief in charging elkin with cowardice. "what did he do there?" he would say to himself. "to think of a lot of fellows running away when they are told they can't say good-bye to their martyred teacher, and a girl being the only one who has courage enough to act properly. and now that she has done it this coward has the face to give himself airs, as if he were entitled to credit for her courage. if i had been there i should not have run away as elkin and his crew did." this placed elkin and his followers on one side of the line and pavel and the girl on the other. so what right had that coward of a jew to place himself between her and him? * * * * * toward spring, some two months after the old teacher's departure, and when the incident was beginning to grow dim in the public mind, the sensation was suddenly revived and greatly intensified by an extraordinary piece of news that came from the town to which pievakin had been transferred: the third section of his majesty's own office--the central political detective bureau of the empire--had taken up the case, with the result that the action of the department of public instruction had been repudiated as dangerously inadequate. the idea of a man like pievakin participating in the education of children! accordingly, the poor old man was now under arrest, condemned to be transported to viatka, a thinly populated province in the remote north, where he was to live under police surveillance, as a political exile strictly debarred from teaching, even in private families. pavel was stunned. he received the news as something elemental. he could find fault with his uncle, but the government at st. petersburg was a sublime abstract force, bathed in the effulgence of the czar's personality. it was no more open to condemnation than a thunderstorm or a turbulent sea. but the incident made an ineffaceable impression upon him. it left him with the general feeling that there was something inherently cruel in the world. and the picture of a pretty girl boldly raising her voice for poor pievakin in the teeth of formidable-looking gendarmes and in the midst of a crowd of panic-stricken men remained imbedded in his fancy as the emblem of brave pity. an importunate sense of jealousy nagged him. he often caught himself dreaming of situations in which he appeared in a rôle similar to the one she had played at the railroad station. his perceptions and sensibilities took a novel trend. one day, for example, as he walked through theatre square, he paused to watch an apple-faced ensign, evidently fresh from the military school, lecture a middle-aged sergeant. the youthful officer sat on a bench, swaggeringly leaning back, his new sword gleaming by his side, as he questioned the soldier who stood at attention, the picture of embarrassment and impotent rage. a young woman, probably the sergeant's wife, sweetheart, or daughter, stood aside, looking on wretchedly. seated on a bench directly across the walk were two pretty gymnasium girls. it was clear that the whole scene had been gotten up for their sake, that the ensign had stopped the poor fellow, who was old enough to be his father, and was now putting him through this ordeal for the sole purpose of flaunting his authority before them. when the sergeant had been allowed to go his way, but before he was out of hearing, pavel walked up to the ensign and said aloud: "i wish to tell you, sir, that you tormented that poor man merely to show off." "bravo!" said the two gymnasium girls, clapping their hands with all their might; "bravo!" the ensign sprang to his feet, his apple-cheeks red as fire. "what do you mean by interfering with an officer--in the performance of his duty?" he faltered. he apparently knew that the young man before him was a nephew of the governor. "nonsense! you were not performing any duties. you were parading. that's what you were doing." the two girls burst into a ringing laugh, whereupon the ensign stalked off, mumbling something about having the gymnasium boy arrested. "mother," he said, when he came home. "the world is divided into tormentors and victims." anna nicolayevna gave a laugh that made her rusty face interesting. "and what are you--a tormentor or a victim?" she asked. "at any rate you had better throw these thoughts out of your mind. they lead to no good, pasha." chapter v. pavel's first step. when pavel arrived in st. petersburg, in the last days of july, his recent tribulations seemed a thing of the faded past. the capital was a fascinating setting for the great university which he was soon to enter and in which he was bent upon drinking deep of the deepest mysteries of wisdom. his "certificate of maturity"--his gymnasium diploma--was a solemn proclamation of his passage from boyhood to manhood--a change which seemed to assert itself in everything he did. he ate maturely, talked maturely, walked maturely. he felt like a girl on the eve of her wedding day. he had not been in the big city for six years, and so marked was the distinction between it and the southern town from which he hailed, that to his "mature" eyes it seemed as if they were seeing it for the first time. the multitude of large lusty men, heavily bearded and wearing blouses of flaming red; the pink buildings; the melodious hucksters; the cherry-peddlars, with their boards piled with the succulent fruit on their shoulders; the pitchy odor of the overheated streets; the soft, sibilant affectations in the speech of the lower classes; the bustling little ferry-boats on the neva--all this, sanctified by the presence of the university buildings across the gay river, made his heart throb with a feeling as though miroslav were a foreign town and he were treading the soil of real russia at last. he matriculated at the section of philology and history, st. petersburg. before starting on his studies, however, he went off on a savage debauch with some aristocratic young relatives. the debauch lasted a fortnight, and cost his mother a small fortune. when he came to the university at last, weary of himself and his relatives, he settled down to a winter of hard work. but the life at the university disturbed his peace of mind. he found the students divided into "crammers," "parquette-scrapers" and "radicals." the last named seemed to be in the majority--a bustling, whispering, preoccupied crowd with an effect of being the masters of the situation. there was a vast difference between elkin and his followers and these people. pavel knew that the university was the hotbed of the secret movement, of which he was now tempted to know something. there was no telling who of his present classmates might prove a candidate for the gallows. the wide-awake, whispering, mysterious world about him reminded him of the miroslav girl and of his rebuff upon trying to discover who she was. when he made an attempt to break through the magic circle in which that world was enclosed his well-cared-for appearance and high-born manner went against him. a feeling of isolation weighed on his soul that was much harder to bear than his ostracism at the gymnasium had been. harder to bear, because the students who kept away from him here struck him as his superiors, and because he had a humble feeling as though it were natural that they should hold aloof from him. and the image of that miroslav girl seemed to float over these whispering young men, at once luring and repulsing him. he often went about with a lump in his throat. one day he met a girl named sophia perovskaya, the daughter of a former governor of the province of st. petersburg and the granddaughter of a celebrated cabinet minister. she was a strong-featured, boyish-looking little creature, with grave blue eyes beneath a very high forehead. he had known her when he was a child. there was something in her general appearance now and in the few words she said to him which left a peculiar impression on pavel. as he thought of her later it dawned upon him that she might belong to the same world as those preoccupied, whispering fellow-students of his. he looked her up the same day. "i should like to get something to read, sophia lvovna," he said, colouring. "some of the proscribed things, i mean." then he added, with an embarrassed frown, "something tells me you could get it for me. if i am mistaken, you will have to excuse me." the governor's daughter fixed her blue eyes on him as she said, simply: "all right. i'll get you something." she lent him a volume of the "underground" magazine _forward!_ and some other prints. the tales of valour and martyrdom which he found in these publications, added to the editorials they contained calling upon the nobility to pay the debt they owed to the peasantry by sacrificing themselves for their welfare, literally intoxicated him. "dear mother and comrade," he wrote in a letter home, "i have come to the conclusion that the so-called nobility to which i belong has never done anything useful. for centuries and centuries and centuries we have been living at the expense of those good, honest, overworked people, the peasantry. it is enough to drive one to suicide. yes, mamma darling, we are a race of drones and robbers. the ignorant, unkempt moujiks that we treat like beasts are in reality angels compared to us. there is something in them--in their traditions and in the inherent purity of their souls--which should inspire us with reverence. yet they are literally starved and three-fourths of their toil goes to maintain the army and the titled classes." further down in the same letter he said: "every great writer in the history of our literature has been in prison or exiled. our noblest thinker and critic, chernyshevsky, is languishing in siberia. why? why? my hair stands erect when i think of these things." when it came to posting the letter, it dawned upon him that such sentiments were not to be trusted to the mails, and, feeling himself a conspirator, he committed the epistle to the flames. he was touched by the spirit of that peasant worship--the religion of the "penitent nobility"--which was the spirit of the best unproscribed literature of the day as well as of the "underground" movement. turgeneff owed the origin of his fame to the peasant portraits of his _notes of a huntsman_. nekrasoff, the leading poet of the period, and a score of other writers were perpetually glorifying the peasant, going into ecstasies over him, bewailing him. the peasant they drew was a creature of flesh-and-blood reality, but shed over him was the golden halo of idealism. the central doctrine of the movement was a theory that the survival of the communistic element in the russian village, was destined to become the basis of the country's economic and political salvation; that russia would leap into an ideal social arrangement without having to pass through capitalism; that her semi-barbaric peasant, kindly and innocent as a dove and the martyr of centuries, carried in his person the future glory, moral as well as material, of his unhappy country. as to the living peasant, he had no more knowledge of this adoration of himself (nor capacity to grasp the meaning of the movement, if an attempt had been made to explain it to him) than a squirrel has of the presence of a "q" in the spelling of its name. * * * * * sophia disappeared from st. petersburg, and pavel found himself cut off from the "underground" world once more. the prints she had left him only served to excite his craving for others of the same character. the preoccupied, mysterious air of the "radicals" at the university tantalised him. he was in a veritable fever of envy, resentment, intellectual and spiritual thirst. he subscribed liberally to the various revolutionary funds that were continually being raised under the guise of charity, and otherwise tried to manifest his sympathy with the movement, all to no purpose. his contributions were accepted, but his advances were repulsed. one day he approached a student whom he had once given ten rubles "for a needy family"--a thin fellow with a very long neck and the face of a chicken. "i should like to get something to read," he said, trying to copy the tone of familiar simplicity which he had used with sophia. "i have read one number of _forward!_ and another thing or two, but that's all i have been able to get." "pardon me," the chicken-face answered, colouring, "i really don't know what you mean. can't you get those books in the book-stores or in the public library?" pavel was left with an acute pang of self-pity. he felt like a pampered child undergoing ill-treatment at the hands of strangers. his mother and all his relatives thought so much of him, while these fellows, who would deem it a privilege to talk to any of them, were treating him as a nobody and a spy. the tears came to his eyes. but presently he clenched his fists and said to himself, "i _will_ be admitted to their set." in his fidget he happened to think of pani oginska. as the scene at the german watering-place came back to him, he was seized with a desire to efface the affront he had offered her. "how can i rest until i have seen her and asked her pardon?" he said to himself. "if i were a real man and not a mere phrase-monger i should start out on the journey at once. but, of course, i won't do anything of the kind, and writing of such things is impossible. i _am_ a phrase-maker. that's all i am." but he soliloquized himself into the reflection that pani oginska was likely to know some of her imprisoned son's friends, if, indeed, she was not in the "underground" world herself, and the very next morning found him in a railway car, bound for the south. * * * * * pani oginska's estate was near the boundary line between the province to which it belonged and the one whose capital was miroslav, a considerable distance from a railway station. pavel covered that distance in a post-sleigh drawn by a troika. his way lay in the steppe region. it was a very cold forenoon in mid-winter. the horses' manes were covered with frost; the postilion was bundled up so heavily that he looked like an old woman. the sun shone out of a blue, unconcerned sky upon a waste of eery whiteness. there were ridges of drifts and there were black patches of bare ground, but the general perspective unfolded an unbroken plane of snow, a level expanse stretching on either side of the smooth road, seemingly endless and bottomless, destitute of any trace of life save for an occasional inn by the roadside or the snow-bound hovel and outhouses of a shepherd in the distance--a domain of silence and numb monotony. that this desert of frozen sterility would four or five months later, be transformed into a world of grass and birds seemed as inconceivable as the sudden disappearance of the ocean. the last few versts were an eternity. pavel's heart leaped with a foretaste of the exciting interview. "lively, my man," he pressed the postilion. "can't your horses get a move on them?" the postilion nodded his muffled head and set up a fierce yelp, for all the world like a wolf giving chase; whereupon the animals, apparently scared to death, broke into a desperate gallop, the scud flying, the sleigh dashing along like an electric car in open country, its bell ringing frostily. "that's better," pavel shouted with a thrill of physical pleasure and speaking with difficulty for the breakneck speed that seemed to fling the breath out of his lungs. "that's better, my man. you shall get a good tip. but where have you learned the trick?" the postilion gave a muffled grunt of appreciation and went on howling with all his might. they passed through a small village. the chimneys of some of the white clay hovels on either side of the road poured out clouds of sweetish, nauseating smoke. wood being scarce in these parts, the peasantry made fuel of manure. at last the sleigh swung into the great front yard of pani oginska's manor house. it was greeted by the curious eyes of half a dozen servants. pavel entered a warm vestibule with a painted floor, where he found waiting to meet him pani oginska and an aged man with hair as white as the snow without. he bowed politely and asked, in french, with nervous timidity: "do you remember me, madame oginska?" she screwed up her eyes as she scanned his flushed, frozen face. "prince boulatoff!" she said in a perplexed whisper. "i have come all the way from st. petersburg to beg your pardon, madame oginska," he fired out. "i acted like a brute on that occasion. i was an idiotic boy. forgive me." "have you actually come all the way from st. petersburg, to tell me that?" she asked with a hearty peal of laughter. she introduced him to the white-haired man, her father, who first made a bow full of old-fashioned dignity and then gave pavel's cold hand a doddering grasp. "so you have really come for that express purpose?" pani oginska resumed, while a servant was relieving the newcomer of his fur-lined coat, fur cap, heavy gloves, muffler and storm shoes. "a case of compunction, i suppose?" her father followed them as far as the open door of a vast, plainly furnished parlour, and after looming on the threshold for a minute or two, in an attitude of pained dignity, he bowed himself away. pani oginska gently pressed the young man into a huge, rusty easy-chair, she herself remaining in a standing posture, her mind apparently divided between hospitality and an important errand upon which she seemed to have been bent when he arrived. she wore a furred jacket, her head in a grey shawl and her feet in heavy top-boots--a costume jarringly out of accord with her pale, delicate, nunnish face. she made quite a new impression on the young prince. "i was blind then," he began, when they were left alone. "my eyes were closed." "oh, you needn't go into detail," she rejoined with an amused look. "i think i can guess how it has come about. you have caught the contagion, haven't you?" "why call it 'contagion?' it's the truth; it's justice. if i hadn't been such a silly boy when i first had the pleasure of meeting you, i should certainly not have acted the way i did." "a boy? and what are you now, pray? an old man with the weight of experience on your shoulders?" she asked with motherly gaiety. "well, we'll talk it over later on, or, indeed, we'll find better things to talk about; and meanwhile i want you to excuse me, prince, and make yourself comfortable without me. you are hungry, of course?" "not at all. i had luncheon at the station." "well, you shall have some refreshments at any rate, and by and by i shall be back. i am a rather busy woman, you see. i have to be my own manager, and there are a thousand and one things to look after, and the snow is rather deep"--pointing at her heavy boots. "well, here are some books and magazines. _au revoir._" she made for the door, but faced about again. "by the way, prince, does your mother know of this crazy trip of yours?" "i confess she does not," he answered, feeling helplessly like a boy. "why?" "why! because she is the best woman in the world, and because it's too bad you did anything so foolish without letting her know at least. by the way, this is anything but a desirable place for a young man to visit. since my son got into trouble the police have tried to keep an eye on us; but then the police are so stupid. still, i am sorry you didn't first consult your mother. if you boys would only let yourselves be guided by your mothers you would be spared many a trouble." "is that the prime object of life--to guard against harm to oneself?" pavel protested. she fixed him with a look of amusement, and then remarked sadly: "you _have_ caught the contagion, poor thing. i'll write your mother about it. let her put a stop to it if it isn't too late." he took fire. "i don't know what you are hinting at, madame oginska," he said. asking her to introduce him to nihilists seemed out of the question. "i am hinting at those 'circles,' prince. you probably belong to one of them; that's what i am hinting at. don't you, now?" "i don't belong to any circles. nor do i know what you mean, madame." "well, well. you have come to ask me not to be offended with you, and now it seems to be my turn to ask you not to be angry with me. don't be uneasy, prince. i shan't write to your mother. indeed, she couldn't afford to be in correspondence with me at all. however, if you really aren't yet mixed up in those dreadful things"--there was a dubious twinkle in her eye--"you had better keep out of them in the future, too. think of your charming mother and take care of yourself, prince. well, i have got to go. it's barbaric of me to leave you, but i'll soon be back. here are some books and magazines. or wait, i have another occupation for you. i want you to meet the best jew in the world. i want you to examine him in 'gentile lore,' as his people would put it. they would kill me, his people, if they knew he came to read my 'gentile books.'" "he is a brainy fellow," she went on, leading the way through a labyrinth of rooms and corridors, "chockful of that talmud of theirs, don't you know. now that he is married they are trying to make a business man of him, but he prefers worldly wisdom and that sort of thing. i let him use my library, the only place he has for his 'unholy' studies, in fact. he is supposed to come on business here. he lives in a small town a mile from here." she was speaking in russian now, a language she had perfect command of, but which she spoke with a strong polish accent, making it sound to pavel as though she was declaiming poetry. twelve years ago, before she inherited this estate, and when she still lived in poland, her birthplace, she could scarcely speak it at all. she took him into a room whose walls were lined with books, mostly old and worn, and whose two windows looked out upon a frozen pond in front of a snow-covered clump of trees. "monsieur parmet, prince boulatoff," she said, as a man sprang to his feet with the air of one startled from mental absorption. he was of strong, ungainly build, with the peculiar stamp of rabbinical scholarship on a plump, dark-bearded face. "see how much he knows, prince. he thinks he can take the examination for a certificate of maturity and enter the university. but then he thinks he knows everything." with this she left them to themselves. pavel was in a whirl of embarrassment and annoyance, but the abashed smile of the other mollified him. "what i need more than anything else is to be examined in latin and greek," parmet said. "i haven't had my exercises looked over for a long time, and it may be all wrong for all i know." his russian had a yiddish accent. he spoke in low, purring tones that seemed to soften the heavy outline of his figure. he was a lumbering mass of physical strength, one of those bearlike giants whom village people will describe as bending horseshoes like so many blades of grass or driving nails into a wall with their bare knuckles for a hammer. his dark-brown eyes shone meekly. "have you learned it all by yourself?" pavel asked. "not altogether." pavel began with an air of lofty reluctance, but he was soon carried away by the niceties of the ancient syntax, and his stiffness melted into didactic animation. as to parmet, his plump, dark face was an image of religious ecstasy. pavel warmed to him. his talmudic gestures and intonation amused him. "there's no trouble about your latin," he said, familiarly; "no trouble whatever." "isn't there? it was pani oginska's son who gave me the first start," the other said, blissfully, uttering the name in a lowered voice. "if it had not been for him i should still be immersed in the depths of darkness." "'immersed in the depths of darkness!' there is a phrase for you! why should you use high-flown language like that?" parmet smiled, shrugging his shoulders bashfully. "will you kindly try me on greek now?" he said. "one second. that must have been quite a little while ago when pani oginska's son taught you, wasn't it?" parmet tiptoed over to the open door, closed it, tiptoed back and said: "not quite two years. if you knew what a man of gold he was! they are slowly killing him, the murderers. and why? what had he done? he could not harm a fly. he is all goodness, an angel like his mother. he was of delicate health when they took him, and now he is melting like a candle. why, oh why, should men like him have to perish that way?" "isn't it rather risky for you to be coming here?" pavel demanded, looking him over curiously. parmet smiled, a queer, outlandish smile, at once naïve and knowing, as he replied: "risky? no. what does an old-fashioned jew like myself care about politics? i am supposed to come here on business. did you know eugene?" "who is eugene? pani oginska's son?" "yes. i thought you knew him." "i wish i had. people like him are the only ones worth knowing. most of the others are scoundrels, humbugs, cold-blooded egoists; that's what they are." so talking, they gradually confided to each other the story of their respective conversions and tribulations. parmet followed the prince's tale first with a look of childlike curiosity and then with an air that betrayed emotion. as he listened he kept rubbing his hand nervously. when pavel had concluded, the jew took to tiptoeing up and down the room, stopped in front of him and said, with great ardour: "don't grieve, my dear man. i may be able to help you. i know a friend of eugene's who could put you in touch with the proper persons." "is he in st. petersburg?" "no, but that's no matter. he can arrange it. he knows somebody there. i'll see him as soon as i can, even if i have to travel many miles for it." pavel grasped his hand silently. "well," the other said. "there was a time when i thought every christian hard-hearted and cruel. now i am ashamed of myself for having harboured such ideas in my mind. every christian whose acquaintance i happen to make turns out to be an angel rather than a human being." "why these compliments?" pavel snarled. "most of the christians i know are knaves. the whole world is made up of knaves for that matter." when pani oginska came home and saw them together, she said: "i knew i should find you two making love to each other." * * * * * a month or two after pavel's return to st. petersburg a tall blond young man with typical great-russian features looked him up at the university. "i have received word from the south about you," he said, without introducing himself. "i am pleased to meet you," pavel returned gruffly, "but i hope i won't be kept on probation and be subjected to all sorts of humiliations." "why, why," the other said, in confusion. "i'll be glad to let you have any kind of literature there is and to introduce you to other comrades. that's why i have been looking for you. why should you take it that way?" pavel's face broke into a smile. "dashed if i know why i should. something possessed me to put on a harsh front. it was mere parading, i suppose. don't mind it. what shall i call you?" "why--er--oh, call me anything," the other answered, colouring. "very well, then. i'll call you peter; or no, will 'godfather' do? that is, provided you are really going to be one to me," pavel said, in a vain struggle to suppress his exultation. "it'll be all right," his new acquaintance replied with bashful ardour. "godfather, then?" godfather introduced him to several other "radicals," who gave him underground prints and a list of legitimate books for a course of "serious" reading. he would stay at home a whole week at a time without dressing or going down for his meals, perusing volume after volume, paper after paper. when he did dress and go out it was to get more books or to seek answers to the questions which disturbed his peace. he was in a state of vernal agitation, in a fever of lofty impulses. and so much like a conspirator did he feel by now, that he no longer even thought of opening his mind to his mother. indeed, the change that had come over him was so complete that she was not likely to understand him if he had. to drive her to despair seemed to be the only result he could expect of such a confession. the secret movement appealed to him as a host of saints. he longed to be one of them, to be martyred with them. it was clear to him that some day he would die for the russian people; die a slow, a terrible death; and this slow, terrible death impressed him as the highest pinnacle of happiness. when his mother came to see him, a year later, she thought he was in love. he was in the thick of the movement by that time. he was learning shoemaking with a view to settling in a village. he would earn his livelihood in the sweat of his brow, and he would carry the light of his lofty ideas into the hovels of the suffering peasantry. but his plans in this direction were never realized. the period of "going to the people" soon came to an end. the mothlike self-immolation of university students continued, but the spirit of unresisting martyrdom could not last. violence was bound to result from it. the next year saw the celebrated "trial of ," mostly college men and college women. they were charged with political propaganda, and the bold stand they took thrilled the country. the actual number tried was, indeed, much less than , for of those who had been kept in prison in connection with that case as many as seventy had perished in their cold, damp cells while waiting to be arraigned. of those who were tried many were acquitted, but instead of regaining their liberty a large number of these were transported to siberia "by administrative order." moreover, hundreds of people were slowly killed in the dungeons or exiled to siberia without any process of law whatsoever. school children were buried in these consumption breeding cells; whole families were ruined because one of their members was accused of reading a socialist pamphlet. student girls were subjected to indignities by dissolute officials--all "by administrative order." the russian penal code imposes the same penalty for disfiguring the eyes of an imperial portrait as it does for blinding a live subject of the czar. but political suspects were tortured without regard even to this code. it gradually dawned upon the propagandists that instead of being decimated in a fruitless attempt to get at the common people they should first devote themselves to an effort in the direction of free speech. by a series of bold attacks it was expected to extort the desired reforms from the government. nothing was lawless, so it was argued, when directed, in self-defence, against the representatives of a system that was the embodiment of bloodthirsty lawlessness. thus peaceful missionaries became terrorists. the government inaugurated a system of promiscuous executions; the once unresisting propagandists retaliated by assassination after assassination. socialists were hanged for disseminating their ideas or for resisting arrest; high officials were stabbed or shot down for the bloodthirsty cruelty with which they fought the movement; and finally a series of plots was inaugurated aiming at the life of the emperor himself. the white terror of the throne was met by the red terror of the revolution. chapter vi. a meeting on new terms. it was an evening in the spring, . the parlour of a wealthy young engineer in kharkoff--a slender little man with eyelids that looked swollen and a mouth that was usually half-open, giving him a drowsy appearance--was filled with nihilists come to hear "an important man from st. petersburg." the governor of the province had recently been killed for the maltreatment of political prisoners and students of the local university, while a month later a bold attempt had been made on the life of the czar at the capital. the new phase of the movement was asserting itself with greater and greater emphasis, and the address by the stranger, who was no other than pavel boulatoff, though he was known here as nikolai, was awaited with thrills of impatience. the room was fairly crowded and the speaker of the evening was on hand, but the managers of the gathering were waiting for several more listeners. when two of these arrived, one of them proved to be elkin. he and pavel had not met since their graduation from the miroslav gymnasium. both wore scant growths of beard and both looked considerably changed, though pavel was still slim and boyish of figure and elkin's face as anæmic and chalk-coloured as it had been four years ago. elkin had been expelled from the university for signing some sort of petition. since then he had nominally been engaged in revolutionary business. in reality he spent his nights in gossip and tea-drinking, and his days in sleep. too proud to sponge on his nihilist friends for more than tea and bread and an occasional cutlet, and too lazy to give lessons, he was growing ever thinner and lazier. he was a man of spotless honesty, overflowing with venom, yet endowed with a certain kind of magnetism. when elkin discovered who the important revolutionist from st. petersburg was the blood rushed to his face. it was a most disagreeable surprise. but pavel greeted him with a cordiality so free from consciousness, and his roaring laughter, as he compared the circumstances of their last quarrel and those that surrounded their present meeting, was so hearty that elkin's hostility gave way to a feeling of elation at being so well received by the lion of the evening. he was one of the rank and file of the local "circles," and the prominence into which pavel's attention brought him at this meeting, in the presence of several of his chums, gave him a sense of promotion and triumph. he wished he could whisper into the ear of everybody present that this important revolutionist who was known to the gathering as nikolai was prince boulatoff. "i am still in the dark as to the identity of that girl," said pavel. "i shouldn't keep it from you now," the other returned, exposing an exultant lozenge of white teeth. "next time we meet in miroslav i shall look her up and introduce you to her. i have not seen her for a long time. she is quite an interesting specimen." "i should like to meet her very much," pavel said earnestly. "i have been wanting to know something about her all along. you see, if there were a circle in that blessed out-of-the-way town of ours one might be able to find out things, but if there is i have not seen anybody who knows of its existence. i myself have not been there for two years." "i was there last summer. there is a small circle there. at least there are several people who get things through me, but that girl i have not seen for a long time." "is it possible? can it be that you have not tried to get her in? really, a miroslav circle without her seems like hamlet without the prince of denmark." "yes, she is a lass with some grit to her, and with brains too." "if she is, we ought to get her in. we ought to get her in." "she was only sixteen when that affair happened." "was she? well, you wouldn't believe it, but my curiosity about that girl has been smouldering ever since. if it were not for her and for poor pievakin i might not be in the movement now." "i see. it needed a little girl to make a convert of a great man like you. well, well. that's interesting," elkin remarked, with a lozenge-shaped sneer; but he hastened to atone for it by adding, ardently: "you're right. she should be in the circle. i'll make it my business to see her next time i am there. i'll go there on purpose, in fact." he was always trying to be clever, for the most part with venom in his attempts. friend or foe, whatever humour was his was habitually coloured by an impulse to sting. "for the sake of a pretty word he would not spare his own father," as a russian proverb phrases it, and his pretty words or puns were usually tinctured with malice. he painted the miroslav girl in the most attractive colours. it gave him a peculiar satisfaction to whet pavel's curiosity and to be able to say mutely: "indeed, she is even more interesting than you suppose, yet while you are so crazy to know her, i, who do know her, have not even thought of getting her into my circle." when pavel was making his speech elkin, whose natural inclination was to disapprove, listened with an air of patronising concurrence. pavel's oratory was of the unsophisticated, "hammer-and-tongs," fiery type, yet its general effect, especially when he assailed existing conditions, was one of complaint. in spite of the full-throated buzz of his voice and the ferocious rush of his words, he conveyed the impression of a schoolboy laying his grievance before his mother. before he took leave from his former classmate the two had another talk of the "heroine of the pievakin demonstration." it was elkin who brought up the subject, which took them back to the time when, from a nihilist point of view, he was pavel's superior. he found him a ready listener. the student girls of the secret movement, their devotion to the cause, their pluck, the inhuman sufferings which the government inflicted on those of them who fell into its hands,--all this was the aureole of pavel's ecstasy. his heart had remained spotless, the wild oats he had sown during the first weeks of his stay in the capital notwithstanding. the word woman would fill him with tender whisperings of a felicity hallowed by joint sacrifices, of love crowned with martyrdom, and it was part of the soliloquies which the sex would breathe into his soul to tell himself that he owned his conversion to a girl. but these were sentimentalities of which the spartan traditions of the underground movement had taught him to be ashamed. moreover, there was really no time for such things. during the following summer and fall mines were laid in several places under railway tracks over which the emperor was expected to pass. the revolutionists missed their aim, but the czar's narrow escape, coupled with the gigantic scope of the manifold plot, with the skill and the boldness it implied, and with the fact that the digging of these subterranean passages had gone on for months without attracting notice, made a profound impression. such a display of energy and dexterity on the part of natives in a country where one was accustomed to trace every bit of enterprise to some foreign agency, could not but produce a fascinating effect. the gendarmes were apparently no match for the nihilists. chapter vii. "terrorism without violence." one afternoon, in december of the same year, pavel sat in a student restaurant, in the capital, eating fried steak and watching the door for a man with whom he had an appointment. he ate without appetite and looked fatigued and overworked. he had been out from an early hour, bustling about on perilous business and dodging spies. it was extremely exhausting and enervating, this prowling about under the perpetual strain of danger. he was liable to be arrested at any moment. it was like living continually under fire. the restaurant was full of cigarette smoke and noise. somebody in the rear of pavel, who evidently had nothing to say, was addressing somebody else in high-flown russian and with great gusto. his fine resonant voice, of which he was apparently conscious, jarred on pavel's nerves, interfering with what little relish he had for his meal. he was eyeing the design on the frost-covered door-glass and lashing himself into a fury over the invisible man's phrase-mongery, when he was accosted by a fair-complexioned young woman: "pardon me, but if i am not mistaken you are prince boulatoff?" "that's my name. and with whom have i the pleasure----?" "oh, that would really be uninteresting to know. i'll tell you, though, that i belong to miroslav." he reluctantly invited her to a glass of tea, which she accepted, saying: "it may look as if i were forcing myself upon your acquaintance, prince, but i really could not help it. whatever comes from miroslav is irresistible to me." and talking rapidly in effervescent, choking sentences, she told him that her name was maria andreevna safonova (safonoff), that she was a student at the bestusheff women's college and that her brother was a major of gendarmes. pavel had heard of there being a daughter or a sister of a miroslav gendarme officer at the bestusheff college; also that she made a favourable impression on her classmates; but he had been too busy to give the information more than passing notice. "is your brother in miroslav?" he asked. "yes, and i can assure you he is a gentleman, even if he is in the gendarme service. some day, i hope, he'll give it up. he is really too good to be in the business." pavel ascribed her ebullition to the nature of the subject, but he soon found that she was in the same state of excitement when a railroad ticket was the topic. she looked twenty-three but she had the cheeks and eyes of a chubby infant, while her arms and figure had the lank, immature effect of a girl of thirteen. while they sat talking, a dark man in the military uniform of the medico-surgical academy entered the café. it was parmet, the man pavel was waiting for. finding him engaged, the newcomer passed his table without greeting him, took a seat in a remote corner and buried himself in a book. mlle. safonoff did all the talking. she had not sat at boulatoff's table half an hour nor said much about miroslav before she had poured out some of her most intimate thoughts to him. "if you think it a pleasure to be the sister of a gendarme officer you are mistaken," she said. "it is not agreeable to be treated by everybody as though you had been put at the college to spy upon the girls, is it? my brother is a better man than the brothers and fathers and grandfathers of all the other student-girls put together, i assure you, prince. but then, of course, you may think i'm trying to spy on you, too." "no, i don't," said boulatoff with a laugh, pricking up his ears. "don't you, really?" and her eyes bubbled. "of course, i don't." "oh, if you knew how good he is, my brother. do you remember the time when poor pievakin left miroslav? i know you do. you were in the eighth class then. well, i may as well tell you, prince"--she lowered her voice--"had it not been for my brother there would have been no end of arrests at the railroad station. he simply told his men not to make a fuss. you see, i can confide in you without hesitation, for who would suspect a boulatoff of--pardon the word--spying? but i, why, i am the sister of a gendarme officer, so it is quite natural to suppose, and so forth and so on, don't you know." "do you know the girl who made that speech?" "there you are," she said dolefully. "i happened to be at the other end of the room just then. when i tried to find out who she was everybody was mum. fancy, my best girl-friend said to me: 'if i were you, masha, i shouldn't want to know her name if i could. suppose you utter it in sleep and your brother overhears you.' the idiots! they didn't know it was my brother who saved that girl from being arrested. and, by the way, if she had been arrested by some of his men, it would not have been hard for her to escape. i know i am saying more than i should, but i really can't help it. you have no idea how i feel about these things. and now, at the sight of you, prince--a man from miroslav--i seem to be going to pieces altogether. well, i don't mean, though, that my brother would have let her escape. but then i have an aunt, who is related to the warden of the miroslav prison by marriage, so she can arrange things there. oh, she's the greatest revolutionist you ever saw. of course, i don't know whether you sympathise with these things, prince, but i'll tell you frankly, _i_ do. it was that aunt of mine who talked it into me. she is simply crazy to do something. she is sorry there are no political prisoners in miroslav. if there were she would get them out. she's just itching for a chance to do something of that sort. and yet she never met a revolutionist in her life, nor saw a scrap of underground paper." to question the ingenuousness of this gush seemed to be the rankest absurdity. the russian spies of the period were poor actors. pavel was seized by a desire to show her that he, at least, did not suspect her of spying, and quite forgetting to restrain the "idiotic breadth" of his russian nature for which he was often rebuked by a certain member of the revolutionary executive committee who was forever berating his comrades for their insufficient caution, he slipped a crisp copy of the _will of the people_ into her hand. "put it into your muff," he said. the colour surged into her chubby face. her whole figure seemed tense with sudden excitement, as though the fine glossy paper in her hand were charged with electricity. "how shall i thank you?" she gasped. pavel saw a moist glitter in her eyes, and as he got up, his slender erect little frame, too, seemed charged with electricity. when she had gone he asked himself whether it had not all been acting, after all. he cursed himself for his imprudence, but he said: "oh, well, what must be will be," and as usual the phrase acted like an effectual incantation on his frame of mind. * * * * * parmet had been dubbed bismarck, because he bore considerable resemblance to gambetta. another nickname, one which he had invented himself, on a similar theory of contrasts, was makar. makar was as typically slavic as his face was semitic. his military uniform, which he had to wear because his academy was under the auspices of the war department, ill became him. instead of concealing the rabbinical expression of his face, it emphasised it. when they came out of the restaurant, a man, shouldering a stick, was running along the snow-covered pavement, lighting the street-lamps, as though in dread of being forestalled by somebody. "guess who that girl is," pavel said. "have i heard of her?" "no. quite an amusing sort of a damsel. seething and steaming for all the world like a samovar. you should have seen her calflike ecstasy when i handed her something to read. i was afraid she was going to have a fit." makar trotted silently on, continually curling himself in his wretched grey cloak and striking one foot against the other, to knock the caked drab-coloured snow off his boots. pavel wore a new furred coat. "she may be useful though," pavel resumed, after a pause. "that is, provided she is all she seems to be. her brother is a gendarme major. what do you think of that?" "is he?" makar asked, looking up at his companion in beatific surprise. "yes, and she says he's a good fellow, too. of course, she's quite a full-fledged ninny herself, and ought to be taken with a carload of salt, but she referred to some facts with which i happen to be familiar." while he was describing the girl's aunt, a passing soldier saluted makar, mistaking him for an army officer. makar, however, was too absorbed in his companion's talk to be aware of what was going on about him. pavel shrieked with laughter. "he must be a pretty raw sort of recruit to take _you_ for a warrior," he said. when he had finished his sketch of the woman who was longing to set somebody free, the medical student paused in the middle of the sidewalk. "why, she's a godsend, then," he said. "moderate your passions, mr. army officer," pavel said languidly, mocking his old gymnasium director. "if she does not turn out to be a spy we'll see what we can do with her. she strikes me rather favourably, though." "why, you oughtn't to neglect her, pasha. if i were you i would lose no time in making her brother's acquaintance. think of the possibilities of it!" "bridle your exuberance, young man. her brother lives many miles from here. he is on the hunt for sedition in the most provincial of provinces. want to make a terrorist of him? go ahead. he lives in miroslav. there." "in miroslav!" makar echoed, with pride in the capital of his native province. presently they entered a courtyard and took to climbing a steep stony staircase. strong, inviting odours of cabbage soup and cooked meat greeted them at several of the landings. makar's lodging was on the sixth floor. he had moved in only a few days ago and the chief object of pavel's visit was to make a mental note of its location. the first thing makar did as he got into the room was to put a pitcher on one of his two windows. the windows commanded a little side street, and the pitcher was makar's safety signal. when he had lit his lamp a sofa, freshly covered with green oil-cloth, proved to be the best piece of furniture in the room, the smell of the oil-cloth mingling with the stale odours of tobacco smoke with which the very walls seemed to be saturated. "ugh, what a room!" pavel said, sniffing. they talked of a revolutionist who had recently been arrested and to whom they referred as "alexandre." special importance was attached by the authorities to the capture of this man, because among the things found at his lodgings was a diagram of the winter palace with a pencil mark on the imperial dining hall. as the prisoner was a conspicuous member of the terrorists' executive committee, the natural inference was that another bold plot was under way, one which had something to do with the czar's dining room, but which had apparently been frustrated by the discovery of the diagram. the palace guard was strongly re-enforced and every precaution was taken to insure the monarch's safety. now, the terrorists had their man in the very heart of the enemy's camp, and the result of the search of alexandre's lodgings was no secret to them. this revolutionist, whose gloomy face was out of keeping with his carefully pomaded hair, kid gloves, silk hat, showy clothes and carefully trimmed whiskers à la alexander ii., was known to makar as "the dandy." less than a year before he had obtained a position in the double capacity of spy and clerk, at the third section of his majesty's own office, and so liked was he by his superiors that he had soon been made private secretary to the head of the secret service, every document of importance passing through his hands. since then he had been communicating to the executive committee, now a list of new suspects, now the details of a contemplated arrest, now a copy of some secret circular to the gendarme offices of the empire. while they were thus conversing of alexandre and the dandy, pavel stretched himself full length on the sofa and dozed off. when he opened his eyes, about two hours later, he found parmet tiptoeing awkwardly up and down the room, his shadow a gigantic crab on the wall. pavel broke into a boisterous peal of laughter. "here is a figure for you! all that is needed is an artist to set to work and paint it." "are you awake? look here, pasha. your gendarme's sister and her aunt are haunting my mind." "why, why, have you fallen in love with both of them at once?" pavel asked as he jumped to his feet and shot his arms toward the ceiling. he looked refreshed and full of animal spirits. "stop joking, pasha, pray," makar said in his purring, mellifluous voice. "it irritates me. it's a serious matter i want to speak to you about, and here you are bent upon fun." pavel's story of the gendarme officer's sister had stirred in him visions of a mighty system of counter-espionage. he had a definite scheme to propose. pavel found it difficult to work himself out of his playful mood until makar fell silent and took to pacing the floor resentfully. when he had desisted, with a final guffaw over makar's forlorn air, the medical student, warming up to fresh enthusiasm, said: "well, to let that prison stand idle would be criminal negligence. that girl's aunt must be given a chance." "what's that?" pavel said, relapsing into horseplay. "do you want somebody nabbed on purpose to give a bored lady something to excite her nerves?" he finished the interrogation rather limply. it flashed upon him that what makar was really aiming at was that some revolutionist should volunteer to be arrested on a denunciation from the dandy or some other member of the party with a view to strengthening its position in the third section. makar went on to plead for an organised effort to get into the various gendarme offices. "it is a terrible struggle we are in, pasha. our best men fall before they have time to turn round. if we had more revolutionists on the other side, alexandre might be a free man now." "well, and sooner or later you and i will be where he is now and be plunged into the sleep of the righteous, and there won't even be a goat to graze at our graves. let the dead bury the dead, makashka. we want the living for the firing line. we can't afford to let fresh blood turn sour in a damp cell, if we can help it." "but this is 'the firing line'," makar returned with beseeching, almost with tearful emphasis. "if you only gave me a chance to explain myself. what i want is to have confusion carried into every branch of the government; i want the czar to be surrounded by a masquerade of enemies, so that his henchmen will suspect each other of being either agents of the third section or revolutionists. do you see the point? i want the czar to be surrounded by a babel of mistrust and espionage. i want him to be dazed, staggered until he succumbs to this nightmare of suspicion and hastens to convoke a popular assembly, as louis xvi. was forced to do; i want the inhabitants of our tear-drenched country to be treated like human beings without delay. my scheme practically amounts to a system or terrorism without violence, and i insist that one good man in the enemy's camp is of more value than the death of ten spies." his low, velvety voice rang clear, tremulous with pleading fervour; his face gleamed with an intellectual relish in his formula of the plan. as he spoke, he was twisting his mighty fist, opening and closing it again, talmud-fashion, in unison with the rhythm of his sentences. ejaculations like "visionary!" "phrase-maker!" were on the tip of pavel's tongue, but he had not the heart to utter them. aerial as the scheme was, makar's plea had cast a certain spell over him. it was like listening to a beautiful piece of mythology. "let us form a special force of men ready to go to prison, to be destroyed, if need be," makar went on. "the loss of one man would mean, in each case, the saving of twenty. think how many important comrades a single leak in the third section has saved us. it's a matter of plain arithmetic." "of plain insanity," pavel finally broke in. "don't get excited, pasha, pray. can't you let me finish? if i am wrong you'll have plenty of time to prove it." his purring talmudic voice and the smell of the fresh oil-cloth were unbearable to pavel now. "it's like this," makar resumed. "in the first place [he bent down his little finger] every honest man is sure to be arrested some day, and what difference does it make whether the end comes a few months sooner or a few months later? in the second place [he bent down the next finger] there must be some more people like that girl's aunt. it is quite possible that most of those who would be arrested on this plan would get out, and that itself would be a good thing, for it would add to the prestige of the party. everything that reveals the weakness of the government on the one hand, and the cleverness and daring of our people on the other, is good for the cause. every success scored by the 'will of the people' is a step in the direction of that for which men like yourself are staking their lives, pasha. don't interrupt me, pray. i'll go a step further. i am of the opinion that under certain conditions, where an escape is assured, it wouldn't be a bad idea to let one's self be arrested just in order to add another name to the list of political gaol-breakers, that is to say, to the list of the government's fiascos. every little counts. every straw increases that weight which will finally break the back of russia's despot." "do you really mean what you say, makar? do you actually want to be arrested?" pavel asked. "not at all. all i want is that another good man should gain the confidence of the third section and that another political prisoner should escape." "and what if all mlle. safonoff says turns out to be as idiotic a dream as all this tommyrot of yours?" "'if one is afraid of wolves one had better keep out of the woods.' you, yourself, have taken much greater chances than that, pasha. if i am arrested with papers and the worst comes to the worst they won't hang me." "i see you take it seriously after all. well, if you think i'll let you do anything of the kind you are a fool." "you can't prevent me from doing what i consider to be right. nor do i want anybody else to send the denunciation which is to result in my arrest. i'll send it myself. all i want is that somebody should claim credit for it afterward, when i am in prison--on that very day, if possible. the search and arrest will be ordered from st. petersburg, and then some of our men will say at the third section that the anonymous letter was his, adding some details about me. details can be worked out later. where there is a will there is a way. at any rate, i don't expect anybody but myself to bear the moral responsibility for my arrest." he talked on in the same strain until pavel sprang to his feet, flushed with rage. "it's all posing--that's all there's to it!" he shouted. "on the surface it means that you are willing to sacrifice yourself without even attracting attention, but in reality this subtle modesty of yours is only the most elaborate piece of parading that was ever conceived. it's love of applause all the way through, and you are willing to stake your life on it. that's all there is about it." makar grew yellow in the face and sweat broke out on his forehead. "in that case, there's no use talking, of course," he said in a very low voice. "if i am a humbug i am a humbug." "and if you are a fool, you are a fool," pavel rejoined, with a conciliatory growl. "you need not back out, pasha. maybe you are right," makar rejoined. "who is absolutely free from vanity? human nature is such a complex mechanism. one may be governed by love of approbation and, perhaps, also, by a certain adventuresome passion for the danger of the thing. the great question is whether there is something besides this. no, it is not all posing, pasha. there are moments when i ask myself why i should not live as most people do, but i only have to realise all that is going on around us; the savage tyranny, the writhing millions, the hunger, the bottomless darkness, the unuttered groans,--i only have to think of this and of the dear comrades i have known who have been strangled on the gallows or are wasting away in the casemates; i need only picture all this, i say, to feel that even if there be an alloy of selfishness in my revolutionary interests, yet, in the main, it is this sense of the great wrong which keeps me from nursing my own safety. do you know that the dangling corpses of our comrades are never absent from my mind? i am not without a heart, pasha." "nobody says you are, only you are a confounded dreamer, makashka," pavel answered. "we have no time for dreams and poetry. our struggle is one of hard, terrible prose." "you are even more of a dreamer than i, pasha," makar retorted, blissfully. when makar resumed speaking the last echo of resentment was gone from his voice. "after all, one gets more than one gives. when i think of the moments of joy the movement affords me, of the ties of friendship with so many good people--the cream of the generation, the salt of the earth, the best children russia ever gave birth to--when i think of the glorious atmosphere that surrounds me, of the divine ecstasy with which i view the future; when i recall all this i feel that i get a sort of happiness which no rothschild could buy. to be kept in solitary confinement is anything but a pleasure, to be sure, but is there nothing to sweeten one's life there? and how about the thought that over yonder, outside, there are people who are going on with the struggle and who think of you sometimes? sooner or later the government will yield. and then, oh then somebody--some comrade of ours--will throw the cell-door open, and i'll join in the celebration of our triumph. really, pasha, i am strong as a bull, and a few years of confinement would not kill me. while some of our people may die by the hand of the hangman, my life would be spared. did you ever stop to think of the time when the cells of siberia and of peter and paul are thrown open and one says to the immured comrades, 'out with you, brothers! you're free! the nation is free!' come, another year or two and this will be realised." "you had better save your sentimentalities for novices," pavel said. "and, by the way, your eloquence is certainly of more use than your dreaming in a dungeon would be." he was arguing with a rock of stiff-necked will-power. chapter viii. makar's canvass. parmet now gave most of his time to the secret movement, making himself useful in a variety of ways. his great unrealised ambition, however, was to work in an underground printing office--an offence which at the period was punished by a long term of penal servitude in siberia. he had a feeling as though nothing one did for the movement could be regarded as a vital service to the cause of free speech as long as it fell short of typesetting in a secret printing establishment. he had applied for work of this kind several times, but his proverbial absent-mindedness stood in his way. being in the habit of reading some book or newspaper as he walked through the streets, he would sometimes catch himself drinking in the contents of some "underground" publication in this manner. once as he stood on a street corner intent upon a revolutionary leaflet, he heard an infuriated whisper: "imbecile! scoundrel!" when he raised his eyes he saw the ample back of a compactly built man dressed in citizen's clothes except for a broad military cap with a red band. this was "the janitor," so nicknamed because he made it his business to go the rounds of "conspiracy houses" every morning and to pick a quarrel with those of their occupants who had neglected to furnish their windows with safety signals or were guilty of some other manifestation of "russian breadth." the episode antedated the above conversation between makar and pavel by two months, and the medical student had not seen the janitor since. he dreaded to meet him. at this minute, however, he was just the man he wanted to see, for it was he who had taken the initiative in getting the dandy into the third section. accordingly, pavel had no sooner left him than he betook himself to a place at which he expected to find that revolutionist. the place was the lodging of a man who was known in the organisation as purring cat--a nickname based on his shaggy eyebrows and moustache. his face was almost entirely overgrown with hair. short of stature, with a thick dark beard that reached down to his knees and with blue eyes that peered up from under his stern eyebrows, this formidable looking little man, the nearest approach to the wax-works version of a russian nihilist, was the gentlest soul on the executive committee. besides purring cat and the janitor, makar found in the room andrey, an extremely tall man with tartarian features. the janitor greeted makar with a volley of oaths, stuttering as he spoke, as was usually the case when he was angry. "you have no business to be here," he fulminated. "you are just the man to bring a spy in tow. i shouldn't be a bit surprised if you had one at your heels now." "come, don't fume," makar pleaded, confusedly. "i won't be absent-minded any more. i have taken myself in hand. besides, my absent-mindedness is not without its redeeming feature. you see, i am the last man to be suspected of being on my guard; so the spies would never bother me." andrey and purring cat smiled. the janitor started to do the same, but changed his mind. instead, he broke into a more violent fit of temper and a more painful stutter than before. his compact figure was of medium height, his face very blond, with prominent eyes and well-trimmed red beard. his military cap matched the passport of a retired army officer under which he was registered at the police station. he was supposed to be employed at some civil tribunal, and every morning, on the stroke of eleven he would leave his lodgings, a portfolio under his arm, his military cap slightly cocked--the very personification of the part he acted. the name in his passport was polivanoff. his real name was michailoff, and under that name he was wanted by the gendarmes in prominent connection with several attempts on the life of the czar. he had once escaped from under arrest and on another occasion he had managed to disappear from a railroad train while it was being searched for him. he was one of the ablest and bravest men in the party. his un-russian punctuality and indefatigable attention to detail; his practical turn of mind and the way he had of nagging his friends for their lack of these qualities, were common topics of banter among the terrorists. he had made a special study of every lane and court in the capital by which one might "trash" one's trail. he not only shadowed his fellow revolutionists to see if they were aware of being shadowed or whether they dressed in accordance with the type implied by their false passports, but he also made a practice of spying over the spies of the third section. with this end in view, he had once rented a room across the street from that office--an institution that would have given millions for his head. here he would sit for hours at his window, scrutinising every new person who entered the building so as to be able to keep track of their movements afterward. having thus discovered a boarding house in which lived an important officer of the secret service he had sent the dandy to hire a room there. the desired appointment had then been obtained without difficulty. when makar had laid the practical part of his scheme before the three men, the janitor fixed his prominent eyes on him and said, without stammering: "and you are just the chap to do it, aren't you?" "and why not? it certainly doesn't need much adroitness and vigilance to get arrested." "the devil it does not. a fellow like you would get ten men arrested before he fooled the measliest cub spy in the third section. better keep your hands off." "oh, well, if the escape was really a sure thing, the matter might be arranged," purring cat interposed, charitably, in a low, gentle voice. "only this is scarcely the time for it." whereupon makar, feeling encouraged, launched out to describe his far-reaching scheme in detail. the look of the janitor's prominent eyes, however, disturbed him, so that he expounded the plan in a rather nerveless way; when he had finished, the janitor declared: "he's certainly crazy." purring cat's blue eyes looked up under their bushy brows, as he said, gravely: "there may be something in it, though, theoretically at least. in reality, however, i am afraid that general state of chaos would rebound upon ourselves. the government may get its spies into our circles until one does not know who is who. it may become a double-edged weapon, this 'babel of distrust.' as to that prison scheme it might be tried some day. only don't be in a hurry, makar." "and what is your opinion?" makar addressed himself to andrey solicitously. andrey who was a man of few words, and spoke with a slight lisp, said he had no definite opinion to offer, but, when makar pressed him hard, he said: "well, we have one man there" (meaning the third section), "so let us not make the mistake of the woman who cut her hen open in order to get at all her eggs at once. still, if the scheme could be worked in some of the provinces, it might be worth while. it all depends on circumstances, of course." makar longed to see sophia, the daughter of the former governor of st. petersburg. she had taken an active part in one of the most daring rescues and was celebrated for the ingenuity and motherly devotion with which she gave herself to the "red cross" work of the party, supplying political prisoners with provisions and keeping them in secret communication with their relatives. it was the story of this young noblewoman's life which afterwards inspired turgeneff's prose poem, _the threshold_. makar thought she might take an active interest in his scheme, but she was overwhelmed with other work and inaccessible. chapter ix. a day underground. about a week had elapsed, when pavel read in his morning paper of the hanging of three revolutionists in odessa: two gentiles and a jew. he had never met these men, but he knew that two of them had not been implicated in anything more violent than the diffusion of socialist ideas. also that the parents of the one who belonged to the jewish race were under arrest, condemned to be exiled to siberia for no other crime than their having given birth to an enemy of the existing régime. pavel moved about his room with a sob of helpless fury in his throat. he found feverish satisfaction in the thought that he had some chemicals in his overcoat which he was to carry to the dynamite shop of the terrorists. the explosives to be made from it were intended for a new attempt upon the life of the emperor. not being directly connected with the contemplated attack, neither he nor the dynamite makers of the organisation had any clear idea about the plot, which was in the hands of a special sub-committee, alexandre's place having been taken by another man; but he did know that preparations were under way in the winter palace. the dynamite shop was kept by a woman with a deep-chested, almost masculine voice, and a man with a squeaky feminine one. they were registered as man and wife. she was the daughter of a priest, but she looked like a woman of the people and dressed like one--a thick-set extremely blonde young woman with coarse yet pleasing features. her revolutionary name was baska. her fictitious husband, who was one of the chemists of the party, was addressed by the revolutionists as grisha. he had a scholarly face, yet the two had no difficulty in passing among the neighbours for a tradesman or shop clerk and his wife. for the greater reality of the impersonation and as a special precaution against curiosity they made friends with the porter of the house and his wife and with the police roundsman of the neighbourhood, often inviting them to a glass of vodka. the porter of st. petersburg, like his brother of paris under the empire, is a political detective "ex-officio." the two spies and the police officer were thus turned into unconscious witnesses of the young couple's political innocence, for in the first place they had many an opportunity to convince themselves that their dwelling was free from anything suspicious and, in the second, people who drank vodka and went, moreover, on sprees with the house porter, certainly did not look like nihilists. "good morning, pavel," baska greeted him vivaciously, as she gave his hand a hearty squeeze, while her other hand held a smoking cigarette. "just in time! i hate to eat my breakfast all alone. grisha has another bad headache, poor fellow. but i see you, too, have a long face. where did you get it?" pavel smiled lugubriously as he handed her the package. he had not the heart to disturb her good spirits, and she went on chirping and laughing. grisha came in, haggard, sickly and trying to smile. the skin of both his hands was off. this, like his frequent headaches, was the effect of the work he did in these rooms--of inhaling nitroglycerine and kneading dynamite with his bare fists. baska gayly told how the porter's wife had offered her a salve for her "husband," and how the night before, as grisha was pouring nitroglycerine into some dynamite "dough," there was an explosion and the house filled with smoke. "our next door neighbour knew at once that our kerosene stove exploded and set fire to a rag," baska said with a deep-voiced titter. "she gave me quite a lecture on negligence." "she only wondered why there should be such a strange smell to the smoke," grisha added, his hand to his head. as pavel looked at baska relishing her tea and her muffin and talking merrily between gulps, a desire took hold of him to spoil her vivacity. it jarred on him to see her enjoy herself while the image of the three new gallows was so vivid in his mind. "you people don't seem to know what's going on in the world," he said testily. "they have hanged malinka, maidanski and drobiazgin." "have they?" baska asked paling. she had known two of them personally. while pavel took out his newspaper and read the brief despatch, her head sank on the table. her solid frame was convulsed with sobbing. "be calm, be calm," grisha entreated, offering her a glass of water. in spite of her excellent physique she was subject to violent hysterical fits which were apt to occur at a time when the proffer of neighbourly sympathy was least desirable. she told all she remembered of the executed men, whom she had met in the south. but that was not much; so pavel went to see purring cat who, being a southerner, had detailed information to give him about the three nihilists. boulatoff could talk of nothing else that day. when he met makar, in the afternoon, he said: "people are being strangled right and left and here you are bent on that _idée fixe_ of yours." "fine logic, that," makar replied. "if my _idée fixe_ had been realised a year ago these men would now be free. but this is not the time to talk about things of that kind." instead of mourning the loss of the three revolutionists he was in a solemn, religious sort of mood at the thought of the new human sacrifices offered on the altar of liberty. he was panting to speak about the jew who had been executed. he was proud of the fact that two men of his race had given their lives for the cause within five months. the other jewish revolutionist had been executed in nicolayeff. a letter which he had addressed to the revolutionists a few days before his execution, exhorting them not to waste any of the forces of the movement on attempts to avenge his death, was enshrined in makar's heart as the most sacred document in the entire literature of the struggle. but race pride was contrary to the teachings of the movement; so he not only kept these sentiments to himself, but tried to suppress them in his own bosom. * * * * * in the evening pavel took two young cavalry officers of his acquaintance to the house of a retired major where a revolutionary meeting was to be held. they found the major's drawing room sparkling with military uniforms. the gathering was made up of eight officers, two men in citizen's clothes, and one woman, the dark long-necked hostess. two cheap lithographs, one of general suvoroff and the other of the reigning monarch, occupied the centre of the best wall, in jarring disharmony with the refined and somewhat bohemian character of the rest of the room. the two portraits had been put there recently, to bear witness to the political "reliability" of the house. the hostess presided over a pile of yellow aromatic tobacco, rolling cigarettes for her guests and smoking incessantly herself. an idiotic-looking man-servant and a peasant girl fresh from the country kept up a supply of tea, zwiebacks and preserves. every time they appeared the hostess, whose seat commanded the door, would signal to the company. she did it rather perfunctorily, however, the revolutionary discussion proceeding undisturbed. the cultured, bookish russian of the assemblage was greek to the two servants. they talked of the three executions. presently two other civilians were announced. "at last!" the hostess said, getting up from her pile of tobacco in a flutter. the two newcomers were both above medium height, of solid build and ruddy-faced; but here their similarity of appearance ceased. one of them looked the image of social refinement and elegance, while the clothes and general aspect of the other bespoke a citified, prosperous peasant. his rough top-boots, the red woolen belt round his coat and the rather coarse tint of his florid complexion, like his full russian beard, proclaimed the son of the unenlightened classes. he was taller than his companion and remarkably well-built, with a shock of dark brown hair thrown back from a high prominent forehead and regular features. he was introduced to the gathering as zachar. he and the stylish-looking man by his side whose revolutionary nickname was "my lord," conveyed the effect of a bright, shrewd tradesman and a high-class lawyer bent on some legal business. "if we are late, blame this guide of mine, not me," zachar said to the hostess, in a deep, rather harsh baritone, pointing at his companion. "it turned out that he did not know the place very well himself. there is a pilot for you." he accepted a glass of tea in a silver holder and during the ensuing small talk the room rang with his merriment. his jests were commonplace, but his russian and all he said betrayed the man of education. the tradesman's costume was his disguise, and if it became him so well it was because his parents were moujiks. born in serfdom but brought up as a nobleman at the expense of his former master, this university-bred peasant--a case of extreme rarity--for whom the gendarmes were searching in connection with a bold attempt to blow up an imperial train, loomed in the minds of the revolutionists as the most conspicuous figure of their movement. "and how is my young philosopher?" he said to pavel. "i was at your place this morning, but found you out, pasha." "i'll see you later on," pavel said dryly. "philosopher" referred to the nature of the studies which pavel's mother thought him to be pursuing. there was a touch of patronage in the way zachar used the word, and pavel resented it. as the gathering began to lapse into a graver mood the conversation was expectantly left to zachar, who by degrees accepted the rôle of the principal speaker of the evening. that he relished this rôle and was fond of a well turned phrase became apparent at once, but the impression soon wore off. he compelled attention. "the practice of nations being inherited like furniture or chickens has been out of date for centuries," he said in the course of a ferocious attack on the existing adjustment of things. "but our party does not demand full justice at once. the will of the people is not inconsiderate. we are willing to project ourselves into the position of an old chap with whom the love of power has been bred in the bone. all our party does demand, as a first step, is some regard for the rights of the individual; of those rights without which the word civilisation is of a piece with that puerile sort of hypocrisy as our late war with turkey, when the ambitious old fellow in his unquenchable thirst for territory sent his subjects to die for the liberty of bulgarians so that their own children at home might be plunged into more abject slavery than ever. "the government knows, of course, that its days are numbered and that it is only cowardice and incapacity for concerted action which make its brief respite possible. to retreat honourably, before it is too late, to yield to the stern voice of the revolution under some specious pretext--this is the step indicated by the political situation, but then this is not what the ambitious oldster is after. is there any wonder he has lost his head? so much the better for the revolution. one or two decisive blows and the government will topple over. thanks to the splendid army section of the will of the people, on the one hand, and to our powerful workingmen's section, on the other, one hundred resolute men will be enough to seize the winter palace, to cut off all egress, arrest the new czar and, amid the general confusion following the death of the old tyrant, proclaim a provisional government. what a glorious opportunity to serve one's country!" his speech lasted an hour and a half. most of his hearers were recent converts, and these the matter-of-fact tone of his utterances took by storm. the third section had heard of him as an irresistible agitator. so he was, and the chief secret of his success lay--despite an effect of conscious floridity and bravado--in a sincere depth of conviction manifested by a volcanic vehemence of delivery. his speeches took it for granted that russia was at the threshold of a great historical change and that his organisation was going to play a leading part in that change. he gathered particular assurance from the fact that the "army section" that had been formed by his efforts included several officers of the court guard whose number he hoped to increase. these court officers it was whom his imagination pictured as "cutting off all egress" at the winter palace. the funds of his party included contributions from some high sources. things seemed to be coming the "will of the people's" way. as he spoke his strong physique seemed to be aflame with contagious passion, sweeping along audience and speaker. the harshness of his mighty baritone was gone; his peasant face was beautiful. words like "party," "citizen," "national assembly," are winged with the glamour of forbidden fruit in russia, and when zachar uttered these words, in accents implying that these things were as good as realised, his audience was enravished. to all of which, in the present instance, should be added the psychological effect of a group of dashing army officers, all members of the nobility, reverently listening to an address by a peasant. he struck one as a giant of energy and courage, of nervous vitality as well as of bodily strength. he had the stuff of a political leader in him. under favourable conditions he would have left his mark as one of the strong men of the nineteenth century. he carried people along current-fashion rather than magnetised them. pavel was the next speaker, but the outraged sense of justice which was the keynote of his impassioned plea, coming as it did upon the heels of zachar's peremptory and matter-of-course declarations, sounded out of date. "oh, it takes an idiot to talk after you, zachar," he said, breaking off in the middle of a sentence. "one feels like being up and doing things, not talking. i wonder why we don't start for the winter palace, at once." "that's the way i feel, too," chimed in a very young cavalry officer, while two older men in brilliant uniforms, were grasping zachar each by one hand. the long-necked hostess was brushing the tears from her eyes and calling herself "fool," for joy. an artillery officer with bad teeth of whom pavel could not think without thinking of the rheumatism of which that revolutionist had once complained to him, drew his sword fiercely, the polished steel flaming in the bright light of the room, as he said: "by jove!" "look at him! look at him!" zachar shouted. "bridle your passions, old boy," pavel put in. a minute or two later he called the orator into the next room and handed him what looked like a package of tobacco. zachar was in high feather over the success of his speech and loath to leave the atmosphere of adoration that surrounded him here; but an important engagement forced him to take his departure. * * * * * a quarter of an hour's ride in a tramcar and a short walk through the moonlit streets brought him to a deserted corner in the vicinity of the winter palace, where he was met by a man dressed like an artisan, as tall as himself, but slimmer of girth, and the two went on trudging along the snow-encrusted sidewalk together. the other man had an expressive sickly face which the pallid glare of the moonlight gave a ghastly look. "how is your health?" zachar asked. "bad," the sickly looking man answered, holding out his hand into which zachar put the package of tobacco, saying: "see if it isn't too heavy for a quarter of a pound." "it is, rather, but it'll pass," the other replied, weighing the package in his hand and then putting it into his pocket. buried in the tobacco was a small quantity of dynamite. "it's too bad you are not feeling well." "yes, my nerves are playing the devil with me. the worst of it is that i have got to keep the stuff under my pillow when i sleep. that gives me headaches." "i shouldn't wonder. the evaporations of that stuff do that as a rule. but can't you find another place for it?" "not for the night. they might go through my trunk then. they are apt to come in at any time. oh, those surprise visits of theirs keep my wretched nerves on edge all the time." while the gendarmerie and the police knew him to be a leader among the revolutionary workmen of the capital and were hunting for him all over the city, this man, whose name was stepan khaltourin, had for the past few months been making his home, under the name of batushkoff, in the same building as the czar, in the winter palace, where his work as a varnisher was highly valued. he was a self-taught mechanic, unusually well-read and clear-headed. of retiring disposition and a man of few words, with an iron will under a bashful and extremely gentle manner, he was one of the prominent figures of the will of the people, having been driven to terrorism by the senseless persecutions which he had met at the hands of the authorities in his attempts to educate some of his fellow-workmen. he now lodged, together with other mechanics, in the basement of the winter palace, with only one room--the guard-room--between the ceiling over his head and the floor of the imperial dining hall. indeed, the frequent raids which a colonel at the head of a group of gendarmes had been making upon that basement since the seizure of "alexandre's" diagram were largely a matter of display and red tape. there was more jingling of spurs and flaunting of formidable looking moustaches than actual searching or watching. nowhere was the incapacity of russian officialdom illustrated more glaringly than it was in the very home of the czar. the bold terrorist for whom the police were looking high and low had found little difficulty in securing employment here, and one of the first things that had attracted his attention in the place was the prevailing state of anarchy and demoralisation he found in it. priceless gems and relics were scattered about utterly unguarded; stealing was the common practice of the court servants, and orgies at which these regaled their friends from the outside world upon wines from the imperial cellars were a nightly occurrence. since alexandre's arrest the vigilance of the court gendarmes had been greatly increased, so that no servant could enter the palace without being searched; yet khaltourin contrived to smuggle in a small piece of dynamite every evening, thus gradually accumulating the supply that was needed for the terrible work of destruction he was preparing. as to his position within the palace, he played his rôle so well that he was the favourite of gendarmes and servants alike, often hearing from them stories of the nihilists and of the great plot to blow up the dining hall that was supposed to have been nipped in the bud. "well, how is that old gendarme of yours?" zachar inquired. "still teaching you manners?" "yes," khaltourin answered with a smile. "i am getting sick of his attentions, though. but there is something back of them, it appears. what do you think he's after? why, he has a marriageable daughter, so he has taken it into his head to make a son-in-law of me." "ho-ho-ho-ho!" zachar exploded, restraining a guffaw. chapter x. the czar's escape. on tuesday, february th, at about six o'clock in the evening, pavel and makar were sauntering through the streets of the vassili island. their conversation languished. while indoors they had had another discussion of makar's scheme, a heart-to-heart talk in which pavel showed signs of yielding; and now that they were out in the snow-dappled night they were experiencing that feeling of embarrassment which is the aftermath of sentimental communion between two men. when they reached the neva, pavel cast a glance across, in the direction of the winter palace. the frozen river looked infinitely wider than it was. dotted with lamps and crossed by streams of home-bound humanity, it lay vast, gorgeous, uncanny--a white plain animated with mysterious brightness and mysterious motion. the main part of the capital, on the palace side of the neva, was a world of gloom starred with myriads and myriads of lights, each so distinct that one almost felt tempted to count them; all this seemingly as far away as the gold-dotted sky overhead. makar was huddling himself in his grey military cloak, his bare hands loosely thrust into its sleeves, looking at nothing. pavel, his furred coat unbuttoned, gazed across the neva. "come on," the medical student urged, knocking one foot against the other. "it's too cold to be tramping around like this." "one moment," pavel responded, impatiently. he had been visiting this point at the same hour every day for the past week or two. makar, who did not know of it, relapsed into his revery. suddenly there came a dull rolling crash. it burst from the other side, and as pavel and makar looked across the river they saw that the lights of the winter palace which had been burning a minute ago, were out, leaving a great patch of darkness. the human stream paused. then came a rush of feet on all sides. "it's in the palace," boulatoff whispered; and seizing his companion's hand at his side he pressed it with furious strength. * * * * * the next day the newspapers were allowed to state that the previous evening, as the czar and a royal guest were about to enter the dining hall through one door and the other members of the imperial family through another, a terrific explosion had occurred, making a hole in the floor ten feet long and six wide; that eleven inmates of the guard room, which was directly under the dining hall, were killed and fifty-seven injured, the czar's narrow escape having been due to an accidental delay of the dinner. the explosion had shattered a number of windows and blown out the gas, leaving the palace in complete darkness. traces of an improvised dynamite mine had been discovered in the basement. three artisans employed in the palace were arrested, but their innocence was established, while a fourth man, a varnisher named batushkoff, had disappeared. now that batushkoff was gone the third section learned that he was no other than stepan khaltourin, one of the active revolutionists its agents were looking for. one week after the explosion the czar signed a decree which practically placed the government in the hands of a supreme executive commission--a body especially created to cope with the situation and whose head, count loris-melikoff, was invested with all but the powers of a regent. count melikoff was neither a slav nor of noble birth. he was the son of an armenian merchant. he was a new figure in st. petersburg, and when his carriage passed along the neva prospect his swarthy face with its striking oriental features were pointed out with expressions of perplexity. although one of the two principal heroes of the late war with turkey and recently a governor-general of kharkoff, he was looked upon as an upstart. the extraordinary powers so suddenly vested in him took the country by surprise. he was known for the conciliatory policy toward the nihilists at which he had aimed while he was governor-general of kharkoff. accordingly, his promotion to what virtually amounted to dictatorship was universally interpreted as a sign of weakening on the part of alexander ii. indeed, melikoff's first pronunciamento from the lofty altitude of his new office struck a note of startling novelty. he spoke of the czar as showing "increased confidence in his people" and of "public coöperation" as "the main force capable of assisting the government in its effort to restore a normal flow of official life"--utterances that were construed into a pledge of public participation in affairs of state, into an unequivocal hint at representative legislation. loris-melikoff was one of the ablest statesmen russia had ever produced. he was certainly the only high official of his time who did not try to prove his devotion to the throne by following in the trodden path of repression. he knew that russia could not be kept from joining in the march of western civilisation and he was not going to serve his personal interests by pretending that it could. instead, he hoped to strengthen his position by winning the czar over to his own moderate liberalism, by reconciling him to the logic of history. but the logic of history could best have been served by prompt and vigorous action, while the chief of the supreme executive commission was rather slow to move. nor, indeed, was he free from interference. the czar was still susceptible to the influence of his unthinking relatives and of his own vindictive nature. chaos marked the situation. loris-melikoff's first week in office was signalised by the most cruel act in the entire history of the government's struggle against nihilism. a gymnasium boy, seventeen years old (a jew), was hanged in kieff for carrying a revolutionary proclamation. the dictator's professions of liberalism were branded as hypocrisy. chapter xi. a mysterious arrest. a young man had been seized with seditious publications. it was the first political arrest in miroslav, and the report was spreading in a maze of shifting versions. this much seemed certain: the prisoner pretended to be a deaf-mute and so far the gendarmes and the procureur had failed to disclose his identity. the local newspaper dared not publish the remotest allusion to the matter. countess anna nicolayevna varova (varoff) first heard the news from her brother-in-law, the governor, and although the two belonged to that exceptional minority which usually discussed topics of this character in their normal voices, yet it was in subdued tones that the satrap broached the subject. anna nicolayevna offered to send for pavel, who had recently arrived from st. petersburg, after an absence of three years, but the governor checked her. "never mind, annette," he said, impatiently, "i've dropped in for a minute or two, in passing, don't you know. he called on me yesterday, pasha. quite a man. tell him he must look in again and let me see how clever he is. quite a man. how time does fly!" then sinking his voice, he asked: "have you heard of the fellow they've bagged? one of those youngsters who are scaring st. petersburg out of its wits, you know." he gave a laugh and fell to blinking gravely. "what do you mean, george? did the gendarmes catch a nihilist?" she asked, in dismay. "did they? bless me! that's all that's wanted. if there is one there must be a whole nest of them." she made a gesture of horror--"but who is he, what is he?" "that i know no more than you do." "well, it's too bad, it's really too bad. i thought miroslav was immune from that plague at least." and seeing his worried look she added: "i hope it's nothing serious, george." governor boulatoff shook his head. "i don't think it is. although you never can tell nowadays. you never can tell," he repeated, blinking absently. "the armenian doesn't seem to be cleaning those fellows out quite so rapidly as one thought he would, does he? they are playing the devil with things, that's what they are doing." "one" and "they" referred to the emperor and his advisers. "pooh, they'll weary of that parvenu, it's only a matter of time," she consoled him. the old man proceeded to quote from loris-melikoff's recent declarations, which the countess had heard him satirise several times before. "'in the coöperation of the public,'" he declaimed theatrically, "'lies the main force capable of assisting the government in its effort to restore a normal flow of official life.' do you understand what all this jugglery means? that we are knuckling down to a lot of ragamuffins. it means an official confession that the 'flow of official life' has been checked by a gang of rascally college boys. 'the public is the main force capable of assisting the government!' charming, isn't it? might as well invite 'the public' to be so kind and elect representatives, deputies, or what you may call 'em, start a parliament and have it over with." anna nicolayevna made another attempt to bring the conversation back to the political prisoner, but her visitor was evidently fighting shy of the topic. "birch-rods, a good, smart flogging, that's what the public needs," he resumed, passionately gnashing his teeth, in response to his own thoughts. "oh, don't say that, george. after all, one lives in the nineteenth century." but this only spurred him on. the arrest having been ordered from st. petersburg, the implication was that the presence of the revolutionist in town had escaped the attention of the local authorities. so governor boulatoff, who had had no experience in cases of this kind, wondered whether the affair was not likely to affect his own standing. besides, the governor of kharkoff had recently been killed, and boulatoff was asking himself whether the arrest of the unknown man augured the end of his own peace of mind. this he kept to himself, however, and having found some relief in animadverting upon the policy of loris-melikoff he took leave. * * * * * the countess was left with a pang of sympathy for her brother-in-law. not that she had any clear idea of the political situation at which he was forever scoffing and carping. she felt sure that his low spirits were traceable to loneliness, and her compassion for him revived heart-wringing memories of his dead wife, her sister. the young prince was out in the garden romping about with kostia, his half-brother, now a ten-year-old cadet on sick leave. anna nicolayevna went to take a look at them through the open window of a rear room. the garden was so jammed with fresh-tinted lilacs, so flooded with their scent, that it seemed like an explosion of color and fragrance. two germans were at work with picks and spades. from an invisible spot where a new summer house was being constructed came sounds of sawing and hammering, while the air near the window rang with a multitudinous twitter of sparrows. pavel was trying to force kostia into a wheelbarrow, the boy kicking and struggling silently, and a huge shaggy dog barking at pavel ferociously. "come in, pasha. i want to speak to you," said anna nicolayevna. the return indoors was a race, in which the gigantic dog took part. the convalescent little cadet was beaten. "wait till i get well," he said. "wait nothing. your excellency will be rolling along like a water-melon all the same. good-bye, monsieur le water-melon!" presently pavel stood before his mother, mopping his flushed, laughing face. "do you remember his 'express trains' in the garden?" he said. "now it is beneath his dignity, to be sure." he was always trying to prove to himself that the present kostia and the five-year-old boy he used to fondle five years ago were one and the same person. "he's right," said the countess. "he's a baby no longer. it's you who are acting like one. uncle has been here. he was in a hurry, so i didn't send for you." her serious-minded, intellectual son inspired her with a certain feeling of timidity. she had not the courage to bring up the subject of the political arrest. her mind was so vague on matters of this kind, while pavel was apparently so well informed and so profound, she was sure of making a poor showing. so she told herself that it was not a proper topic to discuss in a well-ordered family and kept her own counsel. "i didn't know he was here," he said. "poor man! he seems to be feeling lonely." pavel made no reply. "why, don't you think he does?" "what matters it whether i do or not," he said, lightly. "you haven't a bit of heart, pasha." he would not be drawn into conversation, treating everything she said with an inscrutable, somewhat patronising flippancy that nettled her. at last he said he was going out. "'looking up old chums' again?" she asked. "and does it mean that you are going to dine out once more?" "i'll try not to, mother," he answered, with a fond smile in his bright, aggressive eyes. his small slender figure, beautifully erect, and his upward-tending, frank features haunted her long after he left. she felt like a jealous bride. otherwise he kept her thoughts tinged with sunshine. a great attachment on quite new terms had sprung up between mother and son since his arrival. at the same time he seemed to belong to a world which she was at a loss to make out. nor did he appear disinclined to talk of his life in st. petersburg--a subject upon which she was continually plying him with questions. the trouble was that the questions that beset her mind could no more be formulated than a blind man can formulate his curiosity as to colour. moreover, all these questions seemed to come crowding upon her when pavel was away and to vanish the moment she set eyes on him. she told herself that he belonged to a different generation from hers, that it was the everlasting case of "fathers and sons." but this only quickened her jealousy of the "sons" and her despair at being classed with the discarded generation. and the keener her jealousy, the deeper was her interest in pasha. chapter xii. a bewildering encounter. when pavel was in st. petersburg anna nicolayevna had missed him only occasionally. now that he was with her his absences were a continuous torture to her. on the present occasion she sought diversion in a visit to princess chertogoff where she expected to hear something about the mysterious prisoner. princess chertogoff was a lame, impoverished noblewoman whose daughter was married to the assistant-procureur. in higher circles she was looked down upon as a social outcast, so that anna nicolayevna's visits to her had a surreptitious character and something of the charm of forbidden fruit. pavel's mother was fond of the stir her appearance produced in houses of this kind. the curious part of it was that the impecunious princess was one of the very few persons in the world whose presence irritated her. it seemed as though this irritation had a peculiar attraction for her. it was an early hour in the afternoon. she was received in the vestibule by hélène, the assistant-procureur's wife, with an outburst of kisses and caresses which had something to do with the young woman's expecting to become a mother. rising in the background was the hostess, lydia grigorievna chertogova (chertogoff) and her gorgeous crutches. she was large, dark, and in spite of her made-over gowns, imposingly handsome. aware of the fantastic majesty which these crutches gave her stalwart form, she paraded her defect as she did her beautiful dark eyes. at this moment it seemed as though the high-polished ebony crutches joined her in beaming at the sight of the distinguished visitor. hélène, a small woman of twenty-four, usually compact as a billiard ball, was beginning to resemble an over-ripe apple. when the three women found themselves in the drawing room lydia grigorievna lost no time in turning the conversation on the arrested nihilist. her son-in-law had carefully abstained from opening his mouth on the subject, yet she talked about it authoritatively, with an implication of reserved knowledge of still graver import, but hélène gave her away. "woldemar would not speak about it," she complained, reverently. "'an affair of state,' he said. you can't get a single word out of him." she exulted in the part he was playing as an exterminator of the enemies of the czar, and in the air-castles she was building as to the promotion to which the present case was to pave his way. "but what do they want, those scamps?" lydia grigorievna resumed, in soft, pampered accents. "would they have us live without a czar? i should have them cut to pieces, the rogues. is it possible that the government should be powerless to get rid of them? to think of a handful of striplings keeping cabinet ministers in a perpetual state of terror." "oh, nobody is really afraid of them," hélène retorted, holding her face to the breeze which came in through an open window. "but your husband is not yet a cabinet minister, dear," her mother said with a smile toward the countess. "oh, you're always suspecting me of something or other, _mamman_. i was not thinking of woldemar at all." the charm of her presence, the appealing charm of a pretty young woman about to become a mother, added itself to the tenderness and mystery of spring. lydia grigorievna addressed another smile to the countess, but anna nicolayevna dropped her glance. the princess went on raging at the revolutionists. in reality, however, that handful of striplings who "kept cabinet ministers in a perpetual state of terror" had stirred up a curiosity in her that sprang from anything but indignation or contempt. she was hankering for a specimen of their literature, of those publications the very handling of which was apt to bring death. her thirst in this direction was all the keener because she felt sure that some of the nihilist papers that had been confiscated at the arrest of the unknown man were upstairs in her son-in-law's desk. "a constitution may be all very well in germany or france," she said. "this is russia, not germany or france or england, thank god. yet those wretches will go around stirring up discontent. on my way home from moscow last winter i heard a passenger say that if we had less bribery and more liberty and popular education we would be as good as any nation in western europe. i knew at once he was a nihilist. you can tell one by the first word he utters. i confess i was afraid to sit near him. he had grey side-whiskers, but maybe they were just stuck on. oh, i should show them no mercy." she was all flushed and ill at ease. she received no encouragement. her sugared enunciation and the false ring of what she said grated on her hearer's nerves. anna nicolayevna listened in silence. the lame princess was a sincere woman coated with a layer of insincerity. but the countess thought her the embodiment of affectation and hated her, bizarre beauty, enunciation, altered gowns, crutches and all. lydia grigorievna was interrupted by the appearance of the assistant-procureur himself. he was tall and frail with a long straight straw-coloured mane and pontifical gestures. his figure made one think of length in the abstract. as you looked at him he seemed to be continually growing in height. hélène had fallen in love with him because he resembled the baron in a play she had seen in moscow. "i've just looked in to bid you good afternoon, countess," he said. "i saw your carriage through the window. but unfortunately--_business before pleasure_." it was one of two or three english phrases which he kept for occasions of this character and which he mispronounced with great self-confidence. when anna nicolayevna got into the street she felt as though she had emerged from the suffocating atmosphere of some criminal den. in the may breeze, however, and at sight of the river her spirits rose. she dismissed her carriage. when she reached the macadamised bank and caught the smell of the water it was borne in upon her afresh that it was spring. she had passed this very spot, in a sleigh only a short while ago, it seemed. lawns and trees had been covered with snow then; all had been stiff with the stiffness of death; whereas now all was tenderly alive with verdure and bloom, and wild-flowers smiled upon her at every turn. here it struck her as though spring had just been born; born in full attire overnight. flushed and radiant, with her rusty chin in the air and her flat chest slightly thrown out, spinning her parasol, she was briskly marching along, a broad streak of water to the right of her, a row of orchards to the left. the river beamed. from somewhere underneath she heard the clanking of chains of lumber-horses, accompanied by the yell of boys. the greased wooden screws of a receding cable-ferry were squirming in the air like two erect snakes of silver; the brass buttons of a soldier-passenger burned like a column of flames. all this and the lilac-laden breeze and anna nicolayevna's soul were part of something vast, swelling with light and joy. but the breath of spring is not all joy. nature's season of love is a season of yearning. one feels like frisking and weeping at once. spring was with us a year ago, but the interval seems many years. it is like revisiting one's home after a long absence: the scenes of childhood are a source of delight and depression at once. it is like hearing a long forgotten song: the melody, however gay, has a dismal note in it. anna nicolayevna had not been out many minutes when she began to feel encompassed by an immense melancholy to which her heart readily responded. there was a vague longing in the clear blue sky, in the gleaming water, in the patches of grass on either side of the public promenade, in the distant outlines across the river, but above all in the overpowering freshness of the afternoon air. the travail of an unhappy soul seemed to be somewhere nearby. a look of loneliness came into her eyes. she was burning to see pavel, to lay bare her soul to him. when a passing artisan in top-boots and with glass buttons in his waistcoat reverently took off his flat cap she returned the salute with motherly fervour and slackened her pace to a more dignified gait. "i'm respected and loved by the people," she mentally boasted to pavel. arrived at the bridge, she paused to hand a twenty-copeck piece to a blind beggar who sat on the ground by the tollman's booth. he apparently recognised her by the way her gloved hand put the coin in his hand. she had given him alms as long as she could remember, and usually he made no more impression on her than the lamp-posts she passed. this time, however, it came back to her how her mother used to send her out of their carriage with some money for him. she paused to look at him and to listen to his song. she recalled him as a man of thirty or forty with thick flaxen hair. now he was gray and bald. "great heavens! how time does fly!" she exclaimed in her heart, feeling herself an old woman. the blind man seemed to be absorbed in his song. all blind beggars look alike and they all seem to be singing the same doleful religious tune, yet this man, as he sat with his eyes sealed and his head leaned against the parapet, gave her a novel sensation. he was listening to his own tones, as if they came from an invisible world, like his own, but one located somewhere far away. anna nicolayevna gave him a ruble and passed on. followed by the beggar's benedictions, she made to turn into the street which formed the continuation of the bridge, when an approaching flour truck brought her to a halt. besides several sacks of meal the waggon carried a cheap old trunk, and seated between the trunk and the driver was--pavel; pavel uncouthly dressed in the garb of an artisan. his rudimentary beard was covered with dust; his legs, encased in coarse grimy topboots, were dangling in the air. the visor of his flat cap was pushed down over his eyes, screening them from the red afternoon sun which sparkled and glowed in the glass buttons of his vest. it certainly was pavel. anna nicolayevna was panic-stricken. she dared not utter his name. the toll paid, the truck moved on. the countess followed her son with her eyes, until a cab shut him out of view, and then she remained standing for some time, staring at the cab. "what does it all mean?" she asked herself with sickening curiosity. finally her eye went to the water below. she gazed at its rippling stretches of black and masses of shattered silver; at a woman slapping a heap of wash with a wash-beater, at a long raft slowly gliding toward the bridge. "is he disguised? what does it all mean? was it really pasha?" doubt dawned in her mind. in her eagerness to take another look at the man on the truck she raised her eyes. after waiting for some moments she saw the waggon with the two men as it appeared and forthwith disappeared at the other end of the bridge. the thought of the arrested man stunned her. was pavel a nihilist? the image of her son had assumed a new, a forbidding expression. the revolutionists moved about on the verge of martyrdom, and as the mere acquaintance with one of their number meant destruction, the imagination painted them as something akin to living shadows, as beings whose very touch brought silence and darkness. people dared not utter the word "nihilist" or "revolutionist" aloud. anna nicolayevna belonged to the privileged few, but at this moment she dreaded so much as to think of her son by these ghastly names. it now appeared to anna nicolayevna that all through her call at lydia grigorievna's she had had a presentiment of an approaching calamity. she took the first cab that came along. "as fast as you can drive," she said. the moment anna nicolayevna got home she inquired whether pavel was in his room, and when the porter said that his highness had not been back since he had left, in the morning, a fresh gust of terror smote her heart and brain. she stole into his room. on the table lay a german pamphlet on kant and a fresh number of the _russian messenger_, the ultra-conservative magazine published in moscow. in several places the leaves were cut. a nihilist was the last person in the world one would expect to read this organ of panslavists. what anna nicolayevna did not know was that the cut pages of the conservative magazine, which pavel had received from st. petersburg the day before, contained a hidden revolutionary message. here and there a phrase, word, or a single letter, was marked, by means of an inkstain, abrasion or what looked like the idle penciling of a reader, these forming half a dozen consecutive sentences. anna nicolayevna was perplexed and her perplexity gave her a new thrill of hope. she was in a quiver of impatience to see her son and have it all out. the dinner hour came round and pavel was not there. she could not eat. every little while she paused to listen for a ring of the door bell. she sent a servant to his room to see if he had not arrived unheard. he had not. the other people at table were kostia, in huge red shoulder-straps which made his well-fitting uniform look too large for him; kostia's old tutor, a powerful looking german with a bashful florid face, and the countess' own old governess, an aged frenchwoman with a congealed smile on her bloodless lips. this restlessness of the countess when pavel was slow in coming was no news to them, but this time she seemed to feel particularly uneasy. silence hung over them. the frenchwoman's dried-up smile turned to a gleam of compassion. the german ate timidly. this man's services had practically ceased when kostia entered the cadet corps, but anna nicolayevna retained him in the house for his quiet piety. she had a feeling that so far as the intelligent classes were concerned the simple forms of protestantism were more compatible with religious sincerity than were the iron-bound formalities of her native church. so, with her heart thirsting for spiritual interest, she found intense pleasure in her theological conversations with this well-read, narrow-minded, honest lutheran, whose religious convictions she envied. chapter xiii. a gendarme's sister. when pavel told his mother that he was going out he expected to meet makar, who had been in miroslav for the past four days. once again he was going to plead with him to give up his scheme. the affair kept pavel in bad humour, but that morning his mind was occupied by the thought that there was an interesting meeting in store for him. in the evening he was to make the acquaintance of clara yavner, the heroine of the pievakin "demonstration." on his way down the spacious corridor he was stopped by onufri, his cheeks still hollower and his drooping moustache still longer and considerably greyer than of yore. pavel had once tried to make a convert of him, but found him "too stupid for abstract reasoning." onufri was polishing the floor. as pavel came past he faced half way about and gave him a stern look from under his bushy eyebrows. "they've pinched a gentleman, the blood-guzzlers." saying which he fell to dancing on his foot-cushions again. "what do you mean?" pavel asked, turning white as he paused. "you know what i mean, sir. you know you do," answered onufri, going on with his work. "is it true? who made the arrest? gendarmes?" "that's it. i wouldn't bother your highness if the police'd nabbed a common crook, would i?" the servant bent on his young master a long look of sympathetic reproach, adding under his breath: "you had better give it all up, sir. better let it go to the devil." "give up what? what on earth are you prating about, onufri?" a few minutes later, while pavel was destroying some papers in his room, the door swung open and in came onufri. the old man burst into tears and dropped to his knees. "take pity, sir," he wailed, kissing pavel's fingers. "you've played with fire long enough, sir. if they put you in prison, the murderers, and sent you away it would kill her highness, your mother." "get up, onufri. i have no patience with you just now, really i haven't." "it's bad enough when your highness takes chances in another town, but if you're mixed up in this here thing, sir----" "i'm not mixed up 'in this here thing.' don't bother me. come, get up. up with you, now. there is a good fellow!" the old hussar obeyed distressedly. instead of going to the place where he expected to see makar, pavel went to the house of major safonoff, the gendarme officer, an uncomfortable-looking frame building across the river. as he approached it, masha, the major's sister, who stood at a second story window at that moment, apparently waiting for somebody, burst out beckoning to him and stamping her feet. her excited gesticulations drew the attention of a knife-grinder and two little girls. pavel dropped his eyes. "she is a perfect idiot," he said to himself in a rage, "and i am another one. the idea of taking up with such a creature!" "didn't you torture me!" she greeted him on the staircase. "i thought my heart was going to snap. don't be uneasy. i have dismissed our servant. there is nobody around." when they reached the low-ceiled parlor, she sank her voice and said solemnly, yet with a certain note of triumph: "he was arrested at four o'clock yesterday on the railway tracks. the gendarme office had information that he was in the habit of taking walks there. i happened to be away--think of it! at a time like that i was away. else i should have let you know at once, of course. anyhow, he's there." "you say it as if it was something to rejoice in," pavel remarked, disguising his rage. "it's quite a serious matter, maria gavrilovna." mlle. safonoff stared. "but we'll get him out. why, are you afraid we mayn't? i see you're depressed and that makes me miserable, too. really it does." "do i look depressed? well, i must confess i rather am. it's no laughing matter, maria gavrilovna," he said, flushing. "oh, well, if you are going to talk like that. that is i myself haven't the slightest doubt about it. only you frighten me so. if this thing is going to last another week it will drive me mad." her childish eyes shone with tears. "why should you take such a gloomy view of it? i must say it's cruel of you, pavel vassilyevich. everything is just as i expected. he is as good as free, i assure you." pavel answered, by way of consoling himself as well as her: "well, maybe i do take it too hard. our chances seem to be good, and--well, we must get him out. that's all there is to it." "of course we must. now i like you, boulatoff. we must and we will, and when the story is published--oh, i do wish we could get out special proclamations!--anyhow, won't it make a stir!" she paused and then resumed, in a new burst of frankness, "i know what makes you uneasy about me. the great trouble with me is my lack of tact, isn't it? if i had that i would be all right. that's what worries you about me in this affair, isn't it, now? you're afraid i may make a mess of the whole business. i know you are. well, and i don't blame you, either. the safonoffs have never been distinguished for their heads. when it happens to be a matter of hearts, we hold our own, but brains, well--." she gave a laugh. "i tell you what, boulatoff, i'm afraid of you, and i don't care to bear the brunt of this important affair. anyhow, i want you to keep an eye on me. i'll do all you want me to, but you must take the responsibility off my shoulders, else i'll go crazy. what makes you smile? you think i'm crazy already, don't you?" "i wasn't smiling at all. so far you have managed things beautifully. i confess i'm getting impatient. well, i do feel wretched, maria gavrilovna." she grasped his hand, shook it silently and whispered: "don't be uneasy. we shall win." when safonoff came home at the lunch hour he told of the excitement at the gendarme office. his manner toward boulatoff was a non-committal mixture which seemed to say: "you and i understand each other perfectly, don't we? still, if you think you can get me to call a spade a spade or to help you you are mistaken." his compact, well-fed figure had the shape of a plum. he was perpetually mimicking somebody or chuckling and his speech was full of gaps, many of his sentences being rendered in dumb show. "my chief may get in trouble for having ordered the arrest too soon," he said. "we were to let the prisoner--" (he brandished his hand to represent a man going around at large) "for some time, so as to let him show us with whom he is acquainted. but my chief--" (he struck an attitude meant to caricature a decrepit, coughing, old fellow) "was all of a tremble for fear the canary-bird might take wing. you see he had never arrested a political before. you should have seen our men when we took that chap on the railroad track. they were more frightened than he, i assure you, prince. they thought he was going to--" (he aimed an imaginary dagger at pavel and burst into laughter). "monsieur unknown is certainly no coward whatever else he may be. you should have seen the look of surprise and contempt he gave me!" pavel beamed while masha's face wore a pained expression. "it's time you had left this nasty business of yours, andrusha," she said. when andrusha reached the assistant procureur's part in the case he sketched off a pompous imbecile. there was no love lost between the public attorney and the gendarme officers, so safonoff described, with many a gurgle of merriment, how, during the attempted examination of the prisoner, zendorf, the assistant procureur (he burlesqued an obeisance as the epitome of snobbishness) had tried to impress his uniformed rivals with his intellectual and social superiority. "you see, my chief is a rough and ready sort of customer. whatever else he may be, frills and fakes are not in his line. so he went right at it. 'speak up,' he squeaked at the prisoner, 'speak up, or i'll have your mouth opened for you.' so zendorf called him gently to order and fixed his dignified peepers at the prisoner. he expected to cast some sort of spell over him, i suppose, but it was no go. as to me, i was just choking. as bad luck would have it i took it into my head at that moment that the best way to make that fellow talk would be to have his armpits tickled till he roared. well, i had to leave the room to have my giggle out." safonoff was indifferent to his sister's revolutionary ventures because he never vividly realised the danger she incurred. his mind retained the most lifelike impressions, but its sensitiveness was of the photographic kind; it was confined to actual experiences. he had no imagination for the future. he was an easy-going man, incapable of fear. people often arrived at the conclusion that he was "a fool after all." but then there are fools who are endowed with a keen perception and a lively sense of character. speaking of the warden of the jail, safonoff impersonated a cringing, hand-kissing, crafty time-server. he had never met a convert jew or convert pole who was not an adventurer and an all-round knave, he said, and rodkevitch was the most typical convert pole he had ever come across. the sight of money took his breath away, gave him the vertigo, made his eyes start from their sockets. rustle a crisp paper ruble in his ear and he will faint away. "he's a candidate for siberia anyhow and he needs money to pull him out of some of the roguish schemes he is tangled up in. the contractors who furnish his prisoners sand for flour and garbage for potatoes are his partners in some of his outside swindles also. do you understand, prince?" the question was put with special emphasis, which pavel interpreted as a direct hint at the possibility of bribing the warden. it occurred to boulatoff that makar's luggage was quite likely to contain some incriminating papers or other things that might aggravate the case. to fear this in view of makar's notorious absent-mindedness was quite reasonable. but this was not all. he had been bent upon making his arrest as important in the eyes of the third section as possible, and pavel was almost certain he had left something in his lodgings on purpose. "you never know what you are at with a crazy, obstinate bull-dog like that," he thought in a qualm of anxiety. when safonoff had gone pavel wrote a note to his imprisoned friend asking for the address of his lodgings. "can you get this to him, and an answer brought back?" he demanded of mlle. safonoff in a peremptory tone. "i think so. my aunt will probably get it through. i am almost sure of it, in fact." "there you are. you're _almost_ sure. was this enough to let a man put himself in the hands of the third section?" mlle. safonoff hurried out of the house in dumb dismay. after an interval of less than an hour, which to pavel seemed a year, she burst into the parlour, accompanied by an older woman, whom she introduced as her aunt, daria stepanovna shubeyko. both were breathless with excitement. they had the desired address, the sum makar owed his landlady and another note to the landlady. pavel's heart swelled with joy and gratitude, but he did not show it. "very well," he said, with a preoccupied scowl. "and now for that trunk of his." the two women went on to describe, continually interrupting each other, their plans for setting makar free, but pavel checked them. "we'll discuss it all afterwards," he said. "what we need at this minute is a coarse suit of clothes, something to make a fellow look like a workman or porter. we must clear his room before his landlady has notified the police of his disappearance." the costume was brought by masha. when pavel emerged from the major's bedroom transformed into a laborer, masha's aunt applauded so violently that he could not resist gnashing his teeth at her. "excuse me, but i've never seen a real man of action before," she pleaded. "now i feel newly born, really i do. i tell you what, boulatoff, i'll go with you. in case of trouble i may be of some use, you know. we can't afford to let an active man like you perish." "but then if you perish," pavel answered gayly, "there won't be anybody to arrange that escape." "that's true," she replied forlornly. she was a healthy, good-looking woman with a smile so exultantly silly that pavel could not bear to look at it. every time that smile of hers brightened her full-blooded face, he dropped his eyes. * * * * * there was the risk of his being recognised by somebody in the street. then, too, makar's lodgings might have been discovered by the police and made a trap of. the errand was full of risks, but this only stimulated a feeling in which pavel's passion for this sort of adventure was coupled with a desire to vindicate himself before his own conscience by sharing in makar's dangers. the trip was devoid of all adventure, however. even his meeting with his mother was lost on him. he was sincerely contemplating the blind beggar at that moment. makar's landlady was a garrulous jewess. when she learned that her lodger had been taken ill at the house of a friend and that the workingman had been sent for his things and to pay the bill, she launched out into an effusion of bad russian that taxed pavel's patience sorely. she exacted the address of makar's friend, so as to send the patient some of her marvellous preserves. the prince left with the trunk on his shoulder--an excellent contrivance for screening his face from view--but it proved too heavy, and when he came across a truckman who agreed to take him and his load part of the way to his destination he was glad to be relieved of the burden. while he was in the next room, shedding his disguise, masha's aunt bombarded him with impatient shouts and giggles. when he had opened the trunk at last she insisted upon helping him examine its contents, whereupon she handled each article she lifted out as she might a holy relic; and when the trunk proved to contain nothing of a compromising quality even pavel felt disappointed. mme. shubeyko overwhelmed him with questions, one of which was: "look here, boulatoff, why shouldn't the people rise and put an end to the rule of despotism at once? what on earth are we waiting for?" "if the people were all like you they would have done so long ago," he answered, with a hearty laugh. he warmed to her in an amused way and felt like calling her auntie; only that smile of hers continued to annoy him. chapter xiv. underground miroslav. pavel dined at the major's house. he was in high spirits, but the hour of his expected meeting with the girl of the pievakin demonstration was drawing near, and his impatience was getting keener every minute. he reached the place, a little house occupied by a government clerk named orlovsky and his mother, ahead of time. "your name is boulatoff, is it not?" asked the host, his square slavic nose curling up with the joy of his welcome. then, crouching before the absurdest looking samovar pavel had ever seen, he explained that his mother had gone to his sister's for the night, as she did very often to avoid the noise of his gatherings. in the centre of a bare round table lay an enormous loaf of rye bread and a great wedge of sugar, near which stood an empty candy box, apparently used as a sugar bowl. pavel divined that at least one-half of orlovsky's salary was spent on the tea, bread and butter on which his guests regaled themselves while they talked liberty. "i'm only a private of the revolution," orlovsky said, trying to blow two charcoals into flame until his face glowed like the coals and his eyes looked bleared. "but if there is anything i can do command me." at his instance the two addressed each other in the familiar diminutives of their christian names--"pasha" and "aliosha." while aliosha was struggling with his smoking samovar, pasha set to work cutting up the sugar. "wait till you have seen our crowd," said aliosha, flicking the open side of an old top-boot at the samovar by way of bellows. "i tell you miroslav is destined to play a prominent part in the liberation of russia. we have some tip-top fellows and girls. of course, we're mere privates in the ranks of the revolution." but pavel's mind was on the speaker's sackcoat of checkered grey, which was so tight on him that his prominent thighs were bulging out and the garment seemed on the point of bursting. the sight of it annoyed pavel in the same way as mme. shubeyko's smile had done, and he asked orlovsky why he should not unbutton himself, to which the other answered, half in jest, half in earnest, that he was getting so fat that he was beginning to look "like a veritable bourgeois, deuce take it." "but it makes a fellow uncomfortable to look at you," pavel shouted, irascibly. "ah, but that's a question of personal liberty, old man," orlovsky returned in all seriousness. "what right have you, for instance, to impose upon me rules as to how i am to wear my coat?" "that right which limits the liberty of one man by the liberty of other men. but this is all foolishness, aliosha. upon my word it is. the days of hair-splitting are dead and buried. there is plenty of work to do--living, practical work." orlovsky leaped up from his samovar, a fishy look in his eye, and grasping pavel's hand he pressed it hard and long. pavel felt in the presence of the most provincial nihilism he had ever come across. other members of the circle came. they all knew the governor's nephew by sight. also that he was "a sympathiser," yet his presence here was a stirring surprise to most of them, although they strove to conceal it. one man, orlovsky's immediate superior in office, shook pavel's hand with a grimace which seemed to say: "you're prince boulatoff and i am only an ordinary government official, but then all titles and ranks will soon go to smash." a jewish gymnasium boy with two bubbling beads for eyes made pavel's acquaintance with a preoccupied air, as if in a hurry to get down to more important business. his small, deep-seated eyes spurted either merriment or gloom. elkin had said there was not enough of them to make one decent-sized eye, and dubbed him "cyclops," which had since been the boy's revolutionary nickname. orlovsky's superior had a vast snow-white forehead that gave his face a luminous, aureole-lit effect, but he was an incurable liar. he was one of the most devoted members of the circle, however, and recently he had sold all his real estate, turning over the proceeds to the party. as he seated himself a telegraph operator in a dazzling uniform sat down by his side, saying, in a whisper: "that was an affected look of yours a moment ago." "when? what are you talking about?" the man with the sainted forehead asked, colouring. "you know what. you made a face as if you were not glad to see boulatoff. you know you were, weren't you, now?" "i confess i was." "now i like you, old boy. all that is necessary is to take one's self in hand. nothing like self-chastisement." "cyclops" bent over to an army captain with a pair of grandiose side-whiskers and said something in order to hear himself address a gentile and an army officer in the familiar "thou." another young jew, a red-headed gymnasium boy named ginsburg, sat close to the lamp, reading a book with near-sighted eyes, the yellow light playing on his short-clipped red hair. his father was a notorious usurer and the chief go-between in the governor's bribe-taking and money-lending transactions. young ginsburg robbed his father industriously, dedicating the spoils to the socialist movement. * * * * * the expectation that that hazy, featureless image which had resided in his mind for the past five years would soon stand forth in the flesh and with the mist lifted made pavel restless. when a girl with short hair and very sparse teeth told him that clara yavner was sure to be around in less than fifteen minutes, his heart began to throb. the girl's name was olga alexandrovna andronova (andronoff). she was accompanied by her fiancé, a local judge--a middle-aged man with a mass of fluffy hair. the judge was perceptibly near-sighted, like ginsburg, only when he screwed up his eyes he looked angry, whereas the short-sightedness of the red-headed young man had a beseeching effect. the two girls were great friends, and olga spoke of her chum in terms of persuasive enthusiasm. that boulatoff had special reasons to be interested in clara yavner she was not aware. "what has become of her?" she said, looking at the door impatiently. "you are adding fuel to my curiosity, olga alexandrovna," pavel said. "i am beginning to feel somewhat as i once did in the opera, when i was waiting to see patti for the first time." "and when she came out you were not disappointed, were you?" olga asked, exposing her sparse teeth in a broad, honest smile. "no," he laughed. "well, neither will you be this time." pavel said to himself humorously: "i am so excited i am afraid i shall fall in love with that girl. but then predictions seldom come true." then he added: "and now that i predict it won't, it will." * * * * * when she came at last he said inwardly: "that's what she looks like, then! she certainly does not seem to be a fool whatever else she may be." that was what people usually said upon their first meeting with her: "she seems to be no fool." she was a fair-complexioned jewish girl of good height. to those unfamiliar with the many types of her race she might have looked teutonic. to her own people her face was characteristically jewish, of the blond, hazel-eyed variety. it was a rather small face, round and with a slightly flattened effect between eyes and mouth that aroused interest. her good looks were due to a peculiar impression of intelligence and character to which this effect contributed and to the picturesqueness of her colouring--healthy white flesh, clear and firm, set off by an ample crown of fair hair and illuminated by the brown light of intense hazel eyes. she had with her a two-year-old little girl, her sister's, and accompanying the two was elkin, from whose manner as he entered the crowded room it was easy to see, first, that he had told mlle. yavner of the revolutionary "general" he was going to introduce her to; second, that he was the leader of the circle and the connecting link between it and revolutionary generals. "i tried to steal away from her," she said to olga, meaning the little girl, "but she ran after us and filled the streets with her cries." she smiled--an embarrassed smile which made her intelligent face look still more intelligent. when boulatoff was introduced to her, by elkin, she blushed slightly. he watched her with keen curiosity. at the same time the judge's fiancée was watching him, in the fond hope that he would indorse her opinion of her friend. when clara averted her face, while speaking to somebody, her features became blurred in pavel's mind, and he sought another look at her. whether elkin had told her of the effect her "speech" during the pievakin scene had had on him he had no knowledge. some of the men in the gathering made a point of ignoring the little privileges of the sex, treating the girls "as human beings, not as dolls," but clara and olga made a joke of it. when orlovsky offered the judge's fiancée a chair next to clara's she thanked him much as an "unemancipated" girl would have done; whereupon mlle. yavner shook her finger at her, saying merrily: "you're getting conservative, olga. you had better look out." the circle was a loose, informal organisation. there were no fixed rules or ceremonies for the admission of members nor anything like regularly elected officers. nor, indeed, did the members practise formal communism among themselves, although the property of one was to a considerable extent the property of all. the gathering to-night was naturally larger than usual, owing to the great news of the day. no one except pavel knew anything about the arrested man, each wondering whether the others did. to betray inquisitiveness, however, would have been unconspiratorlike, so as they sat about, whispering, in twos or threes, they were at once trying to suppress their curiosity and to draw each other out. the telegraph operator and orlovsky's superior left early in the evening, but there soon came two other members, a sergeant of the captain's command and a gawky seminarist with a trick of drawing in his neck and throwing out his adam's apple when he laughed. the sergeant took a seat beside his officer and the two fell into conversation about their regiment, while the theological student at once set to plying pavel with questions. elkin, in an embroidered little-russian shirt, sat smoking a pipe and smiling non-committally. every little while he would remove the pipe from his mouth, take a grave look at the theologian and resume his pipe and his smile. the little girl sat on the captain's lap, quietly playing with his sword until she fell asleep. when clara beheld the officer struggling to keep his luxurious side-whiskers from waking the child, she took her niece in her arms and carried her, with noiseless kisses, toward the door. "i'll soon be back. it isn't far," she whispered to orlovsky, declining his assistance. the men followed her out of the room with fond glances. more than half of them were in love with her. when she got back, somewhat short of breath, boulatoff was describing the general feeling in the universities and among working people. his talk was vague. his rolling baritone rang dry. and now his grip on the subject was weakened still further by the reappearance of the girl in whom, during the first few minutes, he instinctively felt a rival centre of interest. no sooner, however, had the seminarist attacked the party press than the prince became furious and made a favourable impression. once or twice he fell into zachar's manner and even used several of his arguments. the seminarist urged his objections chiefly because he wanted to prove to himself and to the others that he was a man of convictions and not one to quail before a revolutionary "general." but pavel took him seriously. once when the seminarist attempted to interrupt him, clara said, forlornly: "he's bound to be right. he's just bound to be right." "don't cry," said cyclops. several of the men laughed, and when clara joined them their eyes betrayed her power over them. nothing betrays your feelings toward another person more surely than the way you take his merriment. the most important topic of the evening was a circular letter from the executive committee of the will of the people, as pavel's party was called, as to the "preparatory work" that was to pave the way to a final uprising. the discussion was left to the judge, elkin and pavel. the gawky seminarist was silent, with an angry air which implied that the arguments one was compelled to follow here were exasperatingly beneath one's criticism. the others listened spellbound, though some of them scarcely felt convinced. ingrained in the consciousness of these was the idea of an abstract elemental giant, tremendous and immutable as the northern winter, of which the blind forces of the army were only a personified detail. that this giant should some day, in the near future, cease to be did not clearly appeal to their imagination. the boldness, therefore, with which the judge and pavel spoke of these things greatly enhanced the fascination of their speeches. cyclops, a huge slice of rye bread in his hand, evidently had something to say, but did not know how. he was quoting history, blushing, sputtering, swallowing his own tongue, and finally he lost himself in a jumble of words. elkin was just the reverse. he was so calm, so glib and so lucid of phrase that as long as his speech lasted one was involuntarily nodding assent; yet when it was over one did not seem to know exactly what he had said or whether he had had anything to say at all. at one point he and the judge locked horns and fought long and hard without clearly understanding each other, until they proved to be arguing on the same side of the issue. orlovsky, who took it for granted that the theoretical discussion was beyond his mental powers, looked on with stupid admiration. "here is a bunch of cracks for you!" his beaming face seemed to say. in the course of a pause clara whispered something to olga. "why don't you ask it then?" the short-haired girl answered, aloud. clara turned pale, as she began to speak. she went straight to the point, however, and presently cast off all restraint. "all this is very well," she said, referring to a certain passage in the circular letter, "provided the local authorities really desert the throne. but suppose they don't, suppose they prove to be hardened conservatives, devoted slaves of the crown? it seems to me as if we were inclined to take things for granted--counting without the host, as it were." "devoted to the crown!" said the gawky theologian. "the fact is that the high officials are a mere lot of self-seeking curs." "exactly," pavel thundered, bringing his hands together enthusiastically. elkin removed the pipe from his mouth and bawled out: "rats rather than curs, i should say; rats that are sure to forsake the ship of state the moment it shows signs of danger." the seminarist was annoyed at this attempt to steal the applause from him, but boulatoff did not like elkin's manner and offered him no encouragement. this disarmed the seminarist's opposition. from this moment on he listened to pavel with friendly nods, as who should say: "now you are hitting it; now you are talking sense!" "of course," pavel resumed, "the pamphlet means we should keep agitating until we are sure of our ground. there is a large liberal-minded class that does not stir merely because it is made up of a lot of cowards. these fellows will rally around our banner the moment the government begins to totter. as to the bureaucracy, it is so decayed, so worm-eaten, that all it knows at present is how to bend double for an increase of salary or promotion in rank. a lot of back-boneless flunkeys, that's what they are. you don't actually think they serve the czar from principle?" he asked, addressing himself to mlle. yavner. "the only principle they care for," elkin interposed, "is, 'to the devil with all principles!'" "exactly," pavel assented, with some irritation. "yes," the seminarist chimed in, "and when they hear the tocsin of liberty, equality and fraternity--" "liberty, equality and fiddlesticks!" clara mimicked him, mildly, signing to him not to interrupt the speaker. pavel went on. he spoke at length, looking mostly at her. he was making an effort to convince her that in the event of a revolution the high officials would turn cowards, and her face seemed to be saying: "he's the nephew of a governor, so he ought to know." when the yard windows were thrown open the bewhiskered captain sat down to the piano and struck up an old national tune, to the accompaniment of two male voices. the others continued their talk under cover of the music. pavel made up his mind that the judge and clara were the most level-headed members of the circle, and decided to seek their coöperation in the business which had brought him to miroslav. only the judge was the more reposeful of the two, as well as incomparably the better informed. as a rule he was absorbed in his own logic, while mlle. yavner was jarred by every false note in others, nervously sensitive to all that went on about her, so that when cyclops, for example, got tangled in his own verbosity her eyes would cloud up with vexation and she would come to his rescue, summing up his argument in a few clear, unobtrusive sentences. there was a glow of enthusiasm in her look which she was apparently struggling to suppress. indeed, she was struggling to suppress some feeling or other most of the time. her outward calm seemed to cover an interior of restlessness. pavel's unbounded faith in the party instilled new faith into her. the great point was that he was a member of the aristocracy. if a man like him had his whole heart in the struggle, the movement was certainly not without foundation. moreover, boulatoff was close to the revolutionary centre, and he obviously spoke from personal knowledge. all sorts of questions worried her, many of which were answered at the present gathering, partly by herself, partly by others. the new era, when there would be neither poverty nor oppression, the enchanted era which had won her heart, loomed clearer than ever. at one moment as she sat listening, her blond hair gleaming golden in the lamplight, her face lit up by a look of keen intelligence, pavel said to himself: "and this jewish girl is the one who had the feeling and the courage to make that rumpus over pievakin! if i became a revolutionist it was the result of gradual development, through the help of conditions, books, people; whereas this girl acted like one, and in the teeth of grave danger, too, purely on the spur of the moment and long before she knew there was any such thing as a revolutionary movement; acted like one while i was still a blind, hard-hearted milksop of a drone." in the capital he knew a number of girls who were continually taking their lives in their hands and several of whom were like so many saints to him, but then mlle. yavner belonged to the realm of his home and his boyhood. what he regarded as an act of heroism on her part was hallowed by that sense of special familiarity and comprehensibility which clings to things like the old well that witnessed our childish games. she made a very favourable impression on him. if he had been a formal candidate for her hand, come "bride-seeing," he could not have studied her more closely than he did now. indeed, so absorbed was he in her that once while she was speaking to him laughingly her words fell on a deaf ear because at that moment he was remarking to himself: "she laughs in a little rising scale, breaking off in a rocket." "there must be something in her, then," he thought "which was the source of that noble feeling and of that courage." he took to scanning her afresh, as though looking for a reflection of that something in her face, and as he looked at her and thought of the pievakin "demonstration" it gave him pleasure to exaggerate her instrumentality in his own political regeneration. olga had relieved her fiancé at the piano, and later on when she, too, rose from the keyboard, clara eagerly took her place. there was no life in mlle. yavner's tones, but the impassioned sway of her head and form as she played told of a soul touched with ecstasy; told of the music which her fingers failed to evoke from the instrument. and the eyes of half a dozen love-stricken men added their rapture to the sounds. pavel listened to her melody and breathed the scented night air that came in from the little garden in the yard. he reflected that clara might visit the warden's house as a piano teacher. at this it came home to him that makar was in prison, and that unless he escaped he was a lost man. he was seized with terror. the piano sang of a lonely ship, blue waves, and a starlit night, but to pavel it spoke of his imprisoned friend and his own anguish. he joined in the chorus with ferocious ardour. his heart was crying for makar's liberation and for a thousand other things. when she left the piano stool he leaped up to her. "allow me to grasp your hand, clara rodionovna," he said, as though thanking her for the merit of her playing. and then, all unmindful of comment, he drew her into a secluded corner and said vehemently: "i wish also to tell you, clara rodionovna, that i have a special reason to be glad of knowing you; for if i have a right to be among good people it is you whom i have to thank for it." a thick splash of crimson came into her face; but before she had time to put her surprise into words, he poured forth the story of his awakening and how he had all these five years been looking forward to a meeting with her. as he spoke his face bore an expression of ecstatic, almost amorous grimness. the girl was taken by storm. she was literally dazed. an overwhelming, unspoken intimacy established itself between them on the spot. olga's face was a blend of beaming triumph and tense perplexity. the men were making an effort to treat boulatoff's sally with discretion, as if it were a bit of revolutionary conspiracy and they knew enough to mind their own business. chapter xv. a warning. it was one o'clock when the assemblage broke up. they scattered over various sections of the town, pavel going to his home in the palace, while clara, accompanied by elkin and orlovsky, set off in the direction of paradise town. but whatever the character of the district one was bound for, in their hearts there was the same feeling that they belonged to a higher life than did those who slept behind the closed shutters they were passing. this feeling made them think of their group as a world within a world. their circle was a magic one. somewhere in st. petersburg, moscow, kieff, odessa, siberia, men and women were being slowly tortured, dying on the gallows; a group of brave people still at large--the mysterious executive committee--was doing things that thrilled the empire; and they, members of the miroslav circle, were the kin of those heroes. as they dispersed through the sleeping town each unconsciously remembered the organisation as so many superior beings dotting a population of human prose. "he must be quite close to the centre," orlovsky said. the other two made no answer. it struck clara as sacrilege to talk of boulatoff, whose fervent face was vivid before her at this minute. particularly unbearable was the allusion to the prince to her because it was orlovsky who made it. the stout government clerk was one of the men in love with her, while she often disliked him to abhorrence. she felt a sincere friendship for him, yet sometimes when he spoke she would be tempted to shut her ears and to gnash her teeth as people do when they hear a window pane scratched. this was one of her causeless hatreds with which she was perpetually struggling. orlovsky construed their irresponsiveness as a rebuke for his speaking of the revolutionary "centre" in the street; so he started to tell them about his mother. with clara by his side his tongue would not rest. not so elkin, who nursed his love in morose silence. when they heard the whistle of a distant policeman and the answer of a watchman's rattle by way of showing that he had not fallen asleep on his post, orlovsky raised his voice. "she is getting more pious every day," he said, as though defying the invisible policeman to find anything seditious in his words. clara's mind was on boulatoff. the strange avowal of the man whom she had never seen before save through the window of a princely carriage tingled through her veins in a medley of new-born exaltations. boulatoff did seem to be close to the executive committee, and the sentiments of that wonderful body, voiced by this high-born young man, the nephew of the governor of miroslav, had lit stirring images in her consciousness. pavel stood out amid the other revolutionists of her acquaintance even as the whole miroslav circle did in the midst of the rest of her native town. the interchange of signals between policeman and watchman which now and then sounded through the stillness of the night reminded her of the unknown man the gendarmes had arrested, of the hard glint of chains, of gallows. she wondered whether elkin or boulatoff knew anything about that man. she saw herself rapidly marching toward something at once terrible and divine. she was not the only one who followed this course--that was the great point. the kindest and best people in miroslav, the best and the wisest in the land, and among them children of governors, of noblemen, were consecrated to that same something which was both terrible and luring. her heart went out to her comrades known and unknown, and as she beheld a sleepy watchman curled up in the recess of his gateway, she exclaimed without words: "i'm going to die for you--for you and all the other poor and oppressed people in the world." here and there they passed an illuminated window or an open street door, through which they saw jewish artisans at work. they saw the bent forms of jewish tailors, they heard the hammer sounds of jewish carpenters, tinsmiths, blacksmiths, silversmiths; yet all these made no impression upon her. there were about , jews in miroslav and as many as three-fourths of them were pinched, half-starved mechanics, working fourteen hours a day, and once or twice a week all night, to live on rye bread and oatmeal soup; yet they made no appeal to her sympathies, while the gentiles who were huddled up in front of the gates she was passing did. the great russian writers whose stories and songs had laid the foundation to her love of the masses dealt in gentiles, not in jews. nekrasoff bewailed the misery of the russian moujik, not of the common people of her own race. turgeneff's sketches breathe forth the poetry of suffering in a great-russian village, not the tragedy and spiritual beauty of life among the toiling men and women of her own blood. she had never been in great russia, in fact; she had never seen those moujiks in the flesh. those she had seen were the little-russian peasants, who came to miroslav from the neighbouring villages. her peasants, therefore, were so many literary images, each with the glamour which radiates from the pages of an adored author. this was the kind of "people" she had in mind when she thought of the _will of the people_. the jewish realities of which her own home was a part had nothing to do with this imaginary world of hers. * * * * * clara's home was on a small square which was partly used as a cart-stand and in one corner of which, a short distance from cucumber market, squatted a policeman's hut. this was the district of a certain class of artisans and small tradesmen; of harness-makers, trunk-makers, wheelwrights; of dealers in tar, salt, herring, leaf tobacco, pipes, accordions, cheap finery. the air was pungent with a thousand strong odours. the peasants who brought their produce to market were here supplied with necessaries and trinkets. the name of the big market-place extended to the entire locality, and paradise town was just beyond the confines of that locality. the square for which clara was bound was called little market. a gate in the centre of one of its four sides, flanked by goose-yards on one side and by a row of feed-shops and harness-shops on the other, led into a deep and narrow court, known as boyko's. at this moment the gate was closed, its wicket, held ajar by a chain, showing black amid the grey gloom of the square. as clara and her two escorts came in sight of the spot they saw a man sitting on a low wooden bench near the gate. "somebody is waiting for me," she said gravely. she thanked them and bade them good-bye and they went their several ways. the man on the bench rose and went to meet her. as he walked toward her he leaned heavily on his stout, knotty cane--a pose which she knew to be the result of embarrassment. he was a tall, athletic fellow in a long spring overcoat, a broad-brimmed felt hat sloping backward on his head. he bore striking resemblance to clara; the same picturesque flatness in the middle part of the face, the same expression. only his hair was dark, and his eyes and mouth were milder than hers. they looked like brother and sister and, indeed, had been brought up almost as such, but they were only cousins. his name was vladimir vigdoroff. his family was the better-to-do and the worldlier of the two. when he was a boy of four and he envied certain other two boys because each of them had a little sister, and he had not, he had made one of his cousin. it was his father who subsequently paid for clara's education. "you here?" clara said quietly. he nodded, to say yes, with playful chivalry. they reached the bench in silence, and then he said in a decisive, business-like voice which she knew to be studied: "i expected to have a talk with you, clara. that's why i waited so long. but it's too late. can i see you to-morrow?" "certainly. will you drop in in the afternoon?" he had evidently expected to be detained. he lingered in silence, and she had not the heart to say good-bye. from a neighbouring lane came the buzz-buzz of a candlestick-maker's lathe. they were both agitated. she had been looking forward to this explanation for some time. they divined each other perfectly. as they now stood awkwardly without being able either to speak or to part, their minds were in reality saying a good deal to each other. until recently she had made her home in her uncle's house more than she had in her father's. her piano stood there, her uncle's gift, for which there was no room in the basement occupied by her parents. she had kept her books there, received her girl friends and often slept there. but since her initiation into the secret society she had gradually removed her headquarters to her parents' house, and her visits at vladimir's home had become few and far between. clara had once offered him an underground leaflet, whereupon he had nearly fainted with fright at sight of it. he had burned the paper in terror and indignation, and then, speaking partly like an older brother and partly like the master of the house which she was compromising, he had commanded her never again to go near people who handled literature of that sort. accustomed to look up to him as her intellectual guide and authority, as the most brilliant man within her horizon, she had listened to his attack upon nihilism and nihilists with meek reserve, but the new influences she had fallen under had proven far stronger than his power over her. to relieve him from the hazards of her presence in the house she had little by little removed her books and practically discontinued her visits. in the event of her getting into trouble with the gendarmes her own family was too old-fashioned and uneducated, in a modern sense, to be suspected of complicity. as to vladimir, he missed her keenly, as did everybody else in the house, but her estrangement had a special sting to it, too, one unconnected with their mutual attachment as cousins who had grown up together. clara's consideration for his safety, implying as it did that he was too timid and too jealous for his personal security to work for the revolution, an inferior being uninitiated into the world of pluck and self-sacrifice to which she, until recently his pupil, belonged, galled him inordinately. at last he lost control over himself. "you are playing with fire, clara," he said, lingering by the bench. "i suppose that's what you want to speak to me about," she answered with calm earnestness, "but this is hardly the place for a discussion of this sort, volodia."[b] [b] affectionate diminutive of vladimir. "if you want me to go home you had better say so in so many words. the high-minded interests you are cultivating are scarcely compatible with shyness or lack of frankness, clara." "don't be foolish, volodia. you know you will make fun of yourself for having spoken like that." "i didn't mean to say anything harsh, clara. but this thing is scarcely ever out of my mind. it's a terrible fate you have chosen." "how do you know i have?" she asked in a meditative tone that implied assent. "how do i know? can't we have a frank, honest talk for once, clara? let us go somewhere." "we can talk here. to be on the safe side of it, let us talk in yiddish." he made a grimace of repugnance, and seating himself on the bench he went on in nervous russian. "you have fallen into company that will do you no good, clara. if you are arrested it will break the heart of two families. is there no soul left in you?" "what put it into your mind that i should be arrested?" she returned, lugubriously. "and is that all one ought to be concerned about? all russia is in prison." "i expected something of that sort. alluring phrases have made you deaf and blind. it is my duty to try to save you before it is too late." he had come for friendly remonstrance, for an open-hearted explanation, but that mood had been shattered the moment he saw her approaching with two of her new friends. he persisted in using the didactic tone he had been in the habit of taking with her, and he could not help feeling how ridiculously out of place it had become. he chafed under a sense of his lost authority, and the impotent superiority of his own manner impelled him to bitterness. "is that what you have come for--to rescue me from empty phrases and bad company?" "yes, to rescue you from the intoxication of bombast and dangerous company, whether you are in a sarcastic mood or not." "and how are you going to do it, pray?" she asked with rather good-natured gaiety. "laugh away. laugh away. since you took up with those scamps----" "scamps! i can't let you speak like that, volodia. i don't know what you mean by 'taking' up with them, but if by 'scamps' you mean people who are sacrificing themselves----" "you misunderstand me----" "if by scamps you mean people who will be tortured or hanged for opposing the tyranny that is crushing us all rather than feather their own nests, then it is useless for us to continue this talk." "be calm, clara. you don't wish to misjudge me, do you? of course, i needn't tell you that what you say about sacrificing oneself and all that sort of business is no news to me. some other time, when you are not excited, i may have something to say about these things----" "that everlasting 'something to say!' people are being throttled, butchered and you--you have 'something to say.' we are speaking in two different languages, volodia." "maybe we are. and i must say you have picked up that new language of yours rather quickly. i am not going to enter into a lengthy discussion with you to-night. all i will say now is this: you know that four jewish revolutionists have been hanged within the last few months--in odessa, nicolayeff, kieff and st. petersburg. if you think that does the jewish people any good i am very sorry." "what else would you have jews do? roll on feather-beds and collect usury? would that do 'the jewish people' good?" "you talk like an anti-semite, clara." "there is no accounting for tastes. you may call it anti-semitism. you may be ashamed of four men who die bravely in a terrible struggle against despotism." he cast an uneasy look in the direction of the police booth, but his courage failed him to urge her to lower her voice. "as for me," she went on, "i certainly am proud of them. i hold their names sacred, yes, sacred, sacred, sacred, do you understand? and if you intend to continue calling such people scamps then there is nothing left for us to say to each other. and, by the way, since when have _you_ been a champion of 'the jewish people'--you who have taught me to keep away from everything jewish; you who are shocked by the very sound of yiddish, by the very sight of a wig or a pair of side-locks; you who are continually boasting of the gentiles you are chumming with; you who would give all the jews in the world for one handshake of a christian?" "well, i am prepared to take abuse, too, to-night. as to my hatred of yiddish and side-locks, that does no harm to anybody. if all jews dropped their antediluvian ways and became assimilated with the russian population half of the unfortunate jewish question would be solved." "oh, this kind of talk is really enough to drive one mad. the whole country is choking for breath, and here you are worrying over the jewish question. but then--since when have _you_ been interested in the jews and their 'question?'" "whether i have or not, i never helped to aggravate it as those 'heroes' of yours do. if there are some few rights which the jew still enjoys, they, too, will be taken away from him on account of that new-fangled heroism which has turned your head." "nobody has any 'rights.' everybody is trampled upon, everybody. that's what those 'scamps' are struggling to do away with." "everybody has to die for that matter, yet who cares to die an unnatural death? if the jews were oppressed like all others and no more, it would be another matter, but they are not. theirs is an unnatural oppression." "well, that's what those 'scamps' are struggling for: to do away with every sort of oppression. would you have the jews keep out of that struggle? would you have them take care of their own precious skins, and later on, when life becomes possible in russia, to come in for a share of the fruit of a terrible fight that they carefully stayed away from?" "those are dreams, clara. dreams and phrases, phrases and dreams. that's all you have learned of your new friends. do you deny the existence of a jewish question?" she scrutinised his face in the grey half-tones of the gathering dawn and said calmly: "look here, volodia, you know you are seizing at this 'jewish question' as a drowning man does at a straw. you know you have no more interest in it than i have." "i am certainly not delighted to see it exist, if that's what you mean." "may i be frank with you, volodia? all the jews of the world might cease to exist, for all you care." "it isn't true. all i want is that they should become russians, cultured russians." "well, as for me there is only one question--the question of plain common justice and plain elementary liberty. when this has been achieved there won't be any such thing as a jewish, polish or hottentot question. yes, those 'scamps' are the only real friends the jews have." "but one cannot live on the golden mist of that glorious future of yours, clara. it takes a saint to do that. every-day mortals cannot help thinking of equal rights before the law in the sordid present." "think away! much good will it do the jews. the only kind of equal rights possible to-day is for jew and gentile to die on the same gallows for liberty. that's the 'scamps'' view of it." at this the word struck her in conjunction with the images of boulatoff, olga, the judge, and the other members of the circle, whereupon she burst out, with a stifled sob in her voice: "how dare you abuse those people?" not only had she broken loose from his tutelage, but he had found himself on the defensive. they had changed rôles. the pugnacious tone of conviction, almost of inspiration, with which she parried his jibes nonplussed him. usually a bright talker, he was now colourless and floundering. and the more he tried to work himself back to his old-time mastery the more helplessly at a disadvantage he appeared. "i don't recognise you, clara," he said. "they have mesmerised you, those phrase-makers." she leaped to her feet. "i don't intend to hear any more of this abuse," she said. "and the idea of you finding fault with phrase-makers! you of all men, you to whom a well-turned phrase is dearer than all else in the world! if they make phrases they are willing to suffer for them at least." "oh well, they have made a perfect savage of you," he retorted under his breath. "good night." she was left with a sharp twinge of compunction, but she had barely dived under the wicket chain when her thoughts reverted to boulatoff and what he had said to her. chapter xvi. clara at home. at boyko's court the chilly dawn lit up a barricade of wheels, axles, and bodies of peasant waggons. through wide cracks of a fence came the shifting light of a lantern and the sleepy cackling of geese. at the far end of the deep narrow court hung the pulley chains and bucket of a roofed well. clara went through a spacious subterranean passage, dark as a pocket and filled with the odour of paint. it was crowded with stacks of trunks, finished and unfinished, but she steered clear of them without having to feel her way. a door swung open, revealing a dimly lighted low-ceiled interior. the odour of sleep mingled with the odours of paint and putty. "is that you, tamara?" asked a tall, erect, half-naked old woman in yiddish, tamara being the jewish name which had been arbitrarily transformed, at vladimir's instance, into clara. "yes, mamma darling," clara replied. "master of the universe! you get no sleep at all." the girl kissed her mother gayly. "you know what papa says," she rejoined, "'sleep is one sixtieth of death.' life is better, mamma dear." "i have not studied any of your gentile books, yet i know enough to understand that to be alive is better than to be dead," the tall, erect old woman said without smiling. "but if you want to be alive you must sleep. go to bed, go to bed." there were between them relations of quizzical comradeship, implying that each treated the interests of the other with patronising levity, with the reservation of a common ground upon which they met on terms of equality and ardent friendship. "by the way," the old woman added, yawning, "volodia was here. he wants to see you." "i know. i found him at the gate." "very well, then, go to bed, go to bed." "is father asleep?" at this a red-bearded little man in yellow drawers and a white shirt open at the neck and exposing a hairy breast, burst from an open side door. "how can one sleep when one is not allowed to?" he fired out. "may she sink into the earth, her ungodly books and all. i'll break every unclean bone in you. who ever heard of a girl roaming around as late as that?" "hush," his wife said with a faint smile, as she urged him back to their bed-room, much as she would a child. the family occupied one large basement room, the better part of which was used as a trunk-maker's shop and a kitchen, two narrow strips of its space having been partitioned off for bed-rooms. it was hannah, clara's mother, who conducted the trunk business. the bare wooden boxes came from a carpenter's shop and she had them transformed into trunks at her house. clara's father spent his days and evenings in a synagogue, studying the talmud "for its own sake." there were other such scholars in miroslav, the wife in each case supporting the family by engaging in earthly business, while her husband was looking after their common spiritual welfare in the house of god. clara's mother was generally known as "hannah the trunk-maker," or "hannah the devil." in her very humble way she was a shrewd business woman, tireless, scheming, and not over-scrupulous, but her nickname had originated long before she was old enough to be a devil on cucumber market. she was a little girl when there appeared in the neighbourhood what anglo-saxons would call "jack the window-smasher." window-pane after window-pane was cracked without there being the remotest clue to the source of the mischief. the bewigged old women said it was an evil spirit, and engaged a "master of the name" to exorcise it from the community; but the number of broken windows continued to grow. the devil proved to be hannah, and the most startling thing about the matter, according to the bewigged women of the neighbourhood, was this, that when caught in the act, she did not even cry, but just lowered her eyes and frowned saucily. rabbi rachmiel, as clara's father was addressed by strangers, was innocent of "things of the world" as an infant--a hot-tempered, simple-minded scholar, with the eyes and manner of a tiger and the heart of a dove. his wife tied his shirt-strings, helped him on with his socks and boots, and generally took care of him as she might of a baby. when he spoke of worldly things to her, she paid no heed to his talk. when he happened to drop a saying from the talmud she would listen reverently for more, without understanding a word of what he said. had clara been a boy her father would have sooner allowed her to be burned alive than to be taught "gentile wisdom." but woman is out of the count in the jewish church, so he neither interfered nor tried to understand the effect that gentile education was having on her. father, mother and daughter represented three distinct worlds, clara being as deeply engrossed in her "gentile wisdom" as rabbi rachmiel was in his talmud, or as her mother in her trunks. that the girl belonged to a society that was plotting against the czar the old people had not the remotest idea, of course. besides clara and her married sister the old couple had two sons, one of them a rabbi in a small town and the other a merchant in the same place. clara put out the smoky light of a crude chimneyless little lamp (with a piece of wire to work the wick up and down), which had been left burning for her. a few streaks of raw daylight crept in through the shutters, falling on a pair of big rusty shears fastened to the top of a wooden block, on a heap of sheet-iron, and on several rows of old talmudic folios which lined the stretch of wall between clara's partition and one of the two windows. chapter xvii. the countess' discovery. as pavel mounted the majestic staircase of his mother's residence he became aware that an abstract facial expression was all his memory retained of mlle. yavner's likeness. he coveted another glance at her much as a man covets to hear again a new song that seems to be singing itself in his mind without his being able to reproduce it. he found his mother sitting up for him, on the verge of a nervous collapse. she took him to a large, secluded room, the best in the vast house for _tête-à-tête_ purposes. it was filled with mementoes, the trophies of her father's diplomatic career, with his proud collection of rare and costly inkstands, and with odds and ends of ancient furniture, each with a proud history as clear-cut as the pedigree of a high-born race-horse. anna nicolayevna had planned to lead up to the main question diplomatically, but she was scarcely seated on a huge, venerable couch (which made her look smaller than ever) than she turned pale and blurted out in a whisper: "did you cross the bridge this afternoon?" "no. why?" he said this with fatigued curiosity and looking her full in the face. she dropped her glance. "i thought i saw you there." "you were mistaken, then, but what makes you look so uneasy? i did not go in that direction at all, but suppose i did. why, what has happened?" she cowed before the insistence of his interrogations and beat a retreat. "i am not uneasy at all. i must have been mistaken, then. it is about kostia i have been wanting to speak to you. it is quite a serious matter. you see he is too delicate for the military schools. so i was thinking of putting him in the gymnasium, but then many of the boys there are children of undesirable people. one can't be too careful these days." she was now speaking according to her carefully considered program, and growing pale once more, she fixed him with a searching glance, as she asked: "you must have heard of the man the gendarmes caught, haven't you?" "oh, you mean the fellow who would not open his mouth," he said with a smile. "quite a sensation for a town like this. in st. petersburg or moscow they catch them so often it has ceased to be news." she went on to speak of the evil of nihilism, pavel listening with growing interest, like a man who had given the matter some consideration. poor anna nicolayevna! she was no match for him. finally he got up. "well, i don't really know," he said. "it seems to me the trouble lies much deeper than that, _mamman_. those fellows, the nihilists, don't amount to anything in themselves. if it were not for that everlasting russian helplessness of ours they could do no more harm than a group of flies. our factories and successful farms are all run by germans; we simply can't take care of the least thing." "but what have factories and farms to do with the pranks of demoralised boys?" he smiled. "but if we were not a helpless, shiftless nation a handful of boys couldn't frighten us, could they?" "very well. let us suppose you are a minister. what would you do?" "what would i do? i shouldn't let things come to such a pass, to begin with." he was tempted to cast circumspection to the winds and to thunder out his real impeachment of existing conditions. this, however, he could not afford; so he felt like a boat that is being rowed across stream with a strong current to tempt her downward. he was sailing in a diagonal direction. every now and then he would let himself drift along, only presently to take up his oars and strike out for the bank again. he spoke in his loud rapid way. every now and again he would break off, fall to pacing the floor silently and listening to the sound of his own voice which continued to ring in his ears, as though his words remained suspended in the air. anna nicolayevna--a curled-up little heap capped by an enormous pile of glossy auburn hair, in the corner of a huge couch--followed him intently. once or twice she nodded approval to a severe attack upon the government, without realising that he was speaking against the czar. she was at a loss to infer whether he was opposed to the new advisers of the emperor in the same way in which her brother-in-law and the ultra-conservative slavophiles were opposed to them or whether he was some kind of liberal. he certainly seemed to tend toward the slavophiles in his apparent hatred of foreigners. "they'll kill him, those murderous youngsters, they are sure to kill him," he shouted at one point, speaking of the czar. "and who is to blame? is such a state of things possible anywhere in western europe?" anna nicolayevna's eyes grew red and then filled with tears, as she shrank deeper into the corner of the couch. * * * * * she was left in a frame of mind that was a novel experience to her. her pity was lingering about a stalwart military figure with the gloom and glint of martyrdom on his face--the face of alexander ii. quite apart from this was the sense of having been initiated into a strange ecstasy of thought and feeling--of bold ideas and broad human sympathies. she was in an unwonted state of mental excitement. pavel seemed to be a weightier personage than ever. the haze that enveloped him was thickening. nevertheless his strictures upon russia's incapacity left her rankling with a desire to refute them. that national self-conceit which breeds in every child the conviction that his is the greatest country in the world and that its superiority is cheerfully conceded by all other nations, reasserted itself in the countess with resentful emphasis. to be sure, all the skill, ingenuity and taste of the refined world came from abroad, but this did not lessen her contempt for foreigners any more than did the fact that all acrobats and hair-dressers were germans or frenchmen. her childhood had been spent in foreign countries and she knew their languages as well as she did her own; nevertheless her abstraction of a foreigner was a man who spoke broken russian--a lisping, stammering, cringing imbecile. she revolted to think of russia as being inferior to wretches of this sort, and when the bridge incident swept back upon her in all the clearness of fact, her blood ran chill again. "he is the man i saw in the waggon after all," she said to herself, in dismay. she went to bed, but tossed about in an agony of restlessness. when the darkness of her room began to thin and the brighter objects loomed into view, she slipped on a wrapper and seated herself at a window, courting composure in the blossom-scented air that came up from the garden; but all to no purpose. ever and anon, after a respite of tranquillity she would be seized with a new rush of consternation. pasha was the man she had seen on the bridge, disguised as an artisan; he was a nihilist. * * * * * while anna nicolayevna was thus harrowed with doubt, pavel was pacing his room, his heart on the point of bursting with a desire to see his mother again and to make a clean breast of it. the notion of her being outwitted and made sport of touched him with pity. come what might, his poor noble-hearted mother must be kept in the dark no longer. she would appreciate his feelings. he would plead with her, with tears in his eyes he would implore her to open her eyes to the appalling inhumanity of the prevailing adjustment of things. and as he visioned himself making this plea to her, his own sense of the barbarity of the existing regime set his blood simmering in him, and quickened his desire to lay it all before his mother. presently somebody rapped on his door. it was anna nicolayevna. "i must speak to you, pasha; i can't get any sleep," she said. they went into a newly-built summer house. the jumble of colour and redolence was invaded with light that asserted its presence like a great living spirit. the orchard seemed to be worlds away from itself. as a precaution, they spoke in french. "pasha, you are the man i saw on the bridge," she said. "you are a nihilist." "sh-h, don't be agitated, mother dear, i beg of you," he replied with tender emphasis. "i am going to tell you all. only first compose yourself, mamma darling, and hear me out. yes, i'm what you call a nihilist, but i am not the man you saw." "you a nihilist, pasha!" she whispered, staring at him, as though a great physical change had suddenly come over him. "anyhow, you have nothing to do with the man they have arrested?" he shook his head and she felt relieved. his avowal of being a nihilist was so startling a confession to make, that she believed all he said. he was a nihilist, then--a nihilist in the abstract; something shocking, no doubt, but remote, indefinite, vague. the concrete nihilism contained in the picture of a man disguised as a laborer and having some thing to do with the fellow under arrest--that would have been quite another matter. he told her the story of his conversion in simple, heart-felt eloquence; he pictured the reign of police terror, the slow massacre of school-children in the political dungeons, the brutal fleecing and maltreatment of a starving peasantry. "i found myself in a new world, mother," he said. "it was a world in which the children of refined, well-bred families fervently believed that he who did not work for the good of the common people was not a man of real honour. indeed, of what use has the nobility been to the world? they are a lot of idlers, _mamman_, a lot of good-for-nothings. for centuries we have been living on the fat of the earth, luxuriating in the toil, misery and ignorance of the peasants. it is to their drudgery and squalor that we owe our material and mental well-being. we ought to feel ashamed for living at the expense of these degraded, literally starving creatures; yet we go on living off their wretchedness and even pride ourselves upon doing so. let us repay our debt to them by working for their real emancipation. we have grown fat on serfdom, so we must give our blood to undo it, to bring about the reign of liberty. this is the sum and substance of our creed, mother. this is the faith that has taken hold of me. it is my religion and will be as long as i live." in his entire experience as a revolutionary speaker he had never felt as he did at the present moment. a host of sparrows burst into song and activity, all together, as though at the stroke of a conductor's baton; and at this it seemed as if the flood of perfume had taken a spurt and the sunlight had begun to smile and speak. he went on in the same strain, and she listened as she would to a magic tale that had no bearing upon the personality of her son. his voice, sharp and irascible as it often sounded, was yet melodious in its undercurrent tone of filial devotion. the vital point, indeed, was that at last he was uncovering his soul to her. she was not shocked by what she heard. rather, she was proud of his readiness to sacrifice himself for an ideal, and what is more, she felt that his world lured her heart also. "but the emperor is a noble soul, pasha," she said. "he has emancipated the serfs. if there ever was a friend of the common people the present czar is one." her objections found him ready. he had gone over these questions hundreds of times before, and he gave her the benefit of all his former discussions and reading. at times he would borrow a point or two from zachar's speeches. touching upon the emancipation of the serfs, he contended that alexander ii. had been forced to the measure by the disastrous results of the crimean war; and that the peasants, having been defrauded of their land, were now worse off than ever. "oh, mother," he suddenly exclaimed, "whenever you think of the abolition of serfdom think also of the row of gallows he had erected about that very time for noble-minded polish patriots. do you remember mme. oginska, that unfortunate polish woman we met at the health-resort? gallows, gallows, nothing but gallows in his reign." when she referred to the late war "in behalf of the oppressed slavonic races of the balkans," pavel asked her why the czar had not first thought of his own oppressed russians, and whether it was not hypocrisy to send one's slaves to die for somebody else's freedom. the emperor had secured a constitution for bulgaria, had he? why, then, was he hanging those who were striving for one in his own land? a war of emancipation indeed! it was the old romanoff greed for territory, for conquest, for bloodshed. he literally bore her down by a gush of arguments, facts, images. now and again he would pause, sit looking at the grass in grim silence, and then, burst into another torrent of oratory. it was said of zachar that a single speech of his was enough to make a convert of the most hopeless conservative. pavel was far from possessing any such powers of pleading eloquence, when his audience was made up of strangers, but he certainly scored a similar victory by the appeal which he was now addressing to his mother. he went to order coffee. when he returned, reveille was sounding in the barracks. "there you have it!" he said. "do you know what that sound means? it means that the youngest, the best forces of the country are turned into weapons of human butchery." the brass notes continued, somewhat cracked at times, but loud and vibrant with imperious solemnity. "it means, too, that people are forced to keep themselves in chains at the point of their own bayonets," he added. * * * * * the next few days were spent by the countess in reading "underground" literature. she was devouring paper after paper and pamphlet after pamphlet with tremulous absorption. the little pile before her included scientific treatises, poetry and articles of a polemical nature, and she read it all; but she was chiefly interested in the hair-breadth escapes, pluck and martyrdom of the revolutionists. the effect this reading had on her was something like the thrilling experience she had gone through many years ago when she was engrossed in the lives of saints. "it makes one feel twenty years younger," she said to pavel, bashfully, as she laid down a revolutionary print and took the glasses off her tired eyes one forenoon. chapter xviii. pavel at boyko's court. clara was introduced to mme. shubeyko, the warden's sister-in-law, and to her niece, the gendarme officer's sister. at first communication with makar was held by means of notes concealed in cigarettes and carried to and fro by one of the warders, who received half a ruble per errand; but clara was soon installed in the warden's house. once or twice pavel spoke with makar directly, by means of handkerchief signals based on the same code as the telegraph language which political prisoners rap out to each other through their cell walls. these signals pavel sent from the top of a hill across the river from makar's cell window. to allay suspicion he would wave his handkerchief toward masha or clara, who stood for the purpose on a neighbouring hill, giving the whole proceeding the appearance of a flirtation. as to makar, his cell was in an isolated part of the prison, facing the outer wall. still, this mode of communication was exasperatingly slow and attended by some risks after all, and pavel had recourse to it only in case of extreme necessity, although to the prisoner it was a welcome diversion. one day, when clara, masha and pavel were together, he said to the gendarme officer's sister, with mystifying gaiety: "well, have you discovered the heroine of the pievakin demonstration?" he regretted the question before it had left his lips. clara was annoyed. "no, why?" masha asked, looking from him to her. "i have the honour to introduce--" he said, colouring. for some reason masha did not seem to be agreeably impressed by the announcement, and clara did not fail to notice it. as it was rather inconvenient for the son of countess varoff to be seen at the house of a major of gendarmes, clara was to report to him at the residence of her parents. in the depth of the markets and the jewish quarter his identity was unlikely to be known. clara had lived at the warden's house about a fortnight when pavel's first visit at the trunk shop took place. she offered him a rude chair in the small space between the partition of her bed-room and the window by the wall that was lined with the worn folios of her father's meagre library. the room was pervaded by odours of freshly planed wood, putty and rusty tin which the breath of spring seemed to intensify rather than to abate. motl, hannah's sole employe, was hammering away at his bindings and courting attention by all sorts of vocal quirks and trills. during the days of awe, the solemn festivals of autumn, he sang in a synagogue choir; so he never ceased asserting his musical talents. as clara's visitor took no heed of his flourishes he proceeded to imitate domestic animals, church bells, a street organ playing a selection from il trovatore, and a portly captain drilling his men, but all to no purpose. as the noise he was making was a good cover for their talk, she did not stop him. at any rate, motl scarcely understood any russian. "i have only seen him at a distance," clara said, meaning the prisoner. "but i know that he eats and sleeps well, and looks comfortable." "he would look comfortable if you tied him up in a sack. is he still 'dumb'?" she portrayed the warden's bed-ridden and voiceless wife who suffered from a disease of the spinal and vocal chords, and the disorder at his house and in the prison. she had always wondered at the frequent cases of political gaol-breaking, but if every gaol were conducted as this one was the number would be much larger, she thought. that vodka was quite openly sold and bought in every common gaol in the empire was no news to her, but this was a trifle compared to what she had heard of rodkevich's administration. one of his gaolers had told her of imprisoned thieves whom he would give leave of absence in order that he might confiscate part of their booty when they came back. "yes, i think he is a man who would go into any kind of scheme that offered money, or--excitement," she said, gravely; and she added with a smile: "he might even become a man of principle if there were money in it." "he won't give 'a political' 'leave of absence,' though, will he?" pavel joked. "still, upon the whole, it looks rather encouraging." "i think it does." "do you?" and his eyes implored her for a more enthusiastic prediction of success. "indeed i do," she answered soberly. "but whether i do or not, we must go to work and get him out." "this damsel is certainly not without backbone," he said to himself. he had familiarised himself with the details in the case of almost every revolutionist who had escaped or attempted to escape from prison. some of these had made their way through an underground passage; others had passed the gateman in the disguise of a soldier or policeman; still others had been wrenched from their convoy, while being taken to the gendarme office or a photograph gallery. prince kropotkin had simply made a desperate break for liberty while the gates of the prison hospital in which he was confined stood open, a cab outside bearing him off to a place of safety. another political prisoner regained his freedom by knocking down a sentinel with brass knuckles, while still another, who was awaiting death in odessa, would have made his escape by means of planks laid from his cell window to the top of the prison fence, had not these planks proved to be too flimsy. in one place an imprisoned army officer slipped away under cover of a flirtation in which a girl prisoner had engaged the warden. a revolutionist named myshkin had tried to liberate chernishevsky, the celebrated critic, by appearing at the place of his banishment, in far-away siberia, in the guise of a gendarme officer with an order for the distinguished exile, and a similar scheme had been tried on the warden of a prison in european russia. both these attempts had failed, but then in the case in hand there was the hope of rodkevich, the warden, acting as a willing victim. pavel said he would impersonate one of the gendarmes. "some of the gaolers may know you," mlle. yavner objected. "that's quite unlikely, i was away so long. besides, the thing would have to be done in the evening anyhow. i must be on hand. it will be necessary." "you might be recognised after all," she insisted, shyly. another project was to have a rope thrown over the prison fence, in a secluded corner of the yard. this was to be done at a signal from within, while makar was out for exercise, in the charge of a bribed guard. the guard was to raise an alarm when it was too late, telling how his prisoner knocked him down and was hoisted out of sight. or makar might be smuggled out in a barrel on some provision waggon, the prescribed examination of the vehicle being performed by a friendly gaoler. whatever plan they took up, pavel insisted on playing the leading part in it. he was for taking makar away in a closed carriage, if need be under cover of pistol shots. clara urged that in the event the equipage had to wait for some time, its presence about the prison was sure to arouse dangerous curiosity. altogether she was in favour of a quiet and simple proceeding. safonoff's house was within easy distance from the prison, so if masha could undertake to keep her brother away from home, clara would prefer to have makar walk quietly to that place, as a first resort, thence to be taken, thoroughly disguised, to the "conspiracy house" of the circle. but pavel picked the proposition to pieces. since her initiation into the warden's house clara had been in a peculiarly elevated state of mind, her whole attention being absorbed in her mission in which she took great pride. this uplifted mood of hers she strove to suppress, and the clear-headed, matter-of-fact way in which she faced the grave dangers of her task animated pavel with a feeling of intimate comradeship as well as admiration. as they now sat in the cleanest and brightest corner of the trunk shop he was vaguely sensible of a change in her appearance. then he noticed that instead of the dark woolen dress she had worn at the time of their previous meetings she had on a fresh blouse of a light-coloured fabric. to be seen in a new colour is in itself becoming to a woman, but this blouse of clara's was evidently a tribute to spring. her face seemed to be suffused with the freshness of the month. while they sat talking, her mother came in, an elderly jewess, tall and stately, with a shrewd, careworn look, her hair carefully hidden beneath a strip of black satin. "is that you, tamara?" she asked without taking notice of the stranger. she said something to motl, made for the door, but suddenly returned, addressing herself to her daughter again. she wanted to know something about the law of chattel-mortgages, but neither clara nor her visitor could furnish her the desired information. "always at those books of theirs, yet when it comes to the point they don't know anything," she said, with a smile, as she bustled out of the room. "are these talmud books?" pavel asked, pointing at rabbi rachmiel's library. "yes," clara nodded with an implied smile in her voice. "can you read them?" "oh, no," she answered, smiling. he told her that makar was a deep talmudic scholar and talked of the jewish religion, but she offered him no encouragement. she was brimful of questions herself. her inquiries were concerned with the future destinies of the human race. with all her practical common sense, she had a notion that the era of undimmed equality and universal love would dawn almost immediately after the overthrow of russian tyranny. this, as she had been taught by revolutionary publications, was to come as the logical continuation of russia's village communes, once the development of this survival of prehistoric communism received free scope. what she wanted was a clear and detailed account of life in future society. her questions and his answers had the character of a theoretical discussion. gradually, however, he mounted to a more animated tone, portraying the future with quiet fervour. she listened gravely, her eyes full upon his, and this absorbed look spurred him on. but presently her mother came in again, this time with a peasant customer, and they went out to continue their talk in the open air. there were plenty of deserted lanes and bits of open country a short distance off. there was a vague gentle understanding between them that it was the golden idealism of their talk which had set them yearning for the unhidden sky and the aromatic breezes of spring. this upheld their lofty mood while they silently trudged through the outskirts of the market place. they could not as yet continue their interrupted conversation, and to speak of something else would have seemed profanation. at last they emerged on a lonely square, formed by an orchard, some houses and barns and the ruin of an old barrack. the air was excellent and there was nobody to overhear them. nevertheless when pavel was about to resume he felt that he was not in the mood for it. nor did she urge him on with any further questions. from the old barracks they passed into a dusty side lane and thence into a country road which led to a suburb and ran parallel to the railway tracks. the sun was burning by fits and starts, as it were. in those spots where masses of lilacs and fruit blossoms gave way to a broader outlook, the road was so flooded with light that clara had to shield her eyes with her hand. now and again a clump of trees in the distance would fall apart to show the snow-crested top of a distant hill and the blueish haze of the horizon-line. their immediate surroundings were a scrawny, frowzy landscape. the lawns in front of the huts they passed, the homes of washerwomen, were overspread with drying linen. "delightful, isn't it?" pavel said, inhaling a long draught of the rich, animating air and glancing down a ravine choked with nettle. the remark was merely a spoken sigh of joy. she made no reply. they were both hungry, and presently they began to feel tired as well. yet neither of them was disposed to halt or to break silence except by an occasional word or two that meant nothing. at last he said: "you must be quite fatigued. it's cruel of me." "i am, but it isn't cruel of you," she answered, stopping short, and drawing a deep, smiling breath. he ran into a washerwoman's hovel, startling a brood of ducklings on his way, and soon came back with the information that milk was to be had in a trackman's hut beyond a sparse grove to the right. a few minutes later they sat at a rude table in a miniature garden between the shining steel rails of the track and a red-painted cabin. it was the fourth track-house from the miroslav railroad station and was generally known as the fourth hut. besides milk and eggs and coarse rye bread they found sour soup. they ate heartily, but an echo of their exalted dream was still on them. to pavel this feeling was embodied in an atmosphere of femininity that pervaded his consciousness at this moment. he was sensible of sitting in front of a pretty, healthy girl full of modest courage and undemonstrative inspiration. the lingering solemnity of his mood seemed to have something to do with the shimmering little hairs which the breeze was stirring on clara's neck, as she bent over her earthen bowl, with the warm colouring of her ear, with the elastic firmness of her cheek, with the airiness of her blouse. a desire stirred in him to speak once more of the part she had unconsciously played in his conversion, and at this he felt that if he told her the story he would find a peculiar pleasure in exaggerating the importance of the effect which her "speech" had produced on his mind. but it came over him that makar was still behind the prison gate and that this was not the time to enjoy oneself. chapter xix. strawberries. that walk to the trackman's hut had kindled a new light in pavel's soul. he often found himself craving for a repetition of the experience--not merely for clara's companionship, but for another occasion to walk through the fields with her, to sit by her side in the breeze, and, above all, for the intimacy of seeing her fatigued and eating heartily. she dwelt in his mind as a girl comrade, self-possessed and plucky, gifted with grit, tact and spirit; at the same time she lingered in his consciousness as a responsive pupil, glowing with restrained enthusiasm over his talk, eagerly following him through an ecstasy of lofty dreams. these two aspects of her were merged in the sight and odour of healthy, magnificently complexioned girlhood between the glint of steel rails and the dusty geranium in a trackman's window. they had another appointment. when he called at the trunkmaker's shop clara greeted him with a hearty handshake. he blushed. his love seemed to be gaining on him by leaps and bounds. "how are things?" he asked. "first rate, pavel vassilyevich. the vegetable man will do it. he's a trump, i tell you." she went into details. she was in unusually good spirits. they talked business and of the adjustment of things under socialism. pavel, too, was in good humour, yet floating in his mind was the same old question: and what if all fails and makar is removed to st. petersburg? they met again and again. one day, after they had arrived at certain conclusions regarding makar, pavel said: "shall we take a walk?" she nodded assent. "i am again full of questions." "again worrying about the future fate of humanity?" "yes, i seem to have no end of questions about it. i wonder whether i shall remember all those that have occurred to me since i last saw you. i ought to have jotted them down." "you don't want to pump me dry in one day, do you?" "well, if the truth must be told, i rather do. you will soon be leaving us, i suppose, so i am anxious to strike the iron while it is hot." the personal question as to the length of his stay sent a little wave of warmth through his blood. they set out in the direction of the trackman's hut as a matter of course. instead of following their former route, however, they chose, upon a motion from clara, who was more familiar with these suburbs than pavel, a meandering, hilly course that offered them a far better view as well as greater privacy. a stretch of rising ground took them to the beak, a promontory so called for the shape of a cliff growing out of its breast. the common people had some pretty stories to tell of a gigantic bird of which the rocky beak was a part and whose petrified body was now asleep in the bosom of the hill that had once been its nest. pavel and clara sat down to rest on the freshly carpeted slope. the town clustered before them in a huddle of red, white, green and grey, shot with the glitter of a golden-domed cathedral, the river flashing at one end like the fragment of an immense sabre. it was warm and quiet. there was not a human soul for a considerable distance around. now and again the breeze would gently stir the weeds and the wild-flowers, lingering just long enough to scent the hillside with pine odours and then withdrawing, on tiptoe, as it were, like a thoughtful friend taking care that the two young people were kept supplied with the bracing aroma without being disturbed more than was necessary. once or twice clara held out her chin, sniffing the enchanted air. "isn't it delightful!" she said. "it's a specimen of what life under society of the future will feel like," pavel jested, with a wistful smile. at one point when she addressed him as pavel vassilyevich, as she usually did, he was tempted to ask her to dispense with his patronymic. in the light of the hearty simplicity of manners which prevailed in the revolutionary movement they were well enough acquainted to address each other by their first names only. yet when he was about to propose the change the courage failed him to do so. whereupon he said to himself, with a deep inward blushing, that the cause of this hesitancy and confusion of his was no secret to him. "hello there! a strawberry!" she called out, with a childish glee which he had not yet seen in her. and flinging herself forward she reached out her white girlish hand toward a spot of vivid red. the berry, of that tiny oblong delicious variety one saucerful of which would be enough to fill a fair-sized room with fragrance, lay ensconced in a bed of sun-lit leaves--a pearl of succulent, flaming colour in a setting of green gold. "oh, i haven't the heart to pick it," she said, staying her hand and cooing to the strawberry as she would to a baby: "won't touch you, berry darling. won't touch you, sweetie." "spare its life then," he answered, "i'll see if i can't find others." and sure enough, after some seeking and peeping and climbing, pavel came upon a spot that was fairly jewelled with strawberries. "quite a haul," he shouted down. she joined him and they went on picking together, each with a thistle leaf for a saucer. "why, it's literally teeming with them," she said, in a preoccupied voice, deeply absorbed in her work. "one, two, three, and four, and--seven; why, bless me,--and eight and nine. what a pity we have nothing with us. we could get enough to treat the crowd at orlovsky's." pavel made no reply. whenever he came across a berry that looked particularly tempting he would offer it to her silently and resume his work. he was oppressively aware of his embarrassment in her presence and the consciousness of it made him feel all the more so. he was distinctly conscious of a sensation of unrest, both stimulating and numbing, which had settled in him since he made her acquaintance. it was at once torture and joy, yet when he asked himself which of the two it was, it seemed to be neither the one nor the other. her absence was darkness; her presence was light, but pain and pleasure mingled in both. it made him feel like a wounded bird, like a mutely suffering child. at this moment it blent with the flavour and ruddiness of the berries they were both picking, with the pine-breeze that was waiting on them, with the subdued lyrics of spring. and he knew that he was in love. he had never been touched by more than a first timid whisper of that feeling before. it was sophia, the daughter of the former governor of st. petersburg, whose image had formerly--quite recently, in fact--invaded his soul. he had learned immediately that she belonged to zachar and his dawning love had been frightened away. otherwise his life during these five years had been one continuous infatuation of quite another kind--the infatuation of moral awakening, of a political religion, of the battlefield. from the beak they proceeded by the railroad track, now walking over the cross-ties, now balancing along the polished top of one rail. she was mostly ahead of him, he following her with melting heart. by the time they reached the trackman's place, the shadows had grown long and solemn. pavel had no appetite. he ate because clara did. "here i am watching her eat again," he thought. but the spectacle was devoid of the interest he had expected to find in it. nevertheless the next morning, upon waking, it burst upon him once more that seated within him was something which had not been there about a month ago. when he reflected that he had no appointment with clara for these two days, that disquieting force which was both delicious and tantalising, the force which enlivened and palsied at once, swelled in his throat like a malady. but no, far from having such a bodily quality, it had spiritualised his whole being. he seemed unreal to himself, while the outside world appeared to him strangely remote, agonisingly beautiful, and agonisingly sad--a heart-rending elegy on an unknown theme. the disquieting feeling clamoured for the girl's presence--for a visit to the scene of their yesterday's berry-picking, at least. he struggled, but he had to submit. to the beak, then, he betook himself, and for an hour he lay on the grass, brooding. everything around him was in a subdued agitation of longing. the welter of gold-cups and clover; the breeze, the fragrance and the droning of a nearby grasshopper; the sky overhead and the town at his feet--all was dreaming of clara, yearning for clara, sighing for clara. seen in profile the grass and the wild-flowers acquired a new charm. when he lay at full length gazing up, the sky seemed perfectly flat, like a vast blue ceiling, and the light thin wisps of pearl looked like painted cloudlets upon that ceiling. there were moments in this reverie of his when the will of the people was an echo from a dim past, when the world's whole struggle, whether for good or for evil, was an odd, incomprehensible performance. but then there were others when everything was listening for the sound of a heavenly bugle-call; when all nature was thirsting for noble deeds and the very stridulation of the grasshopper was part of a vast ecstasy. "that won't do," he said in his heart. "i am making a perfect fool of myself, and it may cost us makar's freedom." as he pictured the janitor, zachar and his other comrades, and what they would say, if they knew of his present frame of mind, he sprang to his feet in a fury of determination. "i must get that idiot out of the confounded hole he put himself into and get back to work in st. petersburg. this girl is not going to stand in my way any longer." he felt like smashing palaces and fortresses. but whatever he was going to do in his freedom from clara, clara was invariably a looker-on. when he staked his life to liberate makar she was going to be present; after the final blow had been struck at despotism, she would read in the newspapers of his prominent part in the fight. the next time he saw her he felt completely in her power. clara was in a hurry, but an hour after they had parted he found an honest excuse for seeing her again that very day. the appointment was made through mme. shubeyko, and in the afternoon he called at the trunk shop once more. "we have been ignoring a very important point, clara rodionovna," he said solicitously. "since the explosion at the winter palace the spies have been turning st. petersburg upside down. they literally don't leave a stone unturned. now, makar went away before the examinations at the medical academy and he disappeared from his lodgings without filing notice of removal at the police station." "and if they become curious about his whereabouts the name of the miroslav province in his papers may put the authorities in mind of their miroslav prisoner," clara put in, with quick intelligence. he nodded gloomily and both grew thoughtful. "they would first send word to zorki, his native town, though," pavel then said, "to have his people questioned, and i shouldn't be surprised if they brought his father over here to be confronted with him." "that would be the end of it," clara remarked, in dismay. the next day pavel telegraphed it all over to makar, by means of his handkerchief, from the hill which commanded the prisoner's window. "i have a scheme," makar's handkerchief flashed back. "for god's sake don't run away with yourself," pavel returned. "it's a serious matter. consider it maturely." "do you know anybody in paris or any other foreign city you could write to at once?" "i do. why?" pavel replied. "get me some foreign paper. i shall write two letters, one to my father and one to my wife, both dated at that place. if these letters were sent there and that man then sent them to my people at zorki, it would mean i am in paris. understand?" "i do. you are crazy." "why? father will let bygones be bygones. i should tell him the whole truth. he is all right." "he won't fool the gendarmes." "he will!" the white speck behind the iron bars flicked out vehemently. "he'll do it. provided he is prepared for it." "you are impossible. if an order came from st. petersburg your zorki gendarmes would not dare think for themselves. they would just hustle him off to miroslav." "then get father away from there." "they would take your wife, anybody who could identify you." "father is better after all. he would look me in the face and say he does not know me. he could do it." "and later go to siberia for it?" "you are right. but i don't think the order will be to take him here at once. they'll first examine him there. he'll have a chance to fool them." clara offered to go to zorki at once, but makar was for a postponement of her "conspiracy trip." saturday of comfort was near at hand, and then the little jewish town would be crowded with strangers, so that mlle. yavner might come and go without attracting attention even in the event the local gendarmes had already been put on the case. chapter xx. a "conspiracy trip." zorki was in a state of joyous excitement. the "good jew" of gornovo, accompanied by a retinue of beadles, secretaries, "reciters," attendants, scribes and hangers on, was pleased to grace the little community with his annual visit; so the pietists had left their workshops and places of business to drink in religious ecstasy and to scramble for advice, miracles and the blessed leavings from the holy man's table. the population of the little town was rapidly increasing by an influx of pietists from neighbouring hamlets. clara, with a kerchief round her head, which gave her the appearance of an uneducated "daughter of israel," was watching a group of men and boys who stood chattering and joking in front of one of the best houses in town, at the edge of the market place. it was in this house where the good jew made his headquarters every time he came to zorki and where he was now resting from his journey. the sun stood high. a peasant woman was nursing her baby in a waggon, patiently waiting for her husband. two elderly peasants in coarse, broad-brimmed straw-hats, one of them with an interminable drooping moustache, were leaning against the weight-house, smoking silently. for the rest, the market place, enclosed by four broken rows of shops, dwellings and two or three government offices--squatting one-story frame structures--was almost deserted; but one of the two streets bounding it, the one on which we find clara at this minute, was quite alive with people. an opening at one side of the square showed a sloping stretch of road and a rectangular section of the river, the same as that which gleamed in miroslav. the knot of men which clara was watching all wore broad flat-topped caps, and, most of them, long-skirted coats. a man of fifty-five, short and stocky, with massive head and swarthy face, the image of makar, was the centre of the crowd. "if you were a pietist and a decent man," he said, in subdued accents, to a red-bearded "oppositionist" with gloomy features, "you would not wear that long face of yours. come, cheer up and don't be a kill-joy!" and he slapped him on the back with all his might. "stop!" the oppositionist said, reddening from the blow. "what's got into you? what reason have you to be so jolly anyhow?" and addressing himself to the bystanders: "he has not had a drop of vodka, yet he will make believe he's in his cups." "what's that?" the swarthy man protested in a soft, mellow basso, "can't a fellow be jolly without filling himself full of vodka? if you were a respectable man and a pietist and not a confounded seek-sorrow of an oppositionist you would not think so. drink! why, open the pentateuch, and wherever your eye falls there is drink to make you happy. 'in the beginning god created heaven and earth!' isn't that reason enough for a fellow to be jolly?" the bystanders smiled, some in partisan approbation, others with amused superiority, still others with diplomatic ambiguity. the heavy-set, swarthy man was makar's father, yossl parmet. he bore striking resemblance to his son. clara stood aghast. if he were confronted with the miroslav prisoner, the identity of the nihilist would be betrayed, whether the old man admitted the relationship or not. the only way out of it was to avoid such a confrontation by getting yossl away for a few months. but then, once the miroslav gendarmerie learned that a man named parmet whose home was at zorki was missing, the secret could not last for any length of time. in compliance with makar's wish, clara decided to take him into her secret. accordingly, she mingled with the men, took part in the joking, and by the time the crowd dispersed she and yossl were talking on terms of partial familiarity. finding an opportune moment, she said to him, with intentional mysteriousness: "there is something i want to speak to you about, reb yossl. i have seen your son." the old man gave her a startled, scrutinising glance. then, his face hardening into a preoccupied business-like expression, he said aloud: "where are you stopping?" she named her inn, and the two started thither together. there were so many strangers in town, each in quest of an audience with the "good jew," and yossl was so close to the holy man, or to those near him, that their conversation attracted scarcely any notice. "it's a very serious matter, reb yossl," she said, as they crossed the market place. "nobody is to know anything about it, or it may be bad for your son." "go ahead," he snarled, turning pale. "never mind spending time on a woman's prefaces. what is up?" "you know how the educated young people of these days are. there is nothing, in fact, the matter. it'll soon be over. but for the present it would do him good if the gendarmes knew he was in paris." "why, isn't he in paris?" yossl asked morosely. "i received a letter from him from there." "of course he is. only, the gendarmes, in case they look for him, and they may do so sooner or later, you know, the gendarmes may not believe he is there. so it would be a good thing if you could convince them of it. your son would be benefited by it very much." yossl took fire. "on my part let him go to all the black ghosts!" he burst out. "'the educated people of these days,' indeed! first he will play with fire and then he wants me to fight his battles! would he have his old father go to prison on account of him? he is not in paris, then? i am as clever as you, young woman. i, too, understand a thing or two, though i am not of 'the educated people of these days!' it is not enough that he has got in trouble himself; he wants to drag me in, too. is that the kind of 'education' he has got? is that what he has broken with his wife and father for? the ghost take him!" "don't be excited, reb yossl," clara pleaded, earnestly. "it's a treasure of a son you have and you know it. as to the education he has acquired, it is the kind that teaches one to struggle against injustice and oppression, things which i know you hate as deeply as your son does." a tremour came into her voice, and a slight blush into her cheeks, as she added: "your son is one of those remarkable men who are willing to die for the suffering people." "but who are you?" he asked with a frown, "how did you get here? if you, too, are one of those people you had better leave this town at once. i don't want to get in trouble on account of you." they reached the inn, and he paused in front of it, leaning against a waggon. "never mind who i am," she returned. "but where is he? has he been arrested? good god, what has he been doing to himself? what does he want of my old bones? is he sorry his father is still alive?" "you don't want your son to perish, do you?" she said rather pugnaciously. "if you don't, you had better get the gendarmes off his track." she went on arguing with renewed ardour. as he listened, a questioning look came into his face. instead of following her plea he scrutinised her suspiciously. "but why should you pray for him so fervently," he asked significantly. "why should you run risks for his sake? what do you get out of it?" "must one get something 'out of it' to do what is right?" "ah, may the ghost take the whole lot of you!" yossl said, with a wave of his hand, and walked away. he felt sure that this young woman and his son were in love, and he was shocked for the sake of miriam, makar's divorced wife, as well as for his own. he made for a slushy narrow lane, but turned back, retracing his steps in the direction of the house which was the good jew's headquarters, as also the home of miriam. it was the house of her uncle, arye weinstein, the richest pietist in zorki. * * * * * the good jew occupied two expensively furnished rooms which were always kept sacred to his use. they were known as "the rabbi's chambers" and although the righteous man visited zorki only once a year, nobody was ever allowed so much as to sit down in his easy chair. one day, when weinstein caught his little girl playing in the "rabbi's bed room" with a skull-cap which the holy man had left there, he flew into one of the savage fits of temper for which he was dreaded, and slapped the child's face till it bled. the rabbi's chambers were never swept or dusted until a day or two before his arrival, and then half a dozen people worked day and night to make things worthy of the exalted guest. the "rabbi's parlour" opened into a vast room, by far the largest in the house, which on saturdays was usually turned into a synagogue, and was known in town as "weinstein's salon." miriam was a very bright, quick-witted little woman, but she was not pretty--a pale, sickly, defenceless-looking creature of the kind who have no enemies even among their own sex. her separation from makar was only a nominal affair, in fact, the divorce having been brought about against the will of the young couple by her iron-willed uncle, who had succeeded in embroiling yossl with his son as well as with himself soon after the true character of makar's visits to pani oginska's house had been discovered; but makar and miriam had become reconciled, through a letter from him, and they had been in secret correspondence ever since. yossl never lost hope of seeing them remarried, and, in order to keep the memory of his son fresh in miriam's mind, he had obeyed the good jew and made peace with the wealthy pietist. yossl was in charge of the town's weight-house and was commonly known as "yossl the weight-house man." when feivish (makar's real first name) was old enough to be started on the talmud, he left the weight-house to his wife, devoting himself to the spiritual education of the boy. every time they sat down to the huge book he would pin the edge of feivish's shirt to his collar, leaving the child's back bare to the strap in his hand. whenever his wife protested he would bring her to terms by threatening to tell the good jew that she would have her son brought up as a dunce. he was going to make a "fattened scholar" of him. he was going to fatten him on divine law by main force, even as his wife fattened her geese for passover. he was going to show those fish-blooded, sneering oppositionists that they had no monopoly of the talmud. often during his lesson a distracted look would come into feivish's dark little eyes, and yossl's words fell on deaf ears. then it was that the thong would descend on the bare back. feivish never cried. as the blow fell, he would curl himself up with a startled look, that haunted yossl for hours after. feivish turned out to be a most ardent pietist. once, for example, in a very cold wintry night, after the good jew had crossed a snow-covered lawn, feivish, in a burst of devotion, took off his boots and "followed in the foot-steps of the man of righteousness" barefoot. for four years the young couple lived happily, their only woe being the death of both children that had been born to them. but the good jew said "god will have mercy," and feivish "served his lord with gladness." but this did not last. feivish was initiated into the world of free thought, and gradually the fervent pietist was transformed into a fervent atheist. it was during that period that he first met pavel and that his wife's despotic uncle extorted a divorce from him. * * * * * while yossl was twitting the red-headed oppositionist in front of weinstein's house, bathsheba, a daughter-in-law of the man of substance, a plump, black-eyed beauty of the kind one's mind associates with a turkish harem, beckoned miriam aside, in one of the rooms within, offering her a piece of cake. "it's from a chunk the good jew has tasted," she said, triumphantly. "eat it, and your heart will be lighter." "it will help me as much as blood-letting helps a dead man," miriam answered with a smile. "eat it, i say. you'll get letters more often if you do." for a woman to exchange love letters with the man from whom she has been divorced is quite a grave sin for a daughter of israel to commit. the remedy bathsheba recommended was therefore something like the prayer of a thief that the lord may bless his business. but then miriam questioned the power of the rabbi's "leavings" to bring a blessing upon any business. she smiled. "how do you know it is nonsense? maybe it isn't, after all," bathsheba urged. "you're a foolish little dear." "if i were you i should eat it. what can you lose by it?" maria, a gentile servant who had been longer in the house than bathsheba, came in. she spoke yiddish excellently and was almost like a member of the family. "take a bite and you will be blessed, maria," miriam joked, holding out the cake to her. "it's from a piece the good jew has tasted." "if i was a jewess i would," maria retorted reproachfully. "it's a sin to make mock of a good jew." the other two burst into a laugh. left alone, miriam was about to throw the cake away, but had not the heart to do so. she sat eyeing it for some minutes and then, making fun of herself, she bit off a morsel. she acted like the jewess of the anecdote, who, to be on the safe side, would kiss the cross and the hebrew prayer book at once. * * * * * an hour later yossl was flaunting his son's paris letter and cursing him to a new crowd in front of the good jew's headquarters. "the ghost take him!" he said. "indeed, the ghost is a well-travelled fellow. he can get to paris just as readily as he does to zorki." chapter xxi. makar's father. on saturday morning weinstein's salon was crowded with worshippers, all married men in their praying shawls and skull-caps. a good jew is exempt from praying with the congregation, his transports of religious fervour being too sacred a proceeding for common mortals to intrude upon. accordingly, the man of righteousness was making his devotions in the seclusion of the adjoining parlour. to a stranger unfamiliar with pietist prayer meetings the crowd here gathered would have looked for all the world like the inmates of the violent ward in an insane asylum. most of the worshippers were snapping their fingers; the others were clapping their hands, clenching their fists with all their might or otherwise gesticulating savagely. they were running or jumping about, shrieking, sighing or intoning merrily, while here and there a man seemed to be straining every bit of his strength to shut his eyes as tightly as possible or to distort his face into some painful or grotesque expression. the gentiles of the province called the pietists jumping jacks. some of the worshippers gesticulated merely because it was "correct form"; others did so from force of habit, or by way of fighting off the intrusion of worldly thoughts; still others for the same reason for which one yawns when others do. but all these formed a small minority. the bulk of the pietists present, including several people of questionable honesty in business matters, were honestly convulsed with a contagion of religious rapture. the invisible proximity of the man of righteousness, the sight of the door that concealed his holy presence, keyed them up to the highest pitch of exaltation. their ears followed the "master of prayers" at the stand, but their minds beheld the good jew of gornovo. all hearts converged at the mysterious spot behind that door. that which sounded and looked like a pandemonium of voices and gestures was in reality a chorus of uplifted souls with the soul of the concealed man of god for a "master of prayers." weinstein was slapping the wall with both hands. his large figure was enveloped in the costliest praying-shawl in the room. all that was seen of him were two wrists overgrown with red hair. now and then he would face about and fall to striding up and down meditatively. he was a well-fed, ruddy-necked jew of fifty with a sharp hooked nose sandwiched in between two plump florid cheeks, and a small red beard. his unbuttoned coat of a rich broadcloth reached down to his heels; his trousers were tucked into the tops of well-polished boots. once or twice an unkempt, underfed little man in a tattered shawl and with a figure and gait which left no doubt that he was a tailor by trade, barred weinstein's way, snapping his fingers at him; then the two took to pacing the room together, shouting and chuckling in rapturous duet as they moved along, as is written: "serve the lord with gladness, come before his presence with singing," or "because thou servedst not thy god with joyfulness and with gladness of heart, for the abundance of all things; therefore shalt thou serve thine enemies." that the little tailor did not enjoy an "abundance of all things" was evident from his pinched face and broken shoes. he did not rank high enough in his trade to have even weinstein's clerk for a customer, yet at the pietist gatherings he addressed weinstein himself by the familiar diminutive of his first name and sometimes helped to spank him or to pelt him with burrs out of his "gladness of heart." yossl parmet--makar's father--was tiptoeing about the crowded room, smiling and whispering fondly, as though confiding glad news to himself, but his heart was not in his prayer. he was thinking of his son and the young woman who had come to plead for him. indeed, yossl's piety had deserted him long since. he clung to the pietists for the sake of the emotional atmosphere that enveloped it and from his sincere admiration of the good jew's personality rather than from faith. he was fond of miriam and his heart was now torn between jealousy in her behalf and anxiety about his son. the services over, silence fell upon the congregation. the pietists were folding up their shawls, or eyeing the floor expectantly. the minutes were passing slowly. the stillness seemed to be growing in intensity. presently a song broke from somebody in a corner. it was a song without words, a new tune especially composed for the occasion. like most "gornovo melodies" it was meant to be gay, and like all of them it was pervaded by the mixed sadness of the exiled people and the brooding, far-away plaint of their slavic neighbours. there is a mingling of fire and tears in the pietist "hop." it isn't without reason that the most rabid oppositionist of lithuania will sing them on the rejoicing of the law. the others in the room had never heard the song before, yet several of them fell to at once, seizing the tune by intuition. the rest joined in gradually, until the whole assemblage was united in chorus. the import of this kind of singing while the good jew is in the privacy of his room is a plea that he may issue forth and grace the crowd with his presence and "some law." they went through the tune again and again, gathering zest as they mastered its few simple bars. the melody seemed to be climbing up and down, or diving in and out; expostulating with somebody as it did so, bewailing somebody or something, appealing in the name of some dear event in the past or future. unable to tell definitely what their tune was saying or doing, the singers craved to see the speechless song, to make out the words it seemed to be uttering, and because that was impossible their hearts were agitated with objectless sympathy and longing, and the rabbi was forgotten for awhile. they pitied the unknown man who seemed to be climbing or diving all the more because it was in their own voices that his incomprehensible words were concealed. little by little, however, as the novelty of the air wore off, the consciousness that they were beseeching the man of righteousness to come out to them blent with their yearning sympathy for their melody. they ardently believed that the good jew's soul had ascended on the wings of his ecstasy to the divine presence. all eyes were on his door. an indescribable ring of solemnity, of awe, of love and of prayer came into their voices. their faces were transfixed with it. the melody was pouring out its very heart to the holy man. suddenly it all died away. the door flew open and, preceded by a stout "supervisor," appeared an elderly man with a flabby-lipped mouth and a hooked little nose. he wore a long-skirted coat of black silk with a belt of the same material wound several times round his waist, and a round cap of sable and velvet. the crowd fell apart in breathless excitement. as he advanced through the lane thus formed he was flushed and trying to conceal his embarrassment in a look of grief. he seated himself at a long table and shut his eyes. now and then he heaved a sigh, swaying his head silently, with absorbed mien. he was supposed to be in a trance of lofty meditation, abandoned to thoughts and feelings which were to bear his soul to heaven. the crowd was literally spellbound. yossl parmet was pale with unuttered sobs. he was perhaps the only man in the room who perceived that the holy man was ill at ease, and this gave him a sense of the good jew's childlike purity which threw him into a veritable frenzy of reverence. more than thirty years the master of multitudes and still blushing! when yossl was a young man he had changed his good jews several times. he had adored them all, but he had not liked them. his soul had found no rest until he moved to zorki and met this good jew of gornovo. then he felt himself in the presence of absolute sincerity, of unsophisticated warmth of heart. this good jew was a naïve man, timid and unassertive. he had an unfeigned sense of his own supernatural powers, and was somewhat in awe of them. he felt as though there was another, a holier being within him and he feared that being in the same way as one possessed fears the unholy tenant of his soul. finally the good jew opened his eyes and began to speak. it was a simple sermon on a text taken at random from the bible before him, but his listeners sought a hidden meaning, a mystical allusion, in the plainest of his words or gestures. yossl could have instructed him in every branch of holy lore, yet he seized upon the exposition thirstily. in the first place, he had seen good jews who were even less at home in the law than the good jew of gornovo was, so that he felt grateful to him for not being a downright ignoramus. in the second place, he knew that he actually believed his own words to be inspired. a few minutes after the sermon the good jew beckoned yossl to a seat by his side. makar's father accepted the invitation in a quiver of obsequious gratitude. "how are you, yossl? any news of feivish?" "he's in paris now," yossl answered with a gesture of disrelish and speaking aloud, so that the entire crowd might hear him. he hated to tell the holy man a lie, yet he did so readily, the occasion being his best opportunity for giving the story wide circulation. "in paris!" "yes, he has been there since the beginning of summer. i have letters from him." "letters from feivish!" "he wanted to show off i suppose. wanted his father to see he's in paris. on my part he may go to perdition." "what is he doing there? studying medicine in french?" "that's what he says in his letter. yes, he has quite broken with judaism, rabbi, quite a gentile. all that is required to make the transformation complete is that he should extort bribes from jews for allowing them to breathe. one jew he prevents from breathing already"--pointing at himself. the rabbi swayed his head sympathetically. "what a misfortune! what a misfortune! men like him could not be had for the picking." "he has left a wound in my heart and it will not heal, rabbi. if this is the kind of doctor he is going to be, he won't make much headway. 'i had a vineyard,' rabbi," he went on in a lugubrious sing-song, quoting from isaiah, "'i fenced it and gathered out the stones thereof and planted it with the choicest vine. what could have been done more to my vineyard that i have not done in it? wherefore, when i looked that it should bring forth grapes, brought it forth wild grapes?'" "don't grieve, my son, i forbid you, do you hear?" the good jew said, limply. he was deeply touched. "better give us a song, boys!" the song burst forth and was taken up by the glad crowd on the lawn, some gentiles, standing at a respectful distance, listening reverently. yossl had uncovered to the rabbi only part of his heart's wound. since his son's compulsory divorce weinstein had personified the cruelties and injustices of the whole world to him. when a couple applies for a writ of divorcement it is the duty of the rabbi to persuade them from the step. god wants no severance of the marriage bond. "when a man divorces his first wife, the altar weeps," says the talmud. yet weinstein, who had so brutally extorted such a divorce from feivish, continued to be looked upon as a pillar of the faith. all this had stirred a novel feeling, a novel trend of thought in yossl. the next morning weinstein's salon was jammed with people begging for admission to the good jew, who was in the next room. the scribes were busy writing applications, praying the rabbi to "awaken the great mercy of the master of mercies." "my wife is ill, her name is sarah, daughter of tevye," one man besought. "do be so kind. if i don't get in at once it may be too late." another applicant, with a crippled boy in his arms, sought a blessing for the child and himself. one father, whose son had been declared a blockhead by his teachers, wanted the good jew to pray that the boy might get "a good head." a white-haired man was picking a quarrel with two other pietists who were trying to get in front of him. the old man's married daughter was childless and her husband did not care for her, so he wanted the rabbi to "give her children and grace in the eyes of her spouse." several others wanted dowries for their marriageable daughters. that the master of mercies would grant the good jew's prayer in their daughters' behalf was all the more probable because in cases of this sort either the good jew himself or some of his well-to-do followers usually came to the poor man's assistance. yossl sat at the corner of the table watching the scene pensively when clara entered the room. the blood rushed to his face as he recognised her, and he hastened to take her out into the road. "what are you doing in this town so long?" he then asked, in a rage. "i thought you had left long since. what do you want of us all? do you want to get everybody in trouble?" "how will i get you in trouble? am i the only jewish woman who has come to zorki these few days? have i no right to be here like everybody else? besides, it's to bid you good-bye that i want to see you now. i am going away." her few words, uttered with simple earnestness, had a softening effect on him. "you look like a good girl," he said, frowning at her amicably. "tell me frankly: are you and my son having a love affair?" clara coloured literally to the roots of her brown hair. she paused to regain her self-possession and then said, with a smile at once shamefaced and amused: "it is not true, reb yossl. what is more, your son and i are not even acquainted." "can that be possible!" "it's the absolute truth i am telling you, reb yossl." he shrugged his shoulder and proceeded to question her on his son's case, on his mode of life before he was arrested, on the meaning of the struggle to which he had dedicated himself. chapter xxii. from cellar to palace. meanwhile pavel, mme. shubeyko, masha, mlle. andronoff and her fiancé, the near-sighted judge with the fluffy hair, went on with their plot. a considerable sum was needed to bribe the warden, the head keeper (a bustling little man who was known in the conspiracy as the sparrow), and others. the plotters had five thousand rubles, and in order to obtain the rest without delay pavel went so far as to take his mother into the secret. the countess received his story with a thrill of gratitude and of a sense of adventure. after a visit to the bank, she handed him ten thousand rubles in crisp rainbow-coloured one hundred ruble notes. she was pale with emotion as she did so. her heart was deeper in his movement than he supposed. it was as if every barrier standing between her and her son had been removed. she was a comrade of his now. "the only thing that worries me," she said for something to say, "is uncle's visits. he has not been here for some time, but if he comes, i shan't be able to look him in the face. he is a very good man at heart, pasha." "still, you had better make no haste about trying to convert him," pavel answered, with a smile, struggling with the pile of notes. the bulk of the sum--eight thousand rubles--was to be paid by mme. shubeyko to the warden, half of it in advance and the other half upon the carrying out of the project. rodkevich pretended to receive the four thousand rubles as a loan. he barred all frank discussion of the scheme, hinting that he was scarcely a master in his own prison and that all he could do was to "overlook things under pressure of business at times." as a matter of fact, he scarcely incurred any risks. pavel missed clara keenly. a feverish yearning feeling had settled in him, often moving him to tears, but he fought it bravely. once or twice he went to the beak and indulged in a feast of self-torture, but otherwise he worked literally day and night, seeing people, deliberating, scheming. the only manifestation of his nervousness was an exaggerated air of composure, and as this was lost on his fellow plotters, nothing was farther from their thoughts than that he experienced a sensation as though his heart were withering within his breast and that the cause of it was clara yavner. when he received word of her return he said to himself, in a turmoil of joy, terror and impatience, that he could not bear it any longer and that he would tell her all the next time they were alone. he saw her the very next day, at the trunk shop. both blushed violently. the first minutes of their conversation were punctuated with nervous pauses, like the first talk of people who have been reconciled after a long estrangement. he said to himself: "now is the time," and vaguely felt confident of success, yet he was still in awe of her and all he managed to do was to turn the conversation upon his mother. "i should like you to meet her," he said. "she has heard of you." "your mother?" she asked in shamefaced astonishment. "she is a very good woman," pavel observed, gravely. "she is in sympathy with the movement, you know, although it was only the other day i brought her the first few things to read. if it isn't asking too much i should like to introduce you to her, clara rodionovna. she would be delighted." he paused, but she maintained her air of respectful curiosity, so he went on. "she is very enthusiastic. she would like to know some of the miroslav radicals, and i took the liberty of telling her about you. i need not tell you that i spoke in a very, very general way about you." * * * * * one afternoon the palace, which the trunk-dealer's daughter had known all her life as a mysterious, awe-inspiring world whose threshold people of her class could never dream of crossing, the palace threw open its imposing doors to her, and she was escorted by pavel up the immense staircase and into the favorite room of countess anna nicolayevna varoff. as it was an unheard-of thing for a jewish girl to visit the palace, it was agreed, as a safeguard against the inquisitiveness of the servants, that she should be known to them by such a typically russian name as daria ivanovna morosoff (morosova). barring the two great statues and an ancient cabinet inlaid with ivory and mother-of-pearl, the room was rather below her undefined anticipations. her preconceived notion of the place soon wore off, however, under a growing sense of venerable solidity, of a quiet magnificence that was a revelation to her. "i'm awfully glad to know you, clara rodionovna, awfully," the countess said when the first formalities of greeting were over, and they were all seated. this jewish girl was the first nihilist she had ever met (indeed, pavel was only "pasha" after all), and she identified her in her mind with every revolutionary assassination and plot she had read about. she was flushed with excitement and so put out that she was playing with pavel's fingers as she spoke, as a mother will do with those of her little boy. as to clara, she had an oppressive feeling as though the pair of big musty statues, graceful, silent, imposing, were haughtily frowning on her presence under this roof. pavel seemed to be a different young man. she scarcely seemed to be acquainted with him. only the sight of anna nicolayevna fondling his fingers warmed her heart to both. on the other hand, her own smile won the hostess. the countess released pavel's hand, moved over to the other end of the sofa and huddled herself into the corner, thrusting out her graceful elbows and great pile of auburn hair. the presence of pavel kept her ill at ease. finally she said: "i think you had better leave us two women to ourselves, pasha. we shall understand each other much better then, won't we, clara rodionovna?" "i hope so," clara answered, awkwardly. pavel withdrew. in his absence their embarrassment only increased. * * * * * the next time clara and pavel met, in the trunk-shop, he asked her when she would call on his mother again. "oh, i don't know. the point is i don't know what to do with my hands there," she said, with a laugh. "i can't seem to shake off the feeling that i am in the house of--in 'the palace,' don't you know." it was a hot day, but the air in the basement was quite cool. motl was silently painting a trunk, and pavel was conscious of the oppressive smell of the paint and of the impact of the brush against the wood as he answered, with pained stress in his voice. "but my mother does not feel like a countess. she is above and beyond all such things." "i know she is. only i somehow don't manage to feel at home there." "but it's only a matter of habit i am sure. you'll get over it. you won't feel that way next time. you must promise me to call to-morrow." it was as if clara's was a superior position in life and as if that superiority lay in this, that her home was a squalid trunk-shop, while his was a palace. "if i do, my mind will be in a whirl again," she laughed. "oh, it isn't as bad as all that. you must promise me to call on her." "can't we put it off--indefinitely?" "clara rodionovna!" his imploring voice threatened to draw from him the great yearning plea that was waiting to be heard, but this same entreating voice of his thrilled her so that she hastened to yield. "very well," she said. "will you come? oh, it's so kind of you. i am ever so much obliged to you--but i declare i am raving like a maniac," he interrupted himself with a queer smile that forthwith lapsed into an expression of rage. "what i really want to say is that i love you." the lines of her face hardened. her rich complexion burst into flame. she looked gravely at nothing, as he proceeded: "it seems to me as though i had felt that way ever since that pievakin episode, clara rodionovna. i owe so much to you. if it had not been for you i might still be leading the life of a knave and an idiot. what you did on that occasion served to open my eyes and showed me the difference between light and darkness. and now it seems to me that if you were mine, it would infuse great energy and courage into me. i have got so used to seeing you, i hate to think of being apart from you for a single moment. oh, you are so dear to me, i am so happy to sit by your side, to be allowed to say all this to you." "you are dear to me, too," she said in great embarrassment. he grasped her hand in silence, his face a burning amorous red. on their way to the beak, after another outburst from him, she spoke in measured accents, firm and sad, like the voice of fate. "i don't know where this will lead us, for either of us or both may be arrested at any time, and then this happiness would add so much poison to the horrors of prison life. besides, even if we are not arrested, as long as present conditions prevail our love would have to remain hidden underground, like our dear movement----" "my mother will know it. i want her to know it; and if it is possible to tell your parents, too----" "oh, it would kill them. theirs is an entirely different world." "then, for the present, let them be none the wiser for it. as to my mother, she likes you very, very much already and when she hears of it she will love you to distraction, clara rodionovna. my friends of the party will know it, too, of course, and what do we care for the rest of this wretched world? but oh, i do wish you could tell your mother, or could i speak to her?" "oh, that's absolutely impossible," she said in a voice vibrant with a suggestion of tears and the music of love at once. "your mother may understand me. we can speak in the same language at least, but my poor parents--one might as well tell them i am dead. well, when the will of the people has scored its great victory and russia is free, then, if we are alive, we shall announce it to my poor parents." he picked up a stone and flung it with all his might. he was in a fidget of suppressed exultation. now that his suspense was over, they changed parts, as it were. the gnawing gloom which had tantalised him during the past few weeks had suddenly burst forth in torrents of sunshine; whereas in her case the quiet light-hearted happiness which had been the colour of her love had given way to an infatuated heart filled with anguish. * * * * * he told his mother the news the very next morning. the explanation took place in the immense ball-room. it was a windy morning outside, and they were marching up and down the parquette of polished light oak, arm in arm. presently they paused at one of the windows facing the garden. they could faintly hear the soughing of the wind in the trees. they stood gazing at the fluttering leaves, when he said, musingly: "i have something to tell you, mother. i told mlle. yavner i loved her and i want you to congratulate me." "mlle. yavner?" she asked, with a look of consternation. "yes, mamma dear, i love her and she loves me and she is the dearest woman in the world and you are not going to look upon it in a manner unworthy of yourself, are you, dear little mamma mine?" he seized her fingers and fell to kissing them and murmuring: "my dear little mamma, my dear little mamma." his endearments were too much for her. "pasha, pasha! what are you doing with yourself," she sobbed bitterly. "mamma darling! mamma darling!" he shouted fiercely. "you are not going to give way to idiotic, brutal, asiatic notions that are not really yours. another year or two, perhaps less, and all russia will be free from them and from all her chains, and then one won't have to be shocked to hear that a man and a woman who love each other and belong to each other are going to marry. mamma dear, my darling little mamma! you are the noblest woman to be found. you are not going to go back on your son because he is trying to live like a real human being and not like a hypocrite and a brute." she dared not cry any more. when clara came, the countess, turning pale, clasped her vehemently, as though pleading for mercy. clara felt bewildered and terror-stricken, and after some perfunctory kisses she loosened her arms, but the gentile woman detained her in an impetuous embrace, as she said: "be good to me, both of you. he is all i have in the world." as she saw an embarrassed smile on clara's beautifully coloured face, she bent forward with a sudden impulse and drew her to her bosom again, as though she had just made the discovery that the jewish girl was not unlike other girls after all, that there was nothing preternatural about her person or speech. whereupon clara kissed her passionately and burst into tears. the countess caressed her, poured out the innermost secrets of her heart to her. this jewish girl whom she had only seen once before heard from her the story of her past life, of her childhood, of her two unhappy marriages, of her thirst for comradeship with her son, of her conversion. the two women became intimate friends, although clara spoke comparatively little. nevertheless, that night anna nicolayevna vainly courted sleep. her heart was in her mouth. she wished she could implore her son to break the engagement, to sever connection with the movement, to abandon all his perilous and unconventional pursuits. but she knew that she would never have the courage to do so. chapter xxiii. an unforeseen suggestion. pavel's prediction concerning yossl came true, but the identity of the province to which the missing medical student belonged and the one in which the unknown nihilist had been arrested escaped the notice of the secret service, and the zorki gendarme officer contented himself with appropriating the paris letter. chance, however, soon solved the riddle for the authorities: a prisoner from zorki, a drunkard charged with petty larceny, recognised makar in the prison yard. it was masha who brought the news to pavel and clara. "the general of gendarmes was there, the assistant procureur, my brother and the warden," she said, describing the scene when parmet was first addressed by his name in prison. "it was in the office. when he was brought in, my brother says his heart--my brother's heart, i mean--began to beat fast. the assistant procureur offered him a chair." she paused, with an appealing smile, her hand to her bosom. "my heart, too, is beating fearfully at this minute, as i picture the scene. i am too imaginative, i am afraid. well, he pulled up a chair, the assistant procureur and said: 'be seated, monsieur parmet.' the prisoner started a little, just a little, don't you know, and then he smiled and began to rub his eyes, as if he had just been awakened. the general got angry and said now there was no use for him to make believe and to keep his mouth shut and the assistant procureur said very politely he might as well tell them a little more about himself and the people he knew in miroslav, as they were well known to the gendarmes anyhow. they coaxed him and coaxed him and coaxed him until he shouted: 'as to myself i have the honour of being a member of the party of the will of the people. as to those i know in miroslav, i assure you i don't know anybody here.' but didn't he tease them! 'i hoped to form some connections here,' he said, 'but then you were foolish enough to arrest me without giving me a chance. the st. petersburg gendarmes will laugh at you when they hear of the kind of job you have made of it.'" pavel roared. he thought makar's taunting answer would induce the local gendarme office to detain him in the hope of discovering his prospective "connections." "only why should he have said he was a member of the party of the will of the people? that will aggravate his case," clara said. "that was the dream of his life--to say that, and to say it triumphantly, to some gendarme officers. at any rate, we have no time to lose." that afternoon pavel had a talk with makar from the top of the hill overlooking the prison yard. "hurrah!" makar's handkerchief flashed back in answer to his first "hello." "they know my name. i had some fun with them." "it was all right, only for the sake of everything that is noble, don't aggravate your case. otherwise everything looks bright. answer no more of their questions." "crazy to wag my tongue. have not spoken so long. i am trying to make a convert of my guard. pastime." "don't, for god's sake don't, or you'll ruin it all. promise to keep silent. do you?" "don't get angry. i can see your handkerchief gnashing its teeth. only one thing more. may i?" "hurry up." "here, in prison i am openly a citizen of the social republic, and the czar is powerless to subdue me. i am in a cell. what more can he do with me? but here, in this cell, where his power is most complete, i openly defy him, all his gendarmes and army notwithstanding." pavel went away, cursing and laughing. * * * * * every scheme of the conspirators turned out to be beset with insurmountable difficulties. clara did not tell pavel all she knew and made light of those obstacles with which he was acquainted, but in her own heart she was extremely uneasy. one evening pavel sat on a bench in front of a public house, smoking a cheap pipe. he had a loaded pistol in his pocket and a dagger under his vest. the prison was a short distance round the third corner. when one of the customers of the public house seated himself by his side pavel engaged him in conversation, talking garrulously in the manner of a humble, careworn government clerk. at last a way had been found for the provision man to take makar out of the prison yard. this was what kept pavel in this out-of-the-way spot. in the near vicinity of the inn stood a droshky. the appearance of the provision waggon, full of empty sacks and some barrels, at a corner diagonally across the street was to serve as a signal for pavel to walk up to a deserted ditch-bridge, where the runaway was expected to emerge from under the sacks and to put on a military cap. then makar and boulatoff would gain the droshky, mount it, and be driven to the palace--the best hiding place one could find in all miroslav. pavel was calm, determined, ready to shoot and to be shot at. by degrees he grew fidgety. presently clara passed along. he rose to his feet and went off in the opposite direction, the two meeting in the next street. "it was a fizzle to-day, but it'll be all right, pasha," she said in a cheery, matter-of-fact voice. "as ill luck would have it, there were some people about." pavel's brows contracted. "he'll try again, of course." "certainly. he will be there in four days." "four days! couldn't he make it sooner?" "i'll let you know." "wait, dearest. are you sure the people in the prison are not getting suspicious about you?" he had asked the question and she had answered it more than once before. "i don't think they are. mme. shubeyko and the sparrow are the only ones who know all about it. as to rodkevitch, he understands it all, of course, but he pretends not to. the sparrow has his 'bosom friend' among the keepers, but that man does not know anything about me. i am quite sure of it." "the fewer who know what you are doing there the better, of course. don't be foolhardy, my charming one. oh, i do wish it was all over. mother wants you to go to the country with her, and i should join you two for some time." with a passionate handshake they parted, clara directing her steps to the prison building. the tremulous solicitude of his warning, his tender concern for her safety left a glow of happiness and devotion in her. she visioned him with his pistol and dagger and her heart was crushed with anxiety. with his hot-blooded temerity he was apt to act rashly, to use violence and stake his own life and makar's before it was necessary. pavel's mode of taking away the prisoner had never appealed to her strongly, and now the idea was growing on her of stealing a march on pavel, of bringing about makar's liberation when her lover was not on hand. and the more she thought of thus repaying his loving care for herself the keener became her joy in the plan. still, the general situation looked so discouraging, that with all her thrills of amorous delight, she was in a state of black despair. the truth of the matter was that the provision man, who was eager to earn a few hundred rubles and to be plucky, had proved to be a most unreliable, boastful coward. clara was cudgelling her brain for some new scheme, for some new line of action, when an important suggestion came from an unforeseen quarter. mme. shubeyko arrived at the prison, all in a flutter with a discovery: father michail, the prison priest, bore considerable resemblance to makar. "that's so, but what of it?" clara said between irritation and agreeable surprise. "what of it! why,--i have thought it all out, you may be sure of that. it all occurred to me only an hour ago. even less," she said with that silly smile of hers which usually so annoyed pavel and which at this moment exasperated clara even more than it would her quick-tempered lover. "what did occur to you?" clara asked, with the least bit of venom on the "did." mme. shubeyko started to explain, but her listener divined the rest herself: makar might pass out in the disguise of a priest, while father michail was with the prisoners. "it's an excellent idea!" she murmured gravely. she could scarcely bring herself to believe that the plan had emanated from an absurd brain like that of the woman before her. "someone could detain father michail until it was all safely over," mme. shubeyko went on. "he's awfully fond of card-playing, and if a pretty young lady like yourself was his partner he would never have the heart to get up from the table, i know he wouldn't." the sparrow, however, overruled the whole plan. father michail had been connected with the prison for twenty years and the two gatemen knew him as they did their own wives. what was more, the day gateman and the priest were particularly fond of each other and often exchanged jokes. clara's hands dropped to her sides. then she clenched a fist and said: "oh, nonsense. he'll never know. if father michail did not speak to him he wouldn't think it strange, would he?" "no, but the gateman might speak to him. besides, you'll have to get up early to fool him, lady." every officer in the prison building had his nickname, and this vigilant gateman who was a very fat man was known as double chin. he seemed to be dozing half the time; but the sparrow assured clara that when his little eyes were shut they saw even better than when they were open. "nonsense. your imagination carries you too far. anyhow, nothing venture, nothing have. we must get that man out." "ready to serve you, young lady, only if i may say so, i don't like the plan at all, young lady." chapter xxiv. vladimir finds his cause. the next morning, as clara walked along kasimir street, she saw volodia vigdoroff, her cousin, talking and laughing exuberantly to two elderly men in front of the flashy window of a drug store. one of his listeners wore a military uniform. it was dr. lipnitzky (jewish physicians had not yet been proscribed from the russian army)--a grey-haired, smooth-shaven, pudgy little man with three medals across his breast. it was at the turkish war that he had won these decorations. clara could never look at him without feeling a taste of sickness in her mouth like the one she had felt one day shortly after the war, when she was sick in bed and the little doctor, bending over, shouted to her to open her mouth wider. the best physician in town, he was the terror of his uneducated co-religionists. when a jewish housewife paid him his fee in copper instead of silver, or neglected to wrap it up in paper, he would make an ugly scene, asking the poor woman at the top of his voice when she and others like her would learn to live like human beings. sometimes, when a family failed to pay him altogether, pleading poverty, he would call them a lot of prevaricating knaves with a snug little hoard in the old woman's stocking, and carry off a copper pan or brass candlestick. in every case of this sort, however, the pan or the brass candlestick was sure to come back, sometimes with a ruble or two into the bargain. the other man to whom vigdoroff was speaking was paul zundel, the musical autocrat of the province. he was as small of stature and as irascible as dr. lipnitzky--a grey-haired dandy with a mexican complexion and a pair of long black side whiskers tipped with white. he was a graduate of a german conservatory and spoke several languages with illiterate fluency. they were both bachelors and both were frequent visitors at the governor's house, where they were liked as much for the money they usually lost in cards (although in other houses they were known as sharp players) as for their professional services. they spent large sums on the education of jewish children and were particularly interested in the spread of modern culture among their people. in other words, they advocated and worked for the assimilation of their people with the "deep-rooted" population. when a talmud boy was ambitious to give up his divine studies for "gentile books" and his old-fashioned garb for a gymnasium uniform, the two eccentric bachelors were his two stars of hope. vigdoroff overtook clara as she turned the next corner. they had not met since the night when they quarrelled in front of boyko's court. "i didn't see you until i happened to turn round," he said. "he is trying to prove that he is not afraid of being seen in my company," she thought to herself, as she said aloud: "i saw you talking to dr. lipnitzky and zundel." they walked in silence a few steps. then he uttered with a smile: "have you taken a vow to give us a wide berth?" "not at all." "father and mother are always at me for it. they think i am to blame for your sudden estrangement." "nobody is to blame, and there is no estrangement. why use such words?" "is it only a matter of words? they are accustomed to look upon you and me as brother and sister. do you deny that our roads have parted?" "if they have, then, what need is there of writing at the bottom of the picture: 'this is a lion?'" she asked testily. "if it's a lion it's a lion." "would it be better to shut one's eyes to the truth? as for me, common ordinary mortal that i am, i try to call a spade a spade." he spoke with venom, but it was all perfunctory and they were both aware of it. then he described, with exaggerated ardour, the successes achieved by the pupils' aid society in which he was now actively interested. since their talk on the bench in front of boyko's court he had been longing for some humanitarian cause, for one unassociated with the hazards of the revolutionary movement. he would prove to clara that he was no inferior creature. her taunt that he had seized upon the jewish question, in the course of their debate, merely as a drowning man seizes at a straw, and the implication that no phase of the problem of human suffering made the slightest appeal to him had left a cruel sting in his heart. since then his thoughts had often turned upon the jewish question, until he found his "cause" in the dissemination of russian culture among his people. formerly he had been contented with being "assimilated" himself. now he was going to dedicate his best energies to the work of lessening that distance between jew and gentile, which was, so he argued, the source of all the woes of his race. as good luck would have it, there was such a thing as difference of opinion. "it is not anxiety about my 'precious skin,'" he would picture himself saying to clara, "that keeps me from reading underground prints. did i believe in them i should do as you do. but if you think i live for myself only you don't know me. i have another cause, one to which my convictions call me and to which i am going to give all that is in me." "and you?" he asked. "still planting a paradise on earth?" she smiled. "well, as for me, i content myself with working on such a humble beginning as a little bridge across the gap between jew and gentile." he consciously led the way past a gentile of enormous bulk, who stood in the doorway of a furrier's shop. it was rasgadayeff, the landlord of the vigdoroffs' residence, he himself occupying the inner building on the same courtyard. he was a wealthy merchant with the figure of a barrel and arms that looked as though they had been hung up to dry, an impetuous great-russian, illiterate and good-hearted, shrewd in making money, but with no sense of its value when it came to spending it. every other week he went off on a hideous spree, and then, besides smashing costly mirrors, which is the classical sport of the drunken great-russian merchant, he would indulge in such pastimes as offering a prize to every ten-year-old boy who would drain a tumbler of vodka, setting fire to live horses or wrecking the furniture in his own house. on such days his wife often sought shelter with the vigdoroffs for fear of being beaten to death. until a few years ago he had stood at the head of the fur trade. since then a jewish dealer, who went off on no sprees, had been a formidable competitor to him. rasgadayeff now hated jews in general as he had never done before. the vigdoroffs were an exception. he was sincerely fond of the whole family, and entrusted the old man with some of his most important business secrets. "our humblest regards to clara rodionovna!" he said, with gay suavity, taking off his hat. "as also to vladimir alexandrovich!" they returned the salute, and were about to pass on, but he checked them. "a rose of a girl, i tell you that," he went on, addressing himself to vladimir, while he looked at the girl with rather offensive admiration. "young men are fools nowadays. if i were one of them i should take no chances with a lassie like that. a plum, a bouquet, a song-bird of a mademoiselle. i should propose and get her and waste no time, or--one, two, three, and the lovey-dovey may be snapped up by some other fellow." clara, who was accustomed to this sort of pleasantry from him, scarcely heard what he said. she was smilingly making ready to bow herself away, when her cousin asked of the great-russian: "and how is her illustriousness? have you seen her lately?" "she was here yesterday. quite stuck on you, vladimir alexandrovich. sends humblest regards. 'when is your learned young friend going to call,' she says. you have a sage of a cousin, clara rodionovna, an eagle of a fellow, a cabinet minister!" "all right," vladimir returned, with an amused smile, yet reddening with satisfaction. clara remarked to herself that her cousin was flaunting his successes with gentiles before her. when they resumed their walk she inquired reluctantly: "who is 'her illustriousness'?" "oh, that's that lame tramp of a woman, princess chertogoff," he rejoined, with gestures of contempt and amusement, yet inwardly tingling with vanity at his acquaintance with her impecunious "illustriousness." the wealthy great-russian was a large holder of princess chertogoff's promissory notes, and it was at his house where vladimir had met her on several occasions. the lame noblewoman knew that rasgadayeff was fond of the vigdoroffs. when she saw the young man last she had, by way of currying favour with her creditor, asked the educated son of his "favourite jew" to call on her whenever he was in the mood for it, and to "let her hear what was going on among wise men and authors." vladimir and clara passed on. he spoke of rasgadayeff's latest escapades and clara listened with little bursts of merriment, but their voices did not ring true. presently they exchanged greetings with ginsburg, the notorious money-lender of miroslav, a small, red-headed man with crumpled cheeks and big bulging eyes. "here is another treat for you!" vladimir said, in high spirits. "another specimen of moral perfection. some gigantic hand must have grabbed him by the head, squeezing it like a paper ball till the eyes started from their sockets, and then thrown him into a waste basket. that's the way he looks." she smiled awkwardly. he then called her attention to two bewigged old women, both of them apparently deaf, who were talking into each other's ear, and then to the picturesque figure of a dumpy little shoemaker with a new, carefully-shined pair of topboots in his hand. clara had never been interested in things of this sort, but this time, in her eagerness to get away, added to a growing sense of awkwardness, his observations literally grated on her nerves. at last, when they reached a crossing, she stopped, putting out her hand. "somebody is waiting for me," she said. "remember me to uncle and aunt, will you?" "i will. won't you look in at all?" as she turned to take the side street, he added: "our roads do part, then." her appointment was with orlovsky. she had not attended the gatherings of the circle at his house for a considerable time. he conjectured that she was engaged in some revolutionary undertaking of importance. he had missed her so abjectly that he had finally decided to avow his love. this was what he had made the appointment for. when she came, however, he cowed before her rich complexion and intelligent eyes and talked of the affairs of the circle. a similar attempt at a love declaration was made that evening by elkin, with similar results. by way of opening the conversation he indulged in a series of virulent taunts upon her long absence and the great revolutionary secrets that he said were written on her face, after which his efforts to turn the conversation into romantic channels proved futile. he came away agonised with jealousy. he was jealous of the girl and he was jealous of the mysterious conspiracy in which she seemed to be engaged and into which he, her revolutionary sponsor, had not been initiated. * * * * * as to vigdoroff, he was seized with a desire to avail himself of princess chertogoff's invitation, not merely to gratify his personal ambition, but also, so he assured himself, as part of his "cause." on his way thither he paused once or twice in front of shop windows to ascertain whether his face was not strikingly semitic. "not offensively so, anyhow," he concluded before a mirror at the entrance to a furniture store. the mirror reflected a well-made, athletic-looking young man one could have told for a college man through a veil. the picturesque irregularity of his features, somewhat flat in the middle of the face, drew an image of culture, of intellectual interest. he felt on his mettle. he would make a favourable impression, and that impression was to be another step across the distance not only between gentile society and himself, but between all jews and all gentiles. his visit to the noblewoman was a mission. he was in an exalted mood. at the house of princess chertogoff he found a cavalry officer and an officer of the imperial guards. he was received with patronising urbanity. the hostess introduced the two young officers as her sons, come from st. petersburg to take a glimpse at their old mother, and vigdoroff as "one of the brilliant young intellects of our town." this was her excuse before her sons for having invited a jew to the house and vigdoroff was not unaware of it. the cavalryman's face was round and stern, while his brother's was oblong and smiling. when they were drunk, which happened quite often, their faces would swap expressions. it was chiefly owing to their expensive escapades that their mother's fortune had passed into the coffers of usurers. the two uniformed men left almost immediately, pleading a pressing engagement. the welcome vladimir found at this house was one extended by a patroness of the fine arts to a devotee of letters. it was not long before vigdoroff found himself fully launched on a favourite subject. russia's supremacy in modern literature and her false modesty became clearer to him with every new work of fiction that came from the foreign masters. the best models of the german, french or english novel were tainted with artificiality. russia alone produced stories that were absolutely free from powder and rouge. he dwelt on zola's _l'assommoir_ and daudet's _nabob_, both of which had appeared a short time before, and each of which was looked upon as its author's masterpiece. he saw that his hostess neither understood nor cared for these things; that he was making a fool of himself; yet, being too ill at ease to stop, he went sliding down hill. he spoke by heart as it were, the sound of his own voice increasing his embarrassment. the princess was listening with an air of pompous assent, barely following the general drift of his talk. her majestic crutches terrified him. a man servant brought in a silver samovar and a tray of little-russian cookies. as vigdoroff took up his glass of tea the princess said: "i did not know you were so much of a russian patriot. quite an unusual thing in an educated young man these days. i certainly agree with you that turgeneff is a good writer. he is perfectly charming." later on she asked, with lazy curiosity and in her pampered enunciation: "do you really think our novelists greater than the great writers of france?" "i certainly do." "that's interesting," she said, preparing to get rid of him. "you see, the average russian represents a remarkable duality. he is simple-hearted and frank, like a child, yet he is possessed of an intuitive sense of human nature that would be considered marvellous in a sage. in addition, he is the most soulful fellow in the world, and to turn his soul inside out, to himself as well as to others, is one of his ruling passions. that accounts for the inimitable naturalness and the ardent human interest of our literature. whether russia knows how to construct machinery or not, she certainly knows how to write." "you do love russia, and literature, too"--yawning demonstratively. "i had an idea hebrews were only interested in money matters." she smiled, an embarrassed smile in which there was as much malice as apology, and dismissed him quite unceremoniously. he got into the street with his face on fire. it was as if he had been subjected to some brutal physical indignities. "'i didn't know you were so much of a russian patriot,'" he recalled in his agony. "of course, i'm only a jew, not a russian. it makes no difference how many centuries my people have lived and suffered here. and i, idiot that i am, make a display of my love for gogol, turgeneff, dostoyevski, as if i, 'a mere jew,' had a right to them! she must have thought it was all affectation, jewish cunning. as if a jew could care for anything but 'money matters.' the idea of one of my race caring for books, and for gentile books, too!" he was as innocent of the world of money as was clara's father. as to the great russian writers, they were not merely favourite authors with him. they were saints, apostles, of a religion of which he was a fervent devotee. this, in fact, was the real "cause" which he had mutely served for the past six or seven years. their images, the swing and rhythm of their sentences, the flavour of their style, the odour of the pages as he had first read them--all this was a sanctuary to him. yet he had always felt as if he had no right to this devotion, as if he were an intruder. this was the unspoken tragedy of his life. since a boy of ten, when he entered the gymnasium, he had been crying out to russia, his country, to recognise a child in him--not a step-child merely. and just because he was looked upon as a step-child he loved his native land even more passionately than did his fellow-countrymen of slavic blood. * * * * * alexander, or sender, vigdoroff, vladimir's father, was known among his co-religionists as sender the arbitrator. his chief source of income was petition-writing and sundry legal business, but the jews of miroslav often submitted their differences to him. these he settled by the force of an imperturbable and magnetic disposition rather than through any special gift of judgment and insight. he was full of anecdotes and inaggressive humour. it was said of him that people who came to his house obdurate and bitter "melted like wax" in his sunny presence. as a rule, indeed, it was the contending parties themselves who then found a way to an amicable solution of the point at issue, but the credit for it was invariably given to sender the arbitrator, and his reputation for wisdom brought him some gentile patrons in addition to his jewish clientele. his iron safe always contained large sums in cash or valuables entrusted to him by others. when a young couple were engaged to be married the girl's marriage-portion was usually deposited with sender the arbitrator. when security was agreed upon in connection with some contract the sum was placed in the hands of sender the arbitrator. his stalwart figure, blond, curling locks and toothless smile; his frilled shirt-front, everlasting brown frock-coat and huge meerschaum cigar-holder--all this was as familiar to the jews of miroslav as the public buildings of their town. the business of petition-writing was gradually passing into the hands of younger and better educated men, graduated lawyers regularly admitted to the bar, and his income was dwindling. "i could arbitrate any misunderstanding under the sun except the one between luck and myself," he used to say, smiling toothlessly. still, he made a comfortable income, and money was spent freely not only on his household but on all sorts of hangers-on. vladimir's education cost him more than his means warranted. besides keeping him at the gymnasium and then at the university he had hired him private teachers of french, german and music. "there are a thousand gentiles to every jew," was one of his sayings. "that's why every jew should possess as much intelligence as a thousand gentiles. else we shall be crushed." he was something like a connecting link between the old world and the new. he had a large library, mostly made up of german and hebrew books. his house was the haunt of "men of wisdom," that is, people who wrote or thought upon modern topics in the language of isaiah and jeremiah, free-thinkers whose source of inspiration were atheistic ideas expounded in the holy tongue; yet on saturday nights his neighbours would gather in his drawing room to discuss foreign politics and to chant psalms in the dark. he had the head of an agnostic and the heart of an orthodox jew. it was late in the afternoon when vladimir reached home. his father was in the library, which was also his office, conversing with his copyist--a dapper little man whom his employer described as "an artistic penman and an artistic fool." the windows were open. the room was filled with twilight and with warm air that seemed to be growing softer and more genial every minute. "is that you, volodia?" the old man asked. volodia only nodded. it was easy to see that he was dejected. his father became interested and dismissed the clerk. "anything the matter, volodia?" he asked. "nothing is the matter." an answer of this sort usually indicated that the young man was burning to unbosom himself of something or other and that he needed some coaxing to do so. intellectually the mutual relations of father and son were of a rather peculiar nature. each looked up to the other and courted his approbation without the other being aware of it. their discussions often had the character of an epigram-match. when volodia had told his father of his experience at the house of the lame princess, the old man said: "i see you are quite excited over it. as for me, that penniless spendthrift reminds me of the pig that mistook the nobleman's backyard for the interior of his mansion. the backyard was all the pig had seen of the place, and money-lenders are the only kind of jews that lame drone has ever had an occasion to know. that she should mistake a handful of usurers for the whole jewish people is the most natural thing in the world." "oh, but they are all like that, father. unfortunately the jewish people are just the opposite of women in this respect. women have a knack of flaunting all that is prepossessing and of concealing that which is unattractive in them. if the gentiles see none but the worst jews there are we have ourselves to blame." "but they don't care to see any other jews. as a rule, the good jew has no money to lend. they have no use for him. more than half of our people are hard-working mechanics on the verge of starvation. do you expect an ornament like your princess chertogoff and her precious sons to make _their_ acquaintance? of the rest the great majority are starving tradesmen, teachers, talmudists, dreamers. would you have a gentile reprobate go to these for a loan?" vladimir sat silent awhile, gazing through the open window at the thickening dusk. then he said, listlessly at first, but gathering ardour from the relish he took in his own point: "you are as unjust to the good gentiles as they are to the good jews. what is needed is more understanding between the two. if the dreamers and scholars you refer to could speak russian and looked less antediluvian than they do the prejudice that every jew is a money-lender would gradually disappear. as it is, jew and gentile are like two apples that come in mutual contact at a point where they are both rotten." "the jewish apple was originally sound, volodia. it's through association with their gentile neighbours that they have been demoralised--at the point of contact; our faults are theirs; our virtues are our own." "oh, this is a very one-sided view to take of it, father," volodia rejoined, resentfully. what he coveted was consolation, not an attack on everything that he held dear, that was the soul of his best years and ambitions. his father's light-hearted derision of the entire russian people irritated him. "if some jews become demoralised through contact with gentile knaves, other jews are uplifted, ennobled, sanctified by coming under the influence of the great russian thinkers, poets, friends of the people," he went on, emphasising his words with something like a feeling of spite. "yours is an extremely one-sided view to take, father." the elder vigdoroff was cowed. he felt himself convicted of narrow-mindedness, of retrogression, of fogyism, and by way of disproving the charge he put up a defence that was disguised in the form of an attack. vladimir replied bitterly, venting his misery on his father. the two found themselves on the verge of one of those feuds which sometimes divided them for days without either having the courage to take the first step toward a reconciliation, but their discussion was broken by the appearance of a servant carrying a lamp. she was followed by vladimir's mother, a mountain of shapeless, trembling flesh with a torpid, wide-eyed look. in the yellow light the family likeness between father and son came pleasingly into view. only the face of the one had a touch of oriental quaintness in it, while the other's was at once mellowed and intensified by the tinge of modern culture. clara's mother was a sister of the elder vigdoroff, but she resembled him only slightly. the girl's features suggested her uncle far more than they did her mother. "never mind the lamp," the arbitrator said somewhat irately. "never mind the lamp!" his wife said, fixing her torpid eyes on him. "are you crazy? don't mind him"--to the servant girl. the servant girl set the lamp down on the table and withdrew, her big fleshy mistress taking a seat by her son's side. "go about your business," her husband said, good-naturedly. "you are disturbing our discussion. i was just getting started when you came in and spoiled the job. go. there may be some beggar-woman waiting for you in the kitchen." she made a mocking gesture without stirring, and her husband resumed his argument. she was one of a very small number of jewish women who attended divine service on week-days. she was the game of every woman pedlar and beggar in town, with whom she usually communed when her husband was out. when not thus occupied, buying useless bargains or listening to some poor woman's tale of woe, she would spend much of her time in her big easy chair, dozing over a portly psalter. her husband was perpetually quizzing her on her piety and her surreptitious bargains. on fridays, when beggars came in troops for their pennies, the arbitrator would sometimes divert himself by encouraging some of them to fall into line more than once. chapter xxv. clara becomes "illegal." late the next afternoon mme. shubeyko called at the warden's house with a blue silk handkerchief round her face, apparently suffering from a swollen cheek or toothache. an hour or more later, while she and rodkevich were absorbed in a game of cards in the parlour and a solitary star shone out of the semi-obscurity of a colorless sky, makar, clean-shaven and clad as a woman, with a blue handkerchief round his face, advanced toward the gate. clara stood in the doorway of the warden's office, watching the scene. "double chin," the gateman, was still on duty, and as the disguised prisoner approached him the impersonation struck her as absurdly defective. another second and all would be lost with a crash. her heart stood still. she shut her eyes with a sick feeling, but the next instant she sprang forward, bonnetless, addressing makar by mme. shubeyko's name. "you must not forget to let us know, dear," she said aloud, placing herself between him and the gateman and shutting the disguised man from view. "a swollen gum is a dangerous thing to neglect, you know. yes, figs and milk. i'll see you down the road, dear." the heavy key groaned in the lock, the ponderous gate swung open and makar and clara walked out into the twilight of the street--he with a rush of joy, she in a turmoil of triumph and despair. it seemed as if he had never vividly hoped to see liberty, and now, suddenly, he had found himself breathing the very breath of it; while she who, a minute ago, could have walked freely through the streets, was now the quarry of that terrible force called government. as soon as they reached the ditch, a short distance from the prison building, makar pulled off his feminine attire, threw it under the little foot-bridge, and put on a government official's cap. masha, the gendarme officer's sister, was to await him round the corner; her house was within easy reach from here, and makar was to be taken there to change his disguise and then to be driven to the palace; but it had all come about much sooner than they had expected, and she had not yet arrived. "never mind. hire a cab to cucumber market," clara said. "there you can cross some streets in the opposite direction and then take another cab direct for theatre square. a very short walk will bring you to the palace. don't forget the names: first cucumber market and then theatre square," she repeated, coolly. he nodded with a reassuring smile, shook her hand warmly, and they parted. * * * * * double chin was soon to be relieved. had he left his post before the guards missed makar, the connection existing between mme. shubeyko's toothache and makar's escape would never have been discovered, and clara would have come out uncompromised. but clara was too slow in returning, and the fat gateman was an impressionable, suspicious man, so he presently made inquiry. he found that mme. shubeyko was still in the warden's parlour, nursing her cheek with one hand and holding her cards with the other. in the commotion that followed the discovery rodkevich wept hysterically and beat the gateman, while mme. shubeyko went about invoking imprecations upon the sly prisoner for stealing her new spring cloak, bonnet and parasol. meanwhile clara stood at a point of vantage, watching developments. had double chin left the building at the usual hour, without the prison betraying any signs of disquiet, she would have returned to her room in the warden's house at once, and thus saved her legal existence. otherwise she would have been forced to escape and join the army of the "ne-legalny" (illegal), of political outlaws like the majority of pavel's intimate friends in st. petersburg. about twenty minutes had elapsed from the time she had parted from makar, when she saw human figures burst from the prison-gate, accompanied by the violent trill of a police whistle. her heart sank at the sound. from this minute on miroslav would be forbidden ground to her. a _ne-legalny_ is something neither dead nor alive, the everlasting prey of gendarmes, policemen, spies--of the czar himself, it seemed; a "cut-off slice;" an outcast without the right of being either an outcast or a member of the community, a creature without name, home or identity. she was appallingly forbidding to herself. but then in the underground world _ne-legalny_ is a title of indescribable distinction, and at this moment clara seemed to feel in her own person the sanctity which she had been wont to associate with the word. by ridding herself of her starched collar and ribbon and hastily rearranging her hair into a coarse, dishevelled knot she was sufficiently transformed to look like a young woman of the masses to strangers. she could not go to the palace without a hat, however, and buying one at this hour would have attracted undesirable attention. so she first went to the house of beile, her uneducated sister. her father's address or full name being unknown at the prison, it would be some time before the police came to look for her at her sister's. beile was a little woman of thirty with glowing dark eyes and a great capacity for tears and nagging. she resembled her parents neither in looks nor in character, and her mother often wondered "whence she came into the family." her husband, a man learned in the talmud, was absorbed day and night in an effort to build up a small business in hides. as a consequence, the space under beile's bed was usually occupied with raw skins and the two-room apartment which they shared with a tailor was never free from odours of putrefaction. clara entered the room with a smile. the first thing she did was to kiss and slap ruchele, her sister's little girl, and to tickle her baby brother under the chin. "why, where is your hat?" beile screamed in amazement. her own hat was a matronly bonnet which she never wore except on saturdays, when she would put it on over her wig, tying its two long, broad ribbons under her chin. "it blew off into the river as i was crossing the bridge," clara replied. "that's what brings me here. i want you to get me a hat, beile, but you must do it quickly." "are you crazy? whatever is the matter with you, clara? whoever heard of a girl taking so little care of her hat that it should drop into the water? you don't think you are a daughter of rothschild, do you? did you ever!" "that's all right, beile. we'll talk it all over some other time. every minute is of great value to me." beile thought her sister was in a hurry to attend a lesson, so she started. as she reached the door, with the baby in her arms, she couldn't help facing about again. "didn't you go down the bank to look for it?" she asked. "but i am telling you i have not a moment's time now." the more irritation she betrayed, the more the other was tempted to nag her. "but somebody must have picked it up. it cost you five rubles and you've not worn it ten times." "beile! beile!" clara groaned. "tell me where it is. i'll go and look for it myself. maybe it is not yet too late. lord of the world, five rubles!" clara was left with ruchele, but she changed her mind. "i think i'll wait at motl's house," she said, overtaking her sister, with the child by her side. "it's nearer to my lesson." motl, the trunk-finisher employed by their mother, lived a considerable distance from here. beile gave her a look full of amazement and dawning intelligence. "at motl's!" she whispered, sizing up clara's dishevelled appearance. "where is your collar? a rend into my heart! what have you been doing to yourself? anyhow, go to motl's. or, no, go to feige's. that's much better. i'll bring you a hat in ten minutes." feige was a poor old relative of beile's by marriage. * * * * * when clara, in a large shepherdess hat and genteel looking, bade her sister a hurried good-bye and made for the open gate, ruchele ran after her, yelling so that her mother had to catch her in her arms and carry her gagged indoors. that was the only adventure clara encountered on her way to the palace. makar was not there. she told pavel of the rescue in general outline, explaining that an unexpected opportunity had presented itself and that there had been no time for sending word to him. he flew into a rage. so far from being the central figure in the affair for which he had been priming himself these many weeks he had been left out of it altogether, left out like a ninny caught napping. but this was no time for wounded pride. clara had unexpectedly become a _ne-legalny_ and--what was of more immediate concern--what had become of makar? "i hope he was not taken in the street," he whispered. "masha might know. could you send onufri?" pavel disliked to use the old hussar for errands of this nature, but in the present juncture there seemed to be no way out of it. onufri brought back a note in which the words were all but leaping with excitement. "no! no! no!" masha wrote. "he has not been caught. my brother has not yet been home. everybody is nearly crazy! but i can almost see my brother chuckling--in his heart of course! hurrah! hurrah! long live the revolution!" "thank god!" said clara, shutting her eyes, in a daze of relief. "he's a trump, after all. if they haven't caught him so far i don't see why he should be caught now. he may come in at any moment. but where can he be?" the next morning, at about ten o'clock, when the countess heard the doorbell she declared, with intense agitation, that something told her it was the governor, and so it was. clara went into her room. "don't leave me for a moment, pasha," anna nicolayevna entreated her son. "i am afraid to face him alone. i should be sure to put my foot in it, if i did." "just leave uncle to me," said pavel. the old man looked wan and haggard, and was blinking harder than ever. he began by joking pasha on the rarity of his visits at the gubernatorial mansion, but the young man cut him short. "by the way, uncle, is it true that that fellow, the nihilist, has escaped?" he asked. "how did it reach you so soon?" the governor asked. "the town must be full of it." "i heard it from a cab-driver last night. it's awful. but how did he get out? say what you will, they are a clever set, those nihilists." "clever nothing! our gendarmes are the most stupid lot on god's earth. that's where the trouble comes in. there was a governess at the warden's house. it was she who seems to have managed the whole affair. of course, the warden is a scoundrel, but what does he know of these things? it's for the gendarme office to scent a bird of that variety, but then the gendarme office is made up of rogues and blockheads. to clip one's wings, that's all they are good for. wherever one turns, he bumps his head against the 'independent power' of the gendarmerie. it's a government within a government, that's what it is. else one would be able to show st. petersburg that miroslav was not the kind of place for nihilists and all sorts of ragamuffins to play the mischief with. those swaggering gendarmes go around poking their noses everywhere, smelling nothing but their own grand epaulets, and yet they are beyond the control of civil authorities. the consequence is that when something happens somebody else is held responsible, because the prisons, forsooth, are under the department of the interior! to set an example of idleness and stupidity is all they seem to be needed for, the gendarmes; that's all, that's all." pavel agreed with him. * * * * * another week passed. the police and the gendarmes were still searching for makar and the governess, as much in the dark as ever. yossl parmet, makar's father, was brought to miroslav a prisoner, but he was soon discharged. he was proud of his son. he now fully realised that his feivish belonged to a secret society made up of educated people who preached economic equality and universal brotherhood as well as political liberty, and that they were ready to go to prison for their ideas. this made a strong appeal to his imagination and sympathies, and the fact that his feivish had outwitted the authorities and escaped from prison inclined him to shouts of triumphant laughter. he searched the talmud for similar sentiments, and he found no stint of passages which lent themselves to favourable interpretation. a new vista of thought and feeling had opened itself to yossl. chapter xxvi. on sacred ground. in , when chmyelnicki's cossacks slaughtered , jews, miroslav was among the cities that fell into their blood-dripping hands. it was a small town then; the jewish population did not exceed eight hundred, but these unanimously decided to be slain rather than abandon their faith. not a man, woman or child was spared. the scene of the slaughter, a small square in the vicinity of cucumber market, is sacred ground to the jews of miroslav. the bloody spot they call it reverently. a synagogue stands there and ten recluses find shelter under its roof, so that the word of god may be heard with unbroken continuity within its walls. if this house of prayer and divine study were to fall silent for a single minute, say the children of the town, the blood of the slain jews would burst into a roar of sobbing that could be heard for seven miles. but the ten recluses were not the only talmudists in the place. the old synagogue, as it was generally called, was the favourite haunt of scholars. it was here where rabbi rachmiel, clara's father, spent every day and evening in the week except saturdays and holidays. it was about eight o'clock of a warm evening, several days after the disappearance of the political prisoner. the old synagogue was filled with people. the evening service was over. candles flickered on gaunt, tallow-stained reading-desks and blazing oil-lamps dangled from the ceiling. the recluses were freely gossiping or snoozing; there were so many others to do the holy work--a medley of voices and melodies--from the enthusiastic soprano of the schoolboy to the dignified drone of the elderly merchant; from the conscious, over-elaborate intonation of the newly-married young man to the absorbed murmur of the tattered old scholar. as to the talmudists themselves, they found stimulating harmony in this chaos. to them it was as if the synagogue itself were singing in a hundred voices, an inspired choir that quickened one's intellectual passions and poured fire into one's gesticulations. one of the younger men in the crowd was makar. seated in a snug corner, with his reading-desk tilted against his breast, he was sincerely absorbed in a passage on the slaying of cattle. the treatise is one of the most intricate in the talmud, and he had taken it up as he might a game of chess. the lower part of his face was buried in the sloping surface of a huge long book, the handle of a tin candlestick hooked to the top of the folio. the flame of a guttering candle threw a stream of light upon his dusky high forehead and heavy black eyebrows. slightly rocking the desk, he intoned the chaldaic text and the yiddish interpretations, listening to his own sing-song as one listens, at some distance, to a familiar voice. rabbi rachmiel, clara's father, was studying quietly in a corner, in peaceful ignorance of the mad hunt that was going on for his daughter at this moment. that this red-bearded little man was the father of the nihilist girl who had brought about his escape makar had not the least idea. after bidding clara good-bye on the evening of his rescue, he had taken the first cab he came across, getting off at cucumber market, as directed. after zig-zagging about for five minutes, he was going to hail another cab, but checked himself because the man proved to be the same who had brought him to cucumber market. a boy stopped to look at him, whereupon he made up his mind that the official cap which he wore (and which had been expected to give him the appearance of a teacher in a government school for jews) scarcely went well with his face, and that it must be this cap of his which had attracted the boy's attention. he therefore went to a capmaker's shop and bought an ordinary cap, such as is worn by the average old-fashioned jew, explaining to the artisan that it was for his father, who had his size. this part of the town he knew well, for it was in the centre of the jewish quarter, not many minutes' walk from his former lodgings. the old synagogue was in the same neighbourhood, and it flashed upon him to seek temporary refuge in the celebrated house of worship and learning. living in such a place was like hiding in the depths of the fourth century--the age of the talmud, which was still the soul of the ghetto, still the fountain-head of the spiritual and intellectual life of the orthodox jew. he would be in his native element there, at any rate, and would certainly feel more comfortable than amid the imposing interiors of a noblewoman's mansion. on his way to the synagogue he twisted the hair at his temples till he looked as he used to, before he left zorki. as to his shave, he prepared an explanation: he was subject to a species of skin disease that made shaving unavoidable. the assistant beadle at the old synagogue was a man with a luxurious white beard. he was not learned in the talmud himself, but he had served in the great "house of study" so long that he was familiar with the titles of the various volumes and sections in the same way as an old servant at a medical college is familiar with anatomical nomenclature. he danced attendance on every diligent scholar, and was the terror of every boy who romped or talked "words of daily life" over his holy book. he was in charge of the synagogue library and the candle supply. his salary was no larger than that of a street labourer, yet he had the appearance of a stern, prosperous merchant. when makar first applied for a book and a candle the assistant beadle cast a knowing look at his smooth-shaven face, and then, handing him the volume, said: "you are in the army, aren't you?" "how do you know, by my shaved face?" makar asked, sadly. the assistant beadle smiled assent. the skin-disease story proved unnecessary. "there is many a talmudist among soldiers nowadays," the old man said. "to think of a child of law having to live in military bondage, to wear a uniform, to shave and to handle a gun!" he regarded makar as a martyr. when he saw him reading his book in a pleasing, absorbed sing-song, he paused and watched him with a look of paternal admiration. "do you belong here?" he asked later. "no." he named the first town that came to his tongue. "have you relatives here?" "no. but i have obtained a furlough and am going home. i am waiting for a letter and some money. i have left my uniform with a friend." the assistant beadle asked makar for news--whether there were any rumours of some new war, or of some fresh legislation affecting the condition of jews. the query was made on the supposition that makar, as a member of the czar's army and one who saw so many officers, could not be unfamiliar with what was going on "up above"; and makar appeased the old man's curiosity with some suitable bits of information. the assistant beadle was particularly interested in the story of a certain colonel, a bitter anti-semite, who used to beat the jews in his regiment because a jewish money-lender had him under his thumb. now this "jews' enemy" lay in bed, stricken with paralysis--a clear case of divine reckoning. did makar know him? makar said he did. the discussion was interrupted by the appearance of a bewigged woman with a pound of candles, in commemoration of the anniversary of a death. she wanted to make sure that they were going to be used for diligent study and not to be thrown away on loafers, and the assistant beadle told her that it would be all right and that she had better go home and put the children to bed. another woman, whose boy was studying in a corner, was watching his gesticulations with beaming reverence. she had an apple for him and a copper coin for the assistant beadle, and when she saw makar looking at her son, she said, nodding her head blissfully: "praised be the master of the world. it is not in vain that i am toiling. the boy will be an adornment to my old age." later in the evening a woman burst into the synagogue, lamenting and wringing her hands. she besought the recluses to pray for her newly-married daughter, who was on her death-bed. makar was deeply touched. he felt like a foreigner amid these scenes that had once been his own world, and the consciousness of it filled him with melancholy. he slept at the synagogue. after the service next morning he sent out a boy for some bread, butter and pot cheese, and at two o'clock a devout widow brought him, at the assistant beadle's recommendation, a pot of soup and boiled meat. he ate his dinner with talmudistic bashfulness, the woman looking on piously, and mutely praying to heaven that her dinner might agree with the holy man and give him strength for the study of god's laws. toward evening he ventured out on a stroll through the spacious courtyard which lay between the old synagogue and several other houses of worship. in this yard was a great octagonal basin, celebrated for its excellent tea water, with moss-grown spouts and chained wooden dippers. he watched the water-bearers with their pails and the girls with their jugs--a scene that seemed to have sprung to life from certain passages in the talmud--until he came within a hair's breadth of being recognised by his former landlady. rabbi rachmiel was absent from the synagogue that day. when makar returned to the house of study he noticed signs of excitement. the recluses and other students were absorbed in whispered, panic-stricken conversation. they dared not discuss the news in groups, some even pretending to be engrossed in their books, as much as to say: "in case it comes to the knowledge of the police that you people are talking about it, i want you to remember that i took no part in your gossip." the meaning of clara's disappearance was not quite clear to them. they knew in a very dim way that there were people, for the most part educated people, who wanted to do away with czars in general, and now it appeared that rabbi rachmiel's daughter was one of those mysterious persons. those of the talmudists who knew clara were trying to imagine her as something weird, preternatural, and when her familiar face came back to them they uttered subdued exclamations of amazement. when the news reached makar he wondered whether it would not be advisable for him to decamp at once. but he was so snugly established in his present berth that he was loath to abandon it. some of the worshippers who dropped in to read a page or two of an evening would gather in groups, bandying gossip or talking foreign politics, of which, indeed, they had the most grotesque conceptions. here makar picked up many a side-splitting story illustrative of the corruption, intemperance and childlike ineptitude of government officials. his attention seized with special eagerness upon a description of the demoralised state of things in the printing shop connected with the governor's office. there is not an article of merchandise over which the russian authorities maintain a more rigorous control than they do over type, every pound, almost every letter of it, used in the empire being registered and supposedly kept track of; yet the foreman of that shop often offered some of the czar's own supply for sale, and in default of buyers (the licensed private printers of the town being too timid to handle this most dangerous species of stolen goods) he had once molten a large quantity of new type and sold it for scrap lead. makar could not help picturing the revolutionists in regular communication with this man. nor did his fancy stop there. gradually all the typesetters under that foreman would be supplanted by revolutionists, and the czar's printing office would print the _will of the people_! two days elapsed before rabbi rachmiel returned. when he did he scarcely spoke to anybody. naturally a man of few words, he now spent every minute reading his book with ferocious absorption. the next day was friday. in the evening the turmoil of talmudic accents gave way to an ancient chant, at once light-hearted and solemn--the song of welcome to sabbath the bride. the brass chandeliers, brightly burnished, were filled with blazing candles. about half of the seats were occupied by worshippers, freshly bathed and most of them in their sabbath clothes. rabbi rachmiel wore a beaming face, "in honour of the sabbath," that was plainly the result of effort. as maker watched him chant his sabbath-eve psalms, the heart of the escaped nihilist was contracted with sympathy and something like a sense of guilt. * * * * * meanwhile count loris-melikoff had abolished the third section, transferring the secret service to the interior department, and while the change had not displaced the dandy from office, yet it materially impaired his usefulness to his party. when makar returned to st. petersburg pavel met him with kisses and hugs and punches. the janitor, whom he saw the next day, shook his hand heartily. "it's all right," he said, looking makar over with an amused air. "what are you smiling at?" parmet demanded, colouring. "at you. i can't get myself to believe it was really you who made such a neat job of it." "i!" makar protested, exultingly. "any idiot would know how to be arrested. it's clara that carried the scheme through." "still, there is better stuff in you than i gave you credit for." makar was quivering to know something of the use that had been made of his arrest, but conspirators ask no questions. indeed, to try to know as little as possible, to avoid information upon anything except that in which one was personally participating was (or was supposed to be) an iron law of the movement; and now makar was more jealous of his reputation as a conspirator than ever. "well, it's all right," the janitor said, reading his thoughts. "something has been done and it's all right; only under the new system it's rather slow work." makar did not understand. the abolition of the third section had taken place while he was in prison. when he heard of the change he said in dismay: "will that affect my scheme?" "your scheme? i don't think it will," the janitor answered mysteriously. "of course, we'll first have to see how the new system works. we must do some sounding and watching and studying before we know how to go about things. can't you wait a month or two?" makar was silent, then his face broke into a roguish smile. "i will if you get me into an underground printing office for the interval," he returned. the janitor took fire. "what has that got to do with your cursed scheme?" he said with a slight stutter. "as if i had printing jobs to give away!" chapter xxvii. a postponed wedding. in june of that year, shortly before makar escaped from prison, the unhappy empress of russia died after a long illness that was generally ascribed to her many years of jealousy and anguish. the czar signified his intention to enter into morganatic wedlock with princess dolgoruki at once. his sons and brothers remonstrated with him, pleading for a postponement of the marriage until the end of a year's mourning; but he was passionately devoted to the princess, with whom he had been on terms of intimacy for the past few years; he was determined to have these relations legitimatised, and, in view of the unrelenting campaign of the terrorists, he felt that he could not do so too soon. several members of the imperial family then went on a foreign tour, and the wedding was quietly solemnised on july in livadia, crimea, where the czar and his bride remained for a long honeymoon. pavel's and clara's wedding was to take place in the early part of october. the relations of the sexes among the nihilists were based upon the highest ideals of purity, and the marriage bond was sacred in the best sense of the word, but they were not given to celebrating their weddings. when a couple became man and wife the fact was recognised as tacitly as it was made known, the adoption by the bride of her husband's name being out of the question in a world in which passports and names were apt to be changed every day. still, there were exceptions, and pavel insisted upon being one of these. in his overflowing bliss he often cast the spartanism of the movement to the winds, and now he was bent upon indulging himself in the "romanticism" of having his wedding proclaimed at a gathering of his most intimate friends. this was to be done at the close of an important revolutionary meeting, at the same lodgings where we once saw pavel, zachar and my lord at a gathering of military officers. a high government official who occupied the first floor of the same building was giving an elaborate reception which kept the house porters busy and the street in front crowded with carriages and idlers; so the central organisation of the party of the will of the people took advantage of the occasion and held one of its general meetings under cover of the excitement. the assemblage, which was made up of about sixty or seventy persons of both sexes, comprised nearly every member of the executive committee in town, and some candidates for admission to the executive who were allowed to participate in its deliberations without a vote. most of the revolutionists present had taken part in attempts on the life of the czar, as also in some of the recent assassinations. one man, a southerner, was the hero of the most sensational rescue during the past few years, having snatched from the kieff prison, in which he had contrived to obtain the position of head keeper, three leaders of an extensive revolutionary plot. this man, the janitor and purring cat now constituted the governing board (a sub-committee clothed with dictatorial powers) of the terrorists' executive. the police were hunting for the people here gathered throughout the empire. had the present meeting been discovered by spies the whole movement would have been seriously crippled for a considerable time. indeed, the complex conspiracies of the will of the people were an element of fatal weakness as well as a manifestation of fascinating strength. the terror absorbed the best resources of the party, necessitating highly centralised organisation, with the threads of a scattered national propaganda in the hands of a few "illegals" who were liable to be seized at any moment. the street was full of police, but these had all they could do to salute the distinguished guests of the first floor and to take care of the carriages and the crowd of curiosity seekers. partly through pavel's influence and partly because she was an "illegal" and had produced a very favourable impression, clara had made the acquaintance of many of the revolutionary leaders and been admitted as a probationary member of the executive committee. the present gathering was the first general meeting of the central body she had attended. "so this is the executive committee!" she was saying to herself. this, then, was the mysterious force that people were talking about in timid whispers; that the czar dreaded; that was going to make everybody free and good and happy. this was it, and she was attending its meeting. she could scarcely believe her senses that she actually was there. she knew many of the members, but she had never seen several of them together. the present meeting almost benumbed her with a feeling of reverence, awe, and gratitude. even those she had met often since her arrival in st. petersburg seemed different beings now, as though spiritualised into that mysterious force that seemed mightier than the czar and holier than divinity. an overpowering state of exaltation, of something akin to the ecstasy of a woman upon taking the veil, came over her. pavel was dearer than ever to her, but in her present mood their love impressed her as a jarring note. self-sacrifice, not personal happiness, was what appealed to her, and by degrees she keyed herself up to a frame of mind in which her prospective married life seemed a gross profanation of the sanctuary to which she had been admitted. "let us postpone it, pasha dear," she whispered to him, with a thrilling sense of sacrificing her happiness to the cause. "why?" he demanded in perplexity. they went into the adjoining room. "what is the trouble? what's the trouble?" he demanded, light-heartedly. "no trouble at all, dearest," she answered affectionately. "you are dearer than ever to me, but pray let us postpone it." "but there must be some reason for it," he said with irritation. "don't be vexed, pashenka. there is really no special reason. i simply don't feel like being married--yet. i want to give my life to the movement, pasha. i am enjoying too much happiness as it is." she uttered it in grave, measured, matter-of-fact accents, but her hazel eyes reflected the uplifted state of her soul. "oh!" he exclaimed with a mixed sense of relief and adoration. "if that's what you mean, all i can say is that i am not worthy of you, clara; but of course, the question of giving our lives to the cause has nothing to do with the question of our belonging to each other. or, rather, it's one and the same thing." she made no reply. the very discussion of the subject jarred on her. "you are in a peculiar mood now, and you are an angel, anyhow, but to-morrow you'll see the matter in a different light." "at any rate, let us postpone it, pashenka." and she led the way back to the meeting room. many of the company knew of the expected announcement, and when they heard that it was not to take place they felt sorely disappointed. when the business of the meeting had been disposed of, a terrorist named sablin waggishly drank the health of mlle. yavner and the social revolution, to the accompaniment of the rapturous band of the first floor, and then he began to improvise burlesque verses on her as a newcomer, with allusions to her power over pavel. this revolutionist was one of the "twin poets" of the party, his muse, which had a weakness for satire, being the gayer of the two. the "grave bard," whose name was morosoff, was in switzerland now. the two were great chums. as always, sablin was the great convivial spirit of the company. when he was not versifying, he was making jokes, telling anecdotes or trying to speak little-russian to purring cat, who, being from little russia, answered his questions with smiling passivity. some of his rhymes related to purring cat's interminable side-whiskers, zachar's habit of throwing out his chest as he walked, the reticence of the tall man with the tartarian face, and, above all, the janitor's explosions of wrath when one "was not continually leering around for spies." the janitor cursed him good-humouredly, without stuttering, and resumed his discussion with a man who looked like the conventional image of christ, and with urie, the tall blond man with typical great-russian features who had introduced pavel to the nihilist world and whom he still called "godfather." the gay poet then took to versifying on the "three blond beards" of this trio. zachar made the most noise, dancing cossack hops till the floor shook under his feet, singing at the top of his lungs, filling the large room with deafening guffaws. baska, the light complexioned "housewife" of the dynamite shop, who looked like a peasant woman, was the greatest giggler of all the women present. grisha, her passport husband at that shop, and her real husband--a thin man with teutonic features, known among the revolutionists as "the german"--were also there. sophia, the daughter of the former governor of st. petersburg, sat by clara's side, smiling her hearty good wishes upon her. she looked like a happy little girl, sophia, her prominent cheeks aglow, and her clear blue self-possessed eyes full of affection and sweet-spirited penetration. she was engaged to zachar, and pavel's courtship had enlisted her tender interest. there were several other women at the gathering, two or three of them decidedly good-looking. there was an unpublished poem, "virgin soil," by the "gay bard," which clara had heard him recite and which portrayed, among other things, a nihilist woman becoming a mother in her isolated cell. her child is wrested from her arms to perish, and she goes insane. the episode, which is part of a bitter satire on a certain official, is based on fact. as clara now thought of it and beheld the demented woman nursing a rag, a shudder passed through her frame. "cheer up, clara! cheer up!" zachar thundered. "we don't want any long faces to-night." clara smiled, a sorry smile, and zachar went on hopping and laughing. but when sophia stroked her hand, smilingly, clara buried her face in her bosom and gave way to a quick sob. "what does it mean?" pavel asked. "nothing," clara answered, gleaming through her tears. there were four or five jews in the assemblage, but makar was not among them. his cherished dream had been realised at last. he was working in a secret printing office. establishments of this sort were guarded with special solicitude, so in view of his absent-mindedness, makar never left the place for fear of bringing back some spy. the other revolutionists who worked in the same printing shop and who were registered at the police station as residents of the house had each his or her day off. makar alone was not registered. the porters of the house had never seen him, and the composing room was his prison. the only other jewess in the room was a dark insignificant looking woman named hessia helfman. she was touchingly bashful, so that at one time clara had offered to befriend her. she had soon discovered, however, that the dark little jewess was in charge of a most important conspiracy station. on closer acquaintance hessia had proved to be quite talkative and of an extremely affectionate nature. clara's attachment to her had become greater still when she had learned that purring cat was her husband. the great thing was that he was a gentile and a nobleman, although not a prince. clara had told herself that the equality of jew and gentile and their intermarriage among socialists was a matter of course and that the circumstance attracted no special attention on her part, but she knew that it did. as she now looked at hessia and her husband, she said to herself, with a great sense of relief: "she is as good as i, anyhow. if she could marry the man she loves i can." but her joy in this absolution from her self-imposed injunction soon faded away. to sacrifice her happiness seemed to her the highest happiness this evening. she would surpass hessia. if there was a world in which platonic relations were called for theirs was that world. the image of a demented woman fondling a rag in her prison cell came back to her. chapter xxviii. a second courtship. the czar was still in livadia with his bride, abandoning himself to his second youth with a passion that was tinged with the pathos of imminent tragedy, when count loris-melikoff telegraphed to him a plea for the lives of two revolutionists who had been sentenced to death, one of these being alexandre, the man in whose lodgings the gendarmes had found a diagram of the imperial dining hall. the distinguished armenian was contemplating reforms which he expected to leave no room for terrorism, and it was for the sake of these measures as well as of the emperor himself, that he was averse to having the bitterness of the revolutionists quickened by new executions. if they only let the czar live until those projects had been carried out, he thought, their conspiracies would lose all reason of existence; at any rate, the surreptitious support which they received from men of high social position would be withdrawn. but his despatch was followed by one from the czarowitz, who, echoing the views of the anti-melikoff party at court, urged his father not to show signs of weakness, and the sentence was allowed to stand. * * * * * at about nine o'clock in the morning of a cold autumn day, a fortnight after the meeting of the executive committee which clara attended, pavel stood on a chair nailing a clothes rack to the wall. the room was clara's. it was on the fifth floor of a house near a corner, with windows commanding the two intersecting streets, where her window signals could be seen at a considerable distance. she rented it furnished, with samovar service, but the curtains and some bits of bric-à-brac had been bought by pavel who took more interest in these things and was handier about the house than she. he himself lived in the house of a distant relative, an elderly widow, who took great pride in him and had no doubt that he led the life of the average young man of his class, that is to say, he spent his nights and his mamma's rubles on an endless crop of wild oats. to clara's landlady he was known as a brother of hers. on the present occasion he had found his fiancée out, but a mark on the door had told him that she would soon be back. presently she came in. she wore a tall fur cap and her cheeks gleamed, exhaling the freshness of girlish health and of the cold weather of the street, but she looked grave. pavel threw away his hammer and pounced down upon her with open arms. she repulsed him gently. "stop," she whispered, drearily, unbuttoning her cloak and drawing a newspaper from its inner pocket. "there is terrible news this morning." the execution of alexandre and the other revolutionist had taken place the day before, and the newspapers were allowed to print a very brief account of it--how they bade each other good-bye on the scaffold and how, when alexandre saw the death-shroud on his friend, his eyes filled with tears. the two condemned men had been great chums for several years, alexandre having once wrested the other from a convoy. now they died together. as pavel read the account of the double execution, standing by the window, a flush of overpowering despair shot into his chest and diffused itself through his legs. "they have choked them after all," he gasped out. clara, who sat at a table watching him, dropped her head on her folded arms, in a paroxysm of quick, bitter sobbing. the few details in the newspaper report gave vividness to the grewsome scene. the two executed men had been among pavel's most intimate friends. the image of alexandre, his arms pinioned, looking on with tears while a white shroud was being slipped over his fellow-prisoner, was tearing at his heart with cruel insistence. "oh, it's terrible, clarochka!" he moaned, dropping by her side, nestling to her, and bursting into tears in her bosom. then, getting up, he took to walking back and forth, vehemently. "they have choked them, the blood-drinkers," he muttered. "they have done it after all." he fell silent, pacing the floor in despair, and then burst out once again: "they have choked them, the vampires." "but war is war," she said, for something to say to him, her own face distorted with her struggle against a flow of tears. "oh, i don't know. all i do know is that they have been murdered, that they are no more." a minute or two later he turned upon her with a look full of ghastly malice. "war did you say? the government can't have enough of it, can it? well, it shall have all the war it wants. the party has only shown it the blossoms; the berries are still to come." the world seemed to be divided into those who had known the two executed men personally and those who had not. for the moment there seemed to be little in common between him and clara. she strained him to a seat by her side on the sofa again, clasping one of his hands in both of hers, and kissed him on the cheek, wetting his temple with her tears. "do you know, dearest, i really had a lurking hope they would be spared," he said. "i was ashamed to say so, but i did. but no! they choked them. they choked them. idiots that they are. they imagine they can hang every honest man in the country." "loris-melikoff is even worse than the czar. his liberalism is nothing but hypocrisy. there can no longer be any question about it." "he is a rogue of the deepest dye. he is a bungling hypocrite, an abominable liar and a mangy coward, that's what he is. but to the devil with him! this is not the point. oh, nothing is the point. nothing except that they have been murdered." he went to see some of the revolutionists with whom he had shared the intimacy of the dead men. left alone, clara began to pace the floor slowly. not having known either alexandre or the man who had died with him, she was exempt from that acute agony of grief which was her lover's; but there was the image of two men in death-shrouds, a stirring image of martyrdom, before her vision. pity, the hunger of revenge and a loftier feeling--the thirst of self-sacrifice to the cause of liberty--swelled her heart. back and forth she walked, slowly, solemnly, her hands gently clasped behind her, her soul in a state of excitement that was coupled with a peculiar state of physical tranquillity, her mind apparently seeing things with a perspicacity the like of which it had never enjoyed before. her future, her duties, her relation to the rest of the world, her whole life--all was wonderfully clear to her, and in spite of her anguish over the death of the two men she felt singularly happy. it seemed to be a matter of course that her party would now undertake some new plot, one exceeding in boldness and magnitude all its predecessors. many lives would have to be staked. she would offer hers. matrimony was out of the question at a time like this. she conjured that image of the insane woman clasping a rag to her bosom in support of her position. she longed to be near pavel again. in her mind she embraced him tenderly, argued with him, opened her soul to him. it was all so clear. her mind was so firmly made up. she fondly hoped she would make pavel see it all in the same light. the explanation took place the next time he called on her, a few days later. "oh, we shall all have to offer our lives," he replied. "but for god's sake love me, clanya. it will drive me crazy if you don't." "but i do, i do. i love you with every fibre of my being, pasha. what has put it in your head to doubt it?" "oh, i don't know. all i do know is that as long as my life is mine i cannot exist without you. i am frightfully lonely and that stands in the way of my work. dash it, i feel just as i did last summer before i took courage to tell you that i was insanely in love with you." she drew him to her, with a smile at once of happiness and amusement. "poor boy! it's enough to break one's heart. poor little dear!" she joked affectionately. "i knew you would be making fun of me," he said, yearning upon her. "love me, clanya, do love me, with all your heart. i cannot live apart from you, i cannot, upon my word i cannot," he concluded piteously, like a child. "do you imagine it's easy for me to be away from you?" she retorted earnestly. "i can't be a single hour without you without missing you, without feverishly waiting to see you again. as if you did not know it! but what can we do? is this the only sacrifice we are ready to make?" * * * * * a fortnight had passed. unknown to her lover, clara had spoken to the janitor, intimating her readiness to offer her life, and asking for one of the most dangerous assignments the governing board could give her. she was waiting for an answer, when the startling news spread among the revolutionists that the janitor was in the hands of the enemy and that the capture of that maniac of caution had been the result of a most insane piece of recklessness. his arrest was one of the heaviest losses the party had yet sustained. at the same time the government found a new source of uneasiness in it. a large quantity of dynamite and some other things confiscated at his lodgings pointed to a vigorous renewal of terroristic activity. another plot on the life of the emperor seemed to be hatching in the capital, yet all efforts of the police and the gendarmes in this connection were futile. indeed, the circumstances of the janitor's arrest only furnished new proof of the ineptitude and shiftlessness of those whose business it was to ferret out nihilism. a few days before the janitor was taken the police received word about two portraits which had been left for reproduction at a well-known photograph gallery and in which the photographer had recognised the two nihilists who had recently been hanged. instead of a detective being detailed, however, to lie in wait for the unknown man, the proprietor of the gallery was simply ordered to notify the police when he came for his pictures. the unknown man was the janitor. when he called for the photographs, an awkward attempt was made to detain him which aroused his suspicion. he pleaded haste and made for the door. when a porter barred his way he scared him off by thrusting his hand into an empty pistol-pocket. a similar order for photographs of the two executed terrorists had been given by him to another well-known photographer next door to the former place, and it was when he called there, a day or two after his narrow escape at the adjoining gallery, that he was seized by detectives. when his landlady heard that her "star" lodger, the punctilious government official and retired army officer, was neither an official nor a retired officer, but a leading nihilist, she fainted. the gendarmes had been hunting for him since he broke away from his captors on his way to prison one evening more than two years before. they had heard that it was he who subsequently organised the railroad plot near moscow; also that he had been connected with the assassination of the chief of gendarmes and with the shooting at the czar in front of the winter palace. yet he had freely moved about the streets of st. petersburg these two years, the busiest agitator and conspirator in the city, until, in a moment of morbid foolhardiness, he practically surrendered himself to the police. when clara heard of his arrest, she clapped her hands together, yiddish fashion. "if the janitor has been arrested as a result of carelessness," she exclaimed, "then everyone of us ought to hold himself in readiness to be taken at any moment." she repeated the remark the next time she saw pavel, adding: "the idea of being a married woman under such conditions!" "oh, that's an _idée fixe_ of yours," he said, testily. she gave him a look and dropped her eyes, resentfully. the peace-offering came from him. "whew, what a cloud!" he said, pointing at her glum face. "won't there be a single rift in it? not a wee bit of a one for a single ray to come through?" she smiled, heartily. chapter xxix. a hunted monarch. the ministers were reporting to the czar who had recently returned from livadia. they were admitted one at a time. as they sat chatting under breath in the blue waiting room, with the white reflection of the snow that was falling outside, upon their faces, these elderly men, whose names were associated in millions of minds with the notion of infinite dignity and power, looked like a group of anxious petitioners in the vestibule of some official. an exception was made for count loris-melikoff, who was with the czar during the audiences of all his colleagues. the supreme executive commission over which he had presided had been abolished some four months before. nominally he was now simply in charge of the department of the interior, but in reality he continued to play the part of premier, a position he partly owed to princess dolgoruki, the czar's young wife, who set great store by his liberal policy. she was said to be a woman of a rather progressive turn of mind, but whether she was or not, her fate hung on the life of her imperial husband and every measure that was calculated to pacify the nihilists found a ready advocate in her. indeed, she and the count were united by a community of personal interests; for he had as many enemies at court as she, and his position depended upon the life of alexander ii. as much as hers. the czar was receiving the ministers in a chamber of moderate size, finished in sombre colours, with engaged columns of malachite, book-cases of ebony and silver, with carvings representing scenes from russian history, and a large writing table to match. statues of bronze and ivory stood between the book-cases and a striking life-size watercolour of nicholas i. hung on the wall to the right of the czar's chair. the falling snow outside was like a great impenetrable veil without beginning or end, descending from some unknown source and disappearing into some equally mysterious region. the room, whose high walls, dismally imposing, were supposed to hold the destinies of a hundred millions of human beings, was filled with lustreless wintry light. the emperor, tall, erect, broad-shouldered, the image of easy dignity, but pale and with a touch of weariness in his large oval face, wore the undress uniform of a general of infantry. he was sixty-two and he was beginning to look it. he listened to the ministers with constrained attention. he showed exaggerated interest in the affairs of their respective departments, but they could see that his heart was not in their talk, and with unuttered maledictions for the upstart vice-emperor, they made short work of their errands. they knew that the interior department was the only one that commanded the czar's interest in those days. at last the emperor and his chief adviser were left alone. both were silent. loris-melikoff was as strikingly oriental of feature as alexander ii. was european. notwithstanding his splendid military career and uniform he had the appearance of a sharp-witted scientist rather than of a warrior. his swarthy complexion, shrewd oriental eyes and huge energetic oriental nose, flanked by greyer and longer side-whiskers than the czar's, made him look like a representative of some foreign power. there was pathos in both. alexander ii. had that passion for life which comes to an old man upon marrying a pretty young woman. yet foreigners who saw him during this period said that he looked like a hunted man. as to count melikoff, his advance had been so rapid, he was surrounded by so many enemies at court, and the changes by which he was trying to save the czar's life and his own power, were beset by so many obstacles, that he could not help feeling like the peasant of the story who was made king for one day. naturally talkative and genially expansive, the czar's manner toward people who were admitted to his intimacy was one of amiable informality. the chief pathos of his fate sprang from the discrepancy between the czar and the man in him, between a vindictive ruthlessness born of a blind sense of his autocratic honour and an affectionate, emotional nature with less grit than pride. had he been a common mortal he would have made far more friends than enemies. count loris-melikoff had become accustomed to feel at home in his presence. at this minute, however, as the czar was watching the snow flakes, with an air of idle curiosity, the armenian had an overbearing sense of the distance between them. he knew that the czar was anxious to talk about the revolutionists and that he hated to do so. his heart contracted with common human pity, yet in the silence that divided them it came over him that the man in front of him was the czar, and a feeling of awe seized him like the one he used to experience at sight of the emperor long before he was raised to his present position. this feeling passed, however, the moment the czar began to speak. "well?" he said, with sudden directness. "anything new about that michailoff fellow?" alexandre michailoff was the real name of the janitor. "nothing new so far, your majesty," loris-melikoff answered obsequiously, yet with something like triumph, as if the powerlessness of the police were only too natural and substantiated his views on the general state of things. "he is one of their chief ringleaders." "and this has been known all along," the emperor remarked with sad irony. "such a thing would be inconceivable in any other capital in europe." "quite so. but i feel that in other countries, the capture of miscreants like ours would be due less to the efficiency of the police than to the cordial coöperation of the public. the trouble is that our police is thrown on its own resources, sire. it is practically fighting those wretches single-handed." the czar had a fit of coughing, the result of asthma. when it had subsided, he said with an air of suffering: "well, that's your theory. but then their public is not ours. the average russian is not wide-awake enough to coöperate with the authorities." he had in mind his own address at moscow in which he had appealed to the community at large for this very assistance in ferreting out sedition. the will of the people had come into existence since then. "still, if our public were drawn into active coöperation with the government, if it became habituated to a sense of the monarch's confidence in itself, it seems reasonable to suppose that the indolence of the community would then disappear. no people is capable of greater loyalty to the throne than your majesty's. all that is needed is to lend to this devotion tangibility. this and this alone would enable your majesty to cure the evil. what the body politic needs is judicious internal treatment. surgical operations have proven futile. these are my sincerest convictions, your majesty." "i know they are," the czar answered musingly. "and the great point is, that with the intelligent classes actively interested in the preservation of law and order, criminal societies of any sort would find themselves without any ground to stand upon." the czar had another cough, and then he said, flushing: "there is a simpler way to leave them without ground to stand upon, surgical operations or no surgical operations. call it what you will. there is no sense in pampering them, melikoff. why, in western europe they execute common murderers. as to a gang of assassins like that, death would be regarded a mild punishment." he lighted a cigarette, but forthwith extinguished it and went on with emphasis: "we handle them with kid gloves, melikoff. that's why they take chances." he spoke with subdued anger, citing the republican uprising led by aristocratic army officers in , which his father (the man whose portrait was on the right wall) quelled by means of field guns. loris-melikoff demurred to the comparison, tactfully hinting that there would be no betrayal of weakness in inviting the public to participate in the extermination of crime by showing it signs of increased imperial confidence, and the czar softened again. he felt that the armenian knew how to save him and he willingly submitted to his and princess dolgoruki's influence. but fate was bent on tragedy. alexander ii. lacked anything but courage. still, this continuous living under fire had gradually unnerved him. the soldier on the battlefield finds moral support in the presence of thousands of comrades, all facing the same fate as he; whereas he was like a lone man on top of a dynamite pile. and if his perils were shared by those about him, this only added the agonising consciousness that his person carried the shadow of destruction with it, endangering the life of every living being that came near him. he knew, for example, that when he was at the theatre candles were kept ready, in case the lights were blown out by an explosion; that many people stayed away from the playhouse on such occasions for fear of being destroyed along with their sovereign. his pride would not let him feel low-spirited. he very often forced himself to disdain caution, to act with reckless courage. nevertheless he had a dreary, jaded look. the notion that he, the most powerful of men, the image of grandeur and human omnipotence, should tremble at every sound, wounded his common human pride acutely. the consequence was that this mightiest monarch in the world, the gigantic man of sixty-two, every bit of him an emperor, was at heart a terror-stricken infant mutely imploring for help. he continued to appear in the streets of the capital, accompanied by his usual escort and to return the salutes of passers-by with his usual air of majestic ease. now and then he went to the theatre, and occasionally even beyond the scenes for a flirtation with the actresses. but the public knew that besides his large uniformed escort, his carriage was watched by hordes of detectives in citizen's clothes, and that every inch of the ground which he was to traverse was all but turned inside out for possible signs of danger. and those who were admitted to his presence knew that underneath his grand, free-and-easy bearing was a sick heart and a crushed spirit. that the enemy was an unknown quantity was one of the sources of his growing disquiet. the organised movement might be very large and it might be ridiculously small, but with a latent half-nihilist in the heart of every subject. he was beginning to realise at last that he knew his people scarcely better than he did the french or the english. he was anxious to make peace with that invisible enemy of his, provided it did not look as if he did. he was willing to be deceived, and loris-melikoff was about to help him deceive himself. but destiny was against them both. he was an honest man, loris-melikoff, serious-minded, public-spirited, one of the few able statesmen russia ever had; but his path was strewn with thorns. chapter xxx. the mystery of a shop. a tall man with a reddish beard called at one of the police stations of the capital about a cheese store which he was going to open on little garden street. he gave his name as koboseff. when he had gone the captain of the station said to one of his roundsmen: "that fellow doesn't talk like a tradesman. i asked him a few questions, and his answers were rather too polished for a cheese dealer." and taking up his pen, he added, with a preoccupied air, "keep an eye on him, will you?" little garden street was part of a route which the emperor often took on his way to or from his niece's residence, the michaïl palace, and received the special attention of the police. the roundsman spoke to the agent of the house where koboseff had rented a basement for his projected shop and dwelling room; whereupon the agent recalled that cheesemonger's handwriting had struck him as being too good for a man of his class. inquiry at the town at which koboseff's passport was dated brought the information that a document corresponding in every detail to the one in question had actually been issued by the local authorities. koboseff was thus no invented name, and as the description in the passport agreed with the appearance of the man who had rented the basement, the st. petersburg police saw no ground for further suspicion. the cheese shop was opened in the early part of january, koboseff having moved in with a fair-complexioned woman whom he introduced as his wife. some three or four weeks later the head porter of the house notified the police that koboseff had boasted of the flourishing state of his business, whereas in reality his shop attracted but very scant custom. at the same time it was pointed out that there was a well-established and prosperous cheese store close by, that the basement occupied by the koboseffs was scarcely the place one would naturally select for the purpose, and that the rent was strikingly too high for the amount of business koboseff could expect to do there. to cap the climax, there was some lively gossip among the neighbours about mme. koboseff, who had been seen smoking cigarettes--a habit quite unusual for a woman of the lower classes--and who often stayed out all night. "koboseff" was uric bogdanovich, pavel's "godfather," and "mme. koboseff" was baska, formerly "housewife" of the dynamite shop and a year previous to that in charge of a house in the south near which zachar and others attempted to blow up an imperial train. the cheese shop was often visited by zachar, purring cat, the reticent stalwart man with the tartarian features, pavel and other revolutionists. the police kept close watch on the place, but, according to all reports, no suspicious persons were ever seen to enter it. upon the whole the koboseffs seemed to be real tradesmen, and as the information concerning their passport was satisfactory, they were not disturbed. a slim little man named kurilloff who had played the part of errand boy at the cheese shop had been arrested, but his detention had nothing to do with the koboseffs, and the police of little garden street had no idea of the arrest, while the officers who had made it were unaware of the prisoner's connection with a suspicious shop. "if i were you i'd make missus behave," the head porter of the house once said to koboseff, speaking of his "wife." "right you are," the cheesemonger replied. "only my old woman is a tough customer to handle, you know. i do tell her she had better mind the house and ought to be ashamed of herself to smoke cigarettes, but she doesn't care a rap, not she." "i would teach her if she was _my_ wife." the cheesemonger made a gesture of despair, and the porter said to himself that there was nothing suspicious about him; that he was simply a fellow without backbone and a fool, qualities which seemed to account for koboseff's incompetence as a business man. * * * * * "well, clanya," pavel said to mlle. yavner, lazily addressing her in the diminutive of his own coining. "i am afraid i shall have to exile you for some time." "exile me?" she asked absently without lifting her eyes from a heap of type she was sorting and putting up in packages. she sat across the table from the sofa upon which he was cuddling himself drowsily as a cat does before a fireside. "yes, that's what i'll have to do--pack you off, put you in a box, nail you up tight, stick a label on it and ship you somewhere. 'to places not so very distant,'" he added, mocking the official phrase used in transporting people to eastern siberia. she raised her eyes from her work, her fingers stiff and black with lead dust. "what are you driving at, pasha? anything up? or is it merely one of those jokes under which one must write in big letters: 'this is a joke?'" "is _that_ a joke?" he asked, and burst into laughter. she resumed her work. the type she was sorting was intended for a revolutionary printing office, having been sent to st. petersburg by masha safonoff, who had bought it of the foreman of the government's printing office in miroslav. "oh, to all the diabolical devils with that type of yours, clanya. can't you sit down by a fellow's side for a minute or two?" she got up, washed her hands and complied with his wish. as she played with his hand she noticed the trace of blisters on his palm. her face darkened; but she asked no questions. after a little she demanded: "what did you mean by 'exiling' me?" "oh dash it all, clanya. it's something serious. i'll tell it to you some other time. i'm too lazy to be serious." he would have preferred to be sprawling like this with her hands in his; luxuriating in the gleam of her intelligent blue eyes and in the feminine atmosphere of her person; but his excuse that it was "too serious" only sharpened her determination to know what it was without delay. "what is it, pasha?" "there you are," he said peevishly. "one can't have a minute's rest from business, not a minute's rest." "why did you hasten to speak of 'exiling' me, then?" she retorted tartly. "why didn't you keep it to yourself until you were again in a mood for 'business'?" he had not kept it to himself simply because it was not easy for him to keep anything from her. he was more apt to fly into a temper with her than she with him, but in their mutual relations she was the stronger vessel of the two and, in an imperceptible, unformulated way, he was considerably under her thumb. when he heard or saw something new, received some new impression, his first impulse was to share it with her. if an opinion was formed in his mind he wondered, sometimes timidly, whether she would concur with it. timidly, because in many instances, when he came bubbling over with enthusiasm over some scheme of his own, she had cruelly dampened his fervour by merely extricating the vital point of his argument from a surrounding tangle of roseate phraseology. his great intellectual feast was to be in her room, discussing theories, books, people with her. these discussions, which sometimes lasted for hours, often called forth a snappish, bitter tone on both sides, but they were at once an expression and a fostering agency of that spiritual unity which was one of the chief sources of their happiness in one another. "well, there is very little to tell about," he said at last. "something is under way, and it has been decided to notify all illegals not in it to vacate st. petersburg until it's all over." the lines of her fresh-tinted face hardened into an expression of extreme gravity and her fingers grew limp in his grasp. she withdrew them. "look at her!" he squeaked in a burst of merriment. "there is nothing to look at. i am not going." she dropped her glance. she divined that his blisters had something to do with the digging of a mine in which he took part. "is it all settled?" "oh, pasha! your jesting is so out of place," she returned sullenly. "i am not going." "but the air is getting hot in st. petersburg. whew! the police are suspicious, of course; they won't leave a stone unturned." he took hold of her tender girlish hand, but she withdrew it again, with a gesture of impatience. "there will be something to do for you too later on," he comforted her, guiltily. "it's going to be a big thing, the biggest of all. you'll come back in a month or so." she made no answer. the two intersecting streets outside reeked and creaked and glittered with the crispness of a typical st. petersburg frost. it was about ten in the morning, in the early part of january. the little parlour was delightfully warm, with a dim consciousness of sleigh-furs, hack drivers in absurd winter caps, pedestrians huddling themselves and wriggling and grunting for an effeminating background to one's sense of shelter. the even heat of the white glazed oven seemed to be gleaming and stirring over the surface of the tiles like something animate, giving them an effect of creamy mellowness that went to one's heart together with the delicious warmth they radiated. ever and anon a sleigh bell would tinkle past and sink into pavel's mood. there was a rhythm to the warm stillness of the room. but clara's silence tormented him. "we'll discuss it later on, clanya. i'm too tired now. my brain won't work. let us play school," he pleaded fawningly, in burlesque russian, mimicking the accent of the czech who taught latin at the miroslav gymnasium. "stop that, pray." he made a sorry effort to obey her, and finally she yielded, with a smile and a jewish shrug. he played a gymnasium teacher and she a pupil. he made her conjugate his name as she would a verb; made puns on clanya, which is an unfinished russian word meaning to bow, to greet, to convey one's regards; mocked and laughed at her enunciation till his eyes watered. gradually he drifted into an impersonation of old pievakin and flew into a passion because her hearty laughter marred the illusion of the performance. "you do need rest, poor thing," she said, looking at his haggard, worn face. "well, another few weeks and we shall be able to get all the rest we want, if not in a cell, or in a quieter place still, in some foreign resort, perhaps. i really feel confident we are going to win this time." "it's about time the party did." "it will this time, you may be sure of it. and then--by george, the very sky will feel hot. everything seems ready for a general uprising. all that is needed is the signal. i can see the barricades going up in the streets." he gnashed his teeth and shook her by the shoulders exultantly. "yes, ma'am. and then, clanya, why, then we won't have to go abroad for our vacation. one will be able to breathe in russia then. won't we give ourselves a spree, eh? but whether here or abroad, i must take you for a rest somewhere. will you marry your love-lorn pashka then? i dare you to say no." "but i don't want to say no," she answered radiantly. they went to dinner together and then they parted. as they shook hands he peered into her face with a rush of tenderness, as though trying to inhale as deep an impression of her as possible in case either of them was arrested before they met again. and, indeed, there was quite an eventful day in store for her. one of the persons she was to see later in the afternoon was a man with a greek name. as she approached the house in which he had his lodgings, she recognised in the gas-lit distance the high forehead and the boyish face of sophia, the ex-governor's daughter. sophia, or sonia, as she was fondly called, was bearing down upon her at a brisk, preoccupied walk. as she swept past clara, without greeting her, she whispered: "a trap." the lodging of the man with the queer name had been raided, then, and was now held by officers in the hope of ensnaring some of his friends. clara had been at the place several times and she was afraid that the porter of the house, in case he stood at his post in the gateway at this minute, might recognise her. the dim opening of the gate loomed as a sickly quadrangular hole exhaling nightmare and ruin. turning sharply back, however, might have attracted notice; so clara entered the first gate on her way, four or five houses this side of her destination, and when she reappeared a minute or two later, she took the opposite direction. as she turned the next corner she found herself abreast of a man she had noticed in the streets before. he was fixed in her mind by his height and carriage. extremely tall and narrow-shouldered, he walked like a man with a sore neck, swinging one of his long arms to and fro as he moved stiffly along. the look he gave her made a very unpleasant impression on her. he let her gain on him a little and then she heard his soft rubber-shod footsteps behind her. it is a terrible experience, this sense of being dogged as you walk along. it is tantalising enough when your desire to take a look at the man at your heels is only a matter of curiosity which for some reason or other you cannot gratify. imagine, then, the mental condition of an "illegal" shadowed by a spy or by a man he suspects of being one. he tingles with a desire to quicken pace, yet he must walk on with the same even, calm step; every minute or two he is seized with an impulse to turn on the fellow behind him, yet he must not show the least sign of consciousness as to his existence. it is the highest form of torture, yet it was the daily experience of every active man or woman of the secret organisation; for if the political detectives were spying upon pedestrians right and left, the revolutionists, on their part, were apt to be suspicious with equal promiscuity. small wonder that some of them, upon being arrested, hailed their prison cell as a welcome place of rest, as a relief from the enervating strain of liberty under the harrowing conditions of underground life. as a matter of fact this wholesale shadowing seldom results in the arrest of a revolutionist. thousands of innocent people were snuffed to one nihilist, and the nihilists profited by the triviality of suspicion. most arrests were the result of accident. at the corner of the next large thoroughfare she paused and looked up the street for a tram-car. while doing so clara glanced around her. the tall man had disappeared. a tram-car came along shortly and she was about to board it when she heard sonia's voice once more. "you're being shadowed. follow me." sonia entered a crowded sausage shop, and led the way to the far end of it in the rear of an impatient throng. pending her turn to be waited on, she took off her broad-brimmed hat, asking clara to hold it for her, while she adjusted her hair. "put it on, and let me have your fur cap," she gestured. the homely broad-brimmed hat transformed clara's appearance considerably. it made her look shorter and her face seemed larger and older. "i saw a tall fellow turn you over to one with a ruddy mug. the red man is waiting for you outside now, but i don't think he had a good look at your face. there is a back door over there." clara regained the street through the yard, and sure enough, a man with a florid face was leisurely smoking a cigarette at the gate post. he only gave her a superficial glance and went on watching the street door of the shop. she took a public sleigh, ordered the driver to take her to the liteyny bridge, changed her destination in the middle of the journey, and soon after she got off she took another sleigh for quite another section of the city. in short, she was "circling," and when she thought her trail completely "swept away," she went home on foot. chapter xxxi. a reassuring search. the capture of the man with the greek name proved disastrous to the executive committee. it was the first link in a chain of most important arrests. the trap set at his house caught the very tall man with the tartarian features; this led to the arrest of purring cat, and the residence of purring cat, in its turn, ensnared a pretentiously dressed man, in whom the superior gendarme officers were amazed to find their own trusted secretary, the man whom makar knew as "the dandy." makar's arrest at miroslav had tended to strengthen the dandy's position somewhat, but now that he was in the hands of the enemy himself, it seemed as if the medical student's sweeping system of "counter-espionage" had burst like a bubble. makar was in despair. he spoke of new plans, of new sacrifices, until zachar silenced him. "all in due time, my dear romanticist," he said to him. "a month or two later i shall be delighted to be entertained with the fruit of your rich fancy; not now, my boy." the four arrests were a severe blow to the undertaking of which zachar had been placed in charge. he was overworked, dejected, yet thrilling with nervous activity. but his own days were numbered. an air of impending doom hung over the czar and his "internal enemies" alike. good fortune seemed to attend the state police. while the gendarmes of the capital were celebrating their unexpected haul an intellectual looking man was locked up in a frontier town as a "vagrant," that is, as a man without a passport, who subsequently proved to be one of the active terrorists the detectives had long been looking for. he was the "grave bard," one of the twin poets of the party. shortly after his arrest the russian government received word from the police of the german capital that a prominent russian nihilist known among his friends as "my lord," a sobriquet due to his elegance of personal appearance and address, had spent some time in berlin and was now on his way to st. petersburg. a german detective followed the man to the frontier and then, shadowed by russian spies, he was tracked to a house on the neva prospect, the leading street of st. petersburg. there it was decided to arrest him friday, march . a little after o'clock of that day zachar and the ex-governor's daughter left their home, where they were registered as brother and sister, and took a sleigh, alighting in front of the public library, in the very heart of the city. instead of entering the library, however, which the sleigh-driver thought to be their destination, they parted, continuing their several journeys on foot. it was an extremely cold afternoon. the beards of pedestrians and sleigh-drivers and the manes of horses were glued with frost; their breath came in short painful puffs. it was getting dark. the sky was a spotless, almost a warm blue. to look at it you would have wondered where this sharp, all-benumbing cold came from. there was an air of insincerity about the crimson clearness of the afternoon light. zachar wore a tall cap of persian lamb, flattened at the top, and a tight-fitting fur coat. he walked briskly, his chest thrown out, his full pointed beard hoary with frost, his cheeks red with the biting cold. presently he found himself shadowed by a man in civilian clothes whom he knew to be a gendarme in disguise. it was evident, however, that the spy was following him merely as a suspicious person without having any idea what sort of man his quarry was, and zachar, with whom a hunt of this kind was a daily occurrence, had no difficulty in "thrashing his trail." he was bound for the cheese shop on little garden street. this was within a short walk from the public library, yet on this occasion it took him an hour's "circling" to reach the place. about ten minutes after zachar entered the cheesemonger's basement, the head porter of the house met two police officers round the corner. one of them was the captain of the precinct and the other, one of his roundsmen. the czar was expected to pass through this street in two days, so one could not be too watchful over a suspicious place like this. "there is somebody down there now," the head porter said to the captain, with servile eagerness. "a big fellow with a long pointed beard. i have seen him go down several times before. he looks like a business man, but before he started to go down he stopped to look round." this stopping to look round was, according to a printed police circular, one of the symptoms of nihilism, so the roundsman was ordered to watch until the suspicious man should re-emerge from the cheese shop. when the captain had gone the roundsman brushed out his icicled moustache with his finger nails, and said with an air of authority: "well, you take your post at the gate and i'll just go and change my uniform for citizen's clothes in case it's necessary to see where that fellow is going. keep a sharp lookout on that cursed basement until i get back, will you?" when he returned, in citizen's clothes, he found that the suspicious man had left the store and that the head porter had set out after him, leaving his assistant in his place. "there is another man down there now," the assistant porter whispered. presently the new visitor came out of the basement. as he mounted the few steps and then crossed over, through the snow, to a sleigh standing near by, he kept mopping his face with a handkerchief, thus preventing the two spies from getting a look at his features. seeing that he boarded a hackney-sleigh, the roundsman did the same, ordering the driver to follow along as closely as possible, but at this he lost time in persuading the hackman that he was a policeman in disguise. the two sleighs were flying through the snow as fast as their horses could run. the policeman was far in the rear. for some ten minutes his eyes were riveted to the suspicious man. presently, however, the vehicle he was shadowing turned a corner, and by the time he reached that point it was gone. all sorts of sleighs, their bells jingling, were gliding along in every direction, but the one he wanted was not among them. the head porter, who had started after the first man, in the absence of the roundsman, had met with a similar defeat. after awhile the hackman who had driven the second suspicious man returned to his stand. in answer to inquiry he told how his fare had twice changed his destination, finally alighted on a street corner, and turned into a narrow alley. meanwhile zachar had called on my lord. it was about seven o'clock. the two revolutionists sat chatting in a cheerful gas-lit room, when the host was called out into the corridor. as he was long in coming back, zachar went to the door, prepared for the worst. he found the corridor full of gendarmes and police. it was evident that they had fought shy of raiding my lord's apartments for fear of violence, and had been patiently waiting until his visitor should come out of his own accord. several of the gendarmes made a dash at zachar, seizing him by both arms. one of these was the spy from whom he had "circled" away near the public library, soon after he had taken leave from the ex-governor's daughter three hours ago. zachar's presence here was a surprise to this gendarme, but the full importance of the man was still unknown to him. the officer in command, however, knew who his prisoner was. "what is your name?" he addressed himself to zachar, with the exaltation of a man come upon a precious find. he knew but too well how anxious the government was to capture him, but he had come here to arrest my lord without the remotest idea of finding this revolutionary giant in the place. "krasnoff," zachar answered with dignity, in his deep-chested voice. "i beg your pardon," the officer returned, with a twinkle in his eye. "i once had the pleasure of arresting you. your name is andrey ivanovitch jeliaboff." "oh, in that case i am pleased to meet you," the prisoner said with playful chivalry. jeliaboff's arrest made a joyous stir not only in the gendarmerie, but also at court. apart from the attempt to blow up an imperial train in the south, in which he had played the leading part, he had been described to the authorities as the most gifted and effective agitator in the movement. the police at little garden street were unaware of all this, but the conduct of the two men who had visited the cheese shop that afternoon seemed decidedly suspicious and lent a glare of colour to the irrelevancies that seemed to enfold the place. the next morning pavel called on the koboseffs. as he entered the cheese store he saw that the adjoining room was crowded with police officers. in his first shock he was only conscious of the gleam of uniforms, of urie's and somebody else's voice and of his own sick despair. but the sick feeling ebbed away, leaving him in a state of desperate, pugnacious tranquillity, his mind on the revolver in his pocket. "hello there!" he shouted, with the self-satisfied disrespect of a man of the better classes addressing one of the lower, and at this he surveyed the store with an air of contempt, as much as to say: "what a den i did strike!" "wife," he heard urie's voice, "there is a gentleman in the shop." baska, who had been calmly emptying a barrel of cheese into some boxes, wiped her hands upon her apron and stepped behind the counter. "is your holland cheese any good?" pavel asked, sniffing. "are you sure you can give me a pound of decent stuff?" she waited on him, simply, and after some more sniffing, at the wrapping paper as well as the cheese, he let her make up the package. as he walked toward the door his heart stood still for an instant. he was allowed to go. whether he was followed by spies he did not know. at all events, when he approached his "legal" residence at the house of his high-born relative, after an hour's "circling," he felt perfectly free from shadowing. he was greatly perplexed to think of the way urie and baska had been allowed to continue in their rôle of a cheesemonger couple; but, at all events, even if the true character of their shop had not yet been discovered by the police officers he had seen there, it seemed to be a matter of minutes when it would be. * * * * * in the morning of that day, a few hours before pavel called on the koboseffs, the police captain of the little garden street precinct had asked the prefect of st. petersburg to have the cheese shop examined under the guise of a sanitary inspection. he was still uninformed of the arrest of the big fellow with the pointed beard, much less of the fact that he had proved to be one of the chieftains of the revolutionary organisation, but the story of the two suspicious-looking visitors at the cheese shop and their "circling" had made him uneasy. the czar was expected to pass through little garden street on sunday, which was the next day, and one could not ascertain the real character of the koboseffs and their business too soon. nevertheless the prefect was slow to appreciate the situation. indeed, it is quite characteristic of the despotic chaos of a regime like russia's that on the one hand people are thrown into jail to perish there on the merest whim of some gendarme, and, on the other, action is often prevented by an excess of red tape and indolence in cases where there is ground for the gravest suspicion. while hundreds of schoolboys and schoolgirls were wasting away in damp, solitary cells because they had been suspected of reading some revolutionary leaflet, the occupants of this basement, in whose case suspicion was associated with the idea of a plot on the life of the czar, had not even been subjected to the summary search and questioning to which every resident in russia is ever liable. finally, after considerable pleading on the part of the police captain, general mrovinsky, a civil engineer of the health department, an elderly man with a kindly, genial face, was assigned to make the feigned inspection. "your excellency will please see if they are not digging a mine there," the police captain said to him, respectfully. "the emperor often passes that shop when he goes to the riding schools or to the michaïl palace, and that cheese dealer and his wife are quite a suspicious-looking couple. his majesty is expected to pass the place to-morrow." the general entered the cheese shop accompanied by the police captain, the captain's lieutenant and the head porter of the house. koboseff came out of the inner rooms to meet them. he turned pale, but this seemed natural. "his excellency represents the health department," said the captain. "there is dampness in the next house, and his excellency wishes to see if your place is all right." "i am sorry to trouble you," said general mrovinsky, kindly. "but dampness is a bad thing to have in one's house, you know." "there is none here that i know of, sir," koboseff replied deferentially, "but, of course, a fellow must not be too sure, sir." baska stood in a corner of the shop, bending over a barrel. while the officers talked to urie she threw a glance at the visitors over her shoulder and resumed her work. the uniformed civil engineer made a close examination of the walls. the one facing the street was covered with planking, and koboseff explained that he had had it done as a safeguard against dampness, but that there was none. "but then cheese crumbs are apt to get into the cracks," urged general mrovinsky, taking hold of one of the shelves along that wall. "they would decay there, don't you know, and that would be almost as bad as dampness, wouldn't it?" he then inspected the two living rooms. in the second of these he found a pile of hay. "it's from our cheese barrels," koboseff explained; and pointing at another pile he added: "and that's coke, sir." general mrovinsky picked up a coal, examined it, threw it back and wiped his fingers with some of the hay. "everything is all right," he said to the police officers, with a look of intelligence. he led the way back to the store and then back again to the middle room. here he took a firm hold of the planking that lined the wall under the street window. he tried to wrench it off, but it would not yield, and he let it go. "everything is all right," he said to the captain, seating himself on a sofa. a trunk and some pieces of furniture were moved from their places and then put back. the general knew a merchant by the name of koboseff, so he asked the cheese dealer if he was a relative of his. urie said no, and after some conversation about the cheese business in general the officials went away. "there is no mine in that place. you can make yourself perfectly easy about it," mrovinsky said to the captain, as they made their way to the adjoining basement. it was while they were conversing leisurely, the old general seated on the lounge, that pavel came in. he was watched narrowly, but he played his part well, and as the engineer had already intimated to the police officers that there was nothing suspicious about the premises he was not even shadowed. thus reassured, the police of the locality set to work preparing little garden street for the czar's drive to the riding school. this included an investigation as to the character of the occupants of all the other shops and residences facing the street, as well as getting the pavement in good repair. chapter xxxii. the red terror. meanwhile a reform measure which subsequently became known as "the constitution of loris-melikoff" had been framed and submitted to the czar by the minister of the interior. the project called for the convocation of a semi-representative assembly to be clothed with consultative powers. it was framed in guarded language, great pains having been taken to keep out anything like an allusion to parliamentary government. "but it looks like the states-general," the czar said to loris-melikoff. the resemblance which the measure bore to the opening chapter in the history of the french revolution, where representatives of the three estates are convened in consultative parliament, made a disagreeable impression on him. still, the project was ingeniously worded as a measure tending to "enhance the confidence of the monarch in his loyal subjects"; so, upon a closer reading, the czar warmed to it, and returned the draft to loris-melikoff with his hearty approval. this took place at o'clock on sunday, march , , one day after the search at the cheese store. it was decided to have the document read before the cabinet on wednesday, after which it was to be published over the imperial signature in the _official messenger_. the czar was dressed in the uniform of the sappers of the guards, whose review he was about to attend at the michaïl riding schools. "i pray your majesty to forego the trip," loris-melikoff said, solicitously. the czar smiled. princess dolgoruki had made a similar request, and by accentuating his danger they both only succeeded in challenging his courage. he felt as if in the light of their appeal staying at home would mean hiding. instead of pleading with him for caution loris-melikoff should have made an effort to secure a suspension of hostilities in the enemy's camp. had the revolutionists been aware of what was coming a truce on their part would have been assured. and then, little as the project to be divulged resembled a constitution in the western sense of the word, it was yet the first approach to representative legislation in the history of modern russia. the nihilists were pledged to abandon their terror the moment free speech had been granted, and although no reference to questions of this character was made in the "constitution," certain liberties in that direction might have followed as a matter of course, as an offspring of the new spirit which the measure was expected to inaugurate. a distinguished revolutionary writer has pointed out how easy it would have been for loris-melikoff to bring his expectations to the knowledge of the executive committee of the nihilists by setting a rumour on foot among the professional and intellectual classes, many of whose representatives, as the vice-emperor knew but too well, were in touch with the central organization of the will of the people. perhaps this method of communicating with the revolutionists had not occurred to loris-melikoff; perhaps the iron-clad secrecy that enclosed his project was a necessary protection against the enemies of reform at court. however it may have been, neither the revolutionists nor their liberal allies had any inkling as to the document about to be published in the _official messenger_. instead, they saw the police and the gendarmerie continuing their riot of administrative violence; instead, they heard of an order by virtue of which a number of revolutionists who had served their term within prison walls at kara, siberia, and been admitted to partial freedom in the penal colony outside, had suddenly been put in irons and thrown back into their cells; whereupon some of them had committed suicide rather than return to the tortures of their former life. all of which had added gall to the bitterness of the revolutionists at large and whetted their distrust of the "crafty armenian," as they called loris-melikoff. * * * * * the czar's favourite coachman, a stalwart, handsome fellow, with a thick blond beard and clear blue eyes, sat on the box of the closed imperial carriage, waiting in the vast courtyard of the winter palace. an escort of six lusty cossacks, two gendarme officers and one of the several chiefs of police of the capital held themselves in readiness near by, the cossacks on their mounts, the other three in their open sleighs. presently a great door flew open and the emperor appeared, accompanied by an adjutant and a sergeant of the page corps. he wore a military cape-cloak and a helmet. while the page held the carriage door open, the czar said to the coachman: "by songsters' bridge!" this was not his habitual route to the riding schools. not that he was aware of the suspicions which the cheese shop on little garden street had aroused. he had not the least idea of the existence of such a shop. he had decided on the new route merely as a matter of general precaution, in case there was a mine somewhere. as to pistol shots he was sufficiently screened by the walls of his carriage as well as by the bodies of his cossacks and their horses. that calm feeling of reverent affection with which the average englishman hails his sovereign is unknown in russia. but whether with reverence or mute imprecations, the coach of a czar disseminates thrills of fright as it proceeds. the cavalcade of horsemen and sleighs, with the great lacquered carriage in the centre, was sailing and galloping along like a grim alien force, diffusing an atmosphere of terror. to those who saw it approaching the fiery cossacks on their fiery horses looked like a ferocious band of invaders, their every fibre spoiling for violence, rushing onward on an errand of conquest and bloody reckoning. it was a cloudy day. the streets were covered with discoloured, brownish snow; the snow on the roofs, window-sills, cornices, gate-posts, was of immaculate whiteness, apparently devoid of weight, smooth and neat, as though trimmed by some instrument. there were few people along the route followed by the little procession and most of these were in their sunday clothes. now a civilian snatched off his cap spasmodically, now a soldier drew himself up with all his might, as though trying to lift himself off his feet. here and there a drunken citizen was staggering along. every person the carriage passed was scrutinised by every member of the escort, by the cossacks as well as by the chief of police and the gendarme officers. the riding schools were soon reached. the emperor left the building less than an hour later. he was accompanied by grand duke michaïl, his brother, the two going to the michaïl palace, where they were to have lunch with the czar's niece. sophia, the ex-governor's daughter, was watching the imperial carriage from a point of vantage. presently she turned into a neighbouring street, and passing a fair-complexioned young man in a dark overcoat, who held a white package in his hand, she raised her handkerchief to her nose. the young man then hurried away toward catharine canal. three other men, one of them a gigantic looking fellow, stood at so many different points, and at sight of sophia with her handkerchief to her nose, they all started in the same direction as the first man, while the young woman walked over to the neva prospect from which she crossed a bridge to the opposite side of catharine canal. it was half past two when the imperial carriage, surrounded by the six cossacks and followed by the gendarme officers and the chief of police, set out on their homebound journey. the handsome coachman let out his horses. the group was scudding along at top speed. the chief of police stood up in his sleigh, one of his gloved hands on the shoulder of his driver, as he strained his eyes now to the right now to the left, after the manner of the human figure on the face of a certain kind of clocks. the carriage turned to the right, passing a detachment of marines who saluted the czar by presenting arms. the carriage was now on one of the banks of the catharine canal, an iron railing to the right, a row of buildings to the left. an employe of a horse-car company, who was levelling off a ridge of caked snow at this moment, hastily rested his crowbar against the iron railing and bared his head. some distance in front of him a young man in a dark overcoat, and with a white package in his hand, was trudging along the canal side of the street. he was passed and left in the rear by a man in the uniform of a hospital nurse of the guards. on the sidewalk to the left of the czar, another man, also in military uniform, was moving rapidly along, while from the opposite direction, in the middle of the snow-covered street, came a boy pulling a little sled with a basket of meat on it. sophia was looking on from the other side of the canal. colonel dvorzhitzky (the chief of police) was scanning the sidewalk to the left, when a terrific crash went up from under the czar's carriage. it was as if a mass of deafening sound had lain dormant there, in the form of a vast closed fan, and the fan had suddenly flown open. the colonel's horses reared violently, hurling him over the shoulder of his coachman. while he was surveying the left side of the street, the employe of the tramway company and several military people, coming up alongside the railing, had seen the young man in the dark overcoat lift his white package and throw it under the czar's carriage. the carriage came to a sudden halt amid a cloud of smoke and snow dust. a second or two passed before any of them could realise what it all meant. the young man turned about and broke into a run. "catch him! hold him!" the pedestrians shrieked frantically, dashing after the running man. he had reached a point some thirty feet back of the imperial carriage when he was hemmed in. one of the cossacks and the boy lay in the snow shrieking. one of the rear corners of the carriage was badly shattered. the rest of it was uninjured, but during the first minute or two its doors remained closed, so that the bystanders could not tell whether the czar was hurt or not. then the chief of police rushed up to the vehicle and flung the right door open. the czar was unhurt, but ghastly pale. he sat bending slightly forward, his feet on the bearskin covering the floor, a gilt ash receiver on a shelf in front of him. "the guilty man has been caught, your imperial majesty!" colonel dvorzhitzky burst out. "has he?" the emperor asked, in intense agitation. "he has, your imperial majesty. they are holding him. may i offer you to finish the journey in my sleigh?" "yes, but i first want to see the prisoner." pervaded by the conviction that another plot on his life had failed, the czar stepped out of the carriage, and accompanied by a group of officers, some from his escort and others from among the passers-by, he crossed over to the sidewalk that ran along the canal railing, erect and majestic as usual, but extremely pale with excitement, and then turning to the right he walked toward where a group of uniformed men were holding a fair-complexioned beardless young fellow against the railing. people, mostly in military uniforms, came running from every direction. somebody asked: "how is the emperor?" "thank god," answered the czar, "i have escaped, but----" and he pointed at the wounded cossack and boy. "it may be too soon to thank god," said the prisoner. "is this the man who did it?" the czar asked, advancing toward him. "who are you?" "my name is glazoff." the czar turned back. he had made a few steps, when a man who stood no more than three feet from him raised a white object high over his head and dashed it to the ground, between the emperor and himself. there was another explosion, still more violent and deafening than the first. the air was a turmoil of smoke, snow-dust and shreds of uniforms, concealing everything else from view. sophia hurried away. more than half a minute later, when the chaos had partly cleared away, the czar was seen in a sitting posture on the snow-covered sidewalk, leaning against the railing, his large oval head bare, his cape-cloak gone. he was breathing hard. his face was in blood, the flesh of his bared legs lacerated, the blood gushing from them over the snow. a heap of singed, smoking tatters nearby was all that had been left of his cloak. with cries of horror and of overpowering pity the bystanders rushed forward. among them was a man with a bomb under his coat like the two which had just exploded. he was one of the four men who had shifted their posts when they saw sophia raising her handkerchief to her nose. had the second bomb failed to do its bloody work, this terrorist would have thrown his missile when the imperial carriage came by his corner. as he beheld the czar on the ground and bleeding, however, he instinctively flung himself forward to offer help to the suffering man. at sight of the prostrated czar the men who held the author of the first explosion, began to shower blows on him. "don't," he begged them, shielding his head and face. "i meant the good of the people." two yards from the czar lay bleeding the unconscious figure of a civilian. further away were several other prostrated men, in all sorts of uniforms. "help!" the czar uttered in a faint voice. somebody handed him a handkerchief, which he put to his face, muttering "cold, cold." several of the marines who had saluted him a few minutes ago and two guardsmen placed him on colonel dvorzhitzky's sleigh. when grand duke michaïl appeared on the scene he found his brother rapidly sinking. "sasha,[c] do you hear me?" he asked him, with tears in his eyes. [c] diminutive of alexander. the bystanders, who had never before heard their czar addressed in the form of affectionate familiarity, were thrilled with a feeling of heart-tearing pity and of the most fervent devotion. most of them had sobs in their throats. "yes," the czar answered faintly. "how do you feel, sasha?" "to the palace--quick," the czar whispered. and upon hearing somebody's suggestion that he be taken to the nearest house for immediate relief, he uttered: "bear me to the palace--there--die----." he reclined between two cossacks, with a gendarme officer facing him and supporting his legs. this is the way he returned home. pedestrians met him with gestures of horrified perplexity and acute commiseration now. the crowd at one corner of catharine canal was a babel of excitement and violence. in their mad rush for the man who threw the second bomb, the bystanders were accusing each other, grabbing at each other, quarrelling, fighting. as nihilists were for the most part people of education, every man who looked college-bred was in danger of his life. among those who were beaten to a pulp in this wild mêlée were two political spies who had the appearance of university students. a shout went up that the thrower of the fatal bomb had vaulted over the fence of the michaïl gardens nearby, and then the mob broke down part of that fence, and ruined the gardens in a wild but vain search for the terrorist. people were seized and hustled off to the station houses by the hundred. the heir apparent, a fair-complexioned hercules, was on his way to the winter palace surrounded by a strong escort of mounted men. it was the first time he had appeared in the streets so accompanied. the cluster of horsemen and sleighs that had left the palace three hours before never returned; this one was coming in its place; but the effect of grim detachment, of fierce challenge was the same. * * * * * an hour had elapsed. the flag over the winter palace which denotes imperial presence was put at half-mast. church bells were tolling the death of alexander ii. and the accession of alexander iii. the new czar was by his father's bedside. he was even more powerfully built than he, but he lacked his grace and the light of his intelligent eyes--a physical giant with a look of obtuse honesty on a fair, bearded round face. an english diplomatist who understood him well has said that "he had a mind not only commonplace, but incapable of receiving new ideas." when he saw his father breathe his last, he exclaimed: "this is what we have come to!"--a celebrated ejaculation which an archbishop uttered at the funeral of peter the great in . this was his first utterance as emperor of russia. its puerile lack of originality was characteristic of the man. princess dolgoruki fainted, and she had no sooner been brought to than the packing of her trunks was ordered by the sons of her dead husband. the palace was surrounded by a strong cordon of cossacks. palace square was thronged, the neighbouring streets were tremulous with subdued excitement. some people were sincerely overcome with grief and horror; others were struggling to conceal their exultation. there were such as wept and cursed the nihilists by way of displaying their own loyalty, and there were such as burst into tears from the sheer solemnity and nervousness of the moment. but the great predominating feeling that pervaded these crowds, eclipsing every other sentiment or thought, was curiosity. "what is going to happen next?"--this was the question that was uppermost in the minds of these people in their present fever of excitement. had a republic been proclaimed with the executive committee of the nihilists as a provisional government, they would have sworn their allegiance to the bomb-throwers as readily as they did, on the morrow, to the son of the assassinated emperor. had the terrorists succeeded, the same bearded bishops who blessed and sounded the praises of the new czar would have blessed and sounded the praises of those who had killed his father. * * * * * pavel was in a suburb of the capital, when he first heard the melancholy tolling of the church bells. "what's the matter?" he asked an elderly man who was walking with a sleigh-load of bricks, the reins in his hands. "they say our little father, the czar, has been killed," the other answered, making the sign of the cross with his free hand. "people say the czarowitz is going to cut down the term of military service. is it true, sir?" "what is true?" pavel asked. he was literally dazed with excitement. "a son of mine is in the army, sir," the other explained reverently. "so i wonder if the new czar will be easier on the soldiers, sir." pavel hailed the first hackman he came across. he was burning to know the details of the assassination and to tell clara that the first man he accosted on the great news of the hour had shown indifference to the death of the monarch. when his sleigh reached the neva prospect, he saw the new czar, surrounded by a cohort of officers in dazzling uniform, passing along the thoroughfare. the crowds were greeting him with wild cheers. they cheered their own emotions at sight of the man whose father had come to so tragic a death, and they cheered their own servility to the master of the situation. these shouts filled pavel with a mixed sense of defeat and triumph. the gloomier feeling predominated. the world looked as usual. it did not look as if this cheering, servile, stolid mob would ever rise against anything. * * * * * that evening placards bearing the name of the executive committee appeared on the walls of public buildings. they announced the death of alexander ii. and admonished his successor to adopt a liberal policy. chapter xxxiii. the revelation. every resident in the capital was being scanned and spied after, and every house-porter was kept peeking and seeking and reporting at the police station of his precinct. the railway stations were teeming with spies and a system was introduced by which every hack-driver was expected to spy on his fare. the effect of it all was that the great majority of st. petersburg's population was in a state of unspeakable terror. curiosity, pity and everything else had given way to a nervous feeling of self-preservation. people walked through the streets hastily. the sight of a policeman was enough to send a twinge of fright into the heart of the most loyal government clerk; everybody was afraid of everybody else. one avoided to utter such words as "czar," "police," "government." as to the nihilists, one literally dreaded to think of them. people who had never had a liberal thought in their brain were tremulous with distrust of their own souls. and through all this all-pervading panic clara was busy posting revolutionary proclamations in the streets, distributing tracts among students and working-people, keeping "business" appointments with her "illegal" friends. pavel, in his turn, had all he could do to attend to the needs of some of the out-of-town "circles." the revolutionists throughout the country were clamouring for information, for proclamations, for speakers; so that the seventy or eighty men and women who formed the innermost organisation were as feverishly busy in their way as the police and the gendarmes were in theirs. the authorities were ransacking the capital for nihilists in general and for the cheesemonger couple in particular, but during the first few hours following the two explosions their eagerness was centered on the man who had thrown the fatal bomb. the search for that man soon proved superfluous, however. the civilian who was picked up unconscious near where the czar was stricken down had been taken to a hospital. late in the evening he had a brief interval of consciousness. "who are you?" an officer then asked him. "i don't know," he answered. he had a relapse from which he never awoke. the front of his body, particularly the inner side of one arm, was covered with ghastly wounds, from which experts inferred that at the time of the explosion he could not have stood more than three feet from the czar. this, according to some eye-witnesses of the catastrophe, was the distance between the deceased monarch and the man who threw the second bomb. after two days of searching and sniffing the police discovered the unknown man's lodging, where they found some revolutionary literature and other evidence that pointed to him as the author of the fatal explosion. he had stood so close to the czar that it was impossible for him to make a target of his victim without making one of himself. his real name still remained unknown. as to the first bomb-thrower, he proved to be a college student named rysakoff. in the hands of the gendarme officers and the procureur he broke down and told all he knew; but it appeared that he knew very little. he had been one of a number of volunteers who offered to attack the emperor under the command of zachar. when zachar's arrest became known to the executive committee things had begun to be rushed. sophia perovskaya, the ex-governor's daughter, had taken his place, and it was decided to make the assault without delay. zachar had been arrested on friday evening. as it was known to sophia that the czar would visit the riding schools on the next sunday, the attempt was fixed for that occasion. the terrorists immediately connected with the plot held their gatherings at a "conspiracy lodgings" kept by a man and woman rysakoff did not know. there the volunteers met sophia and one of the inventors of the self-igniting shell (the man with the priestly face whom we saw at the meeting of the executive committee at which clara's wedding was to be celebrated). on sunday morning (the day of the assassination) the volunteers--three college men and an artisan--called at the same gathering place. they found two finished bombs there and soon sophia arrived with two more. where the bomb factory was rysakoff did not know. sophia explained that it took a whole night to make the four portable machines and that more than four volunteers could not be accommodated. she then drew a rough map of the czar's expected route, with four dots for the posts of the four bomb-throwers. there were two sets of dots on the diagram. in case the czar failed to include little garden street in his route, the terrorists were to shift their positions to catharine canal and two neighbouring streets. that afternoon, as rysakoff stood on his post near little garden street, sophia passed by him, her handkerchief to her nose (the same sort of signal which the same young woman had given a year and a half before to the man who fired the mine which blew up the imperial train near moscow). that meant that the czar was not passing through little garden street. accordingly, rysakoff hastened over to catherine canal. there, after he had thrown the bomb and while the czar was speaking to him, he saw the three other volunteers each on his post. the second bomb-thrower was known to rysakoff under the name of "the kitten." his real name he did not know. he also gave the police the address of the "conspiracy lodgings," which were located on the sixth floor of a house on waggon street, and an hour or two later, at midnight, two days after the killing of the czar, the procureur, accompanied by gendarmes and police, knocked at one of the doors of that apartment. "who is there?" a masculine voice asked from within. "police and the procureur." "what do you want?" "open the door at once or we'll break it down." while they were raining blows on the door, a succession of pistol shots was heard within. another door flew open, at the end of the corridor, and a woman made her appearance. "we surrender," she said. "pray send for a doctor. look out, don't pass through this door. there are explosives there." inside they found the fresh corpse of a man lying in a pool of blood. it was the gay poet; and the woman was hessia helfman, the dark little jewess with the frizzled hair who was married to purring cat. it was she and the man now lying dead from his own pistol shots who had been in charge of this "conspiracy lodgings." among the things found in the apartment were the two bombs which had been brought back from the scene of the assassination; the rough map made by sophia on the morning before the attack and a large quantity of revolutionary literature. the former "conspiracy lodgings" were now a police trap, and on the very next morning it caught a big burly man whom rysakoff identified as timothy michailoff, the one mechanic among the four men who had been armed with bombs on the fatal morning. michailoff's memorandum book furnished the police some important addresses, but the great surprise of that eventful week did not come until the following day, march th, and when it did it was anything but a source of self-congratulation to the authorities. about ten o'clock in the morning of that day the porters of the house on little garden street where the koboseffs kept their shop reported to the roundsman that the cheese dealer and his wife had not been home since the previous evening, and that their shop was still closed. the roundsman, who, like every member of the st. petersburg police during those days, was overworked and badly in need of rest, made no reply. an hour later the porter accosted him again: "the shop is still closed. customers have been around and there is nobody in." "oh, i have no time to bother about it." "but i think i saw something in that store, some strange looking tools," pleaded the porter. "the devil you did," the roundsman said, as much with irritation as with amazement. the statement was reported to the captain, who communicated it to his superiors, until finally an order was obtained to raid the shop. a search was made, more thorough than the first, and with quite different results. the lounge in the living room upon which general mrovinsky had sat while speaking to koboseff was found to contain a heap of earth, and when the planks under the window of the middle room were removed--the very ones which general mrovinsky had made a feeble attempt to detach in the presence of koboseff and the police--a large yawning hole presented itself to view. when this part of the wall had been torn down, the aperture proved to be the mouth of a subterranean passage enclosed in wood. seven feet from the shop began a charge of a hundred pounds of dynamite with an electric battery near by and wires running along the gallery back to the middle room. everything was in complete readiness. all that was necessary to explode the mine was to connect the wires. as was learned subsequently, this mine had been the leading feature of the plot, the bombs having been added in case the czar left little garden street out of his route or the mine failed of its deadly purpose for some other reason. of the existence of such a mine rysakoff had not the remotest idea until he heard of it at the trial. * * * * * on the friday afternoon immediately preceding the arrest of jeliaboff (zachar) the porter of the house where he and sophia were registered as brother and sister met them at the gate as they were leaving the house together; and later, at o'clock in the evening, he saw sophia return alone. the next morning, after jeliaboff had spent his first night in prison, the police, in their effort to discover his residence, ordered every porter in the city to ascertain who of his tenants had been absent from home that night. when the porter rang sophia's bell that morning there was no response. he reported it at the police station where he was told to try again. at o'clock he saw sophia. "i have received some blanks from the police," he said. "every tenant must state his occupation and place of business." "my brother is working now," sophia answered. "when he comes home i'll tell him about it." two hours later she went out again, and in order to avoid passing the porter at the gate, she gained the street through a little dry goods shop that had a rear door into that yard, buying something for a pretext. she came back, by way of the same dry goods shop, at o'clock in the evening and that was the last that was ever seen of her in that neighbourhood. the next morning the porter reported the disappearance of the couple. when the police searched the deserted apartment they found a number of revolutionary publications, several tin boxes like those which formed the shells of the two exploding machines seized at the "conspiracy house" kept by hessia and the "gay poet," and several cheeses bearing the same trade-mark as those in koboseff's shop. meanwhile jeliaboff had heard the solemn tolling of the bells in his prison cell. in the excitement of the hour a gendarme on duty in the prison corridor answered his questions through the peep-hole, in violation of regulations. jeliaboff at once sent word to the procureur, assuming responsibility for the entire plot, as an agent of the executive committee. sophia knew through a certain high official all that transpired between jeliaboff and the procureur. she knew that the authorities were turning the capital inside out in their search for the woman who had lived with jeliaboff as his sister and for the koboseff couple, yet in spite of all the pressure the nihilists brought to bear on her, persuading her to seek temporary retirement, she, like urie and baska, remained in the heart of st. petersburg, in the very thick of her party's activity. clara saw her at a meeting during that week. "you need rest, sonia. you look tired." "do i?" sophia answered with a smile. "so do you. everybody does these days." her smile was on her lips only. her blue eyes were inscrutably grave, but clara saw a blend of lofty exaltation and corroding anguish in them. she knew how dear jeliaboff was to her. she had been craving to speak to her of him, of hessia and of the "gay poet," who had committed suicide at the time of hessia's arrest; but at this moment it was sophia herself who filled her mind. "sonia!" clara said, huskily. "what is it, child?" the other asked, kindly. for an answer clara looked her in the face, smiling shame-facedly. she did feel like an infant in her presence, although sophia, with her small stature and fresh boyish face, looked the younger of the two. she did not know herself what she wanted to say. she was burning to cover her with kisses and to break into sobs on her breast, but sophia was graver and more taciturn than usual to-day, so she held herself in check. her passion for tears was subdued. she sat by sophia's side absorbed in her presence without looking her in the face, tingling with something like the feeling of people in a graveyard, in a moment of solemn ecstasy. clara came away burdened with unvoiced emotion. she said to herself that when she saw pavel she would find relief in telling him how she adored sophia and how thirsty her heart was because she had not unbosomed herself of these feelings to her; but when she and pavel were alone she said nothing. * * * * * the porters of the house from which sophia had vanished were asked at the police station whether they would be able to single her out in a street crowd. they had to admit that they were not sure whether they would. she had lived under their eye for eight months, but she had always managed to pass through the gate, where they were usually on duty, so as to leave no clear impression of her features on their minds. finally, on the sixth day, it was discovered that the proprietress of the little dry goods store had a clear recollection of her face. this woman, accompanied by a police officer, then spent hours driving about through the busiest streets, until, with a shout of mixed joy and fright, she pointed out sophia in a public sleigh. it was not many days before kibalchich, the man with the christlike face, who was one of the inventors and makers of the four bombs, and another revolutionist were arrested in a café, through an address found in timothy michailoff's note-book. * * * * * the trial of the six regicides so far captured, jeliaboff, sophia, kibalchich, hessia, rysakoff, and timothy michailoff, was begun by a special court of the governing senate for political cases, on april . that purring cat and the man with the tartarian face, both of whom were in prison now, had taken part in the digging of the koboseff mine, was still unknown to the police. nor had the authorities as yet been informed of the fact that another "political" in their hands--the undersized man who had played the part of shop-boy to the cheese-dealer--had had something to do with the same conspiracy. complete reports of the trial appeared in the newspapers, and the testimony and speeches of the accused were read and read again. jeliaboff ("zachar") declined a lawyer, taking his defence in his own hands. his legal battles with the presiding judge, his resource, his tact and his eloquence, made him the central figure of the proceedings. he began by challenging the court's jurisdiction in the case. "this court represents the crown, one of the two parties concerned," he said, "and i submit that in a contention between the government and the revolutionary party there could be only one judge--the people; the people either by means of a popular vote, or through its rightful representatives in parliament assembled, or, at least, a jury representing public conscience." declarations of this kind, kibalchich's narrative as to how the blind brutality of the government had transformed peaceful social workers into terrorists, and the effect of simple, dignified sincerity which marked the conduct of all the prisoners produced such a profound impression, that at the time of the next important political trial scarcely any reports were allowed to be published. the six regicides were sentenced to death, the execution of hessia helfman, who was about to become a mother, being postponed and later commuted. when the parents of kolotkevich (purring cat) asked to be allowed to bring up their son's child, the request was refused on the ground that it was the child of two regicides and should be brought up under special care. the result of this special care was that the child, like its pardoned mother, soon died. sophia and the four condemned men died on the gallows, on a public square. they were taken to their death on two "shame waggons," dressed in convict clothes, each with a board inscribed with the words "criminal of state" across his or her breast. the procession was accompanied by a force of military large enough to conquer a country like belgium. sophia was the first woman executed on russian soil since . chapter xxxiv. the czar takes courage. alexander iii. and his court moved to the long-deserted imperial palace at gatchina, a village english miles from st. petersburg. the young czar and his entourage were in a state of nervous tension. economically, the country was in the throes of hard times. districts rich in the potentialities of industry and prosperity were in the grip of famine. driven by bad crops and extortionate taxes, thousands of village families were abandoning their homes to go begging. cities were crowded with such mendicants from surrounding villages, and the industrial centres were full of workmen out of employment. politically, a demoralising feeling of suspense hung over the empire. the masses had seen one czar--the ward of a vigilant guardian angel--prostrated. the crown's prestige was shaken, and the czar's seeking refuge in a secluded village did anything but retrieve it. the number of _lèse majesté_ cases had suddenly grown so large that by a special imperial ukase these offences were transferred from the publicity of the courts to the obscure depths of "justice by administrative order." from several places came reports of riots against the police, while the universities manifested their hostility to the throne quite openly. subscription lists for a monument to the assassinated czar were torn to pieces and those who circulated them were publicly hissed and insulted. the portents of turbulence were in the air. loris-melikoff submitted to the new czar the "constitution" of which alexander ii. had approved an hour before his violent death. alexander iii. read it and wrote on the margin of the paper: "very well conceived"; and two days later, after the project had been carried at a cabinet meeting by a vote of eight against five, the czar, while conversing with his brother, grand duke vladimir, on the measure to be introduced, said, joyfully: "i feel as though a mountain had rolled off my shoulders." but the conservative party at court had the support of a new power behind the throne. m. pobiedonostzeff, formerly tutor of the present czar and now his favourite adviser, was a man of much stronger purpose than loris-melikoff. he fought against the innovation tooth and nail, and the publication of it in the _official messenger_ was postponed from day to day. the leader of the panslavists was invited from moscow; every conservative influence was brought to bear upon a czar who was absolutely incapable of forming his own opinion. all this was done in the strictest secrecy from loris-melikoff. * * * * * meanwhile, during easter week, seven days after the approval of the "constitution" by a majority of the ministers and twelve days subsequent to the execution of the regicides, a furious anti-jewish riot broke out in elisavetgrad, a prosperous city in the south. a frenzied drink-crazed mob had possession of the town during two days, demolishing and pillaging hundreds of houses and shops, covering whole streets with debris and reducing thousands of people to beggary. and neighbouring towns and villages followed the example of the larger city. the czar took alarm. it looked like the prelude to a popular upheaval. "it's only an anti-semitic disturbance, your imperial majesty," pobiedonostzeff reassured him. "there was one like that ten years ago, in odessa." the elisavetgrad outbreak was, indeed, a purely local affair, but it happened at a time that was highly favourable to occurrences of that nature. originally organised by some high-born profligates, victims of a gang of jewish usurers, it had nothing to do with the general situation save in so far as there was in the hungry masses a blind disposition to attack somebody; a disposition coupled with a feeling that the usual ties of law and order had been loosened. when, in addition, the target of assault happened to be the stepchild in russia's family of peoples, the one forever kicked and cuffed by the government itself, the rioters' sense of security was complete. moreover, among the victims of jewish usurers were hundreds of army officers and civil officials who lived beyond their means, and from these came a direct hint at impunity. the attack had been carefully planned, but the imbruted mob acted on its own logic, with the result that thousands of artisans, labourers, poor tradesmen, teachers, rabbis, dreamers, were plundered and ill-treated while the handful of usurers escaped. the promise of impunity was fulfilled. neighbouring towns and villages followed the example of elisavetgrad, and ten days later, may - , similar atrocities, but with a far greater display of fury and bestiality, occurred in kieff, where a dozen murders and an enormous list of wounded and of outraged women was added to the work of devastation and plunder. the kieff authorities encouraged all this in a thousand ways, while individual officers and men took part in the pandemonium of havoc and rape. "easy, boys," said the governor of the province, with an amused smile, as he drove past the busy rioters at the head of a procession of fashionable spectators. loris-melikoff was scarcely to be held responsible for these occurrences. he had his own cares to worry him. the reins were fast slipping out of his hands. indeed, the attitude of governors, chiefs of police, military officers, toward the spreading campaign against the jews was a matter of instinct. the "spirit of the moment," as it had become customary to denote the epidemic of anti-jewish feeling in official circles, gleamed forth clear and unequivocal, and local authorities acted upon it on their own hook. the real meaning of this "spirit of the moment" lay in the idea that if there was a state of general unrest threatening the safety of the throne, it was spending itself on anti-semitic ferocity; that if a storm-cloud was gathering over the crown, an electric rod had been found in the chosen people. the czar took courage. two days after the kieff riot he promulgated a manifesto, framed by pobiedonostzeff, and proclaiming the continuance of unqualified iron-handed absolutism. the "constitution" went into the archives. loris-melikoff's public career had come to a close. general ignatyeff, a corrupt time-server, was appointed minister of the interior and a policy of restriction and repression was adopted that brought back the days of nicholas i. ignatyeff encouraged the "spirit of the moment" with all the means at his command. one of the very first things he did was to order the expulsion of thousands of jews from kieff. at the trial of some of the rioters the state attorney unceremoniously acted as advocate for the defendants. the effect of all this upon the public mind was a foregone conclusion. the general inference was that anti-jewish riots met with the government's approval. the outrages passed from kieff to neighbouring cities; from there to odessa; from odessa to other sections of the south. they were spreading throughout the region in which miroslav is located with the continuity of a regular crusade and with a uniformity of detail that was eloquent of a common guiding force. it was a new phase of white terrorism. * * * * * to pavel the crusade against clara's race was a source of mixed encouragement and anxiety. "hurrah, old fellow," he said to godfather one morning. "it does look as though the russian people could kick, doesn't it?" "yes, if they can attack jewish usurers, i don't see why they could not turn upon the government some day." "and, while they are at it, upon the land-plundering nobility, upon fellows like you and me, eh?" he poked urie in the ribs gleefully. in his conversations with clara, however, the subject was never broached, and this gave him a sense of guilt and uneasiness. he could not help being aware that instead of usurers the chief target of attack in every riot, without a single exception, were jewish artisans, labourers, teachers and the poorest tradesmen. and this, so far as clara was concerned, meant that the common people of pavel's race, for whose sake she was facing the solitary cell and the gallows, that these christian people were brutally assaulting and pillaging, reducing to beggary and murdering poor honest, innocent people of her own blood, jews like her father, mother, sister, like herself. but this bare fact did not fit in with nihilist theory. that golden halo which had been painted about the common christian people by the ecstasies of the anti-serfdom movement of twenty years ago had not yet faded. the gentile masses were still deified by the nihilists. whatever the peasant or workman of slavic blood did was still sacred,--an instinctive step in the direction of liberty and universal happiness. the russian masses were rioting; could there be a better indication of a revolutionary awakening? and if the victims of these riots happened to be jews, then the jews were evidently enemies of the people. that the crusade was part and parcel of the "white terror" of the throne had not yet dawned upon the revolutionists. as to clara, she was so completely abandoned to her grief over the death of sophia and the four men that so far the riots (no unheard-of thing in the history of the jews by any means) had made but a feeble appeal to her imagination. centuries seemed to divide her from her race and her past. the outbreaks seemed to be taking place in some strange, distant country. the execution of the five regicides had been described quite fully in the _official messenger_ and the account had been copied in all other newspapers. clara kept the issue of the _voice_ containing the report in a book, and although she knew its salient passages by heart, she often consulted the paper, now for this paragraph, now for that. there was a sacred mystery in the letters in which the description was printed. "the five prisoners approached the priests almost at the same moment and kissed the cross; after which they were taken by the hangmen each to his or her rope." clara beheld the ropes dangling and sophia placed under one of them, but her aching heart coveted more vividness. her imagination was making desperate efforts to reproduce the scene with the tangibility of life. each time she read how the hangman, dressed in a red shirt, slipped the noose about sophia's neck amid the roll of drums, and how he wrenched the stool from under her feet, so that she plunged with a jerk, and how the next instant her body hung motionless in the air, each time clara read this she was smitten with an overpowering pang of pity and of helpless, aimless, heart-tearing affection. sometimes she would fancy sophia and her four comrades rescued from the hangman's hands a second before their execution, and carried triumphantly through the streets by an army of victorious revolutionists, but the next moment it would come back to her that this had not been the case, and then the re-awakening to reality was even more painful than the original shock. if a rescuing force were now ready to attack the hangman and the thousand-bayoneted guard around him, it would be too late. sophia was dead, irretrievably dead; there was nobody to rescue. and clara's heart sank in despair. at such moments she would seek relief in those passages of the report where the calmness of the condemned revolutionists was depicted. "jeliaboff whispered to his priest, fervently kissed the cross, shook his hair and smiled. fortitude did not forsake jeliaboff, sophia and particularly kibalchich (the man with the face of christ) to the very moment of donning the white-hooded death-gown"--these passages gave clara thrills of religious bliss. pavel often talked to her about the execution, raved, cursed the government; but clara usually remained gloomily taciturn. the wound in her soul was something too sacred to be talked about. words seemed to her like sacrilege. their hearts understood each other well enough, why, then, allow language to intrude upon their speechless communion? some of his effusions and outbursts jarred on her. on the other hand, her silences made him restless. "you'll go insane if you keep this up," he once said, irascibly. "i don't care if i do," she answered. "don't nag me, pashenka, pray." "but the thing is becoming an _idée fixe_ in your mind, upon my word it is. can't you try and get back to your senses? what is death after all? absolute freedom from suffering, that's all. there is nothing to go crazy over anyhow. there is nothing but a dear, a glorious, a beautiful memory of them, and that will live as long as there is such a thing as history in the world." she made no reply. she tried to picture sophia free from suffering, but this only sharpened her pain. sophia not existing? the formula was even more terrible than death. in reality, however, her atheism was powerless to obliterate her visions. sophia existed somewhere, only she was solemnly remote, as though estranged from her. clara could have almost cried to her, imploring for recognition. * * * * * but this mood of hers could not last forever. sooner or later she would awaken to the full extent of the riots and to the fact that they were raging in the vicinity of miroslav, threatening the safety of her nearest relatives. how would she take it then? the question intruded upon pavel's peace of mind again and again. for the present, however, she was taken up with her thoughts of sophia, zachar or hessia. poor hessia! they had robbed her of her baby, the thugs, even as they had that woman of the "gay bard's" poem. "to lead a married life under conditions such as ours is pure madness," she said to herself. one afternoon, as she and her lover sat on the lounge, embracing and kissing deliriously, she suddenly sprang to her feet, her cheeks burning, kissed pavel on his forehead and crossed over to the window. he shrugged his shoulders resentfully. chapter xxxv. a hunted people. it was friday night at the old synagogue, but the cheery voices of sabbath eve were not there. the air of having cast one's cares aside was missing. instead of a light-hearted turmoil of melody there was a hushed murmur that betrayed suspense and timidity. ever and anon some worshipper would break off his hymn and strain his ears for a fancied sound outside. the half hour spent away from home seemed many hours. very few people were present and none of these wore their sabbath clothes. most of the other synagogues were closed altogether. rabbi rachmiel, clara's father, and several others were abandoned to an ecstasy of devotion, but their subdued tones had in them the fervent plea of atonement day, the tearful plea for an enrolment in the book of life rather than the joyous solemnity that proclaims the advent of the higher soul. the illumination in honour of sabbath the bride was a sorry spectacle. the jumble of brass chandeliers hung unburnished and most of them were empty. the synagogue had a troubled, a cowed look. it dared not shine brightly, nor burst into song merrily lest it should irritate the gentiles. here and there a man sat at his prayer book weeping quietly. members of the congregation who had not been on speaking terms for years had made peace, as a matter of course. the spreading frenzy of the gentile population impressed them as an impersonal, elemental force. they were clinging to each other with the taciturnity of ship-passengers when the vessel shudders in the grip of danger. and not only did they nestle to each other, but the entire present generation felt drawn to all the former generations of their hunted race. the terrors of the inquisition, the massacres, the exiles, the humiliations, of which one usually thought as something belonging to the province of books exclusively, had suddenly become realities. the bloody spot, the site of the present synagogue, where jews had been slain more than two centuries ago, gleamed redder than ever in every mind. it was both terrifying and a spiritual relief to beseech the souls of those eight hundred martyrs to pray for their panic-stricken descendants. the russian jews of felt themselves a living continuation of the entire tearful history of their people. when the service was over, at last, the usual "good sabbath! good sabbath!" always so full of festivity, was uttered in lugubrious whispers, which really meant: "may god take pity upon us." nor was there a rush for the door. quick, noisy movements were carefully avoided in these days. some of the worshippers had slowly filed out, when there was a stir, and the crowd scrambled back with terrified faces. "two gentiles are coming, an army officer and a man in civilian clothes," said some of those who came running back. the look of terror gave way to one of eager curiosity. the appearance of two refined gentiles was not the way an anti-jewish riot was usually ushered in. the "two gentiles" turned out to be dr. lipnitzky and vladimir vigdoroff, the one in his military uniform, and the other in a summer suit of rough duck. when they were recognised they were greeted with looks of affection and expectancy. the pious old-fashioned people who had hitherto regarded dr. lipnitzky despairingly as more gentile than jew, now thought of him tenderly as an advocate of israel in the enemy's camp. "don't be so scared," the little doctor said with friendly acerbity, as he paused in the centre of the synagogue. "we are jews like yourselves--the same kind of jews all of us. we were passing by, so we thought we would look in. we saw the synagogue was almost dark, though it is still so early. the lights could not yet have gone out. it's enough to break one's heart." he was choking with embarrassment and emotion and his words produced a profound effect. people of his class were not in the habit of attending divine service. the doctor's military uniform, in fact, had never been seen in a synagogue before. but the great point was that instead of russian or germanised yiddish which he habitually affected with uneducated jews he was now speaking in the plain, unembellished vernacular of the ghetto. his listeners knew that he was the son of a poor illiterate brick-maker, a plain "yiddish jew" like themselves, yet they could scarcely trust their ears. they eyed his shoulder-straps and sword-hilt, and it seemed incredible that the man who wore these things was the man who was speaking this fluent, robust yiddish. his halo of inaccessible superiority had suddenly faded away. everybody warmed to him. "we'll be here to-morrow, we'll attend the service. and next saturday, too. every saturday. we're jews." he could not go on. some of his listeners had tears in their eyes. vladimir was biting his lips nervously. "still, it is not to see you cry that we have come to you," the doctor resumed: but he was interrupted by clara's father, who, advancing toward him with glaring eyes, said, in a voice shrill with rage: "now that jewish blood is flowing in rivers you people come to do penance! it is too late. it is the sins of men like yourselves that have brought this punishment upon us. a gentile jew is even worse than a born gentile." he put up his fists to his temples and gasped: "better become christians! better become christians!" the crowd had listened with bated breath, but at last somebody said: "oh shut up!" and similar shouts burst from forty or fifty other men. "we are all jews, all brethren." "we'll settle old scores some other time." "a good heart is as good as piety." "yes, but why don't you give the doctor a chance to speak?" vladimir stepped up to his uncle and pleaded with him. "who is he?" said dr. lipnitzky with a smile. "is he crazy?" and flying into a passion, he was about to address rabbi rachmiel, but held himself in check. a feeble old man of eighty with a very white beard was arguing from the talmud with clara's father. "'the sinner who returns to god may stand upon ground upon which the righteous are not allowed to stand,'" he quoted. "again, 'through penance even one's sins are turned to good deeds.'" when rabbi rachmiel tried to reply, he was shouted down by the crowd. they were yelling and gesticulating at him, when somebody mounted a bench and fell to swishing his arms violently. "hush!" he said in a ferocious whisper. "do you want to attract a mob?" his words had an immediate effect, and then rabbi rachmiel said to his nephew, in much milder but deeply grieved accents: "do you know what the talmud says? 'as long as you shall do the will of god no strange people shall domineer over you, but if you don't do the will of god, god will hand you over to a low people, and not merely to a low people, but to the beasts of a low people.'" "all right, rabbi. this is not the time for argument," the doctor said, kindly. "i have some important information for you all, for all of us. there won't be any rioting in this town. you may be sure of it. that's what my young friend and i have dropped in to tell you. i have seen the governor"--his listeners pressed eagerly forward--"there will be plenty of protection. the main point is that you should not tempt the gentiles to start a riot by showing them that you dread one. don't hide, nor keep your shops closed, as that would only whet one's appetite for mischief. do you understand what i say to you? this is the governor's opinion and mine too. everybody's." his auditors nodded vigorous and beaming assent. "he particularly warns the jews not to undertake anything in the way of self-defence. that would only arouse ill-feeling. besides, it's against the law. it could not be tolerated. do you understand what i am saying or do you not? every precaution has been taken and there is really no danger. do you understand? there is no danger, and if you go about your business and make no fuss it will be all right. i have spoken to several officers of my regiment, too. of course, you wouldn't have to look hard to find a jew-hater among them, but they spoke in a friendly way and some of them are really good-natured fellows. they assured me that if the troops were called out they would protect our people with all their hearts." every man in the group looked like a prisoner when the jury announces an acquittal. some, in a flutter of joy, hastened to carry the news to their wives and children. the majority hung about the uniformed man, as if ready to stay all night in his salutary presence, while one man even ventured to say quite familiarly: "may you live long for this, doctor. why, you have put new souls into us." whereupon he was told by another man, through clenched teeth, that it was just like him to push himself forward. each man had his own tale of woe to tell, his own questions to ask. one man, whose appearance and manner indicated that he was a tin-smith, had a son at the gymnasium and a gentile neighbour whose wife became green with envy as often as she saw the jewish boy in his handsome uniform. she was much better off than the tin-smith yet her children were receiving no education. "but why should you pay any attention to her?" dr. lipnitzky asked. "i don't, but my wife does. you know how women are, doctor. they take everything hard. last week the gentile woman said aloud that it was impudent on the part of jews to dress their boys up in gymnasium uniforms, as if they were noblemen, and that it was time miroslav did like all god-fearing towns and started a riot against the jews. so my wife is afraid to let the boy wear the uniform, and i think she is right, too. let the eyes of that gentile woman creep out of their sockets without looking at the child's uniform. it is vacation time anyhow. but the boy, he cried all day and made a rumpus and said the school authorities would punish him if he was seen in the street without his uniform. is it true, doctor? i am only an ignorant workman. what do i know?" "yes, it is true, and tell your wife not to mind that woman," answered dr. lipnitzky, exchanging a woebegone look with vladimir. "i have some goods lying at the railroad station for me," said a little man with a puckered forehead. "it has been there about a month. 'shall i take it to the shop so that the rioters may have some more goods to pillage?' i thought to myself. would you really advise me to receive it, doctor?" dr. lipnitzky took fire. "do you want me to sign a guarantee for it?" he said. "do you want me to be responsible for the goods? you people are an awful lot." "i was merely asking your advice, doctor," the man with the puckered forehead answered, wretchedly. "you can't do much business these days, anyhow. the best gentiles won't pay. one has nothing but a book full of debts. besides, when the door flies open one's soul sinks. and when a gentile customer comes in you pray god that he may leave your shop as soon as possible. for who knows but his visit may be a put-up job and that all he wants is to pick a quarrel as a signal for a lot of other rowdies to break in?" "and the gentile sees your cowardice," the doctor cut in with an effect of continuing the man's story, "and becomes arrogant, and this is the way a riot is hatched." by degrees he resumed his superior manner and his germanised yiddish, but his tone remained warm. "arrogant!" said a tall, stooped, neatly-dressed jeweller. "you have told us of some honest officers, doctor. well, the other day an army officer came into my place with a lady. he selected a ring for her, and when i said it was forty rubles, he made no answer, but sent the lady away with the ring, and then--you should have seen him break out at me. i had put him to shame before a lady, he said. he was good for forty times forty dollars, and all the jews were a lot of cut-throats and blood-suckers; that all we were good for was to ask officers to protect us against rioters, and that my shop was made up of ill-gotten wealth anyhow. i had never seen the man before and i insisted upon being paid; but he made such a noise, i was afraid a crowd might gather. so i let him go, but i sent out my salesman after him and he found out his name. then i went before his colonel" (the jeweller named the regiment), "but what do you think the colonel said: 'he's a nice fellow. i shall never believe it of him. and if he owes you some money, he'll pay you. at a time like this you jews oughtn't to press your claims too hard.' that's what the colonel said." when a shabby cap-maker with thick bloodless lips told how he had let a rough-looking gentile leave his shop in a new cap without paying for it, the doctor flew into a passion. "why did you? why did you?" he growled, stamping his feet, just as he would when the relatives of a patient neglected to comply with his orders. "it is just like you people. i would have you flayed for this." this only encouraged the cap-maker to go into the humour of the episode. "i was poking around the market place, with a high pile of caps on either hand," he said, "when i saw a gentile with a face like a carrot covered full of warts. 'aren't you ashamed to wear such a cap?' says i. 'aren't you ashamed to spoil a handsome face like yours by that rusty, horrid old thing on your head?'" "oh, i would have you spanked," the little doctor snarled smilingly. whereupon several of the bystanders also smiled. "hold on, doctor. i spanked myself. well, the gentile was not hard to persuade, though when we got at my place he was rather hard to please. he kept me plucking caps from the ceiling until the very pole in my hand got tired of the job. at last he was suited. i thought he would ask how much. he didn't. he did say something, but that was about anti-jewish riots. 'this cap will do,' he then said, 'good-bye old man,' and made for the door. and when i rushed after him and asked for the money he turned on me and stuck the biggest fig[d] you ever saw into my face. since then when i see the good looks of a gentile spoiled by a horrid old cap i try not to take it to heart." [d] a sign of contempt and defiance consisting in the thumb being put between the next two fingers. the doctor laughed. "and you let him go without paying?" he asked. "i should say i did. i was glad he didn't ask for the change." another man confessed to having had an experience of this kind, a customer having exacted from him change from a ruble which he had never paid him. "he was a tough looking customer, and he made a rumpus, so i thought to myself, 'is this the first time i have been out of some cash? let him go hang himself.' and the scoundrel, he gave me a laugh, called me accursed jew into the bargain and went his way." "did you ask him to call again?" the cap-maker demanded, and noticing clara's father by his side, he added: "this is not the way rabbi rachmiel's wife does business, is it? she would make him pay her the dollar and the change, too." the doctor burst into laughter, the others echoing it noisily. only vladimir's face wore a look of restless gravity. it was the restlessness of a man who is trying to nerve himself up to a first public speech. his heart was full of something which he was aching to say to these people, to unburden himself of, but his courage failed him to take the word. presently a man too timid to seek information in the centre of the assembly addressed a whispered inquiry to vladimir and vladimir's answer attracted the attention of two or three bystanders. gradually a little colony branched off from the main body. he was telling them what he knew from the newspapers about the latest anti-jewish outbreaks in various towns; and speaking in a very low voice and in the simplest conversational accents, he gradually passed to what weighed on his heart. he knew yiddish very well indeed, yet he had considerable difficulty in speaking it, his chief impediment lying in his inability to render the cultured language in which he thought into primitive speech. his yiddish was full of russian and german therefore, but some of his listeners understood it all, while the rest missed but an occasional phrase. "people like myself--those who have studied at the gymnasia and universities"--he went on in a brooding, plaintive undertone, "feel the misery of it all the more keenly because we have been foolish enough to imagine ourselves russians, and to keep aloof from our own people. many of us feel like apologising to every poor suffering jew in russia, to beg his forgiveness, to implore him to take us back. we were ashamed to speak yiddish. we thought we were russians. we speak the language of the gentiles, and we love it so dearly; we have adopted their ways and customs; we love their literature; everything russian is so dear to us; why should it not be? is not this our birthplace? but the more we love it, the more we try to be like russians, the more they hate us. my uncle, rabbi rachmiel, says it is too late to do penance. well, i do feel like a man who comes to confess his sins and to do penance. it is the blood and the tears of our brothers and sisters that are calling to us to return to our people. and now we see how vain our efforts are to be russians. there was a great jew whose name was heinrich heine." (two of the men manifested their acquaintance with the name by a nod.) "he was a great writer of poetry. so he once wrote about his mother--how he had abandoned her and sought the love of other women. but he failed to find love anywhere, until ultimately he came to the conclusion that the only woman in whom he was sure of love was his own dear mother. this is the way i feel now. i scarcely ever saw the inside of a synagogue before, but now i, like the doctor, belong here. it is not a question of religion. i am not religious and cannot be. but i am a jew and we all belong together. and when a synagogue happens to stand on a site like this----" he broke off in the middle of the sentence. his allusion to the massacre of two centuries before inspired him with an appalling sense of the continuity of jewish suffering. the others stood about gazing solemnly at him, until the scholarly old man of eighty with the very white beard broke silence. he raised his veined aged little hands over vladimir's head and said in a nervous treble: "may god bless you, my son. that's all i have to say." vladimir was literally electrified by his words. "but what do they want of us?" asked a man with a blueish complexion. "you say they are good-natured. do you call it good-natured when one acts like a wild beast, bathing in the blood of innocent people?" "well, this is the gentile way of being good-natured," somebody put in, with a sneer, before vladimir had time to answer. "they have been turned into savages," vigdoroff then said. he maintained the low, mournful voice, though he now put a didactic tone into it. "they are blind, ignorant people. they are easily made a catspaw of." the man with the blueish complexion interrupted him. he spoke of gentile cruelty, of the inquisition, the crusades, massacres, and almost with tears of rage in his eyes he defied vladimir to tell him that jews were capable of any such brutalities. vladimir said no, jews were not capable of any bloodshed, and went on defending the russian people. the man with the sneer was beginning to annoy him. he was an insignificant looking fellow with very thin lips and a very thin flat blond beard. even when his face was grave it had a sneering effect. he said very little. only occasionally he would utter a word or two of which nobody else took notice. yet it was chiefly to him that vladimir was addressing himself. but the assembly was soon broken up. rabbi rachmiel's wife came in at the head of several other women who were not afraid to walk through the streets after sundown in these days. they had grown uneasy about their husbands' delay. vladimir saluted his aunt warmly. they exchanged a few words, but nothing was said of clara. an "illegal" person like her could not be mentioned in public. chapter xxxvi. a paper from the czar. a large crowd of peasants, in tall straw hats, many of them with their whips in their hands, congregated in front of the bailiff's office at zorki. it was a sultry afternoon in august. a single shirt of coarse white linen and a pair of trousers of the same material were all the clothes the men wore. the trousers were very wide and baggy but drawn tight at the bottom by means of strings, so that they dropped at the ankles blouse-fashion, and the loose-fitting shirt fell over the trousers with a similar effect. most of the shirts were embroidered in red and blue. sometimes, as a result of special rivalry among the young women, one village will affect gaudier embroidery and more of it than its neighbours. this could be seen now at one corner of the crowd where a group of peasants, all from the same place, defined itself by the flaming red on the upper part of their sleeves. there were women, too, in the crowd, the girls in wreaths of artificial flowers and all of them in ribbons and coral beads, though some of them were barefoot. a strong smell of primitive toil emanated from their bodies; primitive ideas and primitive interests looked out of their eyes. the northern moujik--the great, or "real," russian--who speaks the language of turgeneff and tolstoy, has less poetry than the little-russian, but he also has less cunning and more abandon. to be sure, the cunning of the zorki peasant is as primitive as his whole mind. very few men in the crowd now standing in front of the bailiff's office could have managed to add such two numbers as six and nineteen, or to subtract the weight of an empty pail from the weight of a pail of honey. their book-keeping consists of notches on the door-jamb, and their armour in the battle of life is a cast-iron distrustfulness. at last the bailiff made his appearance, adjusted the straps of his sword across his breast, and asked what they wanted. a tall old fellow with a drooping steel-grey moustache came out of the crowd, hat in hand, and bowed deeply, as he said: "it's like this, your nobleness. we wish to know when that paper from the czar about the jews will be read to us?" "what paper from the czar?" the bailiff asked. "what are you talking about?" he was a dry-boned man, but ruddy-faced and with very narrow almond-shaped eyes. as he now looked at the crowd through the sharp afternoon glare his eyes glistened like two tiny strips of burnished metal. "your nobleness need not be told what paper. it's about beating the jews and taking away their goods." the scene was being watched by several jews, plucky fellows who had come in the interests of their people at the risk of being the first victims of mob fury. among these was yossl, makar's father, at once the most intellectual and strongest looking man in the delegation. in the meantime the other jews, stupefied and sick with fear, had closed their shops and dwellings and were hiding in cellars and in garrets, in the ruins of an old church and in the woods. two women gave birth to stillborn children during the commotion, one of these at the bedside of her little boy who was too sick to be moved. "you are a fool," the bailiff said to the spokesman, with a smile, as he raised his narrow eyes in quest of some gentile with whom he might share the fun. "you are a lot of fools. better go home. there is no such paper in the world. whoever told you there was?" "why, everybody says so. in most places they finished the job long ago. only we are a lot of slow coaches, people say. and then, when the higher authorities find out about it, who will be fined or put in jail? we, poor peasants. as if we did not have troubles enough as it is." "what will you be put in jail for?" asked the bailiff, chuckling to himself. here a younger peasant whispered in the spokesman's ear not to let himself be bamboozled. speaking with unwonted boldness, born of the conviction that the bailiff was suppressing a document of the czar, the tall fellow said: "you can't fool us, your nobleness. we are only peasants, but what we know we know." and he went on to enumerate villages where, according to rumour, the paper had already been read and acted upon. "although uneducated, yet we are not such fools as your nobleness takes us for. if it is a ukase direct from the czar we aren't going to take chances, sir. not we, sir. better read it to us and let's be done with it. we have no time to waste, sir." one of the jews was going to make a suggestion, but he was shouted down and waved aside. the bailiff made a gesture of amused despair and turned to go back, when the peasants stepped forward, and chattering excitedly, they gave him to understand that they would not let him go until he had shown them the imperial ukase. the purport of their remonstrance was to the effect that the jews had bribed him to suppress the document. the bailiff took it all good-naturedly. in his heart of hearts he was looking forward to the sport of an anti-jewish outbreak with delight; but the noise brought the local priest upon the scene--a kindly elderly man with the face of a whimpering peasant girl. he was a victim of official injustice himself and he implored the crowd to listen to reason. his face, at once comic and piteous, was the main cause of his failures. he was a well-educated priest, yet he was kept in this obscure town. his sacerdotal locks, meant to be long and silken, hung in stiff, wretched little clumps. nevertheless, as he now stood in his purple broad-sleeved gown, appealing to the multitude of white figures, his cross sparkling in the sun, the spectacle was like a scene of the early days of christianity. "it is a great sin to circulate wicked falsehoods like that and it is just as much of a sin to credit them," he said in a pained heartfelt voice. "ours is a good czar. he does not command his children to do violence to human beings." "oh, well, little father," one peasant broke in. "you don't seem to have heard of it. that's all. if the czar has not ordered it, then why do they beat the jews everywhere else and the police and soldiers stand by and see to it that they do the work well?" the bailiff burst into a horse-laugh and slapped his knees violently. the priest's face bore a look of despair. "can it be that you believe such foolishness?" he said. "what do we know? we are only common people. all we do know is that whatever happens it is our skin that is peeled off. if we can't get the paper we'll do our duty without it." "that's it, without it!" the others chimed in in excited chorus. further parleying made it clear that many of them had no inclination to do any personal harm to the jews or to their property. they were on friendly terms with their jewish neighbours, and all they wanted was to get rid of a disagreeable duty. the rest, about half of the entire crowd, had had their heads turned with stories of lakes of vodka and fabulous piles of loot, but even these proved susceptible to argument. "here," yossl shouted at the top of his voice and with great fervour. "i have a scheme, and what will you lose by it if you hear me out? if you don't like it, i'll take it back and it won't cost you a cent." the intensity of his manner took them by storm. he was allowed to finish. "my scheme amounts to this: the jews will sign a paper taking upon themselves all responsibility for your failure to smash their shops and houses, so that if the authorities call you to account for violating the imperial ukase, we will answer and you will come out clear." first there was perplexed stillness, then a murmur of distrust, and finally a tumult of rejection. "crafty jew! there must be some trick in it!" they yelled sneeringly. the priest was wiping the perspiration from his forehead. finally he shouted huskily: "very well, i'll sign such a paper." after some more arguing, the plan, in its amended form, was adopted. the older men flaunted their experience by insisting upon a formal "certificate" bearing the priest's official seal and signature, so that when the czar's inspectors arrived the peasants might have something tangible to present. when all this had been complied with, there was some portentous talk about the jews sprinkling the bargain with vodka; but having followed the "little father's" advice in the main point the peasants were now in a yielding mood toward him generally, and the vodka shops being closed, he had no difficulty in getting them to go home sober. a large number of them had to cross the river. to occupy their minds while they were waiting for the ferry--a small antediluvian affair which could only accommodate about one-fifth of the crowd at a time--the priest asked them for a song. and then the quiet evening air resounded with those pensive, soulful strains which for depth of melancholy have scarcely an equal in the entire range of folk-music. thus the men who might now have been frenzied with the work of pillage, devastation and, perhaps, murder, stood transfixed with the poetry of anguish and pity. race distinctions and ukases--how alien and unintelligible these things were to the world in which their souls dwelt at this minute! the glint of the water grew darker every second. the men on the ferry continued their singing. then somebody on the other side joined in and the melody spread in all directions. the fresh ringing treble of a peasant girl, peculiarly doleful in its high notes, came from across the water. a choir of invisible choirs, scattered along both banks, sang to the night of the sadness of human existence. the jews returned from their hiding-places, but very few of them went to bed that night. the tragedy in many houses was intensified by the circumstance that the heads of these families were absent from the town, having gone to the good jew for prayer and advice as to the spreading calamity. weinstein's spacious rooms were full of neighbours and their families. the presence of the man whom one had been accustomed to regard as a monument of worldly power had a special attraction for the poorer pietists this evening. besides, one dreaded the hallucinations of solitude and in weinstein's house one was sure to find company. most of them sat in the large prayer room, keeping close to each other, conversing in subdued, melancholy voices, comfortable in the community of their woe, as though content to remain in this huddle until the end of time. yossl was curling his black side-locks morosely. the other people in the room importuned him for details of the scene in front of the bailiff's office, but he was not in the mood for speaking. weinstein was snapping his fingers at his own florid neck, as he walked backward and forward. presently maria, his gentile servant, who spoke good yiddish, addressed him, with sad, sympathetic mien: "master dear," she said in yiddish. "will you let me break a couple of windows?" he did not understand. "you see," she explained bursting into tears. "if they get at me because i did not smash things in your house, i'll be able to swear that i did." for an instant he stood surveying her, then, in a spasm of rage and misery, he shrieked out: "why, certainly! go ahead! break, smash, everything you set your eye on. you are the princess, we are only jews. go smash the whole house." and in his frenzy he went breaking windows and chairs, shrieking as he did so: "here! look and let your heart rejoice." "madman," yossl said calmly, "you'll alarm the town. they'll think it's a riot and the gentiles will join in." weinstein sat down pale and panting. "go and tell your people to come and delight in the sight of a jew's broken windows," he said to the gentile woman. she put her hands to her face and left the room sobbing. chapter xxxvii. the defence committee. the little man who played the part of errand boy at the cheese shop and who was arrested before the work on the mine was well advanced had ultimately turned state's evidence. among the revolutionists he betrayed was pavel, but the prince was known to him under a false name. still, the information furnished by his man, added to some addresses found on other captured nihilists, led to a series of new arrests. the ranks of the will of the people were being rapidly decimated. grisha, the dynamiter, and several other members of the innermost circle were seized shortly after the killing of the czar. the few surviving leaders withdrew to the provinces, in some cases only immediately to fall into the hands of the police there. thus in april, after a jewish student girl was arrested in kieff, the "trap" at her lodgings caught a woman and a man who proved to be baska, the "wife" of the "cheesemonger" couple, and her real husband, "the german." urie (the "cheesemonger"), makar and several other active revolutionists were in moscow. one late afternoon clara was slowly pacing the painted floor of her room, her hands clasped behind her, while her lover lay on the lounge, watching her through the gathering dusk. "st. petersburg is too hot now," he said, breaking a long silence. "everybody is going away." "there is really no use staying here just at present," she assented, sadly, without pausing. they grew silent again. the gloom of the little parlour was thickening so rapidly that it seemed as though the outline of clara's face, as she walked back and forth, became vaguer every time she turned in pavel's direction. presently, with a burst of amorous tenderness, he got up, saying: "clanya! let us go for a rest somewhere. you know you need it." "you need it even more than i do, poor boy," she replied, stepping up close to him. "i do wish you would go home for a month or two--or somewhere else. as to myself, i should first like to see my parents. the riots may strike miroslav at any moment. if any harm came to them, i should never forgive myself. i must get them away from there. that's all i can think of." there was an obvious blank in her words. she left something unsaid, and the consciousness of it made him uncomfortable. "but that's easily arranged," he urged. "you can send them money and invite them to some safe place." "that's what i have been thinking of. i am so restless i wish i could start to-morrow. it couldn't be arranged too soon. there are persistent rumors that a riot is coming there. i shan't be gone long, dearest." he had it at the tip of his tongue to force a discussion of their party's attitude toward the riots and to have it out once for all. in his imagined debates with her on the subject he had often exclaimed: "i happen to belong to a class of land-robbers and profligates; now, suppose the revolution breaks out and my class is attacked by the people, will that affect me? a nice revolutionist i should be if it did!" this and other arguments were all ready; what he lacked, however, was the courage to bring up the topic. as to her promise to marry him when the great conspiracy was out of the way, her redeeming it now, while she was so tremulously absorbed in the question of her parents' safety, could not be thought of. he gathered her to him and kissed her, at once sympathetically and appealingly. "go home, pasha," she besought. "but not to miroslav. you won't rest there. go to some of your mother's country places, or, perhaps some other place would be safer for you. go and take good care of yourself. it would be too terrible if i found you arrested when i got back." "will you marry me then?" he asked, impersonating a pampered child. she nodded, in the same playful spirit, and again her reticence brought disquiet to his heart. "something tells me she'll never be mine," he thought with a sigh. * * * * * while the government was actively fomenting the riots, making an electric rod of the jews, the nihilists persisted in mistaking them for revolutionary kindling wood. while the "chronicle of arrests" in the revolutionary organ included a large number of jewish names, several of them of persons conspicuous in the movement and noted for their pluck, another page of the same issue contained a letter from the riot-ridden district that was strongly flavoured with anti-semitism. moreover, a proclamation, addressed to the peasantry, was printed on an "underground" press, naming the czar, the landlords and the jews as enemies of the people. this proclamation met with a storm of disapproval, however, on the part of gentiles and jews alike, and was withdrawn from circulation. chaos reigned in the minds of the nihilists. their party was disorganised, their thinkers for the most part buried, dead or alive, the editorial management of their publications in the hands of the weakest man on the executive committee, of one who several years later sent, from paris, a most servile petition to the czar, abjuring his former views and begging permission to return home as an advocate of unqualified absolutism and panslavism. the attitude of the nihilists toward the jewish population in general was thus anything but sympathetic; and yet, so far as the higher strata of the movement were concerned, the personal relations between jew and gentile were not affected by this circumstance in the slightest degree. the feeling of intimate comradeship and mutual devotion between the two elements was left unmarred, as if one's views on the jewish question were purely a matter of abstract reasoning without any bearing on the jew of flesh and blood one happened to know. more than this, in their blind theorising according to preconceived formulas, most of the active jewish nihilists shut their eyes to the actual state of things and joined their gentile comrades in applauding the riots as an encouraging sign of the times, as "a popular revolutionary protest." pavel longed to discuss the riots with makar. when he saw him, however, he found him far more interested in the "new revolutionary program" upon which he was engaged than in the anti-semitic crusade. "as if it was the first time jewish blood had been shed," he said, answering a question from pavel, half-heartedly. "the entire history of the jews is one continuous riot. indeed, the present outbreaks are a mere flea-bite to what they have undergone before. so, what has happened to make one revise one's views on the movement? one might as well stay away from the _will of the people_ because, forsooth, jews were burned by gentiles in the th century. nonsense." "clara doesn't seem to take it quite so easy," pavel thought to himself. "clara has gone to meet her parents," he said, thirsting to talk of her. "has she? there may be a riot in miroslav at any time. i wonder how zorki is getting along. but then my father will be able to take care of himself,--and of miriam, too," he added, lukewarmly. the only thing of which he could have spoken with enthusiasm in these days was his program. pavel came away hankering for more conversation about his fiancée and about the riots. instead of seeking rest and safety, as he had promised clara to do, he coveted a new sort of excitement and danger. he felt that there was something wrong about that crusade, and he had a sportsmanlike craving to see it for himself. lacking the courage to criticise his party, he accused himself of allowing his revolutionary convictions to be affected by the interests of his love; yet he continued to pray in his heart that the jews of miroslav, at least, might be spared. he read all he found in the newspapers about the atrocities, and on taking up a paper he would tremble lest it should contain news of a riot in his birthplace. when he read of the miroslav panic he went there at once. "if it's really a riot she'll never come back to me," he brooded, wretchedly. * * * * * the rumours of an impending catastrophe were assuming definite outline in miroslav. a date was mentioned and tall great-russians in red shirts--specialists at the business--were said to have been seen about town. great-russia is and has always been strictly without the pale of jewish settlement, it being one of the characteristic features of the anti-semitic riots of the period that their leaders were imported from the rabble in those districts in which very few people had an idea what a jew looked like. the jews of miroslav sent a snug bribe to pavel's uncle, but their agent came back with the money. the governor had commissioned him to assure them that everything would be done to make an outbreak impossible, but "gratitude" he would not accept. the jews took alarm. "if he doesn't eat honey," they said, in the phrase of a current proverb, "then it looks bad indeed." when a deputation of representative men called on him he lost his temper. "you jews are too intense, that's what's the trouble with you," he said, blinking his eyes. "i have let you know twice that there is no cause for alarm, yet it seems that it is not enough for you." when he had softened down he talked quite at length, although in a haughty tone of authority and immeasurable aloofness, of the steps he had taken. the main point was that the jews should not tempt people to lawlessness by betraying anxiety. he delivered quite a lecture on the point. the deputation came away greatly encouraged. they knew of the extensive business relations which the managers of his estates had with jewish merchants, and they argued, among themselves, that a riot, involving as it usually did the wholesale destruction of jewish property and a general demoralisation of business, could not but entail serious financial losses upon himself. this was in keeping with declarations made by the boards of trade at moscow, warsaw and kharkoff, the three chief centres of russian commerce, regarding the anti-jewish crusade. these bodies had pointed out the importance of the jews of the south as the prime movers of local industry, as almost the exclusive connecting link between the south of russia and the world markets of germany and england; accordingly, they had protested against the anti-semitic campaign as a source of ruin to the economic interests of the whole empire. all this the members of the deputation were aware of, so they saw no reason to doubt the sincerity of the governor's pledges. his advice not to put the thought of a riot in the popular mind by a demonstration of timidity produced a strong impression. the upshot was that the jews of miroslav were afraid to be afraid. a singular mood took hold of them. everybody made an effort to act upon the presumption that miroslav was immune, that it was in an exceptional position, and at the same time everyone read suspense and mortal fear in the eyes of everyone else. it was like walking in one's stocking feet with a spectacular effect of making a noise. jewish women still avoided the proximity of christian men, and a jewish face that did not look jewish was still eyed enviously as a shield against violence. the only tangible manifestation of the spirit advocated by the governor was a slight lengthening of business hours. since the beginning of the panic jewish tradesmen had been closing their shops before it was quite dark--three or four hours earlier than usual. now they compromised on keeping them open until the street lamps were lit. nevertheless those of them who depended on christian trade continued to treat their customers with a gentleness and a fawning attention that had nothing to do with the ordinary blandishments of the counter. inveterate rogues among jewish tradesmen became honest men. on the other hand a most respectable gentile often yielded to temptation that amounted to downright robbery, while the license of "shady christian characters" was asserting itself more portentously every day. a queer story came from one of the suburbs. when three gentiles wearing red shirts entered an out-of-the-way house to inquire the road, their appearance frightened the two jewish women they found there out of the place, whereupon one of these, in a frenzy of terror, jumped into a well and was drowned. meanwhile the three strangers, finding themselves alone, stripped the house of its valuables--a finale which struck the fancy of a notorious thief and his gang, who then put on red shirts and made a practice of plundering jewish houses after scaring away their occupants. the thief was known as petroucha sivoucha, which, foregoing the rhyme, may be rendered as cheap vodka pete. when he was arrested at last he said, impersonating a simple-minded peasant: "but it was only jewish stuff and everybody says a gentile is welcome to it nowadays, that such is the will of our little father, the czar." the riots continued to spread, and while they did, general ignatyeff, the new minister of the interior, announced measure after measure against the jews. in a country where every official is perpetually craning his neck toward the capital, it was only natural that an attitude like this on the part of the minister of the interior should create an atmosphere of anti-semitic partiality amid which justice to the jew became impossible. ignatyeff knew of the widespread rumour as to the existence of an imperial ukase ordering the peasantry to plunder and commit violence upon the jews. apart from his official sources of information, the newspapers were full of instances showing the effect of that rumour, yet he did nothing to stop it or to disabuse the minds of the peasantry in that connection. this was interpreted by the officials as a sign that the rumour was not meant to be stopped, and it was not. governor boulatoff's encouraging answers to the jews of his province brought to miroslav hundreds of people from other towns. some of these were victims of former atrocities, left without shelter in their native places; others had not yet been through an anti-semitic outbreak, but dreaded one. while people from other provinces were flocking to miroslav in quest of safety the leading miroslav families were quietly sending their wives and children abroad and taking their valuables to the government bank. the offices of dr. lipnitzky and of sender the arbitrator, vladimir's father, were visited by scores of panic-stricken people daily. "the rich people put their money and their plate in the bank," said a teamster's wife to vladimir and his father, "but what shall we do with our traps?" "don't worry, my dear woman, there will be no riot in miroslav," the arbitrator reassured her. "it's all very well to say don't worry," the woman retorted sharply. "you people can afford to say it, because your house is safe. but if they kill my husband's horse and destroy his truck, we'll have to go begging. it did not come easy, i can assure you." she burst into tears. "the years that it has taken to save it all up, the pinching, the scrimping--all in order that a thousand ghosts might have something to grab. and what are we going to do with ourselves? where shall we hide? as to my husband and myself, well, all they can do is to kill us, but how about the children?" and again she burst into sobs. when an old woman who had two unmarried daughters, "both as handsome as a tree," described her despair concerning them, vladimir's mother invited the girls to stay with her until the storm was over. and then scores of other mothers begged her, with heart-breaking lamentations and kisses, to take pity on their daughters also; which she could not do for sheer lack of room. the vigdoroffs felt reasonably safe because rasgadayeff, their gentile landlord and friend, was sure to keep the marauders away. indeed, the example of all previous outbreaks had shown that in most cases it was enough for any gentile to tell the rioters that he was the proprietor of the house and that there were no jews on his premises for them to pass cordially on, and rasgadayeff was one of the conspicuous and popular figures in the gentile community of the town. it is true that he was looking forward to an anti-semitic upheaval with joy himself, but his liking for the vigdoroffs was sincere. vladimir's father went about among his depositors asking to be relieved of their money, jewelry or silver spoons. they refused to accept it. finally he moved his iron safe to rasgadayeff's apartment. vladimir was in despair. he felt it quite likely that the panic should be father to a catastrophe, as the governor had said. once when he spoke in this strain at his father's table, his mother remarked with light irony: "look at the brave man. look at the cossack of straw." the retort struck cruelly home. he knew that his heart grew faint every time the anti-semitic mobs pictured themselves vividly in his brain, although often, indeed, he had a queer feeling as if it would be disappointing to see miroslav left out of the list of towns that were sharing in the tragic notoriety of the year, and visioned himself going through the experiences of a most brutal outbreak without facing its dangers. the tragedy of his people filled his heart. he watched them in their terror, in their misery, in their clinging despairing love of their children; he studied their frightened look, their shrinking, tremulous attitudes. every jewish woman he met struck him as a hunted bird, on the alert for the faintest sound, trembling over the fate of her nest. he saw many of them packing their things to flee, they did not know whither. indeed, the whole historical life of his race seemed to have been spent in packing, in moving, in fleeing without knowing whither. "oh, my poor, my unhappy people!" vladimir said to himself, in a spasm of agony, yet with a glow of pleasure in calling them his people. in his heart of hearts he knew that while he told everybody to take courage his own mind was barren of conviction as to what was the best thing to do. he felt crushed. he lost his head. one day, as vladimir walked along the street, his attention was arrested by a rough-looking young man who was circling round him, and scrutinising him now on this side, now on that. he felt annoyed. he was not sure that the young man was a jew, and as he asked him sternly, "what are you looking at?" he was conscious of a little qualm of timidity. "excuse me, sir," the other answered, in yiddish. "i saw you at the synagogue that friday night. do you remember?" they paused. the young man had the manner of a jewish horse-driver or blacksmith. he was robust and broad-shouldered with small very sparse teeth, somewhat bow-legged and somewhat cross-eyed. his coat was literally in tatters and gave off a strong smell of herring. "well?" asked vladimir. "i have been wanting to see you, sir, only i have been too bashful." he gave a smile, his tongue showing between his sparse teeth. vigdoroff rather liked his manner and invited him to his father's house. on their way thither the young man said that his name was zelig and that he was a cooper by trade, making a specialty of herring barrels. when they found themselves alone in vladimir's room, zelig grew still more bashful, and after surveying the room, to make sure that they were not overheard, he said: "i want to belong to the committee." "what committee?" "you need not be on the lookout with me, sir; i am no babbler." it appeared that there was a defence committee in town, with educated young men at the head, and that in case of a riot it was expected to fight "to the last drop of a fellow's blood," as zelig phrased it. that there should be such a thing in miroslav without him being so much as aware of its existence hurt vladimir keenly. "i don't know anything about it," he said, blankly. "don't you really?" said zelig. "i was sure you were in it and that you could get me in, too. why, everybody knows about it. only the committee is strict, because if the police hears of it, they'll all be arrested. it's against the law." as he offered him more detail of the matter he became patronisingly enthusiastic and confided to him the names of elkin and of several university students now on their vacation as the organisers and leaders of the movement. vladimir knew these young men and his pain became sharper still. "but what good will it do?" he said, drily. "it will only lead to trouble." "trouble! the idea of an educated man speaking like that! can there be more trouble than the jews are in now? i don't see why we should sell ourselves so cheap. once we are going to be licked, why act like a lot of sticks? let us pay them for their bother at least. come what may, when they attack us, let us go to work and crack their skulls at least--with lumps of iron, clubs or even pistols. let us fondle them so that a ghost may get into every bone of theirs." his words were accompanied with mighty swings of his shoulders and arms and these gesticulations of his had a peculiar effect on vladimir. they stirred his blood, they hypnotised him. "what is the danger? they'll kill us? let them. as if the life of a jew were worth living! besides, aren't they killing and maiming us anyhow?" "but look here," vigdoroff said seriously. "the governor has promised us protection and he is perfectly sincere about it. now if he learns that our people take the law in their own hands, it may do us great harm. it is a very serious matter." "spit upon him, sir! i'm an uneducated man, but the governor--a ghost into his father's father!--may all he wishes the jews befall his own head." "that's all true enough, but now he has promised us protection, and an organisation of that kind is against the law and may lead to trouble," vigdoroff said with perfunctory irritation. "and an organisation of rioters is not against the law? and robbing and killing innocent people is not against the law? long life to you, sir; you're so wise, so educated and yet you are speaking like a baby. look here, sir! if the governor--a plague take him--is as good as his word, and he does not allow the riot to get started, well and good. then we'll call the bargain off. but suppose he proves to be neither better nor worse than all governors?" zelig knew of a number of other jewish artisans who were anxious to join the "committee," and he urged vigdoroff to visit their gathering and to give them a talk like the one zelig had heard from him at the synagogue on that friday night. "oh, that was sweet as sugar," he said, kissing two of his dirty fingers. "you see, when it comes to striking a scoundrel's snout such a blow as will set his eyes raining sparks, we want no help. that we can manage ourselves, but we are only common people, and when a smart man like you says a couple of words, they simply go melting in a fellow's bones." "but i don't know anything about the 'committee.'" zelig laughed familiarly. "sender-the-arbitrator's son doesn't know! if you only had the desire, you could belong to it yourself and introduce us fellows, too." "very well. i'll consider it. and i should advise you men to do the same." "consider it! we are only plain uneducated people, but we aren't going to do any considering. i have a sister, sir, and if a gentile lays a finger on her he'll be a dead man, i can tell you that. jewish blood is being spilled by the bucket and here you are talking of 'considering.'" he insisted that vladimir should attend the meeting of his informal society, and vladimir, completely in his power, promised to do so. * * * * * that evening, in a spacious barn, half of which was crowded with barrels of herring, vladimir found zelig and some fifteen chums of his. zelig was playing with a huge iron key. he was employed here and the meeting was held by his employer's permission. for more than nine persons to assemble without a police permit is a crime; so it gave vigdoroff satisfaction to reflect that he was now incurring risks similar to those incurred by clara and her friends. the gathering seemed to be made up of mechanics and labourers exclusively. one of the men present was the sneering fellow whom vigdoroff had seen at the synagogue. of the others vladimir's attention was attracted by two big burly young butchers with dried-up blood about their finger-nails, a chimney-sweep, who looked like a jet-black negro, with white teeth and red lips, and three men with medals from the late war which they apparently expected to act as an amulet against gentile rowdies. the chimney-sweep sat apart, cracking sunflower seeds. now and again he made as though to throw his sooty arms round somebody's neck and then burst into laughter over his own joke. all the others looked grave. they showed vigdoroff much respect and attention. even the sneering man made a favourable impression on him to-night. only he himself was so ill at ease he could scarcely take part in the conversation. other men came. when one of these proved to be motl, the trunk-maker in his aunt's employ, vigdoroff felt somewhat more at home. one of the retired soldiers took to bragging of the courage he and his two comrades had shown at the taking of plevna, and when one of the other two signed to him to stop boasting, he said, with a blush: "i am saying all this because--because--what good did it do us? does the czar pat us on the head for it? we risked our lives and many of our people died under plevna, and yet if we tried to settle in great-russia we would be kicked out neck and crop, wouldn't we?" "indeed we would, war record, medal and all," one of the other two chimed in. "and why? because we are jews. we were not chased home from the firing line because we were jews, were we?" "talk of great-russia," somebody put in. "as if in a place like miroslav we were allowed to live in peace." another man assented with a sigh, adding: "if a thousandth part of the courage shown by the jews in the war was shown in our self-defence against gentiles, the gentiles would have more respect for us." the conversation turned on the subject of pistols, but the proposition was overruled. "before we get pistols and learn to use them we'll be asleep under a quilt of earth," said zelig. "why, what ails my cooper's hatchet, or a hammer, or a plain crowbar?" every time vigdoroff opened his mouth the faces of the others would become tense with expectation. but he had nothing to say except to ask an occasional question, and every time zelig, playing with his enormous iron key, pressed him for a speech, he would adjure him, in a flutter of embarrassment, to let it go this time. they talked of the prospective fight in phrases like "forwarding a remittance to one's snout" or "pulling up sharp under a fellow's peeper," which amused and jarred on him at once. for the rest, there was a remarkable flow of common sense, humour and feeling. the gathering cast a spell over him. he had come with the partial intention of speaking against their scheme, yet now he felt that he could much more readily face a gang of armed gentiles than betray a faint heart to these jewish artisans. moreover--and this was the great point with him at the present moment--he felt that with these men by his side he could fling himself into the very thick of the hottest fight. a peculiar sense of solemnity and of gratification came over him. he followed their talk reverentially. he humbly offered to call on one of the leaders of the defence committee and to apply for the admission of this group with himself as one of its members. his first dawn of consciousness as he opened his eyes next morning was of something exceedingly important and solemn which somehow had the flavour of herring. the active participation of a man like elkin in the work of the defence committee was a source of disappointment to him. he usually kept out of elkin's way, as much for his venomous pleasantry as for his revolutionary affiliations which he divined from his friendship with clara. he wondered whether he meant to give the affair a revolutionary character. "he must have warned the other members against me as a silk stocking and a coward," vigdoroff said to himself bitterly. "that's probably the way clara describes me." the next morning he was surprised by a visit from elkin himself. the revolutionist frowned as he spoke, but this was clearly a disguise for his embarrassment. "look here, vigdoroff," he said. "there has not been much love lost between you and me, but that's foolish--at a time like this anyhow. we must all work together. we are all jews. i understand you have organised a number of good fellows. let them join the others." vigdoroff's heart beat fast, with emotion as well as with a sense of flattered pride. he would never have expected elkin capable of such soulful talk. moreover his speaking of himself as a jew seemed to imply that he had abandoned nihilism. "so we 'cowards' were not so very wrong after all," he thought to himself triumphantly. "in the first place," he answered, "it wasn't i who organised them. it was just the other way, in fact." "well, anyhow, let them join the rest." "of course we will. only look here, elkin. you have been frank with me----" "i know what you mean, but you need not worry. i won't get you in trouble," elkin replied with his usual venom in his lozenge-shaped sneer. and then, kindly: "it is not as a russian revolutionist that i have gone into this thing. i am one, as much as ever; i have not changed my views a bit, in fact. but that's another matter. all i want to say is that in this thing i am as a jew, as a child of our unhappy, outraged, mud-bespattered people." chapter xxxviii. the nihilists' guard. pavel's mother, the countess, had not been in miroslav since march. she lived in retirement on one of her estates in another province, in a constant tremour of fear and compunction. the image of alexander ii. bleeding in the snow literally haunted her. she took it for granted that pavel had had a hand in the bloody plot, and she felt as though she, too, had been a party to it. to ascertain the situation with regard to the riot rumours pavel called on his uncle, the governor. he found him dozing on a bench in his orchard, a stout cane in one hand and a french newspaper in the other. the old satrap was dressed in a fresh summer suit of caucasian silk, which somehow emphasised the uncouth fleshiness of his broad nose. he was overjoyed to see his nephew, and he plunged into the subject of the riots at once and of his own accord. it was evidently one of those situations upon which he usually had to unburden his mind to somebody. "can you tell me what they are up to in that great city of yours?" he said, referring to st. petersburg and the higher government circles and blinking as he spoke. "there is an administration for you! perhaps you younger fellows are smarter than we oldsters. perhaps, perhaps." he took out a golden cigarette case, lit a cigarette and went on blinking, sneeringly. his words implied that pavel, being one of the younger generation, was, morally at least, identified with the administration of the young czar. "what do you mean, uncle?" he inquired. "what do i mean? why, i mean that they don't want those riots stopped. that's plain enough, isn't it?" this was a slap at the doctrine of pavel's party concerning the outrages, and he resented it as well as he could. "but you have no evidence for such an accusation, uncle," he said. "that's a mere theory of yours." "i knew you would stick up for your generation. ha, ha, ha! quite commendable in a young chap, too. ha, ha, ha!" "but where is your evidence?" "you want to know too much, pasha. too young for that. if they wanted the riots stopped, it would be a case of one, two, three, and there she goes! that's as much as i can tell you, and if you are really clever you can understand the rest yourself." "he is in league with his fellow fleecers, the jewish usurers," pavel remarked inwardly. "he simply cannot afford an anti-jewish demonstration, the old bribe-taker." "neither can you," a voice retorted from pavel's heart, "though for quite different reasons." * * * * * prince boulatoff called on orlovsky, the government clerk in whose house the local revolutionists held their meetings. the first thing that struck him was orlovsky's loss of girth. "hello, aliosha," he said heartily, meeting him at the gate. "why, pasha!" the clerk flung himself upon him, and they exchanged three prolonged kisses. "by jove," pavel went on, "you are so changed i came near letting you pass. why, what has become of your bulk, old boy? have you been ill?" "not exactly," the other answered, leading the way indoors; then, as his face broke into an expression of wan joy, he added: "been in love, devil wrench it. i take these things rather too hard, i suppose, but that's a small matter. how have you been? climbing upward in the service of the revolution, aren't you?" the room was the same. the huge tin samovar stood on the floor. "well, and how is your circle? first-rate fellows all of them," pavel said. "yes, indeed. only we miss clara now more than ever." "anything specially the matter?" pavel asked, colouring slightly. "well, it really used to be a splendid circle--in our humble way, that is--but those riots have had a bad effect on us, deuce take it. remember elkin? it was he who got us together, and now it's he who has brought discord into our ranks. he is organising people who want to go to america. this is his hobby now." "why, have the riots knocked all his socialism out of him?" pavel asked, grimly. "oh, no," orlovsky answered with something like dismay. "i wouldn't say that. it's as an organiser of communistic colonies that he is going to emigrate. only he says the jewish people have a more direct claim upon him than russia." "there is a revolutionist for you!" pavel roared, bitterly. "i never did attach much importance to that fellow. the sooner he goes the better. god speed him." "you're too hard on him, pasha. he's a good fellow. if we had clara here she would straighten it all out. we miss her very much. as a matter of fact, it was she--indeed, i don't see why i shouldn't tell it to you--it was she with whom i was in love." "was it?" pavel asked, colouring. he paused, in utter confusion, and resumed, without looking at him. "well, you must excuse me, aliosha, but i fear your frankness goes a bit too far. such things are not meant to be published that way." "why? why? what a funny view you do take of it, pasha! suppose a fellow's heart is full and he meets an intimate old friend of his, is it an indiscretion on his part if he opens his mind to him?" "i certainly am a friend of yours, and a warm one, too, old boy," pavel replied with a smile. "but still, things of that sort are usually kept to oneself." several other members came in. the gigantic samovar, the improvised sugar bowl, a huge loaf of rye bread, some butter and a lamp made their appearance on the table. elkin dropped in later in the evening. he and pavel had not been conversing five minutes when they quarrelled. "what you are trying to do is to blend the unblendable--to mix socialism with jewish chauvinism," boulatoff said in an ill-concealed rage. "am i?" the other retorted with one of the most virulent of his sneers. "can socialism be mixed with the welfare of the russian people only?--the welfare of the russian people with a pailful or two of jewish blood thrown in; in plainer language, socialism can only be mixed with anti-semitism. is that it?" "oh, nonsense!" pavel hissed. "there are other jews in the movement, lots of them, and one does not hear that kind of stuff from them. they have not sickened of the bargain on account of the riots." "i don't know whom you mean. perhaps some of them are still under the spell of the fact that a gentile or two will speak to them or even call them by their first names." "calm down, elkin," the judge with the fluffy hair and the near-sighted eyes interposed. "come, you won't say that of clara, for instance?" "no, not of clara. but, then, you have not yet heard from her. sooner or later she, too, will open her eyes and come to the conclusion that it is wiser to be a socialist for her own people than for those who will slaughter and trample upon them. i am sure she will give it all up and join the emigration--sooner or later." "the devil she will," pavel said quietly, but trembling with fury. "yes, she will," elkin jeered. pavel felt like strangling him. "she is too good a revolutionist to sneak away from the battlefield," snapped ginsburg, the red-headed son of the usurer, without raising his eyes from the table. "of course, america is a safer place to be a socialist in. there are no gendarmes there." elkin chuckled. "you had better save your courage for the time the riot breaks out in this town," he said. "you know it is coming. it may burst out at any moment, and when it does we'll have a chance to see how a hero like you behaves himself when the 'revolutionary instincts of the people are aroused.'" "very well, then, let him go back to the synagogue," pavel shouted to the others, losing all his self-control. "but in that case, what's the sense of his hanging around a place like this?" "oh, i see, you are afraid i'll send spies to this house, are you? well, there is less danger of that than that you should take a hand in the slaughter of jewish shoemakers, blacksmiths or water-bearers as a bit of practical 'equality and fraternity,' i can assure you. but then, after all, you may be right. good-bye, comrades! don't judge me hard." tears stood in orlovsky's eyes. he, the judge, and mlle. andronoff, the judge's fiancée, were for running after him, but the others stopped them. left to themselves, the group of nihilists began to discuss the coming outbreak. everyone felt, in view of elkin's charge, that whatever else was done, no effort should be spared to keep the mob from attacking the jewish poor. much was said about "directing the popular fury into revolutionary channels," and "setting the masses upon the government," but most of those who said these things knew in their hearts that they might as well talk of directing the ocean into revolutionary channels or of setting a tornado upon the russian government. orlovsky alone took it seriously: "it begins to look something like, by jove," he said beamingly. "we'll go out, and when the mob gets going, when the revolutionary fighting blood is up in them, we'll call out to them that jewish usurers are not the only enemies of the toiling people; that the czar is at the head of all the enemies of the nation. and then, by jove, miroslav may set the pace to all russia. see if it doesn't." the son of the usurer called attention to the extreme smallness of their number, but he thought it enough to keep the mob from assaulting working people. he knew that his own relatives were all safe personally. as to his father's property, he said he would be glad if it was all destroyed by the "revolutionary conflagration," and he meant it. pavel took no hand in the discussion. instead, he was pacing to and fro mopingly. at last, after some more speeches, including one by the gawky seminarist, who came late and who disagreed with everybody else, it was decided that in case of a riot every gentile member of the circle should be out in the streets, "on picket duty," watching the mob, studying its mood and "doing everything possible to lend the disturbance a revolutionary character." * * * * * eight jewish women, including three little girls, were brought to the jewish hospital of miroslav from a neighbouring town, where they had been outraged in the course of an anti-semitic outbreak. the little girls and the prettiest of the other five died soon after they arrived. the next day the gentile district bubbled with obscenity. to be sure, there were expressions of horror and pity, too, but the bulk of the christian population, including many an educated and tender-hearted woman, treated the matter as a joke. where a jew was concerned the moral and human point of view had become a reeling blur. the joke had an appalling effect. while the stories of pillaged shops kindled the popular fancy with the image of staved vodka barrels and pavements strewn with costly fabrics, the case of the eight jewish women gave rise to a hideous epidemic of lust. there were thousands of gentiles for whom it became no more possible to pass a pretty jewish woman than to look into the display window of a jewish shop without thinking of an anti-semitic outbreak. the storm was gathering. the mutterings of an approaching riot were becoming louder and louder. many jewish shops were closed. taverns serving as stations for stage lines were crowded with people begging to be taken away from the city before it was too late. the defence committee did not rest. the volunteers of the several jewish districts were organised into so many sections, and a signal system was perfected by which the various sections were to communicate with each other. the raiders were sure to be drunk, it was argued, while the defence guard would be sober and acting according to a well-considered plan. the guard was spoiling for a fight. the nihilists "on picket duty" were strolling around the streets. troops were held in readiness and placards had been posted forbidding people to assemble in the streets. having ordered this, governor boulatoff announced himself ill and in need of a fortnight's leave of absence. when a delegation implored him to postpone the journey, he replied curtly that all had been done to insure order. he was in bad spirits and treated them with unusual rudeness. he left miroslav in the morning. at about noontime of the same day the town was full of sinister rumours. one of these was about the poisoning of twelve christian wells by jews. a few yards off a retired government clerk, in dilapidated though carefully shined boots and with a red nose, stood in front of one of the governor's placards forbidding people to congregate in the streets, with a crowd of illiterate gentiles about him. "'so by an all high ukase,'" he pretended to read, "'all people of the orthodox christian faith are hereby ordered to attack the jews, destroy their homes and shops, tear their pillows and drink their vodka and wine, take from them all they have plundered from christians and administer a drubbing to them.'" as he proceeded he worked himself up to a tone of maudlin solemnity. "aye, the day of reckoning hath come," he went on. "let not a man of that unchristian tribe escape. let the blood of jesus and of his followers be avenged." here, however, he spoiled it all by suddenly breaking off with a grin of inebriate roguishness. the revolutionary seminarist was watching this man philosophically. similar scenes occurred in other neighbourhoods. when in one instance they had led to an attack upon a rabbinical looking old man who was left bleeding and unconscious on the pavement, the troops were ordered out. then there was a scramble for rooms in gentile hotels. twenty-five rubles a day was charged for a ruble room, and there were a dozen applicants for each room. still, those who had money contrived to find shelter. much greater difficulty was encountered in many cases in getting a christian cabman to take a jew to a place of refuge. many a gentile rented part of his dwelling to jews at an enormous price, a guarantee of safety being included in the bargain. then, too, there was a considerable number of gentiles who received some of their prosperous jewish neighbours into their houses without accepting any offer of payment. prosperous, because the poorer jews for the most part lived huddled together in the ghetto and were far removed from the gentile population. at pavel's instance orlovsky went to take clara's sister and her family to the house of a relative of his, but he found their door locked. they were taking refuge with the vigdoroffs. toward five o'clock, when the crimson sunlight was playing on the gold steeple of the church of our saviour and the dazzling blue and white of hussars' uniforms, a small crowd of men and boys came running to the square in front of the sacred structure. "we want to carry out the holy vessels and banners," said a spokesman to an officer. "we hear the jews have decided to set fire to god's temple." "we won't let them, you may be sure of that," the hussar officer answered. "you can safely go home." the crowd was slowly dispersing, when a man in a red shirt shouted: "boys, i know a jewish cellar where twenty-five christian corpses are kept in empty vodka casks. come on!" the officer did not interfere, and the crowd followed the red-shirt round the corner to a closed drink-shop. half an hour later the streets in that locality rang with a drunken sing-song: "death to the jews! death to the christ-killers!" the shop was the property of a jew, who was hiding with his family somewhere, but the street was inhabited by gentiles. meanwhile on a little square near nicholas street, the best street running through the jewish quarter, a mob of five hundred men and boys, mostly from the scum of the population, had seemingly dropped from the sky. a savage "hee-hee-hee!" broke loose, scattered itself, died away, and was taken up again with redoubled energy. all over the district jews, men and women, most of them with children clasped in their arms, were running along the middle of the streets as people run at the sound of a volcano. some were fleeing from their shops to their homes and some from their homes to the hiding places which they had prepared for themselves. the eyes of most of them had the hollow look of mortal fear. they ran in family groups, holding close to each other. here and there a man, his feet giving way under him, sick and dizzy with fright, would slacken pace for a minute, as if giving himself up for lost; then, wiping the cold sweat from his face, he would break into a fresh run, more desperate than before. some simply walked quickly, a look of grim determination on their faces. here and there an aged man or woman, too feeble to run, were making a pitiful effort to keep up with the younger members of their families, who were urging them on with a look of ghastly impatience. often a frail little woman with two or three children in her arms could be seen running as she might down a steep hill. christians stood on the sidewalks, jeering and mimicking their fright and making jokes. pavel watched the spectacle in a singular state of mental agitation. his heart leaped at sight of that chaotic mob as it paraded through the streets. visions of the french revolution floated through his brain, quickening his pulse. "so our people are _not_ incapable of rising!" he felt like exclaiming. "the idea of a revolution is _not_ incompatible with the idea of russia!" it was as if all the sacrifices he had been making during the past few years had finally been indorsed by life itself, as if they were once for all insured against proving to be the senseless sacrifices of a modern don quixote. he could have embraced this mass of human dregs. and while his mind was in this state, the panic-stricken men, women and children with oriental features who were running past him were stranger than ever to him. he simply could not rouse himself to a sense of their being human creatures like himself at this moment. it was like a scene on a canvas. clara did not seem to belong to these people; and when it came fully home to him that she did, and how these scenes were apt to stand between him and her, his heart grew faint within him; whereupon he felt like a traitor to his cause, and at the same time he was overcome with a sense of his inward anarchy and helplessness. within the jewish houses and on their courtyards there was a rush for sub-cellars, garrets, barrels. as they ran, clambered, tiptoed, scrambled, they smothered the cries of their frightened babies with several cases of unconscious infanticide as a result. christians hastened to assert the immunity of their houses by placing the image of the virgin (a jewess!) in their windows; and so did many a jew who had procured such images for the purpose. some smashed their own windows and piled up fragments of furniture in front of their doors, to give their homes or shops the appearance of having already been visited by mob fury. here and there a man was chalking crosses on his gate or shutters. while this was in progress several hundred jews burst from gateways on and about nicholas street and bore down on the enemy with frantic yells in russian and in yiddish. they were armed with crowbars, axes, hammers, brass knuckles, clubs and what-not. as to the rioters they were mostly unarmed. following the established practice of the crusade, they had expected to begin with some hardware store and there to arm themselves with battering rams and implements of devastation--an intention which they had not yet had time to carry out. at sight of this armed multitude, therefore, they were taken aback. resistance was not what they had anticipated. indeed, for some seconds many of them were under the impression that the crowd now descending on them was but another horde of hoodlums. they wavered. a crowd of jewish butchers, lumberers, blacksmiths, truck-drivers--the advance guard of the defence--made a dash at them, jeering and howling at the top of their lungs, in yiddish: "let's hack them to pieces! lively boys! let's drive right into their lungs and livers! let's make carrot-pudding of them! bravely, fellows, they're drunk as swine!" at this point orlovsky and the seminarist instinctively joined the rioters. elkin and vigdoroff were on the other side. pavel was looking on from the sidewalk. the defence was mistaken. the rioters were almost as sober as they, for, indeed, it was another part of the stereotyped program of anti-semitic riots that drink-shops should be among the very first targets of attack, so that the invaders might fit themselves for the real work of the riot by filling themselves full of jewish vodka. but the jews, as we have seen, descended upon them before they had torn down a single door. what the outcome would have been had the two opposing crowds been left to themselves is unknown, for a troop of hussars whose commander had been watching the scene charged on both when they were a few inches apart, and dispersed them both. some fifty arrests were made, more than two-thirds of the prisoners being jews. the arrested gentiles went to police headquarters singing an anti-semitic refrain and mimicking the frightened cry of jewish women. bystanders, some of the nihilist "pickets" among them, shouted: "don't fear, boys. you'll soon go home." and the answer was: "sure we will, and then we'll give them a shaking-up, the scurvy jews, won't we?" on another business street some boys threw a few tentative stones at a shop window. there being no interference on the part of the military, a mob of grown men sprang up. doors were burst in and rolls of silk and woollen stuffs came shooting to the pavement. "don't, boys; you had better go home," said a handsome young lieutenant, affecting the basso of a general. the raiders did not desist. while some went on emptying the shop into the street others were slashing, tearing or biting at the goods. they did it without zest and somewhat nervously, as if still in doubt as to the attitude of the authorities. a servant girl unrolled a piece of blue velvet over a filthy spot on the cobblestones before a lieutenant of the hussars, saying: "here, sir! why dirty the dear little feet of your horse? here is jewish velvet for them." "thank you, my dear girl, but you had better go home," the lieutenant answered, smiling. a crumpled mass of unrolled fabrics, silk, woollen, velvet, satin, cotton, lay in many-coloured heaps on the pavement and in the gutter. the rioters, whose movements were still amateurish and lacked snap, soon wearied of the job. several of them then broke into a grocery store and brought forth a barrel of kerosene. "what are you going to do?" asked the lieutenant. "we'll pour it over the stuff and set fire to it, your high nobleness." "that you can't do," the officer returned decisively. "you'll have to go home now." the rioters obeyed at once, many of them taking rolls of silk or velvet along. chapter xxxix. the riot. the next morning the police master, "in order to avoid bloodshed," issued a proclamation forbidding jews to leave their houses. the order was copied from one that had been issued in other riot-ridden towns where, as the miroslav police master knew but too well, it meant that the jews were prevented from uniting for their self-defence and forced to await the arrival of the mob, each family in its own isolated lodgings. at the same time every soldier of the jewish faith was called back to barracks, none of their number being included in the patrol, "for fear of embittering the christian population." a peculiar air hung about the city, an air at once of festive idleness and suppressed bustle. it looked as it might on the eve of some great fair. gentile workmen, staying away from their shops, were parading the streets, many of them shouldering axes, sledge-hammers, bores, chisels--their tools of useful toil to be turned to weapons of demolition and pillage; peasants from neighbouring villages were arriving with sacks, pails, tubs, spades, axes, pitchforks, their waggons otherwise empty and ready to be laden with booty. among the people in the streets were gangs of trained rioters, come from towns where their work was at an end. the jews were in their hiding places where they had passed the night. pavel went about alone, avoiding company, asking himself questions to which his mind had no answer. he was filled with the excitement of a sportsman a few minutes before the beginning of a great race; with mental chaos and anxiety. at one corner of cucumber market a group of peasants took off their coarse straw hats and bowed to two policemen. "we are only ignorant peasants," they said. "will your high nobleness tell us when his excellency the police master will give the order to start in?" "there won't be any order to start in," answered one of the policemen. "move along, move along." the large market place became white with country people. they were getting restive. their sacks and tubs were hungry for the goods of "christ-killers." four years ago many of these very people, dressed like soldiers, had been driven to the balkans by a force known to them as the czar, to fire at turks without having the least idea what sort of creatures those people called turks were or what they had done to be fired at. now they had come here, in obedience to the same force, to rob and do violence to jews. among the out-of-town looters were two tramps who had it whispered about that they were two well-known generals in disguise, personal emissaries of the emperor sent to direct the attack upon the jews. these two were soon put in gaol, but that which they personified, the idea that the anti-jewish riots met with the czar's approval, was left at large. it seized upon soldier and civilian alike. people who usually kept at a timid distance from everything in the shape of a uniform, were now bandying jests with army lieutenants and police captains. the question this morning was not whether one wore the czar's uniform or citizen's clothes, but whether one was a jew or not. an unusual feeling of kinship linked them all together, and the source of that feeling was the consciousness that they were not jews. it was about nine o'clock when a large seedy-looking man with a bloated, sodden face, stepped out of a vast crowd on cucumber market, and walked jauntily up to a deserted fruit stand. snatching a handful of hickory nuts, he flung it high in the air, then thrust his two index fingers into his mouth and blew a loud piercing blast, puffing himself up violently as he did so. the sound was echoed by similar sounds in many parts of the crowded market place. "hee-ee-eeee!" came from a thousand frantic throats. a long stick was raised with a battered hat for a flag, a hundred human swarms rushed in all directions, rending the air with their yells, and pandemonium was loose. there was a scramble for hardware shops, vodka shops and places where jewish women were said to be secreted. another few minutes and the streets were streaming with spirits. the air was filled with the odour of alcohol, with the din of broken glass, with the clatter of feet, with the impact of battering rams against doors; and coming through this general clang, thud and crash of destruction, were smothered groans of agony, shrieks of horror and despair, the terror-stricken cry of children, the jeers of triumph and lust. here a row of shops, their doors burst in, was sending forth a shower of sugar, kerosene, flour, spices, coats, bonnets, wigs, dry goods, crockery, cutlery, toys; there a bevy of men were tearing up the street, piling up the cobble-stones which others were hurling at shop windows. some men and women were carrying away bucketsful of vodka. others were bending over casks, scooping out the liquid with their caps, hands or even boots; others were greedily crouching before barrels, their mouths to the bungholes. here and there a man leaning over a broken cask was guzzling at its contents in a torpor of drunkenness. one rioter, holding a sealed bottle in his hand and too impatient to look for a corkscrew, smashed its neck against the sidewalk, while another man, by his side, broke two similar bottles against each other, and then cursed the jews as he licked wine mixed with his own blood off his fingers. nearby a woman carrying a shoe full of vodka toward a four-year-old boy who was seated on a pile of logs, yelled frantically: "here, my darling! taste it, precious one, so that when you grow up you may say you remember the day when the ill-gotten wealth of jews was smashed by people of the true faith." women and children were serving vodka to the soldiers in cans, teapots, saucers, ladles, paper boxes. orlovsky mounted a cask and began to shout, wildly: "don't drink too much, boys! don't befog your minds! for this is a great historical moment! only why attack jews alone? behold, the czar is at the head of all the blood-suckers in the land!" scarcely anybody listened to him. the crowd was too deeply absorbed in its orgy. his voice was drowned by a thousand other sounds; his flashing eyes and his air-pounding fists were part of a nightmare of brutalised faces, attitudes of greed, gesticulations of primitive humanity run amuck. presently, however, a group of belated rowdies came along in search of drink. they stopped in front of orlovsky, eyeing the cask under his feet hopefully, the appearance of the bung showing that its contents were still intact. "who are you, anyhow?" one of them said to the speaker. "it must be the jews who sent you here to talk like that to good christian people." "it isn't true. you're mistaken, old boy," orlovsky answered hoarsely and breathing hard, but with a kindly, familiar smile on his flushed, perspiring face. "i am one of the best friends you and all the people ever had, i mean the good of all of you fellows. what's the use attacking jews only, i say. we had better turn upon the authorities, the flunkeys of the czar----" "do you hear what he says?" one of his listeners said, in perplexity, nudging the fellow by his side. "he wants to get us in trouble, the sly fox that he is," somebody remarked. "sure, he does. and it was by the jews he was hired to come here. i know what i am talking about," growled the man who had spoken first. "down with him, boys!" "down with him!" the others echoed, thirstily. orlovsky was pulled off and the group of belated rioters, re-enforced by some others, rushed at the cask savagely. pavel was in another section of the same street. an old little jewess whom he saw run out of a gate struck him as the most pathetic figure he had seen that day. her fright gave her pinched little face something like a pout, an air of childlike resentment, as it were. a gentile boy snatched off her wig and held it up, jeering to some bystanders, whereupon she covered her gray head with her bony hands, her faith forbidding her to expose her hair, and ran on with the same childlike pout. a sob of pity caught pavel in the throat. he was about to offer to take her to a place of safety, when an elderly rowdy, apparently provoked by her outlandish anxiety about her bare hair, struck her a vicious blow on the head, accompanying it with profanity. "cur!" pavel shrieked, springing up to him and landing a smart whack in his face. the rioter looked round with surprise, muttered something and joined the looters. "come with me, don't be afraid of the scoundrels," pavel said, taking her by the hand. his heart was melting with pity for all the jews at this moment. he felt a rush of yearning tenderness for clara, and he wished she could see him taking care of this woman of her race. when he saw two marauders hand out gold and silver watches--the spoils of a raid--to the patrol, his blood was up again. "is that what you are here for, thieves, vermin that you are?" he shouted. "who is that fellow? run him in!" somebody said. he fought desperately, cursing the authorities and calling to the mob to turn upon the soldiers, but he was overpowered and carried away half dead. when his identity was discovered at police headquarters, it caused a panic among the officials of the place. he was reverently placed in a carriage and taken to the palace. the defence guard gave the rioters fight in two places, and a desperate encounter it was, but it was not to last long. troops fell upon them, beat them with the butts of their rifles and hurled execrations at them for violating the police ordinance. every jew who was armed and every jew who looked educated, elkin among them, was arrested. the others were driven indoors. vladimir was brought to police headquarters unconscious, with blood gushing from his head. when the first stack of bedding was pitched out on the sidewalk at nicholas street, from a residence over a tobacco shop, a man with watery eyes and a beautiful great-russian beard, one of the leaders, selected a big, plump, tempting feather-bed, and opened his pocket-knife with dignified deliberation. a crowd of about one thousand stood about in breathless silence, as though attending a religious ceremony of great solemnity. in order to prolong the spell, the man with the golden beard played with the feather-bed awhile, kneading, patting, punching it, brandishing his knife over it, like a barbaric high priest performing some mystic rite over a captive about to be sacrificed. then, grasping it with sudden ferocity, his teeth a-glitter amid his enormous whiskers, his watery eyes flashing murder, he cut a quick, long gash, rent the pillow-case apart and hurled its snow-white entrails to the breeze. "hurrah! hurrah!" the mob yelled savagely, as the breeze seized the down and flung it in a thousand directions. "hurrah! hurrah!" the other feather-beds and pillows were ripped up, disemboweled and emptied by some of the other rioters. the summer-baked street seemed to be in the grasp of a snow-storm. it is one of the characteristics of the housewife of the ghetto that she will put up with a poor meal rather than with an uncomfortable bed. the destruction of pillows and featherbeds is therefore the most typical scene of anti-semitic riots in russia. an anglo-saxon crowd viewing a prize-fight is not thrilled more deeply at sight of "first-blood" than were the rioters of miroslav at sight of the first cloud of jewish down. now the outbreak was in full swing. some of the men came out in fashionable clothes, their pockets bulging with plunder. the same work of devastation and pillage was going on in many places at once. about ten thousand raiders, most of them covered with down, were skirmishing about in groups of fifty to one hundred, preceded by one or two leaders and accompanied, in some cases, with a band of toy-drums and whistles. they went from street to street reconnoitering for houses or shops that had not yet been visited. now it looked like a real anti-jewish riot. hurrah! hurrah! after the pillows came the furniture and other household goods, every bit of it either shivered to flinders or carried off. while some were busy smashing things or throwing them out of the windows, others were stripping off their own clothes and arraying themselves in the best coats, trousers, dresses, bonnets, the raided houses contained. a frowzy drunken scrub-woman emerged in a gorgeous ball dress, a costly fur cap on her head, with two gold watches dangling from her neck. one of these gangs was led by a man who wore a woman's jacket of brown plush and a high hat. another leader was decked out in a fashionable summer suit and a new straw hat, but his feet were bare and encrusted with dirt. a third gang was preceded by a flag consisting of the torn skirt of an outraged jewish woman, the flag-bearer celebrating the exploit as he marched along. following the looters were dense crowds of spectators, many of them well dressed and with the stamp of education and refinement on their faces. these included some well known families, members of the aristocracy, who watched the scenes of the day from their fashionable equipages. officials, merchants, people of the middle class were out in their best clothes. miroslav made a great gala day of it. the aristocracy was in a complacent, race-track mood. occupants of carriages were exchanging greetings and pleasantries. cavaliers were interpreting to their ladies the bedlam of sound, odour and colour. the appearance of a drunken jade in a ball dress, strutting with her arms akimbo, in besotted imitation of a lady, brought forth bursts of facetious applause. the well-dressed spectators tried to steer clear of down and feathers, but that was almost impossible. many streets were so thickly covered with it that it deadened the sound of traffic. but then to catch some of the jewish down on one's dress or bonnet or coat was part of the carnival. where the street was strewn with jewelry, silverware or knicknacks, costly carpets, fabrics, many a noblewoman scanned the ground with the haze of temptation in her eye. "isn't that cameo perfectly lovely!" and in many, many instances the cameo, or the silver tray, or the piece of tapestry found its way into the lady's carriage. this was during the early stage of the riot. later on, when all restraint had been cast off, phaetons with crests on their sides were filled with plunder. the lame princess took home one carriage-load and hurried back for more. at every turn one saw a cavalier offering his lady some piece of finery as he might a rose or a carnation, and in most cases it was accepted, on the cogent ground that if left on the pavement it would be destroyed. on the other hand many of the rioters themselves disdained to appropriate anything that was not theirs. very often when a jew offered his assailants all the money he had about him as a ransom the paper money was torn to pieces and silver or coppers was flung out into the street, whereupon the crowd outside would fall over each other in a wild scramble for shreds of the paper or the metal. in one place a man offered the mob all he had in the world as a ransom for his daughter's honour, but his money was destroyed, his daughter assaulted and he himself mortally wounded. when a peasant woman was seen carrying an armful of linen and ribbons out of a small shop, she was stopped by one of the rioters. "drop that, you old hag," he shouted. "we are no robbers, are we?" he added a torrent of unprintable russian and kicked the woman into a swamp of syrup, whisky and flour. a short distance from this spot other peasant women were stuffing their sacks lustily, whereupon some of them preferred loud linen to black silk and cheap spoons to silver ones. in several places large sums of money were plundered. as the bank and check system was (and still is) in its very infancy in miroslav, this meant in most cases that people of means were literally reduced to beggary. one family was saved from personal violence as well as from the loss of its fortune by an iron safe which the looters spent the whole day in vainly trying to open. but then, while they were at work on the safe, the mother of the family went insane with fright. marching side by side with the leaders of the various bands were the competitors of jewish tradesmen or mechanics who acted as guides, each pointing out the stores or workshops of his rivals. thus rasgadayeff, after instructing his wife and servants to see to it that no harm was done to his tenants, the vigdoroffs, had gone to the scene of the outbreak, where he directed a crowd of rowdies to the store of his most formidable business opponent. the place was raided. a wealth of costly furs was cut to pieces and flung into the street, where cans of kerosene and pails of tar were emptied over the pile, while more than half as much again was carried off intact. "boys, no stealing," rasgadayeff said, in a drunken gibberish, when it was too late. all he could save from the marauders for the slashers was a sable muff over which two women rioters were fighting desperately. in the meantime rasgadayeff's tenants and the people who sought shelter in their house,--the family of clara's sister and the two or three strangers--had had a narrow escape from coming face to face with an infuriated band of hoodlums. their presence had been indicated by a gentile woman across the street. mme. rasgadayeff had tearfully begged the rioters to desist and after some parleying it had been agreed that the vigdoroffs and their guests should be allowed to escape to their landlord's apartments before the mob invaded their rooms. from an attic window commanding the street vladimir's parents then saw their household effects and their celebrated library--the accumulations of thirty years--flung out on the pavement where it was hacked, torn, slashed, trampled upon, flooded with water, mixed with a stream of preserves, brine, kerosene, vinegar, until the contents of eight rooms and cellar, all that for the past thirty years had been their home, were turned into two mounds of pulp. the vigdoroffs watched it all with a peculiar sense of remoteness, with a sort of lethargic indifference. when old vigdoroff saw the rioters struggling with the locked drawer of his desk, he remarked to his wife: "idiots! why don't they knock out the bottom?" when one of the mob hurt his fingers trying to rend an old parchment-bound folio, he emitted a mock sigh, quoting the yiddish proverb: "too much hurry brings nothing but evil." only when clara's little niece began to shake and cry in a paroxysm of childish anguish, upon seeing her doll in the hands of a little girl from across the street, did the whole family burst into tears. "i'm going to kill them. let them kill me!" the old man said, leaping to his feet. but his wife and daughters hung to him, and held him back. later on, when the rioters had gone, the family returned to their nest. the eight rooms were absolutely empty, as though their occupants had moved out. gradually the various bands of rioters got into the swing of their work and did it with the system and method of an established trade. first the pavement was torn up, the cobblestones being piled up and then crashed into the windows; the padlocks were then knocked off by means of crowbars, hammers or axes and the doors battered down or broken in. next the contents of pillows were cast to the wind, after which, the street having thus received its baptism of jewish down, the real business of the rioters was begun by the wreckers and the looters. if the shop raided was a clothier's and the freebooters had not yet prinked themselves they would do so to begin with, some of them returning to the streets in two pairs of trousers, two coats and even two hats. after a house or a shop had been gutted and its contents wrecked or plundered it would be left to children who would then proceed to play riot on its ruins. here and there a committee followed in the wake of some band, ascertaining whether some jewish dwelling or shop had not been passed over, or whether a roll of woollen or a piece of furniture had not been left undestroyed. not a chair, not a pound of candles was allowed to remain unshattered. kerosene was poured over sugar, honey was mixed with varnish, ink or milk. it was hard, slow work, this slashing and rending, smashing and grinding. some raiders toiled over a single article till they panted for breath. a common sight was a man or a woman tearing at a piece of stuff with broken finger-nails and bleeding fingers, accompanying their efforts with volleys of profanity at the expense of the jews whose wares seemed as hard to destroy as their owners. in one place the mob was blaspheming demoniacally because a heap of ground pepper from a wrecked grocery store had thrown them into a convulsion of sneezing. * * * * * the most hideous delirium of brutality was visited upon paradise,--upon that district of narrow streets and lanes in the vicinity of cucumber market which was the seat of the hardest toil and the blackest need, the home of the poorest mechanics, labourers and tradesmen. as though enraged by the dearth of things worth destroying, the rioters in this section took it out of the jews in the most bestial forms of cruelty and fiendishness their besotted minds could invent. the debris here was made up of the cheapest articles of furniture and mechanics' tools. it was here that several jewish women were dragged out into the street and victimised, while drunken women and children aided their husbands and fathers in their crimes. one woman was caught running through a gale of feathers and down, her child clasped in her arms. another woman was chuckling aloud in a fit of insanity, as she passed through the district in a cab, when she was pulled off the vehicle. a good-looking girl tried to elude the rioters by disguising herself as a man, but she was recognised and the only thing that saved her was a savage fight among her assailants. a middle-aged woman came out of a house with shrieks of horror, imploring an intoxicated army officer to go to the rescue of her daughter. the officer followed her indoors, but instead of rescuing the younger woman the only thing that saved her own honour was his drunken condition. one woman who broke away from two invaders and was about to jump out of her window, was driven back at the point of the bayonet by one of the soldiers in front of the house. "we are under orders not to allow any jews to get out," he explained to her, good-naturedly. "take pity, oh, do take pity," she was pleading, when her voice was choked off by somebody within. every synagogue in town was sacked, the holy ark in many cases being desecrated in the most revolting manner; while the scrolls of the law were everywhere cut to ribbons, some of which were wound around cats and dogs. one woman met her awful fate upon scrolls from the old synagogue at the hands of a ruffian who had once heard it said that that was the way titus, the roman emperor, desecrated the temple upon taking jerusalem. two strong jews who risked their lives in an attempt to rescue some of the scrolls were seen running through the streets, their precious and rather heavy burden hugged to their hearts. the mob gave chase. "'hear, o israel!'" one of the two men shrieked, "'god is god. god is one.'" but the verse, which will keep evil spirits at a respectful distance from every jew who utters it, failed to exercise its powers on the rioters. the two men were overtaken and beaten black and blue and the scrolls were cut to pieces. a white-haired musician, venturing out of his hiding place, begged the mob to spare his violin which he said was older than he; whereupon the instrument was shattered against the old man's head. on another street in the same section of the city another jewish fiddler was made to play while his tormentors danced, and when they had finished he had to break the violin with his own hands. pillows were wrenched from under invalids to be ripped up and thrown into the street. in one tailoring shop a consumptive old man, too feeble to be moved, was found with a bottle of milk in his trembling hands, his only food until his children should find it safe to crawl back to the house. "you have drunk enough of our milk, you scabby christ-killer!" yelled a rioter as he knocked the bottle out of the tailor's hand and hit his head with a flat-iron. little market in front of boyko's court, the home of clara's father and mother, glistened with puddles of vodka, in which cats and dogs, overcome by the alcoholic evaporations, lay dead or half-dead. now and then a drunken rioter would crouch before one of these puddles, dip up a handful of the muddy stuff with his hands and gulp it thirstily, with an inebriate smile of apology to the bystanders. the corner of a lane nearby was piled with brass dust and with broken candle-stick moulds. a horse trough in the rear of the police booth was full of yolks and egg-shells. when the goose market next door to boyko's court was raided some of the fowls were stabbed or had their necks wrung on the spot, while others were driven into the vodka ponds on the square. a hundred geese and ducks went splashing through the intoxicating liquid, fluttering and cackling. a number of rioters formed a cordon preventing them from waddling out and then fell to stabbing them with knives and pitchforks, till every pool of vodka was red. "jewish geese, curse them! jewish geese, curse them!" they snarled. not very far off, hard by a wall, a jewish woman was giving birth to a child. presently a gentile woman with a basket half filled with loot took pity on the child and took it home, giving the policeman her address, while the mother was left bleeding to death. it was also in this district of toil and squalor where the most desperate fighting was done by the jews. one lane was held by five of them against a mob of fifty for more than half an hour until the five men were lugged off to jail, and then the remaining inhabitants of the lane became the victims of the most atrocious vengeance in the history of the day. a mother defended a garret against a crowd of rioters by brandishing a heavy crowbar in front of them. the maddened gentiles then scaled the wall and charged the roof with axes and sledge-hammers. part of the roof gave way. the woman continued to swing the crowbar until she fell in a swoon. * * * * * the houses of the richest jews were closely guarded by the soldiery and, barring one exception, rioters were kept at a safe distance from them. even the house of ginsburg, the most repugnant usurer in town, was taken care of. some army officers, indeed, directed various bands of roughs to the place on the chance of having their promissory notes destroyed, but the roughs failed to get near it. there was an instinct in official circles that the wrecking of wealthy jewish homes was apt to develop in the masses a taste for playing havoc with "seats of the mighty." for after all a man like ginsburg and a titled plunderer of peasant lands are not without their bonds of affinity. the great point was that in dealing with jewish magnates popular fury was liable to confuse the jew with the magnate, the question of race with the question of class. as to the gentile magnates their attitude toward the rioters was one which seemed to say: "you fellows and we are brothers, are we not?" and their mansions were safe. members of the gentry openly joined the rioters, some out of sheer hatred of the race, others for the sport of the thing, still others honestly succumbing to the contagion of beastliness. in the horrid saturnalia of pillage, destruction and rapine many a peaceful citizen was drawn into the vortex. a man stands looking on curiously, perhaps even with some horror, and gradually he becomes restless as do the legs of a dancer when the floor creaks under a medley of sliding feet. but then there was a large number of gentiles who acted like human beings. among these were members of the priesthood, although there were holy "little fathers" who pointed out the houses of their jewish neighbours to the mob. * * * * * the best friend of the jews during that day of horrors was vodka. the sons of israel were made a safety valve of by the government and vodka rendered a similar service to the sons of israel. it saved scores of lives and the honour of scores of women. hundreds of the fiercest rioters were so many tottering wrecks before the atrocities were three hours old, while by sundown the number of dead and wounded looters was as large as the number of murdered and maimed jews. two men were found drowned in casks of spirits into which they had apparently let their heads sink in a daze of intoxication. a handsome young rioter in a crimson blouse staggered over the balustrade of a balcony, hugging a jewish vase, and was killed on the spot. one man was killed in a struggle over a jewish woman and several others had simply drunk themselves to death, while a countless number were bruised and disabled in the general mêlée, falling, fighting, injuring themselves with their own weapons of destruction. toward evening some of the streets had the appearance of a battlefield after action. hundreds of men and women, swollen, bleeding, were wallowing in the gutters, in puddles, on the sidewalks, between piles of debris, in a revolting stupor of inebriety. some of them slept several hours in this condition and then struggled to their feet to resume drinking. the trained rioters had thoughtfully seen to it that some casks of vodka, as also some accordions, should be reserved for the closing scenes of the bacchanalia. the moon came out. her soft mysterious light streamed through the rugged holes of shattered unlit windows; over muddy pavements carpeted with silks, velvets, satins; over rows and rows of debris-mounds on streets snowed under with down; over peasants driving home with waggons laden with plunder; over the ghastly figures of sprawling drunkards and the beautiful uniforms of patrolling hussars. silence had settled over most of the streets. for blocks and blocks, east and west, north and south, there was not an unbroken window pane to be seen, not a light to glitter in the distance. the jewish district, the liveliest district in town, had been turned into a "city of death." in other places one often saw a single illuminated house on a whole street of darkness and ruin. the illuminated house was invariably the abode of christians. officers on horseback were moving about musingly, the hoofs of their horses silenced by thick layers of down. most streets were impassable for the debris. here and there the jaded sounds of revelry were heard, but there were some peasants who had come out of the day's rioting in full control of their voices. seated on empty boxes and barrels, their fingers gripping new accordions, their eyes raised to the moon, a company of rioters on little market were playing and singing a melancholy, doleful tune. the jews were in their hiding places. chapter xl. light out of darkness. clara was with her parents in a white-russian town. the inn at which they were stopping was entered through a vast yard, partly occupied by fruit-barns. it was the height of the fruit season. the barns and part of the yard were lined with straw upon which rose great heaps of apples and pears of all sizes and colours. applewomen, armed with baskets, were coming and going, squatting by the juicy mounds, sampling them, haggling, quarrelling mildly. now and then a peasant waggon laden with fruit would come creaking through the open gate, attracting general attention. a secluded corner of the yard was clara's and her mother's favourite spot for their interminable confidences, a pile of large bulky logs serving them as a sofa. the people they saw here and in the streets were much shabbier and more insignificant-looking than those of their native town and the south in general. the yavners lived here unregistered, as did most of the guests at the inn, the local police being too lazy and too "friendly" with the proprietor to trouble his patrons about having their passports vised at the station house. the town was a stronghold of talmudic learning, and rabbi rachmiel felt as a passionate art student does on his first visit to italy. when the first excitement of the meeting was over the local scholars were of more interest to him than his daughter. his joy was marred by his fear of being sent to siberia in case clara's (to her parents she was still tamara) identity was discovered by the local police; but he had a rather muddled idea of the situation and his wife assured him that there was no danger. as to hannah, she was not the woman to flee from her daughter for fear of the police. she could not see enough of clara. she catechised her on her political career and her personal life, and clara, completely under the spell of the meeting and in her mother's power, told her more than she had a mind to. what she told her was, indeed, as foreign to hannah's brain as it was to her husband's; but then, in her practical old-fashioned way, she realised that her daughter was working in the interests of the poor and the oppressed, though she never listened to clara's expositions without a sad, patronising smile. one day, during one of their intimate talks on the wood-pile, the old woman demanded: "tell me, clara, are you married?" "what has put such an idea in your mind?" clara returned, reddening. "if i were i would have told you long ago." "tamara, you are a married woman," hannah insisted, looking hard at her daughter. "i tell you i am not," clara said testily. "then why did you get red in the face when i said you were? people don't get red without reason, do they?" the young woman's will power seemed to have completely deserted her. "i am engaged," she said, "but i am not married, and--let me alone, mamma, will you?" "if you are engaged, then why were you afraid to say so? is it anything to be ashamed of to be engaged? foolish girl that you are, am i a stranger to you? why don't you tell me who he is, what he is?" "he is a nice man and that's all i can tell you now, and pray don't ask me any more questions, mamma darling." after a pause the old woman gave her daughter a sharp look and said in a whisper: "he must be a christian, then. else you wouldn't be afraid to tell me who he is." "he is not," clara answered lamely, her eyes on a heap of yellow apples in the distance. "he _is_ a christian, then," hannah said in consternation. "may the blackest ill-luck strike you both." "don't! don't!" clara entreated her, clapping her hand over her mother's mouth, childishly. "what! you _are_ going to marry a christian? you _are_ a convert-jewess?" hannah said in a ghastly whisper. "no, no, mamma! i have not become a christian, and i never will. i swear i won't. as to him, he is the best man in the world. that's all i can tell you for the present. oh, the young generation is so different from the old, mamma!" she snuggled to her, nursing her cheek against hers and finding intense pleasure in a conscious imitation of the ways of her own childhood; but she was soon repulsed. "away from my eyes! may the black year understand you. i don't," the old woman said. her face wore an expression of horrified curiosity. had clara faced her fury with a pugnacious front, it might have led to an irretrievable rupture; but she did not. while her mother continued to curse, she went on fawning and pleading with filial self-abasement, although not without an effect of trying to soothe an angry baby. hannah's curses were an accompaniment to further interrogations and gradually became few and far between. her daughter's engagement and her whole mysterious life appealed to an old-fashioned sense of romance and adventure in the elderly jewess; also to a vague idea of a higher altruism. her motherly pride sought satisfaction in the fact that her daughter was so kind-hearted as to stake her life for the poor and the suffering, and so plucky that she braved the czar and all his soldiers. "it's from me she got all that benevolence and grit," hannah said to herself. as to rabbi rachmiel, he asked no questions and his wife was not going to disturb his peace of mind. "there is no distinction between jew and gentile among us," clara said in the course of her plea. "no, there is not," her mother returned. "only the gentiles tear the jews to pieces." and at this clara remembered that circumstance which lay like a revolting blemish on her conscience--the attitude of the revolutionists toward the riots. however, these matters got but little consideration from her now. she was taken up with her parents. the peculiar intonation with which her father chanted grace interested her more than all the "politics" of the world. she recognised these trifles with little thrills of joy, as though she had been away from home a quarter of a century. when her mother took out a pair of brass-rimmed spectacles on making ready to read her prayers, clara exclaimed, with a gasp of unfeigned anguish: "spectacles! since when, mamma darling, since when?" "since about six months ago. one gets older, foolish girl, not younger. when you are of my age you'll have to use spectacles, too, all your gentile wisdom notwithstanding." another day or two and her communions with her mother and the odour of apples and pears began to pall on her. she missed pavel. her mind was more frequently given over to musings upon that atmosphere amid which he and she were a pair of lovers than to the fascination of being with her father and mother again. she felt the centuries that divided her world from theirs more keenly every day. once, after a long muse by the side of her mother, who sat darning stockings in her spectacles, she roused herself, with surprise, to the fact that sophia was no more, that she had been hanged. it seemed incredible. and then it seemed incredible that she, clara, was by her mother's side at this moment. she took solitary walks, she sought seclusion indoors, she was growing fidgety. the change that had come over her was not lost upon her mother. "you have been rather quick to get tired of your father and mother, haven't you?" hannah said to her one day. "grieving for your christian fellow? a break into your bones, tamara!" clara blushed all over her face. she was more than grieving for pavel. she pictured him in the hands of the gendarmes or shot in a desperate fray with them; she imagined him the victim of the ghastliest catastrophes known to the movement, her heart was torn by the wildest misgivings. one afternoon, when her mother was speaking to her and she was making feeble efforts to disguise her abstraction, hannah, losing patience, flamed out: "but what's the use talking to a woman whose mind has been bedeviled by a gentile!" "don't, then," clara snapped back, with great irritation. "the black year has asked you to arrange this meeting. why don't you go back to your gentile? go at once to him or your heart will burst." clara was cut to the quick, but she mastered herself. when she read in the newspapers and in a letter from her sister accounts of the miroslav outbreak, her agony was far keener than that of her father and mother. the most conspicuous circumstance in every report of the riot was the bestial ferocity with which the mob had let itself loose on the homes of the poorest and hardest working population in those districts of miroslav known as paradise and cucumber market. she knew that neighbourhood as she knew herself. she had been born and bred in it. the dearest scenes of her childhood were there. tears of homesickness and of a sense of guilt were choking her. for the first time it came home to her that these thousands of jewish tailors, blacksmiths, tinsmiths, lumber-drivers, capmakers, coopers, labourers, who toiled from fourteen to fifteen hours a day and lived literally on the verge of starvation, were as much at least entitled to that hallowed name, "the people," as the demonised russians who were now committing those unspeakable atrocities upon them. yet the organ of her party had not a word of sympathy for them! nay, it treated all jews, without distinction, as a race of fleecers, of human leeches! russian literature of the period was teeming with "fists," or village usurers, types of the great russian provinces in which jews were not allowed to dwell. drunkenness in these districts was far worse than in those in which the liquor traffic was in jewish hands. and the nobility--was it not a caste of spongers and land-robbers? yet who would dare call the entire russian people a people of human sharks, liquor-dealers and usurers, as it was customary to do in the case of the jews? a russian peasant or labourer was part of the people, while a jewish tailor, blacksmith or carpenter was only a jew, one of a race of profit-mongers, sharpers, parasites. and this "people," for whose sake she was staking her liberty and her life, was wreaking havoc on jews because they were jews like her father, like her mother, like herself. people at the inn were talking of the large numbers of jews that were going to america. "america or palestine?" was the great subject of discussion in the three russian weeklies dedicated to jewish interests. one day hannah said, gravely: "i tell you what, tamara. drop your gentile and the foolish work you are doing and let us all go to america." clara smiled. "will it be better if you are caught and put in a black hole?" clara smiled again. there was temptation in what her mother said. being in russia she was liable to be arrested at any moment; almost sure to perish in a solitary cell or to be transported to the siberian mines for twenty years. and were not the riots enough to acquit her before her own conscience in case she chose to retire from a movement that was primarily dedicated to the interests of an anti-semitic people; from a movement that rejoiced in the rioters and had not a word of sympathy for their victims? but an excuse for getting out of the perils of underground life was not what she wanted. rather did she wish for a vindication of her conduct in remaining in the party of the will of the people in spite of all "the people" did against her race. she was under the sway of two forces, each of them far mightier than any temptation to be free from danger. one of these two forces was pavel. the other was public opinion--the public opinion of underground russia. according to the moral standard of that russia every one who did not share in the hazards of the revolutionary movement was a "careerist," a self-seeker absorbed exclusively in the feathering of his own nest; the jew who took the special interests of his race specially to heart was a narrow-minded nationalist, and the nihilist who withdrew from the movement was a renegade. the power which this "underground" public opinion exerted over her was all the greater because of the close ties of affection which, owing to the community of the dangers they faced, bound the active revolutionists to each other. pavel and clara were linked by the bonds of love, but she would have staked her life for every other member of the inner circle as readily as she would for him. they were all particularly dear to her because they were a handful of survivors of an epidemic of arrests that had swept away so many of their prominent comrades. the notion of these people thinking of her as a renegade was too horrible to be indulged in for a single moment. besides, who would have had the heart to desert the party now that its ranks had been so decimated and each member was of so much value? still more revolting was such an idea to clara when she thought of the nihilists who had died on the scaffold or were dying of consumption or scurvy or going insane in solitary confinement. sophia, strangled on the gallows, was in her grave. would she, clara, abandon the cause to which that noble woman had given her life? the long and short of it is that it would have required far more courage on her part to go to america and be safe from the russian gendarmes than to live under constant fire as an active "illegal" in her native country. this was the kind of thoughts that were occupying her mind at this minute. while her mother was urging her to go to america, she exclaimed mutely: "no, sophia, i shan't desert the cause for which they have strangled you. i, too, will die for it." it seemed easy and the height of happiness to end one's life as sophia had done. she saw her dead friend vividly, and as her mind scanned the mysterious, far-away image, the dear, familiar image, her bosom began to heave and her hand clutched her mother's arm in a paroxysm of suppressed tears. "water! water!" hannah cried into the open doorway. when the water had been brought and clara had gulped down a mouthful of it and fixed a faint, wistful smile on her mother, hannah remarked fiercely: "the ghost knows what she is thinking of while people talk to her." clara went out for a long walk over the old macadamised road that ran through the white-russian town on its way to st. petersburg. she loved to watch the peasant wagons, and, early in the morning and late in the evening, the incoming and outgoing stage-coaches. she knew that she was going to stay in the thick of the struggle, come what might. yet the riots--more definitely the one of miroslav--lay like a ruthless living reproach in her heart. she wanted to be alone with this reproach, to plead with it, to argue with it, to pick it to pieces. she walked through the shabby, narrow streets and along the st. petersburg highway, thinking a thousand thoughts, but she neither pleaded with that reproach, nor argued with it, nor tried to pick it to pieces. her mind was full of pavel and of sophia and of her other comrades, living or dead. "it is all very well for me to think of going to america and be free from danger," she said to herself. "but can sophia go there? or hessia?" at one moment it flashed through her brain that to be true to the people was to work for it in spite of all its injustices, even as a mother did for her child, notwithstanding all the cruelties it might heap on her. the highest bliss of martyrdom was to be mobbed by the very crowd for whose welfare you sacrificed yourself. to be sure, these thoughts were merely a reassertion of the conflict which she sought to settle. they offered no answer to the question, why should she, a jewess, stake her life for a people that was given to pillaging and outraging, to mutilating and murdering innocent jews? they merely made a new statement of the fact that she was bent upon doing so. yet she seized upon the new formulation of the problem as if it were the solution she was craving for. "i shall bear the cross of the social revolution even if the russian people trample upon me and everybody who is dear to me," she exclaimed in her heart, feeling at peace with the shade of sophia. she walked home in a peculiar state of religious beatitude, as though she had made a great discovery, found a golden key to the gravest problem of her personal life. then, being in this uplifted frame of mind, she saw light breaking about her. arguments were offering themselves in support of her position. when russia was free and the reign of fraternity and equality had been established the maltreatment of man by man in any form would be impossible. surely there would be no question of race or faith then. anti-jewish riots were now raging? all the more reason, then, to work for russia's liberty. indeed, was not the condition of the jews better in free countries than in despotic ones? and the russian peasant, would he in his blind fury run amuck the way he did if it were not for the misery and darkness in which he was kept by his tyrants? her heart went out to the mob that was so ignorant as to attack people who had done them no harm. and then, once the great reproach had been appeased in her mind, the entire jewish question, riots, legal discriminations and all, appeared a mere trifle compared to the great human question, the solution of which constituted the chief problem of her cause. the next time her mother indulged in an attack upon gentiles in general and clara's "gentile friends" in particular the young woman begged her, with tears in her voice, to desist: "look at her! i have touched the honour of the impurity," the old woman said, sneering. "oh, they are not the impurity, mamma darling," clara returned ardently. "they are saints; they live and die for the happiness of others. if you only knew what kind of people they were!" "she has actually been bedeviled, as true as i am a daughter of israel. jews are being torn to pieces by the gentiles; a jew isn't allowed to breathe, yet she----" "oh, they are a different kind of gentiles, mamma. when that for which they struggle has been realised the jew will breathe freely. our people have no trouble in a country like england. why? because the whole country has more freedom there. besides, when the demands of my 'gentile friends' have been realised the christian mobs won't be so uneducated, so blind. they will know who is who, and jew and gentile will live in peace. all will live in peace, like brothers, mamma." hannah listened attentively, so that clara, elated by the apparent effect of her plea, went on, going over aloud the answer that she gave her own conscience. when she paused, however, hannah said with a shrug of her shoulders and a mournful nod of her head: "so you are bound to rot away in prison, aren't you?" "don't talk like that, mamma, dear, pray." "why shouldn't i? has somebody else given birth to you? has somebody else brought you up?" "but why should you make yourself uneasy about me? i _won't_ rot away in prison, and if i do, better people than i have met with a fate of that kind. i wish i were as good as they were and died as they did." "a rather peculiar taste," hannah said with another shrug which seemed to add: "she has gone clear daft on those gentile books of hers, as true as i live." * * * * * clara remained in the white-russian town two days longer than her parents. at the moment of parting her mother clung to her desperately. "will i ever see you again?" hannah sobbed. "daughter mine, daughter mine! will my eyes ever see you again?" the old talmudist was weeping into a blue bandanna. as clara walked back to her lodging alone the streets of the strange town gave her an excruciating sense of desolation. chapter xli. pavel becomes "illegal." a month had elapsed. clara was in a train, bound for moscow, where her lover was awaiting her arrival. the nearer she drew to her destination the more vivid grew his features in her mind and the more violent was her fidget. "i am madly in love with him," she said to herself, and the very sound of these words in her mind were sweet to her. the few weeks of separation seemed to have convinced her that the power of his love over her was far greater than she had supposed. things that had preyed upon her mind before now glanced off her imagination. she wept over the fate of hessia and her prison-born child, yet she felt that if pavel asked her to marry him at once she would not have the strength to resist him. nay, to marry him was what her heart coveted above all else in the world. being an "illegal," she had to slip into the big ancient city quietly. as she passed through the streets, alone on a droshky, she made a mental note of the difference in general pictorial effect between moscow and st. petersburg, but she was too excited to give her mind to anything in particular. her first meeting with pavel took place in a large café, built something like a theatre, with two tiers of stalls, a gigantic music box sending up great waves of subdued sound from the main floor below. he waited for her in front of the building. when she came they just shook hands smilingly, and he led the way up one flight of stairs to one of the stalls--a fair-sized, oblong private room, its walls covered with red plush, with upholstered benching to match. "i am simply crazy, clanya!" he whispered, pressing her to him tremulously. at first they both experienced a sense of desuetude and awkwardness, so that in spite of his stormy demonstrations he could not look her full in the face. but this soon wore off. they were overflowing with joy in one another. a waiter, all in white, suave and hearty as only great-russian waiters know how to be, brought in "a portion of tea," served in attractive teapots of silver, with a glass for the man and a cup for the lady, and retired, shutting the door behind him, which subdued the metallic melody that filled the room still further and added to the sense of mystery that came from it. they talked desultorily and brokenly, of her parents and of the revolutionists gathered in moscow. the subject of the miroslav riot was tactfully broached by clara herself, but she strove to give this part of their incoherent conversation the tone in which people usually discuss some sad but long-forgotten event, and she passed to some other topic as quickly and imperceptibly as she could. that he had seen that riot he did not tell her, though he once caught himself on the point of blurting it all out. when she asked him about the general state of the movement he gradually warmed up. the outlook was brilliant, he said. urie, the tall blond nobleman with the strikingly great-russian features, who had played the part of cheesemonger on little garden street, st. petersburg, was in moscow now, mending the shattered organisation. he was the centre of a busy group of revolutionists, jews as well as slavs. several well-known veterans of both nationalities, who had been living in foreign countries during the past year or two, were expected to return to russia. everybody was bubbling with enthusiasm and activity. "and your fiery imagination is not inclined to view things in a rather roseate light, is it?" she asked, beaming amorously. "not a bit," he replied irascibly. "wait till you have seen it all for yourself. the reports from the provinces are all of the most cheerful character. new men are springing up everywhere. the revolution is a hydra-headed giant, clanya." "but who says it isn't?" she asked, with a laugh. she got up, shot out her arms, saying: "now for something to do. i feel like turning mountains upside down. indeed, the revolution is a hydra-headed giant, indeed it is. and you are a little dear," she added, bending over him and pressing her cheek against his. * * * * * they had been married less than a month when he learned from a ciphered letter from masha safonoff that the gendarmes were looking for him. "well, clanya," he said facetiously, as he entered their apartment one afternoon, "you are a princess no longer." her face fell. "look at her! look at her! she is grieving over the loss of her title." "oh, do stop those silly jokes of yours, pasha. must you become illegal?" "yes, ma'am. i am of the same rank as you. that puts a stop to the airs you have been giving yourself." it was in the course of the same conversation that he told her of his trip to miroslav and of all that had happened to him there. they were known here as brother and sister, his legal residence being in another place, but now both these residences were abandoned, and they moved into a new apartment, in another section of the town, which he took great pains to put in tasteful shape. indeed, so elaborately fitted up was it that he fought shy of letting any of his fellow nihilists know their new address. a table against one wall was piled with drawings, while standing in a conspicuous corner on the floor were a drawing-board and a huge portfolio--accessories of the rôle of a russified german artist which he played before the janitor of the house. before he let her see it he had put a vase of fresh roses in the centre of the table. when he and clara entered their new home, he said in french, with a gallant gesture: "madame, permit me to introduce you." he helped her off with her things and slid into the next room, where he busied himself with the samovar. she had with her a fresh copy of the _will of the people_--a sixteen page publication of the size of the average weekly printed on fine, smooth paper; so she took it up eagerly. its front page was in mourning for president garfield. an editorial notice signed by the revolutionary executive committee tendered an expression of grief and sympathy to the bereaved republic, condemning in vigorous language acts of violence in a land "where the free will of the people determines not only the law but also the person of the ruler." "in such a land," the nihilist executive committee went on to explain, "a deed of this sort is a manifestation of that spirit of despotism the effacement of which in russia is the aim of our movement. violence is not to be justified unless it be directed against violence." the declaration made an exceedingly pleasant impression on clara. "bravo! bravo!" she called out to her husband, as she peered into the inside pages of the paper. "what's the matter?" he asked her from the next room, distractedly, choking with the smoke of his freshly lit samovar. she made no answer. the same issue of her party's organ devoted several columns to the anti-jewish riots. she began to read these with acute misgivings, and, sure enough, they were permeated by a spirit of anti-semitism as puerile as it was heartless. a bitter sense of resentment filled her heart. "as long as it does not concern the jews they have all the human sympathy and tact in the world," she thought. "the moment there is a jew in the case they become cruel, short-sighted and stupid--everything that is bad and ridiculous." "what's that you said, clanya?" pavel demanded again. she had difficulty in answering him. "he is a gentile after all," she said to herself. "there is a strain of anti-semitism in the best of them." she was in despair. "what is to be done, then?" she asked herself. "is there no way out of it?" the answer was: "i will bear the cross," and once again the formula had a soothing effect on her frame of mind. and because it had, the cross gradually ceased to be a cross. she warmed to her husband with a sense of her own forgiveness, of the sacrifices she was making. she felt a new glow of tenderness for him. and then, by degrees, things appeared in milder light. pavel's rapture over her was so genuine, his devotion so profound, and the general relations between jew and gentile in the movement were marked by intimacies and attachments so sincere, that the anti-semitic article could not have sprung from any personal taste or sentiment in the author. it was evidently a mere matter of revolutionary theory. justly or unjustly, the fact was there: in the popular mind the jews represented the idea of economic oppression. now, if the masses had risen in arms against them, did not that mean that they were beginning to attack those they considered their enemies? in the depth of her heart there had always lurked some doubt as to whether the submissive, stolid russian masses had it in them ever to rise against anybody. yet here they had! misguided or not, they had risen against an element of the population which they were accustomed to regard as parasites. was not that the sign of revolutionary awakening she had fervently been praying for? she went so far as to charge herself with relapsing into racial predilections, with letting her feelings as a jewess get the better of her devotion to the cause of humanity. she was rapidly arguing herself into the absurd, inhuman position into which her party had been put by the editor of its official organ. and to prove to herself that her views were deep-rooted and unshakable, she said to herself: "if they think in miroslav i am the only person who could restore harmony to their circle, i ought to go there and try to persuade elkin to give up those foolish notions of his." what they were saying about her in that town flattered her vanity. the thought of appearing in her revolutionary alma mater, in the teeth of the local gendarmes and police, an "illegal" known to underground fame, was irresistible. her thirst of adventure in this connection was aroused to the highest pitch. * * * * * at eight o'clock the next morning she sat in a chair, looking at her husband, who was still in bed, sleeping peacefully. he had an early appointment, but she could not bring herself to wake him. she was going to do so a minute or two later, she pleaded with herself, and then they would have tea together. the samovar was singing softly in the next room. it was of her love and of her happiness it seemed to be singing. her joy in her honeymoon swelled her heart and rose to her throat. "i am too happy," she thought. as she remembered her determination to go to her native place, she added: "yes, i am too happy, while sophia is in her grave and hessia is pining away in her cell. i may be arrested at any moment in miroslav, but i am going to do my duty. i must keep elkin and the others from abandoning the revolution." chapter xlii. ominous footsteps. clara alighted from the train at a station immediately preceding miroslav. she was met by olga, the girl with the short hair and sparse teeth who was engaged to the judge, the two reaching the city partly on a peasant's waggon, partly on foot. at sight of the familiar landscape clara seemed weird to herself. it was her own miroslav, yet she was worse than a stranger in it. she felt like a ghost visiting what was once his home. on the other hand, the unmistakable evidences of the recent riot contracted her heart with pain and brought back that reproach. olga took her to a "conspiracy house." this was a basement in the outskirts of the town, whose squatty windows faced the guardhouse of military stores and commanded a distant view of the river. the only other tenants of that courtyard were three sisters, all of them deaf and in a state of semi-idiocy. the basement had been rented soon after clara's flight. it consisted of three rooms, all very meagrely furnished. lying under the sofa of the middle room was a wooden roller, which had once been intended for a secret printing office. one of the walls was hung with a disorderly pile of clothes of both sexes--the shed disguises of passing conspirators. but very few members were allowed to visit her. those who were saluted her with admiring looks and generally treated her as a heroine, which caressed her vanity most pleasantly. with a temerity born of an acquired habit of danger, not unmixed with some bravado, clara was burning to visit her parents, her sister and her mother-in-law, and to take a look at her native neighbourhood. her friends made an effort to keep her indoors. she would not be restrained, assuring them that she was going to take good care of herself, but she finally offered to compromise on a meeting with her sister, provided she brought her little girl with her. "i am crazy to see her," she said, meaning the child. "see little ruchele! why you _are_ crazy, clara!" olga declared. "if you do all miroslav will know the very next day that 'aunt clara' is in town." "nonsense. she won't know me. she has not seen me for more than a year. besides, i'll wear my veil. oh, i must see her; don't oppose me, olga, dear." * * * * * the meeting took place on a secluded bit of lawn under a sky suffused with the lingering gold of a dying sunset. and sure enough, ruchele was extremely shy of the lady in black. when clara caught her in her arms passionately she set up a scream so loud that her mother wrenched her from her aunt's embrace for fear of attracting a crowd from a neighboring lane. * * * * * a debate between clara and elkin was to take place in orlovsky's house the next evening. a few hours before the time set for the gathering clara received an unexpected call from elkin. this was their first meeting since her arrival, and she welcomed him with sincere cordiality. she respected him as her first teacher of socialism. as to his love for her, which could still be read in his eyes, it flattered her now. "well," he said, trying to take a light tone, but betraying agitation. "there is some news in town. clara yavner has been seen about." "what do you mean?" "i mean that clara yavner has been seen about," he repeated with sarcastic articulation. and by way of putting a period to the sentence, he opened his lips into a lozenge-shaped sneer and leaned his head against the mass of hung-up clothes under which he sat on an oblong stool. she was seated on another tabouret, with her back to the low window. his manner exasperated her. "but i have been out only once," she retorted calmly, controlling her anger, "and then i was heavily veiled." "well, could not some people have recognised you by your figure and carriage? i am sure i could. at any rate your cousin, vigdoroff, was to see me a little while ago, for the express purpose of conveying this message to you, clara. the gossips of cucumber market are whispering about your having been seen in town, 'and in addition to truths no end of fibs are being told.' your mother is quite uneasy about it, and--well, clara, at the risk of having it set down to a desire on my part to slip out of the debate, i should suggest that you take no further chances and leave miroslav at once." "oh, nonsense. am i not safe in this basement at least?" "yes, i think you are, but if the police should get wind of your presence in town, why, they would not leave a stone unturned. they have been itching for a chance to tone down their reputation for stupidity ever since your disappearance." she smiled and frowned at once. "besides," he went on, leaning back against the clothes and gazing at the ceiling, "if that debate is your chief mission here i am willing to capitulate in advance. you know i cannot debate with you, clara. i am still in your power. my brain is in a whirl in your presence. it is at this moment. if that debate took place i should simply not know what i was talking about. you would not wish me to make an exhibition of the abject helplessness that comes over me when i see you, would you?" his words, uttered in monotonous accents, contrasted so sharply with the air of mockery that had attended his former attempts at an avowal; they sounded so forlornly simple, his spirit was so piteously broken that he seemed a changed man. she was touched. "don't speak like that," she said kindly. "i'll do as you say. i'll leave miroslav at once." "is there absolutely no hope for me, clara?" "i am no longer free, elkin. i am a married woman," she said, flushing violently. "let us change the subject. tell me something about your americans." he dropped his eyes, and after a rather long pause he said, blankly: "well, pardon me, then. you have my best wishes, clara. i say it from my heart. i shall be your warmest friend as long as i live. i confess i dreamed of your joining our party, so that i might be near you, and hoped that some day you would become mine." "the right place for a revolutionist is here, in russia, elkin." "nobody is going to try to persuade you to leave the movement," he said, levelling a meek, longing look at her. "the russian people act like wild beasts toward our poor jews, clara; yet they and the russian revolution will ever be dear to our hearts. we appreciate that it is their blindness which makes such brutes of them. we shall always think of those who are in the fight here; we shall adore you; we shall worship you, clara; and perhaps, too, we shall be able to do something for russian liberty from there. but if you condemn us for joining the emigrants, i wish to say this, that if you had been in miroslav during the riot you would perhaps take a more indulgent view of our step. so many jewish revolutionists have sacrificed their lives by 'going to the people'--to the russian people. it's about time some of us at least went to our own people. they need us, clara." "look here, elkin," she said with ardent emphasis, striving to deaden the consciousness of his love-lorn look that was breaking her heart, "you must not think i am so soulless as to take no interest in the victims of those horrors, for i do. i do. i can assure you i do. i have been continually discussing this question in my mind. i have studied it. my heart is bleeding for our poor jews, but even if it were solely a question of saving the jews, even then one's duty would be to work for the revolution. how many russian jews could you transport to america and palestine? surely not all the five million there are. the great majority of them will stay here and be baited, and the only hope of these is a liberated russia. all history tells us that the salvation of the jews lies in liberty and in liberty only. england was the first country to grant them the right to breathe because she was the first country where the common people wrested rights for themselves. the french revolution emancipated the jews, and so it goes. if there were no parliamentary governments in western europe, the jews of germany, austria, or belgium would still be treated as they are in russia. when russia has some freedom at least, her jews, too, will be treated like human beings." "but we are not like the palestinians, clara. we don't propose to estrange ourselves from the revolutionary movement. we shall support it with american money, and we hope to fit out expeditions to rescue important prisoners from siberia, and to take them across the pacific ocean to our commune." "dreams!" she said, laughing good-naturedly. the discussion lasted about an hour longer. he had not the strength to get up, and she had not the heart to cut him short. they listened to each other's arguments with rapt attention, yet they were both aware of the unspoken other discussion--on the pathos of his love--that went on between them all the while they talked of the great exodus. and while she commiserated elkin and felt flattered by her power over him, her heart was full of yearning tenderness for her husband, of joy in him and in her honeymoon with him. when elkin rose from his seat at last he said: "by the way, i came near forgetting it--your cousin wants to see you." "volodia? volodia vigdoroff? i thought he would dread to come near me." time being short, the meeting was set for an early hour the very next morning. elkin had made his adieux, but he still lingered. there was an extremely awkward stillness which was broken by the appearance of olga. then he left. disclosing the location, or, indeed, the existence, of a "conspiracy house" to one uninitiated into underground life was impossible. accordingly, vladimir was to meet clara in a scanty pine grove near the nihilists' basement. on his way thither vladimir was continually looking over his shoulder, lest he was being followed by spies. he was flurried and the sight of every policeman he met gave him a moment or two of abject terror. but the part he had taken in the fight of the defence guard had left him with a sense of his own potential courage; so he was trying to live up to it by keeping this appointment with his "illegal" cousin, whom he was so thirsting to see. that she was married he did not know. he was going to persuade her to join his american party. at this minute, in the high-strung state of his mind, the result of recent experiences, he felt as though she were not merely his "second sister," which is russian for cousin, but a real one. his chief object for seeking this interview, however, had been to celebrate his own vindication. by her enthusiasm for the revolutionary movement from which he stayed away she had formerly made him feel like a coward and a nonentity; now, however, that in his judgment the riots plainly meant the moral bankruptcy of that movement, so far at least as it concerned revolutionists of jewish blood, he mentally triumphed over her. the meeting had been fixed for an early hour. the air in the woods was cold and piquant with the exhalations of young evergreens. the grass, considerably yellowed and strewn with cones, was still beaded with dew, save for a small outlet of the clearing which was being rapidly invaded by the sun. they met with warm embraces and kisses. "clara, my sister! if you only knew what we have gone through!" he said, with the passion of heartfelt tragedy in his subdued voice. "how is uncle? how is auntie?" she asked with similar emotion. his kiss and embrace had left an odd sensation in him. he had never had an occasion to kiss her before; and now that he had not seen her for about a year the contact of his lips with the firm, though somewhat faded, cheek of this interesting young woman had revealed to him what seemed to be an unnatural and illicit fact that she was not a sister to him, but--a woman. they seated themselves in a sunny spot. "are you really going to america, volodia?" she inquired with a familiar smile, carefully hiding her grief. "i certainly am, and what is more, i want you to come along with us," he answered, admiring her figure and the expression of her face as he had never done before. "oh, i am quite in earnest about it, clara. you see, the fist of the rioter has driven it home to me that i am a jew. i must go where my people go. come, clara, you have staked your life for the russians long enough, and how have they repaid you? come and let us do something for our own poor unfortunate jews." she listened with the attention of one good-naturedly waiving a discussion. "and what has become of that bridge you were building?" she asked. "and what has become of that gallows, of the martyr's scaffold, which you said united jew and gentile? has _that_ done anybody any good? as to the bridge i was building across the chasm that divides us from the christians, i admit that it has been wrecked to splinters; wrecked unmercifully by that same fist of the rioter. i dreamed of the brotherhood of jew and gentile and that fist woke me. the only point of contact between jew and gentile possible to-day is this"--pointing at a scar slightly back of his ear, his badge of active service as a member of the defence committee. "why, did you get it in the riot?" she asked with a gesture of horror. "it's a trifle, of course. others have been crippled for life, but such as this bit of a scar is it will stand me in good stead as a reminder that i am a jew. the fact is now everlastingly engraven on my flesh. there is no effacing it now. but joking aside, clara, i love the russian people as much as i ever did. my heart breaks at the thought of leaving russia. i don't think the russians themselves are capable of loving their people as i do. but it can't be helped. there is an impassable chasm between us." he was conscious of being on his mettle, as though the fiascoes he had sustained in his last year's talks with her were being retrieved. as to her, there was a look of curiosity and subtle condescension in her eye as she listened. but she was thoroughly friendly and warm-hearted, so for the moment he saw nothing but encouragement to his flow of conversation. from time to time he would be seized with mortal fear lest they should be pounced upon by gendarmes, but he never betrayed it. at one point, when he had put a question to her and paused, she said, instead of answering it: "really, volodia, i somehow can't get it into my head that you are actually going to america." "oh, i am, i am. i am going to that land 'where one's wounded feelings are sure of shelter.' come along, clara. haven't you taken risks enough in russia? come and serve your own people, your poor, trodden people. have not the riots been enough to open your eyes, clara?" "as if those were the only riots there were," she returned, pensively. "all humanity is in the hands of rioters." "but our homes are being destroyed, clara," he urged in an impassioned undertone. "our people are being plundered, maimed, their every feeling is outraged, their daughters are assaulted." "is there anything new in that?" she asked, in the same pensive tone. "are not the masses robbed of the fruit of their toil? are they not maimed in the workshops or in the army? are not their daughters reduced to dishonour by their own misery and by the lust of the mighty? are not the cities full of human beings without a home? all russia is riot-ridden. the whole world, for that matter. the riots that you are dwelling upon are only a detail. do away with _the_ riot and all the others will disappear of themselves." a note of animation came into her melancholy voice. "what you 'americans' propose to do," she continued, "is to clasp a handful of victims in your arms and to flee to america with them. well, i have no fault to find with you, volodia. i wish you and your party success. but the great, great bulk of victims, gentiles as well as jews, remain here, and the rioters--the throne, the bureaucracy, the drones--remain with them." she struck him as amazingly beautiful this morning and she seemed to speak as one inspired. he listened to her with a feeling of reverence. "but you have done enough, clara," he said when she finished. "you have faced dangers enough. sooner or later you will be taken, and then--" (he threw up his hands sadly). "you have a perfect right to save your life and liberty now." she shook her head. "you are a wonderful woman, clara. by george, you are! therefore, if you are arrested, it will be a great loss not only to your relatives, but to all the jews. haven't the gentiles robbed us enough?" "would you have them rob us of our sacred principles, too?" she retorted, with a faint smile. "indeed, the right to die for liberty is the only right the government cannot take away from the jew." "come to america, clara." "oh, that's utterly impossible, volodia," she answered, gazing at the cones. * * * * * the discovery that prince boulatoff was prominently connected with the underground movement, which originated in the confession of one of his revolutionary pupils, had created considerable excitement in st. petersburg. the secret service had no difficulty in securing his photograph, and when it was shown to the little man who had acted as an errand boy at the celebrated cheese-shop he at once identified him as one of those who dug the mine. that pavel had recently been in miroslav was known to the whole town. accordingly, the central political detective office at st. petersburg despatched several picked men there to scent for his underground trail. these practically took the matter out of the hands of the local gendarmes, whom they treated with professional contempt. they gradually learned that pavel had been a frequent visitor at orlovsky's house, and then they took to shadowing orlovsky and those in whose company he was seen. they made discovery after discovery. one of these imported spies was the fellow who once shadowed clara in st. petersburg--the tall man with the swinging arm and the stiff-looking neck whom she met on the day when the revolutionist with the greek name was arrested. it was about o'clock in the evening, some ten minutes before train time, when this spy saw an uneducated jewish woman in blue spectacles crossing the square in front of the station. she seemed familiar to him, yet not enough so to attract serious attention. it was clara. her disguise, in addition to the blue spectacles, consisted of a heavy jewish wig, partly covered by a black kerchief, and an old-fashioned cloak. to spare her the risk of facing the gendarmes of the station, her ticket had been bought for her by somebody else, her intention being to slip into her car at the last moment. having reached the place too early, however, she was now trying to kill the interval by sauntering about. this time the spy escaped her notice, but a little later, less than a minute before the third bell was sounded and while she was scurrying through the third class restaurant, she caught sight of him, as he stood half leaning against the counter drowsily. here he had a much better look at her. she certainly was familiar to him, but he was still unable to locate her, and before he knew his own mind he let her pass. it was not until the train had pulled out, and its rear lights were rapidly sinking into the vast gloom of the night, that it dawned upon him that she looked like the girl he used to spy upon in st. petersburg. blue spectacles as a means of concealing one's identity are quite a commonplace article, so he called himself names for not having thought of it in time and hastened to telegraph to the gendarmes at the next station to arrest the young woman, giving a description of clara's disguise and general appearance. some three quarters of an hour later an answer came from the next station that the train had been detained for a careful search, but that no such woman could be found on it. * * * * * while that search was in progress clara, her disguise removed, entered the "conspiracy house," where olga had been waiting for her, in case she should have found it inconvenient to board the train. "there you are!" olga said, in despair, as she beheld her friend's smiling face in the doorway. "what has happened?" "it's a fizzle, that's all. but it might have been worse than that. there is a st. petersburg fellow at the station. he knows me." "did he see you?" olga demanded breathlessly. "i should say he did," clara replied with another smile. "well, i thought it was all up. gracious! didn't my feet grow weak under me. but my star has not gone back on me yet, it seems. i got into one of the cars just as the third bell was heard. i was sure he was close behind me, but, when i turned around, looking for a seat, i saw he was not there. he must have gone to another car for the moment, or something. anyhow, i tried to get out again. i thought i had nothing to lose, and--here i am. but look here, olya[e], are you sure there is nobody outside?" [e] diminutive of olga. "i think i am," olga answered firmly. "why?" "i thought i saw a queer looking individual as i turned into this street. i must have been mistaken. still, i confess, the presence of that fellow in this town is anything but a pleasant surprise to me. i don't like it at all. i wonder why we have not heard from masha about him." the reason they had not heard from her was simply this, that the invasion of the st. petersburg detectives had had such an overbearing effect on everybody in the local gendarmerie that her brother had become unusually reticent on the affairs of his office even at home. * * * * * two or three hours had passed, when clara and olga heard an ominous confusion of footsteps in the vestibule. the next moment the room was crowded with men, some in uniforms, others in citizens' clothes. one of the st. petersburg officers rushed to a window where a blue medicine bottle--clara's "window signal"--stood on the sill, to prevent either of the two nihilist girls from removing it by way of warning to their friends. "you here!" the tall, baronial-looking procureur, princess chertogoff's son-in-law, said to olga, in amazement. he bowed to her most chivalrously, but she turned away from him with a contemptuous gesture. "and may i ask for _your_ name, miss," a gendarme officer accosted clara. "i decline to answer," she returned, simply. her eyes were on a pistol which she saw in the hand of one of the gendarmes. "you live in miroslav, don't you?" instead of answering this question she sprang at the man who held the pistol, seized it from him and began firing at the wall. this was her substitute for a removal of the safety signal from the window. the weapon was instantly knocked out of her hand by a blow with the flat of a gleaming sword, and she was forced into a seat, two men holding her tightly by the arms, while a third was tying a handkerchief around her bleeding hand. "i merely wanted to alarm the neighbourhood," she said calmly. "but, of course, you people will turn it into a case of armed resistance." * * * * * when orlovsky learned of clara's and olga's arrest, one of his first thoughts was about notifying pavel, of whose relations toward clara he had by this time been informed. it appeared that the only man he knew who had "underground" connections in the two capitals and was in a position to communicate with boulatoff was the former leader of the miroslav circle, elkin. this, however, did not stop orlovsky. to elkin he went and explained the situation to him. "elkin, darling, you know you are a soul of a fellow," he implored him. "pavel is either in st. petersburg or in moscow, and you are the only man who could get at him." elkin stood, thinking glumly, at the window for a few minutes, and then said: "very well, i am going." he started on the same day, accompanied by a spy. that evening orlovsky, the judge and several other members of the miroslav circle, were arrested at orlovsky's house, and a few days later news came from moscow that pavel and elkin had been taken in a café, while makar had fallen into a "trap" at the house of an old friend of elkin's, who had been seized several hours before. chapter xliii. a message through the wall. months had passed. spring was three or four weeks old, but cell no. -- on the first floor of the trubetzkoy bastion, fortress of peter and paul, had not yet tasted its caressing breath. it was a rather spacious, high-ceiled vault, but being quite close to the stone fence outside, it was practically without the range of sunshine and breeze. its window, which was high overhead, at the top of a sloping stretch of sill, sent down twilight at noonday and left it in the grip of night two or three hours after. the chill, damp air was laden with a stifling odour of must. the lower part of the walls was covered with a thick layer of mould which looked like a broad band of heavy tapestry of a dark-greenish hue. the solitary inmate of this pit was walking back and forth diagonally, from corner to corner. he wore a loose, shapeless cloak of coarse but flimsy material, which he was continually wrapping about his slim, emaciated figure. he was shivering. as he walked to and fro, his head was for the most part thrown back, his eyes raised to the window, whose sloping sill he could have scarcely touched with the tips of his fingers. now and then he paused and turned toward one of the walls, as though listening for some sounds, and then, with an air of nerveless disappointment, he would resume his walk. it was pavel. the spy who accompanied elkin from miroslav to moscow had shadowed him in the ancient city until he saw him with prince boulatoff and then with makar and a university student, in whose room the four revolutionists were arrested, shortly after, in the course of a heated debate between makar and elkin on the riots and the question of emigration to america. during the first few weeks of pavel's stay in the fortress the guards, who had been converted to revolutionary sympathies by a celebrated political prisoner named nechayeff, had carried communications not only from prisoner to prisoner, but also from them to the revolutionists at large; so that the _will of the people_ was at one time partly edited from this fortress, and a bold plot was even planned by nechayeff to have the czar locked up in a cell while he visited its cathedral. but these relations between the guards and the revolutionists, which lasted about a year, had finally been disclosed, and since then pavel and the inmates of the other cells had been treated with brutal stringency. pavel's trial was not likely to take place for another year or two, but his fate was clear to him: death, probably commuted to life-imprisonment, which actually amounted to slow death in a spacious grave like this vault, or in the mines of siberia, was the usual doom of men charged with "crimes" like his. his future yawned before him in the form of a black, boundless cavern charged with dull, gnawing pain, like the pain that was choking him at this moment. the worst part of his torture was his solitude. the most inhuman physical suffering seemed easier to bear than this speechless, endless, excruciatingly monotonous solitude of his. "oath-men" as the sworn-in attendants of the prison were called (under-sized, comical looking fellows, most of them) came into his cell three or four times a day--with food, or to put things to rights hastily--but neither they nor the gendarmes who invariably accompanied them ever answered his questions. one morning, in an excess of self-commiseration and resentment at their stolid taciturnity, he had spat in the face of a gendarme. he had done so, at the peril of being flogged, in the hope of hearing him curse, at least; but the gendarme merely wiped his bewhiskered face and went on watching the "oath-man" silently. whenever pavel was taken out for his -minute walk in a secluded little yard, which was once in two days, the sentinels he met would turn their backs on him, lest he should see more faces than was absolutely necessary. the warden and the prison doctor were the only human beings whose voices he could hear, and these were brutally laconic and brutally rude or ironical with him. to be taken to the prison office for an examination by the procureur was the one diversion which the near future held out to him; but then his near future might be a matter of weeks and might be a matter of months. back and forth he walked, at a spiritless, even pace, as monotonous as his days of gloom and misery, as that dull pain which was ceaselessly choking his throat and gnawing at his heart. at one moment he paused and felt his gums with his fingers. were they swollen? was he developing scurvy? or was it mere imagination? he also passed his hand over his cheeks, and it seemed to him that they were sunken a little more than they had been the day before. but the great subject of his thoughts to-day was his mother, and tantalising, heart-crushing thoughts they were. where was she? how was she? was she alive at all? he pictured her committing suicide because of his doom, and the cruel vision persisted. and if she was not dead, her life was little better than death. he tried to think of something else, but no, the appealing, reproachful image of his mother, of his poor dear mother who had scarcely had a day of happiness since she married, would not leave his mind. as a matter of fact, his efforts to think of something else were scarcely sincere. he would not shake that image out of his brain if he could. it was tearing his heart to pieces, yet he would rather stand all these tortures than shut his mother out of his thoughts. to talk to somebody was the only thing that could have saved him from the terrible pang that was harrowing him at this moment; but the chimes of the cathedral, which played the quarter-hours as well as the hours, and the crash of iron bolts at the opening of cells at meal-time were the only sounds that he could expect to hear to-day. his heart was writhing within him. something was clutching at his brain. he seemed to feel himself going mad. he was tempted to cry at the top of his voice; to cry like a wild beast; but, of course, he was not going to give such satisfaction to the enemy. he gazed at the sloping window-sill. for the thousandth time a desire took hold of him to mount it and take a look through the glass; and for the thousandth time he cast a hopeless glance at his bed, at the table, the chair, the wash-stand: they were all nailed to the floor, a large earthen water-cup and a salt-cellar made of lead being the only movable things in his room. four months ago there had been a prisoner in the adjoining cell with whom he carried on long conversations by rapping out his words on the wall, but one day their talk had been interrupted in the middle of a sentence, after which that man had been removed. the cell had long remained empty, as could be inferred from the fact that pavel never heard its door opened at meal-time. since a week ago it had been tenanted again, but all his attempts at conversation with his new neighbour had so far been futile. his taps on the wall had been left unanswered. suddenly, as he was now pacing his floor, his heart melting with homesickness and anguish at the thought of his mother, he heard a rapid succession of fine, dry sounds on the right wall. he started, and, breathless and flushed with excitement, he listened. "who are you?" the mould-grown wall demanded. pavel cast a look at the peephole in the heavy door, and seeing no eye in it, he took a turn or two up and down the room and stopped hard by the wall, upon which he rapped out his reply: "boulatoff. who are you?" "the emperor of all africa," came the answer. "what?" pavel asked in perplexity. "you have not finished your sentence, what were you saying?" "begone!" the wall returned. "how dare you doubt my title? i am the emperor of all africa. how dare you speak to me? away with you!" pavel's heart sank. it was apparently some political prisoner who had gone insane in a damp, cold, isolated cell. "dear friend, dear comrade!" he implored. "can't you try and remember your name?" "begone, or i'll order your arrest, mean slave that you are!" this was followed by some incoherencies. pavel went away from the wall with tears in his eyes. in the afternoon of the third day he was striding to and fro, in excellent spirits. he had been in this mood since he opened his eyes that morning. nothing but the most encouraging moments in the history of his connection with the movement would come to his mind to-day. he felt as though he and all his revolutionary friends were looking at each other, and conversing mentally, all as cheerful and happy as he was now. everything pointed toward the speedy triumph of their cause. he beheld barricades in the streets of st. petersburg, moscow, odessa; he saw the red flag waving; he heard the marseillaise. he recalled makar's vision of the time when victorious revolutionists would break into the fortress of peter and paul and take its prisoners out to celebrate the advent of liberty with the people. he thought of clara, and his heart went out to her and to their interrupted honeymoon; he imagined her on his arm marching with others, he did not know whither, and whispering words of love and exultation to her, and once more his heart leaped with joy. he recalled jokes, comical situations. he felt like bursting into a roar of merriment, when there came a shower of taps on the wall. "who are you?" "boulatoff," pavel answered, with sadness in his heart. he expected other absurdities from his insane neighbour. "and you?" "bieliayeff. i am not well. but i feel much better to-day. my lucid interval, perhaps. i remember everything." pavel had met him two years before. they talked of themselves, of their mutual friends, of the last news that had reached bieliayeff through his other wall. it appeared that bieliayeff's neighbour on that side of his cell was elkin. pavel received the information with a thrill of pleasure. he was going to ask bieliayeff to convey a message to his fellow townsman; but at this he had an instinctive feeling that there was an eye at the peephole and he dropped his hand to his side, pretending to be absorbed in thought. they resumed their conversation a quarter of an hour later. "tell elkin i love him; he is dear to me," pavel tapped out. "i feel guilty and miserable. if it were not for me he would be in america now. besides, i have been unjust to him. this oppresses me more than anything else." these communications through the wall are the most precious things life has to offer in living graves like those of the fortress of peter and paul. the inmate of such a grave will listen to the messages of his neighbours with the most strenuous attention, with every faculty in his possession, with every fibre of his being; and he will convey every word of a long message as if reading it from a written memorandum. after a lapse of five or ten minutes bieliayeff came back with elkin's answer. "he says he loves you," the tap-tap said, "and that it is he who ought to apologise. it was he who was unjust. as to his american scheme, he is happy to be here. it is sweet to be suffering for liberty, he says." makar was at the other end of the same corridor, and a message from him reached pavel by way of a dozen walls. "hello, old boy!" it said. "at last i have completed the revolutionary programme i have been so long engaged upon. it's a dandy! it is not the same i spoke to you about in moscow. it covers every point beautifully. it would save the party from every mistake it has ever made or is liable to make." * * * * * one day pavel learned that clara had arrived in the fortress, after a long confinement and no end of examinations in miroslav. she was in another part of the building and communicating with her was impossible. pavel scarcely ever thought of anything else. could it be true that she was in the building and he would not even have a chance to see her? he was fidgeting and writhing like a bird in a cage. at last, on a morning, the wall brought him a message from her. it had come through walls, floors and ceilings. "clanya sends her love," it ran, "and tells him to keep away from the damp walls as much as possible." "tell clanya i think of her day and night," he rapped back. then a footstep sounded at his door, and with a heart swelling with emotion he threw himself upon his bed and buried his face in his hands. the end. * * * * * transcriber's notes: most inconsistencies in spelling and hyphenation found in the original text were retained, including: "assistant procureur" and "assistant-procureur" "ball-room" and "ball room" "bedroom" and "bed-room" "candlestick" and "candle-stick" "capmaker" and "cap-maker" "catherine" and "catharine" "chernishevsky" and "chernyshevsky" "cobblestones" and "cobble-stones" "colour" and "color" "drily" and "dryly" "favourite" and "favorite" "featherbeds" and "feather-beds" "fiascos" and "fiascoes" "footsteps" and "foot-steps" "grey" and "gray" "heartfelt" and "heart-felt" "homebound" and "home-bound" "laborer" and "labourer" "market place" and "market-place" "neighbour" and "neighbor" "odour" and "odor" "parlour" and "parlor" "pedlar" and "peddlar" "peephole" and "peep-hole" "realise" and "realize" "regime" and "régime" "reverie" and "revery" "rodkevitch" and "rodkevich" "rumour" and "rumor" "side whiskers" and "side-whiskers" "stepchild" and "step-child" "topboots" and "top-boots" "tramcar" and "tram-car" "trunkmaker" and "trunk-maker" "undersized" and "under-sized" "vice-emperor" and "vice-emperor" "wagons" and "waggons" "waiting room" and "waiting-room" "woolen" and "woollen" the following corrections were made to the text: page : "ma chere" changed to "ma chère" (don't take it ill, _ma chère_." she) page : "czarowitch" changed to "czarowitz" (the present czar, then still czarowitz,) page : "waistcoast" changed to "waistcoat" (pulling at his waistcoat as though) page : "ecstacy" changed to "ecstasy" (and in his ecstasy over) page : "medicis" changed to "medici" (venus de medici--and the) page : added missing end quote (essence?" for the) page : "alexander" changed to "alexandre" (who saw alexandre alexandrovich off) page : "myterious" changed to "mysterious" (mysterious air of the "radicals") page : added missing exclamation mark (number of _forward!_ and another) page : added missing period (nunnish face. she made quite) page : "idotic" changed to "idiotic" (restrain the "idiotic breadth" of his) page : "a lá" changed to "à la" (trimmed whiskers à la alexander ii.,) page : "alexandre" changed to "alexander" (on the part of alexander ii.) page : missing word "the" added (beaming at the sight) page : "cosversation" changed to "conversation" (in turning the conversation) page : "vassilyevitch" changed to "vassilyevich" (pavel vassilyevich. everything) page : "paval" changed to "pavel" ("exactly," pavel assented,) page : added missing hyphen (three-fourths of them) page : added missing end quote (view of it." at this) page : "judge" changed to "judge" (olga, the judge, and the ) page : "tête-a-tête" changed to "tête-à-tête" (house for _tête-à-tête_ purposes.) page : removed extraneous comma (imprisoned army officer slipped away) page : "surrounding" changed to "surroundings" (their immediate surroundings were) page : "minature" changed to "miniature" (miniature garden between) page : added missing period (well-travelled fellow. he can) page : extra quote mark deleted (she says. you have a) page : "l'assomoir" changed to "l'assommoir" (dwelt on zola's _l'assommoir_ and) page : "bood-bye" changed to "good-bye" (a hurried good-bye and made for) page : added missing hyphen (meanwhile count loris-melikoff had) page : "littlie" changed to "little" (speak little-russian to purring cat,) page : "littlie" changed to "little" (from little russia, answered) page : repeated word "the" deleted (by the "gay bard," which clara) page : "lavadia" changed to "livadia" (still in livadia with his bride,) page : "insistance" changed to "insistence" (his heart with cruel insistence.) page : "michail" changed to "michaïl" (residence, the michaïl palace,) page : added missing comma (your fur cap," she gestured.) page : "street" changed to "street" (the little garden street precinct had) page : "street" changed to "street" (garden street for the czar's drive) page : "distinquished" changed to "distinguished" (a distinguished revolutionary writer) page : "street" changed to "street" (cheese shop on little garden street) page : added missing comma ("don't," he begged them,) page : removed extraneous comma (the prison corridor answered his) page : changed end double quote to single quote (such a cap?' says i.) page : "spokeman's" changed to "spokesman's" (whispered in the spokesman's ear) page : changed period to colon (finally he shouted huskily:) page : "street" changed to "street" (near nicholas street, the best street) page : "street" changed to "street" (and about nicholas street and bore down) page : "market" changed to "market" (crowd on cucumber market,) page : "ran" changed to "run" (of primitive humanity run) page : "street" changed to "street" (nicholas street, from a residence over) page : "maurauders" changed to "marauders" (the marauders for the slashers) page : "banners" changed to "hammers" (crowbars, hammers or axes) page : "stupour" changed to "stupor" (revolting stupor of inebriety.) page : "sooth" changed to "soothe" (trying to soothe an angry baby.) page : changed period to colon (hannah said, gravely:) page : "street" changed to "street" (street, st. petersburg, was in moscow) page : added missing period (in a sunny spot.) page : added missing period (there is a st. petersburg) page : "access" changed to "excess" (one morning in an excess) produced from scanned images of public domain material from the google print project) yiddish tales translated by helena frank [illustration: colophon] philadelphia the jewish publication society of america copyright, , by the jewish publication society of america preface this little volume is intended to be both companion and complement to "stories and pictures," by i. l. perez, published by the jewish publication society of america, in . its object was twofold: to introduce the non-yiddish reading public to some of the many other yiddish writers active in russian jewry, and--to leave it with a more cheerful impression of yiddish literature than it receives from perez alone. yes, and we have collected, largely from magazines and papers and unbound booklets, forty-eight tales by twenty different authors. this, thanks to such kind helpers as mr. f. hieger, of london, without whose aid we should never have been able to collect the originals of these stories, mr. morris meyer, of london, who most kindly gave me the magazines, etc., in which some of them were contained, and mr. israel j. zevin, of new york, that able editor and delightful _feuilletonist_, to whose critical knowledge of yiddish letters we owe so much. some of these writers, perez, for example, and sholom-alechem, are familiar by name to many of us already, while the reputation of others rests, in circles enthusiastic but tragically small, on what they have written in hebrew.[ ] such are berdyczewski, jehalel, frischmann, berschadski, and the silver-penned judah steinberg. on these last two be peace in the olom ho-emess. the olom ha-sheker had nothing for them but struggle and suffering and an early grave. [ ] berschadski's "forlorn and forsaken," frischmann's "three who ate," and steinberg's "a livelihood" and "at the matzes," though here translated from the yiddish versions, were probably written in hebrew originally. in the case of the former two, it would seem that the yiddish version was made by the authors themselves, and the same may be true of steinberg's tales, too. the tales given here are by no means all equal in literary merit, but they have each its special note, its special echo from that strangely fascinating world so often quoted, so little understood (we say it against ourselves), the russian ghetto--a world in the passing, but whose more precious elements, shining, for all who care to see them, through every page of these unpretending tales, and mixed with less and less of what has made their misfortune, will surely live on, free, on the one hand, to blend with all and everything akin to them, and free, on the other, to develop along their own lines--and this year here, next year in jerusalem. the american sketches by zevin and s. libin differ from the others only in their scene of action. lerner's were drawn from the life in a little town in bessarabia, the others are mostly polish. and the folk tale, which is taken from joshua meisach's collection, published in wilna in , with the title ma'asiyos vun der baben, oder nissim ve-niflo'os, might have sprung from almost any ghetto of the old world. we sincerely regret that nothing from the pen of the beloved "grandfather" of yiddish story-tellers in print, abramowitsch (mendele mocher seforim), was found quite suitable for insertion here, his writings being chiefly much longer than the type selected for this book. neither have we come across anything appropriate to our purpose by another old favorite, j. dienesohn. we were, however, able to insert three tales by the veteran author mordecai spektor, whose simple style and familiar figures go straight to the people's heart. with regard to the second half of our object, greater cheerfulness, this collection is an utter failure. it has variety, on account of the many different authors, and the originals have wit and humor in plenty, for wit and humor and an almost passionate playfulness are in the very soul of the language, but it is not cheerful, and we wonder now how we ever thought it could be so, if the collective picture given of jewish life were, despite its fictitious material, to be anything like a true one. the drollest of the tales, "gymnasiye" (we refer to the originals), is perhaps the saddest, anyhow in point of actuality, seeing that the russian government is planning to make education impossible of attainment by more and more of the jewish youth--children given into its keeping as surely as any others, and for the crushing of whose lives it will have to answer. well, we have done our best. among these tales are favorites of ours which we have not so much as mentioned by name, thus leaving the gentle reader at liberty to make his own. h. f. london, march, acknowledgement the jewish publication society of america desires to acknowledge the valuable aid which mr. a. s. freidus, of the department of jewish literature, in the new york public library, extended to it in compiling the biographical data relating to the authors whose stories appear in english garb in the present volume. some of the authors that are living in america courteously furnished the society with the data referring to their own biographies. the following sources have been consulted for the biographies: the jewish encyclopædia; wiener, history of yiddish literature in the nineteenth century; pinnes, histoire de la littérature judéo-allemande, and the yiddish version of the same, die geschichte vun der jüdischer literatur; baal-mahashabot, geklibene schriften; sefer zikkaron le-sofere yisrael ha-hayyim ittanu ka-yom; eisenstadt, hakme yisrael be-amerika; the memoirs preceding the collected works of some of the authors; and scattered articles in european and american yiddish periodicals. contents preface acknowledgment reuben asher braubes the misfortune jehalel (judah lÖb lewin) earth of palestine isaac lÖb perez a woman's wrath the treasure it is well whence a proverb mordecai spektor an original strike a gloomy wedding poverty sholom-alechem (shalom rabinovitz) the clock fishel the teacher an easy fast the passover guest gymnasiye eliezer david rosenthal sabbath yom kippur isaiah lerner bertzi wasserführer ezrielk the scribe yitzchok-yossel broitgeber judah steinberg a livelihood at the matzes david frischmann three who ate micha joseph berdyczewski military service isaiah berschadski forlorn and forsaken tashrak (israel joseph zevin) the hole in a beigel as the years roll on david pinski reb shloimeh s. libin (israel hubewitz) a picnic manasseh yohrzeit for mother slack times they sleep abraham raisin shut in the charitable loan the two brothers lost his voice late the kaddish avròhom the orchard-keeper hirsh david naumberg the rav and the rav's son meyer blinkin women lÖb schapiro if it was a dream shalom asch a simple story a jewish child a scholar's mother the sinner isaac dob berkowitz country folk the last of them a folk tale the clever rabbi glossary and notes reuben asher braudes born, , in wilna (lithuania), white russia; went to roumania after the anti-jewish riots of , and published a yiddish weekly, yehudit, in the interest of zionism; expelled from roumania; published a hebrew weekly, ha-zeman, in cracow, in ; then co-editor of the yiddish edition of die welt, the official organ of zionism; hebrew critic, publicist, and novelist; contributor to ha-lebanon (at eighteen), ha-shahar, ha-boker or, and other periodicals; chief work, the novel "religion and life." the misfortune or how the rav of pumpian tried to solve a social problem pumpian is a little town in lithuania, a jewish town. it lies far away from the highway, among villages reached by the polish road. the inhabitants of pumpian are poor people, who get a scanty living from the peasants that come into the town to make purchases, or else the jews go out to them with great bundles on their shoulders and sell them every sort of small ware, in return for a little corn, or potatoes, etc. strangers, passing through, are seldom seen there, and if by any chance a strange person arrives, it is a great wonder and rarity. people peep at him through all the little windows, elderly men venture out to bid him welcome, while boys and youths hang about in the street and stare at him. the women and girls blush and glance at him sideways, and he is the one subject of conversation: "who can that be? people don't just set off and come like that--there must be something behind it." and in the house-of-study, between afternoon and evening prayer, they gather closely round the elder men, who have been to greet the stranger, to find out who and what the latter may be. fifty or sixty years ago, when what i am about to tell you happened, communication between pumpian and the rest of the world was very restricted indeed: there were as yet no railways, there was no telegraph, the postal service was slow and intermittent. people came and went less often, a journey was a great undertaking, and there were not many outsiders to be found even in the larger towns. every town was a town to itself, apart, and pumpian constituted a little world of its own, which had nothing to do with the world at large, and lived its own life. neither were there so many newspapers then, anywhere, to muddle people's heads every day of the week, stirring up questions, so that people should have something to talk about, and the jews had no papers of their own at all, and only heard "news" and "what was going on in the world" in the house-of-study or (lehavdil!) in the bath-house. and what sort of news was it _then_? what sort could it be? world-stirring questions hardly existed (certainly pumpian was ignorant of them): politics, economics, statistics, capital, social problems, all these words, now on the lips of every boy and girl, were then all but unknown even in the great world, let alone among us jews, and let alone to reb nochumtzi, the pumpian rav! and yet reb nochumtzi had a certain amount of worldly wisdom of his own. reb nochumtzi was a native of pumpian, and had inherited his position there from his father. he had been an only son, made much of by his parents (hence the pet name nochumtzi clinging to him even in his old age), and never let out of their sight. when he had grown up, they connected him by marriage with the tenant of an estate not far from the town, but his father would not hear of his going there "auf köst," as the custom is. "i cannot be parted from my nochumtzi even for a minute," explained the old rav, "i cannot bear him out of my sight. besides, we study together." and, in point of fact, they did study together day and night. it was evident that the rav was determined his nochumtzi should become rav in pumpian after his death--and so he became. he had been rav some years in the little town, receiving the same five polish gulden a week salary as his father (on whom be peace!), and he sat and studied and thought. he had nothing much to do in the way of exercising authority: the town was very quiet, the people orderly, there were no quarrels, and it was seldom that parties went "to law" with one another before the rav; still less often was there a ritual question to settle: the folk were poor, there was no meat cooked in a jewish house from one friday to another, when one must have a bit of meat in honor of sabbath. fish was a rarity, and in summer time people often had a "milky sabbath," as well as a milky week. how should there be "questions"? so he sat and studied and thought, and he was very fond indeed of thinking about the world! it is true that he sat all day in his room, that he had never in all his life been so much as "four ells" outside the town, that it had never so much as occurred to him to drive about a little in any direction, for, after all, whither should he drive? and why drive anywhither? and yet he knew the world, like any other learned man, a disciple of the wise. everything is in the torah, and out of the torah, out of the gemoreh, and out of all the other sacred books, reb nochumtzi had learned to know the world also. he knew that "reuben's ox gores simeon's cow," that "a spark from a smith's hammer can burn a wagon-load of hay," that "reb eliezer ben charsum had a thousand towns on land and a thousand ships on the sea." ha, that was a fortune! he must have been nearly as rich as rothschild (they knew about rothschild even in pumpian!). "yes, he was a rich tano and no mistake!" he reflected, and was straightway sunk in the consideration of the subject of rich and poor. he knew from the holy books that to be rich is a pure misfortune. king solomon, who was certainly a great sage, prayed to god: resh wo-osher al-titten li!--"give me neither poverty nor _riches_!" he said that "riches are stored to the hurt of their owner," and in the holy gemoreh there is a passage which says, "poverty becomes a jew as scarlet reins become a white horse," and once a sage had been in heaven for a short time and had come back again, and he said that he had seen poor people there occupying the principal seats in the garden of eden, and the rich pushed right away, back into a corner by the door. and as for the books of exhortation, there are things written that make you shudder in every limb. the punishments meted out to the rich by god in that world, the world of truth, are no joke. for what bit of merit they have, god rewards them in _this_ poor world, the world of vanity, while yonder, in the world of truth, they arrive stript and naked, without so much as a taste of kingdom-come! "consequently, the question is," thought reb nochumtzi, "why should they, the rich, want to keep this misfortune? of what use is this misfortune to them? who so mad as to take such a piece of misfortune into his house and keep it there? how can anyone take the world-to-come in both hands and lose it for the sake of such vanities?" he thought and thought, and thought it over again: "what is a poor creature to do when god sends him the misfortune of riches? he would certainly wish to get rid of them, only who would take his misfortune to please him? who would free another from a curse and take it upon himself? "but, after all ... ha?" the evil spirit muttered inside him. "what a fool you are!" thought reb nochumtzi again. "if" (and he described a half-circle downward in the air with his thumb), "if troubles come to us, such as an illness (may the merciful protect us!), or some other misfortune of the kind, it is expressly stated in the sacred writings that it is an expiation for sin, a torment sent into the world, so that we may be purified by it, and made fit to go straight to paradise. and because it is god who afflicts men with these things, we cannot give them away to anyone else, but have to bear with them. now, such a misfortune as being rich, which is also a visitation of god, must certainly be borne with like the rest. "and, besides," he reflected further, "the fool who would take the misfortune to himself, doesn't exist! what healthy man in his senses would get into a sick-bed?" he began to feel very sorry for reb eliezer ben charsum with his thousand towns and his thousand ships. "to think that such a saint, such a tano, one of the authors of the holy mishnah, should incur such a severe punishment! "but he stood the trial! despite this great misfortune, he remained a saint and a tano to the end, and the holy gemoreh says particularly that he thereby put to shame all the rich people, who go straight to gehenna." thus reb nochumtzi, the pumpian rav, sat over the talmud and reflected continually on the problem of great riches. he knew the world through the holy scriptures, and was persuaded that riches were a terrible misfortune, which had to be borne, because no one would consent to taking it from another, and bearing it for him. * * * * * again many years passed, and reb nochumtzi gradually came to see that poverty also is a misfortune, and out of his own experience. his sabbath cloak began to look threadbare (the weekday one was already patched on every side), he had six little children living, one or two of the girls were grown up, and it was time to think of settling them, and they hadn't a frock fit to put on. the five polish gulden a week salary was not enough to keep them in bread, and the wife, poor thing, wept the whole day through: "well, there, ich wie ich, it isn't for myself--but the poor children are naked and barefoot." at last they were even short of bread. "nochumtzi! why don't you speak?" exclaimed his wife with tears in her eyes. "nochumtzi, can't you hear me? i tell you, we're starving! the children are skin and bone, they haven't a shirt to their back, they can hardly keep body and soul together. think of a way out of it, invent something to help us!" and reb nochumtzi sat and considered. he was considering the other misfortune--poverty. "it is equally a misfortune to be really very poor." and this also he found stated in the holy scriptures. it was king solomon, the famous sage, who prayed as well: resh wo-osher al-titten li, that is, "give me neither _poverty_ nor riches." aha! poverty is no advantage, either, and what does the holy gemoreh say but "poverty diverts a man from the way of god"? in fact, there is a second misfortune in the world, and one he knows very well, one with which he has a practical, working acquaintance, he and his wife and his children. and reb nochum pursued his train of thought: "so there are two contrary misfortunes in the world: this way it's bad, and that way it's bitter! is there really no remedy? can no one suggest any help?" and reb nochumtzi began to pace the room up and down, lost in thought, bending his whole mind to the subject. a whole flight of bible texts went through his head, a quantity of quotations from the gemoreh, hundreds of stories and anecdotes from the "fountain of jacob," the midrash, and other books, telling of rich and poor, fortunate and unfortunate people, till his head went round with them all as he thought. suddenly he stood still in the middle of the room, and began talking to himself: "aha! perhaps i've discovered a plan after all! and a good plan, too, upon my word it is! once more: it is quite certain that there will always be more poor than rich--lots more! well, and it's quite certain that every rich man would like to be rid of his misfortune, only that there is no one willing to take it from him--no _one_, not any _one_, of course not. nobody would be so mad. but we have to find out a way by which _lots and lots_ of people should rid him of his misfortune little by little. what do you say to that? once more: that means that we must take his unfortunate riches and divide them among a quantity of poor! that will be a good thing for both parties: he will be easily rid of his great misfortune, and they would be helped, too, and the petition of king solomon would be established, when he said, 'give me neither poverty nor riches.' it would come true of them all, there would be no riches and no poverty. ha? what do you think of it? isn't it really and truly an excellent idea?" reb nochumtzi was quite astonished himself at the plan he had invented, cold perspiration ran down his face, his eyes shone brighter, a happy smile played on his lips. "that's the thing to do!" he explained aloud, sat down by the table, blew his nose, wiped his face, and felt very glad. "there is only one difficulty about it," occurred to him, when he had quieted down a little from his excitement, "one thing that doesn't fit in. it says particularly in the torah that there will always be poor people among the jews, 'the poor shall not cease out of the land.' there must always be poor, and this would make an end of them altogether! besides, the precept concerning charity would, heaven forbid, be annulled, the precept which god, blessed is he, wrote in the torah, and which the holy gemoreh and all the other holy books make so much of. what is to become of the whole treatise on charity in the shulchan aruch? how can we continue to fulfil it?" but a good head is never at a loss! reb nochumtzi soon found a way out of the difficulty. "never mind!" and he wrinkled his forehead, and pondered on. "there is no fear! who said that even the whole of the money in the possession of a few unfortunate rich men will be enough to go round? that there will be just enough to help all the jewish poor? no fear, there will be enough poor left for the exercise of charity. ai wos? there is another thing: to whom shall be given and to whom not? ha, that's a detail, too. of course, one would begin with the learned and the poor scholars and sages, who have to live on the torah and on divine service. the people can just be left to go on as it is. no fear, but it will be all right!" at last the plan was ready. reb nochumtzi thought it over once more, very carefully, found it complete from every point of view, and gave himself up to a feeling of satisfaction and delight. "dvoireh!" he called to his wife, "dvoireh, don't cry! please god, it will be all right, quite all right. i've thought out a plan.... a little patience, and it will all come right!" "whatever? what sort of plan?" "there, there, wait and see and hold your tongue! no woman's brain could take it in. you leave it to me, it will be all right!" and reb nochumtzi reflected further: "yes, the plan is a good one. only, how is it to be carried out? with whom am i to begin?" and he thought of all the householders in pumpian, but--there was not one single unfortunate man among them! that is, not one of them had money, a real lot of money; there was nobody with whom to discuss his invention to any purpose. "if so, i shall have to drive to one of the large towns!" and one sabbath the beadle gave out in the house-of-study that the rav begged them all to be present that evening at a convocation. at the said convocation the rav unfolded his whole plan to the people, and placed before them the happiness that would result for the whole world, if it were to be realized. but first of all he must journey to a large town, in which there were a great many unfortunate rich people, preferably wilna, and he demanded of his flock that they should furnish him with the necessary means for getting there. the audience did not take long to reflect, they agreed to the rav's proposal, collected a few rubles (for who would not give their last farthing for such an important object?), and on sunday morning early they hired him a peasant's cart and horse--and the rav drove away to wilna. the rav passed the drive marshalling his arguments, settling on what he should say, and how he should explain himself, and he was delighted to see how, the more deeply he pondered his plan, the more he thought it out, the more efficient and appropriate it appeared, and the clearer he saw what happiness it would bestow on men all the world over. the small cart arrived at wilna. "whither are we to drive?" asked the peasant. "whither? to a jew," answered the rav. "for where is the jew who will not give me a night's lodging?" "and i, with my cart and horse?" the rav sat perplexed, but a jew passing by heard the conversation, and explained to him that wilna is not pumpian, and that they would have to drive to a post-house, or an inn. "be it so!" said the rav, and the jew gave him the address of a place to which they should drive. wilna! it is certainly not the same thing as pumpian. now, for the first time in his life, the rav saw whole streets of tall houses, of two and three stories, all as it were under one roof, and how fine they are, thought he, with their decorated exteriors! "oi, there live the unfortunate people!" said reb nochumtzi to himself. "i never saw anything like them before! how can they bear such a misfortune? i shall come to them as an angel of deliverance!" he had made up his mind to go to the principal jewish citizen in wilna, only he must be a good scholar, so as to understand what reb nochumtzi had to say to him. they advised him to go to the president of the congregation. every street along which he passed astonished him separately, the houses, the pavements, the droshkis and carriages, and especially the people, so beautifully got up with gold watch-chains and rings--he was quite bewildered, so that he was afraid he might lose his senses, and forget all his arguments and his reasonings. at last he arrived at the president's house. "he lives on the first floor." another surprise! reb nochumtzi was unused to stairs. there was no storied house in all pumpian! but when you must, you must! one way and another he managed to arrive at the first-floor landing, where he opened the door, and said, all in one breath: "i am the pumpian rav, and have something to say to the president." the president, a handsome old man, very busy just then with some merchants who had come on business, stood up, greeted him politely, and opening the door of the reception-room said to him: "please, rabbi, come in here and wait a little. i shall soon have finished, and then i will come to you here." expensive furniture, large mirrors, pictures, softly upholstered chairs, tables, cupboards with shelves full of great silver candlesticks, cups, knives and forks, a beautiful lamp, and many other small objects, all of solid silver, wardrobes with carving in different designs; then, painted walls, a great silver chandelier decorated with cut glass, fascinating to behold! reb nochumtzi actually had tears in his eyes, "to think of anyone's being so unfortunate--and to have to bear it!" "what can i do for you, pumpian rav?" inquired the president. and reb nochumtzi, overcome by amazement and enthusiasm, nearly shouted: "you are so unfortunate!" the president stared at him, shrugged his shoulders, and was silent. then reb nochumtzi laid his whole plan before him, the object of his coming. "i will be frank with you," he said in concluding his long speech, "i had no idea of the extent of the misfortune! to the rescue, men, save yourselves! take it to heart, think of what it means to have houses like these, and all these riches--it is a most terrible misfortune! now i see what a reform of the whole world my plan amounts to, what deliverance it will bring to all men!" the president looked him straight in the face: he saw the man was not mad, but that he had the limited horizon of one born and bred in a small provincial town and in the atmosphere of the house-of-study. he also saw that it would be impossible to convince him by proofs that his idea was a mistaken one; for a little while he pitied him in silence, then he hit upon an expedient, and said: "you are quite right, rabbi! your plan is really a very good one. but i am only one of many, wilna is full of such unfortunate people. everyone of them must be talked to, and have the thing explained to him. then, the other party must be spoken to as well, i mean the poor people, so that they shall be willing to take their share of the misfortune. that's not such an easy matter as giving a thing away and getting rid of it." "of course, of course...." agreed reb nochumtzi. "look here, rav of pumpian, i will undertake the more difficult part--let us work together! you shall persuade the rich to give away their misfortune, and i will persuade the poor to take it! your share of the work will be the easier, because, after all, everybody wants to be rid of his misfortune. do your part, and as soon as you have finished with the rich, i will arrange for you to be met half-way by the poor...." * * * * * history does not tell how far the rav of pumpian succeeded in wilna. only this much is certain, the president never saw him again. jehalel pen name of judah löb lewin; born, , in minsk (lithuania), white russia; tutor; treasurer to the brodski flour mills and their sugar refinery, at tomaschpol, podolia, later in kieff; began to write in ; translator of beaconsfield's tancred into hebrew; talmudist; mystic; first socialist writer in hebrew; writer, chiefly in hebrew, of prose and poetry; contributor to sholom-alechem's jüdische volksbibliothek, ha-shahar, ha-meliz, ha-zeflrah, and other periodicals. earth of palestine as my readers know, i wanted to do a little stroke of business--to sell the world-to-come. i must tell you that i came out of it very badly, and might have fallen into some misfortune, if i had had the ware in stock. it fell on this wise: nowadays everyone is squeezed and stifled; parnosseh is gone to wrack and ruin, and there is no business--i mean, there _is_ business, only not for us jews. in such bitter times people snatch the bread out of each other's mouths; if it is known that someone has made a find, and started a business, they quickly imitate him; if that one opens a shop, a second does likewise, and a third, and a fourth; if this one makes a contract, the other runs and will do it for less--"even if i earn nothing, no more will you!" when i gave out that i had the world-to-come to sell, lots of people gave a start, "aha! a business!" and before they knew what sort of ware it was, and where it was to be had, they began thinking about a shop--and there was still greater interest shown on the part of certain philanthropists, party leaders, public workers, and such-like. they knew that when i set up trading in the world-to-come, i had announced that my business was only with the poor. well, they understood that it was likely to be profitable, and might give them the chance of licking a bone or two. there was very soon a great tararam in our little world, people began inquiring where my goods came from. they surrounded me with spies, who were to find out what i did at night, what i did on sabbath; they questioned the cook, the market-woman; but in vain, they could not find out how i came by the world-to-come. and there blazed up a fire of jealousy and hatred, and they began to inform, to write letters to the authorities about me. laban the yellow and balaam the blind (you know them!) made my boss believe that i do business, that is, that i have capital, that is--that is--but my employer investigated the matter, and seeing that my stock in trade was the world-to-come, he laughed, and let me alone. the townspeople among whom it was my lot to dwell, those good people who are a great hand at fishing in troubled waters, as soon as they saw the mud rise, snatched up their implements and set to work, informing by letter that i was dealing in contraband. there appeared a red official and swept out a few corners in my house, but without finding a single specimen bit of the world-to-come, and went away. but i had no peace even then; every day came a fresh letter informing against me. my good brothers never ceased work. the pious, orthodox jews, the gemoreh-köplech, informed, and said i was a swindler, because the world-to-come is a thing that isn't there, that is neither fish, flesh, fowl, nor good red herring, and the whole thing was a delusion; the half-civilized people with long trousers and short earlocks said, on the contrary, that i was making game of religion, so that before long i had enough of it from every side, and made the following resolutions: first, that i would have nothing to do with the world-to-come and such-like things which the jews did not understand, although they held them very precious; secondly, that i would not let myself in for selling anything. one of my good friends, an experienced merchant, advised me rather to buy than to sell: "there are so many to sell, they will compete with you, inform against you, and behave as no one should. buying, on the other hand--if you want to buy, you will be esteemed and respected, everyone will flatter you, and be ready to sell to you on credit--everyone is ready to take money, and with very little capital you can buy the best and most expensive ware." the great thing was to get a good name, and then, little by little, by means of credit, one might rise very high. so it was settled that i should buy. i had a little money on hand for a couple of newspaper articles, for which nowadays they pay; i had a bit of reputation earned by a great many articles in hebrew, for which i received quite nice complimentary letters; and, in case of need, there is a little money owing to me from certain jewish booksellers of the maskilim, for books bought "on commission." well, i am resolved to buy. but what shall i buy? i look round and take note of all the things a man can buy, and see that i, as a jew, may not have them; that which i may buy, no matter where, isn't worth a halfpenny; a thing that is of any value, i can't have. and i determine to take to the old ware which my great-great-grandfathers bought, and made a fortune in. my parents and the whole family wish for it every day. i resolve to buy--you understand me?--earth of palestine, and i announce both verbally and in writing to all my good and bad brothers that i wish to become a purchaser of the ware. oh, what a commotion it made! hardly was it known that i wished to buy palestinian earth, than there pounced upon me people of whom i had never thought it possible that they should talk to me, and be in the room with me. the first to come was a kind of jew with a green shawl, with white shoes, a pale face with a red nose, dark eyes, and yellow earlocks. he commenced unpacking paper and linen bags, out of which he shook a little sand, and he said to me: "that is from mother rachel's grave, from the shunammite's grave, from the graves of huldah the prophetess and deborah." then he shook out the other bags, and mentioned a whole list of men: from the grave of enoch, moses our teacher, elijah the prophet, habakkuk, ezekiel, jonah, authors of the talmud, and holy men as many as there be. he assured me that each kind of sand had its own precious distinction, and had, of course, its special price. i had not had time to examine all the bags of sand, when, aha! i got a letter written on blue paper in rashi script, in which an unknown well-wisher earnestly warned me against buying of _that_ jew, for neither he nor his father before him had ever been in palestine, and he had got the sand in k., from the andreiyeff hills yonder, and that if i wished for it, _he_ had _real_ palestinian earth, from the mount of olives, with a document from the palestinian vicegerent, the brisk rebbetzin, to the effect that she had given of this earth even to the eaters of swine's flesh, of whom it is said, "for their worm shall not die," and they also were saved from worms. my palestinian jew, after reading the letter, called down all bad dreams upon the head of the brisk rebbetzin, and declared among other things that she herself was a dreadful worm, who, etc. he assured me that i ought not to send money to the brisk rebbetzin, "may heaven defend you! it will be thrown away, as it has been a hundred times already!" and began once more to praise _his_ wares, his earth, saying it was a marvel. i answered him that i wanted real earth of palestine, _earth_, not sand out of little bags. "earth, it _is_ earth!" he repeated, and became very angry. "what do you mean by earth? am i offering you mud? but that is the way with people nowadays, when they want something jewish, there is no pleasing them! only" (a thought struck him) "if you want another sort, perhaps from the field of machpelah, i can bring you some palestinian earth that _is_ earth. meantime give me something in advance, for, besides everything else, i am a palestinian jew." i pushed a coin into his hand, and he went away. meanwhile the news had spread, my intention to purchase earth of palestine had been noised abroad, and the little town echoed with my name. in the streets, lanes, and market-place, the talk was all of me and of how "there is no putting a final value on a jewish soul: one thought he was one of _them_, and now he wants to buy earth of palestine!" many of those who met me looked at me askance, "the same and _not_ the same!" in the synagogue they gave me the best turn at the reading of the law; jews in shoes and socks wished me "a good sabbath" with great heartiness, and a friendly smile: "eh-eh-eh! we understand--you are a deep one--you are one of us after all." in short, they surrounded me, and nearly carried me on their shoulders, so that i really became something of a celebrity. yüdel, the "living orphan," worked the hardest. yüdel is already a man in years, but everyone calls him the "orphan" on account of what befell him on a time. his history is very long and interesting, i will tell it you in brief. he has a very distinguished father and a very noble mother, and he is an only child, of a very frolicsome disposition, on account of which his father and his mother frequently disagreed; the father used to punish him and beat him, but the boy hid with his mother. in a word, it came to this, that his father gave him into the hands of strangers, to be educated and put into shape. the mother could not do without him, and fell sick of grief; she became a wreck. her beautiful house was burnt long ago through the boy's doing: one day, when a child, he played with fire, and there was a conflagration, and the neighbors came and built on the site of her palace, and she, the invalid, lies neglected in a corner. the father, who has left the house, often wished to rejoin her, but by no manner of means can they live together without the son, and so the cast-off child became a "living orphan"; he roams about in the wide world, comes to a place, and when he has stayed there a little while, they drive him out, because wherever he comes, he stirs up a commotion. as is the way with all orphans, he has many fathers, and everyone directs him, hits him, lectures him; he is always in the way, blamed for everything, it's always his fault, so that he has got into the habit of cowering and shrinking at the mere sight of a stick. wandering about as he does, he has copied the manners and customs of strange people, in every place where he has been; his very character is hardly his own. his father has tried both to threaten and to persuade him into coming back, saying they would then all live together as before, but yüdel has got to like living from home, he enjoys the scrapes he gets into, and even the blows they earn for him. no matter how people knock him about, pull his hair, and draw his blood, the moment they want him to make friendly advances, there he is again, alert and smiling, turns the world topsyturvy, and won't hear of going home. it is remarkable that yüdel, who is no fool, and has a head for business, the instant people look kindly on him, imagines they like him, although he has had a thousand proofs to the contrary. he has lately been of such consequence in the eyes of the world that they have begun to treat him in a new way, and they drive him out of every place at once. the poor boy has tried his best to please, but it was no good, they knocked him about till he was covered with blood, took every single thing he had, and empty-handed, naked, hungry, and beaten as he is, they shout at him "be off!" from every side. now he lives in narrow streets, in the small towns, hidden away in holes and corners. he very often hasn't enough to eat, but he goes on in his old way, creeps into tight places, dances at all the weddings, loves to meddle, everything concerns him, and where two come together, he is the third. i have known him a long time, ever since he was a little boy. he always struck me as being very wild, but i saw that he was of a noble disposition, only that he had grown rough from living among strangers. i loved him very much, but in later years he treated me to hot and cold by turns. i must tell you that when yüdel had eaten his fill, he was always very merry, and minded nothing; but when he had been kicked out by his landlord, and went hungry, then he was angry, and grew violent over every trifle. he would attack me for nothing at all, we quarrelled and parted company, that is, i loved him at a distance. when he wasn't just in my sight, i felt a great pity for him, and a wish to go to him; but hardly had i met him than he was at the old game again, and i had to leave him. now that i was together with him in my native place, i found him very badly off, he hadn't enough to eat. the town was small and poor, and he had no means of supporting himself. when i saw him in his bitter and dark distress, my heart went out to him. but at such times, as i said before, he is very wild and fanatical. one day, on the ninth of ab, i felt obliged to speak out, and tell him that sitting in socks, with his forehead on the ground, reciting lamentations, would do no good. yüdel misunderstood me, and thought i was laughing at jerusalem. he began to fire up, and he spread reports of me in the town, and when he saw me in the distance, he would spit out before me. his anger dated from some time past, because one day i turned him out of my house; he declared that i was the cause of all his misfortunes, and now that i was his neighbor, i had resolved to ruin him; he believed that i hated him and played him false. why should yüdel think that? i don't know. perhaps he feels one ought to dislike him, or else he is so embittered that he cannot believe in the kindly feelings of others. however that may be, yüdel continued to speak ill of me, and throw mud at me through the town; crying out all the while that i hadn't a scrap of jewishness in me. now that he heard i was buying palestinian earth, he began by refusing to believe it, and declared it was a take-in and the trick of an apostate, for how could a person who laughed at socks on the ninth of ab really want to buy earth of palestine? but when he saw the green shawls and the little bags of earth, he went over--a way he has--to the opposite, the exact opposite. he began to worship me, couldn't praise me enough, and talked of me in the back streets, so that the women blessed me aloud. yüdel was now much given to my company, and often came in to see me, and was most intimate, although there was no special piousness about me. i was just the same as before, but yüdel took this for the best of signs, and thought it proved me to be of extravagant hidden piety. "there's a jew for you!" he would cry aloud in the street. "earth of palestine! there's a jew!" in short, he filled the place with my jewishness and my hidden orthodoxy. i looked on with indifference, but after a while the affair began to cost me both time and money. the palestinian beggars and, above all, yüdel and the townsfolk obtained for me the reputation of piety, and there came to me orthodox jews, treasurers, cabalists, beggar students, and especially the rebbe's followers; they came about me like bees. they were never in the habit of avoiding me, but this was another thing all the same. before this, when one of the rebbe's disciples came, he would enter with a respectful demeanor, take off his hat, and, sitting in his cap, would fix his gaze on my mouth with a sweet smile; we both felt that the one and only link between us lay in the money that i gave and he took. he would take it gracefully, put it into his purse, as it might be for someone else, and thank me as though he appreciated my kindness. when _i_ went to see _him_, he would place a chair for me, and give me preserve. but now he came to me with a free and easy manner, asked for a sip of brandy with a snack to eat, sat in my room as if it were his own, and looked at me as if i were an underling, and he had authority over me; i am the penitent sinner, it is said, and that signifies for him the key to the door of repentance; i have entered into his domain, and he is my lord and master; he drinks my health as heartily as though it were his own, and when i press a coin into his hand, he looks at it well, to make sure it is worth his while accepting it. if i happen to visit him, i am on a footing with all his followers, the chassidim; his "trustees," and all his other hangers-on, are my brothers, and come to me when they please, with all the mud on their boots, put their hand into my bosom and take out my tobacco-pouch, and give it as their opinion that the brandy is weak, not to talk of holidays, especially purim and rejoicing of the law, when they troop in with a great noise and vociferation, and drink and dance, and pay as much attention to me as to the cat. in fact, all the townsfolk took the same liberties with me. before, they asked nothing of me, and took me as they found me, now they began to _demand_ things of me and to inquire why i didn't do this, and why i did that, and not the other. shmuelke the bather asked me why i was never seen at the bath on sabbath. kalmann the butcher wanted to know why, among the scape-fowls, there wasn't a white one of mine; and even the beadle of the klaus, who speaks through his nose, and who had never dared approach me, came and insisted on giving me the thirty-nine stripes on the eve of the day of atonement: "eh-eh, if you are a jew like other jews, come and lie down, and you shall be given stripes!" and the palestinian jews never ceased coming with their bags of earth, and i never ceased rejecting. one day there came a broad-shouldered jew from "over there," with his bag of palestinian earth. the earth pleased me, and a conversation took place between us on this wise: "how much do you want for your earth?" "for my earth? from anyone else i wouldn't take less than thirty rubles, but from you, knowing you and _of_ you as i do, and as your parents did so much for palestine, i will take a twenty-five ruble piece. you must know that a person buys this once and for all." "i don't understand you," i answered. "twenty-five rubles! how much earth have you there?" "how much earth have i? about half a quart. there will be enough to cover the eyes and the face. perhaps you want to cover the whole body, to have it underneath and on the top and at the sides? o, i can bring you some more, but it will cost you two or three hundred rubles, because, since the good-for-nothings took to coming to palestine, the earth has got very expensive. believe me, i don't make much by it, it costs me nearly...." "i don't understand you, my friend! what's this about bestrewing the body? what do you mean by it?" "how do you mean, 'what do you mean by it?' bestrewing the body like that of all honest jews, after death." "ha? after death? to preserve it?" "yes, what else?" "i don't want it for that, i don't mind what happens to my body after death. i want to buy palestinian earth for my lifetime." "what do you mean? what good can it do you while you're alive? you are not talking to the point, or else you are making game of a poor palestinian jew?" "i am speaking seriously. i want it now, while i live! what is it you don't understand?" my palestinian jew was greatly perplexed, but he quickly collected himself, and took in the situation. i saw by his artful smile that he had detected a strain of madness in me, and what should he gain by leading me into the paths of reason? rather let him profit by it! and this he proceeded to do, saying with winning conviction: "yes, of course, you are right! how right you are! may i ever see the like! people are not wrong when they say, 'the apple falls close to the tree'! you are drawn to the root, and you love the soil of palestine, only in a different way, like your holy forefathers, may they be good advocates! you are young, and i am old, and i have heard how they used to bestrew their head-dress with it in their lifetime, so as to fulfil the scripture verse, 'and have pity on zion's dust,' and honest jews shake earth of palestine into their shoes on the eve of the ninth of ab, and at the meal before the fast they dip an egg into palestinian earth--nu, fein! i never expected so much of you, and i can say with truth, 'there's a jew for you!' well, in that case, you will require two pots of the earth, but it will cost you a deal." "we are evidently at cross-purposes," i said to him. "what are two potfuls? what is all this about bestrewing the body? i want to buy palestinian earth, earth in palestine, do you understand? i want to buy, in palestine, a little bit of earth, a few dessiatines." "ha? i didn't quite catch it. what did you say?" and my palestinian jew seized hold of his right ear, as though considering what he should do; then he said cheerfully: "ha--aha! you mean to secure for yourself a burial-place, also for after death! o yes, indeed, you are a holy man and no mistake! well, you can get that through me, too; give me something in advance, and i shall manage it for you all right at a bargain." "why do you go on at me with your 'after death,'" i cried angrily. "i want a bit of earth in palestine, i want to dig it, and sow it, and plant it...." "ha? what? sow it and plant it?! that is ... that is ... you only mean ... may all bad dreams!..." and stammering thus, he scraped all the scattered earth, little by little, into his bag, gradually got nearer the door, and--was gone! it was not long before the town was seething and bubbling like a kettle on the boil, everyone was upset as though by some misfortune, angry with me, and still more with himself: "how could we be so mistaken? he doesn't want to buy palestinian earth at all, he doesn't care what happens to him when he's dead, he laughs--he only wants to buy earth _in_ palestine, and set up villages there." "eh-eh-eh! he remains one of _them_! he is what he is--a skeptic!" so they said in all the streets, all the householders in the town, the women in the market-place, at the bath, they went about abstracted, and as furious as though i had insulted them, made fools of them, taken them in, and all of a sudden they became cold and distant to me. the pious jews were seen no more at my house. i received packages from palestine one after the other. one had a black seal, on which was scratched a black ram's horn, and inside, in large characters, was a ban from the brisk rebbetzin, because of my wishing to make all the jews unhappy. other packets were from different palestinian beggars, who tried to compel me, with fair words and foul, to send them money for their travelling expenses and for the samples of earth they enclosed. my fellow-townspeople also got packages from "over there," warning them against me--i was a dangerous man, a missionary, and it was a mitzveh to be revenged on me. there was an uproar, and no wonder! a letter from palestine, written in rashi, with large seals! in short i was to be put to shame and confusion. everyone avoided me, nobody came near me. when people were obliged to come to me in money matters or to beg an alms, they entered with deference, and spoke respectfully, in a gentle voice, as to "one of them," took the alms or the money, and were out of the door, behind which they abused me, as usual. only yüdel did not forsake me. yüdel, the "living orphan," was bewildered and perplexed. he had plenty of work, flew from one house to the other, listening, begging, and talebearing, answering and asking questions; but he could not settle the matter in his own mind: now he looked at me angrily, and again with pity. he seemed to wish not to meet me, and yet he sought occasion to do so, and would look earnestly into my face. the excitement of my neighbors and their behavior to me interested me very little; but i wanted very much to know the reason why i had suddenly become abhorrent to them? i could by no means understand it. once there came a wild, dark night. the sky was covered with black clouds, there was a drenching rain and hail and a stormy wind, it was pitch dark, and it lightened and thundered, as though the world were turning upside down. the great thunder claps and the hail broke a good many people's windows, the wind tore at the roofs, and everyone hid inside his house, or wherever he found a corner. in that dreadful dark night my door opened, and in came--yüdel, the "living orphan"; he looked as though someone were pushing him from behind, driving him along. he was as white as the wall, cowering, beaten about, helpless as a leaf. he came in, and stood by the door, holding his hat; he couldn't decide, did not know if he should take it off, or not. i had never seen him so miserable, so despairing, all the time i had known him. i asked him to sit down, and he seemed a little quieted. i saw that he was soaking wet, and shivering with cold, and i gave him hot tea, one glass after the other. he sipped it with great enjoyment. and the sight of him sitting there sipping and warming himself would have been very comic, only it was so very sad. the tears came into my eyes. yüdel began to brighten up, and was soon yüdel, his old self, again. i asked him how it was he had come to me in such a state of gloom and bewilderment? he told me the thunder and the hail had broken all the window-panes in his lodging, and the wind had carried away the roof, there was nowhere he could go for shelter; nobody would let him in at night; there was not a soul he could turn to, there remained nothing for him but to lie down in the street and die. "and so," he said, "having known you so long, i hoped you would take me in, although you are 'one of them,' not at all pious, and, so they say, full of evil intentions against jews and jewishness; but i know you are a good man, and will have compassion on me." i forgave yüdel his rudeness, because i knew him for an outspoken man, that he was fond of talking, but never did any harm. seeing him depressed, i offered him a glass of wine, but he refused it. i understood the reason of his refusal, and started a conversation with him. "tell me, yüdel heart, how is it i have fallen into such bad repute among you that you will not even drink a drop of wine in my house? and why do you say that i am 'one of them,' and not pious? a little while ago you spoke differently of me." "ett! it just slipped from my tongue, and the truth is you may be what you please, you are a good man." "no, yüdel, don't try to get out of it! tell me openly (it doesn't concern me, but i am curious to know), why this sudden revulsion of feeling about me, this change of opinion? tell me, yüdel, i beg of you, speak freely!" my gentle words and my friendliness gave yüdel great encouragement. the poor fellow, with whom not one of "them" has as yet spoken kindly! when he saw that i meant it, he began to scratch his head; it seemed as if in that minute he forgave me all my "heresies," and he looked at me kindly, and as if with pity. then, seeing that i awaited an answer, he gave a twist to his earlock, and said gently and sincerely: "you wish me to tell you the truth? you insist upon it? you will not be offended?" "you know that i never take offence at anything you say. say anything you like, yüdel heart, only speak." "then i will tell you: the town and everyone else is very angry with you on account of your palestinian earth: you want to do something new, buy earth and plough it and sow--and where? in our land of israel, in our holy land of israel!" "but why, yüdel dear, when they thought i was buying palestinian earth to bestrew me after death, was i looked upon almost like a saint?" "Ê, that's another thing! that showed that you held palestine holy, for a land whose soil preserves one against being eaten of worms, like any other honest jew." "well, i ask you, yüdel, what does this mean? when they thought i was buying sand for after my death, i was a holy man, a lover of palestine, and because i want to buy earth and till it, earth in your holy land, our holy earth in the holy land, in which our best and greatest counted it a privilege to live, i am a blot on israel. tell me, yüdel, i ask you: _why_, because one wants to bestrew himself with palestinian earth after death, is one an orthodox jew; and when one desires to give oneself wholly to palestine in life, should one be 'one of them'? now i ask you--all those palestinian jews who came to me with their bags of sand, and were my very good friends, and full of anxiety to preserve my body after death, why have they turned against me on hearing that i wished for a bit of palestinian earth while i live? why are they all so interested and such good brothers to the dead, and such bloodthirsty enemies to the living? why, because i wish to provide for my sad existence, have they noised abroad that i am a missionary, and made up tales against me? why? i ask you, why, yüdel, why?" "you ask me? how should i know? i only know that ever since palestine was palestine, people have gone there to die--that i know; but all this ploughing, sowing, and planting the earth, i never heard of in my life before." "yes, yüdel, you are right, because it has been so for a long time, you think so it has to be--that is the real answer to your questions. but why not think back a little? why should one only go to palestine to die? is not palestinian earth fit to _live_ on? on the contrary, it is some of the very best soil, and when we till it and plant it, we fulfil the precept to restore the holy land, and we also work for ourselves, toward the realization of an honest and peaceable life. i won't discuss the matter at length with you to-day. it seems that you have quite forgotten what all the holy books say about palestine, and what a precept it is to till the soil. and another question, touching what you said about palestine being only there to go and die in. tell me, those palestinian jews who were so interested in my death, and brought earth from over there to bestrew me--tell me, are they also only there to die? did you notice how broad and stout they were? ha? and they, they too, when they heard i wanted to live there, fell upon me like wild animals, filling the world with their cries, and made up the most dreadful stories about me. well, what do you say, yüdel? i ask you." "do i know?" said yüdel, with a wave of the hand. "is my head there to think out things like that? but tell me, i beg, what _is_ the good to you of buying land in palestine and getting into trouble all round?" "you ask, what is the good to me? i want to live, do you hear? i want to _live_!" "if you can't live without palestinian earth, why did you not get some before? did you never want to live till now?" "oh, yüdel, you are right there. i confess that till now i have lived in a delusion, i thought i was living; but--what is the saying?--so long as the thunder is silent...." "some thunder has struck you!" interrupted yüdel, looking compassionately into my face. "i will put it briefly. you must know, yüdel, that i have been in business here for quite a long time. i worked faithfully, and my chief was pleased with me. i was esteemed and looked up to, and it never occurred to me that things would change; but bad men could not bear to see me doing so well, and they worked hard against me, till one day the business was taken over by my employer's son; and my enemies profited by the opportunity, to cover me with calumnies from head to foot, spreading reports about me which it makes one shudder to hear. this went on till the chief began to look askance at me. at first i got pin-pricks, malicious hints, then things got worse and worse, and at last they began to push me about, and one day they turned me out of the house, and threw me into a hedge. presently, when i had reviewed the whole situation, i saw that they could do what they pleased with me. i had no one to rely on, my onetime good friends kept aloof from me, i had lost all worth in their eyes; with some because, as is the way with people, they took no trouble to inquire into the reason of my downfall, but, hearing all that was said against me, concluded that i was in the wrong; others, again, because they wished to be agreeable to my enemies; the rest, for reasons without number. in short, reflecting on all this, i saw the game was lost, and there was no saying what might not happen to me! hitherto i had borne my troubles patiently, with the courage that is natural to me; but now i feel my courage giving way, and i am in fear lest i should fall in my own eyes, in my own estimation, and get to believe that i am worth nothing. and all this because i must needs resort to _them_, and take all the insults they choose to fling at me, and every outcast has me at his mercy. that is why i want to collect my remaining strength, and buy a parcel of land in palestine, and, god helping, i will become a bit of a householder--do you understand?" "why must it be just in palestine?" "because i may not, and i cannot, buy in anywhere else. i have tried to find a place elsewhere, but they were afraid i was going to get the upper hand, so down they came, and made a wreck of it. over there i shall be proprietor myself--that is firstly, and secondly, a great many relations of mine are buried there, in the country where they lived and died. and although you count me as 'one of them,' i tell you i think a great deal of 'the merits of the fathers,' and that it is very pleasant to me to think of living in the land that will remind me of such dear forefathers. and although it will be hard at first, the recollection of my ancestors and the thought of providing my children with a corner of their own and honestly earned bread will give me strength, till i shall work my way up to something. and i hope i _will_ get to something. remember, yüdel, i believe and i hope! you will see, yüdel--you know that our brothers consider palestinian earth a charm against being eaten by worms, and you think that i laugh at it? no, i believe in it! it is quite, quite true that my palestinian earth will preserve me from worms, only not after death, no, but alive--from such worms as devour and gnaw at and poison the whole of life!" yüdel scratched his nose, gave a rub to the cap on his head, and uttered a deep sigh. "yes, yüdel, you sigh! now do you know what i wanted to say to you?" "ett!" and yüdel made a gesture with his hand. "what you have to say to me?--ett!" "oi, that 'ett!' of yours! yüdel, i know it! when you have nothing to answer, and you ought to think, and think something out, you take refuge in 'ett!' just consider for once, yüdel, i have a plan for you, too. remember what you were, and what has become of you. you have been knocking about, driven hither and thither, since childhood. you haven't a house, not a corner, you have become a beggar, a tramp, a nobody, despised and avoided, with unpleasing habits, and living a dog's life. you have very good qualities, a clear head, and acute intelligence. but to what purpose do you put them? you waste your whole intelligence on getting in at backdoors and coaxing a bit of bread out of the maidservant, and the mistress is not to know. can you not devise a means, with that clever brain of yours, how to earn it for yourself? see here, i am going to buy a bit of ground in palestine, come with me, yüdel, and you shall work, and be a man like other men. you are what they call a 'living orphan,' because you have many fathers; and don't forget that you have _one_ father who lives, and who is only waiting for you to grow better. well, how much longer are you going to live among strangers? till now you haven't thought, and the life suited you, you have grown used to blows and contumely. but now that--that--none will let you in, your eyes must have been opened to see your condition, and you must have begun to wish to be different. only begin to wish! you see, i have enough to eat, and yet my position has become hateful to me, because i have lost my value, and am in danger of losing my humanity. but you are hungry, and one of these days you will die of starvation out in the street. yüdel, do just think it over, for if i am right, you will get to be like other people. your father will see that you have turned into a man, he will be reconciled with your mother, and you will be 'a father's child,' as you were before. brother yüdel, think it over!" i talked to my yüdel a long, long time. in the meanwhile, the night had passed. my yüdel gave a start, as though waking out of a deep slumber, and went away full of thought. on opening the window, i was greeted by a friendly smile from the rising morning star, as it peeped out between the clouds. and it began to dawn. isaac lÖb perez born, , in samoscz, government of lublin, russian poland; jewish, philosophical, and general literary education; practiced law in samoscz, a hasidic town; clerk to the jewish congregation in warsaw and as such collector of statistics on jewish life; began to write at twenty-five; contributor to zedernbaum's jüdisches volksblatt; publisher and editor of die jüdische bibliothek ( vols.), in which he conducted the scientific department, and wrote all the editorials and book reviews, of literatur and leben, and of yom-tov blättlech; now ( ) co-editor of der freind, warsaw; hebrew and yiddish prose writer and poet; allegorist; collected hebrew works, - ; collected yiddish works, vols., warsaw and new york, - (in course of publication). a woman's wrath the small room is dingy as the poverty that clings to its walls. there is a hook fastened to the crumbling ceiling, relic of a departed hanging lamp. the old, peeling stove is girded about with a coarse sack, and leans sideways toward its gloomy neighbor, the black, empty fireplace, in which stands an inverted cooking pot with a chipped rim. beside it lies a broken spoon, which met its fate in unequal contest with the scrapings of cold, stale porridge. the room is choked with furniture; there is a four-post bed with torn curtains. the pillows visible through their holes have no covers. there is a cradle, with the large, yellow head of a sleeping child; a chest with metal fittings and an open padlock--nothing very precious left in there, evidently; further, a table and three chairs (originally painted red), a cupboard, now somewhat damaged. add to these a pail of clean water and one of dirty water, an oven rake with a shovel, and you will understand that a pin could hardly drop onto the floor. and yet the room contains _him_ and _her_ beside. _she_, a middle-aged jewess, sits on the chest that fills the space between the bed and the cradle. to her right is the one grimy little window, to her left, the table. she is knitting a sock, rocking the cradle with her foot, and listens to _him_ reading the talmud at the table, with a tearful, wallachian, singing intonation, and swaying to and fro with a series of nervous jerks. some of the words he swallows, others he draws out; now he snaps at a word, and now he skips it; some he accentuates and dwells on lovingly, others he rattles out with indifference, like dried peas out of a bag. and never quiet for a moment. first he draws from his pocket a once red and whole handkerchief, and wipes his nose and brow, then he lets it fall into his lap, and begins twisting his earlocks or pulling at his thin, pointed, faintly grizzled beard. again, he lays a pulled-out hair from the same between the leaves of his book, and slaps his knees. his fingers coming into contact with the handkerchief, they seize it, and throw a corner in between his teeth; he bites it, lays one foot across the other, and continually shuffles with both feet. all the while his pale forehead wrinkles, now in a perpendicular, now in a horizontal, direction, when the long eyebrows are nearly lost below the folds of skin. at times, apparently, he has a sting in the chest, for he beats his left side as though he were saying the al-chets. suddenly he leans his head to the left, presses a finger against his left nostril, and emits an artificial sneeze, leans his head to the right, and the proceeding is repeated. in between he takes a pinch of snuff, pulls himself together, his voice rings louder, the chair creaks, the table wobbles. the child does not wake; the sounds are too familiar to disturb it. and she, the wife, shrivelled and shrunk before her time, sits and drinks in delight. she never takes her eye off her husband, her ear lets no inflection of his voice escape. now and then, it is true, she sighs. were he as fit for _this_ world as he is for the _other_ world, she would have a good time of it here, too--here, too-- "ma!" she consoles herself, "who talks of honor? not every one is worthy of both tables!" she listens. her shrivelled face alters from minute to minute; she is nervous, too. a moment ago it was eloquent of delight. now she remembers it is thursday, there isn't a dreier to spend in preparation for sabbath. the light in her face goes out by degrees, the smile fades, then she takes a look through the grimy window, glances at the sun. it must be getting late, and there isn't a spoonful of hot water in the house. the needles pause in her hand, a shadow has overspread her face. she looks at the child, it is sleeping less quietly, and will soon wake. the child is poorly, and there is not a drop of milk for it. the shadow on her face deepens into gloom, the needles tremble and move convulsively. and when she remembers that it is near passover, that her ear-rings and the festal candlesticks are at the pawnshop, the chest empty, the lamp sold, then the needles perform murderous antics in her fingers. the gloom on her brow is that of a gathering thunder-storm, lightnings play in her small, grey, sunken eyes. he sits and "learns," unconscious of the charged atmosphere; does not see her let the sock fall and begin wringing her finger-joints; does not see that her forehead is puckered with misery, one eye closed, and the other fixed on him, her learned husband, with a look fit to send a chill through his every limb; does not see her dry lips tremble and her jaw quiver. she controls herself with all her might, but the storm is gathering fury within her. the least thing, and it will explode. that least thing has happened. he was just translating a talmudic phrase with quiet delight, "and thence we derive that--" he was going on with "three,--" but the word "derive" was enough, it was the lighted spark, and her heart was the gunpowder. it was ablaze in an instant. her determination gave way, the unlucky word opened the flood-gates, and the waters poured through, carrying all before them. "derived, you say, derived? o, derived may you be, lord of the world," she exclaimed, hoarse with anger, "derived may you be! yes! you!" she hissed like a snake. "passover coming--thursday--and the child ill--and not a drop of milk is there. ha?" her breath gives out, her sunken breast heaves, her eyes flash. he sits like one turned to stone. then, pale and breathless, too, from fright, he gets up and edges toward the door. at the door he turns and faces her, and sees that hand and tongue are equally helpless from passion; his eyes grow smaller; he catches a bit of handkerchief between his teeth, retreats a little further, takes a deeper breath, and mutters: "listen, woman, do you know what bittul-torah means? and not letting a husband study in peace, to be always worrying about livelihood, ha? and who feeds the little birds, tell me? always this want of faith in god, this giving way to temptation, and taking thought for _this_ world ... foolish, ill-natured woman! not to let a husband study! if you don't take care, you will go to gehenna." receiving no answer, he grows bolder. her face gets paler and paler, she trembles more and more violently, and the paler she becomes, and the more she trembles, the steadier his voice, as he goes on: "gehenna! fire! hanging by the tongue! four death penalties inflicted by the court!" she is silent, her face is white as chalk. he feels that he is doing wrong, that he has no call to be cruel, that he is taking a mean advantage, but he has risen, as it were, to the top, and is boiling over. he cannot help himself. "do you know," he threatens her, "what skiloh means? it means stoning, to throw into a ditch and cover up with stones! srefoh--burning, that is, pouring a spoonful of boiling lead into the inside! hereg--beheading, that means they cut off your head with a sword! like this" (and he passes a hand across his neck). "then cheneck--strangling! do you hear? to strangle! do you understand? and all four for making light of the torah! for bittul-torah!" his heart is already sore for his victim, but he is feeling his power over her for the first time, and it has gone to his head. silly woman! he had never known how easy it was to frighten her. "that comes of making light of the torah!" he shouts, and breaks off. after all, she might come to her senses at any moment, and take up the broom! he springs back to the table, closes the gemoreh, and hurries out of the room. "i am going to the house-of-study!" he calls out over his shoulder in a milder tone, and shuts the door after him. the loud voice and the noise of the closing door have waked the sick child. the heavy-lidded eyes open, the waxen face puckers, and there is a peevish wail. but she, beside herself, stands rooted to the spot, and does not hear. "ha!" comes hoarsely at last out of her narrow chest. "so that's it, is it? neither this world nor the other. hanging, he says, stoning, burning, beheading, strangling, hanging by the tongue, boiling lead poured into the inside, he says--for making light of the torah--hanging, ha, ha, ha!" (in desperation). "yes, i'll hang, but _here, here!_ and soon! what is there to wait for?" the child begins to cry louder; still she does not hear. "a rope! a rope!" she screams, and stares wildly into every corner. "where is there a rope? i wish he mayn't find a bone of me left! let me be rid of _one_ gehenna at any rate! let him try it, let him be a mother for once, see how he likes it! i've had enough of it! let it be an atonement! an end, an end! a rope, a rope!!" her last exclamation is like a cry for help from out of a conflagration. she remembers that they _have_ a rope somewhere. yes, under the stove--the stove was to have been tied round against the winter. the rope must be there still. she runs and finds the rope, the treasure, looks up at the ceiling--the hook that held the lamp--she need only climb onto the table. she climbs-- but she sees from the table that the startled child, weak as it is, has sat up in the cradle, and is reaching over the side--it is trying to get out-- "mame, m-mame," it sobs feebly. a fresh paroxysm of anger seizes her. she flings away the rope, jumps off the table, runs to the child, and forces its head back into the pillow, exclaiming: "bother the child! it won't even let me hang myself! i can't even hang myself in peace! it wants to suck. what is the good? you will suck nothing but poison, poison, out of me, i tell you!" "there, then, greedy!" she cries in the same breath, and stuffs her dried-up breast into his mouth. "there, then, suck away--bite!" the treasure to sleep, in summer time, in a room four yards square, together with a wife and eight children, is anything but a pleasure, even on a friday night--and shmerel the woodcutter rises from his bed, though only half through with the night, hot and gasping, hastily pours some water over his finger-tips, flings on his dressing-gown, and escapes barefoot from the parched gehenna of his dwelling. he steps into the street--all quiet, all the shutters closed, and over the sleeping town is a distant, serene, and starry sky. he feels as if he were all alone with god, blessed is he, and he says, looking up at the sky, "now, lord of the universe, now is the time to hear me and to bless me with a treasure out of thy treasure-house!" as he says this, he sees something like a little flame coming along out of the town, and he knows, that is it! he is about to pursue it, when he remembers it is sabbath, when one mustn't turn. so he goes after it walking. and as he walks slowly along, the little flame begins to move slowly, too, so that the distance between them does not increase, though it does not shorten, either. he walks on. now and then an inward voice calls to him: "shmerel, don't be a fool! take off the dressing-gown. give a jump and throw it over the flame!" but he knows it is the evil inclination speaking. he throws off the dressing-gown onto his arm, but to spite the evil inclination he takes still smaller steps, and rejoices to see that, as soon as he takes these smaller steps, the little flame moves more slowly, too. thus he follows the flame, and follows it, till he gradually finds himself outside the town. the road twists and turns across fields and meadows, and the distance between him and the flame grows no longer, no shorter. were he to throw the dressing-gown, it would not reach the flame. meantime the thought revolves in his mind: were he indeed to become possessed of the treasure, he need no longer be a woodcutter, now, in his later years; he has no longer the strength for the work he had once. he would rent a seat for his wife in the women's shool, so that her sabbaths and holidays should not be spoiled by their not allowing her to sit here or to sit there. on new year's day and the day of atonement it is all she can do to stand through the service. her many children have exhausted her! and he would order her a new dress, and buy her a few strings of pearls. the children should be sent to better chedorim, and he would cast about for a match for his eldest girl. as it is, the poor child carries her mother's fruit baskets, and never has time so much as to comb her hair thoroughly, and she has long, long plaits, and eyes like a deer. "it would be a meritorious act to pounce upon the treasure!" the evil inclination again, he thinks. if it is not to be, well, then it isn't! if it were in the week, he would soon know what to do! or if his yainkel were there, he would have had something to say. children nowadays! who knows what they don't do on sabbath, as it is! and the younger one is no better: he makes fun of the teacher in cheder. when the teacher is about to administer a blow, they pull his beard. and who's going to find time to see after them--chopping and sawing a whole day through. he sighs and walks on and on, now and then glancing up into the sky: "lord of the universe, of whom are you making trial? shmerel woodcutter? if you do mean to give me the treasure, _give_ it me!" it seems to him that the flame proceeds more slowly, but at this very moment he hears a dog bark, and it has a bark he knows--that is the dog in vissóke. vissóke is the first village you come to on leaving the town, and he sees white patches twinkle in the dewy morning atmosphere, those are the vissóke peasant cottages. then it occurs to him that he has gone a sabbath day's journey, and he stops short. "yes, i have gone a sabbath day's journey," he thinks, and says, speaking into the air: "you won't lead me astray! it is _not_ a god-send! god does not make sport of us--it is the work of a demon." and he feels a little angry with the thing, and turns and hurries toward the town, thinking: "i won't say anything about it at home, because, first, they won't believe me, and if they do, they'll laugh at me. and what have i done to be proud of? the creator knows how it was, and that is enough for me. besides, _she_ might be angry, who can tell? the children are certainly naked and barefoot, poor little things! why should they be made to transgress the command to honor one's father?" no, he won't breathe a word. he won't even ever remind the almighty of it. if he really has been good, the almighty will remember without being told. and suddenly he is conscious of a strange, lightsome, inward calm, and there is a delicious sensation in his limbs. money is, after all, dross, riches may even lead a man from the right way, and he feels inclined to thank god for not having brought him into temptation by granting him his wish. he would like, if only--to sing a song! "our father, our king" is one he remembers from his early years, but he feels ashamed before himself, and breaks off. he tries to recollect one of the cantor's melodies, a sinai tune--when suddenly he sees that the identical little flame which he left behind him is once more preceding him, and moving slowly townward, townward, and the distance between them neither increases nor diminishes, as though the flame were taking a walk, and he were taking a walk, just taking a little walk in honor of sabbath. he is glad in his heart and watches it. the sky pales, the stars begin to go out, the east flushes, a narrow pink stream flows lengthwise over his head, and still the flame flickers onward into the town, enters his own street. there is his house. the door, he sees, is open. apparently he forgot to shut it. and, lo and behold! the flame goes in, the flame goes in at his own house door! he follows, and sees it disappear beneath the bed. all are asleep. he goes softly up to the bed, stoops down, and sees the flame spinning round underneath it, like a top, always in the same place; takes his dressing-gown, and throws it down under the bed, and covers up the flame. no one hears him, and now a golden morning beam steals in through the chink in the shutter. he sits down on the bed, and makes a vow not to say a word to anyone till sabbath is over--not half a word, lest it cause desecration of the sabbath. _she_ could never hold her tongue, and the children certainly not; they would at once want to count the treasure, to know how much there was, and very soon the secret would be out of the house and into the shool, the house-of-study, and all the streets, and people would talk about his treasure, about luck, and people would not say their prayers, or wash their hands, or say grace, as they should, and he would have led his household and half the town into sin. no, not a whisper! and he stretches himself out on the bed, and pretends to be asleep. and this was his reward: when, after concluding the sabbath, he stooped down and lifted up the dressing-gown under the bed, there lay a sack with a million of gulden, an almost endless number--the bed was a large one--and he became one of the richest men in the place. and he lived happily all the years of his life. only, his wife was continually bringing up against him: "lord of the world, how could a man have such a heart of stone, as to sit a whole summer day and not say a word, not a word, not to his own wife, not one single word! and there was i" (she remembers) "crying over my prayer as i said god of abraham--and crying so--for there wasn't a dreier left in the house." then he consoles her, and says with a smile: "who knows? perhaps it was all thanks to your 'god of abraham' that it went off so well." it is well you ask how it is that i remained a jew? whose merit it is? not through my own merits nor those of my ancestors. i was a six-year-old cheder boy, my father a countryman outside wilna, a householder in a small way. no, i remained a jew thanks to the schpol grandfather. how do i come to mention the schpol grandfather? what has the schpol grandfather to do with it, you ask? the schpol grandfather was no schpol grandfather then. he was a young man, suffering exile from home and kindred, wandering with a troop of mendicants from congregation to congregation, from friendly inn to friendly inn, in all respects one of them. what difference his heart may have shown, who knows? and after these journeyman years, the time of revelation had not come even yet. he presented himself to the rabbinical board in wilna, took out a certificate, and became a shochet in a village. he roamed no more, but remained in the neighborhood of wilna. the misnagdim, however, have a wonderful _flair_, and they suspected something, began to worry and calumniate him, and finally they denounced him to the rabbinical authorities as a transgressor of the law, of the whole law! what misnagdim are capable of, to be sure! as i said, i was then six years old. he used to come to us to slaughter small cattle, or just to spend the night, and i was very fond of him. whom else, except my father and mother, should i have loved? i had a teacher, a passionate man, a destroyer of souls, and this other was a kind and genial creature, who made you feel happy if he only looked at you. the calumnies did their work, and they took away his certificate. my teacher must have had a hand in it, because he heard of it before anyone, and the next time the shochet came, he exclaimed "apostate!" took him by the scruff of his coat, and bundled him out of the house. it cut me to the heart like a knife, only i was frightened to death of the teacher, and never stirred. but a little later, when the teacher was looking away, i escaped and began to run after the shochet across the road, which, not far from the house, lost itself in a wood that stretched all the way to wilna. what exactly i proposed to do to help him, i don't know, but something drove me after the poor shochet. i wanted to say good-by to him, to have one more look into his nice, kindly eyes. but i ran and ran, and hurt my feet against the stones in the road, and saw no one. i went to the right, down into the wood, thinking i would rest a little on the soft earth of the wood. i was about to sit down, when i heard a voice (it sounded like his voice) farther on in the wood, half speaking and half singing. i went softly towards the voice, and saw him some way off, where he stood swaying to and fro under a tree. i went up to him--he was reciting the song of songs. i look closer and see that the tree under which he stands is different from the other trees. the others are still bare of leaves, and this one is green and in full leaf, it shines like the sun, and stretches its flowery branches over the shochet's head like a tent. and a quantity of birds hop among the twigs and join in singing the song of songs. i am so astonished that i stand there with open mouth and eyes, rooted like the trees. he ends his chant, the tree is extinguished, the little birds are silent, and he turns to me, and says affectionately: "listen, yüdele,"--yüdel is my name--"i have a request to make of you." "really?" i answer joyfully, and i suppose he wishes me to bring him out some food, and i am ready to run and bring him our whole sabbath dinner, when he says to me: "listen, keep what you saw to yourself." this sobers me, and i promise seriously and faithfully to hold my tongue. "listen again. you are going far away, very far away, and the road is a long road." i wonder, however should i come to travel so far? and he goes on to say: "they will knock the rebbe's torah out of your head, and you will forget father and mother, but see you keep to your name! you are called yüdel--remain a jew!" i am frightened, but cry out from the bottom of my heart: "surely! as surely may i live!" then, because my own idea clung to me, i added: "don't you want something to eat?" and before i finished speaking, he had vanished. the second week after they fell upon us and led me away as a cantonist, to be brought up among the gentiles and turned into a soldier. * * * * * time passed, and i forgot everything, as he had foretold. they knocked it all out of my head. i served far away, deep in russia, among snows and terrific frosts, and never set eyes on a jew. there may have been hidden jews about, but i knew nothing of them, i knew nothing of sabbath and festival, nothing of any fast. i forgot everything. but i held fast to my name! i did not change my coin. the more i forgot, the more i was inclined to be quit of my torments and trials--to make an end of them by agreeing to a christian name, but whenever the bad thought came into my head, he appeared before me, the same shochet, and i heard his voice say to me, "keep your name, remain a jew!" and i knew for certain that it was no empty dream, because every time i saw him _older_ and _older_, his beard and earlocks greyer, his face paler. only his eyes remained the same kind eyes, and his voice, which sounded like a violin, never altered. once they flogged me, and he stood by and wiped the cold sweat off my forehead, and stroked my face, and said softly: "don't cry out! we ought to suffer! remain a jew," and i bore it without a cry, without a moan, as though they had been flogging _not_-me. * * * * * once, during the last year, i had to go as a sentry to a public house behind the town. it was evening, and there was a snow-storm. the wind lifted patches of snow, and ground them to needles, rubbed them to dust, and this snow-dust and these snow-needles were whirled through the air, flew into one's face and pricked--you couldn't keep an eye open, you couldn't draw your breath! suddenly i saw some people walking past me, not far away, and one of them said in yiddish, "this is the first night of passover." whether it was a voice from god, or whether some people really passed me, to this day i don't know, but the words fell upon my heart like lead, and i had hardly reached the tavern and begun to walk up and down, when a longing came over me, a sort of heartache, that is not to be described. i wanted to recite the haggadah, and not a word of it could i recall! not even the four questions i used to ask my father. i felt it all lay somewhere deep down in my heart. i used to know so much of it, when i was only six years old. i felt, if only i could have recalled one simple word, the rest would have followed and risen out of my memory one after the other, like sleepy birds from beneath the snow. but that one first word is just what i cannot remember! lord of the universe, i cried fervently, one word, only one word! as it seems, i made my prayer in a happy hour, for "we were slaves" came into my head just as if it had been thrown down from heaven. i was overjoyed! i was so full of joy that i felt it brimming over. and then the rest all came back to me, and as i paced up and down on my watch, with my musket on my shoulder, i recited and sang the haggadah to the snowy world around. i drew it out of me, word after word, like a chain of golden links, like a string of pearls. o, but you won't understand, you couldn't understand, unless you had been taken away there, too! the wind, meanwhile, had fallen, the snow-storm had come to an end, and there appeared a clear, twinkling sky, and a shining world of diamonds. it was silent all round, and ever so wide, and ever so white, with a sweet, peaceful, endless whiteness. and over this calm, wide, whiteness, there suddenly appeared something still whiter, and lighter, and brighter, wrapped in a robe and a prayer-scarf, the prayer-scarf over its shoulders, and over the prayer-scarf, in front, a silvery white beard; and above the beard, two shining eyes, and above them, a sparkling crown, a cap with gold and silver ornaments. and it came nearer and nearer, and went past me, but as it passed me it said: "it is well!" it sounded like a violin, and then the figure vanished. but it was the same eyes, the same voice. i took schpol on my way home, and went to see the old man, for the rebbe of schpol was called by the people der alter, the "schpol grandfather." and i recognized him again, and he recognized me! whence a proverb "drunk all the year round, sober at purim," is a jewish proverb, and people ought to know whence it comes. in the days of the famous scholar, reb chayyim vital, there lived in safed, in palestine, a young man who (not of us be it spoken!) had not been married a year before he became a widower. god's ways are not to be understood. such things will happen. but the young man was of the opinion that the world, in as far as he was concerned, had come to an end; that, as there is one sun in heaven, so his wife had been the one woman in the world. so he went and sold all the merchandise in his little shop and all the furniture of his room, and gave the proceeds to the head of the safed academy, the rosh ha-yeshiveh, on condition that he should be taken into the yeshiveh and fed with the other scholars, and that he should have a room to himself, where he might sit and learn torah. the rosh ha-yeshiveh took the money for the academy, and they partitioned off a little room for the young man with some boards, in a corner of the attic of the house-of-study. they carried in a sack with straw, and vessels for washing, and the young man sat himself down to the talmud. except on sabbaths and holidays, when the householders invited him to dinner, he never set eyes on a living creature. food sufficient for the day, and a clean shirt in honor of sabbaths and festivals, were carried up to him by the beadle, and whenever he heard steps on the stair, he used to turn away, and stand with his face to the wall, till whoever it was had gone out again and shut the door. in a word, he became a porush, for he lived separate from the world. at first people thought he wouldn't persevere long, because he was a lively youth by nature; but as week after week went by, and the porush sat and studied, and the tearful voice in which he intoned the gemoreh was heard in the street half through the night, or else he was seen at the attic window, his pale face raised towards the sky, then they began to believe in him, and they hoped he might in time become a mighty man in israel, and perhaps even a wonderworker. they said so to the rebbe, chayyim vital, but he listened, shook his head, and replied, "god grant it may last." meantime a little "wonder" really happened. the beadle's little daughter, who used sometimes to carry up the porush's food for her father, took it into her head that she must have one look at the porush. what does she? takes off her shoes and stockings, and carries the food to him barefoot, so noiselessly that she heard her own heart beat. but the beating of her heart frightened her so much that she fell down half the stairs, and was laid up for more than a month in consequence. in her fever she told the whole story, and people began to believe in the porush more firmly than ever and to wait with increasing impatience till he should become famous. they described the occurrence to reb chayyim vital, and again he shook his head, and even sighed, and answered, "god grant he may be victorious!" and when they pressed him for an explanation of these words, reb chayyim answered, that as the porush had left the world, not so much for the sake of heaven as on account of his grief for his wife, it was to be feared that he would be sorely beset and tempted by the "other side," and god grant he might not stumble and fall. * * * * * and reb chayyim vital never spoke without good reason! one day the porush was sitting deep in a book, when he heard something tapping at the door, and fear came over him. but as the tapping went on, he rose, forgetting to close his book, went and opened the door--and in walks a turkey. he lets it in, for it occurs to him that it would be nice to have a living thing in the room. the turkey walks past him, and goes and settles down quietly in a corner. and the porush wonders what this may mean, and sits down again to his book. sitting there, he remembers that it is going on for purim. has someone sent him a turkey out of regard for his study of the torah? what shall he do with the turkey? should anyone, he reflects, ask him to dinner, supposing it were to be a poor man, he would send him the turkey on the eve of purim, and then he would satisfy himself with it also. he has not once tasted fowl-meat since he lost his wife. thinking thus, he smacked his lips, and his mouth watered. he threw a glance at the turkey, and saw it looking at him in a friendly way, as though it had quite understood his intention, and was very glad to think it should have the honor of being eaten by a porush. he could not restrain himself, but was continually lifting his eyes from his book to look at the turkey, till at last he began to fancy the turkey was smiling at him. this startled him a little, but all the same it made him happy to be smiled at by a living creature. the same thing happened at minchah and maariv. in the middle of the eighteen benedictions, he could not for the life of him help looking round every minute at the turkey, who continued to smile and smile. suddenly it seemed to him, he knew that smile well--the almighty, who had taken back his wife, had now sent him her smile to comfort him in his loneliness, and he began to love the turkey. he thought how much better it would be, if a _rich_ man were to invite him at purim, so that the turkey might live. and he thought it in a propitious moment, as we shall presently see, but meantime they brought him, as usual, a platter of groats with a piece of bread, and he washed his hands, and prepared to eat. no sooner, however, had he taken the bread into his hand, and was about to bite into it, than the turkey moved out of its corner, and began peck, peck, peck, towards the bread, by way of asking for some, and as though to say it was hungry, too, and came and stood before him near the table. the porush thought, "he'd better have some, i don't want to be unkind to him, to tease him," and he took the bread and the platter of porridge, and set it down on the floor before the turkey, who pecked and supped away to its heart's content. next day the porush went over to the rosh ha-yeshiveh, and told him how he had come to have a fellow-lodger; he used always to leave some porridge over, and to-day he didn't seem to have had enough. the rosh ha-yeshiveh saw a hungry face before him. he said he would tell this to the rebbe, chayyim vital, so that he might pray, and the evil spirit, if such indeed it was, might depart. meantime he would give orders for two pieces of bread and two plates of porridge to be taken up to the attic, so that there should be enough for both, the porush and the turkey. reb chayyim vital, however, to whom the story was told in the name of the rosh ha-yeshiveh, shook his head, and declared with a deep sigh that this was only the beginning! meanwhile the porush received a double portion and was satisfied, and the turkey was satisfied, too. the turkey even grew fat. and in a couple of weeks or so the porush had become so much attached to the turkey that he prayed every day to be invited for purim by a _rich_ man, so that he might not be tempted to destroy it. and, as we intimated, _that_ temptation, anyhow, was spared him, for he was invited to dinner by one of the principal householders in the place, and there was not only turkey, but every kind of tasty dish, and wine fit for a king. and the best purim-players came to entertain the rich man, his family, and the guests who had come to him after their feast at home. and our porush gave himself up to enjoyment, and ate and drank. perhaps he even drank rather more than he ate, for the wine was sweet and grateful to the taste, and the warmth of it made its way into every limb. then suddenly a change came over him. the ahasuerus-esther play had begun. vashti will not do the king's pleasure and come in to the banquet as god made her. esther soon finds favor in her stead, she is given over to hegai, the keeper of the women, to be purified, six months with oil of myrrh and six months with other sweet perfumes. and our porush grew hot all over, and it was dark before his eyes; then red streaks flew across his field of vision, like tongues of fire, and he was overcome by a strange, wild longing to be back at home, in the attic of the house-of-study--a longing for his own little room, his quiet corner, a longing for the turkey, and he couldn't bear it, and even before they had said grace he jumped up and ran away home. he enters his room, looks into the corner habitually occupied by the turkey, and stands amazed--the turkey has turned into a woman, a most beautiful woman, such as the world never saw, and he begins to tremble all over. and she comes up to him, and takes him around the neck with her warm, white, naked arms, and the porush trembles more and more, and begs, "not here, not here! it is a holy place, there are holy books lying about." then she whispers into his ear that she is the queen of sheba, that she lives not far from the house-of-study, by the river, among the tall reeds, in a palace of crystal, given her by king solomon. and she draws him along, she wants him to go with her to her palace. and he hesitates and resists--and he goes. next day, there was no turkey, and no porush, either! they went to reb chayyim vital, who told them to look for him along the bank of the river, and they found him in a swamp among the tall reeds, more dead than alive. they rescued him and brought him round, but from that day he took to drink. and reb chayyim vital said, it all came from his great longing for the queen of sheba, that when he drank, he saw her; and they were to let him drink, only not at purim, because at that time she would have great power over him. hence the proverb, "drunk all the year round, sober at purim." mordecai spektor born, , in uman, government of kieff, little russia; education hasidic; entered business in ; wrote first sketch, a roman ohn liebe, in ; contributor to zedernbaum's jüdisches volksblatt, - ; founded, in , and edited der hausfreund, at warsaw; editor of warsaw daily papers, unser leben, and (at present, ) dos neie leben; writer of novels, historical romances, and sketches in yiddish; contributor to numerous periodicals; compiled a volume of more than two thousand jewish proverbs. an original strike i was invited to a wedding. not a wedding at which ladies wore low dress, and scattered powder as they walked, and the men were in frock-coats and white gloves, and had waxed moustaches. not a wedding where you ate of dishes with outlandish names, according to a printed card, and drank wine dating, according to the label, from the reign of king sobieski, out of bottles dingy with the dust of yesterday. no, but a jewish wedding, where the men, women, and girls wore the sabbath and holiday garments in which they went to shool; a wedding where you whet your appetite with sweet-cakes and apple-tart, and sit down to sabbath fish, with fresh rolls, golden soup, stuffed fowl, and roast duck, and the wine is in large, clear, white bottles; a wedding with a calling to the reading of the torah of the bridegroom, a party on the sabbath preceding the wedding, a good-night-play performed by the musicians, and a bridegroom's-dinner in his native town, with a table spread for the poor. reb yitzchok-aizik berkover had made a feast for the poor at the wedding of each of his children, and now, on the occasion of the marriage of his youngest daughter, he had invited all the poor of the little town lipovietz to his village home, where he had spent all his life. it is the day of the ceremony under the canopy, two o'clock in the afternoon, and the poor, sent for early in the morning by a messenger, with the three great wagons, are not there. lipovietz is not more than five versts away--what can have happened? the parents of the bridal couple and the assembled guests wait to proceed with the ceremony. at last the messenger comes riding on a horse unharnessed from his vehicle, but no poor. "why have you come back alone?" demands reb yitzchok-aizik. "they won't come!" replies the messenger. "what do you mean by 'they won't come'?" asked everyone in surprise. "they say that unless they are given a kerbel apiece, they won't come to the wedding." all laugh, and the messenger goes on: "there was a wedding with a dinner to the poor in lipovietz to-day, too, and they have eaten and drunk all they can, and now they've gone on strike, and declare that unless they are promised a kerbel a head, they won't move from the spot. the strike leaders are the crooked man with two crutches, mekabbel the long, feitel the stammerer, and yainkel fonfatch; the others would perhaps have come, but these won't let them. so i didn't know what to do. i argued a whole hour, and got nothing by it, so then i unharnessed a horse, and came at full speed to know what was to be done." we of the company could not stop laughing, but reb yitzchok-aizik was very angry. "well, and you bargained with them? won't they come for less?" he asked the messenger. "yes, i bargained, and they won't take a kopek less." "have their prices gone up so high as all that?" exclaimed reb yitzchok-aizik, with a satirical laugh. "why did you leave the wagons? we shall do without the tramps, that's all!" "how could i tell? i didn't know what to do. i was afraid you would be displeased. now i'll go and fetch the wagons back." "wait! don't be in such a hurry, take time!" reb yitzchok-aizik began consulting with the company and with himself. "what an idea! who ever heard of such a thing? poor people telling me what to do, haggling with me over my wanting to give them a good dinner and a nice present each, and saying they must be paid in rubles, otherwise it's no bargain, ha! ha! for two guldens each it's not worth their while? it cost them too much to stock the ware? thirty kopeks wouldn't pay them? i like their impertinence! mischief take them, i shall do without them! "let the musicians play! where is the beadle? they can begin putting the veil on the bride." but directly afterwards he waved his hands. "wait a little longer. it is still early. why should it happen to _me_, why should my pleasure be spoilt? now i've got to marry my youngest daughter without a dinner to the poor! i would have given them half a ruble each, it's not the money i mind, but fancy bargaining with me! well, there, i have done my part, and if they won't come, i'm sure they're not wanted; afterwards they'll be sorry; they don't get a wedding like this every day. we shall do without them." "well, can they put the veil on the bride?" the beadle came and inquired. "yes, they can.... no, tell them to wait a little longer!" nearly all the guests, who were tired of waiting, cried out that the tramps could very well be missed. reb yitzchok-aizik's face suddenly assumed another expression, the anger vanished, and he turned to me and a couple, of other friends, and asked if we would drive to the town, and parley with the revolted almsgatherers. "he has no brains, one can't depend on him," he said, referring to the messenger. a horse was harnessed to a conveyance, and we drove off, followed by the mounted messenger. "a revolt--a strike of almsgatherers, how do you like that?" we asked one another all the way. we had heard of workmen striking, refusing to work except for a higher wage, and so forth, but a strike of paupers--paupers insisting on larger alms as pay for eating a free dinner, such a thing had never been known. in twenty minutes time we drove into lipovietz. in the market-place, in the centre of the town, stood the three great peasant wagons, furnished with fresh straw. the small horses were standing unharnessed, eating out of their nose-bags; round the wagons were a hundred poor folk, some dumb, others lame, the greater part blind, and half the town urchins with as many men. all of them were shouting and making a commotion. the crooked one sat on a wagon, and banged it with his crutches; long mekabbel, with a red plaster on his neck, stood beside him. these two leaders of the revolt were addressing the people, the meek of the earth. "ha, ha!" exclaimed long mekabbel, as he caught sight of us and the messenger, "they have come to beg our acceptance!" "to beg our acceptance!" shouted the crooked one, and banged his crutch. "why won't you come to the wedding, to the dinner?" we inquired. "everyone will be given alms." "how much?" they asked all together. "we don't know, but you will take what they offer." "will they give it us in kerblech? because, if not, we don't go." "there will be a hole in the sky if you don't go," cried some of the urchins present. the almsgatherers threw themselves on the urchins with their sticks, and there was a bit of a row. mekabbel the long, standing on the cart, drew himself to his full height, and began to shout: "hush, hush, hush! quiet, you crazy cripples! one can't hear oneself speak! let us hear what those have to say who are worth listening to!" and he turned to us with the words: "you must know, dear jews, that unless they distribute kerblech among us, we shall not budge. never you fear! reb yitzchok-aizik won't marry his youngest daughter without us, and where is he to get others of us now? to send to lunetz would cost him more in conveyances, and he would have to put off the marriage." "what do they suppose? that because we are poor people they can do what they please with us?" and a new striker hitched himself up by the wheel, blind of one eye, with a tied-up jaw. "no one can oblige us to go, even the chief of police and the governor cannot force us--either it's kerblech, or we stay where we are." "k-ke-kkerb-kkerb-lech!!" came from feitel the stammerer. "nienblech!" put in yainkel fonfatch, speaking through his small nose. "no, more!" called out a couple of merry paupers. "kerblech, kerblech!" shouted the rest in concert. and through their shouting and their speeches sounded such a note of anger and of triumph, it seemed as though they were pouring out all the bitterness of soul collected in the course of their sad and luckless lives. they had always kept silence, had _had_ to keep silence, _had_ to swallow the insults offered them along with the farthings, and the dry bread, and the scraped bones, and this was the first time they had been able to retaliate, the first time they had known how it felt to be entreated by the fortunate in all things, and they were determined to use their opportunity of asserting themselves to the full, to take their revenge. in the word kerblech lay the whole sting of their resentment. and while we talked and reasoned with them, came a second messenger from reb yitzchok-aizik, to say that the paupers were to come at once, and they would be given a ruble each. there was a great noise and scrambling, the three wagons filled with almsgatherers, one crying out, "o my bad hand!" another, "o my foot!" and a third, "o my poor bones!" the merry ones made antics, and sang in their places, while the horses were put in, and the procession started at a cheerful trot. the urchins gave a great hurrah, and threw little stones after it, with squeals and whistles. the poor folks must have fancied they were being pelted with flowers and sent off with songs, they looked so happy in the consciousness of their victory. for the first and perhaps the last time in their lives, they had spoken out, and got their own way. after the "canopy" and the chicken soup, that is, at "supper," tables were spread for the friends of the family and separate ones for the almsgatherers. reb yitzchok-aizik and the members of his own household served the poor with their own hands, pressing them to eat and drink. "le-chayyim to you, reb yitzchok-aizik! may you have pleasure in your children, and be a great man, a great rich man!" desired the poor. "long life, long life to all of you, brethren! drink in health, god help all-israel, and you among them!" replied reb yitzchok-aizik. after supper the band played, and the almsgatherers, with reb yitzchok-aizik, danced merrily in a ring round the bridegroom. then who was so happy as reb yitzchok-aizik? he danced in the ring, the silk skirts of his long coat flapped and flew like eagles' wings, tears of joy fell from his shining eyes, and his spirits rose to the seventh heaven. he laughed and cried like a child, and exchanged embraces with the almsgatherers. "brothers!" he exclaimed as he danced, "let us be merry, let us be jews! musicians, give us something cheerful--something gayer, livelier, louder!" "this is what you call a jewish wedding!" "this is how a jew makes merry!" so the guests and the almsgatherers clapped their hands in time to the music. yes, dear readers, it _was_ what i call a jewish wedding! a gloomy wedding they handed gittel a letter that had come by post, she put on her spectacles, sat down by the window, and began to read. she read, and her face began to shine, and the wrinkled skin took on a little color. it was plain that what she read delighted her beyond measure, she devoured the words, caught her breath, and wept aloud in the fulness of her joy. "at last, at last! blessed be his dear name, whom i am not worthy to mention! i do not know, gottinyu, how to thank thee for the mercy thou hast shown me. beile! where is beile? where is yossel? children! come, make haste and wish me joy, a great joy has befallen us! send for avremele, tell him to come with zlatke and all the children." thus gittel, while she read the letter, never ceased calling every one into the room, never ceased reading and calling, calling and reading, and devouring the words as she read. every soul who happened to be at home came running. "good luck to you! good luck to us all! moishehle has become engaged in warsaw, and invites us all to the wedding," gittel explained. "there, read the letter, lord of the world, may it be in a propitious hour, may we all have comfort in one another, may we hear nothing but good news of one another and of all-israel! read it, read it, children! he writes that he has a very beautiful bride, well-favored, with a large dowry. lord of the world, i am not worthy of the mercy thou hast shown me!" repeated gittel over and over, as she paced the room with uplifted hands, while her daughter beile took up the letter in her turn. the children and everyone in the house, including the maid from the kitchen, with rolled-up sleeves and wet hands, encircled beile as she read aloud. "read louder, beiletshke, so that i can hear, so that we can all hear," begged gittel, and there were tears of happiness in her eyes. the children jumped for joy to see grandmother so happy. the word "wedding," which beile read out of the letter, contained a promise of all delightful things: musicians, pancakes, new frocks and suits, and they could not keep themselves from dancing. the maid, too, was heartily pleased, she kept on singing out, "oi, what a bride, beautiful as gold!" and did not know what to be doing next--should she go and finish cooking the dinner, or should she pull down her sleeves and make holiday? the hiss of a pot boiling over in the kitchen interrupted the letter-reading, and she was requested to go and attend to it forthwith. "the bride sends us a separate greeting, long life to her, may she live when my bones are dust. let us go to the provisor, he shall read it; it is written in french." the provisor, the apothecary's foreman, who lived in the same house, said the bride's letter was not written in french, but in polish, that she called gittel her second mother, that she loved her son moses as her life, that he was her world, that she held herself to be the most fortunate of girls, since god had given her moses, that gittel (once more!) was her second mother, and she felt like a dutiful daughter towards her, and hoped that gittel would love her as her own child. the bride declared further that she kissed her new sister, beile, a thousand times, together with zlatke and their husbands and children, and she signed herself "your forever devoted and loving daughter regina." an hour later all gittel's children were assembled round her, her eldest son avremel with his wife, zlatke and her little ones, beile's husband, and her son-in-law yossel. all read the letter with eager curiosity, brandy and spice-cakes were placed on the table, wine was sent for, they drank healths, wished each other joy, and began to talk of going to the wedding. gittel, very tired with all she had gone through this day, went to lie down for a while to rest her head, which was all in a whirl, but the others remained sitting at the table, and never stopped talking of moisheh. "i can imagine the sort of engagement moisheh has made, begging his pardon," remarked the daughter-in-law, and wiped her pale lips. "i should think so, a man who's been a bachelor up to thirty! it's easy to fancy the sort of bride, and the sort of family she has, if they accepted moisheh as a suitor," agreed the daughter. "god helping, this ought to make a man of him," sighed moisheh's elder brother, "he's cost us trouble and worry enough." "it's your fault," yossel told him. "if i'd been his elder brother, he would have turned out differently! i should have directed him like a father, and taken him well in hand." "you think so, but when god wishes to punish a man through his own child going astray, nothing is of any use; these are not the old times, when young people feared a rebbe, and respected their elders. nowadays the world is topsyturvy, and no sooner has a boy outgrown his childhood than he does what he pleases, and parents are nowhere. what have i left undone to make something out of him, so that he should be a credit to his family? then, he was left an orphan very early; perhaps he would have obeyed his father (may he enter a lightsome paradise!), but for a brother and his mother, he paid them as much attention as last year's snow, and, if you said anything to him, he answered rudely, and neither coaxing nor scolding was any good. now, please god, he'll make a fresh start, and give up his antics before it's too late. his poor mother! she's had trouble enough on his account, as we all know." beile let fall a tear and said: "if our father (may he be our kind advocate!) were alive, moishehle would never have made an engagement like this. who knows what sort of connections they will be! i can see them, begging his pardon, from here! is he likely to have asked anyone's advice? he always had a will of his own--did what he wanted to do, never asked his mother, or his sister, or his brother, beforehand. now he's a bridegroom at thirty if he's a day, and we are all asked to the wedding, are we really? and we shall soon all be running to see the fine sight, such as never was seen before. we are no such fools! he thinks _himself_ the clever one now! so he wants us to be at the wedding? only says it out of politeness." "we must go, all the same," said avremel. "go and welcome, if you want to--you won't catch _me_ there," answered his sister. there was a deal more discussion and disputing about not going to the wedding, and only congratulating by telegram, for good manners' sake. since he had asked no one's advice, and engaged himself without them, let him get married without them, too! gittel, up in her bedroom, could not so soon compose herself after the events of the day. what she had experienced was no trifle. moishehle engaged to be married! she had been through so much on his account in the course of her life, she had loved him, her youngest born, so dearly! he was such a beautiful child that the light of his countenance dazzled you, and bright as the day, so that people opened ears and mouth to hear him talk, and god and men alike envied her the possession of such a boy. "i counted on making a match for him, as i did with avremel before him. he was offered the best connections, with the families of the greatest rabbis. but, no--no--he wanted to go on studying. 'study here, study there,' said i, 'sixteen years old and a bachelor! if you want to study, can't you study at your father-in-law's, eating köst? there are books in plenty, thank heaven, of your father's.' no, no, he wanted to go and study elsewhere, asked nobody's advice, and made off, and for two months i never had a line. i nearly went out of my mind. then, suddenly, there came a letter, begging my pardon for not having said good-by, and would i forgive him, and send him some money, because he had nothing to eat. it tore my heart to think my moishehle, who used to make me happy whenever he enjoyed a meal, should hunger. i sent him some money, i went on sending him money for three years, after that he stopped asking for it. i begged him to come home, he made no reply. 'i don't wish to quarrel with avremel, my sister, and her husband,' he wrote later, 'we cannot live together in peace.' why? i don't know! then, for a time, he left off writing altogether, and the messages we got from him sounded very sad. now he was in kieff, now in odessa, now in charkoff, and they told us he was living like any gentile, had not the look of a jew at all. some said he was living with a gentile woman, a countess, and would never marry in his life." five years ago he had suddenly appeared at home, "to see his mother," as he said. gittel did not recognize him, he was so changed. the rest found him quite the stranger: he had a "goyish" shaven face, with a twisted moustache, and was got up like a rich gentile, with a purse full of bank-notes. his family were ashamed to walk abroad with him, gittel never ceased weeping and imploring him to give up the countess, remain a jew, stay with his mother, and she, with god's help, would make an excellent match for him, if he would only alter his appearance and ways just a little. moishehle solemnly assured his mother that he was a jew, that there was no countess, but that he wouldn't remain at home for a million rubles, first, because he had business elsewhere, and secondly, he had no fancy for his native town, there was nothing there for him to do, and to dispute with his brother and sister about religious piety was not worth his while. so moishehle departed, and gittel wept, wondering why he was different from the other children, seeing they all had the same mother, and she had lived and suffered for all alike. why would he not stay with her at home? what would he have wanted for there? god be praised, not to sin with her tongue, thanks to god first, and then to _him_ (a lightsome paradise be his!), they were provided for, with a house and a few thousand rubles, all that was necessary for their comfort, and a little ready money besides. the house alone, not to sin with her tongue, would bring in enough to make a living. other people envy us, but it doesn't happen to please him, and he goes wandering about the world--without a wife and without a home--a man twenty and odd years old, and without a home! the rest of the family were secretly well content to be free of such a poor creature--"the further off, the better--the shame is less." a letter from him came very seldom after this, and for the last two years he had dropped out altogether. nobody was surprised, for everyone was convinced that moisheh would never come to anything. some told that he was in prison, others knew that he had gone abroad and was being pursued, others, that he had hung himself because he was tired of life, and that before his death he had repented of all his sins, only it was too late. his relations heard all these reports, and were careful to keep them from his mother, because they were not sure that the bad news was true. gittel bore the pain at her heart in silence, weeping at times over her moishehle, who had got into bad ways--and now, suddenly, this precious letter with its precious news: her moishehle is about to marry, and invites them to the wedding! thus gittel, lying in bed in her own room, recalled everything she had suffered through her undutiful son, only now--now everything was forgotten and forgiven, and her mother's heart was full of love for her moishehle, just as in the days when he toddled about at her apron, and pleased his mother and everyone else. all her thoughts were now taken up with getting ready to attend the wedding; the time was so short--there were only three weeks left. when her other children were married, gittel began her preparations three months ahead, and now there were only three weeks. next day she took out her watered silk dress, with the green satin flowers, and hung it up to air, examined it, lest there should be a hook missing. after that she polished her long ear-rings with chalk, her pearls, her rings, and all her other ornaments, and bought a new yellow silk kerchief for her head, with a large flowery pattern in a lighter shade. a week before the journey to warsaw they baked spice-cakes, pancakes, and almond-rolls to take with her, "from the bridegroom's side," and ordered a wig for the bride. when her eldest son was married, gittel had also given the bride silver candlesticks for friday evenings, and presented her with a wig for the veiling ceremony. and before she left, gittel went to her husband's grave, and asked him to be present at the wedding as a good advocate for the newly-married pair. gittel started for warsaw in grand style, and cheerful and happy, as befits a mother going to the wedding of her favorite son. all those who accompanied her to the station declared that she looked younger and prettier by twenty years, and made a beautiful bridegroom's mother. besides wedding presents for the bride, gittel took with her money for wedding expenses, so that she might play her part with becoming lavishness, and people should not think her moishehle came, bless and preserve us, of a low-born family--to show that he was none so forlorn but he had, god be praised and may it be for a hundred and twenty years to come! a mother, and a sister, and brothers, and came of a well-to-do family. she would show them that she could be as fine a bridegroom's mother as anyone, even, thank god, in warsaw. moishehle was her last child, and she grudged him nothing. were _he_ (may he be a good intercessor!) alive, he would certainly have graced the wedding better, and spent more money, but she would spare nothing to make a good figure on the occasion. she would treat every connection of the bride to a special dance-tune, give the musicians a whole five-ruble-piece for their performance of the vivat, and two dreierlech for the kosher-tanz, beside something for the rav, the cantor, and the beadle, and alms for the poor--what should she save for? she has no more children to marry off--blessed be his dear name, who had granted her life to see her moishehle's wedding! thus happily did gittel start for warsaw. one carriage after another drove up to the wedding-reception room in dluga street, warsaw, ladies and their daughters, all in evening dress, and smartly attired gentlemen, alighted and went in. the room was full, the band played, ladies and gentlemen were dancing, and those who were not, talked of the bride and bridegroom, and said how fortunate they considered regina, to have secured such a presentable young man, lively, educated, and intelligent, with quite a fortune, which he had made himself, and a good business. ten thousand rubles dowry with the perfection of a husband was a rare thing nowadays, when a poor professional man, a little doctor without practice, asked fifteen thousand. it was true, they said, that regina was a pretty girl and a credit to her parents, but how many pretty, bright girls had more money than regina, and sat waiting? it was above all the mothers of the young ladies present who talked low in this way among themselves. the bride sat on a chair at the end of the room, ladies and young girls on either side of her; gittel, the bridegroom's mother in her watered silk dress, with the large green satin flowers, was seated between two ladies with dresses cut so low that gittel could not bear to look at them--women with husbands and children daring to show themselves like that at a wedding! then she could not endure the odor of their bare skin, the powder, pomade, and perfumes with which they were smeared, sprinkled, and wetted, even to their hair. all these strange smells tickled gittel's nose, and went to her head like a fume. she sat between the two ladies, feeling cramped and shut in, unable to stir, and would gladly have gone away. only whither? where should she, the bridegroom's mother, be sitting, if not near the bride, at the upper end of the room? but all the ladies sitting there are half-naked. should she sit near the door? that would never do. and gittel remained sitting, in great embarrassment, between the two women, and looked on at the reception, and saw nothing but a room full of _decolletées_, ladies and girls. gittel felt more and more uncomfortable, it made her quite faint to look at them. "one can get over the girls, young things, because a girl has got to please, although no jewish daughter ought to show herself to everyone like that, but what are you to do with present-day children, especially in a dissolute city like warsaw? but young women, and women who have husbands and children, and no need, thank god, to please anyone, how are they not ashamed before god and other people and their own children, to come to a wedding half-naked, like loose girls in a public house? jewish daughters, who ought not to be seen uncovered by the four walls of their room, to come like that to a wedding! to a jewish wedding!... tpfu, tpfu, i'd like to spit at this newfangled world, may god not punish me for these words! it is enough to make one faint to see such a display among jews!" after the ceremony under the canopy, which was erected in the centre of the room, the company sat down to the table, and gittel was again seated at the top, between the two women before mentioned, whose perfumes went to her head. she felt so queer and so ill at ease that she could not partake of the dinner, her mouth seemed locked, and the tears came in her eyes. when they rose from table, gittel sought out a place removed from the "upper end," and sat down in a window, but presently the bride's mother, also in _decolleté_, caught sight of her, and went and took her by the hand. "why are you sitting here, mechuteneste? why are you not at the top?" "i wanted to rest myself a little." "oh, no, no, come and sit there," said the lady, led her away by force, and seated her between the two ladies with the perfumes. long, long did she sit, feeling more and more sick and dizzy. if only she could have poured out her heart to some one person, if she could have exchanged a single word with anybody during that whole evening, it would have been a relief, but there was no one to speak to. the music played, there was dancing, but gittel could see nothing more. she felt an oppression at her heart, and became covered with perspiration, her head grew heavy, and she fell from her chair. "the bridegroom's mother has fainted!" was the outcry through the whole room. "water, water!" they fetched water, discovered a doctor among the guests, and he led gittel into another room, and soon brought her round. the bride, the bridegroom, the bride's mother, and the two ladies ran in: "what can have caused it? lie down! how do you feel now? perhaps you would like a sip of lemonade?" they all asked. "thank you, i want nothing, i feel better already, leave me alone for a while. i shall soon recover myself, and be all right." so gittel was left alone, and she breathed more easily, her head stopped aching, she felt like one let out of prison, only there was a pain at her heart. the tears which had choked her all day now began to flow, and she wept abundantly. the music never ceased playing, she heard the sound of the dancers' feet and the directions of the master of ceremonies; the floor shook, gittel wept, and tried with all her might to keep from sobbing, so that people should not hear and come in and disturb her. she had not wept so since the death of her husband, and this was the wedding of her favorite son! by degrees she ceased to weep altogether, dried her eyes, and sat quietly talking to herself of the many things that passed through her head. "better that _he_ (may he enter a lightsome paradise!) should have died than lived to see what i have seen, and the dear delight which i have had, at the wedding of my youngest child! better that i myself should not have lived to see his marriage canopy. canopy, indeed! four sticks stuck up in the middle of the room to make fun with, for people to play at being married, like monkeys! then at table: no seven blessings, not a jewish word, not a jewish face, no minyan to be seen, only shaven gentiles upon gentiles, a roomful of naked women and girls that make you sick to look at them. moishehle had better have married a poor orphan, i shouldn't have been half so ashamed or half so unhappy." gittel called to mind the sort of a bridegroom's mother she had been at the marriage of her eldest son, and the satisfaction she had felt. four hundred women had accompanied her to the shool when avremele was called to the reading of the law as a bridegroom, and they had scattered nuts, almonds, and raisins down upon him as he walked; then the party before the wedding, and the ceremony of the canopy, and the procession with the bride and bridegroom to the shool, the merry home-coming, the golden soup, the bridegroom brought at supper time to the sound of music, the cantor and his choir, who sang while they sat at table, the seven blessings, the vivat played for each one separately, the kosher-tanz, the dance round the bridegroom--and the whole time it had been gittel here and gittel there: "good luck to you, gittel, may you be happy in the young couple and in all your other children, and live to dance at the wedding of your youngest" (it was a delight and no mistake!). "where is gittel?" she hears them cry. "the uncle, the aunt, a cousin have paid for a dance for the mechuteneste on the bridegroom's side! play, musicians all!" the company make way for her, and she dances with the uncle, the aunt, and the cousin, and all the rest clap their hands. she is tired with dancing, but still they call "gittel"! an old friend sings a merry song in her honor. "play, musicians all!" and gittel dances on, the company clap their hands, and wish her all that is good, and she is penetrated with genuine happiness and the joy of the occasion. then, then, when the guests begin to depart, and the mothers of bridegroom and bride whisper together about the forthcoming veiling ceremony, she sees the bride in her wig, already a wife, her daughter-in-law! her jam pancakes and almond-rolls are praised by all, and what cakes are left over from the veiling ceremony are either snatched one by one, or else they are seized wholesale by the young people standing round the table, so that she should not see, and they laugh and tease her. that is the way to become a mother-in-law! and here, of course, the whole of the pancakes and sweet-cakes and almond-rolls which she brought have never so much as been unpacked, and are to be thrown away or taken home again, as you please! a shame! no one came to her for cakes. the wig, too, may be thrown away or carried back--moishehle told her it was not required, it wouldn't quite do. the bride accepted the silver candlesticks with embarrassment, as though gittel had done something to make her feel awkward, and some girls who were standing by smiled, "regina has been given candlesticks for the candle-blessing on fridays--ha, ha, ha!" the bridal couple with the girl's parents came in to ask how she felt, and interrupted the current of her thoughts. "we shall drive home now, people are leaving," they said. "the wedding is over," they told her, "everything in life comes to a speedy end." gittel remembered that when avremel was married, the festivities had lasted a whole week, till over the second cheerful sabbath, when the bride, the new daughter-in-law, was led to the shool! the day after the wedding gittel drove home, sad, broken in spirit, as people return from the cemetery where they have buried a child, where they have laid a fragment of their own heart, of their own life, under the earth. driving home in the carriage, she consoled herself with this at least: "a good thing that beile and zlatke, avremel and yossel were not there. the shame will be less, there will be less talk, nobody will know what i am suffering." gittel arrived the picture of gloom. when she left for the wedding, she had looked suddenly twenty years younger, and now she looked twenty years older than before! poverty i was living in mezkez at the time, and seinwill bookbinder lived there too. but heaven only knows where he is now! even then his continual pallor augured no long residence in mezkez, and he was a yadeschlever jew with a wife and six small children, and he lived by binding books. who knows what has become of him! but that is not the question--i only want to prove that seinwill was a great liar. if he is already in the other world, may he forgive me--and not be very angry with me, if he is still living in mezkez! he was an orthodox and pious jew, but when you gave him a book to bind, he never kept his word. when he took a book and even the whole of his pay in advance, he would swear by beard and earlocks, by wife and children, and by the messiah, that he would bring it back to you by sabbath, but you had to be at him for weeks before the work was finished and sent in. once, on a certain friday, i remembered that next day, sabbath, i should have a few hours to myself for reading. a fortnight before i had given seinwill a new book to bind for me. it was just a question whether or not he would return it in time, so i set out for his home, with the intention of bringing back the book, finished or not. i had paid him his twenty kopeks in advance, so what excuses could he possibly make? once for all, i would give him a bit of my mind, and take away the work unfinished--it will be a lesson for him for the next time! thus it was, walking along and deciding on what i should say to seinwill, that i turned into the street to which i had been directed. once in the said street, i had no need to ask questions, for i was at once shown a little, low house, roofed with mouldered slate. i stooped a little by way of precaution, and entered seinwill's house, which consisted of a large kitchen. here he lived with his wife and children, and here he worked. in the great stove that took up one-third of the kitchen there was a cheerful crackling, as in every jewish home on a friday. in the forepart of the oven, on either hand, stood a variety of pots and pipkins, and gossipped together in their several tones. an elder child stood beside them holding a wooden spoon, with which she stirred or skimmed as the case required. seinwill's wife, very much occupied, stood by the one four-post bed, which was spread with a clean white sheet, and on which she had laid out various kinds of cakes, of unbaked dough, in honor of sabbath. beside her stood a child, its little face red with crying, and hindered her in her work. "seinwill, take chatzkele away! how can i get on with the cakes? don't you know it's friday?" she kept calling out, and seinwill, sitting at his work beside a large table covered with books, repeated every time like an echo: "chatzkele, let mother alone!" and chatzkele, for all the notice he took, might have been as deaf as the bedpost. the minute seinwill saw me, he ran to meet me in a shamefaced way, like a sinner caught in the act; and before i was able to say a word, that is, tell him angrily and with decision that he must give me my book finished or not--never mind about the twenty kopeks, and so on--and thus revenge myself on him, he began to answer, and he showed me that my book was done, it was already in the press, and there only remained the lettering to be done on the back. just a few minutes more, and he would bring it to my house. "no, i will wait and take it myself," i said, rather vexed. besides, i knew that to stamp a few letters on a book-cover could not take more than a few minutes at most. "well, if you are so good as to wait, it will not take long. there is a fire in the oven, i have only just got to heat the screw." and so saying, he placed a chair for me, dusted it with the flap of his coat, and i sat down to wait. seinwill really took my book out of the press quite finished except for the lettering on the cover, and began to hurry. now he is by the oven--from the oven to the corner--and once more to the oven and back to the corner--and so on ten times over, saying to me every time: "there, directly, directly, in another minute," and back once more across the room. so it went on for about ten minutes, and i began to take quite an interest in this running of his from one place to another, with empty hands, and doing nothing but repeat "directly, directly, this minute!" most of all i wonder why he keeps on looking into the corner--he never takes his eyes off that corner. what is he looking for, what does he expect to see there? i watch his face growing sadder--he must be suffering from something or other--and all the while he talks to himself, "directly, directly, in one little minute." he turns to me: "i must ask you to wait a little longer. it will be very soon now--in another minute's time. just because we want it so badly, you'd think she'd rather burst," he said, and he went back to the corner, stooped, and looked into it. "what are you looking for there every minute?" i ask him. "nothing. but directly--take my advice: why should you sit there waiting? i will bring the book to you myself. when one wants her to, she won't!" "all right, it's friday, so i need not hurry. why should you have the trouble, as i am already here?" i reply, and ask him who is the "she who won't." "you see, my wife, who is making cakes, is kept waiting by her too, and i, with the lettering to do on the book, i also wait." "but _what_ are you waiting for?" "you see, if the cakes are to take on a nice glaze while baking, they must be brushed over with a yolk." "well, and what has that to do with stamping the letters on the cover of the book?" "what has that to do with it? don't you know that the glaze-gold which is used for the letters will not stick to the cover without some white of egg?" "yes, i have seen them smearing the cover with white of egg before putting on the letters. then what?" "how 'what?' that is why we are waiting for the egg." "so you have sent out to buy an egg?" "no, but it will be there directly." he points out to me the corner which he has been running to look into the whole time, and there, on the ground, i see an overturned sieve, and under the sieve, a hen turning round and round and cackling. "as if she'd rather burst!" continued seinwill. "just because we want it so badly, she won't lay. she lays an egg for me nearly every time, and now--just as if she'd rather burst!" he said, and began to scratch his head. and the hen? the hen went on turning round and round like a prisoner in a dungeon, and cackled louder than ever. to tell the truth, i had inferred at once that seinwill was persuaded i should wait for my book till the hen had laid an egg, and as i watched seinwill's wife, and saw with what anxiety she waited for the hen to lay, i knew that i was right, that seinwill was indeed so persuaded, for his wife called to him: "ask the young man for a kopek and send the child to buy an egg in the market. the cakes are getting cold." "the young man owes me nothing, a few weeks ago he paid me for the whole job. there is no one to borrow from, nobody will lend me anything, i owe money all around, my very hair is not my own." when seinwill had answered his wife, he took another peep into the corner, and said: "she will not keep us waiting much longer now. she can't cackle forever. another two minutes!" but the hen went on puffing out her feathers, pecking and cackling for a good deal more than two minutes. it seemed as if she could not bear to see her master and mistress in trouble, as if she really wished to do them a kindness by laying an egg. but no egg appeared. i _lent_ seinwill two or three kopeks, which he was to pay me back in work, because seinwill has never once asked for, or accepted, charity, and the child was sent to the market. a few minutes later, when the child had come back with an egg, seinwill's wife had the glistening sabbath cakes on a shovel, and was placing them gaily in the oven; my book was finished, and the unfortunate hen, released at last from her prison, the sieve, ceased to cackle and to ruffle out her plumage. sholom-alechem pen name of shalom rabinovitz; born, , in pereyaslav, government of poltava, little russia; government rabbi, at twenty-one, in lubni, near his native place; has spent the greater part of his life in kieff; in odessa from to , and in america from to ; hebrew, russian, and yiddish poet, novelist, humorous short story writer, critic, and playwright; prolific contributor to hebrew and yiddish periodicals; founder of die jüdische volksbibliothek; novels: stempenyu, yosele solovei, etc.; collected works: first series, alle werk, vols., cracow, - ; second series, neueste werk, vols., warsaw, - . the clock the clock struck thirteen! don't imagine i am joking, i am telling you in all seriousness what happened in mazepevke, in our house, and i myself was there at the time. we had a clock, a large clock, fastened to the wall, an old, old clock inherited from my grandfather, which had been left him by my great-grandfather, and so forth. too bad, that a clock should not be alive and able to tell us something beside the time of day! what stories we might have heard as we sat with it in the room! our clock was famous throughout the town as the best clock going--"reb simcheh's clock"--and people used to come and set their watches by it, because it kept more accurate time than any other. you may believe me that even reb lebish, the sage, a philosopher, who understood the time of sunset from the sun itself, and knew the calendar by rote, he said himself--i heard him--that our clock was--well, as compared with his watch, it wasn't worth a pinch of snuff, but as there _were_ such things as clocks, our clock _was_ a clock. and if reb lebish himself said so, you may depend upon it he was right, because every wednesday, between afternoon and evening prayer, reb lebish climbed busily onto the roof of the women's shool, or onto the top of the hill beside the old house-of-study, and looked out for the minute when the sun should set, in one hand his watch, and in the other the calendar. and when the sun dropt out of sight on the further side of mazepevke, reb lebish said to himself, "got him!" and at once came away to compare his watch with the clocks. when he came in to us, he never gave us a "good evening," only glanced up at the clock on the wall, then at his watch, then at the almanac, and was gone! but it happened one day that when reb lebish came in to compare our clock with the almanac, he gave a shout: "sim-cheh! make haste! where are you?" my father came running in terror. "ha, what has happened, reb lebish?" "wretch, you dare to ask?" and reb lebish held his watch under my father's nose, pointed at our clock, and shouted again, like a man with a trodden toe: "sim-cheh! why don't you speak? it is a minute and a half ahead of the time! throw it away!" my father was vexed. what did reb lebish mean by telling him to throw away his clock? "who is to prove," said he, "that my clock is a minute and a half fast? perhaps it is the other way about, and your watch is a minute and a half slow? who is to tell?" reb lebish stared at him as though he had said that it was possible to have three days of new moon, or that the seventeenth of tammuz might possibly fall on the eve of passover, or made some other such wild remark, enough, if one really took it in, to give one an apoplectic fit. reb lebish said never a word, he gave a deep sigh, turned away without wishing us "good evening," slammed the door, and was gone. but no one minded much, because the whole town knew reb lebish for a person who was never satisfied with anything: he would tell you of the best cantor that he was a dummy, a log; of the cleverest man, that he was a lumbering animal; of the most appropriate match, that it was as crooked as an oven rake; and of the most apt simile, that it was as applicable as a pea to the wall. such a man was reb lebish. but let me return to our clock. i tell you, that _was_ a clock! you could hear it strike three rooms away: bom! bom! bom! half the town went by it, to recite the midnight prayers, to get up early for seliches during the week before new year and on the ten solemn days, to bake the sabbath loaves on fridays, to bless the candles on friday evening. they lighted the fire by it on saturday evening, they salted the meat, and so all the other things pertaining to judaism. in fact, our clock was the town clock. the poor thing served us faithfully, and never tried stopping even for a time, never once in its life had it to be set to rights by a clockmaker. my father kept it in order himself, he had an inborn talent for clock work. every year on the eve of passover, he deliberately took it down from the wall, dusted the wheels with a feather brush, removed from its inward part a collection of spider webs, desiccated flies, which the spiders had lured in there to their destruction, and heaps of black cockroaches, which had gone in of themselves, and found a terrible end. having cleaned and polished it, he hung it up again on the wall and shone, that is, they both shone: the clock shone because it was cleaned and polished, and my father shone because the clock shone. and it came to pass one day that something happened. it was on a fine, bright, cloudless day; we were all sitting at table, eating breakfast, and the clock struck. now i always loved to hear the clock strike and count the strokes out loud: "one--two--three--seven--eleven--twelve--thirteen! oi! _thirteen?_" "thirteen?" exclaimed my father, and laughed. "you're a fine arithmetician (no evil eye!). whenever did you hear a clock strike thirteen?" "but i tell you, it _struck_ thirteen!" "i shall give you thirteen slaps," cried my father, angrily, "and then you won't repeat this nonsense again. goi, a clock _cannot_ strike thirteen!" "do you know what, simcheh," put in my mother, "i am afraid the child is right, i fancy i counted thirteen, too." "there's another witness!" said my father, but it appeared that he had begun to feel a little doubtful himself, for after the meal he went up to the clock, got upon a chair, gave a turn to a little wheel inside the clock, and it began to strike. we all counted the strokes, nodding our head at each one the while: one--two--three--seven--nine--twelve--thirteen. "thirteen!" exclaimed my father, looking at us in amaze. he gave the wheel another turn, and again the clock struck thirteen. my father got down off the chair with a sigh. he was as white as the wall, and remained standing in the middle of the room, stared at the ceiling, chewed his beard, and muttered to himself: "plague take thirteen! what can it mean? what does it portend? if it were out of order, it would have stopped. then, what can it be? the inference can only be that some spring has gone wrong." "why worry whether it's a spring or not?" said my mother. "you'd better take down the clock and put it to rights, as you've a turn that way." "hush, perhaps you're right," answered my father, took down the clock and busied himself with it. he perspired, spent a whole day over it, and hung it up again in its place. thank god, the clock was going as it should, and when, near midnight, we all stood round it and counted _twelve_, my father was overjoyed. "ha? it didn't strike thirteen then, did it? when i say it is a spring, i know what i'm about." "i always said you were a wonder," my mother told him. "but there is one thing i don't understand: why does it wheeze so? i don't think it used to wheeze like that." "it's your fancy," said my father, and listened to the noise it made before striking, like an old man preparing to cough: chil-chil-chil-chil-trrrr ... and only then: bom!--bom!--bom!--and even the "bom" was not the same as formerly, for the former "bom" had been a cheerful one, and now there had crept into it a melancholy note, as into the voice of an old worn-out cantor at the close of the service for the day of atonement, and the hoarseness increased, and the strike became lower and duller, and my father, worried and anxious. it was plain that the affair preyed upon his mind, that he suffered in secret, that it was undermining his health, and yet he could do nothing. we felt that any moment the clock might stop altogether. the imp started playing all kinds of nasty tricks and idle pranks, shook itself sideways, and stumbled like an old man who drags his feet after him. one could see that the clock was about to stop forever! it was a good thing my father understood in time that the clock was about to yield up its soul, and that the fault lay with the balance weights: the weight was too light. and he puts on a jostle, which has the weight of about four pounds. the clock goes on like a song, and my father becomes as cheerful as a newborn man. but this was not to be for long: the clock began to lose again, the imp was back at his tiresome performances: he moved slowly on one side, quickly on the other, with a hoarse noise, like a sick old man, so that it went to the heart. a pity to see how the clock agonized, and my father, as he watched it, seemed like a flickering, bickering flame of a candle, and nearly went out for grief. like a good doctor, who is ready to sacrifice himself for the patient's sake, who puts forth all his energy, tries every remedy under the sun to save his patient, even so my father applied himself to save the old clock, if only it should be possible. "the weight is too light," repeated my father, and hung something heavier onto it every time, first a frying-pan, then a copper jug, afterwards a flat-iron, a bag of sand, a couple of tiles--and the clock revived every time and went on, with difficulty and distress, but still it went--till one night there was a misfortune. it was on a friday evening in winter. we had just eaten our sabbath supper, the delicious peppered fish with horseradish, the hot soup with macaroni, the stewed plums, and said grace as was meet. the sabbath candles flickered, the maid was just handing round fresh, hot, well-dried polish nuts from off the top of the stove, when in came aunt yente, a dark-favored little woman without teeth, whose husband had deserted her, to become a follower of the rebbe, quite a number of years ago. "good sabbath!" said aunt yente, "i knew you had some fresh polish nuts. the pity is that i've nothing to crack them with, may my husband live no more years than i have teeth in my mouth! what did you think, malkeh, of the fish to-day? what a struggle there was over them at the market! i asked him about his fish--manasseh, the lazy--when up comes soreh peril, the rich: make haste, give it me, hand me over that little pike!--why in such a hurry? say i. god be with you, the river is not on fire, and manasseh is not going to take the fish back there, either. take my word for it, with these rich people money is cheap, and sense is dear. turns round on me and says: paupers, she says, have no business here--a poor man, she says, shouldn't hanker after good things. what do you think of such a shrew? how long did she stand by her mother in the market selling ribbons? she behaves just like pessil peise avròhom's over her daughter, the one she married to a great man in schtrischtch, who took her just as she was, without any dowry or anything--jewish luck! they say she has a bad time of it--no evil eye to her days--can't get on with his children. well, who would be a stepmother? let them beware! take chavvehle! what is there to find fault with in her? and you should see the life her stepchildren lead her! one hears shouting day and night, cursing, squabbling, and fighting." the candles began to die down, the shadow climbed the wall, scrambled higher and higher, the nuts crackled in our hands, there was talking and telling stories and tales, just for the pleasure of it, one without any reference to the other, but aunt yente talked more than anyone. "hush!" cried out aunt yente, "listen, because not long ago a still better thing happened. not far from yampele, about three versts away, some robbers fell upon a jewish tavern, killed a whole houseful of people, down to a baby in a cradle. the only person left alive was a servant-girl, who was sleeping on the kitchen stove. she heard people screeching, and jumped down, this servant-girl, off the stove, peeped through a chink in the door, and saw, this servant-girl i'm telling you of, saw the master of the house and the mistress lying on the floor, murdered, in a pool of blood, and she went back, this girl, and sprang through a window, and ran into the town screaming: jews, to the rescue, help, help, help!" suddenly, just as aunt yente was shouting, "help, help, help!" we heard _trrraach!--tarrrach!--bom--dzin--dzin--dzin, bomm!!_ we were so deep in the story, we only thought at first that robbers had descended upon our house, and were firing guns, and we could not move for terror. for one minute we looked at one another, and then with one accord we began to call out, "help! help! help!" and my mother was so carried away that she clasped me in her arms and cried: "my child, my life for yours, woe is me!" "ha? what? what is the matter with him? what has happened?" exclaimed my father. "nothing! nothing! hush! hush!" cried aunt yente, gesticulating wildly, and the maid came running in from the kitchen, more dead than alive. "who screamed? what is it? is there a fire? what is on fire? where?" "fire? fire? where is the fire?" we all shrieked. "help! help! gewalt, jews, to the rescue, fire, fire!" "which fire? what fire? where fire?! fire take _you_, you foolish girl, and make cinders of you!" scolded aunt yente at the maid. "now _she_ must come, as though we weren't enough before! fire, indeed, says she! into the earth with you, to all black years! did you ever hear of such a thing? what are you all yelling for? do you know what it was that frightened you? the best joke in the world, and there's nobody to laugh with! god be with you, it was the clock falling onto the floor--now you know! you hung every sort of thing onto it, and now it is fallen, weighing at least three pud. and no wonder! a man wouldn't have fared better. did you ever?!" it was only then we came to our senses, rose one by one from the table, went to the clock, and saw it lying on its poor face, killed, broken, shattered, and smashed for evermore! "there is an end to the clock!" said my father, white as the wall. he hung his head, wrung his fingers, and the tears came into his eyes. i looked at my father and wanted to cry, too. "there now, see, what is the use of fretting to death?" said my mother. "no doubt it was so decreed and written down in heaven that to-day, at that particular minute, our clock was to find its end, just (i beg to distinguish!) like a human being, may god not punish me for saying so! may it be an atonement for not remembering the sabbath, for me, for thee, for our children, for all near and dear to us, and for all israel. amen, selah!" fishel the teacher twice a year, as sure as the clock, on the first day of nisan and the first of ellul--for passover and tabernacles--fishel the teacher travelled from balta to chaschtschevate, home to his wife and children. it was decreed that nearly all his life long he should be the guest of his own family, a very welcome guest, but a passing one. he came with the festival, and no sooner was it over, than back with him to balta, back to the schooling, the ruler, the gemoreh, the dull, thick wits, to the being knocked about from pillar to post, to the wandering among strangers, and the longing for home. on the other hand, when fishel _does_ come home, he is an emperor! his wife bath-sheba comes out to meet him, pulls at her head-kerchief, blushes red as fire, questions as though in asides, without as yet looking him in the face, "how are you?" and he replies, "how are _you_?" and froike his son, a boy of thirteen or so, greets him, and the father asks, "well, efroim, and how far on are you in the gemoreh?" and his little daughter resele, not at all a bad-looking little girl, with a plaited pigtail, hugs and kisses him. "tate, what sort of present have you brought me?" "printed calico for a frock, and a silk kerchief for mother. there--give mother the kerchief!" and fishel takes a silk (suppose a half-silk!) kerchief out of his tallis-bag, and bath-sheba grows redder still, and pulls her head-cloth over her eyes, takes up a bit of household work, busies herself all over the place, and ends by doing nothing. "bring the gemoreh, efroim, and let me hear what you can do!" and froike recites his lesson like the bright boy he is, and fishel listens and corrects, and his heart expands and overflows with delight, his soul rejoices--a bright boy, froike, a treasure! "if you want to go to the bath, there is a shirt ready for you!" thus bath-sheba as she passes him, still not venturing to look him in the face, and fishel has a sensation of unspeakable comfort, he feels like a man escaped from prison and back in a lightsome world, among those who are near and dear to him. and he sees in fancy a very, very hot bath-house, and himself lying on the highest bench with other jews, and he perspires and swishes himself with the birch twigs, and can never have enough. home from the bath, fresh and lively as a fish, like one newborn, he rehearses the portion of the law for the festival, puts on the sabbath cloak and the new girdle, steals a glance at bath-sheba in her new dress and silk kerchief--still a pretty woman, and so pious and good!--and goes with froike to the shool. the air is full of sholom alechems, "welcome, reb fishel the teacher, and what are you about?"--"a teacher teaches!"--"what is the news?"--"what should it be? the world is the world!"--"what is going on in balta?"--"balta is balta." the same formula is repeated every time, every half-year, and nissel the reader begins to recite the evening prayers, and sends forth his voice, the further the louder, and when he comes to "and moses declared the set feasts of the lord unto the children of israel," it reaches nearly to heaven. and froike stands at his father's side, and recites the prayers melodiously, and once more fishel's heart expands and flows over with joy--a good child, froike, a good, pious child! "a happy holiday, a happy holiday!" "a happy holiday, a happy year!" at home they find the passover table spread: the four cups, the bitter herbs, the almond and apple paste, and all the rest of it. the reclining-seats (two small benches with big cushions) stand ready, and fishel becomes a king. fishel, robed in white, sits on the throne of his dominion, bath-sheba, the queen, sits beside him in her new silk kerchief; efroim, the prince, in a new cap, and the princess resele with her plait, sit opposite them. look on with respect! his majesty fishel is seated on his throne, and has assumed the sway of his kingdom. * * * * * the chaschtschevate scamps, who love to make game of the whole world, not to mention a teacher, maintain that one passover eve our fishel sent his bath-sheba the following russian telegram: "rebyàta sobral dyèngi vezù prigatovi npiyèdu tzàrstvovàtz," which means: "have entered my pupils for the next term, am bringing money, prepare the dumplings, i come to reign." the mischief-makers declare that this telegram was seized at balta station, that bath-sheba was sought and not found, and that fishel was sent home with the étape. dreadful! but i can assure you, there isn't a word of truth in the story, because fishel never sent a telegram in his life, nobody was ever seen looking for bath-sheba, and fishel was never taken anywhere by the étape. that is, he _was_ once taken somewhere by the étape, but not on account of a telegram, only on account of a simple passport! and not from balta, but from yehupetz, and not at passover, but in summer-time. he wished, you see, to go to yehupetz in search of a post as teacher, and forgot his passport. he thought it was in balta, and he got into a nice mess, and forbade his children and children's children ever to go in search of pupils in yehupetz. since then he teaches in balta, and comes home for passover, winds up his work a fortnight earlier, and sometimes manages to hasten back in time for the great sabbath. hasten, did i say? that means when the road _is_ a road, when you can hire a conveyance, and when the bug can either be crossed on the ice or in the ferry-boat. but when, for instance, the snow has begun to melt, and the mud is deep, when there is no conveyance to be had, when the bug has begun to split the ice, and the ferry-boat has not started running, when a skiff means peril of death, and the festival is upon you--what then? it is just "nit güt." fishel the teacher knows the taste of "nit güt." he has had many adventures and mishaps since he became a teacher, and took to faring from chaschtschevate to balta and from balta to chaschtschevate. he has tried going more than half-way on foot, and helped to push the conveyance besides. he has lain in the mud with a priest, the priest on top, and he below. he has fled before a pack of wolves who were pursuing the vehicle, and afterwards they turned out to be dogs, and not wolves at all. but anything like the trouble on this passover eve had never befallen him before. the trouble came from the bug, that is, from the bug's breaking through the ice, and just having its fling when fishel reached it in a hurry to get home, and really in a hurry, because it was already friday and passover eve, that is, passover eve fell on a sabbath that year. fishel reached the bug in a gentile conveyance thursday evening. according to his own reckoning, he should have got there tuesday morning, because he left balta sunday after market, the spirit having moved him to go into the market-place to spy after a chance conveyance. how much better it would have been to drive with yainkel-shegetz, a balta carrier, even at the cart-tail, with his legs dangling, and shaken to bits. he would have been home long ago by now, and have forgotten the discomforts of the journey. but he had wanted a cheaper transit, and it is an old saying that cheap things cost dear. yoneh, the tippler, who procures vehicles in balta, had said to him: "take my advice, give two rubles, and you will ride in yainkel's wagon like a lord, even if you do have to sit behind the wagon. consider, you're playing with fire, the festival approaches." but as ill-luck would have it, there came along a familiar gentile from chaschtschevate. "eh, rabbi, you're not wanting a lift to chaschtschevate?" "how much would the fare be?" he thought to ask how much, and he never thought to ask if it would take him home by passover, because in a week he could have covered the distance walking behind the cart. but as fishel drove out of the town, he soon began to repent of his choice, even though the wagon was large, and he sitting in it in solitary grandeur, like any count. he saw that with a horse that dragged itself along in _that_ way, there would be no getting far, for they drove a whole day without getting anywhere in particular, and however much he worried the peasant to know if it were a long way yet, the only reply he got was, "who can tell?" in the evening, with a rumble and a shout and a crack of the whip, there came up with them yainkel-shegetz and his four fiery horses jingling with bells, and the large coach packed with passengers before and behind. yainkel, catching sight of the teacher in the peasant's cart, gave another loud crack with his whip, ridiculed the peasant, his passenger, and his horse, as only yainkel-shegetz knows how, and when a little way off, he turned and pointed at one of the peasant's wheels. "hallo, man, look out! there's a wheel turning!" the peasant stopped the horse, and he and the teacher clambered down together, and examined the wheels. they crawled underneath the cart, and found nothing wrong, nothing at all. when the peasant understood that yainkel had made a fool of him, he scratched the back of his neck below his collar, and began to abuse yainkel and all jews with curses such as fishel had never heard before. his voice and his anger rose together: "may you never know good! may you have a bad year! may you not see the end of it! bad luck to you, you and your horses and your wife and your daughter and your aunts and your uncles and your parents-in-law and--and all your cursed jews!" it was a long time before the peasant took his seat again, nor did he cease to fume against yainkel the driver and all jews, until, with god's help, they reached a village wherein to spend the night. next morning fishel rose with the dawn, recited his prayers, a portion of the law, and a few psalms, breakfasted on a roll, and was ready to set forward. unfortunately, chfedor (this was the name of his driver) was _not_ ready. chfedor had sat up late with a crony and got drunk, and he slept through a whole day and a bit of the night, and then only started on his way. "well," fishel reproved him as they sat in the cart, "well, chfedor, a nice way to behave, upon my word! do you suppose i engaged you for a merrymaking? what have you to say for yourself, i should like to know, eh?" and fishel addressed other reproachful words to him, and never ceased casting the other's laziness between his teeth, partly in polish, partly in hebrew, and helping himself out with his hands. chfedor understood quite well what fishel meant, but he answered him not a word, not a syllable even. no doubt he felt that fishel was in the right, and he was silent as a cat, till, on the fourth day, they met yainkel-shegetz, driving back from chaschtschevate with a rumble and a crack of his whip, who called out to them, "you may as well turn back to balta, the bug has burst the ice." fishel's heart was like to burst, too, but chfedor, who thought that yainkel was trying to fool him a second time, started repeating his whole list of curses, called down all bad dreams on yainkel's hands and feet, and never shut his mouth till they came to the bug on thursday evening. they drove straight to prokop baranyùk, the ferryman, to inquire when the ferry-boat would begin to run, and the two gentiles, chfedor and prokop, took to sipping brandy, while fishel proceeded to recite the afternoon prayer. * * * * * the sun was about to set, and poured a rosy light onto the high hills that stood on either side of the river, and were snow-covered in parts and already green in others, and intersected by rivulets that wound their way with murmuring noise down into the river, where the water foamed with the broken ice and the increasing thaw. the whole of chaschtschevate lay before him as on a plate, while the top of the monastery sparkled like a light in the setting sun. standing to recite the eighteen benedictions, with his face towards chaschtschevate, fishel turned his eyes away and drove out the idle thoughts and images that had crept into his head: bath-sheba with the new silk kerchief, froike with the gemoreh, resele with her plait, the hot bath and the highest bench, and freshly-baked matzes, together with nice peppered fish and horseradish that goes up your nose, passover borshtsh with more matzes, a heavenly mixture, and all the other good things that desire is capable of conjuring up--and however often he drove these fancies away, they returned and crept back into his brain like summer flies, and disturbed him at his prayers. when fishel had repeated the eighteen benedictions and olenu, he betook him to prokop, and entered into conversation with him about the ferry-boat and the festival eve, giving him to understand, partly in polish and partly in hebrew and partly with his hands, what passover meant to the jews, and passover eve falling on a sabbath, and that if, which heaven forbid, he had not crossed the bug by that time to-morrow, he was a lost man, for, beside the fact that they were on the lookout for him at home--his wife and children (fishel gave a sigh that rent the heart)--he would not be able to eat or drink for a week, and fishel turned away, so that the tears in his eyes should not be seen. prokop baranyùk quite appreciated fishel's position, and replied that he knew to-morrow was a jewish festival, and even how it was called; he even knew that the jews celebrated it by drinking wine and strong brandy; he even knew that there was yet another festival at which the jews drank brandy, and a third when all jews were obliged to get drunk, but he had forgotten its name-- "well and good," fishel interrupted him in a lamentable voice, "but what is to happen? how if i don't get there?" to this prokop made no reply. he merely pointed with his hand to the river, as much as to say, "see for yourself!" and fishel lifted up his eyes to the river, and saw that which he had never seen before, and heard that which he had never heard in his life. because you may say that fishel had never yet taken in anything "out of doors," he had only perceived it accidentally, by the way, as he hurried from cheder to the house-of-study, and from the house-of-study to cheder. the beautiful blue bug between the two lines of imposing hills, the murmur of the winding rivulets as they poured down the hillsides, the roar of the ever-deepening spring-flow, the light of the setting sun, the glittering cupola of the convent, the wholesome smell of passover-eve-tide out of doors, and, above all, the being so close to home and not able to get there--all these things lent wings, as it were, to fishel's spirit, and he was borne into a new world, the world of imagination, and crossing the bug seemed the merest trifle, if only the almighty were willing to perform a fraction of a miracle on his behalf. such and like thoughts floated in and out of fishel's head, and lifted him into the air, and so far across the river, he never realized that it was night, and the stars came out, and a cool wind blew in under his cloak to his little prayer-scarf, and fishel was busy with things that he had never so much as dreamt of: earthly things and heavenly things, the great size of the beautiful world, the almighty as creator of the earth, and so on. fishel spent a bad night in prokop's house--such a night as he hoped never to spend again. the next morning broke with a smile from the bright and cheerful sun. it was a singularly fine day, and so sweetly warm that all the snow left melted into kasha, and the kasha, into water, and this water poured into the bug from all sides; and the bug became clearer, light blue, full and smooth, and the large bits of ice that looked like dreadful wild beasts, like white elephants hurrying and tearing along as if they were afraid of being late, grew rarer. fishel the teacher recited the morning prayer, breakfasted on the last piece of leavened bread left in his prayer-scarf bag, and went out to the river to see about the ferry. imagine his feelings when he heard that the ferry-boat would not begin running before sunday afternoon! he clapped both hands to his head, gesticulated with every limb, and fell to abusing prokop. why had he given him hopes of the ferry-boat's crossing next day? whereupon prokop answered quite coolly that he had said nothing about crossing with the ferry, he was talking of taking him across in a small boat! and that he could still do, if fishel wished, in a sail-boat, in a rowboat, in a raft, and the fare was not less than one ruble. "a raft, a rowboat, anything you like, only don't let me spend the festival away from home!" thus fishel, and he was prepared to give him two rubles then and there, to give his life for the holy festival, and he began to drive prokop into getting out the raft at once, and taking him across in the direction of chaschtschevate, where bath-sheba, froike, and resele are already looking out for him. it may be they are standing on the opposite hills, that they see him, and make signs to him, waving their hands, that they call to him, only one can neither see them nor hear their voices, because the river is wide, dreadfully wide, wider than ever! the sun was already half-way up the deep, blue sky, when prokop told fishel to get into the little trough of a boat, and when fishel heard him, he lost all power in his feet and hands, and was at a loss what to do, for never in his life had he been in a rowboat, never in his life had he been in any small boat. and it seemed to him the thing had only to dip a little to one side, and all would be over. "jump in, and off we'll go!" said prokop once more, and with a turn of his oar he brought the boat still closer in, and took fishel's bundle out of his hands. fishel the teacher drew his coat-skirts neatly together, and began to perform circles without moving from the spot, hesitating whether to jump or not. on the one hand were passover eve, bath-sheba, froike, resele, the bath, the home service, himself as king; on the other, peril of death, the destroying angel, suicide--because one dip and--good-by, fishel, peace be upon him! and fishel remained circling there with his folded skirts, till prokop lost patience and said, another minute, and he should set out and be off to chaschtschevate without him. at the beloved word "chaschtschevate," fishel called his dear ones to mind, summoned the whole of his courage, and fell into the boat. i say "fell in," because the instant his foot touched the bottom of the boat, it slipped, and fishel, thinking he was falling, drew back, and this drawing back sent him headlong forward into the boat-bottom, where he lay stretched out for some minutes before recovering his wits, and for a long time after his face was livid, and his hands shook, while his heart beat like a clock, tik-tik-tak, tik-tik-tak! prokop meantime sat in the prow as though he were at home. he spit into his hands, gave a stroke with the oar to the left, a stroke to the right, and the boat glided over the shining water, and fishel's head spun round as he sat. as he sat? no, he hung floating, suspended in the air! one false movement, and that which held him would give way; one lean to the side, and he would be in the water and done with! at this thought, the words came into his mind, "and they sank like lead in the mighty waters," and his hair stood on end at the idea of such a death. how? not even to be buried with the dead of israel? and he bethought himself to make a vow to--to do what? to give money in charity? he had none to give--he was a very, very poor man! so he vowed that if god would bring him home in safety, he would sit up whole nights and study, go through the whole of the talmud in one year, god willing, with god's help. fishel would dearly have liked to know if it were much further to the other side, and found himself seated, as though on purpose, with his face to prokop and his back to chaschtschevate. and he dared not open his mouth to ask. it seemed to him that his very voice would cause the boat to rock, and one rock--good-by, fishel! but prokop opened his mouth of his own accord, and began to speak. he said there was nothing worse when you were on the water than a thaw. it made it impossible, he said, to row straight ahead; one had to adapt one's course to the ice, to row round and round and backwards. "there's a bit of ice making straight for us now." thus prokop, and he pulled back and let pass a regular ice-floe, which swam by with a singular rocking motion and a sound that fishel had never seen or heard before. and then he began to understand what a wild adventure this journey was, and he would have given goodness knows what to be safe on shore, even on the one they had left. "o, you see that?" asked prokop, and pointed upstream. fishel raised his eyes slowly, was afraid of moving much, and looked and looked, and saw nothing but water, water, and water. "there's a big one coming down on us now, we must make a dash for it, for it's too late to row back." so said prokop, and rowed away with both hands, and the boat glided and slid like a fish through the water, and fishel felt cold in every limb. he would have liked to question, but was afraid of interfering. however, again prokop spoke of himself. "if we don't win by a minute, it will be the worse for us." fishel can now no longer contain himself, and asks: "how do you mean, the worse?" "we shall be done for," says prokop. "done for?" "done for." "how do you mean, done for?" persists fishel. "i mean, it will grind us." "grind us?" "grind us." fishel does not understand what "grind us, grind us" may signify, but it has a sound of finality, of the next world, about it, and fishel is bathed in a cold sweat, and again the words come into his head, "and they sank like lead in the mighty waters." and prokop, as though to quiet our fishel's mind, tells him a comforting story of how, years ago at this time, the bug broke through the ice, and the ferry-boat could not be used, and there came to him another person to be rowed across, an excise official from uman, quite a person of distinction, and offered a large sum; and they had the bad luck to meet two huge pieces of ice, and he rowed to the right, in between the floes, intending to slip through upwards, and he made an involuntary side motion with the boat, and they went flop into the water! fortunately, he, prokop, could swim, but the official came to grief, and the fare-money, too. "it was good-by to my fare!" ended prokop, with a sigh, and fishel shuddered, and his tongue dried up, so that he could neither speak nor utter the slightest sound. in the very middle of the river, just as they were rowing along quite smoothly, prokop suddenly stopped, and looked--and looked--up the stream; then he laid down the oars, drew a bottle out of his pocket, tilted it into his mouth, sipped out of it two or three times, put it back, and explained to fishel that he had always to take a few sips of the "bitter drop," otherwise he felt bad when on the water. and he wiped his mouth, took the oars in hand again, and said, having crossed himself three times: "now for a race!" a race? with whom? with what? fishel did not understand, and was afraid to ask; but again he felt the brush of the death angel's wing, for prokop had gone down onto his knees, and was rowing with might and main. moreover, he said to fishel, and pointed to the bottom of the boat: "rebbe, lie down!" fishel understood that he was to lie down, and did not need to be told twice. for now he had seen a whole host of floes coming down upon them, a world of ice, and he shut his eyes, flung himself face downwards in the boat, and lay trembling like a lamb, and recited in a low voice, "hear, o israel!" and the confession, thought on the graves of israel, and fancied that now, now he lies in the abyss of the waters, now, now comes a fish and swallows him, like jonah the prophet when he fled to tarshish, and he remembers jonah's prayer, and sings softly and with tears: "affofùni màyyim ad nòfesh--the waters have reached unto my soul; tehòm yesovèveni--the deep hath covered me!" fishel the teacher sang and wept and thought pitifully of his widowed wife and his orphaned children, and prokop rowed for all he was worth, and sang _his_ little song: "o thou maiden with the black lashes!" and prokop felt the same on the water as on dry land, and fishel's "affofùni" and prokop's "o maiden" blended into one, and a strange song sounded over the bug, a kind of duet, which had never been heard there before. "the black year knows why he is so afraid of death, that jew," so wondered prokop baranyùk, "a poor tattered little jew like him, a creature i would not give this old boat for, and so afraid of death!" the shore reached, prokop gave fishel a shove in the side with his boot, and fishel started. the gentile burst out laughing, but fishel did not hear, fishel went on reciting the confession, saying kaddish for his own soul, and mentally contemplating the graves of israel! "get up, you silly rebbe! we're there--in chaschtschevate!" slowly, slowly, fishel raised his head, and gazed around him with red and swollen eyes. "chasch-tsche-va-te???" "chaschtschevate! give me the ruble, rebbe!" fishel crawls out of the boat, and, finding himself really at home, does not know what to do for joy. shall he run into the town? shall he go dancing? shall he first thank and praise god who has brought him safe out of such great peril? he pays the gentile his fare, takes up his bundle under his arm and is about to run home, the quicker the better, but he pauses a moment first, and turns to prokop the ferryman: "listen, prokop, dear heart, to-morrow, please god, you'll come and drink a glass of brandy, and taste festival fish at fishel the teacher's, for heaven's sake!" "shall i say no? am i such a fool?" replied prokop, licking his lips in anticipation at the thought of the passover brandy he would sip, and the festival fish he would delectate himself with on the morrow. and prokop gets back into his boat, and pulls quietly home again, singing a little song, and pitying the poor jew who was so afraid of death. "the jewish faith is the same as the mahommedan!" and it seems to him a very foolish one. and fishel is thinking almost the same thing, and pities the gentile on account of _his_ religion. "what knows he, yon poor gentile, of such holy promises as were made to us jews, the beloved people!" and fishel the teacher hastens uphill, through the chaschtschevate mud. he perspires with the exertion, and yet he does not feel the ground beneath his feet. he flies, he floats, he is going home, home to his dear ones, who are on the watch for him as for messiah, who look for him to return in health, to seat himself upon his kingly throne and reign. look, jews, and turn respectfully aside! fishel the teacher has come home to chaschtschevate, and seated himself upon the throne of his kingdom! an easy fast that which doctor tanner failed to accomplish, was effectually carried out by chayyim chaikin, a simple jew in a small town in poland. doctor tanner wished to show that a man can fast forty days, and he only managed to get through twenty-eight, no more, and that with people pouring spoonfuls of water into his mouth, and giving him morsels of ice to swallow, and holding his pulse--a whole business! chayyim chaikin has proved that one can fast more than forty days; not, as a rule, two together, one after the other, but forty days, if not more, in the course of a year. to fast is all he asks! who said drops of water? who said ice? not for him! to fast means no food and no drink from one set time to the other, a real four-and-twenty-hours. and no doctors sit beside him and hold his pulse, whispering, "hush! be quiet!" well, let us hear the tale! chayyim chaikin is a very poor man, encumbered with many children, and they, the children, support him. they are mostly girls, and they work in a factory and make cigarette wrappers, and they earn, some one gulden, others half a gulden, a day, and that not every day. how about sabbaths and festivals and "shtreik" days? one should thank god for everything, even in their out-of-the-way little town strikes are all the fashion! and out of that they have to pay rent--for a damp corner in a basement. to buy clothes and shoes for the lot of them! they have a dress each, but they are two to every pair of shoes. and then food--such as it is! a bit of bread smeared with an onion, sometimes groats, occasionally there is a bit of taran that burns your heart out, so that after eating it for supper, you can drink a whole night. when it comes to eating, the bread has to be portioned out like cake. "oi, dos essen, dos essen seiers!" thus chaike, chayyim chaikin's wife, a poor, sick creature, who coughs all night long. "no evil eye," says the father, and he looks at his children devouring whole slices of bread, and would dearly like to take a mouthful himself, only, if he does so, the two little ones, fradke and beilke, will go supperless. and he cuts his portion of bread in two, and gives it to the little ones, fradke and beilke. fradke and beilke stretch out their little thin, black hands, look into their father's eyes, and don't believe him: perhaps he is joking? children are nashers, they play with father's piece of bread, till at last they begin taking bites out of it. the mother sees and exclaims, coughing all the while: "it is nothing but eating and stuffing!" the father cannot bear to hear it, and is about to answer her, but he keeps silent--he can't say anything, it is not for him to speak! who is he in the house? a broken potsherd, the last and least, no good to anyone, no good to them, no good to himself. because the fact is he does nothing, absolutely nothing; not because he won't do anything, or because it doesn't befit him, but because there is nothing to do--and there's an end of it! the whole townlet complains of there being nothing to do! it is just a crowd of jews driven together. delightful! they're packed like herrings in a barrel, they squeeze each other close, all for love. "well-a-day!" thinks chaikin, "it's something to have children, other people haven't even that. but to depend on one's children is quite another thing and not a happy one!" not that they grudge him his keep--heaven forbid! but he cannot take it from them, he really cannot! he knows how hard they work, he knows how the strength is wrung out of them to the last drop, he knows it well! every morsel of bread is a bit of their health and strength--he drinks his children's blood! no, the thought is too dreadful! "tatinke, why don't you eat?" ask the children. "to-day is a fast day with me," answers chayyim chaikin. "another fast? how many fasts have you?" "not so many as there are days in the week." and chayyim chaikin speaks the truth when he says that he has many fasts, and yet there are days on which he eats. but he likes the days on which he fasts better. first, they are pleasing to god, and it means a little bit more of the world-to-come, the interest grows, and the capital grows with it. "secondly" (he thinks), "no money is wasted on me. of course, i am accountable to no one, and nobody ever questions me as to how i spend it, but what do i want money for, when i can get along without it? "and what is the good of feeling one's self a little higher than a beast? a beast eats every day, but i can go without food for one or two days. a man _should_ be above a beast! "o, if a man could only raise himself to a level where he could live without eating at all! but there are one's confounded insides!" so thinks chayyim chaikin, for hunger has made a philosopher of him. "the insides, the necessity of eating, these are the causes of the world's evil! the insides and the necessity of eating have made a pauper of me, and drive my children to toil in the sweat of their brow and risk their lives for a bit of bread! "suppose a man had no need to eat! ai--ai--ai! my children would all stay at home! an end to toil, an end to moil, an end to 'shtreikeven,' an end to the risking of life, an end to factory and factory owners, to rich men and paupers, an end to jealousy and hatred and fighting and shedding of blood! all gone and done with! gone and done with! a paradise! a paradise!" so reasons chayyim chaikin, and, lost in speculation, he pities the world, and is grieved to the heart to think that god should have made man so little above the beast. * * * * * the day on which chayyim chaikin fasts is, as i told you, his best day, and a _real_ fast day, like the ninth of ab, for instance--he is ashamed to confess it--is a festival for him! you see, it means not to eat, not to be a beast, not to be guilty of the children's blood, to earn the reward of a mitzveh, and to weep to heart's content on the ruins of the temple. for how can one weep when one is full? how can a full man grieve? only he can grieve whose soul is faint within him! the good year knows how some folk answer it to their conscience, giving in to their insides--afraid of fasting! buy them a groschen worth of oats, for charity's sake! thus would chayyim chaikin scorn those who bought themselves off the fast, and dropped a hard coin into the collecting box. the ninth of ab is the hardest fast of all--so the world has it. chayyim chaikin cannot see why. the day is long, is it? then the night is all the shorter. it's hot out of doors, is it? who asks you to go loitering about in the sun? sit in the shool and recite the prayers, of which, thank god, there are plenty. "i tell you," persists chayyim chaikin, "that the ninth of ab is the easiest of the fasts, because it is the best, the very best! "for instance, take the day of atonement fast! it is written, 'and you shall mortify your bodies.' what for? to get a clean bill and a good year. "it doesn't say that you are to fast on the ninth of ab, but you fast of your own accord, because how could you eat on the day when the temple was wrecked, and jews were killed, women ripped up, and children dashed to pieces? "it doesn't say that you are to weep on the ninth of ab, but you _do_ weep. how could anyone restrain his tears when he thinks of what we lost that day?" "the pity is, there should be only one ninth of ab!" says chayyim chaikin. "well, and the seventeenth of tammuz!" suggests some one. "and there is only one seventeenth of tammuz!" answers chayyim chaikin, with a sigh. "well, and the fast of gedaliah? and the fast of esther?" continues the same person. "only one of each!" and chayyim chaikin sighs again. "Ê, reb chayyim, you are greedy for fasts, are you?" "more fasts, more fasts!" says chayyim chaikin, and he takes upon himself to fast on the eve of the ninth of ab as well, two days at a stretch. what do you think of fasting two days in succession? isn't that a treat? it is hard enough to have to break one's fast after the ninth of ab, without eating on the eve thereof as well. one forgets that one _has_ insides, that such a thing exists as the necessity to eat, and one is free of the habit that drags one down to the level of the beast. the difficulty lies in the drinking! i mean, in the _not_ drinking. "if i" (thinks chayyim chaikin) "allowed myself one glass of water a day, i could fast a whole week till sabbath." you think i say that for fun? not at all! chayyim chaikin is a man of his word. when he says a thing, it's said and done! the whole week preceding the ninth of ab he ate nothing, he lived on water. who should notice? his wife, poor thing, is sick, the elder children are out all day in the factory, and the younger ones do not understand. fradke and beilke only know when they are hungry (and they are always hungry), the heart yearns within them, and they want to eat. "to-day you shall have an extra piece of bread," says the father, and cuts his own in two, and fradke and beilke stretch out their dirty little hands for it, and are overjoyed. "tatinke, you are not eating," remark the elder girls at supper, "this is not a fast day!" "and no more _do_ i fast!" replies the father, and thinks: "that was a take-in, but not a lie, because, after all, a glass of water--that is not eating and not fasting, either." when it comes to the eve of the ninth of ab, chayyim feels so light and airy as he never felt before, not because it is time to prepare for the fast by taking a meal, not because he may eat. on the contrary, he feels that if he took anything solid into his mouth, it would not go down, but stick in his throat. that is, his heart is very sick, and his hands and feet shake; his body is attracted earthwards, his strength fails, he feels like fainting. but fie, what an idea! to fast a whole week, to arrive at the eve of the ninth of ab, and not hold out to the end! never! and chayyim chaikin takes his portion of bread and potato, calls fradke and beilke, and whispers: "children, take this and eat it, but don't let mother see!" and fradke and beilke take their father's share of food, and look wonderingly at his livid face and shaking hands. chayyim sees the children snatch at the bread and munch and swallow, and he shuts his eyes, and rises from his place. he cannot wait for the other girls to come home from the factory, but takes his book of lamentations, puts off his shoes, and drags himself--it is all he can do--to the shool. he is nearly the first to arrive. he secures a seat next the reader, on an overturned bench, lying with its feet in the air, and provides himself with a bit of burned-down candle, which he glues with its drippings to the foot of the bench, leans against the corner of the platform, opens his book, "lament for zion and all the other towns," and he closes his eyes and sees zion robed in black, with a black veil over her face, lamenting and weeping and wringing her hands, mourning for her children who fall daily, daily, in foreign lands, for other men's sins. "and wilt not thou, o zion, ask of me some tidings of the children from thee reft? i bring thee greetings over land and sea, from those remaining--from the remnant left!----" and he opens his eyes and sees: a bright sunbeam has darted in through the dull, dusty window-pane, a beam of the sun which is setting yonder behind the town. and though he shuts them again, he still sees the beam, and not only the beam, but the whole sun, the bright, beautiful sun, and no one can see it but him! chayyim chaikin looks at the sun and sees it--and that's all! how is it? it must be because he has done with the world and its necessities--he feels happy--he feels light--he can bear anything--he will have an easy fast--do you know, he will have an easy fast, an easy fast! chayyim chaikin shuts his eyes, and sees a strange world, a new world, such as he never saw before. angels seem to hover before his eyes, and he looks at them, and recognizes his children in them, all his children, big and little, and he wants to say something to them, and cannot speak--he wants to explain to them, that he cannot help it--it is not his fault! how should it, no evil eye! be his fault, that so many jews are gathered together in one place and squeeze each other, all for love, squeeze each other to death for love? how can he help it, if people desire other people's sweat, other people's blood? if people have not learned to see that one should not drive a man as a horse is driven to work? that a horse is also to be pitied, one of god's creatures, a living thing?---- and chayyim chaikin keeps his eyes shut, and sees, sees everything. and everything is bright and light, and curls like smoke, and he feels something is going out of him, from inside, from his heart, and is drawn upward and loses itself from the body, and he feels very light, very, very light, and he gives a sigh--a long, deep sigh--and feels still lighter, and after that he feels nothing at all--absolutely nothing at all-- yes, he has an easy fast. * * * * * when bäre the beadle, a red-haired jew with thick lips, came into the shool in his socks with the worn-down heels, and saw chayyim chaikin leaning with his head back, and his eyes open, he was angry, thought chayyim was dozing, and he began to grumble: "he ought to be ashamed of himself--reclining like that--came here for a nap, did he?--reb chayyim, excuse me, reb chayyim!----" but chayyim chaikin did not hear him. * * * * * the last rays of the sun streamed in through the shool window, right onto chayyim chaikin's quiet face with the black, shining, curly hair, the black, bushy brows, the half-open, black, kindly eyes, and lit the dead, pale, still, hungry face through and through. * * * * * i told you how it would be: chayyim chaikin had an easy fast! the passover guest i "i have a passover guest for you, reb yoneh, such a guest as you never had since you became a householder." "what sort is he?" "a real oriental citron!" "what does that mean?" "it means a 'silken jew,' a personage of distinction. the only thing against him is--he doesn't speak our language." "what does he speak, then?" "hebrew." "is he from jerusalem?" "i don't know where he comes from, but his words are full of a's." such was the conversation that took place between my father and the beadle, a day before passover, and i was wild with curiosity to see the "guest" who didn't understand yiddish, and who talked with a's. i had already noticed, in synagogue, a strange-looking individual, in a fur cap, and a turkish robe striped blue, red, and yellow. we boys crowded round him on all sides, and stared, and then caught it hot from the beadle, who said children had no business "to creep into a stranger's face" like that. prayers over, everyone greeted the stranger, and wished him a happy passover, and he, with a sweet smile on his red cheeks set in a round grey beard, replied to each one, "shalom! shalom!" instead of our sholom. this "shalom! shalom!" of his sent us boys into fits of laughter. the beadle grew very angry, and pursued us with slaps. we eluded him, and stole deviously back to the stranger, listened to his "shalom! shalom!" exploded with laughter, and escaped anew from the hands of the beadle. i am puffed up with pride as i follow my father and his guest to our house, and feel how all my comrades envy me. they stand looking after us, and every now and then i turn my head, and put out my tongue at them. the walk home is silent. when we arrive, my father greets my mother with "a happy passover!" and the guest nods his head so that his fur cap shakes. "shalom! shalom!" he says. i think of my comrades, and hide my head under the table, not to burst out laughing. but i shoot continual glances at the guest, and his appearance pleases me; i like his turkish robe, striped yellow, red, and blue, his fresh, red cheeks set in a curly grey beard, his beautiful black eyes that look out so pleasantly from beneath his bushy eyebrows. and i see that my father is pleased with him, too, that he is delighted with him. my mother looks at him as though he were something more than a man, and no one speaks to him but my father, who offers him the cushioned reclining-seat at table. mother is taken up with the preparations for the passover meal, and rikel the maid is helping her. it is only when the time comes for saying kiddush that my father and the guest hold a hebrew conversation. i am proud to find that i understand nearly every word of it. here it is in full. my father: "nu?" (that means, "won't you please say kiddush?") the guest: "nu-nu!" (meaning, "say it rather yourself!") my father: "nu-o?" ("why not you?") the guest: "o-nu?" ("why should i?") my father: "i-o!" ("_you_ first!") the guest: "o-ai!" ("you first!") my father: "È-o-i!" ("i beg of you to say it!") the guest: "ai-o-ê!" ("i beg of you!") my father: "ai-e-o-nu?" ("why should you refuse?") the guest: "oi-o-e-nu-nu!" ("if you insist, then i must.") and the guest took the cup of wine from my father's hand, and recited a kiddush. but what a kiddush! a kiddush such as we had never heard before, and shall never hear again. first, the hebrew--all a's. secondly, the voice, which seemed to come, not out of his beard, but out of the striped turkish robe. i thought of my comrades, how they would have laughed, what slaps would have rained down, had they been present at that kiddush. being alone, i was able to contain myself. i asked my father the four questions, and we all recited the haggadah together. and i was elated to think that such a guest was ours, and no one else's. ii our sage who wrote that one should not talk at meals (may he forgive me for saying so!) did not know jewish life. when shall a jew find time to talk, if not during a meal? especially at passover, when there is so much to say before the meal and after it. rikel the maid handed the water, we washed our hands, repeated the benediction, mother helped us to fish, and my father turned up his sleeves, and started a long hebrew talk with the guest. he began with the first question one jew asks another: "what is your name?" to which the guest replied all in a's and all in one breath: "ayak bakar gashal damas hanoch vassam za'an chafaf tatzatz." my father remained with his fork in the air, staring in amazement at the possessor of so long a name. i coughed and looked under the table, and my mother said, "favele, you should be careful eating fish, or you might be choked with a bone," while she gazed at our guest with awe. she appeared overcome by his name, although unable to understand it. my father, who understood, thought it necessary to explain it to her. "you see, ayak bakar, that is our alef-bes inverted. it is apparently their custom to name people after the alphabet." "alef-bes! alef-bes!" repeated the guest with the sweet smile on his red cheeks, and his beautiful black eyes rested on us all, including rikel the maid, in the most friendly fashion. having learnt his name, my father was anxious to know whence, from what land, he came. i understood this from the names of countries and towns which i caught, and from what my father translated for my mother, giving her a yiddish version of nearly every phrase. and my mother was quite overcome by every single thing she heard, and rikel the maid was overcome likewise. and no wonder! it is not every day that a person comes from perhaps two thousand miles away, from a land only to be reached across seven seas and a desert, the desert journey alone requiring forty days and nights. and when you get near to the land, you have to climb a mountain of which the top reaches into the clouds, and this is covered with ice, and dreadful winds blow there, so that there is peril of death! but once the mountain is safely climbed, and the land is reached, one beholds a terrestrial eden. spices, cloves, herbs, and every kind of fruit--apples, pears, and oranges, grapes, dates, and olives, nuts and quantities of figs. and the houses there are all built of deal, and roofed with silver, the furniture is gold (here the guest cast a look at our silver cups, spoons, forks, and knives), and brilliants, pearls, and diamonds bestrew the roads, and no one cares to take the trouble of picking them up, they are of no value there. (he was looking at my mother's diamond ear-rings, and at the pearls round her white neck.) "you hear that?" my father asked her, with a happy face. "i hear," she answered, and added: "why don't they bring some over here? they could make money by it. ask him that, yoneh!" my father did so, and translated the answer for my mother's benefit: "you see, when you arrive there, you may take what you like, but when you leave the country, you must leave everything in it behind, too, and if they shake out of you no matter what, you are done for." "what do you mean?" questioned my mother, terrified. "i mean, they either hang you on a tree, or they stone you with stones." iii the more tales our guest told us, the more thrilling they became, and just as we were finishing the dumplings and taking another sip or two of wine, my father inquired to whom the country belonged. was there a king there? and he was soon translating, with great delight, the following reply: "the country belongs to the jews who live there, and who are called sefardîm. and they have a king, also a jew, and a very pious one, who wears a fur cap, and who is called joseph ben joseph. he is the high priest of the sefardîm, and drives out in a gilded carriage, drawn by six fiery horses. and when he enters the synagogue, the levites meet him with songs." "there are levites who sing in your synagogue?" asked my father, wondering, and the answer caused his face to shine with joy. "what do you think?" he said to my mother. "our guest tells me that in his country there is a temple, with priests and levites and an organ." "well, and an altar?" questioned my mother, and my father told her: "he says they have an altar, and sacrifices, he says, and golden vessels--everything just as we used to have it in jerusalem." and with these words my father sighs deeply, and my mother, as she looks at him, sighs also, and i cannot understand the reason. surely we should be proud and glad to think we have such a land, ruled over by a jewish king and high priest, a land with levites and an organ, with an altar and sacrifices--and bright, sweet thoughts enfold me, and carry me away as on wings to that happy jewish land where the houses are of pine-wood and roofed with silver, where the furniture is gold, and diamonds and pearls lie scattered in the street. and i feel sure, were i really there, i should know what to do--i should know how to hide things--they would shake nothing out of _me_. i should certainly bring home a lovely present for my mother, diamond ear-rings and several pearl necklaces. i look at the one mother is wearing, at her ear-rings, and i feel a great desire to be in that country. and it occurs to me, that after passover i will travel there with our guest, secretly, no one shall know. i will only speak of it to our guest, open my heart to him, tell him the whole truth, and beg him to take me there, if only for a little while. he will certainly do so, he is a very kind and approachable person, he looks at every one, even at rikel the maid, in such a friendly, such a very friendly way! "so i think, and it seems to me, as i watch our guest, that he has read my thoughts, and that his beautiful black eyes say to me: "keep it dark, little friend, wait till after passover, then we shall manage it!" iv i dreamt all night long. i dreamt of a desert, a temple, a high priest, and a tall mountain. i climb the mountain. diamonds and pearls grow on the trees, and my comrades sit on the boughs, and shake the jewels down onto the ground, whole showers of them, and i stand and gather them, and stuff them into my pockets, and, strange to say, however many i stuff in, there is still room! i stuff and stuff, and still there is room! i put my hand into my pocket, and draw out--not pearls and brilliants, but fruits of all kinds--apples, pears, oranges, olives, dates, nuts, and figs. this makes me very unhappy, and i toss from side to side. then i dream of the temple, i hear the priests chant, and the levites sing, and the organ play. i want to go inside and i cannot--rikel the maid has hold of me, and will not let me go. i beg of her and scream and cry, and again i am very unhappy, and toss from side to side. i wake--and see my father and mother standing there, half dressed, both pale, my father hanging his head, and my mother wringing her hands, and with her soft eyes full of tears. i feel at once that something has gone very wrong, very wrong indeed, but my childish head is incapable of imagining the greatness of the disaster. the fact is this: our guest from beyond the desert and the seven seas has disappeared, and a lot of things have disappeared with him: all the silver wine-cups, all the silver spoons, knives, and forks; all my mother's ornaments, all the money that happened to be in the house, and also rikel the maid! a pang goes through my heart. not on account of the silver cups, the silver spoons, knives, and forks that have vanished; not on account of mother's ornaments or of the money, still less on account of rikel the maid, a good riddance! but because of the happy, happy land whose roads were strewn with brilliants, pearls, and diamonds; because of the temple with the priests, the levites, and the organ; because of the altar and the sacrifices; because of all the other beautiful things that have been taken from me, taken, taken, taken! i turn my face to the wall, and cry quietly to myself. gymnasiye a man's worst enemy, i tell you, will never do him the harm he does himself, especially when a woman interferes, that is, a wife. whom do you think i have in mind when i say that? my own self! look at me and think. what would you take me for? just an ordinary jew. it doesn't say on my nose whether i have money, or not, or whether i am very low indeed, does it? it may be that i once _had_ money, and not only that--money in itself is nothing--but i can tell you, i earned a living, and that respectably and quietly, without worry and flurry, not like some people who like to live in a whirl. no, my motto is, "more haste, less speed." i traded quietly, went bankrupt a time or two quietly, and quietly went to work again. but there is a god in the world, and he blessed me with a wife--as she isn't here, we can speak openly--a wife like any other, that is, at first glance she isn't so bad--not at all! in person, (no evil eye!) twice my height; not an ugly woman, quite a beauty, you may say; an intelligent woman, quite a man--and that's the whole trouble! oi, it isn't good when the wife is a man! the almighty knew what he was about when, at the creation, he formed adam first and then eve. but what's the use of telling her that, when _she_ says, "if the almighty created adam first and then eve, that's _his_ affair, but if he put more sense into my heel than into your head, no more am i to blame for that!" "what is all this about?" say i.--"it's about that which should be first and foremost with you," says she.--"but i have to be the one to think of everything--even about sending the boy to the gymnasiye!"--"where," say i, "is it 'written' that my boy should go to the gymnasiye? can i not afford to have him taught torah at home?"--"i've told you a hundred and fifty times," says she, "that you won't persuade me to go against the world! and the world," says she, "has decided that children should go to the gymnasiye."--"in my opinion," say i, "the world is mad!"--"and you," says she, "are the only sane person in it? a pretty thing it would be," says she, "if the world were to follow you!"--"every man," say i, "should decide on his own course."--"if my enemies," says she, "and my friends' enemies, had as little in pocket and bag, in box and chest, as you have in your head, the world would be a different place."--"woe to the man," say i, "who needs to be advised by his wife!"--"and woe to the wife," says she, "who has that man to her husband!"--now if you can argue with a woman who, when you say one thing, maintains the contrary, when you give her one word, treats you to a dozen, and who, if you bid her shut up, cries, or even, i beg of you, faints--well, i envy you, that's all! in short, up and down, this way and that way, she got the best of it--she, not i, because the fact is, when she wants a thing, it has to be! well, what next? gymnasiye! the first thing was to prepare the boy for the elementary class in the junior preparatory. i must say, i did not see anything very alarming in that. it seemed to me that anyone of our cheder boys, an alef-bes scholar, could tuck it all into his belt, especially a boy like mine, for whose equal you might search an empire, and not find him. i am a father, not of you be it said! but that boy has a memory that beats everything! to cut a long story short, he went up for examination and--did _not_ pass! you ask the reason? he only got a two in arithmetic; they said he was weak at calculation, in the science of mathematics. what do you think of that? he has a memory that beats everything! i tell you, you might search an empire for his like--and they come talking to me about mathematics! well, he failed to pass, and it vexed me very much. if he _was_ to go up for examination, let him succeed. however, being a man and not a woman, i made up my mind to it--it's a misfortune, but a jew is used to that. only what was the use of talking to _her_ with that bee in her bonnet? once for all, gymnasiye! i reason with her. "tell me," say i, "(may you be well!) what is the good of it? he's safe," say i, "from military service, being an only son, and as for parnosseh, devil i need it for parnosseh! what do i care if he _does_ become a trader like his father, a merchant like the rest of the jews? if he is destined to become a rich man, a banker, i don't see that i'm to be pitied." thus do i reason with her as with the wall. "so much the better," says she, "if he has _not_ been entered for the junior preparatory."--"what now?" say i. "now," says she, "he can go direct to the senior preparatory." well, senior preparatory, there's nothing so terrible in that, for the boy has a head, i tell you! you might search an empire.... and what was the result? well, what do you suppose? another two instead of a five, not in mathematics this time--a fresh calamity! his spelling is not what it should be. that is, he can spell all right, but he gets a bit mixed with the two russian e's. that is, he puts them in right enough, why shouldn't he? only not in their proper places. well, there's a misfortune for you! i guess i won't find the way to poltava fair if the child cannot put the e's where they belong! when they brought the good news, _she_ turned the town inside out; ran to the director, declared that the boy _could_ do it; to prove it, let him be had up again! they paid her as much attention as if she were last year's snow, put a two, and another sort of two, and a two with a dash! call me nut-crackers, but there was a commotion. "failed again!" say i to her. "and if so," say i, "what is to be done? are we to commit suicide? a jew," say i, "is used to that sort of thing," upon which she fired up and blazed away and stormed and scolded as only she can. but i let you off! he, poor child, was in a pitiable state. talk of cruelty to animals! just think: the other boys in little white buttons, and not he! i reason with him: "you little fool! what does it matter? who ever heard of an examination at which everyone passed? somebody must stay at home, mustn't they? then why not you? there's really nothing to make such a fuss about." my wife, overhearing, goes off into a fresh fury, and falls upon me. "a fine comforter _you_ are," says she, "who asked you to console him with that sort of nonsense? you'd better see about getting him a proper teacher," says she, "a private teacher, a russian, for grammar!" you hear that? now i must have two teachers for him--one teacher and a rebbe are not enough. up and down, this way and that way, she got the best of it, as usual. what next? we engaged a second teacher, a russian this time, not a jew, preserve us, but a real gentile, because grammar in the first class, let me tell you, is no trifle, no shredded horseradish! gra-ma-ti-ke, indeed! the two e's! well, i was telling about the teacher that god sent us for our sins. it's enough to make one blush to remember the way he treated us, as though we had been the mud under his feet. laughed at us to our face, he did, devil take him, and the one and only thing he could teach him was: tshasnok, tshasnoka, tshasnoku, tshasnokom. if it hadn't been for _her_, i should have had him by the throat, and out into the street with his blessed grammar. but to _her_ it was all right and as it should be. now the boy will know which e to put. if you'll believe me, they tormented him through that whole winter, for he was not to be had up for slaughter till about pentecost. pentecost over, he went up for examination, and this time he brought home no more two's, but a four and a five. there was great joy--we congratulate! we congratulate! wait a bit, don't be in such a hurry with your congratulations! we don't know yet for certain whether he has got in or not. we shall not know till august. why not till august? why not before? go and ask _them_. what is to be done? a jew is used to that sort of thing. august--and i gave a glance out of the corner of my eye. she was up and doing! from the director to the inspector, from the inspector to the director! "why are you running from shmunin to bunin," say i, "like a poisoned mouse?" "you asking why?" says she. "aren't you a native of this place? you don't seem to know how it is nowadays with the gymnasiyes and the percentages?" and what came of it? he did _not_ pass! you ask why? because he hadn't two fives. if he had had two fives, then, they say, perhaps he would have got in. you hear--perhaps! how do you like that _perhaps_? well, i'll let you off what i had to bear from her. as for him, the little boy, it was pitiful. lay with his face in the cushion, and never stopped crying till we promised him another teacher. and we got him a student from the gymnasiye itself, to prepare him for the second class, but after quite another fashion, because the second class is no joke. in the second, besides mathematics and grammar, they require geography, penmanship, and i couldn't for the life of me say what else. i should have thought a bit of the maharsho was a more difficult thing than all their studies put together, and very likely had more sense in it, too. but what would you have? a jew learns to put up with things. in fine, there commenced a series of "lessons," of ouròkki. we rose early--the ouròkki! prayers and breakfast over--the ouròkki. a whole day--ouròkki. one heard him late at night drumming it over and over: nominative--dative--instrumental--vocative! it grated so on my ears! i could hardly bear it. eat? sleep? not he! taking a poor creature and tormenting it like that, all for nothing, i call it cruelty to animals! "the child," say i, "will be ill!" "bite off your tongue," says she. i was nowhere, and he went up a second time to the slaughter, and brought home nothing but fives! and why not? i tell you, he has a head--there isn't his like! and such a boy for study as never was, always at it, day and night, and repeating to himself between whiles! that's all right then, is it? was it all right? when it came to the point, and they hung out the names of all the children who were really entered, we looked--mine wasn't there! then there was a screaming and a commotion. what a shame! and nothing but fives! _now_ look at her, now see her go, see her run, see her do this and that! in short, she went and she ran and she did this and that and the other--until at last they begged her not to worry them any longer, that is, to tell you the truth, between ourselves, they turned her out, yes! and after they had turned her out, then it was she burst into the house, and showed for the first time, as it were, what she was worth. "pray," said she, "what sort of a father are you? if you were a good father, an affectionate father, like other fathers, you would have found favor with the director, patronage, recommendations, this--that!" like a woman, wasn't it? it's not enough, apparently, for me to have my head full of terms and seasons and fairs and notes and bills of exchange and "protests" and all the rest of it. "do you want me," say i, "to take over your gymnasiye and your classes, things i'm sick of already?" do you suppose she listened to what i said? she? listen? she just kept at it, she sawed and filed and gnawed away like a worm, day and night, day and night! "if your wife," says she, "_were_ a wife, and your child, a child--if i were only of _so_ much account in this house!"--"well," say i, "what would happen?"--"you would lie," says she, "nine ells deep in the earth. i," says she, "would bury you three times a day, so that you should never rise again!" how do you like that? kind, wasn't it? that (how goes the saying?) was pouring a pailful of water over a husband for the sake of peace. of course, you'll understand that i was not silent, either, because, after all, i'm no more than a man, and every man has his feelings. i assure you, you needn't envy me, and in the end _she_ carried the day, as usual. well, what next? i began currying favor, getting up an acquaintance, trying this and that; i had to lower myself in people's eyes and swallow slights, for every one asked questions, and they had every right to do so. "you, no evil eye, reb aaron," say they, "are a householder, and inherited a little something from your father. what good year is taking you about to places where a jew had better not be seen?" was i to go and tell them i had a wife (may she live one hundred and twenty years!) with this on the brain: gymnasiye, gymnasiye, and gym-na-si-ye? i (much good may it do you!) am, as you see me, no more unlucky than most people, and with god's help i made my way, and got where i wanted, right up to the nobleman, into his cabinet, yes! and sat down with him there to talk it over. i thank heaven, i can talk to any nobleman, i don't need to have my tongue loosened for me. "what can i do for you?" he asks, and bids me be seated. say i, and whisper into his ear, "my lord," say i, "we," say i, "are not rich people, but we have," say i, "a boy, and he wishes to study, and i," say i, "wish it, too, but my wife wishes it very much!" says he to me again, "what is it you want?" say i to him, and edge a bit closer, "my dear lord," say i, "we," say i, "are not rich people, but we have," say i, "a small fortune, and one remarkably clever boy, who," say i, "wishes to study; and i," say i, "also wish it, but my wife wishes it _very much_!" and i squeeze that "very much" so that he may understand. but he's a gentile and slow-witted, and he doesn't twig, and this time he asks angrily, "then, whatever is it you want?!" i quietly put my hand into my pocket and quietly take it out again, and i say quietly: "pardon me, we," say i, "are not rich people, but we have a little," say i, "fortune, and one remarkably clever boy, who," say i, "wishes to study; and i," say i, "wish it also, but my wife," say i, "wishes it very much indeed!" and i take and press into his hand----and this time, yes! he understood, and went and got a note-book, and asked my name and my son's name, and which class i wanted him entered for. "oho, lies the wind that way?" think i to myself, and i give him to understand that i am called katz, aaron katz, and my son, moisheh, moshke we call him, and i want to get him into the third class. says he to me, if i am katz, and my son is moisheh, moshke we call him, and he wants to get into class three, i am to bring him in january, and he will certainly be passed. you hear and understand? quite another thing! apparently the horse trots as we shoe him. the worst is having to wait. but what is to be done? when they say, wait! one waits. a jew is used to waiting. january--a fresh commotion, a scampering to and fro. to-morrow there will be a consultation. the director and the inspector and all the teachers of the gymnasiye will come together, and it's only after the consultation that we shall know if he is entered or not. the time for action has come, and my wife is anywhere but at home. no hot meals, no samovar, no nothing! she is in the gymnasiye, that is, not _in_ the gymnasiye, but _at_ it, walking round and round it in the frost, from first thing in the morning, waiting for them to begin coming away from the consultation. the frost bites, there is a tearing east wind, and she paces round and round the building, and waits. once a woman, always a woman! it seemed to me, that when people have made a promise, it is surely sacred, especially--you understand? but who would reason with a woman? well, she waited one hour, she waited two, waited three, waited four; the children were all home long ago, and she waited on. she waited (much good may it do you!) till she got what she was waiting for. a door opens, and out comes one of the teachers. she springs and seizes hold on him. does he know the result of the consultation? why, says he, should he not? they have passed altogether twenty-five children, twenty-three christian and two jewish. says she, "who are they?" says he, "one a shefselsohn and one a katz." at the name katz, my wife shoots home like an arrow from the bow, and bursts into the room in triumph: "good news! good news! passed, passed!" and there are tears in her eyes. of course, i am pleased, too, but i don't feel called upon to go dancing, being a man and not a woman. "it's evidently not much _you_ care?" says she to me. "what makes you think that?" say i.--"this," says she, "you sit there cold as a stone! if you knew how impatient the child is, you would have taken him long ago to the tailor's, and ordered his little uniform," says she, "and a cap and a satchel," says she, "and made a little banquet for our friends."--"why a banquet, all of a sudden?" say i. "is there a bar-mitzveh? is there an engagement?" i say all this quite quietly, for, after all, i am a man, not a woman. she grew so angry that she stopped talking. and when a woman stops talking, it's a thousand times worse than when she scolds, because so long as she is scolding at least you hear the sound of the human voice. otherwise it's talk to the wall! to put it briefly, she got her way--she, not i--as usual. there was a banquet; we invited our friends and our good friends, and my boy was dressed up from head to foot in a very smart uniform, with white buttons and a cap with a badge in front, quite the district-governor! and it did one's heart good to see him, poor child! there was new life in him, he was so happy, and he shone, i tell you, like the july sun! the company drank to him, and wished him joy: might he study in health, and finish the course in health, and go on in health, till he reached the university! "ett!" say i, "we can do with less. let him only complete the eight classes at the gymnasiye," say i, "and, please god, i'll make a bridegroom of him, with god's help." cries my wife, smiling and fixing me with her eye the while, "tell him," says she, "that he's wrong! he," says she, "keeps to the old-fashioned cut." "tell her from me," say i, "that i'm blest if the old-fashioned cut wasn't better than the new." says she, "tell him that he (may he forgive me!) is----" the company burst out laughing. "oi, reb aaron," say they, "you have a wife (no evil eye!) who is a cossack and not a wife at all!" meanwhile they emptied their wine-glasses, and cleared their plates, and we were what is called "lively." i and my wife were what is called "taken into the boat," the little one in the middle, and we made merry till daylight. that morning early we took him to the gymnasiye. it was very early, indeed, the door was shut, not a soul to be seen. standing outside there in the frost, we were glad enough when the door opened, and they let us in. directly after that the small fry began to arrive with their satchels, and there was a noise and a commotion and a chatter and a laughing and a scampering to and fro--a regular fair! schoolboys jumped over one another, gave each other punches, pokes, and pinches. as i looked at these young hopefuls with the red cheeks, with the merry, laughing eyes, i called to mind our former narrow, dark, and gloomy cheder of long ago years, and i saw that after all she was right; she might be a woman, but she had a man's head on her shoulders! and as i reflected thus, there came along an individual in gilt buttons, who turned out to be a teacher, and asked what i wanted. i pointed to my boy, and said i had come to bring him to cheder, that is, to the gymnasiye. he asked to which class? i tell him, the third, and he has only just been entered. he asks his name. say i, "katz, moisheh katz, that is, moshke katz." says he, "moshke katz?" he has no moshke katz in the third class. "there is," he says, "a katz, only not a moshke katz, but a morduch--morduch katz." say i, "what morduch? moshke, not morduch!" "morduch!" he repeats, and thrusts the paper into my face. i to him, "moshke." he to me, "morduch!" in short, moshke--morduch, morduch--moshke, we hammer away till there comes out a fine tale: that which should have been mine is another's. you see what a kettle of fish? a regular gentile muddle! they have entered a katz--yes! but, by mistake, another, not ours. you see how it was: there were two katz's in our town! what do you say to such luck? i have made a bed, and another will lie in it! no, but you ought to know who the other is, _that_ katz, i mean! a nothing of a nobody, an artisan, a bookbinder or a carpenter, quite a harmless little man, but who ever heard of him? a pauper! and _his_ son--yes! and mine--no! isn't it enough to disgust one, i ask you! and you should have seen that poor boy of mine, when he was told to take the badge off his cap! no bride on her wedding-day need shed more tears than were his! and no matter how i reasoned with him, whether i coaxed or scolded. "you see," i said to her, "what you've done! didn't i tell you that your gymnasiye was a slaughter-house for him? i only trust this may have a good ending, that he won't fall ill."--"let my enemies," said she, "fall ill, if they like. my child," says she, "must enter the gymnasiye. if he hasn't got in this time, in a year, please god, he _will_. if he hasn't got in," says she, "_here_, he will get in in another town--he _must_ get in! otherwise," says she, "i shall shut an eye, and the earth shall cover me!" you hear what she said? and who, do you suppose, had his way--she or i? when _she_ sets her heart on a thing, can there be any question? well, i won't make a long story of it. i hunted up and down with him; we went to the ends of the world, wherever there was a town and a gymnasiye, thither went we! we went up for examination, and were examined, and we passed and passed high, and did _not_ get in--and why? all because of the percentage! you may believe, i looked upon my own self as crazy those days! "wretch! what is this? what is this flying that you fly from one town to another? what good is to come of it? and suppose he does get in, what then?" no, say what you will, ambition is a great thing. in the end it took hold of me, too, and the almighty had compassion, and sent me a gymnasiye in poland, a "commercial" one, where they took in one jew to every christian. it came to fifty per cent. but what then? any jew who wished his son to enter must bring his christian with him, and if he passes, that is, the christian, and one pays his entrance fee, then there is hope. instead of one bundle, one has two on one's shoulders, you understand? besides being worn with anxiety about my own, i had to tremble for the other, because if esau, which heaven forbid, fail to pass, it's all over with jacob. but what i went through before i _got_ that christian, a shoemaker's son, holiava his name was, is not to be described. and the best of all was this--would you believe that my shoemaker, planted in the earth firmly as korah, insisted on bible teaching? there was nothing for it but my son had to sit down beside his, and repeat the old testament. how came a son of mine to the old testament? ai, don't ask! he can do everything and understands everything. with god's help the happy day arrived, and they both passed. is my story finished? not quite. when it came to their being entered in the books, to writing out a check, my christian was not to be found! what has happened? he, the gentile, doesn't care for his son to be among so many jews--he won't hear of it! why should he, seeing that all doors are open to him anyhow, and he can get in where he pleases? tell him it isn't fair? much good that would be! "look here," say i, "how much do you want, pani holiava?" says he, "nothing!" to cut the tale short--up and down, this way and that way, and friends and people interfering, we had him off to a refreshment place, and ordered a glass, and two, and three, before it all came right! once he was really in, i cried my eyes out, and thanks be to him whose name is blessed, and who has delivered me out of all my troubles! when i got home, a fresh worry! what now? my wife has been reflecting and thinking it over: after all, her only son, the apple of her eye--he would be _there_ and we _here_! and if so, what, says she, would life be to her? "well," say i, "what do you propose doing?"--"what i propose doing?" says she. "can't you guess? i propose," says she, "to be with him."--"you do?" say i. "and the house? what about the house?"--"the house," says she, "is a house." anything to object to in that? so she was off to him, and i was left alone at home. and what a home! i leave you to imagine. may such a year be to my enemies! my comfort was gone, the business went to the bad. everything went to the bad, and we were continually writing letters. i wrote to her, she wrote to me--letters went and letters came. peace to my beloved wife! peace to my beloved husband! "for heaven's sake," i write, "what is to be the end of it? after all, i'm no more than a man! a man without a housemistress!" it was as much use as last year's snow; it was she who had her way, she, and not i, as usual. to make an end of my story, i worked and worried myself to pieces, made a mull of the whole business, sold out, became a poor man, and carried my bundle over to them. once there, i took a look round to see where i was in the world, nibbled here and there, just managed to make my way a bit, and entered into a partnership with a trader, quite a respectable man, yes! a well-to-do householder, holding office in the shool, but at bottom a deceiver, a swindler, a pickpocket, who was nearly the ruin of me! you can imagine what a cheerful state of things it was. meanwhile i come home one evening, and see my boy come to meet me, looking strangely red in the face, and without a badge on his cap. say i to him, "look here, moshehl, where's your badge?" says he to me, "whatever badge?" say i, "the button." says he, "whatever button?" say i, "the button off your cap." it was a new cap with a new badge, only just bought for the festival! he grows redder than before, and says, "taken off." say i, "what do you mean by 'taken off'?" says he, "i am free." say i, "what do you mean by 'you are free'?" says he, "we are _all_ free." say i, "what do you mean by 'we are _all_ free'?" says he, "we are not going back any more." say i, "what do you mean by 'we are not going back'?" says he, "we have united in the resolve to stay away." say i, "what do you mean by '_you_' have united in a resolve? who are 'you'? what is all this? bless your grandmother," say i, "do you suppose i have been through all this for you to unite in a resolve? alas! and alack!" say i, "for you and me and all of us! may it please god not to let this be visited on jewish heads, because always and everywhere," say i, "jews are the scapegoats." i speak thus to him and grow angry and reprove him as a father usually does reprove a child. but i have a wife (long life to her!), and she comes running, and washes my head for me, tells me i don't know what is going on in the world, that the world is quite another world to what it used to be, an intelligent world, an open world, a free world, "a world," says she, "in which all are equal, in which there are no rich and no poor, no masters and no servants, no sheep and no shears, no cats, rats, no piggy-wiggy--------" "te-te-te!" say i, "where have you learned such fine language? a new speech," say i, "with new words. why not open the hen-house, and let out the hens? chuck--chuck--chuck, hurrah for freedom!" upon which she blazes up as if i had poured ten pails of hot water over her. and now for it! as only _they_ can! well, one must sit it out and listen to the end. the worst of it is, there is no end. "look here," say i, "hush!" say i, "and now let be!" say i, and beat upon my breast. "i have sinned!" say i, "i have transgressed, and now stop," say i, "if you would only be quiet!" but she won't hear, and she won't see. no, she says, she will know why and wherefore and for goodness' sake and exactly, and just how it was, and what it means, and how it happened, and once more and a second time, and all over again from the beginning! i beg of you--who set the whole thing going? a--woman! eliezer david rosenthal born, , in chotin, bessarabia; went to breslau, germany, in , and pursued studies at the university; returned to bessarabia in ; co-editor of the bibliothek dos leben, published at odessa, , and kishineff, ; writer of stories. sabbath friday evening! the room has been tidied, the table laid. two sabbath loaves have been placed upon it, and covered with a red napkin. at the two ends are two metal candlesticks, and between them two more of earthenware, with candles in them ready to be lighted. on the small sofa that stands by the stove lies a sick man covered up with a red quilt, from under the quilt appears a pale, emaciated face, with red patches on the dried-up cheeks and a black beard. the sufferer wears a nightcap, which shows part of his black hair and his black earlocks. there is no sign of life in his face, and only a faint one in his great, black eyes. on a chair by the couch sits a nine-year-old girl with damp locks, which have just been combed out in honor of sabbath. she is barefoot, dressed only in a shirt and a frock. the child sits swinging her feet, absorbed in what she is doing; but all her movements are gentle and noiseless. the invalid coughed. "kche, kche, kche, kche," came from the sofa. "what is it, tate?" asked the little girl, swinging her feet. the invalid made no reply. he slowly raised his head with both hands, pulled down the nightcap, and coughed and coughed and coughed, hoarsely at first, then louder, the cough tearing at his sick chest and dinning in the ears. then he sat up, and went on coughing and clearing his throat, till he had brought up the phlegm. the little girl continued to be absorbed in her work and to swing her feet, taking very little notice of her sick father. the invalid smoothed the creases in the cushion, laid his head down again, and closed his eyes. he lay thus for a few minutes, then he said quite quietly: "leah!" "what is it, tate?" inquired the child again, still swinging her feet. "tell ... mother ... it is ... time to ... bless ... the candles...." the little girl never moved from her seat, but shouted through the open door into the shop: "mother, shut up shop! father says it's time for candle-blessing." "i'm coming, i'm coming," answered her mother from the shop. she quickly disposed of a few women customers: sold one a kopek's worth of tea, the other, two kopeks' worth of sugar, the third, two tallow candles. then she closed the shutters and the street door, and came into the room. "you've drunk the glass of milk?" she inquired of the sick man. "yes ... i have ... drunk it," he replied. "and you, leahnyu, daughter," and she turned to the child, "may the evil spirit take you! couldn't you put on your shoes without my telling you? don't you know it's sabbath?" the little girl hung her head, and made no other answer. her mother went to the table, lighted the candles, covered her face with her hands, and blessed them. after that she sat down on the seat by the window to take a rest. it was only on sabbath that she could rest from her hard work, toiling and worrying as she was the whole week long with all her strength and all her mind. she sat lost in thought. she was remembering past happy days. she also had known what it is to enjoy life, when her husband was in health, and they had a few hundred rubles. they finished boarding with her parents, they set up a shop, and though he had always been a close frequenter of the house-of-study, a bench-lover, he soon learnt the torah of commerce. she helped him, and they made a livelihood, and ate their bread in honor. but in course of time some quite new shops were started in the little town, there was great competition, the trade was small, and the gains were smaller, it became necessary to borrow money on interest, on weekly payment, and to pay for goods at once. the interest gradually ate up the capital with the gains. the creditors took what they could lay hands on, and still her husband remained in their debt. he could not get over this, and fell ill. the whole bundle of trouble fell upon her: the burden of a livelihood, the children, the sick man, everything, everything, on her. but she did not lose heart. "god will help, _he_ will soon get well, and will surely find some work. god will not desert us," so she reflected, and meantime she was not sitting idle. the very difficulty of her position roused her courage, and gave her strength. she sold her small store of jewelry, and set up a little shop. three years have passed since then. however it may be, god has not abandoned her, and however bitter and sour the struggle for parnosseh may have been, she had her bit of bread. only his health did not return, he grew daily weaker and worse. she glanced at her sick husband, at his pale, emaciated face, and tears fell from her eyes. during the week she has no time to think how unhappy she is. parnosseh, housework, attendance on the children and the sick man--these things take up all her time and thought. she is glad when it comes to bedtime, and she can fall, dead tired, onto her bed. but on sabbath, the day of rest, she has time to think over her hard lot and all her misery and to cry herself out. "when will there be an end of my troubles and suffering?" she asked herself, and could give no answer whatever to the question beyond despairing tears. she saw no ray of hope lighting her future, only a great, wide, shoreless sea of trouble. it flashed across her: "when he dies, things will be easier." but the thought of his death only increased her apprehension. it brought with it before her eyes the dreadful words: widow, orphans, poor little fatherless children.... these alarmed her more than her present distress. how can children grow up without a father? now, even though he's ill, he keeps an eye on them, tells them to say their prayers and to study. who is to watch over them if he dies? "don't punish me, lord of the world, for my bad thought," she begged with her whole heart. "i will take it upon myself to suffer and trouble for all, only don't let him die, don't let me be called by the bitter name of widow, don't let my children be called orphans!" * * * * * he sits upon his couch, his head a little thrown back and leaning against the wall. in one hand he holds a prayer-book--he is receiving the sabbath into his house. his pale lips scarcely move as he whispers the words before him, and his thoughts are far from the prayer. he knows that he is dangerously ill, he knows what his wife has to suffer and bear, and not only is he powerless to help her, but his illness is her heaviest burden, what with the extra expense incurred on his account and the trouble of looking after him. besides which, his weakness makes him irritable, and his anger has more than once caused her unmerited pain. he sees and knows it all, and his heart is torn with grief. "only death can help us," he murmurs, and while his lips repeat the words of the prayer-book, his heart makes one request to god and only one: that god should send kind death to deliver him from his trouble and misery. suddenly the door opened and a ten-year-old boy came into the room, in a long sabbath cloak, with two long earlocks, and a prayer-book under his arm. "a good sabbath!" said the little boy, with a loud, ringing voice. it seemed as if he and the holy sabbath had come into the room together! in one moment the little boy had driven trouble and sadness out of sight, and shed light and consolation round him. his "good sabbath!" reached his parents' hearts, awoke there new life and new hopes. "a good sabbath!" answered the mother. her eyes rested on the child's bright face, and her thoughts were no longer melancholy as before, for she saw in his eyes a whole future of happy possibilities. "a good sabbath!" echoed the lips of the sick man, and he took a deeper, easier breath. no, he will not die altogether, he will live again after death in the child. he can die in peace, he leaves a kaddish behind him. yom kippur erev yom kippur, minchah time! the eve of the day of atonement, at afternoon prayer time. a solemn and sacred hour for every jew. everyone feels as though he were born again. all the week-day worries, the two-penny-half-penny interests, seem far, far away; or else they have hidden themselves in some corner. every jew feels a noble pride, an inward peace mingled with fear and awe. he knows that the yearly judgment day is approaching, when god almighty will hold the scales in his hand and weigh every man's merits against his transgressions. the sentence given on that day is one of life or death. no trifle! but the jew is not so terrified as you might think--he has broad shoulders. besides, he has a certain footing behind the "upper windows," he has good advocates and plenty of them; he has the "binding of isaac" and a long chain of ancestors and ancestresses, who were put to death for the sanctification of the holy name, who allowed themselves to be burnt and roasted for the sake of god's torah. nishkoshe! things are not so bad. the lord of all may just remember that, and look aside a little. is he not the compassionate, the merciful? the shadows lengthen and lengthen. jews are everywhere in commotion. some hurry home straight from the bath, drops of bath-water dripping from beard and earlocks. they have not even dried their hair properly in their haste. it is time to prepare for the davvening. some are already on their way to shool, robed in white. nearly every jew carries in one hand a large, well-packed tallis-bag, which to-day, besides the prayer-scarf, holds the whole jewish outfit: a bulky prayer-book, a book of psalms, a likkute zevi, and so on; and in the other hand, two wax-candles, one a large one, that is the "light of life," and the other a small one, a shrunken looking thing, which is the "soul-light." the tamschevate house-of-study presents at this moment the following picture: the floor is covered with fresh hay, and the dust and the smell of the hay fill the whole building. some of the men are standing at their prayers, beating their breasts in all seriousness. "we have trespassed, we have been faithless, we have robbed," with an occasional sob of contrition. others are very busy setting up their wax-lights in boxes filled with sand; one of them, a young man who cannot live without it, betakes himself to the platform and repeats a "bless ye the lord." meantime another comes slyly, and takes out two of the candles standing before the platform, planting his own in their place. not far from the ark stands the beadle with a strap in his hand, and all the foremost householders go up to him, lay themselves down with their faces to the ground, and the beadle deals them out thirty-nine blows apiece, and not one of them bears him any grudge. even reb groinom, from whom the beadle never hears anything from one yom kippur to another but "may you be ... "and "rascal," "impudence," "brazen face," "spendthrift," "carrion," "dog of all dogs"--and not infrequently reb groinom allows himself to apply his right hand to the beadle's cheek, and the latter has to take it all in a spirit of love--this same reb groinom now humbly approaches the same poor beadle, lies quietly down with his face to the ground, stretches himself out, and the beadle deliberately counts the strokes up to "thirty-nine malkes." covered with hay, reb groinom rises slowly, a piteous expression on his face, just as if he had been well thrashed, and he pushes a coin into the shamash's hand. this is evidently the beadle's day! to-day he can take his revenge on his householders for the insults and injuries of a whole year! but if you want to be in the thick of it all, you must stand in the anteroom by the door, where people are crowding round the plates for collections. the treasurer sits beside a little table with the directors of the congregation; the largest plate lies before them. to one side of them sits the cantor with his plate, and beside the cantor, several house-of-study youths with theirs. on every plate lies a paper with a written notice: "visiting the sick," "supporting the fallen," "clothing the naked," "talmud torah," "refuge for the poor," and so forth. over one plate, marked "the return to the land of israel," presides a modern young man, a zionist. everyone wishing to enter the house-of-study must first go to the plates marked "call to the torah" and "seat in the shool," put in what is his due, and then throw a few kopeks into the other plates. * * * * * berel tzop bustled up to the plate "seat in the shool," gave what was expected of him, popped a few coppers into the other plates, and prepared to recite the afternoon prayer. he wanted to pause a little between the words of his prayer, to attend to their meaning, to impress upon himself that this was the eve of the day of atonement! but idle thoughts kept coming into his head, as though on purpose to annoy him, and his mind was all over the place at once! the words of the prayers got mixed up with the idea of oats, straw, wheat, and barley, and however much trouble he took to drive these idle thoughts away, he did not succeed. "blow the great trumpet of our deliverance!" shouted berel, and remembered the while that ivan owed him ten measures of wheat. "...lift up the ensign to gather our exiles!..."--"and i made a mistake in stephen's account by thirty kopeks...." berel saw that it was impossible for him to pray with attention, and he began to reel off the eighteen benedictions, but not till he reached the confession could he collect his scattered thoughts, and realize what he was saying. when he raised his hands to beat his breast at "we have trespassed, we have robbed," the hand remained hanging in the air, half-way. a shudder went through his limbs, the letters of the words "we have robbed" began to grow before his eyes, they became gigantic, they turned strange colors--red, blue, green, and yellow--now they took the form of large frogs--they got bigger and bigger, crawled into his eyes, croaked in his ears: you are a thief, a robber, you have stolen and plundered! you think nobody saw, that it would all run quite smoothly, but you are wrong! we shall stand before the throne of glory and cry: you are a thief, a robber! berel stood some time with his hand raised midway in the air. the whole affair of the hundred rubles rose before his eyes. a couple of months ago he had gone into the house of reb moisheh chalfon. the latter had just gone out, there was nobody else in the room, nobody had even seen him come in. the key was in the desk--berel had looked at it, had hardly touched it--the drawer had opened as though of itself--several hundred-ruble-notes had lain glistening before his eyes! just that day, berel had received a very unpleasant letter from the father of his daughter's bridegroom, and to make matters worse, the author of the letter was in the right. berel had been putting off the marriage for two years, and the mechutton wrote quite plainly, that unless the wedding took place after tabernacles, he should return him the contract. "return the contract!" the fiery letters burnt into berel's brain. he knew his mechutton well. the misnaggid! he wouldn't hesitate to tear up a marriage contract, either! and when it's a question of a by no means pretty girl of twenty and odd years! and the kind of bridegroom anybody might be glad to have secured for his daughter! and then to think that only one of those hundred-ruble-notes lying tossed together in that drawer would help him out of all his troubles. and the evil inclination whispers in his ear: "berel, now or never! there will be an end to all your worry! don't you see, it's a godsend." he, berel, wrestled with him hard. he remembers it all distinctly, and he can hear now the faint little voice of the good inclination: "berel, to become a thief in one's latter years! you who so carefully avoided even the smallest deceit! fie, for shame! if god will, he can help you by honest means too." but the voice of the good inclination was so feeble, so husky, and the evil inclination suggested in his other ear: "do you know what? _borrow_ one hundred rubles! who talks of stealing? you will earn some money before long, and then you can pay him back--it's a charitable loan on his part, only that he doesn't happen to know of it. isn't it plain to be seen that it's a godsend? if you don't call this providence, what is? are you going to take more than you really need? you know your mechutton? have you taken a good look at that old maid of yours? you recollect the bridegroom? well, the mechutton will be kind and mild as milk. the bridegroom will be a 'silken son-in-law,' the ugly old maid, a young wife--fool! god and men will envy you...." and he, berel, lost his head, his thoughts flew hither and thither, like frightened birds, and--he no longer knew which of the two voices was that of the good inclination, and-- no one saw him leave moisheh chalfon's house. and still his hand remains suspended in mid-air, still it does not fall against his breast, and there is a cold perspiration on his brow. berel started, as though out of his sleep. he had noticed that people were beginning to eye him as he stood with his hand held at a distance from his person. he hastily rattled through "for the sin, ..." concluded the eighteen benedictions, and went home. at home, he didn't dawdle, he only washed his hands, recited "who bringest forth bread," and that was all. the food stuck in his throat, he said grace, returned to shool, put on the tallis, and started to intone tunefully the prayer of expiation. * * * * * the lighted wax-candles, the last rays of the sun stealing in through the windows of the house-of-study, the congregation entirely robed in white and enfolded in the prayer-scarfs, the intense seriousness depicted on all faces, the hum of voices, and the bitter weeping that penetrated from the women's gallery, all this suited berel's mood, his contrite heart. berel had recited the prayer of expiation with deep feeling; tears poured from his eyes, his own broken voice went right through his heart, every word found an echo there, and he felt it in every limb. berel stood before god like a little child before its parents: he wept and told all that was in his heavily-laden heart, the full tale of his cares and troubles. berel was pleased with himself, he felt that he was not saying the words anyhow, just rolling them off his tongue, but he was really performing an act of penitence with his whole heart. he felt remorse for his sins, and god is a god of compassion and mercy, who will certainly pardon him. "therefore is my heart sad," began berel, "that the sin which a man commits against his neighbor cannot be atoned for even on the day of atonement, unless he asks his neighbor's forgiveness ... therefore is my heart broken and my limbs tremble, because even the day of my death cannot atone for this sin." berel began to recite this in pleasing, artistic fashion, weeping and whimpering like a spoiled child, and drawling out the words, when it grew dark before his eyes. berel had suddenly become aware that he was in the position of one about to go in through an open door. he advances, he must enter, it is a question of life and death. and without any warning, just as he is stepping across the threshold, the door is shut from within with a terrible bang, and he remains standing outside. and he has read this in the prayer of expiation? with fear and fluttering he reads it over again, looking narrowly at every word--a cold sweat covers him--the words prick him like pins. are these two verses his pitiless judges, are they the expression of his sentence? is he already condemned? "ay, ay, you are guilty," flicker the two verses on the page before him, and prayer and tears are no longer of any avail. his heart cried to god: "have pity, merciful father! a grown-up girl--what am i to do with her? and his father wanted to break off the engagement. as soon as i have earned the money, i will give it back...." but he knew all the time that these were useless subterfuges; the lord of the universe can only pardon the sin committed against himself, the sin committed against man cannot be atoned for even on the day of atonement! berel took another look at the prayer of expiation. the words, "unless he asks his neighbor's forgiveness," danced before his eyes. a ray of hope crept into his despairing heart. one way is left open to him: he can confess to moisheh chalfon! but the hope was quickly extinguished. is that a small matter? what of my honor, my good name? and what of the match? "mercy, o father," he cried, "have mercy!" berel proceeded no further with the prayer of expiation. he stood lost in his melancholy thoughts, his whole life passed before his eyes. he, berel, had never licked honey, trouble had been his in plenty, he had known cares and worries, but god had never abandoned him. it had frequently happened to him in the course of his life to think he was lost, to give up all his hope. but each time god had extricated him unexpectedly from his difficulty, and not only that, but lawfully, honestly, jewishly. and now--he had suddenly lost his trust in the providence of his dear name! "donkey!" thus berel abused himself, "went to look for trouble, did you? now you've got it! sold yourself body and soul for one hundred rubles! thief! thief! thief!" it did berel good to abuse himself like this, it gave him a sort of pleasure to aggravate his wounds. berel, sunk in his sad reflections, has forgotten where he is in the world. the congregation has finished the prayer of expiation, and is ready for kol nidré. the cantor is at his post at the reading-desk on the platform, two of the principal, well-to-do jews, with torahs in their hands, on each side of him. one of them is moisheh chalfon. there is a deep silence in the building. the very last rays of the sun are slanting in through the window, and mingling with the flames of the wax-candles.... "with the consent of the all-present and with the consent of this congregation, we give leave to pray with them that have transgressed," startled berel's ears. it was moisheh chalfon's voice. the voice was low, sweet, and sad. berel gave a side glance at where moisheh chalfon was standing, and it seemed to him that moisheh chalfon was doing the same to him, only moisheh chalfon was looking not into his eyes, but deep into his heart, and there reading the word thief! and moisheh chalfon is permitting the people to pray together with him, berel the thief! "mercy, mercy, compassionate god!" cried berel's heart in its despair. * * * * * they had concluded maariv, recited the first four chapters of the psalms and the song of unity, and the people went home, to lay in new strength for the morrow. there remained only a few, who spent the greater part of the night repeating psalms, intoning the mishnah, and so on; they snatched an occasional doze on the bare floor overlaid with a whisp of hay, an old cloak under their head. berel also stayed the night in the house-of-study. he sat down in a corner, in robe and tallis, and began reciting psalms with a pleasing pathos, and he went on until overtaken by sleep. at first he resisted, he took a nice pinch of snuff, rubbed his eyes, collected his thoughts, but it was no good. the covers of the book of psalms seemed to have been greased, for they continually slipped from his grasp, the printed lines had grown crooked and twisted, his head felt dreadfully heavy, and his eyelids clung together; his nose was forever drooping towards the book of psalms. he made every effort to keep awake, started up every time as though he had burnt himself, but sleep was the stronger of the two. gradually he slid from the bench onto the floor; the psalter slipped finally from between his fingers, his head dropped onto the hay, and he fell sweetly asleep.... and berel had a dream: yom kippur, and yet there is a fair in the town, the kind of fair one calls an "earthquake," a fair such as berel does not remember having seen these many years, so crowded is it with men and merchandise. there is something of everything--cattle, horses, sheep, corn, and fruit. all the tamschevate jews are strolling round with their wives and children, there is buying and selling, the air is full of noise and shouting, the whole fair is boiling and hissing and humming like a kettle. one runs this way and one that way, this one is driving a cow, that one leading home a horse by the rein, the other buying a whole cart-load of corn. berel is all astonishment and curiosity: how is it possible for jews to busy themselves with commerce on yom kippur? on such a holy day? as far back as he can remember, jews used to spend the whole day in shool, in linen socks, white robe, and prayer-scarf. they prayed and wept. and now what has come over them, that they should be trading on yom kippur, as if it were a common week-day, in shoes and boots (this last struck him more than anything)? perhaps it is all a dream? thought berel in his sleep. but no, it is no dream! "here i am strolling round the fair, wide awake. and the screaming and the row in my ears, is that a dream, too? and my having this very minute been bumped on the shoulder by a gentile going past me with a horse--is that a dream? but if the whole world is taking part in the fair, it's evidently the proper thing to do...." meanwhile he was watching a peasant with a horse, and he liked the look of the horse so much that he bought it and mounted it. and he looked at it from where he sat astride, and saw the horse was a horse, but at the selfsame time it was moisheh chalfon as well. berel wondered: how is it possible for it to be at once a horse and a man? but his own eyes told him it was so. he wanted to dismount, but the horse bears him to a shop. here he climbed down and asked for a pound of sugar. berel kept his eyes on the scales, and--a fresh surprise! where they should have been weighing sugar, they were weighing his good and bad deeds. and the two scales were nearly equally laden, and oscillated up and down in the air.... suddenly they threw a sheet of paper into the scale that held his bad deeds. berel looked to see--it was the hundred-ruble-note which he had appropriated at moisheh chalfon's! but it was now much larger, bordered with black, and the letters and numbers were red as fire. the piece of paper was frightfully heavy, it was all two men could do to carry it to the weighing-machine, and when they had thrown it with all their might onto the scale, something snapped, and the scale went down, down, down. at that moment a man sleeping at berel's head stretched out a foot, and gave berel a kick in the head. berel awoke. not far from him sat a grey-haired old jew, huddled together, enfolded in a tallis and robe, repeating psalms with a melancholy chant and a broken, quavering voice. berel caught the words: "mark the perfect man, and behold the upright: for the end of that man is peace. but the transgressors shall be destroyed together: the latter end of the wicked shall be cut off...." berel looked round in a fright: where is he? he had quite forgotten that he had remained for the night in the house-of-study. he gazed round with sleepy eyes, and they fell on some white heaps wrapped in robes and prayer-scarfs, while from their midst came the low, hoarse, tearful voices of two or three men who had not gone to sleep and were repeating psalms. many of the candles were already sputtering, the wax was melting into the sand, the flames rose and fell, and rose again, flaring brightly. and the pale moon looked in at the windows, and poured her silvery light over the fantastic scene. berel grew icy cold, and a dreadful shuddering went through his limbs. he had not yet remembered that he was spending the night in the house-of-study. he imagined that he was dead, and astray in limbo. the white heaps which he sees are graves, actual graves, and there among the graves sit a few sinful souls, and bewail and lament their transgressions. and he, berel, cannot even weep, he is a fallen one, lost forever--he is condemned to wander, to roam everlastingly among the graves. by degrees, however, he called to mind where he was, and collected his wits. only then he remembered his fearful dream. "no," he decided within himself, "i have lived till now without the hundred rubles, and i will continue to live without them. if the lord of the universe wishes to help me, he will do so without them too. my soul and my portion of the world-to-come are dearer to me. only let moisheh chalfon come in to pray, i will tell him the whole truth and avert misfortune." this decision gave him courage, he washed his hands, and sat down again to the psalms. every few minutes he glanced at the window, to see if it were not beginning to dawn, and if reb moisheh chalfon were not coming along to shool. the day broke. with the first sunbeams berel's fears and terrors began little by little to dissipate and diminish. his resolve to restore the hundred rubles weakened considerably. "if i don't confess," thought berel, wrestling in spirit with temptation, "i risk my world-to-come.... if i do confess, what will my chantzeh-leah say to it? he writes, either the wedding takes place, or the contract is dissolved! and what shall i do, when his father gets to hear about it? there will be a stain on my character, the marriage contract will be annulled, and i shall be left ... without my good name and ... with my ugly old maid.... "what is to be done? help! what is to be done?" the people began to gather in the shool. the reader of the morning service intoned "he is lord of the universe" to the special yom kippur tune, a few householders and young men supported him, and berel heard through it all only, help! what is to be done? and suddenly he beheld moisheh chalfon. berel quickly rose from his place, he wanted to make a rush at moisheh chalfon. but after all he remained where he was, and sat down again. "i must first think it over, and discuss it with my chantzeh-leah," was berel's decision. * * * * * berel stood up to pray with the congregation. he was again wishful to pray with fervor, to collect his thoughts, and attend to the meaning of the words, but try as he would, he couldn't! quite other things came into his head: a dream, a fair, a horse, moisheh chalfon, chantzeh-leah, oats, barley, _this_ world and the next were all mixed up together in his mind, and the words of the prayers skipped about like black patches before his eyes. he wanted to say he was sorry, to cry, but he only made curious grimaces, and could not squeeze out so much as a single tear. berel was very dissatisfied with himself. he finished the morning prayer, stood through the additional service, and proceeded to devour the long piyyutim. the question, what is to be done? left him no peace, and he was really reciting the piyyutim to try and stupefy himself, to dull his brain. so it went on till u-nesanneh toikef. the congregation began to prepare for u-nesanneh toikef, coughed, to clear their throats, and pulled the tallesim over their heads. the cantor sat down for a minute to rest, and unbuttoned his shroud. his face was pale and perspiring, and his eyes betrayed a great weariness. from the women's gallery came a sound of weeping and wailing. berel had drawn his tallis over his head, and started reciting with earnestness and enthusiasm: "we will express the mighty holiness of this day, for it is tremendous and awful! on which thy kingdom is exalted, and thy throne established in grace; whereupon thou art seated in truth. verily, it is thou who art judge and arbitrator, who knowest all, and art witness, writer, sigillator, recorder and teller; and thou recallest all forgotten things, and openest the book of remembrance, and the book reads itself, and every man's handwriting is there...." these words opened the source of berel's tears, and he sobbed unaffectedly. every sentence cut him to the heart, like a sharp knife, and especially the passage: "and thou recallest all forgotten things, and openest the book of remembrance, and the book reads itself, and every man's handwriting is there...." at that very moment the book of remembrance was lying open before the lord of the universe, with the handwritings of all men. it contains his own as well, the one which he wrote with his own hand that day when he took away the hundred-ruble-note. he pictures how his soul flew up to heaven while he slept, and entered everything in the eternal book, and now the letters stood before the throne of glory, and cried, "berel is a thief, berel is a robber!" and he has the impudence to stand and pray before god? he, the offender, the transgressor--and the shool does not fall upon his head? the congregation concluded u-nesanneh toikef, and the cantor began: "and the great trumpet of ram's horn shall be sounded..." and still berel stood with the tallis over his head. suddenly he heard the words: "and the angels are dismayed, fear and trembling seize hold of them as they proclaim, as swiftly as birds, and say: this is the day of judgment!" the words penetrated into the marrow of berel's bones, and he shuddered from head to foot. the words, "this is the day of judgment," reverberated in his ears like a peal of thunder. he imagined the angels were hastening to him with one speed, with one swoop, to seize and drag him before the throne of glory, and the piteous wailing that came from the women's court was for him, for his wretched soul, for his endless misfortune. "no! no! no!" he resolved, "come what may, let him annul the contract, let them point at me with their fingers as at a thief, if they choose, let my chantzeh-leah lose her chance! i will take it all in good part, if i may only save my unhappy soul! the minute the kedushah is over i shall go to moisheh chalfon, tell him the whole story, and beg him to forgive me." the cantor came to the end of u-nesanneh toikef, the congregation resumed their seats, berel also returned to his place, and did not go up to moisheh chalfon. "help, what shall i do, what shall i do?" he thought, as he struggled with his conscience. "chantzeh-leah will lay me on the fire ... she will cry her life out ... the mechutton ... the bridegroom...." * * * * * the additional service and the afternoon service were over, people were making ready for the conclusion service, neïleh. the shadows were once more lengthening, the sun was once more sinking in the west. the shool-goi began to light candles and lamps, and placed them on the tables and the window-ledges. jews with faces white from exhaustion sat in the anteroom resting and refreshing themselves with a pinch of snuff, or a drop of hartshorn, and a few words of conversation. everyone feels more cheerful and in better humor. what had to be done, has been done and well done. the lord of the universe has received his due. they have mortified themselves a whole day, fasted continuously, recited prayers, and begged forgiveness! now surely the almighty will do his part, accept the jewish prayers and have compassion on his people israel. only berel sits in a corner by himself. he also is wearied and exhausted. he also has fasted, prayed, wept, mortified himself, like the rest. but he knows that the whole of his toil and trouble has been thrown away. he sits troubled, gloomy, and depressed. he knows that they have now reached neïleh, that he has still time to repent, that the door of heaven will stand open a little while longer, his repentance may yet pass through ... otherwise, yet a little while, and the gates of mercy will be shut and ... too late! "oh, open the gate to us, even while it is closing," sounded in berel's ears and heart ... yet a little while, and it will be too late! "no, no!" shrieked berel to himself, "i will not lose my soul, my world-to-come! let chantzeh-leah burn me and roast me, i will take it all in good part, so that i don't lose my world-to-come!" berel rose from his seat, and went up to moisheh chalfon. "reb moisheh, a word with you," he whispered into his ear. "afterwards, when the prayers are done." "no, no, no!" shrieked berel, below his breath, "now, at once!" moisheh chalfon stood up. berel led him out of the house-of-study, and aside. "reb moisheh, kind soul, have pity on me and forgive me!" cried berel, and burst into sobs. "god be with you, berel, what has come over you all at once?" asked reb moisheh, in astonishment. "listen to me, reb moisheh!" said berel, still sobbing. "the hundred rubles you lost a few weeks ago are in my house!... god knows the truth, i didn't take them out of wickedness. i came into your house, the key was in the drawer ... there was no one in the room.... that day i'd had a letter from my mechutton that he'd break off his son's engagement if the wedding didn't take place to time.... my girl is ugly and old ... the bridegroom is a fine young man ... a precious stone.... i opened the drawer in spite of myself ... and saw the bank-notes.... you see how it was?... my mechutton is a misnaggid ... a flint-hearted screw.... i took out the note ... but it is shortening my years!... god knows what i bore and suffered at the time.... to-night i will bring you the note back.... forgive me!... let the mechutton break off the match, if he chooses, let the woman fret away her years, so long as i am rid of the serpent that is gnawing at my heart, and gives me no peace! i never before touched a ruble belonging to anyone else, and become a thief in my latter years i won't!" moisheh chalfon did not answer him for a little while. he took out his snuff, and had a pinch, then he took out of the bosom of his robe a great red handkerchief, wiped his nose, and reflected a minute or two. then he said quietly: "if a match were broken off through me, i should be sorry. you certainly behaved as you should not have, in taking the money without leave, but it is written: judge not thy neighbor till thou hast stood in his place. you shall keep the hundred rubles. come to-night and bring me an i. o. u., and begin to repay me little by little." "what are you, an angel?" exclaimed berel, weeping. "god forbid," replied moisheh chalfon, quietly, "i am what you are. you are a jew, and i also am a jew." isaiah lerner born, , in zwoniec, podolia, southwestern russia; co-editor of die bibliothek dos leben, published at odessa, , and kishineff, . bertzi wasserfÜhrer i the first night of passover. it is already about ten o'clock. outside it is dark, wet, cold as the grave. a fine, close, sleety rain is driving down, a light, sharp, fitful wind blows, whistles, sighs, and whines, and wanders round on every side, like a returned and sinful soul seeking means to qualify for eternal bliss. the mud is very thick, and reaches nearly to the waist. at one end of the town of kamenivke, in the poor people's street, which runs along by the bath-house, it is darkest of all, and muddiest. the houses there are small, low, and overhanging, tumbled together in such a way that there is no seeing where the mud begins and the dwelling ends. no gleam of light, even in the windows. either the inhabitants of the street are all asleep, resting their tired bones and aching limbs, or else they all lie suffocated in the sea of mud, simply because the mud is higher than the windows. whatever the reason, the street is quiet as a god's-acre, and the darkness may be felt with the hands. suddenly the dead stillness of the street is broken by the heavy tread of some ponderous creature, walking and plunging through the kamenivke mud, and there appears the tall, broad figure of a man. he staggers like one tipsy or sick, but he keeps on in a straight line, at an even pace, like one born and bred and doomed to die in the familiar mud, till he drags his way to a low, crouching house at the very end of the street, almost under the hillside. it grows lighter--a bright flame shines through the little window-panes. he has not reached the door before it opens, and a shaky, tearful voice, full of melancholy, pain, and woe, breaks the hush a second time this night: "bertzi, is it you? are you all right? so late? has there been another accident? and the cart and the horse, wu senen?" "all right, all right! a happy holiday!" his voice is rough, hoarse, and muffled. she lets him into the passage, and opens the inner door. but scarcely is he conscious of the light, warmth, and cleanliness of the room, when he gives a strange, wild cry, takes one leap, like a hare, onto the "eating-couch" spread for him on the red-painted, wooden sofa, and--he lies already in a deep sleep. ii the whole dwelling, consisting of one nice, large, low room, is clean, tidy, and bright. the bits of furniture and all the household essentials are poor, but so clean and polished that one can mirror oneself in them, if one cares to stoop down. the table is laid ready for passover. the bottles of red wine, the bottle of yellow passover brandy, and the glass goblets of different colors reflect the light of the thick tallow candles, and shine and twinkle and sparkle. the oven, which stands in the same room, is nearly out, there is one sleepy little bit of fire still flickering. but the pots, ranged round the fire as though to watch over it and encourage it, exhale such delicious, appetizing smells that they would tempt even a person who had just eaten his fill. but no one makes a move towards them. all five children lie stretched in a row on the red-painted, wooden bed. even they have not tasted of the precious dishes, of which they have thought and talked for weeks previous to the festival. they cried loud and long, waiting for their father's return, and at last they went sweetly to sleep. only one fly is moving about the room: rochtzi, bertzi wasserführer's wife, and rivers of tears, large, clear tears, salt with trouble and distress, flow from her eyes. iii although rochtzi has not seen more than thirty summers, she looks like an old woman. once upon a time she was pretty, she was even known as one of the prettiest of the kamenivke girls, and traces of her beauty are still to be found in her uncommonly large, dark eyes, and even in her lined face, although the eyes have long lost their fire, and her cheeks, their color and freshness. she is dressed in clean holiday attire, but her eyes are red from the hot, salt tears, and her expression is darkened and sad. "such a festival, such a great, holy festival, and then when it comes...." the pale lips tremble and quiver. how many days and nights, beginning before purim, has she sat with her needle between her fingers, so that the children should have their holiday frocks--and all depending on her hands and head! how much thought and care and strength has she spent on preparing the room, their poor little possessions, and the food? how many were the days, sabbaths excepted, on which they went without a spoonful of anything hot, so that they might be able to give a becoming reception to that dear, great, and holy visitor, the passover? everything (the almighty forbid that she should sin with her tongue!) of the best, ready and waiting, and then, after all.... he, his sheepskin, his fur cap, and his great boots are soaked with rain and steeped in thick mud, and there, in this condition, lies he, bertzi wasserführer, her husband, her passover "king," like a great black lump, on the nice, clean, white, draped "eating-couch," and snores. iv the brief tale i am telling you happened in the days before kamenivke had joined itself on, by means of the long, tall, and beautiful bridge, to the great high hill that has stood facing it from everlasting, thickly wooded, and watered by quantities of clear, crystal streams, which babble one to another day and night, and whisper with their running tongues of most important things. so long as the bridge had not been flung from one of the giant rocks to the other rock, the kamenivke people had not been able to procure the good, wholesome water of the wild hill, and had to content themselves with the thick, impure water of the river smotritch, which has flowed forever round the eminence on which kamenivke is built. but man, and especially the jew, gets used to anything, and the kamenivke people, who are nearly all grandfather abraham's grandchildren, had drunk smotritch water all their lives, and were conscious of no grievance. but the lot of the kamenivke water-carriers was hard and bitter. kamenivke stands high, almost in the air, and the river smotritch runs deep down in the valley. in summer, when the ground is dry, it was bearable, for then the kamenivke water-carrier was merely bathed in sweat as he toiled up the hill, and the jewish breadwinner has been used to that for ages. but in winter, when the snow was deep and the frost tremendous, when the steep skossny hill with its clay soil was covered with ice like a hill of glass! or when the great rains were pouring down, and the town and especially the clay hill are confounded with the deep, thick mud! our bertzi wasserführer was more alive to the fascinations of this parnosseh than any other water-carrier. he was, as though in his own despite, a pious jew and a great man of his word, and he had to carry water for almost all the well-to-do householders. true, that in face of all his good luck he was one of the poorest jews in the poor people's street, only---- v lord of the world, may there never again be such a winter as there was then! not the oldest man there could recall one like it. the snow came down in drifts, and never stopped. one could and might have sworn on a scroll of the law, that the great jewish god was angry with the kamenivke jews, and had commanded his angels to shovel down on kamenivke all the snow that had lain by in all the seven heavens since the sixth day of creation, so that the sinful town might be a ruin and a desolation. and the terrible, fiery frosts! frozen people were brought into the town nearly every day. oi, jews, how bertzi wasserführer struggled, what a time he had of it! enemies of zion, it was nearly the death of him! and suddenly the snow began to stop falling, all at once, and then things were worse than ever--there was a sea of water, an ocean of mud. and passover coming on with great strides! for three days before passover he had not come home to sleep. who talks of eating, drinking, and sleeping? he and his man toiled day and night, like six horses, like ten oxen. the last day before passover was the worst of all. his horse suddenly came to the conclusion that sooner than live such a life, it would die. so it died and vanished somewhere in the depths of the kamenivke clay. and bertzi the water-carrier and his man had to drag the cart with the great water-barrel themselves, the whole day till long after dark. vi it is already eleven, twelve, half past twelve at night, and bertzi's chest, throat, and nostrils continue to pipe and to whistle, to sob and to sigh. the room is colder and darker, the small fire in the oven went out long ago, and only little stumps of candles remain. rochtzi walks and runs about the room, she weeps and wrings her hands. but now she runs up to the couch by the table, and begins to rouse her husband with screams and cries fit to make one's blood run cold and the hair stand up on one's head: "no, no, you're not going to sleep any longer, i tell you! bertzi, do you hear me? get up, bertzi, aren't you a jew?--a man?--the father of children?--bertzi, have you god in your heart? bertzi, have you said your prayers? my husband, what about the seder? i won't have it!--i feel very ill--i am going to faint!--help!--water!" "have i forgotten somebody's water?--whose?--where?..." but rochtzi is no longer in need of water: she beholds her "king" on his feet, and has revived without it. with her two hands, with all the strength she has, she holds him from falling back onto the couch. "don't you see, bertzi? the candles are burning down, the supper is cold and will spoil. i fancy it's already beginning to dawn. the children, long life to them, went to sleep without any food. come, please, begin to prepare for the seder, and i will wake the two elder ones." bertzi stands bent double and treble. his breathing is labored and loud, his face is smeared with mud and swollen from the cold, his beard and earlocks are rough and bristly, his eyes sleepy and red. he looks strangely wild and unkempt. bertzi looks at rochtzi, at the table, he looks round the room, and sees nothing. but now he looks at the bed: his little children, washed, and in their holiday dresses, are all lying in a row across the bed, and--he remembers everything, and understands what rochtzi is saying, and what it is she wants him to do. "give me some water--i said minchah and maariv by the way, while i was at work." "i'm bringing it already! may god grant you a like happiness! good health to you! hershele, get up, my kaddish, father has come home already! shmuelkil, my little son, go and ask father the four questions." bertzi fills a goblet with wine, takes it up in his left hand, places it upon his right hand, and begins: "savri moronon, ve-rabbonon, ve-rabbosai--with the permission of the company."--his head goes round.--"lord of the world!--i am a jew.--blessed art thou. lord our god, king of the universe--" it grows dark before his eyes: "the first night of passover--i ought to make kiddush--thou who dost create the fruit of the vine"--his feet fail him, as though they had been cut off--"and i ought to give the seder--this is the bread of the poor.... lord of the world, you know how it is: i can't do it!--have mercy!--forgive me!" vii a nasty smell of sputtered-out candles fills the room. rochtzi weeps. bertzi is back on the couch and snores. different sounds, like the voices of winds, cattle, and wild beasts, and the whirr of a mill, are heard in his snoring. and her weeping--it seems as if the whole room were sighing and quivering and shaking.... ezrielk the scribe forty days before ezrielk descended upon this sinful world, his life-partner was proclaimed in heaven, and the heavenly council decided that he was to transcribe the books of the law, prayers, and mezuzehs for the kabtzonivke jews, and thereby make a living for his wife and children. but the hard word went forth to him that he should not disclose this secret decree to anyone, and should even forget it himself for a goodly number of years. a glance at ezrielk told one that he had been well lectured with regard to some important matter, and was to tell no tales out of school. even minde, the kabtzonivke bobbe, testified to this: "never in all my life, all the time i've been bringing jewish children into god's world, have i known a child scream so loud at birth as ezrielk--a sign that he'd had it well rubbed into him!" either the angel who has been sent to fillip little children above the lips when they are being born, was just then very sleepy (ezrielk was born late at night), or some one had put him out of temper, but one way or another little ezrielk, the very first minute of his jewish existence, caught such a blow that his top lip was all but split in two. after this kindly welcome, when god's angel himself had thus received ezrielk, slaps, blows, and stripes rained down upon his head, body, and life, all through his days, without pause or ending. ezrielk began to attend cheder when he was exactly three years old. his first teacher treated him very badly, beat him continually, and took all the joy of his childhood from him. by the time this childhood of his had passed, and he came to be married (he began to wear the phylacteries and the prayer-scarf on the day of his marriage), he was a very poor specimen, small, thin, stooping, and yellow as an egg-pudding, his little face dark, dreary, and weazened, like a dried lender herring. the only large, full things about him were his earlocks, which covered his whole face, and his two blue eyes. he had about as much strength as a fly, he could not even break the wine-glass under the marriage canopy by himself, and had to ask for help of reb yainkef butz, the beadle of the old shool. among the german jews a boy like that would have been left unwed till he was sixteen or even seventeen, but our ezrielk was married at thirteen, for his bride had been waiting for him seventeen years. it was this way: reb seinwill bassis, ezrielk's father, and reb selig tachshit, his father-in-law, were hostre chassidim, and used to drive every year to spend the solemn days at the hostre rebbe's. they both (not of you be it spoken!) lost all their children in infancy, and, as you can imagine, they pressed the rebbe very closely on this important point, left him no peace, till he should bestir himself on their behalf, and exercise all his influence in the higher spheres. once, on the eve of yom kippur, before daylight, after the waving of the scape-fowls, when the rebbe, long life to him, was in somewhat high spirits, our two chassidim made another set upon him, but this time they had quite a new plan, and it simply _had_ to work out! "do you know what? arrange a marriage between your children! good luck to you!" the whole company of chassidim broke some plates, and actually drew up the marriage contract. it was a little difficult to draw up the contract, because they did not know which of our two friends would have the boy (the rebbe, long life to him, was silent on this head), and which, the girl, but--a learned jew is never at a loss, and they wrote out the contract with conditions. for three years running after this their wives bore them each a child, but the children were either both boys or both girls, so that their vow to unite the son of one to a daughter of the other born in the same year could not be fulfilled, and the documents lay on the shelf. true, the little couples departed for the "real world" within the first month, but the rebbe consoled the father by saying: "we may be sure they were not true jewish children, that is, not true jewish souls. the true jewish soul once born into the world holds on, until, by means of various troubles and trials, it is cleansed from every stain. don't worry, but wait." the fourth year the rebbe's words were established: reb selig tachshit had a daughter born to him, and reb seinwill bassis, ezrielk. channehle, ezrielk's bride, was tall, when they married, as a young fir-tree, beautiful as the sun, clever as the day is bright, and white as snow, with sky-blue, star-like eyes. her hair was the color of ripe corn--in a word, she was fair as abigail and our mother rachel in one, winning as queen esther, pious as leah, and upright as our grandmother sarah. but although the bride was beautiful, she found no fault with her bridegroom; on the contrary, she esteemed it a great honor to have him for a husband. all the kabtzonivke girls envied her, and every kabtzonivke woman who was "expecting" desired with all her heart that she might have such a son as ezrielk. the reason is quite plain: first, what true jewish maiden looks for beauty in her bridegroom? secondly, our ezrielk was as full of excellencies as a pomegranate is of seeds. his teachers had not broken his bones for nothing. the blows had been of great and lasting good to him. even before his wedding, seinwill bassis's ezrielk was deeply versed in the law, and could solve the hardest "questions," so that you might have made a rabbi of him. he was, moreover, a great scribe. his "in-honor-ofs," and his "blessed bes" were known, not only in kabtzonivke, but all over kamenivke, and as for his singing--! when ezrielk began to sing, poor people forgot their hunger, thirst, and need, the sick, their aches and pains, the kabtzonivke jews in general, their bitter exile. he mostly sang unfamiliar tunes and whole "things." "where do you get them, ezrielk?" the little ezrielk would open his eyes (he kept them shut while he sang), his two big blue eyes, and answer wonderingly: "don't you hear how everything sings?" after a little while, when ezrielk had been singing so well and so sweetly and so wonderfully that the kabtzonivke jews began to feel too happy, people fell athinking, and they grew extremely uneasy and disturbed in their minds: "it's not all so simple as it looks, there is something behind it. suppose a not-good one had introduced himself into the child (which god forbid!)? it would do no harm to take him to the aleskev rebbe, long life to him." as good luck would have it, the hostre rebbe came along just then to kabtzonivke, and, after all, ezrielk belonged to _him_, he was born through the merit of the rebbe's miracle-working! so the chassidim told him the story. the rebbe, long life to him, sent for him. ezrielk came and began to sing. the rebbe listened a long, long time to his sweet voice, which rang out like a hundred thousand crystal and gold bells into every corner of the room. "do not be alarmed, he may and he must sing. he gets his tunes there where he got his soul." and ezrielk sang cheerful tunes till he was ten years old, that is, till he fell into the hands of the teacher reb yainkel vittiss. now, the end and object of reb yainkel's teaching was not merely that his pupils should know a lot and know it well. of course, we know that the jew only enters this sinful world in order that he may more or less perfect himself, and that it is therefore needful he should, and, indeed, he _must_, sit day and night over the torah and the commentaries. yainkel vittiss's course of instruction began and ended with trying to imbue his pupils with a downright, genuine, jewish-chassidic enthusiasm. the first day ezrielk entered his cheder, reb yainkel lifted his long, thick lashes, and began, while he gazed fixedly at him, to shake his head, saying to himself: "no, no, he won't do like that. there is nothing wrong with the vessel, a goodly vessel, only the wine is still very sharp, and the ferment is too strong. he is too cocky, too lively for me. a wonder, too, for he's been in good hands (tell me, weren't you under both moisheh-yusis?), and it's a pity, when you come to think, that such a goodly vessel should be wasted. yes, he wants treating in quite another way." and yainkel vittiss set himself seriously to the task of shaping and working up ezrielk. reb yainkel was not in the least concerned when he beat a pupil and the latter cried and screamed at the top of his voice. he knew what he was about, and was convinced that, when one beats and it hurts, even a jewish child (which must needs get used to blows) may cry and scream, and the more the better; it showed that his method of instruction was taking effect. and when he was thrashing ezrielk, and the boy cried and yelled, reb yainkel would tell him: "that's right, that's the way! cry, scream--louder still! that's the way to get a truly contrite jewish heart! you sing too merrily for me--a true jew should weep even while he sings." when ezrielk came to be twelve years old, his teacher declared that he might begin to recite the prayers in shool before the congregation, as he now had within him that which beseems a good chassidic jew. so ezrielk began to davven in the kabtzonivke old shool, and a crowd of people, not only from kabtzonivke, but even from kamenivke and ebionivke, used to fill and encircle the shool to hear him. reb yainkel was not mistaken, he knew what he was saying. ezrielk was indeed fit to davven: life and the joy of life had vanished from his singing, and the terrorful weeping, the fearful wailing of a nation's two thousand years of misfortune, might be heard and felt in his voice. ezrielk was very weakly, and too young to lead the service often, but what a stir he caused when he lifted up his voice in the shool! kabtzonivke, kamenivke, and ebionivke will never forget the first u-mipné chatoénu led by the twelve-year-old ezrielk, standing before the precentor's desk in a long, wide prayer-scarf. the men, women, and children who were listening inside and outside the old shool felt a shudder go through them, their hair stood on end, and their hearts wept and fluttered in their breasts. ezrielk's voice wept and implored, "on account of our sins." * * * * * at the time when ezrielk was distinguishing himself on this fashion with his chanting, the jewish doctor from kamenivke happened to be in the place. he saw the crowd round the old shool, and he went in. as you may suppose, he was much longer in coming out. he was simply riveted to the spot, and it is said that he rubbed his eyes more than once while he listened and looked. on coming away, he told them to bring ezrielk to see him on the following day, saying that he wished to see him, and would take no fee. next day ezrielk came with his mother to the doctor's house. "a blow has struck me! a thunder has killed me! reb yainkel, do you know what the doctor said?" "you silly woman, don't scream so! he cannot have said anything bad about ezrielk. what is the matter? did he hear him intone the gemoreh, or perhaps sing? don't cry and lament like that!" "reb yainkel, what are you talking about? the doctor said that my ezrielk is in danger, that he's ill, that he hasn't a sound organ--his heart, his lungs, are all sick. every little bone in him is broken. he mustn't sing or study--the bath will be his death--he must have a long cure--he must be sent away for air. god (he said to me) has given you a precious gift, such as heaven and earth might envy. will you go and bury it with your own hands?" "and you were frightened and believed him? nonsense! i've had ezrielk in my cheder two years. do i want _him_ to come and tell me what goes on there? if _he_ were a really good doctor, and had one drop of jewish blood left in his veins, wouldn't he know that every true jew has a sick heart, a bad lung, broken bones, and deformed limbs, and is well and strong in spite of it, because the holy torah is the best medicine for all sicknesses? ha, ha, ha! and _he_ wants ezrielk to give up learning and the bath? do you know what? go home and send ezrielk to cheder at once!" the kamenivke doctor made one or two more attempts at alarming ezrielk's parents; he sent his assistant to them more than once, but it was no use, for after what reb yainkel had said, nobody would hear of any doctoring. so ezrielk continued to study the talmud and occasionally to lead the service in shool, like the chassidic child he was, had a dip nearly every morning in the bath-house, and at thirteen, good luck to him, he was married. the hostre rebbe himself honored the wedding with his presence. the rebbe, long life to him, was fond of ezrielk, almost as though he had been his own child. the whole time the saint stayed in kabtzonivke, kamenivke, and ebionivke, ezrielk had to be near him. when they told the rebbe the story of the doctor, he remarked, "ett! what do _they_ know?" and ezrielk continued to recite the prayers after his marriage, and to sing as before, and was the delight of all who heard him. agreeably to the marriage contract, ezrielk and his channehle had a double right to board with their parents "forever"; when they were born and the written engagements were filled in, each was an only child, and both reb seinwill and reb selig undertook to board them "forever." true, when the parents wedded their "one and only children," they had both of them a houseful of little ones and no parnosseh (they really hadn't!), but they did not go back upon their word with regard to the "board forever." of course, it is understood that the two "everlasting boards" lasted nearly one whole year, and ezrielk and his wife might well give thanks for not having died of hunger in the course of it, such a bad, bitter year as it was for their poor parents. it was the year of the great flood, when both reb seinwill bassis and reb selig tachshit had their houses ruined. ezrielk, channehle, and their little son had to go and shift for themselves. but the other inhabitants of kabtzonivke, regardless of this, now began to envy them in earnest: what other couple of their age, with a child and without a farthing, could so easily make a livelihood as they? hardly had it come to the ears of the three towns that ezrielk was seeking a parnosseh when they were all astir. all the shools called meetings, and sought for means and money whereby they might entice the wonderful cantor and secure him for themselves. there was great excitement in the shools. fancy finding in a little, thin jewish lad all the rare and precious qualities that go to make a great cantor! the trustees of all the shools ran about day and night, and a fierce war broke out among them. the war raged five times twenty-four hours, till the great shool in kamenivke carried the day. not one of the others could have dreamed of offering him such a salary--three hundred rubles and everything found! "god is my witness"--thus ezrielk opened his heart, as he sat afterwards with the company of hostre chassidim over a little glass of brandy--"that i find it very hard to leave our old shool, where my grandfather and great-grandfather used to pray. believe me, brothers, i would not do it, only they give me one hundred and fifty rubles earnest-money, and i want to pass it on to my father and father-in-law, so that they may rebuild their houses. to your health, brothers! drink to my remaining an honest jew, and wish that my head may not be turned by the honor done to me!" and ezrielk began to davven and to sing (again without a choir) in the great shool, in the large town of kamenivke. there he intoned the prayers as he had never done before, and showed who ezrielk was! the old shool in kabtzonivke had been like a little box for his voice. in those days ezrielk and his household lived in happiness and plenty, and he and channehle enjoyed the respect and consideration of all men. when ezrielk led the service, the shool was filled to overflowing, and not only with jews, even the richest gentiles (i beg to distinguish!) came to hear him, and wondered how such a small and weakly creature as ezrielk, with his thin chest and throat, could bring out such wonderful tunes and whole compositions of his own! money fell upon the lucky couple, through circumcisions, weddings, and so on, like snow. only one thing began, little by little, to disturb their happiness: ezrielk took to coughing, and then to spitting blood. he used to complain that he often felt a kind of pain in his throat and chest, but they did not consult a doctor. "what, a doctor?" fumed reb yainkel. "nonsense! it hurts, does it? where's the wonder? a carpenter, a smith, a tailor, a shoemaker works with his hands, and his hands hurt. cantors and teachers and match-makers work with their throat and chest, and _these_ hurt, they are bound to do so. it is simply hemorrhoids." so ezrielk went on intoning and chanting, and the kamenivke jews licked their fingers, and nearly jumped out of their skin for joy when they heard him. two years passed in this way, and then came a change. it was early in the morning of the fast of the destruction of the temple, all the windows of the great shool were open, and all the tables, benches, and desks had been carried out from the men's hall and the women's hall the evening before. men and women sat on the floor, so closely packed a pin could not have fallen to the floor between them. the whole street in which was the great shool was chuck full with a terrible crowd of men, women, and children, although it just happened to be cold, wet weather. the fact is, ezrielk's lamentations had long been famous throughout the jewish world in those parts, and whoever had ears, a jewish heart, and sound feet, came that day to hear him. the sad epidemic disease that (not of our days be it spoken!) swallows men up, was devastating kamenivke and its surroundings that year, and everyone sought a place and hour wherein to weep out his opprest and bitter heart. ezrielk also sat on the floor reciting lamentations, but the man who sat there was not the same ezrielk, and the voice heard was not his. ezrielk, with his sugar-sweet, honeyed voice, had suddenly been transformed into a strange being, with a voice that struck terror into his hearers; the whole people saw, heard, and felt, how a strange creature was flying about among them with a fiery sword in his hand. he slashes, hews, and hacks at their hearts, and with a terrible voice he cries out and asks: "sinners! where is your holy land that flowed with milk and honey? slaves! where is your temple? accursed slaves! you sold your freedom for money and calumny, for honors and worldly greatness!" the people trembled and shook and were all but entirely dissolved in tears. "upon zion and her cities!" sang out once more ezrielk's melancholy voice, and suddenly something snapped in his throat, just as when the strings of a good fiddle snap when the music is at its best. ezrielk coughed, and was silent. a stream of blood poured from his throat, and he grew white as the wall. the doctor declared that ezrielk had lost his voice forever, and would remain hoarse for the rest of his life. "nonsense!" persisted reb yainkel. "his voice is breaking--it's nothing more!" "god will help!" was the comment of the hostre saint. a whole year went by, and ezrielk's voice neither broke nor returned to him. the hostre chassidim assembled in the house of elkoneh the butcher to consider and take counsel as to what ezrielk should take to in order to earn a livelihood for wife and children. they thought it over a long, long time, talked and gave their several opinions, till they hit upon this: ezrielk had still one hundred and fifty rubles in store--let him spend one hundred rubles on a house in kabtzonivke, and begin to traffic with the remainder. thus ezrielk became a trader. he began driving to fairs, and traded in anything and everything capable of being bought or sold. six months were not over before ezrielk was out of pocket. he mortgaged his property, and with the money thus obtained he opened a grocery shop for channehle. he himself (nothing satisfies a jew!) started to drive about in the neighborhood, to collect the contributions subscribed for the maintenance of the hostre rebbe, long life to him! ezrielk was five months on the road, and when, torn, worn, and penniless, he returned home, he found channehle brought to bed of her fourth child, and the shop bare of ware and equally without a groschen. but ezrielk was now something of a trader, and is there any strait in which a jewish trader has not found himself? ezrielk had soon disposed of the whole of his property, paid his debts, rented a larger lodging, and started trading in several new and more ambitious lines: he pickled gherkins, cabbages, and pumpkins, made beet soup, both red and white, and offered them for sale, and so on. it was channehle again who had to carry on most of the business, but, then, ezrielk did not sit with his hands in his pockets. toward passover he had shmooreh matzes; he baked and sold them to the richest householders in kamenivke, and before the solemn days he, as an expert, tried and recommended cantors and prayer-leaders for the kamenivke shools. when it came to tabernacles, he trafficked in citrons and "palms." for three years ezrielk and his channehle struggled at their trades, working themselves nearly to death (of zion's enemies be it spoken!), till, with the help of heaven, they came to be twenty years old. by this time ezrielk and channehle were the parents of four living and two dead children. channehle, the once so lovely channehle, looked like a beaten hoshanah, and ezrielk--you remember the picture drawn at the time of his wedding?--well, then try to imagine what he was like now, after those seven years we have described for you! it's true that he was not spitting blood any more, either because reb yainkel had been right, when he said that would pass away, or because there was not a drop of blood in the whole of his body. so that was all right--only, how were they to live? even reb yainkel and all the hostre chassidim together could not tell him! the singing had raised him and lifted him off his feet, and let him fall. and do you know why it was and how it was that everything ezrielk took to turned out badly? it was because the singing was always there, in his head and his heart. he prayed and studied, singing. he bought and sold, singing. he sang day and night. no one heard him, because he was hoarse, but he sang without ceasing. was it likely he would be a successful trader, when he was always listening to what heaven and earth and everything around him were singing, too? he only wished he could have been a slaughterer or a rav (he was apt enough at study), only, first, rabbonim and slaughterers don't die every day, and, second, they usually leave heirs to take their places; third, even supposing there were no such heirs, one has to pay "privilege-money," and where is it to come from? no, there was nothing to be done. only god could and must have pity on him and his wife and children, and help them somehow. ezrielk struggled and fought his need hard enough those days. one good thing for him was this--his being a hostre chossid; the hostre chassidim, although they have been famed from everlasting as the direst poor among the jews, yet they divide their last mouthful with their unfortunate brethren. but what can the gifts of mortal men, and of such poor ones into the bargain, do in a case like ezrielk's? and god alone knows what bitter end would have been his, if reb shmuel bär, the kabtzonivke scribe, had not just then (blessed be the righteous judge!) met with a sudden death. our ezrielk was not long in feeling that he, and only he, should, and, indeed, must, step into reb shmuel's shoes. ezrielk had been an expert at the scribe's work for years and years. why, his father's house and the scribe's had been nearly under one roof, and whenever ezrielk, as a child, was let out of cheder, he would go and sit any length of time in reb shmuel's room (something in the occupation attracted him) and watch him write. and the little ezrielk had more than once tried to make a piece of parchment out of a scrap of skin; and what jewish boy cannot prepare the veins that are used to sew the phylacteries and the scrolls of the law? nor was the scribe's ink a secret to ezrielk. so ezrielk became scribe in kabtzonivke. of course, he did not make a fortune. reb shmuel bär, who had been a scribe all his days, died a very poor man, and left a roomful of hungry, half-naked children behind him, but then--what jew, i ask you (or has messiah come?), ever expected to find a parnosseh with enough, really enough, to eat? yitzchok-yossel broitgeber at the time i am speaking of, the above was about forty years old. he was a little, thin jew with a long face, a long nose, two large, black, kindly eyes, and one who would sooner be silent and think than talk, no matter what was being said to him. even when he was scolded for something (and by whom and when and for what was he _not_ scolded?), he used to listen with a quiet, startled, but sweet smile, and his large, kindly eyes would look at the other with such wonderment, mingled with a sort of pity, that the other soon stopped short in his abuse, and stood nonplussed before him. "there, you may talk! you might as well argue with a horse, or a donkey, or the wall, or a log of wood!" and the other would spit and make off. but if anyone observed that smile attentively, and studied the look in his eyes, he would, to a certainty, have read there as follows: "o man, man, why are you eating your heart out? seeing that you don't know, and that you don't understand, why do you undertake to tell me what i ought to do?" and when he was obliged to answer, he used to do so in a few measured and gentle words, as you would speak to a little, ignorant child, smiling the while, and then he would disappear and start thinking again. they called him "breadwinner," because, no matter how hard the man worked, he was never able to earn a living. he was a little tailor, but not like the tailors nowadays, who specialize in one kind of garment, for yitzchok-yossel made everything: trousers, cloaks, waistcoats, top-coats, fur-coats, capes, collars, bags for prayer-books, "little prayer-scarfs," and so on. besides, he was a ladies' tailor as well. summer and winter, day and night, he worked like an ox, and yet, when the kabtzonivke community, at the time of the great cholera, in order to put an end to the plague, led him, aged thirty, out to the cemetery, and there married him to malkeh the orphan, she cast him off two weeks later! she was still too young (twenty-eight), she said, to stay with him and die of hunger. she went out into the world, together with a large band of poor, after the great fire that destroyed nearly the whole town, and nothing more was heard of malkeh the orphan from that day forward. and yitzchok-yossel broitgeber betook himself, with needle and flat-iron, into the women's chamber in the new shool, the community having assigned it to him as a workroom. how came it about, you may ask, that so versatile a tailor as yitzchok-yossel should be so poor? well, if you do, it just shows you didn't know him! wait and hear what i shall tell you. the story is on this wise: yitzchok-yossel broitgeber was a tailor who could make anything, and who made nothing at all, that is, since he displayed his imagination in cutting out and sewing on the occasion i am referring to, nobody would trust him. i can remember as if it were to-day what happened in kabtzonivke, and the commotion there was in the little town when yitzchok-yossel made reb yecheskel the teacher a pair of trousers (begging your pardon!) of such fantastic cut that the unfortunate teacher had to wear them as a vest, though he was not then in need of one, having a brand new sheepskin not more than three years old. and now listen! binyomin droibnik the trader's mother died (blessed be the righteous judge!), and her whole fortune went, according to the law, to her only son binyomin. she had to be buried at the expense of the community. if she was to be buried at all, it was the only way. but the whole town was furious with the old woman for having cheated them out of their expectations and taken her whole fortune away with her to the real world. none knew exactly _why_, but it was confidently believed that old "aunt" leah had heaps of treasure somewhere in hiding. it was a custom with us in kabtzonivke to say, whenever anyone, man or woman, lived long, ate sicknesses by the clock, and still did not die, that it was a sign that he had in the course of his long life gathered great store of riches, that somewhere in a cellar he kept potsful of gold and silver. the funeral society, the younger members, had long been whetting their teeth for "aunt" leah's fortune, and now she had died (may she merit paradise!) and had fooled them. "what about her money?" "a cow has flown over the roof and laid an egg!" in that same night reb binyomin's cow (a real cow) calved, and the unfortunate consequence was that she died. the funeral society took the calf, and buried "aunt" leah at its own expense. well, money or no money, inheritance or no inheritance, reb binyomin's old mother left him a quilt, a large, long, wide, wadded quilt. as an article of house furniture, a quilt is a very useful thing, especially in a house where there is a wife (no evil eye!) and a goodly number of children, little and big. who doesn't see that? it looks simple enough! either one keeps it for oneself and the two little boys (with whom reb binyomin used to sleep), or else one gives it to the wife and the two little girls (who also sleep all together), or, if not, then to the two bigger boys or the two bigger girls, who repose on the two bench-beds in the parlor and kitchen respectively. but this particular quilt brought such perplexity into reb binyomin's rather small head that he (not of you be it spoken!) nearly went mad. "why i and not she? why she and not i? or they? or the others? why they and not i? why them and not us? why the others and not them? well, well, what is all this fuss? what did we cover them with before?" three days and three nights reb binyomin split his head and puzzled his brains over these questions, till the almighty had pity on his small skull and feeble intelligence, and sent him a happy thought. "after all, it is an inheritance from one's one and only mother (peace be upon her!), it is a thing from thingland! i must adapt it to some useful purpose, so that heaven and earth may envy me its possession!" and he sent to fetch yitzchok-yossel broitgeber, the tailor, who could make every kind of garment, and said to him: "reb yitzchok-yossel, you see this article?" "i see it." "yes, you see it, but do you understand it, really and truly understand it?" "i think i do." "but do you know what this is, ha?" "a quilt." "ha, ha, ha! a quilt? i could have told you that myself. but the stuff, the material?" "it's good material, beautiful stuff." "good material, beautiful stuff? no, i beg your pardon, you are not an expert in this, you don't know the value of merchandise. the real artisan, the true expert, would say: the material is light, soft, and elastic, like a lung, a sound and healthy lung. the stuff--he would say further--is firm, full, and smooth as the best calf's leather. and durable? why, it's a piece out of the heart of the strongest ox, or the tongue of the messianic ox itself! do you know how many winters this quilt has lasted already? but enough! that is not why i have sent for you. we are neither of us, thanks to his blessed name, do-nothings. the long and short of it is this: i wish to make out of this--you understand me?--out of this material, out of this piece of stuff, a thing, an article, that shall draw everybody to it, a fruit that is worth saying the blessing over, something superfine. an instance: what, for example, tell me, what would you do, if i gave this piece of goods into your hands, and said to you: reb yitzchok-yossel, as you are (without sin be it spoken!) an old workman, a good workman, and, besides that, a good comrade, and a jew as well, take this material, this stuff, and deal with it as you think best. only let it be turned into a sort of costume, a sort of garment, so that not only kabtzonivke, but all kamenivke, shall be bitten and torn with envy. eh? what would you turn it into?" yitzchok-yossel was silent, reb yitzchok-yossel went nearly out of his mind, nearly fainted for joy at these last words. he grew pale as death, white as chalk, then burning red like a flame of fire, and sparkled and shone. and no wonder: was it a trifle? all his life he had dreamed of the day when he should be given a free hand in his work, so that everyone should see who yitzchok-yossel is, and at the end came--the trousers, reb yecheskel melammed's trousers! how well, how cleverly he had made them! just think: trousers and upper garment in one! he had been so overjoyed, he had felt so happy. so sure that now everyone would know who yitzchok-yossel broitgeber is! he had even begun to think and wonder about malkeh the orphan--poor, unfortunate orphan! had she ever had one single happy day in her life? work forever and next to no food, toil till she was exhausted and next to no drink, sleep where she could get it: one time in elkoneh the butcher's kitchen, another time in yisroel dintzis' attic ... and when at last she got married (good luck to her!), she became the wife of yitzchok-yossel broitgeber! and the wedding took place in the burial-ground. on one side they were digging graves, on the other they were bringing fresh corpses. there was weeping and wailing, and in the middle of it all, the musicians playing and fiddling and singing, and the relations dancing!... good luck! good luck! the orphan and her breadwinner are being led to the marriage canopy in the graveyard! he will never forget with what gusto, she, his bride, the first night after their wedding, ate, drank, and slept--the whole of the wedding-supper that had been given them, bridegroom and bride: a nice roll, a glass of brandy, a tea-glass full of wine, and a heaped-up plate of roast meat was cut up and scraped together and eaten (no evil eye!) by _her_, by the bride herself. he had taken great pleasure in watching her face. he had known her well from childhood, and had no need to look at her to know what she was like, but he wanted to see what kind of feelings her face would express during this occupation. when they led him into the bridal chamber--she was already there--the companions of the bridegroom burst into a shout of laughter, for the bride was already snoring. he knew quite well why she had gone to sleep so quickly and comfortably. was there not sufficient reason? for the first time in her life she had made a good meal and lain down in a bed with bedclothes! the six groschen candle burnt, the flies woke and began to buzz, the mills clapt, and swung, and groaned, and he, yitzchok-yossel broitgeber, the bridegroom, sat beside the bridal bed on a little barrel of pickled gherkins, and looked at malkeh the orphan, his bride, his wife, listened to her loud thick snores, and thought. the town dogs howled strangely. evidently the wedding in the cemetery had not yet driven away the angel of death. from some of the neighboring houses came a dreadful crying and screaming of women and children. malkeh the orphan heard nothing. she slept sweetly, and snored as loud (i beg to distinguish!) as caspar, the tall, stout miller, the owner of both mills. yitzchok-yossel broitgeber sits on the little barrel, looks at her face, and thinks. her face is dark, roughened, and nearly like that of an old woman. a great, fat fly knocked against the wick, the candle suddenly began to burn brighter, and yitzchok-yossel saw her face become prettier, younger, and fresher, and overspread by a smile. that was all the effect of the supper and the soft bed. then it was that he had promised himself, that he had sworn, once and for all, to show the kabtzonivke jews who he is, and then malkeh the orphan will have food and a bed every day. he would have done this long ago, had it not been for those trousers. the people are so silly, they don't understand! that is the whole misfortune! and it's quite the other way about: let someone else try and turn out such an ingenious contrivance! but because it was he, and not someone else, they laughed and made fun of him. how reb yecheskel, his wife and children, did abuse him! that was his reward for all his trouble. and just because they themselves are cattle, horses, boors, who don't understand the tailor's art! ha, if only they understood that tailoring is a noble, refined calling, limitless and bottomless as (with due distinction!) the holy torah! but all is not lost. who knows? for here comes binyomin droibnik, an intelligent man, a man of brains and feeling. and think how many years he has been a trader! a retail trader, certainly, a jobber, but still-- "come, reb yitzchok-yossel, make an end! what will you turn it into?" "everything." "that is to say?" "a dressing-gown for your dvoshke,--" "and then?" "a morning-gown with tassels,--" "after that?" "a coat." "well?" "a dress--" "and besides that?" "a pair of trousers and a jacket--" "nothing more?" "why not? a--" "for instance?" "pelisse, a wadded winter pelisse for you." "there, there! just that, and only that!" said reb binyomin, delighted. yitzchok-yossel broitgeber tucked away the quilt under his arm, and was preparing to be off. "reb yitzchok-yossel! and what about taking my measure? and how about your charge?" yitzchok-yossel dearly loved to take anyone's measure, and was an expert at so doing. he had soon pulled a fair-sized sheet of paper out of one of his deep pockets, folded it into a long paper stick, and begun to measure reb binyomin droibnik's limbs. he did not even omit to note the length and breadth of his feet. "what do you want with that? are you measuring me for trousers?" "ett, don't you ask! no need to teach a skilled workman his trade!" "and what about the charge?" "we shall settle that later." "no, that won't do with me; i am a trader, you understand, and must have it all pat." "five gulden." "and how much less?" "how should i know? well, four." "well, and half a ruble?" "well, well--" "remember, reb yitzchok-yossel, it must be a masterpiece!" "trust me!" * * * * * for five days and five nights yitzchok-yossel set his imagination to work on binyomin droibnik's inheritance. there was no eating for him, no drinking, and no sleeping. the scissors squeaked, the needle ran hither and thither, up and down, the inheritance sighed and almost sobbed under the hot iron. but how happy was yitzchok-yossel those lightsome days and merry nights? who could compare with him? greater than the kabtzonivke village elder, richer than yisroel dintzis, the tax-gatherer, and more exalted than the bailiff himself was yitzchok-yossel, that is, in his own estimation. all that he wished, thought, and felt was forthwith created by means of his scissors and iron, his thimble, needle, and cotton. no more putting on of patches, sewing on of pockets, cutting out of "tefillin-säcklech" and "little prayer-scarfs," no more doing up of old dresses. freedom, freedom--he wanted one bit of work of the right sort, and that was all! ha, now he would show them, the kabtzonivke cripples and householders, now he would show them who yitzchok-yossel broitgeber is! they would not laugh at him or tease him any more! his fame would travel from one end of the world to the other, and malkeh the orphan, his bride, his wife, she also would hear of it, and-- she will come back to him! he feels it in every limb. it was not him she cast off, only his bad luck. he will rent a lodging (money will pour in from all sides)--buy a little furniture: a bed, a sofa, a table--in time he will buy a little house of his own--she will come, she has been homeless long enough--it is time she should rest her weary, aching bones--it is high time she should have her own corner! she will come back, he feels it, she will certainly come home! the last night! the work is complete. yitzchok-yossel spread it out on the table of the women's shool, lighted a second groschen candle, sat down in front of it with wide open, sparkling eyes, gazed with delight at the product of his imagination and--was wildly happy! so he sat the whole night. it was very hard for him to part with his achievement, but hardly was it day when he appeared with it at reb binyomin droibnik's. "a good morning, a good year, reb yitzchok-yossel! i see by your eyes that you have been successful. is it true?" "you can see for yourself, there--" "no, no, there is no need for me to see it first. dvoshke, cheike, shprintze, dovid-hershel, yitzchok-yoelik! you understand, i want them all to be present and see." in a few minutes the whole family had appeared on the scene. even the four little ones popped up from behind the heaps of ragged covering. yitzchok-yossel untied his parcel and-- "_wuus is duuuusss???!!!_" "a pair of trousers with sleeves!" judah steinberg born, , in lipkany, bessarabia; died, , in odessa; education hasidic; entered business in a small roumanian village for a short time; teacher, from in jedency and from in leowo, bessarabia; removed to odessa, in , to become correspondent of new york warheit; writer of fables, stories, and children's tales in hebrew, and poems in yiddish; historical drama, ha-sotah; collected works in hebrew, vols., cracow, - (in course of publication). a livelihood the two young fellows maxim klopatzel and israel friedman were natives of the same town in new bessarabia, and there was an old link existing between them: a mutual detestation inherited from their respective parents. maxim's father was the chief gentile of the town, for he rented the corn-fields of its richest inhabitant; and as the lawyer of the rich citizen was a jew, little maxim imagined, when his father came to lose his tenantry, that it was owing to the jews. little struli was the only jewish boy he knew (the children were next door neighbors), and so a large share of their responsibility was laid on struli's shoulders. later on, when klopatzel, the father, had abandoned the plough and taken to trade, he and old friedman frequently came in contact with each other as rivals. they traded and traded, and competed one against the other, till they both become bankrupt, when each argued to himself that the other was at the bottom of his misfortune--and their children grew on in mutual hatred. a little later still, maxim put down to struli's account part of the nails which were hammered into his savior, over at the other end of the town, by the well, where the government and the church had laid out money and set up a crucifix with a ladder, a hammer, and all other necessary implements. and struli, on his part, had an account to settle with maxim respecting certain other nails driven in with hammers, and torn scrolls of the law, and the history of the ten martyrs of the days of titus, not to mention a few later ones. their hatred grew with them, its strength increased with theirs. when krushevan began to deal in anti-semitism, maxim learned that christian children were carried off into the shool, struli's shool, for the sake of their blood. thenceforth maxim's hatred of struli was mingled with fear. he was terrified when he passed the shool at night, and he used to dream that struli stood over him in a prayer robe, prepared to slaughter him with a ram's horn trumpet. this because he had once passed the shool early one jewish new year's day, had peeped through the window, and seen the ram's horn blower standing in his white shroud, armed with the shofar, and suddenly a heartrending voice broke out with min ha-mezar, and maxim, taking his feet on his shoulders, had arrived home more dead than alive. there was very nearly a commotion. the priest wanted to persuade him that the jews had tried to obtain his blood. so the two children grew into youth as enemies. their fathers died, and the increased difficulties of their position increased their enmity. the same year saw them called to military service, from which they had both counted on exemption as the only sons of widowed mothers; only israel's mother had lately died, bequeathing to the czar all she had--a soldier; and maxim's mother had united herself to a second provider--and there was an end of the two "only sons!" neither of them wished to serve; they were too intellectually capable, too far developed mentally, too intelligent, to be turned all at once into russian soldiers, and too nicely brought up to march from port arthur to mukden with only one change of shirt. they both cleared out, and stowed themselves away till they 'fell separately into the hands of the military. they came together again under the fortress walls of mukden. they ate and hungered sullenly round the same cooking pot, received punches from the same officer, and had the same longing for the same home. israel had a habit of talking in his sleep, and, like a born bessarabian, in his yiddish mixed with a large portion of roumanian words. one night, lying in the barracks among the other soldiers, and sunk in sleep after a hard day, struli began to talk sixteen to the dozen. he called out names, he quarrelled, begged pardon, made a fool of himself--all in his sleep. it woke maxim, who overheard the homelike names and phrases, the name of his native town. he got up, made his way between the rows of sleepers, and sat down by israel's pallet, and listened. next day maxim managed to have a large helping of porridge, more than he could eat, and he found israel, and set it before him. "maltzimesk!" said the other, thanking him in roumanian, and a thrill of delight went through maxim's frame. the day following, maxim was hit by a japanese bullet, and there happened to be no one beside him at the moment. the shock drove all the soldier-speech out of his head. "help, i am killed!" he called out, and fell to the ground. struli was at his side like one sprung from the earth, he tore off his four-corners, and made his comrade a bandage. the wound turned out to be slight, for the bullet had passed through, only grazing the flesh of the left arm. a few days later maxim was back in the company. "i wanted to see you again, struli," he said, greeting his comrade in roumanian. a flash of brotherly affection and gratitude lighted struli's semitic eyes, and he took the other into his arms, and pressed him to his heart. they felt themselves to be "countrymen," of one and the same native town. neither of them could have told exactly when their union of spirit had been accomplished, but each one knew that he thanked god for having brought him together with so near a compatriot in a strange land. and when the battle of mukden had made maxim all but totally blind, and deprived struli of one foot, they started for home together, according to the passage in the midrash, "two men with one pair of eyes and one pair of feet between them." maxim carried on his shoulders a wooden box, which had now became a burden in common for them, and struli limped a little in front of him, leaning lightly against his companion, so as to keep him in the smooth part of the road and out of other people's way. struli had become maxim's eyes, and maxim, struli's feet; they were two men grown into one, and they provided for themselves out of one pocket, now empty of the last ruble. they dragged themselves home. "a kasa, a kasa!" whispered struli into maxim's ear, and the other turned on him his two glazed eyes looking through a red haze, and set in swollen red lids. a childlike smile played on his lips: "a kasa, a kasa!" he repeated, also in a whisper. home appeared to their fancy as something holy, something consoling, something that could atone and compensate for all they had suffered and lost. they had seen such a home in their dreams. but the nearer they came to it in reality, the more the dream faded. they remembered that they were returning as conquered soldiers and crippled men, that they had no near relations and but few friends, while the girls who had coquetted with maxim before he left would never waste so much as a look on him now he was half-blind; and struli's plans for marrying and emigrating to america were frustrated: a cripple would not be allowed to enter the country. all their dreams and hopes finally dissipated, and there remained only one black care, one all-obscuring anxiety: how were they to earn a living? they had been hoping all the while for a pension, but in their service book was written "on sick-leave." the russo-japanese war was distinguished by the fact that the greater number of wounded soldiers went home "on sick-leave," and the money assigned by the government for their pension would not have been sufficient for even a hundredth part of the number of invalids. maxim showed a face with two wide open eyes, to which all the passers-by looked the same. he distinguished with difficulty between a man and a telegraph post, and wore a smile of mingled apprehension and confidence. the sound feet stepped hesitatingly, keeping behind israel, and it was hard to say which steadied himself most against the other. struli limped forward, and kept open eyes for two. sometimes he would look round at the box on maxim's shoulders, as though he felt its weight as much as maxim. meantime the railway carriages had emptied and refilled, and the locomotive gave a great blast, received an answer from somewhere a long way off, a whistle for a whistle, and the train set off, slowly at first, and then gradually faster and faster, till all that remained of it were puffs of smoke hanging in the air without rhyme or reason. the two felt more depressed than ever. "something to eat? where are we to get a bite?" was in their minds. suddenly yisroel remembered with a start: this was the anniversary of his mother's death--if he could only say one kaddish for her in a klaus! "is it far from here to a klaus?" he inquired of a passer-by. "there is one a little way down that side-street," was the reply. "maxim!" he begged of the other, "come with me!" "where to?" "to the synagogue." maxim shuddered from head to foot. his fear of a jewish shool had not left him, and a thousand foolish terrors darted through his head. but his comrade's voice was so gentle, so childishly imploring, that he could not resist it, and he agreed to go with him into the shool. it was the time for afternoon prayer, the daylight and the dark held equal sway within the klaus, the lamps before the platform increasing the former to the east and the latter to the west. maxim and yisroel stood in the western part, enveloped in shadow. the cantor had just finished "incense," and was entering upon ashré, and the melancholy night chant of minchah and maariv gradually entranced maxim's emotional roumanian heart. the low, sad murmur of the cantor seemed to him like the distant surging of a sea, in which men were drowned by the hundreds and suffocating with the water. then, the ashré and the kaddish ended, there was silence. the congregation stood up for the eighteen benedictions. here and there you heard a half-stifled sigh. and now it seemed to maxim that he was in the hospital at night, at the hour when the groans grow less frequent, and the sufferers fall one by one into a sweet sleep. tears started into his eyes without his knowing why. he was no longer afraid, but a sudden shyness had come over him, and he felt, as he watched yisroel repeating the kaddish, that the words, which he, maxim, could not understand, were being addressed to someone unseen, and yet mysteriously present in the darkening shool. when the prayers were ended, one of the chief members of the congregation approached the "mandchurian," and gave yisroel a coin into his hand. yisroel looked round--he did not understand at first what the donor meant by it. then it occurred to him--and the blood rushed to his face. he gave the coin to his companion, and explained in a half-sentence or two how they had come by it. once outside the klaus, they both cried, after which they felt better. "a livelihood!" the same thought struck them both. "we can go into partnership!" at the matzes it was quite early in the morning, when sossye, the scribe's daughter, a girl of seventeen, awoke laughing; a sunbeam had broken through the rusty window, made its way to her underneath the counterpane, and there opened her eyes. it woke her out of a deep dream which she was ashamed to recall, but the dream came back to her of itself, and made her laugh. had she known whom she was going to meet in her dreams, she would have lain down in her clothes, occurs to her, and she laughs aloud. "got up laughing!" scolds her mother. "there's a piece of good luck for you! it's a sign of a black year for her (may it be to my enemies!)." sossye proceeds to dress herself. she does not want to fall out with her mother to-day, she wants to be on good terms with everyone. in the middle of dressing she loses herself in thought, with one naked foot stretched out and an open stocking in her hands, wondering how the dream would have ended, if she had not awoke so soon. chayyimel, a villager's son, who boards with her mother, passes the open doors leading to sossye's room, and for the moment he is riveted to the spot. his eyes dance, the blood rushes to his cheeks, he gets all he can by looking, and then hurries away to cheder without his breakfast, to study the song of songs. and sossye, fresh and rosy from sleep, her brown eyes glowing under the tumbled gold locks, betakes herself to the kitchen, where her mother, with her usual worried look, is blowing her soul out before the oven into a smoky fire of damp wood. "look at the girl standing round like a fool! run down to the cellar, and fetch me an onion and some potatoes!" sossye went down to the cellar, and found the onions and potatoes sprouting. at sight of a green leaf, her heart leapt. greenery! greenery! summer is coming! and the whole of her dream came back to her! "look, mother, green sprouts!" she cried, rushing into the kitchen. "a thousand bad dreams on your head! the onions are spoilt, and she laughs! my enemies' eyes will creep out of their lids before there will be fresh greens to eat, and all this, woe is me, is only fit to throw away!" "greenery, greenery!" thought sossye, "summer is coming!" greenery had got into her head, and there it remained, and from greenery she went on to remember that to-day was the first passover-cake baking at gedalyeh the baker's, and that shloimeh shieber would be at work there. having begged of her mother the one pair of boots that stood about in the room and fitted everyone, she put them on, and was off to the matzes. it was, as we have said, the first day's work at gedalyeh the baker's, and the sack of passover flour had just been opened. gravely, the flour-boy, a two weeks' orphan, carried the pot of flour for the mehereh, and poured it out together with remembrances of his mother, who had died in the hospital of injuries received at _their_ hands, and the water-boy came up behind him, and added recollections of his own. "the hooligans threw his father into the water off the bridge--may they pay for it, süsser gott! may they live till he is a man, and can settle his account with them!" thus the grey-headed old henoch, the kneader, and he kneaded it all into the dough, with thoughts of his own grandchildren: this one fled abroad, the other in the regiment, and a third in prison. the dough stiffens, the horny old hands work it with difficulty. the dough gets stiffer every year, and the work harder, it is time for him to go to the asylum! the dough is kneaded, cut up in pieces, rolled and riddled--is that a token for the whole congregation of israel? and now appear the round matzes, which must wander on a shovel into the heated oven of shloimeh shieber, first into one corner, and then into another, till another shovel throws them out into a new world, separated from the old by a screen thoroughly scoured for passover, which now rises and now falls. there they are arranged in columns, a reminder of pithom and rameses. kuk-ruk, kuk-ruk, ruk-ruk, whisper the still warm matzes one to another; they also are remembering, and they tell the tale of the exodus after their fashion, the tale of the flight out of egypt--only they have seen more flights than one. thus are the matzes kneaded and baked by the jews, with "thoughts." the gentiles call them "blood," and assert that jews need blood for their matzes, and they take the trouble to supply us with fresh "thoughts" every year! but at gedalyeh the baker's all is still cheerfulness. girls and boys, in their unspent vigor, surround the tables, there is rolling and riddling and cleaning of clean rolling-pins with pieces of broken glass (from where ever do jews get so much broken glass?), and the whole town is provided with kosher matzes. jokes and silver trills escape the lively young workers, the company is as merry as though the exodus were to-morrow. but it won't be to-morrow. look at them well, because another day you will not find them so merry, they will not seem like the same. one of the likely lads has left his place, and suddenly appeared at a table beside a pretty, curly-haired girl. he has hurried over his matzes, and now he wants to help her. she thanks him for his attention with a rolling-pin over the fingers, and there is such laughter among the spectators that berke, the old overseer, exclaims, "what impertinence!" but he cannot finish, because he has to laugh himself. there is a spark in the embers of his being which the girlish merriment around him kindles anew. and the other lads are jealous of the beaten one. they know very well that no girl would hit a complete stranger, and that the blow only meant, "impudent boy, why need the world know of anything between us?" shloimehle shieber, armed with the shovels, stands still for a minute trying to distinguish sossye's voice in the peals of laughter. the matzes under his care are browning in the oven. and sossye takes it into her head to make her matzes with one pointed corner, so that he may perhaps know them for hers, and laughs to herself as she does so. there is one table to the side of the room which was not there last year; it was placed there for the formerly well-to-do housemistresses, who last year, when they came to bake their matzes, gave yom-tov money to the others. here all goes on quietly; the laughter of the merry people breaks against the silence, and is swallowed up. the work grows continually pleasanter and more animated. the riddler stamps two or three matzes with hieroglyphs at once, in order to show off. shloimeh at the oven cannot keep pace with him, and grows angry: "may all bad...." the wish is cut short in his mouth, he has caught a glance of sossye's through the door of the baking-room, he answers with two, gets three back, sossye pursing her lips to signify a kiss. shloimeh folds his hands, which also means something. meantime ten matzes get scorched, and one of sossye's is pulled in two. "brennen brennt mir mein harz," starts a worker singing in a plaintive key. "come! hush, hush!" scolds old berke. "songs, indeed! what next, you impudent boy?" "my sorrows be on their head!" sighs a neighbor of sossye's. "they'd soon be tired of their life, if they were me. i've left two children at home fit to scream their hearts out. the other is at the breast, i have brought it along. it is quiet just now, by good luck." "what is the use of a poor woman's having children?" exclaims another, evidently "expecting" herself. indeed, she has a child a year--and a seven-days' mourning a year afterwards. "do you suppose i ask for them? do you think i cry my eyes out for them before god?" "if she hasn't any, who's to inherit her place at the matzes-baking--a hundred years hence?" "all very well for you to talk, _you're_ a grass-widow (to no jewish daughter may it apply!)!" "may such a blow be to my enemies as he'll surely come back again!" "it's about time! after three years!" "will you shut up, or do you want another beating?" sossye went off into a fresh peal of laughter, and the shovel fell out of shloimeh's hand. again he caught a glance, but this time she wrinkled her nose at him, as much as to say, "fie, you shameless boy! can't you behave yourself even before other people?" hereupon the infant gave account of itself in a small, shrill voice, and the general commotion went on increasing. the overseer scolded, the matzes-printing-wheel creaked and squeaked, the bits of glass were ground against the rolling-pins, there was a humming of songs and a proclaiming of secrets, followed by bursts of laughter, sossye's voice ringing high above the rest. and the sun shone into the room through the small window--a white spot jumped around and kissed everyone there. is it the spirit of israel delighting in her young men and maidens and whispering in their ears: "what if it _is_ matzes-kneading, and what if it _is_ exile? only let us be all together, only let us all be merry!" or is it the spring, transformed into a white patch of sunshine, in which all have equal share, and which has not forgotten to bring good news into the house of gedalyeh the matzeh-baker? a beautiful sun was preparing to set, and promised another fine day for the morrow. "ding-dong, gul-gul-gul-gul-gul-gul!" it was the convent bells calling the christians to confession! all tongues were silenced round the tables at gedalyeh the baker's. a streak of vapor dimmed the sun, and gloomy thoughts settled down upon the hearts of the workers. "easter! _their_ easter is coming on!" and mothers' eyes sought their children. the white patch of sunshine suddenly gave a terrified leap across the ceiling and vanished in a corner. "kik-kik, kik-rik, kik-rik," whispered the hot matzes. who is to know what they say? who can tell, now that the jews have baked this year's matzes, how soon _they_ will set about providing them with material for the next?--"thoughts," and broken glass for the rolling-pins. david frischmann born, , in lodz, russian poland, of a family of merchants; education, jewish and secular, the latter with special attention to foreign languages and literatures; has spent most of his life in warsaw; hebrew critic, editor, poet, satirist, and writer of fairy tales; translator of george eliot's daniel deronda into hebrew; contributor to sholom-alechem's jüdische volksbibliothek, spektor's hausfreund, and various periodicals; editor of monthly publication reshafim; collected works in hebrew, ketabim nibharim, vols., warsaw, - , and reshimot, parts, warsaw, . three who ate once upon a time three people ate. i recall the event as one recalls a dream. black clouds obscure the men, because it happened long ago. only sometimes it seems to me that there are no clouds, but a pillar of fire lighting up the men and their doings, and the fire grows bigger and brighter, and gives light and warmth to this day. i have only a few words to tell you, two or three words: once upon a time three people ate. not on a workday or an ordinary sabbath, but on a day of atonement that fell on a sabbath. not in a corner where no one sees or hears, but before all the people in the great shool, in the principal shool of the town. neither were they ordinary men, these three, but the chief jews of the community: the rabbi and his two dayonim. the townsfolk looked up to them as if they had been angels, and certainly held them to be saints. and now, as i write these words, i remember how difficult it was for me to understand, and how i sometimes used to think the rabbi and his dayonim had done wrong. but even then i felt that they were doing a tremendous thing, that they were holy men with holy instincts, and that it was not easy for them to act thus. who knows how hard they fought with themselves, who knows how they suffered, and what they endured? and even if i live many years and grow old, i shall never forget the day and the men, and what was done on it, for they were no ordinary men, but great heroes. those were bitter times, such as had not been for long, and such as will not soon return. a great calamity had descended on us from heaven, and had spread abroad among the towns and over the country: the cholera had broken out. the calamity had reached us from a distant land, and entered our little town, and clutched at young and old. by day and by night men died like flies, and those who were left hung between life and death. who can number the dead who were buried in those days! who knows the names of the corpses which lay about in heaps in the streets! in the jewish street the plague made great ravages: there was not a house where there lay not one dead--not a family in which the calamity had not broken out. in the house where we lived, on the second floor, nine people died in one day. in the basement there died a mother and four children, and in the house opposite we heard wild cries one whole night through, and in the morning we became aware that there was no one left in it alive. the grave-diggers worked early and late, and the corpses lay about in the streets like dung. they stuck one to the other like clay, and one walked over dead bodies. the summer broke up, and there came the solemn days, and then the most dreadful day of all--the day of atonement. i shall remember that day as long as i live. the eve of the day of atonement--the reciting of kol nidré! at the desk before the ark there stands, not as usual the precentor and two householders, but the rabbi and his two dayonim. the candles are burning all round, and there is a whispering of the flames as they grow taller and taller. the people stand at their reading-desks with grave faces, and draw on the robes and prayer-scarfs, the spanish hoods and silver girdles; and their shadows sway this way and that along the walls, and might be the ghosts of the dead who died to-day and yesterday and the day before yesterday. evidently they could not rest in their graves, and have also come into the shool. hush!... the rabbi has begun to say something, and the dayonim, too, and a groan rises from the congregation. "with the consent of the all-present and with the consent of this congregation, we give leave to pray with them that have transgressed." and a great fear fell upon me and upon all the people, young and old. in that same moment i saw the rabbi mount the platform. is he going to preach? is he going to lecture the people at a time when they are falling dead like flies? but the rabbi neither preached nor lectured. he only called to remembrance the souls of those who had died in the course of the last few days. but how long it lasted! how many names he mentioned! the minutes fly one after the other, and the rabbi has not finished! will the list of souls never come to an end? never? and it seems to me the rabbi had better call out the names of those who are left alive, because they are few, instead of the names of the dead, who are without number and without end. i shall never forget that night and the praying, because it was not really praying, but one long, loud groan rising from the depth of the human heart, cleaving the sky and reaching to heaven. never since the world began have jews prayed in greater anguish of soul, never have hotter tears fallen from human eyes. _that_ night no one left the shool. after the prayers they recited the hymn of unity, and after that the psalms, and then chapters from the mishnah, and then ethical books.... and i also stand among the congregation and pray, and my eyelids are heavy as lead, and my heart beats like a hammer. "u-malochim yechofézun--and the angels fly around." and i fancy i see them flying in the shool, up and down, up and down. and among them i see the bad angel with the thousand eyes, full of eyes from head to feet. that night no one left the shool, but early in the morning there were some missing--two of the congregation had fallen during the night, and died before our eyes, and lay wrapped in their prayer-scarfs and white robes--nothing was lacking for their journey from the living to the dead. they kept on bringing messages into the shool from the gass, but nobody wanted to listen or to ask questions, lest he should hear what had happened in his own house. no matter how long i live, i shall never forget that night, and all i saw and heard. but the day of atonement, the day that followed, was more awful still. and even now, when i shut my eyes, i see the whole picture, and i think i am standing once more among the people in the shool. it is atonement day in the afternoon. the rabbi stands on the platform in the centre of the shool, tall and venerable, and there is a fascination in his noble features. and there, in the corner of the shool, stands a boy who never takes his eyes off the rabbi's face. in truth i never saw a nobler figure. the rabbi is old, seventy or perhaps eighty years, but tall and straight as a fir-tree. his long beard is white like silver, but the thick, long hair of his head is whiter still, and his face is blanched, and his lips are pale, and only his large black eyes shine and sparkle like the eyes of a young lion. i stood in awe of him when i was a little child. i knew he was a man of god, one of the greatest authorities in the law, whose advice was sought by the whole world. i knew also that he inclined to leniency in all his decisions, and that none dared oppose him. the sight i saw that day in shool is before my eyes now. the rabbi stands on the platform, and his black eyes gleam and shine in the pale face and in the white hair and beard. the additional service is over, and the people are waiting to hear what the rabbi will say, and one is afraid to draw one's breath. and the rabbi begins to speak. his weak voice grows stronger and higher every minute, and at last it is quite loud. he speaks of the sanctity of the day of atonement and of the holy torah; of repentance and of prayer, of the living and of the dead, and of the pestilence that has broken out and that destroys without pity, without rest, without a pause--for how long? for how much longer? and by degrees his pale cheeks redden and his lips also, and i hear him say: "and when trouble comes to a man, he must look to his deeds, and not only to those which concern him and the almighty, but to those which concern himself, to his body, to his flesh, to his own health." i was a child then, but i remember how i began to tremble when i heard these words, because i had understood. the rabbi goes on speaking. he speaks of cleanliness and wholesome air, of dirt, which is dangerous to man, and of hunger and thirst, which are men's bad angels when there is a pestilence about, devouring without pity. and the rabbi goes on to say: "and men shall live by my commandments, and not die by them. there are times when one must turn aside from the law, if by so doing a whole community may be saved." i stand shaking with fear. what does the rabbi want? what does he mean by his words? what does he think to accomplish? and suddenly i see that he is weeping, and my heart beats louder and louder. what has happened? why does he weep? and there i stand in the corner, in the silence, and i also begin to cry. and to this day, if i shut my eyes, i see him standing on the platform, and he makes a sign with his hand to the two dayonim to the left and right of him. he and they whisper together, and he says something in their ear. what has happened? why does his cheek flame, and why are theirs as white as chalk? and suddenly i hear them talking, but i cannot understand them, because the words do not enter my brain. and yet all three are speaking so sharply and clearly! and all the people utter a groan, and after the groan i hear the words, "with the consent of the all-present and with the consent of this congregation, we give leave to eat and drink on the day of atonement." silence. not a sound is heard in the shool, not an eyelid quivers, not a breath is drawn. and i stand in my corner and hear my heart beating: one--two--one--two. a terror comes over me, and it is black before my eyes. the shadows move to and fro on the wall, and amongst the shadows i see the dead who died yesterday and the day before yesterday and the day before the day before yesterday--a whole people, a great assembly. and suddenly i grasp what it is the rabbi asks of us. the rabbi calls on us to eat, to-day! the rabbi calls on jews to eat on the day of atonement--not to fast, because of the cholera--because of the cholera--because of the cholera ... and i begin to cry loudly. and it is not only i--the whole congregation stands weeping, and the dayonim on the platform weep, and the greatest of all stands there sobbing like a child. and he implores like a child, and his words are soft and gentle, and every now and then he weeps so that his voice cannot be heard. "eat, jews, eat! to-day we must eat. this is a time to turn aside from the law. we are to live through the commandments, and not die through them!" but no one in the shool has stirred from his place, and there he stands and begs of them, weeping, and declares that he takes the whole responsibility on himself, that the people shall be innocent. but no one stirs. and presently he begins again in a changed voice--he does not beg, he commands: "i give you leave to eat--i--i--i!" and his words are like arrows shot from the bow. but the people are deaf, and no one stirs. then he begins again with his former voice, and implores like a child: "what would you have of me? why will you torment me till my strength fails? think you i have not struggled with myself from early this morning till now?" and the dayonim also plead with the people. and of a sudden the rabbi grows as white as chalk, and lets his head fall on his breast. there is a groan from one end of the shool to the other, and after the groan the people are heard to murmur among themselves. then the rabbi, like one speaking to himself, says: "it is god's will. i am eighty years old, and have never yet transgressed a law. but this is also a law, it is a precept. doubtless the almighty wills it so! beadle!" the beadle comes, and the rabbi whispers a few words into his ear. he also confers with the dayonim, and they nod their heads and agree. and the beadle brings cups of wine for sanctification, out of the rabbi's chamber, and little rolls of bread. and though i should live many years and grow very old, i shall never forget what i saw then, and even now, when i shut my eyes, i see the whole thing: three rabbis standing on the platform in shool, and eating before the whole people, on the day of atonement! the three belong to the heroes. who shall tell how they fought with themselves, who shall say how they suffered, and what they endured? "i have done what you wished," says the rabbi, and his voice does not shake, and his lips do not tremble. "god's name be praised!" and all the jews ate that day, they ate and wept. rays of light beam forth from the remembrance, and spread all around, and reach the table at which i sit and write these words. once again: three people ate. at the moment when the awesome scene in the shool is before me, there are three jews sitting in a room opposite the shool, and they also are eating. they are the three "enlightened" ones of the place: the tax-collector, the inspector, and the teacher. the window is wide open, so that all may see; on the table stands a samovar, glasses of red wine, and eatables. and the three sit with playing-cards in their hands, playing preference, and they laugh and eat and drink. do they also belong to the heroes? micha joseph berdyczewski born, , in berschad, podolia, southwestern russia; educated in yeshibah of volozhin; studied also modern literatures in his youth; has been living alternately in berlin and breslau; hebrew, yiddish, and german writer, on philosophy, æsthetics, and jewish literary, spiritual, and timely questions; contributor to hebrew periodicals; editor of bet-midrash, supplement to bet-ozar ha-sifrut; contributed ueber den zusammenhang zwischen ethik und aesthetik to berner studien zur philosophie und ihrer geschichte; author of two novels, mibayit u-mihuz, and mahanaim; a book on the hasidim, warsaw, ; jüdische ketobim vun a weiten korov, warsaw; hebrew essays on miscellaneous subjects, eleven parts, warsaw and breslau (in course of publication). military service "they look as if they'd enough of me!" so i think to myself, as i give a glance at my two great top-boots, my wide trousers, and my shabby green uniform, in which there is no whole part left. i take a bit of looking-glass out of my box, and look at my reflection. yes, the military cap on my head is a beauty, and no mistake, as big as og king of bashan, and as bent and crushed as though it had been sat upon for years together. under the cap appears a small, washed-out face, yellow and weazened, with two large black eyes that look at me somewhat wildly. i don't recognize myself; i remember me in a grey jacket, narrow, close-fitting trousers, a round hat, and a healthy complexion. i can't make out where i got those big eyes, why they shine so, why my face should be yellow, and my nose, pointed. and yet i know that it is i myself, chayyim blumin, and no other; that i have been handed over for a soldier, and have to serve only two years and eight months, and not three years and eight months, because i have a certificate to the effect that i have been through the first four classes in a secondary school. though i know quite well that i am to serve only two years and eight months, i feel the same as though it were to be forever; i can't, somehow, believe that my time will some day expire, and i shall once more be free. i have tried from the very beginning not to play any tricks, to do my duty and obey orders, so that they should not say, "a jew won't work--a jew is too lazy." even though i am let off manual labor, because i am on "privileged rights," still, if they tell me to go and clean the windows, or polish the flooring with sand, or clear away the snow from the door, i make no fuss and go. i wash and clean and polish, and try to do the work well, so that they should find no fault with me. they haven't yet ordered me to carry pails of water. why should i not confess it? the idea of having to do that rather frightens me. when i look at the vessel in which the water is carried, my heart begins to flutter: the vessel is almost as big as i am, and i couldn't lift it even if it were empty. i often think: what shall i do, if to-morrow, or the day after, they wake me at three o'clock in the morning and say coolly: "get up, blumin, and go with ossadtchok to fetch a pail of water!" you ought to see my neighbor ossadtchok! he looks as if he could squash me with one finger. it is as easy for him to carry a pail of water as to drink a glass of brandy. how can i compare myself with him? i don't care if it makes my shoulder swell, if i could only carry the thing. i shouldn't mind about that. but god in heaven knows the truth, that i won't be able to lift the pail off the ground, only they won't believe me, they will say: "look at the lazy jew, pretending he is a poor creature that can't lift a pail!" there--i mind that more than anything. i don't suppose they _will_ send me to fetch water, for, after all, i am on "privileged rights," but i can't sleep in peace: i dream all night that they are waking me at three o'clock, and i start up bathed in a cold sweat. drill does not begin before eight in the morning, but they wake us at six, so that we may have time to clean our rifles, polish our boots and leather girdle, brush our coat, and furbish the brass buttons with chalk, so that they should shine like mirrors. i don't mind the getting up early, i am used to rising long before daylight, but i am always worrying lest something shouldn't be properly cleaned, and they should say that a jew is so lazy, he doesn't care if his things are clean or not, that he's afraid of touching his rifle, and pay me other compliments of the kind. i clean and polish and rub everything all i know, but my rifle always seems in worse condition than the other men's. i can't make it look the same as theirs, do what i will, and the head of my division, a corporal, shouts at me, calls me a greasy fellow, and says he'll have me up before the authorities because i don't take care of my arms. but there is worse than the rifle, and that is the uniform. mine is _years_ old--i am sure it is older than i am. every day little pieces fall out of it, and the buttons tear themselves out of the cloth, dragging bits of it after them. i never had a needle in my hand in all my life before, and now i sit whole nights and patch and sew on buttons. and next morning, when the corporal takes hold of a button and gives a pull, to see if it's firmly sewn, a pang goes through my heart: the button is dragged out, and a piece of the uniform follows. another whole night's work for me! after the inspection, they drive us out into the yard and teach us to stand: it must be done so that our stomachs fall in and our chests stick out. i am half as one ought to be, because my stomach is flat enough anyhow, only my chest is weak and narrow and also flat--flat as a board. the corporal squeezes in my stomach with his knee, pulls me forward by the flaps of the coat, but it's no use. he loses his temper, and calls me greasy fellow, screams again that i am pretending, that i _won't_ serve, and this makes my chest fall in more than ever. i like the gymnastics. in summer we go out early into the yard, which is very wide and covered with thick grass. it smells delightfully, the sun warms us through, it feels so pleasant. the breeze blows from the fields, i open my mouth and swallow the freshness, and however much i swallow, it's not enough, i should like to take in all the air there is. then, perhaps, i should cough less, and grow a little stronger. we throw off the old uniforms, and remain in our shirts, we run and leap and go through all sorts of performances with our hands and feet, and it's splendid! at home i never had so much as an idea of such fun. at first i was very much afraid of jumping across the ditch, but i resolved once and for all--i've _got_ to jump it. if the worst comes to the worst, i shall fall and bruise myself. suppose i do? what then? why do all the others jump it and don't care? one needn't be so very strong to jump! and one day, before the gymnastics had begun, i left my comrades, took heart and a long run, and when i came to the ditch, i made a great bound, and, lo and behold, i was over on the other side! i couldn't believe my own eyes that i had done it so easily. ever since then i have jumped across ditches, and over mounds, and down from mounds, as well as any of them. only when it comes to climbing a ladder or swinging myself over a high bar, i know it spells misfortune for me. i spring forward, and seize the first rung with my right hand, but i cannot reach the second with my left. i stretch myself, and kick out with my feet, but i cannot reach any higher, not by so much as a vershok, and so there i hang and kick with my feet, till my right arm begins to tremble and hurt me. my head goes round, and i fall onto the grass. the corporal abuses me as usual, and the soldiers laugh. i would give ten years of my life to be able to get higher, if only three or four rungs, but what can i do, if my arms won't serve me? sometimes i go out to the ladder by myself, while the soldiers are still asleep, and stand and look at it: perhaps i can think of a way to manage? but in vain. thinking, you see, doesn't help you in these cases. sometimes they tell one of the soldiers to stand in the middle of the yard with his back to us, and we have to hop over him. he bends down a little, lowers his head, rests his hands on his knees, and we hop over him one at a time. one takes a good run, and when one comes to him, one places both hands on his shoulders, raises oneself into the air, and--over! i know exactly how it ought to be done; i take the run all right, and plant my hands on his shoulders, only i can't raise myself into the air. and if i do lift myself up a little way, i remain sitting on the soldier's neck, and were it not for his seizing me by the feet, i should fall, and perhaps kill myself. then the corporal and another soldier take hold of me by the arms and legs, and throw me over the man's head, so that i may see there is nothing dreadful about it, as though i did not jump right over him because i was afraid, while it is that my arms are so weak, i cannot lean upon them and raise myself into the air. but when i say so, they only laugh, and don't believe me. they say, "it won't help you; you will have to serve anyhow!" * * * * * when, on the other hand, it comes to "theory," the corporal is very pleased with me. he says that except himself no one knows "theory" as i do. he never questions me now, only when one of the others doesn't know something, he turns to me: "well, blumin, _you_ tell me!" i stand up without hurrying, and am about to answer, but he is apparently not pleased with my way of rising from my seat, and orders me to sit down again. "when your superior speaks to you," says he, "you ought to jump up as though the seat were hot," and he looks at me angrily, as much as to say, "you may know theory, but you'll please to know your manners as well, and treat me with proper respect." "stand up again and answer!" i start up as though i felt a prick from a needle, and answer the question as he likes it done: smartly, all in one breath, and word for word according to the book. he, meanwhile, looks at the primer, to make sure i am not leaving anything out, but as he reads very slowly, he cannot catch me up, and when i have got to the end, he is still following with his finger and reading. and when he has finished, he gives me a pleased look, and says enthusiastically "right!" and tells me to sit down again. "theory," he says, "that you _do_ know!" well, begging his pardon, it isn't much to know. and yet there are soldiers who are four years over it, and don't know it then. for instance, take my comrade ossadtchok; he says that, when it comes to "theory", he would rather go and hang or drown himself. he says, he would rather have to carry three pails of water than sit down to "theory." i tell him, that if he would learn to read, he could study the whole thing by himself in a week; but he won't listen. "nobody," he says, "will ever ask _my_ advice." one thing always alarmed me very much: however was i to take part in the manoeuvres? i cannot lift a single pud (i myself only weigh two pud and thirty pounds), and if i walk three versts, my feet hurt, and my heart beats so violently that i think it's going to burst my side. at the manoeuvres i should have to carry as much as fifty pounds' weight, and perhaps more: a rifle, a cloak, a knapsack with linen, boots, a uniform, a tent, bread, and onions, and a few other little things, and should have to walk perhaps thirty to forty versts a day. but when the day and the hour arrived, and the command was given "forward, march!" when the band struck up, and two thousand men set their feet in motion, something seemed to draw me forward, and i went. at the beginning i found it hard, i felt weighted to the earth, my left shoulder hurt me so, i nearly fainted. but afterwards i got very hot, i began to breathe rapidly and deeply, my eyes were starting out of my head like two cupping-glasses, and i not only walked, i ran, so as not to fall behind--and so i ended by marching along with the rest, forty versts a day. only i did not sing on the march like the others. first, because i did not feel so very cheerful, and second, because i could not breathe properly, let alone sing. at times i felt burning hot, but immediately afterwards i would grow light, and the marching was easy, i seemed to be carried along rather than to tread the earth, and it appeared to me as though another were marching in my place, only that my left shoulder ached, and i was hot. i remember that once it rained a whole night long, it came down like a deluge, our tents were soaked through, and grew heavy. the mud was thick. at three o'clock in the morning an alarm was sounded, we were ordered to fold up our tents and take to the road again. so off we went. it was dark and slippery. it poured with rain. i was continually stepping into a puddle, and getting my boot full of water. i shivered and shook, and my teeth chattered with cold. that is, i was cold one minute and hot the next. but the marching was no difficulty to me, i scarcely felt that i was on the march, and thought very little about it. indeed, i don't know what i _was_ thinking about, my mind was a blank. we marched, turned back, and marched again. then we halted for half an hour, and turned back again. and this went on a whole night and a whole day. then it turned out that there had been a mistake: it was not we who ought to have marched, but another regiment, and we ought not to have moved from the spot. but there was no help for it then. it was night. we had eaten nothing all day. the rain poured down, the mud was ankle-deep, there was no straw on which to pitch our tents, but we managed somehow. and so the days passed, each like the other. but i got through the manoeuvres, and was none the worse. now i am already an old soldier; i have hardly another year and a half to serve--about sixteen months. i only hope i shall not be ill. it seems i got a bit of a chill at the manoeuvres, i cough every morning, and sometimes i suffer with my feet. i shiver a little at night till i get warm, and then i am very hot, and i feel very comfortable lying abed. but i shall probably soon be all right again. they say, one may take a rest in the hospital, but i haven't been there yet, and don't want to go at all, especially now i am feeling better. the soldiers are sorry for me, and sometimes they do my work, but not just for love. i get three pounds of bread a day, and don't eat more than one pound. the rest i give to my comrade ossadtchok. he eats it all, and his own as well, and then he could do with some more. in return for this he often cleans my rifle, and sometimes does other work for me, when he sees i have no strength left. i am also teaching him and a few other soldiers to read and write, and they are very pleased. my corporal also comes to me to be taught, but he never gives me a word of thanks. the superior of the platoon, when he isn't drunk, and is in good humor, says "you" to me instead of "thou," and sometimes invites me to share his bed--i can breathe easier there, because there is more air, and i don't cough so much, either. only it sometimes happens that he comes back from town tipsy, and makes a great to-do: how do i, a common soldier, come to be sitting on his bed? he orders me to get up and stand before him "at attention," and declares he will "have me up" for it. when, however, he has sobered down, he turns kind again, and calls me to him; he likes me to tell him "stories" out of books. sometimes the orderly calls me into the orderly-room, and gives me a report to draw up, or else a list or a calculation to make. he himself writes badly, and is very poor at figures. i do everything he wants, and he is very glad of my help, only it wouldn't do for him to confess to it, and when i have finished, he always says to me: "if the commanding officer is not satisfied, he will send you to fetch water." i know it isn't true, first, because the commanding officer mustn't know that i write in the orderly-room, a jew can't be an army secretary; secondly, because he is certain to be satisfied: he once gave me a note to write himself, and was very pleased with it. "if you were not a jew," he said to me then, "i should make a corporal of you." still, my corporal always repeats his threat about the water, so that i may preserve a proper respect for him, although i not only respect him, i tremble before his size. when _he_ comes back tipsy from town, and finds me in the orderly-room, he commands me to drag his muddy boots off his feet, and i obey him and drag off his boots. sometimes i don't care, and other times it hurts my feelings. isaiah berschadski pen name of isaiah domaschewitski; born, , near derechin, government of grodno (lithuania), white russia; died, , in warsaw; education, jewish and secular; teacher of hebrew in ekaterinoslav, southern russia; in business, in ekaterinoslav and baku; editor, in , of ha-zeman, first in st. petersburg, then in wilna; after a short sojourn in riga removed to warsaw; writer of novels and short stories, almost exclusively in hebrew; contributor to ha-meliz, ha-shiloah, and other periodicals; pen names besides berschadski: berschadi, and shimoni; collected works in hebrew, tefusim u-zelalim, warsaw, , and ketabim aharonim, warsaw, . forlorn and forsaken forlorn and forsaken she was in her last years. even when she lay on the bed of sickness where she died, not one of her relations or friends came to look after her; they did not even come to mourn for her or accompany her to the grave. there was not even one of her kin to say the first kaddish over her resting-place. my wife and i were the only friends she had at the close of her life, no one but us cared for her while she was ill, or walked behind her coffin. the only tears shed at the lonely old woman's grave were ours. i spoke the only kaddish for her soul, but we, after all, were complete strangers to her! yes, we were strangers to her, and she was a stranger to us! we made her acquaintance only a few years before her death, when she was living in two tiny rooms opposite the first house we settled in after our marriage. nobody ever came to see her, and she herself visited nowhere, except at the little store where she made her necessary purchases, and at the house-of-study near by, where she prayed twice every day. she was about sixty, rather undersized, and very thin, but more lithesome in her movements than is common at that age. her face was full of creases and wrinkles, and her light brown eyes were somewhat dulled, but her ready smile and quiet glance told of a good heart and a kindly temper. her simple old gown was always neat, her wig tastefully arranged, her lodging and its furniture clean and tidy--and all this attracted us to her from the first day onward. we were still more taken with her retiring manner, the quiet way in which she kept herself in the background and the slight melancholy of her expression, telling of a life that had held much sadness. we made advances. she was very willing to become acquainted with us, and it was not very long before she was like a mother to us, or an old aunt. my wife was then an inexperienced "housemistress" fresh to her duties, and found a great help in the old woman, who smilingly taught her how to proceed with the housekeeping. when our first child was born, she took it to her heart, and busied herself with its upbringing almost more than the young mother. it was evident that dandling the child in her arms was a joy to her beyond words. at such moments her eyes would brighten, her wrinkles grew faint, a curiously satisfied smile played round her lips, and a new note of joy came into her voice. at first sight all this seemed quite simple, because a woman is naturally inclined to care for little children, and it may have been so with her to an exceptional degree, but closer examination convinced me that here lay yet another reason; her attentions to the child, so it seemed, awakened pleasant memories of a long-ago past, when she herself was a young mother caring for children of her own, and looking at this strange child had stirred a longing for those other children, further from her eyes, but nearer to her heart, although perhaps quite unknown to her--who perhaps existed only in her imagination. and when we were made acquainted with the details of her life, we knew our conjectures to be true. her history was very simple and commonplace, but very tragic. perhaps the tragedy of such biographies lies in their being so very ordinary and simple! she lived quietly and happily with her husband for twenty years after their marriage. they were not rich, but their little house was a kingdom of delight, where no good thing was wanting. their business was farming land that belonged to a polish nobleman, a business that knows of good times and of bad, of fat years and lean years, years of high prices and years of low. but on the whole it was a good business and profitable, and it afforded them a comfortable living. besides, they were used to the country, they could not fancy themselves anywhere else. the very thing that had never entered their head is just what happened. in the beginning of the "eighties" they were obliged to leave the estate they had farmed for ten years, because the lease was up, and the recently promulgated "temporary laws" forbade them to renew it. this was bad for them from a material point of view, because it left them without regular income just when their children were growing up and expenses had increased, but their mental distress was so great, that, for the time, the financial side of the misfortune was thrown into the shade. when we made her acquaintance, many years had passed since then, many another trouble had come into her life, but one could hear tears in her voice while she told the story of that first misfortune. it was a bitter tisho-b'ov for them when they left the house, the gardens, the barns, and the stalls, their whole life, all those things concerning which they had forgotten, and their children had hardly known, that they were not their own possession. their town surroundings made them more conscious of their altered circumstances. she herself, the elder children oftener still, had been used to drive into the town now and again, but that was on pleasure trips, which had lasted a day or two at most; they had never tried staying there longer, and it was no wonder if they felt cramped and oppressed in town after their free life in the open. when they first settled there, they had a capital of about ten thousand rubles, but by reason of inexperience in their new occupation they were worsted in competition with others, and a few turns of bad luck brought them almost to ruin. the capital grew less from year to year; everything they took up was more of a struggle than the last venture; poverty came nearer and nearer, and the father of the family began to show signs of illness, brought on by town life and worry. this, of course, made their material position worse, and the knowledge of it reacted disastrously on his health. three years after he came to town, he died, and she was left with six children and no means of subsistence. already during her husband's life they had exchanged their first lodging for a second, a poorer and cheaper one, and after his death they moved into a third, meaner and narrower still, and sold their precious furniture, for which, indeed, there was no place in the new existence. but even so the question of bread and meat was not answered. they still had about six hundred rubles, but, as they were without a trade, it was easy to foresee that the little stock of money would dwindle day by day till there was none of it left--and what then? the eldest son, yossef, aged twenty-one, had gone from home a year before his father's death, to seek his fortune elsewhere; but his first letters brought no very good news, and now the second, avròhom, a lad of eighteen, and the daughter rochel, who was sixteen, declared their intention to start for america. the mother was against it, begged them with tears not to go, but they did not listen to her. parting with them, forever most likely, was bad enough in itself, but worst of all was the thought that her children, for whose jewish education their father had never grudged money even when times were hardest, should go to america, and there, forgetting everything they had learned, become "ganze goyim." she was quite sure that her husband would never have agreed to his children's being thus scattered abroad, and this encouraged her to oppose their will with more determination. she urged them to wait at least till their elder brother had achieved some measure of success, and could help them. she held out this hope to them, because she believed in her son yossef and his capacity, and was convinced that in a little time he would become their support. if only avròhom and rochel had not been so impatient (she would lament to us), everything would have turned out differently! they would not have been bustled off to the end of creation, and she would not have been left so lonely in her last years, but--it had apparently been so ordained! avròhom and rochel agreed to defer the journey, but when some months had passed, and yossef was still wandering from town to town, finding no rest for the sole of his foot, she had to give in to her children and let them go. they took with them two hundred rubles and sailed for america, and with the remaining three hundred rubles she opened a tiny shop. her expenses were not great now, as only the three younger children were left her, but the shop was not sufficient to support even these. the stock grew smaller month by month, there never being anything over wherewith to replenish it, and there was no escaping the fact that one day soon the shop would remain empty. and as if this were not enough, there came bad news from the children in america. they did not complain much; on the contrary, they wrote most hopefully about the future, when their position would certainly, so they said, improve; but the mother's heart was not to be deceived, and she felt instinctively that meanwhile they were doing anything but well, while later--who could foresee what would happen later? one day she got a letter from yossef, who wrote that, convinced of the impossibility of earning a livelihood within the pale, he was about to make use of an opportunity that offered itself, and settle in a distant town outside of it. this made her very sad, and she wept over her fate--to have a son living in a gentile city, where there were hardly any jews at all. and the next letter from america added sorrow to sorrow. avròhom and rochel had parted company, and were living in different towns. she could not bear the thought of her young daughter fending for herself among strangers--a thought that tortured her all the more as she had a peculiar idea of america. she herself could not account for the terror that would seize her whenever she remembered that strange, distant life. but the worst was nearly over; the turn for the better came soon. she received word from yossef that he had found a good position in his new home, and in a few weeks he proved his letter true by sending her money. from america, too, the news that came was more cheerful, even joyous. avròhom had secured steady work with good pay, and before long he wrote for his younger brother to join him in america, and provided him with all the funds he needed for travelling expenses. rochel had engaged herself to a young man, whose praises she sounded in her letters. soon after her wedding, she sent money to bring over another brother, and her husband added a few lines, in which he spoke of "his great love for his new relations," and how he "looked forward with impatience to having one of them, his dear brother-in-law, come to live with him." this was good and cheering news, and it all came within a year's time, but the mother's heart grieved over it more than it rejoiced. her delight at her daughter's marriage with a good man she loved was anything but unmixed. melancholy thoughts blended with it, whether she would or not. the occasion was one which a mother's fancy had painted in rainbow colors, on the preparations for which it had dwelt with untold pleasure--and now she had had no share in it at all, and her heart writhed under the disappointment. to make her still sadder, she was obliged to part with two more children. she tried to prevent their going, but they had long ago set their hearts on following their brother and sister to america, and the recent letters had made them more anxious to be off. so they started, and there remained only the youngest daughter, rivkeh, a girl of thirteen. their position was materially not a bad one, for every now and then the old woman received help from her children in america and from her son yossef, so that she was not even obliged to keep up the shop, but the mother in her was not satisfied, because she wanted to see her children's happiness with her own eyes. the good news that continued to arrive at intervals brought pain as well as pleasure, by reminding her how much less fortunate she was than other mothers, who were counted worthy to live together with their children, and not at a distance from them like her. the idea that she should go out to those of them who were in america, never occurred to her, or to them, either! but yossef, who had taken a wife in his new town, and who, soon after, had set up for himself, and was doing very well, now sent for his mother and little sister to come and live with him. at first the mother was unwilling, fearing that she might be in the way of her daughter-in-law, and thus disturb the household peace; even later, when she had assured herself that the young wife was very kind, and there was nothing to be afraid of, she could not make up her mind to go, even though she longed to be with yossef, her oldest son, who had always been her favorite, and however much she desired to see his wife and her little grandchildren. why she would not fulfil his wish and her own, she herself was not clearly conscious; but she shrank from the strange fashion of the life they led, and she never ceased to hope, deep down in her heart, that some day they would come back to her. and this especially with regard to yossef, who sometimes complained in his letters that his situation was anything but secure, because the smallest circumstance might bring about an edict of expulsion. she quite understood that her son would consider this a very bad thing, but she herself looked at it with other eyes; round about _here_, too, were people who made a comfortable living, and yossef was no worse than others, that he should not do the same. six or seven years passed in this way; the youngest daughter was twenty, and it was time to think of a match for her. her mother felt sure that yossef would provide the dowry, but she thought best rivkeh and her brother should see each other, and she consented readily to let rivkeh go to him, when yossef invited her to spend several months as his guest. no sooner had she gone, than the mother realized what it meant, this parting with her youngest and, for the last years, her only child. she was filled with regret at not having gone with her, and waited impatiently for her return. suddenly she heard that rivkeh had found favor with a friend of yossef's, the son of a well-to-do merchant, and that rivkeh and her brother were equally pleased with him. the two were already engaged, and the wedding was only deferred till she, the mother, should come and take up her abode with them for good. the longing to see her daughter overcame all her doubts. she resolved to go to her son, and began preparations for the start. these were just completed, when there came a letter from yossef to say that the situation had taken a sudden turn for the worse, and he and his family might have to leave their town. this sudden news was distressing and welcome at one and the same time. she was anxious lest the edict of expulsion should harm her son's position, and pleased, on the other hand, that he should at last be coming back, for god would not forsake him here, either; what with the fortune he had, and his aptitude for trade, he would make a living right enough. she waited anxiously, and in a few months had gone through all the mental suffering inherent in a state of uncertainty such as hers, when fear and hope are twined in one. the waiting was the harder to bear that all this time no letter from yossef or rivkeh reached her promptly. and the end of it all was this: news came that the danger was over, and yossef would remain where he was; but as far as she was concerned, it was best she should do likewise, because trailing about at her age was a serious thing, and it was not worth while her running into danger, and so on. the old woman was full of grief at remaining thus forlorn in her old age, and she longed more than ever for her children after having hoped so surely that she would be with them soon. she could not understand yossef's reason for suddenly changing his mind with regard to her coming; but it never occurred to her for one minute to doubt her children's affection. and we, when we had read the treasured bundle of letters from yossef and rivkeh, we could not doubt it, either. there was love and longing for the distant mother in every line, and several of the letters betrayed a spirit of bitterness, a note of complaining resentment against the hard times that had brought about the separation from her. and yet we could not help thinking, "out of sight, out of mind," that which is far from the eyes, weighs lighter at the heart. it was the only explanation we could invent, for why, otherwise, should the mother have to remain alone among strangers? all these considerations moved me to interfere in the matter without the old woman's knowledge. she could read yiddish, but could not write it, and before we made friends, her letters to the children were written by a shopkeeper of her acquaintance. but from the time we got to know her, i became her constant secretary, and one day, when writing to yossef for her, i made use of the opportunity to enclose a letter from myself. i asked his forgiveness for mixing myself up in another's family affairs, and tried to justify the interference by dwelling on our affectionate relations with his mother. i then described, in the most touching words at my command, how hard it was for her to live forlorn, how she pined for the presence of her children and grandchildren, and ended by telling them, that it was their duty to free their mother from all this mental suffering. there was no direct reply to this letter of mine, but the next one from the son to his mother gave her to understand that there are certain things not to be explained, while the impossibility of explaining them may lead to a misunderstanding. this hint made the position no clearer to us, and the fact of yossef's not answering me confirmed us in our previous suspicions. meanwhile our old friend fell ill, and quickly understood that she would soon die. among the things she begged me to do after her death and having reference to her burial, there was one particular petition several times repeated: to send a packet of hebrew books, which had been left by her husband, to her son yossef, and to inform him of her death by telegram. "my american children"--she explained with a sigh--"have certainly forgotten everything they once learned, forgotten all their jewishness! but my son yossef is a different sort; i feel sure of him, that he will say kaddish after me and read a chapter in the mishnah, and the books will come in useful for his children--grandmother's legacy to them." when i fulfilled the old woman's last wish, i learned how mistaken she had been. the answer to my letter written during her lifetime came now that she was dead. her children thanked us warmly for our care of her, and they also explained why she and they had remained apart. she had never known--and it was far better so--by what means her son had obtained the right to live outside the pale. it was enough that she should have to live _forlorn_, where would have been the good of her knowing that she was _forsaken_ as well--that the one of her children who had gone altogether over to "them" was yossef? tashrak pen name of israel joseph zevin; born, , in gori-gorki, government of mohileff (lithuania), white russia; came to new york in ; first yiddish sketch published in jüdisches tageblatt, ; first english story in the american hebrew, ; associate editor of jüdisches tageblatt; writer of sketches, short stories, and biographies, in hebrew, yiddish, and english; contributor to ha-ibri, jewish comment, and numerous yiddish periodicals; collected works, geklibene schriften, vol., new york, , and tashrak's beste erzählungen, vols., new york, . the hole in a beigel when i was a little cheder-boy, my rebbe, bunem-breine-gite's, a learned man, who was always tormenting me with talmudical questions and with riddles, once asked me, "what becomes of the hole in a beigel, when one has eaten the beigel?" this riddle, which seemed to me then very hard to solve, stuck in my head, and i puzzled over it day and night. i often bought a beigel, took a bite out of it, and immediately replaced the bitten-out piece with my hand, so that the hole should not escape. but when i had eaten up the beigel, the hole had somehow always disappeared, which used to annoy me very much. i went about preoccupied, thought it over at prayers and at lessons, till the rebbe noticed that something was wrong with me. at home, too, they remarked that i had lost my appetite, that i ate nothing but beigel--beigel for breakfast, beigel for dinner, beigel for supper, beigel all day long. they also observed that i ate it to the accompaniment of strange gestures and contortions of both my mouth and my hands. one day i summoned all my courage, and asked the rebbe, in the middle of a lesson on the pentateuch: "rebbe, when one has eaten a beigel, what becomes of the hole?" "why, you little silly," answered the rebbe, "what is a hole in a beigel? just nothing at all! a bit of emptiness! it's nothing _with_ the beigel and nothing _without_ the beigel!" many years have passed since then, and i have not yet been able to satisfy myself as to what is the object of a hole in a beigel. i have considered whether one could not have beigels without holes. one lives and learns. and america has taught me this: one _can_ have beigels without holes, for i saw them in a dairy-shop in east broadway. i at once recited the appropriate blessing, and then i asked the shopman about these beigels, and heard a most interesting history, which shows how difficult it is to get people to accept anything new, and what sacrifices it costs to introduce the smallest reform. this is the story: a baker in an illinois city took it into his head to make straight beigels, in the shape of candles. but this reform cost him dear, because the united owners of the bakeries in that city immediately made a set at him and boycotted him. they argued: "our fathers' fathers baked beigels with holes, the whole world eats beigels with holes, and here comes a bold coxcomb of a fellow, upsets the order of the universe, and bakes beigels _without_ holes! have you ever heard of such impertinence? it's just revolution! and if a person like this is allowed to go on, he will make an end of everything: to-day it's beigels without holes, to-morrow it will be holes without beigels! such a thing has never been known before!" and because of the hole in a beigel, a storm broke out in that city that grew presently into a civil war. the "bosses" fought on, and dragged the bakers'-hands union after them into the conflict. now the union contained two parties, of which one declared that a hole and a beigel constituted together a private affair, like religion, and that everyone had a right to bake beigels as he thought best, and according to his conscience. the other party maintained, that to sell beigels without holes was against the constitution, to which the first party replied that the constitution should be altered, as being too ancient, and contrary to the spirit of the times. at this the second party raised a clamor, crying that the rules could not be altered, because they were toras-lokshen and every letter, every stroke, every dot was a law in itself! the city papers were obliged to publish daily accounts of the meetings that were held to discuss the hole in a beigel, and the papers also took sides, and wrote fiery polemical articles on the subject. the quarrel spread through the city, until all the inhabitants were divided into two parties, the beigel-with-a-hole party and the beigel-without-a-hole party. children rose against their parents, wives against their husbands, engaged couples severed their ties, families were broken up, and still the battle raged--and all on account of the hole in a beigel! as the years roll on rosalie laid down the cloth with which she had been dusting the furniture in her front parlor, and began tapping the velvet covering of the sofa with her fingers. the velvet had worn threadbare in places, and there was a great rent in the middle. had the rent been at one of the ends, it could have been covered with a cushion, but there it was, by bad luck, in the very centre, and making a shameless display of itself: look, here i am! see what a rent! yesterday she and her husband had invited company. the company had brought children, and you never have children in the house without having them leave some mischief behind them. to-day the sun was shining more brightly than ever, and lighting up the whole room. rosalie took the opportunity to inspect her entire set of furniture. eight years ago, when she was given the set at her marriage, how happy, she had been! everything was so fresh and new. she had noticed before that the velvet was getting worn, and the polish of the chairs disappearing, and the seats losing their spring, but to-day all this struck her more than formerly. the holes, the rents, the damaged places, stared before them with such malicious mockery--like a poor man laughing at his own evil plight. rosalie felt a painful melancholy steal over her. now she could not but see that her furniture was old, that she would soon be ashamed to invite people into her parlor. and her husband will be in no hurry to present her with a new one--he has grown so parsimonious of late! she replaced the holland coverings of the sofa and chairs, and went out to do her bedroom. there, on a chair, lay her best dress, the one she had put on yesterday for her guests. she considered the dress: that, too, was frayed in places; here and there even drawn together and sewn over. the bodice was beyond ironing out again--and this was her best dress. she opened the wardrobe, for she wanted to make a general survey of her belongings. it was such a light day, one could see even in the back rooms. she took down one dress after another, and laid them out on the made beds, observing each with a critical eye. her sense of depression increased the while, and she felt as though stone on stone were being piled upon her heart. she began to put the clothes back into the wardrobe, and she hung up every one of them with a sigh. when she had finished with the bedroom, she went into the dining-room, and stood by the sideboard on which were set out her best china service and colored plates. she looked them over. one little gold-rimmed cup had lost its handle, a bowl had a piece glued in at the side. on the top shelf stood the statuette of a little god with a broken bow and arrow in his hand, and here there was one little goblet missing out of a whole service. as soon as everything was in order, rosalie washed her face and hands, combed up her hair, and began to look at herself in a little hand-glass, but the bath-room, to which she had retired, was dark, and she betook herself back into the front parlor, towel in hand, where she could see herself in the big looking-glass on the wall. time, which had left traces on the furniture, on the contents of the wardrobe, and on the china, had not spared the woman, though she had been married only eight years. she looked at the crow's-feet by her eyes, and the lines in her forehead, which the worrying thoughts of this day had imprinted there even more sharply than usual. she tried to smile, but the smile in the glass looked no more attractive than if she had given her mouth a twist. she remembered that the only way to remain young is to keep free from care. but how is one to set about it? she threw on a scarlet japanese kimono, and stuck an artificial flower into her hair, after which she lightly powdered her face and neck. the scarlet kimono lent a little color to her cheeks, and another critical glance at the mirror convinced her that she was still a comely woman, only no more a young one. the bloom of youth had fled, never to return. verfallen! and the desire to live was stronger than ever, even to live her life over again from the beginning, sorrows and all. she began to reflect what she should cook for supper. there was time enough, but she must think of something new: her husband was tired of her usual dishes. he said her cooking was old-fashioned, that it was always the same thing, day in and day out. his taste was evidently getting worn-out, too. and she wondered what she could prepare, so as to win back her husband's former good temper and affectionate appreciation. at one time he was an ardent young man, with a fiery tongue. he had great ideals, and he strove high. he talked of making mankind happy, more refined, more noble and free. he had dreamt of a world without tears and troubles, of a time when men should live as brothers, and jealousy and hatred should be unknown. in those days he loved with all the warmth of his youth, and when he talked of love, it was a delight to listen. the world grew to have another face for her then, life, another significance, paradise was situated on the earth. gradually his ideals lost their freshness, their shine wore off, and he became a business man, racking his brain with speculations, trying to grow rich without the necessary qualities and capabilities, and he was left at last with prematurely grey hair as the only result of his efforts. eight years after their marriage he was as worn as their furniture in the front parlor. rosalie looked out of the window. it was even much brighter outside than indoors. she saw people going up and down the street with different anxieties reflected in their faces, with wrinkles telling different histories of the cares of life. she saw old faces, and the young faces of those who seemed to have tasted of age ere they reached it. "everything is old and worn and shabby," whispered a voice in her ear. a burst of childish laughter broke upon her meditations. round the corner came with a rush a lot of little boys with books under their arms, their faces full of the zest of life, and dancing and jumping till the whole street seemed to be jumping and dancing, too. elder people turned smilingly aside to make way for them. among the children rosalie espied two little girls, also with books under their arms, her little girls! and the mother's heart suddenly brimmed with joy, a delicious warmth stole into her limbs and filled her being. rosalie went to the door to meet her two children on their return from school, and when she had given each little face a motherly kiss, she felt a breath of freshness and new life blowing round her. she took off their cloaks, and listened to their childish prattle about their teachers and the day's lessons. the clear voices rang through the rooms, awaking sympathetic echoes in every corner. the home wore a new aspect, and the sun shone even more brightly than before and in more friendly, kindly fashion. the mother spread a little cloth at the edge of the table, gave them milk and sandwiches, and looked at them as they ate--each child the picture of the mother, her eyes, her hair, her nose, her look, her gestures--they ate just as she would do. and rosalie feels much better and happier. she doesn't care so much now about the furniture being old, the dresses worn, the china service not being whole, about the wrinkles round her eyes and in her forehead. she only minds about her husband's being so worn-out, so absent-minded that he cannot take pleasure in the children as she can. david pinski born, , in mohileff (lithuania), white russia; refused admission to gymnasium in moscow under percentage restrictions; - , secretary to bene zion in vitebsk; - , student in vienna; , co-editor of spektor's hausfreund and perez's yom-tov blättlech; , first sketch published in new york arbeiterzeitung; , studied philosophy in berlin; , came to new york, and edited das abendblatt, a daily, and der arbeiter, a weekly; , founder and co-editor of die yiddishe wochenschrift; author of short stories, sketches, an essay on the yiddish drama, and ten dramas, among them yesurun, eisik scheftel, die mutter, die familie zwie, der oitzer, der eibiger jüd (first part of a series of messiah dramas), der stummer moschiach, etc.; one volume of collected dramas, dramen, warsaw, . reb shloimeh the seventy-year-old reb shloimeh's son, whose home was in the country, sent his two boys to live with their grandfather and acquire town, that is, gentile, learning. "times have changed," considered reb shloimeh; "it can't be helped!" and he engaged a good teacher for the children, after making inquiries here and there. "give me a teacher who can tell the whole of _their_ law, as the saying goes, standing on one leg!" he would say to his friends, with a smile. at seventy-one years of age, reb shloimeh lived more indoors than out, and he used to listen to the teacher instructing his grandchildren. "i shall become a doctor in my old age!" he would say, laughing. the teacher was one day telling his pupils about mathematical geography. reb shloimeh sat with a smile on his lips, and laughing in his heart at the little teacher who told "such huge lies" with so much earnestness. "the earth revolves," said the teacher to his pupils, and reb shloimeh smiles, and thinks, "he must have seen it!" but the teacher shows it to be so by the light of reason, and reb shloimeh becomes graver, and ceases smiling; he is endeavoring to grasp the proofs; he wants to ask questions, but can find none that will do, and he sits there as if he had lost his tongue. the teacher has noticed his grave look, and understands that the old man is interested in the lesson, and he begins to tell of even greater wonders. he tells how far the sun is from the earth, how big it is, how many earths could be made out of it--and reb shloimeh begins to smile again, and at last can bear it no longer. "look here," he exclaimed, "that i cannot and will not listen to! you may tell me the earth revolves--well, be it so! very well, i'll allow you, that, perhaps, according to reason--even--the size of the earth--the appearance of the earth--do you see?--all that sort of thing. but the sun! who has measured the sun! who, i ask you! have _you_ been on it? a pretty thing to say, upon my word!" reb shloimeh grew very excited. the teacher took hold of reb shloimeh's hand, and began to quiet him. he told him by what means the astronomers had discovered all this, that it was no matter of speculation; he explained the telescope to him, and talked of mathematical calculations, which he, reb shloimeh, was not able to understand. reb shloimeh had nothing to answer, but he frowned and remained obstinate. "hê" (he said, and made a contemptuous motion with his hand), "it's nothing to me, not knowing that or being able to understand it! science, indeed! fiddlesticks!" he relapsed into silence, and went on listening to the teacher's "stories." "we even know," the teacher continued, "what metals are to be found in the sun." "and suppose i won't believe you?" and reb shloimeh smiled maliciously. "i will explain directly," answered the teacher. "and tell us there's a fair in the sky!" interrupted reb shloimeh, impatiently. he was very angry, but the teacher took no notice of his anger. "two hundred years ago," began the teacher, "there lived, in england, a celebrated naturalist and mathematician, isaac newton. it was told of him that when god said, let there be light, newton was born." "psh! i should think, very likely!" broke in reb shloimeh. "why not?" the teacher pursued his way, and gave an explanation of spectral analysis. he spoke at some length, and reb shloimeh sat and listened with close attention. "now do you understand?" asked the teacher, coming to an end. reb shloimeh made no reply, he only looked up from under his brows. the teacher went on: "the earth," he said, "has stood for many years. their exact number is not known, but calculation brings it to several million--" "Ê," burst in the old man, "i should like to know what next! i thought everyone knew _that_--that even _they_--" "wait a bit, reb shloimeh," interrupted the teacher, "i will explain directly." "ma! it makes me sick to hear you," was the irate reply, and reb shloimeh got up and left the room. * * * * * all that day reb shloimeh was in a bad temper, and went about with knitted brows. he was angry with science, with the teacher, with himself, because he must needs have listened to it all. "chatter and foolishness! and there i sit and listen to it!" he said to himself with chagrin. but he remembered the "chatter," something begins to weigh on his heart and brain, he would like to find a something to catch hold of, a proof of the vanity and emptiness of their teaching, to invent some hard question, and stick out a long red tongue at them all--those nowadays barbarians, those nowadays newtons. "after all, it's mere child's play," he reflects. "it's ridiculous to take their nonsense to heart." "only their proofs, their proofs!" and the feeling of helplessness comes over him once more. "ma!" he pulls himself together. "is it all over with us? is it all up?! all up?! the earth revolves! gammon! as to their explanations--very wonderful, to be sure! o, of course, it's all of the greatest importance! dear me, yes!" he is very angry, tears the buttons off his coat, puts his hat straight on his head, and spits. "apostates, nothing but apostates nowadays," he concludes. then he remembers the teacher--with what enthusiasm he spoke! his explanations ring in reb shloimeh's head, and prove things, and once more the old gentleman is perplexed. preoccupied, cross, with groans and sighs, he went to bed. but he was restless all night, turning from one side to the other, and groaning. his old wife tried to cheer him. "such weather as it is to-day," she said, and coughed. "i have a pain in the side, too." next morning when the teacher came, reb shloimeh inquired with a displeased expression: "well, are you going to tell stories again to-day?" "we shall not take geography to-day," answered the teacher. "have your 'astronomers' found out by calculation on which days we may learn geography?" asked reb shloimeh, with malicious irony. "no, that's a discovery of mine!" and the teacher smiled. "and when have 'your' astronomers decreed the study of geography?" persisted reb shloimeh. "to-morrow." "to-morrow!" he repeated crossly, and left the room, missing a lesson for the first time. next day the teacher explained the eclipses of the sun and moon to his pupils. reb shloimeh sat with his chair drawn up to the table, and listened without a movement. "it is all so exact," the teacher wound up his explanation, "that the astronomers are able to calculate to a minute _when_ there will be an eclipse, and have never yet made a mistake." at these last words reb shloimeh nodded in a knowing way, and looked at the pupils as much as to say, "you ask _me_ about that!" the teacher went on to tell of comets, planets, and other suns. reb shloimeh snorted, and was continually interrupting the teacher with exclamations. "if you don't believe me, go and measure for yourself!"--"if it is not so, call me a liar!"--"just so!"--"within one yard of it!" reb shloimeh repaid his jewish education with interest. there were not many learned men in the town like reb shloimeh. the rabbis without flattery called him "a full basket," and reb shloimeh could not picture to himself the existence of sciences other than "jewish," and when at last he did picture it, he would not allow that they were right, unfalsified and right. he was so far intelligent, he had received a so far enlightened education, that he could understand how among non-jews also there are great men. he would even have laughed at anyone who had maintained the contrary. but that among non-jews there should be men as great as any jewish ones, that he did _not_ believe!--let alone, of course, still greater ones. and now, little by little, reb shloimeh began to believe that "their" learning was not altogether insignificant, for he, "the full basket," was not finding it any too easy to master. and what he had to deal with were not empty speculations, unfounded opinions. no, here were mathematical computations, demonstrations which almost anyone can test for himself, which impress themselves on the mind! and reb shloimeh is vexed in his soul. he endeavored to cling to his old thoughts, his old conceptions. he so wished to cry out upon the clear reasoning, the simple explanations, with the phrases that are on the lips of every ignorant obstructionist. and yet he felt that he was unjust, and he gave up disputing with the teacher, as he paid close attention to the latter's demonstrations. and the teacher would say quite simply: "one _can_ measure," he would say, "why not? only it takes a lot of learning." when the teacher was at the door, reb shloimeh stayed him with a question. "then," he asked angrily, "the whole of 'your' learning is nothing but astronomy and geography?" "oh, no!" said the teacher, "there's a lot besides--a lot!" "for instance?" "do you want me to tell you standing on one leg?" "well, yes, 'on one leg,'" he answered impatiently, as though in anger. "but one can't tell you 'on one leg,'" said the teacher. "if you like, i shall come on sabbath, and we can have a chat." "sabbath?" repeated reb shloimeh in a dissatisfied tone. "sabbath, because i can't come at any other time," said the teacher. "then let it be sabbath," said reb shloimeh, reflectively. "but soon after dinner," he called after the teacher, who was already outside the door. "and everything else is as right as your astronomy?" he shouted, when the teacher had already gone a little way. "you will see!" and the teacher smiled. * * * * * never in his whole life had reb shloimeh waited for a sabbath as he waited for this one, and the two days that came before it seemed very long to him; he never relaxed his frown, or showed a cheerful face the whole time. and he was often seen, during those two days, to lift his hands to his forehead. he went about as though there lay upon him a heavy weight, which he wanted to throw off; or as if he had a very disagreeable bit of business before him, and wished he could get it over. on sabbath he could hardly wait for the teacher's appearance. "you wanted a lot of asking," he said to him reproachfully. the old lady went to take her nap, the grandchildren to their play, and reb shloimeh took the snuff-box between his fingers, leant against the back of the "grandfather's chair" in which he was sitting, and listened with close attention to the teacher's words. the teacher talked a long time, mentioned the names of sciences, and explained their meaning, and reb shloimeh repeated each explanation in brief. "physics, then, is the science of--" "that means, then, that we have here--that physiology explains--" the teacher would help him, and then immediately begin to talk of another branch of science. by the time the old lady woke up, the teacher had given examples of anatomy, physiology, physics, chemistry, zoology, and sociology. it was quite late; people were coming back from the afternoon service, and those who do not smoke on sabbath, raised their eyes to the sky. but reb shloimeh had forgotten in what sort of world he was living. he sat with wrinkled forehead and drawn brows, listening attentively, seeing nothing before him but the teacher's face, only catching up his every word. "you are still talking?" asked the old lady, in astonishment, rubbing her eyes. reb shloimeh turned his head toward his wife with a dazed look, as though wondering what she meant by her question. "oho!" said the old lady, "you only laugh at us women!" reb shloimeh drew his brows closer together, wrinkled his forehead still more, and once more fastened his eyes on the teacher's lips. "it will soon be time to light the fire," muttered the old lady. the teacher glanced at the clock. "it's late," he said. "i should think it was!" broke in the old lady. "why i was allowed to sleep so long, i'm sure i don't know! people get to talking and even forget about tea." reb shloimeh gave a look out of the window. "o wa!" he exclaimed, somewhat vexed, "they are already coming out of shool, the service is over! what a thing it is to sit talking! o wa!" he sprang from his seat, gave the pane a rub with his hand, and began to recite the afternoon prayer. the teacher put on his things, but "wait!" reb shloimeh signed to him with his hand. reb shloimeh finished reciting "incense." "when shall you teach the children all that?" he asked then, looking into the prayer-book with a scowl. "not for a long time, not so quickly," answered the teacher. "the children cannot understand everything." "i should think not, anything so wonderful!" replied reb shloimeh, ironically, gazing at the prayer-book and beginning "happy are we." he swallowed the prayers as he said them, half of every word; no matter how he wrinkled his forehead, he could not expel the stranger thoughts from his brain, and fix his attention on the prayers. after the service he tried taking up a book, but it was no good, his head was a jumble of all the new sciences. by means of the little he had just learned, he wanted to understand and know everything, to fashion a whole body out of a single hair, and he thought, and thought, and thought.... sunday, when the teacher came, reb shloimeh told him that he wished to have a little talk with him. meantime he sat down to listen. the hour during which the teacher taught the children was too long for him, and he scarcely took his eyes off the clock. "do you want another pupil?" he asked the teacher, stepping with him into his own room. he felt as though he were getting red, and he made a very angry face. "why not?" answered the teacher, looking hard into reb shloimeh's face. reb shloimeh looked at the floor, his brows, as was usual with him in those days, drawn together. "you understand me--a pupil--" he stammered, "you understand--not a little boy--a pupil--an elderly man--you understand--quite another sort--" "well, well, we shall see!" answered the teacher, smiling. "i mean myself!" he snapped out with great displeasure, as if he had been forced to confess some very evil deed. "well, i have sinned--what do you want of me?" "oh, but i should be delighted!" and the teacher smiled. "i always said i meant to be a doctor!" said reb shloimeh, trying to joke. but his features contracted again directly, and he began to talk about the terms, and it was arranged that every day for an hour and a half the teacher should read to him and explain the sciences. to begin with, reb shloimeh chose physiology, sociology, and mathematical geography. * * * * * days, weeks, and months have gone by, and reb shloimeh has become depressed, very depressed. he does not sleep at night, he has lost his appetite, doesn't care to talk to people. bad, bitter thoughts oppress him. for seventy years he had not only known nothing, but, on the contrary, he had known everything wrong, understood head downwards. and it seemed to him that if he had known in his youth what he knew now, he would have lived differently, that his years would have been useful to others. he could find no stain on his life--it was one long record of deeds of charity; but they appeared to him now so insignificant, so useless, and some of them even mischievous. looking round him, he saw no traces of them left. the rich man of whom he used to beg donations is no poorer for them, and the pauper for whom he begged them is the same pauper as before. it is true, he had always thought of the paupers as sacks full of holes, and had only stuffed things into them because he had a soft heart, and could not bear to see a look of disappointment, or a tear rolling down the pale cheek of a hungry pauper. his own little world, as he had found it and as it was now, seemed to him much worse than before, in spite of all the good things he had done in it. not one good rich man! not one genuine pauper! they are all just as hungry and their palms itch--there is no easing them. times get harder, the world gets poorer. now he understands the reason of it all, now it all lies before him as clear as on a map--he would be able to make every one understand. only now--now it was getting late--he has no strength left. his spent life grieves him. if he had not been so active, such a "father of the community," it would not have grieved him so much. but he _had_ had a great influence in the town, and this influence had been badly, blindly used! and reb shloimeh grew sadder day by day. he began to feel a pain at his heart, a stitch in the side, a burning in his brain, and he was wrapt in his thoughts. reb shloimeh was philosophizing. to be of use to somebody, he reflected, means to leave an impress of good in their life. one ought to help once for all, so that the other need never come for help again. that can be accomplished by wakening and developing a man's intelligence, so that he may always know for himself wherein his help lies. and in such work he would have spent his life. if he had only understood long ago, ah, how useful he would have been! and a shudder runs through him. tears of vexation come more than once into his eyes. * * * * * it was no secret in the town that old reb shloimeh spent two to three hours daily sitting with the teacher, only what they did together, that nobody knew. they tried to worm something out of the maid, but what was to be got out of a "glomp with two eyes," whose one reply was, "i don't know." they scolded her for it. "how can you not know, glomp?" they exclaimed. "aren't you sometimes in the room with them?" "look here, good people, what's the use of coming to me?" the maid would cry. "how can i know, sitting in the kitchen, what they are about? when i bring in the tea, i see them talking, and i go!" "dull beast!" they would reply. then they left her, and betook themselves to the grandchildren, who knew nothing, either. "they have tea," was their answer to the question, "what does grandfather do with the teacher?" "but what do they talk about, sillies?" "we haven't heard!" the children answered gravely. they tried the old lady. "is it my business?" she answered. they tried to go in to reb shloimeh's house, on the pretext of some business or other, but that didn't succeed, either. at last, a few near and dear friends asked reb shloimeh himself. "how people do gossip!" he answered. "well, what is it?" "we just sit and talk!" there it remained. the matter was discussed all over the town. of course, nobody was satisfied. but he pacified them little by little. the apostate teacher must turn hot and cold with him! they imagined that they were occupied with research, and that reb shloimeh was opening the teacher's eyes for him--and they were pacified. when reb shloimeh suddenly fell on melancholy, it never came into anyone's head that there might be a connection between this and the conversations. the old lady settled that it was a question of the stomach, which had always troubled him, and that perhaps he had taken a chill. at his age such things were frequent. "but how is one to know, when he won't speak?" she lamented, and wondered which would be best, cod-liver oil or dried raspberries. every one else said that he was already in fear of death, and they pitied him greatly. "that is a sickness which no doctor can cure," people said, and shook their heads with sorrowful compassion. they talked to him by the hour, and tried to prevent him from being alone with his thoughts, but it was all no good; he only grew more depressed, and would often not speak at all. "such a man, too, what a pity!" they said, and sighed. "he's pining away--given up to the contemplation of death." "and if you come to think, why should he fear death?" they wondered. "if _he_ fears it, what about us? och! och! och! have we so much to show in the next world?" and reb shloimeh had a lot to show. jews would have been glad of a tenth part of his world-to-come, and christians declared that he was a true christian, with his love for his fellow-men, and promised him a place in paradise. "reb shloimeh is goodness itself," the town was wont to say. his one lifelong occupation had been the affairs of the community. "they are my life and my delight," he would repeat to his intimate friends, "as indispensable to me as water to a fish." he was a member of all the charitable societies. the talmud torah was established under his own roof, and pretty nearly maintained at his expense. the town called him the "father of the community," and all unfortunate, poor, and bitter hearts blessed him unceasingly. reb shloimeh was the one person in the town almost without an enemy, perhaps the one in the whole province. rich men grumbled at him. he was always after their money--always squeezing them for charities. they called him the old fool, the old donkey, but without meaning what they said. they used to laugh at him, to make jokes upon him, of course among themselves; but they had no enmity against him. they all, with a full heart, wished him joy of his tranquil life. reb shloimeh was born, and had spent years, in wealth. after making an excellent marriage, he set up a business. his wife was the leading spirit within doors, the head of the household, and his whole life had been apparently a success. when he had married his last child, and found himself a grandfather, he retired from business, and lived his last years on the interest of his fortune. free from the hate and jealousy of neighbors, pleasant and satisfactory in every respect, such was reb shloimeh's life, and for all that he suddenly became melancholy! it can be nothing but the fear of death! * * * * * but very soon reb shloimeh, as it were with a wave of the hand, dismissed the past altogether. he said to himself with a groan that what had been was over and done; he would never grow young again, and once more a shudder went through him at the thought, and there came again the pain in his side and caught his breath, but reb shloimeh took no notice, and went on thinking. "something must be done!" he said to himself, in the tone of one who has suddenly lost his whole fortune--the fortune he has spent his life in getting together, and there is nothing for him but to start work again with his five fingers. and reb shloimeh started. he began with the talmud torah, where he had already long provided for the children's bodily needs--food and clothing. now he would supply them with spiritual things--instruction and education. he dismissed the old teachers, and engaged young ones in their stead, even for jewish subjects. out of the talmud torah he wanted to make a little university. he already fancied it a success. he closed his eyes, laid his forehead on his hands, and a sweet, happy smile parted his lips. he pictured to himself the useful people who would go forth out of the talmud torah. now he can die happy, he thinks. but no, he does not want to die! he wants to live! to live and to work, work, work! he will not and cannot see an end to his life! reb shloimeh feels more and more cheerful, lively, and fresh--to work----to work--till-- the whole town was in commotion. there was a perfect din in the shools, in the streets, in the houses. hypocrites and crooked men, who had never before been seen or heard of, led the dance. "to make gentiles out of the children, forsooth! to turn the talmud torah into a school! that we won't allow! no matter if we have to turn the world upside down, no matter what happens!" reb shloimeh heard the cries, and made as though he heard nothing. he thought it would end there, that no one would venture to oppose him further. "what do you say to that?" he asked the teachers. "fanaticism has broken out already!" "it will give trouble," replied the teachers. "eh, nonsense!" said reb shloimeh, with conviction. but on sabbath, at the reading of the law, he saw that he had been mistaken. the opposition had collected, and they got onto the platform, and all began speaking at once. it was impossible to make out what they were saying, beyond a word here and there, or the fragment of a sentence: "--none of it!" "we won't allow--!" "--made into gentiles!" reb shloimeh sat in his place by the east wall, his hands on the desk where lay his pentateuch. he had taken off his spectacles, and glanced at the platform, put them on again, and was once more reading the pentateuch. they saw this from the platform, and began to shout louder than ever. reb shloimeh stood up, took off his prayer-scarf, and was moving toward the door, when he heard some one call out, with a bang of his fist on the platform: "with the consent of the rabbis and the heads of the community, and in the name of the holy torah, it is resolved to take the children away from the talmud torah, seeing that in place of the torah there is uncleanness----" reb shloimeh grew pale, and felt a rent in his heart. he stared at the platform with round eyes and open mouth. "the children are to be made into gentiles," shouted the person on the platform meantime, "and we have plenty of gentiles, thank god, already! thus may they perish, with their name and their remembrance! we are not short of gentiles--there are more every day! and hatred increases, and god knows what the jews are coming to! whoso has god in his heart, and is jealous for the honor of the law, let him see to it that the children cease going to the place of peril!" reb shloimeh wanted to call out, "silence, you scoundrel!" the words all but rolled off his tongue, but he contained himself, and moved on. "the one who obeys will be blessed," proclaimed the individual on the platform, "and whoso despises the decree, his end shall be gehenna, with that of jeroboam, the son of nebat, who sinned and made israel to sin!" with these last words the speaker threw a fiery glance at reb shloimeh. a quiver ran through the shool, and all eyes were turned on reb shloimeh, expecting him to begin abusing the speaker. a lively scene was anticipated. but reb shloimeh smiled. he quietly handed his prayer-scarf to the beadle, wished the bystanders "good sabbath," and walked out of shool, leaving them all disconcerted. * * * * * that sabbath reb shloimeh was the quietest man in the whole town. he was convinced that the interdict would have no effect on anyone. "people are not so foolish as all that," he thought, "and they wouldn't treat _him_ in that way!" he sat and laid plans for carrying on the education in the talmud torah, and he felt so light of heart that he sang to himself for very pleasure. the old wife, meanwhile, was muttering and moaning. she had all her life been quite content with her husband and everything he did, and had always done her best to help him, hoping that in the world to come she would certainly share his portion of immortality. and now she saw with horror that he was like to throw away his future. but how ever could it be? she wondered, and was bathed in tears: "what has come over you? what has happened to make you like that? they are not just to you, are they, when they say that about taking children and making gentiles of them?" reb shloimeh smiled. "do you think," he said to her, "that i have gone mad in my old age? don't be afraid. i'm in my right mind, and you shall not lose your place in paradise." but the wife was not satisfied with the reply, and continued to mutter and to weep. there were goings-on in the town, too. the place was aboil with excitement. of course they talked about reb shloimeh; nobody could make out what had come to him all of a sudden. "that is the teacher's work!" explained one of a knot of talkers. "and we thought reb shloimeh such a sage, such a clever man, so book-learned. how can the teacher (may his name perish!) have talked him over?" "it's a pity on the children's account!" one would exclaim here and there. "in the talmud torah, under his direction, they wanted for nothing, and what's to become of them now! they'll be running wild in the streets!" "what then? do you mean it would be better to make gentiles of them?" "well, there! of course, i understand!" he would hasten to say, penitently. and a resolution was passed, to the effect that the children should not be allowed to attend the talmud torah. reb shloimeh stood at his window, and watched the excited groups in the street, saw how the men threw themselves about, rocked themselves, bit their beards, described half-circles with their thumbs, and he smiled. in the evening the teachers came and told him what had been said in the town, and how all held that the children were not to be allowed to go to the talmud torah. reb shloimeh was a little disturbed, but he composed himself again and thought: "eh, they will quiet down, never mind! they won't do it to _me_!----" entering the talmud torah on sunday, he was greeted by four empty walls. even two orphans, who had no relations or protector in the town, had not come. they had been frightened and talked at and not allowed to attend, and free meals had been secured for all of them, so that they should not starve. for the moment reb shloimeh lost his head. he glanced at the teachers as though ashamed in their presence, and his glance said, "what is to be done now?" suddenly he pulled himself together. "no!" he exclaimed, "they shall not get the better of me," and he ran out of the talmud torah, and was gone. he ran from house to house, to the parents and relations of the children. but they all looked askance at him, and he accomplished nothing: they all kept to it--"no!" "come, don't be silly! send, send the children to the talmud torah," he begged. "you will see, you will not regret it!" and he drew a picture for them of the sort of people the children would become. but it was no use. "_we_ haven't got to manage the world," they answered him. "we have lived without all that, and our children will live as we are living now. we have no call to make gentiles of them!" "we know, we know! people needn't come to us with stories," they would say in another house. "we don't intend to sell our souls!" was the cry in a third. "and who says i have sold mine?" reb shloimeh would ask sharply. "how should we know? besides, who was talking of you?" they answered with a sweet smile. reb shloimeh reached home tired and depressed. the old wife had a shock on seeing him. "dear lord!" she exclaimed, wringing her hands. "what is the matter with you? what makes you look like that?" the teachers, who were there waiting for him, asked no questions: they had only to look at his ghastly appearance to know what had happened. reb shloimeh sank into his arm-chair. "nothing," he said, looking sideways, but meaning it for the teachers. "nothing is nothing!" and they betook themselves to consoling him. "we will find something else to do, get hold of some other children, or else wait a little--they'll ask to be taken back presently." reb shloimeh did not hear them. he had let his head sink on to his breast, turned his look sideways, and thoughts he could not piece together, fragments of thoughts, went round and round in the drooping head. "why? why?" he asked himself over and over. "to do such a thing to _me_! well, there you are! there you have it!--you've lived your life--like a man!--" his heart felt heavy and hurt him, and his brain grew warm, warm. in one minute there ran through his head the impression which his so nearly finished life had made on him of late, and immediately after it all the plans he had thought out for setting to right his whole past life by means of the little bit left him. and now it was all over and done! "why? why?" he asked himself without ceasing, and could not understand it. he felt his old heart bursting with love to all men. it beat more and more strongly, and would not cease from loving; and he would fain have seen everyone so happy, so happy! he would have worked with his last bit of strength, he would have drawn his last breath for the cause to which he had devoted himself. he is no longer conscious of the whereabouts of his limbs, he feels his head growing heavier, his feet cold, and it is dark before his eyes. when he came to himself again, he was in bed; on his head was a bandage with ice; the old wife was lamenting; the teachers stood not far from the bed, and talked among themselves. he wanted to lift his hand and draw it across his forehead, but somehow he does not feel his hand at all. he looks at it--it lies stretched out beside him. and reb shloimeh understood what had happened to him. "a stroke!" he thought, "i am finished, done for!" he tried to give a whistle and make a gesture with his hand: "verfallen!" but the lips would not meet properly, and the hand never moved. "there you are, done for!" the lips whispered. he glanced round, and fixed his eyes on the teachers, and then on his wife, wishing to read in their faces whether there was danger, whether he was dying, or whether there was still hope. he looked, and could not make out anything. then, whispering, he called one of the teachers, whose looks had met his, to his side. the teacher came running. "done for, eh?" asked reb shloimeh. "no, reb shloimeh, the doctors give hope," the teacher replied, so earnestly that reb shloimeh's spirits revived. "nu, nu," said reb shloimeh, as though he meant, "so may it be! out of your mouth into god's ears!" the other teachers all came nearer. "good?" whispered reb shloimeh, "good, ha? there's a hero for you!" he smiled. "never mind," they said cheeringly, "you will get well again, and work, and do many things yet!" "well, well, please god!" he answered, and looked away. and reb shloimeh really got better every day. the having lived wisely and the will to live longer saved him. the first time that he was able to move a hand or lift a foot, a broad, sweet smile spread itself over his face, and a fire kindled in his all but extinguished eyes. "good luck to you!" he cried out to those around. he was very cheerful in himself, and began to think once more about doing something or other. "people must be taught, they must be taught, even if the world turn upside down," he thought, and rubbed his hands together with impatience. "if it's not to be in the talmud torah, it must be somewhere else!" and he set to work thinking where it should be. he recalled all the neighbors to his memory, and suddenly grew cheerful. not far away there lived a bookbinder, who employed as many as ten workmen. they work sometimes from fifteen to sixteen hours, and have no strength left for study. one must teach _them_, he thinks. the master is not likely to object. reb shloimeh was the making of him, he it was who protected him, introduced him into all the best families, and finally set him on his feet. reb shloimeh grows more and more lively, and is continually trying to rise from his couch. once out of bed, he could hardly endure to stay in the room, and how happy he felt, when, leaning on a stick, he stept out into the street! he hurried in the direction of the bookbinder's. he was convinced that people's feelings toward him had changed for the better, that they would rejoice on seeing him. how he looked forward to seeing a friendly smile on every face! he would have counted himself the happiest of men, if he had been able to hope that now everything was different, and would come right. but he did not see the smile. the town looked upon the apoplectic stroke as god's punishment--it was obvious. "aha!" they had cried on hearing of it, and everyone saw in it another proof, and it also was "obvious"--of the fact that there is a god in the world, and that people cannot do just what they like. the great fanatics overflowed with eloquence, and saw in it an act of heavenly vengeance. "serves him right! serves him right!" they thought. "whose fault is it?" people replied, when some one reminded them that it was very sad--such a man as he had been, "who told him to do it? he has himself to thank for his misfortunes." the town had never ceased talking of him the whole time. every one was interested in knowing how he was, and what was the matter with him. and when they heard that he was better, that he was getting well, they really were pleased; they were sure that he would give up all his foolish plans, and understand that god had punished him, and that he would be again as before. but it soon became known that he clung to his wickedness, and people ceased to rejoice. the rabbi and his fanatical friends came to see him one day by way of visiting the sick. reb shloimeh felt inclined to ask them if they had come to stare at him as one visited by a miracle, but he refrained, and surveyed them with indifference. "well, how are you, reb shloimeh?" they asked. "gentiles!" answered reb shloimeh, almost in spite of himself, and smiled. the rabbi and the others became confused. they sat a little while, couldn't think of anything to say, and got up from their seats. then they stood a bit, wished him a speedy return to health, and went away, without hearing any answer from reb shloimeh to their "good night." it was not long before the whole town knew of the visit, and it began to boil like a kettle. to commit such sin is to play with destiny. once you are in, there is no getting out! give the devil a hair, and he'll snatch at the whole beard. so when reb shloimeh showed himself in the street, they stared at him and shook their heads, as though to say, "such a man--and gone to ruin!" reb shloimeh saw it, and it cut him to the heart. indeed, it brought the tears to his eyes, and he began to walk quicker in the direction of the bookbinder's. at the bookbinder's they received him in friendly fashion, with a hearty "welcome!" but he fancied that here also they looked at him askance, and therefore he gave a reason for his coming. "walking is hard work," he said, "one must have stopping-places." with this same excuse he went there every day. he would sit for an hour or two, talking, telling stories, and at last he began to tell the "stories" which the teacher had told. he sat in the centre of the room, and talked away merrily, with a pun here and a laugh there, and interested the workmen deeply. sometimes they would all of one accord stop working, open their mouths, fix their eyes, and hang on his lips with an intelligent smile. or else they stood for a few minutes tense, motionless as statues, till reb shloimeh finished, before the master should interpose. "work, work--you will hear it all in time!" he would say, in a cross, dissatisfied tone. and the workmen would unwillingly bend their backs once more over their task, but reb shloimeh remained a little thrown out. he lost the thread of what he was telling, began buttoning and unbuttoning his coat, and glanced guiltily at the binder. but he went his own way nevertheless. as to his hearers, he was overjoyed with them. when he saw that the workmen began to take interest in every book that was brought them to be bound, he smiled happily, and his eyes sparkled with delight. and if it happened to be a book treating of the subjects on which they had heard something from reb shloimeh, they threw themselves upon it, nearly tore it to pieces, and all but came to blows as to who should have the binding of it. reb shloimeh began to feel that he was doing something, that he was being really useful, and he was supremely happy. the town, of course, was aware of reb shloimeh's constant visits to the bookbinder's, and quickly found out what he did there. "he's just off his head!" they laughed, and shrugged their shoulders. they even laughed in reb shloimeh's face, but he took no notice of it. his pleasure, however, came to a speedy end. one day the binder spoke out. "reb shloimeh," he said shortly, "you prevent us from working with your stories. what do you mean by it? you come and interfere with the work." "but do i disturb?" he asked. "they go on working all the time----" "and a pretty way of working," answered the bookbinder. "the boys are ready enough at finding an excuse for idling as it is! and why do you choose me? there are plenty of other workshops----" it was an honest "neck and crop" business, and there was nothing left for reb shloimeh but to take up his stick and go. "nothing--again!" he whispered. there was a sting in his heart, a beating in his temples, and his head burned. "nothing--again! this time it's all over. i must die--die--a story _with_ an end." had he been young, he would have known what to do. he would never have begun to think about death, but now--where was the use of living on? what was there to wait for? all over!--all over!-- it was as much as he could do to get home. he sat down in the arm-chair, laid his head back, and thought. he pictured to himself the last weeks at the bookbinder's and the change that had taken place in the workmen; how they had appeared better-mannered, more human, more intelligent. it seemed to him that he had implanted in them the love of knowledge and the inclination to study, had put them in the way of viewing more rightly what went on around them. he had been of some account with them--and all of a sudden--! "no!" he said to himself. "they will come to me--they must come!" he thought, and fixed his eyes on the door. he even forgot that they worked till nine o'clock at night, and the whole evening he never took his eyes off the door. the time flew, it grew later and later, and the book-binders did not come. at last he could bear it no longer, and went out into the street; perhaps he would see them, and then he would call them in. it was dark in the street; the gas lamps, few and far between, scarcely gave any light. a chilly autumn night; the air was saturated with moisture, and there was dreadful mud under foot. there were very few passers-by, and reb shloimeh remained standing at his door. when he heard a sound of footsteps or voices, his heart began to beat quicker. his old wife came out three times to call him into the house again, but he did not hear her, and remained standing outside. the street grew still. there was nothing more to be heard but the rattles of the night-watchmen. reb shloimeh gave a last look into the darkness, as though trying to see someone, and then, with a groan, he went indoors. next morning he felt very weak, and stayed in bed. he began to feel that his end was near, that he was but a guest tarrying for a day. "it's all the same, all the same!" he said to himself, thinking quietly about death. all sorts of ideas went through his head. he thought as it were unconsciously, without giving himself a clear account of what he was thinking of. a variety of images passed through his mind, scenes out of his long life, certain people, faces he had seen here and there, comrades of his childhood, but they all had no interest for him. he kept his eyes fixed on the door of his room, waiting for death, as though it would come in by the door. he lay like that the whole day. his wife came in continually, and asked him questions, and he was silent, not taking his eyes off the door, or interrupting the train of his thoughts. it seemed as if he had ceased either to see or to hear. in the evening the teachers began coming. "finished!" said reb shloimeh, looking at the door. suddenly he heard a voice he knew, and raised his head. "we have come to visit the sick," said the voice. the door opened, and there came in four workmen at once. at first reb shloimeh could not believe his eyes, but soon a smile appeared upon his lips, and he tried to sit up. "come, come!" he said joyfully, and his heart beat rapidly with pleasure. the workmen remained standing some way from the bed, not venturing to approach the sick man, but reb shloimeh called them to him. "nearer, nearer, children!" he said. they came a little nearer. "come here, to me!" and he pointed to the bed. they came up to the bed. "well, what are you all about?" he asked with a smile. the workmen were silent. "why did you not come last night?" he asked, and looked at them smiling. the workmen were silent, and shuffled with their feet. "how are you, reb shloimeh?" asked one of them. "very well, very well," answered reb shloimeh, still smiling. "thank you, children! thank you!" "sit down, children, sit down." he said after a pause. "i will tell you some more stories." "it will tire you, reb shloimeh," said a workman. "when you are better----" "sit down, sit down!" said reb shloimeh, impatiently. "that's _my_ business!" the workmen exchanged glances with the teachers and the teachers signed to them _not_ to sit down. "not to-day, reb shloimeh, another time, when you--" "sit down, sit down!" interrupted reb shloimeh, "do me the pleasure!" once more the workmen exchanged looks with the teachers, and, at a sign from them, they sat down. reb shloimeh began telling them the long story of the human race, he spoke with ardor, and it was long since his voice had sounded as it sounded then. he spoke for a long, long time. they interrupted him two or three times, and reminded him that it was bad for him to talk so much. but he only signified with a gesture that they were to let him alone. "i am getting better," he said, and went on. at length the workmen rose from their seats. "let us go, reb shloimeh. it's getting late for us," they begged. "true, true," he replied, "but to-morrow, do you hear? look here, children, to-morrow!" he said, giving them his hand. the workmen promised to come. they moved away a few steps, and then reb shloimeh called them back. "and the others?" he inquired feebly, as though he were ashamed of asking. "they were lazy, they wouldn't come," was the reply. "well, well," he said, in a tone that meant "well, well, i know, you needn't say any more, but look here, to-morrow!" "now i am well again," he whispered as the workmen went out. he could scarcely move a limb, but he was very cheerful, looked at every one with a happy smile, and his eyes shone. "now i am well," he whispered when they had been obliged to put him into bed and cover him up. "now i am well," he repeated, feeling the while that his head was strangely heavy, his heart faint, and that he was very poorly. before many minutes he had fallen into a state of unconsciousness. a dreadful, heartbreaking cry recalled him to himself. he opened his eyes. the room was full of people. in many eyes were tears. "soon, then," he thought, and began to remember something. "what o'clock is it?" he asked of the person who stood beside him. "five." "they stop work at nine," he whispered to himself, and called one of the teachers to him. "when the workmen come, they are to let them in, do you hear!" he said. the teacher promised. "they will come at nine," added reb shloimeh. in a little while he asked to write his will. after writing the will, he undressed and closed his eyes. they thought he had fallen asleep, but reb shloimeh was not asleep. he lay and thought, not about his past life, but about the future, the future in which men would live. he thought of what man would come to be. he pictured to himself a bright, glad world, in which all men would be equal in happiness, knowledge, and education, and his dying heart beat a little quicker, while his face expressed joy and contentment. he opened his eyes, and saw beside him a couple of teachers. "and will it really be?" he asked and smiled. "yes, reb shloimeh," they answered, without knowing to what his question referred, for his face told them it was something good. the smile accentuated itself on his lips. once again he lost himself in thought. he wanted to imagine that happy world, and see with his mind's eye nothing but happy people, educated people, and he succeeded. the picture was not very distinct. he was imagining a great heap of happiness--happiness with a body and soul, and he felt _himself_ so happy. a sound of lamentation disturbed him. "why do they weep?" he wondered. "every one will have a good time--everyone!" he opened his eyes; there were already lights burning. the room was packed with people. beside him stood all his children, come together to take leave of their father. he fixed his gaze on the little grandchildren, a gaze of love and gladness. "_they_ will see the happy time," he thought. he was just going to ask the people to stop lamenting, but at that moment his eye caught the workmen of the evening before. "come here, come here, children!" and he raised his voice a little, and made a sign with his head. people did not know what he meant. he begged them to send the workmen to him, and it was done. he tried to sit up; those around helped him. "thank you--children--for coming--thank you!" he said. "stop--weeping!" he implored of the bystanders. "i want to die quietly--i want every one to--to--be as happy--as i am! live, all of you, in the--hope of a--good time--as i die--in--that hope. dear chil--dren--" and he turned to the workmen, "i told you--last night--how man has lived so far. how he lives now, you know for yourselves--but the coming time will be a very happy one: all will be happy--all! only work honestly, and learn! learn, children! everything will be all right! all will be hap----" a sweet smile appeared on his lips, and reb shloimeh died. in the town they--but what else _could_ they say in the town of a man who had died without repeating the confession, without a tremor at his heart, without any sign of repentance? what else _could_ they say of a man who spent his last minutes in telling people to learn, to educate themselves? what else _could_ they say of a man who left his whole capital to be devoted to educational purposes and schools? what was to be expected of them, when his own family declared in court that their father was not responsible when he made his last will? * * * * * forgive them, reb shloimeh, for they mean well--they know not what they say and do. s. libin pen name of israel hurewitz; born, , in gori-gorki, government of mohileff (lithuania), white russia; assistant to a druggist at thirteen; went to london at twenty, and, after seven months there, to new york ( ); worked as capmaker; first sketch, "a sifz vun a arbeiterbrust"; contributor to die arbeiterzeitung, das abendblatt, die zukunft, vorwärts, etc.; prolific yiddish playwright and writer of sketches on new york jewish life; dramas to the number of twenty-six produced on the stage; collected works, geklibene skizzen, vol., new york, , and vols., new york, . a picnic ask shmuel, the capmaker, just for a joke, if he would like to come for a picnic! he'll fly out at you as if you had invited him to a swing on the gallows. the fact is, he and his sarah once _went_ for a picnic, and the poor man will remember it all his days. it was on a sabbath towards the end of august. shmuel came home from work, and said to his wife: "sarah, dear!" "well, husband?" was her reply. "i want to have a treat," said shmuel, as though alarmed at the boldness of the idea. "what sort of a treat? shall you go to the swimming-bath to-morrow?" "ett! what's the fun of that?" "then, what have you thought of by way of an exception? a glass of ice water for supper?" "not that, either." "a whole siphon?" shmuel denied with a shake of the head. "whatever can it be!" wondered sarah. "are you going to fetch a pint of beer?" "what should i want with beer?" "are you going to sleep on the roof?" "wrong again!" "to buy some more carbolic acid, and drive out the bugs?" "not a bad idea," observed shmuel, "but that is not it, either." "well, then, whatever is it, for goodness' sake! the moon?" asked sarah, beginning to lose patience. "what have you been and thought of? tell me once for all, and have done with it!" and shmuel said: "sarah, you know, we belong to a lodge." "of course i do!" and sarah gave him a look of mingled astonishment and alarm. "it's not more than a week since you took a whole dollar there, and i'm not likely to have forgotten what it cost you to make it up. what is the matter now? do they want another?" "try again!" "out with it!" "i--want us, sarah," stammered shmuel,--"to go for a picnic." "a picnic!" screamed sarah. "is that the only thing you have left to wish for?" "look here, sarah, we toil and moil the whole year through. it's nothing but trouble and worry, trouble and worry. call that living! when do we ever have a bit of pleasure?" "well, what's to be done?" said his wife, in a subdued tone. "the summer will soon be over, and we haven't set eyes on a green blade of grass. we sit day and night sweating in the dark." "true enough!" sighed his wife, and shmuel spoke louder: "let us have an outing, sarah. let us enjoy ourselves for once, and give the children a breath of fresh air, let us have a change, if it's only for five minutes!" "what will it cost?" asks sarah, suddenly, and shmuel has soon made the necessary calculation. "a family ticket is only thirty cents, for yossele, rivele, hannahle, and berele; for resele and doletzke i haven't to pay any carfare at all. for you and me, it will be ten cents there and ten back--that makes fifty cents. then i reckon thirty cents for refreshments to take with us: a pineapple (a damaged one isn't more than five cents), a few bananas, a piece of watermelon, a bottle of milk for the children, and a few rolls--the whole thing shouldn't cost us more than eighty cents at the outside." "eighty cents!" and sarah clapped her hands together in dismay. "why, you can live on that two days, and it takes nearly a whole day's earning. you can buy an old ice-box for eighty cents, you can buy a pair of trousers--eighty cents!" "leave off talking nonsense!" said shmuel, disconcerted. "eighty cents won't make us rich. we shall get on just the same whether we have them or not. we must live like human beings one day in the year! come, sarah, let us go! we shall see lots of other people, and we'll watch them, and see how _they_ enjoy themselves. it will do you good to see the world, to go where there's a bit of life! listen, sarah, what have you been to worth seeing since we came to america? have you seen brooklyn bridge, or central park, or the baron hirsch baths?" "you know i haven't!" sarah broke in. "i've no time to go about sight-seeing. i only know the way from here to the market." "and what do you suppose?" cried shmuel. "i should be as great a greenhorn as you, if i hadn't been obliged to look everywhere for work. now i know that america is a great big place. thanks to the slack times, i know where there's an eighth street, and a one hundred and thirtieth street with tin works, and an eighty-fourth street with a match factory. i know every single lane round the world building. i know where the cable car line stops. but you, sarah, know nothing at all, no more than if you had just landed. let us go, sarah, i am sure you won't regret it!" "well, you know best!" said his wife, and this time she smiled. "let us go!" and thus it was that shmuel and his wife decided to join the lodge picnic on the following day. next morning they all rose much earlier than usual on a sunday, and there was a great noise, for they took the children and scrubbed them without mercy. sarah prepared a bath for doletzke, and doletzke screamed the house down. shmuel started washing yossele's feet, but as yossele habitually went barefoot, he failed to bring about any visible improvement, and had to leave the little pair of feet to soak in a basin of warm water, and yossele cried, too. it was twelve o'clock before the children were dressed and ready to start, and then sarah turned her attention to her husband, arranged his trousers, took the spots out of his coat with kerosene, sewed a button onto his vest. after that she dressed herself, in her old-fashioned satin wedding dress. at two o'clock they set forth, and took their places in the car. "haven't we forgotten anything?" asked sarah of her husband. shmuel counted his children and the traps. "no, nothing, sarah!" he said. doletzke went to sleep, the other children sat quietly in their places. sarah, too, fell into a doze, for she was tired out with the preparations for the excursion. all went smoothly till they got some way up town, when sarah gave a start. "i don't feel very well--my head is so dizzy," she said to shmuel. "i don't feel very well, either," answered shmuel. "i suppose the fresh air has upset us." "i suppose it has," said his wife. "i'm afraid for the children." scarcely had she spoken when doletzke woke up, whimpering, and was sick. yossele, who was looking at her, began to cry likewise. the mother scolded him, and this set the other children crying. the conductor cast a wrathful glance at poor shmuel, who was so frightened that he dropped the hand-bag with the provisions, and then, conscious of the havoc he had certainly brought about inside the bag by so doing, he lost his head altogether, and sat there in a daze. sarah was hushing the children, but the look in her eyes told shmuel plainly enough what to expect once they had left the car. and no sooner had they all reached the ground in safety than sarah shot out: "so, nothing would content him but a picnic? much good may it do him! you're a workman, and workmen have no call to go gadding about!" shmuel was already weary of the whole thing, and said nothing, but he felt a tightening of the heart. he took up yossele on one arm and resele on the other, and carried the bag with the presumably smashed-up contents besides. "hush, my dears! hush, my babies!" he said. "wait a little and mother will give you some bread and sugar. hush, be quiet!" he went on, but still the children cried. sarah carried doletzke, and rocked her as she walked, while berele and hannahle trotted alongside. "he has shortened my days," said sarah, "may his be shortened likewise." soon afterwards they turned into the park. "let us find a tree and sit down in the shade," said shmuel. "come, sarah!" "i haven't the strength to drag myself a step further," declared sarah, and she sank down like a stone just inside the gate. shmuel was about to speak, but a glance at sarah's face told him she was worn out, and he sat down beside his wife without a word. sarah gave doletzke the breast. the other children began to roll about in the grass, laughed and played, and shmuel breathed easier. girls in holiday attire walked about the park, and there were groups under the trees. here was a handsome girl surrounded by admiring boys, and there a handsome young man encircled by a bevy of girls. out of the leafy distance of the park came the melancholy song of a workman; near by stood a man playing on a fiddle. sarah looked about her and listened, and by degrees her vexation vanished. it is true that her heart was still sore, but it was not with the soreness of anger. she was taking her life to pieces and thinking it over, and it seemed a very hard and bitter one, and when she looked at her husband and thought of his life, she was near crying, and she laid her hands upon his knee. shmuel also sat lost in thought. he was thinking about the trees and the roses and the grass, and listening to the fiddle. and he also was sad at heart. "o sarah!" he sighed, and he would have said more, but just at that moment it began to spot with rain, and before they had time to move there came a downpour. people started to scurry in all directions, but shmuel stood like a statue. "shlimm-mazel, look after the children!" commanded sarah. shmuel caught up two of them, sarah another two or three, and they ran to a shelter. doletzke began to cry afresh. "mame, hungry!" began berele. "hungry, hungry!" wailed yossele. "i want to eat!" shmuel hastily opened the hand-bag, and then for the first time he saw what had really happened: the bottle had broken, and the milk was flooding the bag; the rolls and bananas were soaked, and the pineapple (a damaged one to begin with) looked too nasty for words. sarah caught sight of the bag, and was so angry, she was at a loss how to wreak vengeance on her husband. she was ashamed to scream and scold in the presence of other people, but she went up to him, and whispered fervently into his ear, "the same to you, my good man!" the children continued to clamor for food. "i'll go to the refreshment counter and buy a glass of milk and a few rolls," said shmuel to his wife. "have you actually some money left?" asked sarah. "i thought it had all been spent on the picnic." "there are just five cents over." "well, then go and be quick about it. the poor things are starving." shmuel went to the refreshment stall, and asked the price of a glass of milk and a few rolls. "twenty cents, mister," answered the waiter. shmuel started as if he had burnt his finger, and returned to his wife more crestfallen than ever. "well, shlimm-mazel, where's the milk?" inquired sarah. "he asked twenty cents." "twenty cents for a glass of milk and a roll? are you montefiore?" sarah could no longer contain herself. "they'll be the ruin of us! if you want to go for another picnic, we shall have to sell the bedding." the children never stopped begging for something to eat. "but what are we to do?" asked the bewildered shmuel. "do?" screamed sarah. "go home, this very minute!" shmuel promptly caught up a few children, and they left the park. sarah was quite quiet on the way home, merely remarking to her husband that she would settle her account with him later. "i'll pay you out," she said, "for my satin dress, for the hand-bag, for the pineapple, for the bananas, for the milk, for the whole blessed picnic, for the whole of my miserable existence." "scold away!" answered shmuel. "it is you who were right. i don't know what possessed me. a picnic, indeed! you may well ask what next? a poor wretched workman like me has no business to think of anything beyond the shop." sarah, when they reached home, was as good as her word. shmuel would have liked some supper, as he always liked it, even in slack times, but there was no supper given him. he went to bed a hungry man, and all through the night he repeated in his sleep: "a picnic, oi, a picnic!" manasseh it was a stifling summer evening. i had just come home from work, taken off my coat, unbuttoned my waistcoat, and sat down panting by the window of my little room. there was a knock at the door, and without waiting for my reply, in came a woman with yellow hair, and very untidy in her dress. i judged from her appearance that she had not come from a distance. she had nothing on her head, her sleeves were tucked up, she held a ladle in her hand, and she was chewing something or other. "i am manasseh's wife," said she. "manasseh gricklin's?" i asked. "yes," said my visitor, "gricklin's, gricklin's." i hastily slipped on a coat, and begged her to be seated. manasseh was an old friend of mine, he was a capmaker, and we worked together in one shop. and i knew that he lived somewhere in the same tenement as myself, but it was the first time i had the honor of seeing his wife. "look here," began the woman, "don't you work in the same shop as my husband?" "yes, yes," i said. "well, and now tell me," and the yellow-haired woman gave a bound like a hyena, "how is it i see you come home from work with all other respectable people, and my husband not? and it isn't the first time, either, that he's gone, goodness knows where, and come home two hours after everyone else. where's he loitering about?" "i don't know," i replied gravely. the woman brandished her ladle in such a way that i began to think she meant murder. "you don't know?" she exclaimed with a sinister flash in her eyes. "what do you mean by that? don't you two leave the shop together? how can you help seeing what becomes of him?" then i remembered that when manasseh and i left the shop, he walked with me a few blocks, and then went off in another direction, and that one day, when i asked him where he was going, he had replied, "to some friends." "he must go to some friends," i said to the woman. "to some friends?" she repeated, and burst into strange laughter. "who? whose? ours? we're greeners, we are, we have no friends. what friends should he have, poor, miserable wretch?" "i don't know," i said, "but that is what he told me." "all right!" said manasseh's wife. "i'll teach him a lesson he won't forget in a hurry." with these words she departed. when she had left the room, i pictured to myself poor consumptive manasseh being taught a "lesson" by his yellow-haired wife, and i pitied him. manasseh was a man of about thirty. his yellowish-white face was set in a black beard; he was very thin, always ailing and coughing, had never learnt to write, and he read only yiddish--a quiet, respectable man, i might almost say the only hand in the shop who never grudged a fellow-worker his livelihood. he had been only a year in the country, and the others made sport of him, but i always stood up for him, because i liked him very much. wherever does he go, now? i wondered to myself, and i resolved to find out. next morning i met manasseh as usual, and at first i intended to tell him of his wife's visit to me the day before; but the poor operative looked so low-spirited, so thoroughly unhappy, that i felt sure his wife had already given him the promised "lesson," and i hadn't the courage to mention her to him just then. in the evening, as we were going home from the workshop, manasseh said to me: "did my wife come to see you yesterday?" "yes, brother manasseh," i answered. "she seemed something annoyed with you." "she has a dreadful temper," observed the workman. "when she is really angry, she's fit to kill a man. but it's her bitter heart, poor thing--she's had so many troubles! we're so poor, and she's far away from her family." manasseh gave a deep sigh. "she asked you where i go other days after work?" he continued. "yes." "would you like to know?" "why not, mister gricklin!" "come along a few blocks further," said manasseh, "and i'll show you." "come along!" i agreed, and we walked on together. a few more blocks and manasseh led me into a narrow street, not yet entirely built in with houses. presently he stopped, with a contented smile. i looked round in some astonishment. we were standing alongside a piece of waste ground, with a meagre fencing of stones and burnt wire, and utilized as a garden. "just look," said the workman, pointing at the garden, "how delightful it is! one so seldom sees anything of the kind in new york." manasseh went nearer to the fence, and his eyes wandered thirstily over the green, flowering plants, just then in full beauty. i also looked at the garden. the things that grew there were unknown to me, and i was ignorant of their names. only one thing had a familiar look--a few tall, graceful "moons" were scattered here and there over the place, and stood like absent-minded dreamers, or beautiful sentinels. and the roses were in bloom, and their fragrance came in wafts over the fencing. "you see the 'moons'?" asked manasseh, in rapt tones, but more to himself than to me. "look how beautiful they are! i can't take my eyes off them. i am capable of standing and looking at them for hours. they make me feel happy, almost as if i were at home again. there were a lot of them at home!" the operative sighed, lost himself a moment in thought, and then said: "when i smell the roses, i think of old days. we had quite a large garden, and i was so fond of it! when the flowers began to come out, i used to sit there for hours, and could never look at it enough. the roses appeared to be dreaming with their great golden eyes wide open. the cucumbers lay along the ground like pussy-cats, and the stalks and leaves spread ever so far across the beds. the beans fought for room like street urchins, and the pumpkins and the potatoes--you should have seen them! and the flowers were all colors--pink and blue and yellow, and i felt as if everything were alive, as if the whole garden were alive--i fancied i heard them talking together, the roses, the potatoes, the beans. i spent whole evenings in my garden. it was dear to me as my own soul. look, look, look, don't the roses seem as if they were alive?" but i looked at manasseh, and thought the consumptive workman had grown younger and healthier. his face was less livid, and his eyes shone with happiness. "do you know," said manasseh to me, as we walked away from the garden, "i had some cuttings of rose-trees at home, in a basket out on the fire-escape, and they had begun to bud." there was a pause. "well," i inquired, "and what happened?" "my wife laid out the mattress to air on the top of the basket, and they were all crushed." manasseh made an outward gesture with his hand, and i asked no more questions. the poky, stuffy shop in which he worked came into my mind, and my heart was sore for him. yohrzeit for mother the ginzburgs' first child died of inflammation of the lungs when it was two years and three months old. the young couple were in the depths of grief and despair--they even thought seriously of committing suicide. but people do not do everything they think of doing. neither ginzburg nor his wife had the courage to throw themselves into the cold and grizzly arms of death. they only despaired, until, some time after, a newborn child bound them once more to life. it was a little girl, and they named her dvoreh, after ginzburg's dead mother. the ginzburgs were both free-thinkers in the full sense of the word, and their naming the child after the dead had no superstitious significance whatever. it came about quite simply. "dobinyu," ginzburg had asked his wife, "how shall we call our daughter?" "i don't know," replied the young mother. "no more do i," said ginzburg. "let us call her dvorehle," suggested dobe, automatically, gazing at her pretty baby, and very little concerned about its name. had ginzburg any objection to make? none at all, and the child's name was dvorehle henceforward. when the first child had lived to be a year old, the parents had made a feast-day, and invited guests to celebrate their first-born's first birthday with them. with the second child it was not so. the ginzburgs loved their dvorehle, loved her painfully, infinitely, but when it came to the anniversary of her birth they made no rejoicings. i do not think i shall be going too far if i say they did not dare to do so. dvorehle was an uncommon child: a bright girlie, sweet-tempered, pretty, and clever, the light of the house, shining into its every corner. she could be a whole world of delight to her parents, this wee dvorehle. but it was not the delight, not the happiness they had known with the first child, not the same. _that_ had been so free, so careless. now it was different: terrible pictures of death, of a child's death, would rise up in the midst of their joy, and their gladness suddenly ended in a heavy sigh. they would be at the height of enchantment, kissing and hugging the child and laughing aloud, they would be singing to it and romping with it, everything else would be forgotten. then, without wishing to do so, they would suddenly remember that not so long ago it was another child, also a girl, that went off into just the same silvery little bursts of laughter--and now, where is it?--dead! o how it goes through the heart! the parents turn pale in the midst of their merrymaking, the mother's eyes fill with tears, and the father's head droops. "who knows?" sighs dobe, looking at their little laughing dvorehle. "who knows?" ginzburg understands the meaning of her question and is silent, because he is afraid to say anything in reply. it seems to me that parents who have buried their first-born can never be really happy again. so dvorehle's first birthday was allowed to pass as it were unnoticed. when it came to her second, it was nearly the same thing, only dobe said, "ginzburg, when our daughter is three years old, then we will have great rejoicings!" they waited for the day with trembling hearts. their child's third year was full of terror for them, because their eldest-born had died in her third year, and they felt as though it must be the most dangerous one for their second child. a dreadful conviction began to haunt them both, only they were afraid to confess it one to the other. this conviction, this fixed idea of theirs, was that when dvorehle reached the age of their eldest child when it died, death would once more call their household to mind. dvorehle grew to be two years and eight months old. o it was a terrible time! and--and the child fell ill, with inflammation of the lungs, just like the other one. o pictures that arose and stood before the parents! o terror, o calamity! they were free-thinkers, the ginzburgs, and if any one had told them that they were not free from what they called superstition, that the belief in a higher power beyond our understanding still had a root in their being, if you had spoken thus to ginzburg or to his wife, they would have laughed at you, both of them, out of the depths of a full heart and with laughter more serious than many another's words. but what happened now is wonderful to tell. dobe, sitting by the sick child's cot, began to speak, gravely, and as in a dream: "who knows? who knows? perhaps? perhaps?" she did not conclude. "perhaps what?" asked ginzburg, impatiently. "why should it come like this?" dobe went on. "the same time, the same sickness?" "a simple blind coincidence of circumstances," replied her husband. "but so exactly--one like the other, as if somebody had made it happen on purpose." ginzburg understood his wife's meaning, and answered short and sharp: "dobe, don't talk nonsense." meanwhile dvorehle's illness developed, and the day came on which the doctor said that a crisis would occur within twenty-four hours. what this meant to the ginzburgs would be difficult to describe, but each of them determined privately not to survive the loss of their second child. they sat beside it, not lifting their eyes from its face. they were pale and dazed with grief and sleepless nights, their hearts half-dead within them, they shed no tears, they were so much more dead than alive themselves, and the child's flame of life flickered and dwindled, flickered and dwindled. a tangle of memories was stirring in ginzburg's head, all relating to deaths and graves. he lived through the death of their first child with all details--his father's death, his mother's--early in a summer morning--that was--that was--he recalls it--as though it were to-day. "what is to-day?" he wonders. "what day of the month is it?" and then he remembers, it is the first of may. "the same day," he murmurs, as if he were talking in his sleep. "what the same day?" asks dobe. "nothing," says ginzburg. "i was thinking of something." he went on thinking, and fell into a doze where he sat. he saw his mother enter the room with a soft step, take a chair, and sit down by the sick child. "mother, save it!" he begs her, his heart is full to bursting, and he begins to cry. "isrolik," says his mother, "i have brought a remedy for the child that bears my name." "mame!!!" he is about to throw himself upon her neck and kiss her, but she motions him lightly aside. "why do you never light a candle for my yohrzeit?" she inquires, and looks at him reproachfully. "mame, have pity on us, save the child!" "the child will live, only you must light me a candle." "mame" (he sobs louder), "have pity!" "light my candle--make haste, make haste--" "ginzburg!" a shriek from his wife, and he awoke with a start. "ginzburg, the child is dying! fly for the doctor." ginzburg cast a look at the child, a chill went through him, he ran to the door. the doctor came in person. "our child is dying! help save it!" wailed the unhappy mother, and he, ginzburg, stood and shivered as with cold. the doctor scrutinized the child, and said: "the crisis is coming on." there was something dreadful in the quiet of his tone. "what can be done?" and the ginzburgs wrung their hands. "hush! nothing! bring some hot water, bottles of hot water!--champagne!--where is the medicine? quick!" commanded the doctor. everything was to hand and ready in an instant. the doctor began to busy himself with the child, the parents stood by pale as death. "well," asked dobe, "what?" "we shall soon know," said the doctor. ginzburg looked round, glided like a shadow into a corner of the room, and lit the little lamp that stood there. "what is that for?" asked dobe, in a fright. "nothing, yohrzeit--my mother's," he answered in a strange voice, and his hands never ceased trembling. "your child will live," said the doctor, and father and mother fell upon the child's bed with their faces, and wept. the flame in the lamp burnt brighter and brighter. slack times they sleep despite the fact of the winter nights being long and dark as the jewish exile, the breklins go to bed at dusk. but you may as well know that when it is dusk outside in the street, the breklins are already "way on" in the night, because they live in a basement, separated from the rest of the world by an air-shaft, and when the sun gathers his beams round him before setting, the first to be summoned are those down the breklins' shaft, because of the time required for them to struggle out again. the same thing in the morning, only reversed. people don't usually get up, if they can help it, before it is really light, and so it comes to pass that when other people have left their beds, and are going about their business, the breklins are still asleep and making the long, long night longer yet. if you ask me, "how is it they don't wear their sides out with lying in bed?" i shall reply: they _do_ rise with aching sides, and if you say, "how can people be so lazy?" i can tell you, they don't do it out of laziness, and they lie awake a great part of the time. what's the good of lying in bed if one isn't asleep? there you have it in a nutshell--it's a question of the economic conditions. the breklins are very poor, their life is a never-ending struggle with poverty, and they have come to the conclusion that the cheapest way of waging it, and especially in winter, is to lie in bed under a great heap of old clothes and rags of every description. breklin is a house-painter, and from christmas to purim (i beg to distinguish!) work is dreadfully slack. when you're not earning a crooked penny, what are you to do? in the first place, you must live on "cash," that is, on the few dollars scraped together and put by during the "season," and in the second place, you must cut down your domestic expenses, otherwise the money won't hold out, and then you might as well keep your teeth in a drawer. but you may neither eat nor drink, nor live at all to mention--if it's winter, the money goes all the same: it's bitterly cold, and you can't do without the stove, and the nights are long, and you want a lamp. and the breklins saw that their money would _not_ hold out till purim--that their fast of esther would be too long. coal was beyond them, and kerosene as dear as wine, and yet how could they possibly spend less? how could they do without a fire when it was so cold? without a lamp when it was so dark? and the breklins had an "idea"! why sit up at night and watch the stove and the lamp burning away their money, when they might get into bed, bury themselves in rags, and defy both poverty and cold? there is nothing in particular to do, anyhow. what should there be, a long winter evening through? nothing! they only sat and poured out the bitterness in their heart one upon the other, quarrelled, and scolded. they could do that in bed just as well, and save firing and light into the bargain. so, at the first approach of darkness, the bed was made ready for mr. breklin, and his wife put to sleep their only, three-year-old child. avremele did not understand why he was put to bed so early, but he asked no questions. the room began to feel cold, and the poor little thing was glad to nestle deep into the bedcoverings. the lamp and the fire were extinguished, the stove would soon go out of itself, and the breklin family slept. they slept, and fought against poverty by lying in bed. it was waging cheap warfare. * * * * * having had his first sleep out, breklin turns to his wife: "what do you suppose the time to be now, yudith?" yudith listens attentively. "it must be past eight o'clock," she says. "what makes you think so?" asks breklin. "don't you hear the clatter of knives and forks? well-to-do folk are having supper." "we also used to have supper about this time, in the tsisin," said breklin, and he gave a deep sigh of longing. "we shall soon forget the good times altogether," says yudith, and husband and wife set sail once more for the land of dreams. a few hours later breklin wakes with a groan. "what is the matter?" inquires yudith. "my sides ache with lying." "mine, too," says yudith, and they both begin yawning. "what o'clock would it be now?" wonders breklin, and yudith listens again. "about ten o'clock," she tells him. "no later? i don't believe it. it must be a great deal later than that." "well, listen for yourself," persists yudith, "and you'll hear the housekeeper upstairs scolding somebody. she's putting out the gas in the hall." "oi, weh is mir! how the night drags!" sighs breklin, and turns over onto his other side. yudith goes on talking, but as much to herself as to him: "upstairs they are still all alive, and we are asleep in bed." "weh is mir, weh is mir!" sighs breklin over and over, and once more there is silence. the night wears on. "are you asleep?" asks breklin, suddenly. "i wish i were! who could sleep through such a long night? i'm lying awake and racking my brains." "what over?" asks breklin, interested. "i'm trying to think," explains yudith, "what we can have for dinner to-morrow that will cost nothing, and yet be satisfying." "oi, weh is mir!" sighs breklin again, and is at a loss what to advise. "i wonder" (this time it is yudith) "what o'clock it is now!" "it will soon be morning," is breklin's opinion. "morning? nonsense!" yudith knows better. "it must be morning soon!" he holds to it. "you are very anxious for the morning," says yudith, good-naturedly, "and so you think it will soon be here, and i tell you, it's not midnight yet." "what are you talking about? you don't know what you're saying! i shall go out of my mind." "you know," says yudith, "that avremele always wakes at midnight and cries, and he's still fast asleep." "no, mame," comes from under avremele's heap of rags. "come to me, my beauty! so he was awake after all!" and yudith reaches out her arms for the child. "perhaps he's cold," says breklin. "are you cold, sonny?" asks yudith. "cold, mame!" replies avremele. yudith wraps the coverlets closer and closer round him, and presses him to her side. and the night wears on. "o my sides!" groans breklin. "mine, too!" moans yudith, and they start another conversation. one time they discuss their neighbors; another time the breklins try to calculate how long it is since they married, how much they spend a week on an average, and what was the cost of yudith's confinement. it is seldom they calculate anything right, but talking helps to while away time, till the basement begins to lighten, whereupon the breklins jump out of bed, as though it were some perilous hiding-place, and set to work in a great hurry to kindle the stove. abraham raisin born, , in kaidanov, government of minsk (lithuania), white russia; traditional jewish education; self-taught in russian language; teacher at fifteen, first in kaidanov, then in minsk; first poem published in perez's jüdische bibliothek, in ; served in the army, in kovno, for four years; went to warsaw in , and to new york in ; yiddish lyric poet and novelist; occasionally writes hebrew; contributor to spektor's hausfreund, new york abendpost, and new york arbeiterzeitung; co-editor of das zwanzigste jahrhundert; in , published and edited, in cracow, das jüdische wort, first to urge the claim of yiddish as the national jewish language; publisher and editor, since , of dos neie land, in new york; collected works (poems and tales), vols., warsaw, - . shut in lebele is a little boy ten years old, with pale cheeks, liquid, dreamy eyes, and black hair that falls in twisted ringlets, but, of course, the ringlets are only seen when his hat falls off, for lebele is a pious little boy, who never uncovers his head. there are things that lebele loves and never has, or else he has them only in part, and that is why his eyes are always dreamy and troubled, and always full of longing. he loves the summer, and sits the whole day in cheder. he loves the sun, and the rebbe hangs his caftan across the window, and the cheder is darkened, so that it oppresses the soul. lebele loves the moon, the night, but at home they close the shutters, and lebele, on his little bed, feels as if he were buried alive. and lebele cannot understand people's behaving so oddly. it seems to him that when the sun shines in at the window, it is a delight, it is so pleasant and cheerful, and the rebbe goes and curtains it--no more sun! if lebele dared, he would ask: "what ails you, rebbe, at the sun? what harm can it do you?" but lebele will never put that question: the rebbe is such a great and learned man, he must know best. ai, how dare he, lebele, disapprove? he is only a little boy. when he is grown up, he will doubtless curtain the window himself. but as things are now, lebele is not happy, and feels sadly perplexed at the behavior of his elders. late in the evening, he comes home from cheder. the sun has already set, the street is cheerful and merry, the cockchafers whizz and, flying, hit him on the nose, the ear, the forehead. he would like to play about a bit in the street, let them have supper without him, but he is afraid of his father. his father is a kind man when he talks to strangers, he is so gentle, so considerate, so confidential. but to him, to lebele, he is very unkind, always shouting at him, and if lebele comes from cheder a few minutes late, he will be angry. "where have you been, my fine fellow? have you business anywhere?" now go and tell him that it is not at all so bad out in the street, that it's a pleasure to hear how the cockchafers whirr, that even the hits they give you on the wing are friendly, and mean, "hallo, old fellow!" of course it's a wild absurdity! it amuses him, because he is only a little boy, while his father is a great man, who trades in wood and corn, and who always knows the current prices--when a thing is dearer and when it is cheaper. his father can speak the gentile language, and drive bargains, his father understands the prussian weights. is that a man to be thought lightly of? go and tell him, if you dare, that it's delightful now out in the street. and lebele hurries straight home. when he has reached it, his father asks him how many chapters he has mastered, and if he answers five, his father hums a tune without looking at him; but if he says only three, his father is angry, and asks: "how's that? why so little, ha?" and lebele is silent, and feels guilty before his father. after that his father makes him translate a hebrew word. "translate _kimlùnah_!" "_kimlùnah_ means 'like a passing the night,'" answers lebele, terrified. his father is silent--a sign that he is satisfied--and they sit down to supper. lebele's father keeps an eye on him the whole time, and instructs him how to eat. "is that how you hold your spoon?" inquires the father, and lebele holds the spoon lower, and the food sticks in his throat. after supper lebele has to say grace aloud and in correct hebrew, according to custom. if he mumbles a word, his father calls out: "what did i hear? what? once more, 'wherewith thou dost feed and sustain us.' well, come, say it! don't be in a hurry, it won't burn you!" and lebele says it over again, although he _is_ in a great hurry, although he longs to run out into the street, and the words _do_ seem to burn him. when it is dark, he repeats the evening prayer by lamplight; his father is always catching him making a mistake, and lebele has to keep all his wits about him. the moon, round and shining, is already floating through the sky, and lebele repeats the prayers, and looks at her, and longs after the street, and he gets confused in his praying. prayers over, he escapes out of the house, puzzling over some question in the talmud against the morrow's lesson. he delays there a while gazing at the moon, as she pours her pale beams onto the gass. but he soon hears his father's voice: "come indoors, to bed!" it is warm outside, there is not a breath of air stirring, and yet it seems to lebele as though a wind came along with his father's words, and he grows cold, and he goes in like one chilled to the bone, takes his stand by the window, and stares at the moon. "it is time to close the shutters--there's nothing to sit up for!" lebele hears his father say, and his heart sinks. his father goes out, and lebele sees the shutters swing to, resist, as though they were being closed against their will, and presently there is a loud bang. no more moon!--his father has hidden it! a while after, the lamp has been put out, the room is dark, and all are asleep but lebele, whose bed is by the window. he cannot sleep, he wants to be in the street, whence sounds come in through the chinks. he tries to sit up in bed, to peer out, also through the chinks, and even to open a bit of the shutter, without making any noise, and to look, look, but without success, for just then his father wakes and calls out: "what are you after there, eh? do you want me to come with the strap?" and lebele nestles quietly down again into his pillow, pulls the coverlet over his head, and feels as though he were buried alive. the charitable loan the largest fair in klemenke is "ulas." the little town waits for ulas with a beating heart and extravagant hopes. "ulas," say the klemenke shopkeepers and traders, "is a heavenly blessing; were it not for ulas, klemenke would long ago have been 'äus klemenke,' america would have taken its last few remaining jews to herself." but for ulas one must have the wherewithal--the shopkeepers need wares, and the traders, money. without the wherewithal, even ulas is no good! and chayyim, the dealer in produce, goes about gloomily. there are only three days left before ulas, and he hasn't a penny wherewith to buy corn to trade with. and the other dealers in produce circulate in the market-place with caps awry, with thickly-rolled cigarettes in their mouths and walking-sticks in their hands, and they are talking hard about the fair. "in three days it will be lively!" calls out one. "pshshsh," cries another in ecstasy, "in three days' time the place will be packed!" and chayyim turns pale. he would like to call down a calamity on the fair, he wishes it might rain, snow, or storm on that day, so that not even a mad dog should come to the market-place; only chayyim knows that ulas is no weakling, ulas is not afraid of the strongest wind--ulas is ulas! and chayyim's eyes are ready to start out of his head. a charitable loan--where is one to get a charitable loan? if only five and twenty rubles! he asks it of everyone, but they only answer with a merry laugh: "are you mad? money--just before a fair?" and it seems to chayyim that he really will go mad. "suppose you went across to loibe-bäres?" suggests his wife, who takes her full share in his distress. "i had thought of that myself," answers chayyim, meditatively. "but what?" asks the wife. chayyim is about to reply, "but i can't go there, i haven't the courage," only that it doesn't suit him to be so frank with his wife, and he answers: "devil take him! he won't lend anything!" "try! it won't hurt," she persists. and chayyim reflects that he has no other resource, that loibe-bäres is a rich man, and living in the same street, a neighbor in fact, and that _he_ requires no money for the fair, being a dealer in lumber and timber. "give me out my sabbath overcoat!" says chayyim to his wife, in a resolute tone. "didn't i say so?" the wife answers. "it's the best thing you can do, to go to him." chayyim placed himself before a half-broken looking-glass which was nailed to the wall, smoothed his beard with both hands, tightened his earlocks, and then took off his hat, and gave it a polish with his sleeve. "just look and see if i haven't got any white on my coat off the wall!" "if you haven't?" the wife answered, and began slapping him with both hands over the shoulders. "i thought we once had a little clothes-brush. where is it? ha?" "perhaps you dreamt it," replied his wife, still slapping him on the shoulders, and she went on, "well, i should say you had got some white on your coat!" "come, that'll do!" said chayyim, almost angrily. "i'll go now." he drew on his sabbath overcoat with a sigh, and muttering, "very likely, isn't it, he'll lend me money!" he went out. on the way to loibe-bäres, chayyim's heart began to fail him. since the day that loibe-bäres came to live at the end of the street, chayyim had been in the house only twice, and the path chayyim was treading now was as bad as an examination: the "approach" to him, the light rooms, the great mirrors, the soft chairs, loibe-bäres himself with his long, thick beard and his black eyes with their "gevirish" glance, the lady, the merry, happy children, even the maid, who had remained in his memory since those two visits--all these things together terrified him, and he asked himself, "where are you going to? are you mad? home with you at once!" and every now and then he would stop short on the way. only the thought that ulas was near, and that he had no money to buy corn, drove him to continue. "he won't lend anything--it's no use hoping." chayyim was preparing himself as he walked for the shock of disappointment; but he felt that if he gave way to that extent, he would never be able to open his mouth to make his request known, and he tried to cheer himself: "if i catch him in a good humor, he will lend! why should he be afraid of lending me a few rubles over the fair? i shall tell him that as soon as ever i have sold the corn, he shall have the loan back. i will swear it by wife and children, he will believe me--and i will pay it back." but this does not make chayyim any the bolder, and he tries another sort of comfort, another remedy against nervousness. "he isn't a bad man--and, after all, our acquaintance won't date from to-day--we've been living in the same street twenty years--parabotzker street--" and chayyim recollects that a fortnight ago, as loibe-bäres was passing his house on his way to the market-place, and he, chayyim, was standing in the yard, he gave him the greeting due to a gentleman ("and i could swear i gave him my hand," chayyim reminded himself). loibe-bäres had made a friendly reply, he had even stopped and asked, like an old acquaintance, "well, chayyim, and how are you getting on?" and chayyim strains his memory and remembers further that he answered on this wise: "i thank you for asking! heaven forgive me, one does a little bit of business!" and chayyim is satisfied with his reply, "i answered him quite at my ease." chayyim resolves to speak to him this time even more leisurely and independently, not to cringe before him. chayyim could already see loibe-bäres' house in the distance. he coughed till his throat was clear, stroked his beard down, and looked at his coat. "still a very good coat!" he said aloud, as though trying to persuade himself that the coat was still good, so that he might feel more courage and more proper pride. but when he got to loibe-bäres' big house, when the eight large windows looking onto the street flashed into his eyes, the windows being brightly illuminated from within, his heart gave a flutter. "oi, lord of the world, help!" came of its own accord to his lips. then he felt ashamed, and caught himself up, "ett, nonsense!" as he pushed the door open, the "prayer" escaped him once more, "help, mighty god! or it will be the death of me!" * * * * * loibe-bäres was seated at a large table covered with a clean white table-cloth, and drinking while he talked cheerfully with his household. "there's a jew come, tate!" called out a boy of twelve, on seeing chayyim standing by the door. "so there is!" called out a second little boy, still more merrily, fixing chayyim with his large, black, mischievous eyes. all the rest of those at table began looking at chayyim, and he thought every moment that he must fall of a heap onto the floor. "it will look very bad if i fall," he said to himself, made a step forward, and, without saying good evening, stammered out: "i just happened to be passing, you understand, and i saw you sitting--so i knew you were at home--well, i thought one ought to call--neighbors--" "well, welcome, welcome!" said loibe-bäres, smiling. "you've come at the right moment. sit down." a stone rolled off chayyim's heart at this reply, and, with a glance at the two little boys, he quietly took a seat. "leah, give reb chayyim a glass of tea," commanded loibe-bäres. "quite a kind man!" thought chayyim. "may the almighty come to his aid!" he gave his host a grateful look, and would gladly have fallen onto the gevir's thick neck, and kissed him. "well, and what are you about?" inquired his host. "thanks be to god, one lives!" the maid handed him a glass of tea. he said, "thank you," and then was sorry: it is not the proper thing to thank a servant. he grew red and bit his lips. "have some jelly with it!" loibe-bäres suggested. "an excellent man, an excellent man!" thought chayyim, astonished. "he is sure to lend." "you deal in something?" asked loibe-bäres. "why, yes," answered chayyim. "one's little bit of business, thank heaven, is no worse than other people's!" "what price are oats fetching now?" it occurred to the gevir to ask. oats had fallen of late, but it seemed better to chayyim to say that they had risen. "they have risen very much!" he declared in a mercantile tone of voice. "well, and have you some oats ready?" inquired the gevir further. "i've got a nice lot of oats, and they didn't cost me much, either. i got them quite cheap," replied chayyim, with more warmth, forgetting, while he spoke, that he hadn't had an ear of oats in his granary for weeks. "and you are thinking of doing a little speculating?" asked loibe-bäres. "are you not in need of any money?" "thanks be to god," replied chayyim, proudly, "i have never yet been in need of money." "why did i say that?" he thought then, in terror at his own words. "how am i going to ask for a loan now?" and chayyim wanted to back the cart a little, only loibe-bäres prevented him by saying: "so i understand you make a good thing of it, you are quite a wealthy man." "my wealth be to my enemies!" chayyim wanted to draw back, but after a glance at loibe-bäres' shining face, at the blue jar with the jelly, he answered proudly: "thank heaven, i have nothing to complain of!" "there goes your charitable loan!" the thought came like a kick in the back of his head. "why are you boasting like that? tell him you want twenty-five rubles for ulas--that he must save you, that you are in despair, that--" but chayyim fell deeper and deeper into a contented and happy way of talking, praised his business more and more, and conversed with the gevir as with an equal. but he soon began to feel he was one too many, that he should not have sat there so long, or have talked in that way. it would have been better to have talked about the fair, about a loan. now it is too late: "i have no need of money!" and chayyim gave a despairing look at loibe-bäres' cheerful face, at the two little boys who sat opposite and watched him with sly, mischievous eyes, and who whispered knowingly to each other, and then smiled more knowingly still! a cold perspiration covered him. he rose from his chair. "you are going already?" observed loibe-bäres, politely. "now perhaps i could ask him!" it flashed across chayyim's mind that he might yet save himself, but, stealing a glance at the two boys with the roguish eyes that watched him so slyly, he replied with dignity: "i must! business! there is no time!" and it seems to him, as he goes toward the door, that the two little boys with the mischievous eyes are putting out their tongues after him, and that loibe-bäres himself smiles and says, "stick your tongues out further, further still!" chayyim's shoulders seem to burn, and he makes haste to get out of the house. the two brothers it is three months since yainkele and berele--two brothers, the first fourteen years old, the second sixteen--have been at the college that stands in the town of x--, five german miles from their birthplace dalissovke, after which they are called the "dalissovkers." yainkele is a slight, pale boy, with black eyes that peep slyly from beneath the two black eyebrows. berele is taller and stouter than yainkele, his eyes are lighter, and his glance is more defiant, as though he would say, "let me alone, i shall laugh at you all yet!" the two brothers lodged with a poor relation, a widow, a dealer in second-hand goods, who never came home till late at night. the two brothers had no bed, but a chest, which was broad enough, served instead, and the brothers slept sweetly on it, covered with their own torn clothes; and in their dreams they saw their native place, the little street, their home, their father with his long beard and dim eyes and bent back, and their mother with her long, pale, melancholy face, and they heard the little brothers and sisters quarrelling, as they fought over a bit of herring, and they dreamt other dreams of home, and early in the morning they were homesick, and then they used to run to the dalissovke inn, and ask the carrier if there were a letter for them from home. the dalissovke carriers were good jews with soft hearts, and they were sorry for the two poor boys, who were so anxious for news from home, whose eyes burned, and whose hearts beat so fast, so loud, but the carriers were very busy; they came charged with a thousand messages from the dalissovke shopkeepers and traders, and they carried more letters than the post, but with infinitely less method. letters were lost, and parcels were heard of no more, and the distracted carriers scratched the nape of their neck, and replied to every question: "directly, directly, i shall find it directly--no, i don't seem to have anything for you--" that is how they answered the grown people who came to them; but our two little brothers stood and looked at lezer the carrier--a man in a wadded caftan, summer and winter--with thirsty eyes and aching hearts; stood and waited, hoping he would notice them and say something, if only one word. but lezer was always busy: now he had gone into the yard to feed the horse, now he had run into the inn, and entered into a conversation with the clerk of a great store, who had brought a list of goods wanted from a shop in dalissovke. and the brothers used to stand and stand, till the elder one, berele, lost patience. biting his lips, and all but crying with vexation, he would just articulate: "reb lezer, is there a letter from father?" but reb lezer would either suddenly cease to exist, run out into the street with somebody or other, or be absorbed in a conversation, and berele hardly expected the answer which reb lezer would give over his shoulder: "there isn't one--there isn't one." "there isn't one!" berele would say with a deep sigh, and sadly call to yainkele to come away. mournfully, and with a broken spirit, they went to where the day's meal awaited them. "i am sure he loses the letters!" yainkele would say a few minutes later, as they walked along. "he is a bad man!" berele would mutter with vexation. but one day lezer handed them a letter and a small parcel. the letter ran thus: "dear children, be good, boys, and learn with diligence. we send you herewith half a cheese and a quarter of a pound of sugar, and a little berry-juice in a bottle. eat it in health, and do not quarrel over it. from me, your father, chayyim hecht." that day lezer the carrier was the best man in the world in their eyes, they would not have been ashamed to eat him up with horse and cart for very love. they wrote an answer at once--for letter-paper they used to tear out, with fluttering hearts, the first, imprinted pages in the gemoreh--and gave it that evening to lezer the carrier. lezer took it coldly, pushed it into the breast of his coat, and muttered something like "all right!" "what did he say, berele?" asked yainkele, anxiously. "i think he said 'all right,'" berele answered doubtfully. "i think he said so, too," yainkele persuaded himself. then he gave a sigh, and added fearfully: "he may lose the letter!" "bite your tongue out!" answered berele, angrily, and they went sadly away to supper. and three times a week, early in the morning, when lezer the carrier came driving, the two brothers flew, not ran, to the dalissovke inn, to ask for an answer to their letter; and lezer the carrier grew more preoccupied and cross, and answered either with mumbled words, which the brothers could not understand, and dared not ask him to repeat, or else not at all, so that they went away with heavy hearts. but one day they heard lezer the carrier speak distinctly, so that they understood quite well: "what are you doing here, you two? what do you come plaguing me for? letter? fiddlesticks! how much do you pay me? am i a postman? eh? be off with you, and don't worry." the brothers obeyed, but only in part: their hearts were like lead, their thin little legs shook, and tears fell from their eyes onto the ground. and they went no more to lezer the carrier to ask for a letter. "i wish he were dead and buried!" they exclaimed, but they did not mean it, and they longed all the time just to go and look at lezer the carrier, his horse and cart. after all, they came from dalissovke, and the two brothers loved them. * * * * * one day, two or three weeks after the carrier sent them about their business in the way described, the two brothers were sitting in the house of the poor relation and talking about home. it was summer-time, and a friday afternoon. "i wonder what father is doing now," said yainkele, staring at the small panes in the small window. "he must be cutting his nails," answered berele, with a melancholy smile. "he must be chopping up lambs' feet," imagined yainkele, "and mother is combing chainele, and chainele is crying." "now we've talked nonsense enough!" decided berele. "how can we know what is going on there?" "perhaps somebody's dead!" added yainkele, in sudden terror. "stuff and nonsense!" said berele. "when people die, they let one know--" "perhaps they wrote, and the carrier won't give us the letter--" "ai, that's chatter enough!" berele was quite cross. "shut up, donkey! you make me laugh," he went on, to reassure yainkele, "they are all alive and well." yainkele became cheerful again, and all at once he gave a bound into the air, and exclaimed with eager eyes: "berele, do what i say! let's write by the post!" "right you are!" agreed berele. "only i've no money." "i have four kopeks; they are over from the ten i got last night. you know, at my 'thursday' they give me ten kopeks for supper, and i have four over. "and i have one kopek," said berele, "just enough for a post-card." "but which of us will write it?" asked yainkele. "i," answered berele, "i am the eldest, i'm a first-born son." "but i gave four kopeks!" "a first-born is worth more than four kopeks." "no! i'll write half, and you'll write half, ha?" "very well. come and buy a card." and the two brothers ran to buy a card at the postoffice. "there will be no room for anything!" complained yainkele, on the way home, as he contemplated the small post-card. "we will make little tiny letters, teeny weeny ones!" advised berele. "father won't be able to read them!" "never mind! he will put on his spectacles. come along--quicker!" urged yainkele. his heart was already full of words, like a sea, and he wanted to pour it out onto the bit of paper, the scrap on which he had spent his entire fortune. they reached their lodging, and settled down to write. berele began, and yainkele stood and looked on. "begin higher up! there is room there for a whole line. why did you put 'to my beloved father' so low down?" shrieked yainkele. "where am i to put it, then? in the sky, eh?" asked berele, and pushed yainkele aside. "go away, i will leave you half. don't confuse me!--you be quiet!" and yainkele moved away, and stared with terrified eyes at berele, as he sat there, bent double, and wrote and wrote, knitted his brows, and dipped the pen, and reflected, and wrote again. "that's enough!" screamed yainkele, after a few minutes. "it's not the half yet," answered berele, writing on. "but i ought to have more than half!" said yainkele, crossly. the longing to write, to pour out his heart onto the post-card, was overwhelming him. but berele did not even hear: he had launched out into such rhetorical hebrew expressions as "first of all, i let you know that i am alive and well," which he had learnt in "the perfect letter-writer," and his little bits of news remained unwritten. he had yet to abuse lezer the carrier, to tell how many pages of the gemoreh he had learnt, to let them know they were to send another parcel, because they had no "monday" and no "wednesday," and the "tuesday" was no better than nothing. and berele writes and writes, and yainkele can no longer contain himself--he sees that berele is taking up more than half the card. "enough!" he ran forward with a cry, and seized the penholder. "three words more!" begged berele. "but remember, not more than three!" and yainkele's eyes flashed. berele set to work to write the three words; but that which he wished to express required yet ten to fifteen words, and berele, excited by the fact of writing, pecked away at the paper, and took up yet another bit of the other half. "you stop!" shrieked yainkele, and broke into hysterical sobs, as he saw what a small space remained for him. "hush! just 'from me, thy son,'" begged berele, "nothing else!" but yainkele, remembering that he had given a whole vierer toward the post-card, and that they would read so much of berele at home, and so little of him, flew into a passion, and came and tried to tear away the card from under berele's hands. "let me put 'from me, thy son'!" implored berele. "it will do _without_ 'from me, thy son'!" screamed yainkele, although he _felt_ that one ought to put it. his anger rose, and he began tugging at the card. berele held tight, but yainkele gave such a pull that the card tore in two. "what have you done, villain!" cried berele, glaring at yainkele. "i _meant_ to do it!" wailed yainkele. "oh, but why did you?" cried berele, gazing in despair at the two torn halves of the post-card. but yainkele could not answer. the tears choked him, and he threw himself against the wall, tearing his hair. then berele gave way, too, and the little room resounded with lamentations. lost his voice it was in the large synagogue in klemenke. the week-day service had come to an end. the town cantor who sings all the prayers, even when he prays alone, and who is longer over them than other people, had already folded his prayer-scarf, and was humming the day's psalm to himself, to a tune. he sang the last words "cantorishly" high: "and he will be our guide until death." in the last word "death" he tried, as usual, to rise artistically to the higher octave, then to fall very low, and to rise again almost at once into the height; but this time he failed, the note stuck in his throat and came out false. he got a fright, and in his fright he looked round to make sure no one was standing beside him. seeing only old henoch, his alarm grew less, he knew that old henoch was deaf. as he went out with his prayer-scarf and phylacteries under his arm, the unsuccessful "death" rang in his ears and troubled him. "plague take it," he muttered, "it never once happened to me before." soon, however, he remembered that two weeks ago, on the sabbath before the new moon, as he stood praying with the choristers before the altar, nearly the same thing had happened to him when he sang "he is our god" as a solo in the kedushah. happily no one remarked it--anyway the "bass" had said nothing to him. and the memory of the unsuccessful "hear, o israel" of two weeks ago and of to-day's "unto death" were mingled together, and lay heavily on his heart. he would have liked to try the note once more as he walked, but the street was just then full of people, and he tried to refrain till he should reach home. contrary to his usual custom, he began taking rapid steps, and it looked as if he were running away from someone. on reaching home, he put away his prayer-scarf without saying so much as good morning, recovered his breath after the quick walk, and began to sing, "he shall be our guide until death." "that's right, you have so little time to sing in! the day is too short for you!" exclaimed the cantoress, angrily. "it grates on the ears enough already!" "how, it grates?" and the cantor's eyes opened wide with fright, "i sing a note, and you say 'it grates'? how can it grate?" he looked at her imploringly, his eyes said: "have pity on me! don't say, 'it grates'! because if it _does_ grate, i am miserable, i am done for!" but the cantoress was much too busy and preoccupied with the dinner to sympathize and to understand how things stood with her husband, and went on: "of course it grates! why shouldn't it? it deafens me. when you sing in the choir, i have to bear it, but when you begin by yourself--what?" the cantor had grown as white as chalk, and only just managed to say: "grune, are you mad? what are you talking about?" "what ails the man to-day!" exclaimed grune, impatiently. "you've made a fool of yourself long enough! go and wash your hands and come to dinner!" the cantor felt no appetite, but he reflected that one must eat, if only as a remedy; not to eat would make matters worse, and he washed his hands. he chanted the grace loud and cantor-like, glancing occasionally at his wife, to see if she noticed anything wrong; but this time she said nothing at all, and he was reassured. "it was my fancy--just my fancy!" he said to himself. "all nonsense! one doesn't lose one's voice so soon as all that!" then he remembered that he was already forty years old, and it had happened to the cantor meyer lieder, when he was just that age-- that was enough to put him into a fright again. he bent his head, and thought deeply. then he raised it, and called out loud: "grune!" "hush! what is it? what makes you call out in that strange voice?" asked grune, crossly, running in. "well, well, let me live!" said the cantor. "why do you say 'in that strange voice'? whose voice was it? eh? what is the matter now?" there was a sound as of tears as he spoke. "you're cracked to-day! as nonsensical--well, what do you want?" "beat up one or two eggs for me!" begged the cantor, softly. "here's a new holiday!" screamed grune. "on a wednesday! have you got to chant the sabbath prayers? eggs are so dear now--five kopeks apiece!" "grune," commanded the cantor, "they may be one ruble apiece, two rubles, five rubles, one hundred rubles. do you hear? beat up two eggs for me, and don't talk!" "to be sure, you earn so much money!" muttered grune. "then you think it's all over with me?" said the cantor, boldly. "no, grune!" he wanted to tell her that he wasn't sure about it yet, there was still hope, it might be all a fancy, perhaps it was imagination, but he was afraid to say all that, and grune did not understand what he stammered out. she shrugged her shoulders, and only said, "upon my word!" and went to beat up the eggs. the cantor sat and sang to himself. he listened to every note as though he were examining some one. finding himself unable to take the high octave, he called out despairingly: "grune, make haste with the eggs!" his one hope lay in the eggs. the cantoress brought them with a cross face, and grumbled: "he wants eggs, and we're pinching and starving--" the cantor would have liked to open his heart to her, so that she should not think the eggs were what he cared about; he would have liked to say, "grune, i think i'm done for!" but he summoned all his courage and refrained. "after all, it may be only an idea," he thought. and without saying anything further, he began to drink up the eggs as a remedy. when they were finished, he tried to make a few cantor-like trills. in this he succeeded, and he grew more cheerful. "it will be all right," he thought, "i shall not lose my voice so soon as all that! never mind meyer lieder, he drank! i don't drink, only a little wine now and again, at a circumcision." his appetite returned, and he swallowed mouthful after mouthful. but his cheerfulness did not last: the erstwhile unsuccessful "death" rang in his ears, and the worry returned and took possession of him. the fear of losing his voice had tormented the cantor for the greater part of his life. his one care, his one anxiety had been, what should he do if he were to lose his voice? it had happened to him once already, when he was fourteen years old. he had a tenor voice, which broke all of a sudden. but that time he didn't care. on the contrary, he was delighted, he knew that his voice was merely changing, and that in six months he would get the baritone for which he was impatiently waiting. but when he had got the baritone, he knew that when he lost that, it would be lost indeed--he would get no other voice. so he took great care of it--how much more so when he had his own household, and had taken the office of cantor in klemenke! not a breath of wind was allowed to blow upon his throat, and he wore a comforter in the hottest weather. it was not so much on account of the klemenke householders--he felt sure they would not dismiss him from his office. even if he were to lose his voice altogether, he would still receive his salary. it was not brought to him to his house, as it was--he had to go for it every friday from door to door, and the klemenke jews were good-hearted, and never refused anything to the outstretched hand. he took care of his voice, and trembled to lose it, only out of love for the singing. he thought a great deal of the klemenke jews--their like was not to be found--but in the interpretation of music they were uninitiated, they had no feeling whatever. and when, standing before the altar, he used to make artistic trills and variations, and take the highest notes, that was for _himself_--he had great joy in it--and also for his eight singers, who were all the world to him. his very life was bound up with them, and when one of them exclaimed, "oi, cantor! oi, how you sing!" his happiness was complete. the singers had come together from various towns and villages, and all their conversations and their stories turned and wrapped themselves round cantors and music. these stories and legends were the cantor's delight, he would lose himself in every one of them, and give a sweet, deep sigh: "as if music were a trifle! as if a feeling were a toy!" and now that he had begun to fear he was losing his voice, it seemed to him the singers were different people--bad people! they must be laughing at him among themselves! and he began to be on his guard against them, avoided taking a high note in their presence, lest they should find out--and suffered all the more. and what would the neighboring cantors say? the thought tormented him further. he knew that he had a reputation among them, that he was a great deal thought of, that his voice was much talked of. he saw in his mind's eye a couple of cantors whispering together, and shaking their heads sorrowfully: they are pitying him! "how sad! you have heard? the poor klemenke cantor----" the vision quite upset him. "perhaps it's only fancy!" he would say to himself in those dreadful moments, and would begin to sing, to try his highest notes. but the terror he was in took away his hearing, and he could not tell if his voice were what it should be or not. in two weeks time his face grew pale and thin, his eyes were sunk, and he felt his strength going. "what is the matter with you, cantor?" said a singer to him one day. "ha, what is the matter?" asked the cantor, with a start, thinking they had already found out. "you ask what is the matter with me? then you know something about it, ha!" "no, i know nothing. that is why i ask you why you look so upset." "upset, you say? nothing more than upset, ha? that's all?" "the cantor must be thinking out some new piece for the solemn days," decided the choir. another month went by, and the cantor had not got the better of his fear. life had become distasteful to him. if he had known for certain that his voice was gone, he would perhaps have been calmer. verfallen! no one can live forever (losing his voice and dying was one and the same to him), but the uncertainty, the tossing oneself between yes and no, the olom ha-tohu of it all, embittered the cantor's existence. at last, one fine day, the cantor resolved to get at the truth: he could bear it no longer. it was evening, the wife had gone to the market for meat, and the choir had gone home, only the eldest singer, yössel "bass," remained with the cantor. the cantor looked at him, opened his mouth and shut it again; it was difficult for him to say what he wanted to say. at last he broke out with: "yössel!" "what is it, cantor?" "tell me, are you an honest man?" yössel "bass" stared at the cantor, and asked: "what are you asking me to-day, cantor?" "brother yössel," the cantor said, all but weeping, "brother yössel!" that was all he could say. "cantor, what is wrong with you?" "brother yössel, be an honest man, and tell me the truth, the truth!" "i don't understand! what is the matter with you, cantor?" "tell me the truth: do you notice any change in me?" "yes, i do," answered the singer, looking at the cantor, and seeing how pale and thin he was. "a very great change----" "now i see you are an honest man, you tell me the truth to my face. do you know when it began?" "it will soon be a month," answered the singer. "yes, brother, a month, a month, but i felt--" the cantor wiped off the perspiration that covered his forehead, and continued: "and you think, yössel, that it's lost now, for good and all?" "that _what_ is lost?" asked yössel, beginning to be aware that the conversation turned on something quite different from what was in his own mind. "what? how can you ask? ah? what should i lose? money? i have no money--i mean--of course--my voice." then yössel understood everything--he was too much of a musician _not_ to understand. looking compassionately at the cantor, he asked: "for certain?" "for certain?" exclaimed the cantor, trying to be cheerful. "why must it be for certain? very likely it's all a mistake--let us hope it is!" yössel looked at the cantor, and as a doctor behaves to his patient, so did he: "take _do_!" he said, and the cantor, like an obedient pupil, drew out _do_. "draw it out, draw it out! four quavers--draw it out!" commanded yössel, listening attentively. the cantor drew it out. "now, if you please, _re_!" the cantor sang out _re-re-re_. the singer moved aside, appeared to be lost in thought, and then said, sadly: "gone!" "forever?" "well, are you a little boy? are you likely to get another voice? at your time of life, gone is gone!" the cantor wrung his hands, threw himself down beside the table, and, laying his head on his arms, he burst out crying like a child. next morning the whole town had heard of the misfortune--that the cantor had lost his voice. "it's an ill wind----" quoted the innkeeper, a well-to-do man. "he won't keep us so long with his trills on sabbath. i'd take a bitter onion for that voice of his, any day!" late it was in sad and hopeless mood that antosh watched the autumn making its way into his peasant's hut. the days began to shorten and the evenings to lengthen, and there was no more petroleum in the hut to fill his humble lamp; his wife complained too--the store of salt was giving out; there was very little soap left, and in a few days he would finish his tobacco. and antosh cleared his throat, spat, and muttered countless times a day: "no salt, no soap, no tobacco; we haven't got anything. a bad business!" antosh had no prospect of earning anything in the village. the one village jew was poor himself, and had no work to give. antosh had only _one_ hope left. just before the feast of tabernacles he would drive a whole cart-load of fir-boughs into the little town and bring a tidy sum of money home in exchange. he did this every year, since buying his thin horse in the market for six rubles. "when shall you have tabernacles?" he asked every day of the village jew. "not yet," was the jew's daily reply. "but when _shall_ you?" antosh insisted one day. "in a week," answered the jew, not dreaming how very much antosh needed to know precisely. in reality there were only five more days to tabernacles, and antosh had calculated with business accuracy that it would be best to take the fir-boughs into the town two days before the festival. but this was really the first day of it. he rose early, ate his dry, black bread dipped in salt, and drank a measure of water. then he harnessed his thin, starved horse to the cart, took his hatchet, and drove into the nearest wood. he cut down the branches greedily, seeking out the thickest and longest. "good ware is easier sold," he thought, and the cart filled, and the load grew higher and higher. he was calculating on a return of three gulden, and it seemed still too little, so that he went on cutting, and laid on a few more boughs. the cart could hold no more, and antosh looked at it from all sides, and smiled contentedly. "that will be enough," he muttered, and loosened the reins. but scarcely had he driven a few paces, when he stopped and looked the cart over again. "perhaps it's not enough, after all?" he questioned fearfully, cut down five more boughs, laid them onto the already full cart, and drove on. he drove slowly, pace by pace, and his thoughts travelled slowly too, as though keeping step with the thin horse. antosh was calculating how much salt and how much soap, how much petroleum and how much tobacco he could buy for the return for his ware. at length the calculating tired him, and he resolved to put it off till he should have the cash. then the calculating would be done much more easily. but when he reached the town, and saw that the booths were already covered with fir-boughs, he felt a pang at his heart. the booths and the houses seemed to be twirling round him in a circle, and dancing. but he consoled himself with the thought that every year, when he drove into town, he found many booths already covered. some cover earlier, some later. the latter paid the best. "i shall ask higher prices," he resolved, and all the while fear tugged at his heart. he drove on. two jewish women were standing before a house; they pointed at the cart with their finger, and laughed aloud. "why do you laugh?" queried antosh, excitedly. "because you are too soon with your fir-boughs," they answered, and laughed again. "how too soon?" he asked, astonished. "too soon--too soon--" laughed the women. "pfui," antosh spat, and drove on, thinking, "berko said himself, 'in a week.' i am only two days ahead." a cold sweat covered him, as he reflected he might have made a wrong calculation, founded on what berko had told him. it was possible that he had counted the days badly--had come too late! there is no doubt: all the booths are covered with fir-boughs. he will have no salt, no tobacco, no soap, and no petroleum. sadly he followed the slow paces of his languid horse, which let his weary head droop as though out of sympathy for his master. meantime the jews were crowding out of the synagogues in festal array, with their prayer-scarfs and prayer-books in their hands. when they perceived the peasant with the cart of fir-boughs, they looked questioningly one at the other: had they made a mistake and begun the festival too early? "what have you there?" some one inquired. "what?" answered antosh, taken aback. "fir-boughs! buy, my dear friend, i sell it cheap!" he begged in a piteous voice. the jews burst out laughing. "what should we want it for now, fool?" "the festival has begun!" said another. antosh was confused with his misfortune, he scratched the back of his head, and exclaimed, weeping: "buy! buy! i want salt, soap! i want petroleum." the group of jews, who had begun by laughing, were now deeply moved. they saw the poor, starving peasant standing there in his despair, and were filled with a lively compassion. "a poor gentile--it's pitiful!" said one, sympathetically. "he hoped to make a fortune out of his fir-boughs, and now!" observed another. "it would be proper to buy up that bit of fir," said a third, "else it might cause a chillul ha-shem." "on a festival?" objected some one else. "it can always be used for firewood," said another, contemplating the cartful. "whether or no! it's a festival----" "no salt, no soap, no petroleum--" it was the refrain of the bewildered peasant, who did not understand what the jews were saying among themselves. he could only guess that they were talking about him. "hold! he doesn't want _money_! he wants ware. ware without money may be given even on a festival," called out one. the interest of the bystanders waxed more lively. among them stood a storekeeper, whose shop was close by. "give him, chayyim, a few jars of salt and other things that he wants--even if it comes to a few gulden. we will contribute." "all right, willingly!" said chayyim, "a poor gentile!" "a precept, a precept! it would be carrying out a religious precept, as surely as i am a jew!" chimed in every individual member of the crowd. chayyim called the peasant to him; all the rest followed. he gave him out of the stores two jars of salt, a bar of soap, a bottle of petroleum, and two packets of tobacco. the peasant did not know what to do for joy. he could only stammer in a low voice, "thank you! thank you!" "and there's a bit of sabbath loaf," called out one, when he had packed the things away, "take that with you!" "there's some more!" and a second hand held some out to him. "more!" "more!" "and more!" they brought antosh bread and cake from all sides; his astonishment was such that he could scarcely articulate his thanks. the people were pleased with themselves, and yainkel leives, a cheerful man, who was well supplied for the festival, because his daughter's "intended" was staying in his house, brought antosh a glass of brandy: "drink, and drive home, in the name of god!" antosh drank the brandy with a quick gulp, bit off a piece of cake, and declared joyfully, "i shall never forget it!" "not at all a bad gentile," remarked someone in the crowd. "well, what would you have? did you expect him to beat you?" queried another, smiling. the words "to beat" made a melancholy impression on the crowd, and it dispersed in silence. the kaddish from behind the curtain came low moans, and low words of encouragement from the old and experienced bobbe. in the room it was dismal to suffocation. the seven children, all girls, between twenty-three and four years old, sat quietly, each by herself, with drooping head, and waited for something dreadful. at a little table near a great cupboard with books sat the "patriarch" reb selig chanes, a tall, thin jew, with a yellow, consumptive face. he was chanting in low, broken tones out of a big gemoreh, and continually raising his head, giving a nervous glance at the curtain, and then, without inquiring what might be going on beyond the low moaning, taking up once again his sad, tremulous chant. he seemed to be suffering more than the woman in childbirth herself. "lord of the world!"--it was the eldest daughter who broke the stillness--"let it be a boy for once! help, lord of the world, have pity!" "oi, thus might it be, lord of the world!" chimed in the second. and all the girls, little and big, with broken heart and prostrate spirit, prayed that there might be born a boy. reb selig raised his eyes from the gemoreh, glanced at the curtain, then at the seven girls, gave vent to a deep-drawn oi, made a gesture with his hand, and said with settled despair, "she will give you another sister!" the seven girls looked at one another in desperation; their father's conclusion quite crushed them, and they had no longer even the courage to pray. only the littlest, the four-year-old, in the torn frock, prayed softly: "oi, please god, there will be a little brother." "i shall die without a kaddish!" groaned reb selig. the time drags on, the moans behind the curtain grow louder, and reb selig and the elder girls feel that soon, very soon, the "grandmother" will call out in despair, "a little girl!" and reb selig feels that the words will strike home to his heart like a blow, and he resolves to run away. he goes out into the yard, and looks up at the sky. it is midnight. the moon swims along so quietly and indifferently, the stars seem to frolic and rock themselves like little children, and still reb selig hears, in the "grandmother's" husky voice, "a girl!" "well, there will be no kaddish! verfallen!" he says, crossing the yard again. "there's no getting it by force!" but his trying to calm himself is useless; the fear that it should be a girl only grows upon him. he loses patience, and goes back into the house. but the house is in a turmoil. "what is it, eh?" "a little boy! tate, a boy! tatinke, as surely may i be well!" with this news the seven girls fall upon him with radiant faces. "eh, a little boy?" asked reb selig, as though bewildered, "eh? what?" "a boy, reb selig, a kaddish!" announced the "grandmother." "as soon as i have bathed him, i will show him you!" "a boy ... a boy ..." stammered reb selig in the same bewilderment, and he leant against the wall, and burst into tears like a woman. the seven girls took alarm. "that is for joy," explained the "grandmother," "i have known that happen before." "a boy ... a boy!" sobbed reb selig, overcome with happiness, "a boy ... a boy ... a kaddish!" * * * * * the little boy received the name of jacob, but he was called, by way of a talisman, alter. reb selig was a learned man, and inclined to think lightly of such protective measures; he even laughed at his cheike for believing in such foolishness; but, at heart, he was content to have it so. who could tell what might not be in it, after all? women sometimes know better than men. by the time alterke was three years old, reb selig's cough had become worse, the sense of oppression on his chest more frequent. but he held himself morally erect, and looked death calmly in the face, as though he would say, "now i can afford to laugh at you--i leave a kaddish!" "what do you think, cheike," he would say to his wife, after a fit of coughing, "would alterke be able to say kaddish if i were to die to-day or to-morrow?" "go along with you, crazy pate!" cheike would exclaim in secret alarm. "you are going to live a long while! is your cough anything new?" selig smiled, "foolish woman, she supposes i am afraid to die. when one leaves a kaddish, death is a trifle." alterke was sitting playing with a prayer-book and imitating his father at prayer, "a num-num--a num-num." "listen to him praying!" and cheike turned delightedly to her husband. "his soul is piously inclined!" selig made no reply, he only gazed at his kaddish with a beaming face. then an idea came into his head: alterke will be a tzaddik, will help him out of all his difficulties in the other world. "mame, i want to eat!" wailed alterke, suddenly. he was given a piece of the white bread which was laid aside, for him only, every sabbath. alterke began to eat. "who bringest forth! who bringest forth!" called out reb selig. "tan't!" answered the child. "it is time you taught him to say grace," observed cheike. and reb selig drew alterke to him and began to repeat with him. "say: boruch." "bo'uch," repeated the child after his fashion. "attoh." "attoh." when alterke had finished "who bringest forth," cheike answered piously amen, and reb selig saw alterke, in imagination, standing in the synagogue and repeating kaddish, and heard the congregation answer amen, and he felt as though he were already seated in the garden of eden. * * * * * another year went by, and reb selig was feeling very poorly. spring had come, the snow had melted, and he found the wet weather more trying than ever before. he could just drag himself early to the synagogue, but going to the afternoon service had become a difficulty, and he used to recite the afternoon and later service at home, and spend the whole evening with alterke. it was late at night. all the houses were shut. reb selig sat at his little table, and was looking into the corner where cheike's bed stood, and where alterke slept beside her. selig had a feeling that he would die that night. he felt very tired and weak, and with an imploring look he crept up to alterke's crib, and began to wake him. the child woke with a start. "alterke"--reb selig was stroking the little head--"come to me for a little!" the child, who had had his first sleep out, sprang up, and went to his father. reb selig sat down in the chair which stood by the little table with the open gemoreh, lifted alterke onto the table, and looked into his eyes. "alterke!" "what, tate?" "would you like me to die?" "like," answered the child, not knowing what "to die" meant, and thinking it must be something nice. "will you say kaddish after me?" asked reb selig, in a strangled voice, and he was seized with a fit of coughing. "will say!" promised the child. "shall you know how?" "shall!" "well, now, say: yisgaddal." "yisdaddal," repeated the child in his own way. "veyiskaddash." "veyistaddash." and reb selig repeated the kaddish with him several times. the small lamp burnt low, and scarcely illuminated reb selig's yellow, corpse-like face, or the little one of alterke, who repeated wearily the difficult, and to him unintelligible words of the kaddish. and alterke, all the while, gazed intently into the corner, where tate's shadow and his own had a most fantastic and frightening appearance. avrÒhom the orchard-keeper when he first came to the place, as a boy, and went straight to the house-of-study, and people, having greeted him, asked "where do you come from?" and he answered, not without pride, "from the government of wilna"--from that day until the day he was married, they called him "the wilner." in a few years' time, however, when the house-of-study had married him to the daughter of the psalm-reader, a coarse, undersized creature, and when, after six months' "board" with his father-in-law, he became a teacher, the town altered his name to "the wilner teacher." again, a few years later, when he got a chest affection, and the doctor forbade him to keep school, and he began to deal in fruit, the town learnt that his name was avròhom, to which they added "the orchard-keeper," and his name is "avròhom the orchard-keeper" to this day. avròhom was quite content with his new calling. he had always wished for a business in which he need not have to do with a lot of people in whom he had small confidence, and in whose society he felt ill at ease. people have a queer way with them, he used to think, they want to be always talking! they want to tell everything, find out everything, answer everything! when he was a student he always chose out a place in a corner somewhere, where he could see nobody, and nobody could see him; and he used to murmur the day's task to a low tune, and his murmured repetition made him think of the ruin in which rabbi josé, praying there, heard the bas-kol mourn, cooing like a dove, over the exile of israel. and then he longed to float away to that ruin somewhere in the wilderness, and murmur there like a dove, with no one, no one, to interrupt him, not even the bas-kol. but his vision would be destroyed by some hard question which a fellow-student would put before him, describing circles with his thumb and chanting to a shrill gemoreh-tune. in the orchard, at the end of the gass, however, which avròhom hired of the gentiles, he had no need to exchange empty words with anyone. avròhom had no large capital, and could not afford to hire an orchard for more than thirty rubles. the orchard was consequently small, and only grew about twenty apple-trees, a few pear-trees, and a cherry-tree. avròhom used to move to the garden directly after the feast of weeks, although that was still very early, the fruit had not yet set, and there was nothing to steal. but avròhom could not endure sitting at home any longer, where the wife screamed, the children cried, and there was a continual "fair." what should he want there? he only wished to be alone with his thoughts and imaginings, and his quiet "tunes," which were always weaving themselves inside him, and were nearly stifled. it is early to go to the orchard directly after the feast of weeks, but avròhom does not mind, he is drawn back to the trees that can think and hear so much, and keep so many things to themselves. and avròhom betakes himself to the orchard. he carries with him, besides phylacteries and prayer-scarf, a prayer-book with the psalms and the "stations," two volumes of the gemoreh which he owns, a few works by the later scholars, and the tales of jerusalem; he takes his wadded winter garment and a cushion, makes them into a bundle, kisses the mezuzeh, mutters farewell, and is off to the orchard. as he nears the orchard his heart begins to beat loudly for joy, but he is hindered from going there at once. in the yard through which he must pass lies a dog. later on, when avròhom has got to know the dog, he will even take him into the orchard, but the first time there is a certain risk--one has to know a dog, otherwise it barks, and avròhom dreads a bark worse than a bite--it goes through one's head! and avròhom waits till the owner comes out, and leads him through by the hand. "back already?" exclaims the owner, laughing and astonished. "why not?" murmurs avròhom, shamefacedly, and feeling that it is, indeed, early. "what shall you do?" asks the owner, graver. "there is no hut there at all--last year's fell to pieces." "never mind, never mind," begs avròhom, "it will be all right." "well, if you want to come!" and the owner shrugs his shoulders, and lets avròhom into the orchard. avròhom immediately lays his bundle on the ground, stretches himself out full length on the grass, and murmurs, "good! good!" at last he is silent, and listens to the quiet rustle of the trees. it seems to him that the trees also wonder at his coming so soon, and he looks at them beseechingly, as though he would say: "trees--you, too! i couldn't help it ... it drew me...." and soon he fancies that the trees have understood everything, and murmur, "good, good!" and avròhom already feels at home in the orchard. he rises from the ground, and goes to every tree in turn, as though to make its acquaintance. then he considers the hut that stands in the middle of the orchard. it has fallen in a little certainly, but avròhom is all the better pleased with it. he is not particularly fond of new, strong things, a building resembling a ruin is somehow much more to his liking. such a ruin is inwardly full of secrets, whispers, and melodies. there the tears fall quietly, while the soul yearns after something that has no name and no existence in time or space. and avròhom creeps into the fallen-in hut, where it is dark and where there are smells of another world. he draws himself up into a ball, and remains hid from everyone. * * * * * but to remain hid from the world is not so easy. at first it can be managed. so long as the fruit is ripening, he needs no one, and no one needs him. when one of his children brings him food, he exchanges a few words with it, asks what is going on at home, and how the mother is, and he feels he has done his duty, if, when obliged to go home, he spends there friday night and saturday morning. that over, and the hot stew eaten, he returns to the orchard, lies down under a tree, opens the tales of jerusalem, goes to sleep reading a fantastical legend, dreams of the western wall, mother rachel's grave, the cave of machpelah, and other holy, quiet places--places where the air is full of old stories such as are given, in such easy hebrew, in the tales of jerusalem. but when the fruit is ripe, and the trees begin to bend under the burden of it, avròhom must perforce leave his peaceful world, and become a trader. when the first wind begins to blow in the orchard, and covers the ground thereof with apples and pears, avròhom collects them, makes them into heaps, sorts them, and awaits the market-women with their loud tongues, who destroy all the peace and quiet of his garden of eden. on sabbath he would like to rest, but of a sabbath the trade in apples--on tick of course--is very lively in the orchards. there is a custom in the town to that effect, and avròhom cannot do away with it. young gentlemen and young ladies come into the orchard, and hold a sort of revel; they sing and laugh, they walk and they chatter, and avròhom must listen to it all, and bear it, and wait for the night, when he can creep back into his hut, and need look at no one but the trees, and hear nothing but the wind, and sometimes the rain and the thunder. but it is worse in the autumn, when the fruit is getting over-ripe, and he can no longer remain in the orchard. with a bursting heart he bids farewell to the trees, to the hut in which he has spent so many quiet, peaceful moments. he conveys the apples to a shed belonging to the farm, which he has hired, ever since he had the orchard, for ten gulden a month, and goes back to the gass. in the gass, at that time, there is mud and rain. town jews drag themselves along sick and disheartened. they cough and groan. avròhom stares round him, and fails to recognize the world. "bad!" he mutters. "fê!" and he spits. "where is one to get to?" and avròhom recalls the beautiful legends in the tales of jerusalem, he recalls the land of israel. there he knows it is always summer, always warm and fine. and every autumn the vision draws him. but there is no possibility of his being able to go there--he must sell the apples which he has brought from the orchard, and feed the wife and the children he has "outside the land." and all through the autumn and part of the winter, avròhom drags himself about with a basket of apples on his arm and a yearning in his heart. he waits for the dear summer, when he will be able to go back and hide himself in the orchard, in the hut, and be alone, where the town mud and the town jews with dulled senses shall be out of sight, and the week-day noise, out of hearing. hirsh david naumberg born, , in msczczonow, government of warsaw, russian poland, of hasidic parentage; traditional jewish education in the house of his grandfather; went to warsaw in ; at present ( ) in america; first literary work appeared in ; writer of stories, etc., in hebrew and yiddish; co-editor of ha-zofeh, der freind, ha-boker; contributor to ha-zeman, heint, ha-dor, ha-shiloah, etc.; collected works, vols., warsaw, - . the rav and the rav's son the sabbath midday meal is over, and the saken rav passes his hands across his serene and pious countenance, pulls out both earlocks, straightens his skull-cap, and prepares to expound a passage of the torah as god shall enlighten him. there sit with him at table, to one side of him, a passing guest, a libavitch chossid, like the rav himself, a man with yellow beard and earlocks, and a grubby shirt collar appearing above the grubby yellow kerchief that envelopes his throat; to the other side of him, his son sholem, an eighteen-year-old youth, with a long pale face, deep, rather dreamy eyes, a velvet hat, but no earlocks, a secret maskil, who writes hebrew verses, and contemplates growing into a great jewish author. the rebbetzin has been suffering two or three months with rheumatism, and lies in another room. the rav is naturally humble-minded, and it is no trifle to him to expound the torah. to take a passage of the bible and say, the meaning is this and that, is a thing he hasn't the cheek to do. it makes him feel as uncomfortable as if he were telling lies. up to twenty-five years of age he was a misnaggid, but under the influence of the saken rebbetzin, he became a chossid, bit by bit. now he is over fifty, he drives to the rebbe, and comes home every time with increased faith in the latter's supernatural powers, and, moreover, with a strong desire to expound a little of the torah himself; only, whenever a good idea comes into his head, it oppresses him, because he has not sufficient self-confidence to express it. the difficulty for him lies in making a start. he would like to do as the rebbe does (long life to him!)--give a push to his chair, a look, stern and somewhat angry, at those sitting at table, then a groaning sigh. but the rav is ashamed to imitate him, or is partly afraid, lest people should catch him doing it. he drops his eyes, holds one hand to his forehead, while the other plays with the knife on the table, and one hardly hears: "when thou goest forth to war with thine enemy--thine enemy--that is, the inclination to evil, oi, oi,--a--" he nods his head, gathers a little confidence, continues his explanation of the passage, and gradually warms to the part. he already looks the stranger boldly in the face. the stranger twists himself into a correct attitude, nods assent, but cannot for the life of him tear his gaze from the brandy-bottle on the table, and cannot wonder sufficiently at so much being allowed to remain in it at the end of a meal. and when the rav comes to the fact that to be in "prison" means to have bad habits, and "well-favored woman" means that every bad habit has its good side, the guest can no longer restrain himself, seizes the bottle rather awkwardly, as though in haste, fills up his glass, spills a little onto the cloth, and drinks with his head thrown back, gulping it like a regular tippler, after a hoarse and sleepy "to your health." this has a bad effect on the rav's enthusiasm, it "mixes his brains," and he turns to his son for help. to tell the truth, he has not much confidence in his son where the law is concerned, although he loves him dearly, the boy being the only one of his children in whom he may hope, with god's help, to have comfort, and who, a hundred years hence, shall take over from him the office of rav in saken. the elder son is rich, but he is a usurer, and his riches give the rav no satisfaction whatever. he had had one daughter, but she died, leaving some little orphans. sholem is, therefore, the only one left him. he has a good head, and is quick at his studies, a quiet, well-behaved boy, a little obstinate, a bit opinionated, but that is no harm in a boy, thinks the old man. true, too, that last week people told him tales. sholem, they said, read heretical books, and had been seen carrying "burdens" on sabbath. but this the father does not believe, he will not and cannot believe it. besides, sholem is certain to have made amends. if a talmid-chochem commit a sin by day, it should be forgotten by nightfall, because a talmid-chochem makes amends, it says so in the gemoreh. however, the rav is ashamed to give his own exegesis of the law before his son, and he knows perfectly well that nothing will induce sholem to drive with him to the rebbe. but the stranger and his brandy-drinking have so upset him that he now looks at his son in a piteous sort of way. "hear me out, sholem, what harm can it do you?" says his look. sholem draws himself up, and pulls in his chair, supports his head with both his hands, and gazes into his father's eyes out of filial duty. he loves his father, but in his heart he wonders at him; it seems to him his father ought to learn more about his heretical leanings--it is quite time he should--and he continues to gaze in silence and in wonder, not unmixed with compassion, and never ceases thinking, "upon my word, tate, what a simpleton you are!" but when the rav came in the course of his exposition to speak of "death by kissing" (by the lord), and told how the righteous, the holy tzaddikim, die from the very sweetness of the blessed one's kiss, a spark kindled in sholem's eyes, and he moved in his chair. one of those wonders had taken place which do frequently occur, only they are seldom remarked: the chassidic exposition of the torah had suggested to sholem a splendid idea for a romantic poem! it is an old commonplace that men take in, of what they hear and see, that which pleases them. sholem is fascinated. he wishes to die anyhow, so what could be more appropriate and to the purpose than that his love should kiss him on his death-bed, while, in that very instant, his soul departs? the idea pleased him so immensely that immediately after grace, the stranger having gone on his way, and the rav laid himself down to sleep in the other room, sholem began to write. his heart beat violently while he made ready, but the very act of writing out a poem after dinner on sabbath, in the room where his father settled the cases laid before him by the townsfolk, was a bit of heroism well worth the risk. he took the writing-materials out of his locked box, and, the pen and ink-pot in one hand and a collection of manuscript verse in the other, he went on tiptoe to the table. he folded back the table-cover, laid down his writing apparatus, and took another look around to make sure no one was in the room. he counted on the fact that when the rav awoke from his nap, he always coughed, and that when he walked he shuffled so with his feet, and made so much noise with his long slippers, that one could hear him two rooms off. in short, there was no need to be anxious. he grows calmer, reads the manuscript poems, and his face tells that he is pleased. now he wants to collect his thoughts for the new one, but something or other hinders him. he unfastens the girdle, round his waist, rolls it up, and throws it into the rav's soft stuffed chair. and now that there is nothing to disturb from without, a second and third wonder must take place within: the rav's torah, which was transformed by sholem's brain into a theme for romance, must now descend into his heart, thence to pour itself onto the paper, and pass, by this means, into the heads of sholem's friends, who read his poems with enthusiasm, and have sinful dreams afterwards at night. and he begins to imagine himself on his death-bed, sick and weak, unable to speak, and with staring eyes. he sees nothing more, but he feels a light, ethereal kiss on his cheek, and his soul is aware of a sweet voice speaking. he tries to take out his hands from under the coverlet, but he cannot--he is dying--it grows dark. a still brighter and more unusual gleam comes into sholem's eyes, his heart swells with emotion seeking an outlet, his brain works like running machinery, a whole dictionary of words, his whole treasure of conceptions and ideas, is turned over and over so rapidly that the mind is unconscious of its own efforts. his poetic instinct is searching for what it needs. his hand works quietly, forming letter on letter, word on word. now and again sholem lifts his eyes from the paper and looks round, he has a feeling as though the four walls and the silence were thinking to themselves: "hush, hush! disturb not the poet at his work of creation! disturb not the priest about to offer sacrifice to god." * * * * * to the rav, meanwhile, lying in the other room, there had come a fresh idea for the exposition of the torah, and he required to look up something in a book. the door of the reception-room opened, the rav entered, and sholem had not heard him. it was a pity to see the rav's face, it was so contracted with dismay, and a pity to see sholem's when he caught sight of his father, who, utterly taken aback, dropt into a seat exactly opposite sholem, and gave a groan--was it? or a cry? but he did not sit long, he did not know what one should do or say to one's son on such an occasion; his heart and his eyes inclined to weeping, and he retired into his own room. sholem remained alone with a very sore heart and a soul opprest. he put the writing-materials back into their box, and went out with the manuscript verses tucked away under his tallis-koton. he went into the house-of-study, but it looked dreadfully dismal; the benches were pushed about anyhow, a sign that the last worshippers had been in a great hurry to go home to dinner. the beadle was snoring on a seat somewhere in a corner, as loud and as fast as if he were trying to inhale all the air in the building, so that the next congregation might be suffocated. the cloth on the platform reading-desk was crooked and tumbled, the floor was dirty, and the whole place looked as dead as though its sabbath sleep were to last till the resurrection. he left the house-of-study, walked home and back again; up and down, there and back, many times over. the situation became steadily clearer to him; he wanted to justify himself, if only with a word, in his father's eyes; then, again, he felt he must make an end, free himself once and for all from the paternal restraint, and become a jewish author. only he felt sorry for his father; he would have liked to do something to comfort him. only what? kiss him? put his arms round his neck? have his cry out before him and say, "tatishe, you and i, we are neither of us to blame!" only how to say it so that the old man shall understand? that is the question. and the rav sat in his room, bent over a book in which he would fain have lost himself. he rubbed his brow with both hands, but a stone lay on his heart, a heavy stone; there were tears in his eyes, and he was all but crying. he needed some living soul before whom he could pour out the bitterness of his heart, and he had already turned to the rebbetzin: "zelde!" he called quietly. "a-h," sighed the rebbetzin from her bed. "i feel bad; my foot aches, lord of the world! what is it?" "nothing, zelde. how are you getting on, eh?" he got no further with her; he even mentally repented having so nearly added to her burden of life. it was an hour or two before the rav collected himself, and was able to think over what had happened. and still he could not, would not, believe that his son, sholem, had broken the sabbath, that he was worthy of being stoned to death. he sought for some excuse for him, and found none, and came at last to the conclusion that it was a work of satan, a special onset of the tempter. and he kept on thinking of the chassidic legend of a rabbi who was seen by a chossid to smoke a pipe on sabbath. only it was an illusion, a deception of the evil one. but when, after he had waited some time, no sholem appeared, his heart began to beat more steadily, the reality of the situation made itself felt, he got angry, and hastily left the house in search of the sabbath-breaker, intending to make an example of him. hardly, however, had he perceived his son walking to and fro in front of the house-of-study, with a look of absorption and worry, than he stopped short. he was afraid to go up to his son. just then sholem turned, they saw each other, and the rav had willy-nilly to approach him. "will you come for a little walk?" asked the rav gently, with downcast eyes. sholem made no reply, and followed him. they came to the eruv, the rav looked in all his pockets, found his handkerchief, tied it round his neck, and glanced at his son with a kind of prayer in his eye. sholem tied his handkerchief round his neck. when they were outside the town, the old man coughed once and again and said: "what is all this?" but sholem was determined not to answer a word, and his father had to summon all his courage to continue: "what is all this? eh? sabbath-breaking! it is--" he coughed and was silent. they were walking over a great, broad meadow, and sholem had his gaze fixed on a horse that was moving about with hobbled legs, while the rav shaded his eyes with one hand from the beams of the setting sun. "how can anyone break the sabbath? come now, is it right? is it a thing to do? just to go and break the sabbath! i knew hebrew grammar, and could write hebrew, too, once upon a time, but break the sabbath! tell me yourself, sholem, what you think! when you have bad thoughts, how is it you don't come to your father? i suppose i am your father, ha?" the old man suddenly fired up. "am i your father? tell me--no? am i perhaps _not_ your father?" "for i _am_ his father," he reflected proudly. "that i certainly am, there isn't the smallest doubt about it! the greatest heretic could not deny it!" "you come to your father," he went on with more decision, and falling into a gemoreh chant, "and you tell him _all_ about it. what harm can it do to tell him? no harm whatever. i also used to be tempted by bad thoughts. therefore i began driving to the rebbe of libavitch. one mustn't let oneself go! do you hear me, sholem? one mustn't let oneself go!" the last words were long drawn out, the rav emphasizing them with his hands and wrinkling his forehead. carried away by what he was saying, he now felt all but sure that sholem had not begun to be a heretic. "you see," he continued very gently, "every now and then we come to a stumbling-block, but all the same, we should not--" meantime, however, the manuscript folio of verses had been slipping out from under sholem's four-corners, and here it fell to the ground. the rav stood staring, as though startled out of a sweet dream by the cry of "fire." he quivered from top to toe, and seized his earlocks with both hands. for there could be no doubt of the fact that sholem had now broken the sabbath a second time--by carrying the folio outside the town limit. and worse still, he had practiced deception, by searching his pockets when they had come to the eruv, as though to make sure not to transgress by having anything inside them. sholem, too, was taken by surprise. he hung his head, and his eyes filled with tears. the old man was about to say something, probably to begin again with "what is all this?" then he hastily stopt and snatched up the folio, as though he were afraid sholem might get hold of it first. "ha--ha--azoi!" he began panting. "azoi! a heretic! a goi." but it was hard for him to speak. he might not move from where he stood, so long as he held the papers, it being outside the eruv. his ankles were giving way, and he sat down to have a look at the manuscript. "aha! writing!" he exclaimed as he turned the leaves. "come here to me," he called to sholem, who had moved a few steps aside. sholem came and stood obediently before him. "what is this?" asked the rav, sternly. "poems!" "what do you mean by poems? what is the good of them?" he felt that he was growing weak again, and tried to stiffen himself morally. "what is the good of them, heretic, tell me!" "they're just meant to read, tatishe!" "what do you mean by 'read'? a jeroboam son of nebat, that's what you want to be, is it? a jeroboam son of nebat, to lead others into heresy! no! i won't have it! on no account will i have it!" the sun had begun to disappear; it was full time to go home; but the rav did not know what to do with the folio. he was afraid to leave it in the field, lest sholem or another should pick it up later, so he got up and began to recite the afternoon prayer. sholem remained standing in his place, and tried to think of nothing and to do nothing. the old man finished "sacrifices," tucked the folio into his girdle, and, without moving a step, looked at sholem, who did not move either. "say the afternoon prayer, shegetz!" commanded the old man. sholem began to move his lips. and the rav felt, as he went on with the prayer, that this anger was cooling down. before he came to the eighteen benedictions, he gave another look at his son, and it seemed madness to think of him as a heretic, to think that sholem ought by rights to be thrown into a ditch and stoned to death. sholem, for his part, was conscious for the first time of his father's will: for the first time in his life, he not only loved his father, but was in very truth subject to him. the flaming red sun dropt quietly down behind the horizon just before the old man broke down with emotion over "thou art one," and took the sky and the earth to witness that god is one and his name is one, and his people israel one nation on the earth, to whom he gave the sabbath for a rest and an inheritance. the rav wept and swallowed his tears, and his eyes were closed. sholem, on the other hand, could not take his eye off the manuscript that stuck out of his father's girdle, and it was all he could do not to snatch it and run away. they said nothing on the way home in the dark, they might have been coming from a funeral. but sholem's heart beat fast, for he knew his father would throw the manuscript into the fire, where it would be burnt, and when they came to the door of their house, he stopped his father, and said in a voice eloquent of tears: "give it me back, tatishe, please give it me back!" and the rav gave it him back without looking him in the face, and said: "look here, only don't tell mother! she is ill, she mustn't be upset. she is ill, not of you be it spoken!" meyer blinkin born, , in a village near pereyaslav, government of poltava, little russia, of hasidic parentage; educated in kieff, where he acquired the trade of carpenter in order to win the right of residence; studied medicine; began to write in ; came to new york in ; writer of stories to the number of about fifty, which have been published in various periodicals; wrote also der sod, and dr. makower. women a prose poem hedged round with tall, thick woods, as though designedly, so that no one should know what happens there, lies the long-drawn-out old town of pereyaslav. to the right, connected with pereyaslav by a wooden bridge, lies another bit of country, named--pidvorkes. the town itself, with its long, narrow, muddy streets, with the crowded houses propped up one against the other like tombstones, with their meagre grey walls all to pieces, with the broken window-panes stuffed with rags--well, the town of pereyaslav was hardly to be distinguished from any other town inhabited by jews. here, too, people faded before they bloomed. here, too, men lived on miracles, were fruitful and multiplied out of all season and reason. they talked of a livelihood, of good times, of riches and pleasures, with the same appearance of firm conviction, and, at the same time the utter disbelief, with which one tells a legend read in a book. and they really supposed these terms to be mere inventions of the writers of books and nothing more! for not only were they incapable of a distinct conception of their real meaning, but some had even given up the very hope of ever being able to earn so much as a living, and preferred not to reach out into the world with their thoughts, straining them for nothing, that is, for the sake of a thing so plainly out of the question as a competence. at night the whole town was overspread by a sky which, if not grey with clouds, was of a troubled and washed-out blue. but the people were better off than by day. tired out, overwrought, exhausted, prematurely aged as they were, they sought and found comfort in the lap of the dreamy, secret, inscrutable night. their misery was left far behind, and they felt no more grief and pain. an unknown power hid everything from them as though with a thick, damp, stone wall, and they heard and saw nothing. they did not hear the weak voices, like the mewing of blind kittens, of their pining children, begging all day for food as though on purpose--as though they knew there was none to give them. they did not hear the sighs and groans of their friends and neighbors, filling the air with the hoarse sound of furniture dragged across the floor; they did not see, in sleep, death-from-hunger swing quivering, on threads of spider-web, above their heads. even the little fires that flickered feverishly on their hearths, and testified to the continued existence of breathing men, even these they saw no longer. silence cradled everything to sleep, extinguished it, and caused it to be forgotten. hardly, however, was it dawn, hardly had the first rays pierced beneath the closed eyelids, before a whole world of misery awoke and came to life again. the frantic cries of hundreds of starving children, despairing exclamations and imprecations and other piteous sounds filled the air. one gigantic curse uncoiled and crept from house to house, from door to door, from mouth to mouth, and the population began to move, to bestir themselves, to run hither and thither. half-naked, with parched bones and shrivelled skin, with sunken yet burning eyes, they crawled over one another like worms in a heap, fastened on to the bites in each other's mouth, and tore them away-- but this is summer, and they are feeling comparatively cheerful, bold, and free in their movements. they are stifled and suffocated, they are in a melting-pot with heat and exhaustion, but there are counter-balancing advantages; one can live for weeks at a time without heating the stove; indeed, it is pleasanter indoors without fire, and lighting will cost very little, now the evenings are short. in winter it was different. an inclement sky, an enfeebled sun, a sick day, and a burning, biting frost! people, too, were different. a bitterness came over them, and they went about anxious and irritable, with hanging head, possessed by gloomy despair. it never even occurred to them to tear their neighbor's bite out of his mouth, so depressed and preoccupied did they become. the days were months, the evenings years, and the weeks--oh! the weeks were eternities! and no one knew of their misery but the winter wind that tore at their roofs and howled in their all but smokeless chimneys like one bewitched, like a lost soul condemned to endless wandering. but there were bright stars in the abysmal darkness; their one pride and consolation were the pidvorkes, the inhabitants of the aforementioned district of that name. was it a question of the upkeep of a reader or of a bath, the support of a burial-society, of a little hospital or refuge, a rabbi, of providing sabbath loaves for the poor, flour for the passover, the dowry of a needy bride--the pidvorkes were ready! the sick and lazy, the poverty-stricken and hopeless, found in them support and protection. the pidvorkes! they were an inexhaustible well that no one had ever found to fail them, unless the pidvorke husbands happened to be present, on which occasion alone one came away with empty hands. the fair fame of the pidvorkes extended beyond pereyaslav to all poor towns in the neighborhood. talk of husbands--they knew about the pidvorkes a hundred miles round; the least thing, and they pointed out to their wives how they should take a lesson from the pidvorke women, and then they would be equally rich and happy. it was not because the pidvorkes had, within their border, great, green velvety hills and large gardens full of flowers that they had reason to be proud, or others, to be proud of them; not because wide fields, planted with various kinds of corn, stretched for miles around them, the delicate ears swaying in sunshine and wind; not even because there flowed round the pidvorkes a river so transparent, so full of the reflection of the sky, you could not decide which was the bluest of the two. pereyaslav at any rate was not affected by any of these things, perhaps knew nothing of them, and certainly did not wish to know anything, for whoso dares to let his mind dwell on the like, sins against god. is it a jewish concern? a townful of men who have a god, and religious duties to perform, with reward and punishment, who have _that_ world to prepare for, and a wife and children in _this_ one, people must be mad (of the enemies of zion be it said!) to stare at the sky, the fields, the river, and all the rest of it--things which a man on in years ought to blush to talk about. no, they are proud of the pidvorke women, and parade them continually. the pidvorke women are no more attractive, no taller, no cleverer than others. they, too, bear children and suckle them, one a year, after the good old custom; neither are they more thought of by their husbands. on the contrary, they are the best abused and tormented women going, and herein lies their distinction. they put up, with the indifference of all women alike, to the belittling to which they are subjected by their husbands; they swallow their contempt by the mouthful without a reproach, and yet they are exceptions; and yet they are distinguished from all other women, as the rushing waters of the dnieper from the stagnant pools in the marsh. about five in the morning, when the men-folk turn in bed, and bury their faces in the white feather pillows, emitting at the same time strange, broken sounds through their big, stupid, red noses--at this early hour their wives have transacted half-a-day's business in the market-place. dressed in short, light skirts with blue aprons, over which depends on their left a large leather pocket for the receiving of coin and the giving out of change--one cannot be running every minute to the cash-box--they stand in their shops with miscellaneous ware, and toil hard. they weigh and measure, buy and sell, and all this with wonderful celerity. there stands one of them by herself in a shop, and tries to persuade a young, barefoot peasant woman to buy the printed cotton she offers her, although the customer only wants a red cotton with a large, flowery pattern. she talks without a pause, declaring that the young peasant may depend upon her, she would not take her in for the world, and, indeed, to no one else would she sell the article so cheap. but soon her eye catches two other women pursuing a peasant man, and before even making out whether he has any wares with him or not, she leaves her customer and joins them. if they run, she feels so must she. the peasant is sure to be wanting grease or salt, and that may mean ten kopeks' unexpected gain. meantime she is not likely to lose her present customer, fascinated as the latter must be by her flow of speech. so she leaves her, and runs after the peasant, who is already surrounded by a score of women, shrieking, one louder than the other, praising their ware to the skies, and each trying to make him believe that he and she are old acquaintances. but presently the tumult increases, there is a cry, "cheap fowls, who wants cheap fowls?" some rich landholder has sent out a supply of fowls to sell, and all the women swing round towards the fowls, keeping a hold on the peasant's cart with their left hand, so that you would think they wanted to drag peasant, horse, and cart along with them. they bargain for a few minutes with the seller of fowls, and advise him not to be obstinate and to take their offers, else he will regret it later. suddenly a voice thunders, "the peasants are coming!" and they throw themselves as for dear life upon the cart-loads of produce; they run as though to a conflagration, get under each other's feet, their eyes glisten as though they each wanted to pull the whole market aside. there is a shrieking and scolding, until one or another gets the better of the rest, and secures the peasant's wares. then only does each woman remember that she has customers waiting in her shop, and she runs in with a beaming smile and tells them that, as they have waited so long, they shall be served with the best and the most beautiful of her store. by eight o'clock in the morning, when the market is over, when they have filled all the bottles left with them by their customers, counted up the change and their gains, and each one has slipped a coin into her knotted handkerchief, so that her husband should not know of its existence (one simply must! one is only human--one is surely not expected to wrangle with _him_ about every farthing?)--then, when there is nothing more to be done in the shops, they begin to gather in knots, and every one tells at length the incidents and the happy strokes of business of the day. they have forgotten all the bad luck they wished each other, all the abuse they exchanged, while the market was in progress; they know that "parnosseh is parnosseh," and bear no malice, or, if they do, it is only if one has spoken unkindly of another during a period of quiet, on a sabbath or a holiday. each talks with a special enthusiasm, and deep in her sunken eyes with their blue-black rings there burns a proud, though tiny, fire, as she recalls how she got the better of a customer, and sold something which she had all but thrown away, and not only sold it, but better than usual; or else they tell how late their husbands sleep, and then imagine their wives are still in bed, and set about waking them, "it's time to get up for the market," and they at once pretend to be sleepy--then, when they have already been and come back! and very soon a voice is heard to tremble with pleasant excitement, and a woman begins to relate the following: "just you listen to me: i was up to-day when god himself was still asleep."--"that is not the way to talk, sheine!" interrupts a second.--"well, well, well?" (there is a good deal of curiosity). "and what happened?"--"it was this way: i went out quietly, so that no one should hear, not to wake them, because when lezer went to bed, it was certainly one o'clock. there was a dispute of some sort at the rabbi's. you can imagine how early it was, because i didn't even want to wake soreh, otherwise she always gets up when i do (never mind, it won't hurt her to learn from her mother!). and at half past seven, when i saw there were no more peasants coming in to market, i went to see what was going on indoors. i heard my man calling me to wake up: 'sheine, sheine, sheine!' and i go quietly and lean against the bed, and wait to hear what will happen next. 'look here!--there is no waking her!--sheine! it's getting-up time and past! are you deaf or half-witted? what's come to you this morning?' i was so afraid i should laugh. i gave a jump and called out, o woe is me, why ever didn't you wake me sooner? bandit! it's already eight o'clock!" her hearers go off into contented laughter, which grows clearer, softer, more contented still. each one tells her tale of how _she_ was wakened by her husband, and one tells this joke: once, when her husband had called to rouse her (he also usually woke her _after_ market), she answered that on that morning she did not intend to get up for market, that _he_ might go for once instead. this apparently pleases them still better, for their laughter renews itself, more spontaneous and hearty even than before. each makes a witty remark, each feels herself in merry mood, and all is cheerfulness. they would wax a little more serious only when they came to talk of their daughters. a woman would begin by trying to recall her daughter's age, and beg a second one to help her remember when the girl was born, so that she might not make a mistake in the calculation. and when it came to one that had a daughter of sixteen, the mother fell into a brown study; she felt herself in a very, very critical position, because when a girl comes to that age, one ought soon to marry her. and there is really nothing to prevent it: money enough will be forthcoming, only let the right kind of suitor present himself, one, that is, who shall insist on a well-dowered bride, because otherwise--what sort of a suitor do you call that? she will have enough to live on, they will buy a shop for her, she is quite capable of managing it--only let heaven send a young man of acceptable parentage, so that one's husband shall have no need to blush with shame when he is asked about his son-in-law's family and connections. and this is really what they used to do, for when their daughters were sixteen, they gave them in marriage, and at twenty the daughters were "old," much-experienced wives. they knew all about teething, chicken-pox, measles, and more besides, even about croup. if a young mother's child fell ill, she hastened to her bosom crony, who knew a lot more than she, having been married one whole year or two sooner, and got advice as to what should be done. the other would make close inquiry whether the round swellings about the child's neck increased in size and wandered, that is, appeared at different times and different places, in which case it was positively nothing serious, but only the tonsils. but if they remained in one place and grew larger, the mother must lose no time, but must run to the doctor. their daughters knew that they needed to lay by money, not only for a dowry, but because a girl ought to have money of her own. they knew as well as their mothers that a bridegroom would present himself and ask a lot of money (the best sign of his being the right sort!), and they prayed god for the same without ceasing. no sooner were they quit of household matters than they went over to the discussion of their connections and alliances--it was the greatest pleasure they had. the fact that their children, especially their daughters, were so discreet that not one (to speak in a good hour and be silent in a bad!) had as yet ever (far be it from the speaker to think of such a thing!) given birth to a bastard, as was known to happen in other places--this was the crowning point of their joy and exultation. it even made up to them for the other fact, that they never got a good word from their husbands for their hard, unnatural toil. and as they chat together, throwing in the remark that "the apple never falls far from the tree," that their daughters take after them in everything, the very wrinkles vanish from their shrivelled faces, a spring of refreshment and blessedness wells up in their hearts, they are lifted above their cares, a feeling of relaxation comes over them, as though a soothing balsam had penetrated their strained and weary limbs. meantime the daughters have secrets among themselves. they know a quantity of interesting things that have happened in their quarter, but no one else gets to know of them; they are imparted more with the eyes than with the lips, and all is quiet and confidential. and if the great calamity had not now befallen the pidvorkes, had it not stretched itself, spread its claws with such an evil might, had the shame not been so deep and dreadful, all might have passed off quietly as always. but the event was so extraordinary, so cruelly unique--such a thing had not happened since girls were girls, and bridegrooms, bridegrooms, in the pidvorkes--that it inevitably became known to all. not (preserve us!) to the men--they know of nothing, and need to know of nothing--only to the women. but how much can anyone keep to oneself? it will rise to the surface, and lie like oil on the water. from early morning on the women have been hissing and steaming, bubbling and boiling over. they are not thinking of parnosseh; they have forgotten all about parnosseh; they are in such a state, they have even forgotten about themselves. there is a whole crowd of them packed like herrings, and all fire and flame. but the male passer-by hears nothing of what they say, he only sees the troubled faces and the drooping heads; they are ashamed to look into one another's eyes, as though they themselves were responsible for the great affliction. an appalling misfortune, an overwhelming sense of shame, a yellow-black spot on their reputation weighs them to the ground. uncleanness has forced itself into their sanctuary and defiled it; and now they seek a remedy, and means to save themselves, like one drowning; they want to heal the plague spot, to cover it up, so that no one shall find it out. they stand and think, and wrinkle the brows so used to anxiety; their thoughts evolve rapidly, and yet no good result comes of it, no one sees a way of escape out of the terrifying net in which the worst of all evil has entangled them. should a stranger happen to come upon them now, one who has heard of them, but never seen them, he would receive a shock. the whole of pidvorkes looks quite different, the women, the streets, the very sun shines differently, with pale and narrow beams, which, instead of cheering, seem to burden the heart. the little grey-curled clouds with their ragged edges, which have collected somewhere unbeknown, and race across the sky, look down upon the women, and whisper among themselves. even the old willows, for whom the news is no novelty, for many more and more complicated mysteries have come to their knowledge, even they look sad, while the swallows, by the depressed and gloomy air with which they skim the water, plainly express their opinion, which is no other than this: god is punishing the pidvorkes for _their_ great sin, what time they carried fire in their beaks, long ago, to destroy the temple. god bears long with people's iniquity, but he rewards in full at the last. the peasants driving slowly to market, unmolested and unobstructed, neither dragged aside nor laid forcible hold of, were singularly disappointed. they began to think the jews had left the place. and the women actually forgot for very trouble that it was market-day. they stood with hands folded, and turned feverishly to every newcomer. what does she say to it? perhaps she can think of something to advise. no one answered; they could not speak; they had nothing to say; they only felt that a great wrath had been poured out on them, heavy as lead, that an evil spirit had made its way into their life, and was keeping them in a perpetual state of terror; and that, were they now to hold their peace, and not make an end, god almighty only knows what might come of it! no one felt certain that to-morrow or the day after the same thunderbolt might not fall on another of them. somebody made a movement in the crowd, and there was a sudden silence, as though all were preparing to listen to a weak voice, hardly louder than stillness itself. their eyes widened, their faces were contracted with annoyance and a consciousness of insult. their hearts beat faster, but without violence. suddenly there was a shock, a thrill, and they looked round with startled gaze, to see whence it came, and what was happening. and they saw a woman forcing her way frantically through the crowd, her hands working, her lips moving as in fever, her eyes flashing fire, and her voice shaking as she cried: "come on and see me settle them! first i shall thrash _him_, and then i shall go for _her_! we must make a cinder-heap of them; it's all we can do." she was a tall, bony woman, with broad shoulders, who had earned for herself the nickname cossack, by having, with her own hands, beaten off three peasants who wanted to strangle her husband, he, they declared, having sold them by false weight--it was the first time he had ever tried to be of use to her. "but don't shout so, breindel!" begged a woman's voice. "what do you mean by 'don't shout'! am i going to hold my tongue? never you mind, i shall take no water into my mouth. i'll teach them, the apostates, to desecrate the whole town!" "but don't shout so!" beg several more. breindel takes no notice. she clenches her right fist, and, fighting the air with it, she vociferates louder than ever: "what has happened, women? what are you frightened of? look at them, if they are not all a little afraid! that's what brings trouble. don't let us be frightened, and we shall spare ourselves in the future. we shall not be in terror that to-morrow or the day after (they had best not live to hear of it, sweet father in heaven!) another of us should have this come upon her!" breindel's last words made a great impression. the women started as though someone had poured cold water over them without warning. a few even began to come forward in support of breindel's proposal. soreh leoh said: she advised going, but only to him, the bridegroom, and telling him not to give people occasion to laugh, and not to cause distress to her parents, and to agree to the wedding's taking place to-day or to-morrow, before anything happened, and to keep quiet. "i say, he shall not live to see it; he shall not be counted worthy to have us come begging favors of him!" cried an angry voice. but hereupon rose that of a young woman from somewhere in the crowd, and all the others began to look round, and no one knew who it was speaking. at first the young voice shook, then it grew firmer and firmer, so that one could hear clearly and distinctly what was said: "you might as well spare yourselves the trouble of talking about a thrashing; it's all nonsense; besides, why add to her parents' grief by going to them? isn't it bad enough for them already? if we really want to do something, the best would be to say nothing to anybody, not to get excited, not to ask anybody's help, and let us make a collection out of our own pockets. never mind! god will repay us twice what we give. let us choose out two of us, to take him the money quietly, so that no one shall know, because once a whisper of it gets abroad, it will be carried over seven seas in no time; you know that walls have ears, and streets, eyes." the women had been holding their breath and looking with pleasurable pride at young malkehle, married only two months ago and already so clever! the great thick wall of dread and shame against which they had beaten their heads had retreated before malkehle's soft words; they felt eased; the world grew lighter again. every one felt envious in her heart of hearts of her to whose apt and golden speech they had just listened. everyone regretted that such an excellent plan had not occurred to herself. but they soon calmed down, for after all it was a sister who had spoken, one of their own pidvorkes. they had never thought that malkehle, though she had been considered clever as a girl, would take part in their debate; and they began to work out a plan for getting together the necessary money, only so quietly that not a cock should crow. and now their perplexities began! not one of them could give such a great sum, and even if they all clubbed together, it would still be impossible. they could manage one hundred, two hundred, three hundred rubles, but the dowry was six hundred, and now he says, that unless they give one thousand, he will break off the engagement. what, says he, there will be a summons out against him? very likely! he will just risk it. the question went round: who kept a store in a knotted handkerchief, hidden from her husband? they each had such a store, but were all the contents put together, the half of the sum would not be attained, not by a long way. and again there arose a tempest, a great confusion of women's tongues. part of the crowd started with fiery eloquence to criticise their husbands, the good-for-nothings, the slouching lazybones; they proved that as their husbands did nothing to earn money, but spent all their time "learning," there was no need to be afraid of them; and if once in a way they wanted some for themselves, nobody had the right to say them nay. others said that the husbands were, after all, the elder, one must and should ask their advice! they were wiser and knew best, and why should they, the women (might the words not be reckoned as a sin!), be wiser than the rest of the world put together? and others again cried that there was no need that they should divorce their husbands because a girl was with child, and the bridegroom demanded the dowry twice over. the noise increased, till there was no distinguishing one voice from another, till one could not make out what her neighbor was saying: she only knew that she also must shriek, scold, and speak her mind. and who knows what would have come of it, if breindel-cossack, with her powerful gab, had not begun to shout, that she and malkehle had a good idea, which would please everyone very much, and put an end to the whole dispute. all became suddenly dumb; there was a tense silence, as at the first of the two recitals of the eighteen benedictions; the women only cast inquiring looks at malkehle and breindel, who both felt their cheeks hot. breindel, who, ever since the wise malkehle had spoken such golden words, had not left her side, now stepped forward, and her voice trembled with emotion and pleasant excitement as she said: "malkehle and i think like this: that we ought to go to chavvehle, she being so wise and so well-educated, a doctor's wife, and tell her the whole story from beginning to end, so that she may advise us, and if you are ashamed to speak to her yourselves, you should leave it to us two, only on the condition that you go with us. don't be frightened, she is kind; she will listen to us." a faint smile, glistening like diamond dust, shone on all faces; their eyes brightened and their shoulders straightened, as though just released from a heavy burden. they all knew chavvehle for a good and gracious woman, who was certain to give them some advice; she did many such kindnesses without being asked; she had started the school, and she taught their children for nothing; she always accompanied her husband on his visits to the sick-room, and often left a coin of her own money behind to buy a fowl for the invalid. it was even said that she had written about them in the newspapers! she was very fond of them. when she talked with them, her manner was simple, as though they were her equals, and she would ask them all about everything, like any plain jewish housewife. and yet they were conscious of a great distance between them and chavveh. they would have liked chavveh to hear nothing of them but what was good, to stand justified in her eyes as (ten times lehavdil) in those of a christian. they could not have told why, but the feeling was there. they are proud of chavveh; it is an honor for them each and all (and who are they that they should venture to pretend to it?) to possess such a chavveh, who was highly spoken of even by rich gentiles. hence this embarrassed smile at the mention of her name; she would certainly advise, but at the same time they avoided each other's look. the wise malkeh had the same feeling, but she was able to cheer the rest. never mind! it doesn't matter telling her. she is a jewish daughter, too, and will keep it to herself. these things happen behind the "high windows" also. whereupon they all breathed more freely, and went up the hill to chavveh. they went in serried ranks, like soldiers, shoulder to shoulder, relief and satisfaction reflected in their faces. all who met them made way for them, stood aside, and wondered what it meant. some of their own husbands even stood and looked at the marching women, but not one dared to go up to them and ask what was doing. their object grew dearer to them at every step. a settled resolve and a deep sense of goodwill to mankind urged them on. they all felt that they were going in a good cause, and would thereby bar the road to all such occurrences in the future. the way to chavveh was long. she lived quite outside the pidvorkes, and they had to go through the whole market-place with the shops, which stood close to one another, as though they held each other by the hand, and then only through narrow lanes of old thatched peasant huts, with shy little window-panes. but beside nearly every hut stood a couple of acacia-trees, and the foam-white blossoms among the young green leaves gave a refreshing perfume to the neighborhood. emerging from the streets, they proceeded towards a pretty hill planted with pink-flowering quince-trees. a small, clear stream flowed below it to the left, so deceptively clear that it reflected the hillside in all its natural tints. you had to go quite close in order to make sure it was only a delusion, when the stream met your gaze as seriously as though there were no question of _it_ at all. on the top of the hill stood chavveh's house, adorned like a bride, covered with creepers and quinces, and with two large lamps under white glass shades, upheld in the right hands of two statues carved in white marble. the distance had not wearied them; they had walked and conversed pleasantly by the way, each telling a story somewhat similar to the one that had occasioned their present undertaking. "do you know," began shifreh, the wholesale dealer, "mine tried to play me a trick with the dowry, too? it was immediately before the ceremony, and he insisted obstinately that unless a silver box and fifty rubles were given to him in addition to what had been promised to him, he would not go under the marriage canopy!" "well, if it hadn't been zorah, it would have been chayyim treitel," observed some one, ironically. they all laughed, but rather weakly, just for the sake of laughing; not one of them really wished to part from her husband, even in cases where he disliked her, and they quarrelled. no indignity they suffered at their husbands' hands could hurt them so deeply as a wish on his part to live separately. after all they are man and wife. they quarrel and make it up again. and when they spied chavvehle's house in the distance, they all cried out joyfully, with one accord: "there is chavvehle's house!" once more they forgot about themselves; they were filled with enthusiasm for the common cause, and with a pain that will lie forever at their heart should they not do all that sinful man is able. the wise malkehle's heart beat faster than anyone's. she had begun to consider how she should speak to chavvehle, and although apt, incisive phrases came into her head, one after another, she felt that she would never be able to come out with them in chavvehle's presence; were it not for the other women's being there, she would have felt at her ease. all of a sudden a voice exclaimed joyfully, "there we are at the house!" all lifted their heads, and their eyes were gladdened by the sight of the tall flowers arranged about a round table, in the shelter of a widely-branching willow, on which there shone a silver samovar. in and out of the still empty tea-glasses there stole beams of the sinking sun, as it dropt lower and lower behind the now dark-blue hill. "what welcome guests!" chavveh met them with a sweet smile, and her eyes awoke answering love and confidence in the women's hearts. not a glance, not a movement betrayed surprise on chavvehle's part, any more than if she had been expecting them everyone. they felt that she was behaving like any sage, and were filled with a sense of guilt towards her. chavvehle excused herself to one or two other guests who were present, and led the women into her summer-parlor, for she had evidently understood that what they had come to say was for her ears only. they wanted to explain at once, but they couldn't, and the two who of all found it hardest to speak were the selected spokeswomen, breindel-cossack and malkehle the wise. chavvehle herself tried to lead them out of their embarrassment. "you evidently have something important to tell me," she said, "for otherwise one does not get a sight of you." and now it seemed more difficult than ever, it seemed impossible ever to tell the angelic chavvehle of the bad action about which they had come. they all wished silently that their children might turn out one-tenth as good as she was, and their impulse was to take chavvehle into their arms, kiss her and hug her, and cry a long, long time on her shoulder; and if she cried with them, it would be so comforting. chavvehle was silent. her great, wide-open blue eyes grew more and more compassionate as she gazed at the faces of her sisters; it seemed as though they were reading for themselves the sorrowful secret the women had come to impart. and the more they were impressed with her tactful behavior, and the more they felt the kindness of her gaze, the more annoyed they grew with themselves, the more tongue-tied they became. the silence was so intense as to be almost seen and felt. the women held their breath, and only exchanged roundabout glances, to find out what was going on in each other's mind; and they looked first of all at the two who had undertaken to speak, while the latter, although they did not see this, felt as if every one's gaze was fixed upon them, wondering why they were silent and holding all hearts by a thread. chavvehle raised her head, and spoke sweetly: "well, dear sisters, tell me a little of what it is about. do you want my help in any matter? i should be so glad----" "dear sisters" she called them, and lightning-like it flashed through their hearts that chavveh was, indeed, their sister. how could they feel otherwise when they had it from chavveh herself? was she not one of their own people? had she not the same god? true, her speech was a little strange to them, and she was not overpious, but how should god be angry with such a chavveh as this? if it must be, let him punish _them_ for her sin; they would willingly suffer in her place. the sun had long set; the sky was grey, save for one red streak, and the room had grown dark. chavvehle rose to light the candles, and the women started and wiped their tearful eyes, so that chavveh should not remark them. chavveh saw the difficulty they had in opening their hearts to her, and she began to speak to them of different things, offered them refreshment according to their several tastes, and now malkehle felt a little more courageous, and managed to say: "no, good, kind chavvehle, we are not hungry. we have come to consult with you on a very important matter!" and then breindel tried hard to speak in a soft voice, but it sounded gruff and rasping: "first of all, chavveh, we want you to speak to us in yiddish, not in polish. we are all jewish women, thank god, together!" chavvehle, who had nodded her head during the whole of breindel's speech, made another motion of assent with her silken eyebrows, and replied: "i will talk yiddish to you with pleasure, if that is what you prefer." "the thing is this, chavvehle," began shifreh, the wholesale dealer, "it is a shame and a sorrow to tell, but when the thunderbolt has fallen, one must speak. you know rochel esther leoh's. she is engaged, and the wedding was to have been in eight weeks--and now she, the good-for-nothing, is with child--and he, the son of perdition, says now that if he isn't given more than five hundred rubles, he won't take her----" chavvehle was deeply troubled by their words. she saw how great was their distress, and found, to her regret, that she had little to say by way of consolation. "i feel with you," she said, "in your pain. but do not be so dismayed. it is certainly very bad news, but these things will happen, you are not the first----" she wanted to say more, but did not know how to continue. "but what are we to do?" asked several voices at once. "that is what we came to you for, dearie, for you to advise us. are we to give him all the money he asks, or shall they both know as much happiness as we know what to do else? or are we to hang a stone round our necks and drown ourselves for shame? give us some advice, dear, help us!" then chavvehle understood that it was not so much the women who were speaking and imploring, as their stricken hearts, their deep shame and grief, and it was with increased sympathy that she answered them: "what can i say to help you, dear sisters? you have certainly not deserved this blow; you have enough to bear as it is--things ought to have turned out quite differently; but now that the misfortune has happened, one must be brave enough not to lose one's head, and not to let such a thing happen again, so that it should be the first and last time! but what exactly you should do, i cannot tell you, because i don't know! only if you should want my help or any money, i will give you either with the greatest pleasure." they understood each other---- the women parted with chavveh in great gladness, and turned towards home conscious of a definite purpose. now they all felt they knew just what to do, and were sure it would prevent all further misfortune and disgrace. they could have sung out for joy, embraced the hill, the stream, the peasant huts, and kissed and fondled them all together. mind you, they had even now no definite plan of action, it was just chavvehle's sympathy that had made all the difference--feeling that chavveh was with them! wrapped in the evening mist, they stepped vigorously and cheerily homewards. gradually the speed and the noise of their march increased, the air throbbed, and at last a high, sharp voice rose above the rest, whereupon they grew stiller, and the women listened. "i tell you what, we won't beat them. only on sabbath we must all come together like one man, break into the house-of-study just before they call up to the reading of the law, and not let them read till they have sworn to agree to our sentence of excommunication! "she is right!" "excommunicate him!" "tear him in pieces!" "let him be dressed in robe and prayer-scarf, and swear by the eight black candles that he----" "swear! swear!" the noise was dreadful. no one was allowed to finish speaking. they were all aflame with one fire of revenge, hate, and anger, and all alike athirst for justice. every new idea, every new suggestion was hastily and hotly seized upon by all together, and there was a grinding of teeth and a clenching of fists. nature herself seemed affected by the tumult, the clouds flew faster, the stars changed their places, the wind whistled, the trees swayed hither and thither, the frogs croaked, there was a great boiling up of the whole concern. "women, women," cried one, "i propose that we go to the court of the shool, climb into the round millstones, and all shout together, so that they may know what we have decided." "right! right! to the shool!" cried a chorus of voices. a common feeling of triumph running through them, they took each other friendly-wise by the hand, and made gaily for the court of the shool. when they got into the town, they fell on each other's necks, and kissed each other with tears and joy. they knew their plan was the best and most excellent that could be devised, and would protect them all from further shame and trouble. the pidvorkes shuddered to hear their tread. all the remaining inhabitants, big and little, men and women, gathered in the court of the shool, and stood with pale faces and beating hearts to see what would happen. the eyes of the young bachelors rolled uneasily, the girls had their faces on one another's shoulders, and sobbed. breindel, agile as a cat, climbed on to the highest millstone, and proclaimed in a voice of thunder: "seeing that such and such a thing has happened, a great scandal such as is not to be hid, and such as we do not wish to hide, all we women have decided to excommunicate----" such a tumult arose that for a minute or two breindel could not be heard, but it was not long before everyone knew who and what was meant. "we also demand that neither he nor his nearest friends shall be called to the reading of the law; that people shall have nothing to do with them till after the wedding!" "nothing to do with them! nothing to do with them!" shook the air. "that people shall not lend to them nor borrow of them, shall not come within their four ells!" continued the voice from the millstone. "and _she_ shall be shut up till her time comes, so that no one shall see her. then we will take her to the burial-ground, and the child shall be born in the burial-ground. the wedding shall take place by day, and without musicians--" "without musicians!" "without musicians!" 'without musicians!" "serve her right!" "she deserves worse!" a hundred voices were continually interrupting the speaker, and more women were climbing onto the millstones, and shouting the same things. "on the wedding-day there will be great black candles burning throughout the whole town, and when the bride is seated at the top of the marriage-hall, with her hair flowing loose about her, all the girls shall surround her, and the badchen shall tell her, 'this is the way we treat one who has not held to her jewishness, and has blackened all our faces----'" "yes!" "yes!" "so it is!" "the apostates!" the last words struck the hearers' hearts like poisoned arrows. a deathly pallor, born of unrealized terror at the suggested idea, overspread all their faces, their feelings were in a tumult of shame and suffering. they thirsted and longed after their former life, the time before the calamity disturbed their peace. weary and wounded in spirit, with startled looks, throbbing pulses, and dilated pupils, and with no more than a faint hope that all might yet be well, they slowly broke the stillness, and departed to their homes. lÖb schapiro born, about , in the government of kieff, little russia; came to chicago in , and to new york for a short time in - ; now ( ) in business in switzerland; contributor to die zukunft, new york; collected works, novellen, vol., warsaw, . if it was a dream yes, it was a terrible dream! but when one is only nine years old, one soon forgets, and meyerl was nine a few weeks before it came to pass. yes, and things had happened in the house every now and then to remind one of it, but then meyerl lived more out of doors than indoors, in the wild streets of new york. tartilov and new york--what a difference! new york had supplanted tartilov, effaced it from his memory. there remained only a faint occasional recollection of that horrid dream. if it really _was_ a dream! it was this way: meyerl dreamt that he was sitting in cheder learning, but more for show's sake than seriously, because during the days of penitence, near the close of the session, the rebbe grew milder, and cheder less hateful. and as he sat there and learnt, he heard a banging of doors in the street, and through the window saw jews running to and fro, as if bereft of their senses, flinging themselves hither and thither exactly like leaves in a gale, or as when a witch rises from the ground in a column of dust, and whirls across the road so suddenly and unexpectedly that it makes one's flesh creep. and at the sight of this running up and down in the street, the rebbe collapsed in his chair white as death, his under lip trembling. meyerl never saw him again. he was told later that the rebbe had been killed, but somehow the news gave him no pleasure, although the rebbe used to beat him; neither did it particularly grieve him. it probably made no great impression on his mind. after all, what did it mean, exactly? killed? and the question slipped out of his head unanswered, together with the rebbe, who was gradually forgotten. and then the real horror began. they were two days hiding away in the bath-house--he and some other little boys and a few older people--without food, without drink, without father and mother. meyerl was not allowed to get out and go home, and once, when he screamed, they nearly suffocated him, after which he sobbed and whimpered, unable to stop crying all at once. now and then he fell asleep, and when he woke everything was just the same, and all through the terror and the misery he seemed to hear only one word, goyim, which came to have a very definite and terrible meaning for him. otherwise everything was in a maze, and as far as seeing goes, he really saw nothing at all. later, when they came out again, nobody troubled about him, or came to see after him, and a stranger took him home. and neither his father nor his mother had a word to say to him, any more than if he had just come home from cheder as on any other day. everything in the house was broken, they had twisted his father's arm and bruised his face. his mother lay on the bed, her fair hair tossed about, and her eyes half-closed, her face pale and stained, and something about her whole appearance so rumpled and sluttish--it reminded one of a tumbled bedquilt. his father walked up and down the room in silence, looking at no one, his bound arm in a white sling, and when meyerl, conscious of some invisible calamity, burst out crying, his father only gave him a gloomy, irritated look, and continued to span the room as before. in about three weeks' time they sailed for america. the sea was very rough during the passage, and his mother lay the whole time in her berth, and was very sick. meyerl was quite fit, and his father did nothing but pace the deck, even when it poured with rain, till they came and ordered him down-stairs. meyerl never knew exactly what happened, but once a gentile on board the ship passed a remark on his father, made fun of him, or something--and his father drew himself up, and gave the other a look--nothing more than a look! and the gentile got such a fright that he began crossing himself, and he spit out, and his lips moved rapidly. to tell the truth, meyerl was frightened himself by the contraction of his father's mouth, the grind of his teeth, and by his eyes, which nearly started from his head. meyerl had never seen him look like that before, but soon his father was once more pacing the deck, his head down, his wet collar turned up, his hands in his sleeves, and his back slightly bent. when they arrived in new york city, meyerl began to feel giddy, and it was not long before the whole of tartilov appeared to him like a dream. it was in the beginning of winter, and soon the snow fell, the fresh white snow, and it was something like! meyerl was now a "boy," he went to "school," made snowballs, slid on the slides, built little fires in the middle of the street, and nobody interfered. he went home to eat and sleep, and spent what you may call his "life" in the street. in their room were cold, piercing draughts, which made it feel dreary and dismal. meyerl's father, a lean, large-boned man, with a dark, brown face and black beard, had always been silent, and it was but seldom he said so much as "are you there, tzippe? do you hear me, tzippe?" but now his silence was frightening! the mother, on the other hand, used to be full of life and spirits, skipping about the place, and it was "shloimeh!" here, and "shloimeh!" there, and her tongue wagging merrily! and suddenly there was an end of it all. the father only walked back and forth over the room, and she turned to look after him like a child in disgrace, and looked and looked as though forever wanting to say something, and never daring to say it. there was something new in her look, something dog-like! yes, on my word, something like what there was in the eyes of mishke the dog with which meyerl used to like playing "over there," in that little town in dreamland. sometimes meyerl, waking suddenly in the night, heard, or imagined he heard, his mother sobbing, while his father lay in the other bed puffing at his cigar, but so hard, it was frightening, because it made a little fire every time in the dark, as though of itself, in the air, just over the place where his father's black head must be lying. then meyerl's eyes would shut of themselves, his brain was confused, and his mother and the glowing sparks and the whole room sank away from him, and meyerl dropped off to sleep. twice that winter his mother fell ill. the first time it lasted two days, the second, four, and both times the illness was dangerous. her face glowed like an oven, her lower lip bled beneath her sharp white teeth, and yet wild, terrifying groans betrayed what she was suffering, and she was often violently sick, just as when they were on the sea. at those times she looked at her husband with eyes in which there was no prayer. mishke once ran a thorn deep into his paw, and he squealed and growled angrily, and sucked his paw, as though he were trying to swallow it, thorn and all, and the look in his eyes was the look of meyerl's mother in her pain. in those days his father, too, behaved differently, for, instead of walking to and fro across the room, he ran, puffing incessantly at his cigar, his brow like a thunder-cloud and occasional lightnings flashing from his eyes. he never looked at his wife, and neither of them looked at meyerl, who then felt himself utterly wretched and forsaken. and--it is very odd, but--it was just on these occasions that meyerl felt himself drawn to his home. in the street things were as usual, but at home it was like being in shool during the solemn days at the blowing of the ram's horn, when so many tall "fathers" stand with prayer-scarfs over their heads, and hold their breath, and when out of the distance there comes, unfolding over the heads of the people, the long, loud blast of the shofar. and both times, when his mother recovered, the shadow that lay on their home had darkened, his father was gloomier than ever, and his mother, when she looked at him, had a still more crushed and dog-like expression, as though she were lying outside in the dust of the street. the snowfalls became rarer, then they ceased altogether, and there came into the air a feeling of something new--what exactly, it would have been hard for meyerl to say. anyhow it was something good, very good, for everyone in the street was glad of it, one could see that by their faces, which were more lightsome and gay. on the eve of passover the sky of home cleared a little too, street and house joined hands through the windows, opened now for the first time since winter set in, and this neighborly act of theirs cheered meyerl's heart. his parents made preparations for passover, and poor little preparations they were: there was no matzes-baking with its merry to-do; a packet of cold, stale matzes was brought into the house; there was no pail of beet-root soup in the corner, covered with a coarse cloth of unbleached linen; no dusty china service was fetched from the attic, where it had lain many years between one passover and another; his father brought in a dinner service from the street, one he had bought cheap, and of which the pieces did not match. but the exhilaration of the festival made itself felt for all that, and warmed their hearts. at home, in tartilov, it had happened once or twice that meyerl had lain in his little bed with open eyes, staring stock-still, with terror, into the silent blackness of the night, and feeling as if he were the only living soul in the whole world, that is, the whole house; and the sudden crow of a cock would be enough on these occasions to send a warm current of relief and security through his heart. his father's face looked a little more cheerful. in the daytime, while he dusted the cups, his eyes had something pensive in them, but his lips were set so that you thought: there, now, now they are going to smile! the mother danced the matzeh pancakes up and down in the kitchen, so that they chattered and gurgled in the frying-pan. when a neighbor came in to borrow a cooking pot, meyerl happened to be standing beside his mother. the neighbor got her pot, the women exchanged a few words about the coming holiday, and then the neighbor said, "so we shall soon be having a rejoicing at your house?" and with a wink and a smile she pointed at his mother with her finger, whereupon meyerl remarked for the first time that her figure had grown round and full. but he had no time just then to think it over, for there came a sound of broken china from the next room, his mother stood like one knocked on the head, and his father appeared in the door, and said: "go!" his voice sent a quiver through the window-panes, as if a heavy wagon were just crossing the bridge outside at a trot, the startled neighbor turned, and whisked out of the house. meyerl's parents looked ill at ease in their holiday garb, with the faces of mourners. the whole ceremony of the passover home service was spoilt by an atmosphere of the last meal on the eve of the fast of the destruction of the temple. and when meyerl, with the indifferent voice of one hired for the occasion, sang out the "why is this night different?" his heart shrank together; there was the same hush round about him as there is in shool when an orphan recites the first "sanctification" for his dead parents. his mother's lips moved, but gave forth no sound; from time to time she wetted a finger with her tongue, and turned over leaf after leaf in her service-book, and from time to time a large, bright tear fell, over her beautiful but depressed face onto the book, or the white table-cloth, or her dress. his father never looked at her. did he see she was crying? meyerl wondered. then, how strangely he was reciting the haggadah! he would chant a portion in long-drawn-out fashion, and suddenly his voice would break, sometimes with a gurgle, as though a hand had seized him by the throat and closed it. then he would look silently at his book, or his eye would wander round the room with a vacant stare. then he would start intoning again, and again his voice would break. they ate next to nothing, said grace to themselves in a whisper, after which the father said: "meyerl, open the door!" not without fear, and the usual uncertainty as to the appearance of the prophet elijah, whose goblet stood filled for him on the table, meyerl opened the door. "pour out thy wrath upon the gentiles, who do not know thee!" a slight shudder ran down between meyerl's shoulders, for a strange, quite unfamiliar voice had sounded through the room from one end to the other, shot up against the ceiling, flung itself down again, and gone flapping round the four walls, like a great, wild bird in a cage. meyerl hastily turned to look at his father, and felt the hair bristle on his head with fright: straight and stiff as a screwed-up fiddle-string, there stood beside the table a wild figure, in a snow-white robe, with a dark beard, a broad, bony face, and a weird, black flame in the eyes. the teeth were ground together, and the voice would go over into a plaintive roar, like that of a hungry, bloodthirsty animal. his mother sprang up from her seat, trembling in every limb, stared at him for a few seconds, and then threw herself at his feet. catching hold of the edge of his robe with both hands, she broke into lamentation: "shloimeh, shloimeh, you'd better kill me! shloimeh! kill me! oi, oi, misfortune!" meyerl felt as though a large hand with long fingernails had introduced itself into his inside, and turned it upside down with one fell twist. his mouth opened widely and crookedly, and a scream of childish terror burst from his throat. tartilov had suddenly leapt wildly into view, affrighted jews flew up and down the street like leaves in a storm, the white-faced rebbe sat in his chair, his under lip trembling, his mother lay on her bed, looking all pulled about like a rumpled counterpane. meyerl saw all this as clearly and sharply as though he had it before his eyes, he felt and knew that it was not all over, that it was only just beginning, that the calamity, the great calamity, the real calamity, was still to come, and might at any moment descend upon their heads like a thunderbolt, only _what_ it was he did not know, or ask himself, and a second time a scream of distraught and helpless terror escaped his throat. a few neighbors, italians, who were standing in the passage by the open door, looked on in alarm, and whispered among themselves, and still the wild curses filled the room, one minute loud and resonant, the next with the spiteful gasping of a man struck to death. "mighty god! pour out thy wrath on the peoples who have no god in their hearts! pour out thy wrath upon the lands where thy name is unknown! 'he has devoured, devoured my body, he has laid waste, laid waste my house!'" "thy wrath shall pursue them, pursue them--o'ertake them! o'ertake them--destroy them, from under thy heavens!" shalom asch born, , in kutno, government of warsaw, russian poland; jewish education and hasidic surroundings; began to write in , earliest works being in hebrew; sippurim was published in , and a städtel in ; wrote his first drama in ; distinguished for realism, love of nature, and description of patriarchal jewish life in the villages; playwright; dramas: gott von nekomoh, meschiach's zeiten, etc.; collected works, schriften, warsaw, - (in course of publication). a simple story feigele, like all young girls, is fond of dressing and decking herself out. she has no time for these frivolities during the week, there is work in plenty, no evil eye! and sewing to do; rent is high, and times are bad. the father earns but little, and there is a deal wanting towards her three hundred rubles dowry, beside which her mother trenches on it occasionally, on sabbath, when the family purse is empty. "there are as many marriageable young men as dogs, only every dog wants a fat bone," comes into her head. she dislikes much thinking. she is a young girl and a pretty one. of course, one shouldn't be conceited, but when she stands in front of the glass, she sees her bright face and rosy cheeks and the fall of her black hair. but she soon forgets it all, as though she were afraid that to rejoice in it might bring her ill-luck. sabbath it is quite another thing--there is time and to spare, and on sabbath feigele's toilet knows no end. the mother calls, "there, feigele, that's enough! you will do very well as you are." but what should old-fashioned women like her know about it? anything will do for them. whether you've a hat and jacket on or not, they're just as pleased. but a young girl like feigele knows the difference. _he_ is sitting out there on the bench, he, eleazar, with a party of his mates, casting furtive glances, which he thinks nobody sees, and nudging his neighbor, "look, fire and flame!" and she, feigele, behaves as though unaware of his presence, walks straight past, as coolly and unconcernedly as you please, and as though eleazar might look and look his eyes out after her, take his own life, hang himself, for all _she_ cares. but, o feigele, the vexation and the heartache when one fine day you walk past, and he doesn't look at _you_, but at malkeh, who has a new hat and jacket that suit her about as well as a veil suits a dog--and yet he looks at her, and you turn round again, and yet again, pretending to look at something else (because it isn't proper), but you just glance over your shoulder, and he is still looking after malkeh, his whole face shining with delight, and he nudges his mate, as to say, "do you see?" o feigele, you need a heart of adamant, if it is not to burst in twain with mortification! however, no sooner has malkeh disappeared down a sidewalk, than he gets up from the bench, dragging his mate along with him, and they follow, arm-in-arm, follow feigele like her shadow, to the end of the avenue, where, catching her eye, he nods a "good sabbath!" feigele answers with a supercilious tip-tilt of her head, as much as to say, "it is all the same to me, i'm sure; i'll just go down this other avenue for a change," and, lo and behold, if she happens to look around, there is eleazar, too, and he follows, follows like a wearisome creditor. and then, o feigele, such a lovely, blissful feeling comes over you. don't look, take no notice of him, walk ahead stiffly and firmly, with your head high, let him follow and look at you. and he looks, and he follows, he would follow you to the world's end, into the howling desert. ha, ha, how lovely it feels! but once, on a sabbath evening, walking in the gardens with a girl friend, and he following, feigele turned aside down a dark path, and sat down on a bench behind a bushy tree. he came and sat down, too, at the other end of the bench. evening: the many branching trees overshadow and obscure, it grows dark, they are screened and hidden from view. a breeze blows, lightly and pleasantly, and cools the air. they feel it good to be there, their hearts beat in the stillness. who will say the first word? he coughs, ahem! to show that he is there, but she makes no sign, implying that she neither knows who he is, nor what he wants, and has no wish to learn. they are silent, they only hear their own beating hearts and the wind in the leaves. "i beg your pardon, do you know what time it is?" "no, i don't," she replies stiffly, meaning, "i know quite well what you are after, but don't be in such a hurry, you won't get anything the sooner." the girl beside her gives her a nudge. "did you hear that?" she giggles. feigele feels a little annoyed with her. does the girl think _she_ is the object? and she presently prepares to rise, but remains, as though glued to the seat. "a beautiful night, isn't it?" "yes, a beautiful evening." and so the conversation gets into swing, with a question from him and an answer from her, on different subjects, first with fear and fluttering of the heart, then they get closer one to another, and become more confidential. when she goes home, he sees her to the door, they shake hands and say, "till we meet again!" and they meet a second and a third time, for young hearts attract each other like a magnet. at first, of course, it is accidental, they meet by chance in the company of two other people, a girl friend of hers and a chum of his, and then, little by little, they come to feel that they want to see each other alone, all to themselves, and they fix upon a quiet time and place. and they met. they walked away together, outside the town, between the sky and the fields, walked and talked, and again, conscious that the talk was an artificial one, were even more gladly silent. evening, and the last sunbeams were gliding over the ears of corn on both sides of the way. then a breeze came along, and the ears swayed and whispered together, as the two passed on between them down the long road. night was gathering, it grew continually darker, more melancholy, more delightful. "i have been wanting to know you for a long time, feigele." "i know. you followed me like a shadow." they are silent. "what are you thinking about, feigele?" "what are _you_ thinking about, eleazar?" and they plunge once more into a deep converse about all sorts of things, and there seems to be no reason why it should ever end. it grows darker and darker. they have come to walk closer together. now he takes her hand, she gives a start, but his hand steals further and further into hers. suddenly, as dropt from the sky, he bends his face, and kisses her on the cheek. a thrill goes through her, she takes her hand out of his and appears rather cross, but he knows it is put on, and very soon she is all right again, as if the incident were forgotten. an hour or two go by thus, and every day now they steal away and meet outside the town. and eleazar began to frequent her parents' house, the first time with an excuse--he had some work for feigele. and then, as people do, he came to know when the work would be done, and feigele behaved as though she had never seen him before, as though not even knowing who he was, and politely begged him to take a seat. so it came about by degrees that eleazar was continually in and out of the house, coming and going as he pleased and without stating any pretext whatever. feigele's parents knew him for a steady young man, he was a skilled artisan earning a good wage, and they knew quite well why a young man comes to the home of a young girl, but they feigned ignorance, thinking to themselves, "let the children get to know each other better, there will be time enough to talk it over afterwards." evening: a small room, shadows moving on the walls, a new table on which burns a large, bright lamp, and sitting beside it feigele sewing and eleazar reading aloud a novel by shomer. father and mother, tired out with a whole day's work, sleep on their beds behind the curtain, which shuts off half the room. and so they sit, both of them, only sometimes eleazar laughs aloud, takes her by the hand, and exclaims with a smile, "feigele!" "what do you want, silly?" "nothing at all, nothing at all." and she sews on, thinking, "i have got you fast enough, but don't imagine you are taking somebody from the street, just as she is; there are still eighty rubles wanting to make three hundred in the bank." and she shows him her wedding outfit, the shifts and the bedclothes, of which half lie waiting in the drawers. * * * * * they drew closer one to another, they became more and more intimate, so that all looked upon them as engaged, and expected the marriage contract to be drawn up any day. feigele's mother was jubilant at her daughter's good fortune, at the prospect of such a son-in-law, such a golden son-in-law! reb yainkel, her father, was an elderly man, a worn-out peddler, bent sideways with the bag of junk continually on his shoulder. now he, too, has a little bit of pleasure, a taste of joy, for which god be praised! everyone rejoices, feigele most of all, her cheeks look rosier and fresher, her eyes darker and brighter. she sits at her machine and sews, and the whole room rings with her voice: "un was ich hob' gewollt, hob' ich ausgeführt, soll ich azoi leben! ich hob' gewollt a shenem choson, hot' mir gott gegeben." in the evening comes eleazar. "well, what are you doing?" "what should i be doing? wait, i'll show you something." "what sort of thing?" she rises from her place, goes to the chest that stands in the stove corner, takes something out of it, and hides it under her apron. "whatever have you got there?" he laughs. "why are you in such a hurry to know?" she asks, and sits down beside him, brings from under her apron a picture in fine woolwork, adam and eve, and shows it him, saying: "there, now you see! it was worked by a girl i know--for me, for us. i shall hang it up in our room, opposite the bed." "yours or mine?" "you wait, eleazar! you will see the house i shall arrange for you--a paradise, i tell you, just a little paradise! everything in it will have to shine, so that it will be a pleasure to step inside." "and every evening when work is done, we two shall sit together, side by side, just as we are doing now," and he puts an arm around her. "and you will tell me everything, all about everything," she says, laying a hand on his shoulder, while with the other she takes hold of his chin, and looks into his eyes. they feel so happy, so light at heart. everything in the house has taken on an air of kindliness, there is a soft, attractive gloss on every object in the room, on the walls and the table, the familiar things make signs to her, and speak to her as friend to friend. the two are silent, lost in their own thoughts. "look," she says to him, and takes her bank-book out of the chest, "two hundred and forty rubles already. i shall make it up to three hundred, and then you won't have to say, 'i took you just as you were.'" "go along with you, you are very unjust, and i'm cross with you, feigele." "why? because i tell you the truth to your face?" she asks, looking into his face and laughing. he turns his head away, pretending to be offended. "you little silly, are you feeling hurt? i was only joking, can't you see?" so it goes on, till the old mother's face peeps out from behind the curtain, warning them that it is time to go to rest, when the young couple bid each other good-night. * * * * * reb yainkel, feigele's father, fell ill. it was in the beginning of winter, and there was war between winter and summer: the former sent a snowfall, the latter a burst of sun. the snow turned to mud, and between times it poured with rain by the bucketful. this sort of weather made the old man ill: he became weak in the legs, and took to his bed. there was no money for food, and still less for firing, and feigele had to lend for the time being. the old man lay abed and coughed, his pale, shrivelled face reddened, the teeth showed between the drawn lips, and the blue veins stood out on his temples. they sent for the doctor, who prescribed a remedy. the mother wished to pawn their last pillow, but feigele protested, and gave up part of her wages, and when this was not enough, she pawned her jacket--anything sooner than touch the dowry. and he, eleazar, came every evening, and they sat together beside the well-known table in the lamplight. "why are you so sad, feigele?" "how can you expect me to be cheerful, with father so ill?" "god will help, feigele, and he will get better." "it's four weeks since i put a farthing into the savings-bank." "what do you want to save for?" "what do i want to save for?" she asked with a startled look, as though something had frightened her. "are you going to tell me that you will take me without a dowry?" "what do you mean by 'without a dowry'? you are worth all the money in the world to me, worth my whole life. what do i want with your money? see here, my five fingers, they can earn all we need. i have two hundred rubles in the bank, saved from my earnings. what do i want with more?" they are silent for a moment, with downcast eyes. "and your mother?" she asks quietly. "will you please tell me, are you marrying my mother or me? and what concern is she of yours?" feigele is silent. "i tell you again, i'll take you _just as you are_--and you'll take me the same, will you?" she puts the corner of her apron to her eyes, and cries quietly to herself. there is stillness around. the lamp sheds its brightness over the little room, and casts their shadows onto the walls. the heavy sleeping of the old people is audible behind the curtain. and her head lies on his shoulder, and her thick black hair hides his face. "how kind you are, eleazar," she whispers through her tears. and she opens her whole heart to him, tells him how it is with them now, how bad things are, they have pawned everything, and there is nothing left for to-morrow, nothing but the dowry! he clasps her lovingly, and dries her cheeks with her apron end, saying: "don't cry, feigele, don't cry. it will all come right. and to-morrow, mind, you are to go to the postoffice, and take a little of the dowry, as much as you need, until your father, god helping, is well again, and able to earn something, and then...." "and then ..." she echoes in a whisper. "and then it will all come right," and his eyes flash into hers. "just as you are ..." he whispers. and she looks at him, and a smile crosses her face. she feels so happy, so happy. * * * * * next morning she went to the postoffice for the first time with her bank-book, took out a few rubles, and gave them to her mother. the mother sighed heavily, and took on a grieved expression; she frowned, and pulled her head-kerchief down over her eyes. old reb yainkel lying in bed turned his face to the wall. the old man knew where the money came from, he knew how his only child had toiled for those few rubles. other fathers gave money to their children, and he took it-- it seemed to him as though he were plundering the two young people. he had not long to live, and he was robbing them before he died. as he thought on this, his eyes glazed, the veins on his temple swelled, and his face became suffused with blood. his head is buried in the pillow, and turns to the wall, he lies and thinks these thoughts. he knows that he is in the way of the children's happiness, and he prays that he may die. and she, feigele, would like to come into a fortune all at once, to have a lot of money, to be as rich as any great lady. and then suppose she had a thousand rubles now, this minute, and he came in: "there, take the whole of it, see if i love you! there, take it, and then you needn't say you love me for nothing, just as i am." they sit beside the father's bed, she and her eleazar. her heart overflows with content, she feels happier than she ever felt before, there are even tears of joy on her cheeks. she sits and cries, hiding her face with her apron. he takes her caressingly by the hands, repeating in his kind, sweet voice, "feigele, stop crying, feigele, please!" the father lies turned with his face to the wall, and the beating of his heart is heard in the stillness. they sit, and she feels confidence in eleazar, she feels that she can rely upon him. she sits and drinks in his words, she feels him rolling the heavy stones from off her heart. the old father has turned round and looked at them, and a sweet smile steals over his face, as though he would say, "have no fear, children, i agree with you, i agree with all my heart." and feigele feels so happy, so happy.... * * * * * the father is still lying ill, and feigele takes out one ruble after another, one five-ruble-piece after another. the old man lies and prays and muses, and looks at the children, and holds his peace. his face gets paler and more wrinkled, he grows weaker, he feels his strength ebbing away. feigele goes on taking money out of the savings-bank, the stamps in her book grow less and less, she knows that soon there will be nothing left. old reb yainkel wishes in secret that he did not require so much, that he might cease to hamper other people! he spits blood-drops, and his strength goes on diminishing, and so do the stamps in feigele's book. the day he died saw the last farthing of feigele's dowry disappear after the others. * * * * * feigele has resumed her seat by the bright lamp, and sews and sews till far into the night, and with every seam that she sews, something is added to the credit of her new account. this time the dowry must be a larger one, because for every stamp that is added to the account-book there is a new grey hair on feigele's black head. a jewish child the mother came out of the bride's chamber, and cast a piercing look at her husband, who was sitting beside a finished meal, and was making pellets of bread crumbs previous to saying grace. "you go and talk to her! i haven't a bit of strength left!" "so, rochel-leoh has brought up children, has she, and can't manage them! why! people will be pointing at you and laughing--a ruin to your years!" "to my years?! a ruin to _yours_! _my_ children, are they? are they not yours, too? couldn't you stay at home sometimes to care for them and help me to bring them up, instead of trapesing round--the black year knows where and with whom?" "rochel, rochel, what has possessed you to start a quarrel with me now? the bridegroom's family will be arriving directly." "and what do you expect me to do, moishehle, eh?! for god's sake! go in to her, we shall be made a laughing-stock." the man rose from the table, and went into the next room to his daughter. the mother followed. on the little sofa that stood by the window sat a girl about eighteen, her face hidden in her hands, her arms covered by her loose, thick, black hair. she was evidently crying, for her bosom rose and fell like a stormy sea. on the bed opposite lay the white silk wedding-dress, the chuppeh-kleid, with the black, silk shool-kleid, and the black stuff morning-dress, which the tailor who had undertaken the outfit had brought not long ago. by the door stood a woman with a black scarf round her head and holding boxes with wigs. "channehle! you are never going to do me this dishonor? to make me the talk of the town?" exclaimed the father. the bride was silent. "look at me, daughter of moisheh groiss! it's all very well for genendel freindel's daughter to wear a wig, but not for the daughter of moisheh groiss? is that it?" "and yet genendel freindel might very well think more of herself than you: she is more educated than you are, and has a larger dowry," put in the mother. the bride made no reply. "daughter, think how much blood and treasure it has cost to help us to a bit of pleasure, and now you want to spoil it for us? remember, for god's sake, what you are doing with yourself! we shall be excommunicated, the young man will run away home on foot!" "don't be foolish," said the mother, took a wig out of a box from the woman by the door, and approached her daughter. "let us try on the wig, the hair is just the color of yours," and she laid the strange hair on the girl's head. the girl felt the weight, put up her fingers to her head, met among her own soft, cool, living locks, the strange, dead hair of the wig, stiff and cold, and it flashed through her, who knows where the head to which this hair belonged is now? a shuddering enveloped her, and as though she had come in contact with something unclean, she snatched off the wig, threw in onto the floor and hastily left the room. father and mother stood and looked at each other in dismay. * * * * * the day after the marriage ceremony, the bridegroom's mother rose early, and, bearing large scissors, and the wig and a hood which she had brought from her home as a present for the bride, she went to dress the latter for the "breakfast." but the groom's mother remained outside the room, because the bride had locked herself in, and would open her door to no one. the groom's mother ran calling aloud for help to her husband, who, together with a dozen uncles and brothers-in-law, was still sleeping soundly after the evening's festivity. she then sought out the bridegroom, an eighteen-year-old boy with his mother's milk still on his lips, who, in a silk caftan and a fur cap, was moving about the room in bewildered fashion, his eyes on the ground, ashamed to look anyone in the face. in the end she fell back on the mother of the bride, and these two went in to her together, having forced open the door between them. "why did you lock yourself in, dear daughter. there is no need to be ashamed." "marriage is a jewish institution!" said the groom's mother, and kissed her future daughter-in-law on both cheeks. the girl made no reply. "your mother-in-law has brought you a wig and a hood for the procession to the shool," said her own mother. the band had already struck up the "good morning" in the next room. "come now, kallehshi, kalleh-leben, the guests are beginning to assemble." the groom's mother took hold of the plaits in order to loosen them. the bride bent her head away from her, and fell on her own mother's neck. "i can't, mame-leben! my heart won't let me, mame-kron!" she held her hair with both hands, to protect it from the other's scissors. "for god's sake, my daughter? my life," begged the mother. "in the other world you will be plunged for this into rivers of fire. the apostate who wears her own hair after marriage will have her locks torn out with red hot pincers," said the other with the scissors. a cold shiver went through the girl at these words. "mother-life, mother-crown!" she pleaded. her hands sought her hair, and the black silky tresses fell through them in waves. her hair, the hair which had grown with her growth, and lived with her life, was to be cut off, and she was never, never to have it again--she was to wear strange hair, hair that had grown on another person's head, and no one knows whether that other person was alive or lying in the earth this long time, and whether she might not come any night to one's bedside, and whine in a dead voice: "give me back my hair, give me back my hair!" a frost seized the girl to the marrow, she shivered and shook. then she heard the squeak of scissors over her head, tore herself out of her mother's arms, made one snatch at the scissors, flung them across the room, and said in a scarcely human voice: "my own hair! may god himself punish me!" that day the bridegroom's mother took herself off home again, together with the sweet-cakes and the geese which she had brought for the wedding breakfast for her own guests. she wanted to take the bridegroom as well, but the bride's mother said: "i will not give him back to you! he belongs to me already!" the following sabbath they led the bride in procession to the shool wearing her own hair in the face of all the town, covered only by a large hood. but may all the names she was called by the way find their only echo in some uninhabited wilderness. * * * * * a summer evening, a few weeks after the wedding: the young man had just returned from the stübel, and went to his room. the wife was already asleep, and the soft light of the lamp fell on her pale face, showing here and there among the wealth of silky-black hair that bathed it. her slender arms were flung round her head, as though she feared that someone might come by night to shear them off while she slept. he had come home excited and irritable: this was the fourth week of his married life, and they had not yet called him up to the reading of the law, the chassidim pursued him, and to-day chayyim moisheh had blamed him in the presence of the whole congregation, and had shamed him, because _she_, his wife, went about in her own hair. "you're no better than a clay image," reb chayyim moisheh had told him. "what do you mean by a woman's saying she won't? it is written: 'and he shall rule over thee.'" and he had come home intending to go to her and say: "woman, it is a precept in the torah! if you persist in wearing your own hair, i may divorce you without returning the dowry," after which he would pack up his things and go home. but when he saw his little wife asleep in bed, and her pale face peeping out of the glory of her hair, he felt a great pity for her. he went up to the bed, and stood a long while looking at her, after which he called softly: "channehle ... channehle ... channehle...." she opened her eyes with a frightened start, and looked round in sleepy wonder: "nosson, did you call? what do you want? "nothing, your cap has slipped off," he said, lifting up the white nightcap, which had fallen from her head. she flung it on again, and wanted to turn towards the wall. "channehle, channehle, i want to talk to you." the words went to her heart. the whole time since their marriage he had, so to say, not spoken to her. during the day she saw nothing of him, for he spent it in the house-of-study or in the stübel. when he came home to dinner, he sat down to the table in silence. when he wanted anything, he asked for it speaking into the air, and when really obliged to exchange a word with her, he did so with his eyes fixed on the ground, too shy to look her in the face. and now he said he wanted to talk to her, and in such a gentle voice, and they two alone together in their room! "what do you want to say to me?" she asked softly. "channehle," he began, "please, don't make a fool of me, and don't make a fool of yourself in people's eyes. has not god decreed that we should belong together? you are my wife and i am your husband, and is it proper, and what does it look like, a married woman wearing her own hair?" sleep still half dimmed her eyes, and had altogether clouded her thought and will. she felt helpless, and her head fell lightly towards his breast. "child," he went on still more gently, "i know you are not so depraved as they say. i know you are a pious jewish daughter, and his blessed name will help us, and we shall have pious jewish children. put away this nonsense! why should the whole world be talking about you? are we not man and wife? is not your shame mine?" it seemed to her as though _someone_, at once very far away and very near, had come and was talking to her. nobody had ever yet spoken to her so gently and confidingly. and he was her husband, with whom she would live so long, so long, and there would be children, and she would look after the house! she leant her head lightly against him. "i know you are very sorry to lose your hair, the ornament of your girlhood, i saw you with it when i was a guest in your home. i know that god gave you grace and loveliness, i know. it cuts me to the heart that your hair must be shorn off, but what is to be done? it is a rule, a law of our religion, and after all we are jews. we might even, god forbid, have a child conceived to us in sin, may heaven watch over and defend us." she said nothing, but remained resting lightly in his arm, and his face lay in the stream of her silky-black hair with its cool odor. in that hair dwelt a soul, and he was conscious of it. he looked at her long and earnestly, and in his look was a prayer, a pleading with her for her own happiness, for her happiness and his. "shall i?" ... he asked, more with his eyes than with his lips. she said nothing, she only bent her head over his lap. he went quickly to the drawer, and took out a pair of scissors. she laid her head in his lap, and gave her hair as a ransom for their happiness, still half-asleep and dreaming. the scissors squeaked over her head, shearing off one lock after the other, and channehle lay and dreamt through the night. on waking next morning, she threw a look into the glass which hung opposite the bed. a shock went through her, she thought she had gone mad, and was in the asylum! on the table beside her lay her shorn hair, dead! she hid her face in her hands, and the little room was filled with the sound of weeping! a scholar's mother the market lies foursquare, surrounded on every side by low, whitewashed little houses. from the chimney of the one-storied house opposite the well and inhabited by the baker, issues thick smoke, which spreads low over the market-place. beneath the smoke is a flying to and fro of white pigeons, and a tall boy standing outside the baker's door is whistling to them. equally opposite the well are stalls, doors laid across two chairs and covered with fruit and vegetables, and around them women, with head-kerchiefs gathered round their weary, sunburnt faces in the hottest weather, stand and quarrel over each other's wares. "it's certainly worth my while to stand quarrelling with _you_! a tramp like you keeping a stall!" yente, a woman about forty, whose wide lips have just uttered the above, wears a large, dirty apron, and her broad, red face, with the composed glance of the eyes under the kerchief, gives support to her words. "do you suppose you have got the almighty by the beard? he is mine as well as yours!" answers taube, pulling her kerchief lower about her ears, and angrily stroking down her hair. a new customer approached yente's stall, and taube, standing by idle, passed the time in vituperations. "what do i want with the money of a fine lady like you? you'll die like the rest of us, and not a dog will say kaddish for you," she shrieked, and came to a sudden stop, for taube had intended to bring up the subject of her own son yitzchokel, when she remembered that it is against good manners to praise one's own. yente, measuring out a quarter of pears to her customer, made answer: "well, if you were a little superior to what you are, your husband wouldn't have died, and your child wouldn't have to be ashamed of you, as we all know he is." whereon taube flew into a rage, and shouted: "hussy! the idea of my son being ashamed of me! may you be a sacrifice for his littlest finger-nail, for you're not worthy to mention his name!" she was about to burst out weeping at the accusation of having been the cause of her husband's death and of causing her son to be ashamed of her, but she kept back her tears with all her might in order not to give pleasure to yente. the sun was dropping lower behind the other end of the little town, jews were hurrying across the market-place to evening prayer in the house-of-study street, and the cheder-boys, just let out, began to gather round the well. taube collected her few little baskets into her arms (the door and the chairs she left in the market-place; nobody would steal them), and with two or three parting curses to the rude yente, she quietly quitted the scene. walking home with her armful of baskets, she thought of her son yitzchokel. yente's stinging remarks pursued her. it was not yente's saying that she had caused her husband's death that she minded, for everyone knew how hard she had worked during his illness, it was her saying that yitzchokel was ashamed of her, that she felt in her "ribs." it occurred to her that when he came home for the night, he never would touch anything in her house. and thinking this over, she started once more abusing yente. "let her not live to see such a thing, lord of the world, the one father!" it seemed to her that this fancy of hers, that yitzchokel was ashamed of her, was all yente's fault, it was all her doing, the witch! "my child, my yitzchokel, what business is he of yours?" and the cry escaped her: "lord of the world, take up my quarrel, thou art a father to the orphaned, thou shouldst not forgive her this!" "who is that? whom are you scolding so, taube?" called out necheh, the rich man's wife, standing in the door of her shop, and overhearing taube, as she scolded to herself on the walk home. "who should it be, housemistress, who but the hussy, the abortion, the witch," answered taube, pointing with one finger towards the market-place, and, without so much as lifting her head to look at the person speaking to her, she went on her way. she remembered, as she walked, how, that morning, when she went into necheh's kitchen with a fowl, she heard her yitzchokel's voice in the other room disputing with necheh's boys over the talmud. she knew that on wednesdays yitzchokel ate his "day" at necheh's table, and she had taken the fowl there that day on purpose, so that her yitzchokel should have a good plate of soup, for her poor child was but weakly. when she heard her son's voice, she had been about to leave the kitchen, and yet she had stayed. her yitzchokel disputing with necheh's children? what did they know as compared with him? did they come up to his level? "he will be ashamed of me," she thought with a start, "when he finds me with a chicken in my hand. so his mother is a market-woman, they will say, there's a fine partner for you!" but she had not left the kitchen. a child who had never cost a farthing, and she should like to know how much necheh's children cost their parents! if she had all the money that yitzchokel ought to have cost, the money that ought to have been spent on him, she would be a rich woman too, and she stood and listened to his voice. "oi, _he_ should have lived to see yitzchokel, it would have made him well." soon the door opened, necheh's boys appeared, and her yitzchokel with them. his cheeks flamed. "good morning!" he said feebly, and was out at the door in no time. she knew that she had caused him vexation, that he was ashamed of her before his companions. and she asked herself: her child, her yitzchokel, who had sucked her milk, what had necheh to do with him? and she had poured out her bitterness of heart upon yente's head for this also, that her son had cost her parents nothing, and was yet a better scholar than necheh's children, and once more she exclaimed: "lord of the world! avenge my quarrel, pay her out for it, let her not live to see another day!" passers-by, seeing a woman walking and scolding aloud, laughed. night came on, the little town was darkened. taube reached home with her armful of baskets, dragged herself up the steps, and opened the door. "mame, it's ma-a-me!" came voices from within. the house was full of smoke, the children clustered round her in the middle of the room, and never ceased calling out mame! one child's voice was tearful: "where have you been all day?" another's more cheerful: "how nice it is to have you back!" and all the voices mingled together into one. "be quiet! you don't give me time to draw my breath!" cried the mother, laying down the baskets. she went to the fireplace, looked about for something, and presently the house was illumined by a smoky lamp. the feeble shimmer lighted only the part round the hearth, where taube was kindling two pieces of stick--an old dusty sewing-machine beside a bed, sign of a departed tailor, and a single bed opposite the lamp, strewn with straw, on which lay various fruits, the odor of which filled the room. the rest of the apartment with the remaining beds lay in shadow. it is a year and a half since her husband, lezer the tailor, died. while he was still alive, but when his cough had increased, and he could no longer provide for his family, taube had started earning something on her own account, and the worse the cough, the harder she had to toil, so that by the time she became a widow, she was already used to supporting her whole family. the eldest boy, yitzchokel, had been the one consolation of lezer the tailor's cheerless existence, and lezer was comforted on his death-bed to think he should leave a good kaddish behind him. when he died, the householders had pity on the desolate widow, collected a few rubles, so that she might buy something to traffic with, and, seeing that yitzchokel was a promising boy, they placed him in the house-of-study, arranged for him to have his daily meals in the houses of the rich, and bade him pass his time over the talmud. taube, when she saw her yitzchokel taking his meals with the rich, felt satisfied. a weakly boy, what could _she_ give him to eat? there, at the rich man's table, he had the best of everything, but it grieved her that he should eat in strange, rich houses--she herself did not know whether she had received a kindness or the reverse, when he was taken off her hands. one day, sitting at her stall, she spied her yitzchokel emerge from the shool-gass with his tefillin-bag under his arm, and go straight into the house of reb zindel the rich, to breakfast, and a pang went through her heart. she was still on terms, then, with yente, because immediately after the death of her husband everyone had been kind to her, and she said: "believe me, yente, i don't know myself what it is. what right have i to complain of the householders? they have been very good to me and to my child, made provision for him in rich houses, treated him as if he were _no_ market-woman's son, but the child of gentlefolk, and yet every day when i give the other children their dinner, i forget, and lay a plate for my yitzchokel too, and when i remember that he has his meals at other people's hands, i begin to cry." "go along with you for a foolish woman!" answered yente. "how would he turn out if he were left to you? what is a poor person to give a child to eat, when you come to think of it?" "you are right, yente," taube replied, "but when i portion out the dinner for the others, it cuts me to the heart." and now, as she sat by the hearth cooking the children's supper, the same feeling came over her, that they had stolen her yitzchokel away. when the children had eaten and gone to bed, she stood the lamp on the table, and began mending a shirt for yitzchokel. presently the door opened, and he, yitzchokel, came in. yitzchokel was about fourteen, tall and thin, his pale face telling out sharply against his black cloak beneath his black cap. "good evening!" he said in a low tone. the mother gave up her place to him, feeling that she owed him respect, without knowing exactly why, and it was borne in upon her that she and her poverty together were a misfortune for yitzchokel. he took a book out of the case, sat down, and opened it. the mother gave the lamp a screw, wiped the globe with her apron, and pushed the lamp nearer to him. "will you have a glass of tea, yitzchokel?" she asked softly, wishful to serve him. "no, i have just had some." "or an apple?" he was silent. the mother cleaned a plate, laid two apples on it, and a knife, and placed it on the table beside him. he peeled one of the apples as elegantly as a grown-up man, repeated the blessing aloud, and ate. when taube had seen yitzchokel eat an apple, she felt more like his mother, and drew a little nearer to him. and yitzchokel, as he slowly peeled the second apple, began to talk more amiably: "to-day i talked with the dayan about going somewhere else. in the house-of-study here, there is nothing to do, nobody to study with, nobody to ask how and where, and in which book, and he advises me to go to the academy at makove; he will give me a letter to reb chayyim, the headmaster, and ask him to befriend me." when taube heard that her son was about to leave her, she experienced a great shock, but the words, dayan, rosh-yeshiveh, mekarev-sein, and other high-sounding bits of hebrew, which she did not understand, overawed her, and she felt she must control herself. besides, the words held some comfort for her: yitzchokel was holding counsel with her, with her--his mother! "of course, if the dayan says so," she answered piously. "yes," yitzchokel continued, "there one can hear lectures with all the commentaries; reb chayyim, the author of the book "light of the torah," is a well-known scholar, and there one has a chance of getting to be something decent." his words entirely reassured her, she felt a certain happiness and exaltation, because he was her child, because she was the mother of such a child, such a son, and because, were it not for her, yitzchokel would not be there at all. at the same time her heart pained her, and she grew sad. presently she remembered her husband, and burst out crying: "if only _he_ had lived, if only he could have had this consolation!" she sobbed. yitzchokel minded his book. that night taube could not sleep, for at the thought of yitzchokel's departure the heart ached within her. and she dreamt, as she lay in bed, that some great rabbis with tall fur caps and long earlocks came in and took her yitzchokel away from her; her yitzchokel was wearing a fur cap and locks like theirs, and he held a large book, and he went far away with the rabbis, and she stood and gazed after him, not knowing, should she rejoice or weep. next morning she woke late. yitzchokel had already gone to his studies. she hastened to dress the children, and hurried to the market-place. at her stall she fell athinking, and fancied she was sitting beside her son, who was a rabbi in a large town; there he sits in shoes and socks, a great fur cap on his head, and looks into a huge book. she sits at his right hand knitting a sock, the door opens, and there appears yente carrying a dish, to ask a ritual question of taube's son. a customer disturbed her sweet dream. after this taube sat up whole nights at the table, by the light of the smoky lamp, rearranging and mending yitzchokel's shirts for the journey; she recalled with every stitch that she was sewing for yitzchokel, who was going to the academy, to sit and study, and who, every friday, would put on a shirt prepared for him by his mother. yitzchokel sat as always on the other side of the table, gazing into a book. the mother would have liked to speak to him, but she did not know what to say. taube and yitzchokel were up before daylight. yitzchokel kissed his little brothers in their sleep, and said to his sleeping little sisters, "remain in health"; one sister woke and began to cry, saying she wanted to go with him. the mother embraced and quieted her softly, then she and yitzchokel left the room, carrying his box between them. the street was still fast asleep, the shops were still closed, behind the church belfry the morning star shone coldly forth onto the cold morning dew on the roofs, and there was silence over all, except in the market-place, where there stood a peasant's cart laden with fruit. it was surrounded by women, and yente's voice was heard from afar: "five gulden and ten groschen,' and i'll take the lot!" and taube, carrying yitzchokel's box behind him, walked thus through the market-place, and, catching sight of yente, she looked at her with pride. they came out behind the town, onto the highroad, and waited for an "opportunity" to come by on its way to lentschitz, whence yitzchokel was to proceed to kutno. the sky was grey and cold, and mingled in the distance with the dingy mist rising from the fields, and the road, silent and deserted, ran away out of sight. they sat down beside the barrier, and waited for the "opportunity." the mother scraped together a few twenty-kopek-pieces out of her pocket, and put them into his bosom, twisted up in his shirt. presently a cart came by, crowded with passengers. she secured a seat for yitzchokel for forty groschen, and hoisted the box into the cart. "go in health! don't forget your mother!" she cried in tears. yitzchokel was silent. she wanted to kiss her child, but she knew it was not the thing for a grown-up boy to be kissed, so she refrained. yitzchokel mounted the cart, the passengers made room for him among them. "remain in health, mother!" he called out as the cart set off. "go in health, my child! sit and study, and don't forget your mother!" she cried after him. the cart moved further and further, till it was climbing the hill in the distance. taube still stood and followed it with her gaze; and not till it was lost to view in the dust did she turn and walk back to the town. she took a road that should lead her past the cemetery. there was a rather low plank fence round it, and the gravestones were all to be seen, looking up to heaven. taube went and hitched herself up onto the fence, and put her head over into the "field," looking for something among the tombs, and when her eyes had discovered a familiar little tombstone, she shook her head: "lezer, lezer! your son has driven away to the academy to study torah!" then she remembered the market, where yente must by now have bought up the whole cart-load of fruit. there would be nothing left for her, and she hurried into the town. she walked at a great pace, and felt very pleased with herself. she was conscious of having done a great thing, and this dissipated her annoyance at the thought of yente acquiring all the fruit. two weeks later she got a letter from yitzchokel, and, not being able to read it herself, she took it to reb yochanan, the teacher, that he might read it for her. reb yochanan put on his glasses, cleared his throat thoroughly, and began to read: "le-immi ahuvossi hatzenuoh" ... "what is the translation?" asked taube. "it is the way to address a mother," explained reb yochanan, and continued. taube's face had brightened, she put her apron to her eyes and wept for joy. the reader observed this and read on. "what is the translation, the translation, reb yochanan?" the woman kept on asking. "never mind, it's not for you, you wouldn't understand--it is an exposition of a passage in the gemoreh." she was silent, the hebrew words awed her, and she listened respectfully to the end. "i salute immi ahuvossi and achoissai, sarah and goldeh, and ochi yakov; tell him to study diligently. i have all my 'days' and i sleep at reb chayyim's," gave out reb yochanan suddenly in yiddish. taube contented herself with these few words, took back the letter, put it in her pocket, and went back to her stall with great joy. "this evening," she thought, "i will show it to the dayan, and let him read it too." and no sooner had she got home, cooked the dinner, and fed the children, than she was off with the letter to the dayan. she entered the room, saw the tall bookcases filled with books covering the walls, and a man with a white beard sitting at the end of the table reading. "what is it, a ritual question?" asked the dayan from his place. "no." "what then?" "a letter from my yitzchokel." the dayan rose, came up and looked at her, took the letter, and began to read it silently to himself. "well done, excellent, good! the little fellow knows what he is saying," said the dayan more to himself than to her. tears streamed from taube's eyes. "if only _he_ had lived! if only he had lived!" "shechitas chutz ... rambam ... tossafos is right ..." went on the dayan. "her yitzchokel, taube the market-woman's son," she thought proudly. "take the letter," said the dayan, at last, "i've read it all through." "well, and what?" asked the woman. "what? what do you want then?" "what does it say?" she asked in a low voice. "there is nothing in it for you, you wouldn't understand," replied the dayan, with a smile. yitzchokel continued to write home, the yiddish words were fewer every time, often only a greeting to his mother. and she came to reb yochanan, and he read her the yiddish phrases, with which she had to be satisfied. "the hebrew words are for the dayan," she said to herself. but one day, "there is nothing in the letter for you," said reb yochanan. "what do you mean?" "nothing," he said shortly. "read me at least what there is." "but it is all hebrew, torah, you won't understand." "very well, then, i _won't_ understand...." "go in health, and don't drive me distracted." taube left him, and resolved to go that evening to the dayan. "rebbe, excuse me, translate this into yiddish," she said, handing him the letter. the dayan took the letter and read it. "nothing there for you," he said. "rebbe," said taube, shyly, "excuse me, translate the hebrew for me!" "but it is torah, an exposition of a passage in the torah. you won't understand." "well, if you would only read the letter in hebrew, but aloud, so that i may hear what he says." "but you won't understand one word, it's hebrew!" persisted the dayan, with a smile. "well, i _won't_ understand, that's all," said the woman, "but it's my child's torah, my child's!" the dayan reflected a while, then he began to read aloud. presently, however, he glanced at taube, and remembered he was expounding the torah to a woman! and he felt thankful no one had heard him. "take the letter, there is nothing in it for you," he said compassionately, and sat down again in his place. "but it is my child's torah, my yitzchokel's letter, why mayn't i hear it? what does it matter if i don't understand? it is my own child!" the dayan turned coldly away. when taube reached home after this interview, she sat down at the table, took down the lamp from the wall, and looked silently at the letter by its smoky light. she kissed the letter, but then it occurred to her that she was defiling it with her lips, she, a sinful woman! she rose, took her husband's prayer-book from the bookshelf, and laid the letter between its leaves. then with trembling lips she kissed the covers of the book, and placed it once more in the bookcase. the sinner so that you should not suspect me of taking his part, i will write a short preface to my story. it is written: "a man never so much as moves his finger, but it has been so decreed from above," and whatsoever a man does, he fulfils god's will--even animals and birds (i beg to distinguish!) carry out god's wishes: whenever a bird flies, it fulfils a precept, because god, blessed is he, formed it to fly, and an ox the same when it lows, and even a dog when it barks--all praise god with their voices, and sing hymns to him, each after his manner. and even the wicked who transgresses fulfils god's will in spite of himself, because why? do you suppose he takes pleasure in transgressing? isn't he certain to repent? well, then? he is just carrying out the will of heaven. and the evil inclination himself! why, every time he is sent to persuade a jew to sin, he weeps and sighs: woe is me, that i should be sent on such an errand! after this little preface, i will tell you the story itself. formerly, before the thing happened, he was called reb avròhom, but afterwards they ceased calling him by his name, and said simply the sinner. reb avròhom was looked up to and respected by the whole town, a god-fearing jew, beloved and honored by all, and mothers wished they might have children like him. he sat the whole day in the house-of-study and learned. not that he was a great scholar, but he was a pious, scrupulously observant jew, who followed the straight and beaten road, a man without any pride. he used to recite the prayers in shool together with the strangers by the door, and quite quietly, without any shouting or, one may say, any special enthusiasm. his prayer that rose to heaven, the barred gates opening before it till it entered and was taken up into the throne of glory, this prayer of his did not become a diamond there, dazzling the eye, but a softly glistening pearl. and how, you ask, did he come to be called the sinner? on this wise: you must know that everyone, even those who were hardest on him after the affair, acknowledged that he was a great lover of israel, and i will add that his sin and, heaven defend us, his coming to such a fall, all proceeded from his being such a lover of israel, such a patriot. and it was just the simple jew, the very common folk, that he loved. he used to say: a jew who is a driver, for instance, and busy all the week with his horses and cart, and soaked in materialism for six days at a stretch, so that he only just manages to get in his prayers--when he comes home on sabbath and sits down to table, and the bed is made, and the candles burning, and his wife and children are round him, and they sing hymns together, well, the driver dozing off over his prayer-book and forgetting to say grace, i tell you, said reb avròhom, the divine presence rests on his house and rejoices and says, "happy am i that i chose me out this people," for such a jew keeps sabbath, rests himself, and his horse rests, keeps sabbath likewise, stands in the stable, and is also conscious that it is the holy sabbath, and when the driver rises from his sleep, he leads the animal out to pasture, waters it, and they all go for a walk with it in the meadow. and this walk of theirs is more acceptable to god, blessed is he, than repeating "bless the lord, o my soul." it may be this was because he himself was of humble origin; he had lived till he was thirteen with his father, a farmer, in an out-of-the-way village, and ignorant even of his letters. true, his father had taken a youth into the house to teach him hebrew, but reb avròhom as a boy was very wild, wouldn't mind his book, and ran all day after the oxen and horses. he used to lie out in the meadow, hidden in the long grasses, near him the horses with their heads down pulling at the grass, and the view stretched far, far away, into the endless distance, and above him spread the wide sky, through which the clouds made their way, and the green, juicy earth seemed to look up at it and say: "look, sky, and see how cheerfully i try to obey god's behest, to make the world green with grass!" and the sky made answer: "see, earth, how i try to fulfil god's command, by spreading myself far and wide!" and the few trees scattered over the fields were like witnesses to their friendly agreement. and little avròhom lay and rejoiced in the goodness and all the work of god. suddenly, as though he had received a revelation from heaven, he went home, and asked the youth who was his teacher, "what blessing should one recite on feeling happy at sight of the world?" the youth laughed, and said: "you stupid boy! one says a blessing over bread and water, but as to saying one over _this world_--who ever heard of such a thing?" avròhom wondered, "the world is beautiful, the sky so pretty, the earth so sweet and soft, everything is so delightful to look at, and one says no blessing over it all!" at thirteen he had left the village and come to the town. there, in the house-of-study, he saw the head of the academy sitting at one end of the table, and around it, the scholars, all reciting in fervent, appealing tones that went to his heart. the boy began to cry, whereupon the head of the academy turned, and saw a little boy with a torn hat, crying, and his hair coming out through the holes, and his boots slung over his shoulder, like a peasant lad fresh from the road. the scholars laughed, but the rosh ha-yeshiveh asked him what he wanted. "to learn," he answered in a low, pleading voice. the rosh ha-yeshiveh had compassion on him, and took him as a pupil. avròhom applied himself earnestly to the torah, and in a few days could read hebrew and follow the prayers without help. and the way he prayed was a treat to watch. you should have seen him! he just stood and talked, as one person talks to another, quietly and affectionately, without any tricks of manner. once the rosh ha-yeshiveh saw him praying, and said before his whole academy, "i can learn better than he, but when it comes to praying, i don't reach to his ankles." that is what he said. so reb avròhom lived there till he was grown up, and had married the daughter of a simple tailor. indeed, he learnt tailoring himself, and lived by his ten fingers. by day he sat and sewed with an open prayer-book before him, and recited portions of the psalms to himself. after dark he went into the house-of-study, so quietly that no one noticed him, and passed half the night over the talmud. once some strangers came to the town, and spent the night in the house-of-study behind the stove. suddenly they heard a thin, sweet voice that was like a tune in itself. they started up, and saw him at his book. the small lamp hanging by a cord poured a dim light upon him where he sat, while the walls remained in shadow. he studied with ardor, with enthusiasm, only his enthusiasm was not for beholders, it was all within; he swayed slowly to and fro, and his shadow swayed with him, and he softly chanted the gemoreh. by degrees his voice rose, his face kindled, and his eyes began to glow, one could see that his very soul was resolving itself into his chanting. the divine presence hovered over him, and he drank in its sweetness. and in the middle of his reading, he got up and walked about the room, repeating in a trembling whisper, "lord of the world! o lord of the world!" then his voice grew as suddenly calm, and he stood still, as though he had dozed off where he stood, for pure delight. the lamp grew dim, and still he stood and stood and never moved. awe fell on the travellers behind the stove, and they cried out. he started and approached them, and they had to close their eyes against the brightness of his face, the light that shone out of his eyes! and he stood there quite quietly and simply, and asked in a gentle voice why they had called out. were they cold? and he took off his cloak and spread it over them. next morning the travellers told all this, and declared that no sooner had the cloak touched them than they had fallen asleep, and they had seen and heard nothing more that night. after this, when the whole town had got wind of it, and they found out who it was that night in the house-of-study, the people began to believe that he was a tzaddik, and they came to him with petitions, as chassidim to their rebbes, asking him to pray for their health and other wants. but when they brought him such a petition, he would smile and say: "believe me, a little boy who says grace over a piece of bread which his mother has given him, he can help you more than twenty such as i." of course, his words made no impression, except that they brought more petitions than ever, upon which he said: "you insist on a man of flesh and blood such as i being your advocate with god, blessed is he. hear a parable: to what shall we liken the thing? to the light of the sun and the light of a small lamp. you can rejoice in the sunlight as much as you please, and no one can take your joy from you; the poorest and most humble may revive himself with it, so long as his eyes can behold it, and even though a man should sit, which god forbid, in a dungeon with closed windows, a reflection will make its way in through the chinks, and he shall rejoice in the brightness. but with the poor light of a lamp it is otherwise. a rich man buys a quantity of lamps and illumines his house, while a poor man sits in darkness. god, blessed be he, is the great light that shines for the whole world, reviving and refreshing all his works. the whole world is full of his mercy, and his compassion is over all his creatures. believe me, you have no need of an advocate with him; god is your father, and you are his dear children. how should a child need an advocate with his father?" the ordinary folk heard and were silent, but our people, the chassidim, were displeased. and i'll tell you another thing, i was the first to mention it to the rebbe, long life to him, and he, as is well known, commanded reb avròhom to his presence. so we set to work to persuade reb avròhom and talked to him till he had to go with us. the journey lasted four days. i remember one night, the moon was wandering in a blue ocean of sky that spread ever so far, till it mingled with a cloud, and she looked at us, pitifully and appealingly, as though to ask us if we knew which way she ought to go, to the right or to the left, and presently the cloud came upon her, and she began struggling to get out of it, and a minute or two later she was free again and smiling at us. then a little breeze came, and stroked our faces, and we looked round to the four sides of the world, and it seemed as if the whole world were wrapped in a prayer-scarf woven of mercy, and we fell into a slight melancholy, a quiet sadness, but so sweet and pleasant, it felt like on sabbath at twilight at the third meal. suddenly reb avròhom exclaimed: "jews, have you said the blessings on the appearance of the new moon?" we turned towards the moon, laid down our bundles, washed our hands in a little stream that ran by the roadside, and repeated the blessings for the new moon. he stood looking into the sky, his lips scarcely moving, as was his wont. "sholom alechem!" he said, turning to me, and his voice quivered like a violin, and his eyes called to peace and unity. then an awe of reb avròhom came over me for the first time, and when we had finished sanctifying the moon our melancholy left us, and we prepared to continue our way. but still he stood and gazed heavenward, sighing: "lord of the universe! how beautiful is the world which thou hast made by thy goodness and great mercy, and these are over all thy creatures. they all love thee, and are glad in thee, and thou art glad in them, and the whole world is full of thy glory." i glanced up at the moon, and it seemed that she was still looking at me, and saying, "i'm lost; which way am i to go?" we arrived friday afternoon, and had time enough to go to the bath and to greet the rebbe. he, long life to him, was seated in the reception-room beside a table, his long lashes low over his eyes, leaning on his left hand, while he greeted incomers with his right. we went up to him, one at a time, shook hands, and said "sholom alechem," and he, long life to him, said nothing to us. reb avròhom also went up to him, and held out his hand. a change came over the rebbe, he raised his eyelids with his fingers, and looked at reb avròhom for some time in silence. and reb avròhom looked at the rebbe, and was silent too. the chassidim were offended by such impertinence. that evening we assembled in the rebbe's house-of-study, to usher in the sabbath. it was tightly packed with jews, one pushing the other, or seizing hold of his girdle, only beside the ark was there a free space left, a semicircle, in the middle of which stood the rebbe and prayed. but reb avròhom stood by the door among the poor guests, and prayed after his fashion. "to kiddush!" called the beadle. the rebbe's wife, daughters, and daughters-in-law now appeared, and their jewelry, their precious stones, and their pearls, sparkled and shone. the rebbe stood and repeated the prayer of sanctification. he was slightly bent, and his grey beard swept his breast. his eyes were screened by his lashes, and he recited the sanctification in a loud voice, giving to every word a peculiar inflection, to every sign an expression of its own. "to table!" was called out next. at the head of the table sat the rebbe, sons and sons-in-law to the left, relations to the right of him, then the principal aged jews, then the rich. the people stood round about. the rebbe ate, and began to serve out the leavings, to his sons and sons-in-law first, and to the rest of those sitting at the table after. then there was silence, the rebbe began to expound the torah. the portion of the week was numbers, chapter eight, and the rebbe began: "when a man's soul is on a low level, enveloped, heaven defend us, in uncleanness, and the divine spark within the soul wishes to rise to a higher level, and cannot do so alone, but must needs be helped, it is a mitzveh to help her, to raise her, and this mitzveh is specially incumbent on the priest. this is the meaning of 'the seven lamps shall give light over against the candlestick,' by which is meant the holy torah. the priest must bring the jew's heart near to the torah; in this way he is able to raise it. and who is the priest? the righteous in his generation, because since the temple was destroyed, the saint must be a priest, for thus is the command from above, that he shall be the priest...." "avròhom!" the rebbe called suddenly, "avròhom! come here, i am calling you." the other went up to him. "avròhom, did you understand? did you make out the meaning of what i said? "your silence," the rebbe went on, "is an acknowledgment. i must raise you, even though it be against my will and against your will." there was dead stillness in the room, people waiting to hear what would come next. "you are silent?" asked the rebbe, now a little sternly. "_you_ want to be a raiser of souls? have _you_, bless and preserve us, bought the almighty for yourself? do you think that a jew can approach nearer to god, blessed is he, through _you_? that _you_ are the 'handle of the pestle' and the rest of the jews nowhere? god's grace is everywhere, whichever way we turn, every time we move a limb we feel god! everyone must seek him in his own heart, because there it is that he has caused the divine presence to rest. everywhere and always can the jew draw near to god...." thus answered reb avròhom, but our people, the rebbe's followers, shut his mouth before he had made an end, and had the rebbe not held them back, they would have torn him in pieces on the spot. "leave him alone!" he commanded the chassidim. and to reb avròhom he said: "avròhom, you have sinned!" and from that day forward he was called the sinner, and was shut out from everywhere. the chassidim kept their eye on him, and persecuted him, and he was not even allowed to pray in the house-of-study. and i'll tell you what i think: a wicked man, even when he acts according to his wickedness, fulfils god's command. and who knows? perhaps they were both right! isaac dob berkowitz born, , in slutzk, government of minsk (lithuania), white russia; was in america for a short time in ; contributor to die zukunft; co-editor of ha-olam, wilna; hebrew and yiddish writer; collected works: yiddish, gesammelte schriften, warsaw, ; hebrew, sippurim, cracow, . country folk feivke was a wild little villager, about seven years old, who had tumbled up from babyhood among gentile urchins, the only jewish boy in the place, just as his father mattes, the kozlov smith, was the only jewish householder there. feivke had hardly ever met, or even seen, anyone but the people of kozlov and their children. had it not been for his black eyes, with their moody, persistent gaze from beneath the shade of a deep, worn-out leather cap, it would have puzzled anyone to make out his parentage, to know whence that torn and battered face, that red scar across the top lip, those large, black, flat, unchild-like feet. but the eyes explained everything--his mother's eyes. feivke spent the whole summer with the village urchins in the neighboring wood, picking mushrooms, climbing the trees, driving wood-pigeons off their high nests, or wading knee-deep in the shallow bog outside to seek the black, slippery bog-worms; or else he found himself out in the fields, jumping about on the top of a load of hay under a hot sky, and shouting to his companions, till he was bathed in perspiration. at other times, he gathered himself away into a dark, cool barn, scrambled at the peril of his life along a round beam under the roof, crunched dried pears, saw how the sun sprinkled the darkness with a thousand sparks, and--thought. he could always think about mikita, the son of the village elder, who had almost risen to be conductor on a railway train, and who came from a long way off to visit his father, brass buttons to his coat and a purse full of silver rubles, and piped to the village girls of an evening on the most cunning kind of whistle. how often it had happened that feivke could not be found, and did not even come home to bed! but his parents troubled precious little about him, seeing that he was growing up a wild, dissolute boy, and the displeasure of heaven rested on his head. feivke was not a timid child, but there were two things he was afraid of: god and davvening. feivke had never, to the best of his recollection, seen god, but he often heard his name, they threatened him with it, glanced at the ceiling, and sighed. and this embittered somewhat his sweet, free days. he felt that the older he grew, the sooner he would have to present himself before this terrifying, stern, and unfamiliar god, who was hidden somewhere, whether near or far he could not tell. one day feivke all but ran a danger. it was early on a winter morning; there was a cold, wild wind blowing outside, and indoors there was a black stranger jew, in a thick sheepskin, breaking open the tin charity boxes. the smith's wife served the stranger with hot potatoes and sour milk, whereupon the stranger piously closed his eyes, and, having reopened them, caught sight of feivke through the white steam rising from the dish of potatoes--feivke, huddled up in a corner--and beckoned him nearer. "have you begun to learn, little boy?" he questioned, and took his cheek between two pale, cold fingers, which sent a whiff of snuff up feivke's nose. his mother, standing by the stove, reddened, and made some inaudible answer. the black stranger threw up his eyes, and slowly shook his head inside the wide sheepskin collar. this shaking to and fro of his head boded no good, and feivke grew strangely cold inside. then he grew hot all over, and, for several nights after, thousands of long, cold, pale fingers pursued and pinched him in his dreams. they had never yet taught him to recite his prayers. kozlov was a lonely village, far from any jewish settlement. every sabbath morning feivke, snug in bed, watched his father put on a mended black cloak, wrap himself in the tallis, shut his eyes, take on a bleating voice, and, turning to the wall, commence a series of bows. feivke felt that his father was bowing before god, and this frightened him. he thought it a very rash proceeding. feivke, in his father's place, would sooner have had nothing to do with god. he spent most of the time while his father was at his prayers cowering under the coverlet, and only crept out when he heard his mother busy with plates and spoons, and the pungent smell of chopped radishes and onions penetrated to the bedroom. winters and summers passed, and feivke grew to be seven years old, just such a feivke as we have described. and the last summer passed, and gave way to autumn. that autumn the smith's wife was brought to bed of a seventh child, and before she was about again, the cold, damp days were upon them, with the misty mornings, when a fish shivers in the water. and the days of her confinement were mingled for the lonely village jewess with the solemn days of that year into a hard and dreary time. she went slowly about the house, as in a fog, without help or hope, and silent as a shadow. that year they all led a dismal life. the elder children, girls, went out to service in the neighboring towns, to make their own way among strangers. the peasants had become sharper and worse than formerly, and the smith's strength was not what it had been. so his wife resolved to send the two men of the family, mattes and feivke, to a minyan this yom kippur. maybe, if _two_ went, god would not be able to resist them, and would soften his heart. one morning, therefore, mattes the smith washed, donned his mended sabbath cloak, went to the window, and blinked through it with his red and swollen eyes. it was the eve of the day of atonement. the room was well-warmed, and there was a smell of freshly-stewed carrots. the smith's wife went out to seek feivke through the village, and brought him home dishevelled and distracted, and all of a glow. she had torn him away from an early morning of excitement and delight such as could never, never be again. mikita, the son of the village elder, had put his father's brown colt into harness for the first time. the whole contingent of village boys had been present to watch the fiery young animal twisting between the shafts, drawing loud breaths into its dilated and quivering nostrils, looking wildly at the surrounding boys, and stamping impatiently, as though it would have liked to plow away the earth from under its feet. and suddenly it had given a bound and started careering through the village with the cart behind it. there was a glorious noise and commotion! feivke was foremost among those who, in a cloud of dust and at the peril of their life, had dashed to seize the colt by the reins. his mother washed him, looked him over from the low-set leather hat down to his great, black feet, stuffed a packet of food into his hands, and said: "go and be a good and devout boy, and god will forgive you." she stood on the threshold of the house, and looked after her two men starting for a distant minyan. the bearing of seven children had aged and weakened the once hard, obstinate woman, and, left standing alone in the doorway, watching her poor, barefoot, perverse-natured boy on his way to present himself for the first time before god, she broke down by the mezuzeh and wept. silently, step by step, feivke followed his father between the desolate stubble fields. it was a good ten miles' walk to the large village where the minyan assembled, and the fear and the wonder in feivke's heart increased all the way. he did not yet quite understand whither he was being taken, and what was to be done with him there, and the impetus of the brown colt's career through the village had not as yet subsided in his head. why had father put on his black mended cloak? why had he brought a tallis with him, and a white shirt-like garment? there was certainly some hour of calamity and terror ahead, something was preparing which had never happened before. they went by the great kozlov wood, wherein every tree stood silent and sad for its faded and fallen leaves. feivke dropped behind his father, and stepped aside into the wood. he wondered: should he run away and hide in the wood? he would willingly stay there for the rest of his life. he would foregather with nasta, the barrel-maker's son, he of the knocked-out eye; they would roast potatoes out in the wood, and now and again, stolen-wise, milk the village cows for their repast. let them beat him as much as they pleased, let them kill him on the spot, nothing should induce him to leave the wood again! but no! as feivke walked along under the silent trees and through the fallen leaves, and perceived that the whole wood was filled through and through with a soft, clear light, and heard the rustle of the leaves beneath his step, a strange terror took hold of him. the wood had grown so sparse, the trees so discolored, and he should have to remain in the stillness alone, and roam about in the winter wind! mattes the smith had stopped, wondering, and was blinking around with his sick eyes. "feivke, where are you?" feivke appeared out of the wood. "feivke, to-day you mustn't go into the wood. to-day god may yet--to-day you must be a good boy," said the smith, repeating his wife's words as they came to his mind, "and you must say amen." feivke hung his head and looked at his great, bare, black feet. "but if i don't know how," he said sullenly. "it's no great thing to say amen!" his father replied encouragingly. "when you hear the other people say it, you can say it, too! everyone must say amen, then god will forgive them," he added, recalling again his wife and her admonitions. feivke was silent, and once more followed his father step by step. what will they ask him, and what is he to answer? it seemed to him now that they were going right over away yonder where the pale, scarcely-tinted sky touched the earth. there, on a hill, sits a great, old god in a large sheepskin cloak. everyone goes up to him, and he asks them questions, which they have to answer, and he shakes his head to and fro inside the sheepskin collar. and what is he, a wild, ignorant little boy, to answer this great, old god? feivke had committed a great many transgressions concerning which his mother was constantly admonishing him, but now he was thinking only of two great transgressions committed recently, of which his mother knew nothing. one with regard to anishka the beggar. anishka was known to the village, as far back as it could remember, as an old, blind beggar, who went the round of the villages, feeling his way with a long stick. and one day feivke and another boy played him a trick: they placed a ladder in his way, and anishka stumbled and fell, hurting his nose. some peasants had come up and caught feivke. anishka sat in the middle of the road with blood on his face, wept bitterly, and declared that god would not forget his blood that had been spilt. the peasants had given the little zhydek a sound thrashing, but feivke felt now as if that would not count: god would certainly remember the spilling of anishka's blood. feivke's second hidden transgression had been committed outside the village, among the graves of the peasants. a whole troop of boys, feivke in their midst, had gone pigeon hunting, aiming at the pigeons with stones, and a stone of feivke's had hit the naked figure on the cross that stood among the graves. the gentile boys had started and taken fright, and those among them who were feivke's good friends told him he had actually hit the son of god, and that the thing would have consequences; it was one for which people had their heads cut off. these two great transgressions now stood before him, and his heart warned him that the hour had come when he would be called to account for what he had done to anishka and to god's son. only he did not know what answer he could make. by the time they came near the windmill belonging to the large strange village, the sun had begun to set. the village river with the trees beside it were visible a long way off, and, crossing the river, a long high bridge. "the minyan is there," and mattes pointed his finger at the thatched roofs shining in the sunset. feivke looked down from the bridge into the deep, black water that lay smooth and still in the shadow of the trees. the bridge was high and the water deep! feivke felt sick at heart, and his mouth was dry. "but, tate, i won't be able to answer," he let out in despair. "what, not amen? eh, eh, you little silly, that is no great matter. where is the difficulty? one just ups and answers!" said his father, gently, but feivke heard that the while his father was trying to quiet him, his own voice trembled. at the other end of the bridge there appeared the great inn with the covered terrace, and in front of the building were moving groups of jews in holiday garb, with red handkerchiefs in their hands, women in yellow silk head-kerchiefs, and boys in new clothes holding small prayer-books. feivke remained obstinately outside the crowd, and hung about the stable, his black eyes staring defiantly from beneath the worn-out leather cap. but he was not left alone long, for soon there came to him a smart, yellow-haired boy, with restless little light-colored eyes, and a face like a chicken's, covered with freckles. this little boy took a little bottle with some essence in it out of his pocket, gave it a twist and a flourish in the air, and suddenly applied it to feivke's nose, so that the strong waters spurted into his nostril. then he asked: "to whom do you belong?" feivke blew the water out of his nose, and turned his head away in silence. "listen, turkey, lazy dog! what are you doing there? have you said minchah?" "n-no...." "is the jew in a torn cloak there your father?" "y-yes ... t-tate...." the yellow-haired boy took feivke by the sleeve. "come along, and you'll see what they'll do to your father." inside the room into which feivke was dragged by his new friend, it was hot, and there was a curious, unfamiliar sound. feivke grew dizzy. he saw jews bowing and bending along the wall and beating their breasts--now they said something, and now they wept in an odd way. people coughed and spat sobbingly, and blew their noses with their red handkerchiefs. chairs and stiff benches creaked, while a continual clatter of plates and spoons came through the wall. in a corner, beside a heap of hay, feivke saw his father where he stood, looking all round him, blinking shamefacedly and innocently with his weak, red eyes. round him was a lively circle of little boys whispering with one another in evident expectation. "that is his boy, with the lip," said the chicken-face, presenting feivke. at the same moment a young man came up to mattes. he wore a white collar without a tie and with a pointed brass stud. this young man held a whip, which he brandished in the air like a rider about to mount his horse. "well, reb smith." "am i ... i suppose i am to lie down?" asked mattes, subserviently, still smiling round in the same shy and yet confiding manner. "be so good as to lie down." the young man gave a mischievous look at the boys, and made a gesture in the air with the whip. mattes began to unbutton his cloak, and slowly and cautiously let himself down onto the hay, whereupon the young man applied the whip with might and main, and his whole face shone. "one, two, three! go on, rebbe, go on!" urged the boys, and there were shouts of laughter. feivke looked on in amaze. he wanted to go and take his father by the sleeve, make him get up and escape, but just then mattes raised himself to a sitting posture, and began to rub his eyes with the same shy smile. "now, rebbe, this one!" and the yellow-haired boy began to drag feivke towards the hay. the others assisted. feivke got very red, and silently tried to tear himself out of the boy's hands, making for the door, but the other kept his hold. in the doorway feivke glared at him with his obstinate black eyes, and said: "i'll knock your teeth out!" "mine? you? you booby, you lazy thing! this is _our_ house! do you know, on new year's eve i went with my grandfather to the town! i shall call leibrutz. he'll give you something to remember him by!" and leibrutz was not long in joining them. he was the inn driver, a stout youth of fifteen, in a peasant smock with a collar stitched in red, otherwise in full array, with linen socks and a handsome bottle of strong waters against faintness in his hands. to judge by the size of the bottle, his sturdy looks belied a peculiarly delicate constitution. he pushed towards feivke with one shoulder, in no friendly fashion, and looked at him with one eye, while he winked with the other at the freckled grandson of the host. "who is the beauty?" "how should i know? a thief most likely. the kozlov smith's boy. he threatened to knock out my teeth." "so, so, dear brother mine!" sang out leibrutz, with a cold sneer, and passed his five fingers across feivke's nose. "we must rub a little horseradish under his eyes, and he'll weep like a beaver. listen, you kozlov urchin, you just keep your hands in your pockets, because leibrutz is here! do you know leibrutz? lucky for you that i have a jewish heart: to-day is yom kippur." but the chicken-faced boy was not pacified. "did you ever see such a lip? and then he comes to our house and wants to fight us!" the whole lot of boys now encircled feivke with teasing and laughter, and he stood barefooted in their midst, looking at none of them, and reminding one of a little wild animal caught and tormented. it grew dark, and quantities of soul-lights were set burning down the long tables of the inn. the large building was packed with red-faced, perspiring jews, in flowing white robes and tallesim. the confession was already in course of fervent recital, there was a great rocking and swaying over the prayer-books and a loud noise in the ears, everyone present trying to make himself heard above the rest. village jews are simple and ignorant, they know nothing of "silent prayer" and whispering with the lips. they are deprived of prayer in common a year at a time, and are distant from the lord of all, and when the awful day comes, they want to take him by storm, by violence. the noisiest of all was the prayer-leader himself, the young man with the white collar and no tie. he was from town, and wished to convince the country folk that he was an adept at his profession and to be relied on. feivke stood in the stifling room utterly confounded. the prayers and the wailful chanting passed over his head like waves, his heart was straitened, red sparks whirled before his eyes. he was in a state of continual apprehension. he saw a snow-white old jew come out of a corner with a scroll of the torah wrapped in a white velvet, gold-embroidered cover. how the gold sparkled and twinkled and reflected itself in the illuminated beard of the old man! feivke thought the moment had come, but he saw it all as through a mist, a long way off, to the sound of the wailful chanting, and as in a mist the scroll and the old man vanished together. feivke's face and body were flushed with heat, his knees shook, and at the same time his hands and feet were cold as ice. once, while feivke was standing by the table facing the bright flames of the soul-lights, a dizziness came over him, and he closed his eyes. thousands of little bells seemed to ring in his ears. then some one gave a loud thump on the table, and there was silence all around. feivke started and opened his eyes. the sudden stillness frightened him, and he wanted to move away from the table, but he was walled in by men in white robes, who had begun rocking and swaying anew. one of them pushed a prayer-book towards him, with great black letters, which hopped and fluttered to feivke's eyes like so many little black birds. he shook visibly, and the men looked at him in silence: "nu-nu, nu-nu!" he remained for some time squeezed against the prayer-book, hemmed in by the tall, strange men in robes swaying and praying over his head. a cold perspiration broke out over him, and when at last he freed himself, he felt very tired and weak. having found his way to a corner close to his father, he fell asleep on the floor. there he had a strange dream. he dreamt that he was a tree, growing like any other tree in a wood, and that he saw anishka coming along with blood on his face, in one hand his long stick, and in the other a stone--and feivke recognized the stone with which he had hit the crucifix. and anishka kept turning his head and making signs to some one with his long stick, calling out to him that here was feivke. feivke looked hard, and there in the depths of the wood was god himself, white all over, like freshly-fallen snow. and god suddenly grew ever so tall, and looked down at feivke. feivke felt god looking at him, but he could not see god, because there was a mist before his eyes. and anishka came nearer and nearer with the stone in his hand. feivke shook, and cold perspiration oozed out all over him. he wanted to run away, but he seemed to be growing there like a tree, like all the other trees of the wood. feivke awoke on the floor, amid sleeping men, and the first thing he saw was a tall, barefoot person all in white, standing over the sleepers with something in his hand. this tall, white figure sank slowly onto its knees, and, bending silently over mattes the smith, who lay snoring with the rest, it deliberately put a bottle to his nose. mattes gave a squeal, and sat up hastily. "ha, who is it?" he asked in alarm. it was the young man from town, the prayer-leader, with a bottle of strong smelling-salts. "it is i," he said with a _dégagé_ air, and smiled. "never mind, it will do you good! you are fasting, and there is an express law in the chayyé odom on the subject." "but why me?" complained mattes, blinking at him reproachfully. "what have i done to you?" day was about to dawn. the air in the room had cooled down; the soul-lights were still playing in the dark, dewy window-panes. a few of the men bedded in the hay on the floor were waking up. feivke stood in the middle of the room with staring eyes. the young man with the smelling-bottle came up to him with a lively air. "o you little object! what are you staring at me for? do you want a sniff? there, then, sniff!" feivke retreated into a corner, and continued to stare at him in bewilderment. no sooner was it day, than the davvening recommenced with all the fervor of the night before, the room was as noisy, and very soon nearly as hot. but it had not the same effect on feivke as yesterday, and he was no longer frightened of anishka and the stone--the whole dream had dissolved into thin air. when they once more brought out the scroll of the law in its white mantle, feivke was standing by the table, and looked on indifferently while they uncovered the black, shining, crowded letters. he looked indifferently at the young man from town swaying over the torah, out of which he read fluently, intoning with a strangely free and easy manner, like an adept to whom all this was nothing new. whenever he stopped reading, he threw back his head, and looked down at the people with a bright, satisfied smile. the little boys roamed up and down the room in socks, with smelling-salts in their hands, or yawned into their little prayer-books. the air was filled with the dust of the trampled hay. the sun looked in at a window, and the soul-lights grew dim as in a mist. it seemed to feivke he had been at the minyan a long, long time, and he felt as though some great misfortune had befallen him. fear and wonder continued to oppress him, but not the fear and wonder of yesterday. he was tired, his body burning, while his feet were contracted with cold. he got away outside, stretched himself out on the grass behind the inn and dozed, facing the sun. he dozed there through a good part of the day. bright red rivers flowed before his eyes, and they made his brains ache. some one, he did not know who, stood over him, and never stopped rocking to and fro and reciting prayers. then--it was his father bending over him with a rather troubled look, and waking him in a strangely gentle voice: "well, feivke, are you asleep? you've had nothing to eat to-day yet?" "no...." feivke followed his father back into the house on his unsteady feet. weary jews with pale and lengthened noses were resting on the terrace and the benches. the sun was already low down over the village and shining full into the inn windows. feivke stood by one of the windows with his father, and his head swam from the bright light. mattes stroked his chin-beard continually, then there was more davvening and more rocking while they recited the eighteen benedictions. the benedictions ended, the young man began to trill, but in a weaker voice and without charm. he was sick of the whole thing, and kept on in the half-hearted way with which one does a favor. mattes forgot to look at his prayer-book, and, standing in the window, gazed at the tree-tops, which had caught fire in the rays of the setting sun. nobody was expecting anything of him, when he suddenly gave a sob, so loud and so piteous that all turned and looked at him in astonishment. some of the people laughed. the prayer-leader had just intoned "michael on the right hand uttereth praise," out of the afternoon service. what was there to cry about in that? all the little boys had assembled round mattes the smith, and were choking with laughter, and a certain youth, the host's new son-in-law, gave a twitch to mattes' tallis: "reb kozlover, you've made a mistake!" mattes answered not a word. the little fellow with the freckles pushed his way up to him, and imitating the young man's intonation, repeated, "reb kozlover, you've made a mistake!" feivke looked wildly round at the bystanders, at his father. then he suddenly advanced to the freckled boy, and glared at him with his black eyes. "you, you--kob tebi biessi!" he hissed in little-russian. the laughter and commotion increased; there was an exclamation: "rascal, in a holy place!" and another: "aha! the kozlover smith's boy must be a first-class scamp!" the prayer-leader thumped angrily on his prayer-book, because no one was listening to him. feivke escaped once more behind the inn, but the whole company of boys followed him, headed by leibrutz the driver. "there he is, the kozlov lazy booby!" screamed the freckled boy. "have you ever heard the like? he actually wanted to fight again, and in our house! what do you think of that?" leibrutz went up to feivke at a steady trot and with the gesture of one who likes to do what has to be done calmly and coolly. "wait, boys! hands off! we've got a remedy for him here, for which i hope he will be thankful." so saying, he deliberately took hold of feivke from behind, by his two arms, and made a sign to the boy with yellow hair. "now for it, aarontche, give it to the youngster!" the little boy immediately whipped the smelling-bottle out of his pocket, took out the stopper with a flourish, and held it to feivke's nose. the next moment feivke had wrenched himself free, and was making for the chicken-face with nails spread, when he received two smart, sounding boxes on the ears, from two great, heavy, horny hands, which so clouded his brain that for a minute he stood dazed and dumb. suddenly he made a spring at leibrutz, fell upon his hand, and fastened his sharp teeth in the flesh. leibrutz gave a loud yell. there was a great to-do. people came running out in their robes, women with pale, startled faces called to their children. a few of them reproved mattes for his son's behavior. then they dispersed, till there remained behind the inn only mattes and feivke. mattes looked at his boy in silence. he was not a talkative man, and he found only two or three words to say: "feivke, mother there at home--and you--here?" again feivke found himself alone on the field, and again he stretched himself out and dozed. again, too, the red streams flowed before his eyes, and someone unknown to him stood at his head and recited prayers. only the streams were thicker and darker, and the davvening over his head was louder, sadder, more penetrating. it was quite dark when mattes came out again, took feivke by the hand, set him on his feet, and said, "now we are going home." indoors everything had come to an end, and the room had taken on a week-day look. the candles were gone, and a lamp was burning above the table, round which sat men in their hats and usual cloaks, no robes to be seen, and partook of some refreshment. there was no more davvening, but in feivke's ears was the same ringing of bells. it now seemed to him that he saw the room and the men for the first time, and the old jew sitting at the head of the table, presiding over bottles and wine-glasses, and clicking with his tongue, could not possibly be the old man with the silver-white beard who had held the scroll of the law to his breast. mattes went up to the table, gave a cough, bowed to the company, and said, "a good year!" the old man raised his head, and thundered so loudly that feivke's face twitched as with pain: "ha?" "i said--i am just going--going home--home again--so i wish--wish you--a good year!" "ha, a good year? a good year to you also! wait, have a little brandy, ha?" feivke shut his eyes. it made him feel bad to have the lamp burning so brightly and the old man talking so loud. why need he speak in such a high, rasping voice that it went through one's head like a saw? "ha? is it your little boy who scratched my aarontche's face? ha? a rascal is he? beat him well! there, give him a little brandy, too--and a bit of cake! he fasted too, ha? but he can't recite the prayers? fie! _you_ ought to be beaten! ha? are you going home? go in health! ha? your wife has just been confined?--perhaps you need some money for the holidays? ha? what do you say?" mattes and feivke started to walk home. mattes gave a look at the clear sky, where the young half-moon had floated into view. "mother will be expecting us," he said, and began to walk quickly. feivke could hardly drag his feet. on the tall bridge they were met by a cool breeze blowing from the water. once across the bridge, mattes again quickened his pace. presently he stopped to look around--no feivke! he turned back and saw feivke sitting in the middle of the road. the child was huddled up in a silent, shivering heap. his teeth chattered with cold. "feivke, what is the matter? why are you sitting down? come along home!" "i won't"--feivke clattered out with his teeth--"i c-a-n-'t--" "did they hit you so hard, feivke?" feivke was silent. then he stretched himself out on the ground, his hands and feet quivering. "cold--." "aren't you well, feivke?" the child made an effort, sat up, and looked fixedly at his father, with his black, feverish eyes, and suddenly he asked: "why did you cry there? tate, why? tell me, why?!" "where did i cry, you little silly? why, i just cried--it's yom kippur. mother is fasting, too--get up, feivke, and come home. mother will make you a poultice," occurred to him as a happy thought. "no! why did you cry, while they were laughing?" feivke insisted, still sitting in the road and shaking like a leaf. "one mustn't cry when they laugh, one mustn't!" and he lay down again on the damp ground. "feivele, come home, my son!" mattes stood over the boy in despair, and looked around for help. from some way off, from the tall bridge, came a sound of heavy footsteps growing louder and louder, and presently the moonlight showed the figure of a peasant. "ai, who is that? matke the smith? what are you doing there? are you casting spells? who is that lying on the ground?" "i don't know myself what i'm doing, kind soul. that is my boy, and he won't come home, or he can't. what am i to do with him?" complained mattes to the peasant, whom he knew. "has he gone crazy? give him a kick! ai, you little lazy devil, get up!" feivke did not move from the spot, he only shivered silently, and his teeth chattered. "ach, you devil! what sort of a boy have you there, matke? a visitation of heaven! why don't you beat him more? the other day they came and told tales of him--agapa said that--" "i don't know, either, kind soul, what sort of a boy he is," answered mattes, and wrung his bands in desperation. * * * * * early next morning mattes hired a conveyance, and drove feivke to the town, to the asylum for the sick poor. the smith's wife came out and saw them start, and she stood a long while in the doorway by the mezuzeh. and on another fine autumn morning, just when the villagers were beginning to cart loads of fresh earth to secure the village against overflowing streams, the village boys told one another the news of feivke's death. the last of them they had been rabbonim for generations in the misnagdic community of mouravanke, old, poverty-stricken mouravanke, crowned with hoary honor, hidden away in the thick woods. generation on generation of them had been renowned far and near, wherever a jewish word was spoken, wherever the voice of the torah rang out in the warm old houses-of-study. people talked of them everywhere, as they talk of miracles when miracles are no more, and of consolation when all hope is long since dead--talked of them as great-grandchildren talk of the riches of their great-grandfather, the like of which are now unknown, and of the great seven-branched, old-fashioned lamp, which he left them as an inheritance of times gone by. for as the lustre of an old, seven-branched lamp shining in the darkness, such was the lustre of the family of the rabbonim of mouravanke. that was long ago, ever so long ago, when mouravanke lay buried in the dark lithuanian forests. the old, low, moss-grown houses were still set in wide, green gardens, wherein grew beet-root and onions, while the hop twined itself and clustered thickly along the wooden fencing. well-to-do jews still went about in linen pelisses, and smoked pipes filled with dry herbs. people got a living out of the woods, where they burnt pitch the whole week through, and jewish families ate rye-bread and groats-pottage. a new baby brought no anxiety along with it. people praised god, carried the pitcher to the well, filled it, and poured a quart of water into the pottage. the newcomer was one of god's creatures, and was assured of his portion along with the others. and if a jew had a marriageable daughter, and could not afford a dowry, he took a stick in his hand, donned a white shirt with a broad mangled collar, repeated the "prayer of the highway," and set off on foot to volhynia, that thrice-blessed wonderland, where people talk with a "chirik," and eat challeh with saffron even in the middle of the week--with saffron, if not with honey. there, in volhynia, on friday evenings, the rich jewish householder of the district walks to and fro leisurely in his brightly lit room. in all likelihood, he is a short, plump, hairy man, with a broad, fair beard, a gathered silk sash round his substantial figure, a cheery singsong "sholom-alechem" on his mincing, "chiriky" tongue, and a merry crack of the thumb. the lithuanian guest, teacher or preacher, the shrunk and shrivelled stranger with the piercing black eyes, sits in a corner, merely moving his lips and gazing at the floor--perhaps because he feels ill at ease in the bright, nicely-furnished room; perhaps because he is thinking of his distant home, of his wife and children and his marriageable daughter; and perhaps because it has suddenly all become oddly dear to him, his poor, forsaken native place, with its moiling, poverty-struck jews, whose week is spent pitch-burning in the forest; with its old, warm houses-of-study; with its celebrated giants of the torah, bending with a candle in their hand over the great hoary gemorehs. and here, at table, between the tasty stuffed fish and the soup, with the rich volhynian "stuffed monkeys," the brusque, tongue-tied guest is suddenly unable to contain himself, and overflows with talk about his corner in lithuania. "whether we have our rabbis at home?! n-nu!!" and thereupon he holds forth grandiloquently, with an ardor and incisiveness born of the love and the longing at his heart. the piercing black eyes shoot sparks, as the guest tells of the great men of mouravanke, with their fiery intellects, their iron perseverance, who sit over their books by day and by night. from time to time they take an hour and a half's doze, falling with their head onto their fists, their beards sweeping the gemoreh, the big candle keeping watch overhead and waking them once more to the study of the torah. at dawn, when the people begin to come in for the morning prayer, they walk round them on tiptoe, giving them their four-ells' distance, and avoid meeting their look, which is apt to be sharp and burning. "that is the way we study in lithuania!" the stout, hairy householder, good-natured and credulous, listens attentively to the wonderful tales, loosens the sash over his pelisse in leisurely fashion, unbuttons his waistcoat across his generous waist, blows out his cheeks, and sways his head from side to side, because--one may believe anything of the lithuanians! then, if once in a long, long while the rich volhynian householder stumbled, by some miracle or other, into lithuania, sheer curiosity would drive him to take a look at the lithuanian celebrity. but he would stand before him in trembling and astonishment, as one stands before a high granite rock, the summit of which can barely be discerned. is he terrified by the dark and bushy brows, the keen, penetrating looks, the deep, stern wrinkles in the forehead that might have been carved in stone, they are so stiffly fixed? who can say? or is he put out of countenance by the cold, hard assertiveness of their speech, which bores into the conscience like a gimlet, and knows of no mercy?--for from between those wrinkles, from beneath those dark brows, shines out the everlasting glory of the shechinah. such were the celebrated rabbonim of mouravanke. they were an old family, a long chain of great men, generation on generation of tall, well-built, large-boned jews, all far on in years, with thick, curly beards. it was very seldom one of these beards showed a silver hair. they were stern, silent men, who heard and saw everything, but who expressed themselves mostly by means of their wrinkles and their eyebrows rather than in words, so that when a mouravanke rav went so far as to say "n-nu," that was enough. the dignity of rav was hereditary among them, descending from father to son, and, together with the rabbinical position and the eighteen gulden a week salary, the son inherited from his father a tall, old reading-desk, smoked and scorched by the candles, in the old house-of-study in the corner by the ark, and a thick, heavy-knotted stick, and an old holiday pelisse of lustrine, the which, if worn on a bright sabbath-day in summer-time, shines in the sun, and fairly shouts to be looked at. they arrived in mouravanke generations ago, when the town was still in the power of wild highwaymen, called there "hydemakyes," with huge, terrifying whiskers and large, savage dogs. one day, on hoshanah rabbah, early in the morning, there entered the house-of-study a tall youth, evidently village-born and from a long way off, barefoot, with turned-up trousers, his boots slung on a big, knotted stick across his shoulders, and a great bundle of big hoshanos. the youth stood in the centre of the house-of-study with his mouth open, bewildered, and the boys quickly snatched his willow branches from him. he was surrounded, stared at, questioned as to who he was, whence he came, what he wanted. had he parents? was he married? for some time the youth stood silent, with downcast eyes, then he bethought himself, and answered in three words: "i want to study!" and from that moment he remained in the old building, and people began to tell wonderful tales of his power of perseverance--of how a tall, barefoot youth, who came walking from a far distance, had by dint of determination come to be reckoned among the great men in israel; of how, on a winter midnight, he would open the stove doors, and study by the light of the glowing coals; of how he once forgot food and drink for three days and three nights running, while he stood over a difficult legal problem with wrinkled brows, his eyes piercing the page, his fingers stiffening round the handle of his stick, and he motionless; and when suddenly he found the solution, he gave a shout "nu!" and came down so hard on the desk with his stick that the whole house-of-study shook. it happened just when the people were standing quite quiet, repeating the eighteen benedictions. then it was told how this same lad became rav in mouravanke, how his genius descended to his children and children's children, till late in the generations, gathering in might with each generation in turn. they rose, these giants, one after the other, persistent investigators of the law, with high, wrinkled foreheads, dark, bushy brows, a hard, cutting glance, sharp as steel. in those days mouravanke was illuminated as with seven suns. the houses-of-study were filled with students; voices, young and old, rang out over the gemorehs, sang, wept, and implored. worried and tired-looking fathers and uncles would come into the shools with blackened faces after the day's pitch-burning, between afternoon and evening prayer, range themselves in leisurely mood by the doors and the stove, cock their ears, and listen, jewish drivers, who convey people from one town to another, snatched a minute the first thing in the morning, and dropped in with their whips under their arms, to hear a passage in the gemoreh expounded. and the women, who washed the linen at the pump in summer-time, beat the wet clothes to the melody of the torah that came floating into the street through the open windows, sweet as a long-expected piece of good news. thus mouravanke came to be of great renown, because the wondrous power of the mouravanke rabbonim, the power of concentration of thought, grew from generation to generation. and in those days the old people went about with a secret whispering, that if there should arise a tenth generation of the mighty ones, a new thing, please god, would come to pass among jews. but there was no tenth generation; the ninth of the mouravanke rabbonim was the last of them. he had two sons, but there was no luck in the house in his day: the sons philosophized too much, asked too many questions, took strange paths that led them far away. once a rumor spread in mouravanke that the rav's eldest son had become celebrated in the great world because of a book he had written, and had acquired the title of "professor." when the old rav was told of it, he at first remained silent, with downcast eyes. then he lifted them and ejaculated: "nu!" and not a word more. it was only remarked that he grew paler, that his look was even more piercing, more searching than before. this is all that was ever said in the town about the rav's children, for no one cared to discuss a thing on which the old rav himself was silent. once, however, on the great sabbath, something happened in the spacious old house-of-study. the rav was standing by the ark, wrapped in his tallis, and expounding to a crowded congregation. he had a clear, resonant, deep voice, and when he sent it thundering over the heads of his people, the air seemed to catch fire, and they listened dumbfounded and spellbound. suddenly the old man stopped in the midst of his exposition, and was silent. the congregation thrilled with speechless expectation. for a minute or two the rav stood with his piercing gaze fixed on the people, then he deliberately pulled aside the curtain before the ark, opened the ark doors, and turned to the congregation: "listen, jews! i know that many of you are thinking of something that has just occurred to me, too. you wonder how it is that i should set myself up to expound the torah to a townful of jews, when my own children have cast the torah behind them. therefore i now open the ark and declare to you, jews, before the holy scrolls of the law, i have no children any more. i am the last rav of our family!" hereupon a piteous wail came from out of the women's shool, but the rav's sonorous voice soon reduced them to silence, and once more the torah was being expounded in thunder over the heads of the open-mouthed assembly. years, a whole decade of them, passed, and still the old rav walked erect, and not one silver hair showed in his curly beard, and the town was still used to see him before daylight, a tall, solitary figure carrying a stick and a lantern, on his way to the large old bes ha-midrash, to study there in solitude--until mouravanke began to ring with the fame of her charif, her great new scholar. he was the son of a poor tailor, a pale, thin youth, with a pointed nose and two sharp, black eyes, who had gone away at thirteen or so to study in celebrated, distant academies, whence his name had spread round and about. people said of him, that he was growing up to be a light of the exile, that with his scholastic achievements he would outwit the acutest intellects of all past ages; they said that he possessed a brain power that ground "mountains" of talmud to powder. news came that a quantity of prominent jewish communities had sent messengers, to ask him to come and be their rav. mouravanke was stirred to its depths. the householders went about greatly perturbed, because their rav was an old man, his days were numbered, and he had no children to take his place. so they came to the old rav in his house, to ask his advice, whether it was possible to invite the mouravanke charif, the tailor's son, to come to them, so that he might take the place of the rav on his death, in a hundred and twenty years--seeing that the said young charif was a scholar distinguished by the acuteness of his intellect the only man worthy of sitting in the seat of the mouravanke rabbonim. the old rav listened to the householders with lowering brows, and never raised his eyes, and he answered them one word: "nu!" so mouravanke sent a messenger to the young charif, offering him the rabbinate. the messenger was swift, and soon the news spread through the town that the charif was approaching. when it was time for the householders to go forth out of the town, to meet the young charif, the old rav offered to go with them, and they took a chair for him to sit in while he waited at the meeting-place. this was by the wood outside the town, where all through the week the jewish townsfolk earned their bread by burning pitch. begrimed and toil-worn jews were continually dropping their work and peeping out shamefacedly between the tree-stems. it was friday, a clear day in the autumn. she appeared out of a great cloud of dust--she, the travelling-wagon in which sat the celebrated young charif. sholom-alechems flew to meet him from every side, and his old father, the tailor, leant back against a tree, and wept aloud for joy. now the old rav declared that he would not allow the charif to enter the town till he had heard him, the charif, expound a portion of the torah. the young man accepted the condition. men, women, and little children stood expectant, all eyes were fastened on the tailor's son, all hearts beat rapidly. the charif expounded the torah standing in the wagon. at first he looked fairly scared, and his sharp black eyes darted fearfully hither and thither over the heads of the silent crowd. then came a bright idea, and lit up his face. he began to speak, but his was not the familiar teaching, such as everyone learns and understands. his words were like fiery flashes appearing and disappearing one after the other, lightnings that traverse and illumine half the sky in one second of time, a play of swords in which there are no words, only the clink and ring of finely-tempered steel. the old rav sat in his chair leaning on his old, knobbly, knotted stick, and listened. he heard, but evil thoughts beset him, and deep, hard wrinkles cut themselves into his forehead. he saw before him the charif, the dried-up youth with the sharp eyes and the sharp, pointed nose, and the evil thought came to him, "those are needles, a tailor's needles," while the long, thin forefinger with which the charif pointed rapidly in the air seemed a third needle wielded by a tailor in a hurry. "you prick more sharply even than your father," is what the old rav wanted to say when the charif ended his sermon, but he did not say it. the whole assembly was gazing with caught breath at his half-closed eyelids. the lids never moved, and some thought wonderingly that he had fallen into a doze from sheer old age. suddenly a strange, dry snap broke the stillness, the old rav started in his chair, and when they rushed forward to assist him, they found that his knotted, knobbly stick had broken in two. pale and bent for the first time, but a tall figure still, the old rav stood up among his startled flock. he made a leisurely motion with his hand in the direction of the town, and remarked quietly to the young charif: "nu, now you can go into the town!" that friday night the old rav came into the house-of-study without his satin cloak, like a mourner. the congregation saw him lead the young rav into the corner near the ark, where he sat him down by the high old desk, saying: "you will sit here." he himself went and sat down behind the pulpit among the strangers, the sabbath guests. for the first minute people were lost in astonishment; the next minute the house-of-study was filled with wailing. old and young lifted their voices in lamentation. the young rav looked like a child sitting behind the tall desk, and he shivered and shook as though with fever. then the old rav stood up to his full height and commanded: "people are not to weep!" all this happened about the solemn days. mouravanke remembers that time now, and speaks of it at dusk, when the sky is red as though streaming with fire, and the men stand about pensive and forlorn, and the women fold their babies closer in their aprons. at the close of the day of atonement there was a report that the old rav had breathed his last in robe and prayer-scarf. the young charif did not survive him long. he died at his father's the tailor, and his funeral was on a wet great hosannah day. aged folk said he had been summoned to face the old rav in a lawsuit in the heavenly court. a folk tale the clever rabbi the power of man's imagination, said my grandmother, is very great. hereby hangs a tale, which, to our sorrow, is a true one, and as clear as daylight. listen attentively, my dear child, it will interest you very much. not far from this town of ours lived an old count, who believed that jews require blood at passover, christian blood, too, for their passover cakes. the count, in his brandy distillery, had a jewish overseer, a very honest, respectable fellow. the count loved him for his honesty, and was very kind to him, and the jew, although he was a simple man and no scholar, was well-disposed, and served the count with heart and soul. he would have gone through fire and water at the count's bidding, for it is in the nature of a jew to be faithful and to love good men. the count often discussed business matters with him, and took pleasure in hearing about the customs and observances of the jews. one day the count said to him, "tell me the truth, do you love me with your whole heart?" "yes," replied the jew, "i love you as myself." "not true!" said the count. "i shall prove to you that you hate me even unto death." "hold!" cried the jew. "why does my lord say such terrible things?" the count smiled and answered: "let me tell you! i know quite well that jews must have christian blood for their passover feast. now, what would you do if i were the only christian you could find? you would have to kill me, because the rabbis have said so. indeed, i can scarcely hold you to blame, since, according to your false notions, the divine command is precious, even when it tells us to commit murder. i should be no more to you than was isaac to abraham, when, at god's command, abraham was about to slay his only son. know, however, that the god of abraham is a god of mercy and lovingkindness, while the god the rabbis have created is full of hatred towards christians. how, then, can you say that you love me?" the jew clapped his hands to his head, he tore his hair in his distress and felt no pain, and with a broken heart he answered the count, and said: "how long will you christians suffer this stain on your pure hearts? how long will you disgrace yourselves? does not my lord know that this is a great lie? i, as a believing jew, and many besides me, as believing jews--we ourselves, i say, with our own hands, grind the corn, we keep the flour from getting damp or wet with anything, for if only a little dew drop onto it, it is prohibited for us as though it had yeast. "till the day on which the cakes are baked, we keep the flour as the apple of our eye. and when the flour is baked, and we are eating the cakes, even then we are not sure of swallowing it, because if our gums should begin to bleed, we have to spit the piece out. and in face of all these stringent regulations against eating the blood of even beasts and birds, some people say that jews require human blood for their passover cakes, and swear to it as a fact! what does my lord suppose we are likely to think of such people? we know that they swear falsely--and a false oath is of all things the worst." the count was touched to the heart by these words, and these two men, being both upright and without guile, believed one the other. the count believed the jew, that is, he believed that the jew did not know the truth of the matter, because he was poor and untaught, while the rabbis all the time most certainly used blood at passover, only they kept it a secret from the people. and he said as much to the jew, who, in his turn, believed the count, because he knew him to be an honorable man. and so it was that he began to have his doubts, and when the count, on different occasions, repeated the same words, the jew said to himself, that perhaps after all it was partly true, that there must be something in it--the count would never tell him a lie! and he carried the thought about with him for some time. the jew found increasing favor in his master's eyes. the count lent him money to trade with, and god prospered the jew in everything he undertook. thanks to the count, he grew rich. the jew had a kind heart, and was much given to good works, as is the way with jews. he was very charitable, and succored all the poor in the neighboring town. and he assisted the rabbis and the pious in all the places round about, and earned for himself a great and beautiful name, for he was known to all as "the benefactor." the rabbis gave him the honor due to a pious and influential jew, who is a wealthy man and charitable into the bargain. but the jew was thinking: "now the rabbis will let me into the secret which is theirs, and which they share with those only who are at once pious and rich, that great and pious jews must have blood for passover." for a long time he lived in hope, but the rabbis told him nothing, the subject was not once mentioned. but the jew felt sure that the count would never have lied to him, and he gave more liberally than before, thinking, "perhaps after all it was too little." he assisted the rabbi of the nearest town for a whole year, so that the rabbi opened his eyes in astonishment. he gave him more than half of what is sufficient for a livelihood. when it was near passover, the jew drove into the little town to visit the rabbi, who received him with open arms, and gave him honor as unto the most powerful and wealthy benefactor. and all the representative men of the community paid him their respects. thought the jew, "now they will tell me of the commandment which it is not given to every jew to observe." as the rabbi, however, told him nothing, the jew remained, to remind the rabbi, as it were, of his duty. "rabbi," said the jew, "i have something very particular to say to you! let us go into a room where we two shall be alone." so the rabbi went with him into an empty room, shut the door, and said: "dear friend, what is your wish? do not be abashed, but speak freely, and tell me what i can do for you." "dear rabbi, i am, you must know, already acquainted with the fact that jews require blood at passover. i know also that it is a secret belonging only to the rabbis, to very pious jews, and to the wealthy who give much alms. and i, who am, as you know, a very charitable and good jew, wish also to comply, if only once in my life, with this great observance. "you need not be alarmed, dear rabbi! i will never betray the secret, but will make you happy forever, if you will enable me to fulfil so great a command. "if, however, you deny its existence, and declare that jews do not require blood, from that moment i become your bitter enemy. "and why should i be treated worse than any other pious jew? i, too, want to try to perform the great commandment which god gave in secret. i am not learned in the law, but a great and wealthy jew, and one given to good works, that am i in very truth!" you can fancy--said my grandmother--the rabbi's horror on hearing such words from a jew, a simple countryman. they pierced him to the quick, like sharp arrows. he saw that the jew believed in all sincerity that his coreligionists used blood at passover. how was he to uproot out of such a simple heart the weeds sown there by evil men? the rabbi saw that words would just then be useless. a beautiful thought came to him, and he said: "so be it, dear friend! come into the synagogue to-morrow at this time, and i will grant your request. but till then you must fast, and you must not sleep all night, but watch in prayer, for this is a very grave and dreadful thing." the jew went away full of gladness, and did as the rabbi had told him. next day, at the appointed time, he came again, wan with hunger and lack of sleep. the rabbi took the key of the synagogue, and they went in there together. in the synagogue all was quiet. the rabbi put on a prayer-scarf and a robe, lighted some black candles, threw off his shoes, took the jew by the hand, and led him up to the ark. the rabbi opened the ark, took out a scroll of the law, and said: "you know that for us jews the scroll of the law is the most sacred of all things, and that the list of denunciations occurs in it twice. "i swear to you by the scroll of the law: if any jew, whosoever he be, requires blood at passover, may all the curses contained in the two lists of denunciations be on my head, and on the head of my whole family!" the jew was greatly startled. he knew that the rabbi had never before sworn an oath, and now, for his sake, he had sworn an oath so dreadful! the jew wept much, and said: "dear rabbi, i have sinned before god and before you. i pray you, pardon me and give me a hard penance, as hard as you please. i will perform it willingly, and may god forgive me likewise!" the rabbi comforted him, and told no one what had happened, he only told a few very near relations, just to show them how people can be talked into believing the greatest foolishness and the most wicked lies. may god--said my grandmother--open the eyes of all who accuse us falsely, that they may see how useless it is to trump up against us things that never were seen or heard. jews will be jews while the world lasts, and they will become, through suffering, better jews with more jewish hearts. glossary and notes [abbreviations: dimin. = diminutive; ger. = german, corrupt german, and yiddish; heb. = hebrew, and aramaic; pl. = plural; russ. = russian; slav. = slavic; trl. = translation. pronunciation: the transliteration of the hebrew words attempts to reproduce the colloquial "german" (ashkenazic) pronunciation. _ch_ is pronounced as in the german _dach_.] additional service. _see_ eighteen benedictions. al-chet (heb.). "for the sin"; the first two words of each line of an atonement day prayer, at every mention of which the worshipper beats the left side of his breast with his right fist. alef-bes (heb.). the hebrew alphabet. ashrÉ (heb.). the first word of a psalm verse used repeatedly in the liturgy. Äus klemenke! (ger.). klemenke is done for! azoi (= ger. also). that's the way it is! badchen (heb.). a wedding minstrel, whose quips often convey a moral lesson to the bridal couple, each of whom he addresses separately. bar-mitzveh (heb.). a boy of thirteen, the age of religious majority. bas-kol (heb.). "the daughter of the voice"; an echo; a voice from heaven. beigel (ger.). ring-shaped roll. bes ha-midrash (heb.). house-of-study, used for prayers, too. bittul-torah (heb.). interference with religious study. bobbe (slav.). grandmother; midwife. borshtsh (russ.). sour soup made of beet-root. cantonist (ger.). jewish soldier under czar nicholas i, torn from his parents as a child, and forcibly estranged from judaism. challeh (heb.). loaves of bread prepared for the sabbath, over which the blessing is said; always made of wheat flour, and sometimes yellowed with saffron. charif (heb.). a talmudic scholar and dialectician. chassidim (sing. chossid) (heb.). "pious ones"; followers of israel baal shem, who opposed the sophisticated intellectualism of the talmudists, and laid stress on emotionalism in prayer and in the performance of other religious ceremonies. the chassidic leader is called tzaddik ("righteous one"), or rebbe. _see_ art. "hasidim," in the jewish encyclopedia, vol. vi. chayyÉ odom. a manual of religious practice used extensively by the common people. cheder (pl. chedorim) (heb.). jewish primary school. chillul ha-shem (heb.). "desecration of the holy name"; hence, scandal. chirik (heb.). name of the vowel "i"; in volhynia "u" is pronounced like "i." davvening. saying prayers. dayan (pl. dayonim) (heb.). authority on jewish religious law, usually assistant to the rabbi of a town. din torah (heb.). lawsuit. dreier, dreierlech (ger.). a small coin. eighteen benedictions. the nucleus of each of the three daily services, morning, afternoon, evening, and of the "additional service" inserted on sabbaths, festivals, and the holy days, between the morning and afternoon services. though the number of benedictions is actually nineteen, and at some of the services is reduced to seven, the technical designation remains "eighteen benedictions." they are usually said as a "silent prayer" by the congregation, and then recited aloud by the cantor, or precentor. eretz yisroel (heb.). palestine. erev (heb.). eve. eruv (heb.). a cord, etc., stretched round a town, to mark the limit beyond which no "burden" may be carried on the sabbath. fast of esther. a fast day preceding purim, the feast of esther. "fountain of jacob." a collection of all the legends, tales, apologues, parables, etc., in the babylonian talmud. four-corners (trl. of arba kanfos). a fringed garment worn under the ordinary clothes; called also tallis-koton. _see_ deut. xxii. . four ells. minimum space required by a human being. four questions. put by the youngest child to his father at the seder. ganze goyim (ger. and heb.). wholly estranged from jewish life and customs. _see_ goi. gass (ger.). the jews' street. gehenna (heb.). the nether world; hell. gemoreh (heb.). the talmud, the rabbinical discussion and elaboration of the mishnah; a talmud folio. it is usually read with a peculiar singsong chant, and the reading of argumentative passages is accompanied by a gesture with the thumb. _see, for instance_, pp. and . gemoreh-kÖplech (heb. and ger.). a subtle, keen mind; precocious. gevir (heb.). an influential, rich man.--gevirish, appertaining to a gevir. goi (pl. goyim) (heb.). a gentile; a jew estranged from jewish life and customs. gottinyu (ger. with slav. ending). dear god. great sabbath, the. the sabbath preceding passover. haggadah (heb.). the story of the exodus recited at the home service on the first two evenings of passover. hoshanah (pl. hoshanos) (heb.). osier withe for the great hosannah. hoshanah-rabbah (heb.). the seventh day of the feast of tabernacles; the great hosannah. hostre chassidim. followers of the rebbe or tzaddik who lived at hostre. kaddish (heb.). sanctification, or doxology, recited by mourners, specifically by children in memory of parents during the first eleven months after their death, and thereafter on every anniversary of the day of their death; applied to an only son, on whom will devolve the duty of reciting the prayer on the death of his parents; sometimes applied to the oldest son, and to sons in general. kalleh (heb.) bride. kalleh-leben (heb. and ger.). dear bride. kallehshi (heb. and russ. dimin.). dear bride. kasha (slav.). pap. kedushah (heb.). sanctification; the central part of the public service, of which the "holy, holy, holy," forms a sentence. kerbel, kerblech (ger.). a ruble. kiddush (heb.). sanctification; blessing recited over wine in ushering in sabbaths and holidays. klaus (ger.). "hermitage"; a conventicle; a house-of-study. kob tebi biessi (little russ.) "demons take you!" kol nidrÉ (heb.). the first prayer recited at the synagogue on the eve of the day of atonement. kosher (heb.). ritually clean or permitted. kosher-tanz (heb. and ger.). bride's dance. kÖst (ger.). board.--auf kÖst. free board and lodging given to a man and his wife by the latter's parents during the early years of his married life. "learn." studying the talmud, the codes, and the commentaries. le-chayyim (heb.). here's to long life! lehavdil (heb.). "to distinguish." elliptical for "to distinguish between the holy and the secular"; equivalent to "excuse the comparison"; "pardon me for mentioning the two things in the same breath," etc. likkute zevi (heb.). a collection of prayers. lokshen. macaroni.--toras-lokshen, macaroni made in approved style. maariv (heb.). the evening prayer, or service. maggid (heb.). preacher. maharsho (maharsho). hebrew initial letters of morenu ha-rab shemuel edels, a great commentator. malkes (heb.). stripes inflicted on the eve of the day of atonement, in expiation of sins. _see_ deut. xxv. , . maskil (pl. maskilim) (heb.). an "intellectual." the aim of the "intellectuals" was the spread of modern general education among the jews, especially in eastern europe. they were reproached with secularizing hebrew and disregarding the ceremonial law. matzes (heb.). the unleavened bread used during passover. mechuteneste (heb.). mother-in-law; prospective mother-in-law; expresses chiefly the reciprocal relation between the parents of a couple about to be married. mechutton (heb.). father-in-law; prospective father-in-law; expresses chiefly the reciprocal relation between the parents of a couple about to be married. mehereh (heb.). the "quick" dough for the matzes. melammed (heb.). teacher. mezuzeh (heb.). "door-post;" scripture verses attached to the door-posts of jewish houses. _see_ deut. vi. . midrash (heb.). homiletic exposition of the scriptures. minchah (heb.). the afternoon prayer, or service. min ha-mezar (heb.). "out of the depth," ps. . . minyan (heb.). a company of ten men, the minimum for a public service; specifically, a temporary congregation, gathered together, usually in a village, from several neighboring jewish settlements, for services on new year and the day of atonement. mishnah (heb.). the earliest code (ab. c. e.) after the pentateuch, portions of which are studied, during the early days of mourning, in honor of the dead. misnaggid (pl. misnagdim) (heb.). "opponents" of the chassidim. the misnagdic communities are led by a rabbi (pl. rabbonim), sometimes called rav. mitzveh (heb.). a commandment, a duty, the doing of which is meritorious. nashers (ger.). gourmets. nishkoshe (ger. and heb.). never mind! nissan (heb.). spring month (march-april), in which passover is celebrated. olenu (heb.). the concluding prayer in the synagogue service. olom ha-sheker (heb.). "the world of falsehood," this world. olom ha-tohu (heb.). world of chaos. olom ho-emess (heb.). "the world of truth," the world-to-come. parnosseh (heb.). means of livelihood; business; sustenance. piyyutim (heb.). liturgical poems for festivals and holy days recited in the synagogue. porush (heb.). recluse. prayer of the highway. prayer on setting out on a journey. prayer-scarf. _see_ tallis. pud (russ.). forty pounds. purim (heb.). the feast of esther. rashi (rashi). hebrew initial letters of rabbi solomon ben isaac, a great commentator; applied to a certain form of script and type. rav (heb.). rabbi. rebbe. sometimes used for rabbi; sometimes equivalent to mr.; sometimes applied to the tzaddik of the chassidim; and sometimes used as the title of a teacher of young children. rebbetzin. wife of a rabbi. rosh-yeshiveh (rosh ha-yeshiveh) (heb.). headmaster of a talmudic academy. scape-fowls (trl. of kapporos). roosters or hens used in a ceremony on the eve of the day of atonement. seder (heb.). home service on the first two passover evenings. seliches (heb.). penitential prayers. seventeenth of tammuz. fast in commemoration of the first breach made in the walls of jerusalem by nebuchadnezzar. shalom (heb. in sefardic pronunciation). peace. _see_ sholom alechem. shamash (heb.). beadle. shechinah (heb.). the divine presence. shegetz (heb.). "abomination;" a sinner; a rascal. shlimm-mazel (ger. and heb.). bad luck; luckless fellow. shmooreh-matzes (heb.). unleavened bread specially guarded and watched from the harvesting of the wheat to the baking and storing. shochet (heb.). ritual slaughterer. shofar (heb.). ram's horn, sounded on new year's day and the day of atonement. _see_ lev. xxiii. . sholom (shalom) alechem (heb.). "peace unto you"; greeting, salutation, especially to one newly arrived after a journey. shomer. pseudonym of a yiddish author, nahum m. schaikewitz. shool (ger., schul'). synagogue. shulchan aruch (heb.). the jewish code. silent prayer. _see_ eighteen benedictions. solemn days. the ten days from new year to the day of atonement inclusive. soul-lights. candles lighted in memory of the dead. stuffed monkeys. pastry filled with chopped fruit and spices. tallis (popular plural formation, tallesim) (heb.). the prayer-scarf. tallis-koton (heb.). _see_ four-corners. talmid-chochem (heb.). sage; scholar. talmud torah (heb.). free communal school. tano (heb.). a rabbi cited in the mishnah as an authority. tararam. noise; tumult; ado. tate, tatishe (ger. and russ. dimin.). father. tefillin-sÄcklech (heb. and ger.). phylacteries bag. tisho-b'ov (heb.). ninth of ab, day of mourning and fasting to commemorate the destruction of jerusalem; hence, colloquially, a sad day. torah (heb.). the jewish law in general, and the pentateuch in particular. tsisin. season. tzaddik (pl. tzaddikim) (heb.). "righteous"; title of the chassidic leader. u-mipnÉ chatoÉnu (heb.). "and on account of our sins," the first two words of a prayer for the restoration of the sacrificial service, recited in the additional service of the holy days and the festivals. u-nesanneh-toikef (heb.). "and we ascribe majesty," the first two words of a piyyut recited on new year and on the day of atonement. verfallen! (ger.). lost; done for. vershok (russ.). two inches and a quarter. vierer (ger.). four kopeks. vivat. toast. yeshiveh (heb.). talmud academy. yohrzeit (ger.). anniversary of a death. yom kippur (heb.). day of atonement. yom-tov (heb.). festival. zhydek (little russ.). jew. p. . "it was seldom that parties went 'to law' ... before the rav."--the rabbi with his dayonim gave civil as well as religious decisions. p. . "milky sabbath."--all meals without meat. in connection with fowl, ritual questions frequently arise. p. . "reuben's ox gores simeon's cow."--reuben and simeon are fictitious plaintiff and defendant in the talmud; similar to john doe and richard roe. p. . "he described a half-circle," etc.--_see under_ gemoreh. p. . "not every one is worthy of both tables!"--worthy of torah and riches. p. . "they salted the meat."--the ritual ordinance requires that meat should be salted down for an hour after it has soaked in water for half an hour. p. . "puts off his shoes!"--to pray in stocking-feet is a sign of mourning and a penance. p. . "we have trespassed," etc.--the confession of sins. p. . "the beadle deals them out thirty-nine blows," etc.--_see_ malkes. p. . "with the consent of the all-present," etc.--the introduction to the solemn kol nidré prayer. p. . "he began to wear the phylacteries and the prayer-scarf," etc.--they are worn first when a boy is bar-mitzveh (_which see_); ezrielk was married at the age of thirteen. p. . "he could not even break the wine-glass," etc.--a marriage custom. p. . "waving of the sacrificial fowls."--_see_ scape-fowls. p. . "the whole company of chassidim broke some plates."--a betrothal custom. p. . "had a double right to board with their parents 'forever.'"--_see_ köst. p. . "with the consent of the all-present," etc.--_see note under_ p. . p. . "nothing was lacking for their journey from the living to the dead."--_see note under_ p. . p. . "give me a teacher who can tell," etc.--reference to the story of the heathen who asked, first of shammai, and then of hillel, to be taught the whole of the jewish law while standing on one leg. p. . "and those who do not smoke on sabbath, raised their eyes to the sky."--to look for the appearance of three stars, which indicate nightfall, and the end of the sabbath. p. . "jeroboam the son of nebat."--the rabbinical type for one who not only sins himself, but induces others to sin, too. p. . "thursday."--_see note under_ p. . p. . "monday," "wednesday," "tuesday."--_see note under_ p. . p. . "six months' 'board.'"--_see_ köst. p. . "i knew hebrew grammar, and could write hebrew, too."--_see_ maskil. p. . "a jeroboam son of nebat."--_see note under_ p. . p. . "in a snow-white robe."--the head of the house is clad in his shroud at the seder on the passover. p. . "she knew that on wednesdays yitzchokel ate his 'day'," etc.--at the houses of well-to-do families meals were furnished to poor students, each student having a specific day of the week with a given family throughout the year. p. . "why had he brought ... a white shirt-like garment?"--the worshippers in the synagogue on the day of atonement wear shrouds. p. . "am i ... i suppose i am to lie down?"--_see_ malkes. p. . "in a hundred and twenty years."--the age attained by moses and aaron; a good old age. the expression is used when planning for a future to come after the death of the person spoken to, to imply that there is no desire to see his days curtailed for the sake of the plan. a king of tyre _a tale of the times of_ ezra and nehemiah by james m. ludlow author of "the captain of the janizaries" etc. [illustration: logo] new york harper & brothers, franklin square copyright, , by harper & brothers. _all rights reserved._ a king of tyre. chapter i. the island city of tyre lay close to the syrian coast. it seemed to float among the waves that fretted themselves into foam as they rolled in between the jagged rocks, and spread over the flats, retiring again to rest in the deep bosom of the mediterranean. the wall that encircled the island rose in places a hundred cubits, and seemed from a distance to be an enormous monolith. it was therefore called tsur, or tyre, which means the rock. at the time of our narrative, about the middle of the fifth century b.c., the sea-girt city contained a dense mass of inhabitants, who lived in tall wooden houses of many stories; for the ground space within the walls could not lodge the multitude who pursued the various arts and commerce for which the tyrians were, of all the world, the most noted. the streets were narrow, often entirely closed to the sky by projecting balconies and arcades--mere veins and arteries for the circulation of the city's throbbing life. for recreation from their dyeing-vats, looms, and foundries, the artisan people climbed to the broad spaces on the top of the walls, where they could breathe the sweet sea air, except when the easterly wind was hot and gritty with dust from the mainland, a few bow-shots distant. the men of commerce thronged the quay of the sidonian harbor at the north end of the island, or that of the egyptian harbor on the south side--two artificial basins which were at all times crowded with ships; for the tyrian merchantmen scoured all the coast of the great sea, even venturing through the straits of gades, and northward to the coasts of britain, and southward along the african shore; giving in barter for the crude commodities they found, not only the products of their own workshops, but the freight of their caravans that climbed the lebanons and wearily tracked across the deserts to arabia and babylon. the people of fashion paraded their pride on the great square, in the heart of the city--called by the greeks the eurychorus--where they displayed their rich garments in competition with the flowers that grew, almost as artificially, in gay parterres amid the marble blocks of the pavement. but one day a single topic absorbed the conversation of all classes alike, in the great square, on the walls, and along the quays. councillors of state and moneyed merchants debated it with bowed heads and wrinkled brows. moulders talked of it as they cooled themselves at the doorways of their foundries. weavers, in the excitement of their wrangling over it, forgot to throw the shuttle. seamen, lounging on the heaps of cordage, gave the subject all the light they could strike from oaths in the names of all the gods of all the lands they had ever sailed to. even the women, as they stood in the open doorways, piloting their words between the cries of the children who bestrode their shoulders or clung to their feet, pronounced their judgment upon the all-absorbing topic. a bulletin had appeared on the great square proclaiming, in the name of the high council of tyre, a stupendous religious celebration. vast sums of money had been appropriated from the city treasury, and more was demanded from the people. a multitude of animals was to be sacrificed, and even the blood of human victims should enrich the altar, that thus might be purchased the favor of almighty baal. to understand this proclamation, we must know the circumstances that led to it. the phoenician prestige among the nations had for many years been steadily waning. the political dominance of persia, with her capital far over the deserts at susa, was less humiliating to this proud people than was the growing commercial importance of the greeks across the sea. for not only had the greeks whipped the phoenicians in naval battles, as at salamis and eurymedon, but they were displacing phoenician wares in foreign markets, and teaching the greek language, customs, and religion to all the world. yet the greeks were thought by the tyrians to be but an upstart people. they had not so many generations, as the phoenicians had ages, of glorious history. how could phoenicia regain the supremacy? this was the all-absorbing question which appealed to the patriotism, and still more to the purses, of the tyrians, and of their neighbors along the coast. many were the wiseacres who readily solved this problem to their own satisfaction. thus, for example, the priests of melkarth--the name they gave to baal in his special office as guardian of the city--had a theory of their own. it was to the effect that the gods were offended at the growing laxity of worship, and especially at the falling-off of the temple revenues, which were in great measure the sumptuous perquisites of the priests themselves. they were especially disaffected towards their young king, hiram, whom they regarded as an obstacle to any reforms on this line. hiram had spent his early training years with the fleet, and was conversant with the faiths and customs of many countries. thus he was educated to a cosmopolitan, not to say sceptical, habit of mind, and was led to doubt whether any movement that originated in the ambition of a horde of unscrupulous and superstitious priests could win the favor of the gods, even admitting that such supernal beings existed, of which the king was reported to have expressed a doubt. king hiram had been but a few months on the throne, to which he had succeeded on the death of his father, when he opened the meeting of the great council which issued the proclamation regarding the sacrifice. his majesty sat upon the bronze throne. above him shone a canopy of beaten gold. at his back hung a curtain of richest tyrian purple, in the centre of which gleamed a silver dove with outspread wings, the symbol of tyre from those ancient days when its commerce and renown began to fly abroad over the world. hiram's face was typically phoenician, and betokened the clear tide of his racial blood. his forehead was broad, and prominent at the brows. his eyes were gleaming black. his nose started as if with the purpose of being jewish, but terminated in the expanded nostril that suggested the egyptian. his hair was black, with the slightest touch of red, which, however, only strong light would reveal. he wore the conical cap of the sailor, for his pride of naval command had never become secondary to even his sense of royal dignity; and many a time had he declared that a true phoenician king was chiefly king of the sea. the royal cap was distinguished from that of common sailors by the uræus, or winged serpent's crest, which was wrought in golden needlework upon the front. the king's throat and chest were bare, except for a purple mantle which hung from his left shoulder, and crossed his body diagonally; and for a broad collar of silk embroidered with silver threads, which shone in contrast with his weather-bronzed skin. his arms were clasped above the elbows with heavy spirals of gold. he wore a loose white chiton, or undergarment, which terminated above the knees, and revealed as knotty a pair of legs as ever balanced so graceful a figure. but one thing marred his appearance--a deep scar on his chin, the memorial of a hand-to-hand fight with egyptian pirates off the mouth of the nile. the king leaned upon one of the lion-heads that made the arms of his throne. one foot rested upon a footstool of bronze; the other in the spotted fur of a leopard, spread upon the dais. sitting thus, he spoke of the subject before the council. at first he scarcely changed his easy attitude. he traced the rise of the greek power with voluble accuracy, for he had studied the problems it presented in another school than that of phoenician prejudices. as he proceeded he warmed with the kindling of his own thoughts, and, straightening himself on the throne, gesticulated forcibly, making the huge arm of the chair tremble under the stroke of his fist, as if the moulded bronze were the obdurate heads of his listeners. at length, fully heated with the excitement of his speech, and by the antagonism too plainly revealed in the faces of some of his courtiers, he rose from his throne, and stood upon the leopard skin as he concluded with these words: "let me speak plainly, o leaders of phoenicia, as a king of men should speak to kingly men! why does the greek outstrip us? because he is stronger. why is he stronger? because he is wiser. why is he wiser? because he learns from all the world; and we, though we trade with all the tribes of men, learn from none. our guide-marks are our own footprints, which we follow in endless circles. we boast, o phoenicians, that we have taught the world its alphabet, but we ourselves have no books beyond the tablets on which we keep the accounts of our ships, our caravans, and our shambles. it is our shame, o men of tyre! we have instructed the sailors of the great sea to guide their ships by the stars, but in all our customs of government and religion we dare not leave the coast-line of our ancient notions. we go up and down the channels of our prejudice; ay, we ground ourselves in our ignorance. "and hear, o ye priests! our religion as practised is our disgrace. if baal be the intelligence that shines in the sun, he despises us for our stupidity. nay, scowl if ye will! but look at the statues of our gods! a greek boy could carve as finely with the dough he eats. look at our temples! the great hiram built a finer one than we possess five centuries ago, there in jerusalem, for the miserable jews to worship their jehovah in. ye say that baal is angry with us. and well he may be! for we open not our minds to the brightness of his beams: we hide in the shadows of things that are old and decayed, even as the lizards crawl in the shadow of the ruins that everywhere mark our plains. "ye say, o priests, that we must sacrifice more to baal. truly! but it is not the sacrifice of death, rather the real offering of life, of our wiser thoughts, our braver enterprise, that baal would have. "this, this is the end of all my speaking, o men of tyre! heap up your treasures, and burn them if ye will! slaughter your beasts! toss your babes into the fire of moloch! but know ye that your king gives you no such commandment; nor will he have more of such counsel." so saying, king hiram strode down from the dais, and left the council chamber. as he passed out, the members rose and made deep obeisance; but their bowed forms did not conceal from him their scowling faces. the councillors, left alone, gathered close together, evidently not for debate, but to confirm one another in some predetermined purpose. their words were bitter. old egbalus, the high priest of baal-melkarth for the year, thanked his god that the throne of tyre had lost its power, since one so utterly blasphemous, so traitorous, had come to occupy it. "that travelling greek, herodotus, who is even now his guest, has bewitched the king with his talk," sneered one. "or with his greek gold," timidly ventured another. the last speaker was a young man, in princely attire, with marked resemblance to king hiram; but such resemblance as is often noticed between an ugly and a beautiful face; certain features attesting kinship, while, at the same time, they proclaim the utmost difference of character. this person was prince rubaal, cousin to hiram, and, in the event of the death of the latter without issue, the heir to the crown. his naturally selfish disposition had brewed nothing but gall since hiram's accession. from polite disparagement he lapsed into the habit of open contempt for the person, and bitter antagonism to the interests of his royal relative. that the king was hostile to the pretensions of the priestly guild was sufficient to make rubaal their slavish adherent. the sneer with which he attributed a mercenary motive to the king brought him a look of blandest encouragement from the high priest, egbalus. this latter dignitary, however, instantly cast a less complacent and more inquisitive glance into the face of another councillor, ahimelek. how much was meant by that look can be understood only by recalling the character and career of this man. ahimelek was small in stature, of low, broad brow, thin lips, restless gray eyes, which seemed to focus upon nothing, as if afraid of revealing the thought back of them; as a partridge, when disturbed, flits in all directions except over its own nest. he was the richest merchant in tyre, the largest ship-owner in all phoenicia. his fleets were passing, like shuttles on the loom of his prosperity, between tyre and cyprus, carthage and gades. his caravans, too, were well known on every route from damascus to memphis. he inherited the wealth of several generations of merchants, and also their ancestral shrewdness. his waking dream was to surpass them all by allying his financial power with the political prestige of the royal house of tyre. to this end he had spared neither money nor sycophancy in order to gain the favor of the late king. it was therefore with genuine elation that the merchant had noted the growing intimacy between hiram and his daughter, the fair zillah. from childhood prince hiram and zillah had been much together, the old king having been, in the chronic depletion of his treasury, as little averse to a family alliance with the money-bags of ahimelek as that aristocrat was to guarding his bags with the royal seal. indeed, on more than one occasion the king had discovered an authority in ahimelek's darics that was lacking in his own mandates. it was rumored that the recognition of hiram's sovereignty by the court at susa had been deferred until the appointment of ahimelek as his chamberlain gave promise of substantial benefit to the politicians who surrounded the great king, artaxerxes. it is true, however, that the personal attractions of zillah, without such reasons of state, had captivated young prince hiram. she was the goddess who inspired his dreams during his voyages, and into her ear, on his return, he narrated his adventures, and confessed his most secret projects and ambitious hopes. on the very day of his coronation, a year before our story begins, he left the great hall of ceremony, not to return to his palace, but to visit the mansion of ahimelek, and then and there placed his crown upon the head of zillah, claiming her oft-repeated promise to be his queen. that very night, too, the delighted merchant had given the hand of his daughter into that of her royal suitor, accepting from him a splendid gift as the marriage purchase, and presenting to him in return the dowry contract, which in this case was the bonding of his estate to pay in cash a thousand minas of gold, and half the revenues of his trade in perpetuity. but later events had disturbed the equanimity of ahimelek. the growing disaffection of the priestly guild towards king hiram was too ominous to be disregarded. their power over the people had never been challenged with impunity. could the king maintain himself against them? one act of zillah herself had seemed to endanger her royal prospects. it was a sacred custom for the wife of a phoenician king to become also a priestess of the goddess astarte, thus consolidating the sacerdotal and royal authorities. into this sacred office zillah had refused to enter; in which determination she was doubtless influenced by the prejudices of her royal lover. to ahimelek's fears, therefore, the crown of tyre seemed suspended by a slender thread over an abyss from which he could not rescue it if it should fall. he therefore had, on various pretexts, postponed the marriage. but his scheming mind discerned a refuge for his ambition in the fact that rubaal was a jealous rival for the heart of zillah. indeed, much of that young man's hostility to his cousin was due to his wounded affections. it therefore seemed clear to ahimelek that, in the event of the overthrow of king hiram, there would be an equal opportunity for his own aggrandizement in transferring his daughter's hand to that of the new king. such were the thoughts that disturbed ahimelek as he sat at the council table. the high priest, egbalus, had already fathomed the perplexity of the merchant's mind when he gave him that questioning glance. ahimelek's eyes fluttered more than ever as they met the inquisitorial gaze of the priest. what would he not give to know the future? on which side should he cast his vote? egbalus was too subtle a politician to press the query to a definite answer in the council hall. he knew his man, and knew that if ahimelek did not dare go with the priests, neither would he dare to oppose them. other members of the council were more readily subservient. indeed, the predominating influence of egbalus in public affairs had already made itself felt in the selection of the persons who were nominally the king's advisers. he knew, indeed he owned, them all. the decree ordaining the splendid sacrifice was therefore issued. the proclamation was quickly posted on the temple gate, the door of the council chamber, and in the great square. would the king oppose it? if so, it would bring on the conflict the priests desired, and had long been preparing for. chapter ii. when king hiram left the council hall, pages swung aside the heavy curtains which screened the doorways; lackeys bore before him, so far as the exit, the ancient sceptre of tyre, laid upon a gemmed cushion; palanquin-bearers took their places around the royal vehicle; while the outrunners, with trim legs and short fluted white skirts, balanced in their hands the long rods of their office, and ran to clear the way. the chief attendant was distinguished from the others by his crimson skirt, which hung from a silver belt tightening his loins, and by the long ribbons of purple that, encircling his brow, hung as streamers almost to the ground. with that superb grace which only accomplished athletes acquire, he bowed to the earth as the king descended the marble steps leading from the hall. "whither, o king?" "the hour?" inquired hiram. "it begins the seventh, by the grace of baal!" replied the attendant. "to the sidonian harbor, then." the runners flew. the crowds in the narrow streets backed close against the houses on either side. "long live king hiram!" murmured from hundreds of lips, but the king noted that it was shouted by none. if there were loyalty, it was without enthusiasm. the priests scowled, or, pretending to be preoccupied with pious meditation, allowed the royal palanquin to pass without salute. reaching the quay, the king stepped quickly from his carriage, and returning with equal courtesy the low salâm of an elderly man, embraced him cordially. even if this person's garb had not revealed his nationality, his straight nose on a line with his forehead would have proclaimed him a greek. his face was weather-beaten and bronzed by exposure to many climes. his firm lips and strong chin would have suggested to an observer that he was a man of resoluteness, perhaps one engaged in daring adventures; were it not that a certain quiet depth in his eyes, a passive introspective sort of look, such as they acquire who are accustomed to think more than they see, betrayed the philosopher. "i feared, noble herodotus, that my detention at the council had prevented my wishing you farewell," said the king. "my thanks, your majesty! but, without this final and unlooked-for courtesy, my voyage across the seas would have been gladdened by the memory of your many kindnesses. i shall bear to my nation the knowledge i have acquired of the past greatness of your people, and the prediction that, under the liberal rule of king hiram, a new era of progress is to follow." "the new era will come, sire, when the phoenicians learn from the greeks what i have learned from you. the benefactors of nations are not their kings, but their wise men." "blessed is the nation whose wisest man is their king," replied herodotus, with almost reverential courtesy. to which hiram responded: "the throne of tyre would not lack a wise king, if he could detain the sage of halicarnassus as the man of his right hand. do me the pleasure to accept the vessel you sail in as a reminder of your visit. her deck planks are larch from the isles that lie to the north; her masts are of cedar from lebanon, whose snow-peaks whiten the sky yonder; her oars are oak cut in bashan beyond the jews' river, her side-planks are from the slope of hermon; her sails of linen were woven on the looms of egypt; her purple awning is tinted with the dye of insects found on your own coast. if my orders have been obeyed, you will find on board wines that our caravans have brought from damascus." "no. not a word of thanks," added the king, interrupting the exclamation of grateful surprise from his guest. "farewell, then," replied the greek, kissing the hand of the young man, and stepping upon the deck of the craft. "but tell me, o king, to which of the gods shall a greek traveller in a phoenician bireme commend his journey? to neptune, or to your cabeiri?" "to the one who is the none or the all, of whom we have so often spoken," replied hiram. the helmsman waved his hand to the rowers. a double score of blades dipped at the instant. a pearly sheaf of spray rose beneath the high prow of the _dido_. the graceful craft glided out of the sidonian harbor, and, rounding the quay-head to the north, caught the swell of the great sea. as the king watched the well-timed stroke of the oars, unvaried by the irregular heaving of the billows through which they propelled the bireme, a hand touched his arm. "ah, captain hanno! the man of all the world i want just at this moment. is the _dolphin_ manned? ten darics to one, you cannot catch the _dido_ within sight of land! besides, i want to skim over the water, and get some cobwebs washed out of my brain. cobwebs hold spiders, and spiders bite. so do some of my thoughts. come, hanno, give me a spurt." hanno put an acorn-shaped whistle of bronze to his lips. the shrill notes were answered in exact pitch, like an echo, from a splendid bireme anchored near the mouth of the harbor. in a moment more the _dolphin_ touched the end of the quay; but not before the king and his friend had leaped upon the deck. captain hanno's favorite bireme was not one of the largest of her class in length of keel, but seemed to be the very behemoth of the tyrian pleasure-fleet by reason of her high prow and stern, both of which projected far beyond the water-line. her unusual breadth of beam gave play for the long oar-handles, and immense leverage for each of the sixty oarsmen, who were arranged in four rows, two rows on either side, one placed above another. they worked their tough oaken propellers through upper and lower oar-holes in the side of the galley. at the word of hanno, "away!" the chief of the rowers clapped his hands, timing the strokes which raised the vessel half out of the water, and sent it plunging and bounding like a veritable dolphin through the sea. as the bireme struck the high waves king hiram advanced to the prow. throwing off his cap and toga, he indulged in a bath of wind and spray, that dashed against his bare head and breast. "oh, to be a sea-king indeed, with no councillors but you, hanno! what a life!" "i would counsel you to follow your own free mind," replied the captain. "that is the reason i like you," said hiram. "why have any adviser, then?" "for the pleasure of being confirmed in my obstinacy." "but i might thwart you some day." "that would be impossible, for i should turn and follow your counsel. will you be my prime-minister, hanno?" "no." "why not?" "because i want to remain your friend." "why not be both?" "it might not be possible. the interest of the state of tyre may be one thing; the interest of hiram another." "that's treason, hanno." "hang me to the masthead, then," replied hanno; "for i am going to stick to hiram, whatever becomes of the king." "you think of me as a crab that may shed the shell of royalty some day," replied hiram, laughing. "well, i confess that if it were not for the claws of power, which i rather like the pleasure of using, i would let my shell go to-morrow. but i must pinch off the heads of some of the priests first. thus--" as he spoke the king took from a shelf just beneath the prow a half-dozen little clay images, uncouth figures representing the cabeiri, the gods which were supposed to preside over the arts and navigation. he broke off their heads, and threw them into the sea. "one day, hanno, we shall throw overboard all such trumpery from the state of tyre. that's what i told the council to-day." "told the council? that was a bold speech," replied the captain, his face flushing and paling with sudden emotion. "and an unwise one, i know from your look," said hiram. "ay, and dangerous! may i take the liberty of cautioning you, my king?" "liberty? it's your duty, hanno. haven't i appointed you for life to be my other self? i have never had a secret from you since we were boys, and sent to sea under old dagon." the king took the arm of hanno. "do you remember, old comrade, how once i even lied for you, and you lied for me; but the old water-dog believed neither of us, and flogged us both, though your father owned the craft, and mine was king of tyre? i expect to see dagon's ugly head rise from the waves some day, for the cabeiri cannot keep such a restless ghost long down there with them." "i remember, too, that it was just such a day as this," replied captain hanno, "that we ran away, and, in an open boat, went to sidon to see the sidonians fight with the persians. i came near going after old dagon when the boat capsized. i felt the gates of sheol snapping at me like a shark's jaws, but you held me on the keel until we drifted into the shallows. since then my life has been yours. i am only watching my time to save you. i had a notion of telling mago, there at the helm, to drive the _dolphin_ on the reef as we came out of port, just to get a chance of pulling you out of the wreck. but if you go on wasping the priests you will give me my chance before long. every one of those hypocritical butchers, from egbalus to the dirtiest offal-carrier, thinks of you when he feels the point of his sacrificial knife. you need a thicker shell about your ribs than that of your kingship." "oh, the priests to beelzebub, the god of all such venomous flies!" cried the king, in petulant rage. "have you, then, as the priests say, lost all faith in the gods?" asked hanno. "yes, in such as ours." "but the greeks, whom you praise so much, believe in them." "not in such as ours, hanno. they make theirs beautiful. they deify the nobler sentiments. they have no hideous moloch, no beastly astarte. they leave their philosophy about unseen things unexpressed, until they can express it artistically. you remember the temple to the god theseus which we saw in athens. herodotus explained its meaning to me. the religious idea enshrined there surpasses ours as much as the graceful proportions of the building are finer than anything we have built. theseus was a hero-god; that is, a man to whom they gave divine honors because of his heroism. his great exploit was slaying the minotaur of crete, which the people believed was a monster, half bull and half man, that fed upon the bodies of human beings. the people of athens sent yearly a number of young men and maidens to appease the appetite of the monster and the greed of king minos, its owner. according to the story, theseus sailed to crete, and slew the minotaur in his labyrinth. now, this minotaur was nothing but our moloch, whom we represent by a bull-headed image, and whom we pretend to appease by human sacrifice. we phoenicians carried this monstrous worship to crete, and thence it drifted across to greece. but theseus, who was a wise king, forbade such cruel offerings, demolished the images of moloch, and saved his people from the horrors which our priests would perpetuate in our land. so they say he slew the minotaur. and, by all the gods of greece! i will slay our minotaur. if i were el, or bel, or baal, i would wring the necks of egbalus and his swarm of priests when they annoy me with their cries, 'o baal, hear us!' just as i crush these flies that buzz in my face." "your words are safe with me, my king," replied hanno, "but i beg you to have a care; for the priests are all-powerful in tyre. their hold on the people is tightening. they are plotting deeper than you and i know to-day; but we may know to-morrow. the old image of baal-moloch on the mainland is to be repaired, and i am told that the market at aphaca has more maidens enrolled this year to disgrace themselves to astarte than for a generation past. your cousin rubaal's sister, the princess elisa, has been announced as a candidate for the shambles." "it is monstrous!" cried hiram. "i would risk my crown to wipe out our shame; for the crown will not be worth keeping if i am to be king of a horde of devils and strumpets." "and i pledge my wealth and life to help you," replied hanno. "except your own wealth, and that of ahimelek--which the gods grant may come safely to your house!--my resources are, perhaps, the greatest in tyre. but we must be cautious." "no, no, hanno! king hiram will never take a shekel of his friend's riches to gild his own glory." "but i am prime-minister, you know, and may do what i please," replied his friend, laughing. "but this is not resting you. shall we give these steersmen a lesson?" two long oars rigged one on either side of the keel-line at the stern served as rudders. they were joined by a brace at the handles, by which they could be connected or disconnected, and thus be worked by one person in quiet water, but needed the strength of two in heavy seas, or in putting the bireme through rapid manoeuvres. two brawny fellows were manning them, as the wind was rising. the brace of helmsmen, doffing their caps, gave place to the king and his companion. "quicker!" shouted hiram to the master of the oarsmen, whose hands beat out the gradually accelerating time, until the sixty blades cut the water as the wings of a kingfisher cut the air. the wind still freshening, they set the great square sail. soon they tacked far to the north, and, rounding to the west, crossed the bows of the bireme of herodotus. "the king! the king!" shouted the sailors on the _dido_, as they recognized the well-known forms at the helm. and "hanno! hanno! hanno!" was given with equal enthusiasm. all the oar-blades of the _dido_ were lifted from the water as the _dolphin_ dashed past. on the high stern stood the venerable herodotus, his head uncovered, and his noble brow white and shining like an aureole, in contrast with his bronzed lower face and dark beard. he held aloft a goblet of wine, and shouted, as the _dolphin_ flew by: "to hiram! to tyre!" the _dolphin_ careened far over as she turned, her great square sail throwing a shadow on the deck of the _dido_ as it intercepted the western sun. it was a dangerous manoeuvre for any but helmsmen of utmost skill to have attempted. "it was never done better since your father, captain hanno, ran the gantlet of a score of greek ships at salamis," said one of the helmsmen, as they took again the steering oars. "there's no praise we like so well as that of our sailors," replied hanno. turning to hiram, as they moved out of hearing of the men, captain hanno said: "so i would work with you, my king. the two oars, though disconnected, worked as one in our hands. i followed with my whole might every movement you made." "no," said hiram, "i waited until i caught your purpose, for you are the better helmsman. had i not done so, we surely had gone over." "it is strange! i thought i followed you, and you thought you followed me. i suspect that we both followed our common sailor's instinct. we will take it, then, as an omen. so we will work together for the throne of tyre. events may occur in which it will be wise for me to appear to take no part in the affairs of the court. but, believe me, i shall pull with you, as on the steering oar. i think i know your heart, o king! and i put my heart within yours. i believe as little in the gods as you do. i have but one object of devotion on earth, but one vow, and that i give to my king." hiram gazed into his friend's face. the tears started to his eyes. but, though the heartiness of this avowal was grateful to him, he could not repress his surprise at it. he knew hanno's loyalty; but why should the noble fellow make so much of telling it? it was very unlike him. he was generally either reticent, or extremely laconic, in speaking of his purposes. he acted quickly--like lightning, that lets the report come afterwards. hiram again searched his friend's face for some explanation, but saw nothing unusual, except a closer knitting of the brows as if from perplexity and pain; a silent prophecy of evil that the noble fellow would avert, though with the sacrifice of his own life. chapter iii. the two friends parted at the quay. the king entered the palanquin which had awaited his return. "to trypho, the dyer's!" an unusual commotion was made in the streets, or rather the alleys, through which the king's litter passed; for seldom until hiram's accession had royalty cast its aristocratic lustre among the shadows of the common artisan's life. but hiram was well known in these places. as a lad he had spent many hours in the factories, amusing himself with tools, and questioning the workmen about the details of their various arts. the palanquin stopped at a low door, from which a cloud of steam was emitted. in the midst of this, like the statue of some god in a halo of incense, stood a man, naked to the waist, his arms and parts of his bare breast red, as if with blood. as the king alighted, the man made an awkward salâm, knocking his head against the low lintel in resuming the perpendicular. without losing any of his courtliness of manner, hiram put the fellow at case by his genial familiarity. "ah, trypho! you are like the god tammuz, killed by the wild boar, but coming to life with the blood-marks on him." "like a king, rather," said trypho, "for the red will be purple when it dries." "no, like a queen," retorted hiram, pleased with the man's banter, "for i swear by astarte that the dye on your arms is the same that is going into the robe of the future queen of tyre." "such is the honor your patronage has brought me," replied trypho, making another salâm, that ended by nearly tripping the king into a dyeing vat. "but how goes the cloth?" asked hiram, laughing. "it is nearly completed," said the workman, leading the way to an inner room. "come in, and judge for yourself. i need not keep the secret of my art from one who knows it already." at a leaden sink a half-grown boy was drawing the snail-like murex from its shell. cutting off its head, he dexterously detached from its body the long sac of yellow liquid, which, on exposure, changed first to green, and, passing through the intermediate shades, to a bright purple. at a bench near by a workman crushed with a wooden hammer the smaller shell of the insect since called buccinum, which, together with the body of the animal, was thrown into a vat, mixed with salt, the whole mass heated, and reduced to a liquid state by an injection of steam. the gritty substance from the shell was then carefully skimmed from the surface, leaving a lighter purplish liquid than that obtained from the murex. "they tell me, trypho, that you can mix these two dyes at sight, so as to produce the rare tint for which your cloths are so famous. have you no written formula, and do you never measure out the proportions?" "no, sire," replied the man, "i never learned the proportions by weight or by measure. if i knew them myself i might tell somebody; then my secret would be gone. so i never told myself how i do it. i think of a tint, and pour the dyes together, and they always come out the tint i think of. how do i do it? just as my old legs carry me where i think of going, without counting my steps, or watching which way my toes turn." the fellow was garrulous, and, seeing that he had the king's attention, went on:-- "i got this secret where i got my blood--from my father; and he from his, and he from his. for, you see, we have been in this trade for thousands of years. you know that story the priests tell about the discovery of the art of dyeing? well, it is true, because it was to one of my grandfathers that the great god melkarth came when his dog ate off the head of a shell-fish, and colored his jaws with such beautiful tints that the nymph tyrus refused to marry the god until he gave her a gown of the same color. it was my ancestor, the first trypho, who helped the great melkarth get his bride; and to no one else than to trypho, the last, should the noble king hiram come for a gown for his beautiful queen: whom may tyrus bless! come now, and see if the cloth i have prepared for your lady be not as lovely as was that of tyrus herself. no woman could refuse a lover who wooed with such a garment in his hands as i have made." trypho led the way to another room, where cloths were hung before a window, by manipulating the screens of which the artisan adjusted the light that gave the required tone to the color. "truly a divine art!" cried trypho, in his enthusiastic appreciation of his own work. "for see, i must use the beams of baal, the sun-god, to bring it to perfection. it must be a divine art that uses divinity." "does baal let you use his beams at your will?" asked the king. "then you must be the god, and baal your servant. baal could not make that splendid tint without you." the man stared at the king as if stricken dumb by the blasphemy he had heard. his look of perplexity tempted hiram to banter him further. "and indeed, trypho, i think you are more divine in your naked muscle, daubed with this insect's blood, which you can transform into beauty, than the brass image of moloch is when dyed with children's blood. no beautiful thing was ever taken out of the blood vat at his feet. how say you, trypho?" tapping the man's bare shoulders. the workman made no reply, but moved a pace or two away from the king, looking at him in a sort of stupid terror. recovering his senses, he pointed to a hanging of finest texture, whose exquisite tint brought an exclamation of delight from his visitor. it only needed to be washed in a decoction made from a certain sea-weed, found on the coast of crete, to fix its color. "this is for the robe of the queen of tyre," said trypho, bowing low, in as much obeisance to his own pride in his work as to the royal dignity of his visitor. "you, trypho, shall have a skin of finest wine from the marriage feast," said the king, grasping the hand of the workman, and leaving in it a gold daric. hiram and his attendants threaded their way through a low arcaded street, which was lined on either side with bazaars or cells of tradesmen, and debouched into a small court surrounded by the foundries of the bronze-workers. the open space was covered with scraps of metal, heaps of charred wood, broken moulding-boxes, piles of clay and sand. leaving the palanquin at the entrance to the court, hiram walked across it, followed by the eyes of scores who gazed after him from their various doorways. he entered the foundry of one of the most noted artisans. the owner greeted him with dignified cordiality. "the cabeiri have sent you at the right moment, your majesty. finer work than i have just completed was never done by the greek vulcan. you admire the greeks, as all artists must. but i shall prove to your own eyes that tyre is keeping her ancient renown. see this bronze dish! but first listen to its musical ring," striking it with his centre finger. "it sounds longer than a diver can hold his breath. the gods have taught us the secret, which i whisper to you, sire: one part tin; nine parts copper. and never did embosser do better work with hammer and graving tool. look at the muscles in the forearm of that figure on the rim." "finely wrought, indeed!" said the king. "but will they all be done in time? it wants but three moons to the wedding. and the number of pieces?" "yes, your majesty; five great dishes of gold, two-score of silver, a half-score of vases in bronze, and--but here is the order, which i shall have ready--" "that is enough. i am pleased with your skill and promptness, and shall reward them," said the king, presenting his hand, which the artisan reverently touched with his lips. king hiram emerged from the network of streets and by-ways upon the eurychorus square, crossing which the royal palanquin disappeared beneath the portal of his palace. this was the residence of the ancient kings of tyre. it was a large building, constructed of great blocks of stone, which were joined without mortar on smooth-fitting surfaces. about each stone was a depressed border, or bevel, which clearly marked the size of the blocks, making the whole more impressive to the eye, and at the same time revealing the antiquity of its construction. the edifice was windowless on the exterior. the only entrance was guarded by an enormous gate of oaken planks, which were banded together with thick and broad bars of burnished bronze. pegs and sockets of the same metal made the hinges. it required the full strength of two burly porters to open these doors, for their great weight and the generations during which they had done service had worn the sockets into irregular shapes. as old goliab, the porter, closed his half of the folding pair, and watched his comrade struggle with the other, he remarked: "the hinges squeak like a howling priest. if they had not been used since the days of the great hiram, our king would order them to be taken off, and the new-fashioned ones put on." "hist, now!" replied his comrade. "they say that the king is going to stop the priests' howling first. the priests stick in the old ways they have worn for themselves, which, baal save me! are not the ways the gods made when they lived in tyre; and may be they lived in this same palace, for they do say that the first king was a god." "have a care!" rejoined goliab. "i have seen many a priest watching this gate of late. who knows but they will take it for a temple, and move in themselves?" "then i move out. i serve none less than the king. but have you read the proclamation, goliab? i thank astarte for never sending me any children to be burned to moloch." "that is not for such as we to talk about," replied goliab. "why not?" "because," lowering his voice to a whisper, "there's a priest outside this moment. i can see his shadow through the crack under the gate." the palanquin-bearers set down their royal burden in the court around which the palace was built. hiram alighted by the fountain that rose in the centre and flung its spray over the beds of flowers which tastefully decorated the borders of its marble basin. he lingered a moment under an orange tree, whose silver blossoms and golden fruit, in simultaneous fulness, made him think of a proverb that was common everywhere in those lands famous for their orange groves: "a timely word is like golden fruit in a basket of silver." and then he thought of hanno's words on the bireme. "were they timely? does hanno know of dangers that i am ignorant of?" he sought his private chamber, a room whose high walls were lined with alabaster, great pieces of which were cut into noble panels, and carved with delicate tracery. the room was lighted chiefly through windows set near the ceiling, covered with curiously shaped bits of glass, which flung variegated colors, as in a floral shower, upon the white walls and floors. servants loosed his sandals, washed his feet, brought perfumed water for his hands and face. his hair-dresser was ready with his ointment; his wardrobe-keeper with the special chiton and tunic which he knew his master liked. others came bearing a repast. when he had eaten and taken a double cup of wine--for the mental excitement of the council, together with the physical exhilaration of the run upon the sea, prompted that unusual indulgence--the king threw himself upon the divan to think. he first scanned with knit brows and curling lip a copy of the proclamation of the council, which he found upon his table. the parchment, however, soon fell from his hand, for he was tired even of his own wrath. the lines of writing changed into thick webs which, it seemed to him, gigantic spiders had spun about the room. he looked closely at one of these monsters. its head was surely that of egbalus. there was a smaller spider with the leering look of rubaal. ahimelek, too, with sleek, smooth face of hypocritical amiability, and a score of legs with anchors on them for sandals, was timidly crawling out of a corner. then hanno appeared, and walked straight through the tangled webs; and the spiders darted into holes from which, with little red eyes, they watched the intruder. then, with unrustling robes, zillah came. in the light which her presence dispensed the webs disappeared, as those on the dewy grass vanish under the sun's beams in the morning. the king dreamed--dreamed of such things as will never happen until astarte abdicates her direction of woman's life, and love-sick adonis takes her place. chapter iv. the temple of melkarth, the impersonation of baal as that god was supposed to preside over the interests of tyre, stood near the centre of the city. it was imposing, not so much because of its architectural lines, as for the enormous stones which made its foundation, each one of which was believed to have been laid in human blood some time in remote ages past. the space in front of the temple was a miniature paradise. tiny rills, supplied artificially from the great aqueduct on the mainland, trickled over bright pebbles, and through the green grass. fountains splashed in their basins of porphyry, marble, and bronze. gay-plumed birds from distant countries, wing-clipped, that they might not fly far away, perched in delusive freedom upon the trees, and, with their various songs, replied to the challenge of lyre and flute that floated from the recesses of the temple court. but on the afternoon of the day whose events we have been narrating, a vast multitude of people filled the little park, and drowned these sweeter sounds in the clatter of their voices. the streets leading to the temple were crowded with those who had leisure from labor to indulge their curiosity. an unusual number of people thronged through the great gates of the temple to make offerings upon the altars. the simple heralding of religious revival is often the surest provocative of its coming. thus it happened that the order of the council, respecting some stupendous rite that should be performed, awakened a popular impulse for pietistic devotion. the full coterie of temple officials was in attendance. there were barbers who shaved the beards and clipped the long forelocks of the worshippers, by offering which to the god they signalled their entrance upon the virile state of manhood. there were venders of victims for sacrifice, and votive objects of every variety; custodians of veils and sacred furniture; priests to slay the animals, and others to supply the sacred coals to any who would burn incense. the devotees jostled one another in their eagerness to read and take down upon their little tablets the exact tariff fixed by the temple code for the services of priests, and prices of objects acceptable to the god, as these were placarded upon the walls. some were busy admiring the memorial slabs or statuettes which had been presented by wealthy tyrians, and were often likenesses of the donors, erected in reverent attempt to keep the divinity and their fellow-citizens perpetually reminded of their pious munificence. a gaping group gazed at the two columns, one of gold, the other of emerald, which gave a mysterious light at night, and which stood, one at the end of each of the two aisles of the temple flanking the central nave. these had been procured at vast expense at some time of great deliverance, and were inscribed: "to the lord melkarth, master of tyre: the offering of thy servants, because he has listened to their voice. may he still bless us!" beyond these a crowd surveyed the altar of bronze, beaten by skilful hands into delicate flower-work, from the centre of which rose the perpetual flame in commemoration of the adventure of the goddess astarte, who once caught a shooting-star, and enshrined it among her favorite tyrians; or, as some of the priests said, to express the faith of the people in the divinity of fire, which was the materialized brightness of the face of baal, the sun-god. a group stood near the great gateway, watching an opportunity to steal a glance between the swaying curtains, which screened the inner court from common eyes. the most sacred precinct of the temple was an artificial lake. from the midst of the water rose a single stone, perhaps ten cubits high, on the top of which was the maabed, or ark, enclosing a statue of the god, together with some objects sacred in the history of tyre, and believed, therefore, to be the special delight of its divine protector. the platform around the little lake was paved with variegated marbles, white, yellow, red, brown, and rose-colored, which were wrought into graceful patterns of mosaic work. a roof, blazing with tiles of gold, sheltered the platform from rain and sun, and made it the rendezvous of the priests. just as the sun was going down a group of priests gathered about egbalus in close consultation. they were dressed in white chitons, which clung close to their forms, except for the fine fluting of the skirts. scarfs of violet ran over their shoulders and across their bodies diagonally. their feet were bare; their heads shaved, and protected by close-fitting skull-caps, in some cases of gorgeous color, in others of knitted hair-work, which mingled confusedly with the black beards of the younger, and contrasted finely with the white beards of the more venerable. egbalus was speaking. "the council has but begun the reform which is to restore tyre to its pre-eminence. it has decreed the sacrifice. it has prescribed that the offerings shall be worthy and notable. but what sacrifices shall be offered is not for the council to determine. this, only we who are admitted to the secret council of the gods themselves--we, the sacred order of priests--can declare. and woe to him who, in this day of honor to baal, shall thwart the will of his priests!" "woe! woe unto him!" echoed around the circle. the high priest continued his harangue: "in the ancient days of tyrian glory, when there was no power on land or sea to dispute our sway or rival our commerce; when ships returning from their voyages hung anchors of solid silver from their prows, having room only for more precious merchandise within--then tyre gave great abundance to baal-melkarth, and offered its most distinguished citizens upon the altar. but how long, o baal of tyre! since thou hast had a princely offering? what are gems and beasts to the god who is offended with men? what are the babes which poverty gives because it cannot feed them, when kings have insulted the majesty of heaven? and what--" the old priest had either wrought himself up to a divine frenzy, or superbly acted the part of one who was supposed to be "filled with the god." his countenance became livid and white by turns. the great blue veins were swollen at his temples. his face seemed to expand. his neck thickened. his eyes fixedly glared towards a patch of sunlight that gleamed on the top of the wall. his form was rigid, except for a convulsive twitching of the fingers. the attendant priests crowded close to their leader, and stared into his eyes, as if to catch the gleam of some coming revelation. the old priest's lips moved, but at first without articulation. he raised his hand, and, with unbent arm, pointed to the glint of sunlight, which seemed to hold him by some fatal fascination. at length his words became audible, very slowly uttered, and with oracular hoarseness: "baal permits me to know his will. yonder light is no more surely from the sun-god than is a light that burns within me." a slight zephyr at this moment ruffled the surface of the sacred water. "it is the breath of baal!" said one. "see! see! the maabed itself shook! it is the sign of the god! a miracle! a miracle!" "a miracle!" they murmured, and prostrated themselves, crying, "o baal, hear us! o baal, guide us!" egbalus had remained standing, in unchanged attitude, watching the sunlight. he now whispered, impressing into his tones the simulation of awe: "i see a mighty altar. on it lies one enrobed as a king. by it stands, august and venerable, a kingly priest, and--slays the victim. but hark! a voice! it is that of melkarth himself, who bids me remember how, in our sacred traditions, it is recorded that the mighty god el, when a dire calamity had come upon his favorite city of gebal, took his own son, adorned him in the robes of royalty, carried him to the altar, slew him, and so brought blessings for ages upon his people. hear, o ye priests of baal!" he lowered his voice, either through sense of the awful solemnity of what he was about to utter, or fear of being overheard by others than those whom he owned, body and soul, as he did his infatuated band of priests. his followers arose from their prostrate positions, and drew close to him. this they heard: "tyre must offer to baal its king!" a deep hush followed. egbalus glanced nervously from one to another. had he mistaken his men? "the king?" said one, in a tone that might have been regarded as either assent or surprised interrogation. "we have another king," was egbalus's quick and altogether unghostly response. "baal save us!" cried one. "the will of baal be done!" was the sharp rejoinder of another--mattan, a man of ferocious severity of countenance, whose body showed more scars from self-inflicted wounds than could be counted in half the circle besides. egbalus suddenly dropped all his mysteriousness of manner, with keen eyes searched their faces, by his very look challenging each one to dare resistance. he was now less high priest than he was politician and leader; seemingly forgetting his spiritual, he asserted his secular, power. satisfied with what he saw in the half-cowed superstition or the crafty ambition of his followers, he boldly declared: "it must be. woe to the priest who, at this crisis of our order, dares to betray it!" he drew his long knife, such as was used in sacrificing--"this for the heart of the first faithless priest!" "and this!" "and this!" half a score of gleaming blades were raised. egbalus continued: "king hiram believes not in the gods; would destroy them, and us with them. rubaal must be king. it is the will of baal, and it is the wisdom of men." he allowed a silence to follow, that his suggestion might work. he did not for an instant, however, cease his search for any dissenting look upon a single face. he was correct in his judgment of them, and now knew that when the critical moment came there was not a man but would assault the king in any way that he commanded. indeed, he had, during the few months he had held the high priest's office, gathered about himself, in the inner circle of priests who shared his counsels, only those who were desperate in their religious bigotry, or who were known to have some secret hatred towards the king. "let the god answer through our breasts!" at length he said, resuming his pietistic tone. the priests bowed their heads until they touched the pavement. they then resumed a sitting posture, each with his eyes fixed upon his breast, as if listening to his own heart-beats for the articulation of the will of the god who possessed him. "baal speaks!" muttered one. "he speaks!" "he speaks!" was echoed from the circle. "baal has spoken through the lips of his high priest," said mattan, rising. one by one the others rose, and repeated, "baal has spoken through the lips of his high priest. so let it be! and dies the man who says not so!" the sun-glint had left the temple wall. dark shadows dropped upon the corridors about the sacred lake, and in the gathering night the cabal of priests broke up. chapter v. was it the night darkness that, by its contrast with his bright dream of zillah, awoke hiram? however that may have been, he aroused himself with the purpose of making his vision as near as possible a waking reality. he would go to her. her hand upon his brow always exorcised his evil spirits, and he knew a pillow for a restless head softer than that of his divan. he struck with his finger a disk of bronze that hung by the couch. a deep, but exceedingly soft and sweet, note floated through the apartment, and was instantly answered by the keeper of the royal wardrobe. this honest fellow's loyalty was limited by the conviction that the king should be the handsomest man in his realm, and he spared no pains to make him such. though he was not officially barber to his majesty, he yet wrought upon the short curls on his master's head with the exquisite care that a jeweller's etcher might have bestowed upon the locks of a goddess he was transferring from his imagination to a golden plate or goblet. the king was, ordinarily, far from fastidious regarding his raiment, and had often flung off the royal gewgaws in which his attendants arrayed him for state display. the same indifference to appearance at times led him to the opposite extreme; as, on the day we are narrating, he had worn the dress with which he had presided at the council, also on the ship and amid the dirt of the foundries and workshops. but upon certain occasions he was not averse to the consideration of a goodly appearance, especially when he made his visits to zillah. the male bird will display his plumage to the utmost, and pipe his sweetest notes, in the presence of the female. we may leave the explanation of this to the naturalist and the novelist; we here only record the fact that hiram made no objection when his attendant brought from the wardrobe a close-fitting tunic of sindonese silk, the raw material of which, brought from far-away india, had been woven without a flaw on the tyrian looms, and embroidered by skilful and patient fingers with scarabs, lotus-blossoms, winged globes, and royal uræi, in a combination of lines and colors that fascinated the eye with its general effect as much as it bewildered by its details. about his neck he suffered three collars to be placed; the upper one closely fitting his throat, while the lower one hung far down upon his breast; all sparkling with tiny gems. he girded his loins with a scarf of radiant colors, in the knot of which shone a huge diamond, like a star in the belt of orion. his sandals were fastened with ribbons made of threads of gold, and wound in cross-lines above his ankles, thus setting off as fine a calf as ever kept time to the music of the dance. could hiram have seen himself in the glass with his own eyes, instead of through the imagined eyes of his mistress, he would have blushed for his effeminate bravery, and preferred to don the tight leathern uniform of a common soldier. but, to make his victorious entrance into a maiden's heart, he really thought himself arrayed in heroic style. the house of ahimelek was near the eastern wall, in the highest part of the city. from the east side it looked directly down upon the two harbors, and across the narrow strait that divided the island from the mainland. from its western balconies the view lay over the city, and far out over the great sea. the proud old merchant delighted especially in this prospect, which on every hand reminded him of the sources of his wealth. far away towards cyprus he could sight the incoming vessels, and towards lebanon detect the slow-moving specks that were his caravans. the house was of cedar. its beam-heads and cornices were carved with objects beautiful or grotesque, as pleased the fancy of the architect; for ahimelek had no standard by which to estimate its excellence beyond its expense. its projecting windows were closely screened, one with a latticework of bronze, another of porphyry, another of alabaster, and one with strips of agate closely cemented. the interior apartments were panelled in richest woods, and floored with elaborate mosaics, upon which were skins of lions, wolves, and leopards. objects of curiosity which his captains had brought from all the known countries of the world--enormous tusks of elephants, nuggets of precious minerals, diamonds with their incrustation of stone, plumage of strange birds, vases of malachite and lapis-lazuli, the weapons of savages, and bejewelled swords once worn by kings: these filled tables and niches, and stood in the corners. ahimelek met the king as the latter alighted from his litter in the central court. it needed no previous suspicion on the part of hiram to detect something inhospitable in the merchant's welcome. as they passed the entrance together ahimelek stopped. he seemed to be on the point of speaking, yet no words came. awkwardly he made way for the young man to precede him; and, as the lover sought the apartment of zillah, her father stood looking after him with troubled countenance. his formal and acknowledged betrothal to zillah, according to phoenician custom, gave to hiram every privilege a husband has in his wife, except that of living with her. from the moment he had put the ring upon her finger, and had given to her father the legal document conveying certain property pledges, he became her virtual possessor and guardian. at the entrance to the apartment of his betrothed, hiram was met by layah, zillah's maid, a woman whose matronly manner contradicted the story of her youthful face. layah had once been the handmaiden of hiram's mother, and, but a little beyond him in years, had grown up as a sort of official playmate in the nursery. upon his mother's death he had sent her as a gift to zillah, who needed such a companion, since she had scarcely known a mother's protection, and, without brothers or sisters, was alone in the care of her father's house. layah's pride, when she ushered hiram into the presence of her mistress, was warranted, for she truly thought there was no more beautiful woman in tyre than the daughter of ahimelek. and, indeed, zillah's radiance this night was refracted in additional lustre through the toilet her maid had given her. a simple band of ribbon, with a single pearl studding it, bound her jet-black hair, but did not confine it. her locks overflowed in clustering ringlets upon her forehead and temples, and fell in waves upon her white neck. her features were small, but so clear-cut as to seem larger than in reality, and so animated were they with health and joy that the long, pendent ear-rings of crystal, which rested upon her shoulders, seemed to borrow from her face the light that flashed in them. her upper garment came close to the throat, and was gathered into a sinus beneath the breast, by a girdle which was knotted in front. her exposed arms were of such graceful shape that one scarcely noticed the wristlets and armlets with which her maid had insisted on decorating them. her full-flowing skirt of silk was so artfully looped at the bottom as to reveal a foot and ankle, about which a serpent of silver coiled in loving embrace. zillah's first welcome of hiram was followed by a playful frown. she held him at arm's-length, and curiously inspected his raiment. "for shame, my lord hiram! i believe you have borrowed your cousin rubaal's clothes--the same he came to woo me in the day before you and i were betrothed. you are more goodly-appearing with your sailor's cap and coarse chiton than in these fashions of tyre. see! i have discarded my cap of pearls, and would not put on half the jewels layah wanted me to, because i thought you would like me better as i am." she dexterously loosed his triple collar, and flung it upon a divan; then plucked the great diamond from his scarf. "hold!" cried hiram. "do not throw that away. it may buy back our throne, if egbalus steals it. let me put it here, where artaxerxes himself would not dare to pluck it." he inserted the glowing jewel in the folds of the sinus of her dress. "but why do you talk so much of egbalus, dear hiram?" she asked, as she drew him to her side upon the divan. "egbalus is only a priest, not even a prince. and you have often said you did not believe in the priests. why care for what you do not believe in?" "i do believe in the priests," said he, "just as i believe in scorpions and other pests, because they are disagreeable facts. i suppose i ought to be above letting them annoy me, as the people in the country build booths on the roofs of their houses, and go to sleep there, knowing that the scorpions cannot crawl so high. but i cannot sleep if i so much as hear these priestly vermin scratch. do you remember, zillah, the stories we used to invent as children with layah's help? they were generally about a king who was driven from his throne, and went wandering over the world, and lost his queen somewhere, and could not find her. you used to call yourself the queen, and imagine all sorts of things you did without--without me; for i was always the king, was i not?" "and i always found you, too; and now i am going to keep you, and not let you go wandering even in my dreams," replied the fair girl, throwing her arm fondly about the shoulder of hiram, with her cheek against his. "even astarte does not have so good a hold on tammuz, or, as the greeks call him, adonis, when she has found him come to life again, as i have on my adonai--my lord." her lustrous eyes, as she gazed into his, seemed to drink love from his heart. "ah, but astarte has to lose her adonis first, and her maidens go mourning for him. so you might lose me. the persian king has but to say a word, and i must leave my throne. the satrap of syria--only a satrap--has more power than i, a king, and could depose me. these priests could poison the mind of artaxerxes; or they could poison me. do you not regret having promised to be my queen?" the girl rose from the divan. she straightened her form to its full height. her pose was majesty itself. her black eyes flashed with indignant pride: "not even a king shall question either my love or my courage!" hiram, though startled, was not offended at this sudden transformation. he had been frequently treated to novel exhibitions of her character; but each one increased his admiration for her. she was to him a garden of graces. at every turn in their intimacy some new beauty was revealed, or some new sweetness exhaled from her life to gladden his. he did not, however, expect to find in his garden a stately palm-tree--a character so lofty and ruggedly strong. he now felt that she was more royal than he, and he could have thrown himself at her feet as a slave. but through all zillah's severity of countenance there played a softer sentiment, that overtempted him to a different expression of loyalty, and he caught her to his arms, with the rapt exclamation: "a queen, indeed! my queen!" she pushed him gently from her, and looked deeply into his eyes as if she would dry up the very fountain of his soul, as the sun-god dries the springs in summer, should he dare to question again the supremacy of her love. she then took his face between her hands, as she said: "i shall be hiram's queen if he reigns only in a round boat, a pauper pirate of the sea, or carries his crown on a camel flying across the deserts. but"--her voice trembled, steadied only when his hot kiss had acted as a tonic--"i would rather be simply hiram's wife. wife means more than queen, does it not?" the superb woman again became a girl; the palm-tree became a spray of delicate vine that twined itself through and through hiram's heart. the long and silent embrace that followed was disturbed by loud talking in the apartment of ahimelek, which was across the recess entering from the court, a sort of hallway that divided the business offices of the merchant from the portion of the house that was devoted to domestic use. "ah! i know that screech," said hiram. "it belongs to the night-hawk egbalus. he is always flitting about in the dark. listen! what nest is he putting his beak into now?" the priest was evidently threatening and entreating by turns. ahimelek was as clearly on guard, like some fencer who knows the superior prowess of his antagonist. his tones of voice showed that he was now objecting, and now yielding point after point, only protecting his retreat. whole sentences were at length caught by the listeners, as the excitement of the priest betrayed his caution: "but, sire, you cannot prevent it. i have obtained the consent of every other member of the council but yourself. no man can withstand the will of baal." "ah!" whispered hiram to zillah. "your father, then, did not vote for the sacrifice. i half thought as much. he has always assented to my view that we are making too much of religion. if they would only leave me to select the victims, i would order the sacrifice myself, and roast a score or two of priests' spawn. i would make such a feast that moloch would be sick from surfeit for a hundred years. but listen!" egbalus was now fairly hissing his words: "you dare not refuse. it is ruin to you and to your house. hark you, ahimelek! your dealing with the egyptian is known. you accepted a bribe of ten thousand darics to abandon the commerce of cyprus and memphis to the sailors of the nile. this is death by the laws of tyre. and think not that having a son for king will save a traitor. the evidence of it is written out. it is on this parchment. a horseman stands ready to carry the news to the great king at susa. it was treason against persia. you know the end. sign this order of the priests of baal, and i will tear up this damning document. if not--" the two listeners looked at each other with consternation. they knew that the priests had spun some web about the merchant. true or false, their accusation would ruin him. hiram's first impulse was to enter the room, and slay the priest as he stood. a second thought showed the unwisdom of such a course. the plot must have other meshes, though egbalus held the chief string. a rash deed on the king's part would precipitate an issue between the throne and the temple, with the advantage in favor of the latter, since their plotting had been of long continuance, and their purposes were well ripened. "i shall advise your father to yield the point," said hiram, rising. "a few miserable babies more or less for a sacrifice, what does it signify?" he strode across the open space, and, unannounced, stood before the men. his sudden appearance transformed the debate into a tableau. egbalus was standing rigidly erect, his hand clenched, and raised above his head; his whole soul seemingly condensed into one act of will, dominating the soul of ahimelek; and that will was blazing from the priest's half-demoniacal eyes. had he uttered no words, the very pantomime would have been enough to crush a weaker man's resolution. ahimelek sat limp and pale with terror before the priest. without awaiting an explanation, hiram determined to rescue the merchant from the straits into which his loyalty had apparently put him, and said: "enough of this quarrel! ahimelek, you have your king's permission to assent. let the priests have what sacrifice they will." "your majesty! your majesty is mad!" jerked out ahimelek, holding up his hands in agonizing remonstrance. "it is enough! i have said it," responded the king. egbalus was surprised, and stared as one confounded. but only for a moment did he lose his self-possession. he was a consummate actor. he could direct his most fiery passion by cold discretion, as the moulder leads the molten metal into his patterns of sand. a look of holy serenity suddenly diffused his countenance: "baal, i thank thee! thou hast owned thy servant! said i not so--that the heart of the king would be so led by baal that he himself would consent? most noble king! servant of the gods! let me kiss the feet of him whom baal receives as his son!" he threw himself upon the floor before the king, who could scarcely restrain an impulse to trample the hypocritical wretch with his heels. it cost hiram a mighty effort to obey his quick, intuitive discretion. he did not even glance at the prostrate priest, but, with a look of scorn and pity upon ahimelek, he withdrew. "oh, for the power of a king!" he exclaimed, as he re-entered zillah's apartment. "i swear by all the gods that for the last time have i yielded to the cruelty of these priests. to sheol with the whole brood of them!" hiram sank upon the divan by the side of zillah, exhausted by the sharp conflict of emotions through which he had passed. he rebuked himself for the display of passion. "but for your sake, my fair one, and the sake of your father, i would have died rather than have done it. but my time will come, if there be any power of justice back of these villainous gods who demand such things." "i see," said zillah, putting her hand upon his brow, as if to exorcise some demon there--"i see that you, too, could be cruel, dear hiram." "yes, cruel as any other human beast, until i can abolish cruelty. and i will abolish it--abolish it by the sword." he sat a long time in silent thought, then rose suddenly, exclaiming: "but these are no scenes for you, my darling." "why not for me, if for you?" rejoined zillah. "i am not a butterfly, that must needs flit only in the sunshine. i would rather be like our heroic queen dido, for all her troubles, than be a mere statue come to life, like that which her brother, our king pygmalion, made. your cares shall be mine, or i am not worthy to sit under the purple canopy of your throne." "right royally spoken!" cried hiram, in an outburst of admiration. "but, for all that, i shall save you from such scenes and such priests, for i shall decree that there shall be no gods--except that every man shall have his own astarte, and she shall be worshipped thus--" he laid his ardent offering upon her lips. chapter vi. an unusual throng filled the streets and the great square when the king returned from the house of ahimelek to his own palace. priests were everywhere. it seemed as if the ecclesiastical hives of half the cities of phoenicia had swarmed along the coast, and lit again on the rock of tyre. some of these priests, with unkempt hair and mad eyes, were haranguing the crowd; others were engaged in excited debate among themselves. the palanquin of the king moved among the people as if it were the ark of some strange religion; for, while a few glanced at it with respect, many regarded it with rage, and scarcely restrained the impulse to lay violent hands upon it. egbalus and his devotees had evidently done effective work, not only in disseminating their own venomous spirit, but in organizing their various guilds for action in emergency. the royal attendants noticed that a band of priests moved just ahead of them, and that another band came behind, as if the king's person were either honorably escorted or dangerously menaced. still another company of priests moved hastily, yet in order, away from the palace gate as the king approached it. hiram was himself too much engrossed with his own thoughts fully to take in what was transpiring beyond the closely drawn curtains of his carriage. but, having passed within his own gate, he suddenly awoke to a sense of some unusual environment that was being spun about him. entering his private apartment, he was possessed by that mysterious power of clairvoyance through which one is made conscious of a presence that is neither seen nor heard. he was impressed with the fact that the room already contained an occupant. the instinct of danger, reinforced by an acquired habit of vigilance, led him to place his back against the wall, and his hand upon his dagger hilt. uncertain of the loyalty of even the private servants of his chamber, he determined to face the unknown menace alone. he dismissed all his attendants, and closed the door behind them as they made their exit. prepared to strike at any living thing that had dared to invade his privacy, he stood a moment listening, and searching with his eyes every object which the thick screen of the hanging lamp left in the shadows. "who goes here?" was his challenge. a whisper came from beyond the curtains that shielded one end of the divan: "it is i, king hiram." "why, hanno! what means this? are you mad? is everybody mad?" the low tones of his friend's voice bespoke continued caution. hanno laid his hand upon the king's arm as he said, "let us first make sure that we are alone. if i could steal admission here, others might." he raised the shade from the flaming wick that floated in the oil. with drawn weapons the two men searched every nook where there was possibility of concealment. they were alone. "you are in danger, my king. i anticipated no harm to you in the open streets, for the priests are interested in protecting you there; but i feared lest some of the devils might give you foul play here: so i crept in, no matter how. you know the plot? no? it was further along than i suspected when we parted this afternoon. you, hiram! oh, the treachery of it! the cowardice of it! you, my king!" hanno's voice was choked with uncontrollable rage. "you--you are to be the sacrifice to baal!" hiram stood gazing stupidly into his friend's face. he heard his words. he understood them, and yet he could not take them in. the power of thought seemed paralyzed. then, gradually, he came to realize the meaning of what he had heard. at first he thought only of the indignity offered his throne. then, brave as he was, there came a tremor of dread, as the horrid rites of the sacrifice filled his imagination. that cruelty which he had refused to sanction, where the victim was the humblest babe among his people, was to come upon himself! he saw himself a bound and helpless victim. he felt the flames, but they chilled him to the heart's core. for the first time in his life he was afraid. the two men sat down together upon the edge of the divan. for a long time neither spoke. nor was it necessary. rapidly the king put together in his memory many recent occurrences. his keen judgment saw their significance, and that they focused in the terrible fact which hanno had announced. "blind! blind! blind i have been; but i see it now," groaned the stricken man. then, starting from his horrible reverie, he strode across the apartment. pausing under the full glare of the lamp, he held aloft his dagger: "i swear before baal that if he demands the sacrifice of the king of tyre, the king of tyre shall be both priest and victim! my own hand shall strike the blow; not theirs. and the altar shall be the dead body of egbalus. he first shall fall. i shall seek him." he moved towards the door. his friend stayed him. "you cannot go out. the house is closely guarded," said hanno. "egbalus has filled the city with bands of galli. they have been coming into tyre from the country around for days." "i will cut my way through a thousand of them to the dock, and take to the sea," cried the king, in the valor of his despair. "it is too late," replied hanno. "when i heard the decision of the priests this afternoon i tried to arrange for that; but your biremes have all been scuttled, and mine is stolen away. the very captains in the harbor have been bedevilled by the priests. brave fellows though they are, like all sailors, they are superstitious, and believe that baal has put a curse on every wave for any one who would attempt your rescue." "then, my dear hanno, you too must go, and leave me to my fate. i will not have my life if it endangers yours. go! appear as my enemy! save yourself! i will know that your heart is true, even if your hand should tie the cords and cast me into the flames. go!" "never!" cried hanno. "did not you and i see the flames when forty thousand sidonians burned their houses over their heads and perished together, rather than fall into the hands of the persians?" "then let it be so, hanno! and right here will we emulate them. see, this flame to this curtain, and this couch shall be our altar!" as the king spoke, he reached the lamp from its hanging, and brought it close to the heavy draperies. "hold!" cried hanno. "this is no time for madness, but for cool heads. the sacrifice cannot be for some days yet. time breeds opportunities. let us watch!" "for what?" cried the king, burying his head in his hands. nearly an hour passed in silence, broken at length by hanno: "egbalus has made a prediction that, so powerful is the will of baal, the god will send the spirit of holy zeal into every heart in tyre; that the very rays of the sun-god to-morrow will inspire all they fall upon with such acquiescence that every one would gladly take the place of the sacrifice. as i came in here, only a moment before you, a herald was running across the square, crying, 'the king consents! the king consents! praised be baal!' the lying devil of a priest has already perjured his soul with that counterfeit of the royal word." "ay, i did consent." hiram then related to hanno the scene at the house of ahimelek, where, under misapprehension of its full import, he had approved the sacrificial celebration. "it is well, then," said hanno. "why not seem to verify the high priest's interpretation of your assent? apparently yield. it will divert suspicion from any plan we might adopt." the young men talked through the entire night, and in the early dawn captain hanno, disguised as a market vender, was let out the great gate with a good volley of curses from old goliab, the porter. chapter vii. the ensuing day was one of intense excitement in tyre. at every open space, on the walls, in the great square, at street corners, and especially in the court of the temple, were priests haranguing the people. bands of galli, the priests of astarte, having set an image of the goddess upon an ass, swarmed about it as it was drawn through the streets, beating drums, blowing horns, cutting themselves with knives, tearing out handfuls of their hair, and chanting--or rather howling--the sentences of their wildest liturgy. caught by the strange infection, many private citizens openly renounced their secular vocations, and joined the priesthood of astarte. initiation into this order, according to an ancient custom, was signalled by the candidate's breaking into a neighbor's house, where he penetrated to the women's apartment, demanded a suit of female apparel, and arrayed his nether members in this, leaving the shoulders bare. in this mongrel attire the neophyte joined some roving band of galli. the dress was presumed to symbol a cruel rite by which the enthusiast had made his priesthood more acceptable to the goddess. among the young men who appeared to have been especially filled with the spirit of astarte was captain hanno. he had stopped to listen to an excited exhorter. some invisible spell drew him closer and closer to the speaker. his eyes became riveted upon the countenance of the priest, the contortions of whose facial muscles he imitated. the orator changed from speaking naturally to a singing rhythm, timing the variation of his tones by a swinging motion of his body. in this he was closely followed by the circle of priests about him. captain hanno wedged himself among them. shoulder to shoulder they stood, swaying now sideways, now forward, now backward. with every motion the spell deepened. louder and louder they shouted, until shouts became shrieks. one after another fell swooning to the ground. a priest grasped wildly at the blade of a sword his comrade was waving, half severing his hand; but he did not heed the pain. at a moment when physical exhaustion had produced a temporary lull in the confusion, the priests recognized hanno as a new-comer among them. instantly they cried: "the stigma! make the sacred stigma!" they held towards him their knives. hanno seized one of them, and dashed the point through the fleshy part of his shoulder. the screeching grew wilder as the priests saw this evidence of the power of their goddess. surely egbalus's prediction was being verified, since the man who, of all tyre, next to the king, was noted for coolness and indifference to religion, had become a convert! suddenly breaking through the throng, hanno ran from street to street, followed by the priestly rabble. he shook the gates of several houses which would not open to him. up the steep lanes he went, as if impelled by some fury. he dashed through the gate of the house of ahimelek, which flew open at his touch. in a few moments he emerged. a woman's skirt, of richest texture, hung from his waist and covered the upper portion of his legs, which protruded bare and bleeding beneath. the blood still trickled from his shoulder and smeared the garment. the galli gathered about him. he broke out into impassioned praise of astarte, of melkarth, of moloch. in his ecstasy he shouted every phrase that described divinity in the street speech of tyre. his celestial rage seemed inspired by the beams of baal, which were changed to molten fire, and poured through his veins. his eloquence was prodigious. he clamored for more haste with the sacrifice. he declared himself willing to be the victim. then, abandoning the wildness of gesticulation, he suddenly became rigid as a statue of porphyry, and his face as red with the blood-flush of excitement. he swayed an instant, then fell. the galli caught him in their arms. they bore his stiffened form on their shoulders to the temple. even egbalus was astounded at such a tribute to his priestly astuteness and power, and fairly croaked with delight as hanno, returning to consciousness, prostrated himself at the high priest's feet. the addition to the priesthood of one who stood foremost among the tyrians for social rank and for naval prowess was an event to be appreciated within the temple of baal. chapter viii. while these scenes were being witnessed in the streets of the city, king hiram, left alone by the departure of his friend hanno, enacted within his own soul a tragedy scarcely less terrible than that he feared. from his impending fate he saw no way of escape. die he must. he queried with himself, what would it signify if he resented, even fought against, this monstrous cruelty? what if he died by his own hand, or by the blows of his captors? this would only throw over his memory a damning disgrace in the estimate of the superstitious people. his name would be hissed with imprecations, and become a by-word for impiety towards the gods, and for selfish, cowardly indifference to the welfare of his country. though he were right in his views of religion, he would not be understood. posterity, except in remote ages, perhaps, would attribute to him, and to his shrinking from the altar, all the misfortunes that might come upon tyre. should he risk this? did consistency require it of him? should he not submit to the inevitable with outward grace, if not with the grace of a submissive spirit? then he thought of egbalus. he seemed to see the sharp, triumphing eyes of the high priest, gloating over this fulfilment of his prediction that the god would draw the king to voluntary obedience. he saw the hands of this plotter binding the people more slavishly to his will through his victory over the only man who had ever yet dared to dispute the priestly rule in tyre. "no! let me die by my own hand first! thou, hated priest, shalt never conquer through me!" he felt the point of his dagger. then a gentler emotion swayed him; perhaps it was the natural reaction from the strain of excitement. he thought, "and may there not be gods in spite of my doubts? i am but one man against a multitude. god cannot be moloch, for such a god is less noble than man. but surely there is some one who is the mystery of existence; and does he not demand sacrifices? the jews have no idols, but have altars. the greeks, even herodotus, who has taught me to doubt, worshipped his gods with sacrifice. if the god is good, then surely we have offended him. if the god is not good, then he is capricious, passionate, vindictive, and we had best humor him. o baal! or jove! or jehovah! accept my life, which i offer to thee! i fling it forth into the great darkness. if there be light anywhere, may i enter it! if there be no light, let the darkness blot me out of existence. i give myself to god, or to oblivion." he buried his head in the cushions of the divan. the sleepless night and the unintermitting intensity of his mental struggle overcame even his marvellous powers of physical endurance. he fainted or fell into a dreamless sleep; he knew not which. when he came to himself, he recognized by the nearly emptied globe of the water-clock that it was late in the afternoon. he was surprised that no one had called him. his servants had prepared no meals. how did they know that he did not need them? he glanced into the mirror of polished brass. how changed his features! he was pale and haggard as one of the galli. startled by his own apparition, he passed from his sleeping-apartment into its anteroom. it seemed to be filled with the statues of men. was he demented? they moved towards him. one by one they fell to the floor. then the statue nearest to him raised its head and pronounced, in tones of deepest awe, "o holy sacrifice! seven times blessed! chosen of men! accepted of our lord baal!" then this one's head dropped to the floor. each head was raised in turn, and repeated the same words. all the statues then rose. one of them was clothed in a long black robe-- could he mistake that figure? it was egbalus. bowing low, the high priest spoke: "the holy spell has been upon thee, o royal son of tyre, son of baal! as thou wast lying on thy couch i saw a wondrous thing. all the souls of the ancient kings of tyre came again from their abodes in the world of the dead. each was like a shooting-star. they came from the dark bosom of the night. they flashed across my vision and entered thy body. one by one these starry kings came, until the last, thine own father. in thee, o blessed hiram! is all the royalty of tyre. i saw, too, the great spirit of baal, like a globe of light, brighter than the sun himself. baal came and enclosed thee. the divine light penetrated thee, purified thee, until thy body was light itself; bright even as the brightness of baal. this was thy consecration for the sacrifice. the flames cannot harm thee, since thou art become light itself. but one duty awaits thee. come thou, o divine king, and consecrate with thy presence the temple, the holy place of melkarth. then shalt thou enter the life of which baal is the fulness. come!" hiram knew not whether this were a dream or a mocking reality. but it mattered little which, since he had determined to outwardly obey and, with hanno, to watch. "as thou wilt, o servant of our lord baal!" he replied: and, preceded by egbalus and followed by the attendant priests, he passed from his palace. the royal palanquin awaited him in the court. it had been covered with a white cloth canopy and curtains which completely enveloped it, and concealed his person from all eyes. the priests became his bearers. a line of them marched ahead, playing lugubrious notes on pipes of reed, above which rose the words of a chant. as the procession wound its way across the great square the multitudes prostrated themselves on either hand, murmuring prayers and benedictions upon the royal deliverer of tyre. at the temple gate the popular reverence and awe were evinced by intense silence. not a form swayed, not a foot was lifted, not a word was spoken. only the slow-timed tramp of the bearers of the royal victim broke the stillness as the cortège passed between the massive gates, which slowly swung upon their hinges and closed again. for three days king hiram remained alone in the chief chamber, that which opened upon the corridor of the sacred lake. priests incessantly patrolled back and forth, saying nothing except their prayers. they brought him food in golden dishes, and left it, removing the remnants in the same reverential manner in which they would have served at the altar. as the silence of the day turned into the deeper silence of the night, and back again to silent day, the solitude became unendurable. only royal pride prevented hiram asking some question of his obsequious custodians. when would the sacrifice be accomplished? was there no communication for him from zillah? could he bribe any of these bigots to confer with captain hanno? now he was tempted to rush upon one of the priests, seize his sacrificial knife, plunge it into the man's heart, and then into his own. he was once in this latter mood, and on the very point of executing his purpose, when the priest who would have been his victim began to mumble his prayers. "i will wait until the wretch has got through that. he will need all his prayers for his last breath," muttered the king. the man beat upon his breast and tore his hair, as if in some sacred frenzy. he came nearer to hiram's chamber entrance, and paused in his walking, with his back to the king. "the gods favor me for once," thought hiram. "now to throttle him and to strike!" the priest raised his voice in praying, so that hiram caught the words "take heart! be watchful!" a sudden glance at the half-turned face revealed the familiar features of hanno. all hiram's self-possession was needed to restrain a cry of recognition. the next day the eccentric priest appeared again, and paused to pray at the same spot. he stretched out his hands towards the maabed, and, as if addressing the deity enshrined in the midst of the water, prayed thus: "o baal hiram, king of tyre! keep thine eyes open for the mark of a circle, and follow it. o baal melkarth! o astarte, queen of heaven! send prosperity!" chapter ix. upon the mainland, adjacent to the island, had stood for many centuries another city, which the people distinguished by the name of old tyre. a hundred and fifty years before, its glory had departed, when it fell conquered by the babylonian nebuchadnezzar. the dangers of its exposed position on the mainland, as compared with the safety of the island which the great sea guarded as a mighty moat, led the phoenicians to neglect the rebuilding of the old city. its broken walls, fifteen miles in circuit, were filled with the débris of once proud temples and stately palaces. a few buildings of straggling architecture had been hastily reconstructed with the blocks of stone that made the graceful lines of an ancient mart or fortress. shanties stood upon the dismantled foundations, and scattered among the ruins were the black tents of traders. a new market-place had been opened close to the shore, where the many caravans that crossed the lebanons from damascus exchanged their rich loads for those brought over the sea. one of the most prominent ruins in old tyre was that of an ancient temple of baal. superstitious reverence for the place had prevented its use as a quarry, the fate of so many other ruins. huge blocks of stone, such as the phoenician builders were famous for using in their gigantic temples, loaded the ground; and concealed beneath them were subterranean passage-ways, which the priests of old had used in going from one part of the sacred edifice to another, unseen by the worshippers. these were now the abode of jackals, whose domiciles were uninvaded except by the flitting of the bats and the gliding of serpents through the narrower crevices. on the plaza, which had been the court of the old temple, and which was largely unencumbered with débris, rose a dilapidated image of baal-moloch. to captain hanno, in recognition of his accession to the priesthood, and as a stimulus to the flagging zeal of others in the class of citizens to which he belonged, was assigned the honorable duty of superintending the preparation for the sacrifice; and he well exemplified the adage, "there is no zealot so zealous as a new one." under his orders masons relaid the walls of the fire-pit beneath the statue. a gang of sailors rigged chains for the moving of the brazen arms of the gigantic figure. brass-workers burnished the breast of the god until it dazzled the beholder like a miniature sunset. sidonian glass-makers furnished great globes, covered with vitreous glazing, for the eyes which glared from the bull's head that surmounted the human shoulders of the monster. pipes from the fire-pit were to convey the smoke through the nostrils. piles of wood were brought from the lebanons, and casks of inflammable oil were placed in readiness near by. various enclosures were set up for singers, drum-beaters, and trumpeters. elevated platforms awaited the guilds of civil dignitaries. lines were drawn within which the priests could congregate according to the different gods they served, and display in pious rivalry, but without confusion, the insignia of their varied worship. this spot was reserved for the devotees of dagon, the fish-god; that for adonis, the god of the seasons. sadyk, the god of justice, was assigned here; and next to him his children, the cabeiri, had their places. prominent provision was made for the priests of astarte, the moon-god, queen of heaven, and for those of melkarth, god of the city; while the open space directly around the image was reserved for the officiants at the sacrifice. the day for the solemnity opened with auspicious omen. the sun-god poured down his lustre unbroken by a cloud. though yet early summer, the rays were intense and burning; suggestive of the wrath of moloch, who drank up the springs of water, withered vegetation, and threatened the land with the horrors of a famine by drought, a calamity to be averted only by appeasing his thirst with the blood of nobler victims. the entire shipping of the port was arrayed in festive colors. there were vessels not only of tyre, but from the neighboring cities on the phoenician coast--sarepta and sidon, byblus and berytus, aratus and joppa--vying with one another in the splendor of the devices by which they exalted their various local divinities, while they attested their common faith in the dread majesty of baal-moloch. trading vessels from egypt and greece, and from the far western coasts of the great sea also, willingly hastened their coming or delayed their departure that, with reverent curiosity, they might witness the stupendous rites. the plan for the solemn cortège of vessels that was to convey the victims for the sacrifice from tyre to the place prepared on the mainland, included a procession around the entire island, starting from the egyptian harbor, on the south, curving westward and northward through the open sea, thence eastward, passing the sidonian harbor, and across the narrow space of water to the shore. this line of movement symbolized the purpose of the whole ceremonial to secure a blessing upon everything that related to tyre's prosperity--her homes, her arts, her commerce, as well as upon her temples and priests. along this prescribed course the phoenician ships were anchored side by side in double rows, between whose bows the sacred barges that conveyed the gifts for baal should pass. of these barges there were three. the first was laden with miscellaneous offerings. there were piles of elegant garments, made of silk wrought on the looms of distant persia, and the finest linen of egypt, which had adorned the persons of princely men, or added fascination to the most beautiful women. with such offerings the aristocratic expressed their humiliation before the god, denuding themselves of their pride, even as they divested themselves of their expensive apparel. put as each valuable piece was marked ostentatiously with the name of the donor, a sceptic might have thought that the sinful trait of vanity lay deeper than the soft raiment had touched. jars of precious dyes were so placed that their dripping contents stained the sea in the wake of the barges, attesting the piety of the makers of such stuffs. great sacks of ground spices were the offering of a ship-owner whose vessel had gone around africa and entered the gulf of araby, where these precious treasures were procured. these were flung in handfuls to the gentle wind, and loaded the atmosphere with their aroma. there were also great mounds of fruit; birds of rarest plumage; blooded dogs from the kennels of sportsmen; a goat with dyed horns; a sheep with prodigious covering of wool; a splendid horse, the gift of prince rubaal; and a bull with white feet, the special offering of the high priest egbalus. the second barge had a more precious freight--seven times seven mothers, each fondling for the last time her first-born son, a little babe that lay naked in her lap. some of these women belonged to the lowest class, the abandoned sort, whose maternal impulses were hardly above the brutal instinct, and who were not averse to making a religious merit of the infanticide to which they had been sometimes tempted in order to escape the care of their offspring. others among them were honest, but abjectly poor, and had been persuaded by the priests thus to give their children back to the all-giving baal. a few made the sacrifice with bleeding hearts. these sat in utter misery, staring as if for relief towards the burning heavens, that gave no token of mercy. around the group of innocents was ranged a cordon of enthusiasts, who sang in prayer to baal, and again in wild refrain declared the god's reward to those who willingly gave up their children--riches untold, and new offspring according to desire in number, sex, and beauty; all painless gifts, in compensation for the pang of their gift to heaven. the third barge surpassed all in the splendor and costliness of its decoration. about its sides were ranged the statues and banners representing all the gods of phoenicia. in the centre rose an altar-shaped throne. the royal chair was overlaid with beaten gold. above it hung a canopy of purple silk, the same that trypho had dyed for hiram's gift to zillah. the king sat on his throne as if he commanded the pageant. his face was white, his lips compressed, his eye steady: a king still, though seemingly done in marble. on his head he wore the ancient crown of tyre. in his hand was a sword of bronze, its bluish blade exquisitely chased with the symbols of authority, and its golden hilt thickly studded with gems. at the prow of the barge stood egbalus, arrayed in the most gorgeous vestments of his office, his hands outstretched in continual prayer. the imposing cortège made its way slowly; the barges being propelled only by priests, whose sacred character was supposed to make amends for their lack of skill in handling the long oars that were affixed to the sides. the tall prows of the vessels that lined the course, as a guard of honor, were surmounted with figure-heads representing the gods; and, moved by the gentle undulation of the waves, these divinities seemed to bow in acknowledgment of the superior honor of moloch. chapter x. thus the sacred regatta moved over the prescribed course to the mainland. leaving the barges, the priests were marshalled into a vast procession. at the head moved the trumpeters, their instruments pitched to a wailing key, and giving forth long and monotonous notes. they were followed by others, carrying the various articles that were to be offered. then came the living sacrifices. about the parents who were bringing their children to the god, the singing priests formed a circle, and drowned the weeping in the louder praise they shouted to baal. the throne of the king was placed upon an open platform, and, with its royal occupant, was borne upon the shoulders of the most noted of the hierarchy; the neophyte hanno being honored with a place by its side, and with a wand of authority as one of the directors of the ceremony. during the passage from the landing-place to the presence of the idol, the people were allowed to look upon their vicarious sacrifice. all hatred and wrath had given way to the better emotions of reverence, gratitude, and affection. the crowd pressed as close to the line as the priestly attendants would permit, and there threw themselves upon the ground, kissing the spot their king's form had shadowed, and gathering up handfuls of the dust for sacred memorial. he was now their possession as they had never thought when they called him their king; for he was their substitute, upon whom were laid all their woes and fears; and soon he was to be their god, when, through the mystery of the fire-offering, he would pass into the sublimer mysteries of the glory of baal. a little way to the front of the idol had been erected a silken pavilion, covered with devices and mottoes of religious import, which were elaborately wrought with needle-work upon its floating walls of crimson. this was the holy place, into which the great atoner, leaving his throne, retired from the gaze of all, that in secrecy he might prepare himself for the final offering; that, as egbalus had said, his soul might first pass into, and be absorbed by, the very being of deity, before his body should be given to the outward image of the unknown. the high priest had declared that so thorough was the acquiescence of the king in his own immolation that, when he should come forth from the sacred pavilion and proceed to the flames, he would not be a mortal, but only the semblance of his former self; his glory shielded as a cloud shields the sun, lest the sight should blind the beholders. as the curtains fell, secluding hiram in the sacred pavilion, egbalus kissed the spot where the victim's foot last touched the outer earth. together with the attendant priests, he then retired from the proximity of the tent, leaving a broad space about it unoccupied by a human being, but penetrated by the gaze of thousands. a long silence fell upon the multitude. a strange, oppressive awe of what might be transpiring within stifled the very breathing of the waiting throngs. then, suddenly, the blare of a hundred trumpets gave the signal for the presentation of the offerings. the inanimate gifts were first placed in huge piles upon the arms of the god, which, being lowered, dropped them into the flames beneath. next, the living animals of small size were laid bound in his hands. the horse and bull were first slain, their blood poured over the arms of the idol, their hearts thrust into his open jaw, until, shrunken by the heat, they fell into the pit, and were consumed with the remaining flesh. then followed a stillness as of sheol itself, broken only by the sobbing of the women who approached the image, each bearing her child in her arms. one, overcome by her contending emotions, fell fainting, but a priest instantly seized the child, and laid it upon the hot hands that shook it into the flames. some staggered on with closed eyes, guided and goaded by the attendants. some sang, in half-crazy ecstasy, the wild refrain of temple hymns, swaying their babes in time with the rhythm, and, without assistance, ascended the steps and presented their sacrifice. as babe after babe disappeared through the smoke, new waves of excitement poured over the crowd; hot waves of delirium, burning out humane instincts, and firing that rage of beasts which is latent in all men. the crowd yelled in frenzy. the priests, with their long knives, gashed their bodies, and, filling their mouths with their own flowing blood, spit it forth again in the direction of the god. then, as the last babe was offered, the grand expectation brought the multitude to silence. egbalus approached the holy pavilion. he raised his hand. the note of a single trumpet, finer, sweeter, yet sadder than any other, floated over the throng. it was repeated, with louder sound and more prolonged. again it rang forth with full blast, and was answered by one borne over the water from the temple of melkarth in the island city. then the high priest stood with uplifted hands. it seemed many minutes to the people, whose excitement was scarcely endurable. turning to where the folding curtain indicated the entrance to the pavilion, egbalus cried with loud voice, "come forth, o thou accepted of baal!" he instantly prostrated himself on the ground. the priests in the front row of spectators fell prone upon their faces. in the crowd every neck was stretched and all eyes strained to catch the first glimpse of the sacrificial hero. but the curtain of the pavilion did not move. was not the victim's prayer yet completed? was he so absorbed in communion with his god that he had become oblivious to what was outward? or did he flinch now at the fatal instant? perhaps the god had become his own priest and stricken him, or sweetly drawn his consecrated spirit from his body! was he already dead? egbalus rose slowly from the ground, keeping his eyes upon the curtain to note its first flutter. again he struck his most august attitude, and repeated the invocation: "come forth, thou accepted of baal!" he prostrated himself as before. but still there was no response. the high priest rose again. he advanced, and touched the curtain, but, evidently overcome by a feeling that it were sacrilege, or perhaps by the dread of some mystery beyond his solution, or some ghostly power raised by his word, but not amenable to it, and that would not down at his bidding, he withdrew. he beckoned the dignitaries next in rank to himself, among them hanno, and with them held a consultation. they were evidently as puzzled as he. a third time the solemn invocation was pronounced, but with the same futile result. egbalus then, with pretence of bold exercise of his office, but with manifest trepidation, laid his hand upon the curtain. hesitatingly he drew it aside. for a moment he stared into the shadows. he advanced a step, then suddenly retreated. he looked about him as one bewildered and uncertain how to act. he motioned to the nearest priests. they came reverently, answering the perplexed face of the high priest with looks of equal curiosity and alarm. one by one they looked into the pavilion. then they raised their hands as if heaven alone could account for what they saw. _the holy place was empty!_ "the god! the god has taken him!" said egbalus, in half-dubious, half-credulous voice. "the god has taken him!" shouted hanno, and ran towards the crowd, wildly throwing his arms. "let us die with him!" he grasped for his priest's knife. it had fallen from his belt. he beat his breast, and fell in convulsions to the earth. some of the people fainted with fright. others covered their heads with their mantles, as if to shut out some stupendous apparition. at this terrible moment a new portent occurred. the colossal image of baal shook. its metal folds creaked one upon another. the ground trembled as if from the convulsion of some subterranean spirit. the idol tottered, and fell half-way to the earth. the priests, wild with terror, ran shrieking into the crowd. panic seized the multitude, who trod upon one another in their haste to get away from the dread proximity. many were maimed as they fell among the great stones of the old ruin that covered the ground, and some were crushed beneath the trampling feet, or smothered under the accumulated mass of helpless humanity piled above them. only when they had reached a distance did the fleeing men pause to look back. egbalus alone remained near the pavilion. he seemed to have been transformed into a statue. at length he moved, not to follow the awe-stricken fugitives, but to enter the pavilion! such halting steps did he take that one might have imagined him drawn by some invisible power which he was trying to resist. "the god has taken the high priest also!" cried hanno, who had recovered sufficient self-possession to raise his head and look; but, horror-stricken by the sight, he buried his face in the dust. a venerable priest advanced from the cowering throng midway the open space, and raised his knife with a loud cry: "i, too, would come to thee, o baal!" he plunged the gleaming blade into his own heart. scores of knives flashed in the hands of the demented priests about him, as if they, also, were waiting the audible summons to follow. suddenly egbalus reappeared. he beckoned those nearest. he called for hanno, but the new enthusiasm had proved too much for the neophyte, untrained to such deep emotions, and he lay a heaving heap of unconscious devotion. egbalus selected two attendants, and with them re-entered the holy place. would the god have more? no; baal was satisfied; for, see! the three priests emerge, not one of them blasted to a walking cinder, nor ascending in a flame of fire. they talked excitedly. egbalus lifted his hand. suddenly the long blare of a trumpet announced the termination of the sacrifice. the crowds were not allowed to re-enter the enclosure, but betook themselves, some to tyre or to their ships, some over the hills to the inland villages, others along the coast--on foot, in litters, on mules and camels and stately steeds--all scattering, to astound the world with their reports of the miracle. the setting sun flashed its red rays upon the leaning figure of baal, that seemed to bow in obeisance to the god of day. only the priests remained to watch until astarte, smiling in the crescent moon, wrote her benediction with the silvery beams she threw over the scene. chapter xi. had king hiram vanished into the mystery of baal? no. he had vanished under a mystery of hanno. when hiram entered the sacred pavilion the place was exceedingly dark by reason of the heavy curtains that enclosed it, and the glare of the outer light that he had just left, for the instant, prevented his eyes from adapting themselves to their new environment. by degrees his power of vision was regained. he observed that the tapestried walls were wrought with the various symbols of worship; the sun of baal, the moon of astarte, the fish of dagon, the star of adonis, and the like. beneath his feet lay a rug of silken shreds, pure white. he threw himself down upon this to collect his thoughts; to gather up his strength for the final act in this terrible tragedy. surely hanno's hopeful words had been merely to cheer him; they meant nothing, or his friend's plans for his rescue had miscarried. there was now no escape. he prayed; to whom? he knew not; but still he prayed. for what? not for himself; it was too late for that. he prayed for hanno; that, in the desperation of his love, he might not attempt to make good his pledge of dying with his king; that he might be restrained from making a useless assault upon the priests, or from throwing himself into the flames. then he prayed for her who was more to him than life--for zillah. he gathered up his whole soul in a loving thought of her, and laid it--where? upon the highest altar in the highest heavens, if there were any such place where pity for mortals existed. then, as the sweet face of his beloved one filled his imagination, a tear fell--the first during all these days of agony; for the bodily humors seemed to have been dried by the hot fury of his grief. the tear fell upon his hand. he bowed to kiss it, because it fell for her. as he did so, his eye caught a spot of gleaming red in the white rug. mechanically, without definite purpose in doing so, he traced the red line as it ran through the silken nap. it took shape. a wing!--and a circle! it was only a half-conscious thought--"the winged circle," such as was used as a religious device by the persians, and was also carved on the stone architraves of some temples of astarte. then the full thought flashed upon him, "the mark of the circle!" hanno's sign! was it designed? he raised the rug. a similar mark was rudely scratched upon a broad stone that lay just beneath it. he felt the edge of the stone. it moved. a tilting stone! he lifted it a little. a cool and dank air rushed out. this, surely, was a door into some passage! by a little exertion he was able to swing the stone upon its edge. adjusting the rug over it in such a way that it would again cover the stone when restored to its horizontal position, he let himself carefully down through the opening. so strong was the draught of air that he scarcely needed to feel his way by touching the wall on either side, but guided himself very much as he had sometimes done when, on a dark night at sea, he helmed his ship by feeling the wind against his cheek. he thought of this just for an instant, but it was long enough to think of hanno too, as, in their last sail, they had steered the craft together. he could not restrain a subdued cry of gratitude. "noble fellow! thy hand is on the other oar, as thou didst pledge. thou art the only god that is left to me!" for a little way he crawled over and around the débris that obstructed the labyrinth. then he felt the space enlarging. a smooth pavement was beneath him. with extended hands he hurried forward. he heard the roar of fire, and knew that he was passing near to the pit beneath the image of baal. a hot gleam shot through a crevice. it revealed a door of bronze covering an old entrance into the pit, through which anciently the priests had been accustomed to feed the flames. the door moved as he touched its hot surface. he opened it a little, that the light might illumine the passage. in the glare he saw several stout pieces of timber standing upright. these had been recently put in to brace the great idol, the foundation of which had given way on that side. hiram took this in at a glance--he had time only for a glance, for the flames burst forth upon him and drove him away before he could close the door. the fire caught the timbers, and, a little later, consuming them, toppled the image above. but of this he knew nothing, as, taking advantage of the light, he plunged on through several hundred cubits of open way. the passage he had followed ended in a small chamber into which struggled a ray of daylight. here lay a coarse skull-cap of leather and a ragged chiton--a mere bag with holes at the bottom for the head and arms, the only garment worn by the poorest herdsmen. by the side of it was a club of heavy wood, knobbed with great spikes at one end--the ordinary weapon with which the herdsman defended himself and his flocks from prowling beasts. a little wallet contained dried dates and thin cakes of black bread; another was filled with small coins. to divest himself of his princely clothing, don the chiton, and tie the bags about his waist beneath it, was the task of a moment. then on he went, working his way like a mole between the great stones that, in confused ruin, would have blocked his progress, had he not been guided by his faith in the prevision of his friend hanno. gradually the air became purer. it revived his strength and courage. light came in through an opening which was screened heavily by a clump of bushes beyond it. these guarded the northern end of the passage from the inspection of any one without. crawling through a crevice in the rock, he emerged cautiously, concealing himself amid the dense foliage. the bushes grew in a little cleared space about which were piles of stone, which had anciently walled a portion of the temple. he crawled like a lizard to the top of the stones and raised his head. he was far beyond the crowd, whose faces were all turned in the opposite direction, watching with absorbed attention for his reappearance from the sacred pavilion. over the stillness he heard distinctly the shrill voice of egbalus, as it cried, "come forth, thou accepted of baal!" his impulse for flight was checked by tragic curiosity. the contagion of the general excitement caught him and held him almost spellbound. danger always had for him a fascination; at this moment he felt it reinforced by a sudden passion for revenge. why not join the crowd, work his way through it, dash into the cleared space, smite the high priest to the earth, and hurl his hated carcass into the flames? what if the priests then cut him into ten thousand pieces? it would be worth dying for. why not be a theseus to his people, and slay the minotaur in the person of its most devilish representative? his brain reeled with the thought. a wild cry of the multitude recalled him to his more cautious judgment. the people surged back. the great image toppled. ah! how grimly he guessed the reason! the crowd turned in his direction. was it in flight? or had he been pointed out, and were they cutting off his escape? he gripped his club to brain the first who should climb the stone heap behind which he had taken refuge. as some came near he noted their terror-stricken faces, and knew that they were not seeking him in this direction, but fleeing from him yonder where he was a superstitious embodiment of their fears. then a fiendish humor came upon him. he took the dirty cap from his head, and, bowing towards the distant figure of egbalus, said: "i obey, o priest of baal! lo, i have come forth!" he climbed down the farther side of the pile of ruins; paused a moment to rub handfuls of dirt over his hair and face, his clean-skinned legs and feet; then, swinging his herdsman's club, he ran away, outstripping the most cowardly fugitive from the dread scene. he looked for no new mark of the circle, for the country was well known to him. often had he dashed over these fields on his horse after the fox. here, as a boy, he had practised the sling at the running jackals. yonder lay the road to sidon, over which, in princely company, he had gone to discharge some duty of state, or more frequently to join in aristocratic revelry with the young nabobs who lived in the favor of prince esmanazar. this road he dared not take. to the east rose the mountains that walled so narrowly the plain to the sea. in them were hiding-places, but they would be speedily searched. beyond the first range, between the lebanons, a broad valley was open to the north, but that was a highway of traffic. the caravans were passing up and down it. he could not trust himself there, for in every company would be some one whose eyes were sharpened by the hope of reward for his capture. galilee was not far away, populated by a mongrel people, composed of the relic of ancient jewish stock and the colonists who had come from babylon. to the south was samaria, and beyond, the land of judea, her tribes long ago carried away by nebuchadnezzar, but now returning to fortify again the heights of jerusalem. westward shone the great sea, glowing with prismatic colors under the brush of the setting sun. once upon the sea, he might be safe. but the road that lined the coast would be crowded with those returning on foot or in chariots from tyre to sidon. if he could pass them, how could he procure a ship? his present garb would awaken suspicion, if he even talked with any of such a purpose. oh, for another mark of the circle! but there was none in the sand that burned his naked feet, and none in the sky, now fiery as with the wrath of the outwitted sun-god. on he went, scarcely thinking whither, except that the sort of instinct which leads wild animals, when pursued, to double on their tracks, prompted him to turn, making a detour to the east to avoid the scattering crowds; then working his way south, for the first pursuit of him was sure to be north, in the direction of his escape. south of old tyre ran for miles a ruined aqueduct terminating in a reservoir. all the conduits of the latter he knew well, having but recently spent a day in company with an engineer exploring it, with a view of utilizing it in increasing the water supply of tyre. here he could be safe until the night darkness threw about him its all-covering shield. his determination to hide was confirmed by observing two galli at a distance. they evidently had him in their eyes, for, though their road was different, they kept coming near, as if by subtle purpose. he raised his club, and, balancing it carefully, flung it far in the opposite direction, accompanying its flight with the cry of the shepherds when frightening a jackal. he ran at topmost speed after the missile. as he stooped to pick it up he noted that the galli had turned back. he was safe from them, but would be safer if he learned the lesson, and made himself invisible. the old aqueduct might become his fortress. peering out between its disjointed stones, he could inspect the field, and at any moment drop into a conduit and make his exit far beyond. night fell about him. its shadows winged his feet, and its cool, crisp air freshened his vigor as he ran. in the thickening darkness, a huge object loomed suddenly before him. startled for an instant, he paused, but a second careful look enabled him to recognize it. it was the tomb of hiram, his great ancestor, the most famous of all the kings of tyre. five centuries had drifted over it, wearing away the very stone as by the friction of the years, but only brightening the fame of him who lay within it. if the living cherish the memory of the dead, do the dead have no interest in the living? it seemed to the young king as if the very dust within that great stone box must move with pity for him. would the great king curse him for refusing to become a sacrifice to baal for the welfare of tyre? the mighty dead had been a worshipper of the gods of his people, but surely not with such cruel and bigoted frenzy as that of the priests now. the great hiram had been the friend of the judean kings, david and solomon. he had built for them the temple of their god, jehovah, though the jews believed in no blood-loving moloch; nay, they cursed the abominations of the phoenician worship, as they cursed the other idols of the nations, and swept them from their land. surely hiram the great would be a liberal monarch, were he living. a blessing seemed to drop into the young hiram's soul from the white form of the marble, that clear-cut its shape out of the black night. he climbed the lofty pedestal, and stood beside the upper shaft. it was but a moment he lingered, yet time seemed to halt, while the olden ages came back and passed in review before him, all grand with phoenicia's prowess, since first his people taught the nations the alphabet, and pioneered the commerce of the world. dark clouds came up on the horizon, and blotted out the bright early stars; and so, he thought, death's oblivion had buried one by one his ancestors, the kings of tyre; yet their glory was untarnished, even as these stars will shine out again, and shine forever. but himself! would not his flight from death blot his honorable memory in subsequent generations? suddenly the clouds parted, and the bright evening-star glowed in the east--the star of astarte, queen of heaven, goddess of love. as he watched, it was again obscured. then hiram thought of zillah, whose soul, purer than light, had set in his dark destiny. he clenched his hands as if to crush the edge of the stone beneath them, and swore a horrid oath, in which writhed all the black passions of his being; an oath at the star, at astarte, at baal, at all the powers that controlled the world, or at that blind chance that drifted its affairs. then the star emerged again. it floated into a large lake of blue. was it an omen? he worshipped it, and called it zillah. he noted that it floated westward from over the jews' land. then he prayed: "o spirit of hiram, guide thy son! o spirits of david and solomon, befriend the son of hiram! o jehovah, god of israel, give me welcome to thy land!" a wind stirred the dry grass that grew about the tomb. he leaped from the pedestal and ran. turning from the highway, he threaded a path up a deep ravine. moloch's fierce beams had drained its brook nearly dry; but in pools he found enough of tepid water to slake his burning thirst, and to wash away some of the heat of his throbbing temples. then on! he climbed the bank, that he might straighten his course. he passed a cave. although he could see nothing within its dark opening, he knew that its walls were carved with symbols of the egyptian religion, made during the passage of the army of a pharaoh many centuries before. he prayed to all the gods of egypt, if any might perchance be sojourning or travelling near. he knew that he believed in none, but, in his extremity, did not dare to admit his incredulity, lest peradventure they might be real; and he needed even the shadows to help him now. then on! a moment he stopped to placate with gentle tones a dog startled from sleep beside a shepherd guarding his flock. again he turned far aside from the path, that he might avoid a tent whose lamp, burning all night, told that all its inmates were living. inadvertently he came close to a hut shrouded in darkness, from which he was warned by the voices of wailing. he had no sympathy for such bereavement, since nature, more kindly than men, had only exacted her due, and no horrid idol of baal stood before the door. the night seemed interminable, so many terrors massed before him, through which he must cut his way with naked soul. for men and beasts he had begun to lose fear, when suddenly a new menace appeared. the earth seemed to open before him. he descended a step or two cautiously. the ground was hot, and burned his bare feet. strange! for the night air had chilled all else. the earth was hard and sharp, like the refuse heap near some factory of bronze. chinks opened. fire gleamed. strangling gases were emitted. had moloch stirred up the gates of hell to join in pursuit of him? there came a roar not unlike that he had heard when passing the fire-vault of the idol, but deeper and more vengeful. the earth trembled. great stones rolled down the sides of a precipitous bank, and with them he was hurled headlong. whither? "moloch! mercy!" was his cry. then all was dark. chapter xii. a pleasing light shone through the darkness of that nether world into which hiram had been so suddenly precipitated. the light was broken by soft shadows, as of gently fluttering leaves. the brightness made his eyeballs ache; the shadows soothed them, so that he could endure to look. great protecting arms were stretched above him. these assumed the shapes of limbs of a terebinth-tree. had he passed through the gloom of sheol into some brighter realm of life? perhaps the greeks were right in their hope of the isles of the blessed, carpeted with perpetual verdure, gemmed with flowers, and canopied with softest skies. to one of these isles had his spirit floated? this could not be, for over him he clearly saw a dead branch of the terebinth, and there could be no decay in that happy world. his illusions chased one another away, and were all gone when, attempting to move, sharp pains tortured him, and inflicted him with full consciousness that he was indeed in the body. he was lying upon a couch, soft with feathery balsam tips, and covered with a wolf's skin. this he could feel beneath his hands. he glanced about him. a low, but long and rambling, black tent of goat's-hair cloth stood by, its nearest end just at the edge of the shadow of the terebinth. the tent poles and cross ropes were so arranged as to form a roof of three gables, answering to the interior division into three compartments. several rude but substantially built huts were evidently used for storing provisions. a stone enclosure served as a fold for sheep. without these evidences of more permanent occupation, the tent would have indicated a settlement of those nomads who, with hereditary roving habits, have always lodged in the lands east of the great sea; or of those inhabitants of towns who adopt this mode of life during a portion of the year, that they may live among their flocks and herds on the mountain slopes, or cultivate a tract of rich meadow-land far away from their ordinary abodes. hiram had scarcely taken in so much of his surroundings, when he was aware that a light form moved suddenly and silently away from his side. he caught a glimpse of a white garment--the common dress of both sexes alike among the simple peasants. had his observation been more alert, he would have detected a pair of most gracefully modelled feet, and limbs bare almost to the knees; a head uncovered, except for the rich mass of jet-black hair that was gathered loosely into a node at the back; a face of exquisite contour, swarthy from exposure, but radiant with health and kindliness. "father, he has waked!" rang out a sweet child-voice. and hiram heard it add, subdued by distance and anxious emotion: "father! he will live again, will he not?" a voice, strong and deep, but kindly even to tenderness, responded: "jehovah be praised! i will come." a heavily built man approached the couch under the terebinth. he was slightly bowed with the years that had chronicled themselves by the gray lines in the long beard which fell far down upon his bare breast. his legs and arms were uncovered, and showed that strength had not deserted the slightly shrunken muscles. his face, though weather-beaten and wrinkled with cares as with years, was a beautiful one, beaming with intelligence and soulfulness; one of those rare faces that fascinate children, but can command men--such is the combination of affection and dignity they reflect from the abiding disposition behind them. his eyes were deep-set beneath heavy brows, and seemed the home of lofty and generous sentiments, suggesting those crystal springs in shady dells which good spirits have always been traditioned to inhabit. "the lord be with you, my son!" was the old man's hearty salutation, as he came and looked down upon the stranger. "are you not able to talk?" he kindly inquired, noticing that hiram made no response, and unwilling to think his silence discourtesy, as it would have been regarded had the one addressed been fully himself. hiram stared at the face of the old man, in painful effort at recollection both of the questioner and of himself. "where am i?" he inquired, endeavoring to raise himself upon his elbow. "nay, be quiet, my son!" replied the other, laying him gently back upon the couch. "it is enough for this day that you know you are safe, and under the roof-tree of ben yusef." "ben yusef? i do not know you." hiram gazed intently at him, as if to replenish from the intelligent face his own vanished power of thought. "ay, ben yusef, of the tribe of judah. you are, indeed, a stranger, not to know the tent of ben yusef, of giscala." "giscala? in the jews' land?" "ay, and in galilee. you must have been badly hurt for so shapely a head as yours to have been knocked out of its whereabouts. i had thought ben yusef's tent as well known as yonder rocky pinnacle of safed, which guides travellers from afar. but who are you, my son?" hiram glanced at his own herdsman's clothes. he felt the coarse texture. a tremor shook him, as if from the passing of some horrid dream. he replied: "i am what you see me." "nay, my son, thou shalt not bear false witness, even of thyself," replied ben yusef. "a shepherd's feet are not so easily torn as yours have been. your hair has the odor of ointments that are not of the cattle-pens, and your hands are not hard in the spots where the sling-strings cut. besides, no sheep would have been so silly as to venture into the crater of giscala for you to seek them there. the dumb beasts have fled from it for weeks past. the volcano is getting ready to break out again, and the lightest-headed bird will not even fly over it. only a man driven by some demon to seek death would have plunged into it as you did. besides, your speech is not that of the herdsmen; nor, for that matter, of any dwellers in the country about. it is that of the men of the coast. though we use the same tongue, there is as much difference between our accents as there is difference between the grass that grows on these spring-fed meadows and that of the salt marshes by the sea." hiram showed evident alarm at these suspicions, and made an effort to rise, that he might venture another flight. the old man gently, yet strongly, restrained him, and placed his head again upon the bolster as he added, kindly: "nay, then, do not speak if the truth is not for my ears. ben yusef's tree is broad enough to shadow both you and your secret." "but i must not burden your hospitality," said hiram. ben yusef knit his brows in evident displeasure, but quickly rejoined, with a smile: "you shall not burden, but bless me, my son. our patriarch job said, 'the blessing of him that was ready to perish came upon me.' and never saw i man that was nearer perishing than you." the old man raised his eyes reverently to heaven as he added: "the lord deal with me and mine as i deal with this stranger!" it was the merriest of voices that interrupted this conversation: "abba!" the syllables flowed with all the sweetness of bird notes, charged with the tenderness and fulness of human love. "abba! abba!" "yes, my child." "shall i bring the drink?" "bring it." the girl balanced a large jar upon her left hand, supporting it by the graceful shaft of her forearm, which in turn rested upon her right hand. the weight of the jar brought the muscles of her arms into graceful prominence, and her easy motion betokened that agile strength which is seldom displayed except by those whose freedom of life, as among peasants of mountain regions, makes work easy and exhilarating. "the _leben_ is all of the big goat's milk, and, with the leaven in it since yesternight, should be strong and quickening. shall i give the drink?" "no, my child. haste with the supper. elnathan will soon be in from the fields, and as hungry as esau. haste, and the memory of thy mother bless thee!" as ben yusef watched his daughter retiring to the tent, a lusty halloo rang through the air, and a form appeared upon the hill-top. it seemed gigantic, so large a portion did it cut from the glowing western sky beyond; and, though it diminished as it approached, it still showed a strong, thick-set, over-tall fellow, in the first flush of manhood, the down on his chin hardly consistent with the gnarled muscles upon his legs and arms. he came at once to where hiram lay, and accosted him with a good-natured familiarity which, though rough, did not conceal the essence of gentility that lay beneath it. he took hiram's hand into his own, and pressed it as if feeling for the fitful pulse. "i knew you would come to life rapidly when once you started. judging from your running last night, you have wind enough to outstrip the death angel. i was yonder, watching the crater, when you dashed by me. you made a streak of light through the darkness as a flitting ghost does. i thought you must be elijah, showing the other prophets how he ran when jezebel and the priests of baal were after him; and i believe you would not have stopped short of beersheba if you had not tumbled into the crater. couldn't you see it, or smell it, or feel it? perhaps you had drunk too much leben among the sheep-boys in the mountains. they make it there strong enough to whirl a man's head off; but i never knew it to make one's legs fly as yours did." "hush, elnathan!" interrupted the old man. "your tongue runs faster than our guest's legs ever did, and makes as great blunders. what news from the mouth of sheol, for the brimstone on your garments tells you have been there?" "the volcano has been less active to-day, father; but neighbors isaac and hosea both think it will break out anew. they remember how it was years ago. the big mound is like the whale with jonah in his belly. it only wants a little more tickling with the fire to vomit forth." "have you watched it all day?" "no. as this poor fellow could not tell us what he was running from, i have been searching back on the path he came; but i can find nothing to harm one." he lowered his voice. "the fellow must have been crazed. no sane man would put that dirty shirt over so trim a body, or wear his hair, which is curled like that of a gallant from tyre, under the filthy cap i found by him. i think he is from tyre. they were to have had a great sacrifice--some say of the king himself. this man looks like some courtier who has gone daft with excitement. he surely thought the volcano fire was under some sacrifice to moloch, for i heard him cry, as he fell, 'moloch! mercy!'" "do not breathe that thought, elnathan," said ben yusef. "he is to us only what he seems. the lord has been merciful to him. in israel's land his secret belongs only to himself and our god. i charge you, elnathan, by the lord god of abraham, who spared isaac on moriah, that you speak not your thought." the night grew chill. ben yusef and his son carried the couch and the sick man under the shelter of the tent. hiram was exhausted by his excited wakefulness, and soon fell into a slumber, during which the little household partook of their evening meal. when he awoke he was conscious of the presence of the young girl alone, who sat under the lamp that hung at the doorway of the tent, and who answered his every movement with a look towards him. ben yusef and elnathan sat without. a neighbor joined them. as he was approaching the tent, hiram heard the father enjoin his son to make no mention of their stranger guest. "he does not come to us as the angels came to father abraham at his tent door," said elnathan. "who knows what form angels take?" replied the elder. "the angels came to abraham's tent hungry and thirsty; why should not one come to us as a sick and wounded man?" "from the way the volcano is acting," said elnathan, pausing to listen to the rumbling earth, "i think he has come as the angels came to lot in sodom before the lord destroyed that place with fire and brimstone. maybe our guest will startle us before morning with the cry, 'flee to the mountain!'" they rose and welcomed their neighbor, with whom they conversed until late in the night, for the imminence of danger from the volcano suggested watchfulness. chapter xiii. from the conversation that hiram overheard, supplemented by after-information, he learned much of the family history of his benefactor. ben yusef's father had belonged to one of the captive families in babylon, who, taking advantage of the decree of cyrus, had returned with zerubbabel to their ancestral land. ben yusef himself was born in jerusalem; and, though he deemed himself a faithful jew, had not chosen to resist the charms of a samaritan maiden, a descendant of the colonists whom nebuchadnezzar had sent from hamath to repopulate the land made desolate by the deportation of the people of israel. when ezra, the great scribe, arrived at jerusalem with his new bands of devotees, and endeavored to enforce his mandate against marriage with any not of pure jewish stock, yusef had opposed him, feeling at first that this was but a device by which the newly arrived would override the descendants of those who had originally returned with zerubbabel. though afterwards he became convinced of the honesty of ezra's purpose, and of the sincerity of his patriotism in wishing to purge judaism of all elements foreign to it, he could not believe, as many did, in the great scribe's inspired wisdom in this regard. so pure and strong was ben yusef's love for lyda, his wife, so beautiful was she in character, so true even in her devotion to israel's god, and so many blessings had she brought to him, that he could not expel the belief that jehovah had indeed favored their union. to accede to ezra's demand that he should divorce lyda, or by any compact separate from her, seemed like striking the hands which god had extended in benediction upon them both. lyda was not a concubine, as hagar had been to abraham. he therefore would not send her away, but chose rather to go with her when she was expelled from the gates of the city. but still ben yusef was a jew. he loved the traditions and shared the hopes of his people. he therefore would not leave the sacred land, but took up his abode in the far northern portion of it, among the scythian colonists whom nebuchadnezzar had settled there. he built no house for permanent abode, because he believed that the time would come when he should return to jerusalem. lyda had died. his first mourning over, he proposed to return to the capital, but was confronted by the fact that her children would be counted as of impure blood by the aristocratic and stricter caste of jews. he would not subject them to such disparagement, and therefore unpacked his already laden beasts of burden, drove again his stakes, and stretched his cords. the very names of his children were intended to be a protest against what he thought to be the narrowness of the jewish rulers. "elnathan" signified "given of god," and when the little maiden came he called her "ruth," after the famous moabitish woman, whom the faithful jewish boaz wedded and made the ancestress of king david. but no quarrel with the rulers at jerusalem could alienate his patriotism or dim his larger hope in the coming glory of his people. his soul thrilled with all the good news of prosperity in the sacred city. he sent his contributions regularly for the temple service, and, when able, made his pilgrimage "thrice in the year" to the festivals. when, some twelve years before the date of our story, nehemiah had come from susa to assist in rebuilding the temple and the walls, ben yusef had met him on the way; indeed, had entertained the new governor as loyally as his purse and peasant habits made possible. this act had cost him much of the goodwill of his half-heathen neighbors, and forced him to a more isolated life than before; for he was now looked upon as neither jew nor gentile. as hiram caught partial information of what the reader now knows more fully, he felt that ben yusef was a man who might understand and sympathize with him in his expatriation, and consequently rested more complacently. yet he was persuaded that it would be wise voluntarily to divulge his terrible secret to no one. if it were discovered, it would be time enough to acknowledge it, and claim the kinship which common persecution had made between him and his host. the night passed in safety. the volcanic activity vented itself beneath the ground, which trembled as if ten thousand chariots were driven over it. strength came rapidly to the wounded man. he had prayed to jehovah, and an answer came either directly from the "god of the land" or indirectly through the invigorating atmosphere of this hill-country; and was not jehovah the "god of the hills?" surely hiram had heard ben yusef singing a psalm of worship as the morning dawned: "i will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, whence cometh my help!" ben yusef again and again indulged his curiosity in such questions of his guest as his sense of hospitality allowed. these hiram cautiously answered. he admitted that he was from the coast; that he was in disguise and flight because of dissent from the doctrines of the baalitish religion; that he had voluntarily reduced himself to the humble condition of a herdsman, rather than endure the degradation of his conscience. to all this ben yusef responded with lofty and generous emotion. he eloquently told the story of ancient israel; of the grand historic triumphs of jehovah among his chosen people; of the great patriarchs; of the birth of his nation when, under moses, the people had fled from egypt; of the valor of the judges; of the glory of the kings; of the sins of the people in admitting baalitish customs; of the lord's heavy curse in selling the nation into captivity to babylon; and of the return under permission of the persians, the new masters of the world. he spoke, too, with prophetic rapture of the day that was sure to come, when a new king, greater than solomon, the lord's own gift to his people, would spread the nation from the euphrates to the great sea; or, as their psalm had it, "from the river to the ends of the earth." the venerable man's face shone as he enlarged even that vision, and spoke of peace and righteousness filling all lands--even the fields breaking forth into singing. the substance of this story of the jews' land and people hiram had heard before; but the old man's ardor impressed it with such vividness that the listener seemed to see the unrolling scroll of history merging into prophecy, and could not repress a feeling of the enthusiasm which the speaker conveyed with his words, his gestures, and his looks. two days passed. hiram had recovered from the weakness, which came more from the shock of his emotions than from actual bruises. ben yusef read the thoughts of his guest as he would now and then suddenly start at some unusual sound, or hide within the inner room of the tent at the approach of any neighbor. his observant host guessed that the patient would be freer of heart if the day could be spent away from the possibility of meeting with men. hiram, therefore, as strength returned, eagerly accepted the proposal to accompany ben yusef in searching for some stray sheep upon the mountains. the bracing air and the exhilarating views tempted them on. they climbed the grand pinnacle of safed. here, nearly two thousand cubits towards the heavens, no one could follow without being observed. on the summit the old jew gave wings to his memory and faith, as free and strong as the wings of the eagle that started from its eyrie on the crag. there, to the north, were the waters of merom, by the shore of which joshua smote jabin, king of hazor. there, to the south, stood tabor, from behind which deborah, the prophetess, with barak for her captain, had deployed against sisera, when the very stars swung from their courses, and beat the enemy with their baleful omens. yonder, to the east, rose carmel, a mighty altar of the hebrew's faith, where elijah had drawn fire from heaven to shame the priests of baal. and there, far beyond, gleamed the waters of the great sea, making indentations upon the coast, but beaten back by the great docks of tyre and sidon, as baalism washed away at times the true religion of israel, but was beaten back by the valor and enterprise of god's true people. down there, almost beneath their feet, shone the pearly surface of the inland sea of galilee, over which hung splendid prophecies yet to be fulfilled; for the great isaiah had declared, "the land of zabulon, and the land of nephthalim, by the way of the sea, beyond jordan, in galilee of the nations. the people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined." the old man's purpose had been, at first, only the diversion of the thoughts of his companion, for he feared that his recent experience, whatever it had been, had really affected his mind. but as he spoke he became himself carried away with his theme. hiram easily encouraged him to continue, and by his appreciative questions led him to speak of the higher spiritual truths of the jews' religion. what he said of the human sacrifices especially interested his hearer. "our father abraham, living among those who offered their children to the deity, was once allowed by the lord to think that he, too, must offer his son. to the rocky dome of mount moriah he led his beloved isaac; bound him upon an altar; raised the knife to slay him; when the lord's voice cried to him out of heaven, 'lay not thine hand upon the lad;' and, turning quickly, the trembling father saw a ram caught by the horns in a thicket, and offered it instead of his son. that rock is now the base of the great altar in the temple court at jerusalem. all our worship means this--the lord god is a father. he wants no suffering sacrifice among men. if sin needs atonement, god's own gracious heart will make it. he wants only man's contrition and love. the lord is my helper; not my hater. the jews' sacrifice really means that there is no need of sacrifice, except what heaven itself shall provide. it is an offering in gratitude, not in penalty; an offering to praise, not to appease, the judge of all the earth." ben yusef's face beamed with an almost unearthly beauty as he spoke. his voice trembled, but was sweetened, too, by the great depth of his emotion. he uttered no formality of faith. his words were no echo of men's thoughts. they had, as it seemed to hiram, a double source of suggestion--from heaven above, and from the profound experience of the man's own soul. hiram could not help contrasting this peasant with the great herodotus. the jew's philosophy seemed deeper than the greek's. and it was not only philosophy, but an inner life, a feeling, a knowledge. the greek had pushed away some shadows; the jew stood out in the light. the greek's thoughts were formed with beauty, as his statues were carved from the stone; the jew's thoughts were immense, and untrimmed by human art, like the rocky pinnacle of safed upon which they stood. chapter xiv. towards nightfall they descended the mountain, and were nearing the home tent. "listen!" said the old man, putting his hand upon the shoulder of his comrade. "that is the very soul of our religion--a song in the heart that sends a song to the lips, as the fountain comes bubbling from the full veins in the earth." a sweet, strong voice rang up through the ravine, to the top of which they had come. ben yusef's eyes filled with tears. "so like her mother's voice," he said. it was ruth who was singing: "jehovah's my shepherd; i'll not want. in pastures green he makes me lie, by restful waters leadeth." before the girl stalked a great dog, large enough to tear a wolf. he pricked up his ears, stopped, threw back his head, then with a bound broke through the bushes and climbed the shaly bank to where his master and hiram were standing. ruth followed as nimbly as a goat. "you will be so glad," said she to hiram, "for somebody who knows you has found you. he described you exactly in face, and said you spoke the tongue of tyre. he would not have me come to meet you, and when i started followed close behind, until anax got between us. the dog sat right down before him, and showed his great teeth if the man moved a step." ben yusef glanced quickly at hiram, asking with his eyes a score of questions without the need of a word. "yes," replied hiram, "i must fly at once. only shield me by your discretion, as you have by your hospitality." "you shall not fly from the tent of ben yusef," said the old man, with protesting vehemence. "my life will shield you, and, if the danger be great, in an hour elnathan can summon a score of our neighbors. we have learned, in these troublous times, to combine for mutual protection. one bugle-call over these hills, and, as the stars come out one by one, but before you can count them all are there, so man after man, with ready weapon, will move out from the darkness and surround my tent. and woe to the intruder who cannot give our shibboleth." "i cannot accept the protection of such brave men, nor yours, since it would surely be revenged by fiends who work in the dark, and who are relentless in their hatred. let me fly while i may endanger only myself!" said hiram, gratefully grasping ben yusef's hand. "wait at least until the night blackens. secrete yourself anywhere. elnathan will find you. you will know of his approach by the hoot of the owl he has learned to imitate. you may need his knowledge of by-paths. but, above all, in the land of israel trust in israel's god. he has said, 'thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night, nor for the arrow that flieth by noonday.' 'he that keepeth israel neither slumbers nor sleeps.' farewell until brighter days!" night fell too rapidly for hiram to get far away. nor was there need, for the base of the mountain had been torn by earthquake and freshet into a hundred hiding-places. the chief danger was from wild beasts rather than from men. he chose a deep cleft which he observed to have a double opening, from either of which he could depart if the other were menaced. he had not waited long before the hoot of an owl sounded. "amazingly natural!" thought hiram. he had once prided himself upon his powers of mimicry, and now he would essay a trial of skill with elnathan. "too-whoo! too-whoo!" he echoed back. "too-whoo!" rang out from a crag quite distant. a moment later it came again, but this time from another direction. then from another. "the peasant is more deeply learned in bird-speech than i," mused the listener. "he throws his voice from cliff to crag, from ravine to tree-top." hiram ventured another call. scarcely had the sound escaped his lips when the air hummed; a pair of dusky wings whirred close to his head, and a black object settled on the edge of the rock above him. "i did it well," he congratulated himself, "to have brought the bird to me as a mate. welcome to my nest, sir owl, for i think you are a restless soul like myself." the bird flew away. but other companionship came. a rattling of stones down the ravine told of some one's approach. hiram's success with the former hoot emboldened him to challenge elnathan again. "too-whoo!" rang and re-echoed. "but what a shriek!" said a voice not far distant. "i have heard that the owls in these mountains are the ghosts of dead jews let out of sheol for a night airing." "i can believe it, and that they are all damned ghosts, too, if that owl's voice shows his feeling," rejoined another. the stones rattled again. "the curse of baal-hermon on the traitor's head for leading us on such a road as this," said one who had evidently stumbled and fallen among the rocks. "call on some other god, for the mountain god must have spent all his curses in making such a land as this. try beelzebub, the god of flies, for it would take a gnat to find the king in these narrow paths, branching everywhere. but i don't believe he went this way. the girl gave him warning. he has gone back, or taken the road to hazor, and will make for kadesh and baal-gad, and across the spur of hermon to the highway for damascus. we will do better to follow that. the addle-headed lout at the tent said that was the way most open, and he must have told the king the same, for he hadn't wit enough to invent two ideas." "but we cannot find that path; at least not until the moon rises. let us wait here." the two men sat down close to one of the openings of hiram's retreat. "the sacrifice should never have been at the image of moloch. melkarth is lord of tyre, and, had it been at the temple, melkarth would never have allowed him to escape." "if he did escape!" said the other. "you doubt it, then?" replied his comrade. "yes, for it cannot be proved, and the people all believe that baal took him." "the people be cursed! but the priests do not believe it. baal does wonders, but, so far as i have seen, he never does wonders that the priests cannot understand. and egbalus himself shook his head when we asked him, and looked very wisely as he pointed to that tilting stone." "true!" replied the other; "but egbalus bade me explore that underground passage. i did so until i came nearly under the god, when the way was utterly blocked. no human being could have gone farther without being changed into a ghost." "if he changed to a ghost, he will change back again; and i think some of our knives will find him to be as veritable flesh as ever butcher cut in the shambles. but, hist! somebody comes." "too-whoo!" "by the horns of astarte! the owls are as big as horses here, judging from the way the sticks snap under their feet. an owl-headed man, i think. back into the crevice!" one of the pursuers came close to hiram. in an instant a knife sank from the man's throat to his heart. a sharp cry was its only signal. "what is it, comrade?" asked the other, feeling his way in to offer assistance. hiram, having by daylight observed the turn of the crevice, slipped out of the other opening, and, giving signal, joined elnathan. a moment's consultation was sufficient for their plan. each entered an opposite opening of the crevice. as the living priest confronted hiram, elnathan's strong fingers were upon his throat. the man struggled impotently, as a sheep might have done in the hug of a bear. they drew him into the open. "harm him not," cried hiram. "he has never harmed thee. his life is mine. know, thou villainous priest, if it will be any comfort to thee, that thou diest by the hand of thy king. and take my challenge to moloch himself, if there be any such being in the world of the damned." the sentence was not completed before the knife had done its double work. hiram in a moment recognized his own unwisdom in his hasty speech, and, turning to elnathan, said: "i cannot take back the words you have heard. they tell more than i should have told. but, as you saved my life once at the volcano, you can preserve it only by forgetting what you have heard. pledge me this, as you trust your god for grace." "nay," said elnathan, "i think i shall best serve you by remembering it. i could have guessed as much from what i overheard these two now dead priests say, if i had not guessed it before. the ravine beyond the tent is famous for its resounding walls. the crawl of a lizard can be heard a hundred cubits. these wretches took their supper at one end of the gorge. i was beyond the bend. they might as well have whispered into the end of a shepherd's horn. your appearance as you lay on the cot under the terebinth, your mutterings in fevered sleep, and what these rascals said to each other, i put together into a story of the miraculous escape of king hiram of tyre from being burned alive to moloch. now, my good friend, we have no king in israel. i swear to you, king hiram, all the loyalty a jew can offer to any gentile--the loyalty of man to man. your secret is mine, and my service is yours. so help me, god of israel!" hiram was unable to respond at once to this. when he did, it was to grasp both the big hands in his own, and say: "but one other man like this lives." "ay, my father," said elnathan. "and one more," added the king. he would have kissed the hands of elnathan, but the noble fellow withdrew them. the moon appeared at this instant, the leaves and limbs of the trees marking themselves in sharp and moving outlines against her huge red disk, as she shone through the mists that hung over the low-lying lands by the sea of galilee. in the excitement and previous darkness, hiram had not noticed that elnathan was strangely transfigured. he was dressed as a persian soldier. he wore a stiff leather hat, whose round top projected forward; a leather tunic, close-fitting, with long sleeves; leather trousers, which disappeared at the ankles within high-topped shoes. at his belt hung a short sword, or rather a huge dagger. he carried also a spear, the light shaft of which served as a support in walking. "i have brought you these," said the jew. "years ago, when nehemiah came from susa to jerusalem, one of the soldiers whom king artaxerxes had sent with him sickened on the way and died at my father's tent. these were his trappings. he begged that he might be buried in the winding-sheet, according to the custom of the jews, whose faith he had embraced. your herdsman's shirt is not a prudent disguise, especially since some of your pursuers have already tracked you in it. besides, your very figure belies it. sword-play and sceptre-holding give a different grace from that of clubbing swine; and it would take full twelve moons to grow a head of hair shaggy enough to make even a sheep look at you without suspicion. our good king david might as well have played the shepherd with his crown on." as he talked elnathan divested himself, one by one, of his martial garments, and made hiram put them on. "and now, have i not performed a princely part myself?" said he, laughing. "for it was our prince jonathan who, when he had found out that david was really born to be a king, 'stripped himself of the robe that was upon him, and gave it to david, and his garments, even to his sword, and to his bow, and to his girdle.'" elnathan then described carefully the paths leading eastward; the deep, winding wadies that debouched into the sea of galilee; the rock of akhbara, rising five hundred cubits, like an enormous castle, cut by nature into a hundred hiding-places; the towns on the shore of the little sea. he gave the names of men of kin to the house of ben yusef, or known to be trusty, to whom hiram might appeal in case of extremity. to hiram's repeated pledges to reward him as a king should, when better days came, the jew replied: "the lord is our reward in all things." "tell me," asked hiram, "does your god teach you to do such things as you and your father's house have done to me, a stranger? for it was not to a king, but to a stricken wayfarer, you did it from the first." "yes, it is the command of our god, who taught it by the holy men he has raised up to lead our people. our patriarch job said: 'the stranger did not lie in the street: but i opened the door unto the traveller.'" "but," interposed hiram, "if the stranger were not merely a stranger; rather one, like myself, of a hostile race, as you jehovites must regard the baalites of the coast?" "in heart you are not of baal. our god knows his own; and he has given to some of his people a wondrous power of detecting all true souls. my father, ben yusef, through much communing with the lord, seems to be possessed of such spiritual sight. as you lay under the terebinth, before you came to your senses, my father cautioned us, saying: 'the favor of the lord is upon this stranger. what we do unto him will be as if done unto our god.' besides, did not the lord give your life into my keeping when he bade me look the moment you fell into the crater? did he not give me daring to go down into its very fires, and strength to carry you out? i have looked into that pit of brimstone since, and surely man alone could not have rescued you. and did not our god, at my prayer, give back your breath, that the hot air had burned out of you? your life is mine, and must i not guard it as i would my own life? if harm should come to you through my neglect, i would not dare to pray to our god again as long as i live." "strange people!" said hiram, half musing within himself. "in the tent of a shepherd i have learned more than all the world could teach me. i know nothing of gods, but i can pray one prayer to the god of israel. it is, that he will bless the house of ben yusef forever." "amen! and the throne of tyre!" said elnathan, as the two heartily embraced, and stood gazing a moment into each other's moonlit faces. hiram started on his way. he had gone but a few paces, when the jew recalled him. "i may serve you further. let me go with you, or let me follow you, that i may watch for you against dangers." "it must not be." "then give me some sign by which, if evil comes upon you, i may know that you have need of me." hiram paused a moment before he replied: "then let the sign be the mark of a circle. farewell!" he quickly disappeared through the shadows of the night. chapter xv. the morning found the fugitive by the sea of galilee. massive ruins lined the road along its western and northern shores. these were the memorials of the days before the babylonian captivity. blocks of stone, pretentious in size and over-ornamentation, evidently dated from the age of the great solomon. other blocks were inferior imitations of these, and were made, doubtless, in the times of the later kings. within the foundations of an ancient palace were loose stone cabins, belonging to the poor inhabitants, who gained a precarious living by adding to the scanty yield of the ground the better gleaning of the sea. here and there clumsy fishing-boats, drawn upon the beach or floating idly on the water, told of the decadence of the arts and enterprise that had marked preceding times. only nature was untouched by the degenerating influences of the age; and, fair as upon the day of its creation, lay the water, unrippled by the slightest breeze, mirroring the deep blue of the sky, like an immense piece of lapis-lazuli, in the setting of the encircling mountains. the silence and motionlessness of the sea imparted themselves to hiram. the rush of events and the intense excitement of the past few days had almost exhausted the active energies of his mind. as the strained strings of an over-used lyre give no sound, so he seemed no longer able to respond to even the rude alarms of danger. he was fleeing now, not with any sense of fear, but solely with the momentum of past impulses, as the heart sometimes continues to throb and the lungs to heave when conscious life has ceased. he realized his own mental condition. he felt the moral inertia. he said to himself: "i believe i would not move if egbalus pointed his sacrificial knife at my heart. i could walk into the arms of moloch." he could understand somewhat how the priests succeeded in preparing their human victims for unhesitating obedience at the fatal moment. he saw how the will becomes paralyzed by the strain of the previous terror, and how the wretched devotees lose the susceptibility to recoil even at the steps of the altar, as the leaves of the sensitive-plant, frequently rubbed by the fingers, no longer shrink at the touch. in this condition of mind, the stillness of the sea was very congenial to hiram. it invited him as a kindred spirit. out upon its placid bosom he could rest, without the necessity of arousing himself every moment to pass judgment on things that appealed to his suspicion. there, too, after yielding himself for a while to the soothing influences that lulled the air and water, he could plan for the future, instead of taking his cue, as heretofore he had been compelled to do, from the movements of his pursuers. should he go across the desert to damascus? to the plains of babylon? to the court at susa, and throw himself beneath the protecting shadow of the great king? to the solitude of the sinaitic mountains? or should he seek the coast of the great sea, and cross to greece? whither, when, with a few more turns, like those of the hunted fox, he shall have thrown the baal-hounds off the scent? and zillah! how her fair face shone in every bright thing he looked upon, and her frightened, agony-drawn features stared at him out of every gloomy object! there was so much to think about. and on the sea he could think. perhaps jehovah would help him think, or maybe speak to him. such a beautiful lake as this must be sacred to him who is god of mountains and water and sky alike. yonder where the sea blends with the distant shore, and the shore rises until it blends with the sky--surely that must be the meeting-place of earthly and heavenly influences, if gods ever commune with men. musing thus, he observed a fisherman's hut near by. one wall had once belonged to some palatial structure; the others were made of such broken stones as a man might carry from the heap of ruins that lay about it. the doorway of the hut was faced on the one side with a column of marble; on the other, with a polished slab of granite. in front of the hut was an oven; the half of a huge porphyry vase, inverted, served for the fire-back, and gave direction to the draught. on some coals a woman was broiling fish. on a flat stone, lying half in the fire, and covered with ashes, a man was baking thin sheets of yellow dough, to be subsequently rolled into loaves of bread. several others were lounging near, sleeping and bedraggled with the fishing of the past night. they welcomed hiram with a grunted salâm. "peace be to you!" "peace!" "peace!" said one and another, scarcely raising their eyes, as if the apparition of a persian soldier were too common to awaken interest. an elderly man, coming from the hut, eyed the new-comer more attentively. "another man from the coast of the great sea, eh! our persian masters are hiring phoenicians to be soldiers as well as sailors. but it takes more than change of skin to make a wolf of a fox; and a man from the coast can never pass with me for one from beyond the desert. the west wind blows you fellows inland as it does the salt-water gnats. but sit by, and the lord bless you! especially if your purse is lined with darics." though this speech was not assuring, hiram, with his recent memories, could not distrust a jew. he gave his entertainers some good-natured repartee, though their words had cut far deeper than they knew. "stranger!" said one, "tell us your story of that miracle at tyre." "i have not heard from tyre for many a day," replied hiram. "i am in the king's business, and have been going up and down in your land for a time. what was the miracle?" "ha! ha! think of old benjamin telling the news to a phoenician who boasts that he knows everything! why, they were going to offer up some prince or other--or was it a priest, ephraim? no matter which. well! the gods saved them the trouble. the sun grew bigger and bigger, and came down nearer and nearer, until he opened his mouth and swallowed up prince, priests, and five-score attendants. i would not believe it but that ephraim here, who had drunk plenty of leben that same day, says he saw the sun come bobbing down at him while fishing on the lake." hiram surprised himself at the heartiness with which he laughed at the story, and matched it with one he pretended to have heard some jews relate as belonging to their national traditions. "your great general, joshua, one day was taken with a chill in the midst of a battle. he could not even give the commands, but only chattered with the cold. then he bethought him to order the sun to come down and hang just over his head. it floated there like a red-hot shield until he had killed every man among the enemy. but who told you of the miracle at tyre?" "why," said benjamin, "the priests themselves. two were along here yesterday." "they were not priests," said ephraim. "they were, though," rejoined benjamin. "mother eve once mistook a snake for an honest creature; but i know a snake's wriggle and a priest's wriggle, in whatever disguise they may be. you could not be a priest of baal if you tried, stranger. your face is too honest. but those fellows yesterday--at least one of them--could not cast his priest's skin, though he was dressed like a merchant. he looked as if he wanted to glide down under the stones there, as they say the baalite priests live half the time in the vaults under their temples, pulling strings to make their gods move, and talking up through holes to answer the prayers of the silly people." "what were they doing here in the jews' land?" asked hiram. "they said they were searching for a young tyrian who had fallen heir to a fortune, who was travelling hereabouts, and did not know his good luck. may be you are the happy man." "i wish i were," replied hiram, "if for no other reason than to get rid of a very disagreeable journey. i must cross the lake at once, and go as far away as bozrah. the king's business keeps one as lively as a flea. i must have a boat." "you have only to pick it out; we have enough lazy fellows to sail it," replied benjamin, rising and looking along a row of boats. "i would go alone," said hiram. "i can leave with you the price of the boat against my getting wrecked, or being swallowed by this terrific sun of yours, whose heat must make him thirsty enough to drink up your little sea." "despise not its littleness," replied the jew. "it is as strong as the very dragon in the sky when it gets to rolling and writhing under the lord's frown." "a phoenician can tame any sea 'twixt tyre and tartesus. the heaviest winds that roar over galilee would be only as the song of a sea-bird to a sailor on the main," said hiram. "leave, then, your money, and sail it or sink with it, as you like," replied the rough fisherman. chapter xvi. hiram's experience enabled him to select the best among the boats, though it was one of the smallest. a package of smoked fish, a pile of thin bread cakes, and a bag of dates sufficiently provisioned his craft; and within a few moments he had pushed from shore. as he did so he observed two strangers approach the group he had left. they conversed a little with the fishermen, then suddenly turned and watched his receding boat. though several hundred cubits away, he could not mistake the bearing of one of them, who had not the stiff manner of a man used to toil in the fields, nor the firm but elastic step of a soldier, nor the swinging gate of a sailor, nor yet the dignified grace such as is soon acquired by a merchant, whose attire this man wore. hiram appreciated the keen detective instinct of benjamin, for he too could not mistake the priest of baal under that secular disguise. the mental habit of doing everything by indirection comes to impart itself to the physical motions, just as habitual secretiveness and hypocrisy show themselves in the face. besides, the temple service calls for little use of the muscles, and an old priest's body is not symmetrically developed. that would-be merchant could have come from nowhere but some temple. his every motion seemed ajerk with the bigotry of his business. hiram felt a tinge of pride in his powers of observation that was not, perhaps, fully warranted; for, though he had no recollection of having done so, he had often seen this same man among the priests at tyre. it was a case of unconscious memory. the other man was not so unique a specimen; indeed, having seated himself while the other was walking about and gesticulating, he was in better concealment. "but crow flies only with crow, and priest with priest," thought the king. hiram had gained two furlongs from the shore, when the men came to the boats and prepared to follow him. only heavier craft than his were left; but there were two rowers against one. they rigged the long oars, one swivelled on either side of the vessel, and each requiring the full strength of a man to wield it. one oarsman was awkward, but the other, by strength and skill, made up for the deficiency of his comrade, and by an alternate strong pull and back-water dip of the blade kept the boat steadily ploughing ahead, and slowly gaining upon the fugitive. for hiram to reach the eastern shore before being overtaken was impossible. he laid his plan. it was this: at the moment of contact to turn suddenly, and with the prow of his boat crash against the oar of the inexpert priest, break it, and glide off, leaving the heavy craft at the disadvantage of having but one propelling blade. the odds would then be with him. suddenly a dark shadow fell upon the water near the western shore, just beneath the gap in the hills. the shadow elongated itself like a serpent emerging from its hole. beneath it the water began to roll in billowy convolutions. the turmoil spread until, within a few moments, the entire lake was transformed into a vast caldron of boiling waters. the storm waves on the great sea were higher, but they were also longer, and more readily mounted than these. the galilee boats, too, were utterly untrimmed for such an emergency, as the fishermen were accustomed to strike for land at the first sign of a storm, and danger made them alert to anticipate it. but to hiram the wind-blow was a godsend. he invoked jehovah's blessing, and raised to its place the log that was called a mast, and swung from it the heavy square sail of goat's hair. let the storm drive him where it would! he would rather die a victim of the elements than fall under the gloating hatred of egbalus's crew of demons. but he did not expect to die. the storm-shriek was like a bugle blast, thrilling his courage. he shouted in triumph as he went bounding over the waves. a tyrian king! a sea king, indeed, was he! in the exhilaration of the moment he almost forgot his pursuers. but glancing back through the dense spray, he caught a glimpse of a heavy prow not far in his wake. above it hung a great sail that seemed like some black-winged spirit driving it onward to fulfil its accursed mission. the vessel disappeared an instant in the blinding mist, only to reappear a full length nearer. a moment more, and fate would ring down the curtain upon this tragedy. but hiram determined that the exit should be a climax, if there were any ghostly spectators to applaud; and drawing his dagger, he caught it in his teeth, and waited. fast as they flew, the waves rolled faster, and poured over the low stern of his vessel. crossing a shoal, the huge billows mounted higher, and one of immense size hovered an instant in air, like the jaw of some great behemoth pursuing its tiny prey, then fell upon the boat, swallowing her in its remorseless maw. hiram was prepared for this, and, being a tireless swimmer, kept afloat while he was flung through the breakers. his pursuers came on. being higher in the stern, the great waves caught and hurled their boat across the shoals. hiram cursed all the gods when he saw that, and even taunted jehovah as the hated craft flew past him. but a moment later he became as pious a jew as he had been a blasphemer; for the flying boat suddenly stopped; her mast bent forward; she swirled, careened, and sank. hiram could not see the shore through the blinding spray, but the billows were wings for him, and he was sure of holding out though the entire lake were to be crossed. the wind in an instant died away. the spray as quickly ceased to fly from the broken crests of the waves. the billows rolled, but seemed to have lost their force. they lifted him gently, and allowed him to glide onward. the shore was there, not a hundred strokes distant. but what was his consternation to see, scarcely three boat-lengths from him, a swimmer as strong as he. it became a race for life. hiram had kept his dagger in his teeth. he dived, intending to come up beneath his antagonist and plunge the blade into his body. but either he miscalculated the distance, or the man, discerning his purpose, had swum out of harm's way. it was now a question which should first reach the shore and seize his opponent with fatal advantage. hiram's strokes were tremendous, surpassing those that had won him the match so often in the harbor of tyre, before the dignities of the crown had forbidden his taking part in such sports. but they were now of no avail. his competitor kept abreast with him. they reached the shore almost at the same moment. hiram, striking a better footing, was first out of the water. seizing an enormous stone, he turned to crush the skull of his enemy before he could gain a foothold on the shelving beach. "my king! my king!" cried the man. hiram dropped the stone in bewilderment. "hanno! as sure as baal--as jehovah lives, it's hanno!" chapter xvii. an hour later a white chiton might have been seen hanging heavily in the sultry air from the limbs of a juniper bush, that grew out of a sandy mound between two great boulders on the eastern shore of the sea of galilee. under the shelter of the rocks were two men, the one having on only a pair of leather trousers; the other, but for a close-fitting shirt, entirely nude. this was not the most decorous position in which to find the king of tyre and his aristocratic nobleman; yet they both seemed supremely, even hilariously, happy. king hiram had completed the story of his adventures; and hanno, donning his chiton, entered upon the account of the events that had occurred recently at tyre. the priests, he said, after consultation, and with some misgiving as to their policy, agreed to encourage the popular belief that king hiram had been bodily translated to some heavenly world by the favor and power of baal. they boasted thus a greater miracle on the part of their god than those reported in the olden times of the exploits of jehovah in israel, who took enoch, moses, and elijah away without their seeing death. for several days the tyrian populace held high festival in devout celebration of this astounding event. the city was given over to orgies that drained much wealth into the coffers of the priests. half the jewels of tyre, and heaps of coins, were stored in the temple of melkarth. a hundred skins of choicest wine were poured into the sacred lake around the maabed. so many men offered themselves for the priestly occupation, expecting miraculous reward, that some of the shops of the artisans were closed for lack of workmen, and many ships were delayed in sailing because they were unmanned. perhaps ahimelek was the most ostentatious donor, "unless," said hanno, "i myself surpassed him in extravagant zeal. three ship-loads of dye-stuffs i emptied into the egyptian harbor, empurpling the water, and staining the stones of the quay with royal tints against the time of our king's return. "the priests were not long in discovering the real method of your disappearance, but to have confessed it would have brought the whole affair into such disrepute that the people would have torn egbalus and the rest of us to pieces." "but was your hand not suspected?" asked hiram. "i think not. i anticipated that i too should have to flee, and prepared to do so; but the falling of the foundation of the image, through the accidental burning of some wooden supports, completely blocked the passage from those who investigated it; and i have since removed every royal rag you left in the vault beyond. "egbalus summoned a few of the more cautious and desperate, among whom i was surprised to find myself, and revealed his own view and policy. the shrewd old fox was certain that you had escaped by some ruse. you must be tracked and killed, even if you had gone to where the nile begins in the melting of the mountains, or had become a savage in the islands of tin. priests were despatched to greece, to susa, to damascus, to memphis, and thebes. a dozen are tracking this jews' land. i volunteered in such fine frenzy--this fresh gash on my breast is the mark of my vow--that egbalus hugged me to his villainous heart, and called me a true son of baal, and offered me the fairest girl born of his concubine tissa for wife when i returned. "i thought to go out alone. but i knew little of these inland roads, so yoked myself with old abdemon, the shrewdest of all the priests. he was poor in tramping, and weak of arm, but had the wiliest head for this sort of business. he knew every path in the jews' land. i felt sure that he would get your foot-prints, unless you had taken to flight in the air; so i joined with him. he struck your trail at once. he scented you near the crater of giscala, and put the two devils you spoke of on guard there, while we watched here by the sea." "he was drowned when the boat sank?" asked hiram. "yes, he sank like a stone. if he had swum a stroke i would have choked him in the water. indeed, when i saw your boat go down i drew a dagger on him, but before i could use it our boat was in the same straits." "but what of zillah?" "there is nothing to report, except what was known to all before the day of the sacrifice. her father had made a close alliance with egbalus. believing that you were doomed, he offered his daughter to your cousin rubaal, and pledged the same dowry as he had pledged to you." "that shall never be!" cried hiram with impatient fury. "i will return to tyre, steal my way into the city, cut the throats of these wretches, and flee with my betrothed." "you shall return, but not now." "why not now? i cannot, i will not, wander about like a cowardly fugitive." "wait at least, my king, until you get the mail on your hand to strike the great blow that will shatter all this horrid tyranny at once. no harm can come to zillah. it was because i knew your hot blood and quick determination that i sought more eagerly to find you, and prevent your sudden return. trust me in tyre. the marriage with rubaal cannot take place until the next festival of astarte and tammuz. a hundred things may happen before that. patience! and then not mere vengeance, king hiram, but your restoration, and the renewed splendor of your power! i believe in it, and if the gods will not send it, we will make it. loving you as i do, i am not risking my life merely for yours, but for your crown as well. tyre must be saved, made rich, powerful, the mistress of sidon, the queen of the great sea, the conqueror of--" "peace! peace! good hanno. let's first think of how to save a whole skin, instead of gilding a new crown. but see! your boat has floated, and is drifting this way." hanno looked sharply at the distant object. "and, by the mouth of dagon! old abdemon is on her, clinging to her bottom." "i will smash his skull with the very stone i had selected for yours," cried the almost frantic king. "if i cannot dispense justice in my own kingdom, i can here." "no, no," said hanno; "leave him to me. get you gone out of sight. if he has seen you i will put him out of the way. if he has not seen you, he will confirm the report that you were drowned. that will recall all the priests from pursuit, and leave the field free for us to work. hide away!" hanno plunged into the sea, and swam to the floating wreck. abdemon was barely alive. he had ceased to cling, and was lying limp across the bottom of the upturned boat. the sea had subsided, else he had been washed off. it was nearly another hour before hanno was able to work the wreck to the beach and carry the nearly unconscious priest ashore. as abdemon recovered his senses, it was plain that he had seen nothing of what had occurred. "the cabeiri have avenged baal," cried he. "i could have died willingly after i saw the sea swallow up the traitorous king, but i could not bear the thought of being myself drowned in the same water. baal be praised! baal be praised!" "and now," suggested hanno, "we must hasten back to tyre with the news. the sooner the search ceases, and the priests return, the less danger of suspicion by the people. baal has taken his offering, whether by fire or water it matters not that the crowd should know." "baal be praised!" echoed abdemon. "could you not return alone?" asked hanno. "i, as a new priest, and one assigned by our most worshipful chief to the superintendency of our temple property, would learn of the practices of worship among these tribes of ammon and moab. and then i would visit jerusalem, where these jews are rebuilding their temple. i may learn much that will add to the splendor and impressiveness of our worship." after some further consultation hanno's plans were approved by his fellow-priest. they talked about the renovation of temples and the coming glory of the priestly guild, when the wealth of ahimelek should augment the treasury of melkarth. near nightfall a fisherman rowed hanno and abdemon across the upper end of the sea of galilee to one of the little hamlets there, and under the starlight he brought hanno back to the eastern shore. chapter xviii. the veracious chronicler of the adventures of king hiram is compelled to pass over in silence a period of several months. as certain rivers disappear, and flow for a distance beneath the ground, so the course of events, as directed by the discreet and wary hanno, was for a while inscrutable. we will follow it, however, from the point where it came again into the daylight of observation. since men began to travel on the earth, innkeepers have been noted for the courtesy, tact, and assiduity with which they have reaped the rewards of their business. on a certain day solomon ben eli, innkeeper at jericho, in the valley of the lower jordan, found all the above-named qualities of his disposition exercised to the utmost. this was the day before the opening of the annual feast of tabernacles at jerusalem, during the seven days of which celebration the men from all parts of the land came together at the sacred city. the hostelry at jericho--called beth elisha, in honor of the prophet whose miraculous cruse of salt once healed the spring hard by, which now supplied the town with delightful water--was a long, low building, rambling, and diverse as the various generations which had successively built upon it. during the night all its rooms and ingles had been crowded with pilgrims from up the jordan and beyond it. early in the morning, long before the sun had looked over the beetling cliffs of moab, the multitude poured forth into the court-yard. they were clad in gay garments of many colors, and were not unlike the variously plumed doves which came out of their adjacent cotes, and filled the air with their flapping wings and querulous cooing. the shed that enclosed the opposite side of the yard discharged a more turbulent crowd of horses and camels, asses and mules, which were kicking and rumping one another in the attempt to get their noses into the great stone trough that stood in the centre of the court. the crisp air resounded with the unedifying matins of mingled grunts, neighs, and brays, which were far from being reduced to harmony by the shouts of the drivers. it was easier for the host to seem ubiquitous than it was for him to command in himself such a variety of tempers as the occasion required. he must placate those who grumbled at their reckoning; hasten his laggard servants; adjudicate the quarrels of guests over the uncertain ownership of bits of harness; must smile, yet frown; beam knowingly, yet knit his brows in simulated perplexity; be patient, yet keep the sharpest eye and quickest tongue; and shift all these aspects in such rapid succession that they seemed to be simultaneous. we may forgive this prince of innkeepers if for a moment he did not maintain to perfection his manifold part. such was the moment when a servant announced to him that rabbi shimeal, the most noted man in the synagogue at jericho, would speak with him at the gate. "a pretty time of day for him to come! i'll warrant he has been up all night owling it over some verse of the law. or he wants a gift for the synagogue. tell him his affairs must wait until i can get this holy crowd off for the temple," was solomon ben eli's petulant response. the servant soon returned with the statement that the rabbi shimeal must have his assistance in providing a beast to convey to jerusalem no less a personage than ezra, the great scribe, who was a guest at the rabbi's house, and whose animal had given out under the terrible heat of the previous day, as he had journeyed through the villages of the jordan plain, pursuing his holy work of inspecting the copies of the law used in the newly established synagogues. solomon ben eli was shocked at this news, as if an angel's wing had brushed his face. "heaven forgive me!" said he, making low obeisance before his servant, in obliviousness to the fact that that son of gibeon was not the great man of god himself. "but this is unfortunate," he added, rubbing his hands nervously. "i have not a horse left, nor a camel, and not even an ass." the attention of the bystanders being drawn to the host's dilemma, a marvellous spirit of sympathy with him and of devotion to ezra was instantly displayed. every one urged upon his neighbor the duty of self-sacrifice, as if each were ashamed of the others for allowing the great scribe's detention or even inconvenience. "if my horse was strong and handsome, like yours," said one, "i would gallop at once to the rabbi's. mine is but a spavined beast, and it would be a disgrace for the holy man of god to bestride him." "i would instantly offer my steed," responded the other, "but he is poorly broken, and the scribe--be it reverently spoken--is too old to control him. i could never forgive myself if my beast were the cause of ezra's breaking his holy neck among the rocks of cherith." a young man stood by who was noticeable from the fact that his garments were richer in texture than those of most of the pilgrims, though he was not arrayed for the festival. his cloak, which he drew closely around him as a protection from the chill morning air, was that of a traveller. beneath it he wore a belt, which supported both a sword and an inkhorn, and thus indicated the trade of merchant. the short black beard about his lower features was balanced by a head-dress of black silk, which was bound about his brows with a purple cord, and fell down upon the back of his neck and shoulders. he was plainly a phoenician, but confessed that many months had elapsed since he had been to the coast. for his identification and safety from the imposition of petty officials in the various lands he might have occasion to traverse in following his trade, he carried a letter issued by king hiram of tyre, and bearing the royal seal. similar letters were borne as passports by all the captains of vessels and masters of caravans who represented the genuine business houses in the cities of phoenicia; and by these credentials they were distinguished from the irresponsible adventurers who, in the convenient disguise of travelling merchants, infested all those countries. the young merchant, observing the perplexity of solomon, the host, addressed him: "if his excellency the great scribe will accept the courtesy of a stranger, let him take any of my beasts." "thanks, noble marduk!" replied the innkeeper, in grateful relief. "but i regret that my own people are thus rebuked by a gentile." "nay," replied marduk, "i would not rebuke your people. they have each only one riding-beast, while i have many. my animals are lightly laden, and we can distribute the burden of one upon the others." "and, i bethink me, the scribe will ride upon nothing but an ass," replied solomon. "he cites the growing infirmities of years as his excuse. i will convey your courteous offer to the rabbi." "and bid him say to the scribe," added the phoenician, "that if he can delay his departure until the crowd has preceded us, my party will gladly bear him company." chapter xix. an hour later the inn-yard was deserted, except by a single group of persons who, notwithstanding their exceedingly diverse appearances, were preparing to depart together. there was the party of marduk, which, besides the merchant himself, consisted of eliezar, a damascene, a shrewd tradesman to whom were intrusted the details of the business; and there were half a score of others who filled the various offices of the travelling camp--cook, tent-maker, camel-drivers, muleteers, and the like. with their clattering tongues and jangling accoutrements, as they ranged their various beasts for the journey, they were in unique contrast with the company of jews who had accepted their convoy. chief among the latter was ezra the scribe. he was slight in natural stature, which was further diminished by the bowing weight of years. long gray forelocks hung down from his temples and mingled with his beard. his forehead was high and straight. his face showed the incipient emaciation of advancing years, being sunken beneath the cheek-bones. restless gray eyes twinkled in their deep setting, and suggested his undiminished brightness of intelligence. his whole aspect betokened great amiability and kindliness of disposition, united, however, with rigid firmness of conviction and powers of patient endurance. one who was over-critical in reading the countenance might perhaps have pronounced it lacking in indications of that self-assertion and daring which fit a man for leadership in troublous times. marduk said to himself: "that man would never make a soldier; though he might make a martyr." the scribe was accompanied by two young men. one was malachi, whose face, though not beautiful, was strangely prepossessing. the deep weather-tinge did not take from it a sunny brightness, a sort of translucency due to habitual high and pure thinking. his head, however, seemed to overweight his body. his eyes were large, and wide open; and, while really fixed upon one's face, gave the impression of being focused upon something beyond or within one. his brows were heavy, and, at times, seemed to project until they dropped new shadows upon his face, whose lines contracted under the intensity of painful thoughts. as marduk afterwards noticed, malachi was often absent-minded; indeed, was never entirely otherwise. while engaging freely in conversation, he was never fully engaged by what was said; and, though he contributed more than most men to the elucidation of various subjects, one felt that he reserved more than he gave; that he was a critic rather than a participant in what was going on. he seemed to be two persons; the greater personality unexpressed, but observant and waiting. marduk was not surprised at the innkeeper's information that malachi was the favorite pupil of ezra, and that the scribe did not hesitate to pronounce the young man's spiritual discernment as something akin to the prophetic gift. he even had said that, when he prayed for the renovation of israel, he could not avoid associating his hopes in some way with the career of his young disciple. malachi's companion was in every respect diverse. marduk noticed first of all this man's fine physique. he was robust and muscular; round-headed; red-haired; rollicking, yet quick-tempered; impudent at one moment, and apologetic the next. for instance, while malachi reverently bowed his head, and waited until ezra was first seated on his beast before mounting his own, his young comrade seemed to forget his obeisance, and, without ceremony, almost lifted the scribe in his strong arms, and placed him in the high saddle upon the rump of the ass. then, at a bound, he was astride his own restless charger. solomon ben eli whispered to marduk that this young man was manasseh, grandson of the high priest eliashib; who might one day come into that office himself--that is, if he could curb his restless disposition as effectively as he curbed his steed. the good host also ventured the further information that ezra loved manasseh, and had said that he was "only like the sea of galilee, which often hides its transparent depth beneath a ruffled surface." solomon added to this his own criticism: "if manasseh once settles down, he will make just the man to reform israel. he has immense will and courage, and draws the best young blood of jerusalem with him. but if he does not change, he will be only like a stout centre-pole of a tent that is not well set, tottering in the wind, and endangering the whole, however strong may be the cords and stakes. it is a pity that he and malachi cannot be rolled into one, be thoroughly mixed, and then be evenly divided into two again, as the flour and the butter in the making of two cakes." solomon parted with his guests, as they passed from his gate, with that versatile courtesy which innkeepers and politicians alone acquire to perfection. he reverently kissed the hand of the scribe. he bowed with great respect to malachi. he gave manasseh a whisper that provoked his merriest laugh. but he pressed his hand heartily with marduk's--perhaps the sensation of the merchant's generous darics had not yet left his own palm. the cavalcade once on the road, ezra made his grateful acknowledgment to the phoenician for the use of his beast. "i would you had selected a nobler animal!" said marduk, smiling at the picture of the greatest man of the jewish nation sceptred with a donkey-punching stick, having declined the service of an attendant to propel the beast from behind. "the little ass and i will be good friends," replied ezra, facetiously. "his short steps will not jostle my thoughts. an attendant might make havoc in my meditations by punching him at an unfortunate moment." then he more seriously added: "know, good marduk, that the ass is a most honorable beast. there is a prediction among us hebrews that, when our great king shall come, he will make his triumphant entry into jerusalem riding upon an ass. and, besides," resuming his pleasantry, "our psalmist says, 'a horse is a vain thing for safety,' as you will be apt to find out before we get through the rocky ravine between this and enshemesh, unless your steed's feet have been trained like those of the goats." "i am told that the way before us is noted for the license taken by robbers," said marduk. "my company will therefore be a safe escort." "i accept your company heartily," replied ezra, "but will need no protection. it is now many years since i came from babylon. i then refused to ask of the great king an escort of soldiers, for the hand of our god is upon all them for good that seek him. from that day i have never borne a weapon, nor had an armed attendant. i have gone safely throughout the land, and even among the jews scattered abroad, and have found no evil; nor will i ever. "but the route we are taking will be of interest to you, i think, without the hazard of carnal adventure. the deep gorge we are entering, and up which we must climb some three thousand cubits before we reach the high ground of olivet, takes its name from the brook cherith, and is famous as having been the hiding-place of our prophet elijah, where he was fed by ravens during a terrible famine that came upon our land according to his prediction. it was during the reign of king ahab and his sidonian wife, jezebel, a priestess of astarte, who made israel to sin in following baal. but pardon this unkind allusion to the worship of your people. i would not wound another's convictions, however strongly i might hold my own." "do not apologize for it," replied marduk. "one should speak of his faith freely in his own land; and i think also in all lands. therefore, i venture to make an argument for the phoenician faith, assuming the recent news from the coast to be true. your land is famous for its miracles, but tyre just now seems the special arena for divine exploits." "you refer, doubtless, to the alleged translation of king hiram?" replied ezra. "i have not investigated the story; nor do i think one needs to do so in order to judge of it. it is, even in its own assumption, totally different from the miracles of israel. ours were openly wrought by god, with his high hand and outstretched arm. all people could judge them; as the dividing waters of the red sea and jordan, the sun standing still in heaven, and the like. but the marvel of tyre was wrought, i am told, within a cordon of priests who carefully surrounded the place. now, a miracle wrought for priests is apt to be a priest-wrought miracle. but--" the conversation was interrupted by marduk's horse suddenly taking fright, losing his footing on the narrow path, and nearly precipitating its rider into the brook cherith, which gleamed, a tiny thread of white water, far below. as by dexterous management he enabled the horse to recover himself, marduk laughingly admitted that he was enough of a jew now to believe the psalmist's saying about the horse being a vain thing for safety, at least in such places as this. "but what have we here?" he cried, leaping from his beast. "this earth did not give way itself. the path has been dug under, and only the surface shell left. it is a prepared avalanche; and, by the rays of baal! there is an ambushment below. see! the villains are skulking back into the hills. they were to tumble us and our baggage down there, and then pluck us at their leisure." ezra raised his hands in prayer, and repeated: "we thank thee, o lord, for the fulfilment of thy promise through thy servant moses: 'surely he shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler. he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone.'" the phoenician was as much impressed with the beauty and tranquillity of the scribe's faith as with the horrible catastrophe that had so nearly overwhelmed them; especially as he recalled ezra's statement that so his god had always delivered him. chapter xx. from this point of the journey marduk insisted on riding ahead with manasseh, lest new dangers might await them. that sort of clairvoyance which generous souls have in detecting congenial spirits quickly put these two young men at ease with each other. their horses were not unmatched in strength and nerve, and caught from their riders a sense of good-fellowship. scarcely waiting their masters' will, they dashed together up the steep ascents, raced across the open spaces, and waited impatiently with tossing manes and pawing hoofs for the laggard train. their riders ran many a tilt of wit and braggadocio, rivalling each other in their stories of adventure. the merchant related exploits in many lands; enough to have made the reputation of a veteran soldier, sailor, and merchant combined. "it is a pity you are not a jew," said manasseh. "we have some quick blood at jerusalem that would mix well with yours. you see this dagger!" tossing a bright blade into the air, and catching it deftly by the handle. "father ezra there does not know that his good boy goes armed. i keep this just as a memento of an escapade some of us youngsters made from the walls of jerusalem one night. we sacked a camp of samaritans who had come too near us and blocked the road to the north gate. every day these half-breed marauders sent some insult to our people; but never after that night. nehemiah, our governor, thought that he and ezra had prayed them away; and so these saints stole our credit." "i am part jew," replied marduk, "for i belong to all nations. see, here are my credentials!" producing a handful of coins. "the golden ring of egypt, the double-stater of greece, the daric of persia, and the shekel of you jews. one metal, many shapes; so man is one, nations and customs many; and, for all that you and i know, one god, and many notions of him. el, bel, baal, jove, jehovah, the same metal in thought, but stamped with different dies. all gods are one." "say rather that one god is all," interposed malachi, who had ridden up just in time to catch the last sentence. the party halted for rest and lunch at the upper end of the ravine of cherith. the travellers were awed into silence by the view here presented. the ravine is a jagged cut in the earth, nearly five hundred cubits deep, in places scarcely wider than the tiny brook that glides like a shining serpent at its bottom, and winds down, with a thousand turns, for miles, until it debouches between awful cliffs into the open valley of the jordan. refreshments were furnished from the well-stocked hampers of the merchant. the mules and horses were unladen and tethered. the ungainly camels crouched down for relief under their loads. after an hour's rest the jews proposed to take their leave of their kind patron of the road, and hasten on to jerusalem. the merchant's beasts should not be hurried, but manasseh avowed that ezra would rather die of exhaustion on the road than be left outside the gates of jerusalem after sunset on this particular night, which was that of the preparation for the great feast of tabernacles. the parting of marduk and manasseh was not until the latter had exacted a promise from the phoenician that he would become his guest while in the city. the jews joined with others of their nation, pilgrims to the city, who had halted for midday rest, and who now made their way towards enshemesh joyous with their songs, such as: "i was glad when they said unto me, let us go into the house of the lord. our feet shall stand within thy gates, o jerusalem, whither the tribes go up, the tribes of the lord, unto the testimony of israel, to give thanks unto the name of the lord." scarcely had the pilgrims disappeared over the hill-tops when two men were observed climbing up through the ravine. they rode upon mules. one was old; the other a stalwart youth. eliezar, the damascene steward of marduk's camp, recognized the elder one as he drew near, and ran out to meet him. "why, it is ben yusef of giscala! and this is the fine lad whom i last saw the height of a kid! the air of galilee grows big men, as it grows big hills." "but what brings eliezar here?" asked ben yusef. "was not the northern country of syria large enough for the sale of your merchandise?" in a few words eliezar narrated how that, from being a private peddler of such goods as a meagre purse could buy, he had come to be the viceroy, satrap, tirshatha, prime-minister, or whatever term of speech might suit the office, of no less notable a merchant than marduk, famed in many lands for his great enterprise--"marduk of tyre." "of tyre!" exclaimed ben yusef. "then elnathan and i would speak with him." marduk had eyed the new-comers with that keenness which a merchant acquires in recognizing the sort of men it will pay to deal with, and had turned away to give orders for the reloading of his beasts, but approached the strangers on hearing ben yusef's remark. "i am marduk of tyre, and your servant," said he, bowing with indifferent courtesy. "my lad has acquaintance there, of which he would inquire," replied the old man. elnathan walked a little way with marduk; and, as they turned, the latter was heard to say: "i can give no information, for my route has been from egypt across the desert of arabia. nor can i offer you encouragement, since it may be some moons yet before i again visit the coast. but if your galilean flocks are well fleeced we may some day strike a bargain for their wool." ben yusef and his son, with suitable apologies for their intrusion upon the great merchant's privacy, and with familiar parting from eliezar, went their way towards jerusalem. marduk's party followed. chapter xxi. the last glow had faded from the western sky as marduk looked towards it over the shoulder of olivet. but there burst upon the view of the phoenician a scene of weird magnificence. the stars above seemed to reflect themselves in hundreds of lights that gleamed along the hill-side, and from the valley between olivet and the city. in sombre contrast with these, the walls of jerusalem, with their regular outline broken by the temple and scattered turrets, rose black as a rayless night. but as marduk gazed, the temple suddenly blazed as if with volcanic brilliance. it seemed like some massive altar in the midst of flames that had fallen upon it out of heaven. every graceful architectural line was revealed, every burnished plate of gold and brass glowed in the fire. only the outer surface of the city walls remained unillumined, and in their immense mass of darkness made the contrast startling and sublime. marduk's awe did not stifle his phoenician curiosity; and, leaving his men to arrange his camp, he turned towards a couple of jews who were engaged in erecting a booth near him. they proved to be ben yusef and his son. the venerable man was evidently inclined to be communicative, if one might judge from the low tones in which they conversed, as they walked among the booths and back into the shadows of olivet. anon they stood by marduk's tent, while the jew pointed out the objects of interest, and explained their significance. "there are in the court of the temple two enormous lamp standards, each fifty cubits in height, and supporting four immense basins of oil. the garments worn by the priests during the year have been twisted into great wicks, and now at a signal have been suddenly lighted. see, too, hundreds of hand-torches are being waved by priests who crowd the court! the night gloom that first hung over the city symbolled the moral and spiritual darkness which we jews believe hangs over all the nations, as our prophet isaiah said, 'behold, darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people.' the bursting illumination, throwing its glare for leagues through the night, expresses our faith that the truth of jehovah shall shine forth from judaism and fill all lands, as isaiah also says, 'arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the lord is risen upon thee. and the gentiles shall come to thy light and kings to the brightness of thy rising.'" "but what mean the sudden shouting and singing?" asked marduk. "listen closely," replied ben yusef, "and you will hear the levites, who stand on the fifteen steps leading from the women's court. they strike their harps and cymbals as they chant the fifteen songs of degrees, some of which you may have heard the pilgrims singing as they were coming up hither. see! they are dancing over there; and soon the whole city, and these multitudes outside, will join the innocent revelry. it is a sin not to be merry to-night. the man whose griefs have made him shun the face of his fellows must be neighborly now. the stranger must make a comrade of the one next to him. our god is a happy divinity, and men may share the joy of the lord." marduk did not sleep that night. most of the hours were spent in the company of ben yusef and elnathan. they wandered among the booths, which the jew said were everywhere, not only in the fields, but in the city, wherever there was space enough in the streets, in the house-courts, on the roofs, on the walls. indeed, the stone city and the stony hills about were mantled with an artificial forest of palm and pine, olive and myrtle. "but," asked marduk, "how dare so many jews leave their homes to come hither in such times as these? the samaritans and other enemies of your nation must take advantage of this." "no," replied ben yusef; "our god, who stopped the mouths of the lions when our prophet daniel was thrown to them by nebuchadnezzar, stops the wrath of our enemies at such times. when our three annual festivals were set up, ages ago, in the days of moses, jehovah promised: 'neither shall any man desire thy land when thou shalt go up to appear before the lord thy god thrice in the year.' i leave my own little girl alone in my tent in far galilee, fearing no evil for her until i return." all night long joy echoed from the walls and over the hills about jerusalem. with the first pale shimmer of daylight over olivet came a hush. the people stood by their booths, with faces turned towards the city, in silent expectation. at length a sweet note floated out from the temple precinct. ben yusef pointed to the distant forms of two priests who, leaving the temple, advanced eastward across the court, carrying great silver trumpets. reaching the wall, they suddenly turned their backs to the east, and shouted in loud tones these words: "our fathers once turned their back to the sanctuary, and their faces to the east, and worshipped the sun-god: but we will lift our eyes to jehovah." soon a thick column of smoke rose from the great altar in the temple court, and outspread above the sacred precinct like a canopy, its edges fraying in the scarcely moving air, and, as marduk said, "floating some fringes of its blessing to the good heathen beyond." "yes," replied ben yusef, "for during the week of festivity seventy bullocks will be offered--a round number for all the nations of the world." chapter xxii. scarcely had the phoenician inspected his own camp, and eaten his breakfast, when manasseh approached. his coming was heralded by a commotion among the people, who everywhere recognized the aristocratic descendant of the high priest, his well-known freedom of life and liberalism in opinion rendering him at once the most popular and unpopular of the young men of jerusalem. he insisted upon acting the part of host to marduk, or at least of guide for the day. "our jewish customs will interest you; and, in turn, i would learn from you the ideas of the many peoples you have come to know in your travels, so that our obligations will be mutual and equal, to say nothing of your courtesy yesterday," was the argument by which manasseh overcame the phoenician's scruples. together the young men mingled in the crowds, each carrying the lulabh, a bunch of myrtle and palm entwined with a willow spray. at the temple they saw the two processions, one headed by a priest bearing in a golden pitcher water from the pool of siloam, the other by a priest carrying a pitcher of wine, which they poured together at the base of the altar. manasseh explained this beautiful ceremonial as an oblation of gratitude for the rain that fertilized the fields and for the yield of the vineyards. they afterwards joined with a multitude in front of a raised platform, from which was an almost continuous reading of the ancient laws of israel by different persons. the readings were only interspersed with brief interpretations by rabbis of repute. the deepest interest was manifested when the venerable scribe, ezra, mounted the platform, accompanied by malachi. the former began to speak, but his voice was not heard beyond the group immediately about him. it was evident, however, that he had said little beyond commending to the people his disciple malachi. marduk was surprised at the awe with which the young interpreter was received. but this surprise did not remain as malachi spoke. such simplicity combined with elevation of thought, such reasonableness with rapt fervor, such practicality with deep spirituality, the phoenician had never heard before. he felt the spell of the speaker's eloquence, and was about to join the crowd as they murmured their amen to a special appeal to conscience and faith, when his thoughts were interrupted by manasseh's hand upon his arm: "come, good marduk, this can hardly interest you. you are to break bread with me." to marduk's hesitation to inflict his heathen presence upon the household of the high priest at such a time, manasseh explained that he lived by himself during the festival. he had pitched his booth upon a house-top. according to custom, every jew was to keep open table. "and lest your humility should again object to becoming my guest," said he, laughing, "i will tell you that we are enjoined at such times not to invite our own family or particular circle, but to share our provender with the stranger, the poor, and the fatherless. and you are a stranger--i hope neither poor nor fatherless." "yes, especially poor," said marduk, jingling coins in his wallet. "so with that understanding i will go with you, provided you will also feed figs to a spavined ass if we find one on the way." "there is one of our customs i do not like," replied manasseh, drawing his arm through that of his friend, "especially when i am hungry. an old saw has it that devout people will hasten to worship, but return to their homes with lingering feet; so you see all these people crawling along when their bellies would fly. mine is as empty as the whale's was when he had ejected jonah." as they walked leisurely the phoenician remarked: "if there are bigots among the jews, you are not one of them." "i trust not; but it is because i believe more than most jews." "believe more? one would imagine less." "on the other hand, i believe more. i believe the lord is too great a god to be confined to jews' notions. they belittle him. i love ezra for personal reasons; but i wish the lord would take him to heaven in a chariot of fire, if he would only take along our tirshatha, nehemiah, to drive it. nehemiah, you know, is in susa now. i hope the persian king will keep him there. nehemiah is a bigot. he insists on driving out of jerusalem every woman whose blood is not of the purest jewish stock, forcibly divorcing her from her husband, and disinheriting her children." "what argument can they advance for such harsh measures?" "oh, the need of pure blood; the fact that solomon got into trouble through marrying foreign wives; the fact that the children of mothers who were gentiles would not be stiff enough in keeping up strictly jewish customs. i admit that the mixing of bloods has not strengthened pure judaism of late, and that some whom nehemiah calls the half-breeds are pulling up as fast as he plants. i am not a rebel, not a traitor to my people, because i want to see the jewish religion broadened and liberalized, until you baalites even can worship at our altars. our old prophecies speak of our light enlightening the gentiles. but how can that be if we shut our light in the stone lantern of our own notions and customs?" "does malachi hold closely with ezra and nehemiah?" asked marduk. "that i cannot say. i hope not, for malachi is the coming power in jerusalem. he seems inspired at times; and, for that matter, he once told me he thought he was; that he felt the impulse of thoughts that came from beyond himself. he said something like this: 'at times my holiest feelings seem unholy; my highest thoughts grovelling. a sense of the law of the lord binds my sense of right, as a vast crystal holds within it some speck of dirt that glistens.' he says, also, he has impressions he cannot utter; as if he stood in the presence of some glorious being who was coming to be the king of israel. he cannot shake off the feeling. but here we are at my booth." chapter xxiii. the two young men turned in at a little gateway leading from the street, entered a small court, and climbed a stone stairway that ran up the outside of the building to the roof. a booth of four upright poles, covered with brush and leaves, made a shelter from the noon sun that was beating hot upon the stone parapets. the repast showed that manasseh was as free in living as he was in thinking. the richest condiments and wines of various vintages were used in a familiar manner, and evinced that manasseh was in no need of instruction in the art of feasting from even the travelled marduk. the perfect day overhead, the magnificent landscape of the hills roundabout jerusalem, a samaritan banner far off towards the north, which waved its harmless defiance to the streamers that floated from the hundreds of booths in the valley of jehosaphat and on the slopes of olivet--and perhaps the generous flow and mixture of wines--warmed the hearts of the young feasters into familiarity and confidence. "manasseh, you would make a superb high priest, only your urim and thummim should have, instead of the twelve stones for the tribes of israel, seventy gems for all the rest of the heathen world, for whom, i understand, you offer seventy bullocks during this festival. now, i am in the merchandise business, and can trick you out with them. but i am afraid these stiff jews will never give you the breastplate, unless you repent. tell me frankly why you show so much heat about the jews not being allowed to marry foreign wives. your blood is clear enough from aaron." "i stand for the principle of the thing, marduk." "that is good," replied the phoenician. "but perhaps you would like a heathen girl thrown in along with the principle, as this good bethlehem wine is spiced with something that grew in arabia. a handsome fellow like you, who goes prowling about among the samaritans, must have seen fairer flesh than is caged in jerusalem. i suspect that some moabitish ruth, like the one your great boaz married, has tempted your patriotism. eh? or some egyptian, like the priest's daughter your mighty moses picked up? why not start a harem of beauties, as solomon did? come now, tell me your secret--for you show no such gall about any other subject." manasseh got up, walked to the parapet and leaned over, as if searching for his answer in the stony street below. coming back to the booth, he slapped marduk on the shoulder, with-- "well, since you have guessed, i will confess it. and, marduk, to be bold about it, you can help me." "i? why, of course i can. i have decked out many a maiden, and can present you yours in all the elegance of the queen of sheba, who, you say, fell in love with that other gay jerusalemite, king solomon. what will you have? pearls from the lands beyond the euphrates? diamonds that were once in the crown of kassandane, the blind queen of cyrus the great? silks from damascus, dyed in the purple of tyre? ointments and perfumes of the newest fashion in athens? give me your list." "i wish i could buy these," said manasseh. "but you forget that we jews did not steal the treasury of darius, when we came back from babylon. yet there is something more valuable than any of these i would get first." "why, what an ambitious fellow you are! i have mentioned the rarest trinkets in the world. what more would you have? name the article: i will try to get it." "agreed! get out your tablets." "agreed! what is it?" "i want the girl." "ho! ho!" laughed marduk. "your love is like heat-lightning; it has flashed, but struck nothing. you would like me to bring you a statue, such as one of our tyrian kings made, which was of such marvellous beauty that it came to life, and jumped into his arms." "no," said manasseh, "mine has life, but i cannot get her into my arms." "hum-m-m!" ejaculated marduk, taking his turn in walking to the parapet and looking over. he brushed some troubled wrinkles from his brow as he turned towards his friend. he slapped manasseh on the shoulder. "i will do it, if possible," said he. manasseh had closely watched marduk's action, and baited a question with a similar suspicion. "would you not like me to help you? i have wondered what led a thriving merchant like you to go through our land; for our people are too poor to buy your wares. some jewish maiden? eh? let's make a compact. i will help you to yours, if you will help me to mine. there is lawful precedent for your marrying a woman of my race. in our annals we read that when king solomon would build the temple, king hiram of tyre sent him a famous artisan, who was also named hiram--for it seems that half the babies of your town are called by that name: i wonder how you escaped the common title--and this workman, hiram, was the son of a tyrian man by a jewish woman. and here is tobiah, the satrap of the ammonites, who is now honored with rooms in our temple, much to the grievance of ezra. he married the daughter of one of our best citizens, shechaniah. so tell me the dove that you are swirling through our skies to pounce upon, and i will help you in any honorable way. if nehemiah should return, he could not forbid your marriage. all he could do, if by any means he acquired the power he aims at, would be to drive you from the city. but if you can help me to the possession of my dove, i can offer you a royal refuge, for i shall have a power that even the tirshatha could not long dispute." "oh! i see it all," said marduk, "you would be son-in-law to sanballat of samaria. but do you have the heart of the maiden? indeed, have you ever seen her? she is reputed to be of queenly beauty, but of an untamed moabitish spirit. woe to you if you catch a tigress for her spots!" "seen her? ah, my dear friend, when you go to see her on my behalf you will not need to tell my name, but just let her look into your eyes. she will see me pictured there by your very thought of me. seen her? ay, by daylight, and moonlight, and, best of all, by eyelight, when our lashes touched. there are exits from jerusalem that few know, and i have more than once been reported sick in my chamber, when i was in the tent of sanballat." "say no more," said marduk. "i will help you to a soft place in the samaritan's palace, and to the soft arms of the fair nicaso: and you will help me--if i want you to?" "it is agreed," eagerly cried manasseh. "bring out the parchments." "no, we will not write it, lest the flies read it and buzz it into the ears of men." "crack a stone then, and each carry a half, in pledge that each will fit himself into the other's plans, as one part of the stone fits into the other." a broken bit from the stone parapet that surrounded the roof was cracked in two. each placed a piece in his wallet, and, with many wishes for mutual success, the young men parted. chapter xxiv. the town of samaria crowned the hill that rises from the centre of a magnificent valley, like an inverted cup in a lordly dish. far away to the east stand the mountain walls of gilead and ammon and moab; while on the west stretch the uplands of ephraim and the gleaming waters of the great sea. the nearer hills, terraced into gigantic steps, and ordinarily luxuriant with vineyards and fig gardens, were now covered with rankest vegetation of wild growth, at once nature's rebuke and invitation to the husbandman. the old palace of ahab, built with bankrupting magnificence by that renegade king of israel, had long since fallen to ruin. hard by stood a sarcophagus in which had once rested the spice-embalmed body of some fair princess, but which was now the feeding-trough for a herd of swine. a superb pillar of porphyry, polished until it had once reflected the gay lights that flashed about it, was now a scratching-post for the cattle that roamed at will through the valley. since the persian king had appointed sanballat, the moabite chieftain, to be satrap of samaria, the land had been somewhat improved. the bats had been frightened out of the niches in the palace. the storks no longer sat enthroned upon the stately columns, nor posed upon one leg, with drooping wings, looking down lugubriously upon the passer-by--the symbolic funeral directors of dead empires since time began. the great cedar roof that once spanned the hall had been succeeded by a double awning of canvas--the outer covering of black goat's hair, the inner of white linen, upon which were wrought tapestries whose gay colors compensated for their rude forms. by the side of the grand doorway, with its enormous lintels and cracked cross-piece of stone, stood the tall banner-staff of the satrap, in sight of a hundred tents which sheltered the standing army of samaria. this band of braves was composed chiefly of moabitish men, swarthy, long-limbed, with treacherous looks, as if seeking to repel the historic taunt of their ill-begetting as a race from the incestuous daughter of lot. their officers were lithe and gallant persians, each one of whom boasted the various deeds he would have performed if the last expedition against the greeks had not been chiefly a naval affair. more plausible, perhaps, were their stories of hair-breadth escapes in their adventures connected with the harems of babylon and susa. sanballat, the satrap, was not in military mood as he reclined upon a long divan in his pavilion. seated upon the floor beside him, fondling his long beard, was a young girl. a glance could detect their relationship. the stiff black bristles that stood upon the man's head were surely of kin to the raven locks that fell softly about her temples. both had the same jet eyes. in hers the pupils contrasted finely with the pure white balls; in his they were set in blood-shot orbs. her forehead was low and broad, but moulded as if by some sculptor; his was of the same outline, but knobbed, as if with fiercer passions, and wrinkled by a hundred cares, no one of which had as yet dropped a shadow upon her brow. the father's straight lips were slightly arched in the daughter. her lips won by asking; his evidently gained only by commanding. his skin was tanned and roughed by years of exposure to the elements, perhaps discolored by excessive use of wine; hers was bronzed by the kissing of the syrian sun, but not enough to hide the healthy blood that tinted itself through, and displayed her beauty in all the delicate shades of blushes. the crimson upon her cheeks and temples was just now of a deeper hue than usual, as sanballat was saying: "my nicaso must let her father keep charge of her heart. the satrap's daughter shall not be as other maidens, the prey of any fine fellow whose manner may be pleasing. such a face and form as yours, to say nothing of your lineage, would gain you admission to the court of susa or memphis. old orpha, your nurse, tells me that you talk overmuch of some young swain. i do not ask who, for none worthy of my fair one lives in samaria." "i believe you," replied the girl, playfully plucking a gray hair from his beard. "no one in samaria is good enough for the great sanballat's daughter. i will sell for too much; for--a satrapy of all palestine, if artaxerxes likes my looks! or for an alliance with the new king of tyre, if the daughter of the rich ahimelek dies broken-hearted because baal will not send back her hiram." she leaped to her feet, and, catching up a timbrel, gracefully performed the movement of a dance. "by astarte!" cried the satrap, "such a woman never graced this place since jezebel. aha! no little ahab shall catch my wild pigeon. have a care, nicaso, who sets a snare for you!" her laugh rang merrily. "be sure i shall keep myself bright and safe, like a new coin in the box, for the day of sale." she looked between the swinging curtains. "but here comes one handsome enough to be cup-bearer to you, father, when i have bought you a throne. i will begone. only don't sell me through him. he is a merchant. one, two, three camels heavily laden, and himself on horseback. he could trinket me out fit for tammuz himself, i have no doubt. and, father," she threw her arms fondly about his neck, "just a necklace, or an anklet, or an armlet, or a cap of coins! i will sell better for an ornament." the girl disappeared through the rear of the pavilion into the palace enclosure. sanballat rose to welcome his visitor at the entrance. the traveller dismounted from his horse, and made a low salâm, which the satrap returned as cordially as his reserve of official dignity permitted. "i am marduk, servant, if you will permit, to my lord sanballat," said the stranger. "ah, marduk of tyre! your fame as a merchant has come before you. welcome good marduk of tyre." "i hardly deserve the title 'from tyre,' for many months have passed since i worshipped melkarth in his temple there. i am rather a citizen of the world. the isles of greece, the nile to the cataracts, the shores of the red sea, the lands of ammon and moab, and even jerusalem might claim me." "the more welcome, then," replied sanballat. "the proverb says, 'a travelled man is a wise man,' but it ought to have said, if he did not linger too long in jerusalem; for only fools are there. shake off the dust of the jews' land, and make one of us, good marduk." servants relieved the stranger of his upper garment and sandals; they brought water and washed his feet. others offered refreshments, of which sanballat partook with his guest. "and what land pleases you best?" asked the host as they lingered over the cup of wine. "no land is fairer than samaria, my lord. your fields are richer than i have seen for many a day. the vale of shechem, by which i entered your domain, is a place where the gods might be pleased to abide with men. as i looked up to the heights of gerizim i could well believe the legend that there, rather than on the hill where the jews have put their temple, the great father abraham offered the sacrifice of his son." "a sacrifice that jehovah would not accept," said sanballat, sneeringly; "but he preferred a ram as something nobler than a jew. baal did accept the sacrifice of the heroic prince of tyre. ah! he was worthy of the god's feast even without being roasted--eh, marduk? but don't take offence. i meant no irreverence to baal. i believe in baal as much as you do." "i do not doubt it," replied marduk. "yes, i worship baal," continued sanballat, scarcely pausing. "that is, as a moabite i worship baal-chemosh; but in this land of ancient israel i have to keep on good terms with jehovah, or, as i should call him, baal of israel." "that is wise," replied marduk. "i have studied closely the strange people at jerusalem. they are truly possessed by their god. jehovah is a reality among these hills, whatever he may be elsewhere." "yes," said sanballat, "jehovah is a god of the hills. baal can't match him there. but down on the coast, in your country, jehovah cannot keep a foothold." "have you noted," interrupted marduk, "how the power of the jews is growing? thousands of them, once scattered among all countries, are returning. they are bringing with them great wealth, and are building the waste places. the enthusiasm for revived israel is like a disease that floats in the air over many lands, and fastens on those who are susceptible; and every jew from babylon to gades is in the catching condition. i wonder that you do not make an alliance with them, and reap in their harvest, my lord sanballat?" "reap their harvest! that i would--with a torch. think you, marduk! i have offered these miserable jews my friendship. even offered to help them build their city. but their ass-headed stubbornness would not listen to me. there was a time when i could have cut all their throats, and yet i spared them." sanballat strode up and down the apartment. when he had worked off the froth of his passion the native cunning of the man asserted itself, and, sitting down close to his guest, he studied his face for a moment. "you said, make an alliance? is it possible?" "possible! why not?" replied marduk. "only ezra and nehemiah have heretofore prevented, and now ezra is like an old dog who keeps his spirit but has lost his teeth. he cannot hold on to affairs long. and as for nehemiah, the tirshatha, he is enamoured of the feasts at the palace of susa, and shows no sign of coming back." "the tirshatha! a curse on that mongrel persian and jewish dog!" sanballat took another turn about the room, as uneasy as a chained bear with a dog snapping at his legs. the exercise clarified his half-drunken wits, and he resumed the council. "ezra's teeth may be broken, but that whelp nehemiah's teeth are sharp enough. but for him i should now have my palace on the hill of zion, and my soldiers be encamped in the valley of jehosaphat. then, think of it, marduk! mine should be the satrapy from syria to egypt." "the thing is possible yet," replied marduk. "there is no ruler now at jerusalem. the high priest's family are chief in influence. they are jealous of nehemiah, and do not want him back from susa. they are ready to strengthen themselves in any way. they are already scratching the ambitious itch of tobiah, the ammonite. they have torn out the walls between the priest's chambers to make state quarters for his impudence in the very temple itself." "humph! tobiah cannot help them," said sanballat. "but he can help himself by them," replied marduk. "he shall not." "why not?" "why not? why not?" sanballat was again upon his feet, and shook his fist in the face of marduk, as if the guest were the hated tobiah. "why not? because"--he fairly shrieked out his spleen--"because he is an ammonite. moab must have the ascendency in this land, so far as persia allows either of us to rule. the blood of every man of moab would turn to adder's poison if tobiah were anything higher than the servant of sanballat." "then prevent him." "prevent him! i shall, or may the fire of chemosh burn me! but, good marduk, tell me how you would do it?" "why, by offering better alliance with the priests myself. the rising man in jerusalem is manasseh. he is grandson of eliashib, the high priest. he is as astute as nehemiah, and more popular. if the tirshatha does not come back, manasseh will be proclaimed governor. if nehemiah should return, manasseh, by virtue of his priestly rank, must be the man of his right hand." "grandson of eliashib? then he is still young, and unmarried." "yes." sanballat took a long turn about the apartment. seating himself again, he put his head close to marduk's. "you have seen my daughter?" "i have heard of her beauty. it is famed everywhere. good blood will come to the cheek as well as put strength into the arm. they say she is a sprig of yourself, my lord sanballat." "woe to the man that should say differently," replied the moabite, feeling the flattery. "is manasseh comely, well built, strong; or a sleek priest that dare not draw a knife but on a bullock?" "no man is better gifted in body or mind than manasseh. far be it from me, a stranger, to suggest such a thing to my lord sanballat; but since you have first mentioned it, i make bold to say that there is no alliance so permanent between rulers as an alliance of blood. as the blood gives a common life to all the body, and prevents the parts from falling asunder through disagreement, so it is with an alliance of blood among nations. besides, such a union with one who is to be high priest would modify the strictness of the jews' religion, and lead to some common code of worship in which jehovite and baalite might unite. i foresee from that a new syria, its people one, its ruler sanballat, and its great temple here in samaria, or, perhaps, upon mount gerizim itself. all phoenicia might be brought into such a confederation. think of the riches of tyre and sidon, the stronghold of jerusalem, the great tribes across the jordan, perhaps damascus, all under the suzerainty of samaria!" sanballat was carried away with this conceit, which it was evident marduk had only revived in his mind, not suggested. he strode to the palace front, and looked out over the hills. his eyes widened as if taking in the vision of his new empire. marduk followed him. the satrap put his arm fondly about his guest. "you speak as the jews say daniel did in babylon when he told the king his dream, for what you say has been my waking vision for years, yet i have breathed it to none. and why should it not be accomplished?" "it may be, and you yourself have suggested the first stitch in the new fabric--the union of your house with that of the high priest." "well said, marduk! well said! i would see the young man. no father can fix the stars for his child's destiny until he sees if they reflect themselves brightly in her heart. if nicaso should evince repugnance to the jew, or he should not be taken with the charms of a moabite--" "impossible! impossible to either, when they meet! two such comely persons must love at sight. besides, they could not resist the wooing of great state necessities, ambition for the glory of rank and power, and the praise which we can make sure each shall hear of the other, even before they meet." "marduk, you are a statesman, worthy of the repute of your king hiram, whom baal has taken to himself; for they say he was the wisest man that ever sat in the council of tyre. draw up the compact, marduk. you merchants know the form. we will study it at our leisure, for you are to be my guest until you return to jerusalem with authority to consummate the union of nicaso and manasseh; of nicaso and manasseh! the names sound well together. ay, the union of samaria and judah, of sanballat and all syria!" sanballat was in high spirits. he ordered a jar of the wine of hebron, "the only wine the king of persia will drink, but not too good for marduk and the satrap of samaria, of syria." he called for his captains, and distributed among them a skin of beer, the brewing of damascus. dancers were summoned; men who, balancing pitchers and jars of water upon their heads, took their steps dexterously between the waving blades of swords; and women who exhibited every possible grace of motion with their bodies, while allowing only the slightest motion of their feet. horsemen performed marvellous exploits. the camel-drivers added their share to the hilarity by attempting to imitate these equestrian movements upon their awkward beasts. a score or two of asses were forced into orchestral braying by tickling their noses, and brought to a sudden silence by twisting their tails. as the crowd withdrew to regale themselves with a largess of leben, the daughter of the satrap appeared. her maidens spread an elegant rug, wrought on the looms of tehera, a gift to the satrap from artaxerxes. nicaso's entire person was covered with a long veil. though it was supposed to hide her features, it coquettishly revealed not only enough to assure marduk that the fame of her beauty was warranted, but also to make him feel that her part of the entertainment was not altogether due to obedience to her father's wish, but was also a gratuitous compliment to his presence. a harp was brought to her. to its accompaniment she sang a song based upon the legendary love of solomon for the shulammite maiden, his wooing, and her rejection of royal favors through constancy to her shepherd lover. nicaso's voice was exceedingly rich and flexible. it well represented the gentler sentiments; but was startlingly effective in its deeper tones, which were adapted to the wilder portions of the song, and suggested an untamed element in the singer herself. "a glorious bit of womanhood," thought marduk; "but i would rather manasseh had the responsibility of owning it than i." he turned to speak to the satrap, but that worthy, overcome by the abundance and mixture of drinks, was fast asleep, if not drunk. it will be well to drop the curtain briefly upon samaria. chapter xxv. two hours' ride south of the phoenician city of gebal, which the greeks called byblus, the river adonis pours into the sea the water it has gathered from the melting snows and living springs of the lebanon. every year the banks of the stream were thronged with multitudes that swarmed out from tyre and sidon, byblus and sarepta, and all the fishing hamlets and farm villages from aradus to joppa. these people were pilgrims to apheca, the source of the sacred river adonis. it was the month of tammuz, when summer bursts with fecund life upon the land of syria. the change of the season was thought of by the syrians under the pleasing myth of astarte and tammuz; or, as the greeks told the story, of venus and adonis. when summer yielded to winter, stark and sterile, this was tammuz, in his strength and beauty, slain by the wild boar. the returning spring-time was the resurrection of the fair divinity under the embraces of the yearning goddess. the water of the river, reddened by the earth that mingled with it, as the melting snows from the lebanon overflowed the channel of the stream, was it not tammuz's blood? several months had elapsed since the events heretofore related. the ruddy tide of adonis river had already sent out its annual invitation for the festival. the report had been duly repeated that the star, which was none other than astarte herself, had been seen to pass over lebanon and fall into the pool of apheca, the fountain-head of the river. the joy of astarte and tammuz, now restored to each other's arms, was especially honored by love-making between the sexes. the innocent play of sentiment among the simple-minded people would naturally have degenerated into grossness, even had there not been prescribed the sacrifice of maidenly modesty upon the altar of astarte, as a preliminary to legitimate marriage. the renown of the festival of the syrian goddess drew not only worshippers, but the curious and the vile, from all parts of the world, as insects are attracted by light and by foulness. the banks of the river adonis were adorned at places with the memorial tombs of the god, wrought not only with the highest phoenician art, but in many cases with the touch of the more delicate chisel of the greek. interspersed among these permanent ornaments of the sylvan stream were the tents of the pilgrims, whose rich canvas and streamers contrasted gayly with the sombre rocks of the deep ravines and the dense shadows of the overhanging trees. these tents the wealthier folk pitched for their noontide rest or for the night, as they journeyed leisurely towards the river's fount. a pavilion larger than all others, and which excited the gaping gossip of the passers-by, was that of the household of ahimelek of tyre. indeed, next to the marvels of the goddess herself, the visit of zillah was the chief notoriety of the season at apheca. she was to engage in the ceremonial which not only marked her entrance upon womanhood, but which was to be especially preliminary to her marriage with rubaal, the presumptive king. by ancient custom the queen of tyre was also ordained a priestess of astarte. the splendid rites of zillah's institution as such were to follow the less seemly ones. this would have drawn to her tent the curiosity of all, even if the tent had not concealed the person of one who had been the affianced of king hiram, whose translation to the estate of the gods surely omened some miraculous blessing upon her who would have been his queen and bride. the priests of melkarth had joined with those of astarte in fanning the popular interest in zillah's investiture, as it was understood that the greater part of ahimelek's dower would go into their coffers; for rubaal, her prospective husband, was but the priesthood crowned in the person of its tool. to layah, the handmaiden of zillah, the strange taking-off of the king, whatever it meant, was the profoundest disappointment of her life. she had thought so long of him as her young lord, had served him with such devotion when she served her young mistress, that she had now no object in life but to join with zillah in her mourning, or to comfort her as a mother would comfort her broken-hearted child. from the marriage of zillah with rubaal she shrank, and would have detested it even if her mistress had been able to put off her old love for the new. "to-morrow, layah, is the day. it has come at last." zillah raised her face to her companion's. it was very fair; more winsome than ever before. it had been growing in beauty; but of that spiritual sort of beauty that awakens pain together with admiration. her eyes were deeper set; more lustrous, but with a far-away look, as if the light that kindled them came from beyond the common day. her face was thinner, its lines harder and sharper. "a typical face for a priestess!" old egbalus said, as once he saw her. "a sufferer's face!" thought layah every day, and a hundred times a day, as she saw beneath it the tragic features of her mistress's soul. "do you hold to your resolution, my lady?" layah asked, her voice trembling, scarcely making the words articulate. "yes--at last! at last!" layah threw herself on the ground at her mistress's feet. she remained for a while as one in prayer. at length, raising her face, she cried: "o my lady! have i influenced you to this decision? tell me truly, as astarte lives! as baal-hiram lives there in the sky! tell me, truly, have i led you?" "no, layah, you have not. it was the covenant i made with him who was adonai to me, my lord hiram! my god hiram, if baal will! baal will take us both. hanno himself, and he is wisest of all the priests, assured me that we should not always be separated. i asked him directly if at the festival of adonis i might not go to hiram. he replied that in the lore of the priests such things are said to have occurred, and bade me be true to hiram, and watch; and, furthermore, he gave me a sign of the divine will. but i may tell it to no one; not even to my faithful layah." "if," said layah, "i have not persuaded you to the deed, tell me now, before the gods, have i sought to dissuade you?" "no, my dear layah, you too have been true to my lord hiram. you have not hindered me from my holy sacrifice to him." "may i have my reward, then, from the hand of my mistress?" "ask what you will, layah." "let me go with you, if merely human creatures may enter the world of the gods. perhaps i can serve there. they have slaves there, have they not? the sky has flecks in it. why may not i be with you? i know that baal-hiram will let me come with you." "no, no!" cried zillah. "it must not be. if i live after my body is dead--and who can tell?--let me think of you as living here. i will come back often, and bless you; or i will watch over you as the moon gleams upon us. and if i do not live again, let there be one heart in this world to mourn for me. i have none other than thine, my dear layah. my father does not love me, except for the riches i may bring him. to you i give these. see! this armlet was hiram's gift. let me put it on you. this necklace you shall wear. do not deny me this favor, or i shall believe no one on earth loved me." the two women remained much of the night weeping, or in grief too deep for tears: zillah prayerful and resolute, the comforter of her handmaiden; as if the poor girl's sorrow were for some other misery than that of her consoler. chapter xxvi. with the dawn all was astir. from behind rocks and trees the curious stared as zillah's litter was carried along. at every spot where the path widened, so as to allow them to gather in crowds, many people prostrated themselves as if before a sacred ark. the day was yet young when the denser throngs indicated the immediate vicinity of the holy place. the servants of ahimelek had gone before zillah and prepared her pavilion, so that when she stepped veiled from the litter she entered alone the seclusion of her own chamber. a vast amphitheatre of rocks, rising almost perpendicularly hundreds of feet, abruptly closes the valley of the adonis. a deep and dark cave opens at the base of this precipice, like some ominous portal of sheol itself. from its black jaws issues the torrent, hailing its first glimpse of the light with wild roar, like that of some beast startled in its den by the flash of the hunter's torch. tossing high its mane of spray, it leaps wildly down from ledge to ledge, until it stretches itself for its long race through the deep ravine below. its course is lined with trees--gigantic oaks, their limbs gnarled and torn, like those of veteran gladiators, by conflict with the storms of centuries; tall pines whose lofty tufts at noonday throw shadows, like patches of night, into the gorge below. nature here seems to resent the intrusion of men, and drops a sense of solitude among the noisy crowds, or lifts them in spite of their revelry to an awe of her own vast mysteries. it is a spot where men, if they have no genuine revelation, are tempted to invent gods; to shape them into phantasies of overwrought imagination, and clothe them in the shadowy habits of their fears. close beside the fountain of adonis rose the temple of astarte. in front was a quadrangular court, in the open portion of which the throngs of votaries walked, and beneath whose cloistered sides they rested in extravagant ease and sanctioned vice. in the centre of the court stood the great conical stone, the symbol of deity, on the top of which, twice a year, a chosen priest sat and presented to the divinity the prayers of those who sent their petitions up to him winged with sufficient gifts to warrant their flight to the goddess. white doves flitted through the air, perched upon the projecting stone-work of the porticos, and flocked on the marble pavement regardless of the convenience of human beings, whose superstition made reverent space for the birds which astarte had chosen to be her favorite symbol. the cooing of the doves, intermingled with the softest notes of flutes floating lasciviously from hidden places, melted into the murmur of the stream. the natural perfume of plants and flowers was supplemented by the incense of rarest spices, which loaded the atmosphere with the illusion of some other world beyond the shores of araby the blest. back of the great court an ascent of steps led to the temple. folding gates of bronze guarded the sacred precincts from unhallowed intrusion. gilded beams held aloft the roof of cedar, carved with grotesque symbols. the statue of the goddess stood colossal in size and exquisite in form and decoration. in her right hand she held the sceptre, in her left the distaff; for, while she swayed the hearts of women, she was at the same time the patroness and rewarder of their domestic industry. on her head was a tower of gold, whose gleaming spikes well imitated the rays of the sun by day. but at night her peculiar glory was revealed. then the sacred stone that was set in her crown glowed with mysterious light, and filled the temple with soft rays as of the moon. the central gleam from the stone followed the beholder as an eye, shooting the beam from the omniscience of the goddess into the very soul of the devotee. a statue of baal sometimes floated in the air, and invited the questions of worshippers, to which it gave oracular response by swaying forward if the answer were affirmative, and backward if a request were refused. there were varieties of worship adapted to the caprice of all comers. some bent over the pool, where the torrent, issuing from the cave and plunging from the ledge, makes its first halting-place. into the swirling waters they cast jewels and gems. if these sank to the bottom, they were presumed to have been accepted by the divinity; if they were cast up by the swift and turbulent eddies, the worshipper retired without assurance of favor. perhaps the devotee did not confess to himself the selfishness of his motive for making his offering of goodly weight; nor did the priests confess to the people the motive with which every night they dragged the pool and took up the sunken basins they had placed in the bottom. in the temple court were daily hung some golden caskets containing the hair and beards of young men, their first manly offering to the goddess, whose favors they entreated with the fair sex; and other caskets or bags of golden thread held the similar offerings of the maidens. a less attractive sight was that of one who had sacrificed a sheep, and, while its skin was still warm with life, placed its head upon his own, tied its forelegs about his neck, the greasy inside against his face, and, doubling his body so that he could kneel upon the lower part of the skin, prayed to the sheep-goddess--one of the appellations of the queen of heaven. the most imposing offering was that of the fire night, the preparation for which occupied many days. a large area in front of the temple court was filled with standing trees which had been cut from the sides of lebanon, and made an artificial grove. the offerings of devotees were hung among the branches--rich jewels, and the handiwork ornaments of the poorer class; garments of priceless stuffs, and the discarded only raiment of some pauper; birds of all plumage, some in cages of bronze or carved alabaster, some tied by strings to the trees; wild animals, the captive pets of the hunter; sheep, and at times living bulls, swung in girdles from the stancher branches of the trees. the combustible nature of the wood was augmented by smearings of resinous matter gathered in great quantities in the forest. after the images of the gods had been carried about the grove, at a given signal torches were applied at many places simultaneously. then there burst through the night a spectacle of wildest magnificence. the spark sprites sprang rapidly from the lower to the topmost limbs of each tree; then roofed the intervals with arches of fire; then flung far and high over all a hundred sheets of flame, banners and streamers that signalled the event to the very sky. the intense heat so rarefied the air that, though scarce a leaf quivered on lebanon, a mighty wind was created, which swayed the forest around, whose roar answered back the roar of the burning timber. this was not unreasonably interpreted by ignorant people to be the response of nature to the honor paid to its queen. the day on which zillah reached the shades of apheca was the one devoted to mourning for tammuz. the box containing the image of the god had been borne on the shoulders of six priestesses of astarte, followed by a procession of maidens with dishevelled hair and torn garments, who threw handfuls of ashes into the air, and filled the grove with their wailing for the brief widowhood of their goddess. at nightfall the coffin was buried. as at the time of real death the lights are extinguished in the house, so now every tent was darkened. only sounds of lamentation floated through the ravine and among the sacred trees, prompted at brief intervals by the lugubrious wailing of a trumpet blown in the temple precincts. with the first blush of the new day all was changed; hilarity took the place of mourning. the woods rang with shouts and song and merry laughter. the image of the god was exhumed, and carried in the arms of dancing women to the temple. on this day maidens, hoping to be married before the year elapsed, gave their hair in offering to astarte or their persons to the embrace of strangers. the latter was the more sacred service, the performance of which could not be omitted in the case of one highly born or ambitious of entering the aristocratic circles of matronhood. the women entered the booths prepared. with locks entwined into the conventional sacred node, arrayed in elegance rivalling that of the bridal raiment they hoped to wear, glittering with the gems that betokened their dowry, they sat and waited for the rite. chapter xxvii. layah was fully persuaded of the determination of her mistress to destroy herself, and, notwithstanding zillah's commands to the contrary, was resolved to imitate her heroic example. this purpose was strengthened by her fears of rubaal's vengeance upon her in the event of zillah's suicide. her handmaiden would be suspected of collusion with the unhappy lady, and certainly be charged with a criminal neglect in allowing such a deed. her penalty would be death, unless rubaal and the priests invented for her something worse--sale for the ship-harem of some rude sea-captain, transportation to the tin-mines of the cassiterides, or physical torture in some prison. in contrast with such possibilities, her mind became fascinated with the idea of standing erect, raising her arm adorned with the wristlet which her mistress had given her, striking the sharp blade into her breast just beneath the heavy pendants of the necklace that zillah had worn, and falling dead by her side--a brave self-sacrifice to her love for her mistress and her fidelity to the royal house of tyre. the two women went together to the shambles of astarte, both closely covered with the long veil, which concealed their faces and forms. no word passed between them, except zillah's repetition of the oft-said vow: "the dagger before the stranger!" at the shambles they stood a moment in endearing embrace, then silently separated. zillah entered the booth designated by the insignia of the house of ahimelek. layah entered another adjacent, which communicated with that of her mistress; an arrangement which allowed the toilet service of a maid without apparent intrusion. the day passed. the general reverence for the person of the betrothed of the now deified hiram, together with the awe that was felt for the person of one who was to be a priestess of astarte, restrained the most wanton from approaching zillah's retreat. night shadows had already climbed the precipitous sides of the valley, crowding the sunlight before them, until the day gleamed only in the tops of the tall pines that fringed the crest and seemed to mingle with the sky. the priests had noted the immunity of zillah's apartment; that no one had approached it. they were concerned about the issue. a group of several strangers had been observed during most of the day sauntering about the temple court. these were approached by the priests, who evidently offered them money to assist in the accomplishment of the rite. after a few moments of apparent entreaty with them one of their number said, "i will go;" and, stepping from the group, walked to the apartment. "handsome enough for adonis himself!" observed a priest. "how the eyes of rubaal would turn green to see him!" rejoined another. "he looks like a jew," said a third. "that cannot be," replied the first speaker, "or he would have bargained with us for a heavier price upon his service." the strange man approached the curtain of the apartment and hesitatingly drew it aside. zillah sprang to her feet. she was clad in the white robe of a priestess of astarte. one who believed that hiram had entered the estate of the gods would have declared that astarte had herself entered the person of this woman. her look was superhuman. an unearthly passion burned in her eyes. her whole frame seemed to glow with the radiation of her soul, as a lantern globe with the light that is centred in, but not contained by, it. her attitude, as she retreated a few steps to the rear of the little room, was majesty itself. her jewelled hand held a dagger at her breast. she pressed it until the blood trickled beneath its gleaming edge, but, in the ecstasy of her mental mood, she was evidently unconscious of pain. the man raised his hands in entreaty against the intended deed. he stepped towards her. she retreated farther, and stopped his approach by the very spell of her gesture as she raised her left hand and bade him stand. he tried to speak, but she silenced him by her words: "go! tell the priests that i offer myself to my adonai hiram, whose spirit calls me." a look of agonizing terror came upon the intruder. he hastily threw back his outer garment, and pointed, speechless with excitement, to his own breast. upon his white chiton glowed a ring of crimson. zillah's dagger fell from her hand. "the circle!" she cried, and dropped into a swoon. a slight scream as of an echo to zillah's cry rang from the adjoining apartment of layah. it was a tone of mingled determination and pain, shrill, brief, and followed by the sound of one falling to the ground. silently the man waited. at length zillah raised her head. she gazed around her in a daze. "he is not here, my lord! my hiram!" seeing the man, she added: "o cruel dream!" and reached for the dagger that lay on the ground beside her. the man seized it first. the action fully aroused her to the reality of her position. for a moment the two stared at each other in mutual perplexity. they were parts of an enigma which neither understood, though each held a portion of the clew. zillah was the first to break the silence. "what is your message to me by the mark of the circle?" "you know its meaning better than i," rejoined the stranger, bowing in profound respect. "am i to go with you?" "i am to do your bidding, my lady." the man made obeisance, touching the ground with his forehead. "my life is pledged to bring you to him who wrought the symbol on my breast." "and he?" "marduk, of tyre." "i know none such. is he not hanno, the priest?" "i only know him as marduk, the merchant of tyre." "tall, with shaved head, and eyes full of subtle wisdom?" "no. of my own stature, with hair black as the raven's; of open face. his beard conceals a scar of a wound received in fight." "a scar! is he a man? is he not a god?" "more godlike than any god of the phoenicians; yet a man, indeed." zillah sat motionless, her head pressed against her hand in deep thought. "i cannot understand it," she said, at length. "mystery! mystery! oh, i do not know--i cannot see!" and she stared into the shadows as one walking in sleep. "nor i, my lady. i only know that i am here to obey you. command me!" "and i will obey the sign," said zillah. "let me look upon it again. 'tis a circle, surely; and 'tis blood-red. i must follow it." "and follow me?" "yes--to him! to him!" "let me leave you, then, my lady. you will know my face or my voice; for i must let no eyes but yours look upon the symbol. to-night i will be beside the pavilion. another will accompany me whom you may trust, for we both serve a man we love; one to whom we have vowed secrecy and service." "before what god have you vowed?" "before no god, but by all that is meant by man's honor. and, by all that is meant"--he paused before he added--"by all that is meant by the sanctity of womanhood. i swear by the life i have saved this hour--and i know of nothing more sacred, since what i have witnessed--i swear that no harm shall come to you. if mistake has happened in the person of her i seek, or in him you seek, i swear by your own life to return with you to your father's house. can i do more?" "i will follow the mark of the circle wherever it may lead," said zillah. the stranger withdrew from the apartment. the priests met him without. they led him to the clerk of the temple, before whom he took the oath that the sacrifice to astarte had been rendered. zillah sought the adjacent apartment of layah. upon the ground lay the prostrate form of the girl. a pool of blood told the story of her sacrifice, not to astarte, but to friendship; to that love of woman for woman, holier than the debauched heathenism of the world ever conceived or tried to express through its rituals. zillah flung herself upon the body: "it is too much! too much! o my layah! my sister! my mother! speak to me!" she kissed the silent lips, that seemed to smile at the touch, and gave into hers the last lingering warmth that had been life. scarcely knowing what she did, she took up the dead girl's veil and ran from the apartment; not through her own, but directly into the court. with stumbling feet she sought her pavilion. "there goes her handmaid," said a priest. "a graceful shape, which the veil cannot hide. the new priestess will come out soon," said another. chapter xxviii. zillah's soul now impelled her to hasten her flight. she must not be captured. for what could she live in tyre but to grace the pride of rubaal, insolent as he was insignificant? then the memory of layah, who had given her life to encourage her in fleeing such a fate, would be a perpetual rebuke. she would see the dead girl's face always in remonstrance. layah would become to her a jinn, a demon, her human love turned to ghostly hate. nor was this all. zillah conceived of herself as having broken faith with astarte in not rendering the sacrifice. she could not now be a priestess of the goddess. astarte, if a real divinity, would strike her dead the first time she attempted to minister at her altar. but hiram had not believed in astarte; why should she? it was possible that hiram was living. the scar? it must be so. if not, the circle which priest hanno had told her to follow surely indicated his will. her human affection led her to seek him. if he were dead to earth, and, as the priests said, taken to baal and become a god, he surely would have prevented any misuse of the symbol he had given her. it must lead to him, to some mountain-top, or some cave where gods have been known to meet with men. there was but one course open to her. it was flight. she knew not whither; but, if the worst came, she had the last resort still left. she could join layah and hiram anywhere, at any moment; and, suiting her action to her thought, she felt in her bosom for a phial containing the poison with which she had intended to accomplish her suicide if anything prevented the quicker work of the knife. it was there. drawing it out, she looked through the ruddy liquid, and apostrophized it thus: "you will befriend me! red, like the blood of layah! red, like hiram's circle! true friend, if men prove false! we cannot misunderstand each other!" she kissed the phial, and put it back into her bosom. it became quite dark, except for the lanterns that hung from the trees and the torches that the revellers were carrying. she stepped out into the night, closely veiled. a voice, that of the stranger, greeted her. it did not startle her. she had become familiar with it, though so few words had it uttered, because they had been words of kindness and confidence. strange though it was, it was the only voice in all the world that she dared to hear now. she must trust it. what else was there to trust on earth or in the sky? "i am ready. lead! i will follow," she whispered. it was not difficult to avoid detection, there were so many veiled and masked figures flitting among the lights and shadows of the sacred grove. zillah felt confident of safety, at least from the priests, should they seek to detain her; for her quick eyes could not fail to notice that there were others in league with her guide. two men almost kept pace with her. sometimes one went ahead, and, making a way for himself through the thicker throngs, left it open for her. or, if attention seemed drawn to her, one of these mysterious attendants dropped behind her, and blocked the way until she was beyond the sight of the curious. a little way down the ravine, where the crowd was thinner, a litter was in waiting. as she entered it, the two men she had observed lifted it, and, turning abruptly from the river, climbed the steep bank. as they reached the bluff and placed the litter upon the ground a fourth person joined the party. his stay was but for a moment. he threw his arms about one of the bearers of the litter. "all the gods be praised, and especially jehovah of the jews, this time!" said he, putting his hand upon the shoulder of the guide. "but i must away. this is no place for me, the future high priest of melkarth! ha! ha! but now you have the goddess herself enshrined in a litter, you will have safe journey. for a while baal and jehovah watch between us, good marduk." the speaker was gone. the guide lifted zillah from the litter; and as he held her by the hand, he placed it in that of one of the carriers. "marduk, have i kept my covenant with you?" marduk's reply was not to him. a whispered word, and zillah lay speechless in the arms of the phoenician merchant. the men withdrew as from too near proximity to some holy scene. four horses were brought. as zillah was lifted to the saddle, the phoenician mentioned the names of his comrades, manasseh of jerusalem and elnathan of galilee, who in turn kissed the hand of the maiden and mounted their horses--elnathan guiding the way, and manasseh following, while marduk rode by zillah's side. the moon burst brilliantly from behind a mass of clouds. "astarte's parting blessing!" exclaimed elnathan. "no, astarte goes with us," said manasseh, remembering the scene in the shambles. "a fairer goddess than phoenicia ever dreamed of!" great was the commotion in the grove of adonis late that night. it was reported that ahimelek's daughter had not been seen to come from her apartment, though her maid had returned to the pavilion. as the hours wore on, the anxiety of the priests led them to search the place. there lay the girl upon the ground. the armlets and necklace were assumed to identify her; and such was the dread the common people had of a dead body, that no one of the domestics from ahimelek's household had ventured to look upon her face. the priests ordered that the body should be left where it had fallen until swift couriers had run to gebal, where ahimelek had taken advantage of the coming exaltation of his daughter to the priesthood of astarte, to demand the monopoly of supplying the provisions that were sold to the caterers at apheca during the festival--a source of enormous revenues. his presence at gebal had been sufficient to secure the discomfiture of all competitors for the trade, and many of his ships had exchanged their cargoes for the gold of the venders at the dock. just before the priestly couriers brought him the news of zillah's supposed death, a messenger had come from tyre to gebal, conveying a letter which had been discovered in her chamber after the family party had left their home. it read: "my father,--a daughter's obedience is sacred while the life he has given her remains. but i cannot endure the severity of your command. with your permission i once gave myself to king hiram. i cannot recall this betrothal. to him i shall go. this will explain anything that may occur at the festival of tammuz. zillah." on reading the letter, ahimelek's rage knew no bounds. he cursed his daughter aloud in the hearing of the bystanders. he cursed the name of hiram, and defied him to appear to him as god or jinn or ghost. he even challenged baal himself to thus circumvent the will of the richest man of phoenicia--one who held the welfare of the state religion at his disposal. "let the temple of melkarth fall! let the image of the god rot!" he exclaimed, in his insane rage. other couriers then arrived bringing the news of zillah's death. "killed by her maid, who has escaped," they explained. the remnant of fatherly instinct asserted itself for a moment in ahimelek's breast. "my daughter! my daughter!" he cried, sitting upon the ground, and covering his face with his hands. but the gentler mood gave way to his wrath, as on the fire night the flames in the grove of apheca caught the unburnt trees. he held the letter in his hand, which trembled with his frenzy. bewildered with his anger, he read it aloud. "she has slain herself!" he cried. "curse! curse! a father's curse upon the suicide! she has robbed me of my riches, of my honor. and you priests, see you not she has robbed you? robbed melkarth? robbed the king? robbed tyre?" then, as the fire dies down when resinous matter has been consumed, so he buried his head in his hands and moaned. "my child! my zillah!" the priests waited his commands. by custom one who betrayed astarte on such occasions was thrown into the pool of apheca. with difficulty they aroused the wretched man to understand the situation. he stared stupidly at them for a time. his mind was evidently giving way in the fierce contention of his grief and rage. suddenly he rose, pale with passion. "her body to the pool!" he shouted, and fell as if dead upon the floor. upon the return of the couriers the priests held counsel. they judged that there could be no doubt of the suicide. her letter to her father proved it. or if she fell not by her own hand, her maid was only an accomplice, and executed her mistress's purpose. the honor of the goddess demanded some disgrace to be shown the body of one who had flung such contempt upon the entire worship of astarte. the whole phoenician world would hear of it; it must hear of astarte's vengeance also. besides, the father's command could be quoted as inspired directly by baal. sudden insanity was believed to be an over-exaltation of the mind due to divine influence. surely ahimelek's raving was sufficient evidence that the hand of the god was upon him. the body of the supposed zillah was lifted from the ground by men who averted their eyes, that they might not be polluted, or even blinded, by the sight of the unhallowed thing. they thrust the corpse into a sack, and plunged it into the pool. men were deputed to watch it as it emerged from the great caldron and floated down the stream, and to follow it, carrying with them poles with which to dislodge it from the rocks and fallen timber that might obstruct the river, until the body should be lost in the waters of the great sea. chapter xxix. the fugitives from apheca rode as rapidly as the sure-footed horses could pick their way in the moonlight up the side of the western range of lebanon, and at dawn looked down upon the majestic valley of the litany. the weariness of the journey, and the attendant excitement, could not altogether destroy the impressiveness of the marvellous scene. thousands of feet below them lay the green meadows. far across to the east rose the other range of lebanon, a mighty wall delaying the sunrise. among its snow-covered peaks the rays of morning poured, as the white foam surges over the breakers and between the jagged rocks on the syrian coast. tongues of snow filled the high ravines, and, diminishing as they descended, carried the illusion of an overflowing reservoir of light. below the lustral crest, the rocky sides of lebanon were black in shadow; here gashed by the ceaseless plunging of cataracts, there beetling with crags, like castles which had borne the assaulting storms since chaos. high against the mountain's base the immense amount of detritus made a sloping mound of soil, rich and green like a bank of emerald. the valley of the litany which lay between the two lebanon ranges had been for ages the gateway of syria from the north. down through it had poured the vast armies of assyria and babylon, devastating syria and palestine on their way to the great objective conquest, the land of egypt. now it was dotted with the caravansaries of traders, the camps of persian soldiers, halting _en route_, and the black tent villages of the farmers who thus congregated for mutual protection in the midst of the fields and herds they were watching. midway across the valley was a little city, whose buildings clustered about a temple, each of whose enormous stones was clearly marked to the eye miles away, so immense were they. these stones had been consecrated by the blood of human sacrifices. this was baal-bek, the city of baal. not far from it marduk pointed out his tent, a white cone just distinguishable in the distance. on the mountain brow they took their morning meal, with which elnathan's well-filled hamper supplied them. for an hour zillah must rest. the cloaks of the men made her couch. it would be well for her to sleep; but the over-excitement of the day and night could not be allayed at the call of expediency. she could only promise to lie still if hiram were by her. manasseh and elnathan assumed the duty of picket guards, and wandered back over the road they had come, to give warning in case of pursuit. of this, however, they had little fear, at least for that day, as they had chosen a path which would hardly be thought of by others; the way of flight being naturally down the river adonis, where one could be lost in the crowds and easily take to the sea; for the escape of such a person as zillah would be thought of in connection with some wide preparation looking to future abode in a distant phoenician colony, or perhaps in greece or egypt. zillah's chief fear was not danger from men. the superstition of her religion still held a partial spell over her mind which no resolution could break at once. the habitual thoughts of a lifetime will linger and impress us in spite of our calling them unreasonable. zillah felt that she had challenged astarte. in her keen imagination, the indignant eyes of the goddess were turned upon her. they burned her. she could not rest. but there was a counter-spell in the kiss of her companion, which would have gone far to exorcise these demons of fear and religious anxiety, even had he never uttered his stout words of disbelief in the whole system of baalism. zillah's spirit was strong and self-assertive to a degree seldom shown by women or men, else she had never proposed to herself, and followed so nearly to completion, the project of self-sacrifice rather than submit to the custom of astarte. but when with hiram, her whole soul, her opinions as well as her will, became plastic to the touch of his thoughts and purpose. his soul was the mold into which her nature, melted by the fire of her love, ran and reformed itself. that baal had not received him to an estate of divinity lessened not a whit her real reverence for hiram; it only destroyed the sense of awe with which she had come to think of him. his loving humanity was more to her now than even her ideal of his godhead had been. he was her adonai, her lord indeed. if he had diminished in magnitude, he had come nearer, and so was greater to her. her heart worshipped and adored, though she did not call it worship. simple love had wrought all this. surely love must be divine to perfect that relation between human creatures which formal religion only aims to accomplish between the soul and a god! zillah looked into the face of hiram as he bent over her, and thought something like this: "oh, if a god were like him! if i could feel towards the divinity as i feel towards him! then i would be a priestess indeed!" "have no scruple nor dread concerning astarte," said hiram, divining her thoughts. "have i not found out that our religion is all a lie? my absorption into baal the priests knew to be no more a falsehood than are all their teachings. hanno is less false to them than they are to the people. see yonder pile they call a temple. from here how small in comparison with the mighty height of the mountains back of it! that little cloud of white smoke and incense from the fire they keep always burning, how insignificant under the white glory of the morning that bursts over lebanon and fills all the sky above us! how cruel the sacrifice of bird or beast or child seems in a world which the real god has made so beautiful and filled with the sweet air! and how good he must be to have ever thought of making such a creature as my zillah, and giving me eyes to see her and a heart to love her!" he bent low, and worshipped her with a kiss. "if there be any god, he is one of kindness, who hates cruelty, whose deep abomination must be for such things as you and i have escaped. i would live alone with this thought, and be inspired by it to happiness, if all the world believed the contrary." "do any people believe as you--as we--do, dear hiram?" "perhaps no people do; but i am sure that some persons do. i met a man in jerusalem who helped me to my faith, vague as it is. the jews have sacrifices and many forms of worship; but one malachi, whom some day you shall know, sees through all forms. his god is only a spirit--a spirit of right and love. the forms of religion with him are only like our letters, the shape suggesting a meaning that we put into it. who would think that this"--drawing a few marks on the rock--"meant my love for you? so little can express so much! but to whom does it express it? only to you and me, who feel our love. so the forms of religion represent great thoughts. but for whom? only for those who have first felt them. malachi was looking one night at a lamp flame very intently, and i asked: "'what part of the flame is the most beautiful?' "manasseh, who was with us, said, 'he sees only the smoke that wreathes itself above it, for he is always brooding of gloomy things.' "'no,' replied malachi, 'i like to look through the centre, where it has no color, before the flame has got red.' "so he sees religious ceremonies: he looks through the transparent centre of them. he talks of jehovah's goodness and pity as if he felt them. he loves his god, and so knows him. but he follows all the foolish ceremonies of the jews. for that matter, few break away from the customs in which they have been brought up, as we have broken away from ours. but see, the sun comes over the mountain!" instantly zillah rose from her recumbent position, and, bending her body, so that the first rays might fall upon her brow, began a morning prayer to baal. hiram interrupted her with louder voice. "o god of all the baals--of jove! of jehovah! god of all the world! bless us, thy children, and guide us this day!" it was deemed advisable that marduk should not travel farther in company with zillah, lest any suspicion that might have attached to either should lead to the identification of both. marduk therefore proposed to go directly to his camp under the walls of baalbek, where he should remain for a few days; while zillah should accompany manasseh and elnathan southward to the home of ben yusef. the sun glared fiercely upon this latter party as the day advanced. towards noon they sought the shade of a terebinth grove; but, on coming near, they found it already occupied by various parties. manasseh, going forward alone, discovered that one of the companies was the suite of a persian officer whom he had met at jerusalem, now going to the jewish capital to collect the tax due the great king. the young jew was cordially invited to join them. he declined to leave his companions, whom he described as elnathan, son of ben yusef, whose home he must visit, as he had been deputed to gather information regarding the names of the families that had returned from babylon under the original firman of cyrus. the young man, he said, was travelling with his sister. the genial disposition of manasseh, together with the fact that he belonged to the highest rank at jerusalem, as a member of the high priest's family, led the persian to gain his companionship by extending the hospitality of his camp to elnathan and zillah. this was a sure protection from all pursuit, as such a company would not be suspected. at the same time, the stricter customs of the persians regarding the presence of women forbade any curious inspection of zillah's appearance. she remained veiled while upon the march, except as she conversed aloof from the company with elnathan, and was served with the utmost hospitality in a tent that was pitched for her private use. on the third day they reached the sea of galilee, where the party halted, while manasseh saw that his charge was safely under the tent of ben yusef, and presumably made all necessary inquiries into the genealogies of the house of that worthy. the record which he showed to the persian was long enough to have carried the family back, not only to the days of the captivity, but to the life of the great patriarch yusef himself. chapter xxx. slowly the hours dragged while zillah awaited the coming of hiram. elnathan was as faithful to his charge as the huge mastiff was to the care of little ruth; and there was very similar communication between them. the young jew's eyes searched all the paths over the hills that converged at the family tent; his ear was quick to detect any approaching step; and he eagerly ran to meet every one coming, lest some interloper should spy out the strange guest. then from a distance he would watch the phoenician lady as she walked, or sat under the great terebinth. the part he had taken in her rescue had reacted in a strong fascination for her. how many romances he wove about this beautiful woman!--a different one for almost every hour, but all terminating in her flight, and all involving himself as in some form her protector. he had felt a sort of proprietorship in her destiny, as he did in that of marduk since he had saved his life at the old crater; yet it was a proprietorship of absolute unselfishness, of obligation to cherish and guard, such as a father feels in his child. beyond that, elnathan could not go. to admire zillah's loveliness, of which he now and then caught a glimpse, seemed unlawful for him; for that belonged to her lover alone. he scarcely ventured to speak to her, lest his words might be a sort of profanation. he could only wonder and watch. she was his queen, and every fibre of his soul thrilled with loyalty. old ben yusef had much the same feeling as his son; but his curiosity was absorbed in his tenderness. tears came into his eyes as he looked upon zillah's face, now shadowed with trouble, now ecstatic with yearning. that there had been some barrier to her union with marduk was enough to revive memories of his own early life, when his now buried lyda, an alien from israel, had cast her lot with his. his tent-home, the home of an outcast from the family of judah, was itself a memorial of the triumph of love over traditionary proprieties; and it seemed as if the god who had blessed his married life had now sent this phoenician maiden to his care. ruth did not need to catch the sentiment from her father and brother. the fresh impulses of her own young womanhood went out unreservedly to their guest. zillah's need of sympathy quickly responded, and from the first greeting the two were in closest sisterly relation. ruth's presence was a perpetual salâm, a benediction of peace and quiet to zillah's perturbed soul. the jewess, though only a child, was old enough to respect the privacy of the phoenician's thoughts, and made no inquiries, content to find her way to the other's heart, and to feel that she brought comfort to it. but there was one respect in which the kindness of ben yusef's household failed. zillah could not rest. there was but one pillow for her, and that was the breast of hiram. why did he not come? a strange listlessness passed through her. all the third day of her sojourn at giscala she hardly spoke, but talked all the night long in her sleep. the fourth day brought the welcome visitor. elnathan made the rocks ring again as from the adjacent hill-top he signalled marduk's approach. ben yusef ran to meet him as if he had been a son. even ruth left the side of the phoenician, and tripped far away to greet him. but zillah moved not from her seat under the terebinth. as marduk came near and extended his arms in eagerness, she stared at him with stony eyes. then a faint smile passed over her face. her body swayed against the trunk of the tree, and would have fallen had not marduk caught her. "a passing swoon!" said ben yusef. "the gladness has been too much for her. some wine, ruth!" the swoon passed. zillah rose, and, wildly flinging her arms, cried, "i will go. i will go to him! see! this--this shall take me to him!" she felt for something in her bosom. raising her clenched hand, and with a shrill cry, "i come, my adonai, hiram!" she fell again. they brought the unconscious form into the tent. moments passed, which to the watchers dragged themselves as if they had been hours. hours passed, heavy and slow as nightless days. days lapsed into weeks. but neither day nor night brought rest to the disordered brain of zillah. her tongue ran incessantly; now uttering some fear: "the priests! moloch! save him!" now some pleasant illusion: "he comes! no need for a crown! see the rays about his head! baal crowns him with his own beams." day and night her phantasy ran in one or other of these grooves. there was no sleep, only brief lulls in the wild storm of delirium. after some days, elnathan brought a physician from samaria, an attendant on the household of sanballat. he murmured over the tossing body some magical incantations. these failing, he prescribed the usage among the tribes beyond the jordan in cases of high fever; namely, to wrap the patient in wet cloths. under this treatment she caught some periods of quiet sleep, but only to awake again in the world of ideal torment or ecstasy. her lover was almost equally insane at times with his grief. he accused himself of being the cause of her death through his attempt to rescue her from the shambles of apheca. "no, no," old yusef said at such suggestions. "the lord gave man wisdom. for the use of so much as he receives the man is responsible. what happens beyond our wisdom is the lord's dealing, not man's. you did as you thought wisest and best. afflict yourself with no censure. say now with our psalmist, 'it is the lord. let him do what seemeth him good!'" at times marduk would stare at the sky, as if questioning whether this were not some curse of baal. then he would pray to jehovah, into whose land he had come, to defend him from the assault of his old enemies, the gods of phoenicia. but this mood was of briefest duration--only in moments when his grief made him forget his scepticism. once he inquired of ben yusef if it were not possible that, through ignorance of the ways of the god of the land, he had inadvertently offended. "the ways of the lord are those of every honest man's heart," replied the patriarch. "is there no sacrifice i could offer? behold all i have! let it be burned! nay, i will lie myself upon the altar willingly." "remember our psalmist," ben yusef would reply. "'thou delightest not in sacrifice and offering, else would i give it. the sacrifices of god are a broken and contrite heart.' if you have sinned, my son, confess it in your thought, and let us pray the lord for his mercy." one day the old man stood facing the south, and raised his hand. his white locks floated in the breeze, while thus he prayed, using the words of solomon at the dedication of the first temple: "moreover, concerning a stranger that is not of thy people israel, but cometh out of a far country for thy name's sake: hear thou in heaven, thy dwelling-place, and do according to all that the stranger calleth to thee for: that all the people of the earth may know thy name, to fear thee, as do thy people israel." three weeks had passed. the patient had steadily declined in strength. she could no longer toss upon her couch, but moved only her hands under the impulse of her restless soul. one day she lay very quiet. ruth scarcely left her side. suddenly a sharp cry rang through the tent. it was that of the watcher. entering, the men witnessed a scene that confirmed their worst fears. ruth was leaning over the couch, and gazing with fixed stare upon the face of her patient, from which the fever flush had vanished. the pallor and rigidness of death were upon her. her eyes were lustreless, the balls upturned. "quick! quick! the draught!" the physician forced some drops through the stiffening lips. the eyes remained fixed. "it is over! o jehovah! i would have served thee! cruel as baal art thou!" cried marduk, throwing himself across the couch. "hush!" said old ben yusef. "the doors of sheol open. upbraid no one here; not even thyself. 'the lord gave. the lord has taken away. blessed be the name of the lord!'" the old man's trembling voice almost belied the submissive faith expressed by his words, for in a moment he too bowed his head and sobbed. ruth held the cold hand in hers, as if to force into it the warmth of her own life. so intense was her yearning look that it seemed as if her soul would break through her countenance and reanimate the face of the dead. the silence was only for a moment, but it seemed a long time until the physician spoke. "the doors of sheol are closing again, and she--" he watched intently his patient's face as he completed the sentence slowly, and as if waiting to verify the words as he uttered them: "she--has--not--passed them." there was slight twitching of the eyeballs. they resumed their normal position in their sockets. there was in them a soft gleam, as of recognition, not of the watcher, but of something very distant. "the life throbs again in her wrists," cried ruth, covering the hands she held with her kisses. zillah's eyelids fell, but it was in sleep. the breathing became regular. "the fever has burned itself out; but it has burned up branch and stock, and left nothing but the root of life," said the physician. a long sleep followed. at first consciousness came in lucid moments only. then these periods lengthened until they became continuous. only ruth was permitted to enter the sick-chamber. zillah would look at her intently, evidently dividing her thoughts between wonder and admiration for the beautiful face of her attendant. "where am i?" she would ask. "with me," would be the reply. a kiss upon her brow was enough to restore perfect tranquillity, and with a smile the patient would go to sleep. "what do i hear?" she one day asked. "they are chanting our praises to the lord for your recovery," said ruth. "listen!" old ben yusef was evidently the precentor, and the strong voice of elnathan followed, accompanied by the well-known accent of marduk: "bless the lord, o my soul: ... who healeth all thy diseases, who redeemeth thy life from destruction." "shall i sing to you?" and the sweet child-voice sang: "jehovah my shepherd is." so the time passed, except that, after a few days, marduk took his place by the couch. one day he bore zillah in his arms, and laid her upon the cot under the terebinth. then he told how he had lain there with the same little angel of jehovah watching him, the gentle ruth. the pure air of the hill country of galilee; the simplicity of life among the peasants; the uplifting influence of their faith, so sublime, yet so consoling and soul-freeing; and the love of one whose heart was welded to hers in the fire of their mutual afflictions--these were the medicines which did more to bring health to the invalid's cheeks than all the arts of egypt and greece could have accomplished. to remain themselves as peasants, communing with nature, with no cares beyond those of the fields and the flocks, was a pleasing dream that the lovers repeated to themselves, with such variations as the landscape has of cloud and shadow and color, while it remains the same in substantial contour. but the project could not be realized. the sense of great duties he owed to his people impelled the phoenician to think of a larger world. this may have come partly from his natural habit of mind and training, for he was born to rule, and nature left this birth-mark on his character as clearly as she depicted royalty in his face and bearing. he conceived a lofty ambition of reforming the religion of the phoenicians into something conformable to reason, and inspiring to man's better impulses; purging its impurities and follies in the fire--let us confess it for him, since he did not confess it to himself--the fire which should be a veritable burning of egbalus and many of his band of priestly bigots. besides, he was bound to make this attempt in loyalty to hanno, who had saved him from the cruelty of moloch, and zillah from the shame of astarte, not for friendship's sake alone, but for his country's, and for the glory of the throne of tyre. the wealth which he carried with him as the tyrian merchant, marduk well knew came from the private fortune of his friend; and honesty bade him return it in the only way in which it was possible to do so, by regaining his lost rank and inheritance as the acknowledged leader of his people. chapter xxxi. the time came for hiram's departure from the home of ben yusef. "there is one favor more i would claim from the hands of my protector," said he to the old man. "you have been a father to us; we would have a father's blessing in making us one. let me receive my bride from your hands." "let me look into your eyes," replied ben yusef. "now as jehovah liveth, and as thy soul liveth and feareth the curse of its creator, answer me truly. does any other woman than this one hold your vow? our first father adam commanded that 'a man should leave father and mother and cleave unto his wife, and they twain should be one flesh.'" marduk, following the custom of oath-taking among jews and phoenicians alike, placed his hand beneath the thigh of ben yusef and declared: "as jehovah liveth, no woman but this one ever heard vow from me." "and she? is she thy betrothed, and thine alone? does her father live? and has he given his child into thy keeping? for i can stand as father to her, only as i am assured that i transgress no sacred law of fatherhood among jews or gentiles." "her father once solemnly betrothed her to me according to the laws of our people," replied marduk. "in his presence i placed upon her hand the ring of betrothal she wears." "it is enough," said ben yusef. "and may this woman bring thee the blessing that my own lyda brought me when i took her from the tent of terah, her father!" several days later the home of ben yusef was transformed into a place of festivity. the old terebinth was hung with garlands. a booth was erected at a little distance from the family tent. though very simple in structure, it was lined with rich stuffs that well depleted the stores of marduk, the merchant. these were arranged by eliezar, the damascene, whose ingenuity had never before been so taxed to fill the order of any merchant as it was by the order of marduk to prepare the nuptial tent. the broad divan was covered with that rare fabric of white wool, grown on the slopes of the lebanon, and called "damask" from the looms of damascus, that weave its fine fibres, and prepare them for the rich red color of the dyer. it was curtained with lace, the handiwork of a syrian peasant woman, and into the elaborate pattern of which had gone many years of her toil. she could have indicated certain knots that were made when her eyes were full of tears for some affliction; others wrought when her fingers flew nimbly as she hastened her daily task in order to meet some expected pleasure. oh! if one could only unravel the secrets of the lives of the workers, and tell the thoughts they had as they toiled, as one can unravel the stitches, what history we would have!--a thousand times larger and a thousand times deeper than that preserved in the annals of our kings! there was a mirror of polished brass, set in a frame of silver, the craft of sidonians. and such a toilet of necklaces and ear-rings, of gemmed brooches and hair-pins, of bracelets and anklets; such a collection of tiny vases of rock crystal, of bronze, of glass, of alabaster, all containing kohl for coloring the eyebrows, or salves for the lips, or perfumes for the clothing. there was such a wardrobe of shawls and tunics, veils and sandals! even eliezar could not describe them all, for he had left the selection of these to hador, the haberdasher to the king of damascus. during the day zillah had been invisible. the mysteries of her apartment in the tent of ben yusef we must leave to the imagination of our fair readers, and to the knowledge of ruth, who waited upon her. as the day waned, many shepherds of the neighborhood, with their families, came to join in the festivities; for to salute a new-made bride was thought to bring blessing upon one's own household. just as the sun went down, marduk emerged from his booth, arrayed in gay robes, and crowned with myrtle entwined with roses. his garments were redolent with myrrh and frankincense, and verily, as solomon described the comely bridegroom, with "all the powders of the merchant." the peasants formed in procession to escort the bridegroom from his tent to that of ben yusef, at the door of which, as it was her temporary home, he would receive his bride, and conduct her to his own dwelling. scarcely had the procession begun to move, when it was suddenly halted by an exclamation of surprise and caution from elnathan. on top of the hill had appeared a band of horsemen. elnathan darted into the great tent, and reappeared with a number of swords, knives, slings, and such bludgeons as made every tent an arsenal in those troublous times. the peasants were quickly armed, even some of the women taking weapons. elnathan advanced to meet the intruders who had halted upon the hill-top, as if they were reconnoitring the scene, or waiting for others to join them. one of the horsemen was clad in the dull russet leathern suit which indicated a phoenician soldier. another wore a white, closely fitting tunic and the projecting cap of a persian. a third was dressed more as one of the wild rovers of moab, in big turban and flowing burnoose. the three awaited elnathan's challenge, and answered it with, "peace be with thee!" then dashed down the hill-side with a cry in three diverse tongues, "marduk! marduk! marduk!" "hanno!" cried marduk, and had nearly pulled the phoenician soldier from his horse before he caught the admonition of his friend, and repeated louder: "it is captain beto of sidon, as sure as baal lives!" "just as sure!" was the response. the second comer was a stranger to marduk, but at once recognized by elnathan as the persian officer in whose escort he had come down the valley of the litany. the third was a sidonian soldier from the house of sanballat. a few words sufficed to explain their coming. it was necessary for hanno to communicate with marduk concerning matters that could be safely intrusted to no one else, so he had assumed the disguise of a soldier and sought his friend. "but i would never have found you in this retreat, though i thought i knew the way from your description, had it not been that i fell in with these good men, and discovered that this noble persian, who was returning from jerusalem to susa, by way of samaria, was directing this servant of our lord sanballat to find marduk. but woe betide the man who interrupts a marriage ceremony! let us all be friends of the bridegroom." the new-comers joined with the merry peasants. the procession was re-formed, and, with marduk at the head, approached the great tent. ben yusef met them at the door. he held zillah by the hand. she was clothed in white, relieved by needlework of gold. her robe was gathered at the waist by the kishshurim, or wedding girdle, to be loosed only by her husband. her hair was unbound, flowing in a cascade of glossy jet. a crown of gold, beaten into the shape of ivy leaves, was on her head. she wore a veil that hid her features, but fell about her form like a phosphorescence, concealing the sharper folds of her attire, but revealing their lines of grace. ben yusef, placed the hand of zillah in that of marduk, saying: "take her according to the law of moses and of israel." then he added the blessing of the elders at the ancient marriage of boaz and ruth: "the lord make the woman that is come into thy home like rachel and leah, which two did build the house of israel." then ruth pushed aside the veil just enough to kiss her, and, holding the bride's cheeks between her hands, repeated the extravagant blessing the family of rebekah used when they gave her to the patriarch isaac: "thou art our sister: be thou the mother of thousands of millions; and let thy seed possess the gate of those that hate them." the little crowd of peasants had in the meantime lighted flambeaux and small hand lamps. elnathan marshalled them into a procession, which, making a detour over the hill-side, returned to the booth of marduk. here the couple entered. the crowd gathered under the terebinth, where, with feasting and songs, they made the night merry, until the east dropped its gray dawn upon them without a cloud--which they interpreted into a happy omen for the newly wedded--and, with a hundred shouted well-wishes to the merchant and his bride, they dispersed to their homes. the persian officer rejoined his own company. the soldier from sanballat, who carried a letter to marduk from manasseh, set out upon his return. "captain beto" seemed to forget the proprieties of the occasion, and made himself a companion of marduk and his wife during almost all the first day of their wedded life. the three sat under the terebinth, or walked together over the hill; the devoted couple apparently as deeply interested in their visitor as in each other. whether their interest in "captain beto's" talk was warranted or not, we must leave the reader to judge. he told of events in phoenicia, some of which are recited in the next chapter. chapter xxxii. after ahimelek's horrid curses upon his daughter, he remained in a stupor during the day and night. when the morning broke, the servants found him sitting in a corner of his apartment in the inn of gebal with his arms folded as if clasping some object, and talking incoherently: "don't go, zillah, my pretty one! there now! sleep again! you will not hate your father when you grow to be a queen, will you? kiss me again. a curse! a curse! a curse on him who will touch a hair of my zillah! what are those men pushing with their poles? save her! give her to me, layah!" then followed a long period of weeping. like a child, at last he cried himself to sleep. late in the day he awoke. he was a changed man. his hair had grown perceptibly whiter. his face was ashen-hued. from middle life he had passed suddenly into senility and imbecility. the terrible excitement had seemingly burned out his brain. for some days he refused to leave gebal. when at length he set out, and came to the river adonis, he was held by some spell from crossing it. as his litter-bearers rested by the bank, he leaped from his carriage, and ran hither and thither, searching with wild eyes into every pool. he then made them convey him to the coast, where the ruddy waters of the river mingle with the great sea. there he paced the shores, wringing his hands, now praying, now cursing. egbalus and rubaal were especially the objects of his imprecation. they brought him to tyre. he shut himself in his house. for days he was invisible. captains in the harbor delayed their sailing, awaiting orders from him as the owner of their craft, which orders never came. merchants from sidon, with whom he was interested in joint ventures, returned enraged at his neglect of most pressing business. the first to gain access to him was hanno. from boyhood ahimelek had known and liked the genial comrade of young hiram; and now that he must have some one to speak with, yet feared everybody else, he bethought him of hanno. there was something of the old-time welcome of ahimelek as his guest appeared. "enter, my son! my boy, hanno!" said he, throwing his arms affectionately about the stalwart young man. then he looked at the dignified form, the serious face of the visitor, and, as if suddenly recollecting himself, made profound obeisance, remaining with head bowed for a moment. "my lord hanno! priest of astarte, to be high priest of baal-melkarth! i worship your presence." "simple hanno, if you will," was the reassuring reply. the wretched man put his hands on hanno's shoulders and scanned his face, as if making an effort at recollection. "i--i knew you when a child, did i not? in this room you have played. with these same old swords and helmets you have played. hiram and hanno played, and i--i let them. i never told them not to play." "yes, you were a good friend to me and--to hiram." "was i?" said the man, with delight. "and you have not cursed me, as a priest have not cursed me, because i was good to you when a boy? and you will not curse me?" "no! no! noble ahimelek! there have been cursings enough. but you sent for me?" "ah, yes. i remember. hanno! priest hanno!" he drew his friend to him, and studied his face again, as if half in fear that sudden lightning might flash from it and blast him. "hanno! priest hanno! can you see the gods?" hanno hesitated a moment, as if balancing his reply between honesty and some plan he had of using the superstition of ahimelek, and then replied: "i have seen all the gods there are." "have you seen hiram, baal-hiram, since--the sacrifice?" "yes." "he really lives?" "yes." "is blessed of baal?" "yes." there was a long pause. ahimelek's face went through a series of contortions. with husky, hesitating speech, looking against the blank wall, as if questioning himself rather than his visitor, he stammered out: "and zillah? she went to hiram?" "she is with hiram." "you can see her?" "i have seen her." "does she curse her father?" "no, she is too happy with hiram for that." "baal be praised!" raising his arm, he would have embraced hanno, but his emotion was too much for him, and he fell across the divan. hanno lifted him kindly, and clapped his hands for a servant, who gave ahimelek a cup of wine. the old man was soon in loquacious mood. "captain hanno, they are robbing me." "who?" "egbalus, king rubaal, my captains, my camel-drivers--everybody. they will have every ship, every jewel, every daric. save me, hanno! i'll pay you well. come, see what they would take!" he drew one end of the divan away from the wall, took out a panel of the carved wainscoting of the room, and from a little chest drew by main strength a heavy bronze box. "in this are more precious things than elsewhere in all phoenicia. for years my captains have been commissioned to purchase the most splendid gems. some of these singly cost all the freight of a bireme to gades." then he whispered, as he tapped the box lovingly with his finger: "the great diamond of xerxes, that the persians are searching for, is here. a handful of rubies, too, that a greek gave me, to keep my ships in the far western sea, so that the persian levy would be lessened. ah! if my ships had been at eurymedon, the battle might have gone differently. and you should see the gift of megabyses for my influence in keeping the men of tyre from going to help the sidonians when the city was besieged. oh! i have been a great man, hanno, in my day; quiet merchant ahimelek, as they thought me; a great man! a great man! and the harvest of forty years is in that box. did you hear what young ezmunazer, prince of sidon, is having carved on the coffin they are making for him? it is, 'curse the man that moves my bones.' i have guarded this box with all the spells the witches know of, and put ten thousand curses upon him who should touch it. but now, hanno, they are going to take it away." the old man cried like a whipped child, and clutched his treasure-box. "who can take it without your consent, ahimelek? our laws will prevent any robbery by day, and you have strong watchmen by night," said hanno, encouragingly. "no, but look here! read this!" he drew from a heap of papyrus and parchments a document. it proved to be a copy of his dowry agreement in espousing his daughter zillah to rubaal. he pledged to the prospective king the equivalent in gems of a thousand minas of gold, together with half the revenue of his ships; making rubaal withal partner in all his enterprises. with this enormous price he thought to buy into his own family the throne of tyre. "but your document is surely invalid, since your daughter has not become the wife of rubaal," said hanno. "such were but the just interpretation; but rubaal holds that from the day of the espousal the dowry was due; that it became his then, the death of zillah being as the death of his real wife. and the great counsellors all hold with rubaal. the shophetim can assure me of no relief. to-morrow they come to make good the claim. to-morrow! oh, good hanno! priest hanno, help me!" hanno thought a moment, and replied: "ahimelek, is rubaal king yet? he has not been crowned, and may never be. let this be secret between us. i am assured that the great king, artaxerxes, has expressed displeasure with rubaal; and surely the tyrians will not crown a king who will not be recognized at susa and receive the appointment as suffete under persia; otherwise persia would send an officer of her own, and our king would be in disgrace. tabnit of sidon, too, refuses to recognize rubaal. we dare not break with our brethren the sidonians. i assure you, ahimelek, that rubaal will never be crowned. you must not allow this wealth to come into his hands. never!" "how can i prevent it? they will force my house. it may be this very night. and once possessing this, they will have money enough to buy the pleasure of the great king." "the gems must be secreted," said hanno. "but where?" "out of the land; under the care of some other god; for baal will show them, as he shows everything, to his priests. they should be sent across the seas, or over into jehovah's land." "to hide them in some cave, or bury them in some wood? no, no. i would not rest day or night lest they should be discovered." "put them under the care of the god of the land, then. i can arrange that matter as priest of astarte with the priests of jehovah." "will you deal with me truly?" said ahimelek. "as truly as baal lives." "swear it." hanno stood out in the centre of the room, where a sunbeam fell through the bronze-latticed window. with the light on his face, he kissed his hand to the sun--the customary oath before baal, the sun-god. the old man opened the bronze box. but as his eyes caught the lustre of the gems, he closed it again and sat upon it, asking hanno a hundred questions, and taking from him again and again the oath before baal, invoking curses of baal-hiram and zillah, and every ghost and jinn that ever walked the earth, upon his proving false or allowing the gems to go to any other than their rightful owner. chapter xxxiii. as hanno, under the terebinth of ben yusef, narrated the substance of all this to hiram and zillah, he bade them feel the tough leathern suit, like that of a phoenician soldier, in which he had disguised himself. the stiffness of the leather served to hide its uneven thickness, for its lining was quilted in tiny blocks, each of which was nubbed with some precious stone, or padded to protect some delicate setting or cluster of gems. he twisted a bit of iron from the end of his sword-hilt, and poured out a handful of diamonds. he mimicked the tricksters who draw pearls from various parts of their bodies, except that he left the pearls and emeralds and rubies in the hand of zillah, and possessed no power of the wizard to make them vanish. he grew hilarious. "come!" said he. "let us play the chase by the robbers. i will be the victim. you shall catch me and take me to your own den--the booth over there--and flay me alive--for all this skin belongs to you." but zillah could not be provoked into mirth. hanno, in narrating the events that followed her escape from apheca, had not told her of her father's curse, reserving that part of the story for hiram's ears alone. she was oppressed by what she thought of as her own unfilial conduct; and in her mind hanno's zealous interest in their behalf had led him into robbery. hiram's sympathy with her awakened scruples in his own mind that perhaps he would not otherwise have thought of. "i cannot take these things, good hanno," said he. "why not? they are yours, and have been for more than twenty moons. indeed, you should not only take them, but demand usury on them, too. recall ahimelek's dowry contract with yourself. you told me it was for a thousand minas, and for a half of all the revenues of his ships; the same as this contract with rubaal. by the laws of tyre all this comes with your bride. that he villainously sought to kill you, to break his daughter's heart, does not touch this fact under law, however it may affect your feelings. i did not steal these things from him, for they were not his, and have not been since the day of your betrothal; or if there were any doubt of that, they are not his since your marriage. and, by the name of jehovah, into whose land you have come, to no other hands than yours shall they be given! besides, you are not merely hiram and zillah; you are the king and queen of tyre. they belong to your throne. loyalty to your throne compels your retention of them." "nay," said zillah, "your own pledge was to put them into some temple, under the protection of the god." "the true temple of god is a man, and that temple's true revenues are the man's rights," said hanno, oracularly. "i will fulfil my pledge best if i leave them at your feet, and go back to tyre. i will then kiss my hand to the sun, and swear i have done my duty." "hold!" interrupted hiram; "it may be that manasseh can help us in the matter. he is of the priestly line, and perhaps can find a safe place in connection with the temple at jerusalem. we need a better guarded treasury than our pockets. but you have not asked the news from samaria that the messenger who accompanied you brought. i will read it: "'_manasseh, son of ioiada, of the tribe of levi, to marduk, son of baal, and to my lady zillah: greeting!_ "'my wedding with nicaso, daughter of sanballat, satrap of samaria, will be on the seventeenth day of the seventh month, which is tisri. my lord sanballat bids me welcome you among his most honored guests. my own summons may be best read in your thoughts, o my friend, for thou knowest my heart. my salutations to elnathan and the house of ben yusef!'" the following day the phoenician party left the hospitable home of their jewish host. they proceeded southward by the sea of galilee, striking the road that leads by mount tabor. they encamped for the night near the western slope of that beautiful mountain. the sunlight that lingered on its symmetrical crest when the dusk filled the plain about them they interpreted into a good omen, notwithstanding that it was a superstition of the religion of the sun-god. as the morning broke, they observed that a large camp of persian soldiers had been formed near them during the night. inquiry revealed the fact that this was the escort of nehemiah, the tirshatha of jerusalem, who was coming from susa, where he had been for several years, having assumed that the affairs of jerusalem were sufficiently settled to allow his return to the persian capital--a place that, although he was a jew, still held many of his interests, and where he was allotted a high rank as the former cup-bearer of the king. the tirshatha was accompanied by a detachment of persian cavalry, whose horses were tethered between the tents. by the central pavilion stood the tall spear; floating from its head the ensign of the commandant. smoke wreathed from a score of fires, where the morning meal was being prepared. at a sudden bugle blast the entire scene was transformed. the tents fell; the fire was trampled out; horses were harnessed; camels knelt to receive their burdens. in a few moments the gallant cavalcade, followed by the baggage train, and guarded at the rear by a detachment of horsemen, crowded the road. as they passed the camp of the phoenicians, now ready for the journey, the tirshatha sent his messenger to learn who were his neighbors. upon hearing they were merchants, he bade them join his party, and invited marduk to ride by his side. the tirshatha was mounted upon a superb horse, equipped with expensive trappings embossed with gold; his bridle of silk inwoven with threads of gold; the saddle cloth a rich purple embroidered in gold. the rider's habit was in keeping. his purple tunic was adorned with flower-work, as were his flowing trousers. his sword-hilt was of gold, studded with gems. a massive chain of gold was about his neck. he wore the conical cap projecting forward at the top, as if to make a shade for the face. the officers of his suite were in array approximating in splendor that of their chief. marduk returned the cordial salutation of the tirshatha as he rode up to his side. nehemiah opened the conversation genially. "marduk, a phoenician merchant? the name is new to me, except that on this journey i have heard it spoken with respect. i thought i knew all of your trade who were accustomed to visit our jews' land." as he said this he gave a quick glance with penetrating eyes into the face of marduk--a glance that took in every feature. the phoenician felt that there might be some suspicion in this, and deftly foiled it. "your people are increasing rapidly in wealth under the stimulus of your government, tirshatha; and many merchants who used to trade elsewhere are now attracted hither. you will see many strangers at jerusalem, my lord." "your compliment is more kind than considerate," replied nehemiah. "our people have little wealth as yet, and cannot buy much of such rare goods as you evidently carry." "yes, but by buying and selling my wares they make gain." "you are going to jerusalem, then, sir merchant?" "to samaria first." "oh! to deck out sanballat's daughter for her wedding?" said nehemiah, with a sneer. "i believe she marries one of your people." "yes, but it is most ill-advised," replied nehemiah, with undisguised ill-humor. "how? any alliance between samaria and jerusalem must strengthen both." "nay, it is an alliance of clay and iron that makes the iron brittle. our people, marduk, are of peculiar customs, religion, and mission. again and again have our old kings tried to widen their prosperity by widening their alliances, but have always failed. the persian government is wiser. it does not seek to make all the provinces it conquers to be alike in their laws and worship. it allows each nation to retain its own, and only asks loyalty and tribute. king cyrus commissioned us to return from babylon and rebuild the temple. so did darius, and so artaxeres has sent ezra the scribe and myself to reconstruct our own peculiar system. we condemn no other people by maintaining the pure blood of our own. over yonder is the ruin of the palace of jezreel. you know the place, perhaps its history. one of our kings, ahab, married jezebel, daughter of one of your kings of tyre; but it wrought only trouble. we are now crossing the great battle-plain of esdraelon. every jew thrills at its sacred memories. deborah and barak here conquered sisera, the general of the canaanites. yonder is gilboa, where saul and jonathan fell fighting the philistines; and there is the valley of jezreel, where gideon vanquished the midianites. all these were battles for our integrity as a people, and especially that no other god than ours should be worshipped in our land. even a phoenician, with your legends of a thousand years, must respect the lessons of our history. but let us not dispute, marduk. what is the news of your country by the sea? will rubaal get and keep the crown, think you?" "why not?" asked the merchant. "at susa he is not thought of with favor," said nehemiah. "the sacrifice of the former king, hiram, is regarded as a cruelty that persia must frown upon, even if she allows freedom of religion; and the other phoenician kings are afraid of the precedent of allowing the priests to have such influence that a king's life is in their hands. therefore the kings are all opposed to rubaal, and the great king would not antagonize them. he depends too much upon the phoenician fleet to alienate their loyalty." the tirshatha plied marduk with questions regarding all the lands adjacent, the condition of roads, names of the chief men in the towns across the jordan: to which questions the merchant gave uncomfortably meagre responses. his ignorance occasionally brought those keen eyes of nehemiah to a suspicious scrutiny of his countenance. as they parted company, the tirshatha remarked to his chief officer: "that man knows both too much and too little. have an eye upon him." the following day the phoenician took the short road from dothan to samaria, while the tirshatha's party kept to that running by shechem, and leading them more directly to the sacred city. chapter xxxiv. the hill of samaria was in a blaze of color. every tent of the army of sanballat floated its gay streamer. rivalling these were the displays of the various chieftains of neighboring tribes, who had come to honor with their presence the wedding of the samaritan princess. the extravagance of oriental fashion vied with that of martial splendor; gaudy turbans with polished helmets; brilliant robes with gleaming breastplates; palanquins of fair women with the mail of the heavy war horses. furlongs of bright cloths hung from the trees, and draped the stone columns that still stood as the relics and reminders of the glory of this old capital of israel. in cool nooks were skins of wines, while troughs were overrunning with the new-pressed juices of apples and grapes. there were jars of confections, spiced to kindle the thirst that the free-flowing liquors were to quench. games, dances, songs, the thumbing of stringed instruments, the whistle of pipes and the ringing of trumpets, gave vent to the spirit of abandon among the motley crowds of people. sanballat entertained within the palace the great chiefs, whose spears, adorned with their various insignia, were stuck into the ground, in semicircular array, in front of the grand entrance. there was geshom, the arabian, and a score of braves from idumea, moab, and philistia, who lounged at the tables. even tobiah, the ammonite, was not forgotten; indeed, his presence was a special pleasure to sanballat, whose magnanimity rose with the conviction that he had at length circumvented his rival in gaining alliance with the jews. these worthies drank to one another, and to one another's gods: to the sun-god, to baal-shâmayim, lord of heaven; to melkarth of tyre, to chemosh of moab, to milcom of ammon, to moloch of philistia, to dagon of the coast, to succoth-benoth of babylon, to nergal of cuth, to ashima of hamath, to nibhak and tartak of the avites, to adranmelech and anammelek of sepharvaim, to jehovah of the jews, and to astarte, the goddess of love. with clinking cups and hilarious shouts they invoked the blessings of all gods upon the bride and groom. they drank until they knew not to whom they drank, each one making a god of his own belly. then they be-praised every one his own possessions and prowess, and they scattered oaths and blows; indeed, all had a right merry time, as the proprieties of the occasion and the rude manners of the age and people prompted, until the soberer servants removed both the viands and the guests together. at nightfall the hill of samaria seemed a mass of flame. torches flared upon the palace walks; bonfires filled the grove with ruddy light, amid which the trees and the moving people seemed like weird spectres. a bugle blast sounded from afar. the crowds gathered near the open roadway that led to the palace. the clatter of hoofs was soon heard, nearer and nearer, louder and louder, while shouts rent the air. a band of wild riders dashed up the garlanded avenue. the soldiers and populace battled against them with waving torches, tufts of grass, and shrieks of mimic rage. the cry of the assailants was-- "manasseh! manasseh!" they pressed up to the palace front. some, dismounting, beat upon the gates. these were flung wide. in the opening stood sanballat, surrounded by as many of his noble guests as were able to get upon their feet. with angry voice the satrap demanded the cause of this irruption. a chorus of hoarse voices replied: "nicaso! nicaso for our lord manasseh!" sanballat parleyed with them. "would you rob a father of his only child?" "yes," was the response, "and of a hundred only children. one for each of us if they were like nicaso." and a score of witticisms, some sharp, some scurrilous, were hurled at him. at length, with well-feigned fear, sanballat led forth his daughter. she was elegantly robed and crowned. a spirited horse, superbly caparisoned, was led to her side. without awaiting the proffered assistance, nicaso leaped upon his back. the horsemen led her captive, followed by a procession of maidens who wailed in feigned lament the fate of their comrade, amid the amorous gibes and jokes of the young men. they brought nicaso to the happy bridegroom's tent. thus far they had followed the custom of the east-jordan tribes in mimic seizure of the bride. nicaso, however, delighted in breaking through all proprieties. the flashing lights and shouts excited her wild blood, and, instead of dismounting to receive the embrace of her new lord, she dashed away from the crowd, crying, "let him have me who can catch me!" her horse was sure-footed and keen-eyed, and galloped among rocks and through by-paths without the guidance of even the single rein that his mistress threw upon his neck. down among the tents of the soldiers, out on the high-road towards shechem, back through the woods, now flitting like a spectre in the darkness, now all agleam with her bejewelled crown and robe as she passed some bonfire; thus the daring girl led, and yet eluded, the pursuing crowd. manasseh, though surprised at this unexpected postponement of the moment when he should clasp his fair possession, really admired the adventurous frolicksomeness of his bride, and accepted her challenge with equal spirit. was it the happy guidance of some goddess of love, or the quick eyes of nicaso that watched his coming, that brought their horses together at two converging paths? their beasts reared and plunged at the shock, like two waves clashing in counter seas. nicaso's steed galloped away riderless. cries rose: "she is thrown!" in fact, at the moment of the collision she had thrown herself from her horse fairly into manasseh's arms, and, with crown awry, hair dishevelled, her black eyes flashing with merriment, a magnificent picture of wild queenly beauty, was borne by her lover to his tent. as she jumped to the ground some portion of her clothing caught upon the trappings of the horse, and she would have fallen had not marduk extended his arm and relieved her. "marduk, you have fulfilled your part of our covenant," said manasseh. "let me take my bride from your hand, as you took yours from mine." the bridal pair disappeared in the nuptial tent. for seven days the festival was kept up. then the young jew set out for jerusalem with his bride. the phoenician's party accompanied them. nicaso's wardrobe burdened as many camels as did the merchant's wares. among his rich robes was stored a strange article for such a collection--a heavy leathern suit of a phoenician soldier. chapter xxxv. the spacious residence of ioiada, son of the high priest eliashib, was ordinarily a rendezvous for the aristocratic circles of jerusalem. the fashion of the city seized the occasion of the home-bringing of his daughter-in-law, the bride of manasseh, and the feastings that celebrated it, to throng his court and chambers with such gayety as had not been seen since the return from the land of the captivity. the repute of nicaso's beauty, the romance of such an alliance between a priestly house of the jews and the family of sanballat, their ancient enemy, set the tongues of all classes going. the multitude hailed the event. they were wearied with the exclusiveness they had been forced to maintain as respected their intercourse with neighboring people. shopkeepers were delighted, for, in the train of sanballat's daughter, came men and women from all surrounding tribes, and jerusalem seemed about to become again an emporium of trade, as in the days before the exile. marduk was solicited to open a bazaar in the chief street of the city with the assurance of doing a thriving business in foreign stuffs, for which the good people of jerusalem had taken a sudden and violent fancy. but for reasons best known to himself, the phoenician merchant chose to pitch his tents without the walls. yet here he apparently did a lively trade; for scarcely a day passed that did not bring a camel or two down from the north, or a horseman up from joppa on the coast. marduk himself seemed to catch the spirit of enterprise, and attended in person to the details of business, which he had formerly left entirely to eliezar. many of the traders, especially those who came from phoenicia, and who were presumably the agents of his business, he took to his own private tent, or walked with them apart. it was rumored that he was about to open new trade routes with egypt and the east, which would centre in jerusalem. that manasseh was so frequently with him gave plausibility to the report that a great mercantile combination had been agreed upon in which much jewish wealth should be represented by the house of ioiada, the treasury of sanballat by his son-in-law, manasseh, and the heaviest merchants of tyre by marduk, whose exhaustless genius and money-bags were the inspiration of the enterprise. but far different movements were beneath the surface of things. the religious sentiment of jerusalem had been shocked by the alliance of the priestly house with that of the hated samaritan. by many nicaso was called jezebel, and manasseh denounced as a traitor who aimed at playing the part of a second ahab. the venerable scribe, ezra, seemed broken-hearted over the defection of his favorite pupil. his lectures upon the law became lamentations. one day the three most notable men in all jewry were together in the hall of the high priest. there was the venerable pontiff, eliashib, a man whose broad and bland countenance was well in keeping with his elegant attire. his whole bearing showed that he fully appreciated the secular dignity of his position, if he did not feel the religious solemnities of his sacerdotal office. he strode up and down the apartment while he talked. ezra, presuming upon the privilege of more advanced years and feebleness, sat in his chair, scarcely raising his eyes from the floor, except as now and then they shot the light of intense conviction after some sage saying he had uttered. but the most impressive figure was that of the tirshatha, nehemiah. he stood rigid as the statue of some god; only turning his head to follow the movement of eliashib, whom he seemed to regard with mingled rage and scorn. had he drawn the short sword that hung at his side, he would not have been more the impersonation of wrathful determination. the dispute of the men had already been long, and without persuasion on either side. "i shall submit to no such dictation in the affairs of my family," said eliashib, throwing wide his arms, as if to stretch to the utmost his priestly robe, and the aristocratic authority that rustled in every fold of it, and thus awe his opponents. "be content with what you have done: that i have allowed tobiah, prince of ammon, to be driven from his chambers at the temple. but know, haughty governor, that i move not another step at your bidding." "alas!" cried ezra, "that i should have lived to see the law of the lord openly broken with the countenance of the high priest, who should be its most zealous guardian!" "the law of the lord!" retorted eliashib. "ay, as the light that comes through yonder yellow curtain is the light of heaven; for so is the law of the lord stained by the interpretation of ezra the scribe. did not moses marry the daughter of the priest of midian, and boaz marry the moabitish ruth? is jehovah become a god of cruelty to drive out the helpless women and children, because their blood is not like thine?" then fire seemed to flash from the figure of nehemiah. he boldly advanced, and, laying his hand upon the shoulder of the priest, glared into his face as he said: "the time for debate is past. know you what i have done this very day? on my way hither i came upon a band of these renegade jews who have married themselves to the women of ashdod, ammon, and of moab, whose children cannot even speak straight the language of our nation; and i cursed them, and smote certain of them, and plucked off their hair, and made them swear by god they would put away this spiritual harlotry. and mark you, eliashib, so will i chase from the gates the apostate manasseh, though he be of the blood of one who has debauched the high priest's office." eliashib was furious, and hissed through his clenched teeth: "not until you have first become priest and sacrificed the high priest upon the altar of your bigotry and madness. pure blood! nicaso's is as pure as nehemiah's, which has been tainted by the persian's wine, as you were so long cup-bearer to the crowned heathen. go back to susa and lord it over the pages, but you shall not lord it over me. stand guard, if you will, at the harem curtains of artaxerxes, but you shall not stand before the curtains of eliashib's household." the audacity of the high priest checked for a moment the headlong rush of the governor's passion. or perhaps it was the training of the diplomat that led nehemiah to reply with more deliberation: "my decision cannot be revoked. as the lord lives! i will purge jerusalem; or, failing that, i return to susa, and give back into the hands of the great king the commission as tirshatha. then what? o blinded priest! let jerusalem perish again rather than become a harlot city!" "the lord prevent!" cried ezra, rising. the high priest dropped upon a seat and sat a long time in silent musing. at length he rose, and spoke, more to himself than to the listeners: "alas! that the keeping of israel is in the hands of such men as we. our words are but wind, the hot wind of the desert, without the guidance of the spirit of the lord. i would think and pray. leave me, friends, before we further sin in our ignorant wrath"--and, gathering his robes about him, eliashib left the apartment. chapter xxxvi. late that night the light shone in the house of ioiada. a more stormy scene was there than even the one we have described. at first ioiada and his son manasseh were unyielding, but finally it was agreed that it would be discreet for manasseh temporarily to withdraw from the city with his bride. though he yielded to necessity, the spirit of the young jew was not curbed. "i go," said he, "but i swear never to return until nicaso and her children, if the lord so bless our union, can come again without taunt or lessening. the tirshatha is not god, nor the servant of god. let him not cross my path beyond the gates, or he is a son of death!" great was the excitement the day following, when the triumph of the governor became known. groups of young men gathered in the street near to ioiada's house. fiery speeches were made, denouncing the tyranny of nehemiah, and deriding the senile bigotry of ezra. even the high priest was not spared in the oratorical bravery that swayed the crowd. in the midst of their noisy declamation nehemiah appeared, accompanied by a delegation from the elders of the city. the multitude turned their backs when he attempted to address them. as he retired some shouted after him: "put on your persian armor and show how true a jew you are!" "what is the price of wine in susa?" "but here comes malachi. let's hear what he has to say. ezra says he will make a prophet. why not? balaam's ass was one." malachi did not stop to parley with them, but turned in at the door of ioiada. "if he will side with us, we will drive out the governor," said one. "or dip him in hezekiah's pool," said another. an hour later malachi reappeared, and with him manasseh. the young mob went wild with enthusiasm at the prospective alliance. but malachi parted with manasseh at the door. to the surprise of the crowd the latter addressed them, thanking them for their show of personal friendship, but counselling peace. "we shall be wiser to-morrow than we are to-day. the interests of young israel need cooler heads than ours are now. the bigotry of the governor's party cannot last. the tide is strong at the moment--too strong for us to beat back--but it will turn speedily. then we will be strong with it. one shout for young israel, then let's go home and wait!" the shout was given with a will. "nicaso salutes you and invites you all to the palace of samaria," cried manasseh, as he disappeared through the doorway. cheer after cheer rent the air. just as the shouting was beginning to subside it burst out anew, for upon the parapet of the house nicaso appeared. her black hair and flushed cheeks made a superb contrast with her white mantle and the jewels that flashed about her brow and neck. the apparition lasted but for a moment, yet long enough to make many a swain declare that he too would leave jerusalem if he could have so fair an attendant, and so comfortable a residence in exile as the palace of sanballat among the hills of samaria. during the day the house of ioiada was thronged with friends who came to utter within its walls such imprecations against the governor as they would not have dared to express more openly, and to pledge their personal loyalty to manasseh during his absence. among the visitors was the phoenician merchant. "make no preparation for equipage on the morrow," said marduk, "for i, too, am summoned northward." "i cannot go to-morrow," replied manasseh. "but that is your agreement with the governor, is it not, on condition of his allowing you to retire from the city without the show of force?" "that is my compact; yet i must seek delay, for i have a higher compact." "there can be no compact higher than that of a man's fairly given word," said marduk. "i can take no offence at your rebuke," replied the young exile, "because you will not blame me, when i tell you that i have given my word of honor to one who is of higher rank than the tirshatha. i have pledged this person to discharge a certain obligation in jerusalem, and i cannot discharge it before to-morrow's light." "who is above the governor in rank?" manasseh, lowering his voice, and bowing reverently, replied: "the king. the king of tyre, and my king, if you will accept my loyalty. has your majesty forgotten that you appointed me grand treasurer? i have so far kept fealty, and deposited the jewels beneath the very altar of god within the temple court. there they are in a little nook between the stones, full a score of cubits below the cave which i once showed you beneath the threshing-floor of araunah. the old jebusite never put such a precious harvest down that hole. and, for that matter, all the beasts whose blood has run through that vault since the day that solomon slew a thousand bullocks on the altar were not worth so much as i have put there. but now see this order from the governor! i am to be unmolested, on condition of my not appearing in the streets or at the temple. the tyrant fears an insurrection against his cruelty, if i but so much as show myself. if i brave him and venture there, i will be watched. but as the lord heard my pledge to you, i shall not leave jerusalem without the treasure." "it is serious business," replied marduk. "cannot some venture be made to-night to secure the jewels? put me on the clue, and i will go myself; or bribe some temple-servant to fetch them." "it is impossible. nehemiah has seen to it that only the most bigoted priests and servitors are allowed in the temple precincts. the expulsion of tobiah was done with such a high hand that the governor's party fear retaliation. a rumor was started that the ammonite's partisans might set fire to the building and wreak their vengeance. so they have guarded it as closely as if it were besieged by sanballat himself." "then there is nothing to be gained by your remaining," said marduk. "indeed, it is better that you withdraw, and let matters settle. when suspicion is diverted, you can return. the jewels are safe?" "safe as a rock that has never been uncovered in the earth, for no man knows their hiding-place. as a boy in the high priest's family, i was allowed to play among the masonry while they were repairing the temple court, and i know of byways that a mole could not find." "then nothing can be done until you can come back to the city, which must be before long. this rancor cannot last. your grandsire will have influence for your recall. i absolve you from all obligation." "with that assurance on your part," said manasseh, "and a new pledge on my part that i shall not go five leagues from the city until the jewels are in some way rescued, i will join your camp to-morrow." immense throngs crowded the street through which, on the following day, nicaso passed in her palanquin, attended by her husband on horseback. an unintermitted roar of applause followed them to the gates, and a gay cavalcade of young bloods escorted them to the camp of marduk, which had been pitched some miles to the north, near to the half-built, or rather half-ruined, ancient city of gibeah. chapter xxxvii. several nights after the departure of manasseh from jerusalem, a strange thing occurred outside the temple wall. it was just beneath the towering angle of the southeast parapet that rises high above the valley of the kidron. the night was dark, for there was no moon, and thick clouds veiled the stars. two men, whose clothes, could they have been seen, would have indicated that they were common laboring folk, were feeling their way among the great blocks of stone that lay beyond the temple wall--a part of the débris of the ancient city which the enterprise of the new settlers had not yet removed. as now and then a temple guard passed along the wall above them, the men stood still, and could not have been distinguished from the huge stones around. as the guard withdrew, the men moved cautiously, like foxes stealing upon their prey. "it is here," whispered the foremost. "lend a hand!" strong arms tugged at something, which did not yield. "the club! i have it through the ring. now, lift!" a slight grating sound followed, as if a heavy stone had been raised and slid upon another. "faugh! what a stench! no doubt about our being on the scent. give me the rope. i've tied it under my arms. if i can't breathe, you'll have to pull me out." one held the rope, while the other let himself down through an opening between the great stones. "it is all right!" came up from a vault below. "double the rope on a stone, and slide down after me." the second man disappeared as noiselessly as a serpent gliding into its hole. "breathe yourself a little until we get used to it, as a fox does when he goes to sleep with his head under his tail. * * * now for it! it's as slippery as the side of hermon. mind your skull! i've just cracked mine." "go ahead," replied the other; "i've played the worm in worse ground than this." the men groped their way, crouching for perhaps a hundred cubits, when the sewer--for such it was--led through the foundation of the temple wall, and enlarged into a sort of subterranean corridor. the fresher air and the echo of their shuffling feet revealed this. "now for a lantern! a flash of lightning in here wouldn't be seen at the opening." a small lamp enclosed in two hemispheres of bronze was lighted from a tinder-box, and sent a gleam through a slit in one side. it revealed a passage about fifty cubits long, two or three wide, and perhaps twelve or fifteen high. "see this! this passage must have been built in solomon's time, yet here are the workmen's marks on the stone in red paint. you can rub it off with the finger, though it has been here for five hundred years at least. one can well believe that the phoenician empire is to last forever, when a phoenician stonemason's marks last so long. you would think the lizards would have rubbed them out with their bellies." the corridor came abruptly to an end, but a small conduit opened at one side, out of which trickled a stream of blood and filth. "how now? that is the way we are to go, if we go any farther. we will have to obey the curse the lord put upon the devil for tempting mother eve, and go upon our bellies, as snakes and lizards do." "it wasn't half so bad to crawl that way among the flowers of paradise as through such a hole as this," replied his comrade. "let's go in, one close after the other, so that in case one gets stuck, the other can pull him back." the opening was wider than it appeared. pushing the lantern ahead, the men made good progress, and at length emerged into another large chamber. "the devil snake ate dust. i wish he could have had the mouthful i just got. he would never have risked tempting any of the children of eve afterwards," said the foremost man, wiping the clots of filth from his face. "but let us sit and blow awhile; for, if i am not mistaken, we are a good bow-shot off our mark yet. i wish you could do what the tyrians think you did--change yourself into a ghost and vanish through these walls." "i wouldn't do that if i could," replied his comrade, laughing; "for i would have to leave you alone in this hole. and, by hercules! as the greeks say, if i hadn't pulled you a while ago, you would have been as snugly buried as king david is in his stone coffin somewhere about here." "not far from here, either. i think i smell something as old. do you know the flavor of mummy skin, marduk?" "right well, manasseh! and if my eyes are as good as your nose, there lies the mummy." a dark object wrapped in cloths was close beside them. the men moved away a few paces, and turned the light of the lantern upon it. a bat cut through the light. "we've startled his ghost," said marduk, with a slight tremor in his voice, for all that he attempted to be jocose. manasseh closely inspected the mummy, and was about to kick it with his foot. "no, marduk, you kick him! you are king, and perhaps he is one of the phoenician workmen who built this vault. you have a right to abuse the bodies of your subjects when alive, and, of course, when they are dead." "he is too small for a workman, unless he has shrunk awfully," replied marduk. "but it is not a body at all. see these knobs of carved wood sticking out at the ends." manasseh burst out laughing. "why, it's nothing but an old copy of the law." such it proved to be. it was rolled upon two cylinders, and wrapped carefully in a silken cover. manasseh untied it and, by the light of the lantern, studied its characters. "this is a rare document, marduk. it has been here from before the sack of the city, in the time of nebuchadnezzar. it looks very ancient. if i should swear it was written by moses himself, you couldn't disprove it. for aught you and i know, it may be the identical copy good king josiah found. it has been hidden here for safe-keeping, just as your jewels were. and they cannot be far off, either; for whoever brought this here came down from the temple. he could not have crawled up as we did; for, see! there is not on the roll so much as a stain of dirt, except that from dampness. if i establish a new worship in samaria, as i can well do, being of the high priest's family from jerusalem, this document will be of immense value. ezra cannot produce a copy of the law to compare with this in appealing to popular belief. i have seen all his copies. and now i venture a prophecy: with sanballat's help we will have a temple on gerizim, built expressly to hold this document, as the divinity of the place. now for a contract with you, marduk--i mean king hiram. you shall build the temple for samaria, as your great ancestor did for jerusalem. what say you?" "only what i have often said," replied marduk. "i shall help you in everything, as you have helped me. but i think we shall have to get those jewels first. let's push on." manasseh hugged the copy of the law as carefully as if it had been a child whom he had rescued from death in the vault. a few paces brought them against the wall. there seemed to be no outlet from the chamber except that by which they had entered. "we are off the track," said marduk. "are you sure that we ought not to have turned into some other conduit?" "how could we have mistaken it?" replied manasseh. "we saw no other opening. besides, we followed up the stream of blood and filth." "but that has disappeared. see, the floor is dry. and so it was there where you picked up the sacred roll. listen!" a dripping sound was heard. as marduk moved towards it, a splash of foul matter fell upon him from above, and extinguished the lantern. it is uncertain whether disgust or wonder predominated in his soul at the moment. "what's the matter now?" asked manasseh. "why, the bottom has fallen out of sheol, i should think. such a swash of offal as i caught couldn't be found in gehenna. but, worst of all, the lantern's done for." manasseh broke into a low laugh. "rub my sides, marduk, or i shall split. ha! ha! ha!" the sense of the ludicrous was so largely developed in him that marduk could not resist joining his friend in a spontaneous combustion of merriment, notwithstanding the untowardness of their surroundings. "what now, o blind guide?" he asked, as soon as he regained self-possession. "what now? why, a lecture, of course, on jewish architecture," said manasseh. "you noticed that the temple area is flat. well, it wasn't so originally. the lord made a high rock, like a crown, on this hill of moriah, the sides of which must have been very steep. and to make it level with the top of the rock men did not build solid masonry, but piers and walls, leaving great spaces beneath. these spaces were chiefly used as cisterns. in the time of solomon they held enough water to supply jerusalem for a month or two, in case of drought or siege by an enemy." "but that wasn't water that struck me just now, and put out the light," said marduk. "no, that was blood; but it gave us more light than it put out. it must have dropped right down through a hole in the roof. that means that we have already reached the vault just under the cave of the rock into which the blood from the sacrifices first flows. now, our jewels are in this very room. you remember i showed you the hole in the floor of the cave through which the stuff flowed? well, that hole is just above your head. the wall over us is very thick, and in a niche between the stones is the treasury of tyre. i can stand on your shoulders and reach the jewels. but here is a new difficulty. i must get out of this with my jewel, this precious roll. it is worth a whole treasury to me. but i cannot crawl back with it through that narrow gutter. its parchment would be soaked with the filth. i must go out upon the temple court." "but we cannot get out that way," said marduk. "the court is patrolled by watchmen. the gates are fast. and if we got into the city, we could not leave it, for the city gates are closed also. we must crawl back again. leave your roll for a better time." "never!" said manasseh. "it's as much to me as your crown will be to you, if you ever get it." "well, then, we will fight it through," replied marduk. "no, that will not do. you shall not risk your jewels. you take them, and burrow your way as you came. i'll trust the man who escaped as you did from old tyre to get out of this place. let me go up the shaft. i will dodge across the temple court, and drop the roll over the wall. come, i'll climb on your shoulders, and gain the opening." the bags were reached in this way. one by one they were passed down into marduk's hands, who passed up the roll. "the lord watch between us!" whispered manasseh, and disappeared above. he groped through the cave of araunah and out into the air, shot across the court to the south wall, and dropped the roll over. the noise of the falling object startled a temple guard. he came cautiously near. "who goes there?" "leave me, i ask you. i am the unhappy manasseh. do not disturb my meditation. i have sought the quiet of the temple that i might pray." "but how came you in? all the gates are closed." "an angel of the lord hath brought me hither, and bidden me go boldly to the south gate when i had ceased my prayer, promising to open it for me." the man stood paralyzed with awe. he knew manasseh's voice. after a long pause he asked: "did not the angel let you in by the south gate? for i heard a strange noise there, as of creaking of stone on stone, but saw that the gate was bolted." "i may not answer you," replied manasseh. "but you have disturbed my meditation, and i will withdraw." "pardon! pardon! o servant of the lord," said the man, kneeling in the darkness. "but call not the angel. i myself will open the gate." "it is the angel's prompting," said manasseh. the gate was unbarred. in a few moments the watchman heard a light whistle out among the stones beneath the south wall, and something that sounded like-- "give me your hand! up with you! and now for gibeah!" chapter xxxviii. tyre was never more splendidly arrayed than on the day set for the coronation of king rubaal. to one approaching from the sea the island city seemed like a mighty ring studded with gems, so many were the bright banners that flashed in the sunlight from its encircling walls; while the centre of the city glowed with the golden roofs of the temple of melkarth. the day was perfect. the clear azure of the sky reflected itself in the bending mirror of the waters,--an omen of the favor of heaven upon the plans of men. even the rough sailors from other phoenician cities, as they turned their prows towards the tyrian harbor, called the slight motion of the graceful billows the nod of baal; and when the waves broke with pleasant murmur upon the outlying rocks, they cried, "behold the laughter of our gods!" although more than a year had passed since the reins of power had fallen into the hands of rubaal, many things had occurred to delay his formal investiture with the regal dignity. chief among these causes was the refusal of the great king, artaxerxes, who was an unbeliever in the religion of the phoenicians, to grant his official recognition of the miraculous taking-off of the late king. the court at susa had insisted upon better evidence than the word of the priests for the bodily translation of hiram to the unseen world. hanno, whose genius and zeal made him the chief man in tyre, was apparently most impatient at the delay; and, as was commonly believed, had spent much time at the persian capital, laboring to overcome the scruples of the world monarch. he had but lately returned, bearing, as he asserted, the document that expressed the royal permission. its great seal had been seen by many, who had also read a separate decree designating hanno as agent of the persian government, and commanding him, in the name of the great king, to arrange for the speedy restoration of the tyrian throne to its legal dignities, under the suzerainty of the empire. the satrap of syria had likewise been ordered to send to tyre a detachment of several thousand soldiers, who by their pomp should represent the glory of artaxerxes in the ceremonial, and by their power should defend the royal will if it chanced to be opposed. the phoenician cities sent their princely delegations, whose vessels fairly embroidered the coast with their gay pennants as they came from far and near. inland tribes were also represented. sanballat of samaria sent a band of several hundred of his braves. and manasseh, the high priest of the samaritan religion, accompanied them, gorgeously arrayed in the vestments of his office. the hills of galilee contributed a company of men, under command of elnathan of giscala, whose stalwart bearing compensated for their lack of martial finery. the great square was transformed into a vast pavilion, beneath which tens of thousands could gather and witness the ceremonies. on one side of the pavilion was an immense dais, carpeted with the richest fabrics from the looms and dyeing-vats of tyre. on this stood the ancient throne of bronze, with its lion-headed arms. over it hung a canopy of purple, which was also draped behind the royal seat, and, by its contrast, made the silver dove with outspread wings seem like a veritable messenger from astarte, flashing its white light like a celestial blessing upon the faces of the multitude. there were raised seats about the dais for the members of the great council, and stalls for the leaders of the various guilds of the hierarchy. in the ancient palace of the kings of tyre rubaal waited impatiently for the summons to join the grand procession. proudly he paced the chambers once occupied by king hiram. mirrors reflected his goodly form and attire from every side, but not so flatteringly as his attendants echoed his praise, and predicted the glory of his coming reign. his palanquin waited at the palace gate. by it passed first the trumpeters, sounding the popular joy to the very sky with their melodious clangor. dancing-women followed, keeping step to the thumbing of their tambours. a thousand persian horsemen clattered next. then came high officers of state and dignitaries of foreign courts. hanno strode at the head of the royal guard of honor, a band of his own selection from among the noblest young men of tyre. these halted at the great portal of the palace, and gathered closely about the king's palanquin. the gate of the royal residence swung wide and closed again. four men of gigantic stature, naked except at the loins and for the rings that shone about their ankles and arms, lifted the palanquin to their shoulders, its gorgeous curtains of silk screening the royal personage from the gaze of the people, until he should stand before them beneath the sparkle of his crown. the bands from samaria and galilee were honored with the next position in the cortège. a litter that seemed of beaten gold bore the noble prince ezmunazar, son of king tabnit of sidon, who represented that neighboring throne. then followed egbalus, whose repute for sanctity and inspiration had led to his re-election to the high priest's office for a second year. priests of all grades and divinities closed the procession. the well-marshalled host entered the great pavilion, filing in order past the dais and throne, and allowing the dignitaries to take the places assigned them. the royal palanquin passed behind the purple hangings. a blare of trumpets rang out. egbalus ascended the steps of the dais, holding in his hands a cushion upon which lay the sceptre and ancient crown of tyre. turning to the multitude, he addressed them, rehearsing in stately speech the renown of the tyrian monarchy through the centuries since their city was founded by the divine tyrus. he dwelt upon the times of hiram the great, and then burst into rhapsodic eloquence as he described the translation of that other hiram who had been taken to the gods. "as surely as the beams of the sun-god shine this day, so surely does the blessing of our king hiram--our divine hiram--fall upon us. hail him! praise him for the voluntary sacrifice by which he has won forever the favor of baal for his people of tyre! think of him when the light gleams into your homes, for hiram is a beam of baal! adore him when it flashes from the sea where he guides your ships! worship him in the fire-light of your sacrifices, for the flames are the bright rays from the crown of our invisible king!" as egbalus paused, the priests led the multitude in cries of-- "hail, hiram the blessed! the son of baal!" egbalus resumed: "whither went the spirit of hiram? o ye sons of men! i saw the spirit of hiram ascend into the dome of heaven. again i saw it descend to the earth. it entered the form of another--of your new-chosen king. hail, rubaal!" the crowd echoed the cry, "hail, rubaal! rubaal hiram!" until the covering of the great pavilion shook and swayed as if lifted by the wind. then the high priest turned towards the curtain behind the throne. he prostrated himself upon the dais. rising to his knees, and holding aloft the cushion with the sceptre and crown, he cried in his most august tones: "come forth, thou chosen of baal!" the curtain swayed aside. egbalus stared an instant, as if stricken into stone. he dropped the cushion. attempting to rise, his limbs became entangled in the profusion of his priestly drapery, which tripped him backward, and tumbled him shrieking with fright, together with the rattling crown and sceptre, down the steps of the dais. the attendants did not pause to look at the high priest, for before them stood king hiram, his hand upon the back of the throne. his familiar voice, sharp in its taunting sarcasm, rang through the pavilion-- "lo! i have come forth, o priest of baal!" the great councillors of state climbed out of the balcony in which they were seated, and scrambled with the baser crowd to get away from the dreadful apparition. men trod upon one another like a frightened herd. heads, legs and arms, trumpets, banners, swords, and sandals made a confused mass of what a moment before had been as dignified an assembly as ever king or pontiff had looked upon. the prepared places of egress were not sufficient for the fleeing crowd, who tore away the canvas sides of the pavilion, and broke its cords, until the mighty canopy hung awry as if struck by a hurricane. but the dominant passion of a crowd is curiosity. many would risk an annihilating glance from the eyes of the god if only in return they could see what he looks like. therefore, some, withdrawing a few paces, turned again to face the awful mystery. the soldiers from persia, samaria, and galilee seemed not to have been sufficiently informed to have any fear, and, obeying a quick command which hanno gave them through their officers, ranked deep about the dais to protect it. a sharp hissing sound went like a flying serpent through the air, and an arrow, shot by some one in the crowd, glanced clanging from the arm of the throne. in another moment the thundering tramp of the squadron of persian horse shook the earth as they dashed around the pavilion, sweeping priests and people into every open way, or trampling them beneath the hoofs. the square was cleared. the priests fled towards the temple. thither the soldiers pursued them, halting and penning them in the great court, until further orders should come. at the same time heralds flew everywhere throughout the city, crying, "king hiram has returned! down with the villainy of the priests!" great placards were posted on the doors of the government-house and on the corners of the streets, detailing in few words the facts. in little groups, or one by one, the more venturous or the less credulous of the people re-entered the pavilion. hiram had taken his throne. there was no mistaking his person. he wore the conical cap with the uræus, the scarf across his bare breast, the short chiton and heavy sandals, by which his form was familiar to even the boys as well as to the great councillors of tyre. as hiram gazed at the returning people an old man came tottering to the foot of the dais. he threw himself upon the lowest step. he was ahimelek. "rise, ahimelek, councillor of tyre!" said the king. but he moved not. an attendant approached him. he was dead. a commotion was made at the rear of the pavilion. two men, the captain of the samaritans and the captain of the men of galilee, brought before the king the limp form of egbalus. the miserable man turned to flee, but his captors kept his face to the throne. at length he gathered strength. that tremendous will which had so often dominated others asserted its mastery over himself. he looked hiram squarely in the eyes. "thou hast conquered, o infidel king! but thou shalt not have me to grace thy triumph." before his guards were aware of his purpose, he had plunged his priest's knife to his heart. "take him away!" coolly said the king. in the meantime men had gone to the king's palace, where rubaal and a few of his favorites had awaited the summons to join the coronation procession. wearied by the delay, they had ventured to the door, but found it fastened. their cries for help were answered by the shouts which shook the city. but now the gates were flung open. rough soldiers thrust rubaal into a common palanquin, such as was cheaply hired at the docks, and bore him to the pavilion. there the carriage was opened. rubaal crouched within it like a rat in a trap. the soldiers dragged him out. his brave apparel, royal from purple mantle to diamond-set sandals, was as strange a contrast with the simple garb of the real king as the kingly look of hiram was with the mean and cowardly aspect of rubaal. "harm him not," said the king. "there is a drop of royal blood somewhere in his body. you might spill that drop if you spilled more. all royalty is safe to-day. come, cousin, sit in my chair if you like. we have played together in the same crib. ah! in ill-humor again! just so you were as a child." the wretched man slunk away, and sat with averted face on the edge of the dais. the king stepped down from his throne, and stood a moment over the dead body of ahimelek. "the gods pardon him! carry him to his house, and prepare him for the tomb, where we will ourselves accompany him; for he was the father of zillah." reascending the dais, he turned to hanno, who during these scenes had stood almost motionless, watching everything, and alert lest his plan should miscarry in the least-- "now, hanno, for the coronation!" a silver trumpet sounded sweetly. the curtain back of the throne moved, and through the opening zillah came. radiant with sparkling jewels, she was more radiant with the beauty of her queenly soul that shone through her features and dignified her every movement. her joy in her husband's triumph, her consciousness of having shared with him his misfortunes, and of her daring to share with him the dangers that still pressed about him, gave her a royalty of appearance that even a crown could not augment. "my queen!" said hiram, as he took her hand, and seated her upon the throne. he raised the crown and placed it upon her brow. "behold the queen of tyre!" appendix. "hiram, king of tyre, to manasseh, son of ioiada, son of eliashib, high priest of jehovah in samaria: greeting! "health and the blessing of thy god be with thee! our hearts are cheered by the tidings of thy prosperity. may thy temple rise speedily from the heights of gerizim! gado, the bearer of this letter, is most famed among our architects. he bears our royal commission to abide with thee so long as his skill pleases thy purpose. he carries with him a thousand minas, a contribution from our treasury to the worship of thy god. he will also present to thee a fabric of our finest workmanship, which has been wrought upon by the hands of zillah, our queen beloved, in which she desires that thou shalt enwrap the copy of thy law, as thou art thyself enwrapped in our affection." should the reader desire to know more of the affairs of manasseh, let him read the histories of one josephus the jew. and should his interest be great to learn of the subsequent career of hiram and his beautiful queen, the faithful chronicler would refer him to the source whence he himself has derived his information. in the museum of the louvre is a stone coffin, in which once lay the body of ezmunazar, king of sidon. the sarcophagus bears this imprecation: "i adjure every royal personage that he open not this chamber, nor remove this coffin, lest the holy gods destroy that royal personage and his offspring forever." they who esteem themselves wise in such matters tell us that this prophetic curse was recently fulfilled in the misfortunes that fell upon the house of the late emperor of the french, napoleon iii., in the reign of which "royal personage" this coffin was robbed of its contents and brought to paris. but though the body of ezmunazar is no longer in it, if one will listen intently at the ear-hole in the coffin, one will find it as full of historic suggestions as a conch-shell is of news from the bottom of the sea. the end. advertisements the captain of the janizaries. a tale of the times of scanderbeg and the fall of constantinople. by james m. ludlow, d.d., litt.d. mo, cloth, $ . the author writes clearly and easily; his descriptions are often of much brilliancy, while the whole setting of the story is of that rich oriental character which fires the fancy.--_boston courier._ strong in its central historical character, abounding in incident, rapid and stirring in action, animated and often brilliant in style.--_christian union_, n. y. something new and striking interests us in almost every chapter. the peasantry of the balkans, the training and government of the janizaries, the interior of christian and moslem camps, the horrors of raids and battles, the violence of the sultan, the tricks of spies, the exploits of heroes, engage mr. ludlow's fluent pen.--_n. y. tribune._ dr. ludlow's style is a constant reminder of walter scott, and the book is to retain a permanent place in literature.--_observer_, n. y. an altogether admirable piece of work--picturesque, truthful, and dramatic.--_newark advertiser._ a most romantic, enjoyable tale.... as affording views of inner life in the east as long ago as the middle of the fifteenth century, this tale ought to have a charm for many; but it is full enough of incident, wherever the theatre of its action might be found, to do this.--_troy press._ the author has used his material with skill, weaving the facts of history into a story crowded with stirring incidents and unexpected situations, and a golden thread of love-making, under extreme difficulties, runs through the narrative to a happy issue.--_examiner_, n. y. one of the strongest and most fascinating historical novels of the last quarter of a century.--_boston pilot._ published by harper & brothers, new york. _the above work sent by mail, postage prepaid, to any part of the united states, canada, or mexico, on receipt of the price._ by mary e. wilkins. a new england nun, and other stories. mo, cloth, ornamental, $ . a humble romance, and other stories. mo, cloth, extra, $ . only an artistic hand could have written these stories, and they will make delightful reading.--_evangelist_, n. y. the simplicity, purity, and quaintness of these stories set them apart in a niche of distinction where they have no rivals.--_literary world_, boston. the reader who buys this book and reads it will find treble his money's worth in every one of the delightful stories.--_chicago journal._ miss wilkins is a writer who has a gift for the rare art of creating the short story which shall be a character study and a bit of graphic picturing in one; and all who enjoy the bright and fascinating short story will welcome this volume.--_boston traveller._ the author has the unusual gift of writing a short story which is complete in itself, having a real _beginning_, a _middle_, and an _end_. the volume is an excellent one--_observer_, n. y. a gallery of striking studies in the humblest quarters of american country life. no one has dealt with this kind of life better than miss wilkins. nowhere are there to be found such faithful, delicately drawn, sympathetic, tenderly humorous pictures.--_n. y. tribune._ the charm of miss wilkins's stories is in her intimate acquaintance and comprehension of humble life, and the sweet human interest she feels and makes her readers partake of, in the simple, common, homely people she draws.--_springfield republican._ there is no attempt at fine writing or structural effect, but the tender treatment of the sympathies, emotions, and passions of no very extraordinary people gives to these little stories a pathos and human feeling quite their own.--_n. y. commercial advertiser._ the author has given us studies from real life which must be the result of a lifetime of patient, sympathetic observation.... no one has done the same kind of work so lovingly and so well.--_christian register_, boston. published by harper & brothers, new york. _the above works sent by mail, postage prepaid, to any part of the united states, canada, or mexico, on receipt of the price._